Thinking your legs spread wide, Simon folded down onto his knees in between those plush thighs of yours, massive frame bowed forward, arms wrapped tight around your waist, big hands splayed across the soft give of your belly and lower back.
Im thinking of his facd pressed right to the warm, inner curve of your thigh, cheek squished into the fat, pillowy flesh, feel every slow, dazed breath he takes, ghosting over sensitive skin, ruffling the fine hairs there.
Im thinking of his pretty brown eyes- usually so sharp they could cut glass- look up at you with the dumbest, sweetest, most fucked out expression you’ve ever seen. Lashes heavy, pupils blown wide and glassy. Mouth slack, lips parted, thin string of drool slipping from the corner and smearing shiny across your thigh but he doesn’t notice. Too deep. Too far gone.
Thinking about every time your fingers card slow and gentle through his short, sweat damp hair, his eyes flutter and he makes this low, broken little sound in the back of his throat- half whine, half sigh.
Simon’s arms tightening around your waist, pulling your soft body closer, face nuzzling deeper into the plush meat of your thigh. You feeling the rasp of his stubble, the wet heat of his open mouth, the way his nose drags slow and mindless. Shoulders loose, spine curved in total surrender.
Ghost kneeling between your spread legs, face buried against your fat thigh, looking up at you like you hung the fucking moon and he’d die if you stopped petting him, too puppy dumb to think about anything but the way your thigh feels under his cheek.
SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY ☆ MASTERLIST (nsfw content: potential dark themes!)
click on the links, and it will take you to all the posts with that respective tag!
—general simon riley
—roommate simon riley
—neighbor simon riley
—boyfriend simon riley
—older boyfriend simon riley
—husband simon riley
—best friend's brother/brother's best friend simon riley
—biker simon riley
—gym bro simon riley
—stalker simon riley
—serial killer simon riley
—kidnapper simon riley
—butcher simon riley
—loser simon riley
—tattoo artist simon riley
—piercer simon riley
—mechanic simon riley
—priest simon riley
—blue collar/cowboy simon riley
—professor simon riley
—wrestler simon riley
gaz who's such a good roommate!!! he's always happy to look after you <3
18+ mdni (smut)
cw: fem!reader, drugs (weed), dubcon (reader is high, kyle's sober), kind of dom!gaz, i think that's it ?, word count: 633
You can’t help but feel a little bad for your roommate when you get like this. Your body’s warm all over, and your mind’s so hazy it makes it hard to think about anything other than the ache between your legs.
You’re just lucky Kyle doesn’t mind taking care of you when you’re like this.
You crawl into his lap, eyes lidded as your fingers tug on his shirt. “Kyle,” you whisper, lips brushing against the pulse point on his neck.
He shakes his head, pausing his movie as his hands find your hips. “Proper stoned, aren’t you, love?”
You pull away, hand rubbing against his cheek– his skin’s so soft; it always feels so nice against your fingertips. “Not that bad, just had a gummy.”
He raises his eyebrow, his palm pressing hard against your soaked panties– as if the mess between your thighs is enough proof that you’re lying.
“Okay, two, Kyle, please,” you whine, hips slowly moving against his hand.
He sighs, ignoring your pouting when he removes his hand. “Fine, but I’m finishing my movie,” he says, hands already on his zipper.
Your mind’s too foggy to know just how much time has passed since he sat you on his cock– the edibles fully kicking in by now.
“Fuck,” you moan, hands on his shoulders as his thick length fills your cunt.
A sharp gasp leaves your mouth as his fingers pinch and pull at your nipples. “Quiet down, can’t hear the telly,” he mumbles, his eyes never leaving the action film playing in the background.
Burying your head in his neck, you lick and suck at his skin in a pathetic attempt to stay silent as you slowly continue to move your hips.
His hips thrust up suddenly, the tip of his cock brushing against the deepest part of you. “How much longer?” you whimper, wanting nothing more than for him to relieve the ache in your core.
“You’re lucky, Petal; the credits just started.”
He doesn’t give you any warning as he manhandles you, moving you from sitting in his lap to lying down on the couch.
“Always get so needy like this,” he teases, the sound of wet noises and skin slapping filling the air as he finally fucks you.
Your nails scratch down his back, lips parted as you make broken and desperate noises. “Mmm, ‘m close,” you manage to slur out, unable to think of anything other than the warmth that’s spread throughout your body.
His thumb brushes your clit, tracing gentle circles against the swollen bud. “C’mon, love, let me feel you cum around my cock.”
Your walls clenching down around him as you reach your peak, his words pushing you over the edge. He doesn’t stop, fucking you through your orgasm as he chases his own high.
“Kiss, please,” you beg, barely coherent when his mouth crashes into yours. Your tongue pushes past his lips, feverishly licking at the inside of his mouth.
Hips stilling, he groans into the kiss, his body shuddering as he spills his cum inside your cunt. Your mixed spit shines against his swollen lips as he pulls away.
The sounds of your combined breathing fill the air as he collapses on top of you. His heavy weight anchors your dazed mind back to reality.
“Hey, Kyle?” you mumble, fingers running up and down his back.
He hums in response, head pressed against your chest, the vibrations against your skin causing you to let out a soft giggle.
You calm your laughter before continuing. “I really want a burger, like, bad.”
He sighs as he sits up, looking down at you with a soft smile. Grabbing his clothes off the floor, he hastily gets dressed. “With chips?”
Yeah, you’re definitely lucky to have Kyle taking care of you.
Notes: Another old bit. Been sitting in the drafts forever and I'm releasing it into the wild. Heavily inspired by @sentientcave's exploration of Price and his ex-wife and brought to the fore again because @anneofgreengabagool keeps reminding me of how much i love hating these men.
---
You've been up for almost 36 hours now, between living your own life, the call, and traveling back to England to sit at Kyle's bedside. The doctors say he's going to make a full recovery. All of the pieces of metal are accounted for, his lung is patched up. They hadn't told you over the phone quite what had happened, but now you've pieced together that a combination of bullets, an explosion, and a partially collapsed building chewed Kyle up and spit him out.
He wakes up slowly. His eyes are a bloodshot but clear as they flutter open. He groans, and you know his throat hurts; he was intubated until just a couple of hours ago. When you open the straw for his little glass of water, he turns to see you with a wince that turns into a tired grin.
"Hey," he rasps.
You press the straw between his lips. "Don't talk. Slow sips. When you're done with this, I'll get your captain."
He obediently, painstakingly, drinks. A third of the way done, he says, "Thank you for coming."
You clench your jaw and resist the urge to dump the rest of the water over his head. "Update your emergency contact." When he opens his mouth so say something else, you jab the straw into the top of his mouth, gentler than you would like. He winces, but starts drinking again. "Don't, Kyle."
The door opens, and in walks Captain John fucking Price, right on time. His beard fluffs up around his smile when he sees Kyle awake.
"Broken, Gaz?"
"You tell me, Cap," Kyle wheezes.
"Well, the building fell, and apparently you tried to catch it." He comes to a stop on the other side of the bed from you. He crosses his arms, you assume to keep from touching and also to be a little intimidating to you.
Now that Kyle is smiling up at him, you put the cup of water down and take a step back. "I'll let the nurses know he's awake."
"You don't have to go." Kyle's puppy dog eyes are both hindered and strengthened by the bruising around his right eye.
You turn your back to pick up your purse and book from the recliner in the corner. "I'm also going to grab something to eat."
"Grab me a sandwich, love."
If looks could kill, Price would be dead three times over. "Eat shit and die."
---
When you make your way back to the room, you find Lieutenant Riley and a man you vaguely recognize as another sergeant waiting for the elevator. You almost don’t clock him. The hood of Simon’s jacket is down, leaving his hair looking ruffled. His plain black surgical mask doesn’t stand out. And then he turns to you enough that you can see the scars on the other side of his face, his eyebrows popping up.
“You look exhausted,” he says as a greeting. His companion - the slightly overgrown mohawk is so familiar but you cannot remember his name - looks between the two of you curiously.
“I’m creeping up on forty hours without sleep,” you answer, taking a sip of your coffee and staring at the elevator door instead of looking at him.
“Look good, then,” is all he says.
“John MacTavish,” the other one introduces himself, extending a hand.
“Uh huh.” You give him a quick glance up and down as the elevator arrives. John “Soap” MacTavish. You’re not surprised he doesn’t remember meeting you once, a couple of years ago. He looks a bit startled when you step into the elevator instead of taking his hand, but follows Simon’s lead and doesn’t comment further.
You let them enter Kyle’s room while you linger in the hall, scrolling through your phone. There’s a seating area just a little further down the hall, that you’re seriously considering, but then the door opens and Soap pokes his head out.
“Kyle’s askin’ fer ye,” he says.
You step inside, and put your back to the wall on next to the door. They’ve obviously left the recliner open for you, but they’ve also rolled it closer to Kyle’s bedside, so you stay where you are. Price is right where you left him, standing over Kyle like a sentry. Ghost is across from the foot of Kyle’s bed, while Soap takes a seat on the window sill.
They’re all looking at you. You want to ask if they’re waiting for you to do a trick, but you’re trying not to start fights you’re too tired to finish. “You need me to call the nurse?”
“Just wondered where you were,” Kyle says. He sounds better, but that’s not saying much. “Simon said you rode up the elevator with them.”
Traitor. “I was just in the hall. Don’t need to overcrowd you.”
“You could never, lovie.”
“Don’t.” You were willing to be gentle earlier, but lovie is several steps too far. You look at Price. “Are we divvying up shifts, then?”
One of his eyebrows arches. “You need a break?”
From anyone else, that wouldn’t be an accusation. But Price is a master of pointed questions. Too bad for him, you stopped caring about his opinion of you about a year and a half ago. “Considering I’m the one listed for overnights and emergency decisions, I should probably sleep more than a couple of hours every three days.”
“We can get you a hotel,” Kyle rasps.
“I’m set,” you answer, without looking at him. You arch an eyebrow at Price. “Visiting hours end at six. I can be back at five.”
“We’re approved until eight.”
“Then I’ll be back at seven.”
“’Ll walk you out,” Simon says. “Left somethin’ in the car.”
“No you didn’t,” you correct. “Don’t lie for my benefit, Simon, I don’t appreciate it. If you’re walking with me, I can’t stop you.”
“Sorry,” he says, standing and putting his hands in his pockets. “Force of ‘abit.”
You don’t tell him he’s full of shit, because you’re not going to be drawn into a fight that Price can take advantage of. You step forward to pick up the larger bag off of the recliner and push the rolling table close enough that Kyle can reach the water on his own. “Stay hydrated. I’m telling the nursing staff to make sure you stay on top of your pain meds.”
He looks a bit cowed and a lot sad. But he only says, “Okay.”
It tugs at your heart, just a bit. You’d feel worse if you didn’t know those sad eyes were step one of his emotional warfare campaign. You exit the room with Simon on your heels.
He doesn’t say anything until you’re in the lobby, calling a car. “C’n drive you.”
“No.”
“A’righ’,” he says. “Don’t be too harsh on ‘im, eh? ‘E almost died.”
“You know the last time he talked to me? Six months ago.” You counter. “He called me, drunk. Asked for another chance. No apologies. No therapy. Just ‘please take me back, I know you still love me.’”
“You do,” Simon points out. “Or you wouldn’t be ‘ere.”
“And that’s what’s so fucking tragic,” you tell him, finally looking up into his eyes. Simon’s always been your favorite of Kyle’s coworkers, because he’s always been honest and respected your honesty back. “He keeps reeling me back in because I love him. But the whole time he’s insisting he wants us to work, he doesn’t say he loves me, once.”
“’E does.”
“It’s never going to be enough,” you sigh. Your phone buzzes to tell you the car is arriving soon. “Loving me is never going to be his priority. He demands that I make even more concessions, goes silent for months, and then calls me in to make medical decisions. After I've told him repeatedly to pick someone else, anyone else, for this.”
Knight Captain John Price has defied the king one too many times and is placed in charge of guarding you, the princess who’s fifth in line to the throne.
simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | western!au | oneshot | a light AU to daughters with soft underbellies
After countless years of traveling, Simon Riley wanders into a small-town saloon owned by an old man who's quick to anger. His poor daughter seems to take the brunt of his berating for simple mistakes. As a favor to himself, Simon decides to buy the girl off of him as a wife.
cw: old west alternate universe, wayward outlaw! ghost, smut, dub-con, alcohol and intoxication, improper (or maybe too proper) use of spurs, blood and injury, historically typical views of women and purity, simon is a jerk but hey at least he's better than your dad
An old, fat dog lounges in the corner of the saloon with his eyes closed and belly facing up towards the smoke stained ceiling.
Simon’s been watching him for the last hour while he sips on his whiskey and chews on the butt of his cigarette, filter dissolving on the tip of his tongue. It’s as if he’s looking in a mirror. A washed up mutt with hardened skin finally reclining after too many years of work. Tapping his finger on the table, he keeps count of each respiration and breathes in time with the creature. He twitches in his sleep—tail wagging, cheeks puffing up with emphatic growls that hardly roll past his canines.
There’s nothing else of value to watch in the saloon besides the mangy creature. The poker game taking place three tables down is smothered with ancient men sporting white hair and liver spots who hardly let anything out of their lips except wet coughs, and the bartender has been muttering curses to himself for half the evening that Simon doubts he would make good conversation. Besides, he's a wayward man. Constantly on the move, traveling from place to place, refusing to linger for too long lest trouble finds him.
For now, he’s perfectly content on leaning back in his chair and enjoying his solitude—
—until you stumble in.
Pale pink fingerprints stain the cotton of your apron that you either didn’t bother to remove or forgot to hang up in the kitchen before bursting into the saloon with wild eyes and a heaving chest. As he takes a drag of his cigarette, Simon half expects some inebriated bastard to stagger in after you, caught in a drunken stupor trying to chase after some girl who he doesn't have even half the skill to catch in his maw. You are a sight for sore eyes. Certainly better than the half dead mutt keeping him company. Clad in a sky blue dress that seems all too common for women settling in the west and a gaze that can’t help but be magnetically attracted to the floor as you walk to the bar on lubberly legs, he nearly chuckles when you hold your hands behind your back.
“You’re late,” the barkeep berates.
“Sorry Daddy, I was finishing up chores, and the geese were pitching a fit again—” You’re tripping over your words worse than you do your feet. They spew between your teeth like water from a well pump that has too much pressure behind it.
“I don’t give a damn what held you up, girl. I tell you to be here no later than seven, and I expect that you listen to that,” the man—your father—snaps. Your apology comes so quiet that Simon can’t make out what you say, but he can tell by the curling of your shoulders that it exists. All you get in response is raised brows and a clenching jaw. “Well? Go on. I didn’t ask you to be here just to stand around.”
You slink away from the bar without another word before your gaze is cast out at the swathes of unoccupied tables around you. Simon flicks the ash from his cigarette onto the floor as he studies the way you mentally drink up the tasks laid out for you before you're springing to work. One by one you ignite the oil lamps that hang from the ceiling with precariously rusty chains. A curse hisses between your pursed lips when you burn your fingers on one of the matches, and you shove the raw pad against your tongue to numb the pain.
Simon doesn't bother to hide the way he watches you. His gaze is heavy beneath the brim of his hat, darker than the coal mines that line this pathetic excuse for a town and ten times more suffocating. You make the mistake of not carrying a canary with you as you approach his table—there is no sudden silence of a bird's song to warn you of the danger you're in—a meek smile graces your face as you light another match and reach up to ignite his lamp.
"Good evening, sir," you greet.
His fingers freeze against the table. Simon's lost his interest in keeping count of an old dog's breathing. "Evenin."
Your scent washes over him just as the oil begins to burn. Sweet like fresh strawberries, yet smothered by crude, unadulterated earth. Wet soil, the muck of animals. Simon studies the curve of your face as the flames illuminate your skin. Delectable flesh, pliable and soft—softer than him—yet the blemish on the apple of your cheek screams at him.
"Look at me, sweetheart." The pet name is kind, but his voice isn't. Jumping, the match burns down to your fingers again forcing you to yelp, but even through the pain you listen to him.
He's traded one dog for another.
When you question if something is wrong, Simon gives you no answer except for the beckoning of his fingers. Complying, you lean forward as he snatches your jaw in one hand and sticks his thumb into his mouth before smearing his spit across your cheek. It's wet like a kiss, and your skin drinks up his touch like starved earth yearning for any bit of rain the skies will bless it with. The dried mud flakes off with ease, and he wipes the remainder off on his stained jeans.
"O-Oh." When he relinquishes you, your hand flies up to your face where you begin to rub at your skin as if you can feel the mark he's left on you. "Thank you, sir."
Simon only hums in response before tapping the side of his glass. It rings like church bells on a bleak Sunday. "I'm dry."
Gruff. Short. Seemingly having no time for pleasantries. You awkwardly snatch his glass up before bringing it to your father where he berates you for not asking what was in it before you took it away. Luckily the saloon isn't too busy, and when you return his drink back to him Simon's happy to find that it's exactly what he ordered even though half of it is beaded on the outside of the cup from your blatant mishandling.
His night has become much more interesting now that he can watch you through the haze of his whiskey. Bent over on your hands and knees, sweat beading on your brow, you scrub the floor in the unoccupied areas of the saloon with a bristle brush. The view is nice. The curve of your ass presses through your dress like rising sourdough while you work, and when you're facing him your bodice cuts so low your cleavage glistens in the marmalade lighting.
John Price has always told him views like this were worth the money. His business partner has always been fond of the little thing he keeps locked up at home fat with his kids and sticky with the food he buys. Always got a fresh meal on the table for dinner and a sweet cunt to sink into for dessert. It's not half bad, Riley.
But he knows that type of life isn't for him. Always on the road, gloves tainted with blood turned russet from weeks of baking in the sun before he even bothers to rinse it off. The money in his billfold is far from honest, but men like Simon Riley don't leave the comfort of England to come to the American West for pure business. Face muddled with scars, thighs sore from years of riding, and back ruined from sleeping on the cold earth—he'll be dead long before he ever sincerely dreams of settling down with a wife and kid.
Still, the thought is tempting.
His daydreams shatter the moment you bucket spills, sending water and suds all along the floor, flooding the wood until puddles reflect both the oil lamps and your shame back into your face. Cursing, your father marches over to where you stare at your mess with watery eyes. You jump when he kicks the bucket, sending it flying across the room. Even the near-dead dog in the corner can't sleep through the ruckus.
"Useless daughter of mine! What are you good for besides making a damn mess of my work?" His disparaging cuts so deep Simon can see the quiver in your bottom lip as you stare up at your father, hands neatly folded on your lap despite the way the water soaks your apron. "Don't just sit there! Go fetch some rags and dry this shit up!"
When you stand to your feet, Simon is reminded of the fawn he slaughtered last spring. Wobbly legs, unsure feet, trotting out the door as if you're a fresh babe again. He only killed the small creature out of pity, not malice. Having shot its mother, it was left alone with without a teat to suckle on or any maternal guidance to raise it into adulthood. It didn't even flinch at the flash of his knife or the cut of the blade, it only stared up at him with soft brown eyes that reflected the whole world back at him.
The meat wasn't half bad, neither.
Sucking down the dregs of his drink, Simon saunters up to your father with his empty glass in hand while you work on fixing the mess you've made of the floor. He towers over the bar so much that when he goes to lean on it he has to curve his spine forward, shoulders hunching as if he's some inhuman creature preying on the animals below him. Your father looks at him without so much as a second glance before swiping his empty glass away from him.
"Another?" he asks. He's already grabbing the bottle of whiskey before Simon even nods.
While his cup is poured, Simon glances back down at you. Head bowed, you're wringing out your rag back into your bucket in an attempt to fill it up, but at the rate your tears are streaming down your face, he knows you'll have another flood to worry about before you're even halfway through.
"That your daughter?" Simon inquires with half-hearted interest.
Your father doesn't even bother to look at you before scoffing. "You mean that useless animal? Yeah, she's mine."
"What's she good for?"
Your father sets Simon's drink in front of him, prompting him to return the favor with a few coins on the scarred counter. The whiskey slides over his tongue like rough sandpaper, but the burn in the back of his throat and the cotton being shoved between his ears is worth it.
"Not a damn thing," he huffs before crossing his arms. Your father glares at you from across the room, and you must feel his gaze on you because it isn't long before you're finally raising your head. Sorrow is strewn all over your face, a hefty guilt you can't rid yourself of. "She's a klutz, hardly speaks loud enough for anyone to hear her, always hurting herself like she's still some child."
"Haven't married her off yet? That'd get 'er off your hands." Simon means it as a sour joke, but your father grumbles before he returns to his chores.
"No man's stupid enough to marry her."
The harsh reality of it is no worse than Simon's used to, but he finds himself mulling the idea over anyway. Certainly you're good for something. Glazed eye candy for men to gawk at—men who like their women soft around the edges. Tiny little puppy teeth that can hardly break skin and gets a chuckle when it starts to tickle.
Besides, Simon's learned well enough not to trust the words that comes spewing out of an angry father's mouth. Rancid with the decay clogging their arteries, his own father wasn't much different. A right bastard who knew just how to wiggle his way beneath everyone's skin, slicing through tendon and pure bone just to get a reaction, anything that would justify his hand upon a cheek.
Simon won't pretend to be a good man, but he's certainly better, and if it wasn't for the fact this man has provided him the means to get drunk, his blood would be joining the soapy water in an instant.
"I'd buy 'er off ya."
It takes your father several moments to formulate a response; long enough for Simon to down the rest of his whiskey in a single swig. For the first time since he's walked through those doors he finally notes a smile on the man. It's ugly, twisted at the corners in the way only malevolent things can, but it's sincere.
"Quit pulling on my leg, son," he dismisses.
"I'm not pullin' on anythin," Simon grunts.
A large hand snakes through Simon's vest as he presses his fingers into his breast pocket to retrieve his billfold. It's old. Probably ancient. A dilapidating piece of leather he snatched off of a body just outside Lead two years back when he realized it was much better than the coin purse he had. Perusing through the folded up notes, he yanks out a fifty dollar bill and places it face up on the counter.
Your father's smile vanishes once he sees the money, but the twinkle in his eye only strengthens. "What are you playing at?"
"I'm playin' at buyin' myself a wife and giving you a migraine free end of your life," Simon says bluntly. Brows raising, he spots a bottle behind the man and nods towards it. "Better throw in that bottle of Kentucky bourbon, too."
"Now why would I do that?" your father scoffs.
Simon shrugs. "A wedding gift."
It doesn't take your father very long at all to think over this offer before he snatches the money off the counter and hands Simon the key to his spoils.
"You have my blessing."
You put up a teary-eyed fuss as your new future is laid out before you in the form of a tall stranger who smells like whiskey and iron. Despite the pitiful protests that bleed from your lips, your father has trained you all too well—a sharp snap, a show of teeth, and you're falling quiet like the dead of night in winter. Your father doesn't tell you that he's giving you away for a crisp fifty dollar bill. Not out loud, anyway. He certainly doesn't try to hide it when he shoves it into his pocket.
With his bourbon in one hand and the small of your back in the other, Simon leads you out of the saloon. Neither he nor your father give you any opportunity to gather your things back home—you have nothing to your name but the clothes on your back. Dusk brushes over the sky with a plain pallet of deep reds and bruising purples only to be blotched out by migrating geese that honk in the distance. Long shadows tickle your footprints in the dirt until you reach the hardened rocks and earth that surround your hometown. Not a single word is exchanged between the two of you as your travels begin to wane. There is only the jingle of the spurs on Simon's boots and your intermittent sniffling as you attempt to keep your tears at bay.
Simon's camp is nestled in the valley of a ravine where the soil is cool and the walls are high—a protective den for a wild animal to hide in with his back covered and eyes focused on any throat that gets within sniffing distance. He sets you at the yawning mouth of his tent, a simple lean-to with stained white canvas and hardly enough space for the brute of a man himself, let alone you too.
You try to keep your shivering at bay while Simon crouches in front of a stone fire pit. By the looks of it, he's been here for a few days at least. A moderate stockpile of wood rests next to where his horse is hitched and his feet mar the earth so viciously you fear she may be scarred until the next thunderstorm rolls overhead to smother out all traces of human life.
Fire blooms to life with waifish flames licking up towards Simon's face, demanding more. He feeds kindling and small blocks of wood into it until it's purring content near the tips of his toes, illuminating all the gnarly features that comprise his body. Deep scars cut without care around his cheeks and lips, some spanning even as far as his hairline, distorting the growth with keloids and angry skin. His nose is curved worse than a sickle, and is more crooked than a pianist's index finger.
Despite his flaws, he is not an ugly man. Only slightly painful to look at in the way beasts are—striking fear through your heart as if wielding a dagger. His broad shoulders would be something your friends would squeal over, and his height would send any mentally stable person running for the hills if they were ever unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. Still, you're not sure what to make of him or the way he looks at you. Dark eyes pinning you into the dirt, dry lips parting just enough for him to huff as he stands.
"You hungry?"
All you can do is stare at him. Simon Riley; this man who is to now suddenly be your husband, who bought you off of your father for a single scrap of paper. Some untamed piece of you wants to snap at him, snarl with your teeth bared—how dare he pretend to care for you as if he sees you as anything more than a piece of meat.
"Yeah, starvin' aren't ya? Scroungy thing you are." Before you have the time to argue with him, Simon begins to sort through an old leather satchel held together with a spotty stitching job and a half-hearted prayer. From it, he produces a fair amount of jerky and holds out a stringy piece for you to take. "Here."
You swallow down the smoke wafting from the campfire. "I'm not hungry."
Simon doesn't waver in the face of the stern attitude you attempt to wear; instead, he presses the jerky closer to your face. "Mad at your daddy so you're mad at the world, yeah? That shit doesn't fly with me, sweetheart. Eat your dinner 'fore I give ya somethin' else to keep that pretty mouth occupied."
He doesn't give you an opportunity to argue further before he's pressing the food against your lips, pressing past them and jamming into your teeth. To prevent him from shattering your enamel, you take it from him with a fawn-like glare. It's salty. Harder than the rocks at your feet. Still, you gnaw on it, jaw clenching as your molars grind it as best as you can. As you swallow, you pretend it's Simon's throat.
Your husband-to-be doesn't bother to sit while he eats. The speed in which he devours his food like some gluttonous beast leaves your brain spinning—crooked teeth, sharp canines, and a bad habit of licking his lips afterwards like he yearns for something more than just simple brine on his tongue. Neither of you speak. You're glad for it. Conversation has never been your strong suit, and your father has always treated every sound that's ever left your throat like a chore.
Sparks fly into the night sky to dance with the stars as Simon tosses another chopped log on top of the fire, but you don't get the chance to revel in the beauty of the flames before he's obscuring your view. He removes his hat to reveal short cropped hair before he tosses it onto the bedding behind you where it lands with a dull thunk. You stare up at him. Already a large man, he looks baronial when you're settled on your haunches, attempting to make yourself unnoticeable by his burning gaze.
"You know what comes next, don't ya sweetheart?" he questions.
It's as if the fire doesn't exist at all. You can't stop shivering. Simon's belt buckle flashes in the umbra as he sticks his thumb into the waist of his jeans. You can smell him now—or, at least your brain can make sense of the scent. Long soaked tobacco and the whiskey he drank at your father's saloon, along with something heavier. Like ichor. Like lead.
"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." Your faux courage doesn't get you very far—there's a waver in your voice that trills on the end of your words, and Simon finds it cute enough to chuckle.
"Didn't realize I bought myself a dumb fawn."
A fat palm rests on the nape of your neck with lightning speed and precision, and before you know it your torso is twisted until you're face first into blankets that smell like musk and gun powder. Your yelp is lost into the sparse padding against your cheek. A wounded animal, bleeding out and waiting to be gutted.
You jump as his other hand lands on your rump, not in a spank but in an arcing motion that smooths over your thighs. Even through the skirt of your dress he can feel the way you quiver as you struggle against the palm on your neck. A feisty barn cat, scruffed when it doesn't want to be.
"That's alright, I don't mind spellin' it out for ya if ya need it," Simon muses.
"Wait, wait, please!"
He silences your pleas as his hand wanders down the back of your thigh. Breath catching in your throat, fingers curling into rough blankets that choke you with lingering tar—you squeal when he pulls up the skirt of your dress, exposing your backside to the fire. Warmth licks up your legs both from rigid shame and the flames dancing behind you, but nothing compares to the way he rips through your pantalets as if they're as thin as paper.
"This is how this is gonna work sweetheart." His hands are wandering further, fingertips brushing where they shouldn't, dipping into the warmest part of you with enough friction to make you yelp. "You're gonna lay right there nice, pretty, and quiet for me while I christen this new union of ours, yeah? Gonna get the best bang for my buck, that's for fuckin' sure."
Squeezing your eyes shut, you nod. One of the working women in town once told you what sex was like. Your father has always held purity in high regard, but she talked about it as if it was nothing of importance, a flippant union that she did for work nearly every night.
Ain't nothin' but a slight burn and pleasure so underwhelming you'd wish you had your own fingers down there instead.
Finally, you nod. "Yes sir."
Chuckling, the pressure on the back of your neck vanishes as Simon stands to his feet, spurs jingling on his boots and kicking dirt up into the air as he positions himself behind you. He whistles low as if looking at a painting. Always hung up high in the gallery at the library, brushstrokes vivid as they swirl in prismatic colors—a work of art, just for him. He makes a few adjustments as he tears further through your pantalets with a knife. The iron runs across your skin. A gentle kiss with teeth hardly held at bay. You shiver as the night air rushes to meet your sex.
"Spread those legs, sweetheart," Simon orders. His words are tough, but slurred. Whiskey heavy on his tongue, alcohol burning through his blood like wildfire devouring a mountainside.
Obeying, your weight wiggles side to side as you move your knees further apart and it feels like cutting into yourself. A doe with a knife gralloching herself so that the hunter's work is less laborious.
Simon only chuckles. "C'mon, you can do better than that."
When you try again and he still isn't satisfied with the way you're contorting yourself, his feet thud into the ground behind you just before something bites the inside of your thighs. They're cruel. Like thickets gnawing into your skin as you attempt to fetch the enticing berries just before you, but you get no sweet treat in the end. Just ichor running down your legs as you lurch away from the source of pain, quivering legs spreading until your hips can't take it anymore.
"Yeah, tha's good," your husband-to-be purrs.
Shoulders curling, you attempt to look between your legs only for your dress to block your vision. "Did you- did you cut me?"
"Just used my spurs for some extra motivation," Simon shrugs. The said item jingles as he falls to his knees again, but it's smothered by the sound of his fly coming undone. "If it's not cruel 'nuff for my horse, then it's not cruel 'nuff for you."
"T-That hurt," you snap. You're glad he can't see your face right now and the way pathetic tears plunge down your cheeks with each flutter of your eyelashes.
"I'll kiss it better later if it means that damn much."
His promise tastes stale in the air as his jeans rustle down his hips and the sound prompts you to freeze as something presses against your backside. It's too warm to be a hand. Blistering hot like the surface of the sun jumping out to snatch you up on a warm summer's day. It's too smooth to be his hands; those palms of his are calloused beyond recognition.
You don't realize that it's his cock until it's butting up against you, pushing your labia apart until you're choking him. The stretch burns. Like a paper cut being pried too far apart, flesh splitting, blood oozing from the pathetic laceration. An ache blooms in your jaw as your teeth clench together, and you have to fight the urge to chew on the bedding against the side of your face. Simon grunts as he moves closer, attempting to push further into you, but your body refuses to give. Skin dimples, organs flutter, and you're left wincing at the small intrusion.
"Fuckin' hell. Never been fucked properly before, have ya?"
As Simon curses, he pulls away from you and the pressure dissipates throughout your body. Relief comes next. Bitter and cutting, it tingles between your thighs as the muscles in your back liquefy. Perhaps he's finished with you.
You don't realize how terribly wrong you are until his hand yanks back on your shoulder, forcing your torso off of the ground until your spine is bending like the branches of a willow tree. Sour fingers dart into your mouth, pushing past your lips and knocking around your teeth until gunpowder and stale tobacco presses against your tongue. You gag as the fingers move to the back of your throat, nails digging through your soft pallet, slicing up your throat until you're pulling on his forearm for any bit of reprieve he'll allow you to earn.
"Dryer than a goddamn desert," he mutters against the back of your skull. "Can hardly get you to take even an inch."
He leaves you coughing and sputtering as he retracts his fingers from your mouth and pushes you back down on the blankets. Spit coats your chin, but it isn't long before it's coating your sex too. Haphazardly wiping his fingers along your labia, Simon pushes two fingers into you, plunging too far too fast. Your feet kick at the intrusion, but Simon only laughs.
"That hurts!" you squeal, hips moving side to side as if you could buck him off like a rodeo horse.
"Relax, sweetheart. I'll get ya singin' real pretty f'me in no time," he discards.
There is no time to think or breathe before he's replacing his fingers with his cock. You split apart easier this time. Faster. Body giving into his, flesh decoupling where it's never bled before. All you can do is hold your breath as he fills you with slow, even pressure. When you're so full of him that you can't take anymore, he continues to try despite it. Breaking the laws of physics, bending your will to his own, all while growling like a guarded wolf refusing to share a meal with the rest of the pack.
"Yeah, that's it," Simon praises between gritted teeth. "Just like this, sweetheart."
When Simon picks up his pace—pumping in an out of you faster than your brain will allow you to comprehend—you realize that prostitute you spoke with all those years ago is a liar. This is more than a simple numbness swallowing you, wishing that you'd take matters into your own hands. You feel every ridge and angle of him. The way he pushes your walls out of the way, organs displacing to make room for his demanding cock, everything sliding against one another as if to start a fire within you. Friction too great. Nerves melting off at each junction.
His fingers curl into your hips as if to mark you. White hot branding iron against your skin, shaping you into the swirls of his finger prints—your husband-to-be. You've never heard of men claiming their wives with anything other than a ring on their fingers, but you suppose this man—Simon Riley—might not be much of a human at all.
"Sweet little thing, you are," he grunts. His pace continues at the same speed he's kept since he began, relentless and fast, desperately chasing for something he hasn't gotten in such a long time that it's left him half brain-dead. "Dunno why your daddy treats you the way he does. I've always liked dumb fawns."
Though his words sting, the pain is nothing compared to the way he moves inside of you. His words seem kind and sincere but the verbiage is cutting and wrong—a backhanded compliment meant to leave you floundering. Keeping your lips tight, you refuse to respond to him. You're not sure what you would even say to such a comment anyway. This man, who bought you off your father as a wife, now staking his claim before the matrimony has even taken place.
Seemingly displeased with your silence, Simon's pace falters as one of his hands snakes around your front and down between your thighs. His weight presses on your back. Soft stomach rolling against your rump, hair rubbing against the tender skin—he steals your breath away as his firm fingers swipe against the rawest part of you. The part where your skin hardens, puffy and stiff, blood rushing between your legs until you're brimming full with electricity like lightning.
Simon hisses as your body tenses, back arching as you lift your head up from the bedding, arms aching from keeping yourself from toppling over. He sounds like a snake. An angry rattler slithering through a garden he doesn't belong in. He chokes it off with a chuckle when you begin to gasp and choke on your own breath.
"Yeah, there she is," he chuckles as his pace begins to pick up once more. "Just need a little extra coaxing."
It feels like a betrayal to yourself to admit that it feels good—but it does. It numbs the burn inside of you as Simon continues to take what's now rightfully his. Adding water to the fire until it's no longer roaring, but sizzling, smouldering remains snuffing out with each swirl even as you clench so tightly around him that you nearly trap him inside of you.
His nose rests against your back, crooked tip nestling into the bend of your spine. You feel each exhale. Hot breath soaking into your skin. It makes you shiver.
"That feels—oh—I don't… I can't…" It's the first sentence you've attempted to string together since he began, and it comes out disjointed. Half formed stutters on a tongue that's too limp underneath his fingers.
"I feel it, sweetheart," Simon pants. "Squeezin' me as tight as you are, not sure I could stop myself even if I wanted to."
And he doesn't. He goes faster. Hips snapping against you, thighs rubbing against the new cuts on your skin, blood smearing along him until his legs are bright pink, fingers raking over your sex, digging deep until he's twisting the nerves to his liking, rewiring you until all you can do is hold your breath with clenched fingers. Then, there's the swell. The change in pressure that tenses in your core and skull. Brain throbbing, eyelids fluttering until everything becomes so tight—
—that you finally shatter.
A million pieces of you scatter all over Simon's tent as you come. Thighs quivering, cunt fluttering around him despite his relentless pace; it's sweeter than the strawberry pastries you spent all afternoon baking but the acid that follows bites worse than a wasp. A wretched give and take that leaves you gasping in the stilly night air.
Simon plunges in not too far after you. Both hands returning to your hips, he yanks you towards him and keeps you locked against his body while his cock begins to pulse inside of you, jumping rhythmically as if to a tune you can't hear. Your brain can't make sense of it until he's pulling out of you with a grunt and something warm runs down the inside of your legs—he's truly consummated this marriage-to-be with a gift only man can bestow upon a woman.
He allows you to collapse, but not without another mocking chuckle. On your side, you curl your legs up as close to your chest as you can get while Simon shuffles through items out of your view. Ruined pantalets at your ankles, dress wrinkled beyond recognition; you're soiled. Claimed down to your very marrow by this stranger who blew into town and suddenly decided to take you for himself out of the kindness of his heart.
A kindness soaked in acrimony. Both your tongue and eyes water at the mere stench of it.
When Simon yanks the skirt of your dress over your exposed rump, you can't help but jump. Hands pushing into the earth, you look over your shoulder at him and you're nearly blinded by the fire that dwindles into coals waving with remnants of heat. He holds something out for you to take—a large bottle with a skinny neck and fat bottom. Amber liquid sloshes around inside as he settles down next to you, head skimming against the lean-to tent canvas.
"Go on, then," Simon prompts.
You take the bottle into your hand and realize it's the fresh Kentucky bourbon your father sells at the saloon. The cap has already been popped off, and fresh liquid stains the rim with the remnants of Simon's lips.
"I'm not thirsty," you say, ready to discard the bottle back into his grasp.
"I told you to drink, sweetheart," he corrects you, tone severe.
Brows heavy with a scowl, you ignore the pang between your legs as you sit up and press the bottle to your mouth. Tiny sips allow the alcohol to seep between your lips and though the flavor is smooth, the sting is violent. Needles on your tongue, coals down your throat. When your mouse-like sips aren't enough to satisfy Simon, he tips the bottom of the bottle up, flooding your sinuses with the drink until you're choking it down and coughing at the sting.
"Atta girl," he chuckles before swiping it away and swallowing more gulps than he should.
The earth moves but you stay still. Frozen in time as everything moves around you, time and space warping with you at the epicenter of the destruction of your life. When your husband-to-be settles for bed, he pulls you close to his side but doesn't seem intent on offering any sort of comfort to you besides heavy snoring from his crooked nose.
Your eyes glaze over as you stare at the dying fire. It no longer cracks and spits sparks into the air, it only dances with trembling embers that remind you of waves on a lake. As a coyote howls in the night, you think of how easy it would be to wander back home. To slip from Simon's faint grasp and vanish into the night. You do not scrounge up the courage to leave.
Like your father has taught you—love is nothing if it is not painful.
When dawn breaks you are alone in the tent, but Simon is not far. Breathing life back into the campfire, he crouches next to it with hunched shoulders while boiling water for a canister of dry tea that rests next to his boots. Eyes like soot quickly find you as you peek your face out from the blankets, body stunned into silence as you watch him.
"Mornin' sweetheart," he greets.
Breakfast is just as dull as your pathetic dinner was. Hardtack with not enough salt, and tea that tastes like raw juniper without sugar—you do your best to keep your discontent to a minimum. Your hot cakes are better. Smothered with freshly churned butter and doused with maple syrup from up north. You think about telling him as much, but decide to keep quiet when he stands to his feet and begins to dismantle his tent.
You turn your attention to the dwindling fire as he works. It is a difficult task to focus on the way flames sputter and cry when you can still feel the way Simon ruined you last night. Your sex is swollen, puffy between your thighs, chaffing in areas you never thought were possible. His stench smothers you. Hard work and musk, salty cum between your legs, scabbed cuts screaming at the mixture as it spills out of you, soaking into your tattered pantalets.
Reality hits you without any qualms the moment you place your hand on your stomach. Even that much movement alone hurts.
There are womanly duties that are expected of a bride—of a wife. Of anyone unfortunate enough to be born into the life you are. The seed has been planted, and you're worried about the growth that will overcome your body if it decides to germinate.
"Here."
Simon's voice lulls you back to your senses. His hand is extended for you, and in his palm lies several five dollar bills, all crisp with a neat fold in the center to be stowed away somewhere safe. There's a fat wad of them—nearly 100$ total if you had to guess. Brows creasing, you look up at him.
"What's this? An allowance?" you ask with shaky snark.
He shakes the bills with a tilt of his head. "A parting gift."
Dry lips part in shock. A half-formed demand balances on the tip of your tongue, but you cut it in half with your teeth as you stare up at Simon. "A parting gift?"
"Should be plenty to get you on your way. I'll take ya to the next town over, then what you do from there is up to whatever your sweet little heart desires," he says, voice heavy laden with sarcasm.
Legs contracting, you attempt to stand to your feet only for your knees to give out underneath you, leaving you struggling like a poor-shot doe waiting to be put out of her misery. "But you-! You bought me! Told Daddy you were gonna make me your wife! And last night you took me Simon Riley!"
Tired of holding out money that you don't seem to care about taking, Simon drops the bills to the dirt at your knees. "I'll be real honest with you, sweetheart. I don't have a need for a wife. You're nothin' but just another mouth to feed. Baggage I don't need. Just needed a good night's rest, and that little cunt of yours got the job done just fine."
His haphazard disregard of you leaves thick shame bubbling in your chest like molasses being brought to a boil. No man will take you like this. A whore who has already given herself to someone who has no intention of marrying her, virtue stolen away and devoured as a midnight snack.
"You can't do this to me." Despite your anger, your words only escape your mouth as a hissing whisper.
"Trust me, sweetheart. It's better this way."
"No!" Just as he begins to turn away, your fingers curl into the front of Simon's jeans. A thick layer of dirt and grime wiggles beneath your finger nails, but you ignore the discomfort as you stare daggers up at him with wet eyes and an iron jaw. "You bought me off my daddy, you fucked me last night here in the middle of nowhere—I'm coming with you. Please Simon, you can't just… just leave me. I'll die out there."
As Simon looks down at you with your wet eyes and desperate hands, he realizes he's found himself another fawn. Dumb, looking up at him with a gaze so glassy he can see the whole world reflected within it, lost without guidance. Begging for something to be done. A knife to their throat—anything.
He has long known that he's had no use for a wife. Some woman to calf out children and stay home like a singing bird locked in a cage. But you? This fawn begging for him, desperately in search for someone to trail behind, ready to listen to his every whim? Perhaps he can get used to that.
"Okay sweetheart." He softens right before your eyes. Warm palm against your cheek, thumbing away at the tears on your skin before pressing them into your mouth, all but stunning you into silence. "I'll take care of ya if that's what ya really want. Don't mind havin' a pet."
Simon's sudden change of heart leaves you dizzy, and the thumb on your tongue doesn't help to stabilize you. You promise to be quiet as he finishes packing up the rest of camp, storing away all his items on his horse who lazily watches you while chomping away at the sparse greenery at its feet. When he's finished, he stands in front of you with the rim of his hat sitting low on his face and his thumbs hooked behind his belt buckle.
"Stay right 'ere, sweet fawn. Gonna go get your things from your daddy, yeah?"
It takes all of twenty minutes to convince yourself that Simon's abandoned you. The only thing that can convince you otherwise is that his horse is still here. Just as obnoxiously tall as he is with the same dull, dark eyes staring at you as if he doesn't know what to do with you. Either that or he's gone off to buy a horse from someone else to abandon you without hearing your pathetic shrill cries. He's certainly got enough money for it.
Yet, about an hour later, you hear him huffing and puffing as he settles back down into the ravine. Clenched in one of his hands lies your old carpet bag, something you haven't used since you stopped visiting your friends for sleepovers when you were a child. Even from a distance you can tell it's full to the brim, old fabric bulging beneath the weight of your items as they clank around.
He doesn't bother to greet you upon his return. Too busy tying your carpet bag to his saddle back, thick fingers working along frayed rope as he gives his horse yet one more thing to lug around. Rocks and sand crunch beneath your shoes as you approach him. Even at a distance you can smell the sweat on him. Thick perspiration and musk seeping from his skin, getting his pallid flesh to glow in the sunlight as morning draws dangerously close to noon.
Fingers lacing together, you rock back onto your heels just as Simon turns to face you. "Is everything alright?"
Nodding, Simon digs his thumbs behind his belt buckle once more. "Yeah."
"Good." It's impossible not to notice the stench of blood that follows him. Fresh ichor, iron thick on his skin. When you look at his hands, you see the splitting of epidermis—knuckles busted open like overripe peaches. "Did my daddy say anything?"
"Yeah. Said he was sorry."
You blink. "Sorry?"
Huffing, Simon begins to stalk forward, boots heavy on the ground, spurs ringing with each step, until your cheek is cupped in his hand. It feels wet. Freshly cooled in a nearby stream.
"Said he was sorry 'bout everythin' he ever said 'bout you, 'n that it won't happen again," he explains. The cogs in your mind begin to twist, cleaning the rust off of the gears until every web and speckle of dust is gone. Before you can stop it, you're smiling as you admire this strange man before you. Broad shoulders, crooked face, and fresh blood on the collar of his shirt. "C'mon, sweetheart, let's get outta 'ere."
You situate yourself on the back of his horse as best as you can—legs swung over to the side, arms wrapped around his torso as he kicks the beast into action. It's far from comfortable. Each bump reminds you of the way Simon's cock took you the night before, rabid like a beast and chuckling like a hyena in the night.
Still, as the horse begins to climb out of the ravine, you can't help but smile against Simon's back when you realize you'll never have to be at the butt of your father's scathing abuse ever again.
what you want you cannot find. so you let someone else find it for you. (18+, dark!simon x curvy!fem!reader, arranged marriage)
you don't really know what you were thinking when you answered the ad. it is many things, maybe, why you chose to apply. why you were grateful to be chosen.
the loneliness, it aches. you cannot find yourself in anyone else, you cannot find the thing that should move you and hold you. you cannot find what it is that should ignite what is asleep, the thing nestled between your ribs that feels like it beats to a rhythm that you cannot hear.
the bitterness, too. there is something sour that you taste. there is acid under your tongue, something rotten between your teeth, and you wish for anything that you would stop tasting it because it reminds you of how alone you are, how alone you'll remain, the inevitable thing that you wish you weren't but that you unfortunately are.
it is the thing you cannot die for because there isn't anything to die for. you live, and you breathe, and you exist, but there isn't anything there. this is nothing that makes you want to gnaw on your own flesh, there is no life you would take in sake of another, there is no purpose to your existence except the hope that perhaps there is still time to have what you want more than anything.
but you don't know what you want. you don't know because everything that you thought you wanted, you do not want any longer. you never feel anything with other men. they are beneath you. they maim what they shouldn't. they complain about things that they can fix. they stare at a problem head-on, with the solution at their back, and they chase their tails. they do not know their right from their left. you hate them. but you want it. you want something. you want one of them, but you don't know which, so maybe if you don't choose, you will find what it is that you don't know you're looking for.
you're alone in the room. they gave you a bouquet of white roses. you hold them nervously between clammy palms. you wear a silk white dress that skims the floor, fabric falling soft over the curve of your waist and gentle along the swell of your cleavage. your hair is loose, and there is a short veil over your head, covering your face.
you stare at your handler. he's dressed in his military fatigues, tactical vest still strapped with the Union Jack across his chest. he has introduced himself as captain john price, and he is the one who arranged for your arrival. he is the one who told you to wear white, and he is the one who gave you the roses.
captain john price is rugged. captain john price is kind. and captain john price is not what you want. you are grateful that you are not yet disappointed with your match.
the door opens behind you. you straighten your posture that extra inch when you hear his heavy gait. there is a pause as the door shuts behind him, and you see his captain nod to a figure that you cannot see. his boots hit the floor low, and you swallow when the sunlight that comes through the window is blocked entirely by the size of him as he stands at your side.
the vows are short. you say your i do first, soft voice that hits his ears in a way that makes him nearly purr. when it is his turn to say i do, your eyes sparkle. he speaks in such a low voice, a Manchester accent that makes your toes curl in the white kitten heels that you wear. a drawl that you can feel in your chest, an accent that ticks a corner of your brain you did not know was there.
"you may kiss your bride."
you turn away from the captain. you tilt your head to look up at him, and you let out a soft breath when you realize the sheer breadth of this man.
he is barely a man. he must be something else. he is dressed all in black, and he wears all of his gear. his tactical vest is stocked well, magazines tucked into their pockets, a grenade dangling from one strap, a handgun tucked into its holster on his chest and around his thick thigh. his belt is heavy with more, knives in sheathes, devices in their places. even without all of the weight, you know the size of him won't shrink.
you cannot see his face. he covers it with a mask, one that resembles the front face of a skull. it is dirty. you aren't certain if it is blood or soot or dirt. maybe it is all of that and more. you cannot see his eyes through the veil either, but they are dark, and they are intense.
you keep your eyes fixed on his as he lifts your veil. the delicate fabric settles over your head, and you see him without obstruction.
there he is.
it is like seeing a man for the first time. it is like being in the presence of the dream you've always had and could never remember.
he tilts his head to the side, curious. he is seeing your face for the first time, too. soft eyes. glossy lips. the curve of your mouth. the untouched skin of your cheeks, the unmarred flesh that you wear. he follows the line of your throat to the peek of your tits dressed in silk. you are a present wrapped in luxury. hand delivered goods, of the finest quality.
his bride. his wife. something he will have forever. he does not know if he has ever been able to say that about anything else. he's never had anything except for his life. nothing except for himself has ever belonged to him, but even now, not even his life is his own, it belongs to someone far away, someone in an office somewhere, who moves the chess pieces of his world around, where he cannot do anything but follow.
you stand on your toes to get closer to him. he thinks for just a second you will ask him to remove his mask, but you don't. you cant your head, and you kiss him over the mask, sticky gloss leaving a light imprint on the fabric. you settle back onto your heels, and your breath hitches when one of his gloved hands comes to settle at the dip of your waist.
"she's all mine now, eh, cap'n?"
you blink, your eyes still on his. you don't move, and you don't say anything. you wonder, if you could see his face, if he would smile.
"all yours, simon."
you let him drag you closer, shuffling on your feet until your hips press against his. your back arches gently as he uses both hands, gripping you around the middle and feeling the soft flesh underneath your silk dress. he is a rabid dog, his next meal at his fingertips. she is his, and he wants to take her home. if his captain was not standing at his back, he knows he would take you on this very floor.
she is mine. she is mine. she is mine.
he has studied your picture. he has memorized your name. he has been waiting for you. he is too awkward to leave base. he is too quiet to attract birds, birds that matter, birds that sing. he is too ravenous to be anything but permanent, he isn't capable of the mundane, of casual. it is everything or nothing at all, and at the sound of permanence, he foamed at the mouth.
at the thought of something to keep, he was blinded. when beasts lose control, they call their keeper, and he had none. this change could be good. this change would do him well. when he ignores the order of a commanding officer, he will bend to yours, because he is bound, wrapped, tied to you with something invisible that weaves between his bones.
you do not know what you were before, but you know what you are now.
you follow after him. he turns to leave, and you let him lead. your heels click as you walk, and when it is hard for you to keep up, you reach for his hand. he grunts when you do, but he doesn't push you away. you hold wilting roses in one hand, and you clutch him in the other. recruits and privates stop to salute or step out of your way, and they stare when they see a trailing angel behind their lieutenant, a pretty girl in a pretty white dress with a veil fluttering against the breeze as you try and keep up with your husband's long strides.
the door he stops in front of is plain and unmarked. he fits a key into the lock, turning it and opening it, and he invites you over a threshold that no one else has ever stepped over. you stand on the other side, holding the roses to your chest. he turns when you don't follow him inside. you get a glimpse of him as a whole, the man that he is, big and menacing and taken. you wonder if he will wear his ring under his glove or if he will put it on the chain that holds his dog tags.
"is this where you live?" you ask. you stay on the other side, looking in, a little timid as you stand there.
he nods, silent. he crosses his arms over his chest, and you admire the bulge of them, the paint of skeleton bones along the fingers of his gloves. you look him up and down before smiling a little.
"is this where i will live, too?"
he shakes his head, a no.
"can't have a thing like y'here," he murmurs. "boys'll eat y'up."
you tilt your head to the side.
"i find that hard to believe," you quip. "do people often eat what's yours, lieutenant?"
he snarls, narrowing his eyes. "no one takes wot's mine."
"then what are you so afraid of?"
"that 'f y'r 'ere, i won't get any fuckin' work done."
you break out into a big smile, pearly white teeth flashing, and he clicks his tongue at your reaction. he reaches up and lifts his mask, pushing it up until it rests over his nose. his nose is crooked from being broken so many times. his face is scarred, as if someone took a blade and carved out the skin and muscle. a deep one stretches from somewhere under the mask to his lip, where it looks as if the skin was haphazardly stitched back together. another long jagged grey streak comes over the line of his cheek down his jaw, as if someone tried to peel his face off.
he grins. it's ugly and unsettling, as if he sees prey that he knows he will catch. your own smile does not fade. his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and you want to taste him. beast, bear, killing machine, the boogeyman, a ghost that haunts, you do not know exactly what he is, but you know, immediately, that he is what you have been searching for.
you do not know him. you do not love him yet, but you will. you are sure of this. you are sure that he is missing piece. he will fill the spaces that you have always felt hollow. he will scratch a place in your head that has always itched. there is something in his eyes, you're not exactly sure what it is, but you can't wait to discover it. you can't wait to explore, to indulge, to lick the salt of his skin and know that everything he is has been waiting for something like you.
you did not choose him, but he chose you, and now you see it clearly. you see this thing, and you know the truth of what's been hiding from you all your life. the curtain has been taken down. the veil is off. the walls are invisible.
"come 'ere," he says lowly. "won't ask so nicely next time."
you drop the flowers onto the floor, crossing the doorway. you kick the door shut, hearing it click, and he comes closer, until you can feel his breath fanning your nose.
"will you love me?" you ask, wringing your hands together nervously. "do you think maybe...do you think maybe that's possible?"
he licks over his teeth, humming. he leans down, knocking your chin up, and your breath hitches when he licks up the side of your jaw, taking in a whiff of your perfume and the sweetness of his bride.
"what a stupid word," he mutters, biting at the curve of your bottom lip. "meaningless. love. bloody hell."
"w-what...what?"
"a meaningless fuckin' word for the things i would do for ya," he continues. "the things i would kill. the heads i would step on. the sorry fucks i would get rid of...just to see y'smile."
your eyes flutter. yes, yes, yes--the unconditional devotion. the terrifyingly beautiful reality of through sickness and in health, until death do us part.
"is it really that easy, simon?" you ask. his gloved hands slip over your throat, sliding low and skimming the silk of your dress before he cups both sides of your ass and squeezes, drawing you closer until you are uncomfortably pressed up against him. his gear digs into your softness, sharp edges cutting into you, but you ignore it as he begins to draw up the skirt of your dress. "is it really that easy to say you'll do all of that for me? isn't it...it's wrong, isn't it? to do those things for me?"
he laughs. humorless, condescending. as if that is the stupidest thing you could have ever said.
"'s olright, swee'eart. gonna take all those ideas outta y'r pretty lil' head."
you relax when you feel his gloved hand under the hem of your white lace panties. your eyes shut, and you reach forward and grip his vest for stability.
"christ..." he hisses. "y'r soaked..."
you are. you have been since you first laid eyes on him, on everything he is. you know why you are here, and he knows why he is here, and that is because there were two people so desperate to find one another, that they let someone else choose. the gods, fate, whatever they want to be called.
matched by design, together by choice.
you lean forward and kiss beside his lips, and you whine when his big fingers slide between your folds, soft on your clit before he fits two fingers inside of you. his gloves are warm, and you wet them easily.
"wot a good girl," he breathes. "knew y'were the right one."
"y-you did?"
"could see it in y'r eyes, dove. could see wot y'needed. could see it plain as fuckin' day. dyin' inside, just like me, aye?"
you shake your head.
"n-not anymore...not anymore..." you gasp, and he tsks as he steps backward, the weight of him heavy as he takes a seat on his perfectly made bed, bringing you with him. you fall into his lap, unafraid to because you know someone of his size can carry you easily, and he hums as you spread your thighs apart. you straddle him, pressed up against the gun holstered to his chest, and you moan softly against his scarred face as he fucks you open with three unforgiving fingers.
"not anymore," he echos, baring his teeth as he pumps his hand. the squelch of it is filthy, but it isn't enough. he wants you to soak his arm, his thighs, his bed, let the slick of you stain him from the outside in. "not anymore. not as my wife."
you scramble. you rip the veil out of your hair, untie the corset of your dress. there's a naked angel in his lap, perky tits and soft figure, giving way to the gorgeous place you keep hidden by white, wet lace. the place that is his, the place that belongs to him, a pretty pussy that will keep him satiated until he breathes no longer.
after he tears apart his enemy, he will have you. after he tastes the blood he desires to see run, he will have you. the adrenaline, the fire, the shout of every order and the sound of their cries, it won't exist anymore in this place, he knows it.
"y'll never want for anythin'," he mutters. "y'll never be lonely. always get wot y'want...wot y'need...wot y'deserve..."
you reach up and cup his cheeks gently, pressing your mouth to his as you ride his fingers eagerly. you want him, you want this, you want all of it, even if it isn't what's right. but something brought you here, right into his arms, and this is what you deserve.
he's not even human, you don't think. he must be something else. with how good he makes you feel, with the sheer precision that he rocks his fingers into you, the way he smiles, he must be made of only something synthetic, something not organic.
you feel so small underneath him. he tosses you onto the bed, your head hitting the pillow gently. you giggle, and his grin widens. he has a warm pink tongue, and it's between his teeth, and you giggle again when he moves his head from side to side, staring down at you. he's studying you. you assume he has seen photos of you, but this is his first time seeing his bride for all that she is. soft, pretty, unscathed by war. at least on the outside--but on the inside, you are not as you seem.
there's a parasite in you. something that slithers behind your eyes and settles in that corner of your brain that only he can touch. he knows that feeling well. he feels it every time he is in the field, and he feels it now, with you. he chases this tick when he works. it knocks his senses just right, makes him feel good and big, like the reaper that he really is. he can be this with a rifle in his hand, and he can be this without it, with the weight of his wife in his hands.
you smile, biting your lip, and you spread your legs for him. his eyes fall between your thighs, and he chuckles. he brings his gloved hand up to his mouth, the one that smells like you, and you watch as he slips it inside, sucking on it for a moment before he uses his teeth to take both gloves off.
he bends, still in all his military glory, and he sticks his tongue out, licking a fat stripe up the seam of your cunt, using one thumb to pull the puffy lip apart and suckle on your clit for just a moment.
you gasp, arching your back, and he stands to his full height again, laughing.
"oh, y'taste sweet," he purrs. "y'taste good. hard t'believe i'll have this cunny for m'whole fuckin' life."
"believe it, baby," you coo, and he sighs. he nods his head, reaching low, gripping himself through his cargo pants and squeezing his cock. you follow his movements, watching him pay special attention to the tip of him, running his finger over where you guess the slit is as he watches you squirm. "why are you so far away, simon? don't you want me?"
he laughs again, smiling wide, and he nods.
"course i want ya, swee'eart. who wouldn't want ya, huh? who wouldn't want this?"
you meet his eyes. the question is a sound one, but it never mattered that you were wanted, what mattered is that you never wanted. not really. not until now.
you watch him as he reaches for his zipper. he undoes it easily, unbuttoning his pants and shoving them low. they won't go very low, thanks to the holsters around his thighs, but it's enough that you watch his cock stand at attention, the red tip of him leaking down the sides, making the bulging vein on the underside of him shine.
you whine a little, and he growls happily, watching as you cup the swell of your tits and squeeze them in anticipation. perfect, perfect, perfect girl, practically a mail-order bride that checks every single fucking box.
he grips you by the thighs, yanking you to the edge of the bed. you whimper when he slides the tip through your folds, letting it catch at the entrance before smirking down at you.
"'s big," you hiccup, and he tsks, shaking his head.
"y'can take it, swee'eart," he murmurs. "y'r a riley now, luvvie. y'know what tha' means?" you shake your head, your eyes a little watery, and he smooths a hand up your sternum, gripping you around the throat gently. "gonna find out...gonna find out how well a riley takes wot they're given."
"simon--"
"'s alright, luv, we'll start nice, yeah?" he breathes. you grip onto his forearms when he feeds you his cock, slowly, and your back bows at a sharp angle as you squeeze him for everything he is. "fuckin' hell...yeah, just the tip, yeah? oh, good girl..."
good girl, yeah...i'm a good girl--
you cry out, digging your nails into him when he mutters fuck it and bottoms out. his palm flattens just under your belly button, a choked groan leaving him as he presses down, a rush of something fucking glorious running down his spine. it's a high--he's so fucking high, as if he is popping fucking pills.
"feel me here, yeah?" he drags his hips back, smoothing a hand further up your stomach until he paws one of your tits, squeezing it firmly. you nod, sliding your hands up his arms, fisting the fabric of his mask at the base of his neck. you feel him everywhere, you feel him in your chest, running down your spine, you feel him in your mouth and in your head, and it feels so good, it feels so so so so good.
"yes--yes!" you gasp. fuck, he's huge, he's putting a shadow over you. you're naked, bare underneath him, and his gear rocks with every thrust, and it's filthy because you wonder if he worked, you wonder if he didn't even change before he went to marry his perfectly-picked bride, you wonder if he got off the tarmac not even an hour after killing his target to go and take what is his.
how long ago was it that he last fired his weapon? the gun on his chest, did he use it before he saw you?
i bet he did. i bet he used it. i bet he smoked the cigarette that i smell on him, and i bet he came here, and then he married me, and now he's all mine, and he's fucking me six ways to fucking sunday--
you think you're drooling. your lips are wet, and with every smack of his hips against yours, you feel a little more trickle down the side of your face. you're moaning, gripping his neck, pulling him further down on top of you. you want him all around you, you want him inside, you want him to come every day wearing this terrifying fucking uniform and to fuck you so stupid, you forget everything except for the name he has given you.
you want to know nothing except for his name. simon. riley. simon. riley.
you want to know nothing except for what you are. his wife. his wife. his wife.
it's so hard to remember to breathe. his hands grip you tight around the hips, and he's losing momentum, hissing, letting out choked groans as he brands the shape of his cock into you. he never wants you to forget what he feels like--he never wants you to know anything except for him, for the rest of your life.
"simon--" you whine, and he smirks, reaching up to hold your face in one big hand, keeping you still as you chase the grind of his pelvis against your puffy clit. "simon--!"
"tha'sit, luvvie...yeah..." he nods, "look at me--look at me," he leans down, a big weight over you, suffocating you, "good girl, yeah..." he clicks his tongue, "cum f'me, swee'eart. cum f'y'r husband, yeah?"
you lean up, chasing after him, gripping onto the sides of his face as you kiss him hard. it is the first time you really kiss him. slotting your mouth over his, slipping your tongue into his mouth, the sting of your wedding ring cooling his warm face as you taste him for the very first time.
it is gone. the bitterness that you always taste, the acid and the sourness and everything that always is so unpleasant under your tongue, it is gone when you have him. he takes it out of your mouth completely, and you chase after this just as you chase after the harsh grind of your clit against his pelvis.
he is carrying you. you're lifting, coming over some kind of sweet, exhilarating euphoria, and you're blinded by it, by the feeling, by him. you want more, more, you want it all, and he said you could have anything you want, that you'll never need anything ever again, he said, he said, he said--!
he laughs when you come. he swallows your moans, hisses when you soak his pants. you are the prettiest thing he could ever hope for, the personification of the things he does not deserve and could never have, and it is selfish that he has taken you this way, but he does not fucking care.
the things we cannot have are the sweetest, the most desirable. and simon is nothing if he isn't a thief.
he is nothing if he doesn't just take what he wants. he likes to think that perhaps he adopts the "ask for forgiveness, and not for permission" philosophy, but he does not ask for forgiveness. and he has never asked for permission.
"please--simon--" you gasp, looking up at him. your eyes are wet, and a few tears wet his hand around your face. "please--inside me, please..."
"'s olright, luv--" he grunts, pumping faster, his pretty little wife just begging for him, for more, and how could he say no to that? "easy, baby...i'll give it t'ya, don't worry, fuck--" he hisses, "lieutenant's wife gets woteva she wants..."
"please--inside--" you choke. "simon, inside, i-i want it inside--"
fuck, that is all he needed. he nestles deep, pressing his hips to yours, and you kiss him once more when you go blind again. a second high, when he stuffs you full. just as you should be. just as you always should be.
"yeah, fuck--" he breathes. "tha' wot y'wanted, yeah? nice and full, good girl..." he licks his lips, standing up straight, and just when you think he is pulling out, he yanks you back towards him, cum leaking down your thighs as you cry out from being so sensitive.
"simon!" you gasp, giggling, and he grins, patting your ass gently before pulling out. you let your knees fall onto the cot, swallowing hard as you watch him tuck himself back into his pants and zip them up. he brings the mask back down, and you watch as he slips his gloves back on. "hmm..."
he tilts his head to the side, sighing as he watches you settle there. something warm settles in his stomach, something satisfied.
"like havin' y'in my bed," he says lowly. "look nice there."
you smile, and he holds out one hand, beckoning you to sit up. you do, slowly, a little shaky as you try and compose yourself, and he leans down and kisses you through the mask. you close your eyes, humming, leaning into his touch.
"so i can stay?" you ask, and he chuckles.
"mmm...y'r so cute, luvvie..." he rumbles. "a doll, yeah? can't say no to ya."
you look down at the ring on your finger, a solid gold band complete with a precious diamond. you will have to get used to this--you are his wife, you can ask things of him, and you don't think he'll say no.
you look up at him when he tosses something at you. an army green shirt of his, and you slip it on, letting the fabric fall, and you lay back down in his cot as he moves around his room. you lay in comfortable silence, watching as the thing that calls himself your husband looks for files on his desk, adjusts the gun strapped to his thigh, shuffles his boots across the linoleum. you are mesmerized by what he is, and you haven't known him even a day.
you don't believe this is your vision askew. the honeymoon phase. the sugary sweet moments in time at the beginning where nothing is wrong, where all is well. simon riley is a practical man. he does not lie. he does not do things he does not want to do, and he does not say things he does not want to say. he is not in the business of comfort and ease, that much is clear to you.
simon riley is practical and resourceful. you think maybe he counts his words. that he doesn't say more than he has to. waste his energy on things that don't require it.
his wife. i'm his wife. his wife.
"why..." you swallow. "why...why did you pick me?"
he pauses as he stands in front of a locker. when he opens it, you see shelves of personal weapons stashed away, handguns of different sizes and shapes, knives of differing steel, toys that with a small push of a finger could destroy whatever building they went off inside. you don't flinch, don't blink, don't feel fear. you don't know why, but you just don't. you don't think it's possible.
he doesn't look at you as he surveys what lines the walls of it.
"just knew y'were the one f'me, swee'eart," he mutters. he shuts the locker, and the lock clicks. he comes closer, twirling a small blade between his fingers, and you don't cower away when he flicks it towards you, holding your chin up with the sharp tip of it. he hums appreciatively at this. "in all honesty, had no idea really until i saw ya, 'f you'd be mine."
he bends down, leans close, and you follow the curve of the blade with your head, keeping your eyes on his. there is no timidness in your gaze, and for that, he beams under the mask. perfection in one woman.
"and what would you have done if i wasn't the one?"
he shrugs.
"would've killed ya, luv."
"just like that?"
"just like tha'."
the tip of his blade drags, sliding up the length of your throat, along the line of your jaw. your lips part as he traces your mouth with it, and you tilt your head to the side as you trace the edge of it with your tongue. he leans forward more, pressing his forehead to yours, and you can see where the eye-black around his eyes fades into his pale skin under the balaclava. you see yourself in those eyes. the you that you have been waiting for. the you that you have missed for your entire life. the you that has been hiding, too scared to come out, too afraid of what might be said if someone saw the real you.
she had not been hiding. just lying dormant, in someone else, waiting for you to come home.
you smile, big, and simon presses his mouth to yours again through the mask, kissing you there, growling from deep in his chest, a purr that only emanates the contentment and the relief he feels because he has found that thing to live for. it is so easy to die. it is so easy to give oneself for what they believe. it is not hard to give the best of yourself away, he knows that.
what he has never been able to do is find something that will keep him alive. he has only ever lived because he found dying pathetic. he found it cowardly. but the alternative had been just as unforgiving, just as unfulfilling. but not this. not you.
you will make it difficult to die. you will make death a challenge. and when he eyes that smile, this one that you give only to him, he is happy to be given this new objective.
"but don't worry y'r pretty head about all tha', luv."
you give him those eyes, and he drinks it all in, all that you are. finally, finally, finally--
summary: the lads make john a hinge profile against his will, and to everyone’s surprise, he matches with you within ninety seconds
cw: mdni, fem!reader, age gap (30/43), idk how hinge actually works tbh, john price the feminist, alcohol, insecurities, fluff, smut, oral f rec, piv (14.4k)
John has been irritable for months and it's getting worse.
He knows it the way you know a tooth is starting to rot from the inside, tongue prodding at it every hour.
On Wednesday, he reamed Johnny out for being three minutes late to the briefing. It was the kind of reaming that had everyone's eyes turned down into their coffees and files while Johnny stood in front at attention, toes squared, ears hot.
John went on and on, red-faced, telling him that his 'admin's a disgrace', and that he'd better 'get a fuckin' grip before you're explaining your timings to your old CO'.
Somewhere in the middle of it — around ‘disgrace’ — John heard himself.
He finished the dress-down anyway. Ending on a firm threat of a year-long inventory assignment.
It was rough enough to watch that when the room cleared out, Simon hung back. He stayed in his seat, leaning back with his arms folded, eyes following John as he aggressively organized his paperwork at the front of the room,squaring stacks that were already square.
"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.
Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—
"Y'need'a get laid, boss."
John's hands immediately froze.
That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.
His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.
"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."
Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.
The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.
And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.
Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.
And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.
His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.
"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."
Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.
"I jus' think—"
"OUT."
The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.
Then he squared the stacks again.
——
Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.
"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"
"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."
"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.
"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.
Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.
Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.
"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.
"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"
"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"
"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"
Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.
His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.
The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.
"That's my phone."
"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.
Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"
"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.
"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"
"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles.
"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"
"Christ," Johnny snickers.
John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.
"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.
"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.
John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.
"Think I'll stand."
"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.
Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.
"What's Hinge?"
"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.
A dating app….
Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.
Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.
There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.
"This is you, then?"
"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.
"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"
"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."
Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"
"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."
John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen.
"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"
"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.
"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.
"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."
Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."
John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.
"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."
It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.
Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace.
So… he pulls out a chair.
Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.
"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross.
Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.
The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.
"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."
"I smoke cigars," John protests.
"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"
"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.
"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.
"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."
Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"
That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.
"Consultant," Simon offers.
"Civil servant," Kyle tries.
"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.
Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.
"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.
Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.
"What've you lot got on yours, then?"
The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.
"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.
"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.
"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.
"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"
"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"
"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.
When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—
"What's Feeld?" John asks.
"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."
"It's not for you," Simon adds.
"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."
"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.
The rest goes quicker.
"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."
"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.
Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.
His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).
He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out.
There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.
After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.
"I'll do these myself."
This time, Kyle hands the phone over.
The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night.
Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.
John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.
When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.
"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."
The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.
"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"
"No."
The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.
So is the one after. X.
A woman in her work scrubs. X.
A woman holding a child. X.
A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.
It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.
"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"
"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.
"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"
"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.
"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."
"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."
Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—
His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.
Huh.
There you are.
Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.
John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.
You're very pretty.
For the first time, John taps the profile open.
30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out.
There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.
Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.
And at the bottom:
The best way to ask me out is by: using words.
I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.
John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.
Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.
John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:
IT'S A MATCH!
"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.
"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.
"Careful," John warns mildly.
Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.
John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.
Better in person.
Yeah. He'd bet you are.
"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."
"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.
"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."
John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.
"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"
Silence.
"I mean, when you put it like that…"
"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.
He's already typing, screen tipped away.
"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."
"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."
He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.
——
Four miles away, a phone lights up…
——
Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.
Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.
The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.
Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore.
A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.
A man whose photos are all group shots. X.
A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.
Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.
The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.
He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.
John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.
Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.
You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.
His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.
Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.
The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.
Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.
You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.
It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.
But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.
You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.
On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.
Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!
HINGE: You and John matched!
HINGE: 1 New Message
You open it.
Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?
You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.
i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.
friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?
You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.
Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.
you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.
They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.
What movie are you watching?
You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.
You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.
you're not allowed to judge me.
Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.
You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.
it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.
The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.
Twelve times? Must be decent.
it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol
Dead?
it's a twist. it's festive!
You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.
You smile.
so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?
Not a thing.
hours in freezing water for zero fish?!
The fish aren't the point.
do tell, what's the point?
The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.
It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months.
You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.
that actually sounds really peaceful.
i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.
That the trail from your photo?
it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.
Doesn't show.
Good photo of you.
Beautiful, actually.
You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow.
Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.
oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol
No it didn't.
— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.
well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.
Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending.
how long have you been on hinge?
It's my first night, actually.
first night???
Profile's about two hours old.
yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?
Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.
——
John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.
He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.
What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.
"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.
"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."
He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.
"Need another, Cap?"
"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.
A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."
"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."
Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"
John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.
"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."
"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.
"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."
They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.
Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.
He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.
did the football finish? who won?
He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue.
Couldn't tell you.
omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!
I got distracted.
by what? 😇
I think you know by what.
Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.
anyway!
Anyway.
He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.
The cat in your photo. Yours?
yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.
Good name.
she prefers men that ignore her.
Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.
It goes on just like that: easy.
You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.
He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself.
How's the average Friday held up?
certainly improved
Mine too.
He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.
——
The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.
He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.
He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.
He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.
He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic.
By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.
He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.
He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is.
It's a stupid fuckin' rule.
The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.
The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.
By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.
That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.
spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.
thought of you on the tube home
He reads the second message again.
Thought of you.
He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.
are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.
And there's the sarcasm.
Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.
Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.
Thought about you as well.
He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.
I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.
lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.
don't really see myself getting married anyway.
the dresses were stunning though!
He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction.
Nothing wrong with that.
Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?
successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.
what about you, how was your saturday?
He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.
Quiet. Nothing worth typing.
hm. sounds like you should ring me then…
He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.
For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.
Could do.
Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.
Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.
Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.
Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.
for logistics.
He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.
He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.
——
You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.
Unknown Number. Local.
“John?”
“Evenin’.”
Fuck.
His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.
You set the bottle down before you drop it.
“So you actually do ring,” you manage.
“Said so on the profile, I think.”
“I half thought it was a bit.”
“I don’t really do bits.”
“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”
The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.
“That meant to be me?”
“It’s uncanny, I know.”
The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.
“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”
“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”
“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”
“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”
“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”
The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.
“No?” you tease.
“I had imagined I’d see your face.”
“Been imagining, have you?”
You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns
“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”
“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”
“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”
You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.
“Is that what it’s come to?”
“Unfortunately.”
There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.
“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”
Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.
“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.
“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”
Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.
“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”
“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
“I could do a weeknight? After work?”
There’s a pause on his end.
“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”
You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.
“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”
“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.
“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”
“It is,” he agrees, smiling.
The conversation should end there but it doesn't.
You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.
Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.
Eventually, you yawn.
“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”
“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”
“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”
“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”
“Lie-in, according to my profile.”
“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”
A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.
“Night, John.”
You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.
——
Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.
good morning. how was the lie-in?
Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.
the lie confirmed!
He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.
Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.
The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.
survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.
Regards received. Sleep well.
——
Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it.
good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?
[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]
You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.
His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.
Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.
His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.
Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.
“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.
“Fine.”
“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”
“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”
It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.
Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”
John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.
"Have a date Friday. Drinks."
Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.
"That's great. Same woman or…?"
"The same."
“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.
“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.
"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words.
He turns the phone back over.
Promote you, he types.
You look lovely.
Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.
well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x
He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.
——
The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.
Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.
———
You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.
The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.
The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels.
You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.
“It’s just a pub,” you tell her.
She doesn’t seem convinced.
———
The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.
You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties.
The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait.
You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.
It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling.
You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.
You don’t have to wait much longer for him.
He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.
He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” you smile.
He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.
“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.
“So are you.”
“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”
You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”
The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.
“What’ll you have?”
“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.
He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.
“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.
You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.
He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.
The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.
“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.
“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.
“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”
“Not at all.”
You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.
Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.
“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”
“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.
You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.
“That’s it? That’s your answer?”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”
“The lads — your guys from work?”
“Yeah.”
“They what, talked you into it?”
“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”
“And what made them do that?”
He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.
“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”
“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.
“Their exact words were a bit different.”
“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”
“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”
Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”
He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.
“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”
He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”
“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”
“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”
“Away?”
“Away.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Doing…?”
“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”
“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”
“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”
“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”
“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”
You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.
“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”
He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it.
“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”
You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.
The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.
The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together.
“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”
It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.
The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.
“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”
His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.
“No—I know. I just—”
“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”
“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.
“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”
“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”
And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.
The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.
It’s going well.
It’s going suspiciously well.
And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.
He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.
You look at the seat opposite.
Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.
You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.
“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.
“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.
The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—
“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”
He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”
“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.
“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it.
“Say it out loud anyway.”
“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”
“Ten.”
“Mm.”
“A whole decade.”
“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”
“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”
“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”
“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”
“Mm.”
“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug.
“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.
“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.
The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.
“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”
“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue.
You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face.
“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”
“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”
“Yeah? And what was the answer?”
“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”
Something in your chest slides sideways.
“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.
“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”
You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.
“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”
You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.
His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.
Neither of you leans back.
And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.
You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—
“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mhm,” you grin.
“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”
“I suppose I could be patient.”
“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.
Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.
His jaw shifts.
“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.
And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.
You two make it out the door.
The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.
Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.
He moves you.
One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.
Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.
He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.
He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.
“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.
“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.
You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.
“Walk me home?” you ask.
“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”
You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”
“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”
He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth.
——
The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.
The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth.
The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he—
You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.
He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.
The dashboard glow makes everything blue.
You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?
"So," you say.
"So…”
You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.
"Did you have a good time tonight?"
His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.
"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says.
"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"
"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"
"Keen?"
"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.
And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.
"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."
“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.
"I want to ask you up."
"Mm."
"And I'm having a whole debate about it."
"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."
"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."
He's quiet for a second, lips pursing.
“Can I look at you now?” he tries.
“Yeah.”
"You want to know where I'm actually at?"
"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."
“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”
The badly goes straight between your thighs.
“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”
“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”
“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”
“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”
“When you put it like that…”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”
And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you.
“Would you like to come up?”
——
The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.
John is a gentleman.
John has been a gentleman all night.
John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.
Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.
"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."
"Sensible."
And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:
"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"
"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side.
"Water? I'm gonna have water."
"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering.
He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean.
So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.
Your pace. Your move.
You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.
“You’re nervous,” he says.
“Not at all.”
“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”
He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.
He likes that.
He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.
Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.
When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you.
You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.
In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.
Good.
You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.
“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”
“Mm?”
“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”
“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.
“Definitely not.”
The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.
“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”
“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”
You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.
He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.
Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.
“Can I?”
“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”
His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.
You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.
“Oh my god— okay— okay—”
“Mm.”
“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.
“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.
“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”
He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—
"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."
"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"
He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."
"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.
He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.
"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"
"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"
"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”
"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"
John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.
Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.
He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you.
"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"
"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”
"—okay maybe move a little—"
He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts.
“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek.
“Don’t think, then.”
It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.
He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.
You don’t think.
He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—
“Harder?” he asks against your ear.
"Yes, please."
He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.
He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.
"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob.
"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."
He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves — it takes you under, and you pull him with you.
He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—
How good—
How gorgeous—
You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—
It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.
When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.
Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.
He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going.
He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.
"John?" Small, against his throat.
"Mm?"
"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."
He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.
You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.
He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.
"You're staring," he says, not looking up.
"You're tidying me."
"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."
"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."
He huffs into your hair.
Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.
There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.
She stares at John.
John stares back.
"We have an audience," he says.
You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."
Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.
"That went well," you say, overly pleased.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
"Well, consider me chuffed."
Some comfortable minutes later he feels you surface a little out of the drowse, feels your breathing change, going careful; feels your face arrange itself against his skin before you speak.
"You don't have to stay, by the way." Light. Smooth as eroded stone, polished by use, he imagines. "If you'd sleep better in your own bed. No pressure either way."
And there it is — the same maneuver from your texts, the honest thing dressed up so you can't be caught caring — except this time he can feel your heartbeat while you run it, quick against his ribs, betraying the whole performance from inside.
He keeps his hand moving on your arm, slow, so you know nothing's landed wrong.
"I'll head home," he says. "Not because I want to," he clarifies.
“No?” you ask.
"Believe me. This is about the last place I want to leave." His hand doesn't stop, slow up, slow down, steadying you through it. "I'd like at least one proper dinner between us before I go makin' a habit of your bed."
You lift your head off his chest and look at him — hair wrecked, eyes searching his face for the trick — and he lets you look as long as you need to because there's no trick to be found. He meant it.
“Alright," you agree.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Dinner sounds nice.”
"Mm," he hums, contented. He presses a kiss into your hair and untangles himself, face scrunched with visible reluctance, and dresses while you watch from the bed with the sheet gathered loose around you.
At the door he stops.
"C'mere."
You come to him in the sheet, and he kisses you properly, one hand cupping your face, thumb at your cheek. You go languid against him. He takes his time. Long past politeness. Long enough that leaving starts to look renegotiable, and he breaks away before he starts.
"G’night," he says, low, still holding your face.
"Goodnight."
"I'll ring you about dinner tomorrow."
——
The flat is quiet. But it's a different quiet than the one you left this morning and you stand in the middle of it grinning.
Twix reappears at the edge of the counter and stares.
“I don’t need the lecture, I’m grown,” you tell her and start walking back to the bedroom, you hear her little jump to the floor and her feather steps catching up with you, “I can have sex. I deserve it, even.” You drop into your bed with a sigh. “You’d understand if you still had ovaries.”
𝜗𝜚 you thought toji didn’t want you, but the only reason your husband slept on the couch was to stop himself from giving in . . .
( mdni. cw: arranged marriage!au, hurt/comfort, age gap, size kink, praise kink, oral (f. rec), fingering, creampie )
you didn’t choose him.
and truthfully, neither did he.
your families had known each other for decades— tangled up in promises, contracts, and unpaid debts. it was never about love, or even choice. everything had already been decided long before you were old enough to understand what it meant. you weren’t even given time to mourn the death of your autonomy. no arguments, no bargaining. only your father’s voice, stern and tired, eyes dull with the weight of duty, saying, “he’ll protect you. you’ll be taken care of.”
those were the final words that sealed your fate.
and just like that, you became mrs. fushiguro.
the wedding passed in a haze of stiff silk and tense silence. you wore white, he wore black. no one smiled. at least, not in any way that felt genuine. even the photographer didn’t bother faking it. you recited your vows without ever meeting his eyes— the rings felt heavier than they should’ve. there was no kiss. just the sound of distant applause and the quiet, sinking feeling that nothing about this was truly yours.
toji was a quiet man.
stoic, broad, and nearly impossible to read. he didn’t waste time on small talk, rarely showed emotion. it seemed as though your overall presence didn’t faze him in the slightest, as if he’d already adapted to the idea of living with a stranger. he wasn’t the kind to leave messes or linger in shared spaces. everything about him was precise, detached. not out of cruelty, but habit, like he’d spent his whole life perfecting the art of keeping people out.
you’d heard rumors about him growing up. how he used to be the type of man who never stayed in one place for too long, who didn’t give his name to the women he fucked and never spent the night. toji’s never been a one-woman kind of guy. settling down wasn’t in his vocabulary. and definitely not with someone as young and out-of-place as you.
he was older. rougher. the kind of man who’d seen too much and felt too little. you were the opposite— softer around the edges, not naïve, but still idealistic enough to believe marriage might eventually mean something.
but the truth was, you were strangers playing house.
and he made no effort to pretend otherwise.
he never yelled or raised his voice, but he also never smiled. didn’t ask about your day or crack single joke. the most he ever said to you was the occasional, “you eat yet?” or “lock the doors when i’m out.”
he wasn’t cruel. but he wasn’t kind either. he was just… distant.
and every night, without fail, he took a pillow from your bed and laid it on the couch. like it was some unspoken rule neither of you had agreed to, but followed all the same.
you told yourself it didn’t bother you.
it’s better this way, you thought. less awkward. more space. at least he wasn’t forcing anything on you. at least he wasn’t trying to play pretend.
but it still left a strange hollow in your chest, watching him retreat down the hallway like some unwelcome guest, his broad back disappearing into the dark. it was your house, your marriage, but it didn’t feel like either belonged to you.
you could hear him sometimes through the thin walls— the creak of leather, the shift of his weight on the couch, the low sighs he tried to keep quiet. you’d often wonder, did he ever sleep soundly? did he ever think about coming back to bed? or was this just as unbearable for him as it was for you?
you didn’t know what he saw when he looked at you. just a kid, maybe. just another favor he owed. a girl too young for him. a wife he didn’t ask for.
and yet… there were glimpses. brief ones.
he’d linger in the kitchen after grabbing a drink, eyes flicking to you like he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. his gaze would catch on you when you bend over to grab something. there’d be times where his fingers would brush yours when passing a mug across the table, only to quickly pull away and act like the contact burned him.
but none of it meant anything. not really.
he still felt a million miles away, always avoided your eyes, and spent his nights on the couch.
and every time you lay in bed alone, facing the empty space where your husband should have been… you wondered how long it would be before either of you finally broke the silence.
+
months passed.
coexistence— bland, neutral, suffocating— was the best words you could find for it. two strangers living under the same roof. two shadows moving through the same space.
you learned his footsteps before his voice. heavy boots against the tile, always coming home late, reeking of steel and smoke. the scent of blood sometimes lingered longer than it should’ve. cuts along his knuckles, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a cigarette tucked behind his ear he never once lit indoors.
he never offered answers. and you never asked questions.
your conversations always felt transactional— brief and stripped of anything personal. he moved like a man who’d locked his entire life behind closed doors, speaking only when necessary, silence curling in the spaces between
but sometimes, he surprised you.
like when your cough wouldn’t go away, and he left a steaming cup of tea on your nightstand. no note. just honey, lemon, and a quiet gesture you pretended not to notice. or the time your car wouldn’t start, and by morning it was fixed, keys hung on the hook with a single post-it note: ‘battery’s old. don’t leave the lights on.’ or when you dozed off on the couch and woke up in bed, tucked in gently—your socks gone, your blanket neatly arranged over your shoulders, the air warm from the space heater you hadn’t turned on yourself.
little things. fleeting and wordless. barely there, but enough to leave a mark.
enough to make you wonder.
does he care? or is this just guilt? pity? obligation?
you caught him watching you sometimes, too. not lecherous. not overt. just… lingering. like he couldn’t figure you out. like he was trying to memorize you without getting caught. his eyes would trail over your face like he didn’t quite believe you were real.
but he never touched you.
never kissed you.
never allowed himself get too close.
and maybe it was better that way. maybe it hurt less to imagine he didn’t want you than to accept the possibility that he did, and was just too afraid to act on it.
until one night, everything changed.
it was starting to rain. the steady patter against the window, soothing enough to lull you to sleep with a book on your chest and the bedside lamp still glowing, thunder rolled somewhere in the distance. you curled beneath the blankets alone, as always, half-asleep before the storm even settled.
you didn’t hear him come in.
but you felt it— the sudden shift in the air, the creak of the floorboards, the dip of the mattress under his weight. his warm breath near the nape of your neck.
your heart kicked in your chest.
“…toji?” you whispered, uncertain, afraid to turn around.
a pause stretched long.
“…can’t sleep,” he murmured, voice rough, like it scraped against something inside him just to speak.
your pulse quickened. “you… wanna stay here tonight?”
he hesitated. the air thickened, heavy with tension.
when he finally responded, his voice was low. remorseful.
“should’ve been sleepin’ here from the start.”
you didn’t know what to say. but when you shifted, he took it as an invitation— easing into the sheets behind you, his massive arm hesitating before wrapping around your waist.
his touch was delicate. almost reverent.
you held your breath as his fingers brushed your stomach. then your ribs. then lower.
“you sure?” he whispered, lips grazing your ear.
you didn’t need time to think before you breathed out a barely audible, “yes.”
a pause. then a low groan, rumbling in his chest.
“good,” he growled, voice thick with restraint finally snapping. “been holdin’ back for too fuckin’ long.”
and then he finally kissed you.
it was messy. desperate. months of pent-up frustration crashing all at once. his mouth was warm, his lips greedy, tongue sweeping against yours like he needed to taste every piece of you. every part he’d denied himself.
you whimpered, hands fisting in his hair, and he groaned against your mouth— deep and guttural, as if it physically hurt to hold back.
“fuck, baby… taste so sweet,” he murmured, breath warm on your lips. his hands roamed, rough palms caressing your hips, your thighs, your stomach.
he pulled back just long enough to sit up and yank your nightshirt over your head in one swift motion, tossing it to the floor. you lay bare beneath him, chest rising and falling, lips parted in anticipation— the look in his eyes darkened, heat blooming behind his lashes. his gaze dropped to your underwear, and a crooked smirk curved his mouth.
“always sleepin’ in those little fuckin’ panties,” he muttered, laced with amusement and need. “you do it to tease me?”
“n-no, i—” your throat tightened as he hooked his fingers into the waistband, dragging them down your thighs with excruciating slowness, knuckles brushing your skin.
“you do now,” he said, eyes never leaving you. “so pretty… ‘s all mine, yeah?”
you nodded quickly, heart thudding in your chest. “yours.”
he leaned down, kissed your collarbone, your chest, your waist— leaving no place of you untouched. his stubble scraped your skin, rough enough to make your thighs twitch, your breath hitch. you shivered as he moved lower, lips brushing along your inner thighs until he was nestled between them
“spread those legs, sweet girl,” he rasped. “lemme taste what i’ve been missin’.”
you obeyed instantly, trembling.
and then he was on you.
your cry cracked the silence, body jolting as his tongue met your folds— slow, deliberate, filthy. he devoured you like he was starving, tongue flat and thorough, savoring every bit of you with obscene groans vibrating against your pussy.
“fuck… so wet for me already,” he breathed between licks, voice muffled and wrecked. “this pretty lil’ cunt’s been waitin’, huh?”
“t-toji— ah!”
he moaned in response, sucking your clit into his mouth while two fingers pushed inside— curling just right, filling you so perfectly it made your toes curl. you were already so sensitive, so overwhelmed, but he didn’t slow down, didn’t give you a second to catch your breath.
he kept going, relentless, mouth and hands working in tandem until your thighs shook around his head and your fingers tugged his hair, your orgasm ripping through you in thick waves as you cried out his name.
only when you fell back against the pillows, panting and soaked, did he finally stop.
he sat back on his knees, eyes half-lidded, licking his lips like he couldn’t bear to waste a drop of you. he made quick work of his belt, unbuckling it with one hand while the other gently stroked your thigh, soothing you. his cock was thick, flushed, the tip glistening. heavy in his palm as he stroked himself slow, watching the way your chest rose and fell.
“gonna fuck you slow,” he promised, “but i ain’t gonna be gentle.”
you whimpered. “want you… please, toji.”
he leaned in and kissed you again— deep and messy, still tasting like you— before guiding himself to your entrance and pressing in, steady and thick, easing deeper until your walls stretched to take all of him.
“fuck,” he hissed, jaw clenched. “grippin’ me like a fuckin’ vice…”
he stayed still at first, letting you adjust to his size, forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning across your lips. then he rolled his hips, slow and deep, dragging every ridge of him along your walls. you were already gasping, body arching into his, overwhelmed by how full he made you feel. your legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, grounding yourself against the dizzying pleasure.
and then he started to move— faster, deeper, driving into you with smooth, powerful thrusts. the bed creaked beneath you, the headboard thudded against the wall in rhythm.
“yeah, take it, baby,” he grunted. “takin’ it so good for me.”
his mouth found your neck, then your shoulder, then your lips again— hot and open, tongue sliding against yours between moans. you couldn’t think, couldn’t speak— only hold on and feel. your nails raked down his back as he fucked you harder, each thrust making your breath hitch.
“always thought about this,” he confessed between gritted teeth. “every fuckin’ night on that couch. wanted to come in here… split you open.”
his hand came up to wrap around your throat, not choking, just holding. “look at me.”
your eyes fluttered open, and he looked down at you like he was worshipping you. you were already teary, completely undone, and somehow still falling apart beneath him.
his lips were back on yours, languid, teasing, yet driven by something deeper. like he finally understood what it meant to want.
“mine,” he growled, low and steady. “you hear me?”
“yours,” you whispered back, broken and sure.
he groaned as he came, burying himself as deep as he could go, hips grinding into you while he spilled inside— thick and warm, pulse after pulse. you felt it fill you, every drop, your walls fluttering around him as you whimpered through the overstimulation.
you clung to him like a lifeline, barely able to breathe.
and still, he didn’t move.
he stayed there, chest heaving, one hand cupping your cheek, nose brushing your skin like he couldn’t stop touching you. he kissed your temple, your cheek, your jaw. soft and sweet and quiet.
“shouldn’t’ve waited this long,” he murmured against your skin. “you… you make this place feel like home.”
you blinked up at him, bleary-eyed.
“…i thought you didn’t like me,” you hesitantly confessed.
his brows pulled together. “didn’t like you?”
you nodded. “you always slept on the couch. you never talked to me…”
his expression softened, almost ashamed.
he lets out a shaky breath.
“did it ‘cause i didn’t wanna scare you. didn’t think i deserved to sleep next to you yet.”
your heart clenched so tightly you thought it might break.
“…you do,” you whispered, reaching up to touch his face. “you do now.”
he leaned into your palm.
then kissed you— slow, tender, like he meant every breath of it.
that night, for the first time, you fell asleep in your husband’s arms.
and for once… he didn’t leave.
i don’t think i’m very good at writing angst but i tried 🤧 i rlly hope i executed this well enough bc i never wrote arranged marriage trope before but i feel like this wasn’t that bad idkskdksk
trailer park. dubcon/noncon. creepy socially inept simon. kitchen sex. predatory behavior. tattoo sleeves simon is canon. thumb sucking. breeding kink-ish. pulling the panties to the side is hotter than taking it off. all characters are 18+. DDNE.
You're pretty sure the dad you babysit for is a creep. Alternatively, he hates your guts, wearing a perpetual, nasty scowl as his eyes drop to your skirt's hem, replying only in wordless grunts. Of course, you're a self-respecting girl. You don't stand for any disrespect. You stick your nose up a little and keep away from him unless absolutely necessary, because the pay is good and Simon can't fire you because you're good at your job. At least, that's why you think Mr Riley hasn't fired you yet.
He owns a caravan on the edge of town, totally off-the-grid. Military guy sensibilities. Simon does what he does to keep his daughter safe, and you don't ask questions. It's a nice enough unit and bigger than the whole world when you're a 3ft tall three-year-old.
Your friends urge you to find another job the more they hear about this burly brute with tattoo sleeves you work for in the middle of nowhere, but at the end of another moping phone call, you find a 40% bonus tucked into the envelope with your pay and your fate is sealed.
The thought of him overhearing your qualms—and worse, compensating you for it—makes you feel bad, so you start to work extra hard. Leaving a plate for him from the meals you make for Beth, accompanied by sticky notes; seeing him out the door, etc... all in hopes you'll get tipped. Okay, maybe a conscience isn't the only reason for your good behavior—the financial incentives are great too. The tips keep coming, and your doe eyes only get sweeter. To you, it's good customer service, no flirtations involved. You're a professional, after all.
Simon, famously, is bad with social cues and sees more than there is in your hard work. Doesn't register that the extra sweet 'Good morning, Mr Riley,' and happy-faces drawn in honey on his pancakes only come with payments, not for his mean mug. It starts with casual touches: a hand on your shoulder while you chop Beth's veggies into bite-sized pieces, on your waist in passing. I mean, you're practically a hired wife at this point, so what's the trouble, right? You'd be the perfect mother for Beth.
“Beth's been calling you her Mummy,” he says it one day, all casual-like, hands busy with unlacing his boots. The lights are off save for a small lamp in the kitchen while you pack your laptop and charger into a slouchy shoulder-bag, the air humming with Beth's absence. You fuss with the zipper, the mechanism staggering. Simon pretends not to notice.
“I keep telling her not to--” A breathy laugh slips past your lips—a nervous sounding thing. Your face burns up against all reason and you can't place your finger on what it is about that remark that makes you feel defensive. Surely you wouldn't think twice if somebody else said it, but a strange implication seeps in through the cracks of his noncommittal demeanor. There's always something just slightly off, slightly off-kilter when it comes to him. This is wrong, you think, before anything has happened.
“Nowt to worry about.” He shakes his head dismissively and you fancy that he's almost good at pretending to be a normal person. A real person as opposed to a ghost. The leathery couch squeaks under him as he hauls his weight off, unfolding to his full height.
The zipper finally gives when Simon stops in front of you. Your lips part to say something—announce your departure, maybe—before his long fingers tilt your chin up slightly. “You'd be a great mother,” Simon says, evenly, like he's measuring the words—or rather, you. It's the first solid piece of praise he's given you thus far, and it disarms you just a bit after all the stonewalling you've been subject to.
As if sensing the casual shift in the air, Simon capitalizes with an off handed question: “Ever thought about it?”
“About what? Having my own? Erm, no.” You wave your hands like the notion is ridiculous, laughing awkwardly. You're living on a babysitter's wages and busy getting your degree, a child has no part in the equation.
The way Simon eyes you says he has a different idea entirely. It feels wrong, knowing you have your whole life ahead of you, but he can vividly picture you barefoot and pregnant under that same sundress.
“I love working with kids, but I don't think I'll have a baby any time soon,” you ramble, sounding distracted as you back up against the counter. You know it's unreasonable, but a part of you would rather people-please than be downright rude, a smile tugging at your lips as you watch his hands warily.
You ignore the red alerts, telling yourself maybe—just maybe—you're wrong, and Simon is simply a well-meaning, harmless dad. But that's how you ended up here in the first place; you never let yourself truly read into the way he looked at you, never let it dissuade you from working hard, until now. You even stopped complaining to your friends weeks ago.
“Huh.” Simon nods in consideration, pretending to think for a moment. Your feet remain rooted to the spot as Simon's hands find the hem of your dress, teasing it upwards slightly.
“Stop-” Your hand shoots to his wrist as the air hits your thighs, neither pulling nor pushing. Your soft fingers look insignificant next to his arm, pearly manicure to tattoo ink.
“Calm yer tits.” A wry laugh stirs the top of your hair, his shoulders crowding you against the countertop. “Beth's fast asleep.”
You can think up a few other reasons why this is bad business, though you have a feeling they won't hold up well.
Your hand goes slack against his as he reaches up your dress, a shiver rippling up your spine. “We shouldn't-” You stumble against his chest as Simon languidly cups your ass, the heady scent soaked into his shirt flooding your senses until it blurs with the shameful pounding of your heart. “I don't...” Want this.
“You're a little bird, ain't ya?” You meet his heavy-lidded gaze with bated breath as his fingers hook under your chin again, his thumb creeping to the edge of your mouth. The absence of warmth when his hand slips from beneath your dress leaves you almost wondering, before he cups your tits through the flimsy fabric in spite of your shock. “Spook easy.”
“Can feel your heart goin' like mad, y'know?”
For the first time, he speaks more than he listens. Grabs more than he hears your stubborn whines, his fingers stuffing your mouth, before his hands soon find other work. Insistent and cajoling. His meaty palms roam wherever they land—thumbs dragging over the hardened peaks of your nipples through your dress, one hand sliding down to hitch your leg around his waist. The dull throb behind his fly is a demanding ache, a gnawing hunger that makes Simon feel impossibly patient after months of watching you frolic around his home without ever tasting you.
Simon lets out a guttural rasp over you as your writhing body presses against his hard-on, teasing him through rough denim. “Bloody hell.” He turns you by the waist and presses you against the countertop with a finality that draws a startled squeak from your throat. The noise dies at once. His daughter is asleep down the hall; the last thing you need is to make a scene. You swallow whatever words rise to your tongue, acutely aware of every sound in the trailer, jaw tightening as the counter edge nudges uncomfortably against your hipbones.
You blanch at the thick, hard bulge poking your backside, teething at your thumb nail skittishly. A sickening shudder rolls through you as his hips press forwards with a groan above you, lazily rocking you against the countertop.
“Don't make a sound.”
He'd been more action than words for the better part of the last couple minutes, but his voice seems enough to raise the fine hairs on your nape.
“Yessir...” The words slur together as you slip your thumb between your lips, pink-cheeked. The little bob of your head is all Simon needs before he's freeing his cock from the zipper of his jeans.
The ascent of the thin cotton fabric feels impossibly heavy as he lifts the dress up your hips and settles it around your waist. The pad of his thumb traces your slit through the gusset of your panties, moisture darkening the fabric, before he hooks his fingers through the leg holes and bares your cunt to his eyes.
He clicks his tongue to himself meaningfully and tilts his head as if sizing you up while you suckle on your thumb under him, legs dangling over the edge of the kitchen counter. A sight for sore eyes deserves appreciation, and Simon has only ever known one way to show it—one that'd leave you sore come morning.
“Not so flighty now, eh?” Heat skims the edge of your ear as he speaks in a low drawl, and you almost miss the hitch in his breath when he pushes inch-by-inch into the heat of your cunt. “Who's a good girl?”
Your brows bunch together with exertion at the tight stretch as you peek back at him, all hapless with your lips puckered around your own thumb. You hesitantly slip your thumb from your mouth to speak, the words feeling dumb and embarrassing. “I-I am,” you mumble between soft whimpers sheepishly.
“Yeah. You are.” Humiliation curdles low in your stomach at the sound of his amusement, a slick string of arousal dripping down your center. “Little bird stops complainin' soon as she feels this big dick. You love it, don't you? Just need a paci to shut you up.”
Simon's fingers knead into your flesh with an ease that feels strangely intrusive, as though they have no business being so familiar with you. His calloused palm cracks against the swell of your ass before he bottoms out, your toes curling into the cool tiles as he fills you up. The counter's edge bites into your hips as he pulls back, almost all the way out, before slamming home without any give. Your palms scrabble against the laminate, searching for purchase as he sets a punishing rhythm, each thrust knocking the breath from your lungs in short, punched-out gasps.
He's effectively everywhere. One hand splays across your lower back, pinning you down, while the other finds your hair, gathering it at the nape of your neck in a secure grip, enough to keep you exactly where he wants you.
“That's it,” he rasps, the words carried over the slap of skin on skin echoing through the kitchen's shadows. “Take it.”
Your knees wobble under you, but his grip on your hip tightens like a vice, holding you up, holding you open. The wet sound of him fucking into you fills the kitchen—obscene and rhythmic, drowning out your own muffled whimpers.
He leans over you, chest hot against your back, mouth brushing your ear.
“Thought you could get away from me, little bird. Where you gonna go now?”
— wah wah y/n in a sundress ... y/n with manicured nails ... yes IK i've seen every tumblr post making fun of the cliches but this is what you get when the author (me) likes those things!! crucify me 🙄 at least she's independent and educated!!
NOT PROOFREAD! i hatee the super rushed ending. also oops i realized i accidentally described reader as pink-cheeked in this, i usually avoid appearance descriptions but icba to edit it anymore. >_<
︵ ೀ mdni. being anxious and insecure the fist time sleeping with toji so he has to learn how to be soft ( size difference / tummy bulge / creampie )
toji fushiguro has never felt this helpless in his life.
you’re lying underneath him, completely naked, and instead of the usual heat and hunger, all he sees is anxiety written all over your face. your arms are crossed tightly over your chest, knees pressed together, eyes squeezed shut like you’re bracing for something painful. you want this—you told him you did—but right now you look terrified.
“hey,” he mutters, voice rougher than he means it to be. “you still with me?”
you nod, but it’s tiny. “i… i want to. really. i just—i’m scared i won’t be good enough. you’re so… big. everywhere.”
toji glances down at himself, at his broad chest, thick arms, heavy cock already hard and leaking against his stomach. yeah. he knows. the size difference has never bothered him before, he even kinda liked it, but seeing you this nervous makes something uncomfortable twist in his chest. he isn’t used to this. he’s used to rough, fast, no feelings attached. not this soft, shaky vulnerability.
“shit,” he breathes, running a hand through his hair. he feels clumsy, too big for the moment. “i’m not good at this gentle shit.”
still, he tries. he shifts his weight so he’s not crushing you, lowering himself onto his elbows. one massive hand gently pries your arms away from your chest. “don’t hide from me,” he says, quieter this time. “you’re so beautiful.”
you whimper when his calloused palm cups your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple. he’s trying to be soft, but his hands are rough from years of fighting.
toji leans down and kisses your neck, slow and open-mouthed, hoping it helps. when you finally relax a little, he moves lower, kissing between your breasts, then your stomach. his mouth is hot, a little sloppy, but sincere.
“tell me if it’s too much,” he mumbles against your skin. “i’ll stop. swear.”
when he finally settles between your legs, his cock looks obscene against your smaller frame. thick, heavy, already glistening. you tense again the second you feel the blunt head nudge your entrance.
“breathe,” he says, one hand stroking your thigh. he’s trying so hard to be gentle, but his voice is strained. “i’m not gonna shove it in. not like that.”
he rubs the head up and down your slit, coating himself in your wetness. you’re soaked despite the nerves, and that small fact makes him groan low in his throat. still, he goes slow—pushing in just the tip first, jaw clenched tight.
“fuck… you’re tight,” he hisses. his hips twitch, instinct screaming at him to thrust, but he forces himself still. “too much?”
you shake your head, eyes still closed. “keep going… please.”
toji pushes in another inch, then another, cursing under his breath the whole time. every time you whimper he freezes, big hand rubbing clumsy circles on your hip. he feels too big, too rough, too much for someone as anxious as you. but you’re taking him so well, stretching around his thick cock, and it’s driving him crazy.
halfway in, he leans down and presses his forehead to yours. his voice comes out rough but surprisingly soft. “you’re doing good, baby. so fucking good for me.”
when he finally bottoms out, buried to the hilt, you both moan. he stays still for a long moment, letting you adjust, even though his arms are shaking with the effort of holding back.
then he starts moving—slow, shallow thrusts at first, trying not to be too rough. but toji has never been gentle in his life, and it shows. his hips snap a little harder than he means, the slap of skin louder than he wants. every time he catches himself he curses and slows down again, kissing you messily to make up for it.
“sorry—shit, sorry,” he mutters against your lips when he accidentally thrusts too deep. “you feel too good. can’t help it.”
you wrap your arms around his neck, finally opening your eyes. the fear is still there, but so is want. “it’s okay… i like when you’re a little rough.”
that seems to break something in him. toji gathers you against his broad chest, one thick arm sliding under your back to hold you tight. he fucks you like that—deep, steady, still a little clumsy, but wrapped completely around you. every thrust is punctuated with gruff praises and clumsy kisses.
when you finally cum, clenching hard around his cock, toji follows right after with a low groan that vibrates through his chest. the feeling hits him like a punch to the gut.
your walls flutter and squeeze around him so tightly, pulsing in waves as your orgasm crashes through you, and it drags him under with you. his hips stutter once, twice, then slam deep one final time as he spills inside you—thick, hot ropes of his creamy cum flooding your insides for the very first time.
“fuck— that’s it… take it,” he rasps against your ear.
it feels overwhelming. the wet heat of your pussy milking him, the way your body trembles and clenches like it never wants to let him go, the slick sound of his cum already starting to leak out around his thick cock. he’s never felt anything like this before—raw, intimate, almost too much.
every pulse of his release seems to push deeper, filling you until you’re stuffed full of him. toji stays buried to the hilt, hips pressed flush against yours, letting every last drop spill into you. his breath comes in heavy pants against your neck as the intensity slowly ebbs, leaving him shaky and strangely tender.
he’s cum inside plenty of women before, but never like this.
never while holding someone so small and anxious in his arms. never while feeling your heartbeat hammering against his own. never while his rough hands are still gently stroking your back like you might disappear if he stops touching you.
the sensation lingers—warm, wet, intimate—and it makes his cock twitch again even as he softens just a little inside you.
“shit…” he mutters. “you feel that? feel me filling you up?”
he presses a soft kiss to your shoulder, still rocking ever so slightly to push his cum deeper, savoring the way your body accepts every bit of him.
for the first time in his life, cumming inside someone doesn’t just feel good.
it feels right.
then his large hand slides down between your bodies. his palm presses firmly against your lower belly, right below your navel. he pushes down gently, feeling the slight bulge of his thick cock still buried deep inside you.
“fuck… can feel myself right here. so deep in you.”
you gasp sharply—you’re still so oversensitive from your orgasm, every nerve raw and sparking. the feeling of his hand pressing down while he’s still inside you makes your cheeks burn with embarrassment. you try to squirm away.
“toji… don’t— it’s embarrassing…”
“no,” he says, firm but surprisingly gentle. his thumb strokes softly over your skin as he looks down at you, eyes dark and intense even in the low light. “look how well you’re taking me. all full of my cum… belly swelling just a little because of me. nothing about this is embarrassing, baby. it’s fucking perfect.”
you whimper, face burning hotter, but your body betrays you by clenching around him again. toji lets out a low, satisfied hum and presses down just a tiny bit more, feeling the shape of himself through your soft stomach.
“yeah… just like that,” he murmurs, voice dropping even lower. “so damn pretty when you’re stuffed full of me.”
then toji rolls onto his back, taking you with him so you’re lying on his massive chest, his cock still nestled warm inside you. the room is quiet except for your slowing breaths. his rough hands, usually so quick to grab and bruise, now move with surprising tenderness. one palm strokes slowly up and down your spine, while the other hand cups the back of your head, thumb brushing gently behind your ear.
he keeps caressing you in long, lazy passes—over your shoulders, down your arms, along the curve of your waist. every touch is careful, almost hesitant, like he’s afraid his calluses might scratch you.
what the hell have you done to him?
he feels clumsy and huge and completely out of his depth, yet he can’t stop touching you. can’t stop wanting to be gentle for you.
“you okay?” he asks.
you nod. “yeah… you were really good to me.”
toji huffs a quiet laugh, but there’s no bite in it. his hand keeps stroking your back in slow circles. “didn’t think i still knew how to be gentle,” he admits, almost to himself. “you’re making me all soft, doll. never thought anyone could do that.”
he pulls the blanket higher around your shoulders and tucks you more securely against him, one thick thigh sliding between yours to keep you close. his fingers continue their gentle exploration—tracing the shell of your ear, the line of your jaw, the delicate skin of your collarbone.
“stay here tonight,” he murmurs, pressing another soft kiss to your hair. “don’t want you going anywhere. not after that.”
you smile against his chest, and toji feels something warm and unfamiliar settle deep in his ribs.
yeah… you’ve ruined him.
and for once, the roughest man alive doesn’t mind being soft at all.
part one!! part two!!
you let out a sigh of relief when you return and sukuna is nowhere to be found. in your eyes, it was the least he could do after all that he put you through. but of course, he couldn't leave you completely alone. in the morning, your phone was lighting up with notifications from sukuna from other apps. the bastard even tried messaging you on spotify for god's sake. you didn't bother answering to any of them, blocking him on any app you could think of. you don't hear from him anymore and honestly, it brings a different kind of peace to your soul.
for the next few weeks, you take yourself completely off the 'dating scene'. after removing any old posts or stories of sukuna, you detach from social media as much as you can and take the time to focus on yourself. in all the time you spent dating sukuna— if you could even call it that— you were almost always focused on him. it was draining in a way you didn't even know was possible. so now that you had all this time to yourself, you were forever grateful. it was almost odd how full your soul was when no one else was occupying a space in your heart.
just when there was a calm in your life, of course, something would try to squeeze in.
so that is how you found yourself sharing a coffee with toji the next morning.
"y'know i don't know why you feel bad," you admit, taking a sip from your cup.
toji shrugs, "i told you, i felt like i wasn't fair to either of you. im not just sukuna's friend but i know i made it seem like that."
you shake your head, "i didn't feel that way, toji; you were always there to drag him out of my place anyways."
that earns a little laugh from him but you can tell it doesn't do much for the heaviness in his chest, for the guilt he was feeling for whatever reason. "still, wouldn't even be in that situation if i just socked him in the face to begin with."
"you can beat him up all you like, he would still be himself and that has nothing to do with you. at the end of the day, i don't want to have any bad blood between any of us."
you don't know how long you stay at that coffee shop with toji before the two of you decide to go into town. it wasn't the first time you've hung out with toji one-on-one, but it has been a while. the last time you did, sukuna turned it into a big fight. so while you remained friends with toji, you haven't gotten the chance to go out like this with him. nevertheless, it all feels like second nature. he walks into shops with you and waits patiently while you look for items, even if he didn't want to buy anything. at some point, the two of you past a floral shop and toji drags you inside. you walk out with a bouquet of your favorite flowers.
"you were staring at them," toji explains easily.
by the end of the hangout, toji dropped you off at your dorm with a bouquet of flowers along with a couple shopping bags, none of which you paid for courtesy of toji once again.
"why are you doing this, toji?" you ask him. "do you pity me or something?"
"i don't pity you, yn."
"then what is it?" before he even gets to open his mouth to spout the next bullshit excuse, you beat him to the punch. "and don't say it's because you feel bad about the whole thing, i know it's more than that."
toji sighs and takes a moment before he builds the courage to answer you. "i just— i guess i wanted to prove that not every guy would treat you like sukuna."
you speak before you even knew where the confidence was coming from."i knew that already. so if its not out of pity, i think you were trying to prove that you could treat me better than him."
toji maintains your gaze, "and what's so wrong with that?"
you shake your head softly, "nothing, that's the point. i'm sorry toji but i just can't see myself getting into something romantic right now. i want to focus on myself before trying to love someone else."
"i'm not asking you to love me," toji corrects. "i'm not asking anything from you actually, i just wanted to show you that you don't have to be alone if you don't want to. i'm not rushing you but i am gonna wait."
and wait he did. you never felt rushed with toji, he was similar to a shadow that you knew was there but never bothered you. he came when you needed him and left when you wanted him to. slowly but surely, you started to fall for him as well.
you explained to him how you were wary of this whole thing, but he reasurred you and explained that he's liked you for a while. "don't be forced into this, yn," toji tells you. "i'm not gonna combust just because you don't want this, do whatever you want for yourself. don't worry about anyone else." his words and his actions tell you that he's genuine. but he doesn't blame you for wanting to take things slow.
it felt easier than it ever felt with sukuna because for once, you were the one in control. toji reminded you that you were a prize to be a won, not some booty call. it was some time before you made it official with toji, but the two of you decided to keep the relationship as low-key as possible. afterall, it was for you two, not for the approval of others.
ta-da!! the long awaited version two im so sorry if she's kinda short T^T
⌗ TOJI FUSHIGURO / 伏黒 甚爾
mdni. ◞♡ toji sends you nudes the whole day
your phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. it was barely past nine in the morning and you were already regretting not silencing it before your shift. the office did not offer much privacy so every vibration against your thigh made your stomach flip.
morning gorgeous. slept like shit without you.
he attached a mirror selfie. his broad chest filled the frame. you can see his dark happy trail disappeared into low black boxers, and that cocky smirk was aimed straight at the camera.
you typed under the desk: toji. i’m at work.
so? i’m bored and got aaaaalllll day to think about how good you looked riding me last night.
he sent a new photo. his boxers were shoved down. his thick cock rested heavy on his stomach. one big hand wrapped around the base. the veins were prominent. the tip was already shiny with precum.
heat flooded your face. you locked the screen and tried to focus on the spreadsheet. it didn’t work. by ten-thirty he was sending short videos—lazy strokes, low voice murmuring your name, “miss that pretty mouth, baby.”
you lasted until lunch before slipping into the single bathroom. the stall door clicked shut. another photo had arrived while you were walking: toji on his knees on the mattress, ass up, looking back over his shoulder with a wicked grin, scar on his lip pulled tight.
“fuck,” you whispered. your fingers were already under your panties when the next message popped up.
ignoring me? bad girl. gonna punish you when you get home.
with it he sent a close-up of his cock. precum dripped onto the sheets while his fist squeezed the flushed head.
you came fast and quiet, biting your wrist, then cleaned up and went back to your desk on shaky legs. the rest of the afternoon was pure torture. he kept spamming—texts about how bored he was, how he was just chilling, maybe playing games or napping. in your mind he was living that unemployed life he always joked about: cereal for lunch, no schedule, nothing but time to get himself off and send you the evidence.
the photos kept coming. him in the shower, water streaming down his muscular body. a fresh cumshot across his abs, voice note of him groaning your name. by four-thirty your panties were soaked through and your focus was gone.
shift over yet? been thinking about bending you over the second you walk in. got something nice and hard waiting.
he sent a last photo. he was sprawled on the couch, legs spread wide. his cock flushed and heavy in his hand.
hurry up, princess. daddy’s lonely.
you grabbed your bag the second the clock hit five. on the train you finally replied, you’re the worst. what did you even do all day??
nothing much. same old. miss you.
what you didn’t know—what he could never tell you—was that “nothing much” had been a silenced pistol in a warehouse across town, a clean headshot, and a thick envelope of cash now hidden under the floorboard at home.
toji wasn’t unemployed. he just played the part so you would stay soft and safe and none the wiser. he sent nudes instead of explanations, kept you wet and distracted at work, and waited for you to come home smiling, exactly like this.
you smiled at the screen, already wet again at the thought of walking through the door. if only you knew.
venus as a boy ⧽ you decide to volunteer at your local library, only to figure out that the owners grandson is not at all what you imagined. you’re fully convinced he hates you — only to soon realize he’s been planning on which position to put you in first.
back of the net ⧽ satoru absolutely falls in love with the girl that can play piano. too bad he’s forbidden from dating, but who’s to stop him
DRABBLES / ONE SHOTS
sneaking in for sex
using his balls as a needoh
spider-man is your ex
he’s crushing on an alt girl
AITA for fucking my twins ex?
obsessed with his beauty marks
wisdom teeth removal
him & his shy girl
cosplay sex
spider-man cums a lot
mother’s day
brace face part 2
jealous jealous girl
he hates your bf
he apologizes with his dick, not words
satoru is surprised to see his pretty neighbor
ovulation
UPCOMING
offside romance ⧽ Satoru Gojo’s reputation isn’t look too well with all the “playboy” accusations, not while being the most successful soccer player in the University of Tokyo. So what better way to get it back up than to fake a relationship with the pretty barista from the local coffee shop?
