ok stay with me now… reader and robby are in a situationship that HE decided to keep undefined and open. at the bar or maybe even at a medical formal event the dj starts playing single ladies and reader starts dancing with her friends and other guys and robby gets jelly af and has to make it clear he wants more than just smth casual. tee hee
18+ MDNI
robby was a casual man. not in his approach, but his lifestyle. when you walked into the emergency department as a new resident almost twelve months ago, he wasted no time in making his attraction and intentions clear.
you like mexican?
he casually asked during your charts one day, just a mere week into your career at ptmc. before that came praise and the general small talk during procedures and coffee breaks, his eyes caught yours across the bay or nurses station. you liked the straightforwardness of it all, how he clearly wanted to sleep with you and was brazen enough to ask you out mid-shift.
the first date he took you for taco's and tequila, followed by mind-blowing sex that went on until sunrise. robby had made it clear after the third tequila that he liked casual, no labels, the unserious kind of arrangement and you're not sure if you agreed because you were drunk, or if actually because it could be good for you too.
you fucked almost every night. sometimes you'd pay a visit to the bar or for dinner and other times you'd fall into his truck after a tiresome shift and take out your exhaustion on one another.
he wasn't against you staying the night. hell, he even poured you coffee in a morning as the two of you talked like you hadn't had his cock down your throat hours before.
it became routine. you were each others behind the closed door of his apartment, and almost strangers the rest of the time. there was no special treatment at work, he spoke to you like everyone else and that was the agreement. you agreed to it.
so maybe you were silly for wanting to change everything.
"don't you think this could be nice?"
"it is nice"
the way he looked at you, almost confused at your suggestion.
"but it could be more..."
you could tell how he felt in the depth of his exhale. and that was that.
so you stopped the arrangement. no more casual hook ups or post shift booty calls and you saw the change in robby. for a second you thought he might've actually missed you, as in you and your company, not just the sex.
but he was just the same at work. some glances lingered longer than others, you liked when they did and hoped it meant something but the way the nurses spoke about dr robinavitch's antics made it sound like you were just another name in the book.
-
"you're coming tonight right?" santos leant over the desk you were chatting at. you looked up and exhaled. "oh come onnnnn, don't leave me with huckleberry all night, i want to actually have fun"
"i'm right here" dennis quipped from the seat opposite.
"yeah and you said you had a two drink limit tonight, zip it" she turned back to you as you tried not to laugh at dennis' expense. "so please?"
you were about to decline, again, when you caught robby's eye across the hall and your brain started to cook something. it'd been nearly two weeks since things ended.
"who's going?" you asked, eyes still on him.
"me"
"yes i'm aware, and whitaker. who else?" you turned back to her finally.
"most of the day shift, heard abbot's owed some time back so he's coming with robby"
you relaxed your shoulders and santos beamed down at you with her fingers intertwined beneath her chin in a plea.
"fine, i'll come" you said as if you were finally giving in for her yet you had other things on your mind for the evening.
-
it turned 8pm and you were in your shortest dress, tipsy from the three white claws you pre-gamed getting ready. you walked into that bar with a spring in your step, relishing the cat call from trinity and more-so relishing his eyes all over you.
"looking sexy, mama" she slapped your ass and handed you the spicy marg you'd text her to order. "driiiiiiiink"
the drinks flowed a little too well. you didn't speak to robby, just continued to catch his eye through the night when you'd bend over the table in conversation or drop to the floor to pick up your bag. you knew he was watching you walk to the bar since the curve of your ass peeked out from under your dress.
10pm came and the DJ decided to drop a string of beyonce in the hopes of filling the dance floor. love on top, crazy in love, texas hold em all did their job and the room was bustling. you didn't join til the beat of single ladies landed you with a clear epiphany of the next 3-4 minutes.
"come on" trinity stumbled as you dragged her backwards by the arm. "let's dance"
she made no objection, holding her drink in the air and swaying her hips behind you. the spot on the dance floor was just far enough from the table, close enough to keep an eye on robby. or for him to keep an eye on you.
the words echoed across the bar, all the girlies singing their hearts out to the familiar tune, dancing the familiar dance.
you were far too into it for robby's liking. throwing your hair back, pulling trinity in. then there were the other guys who'd flocked mid-song, the ones you were hooking your arms around, rolling your hips against and he didn't like it. not one bit.
"you good brother?" jack patted his back when robby had cleared his throat a little too loud.
"fine" he swilled the dregs of beer in his bottle, knocking it back before sliding out of the booth. "ready for another?"
jack replied despite robby being halfway across the dancefloor already, his route straight in your direction 'on his way to the bar.'
you were hooked around some guy when robby suddenly loomed over the pair of you.
"headed to the bar, you want something?" you could see in his eyes it was a plea, not a question. he hoped you'd just accept, attach yourself to his arm as he fought his way through the crowd for you. but you hesistated.
"i'm good thanks" god you regretted it the second it left your lips. you watched his eyes burn into you as he willed himself to ask again, to pull you to the side despite your rejection. but he didn't. he left you, left the bar entirely and let you dance with strangers as you intended.
"fuck fuck fuck" he muttered to himself on the sidewalk, needing the cool air to calm down. it was the realisation that he had done this, that you wanted it to be more but he was the one setting boundaries and turning you down. he had no right to stop you dancing or doing whatever the fuck hou were planning on with those guys, he had no right over you at all.
"robby?"
he turned to find you stood, arms folded against the breeze.
"you're leaving?"
his hand rubbed the back of his neck like it did every time he didn't know what to say. you could tell you'd more than won by the way he avoided your gaze but suddenly, you didn't feel thrilled in your victory.
"hey, you okay?" you stepped forward, bringing a hand up to his bicep. "i'm sorry if—"
"i can't see you with other guys. i hate it" he blew. "i know i said it, i know i was the one who set the tone but fuck—" he shook his head, hands coming to rest on his hips. "i can't do it"
"what're you saying?"
his eyes finally met yours but he didn't speak for a moment, just soaked you in.
"fuck" said like a man finally giving into himself. "i want you so bad" his hand came up to cup your jaw, a thick thumb swiping across your cheek. "gotta have you, can i have you baby, please"
robby leant down, his lips lapping at your neck in hot, wet kisses. hand trailing to grip your waist like he was pulling you in tight, right where he could keep you. "tell me, tell me you want me as bad as i want you, fuck baby please"
you'd never heard this kind of desperation from him. the way he begged and pleaded into your skin, hungrily nipping at the corner of your lips til he was licking into your mouth.
"always wanted you" you murmured into him and he swallowed your words whole.
the next thing, he was pulling you down the alley, to the discrete spot behind the parking lot, where he could hoist your dress above your hips and sink two thick fingers deep into your aching cunt.
"fuck!" your hips jolted at the sudden fullness. "missed you so fucking much michael oh my—" his lips attacked your neck again, beard scratching the skin and making it sore in the most delightful way.
"they wouldn't know how to treat you" kiss, "wouldn't know what to do with you" kiss, "how to make you feel as good as i can", "to love you like i can" kiss.
robby's words went straight to your pussy and he felt the sudden clench around his fingers.
"yeah you know it don't you baby?" he pulled back to look at you coming undone beneath him. "you know they're no good"
you tried to agree, tried to tell him what you really wanted to say but fuck, you felt his fingers in your stomach, curling at the meanest angle til all you could manage was a desperate whine against his chest.
then robby pulled his fingers out and before you could react to the sudden emptiness, he sank to his knees and pulled one leg to sit over his shoulder.
"robby— fuck, what if someone comes?"
"let them"
then he was face first in your cunt, eating you like you were the last thing on earth. his nose nudged your clit while his tongue circled your entrance, moaning at the taste of you before sinking inside.
"shit, michael, gonna— gonna cum" you never lasted long with his head between your legs. the way his nose was made to be ridden, how it sat perfect for you to writhe against as he held you by the thighs.
"mine, you're mine, always mine" he mumbled into your pussy, fingers digging into flesh.
"yours, all yours" you had to clamp your hand over your mouth as you came, twitching and gushing all over his face. he continued to lick and suck, electric jolts making you convulse under his touch and with a final kiss against your slit, he rose to his feet.
robby adjusted your dress before kissing you again. this time, deep and slow as you tasted yourself all over his lips and beard.
"c'mon" he pulled you back towards the bar. "got an announcement to make"
˚₊ ✧ JUST A WISH. — titus danforth x secretary!reader. you just wanted him to love you and you'd do anything to get it. (obsession au.)
rain pours down relentlessly as you sit in your shitty little vehicle. your vision blurs, a pathetic sniffle disguised by the pitter-patter of the raindrops against the roof of your car. you blink away the tears to read the fading print on the old box in your hands: ONE WISH WILLOW. desperation has your hands shaking and you force yourself to pause, frustratingly wiping one hand down your impeccable pencil skirt — titus doesn't like imperfections.
maybe that's what you need — what you must wish for: perfection. maybe then— no. no, you can't risk it. the box states that only one wish may be granted and wishing for perfection will not secure titus' love and affection. not for sure.
a shaky breath and a pathetic laugh follows as you tear the box open. a tinny melody comes from the packaging and the willow branch slides out into your waiting palm. at this point, there's no room for error, no room for any kind of mistake when you're so fucking close to getting what you want.
"i wish for titus danforth to be in love with me and only me."
snap.
somewhere in the danforth manor, an unnamed energy flows through titus — it bypasses his soul entirely, considering it's held in mr. le bail's hands. a spell, he realizes. something ancient and powerful to steal his attention just enough to notice someone had attempted a love spell on him. a love spell ... from his secretary. a malicious little grin curls upon his lips as he reclines in his office chair.
A/N: Rewatched Mamma Mia:here we go again! Recently and came up whith this fic hehe
Sammy Bryant x Reader, Andrew "Pope" Cody x Reader, Jack Abbot x Reader
Word count: 4K (Wanted to make it longer but didn't have the energy to...)
warnings: No smut (sorry, not sorry) just a go into the dark type shit. Swearing, smoking, a little ooc, just a few oc. Mentions of being drunk and alcohol. mentions of Jacks wife. Bad writing maybe. English isn't my first languge. Nu use of Y/N, NOT PROOFREAD
Me and my friends were in the car driving from our home San Diego to New York. We had the whole trip laid out. From San Diego to LA for a little fun, some pit stops and then the big apple.
The roof was off as we drove through the highway, us jamming to Sabrina Carpenter, our hair flowing in the wind. My friend Carol was driving right now so i sit leaning my head back letting my hair flow in the wind and my voice yell sing to ‘Manchild’
Just an hour in we hear a soft peeping from one of the tires. “Fuck!” Carol says loudly. “What the hell, C?!” I groan. “Wasnt my fault, it was a fucking pothole.” We were in the middle of fucking nowhere as we come to a stop.
My other friend Alicia got out of the car and stood by the flat tire scratching her head like that would fix the tire. “Uhm…You guys got any number to a towtruck or sumthin?” “And why would we have that?” Carol says rather angrily, because well this wasnt a good fucking start to our roadtrip. Alicia just shrugs.
Just then like a fucking angel sent from heaven a black Jeep pulls up beside us and a man with long brown hair and sunglasses looks out the window. “Flat tire?” He asks. “yeah” I say looking over at the man, as I'm still in the backseat not having the energy to get out of the car.
“We could get you ladies a ride so we could get some help in the city, it's not far, maybe a 15 minutes drive.” I look over at the girls and we look quite undecided. “We're not serial killers, we promise.” “And why should we believe that?” Carol shoots back. The guy looks back in the car and then back at us. “Guess you just gotta believe us.” We didn't really have another choice but to jump into the jeep.
As we all get into the jeep the guy introduces himself as Craig and the driver as Pope. “Who the hell names their kid pope?” Carol asks as we start driving. “Oh no, it's just his nickname.” “Well what's your real name?” I ask Pope. I see his piercing eyes look back at us through the rearview mirror. “Andrew.” He mutters out. I nod slowly. The rest of the drive Andrew was quiet, while Criag talked or more flirted like it was his job.
We finally came to Oceanside that definitely wasn't far from where our tire flattened. We pulled up to a mechanic shop. “And here we are!” We all thanked the guys as we got out of the car. “Well they were definitely…Weird.” Alicia said. “You don't say.” Carol said.
────୨ৎ────
While we got our car fixed and brought to us we decided to get a motel room for the night. We decided later that night to go out and get some drinks. We find this underground bar that we decide on. We get a small table to sit by. “Well well well, if it isn't the flat tire girls.” We see the same long haired guy. "Craig right?” I say pointing at him. “In human form. Let me introduce you three to some people.” He leads us over to a small group of men, where Andrew was again. His cheek had a scar that I hadn't seen before, maybe because I wasn't really paying him so much attention.
To be completely honest, when I saw him in whole, he was hot as hell. “Okay so this is pope, but you guys have met him, mine and popes brother Deran he owns this whole ass bar, and our nephew J.” “Hi” I give him a small wave with my hand I'm holding my beer in. “Let me buy you girls some drinks. Deran makes these girls something good.” “Oh you don't have to-” He just puts his hand up in a way that doesn't really make us argue.
We sat the whole night talking to the guys, well almost all of them, Andrew mostly just sat there staring at me like a lion looking for prey. I felt a mix of feeling, a little uncomfortable but actually mostly safe.
I after a while I decided to step out for a quick smoke. I feel a cold chill run up my spine as I get a feeling of being watched. I look behind me to see Andrew standing there just staring. “Jesus, you scared me.” “Sorry.” He didn't sound sorry at all. “It's okay” I chuckle softly. “You always creep up on people like that?” I ask as I take a drag from my cigarette that sits comfortable between my fingers. “Try not to.” I nod as I see from the corner of my eye him going to stand beside me.
“You want?” I ask, offering my cigarette. He takes the cigg from my fingers to put between his lips, he takes a quick drag before handing it back to me. “Did I make you uncomfortable?" “Not really, why?” “My brother always says I scare everyone off with my looks.” “Dont worry, Andrew, you didn't scare me off.” “Good.” We stood there in comfortable silence for a while.
I finally break the silence. “Would I scare you off if I kissed you?” “What?” "Are you def? Would I scare you off if I kissed you?” I ask again. I see the gears in his head move before he answers. “No.” “Good.” I drop the cigarette and stomp on it before I turn to him. I put my cold hand on his cheek before I kiss him, I feel his stiffness melt off his body as I kiss him, his big hands wrap around my waist.
Andrew breaks the kiss and I hear myself let out a small whine as I feel the loss of his lips on mine. “Wanna head out of here?” “Uhm, sure, let me just tell my friends” “Be quick.” I basically jumped back into the bar. “I'm gonna go now, I'll call you guys later.” I tell my friends and kiss them both on the cheek and leave before then can say something else.
I see Andrew standing by the jeep by the passenger side, he opens the door and helps me into the car. When he finally gets into the driver seat I say. “What a gentleman you are” And i see a light tint of pink rise up through his neck.
────୨ৎ────
We get to his small condo and I latch my lips onto his in a much more heated kiss than before as we make our way to the door. We enter and he picks me up without our lips leaving each other as he closes the door with his foot and makes the small walk to the bed. He drops me onto the bed and takes his shirt off.
────୨ৎ────
I lay with my head on his chest playing with his small curls and he looks down at me with a small yet soft smile. “Do you have any food?” “Maybe some stuff for a sandwich, you hungry?” “A little” He makes his way out of bed and to the small kitchen.
I sit up and look around the small space. “You don't have a couch?” “Dont really need one. Don't really have people over.” I let out a soft hum. “It's very…clean.” “Don’t like it dirty.” “you would have a heart attack if you saw my apartment.” I chuckle softly.
He comes back with a small plate with two sandwiches on and some orange juice. “When are you leaving?” “Tommorow…or today…however time works.” I say with my mouth full of the sandwich. He just nods. “And when are you coming back?” I just shrugged. “In a month, in a year, maybe never.” He just nods slower again. “Why?” “Just, I would like to see you again, if that's okay.” I smile sweetly at him. “Guess you gotta get to New York then.”
────୨ৎ────
The next morning I woke up around 11AM. Andrew is gone but there's a note by the kitchen. “Needed to go to my moms, help yourself to anything you'd like, a key is under the top of the fence so you can lock it when you leave. Hope I'll see you again -Andrew <3” I smile sweetly at the note and put it in my purse before I put my clothes on and sit back down on the bed to text my friends.
Hey, need yall to pick me up. Andrew left to go to his moms place.
Carol-Oml, Craig needed to do the same. ill get you bbg
Alicia-Am i the only person that slept in the motel room we paid for?!
Carol-Not my fault that you're gay
Alicia-Mean…
I decide to snoop around a little because i am a nosy fucker. I open a random drawer and find a stack of money, like a lot of money, maybe 2 thousand. I furrow my eyebrows but decide to continue snooping. I look around a little more and i decide to open another drawer and there is a fucking gun. I feel my heart drop. Oh fuck. I sit back down on the bed and stare into nothing as I wait for my friends.
────୨ৎ────
30 minutes later I hear a car beep outside the condo and I grab my stuff and go outside. I go to the front to lock the door and make my way to the car my friends are in. I get into the driver seat as Carol jumps over to the backseat. “How did it go with Mr. Creep?” Carol asked as I got into the car. “Hes not a creep.” “If you say so.” We pull out from the drive way and make our way to la.
“He had a fucking gun.” I say after a while. “Said he was a creep.” “He was not a creep but the gun scared me.” I decided to leave the stack of money I saw out of the conversation.
────୨ৎ────
About 1 hour later we arrived to Los Angeles. We pulled up to the hotel we had booked for the next three nights.
We decided to go out to party tonight too. We may or may not have drunk a little too much. We stumble down the street of Los Angeles on the way back to the hotel when a police car pulls up beside us. A police officer rolls down his window. “Hello there ladies.” “Hi!” I wave enthusiastically. He gets out of the car and walks up to us with his hands on his belt. “Could you ladies walk in a straight line for me. Lets start with you, miss” He says pointing at me.
I nod and start walking in what I think is a straight line, I put my hands up in a ‘Voilá” way. He chuckles and looks down at his feet before looking up at me. “Far from a straight line, sweetheart. I'm gonna need to drive you back home, not gonna be able to sleep well if I leave you girls here alone.” “Oh no, no need” I slur slightly. “Humor me please”
We give in and get into the cop car with me in the middle. “Well what's your name, officer?” “Bryant.” “Thats your whole name?” “No, where do you girls live?” “Uhm the hotel Shaney” Alicia said. “You didn't answer Officer” I say. He chuckles softly. “Sammy.” “Cute” “So you girls are not from here?” “Nope, San Diego" “Oh, nice.”
He pulls up outside the hotel. “Okay, we're here. Be safe.” We get out of the car and wave him off before we stumble into the lobby and get up to the room. “HE was cute” Carol slurs as she falls into the bed. “Mhm” I mummer as I lay down in the bed too.
────୨ৎ────
The next day I woke up hungover as ever. Both Alicia and Carol fast asleep. I get up, take a shower and get ready for the day. When I was done they were still asleep so i don't know why but decided to head to the police station Sammy mentioned he works for. I bought some donuts on the way because the cop doesn't like donuts.
I go to the front desk. “Hi, I'm searching for Officer Sammy Bryant.” “What's your errand?” “Uhm he helped me and my friends last night, just wanna thank him.” The front desk lady looks up at me. “I'll grab him, give me a minute.” She gets up and walks through some double doors, I get left there with my sunglasses over my eyes to cover the bright lights and the dark bags under my eyes. I shift my fight back and forward on my legs.
Then he walks out with the woman from the front desk. “Well hello there.” “Hi, just wanted to thank you for yesterday.” I say handing him the big box of donuts. We stood there for a few seconds in silence. “Uhm i was just gonna go grab some lunch if you wanna come with.” He asks. “Yeah, uhm sure. Don't really have any-” “Good! Follow me” We walk out to his cop car and get in this time sitting in front.
We pulled up to a Mexican food place. When we sit down by a table outside he asks. “So how bad is the hangover?” “Been worse.” Sammy nods. “So…how long before you go back to San Diego?” I shrug. “We're going to New York first. Then we'll see.”
Sammy decides to drive me back to the hotel. “Hey, sweetheart!” He says after me as I get out of the car. I lean through the open window. “Yeah?” "Let me get your number. “ I giggle as I take his phone he's holding out and I put my number in. “See ya around, officer.” I say before giving his phone back and I head into the hotel.
“Where have you been?” Alicia asks as I go into the hotel room. “Ate lunch” “You could have woken us, you dint answer our texts either. Tell us.” “I went to say thank you to the officer that brought us back here and he took me out to eat lunch.” "That's it?” Carol asks. “Yeah, that's it…and I gave him my number…” They both say my name annoyedly. “We said that this would be a girls trip and no giving out numbers.” “But what if he's the love of my life.” "He's just a man.” Alicia said. I sigh loudly as I flop down on the bed.
────୨ৎ────
Later that night we were sitting in our room eating pizza and drinking wine when i get a text from an unknown number.
Unknown:Hey, it's Sammy. Wanted to check if you'd wanna maybe meet up, have some drinks or something. Or not if you don't want to.
Hi sammy, i love to, just need to get ready.
────୨ৎ────
I am sitting in Sammy's apartment, it's fairly clean but not like Andrew's place. Sammy comes back to the couch with two glasses of wine. We sit in a slight comfortable and a little uncomfortable silence. I stare down at my hands and then up at Sammy. I shift slightly closer and closer before he puts his arm around me. I look around at him and latch my lips onto his. He hums sweetly into the kiss, the kiss becomes heated quickly.
He moves his hand around my hips and pulls me onto his lap so I'm straddling him. I run my fingers through his hair before I break the kiss and take my shirt off and throw it onto the floor. Sammy looks up at me before he starts kissing down my neck.
────୨ৎ────
We lay in his bed, his head now on my chest as I played with his hair. I sigh softly at the domestication of the position. We fall asleep together in that position.
The next morning I wake up to a sizzling pan and Sammy mindlessly humming to some song. I get out of bed and grab my shirt and put it on before I walk softly to the kitchen. “Mornin’” “Hi, did you sleep well?” He asks as he kisses my temple. It almost feels like he's used to being domestic. “Mhm.” "Good. Could you set the table?” He asks as he flips the egg in the pan. “Sure. Where's everything?” I chuckle as he points me to where everything is.
When I've set the table he puts the eggs on their own plate. “Dig in.” I sit down and we start to eat. I practically moan at the taste of the food. “God damn, Sammy” “That good?” “Compared to my cooking, this is master chef cooking.”
────୨ৎ────
I stayed until about 4PM before I decided to head back to my hotel. I find the girls sitting playing uno on the bed. “Hiya, girls.” “Finally you're back!” Alicia says as she places her last card onto the deck. “HA!” She puts her hands up in a victory pose. I lay down in bed. “Okay tell us everything!” Alicia asks as she moves her whole body towards me.
────୨ৎ────
The next morning we load all our stuff back into the car and we start to make our way to New York. We stopped by the painted dessert, ate some amazing diner food, we stopped at some sketchy motels, and drove through some sketchy areas. I wanted to drive by Chicago but the other two refused and said that it would take ‘Too long’.
────୨ৎ────
We came upon Pittsburgh as the night was slowly rolling in. We book a night at some hotel and we go to fall asleep after a long day in the car. But i cant fucking fall assleep so decide to go on a walk.
I come upon a guy on a bench in scrubs, he has a prosthetic leg beside him. He looks up as I walk past him. He gives me a small nod and a tight smile. I sit down on the bench right in front of him. We sit there for maybe five minutes before he speaks. “Hey” “Hi.” We fall into silence again. “You a doctor?” “Yeah, why?” “Just wondering, the scrubs kinda speaks for it.” I let out a chuckle and he does too.
“You remind me of someone, just cant pin point on who…” I say as my head tits as I try to see who he reminds me off. “Maybe I just have that face.” “Yeah maybe. You work closely?” He nods. “Just about a five minute walk from here.” “Huh.” “You?” “Oh no, i-emberesingly said I don't really have a job at the moment” “Oh. Why not if i may ask?” “Going to new york for who knows how long, and don't really have PTO for that long.” “Ah, New York. What are you doing here if you're going to the big apple.” “Just stopped here for the night with my friends.” He nods. “Make sense.” We sat there for like an hour just talking.
“Maybe the beer talking or something…would…” He chuckles. “Would you wanna go to my place? Just for a drink, or somthin’ it's getting really cold out here.” “Uhm…Why not.” I get up and wait as he puts his prosthetic back on.
“That hurt?” I ask as I nod down toward his prosthetic leg. “Losin it? Hell yeah it hurt.” “No!” I giggle. “To have it on, don’t know if that's like a taboo question or somthin…” He chuckles. “A little, especially if you have it on long enough.” I nod as we continue to walk.
I look down at his hands to see his wedding ring. Well fuck “You married? Because if you are i-I don't sleep with married men, not really my thing-” “No, uhm…No,” He starts fidgeting with his ling and he looks away. “She…passed a long time ago.” “Oh im sorry…i-” “Dont worry, common misunderstanding.” I nod again.
We get to his small townhouse. And he unlocks the door. “Just gotta say i dont usually do this…sleep with a girl the first time he meets her.” “Oh, me neither.” I offer a small smile before we enter the house and he closes the door after me. Its not too cluttered, and just kind of over all bland.
He leads me to the couch and I sit down before he makes his way to the kitchen. “You want something? Don't really have much…” “No, I'm good, thanks though.” He makes his way back to the couch and sits down beside me.
“God this was a long time ago…” He chuckles as he looks over at me then away. “No pressure.” “You know when people say that I just feel pressured.” “Okay, doctor. Pressure then.” He let out a bark of a laugh and I laughed with him.
He moves to cup my cheek and he kisses me feather light and I kiss him with the same pressure. He moves to pull me so I'm laying down on the couch and so he's on top of me. He starts unbuckling my pants and I lift my hips up to help him.
────୨ৎ────
I wake up by 8AM in Jacks bed. I linger a little longer then i usually do. I start feeling around in the bed to find him gone. I look up from the pillow to see no signs of Jack. I sit up to grab my phone only to see that my friends have blown up my phone.
Carol: EY! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU???
Alicia:We need to leave like now
Alicia:Why are you at a random ass house??
Alcia:Dont say you got kidnapped.
Im fine guys, sorry to worry yall.
I stayed at a hot guys house
Like really hot.
Carol:Not again…
Carol:We have talked about this.
Just come get me in like 15 kay?
I put my phone down and go to put my clothes on only to remember that my pants are still downstairs. I creep down the stairs with my purse in my arms only to be greeted by an…interesting scene.
There Jack ws in the livingroom nude and doing fucking yoga. “Moring?” I say as I lean against the frame that leads you to the living room. “Hey.” “You do this every morning or is this a special sight just for me.” “Sorry to break it to you sweetheart.” I chuckle and grab my pants. “Where are you going?” “Oh, I'm going, my friends are soon here to pick me up.” “Ah, kinda hoped you'd stay just for that sex” He jokes as he walks over to me and kisses me softly. I melt into the kiss in ease. “Sorry big guy. Could still get my number though.” He goes to grab a piece of paper and I put my pants on.
He hands me a paper and a pen. “Well go on.” I chuckle and write my number on it and hand it back. I hear a car beeping outside. “Gotta go, call me.” I kiss him quickly before I go out.
“Was that a naked guy?” Alicia asks as I get in the car. “Yes…” “Did you just have sex or somthing?” Carol asks as she starts driving. “No, that was last night.” “So he's a nudist…Did you really have sex with a nudist?” “What?! No! He was doing yoga…naked…” “So he is a nudist.” “Carol, I swear to god…” She laughs as she starts driving towards our destination.
────୨ৎ────
5 weeks later I'm sitting on the bathroom floor in a hotel I'm sharing with Alicia and Carol as we wait for the apartment we were gonna rent was getting ready. There in my hand there was a positive pregnancy test. “Well fuck me then…”
part two of Wrong Number you decide to make a video call....NSFW + MDNI! 18+ ONLY!
You stare at your phone. You've just sent your dad's best friend a nude. By accident. And he wanted to see it? He wished you meant to send it to him?
You're sitting there, hair still wet from your shower, still in your towel. And you have no idea why, but you press the video call button on your phone.
You don't expect Jack to pick up but he does. And you both stare at each other with wide eyes. Both of you are unsure of what to do.
"What did your message mean?" you ask him.
Jack looks at you, his cheeks flushed, hazel eyes noticing that your shoulders are bare.
"My message? I don't think I'm the one who should be explaining messages," he hits back.
But he can't help the smirk that pulls at his lips.
You shrug as you lay back on your bed.
"Well, I didn't mean to send you that picture. But I did mean to call you," you confess, your mouth going dry.
You're not sure why you're doing this.
"Just to see if you meant what you said. That you wish it was meant for you."
You can see how his eyes widen as you move the camera so he can see that you're just in a towel. You can even hear his breath hitch.
"Yea, I just...You're a beautiful woman. It's hard to be around you sometimes. Especially in the summer when you run around with barely any clothes on," he grits out.
"I've been imagining what you look like under those skimpy outfits."
You hum, "And now you know."
He nods, watching as you let your towel fall open, displaying your breasts to him.
"I'm glad you don't work with me because you even distract me in your scrubs. They hug your ass so good," he grunts, watching your free hand tease your nipple.
"Yea?" you breathe. "You think about me alot, Dr Abbot?"
"You can't call me that. You're gonna get me hard at work," he groans.
You giggle trailing your fingers down your stomach. Jack can't hide his disappointment as he can't see what you're doing. That's not lost on you. So you get off your bed and grab your mini-tripod to set up your phone at the end of your bed.
"And what would you do if you were here?" you ask him, settling with your legs spread for him.
"Fuck, princess. You shouldn't be showin' me all o' this," he grunts.
He's an old man. He's already jerked off looking at your picture. He knows he shouldn't have, but fuck, he is just a man after all. And he is kind of embarassed that he wouldn't be able to join your little game. But his cock is stirring with interest again.
Fuck what are you doing to him?
"You gonna show me all of you?" you ask him as you tease your clit, putting on a show for him.
Jack pulls his shirt off before setting his phone up against a pile of books on his coffee table. He leans back and pushes his jeans and boxers down. His cock is in his hand in record time.
"Fuck, babygirl, I wanna taste you so bad. Bet you taste like spun sugar," he grunts as he pumps his cock watching you dip your fingers into your dripping cunt.
"Oh, fuck, Dr Abbot," you tease him. "You'd stretch me out so nice. You're so fuckin' big. I don't know if my tight pussy could take it all."
You're pressing your fingers in and out of yourself faster, your other hand palming at your tit. You whimper and whine for him, really putting on a show for Jack Abbot.
And he is eating it up. He can already feel his orgasm approaching. It's embarrassingly quick. But this little peep show has him more turned on than ever.
"Fuck, sweetheart, I'm so fuckin' close. You gonna cum with me?" he asks you.
You just nod your head, moaning out for him.
"Fuck! Fuck!" you scream out. "I'm cumming. Oh fuck, I'm cummin' for you, Jack!"
Your orgasm rips through you, you're arching off the bed, your toes curling in pleasure. Your head falls back but you remember yourself to watch your phone screen as Jack paints his stomach with ropes of cum. And fuck, you wish you were there to lick him clean.
"Next time you should come here to make me cum yourself," you tell him. "Good night, Dr Abbot."
You hang up the phone with a wicked little smile.
You don't think Jack will take you up on your offer. Especially after spending the day working in the garden with your dad. You're on your best behaviour, bringing them out water, asking if they need any help. All the while, you're dressed in your tightest shorts and a tank top that makes your tits look great. You can see Jack's eyes wander to the swell of your breasts every time you come near.
"Thanks for all your help today," you can hear your dad say as they admire the garden. "I need to run to the store to get beer but we should celebrate with a drink."
"Absolutely!" Jack echoes.
You don't expect the door of your room to fly open as soon as your dad's truck is out of the driveway. Jack is on you in seconds, kissing you like a man starved. He hasn't been able to get you out of his head. And you've been teasing him all day. He slams you against the wall in his eagerness to take.
"We gotta be quick," you breathe as you pull at his shirt.
"Fuck," he hisses, kissing down your neck. "I wanna take my time with you. But fuck, you're right."
He lets you take his shirt off before he discards your top, groaning when he sees your bare breasts again. His mouth is on them, kissing and sucking, leaving marks all over them. And fuck, you're soaking.
He puts you down just long enough to take off your panties and shorts. You don't expect him to drop to his knees. He hooks one leg over his shoulder and he dives into your pussy. He focuses his attention on your throbbing clit. He's a man on a mission, a man on a time limit, and he's determined to make you cum.
And as his rough hands find your breasts, you're cumming. It's embarrassing how quick that was. But you can't find yourself to care.
Especially when he stands, licking his lower lip, his eyes darkened with lust.
"Even sweeter than I imagined," he tells you, before lifting you up and pressing you once again up against the wall.
He kisses you, all messy and desperate. Your legs wrap around his waist just moments after he pushes his work pants and boxers down. He sheathes himself inside you in one swift movement. And your moans can't be disguised. You're glad that your dad is out. Because there's no hiding what you're doing.
He's grunting and panting against your neck and you're screaming out his name over and over and over. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room and your trinkets on the shelves by your head are bouncing and falling.
"Need you to cum, sweetheart," he grunts in your ear. "And then I'll fill this tight cunt. Huh?"
You nod your head, doing as he demands. You tighten around his cock and cry out his name. Your nails drag over his back.
"Fuck," Jack grunts, his hips stuttering at how tightly you clamp down on him. "Fuck, sweetheart. Who owns this pussy?"
"You. Fuck, Jack. You own my pussy. Now fill it with cum. Claim it."
And Jack does just that. He fills you with rope after rope of cum.
When your father comes back, Jack is sitting on the couch with some stupid sports game on. You're in the kitchen, gathering up the takeout menus so the three of you can pick something to eat.
"Look who I found!" your dad calls, making you look up.
Your eyes widen when your boyfriend stands in the sitting room.
Jack stands, "Oh we haven't met. I'm Jack Abbot."
"Josh," your boyfriend, soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, introduces himself as he shakes Jack's hand.
"Oh were you doing work in the garden?" Josh asks when he sees the change outside.
"Is that why you sent me those pictures the other day?" he says to you.
This causes Jack to raise an eyebrow and smirk into his newly opened beer.
So that's what happened.
a/n: thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! any and all feedback appreciated. requests open
jack abbot who always love to push you to take more, tells you it's your pussy being greedy and taunting him while you cry from overstimulation
it always "you can do one more, sweetheart." when that was said nearly an hour ago into this endeavor
when you're getting too rowdy and squirming too much, pushing at his chest too much to get him to stop his assaults on your pussy, he'll handcuff your hands around your thighs with your legs pressed together and in the air, leaving you spread wide open for him
he'll make you come countless times with his thick fingers and tongue until he's satisfied with the way your wet hole is clenching and drooling
when you're left trying to catch your breath, that's when he sinks in to the hilt in one big thrust, your muscles all relaxed and body melting into the sheets are you starts fucking you
if you start fussing or say things like "it's too big!" or "it's too much!", he'll start rubbing tight circles on your clit
and on the days that he's feeling really mean, he'll ease two of his thick fingers into your pussy alongside his cock, the stretch making you feel so full and so close to splitting in half
he'll find that gooey spot inside of your walls and press against it until you're squirting all over his cock and abdomen, his palm against your cheek getting stained with tears he'll coo at you, saying things like:
"ooh, that was a big one, huh? there she is."
"just take it for me, sweet girl, turn that brain of yours off."
"this pussy can always take more. I know it can. maybe we should try your dildo with my cock next time. what do you think, baby?"
when you're a babbling, drooling mess, he chuckles at you, kisses your temple, and continues fucking you until he thinks you're done <3
cw: borderline explicit flirting, I wrote this with an intended unspecified age gap
“So,” your coworker starts as she joins you in the kitchen, “I was trying to be helpful, since you have a full section and all that, and uh, that guy on four left quite the tip and an interesting little note on the check.”
You roll your eyes playfully, focused on getting your plates out and checking in on your tables before you succumb to her teasing smile at the register. “According to the very handsome guy still at table four,” she starts before pulling up the receipt and reading in an exaggerated low voice, “you’re the most beautiful being I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Loved watching that ass bounce in those tight—”
“It does not say that!” You exclaim, your cheeks hot with embarrassment as you snatch the receipt from her hand.
Your eyes scan the paper, your cheeks burning hotter at each word. “In those tight pants, would love to peel them off you later,” she keeps reading from over your shoulder, “oh! And my favorite part is down there beneath the 200% tip by the way, I’d love to give you my actual tip later too. Hot! Is he your sugar daddy or something?”
“He’s my boyfriend,” you grumble as you storm over to table four, expertly dodging your coworkers and full trays of food. He’s still at the table, just like you expected. His lips are wrapped around his straw, slurping up the last drops of his water but you can see the smugness in his gaze.
“Was hoping I’d see you again, baby,” he smiles up at you.
You nervously peer around, making sure no one is looking, “Jack! I’m at work! You can’t leave notes like that when my coworkers can see! And especially not on the merchant copy! My manager is going to see that!”
He smiles easily, tucking a finger into one of the pockets of the apron wrapped around your waist as he pulls you closer, “can’t help it, baby. You look so beautiful today. I love these pants on you.”
“And according to your note, you’d also love to take them off of me,” you whisper lowly, smacking his hand away when it wanders past the curve of your hip.
“Baby,” Jack groans, “why are you even working here? It’s my day off and instead of being in bed, I’m sitting here eating shitty fries. Even I can cook better than this.”
“I have bills to pay and I’m going to school. None of that pays for itself, Jack.” You sigh tiredly, brushing back the hairs that have slipped out of your previously slicked back hairstyle.
“I can pay your bills, pay for your master's, and every other degree you want after. Hell, baby, I want to. Nothing would make me happier.”
You narrow your eyes at him with playful warning, “we can talk about this later. I have other tables to check on. Get out of here before my manager yells at me.”
“Come home, baby,” Jack whines shamelessly, “if you wanna be a waitress so bad we can go back to mine and role play. You know I’ll tip you generously. Always do.”
“You’re gross. Get out of here,” you snort, letting him hug you before he leaves. “I’ll try to get cut early,” you concede as he presses a kiss to your cheek.
“Perfect. See you in an hour, baby,” he smiles as he swaggers toward the door, entirely too pleased with himself.
“Excuse me? Can we get a refill please?” Someone calls out, knocking you back to reality.
Maybe Jack has a point…
feedback is appreciated! divider from cursed-carmine <3
Thank you @iheartshawn for feeding into my delusions !!! LMAOAOOAOA.
Who up being gross and perverted?!
(lowkey barely proof read this... please forgive me for any mistakes)
Father Abbot loved seeing you squirm in the pews, unable to sit still with the vibrator he made you put up your cunt before mass. He watched you raptly, beads of sweat trickling down your forehead as you fanned yourself with your bible.
He imagined how wet your thighs were underneath your floral dress as you dripped onto the pew. How immodest, how undignified, how indecent you were just for him.
It made him so fucking hard thinking about how you were gushing just for him.
"And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
Up at the front, Father Abbot prattled off a verse from Genesis 9:1, just for you. For he so desperately wanted to commit such act upon you. To fill you up, to claim you so thoroughly, you'd belong to him, no question.
One hand inside the pocket of his black slacks, the other flipped through the thin pages of the bible. The smooth remote felt scalding hot in his palm as he continued to toy with you from behind his podium.
You were a wreck.
The church was filled to the brim, as it always was on a Sunday. You had a small birth of room on either side of you, but that's all you were blessed. No one knew you had a vibrator up your pussy, wreaking havoc on your tender hole and swollen clit.
Before mass, he coated the vibrator in his anointing oil to help it glide into your pussy. And fuck, the slick warmed oil made it even more erotic.
Jack was being brutal, constantly putting it up to the highest setting then back to zero. Your legs crossed at the ankle, bible used as a fan, you tried to hold in your orgasm. It had been forty minutes of the back and forth, and you were feeling light headed from the overstimulation.
You tasted blood on your tongue as you physically bit back any reaction, but by Jack's overwhelming approval, you were being less than covert.
Jack continued on, even walking out from behind the podium as he spoke Gods word. A portrait of ease, like he wasn't torturing your cunt.
The sight of his priestly attire made it even harder to hold back. Chills wracked your body as he clicked the remote and started back up again in earnest.
Everyone around you stood from their pew, and few began to make their way to the front of the church. Without realizing it, it was time for communion. You searched for Jack within the small crowd, but you couldn't see him.
Fuck.
Maybe you should take it out. You could't just cum in front of the entire congregation.
There was no fucking way you could get up right now? Your dress was probably soaked through and even the sensation of your thighs rubbing together might make you cum.
You had no choice.
It was your rows turn to receive the body and blood of Christ.
Just as you had the night before when Father Abbot had you on your knees for him. Worshiping and praying to him so he would grant you his cum.
Once you joined the line, the vibrator started up again at full force, almost knocking you to the ground. You were ready to do that at Jacks feet and beg for salvation.
The congregation payed no mind and were seemingly unaware of the turmoil. Your body felt like it was on fire, goose bumps alive on your flesh. Your legs were incredibly shaky and it was a feat to continue walking in the line towards Jack.
With the organ playing a hymn, you were allowed small moans which helped the ache.
Your thighs and cunt were soaked, every step you took made it feel like you took a shower then immediately put clothes back on.
You heaved in and out, taking in large gulps of church air. The incense, old perfume, and the anointing oil on your skin permeated the air with each inhalation. It was a mental and physical battle, one you intended to get through.
You knew the reward Jack would give you if you lasted the whole mass would be far greater than giving up now.
Once it was your turn, Jack gave you a gleeful smile, both hands out of his pocket. You were pretty sure you looked a mess, all sweaty and fidgety, hair most likely sticking to your forehead. Jack just peered down at you with reverence.
Like you were the holy one, and not him or God.
Shakily, you lifted your cupped hands towards Jack, awaiting the body of Christ. He placed the small, tan wafer into your awaiting palms and you signed the cross before placing it on your fully outstretched tongue.
Jack grunted at your display, his Adams apple bobbed as you closed your mouth around the wafer. You smiled weakly, the vibrator still beating unrelenting rhythms inside you. You wouldn't allow yourself to give in, not yet.
With the body of Christ still on your tongue, you mouthed, "Thank you, Father."
Before you departed to receive the wine, Jack stopped you with a hand on your shoulder. He pulled you closer to whisper in your ear, his warm breath hitting the back of your ear and neck.
"Confessional booth right after mass. Keep that cunt glistening for me, doll."
Housewife!reader who finally goes out with her friends all dolled up and Sammy feeling insecure about it due to his past relationship with tammi and the cheating :(... but then reader gets drunk and comes home early, crying because of how much she missed her dear husband Sammy and they end up having some really nasty sex
smut y'all hehehe
sammy sat like a kicked puppy on the edge of your shared bed as he watched you get ready, the small pout never leaving his lips. "what is wrong, sammy?" you finally spoke softly as you caught his gaze in the mirror, raising an eyebrow at him slightly as you applied your lip gloss. he quickly shook his head, forcing himself to smile at you. he didn't want you to leave looking so pretty. he knew other men thought you were pretty, it was just easier to handle when you were together. but now he wasn't going to be there to cling to your side and make it known you were taken. "nothing, sweetheart. you look so pretty," he hummed, his eyes following you as you stood up to move to stand in front of him, your hand reaching out to cup his cheek. "thank you. i will be back by midnight okay?" you spoke, leaning down to press your lips gently to his. his hands were quick to pull you close by your hips, his lips moving against yours. "don't want you to go," he mumbled against your mouth, a small giggle leaving your lips as you pulled back.
you had blown off your friends for months when it came to going out. you and sammy were just getting settled into newly wed life, having been working on the new house you got together. "it's one night. you won't even know i'm gone," you spoke quietly, running a hand through his hair as he continued to pout up at you. he simply huffed, his hands rubbing gently at where your dress met your thighs, pulling the fabric down a little bit. "don't let any guys talk to you. flash that big fancy ring in their face," he mumbled, grabbing your hand to press a soft kiss to your ring that had you smiling even wider. "i will call you if i need anything, i love you," you spoke, pressing another firm kiss to his lips as your friend beeped from outside. he watched you walk out the bedroom, his anxiety immediately on one hundred as you disappeared out the door.
the whole night was spent with him trying to distract himself. doing all of the laundry, vacuuming every room twice, checking your location every 20 minutes. he felt like he was going absolutely insane at the thought of you out drinking and dancing at the club with your friends. you probably weren't even thinking about him. boy was he wrong. you had way too many drinks, your friends continuing to persuade you to let loose, you would see sammy later. just the mention of his name had you bursting in to tears, quick to grab your phone and call him. "hi baby, is everything okay?" he answered on the first ring, his finger coming to his mouth to chew nervously at the nail. he was met with your sniffles, his eyebrows immediately furrowing. "sammy, i miss you! come pick me up!" you cried into the phone, a small smile immediately crossing his lips. he was quick to hang up, basically running to his car.
one of your friends was stood outside of the club with you, waiting for sammy. she couldn't help but giggle as you cried over how much you missed him and how much you loved him. as soon as you saw his car, your eyes lit up, sammy parking right in front and immediately getting out. "god, she's a mess. guess we have to start inviting you to girls night," your friend teased sammy, a smile on his face as you were quick to cling to him. he muttered her a quick thank you for watching over you before he was helping you into the car. "my poor baby," he cooed to you as you sniffled in the passenger seat, hands pawing at his arm to get him to touch on you. "missed you so bad, just want to be with you all the time," you whimpered, leaning over the centre console to kiss at the side of his face. he was gentle as he pushed you back into your seat, pulling the seatbelt across you lap to buckle you in.
the whole ride consisted of you whimpering about how much you loved him, how bad you missed him, how bad you just wanted to come home and jump his bones. he couldn't help the pride that ran through his chest at your tears, the smile on his face never leaving. once home he was quick to come to your side of the car. a large pout sat on your lips as you raised your arms at him to pick you up, sammy only chuckling as he was quick to pick you up, hands holding you up under your ass as he carried you in the house. "i love you so much. look so handsome," you kept mumbling into his neck as he carried you up the stairs, your arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. "i love you so much, baby," he would just reply, small chuckles leaving his lips as he made his way to the bathroom with you. he set you gently onto the bathroom counter, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek.
"i wanna get in bed," you whined to him, trying to move off the counter but he was quick to pin you there, hands firmly holding onto your thighs. "no. need to get your makeup all cleaned up and brush your teeth," he spoke, patting your thigh gently before he was digging around for your toothbrush. a loud exaggerated sigh left your lips as you watched him, lips forming into a slow smirk. "can only do that if you take your shirt off," you giggled a little, sammy giving you a deadpanned look. "im serious. if i don't see you shirtless in the next minute i might actually die," you hiccuped, trying your hardest to make straight face which only caused the two of you to start laughing. he finally relented, pulling his shirt off before looking at you with a slightly raised eyebrow. a soft moan left your lips as your hands immediately shot forward to rub all over his skin, leaning down to press soft wet kisses to his jaw.
"no. hold up your end of the deal and brush your teeth," he grumbled, pulling back just slightly causing another loud groan to leave your lips. he held the toothbrush up to you, a stern look on his face. you slowly opened your mouth, leaning forward a little bit. you could see the flicker of lust in his eyes, a hand reaching up to grab hold of your chin gently before he began to do it for you. your eyes never left his as he moved the brush against your teeth, your legs moving to wrap around his waist and pull him back in. he couldn't help but stare into your open mouth, his dick already hardening just from the simple act. once he was satisfied with your teeth, he pulled the brush out a little, tapping the side of your chin with his thumb. "stick your tongue out," he spoke lowly, looking back into your glossy eyes. you slowly stuck your tongue out, batting your eyelashes at him. a small groan left his lips as he began to brush your tongue, his eyes on yours. he was basically playing with you at this point.
he slowly began to go back farther and farther until he was poking at the back of your throat with the brush. you couldn't help the way your hips bucked against his, a small gag leaving your throat causing you to whine. "sammy," you grumbled, eyebrows furrowed as you pulled back and away from him. "you've taken worse down your throat," he mumbled, watching as you leaned over to spit the toothpaste out. "all done, will you eat me out now?" you smiled wide at him as you wiped your chin with the back of your hand, beaming at him. his bottom lip was quick to suck between his teeth as he stared at you, shaking his head. he slowly pulled you off the counter to stand, spinning you around to face the mirror. "wash your face," he mumbled, placing the wash cloth in your hand before he was getting on his knees behind you. you couldn't help but giggle, pushing your ass back towards his face. he raised his hand to place a hard smack on your ass, slowly pushing your skirt up your hips. "i said wash your face or you go to bed with nothing," he mumbled, hands groping your ass. you were quick to turn the water on, slowly beginning to wash your face. there's no way you were going to rush this.
his lips immediately moved to press soft kisses to the skin of your ass where his hand print was now forming, fingers hooking to slowly pull your underwear down. his hand reached up to push at your back a little bit, forcing you to bend over a little more. it was like he was moving slow on purpose, hands moving to spread your legs slightly so he had the perfect view of your dripping core. "you're fucking soaked," he mumbled, a finger reaching to slowly drag through your folds, pulling a soft whine from you. "told you i missed you," you mumbled, pushing back to try to gain some more touch. he chuckled softly, leaning forward to lick at your cunt, his hands gripping your cheeks tightly. your loud moans were quick to fill the bathroom as his tongue lapped at you like a starved man, the wash cloth completely forgotten about now as you gripped the counter tightly.
he was a moaning mess against your cunt as your hips were grinding back against his mouth, his hand coming down to smack at your ass every so often. "taste so good, princess. missed you so much," he would continuously mumble, his finger slowly moving to push into you now. he didn't even care at this point that you weren't washing your face. he just wanted you to cum on his face. your forehead was pressed against the mirror now as he continued to work you with his tongue and finger, a gasp leaving your lips as another finger slipped in. "fuck sammy, faster i'm gonna cum," you moaned out, one of your hands flying back to grip at his hair, basically trying to drown him in your cunt. his fingers immediately picked up pace, eyes shutting as his tongue flicked against your clit. a loud moan left both of your mouthes as you came, legs shaking a little. he wasn't ready to stop though.
he hesitated to pull his fingers out before he was standing up behind you, pushing the pajama pants he wore down to the middle of his thighs. "you got one more in you. such a good girl for me," he praised as he kissed at your shoulder, grabbing a fist full of your hair to pull your head from the mirror and force your gaze up. a groan ripped through his throat as he easily pushed in with the help of your previous orgasm, his eyes staying trained on your face in the mirror. his hips were quick to set a brutal pace, jaw clenched tightly. your head was so fuzzy from his cock and the alcohol that was flowing through your system, your eyes fluttering shut as he pounded into you. his hand reached around to leave a few pats on your cheek, your eyes shooting open. "keep your eyes open. want you to watch yourself get filled with my cum," he grunted, his grip on your hair only tightening.
your grip on the counter was the only thing keeping you upright as he slammed his hips into you, loud moans coming from both of you. his gaze would focus hard on your face and reactions, straying every now and then down to where your bodies connected. "cum for me again, sweetheart. want to feel it around my cock," he mumbled, his own core tightening with an upcoming orgasm. his free hand moved between where your hips met the counter, his fingers moving fast to rub at your clit. your legs immediately began to shake, eyes trained on him in the mirror. your orgasm hit you like a truck, eyes rolling back a bit as you came hard around him. the sight had him cumming immediately, arms wrapping around you now to pull your body back against his chest.
the both of you stayed like that for a moment, cum seeping out of where he was still in you and down your leg. "should go out with your friends more often if it ends like this," he mumbled in your ear, pressing soft kisses to your cheek as your legs continued to shake. you only breathed heavily, eyes shut as your head rested back against his shoulder. his grip remained tight around you as he slowly pulled out with a soft groan, eyes trained on the cum that continued to seep out of you. he reached for the washcloth that was previously out to wash your face, using it to clean up your cunt instead now. you hissed at the overstimulation, sammy just cooing and kissing at your face to calm you down. "so good for me. such a good girl. i love you" he murmured, rubbing your sides gently as he finished. "i love you," you hummed back, slowly turning around to wrap your arms tightly around him. "you need to wash my face for me now," you pouted up at him, puckering your lips up for a kiss.
and of course he did. along with changing your clothes, brushing your hair, and tucking you into bed.
saw it in a comment & i need that: sleazy!ex-sammy baby traps you with baby #2
sammy's eyes almost popped out of his head at the sight of your name flashing across his phone screen with an incoming call. two years since your divorce, and somehow the two of you had never stopped. a hookup at least once or twice a month before back to the cold bitterness any other time. "well hello," he answered, a smirk resting on his lips as he leaned back into his chair. there were only two things you ever called him for. your son. a hookup. "we need to talk. in person," you voice spoke quickly, his eyebrows furrowing a little bit at the tone of your voice. it wasn't the usual soft but sassy tone he was used to. it was short, almost shaking. the same tone you used the night of your divorce. "uh yeah- i can come over later," he chuckled, staring at the computer on his desk as he fiddled with his utility belt. "i'm outside," you spoke again before you were hanging up, sammy staring at his phone in a bit of disbelief before he was standing up.
he saw your car parked towards the back of the lot as he made his way out of the station, a cocky grin on his face as he walked around to climb into your passenger seat. "missed me this bad?" he hummed, turning to face you but the cocky look quickly fell from his face at the sight of you. it looked like you hadn't slept in days, the dark circles under your eyes giving it away. "i'm pregnant," you said quickly and quietly, so quiet he almost missed it. it was like something shot through his body straight to his stomach. nervousness? no. excitement. satisfaction. a laugh of relief left his mouth, "okay, it's not the end of the world. we have basically been-" your hand was quick to raise up in his face, cutting him off. "dont finish that sentence like we've been together. we've been a bad habit. that's all we've been," you spat, glancing quickly at him before your hand was back on the steering wheel gripping it tightly.
the scoff that left his lips was one that sounded offended, his arms crossing over his chest. "a bad habit that just happened to make a baby. twice now, if you count-" you cut him off again with a huff, finally turning to face him. he could see the rage in your eyes, the way your jaw tensed. it only excited him more. "our son is not up for discussion," you hissed, eyes narrowing at him. it felt like the car was closing in on you, the both of you so close. "i am only telling you this because you are going to be a dad again, not because this is some sign we are supposed to get back together," you mumbled, your head slamming back into the head rest of your seat in frustration. the thing about sammy though, he was a selective listener. he heard father again and supposed to and somehow still landed on the fact that you were meant to be together.
"it has been months of you calling me at midnight, begging and pleading me to come over and you're going to tell me that it doesn't mean anything?" he spoke sharply, his hand reaching for yours but you were quick to yank it away. "we are already basically a family. you know he asks why i'm not home all the time," he mumbled, trying his hardest to hide the arrogant smirk he so badly wanted to shove in your face. "don't bring him into this to manipulate me. i called you because i had to, not because i want some fucking reunion tour. i know exactly what you are and who you are, and how you have always been," you hissed, your finger jabbing in his chest over and over. "you can go now," you mumbled, turning your head to look away from him.
your whole ride home was spent sobbing, not because you were upset about being pregnant, because you were upset you were having to go through this with sammy all over again. you glued yourself to the couch the rest of the night, your son thankfully with sammy's parents while he worked. it wasn't until later that evening there was a knock at your door. "mommy!" you heard your son's voice yell from the other side, your eyebrows immediately knitting together as you rushed to open it. there stood sammy, your son on his hip as they both smiled at you. "you can't just show up," you mumbled to your ex husband as he sat your son down, the little boy running past you and inside your house.
sammy told himself it wasn't manipulation. it wasn't manipulative to show up to your house with a bag of take out and your son, 'just because.' he told himself it wasn't manipulation to just walk right past her and sit on the couch like he still had some ownership over it. he told himself a lot of things. "we just wanted to come hang out with mommy is all," sammy shrugged as he sat the takeout bags on the coffee table, shooting you a smile. the same smile he always used to give you to make you forgive him for things you shouldn't have. "sammy, this is not going to be what you are building it up to in you head. i need you to hear me before it gets worse," you mumbled again, trying your hardest to keep your voice low enough your son wouldn't hear. he only patted the spot next to him on the couch for you to sit, sliding the little box of take out toward you. "i hear you. i really do, i just think you are gonna feel different in a few weeks," he shrugged, that same stupid smile on his face before he was back to getting everything from the takeout bags.
it wasn't a threat. it wasn't really even a lie. it was certainty. certainty that he had never been wrong about getting what he wanted.
I love baby daddy pope and ex husband sammy. I was wondering how you would write with Jack Abbot as one . Would it because he works so much that reader just felt like the main parent the whole time and got tired of being basically single parent. It’s his wake up call because he thought everything was going good. I think i need baby daddy abbot
you had already reheated the lasagna you made twice, finally giving up after the second time and just giving in to eat it. your daughter, sadie, was chewing on one of her toys on one of your hips, babbling in your ear.. jack's plate sat where it had for the past 2 hours, the plastic wrap you had put over it doing nothing to keep the heat in. you didn't bother texting him anymore asking when he'd be home. 'running late' and 'covering a shift' had stopped meaning anything a year ago. his excuse filled texts could mean he would be home in an hour, or be home late in the afternoon.
you had met jack in your second year of nursing school, him already being an attending at the hospital. the age gap to you felt like somewhat of a promise. a promise that he knows what he wants. he's not going to waste your time. he didn't waste anytime proposing to you, vowing to do anything for you. didn't waste any time getting you pregnant either, only a month after your wedding. he didn't waste anytime to get a big house to accommodate your now family of three. what he did waste was every night since then. your daughter began to fuss on your hip, your body automatically swaying to rock her. your body was so used to it by now, it was like breathing.
the sound of the garage door finally opening only made you sigh, continuing to bounce your daughter on your hip as she fussed. you were quick to focus on the dishes in the sink, trying your hardest to get them clean. you glanced back as he came into the living room, dropping his bag to the floor and beginning to slip his shoes off. "hey," he spoke quietly, making his way to where you stood by the sink to kiss the back of your daughter's head. "sorry, we had a huge trauma come in right at shift change, i couldn't just-" "i know," you cut him off, moving past him to grab your daughter's bottle that was warming up, "you never can just leave."
the tone of your voice made him freeze as he pulled his arm from his jacket, one arm still in the other sleeve. "i made dinner. it's probably fine cold," you shrugged, beginning to move past him but he was quick to grab your arm gently. "what's wrong?" he asked with genuine confusion, his eyebrows knitted together tightly. "sadie said her first word today. mama. twice. i tried calling you but it went to voicemail every time," you spoke, your ears burning with the threat of tears. he finally pulled his jacket off, the aging lines around his face only deepening as he frowned. "i was in a code. i meant to call you back we just got slammed," he spoke, fingers rubbing your arm gently.
you couldn't help but sigh, shaking your head a little bit. you knew how it went. you worked there too, just taking a year off to take care of your daughter. you knew he could step away. he was just to absorbed with his work. "i'm not just talking about today, jack. i'm talking about all the doctor's appointments i have gone to alone. about sitting alone on christmas with my newborn daughter. i'm talking about every single day, where i have to feed her, and bathe her, and read the books to make sure i am doing every thing alone. i understand you're busy saving other people's families but you have a family that needs you," you hissed, moving your daughter onto your other hip that only caused her to whine. "that isn't fair, come on. you know what the job is. you knew what it was when we got married," he frowned more, running a hand through his wild gray curls.
you shook your head, the tears falling quickly down your face. "i knew you'd work hard. i didn't know i would raise our daughter as practically a single parent. i can't do this anymore, i mean it," you were full on crying now, your daughter beginning to as well from your sad energy. "i have been trying to figure out how to have this conversation for months and i can't say it any softer. if things don't change, i want a divorce," you spoke finally, your voice cracking as you continued to cry. his whole body stilled, the color draining from his face. "divorce," he repeated, like he had to be sure you really said it. all you could do was nod, trying to hush your daughter as she cried loudly. "i love you. i loved the idea of our family. but i am exhausted. i am so alone. every time something is wrong sadie reaches for me because she barely recognizes you. that is not a marriage nor a family," you huffed, moving past him and up to your daughters bedroom.
he was frozen as he watched you walk away, a lump in his throat. he had been so consumed with the business of the pitt that he was neglecting his family. he could hear the bedroom door of your shared bedroom shut, the tears immediately falling down his face. jack stared at the cold plate of food on the table, his mind absolutely spinning with a sick feeling. he hated that he made you feel that way, hated that you waited so long to tell him. were you scared? after making his way up to your room, the locked door had him crying even more. he made himself a bed on the couch, trying his hardest to sleep. neither of you slept very well that night.
three nights later, your daughter spiked a fever. it came on fast like it usually does with babies, fine in the morning and absolutely losing it that night. you were a nurse and a mother, you knew when a babies cry was something serious. this was a cry you had never heard from your daughter. you didn't even hesitate to get your daughter buckled into her car seat, racing to the emergency room without even bothering to call jack. he was probably busy. you were already in your pajamas as you carried your daughter into the emergency room, going straight past the chairs and to the door. you were quick to pull your badge to scan yourself in, pushing through the door. "you brought baby to see us!" dana called from the station as soon as she saw you, your head quickly shaking. the loud crying echoed through the entire emergency room, everyone's eyes quick to land on you.
dana could see the worry on your face, quickly escorting you to a room that had just opened. "what's going on, honey?" she was quick to ask as you laid your daughter on the bed, the dark circles under your eyes making you look like a zombie. "a fever i don't- i don't know. get robby please," you asked, your voice absolutely exasperated as you bounced with your daughter. you could see the slight confusion on her face at the request of robby instead of jack, just giving her a pleading look. you were quick to pull the curtain across the door, trying your hardest to avoid your husband you knew was somewhere here seeing you.
"there's the big girl. what's going on?" robby asked as soon as he stepped in, taking your daughter from your arms to set her on the bed. you didn't even notice he didn't pull the curtain, immediately focused as he looked her over. "she has a fever and has just been getting sick," you stuttered, your hands quick to rub over your exhausted face. he nodded a little, continuing to look her over. "did you cal- what happened? what is wrong?" he was cut off by your husband barging in the room, quick to push past robby to get to your daughter.
robby immediately began to repeat everything he knew, jack's hands moving all over your daughter to inspect her. something in your chest stirred. it wasn't relief exactly, just the sight of him finally having competence and love aimed directly at you and your daughter. him and robby continued to talk amongst themselves before robby was excusing himself, leaving you and jack to yourselves. "you should have called me," he spoke softly, his face turning from his stern doctor face to one of concern, one you hadn't seen in a long time. "i didn't think you would answer," you shrugged, moving to sit on the edge of the bed to comfort your daughter. the both of you were quiet as a nurse came to administer some fluids and medicine to your daughter. your words hit him harder than the threat of your divorce, you could see it. the idea that you hadn't even considered him an option when it came to your daughter being sick made him want to vomit.
"i would always come. i would run out of any room in this building for her. and you," he mumbled as he rolled the stool up to sit at the edge of the gurney next to you. one hand came to rest on your thigh, the other moving to rub gently at your daughter's leg as she slowly began to calm down. "i have been telling myself for three days that i was going to fix this, i am going to figure out my schedule and come to you with a plan instead of just making excuse. instead i found out my kid has a 103 degree fever and had to come here for me to even know," he spoke softly, tears rolling down his cheeks as he looked up at you. "i didn't do it to punish you. i didn't have any room to think about anything except her," you spoke quietly, your voice cracking repeatedly.
"i know. that is my point. you have been doing this alone for a year, and i only understood is as a complaint until i saw you sitting in here doing it by yourself, in the one place im actually suppose to be good at showing up," he spoke, his hand moving to hold onto yours gently, his heart breaking at the sight of your tears. "i put in for a schedule change this morning. i should have told you first thing instead of just being quiet about it," he mumbled quietly, his thumb rubbing over the back of your hand, his chin resting on your leg as he watched your daughter slowly begin to drift to sleep. "i'm not promising you it's fixed. i know one schedule change doesn't undo the entire year. but i want to be the one you call first. not the one you end up in front of when something happens," he spoke, his hand squeezing yours gently. you couldn't help the small smile that crossed your lips at his word, your heart warming slightly.
for the first time in months, it felt like the ghost of your husband might actually be understanding.
Sammys wife who takes sexy Polaroids of herself and sneakily puts them in Sammy’s wallet before he leaves 4 work 👀?
sammy had been an officer long enough to know when something was out of place. it was part of his job. when a chair was moved slightly from where it originally sat, when a door that should be locked was left unlocked, when his favorite coffee cup was sat on the opposite side of the desk, when a photograph had been tucked into his wallet. the last one was the first clue that you were up to something.
it was early in the morning, sammy stood before the large mirror in your shared bedroom as you laid still asleep in the bed. he was buttoning the last button of his uniform shirt, running his hands over it a few times to remove the wrinkles. he checked his reflection again, eyes scanning over everything to make sure he didn't miss anything. he pulled his wallet out next, every morning being sure he had his license and credit cards. it was a typical routine that never changed for him. something was different this time. a small white corner stuck out slightly from behind his license, his eyebrows immediately furrowed in confusion. he didn't put anything there.
as he pulled the corner, his eyes widened a little, jaw clenching tightly at the sight of the photo that now was between his two fingers. he glanced back at the bed to make sure you were still asleep before he was bringing the picture closer to inspect it. there you were sitting on the edge of the bed dressed in the lingerie set he had bought you for your first wedding anniversary. he remembered back to when you both giggled and laughed as you opened it, taking it more as a joke than serious. this wasn't a joke. you weren't even doing anything particularly scandalous in the photo. you were just looking at the camera with that big playful smile like you knew what his reaction would be. on the bottom in your pretty hand writing it read 'have a good shift, i love you' he swallowed hard as he shoved the photo back into his wallet, quietly making his way over to the bed to press a soft kiss to your head as to not wake you before he was making his way out the door, the image of you burned fresh on his mind.
the morning felt like it was dragging as he sat at his desk, his second cup of coffee already gone. all he wanted to do was come home to you. the buzz of his phone in his pocket snapped him from his thoughts, hand reaching into the jacket when he froze. no way. he slowly pulled the photo out, lip immediately going between his teeth as he stared at it. you again. this one was different. a different lingerie set, but now you were stood in front of the mirror, bent slightly so your tits were on full display. 'you didn't think there was only one, did you?' he read at the bottom, a small laugh leaving his lips. "what's got you so giddy?" nate spoke from beside him, sammy quick to shove the photo back in his wallet. "just something funny," sammy mumbled, a shrug of his shoulders as he pulled his phone out, immediately pulling your contact up. he could feel nate's stare on him, probably thinking he had gone crazy but he couldn't care less.
two?
you smiled at the text that came through, a small laugh leaving your lips as you stared at the phone. he was staring intently at his phone, the little text bubbles from you appearing and disappearing over and over. he knew you were trying to come up with some witty reply and it only made him smile more.
you haven't found them all.
was all your reply said, sammy quick to huff and grab at his hair again. you always liked playing little jokes on him, but this felt like a cruel torturous prank. he dug around in his bag, sure that you had probably slipped one in there. nothing. he flipped through his wallet again, nothing. he felt like he was truly going crazy. the rest of the day was spent checking anything he knew you could get your hands on, his stomach filled with adrenaline. when he finally found the third one shoved deep into the center console of his car, he called you. "i win, i found the third one," he smirked into the phone as he began the drive back to your house. his eyebrows furrowed at the loud laugh that left your lips through the phone. after you had finally quit your giggling, you spoke simply, "there's four," before the phone clicked.
the front door to your house opened and slammed that evening, a wide smile on your face as you laid in the bed waiting for him. "you're missing something," you hummed as he came into the bedroom, the top buttons of his uniform already undone as he stared at you. "where is it?" he huffed, his poor cheeks pink and his bottom lip pouted slightly. you couldn't help but giggle at his frustration, shrugging your shoulders. "find it." he was quick to immediately begin digging through the dressers, the closet, the nightstand. anywhere he thought you might put it was completely empty. you could tell his frustration was growing, his hands shoving back into both pockets this time.
his face immediately softened, an evil smirk spreading across his lips as he pulled the fourth photo from the opposite pocket of where he looked this morning. "you made me search all day," he mumbled, eyes immediately fixated on the photo of you. this one was much different. your face wasn't shown, but he would know your body anywhere. you were laid out on the bed, completely naked this time which had him groaning. "you're a cop, should know to look more thoroughly," you teased him, sammy tossing the polaroid on the dresser before he was climbing onto the bed to hover over you. "and you're trouble. teasing me all day," he sighed, forehead coming to rest against yours. "you married trouble."
⊹ pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader
⊹ summary: you have a mean jealousy streak, and jack’s favorite hobby is to set it off. when he mentions an ex, he figures he’s in for a good morning. for the first time, he takes it too far.
⊹ warnings: [ wc: 15k ] angst – Lots of it im sorry but it gets resolved! hurt/comfort but it’s very obvious (i hope!) that they love each other. established relationship, age gap. insecurity spiral (age gap related), jack’s got a made-up ex named diane but she never appears on page, reader’s having a Sucky morning; she’s also a little spiral-y, very self-deprecating thoughts (jealousy, comparison, fear of not being enough in relationship), she isolates, cries in the shower, jack messes up and Immediately Knows and is making up for it, mutual fears, they are very healthy communicators eventually, jack and reader are really really obsessed with each other, jack grovels + Hey did you know this was going to be a short fic
⊹ notes: writing this felt like giving birth!!! spent hours and hours and hours on it bc i couldn’t stop writing them thank you SO much for this request! a LOT longer than i intended buut it was so much fun to write + i’ve never been in an age-gap relationship but i imagine This exact thing would fix me !! i literally have a big fat crush on this - also probs one of the last longfics i’ll be able to write in such a short time bc i’m going back to school soon :/
Last month, Jack had ran himself into the ground trying to make sure you understood that there was no mystery woman on his phone. It’d lit up with a text from an unknown number – a scammer, really, trying to paint the picture of a generous human, taking advantage of his old age ‘Hello! It has been forever! Do you still have this number, Jack Abbot? – and Jack had spent one beautiful, incandescent hour being investigated. It’d felt like being back in the military, if he was being honest. He’d last been interrogated like this at a desert, and the girl was clearly better at it, because he’d happily surrendered his phone, his passcode, his call log, and his theory of the crime.
( “It’s a scam, baby. They take advantage of the old guys. But check for any women. You’re only gonna find yourself in there.” )
He’d watched you bite down on a smile as you tried to keep the act going, and Jack had fed you all truths ( that he’d picked up once, stupidly, and someone asked him for his SSN; they didn’t know what a smart man he was; that he loved you, and only you; that the scammers may have the number, but only you got the man; that his passcode was your birthday, which you’d known, which you’d set ) and you’d recieved each one, nodding, refusing to let the corners of your mouth win.
( “You’re being charming,” you said to him, sternly. “It won’t work.” / “No, ma’am.” / “It’s working a little.” / “I know, ma’am,” he said, grinning. )
Then, you’d finally decided with reluctance that he was, in fact, “Free to go,” after making note of how scammers are becoming immensely mean, using buzzwords for people Jack’s age. “Forever,” you’d repeated, now disgusted on his behalf. “Who sends that to a veteran? That’s a targeted word. I should report the number.”
If he was honest, the least your jealousy had shown that week. Jack had never considered himself to be a ‘get an inch, take a mile’ sort of man. Decades your senior, he’d figured himself past the age where he took liberties. He asked before he took; he gave more than he got; he was, by every account, a reasonable man. You’d made a liar of him. He’d become crazy, had started finding childlike joy in small trouble; the sort a boy makes by poking a hive with a stick, except the hive was you and the stings brought him immense satisfaction. Each one, after all, was proof that somebody in this world considered him worth protecting and keeping tucked to themselves.
And you were crazier. Not about him – well. Also about him. But crazier as a baseline condition, a factory setting. You’d woken him at three in the morning by sliding one of his eyelids open with your thumb because you’d dreamt that he was texting another woman and needed to check his phone while the wound was still fresh. He’d handed his phone over, half-blind, and you’d scrolled through it sitting on his stomach. When you found nothing, you’d flopped down onto his chest and gone straight back to sleep.
It was, frankly, a lot of crazy to be on the receiving end of, and Jack – who’d spent much too long being the most even-keeled, unbothered man in most situations – had taken one look at your little feral devotion pointed square at him and thought that yes, he wants in on all of that.
He would gladly take that your whole storm wrapped up in a package, had done just that, and was not planning on letting go.
Being loved by you was full-contact, hands-on, and all consuming. You bit and you climbed him on the kitchen while he was holding hot pans; you pulled his face around by the jaw when you decided his attention wandered. He let you, always, going soft-eyed and pliant the second your hands landed on him, and had long ago stopped pretending otherwise.
That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t had his moments, especially when it came to his girlfriend. He was, in all senses of the word, protective over you.
He’d known enough men – had been a different man through each decade – to know that you in the wrong hands would have ruined someone, like you had him.
He’d considered himself lucky to have your devotion – a thing so pure, presented with such ferocity – pointed at him. The thought of it being pointed at someone else made him sick simply because he knew how difficult it was to not fall in love with your claws. He knew how it felt to have you scruff him by the collar and inspect him for another woman’s perfume that even you knew did not exist, how it felt to be counted and guarded and kept, and he knew there was no single man alive who could feel that and walk away sane.
He’d take a bullet before he let anything happen to you and consider it a fair trade.
Jack was nothing less than smugly, bone-deep, sure of you. And a man that sure, holding a jealousy that pretty, developed habits. He’d learned (through research he’d conducted, very selfishly, for his own benefit) exactly which levers produced the show.
A waitress lingering around him for a second too long; a squeeze of your hand going tight in his, and him spending the next thirty minutes in the parking lot outside the restaurant making up for another woman’s slow legs.
Mentioning, idly, that a pharmacutical rep had been ‘friendly today’; good for a whole evening of you cross-examining everything about him, her, her tone, his response.
He knew the difference between small provocations and the premium ones, and he deployed them the same way he planned date nights. He would’ve gone as far as to say they were date nights, impromptu, functionally; every match he struck brought him an evening of you staking your claim with both hands, and then the long, sweet business of being claimed.
He’d never once found the bottom of it. He’d never once thought to even look for one, where the jealousy cut off and turned inward. It had never once pointed that direction. Your claws faced outward, out at the world, never once you, carrying them.
He didn’t know there was a depth where that happened. It was why he poked the proverbial bear.
When he’d gotten off his shift at seven in the morning, tugging his bag over his shoulder, he’d leaned his hip against the driver’s door and opened your texts. Some people had a cigarette after a shift. Jack had you, delivered in installments, and he stood there in the cold biting down his smile as he scrolled through the night’s yield.
( a photo of a cat that lived outside the bar; a voice memo at 1:30 he already knew was you narrating something you’d decided was urgent; a link to a lamp with no explanation, which meant ‘buy me this lamp’ (he did, immediately, Apple Pay and its joys of quick payment); a text at 2:47 that just said that your feet were cold; and finally, a goodnight! i love you! sent at 3:15 am )
He’d thought, not for the first time, that he was genuinely a lucky bastard.
After years of pagers and reports and envelopes, somewhere his correspondence had started to include a nightly paper trail proving that somewhere in Pittsburgh, you moved through your night with him present in it. They were simply dispatches you sent because things weren’t fully real to you until he’d been notified.
A man could be told he was loved a hundred ways, but there was no proof on earth like being your first call about nothing.
If he were a better man, he would have told you about the name that had popped up on his message thread under yours the second he’d unlocked the phone – right there, sandwiched between your goodnight and a spam text about his car’s warranty, a name he hadn’t seen light up his screen in the better part of a decade.
Diane: Hey stranger. In town next week for a conference - would be good to catch up if you’re around. Coffee? It’s been too long. Hope life’s treating you well.
It was a strange sort of vertigo of a past life reaching out to tap him on the arm. Diane – Jesus. He hadn’t thought about her in years; it’d been long enough that the name landed without a hook. It was a faint mothball smell of a version of himself he’d long since folded up and put away. No, he had felt near to nothing for her name for the only one that popped up in his head was yours.
Jack had spent months getting fat and happy on your jealousy; he’d learned there was no sweeter sound than you getting worked up over nothing.
Jack had, right there in the parking lot, a plan because Diane was – he’d assumed, for you – not nothing. No, Diane had history, and it was a real, verifiable history. If a stranger’s coffee order could get you draped over him like a bodyguard, then this – Jack immediately thought – was going to be a show.
Before he’d got in the shower to start his ritual of getting in bed with you – the shower, the hygiene of it all – he found you sprawled across the entire acreage of the bed with the blanket cycloned around your legs. He crossed over and crouched at the edge of you, heart beating gratefully at the sight, because this part couldn’t wait for hygiene.
He settled for tucking the hair off your face – two featherlight fingers, hooking it back behind your ear – and your nose scrunched in your sleep before it turned into his hand.
“Hey,” he whispered, not to wake you (secretly hoping you would, anyway), and leaned in to press his mouth to your temple that made you make a tiny sound at the back of your throat.
Your fist unclenched from under the pillow and groped out blindly to his forearm, fingers curling around it without opening your eyes.
Jack stayed crouched there a moment longer than his knee approved of, grinning down at you.
“I know,” he murmured, working your fingers off his forearm one at a time and folding them back against your palm, pressing them there with a squeeze. “Ten minutes.”
When he tucked himself into bed beside you, arms instinctively falling over your waist to pull you flush against him, you were half-turning to him before you’d even surfaced. You made a tiny sound, unintelligible words – something about the temperature of his hands – and burrowed closer, one leg sliding under his waist and over the mattress, your cold feet immediately seeking out the warmest available part of him.
“You’re cold,” you mumbled, not opening your eyes, wounded.
“I know, right,” he murmured, pulling you in closer to his chest. “You, though, are warm.”
You wrapped yourself tighter around him, hand finding its way under his shirt to flatten against his ribs. “You can borrow me.”
His hand moved up your spine, thumb catching each notch, and he pressed his cold nose to your temple just to feel you flinch and swat at him, which you did, gorgeously, with a wounded utterance of his name that made his entire body feel like it’d gone under the sun. “Missed you.”
You smiled, tipping your face up, eyes still shut as your mouth searched. He met you there, pressing a slow, morning-soft kiss that just stayed. When you finally pulled back and sighed, boneless, he cradled you to him.
“Hey, so,” he murmured, thumb still stroking your back, “old friend of mine’s in town next week. Reached out this morning.”
“All your friends are old.” You hummed into his chest, still processing the words, and he felt your body still in his arms. “What old friend?”
“Just an old friend, baby.”
You lifted your head off his chest at that, one eye cracking open then the other, the sleep burning off you so quickly. He exhaled a sigh as he watched that beautiful, familiar spark catching behind your face. You propped your chin on his sternum and narrowed your eyes at him.
“This old friend doesn’t have a name?”
“Mhm. Does.” He kept his face maddeningly neutral, thumb still sweeping your spine, savoring the little furrow in your brows and the way your hand had started gripping the side of his waist, staking a claim. He loved you. “Diane.”
Your lips pursed as you processed the name, as if checking everything you know about Jack in real time. Then you shook your head a little, lips curving up into what he could only consider your angry-smile. “Who the hell’s Diane?”
“We go back a ways.” He shrugged easily, that confidence of having done this a hundred times and always getting sweet, sweet you packing up in him. “Dated, for a bit. Long time ago.”
You took in a sharp inhale, snorting softly as your hands left him completely. He tried to bite down his frown from showing.
“Dated,” you said, through a small breath with wide eyes. “You dated and she texted you?”
“She did.” Jack laced his hands behind his head and settled back into the pillow. “Wants to grab a coffee. Catch up.”
“Well, are you going?” You were up on your elbow now, the blanket pooling at your chest, as your brows went up to your hairline in thorough dissatisfaction.
No, he wasn’t. The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. He’d read the text, and moved on to the far more interesting business of what it could do for this morning. The coffee itself was nothing; he had no interest in sitting across a woman who hadn’t crossed his mind at all to trade summaries of decades.
You existed. There was, now, no hour anyone could offer that beat an hour of you doing anything at all.
He had sat through watching you decide whether or not you’d return a sweater for forty minutes; trying it on over and over again, the same sweater, then tucking it into parts of your existing clothes to test it (into jeans, out of jeans, under the jacket, sleeves shoved up, sleeves shoved down, “should i just cut the sleeves off?” with the scissors already located, and he’d told you “do the crime and you can’t return it,” and watched you reconsider, setting the scissors down). You’d kept it and worn it while sitting on the couch for the rest of the day, then never again.
“Thinkin’ about it,” Jack said, hooking a lazy finger into the strap sliding off your shoulder and tugging it back up, a tending gesture entirely at odds with the trouble he was stirring. “Just coffee, angel. She’s only in town a few days.”
“Well, your girlfriend is in town all days,” you said, swatting his hand away. “You can’t just get little catch-up coffees with women you fucking dated, Jack. That’s not – it’s not a thing people in relationships do.”
“No? But it was so long ago.”
You’d pulled yourself upright now, cross-legged in the sheets, the blanket in your lap and the one strap already sliding down again. “Doesn’t matter, Jack.” You jabbed a finger at his neck. “You’ve got a girlfriend. A very good one –”
“Best one I’ve ever had,” Jack agreed, catching your finger and kissing the tip of it, entirely pleased. “I like her. Love her, even.”
“Then why think about it at all?” you asked as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, thumb grazing your cheek.
“Just surprised, baby,” he said, shrugging. “We go way back. Before your time. It was – a real thing, for a while.”
Your eyes quickly flickered down to his chest, mouth opening, then closing again. “How long were you together?”
He clicked his tongue, brows furrowing as he genuinely tried to reel back the memory. It was funny the way time did that.
“Couple years,” he murmured. “Give or take, three. Yeah. Around three.”
Your eyes had gone slightly wide as you looked at a spot on the blanket with your bottom lip tugged between your teeth.
“Three years,” you murmured, more to yourself than him, huffing slightly through your nose.
Your eyes flicked up to him, and Jack’s hand went still against your spine. They eyes were wide, glassed, and lost, blinking up at him with some unguarded confusion. You looked at him the way you did when a word went missing on you mid-sentence (your fingers snapping restlessly at the air like you could catch it, ‘you know the one, Jack, the word – the – the thing,’ while he supplied guesses just to watch you swat them away), except there was no word being hunted now.
“That’s – a long time, right?” you asked him then, tilting your head to the side, looking at Jack like he had some sort of conversion chart on what three years were ought to weigh.
Jack’s eyes landed on your fingers tugging closer to him on the blanket, not landing on him. They stopped an inch short of his ribs, curling back into themselves.
His eyes went from your fingers, to your face, which was still waiting for his answer. He sucked in a small exhale, buying a second, though he couldn’t have said for what.
There was some low-grade, humming static on his skin, and he forced himself to override it, because you’d asked him so gently, and he always answered your questions. You asked him things at all hours, in all states, with your mouth full, from the other room, half-asleep on his shoulder blade.
( What’s the worst thing you ever ate? You’d help me hide it, right? What’s your favorite planet? If we were both dogs, who’d be walking who? Am I the funniest person you know? Would you still love me if I couldn’t talk, only hum? Who taught you how to drive? )
He’d answer every single one thoroughly, treating them all like he would’ve a question for boards, because early on he’d discovered your asking was an act of love; you collected his answers, kept them somewhere in that beautiful head, stored him. Nobody had ever wanted his mind so thoroughly before.
So when you asked, he answered.
It was who Jack was to you. It was maybe his favorite thing to be, just Jack. Jack and all the little things he thought about all the little things he’d given little to no thought to.
“Felt both long and short, if that makes sense,” Jack mused, wandering back into it, because you’d asked and the memory was a harmless thing to ignite. It was cold hearth, ash-dead, nothing in it did a single thing to a single fold of his brain.
“We took some trips – did two weeks through Italy one summer.” He shook his head slightly, blowing out a short breath at that fact of his life. “And her sister’s wedding in Maine.”
“Italy,” you said, lips curving around the little word. Your eyes flicked down to his chest, then his torso. “You went to Italy?” You breathed in softly, and your head tilted again. Jack wondered if this was where the claws came out – Italy. “I didn’t know that.”
“Lots you don’t know about my misspent youth,” he said, lips curling in a casual smile. His fingers reached out then to catch yours and folded them in his palm, bringing them up to his mouth to press a kiss to the knuckles.
“What was it like?” you asked, brows rising slightly. “I’ve never – I don’t really know what it’s like there.”
“Rented this Fiat, did the coast. Amalfi, Positano – she had the Italian, so she handled the talking. I just drove and pointed.” A huff moved through his chest where he’d trapped your forearm. “She’d order. I’d eat whatever showed up.”
He waited for the strike. She ordered for you? Then your fingers would go to his throat. Nobody orders for you. What did she order? Was it good?
Your lips had made this small shape of an ‘o’ as your eyes had snagged on him as he spoke, criss-cross and those small inches away from him on the bed.
“What’d she – where’d you even find the time?” you said through a short laugh, shoulders coming up slightly.
“We’d come out of residency and the schedules just –” He’d left your fingers for a second to lace his own loosely over his chest in the air, two combs of a zipper missing. “Lined up.” He retrieved your hand automatically, repocketing it to him. “Traded calendars at the start of the month, find the overlap. Italy was a big overlap we got lucky with. Had a little cash for once, and somebody said to go now or never go.”
The word ‘residency’ had barely left his mouth when he heard you take in a small inhale, your lips jutting out slightly.
Now? Jack wondered dumbly. Now you’d get mad, say something territorial, something pretty and unhinged about schedules. I’ll make your schedule. He readied his face for it, schooling the grin down in advance so you wouldn’t catch him enjoying it. He also would have let you make his schedule, had you asked, even though he wasn’t sure how that would’ve worked. He’d have found some compromise between his job and you. He’d have nodded along solemnly, and asked you when it was effective.
“I didn’t know you’ve been to Italy,” you murmured, almost musing, as your eyes went to the desk beside the bed, past his shoulder. He followed your gaze to the little basket where you kept your folder of documents he’d made you organize last spring.
“Long time ago,” Jack said, because it was. It was a very long time ago, and he felt the need to clarify that. He didn’t know why he was elaborating like he’d been accused. He hadn’t. You hadn’t accused him. “Very long time ago.”
His palm tightened over your fingers – a small, reflexive press – and got no answering flex back.
Your fingers lay there in his hand, warm, accounted for – like Jack always needed them to be – but absent. Jack found himself pressing again, interrogatively this time, you in there?
“That’s –” you started.
Jack’s eyes snapped back you again, like a dog hearing it’s name. Your mouth twisted, working like you were deciding on a seed and what to do with it.
You gave a small shrug – one shoulder, half-mast – and reached over with your other hand to roll a little lint of fluff off the blanket around your finger.
“That’s really far to go with someone,” you said, softer. “Italy. That’s like – a whole thing to do.”
“It was,” he said, absentmindedly, though, as he watched you.
There was something about the set of you he didn’t quite like, though he couldn’t have said what. The way your shoulders had come in a little? The way you seemed all gentle and docile now, when a minute ago you’d been jabbing him in the throat?
Jack prided himself on knowing you; he’d taken it up as a personal study. Your spine, usually all insolence, all sprawl, had gone considerate. Even your knees, criss-crossed under the sheets, had tucked in closer.
“You okay, baby?” he asked, feeling that need to poke at it directly.
“Mhm.” You nodded quickly and looked up at him with a smile.
His fingers immediately reached up to settle under the hinge of your jaw, as if to hold your smile there, thumb laid along your cheek.
“Yeah, I just didn’t know it was – so serious. That’s all. I thought it’d be, like, some girl you dated a few months.” You let out a little breath of a laugh. “Not an – Italy person.”
Jack’s brows furrowed. He didn’t really know what an ‘Italy person’ entailed, but he didn’t like how it sounded in your voice.
You sometimes said things that made him want to burrow into your mind. They were little nothings, coinages, a whole private mint going on up there.
( It feels like a July day, when it was very clearly December and you were snowed in; he’s looks like a Tuesday guy, about a stranger at the DMV on a Friday; my feet are homesick, which turned out to mean you wanted to go to the beach, and also somewhere deserted sometimes, and a hike. )
He never asked you to translate. Half the time, it was impossible for you to do so, anyway; the words just arrived to you whole, and he’d learned to hold them up in the light until they made sense.
They always made sense, for there was always a ‘you’ inside of them. And he’d found that whatever came from you, it was worth keeping to dig into.
( Sometimes, it made sense days later. Like when you’d said, one night in the car, engine off, “I like you when you park.”
He’d laughed and asked, “As opposed to what?”
You’d had no answer, but he understood, days later, that you liked Jack in-between things. You liked him with the engine off, day done, night not started, with nowhere to be just yet.
He supposed it meant you liked the little pockets of nothing that every life has and nobody claims; idling, as opposed to mid-shift, the one where there was no overarching function making him do something. He’d found he liked those little pockets of nothing, too. )
He supposed that ‘Italy person’ would turn out to mean something exact, too.
He waited, again, for the claws. What am I, then? with a finger at his chest, and he’d catch the finger and kiss it again and tell you what you were – everything – and you’d pretend it wasn’t enough, and demand he phrase it better, and he would.
Jack would phrase it better then better than that, mouth at your knuckles, your wrist, working up the arm between clauses.
Mine, obviously, don’t be stupid. You’d hum, and he’d say it slower – mine, ob-vi-ous-ly – and you’d call him useless, and somewhere you’d end up bickering about whether Italy even had good food. He’d take your side on, traitor to decades in under a minute, and your sulk would die of neglect without either of you watching it.
“I don’t know what that means, sweetheart,” he said, trying to force a casual smile through a small, chuckle. He shook his head confusedly.
Your lips pressed together as you shrugged. “I don’t, either. Not really,” you said.
Before Jack could respond, you reached over and patted his chest twice and said, “Long night?”
It took Jack a second. He heard actual sound, cogs audibly changing gears, because you’d been in Italy, and now you were in his shift, and the border between those two had been crossed with no warning. He’d been asked this normal question a thousand times; it was a fine question, a normal one. He’d answered it a thousand normal ways.
“Uh, yeah – middling,” he said, hand now coming to find your waist where you sat and tugging slightly, getting you back down into him. “Don’t wanna talk about the shift, though.” You landed against his chest and his chin fell to your head, some unscripted instinct in him kicking in. “Wanna talk about you.”
“Me?” You laughed slightly. “Nothing to report here.”
“Disagree.” His hand started running over your spine, pressing his mouth to your hair for a second, breathing you in. “Missed you today,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Listened to your voice memo twice on the way back.”
“Really?”
His arm tightened around you, bring you up closer to his face, where he could reach your temple without any work. He pressed one, then another, and another kiss against them slowly, mouth lingering against your skin on the last one as he waited. For what? He had no idea.
Your hand traveled up from his ribs to his jaw, cupping it, then running your thumb against the stubble once against the grain, the way you liked. It usually came with commentary (you’d make such a good beach, Jack; this is my favorite texture on earth; Jack, keep it like this always) and tonight he got none of it.
Jack turned his mouth to it on reflex and pressed a kiss to the middle of your palm, and felt your fingers curl slightly on the contact, gathering the kiss like you were keeping it.
“Love you,” you murmured. “Go to sleep, Jack.”
“Love you, too,” he said.
He couldn’t ignore how you’d practically shut off right in front of his eyes. So, he asked, “You tired?” he asked, feeling some base need to clarify.
“Yeah,” you whispered between your faces, and you did sound tired. Tired, Jack knew how to work with.
“Good,” he murmured, softer, relieved to hear it was that. “We’ll be tired together, then we won’t be tired.”
Your breath billowed softly over his mouth, something like a laugh, and his hand slid down to your arm to find your hand, tucking the whole laced knot of it down between your chests where it lived. Your head ducked slightly to go under his, burrowing in his neck, and he smiled as his chin came to rest at the top of your head.
“Sleep,” he said gently, with all of the command he could muster whilst three-quarters gone himself. “We’re gonna sleep the whole day away.”
You did. Sleep – that is. Or stayed in his arms until his breath went long and even and unmistakably out. When you were sure – when that deep untroubled weight of him told you he was really under – you extracted yourself out of the bed.
You didn’t want to, but sleep wasn’t coming easy with Jack tonight. It sucked; sleep always came easy to you with Jack. Getting out from under him, too, wasn’t easy. He slept like he meant it now, all of his weight poured over you, one heavy arm slung across you like a seatbelt.
You lifted his arm by the wrist, an inch at a time, and slipped out from underneath it. He stirred and made a rough sound of protest and reached for the warm gap you’d left, patted once, then again, searching, and you winced at the sight of it.
You hurriedly fed your pillow to his arms and watched him gather it against his chest, watched him settle, thinking it was you.
You should have gone outside now, like you’d planned, and instead you leaned in over the mattress, drawn back down by some law you had never once repealed.
Because – even now – you couldn’t leave Jack Abbot undecorated, you weren’t functioned that way.
Every time you left his vicinity, you’d paid a toll at the door; a kiss to the knuckles, the shoulder, the one time you pressed his closed eyelid so gently he’d told you about it during breakfast, thinking he’d dreamed of it, that it’d felt nice.
You picked the stubbled jaw and pressed the smallest kiss there for half-a-second, and he hummed just as you leaned away. His arms pulled the pillow tighter.
You felt heat build up behind your eyes at it. Jack was, somehow, reassuring you unconsciously, four fathoms down. You blinked at the ceiling, because this was just Jack sleeping with a pillow. Normal girls do not cry about things like this.
When you successfully made it to the kitchen to make some coffee, which you didn’t end up making, you scrolled through your phone absentmindedly for a few minutes.
Your teeth were digging into your lower lip, and you were sure they could’ve left a permanent dent on them because of how long you’d been sitting on the countertop next to the coffee
You were being mature. You were being so very mature about this.
Any second now, the maturity would kick all the way in and you’d feel it; the maturity, the security, the calm, grown-up ease that’d let you hear about your boyfriend’s beautiful doctor ex-girlfriend and their beautiful accomplished Italian holiday and simply nod. Maybe you’d be glad he’d had love before you, had something great enough it’d taken a tour across oceans.
You wouldn’t be this.
She was three years to your year.
You’d been counting since the bed, some sick little voice in the back of your head clicking away – that’s longer than you, so much longer, it’s double! and then one more!
She got a whole coast and you? Every time you tried to set the voice down, it just picked itself back up and started again.
You had – after a year – found the one proof that you’d always been, cruel-to-yourself, looking for. Jack Abbot had lived a life before you, several lives, and he’d had love.
So much time she’d had with Jack.
When you reached for your enormousness, for the claws, for the whole arsenal, you found your armor completely empty.
She predated you; you had no way to be big at her. You couldn’t bodyguard Jack from his own past, though you wished he’d have been a bodyguard to it from you. It was an insane thing to wish. All he did was answer your questions, because you’d come knocking.
An unfair, childish, foolish part of you wished he’d lied and decided the truth was too heavy for you and carried it himself.
She had Jack, and she let him go. You could hardly let Jack go for the length of a shower. You’d have died.
What did she know that you didn’t? What was it like, being a woman who could afford to lose him? She’d walked away from Jack and was whole; if you’d lost Jack, there’d be nothing left.
You knew it was dramatic, that it didn’t work that way. It wasn’t true, but it sure felt like it. Jack had filled your life completely, and you didn’t ever want that space ever again.
Nothing about that is romantic. You’re just a girl who bet everything she had on the first big thing she saw.
Jack had lived a whole entire grown-up love – the real kind, the serious kind – with her.
Your cruel brain wondered if there were others. You’d never heard about Diane before, what was one more name he’d never mentioned? He had decades you knew nothing about.
It all happened before you’d ever set your eyes on him and thought he was the only man that existed. It had happened before you’d seen him and thought he could be the one, then wished that he would be the one. He’d had that before.
You’d always known that, abstractly. But the idea of years and years of Jack being loved by great women who understood his work, women his own age, women who’d been there for parts of him you never got to meet. That a door swung open all the way tonight.
You were the latest in a line you didn’t even know the length of.
You’d never even thought about Italy – it was so far away, and you didn’t even think you’d said the country’s name out loud until tonight.
Italy was – you always thought – a thing that happened to other people. It happened, you understood, to Jack. Not your Jack, another woman’s Jack, back when he was somebody’s whole future instead of their past.
He had been loved over there. He'd been to Maine with a family who’d probably thought he was the one.
You were holding the frayed end of a rope whose length you’d never wanted to measure, because you’d assumed stupidly, sweetly, that the rope started when you’d grabbed it, that Jack began the night he met you.
Stop. You’re being crazy – like always. A part of you always had known Jack liked getting a rise out of you, and you liked giving him one. Get a rise out of him, the petty, young part of your brain supplied.
You laughed softly to yourself, clutching your arms around your waist as you folded over, forehead dropping to your knees.
With whom? If you looked for ammunition, you found no Diane.
The guy before the last guy whose last name you couldn’t even remember anymore; a handful of small-time relationships that had lasted one season and ended not because they were wrong but because they were nothing.
You had no great, grown love in your belt that you cold hold up to the light and make Jack ache over.
You had Jack. Jack was your Diane and Jack was your Italy – your three years, your coastline, and your entire globe, probably even more – the biggest love you’d ever had by a distance so vast it was hardly a competition.
Jack knew about your entire life and every supplementary information about you that held no weight on you, or only very little.
Jack knew about your first pet’s name, and its cause of death, and the movie you still couldn’t watch because of it. He knew your worst subject’s grade and, worse, the teacher’s name, and had once gotten angry at that man on your behalf.
He knew the reason you hardly talked to your family; he knew it all by now, because you’d kept handing out pieces over this year, and somewhere around the eighth month you’d realized he knew the story completely now.
He’d learned it all, greedily, like each fact was worth having. You’d hand him a dusty nothing – a camp story, a recurring dream since seven, your opinion on cilantro – and watch it get written down somewhere behind his eyes. Weeks later, he’d produce it at the right moment. No cilantro, she hates it.
It had felt like Jack had opened your junk drawer and thought of it as treasure.
Your life was small and short enough to fit into his hands entire. It was a carry on. He held all of it and had room left over for more. You just didn’t have any more to give him.
Jack had finished reading you.
You’d been collecting him, too, greedy in your own right, thinking you were getting, at the very least, to the hallway. Now, you were wondering if you’d only just walked up the porch to the door.
You could produce Italy in your brain now; Jack against some sun-warm railing over water; Jack driving a little car on the wrong side of the road with confidence; Jack looking longingly at a woman who was speaking a language he couldn’t understand, holding him up.
Some parallel-Jack, out in the corner of your mind, who’d married the doctor.
Jack who was, right now, in some other version of this morning, drinking coffee, happy, whole, entirely fine. Jack, who was talking about some case from a journal – in his fluent doctor-language with someone who never needed the glossary – never pausing to translate English into – well, English. He was never smiling patiently and having to shrink his work down to a bedtime-story size like he did you. That Jack’s wife could meet Jack in the dark after his bad shifts instead of standing at the edge with a flashlight, calling in.
You couldn’t even imagine parallel-Jack lonely with something missing at his table. Your imagination – which loved him, which had only ever been able to love him – refused to even draw him sad. It kept handing you Jack complete; a whole finished Jack, out there in the corner of your mind.
This Jack’s completeness had to require your absence. It needed you to put yourself out of this world and into the crevice of your mind that hated you.
You had to widen your eyes on the floor. Your heels knocked the cabinet.
No. No. Your Jack – the real Jack – was thirty feet away and had never once been anything but certain of you.
Jack had never once not been certain of you. You were sitting on the countertop in his sweatpants right now. Your fingers were curled into the cotton of the pants, holding it like it was his hand, because Jack himself suddenly felt like too much to deserve.
You were getting homesick of him, getting jealous of women in your own head, grieving trips that had already happened, creating an entirely one-girl production in your mind that was only cruel to you, and the man who’d done nothing to put it there.
Go to him, you tried to tell yourself. Go to Jack. Wake him up. Talk to him.
He never turned you away. You had come to him with nothing, a whole lot of nothings, and he had never once turned you away.
( You’d had a terrible dream that your childhood house was empty. It was the whole dream. You’d walked through it, room-by-room, and everyone was gone and the furniture was gone and your voice didn’t work. It was classic dream-physics. You’d woken up with shaky breaths, body tensing up over, well, nothing. Over the fact that the wallpaper was gone. You’d lain there for four minutes being reasonable about it, then you’d poked Jack.
Poked him once, then again. Then again – his hand caught your finger, eyes still shut, reflexes working. He folded your finger in his fist and kept it there, on his chest as one eye dragged open, looked at the little digital clock, looked insulted, then looked at you.
“What?” At your silence and the sight of your small pout as your body went still, both his eyes opened, everything in his face shifting around not making this worse. “What happened?”
“Bad dream,” you said, and because he’d wait all night without asking, you added, “My old house. Everything was just gone. It’s stupid, it’s not even –”
“Not stupid.” His arm had come up to haul you down onto his chest in a drowsy motion, your ear landing conveniently over the slow bass of his heart as his hand rubbed over your skin. “Empty house,” he murmured, clicking his tongue. “Yeah. That’s not a great one.”
He always agreed with you. Then, he added, “This place has got everyone we both need in it. Go back to sleep.” )
Your mind had, finally, gone quiet. Finally. Even it knew overkill when it saw it.
Fuck, maybe you were fucking crazy. Jack should have gone running. If he had any sense, he’d have looked at you and walked calmly in the other direction. He hadn’t. He had stayed.
This morning your enemies included a hypothetical, a memory, and Europe al-fucking-together.
He hadn’t let you go, you had to remind yourself. He’d kept you. Had, a few times, put a foot on the door to keep you there.
You slid off the kitchen counter to make your coffee, almost distantly. You made it this time, too. By the time the machine started its slow gurgle, you’d forced yourself to wrestle the whole thing back where it belonged, blinking your eyes clear and dry. It was the deal you’d made with yourself, you supposed, when Jack had said Italy and that she was a doctor, just like him.
You weren’t going to be the crazy, young girlfriend who spiraled over an old flame. You were going to be so graciously secure about all of it that Jack would never, ever know the morning had touched you at all.
You’d nearly convinced yourself of it, too, as you settled on the couch with the mug on the little glass table beside you as you scrolled through your phone. Then, you’d heard the bedroom door, and the soft knock of crutches against the floorboards as Jack shifted his weight.
You felt your heart drop at the sound of it, and had to force yourself to look up at the ceiling for a few seconds before he materialized, because you had never – not once – felt that feeling in your body in the three-sixty-five and a few more days you’d loved him.
No, you had to tell your body. We don’t feel this way for Jack. There’s no need to start now.
He came around the corner a second later, crutches under his arms and squinting against the light, hair flattened up on one side of his head from all of forty minutes on the pillow. His eyes swept across the room quickly and landed on you, face easing slightly.
“There you are,” he said, voice rough with sleep. He stayed there for a second looking at you, head-to-toe, checking. “Woke up to a pillow,” he said, one brow going up, dipping his chin at you in soft accusation.
“Jack –” You pushed yourself up off, padding over to him on instinct, because you were you, it was now nine in the morning and he’d hauled himself out of bed after only one tiny blink of sleep after his shift. Every single step he was taking on those crutches was a step he shouldn’t have been taking. “What are you doing up? Go back to bed –”
“Could ask you the same, baby. You’re never up this early.” When you got close enough, his eyes immediately came down to yours and stayed, moving over slowly. Then, he flicked his gaze to the entirety of the living room behind you.
“You get lonely out here? Something wrong? Should’ve come got me.” he fired off at once, so quickly that your mind had to catch up to process it.
“Not lonely. Nothing’s wrong. You needed sleep – ”
False. False. True. You were a liar more than half the time today, and you knew you were making this bed all by yourself.
“I need lots of things.” His hand came up off the crutch grip – balancing himself there on one – and reached out to you, knuckles first, dragging down your cheek slowly as his head tilted to look at you. The touch was so, so tender it almost undid the whole act you had running. “Sleep’s like – fourth.”
You leaned into his hand before you could stop it, and his face flickered for a second – relief, there and covered – and his thumb pressed in to hold it, keeping it.
“I just couldn’t sleep,” you said into his palm, because half-truths were easier to say to his palm. “You can, though,” you said quickly. “You worked all night. I’d already slept before you came home.”
He appeared to weigh this, and when your eyes finally moved back to his face, it was tilted slightly to the side, lost. Like a dog, hearing a new sound. It was a new sound, you realized the second it left you. It sounded like exactly what you had decided you were going to be – reasonable and considerate – and you had never once been reasonable about Jack going to bed. Sending him off to rest, so generously, without you, sounded – to you and him both – like another person’s girlfriend talking.
He took in a small breath, a chuckle dying in his throat, and his head dropped closer, the stubble catching in the light.
“Counter-offer?” he murmured. His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, settling there. “Couch. Both of us. Nobody sleeps. Nobody does a single thing.”
“Like gremlins,” you murmured.
The crease in his brow lost a little bit of its altitude. “Exactly like gremlins, angel,” he said gravely, instantly.
Your lips moved hesitantly, and your hands came up to his bare chest, pressing slightly. “You’ve been up all night, Jack,” you said through a short laugh, fingers skating around the breath of his chest to sit at his ribs, trying to turn him.
“Stop it – please, no.” He stayed put, eyes flicking down to where your hands had come up and lips twisting in, what you could only describe as a snarl. “I’m not tired.”
It was such a bald, indefensible lie that you visibly shook your head at him. The evidence was all over his pretty face, the pretty, lying face. The curls were silvering mess flattened on one side and standing at attention on the other, and you had to physically stop your hands from going to them.
The morning stubble had come in along his jaw in that salt-and-cinnamon scatter you’d once spent a full minute petting against the grain while he sat there letting you, patient as a trained dog. Still, tired lived well on him. Everything lived well on him. You’d told him once, and he’d thanked you, because he’d found himself tired a lot and hadn’t quite found a way to ease it. He’d tried.
“Jack,” you tried, voice warming a touch.
“What?” he drawled, shaking his head at you now, like he was deciding to show how scandalized he was now by all of this. “I’m not allowed to sit with my girl?”
He started moving to the direction of the couch – crutches finding their rhythm – without giving you any time for defense. “Man works a night shift and isn’t allowed to sit with the prettiest thing he’s ever seen?”
You huffed. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” Jack called over his shoulder. “Come sit.”
You trailed after him, because what else could you do? Dig your heels in, tell him no? That would’ve been a tell the size of five fucking houses. The second you were in range, his arm left the cushion and hooked over your waist mid-step and hauled you onto his lap. Your yelp was swallowed by the drop, and you landed sideways across his thighs with his arm already snaked across your back.
“Your leg, Jack – ”
“My leg’s thrilled.” His other hand collected your knees and folded them up toward his stomach, tucking you in closer, arranging you into the compact bundle he preferred, until you were sitting in the wide, warm bowl of him with nowhere to look that wasn’t him. His hand then came up to your back and pressed, instructively, until your cheek gave up and landed against his shoulder. He let out a long, slow breath at the contact, chin coming to rest on your hair. “There we go.”
You breathed in a lungful of air as you settled against him, his presence like fire and water over you right now. You were so scared of someday losing this, this exact thing. His chest hair scratching at your cheek; the weight of his head – carrying so much – on your head; the way he smelled like your soap because you’d asked him to once and he’d never gone back, and now this man walked around his emergency department smelling like pink fruit all day and let everyone at work deal with it.
It was so, so unbelievably simple to be with Jack, to be in this flowery presence of this gruff man, being his. Jack had come along and he’d made you put everything down – the checking, the second-guessing – and you had, you’d put everything down, and dumped both arms around his neck instead.
“How do you wanna use our nights off today, hm?” he asked softly, moving his head to press a quick kiss to the top of your head.
This was your event. You knew that was why he was asking, dangling it, because the planning was half the having for you and he’d learned to just hand you the whole day and watch you go. You always had opinions.
Before you’d tucked yourself into bed last night, you’d thought maybe you and Jack would go to the diner whenever you woke up, breaking fast in the afternoon like degenerates.
Maybe the flea market afterwards, because Jack, at a flea market, haggled in such a nice, slow voice that made grown sellers fold like the lawn chairs they were selling. He’d followed you around from table to table for two hours, never once questioning why you were suddenly looking at doorknobs. You could’ve looked at gravel, and he’d have carried it. Then you’d come home, couch, a game on, his head in your lap – heavy, trusting, king of some small kingdom – while you messed with his curls.
It all seemed so unbelievably wrong now. It seemed nice at the same time, the same as before. But the diner. She probably never made him eat at diners. The flea market; she went to Positano. You had no idea what Positano even looked like, exactly. It was probably the most beautiful place on all of earth and Jack had stood in it, years before you existed to him, being well-loved, and you’d spent this morning secretly hoping it was ugly.
You pressed your cheek harder into his chest and he hummed, appreciatively, and adjusted his arm to noodle you.
She got this, too.
You had to stop yourself from groaning at your own voice, from yelling at it altogether. The thoughts were just pushing you closer and closer to him, your cheek nuzzled against his chest, shifting slightly like the bare contact of his skin could just scrub it all out; your cure and disease were Jack. Every awful, awful thought sent you burrowing closer into his exact chest that had caused it, and he kept receiving you, warm and obliging, having no idea he, right now, was both your wound and bandage.
You just wanted your day back. You couldn’t tell anyone how insane this was, least of all Jack. You’d have crawled inside his ribcage if it zipped.
You knew that Jack had been trying to get under your skin – you knew that he liked it – but you’d figured this game was one that was built for you to win. Every round was just Jack setting up an excuse to spend the afternoon demonstrating with his mouth, his eyes, his face, that there was no contest to even worry about.
Because you couldn’t very well go to Positano today, and because you suddenly felt like a kid handing over a macaroni necklace to someone who owned diamonds, you said, “I don’t know,” into his chest. “You decide.”
His thumb paused on your skin for a second, then it resumed.
“Me?” he murmured, chin tilting for a second to press his lips to the top of your skull again. “I wouldn’t have the first clue, angel.”
“Try,” you said.
He huffed slightly. “Alright, then. Bear with me – first day on the job. We stay here till noon, then the diner with your jams. Then that stretch by the river you like, lemonade from the good cart guy.” He squeezed your arm and pressed another peck to your head. “Home by dark and it’ll be the best outing in the world.”
It sounded so perfect. You pressed your whole face down into his chest, even as you thought about how his outings were once grander, with people who’d done grander. With a doctor, no less. “Sounds perfect.”
For a moment, the two of you just breathed there. It may have been the fact that when it got quiet when you were with Jack – instead of quiet with just yourself – things seemed a little easier, but you found yourself saying, against him, “Jack?”
“Yes?” he said instantly, chin lifting off your head and you felt his attention come down on you, whole and immediate, like he was summoned.
“Are you gonna get the coffee?” you asked.
“Huh?”
“With her,” you said. “You know –”
Your words cut off as you shrugged, suddenly feeling stupid all over again. Saying it made it real again, and now you’d brought the topic to the couch. It happened on the bed, and you’d carried it to the kitchen, and now it was on this lovely couch. You were going to taint it all with it.
“You should probably go. To catch up.” You lifted your head up to meet his eyes, forcing your voice even. “I don’t mind.” It felt like it’d come out with steel; you almost winced at your own words.
Jack blinked at you, then his head tilted, and the softest, most confused grunt left him.
“Baby,” he started gently, amused, almost, reaching for the joke in it at first. His knuckles came up to brush against your cheek for one second. “I’m not going anywhere near that coffee – you’d have me chipped like a dog by Tuesday.”
It was a gift, you could see his words wrapped and extended – him invoking your domestic insanity, holding it up like the reason the sky was blue – and all you had to do was accept it. The morning would become the, in all senses of the word, usual.
You would’ve preened at the portrait of you, and now you heard it from the morning’s new ears – he’s got an ex who speaks Italian and you think it’s fun to threaten him with 24 hour surveillance.
“I wouldn’t, though,” you said quickly.
When his knuckles paused on your cheek, questioningly, you continued, “You should go. I won’t be mad at you.” Your lips pressed together for one second. “I promise.”
Jack’s hands went to your hips and his jaw shifted from side to side, as he looked away from your face for a second. “Yeah. Okay. I’m not grabbing coffee with another woman.”
“She came all the way. You guys are old –”
“Stop,” he interrupted with a laugh – disbelieving and no humor in it – as his head reeled back.
“Stop it – I don’t want this.” His hands flexed on your hips, then came up to wave in the general direction, then fell back down. He looked at you really, really upset, or baffled, or both. “Who cares how far she came? People fly places. I don’t want to have coffee with anyone.”
You shrugged, letting your head drop into his chest again. “If that’s what you want. You don’t have to do it because of me.”
“I am absolutely doing it because of you.” His arm came around you, bringing you back close to him. “I’m not going ‘cause my girlfriend exists. That’s a whole reason. It’s a great one. So don’t talk me out of it.” He pressed his lips to the top of your skull. “Not your reason to give away. And you can get me chipped, if you like.”
You opened your mouth, then closed it. What could you even say to that? You felt him nod over you at the silence, felt some hesitance creep into his body, as he pulled you in.
“Actually,” he said after a moment. “Let’s put a pin in the plan.” One hand lifted off you and made some small motion, you couldn’t see it but you felt the absence where it had been, before it came back. “We’ll do it tomorrow. Next week. River’s not goin’ anywhere.” His arm resettled around you, snugger than before. “Today we’ll stay in.”
“Jack –”
“Blanket, couch, girl.” He counted your day off your spine, three soft taps of his fingers. When you made a sound of protest, his said into your hair, quieter, “I’ve got all I need. I’m not feeling the outside today. That okay?”
“No, it’s not – let’s go. I’m just tired right now. I’ll be up later.”
You felt him breathe, then, the gust of air pooling into your hair.
“Then come to bed,” he tried weakly, and he sounded so broken you wanted to cry. You could hear him knocking at the door of you. “Sleep. Let’s sleep together, if you’re tired.”
“Not sleepy-tired,” you said, and heard how little it made sense even as it came out of you.
Then, you pushed yourself up off him, palms to his chest, trying to keep the motion casual. “I think I just need to wake up properly. Move around a little.” You stood, angling your face away, blinking fast as you looked at the dark TV screen. “I’m gonna get in the shower, if that’s okay?”
When you tried to look over your shoulder, he’d straightened up, palms falling down to his sides on the couch as he looked up at you.
“Course it’s okay,” he said, hands following up then to settle for your hand, thumb passing over your knuckles. He gave your fingers the gentlest tug and pulled his head back, catching your eyes for a second before you could look away again, and the look on his face was so, so soft. “Do you want breakfast?”
You nodded quickly. “Yeah – thanks.”
He made a small sound, then pressed his lips to your knuckles, then let your fingers go one at a time. You made it four steps down the hallway with his gaze heavy on your back, and you couldn’t stand it.
There was a great, large, incessant bug in you that couldn’t stand Jack back there with his worried face and scared smile. So you half-turned over your shoulder, your eyes down at the baseboard, and called out, “Love you, Jack.”
You’d told Jack you loved him at full speed, into his mouth mid-argument, into the phone before you’d even said hello, at grocery stores, at funerals, at red lights, six times a day minimum. It was the surest sentence you owned. This time, it went out like a paper boat, pushed onto the water with two fingers, and watched all the way across.
“Love you, too,” he called back warmly, after what felt like a hundred years.
Jack had once spent a very, very long time to get you to believe that even if you held onto something good loosely, it won’t run away. He’d had to get you to believe that even if your grip on him loosened, even just for a second, even for a month, he would still be right there. Why was he feeling the need to hold you so tightly now?
He set your plate at your spot, and his at his. He poured the coffee, saw the first coffee you’d abandoned on the counter, full and stone cold, and stood there looking for a second longer than the mug deserved.
He’d put on his prosthesis after plating the food, a part of him too large and hopeful – instead of its usual, content, un-worried hum – expecting you to come out of your shower wanting to do something, the diner, the river, after all, trying to change his mind.
He’d hoped you’d come out wanting to be carried somewhere on his back. He wanted to be ready, he always was now. He kept himself pre-approved for whatever you thought of next.
The inside of your head was a busy little harbor, boats coming in at all hours, and he’d been granted a standing spot on the dock. You’d let him become the first to hear about octopus, cats, furniture, which part of your body felt cold, warm, or lukewarm. A year of receiving your pretty cargo and he’d never once been bored.
He, decades your senior, had seen the world be made interesting again by you just narrating it at him. He had the sneaking suspicion he’d follow your voice wherever it went, into traffic, a dock, into old age, and the shower.
The water kept running. He wasn’t the kind of man that’d track your showers, but years of working in emergency and emergency-adjacent situations had honed up his internal clock eerily well, smoothened out his pattern recognition.
He had to tamp down the urge to deploy it, to use this innate, terrible, awful instinct in his brain on you – you, who he felt more than monitored, who he’d only ever read with love, no grains of salt, no instruments.
You were the girl who rearranged things in his cabinets by feeling and left in it a system he still couldn’t crack and refused to fix. Opening a drawer looking for a spatula and finding your hair ribbons had become one of the small startling joys of his one life.
He’d been a clinician for so long, and you’d built with him a corner of the world where he was just a man, holding a girl, and being completely in love with her.
Jack, bring me the towel even though it’s right there. Jack, come look at this bruise. Did I not wash out the conditioner out properly? Jack – Jack, Jack, come and just sit with me while I shower.
His knee bounced under the table, and he stopped it.
Your eggs had gone cold, glossy, and began settling into themselves. The toast had lost its heat, and the jam sat unopened with its little lid on – the grape, the good one – and the jam was a small purple fact that he could not find himself liking to sit across from. You’d have opened it by now and started walking the length of the place, spoon in your mouth, talking.
A year of you had taught him what mornings looked like when they were going right. He knew this one had gone wrong so quietly and terribly, that he’d been able to hold you the entire time it was happening.
It was the bitter feeling of the surge he’d had in his chest this morning at the thought of your instincts.
He’d read a woman’s name off his screen and come home with it like it was a match to your pretty fire. He’d carried it into bed with you, and all Jack knew was that at this morning, his girl had been in his arms so sweetly, and minutes later, her fingers were hesitant to press into his skin. The only thing that happened in between was his own mouth, having fun.
Jack wasn’t sure when he’d stood up, but he was walking to the bedroom now, to the ensuite bathroom. A year ago, this hallway had been a hallway. Now, it was a museum of you mid-motion, and he moved through it with his heart going at a pace he hadn’t earned sitting down, past the bed still holding the shape of the forgery you’d left him in, a pillow. He had to look away from it like the sun.
He told himself that the bathroom door being closed was normal. Steam, privacy, nothing; all of it were real things.
“Hey,” he said to the door lightly, knuckles going in two soft taps. It was the same knock he used with the you in the bath going pruny as he was happily serving you wine. “You fall asleep in there? S’been a minute.”
He tried to force his lips into something close to a smile even though there was a door between you right now.
Perhaps it was because Jack – even now, even morbidly confused – knew you, and knew that the door would be locked before he confirmed it with his shaky fingers.
( You, who talked to him through the glass of the shower, sat cross-legged on the counter while he shaved – you missed a spot, no, the other spot, how do you have a medical license, genius – and stole his coffee between critiques and made him laugh hard enough he’d nicked his jaw and you’d gasped like the injured party, then kissed it before pronouncing him stable.
You, who had once flung the shower door open mid-rinse to tell him that you’d figured out what you both were in a past life. He never got to hear the answer. You’d seen him standing at the sink in his towel and lost the thread altogether, and the past lives were never mentioned again, and Jack had walked around for the next twenty-four hours unreasonably pleased about being distracting at his age to you.
A door had, simply, never existed in your relationship. )
The key was right there. He’d put it there himself, two summers before he’d ever met you, the day the door had swung shut at its own draft and locked an empty bathroom. He’d forgotten it existed, but his hand went up and found it first try, blind, and came down holding this tiny cold thing.
His fingers were unsteady fitting it in, which was new. He’d threaded needles into people in moving vehicles. Now, in his home, his fingers trembled over a privacy lock like a first year, because on the other side of the door was the whole of his one life, in falling water, hiding from him – him – and every second the key took was a second you sat in there believing you had to do so.
“I’m coming in,” he said to the door, softer than an announcement this large should’ve been, like some part of him was afraid of the wrong reaction at your response to it. “Just me. I’m coming in, okay?”
His chest caved – folded in on itself, turned over – because there you were, on the floor of the shower, curled up under the pour of the water, your knees to your chest and your arms wrapped around them, your face hidden down against them. His girl – the loud one, the strongest person he’d ever let himself love – made small and quiet and hidden on the floor of the shower. He had seen you in this place a thousand times and never once, not ever, like this.
“Oh – baby. No, hey –”
Your head snapped up at his voice, and just that sharp little movement of you made him tilt back slightly. Your face – wet and swollen, eyes red at the rims, gone raw and young and caught in a way he’d never seen it – did something terrible when it saw him in the doorway. It crumpled then hardened, both at once, a door slamming behind glass, and you scrubbed the heel of your hand over your eyes like you could take back the last thirty seconds if you were quick enough about it.
“No,” you said quickly, the word cracking out of you with a sharp edge under the thickness. Your hand came up between you, a flat little barricade under the steam. “No – get out, Jack – I told you I’ll be – please, get out –”
You didn’t push him. This wasn’t a thing that happened. You pulled – you reeled him in by the shirt, you climbed into his lap, you fought tooth and nail for every inch of distance he’d tried to keep, whose entire love was a set of hands hauling him closer, closer, closer.
He had spent all this time being pulled by you, gladly, helplessly, and he did not have – had never needed – a single instinct for being pushed.
“Hey – hey, no – don’t –” His hand came out to the glass, pushing slightly. “It’s just me. It’s me. Look –”
“I don’t want it to be you right now,” you said, and the words were so awful and completely jagged.
You turned to face away, like you were trying to push yourself out of his sight entirely. “Please. Please, just go and get out. I don’t want you here – please, Jack.”
“No, don’t ask me that,” Jack said immediately, voice breaking clean in half as his eyes went glassy and desperate. “It’s me – you don’t hide from me – we’re not that –”
“Please,” you said, voice barely audible over the running of the water, and his nose burnt as he caught sight of you shaking. “Please, just give me a minute – a minute. I’m – I’m asking you to leave.”
Jack’s hand hung empty in the air as he looked down at you, heart in actual pieces on the tile, and he understood – quietly – that the only thing you were begging him for was the single thing he’d have rather died than do, to turn around and leave you crying.
So – because you’d asked, because pushing past a plea like that would only carve you open worse, because loving you had never once meant taking what he wanted when it wasn’t what you needed – he made himself.
“Okay,” he said, voice coming out in ruins. “Okay, baby. Okay. I’m going – I’ll go.” He reached up and took your towel off your rail and set it closer to the shower. “I’m right outside. I’m not far – I’ll be right there and you come get me the second you want me, you hear? The second.”
You stayed silent, so Jack, clumsy with grief in a way his body never was, made himself turn his back on you. At the door, he paused, eyes pinching shut to make himself not look over his shoulder. Instead, he said, “I love you.”
He pulled the door behind him, left it breathing half ajar with the steam sighing out through the gap, and pulled himself to sit at the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom. Like you were going to run from him, like some part of him needed both feet under him and the door in his eyeline needed to be ready. For what? He couldn’t have said. To catch you, he supposed. To get you the second you’d let him. To not be caught sitting down when you finally opened the door and needed him standing.
He sat there with his elbows braced on his knees and his hands pressed together against his mouth and waited, and it was the longest ten minutes of his recent life.
Every second of it was stretched unbearably, because he was learning there is this particular hell in loving someone past all sense and being made to sit on the other side while they hurt. He didn’t know what to do with this feeling, had never had to think it was a possibility between the two of you.
When the door opened, Jack was on his feet before he’d decided to be. There you were, towel-wrapped, hair dripping onto your shoulders, face swollen and turned just slightly away, eyes on the floorboards. You crossed your arms over your chest, gripping the towel closed.
“Hey,” he said, breathing through it, his voice half-ruined, shaking. He caught it and hauled it down a register by force, into the very low, sure place his voice lived when everything depended on it.
He made himself stay planted – made himself open his arms instead of using them, wide, a whole doorway of him – while every muscle strained against its leash, because his body had exactly one theory about you crying and the theory was to go, and he stood on that theory with all his weight.
“Come here,” he said instead, begging with a steady voice, a whole vacuum sealed into two words.
Your eyes climbed as high as his chest and gave up there, arms tightening. You shook your head dimly, water flicking. He nodded to himself, made himself stay standing, without letting an ounce on his face where you’d have to carry it.
“One step. That’s all I’m asking.” His arms turned palm-up at the ends of his open arms, still, though nothing behind his ribs was. “You don’t have to talk. Or explain anything. Not tonight, or ever. I’ll die curious – but I’m standing here figuring out I don’t work right until I know how you feel in my arms and I haven’t known for hours and I am asking you –” His voice strained, and the words came out bare, “ – Please, I am asking you to come let me hold you.”
You let out a small sound, eyes pinching shut, and he watched a whole war happen on your face. Jack thought, uselessly, hopelessly, that he’d have stood there through a winter or as the building came down, holding a door ajar in himself for as long as doors took.
You crossed, though. Your body came to him hard, all at once, like you were dropped from a height, and Jack caught you with one arm crushed around your towel-wrapped back. The other flew to your wet hair, his palm rounding the whole back of your skull, pressing you into his heart, gathering you in and in and in, past where space existed, trying to find one more setting past where proximity itself existed. He let out a sound that was – dangerously – close to sob into your hair, finding himself completely undone for the first time in a very, very long time.
“There you are,” he murmured, rocking you slightly as his mouth pressed to the top of your dripping hair. “I’ve got you. Got you now.”
You shook against him, and Jack winced at the feeling of it, gently reeling both of you down onto the edge of the mattress, then back, then over, until he had you sideways across his lap, your knees folded over his thigh, your face tucked into the crook of his neck, his arms locked around you like a cage. The towel gave up at under your shoulder, so he pulled the corner of the blanket up over the bare curve of it – wrapping you precious – and then his arm closed the last of the circuit and locked.
For a while, he simply let his hand move up and down your spine while you cried into his throat, and every shudder that went through you went straight through him, too. He pressed his lips to your temple and left them there and rode it out with you, breathing slow on purpose, loud enough for you to borrow the rhythm off of his nose, an old medic’s trick he was running on the only patient he’d loved past all sense.
Somewhere in the middle of it, with your tears running down his throat and pooling at his collarbone,
Jack thought, helplessly, that even this was somehow yours and somehow beautiful; you cried like you did everything, with your whole body, holding nothing residual, generous, so generous, even in grief. You’d never given him a partial anything, and Jack tightened his arms around the full, shaking entirety of you and thanked the universe, genuinely, that when you’d finally fallen apart, you’d walked the few steps and done it on him.
When your crying wore itself down, Jack made himself stay silent. The questions, fully formed, seventy versions of them and redrafted since the kitchen, he swallowed, because he had a feeling he had pushed enough for one simple morning. He’d pushed this morning smiling. He held you and let the question live in him like a swallowed stone and, apparently, he was less subtle about it than he thought.
Your voice came up out of his neck, waterlogged and small, as you said, “I know you want to ask.” Your fingers moved faintly against his chest, a fidget with no strength in it. “It’s okay. You can.”
Jack had to close his eyes at your first full sentence being a door held open for him; you’d crawled out of your own wreckage to check on the driver.
“I do,” he said into your hair, honestly. “But I’m not gonna spend your turn. So here’s mine first.”
He felt you go still against him – attention gathering, a tiny tilt of your head at his collarbone – and he breathed in heavy, big enough to lift you where you lay, to pay up.
“I got really scared today,” he said, voice going into a whisper as he leaned down to talk to you. “I woke up to you not in my arms and my whole chest felt – wrong. I do this for a living, I’ve got all the words. It wasn’t – wasn’t sick. It felt wrong, you not being somewhere you’re supposed to be. First time in – forever, if I’m being honest.” He tapped you skin twice, to hold himself.
“And when I found you, I couldn’t reach you. And now – seeing you –” He felt you stiffen up at that, and he nodded in understanding, skipping over. “I’m thinking of getting rid of all our doors.” His hand kept moving down your spine, and he faced your head then. “Bathroom’s the priority. Bedroom might be load-bearing, but. Front door stays. Everything else is beaded curtains by Friday.”
You made a small sound against his neck, and Jack had to stop himself from crushing you into the tightest hug at the bridge of a laugh. He pressed his mouth to your temple for a few seconds instead. “Another thing while I’ve got the floor. Telling me to go get coffee with an ex – don’t do that again. I’m not gambling with you. I’ve only got one of you. So, I’m never going to coffee with anyone else again.”
“You’re allowed to cry,” he said, setting the joke aside. “I’m sorry I made you feel you couldn’t do it with me knowing about it. That’s mine, and I’m gonna find it and fix it if it takes me the rest of my life.”
“You didn’t do anything,” you protested, sounding wounded.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “That’s mine. That’s what I felt today. You don’t have to give me yours.”
His arms adjusted, and some helpless, incurable corner of him – the one that had flirted with you through every disaster you’d ever handed each other – added, “But, if you wanted to trade, I can make it worth your while.”
You laughed at that again, and the two of you stayed silent again for sometime. Your fingers crawled up his chest, up over his collarbone, curling loosely around his neck, your palm settling in like you needed contact to speak.
“You went to Italy,” you said.
Jack’s brain did one, full lap around the words, and came back with nothing. He did the only thing he could when you handed him a coin he couldn’t read, which was holding it up to the light and keeping his voice soft and not dropping it.
“I did,” he said, carefully. “Long, long time ago, baby.”
“Was it nice?” you asked, the words coming out so small. In the same breath, like a small dam breaking, you added, “Do you miss it?”
Jack never had to look for a trap in your words, not like this.
There was none now, either. You’d asked about Italy like you asked him about bad days, ready to receive whatever came back, your thumb doing a nervous sweep against his neck like you were comforting him in advance. You’d found the one grief in the world with his fingerprints on it and your first instinct was to ask if he wanted it back.
For an ugly second, he thought he could have lied. No, it was overrated, beds were weird, bad food. You’d have heard it, and Jack thought that it would’ve taught you that you couldn’t survive the truth.
“It was nice,” he said quietly, hands moving up and down your spine. “I was young. Younger, anyway. Whole trip was –” He exhaled, shaking his head as he tried to hunt for the honest size of it. “It was a trip, baby. It was nice.”
He pressed his lips to your hairline. “I don’t miss it. There’s nothing in there to miss. Like –” He clicked his teeth, searching for the words. “Driving past a house I used to live in. Half the time, can’t even remember which window was yours. You just keep going, ‘cause everything you own’s at the new place now.” His fingers tightened on you. “Think if I’d known what this was, back then, I’d have kept missing this, there.”
Your breath shifted against his throat, and you nuzzled your face into his neck.
“What’s got you worried?” he murmured. He closed his eyes, letting his head lean to rest against yours, palms moving from your waist to your nape, then down. “I can get us to Europe by Thursday, just say the word. I’ve got PTO and miles I’ve been sitting on for years. I think they were for this.”
“I don’t wanna go to Italy,” you said, smiling against his neck. “I think this is something I have to get through myself. It’s not anything you’ve done to me.”
Jack felt that familiar twist in his chest. It’d come to him for the first time today, and it kept coming up and up and up, and he couldn’t help but want to claw at his own mouth for his selfish, cruel little game, for every grinning careless word he’d dropped on you like they weighed nothing. And now you felt that you had to deal with it yourself, like it was yours to carry alone, off in a corner, someplace he couldn’t get to. Because he had done this.
You were, simply, acting like the two of you weren’t the two of you; you had spent a whole year proving to him that ‘by yourself’ was a thing that, now, never existed.
He drew you back, fingers threading through the back of your hair, trying to physically take you back from wherever – whatever – this by yourself was. He put your face in the light, wet-lashed, trying so hard to keep it together, and his thumb swept the damp while his own face did whatever it was doing, open and scared and thoroughly past the point of keeping it in check.
“You don’t have a ‘yourself’ anymore, sweetheart. I don’t have that anymore. You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me how you fell off the monkey bars in third grade – remember? You didn’t think twice about it.” His forehead came down, brushing your nose with his. “And now you’re gonna sit here and tell me this – the saddest thing that’s crossed that pretty head all year – this one you’re keeping alone?”
“Jack–”
“What is going on in that head of yours?” he interrupted, words soft but pointed, suddenly having given up all pretense of coaxing and gone straight to needling.
He watched you open your mouth as you took in a breath, and maybe it was the closeness or the way his thumb kept moving along your jaw, but you said, “I don’t know if I’m the real one.”
Jack’s brows furrowed, feeling heat build up behind his eyes as he looked at you with a pained, confused expression.
“I don’t know if I’m the one you do it for real with, Jack, or if I’m just – the young one. The one you get before – or after – I don’t even know how it works.”
Your hands came up between you, aggravated at yourself, at him, at the lack of vocabulary.
“You’ve done so much. You’ve got countries. Experiences. So many of them. And I’ve got –” Your shrug came out tiny. “– you. You’re my biggest everything. You’re my Italy and I feel like I’ve been with you for three years and my – you’re all of it, Jack. I’m terrified I’m just the person that came after your big thing.”
You blinked, and Jack’s fingers reached up to catch the little tear falling over your lashes, his own eyes blinking furiously. Jack wanted, so badly, to reach to you and press your kiss to your mouth to stop this, to to kiss this whole wilted garden you’d created in your head out of you.
He shook his head. “I hope I’m not your – her,” he said, a wince in the words, finding it difficult to even get them out. “Or your Italy.”
“You are –” you said, with so much conviction, chin coming up, ready to fight him for the honor of it, “you are – that’s what I’m telling you –”
“I’m your Jack.” His hands tightened on your face, voice coming out slightly cracked. “I’d forgotten about this woman until this came up. I don’t want you to forget me. I’m your Jack and I’m the luckiest man for it everyday. So you pick a better word soon, and don’t take that title away from me.” He shook his head. “I like it. I like it a lot.”
You bristled slightly, your eyes shining into his as they went wide, the whole of you locking up at the words. He tapped his palm gently against your cheek once, then again, frowning as he thought he really ought to tell you this more, for a girl who kept a running tally of everything else.
You’d created a museum out of things he’d said, and somehow this one, the biggest one – the luckiest man of it – he’d been rationing. He’d been handing it over in the glances and over eggs, assuming it was arriving, that a girl who read him so fluently was taking what he’d said to you over and over again, so simply because it was just a fact.
Never again. He’d tell you daily now, remind you of it while making you look him in the eyes.
“I tried to make you jealous,” you said, the words coming out through a sad, shameful laugh. Something in his chest broke hearing you confess it like it was a crime. “I’ve got nothing, Jack. You won’t care about Sam, or Dave, or – I don’t even remember one’s name. That’s all. You had a doctor you went to Italy with.”
His eyes fluttered for a second, the muscle in his jaw clenching as his fingers ran over your cheek. The nature of it all was too backwards. Jack had made a very sad sort of peace with himself – he’d known what he was – and somehow, at the end of all that, at the bottom of the ninth of his whole entire life, you’d walked into it glowing like something confiscated from heaven. You’d looked at the full of him, and decided you wanted him. You, dished out to him probably because of some fate-giver who’d been asleep at the desk, who had let the single best thing walk out to him.
If a single one of those guys had stayed awake one more hour, asked one more question, been at the right angle to see who was sitting across them, you’d be – Jack grimly, awfully thought – somewhere else right now. And Jack never would have known; he wouldn’t have known to miss you. You’d have been long gone and loved properly, early, by someone with the sense to do it.
Jack would have worked his nights and run the bay, choosing every day to enter a new crisis, and never known the whole time that the best thing that would ever happen to him had happened to somebody else instead, on time, the way it properly should have. It was their loss, and he was going to make his entire life out of it.
His arms moved before the thought even finished, hauling you in impossibly closer, resettling the whole, true warm weight of you against him. “Stay right here,” he murmured.
You did. Your lashes stuck wet in little points and your fingers resettled on his neck. You were wearing his shirt, drowning in it. Jack had been the steadiest set of hands in many rooms, he knew it without vanity. But nothing in his skill set covered you; steady hands didn’t win a girl who lit up rooms; being good in a crisis didn’t earn a woman who made every ordinary Tuesday feel like a celebration. He’d spent so long getting excellent at the exact things nobody falls in love with – triage, containment, blood – and you’d walked into his life and fallen for him anyway, for reasons he couldn’t successfully point to, and he’d stopped asking why out of superstition. You, he was not in the mood to reasonably place; Jack knew when a person was handed one, that they should keep showing up for a miracle, quietly hoping it stayed.
Jack, falling apart at every seam of him, eyes hot and jaw aching, huffed. It was one, soft breath of a laugh, and your eyes snapped up to his, betrayed, and he shook his head fast, thumb pressing to your cheek to stay with him.
“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, shaking his head softly, thumbs framing your face to tilt it up. “I promise. I’m laughing ‘cause you’ve got no idea what I’d give to have your problem.”
You blinked at him, mouth curved into a frown. That one, he was sure, was aimed at him. His hands were shaking slightly against your jaw.
“I mean that I am very, very glad that you’ve got no Italy to wave at me. You think I want you to have another big grown love in your pocket? Some guy you crossed the country with?” His hands tightened on your face, eyes shining. “It would ruin me. I’d never sleep again. And I’m sorry for waving mine at you this morning, because I didn’t think it’d make you not sleep.”
He held your eyes through it, taking his medicine looking at you. “I said it ‘cause I love you jealous. It makes me feel nice to know you care about me.” His lips curved into a sad smile. “I didn’t think what it’d do when I brought this up. I will be very, very sorry about that for a long time.”
When you smiled softly, eyes hooded as you looked down at his mouth, he nodded to himself.
“And I had a nice trip with a woman a hundred years ago, and it ended, and I have zero photos of it. That’s a thing that happened to me. You are not a thing that happened to me. You are what it was all for. All the years, the whole time, all the wrong turns. That was just me taking the long way to find you. You are my biggest thing – biggest one that’s ever happened to me – and I want you to know some pretty life-changing things have happened to me.”
You stared at him, mouth open, tears going uncaught now, because Jack had gone completely still, needing you to see all his years on his face at once.
He huffed, mind flicking through this haze of memories. He could reach back and find the years, the apartment, and it all came as nothing. He’d loved women, had meant it completely, with everything he’d had on hand, and he may not have been wrong. And now he can carry the tender knowledge that a person can feel absolutely certain there is everything to be felt and be off by a whole magnitude; he’d stood inside his biggest feeling and called it the biggest and had simply, innocently, not met you.
“And since you told me yours,” he said, quieter, eyes going down because he found he couldn’t quite hold your gaze for this.
“I know what it feels like to think you’ve found what good love is, and then to find out how it is to love someone bigger. That the thing you could’ve sworn was everything was just – nothing, in the grand scheme.”
He turned his face to the side as he held your face, suddenly finding the enormity of this simplicity pressing at the back of his eyes. Everything – he was sure of it – had just been the longest drive over to you.
“But you got this first. You’ve got nothing to check it against.” His thumb swept your cheekbone, and his eyes came back to you.
“I know how big this is because I’ve got my whole life to look at it against. And you just have to take my word for it.”
He tugged his lip between his teeth, searching your eyes with question, checking whether the words were pushing through, whether they had the gap to push through. Your face was tilting toward him, listening with every feature at once; he could see the whole war playing out on your face you had never once been able to conceal from him. You had no poker face, at least to him, you didn’t.
“This is the one,” he said, nodding just barely. “There was never a morning I woke up and had to think about anything before you. You are the reason I know what you think is the big thing is small.”
Your breath stuttered, and your chin trembled once before you caught it from gritting your teeth inside your mouth.
“And sometimes –” He nodded, more to himself, as he forced himself to continue. “– I have felt a similar thing. I see you, and I wonder if you’ll think about some guy your own age, out there somewhere. Standard legs. Normal hours.” He shrugged. “No years of the stuff I’ve carried. And I think, someday, you’ll look over at me and think you settled for the –”
“That’s crazy,” you interrupted, the words shooting out of you instantly. Your fingers flew up to grip both his wrists. “That’s crazy, Jack – I don’t want – I would never. There’s no guy, I don’t want standard legs. I want your legs – leg – fuck, Jack.” Your voice broke off as you let out a small, pained groan. “I would pick you over any person who has ever lived.”
“Yeah, see,” he murmured, a small smile coming up as he let the weight of your words land on him. “Can you see how it sounds crazy when it’s coming at you?”
He brushed his nose against yours at your stunned silence. “I feel the exact same way about what you said. It’s crazy.”
He had to blink over and over as he settled on the weight of your words, said so simply and furiously with no build up. The biggest sentences of his life just slipped out of you, unwrapped, and you had not the first clue what they weighed. Any person who had ever lived. God, you’d waved off the whole crowded history of the species in one breath to pick a tired man in Pittsburgh.
“Let’s go,” he murmured, wrapping you up and pulling both of you back against the cushions, resettling you on his chest. Your ear was at his heart. The blanket was up to your shoulder. “We’re gonna lie here a while now. I think we both need it.”
“It was a weird morning.”
“Mhm.” His hand went to your spine. “Top five weirdest.”
And he should have let it be, but there was still something sitting in him.
Jack pressed his lips together as he once again said, “I am sorry for this morning. I was –” He breathed in through his nose, fingers coming up to your head, tapping it twice to get you to look up at him. You did, chin pressing into his chest and your eyes tired yet focused. “Immature.”
Your lips twisted slightly, then you tugged them with your teeth once and looked away, like you were trying not to agree.
“I was,” he said, easily, agreeing for you. His thumb traced your hairline. “Good thing for me, I happen to be with a girl who likes getting her revenge. Even when I don’t think I did anything.”
“You do –”
“I do. I do. You’re not wrong,” he said, the opposite of a complaint in it. “You know how to settle a score. And this morning I racked up a real big one. And you’ve just been sitting on it, being gracious.” His nose wrinkled, his fingers going to cradle the side of your face. “You keep that up, you’ll start minding your business and I’ll be living with a stranger.”
At your small, hesitant smile, Jack continued, “I know you don’t like the paintjob of my truck.” You nodded at that, honest as ever. “What I’m thinking is, you key it.”
Your eyes widened.
“Go nuts on the thing. Do some drawings. Write nice words. I drive it around after, everyone sees it. And when we’re good and done with that show and tell,” he continued, fingers threading into your hair, “we take it in. You pick a new color. Any color. Change the seats if you want, too.”
“People will think –”
“People will think a woman loves me enough to key my truck. Do we have a deal?”
Jack and Robby x EMT/Paramedic Reader who thinks shes slick hooking up with the two attendings (sometimes between calls 😉) without the other knowing. Little does she know they have been sending some pics and videos to each other 😏. Secretly fist bumping everytime they see her when their shifts overlap 🫢.
Also feel free to disregard the picture and videos if ur not comfortable with that ☺️🫶
Thank you for the request! Xo 😘
Warning: The reader doesn’t know that Jack and Robby are taking videos or photos of her.
Sharing ❤️
The creation of the video was an accident at first, honestly. Showing the video to Abbot was not.
You’ve been a paramedic for a while now, and you still loved the job. While you might not get a thrill out of every call like you use to, you do get a rush when you arrive at PTMC. There are two gorgeous and competent (both in bed and out of it) attendings.
You’ve been sleeping with Robby and Jack for about three months now. Sometimes it’s after you both get off shift, sometimes in between calls. The catch though is they don’t know you’re sleeping with both of them. Or at least that’s what you thought…
Robby set his phone and glasses aside, not realizing that he had opened up the camera app (his big ass hands without his glasses on opened it) before he pulled your pants down.
“Robby, we have to be quick. I could get another call soon.” You scramble to pull his scrubs down.
“Baby, have I ever not made you fall apart fast? Please, I know your body and what she likes.” Robby nips at your neck.
True to his word, Robby has you cumming twice, once on his fingers and once on his dick.
As Robby puts his pants and glasses back on and re-clips his badge, he realizes that his phone has been recording. He doesn’t want you to know so he quickly puts his phone in his pocket.
Robby watches the video in his car after shift. The angle isn’t the best, you don’t see much, but the audio is perfect. It was able to pick up the sound of you moaning and gasping, along with the sounds of Robby slapping your ass.
Robby, who needs to show Jack the video for reasons he doesn’t want to unpack just yet, corners Jack the next morning to show him.
“Who is the lucky lady?” Jack tries to zoom in on the video.
“The paramedic. You’ve seen her around.” Robby gives your name and describes what you look like.
Jack pulls out his phone and opens his camera roll. “This her?” Jack shows a picture of you sleeping naked on his bed.
“What the fuck?” Robby holds the phone closer to his face.
“Looks like we’ve been sharing.” Jack reaches for his phone.
Robby lets out a laugh. “How the hell are we both sleeping with the same women?”
They spend the next few minutes sharing details and stories of you.
Over the next couple of weeks, Jack and Robby look forward to seeing you when you bring a patient in to the Pitt. Both men take turns pulling you into a supply closet or another empty room somewhere. Each time they secretly take a photo of you and send it to the other. Robby and Jack will share with each other things about you and what you seem to like. On one occasion, Robby fist bumps Jack when Jack tells him he was able to make you squirt. The whole story made Robby want to try Jack’s technique, especially after Robby sees the video Jack took of you passed out naked on the soaked sheets.
As the weeks passed, you don’t notice anything different in how the men were acting. The only thing that seemed odd to you was thinking that you may need to get an appointment with a doctor, because occasionally you saw flashes and didn’t know why.
summary: after jack abbot's therapist prescribes him a visit to the stripclub, he finds himself pleasantly surprised when a stripper by the name 'Baby' gets his lidido ticking again. little does he know you're desperate to make your last shift at the club a memorable one.
warnings/tags: jack abbot x reader, stripper!reader, insecure jack, mentions of prosthetic limb, calls reader ‘baby’, reader is afab and goes by she/her pronouns, he falls first and hardest, age gap (25/50), smut (fingering, cunnilingus, dom!jack, doggystyle, dumbifaction, piv-unprotected sex, creampie), NSFW 18+ MDNI
notes: hi everyone, this is my first tumblr fic so i'm not sure if i've done everything right, please just let me know if not. i really hope you enjoy! my requests will be open when i figure out how this works!
word count: 3.8k
Jack was never particularly fond of pink. Sure, he had a pair of fuchsia swimming trunks tucked away in his drawer at home but that was as far as it went. He didn’t have peony bed linen or a bar of rose coloured soap, and now every time he shut his eyes he saw flashes of baby pink mesh dancing behind his eyelids.
It wasn't meant to have got this far, it was supposed to be a one and done kind of thing. A therapist-prescribed trip to a strip club to feel more comfortable around naked women before he dove headfirst into intimacy with one of the dates his coworkers were trying to set him up on. A simple night where he spent a few bills and tried to get his libido ticking after such a long stint of celibacy.
“Just try it Jack, see it as a way to blow off some steam without getting shot at. You can leave, if it’s not for you, but I think you’ll find it a stepping stone for pursuing a potential relationship in the future. Humour me,” his therapist had asked. Humour him, and now Jack was sitting in a plush armchair off to the side, supping bourbon and watching as a pretty woman in a studded bra and thong worked her way around the pole on center stage.
He’d already been up to the stage and tossed her a few bills, impressed by her ability to glide through the air so effortlessly.
“Would you like a dance Sir?” A sweet voice to his right hummed, causing him to shift slightly to get a look at the woman in front of him.
All night Jack had been nitpicking at the things that didn’t turn him on, he didn’t think he’d be the pole dancer’s type, one dancer was too scared to make eye contact with him, none of them looked like his wife.
Then there you were, with your white nails touching the arm of his chair, looking so soft and angelic against the dark interior of the club. You were in nothing more than a pretty baby pink chemise. A fluffy bra with a mesh babydoll slip billowing over your soft stomach. The underwear was tiny - and pink - but your garter belt connected to white stirrup stockings that Jack’s eyes seemed to snag on.
You looked a little like a fembot from Austin Powers but if anything that just added to your playful nature you were bathing him in.
“It’s ok if not. Bella’s a really talented dancer, I try and watch her as much as I can too.” You offered, leaning back slightly thinking you’d misjudged this potential customer. After all, he had been watching Bella on stage who had the complete opposite look to you with her leather, spikes and femme fatale makeup.
Jack’s gaze finally pulled away from your legs to meet your doe eyes that were perpetually glossy, and blinking at him expectantly.
“How much for a dance?” He found himself asking before his mind even processed what had spilled from his lips. You liked him immediately, from his hesitance to his undeniable attractiveness, he dressed in nice pants and wore polished shoes, and his salt and pepper curls flowed perfectly from his scalp. He was the type of man who didn’t need to prove anything because his demeanour already said it for him.
“$50.” You told him unapologetically, pretty things come at a pretty price and the smirk that crept across his face told you that he knew just that.
He slipped the money into your open hand and looked up at you with dark eyes from below, a kittenish smile still on his lips,
“Do I get to know your name? Or will that cost me another fifty?”
Giggling at him slightly, you tucked the cash into the top of your left stocking, purposefully drawing his eyes there once again. He had this proud look on his face from pulling an airy laugh out of you, it was cute, and dangerous. He was old enough to know exactly why you’d picked him to ask for a dance, the handsome, understated man that kept to himself, over the men jeering every time they saw a flash of tit.
“They call me Baby.” You smiled, beginning to sway your hips to Maneater by Nelly Furtado. The club never really played songs that you liked so this was practically hitting the jackpot, the only time you got any creative freedom was when you were privately hired.
“Baby?” He huffed pleasantly,
“I can’t say it doesn’t suit you.”
“You think?” You asked, spinning on your heels in front of him so he could get a 360° view of you,
“Are you going to tell me your name?”
“It’s Jack, Baby.” He tipped his head to the side in greeting, knowing he couldn’t shake your hand from the strict ‘no touching’ rule plastered across the walls, not that a pretty young thing like you would want to shake hands with him anyways.
“Well Jack, your Baby thinks enjoy what you’ve paid for.”
Jack wasn’t sure if he breathed the entire time you were close to him, whether it was when you spread your ass right in front of him as you folded over or when you were cupping your breasts through the fur cups of your bra. His hands were white knuckling the armchair, veins popping to the surface as he squeezed the last of his restraint.
He hadn’t been hard in months, maybe even close to a year, and now he was twitching in his dress slacks, scared you were going to accidentally prod him when you moved back and seal his fate.
“You’re a handsome man, Jack.” You breathed in his ear, pulling back just enough to give him a clear view of your cleavage and you a clear view of his bewildered puppy dog eyes,
“But you’re so tense.”
Each whisper trickled down his ear like honey, choking him before he managed to get any words out. You were dangling the bait right in front of him now, hoping he’d snap so you could reel him in.
“Haven’t I helped you relax? Haven't I been good enough?”
“No!” He panicked, a sweet, genuine concern on his face as he finally tore his fingers out of the padding of the seat,
“You were great, Baby. You’ve been s’good for me.”
You blushed immediately, turning into putty as he eyed you up and down again, hoping you didn't catch on to his staring. He didn't want to be taken as one of those fools who actually thought he had a chance with the nice stripper, no less one that he knew had to have been half his age.
"You flatter me Jack." You cooed, taking a brave step and gently hooking your finger under his stubbled chin so you could meet his eye,
"Do you think you’d be interested in a private show? One where you don’t have to pay?”
Biting your lip always came as second nature when you had to take charge, you hated it. You craved letting go and becoming pliant under warm, broad hands, to have the fat of your hip pinched and rolled between fingers. You liked to be told what to do and how to do it, but that didn't mean you wouldn't tease and pull a man's strings when it was always so easy to do.
"You offer private dances here?" He asked, looking around the dark floor to see if there were any side doors that you could lead him through.
"No," You hummed, smiling at the split second of confusion that crossed his face,
"But my flat is only a ten minute walk away if you're interested?"
Jack's gulp was so loud you leaned back slightly in fear that he'd hurl all over your pretty outfit. He didn't look panicked or shocked per se, just overwhelmed by the offer laid out in front of him - picturing you laid out in front of him.
"You want to take me back to your flat?"
It wasn't that he was insecure as such, women at work flirted with him like that was their full-time job and not saving lives. He'd had numerous patients slip him their phone number on hospital tissues and even had one drunken woman ask him to marry her. The problem lay with understanding why you would want him. He was much, much older and had crow's feet so deep that they were permanently etched into his skin, he was greying, he didn't have the same stamina he once did and who knows how you'd react to his prosthetic lower limb.
It was just wrong. How a woman as angelic as you could look at him as you were doing in that moment. Jack couldn't see a single shred of doubt in your eyes, just pure need to be alone with him.
He was already nodding softly before the 'ok' left his mouth, mind and body struggling to sync up ever since you'd saddled up beside him. He wouldn't have predicted he'd end up here tonight when he'd slipped his wedding ring off for the first time in years.
It was cold outside, as it always was in the heart of a Pittsburgh winter, so cold that you had a humongous woolen trench coat draped over your shoulders to shield you from the biting breeze nipping at your stocking covered ankles that were peeking out.
You caught Jack looking as you walked, giving you a methodical once over that he seemed to do every so often.
"Are you thinking that I look surprisingly normal?" You asked, the both of you noting how your club attire was easily hidden under your coat.
"Maybe a little." He admitted, letting you lead him down the street,
"I'm not really sure how to conduct myself, I can't say I remember the last time I went home with someone."
"Me neither." You sighed,
"But I thought it's my last shift so I can take some liberties."
"Your last shift?" He paused,
"Ever?"
"Yeah." You smiled,
"Don't get me wrong, I love pole dancing... The stripping not so much, it was just a stepping stone to bigger and better things."
Just as Jack was about to ask what those bigger and better things were, you stopped at the foot of a brownstone looking building, a few stone steps leading to the entrance,
"Are you coming up?"
Your apartment was exactly as Jack imagined it would be. All hazy golden lighting and plush rugs that he bet felt delightful to wriggle your toes through. There were candles covering the sideboards, zebra print cushions, and pink... Pink everywhere.
As he watched you shuck off your coat and place it alongside his on a rack, it all became real. Jack Abbot, lead attending physician of the night shift Emergency Medicine Department at PTMC was about to have a one night stand with the doe-eyed stripper twenty-five years his junior.
"I should tell you," He started as you came towards him, to do what, he wasn't sure,
"I'm an amputee. I won't get into it but I was an Army medic many moons ago now... I just thought i should tell you, you know, in case you-"
"Thank you Jack," You interrupted softly,
"You're obviously a very brave man, it can't be easy for you."
"Well I do nude yoga at sunrise to try to regulate myself after a long night shift, my therapist says it should help with feeling comfortable in my own skin." He flushed, not certain as to why he was being so open about his biggest insecurity in the bedroom. It really had been a while.
You were now chest to chest with him, still in your get-up from the club and running your hands over the buttons of his shirt,
"Well I for one, think that you need to stay the night just so I can see this nude yoga you're telling me about."
Jack's smile was one of joyous disbelief, before he shook his head at you and leaned down to shut you up with a kiss. With any other woman he wouldn't have dared be this ballsy, but you had a way of reassuring him and brushing off his insecurities like they hadn't even crossed your mind. And why would they? When his lips were pressing against your own, tongue gently prodding at the seam just begging to be let in. Kissing Jack was dizzying, from his hands gently pushing your hair back to the soft groans escaping his throat just to be swallowed by your awaiting mouth.
It was wet, and a little sloppy from both sides, but as soon as he was pushing you back towards the open door of your bedroom, your restraint snapped.
"Jack." You moaned delightfully, as your head dropped back in euphoria at the lazy tonguing he was doing up and down your throat,
"Please, just-"
"Just what?" He whispered, still holding your head in place with both hands as he lapped at your skin, keeping you limp as you stood at the foot of your bed,
"You got what you wanted by bringing me back here, so I think it's time I got what I wanted."
His lips unlatched from your aching neck, allowing you enough space to mindlessly nod your head at his words.
"You lost your tongue Baby?" He mocked, his own tongue darting across his teeth as you blinked at him, trying to formulate a thought but then proving his point by remaining absolutely silent.
Jack was hungry now, a dark look had overcome his features and his biceps were tensing as he held your head straight. He was going to devour you. The navy blue shirt he'd been wearing all night was straining over his puffed out chest and you could see his freckled forearms from where the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. You wanted to chomp down on him like an apple.
He was only thing worth sinking your teeth into in all of Pittsburgh and you were certain of it.
"I want you to do something for me." He hummed, blown out pupils flicking down your form,
"Strip."
You were looking at Jack with so much awe, as though he'd hung the stars, like he was the only man in a ten mile radius capable of giving you a blinding orgasm.
Jack dipped down again, ghosting the shell of your pierced ear with his lips,
"One last time, and then no one else will ask you ever again."
The breath lodged in your throat felt like a stone when he lightly nibbled your earlobe, mind swimming with only his name... Jack.
With a soft push, you sent Jack backwards into a chair sitting in the corner of your bedroom, smiling at the cheeky look on his face when he pulled a discarded bra from under his leg.
"You keep a pole in your flat?" He asked, gesturing with the lace still in your hand to the shiny metal behind your back,
"Now that's something I'd like to see."
"Don't push your luck Jack, you're already getting a free show."
And with that your hands slipped behind your back, nimble fingers unhooking your babydoll with practiced ease. You didn't make a show of it, this wasn't the club, and Jack wasn't any old customer, or so you kept telling yourself.
With Jack's eyes locked on yours you dropped the material to the floor, exposing your chest to the scrutiny of the man in front of you. He didn't give much away, no change in expression just a slight tense of his jaw,
"Your underwear as well," he gruffed.
You had to unclip your stockings to do so, letting the tassels dangle against your thighs as you shimmied the silken underwear down your hips. His gaze was hot, you could feel it scorchingly tracing over your legs as you stepped out of them. Then reclipping your garters, you tilted your head at him innocently,
"Like this?"
Jack was straining against his trousers unashamedly now, the shy veteran he saw himself as had completely left his mind as he started unbuttoning his shirt slowly. He maintained eye contact the entire time, like he could sense it was making you slicker between your thighs.
When he shrugged it off completely you didn't know how to take it all in. He practically reloaded his arms like a shotgun, muscles flexing underneath smooth freckled skin. He was overwhelmingly big, and you would've wanted your legs over his shoulders ten minutes ago if you'd knew what he was hiding under that expensive cotton.
"Lay down at the edge of the bed."
"No magic word Jackie?" You teased, not missing the flicker of amusement that skated over his face.
"Please, Baby."
Jack still hadn't asked for your name, not that either of you truly minded. Revealing that would make it real, that would start the countdown.
You did as he asked, letting him walk you back to the bed, letting your hair fan out underneath you as he got to his knees.
Jack's slightly cold hands pushed your knees apart gently, letting his frame slot between your thighs. You tried to get a look at him, the inevitably gorgeous sight of him close to your centre, but he didn't let you, hand snaking up your abdomen to push you back down. Fingers sat between your breasts but not giving you what you wanted,
"Lay back down and enjoy it Baby, you think you can do that f'me?"
"Yes." You squeaked, flopping back onto the bed excitedly when you felt his breath on your clit. His tongue was strong, quickly slotting into your core like he knew how you ticked. And he did, making you gasp when he started circling your clit and pinching your nipples at the same time. You couldn't help but writhe around on your mattress, arching into his mouth to feel more of everything he was doing, to feel him deeper, and Jack didn't complain. He accommodated every twitch of your hips and push against his shoulders, not even uttering a grunt of annoyance when you yanked on his fading curls when he slid a finger into you.
"Jack I- I- you feel so good." You gasped, breath catching on an unadulterated moan. He kept at it, just nodding slightly to signal he'd heard you as he continued to work arousal out of you with his tongue and fingers.
"I'm gonna cum, Jack." You warned, stomach seizing when he prodded your entrance with a second and third finger at once, and then you moaned in faux-pain when he pulled away from you with one final suck.
Your disgruntled face popped up to look at him as he stood to his full height, towering over you with your slick dripping from his lips and down his chin. It was perplexing how unbothered he was as he wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"Flip over. Get on your hands and knees, I'll give you what you want."
With nervous anticipation you did as he said, hypnotised by the edge to his voice. Jack was making it clear, he was finally taking charge and you couldn't have been more thankful for it. This is what you'd been craving ever since you saw him drinking the most expensive bourbon in the club, looking more out of place than a nun would.
It was tempting to look over your shoulder when you heard the rustle of his slacks, but you were tired of the teasing and needed to be fucked before you got yourself tied up for causing trouble.
"I hate to ask," Jack paused just as he brushed against your backside,
"But are you clean?"
"Yes Jack, I promise, please."
For an attending doctor, he didn't need much convincing and with a steady push of his hips you full. It winded you, expelling all the air from your lungs as you keened forwards up the bed, only to be tugged back onto his length by two strong hands.
He revelled in the way your head dropped forwards when he started guiding himself in and out of you, watching as you swallowed him greedily. The expanse of your back stretched out as you lowered yourself from your palms to your elbows, cat-like in your movements.
"Fuck Baby. You need to stop making those noises or I'm not gonna last. I'm an old man you know?"
You hadn't even noticed. First it was a gasp and then it was little pants every time you were full to the hilt of his thick cock. Jack was splitting you open from the inside out and you couldn't keep your mouth shut.
"I'm sorry." You preened,
"I'll be good."
"I know Baby, I know."
Then he reached forward and looped his arm around your neck, drawing you back so you were caught between the hard plains of his chest and his thick, bulging bicep.
He didn't stop fucking you even for a second, focused on contorting you in a way that delivered maximum pleasure. It was working too, your eyes had lost focus and when Jack whispered a questioning 'hmm' you had no idea what it was in relation to.
"Fuck, look at you." He groaned, gently biting on the muscle of your shoulder to quieten his grunt,
"Can't even answer me. Have I fucked you dumb baby? Is this what you needed, old Jack taking care of you?"
You answered with a high-pitched moan and a chanted mantra of the words every self respecting man wants to hear,
"I'm gonna cum. Jack, I'm gonna-"
And then you cried out, body shaking in his grasp as you orgasmed, twitching both away from and backwards onto his cock that didn't stop filling you.
Jack let you collapse forward onto the sheets, following you down as he chased his own release.
"Just a little longer Baby, I'm almost there."
You didn't exactly protest, too blissed out by the dragging of his length through your fluttering cunt. His desperate thrusts were elongating your climax, keeping the waves crashing over and over again.
Shame had long been forgotten as Jack moaned into your bedroom, face scrunching as he came inside you. Fingertips leaving quickly fading marks in your shoulders as he gripped onto his last piece of reality in a night that had felt like a dream.
When Jack slipped out the following morning without saying goodbye, he didn't know his memories of 'Baby' would haunt him from that point onward. The pretty, ex-stripper obsessed with pink and making him crack a smile. He sat there pining in the locker room of his very adult job, with his many years of experience. He had no idea that you'd slipped the same $50 that he'd paid you for a lap dance into his wallet with your number on the edge of one of the notes.
