summary: Joel doesn't know how much you love his body, let alone him. You try to show him, in the ways you know how.
warnings: body worship, the whole thing is smut but artful, vague smut, if that makes sense. references to oral sex and choking. reader and joel being poor communicators through words, the writing is very stylistic and again, vague, and may not be for everyone
a/n: please let me know what you think! thank you for reading!
“You’re so beautiful,” you say to him. “Did you know that?”
No. Of course not, no. And he doesn’t believe it, either, not when you say it right then.
Tucked closer in his arms, a slow contraction of muscle; a quiet shush of breath, disbelieving, lips to your forehead.
His lips are soft on your skin.
Press, press, press. Gentleness, never admitted to.
You love his body.
The sacrifice he begged to make with it, that you sometimes indulged and sometimes did not.
The scars, infinite craters and half moons and lightning strikes to discover. Hand prints and bruises in the shape of fingerprints on golden, warm skin.
A touch of madness, when you look at him, consuming, biting need to take. To hoard, to corral.
Dragon with gold, wolf with sheep.
Yours.
Yours.
Teeth to skin, delicate, like the spill of something sweet down your wrists. If you dug your teeth in, he would let you, and he’d drip down your chin, sticky on your skin like fruit juice. Bitter like lime.
You love the way he feels inside you. Interconnected, threads of fate, heavy inside you, full. Warm. Too full. Perfect.
Everything is orbital with him, sun around moon, moon around sun.
You love how warm he is. The way he never complains about cold hands and fingers digging into, asking, against him. Palm pressed over yours to keep it there. There and there and there. Against a heart. Because he would cut open his chest to keep you warm. Stick your fingers inside his ribs.
Not just because of the chill in your hand. But because you like to touch, feel. Muscle and tendon and vein. Coarse hair on his chest and thighs, too hot skin beneath. The thickness of his forearm and bicep and the flex of dense muscle there. Veins that run purple and green, beg for your fingertips and lips.
Push and pull, drip of sweat at his throat. Shiny with it, shimmering. So pretty.
The pulse of his heartbeat like the wings of a living animal, a creature you could palm and nurture.
That you do sometimes, curled fingers pressed there, just to feel it, the shape of his breath and the throb of his heart against your thumb nestled into that little hollow, that little space.
Fits perfectly there, thumbprint against gleaming, glistening skin. Exertion. His body over yours. Consuming and consumed, heavy over you and thrusting deep, holding you steady.
Starbursts behind your eyes, rolling back. Grip and roll and push and give.
Sweet in the sunshine and the moonlight and standing in the doorway so angry because you didn’t listen again. Arms over chest, clench and release of jaw beneath his beard.
Coarse dark hair on his chest and thighs and forearms and between his legs. All of it soft, something to drag your nails along and sigh.
Fingers curled through the peppered hair on his head, fine lines of sea salt threading through brown. Soft bristles of his beard when he kisses you, when he drowns himself in you, when he pulls at you until you move when he wants you, against his mouth, hands in his hair guiding him, soothing and praising.
Fine lines by his eyes and the wrinkle in his forehead and the creases in his throat. That fade when he relaxes and sleeps, that runnel deep with stress and laughter.
Signs of age, he would argue. Stress. Nothing to look at.
Signs of life, signs of living. Something to trace aside from the scars and cuts and the press of a finger into a bruise to watch him wince and swat you away.
So good.
There’s no sense in telling him, any of it, no sense in saying it. He would not believe you. He’s beautiful, cut from hallowed cloth, stitched together with pearl white thread. Strong, wide shoulders, the roll of tender muscle and sinew, something to slice into with a scalpel and take apart. Narrow hips, raised bumps of vein at the wings of his hips, the softness of his stomach, the hard press of muscle beneath.
It’s good to be wanted, nice to be needed.
By him.
By Joel.
Beneath you, hips rolling against his, curled over him. He always makes a sound you don’t think he hears, unraveled and unspooled, ripped from the pit of his belly. A groan or a plea. And you love it.
You like his hands on your hips and thighs and breasts, the delicate pull of his tongue along your cunt.
The shape of his shoulders silhouetted in the window, the broad frame of him edged in light. The pull of his t-shirt or flannel tight across his body. The sound of his voice, the graveled, rough pull of it, somehow still soft. His hey and g’mornin’. Pressed into your palm, into your open mouth, words swallowed down into your belly.
He isn’t like you, won’t stand naked, won’t abide that, too embarrassed, too mannered and well raised for that. Thinks nothing of his body, the thing you love, the thing he uses to give. It’s a tool and nothing more beyond it’s usefulness, certainly not pretty, certainly not to be admired.
A wish that he would let you look, stand naked in your doorway, hung over your head like a scythe, just to look and trace. Just to get your fill of him. Just so he understood, even if for only a minute.
Another thing, another love.
His voice.
He hums under his breath, sweet and soothing. He talks to himself, and you love to hear it.
No one else can hear that, the way he talks to himself and hums and mumbles and breathes. You like the way he breathes, you like to listen to him inhale slowly before he takes a sip of coffee, steaming between rough hands, and it makes you sick with something unsaid. Fold and crease of lungs and heart. It’s a song, a kind he sings without knowing.
The same voice you feel against your hand when you press it to his throat, the voice you feel when his tongue is in your cunt.
It sounds best in the desperate way he moves above you, faster, frantic, desperate.
He likes that. Your hand on his throat, against his collarbone. Head laid at the gallows.
You like to do it. Like to watch the strain of tendons and vein, feel his breath shudder and the spiderweb of pulsing blood against your palm.
You love the taste of him, the heaviness of his cock on your tongue, swallowed hungrily down your throat. You love the crimson, the delicate pink that stains his cheeks and throat and chest, the prettiest, warmest flush of skin when he comes, when you tease him about something innocuous. The sounds he makes, grunts and curses, always quiet.
Rough pads of fingers ghosting over your cheeks and neck and jaw. Never pushing. Knows better than to push. Soft and feeling, here and there, the plush curve of your bottom lip.
You love the press of his fingers between yours. Curve and strength, clench and asking, seeking.
You love the blood on his hands, the bruised cut of his knuckles.
The way he stands, talks, smells.
God, help you, but you love the way he smells. Leather, the earthy loam of rotting places, sunshine, pine, gun oil, the tangy salt of blood and sweat. It’s good somehow. Or maybe it isn’t. You love it anyway.
You love the musk of him, the safe press of his body over yours. Strong strength that brushed against yours. Chest to chest, clawing desperate fingers at your thigh and knee, teeth at the edge of jaw, head tilted back, offering.
You love his nose, the divoted scar on the bridge of it. The part of his lips against yours, the fan of his breath in your mouth, fingers curled deep inside you, probing, searching, prodding, finding pleasure tucked into corners you didn’t know existed.
So attentive. So attuned.
No one else, you think. Not another soul would ever search you like this one, would ever find parts of you just because he wanted to, likes to, needed to memorize the things he loved.
You love that. You love hiding away, being found anyway.
Broad hands and thick fingers, callused from everything, the world and work and music. He wants to hear you sing and you want the same, but you refuse and so does he. Lines in his palms, seams of the earth.
You love the way he holds a knife and a gun and the way he goes predator still when he knows, senses, something is wrong. His hand on hip pulling you back and away from the danger, blood on his palms for you, supplicating, asking, begging to be good, to do this for you. Knows you could do it yourself, spill blood, has seen it, has watched, but likes to do it for you anyway.
No sense in saying it again, won’t believe you again.
He doesn’t have to prove it to you. He doesn’t have to bleed, doesn’t have to drag the corpse beneath the porchlight again and again as proof that he can keep the roll of your name safe beneath his tongue.
Joel does it anyway.
Tell me what you need.
And you get it, in rough hands and tender touch.
He’s humming, now, the vibrations knocking against your temple. Tracing the hands you love over the curve of your hip and the down of hair on your thigh that he likes.
He likes the hair and your body and you know that in all the ways you can. He makes sure of it.
Summary: joel was the moth to your flame. if your flame was a bonfire and he was the one pouring gasoline.
Warnings: toxic! obsessive! psycho gf x crazy joel, one scene with violent!joel (never towards reader), toxic behavior, jealous!joel, jealous!reader, drinking, piv, f!receiving oral, m!receiving oral, missionary, doggy, slight voyeurism, possessive!joel, possessive!reader, stalker!joel, they're really just a match made in hell ya know.pet names (baby, sweetheart, angel), dirty talk, daddy kink, size kink, joel is a big boy
Word Count: 9.3k
Joel
God, you looked so pretty when you were mad.
That furious little glint in your eyes, the slight flare of your nostrils, the way your jaw clenched like you were deciding whether to kill him or kiss him. From across the room, you were a thunderstorm trapped in quite possibly the most incredibly addictive body Joel Miller had ever known. He couldn’t get enough of you, even when you were like this. Charged and seething, ready to level anything in your path. If you stood still long enough, he swore the air around you would spark and crack like lightning looking for a place to strike.
Your face was flushed, flushed enough that steam could’ve poured out of your ears. And in your hand was the source of it all—a harmless little card made of blue and white cardstock. It had a cheerful cartoon on the front and big, blocky letters that read Happy Father’s Day! The kind of thing you’d grab at the last minute while picking up toothpaste and a Gatorade. Joel had opened it, smiled a little at the sentiment, and tossed it on the dresser without a second thought.
That had been his mistake.
“Who is she?” you asked, your voice sharp and almost eerily calm, holding the card between two fingers like it had been dipped in something rotten.
“It’s from my neighbor,” he said quickly. “That’s all. She put it in my mailbox. I don’t even—”
“Does she give you cards for every holiday, Joel?” Your voice rose, the tone saccharine, but he only knew it as a warning.
He blinked. “What? No.”
“Christmas?”
“No!”
“Valentine’s Day?”
“Would you quit it?”
“Sure, yeah. I’ll quit it,” you replied sweetly, and before he could stop you, you were reaching into your back pocket for your Zippo. You flipped it open, rolled your thumb over the wheel, and lit the flame with simple finality.
He watched you hold the card to the fire, watched it curl and blacken, the edges glowing orange as it turned to ash in your hand. You dropped the smoldering remains into the little blue trash bin by his dresser and brushed your fingers off like you’d just done something as ordinary as take out the trash.
“Happy now?” he muttered.
“Not quite,” you snapped back, arms folded, mouth drawn tight in a pout that made him want to bend you over his knee.
He stepped toward you slowly, the fight still buzzing in the room like a second heartbeat. “I got somethin’ that could make you feel better.”
“Oh yeah?” you countered, no playfulness to your voice yet, and not moving an inch.
He nodded, a grin starting to pull at his lips even though he knew better. Even though there were claw marks on his back from the last time you got jealous. Even though last week you keyed a heart into the hood of his truck. You were fucking insane. Certifiable. But so was he. Because he was no better when his temper got to him. And yet you both seemed bound to each other, always coming back like moths to a bonfire.
“C’mere,” he said, voice rough as he approached you.
You sighed as his arms came around you, wrapping them tight, hands smoothing down your spine. Maybe if he held you hard enough, you’d melt into him, forgetting about the stupid card.
“Only want you, you know,” he murmured against your temple.
You tilted your head, lips ghosting the side of his neck before you bit down hard—right into the tender skin at his jaw, teeth sinking into the beard where it hurt the most. He hissed, breath catching, jeans already going tight.
“Good,” you whispered, releasing your hold to kiss his earlobe.
Yeah. You were both fucked.
You
The next morning, you were all tangled limbs and mellow sunlight spilling through the slats of the blinds when Joel’s alarm started buzzing. He groaned, the sound deep in his chest, dragging a heavy arm from around your shoulders to reach for the clock. You rolled on top of him before he could, laying across his stomach and stretching to shut it off yourself.
“Just a few more minutes,” you whispered, your bare body melting across his, cheek against his beard as you pressed lazy kisses to the coarse scruff. The dark hair tufting his chest tickled your skin as you slid higher, lips brushing his mouth.
“Gotta get up,” he rumbled, kissing you back even as his voice betrayed how badly he didn’t want to.
“Tell the guys you’ll be late,” you purred, mouthing down the column of his throat, your tongue dragging over the warm salt of his skin. You felt him stir beneath you, his morning hardness nudging your thigh. “Tell them I kept you in bed, that I made you come so hard you forgot what day it was. They’ll understand.”
“Oh yeah?” His hand tightened on your hip, gravel-thick voice edged with amusement.
You nodded against his skin as he added: “Now, if I tell ‘em that, you makin’ it worth my while? Or are these lies n’ empty promises?”
You smiled as you slipped down his body, sheets falling over your head as you disappeared beneath them. He was already half-hard when you kissed the trail of dark hair leading south, licking lightly at the ridges of his lower abdomen until his cock was heavy in your hand. You dragged your tongue up the underside, tracing the thick vein that wrapped around him, before swallowing his cock into the heat of your mouth.
“Christ,” Joel hissed, his head falling back against the pillows. The sound of your spit mixed with the wet drag of your lips filled the room, obscene and slick. His hips jerked when you moaned around him, throat working to take him deeper.
Before long, his hand was in your hair, tugging you up with a roughness that made your stomach flip. “Enough,” he muttered, pulling you to straddle him again. “I ain’t blowin’ my load down your throat when I should be fuckin’ you.”
He flipped you easily, pressing you forward until your knees dug into the mattress and your cheek brushed the sheets. The moment he pushed inside you, the sharp stretch knocked a gasp from your lungs. His hips slammed against your ass, heavy, rhythmic, the slap of skin echoing in the quiet morning.
That was when you heard a faint vibration against the nightstand and looked for the source—Joel’s phone. The noise rattled steady and insistent as his thrusts picked up, and you twisted just enough to grab it, shoving the buzzing rectangle into the pillows beneath you.
Joel groaned behind you, too lost in the velvet keep of your body to notice. You angled the phone so you could peek at the glowing screen.
Tommy.
A wicked smile tugged at your lips as you swiped to answer. You didn’t say hello, or any sort of greeting. Instead, you moaned into the speaker, biting your lip as Joel’s cock hit deep, the bed creaking with every thrust.
“What the fuck—” Tommy’s voice muffled faintly before you let another wanton cry spill into the phone, pushing your face into the pillows. Joel’s pace never faltered, his groans mixing with the filthy slap of bodies colliding.
You clutched the phone tighter, muffling laughter against the sheets, savoring the delicious chaos as Joel fucked you hard enough to drown out everything else.
“Oh, fuck, Joel,” you cried out, “Yes!”
You’d really put on the show for his little brother.
“Yeah, baby?” Joel growled, his thrusts sharp and deep, “That’s it, take it. Nothin’ better than my cock stuffin’ you first thing in the mornin’, huh? Greedy little thing.”
Tommy’s muffled “Jesus—” was nearly swallowed by the wet slap of Joel’s thighs on yours.
He bent over you, mouth hot against your neck. “Listen to you. Cryin’ for it already. Can’t even start the damn day without this cock stretchin’ you open, can you? You gonna come for me, baby? Gonna come on daddy’s cock?”
Your grin curved wicked against the pillow, biting back a laugh as you let another loud moan slip free, feeding it to both men at once.
The thought of Tommy listening, hearing every filthy word, every cry that tore from your throat sent heat rushing straight through your belly.
“Fuck, Joel,” you sobbed, clenching tight around him. “I’m—god, I’m gonna—”
“Yeah, you are,” he snarled, thrusts growing rougher, desperate. “Come on my cock, darlin’. Make a mess for me.”
Your body gave way all at once, ecstasy ripping through you as you gasped into the pillow, your whole frame trembling as he fucked you through it. Joel’s rhythm faltered shortly after, his groan breaking into a ragged curse as he pulled out quickly, fisting his cock until you felt the warm spurts of him over your back.
The line went dead in your hand at the same moment Joel pulled out of you, pressing a kiss to the damp curve of your neck, never knowing his brother had been there to hear it all.
Later that night, the Tipsy Bison was loud and hazy with neon lights bleeding against the wood-paneled walls, laughter and clinking bottles ringing out above the low hum of music. You slid onto a high stool, legs crossed, ordering a gin and tonic while Joel lingered behind you, already scanning the room like he didn’t trust a soul in it.
When he finally joined you, the weight of his presence filled the space before he even spoke.
“You wanna tell me why my brother couldn’t look me in the eye today, baby?” Joel asked, his voice pitched low, almost swallowed by the noise around you. He tilted his head, eyes sharp, catching yours like a trap. “Got anything you wanna say?”
You lifted your glass, took a slow sip, and shrugged, the ice clinking as if to punctuate your indifference.
“Got no idea, hm?” Joel asked, shifting closer. He stood close beside you where you sat at the barstool, crowding into your space like he owned it, lifting his beer and throwing back the last of it in one swallow. His throat worked, the cool neck of the bottle glinting as he drained it, then he set it down with a final clink on the counter.
The chatter of other bar goers washed over him, but it didn’t soften the heat rolling off his body as he leaned in, towering above you. One hand found the back of your chair, his palm broad and firm, caging you in. The other skimmed casually over your bare knee, thumb brushing slow circles that made your pulse jump.
“You gonna keep playin’ dumb,” he murmured, his mouth so close you could taste the beer on his breath, “or you gonna confess about your little stunt?”
You shifted, turning so your legs were on the opposite side of the seat, “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You slid off the stool, ignoring the heat of Joel’s stare as you weaved through the crowd toward the jukebox tucked in the corner. The din of conversation and clatter of bottles filled the air, but you could feel him trailing you, heavy footsteps never far behind.
You leaned over the jukebox, flipping through the glowing list of songs, when his hand landed on the edge beside yours, caging you in.
“You’re lucky it was just my brother,” Joel murmured, his voice pitched low, private. “If any other man knew how sweet you sounded takin’ my cock, I might’ve had to kill ‘em.”
Your jaw tightened, finger still hovering over the screen. “You’re infuriating.”
He stepped in closer, chest brushing your back, his mouth brushing your cheek. “That noise you make when I’m inside you—that’s all mine, baby. That’s the holiest thing I got. And you went and handed it off to my baby brother like it was nothin’.”
You rolled your eyes, but were unable to help the way your stomach flipped at his breath on your neck.
“Don’t tell me,” he mocked, kissing the edge of your jaw before you flinched away, “You liked my baby brother hearin’ you?”
“Ew, no.” You rolled your eyes deeper, your head starting to throb with it.
“Don’t gotta be shy,” he said, and though it sounded playful, the low lilt of his voice was anything but sweet. He pushed into you, hips flush with your ass, your hand having to flatten on the screen to hold yourself from leaning too hard into it. His mouth dragged along your cheek, almost a nuzzle if not for the teeth grazing your skin.
“If you ever do that again with another man,” Joel growled, “if you ever try to show what’s mine, I will kill him. You hear me? If you ever even looked at another man, even thought about givin’ what belongs to me to anyone else…” His teeth scraped harder, beard rasping against your skin, making your stomach knot, your thighs press together. “I’d ruin it for you, baby. Burn it right outta that pretty little head.”
You scoffed when he pressed a sudden, gentle kiss to your ear, the tenderness a mockery after all that venom. Your song came on, the jukebox humming to life behind you, and you twisted on him, shoving him hard.
Joel’s back hit the wall with a muted thud as your palm shoved hard up under his jaw, fingers flexing against the thick muscle of his neck. He was solid and hot beneath your grip, that maddening pulse thumping steady against your thumb. And the fucker was smiling.
That lazy, half lidded, cheshire cat grin that made your blood rise and your fists clench.
You could still hear the chords of the Nirvana song bleeding through the speakers, some drunk bastard singing along, but all you could focus on was the wicked gleam in Joel’s eyes.
“I don’t belong to you or anyone else, asshole.” you seethed through your teeth.
Mmmmm, he hummed low, the rumblings of it tickling the heart of your palm, “That’s it, baby,” he murmured, voice rich and gravelled, full of heat and poison as he adjusted his jaw in your grip. “Right there. God, I love when you get like this.”
Your fingers clenched harder around the trunk of his throat without thinking. But you began to pull away, knowing you wouldn’t win this way, “Oh, fuck y—”
His hand shot out, snatching your wrist and keeping it in place, tightening it against his throat as he leaned down further, his beer tinged breath fanning over you as he towered into your space.
“What?” he smirked. “Gonna give up so easy? Thought we were havin’ fun.”
“Let go, you bastard,” you seethed, eyes blazing as you struggled in his grip.
And then, a voice came from behind you.
“Um… excuse me, miss?”
The words sliced through the heat of it all, unwanted and clumsy. You turned, slowly. A guy stood there, tall-ish, clean cut in that polo wearing kind of way, with a nervous demeanor and khaki shorts. His hair was gelled, his eyes a little too earnest. He looked like someone’s nephew on spring break. He could've been your age. But the Hey Dudes were the final insult.
You stiffened, though Joel didn’t move, just cocked his head in your periphery like a predator clocking fresh prey.
The boy glanced between the two of you with that same naive concern you’d seen in well meaning men your whole life. You thought he must’ve seen your hand at Joel’s throat and the heat in your cheeks and thought this was his cue.
And then he brought his hand up, letting the clammy skin touch the heated crest of your shoulder.
Joel’s demeanor changed immediately. He went stiff, the playful smile dropping from his mouth in an instant, the fury in his eyes burning molten as he stared down at the man beside you. The grip on your wrist didn’t change, you only felt his fingers twitch as if he was thinking of using them to wrap around the man’s throat instead.
When he finally spoke, his voice came low and even, no louder than it needed to be, but somehow clearer than everything else in the room.
“Best get your hands off ’er if you wanna keep ‘em, son.”
The kid faltered, hand tightening on your shoulder as if he wasn’t sure whether to drop it or double down. His brows knit, lips parting like he was about to stammer something out, and for a second you thought that would be the end of it—that maybe he’d mutter an apology and walk off into the haze of beer and neon and learn never to touch someone else’s girl again.
But he just kept looking at you.
Eyes narrowed, caught on your face, and whatever brief flash of uncertainty had gripped him evaporated. Maybe he thought your silence meant hesitation. Maybe he saw the flush on your chest, the bright heat still crawling up your neck, and mistook it for distress. Maybe it was that earnestness again, that dumb, open-faced naivety that in someone else’s life, they might’ve thought was sweet.
“Miss?” he asked again, a little firmer, steeling himself, like he’d puff out his chest and be your knight in shining armor, “I’ll take care of you, I can call the police if—”
Joel’s grip shifted at the same moment your mouth opened. He didn’t yank you, didn’t jerk your arm, but he took your wrist from his neck and pulled you aside so you were out of the way.
Once you were safely out of his war path, he was moving. His hand came up, not in a punch or a slap, not a shove or a poke to the chest.
His big, calloused hand came up, swallowing the stranger’s whole face like he was catching a flyball in a baseball glove. Joel’s fingers splayed across his entire face, palm crushing into his nose, and with a force that looked almost casual, he shoved the stranger back.
But the sound that followed was anything but casual. The man’s body hit the edge of a nearby table with a sickening crack, sending pint glasses toppling, chairs screeching across the sticky floor, a half-eaten plate of wings flipping onto the ground as someone cursed nearby. A sharp burst of fry oil and spilled beer hit your nose, along with that sudden, unmistakable shift in bar noise—that pause that happens when everyone senses a fight is about to break loose.
“Jesus fucking Christ, man!” the boy started, breathless, one hand half lifted in placation, “What’s your problem!?”
Joel moved fast, stalking across the space between them like all that heat had been simmering under the surface, boiling over the edge and finally allowed to break.
He wound back his clenched hand, and the crack of his fist hitting the man’s nose rang out sharp and sickening, knuckle against bone, loud enough to turn heads even in a place like this, where fights were cheap and tempers cheaper. The guy’s head snapped back on impact, his knees buckling as blood burst from his nose, splattering across the grimy tabletop and the front of his pastel shirt like some cruel brand. His body crumpled into a graceless heap of limbs and shock and pain.
Joel didn’t seem done yet.
He stood over him, looming, chest still heaving from the exertion, his hand still partially curled into fist, blood streaked across the creases of his knuckles. His lip twitched like he was gearing up for another.
And after a brief pause of surprise, of the entire bar watching, their little brains catching up with what was happening, the room erupted in noise.
Chairs scraped hard against the floor. A couple of voices shouted, some cheering, some cursing or jeering, and then multiple pairs of hands descended, grabbing Joel’s shoulders from behind, one of their voices snapping, “Hey—HEY! That’s enough buddy!”
Two men now, maybe three, trying to haul him back. Joel resisted at first— out of rage, out of something wild in him, like his body hadn’t gotten the message yet. His legs planted, weight low, still staring down at the stranger like he hadn’t finished making his point. It took a few seconds and a hard shove to get him to move, stumbling half a step back, shoulders flexed, chest rising and falling like a piston as they pulled at him.
You looked between the bleeding man and Joel being hauled out of the scene into the night air. And you couldn’t help the small smile that was playing on your lips as you skipped outside.
The door slammed behind you, cutting off the last of the shouting. The night air brought a relief with the cool breeze, less stuffy than inside, but still thick with cigarette smoke and fried meat drifting from the open kitchen vent, the pavement still warm under your shoes.
Joel was pacing like an animal just outside the halo of the entrance light, chest heaving, blood drying on his knuckles.
“You’ve officially lost your fucking mind, Miller.”
He turned when he heard your voice. And God, he looked like he’d eat you just for speaking.
You ignored it, “I can’t believe you. And you think that’s somehow gonna make me want you? Bashing some guy’s face in like that?”
You started walking, scoffing and shaking your head, out into the parking lot. Anywhere but here, to get away from him and his simmering rage, his toxicity. It was too much.
But you heard his boots before you could do anything about it, his heavy, broad hand catching your arm and pulling you back. And the thing was, he was never violent with you. Never too rough unless you asked him, but all the same, the air felt knocked out of you as he pushed you against the brick siding, the lights of the bar illuminating his face in red.
You opened your mouth again to spit a retort at him, but his body was crowding yours, hips pinning you, chest crushing into yours, his knee shoved hard up between your thighs so fast you gasped, your balance gone.
"Where the hell d’you think you're goin’?" he purred, face just inches from yours.
You could smell the whiskey and the beer on his breath, the copper tang of blood, the sweat from the fight still drying in the crease of his neck. His hands found your waist, fingers bruising, digging in to hold you against him and the wall.
"Think I don’t know your game by now, baby?" he rasped, voice low and knowing, hot against your cheek. “I know you love when I make a scene. That’s what all that was, huh? Wanted to see how far I’d go?”
His thigh flexed between your legs and your body betrayed you with a stuttered breath, your hand flying to his chest to shove him, grab him—something.
“Joel—”
"You watched like you didn’t fuckin’ love it,” he hissed, cutting you off. “You think I’d let you leave after that? After he touched you? Told you he’d take care of what’s mine?”
His head dropped, nose brushing your cheek, lips dragging along the edge of your jaw like a threat disguised as affection. You felt his breath in your hair, heavy and ragged, every inch of him pressed to you like a cage.
“He didn’t even—” you started, breath catching as he nibbled on your ear, “you were the one—”
“I told you I’d kill any man that thought he could take what’s mine,” he said, voice so soft it didn’t sound real. “You hear me, baby? You’re my girl, only mine. Say it now, be a good girl.”
“Fuck you, I can’t believe you!” you tried pushing him away, but his knee edged higher between your thighs, his chest pushing you into the wall even more, “Get off, Joel!”
“So you’re tellin’ me, if I reached down your panties right now, they wouldn’t be sopping wet for daddy, hm?”
You rolled your eyes, ignoring his question, “You’re a freak, Miller.”
He hummed against your neck, lips tracing your pulse, tongue darting out to taste the salt of you, lips pressing and suckling at your skin. You couldn't help the bend in your back as your body betrayed you. His hand moved from pushing your hip into the wall to unbuttoning the tops of your jeans, and before you could protest, he was reaching down, past the waist band of your thong and into the gusset of the lace, pushing it aside to run his finger between your folds.
The moan he let out was guttural and feral, a man half animal as he shoved your legs apart, dipping his fingertips into your entrance.
“Oh fuck–” you gripped his shirt, no longer pushing him away but pulling him in.
“Yeahhh…” he breathed, “there she is.”
And that smugness, something in that dark, satisfied grin, snapped the last of your restraint. With a furious growl, you wrenched his hand out of your jeans, planting both hands on his chest, and shoved him again, this time with finality.
Joel fell back before righting himself, his grin nowhere to be seen as you spit the words at him: “Stay away from me.”
He froze, chest heaving, the feral edge in his eyes dimming with confusion.
“I hate you.” Your voice cracked, but you forced the words out. “I don’t want you. Not anymore. You don’t own me.”
For once, he didn’t come after you. He only stood there, jaw tight, swallowing back something ugly as you pushed past him, leaving him under the bar light with his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Joel
He told himself he wasn’t stalking you. He just… missed you. Needed to know you were safe. Needed to see you, even if from a distance.
So he’d started to park his truck down the block from your gym in the days that passed since the bar fight. Engine off, of course, and hat pulled low, watching through the windshield as you slipped inside the building in your leggings and hoodie, earbuds dangling, a bounce in your step that gutted him. Sometimes he’d wait the whole hour just to watch you come back out, the front of your little tank damp with sweat, forehead glistening, tugging at your bag strap as you crossed the lot. He memorized every detail from afar, from the way you tied your jacket around your waist and the way you bent your head to check your phone.
Between jobs, he’d find excuses to pull over, thumb flicking to the Find My app he shouldn’t have still had. You hadn’t realized it was still on his phone. The tiny dot pulsed on the map and he felt calmer knowing where you were. At home. At work or the gym. The store. He told himself it wasn’t wrong…he wasn’t trying to control you. He just couldn’t breathe not knowing if you were safe.
One night, you were in a new spot he didn’t recognize. And suddenly, a kindling fire burst into flames inside him, molten with that green monster clawing at his chest as he jumped in his truck, phone still open, following the dot to the other side of town. His knuckles ached on the wheel, jaw tight, imagination running wild with pictures of you in another man’s house, some stranger’s hands where only his should be. The longer he drove, the darker it got inside his head.
If he found you there, if he drove up and saw another man touching what was his, Joel wasn’t sure what he’d do, except that it wouldn’t be pretty. He thought about fire. How quick a house could go up if you knew where to start it. How easy it would be to walk away with nothing but smoke curling into the sky behind him.
Or maybe it wouldn’t need fire. Maybe it’d just be one body to move. He knew where the ground stayed soft outside of town, how deep he’d need to dig to make sure no dog or man ever found it. What was having to bury one man in a grave, if it meant keeping you?
But when he pulled up, it wasn’t a house. It wasn’t even a bar to pick up strangers. It was a tattoo shop, neon light buzzing above the door. His pulse thundered as he killed the engine, eyes locked on the entrance. He couldn’t see you through the windows, but he stayed, headlights off, waiting.
When you finally came out, his stomach flipped at the sight of you again, though you looked the same—no fresh ink peeking out, no sign of what you’d done inside. That fire in him stoked down to embers, quiet but still burning, banked hot beneath his ribs.
It drove him insane that he couldn’t storm across the street, grab your face in his hands, kiss you until you remembered you were his. It drove him insane that he had to sit there in the dark, invisible, while you walked past him like he didn’t exist. All he wanted to do was show you how much you were meant to be with him and no one else. To touch, to hold, to bend you over and…well, he kept those thoughts between him and God nowadays.
Every night, he’d lie awake, phone in hand, staring at that little pulsing dot like it was the only tether keeping him sane. Joel Miller was half feral without you, starved, aching, sick in love and in need. The longer you stayed away, the more convinced he became: you weren’t just someone he wanted. You were his.
And if he had to watch, if he had to wait, if he had to burn with it, he’d do it. Because sooner or later, you’d understand. Nobody could love you the way he did. Nobody would ever try.
You
It wasn’t until a few weeks later that you saw Joel Miller again. Well, the first time you’d seen him when he wasn’t trying—and failing—to hide in the dark cab of his truck. You’d known he was following you, but it thrilled you. Maybe it should’ve scared you. But knowing a man was lovesick and obsessed only stoked the fire in your belly as you caught sight of his black pickup. You’d even left on your location for him to come find you whenever he wanted.
So now, in the blaring haze of the nightclub, you knew he’d show his face. You’d even thought about risking another nobody to grab his attention, to force his hand again, but for once you caught a stroke of pathetic empathy for the sweet brown haired, blue eyed stranger who tried to buy you a drink. It wasn’t his fault you looked single. So you’d turned him down before he could talk to you for more than a minute.
The place smelled of sweet fog smoke, bass pounding hard enough to rattle your bones. Bright lights strobed across sweat sticky bodies, the DJ hunched in the corner, spinning the same four beats into oblivion as you danced with one of the girls you’d come with that night. That’s when you saw Joel, arms folded over his chest, leaning against the wall like sin incarnate, his gaze locked on you.
But there was a girl.
Tattooed, tipsy, sticky lip gloss smeared at the corner of her mouth. She was pawing at his arm, nails digging into the muscle of his bicep where it peeked from his black tee like she was claiming him. All flirty smiles and fake giggles, pressing herself close.
Joel wasn’t even looking at her. Not even a glance her way because his eyes were pinned to you. And that made your stomach twist tighter. Because she was still touching him even though he clearly wasn’t interested.
You pushed through the crowd, closing the space until you were face to face, your drink sloshing onto the sticky floor. You tilted your head, eyes raking over her cheap dress, her smeared mascara, her trembling little smile.
“You must be drunk,” you said sweetly, venom dripping off every word. “Because if you were sober, you’d know better than to touch something that isn’t yours. Unless you’ve got a death wish.”
Her eyes narrowed, mouth opening like she wanted to speak, but you leaned closer, lips brushing her ear. “You don’t want me as your enemy, sweetheart. So take your last chance and fuck off.”
The girl’s breath hitched. Joel chuckled low in his throat, his grin splitting wider, and you didn’t even need to look to know he was hard as stone watching you lose your mind.
The girl finally yanked her hand away, muttering something weak as she shoved into the crowd, vanishing into the fog.
You turned back to Joel, victory singing in your veins as the lights flashed across his face. He was still grinning, eyes dark and shining.
“What’re you doing here, Joel?” you asked, feigning your annoyance despite your win.
“You just told that girl I was yours.”
“No,” you corrected, tilting your chin up, “I said she shouldn’t touch what isn’t hers.”
“Because I’m yours.”
You rolled your eyes so hard it hurt. “I’m so over this. I’m going home.”
You shoved your empty glass onto the nearest table and shouldered past the crowd. He followed instantly, slipping through the crowd like a shadow tethered to you, until the thump of bass gave way to the sharp night air outside.
“Baby, baby, c’mon,” he jogged up behind you, voice soft, coaxing. “Let’s just talk.”
You didn’t stop walking, heels clicking against the sidewalk, the neon buzz of the club sign painting the pavement in red and blue. “Talk about what? How you’re still following me around like some obsessed puppy?”
“Maybe,” Joel admitted, catching your wrist before you could slip further into the dark. His grip was warm, firm, but not rough, just insistent. “Because I can’t stand it. Because you’re mine, baby. You’ve always been mine.”
You stared down at his hand on your wrist, then back up at him, your lips curling into a cruel little smile. “If you’re so desperate, then maybe you can drive me home.”
His jaw tightened, eyes searching yours. “Okay.”
“Don’t get any ideas.” you said, snatching your hand back. But your heartbeat ricketed up a beat, betraying you.
And on the way home, Joel kept his hands to himself, which both surprised you and made you fidgety. He asked about your day, about the past couple weeks at work with that coworker you hated, like things were normal again. His voice was even, steady, and for a moment it almost felt like it used to. Maybe he was just grateful to be close again. You weren’t sure. You hated that you liked it, though — hated how easy it was to slip back into his gravity.
As you pulled up to your apartment complex, the glow outside your door sputtered and crackled, flickering like a mosquito zapper about to short out. The pale light buzzed, flashing on and off, making the walkway look eerie and stuttered.
“When did that start?” Joel asked, his voice soft, too soft, as he frowned at your door.
“Dunno. Thanks for the ride,” you said quickly, sharper than you meant, pushing the door open before he could say more. But Joel cut the engine and got out after you, boots crunching on the gravel.
“I told you not to get any—”
“I know, darlin’,” he said gently, that maddening lilt curling around the word. He was infuriating when he was sweet, like he wasn’t the same tornado that ripped through everything you touched. “Just let me fix it. Might be the bulb, might be somethin’ with the wiring. I just wanna make sure you’re safe.”
You narrowed your eyes, arms folding over your chest as you stood planted in front of your door. “Fine.”
Joel nodded once, hazel eyes locked on you for a beat too long before he turned to the light. He reached up, big hand twisting the bulb, hissing when it burned his fingertips, but working at it anyway. He jiggled it loose, studied the socket, then shook his head.
“Gonna need to check your breaker.”
“Seriously?” you sighed, dragging the word.
He shrugged, looking annoyingly unbothered. “Sorry, baby.”
“Quit callin’ me that, Miller.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smirked at you, eyes glinting, and you rolled your own so hard it almost hurt.
You unlocked the door, muttering under your breath, letting him follow you inside. He didn’t even need pointing, he went straight for the coat closet like he’d lived there. The faint scent of him filled the space around you, leather and cedar, impossible to ignore.
Joel studied the breaker, flipping the switches with practiced ease. He went outside to replace the bulb, then came back in, wiping his hands together like a job well done.
“Should be good now.” He hit the switch, and sure enough, the porch lit up in a steady blaze, no flicker at all. Like it had never even been broken.
“Great,” you muttered, pushing your hair out of your face. “See you later, then.”
Joel chuckled, low and sure, shaking his head. “Not so fast.”
You groaned, leaning your shoulder into the doorframe. Here we go.
He stepped in, the porch light humming steady behind him as he came closer in the doorway, casting him in a gold halo. The irony wasn’t lost on you. His voice dropped, softer than you’d expected, almost shy. “Missed you.”
Your eyes narrowed as his arms came up to cross over his thick, wide chest, mirroring your stance. He looked down at his boots, sucking in a tight breath as if to steady himself before looking at you again. “Haven’t been sleepin’. Haven’t been eatin’ right. Nothin’...nothin’ feels right without you,” His gaze flicked down, then back up, unguarded in a way that made your chest ache. “I don’t know how to do it without you, darlin’.”
You shifted, uncomfortable, heat crawling up your neck. “God, you’re so—” You huffed, throwing your hands up, unable to look at him straight on.
“Tell me you ain’t been feelin’ the same,” Joel pressed, his voice rough but steady. “Tell me to leave, I’ll leave. But look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t missed me too, baby.”
You glared up at him, your eyes raking over his face, searching for a crack you could wedge your anger into. “I haven’t—I—” The words snagged in your throat, the lie choking itself before it could reach the night air.
His mouth twitched, flattening for a beat before curling slow around the edges, that cocky grin sliding back into place like it had never left.
“Shut up,” you muttered, sharp and breathless, before fisting his shirt and lunging for him.
You kissed him with messy furiosity, all teeth and tongue, like you were trying to silence him with the only weapon you had left. Joel groaned into it, arms locking around you instantly, his body swallowing yours whole as if he’d been waiting all this time for you to finally break.
He shoved forward, making you stumble back a step before scooping you up in his arms, slamming the door shut with his boot and clicking the lock without ever breaking the kiss.
“Christ,” he panted against your mouth as you dragged kisses down the thick column of his neck, tasting soap and sweat and the pounding pulse beneath. “Missed you so fuckin’ much.” His groan cracked when your teeth sank into his throat.
“Fuck, please,” you gasped, grinding against his stomach where he held you aloft. Joel swallowed your moan into his mouth, tongue rough and hot against yours as he carried you up the stairs, each step jarring but never breaking the fever between you.
“Please what?” he rasped, his voice shredded thin. “Tell me, baby. I’ll give you anythin’ you want. Give you the damn moon if I could.”
“Fuck me, Joel, please, I can’t—” your words tumbled out, frantic, the heat of his body a furnace that would never be close enough. You clawed at him like you’d crawl inside if you could, just to be closer. “I hated seeing that girl all over you tonight,” you choked out, voice venomous. “Hated it. I could’ve—I wanted to—”
“Shh.” He tightened his grip in your hair, pulling your face back just enough to meet his eyes, steady and molten. “I know. I know, baby. Ain’t no one takin’ me from you. Ever.”
He set you down on the bed with a care that clashed with the storm in his fists and mouth. He quickly undressed himself, wholly bare before you as you stayed clothed before he descended onto you. His weight hovered over you as he kissed down your throat, over your collarbone, dragging his teeth along bare skin. His hands slid under your shirt, pushing it higher, calloused palms cupping your breasts through the thin fabric before tugging it over your head in one smooth pull.
“Pretty girl,” he muttered against your sternum, his mouth closing over a peaked nipple, teeth grazing before his tongue soothed. He palmed the other breast roughly, greedy, groaning into you like he was starving. You arched beneath him, your hands in his hair, pulling him closer, closer.
His mouth traced lower, down your stomach, his thumbs catching in the waistband of your pants.
“What’s this, hm?” Joel murmured, voice dropping low as he tugged them down, lace catching on his knuckles. The scrolled letters became visible slowly, unveiled by lace and Joel’s calloused fingers.
He stilled.
The script stood out stark and clean against your skin, perched right between the gentle curve of your hip and the bone just above your cunt.
𝓙𝓸𝓮𝓵
In black ink, just a couple weeks old and still healing.
Joel reeled back a little—not in shock or horror but in reverence, in something like awe, and when his eyes met yours, there was only heat. Dark and thick and heavy, the kind that filled the space between your lungs and made it hard to breathe.
"You’ve been hidin’ this from me, baby?” he asked, his voice light and lilting, like he was speaking to something fragile. But the edge of it curled mean. Sweet like syrup over a knife. “Tattooed my name on you like a good little girl, huh?”
You whimpered—surprised by your own nerves. You’d been proud of it when you got it. Smug, even. But now? Under his eyes? Under his hands?
Joel lowered his head.
His mouth found your skin and pressed his lips softly against each letter, tongue dipping out, licking over the lines like he wanted to taste every stroke. He kissed it, again and again, lips dragging across your skin, open-mouthed and worshipful. His tongue was hot against the sensitive skin, kissing it like he was kissing into your mouth and not the skin of your pelvis.
“Fuck, baby,” he whispered, breath warm and thick as it sank into your skin. Your hips jolted up against him, thighs twitching, need bleeding out of you like your body couldn’t hide it anymore.
“Can’t believe you got my fuckin’ name branded on you.”
You mewled, the sound raw, half formed in your throat as heat crawled up your spine now, your whole body alive with tension, every part of you sparking as his mouth trailed lower. Joel pulled your pants down the rest of the way, slow and greedy, and your legs opened for him without thought, a helpless thing begging to be touched.
He kissed down to your pubic bone, taking his time, all slow and reverent. He inhaled your scent, his nose brushing right up against your clit.
“Ohhh, baby,” he mocked, dragging the words out. “You’re soaked, huh? Pretty pussy just aching for daddy.”
“Shut up, old man,” you groaned, pushing the heels of your hands into your eyes, desperate and annoyed, thighs clenching with frustration.
He laughed low in his throat. “But you love this old man, don’t you, honey? Tell me how much you love me.”
You bit down hard on the inside of your cheek. “I love your cock, old man. Not you.”
“Mhm. Sure, sure,” he chuckled, kissing your hip again. “That why you got my name written in ink across your sweet body?”
“Drunken mistake.”
Joel shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”
Then he kissed your clit—so softly you almost missed it. Just a brush, feather light, enough to drive you insane. You looked down and saw the bastard smiling.
“Tell me you love me,” he murmured, gravel in his voice, dragging his mouth just to the side again, pressing another kiss to your inner thigh. You twitched, whined, your body betraying you completely.
“No,” you gasped, your head rolling back. “No, I’m not saying it.”
“But I love you, baby,” he said, eyeing your glistening folds, “Fuckin’ obsessed with you.”
You whimpered, mouth twisting, a broken frown pulling at your face and Joel mirrored it, mockingly.
“Aww, poor thing can’t even talk now? Too many needy thoughts?” he crooned, pressing his lips right beside where you wanted him, tongue flicking out to trace the crease of your thigh. “Come on, sweetheart. Tell me why you got that tattoo. Tell me why you keep crawling back to me.”
“‘Cause—‘cause—” You were stammering, hips searching for friction, clenching around nothing.
“You’re so fuckin’ cute like this,” he said, dragging it out, “Could make you squirm for hours.”
His tongue still hadn’t touched you where you needed it most. He leaned down, breathing against your clit, tracing the sensitive skin just outside of your folds with his nose—
“I love you, Joel,” you gasped, eyes squeezing shut. “I love you, I love you—”
His lips hit your soaked skin with just a wet peck and you jolted in surprise.
“Aww, baby. You mean it?”
“Yes, yes—I mean it!”
“Say it again.”
“I love you! I got it tattooed because I’m in love with you, you fucking bastard!”
Joel laughed, low and mean. “That’s my girl. But c’mon, I know you can be sweeter than that.”
You cried out, half with need, half with fury as your hips rolled in search of any kind of relief. Joel’s forearm slid hard across your hips, locking you in place, keeping you from grinding up against his mouth. You thrashed once and he held tighter.
“Please,” you begged now. Your voice cracked, tears burning the edges of your vision. You propped yourself up on your elbows, looking down at him. “I love you, Daddy, I love you. Love you and everything about you. I’m obsessed with you too.”
Joel moved fast.
He surged his body upward, leaning in to crush his mouth to yours, his tongue deep and hungry, bypassing any kind of gentle pretense to devour you fully, kissing like he could never get close enough. You moaned into it, wild, grabbing his hair in tight fists, dragging him closer, pulling like you were starved.
“You make me insane,” he panted between kisses. “Make me fuckin’ crazy, you know that?”
“Yes—yes—I know,” you gasped. “You make me crazy too, Daddy, please, please—”
“Okay, baby,” he rasped, his voice dark and reverent as he moved back down, stopping to kiss your navel before saying: “Okay. Gonna give you what you need. What only Daddy can give you.”
And then his mouth was finally on you.
Tongue thick and wet, sliding out of him like something obscene, starved, pressing heavy against your folds as he licked an open, shameless stripe up the whole slick length of your cunt. No teasing now. No trace of mercy. Just filthy, hungry mouth, slathering spit all over you like he was trying to wear you.
He buried his face in it, lips sealing around your clit, dragging it between them with a deep, needy suck that made your vision blur, made your hands fly to his hair like you needed to anchor yourself to him. And the sounds he made between your legs, those wet, slurping groans, breath snarling through his nose as he devoured you, tongue moving in greedy circles, then sharp flicks, then back to that flat, full pressure that had your thighs snapping tight around his head.
He groaned into you like he couldn’t breathe without it. The vibrations rattled through your clit, right up into your spine, your hips jerking helplessly against the strength of his hold. He fucking growled, the sound thick and low and furious as he sucked hard enough to bruise, and when he pulled back just enough to spit on your cunt in a thick, warm, filthy glob before dragging his tongue through it again, you sobbed. He was sloppy, nasty, mean and loving all the same when he ate at you.
"Messy little pussy," he muttered against you, his chin already soaked, beard shining with your slick. “Look at this, baby.”
You couldn’t think or breathe. You couldn’t stop shaking. He was licking like he meant to ruin you, to split you open with his mouth alone. Your clit throbbed under the attention, swollen and pulsing with every pull of his lips, every lewd moan, every inch of his tongue gliding through the slick, messy heat of you.
Your thighs were trembling, belly fluttering and your voice was lost somewhere between a scream and a gasp and a high, cracked wail of his name. White stars burst in your vision as you crested over the edge, the coil wrapping around your spine tightening and slackening and twitching until you started to come down. Your thighs shook as he kept licking at you, softer now, more careful, drinking you down like every drop was sacred, his tongue pushing inside you for one last taste.
He kissed your thighs and up your body until he was hovering over you, pressing his mouth to yours. The taste of you was dizzying—honey, salt, sweat—and his tongue swept through your mouth gently, moaning like he was the one coming down from the high.
His cock twitched heavy between your stomach and his as you bit his lip, your hand sliding down to wrap around him. He drew in a sharp breath, leaning his forehead to yours, eyes wild as you both watched your fist stroke up and down.
“Where you gonna get my name tattooed, Daddy?” you whispered, voice sweet and melodic.
He chuckled low, then groaned as your thumb swept across the leaking tip, spreading it around his length.
“Anywhere you want,” he said roughly, kissing you harder, before sitting back on his haunches to watch your hand work him. Your fingertips didn’t even meet around the thickest part of him.
“I think right here would be cute,” you cooed, releasing him so his cock slapped heavy against your pelvis, then dragging your fingertip just above the thatch of hair where he disappeared.
“Yeah? Your property, huh?” he teased, but his grin was sharp, hungry.
You nodded, tucking your bottom lip between your teeth.
“All yours,” he agreed hoarsely, and began to drag himself through your glistening folds, the wet schlick obscene. He tapped the fat head against your clit, playful, before notching at your entrance.
Ohhh, you sighed as he pushed in an inch.
“Now,” he groaned, gripping your thigh to push you open wider, watching himself sink deeper, “wanna hear you say it again.”
“Ah–ah—say what?” you hiccuped, clutching at his forearm as he continued to disappear into you slowly.
“Why you got that little tattoo, baby.”
“I love you, Joel,” you whispered, eyes squeezing shut as he bottomed out.
“I love you too, sweetheart,” he breathed, voice breaking, hiking one of your legs over his shoulder, the other hooking at his waist as he leaned forward above you. He pulled out slow, then slid back in deep, kissing your nose. “So much it hurts. Hurts in my chest, hurts in my fuckin’ bones.”
You moaned, eyes rolling back, arms circling his neck. His mouth crushed to yours as he moved, and he groaned into your mouth like a man who’d die without you.
His pace quickened, thrusts sharper, deeper, until the slap of skin was drowned by your ragged cries. Joel tore his mouth from yours, panting against your cheek, his voice rough, low, wrecked. “So damn tight around me. S’like this pussy was made for me, huh angel?”
“Yes, Joel,” you gasped, nails scoring down his back, desperate to keep him inside you.
“God, baby…” His teeth grazed your jaw as his hips sawed back and forth harder, his voice breaking with a new hunger. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. Say it.”
“I’m yours,” you sobbed, head tipping back against the pillow. “Yours, forever.”
His hand caught your throat, not quite squeezing, just steadying you, his thumb brushing your pulse as if to remind himself you were alive, here, his. His cock pushed impossibly deep, kissing your womb, and he groaned against your ear. “I’d kill any man who even dreamed of you. I’d burn the whole world down if it meant keepin’ you here safe with me.”
Your thighs quivered as he drove into you, stars bursting white-hot behind your eyes. “I know,” you whined, broken on his rhythm. “You’ve already ruined me, I’m all yours.”
“That’s my good girl,” he growled, pressing his forehead hard to yours, sweat beading where your skin met. His thrusts grew frantic, almost pained, his voice unraveling. “And what if I knock you up, hm? Gonna hate me if I fuck a baby into you too?”
You clutched him tighter, delirious, babbling your devotion against his mouth, you should’ve never said those awful words, the ones you never meant outside the bar. “No, no, I could never hate you. I need you, I love you—keep me, keep me, Joel—make me yours.”
He kissed you like a vow, broken moans spilling hot against your lips. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it, gonna fill you, gonna put a baby in you, sweet girl, then you won’t be able to go anywhere,”
Joel’s hips snapped in merciless rhythm as if carving himself into you was the only prayer he knew, every word he spoke a fevered gospel, every thrust a confession of love so twisted it bordered on holy.
The words seemed to stoke the fire in both of you at once, toppling your second orgasm over the peak, your back bowing into an arch you never thought possible as the world went white behind your eyelids.
Joel groaned above you, his body shuddering as he stilled, pressing as deep as he could, spilling into you with a sound that was half gasp and half curse. His arms locked tight around you, crushing you to him as if he could fuse you together.
For a long moment, the world was just the heat of him inside you and the rough sound of his breath against your skin. His mouth brushed your cheek, his voice ragged as he said: “Don’t ever leave me again,” he muttered, words splitting like they’d been torn straight from his chest.
Your nails scraped lightly through his hair. “Never,” you whispered back, your lips ghosting his ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He let out a broken groan, holding you tighter, burying his face against your neck. His weight pressed you deep into the mattress, his chest rising and falling against yours in uneven bursts. You stroked his hair absently as he stayed inside you, the damp ends sticking to your fingers, soothing him with gentle touches.
Little by little, his breathing evened out, the frantic edge fading until the two of you were just a tangle of limbs and sweat, cocooned in the heavy quiet that always followed the storm. The haze of arousal began to thin, leaving you raw, dazed, but not entirely unsteady. Your fingers kept combing through his hair, softer now, more thoughtful, until they slowed to a halt.
“Joel?” you murmured into the dark.
He answered with a low hum, the sound muffled, half asleep, content.
warnings: loose historical au, religion (implied christian), unspecified age gap, major religious guilt and shame, praying, feelings of humiliation and anxiety, gender norms of the time period, mentions of pregnancy (no actual pregnancy), infertility, sexually inexperienced reader, sexually inexperienced and therefore confused about sex reader, smut (fingering, handjob, piv, m!receiving oral, unrealistic first time giving head.
a/n: Merry Christmas and happy stranger things eve!!! part 3 coming soon!
The sun is setting.
You cross the clearing quickly, leather bound notebook beneath your arm, racing the lengthening shadows folding themselves over the swaying branches of the trees; chasing the wraith of your long ago promise to Joel.
The boots on your feet are muddied, your shawl caught with brambles, but you know Joel will not mind to find you that way.
You emerge from the dark enclosure of the forest, furred evergreen boughs swaying in the last dregs of the day’s heat. You had spent the afternoon hiking. meandered and drawn and written unfettered, untethered, a bird released from its coop. You pause and search the rapidly dimming yard for him, anxious to set your eyes on him.
Not just so he knows you have again kept your promise to return home before the veil of darkness has settled in, but because you ache for his company.
You miss him, you find, in a way you have never missed anyone else. Perhaps, because he let you follow your own whims. You are given the chance to miss him, and desire him all the more for it.
Before you were married, you could have disappeared for days at a time and never wanted for company other than your own. You never wanted for anything aside from your own mind, your own freedom.
A soft yellow light unfolds from beneath the stable door as it rolls suddenly open. Joel's silhouette appears, his face a creased mask of worry before his eyes land on you, already turning and hurrying toward him. A smile twitches onto your face, a yearning uncorked in your chest, the barest spark of all too familiar desire, flooding onto your features.
The bruises on your knees, from desperate prayer you'd never engaged in before, twinge as if in response to your thoughts, reminder of all the unnatural wants that now stirred within you since he first laid his hands on you.
"Cuttin' it close tonight, aren’t you?" He calls, expression loosening, shoulders relaxing. He frets, not that you won't return but that you have run into trouble, ever since you nearly drowned.
You slip past him, into the heat of the stables. The days are still long and hot, despite the onset of fall, the slow waning of the days. "I was caught up in something. Were you worried about me, Joel?"
"And what is it you was caught up in?" He ignores your question and you think to press it, make him loosen his tongue and admit he had been worried, though light still seeps in golden rivulets from behind the mountains, the branches of the fir trees.
Joel follows you to his workbench, a new project covered by a worn oil cloth is surrounded by curled wood shavings. You gently push it back, careful not to disturb the cloth and then flip open your notebook with charcoal smudged fingers, the gleam of your wedding band flashing in the sun reminding you of Joel kneeling in the yard among the wildflowers one warm evening, presenting it to you, only weeks ago.
Careful to flip past other, more lewd musings—your favorite and most consistent interest of late being the man close at your heels. As with all things, your curiosity drives you to him, like a moth flocking to the light, like he is a rare species only you could catalog, that must be cataloged.
Though your body aches for him, your sin has always been greed. You are greedy for him, for knowledge of him. You find every part of him fascinating, the creases in his skin, the scars on his cheeks, the way his hands move, sure and steady, the dip of his back and width of his shoulders.
Most recently the base desire to put his cock in your mouth has been fluttering around your mind. The moment you let your thoughts wander, that is what you find yourself meditating on. Self serious considerations of such an act, how he would feel on your tongue, what sounds he might make, where it would all fit as you aren't sure your mouth is big enough and you want all of him
Heat flushes through your body and you primly smooth the correct page back, clearing your throat. A low burning fire smoulders hot and low in your belly in near constancy since he first took you, made you his, in so many ways.
You tilt the page toward the fading sunlight, and present your findings of your hike to him. Things you’d seen, found the itch to mark down. A dwindling brook that curved down the mountain, the branches of a copse of trees with half their leaves shaken loose already, a pair of birds on a branch, and, finally, an elk.
He watches over your shoulder, pressing in close behind you, hands anchoring on your waist in the thickening darkness. Joel's breath fans across the back of your neck, gooseflesh lifting along your arms in response. "Now tell me you weren't close to that thing."
You laugh and settle back against his chest, feel the warmth and weight of his arms around your already heated body.
It is a welcome touch.
"I wasn't close to him," you promise, covering his hands with your own. "Not terribly close, anyway. Shouldn't you be more worried about the stream?"
He grunts and draws you closer, his beard brushing against your cheek, clearly not finding your teasing amusing. The soft scent of leather and lavender gathers around you, hay and the pine shavings of peeled wood, the salty tang of skin that spent a day beneath the sun.
"I guess," he drawls against the soft flesh of your temple, "I trust you not to drown in a foot of water."
You laugh and close your eyes, sink into the bliss of his attention. He is unaware, you think, of how you ache for him, the need and want reaching from between your lungs, foresting the branches of your ribcage in thick drippings of ivy.
Summer has seemed to last an age. The warm mornings and long evenings encouraging the yearning settled heavily within you.
Each task of the day has been burdened by daydreams of what the evening will bring. Very often only kissing, or Joel’s fingers or mouth between your legs. Sometimes, his reluctance to other intimacy confuses you, makes the shame that comes afterward no matter what all the worse. You want him, again and again, to feel him taking up space inside you.
And, you are terrified of your own want.
It feels as though you think of nothing else, though you know it isn’t true. The thoughts only loom larger, hold more weight.
A confused shame coats you like a second skin when you think of how badly you ache for him, the craven wanton pulse of desire beneath your skin. All the ways in which he touches you replaying like treacherous dreams imprinted behind your eyes.
Yet, you are bound to it, hopeless against its pull, its demand. You want to give into it.
You have been practically lazy with want, distracted from chore and task, by wandering thoughts. Though your thoughts have always been prone to distraction, never before had they been accompanied by a physical desire.
This must be what the sermons regarding the lusts of the flesh had been referring to, the distraction of it pulling you away from worship. For surely if you and Joel were in regular attendance at Sunday service, you would have been distracted from godly devotion as well the minding of your homestead.
Maybe your scant attendance since marriage was evidence of your sins and distraction.
There is not a day that goes by that you don't wish to remain in bed with him, shuttered from the world in the too hot, summer warmed air, satisfying your curiosity of him, slaking an ever growing, ever persistent thirst.
It makes you feel depraved, filthy. The need to look, to touch and feel.
Each time a task is neglected, your winter stores a day or two off the harvesting schedule, you feel wretched, so shameful and guilty that you force yourself to pray, alone, in secret, in the stables, ask for forgiveness, for the feelings to go away, beg for your husband to be granted benevolence, and understanding of your faults. You beg to atone, somehow, to find the willpower to curb your want. For if you do not last the winter, it will be all your fault for causing your homestead to fall behind.
And Joel would have every reason and right to be the hard husband you had anticipated him to be.
Often, though, as you knelt there in the hay, your thoughts turned to other things, to desperate fingers, wanting mouths, in the uncomfortable, sweltering heat, clutching your fist against your chest, lips whispering prayers that you are sure go unheard, trying to drown out your own thoughts.
Once, you had not been able to drown them out and fallen onto your back on the mound of hay so desperate did your thoughts turn. The imagining of Joel pulling out of you, pushing you to your knees and letting you instead put him in your mouth, your own taste on your tongue. You had winced as you pushed your fingers under your skirts, touching, until that knot in your belly loosened and unspooled, biting back your cries of pleasure.
In the aftermath, you'd felt so ashamed and stricken that you had been unable to meet Joel's eyes when you eventually wrenched yourself back together, still trembling, straightened your skirts, and hurried through the yard back to the kitchen where you should have been all along, attending to breakfast.
The brush of Joel's fingers against your shoulders when he met you in the kitchen and said good morning, a usual, casual touch, had made you jerk violently and upset the pan of biscuits on the stove.
"I only aim to please you," you answer softly, now. "So, I always do my very best not to drown. I've never seen an elk before. They're so big."
"Mm. Just don't get too close." His hands spill down your waist, caressing your hips, like he's testing your want.
It is unnecessary, because you are already lost to him, breath an anticipatory rasp in your mouth, all too ready and willing to give into the temptation.
“Joel,” you murmur, reaching back blindly, raking your hand up through his hair.
He chuckles and pushes one hand between your legs. The warmth of his palm cupping you is faint, the pressure almost nothing though your skirts.
Days have passed since he was last inside you, and you are wretchedly wanting of him.
You wonder often if he only humors you, if he can sense your unnatural need.
"Are you hungry?" You squeak out, attempting to pull away from him, fearful of the clench of your core, the flutter between your legs, the pull of your body toward his, like a tide tugged by forces unknown. The sure swallow of shame that will follow when it’s over. "I should start supper—"
"Starvin'" He mumbles against your neck.
"Oh—"
He tugs you around, presses one calloused palm to your jaw, examining you with a surprising intensity, eyes flicking over your face, looking for something.
Joel tilts your head back, eyes flickering over your face. You feel warm, your clothes too tight and heavy, chest constricted, like a hand is curled around your throat, choking your breath.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
You frown, frozen beneath his penetrating stare. “Of course.”
It seems to satisfy him for the moment.
He presses his mouth to yours, and, despite yourself, the festering anguish, you melt into him, open your mouth to the intrusion of his tongue. If it is his desire, and not yours, guiding this moment, maybe all your clumsy prayer had paid off, maybe this was okay. It's a duty to him, you think, it is care and vows.
The wretched pains of desire return, an endless pit. It feels good; he is your husband. Why should you feel so insidiously infected by doctrine you never listened to nor cared for before?
The rumor flashes through your mind, the lies about the sins you supposedly committed with your body, that you'd tempted someone with. It had landed you here, with someone who cared for you, but it had still shattered your life. People had still believed it of you. All your other myriad of misbehavior had never seen you punished as harshly as that lie. Something you never even did.
Maybe some quiet part of you had always been worried they might be right about you, your predilection toward disobedience. Maybe it had been why the mayor's daughter's accusation had been so easily believed.
His hands slide around your back, cradling you; his pelvis flush with yours, his cock heavy against your thigh. The unwarranted rush of pride makes your worries fade, and drift aimless from your mind.
His hunger for you is physical—a presence between you that seems to grow teeth the longer you hold back, gnawing at your bones.
Your chest heaves with stuttered breath. He withdraws just far enough for his fingers to rake your skirt up and over your hips, collecting the layers beneath by the palmful, until he can press one finger inside your already damp pussy. You slot a hand against the back of his neck, tug him in to tangle your tongue with his again, fumbling with his trousers with the other, marveling at the taste of his mouth, the salt of it undercut by mint leaves he must have chewed while he worked.
A whine crowds the back of your throat when he presses a second finger inside you, crooks the pair forward against the spongy inner wall, calloused thumb rubbing rough circles against you. "I want to feel you," you say against his mouth, feel his breath against your lips.
Joel pulls his fingers from you slowly, a chuckle pressed against the corner of your lips. "Jesus, darlin', you're gonna wear me out."
It's said in jest, teasing and gentle, as he pulls away and turns you, fingers circling your wrists to press your palms flat against the workbench, his chest warm against your spine.
Still, it makes the worry flood your mind again, lecherous and salacious.
You feel the cold press of his belt buckle against your inner thigh, the nudge of his cock between your thighs, hands groping over your belly and chest, squeezing the soft flesh of your breasts in his wide palms. You spread your legs wider to accommodate him. There is an ache as he pushes into you, and then the warmth and pressure of him settling heavily inside you.
You moan and rock back into him, the answering thrust of his hips. You yank at the buttons of your dress, desperate for the feeling of his hands on your bare skin.
The thoughts of sin and guilt and fear flee once again as he presses you down against the benchtop, thrusting hard and slow, so you feel every inch and ridge of him, one hand on the back of your neck, the other palm cupped beneath one breast, thumb circling your pebbled, stiff nipple.
But they will not be gone for long, and come morning, you will be in the stables again, kneeling, praying for answers that would never come.
.
.
.
His want for you turns him inside out. It pains him that he cannot keep up with you, a constant reminder that you had been forced to marry him, that no matter how well he loved you he’d always be too old for you, like a mismatched set of chipped teacups.
Guilt unfurls in his chest, like a hot iron on his chest, for wanting you, ruining you.
Joel wakes to an empty bed one morning in late summer, gray light leaking from beneath the shuttered bedroom windows, a humid taste in the air.
It's early yet, too early, but when he reaches for you, he finds the other side of the bed empty, and cold.
He frowns and blinks into the dim expanse of the bedroom. The lamp had been snuffed out, shadows gathered in the corners of the room like cobwebs. "Sweetheart?"
The bedroom door is open, but you don't answer. He can't hear you, either, shuffling around the kitchen or humming beneath your breath.
Joel climbs heavily from the bed, feeling taken apart, flashes of the night before flickering behind his eyes, how the sound of your moans echoed against the walls of the stable, the rattle of the tools together as he thrust into you, the curve of your cheek and parted lips as you looked over your shoulder at him, brow damp with sweat, a line of coal on your nose from your journal.
After you went inside and had dinner side by side in the kitchen, you’d reached for him again, and he pressed you down into the floor, tilted your hips toward his mouth with his hands behind your back, calves folded over his elbows.
He knew, maybe worried, he wouldn’t be able to fuck you again. A sense of disappointment and anxiety rolled off you before he made you forget his shortcomings.
Joel grits his jaw against the thought, washes and dresses and stumbles into the kitchen. He finds it, too, deserted and blisteringly clean, though you’d left the dishes on the table the night before. A platter of eggs and potatoes on the stove beneath a cloth, and a fresh pot of coffee, a tin cup left out next to it.
Despite the gnawing hunger in his stomach, he covers the eggs again and strides to the front door to yank it open, a familiar tightness in his chest.
Fog has climbed down off the mountains, layered everything in a milky white shroud.
There is a basket of vegetables and fresh picked berries in a metal pail at the foot of the porch, the garden looks newly weeded, the hens are clucking about the yard, feed scattered in the grass. All tasks you normally do together, are already done.
Something in his heart seizes as it always does when you disappear, but it isn't the first time you've woken at an ungodly hour, finished the morning chores and trotted off without him. Usually, you leave a note on the table, a page torn from your journal with a few scrawled words and a little picture at the corner.
Even so, he can't help but remember the previous night in a less charitable light, his hands too rough on your skin, your enthusiasm imagined. Always too much and not enough. He wishes, not for the first time, that he were younger, that he could be the husband you really need.
He calls your name, voice echoing through the valley. This is not an unusual morning, he thinks, just giving it too much thought. He sighs heavily and descends the front steps, when he notices the cracked door of the stables.
Joel strides across the yard, wondering what he might find.
A pale shaft of light falls across the hay strewn floor, haloing around your head, where you kneel at the back of the stables like it's a makeshift chapel.
He frowns at the sight. "Darlin’? You hear me?"
You startle and turn, looking at him over your shoulder, a profoundly guilty look on your face. In all the months you've been married, he's never known you to pray. Only the polite bowing of your head on the few Sundays you've spent in a pew together.
Neither of you, as far as he knew, put much stock in the whole business, considering what it had put you through. "Joel," you smile and start to get to your feet. "Good morning."
He crosses and helps you up with a hand beneath your elbow. "Prayin'?"
You nod and smooth your skirt, bending to brush away the hay stuck to your skirt. He forgets, sometimes, how young you are, how naive about somethings, how your upbringing is only a stone's throw behind you and not something you're like to forget quick, even as wilful as you were.
"Somethin' on your mind?" He asks, pressing a hand to your spine, his voice teasing.
"Nothing—just, nothing,” you answer tersely. You fidget with your sleeves, then sigh. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”
“That’s all right. You okay?”
“Yeah, but I have an errand I’d like to run in town. I know we have a lot of work—”
“Hell, I think you done most of it already.”
You smile at him, and touch his cheek, your fingers warm and velvet against his skin. “We have plenty more to get on with. I’ll make it up, when I get back.”
“No, take all the time you need,” he reassures, “I can saddle up one of the horses, give you a ride—”
“No,” you say sharply, then more gently, “No. No, I need to go alone. The walk would do me good.”
The urge to push the issue surges up the back of his throat. You’re worried enough about something that you’ve turned to a god you don’t believe in. Pushing, though, is likely to get the door slammed in his face. “All right. You just let me know if you need somethin’.”
"Thank you."
You lean in and press a kiss to his cheek before you spin on your heel and whisk away, into the pale morning light.
.
.
.
Maybe it had been a coincidence, or bad luck, that all your friends had married men they did not like having sex with.
For each story you heard, told of endurance and pain, a rutting that ended in an ugly groan and a cloth mopping up the mess between their legs.
It had been, for them, a only test of patience, or simply okay, something to get on with. A duty to fulfill, particularly in the beginning of the marriage, to fall pregnant as soon as was possible.
But you are like a woman in thrall. It is not a duty to please your husband, not a test of wifely endurance, to you.
You like it.
You like that he makes you come, that it is always good, but you like being close to him more, feeling him inside you, feeling safe with his arms curled around your back, holding you close to his chest. As long as he was there, the accusations of others could never touch you.
You have no one else to ask what is usual, and have had no other experience with any other man to compare these feelings with. Childhood crushes and brief teenage romances had never inspired this intense of a need within you. Just a stirring, nothing more.
He treats you so well, finds it within himself to provide you with an understanding and patience that defies sense, and you reward him with wanton desperation that borders on the unseemly. It's a foolish thought, but one that has stuck, that you are not upholding your end of the partnership, the marriage, especially because of the allowances he makes of your quirks, your willful disobedience. Your behavior reflects poorly on him, you know.
Your knees are bruised, an ache that shoots up your thighs with each step towards town, treading through the dry, cracked ruts left by wagon wheels.
Likely, you should have let him accompany you, but where you’re headed would just raise suspicion in his mind. It’s already been raised, by the fact of your sudden supplication.
Concerned with desire like an overflowing brook and not sure how to stem it, desperate to stop feeling so shameful, so wretched, you had decided when you woke that morning, watching Joel’s chest rise and fall that you would seek advice elsewhere, perhaps a remedy, if one existed.
Either God did not see fit to answer you, or it was as you suspected all along, that there was never anyone listening in the first place.
The town appears suddenly, nestled in the valley below your home. You turn and look back through the trees but there isn’t even a suggestion of the winding road, let alone the cottage hidden there. For a moment, vertigo sweeps through you, like the last months have been nothing but a dream, that you’ll walk home and find the house and Joel and your life there were never real in the first place.
You walk quickly though town, not glancing at the proud steeple of the church piercing the sky in the center, and approach the apothecary where you know a midwife works.
A bell tinkles over your head as you push the door open and approach the counter where she is bustling about, bent over some herbs. The pharmacist seems to be out at lunch, as you’d hoped he would be.
Under the guise of asking for a small remedy for your monthlies, you dare to ask after these feelings, how often she and her husband have—
"Relations?" You finish delicately, glancing over your shoulder. Though the town nearer to the cottage is far more lenient, the church still looms over all. And you feel you've sinned enough as it is.
You are desperate for this woman to tell you she also craves, wants.
She only puts a concerned hand in your arm. "Oh, are you sore? When we were first married my husband was like a dog in a rut the way he would not stay off of me. I could hardly walk for it. I couldn't wait for him to leave me alone. Just something you have to get through, though, my dear." She shakes her head sadly, pats your hand in a conciliatory manner. "It gets easier with time, too, as you get used to it. He'll soon leave you be." She winked at you. "It's like he's just eager for you to be with child, at his age. Soon as you're pregnant he'll leave you to your peace."
It confirms everything you feared was true. The unquellable base hunger within you is not usual.
You clear your throat delicately. "How often—"
She waves a hand, "They can be insatiable hounds—"
"You misunderstand," you interrupt, feeling hot, sweat beading along your brow. "How often do you. . .have want of him?"
She laughs, "Me? If he never climbed atop me again, it would be too soon. I'd think to thank God for it."
“Oh, yes,” you agree thickly. “As would I.”
She eyes you for a moment, before her brow softens, eyes flicking down to your belly, then the remedy she mixes for you, for period pain. Something seems to connect for her. “Are you barren?”
You feel your eyes go wide. “No, I—”
“If he is being hard with you, because you have not conceived, remind him that stress does not encourage seed to take.” She hums, eyes still flicking over you, like she could see the inside of you and know your troubles by sight alone. “After he is finished,” she says delicately, “keep the womb warm and tilt your hips up.”
You nod, stuttering out thanks as you back toward the door. A new consideration added to your growing list, why you had not yet fallen pregnant as many times as he has finished inside you. This, at least is knowledge your mother had uncomfortably passed down to you.
Tomorrow, you vow, as you walk home, tomorrow you will regain yourself, your composure, your restraint. You will be a proper wife, will only open yourself to the feelings if he had need of you. He's given so much to you, this is the least you can afford him. You can be useful; you can be good.
It is the first time in your life you have ever considered it. But you do not want to make a mistake, do not want to lose what has become precious.
.
.
.
Soon enough, the leaves turn and fall, the harvest begins and the warm safety of summer turns its back on you.
Joel promises you time and again that you have adequately prepared for the next six months, even if the roads were impassable for the entirety of winter you would have enough. You have been dutiful, worked hard, until your muscles screamed and exhaustion made sleep an easy, early thing in the evening.
The colder days and longer nights drive you closer to him, though, seeking out his arms more often, the warm comfort of his body around yours. Now, as the dark draws over you again, your mind turns back to old thoughts, though less frequently that they once had. Some days it seemed impossible not to want him; other days, especially on your cycle, a reminder now that you’ve been married a year without speaking of children, you feel you might scream if he even breathes near you.
“Wanna take a walk?” he asks one evening, dark already spilled like ink over the land. You glance up from where you are settled on the bed, tracing the lines beneath his eyes in graphite into your journal slowly.
He is shirtless, water dripping down his chest, beaded in his beard, a razor held loosely in his hand over the basin on the dresser.
You swallow, the hollow parts of you aching. “Too late for that. Dark.”
He nods, and sets down the razor, a dark shock of hair falling out of place and over his eyes. He has let it grow longer as the cold deepens, settles between the bones of the world. “Well, we’d be together. You ain’t been goin’ so much lately on your own.” He says it casually, but you hear the worry beneath his voice, deep in his chest. “Workin’ yourself so hard.”
“I needed to help. We had a lot to get—”
“I know,” he says, drying his face with the cloth you’d laid next to the basin for him. “And your first year gettin’ ready for winter. I know how it is, feels like it’ll never be enough.” He walks across the room slowly, like he’s trying not to startle you, pausing at the side of the bed, hand curling around one bare ankle.
“Darlin’,” he says. “You okay?”
The question throws you for a moment. His hand is so hot it burns, the path of his thumb over the knob of bone in your ankle shouldn’t make your pussy flutter, but it does. “Yes.”
“Just seems like you always got something on your mind. Like something is eatin’ at you.”
You press your lips together. “We’ve just been busy,” you repeat, “That’s all.”
“You can talk to me.”
“I know.”
And some part of you does. If you just opened your mouth, Joel could tell you up from down. He’s older, experienced. He had a wife before you, and if he was as good to her as he is to you, maybe he would be able to tell you you’d shared these feelings of want and shame, a vicious cycle of snakes swallowing themselves whole. He seems to know a woman’s body better than many other men, at the very least.
But he is looking at you like a man starved, and you’d rather keep this moment.
Despite the cold outside and only being in your shift, you feel hot, and don’t protest when he yanks you closer. You close your journal and toss it, hear it land softly on the bed behind you.
“I thought we were going on a walk,” you say softly as you sit up. His gaze rakes over you greedily, the expanse of your skin, the sway of your breasts beneath your shift.
“Better idea.”
He leans over you, skin warm and damp, the scent of him clean and musky and intoxicating. The hair on his chest scrapes pleasantly against your own through the thin fabric of your gown, making your nipples stiffen in response, when he wraps his arms around you and pulls you flush to him.
Joel’s hands are everywhere, grabbing handfuls of you, burying his nose in your neck.
You slide your hands over his back, along the waist of his trousers, palming his half hard cock until he thrusts against your hand.
You pull him closer, into the cradle of your thighs, pressing your mouth against his bicep and collarbone and throat.
“Joel,” you moan, pressing yourself against him, hips seeking pressure. “Joel, I want to put your cock in my mouth.”
He jerks back, something feral in his gaze as his eyes search yours. You stand, and he’s forced to take a step back. You aren’t sure what made you say it, that dark little fantasy you kept just to yourself, half afraid he is about to scoff or laugh or tell you it was a sick desire.
You touch him again, when he doesn’t say anything. “Is that usual?”
He chokes out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I’d say it is. For some.”
You breathe out, take a shaky inhale.
"Show me how."
Your tremulous little request is met with a grunt. "You sure?"
Joel is lit by orange lamplight, his skin damp with sweat. Despite the pervasive chill outside, in your close bedroom heat blossoms in the air. Sweat pools between your breasts, too, gathers behind your knees, which only adds to the wanton, craven feeling clawing at your chest.
You are, you feel at this moment, manifestation of every accusation you'd ever heard leveled against women in sermons rolled into one neat package. A temptress; lustful and sinful and dirty for it.
But you can’t bring yourself to care.
"Yes," you plead, whine. "Yes, Joel."
He cups your cheek, doesn't seem aware of the turmoil roiling within you, that is always nagging at the edges of your mind. How wrong you are, like a terrible little nymph sent to temp a good man. "You want my cock in your mouth that bad?"
Gentle humiliation warms you from the inside out, but your mouth waters all the same. You ache for it, you want so much of him so badly it makes you feel small and ashamed. It isn't natural, you think for the umpteeth time in so many months.
But he is good to you, never cruel.
And, he endures your witless, inane request to put his cock in your mouth.
You are quite sure no lady has ever ached for that before.
All equanimity had been lost to you the last few months, through the long, hot summer. Maybe some of your condition could be chalked up to the first real bloom of love flowering in your heart, but so much of the stirring in your belly could only be pitiful, sinful lust.
The want is perverse, you are sure of it. You had heard tell for all your life of the responsibility of a wife to satisfy her husband when he was in need, not the reverse. You feel as though you should not want at all.
Joel doesn’t look away from you, waiting patiently for your answer.
He seems to live between your thighs some nights, tongue never quite satisfied, satiated, like you were a well he could drink eternally from. Even if you wondered why he didn’t always seem to want to be inside you.
Maybe your desire to do the same isn't unusual.
"Yes," you breathe, casting your eyes down. "If I should not—"
He shakes his head, pulls your body flush against his, hip to hip, chest to chest. His cock is hard between you, pressing against your thigh. A good sign, surely. It's moments like these, that the uncertainty, the shame, dissipates. His acceptance of your desire allows you to revel in it.
"Just makin' sure."
"You. . .lick. . .me all the time—"
He grunts, a half caught chuckle. "All right, guess I can understand it then."
"I want to be good at it." You lower your head, look at him demurely through your lashes, all wiles and sin, hand slipping between your bodies to cup him in your hand again, stroke him through his trousers. "I want to please you, husband," you moan, meaning it more than he could ever know.
His hands press over the curves of your waist, to your hips, and back again. "You do that plenty," he teases. “I got real lucky.”
You roll your eyes and he chuckles, the vibrations of it echoing against your own ribs.
"I want to please you with my mouth and not my pussy."
"Well, listen to you." He cups one broad hand against your backside and squeezes your ass. "Get on your knees, then, girl."
Your breath catches, excitement ringing through you like a wicked bell. You pull away from him and sink to your knees, keen to be given what you want, to have your curiosity satiated, to have the shame in your head silenced at least for a while.
The wooden floorboards are cool against your knees, a welcome contrast to the heat burning though your body, the humidity hanging in the air. The bruises on your knees from all your kneeling and praying, only smart a little.
You are alight with tension and anticipation, excitement that must border on the unholy, or at the very least something unseemly. Would he ever be able to look at you as a wife again, if you do this? Surely, he will think you dirty.
The thought makes your eager hands pause against the top button of his trousers, but only for a moment. You are putting this curiosity to rest, and can deal with the consequences of it later. The thought has already been loosed, even if you don’t, he will know your thoughts.
You tug the fabric away and pull him from the confines of his pants. You've seen his cock plenty, felt his velvet skin, fisted him in your hand—but never this close.
Maybe you should look to him for guidance, but your hands and mind are working on instinct now. You trace the vein that travels the length of the underside of his cock with your finger, and watch it twitch in response. The head is a pretty, flushed, red color.
You lean forward and stroke his cock with one hand, balance against his thigh with the other, to lick the leaking head.
The taste of him isn't much different to the way the other places on his body you've kissed taste, his throat and chest and biceps. Just a muted saltiness.
He grunts and leans one hand against the bedpost behind you. "Hell," he mutters.
"What?" You lick him again, then push your lips around the tip and suck lightly. "Is that all right?"
"Yep," he answers tightly.
You suckle again, not moving your hand curled around the base, repeatedly running your tongue over the slit at the tip. It seems sensitive, you think, and hollow your cheeks around him. He groans tightly, hips jerking when something bitter blooms in your mouth. A pearlescent bead of come. That means you're doing something right and he isn't just sparing your feelings.
"Move your hand, too," he directs, one big palm against the back of your head. "Put your mouth on me and—There you go, sweetheart."
You move your fist slowly at first, still sucking lightly, still tonguing the slit as you let your eyes fall closed.
His hand guides your head down a little further. “Take a little more.” You follow his instruction, glancing up at him. “Good girl,” he says, stroking your cheek, the line of your jaw, lets you continue on that way for a few long minutes.
The feeling is nice, you like the way he feels on your tongue, the lazy you can move your mouth around him and get a response. You take him out of your mouth to kiss down the length of it, to the hair curled at the base, before licking the underside, tongue a point against the vein there.
Joel takes your free hand in his, lifts it to his mouth before cupping your fingers around his balls. When he releases your hand, you squeeze carefully, not sure if that's what he wants or if it's the right pressure if it is.
You pull back, glance up at him, feeling hazy and warm, like the few occasions you’ve drank wine. "Like that? Am I doing okay?"
"Doin' real good," he says, reaching down to cradle your cheek, thumb hooking in the corner of your mouth for a moment before sliding over your spit slicked lips. "Think you can take more?"
A ravenousness shudders through you. "Yes. I want to try."
"Take it slow," he says, guiding your head forward again. You take him deeper this time, running your tongue along the vein again, hollowing your cheeks around him, and then gagging when he hits the back of your throat, with a couple inches still in your fist. Your mouth is so deliciously full, your mind a silent whirl as you focus on controlling the convulsion of your throat, getting all of him inside.
Could you take it? Is that something anyone could do? It seems impossible, but you want to try.
You tug gently at his balls again as you work to take more of him into your mouth, down your throat. “That a girl,” he mumbles. Through the tears beading at the corners of your eyes, you can tell he’s hold back, that he wants to shove himself down your throat.
You pull back for a harsh breath, saliva dripping from your lips like gossamer webbing connecting you. It sparkles in the low light before dripping onto your chest.
"Goddamn," he mutters, hand against the back of your head, pushing you closer. "Spit on it, sweetheart."
Feeling dirty and not minding, you do, and he groans again.
"Joel," you say, voice cracking until you cough. His cock is wet when you fist your hand around him now, the slide so easy and slick. You note that for the future, that you could spit in your hand to ease your grip around him. "Can I, uh—" you squeeze him, and instead of finishing the question, duck your head to press your lips to his balls, sucking, sweeping your tongue out.
He grunts, control a fragile thing now, hips stuttering forward. "Yeah," he croaks, running his thumb against your jaw when you look up at him. "Christ, yeah, that's good."
You sweep your tongue out before pulling away to push him back into your mouth, steadily taking more of him, deeper into your throat. It makes breathing nearly impossible, but you don't particularly care.
The ache between your legs is nearly painful, begging to be touched.
But this is more important, more important than air, than the shame the need and desperation shot through you like curdled milk.
What are you to enjoy this? You feel depraved for it.
Never, have you heard of a woman, wanting, needing, so very much.
You must be better than this, get yourself under control of the thoughts. Mortified, you release his cock and push the skirt of your shift up to touch your pussy, despite it, rubbing yourself.
Joel grips you softly, pulls you back so air is forced into your lungs in a wild, half-choked gasp.
You lick your lips, feeling messy, exposed. He rubs the corner of your mouth with his thumb and you turn to press a kiss to the calloused pad.
"Don't hold your breath," he says, thumbing the edge of your jaw. "You have to breathe."
You nod, feeling drunk, the ache between your thighs is so intense it feels like you might break, shatter like glass beneath his gaze.
Joel’s eyes are dark, locked on your hand between your legs. "Is it good?" You ask, looking up at him, taking him in your hand again. "Am I good?"
Joel nods back at you, pushes your hand away and makes your heart flutter with panic for a moment. But he only leans over and kisses your wet mouth, hands sweeping over your body, fitting against your breasts. The thin material is wet with your saliva, his hands all the warmer on your skin for it.
He pinches your nipples through the fabric. You keen and arch into his hands, mouth dropping open against his; he pushes his tongue against yours like lightning racing down your spine.
"You pick up on things so quick, darlin'," he coos, yanking down the top of your slip until your breasts spill out. He tugs your nipples again, firmer this time, and a whine slips past your lips, cunt pulsing.
If Joel says it's good, how is it that embarrassment still stalks you? "Can you tell me again?"
Joel's eyes flick over you, some of the haze clearing, concern pulling his brows in instead. "Doin' good," he affirms. "You all right?"
"Yes."
"Mm, c'mere. You done enough."
He pulls you up from the floor, his hand laced with yours as you lay back.
You watch him slot himself over you, the damp heave of his chest, the bob of his cock between his thighs still dripping your saliva. The arch of his arms around you is familiar. He smells like you now, like your skin, the lavender rubbed into your wrists and throat.
Joel yanks your underwear down your thighs and brushes his thumb through the wet of your cunt, gathering the slick that had pooled there.
He hitches himself in his hand and pumps his cock before he guides himself to your entrance and thrusts into you all at once. You groan long and loud, gripping the sheets in your fits, before he kisses you and the noise breaks off.
The room is warm and humid, all pulse and pull of you together, Joel’s grunts against your mouth, the slap of skin.
You come suddenly, a tide you hadn’t known was rising.
Joel’s hips stutter to a stop as you clench around him, and buries his head against your chest, pulse pounding in his throat. “Jesus, darlin’, you grip me so hard when you come.”
You are drowned, lost in the ocean of pleasure flowing over you, inside you, sweat soaked and wet, ruined, hips still rolling against his, until it hurts.
He sucks your nipple into his mouth, rolls the other between thumb and forefinger before he lifts his head and kisses you, pumping into you slowly until he comes with a grunt, eyes locked on yours.
The pressure of his body against yours keeps your thoughts at bay, keeps them from spiraling when he is so thick and heavy inside you and on top of you.
Arms curl around you, roll you onto your side, coo and stoke, and loosen only in sleep.
Your mind is curiously blank, empty, except for the man wrapped around you as you follow him into dreams.
.
.
.
You wake at the cold edge of dawn the next morning, torn from sleep by a terrible nightmare, chest heaving in the dim sable shadows still gathered in the corners of the room. The wick of the lamp had long ago burned down, taking its comforting, warm glow with it.
The dream had been one that had become recently recurrent, Joel with a lantern walking away from you until the glow disappeared, not looking back, not once. Like that of Orpheus never never turning to see if Eurydice were behind him, only this time she could not follow, would not have been there.
It feels like an omen this morning. Jaw and thighs sore.
Gray light leaks from beneath the shuttered bedroom windows, and when you rise to prise them back, the world is a blank white slate beyond. You gasp softly, curling your arms around your naked middle. Your body is overheated, slicked in nightmare sweat, and the chill seeping around the rattling glass is welcome. It is early in the season, even in your chilly corner of the world, for snow.
It's early yet, and perhaps you should start your day, a good wife would fetch eggs from the chickens and have breakfast on the table before the sun was fully risen, but you only tuck yourself back into bed, wriggling beneath Joel's arm, languishing in him, the scent and heat of his body. You press your nose to the hollow of his throat and inhale, the salt and soap smell a comfort to you, loosening the terse ridges of your shoulders. He smells like sex too, like sweat and come.
"Mornin'," he says against your forehead, body stretching against yours, his voice like a caught river in his throat, a low rumble that you feel in your ribs, and, shamefully, in a little pulse between your legs. It’s barely there, sated as you are.
"It is snowing."
He grunts, rubs the space between your shoulders. "'Bout that time."
"It's too early."
"Not up here it ain't. Comes a little later where you're from, down in the valley."
There is so much that he has knowledge of that you do not. It's a rare instance you feel the gulf between you.
His arms tighten around you, fingers dancing over the indent of your spine. There's something on his mind, you can tell, but the silence persists, equal to your own distracted thoughts. "You feelin' all right?"
You frown into his throat. "How do you mean?"
Joel doesn't answer for a moment as the room grows brighter, chasing away the grim gray tucked into the corners of the room. Eventually, he takes in a slow breath, lungs expanding against yours. "Last night,” he clarifies. “You all right? It wasn't too, uh—”
"Oh," you mumble, voice faint. "Yes, I—"
You do not need led, you have never had need of a leash snared around your throat. But in some things, you are ignorant. No amount of exploration or curious observation would garner answers. You are stumbling blind in the dark, convinced of sins you aren't sure are real, that you don't believe in, even if they are. The echoes of wronged, shamed women from the misty memories of early mornings spent in the chapel, the ablutions they made, superimposed on your own desires.
Your journal festers now, a guilt ridden artifact. . .all because you want your husband. It’s a tiresome circle of feeling pathetic for feeling shamed, and then feeling so guilty you feel ill. Joel could help, at least help you understand.
"No, actually, I’m not okay," you answer, bold in the assertion. You feel his body go rigid beside you, eyes closing briefly, like he is accepting something he already knows to be true. "Joel, I need. . .to understand something."
“What?” His voice snaps a little when he looks at you and you bite your lip. “Talk to me,” he says, making an effort, you can tell, to soften his voice.
“I worry that I disappoint you.”
His shoulders loosen; a confused tangle of relief and confusion spreads over his face. “Darlin’,” he murmurs, his voice velvet, something easy to land on. “That ain’t ever gonna be true. That what’s been botherin’ you all season?”
You sit up next to him, peer down into his eyes. A fondness spreads through your chest, makes you reach out and twitch a lock of hair back from his lined forehead. You wonder how long he has been wondering about you, how long he has known something is wrong.
The whole time, probably, there is not much he misses about you. Maybe he knew, too, that you would eventually admit it to him.
It seems silly now, all the questions, all the worries, when you had a well of knowledge at your fingertips. He would not condemn you; he would not treat you as your village had.
At the very least, he would see your effort; he would see that you could be a caged thing, if needed, be settled, be tamed.
"I need you to talk to me," he says again.
You swallow and touch his cheek, trace the fine scars there that he had admitted were but from brawling when he was a younger man.
The explanation comes in a halting lurch of words, pausing every now and then to gauge his reaction, to see if you are as wretched as you feel you are—the, what feels to you, unendingly lustful thoughts, the distraction of it, the conversation with the midwife, the isolating fear that he would find you disgusting, that he had already.
"And I don't want to disappoint you," you repeat, finishing softly. "But I fear that I already have. I am not unaware, of the grace you have for me and my quirks of character. I do not want you to be ashamed of me, for my. . .impurity. And I don't understand what is normal to feel, or what is immodest. And I don't understand why you don't have want of me, the way I have want of you. I fear something is broken, that there’s something wrong."
“Don’t want you?” He asks, incredulous.
Embarrassment makes your tongue thick in your mouth. Your chest hurts. “To be inside me,” you clarify. “All the women I know don’t seem to want it, but I do. You don’t seem to crave it, as I do.”
The answer is slow coming, like it is caught behind his teeth. You sense he's trying to be delicate with you, gently affirm that there is something wrong about the lasciviousness you feel, the sacrilegious uneven keel of your want.
He clears his throat and sits up slowly in bed, taking your hands between his. "I told you before, I don't put much stock in all that," he says, squeezing your fingers. "Now, you listenin’?”
“Yes,” you answer, desperate to know, for him to unveil this truth to you.
Joel pinches your chin between his fingers. “There’s nothin’ wrong with you. Them other ladies. . .just have husbands that don’t know what the hell they’re doin’.”
You feel frozen, rooted to the spot. “I don’t—”
“You do. You’re smart.” He gathers you close to his chest, clears his throat. “They just shove it in, don’t make it good for their wives, I reckon. And I. . .if I was a younger man, I'd be able to keep up with you." There's something self retributive in his voice. “That you want anything to do with me at all, is surprisin’.”
"Oh."
"If I could be buried inside you all the time, I would be."
"You want me," you breathe.
Irritation turned inward bleeds across his features. "That ain't been clear?"
"I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “I only thought I should not be feeling as I did, and that was why.” You nestle beneath his chin, let him tilt you back against the bed. “I only wanted to be good to you, for you.”
His hands caress your naked sides, the curves of your waist, taking stock of you. “There nothin’ wrong with you. You want it ‘cause I’m good at it. Think them thoughts don't really count anyway, if it's about your husband, anyway.”
You bury your face in his neck. “Pride is a sin,” you mumble, laughing.
“So is lyin’.”
You snort, breathing in as his hand slides between your thighs. “Should your wife not practice restraint and modesty?”
“I’d prefer it if she did as she liked.” He answers. "Like she always has."
“I can manage that.” You widen your thighs, glance down to watch his thick fingers pry you apart, slip inside you, pumping slowly. The shame is still there, in it’s long standing home, but when you knock your forehead against Joel’s, see the devotion colored in his eyes, feel the metal press of his wedding band against your skin, it abates.
He nudges your head back down, makes you look. “We’ll work on it,” he promises. "There ain't nothin' wrong with wantin' it."
The room is a bright white, softening the edges of the world when he eventually retracts his fingers and pushes into you instead, curled together on your sides like the lapping of twin waves, deep and sloppy, his mouth open against yours.
You stay in bed all day as you once dreamed.
"Will you walk with me?" You ask into the quiet, against the pulse of his heart, his skin beneath your lips. "I'd like it if you did. I'd like to show you where I go."
Dude I read your West Texas fic bro. First off- that was amazing, it was such a unique story; something I haven't seen in the Joel miller x reader scene
Second off, I remember i was reading a bit before liking it to see how it was and I got invested, and then I accidentally closed my tumblr and I thought I lost it forever 😭😭💔💔 I was SCOURING through the Joel miller x reader tags for it
summary: You are forced to marry quickly after a rumor is spread about you.
warnings: loose historical au (read I had no time period in mind just an idea which means historically inaccurate to any time period), forced marriage, forced proximity, religion (implied christian), unspecified age gap, shame, loneliness, guilt, religious guilt and shame, anxiety and depression, mentions of death/wanting to die, abusive family dynamics, kind of dad's friend but only kinda, fear of violence, fear of intimate violence, mentions of violence, gender norms of the time period, sexually inexperienced reader, brief smut (fingering, handjob, piv)
a/n: new chaptered fic just dropped who dis? part 2 coming next week stay tuuuuned ;))))))
He is much older than you thought he would be.
Much older than you were led to believe in the feeble, short few days you had to come to terms with the betrothal.
Fear chokes you, holds your lungs in terrible, tight fists, as work roughened hands lift your veil.
This is how you first see him, cloaked in lace quickly scrounged by your mother for this moment, fingers trembling in white sleeves that don't belong to you. You have avoided looking at him, until this moment, unsteady gaze on his shoes instead, the hem of his trousers, afraid that you might lose your composure otherwise. And you will not give anyone the satisfaction of your tears.
The veil softens his features, rubs out some of the lines from his face like charcoal smudged on a page. You tilt your face up as he folds the fabric back. His movements are surprisingly gentle, careful not to brush your face or hair.
You keep your expression carefully composed, stony. He might be your father's friend and peer, but he is certainly older. His forehead is lined; crow's feet bracket his eyes. His beard is mostly gray, and it looks as though his dark hair is following suit. A scar bisects the bridge of his nose, others mark the high points in his cheeks, faint nicks that could have been from shaving or something else entirely. Brawling when he was a boy, maybe, falls taken while drunk.
It's hard for you to pass judgment since you don't know him at all.
Despite that, his shoulders are broad. His chest and arms are thick. He looks strong and capable, and that could bode very badly for you.
Even so, even so much older, he is handsome.
That handsomeness means nothing for you know nothing of him, of what kind of man he is, how he might treat you as a wife.
The chapel echoes around you, empty but for your father and the priest. White winter light spears down from a window set high in the stone wall, cold, high wind whistling just beyond.
His eyes travel over your face, cataloguing your features like you have been memorizing his. Your eyes meet his for the briefest of moments. The touch is not warm; his brows lower over a hardened gaze. He looks to the priest and nods, who begins the ceremony without preamble. Apparently your looks have been found suitable enough to go through with it.
You will yourself not to cry, to keep the bile rising up the back of your throat in check.
The words pass over you in a torrent, meaningless and loud, vows and promises of obedience and faithfulness, humility and deference. All, it seemed, directed at you. Your husband, you gather, would be your shepherd, your judge and jury, your king, dealing out punishment as he saw fit for the mistakes you were guaranteed to make.
Like a child. For obviously you, a girl, a woman, needed such guidance. Your family would.
Your stomach knots at the thought. Children, which meant you would have to endure the act you'd been accused of in the first place to land you here, in this quiet church on a blindingly cold Saturday morning. In shame, in relative secret.
"You have been ruined," your mother had said when you were told of the arrangement, spittle flying in her anger and disappointment. "We have no choice."
"Mother," you had pleaded, "It isn't true."
Her gaze had been cold and hard by necessity, steeling herself for the fate that awaited you. All because jealous girls had condemned you. "The mayor's daughter has spoken against you. Would accuse her of being a liar?"
Bad enough, to have relations out of wedlock; terrible, wretched, that you had done so where someone could see. That you had been caught in the snow, against the side of her father's stables with a farmhand. Loud and unseemly, and, worse, unabashed. The picture of untrammeled lust.
"I did not—" You had protested, throat thick with tears. "I haven't spoken more than a word to the boy." Boy, because he was a few years younger than you. He'd eagerly taken up the story from the mayor's daughter, something swaggering in his voice, falsely humbled by his mistake for which he would not be punished. The only reason you were not being forced to marry him, was his engagement to the daughter's best friend. Though, she had not looked happy to be taking on the embarrassment of being attached to a man with a wandering eyes, something mean had glittered in her face too. "I wasn't even anywhere near those stables—"
"Enough!" Her voice had rung loudly in the kitchen. "It's been settled. You will be grateful anyone would marry you with those accusations hanging over your head. It's this or-or," she stammers over the words, "destitution."
It doesn't matter. You know nothing you could say matters. It's the mayor's darling daughter's word, and all her friends', against yours, and you have spent too many years being untamed for it to matter. You should have been married years ago, instead you disappeared into the forests surrounding the village for days at a time, read when you should have been pursuing the womanly arts of cooking or mending or weaving, argued when you should have practiced humility and silence, skipped Sunday service. Worn trousers only once, because you had received lashes for that.
You were accused of waywardness or sharpness of tongue and ill discipline. Someone, the whispers said, should have beaten it out of you long ago; that a timely marriage and children could have mellowed you out.
Too late for all that now.
"An old friend of your father's has graciously agreed to help us," she'd said casually, bustling about the washing. "You're lucky he is in need of a wife."
It froze something within you. "Mother, please—"
"You should have been married years ago, anyway," she says briskly. "Your father should have never allowed you such wildness and freedom. It does not suit a lady. Look where it has landed you."
Her scorn hurt, and your venomous tongue retaliated. "But to a man I don't know? You would throw me to wolves for this? He might be a brute—"
"You could do with a hard man," she'd said, not looking at you. "It might finally teach you your place."
"I would rather die—" you'd all but choked.
"By all means," she'd all but snarled, throwing down the washing in her hands, "drown yourself in the river if you see fit to. It would spare us the shame."
She had refused to come to the chapel, though she'd helped you dress, done your hair, that morning. She walked as far as the gate at the end of the yard, and you'd sworn as you walked away, through the encroaching blizzard, that you'd heard her sob.
You suspect your father is only present because it is his duty to present you, and give you away. Since the accusation, he hasn't been able to look at you. His darling daughter he'd always been so kind to, so proud of despite the way people spoke of you, your cleverness.
The thought makes your throat ache, that they could so easily lose their only child.
A hand touches yours and you jump.
Your fiance slides his rough palm around your hand and grips it softly in his, squeezing. He says your name, a question in his voice, and you feel faint, dizzy.
The priest clears his throat and you sense that you've been absent from the room for longer than you meant to be, lingering in memories that already seem a lifetime ago. The vows are repeated again, droning and long.
His hand is warm on yours, your trembling, icy fingers.
You are thankful you don't have to repeat the vows verbatim. Saying his name would rot something inside you, falsehoods hidden inside promises. I take thee, Joel—
No. You couldn't bear it.
All you have to do is say—
"I do."
You aren't sure it's your voice but who else could have said it?
Far away inside yourself, you watch in horror as his mouth repeats the same.
"I do."
A deep voice, like his mouth is cave.
You brace yourself for his kiss, his touch, his head bowing over yours, but he only squeezes your hands again and releases you.
Like birds with broken wings, they fall limp at your sides.
The men gather themselves, leave you at the altar along as the descend from the pulpit and cross the chapel.
You hear warnings as you stand there alone in the pale shaft of light that grows fainter with each passing moment, the storm worsening outside, the sun already sinking on this terrible December day.
Headstrong, you hear of your character.
Willful.
Stubborn.
Needlessly reckless, sharp tongued, sly.
A tricky little thing.
"She may require a firm hand," the priest says, "I know her temperament well, have known her since she was a child. But she's a good girl and will learn her place, with the proper corrections. She can learn to be an obedient wife."
Your father doesn't dispute this as help from the church is offered, if needed, to assist you in learning the place and pace of an obedient, good wife. Spending time with godly women, instead of among the trees. "And mother," he adds. "Of course." He chuckles, "Winter is very long here. And she is nearly past childbearing years."
It's bullshit, of course.
It should not be possible for your stomach to knot itself more, but something sours and you have to press a hand to your stomach to keep the empty maw yawning open inside you at bay.
You still stand at the head of the church, listening to this, thinking that the icy water of the river might yet be an option. Maybe you can fling yourself off the wagon as you pass over a bridge.
The priest calls your name sharply, and makes an exaggerated gesture toward your husband. "Off with you, girl. Your husband is waiting or did you not notice?" His expression, when he turns back, says, see? this is the obstinacy I tell you of.
Joel doesn't comment and you can't yet read the expression on his face .
He pushes the church doors open and disappears into the worsening storm, the coming night.
You are not even afforded a wedding band.
.
.
.
Though his home is supposedly only a half day's ride west from your town, it is full dark by the time you arrive.
You have never really left your village before, and to you it seems a world away and terribly lonely. Isolated. A cottage at the edge of the world, hemmed in by bristling fir trees, whispering snow drifts.
You're glad to be there, if only to get out of the snow and wind, away from his body next to yours on the wagon bench that you want to curl into just to warm yourself for a moment.
Joel offers you a hand which you reluctantly take, helps you down from the wagon. He ushers you inside and says something about the horses before he disappears back into the storm, leaving you there alone. The space is small and cold, the hearth only ashes after his day away from home.
Though you're freezing, you can't make yourself stoke the fire.
Although, maybe if you did and he could warm himself, he might not want to warm himself with you. On the other hand, maybe warmth would encourage him, would tempt him.
In either case, you're a wife now and you watched your mother long enough to know what that means. Aside from the rest of it, he will expect cooking, a hot meal when he comes back inside.
But, the priest and your father had called you stubborn, and so you would be. You might as well be all the things they accused you of.
Something petulant pulses in your belly.
Swallowing your anxiety, you perch at the table and decide to wait. You don't want to serve him; you don't want to be his wife. And, besides, you don't know what provisions he has, where the larder is. He may beat you for poking around where you don't belong while trying to find it.
Every choice seems worse than the last, so you refuse to make one. You sit at the table, freezing slowly as the snow on your shoulders melts and bleeds into your coat. You feel a distance from yourself, as though you are literally frozen to the chair, mind pulling apart from your body like sticky caramel leaving looping threads behind. Time crawls by and you aren't sure how much of it passes before the door bangs inward in a swirl of white.
When he comes in, his eyes flick to the cold grate, to the empty stove. He does not berate you. He doesn't look at you at all.
Joel merely passes you at the table and builds up the fire, a process that takes longer than it should because the wood is wet. He hadn't any by the stove and had to bring some in, snow flecked and iced over.
You don't offer him any conversation, and he leaves you to your thoughts until quietly coaxed meek flames sputter into a roar.
It's only then that he speaks to you for the first time.
"You're cold. C'mon over here and warm up."
You're terrified to approach him, and hesitate to buy time. "You've been working so hard," you offer demurely as you can. These are some of the first full sentences you've spoken to him. "You should warm up."
He eyes you for a moment. "You're shiverin'."
There's no denying it. Tremors rack your shoulders, the thick wool of your coat soaked and weighed down.
You clear your throat and stand, steeling yourself to stand next to him at the grate, to surely have his hands press against you. You're his wife now, sold like a pig to slaughter, and he will want to touch you. You might as well stop being prudish about it and get over it. As far as he's been told, as far as your reputation is concerned, you are versed in this anyway.
You smooth out your skirts and approach.
To your surprise, he moves out of the way, giving you a wide berth to stand at the fire alone.
"You can take your coat off," he offers.
"Must I?" You ask, a tad snarkily, without thinking.
"No," he answers, and you swear his mustache twitches, like he is repressing a smile, "might help with the cold, though."
It weighs heavily on your shoulders, cold and wet. You know he's right but shedding it feels like peeling off your skin, all that's beneath is that thin, hurried, second-hand wedding dress.
Even as unconventional a girl as you were, as opinionated and strong willed, you'd always dreamed of a wedding. A love match, in a dress sown by your mother's hands, witnessed by your friends and family, merriment, so many flowers you could drown in them. Instead, this. A fist closes tightly around your heart, squeezes until it feel like something might pop.
Joel opens cabinets, pulls out provisions you hadn't dared to look for earlier. His hands are rough and red from the cold, the brutal weather. The knobs of his knuckles are swollen. You sense he's keeping his back to you, moving slowly, so that you can observe him uninterrupted. Snow is peppered over his shoulders and hair, still unmelted for how cold the room is.
Despite it all, you find you'd like to touch that fine snow, curl a lick of dark hair around your finger just to see if it was as soft as it looked.
You unfasten the buttons and let the coat slip down your shoulders. The warmth is sudden and hot against your back through the thin material of the dress. You turn into it and close your eyes, try to imagine you're by the hearth at home, flames flicking hungrily behind your eyelids.
Joel clears his throat, nearer than you expect, and you start. "I'll hang that up to dry," he says, holding out a hand. "You hungry?"
You clutch the coat to your chest before releasing it to him, careful not to touch his hand. "No," you answer, sure that putting anything in your body would come straight back up. "But please, you should sit," you plead. You hate how simpering you sound, your voice an unrecognizably anxious animal in your throat. But he wields so much power over you, will always now, and should be decide you weren't fit to be his wife he could cast you out, or correct you as he saw fit. You are now this, forever. Nothing but this. "I'm your wife," you continue, the word hot and dry in your mouth, "and it's my duty. Let me fix something for you. I'm a decent cook."
You are a terrible cook. You never had the patience, which had made your mother click her tongue. But there are a couple things you learned to make.
Joel, to your surprise, waves you down, after hanging your coat on a hook by the door. "That's all right. I've been feedin' myself for awhile; one more night won't hurt nothin'."
You hover awkwardly and only sit when he insists that you do, warming yourself by the hearth while he rummages around.
The wind moans outside, rattles the shutters and the panes of glass in their window frames. The front door creaks, like someone is leaning on it, trying to get in.
The sounds are lonely but you don't break the silence of his quick dinner.
He clears the table and then sets about filling a warming plate with hot coal from the grate.
You heart stutters a nervous tattoo in your chest when he disappears with it through a door behind you. Your mind had skimmed over it, not let you contemplate where it might lead.
All the stories you've heard from the many girls that married before you told of pain, that it was just something you endured for your husband's pleasure. It feels okay, you'd heard from one blushing friend, whispering just outside the belfry on summer afternoon, once you get used to it. But it's awful to start.
It does not help matters, that your mother made the man out to be a brute, that he might be the man to cure you of your willful ways.
What wilfulness, you have to wonder.
You simply did as you pleased, which, you suppose was the point. Women were to be obedient and meek, led not leaders. You took your own counsel, spoke your mind. Look where that had landed you. With the mean daughter of the mayor jealous and telling tales of all that time you spent alone.
It had all ended with a husband twice your age, that you did not know, that might be a strict disciplinarian. Your world had always been small, but you were free to roam it. Now it has shrunken to the size of a pin. To this room and this man and nothing more.
And, you are terribly afraid of violence.
Your parents were never strict with you, had hardly ever used corporal punished. You don't know how to endure that kind of pain. Better to be cautious for now, follow each of his whims, bow to any request or demand. You can push later, find the weak spots later, you only have to bear him for now.
Joel returns twice for more pans of coal, lids snapping closed with a metallic clang, before he carries your little suitcase through.
You stand when he gestures you within.
The room is spare and clean, and you have to tramp down the instinct to turn and run, fling yourself into the snow and run until your legs gave out.
The door closes behind you with a soft snick. To contain the heat of the room, you think desperately.
Something rustles and you turn to find him undressing.
You have never seen a man's nude body before, aside from the time you and a friend has spied on boys at the river once when you were young, seeing nothing but murky water and thin, veiny chests, and the curious part of you just wants to watch, to discover it. Instead, you reach for the buttons on your dress and follow suit, fingers shaking.
It seems odd, you think, that he isn't touching you, tugging the fabric loose himself, but maybe this is how it's done. Maybe this is how he does it. Perhaps you should be helping him.
You glance up to find him still not looking at you, redressing in warm underclothes.
You falter, unsure, and let the buttons hang loose at your chest.
The uncertainty is making you feel like a caged animal.
What does he want with you? You can take it into your own hands.
They had called you brave and determined, let that be true.
You let the dress slip off your shoulders and pool on the floor. You step out of the ring of fabric, approach him slowly, presenting yourself to him in your underthings, shoulders bare, nipples perking against the fabric in the bone-deep cold.
His eyes travel the length of your body, eyes eventually landing on yours.
His gaze doesn't seem aggressive, but men are good at hiding it when they liked to. Maybe you're seeing what you need to, to reach for his hands.
Joel curls one hand around both of your wrists, stops the trajectory of your hands toward his chest. "We don't have to."
A confused combination of rejection and relief rushes through you. "I'm your wife. You don't want to have me?"
He exhales, his warm breath ghosting over your lips. "It ain't that. I know you didn't choose to marry an old man," he says, tongue soaked with a bitterness turned inward. He releases your hands, steps back. "I'm sorry I don't have nowhere else for ya to sleep."
"Oh," you murmur, a tight fist clenching around your throat.
You had been prepared for anything but consideration, but this.
None of this is how you imagined marriage, a husband, this long night.
He nods, doesn't seem to expect you to say anything else. You close your hands around one of his. "Husband," you say softly, saying his name feels too intimate. "I can't bear the uncertainty. Please, I would rather have it done."
Joel watches you, his eyes flicking between both of yours. He covers your hands with his free hand and pushes them down. "Nothin' to be uncertain about. I won't touch you."
He moves away, seeming to mean what he said.
The candles are blown out, the room plunged into darkness and you settle in the blissfully warm bed together, a wide space between your bodies.
The coverlet smells of sweet summer hay, at odds with the chill in the room, freezing your nose. It smells of something deeper too, a heady scent of salt and skin and cotton.
You don't dare sleep, despite his words and supposed kindness.
It could be a trick, a test, something to make you loosen your guard, for you to fall asleep only to wake with those rough hands on your body, pulling you apart in ways you can only guess at.
You lie in the dark, missing something you never even really had.
His breathing evens and deepens in sleep, but adrenaline and distrust and worry won't let you follow. You do not want to follow. You watch his shoulders lift through the dark, the line of his nose, the part of his chapped lips.
Eventually the world lightens to a gray muteness beyond the shuttered windows, and only then do you let yourself cry.
Mourning, but relief, too, that at least the first night is over.
.
.
.
While the blizzard abates over the next few days, the snow does not.
It continues down day after day, making the already perilous, winter weathered roads, completely impassable. You are stuck, trapped, an animal with it's foot caught in a snare.
For the first three days, you don't sleep at all, forcing yourself to stay awake and vigilant by any means, pinching your skin until you bled to forego sleep. But eventually exhaustion forces you to, shepherds you into dreams where it's warm, there are no men, no churches or mayor's daughters, and you walk unmolested through green forests alone, only a leather-bound notebook and leaping fish for company.
You wake and mourn something that will never be.
The land is beautiful, at least, iced white like the little cakes you sometimes saw in the baker's window just down the road from your home, but brutal and harsh, unforgiving.
You become aquatinted with Joel's house and the keeping of it, and feel quietly relived when he spends most of the day tending to the land, the horses, the other animals in the stables you've yet to see. You sense that he doesn't know what to make you of either, what to do with you, how to interact with you, how to fit together now that you're condemned to be stuck that way.
Loneliness infects you like a sickness, an unattractive melancholia that's only broken in the evenings when you warm yourself at the grate and eat dinner with Joel. Even though you don't speak the company is welcome, just the presence of him buoys you a little, shields you from the cold. Your fears that he would be a terror to you pass slowly, though you haven't had the opportunity to do something that might require his retributive, readjusting hand, stuck inside as you are.
A guiding hand, the priest would call it, towards the just path of being a good wife.
You mend clothes, cook to the best of your ability, sweep and scrub and wash until your hands are raw and stinging from the pervasive cold. You yearn to wander as you used to, to walk among the swaying, frozen trees, to at least go outside. You tell yourself that you are working toward asking him, that you won't neglect tasks for it.
As long and terribly lonely as the days are, the nights are worse. You ache with homesickness and betrayal. You are without even the comfort of your own things, since passing the roads are impossible, you only have the small suitcase you'd been able to carry. Your father had been set to deliver your things the next day. You have no way of knowing if he even attempted the journey.
A different feeling has joined that cacophony of confused familial hurt, something like lust and shame.
Joel washes before bed at the basin on the dresser, and you are often subject to this display though he turns his back to you. You are the one to lie out the cloth, the soap, and warm the water he uses to wash away the stink of the stables. Musky leather and hay and heady sweat, replaced with the clean scent of soap and skin. Often, water drips down his broad shoulders, pools at the base of his spine, curves over the thick, twisting muscle in his biceps and forearms.
He is no boy at a river, but neither is he your contemporary. His chest hair is gray as the hair of his beard, wrinkles tucked into curious corners of his body. It fascinates you, so different from your own body.
Betrayal of yourself pulses between your thighs, an ache that you want to reach beneath the coverlet and touch away, though you don't dare.
Each night, you expect to be the one where he reaches for you, claims you and seals your marriage but he never does.
You remember your friend's words. It would hurt and then be okay. You want to know for yourself what okay feels like.
It makes you wonder what it would be like, a curious daydream.
One horrible night, your usual dream of freedom morphs into that want, only it's not your hand massaging away the want, but Joel's. Those rough, broad fingers between your legs. You had to roll out of bed and gulp down water at the pitcher in the corner of the room, feeling stupid and wretched. Silly, even. For what would he get out of touching you there? Nothing, just your own desire run amok.
The closest you get to touching him, is bandaging his cold ruined hands, standing between his legs where he sits at the table, looking and not looking at him, his eyes raking over you. He had said thank you so earnestly, it had made your face warm.
Weeks pass into more than a month and a half in this way, one cold, dark day bleeding into the next, the soft humiliation of feeling unwelcome and unwanted and terribly alone, like a butterfly with it's wings pinned. For all your intrigue, he seems profoundly uninterested in you. He leaves you to your own mind, to your own lonesomeness. You are, maybe, just a girl that did his cooking.
You long to stretch your legs, take a walk, explore uninterrupted as you used to, report what you saw in the journal you haven't dared to take out in front of Joel, buried in your case beneath your clothes. You're already trapped, what if he didn't like you to write? Trapped by body and mind might really drive you to drown yourself in a river or go seeking a length of rope.
Things change when he finds you crying one evening, from the ache in your chest, from the caged wounded-ness, from the fear that still occasionally lurched to the front of your mind, for all the cruelties he could inflict so suddenly, if he chose.
You don't dry your eyes quickly enough and the next sleepy afternoon, eyes drooping from boredom, Joel slips inside in a burst of cold, snow peppered in his hair. Before you have the chance to offer him supper from the stove, he's saying your name and giving you pause.
"You want to come out to the stables? Maybe it'd do you good to get out of this house." If you didn't know better, you'd say he sounds worried.
"Are you—"
"I ain't puttin' you to work just yet," he says with a smile. It's a joke, and you find it disarming. "Just to stretch your legs. See another living thing that ain't me."
"Yes, okay," you agree, maybe too quickly and eagerly, because he laughs. You let him hold out your coat so you can slip your arms into the sleeves.
Joel holds the door open and offers his arm for you to balance on as you cross together through the thick icy drifts of snow to the stables. His arm is sturdy and strong beneath your fingers, warm even through all the layers you're both wearing. Fat flakes of snow sticks to your lashes, white flurries drowning your vision of Joel. His strong jaw, the tight squint of his eyes against the white glare of the world.
You glance away, feel that tightness bloom in your belly.
It feels good to walk, to cross a distance instead of pacing the cottage floor in circles all day long. He pulls back the stable door. It's surprisingly warm within, from the combined heat of the animals' bodies and whatever work he'd been sweating over. There are two horses and a cow, a smattering of chickens with their own little coop at the back.
You can't help but rush to them, patting noses, feeling hot breath on your face. The chickens squawk something terrible, but a spotted one rubs against your leg and let's you bend at the waist to pet it.
Joel fiddles around at a bench in the corner, breath puffing before his face. You see the flash of a pairing knife, wood shavings fluttering to the ground.
You tentatively creep closer, trying to peer over his shoulder at what he might be making. You would have never guessed he was creative.
"We only have goats," you say as you stroke the face of the mare whose stall is nearest Joel, as near as you can get without being obvious. "Very mean and terribly stubborn."
He chuckles, puts down his work and leans over the side of the stall. "Well, none a' those here."
It's silent for a long time, the plunk of snow against the roof, the quiet sound of the animals breathing. Joel clears his throat awkwardly after awhile and you stiffen. "Listen, I know we ain't had the best start with the weather and all. That and I'm not exactly the husband anyone looks for."
You turn to him, meeting his eyes, and feel something between you soften. "You've been kind to me. Kinder than I deserve," you answer. "Considering that marrying me will have hurt your reputation."
You wonder what he was promised in return for this. You assumed it was a child, that he was getting older and wanted to continue his line and so needed a young wife. But, he hasn't attempted to touch you at all.
"Ain't really got a reputation to speak of anyway," he chuckles. "Never cared about it neither."
How you wish you had the luxury of not caring about it. You glance away, smooth your fingers down the horse's freckled nose. "Were you ever married before?"
"Once," he answers. "Long time ago."
"When did she die?"
Joel shifts. "Hasn't," he grunts. "Far as I know. One mornin' she was gone, never came home."
You feel your eyes go wide. "Oh. I didn't know."
A runaway wife.
A vast thing you did not know possible.
"It's all right." He shakes his head. "I'm guess I'm askin' what I can do to help you feel better about this whole mess. I shouldn't have—" he waves a hand toward the direction of the house, "just left you on your own for so long. In the house. I figured it was better. That you might not. . ." He doesn't continue and you don't need him too.
He thought he was making you more comfortable, that you wouldn't have liked his company.
You don't correct him, because it's true. When you first arrived it was very true.
"Oh." You think for a long moment, of all the silence and tiptoeing around each other. Maybe there's a better way than that, if not the way of a married couple. "They lied about me, you know. The mayor's daughter and her friends and that boy. I didn't do anything wrong."
He looks a little embarrassed to be hearing talk of your supposed sin of the flesh so bluntly. "I figured," he answers, rubbing his chin.
You blink. "You did?" He nods and you continue. "She was jealous, I think, that I did as I pleased. I guess that's what could help me." You hurry to continue, because he'd only just told you of his first wife disappearing without a trace. "Of course, I would keep up with the work, and I can help here, too," you gesture around. "I'd like to help with the animals. . .But I'd like to roam, too."
He thinks on it for a long minute. "I'd maybe even appreciate work out here more. I can milk the cow, if it's anything like milking a goat. I can chop wood. If you'd allow it."
That earns you a chuckle. "You want to chop wood?" He asks, a little amused.
"If you'd allow it," you cast your eyes down. "Of course I don't want to disobey you."
You aren't expecting him to take your hand and jump when he does. You'd both removed your gloves when you entered the barn and his skin is warm and calloused against your own.
His jaw works as he contemplates you, a fascination in his eyes. "Forget all that nonsense about obeying and whatever else that priest was goin' on about." He shakes his head, "I'm too old to think any of it means anything."
You aren't sure what he means by that, but nod all the same.
"So, how 'bout this. We'll start takin' it all on together. I did my own damn housework for years so I ain't completely useless. And you can help chop wood, if it suits you to."
It sounds too good, so you contain your enthusiasm and nod. "A fine idea. We might know each other better then, to spend some time togeher."
He nods, and something pink rises in his cheeks. "And," he shuffles his feet, squeezes your hand in both of his. "that's enough. Understand? You're might be my wife, but I'm no fool."
You understand what he means. That this thing is more partnership than relationship. It soothes you, if it also disappoints you a little. All those parts of him you think of exploring, suddenly out of reach.
"I understand."
"Good, come spring, when it's warmer, we'll figure something better for sleepin'."
You nod and then dare to ask, "And wandering? If the work is finished and I'd like to walk alone?"
He touches your cheek for the first time, the barest brush of his fingers, a tentative affection. "Always home before dark. That's all I ask."
"I can do that." You cradle the hand that had touched your face against the mare's stall, daring to hope.
You feel like you can breathe for the first time since the mayor's daughter stood and pointed her finger at you in church all those weeks ago.
.
.
.
Spring comes late in the year this far north.
The roads turn to mud that sticks the horses' hooves in place, bogs down the wagon.
Joel watches you lift the ax above your head and bring it neatly down on the splint of wood balanced on the stump in front of you, just the way he'd shown you months ago, in the dead of that terrible winter. If you wanted to chop firewood, who was he to tell you not to?
The shawl around your shoulders flutters in the breeze as you retrieve the fallen logs, reveals the strength in your forearms.
He glances away. You are the most unsettlingly pretty creature he's ever set eyes on, and much too young for him. Much too good for him, much too good for anyone. All the warnings he'd been given on your temperament had sounded only like compliments to him, and he'd been proven right. And now that you'd loosened, he appreciates your unflinching opinions, your sharp pointed tongue.
And, Joel doesn't necessarily mind being bossed all that much. You're usually right, anyway.
If he is worried sick right up until the moment when you return to the cottage when you roam about, no one is the wiser of it. You always return before dark, and he never tells you not to go.
Some creatures just didn't need caging; they'd come home all on their own if you let them.
Preventing you from walking alone, taking time to yourself to explore would be akin to clipping a bird's wings. He's sorry for all those weeks at the start when he left you inside, hadn't realized you thought you couldn't leave the cottage, not even just outside.
It's still cold and your breath unspools in front of you in a pale cloud as you work, sweating and breathing hard through your teeth.
He feels a longing for you that he probably shouldn't. He had made a promise to you and he intended to keep it, wife or not. You content now, at ease, in his presence. The longer he keeps that vow as the days grow longer, the more you'll settle.
Soon, the roads will clear and you can go into the village for supplies that are bitterly needed after such a long winter. He thinks you'll like the town, less haughty and judgemental than the one you grew up in.
The afternoon sun dapples over your skin, makes the sweat on your brow, at the base of your throat, shimmer. He glances away, his thoughts already spiraling toward what you will smell like that evening, coated in a day's hard work. Lying beside you each night in bed is a sweet, unending torture. You dream often, murmuring in your sleep, occasionally pierced with a cry, sometimes a grunt and moan. Mouth parted, chest heaving. He wonders what or who you dream of, and goes to great pains to hide how hard he often is in the morning.
It feels sort of like a betrayal, how quickly his mind conjures up your bare skin, waiting and open, unfolding just for him, the imagined taste of you on his tongue, the plush part of your lips, little pink tongue pressing against your teeth.
He could only endure it. Once summer came, he might be able to take care of it elsewhere and not risk you overhearing, or worse, catching him.
Aside from the torture of sleep, everything else is fine. You're clever and quick; a better chess player than him by far. You best him nearly every evening you plat. You write and draw in a little notebook that you once squirreled away like he might take it. Now, you leave it on the table, let him read little bits of stories, thumb through your drawings of animals you come across. You only have to hear something once to be able to repeat it verbatim, reciting poetry or stories not in your notebook for him when requested.
You've improved his life, the cottage and farm, in way he wouldn't have been able to picture before. This isn't what your father had meant when he came begging him to marry you and save their reputation, said Joel could use a woman's touch, a kind of helper.
It was bullshit, but maybe the loneliness finally got the better of him. After his wife disappeared, he hadn't thought of remarrying. Clearly he's the type you leave.
He continues watching you, brushing the mare, when the sound of an approaching wagon meets his ears. Joel glances up to find the ax abandoned against the stump, you hurrying quickly toward him in the mouth of the open stable.
"Someone's coming," you say, brow creased with worry, reaching for his sleeve. "Joel, I thought the roads were too—"
"Me too," he answers, checking the revolver at his hip. "Let's see who it is." He pushes his hand against your spine and feels your body loosen as you walk together toward the distant road.
The wagon plodding up the road eventually pulls to a muddy stop just at the fence line, a man jumping down from the driver's seat. "Father," he hears you murmur, before starting across the yard without waiting for him.
Joel follows, watches his old friend wrap an arm around you, murmuring your mother's sent greetings. You face folds at the mention of your mother, but you brighten quickly.
Joel hadn't even known your father had a daughter, until he appeared like a wraith at the edge of his land all those months ago, begging a favor.
Joel had told you of his own daughter one late evening when neither of you could sleep. Feeling your comforting warm attention across the mattress as he spoke to the dark ceiling. How his wife leaving, had also been a mother leaving.
Sarah had died very, very young, and though he'd never know for certain, he can't imagine selling her off the way your father had you. A wad of cash offered like you were goods to be traded in service of their name. It had soured his opinion of the man, and any leftover good will he felt toward him when they were younger.
Soiled, now that Joel was a hypocrite, finding comfort, among other feelings, in you, even if you were his wife. You're young, and you've placed immeasurable trust in him that he'd had to very carefully earn.
Joel joins you and shakes your father's well meaning hand as you say, "Stay for dinner, please. We'd love to have you and hear any news from town. We've been alone all winter."
"Of course," he answers jovially, glancing over you. "I thought for sure you'd have a spring chicken on the way, my dear."
It takes you a long moment to realize what he's getting at. A complicated knot of feelings writhes over your face before hurt dominates.
He clearly expected to find you pregnant.
You smile and don't answer, leading them toward the house instead.
.
.
.
The afternoon air is already below freezing again when your father finally leaves, wagon disappearing back down the road, unloaded of your meager things that you haven't missed in months. An odd anxiety has taken hold of you, and though you have too many chores to get done, you tell Joel you're going on a walk and leave without waiting for an answer.
You feel like a lamb put out to slaughter, though what else should your father have expected than to find you a pregnant wife, muted and different than you had been before marriage. It stings that he hadn't even asked after your well being, if Joel was treating you well, was good to you. It didn't matter you suppose, you aren't his problem, and if your husband saw fit to be cruel to you, that was that man's right.
He'd sat at the table and talked only to Joel where once he used to look to you, find pride in his clever daughter's conversation.
Now, you are silent, talked about like you aren't present, about how well you are or aren't fulfilling wifely duties. Clearly you'd failed in at least one respect since you were not pregnant. Never would he guess that Joel had never even stuck you, left the marriage unconsummated. It makes you feel adrift, all the easier to discard, since he could easily nullify the marriage for something like that.
You couldn't read how Joel felt about the whole thing as your father threw out childhood anecdotes about your petulance and reluctance to learn from your mother without care.
Humiliating. It made you seem frivolous and silly. Worse, many times over he implied thanks to Joel for the purchase of damaged goods, your supposed fling with the farmhand referenced repeatedly and only thinly veiled by polite convention.
Joel, apparently a damned martyr for marrying you. He was suffering so greatly by taking your hand in marriage.
Though, your father had said, wiping his chin of the grease spilling down it, good to have a woman's touch, as I told you before. It's no good for a man to take on duties of the home, or be, ah, alone all the time. I don't know how you stood to be without a wife for so many years.
It was a humiliating, punishing few hours. Clearly, your family had not thought of you beyond gladness that your indiscretion no long sullied their name.
You feel foolish too, for the affection you feel for Joel. When you are only a little help mate to him. That is why he draws no closer, doesn't really want to know you as a husband would know you.
You walk and walk, head down, alternating between seething rage and despair in turns. You don't notice the shadows creeping in at the edges of your vision, how quickly the sun has sunk behind the mountains. A horrible shame traces up your spine, making you shiver.
The world is still icy and cold, snowbanks piled high between muddy ruts cut into the earth. You don't notice how close you've strayed to the rushing creek, swollen with melted snow runoff spilling down the mountainside. Your boot catches on the edge of a slick stone.
You grasp at a low hanging tree branch to keep upright but fall into the water heavily, spluttering as it sweeps you into it's rush. Your lungs feel frozen as you gasp and flail for anything to find purchase on. All those times you thought of throwing yourself to a river's mercy, here was God doing it for you, for your ungrateful hardness, a nasty little girl that wanted too much and had no good sense.
Maybe God thought you had sex with that farmhand too.
Or maybe it was the sins of the flesh you imagined with a husband that did not return your desire.
It's almost easy to stop fighting the current and let it drag you down instead. You can't swim and maybe this is fate. No one would miss you, people would sigh and say maybe it was the most decent thing to happen to you, a blight scorched off the town's good name.
The water closes over your head, darkness swims at the corners of your vision.
You aren't sure how long you're under when something hard catches under your elbow, hauls you coughing and spluttering to shore.
A face looms above yours as you try to draw breath into your frozen lungs, coughing until you turn on your side and throw up, first water and then the little dinner you'd been able to stomach. "Breathe," a voice murmurs, which you only belatedly connect to Joel. Then, angrier, "What the hell were you thinkin'?"
You can't answer him just yet, feeling faint, still hiccoughing into the dirt, lungs still spasming from the shock of the cold water.
"Before dark," he growls suddenly when you finally manage to suck in a full breath of night air. "Come home before dark. That is the one goddamn thing I asked from you."
A new fear steals into you, that you will finally find out what happens when you disobey, and on the heels of your father, Joel's good friend, reminding him that you were dirty and used, beneath him in almost every way.
You cower, waiting for a blow on the black soil of the creek bank. "Joel, please, I'm sorry—" The word sicks in your graveled voice.
It doesn't come right then. Instead, his arms fit beneath your legs, around your back, and lifts you from the ground. "Jesus, sweetheart, no—I got you," he says softly. "Just breathe."
"Joel—"
"'s all right, now."
"Please don't—"
"We're just goin' home, or you'll freeze to death."
Your mind sways in and out of consciousness as he walks, dark branches wheeling above your head in a dark tangle, the world silent and near pitch black by the time you return to the cottage.
He sets you on your feet in the bedroom, yanks your coat down your arms. "Help me here, darlin'," he says, his voice softly desperate, that sweet little pet name a suspected accident. "You might lose fingers if you don't."
You help him wrestle with the fastenings of your clothes. "I didn't mean to."
"I know."
Only a muted embarrassment and helplessness reaches your mind, that he is seeing you nearly naked for the first time like this. His hands seem far away.
Joel tugs the blankets around your shoulders and hastily fills a pan with coal from the hearth. "Too damn cold," he mutters, and you wonder how long and far you'd gone if the fire from dinner was already spent. Distantly, you realize he is peeling himself out of his own clothes. "You'll get warmer faster," he explains. You nod, feeling very tired. "Don't close your eyes," he says, voice suddenly harsh. "Keep lookin' at me."
You struggle to follow his command, watching as so much skin is revealed, then pressed against yours.
His body is so hot, when your skin touches his, that it feels like being set aflame, touched by a scorching fire.
You whimper and he shushes you, presses you closer, head tucked beneath his chin. "You're all right," he murmurs, though it sounds as though he is trying desperately to convince himself. "You'll be all right, sweetheart."
For a long while he holds you in silence, scratchy lips against your forehead, beard pressed against your temple. You feel every part of him pressed against every part of you, the hair on his legs and chest, the muscle of his biceps and forearms, chest and collarbones and feet. The first time his hands are on you this way, because you'd been a little too emotional and nearly drowned yourself.
His broad palms splay over your spine, cradling you as shivers start to rack your body again. You hadn't realized they had stopped.
A relieved sigh climbs out of his throat.
"Were you trying to leave?"
You don't know how he means it, like his first wife had, or like you were trying to die. "No," you answer, "No, I fell in. I was upset." Your teeth chatter, click together so violently you're afraid you might bite your tongue. "I didn't realize how late it was. I'm sorry, Joel."
"Scared me, is all."
"I'm sorry," you whisper against his throat. "For all of it. I'm so ashamed."
He shakes his head. "Should be your father that's ashamed."
"I'm being punished," you continue. "For something I did not do."
Joel's hand pauses in its path down your spine, for just a moment. "Yeah," he agrees quietly. "I'm sorry for it."
"Not you," you nest down against him. Maybe if you were more coherent, you'd feel nervous about it, but it just feels good, his arms around you, his body against yours, finally. "I don't mean you, Joel. You are not my punishment."
"All right now," he mutters. "Enough a' that."
You are sure you move first, though if asked, Joel will say he did. You tilt your chin up and press your cold mouth to his.
Stolen little girlhood kisses amount to nothing compared to this. His heavy hands, his scratchy cheeks against yours. Full and warm blooded. Cradling and caressing and sighing just like you. His breath is yours.
It's all consuming, like a star parting the night sky.
.
.
.
Summer arrives quietly, softly.
You visit your family as a married couple, and Joel holds your hand through the Sunday church service you attend together even though some of the congregants eye you with stony, judgemental stares. You take pleasure in the burning gaze of those girls on you, angry that you don't seem uncomfortable with the man they'd indirectly sentenced you to.
As quickly as is possible, you leave again. It's hard to be there, among the stares but also among a village that used to be your home.
"Sure you wanna go so quick?"
"Yes, Joel."
He mulls it over, hands on his hips.
"What?" It occurs to you that maybe he isn't ready to leave. He has no family; you've only spoken to each other for months and months aside from that visit from your father and once from Joel's brother, who had been taken by surprise at your presence. Maybe he was craving company other than your own. "Would you like to stay longer?"
"No, I don't want you to feel like we're in any rush to get back."
You blink, taken aback. "I don't. I'd like to. . .go home."
His face softens. "All right, girl. Let's get a move on then." Joel helps you onto the wagon bench and starts to climb up when the priest, who Joel had managed to avoid earlier, passes by your parents' house.
"Mr. Miller! A moment?"
"What's he want, I wonder?" He asks, leaning his arms against the side of the wagon, his face close to yours. "I ain't his parishioner. Technically."
You roll your eyes. "Go see what he'd like," you say tenderly, touching his cheek just to nettle the other man. Indecent touching! You can hear the sermon already forming. Lusts of the flesh! Good thing you no longer attend to this town's church and will not have to hear it.
"Yes, ma'am."
Despite the intimacy, he has not touched you, not really, since that day you nearly drowned. You long for him to kiss you again, just once, but fear it may have been an accident borne of your stupidity, his fear of loss.
Joel steps back down from the wagon and approaches. You watch the robin's egg sky instead of the men, counting the crowding of little white puffs on the horizon, pretending that you can't hear every word being spoken, of being tamed, cowed, broken. How is he faring with his new wife?
You mean to hear Joel's answer, but your mother is suddenly laboring onto the wagon bench beside you. You had not heard her approaching and had avoided speaking to her at church and lunch, Joel dutifully standing between you.
"We didn't get a chance to speak."
"Should I have something to say to you?"
You mother catches up your hand, holds it between both of hers. "I didn't want to send you away."
"And yet you did, for something you know I did not do. To a man you knew nothing of."
She huffs. "What's done is done. We did it to protect you, to save your name." You nod and tug your hand away. "Never mind all that," she says gently. "Tell me, how is he as a man? Does he treat you well?"
"I think," you start, watching Joel and the priest. "He might be the best man I've ever known."
She peers at you curiously. "He doesn't hurt you?"
"It would be much too late for your guilt if he did," you answer, "but no, he doesn't."
"You listen to him." Your mother sounds amazed.
"He listens to me. Let's me be." You shrug, "So I do the same."
She seems bewildered by that, that by not holding you down, forcing you to something else, you were better for it.
Your mother doesn't get to give an answer, because Joel is approaching.
She kisses you goodbye and he helps her down from the wagon. "So," you say when the village is finally behind you. "What did you tell the Father? How did you break my restless spirit?"
He chuckles. "I told him there wasn't anything to break."
It warms you to think he believes it. "Even when I fall into creeks in the cold?"
"I think your spirit is what kept you from drownin' so—"
"Oh, ha ha, very funny."
You want to lean into him, but wait until you're on the final stretch of dusty road when the evening sky is beginning to darken at the edges to do so, heavy against his shoulder.
You work together to curry the horses and stable them for the night, exhaustion aching in your bones by the time you turn in. Summer is as bright as winter is dark, and the sky is only just starting to darken, blushing pinks and smouldering orange over the trees.
Joel is saying something about a book, something about chess. He talks so much, now. Even when he's quiet, you know the language of him.
"Why don't you kiss me again?"
He blinks and meets your gaze, looking like a fish out of water. "I, uh—"
"If the first time was a mistake," you say. "It doesn't offend me. I like things as they are."
He clears his throat and bows his head, approaches you slowly, all the time looking down at his feet, brows tilted together. "I didn't mean for it to go like that," he admits. "That's true."
You meant it when you said you like things as they are, but disappointment still burns hot that his affection had been unintentional. "Okay," you agree when he stops in front of you. "That's just fine."
He shakes his head. "It ain't that I don't want that. But I promised you, I wouldn't. Our, uh, marriage vows didn't mean shit. But that, sweetheart, it meant something. I meant it."
"And if I said I wanted it?"
"You don't need to feel like you have to," he says quietly but firmly. "I wouldn't be able to stomach it."
You push your palm against his cheek, stand nearly chest to chest with him. "You have never made me feel like I needed to do or be anything at all for you." You lean against him, "I'd like it if you kissed me. And if, um, you'd like to—" Long held shame, years of hearing about how women were lustful temptresses comes creeping in. "Well, the rest of it—"
"If I'd like to what?" He teases, something wicked in the grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth. "Touch you?"
"I suppose," you say haughtily, flustered.
"Where?" His hot hands press to your sides, over the curves of your hips where no one has ever touched before. You startle and fall against him, your skin alive beneath his hands. "Here?"
You cover his hands, guide them boldly over your body, to your ass and waist and just beneath your breasts, back down to your hips. You lean in so your mouth just brushes his. "You should make more vows to me. New ones that say you promise to never stop touching me."
"That could be arranged."
"Oh wonderful. I should hate to have to hunt down another husband."
He's pulls you toward the bedroom, the bed beyond. He hasn't kissed you again, but he intends to do something to you, that much is clear.
"Hunt one down, huh? I think I fell into your lap."
He fell into your lap. The thought is a nice one.
You nod, bum hitting the edge of the bed. "I should think so. Had those girls witnessed even this behind that barn, I would have been killed where I stood. A happy accident that they didn't and I was given you instead."
His laugh is like a bark. "Ain't you somethin'."
He tilts you back, looks at your coiled body and hums. Your knees are pressed together out of habit, arms folded across your belly now. Still fully clothed and you feel naked as he looks down at you with a reverence and devotion you have only before seen in a pew. You settle your heels at the edge of the bed."Tell me again," he requests.
"I want you," you say quietly. "I want you to touch me."
Just as in your dreams that you thought frivolous and unrealistic, he peels your thighs apart and pushes his hand between your legs. You gasp and fight not to skitter away from his touch, to keep your hips against the mattress. If that's how warm only his hand felt through your clothes, you can't imagine what it will be like without.
He leans over you, moves his hand to tilt your chin up instead, finally presses his lips against yours again after so long.
"Joel," you sigh against his mouth, scratchy cheeks that you cup in your hands. "You'll be gentle with me."
It's not a question.
"Mm." His nose draws a line down your cheek to your jaw, mouth pressing against the underside of your jaw. You gasp when his teeth scrape along your skin, just a little. You tangle your hands in his hair, tug at the graying strands that slip through your fingers until he grunts against you.
Joel settles between your parted thighs, lost to you, apparently. "Joel."
"Sweetheart," he answers, lifting his head to look at you.
"I know it will hurt. Please make it easy on me."
He leans on his forearm, placed above the crown of your head, his other hand yanking the skirt of your dress up. "I will do everything to make it easy on you."
"Okay," you breathe, smoothing the worry. He wouldn't hurt you on purpose, of that you're sure.
He works you out of your clothes as you pull at his. There's only one part of him you haven't seen, one part of him you've never seen of any man. You tug at his trousers until a button pops open and you can push your hand down.
You gasp at the feeling of him in your hand, hard and warm, his skin soft and damp. You aren't sure what to do, not the way he moves with such certainty, thick fingers slipping beneath your underwear, parting the folds of you.
You watch his face as you move your hand, circling your fingers around him seems the natural fit of things, sliding your fist up and down his length. There's friction though and you wonder if it feels good for him.
He is signularly focused on you though, and for a moment you forget his cock in your hand because he touches something that makes your back arch off the bed, a moan yanked from your chest.
"There she goes," he coos, still moving his fingers over you, not even inside you yet.
That will go inside you, you remember suddenly. It feels too big for your hand, let alone your cunt. You squeeze his cock and rub your thumb along the head where you feel something leaking, helping your hand slide around him.
"How does that feel—"
He groans, and you turn your gaze to him, repeating the action, watching him shudder. "Am I doing okay?"
It gives you no small satisfaction to literately have him in the palm of your hand, giving to him. You stroke him slowly, tightening your grip as you reach the tip. "Jesus, girl," he murmurs, and then thrusts into your hand.
"Am I?"
"Little too good," he grunts. "I ain't gonna be much use to you if you keep that up."
You don't know what he means, especially since you want to keep making him sound like that forever. But you trust him, so you release him and kiss him instead, nipping at his bottom lip, feeling like an aching wound as his slips a finger inside you.
There's a little pressure but it doesn't hurt. You can feel how damp you are, easing the passage of his fingers, a second and third following, stretching you to almost the point of pain, but mostly it feels good, his hands working some kind of spell over you in tandem until your world bursts with pleasure.
Waves of it crash over you, slicking your skin with sweat in the warmth of your bedroom. He helps you out of the last bit of your clothes, nude body bared to him, hands scooping your breasts in too warm palms, brushing tentatively over your nipples.
So many thngs that you did not know could feel good.
Your mouth goes dry when you finally see his cock, aching from your attentions, the head an angry red. You have the most bizarre desire to out him in your mouth, that is only vindicated as not odd when Joel puts his head between your legs and makes you come again without his fingers even entering you.
"Please," you whine, beckoning him toward you, so open and vulnerable and never so safe. "Please just do it. I'm ready."
"You are, sweetheart," he coos. "Best I can get you anyway."
He lets you grip him and guide him to your entrance, pushing inside you in increments. You wonder at what brutes the men in your village must be like to have all the girls saying this is only something to endure. For though it hurts a little, it overwhelmingly feels good. Like stretching a sore muscle. He is heavy and warm, your bodies locked together in a way you will mourn when it parts.
Joel holds you close, pushes his forehead gently to yours, breath ghosting over your lips, so warm and present it makes something deep inside you sigh in satisfaction.
Here you belong, you are sure, here you are understood and wanted. You touch him wherever your hands can reach, marveling at the plains of his body as he ruts into you, skin slapping against skin.
He grunts against your neck when he comes and you follow only a moment later, panting into the dark of something that is now yours, clutching him tightly to your chest.
A new vow kept.
.
.
.
He wakes you in the middle of the night with gentle prodding.
The night is a soft sweet song outside your window, the low sounds of the land around you. "Joel?" you ask, pressing one hand over your eyes, rubbing away sleep. "What's wrong?"
"Nothin'," he assures. "There's just somethin' I wanna show you."
"Now?"
"If you're willin'."
Well, you are always willing, with him. Wrapped in only your dressing robe, he leads you outside, across the yard to the stables by lamplight.
He is shirtless, and you are close enough that you can see the flex of muscle in his arms when he rolls the doors open, and the cratered parts of him you finally got to touch.
"Joel—" You complain. "What—"
"C'mon, now," he motions you inside, the red light flickering over his features comforting instead of eerie.
"I'm sore you know," you grumble. And you are, a pleasant kind of pain that accompanies the pleasure he had given you. It's nothing like the girls had described to you. It had only been good. He had only been good.
He just chuckles, no small amount of pride in it, and leads you to the workbench that you can never quite tell what he does at. "You feel okay?" He asks, sincere.
"Okay," you scoff. "You very well know what you did to me."
"All right," he says softly. "Enough of that."
"Show me."
He clears his throat, and nods, pulling you near him at the bench.
There among the softly snuffling horses, he presents you with a tiny wood carving of a woman that looks just like you. You gasp and take her carefully from his hands, holding her up to moonlight and then lamplight, the exquisite detailing of her.
She has your nose and eyes. The shape of her body in movement, the exact way you hold your hands in miniature. An expression on her face of determination and muddled anxiety. Afraid, but getting on with it.
He has adored you, you see, from the moment he met you. He studied you as closely as you studied him. "It's beautiful."
"Yeah," he agrees, hand on your spine, "suppose I've got a good muse, though."
Your face feels hot, your whole body alight. "When did you—" just to confirm what you think you know.
"Morning after we married," he says. "Somethin' about the way you looked, I just. . .I had to get it down somewhere."
You rub your thumb over her silhouette. "She is missing her wedding band."
Joel's eyes flick to your hand, empty. "I suppose she is." He takes your hand and kisses it's fingers. "As you are."
You nod and tuck her into your palm, leaning up to kiss him again. It's okay, you know he keeps his word.
Summary: When Joel learns you’re going on a date, he decides to make his feelings known his own special way.
Or, Joel is too stubborn to say what he feels so he fills your cunt instead, hoping your date gets a taste of him.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Creampie. Jealous!Joel. Rough sex with a pre-negotiated safeword in place. C*m eating. Breeding kink / Joel begging to finish in you.
Word count: 4.0k
Joel wasn’t one to talk while he fucked.
In fact, he didn’t like speaking at all.
And that suited you just fine—a man you were seeing for his dick alone didn’t need to be the monologuing type. Each night would come to pass in much the same way, with his naked body and yours moving in frantic tandem for ten to fifteen minutes, and in the shuffle of clothes and moans and ropes of Joel’s cum, you’d almost forgotten the sound of his voice. Worse yet, you didn’t really care one way or another what it sounded like at all.
Which is why your ears perked up in surprise when, one night, you were putting on your clothes and you heard:
“You seem eager to leave.”
You paused.
“I do?”
“Yeah,” Joel said. He tipped his chin to where he saw you’d thrown your skirt on your body so fast you hadn’t even noticed the thing was inside out. Then he folded his arms over his broad, bare chest. “Got somewhere to be?”
You did.
You had a date that night, and this brief, sweaty encounter with Joel had been but a prelude to an evening spent with someone else—an old friend, Frankie.
A nice guy.
Nothing like Joel, who was now looking at you with all the intrigue of someone forced to watch the rerun of a TV show they didn’t particularly care to see. He blinked.
Why bother hiding it?
“Dinner,” you answered. That should be enough.
“With who?”
Why the hell would he guess it was with anyone else? You fixed your skirt and reached for your socks and shirt.
“Frankie,” you told him anyway.
“Frankie Morales?”
That made you stop dressing. You’d just pulled your top over your head when you fixed a puzzled look on Joel.
In the seven months you’d been fucking him, he had never asked once about friends, family, pets—hell, even your last name. You just did what you did and typically got two to three orgasms out of it every time you visited. Not useless information about who you were dining with.
His eyes said he wanted to know, though, so you said it.
“Yeah, him. I’ll see ya around, Joel.”
And you’d meant to leave it at that.
You had no real desire to stay, no interest in keeping a conversation alive with someone you didn’t care yourself whether he was living or dead, so you toted your boots with you and chose to put them on outside his bedroom. Dressing as you walked, and hoping not to need to say another word to Joel, you worked quickly and quietly.
And almost tripped down the stairs when you heard his voice again, booming from the threshold of his room:
“You know Frankie can’t fuck to save his life, right?”
Now Joel sounded smug. His body was bare, save for his boxers, and above that broad, glorious expanse of flesh, you could see the eyes glittering. He didn’t need to smile.
You kicked on your left boot and shuffled for the right. You tried not to let that look unnerve you as you did.
“Who said I’m fucking him?”
“That little skirt says you might.”
You glanced down at the blue scrap of fabric you’d just had to fix. You hadn’t thought much of it when putting it on that day, but maybe Joel saw more there than you.
“What does that mean?” you called back up to him while continuing down the stairs. Adjusting your other clothes.
In response, Joel followed. He never left the bedroom behind you—unless going to lock the back door after you’d departed or snagging a postcoital Heineken. This felt weird, and you didn’t try to hide your feelings when you turned to see him descend the stairs. You frowned.
“Every time you wear that skirt, we fuck at least three times. No exceptions. It’s like your calling card for being a needy, greedy little—” Joel stopped when you scoffed.
“Shut up.”
You pivoted back toward the kitchen, where the old oak door practically begged for your exit. This was bizarre.
“You are,” Joel rejoined all the same, unfazed, “Every time, I mean it. And by my count, we only fucked twice tonight, which means you’re clearly saving that energy for a romp in the hay with old Frankie boy. Am I right?”
Joel had never spoken this many words to you in his life, much less one night. You continued to tread through the kitchen, though you could sense your gait was slow. The cogs in your brain were all working overtime to ascertain why the ever-living fuck this man was acting like he was.
“I don’t…” you started, then stopped. Shook your head.
Your feet stopped just shy of the door leading out to the back porch, and right when you were about to turn, you felt hands on your hips from behind. You inhaled sharply.
“I’m right, ain’t I?” Joel repeated. His voice was lower.
Suddenly, you didn’t want to face him again. Instead of spinning on your heels and feeling his grip shift beneath it, you reached for the door. You tried to brush him away.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Miller.”
Your hand had scarcely made one turn on the doorknob when it was pried off completely. You let out a squeal, reflexively, though it wasn’t uncommon for Joel to manhandle you as he pleased. He was a prick like that.
It never really bothered you, seeing as most times those hands were on your body they were there to give you pleasure. But tonight, it was different. He was different. Things didn’t seem to have quite the same plainly sexual charge as they did on other nights. Joel was still rough.
Unlike a gentleman, he didn’t flip you around for your gaze to find his. He simply jerked your body in place.
His groin met your ass, and you felt that he was hard.
“I think you know exactly what I mean, sweet pea,” Joel said, reaching upward to place a hand near your throat.
Then he added, low, “I think you’re holdin’ out on me.”
You bucked under his grip, but you didn’t fight much.
“And I’m the needy one.” You flashed a wry smile.
Though Joel couldn’t see it, he could feel it, probably. You didn’t protest any harder because, in spite of your own disdain, you couldn’t deny that the push and pull of it was fun. You’d never seen him anything close to this before—possessive—but if you knew how he acted when he wanted to make a point, you sensed it would be good.
When you felt the hand that had brushed up to your neck now make a fist through the strands at the back of your head, you smiled again—this time with some pleasure.
Joel yanked your face back to turn and meet his, finally, while your ass remained glued to his front. He grunted, you sighed, and in the dim, yellow light of the kitchen, you felt a nudge between your legs. Another hand had evidently lifted your skirt and pushed it up the small of your back while you were distracted by the pull on your hair, and now Joel’s boxers were shoved down. His cock was prodding between your folds, nearing the hole he’d just fucked minutes ago. You weren’t wearing panties.
“Miller,” you told him. A warning. “I’m gonna be late.”
“I’ll bet,” he sneered. “You just say the word, I’ll stop.”
For all his pent-up aggression and hostility, Joel never would’ve forced himself on you—or in you. The two of you had a safeword for that. If at any point you wanted things to stop, you simply said ‘time-out’ and the sex would end, no questions asked. You could tell him now.
You could make it to your date with Frankie on time. Leave the flaming shitshow that was Joel Miller and spend the night with someone who actually liked you.
But that wouldn’t quell the need you had, now would it?
“Time-out?” Joel hummed, impossibly close to your ear.
You strained against him; you tried freeing yourself from his grip knowing full well you wouldn’t have even half a shot unless you said that word. You sucked in a breath.
“I…hate you,” you grit through your teeth on the exhale.
Contempt dripped with every syllable. Your derision may as well have been written on your face, but it still wasn’t enough to make him stop. You hadn’t used the safeword.
That was a choice. Joel pushed you to the kitchen table.
And, no sooner had your hands flown out to catch yourself on the smooth, wooden surface than the man was pushing back inside. The slide was easy. The passage aided by your last two climaxes and the arousal left pooling again, you could feel it: you were wet. Pliant. Spread with your ass pointed up and your fingers seeking purchase on any free corner you could reach.
You were no more to the man than a sentient cocksleeve.
Possessive as Joel was, that was all this could be: greed.
Desire.
Control.
Not wanting to share with another what he fairly owned.
Joel didn’t have it within himself to give you anything beyond that. You might as well enjoy it while it lasted.
“You’re mine,” he seethed. His hips snapped like he couldn’t get deep enough. “Y’hear me? This is mine.”
Then, as if to punctuate his words, his thrusts sped up.
Mine, mine, mine.
Your eyes rolled, and your stomach turned. You seized the edge of the table even harder just for your muscles to give and your forearms to hit the surface beneath you. Head lolling forward with pleasure, pain, and shame, you let the man take what he needed, and you didn’t protest.
Because that was what you wanted. What you were.
“Yours,” you murmured back. “Y-Yours. All yours.”
“All mine.”
Alright, then.
Maybe you didn’t deserve a man like Frankie at all. With your lips parted, spit trailing down to your chin from either side, and your core making the most obscene sorts of noises with every sawing motion of Joel’s cock, you thought, idly, this might’ve been what you needed.
Your forehead dropped to the wood, and you whined.
Hot, bulbous, and no doubt leaking beads of desire with every stab inside your heat, Joel’s dick swelled and throbbed. You felt it graze just the right spot inside you, and your vision blurred. This was supposed to be for him, and here you were, on the precipice of your third release.
You didn’t mind.
Joel definitely didn’t mind.
All the man behind you needed to see was submission. Acceptance, or something close to it. You could tell from the way he grabbed your hips and told you to take it, take it, baby, let me use this pussy and make it mine.
You let him.
He wasn’t gentle, but he wasn’t entirely unkind, either.
Suddenly, you felt the heft of Joel’s stomach press to the base of your spine, then his chest sinking somewhere between your shoulder blades. He was blanketing you. Covering you completely while he rutted into your cunt like an animal in heat. You couldn’t deny that you liked it.
It made it feel all the more primal when next you felt his lips brush your ear and his breath fan over your cheek.
“Gonna cum for me, sweetheart?” he grunted.
The term of endearment nearly stunned you as much as his arm winding in between your body and the table. His fingers found your clit, and you were helpless to respond to those words, simply jerking your chin and whimpering.
“Gonna show me what’s mine?” he pressed.
Another incoherent string of sounds paraded as words.
“Good.” Joel grinned; you could hear it in his voice. To your surprise, again, he pressed his lips to the space behind your ear, and he kissed it. His thrusts were shaking the table, and still, he kept hitting that spot.
Joel Miller had never kissed you anywhere on your body but your tits and in between your thighs. This was new.
This was unusual for him, circling your clit furiously while murmuring sweet nothings in your ear, like how good you were taking him, how sweet you felt, how no one but you would ever look so perfect on his cock—ever.
If you didn’t know better, you might say he was smitten.
But he couldn’t be.
You were just seconds from release and wanting to believe that there was some reason for his behavior.
Your eyes closed, and then pleasure supplanted those thoughts. This was stupid. No sense in attributing to affection what might adequately be explained by an erection—and Joel, as old as he was, had them often. You meant nothing to the man outside of these four walls and beyond what was in between your legs. That was it.
Another climax beckoned, and you let it in.
Joel’s length stretched you once, twice more, and suddenly you were melting again. Crying his name. Reaching back and fisting the sweat-dampened curls at the nape of his neck and falling apart under his weight.
Bliss flooded your body so swiftly it almost knocked you out. It seized your limbs, rendered them weak, and had your teeth grinding, eyes squeezing shut, and cunt fluttering over and over again while Joel kept pounding.
On and on and on and on, until all you felt was him.
“Let me cum inside you.” Joel’s voice reached you dimly. “Wanna paint these pretty insides with my seed, baby.”
You could scarcely believe what he was saying was real—that any of this, with his lips grazing your cheek and his belly nudging your back and the man calling you baby, could’ve been anything more than just a fever dream—until he said it again, all but begging, I’m so fuckin’ close, sweetheart, say our special word and I won’t.
Like before, all you had to do was tell him ‘time-out.’
Two syllables and he’d be spraying your lower back, rather than your walls, with his cum. It was simple.
You didn’t want simple.
You wanted him in you.
You wanted him filling you with his cum.
You nodded and told him that you wanted it, too. There wasn’t any point in pretending like you didn’t right now.
Joel unloaded rope after rope of sticky, dizzying warmth in your cunt within a second of your words. He held your back tight to his front, as if he might leak out or lose you completely if he didn’t squeeze you to him like a vise. His hips worked furiously, cock pumping in and out again and again until his balls were fully drained, and then he was rutting deeper, wedging further like he needed to be as far inside your body as was possible. Like marking you was his top priority, and cum was the means of doing it.
He’d been finished for almost a minute and he was still panting by your ear, still holding himself inside your heat.
Joel had always pulled out and stayed out when he was done having his fill with your body before. Tonight, he pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then your neck, then your cheek and murmured something into your skin about needing that, and wanting to feel that every time.
You pressed your nose to the now-soiled surface of the kitchen table and let out a breath. You shook your head.
What the fuck were you doing here with him?
This was weird. Wrong. Not like Joel at all.
Shakily, you braced your palms on the table and began to try and push up. Joel’s weight was suffocating, suddenly.
“I’m— I’m gonna be late. Get off me, please.”
“Wh—” The voice was strained. Softer.
“I said get off me, Joel. Now.”
And he did.
His cum came trailing along with his cock’s withdrawal. It smeared your thighs. You felt it dribble from your just-fucked cunt and couldn’t help but wince. This was dumb.
And here comes goodbye.
Dinner was fine.
The meal was as fun and satisfying as one could be with another man’s spend drying casually between your legs.
You hadn’t bothered to wipe it off. You were already over twenty minutes late for your date with Frankie, and you apologized profusely when you got to the little hole-in-the-wall spot you were supposed to be meeting him for dinner. I’m so, so sorry it took me this long. You weren’t normally like that. No worries at all, I already ordered us some appetizers, if that’s alright. Joel Miller got the very first helping of the meal, and Frankie didn’t even know it.
You ate with what felt like a thousand flames lapping at your cheeks the whole time. Frankie was a great guy. He didn’t leer at your ass or tits or remark on your body at all, except to say that you looked lovely; didn’t ogle you like a piece of meat, or tell you how eager he was to get himself off in your cunt when the night was over and he finally had you alone. He smiled sweetly. Listened well.
“If you kiss him, let him get a taste of me right ‘ere,” Joel had murmured to you, right before he slid his spent, slippery cock between your lips. You were on your knees for him, for some reason, feeling ashamed.
“OK, Joel. But I— I need to go. He’ll be expecting me.”
“Want me to walk you up?” Frankie asked presently.
You blinked.
The date was over and you were standing outside of your apartment building, brooding over a man who probably hadn’t spared you a thought since his cock had softened and he’d trudged back up to bed. You nodded weakly.
“Sure. Yeah. Of course.”
You ascended the stairs with Frankie in tow and remembered how Joel still hadn’t kissed you on the lips in the whole seven months he’d been spending between your legs. He hadn’t kissed you tonight, even after he’d pulled out of your mouth and tapped your lower lip with the head of his cock, like a smug and too-proud asshole.
“If a guy likes you, he’ll kiss you,” Joel told you, as if to rub salt in the still-aching wound. “Now, if Frankie does, he’ll get to see I came first. And if you take him home…”
The man’s words trailed off as you rose to your feet. You were barely standing a moment before two thick, callused fingers pushed back between your folds. You flinched when they glided down your slit and then pressed into your leaking cunt. As if trying to plug it up, and shove some more of his cum inside, Joel grinned while working his digits deeper. You rolled your eyes.
“…and if you let him lick you here, he’ll taste me again.”
You nearly shuddered at the memory. It had felt good.
Frankie’s hand was at your lower back now, guiding you out of the stairwell and into the hallway. One more turn around a corner and you’d be back home again. Left with the dilemma of whether to invite this nice man in or not.
You swallowed.
Together, you approached your apartment door.
“I had a nice time tonight,” Frankie said, smile bright.
“Me too,” you replied. And you meant it when you said it.
You had had such a good time tonight that you wished it wasn’t Joel Miller on your mind at the end of it. You wished you wanted better for yourself than someone who sought no deeper part of your life than the seven or eight he could squeeze inside you. It was absurd, really.
To be thinking of him when the man in front of you now was all hopeful looks and genuine wanting—another date, maybe? What the hell was wrong with you?
Just as you were about to purse your lips and wage the internal war on whether to invite Frankie in for drinks, your mind was made for you. No sooner had you placed your palm on the door than the thing was pulled inward—swinging open, and causing you to stumble sideways.
“Evenin’, you two.”
The asshole had never sounded more cheerful in his life.
He’d just opened your apartment door from the inside, and you’d nearly fallen straight into his chest. Luckily, you’d righted yourself before that had happened. You stepped backward, beside Frankie, your eyes wide.
Since when the fuck did he have a key to your—
Oh. Right. When you gave it to him last month.
Fuck.
“Joel,” you hissed, gaze narrowing again. “What are yo—”
“Thanks for gettin’ her back safe, Frank. I appreciate it.”
Frankie stood back, half-awed and half-confused.
He turned to you. “Wait. Is this your, uh…”
Joel smirked. Your cheeks burned.
“Pain in the ass? Yeah,” you grumbled shortly, before Joel could cut in. Then, glaring daggers at the man standing inside your home. “He was just leaving.”
He wasn’t.
You tugged at his shirt, and he wouldn’t budge an inch. Instead of being the one to yank him out, you found your wrist taken up in Joel’s grip and thrust in—toward the warmth of your home, toward him. The door slammed shut behind you both. Joel let go, and you nearly face-planted into your living room sofa. The second you heard the deadbolt click into place, you were scrambling to stand again. Adjusting your skirt—that fucking skirt he had to notice tonight—and seeing Joel turn to face you.
One hand was still on the doorknob.
The other was combing fingers through his hair.
“New rule,” he announced, as if this wasn’t fucking nuts, “No more dates with Frankie Morales. Or anyone else.”
“You fuckin—” you started, sharp.
Joel got closer; you tried to sidestep him. Though the move was deliberate, your motivation was wavering. Half-certain at best. You’d scarcely made it a foot by his body before an arm reached out, and you didn’t fight it.
You let him grab you and pull you toward the bedroom.
Great.
Another useless, mind-numbing night of pleasure.
You’d be strong enough to tell him no, someday.
And by the time you’d resigned yourself to this fate, and swore you’d start dating guys who actually wanted to see you in the light of day sometime soon, you were forced to stop. Joel turned you to face him again.
Before you’d made it to the bed, he redirected your course to your closet. He pointed over to it, stern.
“Now get changed,” he ordered.
What?
“What?”
Your brows pinched together. Joel didn’t flinch.
“For our date. Don’t want you wearin’ the same clothes you had on for him. And I’m takin’ you someplace nicer.”
You didn’t move, even when he drew closer to you.
“We gotta hurry, I already made the reservati—”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind, Miller?”
Your eyes were wide. You needed answers, not instructions on what to do—with him telling you to put on clothes, rather than take them off. For at least the third time that night, you were shocked beyond belief.
“If this is some joke…” you spat, slowly moving back.
Before you could, Joel grabbed your wrists. Gentler than before. He didn’t let you stray too far, but he also didn’t invade your space. His eyes searched yours, and to your surprise, you saw something like sincerity painted there.
“I meant what I said. I’m takin’ you out to dinner, and…”
Joel trailed off, like he’d never spoken the words before. He shook his head to clear it. Then, meeting your gaze once more—and shocking you for the fourth time, said:
“…and if anyone’s takin’ you on a date—or wants to get a taste of you after—it’s gonna be me, honey. Only me.”
You had no idea what to say.
Rounding his numbers out for the night and making it a fifth, Joel surprised you again by leaning in to kiss you.
Summary: Joel knows you. He is also sure he’s never set eyes on you before.
Warnings: joel pov, unspecified age difference, smut (piv, handjob, hand fucking which is different okay, joel has a huge cock and r is into that, extreme horniness and yearning), alcohol consumption, references to domestic abuse, references to cheating, loneliness, grief, kind of a soulmate/we find each other in every universe trope (this will make sense eventually), memory loss-ish, author's loose understanding of tarot cards, a creeping sense of dread
Word Count: 10k
--
The first time Joel sees you, you are wearing a wedding dress.
The moment you enter the bar is an inflection point. All attention is pulled to you in the doorway, the center of the dive bar’s singular focus. All low lighting, glass lamps, and dark wood. He glances up from the scratched surface of the bar, the visions of all the unending miles of road he’d put behind him that day, all the unspooling, desolate road ahead of him, vanishing in an instant.
A pretty bride still in her finery spills through the door with a laugh, head bent against the wind, and everything changes. When you lift your head, Joel sees your face clearly for the first time. The slope of your nose, the angle of your jaw, the shape of your smile, are so familiar he feels like the breath has been knocked out of him.
You are more than a familiar face.
He knows you.
He is certain he’s never laid eyes on you.
Grinning ear to ear, you duck inside the bar in a swirl of hot air. The bell above the door tinkles as it slams shut with a heavy wooden thud. The sparkling heels strapped over your feet are covered in a thin layer of dust; the long lines of your legs are revealed through slits on either side of your gown that extend nearly to your hip bones. He expects to see a groom following close on your heels, hand in hand with you, fawning gaze following your every move.
But the door doesn't open again and you cross the smoky bar alone. Soft yellow light bleeds over your body, gliding over the dips and curves like unseen, phantom hands. Heads turn, watching you pass in a cloud of silk and satin, pearls and lace, flashes of skin beneath ivory white.
There’s a tiny veil pinned back over your head, fluttering in your wake, an emerald ribbon looped around your throat. The ties of the ribbon spill over your collarbone, descend to the low neckline of your dress, dip between your breasts.
You’re still smiling, giggling deliriously, almost hysterically, manically, when you slot yourself between Joel and another man at the bar. Whatever you're laughing about, he doubts it's funny in the least.
A cloud of sage and lavender follows you, seems to cloud thick and warm in the air.
The dress settles around your legs, high slits closing like curtains drawn, and your shimmering skin disappears from view.
Joel watches you from the corner of his eye, curious and wary at once. You are at odds with the rest of the bar, gruff trucker types in worn baseball caps and flannels. Curious eyes hooked into you like a rare, jeweled fish.
The barman seems to know you, says your name with a question mark tagged onto the end. “You all right? Thought you was supposed to be gettin’ married today, girl?”
“Oh, Tom, I’m doing just wonderful,” you croon, in a voice like honey and gold. Joel is sure he’s heard it before, just as he’s sure he’s seen your face. Everything about you is familiar, like a song he’d once known how to play, or heard over a bad radio connection before it was cut short. “I’d like a drink, if you don’t much mind.”
He raises a brow. “Anything in particular?”
“Strongest thing you’ve got,” you request, leaning on your elbows against the bar with crossed arms. Your wrists are looped with jangling bracelets. Your hands are encrusted with rings, silver and gold dappled in light, though your left ring finger remains pointedly unadorned, not even an engagement ring. Joel suddenly suspects a husband won’t be ducking through the door anytime soon. “Don’t be shy.”
Tom lifts a brow and turns away, pouring a double shot into a heavy bottomed glass. He slides it across the wood with a gentle push. The whiskey sloshes against the rim but doesn’t tip out. “Need the courage or somethin’?” There’s a gleam in his eye, amused, taking you for a nervous bride and not an angry one. You’re too busy knocking the drink back, tapping the counter for another pour, to notice his tone, to answer. “Where’s—”
“Oh.” Your laugh is pitched upwards, cutting and self-deprecating. You sway briefly into Joel’s shoulder. Electricity suddenly, near painfully, snaps between you, biting and sharp, like summer heat lightning. You glance over at him, frowning, just for a moment. When your gaze meets his with a tilt of your head, your brows furrow, your breath hitches. “Not a clue,” you continue sharply when you look away from him. “He left me at the fucking altar.”
The energy of the room shifts, eavesdropping ears tilting closer, hungry wolves licking blood wet maws. Desperate, lonely woman.
The second drink goes down as smooth as the first. The glass thumps down solidly onto the counter. The bartender both looks surprised and doesn’t. “Well, shit. Sorry to hear that. He always was a jackass.”
“You haven’t seen him, have you?”
“A couple weeks back maybe.”
You shrug, nonchalance feigned, the barest trembling of your bottom lip before you smile again. “So I’m drowning the hurt,” you say delicately.
“Well, I reckon you’re in good company for drownin’ sorrows, darlin’.”
Joel nurses his drink, watches the pathetic swill of amber trace the bottom of his glass. He tries not to pay you any mind, the commotion you’re attracting to the bar, drawing in all the lonely, suddenly sympathetic men that have been scattered around the room for the better part of the evening. It's near impossible, that lightning feeling lingering, like a divining rod wrought golden thread between you, impossible to cut away.
The bar is suddenly very busy with men who need new drinks, replacements for the warm beer they’ve been nursing for the better part of the evening, taking their time about it too, watching you.
The group that coalesces around you good-naturedly, and self-servingly, offers to cover your tab, buy you another drink. It invites you to share just what the bastard did, assures you that you did not deserve it.
Joel keeps an eye on you. He’s not a jealous man, never has been, especially over someone he doesn't know, but there’s something about the wolf hungry eyes on you that he does not like. Your back is turned to him, a smooth expanse of bare flesh, cut off at the base of your back where satin sits flush with your skin, buttons the color of pale cream tailored to the curve of your body end near the bottom of your spine. He wants to tuck his fingers beneath it.
Your arm brushes his, the weight of it warm against his own, even through the layer of flannel and cotton between you.
A couple of the guys invite you to the corner of the bar they’d been occupying before you arrived, so you don’t have to keep standing in those heels. You seem to know a couple of the men that pass by to give their apologies, greeting them by name, but most of them you don’t. He waits for the bar tender to tell them to fuck off as he's like to do, but he's distracted.
One man tells you that you remind him of his daughter. His voice is oily, and your shoulders tighten in response.
The word daughter echoes, roots beneath his skin, but Joel doesn’t know why. Something more than your discomfort weighs on him, the heel of a hand beneath a fragile jaw pushing upward, shoving his face away from peering too closely at that feeling, that word.
“C’mon, playin’ cards with a few old fellers might take your mind off it.”
You decline, laughing and self-deprecating about it. “I don’t think I’d be very good company.”
“Well, you don’t gotta be.”
Your hip bumps against his knee, slowly but surely backing yourself into a corner.
“Y'all leave her be,” he cuts in, voice soft, not glancing up from the glass in his hand, the last dregs of the whiskey reflecting the red-gold lamplight. An old box TV above the bar drones static next to a flickering neon sign of a jumping rabbit. Down the Rabbit Hole, it says. Lubbock, Texas, beneath.
He can feel their gazes shift to him but he doesn’t look back. “Sorry boys,” you interject, smiling sadly, “I’m really not much company to keep.”
The patrons of the bar retreat reluctantly, only half grumbling about it.
Joel can hardly blame them.
This life is empty, lonely. Company is almost always welcome. Though he isn’t sure he’s ever sought it out, but certainly not like that.
The bar settles back into its natural rhythm for the moment, though your presence is a beacon, a light to shore they’re all keeping a carefully trained eye on. Just in case you changed your mind about their company, their unadorned sympathy.
And him now, too.
The longer he sits there next to you, the more he feels as though he’s seen you before, that he knows you from somewhere.
Your gaze shifts to his, warm and soft with the alcohol blooming beneath your ribs. Your head tilts again. “Well,” you say, the taste of familiarity so thick on your tongue that for a moment he thinks he does know you and he’s about to make an ass of himself. “Thanks are in order. Though I had it handled.”
“They shouldn’t need handlin’,” he grouses.
The pretty, curved, corner of your mouth twitches. “They mean well, even if it’s for their own benefit. It wouldn't have killed me to play cards.”
He laughs dryly and reaches down to pull out the stool beneath you, helps you hitch yourself into the seat. The bare skin of your back sears hot against his palm. “That’s one way of puttin’ it, I reckon. They don't need anyone making excuses.”
Your smile wavers, but only for a moment.
“Do I know you?” You lean closer, peering at his face. “You look so familiar. I know a lot of these guys, but I don’t think I know you.” You press a hand to your chest and glance away, “Oh, God, please say no. After you just defended my honor and all.”
He chuckles, breathes out. It isn’t just him. “No, I — I was just thinkin’ the same thing.”
“Really?”
He grunts in agreement and downs the last bit of whiskey in his glass, feels it pool warm and heavy in his stomach.
“But you don’t know me?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Me either.”
He gestures at your dress. “Sorry about the. . .”
“Yeah,” you straighten and smooth your hands over the ivory material. The supple fabric moves over you like water, the soft inverted bow of your waist, the swell of your chest against the low neckline. “Right? What a waste of a good dress.”
Joel chuckles. “You seem to be takin’ it well, considering.”
“My spirits are likely to come crashing down the second I stop to think about it. But for now, drinking ‘til I’m sick’ll do. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but all I can think is that it’s his damn loss.”
“Seems like it probably is.”
That makes you smile, shift happily in your seat.
Whatever your answer is, is interrupted by the man on your other side. He tries to buy you another drink, but you decline with a wave of your hand, so pretty about it that it almost doesn’t sting. “Thank you but I may topple right out of my heels if I keep this up.” You turn immediately back to Joel, the swell of jealous stares almost palpable at your back, that your emotionally compromised attention has been so thoroughly, accidentally, captured.
That his own fascination is mirrored back at him is maybe the best fortune he’s had in awhile.
You lean in conspiratorially, and Joel sees double for a moment, your image splitting off like a divided cell before you come back together. You and not you, like a glimpse of you from another life. Like the echo of a memory he lost along some deserted highway long ago.
Jesus, whatever had been in his glass was stronger than he thought, or, maybe you are that radiant, like heat shimmering off the earth in summer air. Maybe he just wants it to be true, has become that pathetically lonely. Something in his chest aches, an empty place he can't name.
“Did you see how much he poured for me? Tom’s always had a heavy hand. How many shots would you say that was?”
He studies your empty glass, still clasped between your hands. “At least five, I’d reckon. Between the two he poured ya.”
You laugh; the sound is like a siren call, beckoning him closer to a rocky shore. You’re still peering at him curiously, something feline in the tilt of your head, the weight of your gaze. It settles warmer than the whiskey, burns brighter going down his throat.
“Sorry,” you murmur, your breath ghosting over his lips with how close you lean, willing his features to match someone in your memory. He knows that’s what you’re doing because he’s attempting the same. He feels like he’s supposed to know you, that he does. He’s just forgotten. “I’m being rude,” you blink and shake your head, straightening in your seat again, breaking the spell just a little. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Didn’t catch yours neither.”
You offer your ring adorned hand, nails that could scratch out eyes, tiny tattoos on three of your fingers that extend onto your wrist. He takes your hand, palm engulfing yours. Your skin is smooth and warm against his rough hand. Your name is like the toll of a gently rung bell, placed delicately against his ear, calling him toward prayer, devotion, home.
“Joel,” he answers.
You hum, a caress in the back of your throat. “Are you sure we don’t know each other?”
“Think I’d remember you.”
You smile. “And why’s that?” Mirth glitters deep in your eyes. You aren’t as flippant, or as drunk, as you might seem.
He doesn’t answer, fiddling with his glass instead, the center of his palm like ice where your skin met his. “I think I’d remember you too,” you admit. “Just for the record. I feel like I do. Joel.”
His name slips off your tongue separate from the rest of your words, a statement unto itself, tucked in your cheek like a pearl for safekeeping.
“Joel,” you say again, testing the stretch of his name, hands fluttering like anxious birds, like you could cup the letters in your palms, bring them to your mouth, swallow them down. “I like that. It fits.”
The shimmering golden cord stretching like silk between you pulls taut, coiling around his throat until he feels like he might choke.
“Joel,” you say again, weighing the sound with a sigh, though he can’t begin to guess what measure you’re taking of it, him. He’s heard it before, he thinks, his name spoken so sweetly on your tongue. You tilt into his side, head tipping down toward his shoulder like it’s too heavy for you to keep holding up. “Seems I’m very popular. A sad girl is a good lay, after all.”
He clears his throat, shifts just a little on the stool. You laugh, and seem to take pleasure in his discomfort, examining him from beneath your lashes when you lift your head, metallic clung fingers cupped around your empty glass.
“So, where are you heading, Joel?”
“How do you know I’m not from here?”
“You could be.” You shrug, “But Tom is the only real permanent fixture around here.”
“Seems like you might be one too.”
You smile and fidget with the glass, running your nail from the base to the rim and back again, a soft tinkling sound following in its wake. He can’t help but think of your hand somewhere else, tracing those nails from root to tip. He shakes his head to dispel the thought.
It isn’t like him, none of this is.
“I am. . .permanently impermanent. Follow seasonal work, I guess. I can’t seem to settle down anywhere,” you say to the bar top, the warm, humid air. “But when I pass through here, I always stop.”
“West Texas,” he muses, “Not the kind of place people usually stop.” You hum softly in agreement. “Seems a mighty lonely place to get married, anyway. You got family here or somethin’?”
You shake your head. “I’m lonely either way,” you warble, like the beginning of a song. “We were supposed to get married in Vegas a couple months ago. But—” Your mouth snaps shut like a steel trap around whatever you had been about to say. Your shoulders heave with a sigh, the swell of your breasts straining at the low line of your dress. Your whole body moves with the weight of that sigh. “We were in this pretty little town couple hours west of here, and thought, why not here, y’know? After it all happened,” you spread your hands, bracelets clanging together faintly. “I just. . .got in my car and drove. Told myself it was over for good—” you snarl the word, venomous. “Ended up here.”
Your eyes shift to his again. “A place to sleep, drinks,” you slap your hand against the scarred bar, “and a gas station. What else do I need? And Tom always takes good care of me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well usually. He was distracted but that’s why you got thrown into my path today. Things always work out that way. They didn’t mean anything anyway.” You tilt your head at him. “So where are you heading next? Distract me.”
The air ripples, like something thick and viscous layering over his vision, blurring it, tunneling it. The road behind him is murky, all the same, one truck stop after another, miles and miles and miles of endless highway. It all blends together, and maybe that’s why he’s got no fucking clue where he picked up the last load. Or, where he’s supposed to be hauling it to.
He pushes the thoughts away. He’s tired, that’s all. The endless visions of roads without end play on every long haul trucker’s mind.
Of never getting home. Home, which is—
“East,” he answers vaguely.
Joel blinks and the hazy film disappears. East doesn’t really seem right either. Maybe he’s drunker than he feels.
Your head is tilted again, inquisitive in your watchfulness. A smile slips into place on your face. The radiance returns. It’s like looking into the goddamn sun. He blinks and the uncertainty recedes, water pulling back from a terrible, teeth-lined shore. “I was thinking west,” you muse. “After this. Maybe north.”
“Back the way you came?”
You nod, looking wistful, contemplative.
Joel glances away from your profile, the slow rise and fall of your lungs, the vast expanse of your skin. You shift forward on your seat, toes brushing the ground as you stand, fishing out a wad of cash from somewhere to smack down onto the bar top.
An odd anxiety squeezes at his chest. The feeling isn’t necessarily unfamiliar, but the cause is. It just isn’t like him to feel so intensely about a stranger. He tightens his hand around the glass so as not to reach out and grab your hand, beg you to keep him company a little while longer. He thinks you both could use it.
“Hey,” you say, pressing a hand to his forearm. “Could I read your fortune?”
He turns to meet your penetrating gaze. Your lashes cast shadows across your cheekbones, like feathers falling across your face. “My fortune.”
You produce a pack of cards, spirited from the same place the money came from, he thinks, until he follows your hands down and glimpses a triangle of green poking out from the side of your dress, stuck against the glimmering skin between your breasts.
Jesus.
There’s something about you, and he is only a man.
You fan the cards out on the bar and then flick them back together. They aren’t cards he’s familiar with. “Tarot,” you say. “If you sit at a table with me. And if you’re interested, of course.”
“Why?”
You tilt your head, eyes darkening when you meet his. “I’m curious.”
Joel stands and offers you his arm before he realizes what he’s doing. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to think about the road he doesn’t remember or where he’s headed next, and, that he would like to keep you company, that he doesn’t want the warm stretch of golden thread between you to snap.
He ushers you to a booth in the corner.
You seat yourself gracefully on the sunken, worn red leather seat. He takes the seat across from you. The glass green lamp above the table is tilted slightly toward you, ringing you in a fractured golden light, luminous, like a brightly colored bird.
Straight-backed and elegant in this dive bar in the middle of nowhere, you flick the cards in your hands quickly before glancing up at him again. “Joel,” you say, breaking his name in half, over enunciating. Like a snake oil salesman buying her own product. A little bit of a liar. “If you have a question or a problem in your life, hold it in your mind,” you say, still flicking the cards between your fingers, showing off a little.
Blank, empty, unspooling highways like knitted silk stitched into the earth. It seems like there’s never been anything before this bar, that there won’t be anything after it either.
“Do you have it?”
“Sure,” he answers, but there’s nothing there, nothing but blank spaces and empty roads to fill his mind.
Your foot touches his beneath the table, the side of your bare calf against denim. If you notice, you don’t show it. The warmth of you seeps into him. And maybe he should pull away, but it feels too good, like the aching stretch of sore muscle. He tucks his ankle behind yours.
He’s watching your face, would swear that your mouth twitches.
“Liar.”
“What?”
“You don’t have a question.”
“Suppose I don’t.”
You shuffle the cards restlessly, flicking and flipping with a practiced finesse. Hooded, watchful eyes flash at him from the backs of the thick card stock, your ringed hands winking in the low light.
The movement stops all at once, his gaze pulled to your face as you smack the deck down. “Joel,” you chastise gently, reaching up to unpin the little veil from your hair instead. The smooth arch of your arms above your head is hypnotic; the taut glowing flesh like a calling card. Your breasts lift with the movement, the ribbon quivers at your throat.
His cock twitches, and he shifts uneasily, glancing away. It’s unlike him, this desperation, connection, maybe connection born of desperation.
Joel has never been infatuated by anyone. He doesn’t know you and the feelings lurching to the forefront of his mind are always ones that have taken months to cultivate, fingers of desire dredged up by character.
He doesn’t much care for the feeling; like that of a lecherous man waiting for your guard to drop.
The veil flutters as you lie it on the table, stroking your nails against the delicate material, reminding him that you were meant to become someone’s wife today. Now nothing more than a marionette bride with her strings cut.
“Take your time. It’s not going to work otherwise.”
He sighs through his nose and leans back against the seat.
“It doesn’t have to be a question, exactly,” you explain. “Just focus your thoughts somewhere, on something.”
“All right.”
Your mouth quirks. “You got something this time?” You ask, taking up the cards again, shuffling them slowly now, without any showmanship.
He thinks of long winding roads, a horizon that never seems any closer, and you. The mystery phantom connection to you.
“Got it,” he answers softly.
Your leg presses more firmly into his. “This is just a basic spread,” you explain, still shuffling the cards. “Past, present, future.”
He nods and your fingers freeze around the cards, doling out three in a line.
You set your deck aside and examine them closely, inclining your head over them so a shadow obscures them. He wouldn’t know what the pictures on them mean anyway.
“You don’t have children do you?”
“No,” he answers.
Children.
“No,” he repeats, louder this time. “Don’t think I’d do any kid much good, anyway.”
You glance at him, that bird-like expression, hands fluttering like the guttering of a candle. “Why?”
A blank fills whatever his answer is supposed to be, dark, voided. “Ain’t ever home, am I?” He settles on.
“Hm,” you glance down at the cards again, touching the corners of them each in turn, adjusting them slightly so they’re perfectly straight, a neat little line. The cards, he notices when he peels his eyes away from your face, are beautiful. Hand painted, meticulously rendered, painstakingly detailed art. You pick up the deck and flip out three more, layering them over the first set of cards, covering his past, present, future with a new one.
You glance up at him and point to each card without looking. “You suffered a great loss recently that you aren’t sure how to move on from. You feel stuck and hopeless, like you’re living in a terrible feedback loop.” Your palm hovers over the future cards before you lower your hand and split them apart with pointer and middle fingers. “The future is murky. You have two paths ahead of you.”
He shakes his head, “Bunch of mumbo jumbo.”
Seemingly in spite of yourself, a laugh shakes your shoulders, presses in your mouth into a smile, your eyes into a squint. “The cards don’t lie, Joel,” you admonish. “They are being very clear.”
“Bullshit,” he chuckles. “Pretty convenient the future is the only one with two paths.”
You bite the inside of your cheek. “Well, nothing is set in stone. I could do another reading tomorrow and you might have something completely different. Your past might change too, depending on how you view it.”
Joel rolls his eyes. “Cards are pretty, anyhow.”
“Thank you,” you beam so brightly it blinds him. The earnestness in your voice is swollen and sweet, like you’ve never heard a compliment before. You half the deck and pluck up a card to pass to him, very carefully not disturbing the spread before you. “I painted them myself.”
“Shit, well, color me impressed.” The card is sturdy, tactile with mounds of thick paint beneath his fingers, intricately detailed. Two golden cups, dotted with green jewels, delicate, impossibly soft looking pink silk wrapped around them.
You hum. “Interesting.”
He glances up from the card to find you leaning across the table, slowly blinking down at his card. He’s shocked by your presence again. Your lips part gently and he glimpses your teeth, the pink press of your tongue. “What?”
Your eyes move to his, a shy, embarrassed look tracing over your features. “Just funny. I pulled the two of cups for you.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Thought you didn’t believe in my cards?”
“Humor me.”
You side step his question. “You know, I usually make people pay for the privilege of a reading.”
“This the seasonal work you mentioned?”
Your eyes shimmer. “Something like that.” You’re taking his teasing as it is, good natured, but he can see you believe in those cards, the way your attention cuts to them worriedly before fixing back on him again.
“What do I owe you, sweetheart?” He asks softly. “I pay for good work.”
You laugh. “You don’t even believe in this good work.”
“No,” he agrees. “Don’t mean you didn’t do somethin’ for me.”
You shift happily. “That’s good enough for me, actually, Joel.”
“So, what do I owe ya?”
“Another drink?”
He’s already standing, fishing for his wallet in his back pocket. You could have asked for a star from the sky and he would have found some way to catch one for you just then.
.
.
.
Time slips away like it was never there to begin with. The night feels impossibly long and frustratingly short at once. The bar is like it’s own little world, painfully intimate and warm, like a hazy memory re-watched on that grainy old box television flickering above the bar.
It doesn’t help that familiar feeling in his gut, like you’re an old flame he’s seeing again after so many years apart, intensifies as the night wears on.
He's got an early day, dusty, lonely miles that need covered, but because you keep drinking, Joel does too. He holds his liquor better than you do, but figures that’s all right, if only for this one night. If anyone deserves to get lost in a bottle, it’s you.
You read his fortune again and again and claim that it’s always the same.
Smoke loops above your head in lazy rings from someone’s cigarette, softening your features in the already low lighting. “I don’t know what to tell you, Joel,” you shake your head, staring down at the reshuffled cards, three in a line for the umpteenth time that evening. You sway a little in your seat, eyes glassy. “They just don’t lie.”
The two of cups card still lies by his elbow; he picks it up and holds out his hand for the deck you’re reshuffling.
You hand them over without question, cup your face in your hands and watch him shuffle your deck, flick through the miniature paintings one by one carefully. “I reimagined some of them,” you explain. “Not that you could know the difference,” you add teasingly.
A tower on fire, a moon surrounded by fish chasing their tails, the downy silence of a cloaked woman with a lantern on a snowy plain. On the reverse of each, that hooded, lined all-seeing eye.
“I reckon yours are better by any measure,” he answers. “Why don’t you let me read your fortune?”
When you don’t immediately answer, he glances up to find you peering at him, something wanting faintly distressed in your eyes. “That’s sweet of you to say,” you murmur, your bottom lip trembling very slightly again, twisting the loose ends of the emerald ribbon around your throat through your fingers.
Joel nods. “You all right?”
“I am. . .” you start, looking away, dropping the green strip of cloth. It flutters against your chest, the tail of it disappearing between your breasts.
You cross your arms over your stomach, like you could hold yourself together by force alone. “I can’t believe this is what it took for me to realize.” Anger clouds your face for a moment, brows knitted, teeth bared. “What he did to me. All the shit he put me through—” Like before, you stop yourself, lips pressing tightly together, swallowing back acid, censoring something.
He wonders where you’re keeping that anger, why you’re forcing it back down your throat when you have every right to let it loose. You don’t have the air of a scorned woman left at the altar so much as a relieved one.
You gather yourself and straighten primly. “My. . .well, my nothing now, I guess. He never liked my art. And he certainly never let me read his fortune.”
A bitter seed grows in your throat, choking your voice. Broken promises aside, it seems like he wasn’t that good to you. Joel isn’t aware he moved until his hand is closed around yours. “His damn loss.”
For a long minute, you assess each other, eyes held in other’s kind gaze, the folds of your hands bound together, gold thread wrapping around your wrists.
You cover the knot of your tangled hands with your free one.
It’s the alcohol running warm through his blood; it’s just the loneliness that plagues the life of a long haul trucker like a wraith. Lonelier than he realized, apparently. How long has he been on the road now? It feels like forever, always.
Eventually, you blink away, slide your palms from beneath his.
Joel pulls back too, shuffles the cards a final time and then lies three of them in a row, just as you had for him. The last card gives him pause, feels like an omen.
“Six of cups,” you murmur, looking at the cards, pointing to each one as you say its name, “wheel of fortune, death.”
“Jesus.”
“It doesn’t mean death literally,” you explain. “It’s more metaphorical.”
Something loosens in his chest. “All right, well, what’s it mean?”
Your gaze is a complicated tangle of emotion as you run your nail over the cards, skewing them from their places. “It means I break the cycle or I’m an idiot.”
Before he has a chance to ask you what cycle you should be breaking, you’re peeling yourself up from your seat. “Now I owe you a drink, Joel. Beer again?”
He nods. “That’s fine, sweetheart.”
You teeter in your heels a little, laughing as you trip away. The long slashes up the sides of your dress part, revealing a long, sleek line of leg that he’d like to touch, rub his knuckles against, to run his tongue along—
He shakes himself, watches the sway of your body instead, the slope of your waist and hips, graceful and graceless at once.
He watches you at the bar, laughing and talking with a couple that drifted in a couple hours ago, with Tom, the long length of your spine a knotted, elegant ridge.
You return to the table with a beer in one hand and a glass of something orange in the other that you had clearly cajoled the bartender into making for you, at odds with the swill of whiskey and beer usually on order.
“Last call,” you inform him as you half trip into the booth next to him, instead of across the table, settle right against his arm along the back of the booth, like you’ve always been there. “Good thing, probably. I’m really drunk.”
He laughs, then wonders how bad off he’ll be when he stands up again. “How long we got?”
“Hour.”
You turn to him, crossing your legs beneath the table, that pretty sheaf of fabric falls between your legs, shows miles of skin. “You got a way home?”
“Do you?”
“I’ll sleep in the truck.”
“I’m in a motel down the road.”
“How you plan on gettin’ there?”
You roll your eyes. “It’s not like it’s your problem, you know.”
“Call it my problem.”
Something like amusement dances in your eyes, makes you glance away from him. “You know,” you say, “I think you’re more concerned about me than husband-to-be ever was.”
“Then he probably wasn’t worth marryin’ in the first place.”
“No,” you agree softly, eyes flickering over his face, “Probably not. I’m gonna walk it.”
“Walk?”
You nod and suddenly gulp down that violent orange color in your glass before standing, leaning over the table to clumsily collect your tarot cards and the veil you’d abandoned early in the night. The cards are wrapped lovingly within the lace. “Yep, so I better get going.”
“I'm gonna walk you."
“What?”
“You’re gonna get murdered walkin’ along a highway at night like that.”
“Like what?”
Like a woman alone in the middle of nowhere in a wedding dress. Like a homing signal for unwanted attention and trouble. You seem to know that, though. Like you were hoping to take a gamble. “Like a missing bride,” he grumbles instead.
“Then people will probably just think I’m some lady in white haunting every trucker’s dreams.”
“You’re startin’ to haunt mine,” he complains.
You giggle.
Joel stands with some effort, the room tilting around him as he straightens. You catch your arms around him, only kind of helping keep him upright considering the weight of you tipped pleasantly back against his side. “Doesn’t look like you’d be much help anyway.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. He hasn’t drank like this since he was in high school, since before—
What? A blank, empty, space in his memory.
“What the hell did I drink?”
“About a whole bottle of whiskey, I think. And some beer. You hold it well, considering.”
Your hands are still on him, palms against his back and chest, warm, startlingly familiar. A feeling he never wants to loose, he knows suddenly and with clarity. The night is drawing to a close, like a door tipping shut in his face. If you slip away, he'll never see you again. "C'mon, let's get a move on."
“Are you insisting?”
“I am.”
“Then we better hold onto each other.”
.
.
.
A full moon hangs low in a dusky purple sky, palest white, cream around the edges, like a poor imitation of your wedding dress. The June air is warm and dry, faint and careful, like a held breath. The world looks vast in the blue of the night, all wheeling stars and flattened miles, Indian grass and coneflowers gathered in little coronas on the shoulder of the road.
You walk barefoot beside him, cradling your shoes and tarot cards. He’s worried about your feet but this must be the cleanest stretch of two lane highway in the country because there’s nothing in your path to mind. Not glass, not cigarette butts, not strewn trash, like something knew your feet would be coming this way and swept it away just for you.
The motel is a desolate little thing that appears out of the night. He’s passed it before, the blinking neon pink vacancy sign a marker of a halfway point to somewhere. Down the Rabbit Hold Motel. Never noticed it was the same name as the bar.
“Are you from Texas, Joel?” You ask, balancing on the white line that demarcates the edge of the road.
“Yeah, not Lubbock, though.”
“Where?”
“Arlington. Austin.”
“Both?”
“One then the other,” he answers.
“You sound like Texas.”
“And that’s how I know you ain’t from here.”
It earns him a laugh but not an answer; just the loop and lean of your shoulder into his.
Things look further away than they are, when the world goes this flat, but all at once you’re in the parking lot of the motel, painted in alternating pink and flashing purple. “I guess,” you start, coming to a halt at a set of stairs, a soft breeze swirling around you. The smell of chlorine hangs heavily in the air, the undulating blue-green of a swimming pool down the tunnel created by walkways between buildings. “I don’t really like to be from anywhere.”
“Why?”
“Gives you too much to lose, I guess.” You shrug, eyes and thoughts far away, drifting. “But it doesn’t give other people much to hang onto either.”
“Yeah.”
“I should let you go. Sure you’ve got a long drive in the morning.” You glance over your shoulder, taking one step up the staircase behind you. Joel has to tilt his head up, to keep his gaze on yours. “I promise not to become a wandering ghost bride, okay? Thanks for humoring me and taking care of me. I think. . .I got really lucky tonight. With you.”
“Sure.”
The reality that he will likely never see you again pinches inward, nudges some other loss forward in his chest that he can’t name, can’t match a memory to. You both keep standing there, breathing in that hot air, waiting for the other to break that fragile bone, let the unkept marrow spill into the dirt.
“You could sleep it off,” you offer. “Here. Don’t want you becoming a ghost either.”
He should not want to stay; he should not care about you at all.
He’s reaching for you before you’ve even extended your hand.
.
.
.
The door snaps closed behind you, leaving you stranded in complete darkness.
There is only the warmth of your body close to his, the feeling of your breath against his mouth. The sage and lavender scent of you wraps around you both, undercut with the smoky smell of the bar, the faint salty sweat of your skin.
For a moment, neither of you move or speak. The two of you cocooned together in dark that makes up the whole world. “Are you sure we don’t know each other?” You ask, chest rising and falling against his in the narrow, short entryway of the room. Your voice is a whisper, breathy and catching, like it’s a secret you aren’t supposed to tell.
“Been wonderin’ that all night.”
“At least I’m not alone then.”
Your shoes clatter out of your hands; he isn’t sure what became of those cards that spelled truths.
You wobble into him in the dark with a soft grunt and laugh. Joel catches you and reaches under your arm to grope at the wall for a light switch. His fingers brush your ribs, the delicate satin and lace stitched there, and feels the shaky inhale of your lungs against his fingertips, the wanting arch of you.
He’s almost disappointed when he finds the switch. You squint at him through the harsh overhead light, ringing you in floating dust motes and tempered butter yellow light. The length of your body is still pressed against his, supple as a branch of willow. Your lashes are long against your cheekbones, casting shadows across your skin, your parted lips.
It’s the alcohol, he thinks, desperately, for how far outside himself he feels, unearned attachment to a woman he only met a couple of hours ago, like a sticky, sweet web being knitted between his ribs. Growing a cocoon to keep you close, safe.
A trembling breath passes your lips before you step back, shaking your head, and move further into the room, disappearing in its dimness. “Sorry.”
Joel feels bereft, empty and alone, though you’re right there. He clears his throat and nods. “Yeah.”
He toes off his boots, kicks them next to your abandoned heels tipped on their sides, the needle thin points scuffed.
The room flashes pink from the vacancy sign outside, a pulse of heady light that makes his head ache. Joel yanks the curtains closed, plunges the room into soft gray, the green glow of an alarm clock on the bedside table.
“Thanks,” you say from the bathroom, voice echoing strangely within. “Sorry for. . . would you mind helping me with this?"
The bathroom door is open, more gray light leaking from within, trembling on the air.
Your back is turned, eyes meeting his in the mirror that occupies the entire wall above the counter, one arm bent behind your back, fruitlessly scrabbling at the buttons practically stitched to your skin.
He brushes your hand away and works the little cream buttons out of their loops. It feels forbidden, unearned. You were supposed to become someone else's wife today.
“How the hell did you get this on?”
“One of the housekeepers took pity on me. At the other place I was staying.”
When he glances up from the buttons that descend worryingly low on your spine, you're watching him, eyes shadowed and far away.
He pushes the last button through its eyelet and steps back, tempted to push his hands inside the fabric, feel your breath, still pulsating nervously in your lungs, the tension laced through the static air like a knife against a tightrope.
To his surprise, you don't wait for him to leave.
You let the dress fall from your frame, wriggling a little to get it past the curve of your ass before it pools at your feet in a heap of silk. He follows the long line of your legs to your hips and ribs, the lacy, white underwear that sit high on your hips, a garter looped around the top of one thigh, the vast expanse of your back, a ribboning of another tattoo on your ribs.
"Pathetic, right?" You say.
That is probably the last word in the world he'd use to describe what he's looking at, shamelessly, another man's almost-wife. His bride at the very least.
He glances into the mirror, watches your hands slide over the curves of your body, shocked by his own appearance in the glass. He looks unkept, especially next to you, graying hair curling wildly behind his ears, beard in desperate need of a trim, the bags beneath his eyes so purple and thick they seem to carry their own shadow. Rumpled flannel, dark jeans. You aren't the one he'd call pathetic.
He looks wolfish beside you in the mirror, so pretty and prim and swathed in so much lace. He wants to bend you over the counter, push into you slowly, peel away these final layers of fabric and chase away any notion of a dark thought from your mind. Blot out the memory of any other man, any other person, you'd ever been with. He wants to hear your shuttering breaths repeat his name, on a loop, desperate and untamed.
The wold feels small again, like if he walked away right now, he'd find nothing but an endless black void outside this motel room.
"It's not like I'm a virgin or anything," you say with a scoff. "But it would have been our first time seeing each other married, y'know?" Your hands travel over your waist, dotted, Joel finally notices, pulled from the haze of his own lust, bruises. Along the passageways of your ribs, the swell of your hips, the upper, outer skin of your thighs.
He inhales sharply, but you don't seem to notice.
"Pathetic," you murmur again, voice only a little slurred now, thicker with emotion than alcohol. Sobriety is slowly encroaching on you both. "To try so hard with a man that didn't care at all."
"It ain't you that's pathetic, darlin', trust me on that." He tries to smooth out the hard edge in his voice, water over a stone, like a caress poached in steel.
Joel isn't sure if he should mention it, like broaching the subject might make it real for you.
You're nodding at yourself in the mirror, fidgeting with the emerald ribbon around your throat, the long, velvet threads pasted against your clavicle, the sloping inward curve of your breasts. Your gaze slips from your body to his eyes; you finally see what he does, hands flattening against your skin like you could hide it.
"Darlin'—"
"You think I'm stupid."
"No."
"To let him do it."
"You didn't let him do anything."
"I did, though," you answer, desperate, shaking your head. "I did."
Joel frowns, opens his mouth to ask what you mean, when you trip out of your dress, a sad heap of wishes on the tile floor. He catches you in his arms, supple and warm. "It's my fault, when he. . ." you trail off. "It's my fault."
He rubs your back. "It ain't. You're all right."
Joel expects you to pull away but when you tilt your face up to his, you let out that same shaky breath. "God," you murmur, lifting a hand to his face. Your fingers are like ice. "Why does it feel like this? Why do you feel so familiar?"
"Hell if I know."
Your chest hitches. "I feel like I'm cheating," you admit. "I was supposed to become a wife today."
To an abuser, he thinks. To someone that would lay hands on your precious skin. That hurt you in so many other ways, if what you hinted at was just the beginning of it.
Even if you were cheating, Joel thinks, he wouldn't give a damn. He fits his hands against your ribs, the bruised peach flesh, feels you tense and then relax. "No," he coos. "You ain't doin' anything wrong." Self-serving, but true, he walks backward with you in his arms.
He shouldn't have sex with you, not the way you are right now, but that door is closing, the night is ending, the rabbit hole he jumped into did have a bottom and your both plummeting toward it, back to driving endless seas of blacktop. Of gas stations and truck stops and bars and motels, of bridges and highways and diners and ferries and toll plazas, of route after route of lonely road, truck after truck delivered to empty grocery stores, dying malls, the end of the Earth itself. Nothing beyond cheap cups of coffee, nights spent alone without somewhere to eventually crawl back to at the end of it all.
There's nothing else, just him and the road.
He's never going to see you again; can see the same thought reflected in your eyes, the terrible, ferocious want.
Joel turns and backs you toward the bed, until the backs of your knees hit the mattress. You push a hand against his chest and sit delicately, fingers drifting down as you do, until they hook in his belt.
"Show you mine if you show me yours?" You tease, hands shaking a little.
Despite it all, Joel chuckles. "Sounds like a fair deal."
You release his belt and lean back on your palms to watch him.
He remembers the monstrous thing in the mirror, the state of him, but if you notice, or mind, you don't show it. When he pulls off the flannel and then t-shirt, he only smells his soap and deodorant, the salt scent of skin and day old cologne. Your eyes follow every movement, something reaching deep in your irises, like you want to jump him, break open something precious with your teeth and drink it down.
Your attention feels raw, tender, wanton and slick. The buckle clinks as he pulls his belt through the loops of his jeans.
He's half hard when he untucks himself, strokes his length, eyes on your face.
"What?" He says. "Your boyfriend have a small dick?"
"You have a big cock." Your tongue pushes pink against your bottom lip, eyes not leaving him.
"Uh-huh."
You glance up then, pressing your hands to his thighs, trailing them up to his belly and back. "Oh, c'mon, Joel," you laugh, "you have to know."
He clears his throat, face warm like he's some horny teenager.
Whatever he's going to say is lost forever in the folds of that moment, because you lean forward and lick the head slowly, like you're taste testing a sweet. He jerks at the feeling of your tongue, belly lurching with it. "Christ."
You look up at him, before leaning in to spit on him, on the palm of your hand. The tight ring of your fist squelches around him. "Someone has definitely told you that you have a huge cock."
If they have, he can't remember it at that precise moment, distracted as it were. You cup his balls in your other hand, massaging and then squeezing just tight enough to make him grunt. You lean forward and kiss his stomach, along the line of his waist.
He covers your hand, forces your pace to slow, then stop. You cup both hands around him and let him thrust into your still palms. You watch, looking dazed, lips parted. "Fuck," you whisper. "Oh, fuck."
And Joel hasn't even touched you yet.
He pulls away, pushes you gently back on the bed, fumbling with the fastening of your bra behind your back until it unsnaps. "Doin' good, honey. So good."
You preen, bloom like a flower seeing the sun. "I want you to fuck me."
"'Course you do," he agrees, nodding as he runs his hands over your ribs, those dark clouds on your skin. "I'll give it to you, baby."
When he tugs your bra up your arms and tosses it to the side, his cock twitches against your thigh. Beautiful seems a meek, watery kind of word for what you are. Ethereal, otherworldly. You have silver bars pierced through your nipples. "Look at you," he coos, lowers his head to suck on pebbled nipple into his mouth. You taste like salt and iron, as tangy as blood, the scent of sage and lavender drifting up from your throat, the space between your breasts.
You moan, a loud, rapturous sound that goes right to his dick. He thrusts against your covered pussy, the lace dragging against the sensitive head. You bury your hands in his hair, tugging, pushing your chest up into his mouth like you'd like to be swallowed whole. Joel rolls your other nipple between his fingers before turning his mouth there, sliding his tongue down your stomach to your navel.
A gasp like your first breath of air when he licks over your drenched underwear, the inside of your thigh.
"Hold on," you mumble. "Wait."
He pulls back, watches the twist of your muscle as you reach for something on the bedside table. "Let me."
Joel sits back on his knees, let's you roll on the condom with a touch so tender he isn't sure he's ever been touched at all.
You lay back and Joel tugs your underwear off, soaked so bad they're nearly translucent. "Ain't she pretty," he says of your glistening pussy, dripping onto the bed. "Anybody ever tell you how pretty?"
"No."
"C'mon," he mocks softly. "Somebody musta told you before how pretty she is."
"Oh ha ha," you gasp and spread your cunt open with two fingers. Your hole convulses, pulses, and he finds some measure of pride at making you so desperate and hungry, needy and empty. "Please fuck me, Joel. I promise I'll never tell you again how you have a huge fucking cock."
He chuckles but any levity is drained from between you when he notches himself at your entrance. You are unbearably tight and hot, instinct begging him to split you in two, bury himself so deeply inside you, that you can't be pulled apart.
Instead, he works himself inside slowly, in increments, watching your face for discomfort, bottoming out quick when naked bliss parts your face. He's not going to last inside the wet, dark, heat of your body, your pulsing cunt.
He pulls back and slams into you, watching you tits bounce with each desperate thrust of his hips flush against yours, knees anchored on his hips.
Your head lolls back, a moan choked tight in your throat. The green ribbon is askew now, trailing midway down your belly.
When he pulls on one end and the tie goes slack, he almost expects your throat to split open, your head to tilt horribly, like a folktale he once new. He groans at the sight of your bare neck, pulls away to lift one of your legs, ankle pressed to his shoulder so he can sink that much deeper, fingers rubbing messily against your swollen little clit.
"Come for me, sweetheart, let me feel it."
Your throat strains and Joel grunts, feeling the curl of his own pleasure tracing along his spine, teasing and pressing.
Your cunt contracts like a vise, a violent shutter wrenching your body up from the bed in an arch, a cry bursting from your mouth like a trapped moth.
He comes hard inside you, vision going black with the hot fingers of pleasure spreading outwards through his body, thrusting inside you until you loosen and go slack. "You okay?" He asks, breathing hard as he lowers your leg from his shoulder.
"Yes," you breathe.
"Gonna pull out now."
"M'kay." Sleepy, warm voice, tucked against his collarbone.
He laughs a little and slides out of you, the feeling akin to walking into a blizzard after being sheathed in the heat of your body. "Good girl." He pats your thigh and stands on legs like a newborn deer, peeling the condom off to trash, rummaging in the bathroom until he finds a washcloth to wet and bring to you.
.
.
.
Joel grunts when you cup him in your hand beneath the sheet, squeezing his balls, lazily rubbing your hand along his softening length. Curiously, carefully. It's so intimately familiar, like you're a couple and not new lovers. He doesn't mind it.
Your skin is tacky against his where you press into his side, and he likes the tacky, kind of painful pull of it. You pull your hand away and watch him in the dark, the gray muteness of the room beginning to lighten. "Can I tell you a secret?" You whisper when he turns on his side to face you.
"You tell me anything you want."
You swallow, the sound of it loud and anxious in the still room. "He didn't leave me at the altar."
He cups your cheek in his hand. "I figured."
"I couldn't go through with it. He's been better since Vegas but last night he got, he, um. . .anyway, I got ready and drove to meet him at the courthouse and just kept driving and driving." You smile at him softly, self-hating, but your eyes are hard, daring him to judge you, though the veneer is thin, cracked.
You bottom lip trembles then, your face squeezing closed, eyes shut. "The very worst part of it? How I know he's right about me?” You ask with a bitter laugh, blindly pressing your thumb hard against one of the bruises. “I know I’ll go back to him. He’ll call in a couple weeks, and I’ll believe him when he says he’ll never do it again. That he’s so sorry.” You open your eyes, the full force of your gaze suddenly locking onto his. “What does that say about me? Not the fact that I’ll go back, but that I know I will? That I know I’ll believe him?”
Joel doesn't have an answer for a long time, just holds you, strokes your cheek.
“Maybe,” he says eventually, still stroking your cheek, “try to think of right now. When he calls. You know better right now that he ain't gonna change."
"That's good advice."
"You gonna listen to it?"
"I really hope so, Joel."
He says your name softly, as tenderly as you said his, and leans in to kiss you.
Your mouth opens against his, tongue carefully slipping into his mouth to slide against his. You taste like that bitter orange drink, sweet at first with a bite beneath.
He's pretty sure you fall asleep this way, kissing until your mouths are swollen, aching with it like so much sour candy.
But when he wakes, you're gone. The duffel bag and pointed heels and pressed pooled like wishes. His flannel is gone too, but he's glad you took it, imagines you wrapped in his scent driving with all the windows down.
The bottom of the rabbit hole is bitter and the walk back to his truck, the truck stop near the bar, behind fucking schedule now, seems much, much longer than it appeared last night, with stars wheeling above, you balancing on the white beam at the edge of the road.
He goes through the routine of getting the rig ready like a man in a dream, everything seems hazy and far off and unreal. With you, he was alive, now, he's slipping back into some complacent, ever ending, numb nightmare.
Joel tries not to dwell on it, but when he climbs up into the cab, finally ready to set off, lukewarm travel cup of coffee in hand, he finds your veil hanging down from the sun visor. When he pulls it down to press against his nose, though the truck is brimming with your scent, something falls with it.
One of the tarot cards.
He doesn't wonder if he'll see you again, just when.
And what this card, a beautiful woman looking up at a sky full of stars, could mean to you.
Summary: Joel’s got a jealous streak and a bold idea.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-a. Loss of anal virginity. Possessiveness. Semi-public sex. Cumplay. Spit as lube.
Word count: 3.2k
Joel was too old to get jealous.
Long before he ever reached fifty-one, the man had known who he was and what was his—and you were it.
He got a refresher each time he split you open and watched your soft, pliant hole form an even wider ‘o’ around his shaft, moans as profuse as the moisture leaking out of you. He took comfort in that. It wasn’t often he required a reminder with such immediacy as he’d needed it tonight: thrusting you headfirst into the bathroom at the Tipsy Bison with your hands pinned clumsily behind your back. You’d laughed when he did it.
“What’s up with you?” you’d murmured, eyes alight with amusement as you watched Joel yank his belt in two.
You would’ve liked to admire the shelf of hefty, salt-and-pepper speckled belly that was left on display by the loosening of the leather, the tugging of fabric away from his heated lower parts, but the moment was so fleeting. Joel hadn’t even bothered to respond before he was smoothing your dress over your hips, drawing in, and—
“Shit!”
You seized either side of the sink and let out a yelp loud enough to stir half the bar. Joel just grunted. Approving.
“‘Atta girl,” he said, burying himself inside your cunt.
Quick fucks were never Joel Miller’s métier, it was true. He much preferred the drawn-out bouts of lovemaking that had your knees and brains in a puddle of mush by the end of it. But now there was a will behind the weight of his thrusts, a calm and calculated fervor that sent each snap of his hips moving faster against your own. You knew there had to be a reason for such an outburst, feeling his hands singe your hips in a bruising grip, so you weren’t surprised in the slightest when you heard:
“That loser ever fuck you like this?”
You made an effort to meet Joel’s gaze in the mirror, but it was hard to keep it straight when his cock was sawing back and forth between your walls at a breakneck pace.
“W-W— Who?” you stammered, teeth gritting at the last.
“Dipshit in the Sigma Chi polo,” Joel returned gruffly.
You were in awe the man had seen you two at all, much less read the Greek letters and knew what they meant. You’d spent all of five minutes chatting it up with an ex whilst deliberating which Creed song to queue up on TouchTunes. There was no way he could’ve known.
Unless, of course…
“Tommy tell ya?” you said in a breath, grimace slowly morphing to a smirk as you clenched and held the sink.
Joel groaned but didn’t slow. He didn’t like that look. Perhaps by chance—but more likely on purpose—he drove his hips all the way in until the head of his cock kissed your cervix. Your nose almost hit the mirror.
“Fucker!” you hissed.
“Right?” Joel said, pretending to commiserate. Then, fighting back a grin as your own smile began to give way to a whimper, “Dude looked like a real fucker, for sure. Just hoped he never got the chance to do it to you.”
So that’s what this was all about—stated plain as day.
Joel was surprised he’d said it himself, but with the way your wet, messy cunt was pulling him in, he had to know.
It drove him insane to think one drop of that nectar had been meant for anyone else but him. He was, of course, too old to be concerned with anything resembling jealousy, but then again, you were you. And you were his. And, mature as your Joel tried to be, the thought of that shit-brained chump ramming his dick in and out of the softest, sweetest depths of your body had him contemplating violent crimes of every flavor.
“Did he?” Joel pressed again, a bit more stern this time.
You felt a hand thread through your hair to hold your face upright in front of the mirror. You stared and saw your mouth hanging slightly ajar, saliva pooling at the sides and threatening to spill with every stab of Joel’s cock.
You were surprised you could even speak at all when that cockdrunk pout made a low, slurred, ‘Di-id he what?’
“Did he fuck you here?”
Here? Like in the bar bathroom?
As if reading your mind and seeing you start to shake your head no, Joel stilled your motions with his hand and used the other for more leverage as he continued to drill.
“No, no, darlin’. I mean— he ever fuck this pretty hole?” And, as if to punctuate his question, Joel plunged his dick so far inside you that your face did tap the mirror; nowhere near hard enough to hurt, but enough to get your attention. And smear your lipgloss on the glass.
You reeled back and moaned. Felt a pit in your tummy.
Why drag it out? By the look in his eye, he already knew. You wouldn’t be sharing any earth-shattering secret now.
“Yes. Yes, I—” You sucked in a breath when you felt that pit become a pinch and in turn, cause your toes to curl, “—he fucked me.”
“Once? Twice?”
“Three t-times.”
To your surprise, you saw the corners of his lips twitch into a smile. Like he was pleased by what he’d heard.
“Oh yeah?” Joel hummed.
You whimpered in the affirmative and tried to nod, but it was hard to do with his fingers still tangled in your hair. Your walls involuntarily clenched around his cock, and you could’ve sworn you felt an influx of warmth follow after. If ‘apologetic cumslut’ had been the goal, you weren’t quite sure you were succeeding at anything but being the latter part. Joel seemed to notice as much.
“Did he cum inside and make a mess’a her, too?” he asked, teasing now as he took his thumb and started rubbing the slick flesh that was being stretched and stuffed full of his fat cock. His pace was slowing by turns.
Normally you could not stand the thought of a man policing your sexual history, but with Joel, it felt different. Like he wasn’t really making fun at all but simply poking and prodding around for the truth so he could get to someplace else. Still thumbing, gently.
“You let him fuck this cunt and stuff her full, pretty girl?”
You had no choice but to nod. His hips had lost nearly all their speed and were now making slow, shallow thrusts.
“Yes,” you whimpered, “I— I—”
—didn’t even know you then. Didn’t like the guy at all. Didn’t enjoy having him cum inside a fraction of the—
“I know, baby,” Joel interrupted you, still rubbing the rim of your cunt with feather-light touches, “‘S’okay, I know.”
You wanted to keen at how affectionate, warm, and soft he could be—amazed by the way he’d made that switch—when the force of Joel’s thrusts halted altogether. He leaned over your body to press a kiss to the side of your head, holding your gaze in the mirror. Grey stubble licked at your temple as his cock nestled deeper inside you, and the weight of his soft and muscled stomach pressed in.
His thumb moved too.
Sliding up to the taut ring of muscles above your full, aching pussy, Joel drew a slow ‘o’ and kissed you again.
“He ever fuck you here?” he asked.
Something fluttered in your stomach, and it sure as fuck wasn’t just butterflies. You stared at the man in disbelief.
You’d just begun to shake your head no when the tip of his thumb grazed the rim of your hole and sank inward. You choked on a gasp when you felt your ass pucker, and shit did Joel Miller look smug as he’d ever been when those too-tight-for-you muscles gave in and sucked in.
“What the— ah,” you hissed, slamming your palm flat on the mirror. You couldn’t see a thing besides Joel’s elbow jutting out, tanned bicep flexing with his ministrations, but you could feel his thumb swirl gently again. Inside.
“Anybody touch you here before, honey?” Joel said.
“Nuh-uh.”
Admittedly, you were a little unnerved, on the verge of being opposed to what this man was doing, when you felt the muscles snap back—Joel retracted his thumb—and two other digits hovered along the vulnerable spot. Just by chance, you caught a glimpse of what looked like Joel about to blow a kiss or whistle, and suddenly you sensed a wet glob of warmth on the small of your back.
Then sliding, gliding down to your crack and between your two cheeks with an obscene heat you would’ve never thought possible: Joel’s spit ran down to his hand, and his index and middle fingers started rubbing it in. Circling the hole and smearing it more for good measure, Joel grinned and placed a kiss atop your shoulder blade.
“Tell me it’s mine to fuck,” he mumbled.
“Joel—” you started.
A trail of kisses led up to the nape of your neck as the fingers pushed deeper. Joel’s touch was soft both ways.
“Only mine,” he tried again, and the request was implicit.
You clenched around his fingers and his cock, feeling the former slide back and forth with near-astonishing ease. You would be lying if you said the sensation, paired with the blunt, wily lilt to his words didn’t make your legs much weaker than they were before. No, it wasn’t just the matter of it being a first for you but a first and only for you both—Joel claiming a space where no man had ever fucked you and making it his own, filling you whole.
Joel spit again, and you hated that you’d come to crave the sound, but the obscene squelch of his saliva mixing in with your arousal as he worked his fingers in and out of your ass was like music to your ears. You whimpered and found yourself nodding quickly, half-embarrassed, saying it’s yours Joel, all of this is yours to fuck and fill.
You never had been one to tell the man no. Whether it was his head between your legs at the most inopportune of times, a blowjob behind the bar, or a lightning-fast quickie in the drive thru line, you were always down. And Joel was wholly enamored with the idea he could have you anywhere he liked—now in any hole he wanted, too. You could see the fuckdrunk look in his eyes as his digits pushed in and his cock dragged out of your cunt, leaving you empty in one and getting spread for him in the other.
Joel’s lips were glistening with spit and the world’s biggest grin as he caught your eye in the mirror. Then he leaned in closer, pressed a kiss to your temple again, and kept his mouth beside your ear as he whispered:
“I’ll be gentle, honey, I promise.”
You were each a trembling mess of hormones, lust, and bottom-shelf spirits, and you definitely shouldn’t have been trying anal for the very first time in Tommy’s bar. But your pussy and ass were drenched, Joel’s fingers had pulled out and made way for just the tip of his cock to notch into that space between your cheeks, and both your minds were delirious with the idea of doing a thing so taboo and new. Full primal desire took over, and before you could think twice about what it was you were doing, Joel was squeezing your hips and pushing in.
What felt like a full fucking thrust of him was really just an inch. Your hand clawed at the towel rack on the wall and seized the bar tight as a burn shortly, swiftly took root between your legs and forced a whimper from your throat. Joel swallowed a groan and kissed your neck.
“Need it slower?” he said as soon as he saw you wince.
Stinging and stretched as you were with just the tip, the filthy urge to have him further inside was too great. Against your body’s best interest and the ache in your core, you wiggled your hips and nudged more of him in.
Joel’s kiss turned to teeth in your skin, and he cursed.
“Fuck that’s so tight,” he said, words more like a growl, “Suckin’ me in so good, baby.”
You beamed with the most sick and lascivious sense of pride and pushed your ass back again. You heard the squelch, felt the reflexive pulse of your muscles struggle to take more in, but the burn that followed this time was eclipsed by the pleasure you felt in seeing Joel’s face.
Feeling him grip you tighter, watching that expression move from bliss to guilt to ‘Sweet pea, you sure it’s OK?’ to bliss once again when you braced your weight against the sink and started moving your ass gently in time with your breaths. Then that tender brown gaze fell to the space between your body and his, and Joel just watched you fuck him, groaning each time your hole stretched.
There wasn’t a thought in his mind that wasn’t obscene. Practically monopolized by primal need, Joel Miller saw his cock glide back and forth inside you and seemed to be capable of conjuring no other thought than ‘mine.’
‘This sweet little peach is all for me, ain’t it, baby?’ Words as soft as velvet came tumbling off his lips, and he scarcely even knew he was talking, or grinning, or doing much of anything but fucking you and loving every second. The fingers of his left hand kneaded your hip while the ones on his right moved over your front. Thick, callused, and quickly soaked in your arousal, his middle finger made an easy trail to your clit and started rubbing.
You clamped your teeth tight in an effort to contain a cry. You whined into Joel’s touch, throat humming with that pathetic little sound as his groin sank deep to find the backs of your thighs and—finally—was inside you fully.
Words barely registered in your brain above the whir of your pulse in your ears, the pleasure unfurling from this strange new place, but Joel made sure you heard it when he leaned back in and murmured, ‘C’mon, baby, who’s this hole belong to, huh?’ as he tilted his hips up, body blanketing yours completely from behind. When you couldn’t contain the cry this time and your mouth fell open in a moan, he took that as his chance to slide his tongue inside and start to thrust, pinning you to the sink.
“You,” you whimpered feebly into his mouth. His tongue and the sounds of wet, sticky skin colliding over and over again all but drowned out what you were trying to say.
“What’s’at?” Joel returned, equally muffled but in far greater control of his words, it seemed, “This for him?”
“N-N-No, Joel.”
“Whose is it, then?”
You tried to answer ‘You’ again, but a shockwave of pleasure stole the air from your lungs, and you just whined in Joel’s mouth once more, head tilted limply to him as he shook your whole body with thrusts. You reached back to find a forearm, a hand, anything of his to anchor yourself, and you felt his fingers grip yours. Then he brought your hand and his up to the mirror, and he placed them flat on the glass—his big one overtop, dwarfing your own—and his hips picked up their speed.
Your lips parted just long enough to tilt your gaze ahead—Joel’s face and yours resting side-by-side in the mirror while he fucked you faster and deeper and grit his teeth.
“Use those words,” he seethed. Groaning when you clenched around him, nipping the cusp of your cheek.
If there was any doubt of what primal urges could do to a man like Joel, you were seeing it now. Feeling him stuff you full, pull back, and crash his hips into yours again and again while those sharp incisors took the tiniest, teasing, feral bites, it was like watching him come undone before he’d even cum inside you. His irises reduced to two minuscule rings around black, dilated pools; torso caging you in; breaths and groans and helpless moans commingled in a hot, plaintive medley.
Joel was too old to get jealous, and yet, he had never in his life wanted to hear the words that you were his and his alone more than he did right now, fucking you raw in a hole that had never been breached by anyone but him.
Your gaze remained on his in a sweet, near-innocent look—a staggering feat for someone getting their ass fucked bare in a dirty bar bathroom—and beneath his hand, he felt you squeeze his fingers. Your cunt fluttered too.
“It’s yours, Joel.”
The head of Joel’s cock took a nosedive to the furthest depths of you, as far as he could manage it, and he kept fucking you there, like he couldn’t bear to leave it.
“Say it again,” he said, voice hoarse. Pleading.
With what little strength you had, you laced your fingers with his on the mirror so he was holding your hand in a fist. Then you pressed your knuckles to the glass, squeezed as hard as your muscles would allow, and met his thrusts gently, keeping your eyes on him all the while.
“I’m all yours,” you returned—and when the hulking man with his grey, sweat-dampened hair and dark eyes and arms locked tight around your frame let out a whimper, you knew you’d said exactly what Joel needed to hear.
His hips canted wildly, quietly into your own, those tough and stubbled lips releasing sounds like you’d never heard before; never even thought possible for a man his size and stature with such a replete desire for dominance. This Joel was needy, panting in your ear while nudging his nose to the shell of it, ‘Baby, please keep fucking me, please, just, fuck—’ and seizing your hand, your waist, whatever flesh he could find while his cock pummeled a desperate and frenzied pace inside you. And, as much as you wished that glimpse of him would last, it was also what sent you both over the edge in the seconds right after. Your toes curled into cool checkered tile, Joel’s hand made an even tighter fist, and together, you trembled and cursed and groaned through your highs like it was the first you’d ever felt. In a way, it was.
As new to you as it was to him, that feeling pulsed and throbbed between your bodies in a shockwave of pure satiety. It left you breathless. Boneless. Slumping inward and into each other, at length, until your full weight was pressed onto that porcelain sink, and you were sure the force would tear the fixture off the wall at any second.
Fortunately, it didn’t budge.
Joel leaned even further into you and exhaled.
Evidently, the sink beneath you was the furthest thing from his mind, and all he could do was keep fucking his cum deeper while the spray of his spend was still fresh on your walls. Gently, but with intent, he drove his cock back and forth. He felt a drop or two trickle out of your wet, stretched hole and groaned, then kissed your neck.
Still in awe of what had just happened. What you’d said. Trying hard not to grin too big when he felt your walls clench around him, and you let out a low, shaky sigh.
summary: [no outbreak] your neighbor and dad's longtime buddy catches you sneaking back home after an underwhelming hook-up. you want more — he provides.
warnings: (18+ mdni) dbf!neighbor!joel, age gap (23/50), reader has a bad relationship with her father, reader's father is overly strict, reader hooks up with an oc, dirty talk, soft!dom joel, degradation, praise, thigh riding, 1 spank, titty slapping, daddy kink, exhibitionism.
word count: 3.7k
—
Mistake number one: your eyes are crusted shut with the mascara you’d forgotten to wipe off.
Mistake number two: the bed you wake up in is not your own.
Mistake number three: sleeping with your neighbor.
Rubbing your mascara-sealed eyes, you blink yourself into consciousness and instantly regret it. There’s a moment of stillness, time stretching as you take in the room underneath the swelling orange sunlight. The window is cracked just enough to give you a glimpse at the world outside — birds chirping, sprinklers spritzing, cars crunching gravel as they pull out of the driveway. Surrounding the narrow, rumpled bed is a graveyard of orphaned socks. A box fan whirrs in the corner. The room had felt much cleaner past midnight when it was only the yellowed street lamp outside shining through the window. Then you spot the digital clock on the cluttered bedside table reads 6:10, ten minutes later than you’d wanted to be awake for, and time returns to its regular pace.
Your heart kicks awake in your chest, veins going cold. You kick the sheets off of your sweaty body, roll out of bed, and stumble two steps before planting your feet on the carpet below. Even that isn’t enough to stir your hookup. Dylan Andrews.
It’d seemed like a good enough idea at the time. Both of you were home for spring break. Both of you had flirted at the block party with each other. He was only decent-looking and mediocre with his hands, but you needed a break from spending another night in your childhood bedroom. What better way to do it than with a dick appointment?
Again. It’d seemed like a good enough idea at the time. Sneaking out underneath the nose of your strict, tough-as-nails dad was the easy part. Sneaking back in? Less easy. And to make matters worse, you were already ten minutes behind.
Shit.
You tiptoe across the room, naked as the day you were born, and stuff your underappreciated lingerie into your backpack. Without even putting your panties or bra on, you hop into your shorts and wrestle with your hoodie. By the time you’re out of Dylan’s room, it’s 6:12.
The difference between your dad and Dylan’s mom? She doesn’t give a shit what side of town Dylan wakes up on or how much alcohol is sloshing around in his system as long as he’s safe. You’re not the first girl to do the walk of shame out of Ms. Andrews' generic McMansion house, and you’re far from the last.
She’s downstairs in front of the coffee maker, still wearing her pajamas and doing a Dollar General crossword when you slip past her kitchen unnoticed. The door clangs shut behind you, and you figure she must see you walking down the cul-de-sac.
Your dad always leaves for work at 6:45 after a freezing cold shower and a steaming cup of black coffee for balance. You can only hope his shower ran a little late and that he isn’t at the dining room table already. Cramming two steps into one, you continue with your beeline down the awakening street.
You’re followed home by the mailboxes and flower beds, the pebbles you kick with every step. You’re almost to the property line, prepared to make a mad dash to your front door when you hear the faint call of your name. You skid to a stop, and turn to face the source: the craftsman-style house next door.
And there he is – Joel Miller, sitting on one of the cushioned chairs of his front porch in nothing but his sleep shorts and a t-shirt, legs spread as wide as the chair can accommodate. There’s a smug, knowing look on his face, one that says I’ve caught you. See how you can get out of this.
It’s been a long time since you’ve been face to face with Joel — Mr. Miller. You’d think you’d see him more often, with him being your dad’s buddy and your neighbor, but it’s been since summer. You’re sure he must be having the time of his life by joining your just got laid parade.
“You’re up awful early,” he calls, beckoning you up the driveway with a come-hither movement of his fingers. Leaving your dignity at the curb, you pad up the yard to his porch, climbing one of the stairs to lean against the gutter that feeds into his shrubbery. Pollen and moss is scattered across the wooden deck, surrounding a package that he hasn’t bothered to pick up yet. His guitar is off to the side, propped up against the doorway of the house. You wonder if he’d been playing when he’d seen you walking by.
Joel’s covered for you before, briefly and sparingly. Taken the fall for the half-empty bottle of fireball in your dresser even though he’d never go within ten feet of that shit, blamed it on himself for accidentally leaving it behind after fixing a wheel that had jumped off track for you. Even though your dad had chewed him out for drinking on the job, he’d still managed to sneak it back to you with the wise words of hiding it in a sock next time. You’d been two months past your twenty-first when that had happened, and maybe Joel had pitied you after realizing how authoritarian his friend was.
You aren’t as sure if he’ll pity you now.
“Needed some fresh air,” you defend lamely, hands hanging limp by your sides.
“Needed some cock?” he corrects, and his bluntness makes you choke. He seems relaxed for the words that just came out of his mouth, fingers drumming on his impossibly large thighs, a playful smirk resting on his lips.
You sputter, “No! Jesus, what the hell–”
“I got eyes, hun. Saw you leave that Andrews kid’s place. Clearly he didn’t stick it to ya that good if you’re still walkin’ steady,” he comments. His head tilts.
“Joel,” you hiss, eyes flitting to your dad’s house next door. He seems to read your mind, his smirk widening.
“Wonder what your pops would think. Bet I have a pretty good idea. His little angel, sneakin’ around and whorin’ herself out.” He clicks his tongue at you. “A damn shame.”
Heat spools low in your stomach and down to your unsatisfied center. You wish you’d worn darker colored shorts instead of the flimsy gray things you have on. There’s no barrier of your panties to stop yourself from leaking all over them, and with the way Joel’s looking at you, eyes dark and sly, you’re wishing there was.
“Can’t even imagine what you’re gettin’ up to at that college ‘a yours. Bet you had five guys inside of ya all at once, and I sure ain’t talkin’ about burgers, hun.” He lounges back in his chair, watching you.
You feel yourself gush. Heat burns in your thighs, and they rub together on instinct, seeking to extinguish that brimming ache between your legs. You bunch your hands in the fabric of your sweatshirt and can’t stop yourself from squirming underneath his gaze. It’s not like you’ve never thought about this, this with him of all people when you’re underneath your covers and your hand finds the warm junction between your thighs. Always unattainable. Always just out of reach.
You whisper again, “Joel,” but this time, it comes out as more of a moan. Humiliation warms your cheeks and chest, forming a different kind of pit in your stomach.
“Hmmmm?” Joel hums at you with a raised brow. He’s casual, indifferent, almost. But then his eyes flicker up and down, stopping at the wet patch smeared across the front of your shorts, the way your thighs press tight, tensing before letting go. “Ah. A little slut shamin’ gets you all riled up, hun?” That tears a whimper from you. He does that stupid come hither motion again, and like a lost dog, you listen. Standing in front of him, you feel completely, utterly exposed.
He adjusts himself in his chair, and you swallow the building lump in your throat when you see his bulge hardening. It sends another zap of heat to your core, and then another, more surprised one when his hand goes up to grab at your tit. Your breath catches as he thumbs one of your hardened nipples. A triumphant noise echoes out of him. “Braless, too?” His other hand goes down to your shorts, playing with the waistband. “Prancin’ around in these short, skimpy things, too. Practically giving the whole neighborhood a free peep show.”
His hand slides lower. Lower. Pans over to the crease of your thigh and then his thumb is planting over your clit, rubbing only once before he pulls away. “Messy pussy. Bet you stained the guys sheets.”
You’re quiet, staring at him, his wicked fucking expression, those hands that look like sin itself. You bite the inside of your cheek.
“Ah. Poor baby. All this effort and you didn’t even get to come.” He just looks at you. Unmoving. Not doing a single damn thing to get you there.
“Please, Joel,” you whisper, embarrassed by the gritty need already embedded into your voice when he’s hardly even touched you.
And he’s still wearing that wolfish look, that tainted-with-intention gleam in his eyes that tells you he knows exactly what you do want when he asks, “What? What do you want?” He licks his lips, a fleeting moment.
You look over your shoulder, at the rising street. Anyone could have their windows cracked. Anyone could hear you confess on this porch. Still, you murmur, “I… I want you to make me come, Joel.” Your voice shivers a little bit along with the stroke of wind that wisps against the backs of your thighs.
His brows raise together, now. His head tips forward. “What was that? A little louder. You know, my ears really ain’t the sharpest these days…”
Fucking bastard.
“I want,” you say again, fighting to stop your voice from wavering, to keep it not too loud but not too quiet. “you to make me come.”
Joel sucks on his teeth for a second. “Ohhh. Now I don’t think that’s really fair, hun.” He gives you a mockingly sad look.
“Why?” you ask, and you know you sound as whiny as a petulant child. But he’d been correct earlier. You put in all of this effort, sneaking out for a thrilling night that had turned into something more like two sweaty bodies moving together and only one of them feeling good from it. You want to feel good. You’re tired of looking at the right and the wrong. Joel’s sitting in front of you, his thumb still smelling like your arousal; that’s what’s right.
“You’re out here breakin’ all the rules. Shouldn’t be rewarding you for that, sweetheart. Besides, it’s a little fucked up, dontcha think? Makin’ you come all over me while your pops, my buddy, is none the wiser gettin’ ready for work next door?” His vulgarity only weakens you even more, pussy clenching and begging to be filled. You’re about to protest again when he cuts in, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help ya out.”
Your heart pedals in your chest, eager and wanting. But Joel, instead of getting up and elbowing you inside like you expect, stays right where he is. He pats one of his splayed thighs, the grin on his face only widening. Your face contorts. Joel hears your question before you ask.
“What? Never humped someone’s leg before? With how much of a bitch in heat you’re actin’ right now, I’m surprised.” You can feel the shock on your face plain as day. Joel jerks his head down to his thigh, egging you on. “Better hurry up if you want my help, sweetheart. Pretty sure your dad’s about to get goin’, and I sure don’t have all day, either.”
The rapidly shrinking part of yourself that isn’t consumed with desire tells you to take a step back. That anyone, God forbid, even the Adlers across the street could witness this. Talk about a free peep show.
You think of the alternative: sneaking back into your house with a hope and a prayer that your dad won’t find you, backpack over your shoulder and shoes on, as you climb the stairs back to your bedroom. Open up your Joel-advised dresser drawer of things your dad says you shouldn’t have and pull out your vibrator. Do the same old hassle of a routine, desperately trying to make yourself come. Reach an unfulfilling peak.
Or… take what Joel’s offering you. Risks and all.
You take a tentative step forward, glaring at Joel when he chuckles because of your hesitance, and plop yourself down on his thigh. The pressure against your clit immediately pulls a whimper from you. His big hands fix themselves on your hips, holding tight, but not too tight as to hold you captive against him. There’s still the faint existence of the Joel you’ve always known, considerate and sweet and all southern gentleman, that exists behind the guise of his dominance.
You nestle your head into the crook of his neck, breathing heavy against him as you get a slow start to grinding your hips on his thigh. Although your movements are tentative, uncertain in nature, your head is already going fuzzy.
“Bet you’re only this wet cause that boy already put a new load in your dishwasher.” You scoff at him in disbelief — both at how much more wet it gets you, and how foul his words are. He chooses then to jerk you forward by the hips. You cry out as your pussy drags along the thick expanse of his thigh, clit catching on the bunched up fabric of your rumpled shorts.
“Zip it, you fuckin’ hussy. Ain’t a damn soul in this neighborhood that wants to wake up to you sobbin’ while gettin’ off on this thigh.” One of his hands drifts back to squeeze at the flesh of your ass. You hear the spank before you feel it, a sting that echoes and sticks right between your legs. He’s effortlessly strung a barbed wire of humiliation around your body. The lack of power makes your thighs clamp down around his, and you can’t tell if you crave more of it or despise it.
Unable to decide which, you loudly, exaggeratedly moan into his ear, still rocking down on his lap. It resounds through the neighborhood, the springboard roofs ricocheting you coquettish noises down the street and through the flowerbeds. A spooked crow lifts off of the power lines behind you, and you hear it squawk as its wings beat and carry it away.
Joel cocks his head at you, brow raised. “So it’s not just your legs that have a problem stayin’ shut. It’s your nasty mouth, too.” His hands migrate up your sides to your tits, which jostle with every flighty movement across his thigh. Before you know what he’s doing, he tweezes at your nipples in a way that makes you melt into him, forehead falling flat against his neck. And then he lands a hard smack across your chest, pleasure with a bite. Your hips jolt. “Behave for daddy before I make you walk next door draggin’ a snail trail behind ya.”
You know he doesn’t mean your real dad. A new rush of heat settles in your stomach, tightening your cunt from an ache to an insatiable thrumming that only Joel can solve. “Fuck,” you almost shout, but end up muffling into his skin with an open-mouthed kiss. He sighs, adjusting under you. The change in angle on your clit makes you whimper, especially when you feel his hardened length smushed against the outside of your thigh.
Your hand goes down to grip it, to participate in the push and pull, the cat and mouse, but he shakes his head, pulling it out of the way. He holds you by the small of your back, urging you to keep rubbing on him. “You’re lucky I’m even givin’ you my thigh,” he spits. “Ain’t gonna let you play chutes and ladders tryna make me come when I know damn well where that hand was last night.”
“Daddy,” you pout at him, lower lip jutting out.
He only shakes his head. “Don’t start.”
Whining in agitation, you manage to school yourself into behaving like he’d told you to. Every grind of your hips welcomes pleasure, beckons it, activates the porch light inside of you that invites it inside. You go limp against Joel as he guides you back and forth, and even limper when he tightens the muscle underneath your soaking core. Your hands anchor themselves on his broad shoulders, nails carving into his skin through the flimsy material of his shirt. He hisses underneath you, a break in his seemingly titanium resolve. You feel yourself getting closer, heat wreathing around your stomach, cunt clenching.
In your house, the foyer light flickers on.
Your hips stall over Joel’s as you see your dad’s backlit silhouette moving around in the foyer. Likely sliding on his shoes, patting his pockets for his wallet and his work phone…. You have two minutes at best.
Joel’s eyes follow your distracted line of vision. His amused chuckle warms the back of your neck. “Oughta hurry up if you don’t wanna get caught. Your old man would be in for a rude awakening, headin’ to work and finding his precious little girl fuckin’ my leg like a whore,” he murmurs.
He bounces his leg underneath you, and you bite back the needy cry that threatens to slip out. It feels so good, too good for you to think about anything other than the haze of arousal and pleasure that hovers over your head like a perpetual fog. You return to grinding down on him, hips pumping with a greater, renewed speed. “Attagirl,” Joel croons at you, and the hand at the small of your back presses harder, pushing you up and down his thigh.
Short, strained breaths of yours meet the morning air, eyes pinned on the rectangular window. It’s a golden-washed reminder of how wrong this is. Your dad would blow a gasket, see red, breathe fire at you if he knew exactly what was happening just a few feet away from his front yard.
But you forget all about that when Joel’s calloused fingers cup your chin, nudging you to look at him. His eyes are all pupil, darkened with something like starvation, something like want. “Don’t look at him. Look at me,” he coaxes, and he bounces his thigh again.
You’re close, you can feel it. He can feel it, too, in the way that your thighs fasten around his, your cunt rocking on him as your fervor makes the whole front porch shake and shudder. Tossing your hips back and forth, you wanted it, but now? Now you need it. Your stomach tightens, your legs shivering below you as your cunt gushes all over both of your shorts. “That’s it, baby, come on me like you were beggin’ to. ‘S alright, nice and easy for daddy, mhm?” He tenses his thigh one final time, and you lurch over that edge. “Gooood girl,” he hums as your cunt flutters against his leg. “You’re a daredevil, aren’t you?” he asks, jerking his head toward your house.
You figure you must be, after what you just did.
You’d planned on staying there, riding it out and trembling against his warm chest. But the garage cranks open. You jolt off of Joel’s lap, damn near teleporting across the porch with how fast you move. Joel smirks at you, crossing his unfucked leg over his freshly fucked one, where you’d rubbed your cum all over his skin until it’d glistened. The sight warms your stomach all over again, but it doesn’t last – nerves spasm in your ribcage as your dad ducks out into the driveway.
You fumble with your shorts, pulling them down and crossing your hands in front of the obvious stain on the gray fabric. Your dad squints across the yard, cupping a hand over his eyes. “Miller?” He calls your name shortly after, and you straighten. “You’re up early, kiddo.”
You open your mouth, on the precipice of a lie that you know won’t be good. It’ll come out unsteady, dishonest, and uneven.
Joel points at the package at the foot of his doorstep. “My toolbox got sent to yours,” he explains. “Damn postal. ‘Bout as good as the Boston Post Road these days. But your kid’s got me covered. Raised her right.”
For the second time, Joel Miller covers for you. You have no idea where this leaves you, standing under your dad’s scrutinizing gaze. With your cum cooling and sticking to your folds the same way it’s cooling and sticking to his leg, Joel knows your secret. And he’s keeping it.
Your dad only gives a shallow nod, looking between the two of you. “Well,” he hooks a hand back at his truck. “I gotta head off to work.” He shifts on his feet, this time pointing to you. “And you head back inside, kiddo. Too early for you to be up and movin’.” Of course it is.
You stare at the ground, the pollen and stray leaves below your feet. Finally, you settle on a nod. Shallow and halfhearted, much like his. Your dad, satisfied, retreats back into the garage. You hear the truck engine come to life.
“You heard the man,” Joel says. You tighten your fists, moving to step away, but the way Joel’s eyes glimmer has you loitering. He lowers his voice. “See you soon, daredevil.”
That damned nickname. “How do you know I’ll be back?” you retort under your breath.
He shrugs. “I’m sure there’ll be more… ‘packages’.”
You blame the heat in your body on the rising sun, sweat clinging to the back of your neck as you plod off through the front yard. There’s only one thought in your head as your dad pulls out and you close the garage. Mr. Miller can’t happen again.
Mistake number four: thinking you’re telling the truth.
Summary: She has been running for so long, and she is so tired. But she’s so close now. She’s almost there. Oh, she thinks, how wonderful it is to embrace the monster within.
Looming like a fortress before her, the forest is finally close enough to make out individual trees, close enough to make her think she might have a chance.
She has been running for so long, and she is so tired. But she’s so close now. She’s almost there. If she can just push her legs a few yards further, if she can just ignore the burning in her chest and stomach and the terror writhing her soul into a knot. If she can just hold on a little bit longer, she knows she’ll be safe within those trees.
Something is calling to her.
She can sense it; something in her heart screaming at her to just keep going, just a little further and the snarling hunger and snapping maws that’ve been hunting her for the past who knows how many miles will be gone.
She’ll be safe.
She’d woken from her bed in the middle of the night with a sense of dread. Something in her gut telling her she needed to go, something calling, something coming. She’d shoved her feet into boots, slung her old coat over her nightgown, the leather weighted and fragrant and comforting, and she’d ran for her life. Now, after miles and miles, her entire body is slicked with sweat and her feet are chafed raw and bloody in the too big boots.
Her body is failing her while a pack of werewolves hunt her through the night. Baying for her blood and her body.
She’s just a regular girl, but she can smell them anyway. Their desperation and their lust and their violence. They want to rip her apart and keep the pieces for themselves.
The closer she gets to the border, the darker the night seems to become. As if the black between the trees is bleeding out into the ether, sucking the light out of the world and pulsing with desire while she barrels head on into its depth. Dark fingers beckon, pitch black and seductive, tugging a string pinned behind her navel and yanking forward, promising safety in the darkness.
The wolves had come for her in the dead of night, howling and frothing like beasts born of the most terrible nightmares. She’d evaded them for years, slinking past their notice, just a human girl turned woman with little to offer. They’d called her ugly, flame touched and cursed. Not even her mother had loved her. But something had changed tonight, something had been changing, brewing for weeks. She’d felt restless and distracted. Like there was something she needed to do or somewhere she had to be but just could not remember exactly where or what. She’d felt scared.
Last night, after her paltry and unsatisfying supper, she’d gone to bed certain that if she closed her eyes to sleep, she’d never wake up again, and yet could not, for the life of her, escape the inevitable. Deep and dreamless, and yet when she’d heard their terrifying howls, she’d shot awake, terror-struck, moving faster than she’d ever done before and out the door like a hare in the night evading lead.
And she’s so close now, a few more yards as she pushes through the burn in her muscles, the raw sawing of her lungs, and in the last blood pounding seconds, with her very life on her tongue ready to be spit out into the dirt and snatched from her, she feels the huffing breaths of the pack snapping at the back of her neck, so close her very place in the world sizzles down the length of her spine before she’s throwing herself into the darkness of the forest.
The change comes on instantly—dead silence.
A cold so piercing, the sweat on her body seems to freeze on entry along the planes of her limbs, crackling painfully, sharp and cutting. A total absence of light and sound. She thinks, for one terrifying second, she’s fallen off the face of the earth and is now hurdling through dead time as she crashes through the terrifying darkness. Nothing but her screaming lungs and her blood pounding in her temples seems to make noise here.
The whip of branches slice her face and throat and her boots are heavy and sloshing with blood from her destroyed feet. She can feel the disgusting gum of cobwebs and hanging moss against her skin and imagines thousands of tiny legs crawling and gnawing at her flesh. Her entire body screams in pain and for a second, before the pack finally decides her body is worth braving the dark forest for, she considers laying down and giving up now. Why not? What’s left to her in that house she’s just fled but hunger and pain and loneliness? She’ll die alone and unhappy if she goes back there. Here, at least, the dark will shield her from her own reality; within it, she might be able to imagine a happiness foreign to her in that final moment.
But the rabid sound of the pack, those huge, deformed bodies slobbering for her bones, pushes her forward. Not even her own reality can be more terrifying than that.
To her left, the crashing of a massive body gains parallel to her own trajectory. Then to her right, as well. She senses a third and a fourth looming malevolently behind her, something high above in the trees careens from branch to branch, letting the ravenous spittle of its starving maw splatter her with its filth.
They’re so close and this will be it. They’ll defile and desecrate her body. She’ll die having never lived a single moment of happiness or peace and that will be the end of her. Her legs begin to fail her and the darkness dizzies and disorients. She can’t see a single thing, the swirling rainbow of sucking black spins before her wide eyes, starting to slowly close in defeat. The scrape of claws graze her back, a wide maw of teeth gusting hot, putrid breath snaps beside her head before the toe of her boot catches on some unseen thing, sending her flying forward and then dropping down, down, down. Her body loses itself to gravity, falling in a tailspin head over heels. Her neck, her limbs, her back, battered and assaulted by the forest as she falls and falls to her death before suddenly coming to a bone jarring and excruciating stop.
Her body rolls helplessly, slamming against the base of what feels like a tree. Her mind feels as broken as her bones, her breath weak and leaving her in a rush, the wind knocked from her. The poor, helpless form she lives in writhes and jerks for air, trying to suck life back into her lungs. Dragging her mangled fingers through the dirt, she reaches forward, trying to claw the very air towards herself, grasping at low hanging leaves that seem to surround her.
She tries to cough or choke, suddenly coming to, sucking in great gulps of excruciating air as she begins to hear what she can only think must be the sounds of death. Screaming pain and braying squeals for mercy. The terrible growls of a monster and the shredding of flesh and snapping bones. Heavy bodies slamming against one another and the snarling growls of shrieking demons. Something like a great war seems to rage beyond the protection of her little hidden grave, and she breathes her death rattle as she listens to things die outside her sanctuary. If they only leave her alone, this will be peaceful. Her body doesn’t even hurt anymore. She feels nothing.
A high pitched whine sounds, and the leaves rustle, something small is flung into her sacred dying space and with painless fingers that must surely be broken, she feels something wet and hot and shapeless, like a chunk of flesh, land before her face.
It gives her the sense, even if briefly, to feel afraid again, but consciousness seems to be leaving her faster than daylight escapes in deep winter, and she can’t bring herself to care about much of anything now. Finally, peace, and everything goes silent. She can’t tell if her eyes are closed, but thinks it mustn’t matter, the sounds of death have stopped and something is breathing heavily outside the protection of her tree. Huge, heaving pants as a body trespasses slowly between the demarcation of safety and terror, and then there is the steaming breath of an animal or monster, fanning against her face.
She can smell blood and viscera but she does not feel afraid when, what must be the huge, wet nose of a werewolf nudges against her face. The creature makes a whining, keening sound, something pained, animal, distraught, before the girl is lost to blissful darkness.
The small creature that had come to find him is wondrous and lovely. She sleeps curled in a tight ball in the middle of his bed, resting uneasily.
The beast, who was once known as Joel, had known she would be coming soon. He could sense her in his very being, his marrow reforming itself into new shapes as he awaited her arrival carried by whispers on the wind and rumors from the trees. He had prepared and plotted so that when the vermin who’d scared and hurt his poor, defenseless pup had chased her into his territory, he’d been ready for them. Waiting to slaughter.
She whines and cringes now, her skin and bones knitting from the damage those foul beasts had caused her, and Joel lifts her head to feed her more of the tincture he’d prepared to help her heal. A mixture of healing plants and his own blood to give her strength and hasten her recovery. She holds him inside her now while he heals her from the inside out. Him. His.
Joel cannot believe that she’s found him. After all this time, all his suffering and pain, after being so alone for so very long, she is here now and she is perfect, and he is the luckiest monster who has ever existed.
He knows that he is ugly and old and bestial now, that he has lived alone and secluded from the world for far too long, that he is scarred and ill-formed and that she is perfect and beautiful and amazing, but he is sure that if she is only patient with him, that he will be able to prove to her that he can be worthy. That he can be a good mate if only she gives him the chance to prove himself.
Days pass and his lovely creature sleeps, and all the while Joel watches. Her hair is deep red like a bleeding wound. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen hair that deep a shade. His little Red. And her body is like a wonder to Joel. Soft and supple despite hints of malnutrition, a dullness, small formed limbs that, compared to his own, scare him for how very breakable they seem. He will have to be so careful and take such good care of his small human creature. She must want for nothing, she must know that he will always be relied upon to care for her.
He feels desperate and anxious for her to wake up, he wants to hear the sound of her voice and know her name. He wants to know everything about her and learn all he must to please her. He wants her to like him. To want him as he already wants her. Already, everything about her is pleasing to him; her red hair, her form and face and her scent. Succulent and full bodied, like night blooming flora. Something out of a warm, wet dream. His mouth waters and he feels his jaws ache and elongate, his teeth bursting wet and bloody through his gums as his snout changes and warps. The more time he spends with her, the more out of control his grasp on his form will become until he finally bites and mates her. This is how he knows she’s meant for him, the beast tells him so.
Helplessly, he leans forward at her bedside, slotting his sensitive nose carefully into the space between her jaw and shoulder, that warm, fragrant place, and inhales deeply.
A low, deep purr starts up in his chest as he basks in her warmth. She must surely be sent by God, her existence must surely be proof of his existence. No creature such as this could merely sprout into being without the magic of some higher power intervening. Joel is sure of this.
“Are you smelling me?”
The small, raspy voice comes, suddenly. He’s never heard such a sound before. His purr hiccups and stutters, and Joel pulls back, wide eyed and frightened that he’s disturbed and awakened her, and looks into her sleep heavy eyes, bright and lovely despite their exhaustion.
“Forgive me. I can’t help myself,” he tells her truthfully, flushing hot with shame and embarrassment at being caught.
“Where am I?” She asks, taking in her surroundings. Joel is now awash with anxiety that she’ll be displeased by his den, too; besides all the rest, most especially himself. He has been on his own for such a long time, he can’t remember what it is to have a home anymore and could not think, as he’d awaited her arrival, what it was he could do to make his den better for her besides making sure her bed was comfortable and there was food aplenty. His little human needs to eat and gain strength to carry their pups, after all.
“This is my den,” he tells her. “Now it will be yours, too.”
Her eyes shift nervously over the darkened room, and then swing back to catch his own stare. “Mine?”
“Yes. You came to find me, little pup. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You— you were the one calling me,” she says it confused, like she’s working it out in her own pretty head, but it isn’t a question. She’s aware and making sense of what she already knows to be true. He nods slowly. He’d smelt her on the wind, heard whispers from the trees and earth of her existence, and he’d known to wait for her, that she had to come to him, that she had to choose him. That nature would send her to him and that only by her coming here of her own volition would he be able to keep her for himself. “You saved me from that pack. They— they were rabid.”
He nods. “They could sense your imminent mating. That you were coming to find me. They thought to interrupt nature and take you from me, but I slaughtered them,” he snarls savagely, leaning forward to take her hand, he bends over it like a supplicant. “I would protect you from anything. I’ve waited for you for so long.”
Her small delicate fingers spasm as he tries to hold her in his giant paw as gently as a monster like him could possibly be, running his nose back and forth over her still healing knuckles. A pulse of rabid anger like violence burns through him. That they’d break this perfect skin, that they’d frighten his lovely, innocent mate. He’d kill anything that threatened or displeased her, even himself if she demanded it. He’d do anything for her.
“You… you wont— you won’t hurt me?”
Joel shudders, trying to quell his impulses and revulsion. “Never. I would never hurt you.” He looks up at her from his prone position bent over her hand, “You have nothing to fear from me. I only want to take care of you.”
Slowly, his little Red reaches forward, her small thumb coming to gently pet at the scar slashed across his face. Years of fighting and killing have left him disfigured and marked, but with her careful touch, he feels for the first time in years, calm and painless. She looks at him with soft eyes when she thanks him for saving her and Joel is sure no one has ever gazed at him with such tenderness in his entire blighted life.
After he helps her up and to wash, dutifully averting his eyes when she cringes shyly, covering her breasts with arms wrapped around her chest, he leads her to the small table he’d prepared for her expectant arrival. He feeds her tea and oranges. Carefully selecting the most perfectly formed, fragrant piece of fruit from the bushel and precisely brewing and straining the tea from the bulk of supplies he’s gathered both from hunting and bartering.
As he’d prepared for her arrival, he’d braved the human settlements more and more. Intent on acquiring everything his incumbent mate would need when she finally found him. Enduring the stench of fear and loathing from the uninfected humans, the judgement for what he’d become by no will of his own in the aftermath of the lycanthropy outbreak all those years ago. They could never see that this curse was his blight to bear more painfully than anything those uninfected could ever suffer. The world had ended in a ruin of deformed monsters and violent maws, but Joel’s hell, and that of all others affected by the werewolf infection, was never ending. That was, of course, unless he found a human mate. One he could tie himself to through the power of his bite, one who would anchor him to her humanity, reminding him of his own and giving him control over the shift and the power of his werewolf.
He’d been waiting for twenty long years of suffering, ruled by the monster that lived inside of him and all the pain and rage that came with it, but soon, she would save him.
“Do you like your tea?” He asks, watching her intently. The way she takes small pecking sucks of her orange slices and tiny sips of the steaming tea, even humming happily as the brew warms her from within.
It’s ridiculous for him to feel jealous, and yet, he does. Unreasonably and irrationally so.
“Yes, thank you,” she peeps. Her gaze nervously lands on him and then flits away, tucking a strand of blood red hair behind a small ear while his guts writhe within him. She shivers and he demands to know if she’s cold. Standing up too quickly in his haste to stoke the fire he has blazing already in the corner, he knocks his chair back, startling her. He cringes at his own stupid clumsiness, a bolt of fury piercing through his insides. He’s shy and awkward, unsocialized after all these years, annoyed at his own temerity and anxiety and made even more sullen by his inability to overcome it for her sake. He can feel a fierce frown marring his brow, and he wishes he could smile at her, contort his ugly mug into something pleasing that would reassure her that he is not the raving beast he must surely appear to be.
She shoots up out of her chair, as well, scuttling backwards in fright to get away from him and everything inside of Joel goes still and predatory.
“Don’t run,” he warns. “Don’t run from me.”
She pauses, considering. “Why not?”
He glares furiously at her audacity. “Won’t be able to stop myself if you do.”
“Stop yourself from what?” She persists and he has to commend her bravery, that little spark of fire like her flaming hair, to challenge a werewolf without a lick of fear in her gaze despite her shaking hands. He gives her a steady look, trying to convey exactly what would happen to her if she decided to be foolish enough to run from him now. Moving slowly, he rights their chairs, motioning for her to be easy and seat herself again.
She shivers as she obeys, her back grazing his knuckles where he holds her chair.
“Forgive me. I’m nervous, too. I don’t mean to frighten you.”
She looks at him then, direct and piercing, and something within him settles immediately. Gratified that her attention is now focused only on him. He can hear the pitter patter of her heartbeat thrumming within her chest, but her scent is calm and lush. She isn’t afraid. He’s eliminated all other nearby threats. He’s fed her and made her warm and comfortable. He is a good wolf, and he’ll be a good mate once she accepts him.
Joel must trust in nature, but most importantly, he must trust in her to lead them to their mating at her own pace.
“I think I knew you were waiting for me,” she says then, and he returns to kneel before her; brought to his knees at her acknowledgement of their connection. “I was alone out there,” and she looks around his barren yet warm and safe den, “Much, I think, like you’ve been here… But there’s been something, the past few weeks, I don’t know… calling to me. Like I’d forgotten something important and just needed to go out and get it. I heard the pack coming for me and I ran, and I just knew, I knew in my bones that if I came this way I’d be safe. How is that possible?” She asks him with all the wonder in her face he feels in his own heart. “How did I know I’d be safe here?”
“You came to find me,” he tells her, taking her small, nervous hands in his, soothing their wringing. He brings them to his mouth, turning them over to kiss her sensitive palms, the fragile inside of her wrists, but he has to move away quickly. His lust taking hold of him with the smell of her skin, and other places…kneeling as he is in front of her.
She watches him queerly as he turns away, pacing and dragging his fingers agitatedly through his too long hair and scruffy beard. He’s hairy and huge and uncivilized, but he’s hers and he feels almost certain now that she knows it, too.
“We should get you more food,” he tells her then. “Fill that belly of yours.” But she refuses, still wearing that same queer look as she inspects him.
He puts her to bed early after that, watching as the hours pass and they talk quietly, sharing themselves with each other while her eyes droop and grow glassy, taken over by the exhaustion of her journey to him and the slow process of her healing afterwards. So many emotions to process for one human girl, this new fate she’s found herself plunged head first into with him has taken its toll.
She sleeps for several hours and he can do nothing but watch her in rapt fascination, his body becoming more and more excited, harder, as her scent begins to change with continued exposure to his presence.
The curious thing about the lycanthropy infection and its effect on uninfected humans was in the biology of the mating bond itself. An unaffected human could go on for years, but once presented with their mate, their body even in its ordinariness, would inevitably become biologically affected by its counterpart. And once the bite had occurred, their own biology would be irrevocably altered to accommodate its mate. A quirk of evolution, perhaps, humanity’s meager attempt at self preservation.
Her scent blooms as the hours pass, and on the cusp of dawn, just before the weak light of the sun begins to bleed through the canopy of trees sneaking its way through the crack beneath the entrance to Joel’s den, she wakes with a look that beckons him into her bed.
She moves backwards, allowing him into the warm nest, fragrant with the scent of her body heat, inviting him into the space she’s made for him. They’re nothing more than two animals coming together now. He crawls into the nest slowly, terrified to touch her and shatter this dream he’s found himself in, but when she nestles into his side, one small hand placed lightly over his violently beating heart, Joel feels he could cry at how ecstatically happy he feels.
His little mate, here in his arms.
He undresses her slowly, careful of the treasure he finds himself in the presence of, basking in the wonder of her body as he uncovers each new stretch of skin.
Her throat is long and graceful, fragrantly spiced of woman and need. Her breasts are round and lovely and he gently cradles the large, heavy globes, kissing each tip reverently before moving in a line down her belly. Tasting the little dip of her navel and the swell of her belly and each fascinating dips in her hips. He pulls the soft pants he’d put her in from her legs and begins by kissing each tiny toe, carefully running the sharp edges of his teeth over her sensitive instep and finishing with a kiss pressed to the small jut of bone at the side of her ankle. She is so beautiful everywhere, and he tells her so. Even here at her small feet that had carried her so far and so bravely to find him. Promising her that she is the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on in his entire life and that he swears to make himself a worthy mate of her. As his mouth moves slowly up her calves to kiss the backs of her knees, she writhes and whimpers, shifting her thighs open to finally grant him that first glorious glance of her sweet little slit. Plump with the blood of arousal and glistening, he marvels at what a deliciously slick pussy she hides between her thighs. And all his now, too.
Joel’s hunger is unmatched and uninhibited after the sight of that. He sucks bruises onto the insides of her thighs, up and up and up until he’s there at her leaking center, he can do nothing more than bury his face there and inhale deeply, swallowing the heady scent of her desire for him, sliding his tongue between her pretty, drenched curls. She warbles shyly, trying to tug him up towards herself and he acquiesces easily, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the feast before him.
“Your breasts are so soft,” he murmurs, squeezing and kneading them gently. “Except for these. You want me. They’re hard because you want me,” and he flicks her nipples back and forth, pinching and bending to suck them hungrily into his mouth. He wonders if she can feel his heart beating against her own. “They’re so pretty,” he tells her reverently.
He moves higher now, settling his own naked body between the cradle of her thighs so their forms are stretched out against one another, his cock nestled between them, throbbing against her soft belly, bare and vulnerable as the day they were both born.
“Put your arms around me. Hold me to you,” he orders. “Yes, like that. Good girl,” he praises when she obeys. “And open your mouth, give me your tongue.”
When he tastes her mouth for the first time, like sipping on ambrosia, he feels sure this is the most excruciatingly lovely agony he’s ever suffered in his entire life. His cock is so hard it feels it’ll burst with wanting, and he’d like nothing more than to mount her and plunge into her cunt like the savage beast he is, breeding and biting her and tying them together as nature demands.
He kisses her sloppily, hungry like the animal he is, and when he feels at the brink of losing control, her soft sounds anchor him, reminding him of her humanity and his own in turn, exactly as intended. He has never been a creature of patience or restraint but she makes him anew.
“Tell me you like this. Tell me you like kissing me,” he pleads and curses when she does, telling him how much she enjoys his touch, begging for more. “Tell me you want me. Say it now.” He demands reassurance like oxygen and purrs and preens when she does. He’s a vile beast tamed under her palm as she strokes his hair, dragging her fingers down his naked back like her very own pet.
“I want you so much,” she says when he pulls back, spreading her legs wider to show him all she has to offer as he goes to sit back on his heels, her slender fingers coming up to cup her full breasts for him.
“So beautiful,” he groans, taking hold of his agonized erection to squeeze it savagely. “Offer them up to me,” and takes them into his mouth, biting them harder than he probably should. He licks the full globes, sucking on the tips and imagines tasting milk here.
This is a bounty of feminine beauty before him, his perfect, supple mate. He can smell her sex leaking, readying and softening to take him. He’s going to ravish her, it’s all he can think; distracted to madness with the smell of her, the heat that radiates from her center. All he can focus on is petting at that soft place between her even softer thighs, making her come for him.
He begins to stroke her carefully. “What a lovely little pelt,” he admires, dragging his fingers through the soft thatch of red curls with one hand while the other pulls her swollen lips open, baring the wet slash of her cunt to his eyes. He is the luckiest monster that has ever lived. Slowly, he drags his thumb over the swollen nub at the crest of her sex, watching as the tiny hole he’s soon to invade clenches becomingly, releasing another gush of creamy slick.
“You’re almost bursting for me down here, sweetheart,” he rumbles, finally giving her one thick finger to bear down on. She moans and writhes in turn, begging for him, and his cock throbs, a string of precome spurting from the red tip and sliding down his length. “I can hear your heartbeat quickening. Is it because you’re afraid again or because you want a cock inside of you?”
“I’m ready, please. Oh—” she moans, her breasts quivering with the panting of her breath when he presses another finger inside her, beginning to move faster. Her hips undulate, jerking and widening to give him more room until he’s palm to cunt. He can tell she’ll come easily, too sensitive for reticence. The sweet little gash, wet and wanting to be pounded into. She’s going to take his knot so, so well soon.
When her muscles start to tighten, her belly contracting with her orgasm, he bends to suck her clit into his mouth, his fingers opening her cleft to his tongue, drinking her nectar while she pants and cries his name, riding his face for several long moments before she falls back against the nest, exhausted and shaking.
“I feel so, so lovely,” she sighs happily, stretching her arms high above her head and arching her back so that her breasts jut out invitingly, tempting him forward to give one a good sharp bite, reminding her of the wolf she’s allowed to sip from her cunt.
Her eyes burst wide as she squeals, and he takes the opportunity of her distraction to wedge a third finger into her little hole. He thinks he could come just at the sight of her pretty cleft stretched around his thick fingers. Thrusting deeply, he beckons one more orgasm to shiver through her, ensuring her body is well and truly softened to allow him entrance, pressing down on her belly to intensify the feeling. For a moment, while she writhes beneath him, he contemplates the image of his large, tanned hand around the lovely curve of her soft belly and imagines futures filled with things too beautiful to even whisper within the privacy of his own mind.
It’s just that Joel wants so much.
When he pulls his fingers from her opening, the little thing gapes like it’s asking to be filled by his cock. He takes hold of himself, slicking his drenched hand back and forth, his reddened, swollen tip presses forward through its sheath. He slicks it slowly against the tender, puffy curve of her sex before notching at the shivering entrance and presses forward and deeply into all that soft, swollen tightness.
They both cry out as if in shuddering, astounded pain, moaning into each other's mouths as they begin to rock and writhe against one another. His cock slips deep enough to ache against her womb as she widens her thighs and pulls him close against her breast. This is where he’s always been meant to end up, he thinks, as her muscles shiver and tighten around him, an unbearable, blissful heat enveloping his cock as he pulls all the way back so only the wide head is caught at the fragile edge of her sex and then plunges back into her depths, making her cry out for him.
Within him, a fever mounts and he pulls her up against him, sitting back on his haunches so she’s sitting sweetly in his lap with a cock lodged up deep in her belly, he flexes his knees, increasing the power of his thrusts to fuck up into her until she comes for him. Her belly contracts tightly around him, trying to milk his spend up into her womb, and the wet hot sucking of her cunt around his shaft is fucking bliss. Unlike anything he’s ever felt or experienced before, he thinks, as he follows her over the edge and begins to spill inside of her. As he falls over her, breathing heavily, his cock throbs with one last gush of come deep inside, the skin at the base of his length where his knot lays dormant and wanting pulls tight with the repressed need to shift and breed her in his wolf form.
As they continue to shiver wrapped around one another, he peppers her face with kisses, thanking her for giving herself to him, promising her everything she could ever want or dream of. She is so small compared to him. A little heartbeat against his belly, and he curls around her warm, fragrant form and feels suddenly, frighteningly aware of all he has to lose now and anxiously unsure of himself. He failed so horrifyingly once before in a long ago life, how will he ever be strong enough to avoid that same sort of failure again. One day, her belly will grow round and heavy with their pups, and the wolf will have so much responsibility again. He feels afraid, but he knows he’s strong enough to care for them as he needs to. He’ll never let the mistakes of the past hurt his beautiful mate or their pups. For them he’ll be brave.
This fragile, clever creature, how he loves her already. It’s inexplicable, uncontrollable, wrought by Mother Nature herself. A wave of ferocious possessiveness burns through him. She is his. His perfect little mate. He’ll massacre anyone who tries to take her from him
He pulls her to his chest tightly and wills the wolf inside to calm, she is here and she is safe now, and once he bites her and binds the mating he will be stronger, more in control. Running his palms over the soft contours of her body he feels where her cunt is tender and fucked raw, claimed by him. His seed dripping there tames him, and her soft chuffing noises of contentment, the way she whispers his name so sweetly as they bask in the afterglow of their lovemaking, calms him to sleep.
She comes to with the realization that there is man everywhere.
Joel’s large, muscled form lies heavy and softly snoring draped over her, smothering her much smaller body into the nest beneath them. He smells of musk and wolf and sex, and when she kisses his twitching mustache, it is perfumed with the scent of her own slick which makes her blush seven shades of shyness.
She had never, she realizes, in all her life, felt as safe and warm and sated as she does right in this moment, basking in the heat and strength of her newly found mate. She wants to curse that hopeless, desperate creature she’d been before, on the brink of giving up everything for the sake of fear. She’d come so close to missing out on this haven because of her own cowardly despair. She should have known he was out here, as desperately waiting for her as she’d been so desperately waiting for him.
Pulling back, she peers at his dear face, the creased edges of his eyes and lines across his forehead, the silver at the corners of his beard and temples. He had waited so long for her and he had received her with such passionate, loving care.
She had never even allowed herself to dream that she’d have the possibility of being blessed with a mate, something that uninfected humans feared and yearned for in equal measures. Everyone thought that to be claimed by a werewolf was to be condemned to a fate of possessive and deep obsession, by a creature that many saw as a monster but whom, it was rumored, would shield and protect their mate more fiercely than few other creatures on earth.
Dragging her fingers through his hair lightly, he chuffs and purrs in his sleep, a deep rumbling in his chest like some overgrown wolf puppy. He’s shockingly naked. The soft heft of his cock still long even in its slackened state. It’s thrilling to get to look at him like this, so vulnerable and at her mercy. The animal sound sparks the knowledge in her mind that this coupling has not yet reached its completion. She knows what comes next, he must bite and mate with her in his wolf form. The idea that she’s going to get to see him and take him into her own body in the form of that huge, powerful beast makes her heart beat fast as a hummingbird and her sex clench hungrily, a hot rush of his earlier planted semen slipping out wetly between her thighs.
Wriggling backwards and as slowly and carefully as she possibly can, she edges her way out from under him and to the edge of their nest, rolling to the floor quietly and crouching at the edge to watch him. He’ll wake in a moment, already he begins to shift, his palm reaching unconsciously to search for her body. As she stands, she backs away towards the door slowly, perceiving the muted glow of sunlight slipping in beneath the edge of the den’s entrance. Her back bumps against the door and gripping the handle, his eyes open at the moment she pulls it open. There’s a pause to take each other in, a moment of held breath she takes to flash him a huge, teasing smile before she’s spinning on the ball of her foot and throwing herself out the door and into the forest. Sprinting as fast as her bare feet allow, she runs and runs and yells with the wonder of this newfound freedom. Who would have thought that the acceptance of a monster, of a creature so alien and feared they’d been exiled and ostracized by most of humanity, would bring her the belonging she’d been looking for her entire life, and in accepting that monster, she’d find herself able to accept the creature she’d always felt herself to be, too. There’s something incredibly liberating in basking in the other, in letting one’s self love the monster.
She runs and runs, listening to her wolf crash through the forest, faster than any werewolf she’d ever come across before. His feral growling and yipping follows her as she sprints and leaps like a sprite through the trees. She senses him gaining on her, trying to pump the last of her energy and strength into their chase but she’s always been a smart girl, and she knows when she’s beat, and anyways, her heavy breasts are sore from all this running and bouncing. As he crashes through a copse of bushes, she falls into a roll, going to her back and bearing her neck for him in submission. And then there he is, his huge, bestial form leaping over her to cage her between his powerful arms and legs.
The form born of the lycanthropy infection is not that of one typically occurring in nature, but a strange amalgamation of man and animal. The body elongates, taller and wider, powerfully packed muscles covered in dark fur, with a face mixed between man and wolf, a long snout that morphs in intensity from wolf to wolf, man to man, but with the eyes of a human remaining. But she looks upon him now and sees only Joel. Only her mate. Those deep hazel eyes full of pain and grief and longing. Full of a fierce need to keep and care for her.
He huffs his hot panting breath above her, snarling down at her like he’s reprimanding her for running, but she laughs, throwing her head back and basking in his body over hers. In this unbridled moment of belonging. Reaching up, she pets through his thick fur, the pelt is shockingly soft and blisteringly hot, and she can feel the swollen ridges of his muscled abdomen hidden beneath the dark fur. She then caresses the edges of his face, the quivering snout that seems to morph back and forth between his wide, supple mouth and the sharp, terrifying threat of his wolf teeth.
“You shouldn’t run from me, little Red. Are you scared?” He rumbles in a deep, guttural snarl, more animal than man.
She shakes her head, a weak noose of excited nerves caught in her throat.
“Good. I’ll be gentle. It’s time.”
She knows. He is her mate. She knows, as surely as she knows her own name, that she has absolutely nothing to fear from him and that he will always be gentle with her.
He picks her up by the hinge of her waist, slinging her over one broad, furred shoulder and crawls to a nearby burrow in the ground. Dropping her carefully onto her back, he crowds her back with his massive body, growling and chuffing his orders at her. The hollow is small, but perfectly sized for the both of them, as if it’d magically burst from the earth for their use, the ceiling and walls made of tightly packed, damp earth. The air smells of petrichor and fate as a gentle mist starts to fall from the skies, muffling the sounds of the world in white noise.
He crawls closer, his eyes are manic and ravenous but still his, still Joel, and as he covers her small, prone form with his huge mass he bends his head forward, baring his neck to her in a returning show of submission. Yielding to her in the way that a livestock guard dog is submissive to the sheep it protects.
He may be a monster, but he’s her monster.
The thought sends a hot jam of tears to well in her eyes, unable to quell the emotional sob that escapes her when he turns her over, pushing her head down into the soft, packed earth, and pulling her hips up high, presenting her raw cunt for his taking. Over her shoulder she watches as his cock slips from a parting slit in his thick fur, the huge thing, red and swollen and monstrous, the lightly furred sack, hanging low and heavy between his thighs, and she feels her sex tighten and convulse despite her trepidation.
He brings his face close, and begs, “Don’t tell me no,” in that same bestial voice, desperate and guttural, like he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if she denied him.
Silly wolf. How can he not yet know she would give him anything he asked for?
His face morphs from snout to human mouth from one second to the next, his huge, clawed paws grasping her waist and pulling her closer as she feels first a strong chuff of his hot breath and then the tiniest, most gentle kiss surely anyone has ever received, in the moment before his razor sharp teeth pierce the skin of her throat. She doesn’t think she feels any pain at all, simply floats away on a cloud of numb, glowing bliss, and all the while she watches that huge, monster’s cock faintly throb and pulse, swollen a deep flushed red color that drips sticky, thick globs of precome into the dirt between her spread knees, a little like a spilt offering.
Spreading her knees further, she deepens the arch of her back and presents her cunt, and mounting her from behind, teeth still latched, he seats himself deeply within her in one fell thrust. The stretch is a hot wash of pleasure tinged agony bubbling low in her belly, readying to burst. His full sack kisses her swollen pussy, and her fingers and toes go numb with electric pleasure as he stretches her to the brink of pain, the wide head of his huge, werewolf cock notching at the mouth of her womb, so deep it feels as if he’s threatening to pierce her there, too. She holds still, allowing him to take in the measure of her reaction as she adjusts to the incredible girth; the low rumble of approval in his throat, like he’s showing his appreciation for her lying there and taking it.
“Fuck, it’s tight,” he snarls, begging to move inside of her.
Out of instinct, she ruts her cunt back up against him.
“More?” He begins to purr, “I knew you’d like it. I knew you’d want it like this. I could sense it. I could smell your hungry cunt the moment I laid eyes on you, little mate."
Her fingers rake through the dirt, trying to find purchase, trying to claw away and push herself back at the same time, unsure and wanting it and overwhelmed, all at the same time.
“S’too big,” she cries and drools into the dirt, moaning and sobbing.
“Then why’re you fucking yourself on it? Lying little mate. Bad girl, bad puppy.”
Ignoring her winded little sounds, he thrusts his hips harder, faster, intensifying the angle, and her soft body bounces beneath his in a way that makes her grit her teeth. She can feel her full backside jiggling against his pelvis, and he grips the dimples at the base of her spine to pull her back, impaled even deeper on his giant, monster cock.
He hovers over her, his huge hands tipped with terrifyingly sharp claws and furred knuckles planted in the dirt by her head as he slams into her backside.
“Going to breed you, little mate. You’ll be mine forever, like I’m yours.” He leans and pierces the skin of her neck again, murmuring and purring in her ear. Words of a man who loves her and sounds of a rabid animal all mixing into one strange song.
Pulling his hand by her head close, she buries her face in his palm and bites down into the thick flesh hard. Marking him as hers in return. He snarls a loud, frightening sound, and her cunt clamps down on his swelling length, spasming in a kind of hot, painful, needy way. Somehow swelling even larger than before, he starts to pulse hot, searing spend into the deepest part of her and she feels a thick ring of flesh swell where they connect, locking them now into place together.
He whimpers, whines. “M’sorry I scared you. Please, I love you,” murmured into her hair.
And she cries and laughs at once, tears of such unbridled happiness streaming down her face when she tells him she wanted nothing more than the chase and to end up exactly where she is here and now. The thrill of it sends her over the edge again, a shivering, uncontrollable muscle completely helpless to her own will. He trembles in turn, his body shaking, his hips continuing to flex even after he’s stopped spurting.
He curls his large furry body protectively around her and they pant together now, tucked safely in their burrow and she rests. She has been running for so very long. Her whole life, it seemed. She had always felt strange and ugly and other, like a small, ill formed tadpole that had never had the chance to blossom. Hunger and fear had made her gnarled, her growth stilted, but here, in this hollow in the earth beside her monster, she is beautiful and loved.
She watches as his claws retract and his hand warps back into that of a man, he cups the roundness of her belly tenderly where it swells with his seed.
As she marvels at the sight, she asks him: “Did you ever have parents?”
“Of course. Everyone has parents, haven’t they?”
“I’m not sure. You seem…as if you were spit out of the heart of a tree, perhaps. Born from another wolf into the shape of a boy.”
Joel laughs and it’s the loveliest sound in the world. Her strong, gentle wolf.
“That’s not how it works, little mate. Though, I’d reckon the one who was spit out of a tree was you, not me,” he nuzzles and licks his bite, reminding her of how he’d discovered her; on the precipice of darkness, being spit out into her new existence; terrified and wanting to live, searching for him. “Anyways, our pups will look just as we do. Don’t fret.”
The thought makes her pleased. She rakes her soft, little human claws over the back of his hand, and he shivers with pleasure.
How wonderful it is to embrace the beast, she thinks.
She’d been nothing more than a strange, ordinary human girl settling into the uncomfortable constraints of womanhood when she’d found her monster. Now—she has shed her blunt edges and grown fangs, split her seams. Now—the creature within comes to light.
Summary: You really want Joel to give you a baby. And you don’t really care what he has to say about it.
Rating: Explicit 18+
Content Warnings: rough sex, cream pie, breeding kink, reproductive coercion, possessive behavior, daddy kink, humiliation kink, oral sex, mean! Joel obsessed reader, impact play come swallowing
Word Count: 4.2K
The old fan spins slowly above you — round and round and round – hypnotizing. There are water stains on the popcorn ceiling. Maybe it’ll be the asbestos to kill you before anything else does – that’d be real hilarious, considering…
You’ve been laying here for hours. Waiting for him. Wet and achy, and wearing only one of his old t-shirts, and nothing else underneath. You’d made yourself come at least four times already, soaking his sheets, and you know he’s gonna be mad when he finds you here. And really, you did consider listening to him, not breaking into his apartment again, crawling through his window and stripping down to nothing to wait for him in his bed. He’d been very firm when he said no more, that the two of you had to stop. That you were getting too invested and too needy and that he couldn’t give you what you wanted.
But then he’d fucked you again right after that, so you didn’t really care what he had to say, to be honest. Didn’t really believe him.
You wanted him. You needed him. To fuck you, to love you as much as you loved him. And he did, you knew he did. You could feel it in the way he pressed himself into you, his hard cock driving so deep and so good and making you come so hard around him. You knew he loved you back. He just needed a little push. A little coaxing.
And you’d come up with the perfect solution for his uncertainty. A baby. That’s what you were here for tonight. You were going to make Joel put a baby in you. That would fix everything. You were sure of it. And really, this was all his fault. All the months of begging and pleading for his attention. The agonizing desperation of following him around like some sort of pathetic puppy, hoping for just a morsel of his time and affection. Well all that had made you just a little crazy for him. He’d pushed you to reach this conclusion, really.
You wanted to be the only thing he thought of, the only person he needed, desired. The center of his universe, like he was the center of yours. And you knew if you were carrying his baby that would be true. That he’d not be able to focus on anything but the thought of you heavy and pregnant with his child.
His key in the lock sounds, and then he’s there stepping through the open door. Broad and thick with the muscle of his hard labor, and so tall. He’d forced you to stop taking so many work shifts, said it was too hard on you, that he worried too much at the thought of you running around the QZ doing all those odd jobs without him. He worried about you, and the thought of that made your belly clench.
You roll over onto your side and curl into a little ball, tucking your hands beneath your cheek, nuzzling into the smell of him on the pillow as he walks slowly towards the bed. You track his movements with your eyes, saying nothing. You can feel the cool air on your swollen, wet pussy, and you watch his eyes snap towards the junction of your thighs, watch his jaw tighten, the muscle there fluttering with frustration. You smile a sly little smile at him.
“Thought I told you no more sneakin’ in?”
“You did,” you say in a small, acquiescent tone, widen your eyes at him innocently. “I decided not to listen.”
“I can see that.” He crouches down to unlace his boots, his eyes never leaving your cunt. And then he’s straightening up to his full height, and reaching forward to snatch your ankle in his strong grip and dragging you towards him, faster than you can even react. He bends forward, strong arms bulging as he holds himself up over your prone form, you spread your legs wide for him.
“You been playin’ with this needy little cunt.” He ghosts the back of his knuckles over your puffy lips. It’s not even posed as a question, the swollen, red evidence of it bared for him.
“Mhmm,” you mewl, stretch your arms high over your head, spread your thighs wider, presenting yourself to him like an offering for his taking.
His hand snakes up, over the soft swell of your belly, pushing his t-shirt up as he goes. Over your breasts, and up to your jaw. You're panting now, and he hooks his fingers into your mouth, presses down harshly, inspecting the wet gleam of your tongue.
He clicks his tongue at you, disapprovingly, shakes his head a little. “It ain’t yours to play with, little girl,” and he grips your jaw harshly, gives your head a jerky little shake, large hand brutal on the curve of your bone. You’re caught, snared in place like prey. All those months of begging — this is where they’ve gotten you. He presses his lips to yours, opens his mouth, giving you the gift of his tongue and you moan, low and wanton, let him lick into your mouth as he pleases.
“Should I teach you a lesson?” he says as he pulls back, “Teach you who this cunt belongs to?” You let yourself melt into submission. Limbs going soft and pliant — inviting him in for the kill. A small nod your head, and a growl of approval leaks out of him. The thread snaps.
Hand fisted in your hair, he jerks you painfully to the ground in front of him, and you claw at his belt, desperate to get to his cock. You get his zipper down and wrap your hand around the thick, hot length of him. He’s not fully hard yet, and you give him a slow little jerk, looking up at him in permission. He tugs the collar of his shirt up and over your head, leaving you bare and exposed to his hungry stare. Your breasts are heavy and aching, the tips furled into tight points.
“Get it hard, baby, yeah–” he passes the rough pad of his thumb over the arch of your cheekbone, a singular small gift of softness, “just like that.” He smooshes your cheeks into a pucker, digs his fingers between your molars over your soft flesh to force your mouth open. His thick fist replaces your own as he starts to jerk his length, long slow swipes, from base tip, giving the now leaking head a little twist at the end. Your mouth waters as you watch him, your pussy soaked and clenching jealously around nothing. He fists the thick base as he taps the broad bead of his cock on your supplicant tongue. “Gonna fuck your throat. That’s what you wanted right? A little attention?”
“Yes, Joel,” your eyes are huge and pleading, and then he’s pushing the thick length of him into the hot, wet of your mouth. Back, back until he meets the start of your throat and holds there. You swallow around him, once, twice, and he makes a little rumble of approval that fills you with the most pathetic feeling of consolation.
“Look at you – fuckin’ gorgeous with a mouth full of cock–”
He’s still holding at the back of your throat, cutting off your air, and you feel spit pooling at the corners of your mouth, dribbling down. You pull back, gasping – a string of saliva still connecting you to his red flushed tip. “Ah, ah, didn’t say you could stop.” He shoves back in, starts to saw his hips in and out of your mouth. You hollow your cheeks and suck while he grips your hair and directs your movements. He tastes so good, salty and musky with the sweat of his day. You should be disgusted, taking him into your mouth after he’s worked hard for hours, but you’re not. All it does is turn you on more, make you more hungry for him. You swirl your tongue around as much of his thick girth as you can, run your tongue along the thick vein you can feel pulsing and throbbing. The ache between your legs is almost painful now, so desperate to be filled by him. You move to rub at your clit and he slaps your face, a little, quick smack, that has your eyes blinking open, wide and shocked.
“Did I give you permission to do that?” he grits between clenched teeth as he fucks his hips harder into your mouth. The fist he has twisted in your hair makes your eyes smart with tears, and then he’s pulling out suddenly and hooking his hands under your arms to push you harshly onto the bed.
He kneels on the bed, crawling up over you until his broad body is straddled over your chest and he starts to jack himself rough and fast. You’re out of breath, disoriented at his rough manhandling, and so deliriously aroused you’re starting to cry. Pathetic little tracks of tears making a slow crawl back into your hair. “Look so pretty when you cry for me, baby.” He fucks his fist harder and palms the heavy weight of your lush tit in his other hand as he starts to come at the sight of your tears, “Open your fucking mouth.” You stick your tongue out to catch as much as you can, and Jesus fucking Christ, it makes him come ever harder.
“Ah, ah–” he tuts, “don’t swallow, don’t swallow it yet. Lemme see, show me–”
You stick your tongue out further for him, your offering of obedience. The hot pool of his spend sitting heavy on your tongue as he moves down to kneel between your legs, holding it there. You can feel a little bit of drool start to slide down the corner of your mouth, and he wipes it away with a gentle swipe of his thumb, brings it to his own mouth and sucks it between his lips. Nasty man. Your womb cramps painfully, so fucking turned on it physically hurts. More tears run down your temples.
“Poor little girl–” he coos, “You can swallow now. Good girl, yeah, swallow all of it.” The viscousness of it passes through your throat, and it’s like you can feel it settle heavy in your belly, makes you hungrier. “Lemme see? All gone? Good girl.”
His eyes travel a slow path down the length of your body, settle at the aching wet place between your thighs. “Hurts doesn’t it? So red and swollen…” He rubs his broad palms up and down the back of your thighs, pressing your knees back and into your breasts. His eyes filet you, cut you open as if he could see inside, gaze upon your viscera and blood.
“Lemme see you play with it, hmm?” You give him a dubious look, you don’t trust him very much when he’s like this. “It’s alright, it’s alright, I give you permission this time… that’s it…” You press your fingers to the swollen, aching bud of your clit and moan, eyes never leaving his face as he watches with the sickest look of rapt fascination as you play with your pussy. “Inside, lemme see you fuck it,” and you press your index and middle finger into your opening, roll your hips against your palm to grind your clit into the mound of your hand. Fuck, you need more. It isn’t enough and he’s being so mean and withholding. You let out a sob, “Joel– Joel–”
He rips your hand away suddenly and lands a harsh, stinging slap right to the tender apex of your sex, you keen, high and long and try to scramble away from him. Mean, mean, mean, man, but then he’s flipping you onto your belly and landing another sharp blow to the swell of your ass. He spreads your thighs and pulls you back onto his lap, a hand at the small of your back pressing you down into the bed so that you’re entirely vulnerable to him. Splayed open and at his mercy. You claw at the bedsheets. He can see everything — exactly how he wants. His large palms grasp the meat of your ass and pull you apart for closer inspection, and you feel him spit right onto your sex, rub it into your skin. It’s humiliating and dirty and you want him to do it again. You writhe, hips swaying gently side to side, trying to tempt him.
“Look at all this — so pretty and desperate…”
“Please, please, Joel–” you sob, “Just the tip, please, please, daddy. I’ll be so good.” The ache is too much now, spread so wide, it crawls into your limbs, up your back. All your muscles are locked tight and you can feel the clench of your hole right there for him to witness. Your skin is flushed and sweating and burning hot.
“This is what happens to bad girls who don’t listen. Who touch things that don’t belong to them.” He runs the pad of his thumb from your entrance to your clit, gives it a soft little swirl, not nearly enough to soothe the ache away, and then back to your pussy, presses the tip of his finger in just the tiniest bit and you wail. Pleading. Then further up, “What if I fuck you here too, hmm?” He presses down gently on the tight bud of muscle, and you clamp down hard, trying to keep him out. Now you’re really clawing at the sheets, trying to get away from his probing fingers. “No, no– relax, relax for me. Don’t get scared now… it’s gonna happen eventually. You don’t have a choice, baby. Wanted me to own you? So desperate to be all mine? Then I get all of your little holes…” He’s pressing down on your lower back then, flattening your arched form onto the bed, and gripping your hips to flip you over. He moves back, crouches between your spread open thighs, he holds your gaze with his as he spits on your cunt again, then shifts to track the slow slide of his saliva through your glistening folds. His eyes burn with hunger — he likes it, it’s filthy and he likes it. He dips his head and licks through the mess he’s made, presses his tongue into you, and then back up to suck your clit hard into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed out, he flicks his tongue up and down. There’s no gentleness in the way he eats you. You writhe on the bed, hands clutched in his gray streaked hair, and you roll your hips, fucking yourself on to his tongue. His wide palm pushes down on your tummy and then two of his thick fingers are pressing into you and hooking on that spot inside you that makes you see stars and oh fuck, it’s too much, too much too much too much, you tell him. It feels like you're about to wet yourself, it’s too intense, so intense it almost hurts, and then you’re coming. Your orgasm pooing low in your back and then exploding, you’re gushing onto his face, into his open mouth, can feel the wet splash against your thighs, and he’s fucking groaning, growling into your skin, not letting up even for a second.
You start to cry harder, hiccuping and gasping, overstimulated immediately after that.
“Messy little girl,” he pulls back, swipes his palm softly over your pulsing center. He stands then, looking down at you from his great height. A conqueror come to enjoy his spoils. You can see how heavy and thick his cock hangs between his legs. Already ready to go again. It’s obscene that a man his age can have this sort of stamina.
“This is what you wanted right? What you needed? Just some attention. Always desperate for my attention. ” You swipe your fingers through the wet between your legs and bring it up to suck your fingers into your mouth.
You hum, popping your fingers into your mouth, and without your gaze leaving his you say: “I want you to put a baby in me, daddy.” He goes stock still, unblinking. You smile at him, putting on your most beguiling look and nod your head at him. You watch a flush start in his chest and make a slow crawl up his neck and into his cheeks, deep and red.
His breathing has changed, into something rougher and deeper. He closes his eyes, cocks his head to the side as if in contemplation. You try to settle your own breaths, match the cadence of his. This is it, this is it. “What did you just say to me?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” you say innocently. You watch a shiver pass through him. There is a conniving sense of satisfaction running through your blood at the sight of him so shocked by your words. “Want you to fuck a baby into me. Want your come,” you pout.
He starts to unbutton his shirt, pushes his pants down the rest of the way and steps out of them. His eyes are still closed, like he can’t look at you yet. Like if he does all his control will be lost. When all his clothes are gone he finally looks at you again and you sweep your eyes along the gorgeous lines of him. So tall and strong. Hair and beard threaded with silver, mused from your fingers. His middle thick, gone a little soft with age. Fucking sexy.
He kneels between your legs again and pulls your spread thighs over his own bulkier ones, and then his cock is there, finally, finally, pressing into you. He surges up into you in one harsh thrust, giving you the entire thing without preamble, without a second for you to adjust. He holds there. “So that’s what you want, is it?” His voice is soft, and you can feel the bite of a threat threaded through the vowels and consonants of his words. It makes you clench around him in apprehension.
“Put a baby in me, Joel. Please wanna belong to you, please, please, please.”
He closes his eyes tight, jaw clenched at how fucking good you feel. Your cunt – like it was made just for him, his to fill, his to fuck whenever and however he wants. Your back arches, letting him in deeper, your legs spreading wider for him.
“Sweet girl, don’t think you know what it is you’re asking for.”
“I do, I do– I want your baby, please, please fuck me full of your come.”
“Wanna make me a daddy? Want me to put a baby in my baby?” and yes, yes, you could cry at hearing him say it. It’s exactly what you need. He starts to thrust his hips, the head of his cock kissing something deep and only his inside of you.
“This what you’ve been thinking’ about all day while you fucked yourself in my bed? Gettin’ all round and heavy with my baby?” He curls his hand around the bend of your knee, pulls your leg up to press a soft kiss to the inside of it.
Yes, yes. He curls one hand around your neck, cradling the base of your throat, the other squeezing the heavy weight of your breast, and he’s so fucking hot when he gives you wht you want, you moan, eyes rolling to the back of your head.
“Everyone will know… Everyone will know what a bad girl you’ve been. What you let me do to you.”
“Want them to know,” you gasp as he picks up his pace, “Want them to know I belong to you.”
Your words unravel him. “That’s right – that’s fucking right – you do belong to me.” His cock is brutal inside of you. “Fucking obsessed with this cunt. It’s mine–” His gaze is fixed on where your bodies meet, where you’re taking him. You wish you could watch through his eyes, see what he sees, how the thick girth of it stretches you.
“Tell me how grateful you are I’m giving you my cock. Tell me how grateful you are I’m gonna fuck a baby into this sweet pussy–”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your voice is an incoherent babble.
“Oh, I know– I know it’s hard to use your big girl words when you’re so full, isn’t it? Hmm?” You’re going to come soon, can feel your walls flutter and throb around the unrelenting length of him. “Fuckin’ cock drunk little girl,” he growls. Leans forward to press his chest into yours, licks into you, fucks your mouth as deep as he’s fucking your pussy. He slides a hand beneath your ass, tilting your pelvis up and forward for him. The angle changing impossibly deeper, verging on painful. You want more.
“You like this, baby? Like what I have to give you?”
“More, Joel, more, more– want your come–”
“Needy little thing. Whose cunt is this? Tell me.”
“Yours, yours,” you cry, hitch your legs higher up his back to press your heels into the hard muscle there.
He pulls back and angles his hips downward, driving brutally into you. “Right there — you feel that? That’s my fucking spot– Mine, only mine.”
It’s too much, too much. And you tell him so. “Shut up. Shut up and take it. This is what you asked for. This is what you wanted, and now you’re gonna take it until I fuck you full of my baby.”
You mewl his name over and over again, starting to come around him in long, throbbing pulses. “Fuck, fuck, that’s it, that’s it. What a good girl. Fucking perfect–” You try and push him away, overwhelmed by him, but he clasps both your wrists above your head in his strong grip, hands limp and useless in the face of his strength, “I know, I know, it’s okay,” he shushes you, a little condescending, a little mean. It stings, just how you like it. “I know you’re just a little girl, and it’s a lot for you. But I know you can take it.”
“Joel, please–”
“Gonna give you my come now, baby girl.” You’d gotten what you wanted, and now that you had it, you could do nothing but take it – his devastating pace – take it and take it and take it – stuffed completely full.
He pulls back, pins you down by the shoulders, presses you into the bed until it almost hurts. The muscles in your back and arms straining under his heavy weight. “Fuck yourself on my cock until you come again. You wanted it so bad, so fuckin’ desperate for it, then fuck yourself, use my cock. Want you to milk me.”
His thighs slide further under yours, seating you more fully in his lap and forcing his thick length further into your already overstretched cunt. It hurts, but you start to grind your hips slowly, slowly. Dragging your mound over his pelvis, grinding your clit into the base of his cock. Your mouth is open and stupidly gaping like a fish and his own mouth, his expression, mocks you a bit – condescending. He reads the desperation in your eyes; it amuses him, and that makes your belly coil and twist with humiliation, but also with lust. He’s mean and you like it, and he knows that you like it. It makes him meaner.
He slides his fingers through the slick wet of where he’s stretching you out, fucking you open. Feeling how far your little hole is stretched around him makes him even harder. He starts to feel the tight heat coil at the base of his spine. “I’m gonna give it to you now. Gonna fuck that baby into you–” He needs to come, needs to fuck his spend deep into you, needs to fuck a baby into you, get you round and swollen and claimed as his for the whole world to know. His words set off your own orgasm once again, and you clamp down tight as a fist around him. The wet squelch of your cunt taking him the only thing you can hear in your ringing ears. He starts to come too, the hot jerk of him filling you inside extending your climax. “That’s it, fuckin’ take it,” he grits out. He bends to suck your nipple into his mouth, bites down on it harshly. You can do nothing but accept all of him. After all, you did ask for this.
His hips grind deep. Your entire body is nothing more than one prolonged, overly sensitive throb. You can feel the viscousness of his spend seeping out of you, where you’re connected, down between your ass and onto the bed sheets beneath you. His mouth switches to your other breast, kissing this one gently; soft, little licks to your nipple. He sits up between your thighs. Takes in the destruction he’s just wrought over you. You’re beyond words, but the look in his gaze is so appreciative, it makes you preen.
His now soft cock slips out of you, wrung out from coming twice in a row, but he stuffs his fingers into your sensitive, gaping hole. Scooping his leaking come and pressing it back in. “Gotta keep it all in, baby. Keep it all in so it’ll take, hmm?” he croons.
And yes, you think, you’ll just have to do this over and over again. Until it takes. Until you’re both just as deeply rooted within the other.
summary: You and Joel got married. There's just one tradition you didn't get to complete.
warnings: age gap (20's/50s), reader wears a dress, smut, oral.
word count: 2.4k
“Y’know we didn’t do the garter toss.”
“Oh shut up.”
You’re standing at the kitchen counter, shoulders pressed together, a shared piece of cake between you. Joel’s shirt is unbuttoned at his throat, golden skin glimmering with a sweat from the heat of the night, celebrants packed into that little room together, Joel's body against yours. You slide a hand against his chest, feeling the coarse brush of his chest hair against your fingers.
“I’m serious,” he laughs against your temple, lips pressed against your skin.
“So you wanted to stick your head under my dress with the whole town watching?”
When you look at him, his cheeks are tinted pink. “The whole damn town wasn’t there.”
“So just in front of your brother and Ellie and Maria and—”
He pinches your side, “All right, I get your point, sweetheart.”
You stick another forkful of cake in front of his face. “Glad you came to your senses.”
Joel takes your wrist in his hand, guides the fork to his mouth. “Well they ain’t here now, are they?” He says, chewing, and lets go of your hand.
“You really want to, huh?”
“It’s just tradition,” he shrugs, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “And you went to all the trouble of makin’ one and wearin' it all day.”
You sit the fork down. “I can think of a couple of other non-traditional things we’ve gotten up to, Joel Miller.” You cup his cheek in your hand, feel the warmth of his skin beneath your palm, the scrape of his beard on your hand.
He denies being a romantic but the evidence is stacked against him. Joel is a man who had senselessly married you in a world where it no longer mattered - just to say you belong to each other, officially.
It seemed like overkill to you.
But still, you had. He had insisted on it.
Joel had insisted in a way that he rarely did about things. It was important to him.
“Cute.” He circles an arm around your waist. “You don’t want me to, you just say the word and I’ll let it go. I’ll just end up with my head between your legs anyway.”
You laugh, the feeling breathless. It shouldn’t be possible to feel as happy as you do in that moment, not after so many years of hell, of barely clinging to a notion of life.
Joel has always had a way of flustering you, making you feel younger and less experienced than you are, cheeks hot with embarrassment and trepidation and a love so big it's takes up your whole chest, pains you all the way to the middle of your soul.
He makes you want too, hungry and needy. He hasn't touched you, hasn't even really said anything, and you can feel a formless ache pooling between your legs.
“Who are you gonna toss it to after you get it off me, mister tradition?”
His arms tighten around you. “Not a damn soul. No one’s gonna see that garter but me, darlin’.”
“Promise?”
“Swear it.”
“And what’ll you do with it?”
“I’ll find a use for it.”
You roll your eyes; the inflamed, wanting feeling not fading. Heat bubbles in your belly, pinches the nerves into little knots of need. “So where do you want me?”
He doesn't loosen his arms, just tugs you along to the kitchen table and pulls out a chair. “Right here, honey, if that works for you.”
“It’ll do I guess.”
“Uh huh.”
Joel holds your hand delicately as you lower yourself into the chair.
You aren’t wearing a real wedding dress, just something white that could have probably passed as one once, a makeshift veil on your head, a simple metal band around your finger. Joel’s thumb slides across the back of your knuckles, working over your ring once, twice, as he goes to his knees.
He squeezes your hand and deposits it on his shoulder.
You almost hadn’t worn the garter, sewn by your own hand for fun, from a spare bolt of white cloth and lace from some other long deteriorated piece of clothing. After all, there was no way in hell that Joel would have ever really taken the thing off you in public with an audience.
But you’d slipped it on before your dress and decided you liked how it looked, how it made you feel. A rarity, anymore. You rarely feel as beautiful as you’d gotten to today.
“Maybe you were right, ‘bout not doin’ this in front of god n’ everybody,” he says as you move your hand from his shoulder and into his hair, soft, clean strands falling through your fingers.
The hair at the base of his neck is curled with humidity, a good kind of exertion, one that didn't require pain or bloodshed.
Joel had danced with you, had only let a few people cut in. The public possession of each other was all consuming; commanding, even. He doesn’t normally fare so well with public affection or attention, aside from a broad palm against your spine, fingers curled around yours.
“I usually am.”
He laughs and lies his palms against the back of your ankles, deft fingers working the carefully restored heels from your feet. After some twenty odd years, the pair you found had been ready to disintegrate in your hands before Joel took it upon himself to figure out how to be a cobbler.
His fingers dig into the space above your ankle and then the back of your calf, slowly working upwards. “You shaved,” he murmurs, thumbs tracing the space behind your knees, digging into taut flesh.
“Just my legs. Maria gave me a razor.”
“Mhm. Didn’t have to do that.”
“Wanted to.”
Nerves flutter in your belly, anticipation holding your lungs in a firm grasp, like a balloon about to pop. He still gives you butterflies.
It’s not as if Joel’s never looked at you like this before. It was his custom to gaze at you all soft and sweet when no one was looking, in your bedroom, in all the dark spaces in your lives. But this feels different; it feels new, in more ways than one.
His eyes are dark when he looks up at you. The moment stretches long and syrupy slow between you, the moment trapped between wax paper or preserved in honey.
The room grows hot and tense, the air like an unplucked guitar string.
Your pussy flutters when he finally moves his hands, sliding his right higher, chuckling when the muscle in your thigh twitches and you jump. “You’re being cruel,” you accuse.
“I’m just lookin’.”
“Well, hurry up.”
“I told you we don’t got to do this—” He starts to pry his hands away, cool air slipping in between the spaces his fingers leave behind.
“No,” you grip his wrist in one hand, keeping it against your knee. “I want you to.”
He hums, hands closing again, tightening against your skin. “Thought so.” He looks you over again, maybe even slower this time because he knows you won’t say anything. “C’mere, sweetheart. Put your leg right here.”
He guides one of your knees over his shoulder, turns his head to lay a kiss against your thigh. “Good girl. Open up for me.” He gently adjusts your hips, pulling you to the edge of the chair, pushing your other knee wider.
It’s agony, the fire in your stomach, the pulse of your body around nothing.
Embarrassment and shame you’ve never been able to quite stave off rise in twin columns to wrap around your heart, because he’s going to find you wet just from this, from his warm hands and dark eyes. Never mind that he’s seen worse, knows you in much more compromising ways than damp underwear. It's likely his fingers know your body, the interior of you, better than your own.
A whine slips past your lips, and his gaze goes black with lust, with want. The corner of his mouth twitches.
You keep your hand buried in his hair when he finally ducks beneath your dress, the tip of his nose skimming along your thigh. You jump when you feel his tongue against your skin, the nip of his teeth right after along the thin material of the garter.
You expect him to just tug it off without fanfare, slide it down your leg with his teeth as tradition dictated, but he bypasses it entirely, pressing kiss after kiss along your thigh until he finds the crease of your hip.
His other hand skims up your opposite leg, and you’re glad that he can’t see you because your eyes roll back at the feeling of his wedding ring pressing along your flesh. The metal is warm from his body, hot against yours where it divots against your thigh and hip and then your waist and the small of your back.
If the bodice of your dress weren’t tight he probably would have pressed higher but he settles insead for skimming the soft plush of your belly.
“Jesus Christ, Joel.”
He doesn’t answer, you don’t think he can, not with the way he's sucking bruises into your hip and then your thigh, kissing his way back down to the garter, that he catches with his teeth.
The fabric is only dragged a few inches down before he seems to change his mind.
He moans when you tug sharply at his hair in surprise—hot mouth suddenly on your cunt, the fold of his tongue hot against your slit through your satin panties. The fabric does nothing to dull the sensation, not with how damp the material already is.
It’s everything you can do to keep balance and not fall off the chair, but he shifts to better support your weight with his shoulder.
He’s going to feel this tomorrow, in his knees and back and shoulder, and you know he doesn’t give a damn.
You grip fistfulls of your dress and hike it up, breath hitching in your chest.
His cheeks are flushed, he looks up at you with dazed eyes, drunk on you just like this. “Can I, sweetheart? You’re so goddamn wet.” He presses his forehead to your hip, muttering about how good you smell. Your belly clenches, body pulsing with need.
The vein in his neck pulses; sweat gathered at the hollow of his throat, hair staticked and messy. His beard is deliciously rough against your skin when he kisses you there again while he waits for your answer.
You nod, eyes fluttering closed when he tugs your underwear to the side and makes a strangled noise. It’s only then you notice him palming himself through his jeans. He eats your pussy like a man starved, like he doesn’t have you and savor you all the time.
But maybe this time is different for him too. It’s brand new because in a way, you are new to each other.
The familiar sensation of his lips sealing around you, sucking you into his mouth, tongue slipping between your folds, inside you, is all different because of the ring on his finger, willingly slipped on, hammered by his own hand.
Some part of you had thought the proposal had been that and marriage combined. Just a promise to be kept, but he was serious. He was going to marry you and do it right and he did.
Your wedding bands are both delicate and crude, polished to a shine and without any fanfare.
You come embarrassingly quickly on his tongue, fingers raking through his hair, your other hand tangled up with his. He holds your hips down gently, white lightning bolts of pleasure snaking down your spine and echoing through the rest of your body, his mouth against your belly and hip and thigh, waiting for you to come down, for your breathing to even.
He’s gentle with you, carefully adjusts your clothes, and then, finally, drags the garter off you with his teeth, callused fingers grazing your skin when he plucks it from your ankle.
Emotion squeezes your throat, collects on the back of your tongue like so many tears and rainwater.
“Come here,” you say, sitting up and nearly falling off the chair. “Joel, come here,” you murmur. He’s still on his knees and from your perch, you’re taller than him.
He tastes like you, like buttercream icing, like saltwater, when you kiss him.
And when you do end up leaning too far and falling, he catches you. You topple onto him, catching yourself against him in a heap. He looks dazed and messy and maybe even happy. “You’re my husband,” you say, and something very primal inside you feels satisfied to say it.
“Yep,” he agrees, patting your hip, “think that’s been true for a couple hours now.”
“I think it’s just setting in.”
“Regrettin’ it already?” He chuckles.
“Talk to me in a couple days.”
He chuckles, lets you rest your head on his chest. “Just can’t let Tommy know if you do,” he says. “Was mighty proud of himself for marryin’ us.”
“You wouldn’t be disappointed?”
He laughs and the sound is a little pained. “I’m lucky you ever paid me any mind. If you got up right now and walked away, I don’t think I’d regret it.”
This, you’d have never guessed at when you met him, these very vulnerable, delicate, bleeding parts that nearly no one knew about. But you do. “I wouldn’t either.” You stroke his cheek, the fine lines by his eyes, the pockets of exhaustion beneath his eyes that are lighter than you’ve ever known them to be, the gray hair encroaching on more and more of his beard and hair each day. “I’m lucky, too.”
Joel goes pink around the ears again, and it would be funny if it weren’t so endearing. “So what will you do with that thing?”
“This?” He lifts the scrap of white still in his hand. “Real pretty. Reminds me of you.” But he doesn’t answer the question and you decide to let it go.
“I can put it back on for you, if you wanna take it off again. Since you got so distracted the first time.”
“You’re just a goddamn comedian, aren’t ya?”
“Well, I mean, at your age—”
You don’t get to finish, because he’s pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead, arm tight around you. It’s enough to make you sink down against his chest, curled together on the kitchen floor.
He probably thinks you miss him tucking it into his pocket.
summary: joel listens to you pee while he showers.
warnings: age gap (20's/50s), joel pov, piss kink, male masturbation, imaginary creampie, imaginary tummy bulge
word count: 1.8k
--
You've been teasing him. You love teasing him.
It's been a long, grueling week of teasing.
But you and Sarah finally head back to college tomorrow, and he can't thank his lucky stars enough. He'd thought it'd be nice having her back here, even nicer that she decided to bring a friend along.
How wrong he'd been.
You're, for lack of a better word, persistent. Very persistent. And he's flattered, don't get him wrong, he's extremely flattered; beyond awestruck that someone as young and beautiful as you would have any interest in an old man like him. It had taken a few days for him to actually even accept what was happening; the flirty comments, the seductive glances, the little touches here and there. He'd thought he was making it up, that maybe you were just a touchy-feely kinda person, a lover of intimacy with everyone.
Until you'd been on the couch together on the third night. You'd leaned over to grab something - the remote, your drink, he can't even remember now - and you'd purposely made sure to brush your knee against his bulge. You'd kept it there for a few seconds, rubbed it gently, and then with a wink you'd grabbed whatever you'd been reaching for and settled in next to him again. Sarah, on the opposite side of you, hadn't noticed a thing.
But he had. And he'd noticed everything else you were doing after that. Nudging your foot against his ankle under the kitchen table, brushing past a little too closely in the kitchen so that your breasts pushed against his back, wiped crumbs of dessert from his mouth with your thumb and then sucked it into your own with a wide-eyed and flirtatious expression.
Not to mention the shit you wore - when you'd first arrived you'd been in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, nothing unusual. But after that first day of meeting him you'd suddenly switched to dresses exclusively. Short little things that barely covered the tops of your thighs, frilly material that bunched up in the back whenever you bent over.
He's now seen the plump shape of your ass and those delicate little panties you wear way too many times to count.
But he can't. He cannot act on the desire he feels for you, even though you're quietly begging for it. You're his daughter's best friend, not to mention he's three times your age. Only a dirty old man would even consider reciprocating the things you've done to him this week.
It's just one more day, he tells himself. Just one more day and she's gone.
It's on that final day that he finds himself where he usually does on a Saturday morning - in the shower. He's humming along to a tune he can't place and scrubbing body wash along his arms when he suddenly hears a knock at the door, light and almost shy. He freezes, raises an eyebrow.
"Mr. Miller?" he hears your voice on the other side, "Can I come in? I have to pee."
His eyes go wide; is she serious? She can't wait a few minutes for him to finish?
"I'll be out in a few," he calls back, trying to ignore the speed at which his heart is suddenly pounding.
"I don't think I can wait, I really have to go," you reply almost immediately, voice edged with a desperation he can't tell is real or fake. He lets out a low groan, hand coming up to pinch the space between his eyebrows as he figures out what to do.
Before he can decide he hears the squeak of the bathroom door, opening just a little bit. Fuck.
He could yell at you. He could tell you to leave him alone, to give him privacy. He'd have every right. Even Sarah would back him up.
But then he hears your little voice again, soft and eager.
"I'll be quick, I promise."
He brings his hand to his mouth, bites at the flesh on the back of it and shakes his head underneath the stream of water. This is a bad idea. This is a very bad idea.
"Okay," he manages to say, voice husky and muffled against his skin.
He hears you close the door behind yourself, hears the soft footsteps of your bare feet against the tile. He wonders what you're wearing; if you're still in your pajamas - those cute little pink shorts and that tiny white bralette - or if you're already dressed. What if you're wearing another one of those little dresses?
His cock, which only a moment ago lay soft against his inner thigh, starts to harden.
"M'sorry, I really had to go," he hears you say sweetly from the other side of the shower curtain, "And you guys only have the one bathroom, so..."
"It's okay," he replies, voice almost pained, "It's okay, I don't mind."
And he hates that it's the truth.
He doesn't hear you sit down on the toilet over the sound of flowing water, isn't sure whether you've already started or you're still waiting for him to say something else. He clears his throat awkwardly, willing himself not to look down at his growing erection.
"Y'good there?"
"Yeah, sometimes it just takes me a minute when I'm around someone else."
Then why the fuck couldn't you just wait? He wants to ask, desperation and arousal clawing at his thoughts as he leans his head back against the shower wall. He brings his hands up and covers his eyes, wills you to just do what you need to do and get out.
His cock bobs against his stomach.
And then he hears it - it's different than the shower, less heavy. More light, delicate. An almost melodic sound that echoes against the bathroom walls, overwhelms his senses to the point where it's suddenly all he can hear. It flows out of you slowly at first, then steadily.
Oh fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
You're doing this on purpose. He fucking knows you are. He knows you're dragging it out, taking your time, knows that you're probably hoping he'll take a peek at you as you do it.
And fuck, he hates that you're right.
He removes his hands from his face and brings one down to finger the shower curtain quietly, pulling it the tiniest bit so he can see past it. He feels like such a fucking pervert, the dirtiest old man that ever existed, and yet the throbbing in his now fully hard cock and the sound of you pissing inches away is telling him that he needs to look.
So he does. And there you are.
You are wearing one of your dresses, pink and tiny and perfect. Your pretty little panties are around your ankles and you've got your dress bunched up over your thighs, almost up to your chest. He can see so much of you, so much that's been hidden only just out of sight all week. The tops of your thighs, round and soft, the perfect pouch of your belly that peeks out under where you're holding the material of your dress. And there...just barely in view... he can see the smallest hint of your pussy.
He stares. And he listens.
You must know he's watching you, but you don't let on. You stare straight ahead, holding your dress high above your tummy and pushing out the remainder of your release with a dazed little smile on your face.
He wonders if your clit is throbbing. He wonders if it's poking out while you sit there, wonders what colour it is and how it would feel beneath his fingertip. He hears that beautiful twinkling sound and imagines what your pussy must look like as it relieves itself, wonders if it's pulsing, wonders what your little holes must be doing under there, just out of his eyesight.
With barely any thought he begins to stroke his cock with his free hand, mouth popping open as he pulls and pushes and continues to watch you - the prettiest little thing he's seen in way too long - in such a vulnerable state. He knows you're almost done, knows you can't make it last forever - even though you both want it to.
He tilts his head a bit, brows furrowed, eyes dark. He stares at your tummy and imagines the outline of his cock poking through from the other side. Would your little hole take all of him? Would it fit? Would you beg for it?
If you don't leave in the next minute he's going to fuck you.
And just as that thought crosses his mind, your pretty little stream dies out. The sound of the shower centers his world again and disappointment floods his body. Don't go. Don't leave yet. Show me that soft little pussy, please.
Much to his chagrin you carefully pull yourself up from the toilet. He watches as you flush, watches as you turn away from the shower to slowly bend over, reaching for your panties. His jaw goes slack, fist still pumping his cock as you do just what he was wishing. He can see your folds, see the little drips of liquid still clinging to your outer lips, can almost see the hint of your little clit peeking out.
He comes almost immediately, white heat gurgling onto his fist and down into the drain below as he stares at that perfect little seam, wet and dripping and begging to be fucked. He wishes he was filling it up, wishes he was painting your insides and making you squeal, holding you close with his balls pressed firm against that perfect ass.
You pull up your panties slowly, making a bit of a show of it before you're suddenly standing straight. You start to turn around, back toward the shower, and at that he lets go of the curtain and allows it to fall back into place, concealing him - and his now softening cock - from your view.
He listens as you turn on the tap, doesn't mind that the water goes a bit cold as you do - anything to get some clarity.
"I'm done now, sorry about that," he hears you say over the sound of water hitting the tiles, "I just really had to go."
"Th-that's okay," he manages to get out, voice strained and practically wrecked, "Whatever you need, sweetheart."
"You're so nice," you reply, and he can hear that you're smiling, "Enjoy your shower, Mr. Miller."
--
That evening, he calls for you while you and Sarah are watching a movie downstairs. Jumping at the chance to be alone with him, of course you tell Sarah not to pause it, tell her to keep watching because you've "seen it before" and you "won't be long".
It's almost like you know.
You know that when you find him upstairs he'll be standing in the bathroom, know that he'll pull you inside and close the door behind you.
A kiss to stifle your cries, a tongue between your lips to steal any trace of a whimper before it could ever leave. Joel knew by the way your wet, pliant hole stretched wider and wider for him with each thrust that you’d eventually quiet down—but he needed silence now.
And he’d get it when he clamped his palm over your mouth. At first, your brows lifted with surprise, then pinched inward like you didn’t understand, then twitched again, involuntarily, when the head of his cock cleared a path straight toward your cervix. You whimpered into his hand and made a point to dig your heels even deeper in his back. Joel had promised he’d be better about that.
“‘M’sorry,” he mumbled.
Another stab. Another whimper, only louder this time.
“Sorry, baby, I’m—” Joel stopped to fight back a groan of his own, before pressing his palm down with even more force, “—sorry, jus’ need ya real quiet right now, okay?”
You tried to nod, but the weight and stricture of his grip were as heavy as lead against your face. Add to that the soft, sawing motions of his cock going in and out of your cunt and the nudge of his oversized tip at your cervix, and it was all you could do to just lay there and take it. Joel knew this was brand new to you—he’d been your first not too long ago and the only partner since—so he eased back and lifted his hand when you gave it a tug.
Grey stubble was already licking at the corners of your mouth with Joel’s minuscule kisses of reassurance when you giggled and squeezed him tighter between your legs:
“I’m tryin’, Joel. Really, I am,” you whispered.
“I know, sweet pea,” he whispered back, “I know.”
He took the palm he’d used to stifle your moans and smoothed it over your cheek, coming to rest at one side so he could kiss you fully. Maybe a hand was too much.
He’d inculcate restraint some other way, and if it didn’t come easy, a few more fucks on the forest floor like this one would probably do the trick. Your mouth opened up for his tongue just like your cunt would open up for more of his cum and the rest of your body would surely follow suit, learning to control the noises of pleasure as needed.
“Good girl,” Joel murmured against your lips, feeling you clench around him and expel a breath rather than whine. He withdrew himself to the tip, then plunged back in, “Such a good, perfect girl for me, ain’t ya, sweetheart?”
At length, you yelped into his mouth. You couldn’t help it. Rather than reprimand you with words or smother your lips with his palm, though, Joel kept fucking you gently.
“‘S’okay, pretty girl, it’s okay. I know that feels good.”
His mouth was next to your ear now, praises audible to no one else but you. It added a whole new dimension to your pleasure; Joel could tell from the way your walls constricted around him and choked him, sucked him in. The feeling nearly elicited a groan from his chest, but of course, he had all the resolve of a seasoned professional. Decades and decades of practice had done that for him.
“Joel,” you mewled.
Your face was screwed up in a grimace, eyes likely to be brimming with tears any second now. Joel slowed his pace once more, felt a pang of guilt for how big he felt inside you—how those decades and decades of practice set you drastically apart from each other in experience—and this time, he didn’t try to muffle your whines. He just stroked the top of your cheek with one thumb, and with the other, snaked a path between your body and his.
Admittedly, Joel was still learning about yours. He wasn’t sure if the whimpers you’d made were born wholly of pleasure or just a sense of being stretched out and filled. Because you yourself were still learning to be vocal, Joel figured he’d give the latter a stab. He started thumbing your clit in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure.
It worked, and it didn’t.
Your walls parted easily beneath the quiet ministrations of his thumb, opening yourself more to Joel’s thrusts, but they also tore a scream out of your throat—the kind that was liable to stir the leaves on every tree and alert any clicker within a two-mile radius to your presence.
The kind of outcome Joel had been trying to prevent when he’d brought you on patrol with him in the first place. The kind of sound he was trying to fuck out of your body completely; teach you to keep quiet and still for when the two of you inevitably got bored during perimeter watch and rolled the sleeping bag out to fuck.
Joel tensed above you and cast a quick look around. Sure, he’d picked a decently safe spot, but then you—
“Joel, I—”
Without thinking, the man stopped and stuck the first thing he could possibly fit in your mouth: his thumb. Whatever you’d been trying to say to him was promptly lost in a hum against his knuckle, lips enveloping the thick, callused digit like some tangy-flavored lolly. Joel’s hips sank back into yours, slowly, and he felt the reverberations of another moan spill over his finger.
He swallowed and stared. That shouldn’t have been nearly as sexy as you’d just made it seem, especially when your life and his hung in such a precarious position.
Joel dragged his cock back out and happened to graze a sensitive, spongy ridge inside you, which made you moan again. You hollowed your cheeks and gritted your teeth a bit more against his thumb, gripping Joel’s forearm for support as he continued to fuck you.
And, had you stayed like that a moment longer, you probably would’ve seen a shiny string of drool start to pool and stretch and fall out from one side of his mouth. Instead, Joel switched hands and popped the thumb that had been toying with your clit into your mouth, eyes glazed over with desire as they drank in the sight of you sucking his thumb again. The tip was still soaked with your warmth and slipped easily past your parted lips.
Another sound bubbled up your throat when you got a taste—Joel had always been in the habit of kissing you after eating you out, so you were well-acquainted with the flavor, but never had he fed you your own arousal on his finger. This felt obscene, something more than just pornographic as those deep, brown, lust-addled irises remained glued to where your lips closed around him.
“Y’like that, huh?” he said, voice reduced to a whisper once more while you nipped and suckled at the skin.
You bobbed your head to indicate yes, opened your mouth to tell him softly that you liked it so much—loved the taste and grit of his finger on your tongue, in fact. You wanted to show him you could be vocal, too, when Joel’s frame rose over yours a little more and seemed to blanket it entirely. Like he wanted to shield you, in a way.
“Shhhh, shhh…keep suckin’ like that. Stay still, okay?” Joel murmured, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this was a test. He was nodding, rutting gently between your legs, wedging his thumb deeper inside the wet, velvety contours of your mouth and waiting for a look from you to say that you understood.
You weren’t sure if you did, but you nodded anyway. Joel’s thumb made a wonderful sort of makeshift gag as he continued to thrust inside of you, his body somehow lowering to get even closer to yours. When he’d gotten sufficiently near, he pressed a kiss to the side of your mouth—now stuffed with his thumb and leaking spit—and muttered something about how good you were for him, how nicely you fit around his cock. Then he tilted his hips and proceeded to pound you into the ground like an animal in heat. The only thing separating your ass from the patch of grass underneath it was a flimsy little blanket, and the only thing tethering you to earth, it seemed, was Joel’s cock. Your ankles locked behind his back, and his nose settled next to yours, breathing hard.
Even if he knew how to suppress his moans, the panting and strangled gasps were far beyond Joel’s control—as were the filthy, perverse words pouring out of his mouth.
“‘S’all mine, ain’t she, hon? Tell me this pussy’s mine.”
“Tell me she’s mine to fuck, stuff full’a cum, right here.”
And he gestured to the spot where your body stopped and his began, squelching noises punctuating each new thrust. Neither one of you minded the sound right now, especially when you knew where this was headed next.
Joel was grinning against your skin before he kissed it.
“She wants a baby, doesn’t she, honey? Wants me to put a baby in her and make that belly swell up pretty?”
You knew just as well as Joel that neither of you wanted children in a world like this—thoughts of breeding only occurred to you both when you were about to cum. Particularly when Joel’s thumb was slipping out of your mouth and his fingers were pinching either side of your face in a single grip, lips moving above yours. Making you meet his gaze as he squeezed your cheeks in a pout.
“You want my babies, baby?” Joel mumbled.
You felt a familiar twitch in his cock. You nodded.
Joel pinched harder and shook his head, unsatisfied.
“Say, ‘I want your babies, Joel.’”
“I want your babies, Joel.”
“Say, ‘I’ll be nice and quiet if you cum inside me.’”
“I’ll be nice and quiet if you cum inside me, please, Joel.”
Your voice was already hoarse from how low you had to whisper, how hard Joel’s broad and hefty stomach was pressing into your own, stealing the breath from your lungs and wreaking havoc on your brain as you struggled for air and imagined a world where your tummy was a little rounder. Plugged up with his cum one day and growing bigger with his child there inside you the next. The thought was dizzying in the abstract, enticing to the slightest degree in reality, and if you had to guess from the expression of the man currently sweating, grunting, and rutting into your body, you’d bet he felt the same.
It really was a shame you had to stay so quiet.
But, whether a clicker was five miles away or standing directly over his shoulder, Joel didn’t seem to care at all. Soft, silent reserve cast aside for the time being and hips slamming a bruising pace against your own, Joel seemed fine to let out sounds to show he was right about to cum. Grunts and whimpers were spilling left and right off his filthy, pretty tongue; his eyes were all but rolling back.
Truly, he couldn’t look more magnificent if he tried.
“Fuck, baby, I’m— I’m so close. Gonna fill you up.”
Featherlight clusters of soft grey hair were now darkened with sweat. They rested comfortably across his forehead. Under them, two thick brows furrowed in concentration.
“Gonna knock you up,” he added through gritted teeth.
That part was not a threat, but a promise.
You felt a tug and a pinch in your own stomach, signaling your oncoming release. You spread your legs wider for Joel, pressed a kiss to his jaw when he leaned in closer, made room for him to spill his load just how he wanted, and when it seemed he was a second from his peak—
Summary: Joel steals more of your innocence every day and you don't mind it that he does.
Warnings: 18+. DD/LG. Freeuse & somnophilia with a pre-negotiated safeword. Unprotected p-in-v/a. Soft dom!Joel. Corruption kink
Word count: 4.4k
--
You woke with your pants around your ankles.
You don’t remember falling asleep that way.
In fact, you’d always taken great pains to follow the rules: ‘Don’t play while daddy’s away,’ ‘Clothes on if he’s gone.’ So to find yourself sprawled out on the couch, just as you’d been when you dozed off waiting for him to come home—sans bottoms—was unnerving, to say the least. Glancing at your hand, you found your book was still in it. Only the words were harder to read now that your eyes were bleary and the letters were all…jumpy. Jumping?
Bouncing.
As your mind made the slow, steady descent back into your body, you sensed you were rocking back and forth.
Someone was rocking you with the force of his thrusts.
“Daddy!” you gasped, nose half-buried in a cushion.
You were lying face-down on the old, weathered sofa, and you could feel your old, weathered man behind you. Inside you. Stuffing that tight, shiny space between your legs as he straddled your hips from above. His own hips made a soft click, click, click with every piston of his weary bones. He said it’d been that way since the day he’d turned forty. You just might’ve giggled if the sound hadn’t been paired with the chorus of a soft, wet, and sticky-sweet pleasure you knew to be coming from you.
The head of his dick then carved a delectable path to the center of you, like he’d made it himself. You whimpered.
“‘M’sorry to wake ya, bug.”
You could hear his voice was strained.
Daddy never got a head start on playtime unless his day had been particularly rough—unless he really needed it.
Unless he saw pink in your hair, and knew this was okay.
It was your own, secret language, of course. A silly idea brought to fruition by an even sillier admission: when Joel had told you one night that there were times he just wanted to use your body to feel good. When his big one had been at work for hours, and you were so invested in your book and just couldn’t bear looking away, or you’d fallen asleep—would it be alright if daddy put himself inside you for a little while then? I’ll be nice and gentle.
The code was a pink satin bow.
When you tied that ribbon in your hair, Joel knew you were giving him permission to use you as he pleased.
And then there were other ways to make sure he only did what you wanted to do, even in this special ‘scene’; if it ever got to be too much, or you just didn’t want him to be in you or on you anymore, all you had to say was ‘cinnamon’ and your playtime stopped right there. Joel made sure of it every time, and he didn’t make you wait.
When you’d fastened the satin in your hair that night before nestling down to read, you hadn’t expected him to be taking you up on it, really. He’d been so tired lately.
“It’s alright,” you told him, while the air was knocked out of your body through the place he kept pounding you.
“I-I missed you, daddy.” You added, a bit sheepish.
At that—or perhaps just feeling your walls pulse around him—Joel groaned. He placed a broad, callused palm over your spine and held you steady while he fucked you.
“I missed you…more, sweet girl.” And it sounded like a confession. The smallest sliver of an apology: ‘I know I haven’t been here as much as I’d like to be—I’m sorry.’
You’d accept that attempt at making amends, and any other kind Joel would try to proffer, in a position like this. With his hand on your hip and the small of your back, wet member gliding back and forth between your folds, you felt useful to him. His sweet girl. No better thing to be.
Him filling you, and then you, in turn, filling the whole living room with your soft, staccato whines. So nice.
So kind of him to spend his days toiling in the heat to put a roof over your head, a book in your hand, and the silkiest, comfiest pyjamas that money could buy—pooling around your ankles now, but you didn’t mind.
You dropped the novel so you could use your hands. Try to lower your touch to the curve of your cheeks, then spread yourself open for his eyes to drink you in: your tight, dripping hole getting stretched around his cock.
That was what you’d wanted to do, anyway. What Joel liked to see, ostensibly. But the second your fingers lifted from the book, he tightened his grip and shook his head.
“Keep readin’, baby. Looks like you’re close to the end.”
You didn’t know what to say. His observation was correct; you were ten pages shy of completing Emma—but why finish now? Why read when he was right here? If you ever spread your legs while you read it was because you were too engrossed in the plot, and Joel needed release. It was rare he made the suggestion himself.
As if to answer your questions, he wedged his cock even deeper. Confirming his wants with a gentle authority:
“You do like your book, don’t you, sweet pea?”
He’d bought it just weeks ago. You nodded, emphatic.
“I— I do, daddy! I do. I just…” you trailed off, trying to find the right words while his cock made you dizzy with pleasure, “Just…like you better, is all. Wanna feel you.”
You suspected that would work. From the rhythm of his hips, you guessed he’d be likely to assent at any second.
Then he didn’t.
Joel picked the book up and pushed it back to you.
“You can feel me just fine with your eyes on the paper. You did say you wanted to read to be more like a…?”
Uh.
Your brain blanked.
Then you remembered.
“Like a big girl,” you said, in a breath.
Those had been your words. Hardly of note to you now, with your cunt so happily occupied, but ones that Joel wasn’t ready to dispense with yet. Not when you’d been so eager to read these last weeks, to try proving yourself.
You braced your knees against the leather. Tried to shift yourself slightly while Joel kept knocking you back, again and again, with his balls slapping hard against your rear.
Then he slowed, and lowered himself, and came to rest with half his weight blanketing your soft, prone body and his face closer to yours. He kissed the shell of your ear.
“You do wanna get fucked like a big girl, don’t ya, baby?”
And he drove his cock in all the way down to the hilt.
You felt him in your tummy. Your fingers trembled as you reached for the book again and tried to nod your head.
This was a game you liked. An angle Joel loved. A dynamic between you two that turned your insides to syrup and your mind a soft, compliant puddle. He’d shown you what kind of treatment big girls get, and you felt your body wilt with the idea. Joel was laying overtop you now, hips rutting mindlessly against your ass and his arms sliding under you. Grazing the skin and feeling your breasts and telling you again, ‘You can show me, baby. No need to be shy. Daddy’s right here. You’re alright.’
Now it wasn’t so much the command which compelled you but the praise in that sweet Texan drawl. The patience. You could feel him stiff and hard and aching, but he was disciplined enough to wait—let you take your own pace now and show him, in your own special way.
You opened your book to the last page you’d read. Joel stroked your hair, and he kissed the edge of your cheek.
“You’ve made it so far, baby,” he said, admiringly, “Barely been two weeks and you’ve already finished it, nearly.”
You nodded. You let him play with your hair and graze your soft skin with his lips, and when his hips had stilled, you tried not to betray your disappointment. Daddy just wanted to see you could behave—you definitely could.
Even if all you wanted him to do was hold your body to his and fuck you senseless, make you cry and whine and squeeze all down his big, leaking cock while you came for him, you could stay calm. Good girls always did.
Big girls knew how to listen, and when to hold still.
“I like it…like it— a lot,” you told him, and you knew he knew there was more to those words than just the book.
With his hands still underneath you, Joel propped you up to rest more comfortably against a pillow. He slid one hand down your tummy and in between your legs, while the other kept squeezing your breast—tweaking the pebbled nub between forefinger and thumb and feeling you squirm under his touch. You gripped your book tight.
“Keep readin’, sweet pea,” he encouraged, words gentle, “I’d hate to be the one…distractin’ you from all the fun.”
How he could be so calm while talking such nonsense was beyond you. Maybe he’d grinned, too. You didn’t have the strength to peek behind you while his index started rubbing between your folds, and your walls clenched tighter. You wanted to wriggle your hips for friction, but as it was, you knew what you had to do.
You had to try.
At first you read a couple words. A short fragment of a sentence. You yearned to get more, really digest what the passage was attempting to convey—a friend of Emma’s getting engaged, as it was—but prospects were poor. Joel kissed your neck and toyed with your wetness and made you want to whine from all the tension within.
His cock was nestled deep. The smooth, bulbous head had found reprieve near the cusp of your cervix, and with every flick of his finger, it was like you could feel him sinking deeper. Kissing the most intimate parts of you while you had only to breathe. And think. And try to read.
“Learnin’ a lot?” Joel hummed in your ear.
You bit your lip and nodded. He knew you were full of it.
Your legs were now trembling around his hand and your eyes hadn’t moved so much as an inch across the page.
“Enjoyin’ yourself?” he pressed.
“I— I— yeah. Yeah,” you whimpered.
“What’s been your favorite part to read?”
Not this one, that’s for sure. You swallowed.
“W— When…” Again, your mind was wiped of all memory.
“When…”
His index drew a slick, pretty lemniscate on your clit, and you wanted to cry. But you had to keep trying. For him.
“When— when Frank finally shows up,” you huffed.
“Frank who?”
“Frank Churchill. He’s…Emma’s old governess’s stepson. He visits for a little, and then Mr. Knightley gets jealous.”
You were out of breath. Joel was trying his best not to smile behind your back, but you could feel him now—there, and between your legs, making speech a struggle.
“Who’s he?”
The man sounded like a father with all his sweet and calm curiosity. Like he wasn’t balls deep in your heat.
“Old family friend. But he…he’s got a thing for Emma.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah—” And you had to pause to swallow. Suck in a breath when Joel nosed your cheek and told you softly, ‘Doin’ so good for me’ “—but he doesn’t know it at first.”
You felt encouraged by Joel’s words. Enlivened by the pulse of his cock inside you, and pushed toward release with every circuit of his fingers. He was treating you well, making sure it felt good no matter how much he teased.
And then he reached up, leaving your poor little clit to throb all on its own. Something caught between a moan and a plea—‘Joe-el’—bubbled deep in your throat. But Joel was too focused on the book in your hand; he had a wet, sticky finger flipping the page in a second. He’d turned it back, to a passage you had marked in pink.
The sight of the line you’d highlighted made your cheeks heat instantly. That made you want to wriggle away.
Joel held you closer.
“Why’d you mark this, honey?”
Again with the loving, probing tone. You couldn’t bear the thought of explaining your reasoning here. Not now.
But he urged you to read it. Pulled your body nearer to his and kissed the side of your head, while his body blanketed yours and his words were spoken as gentle as ever. He wanted to know what it meant. Why you’d marked it in pink, no less. No diffidence would do.
You balked. Blinked. Remembered that big girls listened.
‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.’
And when you said it, it almost felt like telling him yourself. Your grip loosened from the book as soon as the words came out of your mouth, leaving Joel to hold it
“Knightley said that to Emma, did he?”
His eyes were scanning the page, eyes alight and lips smiling. From between your legs, you felt full, and yet nothing was more hollow or harrowing than presently hearing this man chuckle at the words that had made your heart swell in your chest that night. It felt belittling.
And not in the way you liked. Joel reached for your chin to tilt your face to him, and when you mumbled a short ‘yes’ to his question, he softened his hold. He hummed.
“Uh-hm,” you said, low. Ignoring the urge to be mature.
“Sweeter’n daddy?”
“Maybe.”
Joel grinned again. He shifted his weight. You were just about to tilt your head more, when he sat up completely. You felt his pelvis prod the flesh of your ass, and he left your book to you. He readjusted his grip on your hip in his hand while he used the other to knead your skin.
You keened at the change of angle—feeling the friction between the coarse grey hairs at the base of his tummy and the swell of your bottom, the brush of his manhood.
“Yeah? He treat Emma like this?”
And, to punctuate the question, Joel withdrew himself to the tip and slammed back in. He groaned with pleasure.
“Daddy,” you hissed, and he started sawing back and forth, gently like before, “He just…I— I— I don’t know.”
“400 pages in and they still haven’t fucked?”
“Daddy!”
“What?”
“They don’t do that. Mr. Knightley is a…a…gentleman.”
His thrusts were shaking you again, and you struggled to hold your book. Joel kept his motions shallow. Teasing.
“Is daddy not a gentleman when he does this to you?”
You could’ve laughed at that question. You did, a little bit.
“Plenty gentleman-ly, daddy,” you giggled, “Plenty.”
“Good,” Joel returned, swift.
Then, without warning or ceremony, he spit in his hand. He slicked his fingers with the stuff and sank his index and middle fingers between your cheeks—right above the hole he was stretching with his cock—and pressed.
You jumped, still getting fucked face-down, but now with the tips of Joel’s fingers circling a tiny ring of muscles.
His favorite to tease you with, of late. He leaned in.
“Even here?”
But before you could respond, and while thoughts of love, betrothals, and Georgian-era decorum were still floating through your mind, you felt one finger breach your hole. As his cock continued to slide messily, greedily inside your cunt, you let out a whine.
“Da-a-ddy.”
He knew what it would do to you. What it always did. Particularly when he was taking you from behind and telling you sweet and dirty things. Making you feel it.
You hardly knew what else to do but hold your book to your chest and purse your lips, sensing a familiar sting.
“Did men like him do this to sweet little girls like you?”
“I— I—”
“Or is that just daddy?” He pushed the finger deeper.
Your tender, yet-empty hole sucked him in like a dream. You almost couldn’t believe how quickly you spread for him, having only gotten touched in that new, precious place with just the tip of his thumb before. It was tight.
And tighter still, with Joel’s cock gliding in and out of your cunt and his finger sinking further in a hole he’d never fucked. You pressed your cheek to the couch.
“Go on,” Joel urged, gentle, “Use your words.”
You tried. You parted your lips and squeezed a nearby pillow for support, and Joel even pushed your book down flat on the sofa in front of you so you could see the words more clearly. Focus on those instead of his finger.
He pushed in to the second knuckle, and you whined.
Your mind was blanking again. You had only to say:
Joel didn’t hamper the path of his index, but he did slow his hips. He let them peter off to only the gentlest of thrusts, while the motions of his finger flowed like a white-hot stream between your legs. Petting that tender little ring while diving in and out, swiftly, and teasing.
He stoked the flames of desire inside you with each new touch. He flattened his one free hand beside your book, anchoring himself a comfortable height above, and while you tried stealing a glance behind you, he peered down. Reading—or appearing to, anyway—as he fucked one hole with a gentle resolve and caressed the other. You’d never felt more full, or fucking insane to feel more of him.
Before you could even venture to beg, though, Joel said:
“How are we alike, honey? Tell me.”
You almost wanted to cry as his finger wiggled deeper. You had to answer, though. Recollect as best you could.
Stammering only the slightest bit: “He’s, uh, o— older.”
“Older?”
You could feel the smile start to stretch again overhead.
“Yeah. Emma’s twenty-one and he’s…a-almost forty.”
Presently, Joel’s smile morphed into a chuckle. Low.
“Almost forty? That must make me a fuckin’ fossil, then.”
“No!” you squeaked. And just when you had, Joel’s finger breached your hole straight down to the last knuckle. He let it rest while you squirmed, then dragged it out a little.
“I only—” You quickly tried resuming, but your brain was fried. Your body was limp, and all you could feel, or think, was the slow, sweet, and wet sensation tingling between your cheeks as Joel pushed his thick finger in and out, “—only meant he’s a bit more…experienced…than her. Knows her better than just about anyone, and he— he—”
Made you think of Joel. Made you dream of your own fifty-something lover situated amidst a world more than two centuries old, rousing the most romantic notions. You felt silly. You wanted to bury your face in your hands, were it not for the fear that your cheeks might sear them.
It didn’t matter, at length. Your sweet old man ensured it.
“‘S’okay, little bug. It’s alright. Makes me glad to think you’re thinkin’ of me while you read,” he told you, calm.
He stroked your hair. He stalled his hips, momentarily. And just when you thought you might’ve mustered the courage to speak to him yourself, you heard him again.
Except it wasn’t a word you heard—just a wet noise.
A glob of spit hitting the small of your back and sliding down, crawling slow between your cheeks for Joel’s warm, waiting finger. He withdrew the digit, and then he smeared his saliva all over the place he’d pried you open. Likely knowing you’d be too stunned to talk, he went on.
He worked his finger back in, now coated with a sheen of spit: “Always readin’…feelin’ new things, ain’t ya, baby?”
You nodded, and you scarcely even knew it.
“Only natural it happens like that,” Joel assured you, soft, “Daddy teaches, and you learn…and learn…like a big girl.”
With each new word he wanted to drive home, he pushed his finger in. Dragged it out. Curled it gently, as though beckoning you to him, then watched you rut your hips at the feeling of needing more. He sucked a breath through his teeth when he felt you ooze more, warm.
Nectar trickled down his length while your lips above were drooling, too. Your face was smushed to the cushion below, and your hips were tilted up, desperate.
“Daddypleasejustfuckit—fuck—now,” you cried out.
In all the time you’d been together, Joel had never heard you beg like that. The sound was gratifying to his ears, and his cock grew even stiffer inside you. Just barely checking himself, he moved his other hand to your hip.
Squeezing.
Trying to chide your lack of manners, your swearing.
“That ain’t how you ask daddy nicely, little lady—”
“Just make it full like my pussy, daddy, please.”
Though it was clear you knew better than to interrupt the man mid-sentence, you had used your ‘please,’ at least. Joel was strong, unyielding, in just about every place but the one between your thighs—and with words like those, he had only a moment before his primal drive kicked in and he wouldn’t be able to say no after that, for anything.
He would try to sound stern. Gruff, even. Mumbling something or other about how you had to be sweet to get this dick where you needed it, but the truth was that Joel couldn’t wait much longer for you, either. He caved.
He withdrew his finger, quick. Grabbed your hips. Spit.
Spit again. Smeared again. Felt perfectly depraved making this mess, but you seemed to like it all the same.
“Need daddy to teach you that, too?” he asked, hasty.
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” you answered, helpless.
“Yeah? Teach you how to take it up the ass?”
“Please, daddy.”
“Dirty fuckin’ girl.”
He smacked your ass, just before poising his tip where his finger had been. He would’ve liked to drag it out. But as it was, the old man was probably four pumps shy of blowing his load; you were all but melted on the sofa.
Joel couldn’t deny it drove him out of his fucking mind to see you like that. Legs spread, slit wet, eyes glossy and listless and so wholly bereft of any other idea in the world but the need for him. It made him sick. He loved you so much. And he’d show you, in ways that any mentor worth his weight in salt was apt to do: he let you feel it.
Slowly, at first. Just the tip made you flinch, and your teeth grit together. Joel found your hand and held it.
“Nice and slow—you’re doin’ so good,” he said.
Even if you didn’t feel like you were in the moment, he always made sure to let you know how much he liked it. How nice you felt stretched for him, how good you took it, and how he had no doubts his girl was made for this.
“Made for me,” he added gently, feeding you some more.
And when he surmised from your soft, strangled sounds that this change was a lot, breaths fast, he knew better than to press again. He pulled out and turned you over.
He had your legs over his shoulders in no time at all and, afforded this new view, was delighted to find a trace of a smile still on your lips. He kissed them. Then he tried to make it fit again. He felt you tremble and held you closer.
“That’s it—that’s my girl—almost there.”
“C’mon baby, just a little bit more to go.”
When you keened at the stretch over halfway through, he brushed the hair from your face and kissed your forehead
“I know. I know. Keep goin’, little one. I know.”
Like he knew what to say to get you the wettest you could be. Your eyes winced, and your cunt dripped a dizzying amount—leaking liquid heat down your slit to coat Joel’s tummy, his overgrowth of hair, and your aching hole, of course. The whole thing was taking you out of yourself with every thrust, and your fingers were laced tight in his. Letting him shower you with kisses.
“Daddy’s so mean for doin’ this, isn’t he?”
He was teasing again, nipping at the hinge of your jaw and pressing kiss after kiss while he stuffed you full. Your eyes were ablaze and fucked-out of their mind, as it was, but still, you managed to smile when he spoke it so soft.
“Not— not mean at all, daddy.”
“You sure?”
Joel wedged himself in to the hilt and grinned back.
You might’ve whined, but you felt too full. Euphoric.
“Uh-huh,” you breathed, head reeling, “I like it.”
“How much?”
Your gut clenched with the punch of his thrusts. Lids fluttered as Joel trailed his tongue up your cheek—another mindless, feral tendency he had close to climax. He held your face and fucked you tender as ever, and when the feeling in your tummy grew and grew and almost bloomed, he slipped his tongue in your mouth. Groaning when your teeth met the muscle and bit it.
“I love it, Joel,” you corrected, panting against him.
He could’ve spanked you for saying his name—breaking character was your favorite way to get punished—but, at present, the man didn’t have the strength to do a thing. He just nodded, and grinned, and licked into your mouth and drove his dick so far up your body that he could’ve sworn he’d grazed your lungs. You kissed him again.
“I love you—” he groaned.
“I know, daddy,” you smiled.
“—so much.”
“I love you more.”
He spilled his warm, thick seed inside. You came undone. Your bodies melded and rutted together in a few last shuddering bursts, and with Joel pinning you down, kissing you more, guiding your lips against his own in a wanton tumult, you felt it—contentment. Full pleasure.
Another soft, dizzying, cum-drenched lesson with daddy.
You had to bite your lip to keep from laughing when Joel reached for you next, expression all smug and beaming.
Licking the sweat off your cheek like the freak he was.
