you have permission to pick that 2 year old "abandoned" project back up. it's not mad at you for setting it aside. and maybe time and distance have helped ease or erase the things that made you put it down in the first place.
"why can't they just be friends?" not in the homophobic sense, but in the "in your need to center romance in everything you are missing the whole point of the media in question" sense
nothing on this god's green earth can convince me that peter parker doesn't have an ao3 account where he is elbows deep in a 'rise of skywalker' fix-it fic. like, fully invested in it, been writing it pre-spider bite with ned, who is just as enthusiastic about it. but the thing is, it's really hard to do updates when you are literally spider-man.
every three months he'll post and in the author's note there's some shit like "sorry this took a while, i got shot seven times :/" or "i know it's been a minute, i literally got hit by a bus and then stabbed in the leg, but i'm all good!" or sometimes ned would log in and post with a note "hey i'm a friend posting on the author's behalf, they're healing from severe hypothermia but promised an update, so here it is!"
and the fic just gets increasingly more popular for the author notes alone. a good handful of the comments are something along the lines of "i'm not even in the star wars fandom, i'm just here to see if the author is good" or "every update i cheer for another day the author gets to live at this point"
and any reader who is a native new yorker kind of pieces together that holy shit the author might be spider-man because the timeline adds up, and they just fully embrace it. spider-man will stop a robbery and the guy behind the counter will ask when the next chapter will be up. spider-man returns a stolen backpack to a girl and she'll tell him that he "really got poe's voice down so well, it's really impressive."
ned thinks it is hilarious. mj finds out about the fic from twitter, to peter's absolute horror, and changes peter's contact name to "friendly neighborhood ao3 author". but the worst thing to happen is after an avengers battle where peter took a pretty big hit and ends up in med-bay. and during a press conference, when someone asks how spider-man is healing, tony just drops "spidey won't be down for too long. the star wars fic will be updated within the week, probably."
CONTENT: SMUT, stripper!reader x jack abbot, age gap (20s vs 50s), trinity's nosy!, will they wont they, embarrassment, slow burn, sexual tension, mutual crush, pole dancing, mentions of sex work, jack is down horrendously bad, reader is a shy baddie, reader has hair (length not specified), ignore the logistics of day shift vs. night shift pls, pov switch, santos' pov for the first 1k words (trust the process!!), awkward!santos, completely unrealistic strip club, smut, unprotected sex (forgot to write in a condom so), fingering, dry humping, semi-public p in v sex, etc.
SUMMARY: after a regular tuesday at your second job turns into the latest topic of conversation at the pitt, you find yourself dancing to an audience full of your peers, your controversially older boss included.
WORDCOUNT: 13.5k
NOTE: yeah im incredibly original
-
Trinity liked to think herself the least nosy one out of all the gossip vultures to be found at the Pitt.
Sure, sometimes she'd follow along with Princess and Perlah, switching over to Tagalog to ensure no one could understand the newest goss they'd overheard while walking the halls. But was trinity actively seeking out this gossip? of course not.
It was just unfortunate that gossip seemed to always find its way to her.
It started on her very first day at the Pitt, a day in which she'd uncovered two pivotal pieces of information that no one had been made privy to up until that point.
Dennis Whitaker was living in the hospital.
Frank Langdon had a substance abuse issue.
Both these pieces of information could've served as gossip, but trinity had always considered herself a trooper, and so she kept her mouth shut about both of them.
Throughout her time at the Pitt, more and more news revealed themselves to her. And every single time, Trinity kept them all to herself.
Whether it was something as small as Ogilvie eating the sandwich Samira had been saving in the fridge, or as big as Dana asking McKay for another secret script of sedative to carry around in case of an emergency, Trinity always turned a blind eye and acted surprised whenever someone else happened to stumble upon the same piece of gossip and spilled the beans to everyone else at the Pitt.
But even with her angelic ability to keep her mouth shut, Trinity was, after all, just a person. And sooner or later, something would eventually be too juicy for it to not slip past her lips when probed just at the right moment.
It was only too bad that you happened to be on the receiving end of it.
-
Trinity liked you.
You were a useful addition to the many doubles she had a tendency to pull, always a good partner to have in the long hours under the bleed of the fluorescent white lights of the ED.
She liked to think (and was pretty sure) that the feeling was mutual.
The two of you shared a similar humor, usually placing either Whitaker or Langdon at the butt of every joke, bugging at Robby for more complicated procedures or gaslighting Shen into sharing his Dunkin's coupons with you.
You'd been aware of her thing with Yoyo back when it was no more than a situationship kept on the down low. Just like she was well aware of your moon-eyed crush on the greying night shift attending — information that she always kept to herself despite how obvious she thought you were.
And so she felt pretty confident in saying that she knew you pretty well.
But was she colored impressed when she came to find out that that was not true at all.
Because standing across from her, she found a scantily-clad you, body packed with glitter and hair with the most volume she'd ever seen, dancing to your heart's content up on the stage of the strip club Yoyo had insisted they check out for their weekly date night.
Yoyo had already been here multiple times, or so she had told Trinity right before parking up front about twenty minutes prior to that moment. Yet her eyes widened just as big as soon as she spotted you, fellow resident of Trinity's, practically naked on stage.
As her eyes widened, they turned to Santos', finding them just as wide and peeked at a tiny amused smile forming. Within moments they were both giggling to themselves, betting on a margarita as to how long it'd take you to turn your head slightly north in order to find two of your coworkers in the audience.
All in all, Santos had to admit that, damn, you knew what you were doing.
This was no side hustle or hobby. This was clearly something you'd studied the art of to a T.
But your performance only got better the moment you actually spotted Trinity and Yoyo, eyes wide and a stutter in your step as you walked your way to the pole found at the closest end of the stage.
Your coworkers made a show of cheering for you, wooing at you, throwing bills in your direction, sending one or two pointed whistles your way. Within moments your shock turned into annoyance, and the rest was pretty much history.
Weeks passed until this Trinity brought up the events of that night again.
(Other than the immediate aftermath in which Trinity chastised you for not sharing such an interesting bit of your life with your work bestie and you pleading that she keep her mouth shut about it at work).
And when it was finally brought up again, it was all accidental. Trinity swore by that! She was not the type to blabber about things that didn't concern her.
But it had been a very long shift, and drinks were being passed around at the park, and you had a little bit of leftover glitter on your cheekbone she somehow hadn't noticed in the past 18 hours and she couldn't help but to-
"Hah, what's with the glitter? This isn't your night job."
She'd said it with what sounded like a malicious snicker and happened to word it in a way that made you sound like a lady of the night, but, truly, she had not meant it that way! Had not even realized what she'd said until she realized all voices had quietened down and that the only sound to be heard was the odd cricket hiding around the bushes of the park.
You froze, eyes wide like bambi and a lips slightly agape in pure shock. All color seemed to drain from your face immediately as a strange sense of shame took over your features.
Rather than to immediately look to santos in shock, your eyes looked to the bench across from you where your two attendings sat, mortified at the sudden reveal and at the way in which all conversation seemed to half at Santos' words.
Across from where you stood were Abbot and Robby, pausing their side conversation to look over in your direction, with the former in slight shock and the latter with some amusement at Santos' sudden reveal.
Realization that she'd fucked up and embarrassed you in front of your crush made Santos feel even worse at her sudden blunder. She was hitting herself internally at every extended second of awkward silence.
In the pseudo socratic circle you'd always form when sharing a beer after a long shift at the park, multiple of your other coworkers also reacted to Santos' comment, including Whitaker choking on his beer and Javadi gasping out loud.
Langdon had been a little more reserved, simply lifting his brows in curiosity and Samira furrowing hers in confusion.
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, your eyes swam over all the people around you, mortified, before landing back on Santos next to you. Your embarrassment morphed into irritation, now scowling at the girl before grunting out a response.
"Santos—! God damnit, I- I have to go."
And with that, you walked away despite all the eyes on you, ignoring santos as she spluttered a weak apology in your direction, hand landing on her forehead as she regretted the words that had left her lips.
"Night job?"
"Shut it, Huckleberry, that is not what i meant-"
"Oh my god, is she, like, a sex worker?"
Javadi's choice of language was respectful, but did not aid in santos' case after her fuck-up.
"No! What i meant was-"
"Dude, so not cool exposing her private shit like that."
This time it was Langdon, shaking his head as he aimed, threw, and landed his crumpled beer can into the trashcan to his left.
A few more chastising comments were given by a few other coworkers, leaving Santos no option but to, once again, blurt out something she truly did not mean to say.
"She's not a sex worker, okay? She's a stripper! Now shut up!"
Silence again.
Trinity winced as she took in the repetition of surprised reactions. She just couldn't stop fucking it up even further.
And in that awkward silence, she somehow managed to miss the outlier sitting on the bench across of her displaying all five stages of grief on his face as he took in the new information just given to him.
Abbot sat there, dumbly doing nothing as you walked away in mortification, as Santos continued to unintentionally embarrass you upon your exit, as everyone reacted to the newest and juiciest piece of gossip to hit the Pitt.
He couldn't help himself in the state of shock he'd arrived to. Couldn't even think about moving, much less listening to Mohan scold Santos and Santos promise she'd apologize as soon as she saw you and as she pleaded that no one ever bring up her fuck up ever again.
All he could do was think back to that tiny bit of glitter he'd also happened to spot the moment you'd clocked in and to all the other times in which he'd seen leftover glitter on your lid, on your cheek. He couldn't help but think of all the mumbled excuses you'd give as to why you couldn't join the night shift full time.
Everything suddenly came to light in a whole different way than he'd imagined, and the thought of you like that? Well, it sure had some sort of effect on him.
Unknowingly, Santos had not only ruined your life, but had also completely destroyed jack.
-
"Okay, so don't be mad."
"I already told you I'm not mad at you, Trinity," you sighed as you slipped off your stethoscope, facing your locker while gathering your things.
A few days had passed since the incident.
Santos had turned up at your apartment about half an hour later, groaning to herself as she told you about the aftermath of your sudden exit and very apologetic about it all.
After bribing you with access to her Doordash account for a month and offering to cover for you whenever your second job got in the way, no questions asked, you came around to letting it be water under the bridge.
You'd been lucky that the only people present to hear about your secret had been people you considered somewhat close.
Except that the thought of Jack Abbot, of all people, hearing of such a scandalous secret kind of made you want to die.
It wasn't that you were embarrassed, per se, but who'd want the sexy older guy they can't even maintain eye contact with finding out that you strip every other night? Sooner or later he'd do the math and realize that that was why you'd been rejecting his offers to be under his tutelage (and thus spending more time with him) during the night shift for twelve hours a night — because your side hustle got in the way.
You didn't want him to be... disappointed, for him to see you differently, to view you as cheap or as if you were selling your body. He respected you, and his respect was something you'd never want to lose.
Blatant judgment wasn't something you'd ever expect from Abbot, but the possibility existed within your irrational thoughts any time your brain decided to put those two parts of your life together. Even if your current relationship wasn't anything past mentor and mentee, you would be fine with it staying like that if it meant Abbot at least looked to you with a smidge of fondness in his eyes.
But Abbot hadn't said anything since Trinity blabbed.
There had been no sort of reaction from him, or anyone really.
Upon your return to the Pitt the following day, tail between your legs, no one had made any snarky quip or even looked at you weird after you'd been exposed and had dramatically run away. There were no further comments made other than Santos consistently apologizing over and over again in hushed tones throughout your shared shift.
And so you forgave Santos.
You were friends, and you weren't particularly embarrassed about moonlighting as a stripper for extra cash. It was just not something you openly discussed with your coworkers. You felt that reasoning was valid enough to keep it a secret.
Santos continued, "Well, maybe not now, but tell me that again in two minutes..."
At that, you closed your locker door, trying your hardest not to slam it. Perhaps you'd been a bit jumpy after all. Your guard was always high when it came to this subject.
"What did you do this time?"
Santos grimaced, groaning dramatically to herself and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before seemingly ripping the band-aid off.
She sighed, cursing under her breath and attempted it again.
"A bunch of people got together ... and decided they're going to go to your club to watch you perform this weekend."
Your heart dropped at the word 'club' and stopped altogether at the word 'perform'. You were pretty sure you were about to enter cardiac arrest in that very moment.
Every second of your life flashed before your eyes.
"Oh, my god, santos-"
"I swear I didn't tell anyone about where you work!" she started, a little frantic, "I guess Yoyo told someone upstairs about a cool new club we went to, and then that person told someone else, and then it reached Parker and Shen, — who did the math — and then princess suggested some of the girls go watch you, and then Whitaker decided to join in cause he's sorta one of the girls, and it turned into Langdon joining and I think maybe Robby for some reason? anyway, I think-"
"Oh, my god."
"It's not that bad—!"
You huffed in despair, hands coming up to your face and mutely screaming into them for a few moments. You needed to get it out of your system, and seemingly Santos understood that sentiment as she stood taking in your misery.
"You've completely ruined my life," you said blankly, emotionless.
Dramatic, but it felt that drastic at that moment.
"Well, uh- you should be glad! You know, that, uh, at least Abbot isn't going!"
The mention of his name only made things worse for you.
"Oh, god."
Santos was well aware of your crush on the older man, though she usually used it to tease you. It was bad enough that he was one of the few who had heard the news firsthand, but to even think of him seeing you on the job?
Fuck.
"Do you think he'll... go?"
Santos shook her head a little too quickly, clearly eager to atone and reassure you, not at all actually sure.
"He's an old man! And he works the night shift! You dance nights, right?" you nodded and she continued, "See? He'd have to take the night off, and when was the last time he ever did that? Nothing to worry about."
Her logic was somewhat sound, but her tone of voice assured you that it was mostly just wishful thinking.
And even if abbot skipped this particular outing, knowing that Robby or Princess would probably give him (and the rest of the staff) the 411 of your night job made your skin itch with anxiety.
"From one to ten, how bad would it be if i quit both jobs before then?"
Santos shook her head, lips pursed.
"You can barely afford your apartment on two salaries and tips, you'll be homeless within a week."
"Fuck."
-
After that, you occasionally heard a comment or two about the big night.
You weren't quite sure how or why this had become a thing, much less how it wasn't firing off alarms with HR that not only was one of their doctors openly a stripper — was there some sort of rule for that? — but also that a good dozen of her coworkers were joining in on some scheme to torment her for said stripping.
Okay, maybe 'torment' was a little much.
Mel and Whitaker seemed genuinely interested in watching you out of sheer curiosity. Langdon appeared a little awkward about it, but didn't want to be left out. Javadi was perhaps a little judgmental about it (and would probably vlog it for TikTok), but both her and Samira showed some amused interest at that side of your life.
Robby got a little red in the face when the subject was brought up by Princess in your presence, but he also hadn't shown any judgment.
Plus, you always knew that it was only sooner or later that some patron at the strip club would recognize you or that someone at the hospital would end up on a night out at the club.
You were mostly just glad that Abbot had made no comment thus far, nor had he even been around any time the subject was brought up.
Still, you were a little anxious as Friday night turned up and you bid your goodbyes to Trin and Mel as you headed to the club in order to get undressed and ready to perform.
The girls at the club were pretty much clueless that you'd be bringing in a flock of doctors into the audience that night. It was better that way. Better to keep both jobs as separate as possible (even if they were beginning to seep into one another).
With a few breathing exercises, you did your thing, with a pretty pink set of lingerie, some pumps a bit too high, and a dyson to aid in fixing up something that would allow for some extra volume in your hair.
You couldn't forget the body glitter either, obviously.
Looking in the swanky mirror backstage, you took in your appearance, already an expert in the art of making yourself up for your audience.
Santos sent you a quick text, letting you know everyone was here and that there was no sighting of Abbot, which at least worked in docking down your heart rate a few bpm from its accelerated speed.
The music was already booming outside, and from backstage you could get a sense of the fluorescent lights flashing across the main room.
With one final deep breath, you made your way to the entrance to the stage, a little self conscious at your coworkers seeing you like this, but ultimately sort of glad that the secret was out of the bag and that it was just your friends out there — some lighthearted teasing and a few exaggerated cheers wouldn't kill you, would they?
-
Jack's week had been an absolute rollercoaster.
While externally everything might've remained mostly stagnant in Jack's life, — a difficult statement to make for someone who works night shift in emergency medicine — it was mostly his internal turmoil that had been keeping his mind occupied as of late.
Nothing had happened due to his own doing. But, hell, he could hardly blame anyone else.
But in his messed up mind, he still sorta did.
And that blame fell strictly on second-year resident, Trinity Santos.
(Though Jack was very well aware that this was all his fault. All the fault of the horribly inappropriate way in which he'd been looking to another second-year resident under his care).
Luckily for jack, he had a handle on it — like he did on most things. With a few distractions, he could stop his mind from wandering after your hands graced his mid procedure. He could simply pretend that the sudden accelerated speed of his heart was due to his new anxiety meds, not because the pretty, young, resident he had his eye on was looking up at him with doe eyes, asking if she was doing good.
In jack's mind, there was absolutely no way in which his infatuation with you could possibly worsen.
And this had been the truth for the two years in which you'd been at the Pitt.
It all ended on that fateful night.
After 16 hours of continuous work, Jack found himself sharing some beers with the usual crew of the Pitt. it was always a similar bunch, usually gathering after the specifically strenuous shifts that forced them to remain a few hours past the clock.
In this past year or so, you'd become part of that small crew.
Usually, you'd stand by doctor king or doctor santos, flocking towards people your age (which he noted with a pained heart), rarely ever sharing the usual bench with him or even interacting with him past a polite nod of acknowledgement or a 'goodnight' directed at the group in general.
You appeared to be too exhausted after extended shifts, with your body clearly not having grown accustomed to the sudden overtime shifts at the Pitt just yet. you'd slump over on Santos' shoulder, or occasionally stand with an armed linked with Mohan to shift some of your weight onto her.
It was rare for you to speak up or highlight your presence in these occasions. By all intent and purposes, Jack was certain saw you as a shy, reserved type of girl. Sure, you had your moments of vivacity in between procedures, but you were always avoiding his stare, usually docking your face down whenever you were one-on-one with anyone of authority.
So the words that left Santos that particular night had completely blown the breath out of his lungs.
He had spotted that leftover glitter on your cheekbone — how could he not, when his eyes wandered to you during any miniscule lull in his day? Sometimes there were some speckles on your lid, other times hidden on your top lip, but he could have never conjured that this could be the reason as to why it was there.
"Hah, what's with the glitter? This isn't your night job."
Immediately, Jack's ears perked up.
Even in his older age, his mind went straight to the gutter.
With that teasing tone of voice, there was only one thing Santos could have possibly meant by your night job.
Then he looked to you, finding your bambi eyes expanded larger than he'd ever seen them, mortification filling your features as you panicked and blurted out a half-hearted curse to your friend and all but ran off.
Some comments floated around after that, but Jack blocked them out, only really looking after you as you walked away. He pursed his lips in genuine pity, wishing he could run after you — not that you'd want him to, anyway. His leg was settled comfortably on the bench, and putting it on to chivalrously chase after you would've only made things worse for you.
Then Santos spoke again.
"She's not a sex worker, okay? She's a stripper! Now shut up!"
Jack felt like he'd been shot — a comparison he could easily make, since, clearly, he'd actually been shot at before.
His heart rate went off the charts. His knuckles went white as he gripped his beer can, denting it a little in the process. His jaw tensed and teeth clenched. He wasn't sure if any of this was out of empathetic mortification for you, or if it was due to the images of you flashing through his head. You donning a pretty little number, body bathed in glitter as you performed on stage for all the pathetic idiots fishing for just one bit of attention from you.
(It was the latter).
After that, jack was unsure of what to do.
It was silently (or at least, mostly silently) agreed after that that no one was to give you any shit for the news Santos had not-so-graciously delivered about your personal life.
But, of course, as it always is with a gossipy department, a few whispers of when should we make a trip down there? Or small quips of curiosity in regards of your skill level were shared here and there. Jack didn't participate in them, but he was still privy to them all.
Jack avoided your eyes for a few days afterwards, but never once took part in making you feel any sort of way in regards to what had happened — even though his stupid brain kept conjuring the most inappropriate scenes of you every time you so much as crossed his mind.
So, even in spite of how self composed he'd been, he was a little shocked at himself when he found himself mentally adding himself to the list of people getting together to go check out the club you worked at.
(Garcia had gotten the idea in his head, with her nosy and expansive commentary mid surgery about your first sighting at the club. She went on and on about how you danced, what you were wearing, those bambi eyes popping out when you'd spotted Garcia and Santos in the crowd, the way in which you giggled and concealed a shy smile when they insisted on shoving dollar bills in your g string. It was all mindless gossip to her, but an impending heart attack to Jack.)
He hadn't planned it, not really. He'd heard Princess and Ellis discussing some group outing while he stopped by the nurses' station to pick up some charts, something about a girl's night to support one of the girls — not his words. He wasn't trying to be nosy, but to escape gossip at the Pitt was an impossible mission.
He didn't arrive with the little group that had formed, not even fully sure as to who'd be coming. All he had heard was your name and the time and place, and suddenly he was rearranging his schedule to make sure that he was off that night.
Sweat formed at the back of his neck as he stood there. The place seemed a little shadier than he expected, but he had no time to worry about your safety, not when he needed to muster the courage to walk in and put an end to his misery.
He was a little late, so surely he would've missed most of your dance. Perhaps he'd unknowingly orchestrated it as so. Maybe his subconscious was trying to retain the last remains of his sanity.
And so he walked in, steps heavy and a with some faux confidence in them.
-
Santos had been right. It hadn't been that bad.
Situated on a small table towards the left corner of the stage, you saw a familiar bunch huddled together, all with some fruity drink in hand.
Perlah and Princess were obvious attendees, though you were shocked to see Mel and Samira among the group. Trinity had come in order to provide emotional support, bringing along Whitaker and your favorite night shift duo — Ellis and John.
That had been it.
There was no Robby or Langdon or Dana.
And no Abbot.
Would it have been stupid to be weirdly disappointed by his absence?
Part of you had kind of hoped he'd be one of the bunch, but it was a conflicting thought you hadn't entertained much thus far. He was often present in group outings, usually brooding in the back with Robby or silently paying for a few rounds for the younger doctors.
You didn't allow yourself to ponder the thought for too long as you finished your set, shaking the thought out of your head as soon as it'd arrived.
How could you ever possibly want him to see you like this? Your brain was already scrambling as you tried to convince yourself he didn't see you differently after finding out. Everything was jumbled in your head, unsure as to whether you wanted your boss to see you half naked or not.
His demeanor had remained the same, but he was a pretty stoic guy a lot of the time. You couldn't tell left from right when it came to him.
But then the fleeting thought rushed back in once more.
Would he like to see you like this? Would he sit back and watch you work the pole, watch you bend and flip and twirl all around it as your bare skin shone with that cheap body glitter that made your thighs sparkle?
Maybe he'd finally see you in the way you saw him. Maybe that primitive part of him would come out and he'd finally look twice when you passed by. He'd picture the tiny pink lace under your scrubs, would avert his eyes when you caught him looking for a little too long.
But that was all a fantasy.
Because even at the perfect chance to show up, the one time in which it wouldn't have been odd or inappropriate for him to show up with the rest of the crew, he wasn't there.
It was stupid to be disappointed. You had tried to keep this from everyone in your personal life. And now, at the sudden chance to have the man you'd been going crazy over for the past year (and then some) show up and see you like this, you were sad? You were crestfallen and pouting and confused?
But you'd come to be somewhat of a professional at this.
So even when you looked down and did not find that familiar face down there, you still danced to your heart's desire, weirdly happy to have the cat out of the bag and to have your work friends show up to hype you up like this. It was dumb and silly, but you had your fun.
A little over an hour later and you were calling it an early night.
You stopped by the table, now with your robe on as your friends began to leave one by one. You shared some drinks, giggling when a tipsy Princess insisted on giving you all her leftover dollar bills that hadn't made it your way when you were performing.
The last man standing had been Trinity, who was no longer an anxious mess at the thought of having fucked up when she'd blurted out your secret. The shared laughs confirmed that it was all water under the bridge.
"See? That wasn't that bad. They liked it! I think Parker and Princess might've liked it a little too much, though."
You chuckled with a shrug, "Yeah. Wasn't as embarrassing as I thought."
"Aaaand Abbot was a no-show! Told you!"
It was unfortunate that Trinity was just as perceptive even when tipsy, because she did not miss that millisecond in which your disappointment showed on your face.
"Oh, my god- You wanted him to show?"
"Stop!" you shushed her, "It's not- it's not that i wanted him to, it's just..." you paused, "is he really just not interested at all?"
It felt pathetic even as you said it, and Trinity let you know as much.
"That is absolutely pathetic, man. Please pick yourself back up," she said, bluntly, sighing when she noticed your crestfallen demeanor, "Buuuut, maybe he just didn't show because he thought it'd be inappropriate? It doesn't mean he doesn't, you know, want you."
"You think so?"
"Yeah! I mean, even if he showed, how old is he? Like 60? His heart probably couldn't take it anyway."
That got a laugh out of you, shoving trinity lightheartedly.
"It's time I turn in," she paused, "But remember - you could jump any person in that audience and they'd thank you. Don't sell yourself short."
With those last words of wisdom, she lifted two fingers to her forehead and signaled a goodbye to you, leaving you to the more menial aspects of your job.
The disappointment wore off a little as you helped the bartenders clean up the littered napkins and tiny umbrellas scattered all across the floor, but it remained in the back of your head.
Maybe next time.
-
Jack felt like a coward as he stood out there for longer than seemed socially acceptable.
People came and went, some slightly under the influence, stumbling out of the building, others a little too happy for whatever went down in there. Jack immaturely hoped for a similar outcome for himself before mentally slapping the idea away.
She's your resident. She's so much younger. You shouldn't even be here, encroaching on her personal life like this.
But, even then, he stayed there. An hour passed, two, and he continued to lean against his car in the parking lot — an improvement to standing right outside the entrance like a creep.
From his spot in the parking lot, he could somewhat hear the muffled music coming from inside up until it halted altogether. His mind conjured up images of you dancing to the music, of fucking Parker and Shen teasing you as they threw dollar bills in your direction.
Surely that was an image he'd never forget.
That is, if he grew the balls to walk in.
"I've never bought into the whole 'wisdom comes with age' thing, but, you know, for someone so old, you have, like, zero wisdom."
That broke him out of his thoughts.
It was that familiar voice that had landed him in this situation in the first place.
The slight eyeroll couldn't be helped, neither could the sigh, which Santos clearly caught as Jack turned in the direction of the voice as he continued to lean against his car. His leg had started to bother him by then.
"What's that mean?" he nodded towards her.
"You're late," she began, confidence always oozing out of her even as she spoke to a superior, "You've been out here this whole time? thing's kinda over."
"Yeah?"
She nodded, taking a step forward, "Buuuut, I'm sure you could still catch her if you hurry," she paused in some hesitation before continuing, "She, uh, might be happy to see you."
That caught him off guard, and unfortunately his usually suave exterior broke for a second as he stuttered in response, "That- that right?"
Santos now had the upper hand, which she seemed happy to realize.
With pursed lips, she shrugged, hands behind her hips, "Nothing wrong with supporting your coworker in her ... personal endeavors."
Jack was practically useless in conversation by that point, and so Trinity bid a casual goodbye and walked away. Jack stood there, dumbfounded, a ringing in its head making its appearance as he thought about every decision that had somehow landed him there.
Before he could overthink it, he pushed himself off the hood of his car and walked towards the entrance.
Nothing wrong with showing support for a coworker.
-
"I guess I'm late, huh?"
The words made you stop in your tracks. Skin rose on the back of your neck. You were entirely sure that that could not be the voice you thought it was.
But then you turned around and found him. With that same intense stare that you felt was almost only reserved for you.
Suddenly you felt very self-conscious of what you were wearing, of the pleasers that made you five inches taller, of the silk robe riding off slightly at your left shoulder and giving him a pristine view of your lace-covered breast.
Within seconds you straightened yourself up, readjusting your robe and kicking off your heels as you fixed your posture like a soldier with their commanding officer. You felt as if you'd been caught making a mistake at work, overly apologetic to Abbot only to find that he wasn't on his way to scold you.
Due to your silence (and likely your incredibly awkward demeanor), Abbot cleared his throat and spoke again.
"Sorry i couldn't make it- or, not sorry? you probably don't want your attending coming around here, huh?"
You were too much of a deer in headlights to catch the self-conscious shift in his tone, eyes roaming all over him in his casual clothes, taking particular notice of his arms as they folded over his chest.
"Not- not at all," you finally spoke, "Just, maybe a little awkward? Or at least that's how it felt with everyone else ... The rest of the guys seemed to enjoy the show, though."
He hummed, "Too bad I missed it."
"Yeah," you nodded.
Another awkward silence.
"You could, uh- you could come next time, if you want to?"
Shut up. Don't continue that thought.
His eyebrows shot up as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"Oh?"
"Y-yeah," you swallowed, "If you're free, that is-"
"Yeah," he coughed out, "I'm free."
You hadn't even told him what day yet. Your heart sped up.
"Yeah? You free next Friday night?"
He nodded slowly, breathing in deep through his nose.
You were convinced you'd caught his eyes run up and down your body. It'd been too quick and you'd been too nervous to be sure. but you were a good 80% sure it'd happened. It had you shuddering internally, somewhat annoyed that you'd thrown on the robe at all, that he wasn't looking at you in the pretty set you'd picked for that night.
"Everyone else coming too?"
You halted, "Oh, uhm, no, I don't think-"
"Good," he interrupted, not adding anything more.
It made you gulp.
"Y-yeah. I'll see you on Friday, then?"
He nodded, lips pursed.
"No, kid. I'll see you on Friday."
Again, he nodded in confirmation, a small smile overtaking his lips. Within mere seconds he had gotten the upper hand of the conversation, leaving you an awkward mess and with your skin rising up in goosebumps at the mere thought of him seeing you.
Unlike in every other interaction you'd grown used to having within the four walls of the club, you were awkward, fumbly, nervous and with absolutely zero game. Trinity would laugh in your face.
Those sultry eyes you were expected to throw at patrons were replaced by saucers, and your confident body language turned into you embarrassingly wanting to rub your thighs together at the confidence in which Jack Abbot had managed to secure a one-on-one with you in your panties.
You said goodbye in return, awkwardly stumbling over your words again as he winked at you on his way out.
All gravity almost left you as soon as he left, legs jelly and breath muted.
You were going to crash and burn come next Friday.
-
A few days passed and Jack was going out of his mind.
He couldn't stop thinking about that night at your club. Of the uncovered skin of your chest, your hair undone, your glossy lips, the slight sheen of sweat on your skin. Every small detail drove him insane.
All that faux confidence had left him as soon as he'd left your eyeline. His heart had been going a mile a minute the moment he walked into the place, reaching a worryingly high heart rate at those bambi eyes staring up at him like he'd caught you with a hand in the cookie jar.
The conflict in his mind between the sexy lingerie he'd gotten a peek of and those innocent eyes staring up at him stirred endlessly from the moment in which he'd bid you goodbye.
He hadn't meant to be too forward, but this had felt like his one chance, and with it he'd somehow signed his death sentence for next Friday.
Ss the days passed, the two of you worked as if nothing had happened whenever your schedules overlapped.
You were still the shy resident who'd squeak whenever caught off guard by him, messing with his poor heart at every turn. You'd share these looks sometimes. Looks that spoke of the anticipation you both felt for what was to come.
And as unsure as he felt about crossing that boundary (and as ashamed as he felt to admit it), this felt like some tricky, painful, extended sort of foreplay that was bursting at the seams.
In bed, he could feel his body itch as he attempted to find sleep. And at night, as he worked, he was constantly on alert at the possibility of your schedules overlapping and having to meet your eyes. You'd undone him without much effort. He couldn't imagine what would happen once he finally saw you on that stage.
Truly, he had no idea what he was doing. He knew he wanted you, but didn't know how to go about it like an adult. Instead, he seemingly opted for what he could probably label as voyeurism.
Because, really, what made him any better than the other rowdy, middle aged men vying for your attention as you worked a pole on stage?
Luckily Jack was used to this constant guilt, this endless turmoil in his mind. The self-depreciation wasn't new, either. It was just a little more glaring any time he'd think of you.
After endless thoughts of you under the pink and purple hues of the club, the days passed and jack finally found himself on the day of his impending doom.
Maybe he was being a tad dramatic about it all. But as soon as he stepped foot in that club during his working hours he came to realize that maybe he would've felt justified in being even more dramatic. His heart felt like it was about to give out.
You hadn't worked that day, clearly. He had opted for half a shift, knowing he'd have gone crazy if he stayed home all day but still wanting to ensure he made more than enough time for your...
Appointment? Date? Meeting? They all sounded either clandestine or suggestive.
He'd tried telling Robby about the whole thing. To try and alleviate some of the weight the whole thing carried. It had proved futile, though, and frankly a little predictable.
"You're- you're actually going? Alone? Isn't that a little... questionable?"
Inappropriate would be a better word for it, yeah.
The words were spoken with an annoying edge of shock and mockery. Jack couldn't say he appreciated them much.
"Hope you know what you're doing, brother."
That was as much reassurance as Jack was going to get from Robby on the matter. It was enough for a man already convinced of stepping into the fire.
When the time came for Jack to step foot in that place, the speed of his heart made him certain that he was on his way to cardiac arrest. The booming music coming from the building and the scent of alcohol mixed with smoke warned him to walk away, but the thought of finding you in there was enough to drive those thoughts away.
The first thing he saw as he walked in was the center stage. It was divided into three, parting towards the left, right and middle. On each flank was a stripper engaging with two or three men perched front row of each respective extension to the stage.
Next thing he saw were small tables scattered all around the place. Some were empty, others had one or two people enjoying a drink, while others were pushed away from the high chairs in favor of making space for a man, his lap, and a stripper sat on it.
He felt out of his depth.
Strip clubs had never been his thing. He held no judgement for the women who made a living inside them, but having gotten married straight out of college, this was just not a lifestyle he had ever engaged with.
After losing his wife, women were something he'd somewhat sworn off. This was the last place he'd ever expected to find himself at this stage of his life. Much less did he imagine ending up here due to the inappropriate work crush he'd fostered on the shy little resident he'd been trying to poach into joining the night shift for the past year.
You were nowhere to be found, and, to be frank, he was a little scared to make eye contact with anyone, lest they believe he's looking for a lap dance.
Jack Abbot and avoidance of eye contact were not two things that went together, he was well aware.
But his wavering confidence would only continue to build up through the night.
It took him a few minutes of wandering around in amazement and confusion until he eventually landed himself on an empty table somewhere near the back. You were bound to show up on stage eventually, right?
Seeing the other girls' performances made his palms sweat.
Would you be doing the same thing? Was he about to witness you in tassels, rhinestones, lace?
Would you sway your hips full of confidence as you marched your way to the pole? Would your muscles contract at the effort needed to swirl around it as you stared him out like a predator did its prey?
His questions only went unanswered for about ten minutes as the curtains connecting the stage to what jack could only assume was your dressing room suddenly flew open.
St the head of the stage, you popped up, standing tall and proud, and completely different from what he'd grown used to seeing all those shifts he'd shared with you these past couple of years.
Your every step was heavy and confident, heels clicking against the shiny floor of the stage. With your hands laid on your hips, your hips swayed seductively, achieving the goal of drawing in every pair of pathetic eyes drooling over you in the audience — Jack included.
Your skin was adorned by baby pink lace, legs, arms, and chest shining under the purple and pink hues of the club. Every inch of you was bare and open for his perverted enjoyment. The lace stuck to your skin and gave him a perfect view of your silhouette. He felt thirst invade his being.
Unable to take his eyes off you, Jack found himself sitting up on his seat, back leaving its recline as his body slowly began to gravitate from his seat into a fully standing position. He was like a moth to a flame, immediately affected by your magnetizing effect.
Every step was mocking torture. He knew his demise was nearing at every step that drew you closer and closer to the edge of the extended stage, where you'd grab onto that pole and finish him off.
He was unable to pay attention to the server who'd stopped by asking him if he'd like a drink, too enthralled by you to do anything more than wave them away.
By the time your manicured hand made its way to the pole, your eyes found his by chance.
There was a millisecond of surprise before that confident vixen consumed you once more. Jack couldn't help but gulp at that look in your eye. The balance shifted immediately. He was no longer your attending, but prey ready to be consumed.
He could have sworn he blacked out for your performance, falling back on his seat the moment you began to wrap your legs around the metal and swirled around it with expertise he never imagined you'd have.
Your every move was life-ruining for Jack. Pathetically, he regretted not camping outside that door waiting for the moment the doors flew open in order to stand a chance at a seat front and center to your show. There was bile forming in his stomach at the sight of every other man eyeing you down, being able to see you up close and throw their unworthy bills in your direction.
Jack thought to himself for a fleeting moment — I'd give you everything. All the money you need. I'd shove it in your purse while you showered in my bathroom. I'd deposit it into your bank account. I'd trap it in the hem of your panties as I watched you dance for me.
Shaking those thought away, he continued to watch you, rendered completely immobile by what he was seeing. The softness of your outfit (or lack thereof) made him dizzy. He ached to run his hand through the delicate lace, to softly snap the bra strap on your shoulder and have you whine his name in return.
He felt sick with desire, something he'd never experienced before. The culmination of feelings he already had towards you — the protectiveness, the adoration, the admiration, the infatuation — fought against the intensity of the lust he that was blossoming inside him. It was always there, but to have it swell, inflamed and threatening to burst made him lightheaded.
Every so often your eyes would find his. You'd send a little kiss his way, or a cheeky wink. Jack's heart boomed out of his chest at every instance.
After what felt like hours, you leaned down to gather all the loose bills men had ready for you, regaining that girlish and innocent air you always had as your performance ended. It was as if you'd been possessed, making your way back to your usual persona as soon as your set ended.
Jack had to brace himself for what he knew was coming. His hands felt clammy and his shirt began to stick to his skin. He had ascended and been brought back down multiple times within those short minutes. He needed to gain his cool back.
But then you walked over, smile shy and eyes giddy.
It was that same look you always had any time he'd call your name for a fun procedure. Even as you walked towards him (no longer swaying your hips in that torturous manner), draped in seductive lace and makeup that could make a man drop dead, he still saw that pretty girl he'd first fallen for.
Your eyes wandered away from his as you stopped at his table with a meek, "Hi."
"Hey," he started, not as smooth as he'd hoped, "That was... some performance."
The way you flushed was a visible, lips turning up in a shy smile.
"Yeah? you liked it?"
"I don't think it'd be appropriate for me to answer that question."
"No? Is your response not family-friendly, then?"
The banter was somewhat new. Back at work, you'd occasionally engage with his back and forth, but you weren't too receptive of it. He knew you were capable of it, as he'd heard you go at it with Santos every other day, but when it came to your superiors (or maybe him in particular), you were more meek.
Maybe it had to do with the way his eyes couldn't find yours. Perhaps you'd noticed the hard time he was having keeping them away from the bare skin he'd been salivating over just a few moments ago. And maybe that was why despite your usual shyness, he still saw some newfound confidence in how you spoke to him.
But two could play at that game.
(Or at least he'd try his hardest to regain the upper hand in order to properly flirt with you. It was the least he could do).
"Why don't you sit and I can tell you all my thoughts?"
Your face morphed from flirtatious to that bashful smile he was so used to seeing. With your eyes timidly downturned, you chuckled as you shook your head.
"As much as I'm sure we'd both enjoy that, I'll get reprimanded," your lips came into a straight line, nose scrunching a bit, "However," you let it drag a bit, "I have a better idea."
At that, you looked around you to see if there was anyone nearby before turning back to him with a smile.
"C'mon," you extended your hand towards his, "The couches are far more comfortable, and I know you've probably been on your feet all day."
He chuckled and took your hand, trying to ignore how sweaty his had been mere minutes prior, "Only took half a shift today. had an important... appointment with someone today."
"Appointment?" you asked, "That's an interesting choice of words, doctor," you spoke as he let you drag him towards the far end of the room.
"Don't wanna test my luck, that's all."
Once you'd made it to the booths, you led him to a worn couch next to a detachable table. Based on some of the other men on the couches, they seemed like the perfect spot in which to get some special attention from the dancers. Jack tried to not let his mind head that way, not wanting to test his luck and all that.
He sat down, comfortably leaning against the couch as you took the spot next to him. Rather than sit normally, you opted to sit on your knees, feet off the floor and body turned towards his own. It had him doing a double take, but he could only assume you weren't allowed to just casually sit unless you were entertaining a patron.
"Feeling lucky, Abbot?"
The added confidence in your cadence was really doing him in. He'd grown so used to your eyes fleeting away from his any time he found you looking his way, looking away if his attention landed on you. There was still a bit of that, but you were firing back. His flirtation was met with reciprocation and he was finding himself at a loss.
"After that performance any man would be lucky to have your attention."
Maybe it was too pointed, but you were so close, and your perfume was beginning to reach and penetrate his pores. The shine of your skin made it impossible to look away, as did the plush of your skin accentuated by the tight lingerie failing at properly concealing the most enticing parts of your body.
Those words seemed to reach a little deeper, and so you chuckled again, shaking your head.
"I'm sure you say that to all strippers."
It was deflection. He could've doubled down with how much seeing you up there — how much having you sat next to him with all your focus solely on him — made him lightheaded and stupid. But he wanted to drag the night as long as possible. He was willing to empty out his bank account if it meant you could sit there and talk to him all night.
He didn't need any funny business with you (as much as every bone in his body was aching for it). He just wanted to get his fill of looking at you, of getting this confident version of you to respond to his flirting, giving him at least some false hope that his infatuation wasn't purely one-sided.
And so he talked. Flirtatious comments came and went. The spaces in between were filled by talking about work, by joking about your weird schedules, your odd hobbies and how you both kept to yourselves in that regard. It was nice, tame, until a charged comment would suddenly pop up in the interim.
"I'm gonna get in trouble if I keep slacking off with you, Doctor Abbot," you said after a while.
Your voice had morphed over the course of your conversation. It was smooth and carried an air of seduction even if what you were saying was completely innocent in nature. Jack was losing his mind.
"Wouldn't want that, would we?"
You shook your head, eyes on his and a satisfied smile on your lips.
"But i think I have an easy fix for that."
That piqued his interest, though his poor heart began to speed up again.
Before he could come up with some flirtatious, yet ambiguous response, you were suddenly pushing his shoulder back, forcing him to recline against the plush of the leather couch and dragging your leg over his, easily straddling his thighs.
Your weight above him made him dizzy. His arms laid limp on his sides, fingers flexing with restraint. He absolutely could not touch you or he'd lose any remaining sanity. It was the one rule at strip clubs — hands off the strippers. It was the most torturous exercise on restraint he'd ever overgone. even if your hips were begging to have his fingers dig into the perfect skin.
A floral scent that had been floating around began to completely overtake him at your newfound closeness. He wasn't sure if it was your perfume or shampoo, or maybe whatever body oil you had on that gave your skin that extra sheen.
"This okay?" you asked at the sudden proximity, "Need to make it seem like I'm working."
Before he could stumble upon a response, you leaned in closer, lips gracing his ear.
"I can touch, but you can't, okay? Don't wanna look suspicious," you whispered, "Don't wanna be sent away to dance for some other guy."
It made him irrationally frustrated to hear of that possibility.
"More than okay," he huffed out.
"You sure? you seem a little tense."
Your nose dragged up his jaw, making him shudder. You weren't fully on him, but rather hovering above him. Your weight laid on your knees, leaving some space between his crotch and your own. The itch to pull you down internally clawed at him.
"Yeah, tense's one word for it."
Once you'd gotten your feel of making the skin of his neck rise in goosebumps, your lips trailed at his cheek, now facing him. Some distance remained between your faces, but not enough for it to be considered appropriate.
"This is weird, right?" you smiled, bashful again, "This is probably not the impression you had of me at work."
He chuckled, fingers digging into the couch beneath him, "Can't say that it was. It's a welcome surprise, though."
You hummed in affirmation before taking in a breath. There was a small glimpse of uncertainty in your eyes.
"So... you're not disappointed?" you began, rephrasing, "I mean... you don't think less of me?"
This caused him to draw his head back slightly. He needed to look at you properly.
And when he did, he found those same eyes that looked to him with worry any time you were certain you'd messed up. It was like you were waiting for the other shoe to drop, to be either objectified or scolded by the man who'd just been melting under you mere seconds ago.
"Kid," he shook his head in disbelief, "you're an adult, and you can do anything you want. Don't let anyone ever try and judge your choices when-"
"No, no, I- I know, I just- I want to know what you think."
That took him by surprise. It also arose a million questions in his mind.
Did you think he was that much of a hardass? That he wouldn't support anything you did, just because it was you doing it? Did you care this much for his opinion?
"Nothing you could do would disappoint me."
Seemingly working your way through a half-formed thought, your mouth shut back up before you could even begin. You gave him those eyes that were always causing him problems back at work. The eyes that held way too much admiration for someone as troubled as him.
You didn't say anything in response. Instead, your hand left his shoulder, reaching up to his cheek and tracing it as you looked down at him with your bottom lip jutting out.
Tucking at a stray curl that always formed next to his ear, you let the moment of fondness pass as soon as it began, smiling down at him once more.
"So, think you'll come again?"
Just like that, the mood shifted to lighthearted flirtation once more. your new normal.
"I'll be front row, kid."
-
A few weeks passed and Abbot kept up with his promise.
Well, maybe he wasn't front row, but he made it in time to see you up on stage doing your short little number twice a week.
It was unfortunate your schedules overlapped so much. He would've stood outside waiting to be let in every other night otherwise.
Every other meeting went just like the first one. They were all held under the pretense of curious innocence. Like ice slowly melting, never going further than tame flirtation.
The suggestive surroundings created an added element of heat that Jack couldn't overlook, but he tried his best. it only became harder when you'd come to sit on his lap, claiming the usual excuse of convenience so you could talk to him without getting reprimanded.
But was it necessary for your lips to trace his neck? For your fingers to play with the hair on his nape? For your breath to fan on his ear?
He'd grown used to the weight of your body on his lap. It was something he couldn't handle losing after just a few times of feeling it.
But despite that, he'd still discourage you wasting your time at the club entertaining him when you could be making money on another man's lap (though the thought killed him). It felt inappropriate to pay you himself, to encourage you to do more than just pretend to keep him busy and entertained, and so he kept his hands to his sides and simply pretended he was like one of the many other men.
And sometimes he felt that maybe he was just that.
But then one of your coworkers would call your name as you sat on his lap mid conversation, telling you that one of the 'big-spenders' was lonely in one of the private rooms, and you'd just give them a look that sent them on their way, one that told them you were busy with something more important.
Jack never questioned this. he simply enjoyed that it meant he could spend just a little longer with you on his lap.
Back at work, no word of these meetings was spoken.
A few looks were shared, a few sheepish smiles and silent agreements that yes, you'd be seeing each other in just a few hours. But nothing further was ever even suggested.
It was your little secret.
It gave Jack an extra edge to his life. The adrenaline spike your meetings gave him rivaled those at his shifts with SWAT.
He never got used to seeing you walk his way, to seeing the sway of your hips as you finished your set and made your way straight to him.
There was no longer any small talk before you were dragging him to a couch and settling on his lap. Your hands got more and more curious every time, though they always remained caressing his jaw and hair, never wandering southern of his neck.
And every passing day, he was growing sicker with want.
Tonight things played out slightly different.
The confident sway of your hips remained, as did the satisfied smile upon seeing the way he tried to subtly eye you up and down as you approached him.
The dragging to a couch in the back of the room was missing. Instead, you led him in a different direction, not speaking a word until you were behind a closed curtain, inside a tiny room that had a couch identical to those outside, just slightly less worn.
There, you parroted your usual moves, guiding him into his seat, but turning back to secure the curtains closed before heading back in his direction.
His heart was going a mile a minute. The velvety walls of the room felt suggestive in nature. The darkened hue of magenta filling up the space reflected perfectly on your skin, making jack gulp against his will.
You donned a burgundy set today. It was tasseled, under the false pretense of covering a little more than usual. Your every move caused the tassels to sway, giving him an eyeful of every curve he ached to touch, bite, lick.
"I thought a change of scenery would be nice."
You broke the silence, once again torturing him with that sway of hips as you sat on his lap again.
— Which was completely unnecessary. No one could see you. There was no need to assimilate, to act as if he was a client. You were alone. Jack didn't voice any complaint.
"Careful, you'll make me think I'm special."
You clicked your tongue, leaning into his ear.
"You are special, Doctor Abbot," you whispered hotly before pulling back and looking into his eyes, "And since we're alone... I thought I'd give a little more special treatment this time around."
Jack's throat went dry. His arms flexed at his sides. His body burned with unchecked desire. He'd been aching since the first time he saw you.
Without any other words, your hands guided his onto your hips, forceful as you made sure he gripped at the bare skin. The tassels tickled at him when his hands went under them.
"Kid..."
"I've never done this before," you began, but your voice remained sultry, "Take a guy back here, let him touch me."
As you spoke, your eyes panned down to his lips, making him lick them absentmindedly.
The gloss on your lips looked so enticing to him, he couldn't help but let his eyes wander as well.
"I usually do a few dances and call it a night. But I've been putting that off these past few weeks."
This time, your weight laid fully on his lap. There were only a few layers of separation between the hardness forming under his jeans and the softness of your-
"I can't focus with you in the room," you continued, "I can't entertain any other man when you're here."
Every word was breathless, and your eyes had lost any sense of subtlety, now fully focused on his lips. Noses bumped, hands reached new places. It was all too heavy for him to handle.
Jack was practically panting by then. Your breaths intermingled. Even your breath had him going dizzy.
"It was bad enough that I couldn't focus at work, and now... now I can't think unless it's your lap I'm sitting on."
"Baby," he moaned.
He couldn't help it. Not when you were so deliciously close. Your lips were a mere inch away from his. and any time he tilted his chin just a tiny bit closer, you'd inch away, forcing him to uselessly chase you.
"I couldn't touch you out there," you breathed out, bottom lip jutted out, almost touching his own, "Cause then I wouldn't be able to stop."
Greedy hands went up and down the bare skin of your back. Every so often they'd land back on your hips, pulling you inhumanly closer, silent in their plea for you to use him. he'd take anything you gave him.
Jack had never felt such desperation in his life. Sweat trickled down his brow, and a small whine threatened to leave his lips. His body pathetically arched towards yours. he was utterly fucked.
"I need you to touch me, Jack."
Jack.
It was always abbot, doctor, sir, never Jack.
It sounded like music coming from your lips.
But, still, he shook his head. his body acted against his needs. For some reason he needed to retain the very last bit of decorum that remained between you.
"I don't know if that's a good idea."
Shaking your head, you refused to listen to those words. Leaning in closer, your tongue peeked out of your lips, teasingly swiping at his lower lip. It was so quick anyone who'd seen it would've missed it. But to Jack it felt like someone had lit him on fire.
"Want you so bad, Jack," you all but moaned, "You've already had me on your lap so many times. Why keep pretending?"
Jack's hands squeezed your hips, stumbling over a response.
Again, you leaned in close. Your lips graced his.
"Kiss me, Jack."
Jack broke, taking the plunge and pressing his lips to yours.
There was nothing accidental or subtle about your first kiss.
Swallowing his groan, you pulled him closer, fingers running through his curls and pulling softly. Your mouths were open, tongues seeking out one other and puffs of breath being shared between you. He could feel your eyes flutter at the intensity of the kiss.
His hands could not find a landing spot. They squeezed at your hips, pulled you closer before running back up the length of your back and tangling in your hair, keeping you hostage in his kiss.
You'd lick into the roof of his mouth, drawing him in, making it torture to even think of pulling away. Your every sigh landed on his lips. Jack couldn't help but grunt at every flick of your tongue against his.
Within seconds of that first, animalistic kiss, your hips began to move against his. It was subtle at first, just a simple sway of your hips into his own. It caused an immediate reaction in him, making him draw a deep breath against your lips and pull you even closer.
The lack of fabric in your lingerie made it so it was just his clothes that remained an obstacle between you. It seemed to bother you pretty quickly into the kiss, as your hands began to paw at his shirt, dragging it up so you could feel at his abdomen.
Your hands were anything but shy, feeling him up like you were trying to meld into his skin. He couldn't blame you. Not when his own hands had been molding you against him, feeling every delicious curve available to him.
After some moments, he reached behind him to pull his shirt off all the way, not missing the tiny mewl you released against his lips at the short moment of separation between his hands from your body. Also gone unmissed was the pout you gave him when your lips separated for the first time.
A second kiss took place just a few moments later, only slightly delayed when you took a moment to eye his naked torso. There was lust in your eyes that made Jack shudder internally. Was that how he'd been looking at you every time you approached him with a new set of life-ruining lingerie?
Again, your hands went up to his chest, hands digging against his pecs. Scratching softly while your tongue attempted to fuck his mouth. He was delirious.
"Yeah, baby, scratch my chest. Just like that..."
That got a reaction out of you. It made you moan, It made you seek out his tongue, trap it in between your lips and suction. Your manicured nails dragged down his chest a little harder now, eventually finding his nipples and rolling. He could do nothing but pull you closer, groan into your lips, rock his hips upward and into yours with a newfound desperation.
"Jack," you sighed out as you pulled away. his lips followed yours, kissing you chastely a few times, "Want you to touch me more."
His hands had been up and down your torso, stuck to your ass and tits, but he hadn't wandered where he knew he'd find the drenched center that had already been dampening his jeans. He knew that the moment he felt you, there'd be no turning back. He'd want to come back again and again, beg you to pull him back here, to say fuck all to your job and let him take you in this tiny room every night. He'd change to days if it meant he could have this every night instead.
But that was too much to drop on you all at once.
Instead, he kissed you again, twirling his tongue in yours before his hand made its way between your bodies.
A full-body shudder overtook him when he reached that crook between your legs. The tiny thong hid nothing, trapped between your lips after all that grinding. Tracing the string with his fingers, a trail of wetness became trapped on his fingers.
He rubbed at you, tracing his way to your clit and circling at the swollen nub. It was begging for his attention, making you cry out at the lightest of touches.
You sighed his name right against his ear. Your hand dug into the skin of his shoulders, gripping onto the muscle as he circled mercilessly at your clit.
It started off slow, calculated, following a particular rhythm that had your eyes crossing. And once he got his fill of your pretty whines of his name, your incoherent pleas for more, he finally sped up, torturing your clit further.
"It's so wet, baby. All for me?"
You nodded pathetically, mouth open, lips gracing the shell of his ear, breath heavy.
Eventually his fingers reached further back, finding your opening. After one finger went another, squeezing into the tight fit of your cunt. It made his mouth water, to think of that pretty pussy weeping around him, unable to take him, too tiny, too tight for him.
You humped at his hand mindlessly, and he let you. He laid his palm flat as he fingered you, letting you rub that aching clit against his palm in the pursue of pleasure.
"Feels so good, Jack. Gonna make me come," you whimpered.
And as much as he wanted to have you shake and cry on his lap, to dig your nails so deep down his back that it scarred, he needed the first time he made you come to be with him, on his dick.
—And maybe also because he was so weak for you, so weak of mind and body that he could already feel his peak threatening to drag him under.
When he stopped his movements, you cried out, continuing to hump at his hand like a bunny in heat. it only served to break him further.
"Jack, fuck me- I'm begging you, please."
Nothing could've taken his breath away like those words. Those breathy, desperate words whined right into his lips. It took a herculean effort not to lose himself at that moment, not to grab you and bend you over and have his animalistic way with you. He wanted to. so badly.
"I'll give you anything you want, baby, you know that," he sighed out, brain completely melted, "I'll fuck you," he nodded to you, a little patronizing, a little dizzy with desire, "I'll take give it to you, baby."
You kissed him again, shamelessly moaning into his lips and going back to humping his bulge. His hands gripped at your ass, pushing you against him, desperate for the friction despite feeling like he was about to explode. You were the most delicious thing he'd ever had on his lap. he was desperate to have you.
Whining into his lips, you went to undo his belt, fidgety and all over the place. He could've helped you out, but he grew distracted as his lips trailed a path down your neck, suckling at skin without any thought in mind other than how good you smelled, how soft your skin was. There was no thought to all the marks he'd end up leaving behind.
When he finally reached your breasts, you'd finally undone his belt and unzipped his pants. He grunted as he lifted his hips and lowered his pants and boxers just enough to give you full access to his dick. You took hold of it just as his lips reached your breasts, fingers easily pushing your bra aside in order to have his fill of you.
He groaned against your tit, nibbling and pulling at your nipple with his tit as you wrapped your hand around him.
"Hnng- ffuck, you're so big, Jack," you panted out, one hand on his dick and another dug deep into his curls, keeping him attached to your breast, "It's not gonna fit."
There was a pout in your voice, he could tell as much. The words had their intended effect on him, making him fuck into your fist just once.
Yeah, it was gonna be a tight squeeze. It was gonna be so excruciatingly tight he ran the risk of cumming within ten seconds of your cunt suffocating him. But fuck if he wasn't going to drag your pussy up and down his cock.
He voiced as much to you.
"But this pussy's gonna take it. right, baby?" His lips trailed their way back up your neck, finding the shell of your ear. Your head tilted away, begging that he press his lips to your skin again, "Hmm? This perfect pussy's gonna take my cock, isn't it? That's what you've been wanting, sweetheart? A big cock in this tiny pussy?"
You fisted at him harder, faster. One hand clawed at his back, surely leaving marks over the ones you'd already left behind.
"J-jack, please— Need it so bad- been thinking about it for so long..."
He took over for you, nudging you so you'd raise your hips a little and taking a hold of his dick. Taking advantage of the angle, he circled his tip against your puffy clit. it was still begging for his attention.
It only made you whine some more. The music from the club drowned out the sound to anyone who may have been outside. but, then again, these sounds were not foreign between these walls.
"Yeah? How long, baby, tell me."
He was torturing himself. Getting the tip in, he swallowed back a groan at the tight fit. It was so warm and wet. It was heaven.
You sobbed out. You were a mess. Some eyeliner pooled under your eyes. The glitter on your cheek was damp with sweat. You were just as fucked up as him.
"Since- since I met you— couldn't get you out of my head. Want you so bad, Jack-" you gasped, feeling him bury himself a little deeper, "Need- need you so much- I'll be so good, baby, I promise-"
Finally, he buried himself all the way in. He knew in that moment he could never look at you the same. You'd broken him down night by night, torturing him with a new little set every time, making his imagination run wild with pictures of his fingers pulling at the delicate strings, at fantasies of bending you over one of those worn out couches and fucking you stupid.
And now he had you sobbing on his lap, grinding against him, using his body like there was no shame left in you.
His head rolled back to the cushion of the couch, hands gripping your hips unforgivingly as you fucked yourself on him. His hips followed yours, matching your rhythm, making you throw your head back in pleasure.
You shone perfectly under the fluorescent lights of the room. Your makeup was a little runny and your hair a little messy, but you still looked like a fucking dream. He couldn't believe he had such a pretty thing going crazy on his cock. The thought alone made him rock his hips harder against you.
Despite the discomfort, he put his weight on his feet, humping you like an animal in heat. The faster he went, the more cries of his name that left your lips. it felt like sustenance to him.
"Feel good, sweetheart? Huh? Tell me- tell me how good it is-"
"S-so good, Jackie- hnng- gonna come for you- gonna— J-jack, ffffuck-"
It drove him crazy. He needed more of you. He needed to die buried in you.
With one hand, he pulled your head in his direction, fingers gripping at your hair before slipping to the angle of your jaw. There, he held you in place, licking lazily at your lips as you continued to cry his name.
"Mouth open for me, baby. Tongue out- yeah, like that, gorgeous."
The kiss was absolutely nasty, but Jack couldn't help himself when it came to you. His tongue licked at yours, and like the obedient girl you were, you let him have his fill. He licked into your mouth, swallowing every tiny gasp when his hips drove into that perfect spot in your cunt.
When you came, you finally pulled away, stuttering a series of gasps of his name as your nails clawed down his back one last time.
He kept on fucking you, eyes clamped shut in pleasure. Your sounds continued spurring him on as he reached his peak. Your voice whispered in his ear seductively, almost making him lose his balance in the process—
"Inside- 'm on birth control. Come inside, please-"
Jack's eyes rolled back as he finally let go with a pained groan and one last thrust. His body deflated on the couch as he buried himself as deep as humanly possible, filling you up with everything he had to give. Atop him, your hands continued to run through his hair, adding that extra layer of pleasure for him.
Dome silence followed, though the music continued to sound off in the background. Your heavy breaths took up most of the sound in the small room.
"Jesus Christ, kid," he panted out, hands still intermittently squeezing at your hips, "I really hope you're not doing that to every guy you give a lap dance to," he chuckled, breathless.
You carded your hand through his hair, frowning jokingly at him.
"Told you I was giving you special treatment."
"'Special''s damn right."
More silence ensued; comfortable silence. Your bodies relocated slightly, with you still on his lap but cuddled up against him and him no longer hard. It was comfortable, even somewhat domestic. Every so often you'd kiss at his skin or him at yours. It was more than clear that this was no spur of the moment thing, that he was far more than any other man who'd ever walked through these walls.
Then you broke the silence once more.
"Remind me to thank Trinity for her big mouth."
Jack laughed under you, nudging you under his chin, kissing your hair chastely.
Psych is such a weird show bc in a lot of ways it's constantly asking, "can you forgive your father? even tho he could never forgive you, can you forgive him?" and the thing he could never forgive you for was not meeting his exact very specific expectations. And the answer keeps being yes you can, because not doing so is worse. You tried and it hurt more. You tried and it made you more miserable. You forgive him because he's all you have most of the time, and its somehow less complicated than whatever you have going on with your mom. You can forgive him but you can't forget, and then one day he realizes that he was wrong and there was nothing he should have taken as a slight about you, but you both just never acknowledge this paradigm shift in your relationship bc it'd be more awkward then fighting again for the millionth time. So things get better but you never say why, you never acknowledge it unless forced and somehow you forgive him more than your mom who you were never even half as mad at.
But also it's about breaking and entering into sea world and making a janitor think you killed your best friend so you can escape, it's about gaslighting your coworkers into thinking you are the dumbest man alive, it's about only closing a mystery when it's as funnt as possible and making sure everyone else around you is as baffled as possible. It's about childhood and nostalgia and growing up in the most chaotic way you can. It's about people being killed with a t-rex skull, it's about slapstick and committing to the bit and being the silliest messiest bisexual on tv in 2006-2014.
It's about a son and his father and forgiveness and somehow also they are in a circus tent trying to find out why a corpse was launched from a cannon. And also there's an extended musical episode that makes it onto my personal Spotify year after year
One of my favorite things about this show is Shawn and his mom. His mom is in *none* of his memories. And at first you’re like, yeah, he’s working through his dad issues. But then later you discover that his mom was just… not all that present? If that makes sense? Like, it’s super easy to blame the only parent that showed up for your issues and Henry wasn’t perfect, like, at all. But dude was dealing with extremely smart adhd kid before meds with a partner who checked out well before she left. He did his best.
I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE THAT HIS MOM WASN’T IN HIS MEMORIES.
That’s such a good observation cause he really makes such a show of not wanting Henry around but every case he has he always runs it by him.
Even in the pilot ep, when he just found out Henry was back in town, he went there to ask for advice.
It was almost always Shawn seeking Henry out. Which is so telling cause he really is a lover boy, and needs to be surrounded by his people all the time.
Case in point: Gus.
Shawn did not so ANYTHING without that boy. He has called Gus out of important meetings, pulled him from a spa, a company retreat, and god knows what else.
anyway I love psych.
I love Shawn Spencer, no one does it like he does.
summary: All it takes is one glance at the pretty girl who lives in the apartment across from his for Andrew Cody to become obsessed. But what begins as innocent observation from his window turns into something far more intense.
warnings: +18 MDNI. obsessive behavior, stalking, multiple scenes of male masturbation, themes of shame, reader has type b youngho vibes and andrew is stupidly into it, feminine reader who has hair and wears press on nails, unspecified but implied age gap, reader shares one kiss with a female friend (not super detailed), J pulls your cell phone records as a favor, andrew breaks into your apartment and raids your panty drawer, male masturbation with a vibrator, nipple play, alcohol consumption and mentioned drunkenness, lingerie, exhibitionism on readers part, mutual masturbation, jealousy, bratting/a touch of brat taming, reader tries to make pope jealous with another man, death threats (not to reader or pope), dirty talk, sloppy makeouts, spit swapping, over the clothes nipple sucking, finger sucking, f!use of a vibrator, clit play, rough fingering, unprotected piv, dacryphilia, light angst, insecure pope, reader matches his freak, stalker!reader, forced love confessions, begging, creampie
note: wow ok i think that might be the longest warning i've ever written whoops!! thank u sm to my angel @thykingdoncome for reassuring me through this whole process and taking a lil looksie at this for me love u 4ever
wc: 10.4k
[masterlist] [AO3]
Andrew knows it's weird.
He knows that.
But as long as you don't know he's doing it, what does it hurt?
It's not like he's doing anything weird. He's just…watching you. It almost feels like fate, the way your apartment is positioned directly across from his. There's the courtyard and a pool lying between you, but the windows of his apartment mirror yours so perfectly.
And…you don't have blinds.
No curtains, no shades. There's not even a half-effort of an old sheet hung up over the glass pane. And at night? When he can't sleep, and the moths circle the flickering porch lights, and you've got those blue or red or purple LED lights on…well.
Pope can see right into your apartment.
Can see you, watching TV on the couch or cooking boxed macaroni in nothing but a loose tank top and a pair of lace underwear.
He thinks you might be the only good thing about the apartment that Smurf forced him into only three days after he was released from prison.
It's been a long time since he's looked at a woman, you know. Longer since he's seen one as pretty as you.
He's not lacking self awareness or anything. Pope knows your open windows and ever changing LEDs aren't an invitation to stare, but…sometimes it feels like one.
You fall asleep on the couch most nights. Which is good for him, because Pope can't see into your bedroom.
Some things, he begins to realize, are a sort of chaotic routine.
You tend to fall asleep with your phone in your hand and scramble to find it each morning (it's always under the couch, beneath the hot pink throw pillow you kick off in your sleep).
You don't eat breakfast because you don't wake up early enough to (don't you know it's the most important meal of the day?). Most mornings, you wake up with just enough time to doll yourself up in the bathroom, prioritizing glittery eyeshadow and shimmering lip gloss rather than the sustenance of a bowl of cereal.
He doesn't know what you do for work, but it's something with an inconsistent schedule. You sleep until noon on your days off, which could be any day of the week, Pope learns.
Work doesn't stop you from going out, though. Saturday nights are reserved for those miniskirts and stiletto heels and all your giggling girlfriends who get ready on your living room floor with a hand mirror. You share perfume and makeup and clothes with them before you all climb into a shared uber.
A few times, Andrew finds himself tempted to follow you. He tells himself it's not like he'd be doing it for his own satisfaction. He'd just be doing it to keep an eye on you, that's all. You're a young girl (too young for someone his age). Don't you know there are predators out there?
But he never does. Because that would be weird, right? You don't even know him. But…he certainly starts to feel like he knows you.
You and your friends always stumble back to your apartment, sometimes falling up the concrete steps to the second floor. One of them will make pizza rolls or messy peanut butter sandwiches and you'll pass around cold bottles of water and spill electrolyte drink mixes on the kitchen counter.
You'll share your things with them even after the club, selfless girl. Passing out hair ties and makeup removing wipes and big t-shirts for them to sleep in. On one particular night, when most of them are passed out on the couch, legs and arms tangled together, Pope even watches you you share a kiss with one of them under pink LEDs.
That night, Andrew has to force his attention away. It feels way too close to the beginning of that porno Craig left open on the family computer years ago.
But this doesn't feel erotic. Watching your mouth move against someone else's doesn't elicit any warmth beneath the fabric of his jeans.
No, it makes Andrew...upset. Angry, even.
It makes him jealous.
He tries not to think about it again. Tries even harder (and fails, repeatedly) to give you some privacy on Saturday nights.
But Sundays…Sundays are sacred.
Both for you and for him.
So much so that he pulls out on a job when his brothers plan it for a Sunday. Tells them he has to check in with his parole officer that day. Lies to their faces, because he doesn't want to miss out on you.
Because every Sunday, without fail, Andrew gets to see you naked.
You start by cleaning your apartment. Wiping down the counters and vacuuming the carpet and dusting the top of the cabinets. Then you light the candle on the coffee table (pink champagne, he's pretty sure, after looking endlessly online to match up the glass container. Twenty six dollars. Four day shipping. Currently sitting unlit on his nightstand).
And when you're ready, you strip off all your clothes and discard them in the bathroom.
You put oil in your hair and nineties R&B on your bluetooth speaker. You paint your toes (usually white or black, occasionally an electric blue) and glue artificial nails with sparkling gems onto your fingers.
Sunday showers are the longest, Pope knows. Sometimes thirty minutes. And when you emerge from the bathroom, steam rolls out from the open door and you've got your hair wrapped up in a towel. You balance yourself with a foot on the edge of the couch and massage lotion into your skin first.
From top to bottom, moisturizing your entire body. And then you repeat the motion with an oil, and it's during this particular step that Andrew starts feeling a little lightheaded.
He'd bet you feel all smooth and soft and smell so fucking good. Maybe like vanilla or cherry or coconut. And, god. He wants to touch you. He wants to touch himself.
But he resists.
The first three times, anyway.
By the fourth Sunday, though…well. His cock gets so fucking hard in his jeans that it's leaking. Making a big fucking mess in his boxers. It hurts, you know?
And it's not like you'll know he's doing it. He's had a little over a month to perfect his setup—lights off, chair angled perfectly so if anyone glanced into his apartment they'd have to really look in order to see him.
So, he takes his cock in his hand and imagines it's your delicate fingers wrapped around him instead. Imagines it's his hands rubbing oil into your shoulders, over the swell of your breasts, pressing into your hips, squeezing at the supple flesh of your thighs.
He'd make sure to do it just how you like. And Pope wouldn't need to be told how to, either. Because he's spent so much time watching you now that he would just know.
He wonders if your head would fall back, wet hair clinging to your slick skin. He wonders if he pressed just right into that tender spot at the small of your back that you're always so gentle with if you'd moan or whine or whimper. Maybe even say his name.
Andrew cums at the thought alone, grunting low, lips parted, his release spilling over his hand and down the hard length of his cock.
The shame doesn't take hold of him for a while.
Not until later that night, when your hair is blow dried and you're dressed in a pretty silk pajama set. You've got some trashy reality show on the TV, and you're eating the pizza you had delivered right out of the box.
Andrew takes the moment to clean himself up. To change out of his clothes and into something more comfortable. He brushes his teeth and climbs in bed, but lays with his head propped up by an extra pillow so he can still see clearly out of his window.
He knows it's weird. He knows he shouldn't be staring at a naked girl who's probably half his age and doesn't know there's some fucking creep across the courtyard who watches her every fucking day. He knows he shouldn't be fucking his fist watching you put lotion on your skin. He knows he shouldn't be changing his plans with family or friends around your schedule, just so he can watch you a little longer.
He knows he should stop.
The problem, however, lies in the wanting.
Andrew's never had much. Not when it comes to women. But you…god. You're so beautiful, and so pure and so different from anything he's ever seen. You don't belong to anyone but yourself, and once he sees you, he finds it impossible to look away.
Things change late one Friday night.
Andrew gets sloppy. He gets comfortable, here in this routine he's created around you.
There's music coming from your apartment, some electronic pop ballad that's at a volume so loud he can hear it from across the courtyard (there will be complaints to the office manager tomorrow morning, he knows. But you don't have to worry. Pope will take care of it for you, baby. He'll make sure you can keep having your fun).
You're wearing just a lacy bra and a pair of linen sleep shorts. There's a seltzer in your hand, and you're singing and dancing like you've somehow summoned all the energy from the club right there in your apartment.
It's a beautiful sight, truly. You're so happy and carefree. The warmest ray of sunshine that he wants to find himself basking under.
Andrew gets comfortable, posture relaxing in the chair that now lives permanently in front of his window. He watches you dance around your apartment, the easy smile on your face reflected back on his own.
He thinks he could really take care of you. Keep you safe. Protect all that girlish whimsy that lives in your heart. He'd make you real happy, Andrew thinks. Would watch you dance with your friends at the club, leaning against the bar. He'd take you shopping and add more of those short dresses into your closet. He'd make you breakfast in the mornings before work and Christ—he'd buy you a set of fucking curtains.
Pope is so lost in the fantasy of it that he doesn't register in time that your dancing has slowed. And you've put your seltzer down on the coffee table.
And you're staring right back at him.
His heart kicks up, pounding against his chest. He knows he should move out of sight, shut his blinds, pass this off as a mistake, maybe even pretend he hadn't seen you.
But he doesn't do any of that.
He's frozen in time, terrified and exhilarated all at once by simply being perceived by you.
Pope just…stares.
It seems to be the only fucking thing he's capable of these days.
He expects you to flip him off or maybe come barreling out of the door and across the courtyard to confront him. Or maybe you'll scurry away into your room. Maybe you'll order a set of curtains online.
But you don't do any of that.
You just stare right back.
Andrew tilts his head curiously. It's an involuntary movement.
In the end, you're the first to look away. You pick up your seltzer, dump it down the drain in the kitchen, and then disappear into the bathroom to brush your teeth.
Your routine remains the exact same. You find your phone beneath the throw blanket on the couch and turn off the TV. You turn the kitchen light off and turn on the light above the stove instead. You grab a water bottle from the fridge, and then go to bed in your room.
It's not rushed, and you don't seem nervous or fearful that there's someone watching you.
And Andrew thinks to himself, see. This is why you need him. This is why you need someone looking out for you. Don't you know how dangerous he could be?
He would never hurt you, Andrew knows. But you don't know that.
He doesn't sleep that night. He doesn't sleep often as it is, but his mind is running too fast. Cataloguing all the potential scenarios in which you cut off all access he has to you, severing the comfort he finds in his new favorite, voyeuristic hobby.
And Andrew wouldn't—couldn't—blame you for it. He thinks that's what you should do.
You don't.
The following morning, your routine changes.
On the nights you fall asleep in your bed, you're usually dressed in a pair of jeans with gems decorating the pockets and a low-cut top by the time you emerge from your room.
But not this time.
No, this time you're still wearing the same clothes you'd fallen asleep in. A lacy bra and cotton shorts.
Andrew watches, freshly emerged from the quickest shower of his life, hair still wet, as you stand in front of the fridge to find the fizzy energy drink you'd brought home with you last night.
He watches you struggle for a moment to crack the seal open (Those pretty nails of yours. He could help you with that, you know). You take a slow sip, put the aluminum can down on the counter, and turn your head just enough to let Pope know you see him.
You know he's there, in the window. You know he's watching.
And then, painfully slow, you drag your shorts down your thighs. The fabric pools at your feet, and Pope loses all train of thought.
Because this is no accident. You want this. You want him to watch you.
Your bra is next. You reach around to unclasp it and soon after the lace joins the linen fabric on the linoleum floor.
Warmth blooms beneath his skin as he watches you press your hands to your abdomen, feeling your skin, running your hands up your chest and over the swell of your breasts.
You try and play it off like a stretch, lifting your arms above your head and arching your back.
Andrew knows it's not.
You get ready the rest of the morning like normal. And Andrew…God. He doesn't know what to think.
He knows he should stop this before it goes too far. He thinks it already has.
It's…it's weird, right?
Everything about it is wrong.
He doesn't want to stop, but he knows he should.
He tries, though. For what little it's worth.
Tries to busy himself building a fountain at Smurf's. Tries to find small jobs he can do himself to pass the time. He still thinks about you all hours of the day, though. Like a thorn stuck beneath his skin, aching when he moves just the wrong way.
He overhears Nicky explaining to Deran what an 'everything shower' is and thinks about your Sunday ritual. He walks into a hungover Craig making boxed macaroni in his boxers and thinks of you. Smurf lights a candle called pink cashmere and even though it's not pink champagne, it still makes him think of you.
The pretty little girl in the apartment across from his, who he finds himself certifiably, insanely, obsessed with.
One Thursday afternoon, Andrew returns home earlier than he'd planned. He tells himself he just wants to get a little glance.
Just one look. You know, to soothe the ache the thought of you brings. To see if maybe he imagined the weight of your stare.
What he finds, though, is somehow more concerning.
You're pacing your living room, cell phone pressed to your ear, still wearing jeans and your sneakers. There's tension in your shoulders and even though he can't hear the conversation you're having with the person on the other end of the phone, he can see that you're shouting.
It drags on for the better half of an hour. The pacing, the frustrated hand waving, the pinching of the bridge of your nose. Whatever it is, Andrew bets he could help with it.
He hates seeing you stressed. Thinks you should be living your fun, carefree life like normal. You shouldn't be burdened with…whatever it is that's got you so upset.
But it's not like he can go over and just ask.
So, he chooses a different path instead.
Gets the key to the office of the apartment complex from Smurf. Rummages through the paper files until he finds the lease contract linked to your apartment number.
Andrew thinks he should've done this weeks ago. He learns an awful lot about you this way. Like your name, which he begins to recite like a mantra in his head. He learns your birthday and, regretfully, your age.
But, most importantly, he discovers (and memorizes) your phone number.
And that same day, he returns to Smurf's with a torn piece of paper with the digits scribbled on it. He hands it to his nephew and says, "Need you to get a few phone call records. Can you do that for me?"
J furrows his brows in confusion. "Who's number?"
Pope shrugs. "No one," he lies. "Can you get the records or not?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, probably. Anything specific you're looking for?"
"I wanna know about a call that happened today. Around two or so. Lasted almost an hour. Just get me the number of whoever was on the other line."
J hesitates for a single moment, and then nods slowly. "Alright. I'll get back to you on it."
In the meantime, Andrew spirals.
The thought of you having a boyfriend never really crossed his mind until now. You don't really have men over. Just your girl friends.
But there are some Saturday nights you don't come home, stumbling in early Sunday morning instead with sunglasses on and your hair a mess. So, Pope thinks you very well could have a boyfriend and he never would've known it.
Pope tells himself if it is a boyfriend, he won't…he won't do anything. It's not his place to make decisions for you, right?
Still. You shouldn't let a man stress you out so much. Whoever it is, they're not worth it. You deserve better. You deserve more.
You deserve someone who knows you.
Less than two hours later, Pope gets a phone call from J, who explains that the person on the other end of that phone call wasn't a person at all.
It was your phone company.
Your stupid fucking service provider who just so happened to put an extra two hundred dollar fee on your bill this month, claiming data overages.
All that stress wasn't over a boyfriend. It was over money.
And money is something Andrew can provide.
He waits until you leave for work, locking up tight behind you. But that doesn't matter, not now. Andrew has a key to the office, which means he has access to the spare key to your apartment.
He is fully aware that he shouldn't be doing this, but ten minutes after you leave he unlocks the door and steps inside anyway.
Your apartment smells sweet. Like sugar and citrus. He wonders if you smell the same way, and the thought alone makes Andrew's mouth water.
He moves slowly into your space, fingers tracing over the TV stand, feeling the wood beneath his calloused fingertips. He straightens the crooked throw pillow on the couch and puts the lighter for your candle back into the tray on the coffee table.
Andrew knows he should just…leave the cash and go. He shouldn't be snooping around, invading your privacy.
But you left a knife point-side up in the strainer in the sink. And you could get hurt doing something like that.
And once he's already in the kitchen, turning the knife over so the sharp edge is down, well…what will it hurt if he opens a couple of drawers?
None of your silverware matches. Andrew finds this little fact sort of endearing. Messy and chaotic in the same way you are, but that's okay. Maybe he can fix that for you one day, too.
Your bathroom is cluttered. There's makeup products littering the porcelain sink and the cabinet mirror is left wide open. Andrew picks up a few different products to read the labels and finds lip liners and leave-in conditioners and powdered blush with pilled pigment on the counter.
He finds that lotion you're always using on Sundays and opens the lid. Andrew brings the container to his nose, inhales deeply, and feels suddenly too hot.
The scent of it is sweet, like you. There's notes of syrupy amber and warm florals and it has the muscles in his abdomen squeezing tight as he thinks about how potent the scent would be if he were between your legs, freshly oiled, calves resting on his shoulders as he licks and sucks at your clit.
His cock has been half hard since the moment he stepped foot in your apartment, but by the time he makes it to your bedroom?
Pope is aching.
Your clothes are strewn all over. There's t-shirts on the floor and jeans inside out near the hamper and a dress you'd worn two weekends ago lying on the edge of your unmade bed.
It smells like you in here, too. Even more so. There's less perfume, but Andrew swears he can smell the scent of your skin. Sweet and intoxicating, sending sparks of arousal straight to his groin.
Your bedside table has a lamp on it and three half-empty bottles of water. There's one drawer, and he pries it open and gives a slow exhale to see all the silk and lace inside.
Going through your underwear drawer is, quite literally, the very last thing someone like Andrew Cody should be doing.
He does it anyway.
Rummages around until he finds that little black pair you like to sleep in. He runs his fingers over the lace band, feeling the softness beneath the rough pad of his thumb. His cock is throbbing, even before he brings the fabric to his nose and inhales the scent of laundry detergent and faint mahogany from the nightstand and—there. The scent of you.
As close as he can get.
As close as he'll probably ever get.
He needs to leave. Andrew is painfully aware that this is crossing a line of a whole new degree. Levels above simply watching.
This is obsession. This is addiction. Sick and twisted and perverted.
Andrew does not leave.
He climbs into your bed instead. Kicks off his boots and discards his hoodie until he's in nothing but his jeans. He slips beneath your sheets—satin, and pink, and filled with the scent of your shampoo and your skin and—fuck.
His cock is leaking by the time he undoes his belt. Andrew reaches beneath your blankets and shoves his jeans down just enough to free himself.
And it's almost enough to blow his load right fucking there, when the underside of his heavy length brushes against the fabric of your sheets. It's almost too much, being in your room, in your bed, breathing in your scent.
But he resists. Grits his teeth and takes his cock in one hand and uses the other to wrap the soft fabric of your underwear around his aching length.
This time, there's nothing slow about the way he strokes himself to the thought of you. He's desperate for it. Release already clouds the edges of his mind and he needs the relief it'll provide.
His brain feels hazy and his vision blurs, just thinking about you, lying here, hand between your legs. He wonders how you touch yourself, if you just play with your clit or if you fuck yourself on your fingers.
The thought crosses his mind that you might be using more than just your hand, and Pope finds himself sitting up. He leans over the edge of your bed and sticks his hand back into your panty drawer, reaching to the very bottom, feeling around until the tips of his fingers brush over silicone.
His heart is beating fast.
It's a small thing. Pink, of course. With only a small, almost hidden power button.
Pope leans back in your pillows and turns the little vibrator on. It buzzes to life in his hand, and when he pushes the button again, the intensity ratchets even higher.
There's only three settings. He turns it to the highest one and imagines holding it against your swollen clit. He imagines you lying under him, thighs around his waist, hips bucking wildly, chasing the vibration that he gives and gives and then takes away.
He turns so he's lying face down in your sheets now, nose pressed into your pillow. Pope puts the vibrator between his cock and the soft expanse of his abdomen, and he feels the sensation everywhere.
He's still got your underwear wrapped around his cock, and he gives a tentative roll of his hips against the mattress.
The groan he lets out is guttural. With his eyes closed, he can imagine its not your panties he's fucking but you. The tight, wet cunt between your legs. He can imagine it's the curve of your throat he's got his nose buried in and not your pillow. He can imagine that sweet, intense vibration is reverberating through your pelvic bone, little toy pressed hard against your clit.
Pope tells himself he'd make it so fucking good for you. He'd bury his cock so deep you'd never forget the weight of it inside you. He'd whisper how beautiful you are in your ear and make you look him in the eyes while he watches you cum over and over and over.
His release is…embarrassingly fast.
A few rolls of his hips against your mattress and he's cumming into the lace fabric of your panties, the vibration of the toy milking him until he's so overstimulated it almost hurts.
Pope rolls over, turns the toy off, and buries it back in the bottom of your drawer. He gives himself a few more moments to gather himself. To catch his breath, to wipe himself clean (never mind the couple of drops that now stain your satin sheets. That could be from anything, right?).
He tucks himself back into his jeans, pulls on his boots and his hoodie, and tosses your underwear in the pile of clothes next to the laundry bin.
There's a pair of your jeans in the middle of the floor, away from the rest. One leg of the denim is inside out. Pope takes the cash from his wallet and tucks it into the pocket, leaving out just enough that he knows you'll notice it.
He leaves.
Locks the door behind him with the spare key.
Makes it halfway across the courtyard before he doubles back, lets himself back into your apartment and into the bathroom where he pockets one of the many different chapsticks on the sink.
It isn't until he's home, tucked safe back in his own apartment, that he realizes it's strawberries and cream flavored.
Andrew puts it on, swiping the transparent petroleum over his lips. He tells himself it's almost like kissing.
Later that day, Craig calls a family meeting. But you've just gotten home, and he knows you'll find the cash within a few minutes when you go to change out of your clothes.
So Andrew waits at the bottom of the stairs on his side of the courtyard. He can't see into your apartment from here, though. And he decides he'll only wait for thirty minutes.
He responds to text messages and opens his blank, photo-less Instagram (that he definitely didn't make only to look at your profile. The one filled with selfies under neon lights and bikini photos on the beach and mirror pictures in the dressing room at that one boutique in the mall).
Twenty nine minutes later, he hears an apartment door slam shut and looks up to see you.
You've got your bag over one shoulder and a grin on your face and the cash in your hand. Enough to cover the additional charges and a little extra, too.
You notice him at the bottom of the cement stairs and freeze, but you don't look…scared, like he expects. Maybe a little startled at first, but the tension bleeds from your face the moment you recognize him.
He should say something. Talk to you. Apologize, maybe, for staring at you.
But Andrew isn't sorry.
And he's never really been good at talking, anyway.
You tilt your head and give him the sweetest fucking smile he's ever seen. It's somehow innocent and knowing at the same time, and Andrew feels the corners of his mouth lifting in response.
Something passes silently between you. An understanding, maybe. You know he watches you, and he knows you know, but…you don't stop him. You just let it happen.
You smile at him from fifteen feet away.
And then you turn to leave, no doubt making your way to pay off that stupid bill that caused you so much unrest.
Pope watches you go, like always.
But this time, you glance back at him over your shoulder with…something lingering in your pretty eyes. Excitement, maybe. He can't be sure.
He needs to get closer.
During the family meeting, he isn't very present. His mind is so far away, stuck on you, that he just blindly agrees to whatever job they're doing next and trusts that it'll all work out.
When he returns to his apartment, there's a note stuck to his door.
A pink sticky note with nothing but a phone number and a heart with an arrow through it scribbled on the paper.
Your phone number, Pope knows.
He knows he shouldn't text you.
It's stupid and dangerous and god, you really shouldn't be giving your number to random men. He could be a creep. He could be a stalker or something.
His message just says,
Hello.
Your response is immediate, with no capitalization which seems quite…fitting for you. He finds it strangely endearing.
hey
are u the guy from apt 212 ???
Pope can feel that this is a bad idea already. But he's already here, and there's no going back now, is there? He doesn't want to hurt your feelings. He doesn't want to leave you on read and make you think he's not interested when the problem is the exact opposite.
Yes.
The typing bubble pops up, disappears, and appears again three different times before you send another message.
im gonna be home in like an hr
will u be watching ???
Always, he wants to say. Fucking always. He can't take his eyes off you, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how shameful it feels.
Andrew's hands shake as he types out a response.
Do you want me to be?
No hesitation this time. Your message comes through a second later.
uhmmm tbh yeah <3
He exhales a long breath. It doesn't feel real. Like he's imagining the entire thing. How could he not be? Why on earth would the sweetest, prettiest little thing want someone to watch her?
But the weight of his cell phone in his hand is real.
And the text message is real.
And this…this is real.
Then yes. I will be.
You don't reply, and Andrew's heart flutters in his chest as he takes his practiced position in the chair in front of his window and waits.
True to your word, you're skipping up the steps fifty three minutes after the last message is sent. You turn on those LEDs and and move about your apartment like normal, kicking off your sneakers and dropping your bag by the door. You change out of your clothes and put on a worn in t-shirt that's two sizes too big for you, but underneath…
Pope can see the sheer thigh highs you wear and the black, lace edge of them. He can see those strappy garters attached to them, but nothing else. The straps disappear beneath your shirt, leaving him wanting for more.
You're teasing him, Pope realizes.
He watches with bated breath as you lay on the couch, getting comfortable with the throw pillow against the arm.
And then, for the first time, Andrew watches you touch yourself.
You start slowly, hands roaming over your body, on top of the fabric, massaging gently at the inside of your thighs.
His cock's always hard watching you, truth be told. But this…
His skin feels hot. His lungs feel tight.
Your fingers curl around the edge of your t-shirt, and you pull it over your head to discard it on the floor.
Andrew hasn't seen you wear this set before, not even on those sacred Sundays.
It's pretty. Matching black lace. The bra is low cut and pushes your breasts up your chest, the soft flesh swelling over the top. The waistband of the matching panties is decorated in shining silver gems, laying so perfectly against your hips that he feels dizzy just looking at it.
The prettiest package, just begging to be unraveled by his big, mean hands.
You dressed up for him.
You dressed up for him.
Your hands start to move again, palming your breasts, pulling the lace down until they spill out of the top. Your nipples are so pretty that his mouth waters. He wants to kiss them, to feel the shape of them under his tongue. He wants to kneel over top of you and jerk himself off until they're covered in his sticky white release.
You squeeze your breasts until your nipples form pretty little peaks, and then your hands slide lower. Over your abdomen, and your hips, and then your thighs. You bring them slowly back up, only to slide them over the lace fabric of your panties, right down the center of your cunt.
Andrew thinks he could die.
He could fucking die, just looking at you.
Carefully, you unbuckle the chrome latch of your garter. The left side first, and then the right quickly follows. You leave the lace belt on, but hook your thumbs around the bedazzled lace of your panties and pull them down your thighs painfully slowly.
Your knees fall apart.
Pope swallows hard.
He can see everything from here. The seam of your thighs that he's dreamt about. The pretty shape of your pussy. The wetness that's gathered between your folds, slick and shiny with arousal. With want.
For him. It's for him.
His cock throbs so hard it hurts.
Pope doesn't touch himself. He can't. Can he? All you asked of him was that he watched.
That's what you wanted.
But wouldn't it be better if he was there? Wouldn't it be better if he could touch you, if he could taste you, if he could fuck you?
All you'd have to do is let him in.
Your fingers stroke gently over your clit in small circles, and he watches in awe as your lips part and your spine bends.
He can't hear your moans but god does he wish he could. Thinks about putting a little microphone in your lampshade the next time he sneaks into your apartment.
Your fingers drift lower, over your center, and slowly press inside.
Pope wants it to be him so fucking bad.
If not his cock inside you then his fingers. They're bigger. Longer. Thicker. They'd please you more. Reach places your fingers can't.
Maybe his tongue. He'd drink you right from the fucking source and cum in his jeans, probably. But he'd make sure to find that sweet, velvety spot inside you first and he'd spell his full fucking name over it with a pointed tongue.
Silly girl. Don't you know what he could do for you? Don't you know what he could do to you?
Pope squeezes the bulge in his jeans to try and alleviate the pain of his lust.
You fuck yourself with your fingers, stuffing in one and then two and then three, stretching yourself on them, slick dripping down the seam of your cunt. Your back arches when your free hand finds your clit, and he knows you're close.
He knows he shouldn't, but he searches frantically for his phone anyway and sends another text message.
I want to hear you.
You pause only long enough to grab your phone off the coffee table, read the text, and lay your phone on the arm of the couch behind you.
Pope's phone buzzes in his hand.
You're calling him.
He answers on the first ring, and the sounds that greet him are so erotic it steals the breath from his lungs.
You sound so pretty. So sweet and feminine, everything he's imagined yet somehow so, so much more. He's sure you can hear his heavy breaths on the other end of the phone, but Pope can't find it in himself to care. Can't think of much else besides the way you whimper and the sight of your fingers stuffed inside you.
"Oh, god—"
His inhale is shaky.
"I'm gonna cum," you choke out, words hazy with your moans. "I'm so close, I'm so fucking—hmm. Yes. What's your name?"
He almost doesn't hear you, so lost in the sight before him. Immersed in the euphoria of it. But then he says, voice a low, uncertain whisper, "Andrew."
Your spine bends and the fingers on your clit slow. "Oh my god. Fuck, Andrew—I'm cumming, I'm—yes, yes—god."
His cock twitches and when he tries to soothe it with another tight squeeze, he sends himself careening off the precipice of release instead. His head falls back and his once heavy breaths get stuck in his lungs. Pope rubs himself over his jeans, making a sticky, hot mess in his boxers, generating what little friction he can.
He watches you come down in real time. Not his dreams, not his imagination. He watches it happen. Watches that fucked-out, hazy look cross your face. Watches the tension in your muscles melt away, wishing he could kiss the junction of your throat.
Pope wishes he could worship you. Wishes he could clean you up and put on that trashy reality show you like and hold you against his chest, comforting you while your brain comes back to earth.
Instead, you lean up. Grab your phone and press it to your ear, staring right at him through his wide open window.
He doesn't know what he expects you to say, but it's certainly not, "Have you been inside my apartment, Andrew?"
For a second, he thinks about lying. Because there's no way you know, right? Not for sure. It's not like you have cameras or anything (he knows, because he checked).
But he doesn't want to lie. Not to you.
"I…might have been. Once, yes."
"Did you steal my chapstick?"
"You have ten of them."
He hears your laugh for the first time, and the sound is like sunlight in his chest. "You took the best flavor."
"I'm…I'm sorry. I'll return it."
"Keep it. I already got a new one," you say. "Cost me five hundred dollars, though."
So, you know it was him who left the cash, too.
Smart, pretty girl.
He doesn't say anything, too afraid he'll say something stupid or awkward the way he usually does. He doesn't want to ruin this moment. This absolutely perfect moment.
You smile at him, kiss your palm, and blow it towards your window. "Goodnight, Andrew."
He feels his face heat. "Goodnight."
Pope rides the high of it for days.
Can't shake the sight of you open and bare for him. Can't stop thinking about the sound of your moans or the way you'd said his name in the peak of euphoria. He fucks his first to the thought of it more times than he can count.
And Andrew's never been a really sexual person. Not unless it's with someone he loves.
But is that what this is? Love?
You've never met. Not really, not properly. How could it be something so intense? You don't know him. You don't know who he is or what he does. You don't know how he's hurt and maimed and killed.
Would you be afraid, finding out? Would you run to the police if you knew? Would you recoil away from him with terror in your eyes?
All things left unsaid. All things that may, very well, never be said.
Pope feels so uncertain with all of this that he finds himself resorting to fucking google, even. Search history littered with questions and Reddit threads that never provide any real clarity.
Define love.
Define obsession.
How to know if you're in love?
How to ask a girl out?
How to get over a girl.
Define voyeur.
Define fetish.
How big of an age gap is too big?
Apartments for sale on the east coast.
Pink champagne candle.
Strawberries and cream chapstick bulk pack.
You text him again a week after your exhibitionistic display.
do u wanna like go out sometime?? been thinking about u a lot
He's at Smurf's when he reads the message.
Pope doesn't even realize he's smiling until Deran slides a beer across the counter at him and asks, "What's got you all happy today?"
And Pope just shakes his head. Schools his features back into neutrality and says, "Nothing. Just won a bet."
He can tell his brother doesn't believe him, not even for a second. But thankfully, Deran doesn't push any further. He lets the subject go, but the question stays stuck in Andrew's head for hours.
It takes him a while to decide on a response. It's honest, and…mostly true.
We shouldn't. I'm a lot older than you.
Your response is a single, painful letter.
k
He doesn't respond to try his hand at damage control, even though he wants to. It's probably better this way, he thinks. Better that there's some distance between you. Better that you hate him and see him as the creepy neighbor he is.
But that Saturday night, when you return home, it's not with your friends.
Pope watches from his window as you guide a man up the stairs and into your apartment.
He's tall. Dark haired, with bright eyes and white teeth and a good smile. Closer to your age. Handsome like a man allowed into your space should be.
You're fumbling a little with your apartment key and Pope watches as the man stands behind you and slides his hands down the back of your thighs.
Thighs he should be touching. Thighs he's watched for months. Thighs that spread for him, long before this fucking loser ever laid his eyes on you.
He tells himself he won't interfere.
You're your own woman. You deserve to feel good, even if it's with…someone else.
And Pope knows he's just going to have to get the fuck over it.
He did it to himself, really.
He should look away.
But he watches instead.
Watches the two of you fall onto the couch. Watches another man kiss down the column of your throat and squeeze the supple curve of your ass over your sequined dress.
Your eyes find his from across the courtyard, and Pope's jaw clenches.
Putting on another show for him. Filthy, filthy girl.
And you're just going to give it to some random man? Someone who doesn't know you like Pope does? Someone who doesn't know how you like to be touched?
He needs to look away. Close his own fucking blinds for once.
But he feels frozen. Knowing this time, you're watching him. Looking for him. Goading for a reaction.
Pope watches the slow ascent of the man's hand. Promises himself he won't interfere. He'll just watch to make sure you're safe, that's all.
But the moment that greedy hand disappears beneath your dress, Andrew's moving. Throwing open his door and slamming it closed behind him. He crosses the courtyard and takes the steps two at a time.
His fist against your apartment door is incessant. He doesn't stop, even when he hears the uttered, male voice ask, "Who is that?"
When the door opens, it's you who stands in front of him, chin tilted up as you stare at him, pupils flared wide.
The man you'd brought home with you hovers over your shoulder.
Pope doesn't even look at him. He stares only at you as he says, a little snarl in his voice, "Tell him to leave."
"Dude, what the fuck? Who is this guy?"
Your lips curl at the corners. A devilish little smile. "Okay," you say, nodding, your voice soft and pliant. You turn your head to look at the man who stands behind you. "Sorry, but you've gotta go."
"You're joking," he responds flatly. "You said I could—!"
Andrew reaches past you and takes him by the collar, pulling him out of your apartment and slamming him up against the paneled siding. "I ever see you in this apartment again, I'll fucking kill you. You understand me?"
"Jesus fucking—yeah, okay. Alright. Sorry."
Pope isn't joking. Doesn't say it to scare him off but rather as a warning.
He lets him go and watches him scramble down the stairs. He doesn't turn back to face you until the little tool you used for attention gets in his car and drives away.
And when he does finally turn back to you…Christ. Your eyes are half lidded and full of lust. Pope's close enough this time that there's no mistaking it.
He should be a gentleman. Should take you out first. Bring you home and kiss you on your doorstep and leave you untouched.
He knows he should.
What he does instead is curl his hand around the back of your neck and pull you to him. He leans down, mouth hovering over yours, breathing in your panicky exhales. "This what you want?"
Your grin is immediate and undeniable. You nod and breathe out the word, "Please."
Andrew kisses you hard, crowding you back into your apartment. He kicks the door closed behind him and slides his tongue into your mouth, tasting you and groaning at the sweetness. There's mint and strawberry and you, his favorite flavor.
He feels drunk on it. On the taste of your tongue, the glide of your wet lips over his, the way your hands scramble and tug desperately at his belt.
"Fuck," he sighs, pulling back just enough to see you. "Open your mouth, baby. Wide. And stick out your tongue."
The way you immediately obey has his cock twitching. Good girl. So fucking good for him when he gives you exactly what you need.
Andrew licks the flat of your tongue once, delighting in the way you whimper in response, before bringing his hand to your mouth. He slides two fingers behind your teeth and orders, "Suck."
You do, lips closing tight around the digits, wet tongue swirling over his thick knuckles. He pushes them further down your throat, your eyes locked on his as he makes you choke on them.
"So fucking pretty," he tells you. "You always look so pretty."
Andrew pulls the straps of your mini dress over your shoulders, roughly tugging the fabric over your chest down to expose your breasts.
You're wearing the same lace bra you'd worn when you dressed up for him, he realizes. He can see the peaks of your nipples through the semi-sheer fabric, and leans down to lock his lips around the left one over the lace.
The fabric is rough beneath his tongue, a stark contrast to the softness of your skin. He sucks hard, spreading the wetness of his saliva over the lace. You push your dress further down your waist and over your hips.
Andrew slides his fingers out of your mouth, sticky and dripping with your spit. He brings them to his own lips instead and sucks them clean, watching your breath hitch and your eyes grow impossibly more hazy.
He lowers himself to his knees before you and his slick fingers work quickly at the straps of your heels, unbuckling them to free your pretty, white-painted toes.
Your hands find his shoulders for balance. "I like that you watch me," you tell him. "I think about it sometimes and it makes me so…god, Andrew. It gets me so wet."
He looks up at you from his knees, big brown eyes glassy and full of adoration. "Good," he says. "'Cause I'm gonna watch you a little closer tonight."
That pretty smile finds its way to your face again.
Andrew presses a sweet, chaste kiss to the apex of your thighs. Over your panties, right where he knows your clit lies beneath. He then stands to his feet, towering over you now without the added height of your heels, and presses you forward.
You take a careful step back, nearly losing your balance.
Andrew grins, taking another step, crowding you back towards your bedroom. He doesn't stop until the back of your knees hit the edge of your mattress.
You stumble backwards, falling into the plush sheets that he's all too familiar with. Lying on your back, propped up by your elbows, you stare up at him with wide eyes and he's reminded of a timid little animal caught in the trap of a predator.
Don't you know how dangerous he could be?
You don't look afraid. You actually look…eager.
Pope stands tall at the edge of your mattress. "Take off your clothes."
You do. Unclasping your bra first, tossing the fabric into the already existing mess on the floor. And then your panties follow, thumbs hooking around the fabric to drag it down your legs.
Andrew reaches around and fists the collar of his shirt, tugging it over his head. He feels warm all over, watching you greedily drink up the sight of him. He thinks he'd feel a little nervous, in any other setting. If it were anyone but you.
His sweet, filthy girl.
Andrew reaches into the half-open drawer of your nightstand, searching until he finds your vibrator again.
Your brows furrow as you watch him find it with practiced ease. "You went through my underwear drawer, too?"
"Did more than that," he admits.
You inhale like you're going to speak again, but the words melt to nothing when he tosses the small toy onto the bed beside you.
"Use it," Pope orders.
"What?"
He crawls onto the mattress between your legs, spreading them wide, laying your calves on either side of his hips. "Let me watch you."
There's a moment of hesitation, but you don't look nervous. Only…curious.
You pick up the vibrator and slide the pink silicone through your folds, spreading your arousal before you press the power button. You circle your clit with the tip of it a few times, teasing yourself.
When you turn the toy on, he can feel the vibration against his hands that grip your thighs. You let out a syrupy moan and turn the intensity higher, drawing tight circles around your pretty clit.
He watches you, eyes locked on the pink silicone between your legs. He watches your entrance flutter, tightening around nothing, begging to be filled. "Your pussy is so pretty," he mutters. "Do you know that?"
Your only response is a breathy whimper. You click the intensity up again, putting it on the highest setting, and Pope sighs when your legs begin to shake around him.
He wants to watch you make yourself cum. Wants another scene to fuck his fist to in the shower or in his bed or in his truck.
But he's here. Finally, finally here, in your bed, with you, and he can't help himself.
Pope grips your hips hard and pulls you closer, tilting your hips up into his lap. The vibrator falls from your hand at the sudden movement, but he's quick to return it to you. "Keep going."
You press the silicone back to your clit, and Andrew spreads you open with gentle thumbs. He gathers the spit in his mouth and lets it drip from his lips and onto the seam of your cunt.
And then he's sliding his middle finger inside of your entrance, curling it upwards, searching for that sweet spot that makes you writhe.
It doesn't take long. He's watched you. He knows just what you like and what angle to hit. And the second the tip of his finger presses hard against it, you fist your free hand in the sheets and curses fall from your sweet mouth.
Pope slides another thick finger inside, watching the way you squirm, feeling the walls of your cunt flutter around the swell of his knuckles.
"I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna—oh, fuck. Feels so good, feels so fucking—"
A long, throaty moan leaves your mouth, and he feels the warmth of your release pool in his palm. You're so slick that each wet thrust of his fingers echoes against the walls of your room.
He doesn't stop until you're twitching. Until you click the vibrator off and shove it away from you. And even then, he still gives a few, slow curls of his fingers inside of you. Not touching with intent, just…feeling. Memorizing.
Once you catch your breath, you lean up enough to find his eyes again. You say timidly, shyly, "I want…I want to feel you, Andrew. I want you inside me. Do you…do you want to fuck me?"
It's the most asinine question he's ever been asked in his fucking life. Does he want to fuck you?
He's thought of nothing else for months. Every night when he fights for sleep, it's the thought of you under him that puts him to bed.
It's such an impractical concern from his point of view that he laughs. Actually laughs, for the first time in years. "Oh, baby."
Pope takes your hands in his. He presses one to his chest, right over his heart, and the other against the hardness in his jeans.
"I have never wanted another woman as bad as I want you," he says truthfully. "But I…you…you deserve better than this. Better than me. You understand that, don't you?"
You shake your head. "You don't know me, Andrew. Not really. You don't know if—"
"No, no. I do. I know you're the kind of friend who would give the shirt off their back. The kind of girl who'd let her phone get cut off before asking for help. The kind of girl who gets up every morning and just…tries. Every day. And you fucking…you smile about it. You're good. You're so fucking good and I…"
He stops.
Remembers the last time he loved someone like this and how he'd made a stupid confession he should've taken to his grave and how it'd fucked him completely.
"You're what, Andrew?"
Pope swallows. "I'm...I'm a bad man. I've hurt people. I will…hurt people, I—" His voice cracks. He lowers his eyes, trying to turn away, unable to find the strength to face you.
But you take his jaw in your gentle hands and force him to look at you. Sweet, angel of a girl that you are. And then you say without a waver to be found in your voice, "I like who you are. Do you think I gave the man who watches me through my window my phone number because I want some guy I could match with on Tinder?"
He tries to slow the rapid pounding of his heart. He wonders if love is supposed to be like this. To feel like this. All consuming and terrifying and devastatingly hopeful above all.
You shake your head and tuck your legs beneath you, sitting up on your knees. He sits stone still as you lean forward and kiss his cheek, whispering against his ear, "I've been watching you, too, Andrew Cody."
Something shifts inside of him as you say it. Uttering his last name that he'd never given you, that isn't even on his lease because this is a fake apartment under a fake name to launder the money they steal.
Oh—sweet, smart girl. Smarter than he thought.
How silly of him to ever doubt you.
There's a newfound wildness in your eyes when they meet his again. An unveiling. Like he's seeing you for who you truly are for the first time.
And you're…god. So fucking beautiful.
And, yeah. Pope thinks he's been right this whole fucking time.
He's weird and wrong and sickly obsessed.
But you are, too.
Andrew takes you by the back of the neck and kisses you hard, desperate to taste you, to close what little physical space remains between your body and his. He pushes you back against the mattress and follows you down.
Your hands find his belt buckle before he does, and he stares down at you as your deft fingers pry the leather open and unbutton his jeans. He helps you push the denim down his legs until his cock springs free, heavy and leaking. Wanting for you, twitching as you take it carefully in your hand.
A groan reverberates at the back of his mouth. Your hands are so soft. Perfect and pliant. One day, he swears he'll show you how he likes to be touched. He'll let you sit in his lap and watch him stroke his cock for you.
But for now, he lets you touch him slowly. Experimental. Feeling the heavy weight of him in your palm. You spit on your fingertips and spread your saliva over his sensitive tip, flushed red and pulsing beneath your touch.
You lean back and guide him between your thighs, sliding the head of his cock through your syrupy folds and over your clit.
The moment you line him up at your entrance, Pope eases inside and you let out the sweetest fucking sigh he's ever heard in his entire life. Sweet and soft and so, so satisfied.
It's so beautiful. You're so beautiful. And you feel warm and heavenly and wet around him. He pulls out slowly, almost all the way, and then drives his cock back into your cunt.
You squeal and those sharp, acrylic nails dig into his spine. But your legs circle his hips, and so Pope does it again.
He fucks you hard. Claiming that spot at the back of your cunt, pressed right up against your cervix. He rolls his hips and presses his mouth to yours, swallowing up those desperate, carnal sounds he pulls out of our chest.
Sweet girl. Sweet fucking girl. He reaches between you and circles your clit. "My girl now," he says, words spoken against your lips. "You'll never need anyone else, baby. No one but me."
You nod, the velvety walls of your pussy squeezing around the hard length of his cock.
Andrew puts his whole weight on top of you, grinding himself between your thighs, giving you everything he has. Everything he is.
"I'm yours," you choke out. "I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm—"
It becomes a mantra. One that feeds his desire, in perfect sync with the rhythm of his thrusts. He watches your arousal begin to crest, nearing the summit, the muscles in your thighs twitching. "Look at me, baby," he says. "Tell me you love me when I make you cum."
You're so lost in it, head all spacey, that your eyes remain closed until he takes your jaw in a firm grip.
There are pretty tears in your eyes when you open them, but that smile on your face is present, too. He feels you pulse around him and your breath gets all shallow and then—
"I love you, Andrew, I fucking—oh my god please, please—I love you."
The words are music to his ears, tingling down his spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He thought the sound of his name in your mouth was beautiful but this…fuck. He could die.
Pope thinks he would. For you, he would.
He fucks you through it. Tastes your moans and says, "Yeah, that's it. Give it to me. Look so pretty when you cum for me."
He doesn't let his pace falter until your muscles loosen, until your nails stroke gently over his spin instead of leaving marks.
You pepper sweet kisses over his jaw, tongue sliding up the shell of his ear. "I want you to cum inside me," you tell him.
He's been fighting it the whole time, trying desperately not to blow his load before he'd at least gotten you there first.
But when you say that?
When you say, "Please, Andrew. Want you to give it to me. Want you to fill me up with your cum. Please. I need it."
He thinks about telling you that you don't have to beg. Not him, not for anything (especially this). But you just sound so pretty, begging for his cum, that he can't bring himself to do it.
So, he gives you what you want instead. Fucks his cum into you, groaning low in your ear, cock pulsing inside you. You feel so good wrapped around him it's euphoric. Otherworldly.
Your pussy grips tight, milking him dry, taking every last drop (he knows you're on birth control. Don't you know the women's clinic downtown keeps a spare key beneath the plant in front of their door?).
Andrew is careful when he slides out of you. And he wastes no time before kicking his jeans the rest of the way off and pulling you against his chest.
He pulls the blanket up around your shoulders and presses a kiss to your hairline. His voice wavers a little as he says, "Sorry if I…if I was a little rough."
You shake your head, pressing your nose to the divot between his pectorals. "It was perfect," you murmur against his skin.
Silence settles between you. Comfortable and easy, the sound of your breathing in perfect synchronization.
After some time you say, "I meant it, you know. Wouldn't have said it if I didn't. I really think I might be in love with you, Andrew. Is that…crazy?"
Yes, he wants to say.
But he feels it, too.
So instead he says, "You know, I don't…I don't have much experience with that sorta thing. Don't really know how to…to navigate it, I guess. But, uhm…yeah. Me, too."
He feels that smile of yours against his chest.
Andrew knows that this dynamic the two of you have created is weird.
summary: You’re still struggling with overworking. Leon shows you when it’s time to take a break.
master list | previous (not required but gives some context) next
cw: once again, female pronouns used but reader’s features are not described, some suggestive content, dom! leon much more heavily this time, very not subtle praise kink (use of good girl), pet names, tbh rating COULD be pg-13 but i don’t write nsfw so minors ur fine :) uhhhh non-sexual sub-space if you squint?
tags/tropes: once again hurt/comfort, cuddles, leon being touchy again (reader is just as touchy honestly) soft dom behavior (leon)
a/n: a little continued drabble for those of u who asked/liked the last one !! hope u like it @cherryandsugar <3
MY ELDEST DAUGHTERS WITH PRAISE KINKS MAKE SOME NOISE 🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️💯💯💯
｡𖦹°‧⭑.ᐟ
You’re overworking again.
You don’t mean to, necessarily. It’s just always what you do. Work, work, work. It needs to get done, so you do it. No matter how tired you are, no matter how much you don’t want to do it. No matter how many tears get shed. It needs to get done. You have to do it. So you do it.
Leon’s been taking issue, with it though.
You’re not really sure what you are to each other, yet. He definitely finds you attractive —he tells you pretty much everyday, an almost overuse of words like hot, sexy, cute, amazing, and of course, his favorite; princess.
He occasionally comes over to the place you and a few other girls rent together and does his absolute best to be as distracting as possible. Sometimes he cooks, sometimes he gets touchy, sometimes he just sits on your bed and watches you work which is, in your opinion, by far the worst one.
When he’s not bothering you in the comfort of your own home, he’s sitting next to you in the couple classes you share, a distracting hand on your thigh that he squeezes when you get a question right— something that never fails to make you breathless and dizzy for a few minutes afterwards. Between the sight of his hand engulfing your thigh and the frequency of your correct answers, it’s a miracle you don’t asphyxiate during class.
You did come close, once. It was a week after what you’ve dubbed The Library Incident, and the professor had singled you out as one of his most consistent students when it came to turning in homework. Leon had leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear and whispered, all low and rumbly:
“Good girl.”
You didn’t get a single thing out of the lecture for the rest of class.
(You’d then given him the silent treatment, but he made up for it by you sending you his rather extensive and detailed notes from the lesson with a single text: “Better learn to multitask, princess.”)
So yeah. He isn’t a huge fan of your studying habits. Something he’s made abundantly clear.
“When was the last time you got up?” He grumbles, walking into your room with your now full reusable water bottle. You’d abandoned it in the kitchen a few hours ago. He’s such a stickler about your water intake.
“Who are you, my mother?” You pause, looking up at the mischief in his eyes and the way his mouth is open, poised to say something, likely dirty. “Don’t answer that.”
You reach out with grabby hands towards your water bottle, which you know is filled with some delicious water combination, courtesy of Leon. Shit, he’s Pavlov-ing you into drinking water, isn’t he?
He rolls his eyes, handing you the bottle. “You know, you can make this exact same water yourself with the items in your fridge. Which I put there. For you. To use. Yourself.”
“You make it better,” You answer smoothly, ignoring his sarcasm. Ooooh. It’s minty strawberry today.
“Oh?” He says with a raised eyebrow, a signature Leon smirk on his lips. The same one he always gets when you admit to liking him in some way.
“You’re such an attention whore. Isn’t that why you came over here?”
“Ouch. So touchy,” He tuts, draping himself over your back and resting his chin on your head. “But no. I came over here to drag the lovely and beautiful and terribly stubbornly princess away from her desk because she’s overworking again.”
You tense. “I can’t, Leon. Not right now. I have to finish this.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if you don’t?”
“I get behind and then I can’t catch up and then I fail—“
“Woah, now,” He says, standing and spinning your desk chair so it faces him instead of your work. “None of that is going to happen if you take a break. We both know your work ethic is too good for that.”
You start worrying your lip between your teeth. “But—“
“Hey,” He says, a gentle, slow hand reaching out and brushing your lip away from your teeth. “None of that. Leave your lip alone.”
You wince. It’s a mindless action, the same way you pick at your hangnails and other parts of your skin when you’re stressed. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. Just don’t want my girl hurting herself more than she already is.”
You ignore the latter part of his sentence and focus on the first. “Your girl?”
“Yeah,” He says, tilting his head and looking down at you with a small smile on his face. “My girl.”
You look down at your hands, fidgeting with the hem of your sweatshirt. “I won’t be able to sleep or relax if I don’t finish this. It— I can’t.”
He takes the side of your face in his hand, thumb sweeping across your cheek and beneath your eyelid. “I know, baby. But you work too much.”
“But I have—“
“You have to, I know. I know you’re hardwired for independence and overworking. So how about this. Take a break, lie down in bed with me, and then finish only what you’ve already started.”
You start chewing on your lip again. “I—“
His fingers deftly move down to your jaw, grabbing it firm, thumb pressing on the edge of your lip and pulling it down, away from the merciless bite of your teeth. His grip leaves no room for argument, but you don’t feel frightened or scared. In fact, your stomach is doing flips at the careful, gentle control in the press of his hands and the fondness in his eyes.
“I know I phrased that very nicely, but this isn’t an argument, sweetheart. You need to rest. Your brain needs time to recharge. What happens if you get sick from all this working, huh?”
You decide now isn’t the time to bring up that you always work through every cold, flu, and fever you’ve ever had.
“Hey,” He leans down, catching your averted gaze. “Look at me.”
He could easily turn your head himself, his fingers still pressed against your jaw, but he doesn’t. He waits for you to muster up the strength to look over at him yourself, eyelashes fluttering.
His gaze is cool and deep when it meets yours. “I am not mad at you. I am not upset with you. I just want you to take care of yourself.”
His voice, gaining that low, rumbly edge when he ushers the words sends tingles up your spine. You sigh, letting the tension ease from your shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I’ll try harder.”
“You’re doing just fine, okay?” He pulls you up by your hands, hand leaving your face as he tugs you over to your bed. Once you’ve sat down, he reaches back towards your desk, grabbing your water bottle from your desk and putting it on your bedside table. “You just need a little help sometimes. Everybody does.”
He motions for you to scoot over and you oblige, immediately slotting into what’s become one of your usual positions: arms wrapped around his torso, head pillowed on his chest.
“There we go,” He mumbles, hand sliding under your shirt, intermittently squeezing the place his hands always seem to find: the squishy, vulnerable stretch of flesh in between the top of your hip and the bottom of your ribcage. He rolls the skin there in his hands, a pleased hum rumbling from his chest. “Such a good girl for me.”
You shudder, hiding your blush by pressing your face further into his chest. A tingle spreads from your spine to the rest of your body.
He chuckles. “Aw, you like that don’t you? Did the same thing last time. Is that all I have to do? Is that what you need, baby?”
A small whine rip’s itself from your throat before you manage to tamp it down. Embarrassed, you try and hide your face further.
“None of that, now. Come on, let me see that pretty face.”
You shift, rolling to basically lie on top of him, bracing your hands on either side of him to lift your head, a small frown on your face and a not-so-small flush across your face.
He smiles, hands coming up to cup your cheeks. “There she is,” He practically coos, “My pretty baby.”
“You’re baby-talking me.”
“Mhm,” He says, squeezing your cheeks. “You got a problem with it?”
“…No.”
“What was that?”
You drop back down, wrapping your arms around his neck and resting your chin on his chest. “Shhh. I’m supposed to be resting.”
“Convenient that you’re listening to me now.”
“Shush.”
He grumbles, but doesn’t say anything more. He slips his hands under your shirt, palming the expanse of your skin. His fingers are hot where they press and linger, warmth spreading from the points of contact. You go limp in his hold, humming contentedly.
You’re not really sure how much time passes with the both of you like that— bodies pressed close, legs tangled together. It just feels so… nice.
You relax. You actually relax. A small part of you feels annoyed that Leon is your source of comfort and relaxation (muttered whispers in your brain whine about independence, about not relying on anyone else—) the bigger, louder part of you is so overwhelmed with how nice it feels to just… not worry. Even for a little bit. In moments like this your brain goes pleasantly blank: Leon will take care of it. You don’t have to worry, because Leon will take care of it.
The stretches of time you spend in what you’ve mentally dubbed Limbo have started getting longer. At first, you’d last five, maybe ten minutes before your brain would kick into high gear again; worries and concerns flooding your brain so quickly you usually jolt straight up.
But now? It’s easy to slip into it. To let yourself take a mental break. Check out from life for a half hour or so. And when you’re ready to get back to work, you do just that- usually a lot calmer than before Leon came around.
It’s addicting. It’s dangerous.
“How long has it been.”
“Five minutes.”
You blink your eyes open, frowning. “It has not been five minutes,” You reach for your bedside table, snatching your phone off and checking the time. “Liar. It’s been thirty minutes.”
“Is it so wrong to want to lay in bed and hold my princess?”
“It is when the princess has work to do.” You grumble, sitting off and rolling off the bed with a thud.
“It’s so unnerving when you do that. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No,” You say, hauling yourself to your feet. “It’s fun.”
“I don’t see how sustaining bodily injury is fun.”
“You wouldn’t get it,” You say, waving a hand in dismissal.
Loud shuffling and the thump of Leon climbing to his feet has you looking back. “You’re leaving?”
You can’t quite keep the desperation out of your tone.
He looks at you, surprised. “Usually you don’t like it when I stay while you work.”
“Yes,” You say, cheeks burning. “Um. Yeah. Right yeah. I have work to do. So.”
“Princess,” He says, his voice low and teasing, “You want me to stay?”
“No, no I have to work—“
“Uh-uh,” He says, crossing the room to stand in front of you, arms folded. “No lying. Do you want me to stay?”
You look down at your sock-clad feet. “Please?”
“Aw, well how could I say no to that,” He leans down, pressing a quick kiss to the crown of your head. “Finish your work. I’ll be right here when you’re done.”
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