Nu; twenty; Italian; she/her, but also whatever; bisexual; scorpio witch with a not-so-hidden soft heart ; every-kind-of-emotion playlists maker ;
I'm a multi fandom yapper and the most "type C" person you could ever have the displeasure of meet, so this means the characters I write/will write for are gonna be very random and posted without a clear timing. I cannot finish anything for the life of it. Blame the emotions, not me :)
Please, feel free to interact and engage with me in any way about literally anything. Just be respectful ♡
Disclaimer: ~ My works are very repetitive, unfortunately I like so much certain tropes/scenes/phrases that they're almost everywhere. I'm sorry? *innocent shrug* :) ~
! Do NOT copy, scrape, stole or feed my work to ai. I work hard for the things I share here and me and my works deserve respect, thank you. !
Things I wrote :
• Top gun
⭑ Not so private - Jake "Hangman" Seresin
⭑ Callsign Sviper - Jake "Hangman" seresin
• Supernatural
⭑ Domestic - Sam Winchester
⭑ Love confessions - Sam Winchester
• Law and order:svu
⭑ Run like a girl - Elliot Stabler
⭑ Into you - Elliot Stabler
• Marauders
⭑ Valentine's day - James Potter
• Chicago PD
⭑ Not just sex - Jay Halstead
• 9-1-1
⭑ Marked - Evan "Buck" Buckley, Eddie Diaz
⭑Always, more than enough - Evan "Buck" Buckley
• short ones
☆ Office Hours - Elliot Stabler
☆ Craft Party - Off Campus characters
*pics and (Brooke Davis)gif from Pinterest; heart divider from @saccharinezennie, pearl divider from @uzmacchiato
BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND BUCKY X F!READER (college au)
SUMMARY. Being Steve Rogers’ sister meant years of boys looking at you like a warning sign. Now that you’re in college, your lack of experience becomes a major problem. So you ask your brother’s best friend to teach you everything. What starts as lessons becomes something neither of you have a name for yet.
WORD COUNT. 11.7K
WARNINGS. college au, brother’s best friend trope, MDNI, inexperienced reader, smut, tit play, handjob, dick pronouns, pussy inspection, pussy pronouns, oral (f and m receiving), an attempt at teabagging, cum swallowing, vaginal fingering, dry humping, bucky cums in his pants. No use of Y/N.
NOTES. You can imagine reader as Steve’s adopted sister, there will be no physical descriptions. One might argue this part is just porn without plot. One would be partially right.
Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist || 1 ~ 2 ~ 3
READ ON AO3
A week goes by, and you kiss him twice more.
Once on his couch on Wednesday, which starts because you sit down close enough that the intent is pretty clear. The second time is Thursday, at his door when you’re leaving, which starts because you turn around and he’s right there.
You’re getting better at it. More confident, less in your own head, less managing the moment and more just in it.
Tonight is Friday, and you’re back on his couch.
“Can I try something?”
There's no version of him that would say no to your question. “Yeah.”
“I want to — I want to start it this time.”
He doesn’t ask what, because he already knows. He settles back slightly, like he’s making room. “Alright.”
So you close the gap and kiss him. The kiss in itself isn’t any different. But it feels different when it’s yours to start. You bring one hand up to his jaw the way he always does to you, and you feel him still like the contact surprised him. That small victory does wonders for your nerves.
He kisses you back slowly, letting you lead, his hand coming to rest at your waist with a patience that you are choosing not to read too much into. You shift closer and his grip tightens, fractionally, like some reflex he’s only barely managing.
When you finally pull back, his eyes open. His thumb makes one slow pass over your hip. “That was good.”
“You could be more specific.”
“You didn’t hesitate.” His thumb again, same slow drag. “That’s the main thing.”
You’re close enough that you can see the detail of him. The line where his jaw meets his throat, the soft stubble that’s absolutely not helping right now. The lamp behind him is the only light and it’s warm and doing nothing to help you think straight.
“What’s next?”
He looks at you for a moment, like he’s reading something. Then he stands up. Before you’ve quite registered what’s happening, his hands are at your waist and you’re being lifted. Foot-off-the-ground-lifted. He’s walking toward the bedroom with your face against his jaw, his mouth pressed to your temple.
You don’t say anything. You’re not sure you could.
Thing is, you've been in his bedroom before. But this is entirely different. You’ve been there to to grab something, just passing through. You know the where the bookshelf is, you know he has a photo of you and Steve, you know he has a lamp that sits in the corner.
But one of that prepared you for being carried into it. The fact that it's Bucky carrying you.
He lays you down on his bed and looks at you. There’s something in how he does it, that makes your whole chest tighten up.
“I’m going to take your shirt off.” You realise he’s telling you so you know what’s coming, giving you time to say no before he does anything. “Along with the rest of your clothes. And then I’m going to put my mouth on you.” He watches your face process this. “Questions?”
“That’s — that’s a lot of steps.”
“It’s really not.” He reaches down and gets the hem of your shirt in both hands. You sit up to let him pull it over your head. When you’re back down, his eyes move over you in a way that makes you want to simultaneously stay very still and also disappear.
His mouth finds your collarbone and works down slowly, hands mapping out the territory of your ribs, your waist, learning you, inch by inch.
He moves like he has a plan and also like the plan isn't the point. Like the point is every single inch of the way there.
But he doesn’t rush past your breasts. He cups one fully in his palm, thumb brushing slow circles over the nipple until it’s tight and aching under his touch. “These are sensitive,” his breath is warm against your skin. “We’re gonna take our time right here so you figure out exactly what you like. Tell me if it’s too much or if you want it harder.”
His lips close over your nipple and he sucks. Slow at first, then deeper, pulling the peak into his mouth that makes your toes curl. It’s nothing like the quick graze you expected.
This is hungry, his tongue swirling around it while he holds the suction. You arch hard, a shaky sound ripping out of you with his name. He switches to the other breast without breaking contact, sucking just as thoroughly, letting you feel every pull, every flick, until both nipples are swollen and slick and throbbing in the cool air.
You hadn't known it would feel like this. You'd thought that it would feel good, fine, whatever. You hadn't accounted for the quality of his attention. The way he's watching your face while he does it, checking, adjusting, reading you. It’s with the same focus he brought to explaining what made a good first date. It's the same focus and it's directed entirely at you. And you don't know what to do with that so you just make the sound his mouth is pulling out of you and try not to think.
When he finally releases them with a soft pop, he murmurs “you like that?” His dark eyes go over your face and decides it himself. “Yeah, you do. What about this?” He grazes his teeth over one sensitive bud, then bites down lightly, just enough pressure to sting in the best way. Your hips jerk and you moan outright, louder than you’ve ever let yourself be. He soothes the bite instantly with his tongue, then sucks again, harder this time, alternating between both breasts like he’s memorizing every reaction.
It feels like he's building a map of you for himself. For some purpose you haven't named yet. And won't name right now, because you can't think right now. Also because naming it would be a problem.
His mouth stays on you longer than you thought it would, sucking and licking and testing until your chest is heaving and your thighs are trembling around nothing.When you press them close together, he says against your chest, “don’t do that.”
“Do what—”
“Squeeze your thighs.” His hand slides between your knees and parts them easily. “Keep them open.”
Something about being told that with his mouth still on your breast rearranges your brain chemistry entirely.
He makes his way down your stomach, mouth and hands both, leaving heat everywhere they go. His stubble drags across your ribs, raising goosebumps. It's a small thing, the scrap of his beard on skin.
It shouldn't be a significant thing.
It is, though.
His fingers find the waistband of your underwear and tug them down your legs and off.
Then he just looks. Both hands on your inner thighs, spreading you open under the warm light of his bedroom, studying your pussy with an attention that makes your face go absolutely warm, sweat beading at your temples.
“Bucky—”
“Give me a second.”
“You’re staring.”
“You’re so wet.” He runs his thumb, a sliver of a touch, through your folds, and your hips jerk. His words aren’t quite to you, more like something he’s noting down for personal records.
“Why are you apologising?” He looks offended almost.
“Because it’s — it’s a lot.”
“Yeah.” He looks up at you, the blue of his eyes now only a ring. “It is. That’s good.” His thumb again, the same barely-there stroke, and you make a sound you weren’t planning on making. “That’s very good, actually.”
It’s the voice he uses when something matters to him. You've heard that voice applied to other things over the years. An arguement with Steve, the conversation with Jaxon before it got physical. It’s the serious kind of voice, the one that inevitably says ‘this matters to me.’
The fact that it's being applied to this, to you, like this, makes it harder to breathe.
He keeps your thighs spread open with his hands, and his voice is warm like he’s walking you through something just for the two of you. “That’s just your body showing me exactly what it wants. Nothing to be sorry about. I’m gonna touch you right here so you can feel what feels best for you. Just let me hear whatever comes out, okay? I want to know.”
His thumb strokes slowly through your folds, spreading the slick. He hums softly, when your breath hitches. “Breathe for me.” Then his thumb finds your clit and circles it once. It's soft, light and careful and your whole body jerks.
“Bucky—”
Eyes move to look at your face now. “Feels good?”
You make a sound that's both a gasp and a hum. He keeps the slow circles, then brushes over it with the lightest flick of his thumb. You gasp again, softer this time.
Bucky pulls the hood back just enough with one finger, gentle as anything, then circles again with a touch more pressure. Your thighs tremble under his palms and another soft moan slips out.
“Good girl. See how much wetter you’re getting?”
Does he realise you're not in any position to answer him…
His forefinger circles your entrance, for one small moment, you wonder if he's going inside. But he just collects the slick and brings it back to your clit in slow, patient strokes.
Just when you think you're used to what he's doing, he shifts down between your thighs and you feel his breath against your skin. That’s when you understand. When he'd said he's gonna put his mouth on you, he didn't only mean your tits.
“Wait — Are you — are you going to—”
“Yes.”
“With your — your mouth.”
“That’s generally how it works.”
“I know how it works, I’ve watched porn, I just —” You try to think of useful words, the verge of failing. “I didn’t think you’d actually —”
He looks up at you from between your thighs with the patient expression of a man who has all night. “You didn’t think I’d what?”
“I mean. It’s not — you don’t have to. Like it can’t be that enjoyable for you, it’s—”
“I want to.”
“But—”
“I want to.” He says it the second time like the first time didn’t register, which it didn’t, which he can tell. The second want is more enunciated, letting you know its value. “That’s not a polite offer. I want to put my mouth on your pussy. Are you gonna let me?”
The framing of that sentence evaporates any ability to construct a counter-argument. “Okay… yeah. Okay.”
“Now, relax.” He turns his head and presses a kiss to your inner thigh.
“Why’d you start with your mouth?” You question, mostly just to be saying something, because silence right now seems like more than you can manage. “I thought — I figured you’d use your fingers first. Mouth seems more—”
“More what?”
“Intimate? I don’t know. I thought fingers came first.”
He looks up at you again. “Before I put anything inside you, I want your body to know what pleasure feels like. I want you to know what it feels like to want more before I give you more.” He holds your gaze. “Does that make sense?”
Your mouth is very dry. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” And with that, his mouth meets your cunt. He exhales into you like he didn't mean to, this warm, involuntary breath, and it hits you that he wants this. He wants this specifically, not as the next step in the curriculum.
Because the sound he made when his mouth first touched you is not a teaching sound.
If you’d thought kissing him was breathtaking, this was on a whole another level. You decide to constantly remind yourself to breathe, because he sure as hell isn’t helping.
The first sensation your register is heat of it. Just that, just warmth and the soft press of his lips against your core. His tongue drags slowly through your folds and your hand shoots to his hair of its own accord.
He licks into you like he’s learning you, cataloguing every place that makes you twitch and keeps coming back to it.
You've watched enough of him to know the difference between him going through motions and him when he’s actually into what he’s doing.
Now, he’s into what he’s doing. The sounds coming from him are laced with want. They aren’t even pointed at you. It seems to escape him rather than come from him. Like he forgot he was supposed to be in control of this. Like you're the one doing something to him.
When his lips close around your clit, you make a noise that could only be described as a cry. Only reassurance after that mortifying ordeal is that he makes a sound back.
His lips close around your clit again, and you have to consciously bite down to not let another noise out.
Like he’s sensed your dilemma, he says against you. “You can be loud. No one’s going to hear you.”
“I’m not—” you start to object, but then he sucks and the rest of that sentence ceases to exist.
Your hand tightens in his hair without you deciding to. He actually groans at that, a vibration against your clit that shoots straight through you, and you loosen your grip immediately.
“Sorry—”
He comes off you just enough to speak. “Don’t apologise.” He looks up the length of your body at you. “You can pull it. You can do whatever you want with my hair. Grip it, pull it, push me where you want — however feels good. It’s for you.” A pause. “Yeah?”
He says it's for you. Like he wants to make sure you understand that. Like it matters to him that you understand that.
Only when you nod, and say yeah, does he go down.
He eats you with with an attention, learning what you respond to and using it, building pressure with his tongue against your clit while his hands hold your hips steady when they try to roll up into him.
At some point one hand leaves your hip and slides up your stomach to your breast, his thumb rolling over your nipple, and the moan that comes out of you at the combination is loud enough that you’re briefly grateful for thick walls.
“Bucky—”
A hum against your clit but he keeps going.
He hums like he's satisfied. Like that sound you just made is something he wanted.
Your hand is in his hair and you can feel him, how present he is in this, how little of him is elsewhere.
Nobody has ever been this entirely here with you before. Not that anyone has been with you before.
But even in the small ways like conversations, attention, the general experience of being in a room with people, you've always felt the slight elsewhere quality of other people's focus.
He doesn't have that. He's completely, entirely here. And not just now.
You know it isn’t something you should be analysing right this moment, but what he’s doing to you isn’t just physical.
Finally, your hand fists in his hair, the way he said you could. The sound he makes is something you’re going to be thinking about for a while. You know he’d said it was for you, but the way he’s responding, it’s hard not to think there’s a little something in it for him too.
You feel the tension building, coiling tighter with every stroke of his tongue, your thighs shaking either side of his head.
“Don’t stop,” you manage, “don’t — please—”
He doesn’t stop. His tongue works your clit in tight circles, his hand flexing into your hip. Everything tightens to a single unbearable point and then snaps. A sound tears out of your throat that you’ve never heard yourself make, your pussy clenching around nothing while he works you through every shuddering wave of it, slower now, softer. He draws it out until your legs are trembling and your hand in his hair has gone slack.
A kiss is pressed to your inner thigh. Then your hip. He’s moving back up your body and settling beside you. You try to remember what your name is.
“That was— I need a minute.”
“Take your time.”
You turn your head to look at him. His mouth is wet, his hair is a disaster from your hands, and he looks… he looks like someone who thoroughly enjoyed himself. There's something open in his expression, something that isn't quite contained, and you look at it for a second before he notices you looking and rearranges slightly.
You saw it. You aren’t in any condition to process it though.
“In porn,” you start and pause to catch your breath.
“Mm.”
“They make it look sort of — performative. Like they’re doing it but they’re also sort of doing it at the camera. That was nothing like that.”
“No.”
“That was—” You don’t have the word. “Better.”
He looks at you for a second with something in his face that he keeps mostly to himself. “I’m glad it was.”
He disappears for a minute and comes back with a glass of water and a washcloth warm from the tap. Sitting on the edge of the bed beside you, he hands you the water first. His hand stays on your knee while you drink.
When you’re done, he’s gentle with the washcloth, so careful, taking care of you like it’s just the next thing he wants to do and not a task he’s ticking off. Your face is warm and you try not to feel too much about the fact that someone is doing this, that he’s doing this, without being asked.
You wonder if this is part of the curriculum or entirely something else.
When he’s done he sets everything aside and looks at you. “You need anything else? Hungry, or—”
“No. Can — Can we just lie down for a bit?”
“Yeah, ‘course.”
He moves up the bed, and you roll toward him. That’s when you realise that he’s still in his sweats and his t-shirt. Entirely, fully dressed. And you are wearing nothing at all, which strikes you as a profound injustice.
“You’re still dressed.” Before he can say anything, you’re talking again. “That’s not fair.”
His eyes slowly drag over your body, which feels like a touch in itself. During the thorough once-over, he also appears to be giving this the serious consideration it deserves.
Without another word, he reaches back and pulls his t-shirt over his head in that one-handed way that shouldn’t be as effortless as it is. “Lift up.”
As you straighten up, he puts it on you himself, guides your arms through, smooths it down over you.
His face tips forward to press a kiss to your temple, just his mouth at your hairline for a moment. Your whole chest does something you’re going to deal with later.
He pulls the comforter up over you both. “Better?”
You hum. Find the space against his side that your body has apparently already decided belongs to you, your cheek against his shoulder, his arm settling around you.
He’s warm, too warm almost. It’s way too comfortable not to fall asleep.
You’re not going to fall asleep though. You’re just lying here, that’s all, with his t-shirt pooled around your thighs and the smell of him close enough to be a problem and his heartbeat doing something steady under your cheek.
There’s nothing to do and nowhere to be and his hand keeps moving, up and down, up and down.
This is nice.
He’s nice.
You close your eyes.
It's morning.
You can tell Bucky's awake because the arm around you is too still. Sleeping people don't hold that kind of stillness, it's a different quality entirely. He's doing a very convincing impression of someone unconscious and you're doing a very convincing impression of someone who isn't lying here thinking about his mouth.
Neither of you are particularly committed to either bit.
"You awake?" he asks after a while.
"No."
The sound he makes is almost a laugh. His thumb moves once over your shoulder. "How do you feel?"
You turn your head and he's already looking at you. The blueness of his eyes startle you in this grey light sweeping through the windows.
There's something underneath the casual delivery of his question that is very much not casual.
"I'm fine, Buck."
"First time's a lot. Even when it goes well."
The fact that he says 'even when it goes well' like he's genuinely leaving the door open. Like he'd sit there and hear it if you say, ‘actually, I have a few notes.’ You don’t say that. You have no notes.
"It went well. Quite well, actually. I'd go as far as really well."
"Yeah?"
"You were there."
"I was. Wanted to hear you say it."
That thing that's been quietly building since last night stirs again and you decide not to look at it directly. The part of your brain that is always oriented toward the next thing clears its throat. "I want to learn the other part."
He doesn't answer immediately. You fill the gap yourself. "How to touch someone. A guy. I want to know how to do it properly."
A breath. "Yeah. Okay."
"Should I … start with my mouth? Like you did?"
"No." He shakes his head once. "That's different."
"How?"
He's quiet for a second. You can tell he's actually thinking about how to say it rather than just saying something. "When I did that with you, it was because it was your first time. Even fingers can be a lot the first time. Guys don't need that. It's not the equivalent."
You think about it. It makes sense. The way he explains things always makes sense.
"Also, hands is easier to start. You'll know what you're doing before you're, you know. Down there."
"Right. And you don't need—"
Unlike you, it's not his first time. Any of this. You knew that going in, it was the entire point of coming to him, it was why you knocked on his door almost two weeks ago. And still there's a small stupid pang, that you are absolutely not going to mention.
He doesn't seem to notice. "So. Hands."
"Hands."
The covers shift to reveal his torso. There’s an intense urge to reach out and touch the plane of muscle. You don’t.
"Whenever you're ready."
You shuffle forward on your knees across the mattress until you're close enough that your body is almost touching his. He watches you with his hands loose at his sides, giving you the room.
He's still in his sweatpants. You get your hands to the waistband and he lifts his hips slightly to help, cooperating without making it a whole thing.
You look.
For a full second, maybe two.
Because your brain is constitutionally incapable of silence, you say, "hi."
Bucky closes his eyes briefly, the expression of a man asking for patience from a higher power. "You don't have to greet it."
"I wasn't greeting, I was — it was a general hi." You look up at him. He looks back down at you. "He's really pretty."
Something happens to Bucky's face that he was not prepared for. His mouth does a thing, not quite a laugh, but also not not one. "He’s — That's not — people don't usually—"
"I’m just being honest." You look up at him and then back down. "He's also big."
"Okay."
"No, I mean significantly." You're doing the math and the math is concerning. He's not even fully hard yet. "How is he going to fit?"
"It'll fit."
"That's not an explanation."
"You don’t have to worry about that now. I'll make it fit.” There's a pull at the corner of his mouth, the effort of keeping his expression neutral while you sit there conducting what is essentially a full appraisal. "Are you going to touch it, or..."
The first contact is just your fingertips. Light, just along the length of him. He pulls in a breath and his hips shift, barely.
"You're so soft." You mean it genuinely. The skin of him is warm and smooth, absolutely not what you'd expected at all. "Like the skin. I didn't think it'd feel like that."
"Yeah." His voice has gone slightly strained.
You wrap your hand around him loosely. More curious than purposeful. He goes very still, the kind of still that takes effort.
Your thumb drifts up to the tip. There's a bead of precum there, you touch it. The sound Bucky makes is quiet and completely wrecked, his head dropping back for one unguarded moment before he pulls it back together.
You did that. Your thumb did that.
You swipe your thumb over the head again and he hisses through his teeth. "Keep doing that. And this is going to be a very short lesson."
So naturally, you do that again.
"Fuck — okay. I — I'm gonna move your hand."
He takes your hand in his and adjusts everything. The grip, the angle, the pressure, and wraps your fingers around his cock properly. His hand over yours. "Not that tight — Just like that. You feel the difference?"
"Uh-huh."
He does one slow stroke with your hand inside his, all the way up. His jaw goes tight. And he does it again. On the third one, he lets go of your hand, and drops his to the sheet.
You do it on your own. Same grip. "Like that?"
"Exactly like—" He stops as you do it again, his whole body jerking once. "Yeah. Yeah, that's—" His hand tightens its grip on the sheet. "Good."
You find the rhythm easier than you expected.
Bucky is quiet in a way that's the opposite of silence. His breathing changes, his throat moves when he swallows, and the hand that isn't gripping the sheet finds your knee and holds it. Like he needs something to hold onto and your knee was there.
You shouldn't be this focused on how he looks right now. You are. The flush starting at the base of his throat. The way his jaw has gone slightly loose.
You've seen Bucky composed in every situation you can think of. Watching that composure come apart because of your hand is doing something to you that has nothing to do with learning anything.
"Is this okay?"
"More than." He gets it out with some effort. His eyes are on you and they've gone dark, most of the blue gone.
"You can talk to me." You glance up to his half lidded eyes. "I told you things."
"That's different."
"How is it different?"
He opens his mouth, closes it. You get the impression the answer to that question is more complicated than right now warrants. So you let it go and keep your hand moving.
When you twist your wrist slightly at the top, the noise he makes is involuntary. His hand comes off the sheet to catch your wrist.
"Where did you—"
"I was paying attention."
He stares at you. There are about four things happening in his expression at once and none of them are teacher friendly. He lets go of your wrist.
The sounds he makes are quieter than yours were. Held back, like he's rationed himself. But they're there. His hips move into the drag of your hand, just slightly, small involuntary pushes he's not entirely winning against.
Warm puffs of breath are on your neck, as he drops his forehead to your shoulder.
You've had his attention directed at you for two weeks but this feels different. This is him needing something to lean on and choosing you as destination.
His hips buck up, once, fully. Immediately, he pulls back fast. "Fuck — sorry—"
You want to tell him not to apologise, that watching him lose his composure is doing something to you. You don't say any of that.
He's close. You know it before he says anything, from the way his thighs have gone rigid and his breathing's come apart entirely.
"I'm almost — Stop." His hand closes around your wrist.
You let go and drop your hand back to your own knee. You knew what was coming but you didn't quite anticipate it. He exhales deeply and spills across his own stomach, his grip on the sheets going white for a moment, a low groan working out of his chest before his whole body goes loose.
Before anything sensible catches up with you, you reach out one finger and drag it slowly through the mess on his stomach.
There’s no lesson in curriculum that says you have to touch his release. You don’t care about it at this moment.
You're curious, is all. You've been curious about him in increments for the past two weeks and this is just the latest increment.
The sound Bucky makes comes from somewhere very deep and takes his whole body with it. At once, his hand snaps up and catches your wrist.
"Don't." His voice is completely wrecked. He looks it too. Undone in a way you haven't seen him before, fighting hard against something that might be a laugh and losing to both at once. "Do not."
"Why not?"
"Because." Completely black pupils gaze over you. "Because I just came and you're going to — Fuck. Why are you like this?"
"I was curious."
"Of course you were." He drops his head back against your shoulder and laughs.
You feel the laugh through his whole chest. You feel it against your shoulder and through your arm and somewhere behind your ribs. It's the kind of laugh that makes you want to make him laugh again.
His hand is still loosely around your wrist. He hasn't let go.
"Was that okay? Genuinely. Tell me if I did something wrong."
He lifts his head to look at you. "You did nothing wrong."
"The wrist thing—"
"Was very much not wrong." His voice is strained, but also a little offended, like you're being ridiculous. "Where did you even pick that up?”
"I told you. I was paying attention. Do I get a grade?"
"You're not getting a grade."
"Feedback then?"
"The feedback is that you're going to be a problem."
You don’t know what he means by that. You don’t ask.
Two dates happen, but you are very intent on calling them lessons.
The first one is a bookshop and coffee after, which Bucky picks because he remembered you mentioning it three years ago. You tell yourself normal people hold onto information like that. After all, you remember his favourite author too.
He buys the book before you can get your wallet out. When you open your mouth, he says it's part of the curriculum, with a completely straight-face. You tell him that's a stretch. He shrugs and holds the door open.
The second one is harder to explain away.
He cooks. Which was not on any syllabus you'd agreed to. You sit on his kitchen counter and talk for two hours before the food is even on the table.
You're calling them lessons. That’s easier.
But why’s it becoming harder?
The next time you see Bucky it's a Thursday, and the word lesson doesn't come up at all.
What does come up, eventually, is his mouth on your clavicle. The fact that there’s a movie playing matters less now than it did five minutes ago. Somehow, you've ended up horizontal with his weight half over you. His lips trail up to your throat. Tipping your head back, you give him more space to work with.
But there’s one specific thing in your mind that needs attention right now. That’s been lying dormant for a week. "Teach me something."
"I am teaching you." There’s no attempt on his part to untangle from you. In fact, he moves, rucking your shirt as he goes. His mouth takes in your pebbles nipple, and you make a sound you hadn't planned on, your hand going to his hair. He does it again, the slow suction almost pulling your body off the couch.
"That's not teaching me anything," you manage.
"Sure it is." He doesn't look up. "You're learning what you like."
"That's not—" He does it again and and you lose your train of thought.
There’s no point in being logical about this, you let him play with your tits however he pleases.
After what feels like a lifetime, he surfaces. His face still rests on your torso as he looks up to you.
"Can you please show me the next thing?"
"There’s a next thing?" His crooked lips tell you he’s messing with you.
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don’t."
"Bucky."
“If you want it that bad, you can say it.”
Trying to glare at him from this angle not only proves to be a minor exercise, but also futile because he just smirks. “Fine. Blowjob. I wanna know how."
He holds your gaze. Then he sits up, which means you sit up too. He's doing that thing where he actually thinks before he opens his mouth. The fact that it’s rarer in people makes you like him a little more. If that’s even possible.
"Okay.”
"Just okay?"
"Did you want a longer answer?"
"Well, for starters, I want to know how to actually do it."
His hand comes to the back of your neck. Before you've worked out what's happening, he's pulling you in. His other hand rests warm on your bare waist as he kisses you. "Sure you want to switch right now?" he asks against your mouth.
"Yes. I've been thinking about it since the handjob."
Something happens to his expression that he doesn't manage to contain. "Have you now?"
"Don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird." He sits back. You feel the absence of his warmth immediately. "Honest explanation or the polished version?"
"Honest, obviously."
"See what gets you a reaction, what doesn't. Same as everything."
"Teeth," you say immediately. "And I don't know what to do with my hands. And how do I even breathe?"
"Don’t forget you have teeth."
"I’m sorry, what?"
"No, I just mean, if you’re just conscious of it — like keep it in the back of your mind, it's gonna be okay. Breathe through your nose. If you need air, just pull off, it’s not a big deal.”
“And what about hands?”
"Base of the cock, whatever you can't reach with your mouth. Or thighs. Both. Whatever feels right." A pause. "It’s okay if you can’t take all of it."
"What if I want to?"
"Then you'll gag and we'll deal with it."
A checklist forms inside your head as he speaks. "Okay but I have a genuine question. It's called a blowjob. But literally no one is blowing anything in the videos I’ve watched. So what is actually happening?"
His mouth opens, and then closes. Then the laugh comes out of him, a real one, helpless, the kind that takes his whole face. Your chest does something embarrassing at that sight.
Framing your face with both hands, the softest kiss is planted on your lips. "You're" kiss "so" kiss "adorable" kiss "y’know" kiss "that?"
Oh God. You’re melting. You’re losing it all. Physically, you can hear your heart melt. But you take his face in your hands right back, mirroring him.
"I" kiss "know."
He grins against your mouth and kisses you properly this time, both thumbs drawing circles at your cheeks.
"Suction," he says when he pulls back. "That's the answer. Suction and tongue. The name's just a name."
"But why is it called that?"
"I — genuinely don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I've never thought about it."
"How have you never thought about it?"
"Because it's never mattered before."
The way he’s tilting his head tells you he’s at least mildly curious about it. Proving you right, he pulls out his phone.
"Buck. No. Don't google it."
"I have to."
"Bucky—"
He's already reading. His expression cycles between certainty and not quite confusion. "Okay so apparently, there are several competing theories."
"Of course there are."
"One is that it comes from a slang term for the act that has nothing to do with the literal — "
There’s nothing else to do but indulge him. "I don't want competing theories. I want one answer."
"Etymology is rarely that simple."
"Oh my god." You reach over and take the phone out of his hand. He lets you. "You just googled the etymology of blowjob."
"You asked."
"I didn't ask you to do it with that level of academic commitment." You set the phone face-down on the cushion. "Forget it. Never mind."
He's still smiling when he stands up. But the heat has returned, to him, and to you.
What you don’t understand is why he’s standing. “I need you to sit.”
“Why? This’ll be more comfortable for you.”
“I just — I wanna kneel.”
"You don't have to kneel."
"I want to."
"You can do it just as well sitting down, it's easier on your—"
"Buck." You look at him. "I want to kneel."
An exasperated but equally fond sigh leaves him. He reaches back and picks up the throw pillow from the other end of the couch without another word, setting it on the floor in front of where he’ll be sitting.
"Floor's hard," he says.
You don't say anything about that. You just kneel on the pillow and he sits on the edge of the couch. You're struck, not for the first time, by how completely not-strange this is. How it's just him. How that seems to be doing a lot of quiet heavy lifting lately.
When you tug at his sweats, he lifts to make it easier for you. You stare at his dick. His dick stares back at you.
This is also the time you can show him that you’ve indeed learnt something. You start with the grip you know he likes, watching him thicken and pulse under your fingers until he’s rock-hard and leaking.
When you lean in and run your tongue, on the tip, through the slit once, his breath shifts immediately.
His hand immediately flies to your head. You lick the tip again, slower this time, savoring the salty bead that wells up, then drag your tongue along the thick underside, tracing every throbbing vein from root to tip. The weight of him on your tongue feels perfect.
When his hand presses gently at the back of your head, you close your lips over the tip of him and suck, carefully. A whole body jerk accompanies an involuntary sound that he desperately tries to swallow back. You take a little more, tongue working the underside the way he’d said.
As you try to take more, your jaw strains with it. If he’d felt bigger in your hand before, he’s an entirely different story in your mouth. The stretch catches you off guard.
He sees you struggling to take him, and he adjusts your fingers around his length. "Your hand — Whatever your mouth can't cover. That's what it's for."
Mouth on the upper half, hand at the base, you finally find the thing that makes his breath change. The slow drag of your tongue and suction combined makes him shudder, you notice. You do it again. Though they’re held back, the sounds coming out of him make it very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.
“Atta girl.” It slips out quiet, almost hard to catch.
The words hit low in your belly and you feel yourself clench around nothing. You almost lose your rhythm from merely two words. Chiding yourself, you try to recover. His hips twitch like the praise cost him the last scrap of control he had left.
The idea that you could make him forget himself, make him slip like that, make him say something he wasn't planning on saying.
You want more of that. You want all of that.
As you work him deeper, tongue dragging slow and wet along the underside with every suck, your eyes flick lower without meaning to. His balls are heavy and tight just below where your hand grips the base, skin flushed and drawn up.
It is impossible to ignore now. You pull off.
He makes a sound of protest that is thoroughly undignified.
You glance up at him, lips shiny and breathing hard. “What about… those?” Sucking cock has your voice strained. “Do I — should I do something?”
“You don’t have to,” he says, reading it immediately, breath still ragged.
“But I should know, right?”
“It’s — if you want to, cup them first. Get a sense of it.”
He stands up without a word, feet planted wide in front of the couch, cock jutting out heavy and slick right at eye level. The new angle gives you everything you need.
His balls are warm and soft in your palm, making him go very still. You drag your tongue over them experimentally, feeling them draw tight under the wet heat. “Like this?” you murmur against the sensitive skin.
“God, yeah — fuck,” he breathes, thighs trembling. A raw and surprised groan rips out of him when you take one carefully into your mouth and gently suck. His hand fists tight in your hair and releases. “Christ.”
You switch to the other, licking and sucking with growing confidence, tongue swirling as his breath turns ragged. “You’re gonna make me lose it already,” he mutters. “If you don’t want me to blow already, you should come off.”
Satisfied with the way he’s shaking, you reach up and wrap your hand around his cock at the same time, stroking him slowly while your mouth stays sealed around his balls.
His hips jerk hard against your mouth. “Shit — wait—” His fingers slide into your hair and tug you off gently but firmly. “If you keep sucking my balls and jerking me off like that I’m gonna — fuck — cum way too fucking soon. Slow down. Please.”
You pull off from his balls to gently shove him back to the couch. He lands with a soft thud and a groan, and you immediately come back to his cock, lips closing over the head.
This time you don't hold back. You want more of that. More of everything. The sounds of him, the way his control keeps slipping in these small visible ways.
Wet sounds fill the room alongside his ragged breathing. You stop being self-conscious about any of this entirely. Spit on your chin. His hand gripping your hair. You try to take him deeper than you have and it makes you gag, eyes watering. It’s a mess when you do pull off, coughing with tears pricking the corners.
Without a word, his thumb comes to your chin to wipe it. "What did I say?"
"I almost had it."
"You didn't have it."
"I was so close."
"Take me back in your mouth. And stop competing with yourself."
Mouth sliding back down, you take what you can and work what you have. His hips buck upward involuntarily, shoving deeper into your throat for one dizzy second before he catches himself. "Shit — sorry." He forces his ass back down. But the control slips again seconds later, another helpless roll that has you moaning around his cock.
You’re doing this to him.
His hand in your hair is gripping properly now. He says your name and it comes out rough.
Till this time, you were so concentrated on him, you didn’t realise you were dripping wet. Those panties sure are soaked by now.
"Come up." His hand migrates to your shoulder. "Come on, come up."
You don't. You remember his he pulled your hand during the handjob, and you don’t want that to fallen again.
"Baby." The hand tightens. "I mean it — come up —"
It slips out. Just the once, just that word, clearly not planned. You stay where you are and look up at him through your lashes. He forces his eyes to stay open, to keep his gaze on you, but his jaw goes tight and his head drops back. The swear that comes out of him is helpless as his whole body goes rigid and still.
The first hot, thick rope of cum hits the back of your throat, salty and bitter and so fucking him. You swallow it down greedily, sucking harder through every pulsing spurt until he’s shaking and empty.
The taste of him is all over your tongue. "Fuck," his voice is wrecked.
He is a sight as you sit back on your heels.
His chest is heaving. There's a flush across his face and throat. He's looking at you from somewhere between wrecked and something else, something that's been showing up on his face more lately.
"First time, you don't usually swallow. You don't know if you'll like the taste — that's why I was trying to—" He pauses to take a breath. "You should've let me pull you off."
Both of your hands go to his jaw. "Buck." You make him look at you. "I liked it. Very much. Can we do it again?"
Droopy eyes stare back at you, and you generously add, “not right now, obviously."
Something gives in his face and he laughs. His hand comes up to cover both of yours where they're resting on him. Turning his head, he presses his mouth to your palm, warmth transferring from his lips. "Twenty minutes," he says into your hand.
"Fifteen."
"Twenty." A kiss to your palm.
"Seventeen and that's my final offer."
"We can go straight to your cock. I'm ready."
Bucky looks at you. "No, you're not."
"I literally just—"
"Lie down."
There's no room in his voice for the conversation you were about to have. Because you know him well enough, you know that tone means he's already thought about this more than you have. It's annoying. You've gotten used to it. You lie down.
He comes down beside you, and his mouth finds the side of your neck first, and then your jaw. "Have you done this before?"
The audacity of this man. “I’m sorry — If I'd done this before. Why would I be here?"
His lips press somewhere near your ear. "With yourself. Have you touched yourself?"
Oh.
"Yes. Obviously." You didn't mean for the ‘obviously’ to come out quite so defensive.
"This'll be different."
The audacity again. "Yeah, you’re gonna be better —"
"No, I just meant — my fingers are bigger."
Right. You take a breath. He's right, you know he's right. The size, and when you add his experience to the mix... "Okay."
"I want you to show me something first." When you turn to look at him he's already looking at you. He proposes it like it's simple. "How you do it. What you do when you're alone."
The heat that climbs your throat is immediate. "Bucky."
"You don't have to. But it'd be nice if you did."
"No I just —" You press your lips together. It's not that you don't want to. It's just that there's a difference between doing something and doing something with him watching your face for your reaction. "You'll literally be right there."
"That’s kind of the point." A quiet fact.
Working up whatever nerve that requires, you slide your hand beneath the waistband of your underwear.
For the first few seconds you're almost entirely in your own head about it, hyperaware of him, of his attention. But your body doesn't especially care about that. It knows what this is. And gradually, the weight of being watched tips over into something else. The sound that comes out of you is not measured.
That’s when you register a movement without fully tracking it. You feel his breath against your inner thigh, you understand he's not beside you anymore, he's between your legs. Right there, watching up close as your hand moves under the thin fabric.
That is a lot of new information at once.
"Take these off." His hand is at the edge of your underwear.
To make it easier, you lift your hips. He drags them down and off in one slow pull and drops them somewhere behind him. The cool air hits your slick folds. But the most striking part of it all is that he's just looking, eyes dark and fixed on the way you're already glistening, the lips of your pussy flushed and wet from your own fingers. “God, I missed her.” The words slip out before he can stop them.
"Did you — did you just call my pussy 'her'?" The question comes out breathless though you're trying to sound sharp. You can't help picking at him even when your thighs are trembling under his hands.
He doesn't answer, so you naturally continue, "you wouldn't let me call your cock 'him'. But now you're out here naming mine like she's an old friend? That's rich." You manage to get the words out, but your voice cracks halfway through, the heat of his stare making it hard to keep the brat in check.
"That was different." The corner of his mouth twitches like he's fighting a smile. "But, you can do whatever you want, gorgeous."
Did he just — did he just call you gorgeous and send your nervous system into an overdrive? Or did he call your pussy gorgeous? Sometimes it’s hard to keep track, especially when you’re inches away from losing it.
You try for a comeback, but there’s none, the words dissolve into a shaky moan before they’re even formed. Partly because his thumbs are already spreading you open again, exposing every slick inch to the cool air and his hungry gaze.
“Don’t stop on my account.” He urges your fingers to continue their motion, and you find your clit to work the slow circle you know. His hands stay spread open on your outer lips.
His breath is warm against you and it is genuinely insane how much that alone is doing to you. You can feel yourself getting wetter under his gaze, which is embarrassing, and also apparently fine. Because when he notices, he makes a soft involuntary sound that vibrates right through your core. "Put your finger in for me."
For him.
After a short shaky breath, you work one finger in. The stretch is small and familiar but the sound you make is not.
"Just like that… fuck, look at you." You can feel him looking. Not at your face. "Leave it right there."
His thumbs, on either side of your lips, spread you open gently, slightly more. To look at you, at where your finger disappears inside your dripping pussy, at all of it, up close.
"She's soaking wet already." His thumb sweeps through your folds in one slow drag, collecting the slick until it shines on his skin. "Look at her pulsing for me."
A soft whimper leaves you as you try to keep pumping in and out of you.
“Fingers out.” There’s an urgency to his voice now, eclipsing all softness there was there before.
You draw your hand back, and you're about to just keep going, bring them up, towards you. But his hand closes lightly around your wrist. Redirecting you.
He brings your fingers to his mouth, his lips closing around them, his eyes up and on yours while he sucks. He hums like this is a perfectly normal thing to be doing.
The second he releases your hand, his face descends to your inviting cunt, sealing his mouth over your clit. Your hand goes straight to his hair.
He groans at that, a sound that vibrates all the way through you, and his grip on your thighs tightens in response.
The pain of it, just that slight pull of his hair under your fist, makes him groan again. You save this particular information in the box that’s been filing everything about him for almost many years now.
He licks around your entrance, just teasing, testing, then goes back to your clit. You find yourself trying to grind up into him because your hips seem to have their own agenda now. When you roll up, he adjusts, tilts his head, his hands steady on your thighs, not stopping you.
He looks up at you. Actually holds eye contact while his tongue moves against your clit, which is an absolutely unreasonable thing to do to a person. Your hand tightens in his hair. He makes that sound again.
Mouth wet, he surfaces to rest his chin on your inner thigh for a second. "I'm going to use my fingers now."
"Yes," you say immediately. "Please."
His hand traces down your stomach, two fingers this time, slow through your folds. "Breathe."
"I'm breathing." You’re, in fact, not breathing.
"Are you?"
It’s the second time you’re swallowing your words today. Because he decides to slide one finger through your entrance, no further, just to the first knuckle, and stops.
"You okay?"
The stretch is different from your own. He's right about the size of it. But it's not too much, it's just new, it's just a presence you have to get used to. "Yeah, that's — yeah."
He pushes in slowly and it's very different now. The angle, the size, the fact that it's him and not you and that he's watching your face while he does it, which you are acutely aware of. When he's in fully, he stays there for a moment, unmoving. His thumb brushes over your clit, giving your body something else to focus on.
"Doing so good," he murmurs, as he curls his finger, just slightly, and your back bows off the bed. He does it again, finding the same spot, watching your face with that look of his. Patient. Like he has all the information he needs and is simply using it.
"Bucky—"
"I've got you, baby. You’re so good."
It’s the seventh time he’s called you 'baby'. You’ve tried not counting, but everytime it slips out of him without his knowing, it gets lodged into your brain.
His thumb keeps its steady circles and his finger moves in a slow drag. This is the point at which your body stops taking notes entirely and just exists in what he's doing to it. You pull his hair. He just hisses and keeps going.
"More. Buck — please."
"Yeah? You can take me?"
"Yeah — please—"
He adds the second finger. The stretch makes you grip the sheets, makes a sound come out of you that breaks in the middle. He stills immediately. "Too much?"
"No." The word is out before you've finished thinking it. "No, don't stop."
He works them slowly, both fingers, curling and dragging while his mouth reattaches to your clit. Now, that and doing this at the same time is a lot. It splits your attention in a way that eventually gives up trying to split anything and just becomes one overwhelming thing.
There’s no warning this time, it happens suddenly without any notice, you come with your hand fisted in his hair and your face pressed to his pillow, sound muffled. His mouth works you through it slowly, drawing it out until your thighs are shaking.
When he finally slides his fingers free, you feel their absence immediately.
His lips press a soft kiss to your inner thigh, your pubic bone, and then just below your navel. Your whole body is doing something between boneless and stunned.
When he comes to rest besides you, his mouth finds yours. You can taste yourself on his lips and that is also a sentence you're going to need a moment with.
"You did so good for me," he murmurs against your mouth, and the way he says it is so straightforward. Something behind your sternum goes a little weak. His thumb moves over your cheekbone once. He pulls back to look at you.
You lie there and just try to breathe. He's propped beside you, his hand resting on your stomach, moving with the rise and fall of it.
The lamp in the corner is doing something to the room, making it amber and small.
"You know — you can’t just — just say ‘she’s pretty’ okay? That’s not — it’s not—"
"Mm." He hums to let you fumble through your sentence.
You do. You fumble. "That — that was an incredibly unfair thing to say."
"Was it?"
"Yes!" Then, calming yourself down, "yes."
He laughs, a proper one, and you feel it through his ribcage where your arm is pressed against him. "I'll keep that in mind."
Your heart does something it's been doing more frequently around him lately. It’s a problem you’re currently not equipped to take a closer look at.
Shifting away from his grip, you turn yourself to look at him. The thought that's been in the back of your head for the last twenty minutes makes itself known again. "Please give me your cock."
The remainder of his laugh doesn’t come out.
"Bucky."
"I heard you."
"So—"
Taking your hand, he presses your palm flat against the front of his sweats. Where he’s hard. Properly hard. The heat and the shape of him is undeniable under your touch. "It's all yours."
The air leaves your body. The words leave your brain. All the blood in your entire cardiovascular system reroutes to your face in a single catastrophic second and you stare at his chest because you cannot currently look at him.
"I—" Nothing. You have nothing. Completely blank.
He doesn't move your hand away. If anything, he tightens his grip, just lets it sit there under his, while you attempt to reconstruct language.
"That's—" The warmth of him through the fabric is not helping. "You're—"
"Yeah." You don’t know what you were about to say, so you don’t know what he’s actually agreeing to. But he doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.
The smugness is radiating off him, and your voice comes out appropriately three times higher than usual, "I wasn't — I wasn't ready for that."
"You asked."
"I know I asked." Your face is genuinely so warm right now. "I asked and you—" You make a vague gesture with your free hand. "You can’t just — just do that ‘cause I asked."
The completely insufferable almost-smile at the corner of his mouth could power a city. He is enjoying every second of this.
"Stop looking at me like that," you tell his clavicle, because you still cannot bring yourself to look at him. Especially since your hand is enveloping his crotch, both enveloped by his own hand.
"I'm not doing anything."
You risk looking at his face, which is a mistake, because the expression on it is fond in a way that completely destroys you. You bring yourself to look back at his clavicle.
His thumb makes one small stroke over your knuckles, where your hand is still pressed to him, still warm, and you feel it in your whole chest.
The gesture is less reassuring than it should be.
Before you can process what’s happening, he shifts. Sits up properly, back against the headboard. His arm goes around your waist.
One smooth pull, barely any effort in it, and you're up — actually off the mattress for half a second — and then you're over him, knees sinking into the sheets on either side of his hips.
The logistics of it take a moment to catch up with your brain. You're straddling him. You're bare from the waist down and he's still in his sweats and you're straddling him.
You’re also not fully dropping your weight on him, just hovering, thighs tight with the effort of not fully sitting.
"Sit down." His hands rest at your hips, thumbs at the crease where thigh meets the curve of your ass.
"Bucky, I — I'm going to crush him."
Bucky sighs like a patient man, who’s tired of hearing the same thing for the hundredth time. "You're not going to crush him."
"I'm serious, Bucky—"
"So am I. Sit."
You try. That's the thing, you genuinely try. You shift your weight, start to lower yourself, and then the thick line of him presses up against you, the fear of crushing little Bucky surfaces again. You can feel him there, right there, even through the fabric, even from an inch away, and your nervous system is having a full board meeting about the implications of closing that distance. What if you actually crush him?
"Still hovering," he observes.
"I'm trying."
"You're not going to crush me."
"You don't know that."
"I do, in fact, know that. I’m the experienced one, remember?"
Let there be a single moment where he doesn’t remind you of his sexual escapades. You almost consider retaliating by putting all of your weight on him in one go, but you need this guy, you need his cock.
"Shut — shut up."
"Sit down."
"Bucky."
"Sit."
You make an undignified noise at him. He looks back at you like he’s content to simply wait, which he will, indefinitely, and you both know it.
But like everything with Bucky, he surprises you. One slow slide of his hand, down between your bodies, and his thumb finds your clit. It’s one light flick, barely anything. But your hips betray you completely. Your knees buckle and you drop fully.
The sound you make when you land on him is not something you'll be repeating in polite company.
The rough fabric of his sweats drags through your folds and presses flush against you. Your brain, which had been managing perfectly well up until thirty seconds ago, simply stops.
His cock is right there, thick and hard under the thin cotton, pressed directly against your clit, and you are bare, not to mention wet and sitting on him.
The moan that comes out of you has his name in it and very little else.
"Good girl. There you go."
You grab his shoulders. Mostly for something to hold onto, partly because the alternative is floating off the bed entirely.
"Bucky—"
"Feel that?"
You feel absolutely nothing but that, actually. The pressure alone is making your thoughts go sideways. Your hips twitch, chasing it without permission.
His jaw goes tight and he tips his head back against the headboard for one unguarded moment before he levels out again.
His mouth finds your neck immediately. Open, dragging up toward your jaw and back down while one hand palms your breast, thumb working your nipple in slow circles until it aches. You press into his lap, just slightly, and feel him exhale through his nose.
"What are you—" Your own voice comes out strange. "Bucky, if you don't stop—"
"Don't stop what?" He says it against your throat.
"That. All of — just. Don't stop."
He laughs, low, the sound vibrating against your skin. "You want me to stop or not?"
"I want — stop asking me questions."
"Alright." He switches to the other side of your neck and you stop being able to track the conversation.
The thing is, every tiny shift you make drags your pussy across the front of his sweats. The friction is wet and warm and you are not entirely in control of your hips anymore. You rock forward, without even deciding to, and the pressure catches your clit just right and makes your teeth snap shut.
"Let's try something," he says.
You're mostly liquid at this point. "What?" It comes out slurred, half a word, because his cock is pressing exactly where it shouldn't be. He's also got his mouth on the underside of your jaw and your nipple is between his fingers. It's just a lot of ongoing information for your head to process.
He looks at you. His cheeks are already flushed and his eyes have gone the dark kind of blue. "Grind on me."
What?
You just stare at him, hoping he’d give you something more than that.
"Like this." His hands settle on your hips, guiding you. Forward, then back. Your clit drags across the ridge of him, making you bury your face in his neck. "Bucky—"
"Again." His hands repeat it. The same rhythm, forward and back. The fabric is already damp from you and the drag of it is obscene. "You feel that?"
You feel it fucking everywhere. "Yes."
"Just like that."
He keeps his hands on your hips for a few more strokes, setting the pace. Then lets go, one of them migrating to your nipple, the other to your back. Which means you have to do this yourself, in front of him, consciously.
But soon enough, your hips find the drag again and the self-consciousness evaporates.
"There it is.”
The sounds you’re making are nowhere in your control. Small and helpless but rhythmic with your hips. And you can't locate any part of yourself that cares. His hand at your back presses you closer, and the extra pressure makes your breath hitch.
"You're soaking through my sweats," he says into your hair. He sounds ruined by this. "D'you know that? Can feel you through the fabric."
The fact that he's saying this out loud makes you grind harder and your moan is muffled against his neck.
"That's good, yeah." His voice has shed several layers of composure. "Keep going."
His breathing has changed underneath you, shorter, less controlled. With his chest rising and falling faster, you understand you’re taking him apart the same way he's been taking you apart this whole time.
There was some point where his attention, his hands, his mouth, all of it were directed at you, for you to learn. But it’s changed now. It definitely goes both ways. You can feel that now under your hips, in the way his hands are gripping you, grabbing your skin for more. It’s becoming less and less like a teacher.
It’s more like a person who is losing his grip on something. On several somethings.
An urgency finds you now, pace picking up solely because you need to see him as flustered as you are.
"Fuck—" His voice is strangled. "Slow—"
You don't slow down. Your hips have their own agenda now, chasing something that's pulling tight and urgent in your stomach. Bucky's hands flex at your waist but they don't actually stop you, just hold on.
You're close. You know you're close because the friction has gone from good to unbearable in the space of about thirty seconds and your thighs are shaking and his name keeps coming out of you between breaths like punctuation.
"Bucky — I'm — don't—"
"I'm not going anywhere." Still ragged. His hand moves up your back, into your hair, just holding. "Cum for me."
Stuttering, your hips grind down one last time as your orgasm crashes through in waves. You feel him shudder underneath you, his grip tightening, his whole body going rigid.
Breathing his name into his shoulder, you both stay in a limbo.
When you finally manage to open your eyes and lift your head, he's flushed. His neck and his cheeks and the top of his chest. Hair stuck to his forehead, lips parted, he’s breathing like he’s run across the campus.
Something clicks when your gaze travels between his face and the dark, obvious wet patch spreading across his sweats.
"Did you—"
His ears go pink. That alone is enough to confirm it.
"Bucky. Did you just—"
"Yeah." He scrubs a hand over his face. "I did." The tips of his ears are genuinely red and you've never seen this on him before. "I came in my sweats, yes, you don't have to—"
"You came in your sweats."
"I'm aware of what happened."
"Without me even—" You gesture at the general situation. "I was just sitting there."
"You were not just sitting there," he says, slightly pained. "You were. Doing all of that. For quite a while. And you're — " He stops himself, something crossing his face that he seems to decide against finishing.
The laugh starts somewhere in your chest and works its way up before you can stop it. Helpless, falling out of you. You press your hand to your mouth but it's already too late.
"Go on. Get it out." He says dryly.
"I'm not—" You're laughing properly now, shoulders shaking. You can hear him hiss when you shift, your hips rolling just a fraction with the laugh, because your body hasn’t figured out how to stay still yet. The sound he makes is raw, like it got dragged out of him against his will.
“Fuck — give me a minute, baby, please,” he breathes, one hand clamping down on your hip to hold you there. Freezing you in place. His eyes are squeezed shut now.
“Shit, sorry—” the laughter dies in your throat.
“Don’t be.” He exhales, eyes cracking open again. They’re still glassy, that post-cum haze making the blue look almost black. “I’m just… over-sensitive right now. You moved and it’s—” Another small hiss when you breathe too hard. “Yeah. That.”
You bite your lip, trying not to smile again even though the whole thing is kind of hilarious and kind of hot at the same time.
His thumbs stroke slow circles on your hips. You feel the way his cock is still half-hard underneath all that mess, twitching every time your weight settles.
You trace a finger along the side of his neck, right where his pulse is jumping. “Can I… give you a hickey? Just one. Or two.”
His head tips back against the headboard so he can look at you properly. The corner of his mouth lifts, tired but fond. “Hickey?”
“Yeah… I’ve always wanted to…” you trail off.
“Have at it,” he makes space for your mouth, titling his head to one side.
Immediately, you lean in and press your mouth to the spot just under his jaw, sucking slowly at first, letting your tongue drag over the skin until you feel him swallow hard. He tastes like salt and musk. Pulling back just enough, you see the little red bloom starting, then move lower, right where his neck meets his shoulder, and do it again. Teeth grazing just enough to make him hiss through his teeth in a completely different way.
His hand slides up your back, fingers threading into your hair. “Mark me up, gorgeous.”
So, you are gorgeous.
Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist || Next Part
EXTRAS. Thank you for reading. Hope that wasn’t just porn without plot. Last part will be up next Thursday.
BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND BUCKY X F!READER (college au)
SUMMARY. Being Steve Rogers’ sister meant years of boys looking at you like a warning sign. Now that you’re in college, your lack of experience becomes a major problem. So you ask your brother’s best friend to teach you everything. What starts as lessons becomes something neither of you have a name for yet.
WORD COUNT. 7.7K
WARNINGS. college au, brother’s best friend trope, MDNI, inexperienced reader, first date, lots of questions, kissing. No use of Y/N.
NOTES. Steve is going to haunt the narrative like the wife who dies at the start of a film. You can imagine reader as Steve’s adopted sister, there will be no physical descriptions. She might also give you second hand embarrassment a couple of times, it’s intended 😭 Originally this was supposed to be posted on Thursday, but I’m kinda impatient lol. Huge thanks to Aly for helping me with the header. You’re a sweetheart @barnes-babydoll ❤️
Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist || 1 ~ 2 ~ 3
READ ON AO3
One week.
Seven days of college and you are already standing in a hallway that smells like instant ramen and someone’s questionable life choices, leaning against a wall with your phone in your hand and nowhere to be.
The door to your own room is locked. Again. The little scrunchie hanging off the handle is your roommate’s polite way of saying ‘don’t come in, I’m having the time of my life’ while you stand out here and age. The scrunchie is pink and completely unbothered. You are not.
Jenna is lovely. Truly. Bubbly, thoughtful, left you a welcome card on move-in day. But Jenna also has a boyfriend who goes to the school one hour east of here and apparently views the commute as a small price to pay for pussy.
Good for Jenna. Really.
Bad for you, who just wants to put her pyjamas on and read in peace.
Forty-three minutes you’ve been out here. You know because you’ve been checking.
Standing still is making you feel sorry for yourself, so you start walking. Because feeling sorry for yourself seems like a bad habit to pick up in week one.
The campus at night is pretty, at least. You’ll give it that. Little pools of lamplight on the paths, the distant sound of music from somewhere you’re not invited, it’s beautiful. You walk with your hands inside your hoodie pocket and try to remember if this is what you pictured. College. The whole thing.
It’s not, is the honest answer. Though you couldn’t tell you exactly what you’d pictured instead.
High school was fine, technically. You had friends, you had decent grades, you had a shelf of books that kept you company on the weekends.
What you didn’t have was the kind of story other people seemed to be accumulating at a rate that felt almost unfair. The parties you heard about on Monday mornings, the relationships that bloomed and burned, the whole sweeping messy catalogue of experience that everyone else seemed to be building while you were just there. Present. A witness to somebody else’s film.
And the reason has a name.
Steve Rogers.
Your brother. Six feet of golden boy, chronically well-intentioned, impossible to be mad at, and the reason every boy in your high school looked at you the way people look at a fire they’ve been explicitly warned not to touch.
They liked you fine. They talked to you, sat next to you in class, asked to borrow a pen. Not one of them, in four years, so much as attempted anything else.
Because Steve was always there. At the next locker, at the lunch table two over, at the game cheering loud enough that people three towns away probably heard him.
And Steve, god love him, had a look. A very specific look he deployed whenever a boy got within conversational distance of you. Watchful. The human equivalent of a warning label.
Nobody wanted to deal with that. Fair enough, in retrospect. Cowardly, but fair.
The thing is, you’re not even angry about it. You made your peace with the Steve situation approximately junior year and moved on. What you haven’t made peace with is arriving at college.
New place, clean slate, Steve an hour away doing an internship and couldn’t pick you out of a crowd here if he tried.
Everyone assured that the confidence would materialise. That you’d look at someone and be comfortable enough to strike up a conversation. You’ve just discovered that it’s not that easy.
All these girls walk around like they’ve read a manual you were never given. Easy in their conversations, laughing at things with their whole bodies. And you stand slightly to the left of it all, perfectly fine, totally capable, and somehow without a single story to show for twenty years of being alive.
It’s the ugly duckling thing, except you’re not even sure you’re ugly. You just feel like everyone else is fluent in a language you only know three words of.
Your feet have been carrying you somewhere while your brain was doing all that, and you stop walking when you recognise the street. The familiar row of off-campus housing, the brick walls.
Oh.
You hadn’t consciously decided to come here.
You’ve been here twice before. Once to drop off something Steve forgot and once because Bucky made chilli and texted your brother about it. And your brother had forwarded the text to you because even though he was away, he knew you’d want to know.
He was right. You’d walked over immediately. The chilli was extraordinary.
It’s ten minutes from your dorm. You’ve walked it enough times to know it by muscle memory, apparently. Honestly, a little embarrassing, but you’re already standing on the pavement, so.
The light’s on inside.
You go up and knock.
The door opens with him mid-yawn, which is not Bucky’s most dignified entrance. He’s got a glass of water in one hand, hair doing something unruly, wearing a grey t-shirt that’s seen better days and sweatpants with a drawstring hanging loose. There’s a crease on his cheek from whatever he was lying on.
He takes one look at you and the yawn dies.
Because he’s Bucky and this is apparently what he does, he leans against the doorframe. “You look like someone who’s been kicked out of their own room,” he says by way of greeting.
“Locked out,” you correct, stepping past him into the apartment. “There’s a difference. One implies I did something wrong.”
“The sock again?”
“Scrunchie this time. Forty-three minutes in the hallway. I counted.” It’s a stupid thing to admit. But then again, this is Bucky.
“You could always come over here, you know.” He closes the door behind you and heads to the kitchen. “Just show up. Don’t need a reason.”
“I showed up without a reason.”
“You showed up because you were locked out.”
“Fine. I’m dropping over everytime I’m bored then.”
“Fine by me.” He fills a second glass of water and slides it across the counter toward you. You catch it. “Sit down. You clearly need to.”
The apartment is not particularly tidy, but not a disaster either. A jacket over the chair, a book open face-down on the couch, some evidence of a meal recently made. It smells like whatever he cooked for dinner and something underneath that, woodsy and warm, which you file away in the part of your brain you’ve been trying to quarantine for approximately the last two years.
You sit on the couch.
He drops into the chair across from you, and looks at you. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That it?”
“I’m getting there.”
He waits. That’s another thing about Bucky. He never rushes you, never fills the silence to make himself comfortable. He just sits with it, patient in a way that people his age usually aren’t and people your age definitely aren’t.
“I need help with something.”
He raises his eyebrows slightly. “School stuff? Because I want to be clear upfront that I am barely staying afloat myself. Like, genuinely, don’t trust me with a thesis.”
“It’s not school.”
“Okay.” He waits again.
You look at the water glass. The couch cushion. The bookshelf behind his head where there’s a framed photo of him and Steve and you, the three of you at some barbecue, Steve and Bucky looking like idiots and you mid-laugh between them. The photo was taken before Steve’s shoulder got broad enough that boys stopped approaching you, so you look very relaxed in it.
“It’s not school,” you say again, which is not helpful.
Curiosity gets the better of him, like it always does. For someone who presents as very unbothered, he is profoundly interested in everything. “Okay, now I’m gonna need a little more than that.”
“I want to date someone.”
Bucky blinks. “Okay.”
“That’s your response?”
“I mean, yeah?” He tilts his head. “That’s pretty normal. I think there’s actually a section in the college handbook that encourages it. Between the one about fire safety and the one about noise complaints.”
“I’m being serious.”
“I know, I’m just saying — you wanting to date someone is not a problem, that’s the most regular twenty-year-old thing you’ve ever said to me. What’s the actual issue?”
You pull at a loose thread on the knee of your jeans. “The issue is I don’t really know how.”
He waits for the rest of it.
“Like, how to do any of it. The dating. The whole…” you gesture vaguely, “thing.” You’re not embarrassed by this, you’re just choosing your words. Articulating it out loud is a different thing to thinking it.
He tips his head slightly to one side. “What do you mean you don’t know how?”
“I mean I don’t know how.”
“That’s not—” He stops himself. Seems to actually think about this instead of dismissing it, which is also something you like about him. “Walk me through it.”
So you do. The whole Steve-related saga, which Bucky has adjacent knowledge of but has never heard your version of. The four years of conversational near-misses and boys who were perfectly nice and went absolutely nowhere. The weird invisible perimeter that your brother’s general existence created around your social life without him ever intending to or probably even noticing.
Bucky listens the whole way through without interrupting, which takes some restraint because his face does several things. There was a wince, a something that might be guilt, a small exhale that sounds vaguely like ah.
“I suppose I never thought about it that way,” he says when you’re finished. “I always just figured you weren’t interested. Like you had other things going on.”
“Nope. I was very very interested. Steve was the problem.”
“Okay, fair. So you want to put yourself out there, meet people, all of that.”
“Yes.”
“And you want advice on—”
“More than advice.”
Another pause. Different from the last one. “What does that mean?”
You take a breath. You’re not nervous exactly. This is Bucky, you’ve known him since you were eight and he was ten and he used to steal your Halloween candy and then give it back when you cried. You’ve never been nervous around him. But you’re also aware that what you’re about to say is not easy. It might change everything.
“I don’t know anything… I want to make that clear. Like — anything.”
“…anything,” he repeats, not quite a question.
“Kissing, dating, all of it. Any of it… I haven’t — I’ve never.” You gesture vaguely at the space between you. “None of it.”
The apartment goes quiet. Bucky just looks at you. His expression doesn’t do what you’d expected. You’d braced for amusement, or making it into something mortifying. But he just takes it in. Evenly.
“Okay,” he says finally. “That’s not a crime.”
“I know it’s not a crime.”
“Plenty of people—”
“Bucky.” You cut him off, because you can see where this is going. “I don’t need you to comfort me about my inexperience. I’m not upset about it, I’m just … telling you the situation.”
He raises both hands, palms out. “I would never.”
“You were absolutely about to.”
“I was going to make a completely non-patronising observation about the general population.”
“You were going to say lots of people start later, and then you were going to add something about it being not a big deal, and I was going to have to sit here and be patted on the head about it.”
The corner of his mouth moves. A ghost of a smile. “You’ve gotten better at anticipating my speeches.”
“I’ve known you for more than ten years, Buck. I can practically write them.”
“Should be charging you, at this point.” He looks at you, and the almost-smile turns into something more real. “Alright. So. What exactly are you asking me?”
“I want to start now… I want to do all of it. The kissing, the dating, figuring out how any of it works. I’m done sitting on the outside of every conversation going hmm and yeah and pretending I have any idea what people are talking about.”
“It’ll happen naturally. You meet someone, things progress—”
“That’s the thing though.” You pull your knee up to your chest. “I feel like I missed a class. Like everyone else sat in on Relationships 101 at some point and I was absent that day and now it’s week six of the semester and I’m so far behind I can’t even—” You drop the metaphor because it’s getting away from you. “I don’t even know how to figure it out. I don’t know what to do, what to say, or even what to look out for—”
“Half of those people don’t know either. More than half actually. Most people are making it up as they go.”
“I know. That’s kind of the problem. I don’t want to figure it out with someone who’s also guessing. I don’t want it to be a mess of apologies and bumped noses — I just — I don’t want two confused people in a dark corner trying to work out kissing by trial —” You see his eyes crinkle. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re about to.”
“I’m not, I promise.” He presses his lips together, very serious, very dignified. “Please continue.”
“I want someone who knows what they’re doing.” This is the part you’ve been circling for the last ten minutes, the actual point of the whole thing. And now that you’re here, you feel very steady about it. This makes sense. This is practical. This is arguably the most sensible idea you’ve had since arriving at college. “And I’ve been thinking about who I could ask. Who I trust enough, who actually sees me like a person and not just Steve’s—”
You can see his expression change. The smallest thing.
“—and who’s close enough to actually be practical about this. You live ten minutes from my dorm. You’ve never once made me feel like a liability.”
Bucky is quiet for a moment that goes on slightly longer than his other quiet moments.
“You want me,” he says slowly, “to teach you.”
“Yes.”
He picks up his water glass, takes a sip, and sets it back down with the focus of someone buying himself time.
“Teach you,” he says again.
“Kissing,” you say, because you might as well be explicit. “Dating. What to do. How things — you know — progress. The whole thing, eventually. But we’d start small, obviously… I’ve thought about this. It’s not a weird impulse, I want to be clear about that. I’ve thought about it.”
“When did you think about it?”
“In the hallway. I had forty-three minutes.”
Another silence. He’s looking at you the way he sometimes looks at things he’s genuinely trying to work out, like he’s reading something in a language he’s mostly fluent in.
“So. Are you going to help me, or not?”
His eyes meet yours.
“Teach you,” he says, one more time, and it’s not a question anymore. It’s something else. The careful placement of a word somewhere he can look at it properly.
You wait.
“Teach you,” he repeats for the fourth time and you understand that Bucky.exe has stopped working.
“Buck, are you really buffering?”
“You want me to teach you.”
“Yes.”
A heavy pause.
“You’re Steve’s sister.”
The sigh that comes out of you could power a small city. “We were doing so well up to this point.”
“No, I mean—” He leans forward, and looks you straight in the eye. “You are Steve’s sister. I can’t just kiss you.”
“I don’t want you to just kiss me,” you say, with the patience of someone explaining something very simple to someone very capable of understanding it. “I want you to teach me how to kiss. There’s a difference.”
He looks at you flatly. “How is that any different?”
“By just kissing me, you’d be straight up kissing me.” You hold up a hand before he can say anything. “By teaching me, you’d also give me pointers. Feedback. Direction. It’s educational.”
“It’s—” He opens his mouth. Closes it. “You know what, on second thought, I think might be able to help you academically, I can finish all your projects, you know the whole lot.”
“Bucky.”
“I can. That sounds easier.”
“Buck.” You nudge his knee with your foot. “Come on.”
He tips his head back against the chair and looks at the ceiling like it might offer him something useful. “If Steve finds out, he will actually kill me. Like, not figuratively. I’ve seen what he does to a punching bag.”
“I’m not going to tell him.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”
“Why not?”
“Because you not telling him and him not finding out are two completely different things. And I’ve known your brother for twelve years, and that man has a supernatural ability to—”
“Steve is an hour away doing an internship and has not once called me this week because he’s too busy. He’s not finding out anything. I’ll be very discreet.”
Bucky’s still looking at the ceiling. There’s something happening on his face that he’s working to keep neutral, and you track it with the mild satisfaction of someone whose argument is landing.
“Do you really want me out there,” you say, “inexperienced and completely clueless? Just — unleashed? On the general college population?”
He brings his gaze back down to you. “That’s one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard.”
“But do you? I’m gonna fumble hard. You want that?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re implying it by not helping.”
“I’m not—” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “I can’t just kiss you. Or, you know. Do the other stuff.”
“You can say sex, Bucky.”
“I know I can say it.”
“So say it.”
“I’m not going to say it just because you told me to say it.”
“Okay then.”
He lets out a big sigh. And starts like he has to prove something to you. “I know I can say sex. The word sex doesn’t bother me. I am an adult man and I am perfectly capable of—” He closes his eyes briefly. “Oh god. You’re making this so hard.”
The silence that follows is approximately two seconds long. You can’t help yourself when he’s just handed you this. “Am I making you hard?”
The colour that moves up the back of his neck and settles across his cheekbones is, genuinely, one of the best things you have ever witnessed in your life. Bucky Barnes, who punched Jaxon who bullied you, is sitting in his armchair going pink because you said five little words.
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“It really isn’t.”
“Your face is doing something right now. And that is very funny looking.”
“My face is doing nothing.” He points at you, very serious, very flushed. “Do not — I need you to not do that. If we’re going to have any kind of reasonable conversation about this you cannot just—” He waves a hand. “Ambush me.”
“I didn’t ambush you, I asked you a question.”
“You are—” He exhales, drops his head forward, and for a moment you think you might have actually broken him. Then he looks up. There’s something else there now, underneath the flush. Something more considered. The gears working. “You’re sure about this.”
“I’ve been sure about this since approximately the forty-minute mark in the hallway.”
“And you’re not going to tell Steve.”
“I genuinely do not understand why Steve is your primary concern right now.”
“Because he’s six feet of righteous fury and he’s been my best friend since we were nine and if he finds out I— There are certain things a man does not do to his best friend’s sister.”
“This is the twenty-first century.”
“Some principles are timeless.”
“Bucky.” You look at him steadily and repeat your monologue. “I trust you. More than I trust most people. You’ve never once looked at me like I was an extension of Steve, you’ve never made me feel small, and you actually live close enough for this to be practical. Those are three things that are very hard to find in one person. I’m not asking you to fall in love with me. I’m asking you to help me figure out what I’m doing so I don’t walk into the rest of my life completely in the dark.”
His face goes blank, and then there’s something in there you cannot yet decipher.
Your phone lights up on the cushion beside you.
Jenna: heyyy so sorry!!! he just left you can come back 💕💕
You stare at it for a second. Then look up at Bucky, who has also apparently read it from from the chair because his eyesight is absurd.
“I’ll walk you,” he says, standing up, reaching for his keys off the hook, like the decision has already been made for him.
“Bucky—”
“It’s late.”
“It’s a ten minute walk.”
“I know how far it is.” He holds the door open and gives you a look that is doing its level best to be unreadable and is mostly succeeding. “Come on.”
The night air is cool when you step outside. You fall into step beside him with your hands buried in your hoodie.
You let the silence sit for most of the path.
When the lights of your building come into view, you slow down before he does.
“Think about it. Okay? That’s all I’m asking. Just think about it.”
He stops walking. Looks at your building. Then at you, sideways, from whatever angle lets him keep the most of his expression to himself.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I need you, Buck. You’re the only person I’d ask.”
The lamplight does something to his jaw, the line of his cheekbones, the shadow under his eyes that makes him look like himself in high definition. He looks at you for a moment that goes on just long enough.
“Go inside,” he says finally. “Get some sleep.”
“That’s not a no.”
“That’s a go inside.”
You’re already backing toward the door, and if you’re smiling a little… well, the dark mostly covers it. “Good night, Barnes.”
He stands at the edge of the path and watches until the door closes behind you.
You don’t see what his face does after that.
Bucky : come down
That's the whole text. Five o'clock exactly.
You stare at it for a second. Two words and absolutely no context. Very Bucky.
You put your phone face down on the desk, pick the phone back up, look at the two words again. Then you close your laptop. You weren't getting anything done anyway. You haven't gotten anything done since Tuesday, and it is now Friday. The reading list on your desk has been staring at you with increasing judgment.
You put your shoes on.
He's in the carpark. Leaning against a motorcycle, one arm crossed over his chest and the other hanging loose, holding a bunch of hydrangeas that are slightly too big for one hand. The jacket he's wearing is the dark one, the good one, and his hair is doing something that suggests he ran a hand through it once and called it a day. And somehow, infuriatingly, that was the correct decision.
You stop in front of him. He holds out the flowers.
"Hydrangeas," you say.
"You're very quick."
"I meant — why hydrangeas?"
"Because roses are a lot of pressure for a first date and I didn't want you overthinking it." He says it like it's obvious, like he sat down and thought about what would make you comfortable instead of what would make him look impressive, which is a distinction you feel in a specific place in your chest that you're not going to poke at right now. "Also they were the only ones left at the shop."
"And there it is."
"Get on."
“I don’t have a helmet.”
He reaches back and pulls one off the seat. Holds it out. You stare at it. “You planned this.”
“I planned this,” he agrees.
There’s nothing useful to say to that, so you put the helmet on.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
"That's not an answer."
"It's a surprise."
The road opens up past the edge of town, the trees dropping away on both sides and the sky going wide. The first cold smell of salt works its way in through your jacket. You have your hands at his waist, your chin against his shoulder.
The engine is loud enough that conversation is not an option, which means there's nothing to do but sit here with your hands around him and the cold air coming in.
Honestly, it's fine. It's completely fine. The fact that you can feel exactly how his ribcage expands when he breathes is just physics. This is how human bodies work. You are simply in contact with another person for structural reasons.
Twenty minutes later, the engine is going quiet. Below the ridge, the beach is in view, golden in the late afternoon light, almost nobody on it. Just the water and the sky and the peace of a place that's nearly empty.
"Okay.” You climb down and take off your helmet. Whatever your hair is currently doing without the helmet on is surely not a sight, but you don’t mind. "I'll allow it."
"High praise." He takes the helmet from you, and locks both of them to his motorcycle. Without waiting, he heads toward the steps, which means you fall into step beside him. Which is where you always end up with Bucky. Half a step behind and then matching him because the alternative is being left behind. It’s become easier because you've been keeping pace with him since you were ten years old.
"Is this the part where you tell me what we're doing?"
"This is what we're doing."
“We’re … walking?”
“Are you seriously asking me that?”
"Right, but is there a plan? Like a structure."
"There's a beach," he says. "We can get fish and chips. And the rest of it is just — this." He gestures at the general situation. "Being here. Talking."
"So the lesson is vibes."
"The lesson," he says, with the tone of someone who has decided to be patient, "is that a first date doesn't need to be an event. You don't have to take someone zip-lining or to a restaurant so expensive you can't read the menu. You just have to be somewhere with them and see if being somewhere with them is good."
You consider this. "And is it? Good?"
He looks at you sideways. "Ask me at the end."
You let his words in your head, and continue walking. Then, because staying silent is not your best suit, “I’ll admit this is a good start.”
Bucky glances back at you. “Yeah?”
“The flowers were a nice touch. Very first-date.”
“That was the idea. What else are you noticing?”
“You texted instead of calling. Which — is that a thing? Is there a rule about that?”
“Depends. Texting’s lower pressure. Gives the other person time to think about whether they want to come without the awkwardness of having to say ‘no’ in real time.” He shrugs. “First few times, text. Gives everyone room to breathe.”
“Okay.” You file this away. “And the five o’clock timing?”
“Early enough that it’s not presumptuous. You’re not assuming they’ll want to give up their whole night. But it’s not a lunch date either, which is basically the dating equivalent of a job interview.”
“You’ve really thought about this.”
“You asked me to think about it.”
The steps down to the sand are the wooden kind that creak, and at the bottom the beach opens up wide. The water is grey-green and restless.
“So where are we going?” you ask.
He’s already walking toward a spot farther down, away from what little people there is. “There’s a place that does fish and chips about ten minutes up the beach. We’ll walk, eat, come back.”
“It’s normal?”
“That’s the point. You’re not trying to impress them into liking you. You’re trying to find out if you actually like them.”
You look at him. “That’s actually useful.”
“I have my moments.”
The sand is soft above the tide line and harder closer to the water, and you walk in the wet part where it’s easier. Close enough that your shoulder bumps his arm occasionally when the ground shifts. He doesn’t move away when it happens, and neither do you. This is something you notice.
“What do I do if the conversation dies?” you ask. “Like genuinely just — runs out. Silence.”
“Let it.”
“That’s your advice?”
“If you panic and fill every silence, you end up saying something you don’t mean just to make noise. A little quiet doesn’t mean things are going badly. It means you’ve both run out of things to perform at each other and now you’re just — there.” He squints at the water. “That’s actually when you find out if you like someone. Whether the quiet is okay or whether it makes you want to escape.”
You think about this. “What if it makes me want to escape?”
“Then it’s better you know it early.”
The fish and chips place turns out to be a van parked at the edge of the beach access road, which you feel Bucky should have led with.
But the chips are in paper cones and there’s a bench nearby, it brings a sort of warmth to you. The man running it clearly recognises Bucky from the way he doesn’t look surprised to see him, which raises several questions you decide to ask.
“You’ve brought people here before.”
“A few times.” He hands you your cone and sits down on the bench, stretching his legs out. “Does that bother you?”
“No.” You sit beside him.
The chips are good. Genuinely good. The kind that are soft in the middle and crisp outside and salted correctly, which is a thing people get wrong more than they should.
You eat in the quiet that he was just describing, and it turns out it’s the okay kind, the kind where you’re both just watching the water and eating and the sun is dropping lower. It doesn’t feel like anyone needs to perform anything.
“Okay,” you speak after a while. “What else?”
“Eye contact.”
“What about it?”
“Most people get it wrong in one of two directions. Either they never hold it, which reads as nervous or shifty, or they hold it too hard, which reads as unhinged.” He tilts his head toward you, demonstrating the normal amount, which is infuriatingly comfortable. “Somewhere in the middle. Look at them when they’re talking. Look away naturally. Don’t stare like you’re trying to read their mind.”
“How do I know if they’re interested?”
“They lean in. Not necessarily physically — though that too — but they ask questions back. They remember things you said twenty minutes ago and refer to them. They find reasons to stay in the conversation.” He pauses. “And yeah, physically — they face you. They don’t keep looking over your shoulder.”
“What if I’m nervous and I keep looking over their shoulder?”
“Then you look back at them.” He’s almost smiling. “You’re allowed to be nervous. It’s actually — it’s fine to let that show a little. People aren’t looking for someone who seems like they’ve done this a thousand times. They’re looking for someone who’s actually there.”
You look at him properly for a moment, which feels a bit like a test you’re administering to yourself. He meets it without any fuss. Hair that’s doing something casual in the evening wind, the easy way he holds himself, comfortable n his own skin, which is rarer than it looks.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. Eye contact practice.”
“How’m I doing?”
“Solidly not unhinged. Eight out of ten.”
“What’s the other two?”
“Feedback reserved for end of lesson.”
He laughs at that, the kind that gets into his eyes. A real one. You feel it land somewhere in your chest like a small warm thing taking up residence without asking permission.
The sun is most of the way down by the time you start walking back, the sky going that deep orange-pink that feels slightly excessive but you’re not going to complain about it. The cold has come in with the dark and you have your hands in your jacket pockets.
“How do you end it? The date. What’s the etiquette?”
“Walk them to the door. Or the equivalent. Don’t disappear from a carpark — that’s lazy and everyone knows it’s lazy. You’ve spent two hours with someone, you see them in.”
“And then?”
“And then you read the room.” He says it easily, like it isn’t the part you’re most terrified of. “Did they have a good time? Are they hanging around at the door or are they already one foot inside? Do they look at your mouth?”
“Do they—” You stop walking for a second, which means he stops too, turning slightly to look at you. “That’s a thing? People actually look at your mouth?”
“People definitely look at your mouth.”
“How have I never noticed that?” You ask him like you’ve been on a thousand dates before.
He ignores that part and answers you genuinely. “Because you’ve never been looking for it.” He starts walking again. “But once you know about it, you can’t un-know it.”
You file this with everything else, which is starting to feel like a lot. “And if they are? Looking at your mouth.”
“Then you have options.” He’s looking at the path ahead, very calm about all of this. “You can kiss them. You can not kiss them and see if they bring it up. Or you can do what people have been doing since approximately the beginning of time. Which is stand slightly too close for slightly too long until someone does something.”
“That sounds like agony.”
“It’s also kind of the best part,” he says. Which you were not expecting him to say. You look at his face, searching, but it’s giving nothing away.
The bike is where you left it. He hands you the helmet and you put it on while he swings a leg over and starts the engine. You climb on behind him. This time your hands settle at his waist more easily, which is something you notice and immediately decide not to think about too hard.
The drive back is colder and faster. When he pulls into the carpark of your building and kills the engine, the sudden quiet is very loud.
You pull off the helmet. Your hair is doing its thing again. When he’s off the bike, he walks you to your door. Like he’d instructed.
His hand reaches over and tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear. You have to actively remind yourself that it’s practical, not a moment, just fixing a problem. Except then his hand doesn’t move immediately, and the two of you are very close. He’s looking at you with the steady attention of someone who is not in any rush at all.
His eyes drop, just briefly, to your mouth.
You notice. Because now you know to notice.
Then he leans in and presses a kiss to your cheek, right at the corner of your mouth and pulls back. There’s the smallest thing happening at the edge of his mouth that isn’t quite a smile but is related to one.
“Good night.”
You stand there for one more second. The hydrangeas are in your hand, a little worse for wear, still very blue.
“I really liked today’s lesson.” You need to say it out loud, and remind yourself that this is indeed a lesson.
He does smile at that. Just a small one. But he’s already turning back toward the bike when it happens, so you mostly just catch the edge of it.
But you catch it.
You take the stairs up to your dorm two at a time with hydrangeas under your arm, and you’re smiling before you’ve even made it through the door.
It’s his couch, three days later. It’s ten at night, and you are supposedly watching something. There’s a film on, anyway, doing whatever films do when nobody’s watching them.
This was your idea. You’d texted him this afternoon: lesson two tonight?
he’d sent back : come over at 9
That was the whole conversation. Which is probably why you’d spent the intervening hours progressively less able to concentrate on anything else.
He’s at the other end of the couch with his feet up on the table and one arm along the back, and you’re sideways with your knees up. There’s maybe two feet between you that both of you are being very normal about.
“When are we—”
“We’re getting there.” His eyes are on the screen.
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“And I meant it twenty minutes ago.” He reaches over and steals a handful of popcorn from your bowl. “Stop rushing.”
“I’m not rushing, I just think if there’s a lesson happening tonight we should—”
“There is.”
“When?”
He finally looks at you. The lamplight reflecting on his face is making him look like something you’d want to keep looking at. You try not to. “When it makes sense to. That’s the whole point.” He turns back to the screen. “You can’t just announce a kiss. It’s not a presentation.”
“I know it’s not a presentation.”
“So stop waiting for me to say ‘alright, lesson two commencing.’” He takes another handful. “Just — be here.”
You look at the television. A man on screen is saying something urgent to a woman who doesn’t look sufficiently concerned about it. You watch this for a while without absorbing any of it.
“What if I do it wrong?” Your eyes are to the television.
“Do what wrong?”
“Kiss. What if I— I don’t know what to do with my hands. Or where to — I don’t know the mechanics of it.”
Bucky is quiet for a second. “The mechanics.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.” He’s not. His voice has gone a bit different, actually. “The hands go wherever they want. There’s no wrong place for your hands.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Okay, pockets is weird. But otherwise.” He puts the bowl down on the table. “And the angle takes care of itself. You don’t have to think about it.”
“How does it take care of itself?”
“Because—” He stops, seemingly thinking about something. “Come here.”
Your heart does one specific thing. You unfold your legs and shift toward him on the couch, close enough now that your knee is almost touching his thigh. He’s turned toward you with one arm still along the back of the couch and his eyes on your face.
Up close he smells like whatever he washed his hair with tonight and underneath that something warmer, something that has lived in the back of your awareness, that you have never once acknowledged out loud.
His jaw has the end-of-day shadow on it. His eyes, which are very blue, which you are currently very aware of, move over your face in a way that isn’t quite reading and isn’t quite looking.
He reaches over and tucks a piece of hair back. Slowly.
“The thing about kissing is that most of it happens before.” His thumb grazes the line of your jaw, just the pad of it, and your whole nervous system has a brief meeting about this. “The moment before. That’s what’s important.”
You don’t say anything because you have nothing useful to say.
“You feel that?” His thumb traces the line of your jaw again, from the hinge of it down to your chin, and stops there. Your mouth has parted slightly without you telling it to. “That’s the part people forget about. They rush past it.” His eyes drop to your mouth and come back up. “You shouldn’t rush past it.”
You are very sincerely not rushing past anything. You are, in fact, rooted to this couch cushion and doing absolutely nothing.
He tilts your chin up, the gentlest pressure, barely anything, and then he closes the distance.
The first thing is the warmth of it. Just warmth and the soft press of his mouth against yours. His lips are slightly parted and they fit against yours with an ease that your brain tries to categorise and fails. Because there’s no category for this, there’s no prior experience to file it next to. His hand is still at your jaw, the touch so careful.
You don’t move, because you genuinely cannot remember what moving is.
He pulls back just slightly. Just enough. His forehead almost against yours, his breath warm, his thumb making one slow swipe over your cheekbone.
“Breathe,” he says.
You didn’t know it was possible to stop breathing.
You breathe. And he kisses you again.
This one is different. A little longer, a little more certain, his mouth moving against yours in a way that is very clearly asking something and equally clearly content to wait for the answer.
Your hand finds the front of his shirt without you deciding to. It just lands there, fingers curling into the fabric. You feel something shift in him at that, something that was patient turning the smallest degree less patient.
His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, cupping the back of your head. The angle deepens and your stomach drops straight out of you.
You had thought that it would feel like something you were learning. That there would be a separateness to it, some part of you taking notes while the rest participated. That Bucky would feel like a teacher.
He doesn’t feel like a teacher.
He feels like a person who is kissing you like he thought about it before doing it, like he’s been thinking about it.
When he finally breaks it, he doesn’t go far. His hand is still in your hair, his forehead drops to yours, and you’re both just there, breathing the same small amount of air.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” Your voice comes out different. Softer. You clear your throat. “Yeah, that was—” You stop because there’s nothing useful at the end of that sentence.
He pulls back to look at you and his thumb brushes your bottom lip, just once, just the drag of it, and the noise that very nearly comes out of you would have been profoundly embarrassing.
“Your hands were good,” he says.
You look down. Your fist is still knotted in his shirt. You let go. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He doesn’t move away. “Do you want to try again?”
There are several true answers to this question. “That’s — yeah, that makes sense. Repetition. For learning.”
His lips curve. “For learning.”
“Consolidating the—”
He kisses you again and whatever you were saying is just gone, evacuated, your brain a clean white room. His hand tips your head back slightly and his mouth opens against yours. Your lips part on their own to accommodate his tongue. It traces yours, just the first suggestion of it, and every single nerve ending you have sends up a flare.
Your hand goes back to his shirt on its own. The other one finds his jaw, feeling the scratch of the stubble there. He makes a sound in his throat when you do it, barely a sound, more like a shift in his breath. The knowledge that you did that, that your hands on his face made him do that, is the most disorienting piece of information you have received in your twenty years of being alive.
He kisses you slowly and thoroughly, like he’s in absolutely no hurry, one hand in your hair and the other finding the side of your waist now. The heat of his palm through your shirt is startling enough that you make a small embarrassing sound into his mouth.
You pull back to look at him. “That was me,” you say. “That noise. Sorry.”
“Why are you apologising?”
“It was—”
“Don’t apologise for that.” His voice has gone rougher, you’ve never heard it like this before. He’s also looking at you with an expression that is doing something significant to your ability to think in sentences. His hand is still at your waist and his thumb moves there, just once, slow, back and forth over the fabric. “Ever.”
“Is there — are there more components? That I should know about.” You ask, mostly just to have something to say.
He watches you for a second. “You’re doing fine.”
“I know, I just—” You don’t complete your sentence. Because the honest version is: I want you to do that again. The version you’re going with is: “You did a thorough instruction.”
He looks at you for a moment that goes on just long enough, that thing happening at the corner of his mouth again. Then he takes your face in both hands slowly, tilts you toward him, and kisses you in a way that makes the room go very small, very warm and completely irrelevant. His fingers are threaded into your hair and his thumbs at your cheeks.
You stop thinking about what to do with your hands because they know now. They find his chest, his shoulder, the back of his neck where his hair curls a little, and you feel him exhale through his nose when you touch him there. Like you pressed something without knowing where it was.
When it ends — which you don’t want it to, you notice — you’re closer than you were. You don’t remember moving but you’re almost in his lap, his hands still framing your face, both of you with your eyes closed for a second.
You open yours. He opens his.
“Good lesson,” you say finally.
“Yeah.” He brushes his thumb over your cheekbone once more, like he can’t quite stop yet. “Yeah, you’re a quick learner.”
He drops his forehead to yours for just a second before he lets you go and sits back. Reaching over, he takes the bowl from the table again like that’s a normal thing to do right now.
Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist || Next Part
EXTRAS. Next part will be up next Thursday. There will also be a long fic (college au, senior x junior) coming this Sunday, so if you’re into that, stay tuned? (If anyone was accidentally tagged twice, I’m sorry!)
I craved some Bucky Barnes after seeing him in Doomsday's trailer -and also because at some points in the year we all miss him- and THIS was the perfect AU to find.
I love the Steve's sister trope, it just makes sense
Now don't keep reading me if you haven't read the story yet ...
...
"“Because he’s six feet of righteous fury and he’s been my best friend since we were nine and if he finds out I— There are certain things a man does not do to his best friend’s sister.”
“This is the twenty-first century.”
“Some principles are timeless.” " , This is hilarious if you remember they're from the 40s
"“You’ve really thought about this.”" I fear Mr Barnes is already pretty down bad here
Okay that kisses surely did something to all of us!
Derek being so socially uncomfortable when we meet him is one of the saddest parts of Teen Wolf to me. He was such a friendly kid who grew up in a wolf pack, wrestling and playing and having zero personal space. Everyone lived in one big house and ran around the woods together. His mom babied him and scratched his head. He played basketball. His big sister definitely used to tackle him and throw him around. He wasn’t built to be alone and every pack he builds he punishes for not being the original. He was never meant to be the leader. He was always the baby. He only survived because he was young enough to still be in school. Kate Argent when I get my hands on you-
Derek Hale deserved a better system after the fire, people who actually cared about him and loved him and showed him how to cope.
How was it that the Hales were so big in the Supernatural World that no other pack could show up for a kid!?! I get the fear of the hunters after they'd done such a big thing to such a family, but guys... He was a literal kid!!
but then again, plot reasons and blah blah blah ... uhg
thinking about fireman bradley again he plagues me 🚒🚒 imagining our girl getting a cheeky little tour round the station from bradley intended to be completely innocent but they're so obsessed with each other so it takes a little detour... and mav (fire captain at the station i'm thinking?) walks in on them and meets our girl for the first time and of course loves her and wants to properly get to know her "but maybe not wearing your helmet in the locker room, bradley" (the man in question is as red as his helmet and our girl's just there giggling)
It had started out as an innocent tour.
Still in the early stages of dating, and with Bradley's long shifts, he'd figured that while he's pulling doubles all week, he may as well make the most of it.
Except now he has you pressed up against his locker, and he's not sure how he's supposed to go three more days without spending the night in your bed.
His helmet is discarded beside you both, from where you'd just been trying it on, and his hands snake under your thighs to hoist you up against him.
Just then, the door to the locker room bursts open, and you both freeze. Much to your horror, standing in the doorway is Pete Mitchell, Bradley's godfather.
A man who is so important to Bradley that you've seen a multitude of pictures of him already, and who you very much don't want to meet with your legs wrapped around his son's waist.
A squeak escapes from your lips, while Bradley's face starts to steadily redden. "Mav, we were just-"
A hand is raised. "I don't want to hear from you right now." His gaze shifts to you, expression softening a little. "Pete. Nice to finally meet you. Bradley talks about you literally all the time."
"He does?" You're a little surprised. It's only been a few months, and with the hectic work schedules you both follow, you'd been trying to take it slowly. "It's nice to meet you too, Mr. Mitchell."
"I would rather the circumstances were different, but I suppose, that's all Bradley's fault. Not yours."
One of my favorite cliff headcanons is that he is supportive of Ilya and Shane, but he doesn't really get it not bc of the whole 'Shane is boring Ilya is not' propaganda everyone on the internet is saying he thinks Shane makes sense for Ilya he just doesn't understand how gay relationships work, like he understands conceptually that people are gay and Shane and ilya are in a gay relationship he understands they are in love, and they fuck, and he isn't homophobic, but he has never seen a gay couple and especially a gay couple where both parties are Masc and all his experiences with romance are based on relationships with traditional gender roles so he thinks that's how gay relationships work also so when the summer after their wedding he calls ilya up like 'bro I missed you we gotta catch up and shit' and ilya is like 'I can't leave my beautiful husband to come see your ugly mog you understand' but Shane feels bad that Ilya had to leave Marley when he moved bc he is a good friend he was at their wedding and shit and Shane lowkey wants to prove he deserves ilya to marly bc ilya doesn't have any family left that isn't his asshole brother so sveta and marly are the closest thing he has to family, and he wants them to like him and its stupid bc it's not like if Marley doesn't like him anything will change they are already married, but he just needs this one thing to work out so bad so he is like 'why don't you invite him to the cottage I am sure he'd love to spend time there and I want to get to know him better he is one of your best friends.'
So Ilya invites Marley to the cottage and Shane brings his A game he is usually a good husband naturally, but he is trying to impress Marley so he brings flowers to ilya when he gets back from grocery shopping or cooks his favorite meals or is just being generally physicality affectionate in front of cliff like kissing his forehead and holding his hand while watching a movie that type of stuff bc he knows ilya likes being shown off, and he tries to do all the little house errands that need to be done himself so ilya can spend his time with cliff catching up and eventually when Shane is out of the house for like a commercial cliff finally is like 'dude why is Hollander doing all that I thought he was the girl are you the girl?.' And ilya is like 'first we are both men so what the fuck second if you say that about my husband again I will hit you hard.' And cliff is like trying to explain himself by saying he thought all relationships had one person who was the one getting spoiled and one person who spoils them and the one getting spoiled is always the girl based on his relationship with woman and ilya is like wow he is in a prison of his own making, and he tells Shane and Shane feels so bad bc it kinda reminds him of how he thought about relationships before he realized he liked man, and he doesn't think cliff likes men, but he still wants to talk to him about it, and they end up sitting down and talking about how if he wants quote unquote princess treatment he can just ask for what he wants and needs relationships are about compromise and just bc they are men doesn't mean they don't deserve nice things also and of course cliff understands him to an extent, but he is a little stupid, so his takeaway isn't 'I should ask for what I want fuck gender roles' its 'dating a dude is like having a best friend who fucks you and still treats you like a princess, and he is like maybe I should date a dude.' But Shane isn't there for the second part of this revelation ilya is so he is like 'yes you should.' And then cliff wishes them a good rest of their vacation and leaves and then when they meet up during the season 4 months or so later cliff sees Shane on the ice, and he is like an exited puppy so he goes up to him and tells him he's got a boyfriend, and thanks him for the advice and tells him how awesome it's been and Shane is stunned for the rest of the game but after the game ilya is like supper smug bc he knew this was going to happen and is like 'cliff invited us to meet his boyfriend.' And Shane is like 'fuck it I guess this is my life now at least cliff likes me.'
Would you guys maybe be interested in a throuple hangman/bob/reader fic, starting from their get to know to they working together with the daggers?! Pairing with the usual daggers antics of course
I'm resorufacing my idea of last year cause I feel the actual need of write at this point and this story means so much to me that I'm so terrified of not doing justice to the idea in my head.
I want to scream!
I'm 8k words in and I fear nothing's happened yet and I'm scared.
Let me know what you think. Please gimme reassurance, I'm an anxious gal.
It's literally a year that I have this planned I need to do this, ugh 😫
Summary: Bradley and you don’t talk about that Spring Break. But a single question asked during a night out at the Hard Deck might just change things between the two of you forever.
Pairing: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Female Reader
Length: 11K
Warning: smut (including loss of virginity), brief mention of underage drinking, and college!bradley in a backwards hat
(Author's note: Happy Birthday Jordan! I wrote this just for you! Look at me keeping secrets from you! Enjoy!)
𝐍𝐎𝐖
Rooster couldn’t control his bouncing leg.
That night at the Hard Deck had started out like any other: good music, good drinks, good people. Over the course of the evening, he’d found himself seated between you and Bob in a lopsided circle with the rest of the Daggers around a few tall tables that had been pushed together just shooting the shit.
It was all fun and games until swapping stories about embarrassing middle school moments turned into cringing over first kiss stories turned into Seresin grinning like a shark asking about how everyone’s first time went down.
Rooster felt his pulse kick up with every collective laugh and groan as his friends went one by one sharing how they’d lost their virginities. Because with each passing story, it meant that you were one person closer to going. And for the first time in his life- even after over two decades of friendship- he didn’t know what your answer was going to be.
So he is just as shocked as his teammates are when you tentatively reveal, “So, um, my first time was with Rooster.” He doesn’t miss the way all his friends’ heads snap towards him.
All eyes are on the two of you, and you’re pointedly looking anywhere but him.
Rooster had been anxiously waiting to hear the story of your first official time, the one that was with someone who wasn’t him. He didn’t realize that you still considered him your first. He’d figured that part of your history had long been overwritten by whoever had been lucky enough to catch your eye and make your heart race in a romantic way.
The two of you had never talked about it in the after.
Not once, not ever.
He didn’t care that people knew, he just wasn’t expecting it.
Jake starts the group out of its stunned silence by slapping a heavy hand on top of the table, nearly sending some bottles to the floor, “I knew it! I knew y’all couldn’t have been friends all this time and not have tried it out at least once.”
“Jesus Christ, dude, chill,” Javy mutters. He’s always been the better of the two about reading the room.
Trying to spare you from being put on the spot even more than you already were now, Rooster mumbles through the way he’d lost his to a girl from his AP Econ class after a playoff baseball game.
He stares at the way you’re nervously picking at the label of the Blue Moon he’d grabbed for you when he went to get a refill of his own. He can practically hear the way your brain is buzzing. He wonders if you wish you could take back the words from where they are sitting on the table with the collection of bottles and peanut shells for everyone to see.
Bob being the team player that he is starts talking about how he’d lost his one summer in college to another camp counselor, going into more detail than he’s ever given before, probably trying to redirect the attention to himself to give the two of you a moment to regroup.
Rooster makes a mental note to tell Penny to put all of Bob’s cream sodas from now on on his own tab.
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do here. Or where to look. Or where to put his hands. He wants to talk to you, but there’s no good way for him to go about it without drawing even more attention to the two of you.
You were supposed to be going on a first date tonight, but he’d talked you into canceling to hang out with him instead. He likes having all of your attention on him. And maybe he’s been a little selfish with you, because he doesn’t like to share you with anyone else. You’ve always been his best friend.
Rooster likes that he gets to talk to you whenever he wants now, and that it doesn’t feel like a never-ending game of catch up anymore. In the year since the Uranium mission, he’d felt like all the fragmented pieces of his life had finally come together. He’d reconnected with Mav, he was living in the same city as his best friend, and he had a place he could finally call home.
He didn’t just want the highlights with you, he wanted everything in between too. There’s no more distance due to time zones and scheduling times to call because now you only live 20 minutes away from him. And the next time he comes home from a deployment, he knows he’ll get to look forward to seeing you there waiting for him.
He feels like he’s learned so much more about the grown-up version of you over the last year than he has in the last ten.
Jake jumps in barely a breath after Bob finishes telling his story. “Well, we all know it’s not the first who matters, but who was the best.” Rooster doesn’t trust the gleam in his eyes or the sharp smile on his face. “Since Bradshaw cut you off before, how’s about you go first this time, darlin’. You can tell us about who knocked your socks off. Maybe this time he’ll let you finish, if you know what I mean.”
It’s thinly veiled snooping disguised as chivalry, and it doesn’t fool anyone. Nat’s eyes dart to him briefly, trying to get a read on him.
He’d been 21 at the time. And while he knows more now that he did then, he also knows his name isn’t going to be coming out of your mouth for a second time tonight.
Rooster takes a sip of his beer, needing something to do.
He knows you’ve been with other people. You’d lived with your ex for over a couple years, for fuck's sake. But it was like an unspoken agreement between the two of you to not talk about your sex lives with each other.
His leg starts bouncing again and he realizes he really doesn’t want to hear this. Not because of his ego, but because he doesn’t know what to do about the knot that’s formed in his stomach.
Your mouth opens and closes a couple times before you speak, “That title would also go to Rooster.” The admission is soft, but sure.
Where his heart had been pounding before, now it feels like it had stopped completely.
It’s been 13 years since that Spring Break. 13 years and he’s still your best?
Barely five minutes ago, he hadn’t known where to look. But now? Now he couldn’t stop staring at you.
He just didn’t understand why you still wouldn’t look at him back.
𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊, 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎
When you’d floated the idea by Bradley about visiting him at UVA for Spring Break during your weekly phone call, you’d been braced for the disappointment of him already having plans. It was his Senior year, it wouldn’t surprise you if he wanted to go out with a bang and make the most of it. Especially since he would belong to the Navy soon enough.
But he’d taken you by surprise when he started enthusiastically listing off all the places he wanted to show you, planning out your trip like a well-seasoned travel agent before you’d even booked a plane ticket.
You’d started looking up airfare before you’d even hung up the phone. And thirty minutes later you had a confirmation email flagged in your inbox after elatedly charging that aisle seat to the credit card you only used for emergencies.
It had been close to a year since you’d last seen him. He usually spent his Winter Break with your family, but this year he’d stayed on campus for the holidays and it was the longest the two of you had ever been apart since you’d first met him when you were 8.
And maybe that’s why it took you so long to spot him in the Arrivals area of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport.
You’ve always prided yourself in being able to pick Bradley out of a crowd anywhere, but in your cursory glance you hadn’t recognized the tall, broad guy with the UVA shirt pulled taut across his chest and wearing a baseball hat backward on his head. It wasn’t until your third searching pass that you’d caught the lips that were quirked up in amusement and those familiar brown eyes trained on you as he leaned ever-so-casually against the faux wood paneling on the wall waiting for you to notice him.
He’d filled out in the months since you’d last seen him. He was more toned than you remembered him being with definition in places where there hadn’t been before. His face had more distinct angles and less baby fat cushioned curves. Still a bit boyish, but he was well on his way to looking like a man.
Bradley raised his hand like he was going to wave, but then he’d mimicked casting a fishing line in your direction and reeling it in. And it was so endearingly stupid- so him- that you couldn’t help but take the bait and made your way towards him with the biggest grin on your face.
You’d ignored the jittery flutter in your stomach as you’d weaved between people and luggage. You’ve never been nervous around your best friend before. There was something that had on your mind a lot as the days to your visit inched closer, but you’d shoved that out of your mind, because you were finally standing in front of him in person for the first time in months.
“Hey, kid,” he’d greeted you, taking your bag, “Charlottesville must have known you were coming, because she’s going to be sunny for you all week.” As soon as you were within arm’s reach, he tugged you right into his chest for a hug. You could feel the unspoken I missed you in the way he squeezed you just that bit tighter before releasing you.
Then he was dropping an arm over your shoulders and steering you towards the exit and driving you into town in the beat-up car he’d bought after selling his prized Montero, the car that Mav had given him for his birthday.
You’re only there for a week and Bradley doesn’t waste a single moment of it.
After dropping your things off in his dorm room, he takes you straight to campus where he gives you the Official Bradley Bradshaw Certified UVA Tour. He buys you lunch from one of the food trucks in the Amphitheater “for sustenance” before taking you to see the highlights. You start with the Rotunda and then the academic village, making a special pitstop at the Whispering Wall for you to tell it a secret. And then he takes you on a more historical tour, like showing you the exact route he used to streak The Lawn and pointing out the place he’d puked after his 21st birthday.
It’s clear he’d put so much thought into your visit because it seems like there is never a down moment. By the end of the third day you’re more surprised that you don't wake up every morning with a printed itinerary on your pillow.
He sneaks you into the Slaughter Rec Center to rock climb, claiming he had a person on the inside with the right connections. But really from what you could tell, the pretty girl at the check-in counter clearly had a crush on him. He takes you to the batting cages he likes to go to before Dead Week, and spends the time there equal parts making fun of your power swing and trying to fix it.
You get your revenge the next day standing outside of the imposing columns and massive doors to the Fralin Art Museum. Skeptically eyeing the sculpture in the front of the building that kind of looked like a giant wisdom tooth, you mentioned, “I didn’t realize you’d become such a patron of the cultural arts.”
“Hey now, I like artsy shit,” he’d said, only mildly affronted.
You snorted at that. “Is there an exhibit on beer pong and blunt rolling you wanted to see?” Through the window you’d spotted some large landscape oil paintings in ornate gilded frames and carved marble busts of what you assumed were probably of some of the Founding Fathers.
“You just missed that one, it was last month,” Bradley lobbed back, opening the door for you.
“What a pity,” you’d said with a dramatic sigh, “Guess we’ll have to settle for some tasteful nudes instead.”
“If we’re lucky,” he’d muttered under his breath, as you passed under his arm.
And then you’d felt the corners of your mouth kick up.
Turning around you’d pressed your finger to his chest, whispering so the person behind the ticket desk didn’t hear you, “Twenty bucks says you don’t make it thirty minutes in there.”
He narrowed his eyes, taking in your sly grin, “You’re on, kid.”
It’s the easiest $20 you’ve ever made.
The two of you call it a truce only after he tips your kayak into the still chilly Rivanna River.
Later that night, he takes you to a party on “Mad Bowl” that one of his frat friends was hosting. The backyard was all strung up with red and green Christmas lights like they had been too lazy to take them down after the holidays and decided it added to the outdoor ambiance instead of packing them away.
He was still just as protective over you as he was back in high school. Spending the whole night keeping an eye on you and handing you drinks that he’d uncapped himself using the opener that he had on his keychain, the one that still had the little fighter jet charm you’d given him ages ago dangling from it.
The days pass all too quickly as he shows you all of his favorite spots.
You knew UVA wasn’t where he’d originally wanted to be- where he thought he’d be- but you were happy that he seemed happy here.
But in between the late-night microwave ramen and movie watching and crossing off all the things on Bradley’s Spring Break To-Do List, there’d been something you’d been wanting to talk to him about. But you were having so much fun with him, you’d missed your best friend over those long months apart, and you didn’t want to ruin the time you had left with him here.
It lingered at the back of your mind like a phantom hair that you can feel, but can’t ever seem to brush off no matter how many times you attempt to. You felt like you were waiting for the right time that you weren’t sure would ever come. And if you were being honest, you weren’t entirely sure you would even be brave enough to ask if the time came.
The two of you had woken up way before the sun this morning.
If anyone other than Bradley had asked you to wake up before 5 AM to go hike to watch the sunrise, you would have laughed at them. But because it was Bradley, you’d set the alarm without comment. Even though he did have to gently pry you out of his roommate’s bed- with the fresh sheets he told you he bought especially for your visit- and lace up your shoes for you.
The views at Humpback Rock had been worth the hour hike up to the outcrop of craggy rocks. The sunrise painted them a stunning shade of soft orange as the rays illuminated evergreen covered hills and valleys that extended in front of you to the skyline. You and Bradley watched it in silence, shoulders pressed against each other as you took it all in.
You’re cozied up on your bed for the week, flipping through a book you’d brought with you, but hadn’t touched at all until now when Bradley comes back from the showers. His hair is still damp and the ends are starting to curl a bit.
He drops a Styrofoam cup of coffee on the nightstand next to you.
You hadn’t been sure what rooming with him would be like, the two of you together 24/7 since his roommate had left to go home for the break. But it felt like you were two kids at sleepaway camp getting away with mischief rather than two broke college students only pretending to get away with mischief.
He sits down at the edge of his bed, his elbows resting on his thighs, “So.”
“So?” you repeat, blowing on the hot coffee before taking a sip.
“Are you going to tell me what’s been up with you?”
You wince, and it’s not because the coffee tastes like tar.
“What do you mean?” you try to ask casually.
Bradley gives you a look that says you don’t fool me, kid. “You’ve been squirrely. I didn’t want to press it, but I can tell there’s something on your mind.” He takes a sip of his own milky battery acid. “Are classes going better since you switched majors?”
You nod, looking anywhere else other than at him.
“How are things with your Dad?”
You offer him a shrug.
He sighs your name in exasperation. You can tell he is trying to tamper his frustration at your lack of cooperation.
“Is it a guy?” Bradley tries again.
You swear you feel your heart stop, because you knew what you wanted to ask him, but you didn’t know how he was going to take it.
You fiddle with a string on his roommate’s comforter. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” you admit, tentatively, “But I’m nervous.”
Bradley’s eyebrows pull together as he sets his coffee aside, “C’mon, it’s just me. You can talk to me about anything.”
“It’s more of a question.” One you’re still deflecting from asking.
“Ok, well you know you can ask me anything.” His tiny dorm room feels even smaller as the two of you try to read the other’s face.
Taking a deep breath, you ask the question that’s been rattling around in your brain for weeks.
“Bradley, I was wondering if you’d be my first?”
Less than ten words. That’s all it takes to tilt Bradley’s world off its axis.
He’s loved getting to show you around UVA this week. It wasn’t where he thought he’d end up, but he hadn’t lost sight of where he was going. He was going to be a Naval Aviator one way or another. He just also got to have a normal college experience too, one he’d been excited to share with you.
Bradley had originally been invited to go stay with one of his friends at his family’s beach house, but when you called and asked about coming to visit Charlottesville, it was an easy choice for him. He’d pick you every time.
It had been even better getting to cross off some of the things on the bucket list he’d made for his Senior Year with you in tow, like the hike he’d taken you on this morning.
He loves the views from up there and thought it would be something you’d like too, but he’d never done the hike early enough to catch the sunrise before. It was actually something he was planning on going the morning of graduation as a symbolic way to end his time at UVA, but getting to do it with you was special in its own way.
And while he’d caught you lost in thought more than a few times over the last few days as he showed you around, he never in a million years would have ever expected you to ask him that.
Bradley knows all the words you just used, but they don’t make sense to him in that order.
His brain is working in overdrive trying to figure out if there is any possible way he could have misinterpreted you.
“Your first…”
You take another deep breath and tip your chin up in resolve before looking him dead in the eye, there’s so much vulnerability reflected in them, “I haven’t had sex before, Bradley. And I’m really hoping that my first time can be with you.”
Bradley wants to tell you to put your Styrofoam cup down because he’s worried the tight grip you have on it might crush it, but he feels like the wind has been knocked out of him.
He didn’t realize when his leg started bouncing until he sees you glance down at it.
Shooting to his feet and off his bed, he goes to lean against his recently decluttered desk. There’s too much restless energy coursing through him to just sit like he isn’t completely reeling.
“Shouldn’t you want to do this with someone special? Like with rose petals and all that shit?” He scrubs a hand over his face. Rose petals and all that shit? God, he sounds like such a fucking dumbass, but he’s struggling to keep up.
And if he’s being entirely honest, he’s pretty surprised to learn you’re still a virgin. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but he knows you’ve had at least one serious boyfriend since you’ve gone to college. He figured that you got asked out all the time. He saw the way that some of the guys in his buddy’s frat were looking at the pretty girl with the dimples and big smile.
The girl who just asked him to be her first.
He hates the way your shoulders have slumped forward, like you’re trying not to cave in on yourself, “So, you don’t want to?”
“I didn’t say that.” His answer takes him by surprise.
The only other sound in the room other than his pounding heart is the whir of the air circulating in his dorm.
“Would it help to make a pro con list?” you offer, less than helpfully with a little shrug.
“Jesus Christ,” Bradley mutters under his breath, looking up at the speckled ceiling trying to decode the flecks like tea leaves. “She’s cracking jokes like she didn’t ask me to make her come.”
“Technically, I didn’t say anything about that. I just asked you to be my first.”
“I’m not taking your virginity and not giving you an orgasm,” he states, and your eyes get wide. He runs his hands through his hair. “Sex makes things complicated, kid. We’ve got a good friendship.”
You sit up straighter on his roommate’s bed and bring your knees to your chest. It exposes the backs of your thighs and he has to shake the mental images of skin on skin out of his head.
There’s a look on your face that tells him you feel ridiculous even asking him, “Do you think you’re going to fall in love with me or something?”
“No,” Bradley says, honestly.
He knows you’re just trying to make a point.
The two of you have been friends for over a decade. He knows he cares about you- he always has- but he couldn’t imagine what anything other than just friendship would look like with you.
You nod in agreement, like you had been anticipating the answer before you’d even asked him the question.
“And do you think I’m going to fall in love with you?” you ask, your head tilting to the side.
He doesn’t even blink, “You can do better than me.”
And he means it.
Even if there was something more between the two of you, you’ve always been too good for him. And knowing him, he’d find a way to fuck it up. You’re the last person in the world he’d ever want to hurt. He’d let you down before, he doesn’t want to do it ever again.
You shoot him a disappointed look, like you don’t like hearing him say that about himself. And he’s oddly touched that you’re defending him against himself.
“You’d literally be doing me a favor.”
Bradley is still surprised that he hasn’t ended this conversation yet. The two of you were supposed to go to the movies, but that definitely wasn’t happening now.
“I’m not saying no,” he says, “But I need you to help me understand. Why me? Why now?”
“Bradley, I want it to be with you because there’s no one else I’ll ever feel as comfortable with as I do with you,” you explain.
He watches as you unfold yourself and climb off the bed, coming to stand in front of him. You gingerly reach out and put your hand on his forearm, like you don’t want to startle him. Not that he’d be able to move anyways since it feels like the soles of his feet are cemented to the floor.
“I keep waiting for it to not feel like such a big thing, but every time it seems like it’s going to happen, I freeze. And I know you’d take care of me, and I’m not talking about orgasms.” You stumble over the word a bit, not fully meeting his eyes as you say it. “It’s scary enough as a girl and I’m worried I’m going to be too in my head with anyone else. But I also don’t want to look back and have any regrets, and I know I wouldn’t have any with you.”
The mention of regrets makes his stomach twinge. His heart feels like it’s hammering in his chest. He doesn’t know what to say.
You are looking at him with such open sincerity. He has never been good with talking about his feelings, he’s always been the type to bottle things up, while you have always worn your heart on your sleeve. It was just another way that you were braver than him.
“I know it’s a lot,” you say, letting go of him to take a step back, like you want to give him breathing room, “So if it’s too big of an ask. Or if it’s not something you’re comfortable with-”
Bradley shakes his head cutting you off, “It’s not that at all, kid. I just haven’t done this before.” Your eyebrow scrunches together in confusion. “I mean, I have,” he corrects, “But it’s not the same. All the girls I’ve been with had already had experience. And if we were going to do this, I would want to make sure it’s as nice for you as it can be.”
“So you’d be my first and I’d be yours? Well, kind of.” You give him a little smile, it’s a shy but hopeful thing. There’s only a hint of your dimples, but it’s enough. And he feels that practical part of him that had been holding back soften at the sight of it.
He doesn’t think he’s ever said no to you, excluding the times you tried to get him to give you his beer at the house parties he took you to in high school, and that was more out of self-preservation from a healthy fear of your mom than anything else.
When you wanted to learn how to drive a stick shift? He took you to the abandoned parking lot, it didn’t matter that you didn’t have your learner’s permit yet. When you wanted to learn how to throw a punch? He was making sure you knew not to tuck your thumb under your fingers, so that you didn’t break your own thumb instead of someone’s nose.
He’s always had your back and you’ve had his. That’s how it was between the two of you.
You’ve already said it, but he needs to hear it again, “You really want to do it?”
“I really want it to be you, Bradley. I really want to do this with you. I trust you the most.”
He’s always been willing to help you with anything you’ve ever asked of him, why should this be any different? What’s a couple orgasms between friends?
“Ok,” Bradley nods. If it’s to reassure you or himself, he couldn’t say. “I’ll do it. We can do it.”
Your eyebrows raise in surprise, like you were fully prepared for him to let you down gently, “Really?”
You didn’t ask for his why he was agreeing, but he was going to give it to you anyway.
“I don’t think I’ve told you this, but I lost mine to Samantha Prescod after the game against Centennial that got us a spot at State that year,” he waits until he sees the recognition cross your face before continuing, “But I had also just learned about my mom’s diagnosis and I was trying to find anything I could do to not think about it.” He rubs at a spot underneath his collarbone, it never got any easier talking about his mom. “I think she assumed that I’d done it before, because we didn’t really talk about it. She was there and into it, so it just sort of happened. Actually, I’m pretty sure she only slept with me because she wanted to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, because they got back together like three days later.”
It’s probably for the best that Samantha Prescod lives on the other side of the country now because you look livid. Your eyes spark with anger and disbelief on his behalf.
“It was years ago, it’s fine, kid” he shrugs, trying to brush off your concern. “But if I had a do-over, I don’t know if I’d make the same choice again. And that’s not something I’d ever want for you.” You deserve the rose petals, but he’ll do his best for you. “So we can do it, but I have one condition.”
The relief on your face and the way the tension in your shoulder releases only solidifies his decision.
“Tell me,” you say, taking a half-step towards him, “I want you to be comfortable too.”
Bradley pushes off his desk and meets you the rest of the way, “If you even think you’re feeling uncomfortable- about any of it- I need you to tell me. And we’ll stop and figure out where to go from there. If it’s a change of position, if it’s a full stop and order pizza instead, we’ll do that.” He pauses and reaches out to tip your chin up. “I’ll do whatever you need, got it?”
You throw your arms around him, and his wrap around you just as easily. Your hair smells like the travel sized shampoo he’d picked up for you, figuring you wouldn’t want to use his 2-in-1. You murmur your thank you into his shirt followed by a fuck Samantha Prescod that makes him squeeze you just a bit tighter to him in affection.
When you step back and look at him, your lips twitch upwards, “What’s with the look, Bradshaw? Don’t tell me you’re going to lie back and think of England?”
That makes him chuckle, your joke lightening the mood in only the way that you can do. He rolls his eyes in equal parts exasperation and fondness.
“God, I haven’t been this nervous since I lost my own virginity. I was so stressed I was going to blow my load in two pumps and lose my street cred.”
You snort and send him a smirk, “Well, you must have done just fine. I overheard some glowing reviews in the girl’s bathroom on more than one occasion.”
“I maybe lasted ten trusts, but I had the good sense to eat her out after,” he admits, and then tacks on for good measure, “I’ve gotten better since then.”
“What a stud,” you tease.
This is easier, this feels like the two of you. This should be fun, it shouldn’t feel serious. He can make it good for you.
You look up at him shyly from under your lashes, “So how do we do this?”
He feels like he only just wrapped his head around the idea of it, but now he was facing the very real possibility of seeing you very naked very soon.
“You want to do it now?” Bradley blinks.
“I mean, if you’re up for it.” You scrunch your nose when you realize you’ve made a terrible double entendre. “No pun intended, I promise.”
He wipes his hands on his pants.
“You sure?” he asks again.
“I’m sure, Bradley. As long as you are too.”
He nods, “Then I guess we just…”
He’s not sure where he was going to go with that. But he’s spared from being roasted by you for making some sure to be lame birthday suit joke because you’re untying the bow on the soft lounge shorts you’d thrown on after your shower from the hike, and all the words get trapped in his throat.
You don’t look at Bradley as you slide your shorts down your legs. And you definitely don’t look at him when you pull your shirt over your head, leaving you in only a soft green mesh bra and your cotton underwear. They’re mismatched, but sex with Bradley wasn’t originally on the Spring Break To-Do List agenda for today.
In fact, you hadn’t even been sure you were going to go through with asking him until he brought up the point that he knew you had something on your mind because you apparently had no poker face.
While it felt like you had a swarm of butterflies whirling in your stomach, you also knew wholeheartedly that this was the right choice for you. Everything he had said had solidified that for you.
You weren’t sure how you were ever going to thank him for this, but you had a lifetime of friendship with Bradley to figure it out.
His room cast in the soft afternoon light, the blinds only partly closed. There are little streaks of gold that line the plaid comforter on his bed. He’d been right, Charlottesville had stayed sunny just for you.
As you climb into it and situate yourself against his pillows, you can help but notice just how much his bed smells like him. It’s not the spicy scent you associated with the High School version of him. The woodsy and warm scent embedded in the threads of his sheets suits this grown up version of him.
You feel equal parts overdressed and underdressed in your bra and underwear. You know the latter are going to come off eventually, so you make a split-second decision to just take them off yourself under his covers. The idea of Bradley helping you to pull them off later seems like it would be too intimate based on the way the thought of it makes your cheeks heat up.
It’s practical, you’re being practical, you think to yourself.
You chance a peek at him and are surprised to see that he hasn’t budged an inch. It’s almost like he is waiting for you to get completely settled before he dares to move a muscle. His eyes are trained on the pile of your clothes on the floor, he looks lost in thought.
“Bradley?”
The sound of your voice seems to kickstart him into action.
He shucks off his shirt in that kind of reckless way that seems to be ingrained in boys and then unbuttons his pants. You’re torn between feeling like you should give him privacy and wanting to watch. What you were expecting is the way he takes the time to pick his clothes up before folding them over the back of the chair at his desk.
Your mouth goes dry as you take in the sight of his body, the diffused light perfectly outlines the shape of him. His broad shoulders are rounded with the muscles he’s gained from whatever exercises the NROTC has been putting him through. Your eyes dip down to his defined chest and over the ridges of his abs. You’ve seen him in swim trunks plenty of times, but seeing the way the muscles of his thick thighs fill out the black boxer briefs he was wearing was entirely new to you.
Bradley approaches you and then pauses as he bends down to collect your pile of clothes on the floor, his hand hesitating only for a second when he reaches for your underwear. He drapes all of your things on top of his on the chair and makes his way back to you.
The gesture makes you melt a little like a soft serve ice cream cone on a summer afternoon.
You lift the corner of the cover for Bradley and he climbs in next to you. You move closer to the wall, trying to make more room for the bulk of him in his small bed, and he shifts in even closer into you until your bodies pressed tight against one another. The curves and angles of the two of you slotting together like pieces of a puzzle.
It feels like the two of you are teetering there on the edge of something. You both know exactly where it’s going, but are unsure of how to make it from Point A to Point B. Both waiting on the other person to make the first move.
He rests his warm hand on your stomach, the muscles there jumping on their own under his touch in anticipation. Your faces are close since you’re sharing his pillow. His brown eyes are searching yours, probably looking for any sign of hesitation that you don’t feel.
“Tell me how you’re feeling.” It’s not a question, but a request.
“Overwhelmed,” you admit, “But in a good way.” He runs his palm lightly up your stomach and back down, soothingly.
“Good, that’s good,” Bradley says, clearing his throat, “You’re supposed to feel a little ‘overwhelmed, but in a good way.’” You feel your lips pull up at his gentle teasing.
He smiles softly at you. His face has always been so familiar to you. The pink from his scars have finally faded, but you wonder when his eyes start crinkling around the corners.
You let go of the comforter to run a finger down the top of his nose, “I don’t know how this has stayed so straight.” He’d been in more than a couple fights in his teen years, including one that had sent him through a sliding glass door.
“Probably the combination of a little luck and the fact that none of those guys could throw a punch,” Bradley smirks. He shifts on his side, propping himself up on an elbow looking down at you, still running his hand along your stomach. “What have you done so far?”
His fingertips circle your bellybutton and your stomach swoops like it’s on the swing carousel ride at the fair.
“Some over the clothes stuff…” you stammer. You’re having trouble focusing because all your attention is on his big hand and how it feels against your oversensitive skin. “And I have a vibrator, but ah…”
You’re so keenly aware of his hand. With every lazy circle he makes, he has you wondering if this is going to be the one where he finally moves his hand lower. That part of you in flutters in expectation because you know it’s coming.
You let out a shaky huff when his fingers trails back up your stomach.
“What is it?” Bradley’s hand stops moving. “What are you thinking?”
“Honestly?” you say, trying not to squirm, “I’m getting really horny and you keep teasing me.”
He presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh at your overshare, and there’s amusement in his eyes.
“You know, some people call it foreplay,” he drawls. You’d roll your eyes but his fingertips are by your bellybutton again and you want him to keep going. “You ready for more?” You nod a few times because if he doesn’t touch you soon you might just crawl out of your skin. “Ok, gonna stop ‘teasing’ you now.”
This time his hand doesn’t stop at your bellybutton, it keeps moving down, down.
You stutter over a breath when Bradley’s fingers touch your clit. You feel yourself melt a little further into his mattress. He’s making easy circles, letting you get used to someone’s fingers other than your own on the most sensitive part of you. Your hands are clutching tightly to his comforter, unsure of what else to do with them.
“Spread your legs a little wider for me,” he murmurs. You feel your face heat up. He’d just given you a direction, but it sounds almost indecent coming out of his mouth.
You shift, moving your legs apart further for him, until he secures your left between his own, opening you up even more. You know you’re wet and now he does too. Bradley’s fingers slide easily over you as he increases the pressure on your clit. You can feel the intensity of his gaze on you watching for your reaction as he figures out what you like the most.
It doesn’t take him long to learn your body. You don’t know whether to be impressed with him or embarrassed with yourself at how quickly he’s worked you up.
Your breathing feels so loud in your ears in the quiet room, every breath and sigh is amplified. There’s a certain thrill in not knowing how he’s going to touch you next, your own fingers pale in comparison now.
His warm breath coasts down the side of your neck causing you to shiver at the sensation. It makes goosebumps break out along your arms and your nipples pull taut.
He notices. Of course he notices.
“Are you cold?” His voice is low in your ear.
“No, I-” Oh god, you’re right there. “B-bradley, I’m-” You’ve made yourself orgasm plenty of times, but you’ve never shared that part of yourself with anyone else before. No one knows what you sound like or what you look like when you come. But now, Bradley was going to have the piece of you too. A whine escapes you without your permission.
“It’s ok, kid, I’ve got you.”
You’re seeking and searching, but it’s Bradley’s fingers that have the answer.
And you come with your stomach twitching and hips jerking as he murmurs praise in your ear.
His fingers slow down, featherlight on your clit, but your heart is still racing when he rasps, “There’s one, you up for another?”
Bradley loves that moment during sex when he hears that first gasp or moan. He loves learning what sounds of satisfaction he can pull from his partner. He loves knowing he earned it. But he never in his life could have ever anticipated hearing those sounds from you.
In his bed. Because of him.
He didn’t expect the lick of heat that curled up his spine at the shape of your legs and the curve of your ass as you were stepping out of your shorts. He’d never seen anything so strangely endearing as it was watching you shimmy your underwear off under the shield of his covers.
Every hitch in your breath made his blood run hotter in his veins. He was trying to control his cock, but he’d started getting hard the second you’d pulled your shirt off. Your bra was some kind of sheer thing that left nothing to the imagination, and while he wasn’t trying to check you out- because that’s not how it was between the two of you- he couldn’t help the way his eyes flickered down.
You’re slippery, wet, and warm. And he knows he can make you come again.
“Do you want me to use my fingers now?”
You crack an eye open at him, it’s the first time you’ve opened your eyes since he first touched you. Your eyes are bright in that way that only comes with an orgasm. “I thought you already were.”
“Such a smartass,” he grins.
Bradley changes the unhurried circles he’d been making on your clit to the upstroke that made your hips jerk up into his hand the first time he’d tried it. The little noises you’re making have him fighting the urge to grind himself against you for some relief of his own. He’s still got your knee tucked between his own; where there had been a hint of polite space between your bodies, the way you’re writhing now has him pressed up against your hip.
You gasp, breathily, “Oh, you’re hard.” The disbelief is evident in your voice, but it’s the look in your eyes that he doesn’t know what to make of, something like surprise.
He’s been trying to be a gentleman, this is about you and not him. There might not be anything romantic happening between the two of you, but this was hot and he was more than a little turned on. And he knows you are too because he can feel how wet you are under his fingers.
“’Course I am,” Bradley says, nudging his nose against your temple, “I’ve got a pretty girl in my bed half naked.” He didn’t want you to feel like you were in this on your own, so he lightly rocks against you. He wants you to feel him, he wants you to know he is into this too. “Are you ready more?”
“I’m ready, I want more,” you confirm, wrapping your hand around his bicep.
Your breath hitches as he teases you with just the tip of his finger.
He’s been told before he has big hands and thick fingers, he’s always taken it as a compliment in the past, but now he’s scanning your face for any trace of discomfort as he sinks one into you.
Your eyebrows twitch then smooth out and your mouth drops open as he starts pumping his finger into you in a smooth rhythm.
“That feels nice,” you sigh, airily.
He knows you like it when your hips tip up just a fraction. His comforter is bunched around your waist and your nipples are peaked against the see-through fabric of your bra. He gets his thumb on your clit and you whimper as you tentatively roll your hips against his fingers.
Bradley hums his approval, “Atta girl. There you go, find what feels good for you.” His voice sounds low even to his own ears, a throaty rumble. He feels you clench around his fingers and it sets his pulse racing. It’s a piece of information he tucks away for himself.
He’s gentle on your clit, but now that he knows you’re into it he’s setting a more purposeful pace with his fingers.
You’ve got your bottom lip pinned between your teeth, like you’re trying to swallow down your sounds. He didn’t realize how much he liked hearing these new sounds from you until you started trying to muffle them. On the next slide of his finger into you, he knows exactly what he’s looking for.
You suck in a sharp breath of surprise when he finds it.
“Is that the right spot, kid?” He sounds so smug. You curse and your hand clutches at his shoulder. “You want to try a second finger?” he murmurs into your ear.
“Yes,” you rock into his hand, “Yes, please.”
“Whatever you want, Miss Manners.” His chest feels like he’s taken a shot of Fireball. “You’re so polite when you’re trying to get your way.”
“I’m always polite,” you challenged weakly, pressing your head further into his pillow.
“Mhm,” he indulges, fondly, “You’re the sweetest girl I know.”
And then he fills you with two fingers.
“Jesus, Bradley,” you gasp, offering more of yourself to him.
Your nails dig into the muscle of his shoulder as he lets your whimpers and whines guide his hands.
The two of you have your eyes fixed on the way the tendons of the visible part of his forearm are flexing before it disappears under the covers as he works you.
Bradley curls his fingers into that spongy part of you and your hand flies to his wrist, gripping him tight. It makes him pause, worried that he might have pushed you too far too fast.
“No, no. D-don’t stop,” you plead, desperately, “I’m so close. Keep going, please.” You squeeze his wrist encouragingly.
“Sorry, sorry,” he soothes. He focuses his efforts on that spot again now that he knows you weren’t wanting him to slow down, but rather trying to hold him in place. His fingers inside of you and his thumb on your clit working in tandem to get you there again.
“I just- yes. Like that. Oh fuck. Keep doing that. Oh my god. Please, Bradley.”
He’s heard you say his name a lot of different ways, but never like this.
Your back arches and you twist yourself towards him, burying your face against him and keening into the hollow of his throat as you come around his fingers.
You jerk and writhe into his hand, your knee slips free of his and your thighs clamp together around him. Bradley rolls off the arm he’d been leaning on and brings it to cradle the back of your head, pulling you closer and holding you to him as he steadily works you through it until you’re loose-limbed in his arms.
He waits until your rapid pants have evened out before he slips his fingers from you. The displeased sound that you make makes the corners of his mouth twitch. He should have known you’d be bossy. He rubs gentle circles into the divots at the base of your neck as you come down.
Bradley can feel your lips graze the side of his neck when you finally speak, “So, um, let me know if you need a letter of recommendation or anything. I’d be happy to pass one along to your next partner.” You languidly prop yourself up on his chest and he notes with pride that you look a little flushed. “But, seriously, I get it now.”
He huffs a laugh as he toys with the end of your hair, “I’m glad it lived up to the hype. Well, at least that part of it.”
You press your lips together like you’re deciding something, tracing idle shapes on his stomach, and he can’t decide if he thinks you’re doing it without realizing it or if you’re the one doing the teasing this time. Your eyes flick down to his visibly hard cock and he feels his face heat up, “Can I?”
“Do you want to?” Bradley wants this experience to be everything you need and want it to be, but something about the tables turning here and the idea of you being the one to touch him like that makes his heart pound.
“I want to make you feel good too,” you softly tell him, resting your chin on your shoulder. The tender way you’re looking at him makes his teeth ache.
“Ok, but only for a little bit,” he agrees. Bradley knows he’s walking a tightrope with this, he’s aching and more than ready to be touched, but he doesn’t want to come all over your hand.
He plants his feet into his mattress and lifts his hips enough to pull off his boxer briefs, sighing in relief as his cock bobs free.
“That can’t be average,” you mutter under your breath.
He doesn’t know if you meant to have said it out loud but he smirks all the same, “I’ve never been average a day in my life, kid, Grade A student here.”
A groan slips out of him as your tentative fingers grasp his cock. There’s a lack of finesse in the way you touch him, your hand isn’t nearly as well-practiced as his own. He wraps his hand over yours, guiding your strokes as he shows you just what he likes.
“You can grip it a little firmer,” he coaches. You nod studiously, like you’re going to be tested on it later. Together the two of you work him from root to tip.
Bradley had never given much thought to his size until now. He knew he was big, but seeing that your thumb couldn’t reach the tips of your fingers when your hand was curved around him was an ego boost he didn’t know he needed.
You get more confident with every glide up and down the length of him. Your tricky thumb sweeps over the tip, collecting what precum had gathered there, and it makes your hand slide easier over him. When he accidentally thrusts into your hand, you grin and there are those dimples again.
“Ok, ok,” he blows out a shaky breath, stilling your hand with his. “We gotta stop or I’m going to come. And I’m not about to be a one pump chump.”
“It sounded like you’re more of a ten pump chump, if I remember correctly,” you tease, looking all too pleased with yourself. “Don’t worry, Bradshaw, your street cred is safe with me.”
He shakes his head in amused disbelief, “You’re such a goddamn menace. I knew I shouldn’t have told you that part.” He surprises the both of you when he wraps an arm around you and rolls to pin you under him.
And it’s like all the air is sucked out of the room because your thighs are cradling his hips and his cock is resting heavy on your stomach.
Neither one of you dare to move. He’d give anything to know what you’re thinking right now, he feels out of his depth as he watches you watching him.
His tongue feels thick in his mouth, “Are you on-”
You nod before he even finishes the question.
“Do you have-”
He nods before you finish yours.
“What did you promise me?” he prompts, squeezing the dip of your waist.
You hold up your pinky to him, “I’ll tell you.” He wraps his own crooked one around yours and gives it a shake.
Bradley doesn’t know what comes over him, but he drops a kiss to your shoulder as he reaches over you into the drawer of his nightstand to fish out what he needs. He’s thankful when you don’t comment on it because he wouldn’t even know how to explain it.
He leans back on his knees and rolls the condom on with practiced ease, then flicks open the cap to the bottle of lube he’s also grabbed and drizzles it over his cock.
“Am I not…” you trail off. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard you sound this shy with him before.
“You’re plenty wet,” he assures you, pumping himself- once, twice- just enough to coat himself, “But this’ll be good too. I think you’ll like it.”
Bradley settles back over you, one arm braced by your head and the other on your hip, as your hands come up to rest lightly on either side of his ribcage. He rocks against you to demonstrate; the head of his cock nudges your clit with each silky pass. You exhale heavily at the sensation as he eases you into the motion of it, as he shows you what it’s like with another person.
You’re holding him close, and in just a moment the two of you will be the closest two people can be.
He makes only enough room to reach down between your bodies, only looks away from your face long enough to line himself up with you. There is such trust in your eyes as you gaze up at him, it’s not something Bradley takes for granted.
You nod, your fingers stroking his sides.
God, does he want this to be good for you.
He takes a breath.
And then he’s shifting forward and pressing in.
Bradley thrusts into you with all the careful gentleness you’d expect from him.
His thumb skimming along your forehead as he pushes in, in, in.
When he found that spot inside of you with his fingers, you thought you were going to fly away from the intensity of it, but then he’d pulled you into the safety of his arms and you felt like you could fall apart because he’d be keeping the pieces of you together.
He’s been so good to you. He is so good to you. He’s the best person you know.
The more of him he gives you, the less you feel like you can catch your breath.
You feel hot, hot all over. And much fuller than you’ve ever been.
Some sound must make its way out of you because Bradley offers you a low soothing noise before you feel his lightly chapped lips against your temple.
There’s something about this that reminds you of the time he tried to teach you how to skateboard. Always waited until you told him you were ready, until you found your balance. He’d held your hand as you cautiously rolled along the sidewalk, you were less worried about falling with him by your side. Only this time, his hand is on your waist and the only movements are his hips against yours as he rocks into you.
Little by little. Inch by inch.
You clutch at his biceps at the slight stinging sensation and you feel him hesitate.
“It’s just a lot,” you whisper. His fingers flex on your waist.
“You’re doing so good, just a bit more,” Bradley murmurs, encouragingly.
There’s pressure, there’s a give, and then there’s relief when his hips finally, finally meet yours.
“Shit,” he curses under his breath.
Your eyes had flickered shut somewhere along the way. You open them to see that Bradley’s face and chest are flushed pink, the muscle of his jaw flexing. The furrow between his eyebrows is so deep that you release your grip on him to smooth out the lines with an unsteady fingertip.
He reads the question in your eyes.
“You’re just really tight,” he grits out, voice strained.
You assumed that was a good thing, but he’s holding himself so tense above you that now you’re not sure. “Do I-,” you fumble over the words, “Does this feel good for you?”
He huffs an incredulous laugh, and brushes back some hair from off your face, “You feel really fucking good, sweet-”
Your whimper cuts him off when he pulls out a fraction and then pushes back in.
His brown eyes take you in as he does it again, more this time. Pulling out just a bit- just enough- and then filling you again. The discomfort fading more with each thrust as he guides his hips to yours until yours are tilting up to meet his seeking more.
It’s a conversation between your bodies, the give and the take of it all as Bradley introduces you to this new unspoken language. You feel yourself flutter around his cock, stretched wider than you’ve ever been.
You feel that heat spreading underneath your skin again as he surely and steadily pumps into you. It feels like your nerves are on fire. You didn’t expect to even come once and you’re well on your way to a third.
He reaches down and hooks your leg over his hip. His hand slides up along the outside of your thigh and under your ass, tilting your hips up towards his even more. He’s so much deeper like this. Your hands slide into his hair, tugging at his curls.
“Bradley, I-I think… I feel-”
“You’re gonna come,” he rasps, nodding at you. Encouraging, coaxing.
He grinds his pelvis against your clit with every deliciously slow roll into you.
Your mouth drops open at the feel of it, it’s better than anything you’ve ever imagined. You don’t think your faces have ever been closer than they are now. Bradley is breathing your air, and you’re breathing his. Bradley’s pupils are blown wide, his heavy-lidded eyes are locked on yours. You didn’t know there could be so many shades of brown. His curls are a mess and it’s all because of you. He licks his lips and your breath catches in your throat when his eyes dart down to your parted mouth.
His next thrust into you hits that spot inside of you just so right that it has you gasping.
It’s so good, it’s too good, it’s overwhelming.
You wrap your arms around his neck clinging to him, your face buried against him. Bradley drops his head to your shoulder, you feel his lips brush against your clavicle. Your head moves away on instinct, making more room for him if he wants to do it again.
You get lost in the feeling of his cock hitting you in all the places you’ve heard about and read about, but have never felt for yourself until now. He’s still got your ass gripped in his hand, whereas your hands can’t stay in one spot. They’re tangled in his hair, running over his shoulders and down his abs, gliding over his back aided by the sheen of sweat he’s worked up.
You’re not trying to hold yourself back, but it feels like you’re standing on the tallest diving board at the pool, your toes curled around the edge, but still too nervous about the drop to jump.
“C’mon, kid. You’re right there,” he breathes hard, “I need you to come for me. Just one more.”
He gets his fingers back on your clit and it’s the end of you. Your back is arching so much you think you might snap. Your toes curl so tights they may never unfurl. The force your orgasm overtakes you, demanding everything you have up to offer and then some.
You hear Bradley’s moan as you pulse around his cock, trembling under him as the waves of pleasure wash over you. His hips stutter against yours, finally losing that steady rhythm he’d set, you pull him tighter to you and it’s not long until he comes too.
It’s all white noise. All you can feel is your heartbeat pounding, until little pieces of the world come back into focus.
The hum of the fan.
The beam of warm afternoon light through the blinds.
The smell of the now cold coffee on his nightstand.
In the after, you’re all too aware of every place your body is touching Bradley’s.
He’d somehow managed to roll on his back and had taken you with him. He was literally just inside of you, but yet it feels like your leg draped over his thigh is somehow more intimate. A prickly self-conscious feeling settles over you. Unsure of what the rules were for friends who just had sex, you attempt to peel yourself off of him, but the heavy arm over your waist keeps you in place.
“Come back here, kid,” Bradley mumbles, his eyes still closed, “I need to cuddle after I come, so I’m gonna need you to indulge me here for a moment.” He strokes a soothing hand down your back. And while he says it’s for him, you know he’s still trying to take care of you.
He hums when you lay back down. You set a hand on his chest. He reaches for it with his free one and threads your fingers together. It makes you melt further into him.
You feel a little different. But mostly, you feel like a weight you didn’t know you’d been carrying had been lifted off of you.
Your first time was everything you hoped it would be. You were safe and cared for, and you already knew, you’d never have any regrets about it. And it was all because of him.
“Thank you, Bradley,” you say, softly.
“Anything for you, kid.”
Your early morning catches up with you as you lay there, warm and secure. Your eyelids get heavier with each pass of Bradley’s hand along your spine. And you drift off to the sound of his heartbeat under your ear.
You’re still you. And Bradley is still Bradley.
It was just… something between friends.
A few hours later the two of you are still in his bed.
Only now you’re clothed and swapping the cartons of Chinese food that he’d ordered while you’d napped against his chest, and fighting over the fortune cookies watching some reruns of old sitcoms. You couldn’t hear their laugh tracks over your own.
The last couple of days you had at UVA fly by just as quickly.
You don’t know how, but the two of you managed to cross of all the things on his Spring Break To-Do List. And before you knew it you were back at the airport.
Bradley had insisted on walking you in, wanting to see you off.
Neither one of you has ever been good with goodbyes. So you don’t give him one, instead you reach for your bag and tell him, “Ok, see you in June.”
Bradley doesn’t let go, clearly confused, “What the hell are you talking about?”
You grin because it feels like a checkmate.
“You didn’t think you’d be getting that diploma all by yourself, did you?”
He looks thunderstruck.
You and your mom already had the plane tickets and hotel room booked. Your stepdad wouldn’t be able to come, but he was planning on sending your mom with one of the cakes from his family’s bakery. You’d been tasked with finding out what flavor, carrot cake or peanut butter- Bradley’s two favorites- but you could iron out the details with him later.
You’d had a busy week, plus it was more fun this way.
Bradley tugs you into his arms, yours wrap around him just as easily as they always have.
“June?” he asks into the crown of your head.
“June,” you promise.
And when he lets you go- for real this time- it’s with a smile that takes up his whole face.
He doesn’t say goodbye either, “Be good, kid. See you in June.”
𝐍𝐎𝐖
You avoid Rooster for the rest of the night.
And Jake too, for that matter. Bless Javy for finding ways to distract him because you could tell than man was chomping at the bit for more details. But you’d already given him more than enough.
You could have lied, you probably should have lied. It might have been easier than feeling like you’d hung up part of yourself on the drying line for everyone to see. But in that moment, the thought of lying and saying anyone else’s name other than Rooster’s had made your stomach turn.
Because it was the truth, he was your first, but he was also your best.
When you come out of the bathroom, there’s no missing Rooster. He’s leaning against the wall by the entrance. It takes him a moment to notice you since he looks lost in thought, but when he does you feel pinned to the wall by the intense look in his eyes.
He stands to his full height as you approach, you know he wants to talk about it.
You shake your head at him, “We don’t need to do this.”
“No, kid, we really do.” He takes you by the arm and leads you to a quieter spot away from everyone else.
“It was just a game,” you start before he can, “And now I know more about everyone’s sex life than I ever wanted to.” He crosses his arms over his chest at your attempt at deflection. “Look, I’m really sorry if that was something you wanted to keep a secret or just between us. I should have asked you first if that was ok to share.”
“I don’t care about that.” Rooster waves you off and takes a step closer to you, his eyes searching yours. “All this time and I’m the best you’ve ever had?”
“Are we really doing this? Here and now?”
You peer around him to look and see if anyone is watching the two of you, it feels like a showdown. But all the Daggers are occupied, probably on purpose. You’ve never seen Mickey with such a serious look of concentration on his face.
“Here and now,” he confirms.
You feel flustered, “Rooster, it’s been 12 years and we haven’t talked about it once-”
“Bradley,” he cuts you off. He takes another step towards you, so you’re toe to toe with him. “I’ve always been Bradley to you.”
The tension that had crept up in your shoulders releases a bit.
“Bradley,” you say, softly. “Listen, I’ve had a lot of good sex since then. Great sex even.” He presses his lips together and nods. “And with other men, if I felt like they weren’t putting in their best effort I’d kick them out because the bar was set very high early on.”
You see him fight back a smirk.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, with pride.
Your breath gets caught in your throat, you know he hears it because his eyes take on a richer shade of brown. You both feel the shift, tension churning between the two of you.
Taking a deep breath, you continue, “But I was telling the truth when I said you were my best. Probably because of the way you made sure I knew that you cared. I don’t know how to describe it. It was just different with you.”
You feel his finger graze the back of your hand.
The sounds of the Hard Deck fade into the background as you stare at each other. Entire conversations are being had as you look into his eyes and he looks into yours. Words and sentences spoken with glances.
Just friends don’t look at each other like this.
“It’s never been like this,” you whisper, “We’ve never been like this before.” You gesture at how close he is to you.
How he’s almost got you backed up against a wall.
How he’s looking at you like you’re his.
“I know.”
He says your name and your heart somersaults in your chest.
“I want to see your tattoo. I keep finding myself looking for it when we’re all at the beach. And then I get annoyed, knowing that people have seen it and I haven’t.”
“My tattoo? Bradley, what-”
“I want to see your tattoo,” he repeats like it’s a fact. “And I want to punch Seresin in his smug face every time he flirts with you.”
You roll your eyes, “Jake doesn’t flirt with me, not really. He just likes riling you up.”
“What if I said I wanted to try this as more than friends.” Bradley settles a large hand on your hip. “What if I said that since you’ve moved here I’ve had a hard time keeping my head on straight.”
“Bradley.” His name falls out of your mouth so easily now that it can.
“I want to take you home with me. I want to kiss you. I want to make you come. I need to know if you sound the same in my bed. And then I want to take you out for breakfast and buy whatever fancy coffee you want and as many pancakes as you can eat.”
You’ve been told that you wear your heart on your sleeve, but he has always worn his on his face. There’s no mistaking the open want on his face.
“Bradley, it’ll be different this time.” For so many reasons.
Because it’s not a favor being asked. It’s not some new experience being tried with the person you trust the most, with everything. You’d be on equal footing. It wouldn’t be a friend helping a friend, the two of you would be crossing that line between friends and more because you want each other in that way.
“I want it to be different, sweet girl,” he says, cupping your face in his familiar hand, “I’m ready for it to be different, if you are.”
He looks from your eyes down to your parted lips.
“We didn’t do that last time,” you whisper. Feeling brave, you reach out and run your fingers along the buttons of his shirt.
“No, we didn’t,” he agrees. His eyes are trained on his thumb as he skims it under your lip. “And that’s a damn shame.”
Bradley’s face is all you can see. Warm eyes, a still-straight nose, and a soft smile that is for you and you alone.
He dips down and your eyes flutter closed, your head tipping up on its own in anticipation.
His lips brush your cheek. It’s not enough.
You tug on his collar, but he chuckles and kisses your cheek again, lingering longer this time.
“I’m not kissing you for the first time around the corner from a bathroom,” he rasps.
You open your eyes and see the amusement in his. He always did like teasing you.
“Oh, where do you plan on doing it then?”
“Outside your front door, like a gentleman,” he says, like it’s obvious.
You can’t help but grin because Bradley Bradshaw can’t wait the extra 10 minutes it would take to drive to his place instead of yours. He wants that kiss just as badly as you do. You watch as a matching smile to yours blooms across his face.
It feels normal to slide your fingers between his much larger ones. It feels right as you lead the way out of the Hard Deck with him only a step behind you.
As it turns out, he only makes it as far as the Bronco before he’s spinning you back towards him and pressing you against it. His hands are on your hips and yours are wrapped around his neck as he kisses you for the very first time.
Bradley kisses you like a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants is you.
It’s not tentative in the way that first kisses usually are.
He kisses you like he knows you.
Because he does.
Later, when he closes the door to the Bronco for you, it feels like the end of one thing. But as he slips his fingers into yours when he backs out of the parking space it feels like the beginning of something new.
That night tangled in Bradley’s sheets- he’d kissed you at every light which made those extra 10 minutes it took to get to his home worth it- he makes your back arch and your toes curl as he makes you come with his fingers and mouth and tongue and cock. His lips dropping kiss after kiss on every part of you that he can reach. Because he can, because you want him and he wants you.
The way he touches you tells you that he remembers it all.
He was you first, but what you wouldn’t learn until later, is that he would also be your last.
And he’d be the only man to ever have your entire heart.
Happy Birthday Jordan! An AU just for you! 💖 I adore you and I hope this year is the best one yet!
A big thank you to @callsignspark and @ofstoriesandstardust for their help and beta reading and their woogirling! I appreciate you two so much!
Author's Note: this was a "what-if" AU set in the 'Like I Can' universe! If you want to read about what really happens you can read it here!
Oops I’m rereading and reblogging this again!! Might just be a bi-annual thing atp. This is my comfort fic one million times over. God, I love them with all my heart
I just adore the way their friendship is written. Bradley is so so soft for her, even before it’s a romantic thing. And she’s so supportive and sweet. The way she gets so upset about his first time makes me giggle every time I read this!! (She’s right tho, he deserved better)
The softness of that first time, the care he put into making sure she was comfortable, UGH!! My heart!!
Every time I need something soft and sweet, I think of this fic. And I keep coming back to it, even when I’m not really in a Top Gun phase. It’s just so cozy and comfy and beautifully written. My fav fr
Summary: Bradley and you don’t talk about that Spring Break. But a single question asked during a night out at the Hard Deck might just change things between the two of you forever.
Pairing: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Female Reader
Length: 11K
Warning: smut (including loss of virginity), brief mention of underage drinking, and college!bradley in a backwards hat
(Author's note: Happy Birthday Jordan! I wrote this just for you! Look at me keeping secrets from you! Enjoy!)
𝐍𝐎𝐖
Rooster couldn’t control his bouncing leg.
That night at the Hard Deck had started out like any other: good music, good drinks, good people. Over the course of the evening, he’d found himself seated between you and Bob in a lopsided circle with the rest of the Daggers around a few tall tables that had been pushed together just shooting the shit.
It was all fun and games until swapping stories about embarrassing middle school moments turned into cringing over first kiss stories turned into Seresin grinning like a shark asking about how everyone’s first time went down.
Rooster felt his pulse kick up with every collective laugh and groan as his friends went one by one sharing how they’d lost their virginities. Because with each passing story, it meant that you were one person closer to going. And for the first time in his life- even after over two decades of friendship- he didn’t know what your answer was going to be.
So he is just as shocked as his teammates are when you tentatively reveal, “So, um, my first time was with Rooster.” He doesn’t miss the way all his friends’ heads snap towards him.
All eyes are on the two of you, and you’re pointedly looking anywhere but him.
Rooster had been anxiously waiting to hear the story of your first official time, the one that was with someone who wasn’t him. He didn’t realize that you still considered him your first. He’d figured that part of your history had long been overwritten by whoever had been lucky enough to catch your eye and make your heart race in a romantic way.
The two of you had never talked about it in the after.
Not once, not ever.
He didn’t care that people knew, he just wasn’t expecting it.
Jake starts the group out of its stunned silence by slapping a heavy hand on top of the table, nearly sending some bottles to the floor, “I knew it! I knew y’all couldn’t have been friends all this time and not have tried it out at least once.”
“Jesus Christ, dude, chill,” Javy mutters. He’s always been the better of the two about reading the room.
Trying to spare you from being put on the spot even more than you already were now, Rooster mumbles through the way he’d lost his to a girl from his AP Econ class after a playoff baseball game.
He stares at the way you’re nervously picking at the label of the Blue Moon he’d grabbed for you when he went to get a refill of his own. He can practically hear the way your brain is buzzing. He wonders if you wish you could take back the words from where they are sitting on the table with the collection of bottles and peanut shells for everyone to see.
Bob being the team player that he is starts talking about how he’d lost his one summer in college to another camp counselor, going into more detail than he’s ever given before, probably trying to redirect the attention to himself to give the two of you a moment to regroup.
Rooster makes a mental note to tell Penny to put all of Bob’s cream sodas from now on on his own tab.
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do here. Or where to look. Or where to put his hands. He wants to talk to you, but there’s no good way for him to go about it without drawing even more attention to the two of you.
You were supposed to be going on a first date tonight, but he’d talked you into canceling to hang out with him instead. He likes having all of your attention on him. And maybe he’s been a little selfish with you, because he doesn’t like to share you with anyone else. You’ve always been his best friend.
Rooster likes that he gets to talk to you whenever he wants now, and that it doesn’t feel like a never-ending game of catch up anymore. In the year since the Uranium mission, he’d felt like all the fragmented pieces of his life had finally come together. He’d reconnected with Mav, he was living in the same city as his best friend, and he had a place he could finally call home.
He didn’t just want the highlights with you, he wanted everything in between too. There’s no more distance due to time zones and scheduling times to call because now you only live 20 minutes away from him. And the next time he comes home from a deployment, he knows he’ll get to look forward to seeing you there waiting for him.
He feels like he’s learned so much more about the grown-up version of you over the last year than he has in the last ten.
Jake jumps in barely a breath after Bob finishes telling his story. “Well, we all know it’s not the first who matters, but who was the best.” Rooster doesn’t trust the gleam in his eyes or the sharp smile on his face. “Since Bradshaw cut you off before, how’s about you go first this time, darlin’. You can tell us about who knocked your socks off. Maybe this time he’ll let you finish, if you know what I mean.”
It’s thinly veiled snooping disguised as chivalry, and it doesn’t fool anyone. Nat’s eyes dart to him briefly, trying to get a read on him.
He’d been 21 at the time. And while he knows more now that he did then, he also knows his name isn’t going to be coming out of your mouth for a second time tonight.
Rooster takes a sip of his beer, needing something to do.
He knows you’ve been with other people. You’d lived with your ex for over a couple years, for fuck's sake. But it was like an unspoken agreement between the two of you to not talk about your sex lives with each other.
His leg starts bouncing again and he realizes he really doesn’t want to hear this. Not because of his ego, but because he doesn’t know what to do about the knot that’s formed in his stomach.
Your mouth opens and closes a couple times before you speak, “That title would also go to Rooster.” The admission is soft, but sure.
Where his heart had been pounding before, now it feels like it had stopped completely.
It’s been 13 years since that Spring Break. 13 years and he’s still your best?
Barely five minutes ago, he hadn’t known where to look. But now? Now he couldn’t stop staring at you.
He just didn’t understand why you still wouldn’t look at him back.
𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊, 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎
When you’d floated the idea by Bradley about visiting him at UVA for Spring Break during your weekly phone call, you’d been braced for the disappointment of him already having plans. It was his Senior year, it wouldn’t surprise you if he wanted to go out with a bang and make the most of it. Especially since he would belong to the Navy soon enough.
But he’d taken you by surprise when he started enthusiastically listing off all the places he wanted to show you, planning out your trip like a well-seasoned travel agent before you’d even booked a plane ticket.
You’d started looking up airfare before you’d even hung up the phone. And thirty minutes later you had a confirmation email flagged in your inbox after elatedly charging that aisle seat to the credit card you only used for emergencies.
It had been close to a year since you’d last seen him. He usually spent his Winter Break with your family, but this year he’d stayed on campus for the holidays and it was the longest the two of you had ever been apart since you’d first met him when you were 8.
And maybe that’s why it took you so long to spot him in the Arrivals area of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport.
You’ve always prided yourself in being able to pick Bradley out of a crowd anywhere, but in your cursory glance you hadn’t recognized the tall, broad guy with the UVA shirt pulled taut across his chest and wearing a baseball hat backward on his head. It wasn’t until your third searching pass that you’d caught the lips that were quirked up in amusement and those familiar brown eyes trained on you as he leaned ever-so-casually against the faux wood paneling on the wall waiting for you to notice him.
He’d filled out in the months since you’d last seen him. He was more toned than you remembered him being with definition in places where there hadn’t been before. His face had more distinct angles and less baby fat cushioned curves. Still a bit boyish, but he was well on his way to looking like a man.
Bradley raised his hand like he was going to wave, but then he’d mimicked casting a fishing line in your direction and reeling it in. And it was so endearingly stupid- so him- that you couldn’t help but take the bait and made your way towards him with the biggest grin on your face.
You’d ignored the jittery flutter in your stomach as you’d weaved between people and luggage. You’ve never been nervous around your best friend before. There was something that had on your mind a lot as the days to your visit inched closer, but you’d shoved that out of your mind, because you were finally standing in front of him in person for the first time in months.
“Hey, kid,” he’d greeted you, taking your bag, “Charlottesville must have known you were coming, because she’s going to be sunny for you all week.” As soon as you were within arm’s reach, he tugged you right into his chest for a hug. You could feel the unspoken I missed you in the way he squeezed you just that bit tighter before releasing you.
Then he was dropping an arm over your shoulders and steering you towards the exit and driving you into town in the beat-up car he’d bought after selling his prized Montero, the car that Mav had given him for his birthday.
You’re only there for a week and Bradley doesn’t waste a single moment of it.
After dropping your things off in his dorm room, he takes you straight to campus where he gives you the Official Bradley Bradshaw Certified UVA Tour. He buys you lunch from one of the food trucks in the Amphitheater “for sustenance” before taking you to see the highlights. You start with the Rotunda and then the academic village, making a special pitstop at the Whispering Wall for you to tell it a secret. And then he takes you on a more historical tour, like showing you the exact route he used to streak The Lawn and pointing out the place he’d puked after his 21st birthday.
It’s clear he’d put so much thought into your visit because it seems like there is never a down moment. By the end of the third day you’re more surprised that you don't wake up every morning with a printed itinerary on your pillow.
He sneaks you into the Slaughter Rec Center to rock climb, claiming he had a person on the inside with the right connections. But really from what you could tell, the pretty girl at the check-in counter clearly had a crush on him. He takes you to the batting cages he likes to go to before Dead Week, and spends the time there equal parts making fun of your power swing and trying to fix it.
You get your revenge the next day standing outside of the imposing columns and massive doors to the Fralin Art Museum. Skeptically eyeing the sculpture in the front of the building that kind of looked like a giant wisdom tooth, you mentioned, “I didn’t realize you’d become such a patron of the cultural arts.”
“Hey now, I like artsy shit,” he’d said, only mildly affronted.
You snorted at that. “Is there an exhibit on beer pong and blunt rolling you wanted to see?” Through the window you’d spotted some large landscape oil paintings in ornate gilded frames and carved marble busts of what you assumed were probably of some of the Founding Fathers.
“You just missed that one, it was last month,” Bradley lobbed back, opening the door for you.
“What a pity,” you’d said with a dramatic sigh, “Guess we’ll have to settle for some tasteful nudes instead.”
“If we’re lucky,” he’d muttered under his breath, as you passed under his arm.
And then you’d felt the corners of your mouth kick up.
Turning around you’d pressed your finger to his chest, whispering so the person behind the ticket desk didn’t hear you, “Twenty bucks says you don’t make it thirty minutes in there.”
He narrowed his eyes, taking in your sly grin, “You’re on, kid.”
It’s the easiest $20 you’ve ever made.
The two of you call it a truce only after he tips your kayak into the still chilly Rivanna River.
Later that night, he takes you to a party on “Mad Bowl” that one of his frat friends was hosting. The backyard was all strung up with red and green Christmas lights like they had been too lazy to take them down after the holidays and decided it added to the outdoor ambiance instead of packing them away.
He was still just as protective over you as he was back in high school. Spending the whole night keeping an eye on you and handing you drinks that he’d uncapped himself using the opener that he had on his keychain, the one that still had the little fighter jet charm you’d given him ages ago dangling from it.
The days pass all too quickly as he shows you all of his favorite spots.
You knew UVA wasn’t where he’d originally wanted to be- where he thought he’d be- but you were happy that he seemed happy here.
But in between the late-night microwave ramen and movie watching and crossing off all the things on Bradley’s Spring Break To-Do List, there’d been something you’d been wanting to talk to him about. But you were having so much fun with him, you’d missed your best friend over those long months apart, and you didn’t want to ruin the time you had left with him here.
It lingered at the back of your mind like a phantom hair that you can feel, but can’t ever seem to brush off no matter how many times you attempt to. You felt like you were waiting for the right time that you weren’t sure would ever come. And if you were being honest, you weren’t entirely sure you would even be brave enough to ask if the time came.
The two of you had woken up way before the sun this morning.
If anyone other than Bradley had asked you to wake up before 5 AM to go hike to watch the sunrise, you would have laughed at them. But because it was Bradley, you’d set the alarm without comment. Even though he did have to gently pry you out of his roommate’s bed- with the fresh sheets he told you he bought especially for your visit- and lace up your shoes for you.
The views at Humpback Rock had been worth the hour hike up to the outcrop of craggy rocks. The sunrise painted them a stunning shade of soft orange as the rays illuminated evergreen covered hills and valleys that extended in front of you to the skyline. You and Bradley watched it in silence, shoulders pressed against each other as you took it all in.
You’re cozied up on your bed for the week, flipping through a book you’d brought with you, but hadn’t touched at all until now when Bradley comes back from the showers. His hair is still damp and the ends are starting to curl a bit.
He drops a Styrofoam cup of coffee on the nightstand next to you.
You hadn’t been sure what rooming with him would be like, the two of you together 24/7 since his roommate had left to go home for the break. But it felt like you were two kids at sleepaway camp getting away with mischief rather than two broke college students only pretending to get away with mischief.
He sits down at the edge of his bed, his elbows resting on his thighs, “So.”
“So?” you repeat, blowing on the hot coffee before taking a sip.
“Are you going to tell me what’s been up with you?”
You wince, and it’s not because the coffee tastes like tar.
“What do you mean?” you try to ask casually.
Bradley gives you a look that says you don’t fool me, kid. “You’ve been squirrely. I didn’t want to press it, but I can tell there’s something on your mind.” He takes a sip of his own milky battery acid. “Are classes going better since you switched majors?”
You nod, looking anywhere else other than at him.
“How are things with your Dad?”
You offer him a shrug.
He sighs your name in exasperation. You can tell he is trying to tamper his frustration at your lack of cooperation.
“Is it a guy?” Bradley tries again.
You swear you feel your heart stop, because you knew what you wanted to ask him, but you didn’t know how he was going to take it.
You fiddle with a string on his roommate’s comforter. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” you admit, tentatively, “But I’m nervous.”
Bradley’s eyebrows pull together as he sets his coffee aside, “C’mon, it’s just me. You can talk to me about anything.”
“It’s more of a question.” One you’re still deflecting from asking.
“Ok, well you know you can ask me anything.” His tiny dorm room feels even smaller as the two of you try to read the other’s face.
Taking a deep breath, you ask the question that’s been rattling around in your brain for weeks.
“Bradley, I was wondering if you’d be my first?”
Less than ten words. That’s all it takes to tilt Bradley’s world off its axis.
He’s loved getting to show you around UVA this week. It wasn’t where he thought he’d end up, but he hadn’t lost sight of where he was going. He was going to be a Naval Aviator one way or another. He just also got to have a normal college experience too, one he’d been excited to share with you.
Bradley had originally been invited to go stay with one of his friends at his family’s beach house, but when you called and asked about coming to visit Charlottesville, it was an easy choice for him. He’d pick you every time.
It had been even better getting to cross off some of the things on the bucket list he’d made for his Senior Year with you in tow, like the hike he’d taken you on this morning.
He loves the views from up there and thought it would be something you’d like too, but he’d never done the hike early enough to catch the sunrise before. It was actually something he was planning on going the morning of graduation as a symbolic way to end his time at UVA, but getting to do it with you was special in its own way.
And while he’d caught you lost in thought more than a few times over the last few days as he showed you around, he never in a million years would have ever expected you to ask him that.
Bradley knows all the words you just used, but they don’t make sense to him in that order.
His brain is working in overdrive trying to figure out if there is any possible way he could have misinterpreted you.
“Your first…”
You take another deep breath and tip your chin up in resolve before looking him dead in the eye, there’s so much vulnerability reflected in them, “I haven’t had sex before, Bradley. And I’m really hoping that my first time can be with you.”
Bradley wants to tell you to put your Styrofoam cup down because he’s worried the tight grip you have on it might crush it, but he feels like the wind has been knocked out of him.
He didn’t realize when his leg started bouncing until he sees you glance down at it.
Shooting to his feet and off his bed, he goes to lean against his recently decluttered desk. There’s too much restless energy coursing through him to just sit like he isn’t completely reeling.
“Shouldn’t you want to do this with someone special? Like with rose petals and all that shit?” He scrubs a hand over his face. Rose petals and all that shit? God, he sounds like such a fucking dumbass, but he’s struggling to keep up.
And if he’s being entirely honest, he’s pretty surprised to learn you’re still a virgin. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but he knows you’ve had at least one serious boyfriend since you’ve gone to college. He figured that you got asked out all the time. He saw the way that some of the guys in his buddy’s frat were looking at the pretty girl with the dimples and big smile.
The girl who just asked him to be her first.
He hates the way your shoulders have slumped forward, like you’re trying not to cave in on yourself, “So, you don’t want to?”
“I didn’t say that.” His answer takes him by surprise.
The only other sound in the room other than his pounding heart is the whir of the air circulating in his dorm.
“Would it help to make a pro con list?” you offer, less than helpfully with a little shrug.
“Jesus Christ,” Bradley mutters under his breath, looking up at the speckled ceiling trying to decode the flecks like tea leaves. “She’s cracking jokes like she didn’t ask me to make her come.”
“Technically, I didn’t say anything about that. I just asked you to be my first.”
“I’m not taking your virginity and not giving you an orgasm,” he states, and your eyes get wide. He runs his hands through his hair. “Sex makes things complicated, kid. We’ve got a good friendship.”
You sit up straighter on his roommate’s bed and bring your knees to your chest. It exposes the backs of your thighs and he has to shake the mental images of skin on skin out of his head.
There’s a look on your face that tells him you feel ridiculous even asking him, “Do you think you’re going to fall in love with me or something?”
“No,” Bradley says, honestly.
He knows you’re just trying to make a point.
The two of you have been friends for over a decade. He knows he cares about you- he always has- but he couldn’t imagine what anything other than just friendship would look like with you.
You nod in agreement, like you had been anticipating the answer before you’d even asked him the question.
“And do you think I’m going to fall in love with you?” you ask, your head tilting to the side.
He doesn’t even blink, “You can do better than me.”
And he means it.
Even if there was something more between the two of you, you’ve always been too good for him. And knowing him, he’d find a way to fuck it up. You’re the last person in the world he’d ever want to hurt. He’d let you down before, he doesn’t want to do it ever again.
You shoot him a disappointed look, like you don’t like hearing him say that about himself. And he’s oddly touched that you’re defending him against himself.
“You’d literally be doing me a favor.”
Bradley is still surprised that he hasn’t ended this conversation yet. The two of you were supposed to go to the movies, but that definitely wasn’t happening now.
“I’m not saying no,” he says, “But I need you to help me understand. Why me? Why now?”
“Bradley, I want it to be with you because there’s no one else I’ll ever feel as comfortable with as I do with you,” you explain.
He watches as you unfold yourself and climb off the bed, coming to stand in front of him. You gingerly reach out and put your hand on his forearm, like you don’t want to startle him. Not that he’d be able to move anyways since it feels like the soles of his feet are cemented to the floor.
“I keep waiting for it to not feel like such a big thing, but every time it seems like it’s going to happen, I freeze. And I know you’d take care of me, and I’m not talking about orgasms.” You stumble over the word a bit, not fully meeting his eyes as you say it. “It’s scary enough as a girl and I’m worried I’m going to be too in my head with anyone else. But I also don’t want to look back and have any regrets, and I know I wouldn’t have any with you.”
The mention of regrets makes his stomach twinge. His heart feels like it’s hammering in his chest. He doesn’t know what to say.
You are looking at him with such open sincerity. He has never been good with talking about his feelings, he’s always been the type to bottle things up, while you have always worn your heart on your sleeve. It was just another way that you were braver than him.
“I know it’s a lot,” you say, letting go of him to take a step back, like you want to give him breathing room, “So if it’s too big of an ask. Or if it’s not something you’re comfortable with-”
Bradley shakes his head cutting you off, “It’s not that at all, kid. I just haven’t done this before.” Your eyebrow scrunches together in confusion. “I mean, I have,” he corrects, “But it’s not the same. All the girls I’ve been with had already had experience. And if we were going to do this, I would want to make sure it’s as nice for you as it can be.”
“So you’d be my first and I’d be yours? Well, kind of.” You give him a little smile, it’s a shy but hopeful thing. There’s only a hint of your dimples, but it’s enough. And he feels that practical part of him that had been holding back soften at the sight of it.
He doesn’t think he’s ever said no to you, excluding the times you tried to get him to give you his beer at the house parties he took you to in high school, and that was more out of self-preservation from a healthy fear of your mom than anything else.
When you wanted to learn how to drive a stick shift? He took you to the abandoned parking lot, it didn’t matter that you didn’t have your learner’s permit yet. When you wanted to learn how to throw a punch? He was making sure you knew not to tuck your thumb under your fingers, so that you didn’t break your own thumb instead of someone’s nose.
He’s always had your back and you’ve had his. That’s how it was between the two of you.
You’ve already said it, but he needs to hear it again, “You really want to do it?”
“I really want it to be you, Bradley. I really want to do this with you. I trust you the most.”
He’s always been willing to help you with anything you’ve ever asked of him, why should this be any different? What’s a couple orgasms between friends?
“Ok,” Bradley nods. If it’s to reassure you or himself, he couldn’t say. “I’ll do it. We can do it.”
Your eyebrows raise in surprise, like you were fully prepared for him to let you down gently, “Really?”
You didn’t ask for his why he was agreeing, but he was going to give it to you anyway.
“I don’t think I’ve told you this, but I lost mine to Samantha Prescod after the game against Centennial that got us a spot at State that year,” he waits until he sees the recognition cross your face before continuing, “But I had also just learned about my mom’s diagnosis and I was trying to find anything I could do to not think about it.” He rubs at a spot underneath his collarbone, it never got any easier talking about his mom. “I think she assumed that I’d done it before, because we didn’t really talk about it. She was there and into it, so it just sort of happened. Actually, I’m pretty sure she only slept with me because she wanted to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, because they got back together like three days later.”
It’s probably for the best that Samantha Prescod lives on the other side of the country now because you look livid. Your eyes spark with anger and disbelief on his behalf.
“It was years ago, it’s fine, kid” he shrugs, trying to brush off your concern. “But if I had a do-over, I don’t know if I’d make the same choice again. And that’s not something I’d ever want for you.” You deserve the rose petals, but he’ll do his best for you. “So we can do it, but I have one condition.”
The relief on your face and the way the tension in your shoulder releases only solidifies his decision.
“Tell me,” you say, taking a half-step towards him, “I want you to be comfortable too.”
Bradley pushes off his desk and meets you the rest of the way, “If you even think you’re feeling uncomfortable- about any of it- I need you to tell me. And we’ll stop and figure out where to go from there. If it’s a change of position, if it’s a full stop and order pizza instead, we’ll do that.” He pauses and reaches out to tip your chin up. “I’ll do whatever you need, got it?”
You throw your arms around him, and his wrap around you just as easily. Your hair smells like the travel sized shampoo he’d picked up for you, figuring you wouldn’t want to use his 2-in-1. You murmur your thank you into his shirt followed by a fuck Samantha Prescod that makes him squeeze you just a bit tighter to him in affection.
When you step back and look at him, your lips twitch upwards, “What’s with the look, Bradshaw? Don’t tell me you’re going to lie back and think of England?”
That makes him chuckle, your joke lightening the mood in only the way that you can do. He rolls his eyes in equal parts exasperation and fondness.
“God, I haven’t been this nervous since I lost my own virginity. I was so stressed I was going to blow my load in two pumps and lose my street cred.”
You snort and send him a smirk, “Well, you must have done just fine. I overheard some glowing reviews in the girl’s bathroom on more than one occasion.”
“I maybe lasted ten trusts, but I had the good sense to eat her out after,” he admits, and then tacks on for good measure, “I’ve gotten better since then.”
“What a stud,” you tease.
This is easier, this feels like the two of you. This should be fun, it shouldn’t feel serious. He can make it good for you.
You look up at him shyly from under your lashes, “So how do we do this?”
He feels like he only just wrapped his head around the idea of it, but now he was facing the very real possibility of seeing you very naked very soon.
“You want to do it now?” Bradley blinks.
“I mean, if you’re up for it.” You scrunch your nose when you realize you’ve made a terrible double entendre. “No pun intended, I promise.”
He wipes his hands on his pants.
“You sure?” he asks again.
“I’m sure, Bradley. As long as you are too.”
He nods, “Then I guess we just…”
He’s not sure where he was going to go with that. But he’s spared from being roasted by you for making some sure to be lame birthday suit joke because you’re untying the bow on the soft lounge shorts you’d thrown on after your shower from the hike, and all the words get trapped in his throat.
You don’t look at Bradley as you slide your shorts down your legs. And you definitely don’t look at him when you pull your shirt over your head, leaving you in only a soft green mesh bra and your cotton underwear. They’re mismatched, but sex with Bradley wasn’t originally on the Spring Break To-Do List agenda for today.
In fact, you hadn’t even been sure you were going to go through with asking him until he brought up the point that he knew you had something on your mind because you apparently had no poker face.
While it felt like you had a swarm of butterflies whirling in your stomach, you also knew wholeheartedly that this was the right choice for you. Everything he had said had solidified that for you.
You weren’t sure how you were ever going to thank him for this, but you had a lifetime of friendship with Bradley to figure it out.
His room cast in the soft afternoon light, the blinds only partly closed. There are little streaks of gold that line the plaid comforter on his bed. He’d been right, Charlottesville had stayed sunny just for you.
As you climb into it and situate yourself against his pillows, you can help but notice just how much his bed smells like him. It’s not the spicy scent you associated with the High School version of him. The woodsy and warm scent embedded in the threads of his sheets suits this grown up version of him.
You feel equal parts overdressed and underdressed in your bra and underwear. You know the latter are going to come off eventually, so you make a split-second decision to just take them off yourself under his covers. The idea of Bradley helping you to pull them off later seems like it would be too intimate based on the way the thought of it makes your cheeks heat up.
It’s practical, you’re being practical, you think to yourself.
You chance a peek at him and are surprised to see that he hasn’t budged an inch. It’s almost like he is waiting for you to get completely settled before he dares to move a muscle. His eyes are trained on the pile of your clothes on the floor, he looks lost in thought.
“Bradley?”
The sound of your voice seems to kickstart him into action.
He shucks off his shirt in that kind of reckless way that seems to be ingrained in boys and then unbuttons his pants. You’re torn between feeling like you should give him privacy and wanting to watch. What you were expecting is the way he takes the time to pick his clothes up before folding them over the back of the chair at his desk.
Your mouth goes dry as you take in the sight of his body, the diffused light perfectly outlines the shape of him. His broad shoulders are rounded with the muscles he’s gained from whatever exercises the NROTC has been putting him through. Your eyes dip down to his defined chest and over the ridges of his abs. You’ve seen him in swim trunks plenty of times, but seeing the way the muscles of his thick thighs fill out the black boxer briefs he was wearing was entirely new to you.
Bradley approaches you and then pauses as he bends down to collect your pile of clothes on the floor, his hand hesitating only for a second when he reaches for your underwear. He drapes all of your things on top of his on the chair and makes his way back to you.
The gesture makes you melt a little like a soft serve ice cream cone on a summer afternoon.
You lift the corner of the cover for Bradley and he climbs in next to you. You move closer to the wall, trying to make more room for the bulk of him in his small bed, and he shifts in even closer into you until your bodies pressed tight against one another. The curves and angles of the two of you slotting together like pieces of a puzzle.
It feels like the two of you are teetering there on the edge of something. You both know exactly where it’s going, but are unsure of how to make it from Point A to Point B. Both waiting on the other person to make the first move.
He rests his warm hand on your stomach, the muscles there jumping on their own under his touch in anticipation. Your faces are close since you’re sharing his pillow. His brown eyes are searching yours, probably looking for any sign of hesitation that you don’t feel.
“Tell me how you’re feeling.” It’s not a question, but a request.
“Overwhelmed,” you admit, “But in a good way.” He runs his palm lightly up your stomach and back down, soothingly.
“Good, that’s good,” Bradley says, clearing his throat, “You’re supposed to feel a little ‘overwhelmed, but in a good way.’” You feel your lips pull up at his gentle teasing.
He smiles softly at you. His face has always been so familiar to you. The pink from his scars have finally faded, but you wonder when his eyes start crinkling around the corners.
You let go of the comforter to run a finger down the top of his nose, “I don’t know how this has stayed so straight.” He’d been in more than a couple fights in his teen years, including one that had sent him through a sliding glass door.
“Probably the combination of a little luck and the fact that none of those guys could throw a punch,” Bradley smirks. He shifts on his side, propping himself up on an elbow looking down at you, still running his hand along your stomach. “What have you done so far?”
His fingertips circle your bellybutton and your stomach swoops like it’s on the swing carousel ride at the fair.
“Some over the clothes stuff…” you stammer. You’re having trouble focusing because all your attention is on his big hand and how it feels against your oversensitive skin. “And I have a vibrator, but ah…”
You’re so keenly aware of his hand. With every lazy circle he makes, he has you wondering if this is going to be the one where he finally moves his hand lower. That part of you in flutters in expectation because you know it’s coming.
You let out a shaky huff when his fingers trails back up your stomach.
“What is it?” Bradley’s hand stops moving. “What are you thinking?”
“Honestly?” you say, trying not to squirm, “I’m getting really horny and you keep teasing me.”
He presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh at your overshare, and there’s amusement in his eyes.
“You know, some people call it foreplay,” he drawls. You’d roll your eyes but his fingertips are by your bellybutton again and you want him to keep going. “You ready for more?” You nod a few times because if he doesn’t touch you soon you might just crawl out of your skin. “Ok, gonna stop ‘teasing’ you now.”
This time his hand doesn’t stop at your bellybutton, it keeps moving down, down.
You stutter over a breath when Bradley’s fingers touch your clit. You feel yourself melt a little further into his mattress. He’s making easy circles, letting you get used to someone’s fingers other than your own on the most sensitive part of you. Your hands are clutching tightly to his comforter, unsure of what else to do with them.
“Spread your legs a little wider for me,” he murmurs. You feel your face heat up. He’d just given you a direction, but it sounds almost indecent coming out of his mouth.
You shift, moving your legs apart further for him, until he secures your left between his own, opening you up even more. You know you’re wet and now he does too. Bradley’s fingers slide easily over you as he increases the pressure on your clit. You can feel the intensity of his gaze on you watching for your reaction as he figures out what you like the most.
It doesn’t take him long to learn your body. You don’t know whether to be impressed with him or embarrassed with yourself at how quickly he’s worked you up.
Your breathing feels so loud in your ears in the quiet room, every breath and sigh is amplified. There’s a certain thrill in not knowing how he’s going to touch you next, your own fingers pale in comparison now.
His warm breath coasts down the side of your neck causing you to shiver at the sensation. It makes goosebumps break out along your arms and your nipples pull taut.
He notices. Of course he notices.
“Are you cold?” His voice is low in your ear.
“No, I-” Oh god, you’re right there. “B-bradley, I’m-” You’ve made yourself orgasm plenty of times, but you’ve never shared that part of yourself with anyone else before. No one knows what you sound like or what you look like when you come. But now, Bradley was going to have the piece of you too. A whine escapes you without your permission.
“It’s ok, kid, I’ve got you.”
You’re seeking and searching, but it’s Bradley’s fingers that have the answer.
And you come with your stomach twitching and hips jerking as he murmurs praise in your ear.
His fingers slow down, featherlight on your clit, but your heart is still racing when he rasps, “There’s one, you up for another?”
Bradley loves that moment during sex when he hears that first gasp or moan. He loves learning what sounds of satisfaction he can pull from his partner. He loves knowing he earned it. But he never in his life could have ever anticipated hearing those sounds from you.
In his bed. Because of him.
He didn’t expect the lick of heat that curled up his spine at the shape of your legs and the curve of your ass as you were stepping out of your shorts. He’d never seen anything so strangely endearing as it was watching you shimmy your underwear off under the shield of his covers.
Every hitch in your breath made his blood run hotter in his veins. He was trying to control his cock, but he’d started getting hard the second you’d pulled your shirt off. Your bra was some kind of sheer thing that left nothing to the imagination, and while he wasn’t trying to check you out- because that’s not how it was between the two of you- he couldn’t help the way his eyes flickered down.
You’re slippery, wet, and warm. And he knows he can make you come again.
“Do you want me to use my fingers now?”
You crack an eye open at him, it’s the first time you’ve opened your eyes since he first touched you. Your eyes are bright in that way that only comes with an orgasm. “I thought you already were.”
“Such a smartass,” he grins.
Bradley changes the unhurried circles he’d been making on your clit to the upstroke that made your hips jerk up into his hand the first time he’d tried it. The little noises you’re making have him fighting the urge to grind himself against you for some relief of his own. He’s still got your knee tucked between his own; where there had been a hint of polite space between your bodies, the way you’re writhing now has him pressed up against your hip.
You gasp, breathily, “Oh, you’re hard.” The disbelief is evident in your voice, but it’s the look in your eyes that he doesn’t know what to make of, something like surprise.
He’s been trying to be a gentleman, this is about you and not him. There might not be anything romantic happening between the two of you, but this was hot and he was more than a little turned on. And he knows you are too because he can feel how wet you are under his fingers.
“’Course I am,” Bradley says, nudging his nose against your temple, “I’ve got a pretty girl in my bed half naked.” He didn’t want you to feel like you were in this on your own, so he lightly rocks against you. He wants you to feel him, he wants you to know he is into this too. “Are you ready more?”
“I’m ready, I want more,” you confirm, wrapping your hand around his bicep.
Your breath hitches as he teases you with just the tip of his finger.
He’s been told before he has big hands and thick fingers, he’s always taken it as a compliment in the past, but now he’s scanning your face for any trace of discomfort as he sinks one into you.
Your eyebrows twitch then smooth out and your mouth drops open as he starts pumping his finger into you in a smooth rhythm.
“That feels nice,” you sigh, airily.
He knows you like it when your hips tip up just a fraction. His comforter is bunched around your waist and your nipples are peaked against the see-through fabric of your bra. He gets his thumb on your clit and you whimper as you tentatively roll your hips against his fingers.
Bradley hums his approval, “Atta girl. There you go, find what feels good for you.” His voice sounds low even to his own ears, a throaty rumble. He feels you clench around his fingers and it sets his pulse racing. It’s a piece of information he tucks away for himself.
He’s gentle on your clit, but now that he knows you’re into it he’s setting a more purposeful pace with his fingers.
You’ve got your bottom lip pinned between your teeth, like you’re trying to swallow down your sounds. He didn’t realize how much he liked hearing these new sounds from you until you started trying to muffle them. On the next slide of his finger into you, he knows exactly what he’s looking for.
You suck in a sharp breath of surprise when he finds it.
“Is that the right spot, kid?” He sounds so smug. You curse and your hand clutches at his shoulder. “You want to try a second finger?” he murmurs into your ear.
“Yes,” you rock into his hand, “Yes, please.”
“Whatever you want, Miss Manners.” His chest feels like he’s taken a shot of Fireball. “You’re so polite when you’re trying to get your way.”
“I’m always polite,” you challenged weakly, pressing your head further into his pillow.
“Mhm,” he indulges, fondly, “You’re the sweetest girl I know.”
And then he fills you with two fingers.
“Jesus, Bradley,” you gasp, offering more of yourself to him.
Your nails dig into the muscle of his shoulder as he lets your whimpers and whines guide his hands.
The two of you have your eyes fixed on the way the tendons of the visible part of his forearm are flexing before it disappears under the covers as he works you.
Bradley curls his fingers into that spongy part of you and your hand flies to his wrist, gripping him tight. It makes him pause, worried that he might have pushed you too far too fast.
“No, no. D-don’t stop,” you plead, desperately, “I’m so close. Keep going, please.” You squeeze his wrist encouragingly.
“Sorry, sorry,” he soothes. He focuses his efforts on that spot again now that he knows you weren’t wanting him to slow down, but rather trying to hold him in place. His fingers inside of you and his thumb on your clit working in tandem to get you there again.
“I just- yes. Like that. Oh fuck. Keep doing that. Oh my god. Please, Bradley.”
He’s heard you say his name a lot of different ways, but never like this.
Your back arches and you twist yourself towards him, burying your face against him and keening into the hollow of his throat as you come around his fingers.
You jerk and writhe into his hand, your knee slips free of his and your thighs clamp together around him. Bradley rolls off the arm he’d been leaning on and brings it to cradle the back of your head, pulling you closer and holding you to him as he steadily works you through it until you’re loose-limbed in his arms.
He waits until your rapid pants have evened out before he slips his fingers from you. The displeased sound that you make makes the corners of his mouth twitch. He should have known you’d be bossy. He rubs gentle circles into the divots at the base of your neck as you come down.
Bradley can feel your lips graze the side of his neck when you finally speak, “So, um, let me know if you need a letter of recommendation or anything. I’d be happy to pass one along to your next partner.” You languidly prop yourself up on his chest and he notes with pride that you look a little flushed. “But, seriously, I get it now.”
He huffs a laugh as he toys with the end of your hair, “I’m glad it lived up to the hype. Well, at least that part of it.”
You press your lips together like you’re deciding something, tracing idle shapes on his stomach, and he can’t decide if he thinks you’re doing it without realizing it or if you’re the one doing the teasing this time. Your eyes flick down to his visibly hard cock and he feels his face heat up, “Can I?”
“Do you want to?” Bradley wants this experience to be everything you need and want it to be, but something about the tables turning here and the idea of you being the one to touch him like that makes his heart pound.
“I want to make you feel good too,” you softly tell him, resting your chin on your shoulder. The tender way you’re looking at him makes his teeth ache.
“Ok, but only for a little bit,” he agrees. Bradley knows he’s walking a tightrope with this, he’s aching and more than ready to be touched, but he doesn’t want to come all over your hand.
He plants his feet into his mattress and lifts his hips enough to pull off his boxer briefs, sighing in relief as his cock bobs free.
“That can’t be average,” you mutter under your breath.
He doesn’t know if you meant to have said it out loud but he smirks all the same, “I’ve never been average a day in my life, kid, Grade A student here.”
A groan slips out of him as your tentative fingers grasp his cock. There’s a lack of finesse in the way you touch him, your hand isn’t nearly as well-practiced as his own. He wraps his hand over yours, guiding your strokes as he shows you just what he likes.
“You can grip it a little firmer,” he coaches. You nod studiously, like you’re going to be tested on it later. Together the two of you work him from root to tip.
Bradley had never given much thought to his size until now. He knew he was big, but seeing that your thumb couldn’t reach the tips of your fingers when your hand was curved around him was an ego boost he didn’t know he needed.
You get more confident with every glide up and down the length of him. Your tricky thumb sweeps over the tip, collecting what precum had gathered there, and it makes your hand slide easier over him. When he accidentally thrusts into your hand, you grin and there are those dimples again.
“Ok, ok,” he blows out a shaky breath, stilling your hand with his. “We gotta stop or I’m going to come. And I’m not about to be a one pump chump.”
“It sounded like you’re more of a ten pump chump, if I remember correctly,” you tease, looking all too pleased with yourself. “Don’t worry, Bradshaw, your street cred is safe with me.”
He shakes his head in amused disbelief, “You’re such a goddamn menace. I knew I shouldn’t have told you that part.” He surprises the both of you when he wraps an arm around you and rolls to pin you under him.
And it’s like all the air is sucked out of the room because your thighs are cradling his hips and his cock is resting heavy on your stomach.
Neither one of you dare to move. He’d give anything to know what you’re thinking right now, he feels out of his depth as he watches you watching him.
His tongue feels thick in his mouth, “Are you on-”
You nod before he even finishes the question.
“Do you have-”
He nods before you finish yours.
“What did you promise me?” he prompts, squeezing the dip of your waist.
You hold up your pinky to him, “I’ll tell you.” He wraps his own crooked one around yours and gives it a shake.
Bradley doesn’t know what comes over him, but he drops a kiss to your shoulder as he reaches over you into the drawer of his nightstand to fish out what he needs. He’s thankful when you don’t comment on it because he wouldn’t even know how to explain it.
He leans back on his knees and rolls the condom on with practiced ease, then flicks open the cap to the bottle of lube he’s also grabbed and drizzles it over his cock.
“Am I not…” you trail off. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard you sound this shy with him before.
“You’re plenty wet,” he assures you, pumping himself- once, twice- just enough to coat himself, “But this’ll be good too. I think you’ll like it.”
Bradley settles back over you, one arm braced by your head and the other on your hip, as your hands come up to rest lightly on either side of his ribcage. He rocks against you to demonstrate; the head of his cock nudges your clit with each silky pass. You exhale heavily at the sensation as he eases you into the motion of it, as he shows you what it’s like with another person.
You’re holding him close, and in just a moment the two of you will be the closest two people can be.
He makes only enough room to reach down between your bodies, only looks away from your face long enough to line himself up with you. There is such trust in your eyes as you gaze up at him, it’s not something Bradley takes for granted.
You nod, your fingers stroking his sides.
God, does he want this to be good for you.
He takes a breath.
And then he’s shifting forward and pressing in.
Bradley thrusts into you with all the careful gentleness you’d expect from him.
His thumb skimming along your forehead as he pushes in, in, in.
When he found that spot inside of you with his fingers, you thought you were going to fly away from the intensity of it, but then he’d pulled you into the safety of his arms and you felt like you could fall apart because he’d be keeping the pieces of you together.
He’s been so good to you. He is so good to you. He’s the best person you know.
The more of him he gives you, the less you feel like you can catch your breath.
You feel hot, hot all over. And much fuller than you’ve ever been.
Some sound must make its way out of you because Bradley offers you a low soothing noise before you feel his lightly chapped lips against your temple.
There’s something about this that reminds you of the time he tried to teach you how to skateboard. Always waited until you told him you were ready, until you found your balance. He’d held your hand as you cautiously rolled along the sidewalk, you were less worried about falling with him by your side. Only this time, his hand is on your waist and the only movements are his hips against yours as he rocks into you.
Little by little. Inch by inch.
You clutch at his biceps at the slight stinging sensation and you feel him hesitate.
“It’s just a lot,” you whisper. His fingers flex on your waist.
“You’re doing so good, just a bit more,” Bradley murmurs, encouragingly.
There’s pressure, there’s a give, and then there’s relief when his hips finally, finally meet yours.
“Shit,” he curses under his breath.
Your eyes had flickered shut somewhere along the way. You open them to see that Bradley’s face and chest are flushed pink, the muscle of his jaw flexing. The furrow between his eyebrows is so deep that you release your grip on him to smooth out the lines with an unsteady fingertip.
He reads the question in your eyes.
“You’re just really tight,” he grits out, voice strained.
You assumed that was a good thing, but he’s holding himself so tense above you that now you’re not sure. “Do I-,” you fumble over the words, “Does this feel good for you?”
He huffs an incredulous laugh, and brushes back some hair from off your face, “You feel really fucking good, sweet-”
Your whimper cuts him off when he pulls out a fraction and then pushes back in.
His brown eyes take you in as he does it again, more this time. Pulling out just a bit- just enough- and then filling you again. The discomfort fading more with each thrust as he guides his hips to yours until yours are tilting up to meet his seeking more.
It’s a conversation between your bodies, the give and the take of it all as Bradley introduces you to this new unspoken language. You feel yourself flutter around his cock, stretched wider than you’ve ever been.
You feel that heat spreading underneath your skin again as he surely and steadily pumps into you. It feels like your nerves are on fire. You didn’t expect to even come once and you’re well on your way to a third.
He reaches down and hooks your leg over his hip. His hand slides up along the outside of your thigh and under your ass, tilting your hips up towards his even more. He’s so much deeper like this. Your hands slide into his hair, tugging at his curls.
“Bradley, I-I think… I feel-”
“You’re gonna come,” he rasps, nodding at you. Encouraging, coaxing.
He grinds his pelvis against your clit with every deliciously slow roll into you.
Your mouth drops open at the feel of it, it’s better than anything you’ve ever imagined. You don’t think your faces have ever been closer than they are now. Bradley is breathing your air, and you’re breathing his. Bradley’s pupils are blown wide, his heavy-lidded eyes are locked on yours. You didn’t know there could be so many shades of brown. His curls are a mess and it’s all because of you. He licks his lips and your breath catches in your throat when his eyes dart down to your parted mouth.
His next thrust into you hits that spot inside of you just so right that it has you gasping.
It’s so good, it’s too good, it’s overwhelming.
You wrap your arms around his neck clinging to him, your face buried against him. Bradley drops his head to your shoulder, you feel his lips brush against your clavicle. Your head moves away on instinct, making more room for him if he wants to do it again.
You get lost in the feeling of his cock hitting you in all the places you’ve heard about and read about, but have never felt for yourself until now. He’s still got your ass gripped in his hand, whereas your hands can’t stay in one spot. They’re tangled in his hair, running over his shoulders and down his abs, gliding over his back aided by the sheen of sweat he’s worked up.
You’re not trying to hold yourself back, but it feels like you’re standing on the tallest diving board at the pool, your toes curled around the edge, but still too nervous about the drop to jump.
“C’mon, kid. You’re right there,” he breathes hard, “I need you to come for me. Just one more.”
He gets his fingers back on your clit and it’s the end of you. Your back is arching so much you think you might snap. Your toes curl so tights they may never unfurl. The force your orgasm overtakes you, demanding everything you have up to offer and then some.
You hear Bradley’s moan as you pulse around his cock, trembling under him as the waves of pleasure wash over you. His hips stutter against yours, finally losing that steady rhythm he’d set, you pull him tighter to you and it’s not long until he comes too.
It’s all white noise. All you can feel is your heartbeat pounding, until little pieces of the world come back into focus.
The hum of the fan.
The beam of warm afternoon light through the blinds.
The smell of the now cold coffee on his nightstand.
In the after, you’re all too aware of every place your body is touching Bradley’s.
He’d somehow managed to roll on his back and had taken you with him. He was literally just inside of you, but yet it feels like your leg draped over his thigh is somehow more intimate. A prickly self-conscious feeling settles over you. Unsure of what the rules were for friends who just had sex, you attempt to peel yourself off of him, but the heavy arm over your waist keeps you in place.
“Come back here, kid,” Bradley mumbles, his eyes still closed, “I need to cuddle after I come, so I’m gonna need you to indulge me here for a moment.” He strokes a soothing hand down your back. And while he says it’s for him, you know he’s still trying to take care of you.
He hums when you lay back down. You set a hand on his chest. He reaches for it with his free one and threads your fingers together. It makes you melt further into him.
You feel a little different. But mostly, you feel like a weight you didn’t know you’d been carrying had been lifted off of you.
Your first time was everything you hoped it would be. You were safe and cared for, and you already knew, you’d never have any regrets about it. And it was all because of him.
“Thank you, Bradley,” you say, softly.
“Anything for you, kid.”
Your early morning catches up with you as you lay there, warm and secure. Your eyelids get heavier with each pass of Bradley’s hand along your spine. And you drift off to the sound of his heartbeat under your ear.
You’re still you. And Bradley is still Bradley.
It was just… something between friends.
A few hours later the two of you are still in his bed.
Only now you’re clothed and swapping the cartons of Chinese food that he’d ordered while you’d napped against his chest, and fighting over the fortune cookies watching some reruns of old sitcoms. You couldn’t hear their laugh tracks over your own.
The last couple of days you had at UVA fly by just as quickly.
You don’t know how, but the two of you managed to cross of all the things on his Spring Break To-Do List. And before you knew it you were back at the airport.
Bradley had insisted on walking you in, wanting to see you off.
Neither one of you has ever been good with goodbyes. So you don’t give him one, instead you reach for your bag and tell him, “Ok, see you in June.”
Bradley doesn’t let go, clearly confused, “What the hell are you talking about?”
You grin because it feels like a checkmate.
“You didn’t think you’d be getting that diploma all by yourself, did you?”
He looks thunderstruck.
You and your mom already had the plane tickets and hotel room booked. Your stepdad wouldn’t be able to come, but he was planning on sending your mom with one of the cakes from his family’s bakery. You’d been tasked with finding out what flavor, carrot cake or peanut butter- Bradley’s two favorites- but you could iron out the details with him later.
You’d had a busy week, plus it was more fun this way.
Bradley tugs you into his arms, yours wrap around him just as easily as they always have.
“June?” he asks into the crown of your head.
“June,” you promise.
And when he lets you go- for real this time- it’s with a smile that takes up his whole face.
He doesn’t say goodbye either, “Be good, kid. See you in June.”
𝐍𝐎𝐖
You avoid Rooster for the rest of the night.
And Jake too, for that matter. Bless Javy for finding ways to distract him because you could tell than man was chomping at the bit for more details. But you’d already given him more than enough.
You could have lied, you probably should have lied. It might have been easier than feeling like you’d hung up part of yourself on the drying line for everyone to see. But in that moment, the thought of lying and saying anyone else’s name other than Rooster’s had made your stomach turn.
Because it was the truth, he was your first, but he was also your best.
When you come out of the bathroom, there’s no missing Rooster. He’s leaning against the wall by the entrance. It takes him a moment to notice you since he looks lost in thought, but when he does you feel pinned to the wall by the intense look in his eyes.
He stands to his full height as you approach, you know he wants to talk about it.
You shake your head at him, “We don’t need to do this.”
“No, kid, we really do.” He takes you by the arm and leads you to a quieter spot away from everyone else.
“It was just a game,” you start before he can, “And now I know more about everyone’s sex life than I ever wanted to.” He crosses his arms over his chest at your attempt at deflection. “Look, I’m really sorry if that was something you wanted to keep a secret or just between us. I should have asked you first if that was ok to share.”
“I don’t care about that.” Rooster waves you off and takes a step closer to you, his eyes searching yours. “All this time and I’m the best you’ve ever had?”
“Are we really doing this? Here and now?”
You peer around him to look and see if anyone is watching the two of you, it feels like a showdown. But all the Daggers are occupied, probably on purpose. You’ve never seen Mickey with such a serious look of concentration on his face.
“Here and now,” he confirms.
You feel flustered, “Rooster, it’s been 12 years and we haven’t talked about it once-”
“Bradley,” he cuts you off. He takes another step towards you, so you’re toe to toe with him. “I’ve always been Bradley to you.”
The tension that had crept up in your shoulders releases a bit.
“Bradley,” you say, softly. “Listen, I’ve had a lot of good sex since then. Great sex even.” He presses his lips together and nods. “And with other men, if I felt like they weren’t putting in their best effort I’d kick them out because the bar was set very high early on.”
You see him fight back a smirk.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, with pride.
Your breath gets caught in your throat, you know he hears it because his eyes take on a richer shade of brown. You both feel the shift, tension churning between the two of you.
Taking a deep breath, you continue, “But I was telling the truth when I said you were my best. Probably because of the way you made sure I knew that you cared. I don’t know how to describe it. It was just different with you.”
You feel his finger graze the back of your hand.
The sounds of the Hard Deck fade into the background as you stare at each other. Entire conversations are being had as you look into his eyes and he looks into yours. Words and sentences spoken with glances.
Just friends don’t look at each other like this.
“It’s never been like this,” you whisper, “We’ve never been like this before.” You gesture at how close he is to you.
How he’s almost got you backed up against a wall.
How he’s looking at you like you’re his.
“I know.”
He says your name and your heart somersaults in your chest.
“I want to see your tattoo. I keep finding myself looking for it when we’re all at the beach. And then I get annoyed, knowing that people have seen it and I haven’t.”
“My tattoo? Bradley, what-”
“I want to see your tattoo,” he repeats like it’s a fact. “And I want to punch Seresin in his smug face every time he flirts with you.”
You roll your eyes, “Jake doesn’t flirt with me, not really. He just likes riling you up.”
“What if I said I wanted to try this as more than friends.” Bradley settles a large hand on your hip. “What if I said that since you’ve moved here I’ve had a hard time keeping my head on straight.”
“Bradley.” His name falls out of your mouth so easily now that it can.
“I want to take you home with me. I want to kiss you. I want to make you come. I need to know if you sound the same in my bed. And then I want to take you out for breakfast and buy whatever fancy coffee you want and as many pancakes as you can eat.”
You’ve been told that you wear your heart on your sleeve, but he has always worn his on his face. There’s no mistaking the open want on his face.
“Bradley, it’ll be different this time.” For so many reasons.
Because it’s not a favor being asked. It’s not some new experience being tried with the person you trust the most, with everything. You’d be on equal footing. It wouldn’t be a friend helping a friend, the two of you would be crossing that line between friends and more because you want each other in that way.
“I want it to be different, sweet girl,” he says, cupping your face in his familiar hand, “I’m ready for it to be different, if you are.”
He looks from your eyes down to your parted lips.
“We didn’t do that last time,” you whisper. Feeling brave, you reach out and run your fingers along the buttons of his shirt.
“No, we didn’t,” he agrees. His eyes are trained on his thumb as he skims it under your lip. “And that’s a damn shame.”
Bradley’s face is all you can see. Warm eyes, a still-straight nose, and a soft smile that is for you and you alone.
He dips down and your eyes flutter closed, your head tipping up on its own in anticipation.
His lips brush your cheek. It’s not enough.
You tug on his collar, but he chuckles and kisses your cheek again, lingering longer this time.
“I’m not kissing you for the first time around the corner from a bathroom,” he rasps.
You open your eyes and see the amusement in his. He always did like teasing you.
“Oh, where do you plan on doing it then?”
“Outside your front door, like a gentleman,” he says, like it’s obvious.
You can’t help but grin because Bradley Bradshaw can’t wait the extra 10 minutes it would take to drive to his place instead of yours. He wants that kiss just as badly as you do. You watch as a matching smile to yours blooms across his face.
It feels normal to slide your fingers between his much larger ones. It feels right as you lead the way out of the Hard Deck with him only a step behind you.
As it turns out, he only makes it as far as the Bronco before he’s spinning you back towards him and pressing you against it. His hands are on your hips and yours are wrapped around his neck as he kisses you for the very first time.
Bradley kisses you like a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants is you.
It’s not tentative in the way that first kisses usually are.
He kisses you like he knows you.
Because he does.
Later, when he closes the door to the Bronco for you, it feels like the end of one thing. But as he slips his fingers into yours when he backs out of the parking space it feels like the beginning of something new.
That night tangled in Bradley’s sheets- he’d kissed you at every light which made those extra 10 minutes it took to get to his home worth it- he makes your back arch and your toes curl as he makes you come with his fingers and mouth and tongue and cock. His lips dropping kiss after kiss on every part of you that he can reach. Because he can, because you want him and he wants you.
The way he touches you tells you that he remembers it all.
He was you first, but what you wouldn’t learn until later, is that he would also be your last.
And he’d be the only man to ever have your entire heart.
Happy Birthday Jordan! An AU just for you! 💖 I adore you and I hope this year is the best one yet!
A big thank you to @callsignspark and @ofstoriesandstardust for their help and beta reading and their woogirling! I appreciate you two so much!
Author's Note: this was a "what-if" AU set in the 'Like I Can' universe! If you want to read about what really happens you can read it here!
Oops I’m rereading and reblogging this again!! Might just be a bi-annual thing atp. This is my comfort fic one million times over. God, I love them with all my heart
I just adore the way their friendship is written. Bradley is so so soft for her, even before it’s a romantic thing. And she’s so supportive and sweet. The way she gets so upset about his first time makes me giggle every time I read this!! (She’s right tho, he deserved better)
The softness of that first time, the care he put into making sure she was comfortable, UGH!! My heart!!
Every time I need something soft and sweet, I think of this fic. And I keep coming back to it, even when I’m not really in a Top Gun phase. It’s just so cozy and comfy and beautifully written. My fav fr
One thing I've been thinking about recently is that the Metros were holding Shane back. The Admirals holding Hunter back makes sense, in an oh shit he's going to kill this kid way. But the Metros holding Shane back? Shane who never fights? Shane who is a known peacemaker? Maybe the argument can be made they wanted to protect him from getting hurt/getting fined but, Shane is their captain, if he wants to fight, a fight there shall be.
Unless.
You consider that the Metros know that Shane absolutely does know how to fight. They've all done checking clinics with Shane. They've all wrestled and roughhoused with Shane. He's strong and he's fast and he wants to win.
The Metros understand that Shane doesn't fight, not because he can't, but because he's a little too good at it. And Shane generally doesn't even like violence. He likes to win by playing the game, not hurting the other team.
So when they see Shane, after the whistle, drop his gloves to Scott Hunter, there is a collective thought of oh shit he's going to kill Hunter and they have approximately 1.5 seconds to grab their captain and prevent him from getting arrested.
"We're basically soulmates, aren't we?" James asked the ceiling.
"Obviously," Sirius agreed lazily. He was sprawled on his back on the carpet of James's bedroom, tossing a Galleon in the air and catching it.
"Do you think..." James hesitated, shifting on his mattress and hanging his upper body off the edge so he could look down at Sirius upside down. "Do you think if one of us had been a girl, we'd have ended up together?"
Sirius caught the coin and closed his fingers around it, letting his hand rest on his chest. He didn't hesitate. "Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"I'd definitely want to be the girl, though."
James snorted, grinning. "Why's that?"
Sirius stopped moving. He looked up, meeting James's upside-down gaze. He is so beautiful, James couldn't help but think.
"Because I wouldn't want you to be any different."
James's smile faltered. He searched Sirius's face for the grin that usually followed one of his ridiculous comments, but it never came. Instead, there was only that unwavering look in his grey eyes, so open and certain that James felt something inside him shift.
"Sirius," James managed to mumble.
Sirius pushed himself up off the floor and flopped onto the bed beside him, as if he hadn't just turned James's world upside down.
"Anyway," he said. "Move over."
And James did, making room without thinking, even as he wondered whether Sirius had any idea what he'd just done to him.
Shane getting criticized for not using pride tape and he’s caught on a mic later that week saying I didn’t realize it wasn’t the sucking dick that made me gay but the rainbow . Which is how he comes out.
SOMEWHERE in the depths of shane's messages there is a groupchat called 'our overlord and majesty jane + her servants (the raiders)' where, a couple weeks after tunameltgate, (and ilya seemingly being possessed by a soviet war general during practice) cliff had personally taken it upon himself to have every single raiders player beg and plead jane to take ilya back, for fear of their lives. the chat periodically comes alive during progressions in their relationship ('can't believe roz is whipped enough to move to OTTAWA, man!') and you BETTER believe it explodes after the fanmail video.
Rolex invites Shane to the Royal Box at Wimbledon again and this time Shane accepts because Rolex specifically asked if he could bring his husband as well and fuck yes he can and together Ilya and Shane are ready to serve so much cunt. They both get dressed in some sharp, elevated summer suits, Ilya in Versace and Shane in Gucci, the dramatic sunglasses & the bitchiest, judgiest mogging are ON, they mirror each other as they cross their legs; occasionally they're holding hands or sit with Ilya's arm around Shanes waist, they are the epitome of power husbands & this is their playground. Do they have one clue what is going on on the court? Of course not. That doesn't stop them from having a fabulous time showing off each other. They know they steal the limelight looking as devastating as they do, together. Turns out these dreadful PR appointments are actually incredible fun when you have your husband/best friend / soulmate with you and Shane can't imagine how he ever did this without Ilya.
Now picture this, occasionally they whisper into each other's ears, sometimes its just sweet nothigns and sometimes it's some devastating chirps about tennis, and each time a precious smile breaks through, only for each other, but it drives the photographers wild.
(afterwards, Ilya is excited to have the perfect summer with Shane where they fuck their way across europe)
