new updated intro!
hello, my name is mary/mari, I've had this blog for a very long time but never taken it seriously till now. all of my socials are very multimedia, so all my posts will jump to different fandoms from time to time! you can also tell I'm inactive from time to time from posting but I'm still active for reading fics hehe. some of my reblogs and posts will contain some nsfw content but not all the time, but please still be advised!
this blog is just for shits and giggles that I'm happy to share with all of you! sometimes I'll publish some writing pieces or blurbs but not all the time. ps talk to me anytime, I love interacting!!
sorry, ive been playing so much rdr2 lately (im in chapter 4 gulp...) but whenever I give my Arthur baths, and when given the option to have the deluxe bath with one of the girls helping out... I think about domestic husband Caleb and wife reader... walk with me.
Caleb comes home from a long tiring, gruesome mission climbing into the bath before joining reader in bed, most likely thinking she's already asleep, but instead he hears a knock hearing reader if he wants some help which off he wouldn't deny...
anyways.. maybe.. maybe not.. idk... we'll see.. maybe ill dip my toes a bit into rdr2 writing in the future...
⋆✴︎˚｡ Husband!Zuko who lovesss putting you in a head locking during sex
You were completely, shamelessly addicted to Zuko’s arms.
It wasn’t just that they were big now—thick, powerful, corded with muscle from years of firebending, sword training, and carrying the weight of a nation. It was the way they felt when he used them on you. The sheer strength. The way the veins stood out when he flexed. The way his biceps bulged like warm steel when he wrapped one around your throat and held you exactly where he wanted you.
And nothing compared to doggy style.
Nothing.
Tonight the palace was quiet, the heavy curtains drawn, only the low glow of firelight flickering across Zuko’s bare chest as he stood at the edge of the massive bed. You were already on all fours in the center of it, knees spread, back arched deep, ass up and waiting. Your pussy was dripping down your thighs before he’d even touched you.
Zuko climbed onto the bed behind you, the mattress dipping under his weight. His big hands gripped your hips first, squeezing the soft flesh, thumbs digging in possessively.
“Look at you,” he murmured, voice low and rough. “Already soaked for me.”
You pushed back against him, whining. “Zuko… please.”
He leaned over you, chest pressing to your back, and you felt it—the heavy, thick length of his cock sliding between your folds, teasing your entrance. Then his right arm slid around your throat.
Your whole body lit up.
He didn’t choke you. He headlocked you. His massive bicep curled under your chin, the thick muscle pressing firmly against your neck while his forearm locked across your collarbone. His left hand braced on the bed beside your head for leverage. You were completely trapped, caged by his body, his strength, his heat.
And you moaned like you were in heat.
“Fuck—yes,” you gasped, tilting your head back into the crook of his arm. Your pussy clenched hard around nothing.
Zuko chuckled darkly against your ear, the sound vibrating through his chest into your back. “You really are crazy for these arms, aren’t you?”
You nodded frantically, already grinding back against his cock. “I love them. I love when you lock me up like this. Makes me feel so small… so owned.”
His grip tightened just enough to make your head spin in the best way. Then he pushed in.
One long, slow thrust and he buried every thick inch inside you, stretching you open until you felt him in your stomach. The headlock kept you perfectly arched, ass up higher, back bowed deep so he could sink even deeper.
Zuko groaned, low and filthy. “So fucking tight like this.”
He started moving—deep, powerful strokes that made the bed creak. Every time he bottomed out, his hips slapped against your ass, his heavy balls hitting your clit. The bicep around your throat flexed with every thrust, the muscle bulging harder against your skin. You could feel the raw power in it, the way it could crush you if he wanted, but instead it just held you right there for him to fuck.
You were drooling.
Your mouth hung open, eyes rolling back as he pounded into you. Every thrust forced a broken moan out of your throat.
“Harder,” you begged, voice hoarse. “Zuko, baby—please, use me. Fuck me like you own me.”
He snarled and gave you exactly what you wanted.
His pace turned brutal. The wet, obscene sound of his cock slamming into your soaked pussy filled the room. His left hand left the bed and reached underneath you, two thick fingers finding your swollen clit and rubbing tight, fast circles.
The headlock never loosened. His bicep stayed locked tight under your jaw, keeping your head pulled back against his shoulder so he could growl filthy praises right against your ear.
“That’s it… take this dick. Such a greedy little thing for me. You love being locked up in my arm while I ruin this pussy, don’t you?”
“Yes—yes, fuck yes—” You were shaking, thighs trembling, pussy fluttering wildly around his thick dick.
He flexed his bicep deliberately, the peak of the muscle pressing harder into the side of your neck. The pressure made everything sharper, hotter. Your vision sparkled at the edges.
“Come for me,” he ordered, voice dark and commanding. “Come while I’ve got you trapped. Let me feel how much you love my arms.”
You shattered.
Your orgasm crashed through you so hard your arms gave out. You would have collapsed face-first into the pillows if Zuko’s headlock hadn’t held you up. Your pussy clamped down on him like a vice, gushing around his cock as wave after wave rolled through you. You screamed his name, body convulsing, tears of pleasure slipping down your cheeks.
Zuko fucked you straight through it, hips never slowing, growling praises and curses as your walls milked him.
Only when you started to go limp did he loosen the headlock just enough to let you breathe properly. He pulled out, flipped you onto your back in one smooth motion, and shoved your knees up to your chest.
Then he slid back inside you in one thrust and started chasing his own release
His arms caged you again—this time both of them, one on each side of your head, biceps flexing as he drove into you hard and deep. You wrapped your legs around his waist and clung to those massive arms, kissing and biting at the thick muscle while he fucked you into the mattress.
“Gonna fill you up,” he panted, sweat dripping from his brow onto your chest. “Gonna put a baby in you tonight.”
You moaned, nails digging into his biceps. “Yes—please, Zuko. Come inside me. I need it.”
He buried his face in your neck and came with a deep, guttural groan, hips stuttering as he pumped you full, hot and thick. You felt every pulse, every spurt, and you clenched around him like you could keep it all inside.
When he finally collapsed on top of you, careful not to crush you with his full weight, his arms still surrounded you—loose now, but protective.
You pressed lazy kisses to his bicep, the one you loved so much, and whispered against his skin, “I’m never getting enough of these arms. Especially when you headlock me like that.”
Zuko laughed breathlessly, rolling to the side and pulling you against his chest. His hand drifted down to rest over your lower belly, thumb stroking gently.
“Good,” he murmured, voice warm and satisfied. “Because I plan on doing that every single night until you’re round with our baby.”
You smiled, already feeling the familiar heat building again as you nuzzled into his chest.
“Promise?”
He flexed his arm around you, letting you feel the hard swell of his bicep one more time.
“Promise.”
dividers - @/cafekitsune
an - Hiiiiii my babies! I’ve missed y’all so much, so sorry for the ghosting! I lowkey couldn’t catch a break (lmao), but I’m back and ready to serve now 𓏲ּ𝄢
Synopsis. He’s not a bird. He’s not a plane. He’s…just Nanami Kento from the journalism department. But you have a feeling that Nanami’s hiding a super big secret - and not just the one down there.
Pairing. Nanami Kento x Reader
Content. MDNI, fem! reader, Clark Kent! Nanami, SUPERMAN AU, aphrodísiacs, coworkers-to-Iovers, he is a GENTLEMAN, slight víoIence, Itadori cameo, saving people, píning, manhandIing, he is BIG, cervíx kíssing, making it fit, pússydrúnk Nanami, oraI (fem rec.), BRÉEDING, creampíes, cúmplay, spítting, Nanami’s POWERS, matíng presses, face-sítting, buIges, BREAKING THE BED, pet names, swéaring.
Word count. 9.7k
A/N. CLARK KENT(O) NANAMI SAVE MEEEE
“There’s just something about him, Shoko.”
“Right…”
You’re flicking a quick roll of your eyes as your coworker continues stealing drowsy sips of her early morning coffee. Well, her fifth of the morning. Grumbling out, “I swear- There’s just something about him that feels so…” Eyes drifting - as they much seemed to do these days - to the man in question. “-different.”
And, listen, Shoko would whole-heartedly prefer the tittering office gossip with you over working on her weeks-late article any day of the week.
But times like this, she really had no idea whether the two of you were staring - undoubtedly creepily - at the same Nanami Kento.
That stoic, mild-mannered hire who’d just been freshly accepted into your journalism sector. Tall, seemingly powerful - yet, he acted anything but. A gentle giant with the suspicious patience of a saint even against the worst of editors - honestly, she’s musing, just who was this guy?
“Hm…” Fingers digging into her achy temples as if trying to will away the memory of her upcoming deadlines. And this. “Maybe you just need to get laid. A proper, genuine good f-”
“Shoko.”
And she’s cracking her first laugh of the day, ducking underneath her computer screen with a sigh as Yaga passes by dangerously close. “Well, you were thinking about it. Harlot.”
You’re sighing, too - though for a much different reason, she imagines.
Gaze narrowing as you finally rip them away from the blond-haired man dwarfing the corporate cubicle opposite the two of you. Bumbling and fixing the glasses on his face for the nth time this hour. “W-well it doesn’t help that he’s hot.”
Shoko’s mere milliseconds away from opening her sharp mouth once more - and you’re mere milliseconds away from wincing at what was surely to fall from them. Before-
A call of your name.
Ah, saved by the bell - or, your managing editor, more like. Though, you weren’t sure if you’d consider it “saving” when Yaga’s holding out a crisp stack of documents your way. Brows furrowed underneath his sunglasses, he gruffs out, “They finally cleared the pitch for your article on that flower. You’re good to go.”
“O-oh, that’s great. Thank you.” Plastering on a simpering smile on your face, you’re hastily clasping those papers. “I’ll get started on the interviews right away.”
Articles on flower shops weren’t quite the adrenaline-thumping journalism you’d expected to work on when you first joined this company. Initially concocting fantasies about interviewing your city’s nefarious villains or perhaps even…Superman .
But ah, those were just dreams. And it seems that someone here had to report on things like mysterious flower shipments to local florists - which just-so-happened to be you.
You’re pulled out of your pitiful little reverie by another echo of your name. Turning back to Yaga, brows raised. “Yes?”
“And take Nanami with you.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Ah, sorry you’re paired up with me, Nanami.” You’d be chuckling much, much later when you’d gathered your files and your wits to be stuffed inside an elevator with your coworker. “I’d imagine something like this probably wouldn’t have been your ideal first taste of real journalism.”
Eyes straying anywhere but where you could spy the way the suit buttons over his chest looked like they were about to pop! Nanami was unfairly attractive, even when he was slouched and nervously struggling to meet your eyes with his honeypool ones.
Always known around the rest of the company to be so timid - but you get the feeling that he was being extra jumpy around you.
He’s shaking his head - golden strands of hair curtaining his handsome face. “Please don’t worry. I’m only grateful that you’re taking me with you, I-I promise to try my best not to be a burden, ma’am.”
“Aw, no need to call me that. We’re the same age, after all.” Subtly, you’re mashing the button for the ground floor a few more times. Suddenly reminded of how dizzyingly tiny this space was. How much of it he was occupying. “And I can’t promise that I won’t be a burden, either.”
You’d meant it as a joke - you really did. But after seeing the way that Nanami’s forehead crinkles with a furrow, you almost wish you could take back those words.
“Anyone would be lucky to have you as a partner.” He’s mumbling - such earnestness dripping from his rich baritone that you can feel your eyes widening a fraction. And Nanami sees it, too.
“Oh?”
“I mean-” Fingers fumbling to push up his thick-rimmed glasses, he’s tightening his yellow speckled tie almost as if he wished to choke away that burning flush creeping up from the back of his drooped neck and blossoming at the tips of his ears. “Just- just that you’re one of the most c-competent journalists in our company and I’m only honored to be learning from the best and- o-oh, it seems we’re here.”
It’s a wonder that Nanami noticed - it’s a wonder that you noticed once those metallic doors parted like a curtain to reveal the bustling lobby. Finally here.
He’s holding out the curved end of one big, strong arm, bent at the elbow to show off the straining stretch of his flexing biceps. And you can’t help but ogle. “M-may I?”
It takes you copious seconds of staring at the thoroughly outlined bulge of his sculpted arm for you to finally snap to your senses. And a few more to finally realize what he was asking.
Something warm and mushy pools in your stomach. Fuck.
Tentatively wrapping your hands around the rock-hard mounds of flesh so that Nanami - ever-the-gentleman - could tenderly escort you out, as if this was a ballroom and not your workplace.
And you can’t help but think that perhaps you didn’t mind tedious interviews if it went anything like this.
.
.
.
“So, there’s no sender address?”
“Nope.”
“No date?”
“Nada.”
“And no postage?”
“Tch, I wish!”
You’re tapping your trusty pen against the parchment of the notepad, gears wracking in your thoroughly overworked brain. “Mr. Itadori, is there a possibility that this might be a prank?”
Wasuke Itadori shakes his head with a grunt, weathered fingers brushing over the aggressively violet petals of a flower you think looked too bizarre to even be pulled out of your very dreams. He’s tapping the stiff flower once. Twice.
And you’re gasping when a tiny puff of shimmering pink billows out like a heady cloud. Perfumed. Hypnotizing. A musky vanilla that makes you draw in further, and reminds you of- Eyes peeking over at an aloof Nanami…him.
“See? Smells jus’ like my wife’s cheap citrus perfume. N’ unless she’s haunting me from beyond the grave as she said she would, it seems too elaborate of a prank ta me. It’s obviously livin’, but I can’t find any information on this flower for the life of me.” The older man crosses his arms, scowling, “Ya have no idea how many times I’ve had ta stop my stupid grandson from trying to eat this thing.”
Humming, you’re jotting down a few notes - fingers tremoring ever-so-slightly at Nanami’s burning gaze right beside you. “Have there been any strange effects on the other flora since you’ve acquired this special flower?”
“Nah, nothing at all- that’s the thing, s’like it’s alien or something. Just showed up at my door one day n’ I dunno what it is.” He’s grouching - and you have to agree. That is strange.
You’d never heard of any other florist’s receiving this type of strange…gift?
But you can’t voice anything more before a voice sounds from outside the see-through door, and the man before you clicks his tongue. “Ah! Dammit, that reminds me- my flower vendor’s here already. Excuse me while I step outside, you can throw the lil’ gremlin in with the marigolds if he bothers ya too much.”
You’re holding back a chuckle - honestly, this was nothing like you expected, you think you would have enjoyed this interview regardless.
Wasuke was a doting grandpa - as much as he may deny it. And his tiny, pink-haired menace of a grandson was positively bouncing off the walls at having official journalists enter the cozy flower shop. Dangling midair off of a closely-observing Nanami’s shoulders with two chubby arms wrapped around the other’s neck.
Though, you certainly weren’t complaining at the sight.
“Hey- pretty lady- mister Nananamin-” Yuji’s squeaking into his ear. “Are you two married?”
You’re sure that if Wasuke was within earshot he’d have grabbed the child by the scruff of his neck. But, alas, Nanami was beared with none of that mercy.
Teasing, “Hmm, would you like to answer this, Nanami?”
“No- I mean yes! N-no, this lovely lady and I are not married.” He’s huffing out a low bout of laughter, massive palms barely even having to try to pick up Yuji’s wiggling body. And you can’t stop the way your heart lurches when he’s softly cradling the younger boy in one arm - fuck, you really need to get yourself together.
“Why not?”
And perhaps for the first time since you’ve known him, Nanami Kento looked truly and utterly stunned. Hazel eyes pleading your way, mouth opening and closing a few desperate times. “Well…”
But Yuji only plows on with the oblivious confidence that only comes with being freshly five. “Then, since you’re erm- what was that word Megumi said? Uh- d-divowced, can I marry her?”
Ah.
Giggling behind your palm, you’re almost on the verge of saving your poor coworker. Almost.
That is, before it happens.
CRASH!
You can’t hear anything, you can’t feel anything, you can’t see anything - other than a bright, blood red. Fuck-
“N-Nanami? Yuji?” Your voice is shrill - cracking, and you’re unsure if the way you grimace is because of how utterly pathetic you sound or because of the complete devastation in front of you. “Wh-what…”
Shit.
Heaps upon heaps of concrete and wrecked pieces of building pile upon what was once the Itadori family flower shop. Flowerpots knocked over, the ceiling crumbling, bright morning sunlight filtering from above to illuminate a thick blanket of swirling dust.
As if a whirlwind had wrecked it through and caught up you right in the middle of it - purposefully.
Shit shit shit-
Gasping, heaving to try and scramble your thoughts into one big coherent one - but then instantly regretting it when your entire body wracks with painful coughs. You’re so confused - head churning with exactly what’s happening right now - that you barely even register the large hand soothing over your back.
Your ears ring with a sharp keen, eyes bleary and tinging with black - it hurts. And you’re pressing a hand to your forehead with a hiss. Unbalanced voice on the edges of shattering into a zillion pieces, “What happened- wh-where-”
“Shhh shh shh, you’re going to be alright, darling.”
What?
Your head snaps up - it’s then that you notice it.
Finally.
Body tucked safely behind the overarching counter of the flower shop, far from where the sudden impact of something would have hit you. You’re crouched against all the wood and debris that dug uncomfortably into your legs. Your hands tremble - but not just with fear, no, with the tearful cries of a curled-up Yuji snuggling thankfully safely into your body.
All in the arms of…Nanami?
But, wait, no- it was as if it wasn’t him at all.
Because gone were those heavy glasses framing his pretty face, and you’re blinking your lethargic lids urgently to drink in the stern, serious features they’d left behind. Brows furrowed, plump lips pulled tightly when he’s clenching his jaw, muscles flexing as he’s holding you two tighter - as if subconsciously.
There was something different about him, something…magnetic, like a flip had just switched on. And you’re definitely blaming the way your head was swimming - but you can’t help but think he looked so hot.
Fuck - now’s not the time.
Soft locks of blond were windswept to slick back, that snug coat of his tattered onto the floor to display an emblazoned logo that you wouldn’t be able to mistake even if you tried.
“You’re…” you breathe, and it’s a wonder that the syllables come out coherent at all. Jaw falling slack at the glimpses of that familiar skin-tight red and blue suit you’ve seen smeared across every magazine, every news column, and every show these days. “...Superman.”
And it takes a second. Two.
Until Nanami’s long lashes flutter with a little pant of laughter, a singular thick finger straightening into a shush-ing gesture when he’s smiling down warmly at a sniffling Yuji, “This’ll be our little secret, right?”
“Y-yes!” The little boy hiccups, plump palms scrambling to cover his mouth. And you think you could spy a tiny smile rising through his short fingers. Though it wavers, “Mister Nananamin- I mean- Mister Superman, my grandpa is still outside…”
He’s nodding, “I’ll keep you all safe-” Before turning to you with eyes so scorching that you can feel yourself inch in closer against the stiff fabric of his supersuit. “-all of you.”
“Ahhh~ touching touching. Didn’t think I’d run into dear ol’ Superman here.” A high, eerie voice rings over the thundering blood pumping to your head, and you’re burying even deeper into Nanami’s sculpted side. “But ah, not to worry, Man of Steel, m’jus’ here to pick up a little lost package of my friend’s so…”
Nanami’s stiffening underneath your touch, and with a slow nod he’s getting up from your little hiding place.
And if looks could kill - which you knew Superman could do - then the greyish, patched man in front of you wouldn’t have been waltzing in through the utterly destroyed door already. As if he owned the place. Owned all of you.
“Mahito, we’ve spoken before.” Nanami’s voice was hardened with a growl in a way you’ve never heard. Fuming. “Leave now and no one gets hurt.”
There’s a metallic click! resonating across what was left of the four walls of this shop, as if he was loading some type of gun. But not as you’ve ever known one.
And Nanami’s eyes narrow with a thick coating of tension when Mahito’s fingers curl around that flower - the exact one you’d come here to interview about in the first place. Plucking it neatly from the vase before crushing the waxy petals between his fingers.
“You sure ya wanna talk to me like that when you’ve got civilians here, Superman?” Voice airy, delighted. As if he wasn’t currently loading an opening in that specialized gun with the gooey insides of that flower. Before pointing it - right at the bullseye where you were scoured away. “Especially with sweetcheeks here? Don’t think I don’t know how soft ya are for-”
Nanami stretches into an attack-ready position. “So you’re after the innocents again.”
“Ah- no, actually.” Mahito snickers. Snickers. “I’m after you.”
BANG!
It all happens so fast that you’re not even sure if everything’s part of your imagination - whether this is all still a dream.
Because in the bat of an eye, Mahito has the slightly-glowing barrel of the gun pointed your way. Bursting the counter into nothing but a few shockwaves and shards of plastic.
And in the bat of much less, Nanami’s shielding you with his entire body, sculptured front glissading against your back, beefy arms curled snugly around your waist. Head tucked over yours to make sure every inch of you is protected, Yuji placed gently at his side.
Your bleary vision clouds with a familiar fog of pink - dazzling and addictive with that same musky perfume. Was- wasn’t this what Wasuke had shown you earlier?
“Shit! Wh-what the fuck is this?!” You’re hearing off in the distance - or perhaps it was right beside you, you didn’t even know at this point. “That damn Hanami- this isn’t the poison-”
He’s letting off a shiver, before gritting out. One arm holding out to you just as it had in the elevator, the memory hits you with pang. “Y-you two need to get to safety. Now. May I?”
If it weren’t for the hours of droning meetings faced with Nanami, the weeks of trying to get him to speak with you - months of memorizing every syllable that dripped from his pretty lips, then you wouldn’t even have noticed. But you did.
“W-wait-.” Your throat scratches and struggles to get the words out, matching the shakes in his own tone. “You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
But the only answer you get is a soft, mysterious smile. And the repeated hum - as if you weren’t wrangling yourself around to peek at where he was undoubtedly hit. “No need to worry about me, my love- ah. My first and foremost priority is you two-”
“But you’re hurt.” you’re crying out, gasping when Mahito’s eyes lock with yours. And he leers, knobbly fingers fussing to reset that weapon once more.
“I know.” Stray tresses of golden flaxen stick to Nanami’s sweat-glimmered forehead like an impromptu crown, and you don’t know how he has it in himself to smile down at you. Cradling Yuji in one arm, and you in the other as if the two of you were easily weightless - you can only gape at the adorable dimple digging into the left corner of his mouth. “Now, hold on tight.”
You do - and you can only blink before your savior is flying.
Now, you’d always marvelled at the sheer heights that Superman reached on those live newscasts. Wondering just how euphoric it must be to soar through the air, free from every care in the world - well, as much as you could be when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders, at least.
But this? This was heaven.
Wind whipping your face like an icy mask, Yuji’s high peels of laughter tinkling in your ears. You can’t do anything but watch and watch as the demolished flower shop grows smaller. A speck.
“Oh- oh my god.” You’re whispering thorough scrunched eyes, nails clawing deeply into the mountainous curve of his well-defined deltoid.
And if it hurt, then Nanami didn’t give a single sign. Instead, he’s laughing - quiet, and as delicate at the cottony clouds passing you by. “S’alright, s’alright. Super- Ken’s here. N’ m’not gonna drop you.” You’re cutting through the air so fast - staggeringly - but right now, when Nanami’s boring his eyes into yours, it felt like time itself had stumbled to a stop. He’s pulling you even closer to his powerful body, “I’d never let ya go, darling.”
Yet, when the view of your cozy Metropolis apartment comes into view - you almost whine at the fact that he has to.
“Don’t you worry about a thing now.” Nanami’s ruffling Yuji’s windblown mop of pink hair - even more tousled with the wind. “I’ll be going, and I’ll keep both you and your grandpa safe.”
And looking at him right now - velvety crimson cape flowing at the wind seeping in through your open window, one arm bulging with muscles as he leans readily against the frame - you wonder how you could’ve ever thought that anyone other than him could be Superman.
“Come back safe.” You’re choking out, hands clasped. “W-we’re still not done with our article…”
“Mhm, you better hold me to that, ma’am.”
And with that, Superman - Nanami - was zipping through the air at a mach speed that made you realize he was intentionally slowing it down for both you and Yuji on your way here.
Fingers quivering, it takes you what feels like practically forever to turn your television on - precisely onto a live newstream of how Superman had entered the site of a villain attack. Ready to save. To be a hero.
Eyes locked mindlessly on the tiny blimp of red and blue onscreen, you cuddle a fidgety Yuji on the bouncy cushions of your sofa. For your jittery nerves just as much as his. “Your husband is so cool, lady- he’s Superman! Oh- whoops, shhhh! Tha’s a secret though…”
“Yeah…” you’re breathing out. “Yeah, he is cool, isn’t he?”
.
.
.
Forty-five saved, three buildings wrecked, and one injured.
One injured - him.
Though, Nanami wouldn’t quite count himself with any civilians injured or…worse. He never quite does.
But, oh, it was so hard not to when the first thing he’s peeling back that hazy layer of fatigue in his eyes is you - you, you, you. In all your glorious self, big, pearlescent tears spilling down your pretty cheeks and splattering in tiny puddles onto his bare chest.
His bare, bandaged chest.
And for a second, powers set aside, Nanami thinks he might just have died and reached heaven. How fitting that the angels looked like you.
Voice hoarse as he’s muttering his first few words, “Are- are you alright?”
“-stupid. Asking about m-me when you’re the one hurt. Didn’t even-” Your sobs garble out into words, and you’re half-heartedly hitting your fist against the unbandaged part of Nanami’s skin. “Don’t you ever do that again- you had me- so worried.”
Ah, he’d won the fight - and he finally felt like it.
Silently, he makes quick work abandoning those delicate bandages of yours - a strange part of him almost hurt to unravel your work like this. To unravel nothing but silken, unblemished skin after hours of healing abilities.
Though, Nanami gives all the credit to your care, anyway.
Warm fingers cup your head to nuzzle your clammy face against the crook of his neck. Practically draped over your bed and onto his body now, and you could feel his burning skin, smell those musky pheromones of his. “Got it got it, I won’t be scaring you like that again.”
“Th-the neighbors were so worried when you just showed up all injured n’ half-fainting at my window, y’know? I had to bribe them to be quiet with a few of the flowers that Yuji’s grandpa left.” You’re muttering, more to fill the strangely thickening silence than anything.
“Ah, tell- tell Mr. Itadori that I will have his shop reconstructed by the end of this week.” He’s whispering, voice so strained that you had to crane your head to hear him - close. “Was Yuji doing alright?”
“Mhm, never been better, apparently. He just left with his grandpa, and they invited us over for dinner before…” Brows furrowing, words withering away on your tongue at the agonized knit in his brow. There was something…different. “Are- are you really okay, Kento?”
Nanami doesn’t comment about that use of his first name - nor does he embarrassingly babble out how it might just be his new favorite song now.
He can’t.
Because Nanami was panting - groaning. Pearly whites clenched so hard that you think you could hear them creak.
There was a strange simmering flush creeping up his body, staining it such a delicious strawberry pink that made your mouth water- or maybe that was just the emanating clouds of vanilla musk saturating your lungs. Clinging onto Nanami’s body like a dripping second skin-
“I…” he’s gulping, half-lidded eyes shifting away from yours like he couldn’t even bear to look at you right now. Didn’t know what he would do. “-my apologies. But what that fucker- ah- excuse my language. What Mahito hit me with seems to not have been a poison, as I had thought. Rather, now that it’s finally spread through my body, I feel it’s something else entirely… ”
“What is it- does it hurt?”
“It seems to be…” Gesturing wildly with his hands, careful not to jostle you. “-an aphrodisiac…of sorts.”
You’re letting your lips part, “Oh. Wait- ‘of sorts?’”
And ah, there was the timid Kento you knew. He could never lie to you. “It- itseemstoonlyaffectthoseinlove- B-but my healing abilities are working and-” Nanami’s sitting up faster than you could blink. Words running a mile-a-minute, “-and I shall leave in case you feel uncomfortable with me here-”
“Why would you leave?” It’s slipping between your lips before you can register. Still mulling over those previous words - they explained. A lot.
Nanami stills, hands clasped around those creamy blankets he was flinging off, sure to disappear into the starry night. “P-pardon?”
Well, fuck.
You’re steeling your gaze - you’ve waited this long. And if there was anything about Nanami’s afflicted aphrodisiac, it was that it was contagious.
Making you breathe in a heavy gulp of candied air, “Aphrodisiac, huh? I’ve read about those, and don’t you think that since you saved me-” Slowly - ever-so-slowly dragging your hands to rest on his smooth shoulders, faces inches away. “-it’s only fair that I help? Besides…I can smell it too.”
Oh, he gasps. A confession if any.
Fingers tangling through those damp locks. “But if- if you get tangled up with me- who knows what other villains will come after you. I might’ve taken down Mahito today, but Kenjaku is still out there. And I have to keep ya safe.”
“Well who’s going to keep you safe?” You scoff, refusing - rejecting - to relent.
“I don’t need to be safe if it means that I can keep that beautiful smile on your face everyday.” And maybe it was the aphrodisiac, maybe it was how close you were to him in this dimly heady lightning, but Nanami didn’t seem like he meant to say that out loud. Not at all.
Basking in your spellbound silence. “My love…feel this?” He’s clasping one hand around your own, letting you rover a greedy grope of his plush pecs - his heartbeat. Thundering. Frighteningly so. “Th-this isn’t any old aphrodisiac, especially considering me.”
“And?”
“And that means, darling-” But he was, too, just as much. “That m’gonna want ya…need ya. So badly and fuck! M’gonna make ya forget what it feels like without me…” One rounded index trailing up, up, up to about halfway up your tummy. “-here.”
You’re shuddering, taking in deep gulps of that electric air. “...A-and?”
He’s jerking you forwards with a mere fraction of that superhuman strength to splay your body over his towering one. Face lolling into the cushiony valley of his pecs, legs straddling that slutty waist of his in a way that made you shy. Right on top of his drenched boxers. That needy spot between your legs heating up just as much as his condensing breath did on your skin. “I can’t promise that when I fuck you, I won’t break you.”
Fuck. Was this really the same, adorably feeble Nanami Kento from work? You weren’t sure, but you knew one way to find out…
“I’ll…hold you to that.”
But before he was Superman, he was Nanami Kento from the journalism department. And who was Nanami Kento against you?
“Such a stubborn girl.” You’re being surprised with a sudden implanting of his thick set of fingers leaving a sudden swat on your ass, voice teetering on what almost sounded like a growl. “But you’re mine, aren’tcha?”
Your fingers dapple along the sweat-dampened little curls of blond at the sexy edge of his undercut. And it seemed like the more the aphrodisiac boiled into his veins, the more and more he burned feverishly.
Senses superhuman but already heightening with the coarse need glossing his brain - he could practically taste your arousal.
Panting. Charming maw falling parted to mist you own with such rousing puffs of his scent, “Kiss me. Please- kiss me.”
And- fuck, Nanami kisses like he couldn’t get enough of you.
Was absolutely drunk with just a simple slide of his pursed mouth against your own, from a tender little peck until he only got greedier and greedier-
“Mmmm-” Rasping grunts curdle at the back of his throat, slurring into a low whine when he’s wrenching a splayed-out hand onto your scalp and dragging you away. Manhandling. Sultry sucks being left on the tenderest spots of your throat, sure to make the office talk tomorrow. “Can feel how fuckin’ wet ya are f’me already, darlin’. S’this the aphrodisiac or you?”
God, it was so embarrassing.
That silky little puddle of your reflective slick was flooding from between your flimsy panties to press gluey little smooches against his manspread front.
You’re mumbling, words stumbling over one another when your hips peek in to seat just above that swollen crown of his cock. Already rock-hard. “Y-you don’t have to say it out loud.”
You barely even realize how you’re slipping and sliding in needy little gyrations of your hips before Nanami’s putting a shuddering halt to it. One rude hand curling around that perfect curvature of your waist, he’s snickering at how you’re letting off a thoroughly disappointed whine. “My apologies, but s’hard f’me to act like a hah- gentleman when ya have such gorgeous lips…” He’s chuckling out - humorless, parking one big thumb against the corner of your mouth. “These ones, too.”
He couldn’t even finish his sentence - couldn’t even finish his thought.
Not before bruising your lips with some of the filthiest little sucks on your lower lip - like he’d simply gone way too long without kissing you. Once. Twice. Again and again and-
“O-oh!” Your hands scramble to find purchase up on his broad shoulders when he’s darting down one fat thumb to paint with all your silvery pussy slick. Drawing slow meshes of circles on your soppy slit up and down up and down up and- “N-Nanami-”
“Kento.” He’s cutting you off with a fracturing furrow of his brows, “We’re way past last names, don’tcha think, my love?”
Oh, that sweetly rugged tone stirred up something inside you that made you want Nanami now now now.
“Oh? S’that so?” Ravenous edges of his fingers pulling aside your sticky panties to the side to sidle in with one thick drag of his digits, they’re being lacquered with such a heavy layer of your sweet, sweet juices that Nanami can’t help but drag his fingerpads upwards to sniff. To suck one by one. Sweet. “You’re heh- babblin’ cute nonsense, but fuuuuck this cute cunt is talkin’ ta me even filthier.”
In such sappy awe at the way your puffy pussy flaps were sugarcoating him all the way down till Nanami was dripping at the wrist. Metallic wristwatch from work all shiny and ruined-
“Need you t-to touch me inside, Ken–” you’re huffing, circling lazy grinds across his roughened hands. “Please?”
“Anythin’ for my girl.”
And Nanami’s giving your ass another good thwack! of his palm, feeling the vibrato of delicious jiggles before hauling your entire body higher and higher. Letting his back hit the silken sheets of your bed within a fluid motion, before you even know it you’re hovering your clothed cunt over his swelteringly fevered mouth.
Just one sudden move and you’d be riding his face - exactly what Nanami wanted right now. Yearned.
“Oh- wait-” You’re startling, fingers fumbling with that tight pencil skirt you’d worn to work specifically for him to see. “Didn’t take this-”
“Not a problem.” He’s grunting, only looking up with droopy eyes at where you’re straddling his handsome face, decorated with tawny strands of hair when he’s grinning. Thick fingers clasping onto the hem at your waist, “Hold on tight n’ show me that pretty pussy.”
RIIIIIP–!
Your skirt is on the floor, torn through like butter - your blouse and bra soon to follow. Impatient. And it’s only once Nanami’s done savoring that sweet embarrassment wafting off of you, the way your drenched pussymound smells so sugary sweet - does he even consider freeing you of them.
He’s scrunching up the sodden wet fabric into a little treasure hidden underneath your pillow - something for him later…
And you’re even wetter than usual, that contagious spell of aphrodisiac making your eyes glaze with sheer need.
“Aw, look at thaaaat.” Nanami’s breathing - enchanting. The curves of his lips lifting into a smirk at the way your dripping slit treacles a fresh coating of slick all down his tongue, letting it sliiiide a lazy trailway to hit the back of his scratchy tastebuds. “Atta girl, b-better be taking all of me if yer that eager, hm?”
And Nanami is so needy - he’s so desperate to have your clingy pussy make a mess all over his face as soon as possible.
Breathing in like some pervert to take in your perfumed scent. Reaching up to smear a wet glissade of his lips down your own, and you think that it might just be the filthiest French snog that anyone has ever placed on you. The buttoned edge of his nose mushes against your peeked clit so harshly.
He’s blazing, cock thumping for more- With a low, heated whistle, he’s nuzzling his sweat-glossed forehead up against your moistened inner thigh. Layers upon layers of your slick coveting his features and stinging delicate little ropes that connect his maw to your cunt.
“Mmm- fuckin’ sweet- fuckin’ hot–” Nanami keens out, pillowy palms spreading your legs so comfortably apart until you felt like he was cracking you open. “C’mon now, sit your f-full weight on me, my love.”
You’re sputtering, thighs all achy with fatigue. “B-but-”
“Darling…” Nanami’s smiling, eyes crinkling adorably at the corners. “Not to be conceited - forgive my tone - but I’m Superman. N’ if there was any way m’to die, then it would be right between these pretty legs of yours.”
And you didn’t know whether it was the fumes of vanilla aphrodisiac taking over his melty brain completely because Nanami was ruthless.
Your dear, sweet coworker was kissing the very edges of your bloated cunt with one of his oversized fingers. Sifting through to draw numerous innocent hearts on your sensitive clit, before plunging down,down, down-
“Ah!” You’re yelping at the stinging stretch of his souring fingerpads, swirling in mushy little gyrations around and around your elastic entrance. Extra sensitive right now- damn that flower. “H-how is your finger already feeling so…”
“Good? Does my heh- good girl like this?” He’s cooing up at you, feeling your gloopy cunt with such copious inches of his long hands.
And with such staggering fingers you could only imagine how big he’d be down there…
SWAT!
“Aww, don’t space out already. Wanna hear those p-pretty moans even longer-” The jutting pout of Nanami’s oh-so-cute lower lip smudges against your saturated clit. Tingling and hot when he tilts his head to bite. “‘Sides, how are ya gonna f-fit my cock if this is too big, hm?”
You’re holding back a wrecked whimper when he’s chancing another rummaging finger to part your pursed pussy lips. Ramming up and down to drag a sultry stripe across every nook and gummy ridge, to feel for-
“F-fuck-” Head throwing back, your spine arches into a tight little bow that slops the entirety of your cunt down onto Nanami’s eagerly awaiting mouth. “There- there there there- don’ stop, Kentooo.”
He’s been waiting for this forever. And he was going to get his fill.
And you could feel the way his mouth curled into a flirty smile, the back of his sharp chin slathered against the very back of where you needed him the most.
“Mhm– Not gonna let ya go-” As if to prove his point, one free hand is all it takes for him to latch onto your waist and pin you to ride his face with reckless abandon. Exactly how he wanted it. “Wanna marry ya- be mine- please-” Because Nanami Kento didn’t want to move an inch - couldn’t bear parting with the exact sweet treat that’s haunted his most lecherous dreams since the day he fucking met you. “-never- ah- never after th-this.”
Such pretty, pretty melodies resonate out every time Nanami’s slobbering honeyed flurries of sucks and kisses onto your cunt - and not just from between your lips.
No, your teary pussymound was so loud with wiry sploshes of sap. And he simply can’t help himself from nodding his head with every waterlogged swash - as if he was having a full fucking conversation.
“S’right- m’wife’s always so right aren’tcha-” Nanami’s rawly drenched fingers pump outside - just for a split-second - to pap! pap! pap! his calloused pads on that syrupy little stud of your clit before curling his fingers into his mouth and sucking. Cleaning himself off. “Sh-should hear what yer gorgeous pussy’s been hah- sayin’- such a talkative girl, isn’t she?”
And those drunken chestnut eyes of his were just pleading - begging - for you to babble out, “Wh-what is she saying, Ken?”
“She’s sayin’- boasting, actually…” he’s drawling off, and with just how utterly fucked that Nanami looked right now, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d lost his train of thought. Giggling - giggling out, “-that she can take three.”
He was determined to prove it to you.
To swell your adhesive walls open with three of his pulpy fingers until you felt like you were going to burst. Those thickset globular ends of his digits reaching for that precious little bullseye of your cunt - he’s caressing you lovingly from the inside.
Over and over back and forth in maddening crawls until you were halfway through sobbing. And a primal itch inside him purrs at the sight of those prettily glistening tears in your eyes.
Ah, you looked so gorgeous riding his face like this - and, really, it wasn’t Nanami’s fault that his mouth felt a little left out…was it?
“B-both?” You’re dawdling your limp arms precariously onto the mahogany headboard - something that lasts for a generous two seconds before he’s unlatching your hands to dig harshly into his prespired tug. Firm arm around your first nudging you to pull- “You’re seriously gonna t-try n’ fit both?”
Both being the way that Nanami’s overfilling your snug channel with the dual penetration of his long, extra-sensitive tongue.
Hissing with a slightly feral snarl marring those features when your tight hole won’t give way, Nanami’s bumping his nose against your sensitive nub with shy pecks once. Twice. Thrice to bully his feverish muscle inside.
“H-hngh—” he’s groaning at the tugging squeeze of your rubbery cunt. Stray fingers scissoring open your gluey walls, “Need ya to m-milk my tongue- know you can- ah! Gonna take it like my good girl, aren’tcha?”
And it happens all at once.
You don’t know what you’re more surprised at - the way that he’s somehow managing to wedge in that sugarcoated drive of his tongue, or the way that you’re cumming.
Your own high taking you by surprise - taking all but Nanami by surprise.
And you’ve never felt anything like this before, eyes flashing with white-hot stars.
They’re burning into your brain and rendering you absolutely stupid with every bludgeon of his fingers into your gooey depths. So fast and hard that you can feel the recoil from your bulging g-spot sprinting in cratering vibrations down your spine.
“Nana- Ken-ohhh fuck!” Your mouth drivels away mindlessly, the euphoria so good that you can feel pools of dribble spilling from the corners of your lips with every grind. Thighs quaking, somehow wanting more- shit, seems the aphrodisiac won’t be done after just one…“M’cumming- ngh- m’cumming m’c-cumming.”
“Mhmmm- already know.” Words sinking down into what almost sounds like whines, and Nanami almost feels like he could cum in his pants. “Come now- pull on m’hair n’ r-ride me through that pretty high.” Filthy. Depraved. He’s curling the deliciously gravely tastebuds on his tongue to lap up every one of your knotted waves of slick, letting viscous wad after wad hit the back of his throat with a lewd splat!. “H-hehhh. Chatty pussy- y’know what else she’s sayin’?”
Shit- the idea makes your fingers nimbly pull at Nanami’s soft strands until he’s wafting out a low atta giiirl. Mumbling through croaking moans that just won’t stop dropping from your lips, “Wh-ngh! what?”
“She’s hngh- saying…” Yeah, it wasn’t the aphrodisiac - it definitely wasn’t the aphrodisiac that had him losing his fucking mind like this. It was you. “-that yer gonna g-give me another biiiig one very soon.”
Oh.
That wasn’t a promise - Nanami didn’t have to promise that.
Because he was so intoxicated by that caramel scent sticking to you. Increasing twofold when with a sodden swat! down your bawling slit, you’re being stretched out with three of his digits until you were wide agape. Embarrassingly, so.
But not for Nanami - with a tantalized loll of his head into the silk-covered pillows, he’s gifting your sloppy entrance with a thick wad of saliva.
As if the need was infectious - that orbed mass of spit flooding the inside of your cozy pussy just before his tongue is.
“Ngh- s-so hot- ya like that new lipstain, my love?” He’s gulping down the excess slushes of your slick with every thrust past your glutinous walls, hard. Sloppy. Making such a mess on purpose, because for all how straightlaced Nanami was - all that shattered when it came to you. “-s-so sweet. Ah- h-hold my hand if s’too much, darling.”
“Feels so s-sensitive but…” Your jaw drops into a soft oh! when his rugged tongue drags over the globed bruises of his fingertips inside. Fingers scrambling for his free ones in midair, “-but I want more, Kentooo-”
With the leverage on your hand, he’s helping your burning thighs manage out a few more soppy strokes up and down.
Your head is so dizzy by now, and you can barely see straight. Barely stumble to match every sopping smooch being punished upon your overwhelmed pussy. “Look so pretty like this- So tight- so cute. Probably c-couldn’t even ngh- fit my tip this way.”
“S-so mean.”
“I’d be nice if ya- hngh- spit in my mouth.”
Gasping, “Like this?” But you didn’t even have to ask - you knew the answer in Nanami’s eyes, in the way he was smearing your pussy lips thoroughly ajar. In the way his dilated pupils run all the way to the back of his lips when you do.
Your greedy gaze dazes back down to take in that heavenly sight of him - and you almost wish that you still had your camera for the article today with you. Because this was a sight you wanted to remember forever and ever.
He’s so pretty with his golden locks splayed out like an angelic halo on the pillowcase below, clammy skin flushed rose red, swollen lips coral pink and gumming over your gluey ones like it was his favorite candy. Sucking. Even harder at the sloshes of translucent sap that laminated his face down to his chin, his neck, and all the way up to his cheekbones.
Thighs stuttering and sticking with every grind on top of his face, it’s all you can do to manage out a pitchy, “Think I might just- K-Ken–”
He’s swirling up a lazy few fingertips to your needy clit and pinching. “-cum all over m’face again, my girl.”
You do. You do like you can’t stop.
And he’s supping up every draining burble of your flooding slick like it was an antidote to this little ah…indisposition.
He says so, too - gurgling out wet little scientific explanations into your cunt that make your high peak with orgasms upon orgasms. Your second, third, and forth meshing into one to make you practically convulse. Nanami’s forced to dig his fingers into the plush of your thighs to stop you from escaping.
And the question about whether this was part of his powers is halfway out of your mouth before Nanami’s leaving off a final swat! again your drooling pussy.
Chuckling - crazed - at the wispy sprays of juices that makes you gush out.
“C’mon now, do those legs s-still work?” Nanami can’t hide the way that his deep voice wobbles into what almost sounds like a laugh. High.
You’re being ragdolled with a squelching pop! off of his heated mouth and easily lifted to take his third favorite seat of yours - his lap. The second being his mouth, and the first- well, it was sure to be his thoroughly achy, angry cock right about now.
“Ken-”
Nanami couldn’t bear to hear his name in your sweet, whimpering tone - he just couldn’t. Shutting you up with a slow slide of a kiss, “Yeahhh, darlin’...kiss me- more. Lick it allll up.”
“D-didn’t think you’d be so dirty…” you’re gasping, when his tongue pries your slagging maw open to once more spit. Sweet. Caramelized.
“Oh, my pretty girl…” Two of his soppingly wet fingers smush your cheeks into a pathetic pout, “You haven’t seen dirty just yet. Now- spit back in m-my mouth, why don’tcha?”
You do - splattering a messy mark right at that adorable dimple of his with your messy aim. But he loves it - it was so sweet. Darting out a tongue to extract back all those sugary remnants before giving you one, final French kiss.
Begging in that growling way of his, “Whaddya- whaddya want from me- I’ll give ya anything- anything-” Both arms looping your waist to plaster your sweaty front into his Herculean one, you have to hold back a keen at how your hardened nipples massage against his pecs.
But, most of all, what you could feel - what you so badly wanted to feel - was that long, thick outline that jerked once you glide away sweaty strands of Nanami’s hair. Desperate.
“Wan’ your cock, Kento.” You were way past feeling any sort of embarrassment now. Winding your arms around his sculpted shoulders, “N-need you ngh- inside me. Now.”
Of course, whatever you wanted - Nanami Kento would give.
He’s tugging down on the elastic waistband of those too-tight boxers, and your ears burn with the saturated schwf! of soaked fabric on skin. And that superhero suit…did not do him justice.
Nanami’s slouching back on one arm when you’re oh-so-impatiently helping him kick off that useless piece of fabric. Head tilting with an uncharacteristically cocky smirk, “Like what you ah- see, hm?”
Shit, did you ever.
Because it’s always the quiet ones - always.
And with your seat position right at the thick, globular mushroom tip of Nanami’s cock, you knew that he’d be packing a staggering few inches. The mere outline of it puckering up against your pussyflaps enough to get you to gulp with nervousness.
But this? This had your jaw dropping.
Fingers trailing down that lightly fleeced copper happy trail of his in utter disbelief. Because not only was Nanami Kento big - he was big.
Swollen, glistening near-nine inches that jerked at the vulgar size difference of your digits struggling to wrap around his ridiculous girth. Nestled against bulky breeder balls rounded and weighing heavily underneath his strawberry pink length. He seemed even harder than usual - and it was all for you.
Fuck, that aphrodisiac. This was all for his gorgeous (future) wife.
Lazily drooling out a thick few wads of pearly pre that butters over your fingerpads, and just a simple touch - just one drag of his sweltering hot length makes Nanami whimper-
“O-oh- yeahhh- brace yerself, my girl.” He’s letting his head tumble back with a groan, heavy-handed arms guiding to the fleshy mound of your waist. “Gonna be ah- ruinin’ this pretty cunt-”
Nanami’s making you mewl with a welcoming little thwack! of his plumply bloated cockhead against your puffed-up pussy lips. Making your creaky bedframe sing out a few protests. Stirring out a staccato of one - two - three before finally - finally - slipping right between that pursed pout.
CRASH!
An overwhelmed hand of his grips your headboard the moment he’s pushing and pushing - only to have the strong mahogany break underneath his superstrength. Damn, these powers.
“Awww, look how much yer drooling-” Nanami’s hiccuping with every tiny clench of your gummy walls around that cylindrical intrusion. A mean few fingertips so ferally smearing over the rings upon rings of saturated sap your cunt was slobbering all over his hefty base. Drawing a foggy line with them over your tummy, “G-gonna be riiiight here…h-heh.”
And maybe it was best that your dear Nanami was talking to, well, her. Because just the simple stretch that came with his fattened tip was enough to render you spellbound.
“Nana-”
Smack! “Mhm? M’here, m’here, your dear hngh! Kento is here.”
“Kento- oh my goood-” Nonsensical syllables drooling from your lips and readily available for Nanami to kiss away. Your head slags drunkenly into the crook of his neck with each sinking inch, “S-s’so big, dunno if it’ll even ah- fit.”
“Shhh, s’gonna fit. Deep breaths…deep breaths.”
You’re echoing, trying to time your stumbling gasps to match his. Backfiring when you only obtain lungfuls of his masculine scent, ‘D-deep breaths?“
“Mhmm- deep-” Oh, but even he wasn’t immune to the cloggy clamp of your pussy that had Nanami rutting. “Whoops.” One of his powerful forearms showcase in front of your narrowed vision, ogling all the pumped veins and rippling muscles. “C’mon- bite.”
You’re listening without a second thought, teeth sinking into the smooth skin - gurgling back tiny sobs at the sheer stretch. It felt like you were being split apart.
He’s rolling his tips upwards, glissading you in a cozy massage against the ridges of his sweat-shielded abs. “M’gonna make it- duh. Look at me-” Dextrous fingers curling around your throat to make your woozy gaze focus on him, “Yeah- yeah. Look riiiight at me wh-when I ah- ”
And it takes only the tiniest probe of his thumpingly peaked veins bludgeoning against your tender walls, fuming divot bawling out a few geysers of creamy precum that fill you up scorchingly.
It takes only that for you to cum with an unstable shudder, moans piling on top of moans. You’re digging your fingerpads into Nanami’s damp scalp and pulling when you cum for the nth time on his cock.
You didn’t even know how you were cumming again - why, but you had a feeling that the thickening perfume of vanilla and candy in the room had something to do with it…
“C-cummin’ from jus’ the ah- tip? Seriously?” Nanami’s breathing, chest heaving with awe. Pushing and pushing away the heavy strands of his blond hair just to see you. And the urgent motions only make your pussy slide down even more, spearheading his lusciously right-leaning curve up into your gooey placeholders. “Really are jus- ah- made f’me- really ah! So perfect. So, so perfect.”
You’re watching his huffs turn heated, “Mmm- wanted you to f-fuck me like this ever since I was- ngh at the office.”
“Ohhh what a coincidence.” He grins - grins. “I’ve wan’ed to fuck ya like ah- this, since I first s-saw ya. Woulda fucked ya right then n’ there in your pretty lil’ cubicle if I ah- could.”
Crying out, “More- more more more-”
“Jus’ another inch-” Nose crinkling at the gripping resistance of your tight entrance, you were so slicked-up that you were practically flooding him with delirious puddles of resin. His fat thumb smears open your lips, “S-see? Juuuus a lil’ more-”
Oh…fuck.
He was finally- wait. No, this had to be a dream, right?
“Wait- shiiit- did you seriously-” He’s stuttering - stuttering exactly the way he used to back in the office. Back in his disguise. “Seriously…think ya deserve a little r-reward for that, right?”
Your reward just-so-happened to be another treacly wad of saliva being blasted onto your tongue. And by now you’re doing nothing but letting it easily be swallowed up with a cockdrunk smile. “God, m’feelin’ so hngh! full— c-can feel ya right- here-”
Every jackhammer bullied up into your goopy orifice had Nanami wrecking you from the inside. His crowned, rotund tip prying open those stickily sweet walls of yours, barely even having to try to stir up a wet wipe against your poor cervix.
“Feel me right-” One softened palm splays down across your tummy. Hard. Feeling for that tenderizing whack of his thickly tip into your most precious spots. “-here, huh? Yeahhh- f-feel that bump- touch it. Gonna c-carve out a fuckin’ ngh- cute lil’ bruise right here.”
“P-please.”
And then, with a heady drawl of laughter, Nanami’s dredging out his tired tongue to lick over your rapid pulse like he wanted to bite. Palms still groping that orbed bulge, “Y-you wouldn’t believe what this- ngh- this is makin’ me think…”
Ever-so-curious, even when you’re being fucked stupid like this. “Wh-what?”
Earning you another few vicious ruts into your g-spot, a few thin lines of drool waterfall past his lips. Almost as if the very thought is enough to make him light-headed.
“Jus’ thought a-about how yer always so ngh- pretty.” Muttering low and frantic with every bounce on his painfully hard cock, like he didn’t even want to admit this pussydrunk nonsense. But couldn’t stop. “So pretty when you were handlin’ Yuji today. Pretty when yer all ah- overstuffed with my cock b-but…you’d make an even prettier mama, though.”
Oh.
A mama - Nanami Kento wanted to make you mama.
And he was pressurizing you with pound after pound drilling into your melty depths until you were sure that you were molded around his shape. That mountainous curve of his crownhead striking every bullseyed sweet spot.
“Wan’ it-” Your legs wrangle around his slender waist, heels digging into the pretty dimples at the bottom of his spine. “Want you to f-fill me up so ngh- badly, Kento.”
“S-seriously?” Your words so distracting that it has his riotous cock drilling hard into that spot and skidding away in increasingly sappy thrashes against your battered and bruised cervix. Jaw clenching, “Really wan’ me fuckin’ this cute cunt hngh- p-pregnant, darling?”
Making you only nod and nod and nod-
“Yeahhh- anythin’ my girl ah- wants, huh?” He’s tittering at how adorably your hips were slurring out the tiniest of grinds. Up and down up and down - failing to meet his sloppy cadence, but angling your hips to use him. “N’ right now- all I wan’ is you all ah- round and fuuuuull.”
And it wasn’t just the aphrodisiac talking.
You were beginning to overspill already, the flooded torrentials of his slushy precum seeping from the pouty ends of your slippery slit. You’re moping down his length with such humid tufts of juices, “Cum in me- please- need you to- now.”
“Mama didn’t teach ya ah- patience, my girl?”
And despite his words, he’s falling back to lounge so sexily against the dampened sheets. Close - he could feel it in the snaking heat at the bottom of his stomach that he was so very close.
Losing his faint grip on his power, Nanami’s clenching and balling his fists to stop from soiling permanent marks all over your body. Mind shattering. Your bedsprings bursting. Teeth gritting to stop him losing control-
Voice breaking into a few whimpers when he finally utters, “S-s’alright- greedy girl.” Before palming one hand onto the bloated budge of his length, the other swirling over your tearily overstimulated clit and tweaking. “-I can be th-the heh- strict parent.”
Oh, at this point, your orgasm is more a few heavenly tingles than anything else.
Stimulating your most fragile of pummeled crevices, you’re feeling warm, thick goblets of Nanami’s cum swash in a sticky wave. And there’s so much of it - extra with his condition right now, spurting out ribbony ropes of sickly sweet cum with every squeeze of his bulky balls.
Those knotted wads of ivory are filling you up until your gummy walls were inflating, thunking out a little wet spot at your cervix. Something that he can’t help but keen over a few fat digits and push to make a splashing mess. “Gonna get ya pregnant- I will g-get ya pregnant.”
Nanami’s big, beefy arms are pinning you to the front of his chest like he never wanted to let go. Never would.
Heaving to chase his breath - and, yet, still failing with every battering ram of his snaking cock. Fucking up the thickly viscous streams of cum up deeper and deeper-
“O-oh.” Nanami’s muttering, glassy wooden eyes straying somewhere beyond you and towards the end of the bed. The strangely…sagging bed. “We broke the- hah- we broke the bed.”
Shit. But you barely have the time to register his words before- THUD!
Your back is being brazenly splayed-out across the mahogany floors of your bedroom, Nanami’s arms underneath you shielding your body from every ounce of the stinging smack. Strong. Holding onto you tight.
Still pumped inside, still carving out the free ounces with masses upon masses of his swollen cock.
With your head drooping barely-lucidly to the side, you’re gasping at the blackened palm print that had burned itself onto the floor right beside your head.
The air around the two of you was candied, pheromones of candy and vanilla melding into what was probably your favorite scent now. Ahhhh…he didn’t even care if this was the cure anymore.
And despite being the strongest being in perhaps the entire universe, Nanami was melting into you. His abs adhesively plastered against your front, hips rolling in what can’t even be called grinds. Just simple, sappy gyrations of his still-twitchy cock.
He’s whispering out a slurring mantra of words into your thoroughly wrenched open mouth - barely even able to talk coherently after that mind-shattering orgasm. “Lock- lock them- lock them please-”
“I-I caaaan’t.” You’re whimpering out, limp legs uselessly dangling like dead weight where Nanami was resting them on the cushiony home of his deltoids.
But not to worry. Of course not to worry, your Nanami was here for you.
Biceps bulging when one arm bends to pin your ankles behind his neck, he’s folding you down, down, down into such a filthy mating press.
Moving you around as if it was nothing, as if you couldn’t hear your joint weakly popping. His healing powers being kicked involuntarily into overdrive…fuck.
Nanami can feel his cock jerk - barely softened for a few nanoseconds before thumping with every ounce of blood in his fully spent brain.
“Awww, t-too weak?” Planting a sodden peck against the corner of your ankles. And something in that tone told you that the two of you were far, far from over. That the slowly drunken fucking of Nanami’s hips was just the beginning. He’s squashing back a few remnant dredges of seed from just earlier, slipping out just enough to smear a messy white lipstick. “Well then…”
You’re jolting at the quick pap! pap! pap! of his ballooned tip popping out a few sloppily smushing strikes - before sinking deeply back in.
He’s fucking you again- and again and again and-
“Y-you know I h-haaaah- hate disrespectin’ my girl like- this-” He’s staring deeply into your eyes, gesturing languidly at the expanse of the floor. Ever-the-gentleman…usually. “-but if s’f-fer makin’ our daughter…then. Gotta make sure that I can be her Superdad.”
A/N. Hope you lovelies have the best week n’ happy new year in advance <3
summary: it's well known across the ptmc that park the shark doesn't like anyone, except for a younger resident he calls 'crybaby,' who also happens to be jack abbot's secret girlfriend. (4k)
characters: jack abbot / sunshine!fem!reader, mentor!brendon park, whitaker & evil whitaker
contents: secret relationship, jealousy, age gap, humor, insecure!jack, not proofread cw for medical inaccuracies, allusions to smut 18+ (MDNI), and r getting turned out that jack takes viagra
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
Crybaby.
Dr. Park was the first to call you by that name — or Park the Shark, they called him, on account of his strong features, and the fact that he looked like he could swallow you whole without blinking.
It was your first rotation at the PTMC, when you screwed up a simple tibia plate fixation. The reduction looked clean, in your defense, straight and stable. “You got it?” the attending had asked. And you’d nodded as you adjusted your grip on the patient’s broken leg — only slightly.
The imaging still looked clear from your angle, as the drill went into the bone. But then you looked down, realizing you had forgotten to account for rotation, and found the patient’s foot slightly turned. Your heart dropped to your stomach, and then to your ass at the look Dr. Park gave you when his screw went in off-axis.
“Everyone take a good look!” he’d announced to the crowd of interns and med students watching after the fact. “If anyone here was wondering how to invent a new way to misalign a fracture, congratulations— You just got a live demonstration.”
Your eyes stung with tears, until your attempt to blink them back had failed.
“If this is all it takes to rile you up, wait until something actually goes wrong,” Dr. Park had scolded. “Now do you want me to go easy on you, or do you wanna get better, Crybaby?”
You stayed. And he made you better. But the nickname stuck.
Crybaby became a term of endearment, a symbol of how far you’d come since your interning days, and was shortened to Baby somewhere down the line. “Baby, take this patient down to CT for me, will you?” and “Cut me an ET tube, Baby, six millimeters,” and—
“Good luck getting that consult, baby,” Jack Abbot says from the opposite side of the exam room, with his strong arms crossed over his chest. The nickname sounds different spilling from his lips. It always has. “The OR’s backed up with Westbridge patients. It could be hours before we get a room booked.”
“She doesn’t have hours…” you murmur under your breath, squeezing past Whitaker and Ogilvie as you part from your unconscious patient. “Excuse me…”
“W-What are you doing?” the former boy stammers.
“Getting us a consult…” you say, half-distracted, as you reach for the red telephone on the wall. You press the cool plastic to your ear and dial the ortho extension.
Jack watches attentively from the sidelines as you make the call upstairs.
“You already sound like you’re gonna say no, so I’m just gonna ask quickly,” you say. “I know, I know— Terrible timing. But we both know I’m your favorite, so just hear me out.”
“Favorite…?” Ogilvie murmurs. “Wait— Who is she calling?”
“Park the Shark,” Whitaker answers solemnly.
“Or as I like to call him— Doctor Dick,” Jack says with a cynical smile. “On account of him being a dick.”
Whitaker nods in concurrence. “To everyone but her.”
You hang up the phone and return to your spot at the patient’s bedside. “Ortho consult’s on its way,” you tell them, half-distracted, as you check the ketamine levels in her IV drip.
“How’d you do that?” Ogilivie squints.
“I asked nicely,” you shrug.
Brendon Park comes into the emergency department barely five minutes later, and brings a tense air in with him that matches the unsmiling look on his narrow face. The way his dark blue eyes lock on you the second he walks in can only be described as sharklike.
“What do we got, Baby?” he asks you, and only you, utterly ignoring the other bodies in the room as he makes a beeline to your side. He smells of sea salt and sandalwood when he towers just behind you, standing several inches taller.
Jack swallows down the anger that swells suddenly in his throat like bile.
“Ten-foot fall onto a metal fence,” you tell him. “Tib-fib amputation— Pretty clean cut.”
“Sliced right through the bone like a guillotine,” Whitaker adds.
Park turns slowly, dark eyes zeroing in on the mulleted boy. “Was I talking to you?”
The boy’s cheeks flare red. He clears his throat. “Uh— No. No, sir.”
“Let me see the X-ray,” the attending says to you, much softer in comparison, and follows you the short distance to the bulky machine in the corner.
“See?” you hum. “Not too bad, right?”
His eyes flit from the x-ray to your hopeful gaze. The corner of his mouth flickers faintly upward as he nods once in response. “Yeah. Should be pretty fun— Where’s the leg?”
“Double bagged on ice.” You motion across the room.
Whitaker watches the older man walk past him with an unblinking gaze. “I didn’t know he smiled…” he whispers incredulously under his breath.
“Yeah, me neither, kid,” Jack mumbles, swaying softly in place, as he keeps his eyes locked on the two of you.
His jealousy is misplaced, but inevitable. Everyone had a certain soft spot for you, but he couldn’t quite stand it from Park — the man who didn’t seem to like anyone or anything but his work and you. Jack knows it makes a part of you feel special, you are special, but he wants to be the only one making you feel that way.
“Tell him how we prepped the limb, Ogilivie,” you tell the MS3.
“Oh, please, not me,” the curly-haired boy mumbles under his breath, looking instinctively to Whitaker for assistance. He swallows hard when Brendon’s dark eyes snap to his. “Uh— Sterile saline in the inner bag, ice water in the outer bag. No direct ice to skin contact.”
Park nods and turns away, unwrapping the severed leg on the table below. “Good…”
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t talking about you,” the attending snaps. His eyes soften the second he turns to you. “Let me guess— You wrapped this?”
“How’d you know?” you grin.
“Because it’s neat,” Park quips drily as he pulls the bluing limb from the plastic. “And I don’t think Abbot suddenly developed fine motor skills.”
“Stop flirting with me, Shark,” Jack monotones.
“Antibiotics?” the man squints.
“Cefazolin and gent,” you answer. “And we’re already cleared her chest, abdomen, and pelvis.”
Park nods to himself, examining the severed leg with his gloved hands. “Clean wound… No rush injury… Rapid transport time…” he mumbles to himself, visibly pleased in a way that makes your stomach do a backflip. “Replantation is a go. I’ll go ahead and book an OR, get it taken care of for you.”
“Thanks…” you say, smiling a little wider than you realize. Because ever since the day he embarrassed you in front of all your coworkers, you’ve made it your personal mission to impress him.
“What’s the catch?” Jack quips from across the room. “You already got a packed OR so… What? You’re just doing us a favor out of the kindness of your heart?”
“Hell, no,” Brendon scoffs. “Baby’s gonna scrub in with me.”
Your breath hitches in your throat. You’re not sure whether to be happy or horrified, ‘cause you haven’t done a surgery with him since you were an intern.
“Holy shit— Really?”
“Yeah. As long as you promise not to fuck up again,” Park deadpans, though there’s something distinctly soft in his eyes as he quips, “And if you can keep your guard dog on a leash for a few hours.”
Your eyes turn instinctively to Jack. You find his features slightly hardened but mostly emotionless. He shrugs despite the distant searing in his chest.
“She doesn’t need my permission.”
“Then why are you glaring like I’m about to steal your favorite toy, old man?” Brendon scoffs.
Jack’s eyes widen. His head swivels slowly over his shoulder, as if he were looking for someone standing behind him. “I know you’re not talking about me,” he quips drily.
“I would love the opportunity to scrub in, Dr. Shark— I mean, Park,” you stammer.
“Alright, then. Let’s go,” he nods, pulling off his gloves with a low pop as he storms back towards the door. “The rest of you, irrigate the hell out of this with three liters.”
“Wait— three liters?” Whitaker blurts.
Park glares. “Of saline, genius.”
“I… I knew you meant saline…”
You stop short in the doorway with Jack at your side, right before you turn to follow Park into the elevator. You flash him a wide-eyed look full of hope and distant worry, “You’re not mad at me, are you? For doing this with Shark?”
“I couldn’t be,” Jack scoffs.
“Well, then, I’ll let you know how it goes later?” you murmur sheepishly, shifting on your feet like a shy child. “Over dinner?”
“Sure,” he nods. “I’ll take you somewhere nice. You know, to celebrate.”
He gives you a soft smile that fades the second you’ve turned the corner. He feels the weight of his own insecurity sitting heavy on his chest. The notion that he’s much too old for you tends to follow him like a shadow, but it rears its mean, green, ugly head a little extra now.
“Hey…” Robby greets, then slows his stride when he walks past the tree men leaving the exam room. “What’s the long faces for?”
Abbot flashes him an unamused gaze. “Shark attack,” he deadpans.
Robby nods sympathetically. “Yeah, that’ll do it…”
The familiar chaos of the ED wraps around you like a blanket when you come down from the OR — the beeping monitors, the rolling stretchers, the hundred different conversations. It feels welcoming, in a strange sort of way; it fuels you in a way it hasn’t in a long, long time. It feels less like you’re surviving your shift now, and more like you could solve every medical inquiry in this hospital if someone asked you to.
You feel ten feet tall and lighter than air as you weave your way through the crowded emergency department. Jack can see it from where he watches you at the workstation with an eagle-eyed stare. Your scrubs are creased from your hours in the OR; your eyes are as wild as the distant smile sitting crooked on the very edges of your mouth.
You plant yourself at the computer next to his, and Abbot pretends like he hasn’t been waiting for you this whole time.
“How’d it go?” he asks distantly, trying to be casual.
“Great,” you nod with a proud smile. “Like really great. There was a twisted artery, and I was the only one who caught it. I got to reroute it all on my own— It was crazy.”
Jack feels himself smiling despite himself, basking in the rays of your sunshine disposition.
“Really?” he hums, nodding once. “Good job, baby.”
You couldn’t possibly count how many times you hear that nickname on a daily basis, but it’s different coming from Jack. It’s warmer, more familiar — makes your stomach do backflips like it’s the first time you’re hearing the word from his mouth. You go dizzy accordingly, as your fingers flit across the keyboard below.
“I’m just glad I didn’t make a total fool of myself like I did the first time,” you scoff.
“Yeah, me too,” a familiar voice quips from behind you.
You glance over your shoulder and catch a glimpse of Dr. Park as he appears suddenly behind you, dropping a file on the desk next to you mid-stride. His sea salt cologne pervades your senses instantly, clashing with Jack’s softer, muskier scent.
“I thought I heard the Jaws theme playing…” the older man quips in a dry monotone.
“You should be proud, Abbot— Your resident was a star in surgery today,” Park says with a knowing smirk hinting at the very corners of his mouth, so subtle it’s barely there. “Can’t wait for her to be my protégé in the OR someday.”
Jack’s frown deepens when the man claps him hard on the shoulder as he walks back for the elevator, though not without tossing a “let me know when you need a letter of rec for that fellowship, Baby,” over his shoulder as he goes.
He watches the younger attending until he turns the corner, and looks back at you with his jaw clenched a little tighter than before. His chest sears at the distant smile on your face, as the flames of his jealousy burn white-hot behind his ribcage
“Well,” Jack hums drily after a beat of silence. “You guys are getting awfully close, aren’t you?”
You scoff like it’s funny to you, because the thought of Park the Shark liking anyone is funny to you.
“What? No,” you laugh, then shrug at the unconvinced look Jack gives you in response. “He’s just nice to me. That’s all.”
Jack lets out a sharp exhale through his nose in place of a laugh. He turns back to his computer and deadpans, “Yeah. Because he likes you.”
You open your mouth to argue.
Jack beats you to the punch.
“And I don’t blame him, either. I think it’d make me a hypocrite if I did.”
Your face flares as a red-hot heat crawls up your neck. Your adrenaline-induced confidence fades into something softer as you struggle suddenly to meet the older man’s gaze. You glance down at the chart Park left, unable to hide the small smile on your mouth when you peer at Jack again from beneath your lashes.
“Where are we going for dinner after this again?” you wonder, half-sheepish.
The expression on his scruffy face shifts slightly, less tense but mischievous still. “We aren’t,” he says and logs out of the computer.
Your eyes narrow into a suspicious squint as you watch the man round the front desk. “What happened to ‘I’ll take you somewhere nice?’”
“Yeah…” Jack nods slowly, huffing sympathetically, as his hands curl around either end of his stethoscope. “I think we’re gonna miss that reservation, baby.”
Your stomach does a backflip.
By the time you make it to Jack’s place, the adrenaline has worn off just enough to leave you pleasantly exhausted.
He can feel it in your kiss, as you straddle him on his sunken couch in the middle of his dim living room — so quiet compared to the ER that it feels like stepping into a completely different world. You prop yourself over his lap with your palms cradling his silver scruff and lick into his parted mouth in slow, languid motions.
You’ve been at it for a while now. So long that Jack can feel your spit down to his chin. You could kiss him for hours and hours and never get bored — a testament to your youth, perhaps, because Jack doesn’t think he’s made out with someone this long since he was in college.
But, for you, he keeps his head tipped back against the sofa and his mouth obediently parted, letting you kiss him however you want — for however long you want. His wide hands fidget with anticipation on either side of your bare thighs, from where your shirt rides up to your hips.
You’d changed immediately into one of his old tees when you arrived, after a shower your body had been craving all day. You smell like his body wash and lotion as you sit on his lap, running your hands down his clothed chest like soft drops of summer rain.
Your fingers brush the tie in his dark navy sweatpants, and he tenses on instinct. You don’t seem to notice, though, as you leave a trail of wet kisses down his scruffy neck.
“Are you gonna fuck me tonight?” you mumble into his pulse. “’S why we didn’t go out for dinner tonight, isn’t it? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking about it all day…”
Jack goes dizzy at your words — at the otherwise innocent mouth they spill from. His stomach warms, and he jerks back from you before he means to; his mouth wet and rosy from the intensity of your kisses.
“Yeah, fuck— Yeah, I just…” he trails off, though it’s more of a dismissal than a true affirmative. “I just gotta go to the bathroom real quick, yeah?”
“Okay,” you smile politely, unaware of his subdued panic that he’s learned to keep well-hidden. You slide off his lap and onto the other side of the couch. “Sure.”
Jack rises from the sunken sofa with a low grunt in the back of his throat. There’s a slight limp in his step from where the long day has taken a toll on his prosthetic. “Feel free to make yourself at home while I’m gone,” he tosses mindlessly over his shoulder, before he disappears down the dim hallway, making an immediate beeline for his lamplit bedroom.
There’s a bottle of sildenafil in his nightstand drawer, with only one pill taken out of it — which he thinks is somehow even more embarrassing. He’d only taken it to masturbate once, after his SSRIs plummeted his libido and he was itching for a release after a long day.
The small orange bottle feels strangely heavy in his hands now, as he tips his head back to shake one of the tiny blue pills into his mouth before he can talk himself out of it. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows it dry. The pills rattle faintly when he sets the bottle down beside him again.
He drops onto the edge of his bed, mattress squeaking under his weight. He rests his elbows on his knees and hunches over to dig his palms into his eyes. He tries to will himself hard for you, even though he knows that isn’t exactly how that works.
He thinks of you — all young and pretty and waiting for him out there — wasting your youth on an old man who can’t get hard to save his life. It leads to a cycle of self-hatred that prevents him from getting turned on at all. And it’s maddening.
The ajar door creaks quietly as you push it open without knocking.
You slink inside the dim bedroom and freeze at the sight of the man on the bed, like you weren’t expecting to find him there. Jack’s head whips to your form across the room and spins when he finds your underwear peeking out from the bottom of his shirt — a soft orange color patterned with dark black bats, several months out of season.
“What are you doing?” he squints teasingly, blanketed half by shadow and half by golden lamplight.
“What are you doing?” you retort. “I’ve been waiting out there forever.”
“It’s only been five minutes,” Jack scoffs.
“Yeah, tell me about it…”
You’re all but skipping to his side then, bare feet padding along the thin carpet as you go. The thin fabric of his shirt swishes around your thighs when you walk to stand between his. When you wrap your arms loosely around his neck and duck down to kiss him, Jack tips his chin back and opens his mouth to welcome you — until the open drawer beside you catches your attention, as well as the orange pill bottle sitting on the corner of the nightstand, as if he’d just pulled it out of there.
“What’s that—?”
“Nothing,” Jack answers, a little too quickly, and reaches less than casually around you to chuck the bottle into the drawer again. The pills rattle loudly in the quiet bedroom when he shoves it shut a second later.
He can tell by the look in your eyes that you’ve already gotten a glimpse of the label. Your gaze is soft with sympathy and glittering with something wild that he can’t quite place.
Jack says nothing for several long moments, and instead waits for your response.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed…” you murmur when you catch his scruffy cheeks flaring a soft pink.
“I’m not embarrassed,” he blurts, less than convincingly, eyes shifting away and back again. “I’m just… selectively unthrilled with this timing…”
Your nose scrunches at the shy smile you give him. His warm hands settle again on your waist while your fingers twist in the silver curls at the nape of his neck. Your eyes soften with something tender when you wonder shyly, “Is that why… Is that why you haven’t wanted to… you know?”
“No,” Jack answers instantly, then tilts his head to think for a moment. “Well, I mean— a little, I guess, but… I only take ‘em ‘cause of my SSRIs, you know? It’s not… It’s not because of you or anything.”
“Okay…” you nod and struggle to meet his gaze when you ask, “Do you know, like, how long it takes to kick in… or whatever?”
“Last time I tried, it took about twenty minutes—”
“Last time?” you echo with raised brows.
“I was just trying it out!” Jack defends with a crooked smile, slightly egged on by your misplaced jealousy after stewing in his own all day. “I was by myself when I took it, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It does make me feel better, actually…”
Jack’s light eyes narrow. “What’s that look for, huh?”
“Nothin’…” you lilt quietly, with a poorly hidden smile. “I just… I think it’s kinda hot… That’s all…”
His expression flickers in an instant — surprise first, suspicion second, then something darker third. A white-hot desire threads through the distant embarrassment still swimming in his stomach.
“Yeah?” he presses lowly, with a voice like honey.
“Yeah…” you nod once, unable to take your eyes off his prying stare.
He studies you for another beat, before huffing a quiet laugh of disbelief.
“You’re somethin’ else, baby, you know that?” he mumbles with a shake of his head, smoothing his calloused palms slowly up your bare thighs until they disappear under his shirt.
“I know…” you mutter on bated breath, trying and failing to be casual when you ask, “What do you wanna do then, huh? You know, for the next twenty minutes, anyway?”
You fight back a shiver when his thumb brushes over the center of the delicate mound peeking beneath the hem of your t-shirt, concealed by the thin cotton panties you wear.
Jack hears your breath catch in his throat. His darkened gaze flits from your Halloween-patterned underwear to your heavy eyes, now glazed over with a layer of honeyed desire.
summary: you came to king’s landing as a hightower and learned quickly what it meant to be watched for sins that were never yours. baelor married you for reasons you did not understand. you kept your distance because it was easier than trusting him with the truth. he was known to be patient anyway. (6k+)
You had been a Hightower your whole life and never once thought it would feel like something to survive until you came here.
The court was too practised and careful with their cruelty to be pointed at and named. It did not come at you directly, it never did, it came in smaller things that were harder to hold onto.
The pause before a greeting that lasted just a breath too long. The smiles from the ladies that had warmth in the mouth and nothing kind behind the eyes. The way a conversation would ease when you walked into a room, and then surge again louder than before the moment you left. You had grown up understanding that the Hightower name carried weight. What you had not understood was what it meant to carry it into a place that had not yet forgiven what the Hightowers had done with it.
The Dance of Dragons had ended decades before you were born. The court's memory, seemingly, had not gotten the same message.
There was always something being said behind your back, never loudly, always at a distance that could be called coincidental. Otto Hightower put a usurper on the throne and called it duty. Some version of it, in some configuration, heard several times in your first month of being in King's Landing. You had learned quickly that the correct response was to hear nothing, show nothing, keep walking with your head held up even as the weight of it settled onto your shoulders like a thing you had not agreed to carry and could not put down.
So you turned to doing everything alone.
You ate alone, read alone, walked the halls of the keep with only a knight accompanying you, who was a silent presence at your back that reminded you daily of exactly how much of a stranger you still were here. You avoided the ladies who made your skin prickle with their careful smiles. You avoided the feasts and the gatherings and the morning embroidery sessions where the conversation had a way of finding you even when you were not speaking. And you avoided your husband, whom you had yet to even properly know, because the isolation had made the idea of reaching toward anyone feel like more than you had to give.
Baelor had let you.
That was the thing about him that surprised you most, if you were honest, which you rarely were, even with yourself. He was not cruel, not cold, not the sort of man who would use your distance against you. Every time he sent a maid to summon you so that you could break your fasts together you sent back a polite excuse, and he accepted it, and never once appeared at your door to demand an explanation.
When occasions arose where your presence at his side was expected, you found reasons to be elsewhere, and somehow those reasons were always accepted too, and you were left alone in your chambers wondering if he simply did not mind, or if he minded and had decided not to show it.
You did not know which answer you preferred.
Your window had a better view than any feast hall anyway. Your chambers had a silence that required nothing from your face, no arranging, no performing, no holding yourself very still while someone smiled at you in a way that made your jaw ache.
You had built a small life inside the margins of this place, quiet and managed and entirely your own, and it was not what you had imagined your marriage would look like, but you had stopped imagining things a long time ago and imagining had never done you much good anyway.
You did not know why he had married you.That was the question you could not set down no matter how many times you tried.
You had been in King's Landing for only three days when he first saw you, your father occupied with whatever council matter had brought him here, and you had gone to the gardens because they were the only part of the Red Keep that felt like it wasn't watching you, nd gave you some sort of solace.
You were crouched at the edge of the path, picking a small cluster of white flowers that had no business still blooming, when you heard footsteps on the gravel behind you and looked up, you had found him standing there watching you.
You had not known he was in the gardens at all.
For a moment neither of you said anything. He was looking at you in a way that was different from how people usually looked at you here, no assessment in it, no judgment of your name and your blood and what it meant, just looking, with an expression you could not find a clean word for.
"Your Grace," you said, and started to rise.
"Don't." He said it quickly, and then more quietly, like he was correcting himself, "I didn't mean to interrupt you."
You stayed where you were, flower still in hand, which felt slightly absurd, and looked up at him. "You aren't interrupting anything."
"You looked like you were somewhere else entirely," he said. "Somewhere good. I didn't want to bring you back."
You did not know what to say to that. You looked down at the flowers and picked another one to have something to do with your hands. "They shouldn't still be alive," you said. "It's far too cold for them."
"And yet," he said, and crouched down beside you, which was the last thing you had expected from the Prince of Dragonstone, and looked at the small cluster of stubborn blooms with the same quiet attention he seemed to give most things. "What are they called?"
"I don't know," you said honestly. "I just liked them."
He looked at you then, not at the flowers, and there was something in his expression that had gone very still. "May I," he said, and held out his hand, and you gave him one without quite deciding to, and he turned it over in his fingers slowly, like he was deciding something that had nothing to do with the flower.
He kept it and you did not ask why. You told yourself it did not matter.
Three days later he spoke to your father. You were not in the room. You learned of it afterward, the way you learned most important things, secondhand and too late to change them. You had no choice but to accept it.
Two weeks after that you were standing in the sept in a dress you had not chosen, your hands folded in front of you, your face arranged into something that passed for composure, your father standing beside you and not quite meeting your eyes
The consummation had been what it was. He had been gentle about it, quieter than you had expected, and at some point in the dark he had told you that you were allowed to enjoy it, that you did not have to simply endure it, and you had said nothing back. Not because you had nothing to say, but because you did not know yet whether he meant it.
Whether the gentleness was who he was or whether it was what men did when they wanted something, and you had come here having decided that you were not going to let yourself believe things before you had reason to.
Even as the months passed, you still did not have reason to.
The morning Lady Meredith caught you in the corridor, you had miscalculated the hour.
You had been using the east corridor as a passage to the gardens, which worked perfectly well at the times you had established were safe, early enough that the court ladies were still getting ready for the day, late enough that the servants had finished their morning rounds.
Today you had misjudged it. You came around the corner and walked directly into Lady Meredith Celtigar and three of her companions, and there was nowhere to go.
Lady Meredith was always pleasant. That was the most dangerous thing about her. Her smile came before anything else and stayed long after, so that whatever cruelty she chose to put between the two of them always arrived wrapped in warmth, and you were left holding something that stung without leaving anything you could take to anyone.
"My lady," she said.
Not princess. Not Your Grace. Just my lady, said easily, like it had slipped out by accident, like she had simply forgotten who you were. You were the Princess of Dragonstone now. Wife to the heir of the Iron Throne, to the Hand of the King. And she had looked you in the eye and stripped the title from you in front of three witnesses without her smile moving an inch.
"Lady Meredith," you said, pleasantly, because pleasant was the only thing that worked.
"We so rarely see you," she said, pressing a hand briefly to her chest like the concern was genuine. "I do hope you've been keeping well. It can be so difficult, settling into a new place." She glanced at her companions, who nodded along with the practiced sympathy of women who had done this before and would do it again. "Especially coming from somewhere as different as Oldtown. Such a quieter world to this one."
"King's Landing suits me well enough," you said.
"Does it?" Her smile warmed further, which should not have been possible. "You must forgive me, only we see so little of you that it's difficult to know. You're always so tucked away." She said it like it was an endearing quality, like she was simply observing something charming. "I worried at first that perhaps you were unwell, but the maids say you are quite fine, just…private." Another glance at her companions. "Which is admirable, of course. Very Hightower of you. Your family always did prefer to keep to themselves, didn't they. To operate quietly." A small thoughtful pause that was not thoughtful at all. "Away from prying eyes."
"I simply prefer my own company," you said, still pleasantly. "There is nothing unusual in that."
"Of course not," she agreed, she says nodding her head sympathetically. "Of course not. Though one does wonder," she tilted her head, eyes still warm, voice still soft, "what it must be like. To come here carrying that name. To sit at a Targaryen table." She let that settle for a moment. "The things House Hightower did, the war they helped bring about, the lives lost because of it– it's a remarkable thing to live with, I'd imagine. The weight of a name like that." She looked at you with something that wore the costume of sympathy. "Do you think about it often? What they did?"
The corridor had gone very quiet. Her companions were watching you now, all three of them, with the bright attentive stillness of people waiting to see what you would do.
You looked at Lady Meredith and kept your face exactly where it was. "House Hightower's history is well documented," you said. "As is everyone else's. If you'll excuse me."
You moved to step past her.
She stepped with you.
Not aggressively, not in any way that could be called a block, just a small shift of her position that placed her body precisely where yours needed to go, so natural it could have been an accident. Her smile did not move.
"It must be strange," she continued, as though you had not tried to leave, as though this were simply a pleasant conversation between two women in a corridor, "for the Prince to have chosen you specifically. Of all the houses. Of all the daughters available to him." She let that sit, watching your face with that warm attentive gaze. "Some say he did it to make a point. That taking a Hightower bride is its own kind of message to the old greens who still whisper in corners." She tilted her head. "Do you think that's true? That you were simply…convenient?"
Something moved through your chest that you did not let reach your face.
"I think," you said, very evenly, "that the reasons for my marriage are between my husband and myself."
"Naturally," she said. "Naturally. I meant no offence." And she smiled at you with absolute sincerity, and you looked back at her and understood, with a clarity that had nothing pleasant in it, that she had meant every single word, and that the smile was the point, that the smile was always the point, because it meant you could not say so to anyone.
"Then if you'll excuse me," you said again.
She opened her mouth to say something else, but someone beat it to her.
"My lady."
The voice came from behind you, and every woman in that corridor went still, including you.
Baelor was standing at the far end of it, where the passage turned toward the council chambers. You did not know how long he had been there. His expression was perfectly composed, but there was something in his eyes as they moved from Lady Meredith to you and back that had no warmth in it at all.
"Your Grace," Lady Meredith said, and her smile arrived immediately, brighter than before, the smile she kept for people with power. "We were just keeping the princess company. We so rarely see her and–"
"I heard," he said.
Lady Meredith's smile held. Something behind it did not. "Your Grace, I only meant to—"
"Lady Meredith." He said her name, without raising his voice, without any performance of anger, just the name and the particular quality of his attention settling on her like something cold. "I have been standing in this corridor long enough to have heard everything you said to my wife. All of it." He looked at her steadily. "I want to be certain I understand you correctly. You stood in the corridor of her home and questioned the intentions of the woman who will one day be queen of the realm."
Lady Meredith opened her mouth then closed it numerous times, like a fish gaping for air.
"That is a future queen you were speaking to," he said, still pleasant, still entirely composed, and somehow that was considerably worse than anger would have been. "Not a ward. Not a guest. Not a name you dislike. My wife. The Princess of Dragonstone. And when that time comes, as it will, she will sit on the Iron Throne beside me, and the things said to her in corridors today will not have been forgotten." He let that settle, unhurried, giving it all the time it needed. "By either of us."
The three companions had found something fascinating to study on the floor. Lady Meredith's smile was still in place. It was doing a great deal of work.
"Furthermore," he said, "I would ask you to consider whether my lady is perhaps a title more suited to a woman of lesser station than the one my wife holds. Going forward."
"Of course, Your Grace." Lady Meredith's voice was perfectly smooth. "I apologise if anything I said caused offence. It was certainly not my intention."
"No," he agreed. "I imagine it never is." He looked at her for one moment longer, and then looked at you, and his voice changed entirely, the coldness dropping away. "Walk with me."
You felt warm all on the inside, seeing him defend your honour does something to you, you did not want to name, or didn’t want to even acknowledge. You felt butterflies in your stomach as he kept his gaze on you, until you both moved past Lady Meredith, who stepped aside without hesitation this time, and you fell into step with Baelor.
You were aware of something shifting in your chest that you were not ready to acknowledge.
He slowed when the corridor turned, and looked at you.
"How long," he said.
"Since I arrived," you said, and your voice came out flat.
"You should have told me."
"I thank you for what you did back there," you said, "but I did not need you to step in."
"I disagree," he said.
"You can disagree all you like, I was managing it."
"You were enduring it." His voice was still quiet, still even, but there was something in it that had shifted. "Those are not the same thing."
You stopped walking. He stopped with you.
"I never wanted to be here," you said, and you heard it come out of your mouth before you had decided to say it. "I never asked for this union. I never asked to be brought to a court that looks at me like I am something to be watched and waited for trouble from. I never asked for any of it." You looked at him, and your jaw was tight, and you did not want to cry in front of him, you had promised yourself you would not cry in front of him, and you were dangerously close. "I came here because I had no choice and I have been trying to make the best of it and it has been–" you stopped and shook your head, not knowing what to say anymore. "It has been very hard."
"I know," he said, and he was looking at you with an intensity that made it difficult to look back, and yet you could not seem to look away either.
"Then what is the point, Baelor." You said it without thinking, his name instead of his title, the way you had never said it before. It was always Your Grace, and you caught it a second after it left your mouth. And you knew that he noticed it too, and saw him resist the small smile that moved across his face, but you ignored it and kept going. "What is the point of telling you. What would have changed?"
"It would have changed what happened in that corridor just now," he said, his blue-brown eyes looking down at you. "It would have changed the two months before it. You are my wife. What happens to you in this keep is something I should know about. You should have come to me."
"I didn't come to you," you said, "because I didn't know if you would care. Because I still don't know why you married me. Because I am not in the habit of making myself vulnerable to people I don't yet trust." You said it plainly, without anger, just the truth of it between you. "That is not a slight against you, it is simply where we are."
He looked at you for a long moment.
"You are the future queen of this realm," he said. "My wife. Whatever else is uncertain between us, that is not. It is not only my right but my duty to–"
"I don't want to be your queen."
He stopped. You had not planned it. It had simply come out, sharp and honest and a little cruel, and you felt the cruelty of it land on his face and felt bad for it, and also did not take it back, because maybe this was what it took, maybe if you said the hard true things he would see that the court was right, that bringing a Hightower here had been a mistake, that you were not what he thought you to be.
"I don't want to be your queen," you said again, quieter, and let him see the tiredness behind it this time. "I want to go home. I want to walk in my own gardens and eat at my own table and be a Hightower somewhere that doesn't treat it like a threat." Your eyes were burning and you refused to let anything fall, darting your gaze to the wall and back to him and back to the wall. "I know that is not an option. I know what I stood in that sept and agreed to. But you asked me to be honest with you and that is the most honest I have been since I arrived."
Baelor looked at you, and the corridor held the silence, and he said nothing for a long moment.
"I know," he said, finally. And then, more quietly, "I'm sorry."
You looked at him one last time, and your voice cracked only slightly when you said, "Don't do it again. I don't need your defending."
And you turned and walked back toward your chambers, the gardens entirely forgotten, and you did not look back, you did not let the tears fall until you were certain he could no longer see your face.
You had figured that feigning illness was a perfectly reasonable solution to a perfectly unreasonable problem.
It had worked for a week. You had not had to attend your duties, which consisted primarily of sitting with the court ladies and listening to their careful conversation, Lady Meredith among them, and you had no intention of being in the same room as her again any sooner than was absolutely required of you.
Your chambermaid had been cooperative, the maester had been vague enough in his assessment to leave room for interpretation, and you had spent seven days in the quiet of your chambers feeling, if not happy, then at least unbothered.
You should have known it would not hold.
Baelor was standing beside your bed when you woke, watching your chambermaid remove the cool cloth from your forehead with the expression of a man who had already drawn his conclusions and was simply waiting for you to catch up to them.
The maid curtsied and left quickly, which you could not blame her for, and the silence that followed was the particular kind that settled between two people who both knew something and were deciding who was going to say it first.
You pulled yourself up against the pillows and looked at him and said nothing.
He rolled the ring on his middle finger, turning it slowly, which you had noticed he did when he was thinking, and looked down at you with eyes that gave very little away.
"I hear you've been unwell," he said. "For the past week."
"The maester says it's a common cold," you said. "He can't say when it will pass."
"I'm sure it has passed by now," he said, and the corner of his mouth moved, just slightly, and you looked at him and hated, quietly and with great feeling, that he knew you. You did not know how he managed it. You had barely spoken to the man in two months and somehow he could look at you for thirty seconds and see straight through the careful mask you had set upon your face.
"I still feel rather unwell," you said.
"I'm sure you do," he said, pleasantly, and sat down in the chair beside your bed.
He sat the way he always sat when he was at ease– feet apart, elbows on his knees, leaning slightly forward, taking up space with the unhurried confidence of a man entirely comfortable in any room he walked into. There was nothing deliberate about it. That was somehow the worst part.
You looked at him and then looked away and then looked back because you could not seem to stop yourself.
"What is that supposed to mean," you said.
"What is what supposed to mean."
"That. The way you said it."
"I said I'm sure you do," he said, perfectly pleasantly. "That's all."
"You don't believe me."
"I didn't say that."
"You have a look," you said. "You're doing it right now. The one where you already know something and you're waiting."
Something moved through his expression that was almost amusement. He rolled the ring on his middle finger again, slowly, once, twice. "You're a very good actor," he said, and then after a pause, quieter, "my love."
The two words sat in the room and you felt them land somewhere in your chest before you could stop them, and your face did something small and involuntary and you looked at the blanket and smoothed it with your hand like that was a thing that needed doing.
He had never called you that before.
In two months of careful distance and polite summoning and you declining and him not pushing, he had never once called you that, and the first time he said it was sitting in your chambers with his feet apart and eyes on you and entirely too much patience in his face, and you swallowed and told yourself it meant nothing and did not entirely believe it.
"I'm not acting," you said. "I'm ill."
"Of course you are," he said, and settled back further in the chair, and you made the mistake of actually looking at him, at the way he was sitting, at the breadth of him and the steadiness of him and the particular way he was watching you, and felt heat move through you that had absolutely nothing to do with a fever.
You looked at the wall.
You were not thinking about the wedding night. You were not thinking about the careful way he had spoken in the dark, the warmth of him, the way he had said you were allowed to feel something and you had been too guarded and too proud to let yourself, and had lain awake afterward regretting it in a way you had never admitted to anyone including yourself. You were not thinking about any of that, and you were certainly not thinking about the small distance between your bed and that chair and what it would take to close it.
You were ill. The fever had clearly gotten to your head.
"You are very irritating," you said, to the wall.
"I've been told," he said, and you heard the almost-smile in it without looking, and you pulled the blanket higher and stared at a fixed point on the far side of the room and told yourself firmly that this was nothing, that you were cold and careful and you did not do things like this, that two months of walls did not come down because a man sat in a chair and called you my love for the first time.
They didn't. They weren't. You were fine.
"I'll sit with you while you recover," he said.
"That really isn't necessary."
"Probably not," he agreed, pleasantly, and did not move.
The minutes passed. You looked at the ceiling, at the wall, at the window, at the pattern of light the morning made on the floor, and he sat in the chair and said nothing and did not leave, the quiet between you had a different quality to it than the quiet you were used to, not uncomfortable exactly, just present, just the two of you in a room together without the usual performance of distance.
You were the one who broke it.
"I apologise," you said, quietly, to the ceiling. "For what I said in the corridor a couple days ago. The way it came out." You swallowed. "I was upset and I wanted to take it out on someone and you happened to be there. That wasn't fair to you."
You made the mistake of looking at him.
He was already looking at you, which you should have expected, and the expression on his face was not what you had braced for. No hurt in it, no reproach, just a small smile that said he had not been carrying it the way you had been carrying the guilt of it for the past few days.
"You don't have to apologise for that," he said.
"I know," you said. "I'm doing it anyway."
"You meant it," he said, not unkindly. "That's not something to apologise for. You told me the truth. I would rather have that than a lie."
You looked at him. "It was cruel."
"It was honest," he said. "There's a difference." He held your gaze. "And for what it's worth, you were right. I should have told you why I married you before now. I should have given you a reason to trust me before I expected you to come to me with certain matters."
You shifted without meaning to, closer to the edge of the bed, closer to the chair, close enough that the distance between you was no longer the careful measured thing it had been for two months.
"Why did you marry me," you asked, and your voice came out smaller than you intended, more honest than you had planned on being. "You knew what came with my name. You knew what people would say, what they would think, what it would mean to bring a Hightower into this court. People must have told you it wasn't wise." You looked at him. "So why did you choose me."
He looked back at you, and you waited for the pause, and it did not come. He answered like a man who had known what he would say for a long time and had simply been waiting for the question.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you," he said. "That's the honest answer. From the moment I saw you in that garden I could not get you out of my head and I tried, because I knew what your name would cost, I knew what people would say, I sat in council meetings and read correspondence and went about my days and you were just there. In the back of everything." He looked at you steadily.
"I have never felt that way about anyone in my life. That immediate. That certain. I saw you crouched in the dirt picking flowers in the cold like you had nowhere better to be and something in me just–" he paused, searching for the word and not quite finding it, "decided. Before I had even spoken to you. Before I even knew your name." He shook his head slightly, like he was still faintly bewildered by it. "I am not a man who acts without reason. I have spent my whole life acting with reason. And then there was you, and the reason came after, and I built the case for it because I needed one, but the truth is I had already decided the moment I picked up that flower."
You stared at him.
"That is not a sensible way to choose a wife," you said.
"No," he agreed. "It isn't."
"You are the Prince of Dragonstone."
"I'm aware."
"You cannot just–" you stopped. "You cannot just see someone in a garden and decide."
"And yet," he said, quietly, and looked at you.
Neither of you said anything for a moment. The silence did not feel empty, it felt full of everything you had not allowed yourself to imagine.
“You built a reason after,” you said. “You constructed one. For the council. For the realm.”
“For myself,” he corrected gently. “I needed to understand what I had already done.”
“And do you?” you asked.
“Yes.”
You watched his face carefully. He did not look uncertain. He did not look romantic or reckless. He looked like a man explaining a strategy he had considered from every angle.
“I married you because you were not trying to be seen,” he said. “Because you did not look at the Red Keep like it was something to conquer. Because when I spoke to you, you did not perform. You answered. Because you looked at a dying flower in winter and thought it worth saving.” His jaw shifted slightly. “Because I have spent my life surrounded by people who want something from me. And you wanted nothing at all.”
You swallowed.
“That is not love,” you said, though it came out softer than you meant it to.
“No,” he agreed again. “It was not. Not then.”
The quiet stretched.
“It is now.”
That did something sharp and immediate inside you.
You did not move. You did not breathe properly. You simply looked at him and searched his face for mockery, for strategy, for calculation.
There was none.
“I have given you space because I thought you needed it,” he continued. “I let you refuse me because I believed forcing you closer would only drive you further away. I defended you in that corridor because you are my wife. I am sitting here now because you are unhappy and I would rather endure your anger than your silence.” His eyes did not leave yours once. “But do not mistake my patience for indifference.”
The words landed slowly.
“You matter to me,” he said. Not grand, not theatrical. Just true.
Your throat tightened.
“You don’t even know me,” you whispered.
His gaze softened to something even warmer.
“Then let me.”
The simplicity of it nearly undid you.
He did not reach for you immediately. That would not be him. Instead he leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees again, closer now without touching.
“I do not need you to want the crown,” he said. “I do not need you to love this court. I do not even need you to forgive it. But I would like the chance to make this less lonely for you.” A pause. “If you will allow me.”
You looked at him for a long moment after that.
“You make it sound very easy,” you said quietly.
“It won’t be,” he replied, eyebrows scrunching together slightly, before relaxing again. “But it does not have to be done alone.”
You studied him carefully, searching for the part of this that would cost you more than you could afford. “And what does that mean, exactly,” you asked. “Standing beside me at feasts so they think twice before smiling at me? Correcting them when they forget my title?”
“If necessary,” he said. “But I meant something simpler than that.” His gaze held yours. “It means you come to me instead of withdrawing. It means when something wounds you, you allow me to know it.”
Your fingers twisted in the blanket at your lap.
“I am not used to that,” you said.
“I know.”
“I do not like being watched for weakness.”
“I am not watching for weakness.”
There was no edge in his voice. No impatience. Just certainty.
You hesitated, then asked the thing that had been sitting beneath everything else. “And if I let you stand beside me and I find that I still do not belong here?”
“Then we make this place fit you better,” he said, as though it were obvious. “It is my home. I have some say in its shape.”
Despite yourself, something like a breath of laughter left you. “You cannot reshape the Red Keep because your wife is unhappy.”
“I cannot tear it down,” he allowed. “But I can make it less hostile to you.”
The steadiness of him was exhausting in a way that felt almost safe.
You shifted again, closer to the edge of the bed, your knees now only a small space from his. “And what do you gain from that,” you asked. “From trying this hard.”
His expression changed slightly at that, not wounded, but more open.
“I gain my wife’s company,” he said. “I gain the chance that one day you look at me the way you look at the gardens instead of as though I am something to endure.”
The words landed gently, but they landed.
“I do not endure you,” you said, a little too quickly.
His brow lifted faintly.
You felt heat rise to your face. “Not in the way you mean.”
“In what way, then.”
You hesitated, and then the truth pressed forward before you could stop it. “I avoid you because it is easier than wanting something I am not certain I will be given.”
He went still at that.
“What do you think I would deny you,” he asked quietly.
You did not answer immediately. Your gaze dropped to his hands, to the ring he turned when he was thinking.
“Care,” you said at last. “Consistency. Choosing me when it becomes inconvenient.”
He did not look away. “I have already chosen you when it was inconvenient.”
The reminder made your throat tighten.
The space between you felt smaller now, charged in a way it had not been when he first sat down. He had leaned forward without thinking; you had leaned closer without meaning to. Neither of you had acknowledged it.
“You are very certain,” you murmured.
“I am,” he said.
“And if I am slower to be.”
“I can afford to be patient.”
You looked up at him then, properly, and something in your chest shifted in a way that frightened you more than Lady Meredith ever had.
You moved before you could reconsider. Just a little. Enough that your knees brushed his.
He did not move away.
Your hand lifted, hovered for half a second, and then came to rest against his shoulder. You felt the warmth of him through the fabric, the solidness of him. Real. Not imagined.
“I do not know how to do this,” you admitted.
His hand came to your waist slowly, carefully, as though he expected you might still change your mind.
“We can learn,” he said.
You held his gaze, searching it one last time for calculation, for triumph, for anything that would let you retreat behind your pride.
You found none of it.
Your fingers tightened slightly where they rested on him, and that was all the invitation he needed.
He leaned in, but he did not rush. He paused just before your mouth met, giving you the space to pull back if you wished.
You didn’t.
The kiss was soft at first, almost cautious. His hand at your waist steadied you rather than drawing you closer. When you did not retreat, when your hand slid from his shoulder to the front of his tunic and held there, the kiss deepened naturally, not urgent but certain.
It felt nothing like endurance.
When he drew back, it was only enough to look at you. His thumb brushed lightly against your side, a quiet reassurance rather than a claim.
“You do not have to decide everything today,” he said softly.
You rested your forehead briefly against his.
“I know,” you whispered. “But I think I have decided something.”
His brow shifted slightly. “What is that.”
You met his eyes.
“That I would like to try.”
And this time, when you kissed him again, there was no hesitation in it at all.
