From the possible "Best Friend" series. Two best friends share a coffee and a cigarette one Sunday morning when you come across an interesting cosmopolitan article.
✨Blooper Reel, Baby✨- Joseph Quinn 🧸
From the possible "Best Friend" series. When a lone camera catches the shenanigans of two best friends on set.
✨Ikea Furniture✨- Joseph Quinn ‼️
From the "Booty Call Joe" series that will possibly happen. You show up for some rough and tumble.
✨Emergency Contact✨Joseph Quinn ‼️
From the "Booty Call Joe" series. Joe picks you up in a sports car and tells you something you never expected to hear.
✨Quietly Yours✨ Joseph Quinn ‼️🩸
You take your period and you can't quite get a handle on it. Joe tries to help the only way he know's how.
Ongoing Series
✨Under His Eye✨⚠️ handmaiden!commanderJoel : hiatus 🫥
Summary: After breaking your heart, Jack Abbot is now trying to win you back, but he'll find that it's a little bit harder than just pretty words and longing glances. (6.3k)
Pairing: Jack Abbot x ex!reader
TW: 18+ MDNI, NSFW. Sex scene (usage of handcuffs [on Jack], p-in-v, masturbation, oral [m receiving], usage of good girl, sweet girl, pretty girl, teasing, kind of brat taming); Reader makes Jack work for it; mentions of almost dating Park; jealous Jack; insecurities still from the Reader (can't fix everything right away); I've exaggerated the cold of a Pittsburgh winter because where I live winter is COLD like COLD so it's all I know (my winter's are like 45 below in Celsius so like -49 in F)
Credit: GIF by @bluetimeombre; Requested as continuation to my story Never Enough. Hope it's enough grovelling everyone! I read your comments (and loved all of them, don't worry. Y'all made me laugh). And @charming2777 I agree with you about "Cigarette Smoke"
“Always for you,” he whispers, “because you are ever enough, more than enough, perfectly enough and better than enough. Now, can we try again?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, looking into those eyes that you love, eyes that look at you like they see you. “I think so.”
A part of you is already hurting knowing that when you step out of your vehicle, you will see Jack after so long without him, after so long cursing him and what he did and how he forgot you. How he never saw you at all.
But another part wants to try again, wants to see those eyes that look like sunlight slipping through autumn bare branches looking at you. Looking at you as if they see you. As if he sees you. You want that comfort that you found in his arms, you want to know that the four years of your life that you gave him weren’t for nothing.
You want to know that the life you gave him is still there. That the years you gave him weren’t a waste. That you’re not mistaking a mistake trying again.
You draw in a deep breath, your hands tight, clenching the faux-leather of your steering wheel so hard that a stiffness has invaded the joints, knuckles pulled so tight against your skin that you think they might just split it, skin tearing and fraying and your cartilage shining through, glimmering with your blood.
“You got this,” you whisper to yourself, reaching over and pressing the ignition button of your car, the vehicle shutting off, shutting down, engine cutting out and silence setting in, but a silence still so loud that it feels like white noise, like ringing in your ear. It takes a bit for you to get ready, both of your hands removed from the steering wheel, fingers curling and uncurling, over and over to try and get blood pumping again, get everything moving, feeling before you reach over, sliding your fingers against the smooth metal of the doorhandle, pulling it to you and pushing it open.
It’s cold, that’s the first thing you notice, the coolness of the air, the way it’s crisp, wrapping around your skin, slipping against you like ice cold fingers against bare, fevered skin. Winter is setting in, hence the boots on your feet and the coat on your upper body, legs just slightly exposed by the skirt you wear, the one with the slit up the thigh.
You place one boot covered foot down on the wet pavement, the one glimmering in the light of the city lamps, bright and white and unrelenting in their brightness. You step out fully, slamming your door behind you, pressing the lock on your keys before slipping them into the purse on your shoulder, the one you shift, thumb hooking underneath the strap, the rest of your hand resting on top of it, light, nails just pressing against the soft skin of your palms.
This is neighbourhood you don’t frequent, one known for the fancy places, like Michelin star restaurants—like the one you see Jack standing in front of, looking smart in a new, navy suit.
“What is this?” you call out to him, walking from your car up onto the sidewalk, towards him, irritation and rage simmering in your stomach, rising and burning in a way that is suspiciously like bile. “Why are we here?”
“This…is the date,” he says, his tone arrogant in the way men have when they think something should be obvious even though the only thing obvious about it is the way it shows they’ve never listened.
“You really don’t know me at all, do you?” you ask him, the sting of tears behind your eyes telling you that that part of you was right, that Parker was right: this was a mistake. Giving the man who has never seen you another chance is wrong.
“But…but it’s a nice restaurant, it’s fancy. Regina loved it,” he says and right there is the problem. The way her name and her preferences slip out automatically as if he’s geared to think that everything is just like her and that you can’t be your own person is the problem.
Because it shows he’s never listened to anything you said.
Because it shows that those four years were wasted on someone who didn’t deserve your time.
“Fuck off, Jack,” you say, spinning on your heel, feeling the grind of the kitten heel against the gritty, breaking concrete, the sound of wetness and dryness together as you turn from him, from the man who you keep giving the power to break your heart.
“Wait!” he calls out and you hear his footsteps behind you, heavy-footed and sure in only the way that a mancould. “What about our date?”
“It’s off, Jack!” you call out, glancing back at him. “It was a mistake to give you another chance. I was wrong. We can’t…” you pause, swallowing hard, not slowing down, not stopping because you know if you stop, you’ll convince yourself that being invisible is okay when it’s not. “We can’t work.”
“One more chance!” he yells out, his voice still hushed as if he’s embarrassed about making a scene, as if he doesn’t want to. “Please! One more chance!”
“Do better, Jack!” you reply, pausing for a moment. “Do better for someone else.” You begin walking away again, hands drifting to your ears to block out the sound of his voice because his voice has the kind of magic that makes you want to give in even when you really don’t.
You unlock your car with fumbling hands, the keys seeming to slip and slide against your damp palms, pulling open the door and slipping inside quickly, as quick as you can, pulling it closed with so much force that the car shakes around you, the locks clicking as you start it, buckling up as the engine rumbles to life, purring all around you, the radio blaring to life, a fitting song echoing over your speakers.
One you’ve listened to a fair bit in this year without him.
One it seems still fits you because you just can’t let go even when you should.
You drive away, refrains of pain reverberating through the cab, your cries sounding, tears burning tracks into your skin. You just can’t seem to let him go.
I regret you/And how long I stayed/I resent you/For not being brave, oh.
“Ellis!” Jack calls out, waving them over towards the stairwell, his back holding the heavy metal door open as he waits, a pit in his gut, the kind that comes with losing someone. Losing you. It’s a pit he knows well, one he felt that morning he woke up alone, your scent pressed into the folds of his sheets, but your body absent. Gone.
Like a memory in fabric.
“What is it?” they ask, arms crossed as they step past him into the stairwell, biceps flexing and eyes narrowed in a glare. They’ve been civil in the year without you, in the year of you healing and him breaking, but civility is not warmth, it is not agreeableness. It is simply working. It is listening and following what must be followed, no more, no less.
“Why did she leave the date?” he asks, the words not so much words, but one long unintelligible rush of exhalations and vague pronouncements. But Ellis understands. He knows by the way their nostrils flare, body tightens and leans forwards, threat hanging in those dark eyes.
“Why the hell would I ever help the man who broke my best friend’s heart?” they whisper, their tone steady and even, the scariest thing of all. Ellis is never calm like this, rather dry and sardonic and always moving. Never still or calm or steady or even. Never like this. No, this is the look of a predator and for once in his life, Jack Abbot feels like the prey.
“I took her to that Michelin star restaurant and she walked away, telling me I didn’t know her! What did I do wrong?!” He may feel like the prey, but he needs answers. He needs to understand. He needs to know.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Ellis says, their tone dry, eyes rolling as they lean back, a long suffering sigh slipping from between their lips. “She hates those restaurants. She’s gone on long rants about them. And you apparently forgot or…what I favour and will tell her about…never listened at all. She thinks their portions are too tiny and promoting those plates as high end leads to complexes surrounding food. She also likes to eat. She’s a diner kind of girl, a diner with pie. Dessert for dinner. Fuck, man,” they grit their teeth, jaw hardened, set and a muscle ticking, “you should know this. Four years. Fuck.”
They push past him, slipping back into the ED, to Shen, something passed between the two of them, iPad in their hand, trauma room slipped into, their dry voice saying something to a patient.
Jack stands there, the doorhandle digging into the small of his back, metal cold, leaching through his scrubs, sending shivers down his spine as he stands there, unmoving, the absolutely devastated look on your face coming into view, swimming before him, a phantom of his continued fuck-ups.
He wonders if he’ll ever stop fucking up. Or if he’ll destroy you forever.
It’s a diner.
That’s the address he gave you, one sweet and homey, an awning covering the slightly smudged windows, so homey looking from the outside that you know the second you step inside it will smell like butter and sugar and frying foods. You know that the booths will be made of cracking vinyl, the kind that sticks to skin, to clothes, the kind that squeaks when you move on it. You know that the menus will have that plastic covering, the faux-leather binding, the plastic smudged and greasy against your fingers from years of people, of children.
It’s exactly the kind of place you love.
It’s exactly the kind of place that Parker told Jack about. You run your tongue along your teeth as you reach for the handle of the diner, pulling it open and stepping inside, the smell of butter and sugar and caramelized fruit hitting you like a wall as you hit your boots together, the small layer of snow that’s gathered on the sidewalks, knocked off onto the cheap rubber mat.
“Hi,” you hear Jack say and you glance up, taking in the sight of him rising, his grey curls shimmering in the low light of the diner and you press your lips together, nodding once and stepping forwards, coat still tight around you.
“I’m not staying,” you tell him when you reach him, left foot the centre of your weight, your right thrown forwards.
“Why not? You’re a diner kind of girl,” he says. “We could order pie for dinner. I hear the pie here is really good.” You can’t believe this fucker. You can’t believe that he really thought your best friend wouldn’t talk to you, tell you. Complain.
“You do realize that trying again means that you try again, right?” you whisper, your tone a hiss and voice cracking, tears stinging your eyes again.
“I did,” he says and he actually looks surprised. He looks surprised that you’re angry, that you’re telling him that he tried when he didn’t fucking try.
“Did you really think that Parker didn’t tell me you talked to them? They’re my best friend and you did exactlywhat they said. That’s not you trying, Jack. That’s called plagiarism and I don’t go out with plagiarizers. Sorry, not sorry,” you tell him, turning and walking away, walking tall and strong and proud, capable until you’re back out on the sidewalk.
It’s then, when you’re far enough from the lights and the windows of the diner that you let it out, that you let the tears fall, the liquid freezing on your face in the biting cold of the Pittsburgh winter.
Your coat is zipped up and you pull the hood of the puffer jacket up, blocking out the world. You don’t care if it’s not safe to do so.
You just need to hide your tears from prying eyes.
And you need to close the door on the man who makes you feel this way.
“I need the file on Geoff Fletcher,” you say, leaning onto the nurse’s station, the counter digging into the skin of your forearms. Gia looks up at you, eyebrows knitting together, her attention captured by something over your shoulder.
“Today, after our shifts,” you hear Jack say and you glance over your shoulder, your throat tightening, choking you for a moment, a thickness that is not quite tears, not quite not rising in you as your veins seem to simmer. “I’m taking you out.”
“You had your chances, Jack,” you say, turning back to Gia, lifting your eyebrows and she nods, pushing up from her chair to reach for the file folders to the side.
“I don’t think my chances were very fair,” he says and you spin around, your stethoscope following the movement, the bell slamming into your chest in a way that makes you cough, one you try to cover up as a scoff.
“I should just listen to Parker,” you tell him, leaning your back against the station, the digging in of the metal counter into your lower back reminding you of here and now, keeping you grounded because this is your floor and he and his hazel eyes like sun dappled branches have no place here.
She has no place here. The ghost of his wife, the woman you can never be, never see, has no place on the floor where you have built yourself. Where you have created a life.
“Listened to what?” he says and you can hear a thickness in his throat too. Because if you know Jack Abbot, and you do, those four years having given you a knowledge of him that is nearly comprehensive, you know that the one thing he hates the most is losing.
“That I should just go out with Brendon Park,” you say and his face changes, eyes shadowing, jaw hardening, set in a way that you can see, a shadow cast across his neck, his shadow on the carpeted floor rigid, unmoving. Unyielding.
“One more chance, sweet girl,” he whispers, eyes locked on you, tracking the path of your neck when you swallow, hard, your mouth growing dry, eyes looking anywhere but him. You can feel his irritation, his jealousy in the air and you wish it was for you and not just the fact, the idea that he could lose.
“Don’t fuck it up, Jack,” you tell him, lips pressing thin and he steps closer, his hand coming to rest on your cheek, calloused thumb against your cheekbone.
“I won’t fuck this one up,” he whispers, “but I will fuck up. It’s inevitable when you’re learning someone again. When you let yourself forget them.” He leans down, pressing his forehead to you and if you were stronger, you would pull away, would wrench away and slam your office door closed—or attempt to, since the doors on this floor don’t slam, but still.
“I don’t have the patience to watch you fuck up anymore, Jack,” you whisper, pulling away from like you should have before. “You should already know this shit. Brendon doesn’t even know me and he knows me better than you and you had four years. What were you doing? Who were seeing when you looked at me because it sure as hell wasn’t me.”
You walk away, walk into your office, pushing the door closed, the closing mechanism clicking and you flick the lock into place, locking him out of the office, of your life.
One last chance. No more, no less.
Thin ice.
“How did you know?” you ask, stepping out of your car, cowboy boot sinking into the snow-covered gravel, your hands in leather gloves. Jack stands just a few yards from the best taco truck in Pittsburgh, the one you frequent as often as you can, often with Ellis. Buying the tacos that are as big as your head, a beer often too.
“Because of this!” Jack calls out, holding up a thin piece of paper in his hands. You walk to him, careful of where you step on the icing over ground, slipping when you near him, his arms catching you, steadying you.
“What is it?” you ask, your tone light in only the way that tacos and the outdoors can make you. And only together do they work.
“The receipt from our first date,” he says, pressing it into your gloved hands. You lift it, pinching it between both hands, reading the fading printed letters, the inscriptions of the tacos and the drinks ordered, the date right. “You had insisted on planning the date, remember?” he continues. “I asked you out, five years ago now, and you said only if you got to pick the place…and this was it.”
You look past him, out at the expanse of frosted, snow-covered grass, the sun setting, turning the sky pink and purple and blue, your favourite time of day, street lamps coming on, casting soft ambient glows onto the street, pockets of bright light accompanied by shadow.
You can feel something inside of you shifting and switching, something returned and yet taken. You feel seen, but you can’t trust that feeling. You can’t…you can’t trust Jack.
But maybe…it wouldn’t hurt for one night.
“Where you’d find the receipt?” you ask him, pressing it back into his hand and stepping past him, boots crunching against the frozen grass, the pebbles.
“In a box,” he says and you pause, closing your eyes for a moment, remembering packing your things up into boxes when you moved in with him, remembering how fast you condensed your life down to four suitcases, things left behind that you never went back for. “One I kept with things over the years of us. It was in there.”
“And you remembered one date,” you say, looking back at him over your shoulder, eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring, eyelids feeling frozen in the cool winter air. “Do you expect a medal for that?”
“Just a chance,” he says and you roll your eyes and turn back to the truck.
“You’re paying,” you tell him and you hear him snort, feel his hand ghost along the small of your back, touch light, barely there, but present too.
“I expect nothing less, sweet girl,” he says, his breath coasting over the shell of your ear, goosebumps springing up along your arms even within your coat, the rub of the heightened skin against the plasticky material of your jacket strange and disjointed. A feeling in echo.
A feeling in echo because you feel seen and that takes centre-fold. Because…you may act caustic, but him remembering that date…it’s something.
And something is better than the nothing of before.
“Knock-knock,” Jack calls out, his knuckles rapping against the solid pressed wood door to your office. It’s slightly ajar, enough that he can hear the faint opening notes of music, songs that you like, lyrics that he’s cataloguing away because you were right on the redone first date—he didn’t deserve anything for remembering something he never should have forgotten.
How many times did the two of you go to diners and food trucks? Bakery trips in the early mornings feeling drunk on sex and hungry? How many times did he hear you rant and yet it never stuck until you were gone.
He had hoped that his speech and the gesture of the necklace, the fact that he was waiting, would have been enough to have you back in his life, completely, but it’s not. He’s realising now that he does not deserve easy. If he is to have you back completely, he has to prove that he’s worthy.
Hence, the bouquet of flowers in his hands, red roses and baby’s breath, the florist having explained that it was most romantic one on offer.
“Come in,” he hears you call out and he pushes the door open, stepping in and closing it softly behind him, gentle to a fault, not wanting to disturb you with a closure.
“Hey,” he says, stepping deeper into the room, one he’s never actually been in before and it takes him aback for a moment, the way it smells like sugar, vanilla, faint citrus notes in the air. It smells like you and it has your certificates and degrees on the wall, your combined MD/Ph. D and publications. The pictures on the shelf behind you of you and Ellis doing various things from teenhood to adulthood.
“Oh, hey, Jack,” you say, looking up from your computer where you’ve been typing fast, frantic really. You stand now, pulling your lab coat from your chair. “I can’t stay; I have to check on a patient.”
“Before you go,” he blurts out, removing the bouquet from behind his back and holding it out to you, “I brought you this.” He watches as your lip curls and he knows he messed up, he just doesn’t know how.
“You think flowers make up for what you did?” you ask, your hand pushing his back, the flowers pressing against his chest, petals crumpling against his scrubs.
“No! It’s just—well…the florist said—” he tries, but his words aren’t really flowing and he’s taken aback, but it doesn’t matter because you’re slipping your lab coat on and rolling your eyes.
“All that time dedicating yourself to saving lives, yet you bring me corpses. So romantic,” you remark, lips pursing as you walk away, pulling the door closed behind you, leaving him standing there holding the far too expensive bouquet crushed against his chest, realizing that you were right.
He never knew you at all.
But he wants nothing more than to know you. All of you.
You feel the smile growing on your face as you step into your office, a small pink pot sitting on it, dead-centre, holding a barrel cactus.
Not a corpse this time, sweet girl—Jack
“Clever, Abbot,” you whisper, pulling the sticky note off the pot, tucking it into your date planner, fingertips ghosting over the spines, the prick of the needles telling you it’s real.
He’s learning.
“I got you a gift,” Jack whispers, grabbing your wrist and pulling you through the ED into the open on-call room.
“Jack!” you hiss, pulling your arm from his grip as he closes the door, a box held in the hand which does so. “I have patients and a consult. What. Do you. Want?”
“Happy birthday,” he says, turning to you, his lips tugging up in that light-hearted, crooked grin he has that looks innocent even though it’s anything but. He holds the box out to you and you accept it, the box small and decorative, blue covered with golden swirls. You pull the lid off the box, feeling that tension that comes from removing an object from another when designed to fit together, air slowing down the motion.
Inside lies a key ring, one with a single brass key resting on it, the chain pink with gold lettering, spelling out my house is on pretty girl avenue.
“Jack,” you whisper, hooking your finger into the brass ring and pulling it forth, the offering dangling off the pad of your index finger. “What is this?” You already know, you don’t even need him to say it. You know it’s a key to his house and you know he’s going to ask you to move in and is this what this is? That he just can’t stand living alone?
That he needs you to be some warm body beside him? Is that what you are? His space heater?
“Move in with me,” he says, just like you knew he would. “Come home, sweet girl.”
“No, Jack,” you say, dropping the key unceremoniously into the box, shoving it at him, shaking your head as your chest constricts. “Why would I give you a gift on my birthday? You broke my fucking heart over four years! I’m not just…moving in with you again and pretending that didn’t fucking happen!”
“But—”
“—No, Jack! You still don’t see me and I’m done playing pretend!” You move to push past him, but he catches your wrist, his fingers hot on your skin. “Let go of me!”
“Come over tonight,” he whispers, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “Please.”
“Fine,” you whisper, cursing yourself for being weak for this man, for the way he touches you like you’re something precious. “One last chance, Jack.”
You like this sight, Jack Abbot completely at your mercy, handcuffed to his bedframe and completely naked, looking at you like you are both his reckoning and his saviour. You remember how you came over and he started like he always does, calling you good girl and pretty girl and his and when you opened his bedside drawer for a condom, you found the handcuffs.
You said you wanted to use them and he asked how you wanted to be handcuffed and you told him that no, you wanted him handcuffed. And he obliged.
“God—” he cries now as you pull your shirt off, now completely naked yourself, climbing onto the bed, your lips curving in a way that promises mischief. You can see a bead of precum on the tip of his cock and you know he wants you, know he wants to touch you from the way his wrists jerk at their confines.
“You okay, Jackie?” you ask, your tone playful, too playful in a way as you sit back on your heels on the bed, your pussy exposed to him for a moment and you want to laugh at the way he licks his lips, irises almost entirely swallowed by his pupils. “Is this what you want?” you ask, your own hand slipping between your legs, slipping between your folds, stroking over them and circling your own clit.
He bucks his hips, his wrists, the skin of them chaffing against the metal of the cuffs, the key resting on the nightstand.
“Jackie!” you moan, your thumb pressing on your clit as you sink your own finger inside of you, feeling yourself, knowing exactly which areas of yourself to stimulate, dragging your knuckle down your walls.
“Pretty girl,” he groans, swallowing hard, his voice a rasp, voice no doubt dry, but you don’t change what you’re doing, simply shifting, your own fingers pumping in and out of yourself, thumb pressing on your clit as you bring yourself to the brink of an orgasm, one hand finding your breasts, tweaking your own nipple in the way he loves to do it. “Jesus!” he whispers as you cry out, your walls clenching around your fingers, fluttering slowly and then stopping, your orgasm over.
You shift, reaching your hand out to his lips, the fingers that were inside of you, slipping into his mouth. He sucks them clean, moaning as he does so, your heart rate picking up as he flicks his tongue against the pads of your fingers.
“What do you want now, Jack?” you ask, pulling your fingers from his mouth, him releasing them with a pop. “Do you want to be inside me?” You can see him gritting his teeth, hating this loss of control, hating this loss of dominance.
“Dealer’s choice, sweet girl,” he says and you’re going to make sure he regrets that as you slide back down the bed until your mouth hovers just inches above his dick. You watch as he swallows hard, his gaze locked on you, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Sweet girl?” he calls out and you smile at him, a kind of wicked smile before licking the drop of precum from the tip of his dick, his body jerking at the touch.
He tastes sour, salty, good in a way that you’d forgotten about. You swirl your tongue around the tip before placing your mouth on it, hollowing out your cheeks before flattening your tongue, drawing it from base to tip, once, twice, thrice, making sure to swirl it around the tip each time.
“Sweet girl!” he calls out as you place your mouth around his dick again, looking at him with wide doe eyes, eyes wide in a faux-innocence act. “I don’t want to cum in your mouth.”
“Oh?” you ask, pulling off his dick with a pop. “Then where do you want to cum?” He bites his lip, looking at you with a look that would promise trouble before, but not right now. Not when he’s handcuffed.
“You know where,” he says and you smile at him, sitting up, your hand coming to rest on his stomach, tracing down his happy trail, the muscles jerking beneath your fingers.
“You have to use your words, Jackie,” you tell him and he growls, actually growls at you, the sound making you want to giggle, except that it’s turning you, the slickness between your thighs growing.
“Inside. You,” he grits out and you rise, shifting to hover over his dick, swivelling your hips once before you sink down on him.
“All you had to do was ask,” you whisper and then you begin to ride him, your breasts bouncing with every up, down, swivel repeat. You can see in his eyes that he wants to touch you, wants to be in control with every jerk of his hips up, but he can’t do anything about it.
Rather you are in control, your hands resting on his chest, nails digging into his skin, leaving half-moon crescents as the coil in your stomach grows tighter and tighter and tighter every time you sink down on his cock, letting it drag against your walls as you rise up again.
“Jack!” you cry out as you fall forwards just slightly, your pussy clenching around him, your orgasm brought forth, but his not.
“Uncuff me, sweet girl,” he whispers, voice hoarse and you obey, rising off of him and shifting over, stepping off the bed, legs shaky as you do so, grabbing the key and unlocking them, pulling them off and setting them back on the night stand as he shakes out his wrists and looks at you with lifted brows. “Get on the bed, sweet girl,” he says, tone low, threatening in all the best ways.
You listen, climbing onto the other side and he shifts, his arms on either side of you, holding him up, his knee on the whole leg supporting his lower half for the most part and you don’t get to say anything before he’s back inside you, thrusting in completely, all of him inside of you on one thrust.
You can feel him inside of you, can feel him as he pulls out, no fanfare as he thrusts back in, the rhythm brutal and fast and unforgiving. But he makes up for it with his kisses, open-mouthed, tongues tangling and his mouth leaving hot trails up your neck.
“Are you,” he grunts, slamming up and into you, your breath leaving you in a cry, “going to be good?” he finishes his question as he pulls out, waiting, tip of his cock resting against your entrance.
“Yes,” you whisper and then he’s slamming back up and into you, over and over and over in that same brutal rhythm.
“Good,” he whispers, “because only good girls get to come.” It’s only a few more thrusts before you’re coming around him and he’s coming with you, inside of you, thick hot ropes that seem to fill you up (the condom having been forgotten when you found the cuffs).
He rolls over, shifting, pulling you against him, his chest heaving, glistening with a sheen of sweat, your body no doubt the same.
“Am I forgiven?” he asks and you tilt your head to look at him.
“For your birthday gift, yes. For the four years…no chance in hell.”
“Hey, pretty girl,” Jack says as the elevator opens, a cardboard drink container in his hand, holding two iced coffees, the Dunkin logo staring at you on the sweating plastic cups. “You got a sec?”
“No, Jack,” you tell him, shaking your head, lips pursing. “And I don’t drink coffee in the afternoons. You should know that.”
You didn’t like flowers, but you liked the cactus. You didn’t want to move in with him again, but you appreciated when he left you a drawer in his dresser. You didn’t like fancy restaurants, but you did like food trucks and diners. You weren’t a fan of wine, but you didn’t mind a beer once in a while.
You didn’t like old movies for the most part, but you loved them if they had Audrey Hepburn. You liked rock music, but not country. You didn’t like war movies, but you said that Saving Private Ryan was a classic that could not be missed.
You preferred horror movies, but also loved rom-coms, your favourite being The Princess Bride and When You Were Sleeping.
Jack Abbot had spent a year relearning you, all the quirks he’d missed, he’d kept trying even when you told him that he should probably stop because he’d never get it.
And you know why? Because you are his favourite puzzle and no one has ever made him feel like this, alive and challenged and so completely happy.
Learning you has been the greatest, most frustrating year of his life and he’d never change it for anything.
And he thinks, looking at the box in his hands, that he’s finally found the perfect gift for you.
“Hey,” Jack says, stepping into your office and you look up, taking note of the box in his hands, the fancy box wrapped with a giant purple ribbon. You glance back at your computer screen, looking at the date, at the fact that it’s just a random Tuesday afternoon.
“What’s with the gift?” you ask. “What did you do wrong?” He sets it down on your desk, movements gentle and confident at the same time.
“Nothing,” he says, sitting down in the chair in front of your desk, adjusting his prosthetic as you pull the box towards you, lifting the lid and peering in. Inside, on a bed of tissue paper, rests a leather book bound with leather string. You lift it out, flipping it open to see Jack’s chicken scratch writing spelling out My life’s greatest achievement has been learning you, sweet girl.
“Jack?” you whisper, flipping past the first page to see…a scrapbook. Receipts and pictures from a polaroid, the one you remember him always bringing with him, little quotes underneath each picture, telling you what he learned each time, the little things he’d picked up on. The things he’d never forget.
“Do you like it?” he asks and he sounds hesitant and you don’t know why he would because here before you is proof that he sees you. That he has spent a year doing nothing but seeing you.
“Jack,” you whisper, tears in your eyes, your sinuses, your throat thick as you look up, vision just the tiniest bit blurry from the tears lining your eyes. “It’s perfect. You…” you pause, swallowing hard around the growing lump in your throat, setting the book down and placing both hands on the cover as if it’s the most precious thing in the world. Because it is. “You see me.”
“You’re impossible to miss, pretty girl,” he whispers, reaching out and taking one of your hands in both of his, pressing a kiss against it. “I don’t know how I did for so long, but I never will again.”
“Feels right,” Jack says as he collapses the last of the boxes, your clothes and belongings once again back in his house. Your house now too.
“What? Me living here?” you ask.
“No,” he says, reaching for your hand and pulling you against him, “you being in my life.”
“Yes. Yes, Jack, I will marry you,” you whisper as he slips the ring back on your finger, another year of him learning, of his life rearranging, his left finger bare for the first year, waiting for the ring to you.
“Thank god, pretty girl,” he whispers, two tears slipping down his cheeks as he cups your face, pulling you to him, pressing a soft and yet heated kiss to your lips. “Because I want nothing more than to be your husband.”
“I vow to always keep trying. To never stop trying. I vow,” he says, “to always remind you that you are everenough, more than enough, perfectly enough and better than enough every day. I vow to never make you feel unseen. I vow to listen when you speak because you’re everything. Because you understand me. I vow to you the rest of my life.” You can’t fight the tears that slip down your cheeks as you smile, laughing just slightly, a watery laugh that makes him smile at you, tear tracks on his own face from when he watched you walk down the aisle in your dress.
“Then,” Robby says, his voice thick and happy, “if there are no objections, I now pronounce you woman and husband.” You can’t help but laugh at Robby’s word choice, stolen from Enola Holmes 3, the movie you made him and Jack watch when it came out. “You may now kiss the husband.”
And you do, stepping forwards and placing your hands on his stubble covered cheeks, drawing him down into a kiss.
And this kiss doesn’t taste like fire or ash or burning. It tastes like love and light and second chances. The kind that works.
“God, I love you, sweet girl,” he whispers when you pull back and you smile at him, a happy one.
“Ditto, Jack.” And in this moment, with the way he’s looking at you, you know that he’s been speaking true.
summary: working at the hospital morgue didn't exactly endear you to the emergency room staff, especially when you're always cracking jokes. you think Jack might be warming up to you, but are quickly proven wrong when he berates you in front of the department after an ill-timed joke.
tags/warnings: sfw just a steamy kiss, big time angst, morgue technician!reader, socially awkward reader, discussions of death and grief (seriously, a lot of talk about death and grieving), mean Jack :(, age gap (not specified, but i wrote her as being between 28-30), mean girl nurses, medical inaccuracies probably
wc: 8.9k
a/n: baby's first request!!! feeling very nervy about this one as its my first time writing angst so please be kind <3 it turned into much more of a meditation on death than i expected but i hope you enjoy the jack angst!! also please go read @nightpitt's take on this request!!! it was incredible <3 (and in the future please don't send me requests that you've sent to multiple other authors, it makes me uncomfy)
credits: gif credits to @vanillarot <3
Majorie Deacons, 83. Survived by her husband, Harold, of 62 years, her three children–Mary, Thomas, and Steven–and 10 grandchildren. Worked as a paralegal for 48 years before retiring to the Poconos with Harold. Moved back to Pittsburgh when she got sick. Died from sepsis as a result of her cancer-weakened immune system.
That was all you knew of the woman laying in front of you, her skin pale and body unnaturally still. You thought about her life as you removed her engagement and wedding ring, the crucifix pendant around her neck, the diamond bracelet around her frail wrist–all logged securely for the family to pick up at their convenience.
You thought about her life, about the 83 years she spent on this earth. Where did she grow up? Was Harold her high-school sweetheart, or did they meet in college, or a bar? Did they travel? What sights did they see, how many sunsets did they share? Did she remember exactly where she was when Kennedy was assassinated, like most older folks did? Did she like red lipstick or pink? When did her hair turn white–did she hate it or did she embrace it?
Did she feel welcomed by death, or did she fight it kicking and screaming?
83 years, such a long life and yet still not long enough for the people who loved her.
You spent a lot of time grieving people you’d never met before as a morgue technician. It was a tough job–one spent with people on the worst days of their lives. Sure, you weren’t the one responsible for saving lives–didn’t have a relationship with the patient while they were living–but sometimes you thought maybe it was worse in a way. You learned about these people from their families, from the people so deeply grieving their loved one that often all you felt was gut-wrenching sadness for the hole that now lived in these people’s hearts. You didn’t get the benefit of seeing them interact with their loved ones, didn’t get to know their personality or see their quirks. All you experienced was the grief their loss wrought, not the joy their life had created.
You liked being there for people, though. Death is not something Americans are accustomed to talking about openly, the aftermath of losing a loved one often impersonal and shrouded in mystery. Especially at the hospital, it often felt more clinical than anything else, with procedure and policy often taking center stage over the deceased.
You liked bringing a sense of humanity to the process; liked to have the families reminisce about their loved ones, liked getting to know them through the people who cherished them the most despite the deep ache it sometimes left in your chest.
You learned about Marjorie upstairs, from the family as you collected the body, and you’re looking forward to learning more about her when the family comes to collect her effects. You found that getting people to talk about the person they lost made it easier to discuss funeral and transport arrangements. You didn’t want them to feel like they were just another box to check off your to-do list.
A knock on the door pulled you from your thoughts.
“Hey, we got another one upstairs. Transport’s been taking forever tonight,” Elise, your boss, said, rolling her eyes. “They have one job: get the body from point A to point B. What gives?”
You shrugged, sighing as you finished cataloging all of Marjorie's effects. “I’ll be back soon,” you said, squeezing her hand gently before making your way to the elevators, up to the emergency department.
Transport was supposed to, well, transport the body. But they were often backed up for one reason or another, and delays in moving the body meant a valuable room remained occupied when it could otherwise be used for another patient. So, more often than not, Elise sent you up to grab the body and bring it back down for processing. It was faster that way, and often gave the family some peace knowing that their loved one wasn’t just sitting in the emergency room.
You didn’t mind, exactly. As much as you enjoyed the quiet and solitude of the mortuary, you liked peaking your head up in the ED and seeing the hustle and bustle there, the way it teemed with life as well as death, even at night.
And it didn’t hurt that the senior night shift attending was perhaps the most handsome man you’d ever laid eyes on. You’d had a crush on him since you met him, your introduction being maybe one of the most embarrassing moments of your life.
It was your first time up in the emergency department, the incessant beeping and constant chatter a stark difference to the quiet morgue–if people were talking down there, something was seriously wrong.
You’d been taken on a brief tour by the charge nurse, Lena, who gave you a rundown of the transport procedure. You met a few of the residents, Dr. Ellis and Dr. Crus, and a handful of nurses, all of whom seemed nice enough.
But you almost stopped dead in your tracks when you met the kind hazel eyes of the graying, curly-haired man standing at the nurses station.
“And this is Dr. Abbot, senior night shift attending. You’ll need his or Dr. Shen’s signature whenever you transport a body,” Lena introduced you, “Dr. Abbot, this is the new morgue technician. She graciously offered to help with transport.”
You held your hand out, brain nearly turning to mush when he shook it. His palm was rough, calloused from many years of working with his hands, and unbelievably warm. His hand also dwarfed yours, which sent a tingle down your spine.
“New morgue technician?” he asked, “Well, no offense, but I hope we don’t see you too much around here,” he joked with an easy smile on his face.
“I guess that remains to be seen,” you said, and followed it up with a ‘ba dum tss’ sound effect and finger guns. Yes, you really did that.
The joke didn’t land; they never did. Jack cocked his head to the side, an almost-smile gracing his lips, and shot you an inquisitive look, like he was trying to figure you out.
His intense stare made your cheeks heat and your tummy swirl. You weren’t sure if you were aroused or uncomfortable, or some combination of both.
You couldn’t get out of there sooner.
It felt like you could never get your foot out of your mouth when Jack Abbot was around. And so the cycle began: get called up to retrieve a body, make an ill-timed joke, embarrass the hell out of yourself, and return back to the safety of the morgue as quickly as possible.
You never made jokes in front of patients or families; you knew that it was something strictly reserved for your peers, people you thought understood the challenges you all face in healthcare–and deathcare.
You weren’t sure why it seemed physically impossible for you not to use humor as a defense mechanism. Part of it was the nature of your job–gallows humor was a coping mechanism you latched onto and couldn’t seem to shake off. It was the same way some people laughed when they were nervous or panicked–a reaction to pent up emotions and stress that manifested as humor instead of as tears.
But you’d also always been like this, trying to diffuse uncomfortable situations with humor instead of meeting them head on, or making a joke at your own expense before someone else could. It hurt less that way, if you could subvert something painful into something lighthearted.
You’d always been admonished for it, by your parents, friends, partners. Had been told that it was inappropriate and that you were too crass, too loud, too much. Which was probably true. It confused you, though, how some people did bond over humor, in the occasional callousness of it, when you were criticized for it. That was something you’d never been able to work out, how it was always wrong when you did it; why you’d never been able to bond with people the same way others did. Well, there was a reason you worked the night shift at a morgue, after all.
You pushed those thoughts away and instead tried to talk yourself up as you stood in the elevator, willing yourself not to be weird.
“Hey, Lena, heard you got another customer for me?” you grinned at her, leaning against the nurses station.
“Sure do, sweets. Her name is Cary West,” she replied with a soft smile. Lena, at least, seemed to like you. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She pointed you to the correct room, where Mateo was cleaning up the body. You stood silently as he finished, taking a moment to honor the person they were and the people they’re leaving behind. These moments always felt weird–liminal, in a way. No longer a patient, but not yet ready for the funeral home–they were entrusted in your care in the meantime.
There was no family in the room, which wasn’t abnormal for night shift. Folks had gone home, to sleep or cry or do whatever else one does to process the grief. You always hope you’ll meet the family of the deceased, but you’re not holding on hope on this one. It was 4am, the family would likely be back during the day to take care of funeral arrangements and Ms. West would be long gone by then. Still, though, you thought about her life, her wants, her dreams–tried to insert some humanity where it had been lost.
“Sorry you had to come back up so soon, I know you just got down there with Ms. Deacons,” Mateo said quietly, pulling the sheet over her head.
“Oh no worries, I don’t mind. It's not like she’s gonna talk my ear off.”
He just shook his head at your joke, unimpressed and unamused.
“Looks like Dr. Abbot is at the nurses station. C’mon, and we’ll get the transfer paperwork signed,” he said, holding the door open for you to push the gurney through.
Dr. Abbot looked worn out. His eyes were tired, and the kind smile he usually sported was replaced by a slight frown and a furrow between his brows. His shoulders were drawn up tight, the tension built up there almost looking painful. It must have been a rough night.
You greeted him with a soft smile, and handed over the clipboard for his signature, which he promptly filled out.
He handed you the clipboard before turning his attention back to the gurney. His jaw was clenched tight, a pained look on his face as he squeezed Ms. West’s hand peeking out from the blanket.
“Treat her well for us, please,” he said, voice hoarse.
“Always do, I wouldn’t want to know what the reaper-cussions would be if I didn’t,” you joked before you could think better of it, cringing internally at your lack of tact.
There was a split second of silence, the tension simmering hotly before fully boiling over.
“Jesus fucking christ, can you be serious for one fucking second? This is a hospital, not a fucking comedy club. There are people grieving here. You need to learn to be an adult and keep your fucknig mouth shut,” he boomed, his face red and chest heaving.
He was looming over you now as he spit out, “get the fuck out of my ED.”
Your ears were ringing. You weren’t sure if the department had actually fallen silent or if you’d just temporarily lost the ability to hear.
You couldn’t breathe, oxygen not flowing properly into your lungs. It felt like you’d been punched in the gut, all the air sucked out and replaced with lead.
“S-sorry,” you stuttered out, cheeks burning and throat closing in on itself. Tears were building up quickly in your eyes, but you weren’t going to cry in front of these people; you weren’t going to give them the satisfaction.
You gripped the edge of the gurney and pushed ahead, desperate to get out of there as fast as humanly possible. No one stopped you, no one offered any apologies or sympathies, just watched your humiliated form disappear into the elevator.
The minute the elevator doors closed the tears fell, the hot trails burning your face as you tried to conceal your sobs.
“I’m s-sorry, Ms. West, I shouldn’t be crying like this. I don’t really have much to be upset about in comparison,” you apologized to the corpse, feeling guilty for being so upset when you were literally transporting a dead woman.
You managed to calm yourself down before you reached the morgue. You didn’t want to explain what happened to Elise, didn’t want to recount every embarrassing detail that was already replaying in your head.
You soothed yourself with routine, with the repetitive motions of logging personal effects, filling out reports, and contacting the funeral home to make arrangements.
By the time 7AM rolled around, you were more than ready to get the hell out of there.
The sun is blinding against your puffy eyes. The past two days were a blur, mostly spent crying and replaying the incident over and over. You called out of work, citing a stomach bug. Which wasn’t all that untrue–the thought of encountering anyone in the hospital did make you feel violently ill.
You had already put in for a transfer to day shift, feigning some excuse about your school schedule changing. You couldn’t wait to finish your studies and officially become a mortician. You’d leave the hospital and start your own business, helping people through the grieving and burial process in your own way.
And maybe you’d never have to see Jack Abbot ever again. The thought was as relieving as it was devastating, because you liked him. And you were starting to think maybe he liked you too–at least as a friend or acquaintance.
It was a slow night, which you were thankful for. It meant there weren’t any bodies in the morgue–that there weren’t any deaths so far tonight. So you weren’t too bent out of shape when you got shipped up to the ED to collect a body.
You found Dr. Abbot quickly, signed the necessary paperwork, and wheeled the body out to central.
“Thanks for picking up, I don’t know what the hell’s going on with transpo tonight,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it, we’re actually empty right now. There’s no body there,” you said, a cheeky grin crossing your lips.
And Jack laughed. A full-on, deep-throated laugh. It was one of the most beautiful sounds you’d ever heard. Your chest swelled with pride, and all you could think about was making him do it again.
He shook his head at you, smile still lingering on his face, “what makes a girl like you want to work night shift at the morgue?”
“Girl like me?” you asked coyly, raising your eyebrow at him.
He assessed you, eyes flitting over your face, “yeah, young, smart… pretty.”
You flushed at that, your body getting all warm and tingly, “well, I’m not a mourning person, for one,” you joked, earning another laugh from Jack.
“I, uh, I’m in school for mortuary science,” you continued, giving him a real answer, “I want to be a mortician when I’m done.”
“That’s… admirable,” he said, “you don’t get the glory of saving lives but you do get all the dirty work. Good for you.”
Jack’s attention made you feel like you were on fire–like a white hot ball of flame that would spread given the littlest bit of ammunition. His stare was brazen, unapologetic–you couldn’t look away if you tried.
You cleared your throat, breaking some of the tension, “I guess I should probably get him downstairs,” you said, gesturing to the gurney in front of you.
“I’ll walk you to the elevator,” Jack said, moving to stand by your side. He rested his hand on the small of your back as he guided you to the elevators. The touch was electrifying–you could feel the warmth radiating from him through the layers of scrubs. He was close enough now that you could smell the warm amber of his cologne mixed with his own musky scent. You felt dizzy, and all you wanted to do was press yourself against him, to nestle yourself in the crook of his neck and inhale.
He pressed the button for the elevator when you arrived and helped you wheel the gurney in.
“It was good seein’ you, pretty girl,” he said, and just as the elevator doors were closing, he winked at you.
You were surprised you didn’t turn into a puddle right then and there.
Your chest twisted at the memory. Maybe that’s why his words hurt so much–why they’d sunk into the marrow of your bones, confirming that he thought as lowly of you as you already thought of yourself. He’d given you hope, shown you kindness where no one else in the ED had.
It was stupid, anyway. Thinking that a man like Jack Abbot could feel anything other than disdain for someone like you. Of course the hot, older, accomplished attending wouldn’t want anything to do with the awkward morgue technician.
Every time you thought about it, your heart ached, a dull pang ringing through your chest and reverberating through your body. Tears pooled in your eyes at the mere thought of the incident. It felt like you were back in high school, asking Alex Williams to the school dance just to have him laugh in your face and say he wasn’t going to go with a freak.
You couldn’t dwell on it, though. You had a job to do, bills to pay. You could only hope that day shift was better, or that you could whip yourself into shape and keep your comments to yourself.
“Jesus, why is the body in north 2 still there?” Jack asked, eyes trained on the board ahead of him. Wait times were astronomical and chairs was full to the brim–the sooner they moved the deceased out, the sooner they could move a new patient in.
“Not sure, I called transpo an hour ago, but you know how concerned they are with being timely,” Lena responded.
“What about the morgue? Why haven’t they sent anyone to collect the body?”
Lena looked at him over the top of her glasses, an unimpressed look on her face.
“Oh, you mean that sweet girl who helps us out by transporting bodies when transpo is dicking around? The one you screamed at in front of the entire department? Gosh, I can’t think of a reason she’s not chomping at the bit to come up here,” she deadpanned, fixing Jack with a glare. “Last I heard she switched to day shift. Said she had some personal schedule conflicts, but I think we both know that’s not true.”
Jack winced, guilt coursing through him. He hadn’t meant to make such a scene, to be so cruel. It had just been such a monumentally horrible day, his chest wound so tight and hackles raised that your little joke set him off. It was stupid, too, because Jack had easily made far worse jokes at far more inappropriate times.
It could have easily been anyone else that he snapped at, would have been, if you weren’t there. But you were, and so you bore the brunt of his wrath.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been replaying the look on your face, the way it crumpled and tears welled up in your pretty eyes. He remembered how your breath hitched, how you shrunk in on yourself and ran away as fast as you could.
It made his chest ache to think about. He wanted to find you, to apologize, but he thought he might just make it worse. And selfishly, he wasn’t sure he was ready for the conversation that would ensue. He assumed he’d see you up here at some point, where he could take you aside and beg for forgiveness–he didn’t think you’d rearrange your entire work schedule just to avoid seeing him.
He wasn’t sure why he acted so indifferently toward you. Or rather, he did–he just didn’t want to acknowledge the way you made him feel. You made him feel giddy–made his face warm and his heart race, like a teenage boy flirting with a pretty girl for the first time. He briefly tried flirting with you, but he was pretty sure you were oblivious to it–either that or you didn’t feel the same. He was hoping for the former.
He hadn’t felt this way about someone since he started dating his wife. Frankly, it made him uncomfortable to think about, made him feel like he was betraying her in some way. He knew that wasn’t true, knew that his wife would want him to be happy, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling.
He’d been talking about it with his therapist, trying to cope with these feelings–trying to get up the courage to ask you out.
And the kicker was he was going to, he was getting bolder, complimenting you and finding any excuse to, respectfully, put his hands on you. And now he’s fucked it all up.
“Shit,” he muttered, scrubbing his hands down his face.
“Yeah, shit. I suggest you take your ass down there and apologize. Properly.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll handle it,” he said absent-mindedly, already wracking his brain for the right words to say to you.
The change to day shift was brutal. Your body wasn’t used to waking up when you were supposed to be going to bed, and vice versa. You were also working less hours to accommodate your school schedule, which was the reason you were on night shift to begin with. But you took it in stride the best you could. Lemonade out of lemons, and all that.
You’d been up to the ED a couple times since the incident, feeling as awkward as ever even though most of them weren’t on shift when Dr. Abbot berated you. You covered day shift a few times, so you weren’t completely unfamiliar with the staff. Dr. Robby seemed nice enough, though you never stuck around long enough to build rapport. It was in and out from now on, speaking as little as you could before you retreated back to the morgue.
You wished you could flat out refuse to go up there, but you didn’t want to punish innocent people just waiting for a bed. The sooner you got the bodies to the morgue, the sooner someone else could be seen by a doctor.
Right now, though, you were sat at your desk, filling out log reports and finishing up paperwork before you inevitably got another body. It was monotonous work, yes, but calming in a way. The mindless action gave your brain a break between decedents–gave you a chance to mourn the person and compartmentalize it away before it ate away at you.
You faintly heard the door at the end of the hall open and close, and assumed Elise was taking her lunch break.
That is, until you heard a painfully familiar voice call out, “Hello? Anybody in here?”
Oh no, why is he here? Attendings rarely visited the morgue–usually only if there was a particularly complex cause of death that they wanted to further examine. But there were no such cases right now, the only bodies currently in custody being a run of the mill STEMI and a GSW to the head–both pretty self-explanatory.
And the night shift hadn’t started yet, the clock reading 5:34pm. There’s no plausible reason for Jack Abbot to be down here right now.
His steps were getting louder–he was almost at your office now.
You panicked. That is the only explanation you have for scrambling up from your desk and darting into the small storage closet to your left. You pressed yourself against the wall to the side, out of view of the frosted glass window. Was this the mature course of action? Absolutely not. But you weren’t sure you could handle seeing him right now. You hadn’t seen him since the incident, had done everything in your power to avoid any and all interactions.
He called out again, and you could see his silhouette standing in the doorway of your office.
Eyes closed, you took deep breaths to try and calm your rapidly beating heart. Hopefully he’d see the empty room and take his leave quickly.
It was quiet, and for a moment you thought he’d left until–knock knock.
“I could be crazy, but I’m pretty sure I heard someone stumble into this closet and slam the door shut,” he said, a hint of amusement in his tone.
You didn’t answer, hoping maybe you could convince him he was crazy.
The doorknob rattled, and you instinctively grabbed it, pulling it with all the force you could muster to keep it closed. You weren’t sure why–surely he was much stronger than you and could rip the door open if he really wanted to. And god, why was thinking about how strong he was making you flustered?
It’s not that you were scared of him, you were just… woefully unprepared for this conversation. Despite ruminating over the incident itself, you hadn’t actually pictured a scenario where you’d ever speak to him again. Hadn’t had time to go over it a million times in your head, coming up with the best comeback and constructing the perfect barb to lodge in his soft underbelly, the way he’d done to you.
He sighed, resting his forehead against the glass. “Look, I just wanted to apologize for the other day, if you’ll give me the chance.”
You chewed on the inside of your cheek, considering. You’re not sure that an apology will do much for you, not sure that it’ll quell the pit in your stomach that’s opened and doesn’t show any sign of closing.
You nodded to yourself anyway, letting out a quiet, “go ahead.”
He chucked lightly, “face-to-face, if you don’t mind.”
Damn him, you groaned internally. Taking a deep breath, you slowly opened the door. Jack stood opposite you, hands tucked into the pockets of his scrubs. You crossed your arms and fixed your gaze on your scuffed up shoes, the thought of looking him in the eye daunting and exciting at the same time.
He let out a deep breath, “I’m really sorry for how I acted the other night. It was an exceptionally shitty night, and it wasn’t your fault but I took it out on you when I shouldn’t have.”
You nodded, appreciated the effort it took to come down here and apologize. It did little to soothe your bruised heart, though. There was still a painful twinge in your chest, his words having already wormed their way into your brain and confirmed every worst thought you had about yourself.
“Thank you, Dr. Abbot, apology accepted,” you said curtly, moving past him to get back to your desk.
He stopped you, his hand resting on the bare skin just above your elbow. Goosebumps prickled against your skin from the roughness of his palm. You hated how your body craved more, how you wanted him to slide his hand up to your neck, tilt your head back and kiss you. Traitor.
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his jaw, “that woman that night, the one you picked up, she died of ovarian cancer,” he said. He looked conflicted, eyes flinty and mouth twisted to the side like he was warring with himself as he bit out the next words, “that’s how–my wife–she died of ovarian cancer.”
Oh. You didn’t know that, didn’t even know he had a wife. Your eyes drifted to his left hand and saw the slightly lighter patch of skin there. Your heart ached and your defenses softened just a tad at the revelation. You could only imagine what it would feel like to lose a patient in the same manner you lost the person closest to you, could imagine the ugly emotions it would pull out of you. It didn’t make what he said okay, but you understood the circumstances that led him to say it.
“And before that we had a kid who died from drowning, and a couple close calls, and a bunch of Dr. Google bullshit. And your joke was just… the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, not like that and not in front of everybody. That wasn’t fair to you, and I’m truly sorry,” he said, and you could feel the sincerity dripping from his words. His eyes were soft and pleading as he looked at you, and once again you found yourself unable to look away.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that–about your wife,” you said softly, not wanting to make it any more painful than it already was, “and I’m sorry about the joke. I know it’s not appropriate, and I’ve been trying to stop, but you know how hard it is to quit unhealthy coping mechanisms,” a small smile lifting the corner of your lips.
He shook his head, “please don’t, you have nothing to apologize for. Gallows humor is how we all get by; I can’t tell you how many off-color jokes I’ve told in my day. It was really the pot calling the kettle black, if I'm being honest,” he said, “If it wasn’t you who set me off, it would’ve been Ellis or Shen, or some other unsuspecting person. I promise you it had so much more to do with me than it did with you.”
You nodded, accepting his explanation. You felt a little lighter, a little less burdened by his words.
“I’d like to make it up to you, if you’ll let me,” he said, “maybe coffee or dinner, if you’re up for it?”
You shook your head, “That’s really not necessary, Dr. Abbot. I meant it, I accept your apology, you don’t have to do anything else.”
He nodded at that, looking a little deflated but otherwise satisfied that you’d accepted his apology.
Jack felt the need to make it up to you anyway.
It started with coffee after his shift ended. The first time, he brought you the most insane coffee order you’d ever seen–a mocha cappuccino with 5 extra shots of espresso, pistachio syrup, vanilla cold foam, caramel AND white mocha drizzle, and salted caramel topping–a monstrosity borne from a recommendation from the woman ahead of him in line. You’re not sure how you didn’t immediately get cavities in all of your teeth.
You couldn’t lie, though, the fact that he made the effort to go out and get coffee after his 12 hour shift was endearing, and once you gave him your coffee order, he got it right each and every time.
It became routine over the next month for Jack to bring you coffee, and even though you didn’t have much time to talk in the morning, you began looking forward to the 10-15 minutes of conversation you shared with him each morning. You never discussed what this was, if it meant anything or if it was just a kind gesture between friends. You certainly hoped it meant something, but you weren’t going to get your hopes up.
You were catching up on paperwork when his text came through.
Jack: Can’t make it for coffee this morning, sweetheart, how about I bring you lunch later?
Your cheeks heated at the pet name. He hadn’t called you that before, and you hoped you weren’t reading into it.
You: sounds great, see you later :)
You spend the morning counting down the minutes until Jack showed up. It only slightly hindered your progress on your paperwork, your mind only occasionally wandering off to think about his pretty pink lips.
It’s noon before you know it, and someone’s rapping their knuckles on the door frame to your office.
“Knock, knock,” Jack said, shooting you a smile as he walked over to your desk. He set down a truly alarming amount of food. You laughed as he took out container after container, the sack resembling a clown car more than a fast food bag.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got a variety,” he said, a little bashfully, “you can take home whatever’s left for dinner or lunch tomorrow.”
You selected what you wanted from the smorgasbord he presented you with, and settled into the chair next to him.
It was a little awkward at first. Most of the conversations you’d had with him up to this point were pretty surface level. Even your coffee chats were light-hearted affairs that didn’t really go deeper than what you did over the weekend.
But Jack didn’t let it stay awkward for long, as if he knew that once you started talking, he’d be hard-pressed to get you to stop.
“So, I realized that despite our coffee talks, I don’t really know that much about you. How long have you been a mortuary tech?”
“About a year and a half. I got the job after I started school for mortuary science. Before that I taught for a little bit, but I didn’t really like it and I don’t think I was much good at it. I was a bartender for a long time too.”
“So what made you make the jump to mortuary school?”
“I studied anthropology in college and death culture always really fascinated me, especially the way different cultures deal with grief and the burial process. America is so sanitized, so averse to looking at death straight on. We think death needs to be palatable, that the deceased need to look exactly as they did in life to avoid accepting the fact that our bodies are fundamentally different after death–that they are on their way to being absorbed back into the earth.
“I think the way we treat people in death is just as important as how we treat them in life. To some people, that person on the table is just an assemblage of bones and flesh, but to others that was a friend, a mother or daughter, father or son. And I figured as a mortician, I’d be in a position to offer families the kind of support that helps them work through their grief, not just hide it behind pretty floral arrangements.”
You felt a little shy at the rapt expression on Jack’s face. He was giving you his undivided attention, listening intently to every word that came out of your mouth. You’re not sure any man has ever listened to you as attentively as he was now. Yes, the bar was in hell, but it didn’t make it any less hot.
“Sorry, that was a lot, I didn’t mean to info dump on you,” you said sheepishly.
He shook his head, “Please info dump, I could listen to you talk all day,” he said honestly, “do you want to continue working at the hospital when you’re done or do you want to start your own practice?”
“I don’t think I’ll stay here. I mean, I like helping people through the immediate grief, but I think I just want to help grieving families lay their loved ones to rest in a way that honors the life they lived. I don’t care about selling fancy caskets or high-dollar cemetery plots, I just want to narrow it down to what really matters to preserving and celebrating the individual that was lost.”
Jack nodded, “I don’t remember a lot about planning my wife’s funeral–Robby helped a lot with that–but I do remember it being really… almost commercial, in a way? Like, ‘do you want cedar or oak for the coffin? Do you want the casket lined in silk or velvet?’” he said, laughing bitterly, “like it was a fashion show or something, not the vessel my wife was going to be buried in. I couldn’t give less of a fuck what the damn thing was lined in.”
You laid your hand on top of his, giving it a comforting squeeze as he continued. It made your heart swell that he felt comfortable enough to talk about his wife with you.
“I mean, they were very compassionate, but it always felt like a business–which I get, we’re a capitalist society, but that’s not exactly what you want to feel when you’re burying someone,”
You nodded, “that’s probably the thing that bothers me the most about this industry. Sometimes it seems like profit is the priority, and the real, hurting people come second.”
Jack just looked at you with soft eyes, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling as he smiled at you. He turned your hand over in his, tracing the lines of your palm with his thumb.
“I think you’re going to be an amazing mortician,” he said, without an ounce of amusement or teasing, just pure honesty. “I think you’re exactly the kind of person that people want around them when they're going through the worst days of their lives.”
You couldn’t help the tears that pricked at the corners of your eyes. It was the kindest thing someone had said to you about your career path, except maybe Elise. And it was nice to shed happy tears over something Jack Abbot said instead of embarrassed ones.
You talked long after your lunch break was over, but Elise was out and you didn’t have any pressing work to get to at the moment, so you figured there was no harm, no foul.
But eventually he had to leave to get ready for his shift, and you did have work to do, though you’d gladly forsake it for a few more minutes with him.
You got up to dispose of your trash and walked him to the door.
“Lunch was really nice,” he murmured, resting his hand on your arm, right above your elbow.
Your breath hitched at the contact and goosebumps prickled up and down your arms. You gaze was locked on his, unable to look away, “yeah, I really enjoyed it,” you said breathily, your heart already racing.
He moved closer, settling his hands on your waist, and backed you up slowly until the back of your knees hit your desk.
You leaned back against your desk, widening your stance to allow Jack to step between your legs. His body was warm against you, his hands running up and down your sides soothingly.
“Is this okay, sweetheart?” he asked, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw. You could feel his breath against your lips, so close but still so far away.
You nodded, a pathetic mewl leaving your lips without permission. It was embarrassing how badly you wanted to kiss this man.
He pressed closer, his lips just barely grazing yours, his nose slightly bumping your cheek. You wrapped your arms loosely around his neck, eyes fluttering shut as you moved to close the miniscule distance between your lips–
CLANG!
The door down the hall slammed shut, and hurried footsteps approached your office.
You nearly jumped out of your skin and stumbled back onto the desk, out of Jack’s grasp. He seemed just as shocked, his hand clutching his chest in surprise.
A second later Elise came rushing into the room, saying something about a mass casualty event and how you needed to make as much room down here as you could to prepare for the inevitable. You nodded, turning to Jack to apologize, but he beat you to it.
“Shit, I gotta go, sweetheart, they’re probably gonna call all-hands-on-deck,” he said, a genuinely mournful look on his face.
“Yeah, of course. I hope it’s not too bad,” you said, equally as disappointed, but understanding. Duty calls.
He wrapped you up in a tight hug, your cheek resting against his firm chest. You closed your eyes and allowed yourself to savor his embrace for a moment before he had to go.
“We’ll finish this later, yeah?” he asked against your hair, his hand rubbing circles on your back.
You smiled against his chest and nodded, “yes, please.”
He pulled away and planted a chaste kiss to your cheek before heading out.
“What was that all about?” Elise questioned, raising her eyebrows at you.
You didn’t say anything–your hot cheeks and dopey grin were worth a thousand words.
You were called up to the ED several times, each time worse than the last by the looks of the staff. It still felt a little awkward being in the emergency department. Even though most of the people here weren’t on shift when Jack yelled at you, it still felt like the department went still when you walked in, people stopping and staring like you were some sideshow circus freak.
You were back up here collecting yet another soul, waiting for someone to sign off on the transfer. It seemed like things had calmed down, the worst of it over now. You were lost in thought at the nurses station, picking at the skin around your nails anxiously.
You hoped Jack would be the one to come over and sign the paperwork–hoped you’d catch another glimpse of him before your shift was over. All you could think about all day was that almost-kiss you shared with him. You couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto your face every time you thought about it, which meant you basically had a permanent grin affixed to your face.
You’re only pulled out of your thoughts by the sound of hushed voices to your left. You glanced over and saw two nurses you didn’t recognize taking a break and engaging in some friendly workplace gossip. Or so you thought.
“–so happy about?” a nurse whispered incredulously.
“Probably daydreaming about Dr. Abbot,” another said, her tone most likely accompanied by an eye roll.
“God, when is she going to get a grip? Her fawning over him is not cute.”
“Yeah, I think he just doesn’t know how to let her down… I mean when he yelled at her she changed her whole schedule, he probably feels guilty.”
“True. Maybe she’ll realize how embarrassing it is to be so down bad for a man she has no chance with.”
You stopped listening after that, crestfallen and heartbroken all over again. The illusion of the past month shattered and the feelings from before came roaring back full force.
Your chest twisted painfully–like someone had grabbed ahold of your heart and squeezed, the squishy flesh bulging between their fingers. Your throat ached, tears surely not far behind.
You knew you shouldn’t put too much stock in what these two random nurses were saying. You knew that they likely had no idea what they were talking about, that they were just mean girls blowing off steam and you seemed to be the target of it–like always.
But there was the little gremlin in the back of your brain, the one that told you everything they said was true. That Jack just felt guilty, that he was making himself feel better for the way he treated you. Insecurity wrapped itself around you like a vise, squeezing around you like a boa constrictor, until it was the only thing you could feel.
And that almost-kiss? Well, he was a man, after all. Maybe he was just overcome with the physical urge to kiss you, get in your pants if he could. But he wasn’t that kind of man, was he? You didn’t want to think so, but all rational thought was obscured by the hurt blooming in your chest that you couldn’t be sure.
You startled at the hand on your shoulder. You looked up to see Dr. Robby standing there, brows furrowed in concern. Squeaking out an apology, you handed him the transfer paperwork.
“I called your name three times, you okay?” he asked, flipping through the pages and signing where appropriate.
“Fine,” you smiled, not trusting your voice not to break.
He looked skeptical, but didn’t push.
“Alright, all done. Hopefully that’ll be it, at least from the mass cas,” he said, handing back the paperwork. “We have a trauma counsellor available if you need to talk to someone,” he said before backing away to move onto the next patient.
You chuckled at that. Of course he thought you were troubled by the amount of death that occurred today. But no, here you were, post mass casualty, and you were more concerned about a man than you were about the people that had died tonight. How fucked up were you?
Jack showed up with coffee the next morning like usual, setting the paper cup down on your desk, “here you go, sweetheart.”
“Thank you,” you said without looking up from your paperwork. You tasted acid in your throat, the words from the nurses station echoing in your head in an ugly cacophony. You’d memorized them by heart over the past 12 hours, twisting and turning in bed as they invaded your mind against your will.
He just doesn’t know how to let her down.
He probably feels guilty.
Her fawning over him is not cute.
You cleared your throat, “you really don’t have to do this anymore, you know,” you said nonchalantly, like it wasn’t tearing your heart out to say.
He was quiet for a moment. “I know… I do it because I want to, because I like spending time with you,” he said, head cocked and brow furrowed.
“Sure,” you muttered under your breath.
“What was that?”
You sighed and set your pen down, shifting your full attention to him, “I’m just saying you don’t have to prostrate yourself in front of me because you feel guilty, Jack. You’ve done your penance, if that’s all this is. You’re forgiven, no hard feelings.”
Your throat was tight, but your voice didn’t waver. You blinked back tears furiously as he stared at you, mouth agape. He looked a little more disheveled than usual, his eyes tired and the lines on his face a little more pronounced, like he’d been frowning all night. Obviously, he worked like 16 hours last night. You felt another wave of guilt rush over you–he was wasting his much needed rest time to come placate you.
He crossed his arms, shaking his head in confusion, “What the hell are you talking about? Where is this coming from?”
You stood up and started behind your desk, feeling restless and hurt and foolish.
“You just–you don’t have to hang around me because you feel bad or something,” you said, “you’ve more than apologized. I just wish you didn’t make me feel like–like…” you trailed off, ragged breaths tearing through your chest. It was getting harder to force the words out, tears falling down your cheeks in earnest now.
“Like what?”
“Like this means something!” you choked out. God, you felt so silly. Aw, is someone upset that their crush doesn’t like them back?
He looked at you in disbelief, “It does mean something,” he said, rounding your desk and stopping in front of you–effectively ceasing your pacing.
“Please don’t lie to me,” you hiccuped, your bottom lip trembling violently, “I know I’m too much, I know no one at the Pitt likes me–you don’t have to pretend you do.” You fixed your gaze to the floor–you didn’t think you could handle the pitying look that was undoubtedly in his eyes.
“Hey, hey, look at me,” he said, cupping your face between his large hands. You tried to wiggle away, but his grip was unwavering–he wasn’t going to let you look away from him. He brushed away your tears, “I don’t know what ideas you’ve gotten into that pretty little head of yours, but if you think I’m anything but smitten with you, you’re dead wrong.”
You laughed weakly, “who’s making bad jokes now?”
He didn’t take the bait, didn’t let you deflect from the topic at hand. He pinned you with his eyes, his gaze steady as he delivered his next words.
“I’m serious. I need you to know that I’m being honest with you when I say this: I’ve been scared for a long time to make a move on you, and I’m not letting anything–not even you–get in the way now, okay?
“I’ve liked you for a while now, pretty girl. You’re the best part of my day, the only thing keepin’ me going some days. I love your smile, your laugh, the way your face lights up when you talk about something you’re passionate about. I love the way you care about people, alive and dead, and I love your jokes, even if they can be a little off color.
“And I can’t tell you how much I regret how I treated you. The only silver lining is that it kicked my ass into gear, made me realize I’ve been an idiot for waiting so long to make you mine. You’re not too much, and even if you were, I’d want more–I want everything you’re willing to give me.”
You almost couldn’t comprehend the words coming out of his mouth, but he was nothing but sincere. His eyes pleaded with you to believe him, to give him a chance–and you desperately wanted to.
“You mean that?” you asked, gnawing at your lip anxiously. You didn’t want to get your hopes up just to have them crushed again.
“With all my heart,” he said, grabbing your hand and placing it over his heart. It was racing just as fast as yours was. “This is how I feel every time I see you, sweetheart. Feel like I should be hooked up to a monitor sometimes,” he joked.
“I…I like you too. I have since the day I met you. But I’m scared,” you swallowed thickly, voice small as you finished, “I don’t want to get hurt.”
“I know, sweetheart, I am too. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this–haven’t since my wife–and I don’t want to fuck it up. We’re in this together, as long as you’ll have me,”
“I want you,” you whispered, placing your hand on the side of his neck tentatively.
He grabbed your waist and backed you up against your desk, replicating your previous position from yesterday.
“Can I kiss you now, sweetheart? Haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since we were interrupted,” he asked, thumb stroking your cheek.
You nodded, “me either,” you said, heart pounding as he leaned in.
His lips were soft when they met yours. It was tentative–just a slow, gentle press of his lips against yours, like he was trying to maintain some level of decorum.
He started to pull back, and you whined at the loss of contact. You fisted your hands in his scrub top and pulled him back in, your mouths meeting in an uncoordinated mash of teeth. He chuckled against you, “greedy girl,” he murmured, steadying your head in his hands and deepening the kiss.
He tamped down your eagerness but didn’t erase any of the heat building between you–just kept you right where he wanted you. His tongue swiped across your bottom lip and you readily opened your mouth for him, desperate to taste him. He licked into your mouth, tongue hot as it tangled with yours. You were greedy, sucking and lapping and nipping at his tongue and lips, getting messy with it and thoroughly forgetting where you were and how inappropriate a setting this was.
You were like horny teenagers, hands grabbing at whatever bits of flesh they could reach, tangling in each other’s hair, and moaning louder than was appropriate.
When you finally pulled back, you were both gasping for air, chests heaving against each other. Jack rested his forehead against yours as he caught his breath. You didn’t want to waste another moment not kissing him, though, so you began peppering his face with kisses–to his nose, cheeks, chin, wherever you could reach.
He laughed at the onslaught, craning his head to the side to give you access to his neck, which you happily latched onto, “you’re insatiable, aren’t you?”
“I guess you’ll have to find out,” you replied as you pulled away, biting your lip and batting your eyelashes at him.
He shook his head fondly at you, “Now, as much as I’d like to do very, very inappropriate things to you right now, I came here this morning planning to ask you out to dinner. Would you allow me to ask you out properly now, sweetheart? Let me be a gentleman?” he asked, thumbs stroking your jaw.
You nodded, still dizzy from his kiss–still reeling from the fact that Jack actually liked you.
“Would you please make me the happiest man in the world, and accompany me to dinner at Altius tomorrow night at 7?”
“I’d love to,” you grinned, pulling him in for another kiss.
“And after, we'll see just how insatiable you are.”
A/N: shoutout to my fellow anthropology majors lol glad that my degree is coming in handy for something cause its certainly not a job
Summary: The storm has started to move on. The power is back. The pathology exam is still in three days. And behind Jack Abbot’s bedroom door, every rule left between you finally breaks.
Warnings: 18+ only, explicit sexual content, academic rivals, forced proximity, roommates crossing lines, storm setting, intense sexual tension, oral sex, protected sex, praise, light dominance, Jack being careful and devastatingly competent, “good” as a weapon, emotional intimacy after sex, brief prosthetic mention/removal in an intimate routine context, no one knows how to act normal afterward, feelings neither of them is prepared to name
Author's Note: Lovelies. We have reached the bedroom. Chapter nine is exactly what happens when two academic rivals spend eight chapters pretending observation is not intimacy, knowing each other too well is not dangerous, and a shared apartment is a perfectly reasonable place to keep making eye contact. Unfortunately for them, the storm had other plans. The power may be back on, but their common sense absolutely is not. This chapter is explicit, emotional, and deeply unserious about the idea that either of them can come back from this normal. Jack Abbot remains competent in the most personally devastating way possible.
For one second, the click of it sounded louder than the storm.
Then Jack was on you again.
No space.
No hesitation.
His mouth found yours in the dark, hard and hungry, and your back met the door with his hand already behind your shoulder, taking the impact before you could feel it. Your hands went to his chest, then his shoulders, then the back of his neck, pulling him closer like there was any closer left to take.
There wasn’t.
He gave it to you anyway.
Jack crowded you against the door, bare skin hot beneath your palms, his body solid and immediate in a way that made your head spin. The room was dark except for the dull wash of stormlight at the window and the thin line of brightness beneath the door, but you did not need to see him.
You could feel him.
His breath against your mouth.
His hand at your waist.
The hard line of his body pressed into yours.
The carefulness was still there, buried under heat, showing up in the way his palm stayed between your spine and the wood, in the way he shifted before his weight pinned you too heavily, in the way his fingers flexed at your side like he was trying not to take too much too fast.
You wanted too much.
You wanted too fast.
Your fingers dragged down his chest, over warm skin and muscle, and Jack’s mouth broke from yours with a rough breath that never became a word. You chased him anyway, kissing the corner of his mouth, his jaw, the side of his throat, and his hand tightened so hard at your waist that your whole body went molten beneath it.
Jack turned his head and caught your mouth again.
The kiss was messy now.
Not pretty.
Not practiced.
Nothing like the controlled version of Jack Abbot you knew how to argue with across a lecture hall or a kitchen table.
This Jack kissed like restraint had been a mistake he was done making.
His hands found the hem of your sweatshirt, and this time, he did not stop at your ribs. He dragged the fabric up your body, slow only because the cotton caught at your elbows, because you would not let go of him long enough to make it easy, because every time his mouth left yours you made a helpless sound that brought him right back.
The sweatshirt hit the floor somewhere near his desk.
Then his hands were on you.
Skin to skin.
Warm palms.
Rough breath.
A low sound in his throat when your back arched into the touch.
You felt it everywhere.
There were no more questions.
Not really.
Not the kind either of you needed to say out loud.
Jack knew when you wanted him closer because your hands dragged over his back and held there. You knew when he wanted you still because his fingers closed around your wrist and guided it above your head against the door.
Not hard.
Not even close.
Just certain.
Your breath caught, and his mouth stilled against yours for one fraction of a second.
Checking.
Always checking.
You answered by lifting into him.
Jack’s hand tightened at your waist.
Then he kissed you harder.
That was the language now.
His hand at your hip.
Your nails against his back.
His mouth at your throat.
Your body arching beneath his.
The sharp breath he pulled in when you said his name.
“Jack,” you breathed against his mouth.
It barely counted as a word.
More like a break in the air.
A slip.
A confession your body made before your pride could stop it.
But it did something to him.
You felt it everywhere.
In the way his fingers flexed against your skin.
In the way his breath caught at your neck.
In the way his body pressed yours deeper against the door, controlled and hot and careful only where careful mattered.
“Fuck,” Jack breathed.
Then his mouth was on yours again, and you stopped trying to think.
That was the first thing to go.
Thought.
Then dignity.
Then the last pathetic remains of the part of you that cared about the exam.
Jack’s hand slid from your waist to your hip, then lower, catching beneath your thigh and lifting with a confidence that stole the air from your lungs. Your body followed before your mind could object, your leg hooking around him, your fingers digging into his shoulders as the angle changed and every place he touched you became unbearable.
This was not the lecture hall.
This was not Singh’s exam.
This was not a half-point lead and a correction scribbled in the margin.
This was his room.
His door.
His hands deciding the pace.
And God help you, you let him.
Jack moved you away from the door, guiding more than walking, kissing you through every step until the backs of his legs hit the bed.
He sat first.
Not because he was stopping.
Because Jack Abbot did not stumble if he could help it.
Because even ruined, even shirtless and breathing hard with your hands all over him, some part of him still knew his body, the room, the distance, the bed behind him.
Then he pulled you with him.
You landed across his lap with a gasp swallowed by his mouth, your knees bracketing his hips, your hands catching his shoulders. The position should have made you pause.
It didn’t.
It made everything worse.
Better.
Both.
Jack’s hands slid up your back, spreading wide, holding you against him while your mouth opened under his. His skin was hot beneath you. His chest moved hard against yours. Every place your body touched his became louder than the storm.
You rocked against him without meaning to.
Jack’s head tipped back, his breath leaving him in a broken, soundless curse.
The sight of it nearly undid you.
His throat exposed.
His jaw tight.
His hands flexing against your back like he was trying to remember every rule and losing them one by one.
You kissed the column of his throat.
His whole body went tight beneath yours.
“Fuck,” Jack said, low and rough.
You felt it more than heard it.
So you stayed there.
Just there.
Your mouth against the side of his neck.
Your hands on his shoulders.
Your body pressed to his while his grip tightened at your waist.
He did not tell you to stop.
He did not pull you away.
His head tipped back another fraction, giving you more room, and the silent permission of it went straight through you.
Your mouth moved over his skin again.
Slower this time.
Less accident.
Jack’s fingers dug into your waist.
The sound he made was almost nothing.
A breath.
A fracture.
A warning neither of you listened to.
You stayed there too long.
Not long enough.
Then Jack’s hand slid to the back of your neck, and your world narrowed to the heat of his palm and the rough drag of his breath.
Your mouth moved higher, over his jaw, the corner of his mouth, anywhere you could reach. His hands tightened at your waist, stopping you from moving again, holding you exactly where he wanted you.
Still.
Pinned in place by nothing but his grip and the weight of his attention.
Your breath caught.
Jack felt it.
Of course he did.
His eyes opened, dark and focused, and for once, there was no argument ready on your tongue. No correction. No challenge. No clever answer sharp enough to put distance between you.
You were usually so good at having the answer.
Here, Jack did.
His hand slid up your spine to the back of your neck, and he pulled you down to him with devastating control.
Not rough.
Not gentle either.
Just sure.
Your mouth met his again.
Your hands tried to move.
Jack caught one of them and lowered it to the mattress beside his thigh.
You went still.
His thumb moved once over your wrist.
Then his mouth softened against yours for half a second.
“Good,” Jack said against your mouth.
The word went through you like heat.
You had heard him say it over pathology notes.
Over correct answers.
Over half-won arguments.
Never like this.
Never with his hand around your wrist and his mouth against yours and your body held exactly where he wanted it.
The sound that left you was not dignified.
Jack’s hand tightened around your wrist.
You said his name again before you could stop yourself.
“Jack.”
His eyes closed.
For half a second, that was the only sign that he heard you.
Then his control slipped.
You felt it in the way he dragged you closer, in the way his mouth opened over yours, in the way his hand left your wrist only to grip your thigh and pull you harder against him. Your fingers flew back to his shoulders, and this time he let you touch him.
Let you hold on.
Let you feel the damage your voice had done.
His name in your mouth was not fair.
You knew that now.
You wanted to use it anyway.
“Jack,” you whispered again.
His hand closed around your thigh.
There.
A warning.
A plea.
A fracture.
Then he turned you beneath him.
Fast.
Controlled.
Devastating.
Your back met the mattress, and Jack followed you down, one knee settling between yours, one hand braced beside your head, his mouth already finding yours again before the room could steady around you.
The bed smelled like him.
Laundry detergent.
Rain.
Old coffee.
Warm cotton.
The kind of ordinary intimacy that should have scared you more than his mouth on your neck.
It didn’t.
You pulled him closer.
Jack’s hand moved over your side, your waist, your hip, learning you through touch because words had finally become useless. His mouth followed, leaving heat in every place it found. Your hands could not decide where to stay. His shoulders. His back. His hair. The tense line of his arm beside your head.
Everywhere.
You wanted him everywhere.
Jack lifted his head.
Stormlight moved across his face.
His eyes moved over you, and whatever he saw there pulled the last clean breath from his chest.
“God,” Jack said, voice low and rough.
Your fingers twisted in his sheets.
His jaw shifted.
“You’re perfect,” Jack said.
The words left him like he had tried to stop them and failed.
Your throat tightened around his name.
“Jack,” you breathed.
His eyes closed again.
Like it hurt.
Like he loved it.
Then he kissed you before either of you could say anything else.
Words had become dangerous.
Words gave you time to think.
Jack did not give you time.
His mouth moved over yours, deep and consuming, while his hand slid down your side with the same devastating certainty he brought to everything else. Your body followed him before your mind caught up, arching when his palm found your hip, shifting when his knee pressed between yours, opening when his hand guided your thigh higher around him.
No question.
No answer.
Not one spoken out loud.
He knew.
That was the worst part.
The hottest part.
He knew when your fingers twisted in his sheets because you wanted more. He knew when your breath caught because something was too much. He knew when your body went still beneath his because still did not mean stop.
It meant wait.
It meant there.
It meant again.
Jack read you like he had been studying for this longer than either of you had admitted.
And here, on his bed, in his room, with the storm moving over Pittsburgh and your pathology notes abandoned on the living room floor, he was done pretending he did not know the material.
His mouth left yours and dragged down your neck.
Your head tipped back.
He followed the movement immediately, one hand sliding beneath your shoulder, his mouth finding the place that made your fingers tighten in his hair.
You felt him react.
A rough breath.
A flex of his hand.
A pause that was not hesitation, exactly.
More like control catching on a sharp edge.
Then his mouth moved lower.
Your body stopped being useful.
Your thoughts stopped being yours.
Everything narrowed to his hands, his mouth, the weight of him above you, the impossible heat of his skin against yours. Jack’s fingers found the waistband of your shorts and stopped there for one breath.
Barely a breath.
Still enough for you to know.
You lifted your hips.
Jack’s jaw tightened.
Then the shorts were gone.
His hand moved over your thigh, firm and slow, not because he was hesitant, but because he had decided on the pace and your body had apparently agreed to betray you completely. Your fingers dragged over his shoulders, urging him back up, but Jack did not come where you tried to pull him.
Of course he didn’t.
He kissed your stomach instead.
Your breath caught hard.
His hand spread over your hip, holding you still.
That was new.
That was the part that made your pulse scatter.
Not Jack touching you.
Jack deciding.
You had spent months trying to beat him.
Correct him.
Outwork him.
Make him look at you across lecture halls and admit you were the one he had to catch.
But here, he did not chase.
Here, he took his time.
Here, his hands held you exactly where he wanted you, and for once in your life, you let yourself be led.
His mouth moved lower.
Your hand flew to his hair.
Jack’s arm tightened across your hips before you could move away from the first unbearable touch of his mouth.
Not trapping.
Not forcing.
Holding.
Like he already knew you would try to survive this by moving, and he had decided you did not have to.
A sound broke out of you.
Too loud.
Too honest.
Jack’s fingers flexed against your thigh.
“Yes,” Jack said, low against your skin.
The word barely sounded like praise.
Barely sounded like permission.
It sounded like something he had been trying not to say for weeks.
Your fingers tightened in his hair.
His breath caught.
“Fuck,” Jack breathed.
Then he went back to you.
Less patient than before.
The storm hit the window, rain lashing hard against the glass, but even that seemed far away now. Smaller than his breath against your skin. Smaller than the heat building low in your body. Smaller than the terrible, humiliating knowledge that Jack Abbot was good at this.
Of course he was.
Of course.
You hated him.
You absolutely did not.
Your hand twisted in the sheets.
His mouth moved again, and your whole body arched.
Your hips tried to move away.
Jack’s hand pressed them back down.
Firm.
Certain.
Your breath broke.
You stayed where he put you.
“Good,” Jack said.
Your eyes closed.
God.
That was worse.
That was so much worse.
His hand pressed at your hip, keeping you there, keeping you open to him, and when another broken sound slipped out of you, Jack made one of his own.
Rough.
Low.
Wrecked.
“Beautiful,” Jack said.
It was not sweet.
Not gentle.
Not in the way you would have expected that word to sound.
It was dragged out of him.
Almost angry.
Like the fact of you beneath him had offended his self-control.
Your breath broke again.
His fingers tightened.
“Fuck,” Jack said, rougher this time. “You’re beautiful.”
His name slipped out of you before you could stop it.
“Jack.”
His mouth stilled.
Only for a second.
Long enough for you to feel what it did to him.
Then his grip tightened on your thigh.
His breath dragged rough against your skin.
“Again,” Jack said.
The word barely sounded like a command.
Barely sounded like anything.
Still, your whole body reacted to it.
Your eyes closed.
“Jack,” you breathed.
His control slipped.
You felt it in the way his hand tightened, in the way his mouth came back to you with less patience, in the way he held you exactly where he wanted you and gave you nowhere to go except through it.
Your back arched.
Your fingers tightened.
The sound that left you was broken and helpless and too loud for the small, storm-dark room.
“Jack.”
His name tore out of you as you came.
Jack groaned against you.
The sound was rough.
Wrecked.
Like your pleasure had done something to him he had no interest in surviving.
His arm stayed locked across your hips while you shook beneath him, his hand spread wide over your thigh, holding you there through every wave of it. He did not let you move away. He did not let you hide from it. He kept you exactly where he wanted you until your body softened beneath his hands and your fingers loosened in his hair.
Only then did he lift his head.
Slowly.
His mouth found your hip.
Your stomach.
Your ribs.
Your throat.
By the time he came back to your mouth, you were trembling.
Jack kissed you like he knew it.
Like he had caused it.
Like hearing his name like that had ruined whatever was left of his restraint.
You could taste yourself on his mouth, and the intimacy of that should have embarrassed you.
It didn’t.
It made your hands shake when you reached for him.
His body settled over yours, heavier now, closer, his skin damp with heat and storm air. Your thighs shifted around his hips, and Jack’s breath broke against your mouth when you pulled him down.
There.
Hard against you.
Wanting you.
Not theoretical.
Not almost.
Real.
Your hands moved to his waistband.
Jack went still for one breath.
Not stopping.
Not pulling away.
Just feeling it.
Your fingers slipped beneath the edge of his sweats, and his breath dragged rough against your mouth.
He helped you this time.
No pause.
No joke.
No room left for either.
Jack pushed himself up just enough to get them down, his mouth finding yours again before the fabric was even fully gone. You felt the brief shift of his weight, the controlled movement of his body, the way he managed even this like he knew exactly where every part of himself belonged.
Then he was back over you.
Closer.
Hotter.
Nothing left between you but thin fabric and the last useless inch of restraint.
Your nails dragged down his back.
His hips pressed into yours once, rough and restrained, and the sound that left both of you was nearly the same.
His forehead dropped against yours.
For one second, neither of you moved.
Then Jack reached toward the nightstand.
The drawer opened with a sharp, clumsy scrape that should have broken the moment.
It didn’t.
Nothing could have.
His mouth stayed on yours as his hand searched blindly. Something knocked against the wood. A book shifted. The drawer hit the frame.
Jack cursed under his breath.
You laughed once, barely more than an exhale.
His mouth curved against yours.
Then foil crinkled in his hand, and the laugh died in your throat.
Jack lifted his head.
Stormlight cut across his face again.
His eyes found yours, dark and focused and undone in a way that made your chest ache.
No words.
He had already asked.
You had already answered.
Still, there it was.
The pause.
The check.
The space he left for you because he would always leave it, even when he was shaking with the effort not to move.
You lifted your hand to his face.
Your thumb brushed over his cheek.
Then you pulled him down and kissed him.
Jack’s breath left him all at once.
The packet tore open between you.
His hand moved.
Your breath caught.
His forehead touched yours for half a second, his eyes closed, his jaw tight like the last inch of restraint had teeth in him.
Then he settled between your thighs.
Slow.
Controlled.
Not because he did not want.
Because he wanted too much.
Because this was his room.
His bed.
His hands.
His pace.
Because if he was going to cross every line left between you, he was going to make sure you felt every second of it.
Your fingers dug into his shoulders.
Jack’s eyes opened.
You looked at him.
Not Abbot.
Not your rival.
Not the man you had spent months trying to beat.
Jack.
His mouth brushed yours.
Barely.
Then he pushed into you slowly.
Your whole body went still beneath him.
The breath left your lungs.
Jack stopped completely.
His hand found your hip, steady and warm, and his eyes searched yours in the dark.
You answered by pulling him closer.
His control broke on a rough exhale.
Then there was no more room between you.
No air.
No argument.
No version of your life where this had not happened.
Jack moved like he knew exactly what he was doing.
Because he did.
Slow at first, almost cruelly controlled, his mouth near yours, his breath dragging rough against your lips every time your body tightened around him. Your hands slipped over his back, over the damp heat of his skin, trying to pull him closer, faster, anything.
Jack caught one of your wrists and pinned it beside your head.
Not hard.
Not punishing.
Just enough to make you still.
Your eyes flew open.
His were already on you.
Dark.
Focused.
Certain.
Your breath caught.
You stayed exactly where he put you.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your wrist.
“Good,” Jack said, low and rough.
The word went through you like heat.
His hips moved again.
Your head tipped back against the pillow.
A sound left you, soft and helpless, and Jack’s mouth found your throat as if he had been waiting for it.
“Yes,” Jack said against your skin.
Your body tightened around him.
His rhythm faltered.
Barely.
“Fuck,” Jack breathed.
Your fingers curled against the sheets.
He moved again, deeper this time, and whatever sound left you after that was worse.
Better.
Both.
He did not say anything.
He did not need to.
He slowed when your nails dug into his back.
Pressed deeper when your leg tightened around his hip.
Shifted when your breath broke.
Found the rhythm your body asked for before you knew how to ask.
That was the language now.
The storm.
The bed.
His hand at your wrist.
Your mouth at his shoulder.
The hitch in his breath when you said his name against his skin.
“Jack.”
His rhythm faltered.
One sharp, broken second.
Then his hand tightened around yours, fingers threading through your own and pressing your joined hands into the mattress.
His mouth brushed your ear.
“Again,” Jack said.
The word was barely there.
Barely a command.
Still, your whole body reacted to it.
“Jack,” you whispered.
His jaw tightened.
Then he kissed you hard, and the pace changed.
Not gone.
But rougher.
Hotter.
Less patient.
Your body met his with a desperation that felt almost angry, like you were furious at him for making you want this, furious at yourself for wanting it this much, furious at the months you had wasted pretending half-point victories were enough when this had been waiting underneath every argument.
Jack felt that too.
You knew he did because his mouth left yours, and his face pressed briefly into the side of your neck, exactly where your pulse was racing.
His breath came harsh against your skin.
His hips drove yours deeper into the mattress.
Your free hand found his back.
Then his hair.
Then his shoulder again because you needed somewhere to hold on and there was too much of him, too close, too real, too good.
“Fuck,” you breathed.
Jack’s mouth moved against your neck.
Not a smile.
Almost.
You felt it anyway.
Your eyes opened just enough to glare at nothing.
He lifted his head.
His eyes met yours in the dark.
There he was.
Barely.
The smallest ghost of him beneath the heat.
Your rival.
Your roommate.
The man who was absolutely going to be impossible about this if either of you survived it.
Then he moved again, and your glare dissolved into something you would deny later with your whole chest.
Jack saw that too.
Of course he did.
His mouth came down over yours before you could make a sound of protest, and the kiss was deep enough to turn protest into something else completely.
He let go of your wrist only to slide his hand beneath your thigh, lifting, changing the angle, taking the last bit of air you had left.
Your body followed the pressure of his hand without thinking, opening for him exactly the way he wanted.
Jack’s breath caught.
“Good,” he said.
Your eyes closed.
God.
That was worse.
Everything tightened.
Everything narrowed.
Jack’s name broke out of you again.
This time, he did not falter.
This time, he groaned.
Low.
Rough.
Lost.
His forehead dropped to yours, and his control finally slipped past the point where he could fully catch it.
Still careful.
Still him.
But no longer slow.
No longer patient.
Your bodies found each other in the dark with a kind of brutal, wordless understanding that made something in your chest ache beneath all the heat. He knew when you were close because your breath changed. You knew he knew because his hand tightened on your thigh, because his mouth found yours, because his pace turned devastatingly precise.
Your back arched.
Jack’s name tore out of you.
He kissed it from your mouth.
The second wave hit harder than the first.
Your body went tight beneath his, shaking around him, every thought breaking apart under the weight of him, the heat of him, the fact of him. Jack held you through it, his mouth at your jaw, his hand locked with yours, his breath rough and uneven against your skin.
Then he followed.
Not quietly.
Not completely controlled.
A harsh breath.
A broken sound.
His body going tense above yours, his face buried against your neck as he lost the last clean edge of himself there.
For a moment, there was only the storm.
Rain against the glass.
Thunder moving away over the city.
Jack’s weight above you, carefully held even now.
Your hand in his.
His breath at your throat.
Neither of you spoke.
Neither of you moved.
Because the second either of you did, there would be a room around you again.
A bed.
A door.
An exam in three days.
A roommate agreement lying dead somewhere in the living room.
And neither of you was ready for that yet.
For a while, neither of you moved.
The storm filled the room around you, softer now, farther away. Rain tapped against the glass instead of throwing itself there. Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the city, low and tired, like even the sky had exhausted itself.
Jack’s weight was still above you.
Not fully.
Never fully.
Even now, wrecked and breathing hard against your neck, one forearm braced beside your head kept enough of him off you that you knew he was thinking about it.
Of course he was.
Of course Jack Abbot was still careful after that.
Your hand was in his hair.
Your other was pressed against his back.
You did not remember putting either there.
You did not move them.
His breath dragged over your skin, rough and uneven. His face stayed tucked against the side of your throat, and for one suspended second, the whole world was that. His body over yours. His heart still racing. Your own pulse trying to find its way back to something survivable.
Then Jack lifted his head.
Barely.
His eyes found yours in the dark.
He looked stunned.
That was the only word for it.
Stunned and flushed and completely stripped of every sharp edge he usually wore like armor. His mouth was parted. His hair was ruined. The hand beside your head flexed once against the sheets, like he had forgotten where he was and remembered all at once.
His voice came low. “Okay?”
Your throat was dry.
Your body was still humming.
Your brain had not returned to you in any meaningful capacity.
You nodded once. “Yes.”
Jack’s eyes searched yours.
You swallowed, then gave him the word because you knew he needed it. “Yes.”
His forehead dropped to yours for half a second.
Not relief exactly.
Something close.
Something quieter.
Then he shifted, careful as he pulled back, careful as he separated from you, careful as the air moved into the space his body had filled.
The loss of him was immediate.
Offensive.
Impossible.
Jack pressed one last kiss to your shoulder, so quick you almost could have imagined it.
Then he pushed himself up.
His voice was still rough. “I’m going to clean up.”
You blinked at him.
He paused at the edge of the bed, looking back at you through the dark.
Then he added, lower, “I’ll be right back.”
You nodded because words seemed ambitious.
Jack disappeared into the bathroom.
The door did not close all the way.
You heard water run.
You stayed where he left you, naked beneath his sheet, staring up at the ceiling of Jack Abbot’s bedroom like it had personally witnessed your downfall.
Which, to be fair, it had.
Your breathing was still uneven.
Your skin still felt too warm.
Your thighs trembled when you shifted, and the memory of his hands came back so sharply that your eyes closed before you could stop them.
That had happened.
That had actually happened.
Jack Abbot had kissed you against his bedroom door.
Jack Abbot had taken you apart in his bed.
Jack Abbot had said your name like it had hurt him.
No.
Worse.
You had said his.
Again and again, because he had asked for it, because he had liked it, because the sound of it had done something to him you were not sure you would ever recover from.
Your hands covered your face.
Oh, God.
You should have been panicking.
You were, maybe.
Somewhere beneath the shock and the warmth and the ridiculous, bone-deep satisfaction still moving through you in aftershocks, there was probably panic waiting with a clipboard and a list of consequences.
Roommate.
Rival.
Exam in three days.
A roommate agreement currently decomposing in the living room.
All of that should have mattered more.
It did not.
Not yet.
Because the worst part, the absolute worst part, was that you already knew you would do it again.
If he came back to that bed and touched you like that again, you would let him.
If he said your name in that voice again, you would forget every reasonable argument available to you.
If he looked at you the way he had looked at you before he said you were perfect, you would be gone.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The bathroom water shut off.
Your hands fell slowly from your face.
A moment later, Jack came back into the room.
He was naked, his hair still a disaster from your hands, a glass of water in one hand and a mark beginning to darken along the side of his neck, just beneath his jaw.
You saw it.
Your stomach dropped.
Then flipped.
Then did something even less dignified.
Jack did not seem to know it was there.
Wonderful.
That was going to be a problem for future you.
Future you could suffer.
Present you was busy watching him cross the room with a glass of water in his hand.
Of course he had gotten water.
Of course.
Jack sat on the edge of the bed beside you, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. He did not crowd you. Not yet. He only looked down at you, eyes moving over your face in the dark like he was checking for something he still did not trust himself to ask.
You looked back at him.
Neither of you said anything.
The silence should have been awkward.
It was not.
It was too full for that.
Jack lifted his hand.
Slowly.
Giving you every chance to turn away.
You did not.
His fingers brushed your cheek, careful and warm, his thumb moving once near the corner of your mouth. The touch was so gentle after everything else that your chest tightened around it.
His expression shifted.
Barely.
Like he felt that too.
Then he held out the glass. “Drink.”
Your eyebrows lifted faintly.
There he was.
You took the glass because arguing would have required more strength than you currently possessed. The first sip made you realize how dry your throat was. The second made you realize Jack was watching you drink like it mattered.
You lowered the glass. “Bossy.”
His mouth almost curved.
Almost.
“Thirsty,” Jack said.
You stared at him for half a second.
Then, despite everything, despite being naked and storm-shaken and sitting in his bed after making several catastrophic choices with him, a laugh slipped out of you.
Small.
Breathless.
Unsteady.
Jack’s eyes warmed.
There.
That was worse than the sex, maybe.
Not better.
Not even close.
But worse in a different direction.
You took another sip.
Jack accepted the glass when you handed it back, setting it on the nightstand beside the scattered condom wrapper and the drawer he had never fully closed.
Your eyes flicked there.
His did too.
Both of you froze.
Then you looked away first.
Coward.
Jack’s mouth twitched.
You hated him.
You really, really did not.
Your breathing hitched a little when you shifted against the pillow, your body still too sensitive, too aware of the sheets, the room, the shape of him sitting beside you.
Jack noticed immediately.
His hand came to your hip through the sheet.
Steady.
Grounding.
You started to push yourself up, not even sure where you thought you were going. Your room. The bathroom. The living room. A new identity in another state.
Jack’s hand tightened once.
Not holding you down.
Just stopping the motion.
His voice came quiet. “Catch your breath for a minute.”
You looked at him.
His eyes held yours.
No smirk.
No challenge.
No lecture.
Just Jack, sitting at the edge of his bed with rainlight moving over his shoulders, telling you to stay still because he knew you were about to bolt before you knew it yourself.
Your throat tightened.
For once, you listened.
You settled back against the pillow.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your hip.
“Good,” he said softly.
The word hit differently now.
Still low.
Still rough.
But not heated this time.
Not praise in the same dangerous way.
Something steadier.
Something that made you want to close your eyes.
So you did.
The mattress shifted as Jack stood.
Your eyes opened again before you meant them to.
He noticed that too.
Of course he did.
His gaze met yours, and for one second, you both understood the stupid, fragile thing your body had done.
He was not leaving.
You knew that.
You knew that.
Still, your chest had tightened when he moved.
Jack’s expression softened by a fraction.
Then he crossed to the chair near the dresser.
No explanation.
No apology.
Just routine.
He sat, bent slightly, and took off his prosthetic with the same quiet competence he brought to everything else. Practical. Familiar. Unselfconscious in a way that made the room feel even more intimate than it already had.
You looked away.
Not because you thought you should not see.
Because seeing felt like being trusted with something.
Because you did not know what to do with how much that mattered.
The small sounds of it filled the room beneath the rain. A shift of fabric. A controlled breath. The soft placement beside the chair.
Then Jack shifted back to the bed.
Slower this time.
More tired.
More real.
He lifted the edge of the sheet and settled beside you, not touching at first. He lay on his back for one breath, staring up into the dark the same way you had, his shoulder warm near yours but not pressed against it.
The space between you was small.
Still, it was a question.
You answered before fear could turn it into one.
You shifted closer.
Jack’s hand found you immediately.
Your forehead brushed his shoulder, and something in him seemed to give. His arm came around you, firm and quiet, drawing you against his chest.
You went.
Of course you went.
Your cheek settled against him, your hand resting carefully over his ribs. His skin was warm beneath your palm. His heart had slowed, but not all the way. Not yet.
Neither had yours.
For a while, you both lay there listening to the rain.
No one said roommate.
No one said exam.
No one said mistake.
Jack’s hand moved over your back.
Slow.
Soothing.
Absent at first, like he did not know he was doing it.
Then more deliberate when your breathing hitched again.
Down your spine.
Up between your shoulder blades.
Back down.
Again.
Again.
Your body softened against him one inch at a time.
You hated how easy it was.
You loved it so much you could not look at it directly.
Jack’s chin brushed the top of your head.
His hand kept moving.
The storm moved farther away.
Your breathing found his in the dark.
Not on purpose.
Not because you meant to.
It just happened.
Like too many things had happened tonight.
Like the two of you had been moving toward this long before the power went out, long before the couch, long before his bedroom door closed behind you.
Your eyes grew heavy.
The last thing you felt before sleep took you was Jack’s hand spread warm between your shoulder blades.
summary : The night shift at the Pitt teaches you two things very quickly: how to keep people alive, and how to survive the ones you can’t.
You are a newly assigned intern doctor who is brilliant, stubborn, and entirely incapable of backing down — which becomes a serious problem when your supervising attending, Jack Abbot, seems to make a sport out of challenging you at every possible opportunity. Between impossible trauma cases, sleepless nights, and arguments sharp enough to cut through the entire ER, the rivalry between them slowly turns into something far more dangerous.
contain : enemies to lovers, rivals, slow burn, sarcasm, mentions of medical trauma, injuries, trauma, hurt/comfort, nightmares trauma.
a/n : heyyy its been a while so sorry 😖 there’s so many changes in my new life now, I need to get everything clear and get back to write more haha anyway hope you like this chapter, its way less heavier than the previous one I promise 🤞🏻
archiveofourown link Spotify playlist link
Chapter 18 : Not Alone Anymore
After that night, Jack didn’t leave. He didn’t try to continue the conversation or find the right words to answer everything you had confessed. He knew there weren’t any. Instead, he simply stayed.
While you eventually drifted into an exhausted sleep, Jack stayed awake a little longer, quietly cleaning up before finally stretching out on the couch. Sleep came lightly. Every now and then, he’d wake up, glance toward you to make sure you were still asleep, then close his eyes again.
By the time morning arrived, nothing had really changed. Your fears were still there, your scar was still healing, your thoughts were still loud. But for the first time in a long while…you hadn’t gone through the night completely alone.
You woke before the sun had fully risen. For a few moments, you stayed where you were, still wrapped in the warmth of your blanket, letting your eyes adjust to the pale morning light filtering through the apartment. It was quiet, the kind of quiet that only existed before the city truly came alive.
Your gaze drifted toward the couch, Jack was still asleep.One arm hung lazily over the edge, the blanket half-slipped onto the floor sometime during the night. He looked surprisingly peaceful, completely unaware that you were awake. A small smile tugged at the corner of your lips before disappearing almost as quickly as it had come.
Careful not to wake him, you slipped out of bed, your movements still slow enough to protect your healing side. You quietly unlocked the balcony door and stepped outside, the cool morning air brushing gently against your skin. You lowered yourself onto the ground, drawing your knees against your chest and wrapping your arms around them.
From up here, the city looked different. The streets slowly filled with people hurrying toward work, buses began appearing one after another, cafés opened their doors, and somewhere below, the familiar rhythm of another ordinary day quietly unfolded.
You watched it all in silence. But your mind wasn’t really there. It was still on the living room floor, still replaying every word you had spoken the night before. Every confession. Every tear. Every silence. The more you thought about it, the more your mind did what it always did, it dissected everything.
Did you say too much?
Did you make him uncomfortable?
Did he only stay because he felt obligated?
Would he see you differently now?
Would he regret knowing all those parts of you?
The questions came one after another, never giving you enough time to answer the previous one before another appeared, each one louder than the last, until they drowned out the sounds of the waking city below.
You hated that your mind worked this way, you hated how quickly it could turn a moment of comfort into a hundred different reasons to worry. Your thoughts spiraled so deeply that you didn’t even hear him wake up.
The sudden sound of the sliding glass door moving along its track startled you back to reality. You turned your head instinctively, as Jack stepped out onto the balcony, one hand still resting on the door handle. His hair was slightly tousled from sleep, his T-shirt wrinkled, and he looked like someone who had only just opened his eyes a few minutes earlier. The golden light of the early morning caught his face as the sun rose higher over the buildings, softening every feature.
When he noticed you looking at him, a warm smile spread naturally across his face.
“Morning.” His voice was still rough with sleep, simple, ordinary. As though nothing had changed. As though last night’s conversation hadn’t scared him away. As though seeing you first thing in the morning was the most natural thing in the world. For a brief moment, all the questions inside your head fell silent. Just long enough for you to smile back.
“Morning,” you answered quietly. Your voice was still soft from sleep.
Jack walked over without saying anything else and lowered himself beside you, his shoulder almost brushing yours as he settled against the balcony wall. For a while, neither of you spoke. The city below slowly stretched itself awake, traffic becoming heavier by the minute, pedestrians weaving between one another with coffees in hand, cyclists rushing toward work before the morning truly began.
You both simply watched. It was a comfortable silence. The kind that no longer needed to be filled. From the corner of your eye, you found yourself looking at him. Not obviously, but just enough to study him without him noticing. Or so you thought.
The morning light revealed details you had somehow never paid attention to before. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes, deeper after sleeping on your couch. The light freckles scattered across his face all the way to his neck. The stubble that had begun growing overnight. The tiredness still lingering beneath his eyes after another night that hadn’t really been restful.
You wondered, briefly, how many nights like that he’d had throughout his career. How many times he’d slept in a hospital chair, or not slept at all. As if sensing your gaze, Jack turned his head. Your eyes met instantly. You looked away first. A small smile appeared on his face, though he chose not to mention it. Instead, he looked back toward the street below.
“I think…” he said thoughtfully, “…we should probably go grocery shopping.”
You blinked. “What?”
He nodded seriously. “I had a look in your fridge yesterday.”
You immediately frowned.
“I was looking for something to drink.” He shrugged innocently. “And unless you’ve recently decided that mustard and half a lemon count as a balanced diet…”
You couldn’t help smiling.
“…there’s absolutely nothing in there.”
You laughed quietly, shaking your head.
“I have food.”
Jack slowly turned to look at you. “No.”
“I do.”
“You really don’t.”
“There are…things.”
“There are condiments.”
You rolled your eyes. “They’re edible.”
“They’re ingredients for a cry for help.” That earned him a genuine laugh.
He pointed toward the apartment behind you. “You told me you already had everything you needed.” A dramatic pause. “You lied to me.”
You let out another laugh, covering your face for a second. “I may have…slightly exaggerated.”
“You absolutely did.” He nodded once.
The laughter between you slowly faded, leaving only the distant sounds of the city waking beneath your balcony. For a few moments, neither of you moved. You stayed sitting on the floor, your knees still drawn against your chest, watching people disappear into cafés, buses pulling away from their stops, another ordinary morning beginning without either of you saying a word.
Your gaze drifted toward Jack again. He was still looking out over the rooftops, a faint smile lingering on his face from the joke about your empty fridge. You hesitated, then quietly, you spoke.
“You don’t have to do all of this for me.”
His smile disappeared, replaced by something softer. He turned completely toward you, giving you his full attention. “I know.”
His voice was calm. “I’m not forcing myself.”
You searched his face, trying to find the obligation behind his words. The guilt, the pity, anything. But there was nothing. He simply looked back at you.
“I’m not here because I feel like I have to. I’m not checking on you because I think it’s my responsibility.” A small smile returned to his face. “I’m here because I want to be.”
The words settled somewhere deep inside you. You lowered your eyes instinctively. Jack let the silence sit between you before speaking again.
“You really need to start believing that people can choose to spend time with you…” His smile widened just enough to soften the sentence. “…without expecting something in return.”
You didn’t answer, not because you didn’t want to but because you didn’t know how. After a few seconds, Jack pushed himself to his feet, brushing the dust from the back of his jeans.
Then he looked down at you. “Come on.”
He held out his hand. You looked at it then back at him. You hesitated only for a few seconds. But he noticed. Still, he didn’t say anything, and simply left his hand there, waiting. Giving you all the time you needed. Slowly, you reached out and placed your hand in his. His fingers wrapped gently around yours, warm and reassuring, as he helped you back onto your feet, careful not to pull too hard and make your side hurt.
Once you were standing, neither of you moved, your hand was still resting in his. For a brief moment, you simply looked at one another, and neither of you seemed in any hurry to let go.
**********
The rest of the day unfolded far more simply than you could have imagined. You left the apartment together a little while later, taking your time down the stairs, Jack slowing his pace without making it obvious whenever your side started reminding you that you were still healing.
The grocery store wasn’t far. For the first time in weeks, you found yourself walking through the aisles with no real purpose other than deciding what sounded good.
Jack insisted your basket looked “depressing” after watching you reach for instant noodles and a frozen meal.
“You need actual food.”
“I am buying actual food.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t food.”
“It has calories.”
“It also has enough preservatives to survive another apocalypse.”
You laughed, nudging him lightly with your shoulder.
“You’re dramatic.”
“I’m a doctor.”
“Exactly.”
The conversation drifted from one ridiculous topic to another as you wandered through the store. You debated over pasta shapes as if they were life-changing decisions. Argued over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. Stopped in front of the bakery simply because the smell was impossible to ignore. At one point, the two of you stood in the vegetable aisle trying to remember a recipe Dana had once brought in for a potluck, neither of you managing to remember more than half of the ingredients.
“We’ll improvise,” Jack declared confidently.
“That’s how kitchen fires start.”
“It’ll be educational.”
“For the firefighters, maybe.”
The laughter came easier than it had in a long time. Natural and unforced. And by the time you reached the checkout, the cart was far fuller than either of you had planned. Fresh vegetables, fruit, pasta, rice, chicken, yogurts, bread. Far more than your nearly empty cupboards had held that morning.
The day slipped by almost without either of you noticing. One conversation naturally led to another. You laughed over stories that weren’t even that funny, argued over insignificant things as though they were matters of life and death, and occasionally fell into comfortable silences that no longer felt awkward. It was… easy. A word you hadn’t associated with yourself in a long time.
The hours slipped away without either of you trying to make them special. After putting the groceries away, you ended up watching a movie neither of you was really paying attention to, spending more time commenting on the plot than actually following it. Halfway through, Jack confidently guessed the ending. He was completely wrong. You laughed so hard that your side started hurting, forcing you to press a hand against your bandage while he apologized through his own laughter.
Later, the two of you wandered onto the balcony with mugs of coffee, watching people pass below and inventing ridiculous backstories for strangers walking down the street. An elderly man carrying three baguettes somehow became an international spy, and a woman hurrying toward the bus stop was apparently on her way to secretly rob a bank.
It was stupid, completely pointless. And yet, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d laughed that much over absolutely nothing. The conversations never stayed on one subject for very long. They drifted naturally from old residency stories to favorite childhood movies, from terrible cafeteria food to the most embarrassing mistakes either of you had ever made at work. Every now and then, silence settled between you, but it never felt uncomfortable. It simply became another part of the afternoon, as easy and familiar as the soft music playing in the background.
There was no pressure to fill every quiet moment, no need to pretend. No expectation that either of you had to be anything other than yourselves. For the first time in weeks, you weren’t counting the hours. You weren’t waiting for the day to end. You were simply… living it. And somehow, that ordinary, uneventful day became one of the lightest you had experienced in a very long time.
By the time the evening settled outside your windows, the apartment had taken on that familiar golden glow of sunset giving way to the first lights of the city.
Jack had somehow ended up in your tiny kitchen again. Neither of you had really decided it, it had simply happened. Jack took over chopping vegetables, insisting you were still under strict orders not to overdo it.
“Sit.”
“Jack—”
“Doctor’s orders.”
You had rolled your eyes dramatically. “I hate when doctors say that.”
“I know.”
So you gave up arguing, for once. You settled onto the couch only a few feet away, close enough to keep talking while he moved around the kitchen, occasionally opening cupboards that he somehow already seemed to know better than you did.
The apartment slowly filled with the smell of garlic, onions, and something simmering gently on the stove. You found yourself laughing again when he almost dropped a wooden spoon after insisting he “absolutely knew what he was doing.”
You were talking, as he was telling you a story about his residency. “…and I swear,” he said while stirring something in the pan, “I spent twenty minutes looking for my attending because I thought I’d lost a patient’s chart.”
You smiled. “What happened?”
He laughed to himself. “I was holding it.”
You burst into laughter. “No.”
“Right here.”
He tapped the side of his head. “I’d tucked it under my arm while talking to someone.”
“You must’ve looked incredibly competent.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“The future of emergency medicine.”
“The pride of the residency program.”
You laughed again, shaking your head. “You’ve become slightly less embarrassing with age.”
“Slightly?”
“Very slightly.”
He placed a hand dramatically over his chest. “That was unnecessarily cruel.”
The apartment filled once more with quiet laughter. You leaned back against the couch, smiling to yourself as you listened to him continue another story.
Then, without really thinking about it, your eyes drifted toward your phone lying on the coffee table. The screen lit up as you picked it up. 8:13 p.m.
Your smile slowly faded, as you looked toward Jack confused. “…Jack?”
“Hm?”
He didn’t turn around immediately, still focused on whatever he was cooking.
You frowned. “What time does your shift start tonight?”
He paused, only for a second. Then he looked over his shoulder at you.
You glanced back down at your phone before meeting his eyes again. “It’s already eight-thirteen.” Your brows pulled together. “Shouldn’t you… be at the hospital?”
The question lingered in the air for a moment. Jack looked down at the pan in front of him, absentmindedly stirring whatever was simmering inside before lowering the heat.
He let out a quiet breath through his nose. “I’m not working tonight.”
You frowned. “No?”
He shook his head. “I took a few days off.”
The words were simple enough, but they immediately caught your attention. You straightened a little on the couch.
“You… took time off?”
“Yeah.”
There was a brief silence. Then another thought crossed your mind and your expression softened. “…For me?”
Jack scratched the back of his neck almost awkwardly, a rare hint of embarrassment creeping across his face. “…Partly.”
He gave a small, almost sheepish smile. “I’d been thinking about taking a few days off for a while.” He shrugged, as though that somehow made the confession less significant.
“I just…” His eyes drifted toward the kitchen counter before returning to you. “…figured now wasn’t the worst time.”
You didn’t say anything. So he kept talking, filling the silence before you had the chance to.
“Dana agreed…so did Robby. They’ve been telling me to slow down for months anyway.” He laughed quietly, though it sounded more nervous than amused.
“So… I finally listened.” Another pause. “And…” He rubbed the back of his neck again. “…I thought it might be nice to make sure you weren’t spending every day alone.”
The last sentence came out much quieter, lmost mumbled. As if he wasn’t entirely sure how you’d react. He looked anywhere but directly at you, suddenly finding the saucepan remarkably interesting.
“I know you probably don’t like people changing their plans because of you.”
A faint smile tugged awkwardly at the corner of his mouth. “And before you tell me I shouldn’t have…” He finally looked back at you. “…it wasn’t a sacrifice.”
His expression softened. “It was a choice.”
He shrugged once more, almost trying to dismiss the whole thing. “I wanted a few days off, and…I wanted to spend some of them with you. As simple as that.”
There was a slight flush across his cheeks now, subtle enough that most people would have missed it. “You don’t have to feel guilty about it…I promise.”
You didn’t answer him, not right away. Instead, you simply looked at him from the couch, your expression unreadable. The smile that had been there only a few moments ago had completely disappeared, leaving your face unusually serious.
Jack noticed immediately. His own smile slowly faded as uncertainty crept into his features. For the first time since he’d admitted taking those days off, he seemed genuinely unsure of himself.
Had he crossed a line? Was this exactly what you had been afraid of?
He searched your face, trying to read you the same way he usually could, but this time you gave him nothing.
“…What?” he asked carefully.
You held his gaze for another second before speaking. “I think you’re right.” Your voice was calm, too calm. “You know I don’t like people changing their lives because of me.”
Jack instinctively straightened, already preparing to explain himself again. “I wasn’t—”
“I know.” You cut him off before he could finish.
His brows pulled together. For a brief moment, neither of you spoke. Then your eyes drifted toward the saucepan simmering quietly on the stove.
“So…” You tilted your head ever so slightly. “…I really hope you’re a good cook.”
Jack frowned. “What?”
You looked back at him with the exact same seriousness.
“Because if you took several days off…” You glanced deliberately at the food he was making. “…and this ends up tasting terrible…” A tiny shrug lifted one of your shoulders. “…then I’m afraid you’ve wasted your vacation.”
Silence. Jack simply stared at you. His brain took a second to catch up. Then, all at once, understanding washed over his face. A relieved laugh escaped him as he dropped his head with a shake of disbelief, one hand coming up to rub across his forehead.
“Oh my God…” He looked back at you, still laughing. “You scared me.”
His shoulders relaxed visibly now that he realized you were teasing him. “I genuinely thought you were about to tell me to leave.”
That was enough to break your composure. A smile spread across your face, followed by a quiet laugh. “I considered it.”
He pointed the wooden spoon in your direction, looking thoroughly offended.
“You’re evil.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“No,” he said, chuckling as he turned back toward the stove. “That wasn’t funny.”
“It absolutely was.”
“It was psychological warfare.”
“It was deserved.”
He laughed again, shaking his head while stirring the pan. “You know…” He looked back over his shoulder, a grin still lingering on his face. “…for someone who claims she isn’t very funny…” He narrowed his eyes playfully. “…you’ve got a surprisingly cruel sense of humor.”
You leaned back comfortably against the couch.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It definitely was.”
Jack sighed with exaggerated resignation before returning his attention to dinner.
“You’ve become very confident for someone who’s about to eat food cooked by the person she just mocked.”
You smiled to yourself.
“I have faith.”
“In me?”
“No.” You waited just long enough. “In the emergency department.”
He blinked. “…What?”
“If dinner goes terribly wrong…”
You folded your arms with mock confidence.
“…I know exactly where you’ll take me.”
Jack couldn’t help laughing again. “You are unbelievable.”
“But you’re still cooking.”
“I am.”
“And you’re still eating it.”
You smiled. “I guess we’ll find out whether those days off were worth it.”
By the time dinner was finally ready, the apartment had filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with the summer evening outside.
The rich smell of garlic and herbs lingered in the air, mixing with the sweetness of slowly cooked onions and the comforting aroma of tomatoes that had been simmering long enough to lose their sharpness. Fresh basil rested on top, adding a bright splash of green against the deep red sauce, while ribbons of parmesan slowly melted over the steaming pasta beneath. It wasn’t anything extravagant. Just a simple homemade pasta. But it looked like something that had been cooked with care rather than thrown together out of necessity.
Jack carried the two plates over to the small table tucked against the wall before disappearing back into the kitchen to grab forks and two glasses of water.
“There,” he said, setting everything down. “Dinner is served.”
You smiled as you sit on the ground in front of the coffee table. “I have to admit…” You looked down at your plate. “It already looks better than anything I’ve made in the last month.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
The two of you settled across from one another. For a moment, neither of you touched your food. Jack rested his forearms lightly against the table, watching you with far more attention than he probably realized.
You noticed. “You know,” you said, raising an eyebrow, “you’re making this very stressful.”
“I’m just waiting.”
“For?”
“Your professional opinion.”
“My professional opinion?”
“As the patient.”
You laughed quietly. “So that’s why you became a doctor.”
“Exactly.” He gestured toward your plate. “Go ahead.”
You twirled a small forkful of pasta, bringing it cautiously to your mouth while Jack continued watching you with an expression that was somewhere between confidence and genuine curiosity. You chewed slowly, thoughtfully without saying a word.
Jack’s confidence began to crack. “…Should I already start looking for my car keys?”
You kept chewing.
“I mean,” he continued, trying not to smile, “if we’re heading back to the ER tonight, I’d rather leave before traffic.”
Still nothing. He sighed dramatically. “I knew I should’ve ordered takeout.”
You swallowed, deliberately taking another small bite before answering. “Hm.”
Jack blinked. “‘Hm’?”
You looked down at the plate again as if you were carefully analyzing every ingredient. “I see.”
He leaned back. “Well. I’ve had a good career. It was nice knowing everyone.”
You couldn’t hold it any longer. A smile spread across your face. “It’s really good.”
Jack immediately pointed at you. “‘Really good?’”
You nodded. “It is.”
He folded his arms with mock indignation. “Not delicious?”
You tilted your head, pretending to think about it. “I don’t know…It might be…” Another pause. “…edible.”
Jack let out the most offended laugh. “Edible? I survived.”
You laugh at his reaction.
“I’ve dedicated over an hour of my life to this meal.”
“And I appreciate your effort.”
“My effort?”
He shook his head dramatically. “I was expecting tears.”
“You got compliments.”
“I wanted admiration.”
You smiled before taking another bite. “Don’t get greedy.”
Jack sighed theatrically before finally beginning his own dinner. “I should’ve let you eat the instant noodles.”
You laughed, the sound filling the apartment once again.
“No.” You looked back up at him with a smile that reached your eyes. “I’m actually glad you didn’t.”
For just a second, Jack forgot to answer. He simply smiled back. Then, quietly, almost to himself, he picked up his fork again. “Yeah…So am I.”
For a while, the conversation naturally drifted away from the food. You both ate quietly, occasionally interrupting the silence with another small joke or a comment about something completely unrelated. The kind of conversation that didn’t require effort. It was simple and normal. Something you hadn’t realized you had missed so much.
Jack was halfway through his plate when he looked up at you. “So…”
You glanced at him. “So?”
“When are you going back?”
You knew immediately what he meant. The ER. Your expression softened slightly as you looked down at your plate. “Actually… soon.”
His eyebrows lifted a little. “How soon?”
“Five days.”
The answer made him pause. “Five days?”
You nodded. “They cleared me for shorter shifts first. Nothing too intense, no long hours, and I’m not supposed to push myself.” A small smile appeared on your face. “But yeah.”
You looked around your apartment briefly, then back at him. “I can finally go back.”
There was something in your voice that made him smile. Not because you were excited about work but because he could hear how much you meant it. “I miss it,” you admitted quietly.
“The ER?”
You nodded. “The noise. The people. The chaos.” You laughed softly. “Which sounds insane when I say it out loud.”
“It does.”
You looked at him, offended. “Hey.”
He smiled. “But I understand.”
You continued eating for a moment before adding, “I think I need it.”
Jack’s expression changed slightly. Not worried, just attentive. “What do you mean?”
You shrugged. “I need to get my brain working again.”
You tapped lightly against your temple. “Being home sounded nice at first. Resting, recovering, having time.” You looked around the small apartment. “But after a while…” You sighed. “It felt like my thoughts were getting louder.”
Jack stayed silent, listening.
“And at work, I don’t have time to overthink everything.” A small smile tugged at your lips. “There’s always something happening. Someone who needs help. Something to solve.”
He understood that, maybe more than anyone. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
You looked back at him. The question wasn’t about your physical condition, you knew that. He was asking if you were ready to walk back into the place where everything had changed.
“You don’t have to rush.” His voice stayed gentle. “If you want to wait a little longer, nobody would blame you.”
You shook your head almost immediately. “No.” The answer came faster than you expected. “I don’t want to wait.”
Jack watched you carefully.
“I mean it.” You placed your fork down for a moment. “I know what happened.” Your fingers brushed absentmindedly against the edge of the table. “I know it’s probably normal to be scared. And maybe part of me is.”
You looked at him honestly. “But staying away longer isn’t going to make it disappear.” A quiet silence settled between you. “I need to go back.” Your voice was softer now. “I need to remember that the hospital is still the place where I saved people…Not just the place where I almost died.”
Jack didn’t answer immediately, he simply looked at you, taking in your words. Then he nodded slowly. “Okay.”
A small smile appeared. “But you promise me something?”
You raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You listen to your body.”
You sighed. “Jack—”
“No.” He pointed his fork lightly at you. “I’m serious.”
You tried not to smile. “You sound like Dana.”
“Good.”
You laughed quietly. “That’s terrifying.”
“It means she’s right.”
You shook your head, but the smile stayed. And Jack noticed. Because for once… You weren’t arguing because you wanted to push him away. You were arguing because you were comfortable enough for him to stay.
The rest of the evening passed just as quietly. There was no big conversation after that, no heavy emotions to unpack, no difficult subjects waiting around the corner. You simply finished dinner together, leaving the empty plates on the small kitchen counter before returning to the couch. It felt strangely ordinary, and maybe that was what made it feel so special.
Jack picked up the remote and looked at you. “Your choice.”
You immediately raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
He nodded. “Really.”
You studied him for a second. “You know I’m going to choose something terrible just to annoy you.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I’m prepared.”
You smiled slightly before shaking your head. “No. You choose.”
He looked almost surprised. “You trust me with a movie?”
“Don’t make it dramatic.”
“Too late.” He scrolled through the options for a moment, completely ignoring your comments about his questionable taste. Then he stopped. You glanced at the screen.
“The Notebook.”
You looked at him. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“That’s your choice?”
He shrugged. “It’s a good movie.”
You narrowed your eyes playfully. “I didn’t know you were that kind of person.”
“What kind?”
“The romantic movie kind.”
“I contain multitudes.”
You laughed quietly. The apartment slowly became darker as the movie played, only the soft light from the television moving across the room. Jack didn’t talk much either. He simply sat beside you close. Not intentionally, not in a way that demanded attention, just naturally.
Your shoulders brushed occasionally whenever one of you shifted. Your knees touched, resting against each other without either of you moving away. And somehow, neither of you acknowledged it, there was no awkwardness. No sudden realization, just comfort.
Halfway through the movie, you found yourself watching less for the story and more for the peacefulness of the moment itself.
The quiet sound of Jack breathing beside you. The warmth of another person sitting close. The simple fact that when you looked to your side… Someone was there.
You had spent so long convincing yourself that you preferred being alone. That you didn’t need anyone. That depending on people only gave them the opportunity to hurt you. But sitting there, sharing a movie on an ordinary evening, you realized something that was both comforting and terrifying. Maybe you didn’t hate needing people. Maybe you were just afraid of what happened when you needed them too much.
The movie carried on quietly, filling the apartment with soft piano music and whispered conversations from the television. Neither of you had spoken in a while. You were both too caught up in the story, or at least, that’s what you thought.
Then, during one particularly emotional scene, you heard it. A tiny sniff. So quiet you almost wondered if you’d imagined it. Your eyes slowly left the television as you turned your head toward Jack. At first, nothing seemed unusual. He was still watching the screen, completely focused, his arms folded comfortably across his chest.
Then the light from the television shifted across his face. You caught the unmistakable shine in his eyes. You blinked. No…You looked again. His eyes were definitely watering. For a second, you genuinely wondered if there was something in the apartment making his eyes sting. Then another discreet sniff reached your ears.
You stared at him. “…Jack?”
“Hm?”
He didn’t even look away from the movie. You turned your body toward him a little more.
“…Are you…”
A smile slowly spread across your face.
“…are you crying?”
His head finally turned. “What?”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m really not.”
As if to prove himself right, he casually lifted a hand to rub beneath one eye. Unfortunately for him, it only confirmed your suspicion. He wiped away an unmistakable tear.
Your mouth fell open. “No way.”
“It was dust.”
You laughed. “Dust?”
“There was…” He glanced vaguely toward the ceiling. “…something.”
“In your eye?”
“Exactly.”
You couldn’t stop smiling. “Jack Abbot…” You shook your head in complete disbelief. “…you’re crying over The Notebook.”
“I’m not crying.”
“You’re literally wiping away tears.”
“I have allergies.”
“Oh c’mon.” You burst into laughter.
Before he had the chance to invent another excuse, you shifted closer across the couch. You reached for his forearm, laughing as he instinctively tried to hide part of his face behind his hand.
“I’m fine.”
“Jack.”
“I’m watching the movie.”
“You are crying.”
“I am absolutely not.”
Still laughing, you caught his wrist and gently pulled his hand away from his face despite his half-hearted resistance.
“There.”
You leaned in dramatically, pretending to inspect him with the seriousness of a doctor examining a patient. The moment you finally got a proper look at him, your teasing faltered.
His eyes really were glassy. Not dramatically, not enough for tears to be streaming down his face but just enough that the corners of his eyes shimmered in the light of the television, betraying him completely.
For a split second, your heart melted. The sight was so unexpected, so completely at odds with the man who spent every day barking orders in Trauma, that you couldn’t help yourself.
The grin on your face softened into something almost affectionate. You let go of his wrist only to immediately wrap both of your arms around him instead.
“Aww…”
You rested your chin lightly against his shoulder, hugging him with exaggerated sympathy.
“…poor baby.”
Jack let out a laugh so sudden it caught both of you off guard. “Oh, shut up.”
His voice was muffled by his own laughter.
“I’m serious.”
“No, you’re making fun of me.”
“I would never.”
He huffed. “You absolutely would.”
You only hugged him a little tighter, smiling into the fabric of his T-shirt.
“It’s okay.”
Another laugh escaped him as he finish to wipe again his tears.
“You don’t have to hide your feelings.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I definitely dislike you a little right now.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, still smiling. “I think it’s cute.”
Jack immediately groaned. “Don’t say that.”
“It is.”
“It absolutely is not.”
“I’ve never seen the terrifying Dr. Abbot lose a fight against a Nicholas Sparks movie.”
“I wasn’t losing.”
“You were.”
“I was emotionally… appreciating the cinematography.”
You burst out laughing. “The cinematography?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s the excuse we’re going with?”
“It looked very… emotional.”
You shook your head, unable to stop smiling. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone worse at lying.”
Jack sighed dramatically, though the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed him once again. “…Can we never mention this again?”
You smiled sweetly. “No.”
Your arms were still loosely wrapped around his shoulders. At some point, the movie had become nothing more than distant background noise, its dialogue blending into the quiet hum of the apartment. Neither of you was really watching anymore.
Jack hadn’t moved away from the hug. His arm still rested on his lap, the laughter gradually faded until only silence remained between you. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… still.
You slowly lifted your head from his shoulder. He was already looking at you and for a long moment, neither of you said a word. The room seemed strangely smaller all of a sudden, the only light coming from the television as shifting blue and amber reflections passed over his face as you found yourself studying him without meaning to.
The softness that had replaced his usual guarded expression, the tired lines beneath his eyes, the faint smile that hadn’t quite disappeared after laughing together. His gaze never left yours, but your heartbeat quickened.
Almost involuntarily, your eyes drifted downward. Just for a fraction of a second to his lips. The movement was so brief you almost convinced yourself it hadn’t happened at all. But when your eyes lifted again, you caught the slightest flicker in his expression.
His own gaze had dropped, too, only for an instant. Only long enough to make you wonder if you’d imagined it. The realization hit you almost immediately. Heat rose to your cheeks as you blinked, suddenly aware of how close the two of you actually were. Without saying anything, you gently loosened your arms from around his shoulders and leaned back, quietly returning to your place on the couch. The cushion dipped beneath your weight as a small distance settled between you once again.
Neither of you acknowledged it. Jack cleared his throat almost imperceptibly before turning his attention back to the television. You did the same. The movie continued playing. But neither of you could have said what happened in the next scene.
The rest of the movie played on. At least, it played on the television. Your mind had wandered somewhere else entirely. You stared at the screen without really seeing it, the scenes changing one after another while your thoughts quietly drifted back to a conversation you had tried not to revisit.
Dana. You could still picture the hospital room as clearly as if you were sitting there again. She had been holding your hands between hers, looking at you with that gentle patience that somehow always made it impossible to lie.
“Do you love him?”
The question echoed through your mind once more. Back then, you hadn’t answered because you hadn’t known. Or maybe because you hadn’t wanted to know. Now…
Your eyes shifted, almost unconsciously, toward Jack. He was still watching the movie, completely unaware of the storm slowly building inside your head. Your gaze lingered only for a moment before returning to the screen.
Do I?
The thought frightened you more than it should have. Not because of the answer but because of what it would mean if the answer was yes. Your chest tightened. Almost instinctively, you pushed the thought away.
The movie reached its final scene without you realizing it. The credits began rolling across the screen as soft music filled the apartment. Jack stretched slightly, letting out the quiet sigh of someone who had been sitting in the same position for too long before reaching for the remote. The television clicked off, the room immediately fell into darkness, illuminated only by the faint glow of the streetlights filtering through the balcony window.
For a few seconds, neither of you moved. The silence felt different now, gentler and sleepier.
You glanced at the clock. “…It’s late.”
Jack looked over.
You offered him a small smile. “I think…”
You stood up carefully, still mindful of your side. “…we should probably get some sleep.”
He nodded almost immediately. “Probably.”
Neither of you mentioned the quiet moment that had happened earlier. Neither of you mentioned the way your thoughts had been elsewhere for the last half hour. Instead, the evening simply came to a natural end.
The apartment gradually settled into silence. The familiar little routines of the evening unfolded without either of you needing to discuss them.
You disappeared into the bathroom long enough to brush your teeth and change into an oversized T-shirt before climbing carefully beneath the covers, mindful of your healing side. Across the room, Jack quietly folded the blanket he’d been using the previous night, shaking it out before spreading it neatly over the couch.
The apartment gradually fell quiet. Jack settled onto the couch, pulling the blanket over himself with a quiet sigh as he adjusted the cushion beneath his head. Across the room, you shifted carefully beneath your own blankets, turning onto your right side before quickly deciding against it as the healing wound protested. With a small grimace, you rolled back onto your back instead, staring up at the ceiling.
The room was almost completely dark. Only the faint amber glow of the streetlights outside slipped through the curtains, casting long shadows across the walls and painting soft outlines of the furniture.
For a while, you could hear Jack moving every so often on the couch, the rustle of fabric, the quiet creak of the cushions beneath his weight. Then…nothing. Only the steady rhythm of two people breathing in the same room. Slowly, your own breathing matched the silence around you, your eyelids grew heavier.
The thoughts that had been circling your mind all evening became quieter, their edges blurring together until they no longer made sense.
And eventually… sleep found you.
**********
At first, the dream felt ordinary. You were walking. Crowds moved around you beneath strings of colorful festival lights, music drifting lazily through the warm evening air. Children laughed somewhere nearby. Someone bumped your shoulder before disappearing into the sea of people.
Everything felt… normal, safe.
Then— A sharp crack split the air.
Someone screamed. Another shot. The music stopped.
The lights blurred into streaks of color as people began running in every direction. Your heartbeat lurched violently.
No. Not again.
You tried to move. Your legs refused.
Another deafening gunshot echoed somewhere behind you. Then another. Then another. The crowd swallowed you whole.
Faces flashed past too quickly to recognize. Someone slammed into you. You stumbled. Fell.
Your hands hit the ground. Warm. Wet. You looked down. Blood. Your hands were covered in it. Too much. It dripped between your fingers, staining your sleeves, your clothes, your skin. You tried to wipe it away. It only spread farther.
Your breathing became uneven. Someone was shouting your name. Far away. Or maybe right beside you. You couldn’t tell anymore.
Then…pain. A violent, burning pain exploded through your side.
The force stole the air from your lungs. You collapsed onto the pavement, your vision trembling as the sky above you disappeared behind terrified strangers running past.
Everything became louder. The gunfire. The screams. The sirens. You couldn’t breathe. You pressed your hand against your side. More blood. So much blood. Your fingers slipped.
Someone reached you. Strong hands. Voices. “Stay with me.” You knew that voice. Jack. You forced your eyes upward. His face hovered above you.
Rain. Blood. Panic.
You had never seen him look like that. His hands were pressing desperately against your wound. His mouth was moving. He was saying something. You couldn’t hear him.
Everything sounded distant. Like you were underwater. Your vision darkened.
“O negative!”
“We’re losing her!”
The monitor began screaming. Its frantic beeping filled every corner of your mind. Faster. Faster. Faster.
You tried to speak. Your lips barely moved. “I’m… sorry…”
Jack’s face crumpled. “No.” His voice was clear now. “No, no, stay with me.”
You wanted to. God, you wanted to. But your body no longer listened. The beeping slowed. One beat. Another. Longer. Longer. Then— A single, endless tone. The sound swallowed everything. Jack’s hands were still on you. Still trying. Still refusing to stop. And then…Darkness.
You woke up violently. Not slowly or gently. One second you were trapped in the dream, drowning in the noise, the blood, the panic— and the next, you were sitting upright in bed, your entire body jolting awake as if someone had pulled you out of the nightmare by force.
A sharp breath tore from your lungs as you couldn’t breathe properly. Your chest rose and fell too quickly, every inhale feeling too small, too shallow. Your hands immediately gripped the blanket beneath you, fingers trembling as your eyes desperately searched the darkness around you.
For a few seconds you didn’t know where you were. The room felt unfamiliar, the shadows on the walls looked wrong. Your brain was still somewhere else, still at the festival, still on the ground, still bleeding.
Your heart hammered painfully against your ribs as you looked around, trying to convince yourself that you were no longer there. No flashing lights, no screaming, no gunshots, no blood. Just your apartment, your bed and the quiet hum of the city outside. But your body didn’t understand that yet.
Tears started falling before you even realized you were crying, silent at first then heavier. Your breathing became uneven as you brought a shaking hand toward your face, trying to wipe them away, almost frustrated by the fact that they wouldn’t stop.
You hated this, you hated feeling out of control. You hated that your own mind could drag you back there whenever it wanted.
Across the room, Jack woke up. At first, it was the sound that pulled him out of sleep. Your breathing too fast, too panicked. Not the quiet breathing of someone having a bad dream, but the kind that immediately made every instinct in him wake up.
His eyes opened in the darkness. For a second, he was disoriented himself, still caught between sleep and reality. Then he heard it again. A small, broken sound, a quiet sob.
He sat up immediately. “Y/N?” His voice was low, careful.
You froze as hearing his voice made reality start coming back piece by piece. Your eyes moved toward the couch, toward him.
Jack was already getting up, his blanket falling, his expression filled with concern. He rush toward you, but didn’t touch you. He just looked at you, making sure you knew where you were.
“Hey…” His voice softened. “It’s me.”
Your lips parted, but nothing came out. You wanted to say you were fine. The automatic response was already there.
I’m okay.
It’s nothing.
Go back to sleep.
But the words wouldn’t form. Because for once…you weren’t okay and Jack could see it. You were still looking at him, but Jack could see it in your eyes, you weren’t really seeing him, not yet. Part of you was still trapped somewhere between the nightmare and reality, tears falling on your cheeks, your breathing too fast, your shoulders trembling with every uneven inhale.
The mattress dipped slightly as he sat carefully on the edge, making sure to leave enough space between the two of you. He didn’t reach for you, didn’t take your hand, didn’t pull you into a hug, not yet. He knew better than to touch someone who hadn’t fully come back. Instead, he kept his voice low and steady, the same reassuring tone he used with terrified patients in the trauma bay.
“Hey…” He waited until your eyes found his again. “Look at me.”
Your gaze flickered toward him. Still unfocused and frightened.
“That’s it.” He nodded gently. “You’re doing okay.”
Another shaky breath escaped your lips. “No…” You barely managed to whisper it. “It was…” Your voice cracked before the sentence could finish.
Jack slowly shook his head. “I know.” His tone remained calm, almost impossibly calm. “But you’re here.” He glanced around the apartment for just a second before looking back at you. “You’re home.”
His eyes never left yours. “You’re in your apartment. You are safe, breath slow.”
Another breath still too quick come out. Jack stayed exactly where he was. Close enough that you knew he was there. “You don’t have to be afraid right now.” His words were quiet, barely louder than a whisper. “It was a nightmare.” He held your gaze. “It’s over…you survived.”
Another tear rolled down your cheek.
“You’re here with me.” A small pause. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
For the first time since waking up, your shoulders loosened ever so slightly, only a little. But enough for Jack to see that you were finally beginning to find your way back to the room. Back to him, back to the present.
Little by little, your breathing steadied. The tears didn’t stop immediately, but they no longer came with the same desperate panic that had wrenched you awake. The nightmare was fading, its sharp edges softening as the familiar outlines of your apartment slowly replaced the images your mind had trapped you in only minutes before.
Neither of you spoke for a while. Jack simply stayed where he was, sitting on the edge of the bed, giving you the silence you seemed to need. When he was finally certain you were fully present again, he let out a quiet breath of his own.
“There you are,” he murmured, a small smile touching the corner of his lips. His hand lifted slowly, giving you every opportunity to move away if you wanted to, but you didn’t. With the gentlest touch, he brushed a loose strand of hair away from your damp face, tucking it carefully behind your ear before letting his hand fall again. His thumb lingered for the briefest second against your temple.
“You should try to get some sleep.” His voice remained soft, almost soothing. “It was just a nightmare.” He held your gaze for another moment. “You’re safe, the doors are locked, I’m here, and everything’s okay.”
You nodded faintly, not because you completely believed it but because you wanted to. Slowly, you eased yourself back against the pillow, pulling the blanket up around you as your body finally began to feel heavy again.
Jack waited until you were settled before pushing himself to his feet. “Try to rest,” he whispered. “I’ll be right over—”
A gentle pressure around his forearm stopped him before he could finish. He looked down, your fingers were wrapped lightly around his sleeve.
Your eyes immediately dropped to the blanket, a faint flush warming your cheeks. “…Wait.”
The word came out barely above a whisper. You hesitated, and for a second, it looked as though you were going to let go and pretend you hadn’t said anything.
Instead, you gathered what little courage you had left. “…Can you…” You swallowed. “…can you sleep here?”
Your voice was almost embarrassingly quiet now. “With me…” You finally looked back up at him. Your fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around his sleeve before loosening again. “I don’t think I can fall asleep alone tonight.”
The admission hung quietly between you. You weren’t asking because you were frightened of the dark. You were asking because you were frightened of closing your eyes. And for the first time since Jack had known you… you had trusted someone enough to say it out loud.
Jack didn’t answer. He didn’t ask whether you were sure. He simply looked at you for a long second before giving the smallest nod. Without another word, he walked around to the other side of the bed and carefully slipped beneath the covers, making sure to leave enough space between the two of you. He settled onto his back, one arm resting across his stomach, the room falling silent once again.
Outside, the city had long since gone to sleep. Inside, only your uneven breathing disturbed the stillness. You stared at the ceiling, willing your heartbeat to slow, but every deep breath seemed to catch halfway before leaving your lungs in another shaky exhale. The nightmare still lingered somewhere beneath your skin, refusing to loosen its grip completely.
Jack listened quietly beside you. He didn’t need to look to know you were still fighting it. After another long breath that sounded more like a suppressed sob than an exhale, he turned his head slightly toward you.
“Hey…” His voice was barely louder than the darkness surrounding you. “You’re okay…”
The words were so gentle, so…certain… That something inside you finally gave way. Your eyes squeezed shut as fresh tears escaped before you could stop them.
Without thinking, almost instinctively, you turned toward him, closing the small distance between your bodies until your forehead rested against his chest. You hid your face in the soft fabric of his T-shirt, ashamed of the tears that refused to stop.
Jack didn’t hesitate this time. One arm slowly came around your shoulders, the other around your back, holding you carefully, mindful of your healing wound. His embrace wasn’t tight enough to trap you, only firm enough to let you feel that he was there.
That you weren’t facing the night alone. He rested his chin lightly against the top of your head, his hand moving in slow, reassuring circles between your shoulder blades.
“You’re okay…” he whispered again. His voice vibrated softly beneath your cheek. “You’re safe…” Another gentle squeeze. “I’m here…”
You felt your fingers curl weakly into his shirt as another quiet sob escaped you. He held you a little closer. “You’re okay…”
He repeated the words with the same patient calm, over and over, never rushing you, never asking you to stop crying. “You made it…”
A kiss of silence settled over the room between each reassurance. “You’re home…” His hand continued its slow rhythm across your back.
Summary You join PTMC as their slightly uptight, sharp hospital lawyer and catch the attention of night shift attending, Jack Abbot.
STRAWBERRY | JACK ABBOT 5.6K WORDS
Summary You find yourself drawn to the ER doctor as a legal case finds you working together.
Note: part two to linger, can be read as a standalone. I think. Hopefully.
OPTICS | JACK ABBOT 5.1K WORDS
Summary The ER might be catching onto the fact that their resident lawyer and night shift attending might be each other's favourites.
Note: part three to linger & strawberry, can be read as a standalone. I think. Hopefully. Again..
LUCK | JACK ABBOT 9.1K WORDS
Summary You can't help it as you get closer with the night shift attending. And after a day in court, you welcome the chance for a night out with drinks and darts with the team of doctors.
Note: part four to linger & strawberry & optics, can be read as a standalone. I think. Hopefully. Once more!
ORBIT | JACK ABBOT 5.7K WORDS
Summary After a sweet kiss, Jack Abbot works up the courage to ask out his favourite hospital lawyer, who finds herself needing aid.
Note: Part five! I need a name for this series!
MY (WO)MAN ON WILLPOWER | JACK ABBOT 16.5K WORDS
Summary You and Jack have always been a hands-on, can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other kind of couple—until you decide to commit to a month-long “detox.” No sex, no touching, no shortcuts. Jack feels like the least sought after man in the land. (inspired by sabrina carpenter’s my man on willpower (2025)!)
HOW I'D LOVE TO GO PARIS AGAIN (AND AGAIN) | JACK ABBOT AND MICHAEL ROBINAVITCH 18.3K WORDS
Summary After Jack casually floats the idea of adding a third, you don’t let it stay theoretical for long—what starts as curiosity turns into something a lot more real when Robby gets pulled into the space you and Jack have built together.
Note: spin off of my (wo)man on willpower, but can be read as a standalone!
blurbs
robby/abbot competition w/ you - spinoff blurb of how i'd love to go to paris again (and again) - can be read solo
abbot spoiling you - spinoff blurb of lawyerfem!reader series
you witness the nightcrawler chant lol. - spinoff blurb of lawyerfem!reader series
he handles you when youre in a shit mood - spinoff blurb of lawyerfem!reader series
...is that a new perfume? - spinoff blurb of lawyerfem!reader series
SUCCESS: THIS AUTHOR LOVES REPRESSED OLD MEN AND LOVES PRETTY LADIES.
pairing: titus danforth x estate medic!reader
summary: The Danforth estate was built to swallow screams, and tonight you’re the one cleaning up what the hunt leaves behind. When Titus Danforth arrives bleeding, furious, and far too aware of your hands on him, the private medical room becomes its own kind of trap.
wc: 8.5k
a/n: i don’t support the danforth family’s business practices but i do support titus danforth turning first aid into foreplay. not beta read.
warnings: canon-typical violence, blood, injury/wound care, stitches, medical setting, fear kink, power imbalance, class dynamics, coercive/dubcon vibes but ultimately consensual, rough sex, choking/breath play, hair pulling, manhandling, piv, creampie, daddy kink, dd/lg undertones, fingering, spanking, dirty talk, praise kink, degradation, possessive behavior, slight pain kink, no real aftercare
MASTERLIST
The Danforths didn’t hide their violence. They insulated it.
The first thing the Danforth complex taught you when you took the job was that rich people didn’t silence screams—they designed rooms that swallowed them.
Sound died strangely here. It vanished into velvet walls and carved wood, into the thick old carpets imported from countries the Danforths pretended to respect and exploited anyway. It sank into the marble. It slipped behind portraits of dead men with powdered faces and mean eyes. The estate was too large, too polished, too aware of itself, all black iron gates and manicured gardens and endless service corridors designed so the wealthy never had to see the people who cleaned up after them.
Tonight, the house was eating noise whole.
Somewhere beyond the west wing, a gunshot cracked through the grounds.
Then another.
Then silence.
You sat in the private medical room with your hands folded in your lap, staring at the brass clock over the cabinet because it gave you something to do besides think. The room smelled of antiseptic, old leather, and the faint coppery ghost of blood that never really left, no matter how much bleach the staff used. The surgical tray had already been laid out. Sutures. Gauze. Hemostats. Sterile gloves. Local anesthetic. Silver scissors. Everything arranged with the quiet, awful precision the Danforths expected from their staff.
You weren’t a doctor. Not officially.
Officially, you were a private household medical attendant.
Unofficially, you were the person they called when someone important got hurt doing something no one could report.
Most estates had gardeners. Drivers. Housekeepers.
The Danforths had crisis staff.
Another sound came through the walls: a low mechanical groan, followed by the distant blare of an alarm that stopped almost as soon as it began. Someone on security must’ve killed it. The house settled again, vast and watchful.
You told yourself not to count the minutes.
Counting made it worse.
The intercom on the wall clicked alive.
Static hissed.
Then his voice poured through, low and amused and ragged around the edges.
“Grace, darling, you’re making this tedious.”
You went still.
Titus Danforth sounded different over the intercom. Larger somehow. More theatrical. Like the whole estate had been built not for parties or power or ritual, but for the particular pleasure of carrying his voice into every room.
“You can keep running,” he continued, breath faintly uneven beneath the taunt, “but there’s only so much house.”
The intercom clicked off.
A second later, a crash rang out somewhere in the corridor beyond the medical room.
Not the distant violence of the hunt.
Close.
You stood before you could think better of it.
There were voices outside. Two of them. One sharp and female, cold enough to cut through the old oak door.
“You look embarrassing.”
Ursula Danforth.
Your stomach tightened.
Then Titus, closer, rougher, amused through his pain.
“And you look disappointed I’m still walking.”
The door swung open hard enough to hit the stopper.
Titus Danforth appeared in the doorway, and the room seemed to brace for him before you did.
He was bleeding.
Not dying, your training decided for you.
Unfortunately.
He’d been hurt badly enough to look furious about it. His dark grey T-shirt was torn open at the side, the cotton stuck to him where blood had soaked through and turned the fabric almost black. The collar sat crooked at his throat, one shoulder pulled out of shape, his hair mussed like he’d dragged a hand through it too many times. Blood marked his neck. His fingers. The hard line of one cheekbone. It should’ve made him look shaken. Instead, it made him look like someone else had made the mistake of touching him and hadn’t survived the lesson.
He looked less injured than interrupted.
And he looked deeply insulted that anyone had noticed.
Ursula stood just behind him, immaculate in a way that made his damage seem even more obscene. Not untouched exactly—there was a streak of dirt along the hem of her skirt, a tiny red bead near her wrist—but composed. Always composed. She looked him over with flat disgust, as though he’d tracked mud into the foyer instead of blood into the medical wing.
“You’re bleeding on Father’s floor,” she said.
Titus gave the marble a brief, contemptuous glance. “He’s hardly in a position to complain.”
“Don’t be vulgar.”
“Don’t be sentimental.”
Her gaze flicked to you. “Patch him up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Titus’s eyes moved to you for the first time.
That was always how it felt with him. Not attention. Appraisal. The kind rich men gave paintings, horses, weapons, and people they didn’t consider people for long.
You lowered your gaze on instinct, then hated yourself for doing it.
His mouth curved.
“Oh,” he said softly. “This one’s nervous.”
Ursula didn’t turn. “Everyone’s nervous around you. Don’t mistake that for charisma.”
“I don’t have to.” Titus’s eyes stayed on you. “Not when they’re this pretty about it.”
Your face went warm.
You reached for the gloves because they gave your hands something to do besides betray you.
Ursula’s mouth tightened. “Sit down, Titus.”
He smiled at her. “Ask sweetly.”
“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
“And still standing.”
“Barely.”
“You wound me.”
“Someone already did.”
His smile sharpened.
“Careful, Urs. That almost sounded like love.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “Love would imply I’d miss you.”
For the first time, his smile thinned.
“I’d prefer you alive until you’re useful,” she added.
Titus laughed once, sharp and humorless. It almost passed for contempt. Then his breath caught, and the lie came apart—pain, badly hidden, worse than he wanted anyone in the room to know.
Ursula noticed too.
Of course she did.
Her eyes narrowed with something that might’ve passed for concern in another bloodline. In theirs, it looked more like calculation.
“You’re compromised,” she said.
“I’m inconvenienced.”
“You’re reckless.”
“I’m effective.”
“You lost the girl.”
That landed.
Not visibly, not to anyone who didn’t know how to watch monsters pretend not to bruise. But Titus’s face changed by a degree. His smile stayed. His eyes went colder.
“The night isn’t over.”
“No,” Ursula said. “Which is why I need you stitched and back on your feet before you become more liability than asset.”
He stepped farther into the room, the torn edge of his jacket dragging wetly against the cut at his side. For one brief second, his jaw clenched.
Then the smile returned, polished over the pain like a fresh coat of varnish.
“Always so managerial.”
“Always so disappointing.”
He brushed past her and dropped into the chair beside the examination table instead of getting onto it, spreading his knees and leaning back like this was a club lounge and not a room designed to quietly remove bullets from billionaires.
Ursula looked at you again.
Not unkindly.
Worse. Practically.
“If he bites, hit him with the tray.”
Titus grinned. “Don’t flirt on my behalf.”
Ursula ignored him. “He needs to be mobile. Fast.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She started to leave, then paused at the door.
“Titus.”
He didn’t look at her. “Ursula.”
“Try not to bleed out in front of the staff. It lowers morale.”
His smile thinned.
The door shut behind her.
Silence settled.
Not real silence. The house still breathed around you. Somewhere in the vents, air shifted. Somewhere distant, the game continued. But in the medical room, it was just you and Titus and the blood steadily darkening his shirt.
He watched you snap on your gloves.
“You always this quiet?”
You moved to the tray. “When I’m working.”
“How professional.”
“You’re going to need to take off the jacket.”
“Bossy.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
“You’ll bleed more if the fabric pulls when I clean it.”
He studied you for a second too long, then reached up with his uninjured hand and shrugged out of the jacket. Or tried to. The movement tugged at the wound and his breath caught through his teeth.
You stepped forward automatically. “Stop.”
His eyes snapped to yours.
It was a mistake, meeting them.
Titus Danforth had the kind of stare that made your mouth correct itself before your pride could object.
“I mean,” you said carefully, “let me help.”
His mouth twitched. “Better.”
You ignored that.
You came around behind him and eased the jacket down his shoulders, trying not to notice the heat coming off him. He was tense under your hands. Not fragile. Never fragile. More like a coiled thing that’d been forced to sit still against its nature.
The jacket fell into your grip, heavy and expensive and ruined.
You set it aside.
His shirt was next.
Of course it was.
You reached for the hem of his T-shirt, then stopped. “Can you—”
“No.”
You looked at him.
He smiled. “I’m wounded.”
“You just took off your jacket.”
“And suffered terribly.”
You stared at him for half a second.
He stared back, delighted.
You picked up the scissors instead.
“Shame,” he said as you began cutting the shirt open from the tear at his side. “This was Italian.”
“I’m sure you can afford another.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“That I liked this one.”
The scissors slid through blood-wet fabric with a soft, awful sound. The ruined shirt parted beneath your hands, revealing skin smeared red over lean muscle, the wound at his ribs ugly but clean-edged. A slash, not a bullet. Deep enough to need stitches. Not deep enough to kill him unless he kept pretending consequences were for other people.
You reached for gauze.
“Knife?” you asked.
“Something like that.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Neither was she.”
Your hands paused.
Titus noticed.
He always noticed.
“Oh, don’t look so intrigued,” he said. “It wasn’t Grace. If she’d gotten this close, one of us would be dead.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I appreciate competence.”
“You appreciate winning.”
His smile sharpened slowly, like he enjoyed the accusation more than he should’ve.
“There’s a difference?”
You pressed gauze against the wound.
His body jerked once, not enough for anyone else to call it flinching. His hand shot out and clamped around your wrist. Hard. Not crushing. Not yet. Just enough to stop you. Just enough to remind you he could.
Your pulse kicked.
Titus looked down at your caged wrist, then up at your face.
“There it is,” he murmured.
You swallowed. “You’re bleeding too much for games.”
“Everything’s a game tonight.”
“Not this.”
“Especially this.”
You held his gaze because looking away felt worse. “Let go.”
His thumb found your pulse with insulting ease, pressed once, and lingered just long enough to make sure you knew he’d felt it jump.
You hated the tiny shock of absence it left behind.
You pressed the gauze down again, gentler this time, though you weren’t sure why you bothered. Titus felt the difference anyway. His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping once beneath the skin, his throat working around whatever sound he refused to give you.
“You should let me numb it,” you said.
“No.”
“It’ll hurt.”
“I didn’t ask you to make it pleasant.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
You looked at the wound, then at him. “You don’t have to make everything a point of pride.”
His eyes lifted to yours, bright with pain and amusement.
“Careful,” he said. “That almost sounded like pity.”
“It was medical advice.”
“How disappointing.”
You cleaned the wound in silence after that, or tried to.
Titus didn’t make silence easy.
He watched your face while you worked. Not your hands. Your face. Like the wound bored him but your reactions might entertain him if he waited long enough.
The antiseptic made his breath go sharp again.
You pretended not to hear.
“Do they train you for this?” he asked.
“For wounds?”
“For not asking questions.”
“Yes.”
“And what’d they tell you?”
“That curiosity’s dangerous.”
His smile widened. “Sensible.”
“And expensive.”
That surprised a laugh out of him.
Real, maybe. Brief.
It turned into a wince before he could hide it.
You took advantage of the distraction to inspect the wound more closely. “It missed anything vital.”
“Lucky me.”
“You’ll need stitches.”
“Lucky you.”
You threaded the needle.
Titus tilted his head back against the chair, eyes still on you from beneath lowered lashes. There was blood drying along the side of his throat. A line of it had run beneath his collarbone before the shirt came open. He should’ve looked diminished.
He didn’t.
He looked like violence that had briefly put on human skin and found it irritating.
“Does Ursula always speak to you like that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.
His eyes sharpened.
Too late, you realized your mistake.
Curiosity was dangerous.
The corner of his mouth lifted, pleased in a way that made you regret the question before he answered. “You’ve been listening.”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No. But you did.”
You tied off the first stitch in your mind before beginning. “Forget I said anything.”
“I don’t forget what interests me.”
You pushed the needle through his skin.
This time he didn’t move.
Not even when the thread pulled tight.
A faint sheen of sweat had gathered at his temple, but his voice stayed lazy.
“Ursula speaks to everyone like that.”
“She doesn’t speak to everyone the same way she speaks to you.”
“Because everyone else is less fun to disappoint.”
His gaze drifted over your face like he was looking for the next thing you’d give away.
“Go on, then. What else have you noticed?"
ou pulled the second stitch through and kept your eyes on the wound. “You enjoy making people uncomfortable.”
“That’s not an observation,” Titus said. “That’s gossip.”
You should’ve stopped there. The sensible part of you knew it, the trained part of you knew it, but Ursula’s voice was still in the room, cold and cutting, and Titus was watching you like he already knew you’d give him one more thing to use.
“And Ursula doesn’t sound like she’s worried you’ll lose. She sounds like she’s worried you’ll win.”
His smile stayed exactly where it was, which somehow made it worse. If it had vanished, if he’d snapped, if he’d given you anything loud enough to brace against, you might’ve known what to do with it. Instead, the expression remained polished in place while the room seemed to lose several degrees around him.
Your hand paused against his side.
Titus went still beneath your touch, not with restraint, but with the terrible patience of something deciding whether to strike
“Is that so?”
You kept your attention on the wound. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I overstepped.”
“You did.”
“I won’t again.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether I liked it.”
Your hand hesitated.
His gaze dropped.
Not to the wound.
To your mouth.
Heat crawled up your throat, humiliating and impossible to hide. Titus saw that too. Of course he did. The faintest satisfaction touched his face.
“You’re very bad at pretending,” he said.
“I’m stitching your ribs.”
“And yet.”
You tied off another stitch. “Hold still.”
“Yes, nurse.”
“I’m not a nurse.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What are you, then?”
You looked up despite yourself.
Wrong move.
Titus’s face was close enough now that you could see the tiny flecks of blood on his lower lashes, the bruising starting to shadow one cheekbone, the vicious brightness in his eyes. He was hurt. Angry. Alive in a way that felt almost indecent.
“I’m staff,” you said.
His expression shifted.
Not softened.
Possessive, maybe. Amused by the answer. Offended by it too, somehow.
“Staff,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“What a small word.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
“For them, perhaps.”
You didn’t ask who them meant.
The Danforths. The Council. The portraits on the walls. Every old family in the complex hunting two women through a ritualized slaughter and calling it tradition.
Titus leaned forward slightly.
The movement pulled at the fresh stitches and made blood bead bright against his skin.
You pressed a hand to his shoulder without thinking. “Stop moving.”
His eyes dropped to where your hand rested against him, and the silence that followed made the touch feel suddenly louder than it had any right to be. You pulled away too quickly. Titus caught you before you got far, his fingers closing around yours this time instead of your wrist, the grip lower, warmer, almost polite if you ignored the flaking blood on his skin and the way he held you like politeness was just another kind of trap.
It should’ve felt less threatening.
It didn’t.
“You give orders very easily when you’re scared,” he said.
“I’m not scared.”
“No?”
“No.”
His thumb brushed over the back of your glove, slow and deliberate.
“You know,” he said, “lying to me is much worse than being afraid of me.”
“I’m not lying.”
He leaned closer.
You could smell blood and expensive cologne and smoke, like he’d been running through fire in a tailored suit.
“Your pulse disagrees.”
“You’re hurt,” you said. “And you’re bored.”
“Partly.”
“You want a reaction.”
“I want many things.”
“Titus.”
His name came out too quiet.
His eyes flashed.
For one reckless second, you understood something about him that you wished you didn’t. He liked obedience, yes. Expected it. He’d been raised on it. But there was something in him that liked resistance more. Not defiance from equals. Not Ursula’s cutting superiority or Grace’s survival-spit fury.
Something smaller.
A line drawn by someone who knew they could be punished for it and drew it anyway.
He smiled like he’d heard the thought.
The door opened.
You pulled your hand free so fast the stool behind you scraped the floor.
Ursula stood in the doorway.
She took in the scene in one glance: your flushed face, Titus leaning too close, the unfinished stitches, the blood on the tray, the ruined shirt open around him.
Her expression didn’t change.
That was worse.
“Really, Titus?” she said. “Bleeding all over Father’s chair and harassing the help? Must every injury become a performance?”
Titus leaned back, all lazy cruelty again. “Don’t be jealous because they’re better with their hands than you are with a knife.”
Ursula’s eyes moved from the stitches to you with the quiet precision of someone taking inventory, and you lowered your gaze before she could find anything else to count.
“Leave them alone,” she said.
Titus gave a soft laugh. “That sounded protective.”
“It was practical. We’re short on competent staff.”
“How maternal.”
“How pathetic.”
His smile went thin.
For one moment, they looked so alike it was disturbing. Not in face, exactly, but in construction. Two blades from the same set. One kept polished. One still wet.
Ursula stepped farther into the room.
“You’re wasting time.”
“I’m being repaired.”
“You’re playing with your food.”
Your stomach dipped.
Titus’s gaze didn’t leave Ursula.
“Careful,” he said softly.
“No.” Ursula’s voice lowered too. “You be careful. This isn’t one of your tantrums. This is the High Seat.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you? Because you’re limping back here after losing Faith, Grace is still alive, and the other families are moving while you flirt with the only person in this wing capable of keeping you upright.”
His jaw tightened, and there it was again—the names cutting through the room like a match struck too close to gas. Faith. Grace. The hunt. The game. All the violence waiting outside the door, patient and hungry, bigger than the little medical room pretending it could keep any of you safe. Titus stood suddenly, too suddenly, and the half-set stitches pulled open before you could stop him. Blood welled bright against the dark grey cotton.
You moved without thinking. “Sit down.”
He ignored you, eyes fixed on Ursula.
“You don’t speak to me like I’m one of your little committees.”
“I speak to you like someone who knows exactly what you are.”
“And what’s that?”
Ursula stared at him, her composure holding so perfectly that you almost missed what moved beneath it: not fear for herself, but fear of him.
“A mistake with a crown in his sights.”
The silence afterward was absolute.
Then amusement cut across his face, cold enough to make the room feel smaller.
It was beautiful in the way a knife was beautiful.
Ursula saw it and didn’t look away. That was the terrible thing about her: fear lived in her, but it didn’t rule her. She was afraid of him, yes, but not enough to retreat. Not enough to bend. She’d killed their father beside him and still looked at Titus like he was the greater danger.
Maybe he was.
“You should go,” he said.
Ursula’s eyes narrowed.
“Should I?”
“Yes.” He sat back down slowly, gaze never leaving hers. “Before you say something honest.”
Her mouth twisted.
Then she looked at you.
“Finish the stitches. Don’t let him leave until the bleeding stops.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
At the door, she paused again.
“Titus.”
He smiled. “Ursula.”
“You are not invincible.”
“No,” he said. “Just inevitable.”
She left, and the door shut behind her, leaving the room colder than it had been before she entered. For a while, neither of you moved. Then Titus glanced down at the torn stitch and sighed like his own blood had become tedious.
You grabbed fresh gauze with more force than necessary. “You ripped it.”
“So fix it.”
“You need to sit still.”
“I was provoked.”
“You’re always provoked.”
His eyebrows lifted just enough to make you freeze. You realized too late how revealing that had sounded, but instead of anger, Titus only looked pleased, as if you’d finally handed him something worth keeping.
“There,” he said softly. “That was almost a personality.”
You pressed gauze to the wound. Harder than before.
He hissed through his teeth, and you regretted it immediately—until he laughed, low and rough, too close to a groan to feel like amusement.
“You’re getting brave.”
“I’m getting annoyed.”
“That’s better.”
“You could bleed internally.”
“I’m touched.”
“You could die.”
“Everyone dies.”
“Not everyone treats it like an inconvenience.”
“Not everyone’s important.”
You looked at him then.
Really looked.
The blood. The arrogance. The expensive ruin of him. The way he sat in pain and still made it feel like the room belonged to his body first and the furniture second.
“You actually believe that,” you said.
His eyes sharpened with delight. “You don’t?”
“I think important people bleed the same as everyone else.”
“Dangerous opinion in this house.”
“It’s not an opinion. It’s anatomy.”
“And here I thought you weren’t a nurse.”
You cut the ruined stitch free.
He watched you work.
This time, when you pushed the needle through, he let out a slow breath and said nothing.
The silence was worse now. Charged. Full of Ursula’s warning and Titus’s smile and the distant knowledge that somewhere else in the estate, women were fighting to survive men like him.
You should’ve hated him cleanly.
That would’ve been simpler.
Instead, you were too aware of the heat of his skin under your gloved fingers. The flex of his stomach when the needle pulled. The way his throat moved when he swallowed pain. The obscene intimacy of repairing a man who’d go right back into the dark once you were done.
“You’re thinking loudly again,” he said.
You tied the next stitch. “I’m concentrating.”
“On my wound?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
Your breath caught, and Titus leaned forward with the slow certainty of someone who’d found a line and wanted to watch you notice him crossing it.
“Tell me,” he said, “do they warn you about me?”
You should’ve said no. You should’ve said nothing at all, should’ve swallowed the answer the way this house swallowed every scream that echoed through it. But the night had been blood under your fingernails, alarms cut short, doors locking from the outside, and rich people turning murder into ceremony. Some tired, reckless part of you had finally had enough of pretending silence wasn’t just another kind of fear.
“They don’t have to.”
The expression didn’t fall away. That would’ve been too easy. It emptied instead, mockery draining out until all that remained was attention sharp enough to feel like pressure against your throat.
“And why’s that?”
You cut the thread, the snip of metal sounding obscenely loud in the medical room.
“Because you warn people yourself.”
Titus stared at you for one long second, and the worst part was that he didn’t look angry. Anger would’ve given you something simple to brace against. Instead, he looked interested, as if you’d just opened a door in yourself and he’d decided he liked what he could see through it.
Then he laughed, quiet and real enough to be worse than any threat.
The intercom clicked on.
Both of you looked toward it.
Static.
Then the Lawyer’s voice, smooth and empty.
“All active families are reminded that the game remains in play until dawn. Any unsanctioned interference with the rules will result in immediate disqualification.”
The intercom clicked off, and Titus went still in a way that made the room feel secondary to whatever waited beyond it. The taunting ease left his face, and what remained wasn’t duty or loyalty, but hunger dressed up as purpose.
He looked toward the door like he could see through the walls to the game beyond them. Grace. Faith. Ursula. The High Seat. The ring. The altar waiting underground.
You taped gauze over the stitches.
“You’re done,” you said.
“Am I?”
“Medically.”
His gaze returned to you, and the room seemed to shrink around the attention of it. You reached for a clean bandage roll, more to give your hands something safe to do than because you needed it, but Titus caught your wrist before you could turn away. Again. This time, you didn’t tell him to let go, and the silence that followed made the choice feel louder than it should’ve. Maybe that was your mistake. Maybe it was his. His thumb found your pulse with infuriating accuracy, pressing where your body had no choice but to answer.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
“So are you.”
His eyes flashed.
Pain. Anger. Interest.
“You’re very bold for someone disposable.”
You swallowed.
Then said, “You’re very arrogant for someone who’s only upright because I let him be.”
His grip tightened around your wrist, not enough to hurt, but enough to empty your lungs before you could pretend it hadn’t. Enough to remind you that you were still seated while he wasn’t, still caught while he rose over you with all that ugly, effortless Danforth ownership.
Titus stood slowly this time, each inch deliberate, dragging your attention up with him whether you wanted to give it or not. The movement brought your face level with the blood-streaked bandage at his side first, then the hard, exposed plane of his stomach where the cut-open grey T-shirt hung apart around him. He was close. Too close. Close enough for the heat of his skin to reach your face, close enough to see the shallow pull of muscle under blood and sweat, close enough that your gaze dropped, traitorous, to the low line of his waistband before you caught yourself. It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t careful. It was blunt and physical and humiliatingly obvious, and Titus noticed the exact second your breathing changed.
It was obscene, somehow, being that near for a reason you could still call medical.
Then your gaze lifted, and you found him already watching you.
The room went small around the look on his face.
Not warmth. Not kindness. Not even simple attraction. Something sharper than that, something satisfied and possessive, as if he’d caught the exact moment your professionalism failed and intended to keep it.
“You have no idea,” he said softly, “what kind of night this is.”
“I have some idea.”
“No.” His voice dropped. “You have keyholes. Corridors. Little pieces. You hear screams and think you know the shape of the thing making them.”
“I know enough.”
“You know nothing.”
“Then why are you still here?”
That did it.
His gaze dropped to your mouth again, slower this time, and he didn’t bother pretending it was accidental. There was nothing accidental left in the room. Not the way he stood over you. Not the way your wrist stayed caught in his hand. Not the heat still rising off his bare skin beneath the cut-open grey t-shirt.
Outside, another shot cracked through the estate, distant enough to feel unreal.
Neither of you moved.
Titus lifted your hand slowly, still trapped in his, and turned it just enough to study the blood smeared across your glove. His blood. Your careful work. The proof that you’d had your hands on him because you had to, and kept them there a little longer because you wanted to.
His thumb dragged over the stained latex, pressing your fingers open one by one like he was inspecting the damage and enjoying the evidence.
Then his mouth curved.
Not kindly. Never kindly. There was nothing soft in it, nothing safe, nothing that pretended this was anything but ugly want finally given shape. Just intent, hot and unmistakable, sharpened by pain and blood and the unbearable fact that you were still close enough to touch him again.
“You should be very careful,” he said.
“Of you?”
“Of what you start with me.”
“I didn’t start anything.”
“No,” he said. “You just touched it.”
The space between you disappeared.
Not gently. Not sweetly. Not like a confession or a promise or anything clean enough to belong outside the walls of this house.
It was heat and blood and bad judgment.
His hand came up to the back of your neck, firm enough to stop you from retreating but not enough to force you forward. He waited. That was the worst part. The tiny pause. The chance to step back. The proof that whatever monster he was, he wanted your choice because winning it pleased him more.
You should’ve moved away.
Instead, you grabbed the torn edge of his shirt and pulled him down.
Titus made a sound against your mouth that was half laugh, half pain, and all satisfaction.
The kiss was ugly-fast, exactly like him. No softness at first. No patience. Just his mouth on yours, hot and demanding, his hand locked at the back of your neck while your spine hit the cabinet hard enough to rattle the glass bottles inside it. His tongue pushed into your mouth with the same entitled certainty he brought into every room, and the filthy little sound it pulled from you made him press in closer, pleased and punishing. You tasted blood where his lip had split, sharp and metallic, but he didn’t slow down. If anything, he kissed you harder for noticing, teeth catching your lower lip, tongue dragging against yours until the whole room seemed to narrow to his mouth, his heat, his body crowding yours against the cabinet. He tasted like violence interrupted, like the hunt had followed him inside and found a new way to use its teeth.
When your hands hit his ribs, the latex of your gloves dragging over the edge of the fresh bandage, Titus hissed against your mouth and bit back something ugly enough to sound like a curse before it ever became one.
You pulled away just enough to breathe. “Your stitches—”
“Fuck the stitches.”
“You’ll tear them.”
“Then you’ll fix them again.”
He kissed you before you could answer, like he’d decided your concern was just another form of touching him. His mouth came back harder, tongue sliding against yours with a filthy kind of insistence, his body crowding you into the cabinet until there was nowhere left for your professionalism to hide. The glass rattled behind your shoulders. The tray sat beside you with bloody gauze curled like evidence. Your gloves were still stained with him, and Titus seemed to know it, seemed to like it, his hand catching one of yours and dragging it back to his side as if daring you to remember why you’d touched him in the first place.
For a few dangerous minutes, the game outside the door became distant. Not gone. Never gone. It pulsed under everything: the intercom, the gunfire, the old house with its rotten heart, Ursula’s warning, Grace running somewhere through the dark. But the medical room narrowed to heat and breath and the wet, obscene slide of his mouth on yours, to the hard line of his body pressing too close, to the way he kissed like a man trying to prove he could still take something from the night.
And you let him.
That was the part you’d have to live with later.
His mouth moved to your jaw, your throat, not tender but precise, learning how your breath changed and punishing you for every reaction by chasing another. His teeth grazed skin, not quite biting, not quite merciful, and the sound you made against your own better judgment pulled a low laugh out of him.
“Listen to you,” he murmured against your pulse. “So careful with your hands a minute ago.”
Your fingers curled into the cut-open grey fabric hanging loose around his shoulders, then slipped beneath it to the hot skin at his waist, low enough to make the touch feel less medical than damning. For one breath, all you felt was him. Then the room came back: the blood, the locked door, the hunt still tearing through the estate beyond it.
Titus felt the hesitation and smiled into your throat like he’d been waiting for it.
“Don’t go shy on me now.”
His mouth left yours only to drag along your jaw, your throat, the sensitive place beneath your ear, not tender but exacting, like he was taking notes on every reaction and planning to use them against you later. Your hands slid up before you could stop them, fingers catching in his hair, and Titus made a low sound against your skin when you pulled just hard enough to make him feel it.
For one stupid, breathless second, you forgot who he was. What he was. What the house was doing beyond the locked door.
He didn’t.
He laughed against your throat, soft and wicked, his mouth still close enough that you felt the shape of it more than heard it. “Better.”
“Titus—”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“I don’t know what I mean.”
“Yes, you do.” His hand tightened at the back of your neck, not cruel, not gentle, something worse because it understood both. “You’re just deciding whether you hate yourself for it yet.”
You shoved at his chest, careful of the bandage and furious that you were careful. “You’re bleeding.”
“And you’re stalling.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’ve been called worse by better people.”
“You mean richer people.”
That made his mouth curve against your throat, the near-smile pressed directly into your skin. “Careful,” he said. “I’m starting to enjoy you.”
“You enjoy everyone you can scare.”
“No.” His mouth moved lower, slow enough to feel intentional, his breath dragging over your pulse before his lips followed. “I enjoy when someone’s smart enough to be afraid and stupid enough to stay.”
Your breath broke before you could hide it.
His grip went still, and the whole room seemed to pause with him. It wasn’t softness that came over him. Titus didn’t soften. The change was worse than that: a sharpening, a focus so complete it made the air feel touched. Every cruel, restless, wounded part of him narrowed down to the sound you’d failed to swallow.
He’d found it.
Not the wound. Not the weak place in the stitches. You.
A terrible kind of satisfaction moved through his face, and your stomach dipped before the rest of you knew why. Not surprise. Not tenderness. Recognition. Like he’d found the seam in you and already knew how easily it would split. For the first time all night, you understood that being hunted didn’t always require running. Sometimes it was standing there with his mouth at your throat, his hand at your neck, and realizing your body wanted him closer in every filthy way your mouth was still too proud to say.
You’d seen him bored. You’d seen him cruel. You’d seen him wounded and furious and arrogant enough to treat blood loss like something happening to lesser men.
This was worse.
This was Titus no longer wondering what you wanted from him, only how badly he could make you admit it.
“Still worrying,” he murmured, his voice a low rasp you felt through his chest where he had you pinned. “The stitches. The hunt. Whether anyone’s going to walk through that door and see exactly how badly you want this.” His thumb pressed into the nape of your neck, dragging once over the first vertebrae in your spine, while his other hand tightened on your hip hard enough to promise bruises. “You should be worrying about what I’m going to do to you before they interrupt.”
“Maybe I’m not worried at all.” The words came out steadier than you felt, your chin lifting as you met his gaze. His eyes narrowed, the lazy cruelty in them gathering into something darker, hungrier, and far too pleased. “Maybe I’m wondering how long it takes before you bleed through those stitches and pass out on top of me.”
A low laugh rumbled from his chest, rough and mean. "That's cute." He shifted, his thigh sliding between yours, the pressure of it against the heat gathering between your legs making your stomach clench. "You're trying real hard to pretend you don't want this. Don't want me." His hand slid from your hip to your waist, fingers curling into the fabric of your uniform top, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you. "But I felt your hands shaking when you were stitching me up. Felt your breath go shallow when I pulled you in here." His head dipped, his mouth brushing the shell of your ear. "You had every chance to run."
"Maybe I like watching you bleed."
His teeth grazed your earlobe, a sharp nip that sent a jolt through your whole body. "Liar." His hand came up, fingers wrapping around your throat, not squeezing—just holding, a warning and a promise in the press of his palm against your pulse. "I can feel your heart racing. Smell how wet you are." He inhaled slow, deliberate, his eyes dropping half-lidded. "You've been thinking about this since I walked into your little room. Since I made you look at me."
Your breath stuttered, and he felt it, his thumb pressing against the hollow of your throat. "Maybe I have," you said, the admission scraping out of you. "What are you going to do about it?"
His grin was sharp and wolfish. "There she is." He pushed you back, your spine hitting the medical cabinet hard enough to rattle the instruments inside, the cold metal biting through your shirt. His body followed, pinning you there, the heat of him seeping through your clothes. "I'm going to fuck you so hard you forget your own name." His free hand dropped to the button of your pants, working it open with rough, impatient fingers. "And then I'm going back out there, and you're going to stay right here, feeling me drip out of you, knowing I'll be back."
He yanked your pants down, the denim catching on your hips before he shoved it past your thighs, leaving you exposed to the cold air and his burning gaze. His hand slid between your legs, two fingers pressing through the slick fabric of your underwear, and he let out a low groan. "Fuck. You're soaked." He pushed the cotton aside, his fingers sliding through your wetness, circling your clit with a pressure that made your hips buck. "Look at that. Soaking wet for a man who's bleeding through his stitches." He pushed one finger inside you, then a second, the stretch making you gasp, your hands flying up to grip his shoulders. "And you still want to talk shit."
"Daddy." The word came out breathy, almost a whimper, and his eyes went dark, his fingers curling inside you, finding that spot that made your vision blur. "Please."
"Please what?" He pumped his fingers faster, the wet sound filling the small room, his thumb circling your clit in rough, sloppy strokes. "Use your words, baby. Tell Daddy what you need."
"You." Your voice cracked. "I need you inside me. Fuck me, please, I need—"
He pulled his fingers out with a lewd pop, slick and glistening, and brought them to his mouth, sucking them clean while holding your gaze. Then his hands were on your hips, spinning you around, bending you over the edge of the steel table. The leather restraints pressed against your stomach, cold and unyielding, as his body crowded behind you.
You heard the quiet rustle of his belt unbuckling, the mechanical whisper of his fly unzipping next, all loud in an otherwise silent room. Then you felt his cock press against your soaked cunt, the head of it sliding through your slickness, teasing your entrance. "You're going to take every inch," he said, his voice low and rough, his hand fisting in your hair, pulling your head back. "And you're going to be quiet about it. Can you do that for me, baby?"
You nodded, a broken sound escaping your throat as he pushed inside, the stretch of him filling you, thick and hot and deep. He didn't stop until his hips were flush against your ass, his breath ragged against your ear. "Fuck," he groaned, his hand tightening in your hair. "Tight little cunt. Been thinking about this since I saw you."
He pulled out slow, dragging against your walls, then slammed back in, the force of it driving you forward against the table. His hand came down on your ass, a sharp crack that echoed off the walls, and you cried out, the sound swallowed by his palm clamping over your mouth. "Shh," he breathed, his hips setting a brutal rhythm, each thrust punching the air from your lungs. "You're doing so good. Taking Daddy's cock so well."
His hand slid from your mouth to your throat, pressing down, cutting off your air just enough to make the edges of your vision go fuzzy. His other hand gripped your hip, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, as he fucked into you with a frantic, desperate rhythm. The obscenely wet squelch of skin slapping against skin filled the room, mixing with his grunts and your muffled moans. "That's it," he growled, his pace quickening, his breath hot against your neck. "Squeezing me so tight. Gonna make me come."
Your body was trembling, the coil in your belly winding tighter with every thrust, your cunt clenching around him. "Daddy, please," you gasped, the words barely audible. "Please let me—"
"Not yet." His hand tightened on your throat, his thrusts growing sloppy, desperate. "I'm not done with you. I'm going to fill this pussy up, make sure you feel me for days." He drove into you one last time, a guttural groan tearing from his throat as he came, hot and thick, pumping into you in deep, shuddering pulses. The feeling of it, of him spilling inside you, pushed you over the edge, your orgasm ripping through you, your body convulsing around his cock as he kept thrusting, riding it out.
He stayed there for a moment after, still pressed against you, his forehead resting against the back of your neck, his breath ragged and hot against your skin.
For the first time since he’d entered the room, Titus Danforth was quiet.
Not softened. Not gentle. Not safe.
Just quiet.
His hand flexed once at your hip, fingers digging in as if some part of him still hadn’t decided whether to let go. Behind you, his chest rose and fell too hard, the cut-open remains of his grey shirt hanging ruined around him, his bandage pulled crooked beneath it. You could feel the heat of him everywhere. The sweat. The blood. The blunt, obscene evidence of what you’d just let him do while the house tore itself apart around you.
Then he pulled out slowly, a wet sound that made you shiver, and you felt his cum leaking down your thigh, the absence of him making you go weak at the knees.
You braced one hand against the steel table, breathing hard, your uniform twisted, your skin damp, your body still carrying him in ways you couldn’t fix with soap or silence. The medical room hummed around you: fluorescent light, rattled glass, bloody gauze on the tray, the torn scraps of his shirt on the floor like evidence neither of you had bothered to hide.
Titus turned you around with a hand beneath your chin, his touch not rough enough to excuse your reaction and not gentle enough to trust.
He made you look at him, his thumb resting beneath your jaw, his eyes still dark with hunger and something more dangerous than satisfaction. His mouth was bruised. There was blood at the corner of it, maybe his, maybe from where he’d kissed you too hard. The bandage at his side had started to bloom red again, staining through white gauze in a slow, ugly spread.
“You’re bleeding,” you said.
His mouth curved. “You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep doing it.”
A low laugh moved through him, rough with leftover heat, but it caught at the end. Pain still had its hooks in him, no matter how badly he pretended otherwise.
The intercom shrieked alive, a burst of feedback splitting the room so violently that you both jerked still.
Then Grace’s voice came through, breathless and furious, somewhere between panic and threat.
“You want me? Come get me, you rich fucks.”
The intercom cut out, and the silence it left behind felt louder than the static.
Titus went very still.
The man in front of you disappeared by degrees. Not physically. He was still close enough to touch, still breathing hard, still standing between your open legs with his hand beneath your chin and blood seeping through the bandage you’d taped to his side. But his eyes had gone elsewhere, pulled back to the hunt, back to the throne, back to the thing he wanted more than warmth, more than blood, more than whatever impulse had bent you over a steel table in a private medical room while the estate screamed around you.
His face changed with the silence that followed, hunger rearranging itself into purpose.
“Oh, Grace,” he said, almost fondly. “There you are.”
The cold of it sobered you instantly.
You let go of him, and he noticed. Of course he noticed. His gaze flicked back to you, darker now, reassembled into Titus Danforth, son of Chester, twin of Ursula, would-be High Seat of the Council, with fresh stitches under his ribs, blood on his mouth, and the hunt calling him home.
He stepped back, and the absence of him felt like air returning after suffocation.
You reached for the cabinet because your hands needed something to do besides shake. Halfway there, you remembered the gloves still clinging to your skin, stained with him, tacky at the fingertips. You stripped them off and dropped them into the bin, one after the other, the snap of latex sounding too loud in the room.
“You need a clean shirt,” you said.
He looked down at the ruined grey one hanging open around him, as if only just remembering it. “Do I?”
“Yes.”
“How domestic.”
“You’ll bleed through that.”
“I’ll survive.”
“That wasn’t my concern.”
His mouth curved again, faint and knowing. “Liar.”
You opened the supply cabinet and pulled out a folded black shirt kept there for exactly this kind of emergency. The Danforths had supplies for everything: blood loss, bullet wounds, ritual contamination, wardrobe replacement. The house had been built to make violence convenient.
You handed it to him without stepping too close.
He took it, and for a second, his fingers brushed yours. No glove this time. Skin to skin, brief enough to pretend it didn’t matter and warm enough to make pretending impossible.
It shouldn’t have felt like a decision.
Titus pulled the shirt over his head carefully, only wincing once as the fabric settled over the bandage. The black hid the blood better. Of course it did. Everything in this house had been designed to hide blood better.
The intercom crackled again, this time from somewhere farther down the hall, Ursula’s voice slicing through the static.
“Titus. East wing. Now.”
His eyes stayed on you for one more beat.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “She does hate being ignored.”
“She’ll notice.”
“Ursula notices everything.”
“That wasn’t reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
He moved toward the door, then stopped with his hand on the handle. For a moment, you thought he might say something cruel, or clever, or nothing at all. Instead, he looked back at you with that same terrible, entertained focus.
“Lock this door.”
You blinked. “What?”
“When I leave.”
“Why?”
His expression shifted, faint and wicked, the closest thing to tenderness he probably knew how to ruin.
“Because Ursula was right about one thing.”
Your mouth went dry. “What’s that?”
His fingers tightened around the handle.
“I bite.”
Then, after a beat, softer and worse, “Stay.”
It shouldn’t have sounded like an order and a promise at the same time.
But it did.
Then he was gone.
The corridor swallowed him almost immediately, the sound of his footsteps fading into the old house, toward Grace, toward Ursula, toward the gunfire starting up again somewhere beyond the walls, toward whatever hell waited underneath the estate with its altar and its ring and its pit full of offerings.
You stood alone in the medical room with the lock still waiting and your skin still refusing to feel like yours. Behind you, the steel table remembered everything: leather restraints shoved crooked, blood smeared across the edge in the shape of your gloved fingers, red handprints dragged over cold metal from where you’d held on while Titus fucked every careful rule this house had beaten into you straight out of your head. The trail continued across the cabinet, the drawer handle, the spot where your palm had landed when he’d crowded you back against it. Not just his blood anymore. Your fingerprints in it.
For a moment, you didn’t move.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. The steel table gleamed cold behind you. Your uniform was still twisted, your skin still marked by his hands, your thighs still sticky with his cum. His scent clung to you—blood, smoke, sweat, expensive cologne, something violent and warm that had no business feeling familiar.
Then the intercom clicked on again, static breathing through the speaker like the house had leaned in to hear what he’d left behind.
For a moment, you stayed exactly where he’d left you, every nerve still listening for him.
Stay.
The word didn’t echo. It settled.
That was worse.
You crossed to the door and turned the lock, not because he’d told you to.
Because some ruined, honest part of you wanted him to come back and realize he hadn’t needed the lock at all.
Summary: Your daughter fakes a stomachache to surprise her parents at work on Take Your Kid to Work Day, never realizing the panic it would cause.
Word count: 4.2k+
Warnings: fluff, tiny angst
A/N:
this was co-written with my friend Nora! We actually wrote some other stuff together too, but this is the first fic where she wrote the most of it. She also wants to write fanfics but is a little hesitant. Can’t wait for you to open your own blog and share your talent with tumblr Nora, this one’s you!!!💓
English is not my first language, so I apologize if I made any (grammar) mistakes. Feedback, requests, talks, vents, recommendations or just simple questions are always welcome.
Happy reading xxx
I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site.
When your daughter Lucy heard about Take Your Kid to Work Day, she came home convinced it was going to be the greatest day of her entire six-year-old life.
Her class had spent nearly a week talking about it. Every morning another child had a new story, another exciting detail to add. Emma was going to help frost cupcakes at her mother's bakery. Noah couldn't stop talking about riding in his dad's garbage truck, proudly announcing to anyone who would listen that he was going to press the "real buttons." Olivia was getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium where her mom worked. Even little Ben, whose father worked at a bank, marched around the classroom with a paper tie taped around his neck, declaring he would be "approving loans all day." By Thursday afternoon Lucy had listened to enough stories that she'd begun planning her own. She was absolutely certain she would wear one of those little white doctor coats she'd seen in toy stores. She'd carry a clipboard. Maybe even a stethoscope. Everyone would finally get to see how cool her parents' jobs were.
So when you and Jack walked through the front door that evening after a twelve-hour shift, you barely had time to take your shoes off before Lucy came barreling across the living room like an excited puppy.
"Mama!"
She wrapped herself around your legs so tightly you had to catch yourself against the wall to stay upright.
"Daddy!"
Jack wasn't spared either. She launched herself at him next, nearly knocking the backpack from his shoulder.
"Whoa, easy, bug," he laughed, catching her under the arms before she could accidentally headbutt him. "Someone's excited. Where's your grandma?"
"In the kitchen. I have something important to say."
You and Jack exchanged an amused look over the top of her head. Important announcements from Lucy ranged anywhere from losing a tooth to discovering worms in the garden.
"Oh?" Jack asked, setting his bag down.
Lucy nodded so enthusiastically that her ponytail bounced. "It's Take Your Kid to Work Day next Friday."
Her grin stretched so wide it nearly split her face.
"And I get to come with you."
The silence that followed was tiny.
Barely a second.
But it was enough.
Jack's smile faltered first. You watched it happen almost imperceptibly, the corners of his mouth relaxing as his eyes drifted toward yours. The excitement on Lucy's face hadn't dimmed yet. She was already imagining hallways and stethoscopes and showing all her friends pictures afterward.
You felt your heart sink before either of you had even opened your mouths.
Lucy noticed immediately.
Her smile wavered.
"...What's wrong?"
You crouched until you were eye level with her, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear while you searched desperately for words that wouldn't break her heart.
"Oh, sweetheart..."
Jack carefully lowered himself beside you, adjusting his balance before slipping an arm around Lucy's shoulders.
"Our jobs are a little different from everyone else's."
She frowned in confusion.
"But I can still come, right?"
Jack let out the smallest sigh.
"The emergency department isn't really a place for kids."
Her forehead wrinkled.
"Why?"
You looked at Jack for half a second before answering.
"Because the people who come to see us aren't coming for fun." You spoke gently, carefully choosing every word. "They're usually having one of the worst days of their lives. They're very, very sick..."
"Or hurt," Jack added quietly.
"They can look scary sometimes," you continued. "There can be blood. People cry. Sometimes they're frightened, sometimes they're angry, and sometimes they need every doctor and nurse in the room paying attention to them."
Jack nodded. "Our job is making sure they get help as quickly as possible. We can't always stop to explain what's happening, and there are things no six-year-old should have to see."
Lucy listened with surprising seriousness, though it was obvious she still didn't understand.
"But..." she said softly, "I'll be quiet."
Your chest tightened.
"I know you would."
"I could sit in the corner and color."
Jack smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"You probably could."
"I wouldn't touch anything."
"We know, sweetheart."
"I wouldn't even talk."
Jack smiled sadly. "You'd probably be the quietest kid in the whole hospital."
For the briefest moment, hope flickered across Lucy's face before reality settled back in. She looked between the two of you, swallowing hard.
"So..." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "...I can't?"
The words were so small they made your chest ache. You reached for her little hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"No, sweetie. I'm sorry."
Her eyes filled almost instantly.
"But everyone else gets to go to their parents' work."
Jack closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. Every parent hated hearing those words because sometimes there simply wasn't a fair answer. He rubbed his thumb absentmindedly over the back of her tiny hand.
"I know."
"I wanna see where you guys work."
"I know."
"I wanna wear one of those little doctor coats."
Despite the ache in your chest, a smile tugged at your lips. "You would look absolutely adorable."
"I could help."
Jack let out a quiet snort, his expression turning dramatically serious.
"Oh, that's exactly the part I'm worried about."
Lucy blinked. "...Really?"
"Oh, absolutely," he said with a solemn nod. "I think you'd spend the whole day walking around the department telling everyone what to do."
"I would not."
"You absolutely would."
She crossed her arms.
"No."
"No?"
She puffed out her chest, planting both hands on her hips as she deepened her voice into what she apparently believed sounded very authoritative.
"'Okay everybody, one at a time! No pushing! You have to wait your turn!'"
Jack laughed so suddenly and genuinely that it echoed through the house.
"There it is."
You couldn't help laughing too.
"Our little charge nurse."
Lucy dissolved into giggles, pleased she'd made both of you laugh.
The moment was warm.
Light.
Comfortable.
Until it wasn't.
Her smile slowly faded as she remembered why she'd started the conversation in the first place.
"...But I still don't get to come."
Jack's laughter disappeared just as quickly. He opened his arms without saying a word, and Lucy climbed into his lap as naturally as breathing. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, wrapping her little arms around him with a sigh that sounded much older than six years old.
"No," he admitted quietly, kissing the top of her head. "Not to work."
The room fell silent.
You watched Jack gently rub circles over Lucy's back while she sat curled against him, neither of them speaking. The disappointment in the room was almost tangible. You knew Jack was feeling it just as sharply as you were. Both of you spent your careers taking care of other people's children, yet this was one of those moments where your own daughter simply had to accept that your jobs came with doors she couldn't walk through.
Finally, you leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
"How about this?"
She peeked up hopefully.
"When we're both off next weekend, we'll take you to the hospital."
Jack immediately caught on.
"We'll show you the cafeteria."
"My locker."
"The ambulance bay."
"If there aren't any helicopters flying, maybe we can see the helipad from outside."
"The empty waiting room."
"My office."
Lucy sniffled, considering the offer with all the seriousness of someone negotiating an international treaty.
"...Can I push a wheelchair?"
Jack looked over at you.
You shrugged.
"If nobody's using it, sure."
She thought for another long moment before giving a tiny nod.
"...Okay."
It wasn't the answer she'd wanted.
It wasn't even close.
But she accepted it with the quiet resilience children somehow managed to find after their hearts had been disappointed. Before long she was asking what was for dinner and whether Grandma was still making pancakes the next morning, and by bedtime she seemed perfectly content again.
You smiled to yourself as you tucked her in that night, smoothing the blankets over her little shoulders.
Children had an incredible ability to move on.
Or so you thought.
Lucy had absolutely no intention of moving on.
She smiled when you tucked her into bed that night. She happily ate pancakes with Grandma the next morning. She colored pictures at the kitchen table, watched cartoons, and talked excitedly about the hospital tour you had promised for the following weekend. If anyone had asked, she seemed to have accepted your answer completely.
She hadn't.
To a six-year-old, "next weekend" felt impossibly far away. Everyone else would get to visit their parents' jobs on Friday. Everyone else would come back to school Monday with stories to tell. Emma would talk about frosting cupcakes. Noah would probably tell everyone he got to honk the garbage truck horn. Olivia would have pictures of fish. And Lucy... Lucy would have to say she stayed home because her mommy and daddy worked somewhere she wasn't allowed to go.
That simply didn't seem fair.
By Wednesday she had the beginning of a plan.
By Thursday she had improved it.
By Friday morning, she was convinced it was foolproof.
Your mother had barely finished pouring herself a cup of coffee when she heard small footsteps padding down the hallway. Lucy appeared in the kitchen doorway still wearing her pajamas, her favorite stuffed rabbit dangling from one hand while the other pressed dramatically against her stomach.
"Grandma..."
Your mother looked up immediately.
"Morning, sweetheart."
Lucy took two slow steps into the kitchen, making sure not to walk too quickly. Sick people probably didn't move very fast.
"I don't feel good."
The smile disappeared from your mother's face at once.
"Oh, sweetheart."
She set her mug down without taking a sip and crouched in front of her granddaughter, brushing a hand over Lucy's messy bed hair.
"What's wrong?"
"My tummy hurts."
"Oh no."
Lucy gave a pitiful little nod.
"It hurts a lot."
Your mother frowned with concern.
"Can you show me where?"
Lucy froze.
That...
She hadn't prepared for.
She looked down at herself, suddenly realizing stomachs had different parts. She'd heard you and Jack ask patients that question before. Daddy always wanted to know exactly where it hurt.
Panic fluttered in her chest for half a second.
"...Everywhere."
Your mother's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.
"Everywhere?"
Another solemn nod.
"Mhm."
She gently rested both hands on Lucy's shoulders.
"Did you throw up?"
"No."
"Do you feel like you have to?"
Lucy pretended to think about it before giving a hesitant little shrug.
"...Maybe."
"Do you have a fever?"
"I don't know."
"Hmm..."
Your mother pressed the back of her hand against Lucy's forehead before checking again with her palm, the way mothers and grandmothers always seemed to do. Her skin felt perfectly cool.
No fever.
That was reassuring. Still, children didn't always spike a temperature right away. Maybe she'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with her. Maybe a little stomach bug was just beginning.
Lucy watched every expression that crossed her grandmother's face. She could tell she wasn't entirely convinced.
She needed to make it more believable.
So she let out the tiniest little whimper she could manage. Not loud enough to sound dramatic, just enough to make it seem like the pain had returned.
Your mother's face softened immediately.
"Oh, you poor thing."
Lucy leaned instinctively into the comforting touch, a small stab of guilt twisting in her chest before she quickly pushed it aside. She wasn't trying to be naughty. She just wanted to see Mama and Daddy at work like everyone else got to.
After a long pause, she lowered her voice to an almost frightened whisper.
"I think..." She looked up through her lashes with the biggest, saddest eyes she could manage. "...I need the hospital."
Your mother smiled gently as she tucked a strand of hair behind Lucy's ear.
"Oh, honey. I don't think we're there just yet."
Lucy's heart sank.
"...But my tummy really, really hurts."
"I know it does."
"We should go."
Your mother hesitated. Normally she would've waited an hour or two, called you first, given Lucy some water, and seen whether she felt any better after breakfast before rushing to the emergency department.
But abdominal pain in children was one of those things she'd learned never to dismiss completely after watching both you and Jack work in emergency medicine for years. You had both told stories about children who seemed perfectly fine until they suddenly weren't. Appendicitis. Intussusception. Things she'd never heard of before you became a doctor and Jack became a nurse.
She didn't want to overreact.
She also didn't want to ignore something important.
Her eyes lingered on Lucy's face. The little girl looked uncomfortable enough to be believable, even if she wasn't crying. Some children tolerated pain differently.
Your mother sighed softly as she stood.
"Alright."
Lucy's eyes widened before she could stop herself.
Really?
It worked?
Excitement rushed through her so suddenly she almost smiled.
Almost.
She bit the inside of her cheek just in time, quickly lowering her head and pressing a hand dramatically back against her stomach.
"I'll get dressed," your mother said. "Then we'll have one of Mommy's friends take a quick look at you, okay?"
Lucy nodded with all the seriousness she could muster.
"...Okay."
As your mother disappeared upstairs to change, Lucy remained standing in the middle of the kitchen, hugging her stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest.
Her plan had worked.
In just a little while, she'd finally get to see where her mom and dad spent all day.
She had no idea that before the morning was over, two people who had faced mass casualty incidents, violent trauma, and countless life-or-death emergencies would see her name on the emergency department tracking board and experience a kind of fear neither of them had ever learned to prepare for.
The emergency department had been in controlled chaos since seven that morning.
Every room was occupied. Hallway beds had filled before breakfast. Monitors chimed from every direction, phones rang almost constantly, stretchers rolled past one another with practiced precision, and conversations overlapped until they became little more than background noise. Jack had barely stopped moving since clocking in. He had just finished helping stabilize an elderly patient in respiratory distress and was updating the tracking board when a new name appeared among the incoming pediatric triage patients.
His own last name.
At first his brain didn't process it.
He frowned automatically, assuming it was another family with the same surname. It wasn't uncommon.
Then his eyes shifted to the details beneath it.
Accompanied by: Lucy.
The world seemed to narrow into a single point.
His stomach dropped so violently it almost hurt.
No.
No, no, no.
His mind filled the blanks long before reason had a chance to intervene.
Car accident on the way to school.
She'd fallen from the playground.
An allergic reaction.
A seizure.
Appendicitis.
A ruptured appendix.
Internal bleeding.
She'd stopped breathing.
His chest tightened so sharply that, for one terrifying second, it felt impossible to draw in air.
He was already moving before he'd consciously made the decision.
"Jack?"
Dana looked up from her workstation as he hurried past.
"You okay?"
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His prosthetic clicked faster against the floor as he rounded the nurses' station, weaving through stretchers and staff with an urgency that made several people instinctively step aside. Every extra second felt unbearable. His heartbeat pounded so loudly in his ears that he barely registered the voices around him.
Across the department, you were finishing charting after discharging a patient when your own eyes drifted toward the tracking board.
Your last name.
Pediatric triage.
Lucy.
Everything inside you went cold.
"No..."
The word escaped before you realized you'd spoken aloud.
Your pen slipped from your fingers onto the counter.
You didn't bother picking it up.
Someone behind you asked a question you never heard. You abandoned your chart mid-sentence and hurried out of the trauma bay, every rational thought dissolving beneath one singular, suffocating fear.
Not my baby.
Please not my baby.
You'd both spent years watching parents run into emergency departments wearing that exact expression.
The look that silently begged someone to tell them their child was okay.
Now you understood it from the inside.
Jack reached pediatric triage first.
He rounded the corner so quickly he nearly lost his footing, instinctively compensating before his prosthetic could catch awkwardly beneath him.
Then he stopped.
Lucy sat on one of the triage beds beside your mother, happily swinging her legs back and forth as she hugged her stuffed rabbit. She looked perfectly content, completely fascinated by everything happening around her.
The moment she saw him, her entire face lit up.
"Hi, Daddy!"
Jack didn't answer immediately.
He couldn't.
His breathing still hadn't caught up with him. His pulse hammered painfully against his ribs as his eyes swept over her with clinical precision born from years in emergency medicine.
Skin color okay.
Breathing normal.
Alert.
Talking.
No blood.
No bruising.
No obvious deformities.
No signs of respiratory distress.
No altered mental status.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Relief crashed into him so suddenly his knees threatened to buckle.
He had to grip the back of a nearby chair to steady himself.
"Jack?"
Your mother stood immediately, guilt already written across her face.
"I am so, so sorry. I should’ve called."
You arrived only seconds later, breathing almost as hard as Jack.
"Lucy!"
Your daughter beamed.
"Hi, Mama!"
You dropped to your knees in front of her without hesitation, your hands automatically moving through the familiar sequence every parent in emergency medicine knew by instinct. Forehead. Neck. Arms. Wrists. Face.
"What happened?"
Your mother looked apologetic.
"She was perfectly fine this morning. She'd been playing, and then all of a sudden she started holding her stomach and said she was in terrible pain. I didn't know if I should wait or..."
"You absolutely did the right thing," you assured her automatically, even as your attention remained fixed entirely on Lucy.
"Honey?"
Lucy nodded solemnly.
"It hurt."
"Where does it hurt, bug?" Jack asked.
She pointed vaguely toward the center of her stomach.
"...Here."
"How bad?"
She held up eight fingers.
"On a scale of ten..."
"...Eight."
"When did it start?"
"This morning."
"Did you throw up?"
"No."
"Feel sick?"
She hesitated.
"...Maybe."
Jack exchanged the briefest glance with you.
Neither of you relaxed.
Because children lied about vegetables.
They didn't usually lie about pain.
And even when they weren't lying, they were notoriously bad at describing it. Jack had treated smiling children with ruptured appendixes, kids who laughed while walking on fractured ankles, toddlers quietly coloring despite severe dehydration. Looking well meant almost nothing in pediatrics.
You rested a reassuring hand against Lucy's abdomen.
"I'm just going to press a little, okay?"
She nodded.
You gently palpated one quadrant.
"Does this hurt?"
"No."
You moved to another.
"How about here?"
"No."
Lower right.
"No."
Lower left.
"No."
Jack watched every tiny flicker of her expression. Or rather, the complete lack of one. She wasn't tensing beneath your touch. She wasn't guarding her stomach or curling inward instinctively. If anything, she seemed far more interested in everything happening around her than in the examination itself.
Her eyes wandered constantly around the department, following nurses rushing past, patients being wheeled down the hallway, monitors chiming, stretchers rolling by, the ambulance doors sliding open every few minutes. She wasn't frightened by any of it. She looked fascinated.
You noticed it too.
Before either of you could ask another question, Lucy turned back toward Jack, wearing the brightest smile she'd had all morning.
"So..." She tilted her head innocently. "...Can I see where Daddy works now?"
Silence settled over the four of you.
Jack closed his eyes.
Very.
Very slowly.
Your mother frowned, looking between the three of you.
"...Lucy?"
Your daughter's grin only widened.
"It worked."
Jack opened one eye.
"...What worked?"
"My tummy."
Neither you nor Jack said a word.
"It wasn't really hurting." She paused, as though she'd only just realized you weren't reacting the way she'd expected. "I just wanted to come."
For several long seconds, nobody moved.
Jack slowly lowered himself onto the chair beside her, more because his legs suddenly felt weak than because he'd intended to sit.
Because his prosthetic leg suddenly felt unsteady beneath him.
He rubbed both hands over his face, forcing out a long, shaky breath before looking back at his daughter.
"You..." His voice was rougher than he intended. "...You faked it?"
Lucy nodded proudly, completely oblivious to the emotional hurricane she'd just unleashed.
"That was the only way Grandma would bring me."
Your mother's mouth fell open.
"Oh my goodness..."
Lucy looked between the two of you with complete sincerity.
"I wanted to see where you work."
Jack let out another slow breath that sounded dangerously close to becoming a laugh. Not because anything about this was funny, but because relief had nowhere else to go.
"You scared ten years off my life."
Her smile faltered.
"...I did?"
Jack swallowed, the image of her name on the tracking board still burned into his mind.
"When I saw your name pop up..." His voice caught unexpectedly, forcing him to pause. He looked away for a moment before gathering himself enough to continue. "I thought something terrible had happened."
You nodded quietly beside him.
"I thought my little girl was hurt."
Lucy's face crumpled almost instantly. The excitement disappeared, replaced by confusion and guilt.
"I..." Her shoulders curled inward. "...I didn't know."
Of course she hadn't.
She was six years old. In her mind, she'd come up with the smartest plan imaginable. Pretend to have a stomachache. Go to the hospital. Surprise Mommy and Daddy. She'd never stopped to think about what it would feel like for two emergency clinicians to suddenly see their own child's name appear on the tracking board.
She looked down at her sneakers, twisting one toe against the floor.
"I'm sorry."
Jack watched her quietly for a long moment. Every ounce of frustration he'd felt dissolved beneath the sight of her trying so hard not to cry. Without another word, he opened his arms.
Lucy climbed into them immediately.
He wrapped her tightly against his chest, closing his eyes as he rested his cheek against her hair.
"I'm not mad."
She looked up uncertainly.
"...You're not?"
He shook his head.
"I'm relieved."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"So unbelievably relieved."
He held her for another moment before leaning back just enough to meet her eyes.
"But you cannot ever pretend to be sick like this again."
She nodded immediately.
"Okay."
"I need a real promise."
"I promise."
You moved closer until your shoulder rested against Jack's, wrapping an arm around both of them. Almost instinctively, Lucy reached for your hand with her free one.
"I'm sorry, Mama."
You squeezed her little fingers.
"I know."
"I just wanted everyone at school to know my mommy and daddy have cool jobs."
Your heart ached.
"We know, sweetheart."
"They all got to go."
You met Jack's eyes for a brief second. Sometimes the hardest part of parenting wasn't saying no. It was understanding exactly why your child wanted something so badly and still knowing the answer couldn't change.
Jack kissed the top of Lucy's head.
Jack was quiet for a moment before a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"Since you're already here..." He glanced at you, silently asking the question before either of you spoke.
You smiled back.
"I think our patient has been thoroughly examined."
Jack nodded solemnly.
"I agree."
He looked back at Lucy.
"So I'm officially discharging you."
Her eyes widened.
"You are?"
"Mhm." He reached over and gently tapped the tip of her nose. "No tummy ache. Cleared to go home with Grandma."
She giggled.
"But..." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Before you go home, I think we can spare five minutes."
Lucy's mouth fell open.
"Really?"
"We can show you the nurses' station." He pointed toward the center of the department. "My locker. Maybe the ambulance bay if there isn't anything coming in."
"And the cafeteria," you added with a smile.
Jack nodded.
"But that's it."
"No treatment rooms."
"No sick patients," you said gently.
"And you stay with one of us the entire time."
Lucy threw her arms around his neck so quickly he almost laughed.
"I promise!"
"I know you do." He hugged her back before pulling away just enough to look at her seriously. "But that doesn't change one thing."
"What?"
"If you ever feel left out again, you tell Mommy or me."
She nodded.
"You don't have to scare us to spend time with us."
The smile slipped from her face.
"...Okay."
"I mean it, bug."
"I know."
She leaned forward to hug him again, then reached for you too, nearly pulling the three of you together on the waiting room chair.
Jack caught your eye over the top of Lucy's head.
"I think she inherited our problem-solving skills."
You laughed.
"No."
"Our stubbornness."
Lucy looked up immediately.
"I heard that."
"Oh, we know," Jack said with a grin. "Trust me, we know exactly who you got it from."
"I did not fake being stubborn."
"You absolutely did."
That earned another burst of laughter, loud enough that even your mother laughed through the tears she'd been quietly wiping away.
As Lucy happily slid off Jack's lap, already asking a hundred questions about ambulances and whether nurses really kept candy in the break room, the knot in his chest finally began to loosen. The fear hadn't disappeared entirely. He wasn't sure it ever would. Seeing her name on that tracking board had unlocked a terror he hoped never to feel again.
But as he watched her bounce happily between you, clutching one of your hands and one of his as though the last twenty minutes had never happened, he found himself smiling despite everything.
He would take fake stomachaches, dramatic plans, and six-year-old schemes over seeing his daughter in one of those treatment rooms for real every single day.
summary — the worst-cared-for girl in the county keeps washing up in jack’s er, and he can’t help but start paying attention.
warnings — 19.2k. large age gap (jack’s fifty/reader’s in twenties), doctor/patient dynamic initially, power imbalance (attending/nursing student, age, life experience), yearning!jack, protective!jack, jealous!jack, and literally every single word in the book, mutual pining, slow burn, he falls first, hurt/comfort, reader shows signs of adhd but it isn’t explicit, alcohol use (recurrent drunkenness, mention of alcohol poisoning, ER, and repeated intoxication played somewhat lightly), loneliness/self isolation, low self-worth, it’s very difficult for her to accept care, lack of family support/implied estrangement, financial stress and overworking, she’s also spending an unrealistic amt of time hanging out in the ed but it’s fanfic so it’s ok, jokes about financial stress, injuries (sprains, split lip, bruising, gravel burns), medical setting, blood, referenced patient death (patient dies, off-page, Jack grieves), making out/heavy kissing, suggestiveeee content (thumb-in-mouth beat, grinding) but nothing explicit.
notes — oops sorry this fic is so so self-indulgent 🫶 i literally loved writing them tho i was thinking about them for days on end. tried to take a swing at this based on this idea i had + thank you @ker0senebunny for inspriring the shoe scene!!!! inspired by this post + my er visits where i was literally the worst patient ever
Friday and Saturday after midnight, the board filled up with the same predictable words; alcohol poisonings, bar-fight lacerations, the kids who’d taken things they couldn’t name and showed up convinced they were dying when they were mostly just twenty and having a large thought. Jack triaged it on autopilot, and he’d stopped finding any of it interesting somewhere around year seven.
Sure, sometimes there were some cases that got a mild laugh out of him or turned his head. There was a kid who’d superglued his halloween mask on his own face for a dare. The guy who’d lost a bet and swallowed something he wouldn’t name in front of his mother, who was present and furious. The occasional genuinely strange thing the human body did that still, after all these years, made Jack think huh, that’s interesting, the small grim curiosity that was about the only part of the job the years hadn’t fully sanded down. He kept those and told them to new nurses over shitty coffee at four a.m. because he supposed that was a better story than what he could say about the Middle East.
The first time you came in, he’d handed you over to Shen. You were a sprained wrist and a BAC that explained the wrist, sixteen other things were louder, and Shen was free then.
He’d clocked you for half a second on his way to a GI bleed in bay nine: girl on the gurney, one heel too high on, and one somewhere in the greater metropolitan area, some little pink lace-trimmed thing sliding off one shoulder, telling Shen with enormous seriousness that she was so sorry, she didn’t usually do this, she’d had a singular margarita. Only.
Singular. He’d categorized it under the thousand other single margaritas he’d sworn to in this department and forgotten you before he’d reached the bleed.
The second time, he didn’t take you either, but he noticed the wrist.
Same wrist. Different night — a Saturday, three weeks in, the sort of shift where the waiting room sounded like a kennel — and he caught it sideways while he reviewed another chart. It was the same left wrist, taped this time, the nails on that one hand done in some soft pinky color gone chipped at the tips as though the week itself outlasted the manicure, somebody walking you through the discharge paperwork you clearly were ignoring. Something thought for him instead of him thinking much for it, some pattern-recognition thing buried under twenty-some years of reading bodies fast, the same instinct that made him glance twice at something almost normal. A wrist that kept coming back, he supposed. A thread snagging on a nail, there and gone.
The third time, it was Shen, breezing past the station with his Dunkin, saying over his shoulder, “Frequent flyer’s back.”
He shrugged, not yet placing that you were the frequent flyer, and went to bed four.
And that — somewhere between the third time and a number he stopped keeping an honest count of — was where it stopped being a chart and became some sort of thing. A bit, he’d say. The nights the bars let out and the board lit up, he’d find himself reading the incoming names a half-second longer than triage required, and feeling something wrong in his chest when yours wasn’t in them.
Pittsburgh was notoriously interesting, Jack learned through you, in that it apparently contained an infinite supply of ways a girl could get herself in trouble. He was convinced he could’ve drawn a map of the city by your injuries. There was the ankle, of course, a recurring grievance, always the shoes, never your fault. There was one time you’d burned your hand on a curling iron getting ready tipsy and come in more upset about the makeup you’d had to redo (because of crying it off) than the blister. The night you’d gone over in a parking lot because you refused to look at the ground while walking — looking at the ground, while drunk, you informed him, was how you trip — and the time you sliced your finger open trying to shotgun a White Claw with a key because someone had bet you couldn’t. You were really proud of the last one, you’d won the bet.
You were never the same disaster twice, he had to give you that. A little too keen on busting yourself up here and there, sure, but at least it was the wrist once, then a knee that met a curb, then a memorable evening involving a fence you’d been certain you could clear. You came in apologizing — always apologizing, to him, to the nurses, once, memorably, to the wall — and you came in sweet, which was the part that got under him, because drunk people in this ER were a lot of things and sweet was rarely one of them.
“Mmm,” you hummed the fourth or fifth time, the second your eyes found him through the gap in the curtain, going boneless with relief like Jack was the cavalry and not the man who was meant to flash light into your eyes for thirty seconds. “The pretty one.”
Jack let out a huff. “Thanks, doll.”
“Doll,” you repeated, the word going gummy in your mouth. “He calls me doll.”
“Eyes open. Follow the light.”
“You call everyone that, Dr. Abbot?” you said, his name coming out in a cluster like you were losing thread of it, the Abbot dissolving into something closer to a hum.
“Sure do,” he lied. “Track the light.”
You looked at his mouth, then his hands, then back up, a slow uncoordinated sweep because your eyes had stopped reporting to anything in particular, much less what they had to. Pupils blown wide and lazy. He thumbed your eyelid up a fraction to get the light where he needed it; your lashes were clumped and starry with whatever mascara had survived the night.
He held the penlight steady and waited you out. He had nowhere to be. That was the thing about the dead hours after bars closed; the bleed had been signed up to the floor, the chest pain turned out to be a panic attack and a large energy drink, and there was just you, and the saline ticking into your arm one slow drop at a time.
“What’d you get up to tonight?” he murmured, thumb finding the pulse at your wrist, counting without meaning to.
“S’fast ‘cause you’re here,” you said, sounding very pleased with yourself.
“Sure it is. Where’d you hurt yourself tonight?”
“... stairs,” you said after a moment, like your brain had to run a few laps to get to the word.
“Oh, yeah?” He hummed. You lifted your free hand a little off the mattress, lost track of it, and dropped it back down. “How many?”
“Mm. Four?” You squinted at the ceiling. “Maybe three. I dunno. Not the Great Wall or somethin’. Promise.”
“I believe you.” He nodded, then turned your forearm to the light, finding the scrape you’d come in with. It was gravel-burn, raw, the heel of your hand and a stripe up your wrist. Nothing that needed more than cleaning. You watched him do it with your head tipped against the pillow, gone quiet so the talking had run out for a second, which never lasted.
“Should I get a better first aid kit?” you asked, then clenched your jaw for a second like you felt something was wrong with it. “S’I don’t have to bother you all the time?”
“Might be a good idea to invest,” he said. He pulled the swab through the gravel-burn slowly, and you hissed and tried to pull back the hand on reflex. “Easy.” He kept it, his grip light yet unmoving around your fingers. “Almost done. Don’t fight me.”
You hummed, like you wanted a different answer.
Jack wet his lips, shaking his head slightly. He worked the grit out of the scrape, a fleck of it catching raw skin, and he tilted your arm to the light, getting it on the second pass, and wiped it on the gauze. Your hands twitched in his, and he pressed your fingers flat to the mattress with his thumb, and they stayed.
“You’d have to do it yourself, though,” he said. “Bathroom sink at three in the morning with one hand.” He reached for fresh gauze. “You’d make a mess of it.”
You frowned at the ceiling, nodding. “Sounds a little bad.”
“It’s a lot bad.” He laid the gauze over the scrape, thumbed the tape down at the edge of your wrist slowly, smoothing it flat where it wanted to lift. His knuckle dragged once over the thin skin there, and he felt your pulse jump under it. “You’d scar, probably.” His thumb passed the chipped polish, the chunky gold ring you’d kept on, even for this. “You’ve got nice hands. Shame to wreck ‘em over the sink.”
It took you a second. “You think so?”
“Don’t wreck ‘em.”
“You like when I come in,” you said, delighted.
“What I’d like,” he said, flat, lifting his eyes to yours, “is you off the stairs and down to the one drink.” His thumb settled over the back of your hand again. “But if you’re set on flinging yourself down, then you come here. Deal?”
Your fingers had curled around two of his somewhere in there loosely, without you noticing. He felt them settle, and he held very still so as to not spook you. He chose to not acknowledge it or look at it.
“Deal,” you mumbled, somewhere far off, probably forgetting the front half of the terms.
He let it go at that, taping down the last edge and turning over your wrist once more to be sure of it. Then he set your hand back on the mattress, yours still loosely hooked through his, going nowhere.
“Anyone out there to get you home?” he asked.
“Dunno.” Your nose scrunched. “Was gonna Uber.”
He sighed through his nose. “Where’s that girl — the one you came in with last time? Why don’t you call her?”
“That’s annoying, Dr. Abbot,” you said, almost in a whine.
“Yeah?” He kept looking at the wall behind you. “What’s annoying about a ride home?”
“Calling people. Making it a thing.” Your free hand flopped vaguely. “Then they gotta come get you, and they’re all — have to be nice about it, but you can tell.” Your nose scrunched. “It’s a whole production.”
He pressed his thumb flat back over your hand where your fingers were still caught in his.
“Oh? Nothing annoying about it, sweetheart. You call, she comes. Simple as that.” He turned to face you. “But if you insist on it, I’m not signing you off until you’re good enough to go home alone. So you call your girl, or you sit right here and keep my department company till you’ve cleared enough that I’ll sign off on it.”
Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him as though he’d spoken a different language. “Second one?”
“Obviously you pick that one,” he said.
He pulled the stool over and sat. For a few minutes, he had nowhere to be, and now, apparently, neither did you.
It wasn’t that you simply didn’t let people help you, either. Jack had never seen anyone so committed to being simply fine. Jack had met the stoic kind before; construction guys who walked in with rebar through a forearm acting like it was a small inconvenience; old ladies who’d been having a heart attack since last Tuesday and didn’t want to be a bother. But Jack had always believed those people to be suppressing, and you were just convinced, somewhere down in the foundation, that needing anything was an imposition.
That was also why the shoes confused him so much.
“This is the same damn ankle,” Jack said, turning your foot in his hands, watching the swelling outside of it.
“You don’t have to remind me. Most men buy me a drink before they get this familiar with my ankles,” you said, then groaned as you looked at his eyes going over the swelling.
“No drink.” He pressed along the bone. “Not my fault you keep handing your ankle to me.”
You tipped your head back against the pillow, groaning again. “Dr. Abbot, they look so bad. I feel like I’m pregnant.”
“I can do a quick blood draw and we can rule it out.” His palm flattened on the mattress beside your feet, leaning over to meet your eyes again. “But I think it’s those heels of yours, doll.”
Your eyes snapped to him. “Don’t be a dick, Dr. Abbot.”
He tilted his head, then pointed at the laminated paper stuck to the wall. “Aggressive behavior of any kind toward healthcare workers is a felony.”
“Then arrest me, doctor. I’ll die on this hill — and they’re not heels.” Your lips pursed, and the corner of your mouth kicked up. “Cuffs may be a little forward for a date, but I won’t stop you.”
“Aren’t you just so sweet,” he muttered. “What are they, then?”
“Bottega Lido Mules.”
The words meant absolutely nothing to him — could’ve been a pasta dish, a town in Italy, a wine — but they clearly did to you, so he remembered them.
“That’s nice, doll. They’ll be the reason I see you again.”
“Maybe, ‘cause I’ll never stop wearing them.”
You said the words your whole face, hands coming off the mattress to make the point with a drunk theatrical conviction as you argued something that genuinely mattered to you. Jack thought, not for the first time since he’d met you, that you’d have been magnetic stone-sober at a dinner party, the kind of girl that made a table lean in. It was just that he only ever got the 3am version.
At least you had a hill you’d die on and didn’t apologize for, Jack supposed.
“You married, Doctor?” you asked as he started icing your ankle.
“No,” he said, holding your eyes for a second. “Why — you got a boyfriend I should know about, then?”
He almost wished you did have one. He wished that there were somebody whose name you’d have said just now who’d be in the waiting room with his jaw tight because you’d gone and hurt yourself again. Somebody who’d take care of the ankle when you walked out of here in crutches, who took the keys when you had too many. He wished there was a person in the world whose job you were.
And you weren’t his first patient who he’d understood to not have someone taking care of them. He knew that if he carried them all, he’d drown inside a month if he tried to be the person nobody else had been. He’d never once had it turn into a wish, standing here with an ice pack in his hand going slack in his hand because he was too busy resenting someone who didn’t exist for not being in the waiting room.
He wondered when down the line you’d stopped letting the people in your life around you be the ones you could call, became a girl who said sorry for bleeding and had nobody, nobody, and looked at him like he was the warmest place she’d been in all week.
You laughed. “If I had a boyfriend, would I be laying it on so thick?”
He let out a breath through his nose, despite himself. “Stop wearing the heels, doll. Not nice to not have a foot.”
The next time you came in, it was a Thursday. With some pileup of bad luck, you came in somewhere past one with a split lip and a story about a dance floor he only half got the shape of. Jack hadn’t even been assigned to you yet, he’d just seen your name on the board, and reassigned himself quietly enough that dared anyone on shift to comment. Nobody did.
“Lip’s not bad,” he said, tilting your chin up under the light, thumb at your jaw. The split was already going fat and shining at the center of your lower lip, and he found his eyes stayed on your mouth a second past the part that was his job, on the soft unhurt swell of it under the hurt. He moved his thumb. “Doesn’t need anything. You bit it when you fell down. That’s all.”
“S’throbbing, Doctor,” you mumbled, the word coming around muffled around the split.
“It’ll throb. You’ve got a swollen lip.” He let go of your jaw and reached for the penlight. “Eyes on me.”
“I was so cute before this,” you said through a groan.
The huff that came out of him was almost a laugh, dragged out against his own will, and he shared a fleeting look with Bennet — a fairly new nurse — who had tilted his head briefly and was too afraid to meet your eyes.
“Alright. Still the prettiest girl I’ve treated tonight,” Jack said when your brows had furrowed together.
“You treat other girls?”
“It’s a hospital,” he said. “Few hundred a week.”
Your face looked wounded. “Few hundred.”
He leaned in slightly, faking a whisper. “You’re my top three.”
You were further gone than usual tonight. He’d noticed it the second he came around the curtain, the way your head was having a hard time holding itself up, the loose unmoored swim of your eyes that took longer than it should to find his finger. A piece of hair had come loose and stuck to the gloss at the corner of your mouth and you hadn’t the coordination to deal with it, and he had the unprofessional impulse to, and didn’t.
Bennet kept working the blood pressure cuff up your arm, half an eye on you, half on his own work.
“Track the light,” Jack murmured. “Slowly.”
“Too bright.”
“Tough.” The corner of his mouth moved up slightly. “You can bat your lashes at me when we’re done. Right now, I need ‘em open.”
You batted them anyway, slowly and theatrically, just to be a problem about it. They were long, and the theater of it was so ridiculous, and Jack had to bite down the inside of his cheek to keep his face flat to wait you out, until you gave up and tracked the finger. Your pupils were reactive, equal, and lagging half-a-beat behind. He clicked the light off.
“Too bright,” you said again.
“It’s off,” he drawled, chuckling.
Bennett thread a line into the back of your free hand, and you watched him sink it with a drowsy focus.
“Why’s it go in the back of the hand?” you mumbled. “More nerves there. Hurts more. Why not the — inside. By the elbow.” You tilted your head slightly to let your eyes wander to the crook of your arm. “Bigger vein. The antec—antecubital,” you said carefully, sounding out each syllable, afraid of messing it up. You wet your lips and turned to face him, then Bennet. “Why’s nobody use the good one?”
Jack pursed his lips and looked at you for a moment.
“Saves the good one,” he said, catching up, eyes going back to your chart. “AC vein blows easily when somebody’s moving around, and you —” He tipped his head at you, raising a brow, the squirming drunk of you. “ — Are gonna move around. Back of the hand’ll hold. I’d rather you be sore than re-stuck twice ‘cause you couldn’t sit pretty for thirty seconds.” He paused as he saw your eyes glaze over. He sighed. “Ask me how I know that about you.”
You’d gone busy, lips moving slightly like you were repeating it back to yourself so it’d stick, and Jack felt something in his chest shift a degree as he watched you do it.
He sighed, dragging a palm over the lower half of his face. “Where’d you learn that, then?”
“School,” you said to the ceiling, a small hint of pride taking over your voice. “M’gonna become a nurse. Gonna be good at it.”
Bennet snorted, finishing the tape. “Gonna be patching up drunk girls just like you then, huh,” he said. “Full circle.”
Jack watched the pride go out of your face slowly, like a house losing its power. Your chin dropped and your eyes slid from Bennet to the curtain as your hand fisted in your lap.
“Yeah,” you said, almost curiously. “Guess so.”
Jack’s jaw clenched involuntarily. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, not really. It was a nothing joke, the sort the whole department tossed off a hundred times a shift, the gallows shorthand that kept you sane at two in the morning. Jack had made worse about patients who’d never know, about drunks who wouldn’t remember, about exactly this, exactly girls like you. He’d just never had one of them go quiet before, watched the bright thing fold itself up and get tucked away.
“Bennet, you done?”
“Yeah, line’s good — ”
“Then go take vitals on six. I’ve got her.”
Bennet went, and it was just the two of you again.
Jack pulled the stool over with his foot and sat — lower than he had to, level with you, taking himself out of the column of people standing over you tonight and telling you what you were — and waited until your eyes came up off the curtain and found him.
“There she is,” he said when your eyes found him. He turned your taped hand over under the light like there was still something to do with it. There wasn’t, he just wanted his hands on something of yours while he undid what the room had done. “Look at me. Nothing good on the curtain.”
“How’s school treating you then, doll?” he asked, aiming for offhand and not steering you off whatever Bennet had knocked loose.
“Hard,” you said, but a small smile had crawled up your lips. “But I like it.” Your shoulders came up loosely.
“Yeah?” He kept his thumb moving over the back of your hand slowly, like he could press the bright thing back up to the surface where it belonged. “I think you’ll be good at it.”
It was such a strange feeling, Jack distantly noticed, to feel this utter conviction. He was rarely sure of anything good anymore. Sure of plenty else; sure within ten seconds of a bad rhythm which way the night was going to break, sure of which of the kids wheeled in at 2 am he’d see again and which he wouldn’t, a grim accumulated certainty that had nothing in it he’d ever wanted to be right about.
The job had made him an expert on the downslope of things. He could read the exact moment a body wanted to quit better than he could read most of what people said to his face. And here you were, and he was so sure of the other direction, and he felt the same weight of it behind his sternum, except it had swung and pointed at something good for once. You were going to be excellent at this.
It bothered him a little, how much he wanted to be there to see it, whoever you were going to be once you stopped washing up on his floor on the worst nights of your week. He’d known you, what, a handful of shifts as a frequent flyer, a bit, a name his eyes unconsciously caught on. He had no business feeling certain of anything about you, and he was, and he’d let himself feel it.
Your eyes found him properly again. “Liar.”
He huffed out a short laugh. “Tell you what. You finish that program, you get through all that mess where they try to drown you.” His thumb smoothed over the tape. “Then you come find me here and we’ll see if we can get you here with me on nights. Clearly you’re at your finest then.”
It was maybe something silly to say, and Gloria may have his head for it. He had no actual standing to say anything like it, even though you’d never remember it. He knew better; hope was a controlled substance in his field and he was stingy with it on purpose, because he’d seen the withdrawal.
But God, he’d love to see the part of you he could only catch glimpses of through the wreck like a light under the door. He’d love to be the one who taught you which arrogance to keep and which to let the job take away. He’d love, plainly and without anywhere to put it, to watch you become who you’d just told him you were going to be.
It was a lot of loving for a girl who’d been in his department and wouldn’t recall his face or a word of this by tomorrow morning. He was getting sentimental, or old, or both; the years stacked up behind his eyes until he started mistaking everything for a second chance at something.
Your lips moved. “So I can patch girls up like myself?”
“Nah.” He kept looking at your hand. “You can patch up old bastards like me, too.” Then, he pointed his index finger of his free hand at you, mock-stern. “Gotta make sure you’re not at point three BAC, though. Will have to do that work to get you working with me.”
“Mm.” Your eyes flickered up to the ceiling, weighing it with the enormous gravity of the very drunk as though he’d posed a very real proposition to you. “Okay. For you, I’d stop.”
“For me?” he repeated, mostly to buy himself a second.
“Mm-hm.” You turned your face to him and said it with such ease, no glance away to leave yourself an exit. “You’re worth not drinkin’ over.”
Your words went in clean, the way the best and worst things do, under the ribs where he kept nothing armored because nobody ever aimed there. Jack felt the back of his neck go warm and was abruptly, intensely grateful for the light that wouldn’t display it.
Jack huffed, having to look away at the floor then. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all year, and you’re not gonna remember it. Hell of a thing.”
When he made himself look back up, you’d tipped your face into the pillow, watching him from the side with your eyes gone soft and heavy, the smile arriving unguarded across your mouth. The split tugged one corner of it, that small wince folded right into the sweetness, and you seemed to not feel it.
He had the sudden, idiotic wish to have met you on a night you’d remember. To have perhaps caught you when you fell at the bar, to have been the stranger whose arm happened to be there, not the doctor it eventually routed you to. Perhaps he could’ve been a man in your night instead of a stop in it.
He shook his head. “You’re trouble, you know that, right? Saying all these nice things. What’s a man supposed to do with that?”
He’d have liked to have been remembered, was the bottom of it. By you specifically. He’d spent decades being the man people were grateful to and glad to forget.
“What’s your name, Doctor Abbot?” you asked, drowsy.
He looked down at his badge, then back up at you. “Take a wild guess?” Then, he added, “You never looked at my badge?”
“Sorry. Didn’t read.”
“Don’t apologize to me. It’s Jack.”
Jack was doing his usual rounds this Friday, on a rush from a chest pain in two that turned out to be a panic attack and a kid in five who’d put a kitchen knife through the meat of his own palm trying to halve a frozen bagel when Ellis caught him by the elbow at the board.
“Heads up, Abbot,” she said, grinning. She nodded toward triage, toward the doors. “Bed three. Your, uh—” The grin tipped over, delighted with itself. “Girlfriend’s got a boyfriend.”
It was a running thing now. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time you’d washed up on his shift the staff had started on it — your frequent flyer, your stray, your girl’s back — and Jack had stopped bothering to deny it because that’d only feed it, and he’d learned not denying it had a way of starving the joke faster.
He looked, and was immediately able to notice what you weren’t doing more than what you were; you weren’t grinning at the ceiling, weren’t doing that boneless sweet-relief thing. You were sitting up too straight on the bed, hands folded in your lap, and there was a guy fitted to the chair beside you with one arm slung along the back of yours and a hand resting on your knee like he’d put it there to mark the spot. He was saying something low to the side of your face, and you were nodding at it, and not looking at anybody.
Jack felt a muscle tick in his jaw, immediately not feeling anything nice about the situation. “I got it — you mind taking six for me? I’ll come in a couple minutes.”
By the time he’d made it to you, he’d settled his face into something unbothered. You could read it, he’d realized at some point during your frequent visits, and that only meant he had to be on his better behavior around you.
“Evening.” He pulled the curtain half-round behind him, glanced at the chart clipped to the foot of the bed, then at you. “What’d we do tonight?”
“She caught an elbow,” the guy answered. “Some asshole on the dance floor. It’s nothing — she’s fine. She’s just a lightweight, aren’t you — ” A little squeeze on your knee. “ — didn’t even really need to come in, but y’know. Better safe.”
You weren’t a lightweight, he immediately wanted to correct. He’d seen you put away enough over the months to know your tolerance better than this guy apparently did; he knew the difference between the nights you were genuinely wrecked and the nights you came in clearer than you let on, and looking at you, tonight, you weren’t anywhere near the state implied.
“You,” he said, tipping his chin in your direction. “Not him. Where’d it get you?”
You lifted your hand up from your lap and touched your cheekbone, movement slow, and Jack stepped in and tipped your head up toward the light with two fingers under your chin, thumb resting just shy of the scrape. The skin had gone dark along the bone, tender, an elbow’s worth of it. Nothing that needed more than an ice and a night, but you were still holding still under his hand and not meeting his eyes, and that he didn’t like at all.
“It’s okay,” you said. “Really. S’not even — ”
“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart. Gettin’ paid for this.” His eyes flicked down to yours and caught, holding it there a second with a small question in the rise of a brow, before he went back to the bone, thumb tracing the edge of the bruise so light you barely felt it. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth at the sight. “Follow my finger. Eyes only.”
You followed, pupils fine and equal. No concussion in it.
“She’s fine, I told you,” the guy said from the chair, a little laugh under it like he was inviting Jack in on something. “Hardly. She bounces back.”
Jack clicked the penlight off and turned to the side. “Gonna need the room.”
“I’ll stay.” The hand went back to your knee. “I’m all good here.”
“Can’t clear a head strike with people in the room. You get it.” Jack tilted his head to the side, raising a shoulder. “Liability. Coffee machine’s down the hall. Give me two minutes with my patient.”
The easy smile on the guy’s lips went thin around the edges, looking for a thing to push against and not finding it. He stood up slow, making a show of it, squeezing your knee and letting you know he’ll be back in a minute, babe, a hand trailing your shoulder on the way past, all of it aimed less at you and more at Jack holding the curtain. Jack pressed his lips in a thin line as he met the guy’s eyes.
The second the curtain closed behind him, a breath left you, tiny and involuntary, and your shoulders came down in the empty room.
“Sorry, Dr. Abbot,” you murmured. “I keep being a mess at this place.” You took in a short, almost shaky breath. “Sorry.”
“None of that,” he almost grumbled, penning your chart. “Your folks down here, sweetheart?”
“No,” you said to your lap, picking the edge of the blanket. “Back home. A few states over.” You let out a laugh. “Just me out here. S’nice.”
Jack forced a small smile, having to look at the ceiling while you looked down at your lap, shaking his head, more of an action for himself than for you. He pulled the stool over with his foot and sat, getting level with you.
“What’s goin’ on with you, huh?” he asked quietly, making sure there was nothing sharp in his tone at all. “Honest. I like seeing you but not like this bruised up with a guy who talks for you.” His thumb found your wrist. “So talk to me. What’s going on?”
“He’s fine,” you said. “Just likes being around.”
Jack tilted his head, dipping his head to meet your eyes that were still facing down. “Not the important part of the question, and you know it.”
You sighed. “Sorry, Jack.”
“Quit it. The only thing I want from you tonight is some honesty, alright?”
A corner of your lip kicked up, even though the dimness in your eyes held. “Your eyes look really pretty tonight.”
“Heard that one before,” he drawled. “Had ‘em fifty years. Try a new one.”
“Your neck’s going red,” you mumbled, fingers reaching up to press flat to the warm of his skin, right there below the jaw, like you just had to feel whether it was true.
Jack stilled. Your fingers were cold on his neck. He distantly registered his pulse was probably going under your fingertips, and you’d feel it if you held there a second longer. And then you caught yourself, hand snapping back to the blanket.
“Sorry. Sorry — I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that — ” you said, the words coming out in a taut string.
“Easy,” he said, voice coming out rough. He swallowed. “Got me all flustered and now you’re gettin’ all shy?”
You huffed a small laugh, your hand still fisted in the blanket where you’d snatched it back. “I’m not allowed to do that. I don’t think.”
“Had no idea you knew how to behave,” he leaned a little back from the stool, crossing his arms. “Should I be worried about that guy out there?”
“Jealous, Doctor?”
He rolled his eyes slightly, not responding.
You sighed when you realized he wasn’t taking the bait. “He’s fine. He just likes being around.”
He stood off the stool and reached for the discharge clipboard at the foot of the bed.
“Whatcha doing there?”
“My job.” He clicked the pen. “Clearing you. You’ve got no concussion. You’re not dying tonight.” He scrawled on the paper. “And I’m writing you a script for the bruise and a code for an Uber — ”
“No, no,” you said immediately. “Please don’t do that.”
He raised his hand with the pen, palm open. “You never let me Uber you back when you’re alone. At least have this.” Your face scrunched up, and he could practically feel the guilt building in you. “Don’t need to use it now. Or ever. You can keep it for whenever.” He set the slip on your lap before you could push it back at him, the matter completely closed on his end. “Goes in your phone case. You can forget it exists until you need it.”
“You can’t keep handing me stuff — ”
“Department’s got a whole stack. You’re not special.” He capped the pen, though the corner of his mouth made it slightly visible that his words were false. “Don’t flatter yourself, doll.”
You looked down at the slip, your thumb worrying the edges of it. “I don’t like taking things.”
“I noticed. A few hundred times now.” He tucked the pen back in his scrub pocket, and his voice came down a notch. “If it really makes you feel so bad, though, then maybe we can start taking care of ourselves so you don’t have to keep ending up here?”
Jack was in the middle of hand-off, Robby doing his thing before Robby left and did whatever the hell he did. They were at the board, Robby running down the floor. It was six-fifteen in the ugly hour, the in-between where the day shift was dragging itself toward the door and the night hadn’t started biting yet, the light through the ambulance doors gone gold and slanted and almost decent for once.
And then the doors slid, and you came through them. Jack’s attention peeled to you the second your shape entered the room, except this was wrong, he distantly registered. It was daylight and six in the evening and you were on your own two feet, upright and, assumedly, sober and walking in through the front like a person as opposed to a patient. You were wearing a jacket that swallowed you, and he assumed underneath it was shorts of some sort. He could see a stripe of navy cotton peeking from under the collar of your jacket as you adjusted a tote bag on your shoulder.
You looked, frankly, like a completely different species from the one he scraped off bed four on weekends. The jacket was too big — his first thought was that it was a man’s, and his second thought, which he didn’t care for, was about whose — sleeves shoved up to your forearms, a stripe of soft navy cotton on the collar, and below it bare legs and shorts and sneakers that had likely never seen the inside of a club. Your hair was up and a little damp at the temple and your face was scrubbed clean.
You looked like somebody’s whole good day, he thought. You looked around around the waiting room with slightly widened eyes, a lost expression coating your features like you’d built up a lot of nerve to walk in here and had no idea what to do with it.
“ — and the tox screen is still pending, so don’t let them,” Robby was saying.
“Mhm,” Jack said, attention already halved.
And Bennet, breezing past the triage desk with cheerful obliviousness, caught your figure and said, out loud, “Don’t tell me you’ve started day drinking. It’s barely past six, you gotta pace yourself — ” He let out a small laugh at his own joke, and kept walking, and didn’t see the way it landed.
Your body stiffened, and you looked like a deer in headlights. Your mouth opened, some sort of flustered apology forming, he was sure.
Jack let out a short groan, shaking his head. He set the tablet on the counter, already moving to cross the floor toward you. “Finish the hand-off with Shen. I gotta go deal with something.”
Robby said something at his back — deal with what? — but Jack was already gone, crossing the floor slowly but somehow still eating the distance fast, and he watched you spot him coming and watched the relief crash over your face. Except you were sober now, in the daylight, and your whole face was going soft and grateful and just slightly wrecked at the sight of him.
He stopped a couple feet short of you, closer than a doctor, further than he stood to you at night. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands — there was no chart to hold (he should’ve brought the tablet) or wrist to take or a penlight to shine — so he clasped them behind his back, and tilted his head to get a better look at you.
“Hi,” you breathed.
“Hey,” he said, eyes doing a quick once-over to make sure you really didn’t have any new injuries.
You shifted the tote under his gaze and clutched whatever was in the bag a little tighter.
“Jack —” you started, stopped, like the name had come out wrong. “ — Dr. Abbot.” You winced, pinching your eyes shut for a second. “Jack?” you tried to say again, smaller, your eyes flicking up to check his face to check if you’d overstepped. “Sorry, I don’t know which — ”
“Jack’s great.” His mouth tugged up, despite himself. “You’ve called me a lot worse. Jack’s a step-up.”
You let out a startled little laugh, your mouth coming over your mouth like you could catch it, as your body eased a degree.
“I’m sorry — I don’t — God, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry.”
“You know how many times you’ve apologized to me? Quit it.” He rubbed a finger over his lips. “What’s got you here today, then?”
“Um, I came to see you.” He raised a brow, and you let out a short breath, then continued, “I might not remember a lot of it, but I remember you took really good care of me. And my friends who came in with me sometimes said you took really good care of me.” The words came out softer now, flowing, more earnest. “Even though I was a mess. Especially when. So I just wanted to —” You shrugged, smiling slightly. “ — come say thanks.”
Jack felt the complete warmth of you land somewhere he kept no armor. “It’s the job,” he said quickly, before he could stop himself. “You didn’t have to come down here for that. That’s — it’s what we do. Anybody on shift would’ve done the same.”
Your expression faltered for a moment, and your eyes dropped to the tote at your side as your shoulders came in. You shook your head, a small motion, then smiled again.
“Right. No — yeah, of course.” You chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it a — I know it’s your job.” You shifted the bag, then shifted your weight from one foot to another. “Still, though. You did, so I wanted to.”
Jack already wanted to take his words back, but he couldn’t, so he just shook his head. “Hey, you’re my problem, though. So thank you. For the thanks. We’re even.”
Your shoulders eased and you nodded. “Well, I also have something for you.” You hauled a container out of your tote and held it out to him with both hands before you could chicken out. “It definitely doesn’t make up for all of the times you helped me.” You looked down at the container. “And I don’t know if you’re lactose intolerant, or have a peanut allergy or anything. I’m sorry if you do — I can — ”
“I’ve got a cast-iron everything. The cookies won’t kill me.” When you pushed the container further to him, he took it off your hands, eyes quickly scanning the round chocolate chip cookies, forcing a smile down. He swallowed whatever had lodged in his throat.
“These are homemade?” He weighed the container in both hands, absurdly. You nodded. He swallowed whatever on earth had lodged in his throat at that.“Didn’t have to do all that for me.”
“I wanted to,” you said quickly. “I wasn’t sure how the food here is, so thought it might be a nice change.”
“Worse than you’re imagining,” he said, then tipped his head to the side as the memory crawled into his brain, uncalled for. “You’ve actually thrown a sandwich across the room.”
Your palm came up to your mouth, and you let out a muffled, “I’m so sorry.”
Jack snorted, shaking his head. Then, after a moment, he cleared his throat before it could get away from him. He looked back toward the board, then at you, knowing time was slipping and he’d have to go back to work and you’d have to go somewhere else, most likely.
“You got finals or anything coming up soon?” he asked.
Your lips curved down, and you nodded. “Yeah, in a couple weeks.”
“Am I gonna be seeing you getting wheeled in wasted?”
“I want to say no,” you said, smiling a little crooked. “I’m working on it. But I’ve said that before and ended up here. So.” You shrugged, lips jutting out like you were also unimpressed with yourself. “Ask me again in a couple weeks, I guess. I’d like it if you didn’t, though.”
“Then quit doing the hard nights alone,” he said, leaning in just slightly. “You keep yourself off the stairs, and you can come bother us instead here with a textbook.” He raised a brow as he held your eyes. “We’ve got a family room that’s almost always empty at night.”
“I couldn’t — ”
“Won’t be a bother. Trust me. You’d be silly not to use people’s help when they’ve clawed through the same exams to get the badge. You get stuck, somebody’ll know it cold.” He shrugged. “Half of ‘em are bored out of their minds some nights. You’d be doing us a favor.”
You let out a breath, brows pinching together. “That’s — yeah.” You let out a short laugh, looking away for a second. “I’d like that. A lot. Thank you, really. As long as you don’t mind.”
“This is a teaching hospital, doll. I don’t mind, so long as you don’t mind the company. Might be nice for me, too.”
You smiled and for a moment, neither of you moved to end it. Then you shifted the tote back up your shoulder, and Jack felt the pull to keep you here one more second before he could stop himself.
“Go home,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll be looking for you. So actually turn up, don’t make me look for nothing.”
The whole sun of you came up at that, stunned, like you hadn’t expected to be looked for by anyone. Jack felt the ground go quietly out from under him, the vertigo of having reached for a person’s happiness on purpose and connected, of being, for once, the cause of a face doing that. He’d gotten so used to delivering news that took the light out that he’d forgotten it ran the other way, too.
“I’ll turn up. I promise.”
He nodded, clearing his throat and turning for the board, bidding you a throaty goodbye.
“She’s the girl that everyone on night talks about?” Robby asked immediately, falling into step beside him.
Jack looked at him sideways, shaking his head. “You got something to say, too?”
“No,” Robby said, rubbing his palm at his chin like he was holding something in. “You like her or something?”
Jack halted for a second, pointing his index at Robby as he lowered his chin. “You shut up. She’s gonna be a nurse.”
“Oh, yeah,” Robby laughed. “Looks like she’s gonna be your nurse, old man. You’ll need it soon enough.”
Thank god you did turn up. Jack had the sense that maybe he’d scared you off altogether by his offer, and the line he’d toed had two very alternate spectrums: you’d find a new hospital altogether to go to in the metropolitan area after your falls or poisonings, or you’d be here a lot more often, which he still wasn’t sure would’ve been often enough.
The first time you came in, it was well past midnight and Jack had unfortunately not been able to catch you off the bat because he was in an emergency surgery. He’d walked out of it with his blood-stained surgical gown still on to be met with the sight of you by the nurse’s station, writing something down on the back of a discharge form for Lena, with another Tupperware laying on the table. He made the guess that you’d brought the whole floor something and were three minutes from having Lena eating out of your hand.
You’d found a corner of his department and made yourself a small soft home in it inside of ten minutes, and you were leaning in, and Jack stood there for a moment with the bad night still ringing in his ears and felt something unclench in his chest by a fraction.
“ — no, but you gotta,” you were saying to Lena in earnest as Jack approached closer. “If you put the brown sugar in while the butter’s still hot, it’s just — it’s a different cookie.”
“You taking the recipe, Lena?” Jack asked then, fully submerging into the knot you’d made with his charge nurse.
You turned to face him, a smile forming on your lips almost immediately, and then your eyes dropped over him, to the gown, the rust-brown stain dried dark across the front of it, the set of his shoulders.
“I am,” Lena replied. “Gonna make these for the kids.” She punctuated her sentence by holding up one of the cookies.
“Gonna make some for us, too, then?” Jack asked, raising a brow, and settled his elbows over the table. He turned his neck to face you properly, putting on his best smile.
Lena laughed shortly. “I don’t like you enough.” She pushed off the counter with some forms in hand. “Her, maybe. You can have whatever she leaves behind.” She shot you a look that was almost warm before she went and disappeared down the hall.
“Could be you someday,” Jack said, tilting his head in the direction of Lena’s chair.
You shook your head, then pushed the container in his hands. “I’ve got to graduate first. And pass pharm, which is currently — ” You patted your tote bag, textbooks heavy. “ — trying to kill me.”
Jack nodded toward the family room, placing the container on the table for a second beside him. “C’mon, then, doll. Let’s see what the pharm’s doing to you.”
“You don’t have to — ” Your eyes flicked down the gown again. “You just came out of surgery. You don’t have to help me study.”
“Actin’ like I’m the one who got the surgery,” Jack muttered, chuckling slightly. He was already peeling off the gown one-handed, balling it up to toss. He started walking, and you followed behind him. “C’mon. It’s pretty empty right now.”
It’d been pleasant that night and the few after to have five to ten minute increments of sitting with you helping you study in between doing his actual job. He’d duck in between things — a lull after discharge, the dread stretch while he waited for a CT scan, the ten minutes a trauma took to roll in once the call came — and you’d be there in the family room with your stack of cards on the couch. He’d drop on the chair across you or the couch beside you and pick up wherever you’d left off like he hadn’t left at all. Then his pager would buzz and he’d be gone, and you’d still be there an hour later when he came back, and he’d sit back down, and both of you’d pretend this was a completely normal way to study.
It’d annoyed him the first night how badly the flashcards were failing you; he’d seen you stare at the words and your eyes would glaze and slide right off it like they were greased. You’d memorized or retained nothing. And then he’d said, half to himself, a story for the why to click, and he’d watched it lock in you.
So he’d stopped quizzing you primarily off the cards and started telling you stories instead and you’d talk it back to him, reasoning out loud, getting there in the saying of it the way you never got there on the page.
The nights stacked up. The first week, you’d sat at a table across from him. By the second, you’d migrated to the chair beside him. Your coffee, the one by the far end of the table, was right by his elbow. Lena started leaving a second cup at the station when she saw you come in, his and yours, and never commented.
You’d stopped apologizing for taking up his time somewhere in there. He noticed when you’d started saving him the worst looking cookie on purpose because he’d once told you he liked the ugly ones. He’d noticed when you learned the rhythm of his pages; you’d go quiet and just hand him the next card when his eyes drifted to the board through the window of the door, would have it ready when he came back, like you’d kept his place for him while he was off keeping someone alive.
He noticed that he more than looked forward to it. Somewhere in the dead middle of a bad shift, his feet would take him toward the family room before his brain could catch up on the why of it all. An empty table on a night you didn’t come in sat wrong with him, a tiny disappointment he didn’t have anything in him to figure out why.
Sometimes, like now, you’d get distracted. Jack had learned. He’d walked into the family room to see you and Ellis folded into opposite ends of the couch, the flashcards abandoned in a fanned mess on the cushion between you, both of you mid-argument and enjoying yourselves too much.
“Poaching my study hall, Ellis?” he said, finally moving in.
Ellis pointed one stern finger in your direction as she pulled herself off the couch. “Do the crossword, not the sudoku.”
“She’s gonna make you a worse student,” Jack said to Ellis’s back.
“She’s making me a worse doctor,” Ellis said cheerfully, already at the door. “I’ve been here twenty minutes. I have patients.” She turned to you one final time. “Crossword. You’ll thank me later.”
She gave Jack a knowing look on her way out, one he didn’t want to read too much into, and she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her in one slow plunge.
You watched the door settle, and the entire wattage of your attention turned to him. He hadn’t gotten used to that, and he didn’t think he ever would. “Looks like I’ll never be a nurse.”
“Don’t say things like that.” He came around and lowered himself onto the couch beside you. “What’re you stuck on? Hit me.”
Your palm met his upper arm, a small smack.
He narrowed his eyes at you. “Hit me all you want. You’re not getting out of this.”
“But Jaaaack,” you drawled, tipping your head back on the couch. “Not here to study today.”
His eyes flickered over to your form briefly as he gathered the cards and squared them. “Oh, no? What’re you here for then?”
“Dunno.” You pulled your knees up to the couch. “Didn’t wanna be at mine. And work was a lot and boring.” You turned to face him then, a small smile growing on your lips. “Thought I’d bother yours instead.”
He set the squared deck on his knee. “Lucky me.”
He’d caught it, though, how you’d folded the sad thing in the middle of the sentence where it’d draw the least attention and moved on before it could sit. He let it move on, but he kept it. The image of you on a Tuesday, work behind you, and the choice you’d made was to drive to a hospital rather than go home to your own quiet. He was getting a picture of what that quiet looked like and learned that he didn’t like it very much.
“Work was boring, huh,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine what a fun day looked like as a waitress. “You working more?”
“Mm. Saturday girl quit, so now I’m on Saturdays, too.” You picked at your sock. “S’okay. Tips are good. I learned that old guys tip better when you call them ‘sir.’”
He huffed. “Do they?”
“Huge. It’s a cheat code.” You tilted your head at him, smiling shyly. “You’d tip well, I think. You’d overcompensate.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and get profiled by you in the only few minutes where I can catch my breath.” He held the card up, front to himself. “And I tip twenty-five percent like every functioning adult, thank you.”
You groaned. “Where can I get tipped more than that?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
“I do. I do. I’m a broke student. Point me to the money — where should I apply?” You shifted on the couch, fully facing him now, the cards apparently abandoned for the moment. “C’mon. You’ve lived a hundred years. You’ve gotta know where I can make some quick cash.”
“You’re sweet to me, doll,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. He set the cards down and looked at you, genuinely considering it now. He tried to ignore the fact that you likely had money troubles and tried to think about how he could actually help. “Define quick.”
“Like — by next Thursday.”
“Legally?”
“No.”
“Legally, you can sell plasma. Twice a week, they pay you, you sit there with a juice box.”
Your nose scrunched. “I don’t love needles in me sober.”
“You’re gonna be a nurse.”
“In other people. That’s totally different.” You waved it off. “Next. What else?”
“Sleep studies pay you to sleep. Egg donation pays a whole lot but it’s a whole process, not a Thursday deal.” He was ticking them off on his fingers, now fully committed. “Medical research’ll pay you to test things. Phase-one trials. You take an experimental drug and they watch you for side effects.”
“That’s the one.” You sat up. “How much?”
“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I bring you in here to keep you from blacking out. I’m not gonna have you volunteering to get poisoned for a quick four hundred bucks.” He pointed at you. “Maybe start laying on the ‘sir’ a little too thick from now on.”
“Sir.” You tested on him directly, dropping your voice, leaning in an inch, lashes going slow. “Could you help me out, sir? Tips have been so slow, sir.”
He turned his face away from you, now making himself look out the window. “I’m not entertaining this.”
“Oh, but sir.” You’d fully abandoned the cards now, scooting closer, a hand under your chin, the picture of innocence. “I’m just a girl. A poor, hardworking girl trying to be a nurse. Don’t you want to help me out, sir?”
“I am trying.” He pulled up the flashcards. “If it’ll help, I’ll bring my SWAT buddies into your place and they can run up a tab.” He waved a card in front of your face, trying to get your attention back to it. “You do this, I’ll have eight cops eating mozzarella sticks in your section by Friday, overtipping ‘cause I saved their lives. Won’t even have to call ‘em sir.”
“Right. No, that’s — ” You let out a little laugh too quickly, eyes widening at his words, and you took the card out of his hand mostly to have something to do with yours. “You don’t have to do that. Obviously. I was kidding — ” You batted the whole thing away with a shake of your head. “God. No. I’m okay, I promise. I was kidding.”
“I’m half-kidding,” he said, raising a brow. “I do know those guys. It’s no skin off me. But it’s okay.”
He let the offer sit like that, and he saw you pinch your eyes shut. He watched the whole thing happen on your face, the small involuntary recoil you always had when anyone offered you real kindness. You were bad at it. For a girl who lied so charmingly about how much she drank and how her night went, you had absolutely no poker face for being cared about. You had not the first idea how to hide it.
He found it unbearably endearing.
You opened your eyes and looked a little caught, a little sheepish as your thumb worried the corner of the card.
“You’re a strange girl,” he mumbled, fond, before he could stop it. “You know that?”
“Shit — Jack,” you said through a small laugh, shaking your head. “I don’t — I’m — ” You pressed your lips together and your shoulders came up almost to your ears in a stiff shrug. “Is there anything I can do for you? I can’t just accept — all your help.”
He snorted. “What help? I give you a study room and review flash cards.”
“Let me do something. I’m a good cleaner — ”
His head went back slightly, shaking his head. “You’re really not.”
“Okay,” you continued, rallying. “A dog? Guys like you always have dogs they don’t walk ‘cause of their hours. I can walk dogs.”
“No dog.” He raised his hand when he saw your mouth move again, stopping you. “You pay me back by passing your boards. You can pay me back plenty if you end up working here, doing good at the job.”
You went quiet for a second. “That’s just me doing my own thing. That’s not real.”
“That’s real to me.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just made your whole future the price of his kindness. “I get a good nurse out of it someday.” He pulled himself off the couch. “And now I gotta go. Floor’s not gonna run itself.”
“Boo,” you said, pulling the entire deck on your lap now. “You’re the worst study partner. You leave constantly.”
Tonight, Jack had come into the family room after leaving you for a longer stretch of time than usual — a multi-vehicle situation that had eaten two hours and most of his patience — and found the studying had long since lost.
You’d migrated to the couch at some point. The textbook was open face-down on the cushion beside you like a small tented roof, your flashcards fanned across the middle seat, and you were folded in the corner with your knees pulled up and cheek mashed into the worn armrest, fighting your eyes and losing completely. You’d dimmed the overhead lights, lighting the lamp in the corner, the one nobody used, throwing everything low and gold.
He paused in the doorway. “You awake?”
“Mhm. Need a cat nap, though,” you murmured.
Jack snorted, shutting the door behind him as he walked closer to you. “How far’d you get?”
“Far enough.” Then, you added, “Cat nap.”
“Sayin’ it like I’m gonna not let you have one.”
Your eye cracked open a sliver, tracked him, then fell shut again. “Feel like you’re gonna make me do more cards.”
He toed the leg of the coffee table aside, reached down, and started clearing your mess off the cushions. He lifted the textbook and shut it around the receipt you’d jammed as a bookmark; gathered the flashcards and squared them in his palm; capped the highlighter and pocketed it. You watched the cleanup through one half-open eye, not lifting a single finger, your cheek staying flat to the armrest.
“There. No more cards. You’re done for tonight, doll.”
“Hooray,” you mumbled.
He nudged your socked foot where it had crept up across the cushion. “C’mon. Budge up a second. Don’t want you wrecking your neck sleeping like that.”
You made a small sound of protest but you went, peeling your cheek off the armrest with reluctance. There was a crease pressed into your skin where the fabric seam had been and your hair was flat on one side and mushed on the other. You blinked up at him, swaying where you sat, eyes glassy and unfocused in the gold lamplight.
He sank into the space he’d cleared, the cushion dipping, tipping the two of you a fraction into each other. That was all the invitation your body apparently needed, because you folded into him without a beat of thought — too tired to second-guess it, he supposed — your temple finding the warm of his shoulder, your whole side melting against his. You drew your knees up and tucked them against his thigh. Your hand came to rest on his chest, palm flat, fingers spreading once before they went still. You exhaled after a moment, long and slowly, and burrowed your nose into his neck.
Jack stilled.
“Ten minutes,” you murmured, the words barely coming out as words.
He took his arm off the back of the couch and settled it around your back, broad hand spanning between your shoulder blades and drawing you that last fraction deeper into him. You went boneless with it, a small contended hum slipping out of you.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he tipped his head down a fraction to say into your hair, “Been doin’ really well, y’know that, sweetheart?”
You hummed, the sound of it vibrating against his throat, your fingers curling the faintest bit in his scrubs. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Gonna be a good nurse,” he murmured, thumb moving once along your shoulder.
“Gonna work with you,” you mumbled, three-quarters gone. “You said.”
“Mhm.”
“Holdin’ you to it.”
“Yeah, I know you are.” The corner of his mouth flicked up where you couldn’t see it. “Go to sleep. You can hold me to it in ten minutes.”
When you didn’t answer for a second, Jack realized you were already gone. You were warm and trusting at his side, your hand slack over his heart, your breath sinking deep and even into his neck.
Jack let his head tip back against the couch, pinching his eyes shut at the feeling of you, at the feeling you caused. His hand spread slowly across your back, feeling the breath go through you — the proof of you — and he let his thumb find the curve of your shoulder and rest there, keeping his eyes shut. He sat with the enormous fact of you, the girl he’d not seen anyone circle back for, gone soft and so pliant in his arms like she’d always belonged there, and he stopped pretending he wasn’t already lost.
The ten minutes came and went. He let them. He’d have given you the whole night, the whole shift, the whole of whatever this was turning into. There wasn’t one place on the earth worth standing up for, and he’d known it for weeks, and only now, with your breath slow against his throat, did he let himself sit all the way inside of the knowing.
Jack came out of the OR and signed — albeit distantly, mind running a meter a minute about nothing good — what needed signing and said the things he was meant to, feeling the familiar piece of his own damn soul rotting away in the place those things went to rot. He knew the spot by now. It’d been decades of depositing them into the same place, and the place didn’t fill, exactly, but it never emptied, either. It just sat there, getting heavier, like things usually do when you keep adding to it and never take anything out.
This one would sit a while. Jack had started to sense it around the first year in this job; the ones that stayed had a weight, and you knew on the table whether you were getting one of those or whether it’d wash off by morning. This one wouldn’t.
He stripped his gloves, and somebody said something he answered without hearing, and then his feet simply walked past the board, carrying him down the hall toward the one door on the whole floor that wouldn’t have somebody else’s catastrophe behind it.
His hand was flat on the door. He was still wearing the gown, and he looked down and registered it too late. He should’ve changed it, left the thing in the dirty bin with the rest of what the shift had taken, the way he always did before he came to you, kept the two halves of the floor separate on purpose.
He opened the door. You were on the couch, one leg tucked under you and the other foot on the floor and a half-empty cup of coffee on the table going cold. You’d been doing something on your phone, or nothing, when the door opened, and you looked up with the easy expectant expression on your face you always had before it dropped. He watched it melt.
“Hey,” you said, making your voice soft.
“Hey.” His voice came out rough, and he almost winced as he heard it himself.
You set your phone face-down on the cushion and unfolded yourself from the couch and stood, crossing the room to close the gap between you. You stopped in front of him and looked up, your brow doing a small worried thing, and he let himself be looked at.
“Sit down,” you said. “You look like you’re gonna fall through the floor.”
He distantly registered you walking him to the chair — your hand finding his forearm, a light touch — and he let you. He folded into the chair like the strings of his own body had been cut, his elbows finding his knees and head dropping.
He heard you move, small domestic sounds of you filling a cup, the tap somewhere down the hall turning on then shutting off. Then your socks were back in his eyeline, toes pointed to him.
“Here.” You crouched, came into his lowered field of vision, and pressed a cup into his hands — water, cold — and folded his fingers around it when they were slow to close. “Drink it all.”
He drank because that was the path of least resistance. The water caught something he hadn’t registered was bone-dry. You took the empty cup out of his hands when he was done, setting it on the table behind you, and then he felt your hands find his shoulders.
He flinched just slightly, the smallest involuntary thing, for nobody touched him like that. Nobody put their hands on him that weren’t shaking one of his or needing something from him. You settled your thumbs into the iron base of his neck and pressed slowly, working the knots the night, the days, the weeks, and probably the year had wound there.
Your thumbs were unsure of themselves — you weren’t good at it, you weren’t trying to be, you were simply trying — and that was somehow worse because it got further to him than skill would have; there was the unpracticed earnestness to it, like you’d simply decided his shoulders had been holding too much and you wanted to put your hands there to take some of it down.
He felt his head drop lower, coming forward on its own, the tension bleeding out of his neck by degrees under your hands. Your thumbs found a place at the top of his spine that had been clenched so long that it had stopped registering as pain, and you pressed there, and a fraction let go. He felt his shoulders drop the inch they’d been holding up all night, and an uneven breath went out of him.
You kept your hands moving, your thumbs working the meat of his shoulders through the cotton, occasionally finding a knot and leaning your weight into it until it gave.
His head tipped a little forward after a stretch of time — chasing, or simply falling — and it found the soft of your stomach. His forehead rested against the front of you, where you stood close in the gap between his knees. He hadn’t intended for it, or maybe he had, somewhere under where the intention happened, his body had chosen to stop holding its own weight and give it to the nearest thing that felt like it’d take it. His eyes were already shut, and he stayed there, hands coming up on their own to rest at the sides of your waist. His fingers anchored into the fabric of your shirt.
“Shitty job sometimes,” he mumbled after a moment.
“Yeah,” you said softly above him. “I bet it is.”
Your fingers had found his hair, threading through the curls. Then, you added quietly, “But you’re really good at it.”
His fingers tightened a fraction at the fabric on your waist as he let out a short huff.
“Didn’t help him,” he said finally, the words coming out muffled behind his own mouth. “Whatever I’m good at didn’t help him.”
“Maybe not.” Your fingers scraped carefully at his scalp. “I think you were the best shot he had.”
He breathed you in, choosing to let the words rest in his skull for a while instead of fighting them.
“I’m — ” He heard you take in a breath and felt it go through your whole body. “I’m really grateful I met you, Jack.”
For some reason, he waited for you to take it back. There was a primally fast thing in him that told him that you’d take the words back, and he’d have understood.
“You don’t have to say anything,” you added. “I just wanted you to know. While you’re here being all — ” Your thumb moved at the back of his neck, tender and so gentle. “ — Figured it was a decent time to tell you I’m glad you exist.”
He took in a shaky breath against you, fingers tightening again.
“Thank you, sweet girl,” he said, and it sounded like it’d been punched out of him. “Likewise. More than you know,” he finished, his arms wrapping around the rest of your waist now, pulling you in like he could just fold himself smaller if he held hard enough.
Your fingers kept moving slowly in his hair, your other hand coming around the back of his head to hold him there. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d let anybody do this; as far as he could remember, he’d decided in some wordless permanent way that he’d carry his own weight from then on, that it was cheaper, that needing somebody was a bill that came due eventually and he’d rather not run the tab.
“You should sit,” he said after god knows how long without letting go. “Selfish, keepin’ you standing here.”
“It’s okay.”
He hummed, thumb moving once at your waist. “Two more minutes then.”
“Whatever you need, Jack,” you said, voice quiet. “I’m not going.”
Jack’s phone lit up on the arm of the couch at 10:52, face-down, buzzing itself a quarter-inch off the leather before he caught it.
He’d been working his way, with grim completionist patience, through an iceberg video you’d sent him three days ago with the message ‘THIS rabbit hole i need you to fall down.’ You’d followed it up by telling him, ‘do Not skip tiers!!’ He hadn’t skipped tiers. He was, in fact, ninety minutes deep and only about two-thirds down the pyramid, somewhere in the tier where a young man with a serious voice was explaining internet folklore he couldn’t believe was real.
He was fairly sure it’d been invented by some teenager, but Jack only shrugged, distantly wondering why on earth anyone would spend the labor — the diagrams, alone — hoaxing a thing this elaborate for an audience of complete strangers. He also wondered why on earth you were so interested in this. As quickly as the thought arrived, he realized that he was working down the iceberg himself.
Working down a thing you’d handed him felt adjacent to sitting next to you, and his apartment had become the sort of quiet that made adjacent worth ninety minutes of contemporary folklore. He’d sooner have chewed glass than admitted it out loud.
It was a good apartment and an unwitnessed one. He’d realized somewhere in the past year it was untouched by any hand but his. Every object was exactly where he’d last set it down, for there was no second person to nudge the remote three inches or leave a hair tie on the counter or ask why there was a mug in the sink and no bowl. His leg was off for the night, propped against the arm of the couch, the whole standing weight from his night shift to SWAT calls finally set down somewhere it was allowed to stay.
So, the phone going off, went off loud in the silence that had become almost-permanent. Your name lit across the screen, and the picture with it (one you’d set yourself, commandeering his phone to do it). It was already strange that it was a call. You never called; you texted in floods, six messages deep before he’d gotten to the first, but the ringing meant the thing had gotten past the point where typing it out would hold.
He looked at your laughing face buzzing on his phone for a second too long, the cold little instinct, and thumbed it green.
“Hey,” he said. “You know it’s almost eleven on my night-off. This better be good.”
You stayed silent for a second, and he could hear your breath and the hollow of a call connected in a car, the cooling engine’s tick and automotive acoustics.
“Hey,” you said finally, and Jack felt it wrongly. The back half of the word had gone soft and unsteady at the end.
Jack was already sitting up. “Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He heard you swallow quickly. “Sorry. God, this is so dumb. You — were you asleep?”
“I was almost through with your iceberg, if you want the truth.”
You made a sound that tried to be a laugh but didn’t clear the runway, breaking apart halfway. “You watched it?”
“Almost.” His fingers were drumming against his prosthetic leaning by the couch now. “Are you out?”
“I’m —” You paused, then hummed like you were debating. “I’m kind of near your place, actually?” Your voice rose toward the end, like you were embarrassed or questioning it all yourself. “I know. It’s creepy. But I think I need to — talk to you.”
“Yeah?” He tried to keep his voice light, though he could already feel something in his body start racing, panicking. “You break something?”
“No. No. Promise. It’s nothing like that.”
For some reason, that put a deeper hook in him. If it wasn’t a wrist, an ankle, or your body doing something it shouldn’t, then it was the other kind, and he had no idea how to hold something like that. He wasn’t sure what he could do with a sprain he couldn’t ice.
“Okay — ”
“Wait,” you interrupted, voice pitching higher, and he could see you were psyching yourself out. “I could just say it now, honestly. It’d probably be easier over the phone.”
Jack’s eyes widened a fraction at that. His stomach suddenly felt cold.
“No,” he said, voice rougher than he’d intended. “I won’t make it hard. Whatever you want to say, I promise. Just — not like this, okay? Come here.”
He listened to you breathe as you weighed it and knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he wouldn’t like what you were going to say. “Okay,” you breathed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Jack opened the door after the first knock, unembarrassed of waiting. You’d come as you were, a coat thrown open over sleep clothes, good wool hanging loose over a thin cami with lace at the collar and soft shorts and bare legs down to the sneakers you hadn’t laced properly. The second fact that registered to Jack was that you’d been crying; there was a soft ruin around your eyes, the mascara long gone, wiped with a sleeve somewhere back in the evening. Your hair was up and losing, a claw clip hanging looser than he believed it was meant to.
“Hi,” you said, eyes raising to meet his. “Thanks for letting me come by.”
Jack felt his shoulders rise to his ears just slightly at the formality. He felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped upon him because somewhere in the past few weeks, you’d stopped apologizing to him as much, which had felt like a small victory he never told you he was counting. And here it was again, your stiff little courtesy, the door swung back shut on a thing that had been open. Jack didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“You don’t thank me for coming by,” he said gruffly, opening the door wider.
You came in, but only just. Before he could steer you to the warmth of his apartment, you were already reaching into the bag on your shoulder — hands shaking, he realized, with a fine tremor — and pulling out a folded piece of paper, creased hard down the middle and then again like you’d tried to bundle it up into a fist.
He unfolded it and smoothed out the edges, eyes looking for yours briefly, but you’d already looked away. Your bottom lip was between your teeth and you were looking at the ground. He forced himself to look down.
It was your pharmacology exam. Your cramped looping handwriting scattered the margins, a star drawn to one question because you starred everything. There was red pen all down the side and a number circled on the top. The number, Jack saw immediately, was not catastrophic, not a failure even. It was a low pass, the sort of grade that would’ve stung for Jack in his school days and evaporated by the next exam. He’d expected worse from the way you’d been shaking holding it.
He looked back at you, confused more than anything. “Congratulations, you passed.”
Your jaw tightened, and he could see your eyes go bright and wounded. “It’s a seventy-one.”
“That’s a pass.”
“Barely. Barely.” You took the paper out of his hands, folding it away like you couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. “And you helped me with this so much and I still couldn’t. I’m so tired of — ” You stopped, looking up at the ceiling as you pressed your lips flat. “It’s not about the test.”
“Okay.” He leaned back against the counter, giving you the whole floor of the room. “Talk, then.”
You looked at him, and he watched you gather it all up, deciding, as it settled into your face, your mouth, whatever you’d come here to say.
“I don’t wanna waste your time anymore,” you said, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes landed on the wall behind him. “I can’t — it’s not fair.”
Jack felt the whole floor shift under him and felt his brows go up an inch as he tried to keep his face seem collected.
“You’re you,” you continued. “You’ve got a whole life, a hard one, and I’ve been just — dumping mine on you. Making you sit there and hold my hand through studying and I’m — ” You shook your head, face going grim as you said the words. “It’s not fair to you. You’ve been carrying me for so long, and it’s not fair. None of this is yours to carry. I’m not yours to carry.”
His nose scrunched just slightly, something like burning blooming at the center of his face. Something in his chest had cracked along the seam he had no idea was there, because he’d never had to look at it once straight on. It was easy to carry your own weight when there was no one asking to take some. It was easy to call solitude a principle when nobody had ever made the alternative real. And you had. You’d made it real for months, and here you were proposing — no, telling — to take it back, to hand him his loneliness again because of some measurement of fairness.
The horror of how much Jack didn’t want it — how badly, how completely he didn’t want to go back to how it was before you — was the first honest look he’d taken at himself in longer than he could stand to count.
“That so?” was all he could say, voice roughening as his brows narrowed at you.
“Yes.” You mistook the roughness for agreement, or maybe you just needed to do so, because you kept going. “You don’t have to help me. The only thing I can think is you’re — you are a good person and I was there. And you help people, it’s what you do.” Your hand waved in the general direction of him as your voice cracked. “So help someone who’d actually make it worth it. Who won’t barely pass and keep getting too drunk and — ” You laughed slightly, and it was all wet and terrible, the sound. “I’m a bad use of you. You’re this — you are so much, Jack, and I’m a bad place to put it. So put it somewhere better.”
Jack had to force a swallow when you ended your words with a sharp intake of breath, the pool behind your eyes slipping free slowly down your cheeks. You’d run out of anything that’d make you wipe it away now, and that undid him worse than the crying itself, that you were standing there and letting it fall, done hiding, wrung all the way out.
“I’m sorry — ” he started.
“It’s okay,” you said immediately, shaking your head.
“For making you think that’s what it was,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s on me, that you talked yourself into thinking this has been some sort of charity.” He cocked his head to the side then, wishing you’d look up at him. “But you’re gonna quit shaking your head for one minute, and hear the rest, ‘cause you got it wrong. All of it, backwards and upside down.”
He came off the counter and closed the space himself, until you had to lift your chin to keep his eyes.
“I’m not a man who spends his nights on a stray out of the goodness of his heart. Ask anyone I work with what I’m like. I don’t have that lying around spare.” His jaw tightened. “So take the halo off. That’s not what this was.”
“Then why — ”
“You,” he said plainly, for he learned it cost him nothing to do so, and a lot if he didn’t. “I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. There’s nowhere else I want to put it.”
He watched everything in your face tighten at his words, the disbelief and reflex to argue all curdling underneath.
“If you don’t want this.” Me. Me, he wanted to say. “Say it. I’ll leave you alone. You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s not — ”
“But don’t act like it’s some favor for me.” He was closer now than he’d been. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving for my sake. That’s a lie.”
“It’s not — ”
“It’s a lie,” he said, voice going flat and so final, as he slowly nodded his head. He looked at you a second, lips coming between his teeth, then looked away as he felt something physical seize over his entire body.
Jack himself had to process the words as he said them, because he was only just realizing how much truth they held.
“You make it good.”
He forced himself to look back at you, and you had tilted your head now to look up at him, caught and still as stone, the arguing gone completely off your face now and replaced with something more frightened.
“Don’t — ” One of Jack’s shoulders came up in a half-hearted shrug. “You’re the one part of my day that doesn’t take anything out of me. Just — get that straight, sweetheart.”
You were just looking up at him with your whole face undone, the tears gone still on it, as though his words had knocked your own clean out of you.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” you said quietly. “People don’t — that’s not a thing that happens to me, Jack. Being — ” Your sentence broke apart and your hand had come up and fisted loosely in front of his shirt without either of you deciding it should, holding on, holding him there. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Nothing.” His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it fisted in his shirt, holding it flat there against his chest. “It’s just true.”
You made a small, pained sound and dropped your forehead against his sternum, right where his hand held yours, and he felt the whole strung-tight weight of you gave at once and settled into him. He felt you breathe against his shirt at the same time he felt his own pulse going too fast on your knuckles; he wasn’t bothered enough to try and slow it, because there was no point now. You’d already found out.
“Very grateful for you,” he murmured, his other hand pulled up to rest over the back of your skull. “Told you so earlier. Meant it more than you let yourself hear.”
You huffed against his shirt — half a sob, half a laugh, maybe the ruined cousin of both — and he felt it go through the cotton and land warm against his skin, felt your fingers uncurl a fraction from the fist they’d made then re-fist, like even now some part of you was checking he was still there to hold onto.
Jack held still for it, same as you had in the family room for him. He was good at holding still, it was half the job, but this was a different kind — he supposed — where there was a plain animal willingness to be a wall for as long as you needed one and not move a muscle that might spook you out of it.
He rested his chin at the top of your head, murmuring, “I don’t have to tutor you anymore, if that’ll help.” He swallowed, closing his eyes as he breathed in your faint perfume. “We can scrap the whole thing, if that’s what’s making you feel so bad.”
You stilled for a second, then made a small sound against him.
Despite himself, despite it all, he let out a short chuckle. “S’okay. I’m the reason you got a seventy-one. You’re allowed to switch.”
“You’re the reason it’s a seventy-one and not a thirty,” you said, and it came out muffled and immediate. You almost sounded cross, like you didn’t want the slander against him to stand even now.
After a moment against him, you added, “I don’t want to be just someone you help, I think. I don’t want to be somebody — I guess — that you’re just good to.”
When Jack hummed, you continued, “I don’t know what I wanna be instead. Just — a friend — or, I don’t know. Something that goes both ways.”
Jack’s chest swelled at the words. He felt that he’d have been anything you asked of him, simply because it had just become how it was. It was almost outrageous how, if you’d asked, he’d have handed it over, the whole rest of it, whatever you wanted the name to be, whatever box you needed him in.
A man his age was supposed to be past this. He was supposed to have calcified somewhere in the second decade of the job into something that didn’t reorganize himself around what someone he’d known properly only for the better part of the year had asked him.
“Consider it done,” he murmured, letting the word settle. Friend.
You breathed against him, and Jack felt himself want to remain exactly here and knew that he shouldn’t. He knew that the kind thing now was to give you somewhere to put your face that wasn’t his chest, some ordinary ground for you to set your feet back down on.
“C’mon.” He got a hand on your shoulder and eased you off him gently, a slow, slow reclaiming of the eight inches of air between your body and his. He dipped his head to catch your eyes, which were pink-rimmed and swollen and doing their utter best to avoid his now that the worst was out of you. “Do you want me to order food?”
Your neck rolled back slightly as you met his eyes, caught slightly off-guard at the shift of tone. You blinked. “That was a lot, and now you’re asking about food?”
“It was a lot,” he agreed. He reached up and thumbed a smudge of leftover mascara from under your eye briskly, and you let him. “And now it’s done. So, food, and we can watch the stupid video you sent me before you head home.”
It had been six days since you showed up at his apartment, and Jack had embarrassingly counted every single one of them. You’d left his apartment somewhere past two with your eyes finally dry and a paper bag of his leftover Thai you’d protested and taken anyway, and he’d walked you down to your car and stood in the lot like some idiot in a movie until your taillights turned off his street, and then he’d gone back up to a quiet that felt, for the first time in years, like something had been in it.
Since then it had gone like it always had and nothing like it; you still turned up with flashcards and left a graveyard of half-drunk coffees on every surface. But he’d noticed how you started letting him sit closer now, let a compliment land without flinching off, and once, mid-story, had reached over and fixed his scrub top where it had folded under, casual as breathing.
Friend was the word you’d settled on. Jack was thinking about that when Shen dropped into step beside Jack with a cup of fresh Dunkin sweating in his hand.
“You know it’s not standard to let your girlfriend occupy the family room for three hours of your shift, right?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jack immediately clarified. It seemed more important to do now than it was earlier, when people only knew you when you came in as an emergency. Still, it felt wrong, like a key going in the wrong hole. “And you got a problem with it?”
Shen lifted the coffee in surrender, unbothered. “You know we’ve grown to her. She and I do the Wordle every midnight.” Then, he spread one hand. “Administratively, she’s not staff. She’s not a patient. She’s not family of a patient. Which leaves the category I’d have to call —” He tilted his head, faux thoughtfulness. “ — Abbot’s girlfriend, and I don’t think that’s in the handbook.”
“Try again,” Jack drawled, thumbing a form he wasn’t reading that didn’t need to be read. “She’s a nursing student getting hours of free tutoring off a board-certified attending. Put that in the handbook. Teaching hospital. I’m teaching.”
Shen shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “Alright. Alright. She’s not your girlfriend. Mind if I ask her out, then?”
Jack snorted. “If you could only be so lucky.”
“Clearly she has a type for attendings,” he pressed, grinning. “Or is it just the ones with gray hair?”
Jack looked at him sideways. “This is getting a bit weird, even for you.”
“I’m happy for you, man. Even if you’re gonna make us all watch you not do anything about it for the next six months.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
“Sure,” he turned, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he went. “Close the blinds anyway. There’s a window on that door. Everyone can see her making you dumb.”
Jack looked down the hall and set the form down before going there to close the blinds — telling himself it was for the window, for Shen’s real talk — and knowing, somewhere under that, that he was really just going to you.
He could see you through the window in the door before he reached it, which was, he supposed, exactly Shen’s point. You had a textbook open in your lap and you were chewing the end of your highlighter, brow pulled in, mouthing something to yourself, working a card over your head. You’d pulled the sleeves of one of his old sweatshirts down to your hands, the one you’d swiped from his locker two weeks ago and never given back and that he’d never once asked for, because he’d found he didn’t want it back, found he liked seeing it swallow you.
You gave him a smile when he walked in. He reached up and tipped the blinds shut on the window with two fingers, the floor outside tipping away.
“Why’d you close them?” you asked, slightly bored.
“Apparently the whole department’s been getting a show.”
You furrowed your brows then. “A show of what? Me failing?”
“Somethin’ like that.” He let it go at that, coming around and lowering himself onto the couch beside you, the cushion dipping and tipping you toward him a degree, what it always did that neither of you ever corrected. “How’s it going? Honest.”
“Honestly?” You blew out a breath, closing the highlighter. “I’d kill for a drink.”
“Oh?” Jack settled back against the couch, his arm coming up along the top of it behind you. “Telling that to the one man who’s seen what you look like at the bottom of the bottle.”
“Jaaaack,” you said, almost in a whine. “Let’s go to a bar.”
He snorted, dragging a hand down his face. “Now I’m wondering what’s pushing you toward the edge.”
He picked the flashcard you had set on the textbook, the one you’d been studying. He read the front of it without much intention — your handwriting was cramped and looping, a star drawn next to it — and turned over and checked the back. He did the same thing he always did, the story, the image; he’d done it a hundred times by now. He could do it half-asleep, and most nights he half was.
You thought about it for a second, your bottom lip tugged between your teeth, then walked yourself to the answer.
“Mhm. See. Good,” he murmured. He flipped the card to the back to check you, and you’d had it. Of course you’d had it, you’d had more of this than you ever gave yourself credit for. “Tell you what. Get the next three right, and I’ll get us a drink once your exams are done.”
Your brows narrowed. “Bribe?”
“It’s an incentive.” He held up the next card, eyes on you. “Don’t think. Just answer me.”
You did. One, then the next, then the one after. You were quicker now that there was something on the end of it, your lip caught between your teeth as you walked yourself there each time. He noticed you worked when there was something to earn. After all three, he hummed. “See. Good girl, there you go.”
He felt you go still beside him, and his eyes flickered up to you to see your eyes dropping to your textbook. He stayed silent a second, eyes raking over you, your thumb running the worn edge of a card back and forth.
Jack knew better than to point out how you being flustered was almost silly when he’d said the same words many times while taping you up or shining a penlight in your eyes. He let his arm stay where it was along the couch, hand not quite touching your shoulder, and watched the side of your face.
“You wanna do some more?” he said finally, voice coming out rougher. “Or are we done for the night?”
You held up a finger, as if telling him to wait.
“Okay, then,” he mumbled, leaning back further against the couch. “Take your time.”
After a second, he turned to say something dry to break the silence. You’d turned your head, too, and were closer than he initially realized, your eyes coming up off the card and finding his, near enough that whatever he had bubbling in his throat died there immediately.
Jack hummed involuntarily. You closed the sound by pressing your mouth to his, the feeling of the plushness so very featherlight, there and barely there, the softest press.
He went still as stone, every system in him locking at once. His hand was still along the back of the couch and his mouth hadn’t answered yours, not because he didn’t want to — God, he did — but because the entirety of him had gone still with the disbelief of it, with the you, here, choosing this — him — and the half-second of nothing stretched into a second, too damn long.
He’d seized on you, the fact you’d nearly walked, had stood in his kitchen finding the kindest way to disappear, and here you were, closing the last of the distance yourself.
You pulled back like you’d touched a stove, a gasp leaving your mouth, replacing where his own had been.
“Oh god.” Your hand flew up to your mouth, your eyes going wide before pinching shut completely. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, Jack. I read that so, so wrong. You’ve been so nice and I — fuck, I’m sorry.”
Jack made a pained sound that was lost somewhere in your ramble, at the sight of you snatching it back. Nothing had gone wrong. Jack knew you’d read nothing wrong, and that the only thing that had happened was that he’d been too slow, too stunned, too thirty-years-rusty to catch what had been handed to him in good reflex.
His hand came off the back of the couch and he caught your jaw, thumb on your chin as he pushed slightly against your skin. He was distantly aware that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so afraid about leaning in to kiss a woman, and went in to try and give you back the second he lost, mouth finding yours the exact way every bone in his body knew he should’ve the first time.
You made a startled sound against him before the entirety of you melted. His mouth worked against yours, thoroughly, making sure not to fumble it twice. His thumb stayed on your chin, tilting your face the half-degree he wanted it, and when your lips parted on half a breath, his entire upper body leaned in to follow it, deepening it.
It was you who moved first. Of course, it was you, always you. You followed it, the kiss pulling you up and forward, your knee coming over his thigh, and then you were settling over him. Jack let out the throatiest of a chuckle, still intent on keeping your mouth, as your hands slid from the front of his scrubs to his jaw.
Jack’s hands caught yours on instinct — one at your waist, one at your hip — steadying you down to him, your hips still slightly in the air like you weren’t sure you could close the last of the distance, your weight held in the suspended air in the ache of almost, thighs braced on either side of his.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch, dragging his eyes up the length of you poised over him. He blew out a short breath, the corners of his lips kicking up as his palm glided up and down on the side of your waist, catching onto your tank top on accident to show a sliver of skin at your lip — warm, soft, the band of your shorts sitting low — and he watched his own hand do it before he dragged his eyes back to your face.
“Nothing halfway with you, huh?” he said, the words practically coming out from his chest. His thumb rested against that bared sliver of you. “Climbing me at my work.”
You lowered your head, and your nose grazed against his. “You started it.”
“I did?”
“You closed the blinds.”
He let out a surprised laugh. “I can promise you I didn’t expect this when I did that.”
Your lips ghosted over his for a second, and his chest swelled at the sight of you trying to tamp down the sweetest smile. “Problem?”
“No.” The words came out immediately, because apparently somewhere in him, there was still something insatiable and teenage that had lurched up at the sight of you. “No. No problem.”
His hand spread flat and warm against the small of your back, fingers slipping under the hem of the top to your warm skin there, and he drew you down, finally, that last suspended inch collapsing as he settled your weight flush over him.
He had to pinch his eyes shut a second, then open them again to take in the whole sight of you. His hand came up to your jaw. The light caught the loose hair at your temple, the bare line of your shoulder where the strap had slipped. Your mouth was full and flushed from his, parted slightly, your breath coming. The skin under his hand at your back was hot to the touch, and he spread his fingers wider against it just to feel more of it.
You were trying not to smile. Your lip caught between your teeth, the corners pulling anyway.
His finger perched against your jaw moved to your lips, dragging slowly across the lower one, parting it under the pad of his thumb. He watched it give, your breath warm against his skin.
Your eyes flicked up to his as your lip closed around the first knuckle, your tongue hesitantly pressing flat against the pad, the wet heat of it catching him so completely off guard that the air went out of him in a rough exhale. His other hand fisted at the small of your back, turning over to gather the hem of your tank in his grip.
“Oh.” His eyes had dropped to your mouth and fixed there, his jaw slack as his head cocked to the side. “Pretty.”
His gaze was locked on the sight of his thumb disappearing past your lips, no hesitation in it, that same no-halfway boldness turned filthy and sweet all at once. The tired man in him went down all at once.
His thumb dragged free, catching on your bottom lip and tugging it down before it slipped loose. His chest heaved harder now under the warm weight of you.
“Where’d that come from?” he muttered gruffly, almost to himself, thumb pressing the slick of your own lip back against you. His palm moved to cradle your face, tapping your cheek softly once. “Can’t be doing things like that here, doll. I’m on call.”
“Then don’t make it so easy.” Your lips brushed his thumb, then you moved down to press your mouth to the line of his jaw, the stubble catching your lips, then lower to the warm of his throat.
“You callin’ me easy?” he said through a chuckle, letting his head tip back. You scraped your teeth over the cord of his neck and felt the whole of him go tight underneath you, his fingers flexing hard into the bare skin of your back.
“Alright.” His voice had dropped to stone. “You’ve had your fun.. No more of that,” he said, though made no move to stop you.
You peppered a line of pecks down his throat down to where his collar had started, your lips dragging over the jut of his collarbone through the thin cotton. He swallowed. One of your hands slid up to the back of your neck, fingers pushing into the soft gray at his nape, scratching light, and the other flattened over his chest, over the steady-then-not rhythm, fisting slow in the fabric just to feel him breathe wrong because of you.
You sat back an inch to look at him. His head was still tipped back against the couch, his throat bared where you’d left it momentarily pink and glossy, his eyes half-lidded. His hands had gone heavy and possessive at your hips, giving up pretending he wanted them anywhere else, you anywhere else.
You dragged your thumb over his bottom lip, watched it give, the same way he did to you.
“Can I ask you something?” you asked, quietly, your hips settling more firmly into his lap.
“Mm.” His hands spread wide, settling you down harder against him. “My social security number is — ”
You laughed.
“Two-two-six — ”
“Jack — ” You swatted at his chest, the seriousness dissolving into something giddier. “I’m being serious. Stop.”
“Okay, okay.” The corners of his mouth lifted up, and his hands squeezed slightly at your hips. He pulled his head up off the couch to meet your eyes properly. “Shoot. Doubt I could stop you.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
He let the question sit, humming. His thumbs moved idly at your hips, head tilting against the couch like the question required any real thought. “There’s a few women,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked at you, like he was letting you in on a secret. “There’s a nice lady who brings me fruit baskets.”
Your hand, on the flat of his chest, slid up slow to his throat and he kept talking like he didn’t notice.
“ — there’s this nurse on days who keeps leaving me her number at the station — ”
You leaned in and closed your teeth slightly on his earlobe. He let out a short laugh, one that was dragged out of him, his head tipped to give more of it to you without permission.
“Alright. Okay,” he said as your nose dragged the line of his jaw. “Stop doin’ that. I don’t wanna explain teeth marks to the whole floor.”
Your hips set firmer into his lap. “Jack,” you warned. “I can’t do this if you’re seeing fifty other women.”
He sobered a degree, his thumb going still at your waist, his eyes coming up to actually hold yours. The joke drained out of his face as he realised the edge of seriousness you tried to tamp down, and he momentarily short-circuited at how it was even possible for you to wonder.
“Hey.” His hand came up off your hip, pushed the hair back from your face and stayed there, cradling. “Until five minutes ago, there were zero women. Forget fifty.”
Your only response to that was a smile and your cheek leaning further against his palm. He let his thumb move once across his cheekbone, watching the way your cheek turned into his hand. Your eyes drifted half-shut. There was a speck of dried highlighter ink on the side of your finger where it curled against his throat. The strap of your top had slid off your shoulder again; he looked at all of you and stopped bothering to pretend, even to himself, that he was looking at anything other than the only thing in the room he wanted.
“What about you? You seein’ anyone?” His thumb stayed where it was, but his voice had gone quieter. “‘Cause I’ve seen people bring you in. And I never liked one of ‘em.”
You huffed a small laugh, your nose grazing his. “Jealous, Doctor?”
“Yeah.” He watched the laugh stall on your face at how easy he gave it up. “If there is, he should be worried. I’d like to take you on a nice date to change that.”
“Ohhhh,” you drawled through a laugh. “There’s no one, but I won’t say no to the date.”
“Then you’ve got yourself one, doll.” He kissed you on it — short, sure, his hand still cradling your face — sealing the thing as the corner of his mouth caught yours before he pulled back. He let his forehead rest against yours for a second and breathed you in.
Then, with a short groan, he tipped his head back off of yours.
“I gotta get back out there.” His thumb was still moving at your jaw, clearly working against the very thing he was saying. “My work ethic’s going wrong and my residents might actually report me.”
Then, his hands found your waist and he lifted you off, setting you off his lap and onto the cushion beside him where the entire thing had started. You landed with a small affronted sound, your hand fisting in his collar a beat longer before he had to let it go.
You flopped back into the cushion where he’d deposited you, one hand pressed flat to your chest, the picture of wounded. “I guess it’s true what they say about old men. They use you. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”
He stood up and scrubbed his palm down his face like he could wipe the last ten minutes off it before he had to walk out and be a doctor again. He could still feel the heat sitting at the back of his neck and even though he’d tried to scrub your gloss off, he was sure there was a remnant somewhere the worst possible person would notice.
“Yup, got exactly what I wanted. Thank you, ma’am.” His hand came down to rest at the top of your head and gave it a slow, condescending pat, ruffling the wreck of your hair worse than it already was. “I’m a terrible man. You’re welcome to stay here while I go be one somewhere else.”
He made himself step back and snagged his pen off the table, the badge, the small armor of the job clipping back into place piece-by-piece. The whole time his eyes kept catching on you, sprawled and rumpled where he’d set you down, looking up at him like the night had gone exactly where it was supposed to. He’d seen this room a thousand nights. He’d never once not wanted to leave it.
“Mm. Gotta go home. S’almost three,” you mumbled. “And you get off at seven.”
“I do.”
“So.” You pushed yourself off the cushion, slow, gathering your hair back off your face and pushing up your strap, putting yourself back together piece by piece the same way he was, the night closing in on both ends. “I’ll go and let you be a doctor. You’ve been very neglectful.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He watched you reach for your textbook, your highlighter, the flashcards, and sweep it all back into your bag, feeling the small stupid pull of not wanting the room to empty out.
He stepped in before you finished, catching your jaw, tilting your face up to kiss you once more. You went still under it, the bag forgotten halfway zipped, your hand coming up to rest light on his chest. He pulled back an inch to look at you.
“Text me when you get home,” he said, thumb dragging along your jaw.
You chuckled, brows pulling in. “It’s a ten minute drive.”
“Text me. Humor an old man, since I’m so terrible to you already.”
.°˖✧ pairing: james cook x fem!reader
.°˖✧ summary: Cook had spent two years wanting her and calling it love because love sounded better than obsession. She didn’t want him back. Not properly. Not enough. Not in the way he’d decided he deserved after every glance, every laugh, every moment she let him close without letting him in. Then the One Wish Willow ended up in his hands, promising one wish, one change, one chance to make the world fair in the only way Cook cared about. If she wouldn’t choose him, he’d choose for her.
Because the wish didn’t grant him love. It granted him obedience.
.°˖✧ wc: 33.3k
.°˖✧ a/n: the fic i’ve been calling incel x yandere has officially become my magnum opus. i saw obsession on the 26th and haven’t stopped thinking about it since, so naturally i had to write a crossover fic. i did take the liberty of changing where they work from a music store to a bowling alley/arcade because it felt more dynamic. apologies for the long paragraphs, normally i would have more separation but tumblr's stupid 1,000 paragraph block rule squashed it. i’ll be taking a short writing break after this to work on the joc library, help co-host a little writing event for jack’s birthday, gauge interest for a shawn zine, and finally get through my manuscript edits because i’m behind on everything lol. huge shoutout to beany @pastabillities and ria @remmickstalker for beta reading this behemoth, you’re the best!! and thank you to abhi for once again making me a killer banner. i love it so much. okay, enjoy the fic!!
.°˖✧ warnings: dead dove: do not eat, noncon/dubcon due to supernatural coercion, mind control/forced devotion, graphic violence, murder, blood and gore, major injury, stalking, obsessive/yandere behavior, incel mindset, gaslighting and manipulation, toxic possessive relationship, jealousy and possessiveness, emotional abuse, sexual coercion, piv, rough sex, choking, slapping, biting, unprotected sex, oral (giving/receiving), spit kink, cumplay/facial, Cook sucks
.°˖✧ AO3 / MASTERLIST
Cook had built a whole love story around a version of her that had never existed.
People wrote songs about wanting like it was all aching and sweetness, all late-night phone calls, stupid smiles and wanting to be better because someone lovely had looked at you twice. That was bullshit. Wanting her felt less like romance and more like a bad habit he couldn’t quit, something hot and mean lodged under his ribs, fed by every laugh she gave someone else and every smile she wasted like it didn’t cost him anything to watch.
Kingpin’s wore its neon like cheap jewelry: loud, shabby, and fooling absolutely no one. The sign did most of the lying from the car park—red glow, gold letters, the i swapped for a bowling pin wearing a crooked little crown, like the building fancied itself glamorous instead of scuzzy and embalmed in fryer grease. One of the bulbs over the front door flickered when it rained, and the apostrophe in Kingpin’s buzzed loud enough to hear from the smoking area if the wind blew right. Gareth kept saying he’d get it fixed. Gareth also kept saying Cook was on his last warning, so nobody took his promises seriously.
Inside, Kingpin’s was worse where the neon couldn’t blur it pretty. Louder too. Bowling balls cracked down lanes with a violence people cheered for. Arcade machines spat tinny little victory songs at kids with sticky fingers. Prize tickets curled out in cheap pink strips like paper tongues, and the claw machines glowed blue over stuffed animals nobody won unless their parents were willing to be financially ruined by a plush frog with one wonky eye. The carpet was purple and orange but ugly enough to count as workplace abuse, patterned in swirls that hid stains until the lights hit them wrong. The air smelled of chips, lager, warm plastic, shoe spray, and the sugary cleaning stuff Gareth bought in bulk because he thought tropical blast meant sanitary.
Cook loved it there in the way a person could love a place that deserved to be condemned. It was grimy, bright and tacky. It gave him somewhere to be loud, somewhere to lean, grin, flirt, steal chips off people’s plates, vanish for smoke breaks, and stroll back in twenty minutes later like he hadn’t just been dodging work. Kingpin’s suited him because nobody expected polish from a bloke working shoe rental at a bowling alley, and Cook had always been better when expectations were already in the gutter. He was meant to be spraying returned shoes when he caught himself watching her again. Not watching, he’d say, if anyone asked. Looking. Existing with eyes. Perfectly normal thing, having eyes. Couldn’t help where they went. Except he could. He knew he could because every few minutes he dragged them away, told himself not to be a fucking creep, and found her again anyway.
She was behind the prize counter, restocking sweets into the glass case, Kingpin’s polo tucked badly into her jeans, name badge askew because the pin had been broken for two weeks. Birthday glitter clung to the side of her face from some kid’s party crown, catching blue from the nearest claw machine whenever she turned. Her hair kept slipping forward when she bent, and she kept pushing it back with the same impatient motion—not thinking about it, not knowing Cook had noticed enough times that the noticing had started to irritate him.
He knew what drink she bought on break. Knew she hated the left register because the drawer jammed unless you hip-checked it. Knew she skipped the third song on his driving playlist every single time and pretended it was because it was shit, not because it reminded her of a bad night out. Knew she took the long way around the bar when drunk men crowded it. Knew she smiled at old women even when they complained about prices. Knew she checked her phone more when Ryan was on shift. That last one pissed him off. He told himself noticing wasn’t weird if you noticed because you cared. That was what romance was supposed to be, wasn’t it? Paying attention. Remembering things. Knowing the little details everyone else missed and pretending it was sweet instead of evidence you’d been looking too long.
Girls liked that in films, didn’t they? Some quiet, devoted prick knowing their coffee order and the book they mentioned once and the song they hummed under their breath. Some sad-eyed bastard remembering every tiny detail and getting rewarded for it in the end because apparently obsession was romantic as long as the bloke kept his mouth shut and looked tortured doing it. But when Cook knew things, suddenly it was creepy. Suddenly it was too much. Suddenly it was, Cook, why do you know my work schedule?
As if she didn’t keep giving him reasons. As if she didn’t smile at him over the prize counter, steal chips off his tray, laugh at his filthy jokes like she knew exactly where his mind would go and let it go there anyway. As if she didn’t lean past him behind the counter and press herself close enough for him to feel the heat of her through that stupid Kingpin’s polo, then act like he was the problem for noticing. As if she didn’t laugh.
That was what got him, really. The laughing. She laughed at him like it cost her nothing, like it didn’t crawl under his skin and sat there, hot and stupid, even humiliating. Like she could throw little crumbs of warmth around, let a bloke start starving for them, then blink all innocent when he came looking for the whole fucking meal.
“Are you planning to stare until the shoes clean themselves?” she asked without looking up.
Cook leaned his hip against the counter and gave the shoe spray a lazy shake. “I’m supervising.”
“You’re loitering.”
“Same thing with authority.”
“You don’t have authority.”
“I’ve got presence.”
“You’ve got a pile of wet shoes and Gareth doing his angry walk.”
Cook glanced over. Gareth was, in fact, coming out of the office with his head forward and his shoulders tense, which meant someone was about to get blamed for something that probably was Cook’s fault. Cook straightened without actually moving away from her counter. “You worried about me getting sacked?”
“I’m worried I’ll have to do your job when you do.”
“That’s love.”
“That’s self-preservation.”
“You’re flirting again.”
“I’m warning you before Gareth does.”
“Love it when you get bossy.”
She shut the sweet drawer with her hip and looked at him then, eyes narrowed, mouth trying not to smile. “You’re unbearable.”
“But you bear me.”
“Barely.”
“Still counts.”
She shook her head and turned back to the prize case, but the corner of her mouth stayed lifted. There. See. What was he supposed to do with that?
Ryan came through the staff door carrying a crate of bottled drinks, already looking tired of Cook before Cook had even said anything. “Gareth’s asking why the shoes aren’t done. I told him I told you ten minutes ago.”
Cook didn’t look away from the prize counter. “Snitch.”
Ryan followed his line of sight and gave a short, humorless laugh. “You’re not subtle.”
“Subtlety’s for virgins and tax fraud.”
Ryan set the crate down with a clatter. “You’re doing that tragic thing again.”
She glanced between them. “What tragic thing?”
“Nothing,” Cook said.
Ryan smirked. “The thing where he starts eye-fucking you and calls it supervising.”
Cook threw the shoe spray at him. Ryan dodged, laughing, and she made a disgusted little sound even though she was smiling.
“Both of you are disgusting.”
“Say that softer,” Cook said. “I’m close.”
“I’m begging you to develop shame.”
Ryan’s eyes flicked toward her, and something passed between them too quick for Cook to pin down. Not a look, maybe. Not even a proper smile. Just a little beat of familiarity, easy and private, the sort of thing that said there were conversations Cook hadn’t heard and jokes he hadn’t been there for. It got under his skin immediately, mean and sharp, like a splinter he’d rather dig deeper than admit was there. Ryan was too comfortable with her. Had been for a while. He leaned against counters beside her like he had a right to take up space there. Knew when she was in a bad mood before Cook did. Could say her name across the arcade and get her attention without putting on a whole fucking show for it. He didn’t even have the decency to be obvious about wanting her. He just existed around her like access was normal, like being allowed near her was something he’d never had to earn. Cook hated him for it.
Not that he was jealous. Jealousy was for lads who didn’t have options, and Cook had options. Tasha made that clear enough every time she brought him a drink he hadn’t asked for, every time she laughed too hard, every time she touched his arm and let her fingers linger like she wanted him to notice. Tasha had smoky eyeliner, chipped black nail polish, and a habit of biting her lip whenever Cook turned the charm on. Cook liked that. Liked knowing it. Liked keeping her attention close enough to warm his ego whenever the thing he actually wanted left him feeling like some sad prick with his face pressed to the glass. Tasha meant he wasn’t pathetic. Girls did want him.
Just not the one he had stupidly, violently, inconveniently decided mattered.
The night dragged on in shouts and spills. Gareth yelled at lane six for bringing outside vodka. JJ nearly got taken out by the basketball machine when it spat a ball early. A kid dropped an entire tray of nachos on the carpet and burst into tears as hot cheese soaked straight into the purple swirls. Cook spent twenty minutes flirting with a group of college girls at concessions because they were drunk enough to think he was funnier than he was, then looked over to see if she’d noticed. She had. She looked amused. Not jealous. Not bothered. Amused, like he was exactly the sort of idiot she expected him to be. That annoyed him enough to make him flirt harder.
By closing, Kingpin’s looked like the night had chewed it up and spat it out. The lanes were empty under the low lights, polished slick and useless, with only the odd mechanical clunk from the pinsetters breaking the quiet. The arcade still blinked to itself in the corner, cycling through demo screens for nobody. The prize counter shone with fingerprints and smears, and the air had soured into old beer, fryer grease, and the chemical sweetness of mop water. Cook was half-assing the returned shoes while she counted the till, Ryan wiped tables near the bar, and Tasha leaned beside Cook with her chin in her hand, watching him with a smile she clearly thought was subtle.
“You coming out after?” Ryan called.
She paused with her fingers still in the drawer and looked over. “Where?”
“Food. Drinks. Whatever’s still open.”
“After tonight? I should go home and stare at a wall.”
“Stare at chips instead,” Ryan said. “Less bleak.”
Cook tossed a pair of shoes into the wrong cubby. “I’m driving.”
“You’re always driving,” she said.
“Because I’m generous.”
“Because you hate taxis.”
“Two things can be true.”
Tasha nudged his arm. “You giving everyone lifts, or just special people?”
Cook let the pause sit there because he could, because Tasha would wait for him to fill it and they both knew it. “Depends who asks nicely.”
Tasha held his gaze for half a second too long, smile tucked into the corner of her mouth, and Cook looked away just in time to catch her across the lobby looking back down at the register. Cook didn’t know if that meant anything. He wanted it to mean something.
They ended up at a late-night burger place three streets over, the sort of place that stayed open less because people wanted to eat there and more because drunk people stopped being picky after midnight. The windows were fogged from the fryers, the plastic tables had a permanent tack to them, and the woman behind the counter took their order with the tired patience of someone who had already explained twice that extra sauce cost 20p. There were six of them crammed around two pushed-together tables: Cook, Ryan, Tasha, JJ, her, and Malik from the kitchen, who had mostly come along so he could call Gareth a tight bastard to people who already knew he was right.
Cook ended up opposite her because Ryan slid into the seat beside her before he could. That was Ryan’s first offence of the evening. The second was how easily they settled next to each other, like it took no thought at all. Ryan stole one of her chips without asking, and she smacked his hand away without even looking up from her drink. Not surprised. Not annoyed enough. Just used to it, like his fingers on her plate were another bit of background noise she’d stopped questioning. He reached for the sauce before she asked and pushed it toward her, already knowing, already smug about knowing, and something hot and mean pulled tight in Cook’s chest.
Then she complained about the music, and Ryan said, “You always complain about the music,” before Cook could even open his mouth. Always. Cook hated the word immediately. Hated how casual it sounded coming from Ryan. Hated the little doorway it opened into a history Cook hadn’t been invited into, all those shifts and smoke breaks and late-night conversations happening without him there to watch, without him there to stop anything from becoming too familiar.
Tasha was beside him, knee brushing his under the table. “You’re quiet.”
Cook took a chip from her tray. “I’m mysterious.”
“You’re sulking.”
“I don’t sulk.”
“You absolutely sulk.”
“I brood. Sexier.”
She laughed, touching his sleeve. “Sure.”
He leaned closer because Tasha made it easy and because he could feel her watching from across the table, maybe. “You like it.”
Tasha’s mouth opened, then shut and Cook grinned. Across from him, she looked away first. His satisfaction lasted exactly three seconds before Ryan leaned in to say something near her ear and she laughed. Cook hated himself for how fast the feeling curdled.
Outside after, the air had gone damp and cool, the kind that made takeaway grease cling harder to everyone’s clothes. JJ and Malik were still arguing about whether the pirate shooter in the arcade was haunted, Malik insisting the left cannon fired by itself and JJ getting increasingly wound up by the lack of evidence. Tasha had her jacket zipped up to her chin and was still hovering near Cook, close enough that her sleeve brushed his when she shifted, but his attention had already gone past her. Across the car park, she stood near Ryan’s car with her arms folded against the cold, smiling down at the cracked pavement while Ryan said something Cook couldn’t hear. Cook lit a cigarette he’d stolen from Ryan’s pack.
Ryan wandered up beside him a moment later. “That’s mine.”
“Community property.”
“You’re a parasite.”
“A handsome parasite.”
Ryan glanced toward her, then back at Cook. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Cook blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “By smoking?”
“By doing whatever this is.”
“It’s called standing.”
“It’s called staring like a pathetic, lovesick prick.”
Cook’s jaw tightened. “Fuck off.”
Ryan’s tone shifted, softer but smug underneath. “Mate, just ask.”
“Ask what?”
“If she likes you.”
Cook laughed. “What are you, twelve?”
“I’m serious. Stop hovering around like a kicked dog.”
“I’m not hovering.”
“You’ve been mentally pissing on her leg all night.”
Cook looked at him. “You got a death wish?”
Ryan grinned. “Girls like confidence, yeah? Ask straight. Worst she can say is no.”
Worst she can say is no. People said that like no was harmless. Like no didn’t make a bloke feel skinned in public, stupid for wanting, stupid for thinking he’d seen anything there in the first place. Like she could just say it and go on with her night, still laughing, still eating chips, still looking at Ryan when he spoke, while Cook had to stand there with the word stuck in him and pretend it hadn’t made him want to crawl out of his own fucking body. Easy for Ryan to say. Ryan, who sat beside her like it was nothing. Ryan, who knew what sauce she wanted and stole food off her plate and got away with it. Ryan, who could tell Cook to be confident because he’d never had to make confidence look like anything. He just had it. Worse than that, people gave him reasons to. Cook looked toward her again before he could stop himself. She was laughing at something Malik had said now, the sound carrying across the car park like she had no idea she was being watched, no idea she was standing there ruining him by looking happy without him.
Ryan followed his gaze and gave a small, knowing hum. “Unless you already know she’ll say no.”
Cook’s head snapped back toward him.
Ryan lifted both hands, grin barely held in. “I’m just saying.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Then ask,” Ryan said, simple and cruel because he made it sound like there was nothing at stake. “Prove me wrong.”
Cook hated him for that. Hated him more because he was going to.
A skinny red-and-cream box sat on the backseat of Cook’s car, cheap-looking in the way old magic tricks and corner-shop toys were cheap. Curved lettering, smiling cartoon faces, little sprays of stars. AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS! printed along one side like it was supposed to be fun, like there wasn’t something rotten in how badly he wanted it to work. Near the end, tucked into a burst of red, were the words You only get ONE WISH.
ONE WISH WILLOW, it said across the front. He’d bought it three days earlier on his lunch break, after she’d mentioned old folklore while untangling tickets from a machine, talking half to him and half to the mess in her hands about wishing trees, charm bundles, little bits of luck people carried around when they wanted the universe to listen. Cook had called it witchy bollocks to her face. An hour later, he’d found himself in a oddity shop near Kingpin’s, a narrow little place wedged between a vape shop and a nail salon, all dusty shelves and incense smoke and tiny silver bells over the door that made him feel like a twat the second he walked in. The woman behind the counter had watched him pick it up, watched him turn the little box over in his hand like it might bite him.
“For someone you love?” she’d asked.
Cook had laughed too quickly. “Steady on.”
Then he’d paid cash, shoved it under his jacket, and told himself the whole way back that it was funny. A weird gift. A piss-take. Something he could toss at her and make a joke out of before she noticed he’d remembered something soft, something small, something she probably didn’t even remember saying. He was lying, obviously. He’d bought it because she’d wanted it for half a second, and Cook had carried that half second around, polishing it into evidence that he knew her, that he listened, that there were bits of her Ryan didn’t get to have. Now it sat behind him while he drove her home through wet streets, the box catching streetlights in the rearview whenever they passed under a lamp. She had his phone in her lap and was skipping through his playlist with increasing disgust.
“This is terrible,” she said.
“That’s a classic.”
“This sounds like how the carpet at work smells.”
“You’ve got no culture.”
“I work at Kingpin’s. Obviously.”
He laughed because she expected him to, because laughing was easier than admitting his fingers had gone tight around the wheel. The car smelled of smoke, damp upholstery, mint gum, and the cheap air freshener Ryan had hung from the mirror as a joke, still swinging there like another little reminder of him. Rain tapped against the windscreen and dragged the traffic lights into red and green streaks. She sat curled toward the heater, worn out from the shift and everything after, comfortable enough to insult his music, steal his spare hoodie from the backseat without asking, and pull it over her lap without thinking twice. The box was underneath it. Cook caught the flash of red-and-cream packaging when the hoodie shifted, bright against the dark mess of the backseat, and his throat tightened before he could make himself laugh that off too.
He could give it to her now. Reach back, grab the box, toss it into her lap with a grin. Say, saw this and thought of your weird tree thing. Make it sound crude and stupid yet casual enough to hide behind. The kind of gift a bloke bought as a joke, not because he’d carried one passing comment around until it started feeling like something private. She’d probably laugh. Maybe call him an idiot. Maybe turn the little box over in her hands and look at him like she couldn’t believe he’d remembered. The thought hit too soft, too fast, and he hated himself for wanting it. Then Ryan’s voice came crawling back in, smug and easy. Ask straight.
Cook kept his eyes forward. The engine idled low, the heater clicked softly, and the longer he sat there, the less it felt like something he could still choose not to say. Beside him, she shifted under his hoodie, tired and comfortable and completely unaware that he was ruining the night before he’d even spoken. He should have just given her the stupid box. Instead, he opened his mouth.
“You like me, don’t you?”
He knew he’d fucked it before she even turned her head. He heard it. Felt it. Too blunt. Too hungry. Too much like something that had been sitting behind his teeth for ages, waiting for the ugliest possible moment to come out.
She went still. “What?”
He could still save it. He could laugh. Could make it filthy, stupid, harmless. Could say as a driver, as a coworker, as a national treasure, obviously. Could swerve so hard she’d never know there had been anything real underneath it. But fear got there first. Fear, then pride.
“You heard.”
She frowned a little, not irritated yet. Just confused, which was somehow worse. “Are you joking?”
“No.”
“Like me how?”
Cook scoffed because if he didn’t, the silence was going to swallow him whole. “Like me how. Fucking hell, you need a diagram?”
Her face changed. Not much. Just enough. The warmth went careful around the edges, and the whole car seemed to shrink with it, everything was suddenly too close. Everything was suddenly watching. Cook felt the moment tipping away from him and kept talking anyway, because humiliation had momentum and his mouth had always been faster than his sense.
“You and me,” he said. “There’s something there, yeah?”
She looked at him properly then, and he hated that too. Hated the way she didn’t laugh. Hated the way she didn’t make it easy by being cruel. Hated the softness coming over her expression, like she was already trying to find the kindest way to cut him open.
“Cook,” she said.
“Don’t do that.”
“I like you.”
His pulse kicked once, stupidly.
“As a friend,” she added.
There it was. Not sharp. Not nasty. Worse because it was gentle. Because she meant well. Because she had no idea that kindness could gut a person cleaner than mockery ever could. Cook stared ahead, even though they were parked outside her building now and had been for half a minute. He hadn’t even noticed pulling up. His hands stayed on the wheel, locked there, because looking at her felt impossible and looking away felt like losing.
She shifted beside him. “You know that, right?”
He nodded once. The silence got bigger. Then pride, ugly and panicked, threw itself over the wound.
“Jesus,” he said, forcing a laugh that sounded wrong even to him. “I didn’t mean like that.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” He forced his mouth into a grin because that was the only thing it knew how to do when everything else was fucked. “I meant, do you like me as a person? Like, am I tolerable? Didn’t ask you to start naming our future fuckin’ kids or summat.”
Her embarrassment arrived fast. He saw it hit and felt a nasty little spark of relief, because now she looked stupid too. Now she had something to be ashamed of. Now he wasn’t the only one sitting there with his insides showing.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“I thought—”
“What? That I was about to profess my undying love in a Vauxhall?” He huffed another laugh, sharper this time. “Give me some credit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For having an ego? You should be.”
She looked down. For one second, it helped. Then it didn’t. The relief curdled almost as soon as it came, leaving him with the same raw shame underneath and something meaner crawling up around it. Because she was sorry. Because she was embarrassed. Because she would get out of his car in a minute and go upstairs and feel bad for a bit, maybe, then sleep it off, wake up tomorrow, and still not want him.
“I didn’t mean to make it weird,” she said.
“You didn’t.”
“Okay.” Her fingers closed around the door handle. “Good.”
Good.
She got out and hurried through the rain to her door, his hoodie over her head, her shoulders tucked against the cold. She looked back once and gave an awkward little wave. Cook lifted two fingers from the wheel like none of this mattered. The door shut behind her. Cook sat there until the engine noise started to feel obscene. Then he killed it. The silence rushed in, rain ticking over the roof and glass. He leaned back in the seat and stared at her building, jaw tight, chest burning with something he refused to call hurt because hurt sounded too innocent.
Good. She’d sounded relieved. Not disappointed. Not tempted. Relieved. He thought of Ryan saying worst she can say is no. Thought of the way Ryan stood too close to her. Thought of Tasha’s knee against his under the fast food table. Thought of all the little smiles she’d given him that apparently meant nothing because girls got to decide afterward what counted and what didn’t. They could laugh. They could lean. They could take your hoodie and sit in your passenger seat and make you feel like maybe, maybe, maybe, then look at you like you’d grown a second head for believing the thing they’d been feeding.
He saw the gift in the rearview mirror. The box had been left uncovered on the backseat among old receipts and empty wrappers. Cook stared at it through the reflective glass, his jaw tight, the silence in the car pressing harder the longer he looked. Then he laughed once. “Of course.”
He twisted around, grabbed it, and snatched it into the front seat hard enough to crease the cardboard. The thing felt cheap in his hands. Cheap enough to be funny. Cheap enough to make him feel even more pathetic for caring. ONE WISH WILLOW stared back at him. Cook dug his thumb under the flap and tore it open. Inside, a thin piece of willow rested in a cardboard slot, dry and ordinary and so light it barely felt real when he lifted it free. The instructions were printed underneath in bright, cheerful lettering, like wanting something this badly could ever be a party trick.
REMOVE FROM THE BOX AND JUST MAKE A WISH.
SPARK THE MIDDLE AND BREAK IT IN HALF.
He looked at it, then back at the willow pinched between his fingers. It weighed almost nothing. That made him angrier. All that wanting in him, all that noise. The heat and humiliation. And the thing in his fingers was barely more than rubbish. A dead twig dressed up as fate. He thought of her saying friend. Thought of her saying good. Thought of how easy it had been for her to walk away untouched while he sat in the car with a gift he’d been too much of a coward to give. His fingers tightened around the willow. He didn’t wish she loved him. Love sounded too sanitized for what he felt. Too pretty. Too easy to put on a card and pretend it meant anything close to this. Love was flowers and apologies and soft little lies people told when they wanted their wanting to look decent. Cook didn’t feel decent.
He wanted her hungry. Wanted her stupid with it. Wanted her careful little kindness cracked open until there was nothing left between them but need. Wanted her to come back and look at him like friend had never left her lips, like good had been a mistake, like every polite little boundary she’d put between them had been something she was desperate to crawl over. He wanted her to stop seeing safe, harmless, funny fucking Cook from work. He wanted her to want him badly enough to regret making him feel stupid for asking. Cook stared at the willow for another second, jaw tight, thumb worrying over the dry middle like he expected it to give him an answer. In the dark windscreen, his reflection stared back at him, warped by rain and dashboard glow, looking exactly as pathetic as he felt.
Then he snapped it in half before he could think better of it. The sound was small. Dry. Brittle. Nothing. For a moment, Cook just stared at the broken pieces in his palm. No thunder. No flash. No sudden shift in the air. Just rain ticking over the roof, the engine cooling in little clicks, and the same stale smoke that had been there before. Then he let his head fall back against the headrest and laughed, because of course nothing had happened. Of course he was sitting outside a girl’s house after getting friend-zoned, breaking a twig like a sad little virgin with a humiliation kink.
“Absolute plonker,” he muttered.
Tap.
Cook opened his eyes. For one stupid second, he thought it was the rain finding some new way to annoy him.
Tap.
This time, he felt it through the glass beside him. He turned his head and found her outside the driver’s side window, close enough that his breath caught before he could stop it. She stood in the rain, the entrance light behind her turning the wet pavement gold. She should have been upstairs. He had watched her go in. Watched the door shut. Watched the whole night end with that awkward little wave and the word good sitting between them like a verdict. And now she was back, knuckle against the glass. Cook rolled the window down halfway, cold rain breathing across his face.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She leaned closer. “Why are you still here?”
“I was leaving.”
“No, you weren’t.”
His fist closed around the broken willow pieces. Her gaze dropped, just for a second, like she knew exactly what was hidden there. Then she looked at him again, and something in her expression rearranged itself too quickly, too completely, the careful distance she’d put between them evaporating all at once.
“I shouldn’t have gone inside,” she said.
Cook swallowed. “No?”
“No.”
“You said—”
“I know what I said. I know what I said and I didn't mean it."
The words should’ve scared him, and maybe they did, but fear had never been enough to make Cook let go of something he desired. He stared at her through the half-open window, waiting for the joke, the correction, the cruel little laugh that would make him feel stupid for believing her. She only kept looking at him, and the longer she stayed quiet, the easier it became to hear what he wanted instead. “You didn’t mean it,” he repeated.
She shook her head, her attention stuck on him in a way that made his skin prickle. “Come inside.”
Cook could have started the engine. He could have told her to go upstairs and sleep off whatever this was, could have thrown the broken pieces into the gutter and admitted that something had changed too fast to be real. He could have done one decent thing before the night got any worse. Instead, he got out. The night slapped cold against his face as he stepped from the car. She backed away just enough to let him stand, his hoodie pulled tight around her like she’d already forgotten it wasn’t hers. The pieces stayed clenched in his fist until he shoved them into his jacket pocket, because leaving them behind felt too much like admitting there was something to hide. Neither of them spoke as she led him inside. The stairwell light buzzed overhead, dragging their shadows up the wall as she climbed ahead of him, glancing back every few steps like her body needed proof he was still following. Cook stayed close enough to turn around if he wanted to. He didn’t.
By the time she unlocked her flat, the silence between them had started to feel like pressure. She pushed the door open and waited on the threshold. Cook crossed it, and the door clicked shut behind him. The lock slid home—her hand, not his, trembling around the deadbolt. He stood in her narrow hallway, caught among the small evidence of a life he’d only ever imagined from the outside: a cherry chapstick with the cap bitten rough, an old ASDA receipt tucked into the cracked paperback spine of a battered paranormal romance novel, a single earring dropped into a little ceramic dish shaped like a strawberry, a shopping list on the side table in her own hurried scrawl—milk, batteries, incense, bin bags—with half the words scratched through. None of it belonged to him, which made being there feel worse. She turned to face him before he could decide what to do with his hands, breathing too fast, looking at him with a certainty that felt planted there by something else. Every part of him knew this was wrong. He stayed anyway.
"You okay?" he asked, and his voice came out rougher than he meant. He knew she wasn't. He knew what he'd done. The willow bark was still under his fingernails, probably. Fuck. She didn't answer. Just stepped forward, into his space, and her mouth found his—clumsy, desperate, her teeth catching his lower lip hard enough to taste copper. Her hands fisted in his red bomber jacket, pulling him closer, and he let himself be pulled. Let himself forget the how. Let himself sink into the heat of her body pressing against his.
He broke the kiss first. Grabbed her wrists. Pinned them against the wall beside her head. Her breath stuttered, and he watched her chest rise and fall. "Slow down," he said, and the grin he found was more teeth than warmth. "You dragged me up here. Least you can do is let me look at you proper."
She swallowed, throat moving under his attention, pulse hammering at the base of it as her whole body strained toward him like he was gravity, like she’d die if he let go. But she stopped. Didn’t pull away. Didn’t roll her eyes. Didn’t make some mouthy little comment about him thinking he was in charge because Cook, honestly, fuck off. She just stopped because he told her to, standing there with her wrists caught in his hands and her attention fixed on him like the words had gone straight through her. A sick little thrill hooked under his ribs, and Cook thought of the wish before he could stop himself. He buried it almost as quickly as it surfaced, because putting a name to it would mean admitting this wasn’t just her finally wanting him; it was something else wearing her face like a mask. Cook told himself he wasn’t testing the wish, then gave her another order anyway, just to see if she’d obey.
"Take it off," he said, nodding at the hoodie. She pulled her wrists free—he let her—and tugged the fabric over her head, dropping it on the floor. She’d changed out of her work polo sometime after closing, before they went for food, and Cook remembered noticing it in the chip shop with the sort of attention he had no business giving it. The t-shirt underneath was an old band tee, washed thin, the collar stretching over her collarbone. He could see the outline of her nipples through it. Already hard.
"Been waiting two years," he said, low, almost to himself. His thumb found her bottom lip, pulled it down. "Two years of you being careful. Distant. Looking at me like I was something you stepped in."
She shook her head. "No, I—"
“Shut up.” He said it softly, and she obeyed so fast it made his cock jump in his jeans. Her mouth closed. Her eyes stayed on his. Before the wish, she would have torn him apart for speaking to her like that—called him a prick, rolled her eyes, made him laugh until the moment passed. Now she waited, quiet and ready, and the pleasure of that scared him less than it should have.
“You don’t get to talk right now,” he said, slower, because every word landed and he could see it landing. “You get to listen.” He traced the line of her jaw and felt her shiver. She was still watching him, waiting for the next thing, and the waiting did something awful to him. Made him want to keep going. Made him want to find out how far the wish reached. “You knocked on my window. You brought me upstairs. So you’re gonna stand there and take what I give you. Understand?”
She nodded, small and quick. Cook stared at her for half a second too long. There it was again. No argument. No bite. No careful little boundary set down between them like a warning cone. Just compliance, immediate and sweet, like the part of her that used to push back had been smothered under all that sudden wanting. It should have made him stop.
Cook took it as permission instead.
"Good girl." He leaned in and pressed his mouth to her throat, feeling her pulse jump against his lips. "Now get on your knees."
She dropped. Fast. Like her legs gave out. Her hands landed on his thighs, gripping the denim, and she looked up at him from the laminate floor—that same desperate, unfocused desire in her eyes. It was fucked. He knew it was fucked. But his cock was already rock hard, already straining against his jeans, and the way she was looking at him made it so easy to bury the thought because she was following every direction. Every single one. And the part of him that had spent two years being laughed off, brushed aside, kept harmless, made into a joke, wanted to call that proof. Wanted to call it fair. Wanted to call it finally.
"Unzip me," he said. Her fingers fumbled with the button, the zipper, and then she was pulling him out, her hand wrapping around him. The sound he made was almost embarrassingly raw. Her palm was warm. Dry. She stroked him once, tentative, and his hips bucked into her grip. "Now put that worthless mouth of yours to use for once."
She leaned forward. Her tongue touched the tip, a single experimental swipe, and then she took him in, her lips sliding down his shaft, her cheeks hollowing. He hit the back of her throat and she gagged, pulled back, tried again. He let her set the rhythm for a few seconds—watching her, the way her hair fell forward, the way her jaw strained—and then he fisted a hand in her hair and held her there. His voice was ragged as he told her, "m' gonna need you to breathe through your nose. Remember, you wanted this, so you're gonna take it."
She did. Her throat worked around him. The wet, obscene sound of it filled the hallway. The radiator ticked. Somewhere outside, a car passed, headlights sweeping across the thin curtains. None of it mattered. There was only her mouth, hot and slick as he held her hair in a fist, guiding her pace as he watched her struggle. "Look at you. Pretty little mouth stuffed full and you're drooling like a fuckin' whore." She didn't pull away, she only took it deeper, moan muffled and the vibration made his hips reflexively stutter. He groaned, pulled her off and slapped his cock against her slick lips. "Now suck it clean. Lick every drop of your filthy spit off my cock." She obeyed, tongue tracing the shaft, her eyes never leaving his. "Yeahhhh, that's it, you're such a dirty little cocksucker."
He let her up when his legs started shaking, not wanting to blow his load too early, not until he was inside her. He yanked her to her feet and walked her backward down the hall, one hand on her hip, the other gripping her jaw. Her lips were swollen, wet with spit amd pre-come. He kissed her again—slower this time, meaner, biting her bottom lip and sucking until she whimpered.
Her bedroom was cramped and messy, dirty clothes sticking out of a hamper in the corner, an unplugged charger curled on the night stand, bed unmade and dragged half off the frame, one corner of the fitted sheet peeled loose, a bottle of nail polish left mostly uncapped beside a burned out glade candle. He laid her back down on the mattress, and she spread her legs without being told, her t-shirt riding up to reveal a strip of bare stomach. He took his time. Pulled her trainers off. Tossed them aside. Ran his hands up her calves, her thighs, pushing her knees wider apart. Her jeans were tight, and he took his time with the button, his knuckles dragging against her stomach, watching her breathe.
"Look at you," he murmured. "Soaked through your knickers already." He traced the damp cotton with his thumb, pressed, felt her hips lift into the pressure. "That for me?"
"Yes." Her voice cracked. "Cook. Please."
"Please what?"
"Please, Cook, I can't—I need you inside me—please, please, please—"
He pulled her jeans down and off before her knickers followed, wet enough that they there was a visible damp patch through the fabric. He knelt between her legs and just looked at her for a moment—the slick shine of her cunt, the way her thighs trembled, the way her fingers twisted in the wrinkled sheets. Then he put his mouth on her. The taste hit him first—salt and skin, and then something deeper, muskier, entirely her. He dragged his tongue through her folds, slow, deliberate, and her whole body jolted like she'd been shocked. He held her hips down, flattened his tongue against her clit, and circled. Listened to her gasp. Felt her hand land in his hair, not pulling, just holding on.
He worked her like he had all the time in the world. Two years of want poured into every lick, every suck, every time he pushed a finger inside her and felt her clench around it. She was wet enough that he slid in easily—one finger, then two, curling up toward her stomach, finding the spot that made her cry out.
"That's it," he groaned, punctuating the air with lewd, wet squelches as he finger fucked her. "You're shakin' and I haven't even gotten my cock in you yet."
She was close—he could feel it in the way her walls fluttered around his fingers, in the way her breath came in short, broken gasps. His mouth reattached to her clit, sucked hard, and she shattered with a sound that was almost a sob, her back arching off the mattress, her cunt gripping his fingers as she rode it out. He didn't stop. He worked her through it, gentle now, until she pushed his head away, oversensitive and shaking. He sat back, licked his fingers clean, watched her chest heave. He pulled his jacket off. His shirt. Kicked his jeans down. His cock was aching, flushed and slick at the tip. He saw her eyes track it, saw her lips part before he crawled over her, positioning himself between her legs. "Gonna fuck you now princess but I need you tell me how badly you want it, tell me how badly you want my cock."
"I want it." Her voice was a whine, "I want your cock, Cook please—please, I need it so bad."
He pushed in slow, inch by inch, savoring the feeling of finally. Her cunt was hot, wet and so fucking tight that he had to stop halfway, his forehead dropping to her shoulder, a low groan torn out of him. She stretched around him, her fingers clawing at his back, her breath hot against his ear.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Feel that? Feel how deep I am?"
She nodded, a choked sound in her throat.
"This is what you've been keeping from me." He pulled out, pushed back in, deeper. "Two years. Two years of watching you, wanting you, and now I'm finally inside you."
He found a rhythm. Long, slow strokes that made her gasp every time he bottomed out. He watched his cock slide into her, watched the way her hole stretched around him, slick with their shared juices and the sight made him impossibly harder. He told her to look at him, her eyes idly meeting his, dark and dazed. "When I come inside you, I want you watching."
He drove deeper. Harder. The bedframe knocked against the wall, a steady, frantic beat. She was meeting his thrusts now, her hips rising to meet him, her nails raking down his back. The pain was good. Grounding. He was losing his rhythm, the edge bearing down on him. "Yeah, you like that? You like being fucked like a shameless slag?"
"Yes." She keened, "yes, fuck, yes!"
He wrapped his hand around her throat. Not tight—just there, a promise. "Come on my cock. Now."
She did. Her eyes stayed on his as her orgasm hit, her cunt squeezing him, and the feeling of it pulled him over with her. He drove into her one last time, buried deep, and came with a guttural sound that was almost her name. He stayed there inside her, breathing hard, the taste of her on his tongue. His hand was still on her throat, and he felt her swallow.
He pulled out slowly, watching his come leak out of her, mixing with her own. He collapsed beside her, dragging her into his arms, pressing his face into her hair. She was still—too still, her body limp against his, her breathing slowing. He felt the silence settle. The wrongness creeping back in, cold along his spine. He looked at her face. Her eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. A single tear slid down her temple and into her hairline, catching the light from the streetlamp outside—or maybe it was just sweat. He didn't ask. He just pulled her closer, his arm locked around her waist, his face buried against her shoulder. What mattered, he decided, was that she was still there. The lie was still warm in his chest.
He held on, and he refused to let go.
Cook woke into a room that didn’t sound like his life. No arcade machines shrieking, no Gareth shouting across Kingpin’s, no Ryan calling him useless from somewhere he couldn’t see. Just grey morning pressed against the curtains, a phone buzzing on the nightstand, and the slow return of a body beside him before memory came with it: the mattress, the weight of her, the scratches down his back, his clothes puddled somewhere by the door. His stomach tightened before he opened his eyes.
She was awake, propped on one elbow with her chin resting in her palm, watching him from her side of the bed with the duvet pulled to her chest. Her attention stayed fixed on his face with the same strange focus she’d had at the car window. The room smelled of something vaguely cozy, of slept-in sheets, of sex—blunt and undeniable. Something pleased and possessive tightened in Cook’s chest. He should’ve made a joke, something filthy and easy, the kind he could use to make all of this normal, but for once nothing came fast enough.
“How long’ve you been doing that?” he asked.
She blinked slowly, like the question had reached her late. “I don’t know.”
“That s'not creepy at all.”
“I like watching you sleep.”
The words should’ve worried him, should've made him pull away. Instead, they got under his skin in the worst possible way. Cook laughed because it was easier than admitting he liked it—liked her watching him, liked being looked at with that much need, liked that wanting him had made her strange. “You’re mental.”
Her expression switched so abruptly his laugh died in his throat. The version of her that had been watching him sleep seemed to blink out, leaving her staring at him with naked panic, taking in the sheets, his bare chest, her own body under the duvet like the memory of last night had come rushing back to her all at once. Her breathing shallowed, quick and jagged. “Why are you still here?” she whispered, and then, before he could answer, “Cook, what happened?”
Cook’s throat went tight, because there she was: the girl from the car, the one who'd said friend, the one who’d left him in the dark with his stupid broken twig and his stupid broken pride. She looked from him to the door and back again, one hand clamped to the duvet, the other pressed against her lips like she was trying not to be sick. “I don’t feel right,” she said, voice fraying. “I don’t—fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m being weird.”
The decent thing was humiliatingly simple: get dressed, leave, let her come back to herself without him in the room. Cook knew it in the way she kept looking toward the door, in the tremor running through her hands, in the terror she was trying and failing to swallow. Maybe she was on meds and had forgotten to take them. Maybe she’d taken something last night and it was still dragging her sideways. He grabbed for both explanations because they kept him away from the willow, and because neither of them changed the part his worst self cared about: she had come back, crawled into bed with him, and let him believe he’d finally won.
Then the panic twisted again. Her face crumpled, and she reached for him so suddenly it startled him, both hands locking around his wrist. “No, wait, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Her voice climbed, messy and frantic, apologies spilling over each other too quickly to sound steady. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t know why I said that. Please don’t leave, Cook. Please.”
The question sat right in front of him, simple and unforgivable. What happened to you? What did I do? What are you when you look at me like that? Cook didn’t ask it. He touched her face instead, and the alarm in her expression folded inward almost instantly, all that frantic energy narrowing until there was only him. Her grip loosened on his wrist only to slide higher, fingers curling into his forearm, and Cook felt the answer settle heavy in his stomach. That was all it took. Not an explanation. Not an apology. Just him.
“There you are,” he said, softly enough to sound kind.
Her mouth trembled. “Cook.”
He kissed her before she could say anything else, gentle at first, then deeper when she gave in with a shaky little sigh. The confusion left her quick, replaced by something eager and grateful, her fingers tightening around his forearm like she was apologising with her whole body, rightfully so.
When he slipped out of her bedroom later, it was only to fetch his cigarettes and charger from the car. That was what he told himself, anyway. He needed five minutes where she wasn’t looking at him like that, where he could stand outside in yesterday’s clothes and pretend this was just a bad comedown, missed meds, some private little breakdown he didn’t need to understand because she’d still crawled into bed with him. His phone buzzed while he was rummaging through the clutter in his center console.
The messages stacked up fast: come back, then why did you leave?, then are you angry?, then i’m sorry, then please come back upstairs. Cook stood beside his car with the charger in one hand and a cigarette forgotten behind his ear, staring at the screen while something pleased and rotten opened in him.
needy little thing aren’t you
The reply came instantly.
only for you
Cook looked up at her window and let himself smile, because the unease was still there, but so was the want. Hers now. Loud. Clinging. Impossible to miss. Then he went back upstairs.
They arrived at Kingpin’s together later that day.
It wasn’t subtle. Nothing about it was subtle, and that was why Cook liked it. He walked through the front doors in yesterday’s work polo, unwashed and wrinkled from being yanked back on that morning, hair a mess, mouth bitten in one corner, with her beside him in the kind of silence that made talking feel more incriminating. The arcade lights were already on, blinking over empty machines before opening. Gareth was fighting with the coffee machine. JJ was stacking cups. Ryan looked up from the lane desk and went completely rigid. Tasha noticed a second later. Cook noticed her noticing.
He put his hand low on her back, not because he needed to guide her anywhere, but because Ryan was looking and Tasha was looking and Cook wanted the whole ugly, glowing place to know. Gareth stuck his head out of the office. “You’re late.”
Cook grinned. “Worth the wait.”
“You’re always fucking late.”
“Still got everyone looking, haven’t I?”
“You’ve got five minutes before I dock your pay.”
She laughed under her breath.
Ryan’s eyes moved from Cook to her. “You two come in together?”
Cook leaned against the desk. “Observant lad.”
Ryan didn’t smile. “What happened?”
Cook’s grin widened because this was the bit he’d pictured without letting himself admit it: Ryan looking at him, Tasha pretending not to, everyone suddenly understanding that Cook hadn’t read it wrong after all.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Ryan’s jaw ticked. “Cook.”
Ryan’s tone had a warning in it, the kind Cook might have heard if he wasn’t already drunk on being right. Let Ryan look bothered. Let him stand there trying to work out how the sad prick from last night had walked in this morning with her at his side. Later, when she went to help JJ with the stockroom, Ryan cornered him near the shoe counter.
“What the fuck happened?” Ryan asked.
Cook grabbed a pair of returned shoes and sprayed them until the chemical smell hit the back of his throat. “You told me to ask.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And she changed her mind.”
“What does that mean?”
Cook leaned closer, lowering his voice into something mean and filthy. “Means she came back to the car after all that friend bollocks, dragged me upstairs, and spent the night proving her mouth says one thing and the rest of her says summat else.”
Ryan stared at him, and Cook enjoyed it too much, the look on his face dragging something nastier out of him. “Funny, innit?” he said, tossing the shoes into the cubby. “Girls say one thing, then get all upset when you stop believing them.”
Then Ryan asked, “Was she on something?”
The question cut through the bragging.
Cook’s smile twitched. “What?”
“Last night,” Ryan continued. “Was she on something?”
“Why?”
“She was acting weird.”
Cook scoffed. “Jealousy’s ugly on you, mate.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, tragic, that.”
Ryan looked toward the stockroom. “Molly, maybe. Pills. Whatever. She wasn’t herself.”
Cook hated how quickly the idea caught. Not because it made him feel guilty, but because it gave him a way out. Molly was better than magic. Molly was normal. Molly meant the willow was cheap bullshit from a dusty shop and not something that had split her open in the middle of the night. Molly meant she’d wanted him already and only needed a little chemical shove to stop acting so fucking pure about it. Molly meant Cook hadn’t done anything except stand there when the truth finally crawled out of her.
He laughed. “You saying she needed drugs to fancy me?”
Ryan’s expression didn’t move. “I’m saying maybe don’t be a smug prick until you know what happened.”
Cook hated Ryan for saying it, but the excuse was already there, useful and ready-made, some rotten part of him clung to it before he could look too closely. Later, behind Kingpin’s, she followed him into the smoking area and stayed close enough that he could feel her beside him without looking. Rain had left the concrete black and shiny; cardboard boxes slumped by the bins, soft with damp, while the fryer vent breathed hot grease into the cold. Cook lit his cigarette, took one drag, then held it out. She took it automatically, fingers brushing his.
“Were you on something last night?” he asked, casual as he could make it.
She paused with the filter near her mouth. “What?”
“Ryan reckons you were acting weird. Molly or some shit.”
Her expression went blank in a way that made the alley seem louder. For a second, she looked almost confused, like the word had opened a door she didn’t remember walking through. Cook saw her searching for an answer that wasn’t there. Then she looked at him and nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “Molly.”
Relief opened in his chest so fast it felt obscene. There it was: normal, dirty, easy. Not a wish. Not him. Just drugs, some bad choices and her finally admitting what she wanted.
“There we go,” he said.
She frowned slightly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
She took a drag and exhaled slowly. “I didn’t think it’d hit like that.”
Cook stepped closer. “Hit how?”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and whatever doubt had been in her face went soft around the edges. “You know how.”
Cook smiled.
That was the version he chose.
After that, things were good. Good in the way a bad idea could be good if Cook kept calling it molly and let her look at him like it was love. Good in stolen minutes, bitten mouths, her fingers hooked through his belt loop near the staff corridor while he pretended he was only hanging there because he was lazy. Good in coffee waiting before his shifts and his jacket disappearing over her shoulders during smoke breaks. Good in Cook sitting on the shoe counter with his knees spread while she stood between them, close enough for him to murmur something filthy against her ear and watch whatever she’d been saying fall apart in her mouth.
She started arranging herself around him like it was natural. If he came in at four, she was there at half three with a cold drink already waiting with a smile aimed straight at him. If he closed, she lingered after clocking out and pretended she was helping. If Gareth sent him to unjam a machine, she found some excuse to cross the arcade, drifting through the blue glow and cheap ticket noise until she was beside him again. She fixed his collar before customers came in, plucked lint off his polo, stole chips from his tray during their lunch break, and let him drag her into corners for kisses that left them late, breathless, and grinning like they hadn’t done anything wrong. Cook got used to her hand at his waist, her mouth near his ear, the constant heat of her attention following him from counter to lane to arcade floor. He got used to people looking. To Ryan going quiet whenever she touched him. To Tasha glancing away a second too late. He got used to being wanted loudly, stupidly, without all the careful little limits she’d put around herself before.
For a little while, the wrongness dressed itself up so well he could almost call it happiness. It got into the small things first. Her lip balm in his pocket. Her lighter rolling around his cupholder. Her drink waiting beside his on the counter before he’d even thought to ask. She sat in his passenger seat with her knees tucked up, changed his music without asking, and kissed him over the gearshift when he told her she had shit taste. She took photos of him when he wasn’t looking, laughed when he told her to delete them, then kept them anyway because apparently she liked him best when he was scowling. He called her his girl once as a joke, some filthy little throwaway line near the prize counter, and watched her whole expression change. So he said it again. After that, he said it whenever he wanted to feel powerful.
The texts became part of the weather: where are you? then answer me, then are you with tasha?, then miss you, sorry, i just miss you. Cook liked the apologies best, which was a nasty thing to learn about himself.
At night, she still watched him sleep. He’d surface to grey light or the thin orange stripe of a streetlamp through the curtains and find her awake beside him, chin tucked against her arm, studying him with an almost worshipful stillness. The first cold prickle never lasted. It always got drowned out by the thicker, meaner satisfaction underneath: she was losing sleep over him. She was guarding him from the dark like leaving him alone for eight hours would be some kind of betrayal. Any decent bloke would have hated it. Cook started staying over more.
At first, the missing things were small enough to laugh at. His lighter vanished from beside the till and turned up in her jacket pocket. The pen he always chewed at work disappeared from the front desk. His spare name badge went from the staff room. A torn strip of red gift ribbon he’d tied around his neck during a kid's birthday party at work as a joke somehow ended up tucked beneath her pillow. Each thing had an excuse on its own. Together, they started looking deliberate. One night, searching her drawer for a charger, he found them arranged together: lighter, pen, badge, ribbon, a crumpled cigarette packet with the corner bitten where he’d opened it with his teeth, a receipt with his handwriting on the back, a loose button from the polo he’d split during a shift, and a folded rota with every one of his hours circled in black pen. His stomach turned.
She appeared in the doorway behind him. “Don’t be creeped out.”
Cook looked back at the drawer. “What is this?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not nothing. That’s a fucking drawer full of me.”
Her voice went small, anxious. “I like having pieces of you when you’re not here.”
A normal person would’ve left. Cook shut the drawer instead. “That’s fucked.”
“I know.”
He looked at her properly then, standing there waiting for him to decide what she was, punishment and forgiveness both written all over her face. Cook stepped closer. “You’re a proper little psycho, aren’t you?” Her expression opened at that, not wounded, not ashamed—grateful, like he’d found the right name for her and she loved him for saying it. That should’ve sent him running; instead, it made him feel like a bastard and a prize at once.
Ryan tried talking to her a few days into whatever Cook had decided this was. Cook was crouched near the ball returns, pretending to inspect a jam that didn’t exist so he could keep slacking off, when he saw Ryan catch her by the staff door. Not touch her. Not block her exactly. Ryan was too careful for that. He just stepped in close enough to make the conversation private. Cook stopped pretending to work.
“You can’t just ignore me,” Ryan said.
She looked past him toward the lanes. “I’m working.”
“You haven’t answered a single text.”
“Don’t text me anymore.”
Ryan’s face changed. “Since when?”
She blinked. Cook saw the question hit something. Not memory exactly, not recognition, but a loose thread tugged too hard. Her mouth parted, and for a second she looked at Ryan like she could almost remember why his voice was supposed to matter. Then she saw Cook. Whatever had slipped in her expression vanished. Her attention locked back onto him, simple and immediate, like the rest of the room had ceased to exist. “Since him."
Cook should have wondered why Ryan sounded less confused than hurt. He should have wondered what sort of texts she’d stopped answering, and why the words don’t text me anymore had come out so cold and clipped, like something in her had already decided for her. Instead, all he heard was the finality. Ryan followed her gaze, and for one second his expression turned black with hatred. Cook, the bastard he was, smiled.
After that, the days started arranging themselves around him: work, smoke breaks, her flat, his car, her hands finding him before he had to ask. Cook let himself mistake it. That was the stretch where his version of things started feeling easier to live with. The willow had been nothing. Ryan had been right about the molly. She’d been too careful before, too sober, too caught up in whatever walls she’d built around herself, and the night in his car had only knocked them down. Cook hadn’t made her want him. He’d just been there when she finally stopped pretending she was too good for him. Maybe he’d been right all along.
He took her bowling after close one night when Gareth dipped out early and JJ pretended not to notice them turning lane seven back on. Neither of them changed out of their work attire. She bowled terribly, as always. Cook wasn't much better, cheating by stepping over the line and then arguing with the scoring screen as if the machine could be bullied into boosting his numbers. She giggled until she had to sit down on the ball return, and Cook kissed her there under the lane lights with the pins resetting uselessly in the distance. Then he took her for 2 a.m. kebabs and watched sauce drip onto her fingers. She licked it off without thinking. And Cook, because he was Cook and apparently incapable of letting anything stay innocent, leaned in and said, “Careful. Keep doing that and I’m gonna start thinking you want something in your mouth that isn’t garlic sauce.” She shoved his shoulder hard enough that he nearly dropped his food, laughing despite herself. She took another one of his hoodies that night and didn’t give it back. He pretended to complain. He liked seeing her in it too much to actually mean it.
She came to his flat and cleared three empty lager cans and a crumbled burger wrapper off his dusty dresser while calling him a slob. Cook caught her by the waist before she could make it to the bin, pulled her down onto the mattress, and she went willingly, eagerly, already kissing him like she’d only been waiting for him to give her the excuse. They fucked with the cans and the wrapper left sitting on the floor and the sheets half off the bed, quick and messy, and too pleased with themselves to care. After, she lay with her cheek near his shoulder and traced the tattoo on his arm until the gentleness of it started crawling under his skin, so Cook said something filthy just to ruin it. She didn’t get annoyed. She kissed him instead. He started to crave the way she changed when he claimed her out loud. Started doing it in front of people because it made her lean closer and made everyone else understand she wasn’t available to them anymore. Started testing small things because testing let him pretend it wasn’t control. Come here. Look at me. Say it again. Don’t answer him. Stay.
She listened. God help him, he loved that she listened.
The party happened on a Friday in a flat belonging to someone Tasha knew, or maybe someone Tasha had hooked up with, or maybe both. Cook didn’t ask. It was small, mixed, and noisy: Kingpin’s people, friends of friends, two blokes from a football team nobody cared about, a girl from the bar down the road, someone’s flatmate smoking out the kitchen window, cheap beer and liquor bottles sweating on every available surface. The living room was too warm and too crowded, music rattling from a speaker on the windowsill, bottles lined along the coffee table, crisps crushed into the rug.
Cook arrived with her tucked into his side and immediately felt better than everyone. That was the point of bringing her. Not the only point, maybe, but the one he liked most. He liked seeing people see. Liked the glances. Liked Tasha’s startled little look before she hid it behind her drink. Liked Ryan watching from across the room with his jaw set like he’d bitten into something bitter. She sat close to Cook on the sofa, thigh against his, fingers wound into the sleeve of his hoodie. Whenever he shifted, she shifted too. Whenever he laughed, her eyes cut to him first, sharp and swift, as if she had to know who’d earned it. A decent man might have been worried. Cook felt worshipped.
Truth or dare started because everyone was drunk and unoriginal. Cook picked dare because truth was for pussies and people with fewer stories. A bloke whose name Cook didn’t remember grinned and pointed. “Kiss the person to your left.”
The room reacted before Cook even looked. Laughter, whistles, someone saying, “Oh, shit.” Someone else going, “That’s Tasha, innit?” Cook turned. Tasha sat to his left, eyes widening before she giggled and lifted her beer like a shield. “No, don’t make it weird.”
Cook looked at her lips. He didn’t mean to for long. He meant to for exactly long enough. Then he looked back at the woman pressed against his side. Her expression had gone empty. The room was still laughing, but Cook felt the change move through her before anyone else noticed. Her fingers tightened around the beer bottle in her hand. At first it was nothing. A little pressure. A little stillness. Enough for him to see because he was watching for it, because some sick, glittering part of him wanted to know what she’d do if someone tried to take what she thought was hers. The bottle cracked. The sound cut through the room. Beer spilled over her fingers and down onto the rug. Brown glass fractured in her grip and scattered near her feet, and the laughter died badly, piece by piece, until only the music kept playing too loud from the windowsill.
Tasha jerked back with a sharp, “Jesus,” and Cook stood so fast his knee knocked the table. “Oi.” She didn’t look at him. She was already crossing the space, not shouting, not rushing, which somehow made it worse, the almost-empty bottle hanging loose at her side while everyone's wide, horrified eyes stayed glued to her. Tasha pressed back into the sofa, confusion giving way to alarm, “What the fuck?”
She stopped close enough that Tasha sank into the shabby cushions, and the jagged neck of the bottle rose between them, amber glass flashing under the light. “If your lips go anywhere near him,” she said, calm enough to make it sound decided, “I’ll smash your teeth down your throat and watch you choke on them, you stupid bitch.”
The room went quiet in a way parties weren’t supposed to. Tasha sat pinned against the sofa, beer forgotten in her lap; cups paused halfway to mouths, knees locked at odd angles on the carpet, and the bloke who’d given the dare looked sober now, his grin gone slack and useless. Sour lager soaked into the rug near her shoes while Ryan eased himself up from the armchair, careful as if any sudden noise might turn her on him. She leaned closer. “I mean it. I’ll carve your face open with this bottle until no one can tell where your slag mouth used to be.”
Cook caught her wrist. “Hey.” She jolted at the touch like she’d been woken mid-nightmare, her stare dropping to the glass in her grip, the beer running over her fingers, the shards scattered near her feet. Whatever blank certainty had carried her cracked all at once. “I don’t feel right,” she said, voice thin enough to nearly disappear under the music still playing from the windowsill. Cook heard her, but he also felt the whole room watching him now: Ryan by the armchair, Tasha with her palms half-raised, everyone waiting for him to handle it because it was his mess, wasn’t it? His scene. His problem. His intense new girlfriend.
He stepped in carefully and took the bottle neck from her before she cut herself worse. “Look at me.” She did. Her breathing hitched. Her attention kept snagging and loosening, and for a blink she was the girl from that first morning after again, the one who’d asked why he was still in her bed, scared and trapped somewhere under her own skin. Cook should’ve let that scare him sober; instead, he touched her jaw. “It was nothing.”
She shook her head once. “I don’t know why I—”
“You know what you want.”
The words came out quietly, and they worked. He felt the exact instant she latched onto them, fear rerouting itself into devotion as her eyes fixed on his. Her free hand grabbed the front of his shirt, and then she was kissing him in front of everyone, hard enough that the awkwardness spread through the room like smoke. Cook let her. Of course he did. Tasha looked away first. Ryan didn’t. Cook got her into the hallway after, away from the stale crush of the living room and the whispers already crawling through it. Someone had turned the music down; someone else was blotting lager out of the rug with kitchen roll. She stood near the bathroom door, staring at her empty hand. “Did I scare everyone?” Cook leaned against the wall opposite her. “It’s a party. People love drama.” Her voice sank. “I scared myself.”
That should’ve stopped him, but Cook only pushed off the wall and came closer. “You’re alright.” She looked at him. “Am I?” He gave her the answer like it was obvious. “You’re with me.” The desperate gratitude returned the moment he gave her somewhere to put herself, and Cook felt the power of it all the way down to his fingertips. He didn’t have to ask anymore, didn’t have to risk humiliation. He could say look at me, and she would. He could say come here, and she’d come. He’d wanted confirmation. Now he had it.
The next few days stretched quieter, which made the party easier to file away as a drunken, jealous accident if Cook didn’t think about it too hard. He never thought about it too hard. He took her to breakfast after an opening shift, both of them half-asleep in a sticky café booth while she ordered whatever he ordered and didn’t touch her food until he told her to eat, eyes flicking up to his face after every bite like she was waiting to be praised for doing it right. She fell asleep in his car on the way back to Kingpin’s, cheek against the window, and Cook drove around an extra fifteen minutes because he liked having her there. Soft, submissive, dependent on him to get her where she needed to go.
At work, she helped JJ fix the ticket machine and got grease on her sleeve. She spent ten minutes arguing with a little girl about whether the purple dinosaur prize was cooler than the green one, with such fierce seriousness that Cook laughed from the lane desk until Gareth told him to stop frightening the customers. She kissed him breathless behind the staff door after, tasting like cherry slush and cheese from the nachos she’d snuck. For a few hours at a time, she was almost normal. Almost. Then Tasha would come too close, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. After the party, Tasha became careful around him. Embarrassed, maybe. Scared of the bottle incident. She didn’t flirt the way she used to, didn’t hover with her drink tucked to her chest or lean too close just because she could. If anything, fear made her quieter with him, anxious at the edges, her concern slipping out in small, stupid ways she could pretend were nothing. She asked if he was okay. Brought him a drink at work and left it beside him without mentioning it. When Gareth shouted from lane five about a jammed return, she came to find Cook by the prize counter with the lane key already in her hand.
“Gareth wants you,” she said.
“Popular man, me.”
“Machine’s eating balls again.”
“Kinky.”
“Cook.”
He grinned, and it almost felt normal. Tasha held the key out. Cook reached for it at the same time she leaned past him to avoid a kid sprinting toward the claw machines, and her fingers knocked against his. Nothing much. A brush of skin. A tiny accidental touch that should’ve meant less than nothing, especially after everything. Except Cook didn’t pull away. He let their fingers stay tangled around the key for one second longer than they needed to, not enough for Tasha to call it flirting, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough. He felt her watching from the prize station before he looked. So he made himself look. He told himself he was just checking. Testing whether the molly excuse still held up after weeks of this. Whether things had settled. Whether the weirdness was fading. He knew that was bullshit. He wanted to see if she still went crazy for him.
The prize display cracked under her palm an hour later. It happened in the middle of a Saturday rush, with the arcade full of kids and the lanes roaring. She stood behind the counter, hand pressed flat against the glass case full of candy rings, plastic tiaras, rubber snakes, glow sticks, ticket bundles, and stuffed animals with dead little sewn-on smiles. The glass spiderwebbed beneath her. Blood slipped down her wrist. For half a second, the whole prize area froze. Then a child started crying. Cook was already in motion.
“What the fuck?” he snapped, grabbing a towel from behind the counter and wrapping it around her hand.
She didn’t look at the blood. She looked at Tasha then at Cook. “She touched you."
Behind him, Ryan said his name like a warning. “Cook.”
Cook ignored him. He got her into the back office with one hand around her uninjured wrist, kicked the door shut behind them, and grabbed the first-aid kit off the wall. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, that same broken note that always made his teeth itch. The office felt too small after the noise outside, too bright under the strip light, full of dust, stale coffee, and old paper. Gareth’s desk buried under paperwork he kept meaning to file and never did. A cracked mirror above the sink threw Cook’s reflection back at him: messy hair, mouth set too tight, eyes too sharp for someone pretending he had this under control.
“Sit,” he told her. She sat on the edge of Gareth’s desk with her cut hand held stiffly in her lap, blood smeared across her palm where the glass had bitten into it. Quiet now that there was no one left to threaten.
“Fucking hell,” Cook muttered, dropping the kit open beside her. His fingers felt clumsy as he dug out the antiseptic wipes. “What’d you do that for?”
She didn’t answer. Just watched him too closely, too calmly, like some part of her was still back there, still seeing Tasha too near him, still hearing the bottle crack in her hand. Cook tore open a wipe. “This is gonna sting.”
She didn’t flinch when he pressed it to the cut. Didn’t make a sound. Only breathed a little faster, her chest rising and falling beneath her work polo as he cleaned the blood from her palm. It wasn’t deep, but it bled enough to stain the paper towels red, enough to make the office smell faintly metallic under the old coffee and disinfectant.
“Should’ve seen your face,” he said, not looking up. “When she got near me. Looked like you wanted to kill her.”
Silence. Then, quietly, “I would have.”
His hands stopped. Cook looked up at her. She meant it. There was nothing dramatic in her voice, no shaking, no performance. Just certainty, flat and terrifying, like she was telling him the weather, his voice rough as sandpaper as he asked, “yeah? You’d kill for me?”
“I’d do anything.”
The words cut straight through him. Too much. Too easy. Too fucking far. But heat pooled low in his stomach anyway, and for one second Cook almost hated himself enough to stop. Almost. He wound the bandage around her palm, layer over gauzy layer, then pressed the adhesive down with his thumb. “There. All fixed.”
She didn’t pull her hand away. Her fingers curled around his. “Cook.”
His name sounded foreign in her mouth when she was like this. Starved. Soft. Already reaching. Then her expression shifted. Not much. Just enough for him to see it happen. “I didn’t mean to do that."
Cook went still. She stared down at her bandaged hand, breathing too carefully, like one wrong inhale might split the moment open. “I didn’t. I don’t know why I did that.”
There she was. Not the version who clung to his sleeve and watched his mouth like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Not the version who smiled when he called her his girl. This one looked at the blood drying near her wrist like it belonged to something she’d woken from too late. Cook could have told her then. He could have said, I did something. I made a wish. I think I did this to you. Instead, he touched her wrist, her gaze snapping to his. “You were jealous."
Her mouth parted. “I don’t want to be.”
Cook moved closer, still holding her wrist, thumb pressed lightly over her pulse. “Yeah, you do.”
She shook her head, but there was no force behind it.
“You just don’t like her looking at me.”
“No,” she whispered.
“You don’t like anyone looking at me.”
Her breath hitched.
“That’s alright,” he murmured, making it sound gentle, making it sound reasonable instead of irrational. “I like it.”
Something in her gave way beneath his hand. The dread in her face softened, blurred, turned inward until it had nowhere to go but him. Her injured hand curled against the bandage, and the other reached for his shirt, careful at first, then tighter, pulling him between her knees like she needed him close before she could breathe properly. “Cook.”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me.”
He should have said no. Should have stepped back, opened the door, left her in the back office with the buzzing light and the stale coffee and the blood on the paper towels. Should have let her surface again before he dragged her under. Instead, he leaned in. His mouth crushing against hers, one hand fisting in the collar of her polo, the other bracing against the desk behind her. The kiss was all teeth and spit, It was pure hunger—sloppy, desperate, the kind of kiss that said he'd been holding back all day and the dam had just fucking broken. She made a noise against his mouth, something caught between a gasp and a moan. And he swallowed it. His tongue pushed past her lips, tasted the slush, the lip balm, the mint of her toothpaste from this morning. He didn't care what. He just wanted more of it. More of her. His name tag scraped against hers as he pressed closer, the metal edges catching, and he felt her hand—the bandaged one—come up to grip his shoulder. Her fingers dug in, hard, through the cheap fabric of his red polo. The pain was good. Grounding. Proof that this was real.
"Fuck," he breathed against her mouth, reeling back just enough to look at her. Her pupils were dialated, lips wet and swollen. She looked fucked out already, and he'd barely touched her. "You've no idea how bad i wanted to fuck you out there."
"Do it," she said, her voice rough and needy. "Don't stop."
He didn't need to be told twice. This time, he bit her lower lip, tugged it between his teeth, and she gasped—a sharp little sound that went straight to his cock. His hands found her hips, pulled her against him, let her feel exactly what she was doing to him. The hard length of him pressed against her through two layers of denim and boxers, and she rocked into it, a small involuntary movement that made his breath catch.
"Yeah," he muttered, his mouth trailing down her jaw, her throat, sucking at the skin just below her ear. "Yeah, that's it. Fucking move against me."
His hands slid up her sides, under the hem of her polo. The skin of her stomach was warm, soft, and he felt her shiver as his calloused fingers traced upward. He pushed the fabric up, exposing the curve of her ribs, the bottom of her bra—a simple black thing, nothing fancy, and that made it hotter. She wasn't trying. She was just here, wanting him.
"Off," he said, tugging at her polo. "Take it off."
She did, pulling it over her head in one motion, and the name tag clattered against the desk. Cook's eyes raked over her—black bra, collarbones, the slight sheen of sweat on her chest from the rush. He wanted to put his mouth on every inch of her. He reached behind her, undid the clasp with a practiced flick, and the bra fell away. Her tits were perfect as always, her nipples stiff. He didn't wait. He bent his head and took one in his mouth, laving his tongue over the peak, sucking hard enough to make her gasp.
"Oh, fuck," she breathed, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. "Cook—"
He switched to the other breast, giving it the same attention, biting down just enough to make her hips jerk. His hand slid down her stomach, past the waistband of her jeans, palming her through the denim. She was wet. He could feel the heat of her through the fabric, and it made his mouth water.
"Been thinking about this all shift?" he asked, his voice rough, his lips still brushing her nipple. "Thinking about me while you were counting tickets, fixing Gareth’s shitty prize display, pretending you weren’t watching me the entire time."
"Yes," she whined, the word coming out broken and desperate. "God, yes. Every time you walked past."
"Good girl." He said it like a reward, and she shuddered. "That's what I like to hear."
He popped the button on her jeans and pulled them down her legs, her knickers going with them, helping her out of them before tossing them aside. He pushed her back onto the desk, laid her out like a feast, and dropped to his knees between her thighs. The fluorescent light above buzzed harshly, casting everything in that sick green pallor, but he didn't care. He just wanted to see her. Taste her.
"Look at you," he said, his thumbs spreading her open. She was glistening, wet, her cunt swollen and ready for him. "Fucking gorgeous. All this for me?"
"All for you." Her voice was barely a whisper.
He leaned in and licked a slow, deliberate stripe up her slit, from entrance to clit, and she bucked off the desk. Her taste hit his tongue—musky, sweet, overwhelming—and he groaned against her, his eyes closing. This was what he’d wanted before he’d ever had it, and having it hadn’t cured him of a single thing. If anything, it had made him worse. Two years of wanting her had turned into something uglier now, something fed instead of satisfied, because the fantasy wasn’t impossible anymore. He knew what she sounded like. Knew how she looked at him when the wish took hold. Knew he could have her in the back office, in his flat, wherever he decided, and the worst part was how quickly that had started to feel like something he was owed. He ate her like a man starved, his tongue circling her clit, his fingers sliding inside her, curling, searching for that spot that would make her scream. She was dripping, soaking his chin, her hands gripping the edge of the desk, her breath coming in sharp little cries. The sound of his mouth on her filled the small office—wet, obscene, rhythmic.
"You like that?" he asked, pulling back just enough to speak, his chin glistening. "You like my tongue in your cunt?"
"Yes—fuck—yes—"
"Tell me." He pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, then bit down, hard. "Tell me what you want."
"I want you to fuck me." Her voice cracked. "Please, Cook. I need you inside me."
"That's my girl." He stood, his hands going to his belt, undoing it with quick, rough movements. His trousers dropped, his boxers with them, and his cock sprang free—hard, leaking, the tip already slick with pre-come. He stroked himself once, twice, watching her watch him. "You see what you do to me? See what you've always done?"
She reached for him, her bandaged hand wrapping around the base of his cock, guiding him to her entrance. He let her. He wanted her to be part of this, to want it as much as he did.
"You sure you want this at work?" he asked, even though he knew he wouldn't stop if she said no. Even though the thought of stopping was physically painful.
"I want it," she said. "I want you."
He pushed in. The first inch was heaven—tight, wet, hot. He had to pause, had to breathe, had to let her adjust. His forehead dropped to hers, their breaths mingling in the stale office air.
"Fuck," he whispered. "You always feel so fucking good."
She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned, his hips beginning to move. Slow at first, a long thrust that buried him to the hilt, then a pull-back that left him aching, then another thrust, harder this time. The desk creaked beneath them, the old wood groaning with every movement.
"Yeah," he said, picking up speed. "Yeah, take it. Take all of it."
She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open in a silent moan. He watched her face—the way her brow furrowed, the way her lips parted, the way her breath hitched with every thrust—and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
"Look at me." He grabbed her chin, forced her eyes open. "I want you to watch me fuck you. I want you to see who's making you feel this good."
Her eyes met his, hazy yet focused, and he felt his balls tighten. He was close already, too close, but he wasn't done with her yet. He pulled out, ignoring her whimper of protest, and flipped her over. Her hands hit the desk, her ass in the air, and he lined himself up again, sliding into her from behind with one smooth thrust. The angle was deeper, tighter, and she cried out, her fingers scrabbling for purchase on the cluttered surface, knocking papers everywhere.
"That's it," he said, his hand smacking her ass with a sharp slap. The sound echoed in the small room. "That's my good little slag. Taking my cock like a fucking champ." He fucked her fast and mean, his hips slapping against her ass, his hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. The fluorescent light flickered above them, the buzz a constant backdrop to the wet sounds of their fucking, her moans, his grunts, the creak of the desk.
"You like that?" he asked, his voice a snarl. "You like being fucked like this? Like the dirty little whore you are?"
"Yes—"
"Yeah, you do. You love it. You've wanted this since the moment you saw me, haven't you? All those months of pretending you weren't interested, that I was just a friend, and now look at you. Look at you, lettin' me fuck you stupid at work."
She didn't answer, just moaned, and he slapped her ass again, hard enough to leave a palm print. "I said, haven't you?"
"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, I've wanted this. I've wanted you."
"Good girl." He reached around, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing tight circles as he kept thrusting. "Now come for me. Come on my cock like the good little slag you are."
She did. She shattered around him, her cunt clenching, her whole body shaking, a broken cry tearing from her throat. The sensation pushed him over the edge. He buried himself deep, his hips stuttering, and came inside her with a groan that was almost a sob. Hot, thick, filling her, marking her from the inside. He stayed there for a moment, his forehead resting between her shoulder blades, his breath ragged. The silence was heavy, broken only by the buzz of the light and the distant sounds of the arcade—the beep of a ticket machine, the laugh of a customer, the crack of bowling balls hitting multiple sets of pins. The real world, still spinning, completely unaware of what had just happened. He pulled out slowly, watching his come leak out of her, running down her thigh. Didn't matter how many times he's seen it happen now, something primal and possessive still coiled in his chest.
"We need to get you on birth control," he said, his tone casual, matter-of-fact. "Can't have you getting knocked up. Not yet. Not unless I decide I want that."
She didn't answer. She was still leaning over the desk, her breath shaky, her body trembling. He reached for the box of tissues on the shelf, pulled a handful out, and handed them to her.
"Clean up," he said, already pulling his trousers up, buckling his belt. "We've got another two hours of shift left."
She took the tissues, wiping herself slowly, and he watched her. The bandage on her hand was stained with a faint red, the wound probably bleeding again from how hard she'd gripped the desk. He should redo it. He should take care of her. He didn't. Rather, he lit a cigarette, the smoke curling up toward the buzzing light, and let the lie settle warm and comfortable in his chest. She belonged to him. That was all that mattered. She'd wanted him enough to break glass, enough to bleed, enough to end up here on this grimy desk, her legs shaking, his come still inside her. And if that wasn't real—if the wish had made it happen—he didn't want to know.
After that, Kingpin’s got quieter in the worst possible way. Tasha kept their conversation polite and professional. Ryan watched Cook with open dislike. Gareth complained about the cracked display and threatened to take damages out of everyone’s wages, which everyone ignored because Gareth threatened that weekly. JJ asked if she was okay, and she smiled too brightly and said yes. Later, Cook found her near the women’s bathroom, standing too close to Tasha. She wasn’t touching her. Wasn’t yelling. Just speaking softly beneath the arcade noise, her body angled in that calm, awful way Cook was starting to recognize. He couldn’t hear the words, but he saw Tasha’s face. When Tasha walked away, shoulders tight, Cook caught up with her. “What was that?”
Tasha looked at him. “Ask your girlfriend.”
“She’s not—”
He stopped.
Tasha’s mouth tightened. “Right.”
Cook found her in the staff corridor, wiping nonexistent dust from her bandage. “What’d you say to her?”
She looked up. “Nothing.”
“Didn't look like nothing.”
A tiny smile touched her mouth, and it should have pissed him off more than it did. “She thinks she’s special. She thinks because you look at her, it means something.”
Cook’s throat tightened. He should have told her it didn’t. Should have said Tasha was a coworker, that none of this was natural, that she couldn’t go around threatening people because he had an ego and a wandering mouth. Instead, he asked, “And does it?”
Her expression sharpened, and Cook felt it low in his chest: the warning, the want, the sickness of being answered exactly how he wanted.
The first time someone actually paid for what Cook wanted happened just after close. One of the girls from the party came into Kingpin’s with friends, the one who’d giggled too loudly when Cook got dared to kiss Tasha. Cook didn’t remember her name. He remembered her from later, after the bottle incident had been laughed off badly and the music had been turned up again, when his girl had dragged him down the hall to the bathroom and made him wait outside the door because apparently even pissing required a fucking chaperone. He’d leaned against the opposite wall, basking in the stupid satisfaction of being needed that badly, when the girl had wandered out from the living room with a beer in her hand and stopped at the mouth of the hall. “You’re trouble, aren’t you?” she’d said. The bathroom door had stayed shut. The music had been too loud for anything to carry. His girl hadn’t heard a word, which meant Cook got to enjoy the attention without paying for it. And Cook remembered every bit of female attention if it could be used later to soothe himself or make himself worse.
Near closing, she came up to the front desk and made a joke about the broken bottle.
“Your girlfriend still mad at everyone?” she asked.
Cook glanced toward her restocking prizes. “Wouldn’t call her that.”
“Seemed like she would.” The girl tore a corner from an old receipt then, borrowed the pen chained to the counter, and wrote something down with her shoulder angled so her friends couldn’t see but they were giggling.
“Just in case she ever lets you off the lead,” she smirked , sliding it toward him.
Cook should have thrown it away. He didn’t. He glanced at the number, grinned despite himself, and tucked the scrap under the register because he couldn’t help it. Or because he didn’t want to. Twenty minutes later, when he took the rubbish out through the back, he heard the impact before he saw anything. Not a scream first. Not even a shout. Just the hard, wet sound of someone being driven into brick, followed by a choked cry that seemed to catch halfway up a throat and die there. Cook stopped with the bin bag hanging from one hand. The girl from the party was near the car park wall, bent sideways against the bricks while her friend stood several feet away with both hands clamped over her mouth. The girl’s phone lay near the bins, screen shattered across the wet pavement in sharp little flecks, still lighting up uselessly beneath the rain. Her bag had spilled open near the wheel of a parked car, lipstick and keys scattered through the puddles.
She had one hand twisted in the girl’s jacket and the other pressed against the back of her head. For one horrible second, Cook saw the motion before his brain managed to dress it up as anything else. She shoved the girl forward again. Her face hit the wall with a dull crack. The girl made a broken sound and slid down a few inches before she yanked her back up by the collar. Blood smeared the brick where her mouth had struck it. More ran from her cheek and over her lips, dripping onto the collar of her jacket in quick, dark spots. She tried to turn away, but Cook’s girl caught her by the hair and slammed her sideways into the wall hard enough that her knees gave out. Her friend was screaming, “stop! Get off her!”
She let go so suddenly the girl dropped. She hit the asphalt on one hip, palms skidding through dirty water and broken bits of her own phone. Her friend lunged forward, then froze when Cook’s girl turned her head, slow and empty, blood smeared across the knuckles of one hand. Cook’s first thought wasn't, Is she alive? His first thought was, Fuck. Then she looked at him. His jacket hung from her shoulders. Her hand flexed at her side, fingers uncurling one by one like she was only just remembering she had them. Her knuckles were split. A thin red line ran down from her wrist and disappeared under the sleeve, but her expression was calm enough to make the cold air cut sharper in his lungs.
Ryan came through the back door behind him. “What happened?”
The girl on the ground sobbed into the pavement. Cook didn’t answer. She stepped closer, eyes fixed on him and nothing else. “She gave you her number.”
Ryan swore under his breath. The friend was crying now, one hand shaking around her phone as she tried to dial with wet fingers. The girl from the party curled in on herself near the wall, one hand pressed hard to her bleeding mouth like she was trying to keep her face together. Rainwater carried thin red threads through the cracks in the pavement, around the smashed phone, around the dropped keys shining under the security light. Cook stared at all of it. The blood on the brick. The girl’s hair gummied to her cheek. The receipt corner still tucked under the register inside, stupid and flimsy and somehow louder than anything in his head. The stain on the sleeve of his jacket like something he’d signed for and forgotten he could be charged with. He thought of the willow snapping in his fingers. Her tap on the car window. Molly, stupid and convenient. The way she kept waking up confused. The beer bottle. The prize case. Tasha backing away near the bathroom.
He had wanted her to want him so badly it ruined her. Now there was blood outside Kingpin’s, and he still had to bite back the part of himself that wanted to call it devotion. He’d wished to be wanted; the wish granted him violence, and some sick part of him still mistook it for love.
By morning, Kingpin’s had turned the blood into gossip. No one had been charged. That was the first miracle, if Cook was still stupid enough to call anything about it miraculous. The girl from the party and her friend gave one version, shaking and crying under the ugly security light while rainwater thinned the red on the pavement. Cook gave another, mouth tasting of smoke and lies, saying he’d come out too late, saying she was already on the ground, saying maybe there’d been lads hanging about near the bins earlier. Didn’t know them. Didn’t get a proper look. The camera over the back door didn’t reach the car park wall. The one that should have covered the bins had been dead for months because Gareth refused to pay for anything that didn’t immediately stop customers complaining. There was no clean footage. No simple story. No neat little clip to play back and prove what had happened in the dark.
Just two scared girls saying one thing. Cook saying another. And Gareth getting red in the face because he liked any explanation that didn’t come with police sniffing around his business, compensation claims, or questions about why half the security system at Kingpin’s existed purely for decoration.
By open, the car park had already been sanded down into something easier to repeat. She’d mouthed off. She’d slipped. She’d been drunk. She’d got unlucky. Whatever blood was left on the pavement had been hosed away before the first birthday party arrived. The broken phone went into a black bin liner with the rest of the rubbish, and by ten the neon was buzzing again, the fryers were coughing grease into the air, and the arcade machines were shrieking over each other like nothing bad had ever happened in the back parking lot.
Only the staff knew how to move around the lie. Tasha now completely avoided whatever station she was on unless Gareth made it impossible: prize counter, front desk, shoe rental, arcade, the break room. Especially the break room. JJ kept looking at the back doors like he expected the night before to come stumbling in again, wet and bleeding under the security light. Ryan watched Cook with the kind of hatred people stopped bothering to hide once fear had worn the politeness off. Gareth paced by the lanes, scratching at his beard, muttering about CCTV, statements, and how if anyone brought police round Kingpin’s, he’d personally shove them headfirst into the ball return.
She behaved like none of it had happened. That was worse. She brought Cook a bacon roll wrapped in a napkin because he’d forgotten breakfast. Fixed his collar while he was talking to a customer. Stole a chip off his plate, then fed him one back with a smile so sweet it made his stomach turn over. When he yawned, she asked if he’d slept. When he said he was fine, she touched the inside of his wrist like she could take his pulse by instinct now, like his body had become a thing she was responsible for. Cook let her. He told himself it was easier that way. Told himself the girl outside had been walking and crying by the time someone called for help. Told himself there was a difference between hurt and dead, between jealousy and danger, between a one-off and a pattern. It was amazing how many lines a person could draw when he was desperate enough not to see the picture. Ryan cornered him by the staff lockers before lunch. “You need to stop acting like this is normal.”
Cook shoved his jacket into his locker. “Morning to you too, mate.”
Ryan’s jaw flexed. “That girl ended up in hospital.”
Cook slammed the locker shut hard enough to rattle the row. “And what, you reckon I did it?”
“I reckon you know more than you’re saying.”
Cook laughed, ugly and short, because the alternative was admitting Ryan had stepped too close to the truth. “You’ve been watching too much telly.”
Ryan looked past him, toward the lanes where she was leaning over a ticket machine with a screwdriver in one hand, hair falling forward as she worked. She glanced up at the exact second Cook looked at her, like his attention had tugged a string through the room. Her face lit up. Ryan saw it happen and tensed. “She wasn’t like this."
Cook’s smile faded.
Ryan looked back at him. “You know that, right?”
Cook shouldered past him. “Maybe you just didn’t know her that well.”
The words came out meaner than they needed to. That was how Cook knew they had struck a nerve. It got worse in ways that were small enough to excuse until there were too many of them. She knew his shifts before he told her. Waited outside his flat in the rain with her hood up and his hoodie under her coat, smiling like she hadn’t been standing there for forty minutes. Texted him so often his phone never settled. Texts like: where are you? are you busy? did i do something? cook? cook answer me. Then, when he finally did, the relief came back so fast it was embarrassing, all hearts and apologies and i just missed you, like he’d been gone for days instead of ignoring her through half a cigarette. She wore his clothes more than her own now. His jacket. His hoodies. A red Kingpin’s polo he’d meant to bin because the collar was stretched. After the drawer, she didn’t even bother pretending the little thefts were accidental anymore. When Cook noticed his lighter missing again, she pulled it from her pocket with a guilty smile and said she liked having it because it smelled like him.
“That is mental,” he told her.
“I know.”
“You know, and you still do it?”
Her smile twitched, nervous and wanting. “Do you want me to stop?”
He should have said yes. Instead, he took the lighter from her hand, flicked it open, watched the flame jump up between them. “Depends what I get for being nice about it.”
She kissed him before he had to ask. That was the problem. He stopped having to ask. At first, he made it a joke because jokes were easier to live with than commands. Say you’re mine. Don’t look at him. Tell Ryan to fuck off. Come here. Sit there. Kiss me like you mean it. He said them with a grin, with his hand around a cigarette, with his shoulder propped against a wall, like he was only winding her up, like Cook had ever known when to stop winding someone up. She obeyed too quickly. If Ryan came near the desk, she went silent and looked to Cook first. If a customer flirted with him, she slid beside him and poseessively tucked herself under his arm before he could decide whether he wanted the attention. If Cook clicked his fingers just to be a prick, she shot him a look that should have been annoyed and came anyway, cheeks hot, mouth pressed into a line as if some real, stubborn part of her knew she ought to tell him to fuck off and could not force her mouth to form the words.
The first time he told her to say it properly, they were in his flat with rain tapping hard against the window and takeaway boxes going cold on the floor. She’d let herself in with the spare key he’d stupidly given her and waited with the food while Cook went to the local off-licence for cigarettes, took the long way back because being missed had started to feel better than it should, and didn’t answer for twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six. She had counted them. Every single one. She said it like an accusation, then cried because she hated sounding like that, then apologized because apologizing had become another thing she gave him too easily. She’d tried texting first. Then calling. His phone had buzzed on the mattress beside the takeaway boxes, lighting up with her name over and over while Cook stayed gone, which somehow made it worse. He hadn’t missed her messages. He’d left himself unreachable.
“Something’s wrong with me,” she said, voice shaking in a way that took the heat out of the room. “I can feel myself doing it, and I still can’t stop.”
Cook sat on the edge of the mattress and watched her come apart in front of him, barefoot in one of his old Man United jerseys, his phone still clutched in her hand like evidence. The girl from before was there again, fighting through the devotion with panic in her mouth and shame all over her face. She looked at him like he had the answer. Like he was the only person who could put her back together.
“Tell me what to do,” she whispered.
Cook went cold. For once, he understood the line in front of him. Not guessed. Not felt it somewhere vague and inconvenient. Understood. She was asking because the curse had taught her to, because his want had taken something private inside her and rewired it toward him. He could have said, Go home. He could have said, Call someone. He could have told her to run from him and keep running until whatever rotten thing lived in the willow lost his scent. Instead, Cook held out his hand. “Come here.”
She came. Of course she came. Her knees sank into the mattress on either side of his hips as she climbed into his lap, the washed-out red jersey riding up high enough to show the crotch of the cheap boxers she’d grabbed from his drawer. He watched her the whole way—the way her eyes stayed fixed on him, the way her breath came shallow, the way her bandaged hand caught his shoulder and left a faint red mark against the cotton when she braced herself.
“How’s the hand?” he asked, voice neutral.
She looked down at it, flexed her fingers. “Still hurts.”
“Good.” He reached out and took her wrist, turning her palm up, studying the blood that had bloomed through the gauze. “You’re gonna have a scar.”
“I know.” She didn’t pull away. Her fingers curled around his, and the touch was hot, almost feverish. “Cook, I—”
“Shut up.”
He pulled her closer, mouth finding hers before she could finish whatever honest thing was trying to crawl out of her throat. She tasted like rain and the cheap cherry lip balm she nicked from Boots. Her hands came up to his face, her injured one fisting in his hair, and the pressure was just sharp enough to hurt. Good girl. He bit her bottom lip, hard enough to taste copper, and she gasped into his mouth. “You been thinking about this all night?” he asked, pulling back just enough to see her face. “Coming here, sitting in my room, pacing—been thinking about what I’d do to you?”
She nodded, a jerky motion, her pupils blown so wide her irises were just thin colored rings.
“Yeah,” he said, sliding his hand down her throat, feeling the flutter of her pulse under his thumb. “That’s your problem, innit? You can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop wanting it. Even when you don’t know why.”
Her breath hitched. Her hand tightened in his hair. And for a second—just a second—something flickered across her face. Something confused. Scared. The real her, trying to break through once again. He kissed her again before she could get there. Hard. Deep. Tongue sliding against hers, tasting the rain and the salt and the wrongness. He pushed her back until she was flat on the mattress, following her down, his weight pressing her into the sheets. Her legs fell open without him asking. Like a reflex. Like she’d been trained.
“You remember what I told you after the clinic?” he asked, mouth against her jaw, teeth scraping her pulse point. “When you sat there all quiet in that waiting room wearing my jacket, acting like you weren’t squeezing my hand every time the nurse said implant?”
Her hips bucked up, searching for friction he didn’t give her.
“Y-yeah.” Her voice was wrecked, breathy, barely there.
Cook smiled against her skin. “What’d I say?”
Her fingers tightened in his shirt, shame and want moving through her at the same time. “You said…” She swallowed, eyes squeezing shut. “You said now you didn’t have to be careful with me.”
“That’s not all I said.”
She made a small, desperate sound when he pulled back just enough to make her look at him.
“You said you’d fuck me full,” she whispered. “Every time. Whether I wanted it or not.”
“That’s right.” He sat up, pulling her with him, and her jersey came off over her head in one rough motion. The boxers followed, tossed onto the pile of takeaway boxes. She was naked now, sitting on his mattress, the streetlight cutting a stripe across her ribs, her hair tangled, her lips swollen. “And you let me. Because you don’t say no to me.”
She didn’t argue. Her eyes dropped to his lap, to the visible line of his hard-on through his joggers, and her tongue wet her bottom lip. She was already reaching for him, fingers hooking into the waistband, pulling the fabric down over his hips. His cock sprang free, hard and flushed, the tip weeping pre-come. She wrapped her hand around him—the bandaged one—and the sight of that white gauze against his skin made his stomach tighten. She’d bled for him. She’d break glass for him. She’d do anything.
“Good girl,” he breathed, and the words tasted like a confession. He grabbed her hair, pulling her head back, making her look up at him as she started to stroke. Slow at first. Experimental. Her thumb dragging over the head, smearing the slick bead of pre-come down his shaft. Her grip was too dry. Not tight enough.
“Spit on it,” he said.
She did. Her mouth opened, a thick glob of saliva landing on the head, and her hand spread it down his shaft, slick now, the sound of it wet and obscene in the quiet room.
“Faster.”
Her hand moved faster, her grip tightening, the wet slap of her palm against his cock filling the space between rain-gusts. He let his head fall back, eyes half-closing, and watched her from under his lashes. She was staring at where her hand worked him, focused, hungry, her lips parted, her breath coming in soft, desperate sounds that didn’t quite form words.
“Look at you,” he said, voice low. “Look at you jerking me off like you’ve been doing it your whole life. Like you were made for it.” He reached down and caught her wrist, stopping her. “You like being my little hand-job machine?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. Her eyes were wet, but he couldn’t tell if it was tears or rain.
“Yeah, you do.” He released her wrist and grabbed her chin, tilting her face up, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Open.”
Her mouth fell open and he spat into it, watching her throat work as she swallowed. The wet shine on her lips, the way she looked at him like he was the only thing in the room—it made his cock throb, and the feeling was so clean and so wrong that he almost laughed.
“That’s it,” he said. “You’re my personal little—d’you know what I called you in my head? Before all this?”
She shook her head.
“My little cocksleeve. That’s what I thought every time you walked past the prize counter. Every time I watched you clock out. Every time you smiled at someone else.” His grip on her chin tightened until she winced. “You were always gonna end up here. Just took the long way.”
He pulled her up, positioning her straddling his lap, his cock pressed against her stomach, leaving a wet smear against her skin. Her knees bracketed his hips and she was already sinking, grinding down, trying to find the angle, and he caught her by the hips and held her still.
“Not yet,” he said. “You gotta earn it.”
He laid his palm flat against her cheek, not hard, just present. She leaned into it, and the way she pressed her face into his hand, like a cat asking to be pet, made something shift in his chest. He let it settle. Then he slapped her. Not hard enough to knock her over. Hard enough to make her gasp, her head snapping to the side, a lightly bruised bloom spreading across her cheek. Her eyes went wide, and for a second he thought he’d broken her—broken the spell, made the real her surface again. But she turned back to him, looked at him, and her pupils were still blown, her lips still parted, and she said, “Again.”
His blood sang. He slapped her again, the other cheek this time, and her body jolted, her nails digging into his shoulders. She didn’t pull back. She rolled her hips against his, the wet heat of her cunt dragging across the underside of his cock, and he groaned despite himself.
“You’re such a desperate little slag,” he said, fitting his hand around her throat. Not squeezing. Just holding. Letting her feel the weight of it. “You know that? For so long you didn’t want me, and now look at you. Can’t get enough. Can’t stop shaking on my cock.”
“Please,” she breathed, and the word broke on its way out. “Please, I need—”
“I know what you need.” He lined himself up, the head of his cock pressing against her entrance, slick with her wetness and spit. He held there. One inch. Just the tip. And watched her face as she tried to take more, her hips twitching, her breath coming in ragged, punched-out sounds. “Ride me. Show me how much you want it.”
She sank down. Her cunt gripping him, tight and wet, and burning hot. The sound she made when she was fully seated was a low, wrecked moan that vibrated through her chest into his. He grabbed her hips and let her set the pace, and she started moving—a grinding, circular motion that pushed him deeper, her body learning the rhythm, her hands braced on his shoulders.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his head dropping back against the wall. “Fuck, that’s it. Just like that.”
She found a rhythm, her hips rolling, grinding, her thighs working to keep her up, her breath coming in time with the motion. She watched him—her eyes never leaving his face—and the intensity in her gaze, the way she was looking at him like he was oxygen, like she’d die if she stopped—it was everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he’d stolen.
“You feel that?” he asked, his hands sliding down to grip her ass, his nails digging into the soft flesh. “Feel how deep I am? How full you are?”
She nodded her head vigorously, her mouth hanging open.
“That’s where I belong. Inside you. Filling you up.” He reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back. “And you’re gonna take it. You’re gonna take every drop, and you’re gonna thank me for it.”
Her hips stuttered, her rhythm breaking as a shudder ran through her. “Cook—”
“Shut up and ride me.” He pulled her down onto him harder, meeting her grind with a thrust of his own, and the air punched out of her lungs. “You don’t get to talk. You don’t get to think. You just get to be my good little cocksleeve, taking what I give you. You understand?”
She nodded again, her teeth catching her bottom lip, her rhythm finding its way back. He loosened his grip on her hair and let his hands fall to her tits, rolling her nipples between his fingers, watching her arch into the touch.
“Such pretty tits,” he said, the words half-buried in a groan. “Wish I could see you like this every day. Wake up to you bouncing on my cock, go to sleep with my come still dripping out of you. Would you like that?”
“Yes.” The word was barely a whisper, cracked and desperate. Her hips were speeding up, her grip on his shoulders tightening, her breath coming in pathetic little gasps. She was close—he could feel it in the way her cunt pulsed around him, the way her rhythm went sloppy.
“You gonna come on my cock?” he asked, his voice dropping, rough and quiet. “Gonna soak me? Make a mess?”
She whimpered—an actual whimper—and he felt the first flutter of her orgasm ripple through her, her body tensing, her cunt clenching around him like a fist. “That’s it. That’s my good fucking girl. Come on me. Come on my cock, show me what you’ve got.”
She came with a broken cry, her head falling forward, her body shaking, her hips grinding through the aftershocks. He watched her—watched the way her mouth went slack, the way her thighs trembled, the way she kept moving even after she’d come, like she couldn’t stop, like she’d keep riding him until she passed out if he told her to. He grabbed her hips, stilling her, and she slumped against him, her forehead pressing into his shoulder, her breath hot and ragged against his skin. He held her there for a moment, feeling the aftershocks ripple through her. Then he pulled out, pushing her down onto her back as he rose to his knees so he could kneel over her, stroking himself, watching her lie there spent and open.
"I'm gonna come on your face. And you're gonna thank me. Every. Single. Drop." She nodded, lips parted, waiting. He shuffled closer, aimed, and the first rope hits her cheek, hot and thick. "Thank you." Second rope across her mouth. "Thank you." Third across her chin, dripping down her neck. "Thank you." He stroked the last few drops onto her tongue, and she closed her lips around the head, sucking him clean, then pulled off and said, "Thank you, Cook." He smeared come across her face with his palm, spread it into her skin like lotion. "Good girl. Now don't wipe it off. I want to see it dry on your face. I want you to feel it crack when you smile." She didn't move. Just laid there, his come drying on her skin, her eyes fixed on him like he hung the moon.
He kissed her, gently this time, and the tenderness tasted like poison. He didn’t care. He crawled out of bed then, his legs unsteady, and walked to the bathroom, catching his reflection in the mirror—hair a mess, lips red, eyes dark. He looked like someone who’d gotten everything he wanted. He grabbed a towel and walked back to find her still on the mattress, curled on her side, her hand resting between her thighs. She was staring at the wall, and he couldn’t see her face, but he could see the way her shoulders rose and fell, slow and steady. Not crying. Just…breathing. He tossed the towel at her feet. “Clean up,” he said, and this time the words were flat.
She sat up slowly, reaching for the towel, and he watched her wipe his come from her thighs but not her face just like he told her to, slow and mechanical, like she was doing it in her sleep. The bandage on her hand was stained a deeper red, the wound bleeding again. She didn’t seem to notice. Or care. He climbed back onto the mattress beside her, taking the towel from her hands and tossing it to the floor. He pulled her close, her back to his chest, his arm locking around her waist, and pressed his face into her hair. She smelled like rain, sweat, and him.
“Where’s your head at?” he asked, and the question came out before he could stop it.
She was quiet for a long moment. Then: “Here.”
He tightened his grip. “Good.”
He didn’t ask again. He closed his eyes and let the lie seal over him, thick enough to keep the truth from getting air. She was his now. That was all that mattered. She fell asleep after with her cheek pressed to his chest, one hand twisted in the fabric of his shirt like she was afraid he might vanish if she let go. Cook stayed awake longer than he wanted to admit, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet flat around them: the hum of the fridge, the drip of rain from the gutter outside, the slow drag of her breathing against his skin.
Then a phone buzzed where it had slipped beneath the bed. Not his. Hers. The cracked screen lit the floor in brief, cold flashes. Ryan’s name appeared across it. Cook didn’t move at first. He told himself not to. Told himself only jealous little freaks checked phones. And he was many things, obviously, but he was not that pathetic. Then it buzzed again, and the excuse arrived clean and useful: he needed to know if Ryan was a trigger. Needed to know what had set her off. Needed to know if Ryan was a threat. He reached down carefully and picked it up. The phone needed her thumbprint. For a moment, Cook stared at her sleeping hand where it rested against his shirt. Then he lifted it. Her thumb opened the screen. Of course it did. Everything opened for him now. The messages were older, buried under weeks of unanswered texts from Ryan that got angrier and more worried the longer she ignored him. Cook scrolled past are you okay? and did he do something? and you need to talk to me until he found the ones from before the car, before the willow, before she had looked at him like he was the centre of the room. missed you after you left. you still got my hoodie?. don’t tell cook, he’ll be weird about it. he’s already weird about everything. you coming round later? maybe. depends if you behave.
Cook’s hand tightened around the phone. There were no declarations. No grand romance. Nothing he could point at and call betrayal because there had been nothing to betray yet. That made it worse. Casual was worse. Easy was worse. The thought of her choosing Ryan without magic, without pressure, without a broken twig and a stupid fucking wish in a rain-smeared car, put something hot and black behind Cook’s ribs. He looked down at her asleep against him and for the first time, he hated the version of her the wish had buried. Not because she had been taken. Not because she had been changed. Because before she was changed, she had wanted someone else and laughed about him in the same breath.
By the next shift, Cook had started turning that into something he could use. She had lied. She had pretended. She had acted too good for him while going round to Ryan’s like that meant nothing. The more he thought it, the easier it became to breathe. If the old her had been cruel, then maybe the wish had not ruined anything worth saving. Maybe it had only stripped away all the bullshit and given him the version honest enough to stay. Tasha ruined that by seeing him too obviously. She found him near the back corridor while he was stealing five minutes he hadn't earned, one shoulder against the wall, cigarette unlit between his fingers because Gareth had started threatening to check the cameras. Her eyeliner looked smudged, and there were shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there before the party.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Cook groaned. “Christ, everyone’s desperate for a chat lately.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Can tell. Whole vibe’s fucking tragic.”
Tasha stepped closer, keeping her voice low. “Something is wrong with her.”
Cook looked away. “She’s having a rough time.”
“She threatened to carve my face open.”
“People say things when they’re pissed.”
“She put that girl in hospital.”
“You don’t know that.”
Tasha stared at him. “You keep acting scared when people are watching, but I saw your face when she snapped at Ryan. You liked it.”
Cook’s mouth opened and nothing decent came out. No joke arrived fast enough. No insult covered the little flicker in his chest when she said it.
Tasha nodded once, like that told her everything. “Meet me after shift. My car. I’m not doing this in here.”
“Bit dramatic, that.”
“Cook.”
The way she said his name was not like the curse. Not worshipful. Not desperate. Just tired and worried but also real. It landed somewhere he hadn't meant to keep open.
He looked at her properly then. “Why do you care?”
Tasha’s face tightened. For a second, she looked furious with herself. “Because maybe I’m stupid enough to like you, okay?”
Cook felt the pleasure of it before he could stop himself. Normal. That was the thing. Tasha saying it with her jaw clenched and her eyes annoyed was normal. No wish. No shaking hands. No broken glass. Just a girl looking at him and choosing the embarrassment of admitting she cared. He should have hated himself for enjoying it. He didn’t. After close, he told her he was taking rubbish out and slipped through the back instead. Tasha’s car sat in the far corner of the lot where Kingpin’s neon painted the wet bonnet red and gold. The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp, cold enough that the windows had started to mist at the edges. Cook could see Tasha’s silhouette behind the wheel before he reached the passenger side, both hands fixed at ten and two like she was scared she’d change her mind if she let go.
He slid into the car. “This better be good. I’ve got a very demanding friend waiting who’ll start chewing through plaster if I’m gone too long.”
Tasha didn’t laugh. She kept staring through the windscreen. The vanilla air freshener hanging from the mirror swung slightly when Cook shut the door, fake-sweet over rain-damp fabric and the faint stale smell of old chips and flavored vape smoke. Her knuckles were tight around the wheel.
“I talked to her before all this,” she said.
Cook’s grin thinned. “Okay? Congrats.”
“Properly. At work. At parties. When you weren’t around.”
“Mad concept, people talking when I’m not there.”
“She said you were fun,” Tasha went on, careful enough that it already felt like cruelty. “But too much.”
Cook looked out at the empty lot. “Yeah, well, I am a lot. That’s famously the charm.”
“She said you were a friend.”
The word hit harder than it should have. Friend was nothing. Friend was easy. Friend was the sort of thing he called everyone because names took effort and feelings were embarrassing. From her mouth, through Tasha, it felt like a door closing.
Cook scratched at the side of his jaw. “That all?”
Tasha swallowed. “She said you weren’t someone she’d ever go for.”
The car seemed to shrink around him. Somewhere across the lot, a loose sign creaked in the wind, and Kingpin’s apostrophe buzzed like a trapped insect. “She said you were more like an annoying brother than anything else.”
Cook froze. That was the version with no magic in it. No hidden desire. No fear of wanting him. No sweet little crush buried under sarcasm and bad timing. She had looked at him and seen noise. Trouble. A laugh. A friend. Something too familiar to want and too exhausting to touch. The wish hadn't revealed anything. It had replaced her entirely. Tasha turned toward him, eyes shining with fear and pity, which was a combination Cook wanted to smash out of the air. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? Because you fancy me now? Bit fucking convenient.”
Her face flinched. “Don’t be a prick.”
He laughed under his breath, but there was no life in it. “Bit late for that.”
“I mean it, Cook. Whatever’s happening, it isn’t love. She wasn’t secretly waiting for you. She wasn’t playing hard to get. She was herself, and now she isn’t.” The truth sat between them in the fogged-up car, plain and brutal. Cook could feel it pressing against his teeth. He could also feel the other thing, the nasty little satisfaction that Tasha had said she liked him, that another girl had looked at him without the curse and wanted him anyway. For half a second, even with the truth bleeding through him, he let himself enjoy that.
Then the driver’s side window exploded inward. Glass burst across Tasha’s lap and Cook’s knees in a freezing spray. Tasha screamed. Cook jerked back hard enough to hit the passenger door, one arm coming up over his face as cold air and broken safety glass filled the car. She was already there. No warning. No slow silhouette appearing through the misted glass. Just her hand through the broken frame, fingers clamping hard in Tasha’s hair, yanking her sideways with a force that smashed her shoulder into the door.
“Fuck!” Cook shouted, lunging across the gearstick.
Tasha clawed at the seatbelt, panicked, half-trapped, blood striping down from a cut near her temple where the glass had caught her. “Cook!”
The first impact drove her face into the steering wheel. The horn blared, one long, ugly scream across the empty lot. Cook grabbed at the sleeve of his own jacket hanging from her shoulders, but she was braced outside the broken window with both feet planted, expression emptied down to one terrible point of focus. Tasha’s head. The wheel beneath it. The friend who had told him the truth and admitted she wanted him in the same breath. Again. The horn punched the night open. Tasha’s cry broke into something wet and stunned. Her mouth hit the wheel wrong, teeth clicking hard enough for Cook to hear through the blare, and red smeared across the grey plastic where her cheek dragged sideways. She tried to twist away, but the seatbelt had locked tight across her chest, pinning her in place while panic made her hands useless.
“Stop!” Cook yelled, dragging at her. “Stop, fucking stop!”
She looked at him then, just for a second, and the calm in her face was worse than rage. “She wanted you.” Tasha made a small sound, a breath trying to become a word. The next blow cut it off. Her face struck the wheel again with a thick, awful crack that made Cook’s stomach drop. The horn stuttered under the impact, screaming, choking, screaming again. Blood spotted the windscreen from the inside in a fine red spray. Tasha’s hands flew up too late, fingers scraping over the dashboard, nails catching against the plastic before slipping. Cook shoved the passenger door open so hard it bounced off the car beside them. He stumbled out, glass crunching under his shoes, then rounded the front of the car and grabbed her around the waist from behind. She fought him like she didn’t know him. Her elbow cracked into his ribs. One heel scraped down his shin. Her hands stayed locked in Tasha’s hair, trying to pull her forward again even as Cook hauled her back from the window.
“She wanted you,” she said again, voice rising now, not calm anymore, breaking into something wild and wounded. “You lied to me! Why would you lie to me?!”
“I didn’t,” Cook gasped, dragging her away from the door. “I didn’t fucking do anything.”
The lie came out on instinct, which told him everything. Tasha sagged against the wheel. The horn kept blaring beneath her, muffled by the weight of her body, one long animal sound trapped under the bonnet. Her face had turned toward them at an angle that looked wrong in the red-and-gold wash of the sign. One eye was half-open. Her lips moved, but all that came out was a wet little breath that fogged the glass in front of her. Cook got one arm around her middle and wrenched her back. This time, her fingers came away full of Tasha’s hair. For one horrible heartbeat, she stared at it in her hand. Then Tasha twitched. Small. Barely anything. Her fingers curled against the seat, searching for the belt, the door, a way out, anything. The sight of it snapped the curse back into motion. She surged forward so violently Cook nearly lost his grip. Her hand shot through the broken window again, palm slamming against the back of Tasha’s head, and before Cook could pull her off, she shoved down hard.
Tasha’s face crushed into the centre of the wheel. The horn screamed clean this time. Cook heard cartilage give. Heard the blunt, final sound of bone meeting plastic with nowhere left to go. Blood ran down the steering column and dripped onto Tasha’s jeans in heavy spots. Her body jerked once, shoulders locking, then slackened all at once. The horn stopped. The silence after was so sudden Cook could hear the tick of cooling metal, the buzz of Kingpin’s neon, the thin patter of rain starting up again on the roof. Tasha’s hand slid from the wheel and fell limp beside the seat. She went loose in his grip. The change came fast enough to make him dizzy. One second she was all force, all violence, all jealous purpose. The next, she was staring through the shattered window at Tasha’s body with the devotion draining out of her face, leaving only terror.
“What did I do?” she whispered.
Then she looked past him. At Tasha. Whatever had been holding her together split all at once. Her breath hitched, stopped, then came back wrong, too fast and too loud. She staggered toward the car like she meant to help, then recoiled before she got there, staring at her own hands as if they’d been put on her body by someone else.
“No,” she said. “No, no, no. Cook, what did I do?”
Cook caught her by the arms before she could back into the broken glass. He could feel every tremor ripping through her now, violent enough to shake into his palms.
“Cook?” Her voice climbed, thin and panicked. “Why am I here? Why is there blood on me? Did I—” She choked on the rest, eyes snapping back to Tasha. “Is she dead?”
The chance came back to him with the cruelty of a joke. He could tell her. He could say, I did this. I made a wish. I broke you because I couldn’t stand wanting someone who didn’t want me back. He could give her the truth even if it came too late for Tasha, too late for the girl outside Kingpin’s, too late for whatever decent version of himself might have existed before the willow snapped in his fist. Instead, he looked past her to the car park, the cameras mounted near the back entrance, the broken window, Tasha not moving in the driver’s seat. Self-preservation arrived before grief, before guilt, before anything that should’ve made him human. Cook released one of her arms and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a smear near his knuckles that wasn’t all his.
“Did anyone see you?” he asked.
She stared at him like he’d spoken another language.
“Listen to me.” His voice came out harsh, urgent. “Did anyone see you come out here?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head hard, tears spilling now, breath breaking into ugly little sobs. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t remember. Cook, please, I don’t remember doing that.”
“Fuck.”
He checked the lot, the back door, the red blink of the camera, trying to remember which angle Gareth had said was broken because he refused to pay for a new one. His thoughts moved horribly fast. Cameras. Police. Ryan. Gareth. The girl in hospital. Tasha in the car. His fingerprints on the passenger door. Her wearing his jacket. She was unraveling beside him, hands hovering in front of her face, fingers opening and closing like she didn’t understand what they were capable of. She wiped at the red on her skin and only smeared it worse, a broken sound tearing out of her throat when she saw it spread.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Cook looked back at her. That was when it changed. Her hysteria didn’t vanish so much as bend toward him, terror dragging itself into devotion because the curse knew where to put all that pain. Her eyes found his and stayed there. Her hands dropped from the red on her fingers to his shirt, gripping tight, pleading with him to make the world smaller.
“Tasha confused you,” she said, voice shaking. “I saw her. I saw how she looked at you. I fixed it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Cook should’ve pushed her away. He pulled her behind the bins instead, out of the camera’s cleanest line. He did call eventually. Not straight away. Not before he’d wiped what he could from the passenger handle with the inside of his sleeve. Not before he’d taken his jacket off her shoulders and shoved it behind the bins. Not before he’d told her to go to his flat by the back way and wait there, no texts, no calls, no stopping for anyone. When he finally stumbled into Kingpin’s shouting for Gareth to call an ambulance, his voice sounded convincing enough that everyone ran. By then, Cook had already learned something about himself he could never unlearn. His first instinct had been to live with it.
The One Wish Willow box was still under the passenger seat of his car because Cook had never been good at throwing away evidence of his own stupidity. He found it later with shaking hands, after the ambulance lights had gone, after Gareth’s voice had turned hoarse from shouting, after Ryan had looked at him across Kingpin’s like he finally understood Cook was worse than a coward. The box had slid half under the seat rail, red-and-cream cardboard damp along one corner from whatever had leaked down there, the cartoon faces still grinning up at him like they knew the punchline. Cook sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, one foot on the wet tarmac, the heater blowing stale air against his knees. His hands smelled faintly metallic no matter how many times he’d wiped them on his jeans. The car park was mostly empty now, Kingpin’s neon buzzing overhead, gold and red dragging itself across the puddles like the place was trying to make even murder look tacky. He turned the box over. The hotline number waited on the back in small printed text, tucked beneath the instructions and all the cheery little promises the packaging had no business making anymore.
NEED HELP? CALL TODAY! 1-323-747-7118.
Cook laughed once. It came out wrong. He dialed before he could think too hard about it. The line rang twice, clicked, and then a bright recorded voice filled the car. “Thank you for contacting One Wish Willow support. For wish dissatisfaction, press one. For unintended romantic escalation, press two. For injury, pursuit, fixation, or violent attachment, press three. If your wish has resulted in death, please remain on the line.”
Cook stared through the windscreen. “You’ve got to be fucking joking.”
A soft beep sounded. “Your call may be recorded for training and liability purposes. One Wish Willow is not responsible for unclear phrasing, malicious intent, emotional negligence, activation while intoxicated, activation during heartbreak, humiliation, rejection, social embarrassment, romantic jealousy, or poor judgment.”
Cook shut his eyes. “Yeah. Brilliant. Very helpful.”
The hold music started. Tinny. Cheerful. Some little nursery-rhyme version of a pop song he couldn’t place, plinking away while Tasha’s head hitting the wheel replayed behind his eyes. Cook gripped the phone so hard his knuckles hurt. The line clicked again. A man came on, voice flat enough to sound like he’d been saying the same thing all day and hated every person who made him say it twice. “One Wish Willow support. Name and nature of your wish-related concern?”
Cook stared at the grinning cartoon branch. “You lot are real?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“Right. Okay. Yeah. Course you are.”
“Name?”
“Cook.”
“First name, surname, or nickname?”
“Just Cook.”
The man sighed softly. “Fine. Nature of concern?”
Cook rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Hypothetically, if someone wished for a girl to fancy him and now she’s gone a bit murdery—”
“We don’t process hypotheticals after activation.”
Cook looked up at the rain-specked windscreen. “Fine. Not hypothetically.”
“Thank you. Was the willow broken cleanly or splintered?”
“I don’t fucking know. It was dark, I was pissed off, and I was having a moment.”
Paper shifted on the other end of the line. “Was there blood at activation?”
“No.”
“Witnesses?”
“No.”
“Was the desired party named clearly in the wish?”
Cook’s throat tightened. The car seemed smaller suddenly, the box too bright in his lap.
“Clear enough.”
“Was the wording romantic, sexual, possessive, punitive, corrective, or retaliatory?”
Cook blinked. “What?”
“Closest category.”
“All of them,” he muttered.
Another pause.
“Not recommended,” the man said.
“Yeah, well, we’re a bit past recommended, aren’t we?”
“Describe the escalation.”
Cook leaned his head back against the seat. The fabric was cold against his skull. “She’s jealous.”
“Expected.”
“She’s clingy.”
“Expected.”
“She watches me sleep.”
“Within range.”
Cook’s laugh scraped out of him. “Within range. Brilliant.”
“Has the desired party displayed violence toward herself or others?”
Cook saw Tasha’s fingers slipping off the wheel. Saw the horn blaring under the weight of her body. Saw the girl in the car park folded against the bricks, mouth red, phone smashed near the bins. “Yeah."
“Severity?”
Cook swallowed. “Bad.”
“I need more specific than bad.”
“How violent is violent?”
“Recently?”
He let his eyes close.
“Hospital,” he said. “Then worse.”
The operator went quiet. For the first time, he sounded less bored. “Is the desired party currently with you?”
“No.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“My flat.”
“Did you instruct her to go there?”
Cook’s jaw tightened. “Yeah.”
“Has she disobeyed direct instructions since activation?”
He thought about it. No texts. No calls. No stopping for anyone. His stomach turned. “No.”
“Then the bond is stable.”
“Stable?” Cook snapped. “She just—” He stopped himself, glancing toward Kingpin’s like the walls could still hear him. “She nearly killed someone.”
“Nearly?”
Cook said nothing.
The man exhaled. “Understood.”
“Can you fix it?”
“That depends on what you mean by fix.”
Cook leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the box creasing slightly under his grip. “Can you make her, like…less murdery but still into me?”
The silence on the line was worse than judgment. “Alterations after activation are not supported.”
Cook stared at the rubber floor mat. There was a tiny dark flake caught in the rubber grooves. Blood or mud. He couldn’t tell anymore.
“So what, that’s it?” he asked. “She’s just like this?”
“The wish persists until the object of devotion dies.”
Cook’s hand went cold around the phone. For one stupid, shameful moment, he thought of her. Her body under the same ugly security light. Her blood on the same wet tarmac. A clean ending that required him to lose the thing he had wanted badly enough to ruin. Then the operator clarified.
“To be clear, you are the object of devotion.”
Cook stopped breathing.
“The wish ends when you die.”
The heater hummed. Rain ticked lightly against the roof. Somewhere upstairs, in his flat, she was waiting because he had told her to. Because she did what he said now. Because he had made her into someone who would.
Cook laughed once, quiet and empty. “So I’ve got to die?”
“That is the termination condition.”
“Any alternatives?”
“None that work.”
Cook lowered the phone from his ear and looked at the box in his lap. The little doodled faces on the front stared up at him, a man and a woman drawn in soft, stupid lines like this was still some novelty you bought for a laugh. Bright colors. Cheap promises. The sort of thing that belonged in a gift shop beside scented candles and mugs that said things like follow your dreams. Not under his hands. Not after Tasha’s skull had met the steering wheel. Not after the truth had finally crawled out from under every excuse he’d built and sat there in front of him, simple as. He thought of the girl from before all this. Not the one in his bed. The real one. Laughing at the counter because Ryan had said something stupid. Rolling her eyes at Cook because he’d made something filthy out of nothing. Sitting in his car, rain on the windows, telling him in every way except the actual words that he wasn't what she wanted. He thought of Tasha’s voice in the car. She wasn’t secretly waiting for you. He knew then. Properly. With horrible clarity. He had stolen her. Not won. Not uncovered. Not seduced. Stolen.
The knowledge landed with no softness around it, no pretty little way to dress it up. The world gave him one simple equation: his death for her freedom. His life for her curse. One simple answer, sitting there in his hands, waiting for him to be the sort of person he had never once managed to be. Cook sat with that until his breathing steadied. Then he hung up.
For a while, Cook just sat there with the phone in his hand, listening to the dead line that wasn't a line anymore, only his own breathing and the heater coughing stale air into the car. The answer stayed where the man had left it. The wish ends when you die. Simple. Clear. Horrible. Cook looked at the box again. The cartoon faces smiled back at him from his lap, cheerful and stupid, and untouched by consequence. It had no blood on it. No shaking hands. No girl waiting upstairs with pieces of herself missing. No Tasha slumped against a steering wheel. Just bright colors and soft rounded letters, as if all of this was still a joke you could buy at a counter and give to someone for a laugh. His thumb pressed into the cardboard until it bent. For one second, he imagined doing it.
Not properly. Not with any plan. Just a flash of it, sudden and ugly: stepping into the road, swerving the car into a wall, taking a knife from the kitchen and making himself brave for once in his miserable fucking life. Ending it. Ending her. Giving her back whatever part of her he had stolen. The thought lasted long enough to make him feel sick. Then it passed. Not because he couldn't picture it. Because he could. Because, in the picture, she was free. And Cook wasn't there to see it. He deleted the call from his phone. Then the number. Then he checked it twice, because panic made him thorough in ways guilt never had. He wiped the box down with the hem of his shirt even though his fingerprints were everywhere by now, then shoved it into the glove compartment beneath old receipts, a cracked CD case, and a packet of Rizla with two papers left inside. The cartoon faces disappeared under rubbish. Cook shut the compartment. There. Gone. That was how people like him handled the truth. Put something over it and decided it was buried.
When he got back upstairs, the flat was quiet. Too quiet at first. The kind of quiet that made his skin prickle before he saw her. She was sitting on the edge of his bed in one of his shirts, knees drawn up, bare feet tucked under the mattress frame. Her hair was damp at the ends like she had tried to wash more than her hands. The bathroom light had been left on behind her, striping the hall in yellow. His towel lay abandoned on the floor, streaked faintly pink where she must have scrubbed at her skin until the worst of it came off. Not all of it. A thin crescent of blood still clung under one nail. Cook saw it before she curled her hands into the hem of his shirt. Her face lifted the second he came in.
“Are you angry?” she asked. Cook closed the door behind him. The lock clicked. He felt it in his teeth. He should have said yes. Should have said worse. Should have told her he was scared of her, scared of himself, scared that the only way to undo any of it required him to stop breathing. Should have told her about the box, the call, the man on the phone, the termination condition sitting in the glove compartment under receipts and dust. Instead, Cook crossed the room and touched her face. She went quiet instantly.
“There you are,” he said, because the line still worked and he hated that it did.
Relief crossed her so fast it looked painful. “I didn’t know where I was.”
“I know.”
“I saw her.” Her voice shook. “Tasha, and then outside, and then glass, and then—” She swallowed hard, staring at him like he could decide how much of the memory survived. “I hurt her.”
Cook kept his hand on her cheek. “You were upset.”
“She was bleeding.”
“You were confused.”
“I hurt her, Cook.”
His thumb brushed her cheekbone once. “She got in your head.”
The words changed the air between them. Her brow pulled in. “No.”
“Tasha got in your head,” he repeated, gentler this time, like he was reminding her of something she’d forgotten. “She was trying to make you doubt yourself.”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Cook stepped closer, until her knees brushed his legs. “You keep thinking there’s some other you under all this. Some better version waiting to come back and tell you I’m bad for you.”
Her mouth trembled. “There is.”
The honesty of it cut through him so cleanly he almost stepped back. Almost. Instead, Cook’s hand slid from her cheek to the side of her neck, not holding tight, not yet. Just there. Present. Familiar. A reminder.
“No,” he said. “That’s what everyone else told you to be.”
She stared up at him.
“This is you.”
Her breath caught.
“You just finally stopped pretending.”
She shook her head once, small and frightened. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Cook asked. “You came back to the car.”
Something fractured behind her eyes. Cook saw it and pushed.
“You remember that, yeah? The night it started. I was sitting there like a fucking idiot, and you came back. Could’ve gone home. Could’ve left me there. But you didn’t.”
Her hands twisted in the hem of his shirt. “Because I wanted you,” she said, but it sounded like someone had placed the words on her tongue and made her taste them.
Cook’s stomach turned. He smiled anyway. “There you go.”
Her eyes filled. “Cook…”
“You wanted me.”
She shook her head again, weaker this time. “I was scared.”
“You wanted me,” he said, and now his voice had an edge under the gentleness, something he couldn’t keep buried. “Not Ryan.”
The name cut through the fog. Her expression emptied. “Ryan?”
Cook’s grip firmed before he meant it to, not enough to choke, enough to make her attention snap back to him. “You remember him?”
“I…” She blinked hard. “I don’t know.”
“You liked him.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I don’t know,” she said, panic rushing back into her voice. “I don’t know, Cook. I can’t tell what’s mine anymore.”
That should’ve stopped him. It sat right there in front of him: the truth, plain as Tasha’s voice in the fogged-up car. She couldn’t tell what belonged to her. He had done that. His wish had taken her wants and bent them around him until every thought came out wearing his name. Cook leaned down until their foreheads nearly touched.
“Then let me tell you.”
Her eyes searched his. His heart was going too fast, ugly living proof that he had chosen himself once already and was about to do it again.
“You didn’t want Ryan,” he said.
Her mouth parted.
“You didn’t want Tasha.”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“You wanted me.”
Her voice broke. “I wanted you.”
Cook closed his eyes briefly. It felt like winning. “Say it properly.”
“I wanted you,” she whispered. “I only wanted you.”
She was crying now, silently, like her body knew it had been made to lie and couldn’t stop obeying the lie anyway. Cook wiped the tear away with his thumb. The tenderness of it was almost obscene.
“Good,” he said.
The word ruined her. Her shoulders sank, relief cutting through the panic, devotion closing over the wound he had made. She leaned into him like he had saved her from something, when all he had done was press his hands over her mouth until her own voice came out wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
Cook took in the bathroom light glowing behind her, the towel on the floor, the tiny red crescent under her nail, his shirt on her body, his name in her mouth. Then he thought of the operator’s voice again. The wish ends when you die. His hand moved into her hair.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
She nodded quickly.
“And you’re still here.”
“Yes.”
“So stop looking like that.”
She tried. That was the worst part. She actually tried. Swallowed it down, rearranged herself into something he could bear to look at without seeing the car park reflected back at him. Cook kissed her, not because it was the right thing, not because she needed comfort, but because the alternative was standing there with the truth between them, and Cook had never known what to do with truth except make it uglier. She kissed him back after a moment. Of course she did.
By morning, pretending had gotten easier than remembering. Cook woke with his arm still locked around her waist, her body tucked against his like she’d fallen asleep mid-apology and never finished the sentence. For a few seconds, the flat was ordinary in the miserable way his flat was always ordinary: cold air near the window, stale smoke in the curtains, a mug on the floor with tea dried brown at the bottom. Then she shifted, and everything came back. Tasha’s car. The horn. The hotline. The wish ends when you die. Cook stared at the ceiling and didn’t move.
Beside him, she made a small sound in her sleep and pressed closer, fingers curling against his shirt. The red under her nail was gone now. She must’ve scrubbed it out sometime in the night, or he had, or both of them had done enough cleaning that his head had folded the details into one ugly blur. His shirt had slipped at her shoulder, showing the edge of the bruise his mouth had left there, and the sight of it still gave him that same sick, satisfaction.
Mine, he thought.
Then, immediately after, because the universe was a sadistic little prick: Stolen.
She woke up with his name already in her mouth. “Cook?”
He shut his eyes. There were a hundred things he could’ve said. He could’ve told her about the hotline. He could’ve told her the truth while morning made everything less dramatic and more damning. Instead, he rolled toward her and put a hand on her hip. “Morning.”
Her expression changed too quickly, nervousness bending toward him before it knew what else to be. “Are you still angry?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
Cook’s mouth twitched. “Obviously.”
She didn’t smile. That was new. Or old. He couldn’t tell anymore. Her eyes searched him like she was trying to read his answer before the curse finished deciding how she felt about it.
“I remember some of it,” she said.
Cook’s hand stalled.
“Not all,” she added quickly, like she was scared the memory itself would upset him. “Just bits. The car. Tasha crying. You pulling me back.” Her fingers curled into the sheet. “I remember asking what did I do.”
“You were upset.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Cook said. It's the only one you're gonna get. “It’s the only one that matters.”
She turned away toward the curtains and the weak morning light leaking around the edges. For a moment, she looked like someone trapped in a room she didn’t remember entering. Then Cook touched her face, and her attention came back to him too fast.
“You need to stop picking at it,” he said. “You’ll only make yourself worse.”
“I hurt someone.”
“I already told you, Tasha got in your head.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
The room went silent.
Cook felt the question land in his chest and stay there. He hadn’t meant for her to know. Not yet. Maybe not ever. He’d imagined keeping it vague, messy, something she’d done but didn’t have to name. Hospital. Accident. Bad night. Anything that left the final shape of it blurred.
“Cook.”
His jaw worked.
“Yeah,” he said.
The answer hollowed her out. No sobbing. No screaming. Not at first. Her fingers slipped from the sheet, her mouth parting around a sound that never made it out, and for the first time since the wish, Cook saw her look at herself like she was the thing in the room to fear.
Then Cook ruined it.
“You didn’t mean to.”
Her eyes filled. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.” The words came out small, but they came out hers. “You don’t know that.”
Cook’s hand dropped from her face. The loss of contact seemed to scare her more than the confession. She reached for him instantly, then stopped herself halfway, hand hovering between them like she didn’t trust it to be her own. That should’ve killed something in him. Instead, it made him angry. Not at her. At the pause. At the tiny stubborn piece of her still trying to choose. Cook sat up.
“Get dressed,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
“We’ve got work.”
“Cook—”
“Gareth’ll be watching everyone. Ryan too.” He swung his legs off the mattress and found his jeans on the floor. “You don’t show up, it looks weird.”
“It is weird.”
He turned back to her. She flinched before he even spoke. Cook saw it. Cook hated it. Cook kept going anyway.
“You want everyone asking questions?” he said. “You want them looking at you?”
Her defiance drained, replaced by fear so quickly it proved him right in the worst way.
“No.”
“Then get dressed.”
She stared at him for another moment, eyes wet, mouth trembling around something she didn’t say. Then she nodded.
Of course she did.
Kingpin’s opened late, which was Gareth’s version of respect.
By noon, the front doors were unlocked, the arcade machines were shrieking, and the fryer was back to pumping grease into the air like nothing human had ever happened within fifty feet of the place. The back corner of the car park was still taped off. Tasha’s car was gone. Someone had thrown sand over the worst of what had been left on the tarmac, but rain had dragged some of it thin, carrying it in faint reddish trails toward the drain near the bins. Cook saw it before she did. He stepped in front of her without thinking. Not to protect her from it. To stop her reacting where anyone could see.
She almost walked into his back. “Cook?”
“Eyes on me.”
Her fingers were cold when he took her wrist, disappearing almost completely into the sleeve of his old jacket. His jacket. Because apparently even after everything, Cook still couldn’t stop making little claims on her where people could see. No. Worse than that. He liked seeing her in it. Inside, Gareth was pacing by the front desk with his phone in one hand and a clipboard in the other, face blotchy, beard rough where he kept dragging his fingers through it.
“No one says anything that isn’t what they already said,” he snapped before Cook had even clocked in. “Police come back, you cooperate. Customers ask, you don’t know a bloody thing. Press ask, you don’t know a bloody thing louder.”
JJ stood near the shoe rental, arms folded tight across his chest, staring at nothing. His face had a greyish cast to it. Every few seconds his eyes flicked toward the back corridor and then away again, as if looking too long might bring Tasha through it. Ryan was behind the lanes. He looked like he hadn’t slept. The second Cook walked in, Ryan’s attention fixed on him with a hatred so evident it made the room feel hotter. Then his eyes moved to her. She was standing half a step behind Cook, quiet, hands tucked into the sleeves of the jacket. She looked smaller when she wasn’t performing devotion. Not physically. Just dimmed somehow, like the morning had drained the violence out of her and left her with the echo of it. Ryan looked from her to Cook, and whatever he saw there made his jaw tighten. Cook felt her shift beside him.
“Don’t,” he said under his breath.
“I wasn’t.”
“Yeah, you were.”
Her fingers brushed his wrist. “I just don’t like how he’s looking at you.”
Cook almost laughed. Almost. Because Tasha was dead. Because the back lot still had caution tape around it. Because Ryan’s grief had teeth, and all Cook could think for one sick second was that she still cared more about Ryan looking at him than the body that had been dragged out of the car. He leaned closer, mouth near her ear.
“Then don’t look back.”
She went still, then her eyes dropped to the floor. Of course they did. Gareth clapped his hands once, sharp and desperate. “Right. We’ve got two parties booked, one staff member down, and if anyone starts crying where customers can see it, I swear to God I’ll join in and then we’re all fucked. Move.”
It should’ve been impossible to work. It wasn’t. That was the worst part. Shoes still needed spraying. Lanes still jammed. Kids still shoved tokens into machines and screamed when the claw dropped half an inch from a stuffed plushie. The world had a disgusting talent for carrying on. Tasha had been alive yesterday. Today, a man complained that lane five had swallowed his daughter’s pink bowling ball and could someone please fix it because they’d paid for the full hour. Cook fixed it. He crawled half under the return while the machinery coughed and rattled above him, grease and dust sticking to his forearms, and tried not to think about Tasha’s head hitting the wheel. Tried not to think about the hotline, about the box in his glove compartment.
When he came back out, Ryan was waiting. Not by accident. He stood near the staff-only door with a bucket of lane cleaner in one hand and murder in his face. Not the messy kind she had. Ryan’s was quieter. Human. The sort that still knew what consequences were and hated itself for wanting them anyway.
“We need to talk.”
Cook wiped his hands on his work trousers. “Popular fucking phrase lately.”
Ryan didn’t blink. “Now.”
“No.”
Ryan stepped closer. “Did she do it?”
Cook’s eyes flicked, just once, toward the prize counter.
She was there with JJ, sorting tickets into bundles because Gareth had stuck her somewhere visible, somewhere bright, somewhere he could pretend visible meant safe. Her hands moved carefully. Too carefully. Every few seconds, she looked over at Cook like she could feel the distance tugging. Cook looked back at Ryan.
“Careful.”
“Did she do it?”
“You grieving, mate? Or interrogating?”
Ryan’s face twisted. “Don’t call me mate.”
Cook’s smile came on out of habit. It didn’t reach anywhere real. “Alright. What do you want me to call you?”
“I want you to tell me why Tasha’s dead.”
The word hit the air between them. Dead. Not hurt. Not hospital. Not accident. Dead. Cook felt it move across the room even though Ryan had kept his voice low. It seemed to find her anyway. Her head lifted at the prize counter, eyes locking onto him. Cook’s stomach dropped. Ryan saw it. Saw her. Saw the line between them work. His expression changed.
“Jesus,” he said quietly. “You know.”
Cook grabbed his arm and shoved him through the staff-only door before Ryan could say it any louder. The back corridor smelled of damp cardboard, bleach, and the bins outside. The fluorescent light overhead flickered hard enough to make the walls twitch. Cook let go first, because keeping his hand on Ryan felt too much like admitting Ryan had made him move. Ryan shoved him back. Cook hit the opposite wall, shoulder first.
“There he is,” Cook said, breath coming sharp. “Knew you had a little fight in you.”
Ryan’s eyes were red. Not crying now. Past that. “What did you do to her?”
Cook’s mouth shut. Not what did she do? What did you do to her?
Ryan stepped closer. “She wasn’t like this.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
Cook laughed, short and ugly. “You all experts now, yeah?”
“I knew her.”
The words landed exactly where Ryan meant them to.
Cook’s hands curled at his sides. “Did you?”
Ryan stared at him. Then something bitter moved through Ryan’s face, grief and guilt and cruelty all getting tangled together.
“Yeah, Cook. I did.”
Cook’s jaw flexed.
Ryan took one more step. “You read her phone?”
Cook said nothing.
“That’s why you’ve been looking at me like that.”
Cook’s smile came back wrong. “Careful, mate.”
Ryan laughed then, but there was nothing funny in it. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Yeah? Go on.”
“She was coming round mine,” Ryan said. “Before all this. Before you started acting like she’d been yours the whole time.”
Cook felt the corridor tilt. Ryan saw it and kept going.
“She was texting me. Wearing my hoodie. Getting in my bed because she wanted to, not because I had to hover over her every second like a fucking creep.”
Cook’s hand curled into a fist.
Ryan’s voice shook, but he didn’t stop. “And the worst part? I told you to ask her out because I knew she’d say no. I knew she didn’t want you like that.”
Cook hit him. It wasn’t clever. Definitely not planned. His fist cracked across Ryan’s mouth hard enough to snap his head sideways, and for one beautiful second the only thing in the world was impact. Ryan stumbled into a stack of flattened cardboard boxes, caught himself, then came back swinging. His knuckles caught Cook in the cheek. Pain flashed white. Cook laughed through it because laughing was better than making the sound he actually wanted to make. He shoved Ryan back towards the door at the end of the corridor, the one that opened behind the lanes where the machinery ran loud enough to eat voices. Ryan grabbed the front of his Kingpin's polo.
“You ruined her,” Ryan spat.
Cook drove his shoulder into him, slamming him against the wall. Ryan’s breath punched out.
“You don’t know shit.”
“I know she was scared of you.”
“She came back to me.”
“Did she?” Ryan’s mouth twisted, blood bright at the corner. “Or did you finally wear her down enough that she stopped sounding like herself?”
Cook froze. The corridor seemed to narrow around the sentence. Ryan’s chest rose and fell hard. He looked past Cook then, toward the small rectangular window in the staff door. Cook turned. She was there. Standing on the other side of the glass. Watching. For a long moment, no one moved. Her eyes went from Cook’s split cheek to Ryan’s bleeding mouth. Then to Ryan’s hands, still twisted in Cook’s work shirt. Something in her face went empty. Ryan let go first.
“Don’t,” he said. Not to Cook. To her. That made it worse. Cook opened the door before she could.
“Go back out front,” he said.
She looked at Ryan, then at Cook. Ryan shook his head slowly. “Don’t listen to him.”
Her hand flexed at her side. The bandage pulled tight across her palm. Cook felt the whole thing balance there, awful and delicate. He should’ve told her to leave. He should’ve told Ryan to run. Instead, because Ryan had said she was coming round mine and Cook could still feel the words chewing through his ribs, he said, “He’s upsetting me.”
Her face changed. Ryan saw it happen.
“Oh, fuck you,” he said, voice cracking. “Cook, don’t—”
She didn’t run at first. That was what made it scary. She walked through the staff door with the same terrible focus she’d had outside Tasha’s car, shoulders still, bandaged hand flexing at her side. Ryan backed up on instinct, one hand lifted like he could talk her down, like there was anything in the room left to reason with. Cook saw the exact second Ryan understood he wasn’t looking at someone angry. He was looking at someone aimed.
“Stay back,” Ryan said.
She didn’t even blink. “You hurt him.”
Cook’s split cheek pulsed with heat, and some rotten little part of him thrilled at how quickly she’d made it simple. Ryan had blood on his mouth. Cook had blood under his skin. That was enough. That was all the curse needed. It didn’t care about Tasha, or the phone, or the way Ryan had said she was coming round mine like it was a knife and he knew where to jab. It only needed Cook hurt and Ryan close enough to punish.
Ryan looked past her. “Cook.”
Cook should’ve said something. He should’ve grabbed her, should’ve pulled her back by the waist and told Ryan to get out, should’ve used the same horrible obedience that made her drop her eyes and come when called. The command sat ready in his mouth. Stop. Leave him. Come here. But Ryan’s words were still lodged under his ribs. She was coming round mine. Wearing my hoodie. Getting in my bed because she wanted to.
Cook said nothing, and she closed the distance.
Ryan shoved her away when she reached for him, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to keep her off. That was his mistake. Her shoulder hit the wall, and the sound she made wasn’t pain. It was surprise, followed by something low and furious. She came back faster, catching his wrist with both hands and twisting it down so sharply Ryan swore and stumbled sideways into the door behind the lanes. The machinery was louder back there, all clatter and hum, the ugly industrial guts of Kingpin’s hidden from customers by painted walls and ugly carpet. A return motor coughed somewhere beyond the door, belts turning, rollers dragging, pins knocking together in hollow plastic thuds. Ryan tried to wrench his arm free, but she went with him, body pressed close, face blank with effort.
“You touched him,” she said.
Ryan’s eyes flashed with panic. “I didn’t—”
“You made him bleed.”
Cook moved then, too late to be innocent and too slow to be useful. “Alright, that’s enough.”
She didn’t hear him. Or she did and chose the stronger command: his hurt, her rage, the wish turning both into permission. Ryan stumbled through the half-open service door and hit the narrow space behind lane seven. The air changed at once, hotter and worse, thick with dust, oil, and old rubber. The ball return was exposed in pieces back here, not the glossy customer-facing mouth that spat balls neatly onto the rack, but the underside: belts, metal runners, wheels turning with a grinding patience that made Cook’s stomach tighten.
“Get her off me!” Ryan shouted.
Cook grabbed her shoulder. “Stop it.”
She jerked out from under his hand so violently his fingers slipped off the jacket. Ryan tried to swing again, but she caught his arm and shoved forward with everything in her, driving his hand down toward the moving gap beside the return belt. Ryan realized what she was doing half a second too late.
“No—”
His hand went into the machinery.
The sound was immediate and awful, a wet crunch swallowed under the churn of the return motor. Ryan screamed, high and shocked, his whole body folding toward the trapped hand as the belt dragged and bucked around him. The machine didn’t care. It kept trying to do its job, kept pulling, kept grinding, the rollers knocking his knuckles sideways in a way hands were never meant to bend. Cook lunged for the emergency switch. His palm slapped the red button hard enough to hurt. The belt stopped, but the silence after was somehow worse because Ryan was still screaming. He dropped to his knees, clutching his wrist with his free hand, his other hand caught at a wrong angle inside the metal mouth of the return. Blood ran fast over the black rubber belt and dripped onto the concrete in thick, ugly spots. One finger twitched when it shouldn’t have. Another didn’t move at all.
“Fuck,” Cook breathed. “Fuck, fuck.”
Ryan sobbed through his teeth, trying not to look at it and looking anyway. “My hand! Oh my God, my hand!”
She stood over him, chest rising and falling, the bandage on her palm red again where the fight had split it open. Her face wasn't blank now. It was bright with purpose, eyes locked on Ryan like the machine had only done half the work.
“He hurt you,” she said to Cook, almost pleading with him to understand.
Ryan looked up at her, ruined hand still caught, face pinched in pain. “You’re sick.”
That did it. Cook saw it happen and still didn’t move fast enough. There was a rack of spare pins against the wall, scuffed and dirty from practice lanes, their white plastic bodies scarred with black marks. She grabbed one by the neck with both hands. Ryan tried to scramble back, but his trapped hand kept him anchored in place, dragging a gutted sound out of him when he pulled against the crushed fingers.
“Don’t,” Cook snapped.
For once, the word hit her. She hesitated, pin lifted, breath shaking in her throat. Her eyes cut to him, and for a second the whole room balanced on the thin, disgusting edge of what he wanted her to do. Ryan was crying now, properly, sweat and tears and blood all mixing on his face. “Please.”
Cook looked at him, at his hand, at her holding the pin.
Then Ryan said, “She’s not yours.”
The pin came down.
It cracked against the side of his head with a hollow, brutal sound that seemed too loud even with the machines around them. Ryan’s body jerked sideways, his shoulder slamming into the return housing. Blood opened at his temple and ran immediately into his hairline, down along his ear, over the corner of his jaw. He made a noise like air leaving a bag. She hit him again. Not clean this time. The pin glanced off his cheekbone and caught his mouth, splitting his lip wider, knocking his head back against the metal. His teeth clicked together with a sound Cook felt in his own jaw. Blood sprayed across the pin in a curved red stripe, then onto her shirt, Cook’s jacket, the concrete between them.
“Stop!” Cook grabbed the pin before she could swing a third time, wrenching it hard enough that she nearly came with it. “I said stop!”
She fought him for it, wild for two seconds, then all the force went out of her at once. The pin slipped from both their hands and rolled across the concrete, leaving a thin red track behind it. Ryan sagged beside the machine, half-conscious, his breath coming in broken, wet pulls. His trapped hand was still caught in the return, mangled and slick, and Cook couldn’t look at it for more than a second without his stomach trying to turn itself inside out. The door behind them banged open. JJ stood there, face drained of all expression, one hand still on the handle. His eyes took in Ryan first, then the pin, then her, then Cook. For one long second, nobody spoke. The only sound was Ryan breathing through blood and pain, the soft drip of something hitting the concrete, the muffled shriek of children out front winning tickets from a machine.
JJ whispered, “What the fuck?”
Cook moved before anyone else could.
“Get Gareth,” he said.
JJ didn’t move.
“Now,” Cook barked, and that finally snapped him out of it.
JJ stumbled back through the door, nearly tripping over his own feet as he ran. Cook turned to her, grabbed her by both arms, and dragged her away from Ryan before she could look down long enough to understand what she’d done. Her breathing was too fast. Her pupils were blown wide. Blood dotted her cheek in tiny specks that weren’t hers.
“Look at me,” Cook said.
She did. Of course she did. The obedience hit him like nausea.
“Go to the toilets,” he said. “Wash your hands. Wash your face. Don’t talk to anyone.”
Her lips parted. “But—”
“Now.”
She obeyed, but not before glancing back at Ryan. The sight of him seemed to cut through something. Her face buckled, horror pushing up through devotion, and Cook saw her almost say his name in that scared, lost voice from the car park. He stepped in front of her before she could.
“Go.”
She went. Cook crouched beside Ryan, hands hovering uselessly because there was nowhere safe to touch. Ryan’s eyes rolled toward him, unfocused but aware enough to hate.
“You did this,” Ryan rasped.
Cook swallowed. “Shut up.”
“You did.”
“Shut the fuck up, Ryan.”
Ryan’s mouth twitched, a bloody, terrible attempt at a laugh. “She didn’t even know why.”
Cook’s throat tightened. Boots pounded down the corridor. Gareth arrived first, JJ right behind him, both stopping dead at the edge of the service space. Gareth’s face collapsed into something Cook had never seen on him before. Not anger. Not annoyance. Fear, pure and stupid and useless.
“What happened?” Gareth shouted.
Cook looked at the stopped machine, the blood on the concrete, the pin against the wall, Ryan folded beside the return with his hand ruined inside it. A dozen lies came running at once, each worse than the last.
“He slipped,” Cook said.
Gareth stared at him. “He fucking what?”
“He was messing with the return.” Cook stood, wiping his palms on his trousers even though that only spread the red thinner. “Hand got caught. Hit his head when he went down.”
JJ made a sound behind Gareth. Not belief. Not disagreement. Just panic trying to find somewhere to go.
Ryan coughed, blood bubbling at his mouth. “Liar.”
Cook looked down at him. Ryan looked back. For a second, Cook thought Ryan might say it. Might say her name. Might say everything in front of Gareth and JJ, and whatever police came crawling back into Kingpin’s after this fresh disaster. But pain broke across his face before words could, and he folded over his trapped hand, choking on another scream when he shifted wrong. Gareth snapped into motion then, not because he believed Cook but because the emergency gave him something easier than the truth. “JJ, call an ambulance. Now. Cook, don’t fucking touch him. Nobody touches anything.”
JJ ran. Gareth turned on Cook, voice low and shaking. “Where is she?”
Cook’s heart dropped. “Who?”
“Don’t,” Gareth said. “Don’t you dare, not now.”
Cook’s cheek throbbed. His ribs hurt. His hands smelled like blood and rubber and old grease. Behind the customer wall, someone laughed loud enough to carry, bright and horrible, followed by the crack of pins at the end of a lane. Gareth stared at him like he was finally seeing the thing everyone else had been circling. Cook held his gaze and said nothing. The toilet door opened somewhere down the corridor. She stepped out with wet hands, face scrubbed clean enough to leave the skin rubbed raw-looking under the harsh lights. Her bandage was soaked through again. She looked at Gareth, then JJ’s empty spot, then Ryan on the floor. Her face crumpled.
“What did I do?” she whispered.
Gareth turned toward her. Cook got there first. He caught her by the wrist, careful of the bandage this time, and pulled her behind him. “Nothing,” he said.
Ryan made a broken sound from the floor. Cook didn’t look at him.
“Nothing,” he repeated, and felt the lie take shape around all of them.
The lie didn’t hold this time. Not properly. It got them through the next ten minutes because panic was louder than truth. Gareth shouted. JJ came back shaking with a phone pressed to his ear. Ryan kept slipping in and out of sense, groaning through his teeth whenever the smallest movement dragged pain through his ruined hand. Cook stood between her and everyone else like his body could block the whole scene from becoming what it was. But no one looked at him like they believed him. Not JJ, pale under the fluorescent lights, eyes darting between the blood on the pin and the blood on her sleeve. Not Gareth, whose face had gone hard in a way Cook had never seen before. Not Ryan, half-folded beside the machine, mouth bloody, eyes glassy with pain and still full of enough hate to keep finding Cook through it.
“She did it,” Ryan rasped when the paramedics came.
Cook’s stomach dropped. Gareth looked at her. She stood behind Cook with both hands tucked into the sleeves of his jacket, bandage soaked red, face scrubbed raw from the bathroom sink. She didn’t deny it. That was the worst bit. She didn’t cry, didn’t argue, didn’t perform innocently. She only looked at Ryan like some part of her was trying to wake up and couldn’t get past the fog. One of the paramedics asked her to sit down.
Cook answered before she could. “She’s in shock.”
Gareth snapped his head toward him. “Enough.”
Cook’s mouth shut. One word, and it hit harder than any of the shouting had. Not from Ryan. Not from Tasha. Gareth. Red-faced, cheap, useless Gareth, who’d spent years caring more about broken lane motors than broken people, looking at Cook like he finally knew exactly what kind of rot had been spreading under his carpet. Police came after the ambulance. Of course they did. This time, there was too much to sand down before opening. Too much blood. Too many witnesses. Too many broken things happening around the same two people. Cook gave his statement in Gareth’s office while an officer with tired eyes wrote everything down and asked the same question six different ways.
Had Ryan attacked him first? Yes. Had she intervened? She panicked. Had she used the bowling pin? Cook didn’t see. Had she shoved Ryan’s hand into the return? Cook didn’t see. The officer stopped writing. Cook smiled like his cheek wasn’t throbbing. “Bit busy getting punched, mate.”
The officer didn’t smile back. Through the glass strip in the office door, Cook could see her sitting on a plastic chair by the staff lockers with JJ beside her and another officer crouched in front of her. She looked small under the strip lights, not because of her body, but because the room seemed to have stripped all the command out of her. Her hands sat open on her knees. The red bandage glared against her lap. When the officer asked her something, she looked toward Cook. The officer followed her gaze. Cook looked away too late.
By the time they let them leave, it was because no one had enough straightforward answers to do anything else yet. Ryan was in hospital. Tasha was dead. The girl from the car park was still alive but no longer some one-off bit of violence they could bury under bad luck and Gareth’s lack of CCTV. Everything had started connecting itself in people’s heads, thin red lines between nights Cook wanted kept separate.
Gareth caught Cook near the back door. He looked older than he had that morning. Not softer. Never that. Just worn down, as if Kingpin’s had finally asked too much of him and he hated them all for making him notice.
“You don’t come in tomorrow,” he said.
Cook blinked. “What?”
“Neither of you do.”
“Gareth—”
“I said don’t.” Gareth’s voice shook once, then steadied into something ugly. “I don’t know what the fuck is happening, and I don’t want to know. But if she comes near this place again before police sort it, I’m calling them myself.”
Cook’s laugh came out thin. “Bit late for principles, innit?”
Gareth stepped closer. For once, he didn’t look ridiculous. “Get out.”
Cook wanted to say something clever. Nothing came. Outside, the late afternoon had gone grey and wet, the sky sagging low over the car park. She followed him without speaking, footsteps too quiet behind his. The tape was still around the corner where Tasha had died. Rain had softened the edges of everything except the memory. Halfway to his car, she stopped. Cook noticed because the distance pulled at him now too, some sick echo of the way she always felt him. He turned and found her standing by the drain, staring at the car park like she could replace the scene of every bad thing she’d done printed over the concrete.
“I don’t want this,” she said.
The words were quiet, but they carried. Cook’s chest tightened. She looked at him then, and for the first time in days, maybe weeks, there was no worship in her face. No softening. No automatic reach toward him. Just fear and grief and something exhausted enough to be honest.
“I don’t want this,” she said again.
Cook took a step toward her. “You’re upset.”
“No.” Her voice shook. “No, don’t do that. Don’t tell me what I am.”
He stopped. Rain caught in his hair, cold at the back of his neck. Her hands curled against her sides. “I can feel it when you say things. I can feel myself changing around them. Like my head turns wrong. Like I’m there, and then I’m not.”
Cook swallowed. She pressed both hands to her chest like she could hold herself in place. “I remember Ryan. I remember liking him. I remember Tasha. I remember thinking she was nice to me when you were being a dick about something. I remember all of it until you talk, and then it moves. It all moves.”
“Come here,” Cook said before he could stop himself.
She flinched. Then her body took one step. Only one. She froze with horror on her face, staring down at her own foot like it had betrayed her. Cook felt the bottom drop out of him and hated, viciously, that some part of him still wanted to see if she’d take another. Her eyes lifted to his. Wet. furious. terrified.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Cook’s mouth went dry.
“I don’t want you,” she said.
The sentence landed exactly where he’d always known it would. Not like Ryan saying it. Not like Tasha reporting it. Her. Standing in the rain, shaking under the weight of everything his wish had done to her, finally getting one clean line through the curse and putting it between them.
“I don’t want you,” she repeated, and the second time it broke her voice. “Not like this. Maybe not ever. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s mine.”
Cook looked at her and saw the whole horrible truth of it. The car. The willow. Her at the window. Her in his bed. Her hands in Tasha’s hair. Ryan’s hand caught in the machine. Every time he’d said come here and watched her obey. Every time he’d told himself it was close enough to love if she kissed him back. He could still do it. That was the thought that ruined him most. He could say her name the right way. Step closer. Touch her face. Tell her she was confused, that she was his, that she’d always been his. The curse would help. It always helped. It would take the pain out of her eyes and put the devotion back. It would make her easier to hold.
Instead, maybe because the rain was cold enough to feel like punishment, maybe because Ryan’s scream was still in his ears, maybe because Tasha’s last breath had followed him all the way into daylight, Cook finally said it.
“I made a wish.”
She stared at him.
His voice came out rougher than he wanted. “That night. In the car. After you got out.”
Her breathing changed.
“I had that stupid fucking willow thing,” he said. “The gift. From that oddity shop by Kingpin’s you told me about. I broke it.”
Her face lost everything.
“I wished for you to want me.”
For a second, even the rain seemed to go quiet. Then she took a step back. This time, it was hers. Cook felt it like a door slamming in his face.
“No,” she said.
He almost laughed, because of course that was what people said when the truth was too ugly to fit into the room. No. As if refusing it could make the world rearrange itself. As if he hadn’t spent days doing exactly that.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and hated how useless it sounded.
She looked at him like she didn’t know what sorry was supposed to do with all the blood.
“You made me?”
Cook said nothing.
“You made me want you?”
“I didn’t know it would—”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracked hard. “Don’t you dare say you didn’t know. You wanted it.”
He looked away.
She laughed once. Small. Broken. Nothing like amusement. “Oh my God.”
“I didn’t know it’d be like this.”
“But you knew enough.” She looked down at her bandaged hand, then back at him. “You knew enough to keep going.”
That was the bit he couldn’t answer. She came closer then, slow and careful, like approaching him cost her something. Cook didn’t move. He didn’t trust himself to. She stopped close enough that he could see the rain caught on her lashes, the tremor in her mouth, the terrible clarity in her face.
“Then I’m yours because you asked,” she said.
Cook shut his eyes.
“No.”
“Yes.” Her voice was soft now, and that made it worse. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? I’m yours because you asked something to take me.”
He opened his eyes. The curse moved under her grief like something waking up. He could see it, and he hated that he could see it: the way her anger bent toward pain, the way her pain bent toward him, the way even this truth tried to make her reach for the person who had caused it. Her hand lifted. Stopped. Shook in the space between them.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
Cook nodded, because she should. Then her fingers caught in his shirt.
“I love you,” she said, and broke on it.
That was the worst thing the wish had done. Not the blood, not Tasha, not Ryan, not the girl by the bins. It hadn’t erased the hate or spared her the truth; it had left both alive in her mouth and made the love louder. Cook caught her wrist before she could come any closer. For one breath, he almost let her go. Then he pulled.
Summary: After dinner, after the truck, after the kiss that makes everything else feel inevitable, Jack takes you home. But he still does not cross the threshold until you ask. This time, your apartment does not feel like a place someone found. It feels like a place you choose. Your door. Your room. Your bed. Your rules. And Jack Abbot, devastatingly patient and barely holding himself together, lets you have every ounce of control until you finally ask him to take it back.
Warnings: 18+ only, explicit smut, age gap, oral sex, unprotected sex, creampie, praise, light restraint/wrist pinning, leg over shoulder, overstimulation-ish, emotional aftercare, soft dom Jack, Reader processing past fear/control issues after Trent, lots of consent/check-ins, Jack being medically responsible and emotionally devastating
Author’s Note: This is the chapter. The dinner was foreplay. The truck kiss was a warning. And Jack Abbot is, unfortunately for all of us, very good at waiting until he is invited in.
Xoxo, Del
| Chapt. 1 | Chpt. 2 | Chpt. 3 | Chpt. 4 |
“Get in the truck,” Jack said.
For one second, you did not move. You just looked at him. At the hand still braced on the open passenger door. At the other hand, flexing once at his side like it needed somewhere to go. At his mouth, still damp from yours. At the hard line of his jaw and the wrecked, focused darkness in his eyes.
You had done that.
The thought moved through you warm and bright and dangerous. You had leaned against his truck and told him dinner was over, and Jack Abbot had kissed you like restraint was something he had been surviving on sheer will alone.
Now he was standing in front of you, breathing hard, telling you to get in the truck.
So you did.
You climbed into the passenger seat on legs that were not nearly as steady as you wanted them to be. His eyes moved over you once, quick and assessing, not clinical, not detached. Just Jack. Seeing too much. Seeing exactly what his mouth had done to you.
Then he closed the door. Gently. Like he had not just pressed you into it hard enough to make your whole body forget the street existed.
You watched him walk around the hood of the truck. He took his time. Not because he was calm. Because he was making himself be calm. You could see it in the set of his shoulders. The way he rolled one hand once before opening his door. The way he got in, shut himself inside the cab with you, and sat there for half a second before reaching for the ignition.
The truck started with a low rumble.
Neither of you spoke.
Jack pulled away from the curb, one hand on the wheel, the other resting low near the center console. His eyes stayed on the road. His mouth stayed quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that made every breath feel loud.
You sat beside him, trying not to touch your mouth. Trying not to think about the way his hand had felt at your jaw. Trying not to think about the way his hips had pinned you to the truck door, firm and careful and not nearly enough.
It did not work.
Your body remembered everything. His thumb near the corner of your mouth. His fingers on your hip. The sound he had made when you pulled him back in.
Your fingers curled against your thigh. Jack’s eyes flicked down. Only for a second. Then back to the road.
Your pulse jumped anyway. “You’re quiet,” you said.
Jack’s jaw shifted once. “I’m driving.”
You pressed your lips together. “That has never stopped you from being sarcastic before.”
His mouth barely moved, but the almost-smile did not last. “I’m trying not to be distracted.”
Your breath caught. Jack kept his eyes on the road. You watched his profile in the passing streetlights. The strong line of his nose. The tension in his jaw. The way his hand tightened once around the wheel and then loosened, deliberate and controlled.
“You kissed me,” you said.
Jack glanced over, just long enough to make your stomach flip. “I did.”
The words came low. Certain. Then his fingers tightened once around the wheel. “I’ve been thinking about doing it again since I stopped.”
Your fingers tightened against your thigh again. The truck moved through the quiet streets, past closed storefronts and pools of streetlight, toward your apartment. Every block felt shorter than it should have. Every red light felt like a punishment and a mercy.
At one stop, Jack’s hand shifted on the wheel.
Your eyes dropped to it. His knuckles. His wrist. The watch catching a flash of streetlight. You remembered his hand holding your jaw. You remembered his other hand at your hip, firm enough to anchor, restrained enough to make you ache.
Jack looked over.
You did not look away fast enough.
His gaze followed yours to his hand, then came back to your face. The air in the truck changed. The light turned green. Jack looked back at the road and drove.
He pulled up outside your building exactly two minutes later.
Neither of you moved at first. The engine idled. Your apartment building rose quiet and familiar through the windshield, the porch light glowing above the entrance, the windows dark except for a few scattered rectangles of warm light.
Home.
For days, the word had felt complicated. Now Jack sat beside you, silent and careful, not reaching for you, not assuming anything, waiting like he had meant every word from the beginning.
You unbuckled first. The click sounded too loud in the cab. Jack turned the engine off. Still, he did not move right away.
You looked at him.
His eyes were already on you.
For a second, the air between you felt so charged you thought he might kiss you again right there across the console. He did not. Instead, Jack opened his door and got out.
By the time you reached for your handle, he was already there. The passenger door opened, and cool air slipped into the cab. Jack stood outside, one hand on the door, the other offered to you.
You looked at it. Then at him. His expression stayed steady. Not calm. Steady. There was a difference.
You took his hand. His fingers closed around yours, warm and strong, and he helped you down from the truck. You stepped onto the curb, closer to him than you needed to be.
Neither of you moved away.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth. This time, he did not hide it quickly enough. Your pulse kicked. Then he lifted his eyes back to yours and stepped back, giving you space to walk.
Still careful. Still Jack. Still making the choice yours even now.
You hated how much it made you want him. Jack walked beside you into the building, close enough that your shoulders almost brushed. The silence between you had changed from the restaurant. Changed from the drive. It was heavier now. Warmer. Less uncertain.
You had told him to take you home.
He did.
You reached your door and stopped. The hallway was quiet. Your key was already in your hand, though you did not remember taking it out. You stared at the lock for one second, then slid the key in.
Jack waited beside you. Not behind you. Not crowding. Just there.
The lock turned.
You pushed the door open. Your apartment was dark except for the soft light you had left on near the kitchen. The flowers Jack had brought you sat on the counter where you had left them, pale and sweet in the glass vase.
For a second, you looked at them.
Then you stepped inside. Jack stayed in the hallway. Your chest tightened. You turned back. He stood just outside the threshold, hands at his sides, eyes on yours. His mouth was still a little swollen from kissing you. His hair was slightly mussed where your fingers had found it at the truck. His jacket sat open, shirt wrinkled where you had fisted your hand in it.
And still, he waited.
Like he would stand there all night if you did not ask. Like he could want you that badly and still not take one step you had not given him. Something low in your stomach twisted. You held his gaze.
“Come in, Jack,” you said.
His expression changed. Barely. A tightening around the eyes. A shift in his jaw. One breath that did not quite leave him clean.
Then he stepped inside.
You closed the door behind him.
The latch clicked.
The sound moved through the apartment, small and final.
For one second, you both stood there. You, with your back near the door. Jack, only a few feet away, watching you like the entire night had narrowed to this room. Your room. Your apartment.
Your choice.
You reached back and turned the deadbolt. The lock slid into place. This time, the sound did not make your stomach drop. This time, it sounded like a decision.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.
You could see the restraint in him. Not gone. Not yet. Stretched thin, pulled tight, fighting for its life. He did not move first.
So you did.
You crossed the space between you, took his jacket in both hands, and pulled him down to your mouth. Jack came willingly. Immediately. His hands found your waist, firm and warm, but he did not turn you, did not press you back, did not take the lead.
You felt the restraint in that, too. The waiting. The permission. The way his fingers flexed once against you and then stilled. You kissed him harder. Jack made a low sound against your mouth.
Your whole body lit with it.
You pushed his jacket off one shoulder, then the other, and he let it fall to the floor behind him without looking away from you.
His hands tightened at your waist. Just a little. Enough to tell you what he wanted. Not enough to take it. You broke the kiss only far enough to breathe. Jack followed you half an inch, then stopped himself. His eyes opened slowly. Dark. Focused.
Yours.
You smiled against his mouth. “Not yet,” you whispered.
Jack went still. For one second, you felt his hands flex at your waist. Then they stopped. Completely. His voice came out rough. “Okay.”
You kissed him again, slower this time. Because he had waited. Because he was still waiting. Because for the first time all week, your apartment did not feel like a place someone had found.
It felt like a place you had chosen.
And Jack was only here because you asked.
You stepped back.
Jack did not follow right away. His eyes stayed on yours, dark and fixed, waiting for the next cue. Something low in your stomach twisted.
You took his hand. His fingers closed around yours immediately.
Then you turned and led him down the hall. Jack followed. Not crowding. Not rushing. Just close enough that every step felt like a promise. Every shadow felt warmer. Every inch between your bodies felt temporary.
Your bedroom door was open. The room was dim, lit only by the soft spill from the hall and the small lamp you had left on near your bed. Your sheets were still slightly rumpled from your nap. Your book still sat facedown on the nightstand, spine apparently suffering in silence.
It should have felt strange, bringing him here.
After everything.
After Trent had left coffee outside your door like he had any right to your life. After you had spent nights in Jack’s guest room because your own apartment had stopped feeling simple. But Jack crossed the threshold only after you did. He stopped just inside your bedroom, eyes still on yours, hand still in yours, waiting.
Always waiting.
Your chest tightened. Then you pressed your free palm to his chest and pushed. Not hard. Enough. Jack’s brows lifted faintly. You pushed again, guiding him backward until the backs of his legs met the mattress.
His eyes stayed locked on yours.
You swallowed, suddenly aware of exactly what you were doing. Exactly where you were putting him. Exactly how much he was letting you.
“Sit,” you said.
Jack went very still. The word seemed to move through him before he moved with it.
Then he sat. Slowly. Carefully. On the edge of your bed.
For one second, you just looked at him. Jack Abbot, sitting on your bed in his clean shirt and good jeans, jacket gone, hair a little mussed from your fingers, mouth swollen from yours, hands resting on either side of his thighs like he did not trust himself to put them anywhere else.
Your stomach flipped hard.
His eyes moved over your face. “What?”
You stepped between his knees. Jack’s hands flexed against the mattress. You noticed. His gaze sharpened because he knew you had. For one second, you thought about climbing into his lap exactly like this. Sweater. Jeans. Boots still by the door.
All of it.
Then you remembered the way he had made you wait all night. Dinner first. Dessert first. Every door opened. Every line held. Every touch careful enough to make you ache. Your fingers curled around the hem of your sweater. Jack went still. Completely still.
You looked down at him. “Watch.”
His jaw tightened once. He did not move. You pulled the sweater up and over your head, slow enough to be cruel, then let it fall to the floor beside his jacket. Jack’s eyes moved over you. Not quickly. Not politely.
He looked like a man trying to be respectful and losing the fight by inches. Your face warmed under it, but you did not look away. You reached for the button of your jeans. Jack’s hands curled against the edge of the mattress.
You saw it.
The quiet, brutal effort of him keeping his hands to himself while you undid the button, eased the zipper down, and pushed the denim over your hips. You stepped out of the jeans and kicked them aside. Then you stood there in front of him, wearing only your bra and underwear, breathing harder than you wanted him to know.
Jack did not say anything. That was worse. His eyes lifted back to yours, dark and fixed and almost painfully focused. You crossed your arms loosely, mostly so you had something to do with your hands. “You’re quiet.”
Jack’s mouth parted slightly. Then closed. His eyes dropped over you again, slower this time, and when he looked back up, his voice was rough. “I’m trying very hard to stay sitting down.”
Your stomach flipped. You stepped closer. Jack’s eyes followed you. You reached down and took one of his hands. He let you. You lifted it to your waist, setting his palm against bare skin this time. The contact made both of you breathe differently. Then you took his other hand and placed it on your hip.
Jack’s fingers curled carefully against you. Warm. Firm. Still waiting.
“You can touch me,” you said.
His eyes lifted to yours. You held his gaze. “Just don’t take over.”
Something changed in his expression. Not amusement. Not surprise.
Want.
So much of it that your knees nearly softened before anything had even happened. Jack’s thumbs moved once against your skin. Barely there. Devastating. “I can do that,” he said.
His voice was low. Rough. Not entirely convincing.
You leaned closer. “Can you?”
Jack looked up at you from the edge of your bed, his hands exactly where you had placed them, his jaw tight, his eyes dark.
“No,” he said.
Your pulse jumped.
Then his fingers tightened on your hip. “But I will.”
Your breath left you. For one second, neither of you moved.
Then you climbed into his lap.
Jack’s inhale broke. His hands came to your hips immediately, firm but still, holding you as you settled over him, knees on either side of his thighs, your body pressed close enough to feel exactly how much restraint had been costing him.
Your hands slid to his shoulders. Jack looked up at you. Gone. Completely gone. And still waiting.
You lowered your mouth to his.
The kiss was slower this time. Deeper. Yours. Jack let you set it. Let you angle his face the way you wanted. Let you take your time while your body settled carefully over his lap.
The first press of his cock through his jeans made both of you breathe differently.
Jack’s fingers dug into your hips.
You stilled.
His eyes opened against yours.
“Sorry,” he said, voice wrecked.
You shook your head. Then you rolled your hips again. Slow. Deliberate.
Jack’s head tipped back slightly, his throat working as he swallowed a sound. You watched him. The strong line of his neck. The tense set of his jaw. The way his eyes closed for half a second before he forced them open again, like he refused to miss what you were doing to him.
Your confidence returned in a warm, dangerous rush. You did it again.
Jack cursed under his breath. “Fuck.”
The word sounded dragged out of him.
You smiled against his mouth.
Jack’s hands tightened on your hips, still not moving you, still not taking the rhythm from you.
“You’re so perfect,” he said, rough and low. “Jesus Christ, sweetheart.”
Your whole body warmed. You kissed him again before he could see how badly the words landed.
But he knew.
His mouth moved against yours, hungry now, less polished than before. You could feel him trying to stay where you put him. Trying to let you have this. Trying not to guide your hips even as his hands flexed like they knew exactly what they wanted.
You rolled your hips again.
Jack’s forehead dropped briefly to your shoulder. His breath was hot against your bare skin.
“That’s it,” he said, voice rough against you. “Take what you want.”
The words lit through you. You did. You moved again, slow and deliberate in his lap, and Jack held on like a man being ruined by his own restraint.
His mouth found your shoulder. He kissed you there. Once. Then again. Warm. Open. Not enough. Too much. Your head tipped back before you could stop it. Jack groaned softly against your skin.
Then you decided you wanted that sound again. You slid one hand to the back of his neck and guided his mouth away from your shoulder, tipping his head back just enough to give yourself access to his throat.
Jack went still beneath you. Not stopping you. Waiting.
Your mouth found the side of his neck. Warm skin. The faint taste of soap. The jump of his pulse beneath your lips. You kissed him there once, then again, slower this time, letting your teeth graze just enough to feel the way his entire body reacted beneath yours.
“Fuck,” Jack breathed.
His hands tightened at your hips. You smiled against his skin and did it again. A little harder. A little meaner. Not enough to hurt. Enough to leave him with no doubt that you wanted him to feel it later. Jack’s head tipped back farther, his jaw tight, his breathing rough as your mouth moved along his throat.
You sucked at the sensitive place beneath his jaw, then soothed it with your tongue. His fingers dug into your hips. Still not moving you. Still not taking over. But barely.
“Sweetheart,” he said, voice low and wrecked.
You pulled back just enough to look at him.
His eyes were dark enough to make your breath catch.
Then he smiled.
Not much.
Barely at all.
But enough to make your stomach drop.
“Dangerous,” he said.
You rolled your hips again. Jack’s smile disappeared. His hands gripped you tighter. Your pulse thundered.
There he was. There was the edge of him. The part underneath the flowers, the dinner, and the opened doors. The part that had kissed you against the truck like the whole night had finally snapped. The part that was sitting on your bed now, letting you take control while every careful piece of him fought not to take it back.
You leaned down until your mouth brushed his ear. “Then behave,” you whispered.
Jack’s breath punched out of him. For one second, his hands went absolutely still on your hips. Then his mouth found yours again, hard and hot and open, and you smiled into the kiss because even now, even like this, he was trying.
And God help you, you were going to enjoy every second of making that difficult.
You shifted in his lap, searching for more pressure. Jack felt it immediately. His hands tightened at your hips, but he did not move you. He did not take over. He only adjusted beneath you. One thigh shifted between yours, giving you something solid to grind against.
Your breath caught.
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. He knew. His voice dropped. “There.”
You swallowed. The pressure was better like this. Sharper. More focused. Your hips moved again before you could think better of it, and pleasure sparked low in your stomach, sudden enough that your fingers tightened on his shoulders.
Jack watched your face change. His jaw went tight. “That’s it,” he said. “Use me.”
The words went through you like a match dropped into gasoline. Your hips rocked again, slower this time, dragging the ache into something hotter, brighter, harder to ignore. Jack’s hand slid up your back, then stopped halfway, like he had to remind himself he was allowed to touch but not steer. His other hand stayed at your hip, fingers spread wide, holding you steady while you took what you needed from the firm line of his thigh.
You kissed him because you needed somewhere to put the sound building in your throat. Jack took the kiss and gave it back deeper. Hungrier. Still yours. Still letting you lead.
But his restraint was beginning to show cracks.
You could feel it in the way he breathed against you. In the way his thigh pressed up just slightly, giving you more without forcing it. In the way his hand flexed at your hip every time your rhythm stuttered.
“Jack,” you breathed against his mouth.
His eyes opened. “Yeah?”
You moved again, and the word disappeared from your head. Jack’s expression changed. Softer. Darker. Focused in a way that made you feel seen down to the bone.
“There you go,” he said, voice low. “That’s what you needed.”
Your face warmed. Your body did not care. You rolled your hips again, and the pleasure pulled tighter, building with every slow drag against him. Your hands slid from his shoulders to his shirt, curling in the fabric, using him for balance while your body found a rhythm it did not want to lose. Jack watched you like he would let you ruin him if it meant you kept looking like that.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Look at you.”
You could not answer. You could only move. Again. Again. The pressure sharpened, heat spreading through your thighs, your stomach, your chest. Your breathing turned uneven, and Jack’s hands held you through it, firm enough to anchor, gentle enough to remind you he was still waiting for you to decide.
Your forehead dropped to his.
He turned his face just enough to kiss the corner of your mouth.
“Take it,” Jack said.
Your rhythm broke. A small, helpless sound slipped out of you. Jack’s hand slid to the small of your back, holding you closer, his thigh steady beneath you.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
You shook your head once, barely. “I thought I was—”
“In charge?” Jack finished, voice rough.
You nodded, breathless.
His mouth brushed yours. “You are.”
His hand pressed warm at your back. Solid. Steady. “Take what you want.”
The words broke something open. You moved harder, chasing the pressure now, less careful, less graceful, your whole body narrowing down to his thigh between yours, his hands on you, his mouth near your jaw, his voice low in your ear.
Jack kept still beneath you.
Not passive. Holding. Watching. Letting you use him exactly the way he told you to. Pleasure climbed fast. Too fast. Your fingers twisted in his shirt, and your hips lost their smooth rhythm, turning uneven and desperate.
Jack felt it.
His hand tightened at your back.
“There,” he said, voice wrecked. “Right there, sweetheart.”
Your breath caught. Your body tensed. Jack’s mouth found your throat, warm and open, and the feeling of it pushed you right to the edge.
“Jack,” you gasped.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
His thigh pressed up just enough.
Your whole body snapped tight.
The orgasm hit hard, sudden and bright, spilling through you in waves that made your hips stutter helplessly against him. Jack held you through it, one hand at your back, the other at your hip, his mouth against your skin, murmuring something low and rough that you could not quite hear over the rush of your own pulse.
You clung to him.
Jack let you. He did not move you. Did not rush you. Did not take advantage of the way your body went soft and trembling in his lap. He just held you there, steady and warm, while you came down against him.
When you finally opened your eyes, Jack was looking at you.
Gone. Utterly gone. His breathing was uneven, his shirt twisted in your hands, his jaw tight like he was holding himself together by force.
You swallowed.
A slow smile pulled at your mouth.
Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly. “Careful.”
Your smile widened. You shifted once in his lap, just enough to feel what you had done to him. His eyes went dark. Very dark. You leaned in and kissed him softly.
Then you pulled back.
Jack followed you half an inch before he caught himself.
You placed one hand on his chest. “Stay.”
Jack froze. The word settled over him. His fingers flexed once at your hips. Then they loosened.
He looked up at you from the edge of your bed, wrecked and waiting and so beautiful like that you almost forgot what you meant to do next.
Almost.
You climbed out of his lap slowly.
Jack’s hands stayed on your hips until the last possible second. Then they fell back to his thighs. His fingers flexed once against the denim, but he did not reach for you. Did not pull you back into his lap. Did not chase, even though his eyes dropped over you like every inch of distance was a personal offense.
You were still trembling a little. Still warm and soft from what had just moved through you. Still aware of the steady ache between your thighs, the damp heat of your underwear, the place where his thigh had been.
Jack noticed all of it.
His gaze lifted back to your face, dark and wrecked and so focused it made your stomach pull tight all over again.
You took one step back. Then another. Jack watched you like moving away from him was the cruelest thing you had done all night. Maybe it was.
Your fingers reached behind your back.
Jack stopped breathing.
The clasp gave beneath your touch. For a second, you held the bra against your chest, watching him watch you. His jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists against his thighs.
You let the bra fall.
Jack’s eyes moved over you. Slowly. Not polished. Not polite. Hungry in a way that made your skin feel too warm and your pulse too loud.
Your first instinct was to cover yourself. Not because you did not want him looking. Because he was looking like that. Like he saw you.
Like he wanted you.
Like every careful thing he had done all night had been leading to this moment and he was still trying, somehow, to be worthy of it.
Your hands stayed at your sides.
Jack’s eyes lifted back to yours. He did not move. That almost broke you. The wanting was written all over him. In his mouth. In the hard set of his shoulders. In the way his breathing had gone rough and uneven. In the way his hands stayed locked to his thighs like he did not trust himself to touch until you told him he could.
So you stepped back between his knees.
Jack looked up at you like he was fighting every bad idea he had ever had and losing ground fast.
You touched his jaw first. Just because you could. Just because he let you. His eyes closed for half a second when your thumb brushed along the edge of his mouth.
Then you leaned down and kissed him.
Soft. Slow. Mean, maybe, because you did not give him enough.
Jack made a sound against your mouth and started to lift one hand.
You pulled back. His hand stopped midair. Your eyes dropped to it. Jack saw where you were looking. He lowered it back to his thigh.
“Sorry,” he said, voice low.
You shook your head. “Don’t be.”
His eyes stayed on yours. You took his wrist and placed his hand against your waist again, this time with nothing between his palm and your skin. Jack’s fingers spread carefully. Warm. Rough. Reverent in a way that made your chest ache and your body respond at the same time.
“You can touch,” you said.
His thumb moved once along your side. “I remember the rule.”
Your mouth curved. “Tell me.”
His eyes lifted to yours. For a second, the air between you held still. Then Jack said, “Don’t take over.”
Your pulse jumped. “Good,” you whispered.
His hand moved slowly up your side. Careful. So careful it almost hurt. He stopped just beneath your breast, his thumb resting against your ribs, waiting there like he would stay on the edge of what he wanted forever if you asked him to.
You looked down at him.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.
Not your chest. Your eyes.
That was somehow worse.
You covered his hand with yours and guided it higher. His breath caught. The first touch made both of you go still. Jack’s palm closed over you, warm and firm, and the sound he made was barely there. Almost nothing. It still went straight through you.
Your fingers tightened around his wrist. “Jack,” you breathed.
His eyes dropped then. Finally. His control slipped in pieces across his face. His jaw. His mouth. The rough rise of his breathing. He touched you like he had been thinking about it all night. Like every opened door, every careful pause, every inch of distance he had kept between you had led to this exact second where you put his hand where you wanted it and let him have something back.
His thumb moved. Slow. Intentional.
Your breath broke.
Jack watched your face. “There?” he asked, voice rough.
You nodded. His hand tightened slightly, and pleasure sparked low in your stomach. Then he leaned forward. Not fast. Not taking. Still giving you time to stop him.
You did not.
His mouth found your chest. Warm. Open. Devastating.
Your hand slid to the back of his neck, holding him there as his tongue moved over you, slow enough to make your knees weaken, then harder when your breath caught above him.
Jack groaned against your skin. The vibration made your hips shift without permission.
His free hand caught your waist. Not to control you. To steady you. His mouth moved lower, then back up again, tasting, licking, sucking until your fingers tightened at the back of his head and your whole body leaned toward him.
“Fuck,” you whispered.
Jack’s hand flexed at your waist. He liked that. You felt it in the way his mouth got hungrier, in the way his teeth grazed carefully before his tongue soothed the same place, in the way his breathing turned rough against your skin.
For a minute, you let him have it.
Let him touch. Let him taste. Let him ruin the careful little line you had drawn because he was still following it, still waiting for every next yes your body gave him.
Then you pulled his mouth back to yours.
Jack came with you immediately. Hungry. Wrecked. His hand still at your breast, the other at your waist, his mouth opening under yours like he had been starving quietly since the restaurant.
You kissed him until he stopped trying to be composed. Until his hand tightened. Until his breathing went rough enough that you felt it in your own body.
Then you reached for the top button of his shirt.
Jack went still beneath your hands.
The first button slipped free. Then the next. Then the next. Your fingers moved slowly, more confident with every breath he failed to hide. The shirt opened inch by inch, revealing warm skin, solid muscle, the rise and fall of his chest beneath your hands.
You pushed the fabric aside.
Jack’s breath hitched when your palms touched him.
You looked up.
His jaw was tight, eyes fixed on your face.
You slid your hands over his chest, then down, feeling the way his muscles shifted beneath your touch. The heat of him. The strength. The restraint.
He was so still. So careful. So clearly suffering. “You like this,” Jack said.
It was not a question.
Your hands paused near his stomach. You looked at him. “Yes.”
His mouth tipped faintly, rough and wanting. “Good.”
You leaned down and kissed the corner of his mouth. Then his jaw. Then the side of his throat. Jack’s hand flexed at your waist. You smiled against his skin.
There.
That reaction.
You wanted it again.
Your mouth moved lower, kissing the warm line of his neck, the faint jump of his pulse beneath your lips. You let your teeth graze him lightly.
Jack’s breath punched out of him. “Fuck,” he said.
Low. Ragged. Barely controlled.
You did it again. A little harder. His fingers dug into your waist. Still not moving you. Still not taking over. But barely. You soothed the bite with your tongue, then sucked at the same place until his head tipped back and his throat worked beneath your mouth.
“Sweetheart,” Jack said, voice wrecked.
You pulled back just enough to look at him. His shirt hung open. His hair was mussed. His mouth was swollen. There was a mark starting low on his neck where your mouth had been.
Your mark.
Your stomach flipped.
Jack’s eyes tracked your expression. His voice came quieter, but no less rough. “Proud of yourself?”
You touched the mark with your thumb. He swallowed. “Yes,” you said.
His eyes went dark.
You smiled and moved your hands to his belt.
Jack’s entire body went still. Not tense. Waiting.
Your fingers found the buckle. The sound of leather sliding free felt too loud in the quiet room.
Jack watched your hands. Then your face. Then your hands again, like looking directly at you was becoming a problem.
You opened the belt slowly. Because you could. Because he had made you wait all night. Because he was sitting on the edge of your bed with his shirt open, breathing like patience was starting to hurt.
Your fingers moved to the button of his jeans.
Jack’s hand lifted from your waist like instinct. Then stopped.
You looked at it.
Jack looked at you.
For one long second, neither of you moved. Then you smiled. “I’ll tell you when I need help.”
His jaw tightened.
His eyes stayed on yours. “Yes, ma’am,” Jack said.
The words were low. Dry. Absolutely devastating.
You laughed once, breathless, and pushed at his jeans just enough for him to understand.
Jack lifted his hips. Only when you gave him the pressure. Only enough to help. The denim shifted lower, but his boxers stayed in place, dark fabric stretched over the thick, hard shape of him.
Your breath caught before you could stop it.
Jack heard it. His mouth parted slightly, but he did not say anything.
You looked up at him as your hand settled over him through the fabric. Jack’s head tipped back.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
You pressed your palm against him, slow and deliberate, feeling the heat of him through his boxers, the way his body reacted immediately beneath your hand.
His fingers curled hard against the edge of the mattress.
You leaned down and kissed him. Soft at first. Almost sweet. Then you moved your hand again. Jack’s mouth opened under yours, his breath dragging in sharply as you stroked him through the fabric.
The kiss changed. Got messier. Hotter.
His restraint fraying against your mouth while his hips tried, once, to press up into your hand. He caught himself immediately. You felt the effort of it. Felt the way his body wanted more and the way he held himself still anyway.
You smiled against his mouth.
Jack’s hand flexed against the mattress.
“You’re quiet,” you murmured.
His laugh came rough and low. “I’m trying not to say about twelve things at once.”
Your stomach flipped. You stroked him again, firmer this time. His jaw tightened beneath your mouth.
“Pick one,” you said.
Jack’s eyes opened slowly, dark and ruined. “You are going to ruin me,” he said.
Heat moved through you. You kissed him again, because you needed to, because his mouth was right there, because the idea of ruining Jack Abbot made something low and reckless unfurl inside you.
Your hand moved over him again. Slow. Then slower. Learning the shape of him through the fabric, the places that made his breath catch, the pressure that made his fingers dig harder into the mattress.
Jack let you.
He sat there with his shirt open and his jeans shoved low on his hips, letting you touch him over his boxers while you kissed him like you had all the time in the world. Like he had not spent dinner proving he could wait. Like you had not decided to make him regret how good he was at it.
“You like this,” Jack said against your mouth.
It was not a question. You smiled. “Yes.”
His voice dropped. “I can tell.”
Your hand stilled. Jack’s eyes held yours.
The corner of his mouth moved, rough and almost smug, even like this.
You narrowed your eyes. “Careful.”
His answer came low. “You first.”
That did it. You pulled back from his mouth and looked down between you. Then your fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxers.
Jack went still again. His breathing was uneven now. Rough. Audible in the small room.
You eased the fabric down just enough to free him, and for one second, both of you just looked. At your hand. At him. At the way his cock fit against your palm, hot and heavy and hard enough to make your mouth go dry.
Jack’s head dropped back again. “Fuck.”
Low. Wrecked. Barely controlled.
Your confidence came back in a rush. You wrapped your hand around him. The first stroke made his entire body tense beneath you. You looked up at his face. At the way his throat moved. At the way his open shirt framed his chest. At the way his hands gripped the mattress like he was holding himself there by force.
You stroked him again. Slow. Firm. Watching for every little change. The way his stomach tightened. The way his thighs went tense. The way his mouth parted around a breath he did not quite manage to control.
You liked knowing. You liked making him show you.
Jack looked back down at you, eyes dark enough to make your pulse trip.
“You’re enjoying this,” he said.
You held his gaze. “Yes.”
His mouth tipped faintly. Then his eyes dropped to your hand. The tiny shift in his expression made your whole body warm. You moved again, twisting your wrist slightly, and Jack’s hips jerked once into your grip before he caught himself. His eyes closed. Your name left his mouth on a breath. Soft. Rough. Almost unwilling.
It went straight through you.
You leaned in and kissed him again, still stroking him, letting him breathe hard into your mouth while your hand took him apart inch by inch.
Jack’s hand finally moved to your waist. He stopped there. His fingers spread over your skin. Warm. Firm. Not guiding. Just holding on.
You let him.
Then you kissed down his jaw. His neck. The open line of his shirt. You moved lower slowly, your hand still wrapped around him, your mouth tracing over warm skin and tense muscle until you were lowering yourself between his knees. Jack’s hand twitched at your waist before falling away. Your eyes lifted to his. He looked almost pained.
Almost reverent.
Almost angry with himself for wanting so badly.
You settled between his knees, hand still moving over him.
Jack’s breathing changed. His eyes stayed on you, fixed and dark, as you leaned closer. Your mouth brushed the head of him. Barely there. A tease. A promise. His hand lifted. Stopped. Hovered.
You reached up, took his wrist, and brought his hand to the side of your face. Jack’s palm settled against your cheek. Warm. Careful. Reverent. Your cheek pressed into it.
His breath caught. “Yeah?”
One word. Rough. Asking everything he needed to.
You nodded.
Jack’s thumb brushed along your cheek. The gesture was tender enough to make the next thing feel even filthier. You smiled up at him.
Then you took him into your mouth.
Jack’s entire body locked.
“Fuck,” he said, voice breaking on the word.
His hand stayed against the side of your face. Not pushing. Not guiding. Just there because you had put it there.
You moved slowly at first, watching him watch you, learning him the way he had learned you at dinner. The way his breath caught when you used your tongue. The way his fingers curled carefully against your jaw and then loosened immediately, like he was reminding himself even now. Like he was letting you have this too.
You pulled back just enough to look up at him.
Jack’s eyes were almost black. His voice came low and wrecked. “You look so good like that.”
Your body clenched at the words.
His thumb moved once along your cheek.
“Yeah,” he said, rougher now. “You like hearing that?”
You held his gaze. Then you took him again. His head dropped back, a rough sound tearing out of him before he could swallow it. There he was. Not composed. Not careful.
Not Doctor Abbot.
Just Jack.
In your bed.
Under your hands.
Coming apart because you wanted him to.
And God, you wanted him to.
You took your time. Because you could feel what it did to him. Because every slow pull of your mouth made his breathing worse. Because every time your tongue moved, his hand flexed against your face like he was fighting the urge to guide you deeper and refusing himself the satisfaction.
You let him suffer with it.
Let him feel exactly what it meant to give you control.
Jack’s chest rose and fell hard above you. His open shirt shifted with every breath. His other hand gripped the mattress so tightly his knuckles went pale.
“Sweetheart,” he said.
Your eyes lifted.
Jack looked down at you, jaw tight, eyes dark, mouth parted. The word came out like a warning. Like a plea. Like praise.
You did not stop. You took him deeper, just enough to make his hips jerk once beneath you.
Jack caught himself immediately. His hand left your face and gripped the mattress instead. “Fuck,” he said, harsher this time. “Sorry.”
You pulled back. Only enough to breathe. Only enough to let him see your smile. Then you took his wrist again and put his hand back against your face.
You kissed the inside of his palm once. Then you went back down.
Jack made a sound that should have embarrassed him. It did not.
It ruined you instead.
You moved with more confidence now, one hand around what your mouth could not take, the other braced against his thigh. His muscles were tight beneath your palm. Solid. Trembling just enough for you to feel how close he was getting.
You felt powerful.
Soft and shaky and half-naked between his knees, yes.
But powerful.
Because Jack Abbot was looking at you like you had taken him apart with your bare hands, and he would let you keep going until there was nothing left.
His breathing changed. You felt it before he said anything. The way his stomach tightened. The way his hand went still against your face. The way his thighs tensed beneath your palm.
“Sweetheart,” Jack said, voice low and strained.
You looked up. His eyes held yours. “If you keep going, I’m not going to last.”
The words moved through you hot and bright. You slowed. Jack’s jaw clenched. You slowed more. His hand flexed once against your cheek. You pulled back completely, pressing one last soft kiss to the head of him before sitting back on your heels.
Jack stared at you. Breathing hard. Shirt open. Jeans low on his hips. Eyes dark enough to swallow the room whole.
For one long second, neither of you spoke.
Then his mouth tipped faintly. It was not a smile. Not really. It was something rougher. More dangerous.
“You’re proud of yourself again,” Jack said.
You wiped the corner of your mouth with your thumb and looked up at him.
“Yes,” you said.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth.
His expression went still. Very still. Then he looked back at your eyes. “Come here.”
Your pulse jumped. Not because he was taking over. Not yet. Because he sounded like he wanted to. Because for the first time all night, his voice had an edge sharp enough to make you wonder exactly how much control you had left.
You rose slowly.
Jack watched every inch.
When you stepped between his knees again, his hands found your hips. Firm. Hot. Still waiting. Barely. You looked down at him. At his open shirt. At his mouth. At the mark you had left on his neck. At the man who had taken you to dinner first and was now sitting on your bed, hard and wrecked and ruined because you had decided to make him that way.
Your confidence returned. Not smooth this time. Not polished. Hotter than that. You climbed back into his lap. Jack’s hands gripped your hips like he had been waiting for exactly that.
You settled over him, bare skin against open shirt, your underwear dragging against the hard length of him. Both of you breathed in at the same time.
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. Dark. Focused. Starving.
You smiled.
His jaw tightened. “You are playing a very dangerous game,” Jack said.
You lowered your mouth until it hovered over his. “I know,” you whispered.
Then you kissed him.
Jack kissed you back hard enough to steal the air from your lungs. His hands stayed at your hips, fingers spread wide, holding you right above him, not pulling you down, not forcing the next step, but close enough that you could feel the question in every inch of him.
You shifted against him. His breath broke against your mouth. You did it again. Slow. Deliberate. Cruel. Jack’s fingers dug into your hips.
“Sweetheart,” he warned.
You pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was wrecked. Mouth swollen. Eyes dark. Shirt open. Control hanging by a thread you had been pulling at all night.
You reached between your bodies.
Jack went still. Completely.
Your fingers found the waistband of your underwear. His eyes dropped. Then snapped back to yours. You held his gaze as you shifted, just enough to push the fabric aside.
Jack’s hand tightened once at your hip.
The first bare slide of him against you made your breath catch. Made his eyes close. Made the whole room feel too small.
“Fuck,” he said again, but this time it sounded helpless.
You rocked against him slowly, slick and hot and aching, and Jack’s head tipped back as if that one touch had almost ended him. You watched him. Watched the way his throat worked. Watched the way his chest rose hard beneath his open shirt. Watched the way he kept his hands still, even now, even with you bare against him, even with every part of his body begging to take more.
You lowered your mouth to his ear. “Still not taking over,” you whispered.
Jack’s laugh came rough and broken. “No,” he said.
His hands tightened at your hips. “But you are making it very fucking difficult.”
The words went through you hot and sharp. You smiled against his mouth, but it was not as steady as it had been before. Because he was right. You were making it difficult.
For him.
For yourself.
For the last fragile thread of control you were still pretending to hold.
You shifted against him again, slow and slick, and Jack’s breath broke against your cheek. His hands stayed on your hips. Firm. Hot. Still waiting.
Barely.
You let yourself move over him for another moment, letting the pressure build again, letting the ache sharpen into something bright and needy. Jack watched you through it, eyes dark, mouth parted, chest rising hard beneath his open shirt. He was still too dressed. Shirt open. Jeans shoved low.
You were nearly bare in his lap, underwear pushed aside, hips moving against him like you had any chance of pretending this was still controlled. The contrast made your stomach flip.
Jack’s thumb moved once at your hip. “Sweetheart.”
Your eyes lifted to his. His voice was rough. “What do you want?”
You swallowed. The question should have been easy. It was not. Because you wanted too much. His mouth. His hands. His weight. His control. The part of him he had been holding back all night. You wanted to stop teasing him and start finding out what it felt like when Jack Abbot finally stopped waiting.
You rocked against him again, and both of you went still for half a second. There. That edge. That place where almost was starting to feel cruel.
Your voice came out softer than you meant it to. “You.”
Jack’s jaw flexed. His eyes stayed on yours. “You have me,” he said.
The words landed deep. Not smooth. Not practiced. Fact.
Your fingers tightened in his open shirt. “No,” you said.
Jack’s breathing changed. You leaned closer, mouth brushing his. “I want to fuck you.”
His entire body went still beneath you. The words hit him hard. You felt it in the sudden grip of his hands at your hips, in the rough sound he tried to swallow, in the way his eyes went dark and fixed on yours. You held his gaze.
“I want to feel you,” you said.
Jack’s jaw worked once.
For a second, he looked like he was fighting for one last responsible thought. You shifted off his lap before he could find one. Jack’s hands fell away immediately. He watched you stand between his knees, watched your fingers slide to the sides of your underwear. His expression went still. Dark. Focused. Completely gone.
You pushed the fabric down your thighs and stepped out of it. Jack’s eyes followed the movement. Not rushed. Not polite. Hungry enough to make your knees weak.
When his gaze lifted back to yours, his voice was almost unrecognizable. “Come here.”
You shook your head once. Jack froze. Not hurt. Not confused. Waiting.
Your mouth curved faintly. “Not yet.”
His jaw clenched.
You reached for his jeans. This time, Jack did not move until your hands pushed at the denim. Then he lifted his hips. Only enough. Still letting you do it. You dragged his jeans and boxers down together, and Jack helped just enough to kick them aside. Then he was sitting there on the edge of your bed with his shirt hanging open, completely bare beneath you, hard and wrecked and breathing like every second was pulling him closer to the edge.
For a second, you just looked at him.
Jack’s hands curled against the mattress. “You done looking?” he asked, voice rough.
You looked back at his face. “No.”
You stepped closer and reached for his shirt. Jack lifted his arms only when your hands pushed the fabric back, letting you drag it off him the same way he had let you take everything else. The shirt fell somewhere beside the bed.
Then he was bare in front of you. Chest rising hard. Jeans and boxers gone. Hair mussed. Mouth swollen. The mark on his neck was darkening where you had left it.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “Now?”
Your pulse jumped. You stepped between his knees. “Now,” you said.
His hands came to your hips the second you were within reach. He stopped there, fingers spread wide, holding you without pulling. Still waiting. Even now.
You climbed back into his lap. The first bare press of him against you made both of you inhale. Jack’s forehead dropped to yours. “Fuck,” he breathed.
You shifted slowly, dragging yourself over him, feeling the hard length of him slide against you, hot and slick and almost enough to make your confidence falter.
Almost.
Jack’s hands tightened at your hips. His mouth brushed yours. “You’re killing me.”
You rolled your hips again. His breath hitched. “You made me wait,” you whispered.
Jack’s laugh was rough and ruined. “Fair.”
You smiled against his mouth. Then you reached between your bodies and wrapped your hand around him. Jack went still beneath you. Completely. His eyes opened. You held his gaze as you positioned him against you. The room narrowed to the space between your bodies. Your breath. His. The lamp beside your bed. The flowers somewhere out in the kitchen. The quiet apartment that was yours again.
Jack’s voice came low. “Condom?”
The word landed between you. Responsible. Careful. So Jack it made your chest ache and your body throb.
You shook your head. “I don’t want one.”
His hands flexed at your hips. “Sweetheart.”
“I’m on birth control,” you said.
His breathing went rougher. You swallowed. “I’m clean.”
Jack did not move. You tightened your fingers around him. “I want to feel you, Jack.”
Something broke across his face. Not restraint. Not fully. But something close.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
You lowered your mouth to his. “Yes.”
The word brushed his lips. Jack’s eyes closed for half a second. When they opened again, there was nothing calm left in them.
“Then go slow,” he said, voice wrecked.
Your pulse kicked. He held your gaze. “I want to feel you too.”
Your breath left you.
You started to sink down onto him.
Slowly. So slowly it almost hurt. Jack’s hands tightened at your hips, but he did not pull. Did not rush. Did not take the pace from you. He just held you while you took him inch by inch.
Your mouth fell open.
Jack watched your face like he could not look away. “That’s it,” he said, voice low and strained. “Just like that.”
You stopped halfway down, breath shaking. He was big. Hot. Bare. So much more than you had prepared yourself for, even after all of that teasing, all of that wanting, all of that confidence.
Jack’s hand slid up your back. Steady. Grounding.
“You okay?” he asked.
You nodded, but your fingers dug into his shoulders. His jaw tightened. “Words.”
Your eyes lifted to his. You swallowed. “Yes.”
His hand moved slowly up your spine. “Good.”
The word sounded ruined. You moved again. Another inch. Jack’s head tipped back, his throat working as he fought for control.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
The sound made you clench around him. His hands tightened hard at your hips. For one second, you thought he might lose it. You almost wanted him to. But he held still. Letting you have it. Letting you take him. Letting you decide exactly how much, exactly how fast, exactly when.
Your body stretched around him, slow and aching and impossibly full.
You lowered yourself the rest of the way.
Both of you went still.
Jack’s forehead dropped to yours. His breathing was ragged. Yours was worse. For a second, neither of you moved. There was only the feeling of him inside you. No barrier. No almost. No careful distance left.
Just Jack. Warm.
Deep.
Still holding you like you were something he had been trusted with.
His voice came rough against your mouth. “Jesus Christ.”
You rolled your hips once.
His eyes darkened.
“There you go,” he said, voice low. “Take your time.”
You did. You moved slowly at first, hands braced on his shoulders, body still adjusting to the feel of him inside you. Jack’s hands stayed at your hips. Firm. Hot. Still not guiding. Still not taking. Just holding you there while you learned him.
The room felt impossibly quiet around you. The soft light. The rumpled sheets. The sound of your breathing and his. The low, broken way Jack exhaled every time you sank down again. You watched his face because you could not help yourself. Because Jack Abbot looked wrecked beneath you.
Gone.
Jaw tight. Eyes dark. Chest rising hard beneath your hands. The mark on his neck stood out against his skin where your mouth had been, and every time you looked at it, something possessive and unfamiliar moved through you. You had put that there. You had made him look like this.
You rolled your hips again.
Jack’s head tipped back. “Fuck,” he breathed.
The word came out rough. Almost helpless. It made you clench around him. His hands tightened at your hips, but he did not pull you down. He did not speed you up. He just felt it. Let you feel it too.
You leaned down and kissed him, slow and deep, and Jack opened for you immediately. His mouth was hot under yours, hungry in a way that made you feel powerful and unsteady at the same time. You lifted your hips and sank back down. Jack broke the kiss on a sharp breath.
“That’s it,” he said, voice strained. “Just like that.”
Your stomach fluttered. You did it again. And again. Each time, it got easier. Hotter. Less careful. Your body started to find a rhythm, and Jack let you have it. He sat beneath you with his feet planted, thighs tense, hands locked on your hips like he was anchoring himself as much as you.
You could feel him everywhere. Deep.
Thick.
Bare.
Every slow drag made your breath catch. Every time you sank down fully, Jack’s grip tightened like he had to remind himself not to take over.
You smiled, breathless. Jack’s gaze sharpened. “You like this.”
You nodded. His mouth parted slightly. Your hips rolled again, and his jaw clenched.
“You like having me like this,” he said.
Your hands slid up to his shoulders, nails catching lightly against his skin. “Yes.”
His eyes went darker. You expected him to tease you. Expected the corner of his mouth to move. Expected some dry, devastating thing that would make you want to kiss him and shove him at the same time. But Jack only looked at you. Like the sight of you taking what you wanted from him was doing something to him he had no interest in hiding anymore.
“Good,” he said.
The word was low. Wrecked. Yours.
You moved harder. Jack groaned, one hand sliding around to your lower back before stopping there, holding steady instead of pushing.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” he said against your mouth. “Look at you.”
Your rhythm faltered for half a second. He noticed. His hand moved once over your back, grounding you.
“You’re perfect,” Jack said. “You hear me?”
Your breath broke. You nodded, but it was not enough for him.
His fingers tightened at your hip. “Say it.”
Your eyes lifted to his. Jack’s gaze stayed fixed on yours, dark and intent and too close to tender for how filthy it felt to be sitting on him like this.
Your voice came out thin. “I hear you.”
His mouth brushed yours. “Good girl.”
The praise hit you hard. Your whole body clenched. Jack’s breath punched out of him.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, head dropping back for a second. “You’re going to kill me.”
You should have laughed. You could not. Not with him inside you. Not with his hands on you. Not with his voice ruined and his restraint fraying beneath you, thread by thread.
You moved again, and this time Jack’s hips lifted slightly beneath yours. Just once. A small, involuntary thrust that made both of you freeze. His eyes snapped to yours.
“Sorry,” he said, voice rough.
Your pulse thundered. You shook your head. Then you did it again, lowering yourself onto him with purpose, chasing that same pressure.
Jack’s hands tightened. “Sweetheart.”
You moved again. His hips jerked up, shallow but devastating, and pleasure punched through you hard enough that your mouth fell open. Jack saw your face change. His expression shifted. Focused. Hungry. Barely controlled.
“There,” he said, voice low. “You felt that.”
You nodded, breathless. His hands stayed at your hips, but his thumbs moved slowly, almost soothing. Like he knew exactly how close he was to taking more and was forcing himself to offer steadiness instead.
You kept going. Slow turned to steady. Steady turned to desperate. The control you had felt before started to blur at the edges. It was still yours, but it was harder to hold now. Harder to keep the rhythm smooth. Harder to remember that you were the one setting the pace when every drag of him inside you made your thoughts scatter.
Jack watched it happen. You knew he did. His eyes were on your face, your mouth, the way your breath kept breaking, the way your hips started to stutter when the angle hit too deep. Your hands tightened on his shoulders. He hissed softly through his teeth.
“You okay?” he asked. You nodded too fast. Jack’s brow furrowed. “Words.”
“Yes,” you said, breathless. “Yes, I’m okay.”
His expression softened for half a second. Then you moved again, and both of you lost the thread of softness entirely. The pressure built low and hot, different from before. Deeper. Less sharp, more consuming. It spread through your hips, your thighs, your stomach, until every muscle felt warm and unsteady.
You tried to keep the rhythm. Tried to stay slow. Tried to stay in charge. But your thighs were starting to shake. The pace broke. You sank down hard, then stopped, breathing against his mouth.
Jack’s hand slid up your back. “There you go.”
You shook your head, frustrated. “I can—”
“I know,” Jack said.
The words came instantly. No doubt. No teasing.
His hand moved slowly down your spine. “I know you can.”
Your chest tightened. You lifted yourself again, stubborn, and tried to find the rhythm you had before. For a few seconds, you had it. Then pleasure caught too hard and your hips stuttered again. A sound slipped out of you, frustrated and needy and too honest.
Jack’s face changed. His hand tightened at your hip. Not taking. Not yet. But ready.
“Sweetheart,” he said.
You shook your head again, even though your forehead had dropped to his.
Jack’s mouth brushed your cheek. “Let me.”
Your breath caught. You did not answer. You tried again, rolling your hips, chasing the angle, chasing the feeling, chasing the control you could feel slipping through your fingers.
Jack let you. For another breath. Another broken movement. Another shaky attempt that made your body clench around him, and his own restraint crack audibly in the rough sound he made against your skin.
Then his arm slid fully around your waist. Firm. Secure. Still waiting at the edge of permission.
“I’ve got you,” Jack said, voice low and wrecked. “Let me take care of you.”
Your whole body went hot. The words moved through you worse than any command could have. Because he was not taking it from you. He was offering to carry it. Your fingers tightened at the back of his neck. You stayed there for one last second, breathing hard, forehead pressed to his, him buried deep inside you, his arm around your waist, his hand at your hip, his control hanging by almost nothing.
Then your voice broke. “Please.”
Jack went still beneath you. Completely. Then his eyes opened. Dark. Focused. Gone.
His hand tightened at your hip. “There she is,” he said.
The words hit you low. You barely had time to breathe before Jack moved. Because he was still sitting on the edge of your bed. Because your knees were still bracketing his thighs. Because his feet were planted firmly on the floor like that was the only thing keeping him grounded.
His arm locked around your waist. His hand stayed firm at your hip. And then he took the rhythm from you. Not gently. Not carelessly. Completely.
Jack fucked up into you, deep and sudden enough that your mouth fell open around a sound you did not recognize. Your hands grabbed at his shoulders. His mouth found yours immediately, catching the broken noise, swallowing it like it belonged to him.
“There,” he said against your mouth. “That’s it.”
You tried to move with him. Tried to help. Tried to keep some piece of the pace you had started. Jack’s hand tightened at your hip.
“No,” he said, voice rough. “Let me.”
Your whole body went hot. He did it again. Harder. Deeper. His arm around your waist kept you close, kept you from pulling away from the force of it. Every thrust drove the air out of you, every drag of him inside you making the pleasure sharpen until your thoughts started breaking apart.
Jack watched your face. Even like this. Even with his jaw tight and his breathing wrecked and his control finally, finally turned loose. He watched. He noticed. His hand slid from your hip to between your thighs, fingers finding you with devastating accuracy.
Your body jolted. “Jack.”
“I know,” he said. His voice was low. Almost soothing. His hips were not.
He kept fucking up into you, one arm holding you steady, the other hand working between your bodies until your back arched and your fingers dug into his shoulders.
“Right there?” he asked.
You could only nod.
Jack’s mouth brushed yours. “Words.”
Your breath broke. “Yes.”
His fingers moved again, firmer this time. Your whole body clenched around him. Jack cursed under his breath, his rhythm stuttering for half a second before he caught it again.
“Fuck,” he said. “That’s it. Right there, sweetheart.”
You pressed your forehead to his, shaking now, overwhelmed by the pressure of him inside you and his hand between you and the way he was holding you like he had known exactly when you would need him to. Because he had. You had taken control. He had let you. Now he was proving what he could do with it.
His voice dropped, rough against your mouth. “You did so good.”
The praise cracked through you. Your eyes squeezed shut.
Jack’s hand tightened at your waist. “No. Look at me.”
Your eyes opened. He was right there. Dark. Focused. Gone and still somehow entirely yours.
“There you go,” he said. “Stay with me.”
His fingers circled again. His hips drove up into you at the same time. The orgasm hit like a wire pulled tight and snapped. Your whole body locked around him, pleasure tearing through you so hard your mouth opened on a broken cry.
“Jack—fuck, Jack.” His name came out ruined. Too loud. Too helpless. Exactly his.
Jack’s arm tightened around your waist, and his own sound broke against your mouth, rough and wrecked, like hearing you come apart on his name had nearly taken him with you.
You clung to him, still crying out against his mouth as he fucked you through your orgasm, his hand steady between your bodies, his hips relentless beneath you.
“That’s it,” Jack said, breath hot against your jaw. “Let me hear it.”
You could not have stopped if you tried. His name broke out of you again, softer this time, shaking and breathless as the last waves rolled through you. Jack held you through all of it. Fucked you through all of it. Murmuring low and rough while your body shook in his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’ve got you. There you go.”
You clung to him, breathless and trembling, barely aware of anything beyond his body under yours and inside yours and wrapped around you. Jack slowed only when you started to go soft against him. Only when your forehead dropped to his shoulder, and your hands loosened against his skin.
For one second, he held you there. Breathing hard. Still buried deep. Still so hard inside you that your body pulsed around him in helpless little aftershocks. His hand moved slowly up your back.
“You with me?” he asked, voice wrecked.
You nodded against his shoulder.
Jack’s hand tightened once. “Words, sweetheart.”
Your mouth brushed his skin. “I’m with you.”
He exhaled. Then his mouth found your ear. “Good,” he said.
The word was not gentle anymore. Your stomach flipped. Jack shifted beneath you. You barely had time to understand the movement before he was turning with you, one arm firm around your waist, guiding you back onto the mattress without ever really letting you go.
Your back hit the sheets.
Jack followed you down just long enough to kiss you once. Hard. Deep. Then he pulled back. You blinked up at him, breathless, dazed, empty for barely a second before he was standing at the end of the bed.
The sight of him there made your whole body go still. Bare. Chest rising hard. Mouth swollen. The mark on his neck dark where you had left it. Eyes fixed on you like he was done pretending he could survive wanting you politely. Jack’s hands wrapped around your thighs. Then he pulled you closer.
Your breath caught as your hips slid to the edge of the mattress. The movement was smooth. Certain. So controlled it made the roughness underneath feel even more dangerous. Jack stepped between your thighs and wrapped your legs around his hips. The head of him pressed against you again. Your fingers twisted in the sheets.
He looked down at you. “Still with me?”
Your pulse slammed. “Yes.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. Then he pushed back inside you. Both of you sucked in a breath. The angle was different like this. Sharper. Enough that your back arched off the bed and Jack’s hand flattened against your stomach for half a second, not holding you down, just feeling the way your body took him.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Look at you.”
Your head fell back. Jack’s hand came to your jaw. Firm. Not rough. Commanding anyway.
“Look at me,” he said.
Your eyes opened. He was right there above you, standing between your legs, your body pulled to the edge of the bed, your ankles locked behind his back. The position should have made you feel exposed. It did. But not unsafe. Never unsafe.
Not with Jack watching your face like your pleasure was the only thing in the room worth understanding. Then he moved. Deep. Hard. No longer patient. No longer careful in the way he had been before.
He fucked you like the whole night had finally snapped in half, his hands gripping your thighs, your hips, the mattress when he needed the leverage. Every thrust pushed you higher, sharper, closer to too much. You grabbed at the sheets. Jack watched you do it. His mouth parted.
“There,” he said, voice low. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.”
Your breath broke. He drove into you again, and you cried out. Jack’s rhythm stuttered for half a second. Then his grip tightened at your thigh.
“Not rushed,” he said, voice rough. “Not guessed at.”
Another thrust. Deeper. Your hands twisted harder in the sheets.
He groaned, “Not some boy taking what he can get.”
Oh.
Your whole body clenched around him. Jack’s eyes went dark. He felt it. His jaw worked, and for a second, he looked like the words had ruined him too. His hand slid under your knee. Slow. Firm. He lifted one of your legs from around his hip and guided it higher, over his shoulder.
The angle changed immediately. Your mouth fell open. No sound came out.
Jack froze. Just for a second. Just long enough to watch your face.
Then his hand moved to your wrists. He gathered them together and pressed them above your head, pinning them to the mattress with one hand. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough that your whole body went still beneath him.
His other hand held your thigh against his shoulder. His eyes stayed on yours. “There?”
Your pulse slammed. You pulled once against his grip. Not to get free. To feel it. Jack knew the difference immediately. His expression went almost feral.
“Yes,” you breathed.
His hand tightened around your wrists. Then he moved. Hard. Deep. The air left your lungs in a broken sound, and Jack caught it with his mouth, kissing you like he could swallow every noise you made and still want more.
His hand stayed firm around your wrists. His other hand gripped your thigh, keeping you open for him, keeping your leg over his shoulder as he drove into you again. And again. No more dinner.
No more almost.
No careful distance.
No gentlemanly restraint.
Just Jack above you, inside you, fucking you like the whole night had finally snapped in half. You could not move your hands. Could barely move your hips. All you could do was take him.
Feel him.
Hear the rough, wrecked sounds he made against your mouth, your jaw, your throat.
“Look at me,” Jack said.
Your eyes fluttered.
His grip tightened around your wrists. “No. Look at me.”
You forced your eyes open. Jack was right there. Gone and focused at the same time. Rough and careful. Animal and anchor.
His mouth parted on a breath. “There you are.”
The praise hit low and hot. You cried out, and Jack’s rhythm stuttered for half a second before he drove into you harder.
“That’s it,” he said, voice wrecked. “Take it.”
Your body answered before your mind could. Jack felt it. His eyes darkened.
“I know,” he said, softer now, even as his pace stayed brutal. “I know. I’ve got you.”
The words should not have made it worse. They did. Because he did have you. Pinned beneath him. Open for him. Overwhelmed by him.
And still, impossibly, safe.
His thrusts started to lose their perfect rhythm. Just slightly. Enough that you knew. Enough that heat moved through you all over again. Jack’s jaw clenched. His hand tightened around your wrists, then loosened immediately, his thumb brushing once over your skin like he was still checking himself even now.
You lifted your hips as much as his hold allowed. Jack’s breath broke.
“Fuck,” he said, rough and helpless.
You did it again. His head dropped near your shoulder. Another sound left him. Lower. Wrecked. Your name came out of his mouth like it had been dragged from somewhere deep in his chest. Not polished. Not controlled. Yours. You clenched around him. Jack groaned, harsh and broken, and drove into you deep.
Once. Twice. Then he stilled all the way inside you. His whole body locked over yours. His mouth fell open against your shoulder.
“Fuck—sweetheart—” His voice broke on it.
A low, gutted groan tore out of him, turning into your name again as he came, rough and helpless against your skin. You felt all of it. The heat. The pulse. The tremor that moved through his body after, like every ounce of restraint he had carried all night had finally left him.
And the sound. God, the sound.
Jack Abbot, who had opened every door and paid the check and waited until you asked, coming apart above you like this was the one thing he could not make quiet.
For a second, neither of you moved. Neither of you breathed right. Jack’s grip loosened around your wrists immediately. His thumb brushed over the place he had held them, gentle now, almost apologetic. You kept your hands above your head anyway. Not because he held you there. Because you could still feel him everywhere.
Jack lifted his head just enough to look at you. His eyes were dark. Soft around the edges now. Wrecked in a different way.
“You okay?” he asked.
Your laugh came out breathless and ruined. Jack’s mouth curved faintly, but his gaze stayed attentive. You nodded. His brow lifted.
You swallowed. “Yes.”
His thumb moved over your wrist again.
“Good,” Jack said, voice rough.
Then he lowered his mouth to yours. The kiss was different. Slower. Still filthy with what had just happened. Still warm with it.
But softer now.
Careful again, because Jack knew exactly when to come back to you. You kissed him back, boneless and breathless beneath him, your hands still above your head even though he was not holding them there anymore.
His mouth left yours. His thumb brushed over your wrist again, then your palm, then your fingers, like he was reminding your body that it could move now.
“You can put your hands down, sweetheart,” he said, voice rough.
Your eyes opened. He was watching you. Still close enough that every breath pressed his chest to yours. But his face had changed. The hunger was still there, softened around the edges by something quieter. Something tender. Something that made your throat feel tight in a way sex had not.
You let your arms lower slowly.
Jack took one of your hands before it reached the mattress and brought your knuckles to his mouth. The kiss he pressed there was careful. Almost reverent. Your chest ached.
“Jack,” you whispered.
His eyes lifted to yours. “Yeah?”
You did not know what you meant to say. Thank you felt wrong. Too small. Too polite. Too far away from the feeling of him still shaking faintly above you, from the way your whole body felt wrung out and safe and claimed without ever feeling taken.
So you said the only thing that was true. “That was…”
Jack’s mouth barely curved. “Yeah.”
A breathless laugh escaped you. It sounded wrecked. So did his answering exhale. He lowered his forehead to yours for one second, eyes closing like he needed to collect himself before moving. His hand slid gently along your thigh, easing your leg down with the kind of care that made your stomach flutter even after everything. The stretch of your muscles protested. You winced before you could hide it.
Jack’s eyes opened immediately. “Sore?”
“A little,” you admitted.
His jaw tightened, but not with regret exactly. Attention. Concern. A little bit of that devastating Jack guilt trying to sneak in around the edges.
You touched his face before it could settle there. “Good sore.”
His eyes searched yours. You lifted your brows. “Do not make that face.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “What face?”
“The face where you decide you personally invented consequences.” You replied.
That got you a faint smile. A real one, small and tired and warm enough to undo you.
Jack turned his head and kissed your palm. “I didn’t?”
You huffed a laugh. “No.”
His smile softened, but his eyes stayed attentive. “You sure?”
You nodded. “I’m sure.”
He held your gaze for another second. Then he shifted carefully, pulling away from you with a slowness that made your breath catch for an entirely different reason. Both of you went still. Jack’s jaw flexed. Your fingers tightened against his shoulder. The absence of him hit almost as hard as the fullness had.
He saw that too.
His hand moved to your hip, thumb stroking once over your skin. “I know.”
The words were quiet. Not smug. Not teasing. Just understanding. Your throat tightened.
Jack leaned down and kissed you once more, softer this time, then shifted off you, careful not to drop his weight or jostle you too much. The bed dipped beside you as he sat on the edge for a second, breathing hard, head bowed.
You paused a moment and took him in. Not Date Jack. Not Doctor Abbot. Not the man who opened doors and made reservations and held his restraint between his teeth until you asked him not to.
Just Jack.
Bare back flexing with each breath. Shoulders marked faintly where your nails had dragged. The darkening place on his neck where your mouth had been. Human. Wrecked. Yours in a way you were almost afraid to name.
He turned back toward you. “Stay there.”
Your eyes narrowed faintly. “That sounded like an order.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved, tired and warm. “It was a request.”
You were too boneless to argue, so you watched him stand. For one second, you thought he was going to leave the room. Instead, he bent and picked up his boxers from the floor, and pulled them on. Then Jack disappeared down the hall.
You heard the bathroom faucet turn on. He let the water run for a moment, and something about that made your throat tighten. Of course, Jack would wait for the water to warm. The faucet shut off, and a few seconds later, he came back with a damp washcloth in one hand.
No hesitation. No performance. No big speech. Just care. Practical. Steady.
Jack.
He sat beside you, careful and slow, giving you every chance to tell him no even now.
“Okay?” he asked.
You nodded. He waited. Your mouth curved faintly. “Yes, Jack. Words. I know.”
His eyes softened, but his voice stayed low. “Good.”
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling when he pulled the sheet back just enough to clean you carefully. The first touch made you inhale.
Jack paused immediately. “Too much?”
You shook your head. “Warm.”
His mouth barely curved. “That was the idea.”
You looked at him. He looked back. Then both of you smiled.
It was ridiculous. Tender. Devastating in its own quiet way.
Jack cleaned you with the same attention he brought to everything else. Not clinical. Not detached. Just careful. His hand stayed warm against your thigh, his touch gentle where his mouth and body had been anything but gentle minutes ago. The contrast nearly undid you. When he was finished, he covered you again, tucking the sheet loosely over your hips.
Then he stood and looked around your room for half a second. “Laundry?” he asked.
You blinked at him. “What?”
His brows lifted slightly. “Washcloth.”
“Oh.” You pointed weakly toward the hall. “Basket by the bathroom door.”
Jack nodded and disappeared again. You heard the soft sound of fabric dropping into the hamper. Then, after a second, the faint creak of the washer lid. Your smile pulled at your mouth before you could stop it. When he came back, he had a glass of water in his hand. He passed it to you, then sat beside you again.
“Drink,” Jack said.
You took the glass from him. “Bossy.”
His mouth barely moved. “Hydrated.”
You gave him a look over the rim of the glass. “You’re very proud of yourself.”
Jack’s eyes dropped over you, then came back to your face. The look in them changed. Softened. Deepened.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I am.”
Your chest went tight. You looked down at the water because looking at him directly suddenly felt like too much. Jack’s hand settled on your knee over the sheet. Not possessive. Not demanding.
Just there.
You took a few drinks and handed the glass back. Jack set it on the nightstand, then stayed sitting beside you like he was not sure whether he was allowed to lie down. That made something ache.
After everything he had done to you. After everything he had let you do to him. He was still waiting. Still leaving the next choice in your hands.
You shifted back on the bed and lifted the sheet. “Jack.”
His eyes lifted to yours. You swallowed. The words felt bigger than they should have. Not because you were afraid of them. Because you meant them.
“Stay,” you said.
Jack went still. Only for a second. Only enough for you to see it land. His gaze searched yours, dark and tired and softer now than it had been before.
“You sure?” he asked.
You nodded. “I’m sure.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, voice quiet.
“I know.” You murmured.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. You held the sheet open a little farther. “I want you to.”
For a second, he did not move. Then something in his face changed. Not hunger. Not restraint. Something quieter. Something that looked almost harder for him to let himself have.
“Okay,” Jack said.
The word came rough. Gentle. Almost careful.
Then he got in beside you. Not quickly. Not carefully enough to make it strange. Just with the same quiet intention he had given every choice all night. The mattress dipped under his weight. He settled on his side facing you, one arm bent beneath the pillow, the other resting between you until you reached for it.
He let you take his hand. You pulled it around your waist. Jack’s expression softened in a way that made your throat feel too small. He drew you closer, warm and solid beneath the sheets, his chest against your back when you turned into him. His arm settled around you, heavy and safe, and you felt his mouth press once to your shoulder.
Not hungry now. Not asking. Just there.
Your eyes closed.
For a few minutes, neither of you spoke.
The apartment was quiet. Really quiet. Just the hum of the building around you. Jack’s breathing behind you. The faint smell of flowers drifting in from the kitchen. Your own room, messy and warm and no longer feeling like something that needed to be checked.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your stomach. “You’re thinking.”
You huffed a breath. “You say that like you aren’t.”
His mouth brushed your shoulder. “I’m always thinking.”
You sighed, “That sounds exhausting.”
“It is,” Jack said.
You smiled into the pillow. Then his arm tightened slightly around you. Not enough to hold you in place. Enough to remind you he was there.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
You opened your eyes. The lamp cast a soft glow across the wall. Your book was still face down on the nightstand, its spine apparently still enduring injustice. Your clothes were on the floor. His jacket was somewhere by the front door. His flowers were in your kitchen. Your apartment was still yours. More yours, somehow, than it had been that morning.
You swallowed. “I thought it would feel strange,” you said.
Jack went quiet behind you. You felt it in his body before he answered. “Me being here?”
You nodded once. “Yeah.”
His thumb stilled. You breathed in slowly. “After everything. I thought it might feel like too much.”
Jack did not rush to answer. Did not tell you how you should feel. Did not try to make the moment cleaner than it was. He just waited. So you kept going.
“It doesn’t,” you said softly.
His exhale moved against your shoulder. You looked toward the open bedroom door, toward the faint light from the kitchen.
“It feels like I chose it,” you said.
For a second, Jack did not move. Then his mouth pressed to your shoulder again. Longer this time. His voice came low. “You did.”
Your eyes burned, suddenly and inconveniently. Jack’s arm tightened around you.
“Every part,” he said.
Your breath caught. The words landed exactly where they were supposed to. Your apartment. Your body. The locked door. The bed. Him. Every part.
You closed your eyes.
Jack’s lips brushed your shoulder once more. “Still yours.”
You knew what he meant.
Everything.
You turned in his arms slowly until you were facing him. His eyes searched yours in the low light, dark and tired and soft in a way you had not seen before tonight. You touched the mark on his neck with your fingertips.
His mouth curved faintly. “Proud of that one?”
Your laugh came out watery. “A little.”
Jack’s expression softened.
You let your hand drift from his neck to his jaw. “You stayed.”
His brows pulled together faintly. “You asked me to.”
“I know,” you said.
Your thumb moved along his jaw. “That’s why it matters.”
The look on his face changed. Just enough. Enough to make your chest ache. Jack reached up and covered your hand with his, pressing your palm more firmly against his face. For one second, the two of you just looked at each other. No jokes. No almost. No dinner first. No rules left to hide behind. Then Jack turned his mouth into your palm and kissed it.
“I’m here,” he said.
You believed him. That was the terrifying part. That was the easy part. You moved closer until your forehead rested against his chest. Jack wrapped around you immediately, warm and steady, his hand sliding slowly over your back beneath the sheet. The room went quiet again. Soft this time. Safe.
Yours.
For the first time all week, your apartment did not feel like a place someone had found. It felt like a place you had chosen. And Jack, warm and solid beside you, had only come in because you asked. Only stayed because you wanted him to. Only held on because you let him.
You closed your eyes.
Outside your bedroom, the flowers sat in water on your kitchen counter. Inside it, Jack’s breathing evened out against your hairline, his arm heavy around your waist, his body curled close behind yours like he had been built for exactly this kind of quiet. You let yourself sink into it. Into him. Into the room that was yours again.
And when sleep finally started to pull at the edges of you, you did not fight it. You did not check the door. You did not listen for footsteps. You just let Jack hold you.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 15, 947
Summary: After an unsettling moment in a parking garage leaves you shaken, Jack does what he does best: listens, steadies you, and teaches you how to get out of someone else’s hold. But close quarters have a way of revealing more than technique, and Jack is very, very good at showing you the difference between being trapped and choosing to stay.
Warnings: 18+ only, explicit sexual content, oral sex, protected sex, praise, light dominance, dirty talk, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, aftercare, self-defense lesson turning sexual, brief mention of being followed in a parking garage, fear/anxiety after a potentially unsafe situation, Jack being very competent and very unfair.
Author’s Note: This one came from the idea of Jack teaching her how to get out of someone’s hold and then showing her what it feels like to be held by someone she trusts. So yes, it is self-defense-adjacent, trust-heavy, and then very quickly becomes Jack being a menace in gray sweatpants. Please mind the warnings, and as always, minors do not interact.
Xoxo, Del
Dinner had been good. Quiet, but good. That was how Jack knew something was wrong. Usually, you had something to say. Usually, you made at least one dramatic noise over the food just to make him roll his eyes. Usually, you poked at him until his mouth twitched and then acted like you had won something.
Tonight, you had thanked him, eaten half your plate, and spent the rest of dinner moving your fork through sauce you were not really tasting.
Now you were wiping down a counter that had already been wiped down twice. Jack watched you from the sink, one hand braced on the counter while the other held a pan under warm water. The kitchen smelled like garlic and dish soap. The house was quiet around you. Warm. Familiar.
You still looked like you were waiting for something to happen.
Jack turned off the faucet. “You’ve been quiet.”
You kept your eyes on the counter. “I’m cleaning.”
Jack reached for the dish towel. “Quietly.”
You dragged the sponge across the same clean stretch of counter. “That is usually how cleaning works.”
Jack dried his hands slowly. “Not with you.”
You glanced at him, and the look almost had your usual bite. Almost. You looked back down at the counter. “I’m fine.”
Jack set the towel down. “I didn’t ask that.”
Your hand paused. “You were going to.”
Jack leaned back against the sink. “No.”
You turned your head slightly, but you did not quite look at him. Jack’s voice stayed even. “Because you would have said that.”
For a moment, the only sound was the faint tick of the cooling stove and the heater humming somewhere under the floor. Then you pressed the sponge flat beneath your palm.
You exhaled, “There was this guy in the parking garage.”
Jack went still. Not dramatically. Not suddenly. But something in him sharpened until you could feel the full weight of his attention settle on you.
You kept your eyes on the counter. “Nothing happened.”
Jack’s voice stayed quiet. “Okay.”
You swallowed. “I mean, I don’t think anything happened. He was just behind me. I turned down a row, and he turned too. Then I looked back, and he was already looking.”
Jack’s jaw shifted once. “At you.”
You nodded. “Yeah.”
He did not ask if you were sure. That almost hurt more than if he had. You rubbed your thumb over the inside of your wrist. “So I walked faster. And then I turned again, because I thought maybe if I was being weird, I could prove it to myself.”
Jack’s brows drew together. “Prove what?”
You gave a small shrug. “That I was making it up.”
Jack’s face softened. “Baby.”
You hated that. Not because he said it. Because it worked.
You looked away. “Maybe he was parked near me. Maybe he was just walking. Maybe I looked insane because I kept checking over my shoulder.”
Jack spoke gently. “Maybe.”
You finally looked at him. Jack held your gaze. “But you thought it might be something.”
Your throat tightened. There it was. So simple. So clean. No argument. No evidence required. No little courtroom where you had to defend the fact that your body had known something before your brain could explain it.
Jack crossed the kitchen slowly. He did not crowd you. He came close enough that you could feel the warmth of him beside you, but he stopped before his body blocked yours in. Jack rested his hand near yours on the counter. “You noticed him. You trusted that something felt wrong. You got to your car. You locked the doors. And you left.”
Your eyes burned. Jack’s voice was gentle. “That’s good.”
You hated how much you needed to hear it. You hated even more that he seemed to know. For a second, neither of you said anything.
Then Jack shifted his hand an inch closer to yours. “You called me after.”
You huffed a small, shaky laugh. “You said you were making food.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “I did.”
You glanced at him. “And I like food.”
Jack nodded. “I know.”
You lifted one shoulder. “And your house was closer than mine.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “Also true.”
You tried for dry. “And you’re very needy.”
Jack’s eyebrow lifted. “I’m needy?”
You pointed the sponge at him. “You invite me over every time you cook.”
Jack leaned one hip against the counter. “I invite you over because you show up.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That is circular logic.”
Jack’s mouth twitched again. “That is not what circular logic means.”
You pointed at him more firmly. “Do not flirt with me using accuracy right now.”
Jack’s expression warmed. You looked away before it could undo you completely. Jack’s voice was softer when he asked, “And?”
You hated him a little for knowing there was an and. You looked down at the counter. “And I wanted to see you.”
Jack’s fingers flexed once against the counter. When you looked back, there was no smugness in his face. No teasing. No dry little joke waiting at the corner of his mouth. Just Jack.
Warm. Steady. Yours. Jack’s voice was low. “I’m glad you did.”
The ache in your chest loosened so suddenly that you had to look away again. You tossed the sponge into the sink with more force than necessary. “I also did the stupid key thing.”
Jack blinked. “The key thing?”
You held up your hand awkwardly. “The thing where you put your keys between your fingers like Wolverine, but sad.”
For one second, Jack just stared at you. Then his mouth twitched. You pointed at him. “Do not laugh.”
Jack held up one hand. “I’m not laughing.”
“You’re doing the Jack version.” You replied.
Jack raised a brow, “The Jack version?”
You nodded. “Where only one percent of your face admits you think I’m funny.”
Jack’s mouth curved another fraction. “That sounds medically precise.”
You set the sponge down. “I work around doctors. I’ve picked up terminology.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to your hand. “It’s common advice.”
You lowered your hand. “But?”
“Not good advice.” Jack stepped closer, slow enough that you had time to move if you wanted to. “Keys move. They can cut into your palm. They weaken your grip.”
You frowned. “I hate that you’re making sense.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “And if someone is close enough for that to matter, they’re close enough to grab you.” Your humor thinned. Jack saw it immediately. His voice softened. “Better principles.”
You looked up. “Principles.”
Jack counted them off calmly. “Create distance. Make noise. Keep moving.” Your eyes dropped to his hands. Jack finished, “Use leverage.”
You stared at him. Of course, Jack Abbot, in gray sweats and a white T-shirt, barefoot in his warm kitchen, knew how to use leverage. Of course, he said it like that. Calm. Practical. Devastating. You lifted your eyes to his. “That sounds like something people say when they know how to leverage.”
Jack’s answer was immediate. “I do.”
Your stomach did something stupid. You tucked your keys into your palm. “That was very ominous.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
Your eyes narrowed. “You said ‘I do’ like you were about to reveal a hidden assassin past.”
Jack leaned one hip against the counter. “I don’t have a hidden assassin past.”
You pointed at him, “That sounds exactly like something a man with a hidden assassin past would say.”
Jack looked at you for a long second. Then he asked, “Do you want me to show you?”
You blinked. “Show me what?”
Jack nodded toward the basement door. “A few basics.”
Your stomach dipped. “Self-defense?”
Jack’s voice stayed dry. “That is what we’re talking about.”
You looked down at yourself. Leggings. Loose shirt. Bare feet. Still a little shaky in your own skin. You admitted, “I wanted reassurance.”
Jack’s expression softened. “I’m giving you both.”
That should not have worked on you. It did. You glanced toward the basement door. “You have a self-defense dungeon, don’t you?”
Jack stared at you. You stared back. Jack said, “It’s a workout space.”
You nodded slowly. “That is exactly what someone with a self-defense dungeon would call it.”
Jack pushed off the counter. “Are you coming?”
You should have said something clever. You should have made another joke. Instead, you looked at him standing there, barefoot and broad-shouldered, one hand near the basement door, his hair a little mussed from the way he had run his fingers through it after dinner. Your body remembered the parking garage. The cold concrete. The fluorescent lights. The echo of footsteps that might have meant nothing but had still made your pulse climb into your throat.
Then your body registered Jack. Warm kitchen. Clean cotton. Bare feet. Quiet house. A man who had listened without making you feel ridiculous. You walked toward him.
Jack watched your face as you passed. “What?”
You glanced up. “What?”
Jack’s mouth softened. “I’m proud of you.”
The words landed harder than you expected. Your throat closed. Jack did not touch you. He just stood there, letting you absorb it. You looked down at the stairs. “For almost stabbing myself with my own keys?”
Jack’s voice stayed gentle. “For paying attention.” You swallowed. Jack continued, “For leaving.” Your fingers tightened around the railing. Jack’s eyes held yours. “For coming here.”
You forced a shaky breath through your nose. Then you glanced past him into the basement, “Still sounds like a dungeon.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “It’s a workout space.”
You stepped down one stair. “Sure, Dr. Basement.”
Jack followed you down. “Don’t call me that.”
The laugh that left you came easier than the last one. The basement was warmer than you expected. Quiet, too. One corner had been turned into a practical home gym: black mats fitted together across the floor, a punching bag near the wall, a small rack of weights, and resistance bands looped neatly from a hook. Nothing flashy. Nothing excessive. Just useful. Very Jack.
You stepped onto the edge of the mat. “You have a punching bag.”
Jack came to stand beside you. “Yes.”
You pointed at the mat beneath your bare feet. “And a whole fighting area.”
Jack looked down at the mat. “It’s not a fighting area.”
You widened your eyes. “Oh, my mistake. Your peaceful rectangle.”
Jack’s mouth curved despite himself. “You done?”
You rocked back on your heels. “Probably not.”
Jack stepped onto the mat and faced you. “Come here.”
Your stomach flipped. You covered it with attitude and lifted your chin. “Yes, sensei.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. You smiled sweetly. Jack pointed at the mat in front of him. “Okay, smart ass. Get on the mat.”
That should not have worked on you. It did. You stepped fully onto the mat, bare feet pressing into the textured surface.
Jack shifted into something steadier, his shoulders relaxing even as his attention sharpened. “First rule.”
You folded your arms. “Already?”
Jack nodded. “This isn’t about winning a fight.”
You let your arms drop a little. “Comforting.”
Jack shrugged, “It should be.” You looked at him. Jack continued, “It’s about getting out.”
Your smile faded. Jack saw it happen. His tone softened without losing its firmness. “You are not trying to prove anything. You are not trying to be brave.” You looked down at the mat. Jack’s eyes stayed on your face. “You are trying to create enough space to leave.”
You nodded once. “Okay.”
Jack held out his hand. “Give me your wrist.”
You glanced at his hand. He waited. The pause mattered. You put your wrist in his palm. Jack’s fingers closed around you. Not tight. Not rough. But solid enough that your body understood the shape of it. Your breath caught before you could stop it.
Jack’s eyes flicked to your face. “Still okay?” You nodded. His grip loosened immediately, “Words.”
Your face warmed. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack’s fingers settled around your wrist again. “Good.” The word should not have moved through you the way it did. Jack’s thumb shifted against the inside of your wrist. “Don’t pull back.”
You looked down at his hand. “I wasn’t.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on your shoulder. “You were thinking about it.”
You frowned. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It is when your shoulder moves,” Jack replied.
You looked at your shoulder, offended. “Traitor.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “Turn toward my thumb.”
You tried. Jack held on. Your wrist stayed trapped in his hand. Jack shook his head once. “That was pulling back.”
You looked up at him. “Was it?”
Jack’s answer was immediate. “Yes.”
You huffed. “That is very supportive.”
Jack adjusted your wrist. “It’s accurate.”
You narrowed your eyes. “I liked you better when you were feeding me.”
Jack’s other hand came up to guide your fingers. “You’ll survive.”
You watched his hand wrap carefully around yours. “Cold.”
Jack ignored that, but his mouth betrayed him a little. “Here. The weak point of the grip is where the thumb and fingers meet.”
His palm was warm. His thumb was rough. His hand looked impossibly large around your wrist.
Jack angled your arm slowly. “Don’t fight the strongest part of my hand. Turn toward the opening.”
You stared for one second too long. Jack noticed. Jack lifted his eyes to yours. “Focus.”
You snapped your gaze up. “I am.”
Jack’s expression did not change. “No. You’re thinking about my hand.”
Heat flooded your face. Jack did not smile. That was worse. He loosened his grip and reset your wrist. “Try again.”
You exhaled through your nose. “You’re very bossy for a man who lured me into a basement.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “Workout space.”
You looked pointedly at the mats under your feet. “Basement.”
Jack closed his fingers around your wrist again. “Don’t pull back.”
You glanced down at his hand. “I’m not.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to your shoulder. “You are.”
You looked at your shoulder like it had betrayed you. “I’m going to start taking this personally.”
Jack adjusted your wrist with careful fingers. “Good. Maybe you’ll remember it.”
You lifted your eyes to his. “Terrible motivational speaker.”
Jack’s thumb shifted once against your skin. “You’re still here.”
That should not have warmed you. It did. Jack reset his grip, his fingers closing around your wrist again with the same maddening care. “Toward my thumb.”
You tried to twist your wrist free. Jack held on. You frowned. “That was toward your thumb.”
Jack replied, “That was away from my hand.”
You frowned, “Your hand is attached to your thumb.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “Anatomically, yes.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Do not flirt with me using anatomy right now.”
Jack’s expression stayed calm. “Then listen.”
You swallowed. Jack stepped closer by half an inch, not enough to crowd you, just enough for the space between you to become something you could feel. Jack said, “The weak point is here.”
His other hand came up, and one finger tapped the narrow gap where his thumb met his fingers. Jack continued, “Turn through that opening. Step with it. With your body, not just your arm.”
You blinked. “That is both very helpful and not helpful at all.”
Jack looked unimpressed. “Try it.”
You drew a breath. This time, you turned your wrist toward the gap in his grip and stepped with the movement instead of yanking backward. Your arm slipped free more easily than you expected. The sudden lack of resistance made you stumble a half step, and your eyes dropped to your own hand. You were out, just like that. For a second, the basement went very still. You looked up at him. “I did it?”
Jack’s face softened by a degree. “You did it.”
You looked down at your hand again. “Did you let me?”
Jack’s answer came quiet and immediate. “No.” Your eyes found his. Jack held your gaze. “I taught you.”
That landed somewhere tender. Not soft, exactly. Tender. A warmth moved behind your ribs because he said it like the distinction mattered. Like he would not take the win from you. Like he had no interest in making himself look stronger by making you feel small. You forced a breath out. “That was almost encouraging.”
Jack reset his stance. “Don’t get attached.”
You huffed. “There he is.”
Jack held out his hand. “Again.”
You stared at him. “Again?”
Jack nodded. “Again.”
You gave him your wrist because, apparently, that was your life now. He showed you three more times. The first time, you pulled back and swore at your shoulder. The second time, Jack told you to use your whole body, and you muttered something about filing a complaint with management. The third time, your wrist slipped free cleanly. Jack nodded once. “Good.”
You looked down at your hand, pleased despite yourself. “That one was good.”
Jack’s mouth softened. “It was.”
The praise was not flirtatious that time. That made it hit differently. You looked up at him. Jack’s eyes were steady on yours, warm and serious beneath everything else. “You’re getting it.”
Something in your chest loosened. You nodded, quieter now. “Yeah.”
Jack let that moment breathe. Then his gaze moved over you, assessing in a way that should have felt clinical and did not. Jack said, “Now your stance.”
You looked down at your legs. “My stance is standing.”
Jack shook his head. “Barely.”
You gasped. “Rude.”
Jack pointed toward your feet. “Feet apart.”
You obeyed, widening your stance by approximately two inches. Jack stared at the distance between your feet. You stared at him. Jack said, “Wider.”
You moved one foot out another inch. “Demanding.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “Still too narrow.”
You gave him a look. “How much space do you think I need?”
Jack’s gaze lifted to yours. “Enough that someone can’t knock you over because you’re being stubborn.”
You paused. Then you stepped wider. Jack nodded once. “Better.”
You looked down. “I feel ridiculous.”
Jack stepped closer. “You look stable.”
You glanced up at him. “That is not the same as cool.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “You want cool or useful?”
You sighed. “I hate when the options are obvious.”
Jack touched two fingers lightly to your elbow. “Hands up.”
You lifted your fists near your chest. Jack’s brows rose. You frowned. “What?”
Jack tapped your knuckles. “Not fists.”
You lowered them slightly. “You just told me hands up.”
Jack took one of your hands and gently opened your fingers. “Open hands.”
You looked at your own palm. “Jazz hands?”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “No.”
You spread your fingers wider. “Defensive jazz hands.”
Jack looked at you for one long second. You smiled sweetly. Jack’s voice went dry. “You done?”
You tilted your hand back and forth. “Probably not.”
Jack’s thumb pressed lightly against your palm, closing your fingers into a looser shape. “Open hands give you options. Push. Grab. Block. Create space.”
You tried very hard to listen. You did. Mostly. But Jack was close again, and his white T-shirt pulled across his shoulders when he moved. The fabric was soft from wear, thin enough at the collar to show the warm line of his throat. His gray sweats sat low on his hips, plain and comfortable and unfair in a way that made you angry at clothing as a concept. He smelled like dish soap, clean laundry, and something warmer underneath. Like his house. Like him. Jack tapped your wrist. “Higher.”
You snapped your eyes back to his face. “What?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly. “Hands.”
You lifted them higher. “Right.”
Jack studied you. “You were not thinking about your hands.”
You looked offended. “You don’t know that.”
Jack’s gaze dropped pointedly to your hands, which had already started to drift down again. You lifted them fast. “Fine.”
Jack stepped to your side. “Knees soft.”
You bent your knees dramatically. Jack blinked. You held the position. Jack said, “Not a squat.”
You straightened slightly. “You said soft.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “I did.”
You gestured down at yourself. “These are soft knees.”
Jack’s hand came to your hip. You forgot what a knee was. The touch was not sexual. That almost made it worse. His palm settled at the side of your hip, warm through the soft fabric of your leggings, firm enough to guide but not enough to hold. His other hand hovered near your shoulder, and the space between his body and yours narrowed until you could feel the heat of him at your side. You went still. Immediately, Jack’s hand loosened. “Still okay?”
You swallowed. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack’s hand returned to your hip, slower this time. “Good.”
The word moved through you low and warm. You hated that he probably knew. Jack adjusted your weight with a small pressure on your hip. “Don’t lock your knees.”
You stared straight ahead. “I’m not.”
Jack’s hand stayed steady. “You are.”
You exhaled. “My body is filing a complaint.”
Jack’s mouth curved near your shoulder. “Denied.”
You closed your eyes for half a second. Mistake. With your eyes closed, everything else got louder. The soft hum of the heater. The faint drag of Jack’s bare foot shifting on the mat. The warm shape of his hand at your hip. The quiet brush of cotton as his shirt moved with his breath. The space of him beside you, close enough to feel, not close enough to lean into without making it obvious. You opened your eyes. Jack’s gaze was already on your face. You tried to recover. “You’re very hands-on.”
Jack’s hand slid from your hip to your waist, adjusting your angle by a fraction. “You asked me to show you.”
You looked at him. “I asked for reassurance.”
Jack’s thumb shifted once at your waist. “I’m giving you both.”
The callback landed hard. Your breath caught before you could stop it. Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth, only for a second. Then he looked back at your stance like he had not just wrecked the air between you. He was infuriating. Jack stepped behind you. “Keep your feet where they are.”
Your spine straightened. You forced your voice into something light. “What part of the lesson is this?”
Jack touched your right elbow, guiding it down a fraction. “The part where you learn not to fall over.”
You glanced back. “Sexy.”
Jack’s eyes flicked to yours. “Useful.”
You faced forward before your face could get any hotter. His heat settled behind you. Not touching at first. Just there. It changed the room anyway. Jack’s fingers touched your left shoulder. “Relax this.” You tried. Jack’s fingers stayed there. “Actually relax it.”
You made an offended sound. “That was relaxed.”
Jack’s thumb pressed gently into the tense muscle near your shoulder blade. “That was your pretending.”
Your mouth went dry. The pressure was careful, almost absent, but your body reacted as if he had dragged his hand down your spine. Jack felt the shift. You knew he did because his fingers stilled. For a second, neither of you moved. Then Jack’s voice came lower. “Breathe.”
You pulled air in. It sounded embarrassingly uneven.
Jack’s hand left your shoulder and came to your elbow. “Hands up.”
You lifted your hands again. Jack’s palm passed near your waist without touching this time. “If someone moves into your space, don’t freeze. Hands open. Weight centered. Knees soft.”
You nodded. “Okay.”
Jack stepped closer behind you. “Don’t pull against me.”
The words were practical. His voice was not. Your breath caught. Jack went still. For one terrible second, neither of you moved. Then his hand settled at your waist again, warm and certain through your shirt. Jack’s mouth came close to your ear. “There it is.”
Your eyes closed. “Jack.”
His thumb moved once at your side. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
You swallowed. “What is?”
Jack’s voice dropped. “You like being told what to do when it’s me.”
You stared straight ahead at the punching bag in the corner. “That is a very arrogant diagnosis.”
Jack’s thumb moved once at your waist. “It’s an accurate one.”
You swallowed. “You’re enjoying this.”
Jack’s mouth came close enough to your ear that his breath warmed your skin. “A little.”
Your eyes closed before you could stop them. His hand eased at your waist, giving you room even as his voice stayed low. Jack asked, “Still okay?”
You nodded, then caught yourself. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack’s palm settled again. “Good.”
The word went through you with embarrassing precision. You tried to breathe like a normal person. “You say that like you know what it does.”
Jack’s mouth curved near your ear. “I do.”
Your stomach dropped. Jack stepped away before you could answer. The sudden absence of him was almost worse than the closeness. You turned your head enough to glare at him. “That was rude.”
Jack came around to stand in front of you, expression calm except for the small, pleased curve at his mouth. “That was restraint.”
You stared at him. “I hate when you’re technically right.”
Jack’s gaze moved over you, taking in the stance, the hands, the way you were breathing a little too hard for a basic lesson in his basement workout space. Then his face softened. Jack said, “You have the wrist.”
You lifted your brows. “Do I get a certificate?”
Jack’s mouth curved. “No.”
You dropped your hands. “Terrible program.”
Jack pointed once toward the mat. “Turn around.”
Your smile faltered. Only slightly. Jack saw it immediately. His face shifted, the heat banking into something steadier. Jack said, “We can stop here.”
You shook your head. “No.”
Jack did not move. “We can.”
You held his gaze. “I know.”
He waited. You took a breath. “I don’t want to stop.”
Jack studied your face for another second, then nodded once. “Okay.”
You turned around. The room looked different, facing away from him. The punching bag hung still in the corner. The weights sat neatly on the rack. The stairs led back up to the kitchen, where the sink probably still smelled like garlic and dish soap, where your keys were sitting on the counter, where the world had felt a little too big until Jack made it smaller. Behind you, his footsteps shifted on the mat. Bare feet. Quiet room. Warm air. Your pulse climbed anyway.
Jack stopped behind you, close enough that you could feel his heat before he touched you. Jack’s voice came low and even. “Still okay?”
You nodded, then answered before he could correct you. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack’s hand touched your waist first, a quiet point of contact before anything else. “I’m going to put my arm around you.” Your fingers flexed once at your sides. Jack added, “Not tight.”
You swallowed. “Okay.”
Jack’s voice stayed steady. “If you want me to stop, say stop.”
You nodded. “I will.”
Jack’s hand settled more firmly at your waist. “And I will.”
Your throat tightened. You believed him. That was the dangerous part. Jack stepped in behind you. His arm came around your middle, forearm settling across your stomach with careful, controlled pressure. His chest brushed your back through the thin fabric of both your shirts. Not fully pressed against you. Not trapping you. Not taking anything. Just holding. Your eyes fluttered.
Jack’s mouth came near your ear. “Drop your weight.”
For a second, your body did not understand him. Or maybe it did, and that was the problem. His forearm pressed carefully across your stomach, hand resting at your side. The cotton of his shirt brushed the back of yours. His chest was close enough that each breath he took moved faintly against your spine. His bare foot was just behind yours on the mat, close but not touching, the heat of his body surrounding you in a way that made the practical basement blur at the edges.
You swallowed. “Drop my weight.”
Jack’s voice stayed low. “Bend your knees.”
You bent forward. Jack’s arm tightened immediately, stopping you before you could fold at the waist. Jack corrected you, his mouth still near your ear. “Not forward.”
Your breath caught. “Where, then?”
Jack’s hand settled more firmly at your waist. “Down.”
The word moved through you like a command your body wanted to obey for every wrong reason. Your eyes closed. Jack felt it. His thumb moved once at your side. “There.”
Your stomach pulled tight. You tried to make your voice work. “This is a self-defense lesson.”
Jack’s arm stayed steady around you. “It is.”
You stared at the punching bag across the room. “Then maybe stop saying things like that.”
Jack’s thumb dragged once over your waist through your shirt. “Like what?”
You hated him. You wanted to lean back against him so badly your knees almost gave you an excuse. You kept your hands loose at your sides. “You know.”
Jack’s breath warmed the side of your neck. “I do.”
That was worse. That was much worse. For a second, neither of you moved. The heater hummed. The mat pressed cool and textured beneath your feet. Somewhere upstairs, the house settled with a quiet creak that made the basement feel even more private. Jack’s arm stayed across your stomach, warm and solid, and the longer he held you there, the more impossible it became not to notice exactly how he was holding back. His forearm was firm against you. His fingers were open at your side. His chest was barely touching your back.
Barely. The restraint was what ruined you. Jack’s voice dropped. “Try again.”
You blinked. “Right now?”
Jack’s mouth curved near your ear. “Yes.”
You tried to gather whatever dignity you had left. “Demanding.”
Jack’s hand shifted at your waist. “Accurate.”
You exhaled and softened your knees this time, letting your weight sink downward rather than forward. Jack’s arm followed the motion, not pulling, not forcing, just staying with you as your center of gravity lowered. His chest brushed your back more fully for one second. The contact stole the air out of both of you. You heard it. The slight change in his breathing. Barely there. But there. Your lips parted. Jack went still behind you. You both knew. Your mouth curved before you could stop it. “You okay?”
Jack’s hand tightened once at your waist. “Focus.”
You smiled at the wall. “That was not an answer.”
Jack’s voice came rougher this time. “It was the one you’re getting.”
Your smile widened. There he was. Not completely. Not enough. But there. The crack beneath all that calm. Jack’s arm loosened. “Now step.”
You blinked. “Step?”
Jack’s hand moved to your hip, guiding your attention downward. “Outside my foot.”
You looked down. His foot was close to yours on the mat. Bare, steady, placed just behind and slightly outside your own. His ankle brushed yours when you shifted, and the small contact went through you with humiliating force. Jack felt that too. His fingers tightened once at your hip. You heard him exhale. You stepped outside his foot. Jack’s voice stayed controlled by effort now. “Good.”
The praise hit harder because you could hear what it cost him. You breathed in. “Then what?”
Jack’s arm came around you again, demonstrating the hold from behind. “Turn into me.”
You went still. The phrase landed worse than all the others. Not worse. Better. Your body understood it before your brain had a chance to pretend. Turn into me. Jack knew exactly when it hit. His hand stilled at your hip. The basement went quiet. Then Jack’s voice came lower, almost against your skin. “That one got you.”
Your face burned. “You’re impossible.”
Jack’s thumb moved slowly over your hip. “You’re transparent.”
You tried to look over your shoulder. “I am not.”
Jack’s arm held you in place, not tight, just enough. “Forward.”
Your pulse kicked. You faced forward. Jack’s voice softened into something more dangerous than teasing. “Listen.” You went quiet. His hand moved from your hip to your waist. “Step outside my foot.”
You nodded. “I did.”
Jack’s forearm settled against your stomach. “Drop your weight.” You bent your knees. Jack moved with you. “Now turn into me.” Your body hesitated. Jack felt it. Jack’s voice stayed steady. “Into me. Not away.”
You swallowed. “That is a phrasing problem.”
Jack’s mouth came close to your ear. “No.” His hand tightened once at your waist. Jack continued, “That one’s just true.”
Your breath caught. For one second, you forgot the move entirely. Jack waited. He did not rush you. He did not laugh. He only held you there, warm and steady behind you, letting the charged silence stretch until it stopped feeling like embarrassment and started feeling like permission to want what you wanted. Jack’s arm loosened a fraction. “Do it.”
You stepped outside his foot. You dropped your weight. Then you turned into him. The movement brought you around faster than you expected. Your foot slid over the mat. His arm released as you rotated, and suddenly you were facing him, close enough that your hand landed on his chest for balance. Jack’s hand came to your waist at the same time. Steadying you. Catching you. Holding you there. Your palm flattened against his T-shirt. His heart was beating hard. Harder than it should have been. You looked up at him. Jack looked down at you.
Neither of you moved.
The basement felt too quiet around you. The heater hummed. The punching bag hung still in the corner. Your hand stayed on his chest, and beneath your palm, Jack’s heartbeat kept giving him away.
You whispered, “You’re not as calm as you look.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. His hand flexed at your waist. “No.”
The honesty went through you like heat. Your fingers curled slightly in his shirt. Jack’s gaze dropped to the movement. Then to your mouth. Then back to your eyes. For one dangerous second, you thought he might kiss you. For one dangerous second, you wanted him to.
Jack drew a slow breath and stepped back. Your hand fell from his chest. The loss of contact felt obscene. Jack’s voice came rougher. “One more.”
You blinked. “Seriously?”
Jack’s eyes held yours. “Yes.”
You stared at him. “You’re evil.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “You get better every time.”
That did something to you. Not just the praise. The certainty. The way he said it, like your body learning to get free, mattered. Like he was affected and still committed to making sure you knew how to leave before he ever asked you to stay, you swallowed. “Fine.”
Jack nodded once. “Turn around.”
You turned before he could see what his voice had done to your face. Or maybe he already had. Probably. Jack stepped in behind you. His arm came around your middle. His chest brushed your back. His breath touched the side of your neck. Everything in you went still and listened.
Jack’s voice came low. “Ready?”
You swallowed. “Yes.”
Jack’s hand settled at your waist. “Drop your weight.”
You bent your knees. Jack moved with you. “Step.” You stepped outside his foot. Jack’s arm loosened. “Turn into me.”
You turned. Maybe your foot caught the edge of the mat. Maybe you moved too fast. Maybe both of you were too aware of the other, and the room had been tightening around this moment for too long. Whatever it was, your balance shifted wrong. You felt yourself tip. Jack moved instantly. His arm came around your waist, not to restrain you this time, but to control the fall. His other hand protected the back of your shoulder as the two of you went down to the mat in a controlled, breathless tangle.
You hit the mat on your back, but not hard.
Jack took most of the weight before you could, one hand braced beside your head, the other still firm at your waist. His body covered yours without fully settling, knees planted on either side of your hips, chest hovering close enough that every breath had to move around him.
For one second, neither of you breathed. Then your eyes opened. Jack was above you. His hair was mussed from the fall. His jaw was tight. His hand stayed at your waist, fingers spread warm and careful over your side, and the arm beside your head flexed with the effort of keeping his weight off you.
You stared up at him. “I feel like this means I failed the lesson.”
Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth before he could stop them. Then he looked back at your eyes. Jack said, “Depends on the lesson.”
Heat went through you so fast it almost embarrassed you. You tried to find your attitude and came up short. “That is not self-defense.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on yours. “No.”
The honesty made the air change. Your breathing came fast beneath him. The mat was cool against your back. His knee was beside your hip. His hand was at your waist. His body was above yours, close enough to feel, not close enough to trap. He was holding himself back. You could see it in his shoulders. Feel it in the careful distance he kept between his chest and yours.
Jack’s voice came low. “This is where I need your words.”
Your throat tightened. His thumb moved once at your side. Jack held your gaze. “Because you’re not trying to get out.”
The room went silent around you. Jack continued, quieter, “And before this goes any further, I need to know that’s because you want to stay.”
Your breath shook. You nodded once. “I want to stay.”
Jack did not move. His eyes stayed on yours, dark and steady, while his hand remained careful at your waist. “Tell me what you want.”
Your mouth went dry. He was close enough that you could feel the warmth of him with every breath. Close enough that his body covered yours without resting fully against you. Close enough that the space between you felt deliberate now. Cruel, almost. Like, restraint had become another kind of touch. You looked at his mouth. Then back at his eyes.
You whispered, “Kiss me.”
Jack’s control broke quietly. Not all at once. Not violently. Just enough for you to see it happen, his jaw shifted. His hand flexed at your waist. His eyes dropped to your mouth, and for one breathless second, he still did not move.
Then Jack kissed you.
His mouth came down on yours, firm and warm and devastatingly sure, one hand braced beside your head, the other sliding from your waist to the small of your back as if he had been waiting for permission to touch you there. The first press of his lips stole the air out of your lungs. The second took the rest of your thoughts with it.
You made a sound against his mouth. Jack heard it. His hand tightened at your back, pulling you closer beneath him, and the careful distance he had been keeping disappeared by inches. His chest lowered against yours. His weight settled just enough for you to feel him, not enough to trap you, and that difference made heat rush through you so fast your fingers curled helplessly against the mat.
Jack kissed you like he had been behaving for hours. Like the entire lesson had been a line he refused to cross until you invited him over it. His mouth opened over yours, slow and deep, and you forgot the basement, the mat, the punching bag in the corner.
There was only Jack above you, Jack’s hand at your back, Jack’s breath rough against your lips when he pulled away for half a second only to kiss you again harder. Your hands found his shirt. You grabbed at him without meaning to, fisting the soft cotton near his ribs, and Jack made a low sound against your mouth that went straight through you.
He broke the kiss just enough to breathe. “Still okay?”
Your eyes opened. His face was close, his mouth wet from yours, his breathing less controlled than before. You swallowed. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack searched your face. “You’re sure?”
You nodded. “I’m sure.”
His gaze held yours for one more second. Then his mouth curved, faint and dangerous. Jack said, “Good.”
The word barely had time to land before he kissed you again. This time, the kiss was deeper. Less patient. His hand slid beneath your back, pulling you up into him while his other arm stayed braced beside your head, holding most of his weight off you. Even now. Even like this. Careful.
You felt it in the way he kissed you, like he wanted to ruin you, and held himself like he was still afraid of asking too much. You felt it in the restraint of his hand at your back, in the space he kept between his hips and yours, in the way his mouth went rough while the rest of him stayed controlled. It made you ache. It made you impatient.
You broke the kiss with a shaky breath. “Jack.”
His mouth hovered over yours. “Yeah?”
Your fingers tightened in his shirt. “I don’t want you to be careful with me.”
Jack went still. Completely still. His eyes lifted to yours, and the heat in them sharpened into something serious. Jack said, “Careful is not optional.”
Your breath caught.
Jack’s hand slid to your waist, firm and grounding. “Not with you.”
The words landed hard. Your chest rose against his. You shook your head. “That’s not what I mean.”
Jack did not move. “Then tell me what you mean.”
Your face burned. The words were there, hot and heavy in your throat, but saying them while he was above you, while his body covered yours and his mouth was still close enough to touch, felt more exposing than kissing him had. Jack waited. You looked at his mouth, then back at his eyes.
You whispered, “I want you to stop holding back.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. His hand flexed once at your waist. You felt the words hit him. You felt what it cost him not to move. Jack’s voice came lower. “How?”
Your stomach dipped. “Jack.”
His thumb moved once at your side. “Use your words.”
Your breath shook. You stared up at him, pinned beneath the weight he was still mostly keeping off you, and understood exactly what he was asking for. Not because he did not know. Because he wanted you to hear yourself choose it. You swallowed. Then you said, “I want you to take me how you want me.”
Jack’s control slipped, just for a second. His eyes closed, and the breath he let out sounded like it had been dragged out of him. When he opened his eyes again, there was no mistaking what you had done to him. His voice was rough. “You need to be careful saying things like that to me.”
Your pulse jumped. “I thought careful wasn’t optional.”
Jack’s mouth curved, but it was not soft now. “Smart ass.”
His hand slid from your waist to your hip, firmer than before. You arched into the touch before you could stop yourself. His eyes darkened. You whispered, “I mean it.”
Jack held your gaze. “Say it again.”
Your throat went dry. His hand tightened at your hip, not enough to hurt, just enough to make every thought in your head go quiet.
“Tell me again,” Jack murmured.
You breathed, “I want you to take me how you want me.”
Jack lowered his mouth to yours, stopping just before the kiss. His voice was low enough to feel. “And if I want you right here?”
Your whole body went hot. You whispered, “Then take me right here.”
For one second, Jack only looked at you. Then the last careful inch of distance between your bodies disappeared. His body settled over yours, solid and warm, pinning you to the mat with enough weight to make your breath break and not enough to hurt. Never careless. But no longer holding himself away from you either.
You made a sound into his mouth, and Jack swallowed it as if it belonged to him. His hand slid beneath your back, pulling you up into the kiss while his other arm stayed braced beside your head. His chest pressed yours down. His hips settled between your thighs, and the first real press of his hard length against you made both of you go still for half a breath.
Jack felt it. So did you. The heat of him. The weight of him. The hard line of him fitting against you through layers of fabric. Your breath caught against his mouth. Jack lifted his head just enough to look at you. His eyes were dark, focused, taking in your face like he was cataloging every reaction. Then he moved his hips again. Slow. Controlled.
The drag of him caught exactly where you needed it, and the gasp that left you was so sharp it almost sounded surprised. Jack went still above you. His eyes flicked over your face. Your fingers tightened in his shirt. The corner of his mouth moved. Barely.
Jack’s voice dropped. “Oh.”
Your face went hot. “Don’t.”
His hand tightened at your waist. “You liked that.”
You swallowed. “Jack.”
Your breathing came fast beneath him. Jack’s hips pressed forward again, deliberate this time, giving you the same slow, firm pressure. Your back arched before you could stop it.
His mouth brushed your ear. “There.”
Your eyes fluttered shut.
Jack’s voice stayed low, rougher now. “That’s what I want.”
The words sank into you. You opened your eyes. “What?”
Jack moved again, grinding against you with enough pressure to make your hands grab at his back. “This.”
Your breath broke. His mouth dragged along your throat. “I want to feel you react to me before I take anything off.”
Heat rushed through you so fast your legs tightened around his hips. Jack exhaled hard against your neck. He liked that. You felt how much he liked that. His hips moved again, slower, filthier, pinning you beneath the weight of him while he watched what it did to you.
Jack said, “I want to know what gets you quiet.”
Another roll of his hips. You gasped. His mouth curved against your skin. “What gets you loud.”
He did it again, and your fingers dug into his shoulders. Jack’s hand slid down to your thigh, gripping firmly as he opened you a little wider beneath him. “I want to know how you look when you stop trying to pretend you’re not desperate for me.”
Your mouth fell open. No sound came out. Jack lifted his head, eyes dark and devastatingly pleased. He murmured, “There she is.”
You hated how much that did to you. You hated that he knew. You hated that your body answered him before you could find anything clever to say. Your hips shifted up against his. Jack’s face changed. The pleased edge sharpened into something hotter. Hungrier.
His hand dragged back to your waist, holding you still as he rolled against you again, harder this time. You moaned. Jack kissed the sound out of your mouth, deep and rough and possessive enough to make your head spin. He kissed you like he had decided he liked taking you apart this way. Like he had every intention of doing it slowly. Like the wanting was not something he had to rush past to get to the rest.
When he pulled back, his breathing was uneven. His eyes stayed on yours. Jack said, “You asked me to take you how I want.”
You nodded, dazed. His thumb moved along your waist. “This is how I want you first.”
Your whole body went hot beneath him. Jack’s mouth lowered to yours, but he did not kiss you yet. He let you feel him pressing against you, let you feel how hard he was, let you feel exactly how much restraint was still threaded through the way he held you down. His voice was rough when he continued. “I want you worked up before I even get my mouth on you.”
Your breath caught. Jack’s hips moved again, and the friction hit so perfectly your eyes shut. He watched you take it. Then his mouth brushed yours. Jack said, “I want you aching for it.”
You whispered, “I already am.”
His control slipped. Just a little. His grip tightened at your waist, and the next roll of his hips was harder, less polished, enough to make both of you breathe out at the same time. Jack closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them, they were darker.
His voice came low. “Good.”
Then he kissed you again, moving against you until every thought in your head narrowed down to the weight of him, the pressure, the rhythm, the rough sound of his breathing against your mouth. It was too much. It was not enough. Your hands slid under his shirt onto his bare back, fingers pressing into warm skin and muscle, trying to pull him closer even though there was no closer left to take.
Jack groaned into your mouth when your nails dragged lightly over his shoulder blades, and the sound made your hips lift without permission. The friction caught just right. Your breath broke. His mouth slowed against yours, not stopping, just changing. Paying attention. His hips rolled again, deliberate now, finding the same angle, the same pressure, the same devastating drag of his body against yours through the thin layers still between you.
Your head fell back against the mat. Jack’s mouth followed, kissing along your jaw, your throat, the place beneath your ear that made your whole body go tight. “There,” he murmured against your skin.
You hated that one word. You loved it. His hips moved again, slower this time, forcing you to feel every second of it. The hard line of him pressed exactly where you needed pressure, and your thighs tightened around his hips before you could stop them.
Jack’s breath left him hard. “Fuck,” he said, low against your throat.
The word went straight through you. His hand slid down your side, over your hip, to your thigh. He gripped there and pulled your leg higher around him, opening you more beneath his body, changing the angle until the next roll of his hips made you gasp so sharply your fingers dug into his back. Jack lifted his head. His eyes were dark. Focused. Gone in a way that still felt controlled enough to ruin you.
“That,” he said.
Your chest rose hard beneath him. “What?”
Jack moved again, grinding down slowly and firmly, and watched your mouth fall open. His voice dropped. “That’s what I want.”
You could barely think around the pressure. “Jack.”
His hand tightened on your thigh. Jack kissed the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then dragged his mouth back to your ear. “I want you aching for it. I want you so worked up you stop trying to be clever.”
Your breath shook. He rolled his hips again. You made a sound that was not clever at all. Jack’s mouth curved against your skin. “There she is.”
You would have told him to shut up if you had any air. You did not. Your body had become embarrassingly honest under his. Every slow grind pulled another sound out of you. Every press of his hips made your thighs tighten. Every rough breath he let out against your neck made you feel how much he liked it, how much he wanted you exactly like this. Pinned. Wanting. Undone before he had even touched bare skin.
Jack’s hand slid from your thigh to your waist, holding you still when your hips tried to chase the next roll of his body. You whimpered. His eyes lifted to yours. “That too.”
Your face burned. “Don’t.”
Jack lowered his mouth to yours, stopping just close enough that his lips brushed yours when he spoke. “No.”
The word was quiet. Certain. Hot enough to make your stomach pull tight. He kissed you again, deep and filthy, and moved against you at the same time. Your body jerked under him, overwhelmed by the pressure and his mouth and the way he seemed to know exactly when to give you more and exactly when to make you wait.
You broke away on a shaky breath. “Jack, please.”
He went still. Not away. Not cold. Just still enough that you felt the full weight of his attention. His hand stayed firm on your waist. “Please, what?”
Your eyes opened. His face was close, mouth wet from yours, breathing rough, expression dark with want and patience and something more dangerous underneath both. You swallowed. He did not prompt you. He waited because he knew you could say it. Because you had already told him what you wanted. Because now he trusted you to ask for more.
Your fingers curled against his back. “I want your hands on me.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. His gaze dropped over you, to your mouth, your chest, the place where your shirt had ridden up just enough to show a strip of skin above your leggings.
Then he looked back at your eyes. “Good.”
The word hit low. Then Jack pushed up just enough to strip his shirt over his head and toss it somewhere beyond the mat. You barely had time to look at him before he was over you again, warm skin under your hands this time, muscle shifting beneath your palms as he came back down and kissed you like he had missed your mouth in the three seconds he had been gone.
His hand left your waist and slid under the hem of your shirt. The first touch of his palm against your bare stomach made you suck in a breath. His hand was warm, rougher than you expected, steady as it spread over your skin. He dragged it slowly up your side, over your ribs, thumb brushing beneath the band of your bra, and watched every inch of your reaction like he had been starving for it.
Your back arched. Jack’s mouth parted. “Christ.”
His hips pressed down once more, not as controlled this time. Rougher. A little ruined. You felt what touching you did to him. That made it worse. That made it better. His hand covered the side of your breast through your bra, thumb dragging over the fabric with enough pressure to make your head fall back. Jack lowered his mouth to your throat again. Your fingers dug into his shoulders. Jack kissed down your neck, over your collarbone, to the neckline of your shirt. His hand slipped out from beneath the fabric only long enough to catch the hem.
His voice was rough. “I want this off.”
You lifted your arms before the words were fully out of his mouth. Jack’s eyes flashed. Then he pulled the shirt over your head and tossed it aside. The air hit your skin. For one second, he only looked at you. His gaze moved over your face first, then down, taking in your swollen mouth, your flushed chest, your bra, the way your body was still arching toward him like it had not gotten the message that he had stopped moving.
Jack’s expression went quiet. Not soft. Not gentle. Hungry in a way that had nowhere to hide.
“Fuck,” he said again, under his breath.
Your stomach tightened. Jack saw. His hand spread over your waist. “You like hearing that.”
You did not bother lying. Your breath came shallow. “Yes.”
Something in his face sharpened. Jack lowered his mouth to your chest and kissed the bare skin above your bra, slow and open. His hand slid up your side, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through the fabric, and your back arched before you could stop it. Jack followed the movement with his mouth. He kissed along the top edge of your bra, then over the fabric itself, his mouth closing hot and deliberate over your breast.
Your breath broke.
His hand tightened at your waist, holding you still while his mouth worked you through the thin barrier, tongue dragging damp heat over the fabric, teeth grazing carefully enough to make your whole body jolt. Your fingers twisted in his hair. The reaction that pulled from him was immediate. His breath caught. His hand flexed hard against your waist. His mouth pressed more firmly to you, like he had lost one more piece of the restraint he had been clinging to.
You did it again. Jack groaned. The sound vibrated through your chest and went straight between your thighs. His mouth moved to your other breast, giving it the same slow attention, kissing and licking through the fabric until you were shifting beneath him, hips restless, breath coming out in uneven little sounds you could not swallow down. Jack lifted his head just enough to look at you. His mouth was wet. His eyes were worse.
“I wanted to see how long it took,” he said.
Your chest rose hard against him. “For what?”
Jack’s thumb dragged over your ribcage. “For you to stop pretending you could be quiet.”
Heat rushed through you. Then his hand slid behind your back. He unhooked your bra with one sharp, competent movement, and your breath caught before the fabric even loosened. Jack’s gaze stayed on your face as he drew the straps down your arms. Watching. Trusting the yes you had already given him. When the bra fell away, the room seemed to narrow to the weight of his stare and the heat of his body above yours. You felt exposed for half a second.
Then Jack’s mouth was on your breast.
No fabric. No teasing layer. Just the wet heat of his mouth closing over your nipple while his hand covered the other breast, palm warm and firm, thumb dragging over sensitive skin until your back arched hard off the mat.
“Jack.” His name left you broken.
Jack groaned against you. His hand slid down to your waist and pressed you back to the mat, keeping you exactly where he wanted you while his mouth kept working at your breast. Slow suction. Tongue. Teeth, careful and devastating. His other hand moved over your ribs, your stomach, your hip, learning the places that made your breathing catch. He was not rushing. That was the worst part. He had you pinned beneath him, half naked and shaking, and he was taking his time because he wanted you like this. Desperate before he ever touched you lower.
His mouth left your breast with a wet, filthy sound, and you nearly died from it. Jack looked down at what he had done to you, then back at your face. His voice came out rough. “Look at you.”
Your eyes fluttered. Jack kissed the center of your chest, then the curve of your other breast. “Already this worked up.”
His mouth closed over you again, and this time your hips lifted helplessly against his. Jack caught the movement with his own body, pressing his hips down into yours in a slow, deliberate grind. The friction hit exactly right. You gasped, sharp and helpless. Jack stilled for one beat. Then he did it again. Harder. Your hands flew to his shoulders. Jack lifted his head, eyes dark and locked on yours. “That’s it.”
He rolled his hips again, grinding against you while his mouth hovered over your breast, close enough that his breath moved over wet skin. “You asked me to take you how I want,” he said.
You could barely nod. Jack’s hand slid to your thigh and pulled it higher around his hip. “This is what I want.”
Another slow press of his hips. Another broken sound from you. His jaw tightened like he felt it everywhere. Your nails dug into his shoulders. Jack’s mouth returned to your breast, sucking harder this time as his hips moved against yours. The rhythm was slow and filthy and controlled, each drag of his body catching exactly where you needed it until your thoughts started coming apart at the edges. You tried to say his name. It came out as a moan.
Jack groaned against your skin. “Fuck, there she is.”
Your whole body went hot. His hand tightened on your thigh, keeping you open for the roll of his hips. “I want to watch it happen,” Jack said against your breast. “Every time you forget to be embarrassed. Every time your body tells me what you want before your mouth does.”
You whimpered. Jack lifted his head. His eyes were dark, wrecked, and completely focused on you. “That’s what I want,” he said. “I want you undone by me.”
The words hit so hard your hips shifted up into his again. Jack took it. He pressed you down into the mat and gave you another slow, firm grind, watching your face while the friction dragged another helpless sound out of you. His mouth curved, but his breathing was too rough for smugness.
“I know,” he murmured. “I know, baby.”
His hand slid from your thigh to the waistband of your leggings. This time, when his fingers hooked there, he did not tease for long. He looked up at you, and you knew he saw the answer before you gave it. Still, you gave it anyway. “Yes.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. That was all he needed. He kissed your breast one more time, slower now, almost indulgent, like he wanted to remember the way you shook beneath his mouth. Then he moved lower. His mouth dragged down the center of your chest, over your ribs, across your stomach, slow enough to make you feel every place he chose to stop. He did not kiss you as if he were passing through. He kissed you like every inch of skin mattered.
His hands followed his mouth, palms warm on your waist, your hips, the outside of your thighs. He was still breathing raggedly. Still hard against you every time his body shifted. Still visibly holding himself back from rushing, and the knowledge that he was choosing this pace made you ache worse. Jack’s mouth pressed to the bare skin just above your leggings. Your stomach tightened. He felt it under his lips.
His fingers hooked into the waistband. Jack looked up at you from there, eyes dark beneath the fall of his hair. “I want these off.”
Your answer came immediately. “Yes.”
The word had barely left your mouth before Jack pulled. He dragged your leggings down slowly at first, watching your face as the fabric moved over your hips. Then his patience thinned, and he tugged them the rest of the way off, taking your underwear with them in one deliberate motion that made your breath catch hard in your throat. The air hit you. So did the weight of his attention.
Jack stayed between your thighs, one hand wrapped around your ankle, the other pressed to the mat beside your hip. For a second, he did not touch you. He only looked. Your instinct was to close your legs. Jack caught the movement immediately, his palm sliding to your thigh.
“Don’t,” he said.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your inner thigh, not soothing exactly. Grounding. Reminding. “You said you wanted me to take you how I wanted.” His gaze lifted to yours. “This is how I want you.”
Your breath came shallow. Open. Exposed. Aching. His hand pushed your thigh wider, and your fingers curled against the mat. Jack watched the movement. Then his mouth pressed to the inside of your knee. You nearly laughed from nerves. It died in your throat when he kissed higher.
Slow. Deliberate. Cruel.
His mouth moved up your inner thigh, each kiss warmer than the last, his hand holding you open with easy strength. You could feel his breath against skin that was already too sensitive, already waiting, already desperate from everything he had done to you without ever giving you enough.
“Jack,” you whispered.
His mouth paused against your thigh. “I know.”
You did not think he did. Then his teeth grazed lightly over the soft skin near your hip, and your whole body jolted. Jack’s hand tightened on your thigh. He exhaled against you. “I know, baby.”
The words ruined you. His mouth moved closer. Not close enough. Your hips shifted before you could stop them, chasing him, and Jack pressed you back down with one hand spread low over your stomach. “Stay there,” he said.
Your breath broke. Jack looked up at you, and the sight of him between your thighs nearly took you apart before he touched you. His hair was mussed from your hands. His mouth was swollen from kissing you. His chest was bare, shoulders broad, one hand holding you down while the other kept your thigh open. He looked focused. Hungry. Like this was not something he was doing before getting to what he wanted. Like this was what he wanted.
Jack’s mouth brushed your inner thigh. Your fingers twisted in the mat. His eyes stayed on yours.
“Look at you, all worked up,” he said. “Trying to be patient.”
He kissed closer. Your stomach pulled tight under his hand. Jack’s voice dropped. “Failing.”
You made a sound you could not swallow down. His mouth curved against your skin. Then he finally lowered his mouth to you. The first touch of his tongue made your entire body lift off the mat. Jack held you down through it, palm firm against your stomach, forearm pressing across your hips as his mouth opened against you. Hot. Wet. Certain. Not tentative. Not careful in the way he had been before.
He had heard you. He trusted you. And now he was taking.
Your head fell back, his name breaking out of you before you could make it sound pretty. Jack groaned against you like the sound pleased him. Like it fed him. His tongue dragged through you again, slower this time, and your thighs shook around his shoulders.
“Fuck,” you breathed.
Jack’s hand flexed against your stomach. He liked that. Of course, he liked that. His mouth moved with more pressure, and whatever was left of your composure started to come apart under the steady, devastating focus of him. He learned you fast. Too fast. The soft sound you made when he licked slowly. The way your hips tried to move when he used more pressure. The way your breath caught when his mouth closed around your clit.
Jack found that and stayed there. Your hand flew to his hair. His eyes lifted to yours from between your thighs, dark and wrecked, and the sight of him looking at you while his mouth was on you made you clench around nothing. Jack felt it. His groan vibrated through you.
You gasped, sharp and helpless, fingers tightening in his hair. Jack pulled back just enough to speak against you. “There.” Your hips jerked. His mouth curved. “There she is.”
You could not answer. You could barely breathe. Jack did not seem to need you to. He lowered his mouth again and gave you exactly what had made you shake, one hand still pinning your hips, the other sliding under your thigh to pull you wider for him. He ate you like he had been thinking about it all night. Like he wanted to ruin you with patience. Like every sound you made told him he was right to take his time.
Your body started to go tight. Jack noticed immediately. His hand slid from your stomach to your hip, holding you down when you tried to move away from the intensity.
“No,” he murmured against you. The word was low and absolute. Your breath came out as a whimper. Jack’s mouth worked you slower. Deeper. Meaner. “Don’t run from it now,” he said, voice rough against your skin. “This is what I wanted.”
Your thighs trembled. His eyes lifted again. “I wanted to watch you fall apart.”
You were close enough that the words nearly pushed you over. Jack knew. He slid one hand from your hip, dragging his fingers through you, gathering wetness before pressing one finger inside slowly. Your mouth opened on a silent gasp. Jack groaned like it hurt him.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “You’re so fucking wet.”
The filth of it punched through you. Your hips rolled into his hand. Jack’s mouth returned to your clit as his finger moved inside you, slow and firm, and the combination made your back arch hard off the mat.
“There,” he said against you. “Take it.”
You did. He added a second finger, and your hand pulled hard in his hair. Jack groaned against you. Your whole body tightened. “Jack.” His name came out broken. His fingers curled inside you, and your vision went white at the edges.
He lifted his mouth just enough to look at you. “That’s it.”
You shook your head, overwhelmed. “I can’t—”
Jack’s eyes darkened. “You can.”
His mouth returned to you. His fingers moved again. And that was it. You came with his name in your mouth and his hand holding you open, your body going tight and then shaking apart beneath him. Jack did not stop. He worked you through it, mouth softer now but still there, fingers slowing only when your thighs trembled hard around his shoulders.
By the time he lifted his head, you were wrecked. Breathless. Boneless. Half convinced the mat had melted under you. Jack kissed the inside of your thigh, then your hip, then the bare skin below your stomach. His mouth was wet. His breathing was rough. His eyes looked almost black when he crawled back up your body.
He kissed you before you could recover. Slow. Filthy. Letting you taste yourself on his mouth. You made a weak sound, and Jack smiled against your lips.
“There,” he murmured. “Now you’re listening.”
The words barely reached you through the haze.
You were still trying to remember how to breathe. Still flat on your back on the mat, skin damp, thighs loose around his hips, your whole body trembling in the aftermath of his mouth. Jack was above you again, one hand braced beside your head, the other sliding slowly and firmly over your waist like he was checking what he had done to you by touch.
His mouth was wet. His hair was ruined by your hands. His chest rose and fell harder than before, and his eyes were fixed on you with a focus that made your stomach tighten all over again. You swallowed. “That was listening?”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “That was a start.”
Your breath caught. His hand dragged down your side, over your hip, then back up again like he could not decide where he wanted to touch you most. “You’re still shaking,” Jack said.
You tried to glare at him. It did not land. “Whose fault is that?”
His thumb moved over your hip. “Mine.”
The way he said it made your entire body go warm. Not apologetic. Not even a little. Jack lowered his mouth to your jaw, kissing you there, then lower, the side of your throat, the tender place below your ear. His body shifted over yours, and you felt him then, still hard against your thigh, still held back by the last few layers he had not let himself remove.
You turned your head into him, breath brushing his ear. “Jack.”
His hand tightened at your waist. “Yeah?”
Your fingers trailed down his chest, over his ribs, lower, until they caught at the waistband of his sweats. Jack went still. Completely. You felt the restraint lock through him. Your mouth brushed his jaw. “Take these off.”
His breath left him hard. For one second, he did not move. Then he lifted his head and looked at you, really looked, like he was giving you one last chance to take it back. You did not. Your fingers curled in the waistband and tugged once. Jack’s eyes darkened. “Okay,” he said.
That single word landed low in your stomach. His gaze stayed on yours as he hooked his thumbs into his sweats and pushed them down. His underwear went with them. Your mouth went dry.
He was beautiful in a way that felt unfair. Broad shoulders, bare chest, the dark trail of hair below his navel, the hard line of him revealed between you. You had known, obviously, that he wanted you. You had felt it. You had felt him pressed against you, felt him losing pieces of control against your body. Seeing him was different.
Jack saw your face change. His jaw tightened. “Don’t look at me like that unless you want this to get worse.”
Your pulse jumped. “Worse?”
His hand wrapped around himself once, slow and rough, and your thighs shifted open before you could think better of it. Jack’s eyes dropped. Then lifted. His voice came low. “For you.”
You stopped breathing. He reached for his discarded sweats and pulled a condom from the pocket, because of course Jack had one, because of course he had enough control left to remember that when your entire brain had gone soft around the edges. The thought must have crossed your face, because his mouth curved.
Jack said, “You’re thinking something.”
You swallowed. “I’m thinking you’re very prepared for a man who invited me over for dinner.”
Jack tore the packet open with his teeth, eyes still on yours. “I was prepared to be hopeful.”
A laugh broke out of you, breathless and shaky. Then he rolled the condom on, and the laugh died in your throat. Jack noticed. He always noticed. His hand came to your knee, warm and firm, sliding up the inside of your thigh as he lowered himself over you again.
The weight of him returning made your eyes close. His chest against yours. His hips between your thighs. His mouth was close enough to yours that every breath felt shared. The mat beneath your back. The heat of him everywhere.
Jack brushed his lips over yours. “Look at me.”
Your eyes opened. His face was close, his expression stripped down to something rawer than before. His hand moved between your bodies. You felt him line up with you, and your breath caught so hard your fingers dug into his shoulders. Jack stilled immediately. Not pulling away. Not asking five more questions. Just there. Present. Listening.
You nodded once, holding his gaze. “Yes.”
Jack’s eyes searched yours for one steady second. Then he trusted you. He pushed in slowly. The stretch stole the air from your lungs. Your mouth fell open, but no sound came out at first. Jack’s forehead dropped toward yours, his breath shuddering against your lips as he sank into you inch by inch, careful because he was Jack, because careful was not optional, because even now, even after everything, he would not take your yes like permission to stop paying attention.
But he did not hold back the way he had before. He let you feel him. The weight. The pressure. The way his body shook once when he finally buried himself fully inside you.
“Fuck,” Jack breathed.
Your hands slid up his back, nails pressing into warm skin. He held still above you, giving you time, but his jaw was tight, his arm flexed beside your head, and you could feel what stillness was costing him. You tilted your hips, just barely. Jack’s eyes snapped to yours.
Your voice came out thin. “Please.”
His control cracked. Jack kissed you as he pulled back and thrust into you again, slow but deep enough to make your whole body jolt beneath him. The sound you made disappeared into his mouth. His hand slid under your hip, angling you up, and the next thrust hit so perfectly that your fingers dug into his shoulders.
“There?” Jack asked, voice rough.
You nodded, breath already coming apart. “There.”
He did it again. And again. The rhythm built slowly at first, each stroke deep and controlled, his hips pinning yours to the mat, his mouth moving over your jaw, your throat, back to your mouth when your sounds got too sharp. He was everywhere. Above you. Inside you. Around you. His hand under your hip. His other braced beside your head. His chest dragging against yours with every thrust. His voice low in your ear, telling you exactly what he wanted while he took it.
“This,” Jack said, breath rough against your skin. “This is what I wanted.”
Your eyes fluttered. “Jack.”
He thrust deeper, and your voice broke. “You like knowing that?” His mouth brushed your ear. “That I wanted you like this?”
Your body answered before you did, clenching around him so hard his rhythm faltered. Jack groaned, low and wrecked. “Jesus.”
Heat rushed through you. His hand tightened under your hip. “That’s a yes,” he said.
You could not even be embarrassed. Not with him moving like that. Not with the slow, brutal drag of him inside you, the mat under your back, the sound of his breathing getting rougher every time your body pulled him in. Jack lifted his head, eyes locked on yours. “I wanted you under me.”
Your breath caught. His hips drove into yours again. “Open for me,” he said, voice low and filthy. “Taking me because you asked for it.”
You moaned. Jack’s eyes darkened. His hand slid from your hip to your thigh, pushing it higher, opening you wider beneath him. The new angle made the next thrust hit deeper, sharper, and your head fell back against the mat. Jack watched you take it. Of course he did. That was what he wanted.
“I wanted to see this,” he said. “You falling apart. Trying to be good. Trying to take it.”
Your fingers slid into his hair and pulled. His eyes closed for half a second, his hips stuttering forward hard enough to drag a cry out of you. When he opened his eyes again, the last bit of polish was gone. “Do that again,” Jack said.
You pulled his hair again. He fucked into you harder. The sound that left him was almost a growl, and it went through you like fire.
“There she is,” he said, mouth against yours. “That’s my girl.”
Your whole body clenched. Jack felt it immediately. His hand moved between you, thumb finding your clit with the same devastating focus his mouth had had earlier.
Your back arched. “Oh, my god.”
Jack’s mouth brushed yours. “No hiding now.”
You shook your head, overwhelmed. “I’m not.”
“I know.” His thumb moved in slow, firm circles while his hips kept their rhythm. “I can feel you.”
The words nearly finished you. You tried to turn your face away, but Jack kissed you before you could hide, deep and messy and rough. His body pressed you down into the mat, his thrusts losing some of their control now, harder, hungrier, every one of them making the pressure inside you build until your thoughts went white at the edges.
Jack broke the kiss, breathing hard. “You’re close.”
You nodded because you could not make words happen. His thumb pressed more firmly. His hips slowed just enough to make every thrust count.
“Good,” Jack said, voice wrecked. “That’s what I want.”
Your nails dragged down his back. He cursed against your mouth.
“I want to feel it,” he said. “Come on, baby. Let me feel you.”
That was all it took. You came hard, body locking beneath him, his name breaking out of you as the pleasure tore through you. Jack groaned like it hurt, his hips stuttering as you clenched around him, his hand still working you through it while his mouth found your neck.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “That’s it. That’s it.”
You shook under him, overwhelmed, half sobbing his name, and Jack held you through all of it. Not gentle exactly. Steady. Anchoring. Taking what he had asked for and keeping you there while it happened. Jack did not stop.
He slowed, but he did not stop.
His hips moved in a deep, controlled rhythm that kept the aftershocks rolling through you, each drag of him inside you pulling another broken sound from your throat. You were still coming down, still shaking beneath him, and Jack was watching every second of it like he had not gotten enough. Like watching you fall apart once had only made him want it again.
Your fingers slid weakly over his shoulders. “Jack.”
His mouth brushed yours. “I know.”
You shook your head, overwhelmed. “I don’t think I can…”
Jack’s hand moved over your thigh, slow and firm, holding you open beneath him. “You can.”
Your breath caught. His thumb found your clit again, gentler at first, circling over nerves already too sensitive from his mouth, from his hand, from the way he filled you. Your body jerked.
Jack kissed the corner of your mouth. “There.”
You whimpered. “Oh, my god.”
His hips rolled into yours, slower now, deeper, every thrust timed with the movement of his hand until the pleasure stopped fading and started building again. Want tangled low in your stomach.
You grabbed his back. “Jack, fuck.”
His breath broke. “That’s it,” he said, voice rough. “That’s what I want.”
Your head fell back against the mat. Jack’s mouth moved down your throat. “I want one more.”
Your whole body clenched around him. His hips stuttered once.
“Fuck,” Jack breathed against your skin. “Just like that.”
He kept going. Not rushed. Not frantic. Focused. Ruthless in that devastatingly patient way, like he knew exactly how sensitive you were and exactly how much you could take. His hand stayed between your bodies, his thumb moving in steady circles while his hips drove into you slow and deep enough to make your thoughts scatter.
Your body started to tighten again. You shook your head, but your hips lifted into him. Jack saw both. His voice dropped. “Don’t fight it.”
You gasped. “I’m not.”
His mouth curved against your neck. “You are.”
The words should not have hit the same way they had during the lesson. They did. You clenched around him again, and Jack made a sound so rough it almost finished you by itself.
He lifted his head, eyes locked on yours. “Give it to me.”
Your breath broke.
His thumb pressed a little firmer. His hips kept their rhythm. His body covered yours, hot and heavy and sure, pinning you in place while pleasure rose too fast for you to hold back.
“Jack.”
His jaw tightened. “I know, baby.”
You grabbed at him, nails digging into his back, and came again with a broken sound that barely felt like your own. It tore through you harder this time, sharper, your body locking around him while Jack held you through it, hips slowing but not stopping, his mouth at your jaw, your throat, your cheek, murmuring low, wrecked praise against your skin.
“That’s it. Fuck, that’s it. Good girl.”
You were still shaking when he finally went still. Not because he was done. Because he was trying not to be, you felt it in the tension of his body. The hard flex of his arm beside your head. The way his breath came unevenly against your mouth. The way his hips pressed deep and stayed there like moving again might cost him everything.
You opened your eyes. Jack was looking down at you like you had ruined him. Your voice came out soft and wrecked. “You didn’t…”
His jaw shifted. “No, not yet,” Jack said.
The word was rough. Your stomach flipped. His hand slid over your hip, fingers pressing into skin he had already touched, already held, already used to keep you open for him.
Jack swallowed hard. “Turn over.”
The command went through you like heat. Your breath caught. “What?”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. Dark. Focused. Barely restrained. His hand tightened at your hip. “Hands and knees.”
Your body reacted before your brain caught up. He felt it. Of course, he felt it. Something in his face changed. “There,” Jack murmured. “You like that too.”
You could barely breathe. Jack pulled out slowly, and the emptiness made you shiver. He helped you turn, one hand steady at your waist, the other sliding along your thigh as you rolled onto your stomach and pushed yourself up on shaking arms. Your knees pressed into the mat. Your hands flattened against the floor. You were still trembling. Jack settled behind you, and the first touch of his hand on your hip made your spine arch.
“Easy,” he said, voice low behind you.
There was nothing easy about it. Not the mat beneath your palms. Not the heat of his body at your back. Not the way his hand moved over your waist like he was looking at you and touching you at the same time. Not the way you could hear his breathing change when he saw you like this.
Jack’s palm slid up your spine, warm and steady. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
The words were rough enough to feel dragged out of him. Your throat tightened. Then his hand moved back to your hip, and his voice dropped. “And this is how I want you now.”
Your fingers curled against the mat. Jack guided your hips back, slow and firm, and pressed into you again from behind. The first thrust stole whatever air you had left. Your head dipped between your shoulders.
Jack’s hand spread over your lower back. “There you go.”
The angle was different. Deeper. Too much and exactly right, his hips meeting yours with a controlled force that made your arms shake. Jack noticed immediately, one hand sliding around your waist to pull you up slightly, keeping you steady while he fucked into you with the last of his restraint burning down behind you.
You could hear it now. Every rough breath. Every low curse. Every time your body took him, he had to fight not to lose himself too quickly.
“Fuck,” Jack said behind you, voice wrecked. “You feel so good like this.”
Your body tightened around him. His hand gripped your hip harder. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I know.”
He moved faster. Not careless. Never careless. But harder now. Less polished. His hips snapped into yours, each thrust pushing you forward over your hands, and Jack held you there, one hand at your hip, the other braced against the mat beside yours when he leaned over you. His chest brushed your back. His mouth came to your shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
You believed him. You pushed back into him. Jack cursed against your skin. His rhythm broke for one second, then came back rougher.
“That’s it,” he said. “Take it.”
The words broke something open in you. You lowered onto your forearms, overwhelmed, and Jack followed immediately, hand sliding under your stomach to keep you up enough for him. His body covered your back now, hot and heavy, his mouth at your neck, his thrusts shorter and harder and losing control by the second.
“You asked me,” he said, voice torn up against your ear. “You asked me to take you how I wanted.”
Your breath came out in broken pieces. Jack’s hand slid down between your thighs. You jolted. He groaned when he felt how sensitive you still were.
Your body clenched around him.
His head dropped against your shoulder for half a second. “Fuck. Don’t do that unless you want me to come.”
You turned your face into the mat, voice muffled and wrecked. “Maybe I do.”
Jack went still, only for a beat. Then his hand tightened on your hip, and his mouth pressed hard to your shoulder. “Yeah?” he asked.
You nodded, shaking. “Yes.”
The last of his control went. Jack fucked into you harder, deeper, one hand braced beside yours, the other locked on your hip. His breath was harsh at your ear, his body tense over yours, every thrust dragging a sound out of both of you now. You pushed back into him again, and his rhythm faltered.
“Again,” Jack said, rough and low.
You did.
His hand tightened hard at your hip. “Fuck,” he breathed, voice breaking around it. “Just like that.”
Your body clenched around him, and Jack groaned your name like it had been punched out of him. The sound went straight through you. His hips snapped forward once, twice, then lost their rhythm completely.
“That’s it,” Jack said, wrecked against your shoulder. “That’s it, baby. Don’t move. Fuck, don’t move.”
You went still under him, shaking, taking the weight of his body over yours, the heat of his mouth at your skin, the desperate, broken rhythm of him as he chased the last few seconds. Jack buried himself deep and came with your name in his mouth.
Not quiet. Not controlled. Your name, then a curse, then a low, ruined sound against your shoulder as his whole body went tight above yours. His hand gripped your hip, his chest pressed to your back, and his breath stuttered hot and uneven over your skin while he emptied into the condom.
For a few seconds, neither of you moved. The room was nothing but breathing. The heater. The mat beneath your hands. Jack’s body over yours, shaking. Then his grip eased. His mouth pressed to your shoulder, softer now. Once. Twice.
“I’ve got you,” Jack murmured again, voice rough and spent. This time, it sounded different. Less command. More promise. For a few breaths, he stayed there, curved over you, chest against your back, mouth pressed to your shoulder like he was trying to remember how to be in his body again. Then his weight shifted, careful even now, and he eased away slowly. You shivered at the loss.
“I know,” he murmured, one hand smoothing over your hip. “Easy.”
He moved with the same quiet competence he had carried through the whole night, taking care of what he needed to before coming back to you. He did not leave you long enough for the air to cool around you. One second, the mat was too wide and too quiet beneath your knees; the next, Jack was there again, settling beside you and gathering you carefully into his arms. You went without argument.
Your body felt loose and heavy, every muscle humming, your skin too sensitive where his hands had been. Jack rolled you gently onto your side, then pulled you against his chest, one arm tucked beneath your head and the other wrapped around your waist. The basement was quiet around you now in a different way. Not charged. Not waiting. Just warm. The heater hummed. Somewhere above you, the house creaked softly, ordinary and safe.
Jack’s hand moved slowly over your stomach. “You with me?”
You nodded against his chest. “Mostly.”
His mouth brushed your hair. “Mostly?”
You closed your eyes. “Some of me is still on another planet.”
A laugh moved through him, low and tired and pleased. “That so?”
You hummed. “Your fault.”
Jack’s arm tightened around you. “Mine.”
The word was softer this time. Not smug. Not hungry. Just his.
For a minute, neither of you moved. His fingers traced slow, absent lines over your side, then your hip, then the outside of your thigh. Not trying to start anything again. Just touching because he could. Because you were there. Because he had taken you apart, and now he was putting the room back together around you.
Eventually, Jack shifted enough to look at your face. “Anything hurt?”
You blinked up at him, still warm and dazed. “My pride.”
His mouth curved faintly. “That was in rough shape before we started.”
You gave him a tired look. “Rude.”
Jack said, “Accurate.”
You sighed. “I hate when you’re technically right.”
His smile softened. His hand came up, thumb brushing gently along your cheek. “I’m serious.”
You knew. The tenderness in his voice made something in your chest go quiet. You took inventory because he was asking you to, because he would want the real answer. Your knees were a little sore from the mat. Your hips felt pleasantly used. Your throat was dry. Your body was exhausted in a way that felt more like floating than pain.
You shook your head. “Nothing bad.”
Jack watched you for another second. “Good.”
You reached for his hand before he could move away. “I mean it.”
His fingers threaded through yours. “I know.”
And that was its own kind of aftercare, too. Not making you prove your yes again. Not turning your answer into something fragile. Just hearing you and believing you. Your eyes burned suddenly, which was deeply inconvenient after everything else your body had already done on that mat. Jack saw it because, of course, he did.
His expression changed at once. “Hey.”
You shook your head quickly. “I’m okay.”
Jack’s voice stayed quiet. “I know.” Your throat tightened. He opened his arm wider. “Come here anyway.”
That undid you more than it should have. You tucked your face into his neck, and Jack held you. Not loosely. Not like you might break. Firmly. Completely. His hand spread wide over your back, warm and steady, and for the first time all night, your body believed there was nothing left to brace for.
After a while, you murmured, “I cannot believe your self-defense dungeon has seen this much action.”
Jack went still for half a second. Then his chest moved under your cheek. He was laughing. Quietly. The Jack version.
You smiled against his skin. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like that.”
His hand moved slowly up your spine. “I’m not pretending anything right now.”
Your smile softened. The silence settled again, warmer than before. Jack kissed your forehead, then the bridge of your nose, then your mouth, slow and sweet and almost unbearably gentle after the roughness of his hands and voice. When he pulled back, his eyes searched yours one more time.
“You did good,” he said.
Your throat tightened. “At which part?”
Jack’s mouth curved. “All of it.”
You looked down at your tangled hands, at the mat beneath you, at his thumb moving gently over your knuckles. “Even the part where I failed the lesson and ended up pinned under you?”
His eyes warmed. “Especially that part.”
You laughed softly. “Terrible instructor.”
Jack kissed your knuckles. “You learned what mattered.”
Your chest went quiet. You knew what he meant. Not the wrist. Not the stance. Not the leverage. You knew how to get out. You knew he would let you. And you knew exactly why you had stayed.
Jack shifted beside you, one arm still firm around your waist. “Come on.”
You made a faint protesting sound. “Where?”
Jack brushed his mouth over your temple. “Upstairs. Water. Shower. Bed.”
You opened one eye. “In that order?”
His mouth twitched. “Unless you plan to argue with hydration.”
You sighed dramatically, though it came out sleepy. “Fine.”
Jack’s hand slid beneath your thigh, helping you sit up before you could pretend your legs worked normally. The room tilted for one second, and he steadied you at once, palm warm against your back.
“There?” he asked.
You leaned into him. “There.”
His expression softened at the callback. Then he stood, tugged on his sweats, and helped you into his shirt before guiding you toward the stairs with one arm around your waist. You let him. This time, letting him take care of you did not feel like proof that the world was dangerous.
It felt like proof you had somewhere safe to go after it was.
summary: after getting unceremoniously dumped by robby, jack shows you what it's like to be with a real man.
tags: implied age difference, implied power imbalance, daddy kink, use of "kiddo," dom/sub dynamics, p in v sex, oral (f and m receiving), aftercare, michael robinavich hate
wc: 5.4k... IM SORRY IT GOT AWAY FROM ME
ao3 link
Jack Abbot takes pity on you. That's the only logical explanation for his recent behavior. In the past, he'd be friendly, even more than friendly on more than one occasion, but never anything egregious. He distanced himself a bit when you started sleeping with Robby. Which made sense; obviously Robby had told him about the two of you, and you assumed he just wanted to avoid making the situation any messier than it already was.
Then Robby dumped you. Or did his version of dumping you, which consisted of gradually responding to you less and less until you finally got the hint that things were over. It stung more than you'd like to admit—the embarrassment and rejection of it all if not anything else. You knew things with Robby would never be serious, but it hurt for him to not even tell you that he was bored of you.
Dr. Abbot, who obviously knows all of this, and can tell you're more affected than you let on, has started taking pity on you. That's the only reason you can come up with for his sudden demeanor shift: the lingering touches, the eye contact from across a room, the way he asks how you are in that low tone of voice that makes you sort of dizzy.
Yeah, you also have a tragically large crush on the man. You have a type, apparently.
So it's pity that he feels towards you when he finds you softly crying in an empty supply room after you overhear Robby flirting with a cardiology attending. And it's pity that has him rubbing soothing circles on your back, and there's pity in his voice when he whispers why don't you come home with me tonight, kid, and we can talk about it?
And though you burn with shame at being caught crying over a six week long fling, you can't help but nod shakily and let him wipe the tears from your cheeks.
Jack's car—he'd asked you to call him Jack, and that gave you an odd sort of thrill—is clean but lived in. Granola bar wrappers litter the passenger seat, and he crumples them up and tosses them into the back with a sheepish smile. There's a half-empty bottle of Gatorade in the cup holder. His radio is tuned to a classic rock station, though he turns the volume low as you settle in next to him. You find it all strangely endearing.
The drive is mostly silent, save for his quiet humming along to the music. Music, it occurs to you, that your dad would listen to. And then you realize that Jack is only a few years younger than your dad, and then you feel like a pervert because you'd really like to have sex with Jack Abbot.
You're so deep in your shame spiral that you jump a bit when he rests a hand on your thigh. He raises an eyebrow at you, but mercifully doesn't comment on it, saving you a little bit of dignity. You can only hope and pray that he doesn't notice the way your breathing shifts when he starts inching his hand almost imperceptibly higher.
(He does. He would smirk at it if he didn't think you'd get embarrassed. He finds it adorable that you think he doesn't see your little crush on him. It makes the chase all the more thrilling for him.)
His house, like his car, is clean but lived in. It smells like cedar and old coffee, and his bookshelf is stuffed with medical textbooks. He heats up some leftovers for the two of you, and you eat on his couch in comfortable silence. When he realizes you won't bring it up on your own, he sets his plate down and clears his throat.
"So… you were cryin' tonight. Wanna tell me why?"
You shrug, shrinking in on yourself. "It's dumb," you mumble. He scoffs and shakes his head.
"'S'not dumb, kid. Was it about Robby?"
You wince at that, feeling like a naive teenager getting her heart broken by the asshole football player. "Just… made me realize he never cared about me. Like even—even when we were… y'know…" you avert your eyes, and he has to fight a smile at how cute your bashfulness is, "he always seemed more annoyed at me than anything. Like I was—I dunno."
He arches an eyebrow and leans in closer. "What, sweetheart? Like you were what?"
You fiddle with your hands awkwardly. "I just didn't mean anything to him. And he-he made that very clear."
Jack sighs at that. The worst part is, you're probably right. More right than you know. Part of him wants to deny it to make you feel better, but Jack had listened to the way that Robby talked about you for weeks: laughing about how easy you were, complaining about your clinginess, eventually rolling his eyes at every text you sent when he got bored of you. He'd silently seethed through it all, only breaking his silence to come to your defense when Robby started to go too far. He told himself every day that it was worth it, because once his friend inevitably lost interest in you, you'd fall right into his arms. It was manipulative, dirty, completely immoral—but he's only a man, sweetie, and how could he resist your big doe eyes and plump lips?
"Y'know, I love Mikey like a brother, but the guy doesn't know how to treat a lady. I've seen him chew up and spit out more women than I can count. 'Course, none were as gorgeous as you," he chuckles, raising his eyebrows at you. You roll your eyes at that, but can't hide your smile.
"Shut up, you're just saying that," you grumble, setting your empty plate on the table. Jack shakes his head insistently, eyes crinkling as his smile widens.
"'M'not. Robby was crazy to let a pretty little thing like you go."
You sigh at that, staring at your hands in your lap. "Well, he's got a new plaything now," you mumble, blinking back tears at the memory. Jack pauses a moment before settling a hand on your shoulder—when did he get so close?—and rubbing circles into it with his thumb. You realize that you can smell his aftershave and the sweat clinging to his skin from here. It's delicious.
"Y'know what I think?" he drawls. You glance up at him and tilt your head in response. "I don't think you should cry one more tear over that man."
You huff. "Yeah? It's that easy?"
Jack rolls his eyes. "C'mon, kiddo, he treated you awful. Lotta men would be lining up at the door for the chance to spoil you rotten."
You shrug. "I don't—I don't know. He treated me okay, I think."
You don't really know when Jack's hand started roaming your skin. It's a bit intoxicating. His fingers lightly dance across your side and lull you into a dizzy kind of spell. He repeats your words with a nonplussed look on his face: "He treated you okay."
"Y-yeah."
Suddenly his unoccupied hand is reaching across to grip your jaw, forcing you to look him in the eyes. You gasp quietly. "I could treat you better." He presses the pad of his thumb to your lower lip and tugs at it slightly.
Oh.
Your brain goes blank. You know you should form a response, say something witty and flirtatious or at the very least acknowledge that he's spoken, but all you're capable of is staring dumbly at him with widened eyes. He tilts his head to the side.
"You want that? Want Jackie to take care of you?"
You nod dumbly and press your thighs together. He clicks his tongue. "Words, doll."
You let out an involuntary whine at that. He hopes you don't notice his cock hardening at the noise. "Yeah," you breathe out.
"Yeah, what?" He's enjoying this, smirking at your inability to form words.
"I want-I want you to take care of me. Please, Jack."
Jack once again takes pity on you and leans over to press his lips to yours. You sigh into the kiss, parting your lips to let him lick into your mouth. It's soft and a bit desperate, nothing like the hurried and rare kisses Robby would grace you with. His hand tangles in your hair, gripping lightly at the base. You moan into his mouth and let your hand explore his body. He's so solid, so strong and broad but with enough give to let you press your hands into his clothed skin. When he notices you squirming in your seat, he lifts you up with ease and sets you on his lap. You squeal and giggle a bit before kissing him again while grinding on him. He groans at the feeling of your clothed heat pressing into his bulge; he can already feel a wet spot forming between you. When he pulls away for a breath, he whistles at the dazed look in your eyes as you keep chasing your pleasure.
"Robby never mentioned you were this sensitive," he murmurs. You flush at that, ducking your head in embarrassment. Though, you're apparently not embarrassed enough to stop humping his lap as needy little whines and whimpers escape you.
"Never… never was this sensitive with him," you admit. He could cum untouched from the confession.
"Yeah?" he whispers, "Only Jackie can make you feel like this, right, kiddo? Only me."
You nod insistently with your head pressed into his neck. "Yeahhh, only you, only you."
"Fuck," he mutters, involuntarily jerking his hips up a bit. You moan at the feeling of him pressing up into you and ground down on him.
"C'mon, up, up," he grunts. You whine at the loss of contact but obey, standing on shakey legs and letting him lead you to the bedroom. He sets you carefully down on the bed before taking off his prosthesis with a soft grunt and setting it on the floor.
"Let's get these clothes off you, honey." Anticipation and arousal course through you. You ache for relief and help Jack to hurriedly strip yourself down to your panties. He sits back for a moment and rubs his jaw with an awed expression on his face.
You flush at that, a shy smile gracing your face as he unapologetically ogles you. Slowly, he peels your panties down your legs, exposing your dripping cunt. He groans at the sight.
"Fuckin' soaked and I haven't even touched you. So perfect."
You squirm on the bed, trying to get an ounce of friction between your thighs. "Please, Jack," you whisper. He chuckles and leans in to kiss you hungrily.
"Patience, sweetheart, patience."
Jack works slowly, hands roaming your exposed skin as he licks and nips at your neck. You run a hand through his silver curls and press him further into you as he lightly sucks at your pressure point. Your breath is shallow with want, and you're sure he can feel your quickened pulse thudding. He reaches up to cup your breast, squeezing before running a thumb along your pebbled nipple. You sigh in easy pleasure and let yourself sink into the bed. You want to urge him along, to beg him to just touch you where you need it most, but you're determined to be good for him.
When he dips his head down and replaces his pinching fingers with his mouth, taking your nipple in between his teeth, you gasp and arch your back off the bed.
"Fuck, feels-feels good," you whimper, eyelids fluttering shut. He nibbles and sucks at your nipple before eventually moving on to the other one, sending little zaps of pleasure through your body.
By the time he finally pulls away, both of your breasts are reddened and wet with spit. He reaches down to squeeze you again like he can't get enough.
"Can't believe these gorgeous tits were hiding beneath your scrubs this whole time. I knew you were stunning, but…" his eyes trail down your naked body before landing on your puffy cunt. A large wet spot has formed on the bedspread beneath you, and you try to close your legs when you see him notice it, but he easily holds them apart.
"Unh-uh, no hiding. All this for me? Such a messy little girl."
Your eyes go half-lidded at his words, reaching that fuzzy-warm space that makes you feel like you're floating. "'M sorry… sorry, daddy… don't mean to," you slur out, wriggling your hips as the ache becomes nearly unbearable. You don't even realize what you've said, too far-gone to see his eyes widen as a wolfish grin spreads across his face. He coos at your apologies.
"Aw, it's okay, baby, don't be sorry. Daddy'll clean you up. Sweet thing, didn't realize you were this needy. It's okay, Jackie's gonna take care of you."
You're panting, nodding along to his words and trying to press into the hand caressing your inner thigh. Jack adjusts himself with a grunt and dips his head down in between your legs. For a moment, he just admires the sight in front of him: glistening, puffy cunt with a tragically swollen clit just begging for attention.
"All mine. You all mine, babygirl?"
You let out a strangled noise. You can feel his hot breath on you, riling you up even more. "Yes! Yes, I'm all yours, no one else's."
He nods in satisfaction and finally, finally licks a stripe through you. You gasp at the sudden relief before moaning as he laps up your juices like a man starved. He pulls away from you after a minute and licks his lips.
"Jesus. How'd Robby let you out of his sight after tasting this perfect pussy?"
You look down at him and shake your head with a furrowed brow. "Never-never tasted me."
He arches a brow. "You serious? Robby never ate you out?"
You pause and tilt your head. "Well, I never asked."
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. "Shouldn't have to ask, kiddo. Should never have to ask."
Before you can respond, he's returning to his meal. He nearly forgets about your pleasure in his desperation to drink up as much of you as he can, though you don't exactly mind. His tongue dances across your folds, flattening near the bottom before flicking and occasionally sucking at your clit. You're completely lost in the feeling above him, barely restraining yourself from grinding up into his mouth as you moan out little pleas and affirmations. You thread your hands into his hair and tug lightly when he hits the right spots, subconsciously teaching him how to please you best.
"So-so good, daddy, it feels so good, please don't stop," you pant.
He groans into you and snakes a hand up to prod at your entrance with his middle finger. You gasp when he slowly presses into you. Your arousal and moisture, mixed with his spit, makes it fairly easy, but the thick digit still provides a burning stretch. He curls up into you and, never ceasing his oral ministrations, shifts his finger slightly until your eyes snap open and your hand tightens on his curls.
"There she is," he murmurs against your cunt. He presses into it unyieldingly, pumping in and out in a "come hither" motion.
"Haaa, fuckfuckfuck, pl-please, 'm so close, daddy, so-so close," you babble. You can't stop your hips from grinding into his mouth at this point; your release is so imminent that your entire body has tensed up in preparation. He grunts into you before suddenly pressing his ring finger into you to join his middle. Your eyes widen at the newfound stretch and fullness, his thick and long fingers reaching places you never have on your own.
"Let go for me, kiddo, let go for daddy," he murmurs. You moan, your eyelids fluttering shut, and let the waves of pleasure roll through your entire body. Jack never relents; his fingers and tongue don't let up for a second as your climax builds and builds. His cock is painfully hard, straining against his boxers, but he thinks he could probably live here forever, smothered by your cunt and listening to your desperate moans.
Your entire body feels like it's tingling as you come, pressing Jack's head ever-harder into your core as you gush into his waiting mouth. He milks you through your orgasm, slowing down his fingers but not stopping them to draw out the moment for as long as possible. Your only vocabulary right now consists of Jack, and daddy, and fuck and please and more. Or you think that's what you're saying; to Jack, it sounds a bit incoherent, slurred out words that get jumbled up in your pleasure-addled brain. It's only when you start hissing at the overstimulation that he finally pulls away from you with a cocky grin on his face. He takes in your sweat-soaked, panting body; your hair, mussed from thrashing on the pillow; your blown pupils; the pool of wetness under you. His beautiful, beautiful mess.
When the pressure starts getting unbearable, he discreetly palms himself over his clothes. Your eyes are still closed as you come down, so you don't even realize he's practically jacking off to your naked form, which somehow makes it feel more perverted and more pleasurable at the same time. He quickly withdraws his hand when your eyes flutter open. You gaze at him with a dazed smile and sit up on your elbows.
"Wow," you murmur, "I didn't realize it could feel that good."
He raises an eyebrow and leans over you to press a kiss to your neck. "No? No wonder you settled for Robby. Don't know what's good for you, do you?" There's a possessive, predatory instict taking over him. It's not one he's felt before, but he suddenly wants to keep you for good and not let any other boys who don't know what the hell they're doing touch you ever again. His perfect girl. They don't deserve you.
Your eyes drift to his erection, and your lips part in desire. You reach out tentatively, staring at him all the while like you're waiting for him to admonish you.
"Can I… can I touch it?" you whisper. He groans lustfully and nods.
"Yeah, kiddo, touch it. You wanna make daddy feel good?" You nod desperately and tug at his pants impatiently as he tears off his shirt and tosses it to the side. When he's finally bare to you, you stare up at him with that innocent expression that makes him want to bend you over right there and then.
But patience, he'd told you. He can have some patience, too.
Jack's only a bit longer than Robby was, but he's much thicker, and it sends a shiver of nerves through you. You crawl towards him and tentatively take him in your hands before darting your tongue out and licking the bead of precum that had collected on his tip. He groans and tosses his head back before snapping back to keep his eyes on you. He'll be jacking off to the memory of this sight for a long time.
"I don't think it'll fit, daddy," you whisper, brows furrowed in concern. He hums and reaches down to smooth down your hair.
"It'll fit, baby. We'll make it fit."
He gently guides your head toward his cock, and he can tell you're scared to let him down by the way you try to fit too much of him in your mouth too fast. He moans in relief, but reluctantly pulls you off nonetheless.
"S-slower, sweetheart, go slower. Don't gotta take me all at once."
You nod, determined to do better, and lick a stripe up his length. He pants and nods in approval. "Good, babygirl. Doing so good for me. So pretty like this."
His praise feels like a drug; you whine and take him in your mouth again, closing your puffy lips around his tip and hollowing out your cheeks as you swallow as much of him as you can. He stretches out your lips, sitting heavy on your tongue, and makes your jaw ache, but the look on his face and the curses streaming from his mouth make it worth it. You make up for what you can't fit in your mouth with your hands. Jack's a little surprised, truth be told, that someone as innocent-looking as you is so expertly pleasuring him. He tries not to think about how much practice you must've had.
Or how often you probably practiced with Robby. Greedy bastard never even returned the favor.
Jack would love to stay here until he comes—make you swallow it as he watches, or maybe paint your face pretty—but the memory of you clenching down on his fingers is making him crave being inside of you. He pulls you off of him and watches as a string of spit connects you to him. You whine at the loss.
"Was I not good?" you ask in a small and scared voice, mouth pulled down into a frown. He shakes his head with a scoff.
"Kiddo, you were perfect, but I need to fuck you now. And I'm a bit too old to be going twice in one night."
Why does being reminded of his age make this so much hotter? What is actually wrong with you?
You glance down at his leg and shift in your seat. "Should I ride you?" you ask with a tilted head. He smiles at your concern but shakes his head again.
"Next time. I want you…" Jack hums before gripping your sides and maneuvering you to be on all fours, facing the headboard. He smooths a hand over your ass before slapping it, eliciting a yelp from you. He groans at the sight of the reddened skin jiggling. The pain makes you clench around nothing, and you push back toward him, spreading your legs to try to show him how ready you are. Jack has a perfect view of your wetness running down your thighs as you stick your ass up and let out impatient little whines.
"Please…" you whisper, turning your head to face him. He hums again and grips your the fat of hips before slotting his cock into your folds. Both of you moan at the contact as you grind back onto him. It's not really necessary; your spit has lubed him up plenty, and you're certainly aroused enough to be ready to take him, but he can't help but tease you further. He's grown addicted to the huffs of breath you let out each time he ceases movement.
"You want daddy to fuck you, kiddo? Wanna be stuffed full of his cock?" He lands another smack on your ass to emphasize his words and earns another moan.
"Please, need it, need you to fuck me," you pant.
Jack takes pity on you.
He prods at your slicked entrance. His tip alone is a stretch, and you hiss as he slowly pushes in.
"That's it, good girl. You're okay. Daddy'll go slow. Gotta tell me if it's too much, okay baby?" You nod insistently. He keeps inching further into you until he's fully seated, gripping your hips to restrain himself from moving. Both of you are panting, reveling in the feeling of being so close and—for you—so full.
"You good, sweetheart?" Jack rasps.
"M-mhm, I'm good, Jackie. You can… you can move. Please."
Jack slowly pulls halfway out of you before sinking in again and settles into an easy rhythm, a gentle pace that feels nice but isn't quite what you need.
"You can be rougher," you finally whisper. Jack pauses and peers over at you.
"That what you want, or what you think I want?"
You look over shoulder and shyly smile at him. "I want it."
"Fuck," he mutters, "you asked for it."
In one swift movement, he pulls completely out of you before pounding in again. You gasp in shock as he starts fucking into you faster, harder, his tip kissing your cervix with each thrust. The obscene, squelching sound of your juices is interrupted every few minutes by the loud crack of his palm against your ass, making you clench down on him each time. His grip on your hips is surely bruising, but it's all that's keeping you grounded. Soon, it's all that's keeping you upright: your weakened arms give out after an embarrassingly short amount of time, and your head is pressed into the mattress with each thrust.
Jack is grunting above you, skin slapping against skin as he drives himself impossibly deeper into you. You feel so fucking full you're barely able to breathe. When he shifts slightly to find that spot, your moans get louder, reaching that high-pitched whine that always makes you cringe. You bite down hard on your finger out of instinct. It only takes Jack a few seconds to realize that those pretty little sounds you'd been making are suddenly muffled. He slows his thrusts.
"Sweetheart? You okay?" he asks gruffly, peering over to look at you. You turn your head to face him with a furrowed brow, and he frowns in confusion at your teeth sinking into your pointer finger. You take it out and nod.
"'M fine, Jackie. Feels good."
He cocks his head to the side. "Why're you biting your finger? Somethin' hurt? You gotta tell me if it does, baby."
You shake your head quickly. "No, no, nothing hurts. Just… was getting too loud." Your voice is shy and embarrassed; you can hardly look at him. His eyes widen at your confession.
"Too loud? What the hell do you mean, too loud?"
You pause like you don't want to say, tilting your head down. He pulls out of you carefully and sinks back onto his knees. You whine out a complaint, but the harsh look he gives you silences you. "Kiddo. Look at me. Why'd you think you were being too loud?"
"Well… Robby always… he was worried about the neighbors," you mumble, worrying your lip in between your teeth. "I could-could never help it, bein' so loud, so he said to bite my finger to keep quiet."
His jaw tenses. Christ, he could kill the guy. "Is that right."
"Yeah… 'm sorry, I don't mean to make so much noise, it's just… it feels too good, and I can't hold it in." In your vulnerable state, you look close to tears. So afraid of disappointing him. He rubs his jaw before leaning in close to you and setting his thumb on your lower lip. You look up at him desperately.
"First of all, I don't want you biting your finger anymore. Especially not when I'm fucking you. Got it? You could hurt yourself." You nod slowly, looking chastised. He smiles and kisses your forehead. "And second of all… baby, I don't know what the fuck Robby's problem is, but I don't think I've ever heard anything as sweet as those noises you were makin'."
You roll your eyes and shake your head, still a bit sniffly. "You're just trying to make me feel better. It's—I sound weird."
He sighs. "You don't believe me? Think I'm lyin'?"
You nod, lower lip jutting out in a pout that breaks his heart. He thinks for a minute before nodding. "Alright, we're gonna try somethin'." Slowly, he sinks into you again. You're well prepared for the intrusion now, but you still gasp when he's fully sheathed in you. His hand flexes at his side as he restrains himself from moving. "You feel me in there?" he breathes out. You nod, and he tuts at you. "Words, honey."
"Y-yeah, I feel you," you whine.
"Alright. I'm not gonna move. I want you to really focus on my cock in you. And if you feel like moaning, don't hold back. At all. Can you do that for me, honey?"
Your eyes flutter shut. "M-mhmm. Yes."
When he reaches down to press the pad of his thumb against your swollen clit, drenched in your juices, you let out a loud, drawn-out moan of relief. A couple whimpers follow it as he pinches you, shockwaves of pleasure rolling through your desperation-laced body. And then you feel it. He isn't moving an inch, but he twitches inside of you. You even hear his breath hitch, and the hand on your hip tightens. Just from the sound of you moaning.
"Ja-ackie," you moan, pushing back against him. He chuckles.
"Yeah. You felt that? You feel what you do to me? Don't hold back, kiddo. Don't think I could withstand it."
When he finally starts fucking you again, you can feel that his restraint is slipping. You, with half-lidded eyes and an open mouth that's drooling into his pillow, are not much better. After more than an hour of waiting for relief and the expert blowjob you'd given him, he knows he won't last long, though he's determined to make you come again first. He can tell you're not far off either, your cunt practically strangling him each time it clenches around him and your moans turning into desperate cries below him.
"You close, doll? You gonna come again for daddy? Gonna come on my cock?"
"Y-yeah, gonna come, please daddy 'm so close," you moan. He returns a hand to your poor, sensitive clit and rubs fast circles with just enough pressure to make you tremble a bit. Jack grits his teeth from the effort it takes to hold back his own release; he has to close his eyes, because the sight of you in front of him is making it too hard not to come.
"Fuck, fuckfuckfuck I—" Electricity shoots through your body—you're sure of it—as Jack keeps pounding, and pounding, and pounding your G spot and running his thumb along your clit. You tense up, body suddenly freezing, as another climax crashes into you. Jack keeps fucking you through your release, finally spilling into you as he feels you gush and clench around him. The feeling of his cum in you is unexpectedly pleasant, a warm and full sensation that makes you whimper into the mattress. After what feels like an eternity, his movements slow to a halt. He carefully pulls out of you, clucking sympathetically at your whine of discomfort, and collapses next to you with a grunt.
"Fuck, baby. You did so good. Such a good girl for me. You okay? Anything hurting?"
You still can't quite form words, but he's satisfied by your small head shake and dreamy smile. Jack runs a hand along your side. The soft caress helps soothe your rapid heartrate down, and you melt into the touch.
"You wanna take a bath?" he asks, pressing a kiss to your shoulderblade, "Or… we could watch a movie and cuddle? Whatever you want to do."
You chuckle and stretch your arms. "That sounds nice, but I think I'd fall asleep here if I stayed."
He gives you a puzzled look. "You don't want that?"
You pause, giving him an equally puzzled look. "You… do?"
He scratches his jaw. "Well, yeah, kid, I— oh God." He freezes and suddenly looks horrified. "Don't tell me Robby never let you stay the night."
You shrug. "I-I didn't mind. Though a couple times I was so tired I had to pull over and take a nap on the side of the road." You laugh like it's funny, but Jack is still staring at you with that horrified face.
"He didn't even drive you?"
You tilt your head to the side. "Well… no. He was always pretty tired after. I'd leave pretty much as soon as we were done."
He buries his head in his hands. "Honey, you… okay. Do you know what aftercare is?"
You don't, but Jack will teach you. You agree to a bath on the condition that he joins you, and end up falling asleep as he rubs lotion into your skin. Later, on his bed, with your naked form dead asleep on top of him, Jack makes a list on his phone of things to berate Robby for. Number one: making you think for a second that you deserved the schmuck.
summary: Jack Abbot is many things; a loving husband, a phenomenal doctor, a decorated war veteran, an adrenaline junkie, a lower-leg amputee, and (possibly) a mind reader. But he is not a father. In 4 years of marriage you haven't been able to surprise him even once. But maybe, for his 50th birthday, you can kill two birds with one stone.
warnings: age gap (r is mid 30s, jack is 50), established relationship, afab reader, reader is an attending, brief reference to past power imbalance, minor undescribed medical procedures, IUD insertion and removal mention, gifting someone a used medical device (its sweet and not weird I promise), mention of pap smears, misuse of viagra, slight anxiety, keeping secrets, mediocre communication, BREEDING KINK DUH, trying to get pregnant, mentions of plan b, unprotected sex, creampie, multiple orgasms for everyone, doggy style, missionary, biting, reader is a little bit of a brat, cum play, so much love, fast and hard and then slow and loving, I think that's it but let me know if I missed anything
an: we are playing fast and loose with fertility and medicine here guys
I usually do not like writing multiple rounds of sex in one fic because tbh I find sex scenes a little hard to write and I worry that they get repetitive but I really pushed through for this one
Being married to Jack Abbot was a dream come true.
He was kind, empathetic, passionate, patient, fantastic in bed, and (this is just a theory) psychic.
Or you might just be easy to read. Either way, he almost always seemed to know what you needed or wanted at any given moment.
God forbid you wanted to surprise him with anything, either. He could sniff out any sort of deception, even if it was well intentioned, like some sort of emotional or mental bloodhound.
Jack was also always prepared for almost everything. He had supplies and a game plan for almost every situation and scenario that could possibly come up. Mass casualty incident? Camo duffel in the coat closet by the front door. You had a hard day? Bubble bath kit under his sink in the bathroom.
Combine all of that together and you’d never been able to surprise him. Ever.
Things were changing ever so slowly, though. Now, the two of you had been together for 7 years now, married for 4, so the playing field was starting to level out. You found yourself able to sift through his facial expressions and body language, deciphering some of the thoughts that crossed his mind. Some of it was the familiarity of your everyday routine, any deviation clueing you into something festering on his mind. Some of it was just knowing your husband so intimately in a way that could only come with time.
And even though you were as close to an expert as one could be in Jack Abbot, you still missed some of the more subtle things.
But there was nothing subtle about this. You’d have to have been blind to miss the longing in his eyes anytime the two of you were anywhere close to a baby. It was impossible not to notice how his usually stoic and analytical hazel eyes softened at the sight of their tiny waving hands, the corners of his lips curving up when they cooed, his gaze instinctively snapping towards a crying infant while his shoulders tensed.
Those signs had given you a rather obvious hint, but the final nail in the coffin had been when your sister and her wife had visited from Philly a few months ago. They had some sort of business to take care of in Pittsburgh, so you’d offered to watch their 6 month old son. Jack had been out running errands when he’d been dropped off. When he walked through the door, grocery bags in hand, you’d watched him freeze out of the corner of your eye. There you were, in your shared kitchen, balancing the baby on your hip, talking to the child about nothing in particular while you stirred a pot on the stove.
Jack had unfrozen quickly, but you’d noticed. You noticed everything for the rest of the day until your sister came to collect her child. How Jack swallowed hard anytime you held the baby, how he nearly melted when you cooed and played peek-a-boo, how his eyes stayed locked for just a moment too long on the teeny tiny pair of shoes in his hands before he passed them off to your sister.
Jack Abbot wanted a baby.
And you wanted to finally be able to catch your husband off guard.
And now his 50th birthday was coming up, and you had a great gift planned. And if everything went according to your carefully crafted plan, you’d be able to give him an even better gift next year.
Step 1: remove the biggest obstacle.
Being a doctor married to a doctor made the biggest part of your plan both easier and harder.
You started on Monday. His birthday fell on Friday, and the two of you very conveniently had the following 4 days off. But not before working opposite shifts every day the rest of the week.
That was part luck, part planning on your end. You’d gladly agreed to cover Al Hashimi’s shifts while the ED was down a day shift attending since she was going to a conference. Jack had not been thrilled, but your sacrifice meant the two of you could enjoy an extra-long weekend staycation. He’d grumbled about it for a solid 3 days before finally settling down.
It also gave you time to make a trip upstairs to gynecology while your husband was fast asleep at home and none the wiser.
All it took was a quick lie to Robby about a routine pap smear and a favor called in from a friend upstairs and you were seated with your legs hiked up in stirrups.
“You know, I really did not ever need to see your vagina,” Joan, your gynecologist friend, was grumbling as she completed the procedure.
“You’re the only one I could ask who wouldn’t spill the beans,” your eyes stayed glued on the ceiling. “Everyone else is either a resident and not willing to bend the rules, or older and more loyal to him.”
“This is a hospital,” her expression was unimpressed. “There are no sides, no one is more loyal to him.”
“Yes the fuck they are,” you lowered your legs as she gave you the all clear. “Why do you think I told Robby I was getting a pap smear?”
“Becuase telling your husband's best friend, who is your boss by the way, that you were going to get your contraception removed so that said husband can fuck you six ways to sunday for his birthday is inappropriate workplace conversation,” she turned her back to you, depositing the device in a specimen jar before beginning to clean every thing up.
“That is true,” you conceded, “and Robby’s a snitch.”
“I still can’t believe you’re actually going to give him your IUD for his birthday,” Joan shook her head. “Isn’t that a little gross?”
“I’m obviously going to clean it!” You tugged your black scrubs up, wincing a little at the dull ache in your lower stomach. “Plus, it’ll be romantic. And shouldn’t you be more sex-positive? You’re a fucking gynocologist.”
“Romantic,” her voice was deadpan. “And I am plenty sex-positive. Especially unprotected sex. Creates more patients for me. Kinda like a dentist who recommends nothing but sugar.”
You couldn’t stop your eyes from rolling as you watched her move back to the counter. “Glad to see you are faithfully committed to your oath.”
“Here,” she handed you a little cup with two white pills, choosing to ignore you. “Tylenol. You don’t get anything stronger since you insisted on doing this mid shift.”
“Thanks,” you swallowed them dry. “For the pills and for doing this for me. I can’t have him figuring this out before. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“I know I always wanted a used medical device for my biggest milestone birthdays,” she grumbled to herself as she wrote down her notes on a sheet of paper. “I’ll wait to put this in your chart until after your insemination.”
“Now you’re making it gross,” your face scrunched up. “Most normal people refer to that as ‘trying for a baby’ you know.”
“Yeah sure. Now, get out of my department and go back to your zoo,” she waved her hand dismissively, fighting a smile the whole time.
Step 2: stay strong.
Now with the most important part of your plan complete, you simply had to make it through the next week without Jack catching on. Even with your separate schedules, that was easier said than done.
Monday night at shift change you were desperately trying to hide the cramps wracking your abdomen as you walked the night shift through handovers alongside Robby.
Jack noticed immediately.
“You ok, baby?” He’d pulled you aside the second the handover was completed, his hand resting on your hip as he guided the two of you into a semi secluded corner.
“Yeah I’m ok,” you couldn’t fight the grimace as another wave washed over you. You really shouldn’t have skipped that second dose of acetaminophen during the 4pm rush. “Just cramping.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
Jack frowned, his eyes sweeping over you more intently. His focus flicked between your lower stomach and your face.
“You’re not supposed to start your period for another 3 weeks.”
“It’s still a little odd that you track them so closely,” you tried to brush him off, shrugging.
“I’m a doctor and you’re my wife,” Jack cracked a grin as your eyes narrowed. “You’re my wife who is also a doctor. An amazing one.”
You gave him a kiss for that, quick and chaste and the most PDA you’d dare express in the ED.
“My IUD is due for replacement in a few months,” you couldn’t beat back a rising smile, fueled by both his care and the knowledge of what you were planning. “It’s probably starting to go and make me irregular.”
“Get that checked out, ok?” His hands cupped your face.
“I will, Jack, I promise.”
“Good we-” he swallowed hard, smile faltering ever so slightly. “We don’t want you to be… unprotected.”
The regret in his voice and the twinge of hope in his eyes as he said unprotected only reinforced what you already knew. He really wanted this.
God, you couldn’t wait to tell him. You weren’t sure if you’d ever been more excited to give a gift before.
Warmth flooded through you at the thought of how he’d react. Would there be happy tears? Maybe he’d simply bend you over the nearest surface, eager to get started. He’d probably double and triple check that you were sure. Jack always did that, no matter how many times you reassured him that you wanted him, you needed him. Like he still couldn’t believe you were his just as much as he was yours.
Thankfully, his mind reading seemed to fail for a moment. Likely because of the cramp that gripped you midway through your rumination, hiding your true expression behind a grimace.
“I’m ok, Jack,” with one more kiss, you were untangling yourself from him. “I’m going to go sleep for twelve hours. I love you.”
“Alright,” he followed you as you gathered your things and headed towards the ambulance bay. “Text me when you get home. If you forget again, I’m not making that pasta you like for a month.”
“Empty threats,” you pecked his cheek on your way past him. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”
“I love you,” the love written so plainly on his face as you walked away from him and out those doors made you almost want to run back and tell him everything.
Maybe that was why you were semi-convinced he was psychic. It was probably less about an alleged supernatural ability and more about your face being easy to read and your lips unable to keep a secret, combined with the fact that you had resigned yourself to your husband being all-knowing.
In your defense, you’d seen Jack level patients and colleagues and even yourself with that look. Head titled, eyes narrowed, eyebrows lifted, that signature confidence combined with a small sigh of disapproval when he knew he wasn’t getting the whole story. It made everyone spill their guts eventually. No one held out very long.
But he hadn’t used that look on you since you’d been his resident years ago. You were all too aware that the bastard had long since learned that all he had to do was give you a soft smile and tell you he loved you and you melted immediately.
And normally, you didn’t have anything to keep from him. Normally, it was mildly irritating if he managed to figure out
But you had to stay strong.
Step 3: final preparations.
Surprisingly, you did actually manage to hold out. All the way until Friday.
Jack had the overnight shift from Thursday to Friday, but you were done and clear. A full body shower and shave was followed by a few episodes of the trashiest reality TV you could find until it was officially your bed time. You texted him a simple “Happy birthday baby” at 12:01 am before grabbing what little sleep you could before he inevitably came home just as the sun was rising.
At just past 7:30 am, your husband was crawling into the sheets, sliding up behind you and wrapping his arm around your waist as the heat of his bare chest warmed you from the inside out.
You were drifting in that blissfully in that half aware state between sleep and wakefulness as he pressed light kisses along the side of your neck available to him. A soft hum left your lips as you arched back into him, body already aching for him.
But you couldn’t give in.
Not yet, at least. As much as it pained you to deny him the sleepy morning sex you’d grown to crave, especially on his birthday, you couldn’t let him fuck you until you’d given him your present. And you couldn’t give him your present until you had made him dinner and slipped on that beautiful white matching set you’d bought.
So you had to stall. Redirect. Get him to actually get a decent amount of rest for once in his life, so you could ride him off into the sunset.
“Happy birthday, handsome,” your hand reached back to run your fingers through his loose curls.
“Very happy birthday to me, indeed,” his grip on your waist tightened as his front pressed even more firmly against your back. You could just barely feel the faint beginnings of hardness through the thin material of his boxers.
“Uh-uh,” you twisted in his grip. Shifting until you were face to face, you pressed a long, slow kiss to his lips. He sighed into your mouth, allowing you to take the lead as his tongue swiped against yours.
“You need to sleep. You’re exhausted.”
He grumbled as you pulled away, his half lidded eyes flipping between the exhaustion of a week of 12 hour nights shifts and pure desire as he looked at you wrapped in his arms.
Jack had once told you that this was when you looked the most beautiful. Sleepy, wearing just his t-shirt and a pair of underwear with your hair a mess, snuggled in the sheets of your shared bed. He had called the domesticity of it addictive, had said he couldn’t get enough of the quiet moments like this, tangled together with the outside world locked away. The two of you just existing in that warm, heady feeling of safety and security, wrapped up in each other for hours.
You’d always thought you understood. You’d agreed that the soft moments surrounded by his love in the home two of you had built were the best, but you were starting to think you never really got it until now. The idea of your family, of it growing beyond just the small, two person unit the two of you had become over these years, was electrifying.
God, you wanted that. You’d already given him your heart. You wanted to give him everything.
“I’m not too tired to make you feel good,” his hand slid from your hip down to dip beneath the hem of your underwear.
It took every ounce of self control to grab his wrist, stopping him.
“No,” you gave him one more soft kiss before you were pushing him back to lie flat. Throwing one of your legs over his, you curled into his side. He let out a sigh of disappointment as your head rested on his chest, but he was still curling his freckled arms around you to hold you close. “We are going to sleep now. And then, tonight, I am going to make you dinner. Then you get to open your present, and then you can fuck me. However you want, as many times as you want.”
“You’re so cruel,” you couldn’t see his face but you could hear the smile in his voice as he pressed a kiss to your hair. Already, you could tell he was starting to drift off. “But fine. As long as I get to have you for dessert.”
His voice, low and gravelly, vibrating through his chest had your panties growing increasingly uncomfortable. His sturdy thigh pressed between your legs certainly wasn’t helping, but you could do this. You were a grown woman, a doctor of emergency medicine. You had the willpower to make it 10 more hours without jumping your husband.
When you woke around 1pm, Jack was still dead to the world. His lips were parted, hair mussed, and his breaths deep and even. Despite the gray making his curls much more salt than pepper, he looked younger like this.
You gave yourself a moment to take him in before slipping out of the bed and his grasp.
It was time to make the last few preparations.
Your movements were as quiet as you could make them as you got dressed. With one last glance at his sleeping form, you slipped out the front door.
Grocery shopping went smoothly, the bakery passed off the small bourbon chocolate cake you’d ordered with little fuss, and the jeweler down the road didn’t even charge you for the little black velvet box. They had a million of them, she’d said, no big deal.
You were back home by 3:30pm. Jack was up and awake by then, making himself a cup of coffee when you strolled in, arms laden with grocery bags. For just a second, you let your eyes trail over him. He was facing away, giving you a beautiful view of the freckles dusting his muscled back. The sweatpants riding low on his hips, the right leg tied in a knot to stop the hem from dragging, hid the strength and shape of his ass and legs from you, but your imagination filled in the gaps.
“Done objectifying me yet?” Jack just barely looked over his shoulder as he continued to fiddle with the machine before him.
“Never,” you set the bags down, giving his ass a slap as you moved past.
He laughed, reaching for his crutches as he moved to follow you back out to the driveway.
“Let me help you with the bags.”
“Not a chance,” you blocked the doorway. “Go sit down and enjoy your day off.”
He looked like he was going to argue for a moment, but then he acquiesced. With one, chaste kiss to your lips, he moved back to the counter.
Jack was stubborn, though, so he started unloading the grocery bags, placing ingredients in their rightful places.
You watched him move through the space for just a moment before you returned to your car to grab the last few bags and the box with the cake. The jewelry box was tucked into the back pocket of your denim shorts, hidden by your oversized shirt as you deposited everything else onto the counter, next to the first batch of empty bags. Jack had disappeared from the kitchen, but he walked out of the bedroom just as you began to organize the ingredients you needed, his leg fastened on.
“What are you gonna make me?” Jack had settled back against the counter after you swatted his hands away from the cake box, trying to keep his fingers out of the frosting while he tried to steal a taste. He was lazily sipping his coffee, eyes watching as you fluttered about, retrieving some of the items that you needed.
“Steak,” you held up the meat wrapped in butcher paper as you pulled it from the bag. “Cabbage,” his nose wrinkled and your eyes rolled. For a brief moment, you really considered throwing the vegetable at him. “Relax, you big baby. Cabbage au gratin. Lots of cheese and that cream sauce you like.”
“Hmm, ok,” he was smirking over the rim of his mug. “What else?”
“What else? What, that’s not enough for you?”
He set the coffee down, closing the small distance between the two of you so his hands could rest on your hips, chest pressing into your back. You panicked for a moment as his lips met your clothed shoulder, hoping and praying that he didn’t notice the box in your pocket. It was still empty, but you didn’t want to give him any hints about your plan.
“I’m gonna need a lot of energy tonight, baby,” his hands slid underneath your shirt to rest against your bare stomach as he nosed at your hair, his breath brushing over your ear. “I’m pretty sure I was promised however I want, as many times as I want.”
You were so close to breaking. Your resolve was hanging on by a thread.
“And,” his hand slid farther up, cupping your breast through your bra. You could barely restrain a whine. “My dear wife decided to swap shifts. We haven’t had any… quality time in a week. I’ve got a lot of plans for you tonight, baby.”
“Jack,” your voice was weak.
“Not to mention,” his fingers squeezed your nipple through the mesh of your bra. “I wouldn’t be a very good husband if I didn’t help you get your sleep cycle back on track. Gotta get you used to working all night, baby.”
“You’ve gotta wait, Jackie,” you were arching back into him, offering no resistance as his broad hand slid to lay over the span of your stomach.
Fuck.
The feeling of that steady, callous hand laying against the smooth skin of your lower abdomen jolted you back to reality.
You needed to wait. It wouldn’t be fair or right to fuck him before you had a conversation, plus you’d put so much thought into planning the perfect night. You couldn’t let your incubus of a husband seduce you into ruining it now.
“Jack,” your voice was stronger now. “Patience.”
He huffed a laugh against the shell of your ear, his hands tightening against you just once before letting you go and stepping back. You could very clearly see the hard length of him straining through the fabric of his pants as you turned to face him, back braced against the counter. His hands came up to land beside your hips on the stone as he caged you in.
“I don’t know what you have planned, but I might die if I don’t get my hands on you soon,” his lips laid a kiss on your cheek before he was stepping back. “I’m gonna go shower before you torture me anymore.”
Step 4: the proposition.
Jack behaved himself all throughout dinner, his hand settling at a tasteful spot on your bare thigh, exposed by the dress you’d pulled on over the lacy white set he hadn’t seen yet. Entirely appropriate compliments coming from him as you laid the cabbage, the steak, and the salad and rolls he hadn’t let you tell him about earlier before the two of you on the table.
But dinner was done, leftovers packed away, the rest of the cake returned to its box while two half-eaten slices laid before the two of you.
While he was in the shower, you’d managed to retrieve your IUD (very thoroughly sanitized, thank you very much) and place it in the jewelry box. It fit perfectly. You’d tied the box closed with a short length of red ribbon you’d acquired from the Christmas supplies stored in the spare room.
That box had been sitting on the counter while you ate dinner and dessert, but now it sat between the two of you on the table. For the first time all week, your confidence in your plan was starting to falter.
Jack was a great man and an amazing husband. That was undeniable. He was great at so many different things. The one area he fell behind in, though, was communication.
He wasn’t necessarily bad at it, but he definitely wasn’t the best. It wasn’t that he couldn’t or didn’t communicate with you. No, it was more that he held certain things back. He didn’t let himself verbalize things when he thought he didn’t deserve them, or when he thought he was asking for too much.
He hadn’t asked you for a baby. Sure, the two of you had talked about it before getting married, as all couples should, but the conversation hadn’t resurfaced since then. That conversation had been the first time he had truly been completely open and laid bare before you. He had told you he wanted kids, more than anything, but he worried about being too old, too broken, too unavailable.
You’d assured him he was none of those things, that you wanted to start a family with him. You could see on his face that he only half believed you.
It hadn’t been a possibility right when you got married, with you just finishing your residency and settling into being an attending, along with the both of you wanting time to really settle into your relationship before broaching that topic again.
But it hadn’t been brought up again.
Suddenly, the box sitting between you felt like a bomb. What if you had overstepped? Sure, you had thought the look on his face when he saw you with a baby was longing, but what if it wasn’t? What if you were about to blow up your marriage and ruin his 50th birthday?
“Hey,” Jack’s hand came to cover yours, jerking you out of your spiral. “You ok?”
“Yeah,” your throat felt full as you looked up at him. “Just… just nervous to see if you like your present.”
He smiled at that. “I’m sure I’ll love it, baby.”
“I really hope you do.”
You could barely breathe as you watched his fingers undo the red bow keeping the box sealed. The few seconds it took for him to unwind the fabric felt like years, the soft sound of the ribbon sliding against the velvet felt like the loudest noise in the world.
The lid blocked your view of the interior of the box, but you knew exactly what it looked like. That thin plastic ‘T’ sticking up out of the slot where a ring would normally go. Stark white against the deep red interior of the little black box.
Jack’s brow scrunched up for a second as he gazed down at the object in his hands.
“Is this your-”
“Yes,” your voice was quiet when you cut him off, your eyes searching his face. He looked confused, eyes fixed on the IUD, before the expression melted into shock as he looked up at you.
“You-” he floundered over his words, gaze rapidly flicking back and forth between you and the box. “This- you took it- what-”
For a moment, you were concerned he was having a stroke. But then he took a deep breath, set the box down, and scrubbed his hands over his face. Your nerves crept back in, unwelcome and self deprecating as the worst case scenarios ran through your mind.
“I need you to tell me exactly what this means, baby,” his hand was grabbing yours again, squeezing tight. He still looked a little shocked, but you could see his eyes lighting up with what you desperately hoped was happiness.
“I-” your throat locked down, the words stuck as your eyes locked on his.
“Words, baby,” he slipped out of his seat, settling on his knees before you.
“Jack, your leg-”
“I don’t care, I’m fine,” his hands settled on your thighs, just above your knees. His fingers dug in as he looked up at you.
Hope. That’s what you were seeing written plain as day across his features. Hope and love and yearning.
“Baby, please,” he sounded desperate. “I need to know exactly what you meant when you gave me your IUD.”
“I -” your breath faltered for just a second as his hands squeezed tighter as the first syllable left your lips. “I want to have a baby, Jack. I want your baby.”
“Fuck,” his voice was raw and gutteral, like the curse ripped out of him involuntarily. “I want it. So badly, you have no idea.”
You couldn’t help your laugh. The sound was wet, emotion curling in your chest as the worry and anxiety fled. “Trust me, I know exactly how much you want it.”
The confusion crept back onto his face.
“You’re not subtle, Jack.”
“I’m so subtle. I’m an unreadable pillar of strength,” he was smiling, eyes still full of love and adoration.
“You were anything other than subtle with this.”
“Maybe because I want to come home to you and our child everyday,” his words silenced your laughter, tears threatening to spill as he kept speaking. “I want to watch them grow up, teach them how to ride a bike, be obnoxiously loud and embarrassing at sports games.”
Jack was getting to his feet now, pulling you up with him until his forehead was pressed to yours.
“I want to teach them how to drive, cry at their high school graduation, move them into college dorms,” his own voice was thick with emotion as tears dripped silently down your cheeks. His hands came up to cradle your cheeks, swiping the stray droplets away with his thumbs. Your hands gripped his forearms as you listened. “I want it all with you. I want to be horribly, disgustingly domestic and in love, show our kid what love looks like. I want them to be safe and happy and healthy and so, so loved.”
“Jack,” your voice was shaky as you clung to him.
“I want it. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I want it with you. I want it all with you.”
His lips connected with yours. The kiss was tender and slow, every emotion leaking out as your lips and tongues moved against each other in your dining room. He tasted like the chocolate cake and something so distinctly Jack. It was addictive.
When the two of you parted to gasp for breath, his hands settled on your waist, yours coming up to tangle one in his hair, the other flat against his sturdy chest.
“You know,” you leaned in, tracing feather light kisses over the curve of his throat. “I promised you you could have whatever you want after dinner.”
His head dropped back and he let out a groan. His hands tightened on your waist.
“But do you know what I want?”
“What do you want, baby?” His voice was breathy. One of his hands drifted down to grab a handful of your ass, his leg slipping between yours to apply pressure where you needed him the most.
Your teeth caught the lobe of his ear between your teeth.
“I want you to take me to our bedroom,” your hand in his hair yanked ever so slightly. “I want you to take one of those little pills you keep for emergencies,” your fingers trailed down his chest slowly as his breathing picked up in pace. “And I want you to fuck me until you physically cannot any more.”
Step 5: success.
So maybe you weren’t as good at reading your husband as you thought.
You were so sure as soon as he got you into the bedroom and got an eyeful of the see through lace covering your body, he’d be inside of you immediately, especially with the promise of your uterus open for business.
But he held back, eyes tracing your form, sprawled out on the bed and still covered, barely, by your lingerie. He was moving through the room like he had all the time in the world.
You watched with bated breath as he slowly undid his belt and the button of his pants, leaving both still on. The buttons on his shirt were next, the fabric hanging open and untucked as he approached his nightstand. All you could see of his torso was a thin strip, could just barely spot the light dusting of still auburn hair disappearing in the waist band of his slacks.
His hand dug into the drawer for a second before he was producing the little orange bottle. He held it delicately between his fingers, eyes meeting yours.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” Everything in Jack’s eyes seemed to be begging you to agree, to not dangle this in front of him and then so cruelly rip it away.
“I want this,” you sat up, scooting to the edge of the bed to rest your hands on his hips, his legs between yours as he towered over you. “I want you to put a baby in me, Jack.”
He groaned, his hands fumbling to get the cap off the bottle and one pill in his mouth.
He didn’t usually need those little blue pills, but between the anti depressants he regularly took and the stress of both your jobs, occasionally they came in handy. Today, however, the outline of his erection, right in front of your face, told you he definitely didn’t need it right now. But both of you knew that one round was not going to be even close to enough.
The temptation of that bulge in his pants was too much as you watched his throat bob while he swallowed the pill dry. Your hands drifted from his hips to the undone button of his slacks. Slowly, your fingers pulled the zipper down.
His hand caught yours before you could start sliding the fabric down his legs.
“Not now,” his fingers pressed into your pulse, your heartrate hammering as you looked up at him. “Take off your clothes and lie down.”
For a moment, you wanted to argue, wanted to insist that this was his birthday, you should be taking care of him. But the heat in his eyes and the rapid rise and fall of his chest as his eyes traced over your body had another idea popping into your head, wondering exactly how far you could push him tonight.
Your hands were a little shaky as you unclasped your bra, if the white scrap of barely there lace could even be called that. It fell from your body as you stood from the bed, crowding into Jack.
He took half a step back to give you some space as he watched. Your hands tossed your hair back over your shoulders, taking the opportunity to trail your fingers down your collarbones, loosely cupping and caressing your own breasts. Your lips parted on a gasp as your fingers tweaked your nipples. With half lidded eyes, you arched into him, almost touching as you continued to play with your breasts.
When you decided he’d had enough, you let your hands move on, dragging down your abdomen only to stop just above the waistband of your panties. You laid your hands over the smooth, bumpless skin.
“Can’t wait for your baby to be right here,” you were laying it on thick. Eyelashes fluttering, teeth digging into your lower lip, breaths coming a little too deep to lift your breasts even more with every inhale.
Jack was getting impatient, you could tell. That fire burning in his eyes, his fingers flexing, all while you took your sweet time shimmying out of the underwear.
By the time it hit the floor, he looked ready to pounce, but he was still keeping himself in check. You figured he probably wanted to take things nice and slow, make them tender. At least at first. He usually was attentive and giving, treating you gently especially when emotions were running high. Not like you would break if he didn’t, more like you deserved to be loved softly.
But there was time for soft later. Right now, the tension and knowledge of what he was about to do to you felt explosive. You wanted him to take you hard. To take out the sexual frustration of a week or so of abstinence on your body. To pin you down and have his way with you. Afterwards there’d be time for sweet and tender. And there definitely would be more than just one round tonight given the pill he’d just taken.
You were right about how close he was to snapping. The final straw seemed to be when you reached down, picking your underwear up from the floor. He watched the movement, a warning look on his face, but you didn’t stop. Instead, you took his hand, setting the soaking wet miniscule lace in his palm.
“Happy birthday,” with that, you turned around, crawling onto the bed on all fours, swaying your hips as you went.
You didn’t get very far before his hands were grabbing you by the waist, dragging you back to the edge. Your lower legs hung off the bed as he pressed his hips against your ass. He was burning hot, even through his clothes. You could feel the heat and weight of him as you ground back, smearing the wetness leaking from you onto his pants.
“I wanted to be nice,” behind you, you heard rustling as his shirt finally dropped off his shoulders. The clinking of his belt followed, thudding as it hit the floor next. “I wanted to make love to my sweet little wife, but I don’t think that’s what you want, huh?”
“I want you to fuck me, Jack,” you heard him drag his pants and boxers down, the thick length of his cock springing free to brush agaisnt you. Your hips pushed back, almost involuntarily, craving him inside of you. “Make love to me later, knock me up now.”
“Fuck,” his fingers found your clit, stroking through your folds and finding you oh so ready for him. He was making small, tight circles around the bud, sending small shockwaves of pleasure through you.
“Stop wasting time,” your words were breathy, slowly losing their bite. “At this rate it’ll be another 30 years before I get pregnant.”
“Shut up,” you could feel him lining himself up. “Let me make you feel good.”
“I’ll feel good if you- oh fuck!”
Jack interrupted your whining by slamming in all the way. Usually, he was slow, guiding himself inside, taking the time to let you adjust. Not now, though, now he barely gave you a second to get used to the feeling before he was pulling out and pushing back in.
“Is this what you wanted?” His voice was strained, his hips working vigorously as he used his grip on your waist to drag you back onto him every time he thrust in.
The sound was obscene. Wet slapping accompanied by your whines and gasps as he reached deep inside of you, bumping all the way up against your cervix with each push in. His own panting was nearly drowned out, but the groan that escaped him when you clamped down tight as he shifted angles was loud.
“Right there, huh?” Jack tilted his hips, angling towards that spot while one of his hands pushed down on your upper back. Your arms gave way, head meeting the sheets as he continued to pound away.
“Fuck, Jack, right there!” Your cries were high pitched and needy as he kept up the pace. His pounding was rhythmic, barely faltering even when his fingers found your clit again, and you tightened around him even more. The circles he was drawing were fast, matching the speed and timing of his thrusts.
Jack had long since learned to play your body like a fiddle and he was pulling no punches tonight. His hand not on your clit shifted, sliding down to press the heel of his palm right above your pubic bone. The added pressure had you crying out, walls pulsing as an orgasm washed over you unexpectedly.
It came in waves, your back arching and pushing your hips into his even more fervently as the pleasure grew and radiated out from between your legs. It was sudden, overwhelming, and seemingly never ending as he kept fucking you through it, his pace unchanging, his hands never moving from where they lay.
“Fuck, baby,” he was panting, leaning halfway over you as you twitched. “God, fuck, I’m close.”
“C’mon, do it Jack,” you knew your voice was whiny and breathy, but you couldn’t care less as you begged him. “Please, do it. Cum inside me. I need it!”
This was far from the first time he’d fucked you raw. The two of you hadn’t used a condom since the early days of your relationship. After one broke and forced an incredibly awkward pharmacy run for Plan B, you’d gotten your IUD. Once it was effective, you had never had a barrier between you. Jack was well accustomed to coming inside of you.
But this was different. That protection was gone, sitting on the dining room table where he’d left it after dinner. And now you were begging him to cum inside you, not just because it felt good for both of you, but because you wanted to have his child. You wanted him leaking out of you, filling you up until you had no room left inside. You wanted the consequences of this action, the visible and physical manifestation of him left inside of you.
His hand on your stomach shot out, clutching the duvet beside your head as he leaned even farther over you. Jack’s rhythm grew erratic, faster than before as he folded over you. His fingers never stopped circling but they did hitch, that steady pressure faltering as he got closer.
“Fuck, oh fuck, you feel so good,” he was so close you could feel it. Feel him pulsing and twitching inside of you while his chest, damp with sweat pressed against your back.
“Please,” the word was tangled with a moan as it left your lips. The orgasm that had seemed never ending was rising again, impossibly fast. “Please, Jack, want your baby, please.”
“Oh shit, fuck, fuck! Oh, I’m cumming, oh fuck!”
You felt the heat inside you, that warmth radiating out as he buried himself deep, hips rutting in grinding little thrusts as he came. It was overwhelming. Your own orgasm, much weaker than the previous one, jerked through your body as you felt him fill you.
The two of you stayed quiet, no words exchanged while you rode out the pleasure coursing through both your veins. Jack stayed buried as deep as he could inside of you, his hand finally leaving your clit when you stopped pulsing around him, only for it to find the front of your thigh, keeping you tightly pressed against him.
“I love you,” he whispered against your shoulder blade while he caught his breath.
“I love you, too,” you couldn’t really reach back to touch him in this position. At least, not without the growing ache in your lower back worsening. “I’m getting sore, Jack.”
“If I tell you to lay down and get comfortable, will you actually listen this time?” The smirk on his face as you peaked over your shoulder made you want to simultaneously punch him and kiss him. He slowly pushed himself up, lifting his weight off your body and pulling out.
“Yes, fine, I’ll listen,” you winced a little as his dick left your body, gasping a little when you realized he was still half hard.
“Shit, stop for a sec,” his hand palmed your ass cheek, stopping you from crawling forward to get comfortable. For a moment, you were confused. But then you felt it. His cum was dripping from you, spilling now that he’d finally pulled out. “Fuck, that’s so hot.”
The low groan in his voice had you clenching around nothing, pushing even more out of you.
“Gotta keep it all in there, baby,” his fingers came up, pushing it back inside of you. They curled downwards, brushing against the sensitive skin just behind your clit, your legs shaking as he repeated the motion. “Fuck you’re so wet. So full of me.”
“Jack, please,” you weren’t entirely sure what you were asking for, all you knew was that you needed him. Over your own panting breaths you could just make out the wet sound of his own hand dragging over his length.
“Ok, ok,” his fingers pulled out of you. “Get comfortable, I need you again.”
Your legs were weak and it took you a second to focus again as you made your way to the center of the bed, falling onto your back, your head resting among the pillows. Your eyes found him like a magnet, snapping into focus as he finally pulled his pants all the way down.
He was fully hard again, and you watched with blatant hunger as he sat on the edge of the bed, hastily unfastening his prosthetic before he was climbing over to you.
“Left your hips for me,” you followed his instruction, allowing him to slide a pillow below your ass to keep you propped up for him. “Good girl.”
He settled, kneeling, between your legs, length still glistening from just having been inside you. Jack dragged the head of his cock over your folds, taking in the way your body twisted and undulated, silently begging for him to be back inside you.
“Are you ready?”
How kind and totally unnecessary for him to check in on you. You were mere seconds away from flipping him over and riding him.
“Yes, please Jack,” your hands reached down for him, trying to guide him in yourself.
“Ah-ah,” he tangled your fingers in his, leaning over you to trap your hands above your head with one of his. “I fucked you how you wanted, now we do it how I want it.”
“Just get inside me, please! I want you so bad,” you had a sneaking suspicion he might have wanted to tease you for even longer, but your husband had never been able to resist you for very long. You could see how much he wanted it, and your begging seemed to have won out over his desire to tease.
“God, you’re still so tight,” Jack buried his face in the crook of your neck as he slid inside. “How the fuck are you always so tight?”
“Made for you!” Your voice came out high and squeaky as he began to move.
“Fuck yes you were,” his lips landed on the sensitive skin of your throat, sucking and kissing and no doubt leaving countless marks you’d be struggling to cover when you went back to work.
The pace he set this time was much slower than before, but somehow filthier. The slow, insistent grind of him withdrawing and pushing back in had your clit grinding against the neatly trimmed hair at the base of his cock. The sounds this time were quieter but no less salacious. The unmistakable sound of how wet you were filled the room every time he pushed in as deep as he could get, mixed with the whimpers and gasps of his name you let out as you clung to him. He was rather quiet the first time until he got close, but he must have been more sensitive now as his groans and curses vibrated against your neck.
Those noises only built in volume as the two of you fell into a cycle, pushing each other even higher.
Every time you clenched tightly around him as he hit just the right spot, his teeth would scrape the sensitive skin on your neck or shoulder. In return, your fingernails would dig in tighter against the muscles in his back and his hips would press as deep he could, brushing against the spot that made you clench tighter.
“You feel so good around me, baby,” his movements were beginning to stutter as the two of you got closer again. His hand tangled in your hair as he pulled his head away from your neck, keeping your eyes locked on his.
Jack looked wild. His pupils were blown wide, eyes full of tenderness even as his skin was flushed, his mouth open as he let loose sounds of pleasure.
“You’re all mine.”
You tried to nod against his grip in your hair, eyes slipping shut as he ground even harder into you. Everything was hazy. The pleasurable feeling of every movement sent zaps tingling up your spine.
“No, no keep your eyes open,” you gasped as he broke his semi-steady rhythm to thrust hard into you. Your eyes opened, locking onto his. “Good girl, that’s good.”
He was getting louder now, getting closer and consequently pushing you there as well.
“Say it, baby,” you were tightening around his length uncontrollably now, impossibly close. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I-I’m fuck!” You could barely get the first word out as his hand once again found its way between your bodies, rubbing against you as you squirmed. The pleasure was almost too much. “I’m your- fuck, fuck! I’m yours, Jack!”
“All mine,” his lips landed on yours while his fingers sped up. The kiss was sloppy, mostly tongues and teeth while you panted into each other's mouths. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum again, ohhh fuck.”
His hips snapped once, twice and then stilled as deep as he could get. Jack never stopped rubbing your clit, though, pushing you through to cum around him for the 3rd time so far as came inside you again.
You could barely feel the extra fluid. The space between your legs was already messy and your orgasm pushed every last thought out of your head as your body shook. Your legs tightened around his hips as your body arched up into him. One of his arms slid beneath your lower back, his hips burying his cock even deeper inside.
As your body trembled and the pleasure slowly faded, you realised he was speaking to you, the bussing in your ears finally fading enough for you to hear him.
“-love you so much, baby,” his head had dropped back down to the crook of your neck, but his lips hadn’t resumed their attack. The words were quiet. You knew he was talking to you, but the words almost seemed too personal. Like Jack’s filter had been fucked out of him, and the words spilling against your skin were his inner monologue. “Can’t believe you want to make me a dad. I swear, I’ll do my best. I’ll be so good. I can’t wait to hold her and love her-”
“Her?” You finally felt coherent enough to interrupt.
Jack jumped like he had forgotten you were there, even with his length still buried inside of you.
He hesitated for a moment, before lifting his head to look you in the eye. “I want a daughter,” his hand came to rest over your lower stomach. “One of the residents told me I seem like a girl-dad a year or so ago and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. And now, getting you pregnant… I hope it’s a girl.”
You were torn between laughing and crying. You remembered the off hand comment from one of the bolder first year students, along with the look of utter confusion on Jack’s face. He hadn’t understood the comment, simply telling them he didn’t have kids and to get back to work.
But the tenderness in his voice, the absolute love in his eyes as he looked down at you had a lump forming in your throat.
“You know it’s not that quick,” your hand came up to cradle his jaw covered in that silver stubble you loved so much. “It might take a while for me to get pregnant. And there's no way to guarantee it’ll be a girl.”
His head turned slightly to press a kiss to your palm. “I don’t care how long it takes. I’m happy to keep trying.”
Your cheeks flushed at the insinuation, choosing to redirect. “And if it’s a boy?”
Jack lowered himself back over you, his nose brushing yours. “Then I’ll have a son. The only thing that matters is that the both of you are safe, happy, and healthy.”
“I love you,” the words were tight, barely getting out of your throat around the steadily growing lump of overwhelming emotion.
part one ⋆ part two ⋆ part three ⋆ part fourᵎᵎ ⋆ part five ⋆ part six
pairing — ex-husband!jack abbot x fem!reader
summary — loving jack always had a price. you just assumed you’d seen the worst of it.
warnings — 10.7k words. MINORS DNI!! piv sex, oral reference, fingering, post-divorce sex, references to military service, divorce, emotional neglect in marriage, relationship breakdown, loneliness and being unseen, domestic relationship conflict, prioritization of work over relationship, mass casualty incident referenced, dissociation during and after sex, conveniently timed phone call for plot purposes sorryyyy flashback
author’s note — this is the Last of what i’ve wrote so far for this fic so the next update may take longer btu i hope this feeds you guys also like deadass do not mind me for the last third of this i was ovulating when i wrote this. listen to sue me during it bc fucking ur ex is iconic ++ also i know i added more planned parts i don’t think i could’ve finished this in four parts
Jack liked to catch a game on Sunday nights when he was off.
It never mattered which one. You used to tease him about that, back when teasing was a thing that landed—that he’d watch anything with a ball in it and a clock running, hockey he had no team in, college teams from states he’d never thought twice about, the volume low, a beer he’d nurse so slow it went warm before it went empty. He used to say it turned a part of his brain off that didn’t otherwise. You’d never had that problem. Your brain turned off the second your head hit anything horizontal; his ran all night like a tap nobody had shut all the way, and the games were the closest he got to quiet, ninety minutes of other men's stakes washing over the part of him you could never reach.
The other, less deep reason was that he hardly ever got the chance to watch a game live, albeit on television.
So you let him have it. You were on the couch, the cold end, your feet tucked under his thigh the way you did when the house ran cold, and he had an arm around you—around your shoulders, the weight of it there but not gathered or pulling. His hand rested where it landed and didn’t do anything to you, the way you’d drape an arm over a couch you happened to be sharing. You’d noticed you noticed that now. You’d started keeping a tally of how Jack held you, which was a thing you’d never done in the years when how he held you wasn’t a question.
“Robby asked if we wanna come to Jake’s birthday-thing,” you said after a while, fingers absently drumming over the side of his waist. “It’s on Saturday, I think.”
“Mm.” His eyes stayed on the game. “You working?”
“I’m off. You’re working that night, I think.” You watched the side of his face.
He took a slow pull of his beer. “Might pick up a SWAT thing, too. Maybe. They’ve been short on the call list.”
You stopped drumming your fingers. “You’re already working, anyway. You wanna do both?”
“If they need it. It works.”
You knew he didn’t pick up SWAT for the money or the fact that it fit into his nocturnal schedule; he picked it up the same way other men went to the garage, except a garage would never page him at three in the morning and tell him he was the one thing standing between somebody and the worst night of their life. You’d worked that out years ago and never said it.
“It might be nice to go to Jake’s, though. I think Robby’d like you coming.” You drummed your fingers once against his side and made yourself stop. “Just for an hour. You’re allowed to be in a room with people who aren’t actively dying, Jack. It’s not against the rules.”
You waited for the huff, the half-laugh, the one sound on earth that still told you he was listening and found something he enjoyed from you. It didn't come. His thumb didn't move on your shoulder. He watched a man on the screen miss a free throw.
So you reached again, because the quiet where something else should’ve been was unbearable, and it had been creeping up more often than not into your life. “We haven’t been doing much with people lately. I just say you’re busy. It’s getting to be most of what I say about you.”
And he reached forward and set the beer down on the coffee table, slow, and the arm came off your shoulders—lifted away and retrieved—as he said, without looking at you, “Can you not, tonight?”
“Not do what?” you said, trying to keep your voice even—quiet. Your feet were still tucked under his thigh, still warm there, and you hated that you could feel exactly how warm.
“That.” He took two fingers of the armrest, a small motion at you, the air, at the whole thing you’d been doing. “The—needling. I’m tired. I just wanna relax.”
You caught your bottom lip between your teeth. “I’m not needling you. I asked you to come to your friend’s step-son’s birthday party.”
“You’re—every time there’s a little—” He stopped and pressed his lips together. “It’s fine. Forget it. I’ll come to the party.”
“I don’t want you to come because I nagged you into it.”
“Then I won’t come. Great.” He picked the beer back up. “Either way you’ve got something to say about it.”
He said it tired, with no heat in it at all. Jack never gave you heat anymore, heat you could’ve matched, that would’ve meant he was still in the room with you. He only turned back to the screen like the conversation was a thing he’d set down when he picked up his drink, like you were weather. Like being married to you was a low constant noise he’d learned to watch TV over.
You took your feet out from under his thigh. Your body did it, the way it had started doing things lately, retreating on its own recognizance, and you felt the cold come back into them immediately, the apartment's cold, the cold you'd been borrowing his warmth against for eight years like it was yours to borrow, and you tucked them under yourself instead, away from him, and he noticed—you saw him notice—and he didn't say anything, and that was the worst part, that he watched you take your cold feet back and just let you, let the small thing go.
A year ago he’d have caught your ankle without looking and dragged them back into the warm; two years ago he’d have done it mid-sentence, not even noticing he was doing it. Tonight he watched them go like watching a door shut three rooms away, registering but without the worth of the crossing.
You sat at your end of the couch with your feet under you and he sat at his with the warm beer, and the space between you on the cushion was maybe eight inches and it was the loneliest place you had ever been in your life.
Kevin was asleep on the floor in front of the dark TV stand, on his side, paws twitching at some dream where everything was still fine. He didn't feel the cold that had come into the room. He was the only one of the three of you who didn't.
When the game came back from commercial, he watched it for a minute. You looked at your phone without reading anything, and then you felt him shift—the cushion moved and he closed some of the gap—and his arm came around you again, his hand finding your shoulder, pulling gently. His mouth came down toward the side of your head.
You pulled back just slightly then, turning so his mouth missed. You put a hand flat on his chest, and you didn’t have a word for it. Nothing except for the fact that you couldn’t—wouldn’t—do this tonight; you didn’t want his hands as much as you needed the rest of him.
He stopped, and for a second neither of you moved. The arm that had reached for you came up off your shoulder and went into the air—a small, tired throw of it—and dropped to his knee.
“Okay, then.” His voice landed flat at the end of it, the nearest thing to a bite he had left.
Cruelly, embarrassingly, you’d wished for him to push, to fight the space between you instead of just giving it back. But he didn’t fight things, you knew that. You’d married a man who would let you go an inch at a time, politely, without ever once grabbing your wrist, and you were only now starting to understand it was far from peace. It was only the slowest way a person could leave.
You sat with your hand still warm from his chest and the want to take it back, to be a person who could just let him put his mouth on her neck and call it fixed.
“Jack,” you said, voice coming out quiet, almost wavering, as though you were stumbling upon saying your own husband’s name.
He looked at you—looked—the first time all night. All week, maybe.
His jaw loosened a fraction as the line between his eyes went soft; his eyes dropped for half-a-second to your mouth and back up like he was checking the damage. The tired came off him in that half-second the way fog comes off a windshield, not all of it, just a clear patch, just enough to see that under the worn-down man on the couch there was still the other one, the one who could tell you he loved you and showed you he did.
“What is it?” he said, low, gentler than he’d been in months, the tiredness pulled off his voice for a second. “Hey. What is it?”
You were getting whiplash. It was the easiest way to describe it. Whiplash, because this was the man, wasn’t it? This was the whole problem in one cushion’s width; he could spend a month thousands of miles away and then turn his head and be here, soft-eyed, asking if you’d forgive it, and you’d forgive it.
You’d forgive all of it in the second it took him to look at you like that, and you hated how cheap you were about it. How little it took you; he’d been gone for weeks and then he looked at you like that, and your whole body wanted to close the gap and pretend you’d never moved at all.
You held onto the space, though, because closing them—over and over—had walked you right here, to a couch where your own husband felt like a long distance.
“Am I doing something wrong?” you asked, the voice coming out smaller than you wanted. The sharpness had dropped somewhere in the last twenty minutes, and the question came out plain.
He didn’t say no at all for a second. He looked at you and there was a beat—a pause you’d miss if you hadn’t spent the last five years entangled in him—where was deciding something, sorting something. You felt the floor tilt.
“You hesitated.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. I asked you a yes-or-no question.” You forced your voice even, which was itself a feat, saying something that would’ve had you screaming. “Just tell me. I’d rather—just tell me.” When he didn’t respond, you said, “You said I’m nagging you like ten minutes ago.”
“I didn’t say nag,” he said immediately. “I’d never say that about you.”
“But you meant it.” You watched him. “You meant something like it.” He picked at the label on the beer, the corner of it, a thing to do with his hands. “Just say something.”
Jack shook his head, eyes facing downward. “I don't know what you want me to say.”
“Anything. Whatever you're thinking.” Your voice climbed up a small octave, fingers pressing into the fabric of the couch.
“I don't—” He looked at the ceiling then. “I haven't got anything to give you. I'm not hiding anything—it's just empty. I—” He pressed his lips together. “I come home and there's nothing in me that wants to—" He stopped.
The wanting was the part that had gone. He heard it a beat after you did; you watched it catch up to him, watched him decide whether to walk it back, and watched him choose not to, because he wouldn't lie even by correction.
“Do what? Talk to me?”
“It’s not talking and you know that.” He rubbed at his jaw. “It’s never us just talking anymore.”
“Because you won’t say anything—”
“Because every time I do, it’s like this,” he said, voice not rising at all. “It’s like this.”
Your fingers intertwined in your lap, and you forced yourself to swallow. “I’m—I don’t know. What have I done to you?”
“Nothing,” he said fast, and almost soft, almost the right thing, and then he kept going. “You haven’t done anything. That’s not—it’s not a thing you did.” He dragged a hand down his face. “It’s just gotten—I don’t know. I’m not sure how to explain it. Hard, I guess. Being here.”
There was something you’d never felt before. It was like ice being slid across your already-freezing surface, a sharp, sharp cold that went in clean and announced itself only when it was already deep; a frostbite that came out of hearing a thing you’d suspected for months being said out loud, in the voice you married, in the voice you loved.
Hard. Being here.
You turned the words over and they stayed cold, not even an inch of them growing warmer. Jack hadn’t said it was hard, the schedule; he hadn’t said it was hard, the hours. No, he’d said it was hard, being here—here being the apartment you’d painted the back bedroom of together, the place where your dog lived and the plant on the sill you kept alive out of spite. Being here meant where you were; being here meant you.
You opened your mouth—to say what, you didn’t know, something to claw the night back from the edge it was tipping over—and that was when Jack’s phone went off.
The three-tone climb he’d set for the hospital years ago and never once slept through, the sound that could pull him out of the deepest part of a night like a hook under the sternum, the Pavlovian bell that turned your husband from a body in a bed to a man already reaching for his boots. You realized then that you’d come to hate that exact sequence of notes the way you’d hate a smell that meant something bad was coming.
He glanced down at the screen at the coffee table. You watched him read it.
“—Hang on,” he said, holding up one finger.
You shook your head slowly, just once, the tiniest no you owned. Please, not now. Not this. Don’t you dare. You know he saw it and he picked up the phone anyway, thumbing it to his ear, turning his face a few degrees like that would make it a private thing.
“Abbot.”
You heard his half of it. There was a cruelty in one-sided calls, you learned then; your brain had to fill the silences and it almost always imagined the worst version of the other voices.
“Yeah.” His free hand came up and pressed flat against his eyes, then dragged down. “How many?” Pause. “Jesus. Okay. What’s the—okay. How many are coming to us—”
He was standing now. You’d hardly noticed him lift off the couch, and there it was, the thing you'd spent a year too proud to name—the reserve tank, the four-minutes-to-alive, the whole second engine he swore up and down he didn't have left at the end of a day, roaring to life now, for them, in front of you, while the wreck of your marriage smoked on the cushion behind him.
“No, not on schedule tonight but—” He turned, caught your face, and looked away from it. “Yeah, no. I hear you. It’s a—okay.” He breathed in. “Give me twenty.”
He'd just told you he didn't want to do this tonight—couldn't, the conversation was too hard, being here was too hard, he was too tired, he'd been too tired for months—and he'd found twenty minutes and a full tank inside of thirty seconds, without any deliberation or drag, the yes leaving him as easy as breathing.
The thing he could not summon for the you in front of him—for the past year—he had handed to a dispatcher without it costing him a single visible thing.
He lowered the phone and for a second he stood still. You saw something go across his face, the brief animal awareness like maybe he was aware of the difference between leaving and leaving; like he knew exactly what he was leaving unfinished on the couch behind him and what walking out would entail.
You watched him set it down and reach for the keys in his pocket anyway.
“They got slammed,” he said, eyes focused on something past you. “Multi-vehicle. They’re calling all the ED doctors who can. I gotta—” He paused. “I have to go in.”
And you knew it was true. You’d heard half of the call and charted the rest; you knew a bus on the interstate emptied out every bay and then some, you knew they needed hands on those bays in the next twenty minutes more than they’d ever needed anything from you.
Ortho wouldn’t be paging you tonight; you’d be getting paged at dawn, to fix what survived him. You knew all of it.
“No.” Your voice came out small, so small, and then not so small. “Jack—don’t go. Not right now. Please.”
Don’t go because I don’t know how to be here after you said this.
He stopped with his keys out of his pocket, the metal of them catching the lamplight. He looked at you like you’d spoken in a different language.
Kevin lifted his head at the sound of the keys—he knew that sound, he knew it meant nothing good—and he’d come halfway across the room and sat, expectant, tail going, because this was just another part of the night where Jack left and came back smelling like a million different people. He had no idea.
“What?”
“Don’t go yet,” you said again, and your hands found the hem of your shirt, folding it, the same anxious origami he’d watched you do the night before your wedding, every threshold you’d ever stood shaking on. “Stay. Please.”
“Baby, it’s—it’s a mass casualty,” he said gently, the same voice he used on families, on the newly bereaved, on people who needed the situation walked through slow. “You know what that means better than the guy who just called me. They’re not pulling me in for fun—”
“I know what it is.”
“—they’ve got people coming in the door who are gonna die on the floor of the ED if there aren’t enough hands, and I’ve got hands, so—” He spread them, demonstrating, the same two hands that had set your wedding ring on your finger and stitched your eyebrow shut and held your hair in four different bathrooms over five years. Capable hands. Hands the world also had a standing claim on. “I have to be one of them. That’s the whole job. You knew that going in.”
He reached for that like a railing; it was the oldest defense in the marriage because you did know that going in; you’d met him through it. You also had known you’d married a man whose pager outranked you, and you’d thought, idiot that you were, that being outranked by the dying was a noble thing to lose to.
You’d thought you could share him with the worst nights of strangers and still be satisfied to have the rest. You only hadn’t thought about what was left of a man after the worst nights of strangers got first cut.
Fuck, you knew you were being unreasonable. He was right. He was always right; you could've argued his side better than he was arguing it, probably.
Being married to him meant being married to a man whose reasons were unimpeachable, who never once left you for something miniscule, who could meet every single word with something objectively more important bleeding out somewhere. You were just supposed to keep understanding and be reasonable, keep losing to causes too noble to resent.
You'd been so reasonable it had hollowed you out.
So yes, you were going to be unreasonable now, finally, on purpose, because reasonable had gotten you a husband who could hardly stand to be around you. You had nothing left to lose by being the villain for once.
“Be a little late for once in your life. For me. I’m not asking you to quit your job.” Your shoulders stiffened. “I’m asking you to stay here for ten more minutes. The department has over fifteen people who can run a bay. I have one of you, Jack, and you’re about to walk out the door in the middle of—” Your voice cracked down the center. “—of the worst thing we’ve ever said to each other. Right now I need you here.”
He looked at you, and something pulled out; Jack never did outright anger, but it was a kind of strained disbelief—the closest thing he could muster up to anger—like you’d asked him to pick a paint color while a building around you burned.
“You—okay.” He pushed a breath out through his nose. “There are people bleeding on a freeway right now. They’re loading them in the back of rigs as we’re here. And you want me to stay here so we can—what. Finish talking?” He tilted his head to the side, the words coming out slowly as though he wanted them to absorb through you. “If you can’t see the difference between somebody dying and us having a fight on a Sunday night, then I don’t know what to tell you.” He pressed his lips together. “I really don’t. There’s no version of me that picks the fight.”
You felt his words go through you like a blade slid between two ribs, clean, almost painless for a second before the wrong of it bloomed.
You knew there was no version of him that picked the fight. You’d stopped wanting that one a long time ago. You wished—small and stupid and right down at the floor of you—that there was just a version of him that found it hard to go. You wished he’d hesitate at the door the way he never hesitated, that needed a second to move himself toward the stairs and away from you, that did you the basic mercy of looking like the choice was a choice. But his body always picked before his mouth could finish the sentence; there was no difficulty to perform because there was none. The going was easy, you learned; you were the only difficult thing in the room for him, and he was already past you.
“Jack, I’m scared,” you said, voice raw.
He stopped. For a second he stayed still, and stopped reaching for the next reasonable thing to say. You thought you saw it cost him—the going, the leaving you alone with it—you thought you saw the door pull at him from the wrong direction for once. Then he breathed in, and you watched him decide it hadn’t.
“I’m scared,” you said again, quieter, and your hands stopped folding your shirt and went still. “You told me you don’t like being here with me. And now you’re leaving, and I can’t stay with that by myself all night, and I just—” Your throat closed and you forced yourself through it. “Tell me we’re okay. That’s all. Just—before you go, tell me we’re going to be okay and I’ll open that door myself for you. I swear to God I will.”
It would cost him nothing; he could have said it with half his body already in the hallway, he could’ve thrown it over his shoulder on the way to the elevator, the tiniest, silliest mercy, the cheapest possible thing of rescuing.
He was used to telling strangers they were going to be fine with their blood drying on his gloves; you’d seen him say it gently and sure of it, almost ten times a shift. It was a kind lie, a sort of verbal morphine he handed out for free to people he’d never, ever see again. And he came up empty when he tried to hand out the words to you, because to him they’d be a lie; because he’d just told you the truth and he would rather stand on it than lie to make you feel better.
“I’m not gonna lie to you,” he said, voice low and rough, like he wanted you to know it was the honesty that loved you.
A part of you came off its hinges.
In the second half after it gave, you saw the whole year at once, the sum of it, the way a column of figures you’d been adding wrong all night long finally totalled, and the total was obscene. The thousand small withdrawals you’d noticed and told yourself were the schedule, the hours, the fucking seasons, when all of it had only ever been you, and him backing out of the room so slowly. You’d spent a year making his leaving make sense so neither of you would have to hold the larger thing in your hands.
You were asking Jack who’d just told you the truth to please, please lie—begging him, downgrading the ask in real time, from ‘love me’ to ‘want me’ to ‘just pretend’—and he would not. You had become a thing not worth the mercy of being lied to. He’d rather be honest at you than kind to you, and he’d decorated it up as an integrity, and some animal part of you had to thank him for it.
You felt your own value drop in your hands like something you’d been holding too long without noticing the weight, and the relief of setting it down was indistinguishable from grief.
“Okay.” You laughed, a wet and disbelieving sound. “Okay. Okay. Fuck, Jack—I don’t have to take this.” You swiped your palm under your nose, over your lips. “I’m done asking for things. I’ve been asking for things for a whole year.” You forced in a breath, because you felt your chest start to ache. “I don’t want them anymore. I don’t—I just really—”
“What—” He took a step towards you, the keys forgotten in his fist, because this he could read, the wild coming off you in a way he’d likely never seen before. “Don’t—what are you doing?”
“Nothing.” You were on your feet now, the whole length of you strung tight, vibrating. “You’re the one with somewhere to be. So go. I’m not going to make you feel bad about it for one more second—you’ve got a hospital full of people who actually want you there, so go.”
“Stop.” There was real fear in it now, and it was far from what he was used to. This had no protocol. “You’re spun up, you’re not—just sit down a second. Sit down.”
“No.” It would’ve felt better if you could cry, but you were past it, dried out, and your voice had reached somewhere far away. “I’m not gonna sit down. I’m not doing any of this anymore. You don’t want to be here—fine. You don’t like being around me—fine. I heard you. I heard you, all right.”
You took in a breath. "I can't keep being a thing that's not fucking picked, ever." Your voice cracked. "You're supposed to be the one who picks me." You grabbed your phone off the couch, then. “I’m gonna go to my sister’s.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
You understood, with a tired clarity, that it was the closest he could come. That buried somewhere under the logistics and safety, he would let you walk out into the dark believing he only cared about the hour than say a single word that meant he wanted you to stay.
“I know what time it is.” You said without looking at him. You couldn’t. And you didn’t have to anymore. “Go, Jack. I’ll get my stuff this week. We’ll—” Your throat worked. “We don’t have to make it ugly. You always said that, that we won’t make it ugly if it ever got to it.”
And you waited—not for him to fight, you were past expecting that—you just waited to see if he'd say anything at all. If he’d put it together, the keys in your hand and understand that you'd just left him, quietly, standing up, right now.
You heard him take in a breath through his nose. “And it’s got to it?”
You finally looked at him, and it was a mistake. A bewildered kind of hurt marred his features, like he genuinely didn’t know, like he hadn’t just spent the last half hour telling you so, in a hundred soft ways, that it had gotten to it months ago and he just hadn’t had the words to say so until you put them in his mouth.
“Yeah,” you said. “It’s at it.”
His face scrunched, brows pulling in and his eyes going to the middle distance like the information had been overloaded on him faster than he could handle it. He shook his head, a small movement more to clear water out of his ears. Then he closed the space you'd put between you, and his hands came up to your face—both of them, the whole rough warm span of them cradling your jaw the way they'd done ten thousand times, the way they fit there like the shape had been cut for them once—and he tilted your head up and pressed his mouth to your forehead.
You went rigid under it. You couldn’t help it. Every muscle in your body locked because you knew exactly what this kiss was—it was the one he gave you before clocking in and over the hoods of cars—and he was giving it to you now, over the corpse of your marriage, like this was simply another bad night he was stepping out of. His lips were warm against your hairline. You stood there and took it and gave him nothing back, your arms dead at your sides, because if you let yourself lean into it you would not survive it.
“Stay here tonight,” he said into your hair, hands still bracketing your face. “Don’t drive somewhere else so late and worked up. Just—stay. Sleep. We’ll talk when I’m back. Alright?” His thumb moved along your cheekbone, the worst kind of gentleness you’d ever been afforded. “I’m not gonna make this hard for you. I promise.”
Your breath hitched. You’d asked him, under all of it, pettily, to fight for the marriage, and he’d answered by being gentle about its disposal. He was already planning to be good at losing you—losing this—and you would have to force yourself to never wonder how long he had been planning it.
His hand slid back into your hair, tilting your face up, his mouth close enough that you felt the next words against your lips more than heard them.
“You’re not gonna have to fight me for one thing, okay? Whatever you want, it’s yours. You say it and it’s done.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he met your eyes again. “I’ll give you whatever you ask me for.”
You wanted to fight him. You wanted it to be the hardest, ugliest, most expensive divorce in the world. You wanted lawyers who hated each other and a fight over Kevin and a screaming match about a lamp neither of you even liked, because at least that would’ve meant there was something worth fighting for. You wanted him to be unreasonable. You wanted, God help you, to matter enough to be difficult to lose.
He stood there with his hands in your hair and his mouth a breath from yours and offered you the whole world on the way out the door, the place and the dog and the money and his good-faith signature on whatever you put in front of him—everything, anything, the entire estate of five years, yours for the asking—and the only thing you wanted, the single thing in the world you'd have taken, was the one thing the offer didn't cover.
“I don’t want anything from you,” you said, having to force your face out of his hands as you stepped back.
His jaw worked. His hands had dropped to his sides and hung there, opening and closing on nothing.
Jack was right. He’d made the divorce as easy as possible.
That was the thing you believed you could never forgive him for, the ease that seemed to come to him. He’d been a complete gentleman about the entire dismantling of your life. He’d signed where the mediator flagged without reading past the first page, waved off the better half of the furniture, told the woman with the clicking pen that whatever you wanted was fine by him in a voice so reasonable you’d wanted to come across the table. He’d shown up to every appointment five minutes early and dissolved five years like he was discharging a patient who’d done well.
He had not once made it hard. He’d promised you that, and he’d delivered on it the way he delivered on every promise except the one that had counted. The keeping of it had been its own small daily knife; every easy signature had been proof there’d been nothing in it heavy enough to shake.
There was a part of you that wondered if he was handing out all of these tiny grievances on purpose. A cruel man you could have hated, and hate would have been such a kindness to yourself; hate was portable, durable, and something you could build a new life on top of. But he’d held back from giving you a single thing to hate.
Hate would have been better than this, instead of loving a man you had no good reason left to love and no bad reason to stop. It wasn’t like he was keeping you on a leash; he’d simply let go of it, gently, and left you holding all this love with no one decent to blame for it.
You hated him anyway. You had to hate someone, and he’d left you no one but him, just the fact of him.
His hands had shaken at the wedding. You kept that fact like a stone in your shoe. He’d had to press them flat against his thighs through the vows, and afterward, in the awful relief of the receiving line, he’d told you it was the only time his body had ever flat-out betrayed him in front of an audience. Combat hadn’t done it. A femoral bleed at twenty-three hadn’t done it. You had done it.
Five years on, those same hands had signed you away, and they hadn’t trembled once. You’d watched and later hated yourself for watching, waiting for the tremor that never came, and the steadiness of his signature told you everything the eight sentences at the altar once had, just in the opposite direction.
So you’d done the avoiding part of it all, which was just an engineering of a hundred small choices that made sure to keep you two on opposite sides of any given wall. You took the dog hand-offs at the threshold and never once let him past the doorway and into your apartment. You made sure to avoid him in the case that you were on the ED floor during shift-change. You sent the rest of the paperwork by courier. You’d gotten really, really good at missing him on purpose, and you thought it as a proof of your healing, that it had started to take less effort.
That was how you’d talked yourself into this. After eight whole weeks of clean avoidance, you’d decided—with arrogance after not having been tested—that you were past the danger of him. You could stand in a room with Jack Abbot and feel nothing more complicated than the low civil ache of a thing concluded.
So you agreed to meet him at your marital apartment. The one you’d kept in the split and couldn’t live in—you’d lasted six nights in it before the wrong shape of him in the doorway drove you to your new place across town—and were now, finally, selling. The buyers wanted to close clean, which meant the last of the shared things had to go, the few heavy pieces neither of you had wanted to claim, the boxes in the hall closet that had sat sealed since before the wedding.
His name was still on the deed until Friday. There were papers that needed both your signatures and a key that needed to go back and a life that needed, at last, to be carried out the door in pieces. It required the two of you.
You were late, though. By ten minutes, but still late.
He was already showing the place. He had his back turned to you when you came in, standing in the bare living room with a young couple, walking them through in a low, even voice. You stopped just inside the door, because you weren’t ready just yet.
“—gets the morning light on this side, good for plants if you’re into that. She kept one alive for years, don’t ask how—thing should’ve died ten times sooner.” He had his hands in his pockets, then put them behind his back. “Floors are original. We sanded them down ourselves one summer. There won’t be any problems with them.” he paused.
You felt something in your stomach lurch as you heard him describe the apartment through your marriage, selling it as a floorplan.
“About the light in the bedroom?” the woman asked. “We were here in the morning last time. I wondered about the evenings.”
“Evenings are the good ones,” Jack said. “Back of the place faces west. Around six, six-thirty this time of year, the whole—” He turned, gesturing toward the bedrooms, and that was when he saw you. “—the back rooms go gold. She’d—”
His breath caught, the small hitch, the sentence falling off the edge of whatever he'd been about to say about you and the gold light and the evenings, a thing he hadn't planned on saying out loud and definitely hadn't planned on saying to your face. He hadn't seen you in weeks.
Then he cleared his throat. “You made it,” he said. “This is the couple. They’ve got questions about the back bedroom. You’ll do better on that than me.”
You did the back bedroom. You told the wife about the gold light yourself, since he’d choked on it. You did not tell her what he’d been about to say, which was that you used to read in there, because you had; you’d dragged the one good chair into the light and read until the gold went gray. Jack would come find you, stand in the doorway with his arms crossed, with a look on his face; you’d spent eight weeks trying to remember what it looked like.
You gave the wife the color name and the square footage and absolutely none of that. She loved the room. She said she could see a nursery in it, one hand drifting to her stomach, and you smiled and agreed it was perfect. Jack went very still three feet behind you, and neither of you looked at the other, and the moment passed.
Then it was done, things like this—endings—were always anticlimactic. The realtor fanned the last papers across the kitchen island and the two of you signed in turn, passing the pen back and forth without your fingers touching. The couple shook your hands and thanked you, warm and oblivious, already half-living here in their heads.
The realtor passed her card onto you, like you’d ever need her for a thing again, and then the door shut behind the three of them and their entire unmarked future.
It was just the two of you. The apartment swelled up, enormous around you, all that empty light, the bare floor, the nothing.
“God.” You crossed your arms, looking at the empty living rooms, the squares on the walls where frames had been, the indentations on the floor where furniture stood so long it left a mark. “I hate that someone else is gonna be living here.”
Your words came out flatter and uglier than the sentiment, and that was the only place you could’ve said it. You wouldn’t miss it, there was nothing soft, just the low territorial burn of it.
“Some other people. In the—rooms. She’s gonna put a crib in there and they’re gonna paint over my favourite color and they’ll never know we were ever—” You stopped, shrugged, hard, like you could shake the rest of the sentence off. “I don’t even wanna live here. I just hate that they get to.”
“That’s not very nice,” he said, huffing. He went quiet for a second then, placing his hands behind him, looking at the same empty room you were. “Yeah. I don’t love it either.”
You walked across the empty space, to the windows to look out of it.
After a moment, he said, “Why couldn’t you just keep it?”
You let out a baffled, almost disbelieved laugh. “What? To bring the next guy into?”
It landed so, so wrong. You felt him go still behind you once again. You hadn’t meant it as a weapon as much as you’d meant it as a deflection, a way to wave off the question, to make it into something easy and bitter you could swat down. You turned around to look at him.
“Right,” he huffed, something close to a laugh as he looked at the bare floor. “You could’ve let him know the floor’s good for another thirty years. Somebody put a lot on that floor.”
He looked up at you, meeting your eyes. This was as close to the real thing as he could’ve said, but his eyes had gone dark and fixed, only looking at you.
You should have looked away. You should have made some dry thing back about the floor and let the joke work on the second try, let the both of you off the hook, walked it back to civil.
You weren’t sure when your body decided to, but you crossed the room. Your body was already moving while the smarter part of you was still standing at the window forming the objection. And then you were across the bare floor you’d built together and your hand fisted in the front of his shirt, pulling him down to your mouth before either of you could find a reason not to.
He made a sound against you—low, ruined, and completely off-guard—as he came apart all at once, eight weeks of gentleman dissolving the second you touched him.
“Oh—” It broke out of him against your lips, half a word, breath more than voice. “God. Okay.”
His hands were on you before he’d finished saying it, both of them, one flat between your shoulder blades and one cupping the back of your skull, hauling you in like he’d been dying to do so.
He kissed you with nothing smooth in it, nothing of the easy unhurried Jack who ran the tempo in dark bars and made you ask twice; this was just want, naked and graceless, his mouth opening over yours and a rough noise climbing out of his chest. His fingers tightened in your hair.
For a second, you let it be that. For one second, you let yourself have the whole of him, the heat coming off him, the give in him, the way his body curved down into you. Then his mouth gentled.
That was the danger, it always had been with him. You could survive his want, for that was simply heat and you knew what to do with that. It was when the want turned careful, when his hand slid from your skull to your jaw and held it like something he’d been trusted with. His mouth slowed and deepened, it stopped taking and started asking.
The rough noise in his chest softened into something like relief, like he wanted you to know he’d missed you and was telling you so with his mouth because he’d not been able to do so with his words. You felt your own chest cracking along the seam of it. You felt the back of your eyes go hot.
You couldn’t let yourself have that. Tenderness from Jack would end you. Tender—especially here, in the emptied-out apartment with his hand on your face like the divorce hadn’t happened—would put you on your knees on the floor he’d built and you wouldn’t be able to get up.
You bit his lip hard, and dragged your hands down to his belt, trying to turn the whole thing back into the survivable one, the one with no feelings you could drown in.
“Easy—” he said against your mouth. “Hey, easy.” He caught your wrists, both of them, gentling them off his belt.
“We’ve got the place until Friday.” He pulled back just enough to find your face, his forehead dropping to yours with his breath gone ragged. His thumb stroked over the inside of your wrist, and his voice dropped. “Slow down, alright? Let me do this right. Not—not like this.”
“Stop. There’s nothing to do right.” You pulled your wrists free. “Look where we are.”
“I’m looking.”
“No, you’re—” You stepped back, enough to make him see it, the whole of it; the bare room, the emptiness, the bare walls, the gold light falling on nothing. “There’s nothing left to fuck up. We—we already wrecked all of it. There’s nothing left to protect here,” you said, words coming exactly as small as you’d meant them to. “So there’s nothing to do right.”
Five years filed down to an offer of just sex, the marriage reduced to a wrecked room you didn’t own anymore, said with a shrug in your voice so it couldn’t get its hands on you.
He pulled back just enough to get your face in focus, and the heat in him guttered under something else, something winded and unhappy moving through his features. His brows pinched together.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” he said, murmuring. “Don’t say shit like that.”
You felt your face go hard against it, the wall coming up like a reflex slamming in place.
If it got to be something you’d have admit why you'd crossed it, why you were really here, that you'd let eight weeks of careful distance go to pieces because you were starving for the one thing he could still give you even if it was the crudest, smallest version of it. And that wasn't survivable. So your eyes went flat and your jaw set and you looked at him like you dared him to push it.
His eyes scanned your face quickly, something close to understanding creeping into him. “This doesn’t feel right,” he said in a resigned tone.
“It’s not right.” You held his eyes. “That’s the whole point.”
He let out a slow breath through his nose, and you watched him set it down. His hand left your wrist and found your hip instead, and his eyes came up to yours, tired but level. “You want this?” he said, hardly a question, just him meeting you down in the nothing where you’d planted your flag.
You nodded once.
It took him a moment where his eyes held your own, then his mouth was back on yours, harder now. He done it the way you demanded; no questions, no relief, no slowness. His hands found the hem of your shirt and went under, before deciding to rid you of the fabric altogether.
You lifted your arms, and the air of the empty apartment was cool to your skin where his hands had been. He got his own shirt over his head one-handed, that careless practiced pull, and you put your palms flat to his chest just to feel the heat coming off him, the familiar weight of him, the dog tags still there on their chain against his sternum even now, even divorced, and you didn't let yourself think about that.
Your hands reached down to his belt again, and this time he let you. You got the buckle open, the rough drag of the zipper filled the room, and his breath hitched against your temple. His own hands went to the waist of your jeans and worked them down with a single-minded efficiency that had no ceremony in it at all.
Nothing that resembled the thousand other times this had happened in this apartment with a ring on each of your hands.
He took you both down with an arm banded across your back, and then you were on the floor—the floor you’d built, the one thing the two of you had started and finished, five coats and a whole August of your knee cursing you forever—and here you were on a Friday on your knees one last time, in a room that stopped being yours by next Friday.
He settled over you, braced on one forearm, breathing hard, and for a second he just looked down at you in the long gold light. His hands hesitantly reached up, thumb pressing down against your bottom lip as he furrowed his brows.
“So pretty,” he murmured, almost to himself, like the sight of you laid down on the floor was something being done to him. His thumb dragged along your lip, collecting the slick on the pad of his skin. “Shit. C’mere—I’m not—” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Let me look at you a second. That’s all.”
You let him. You straightened your legs. His body towered over yours as he leaned up, and you went down, letting your back hit the floor.
He settled himself between your legs, and his mouth found your throat, your collarbone, the dip of your sternum and his hand slid down your stomach and between your thighs. Your spine lifted off the ground an inch as his finger drew a line down your slit, before pushing in like he knew exactly what to do. He’d always known exactly what to do.
“Quit rushing me,” he said, other hand pressing flat against your hip, stilling it when you tried to push it faster. His fingers worked deeper, curving inside just slightly to press up achingly well against your walls. “Gotta get you ready first. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
His mouth moved down off your throat to your sternum and pressed a kiss there, dead center, over the place your heart was slamming.
His free hand spread wide and warm over your lower stomach, holding you down into the floor, and the two fingers inside you kept going the same pace, the opposite of what you needed from him; he just sank them deeper, slow, pressed up, and went still there, letting you know exactly how much you wanted it before he’d give you anymore.
You tried to push your hips up into his hand. He pressed them flat again with the heel of his palm, so patient you could’ve screamed.
“I know what you want,” he murmured against your skin, almost amused at how hard you were rushing it. “Let me.”
His thumb found you then, moving in slow circles against the bundle of nerves, and he continued moving his fingers in the same rhythm. You could feel the boards against your spine.
Your body knew this floor. It had a memory of being here that had nothing to do with this, and his thumb pressed a fraction harder, and his mouth came back up to your jaw, and the wall in you started going whether you'd signed off on it or not.
He worked you right up to the edge like that, unhurried, his fingers curling into the spot that made your thighs shake, his mouth at your throat, and you felt the wall going—felt your own control sliding out from under you the way it always had with him, helpless, humiliating—and you bit down on every sound, gave him nothing, until you couldn't.
“Jack,” you said, name breaking out of you ragged. “I need—just—I need you in, please—”
His breath caught over you, and his hand left your hip to drop to himself, palming the length of his cock, a rough involuntary squeeze like he was ready to give you exactly what you needed right that second. His forehead dropped to your collarbone.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Say it again.”
You shook your head, already regretting it, already trying to climb back behind the wall—but he lifted up, found your face, and his eyes were dark and blown and desperate, not playing the tempo now, not running anything, just a man who'd heard the one thing he'd been starving eight weeks for and needed to hear it land twice to believe it.
“C’mon. You want me, say it,” he said, voice pleading.
“I want you,” you said quickly, the words coming out small and true. You hated how true they sounded, that he’d pried them loose, hated more that the relief on his face at the stupid words nearly broke you in half. “I want you, Jack. Just—now, please.”
He made a sound—low, gutted—and then he was lining up and pushing into you, slow and deep and devastating, his breath sawing out ragged against your jaw, and the stretch of it punched the air clean out of your lungs.
You let out a broken sound at the familiar feeling, your spine arching off the boards to take more of him. You felt yourself clench around him, greedy, your own body giving you up.
He buried himself to the hilt and held there, shaking, his forehead pressed to yours, both of you breathing hard into the small space between your mouths.
“There,” he said. “There.”
His hands swept down and hooked under your thighs, hauling them up and around him. His grip went too tight, fingers digging into your muscle hard enough that a sound tore out of you, half pain and half the other thing, pleasure, impossible to separate.
He gentled instantly. “Sorry.” The grip eased, fingers smoothing over the marks even as his hips pressed you harder into the floor. “I’ve got no—can’t think straight.”
“S’ok,” you murmured. “Move.”
He pulled back slow, almost all the way, dragging out until you felt the loss of him, and drove back in hard, once, the single stroke punching a sound out of both of you.
For a second he just stayed there, seated to the hilt, his hand flexing on your hip like he was reining himself in by hand, gathering the pieces of his own composure back up off the floor.
You felt a shudder go through him, and then his forehead came back down to yours and he started to move like he’d decided to make it last.
He set a deep, unhurried pace that almost killed you right there, his hands hauling up your hips to meet every drag of him, the wet sound of it loud in the empty room.
One of his hands slid from your hips, thumb finding you exactly where you needed it, working tight, slow circles in time with the roll of him into you, because he had never taken his without giving you yours first. He knew the pressure. He knew the rhythm. He’d always known.
You bit down on your lip to keep it in, all of it in. You couldn’t help but let your eyes latch onto his, hold onto the way he looked at you, like you were the only thing in the world worth looking at. It should’ve been the thing that saved you, looking at him, but it was the thing that ruined you.
The wall went; there was no piece of you that could hold it up, not with him looking at you like that, not with his thumb working exactly right and his hips driving up slow and merciless.
He felt it before you did, felt the first flutter of you going tight around him and his whole rhythm shifted to chase it. His thumb pressed harder and his hips shifted slightly to find another angle. A broken noise climbed out of you, the first one that he’d caught onto.
"There you go," he breathed, ragged and almost reverent, like he'd been waiting these eight weeks for that sound and would wait eight more. "I've got you. I've got you."
Your hands found his back and pulled him in past where there was room. You came apart him with a sound you’d never have let out if you’d had a single defense left.
Through the blur in your vision, you could still make out how everything in him went still and open and almost stricken with it. His breath left him in a low broken rush, like the sight of you was a blow he was taking gladly.
His hands came up your back, your ribs, your face, gathering you, holding you through it like you’d come apart for real if he didn’t, and the sounds coming out of him and hardly reaching your ears over the ringing were ruined and reverent, your name coming out in pieces.
He didn't move for a moment after, didn't chase his own end, didn't do anything but look up at you in the gold light with his chest heaving and his eyes wet at the rims and his hands framing your face like he was holding a thing he'd been told he'd never get to hold again. Like you were the only holy thing left in an emptied-out room. Like he'd have stayed buried in you on the floor for the rest of his life if you'd let him, and counted it mercy.
His thumb swept under your eye, your cheekbone, reverent. And then it moved again, like he was wiping something away, and you realized with a sick lurch that maybe he was.
“Help me.” He tilted his neck down, looking to you. “C’mon—I’m right there. Help me out,” he said, hardly a command. It was barely a breath, and his forehead dropped to yours as his hips moved in a drag; he was holding it, you could feel him holding it, rationing himself down to the dregs.
“Jack—” His name cracked out of you.
His hand found yours where it was fisted against his chest, over the dog tags, and drew it up to his neck. “Just this—”
Your palm dragged up his neck, letting the cold of it slide over the heat on his neck, to reach up to his cheek. He turned his face into your palm and pressed his mouth there, to the center of it, slow. It was a kiss you felt in your teeth, in the backs of your knees. He held himself there with his eyes closed, breathing you in off your skin.
His hips picked up, a little faster, a little less careful, the restraint starting to fray.
“Talk,” he said against your palm. The words pressed into your skin. “C’mon. I’m close, just—talk to me. Anything. Say something—let me hear you.”
And there it was, the thing he needed, the thing he'd never be able to finish without—not the friction, not your hand, you, your voice, the proof you were in there with him. Talk to me. The exact words you'd worn yourself hoarse saying to him for two years while he gave you silence, handed back to you now on a bare floor, his mouth against your hand, his hips going faster, a man who'd finally learned to ask for the thing too late to save anything by it.
“I know. I know—can feel it.” Your thumb dragged at his cheek, your voice gone soft and ragged and certain. “Just go. I’ve got you.” Your hand slid from his cheek to the back of his neck, holding him to you, your mouth at his temple. “You feel good, Jack.”
His rhythm went ragged and deep and his breath punched out against your jaw. You felt the whole length of him go tight, and then he was coming apart with your name buried in his throat, that wrecked sound dragged out of him. His arms locked around you.
You held him through it. You didn't think about it; your body just did it, your hand at his nape, your other arm coming around his back, your mouth still at his temple where you could feel his pulse going hard. He shook against you. He pressed into you like he was trying to get closer than the angle allowed, and you let him, and for the length of it there was no wall at all, just the two of you and the gold light and the floor and the thing neither of you would name afterward.
Then it was over, and the room got very quiet, and you could feel the exact moment it started to come back to him—the where you were, the what you'd just done, the apartment that stopped being yours on Friday—because his arms didn't loosen so much as change, the grip going from simply holding to holding on.
His face stayed in your neck. The gold had gone amber on the bare walls. Somewhere below, you heard a car door, the ordinary world carrying on outside the empty box a room where you’d just undone yourself on a man you’d divorced.
The haze started to lift, and with it the wall came back; you felt it rebuild itself brick-by-brick, the way it always did, the cold rushing back into places he’d warmed. You’d done it. You were lying there with his arms locked around you and his pulse under your palm. Eight weeks of avoidance, eight weeks of telling yourself the missing was getting easier, everything you’d built to prove you were past him. You’d dismantled it all in an empty apartment in under an hour. You weren’t anywhere near past him; you’d just proven it to the floor you’d built, with your own two hands, and there was no unknowing it now.
The regret came in slow and total, like cold water filling a room.
You weren't crying. You didn't do that, not really, not where it could be seen. But something in you went very far away, very fast, the way it did—you felt yourself leave, felt the distance open up between you and the room and the man holding you in it, and you stared past his shoulder at the dying light on the bare wall and grieved, hollow and silent, not him exactly but yourself, the thing you'd just learned you couldn't do, the trap you'd just watched yourself walk into with your eyes wide open.
“Hey.” He lifted up enough to find your face, and whatever he found there put the stricken look back on his face.
He huffed, brows drawing together in an expression that looked something like hurt. “That fast, huh?” His thumb moved under your jaw, gentler than the joke.
You let out a shaky breath. You could feel yourself going, and you couldn’t stop it. The wall was already sealing the last of its seams, the cold settling back over you like a coat you’d taken off and now had to put back on in front of him. You shifted, and he let you—he always let you—and you climbed out from under him and found your clothes in the gray light, your back to him, your hands not quite steady doing up the button of your jeans.
Behind you, you heard him sit up. Heard the quiet of him pulling himself back together, the rustle of denim, the small grunt as he got the leg under him the way he did. Neither of you said anything. The apartment had gone enormous again, all that empty air, the thing you'd done still hanging in it.
“That was selfish,” you said facing the wall. “I shouldn’t have—that wasn’t fair. To you. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
“Done what to me?” His voice came from behind you, low and level. You heard him cross the floor and stop, not touching, but close enough that you could feel the warmth of him at your back. “It’s that’s selfish, then be selfish,” he said after a moment when you didn’t respond.
His hands hovered over your shoulder, and you felt them settle after a second and turn you around to face him.
“You’re sorry it happened?”
You made yourself hold his eyes, which was its own small punishment, because his were doing the thing—open, steady, waiting, the guard down in a way he never let it be with his clothes on. He'd left you the room to say no. He was standing there in the gray light with the dog tags still hanging against his bare chest, asking you to tell him this had been something, and the easy mercy was right there and you couldn't pick it up.
“It shouldn’t have.” Then, you added, “We’re divorced.”
“Yeah,” he said wryly. “I was there. I signed it.”
You huffed—the ghost of a laugh leaving you—and it irritated you that he could still do that, pull the almost-laugh out of you in the middle of the worst of it.
“I mean it, Jack.” You stepped back, out of the warmth of him. “It can’t happen again.”
He never argued you; that was half the problem and had always been. He just looked at you, steady, his guard still down in a way it wouldn't be by tomorrow, and let the silence answer for him, because what you just said was exactly the thing that meant nothing, and you both knew it meant nothing, and he wasn't going to insult either of you by pretending to believe it.
Welcome to my little corner of yearning, intimacy, softness, sharp ache, and fictional men with too many feelings. Still organizing and updating as I go — if something is missing, it’s probably living in the chaos folder and will be added soon 🤍
18+ only. Minors do not interact.
All works are reader-insert unless stated otherwise. Please read individual warnings before each fic.
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New here? Start with these:
for soft married Jack: | Worth Seeing |
for angst and yearning: | Nothing Casual |
for smut with emotional intimacy: | Page 212 |
for domestic chaos: | I Want That One |
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The Pitt
Jack Abbot
vibes: yearning, emotional intimacy, caretaking, angst, softness, smut, domestic devotion, fictional men with too many feelings
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series
Pulse Point (Completed)
jack abbot x reader | 50 chapters | completed | 18+
vibes: night shift romance, slow burn, ER chaos, angst, yearning, caretaking, emotional intimacy, Jack Abbot learning feelings are unfortunately terminal
summary:
My first ever Jack Abbot fic, and the one that started this whole little universe.
Pulse Point follows Jack and Reader through 50 chapters of night shifts, trauma bays, quiet hallways, complicated feelings, and the kind of intimacy that builds slowly — one look, one conversation, one almost too-honest moment at a time.
Nothing Casual (Completed)
jack abbot x reader | ongoing | 18+
vibes: casual arrangement, emotional damage, angst, forced proximity, yearning, complicated intimacy
summary: What started as something casual between you and Jack Abbot was never supposed to become something soft. It was never supposed to feel like coffee in your kitchen, his hand on your back, or wanting comfort from a man who kept insisting he could not give you more.
You Never Asked (Completed)
jack abbot x wife!reader | ongoing | 18+
vibes: secretly-but-not-secretly married, pregnancy, domestic softness, workplace chaos, protective jack
summary: You and Jack have been married for years. PTMC just never asked.
Source Material Universe (Potentially Ongoing)
jack abbot x wife!reader | ongoing collection | 18+
vibes: smut books, intimacy, trust, exploration, married softness, desire without shame
summary: When Jack discovers your annotated romance books, the red tabs become more than a joke. They become a language for wanting, trusting, asking, and exploring the kind of intimacy that only feels possible because it is him.
Source Material
Page 212
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Worth Seeing (Completed)
jack abbot x wife!reader | ongoing collection | 18+
vibes: boudoir photos, body confidence, married intimacy, worshipful jack, emotional smut
summary: A boudoir shoot begins as something you do for yourself. But when Jack sees the photos, he does not just see your body. He sees you seeing yourself — beautiful, confident, and finally worth looking at.
| Part 1 | Part 2 |
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First Cup (Completed)
jack abbot x reader | ongoing | 18+
vibes: coffee, quiet intimacy, early mornings, emotional softness, slow devotion
summary: Jack Abbot is steady under pressure. ER chaos does not shake him. You do. It starts with one comment, one look held too long, and the unfortunate discovery that you have started noticing him right back.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Bonus |
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We’re Not Done (Completed)
jack abbot x reader | ongoing | 18+
vibes: workplace tension, restraint as foreplay, supply room kiss, night shift almosts, forbidden attraction, attending/nurse tension, sexy slow burn, Jack losing control, “we should not be doing this” energy
summary: Jack Abbot is very good at control. Unfortunately, night shift at PTMC has too many quiet hallways, too many almosts, and too many chances for him to stand too close and say almost nothing. Then one night, almost finally becomes too much.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Epilogue |
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Trope Anatomy (Ongoing)
writing/trope series | ongoing
vibes: silly, dramatic, romance craft, trope breakdowns, yearning as academic research
summary:
A playful little series where I dissect romance tropes like they are serious scientific specimens, because fictional yearning deserves scholarship.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 |
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one-shots
Leave It On
jack abbot x reader | 18+
vibes: dominance, emotional intimacy, consent, trust, established relationship
summary:
Jack knows how to be intense. More importantly, he knows how to make sure you feel safe while he is.
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Courtship Rocks
jack abbot x wife!reader | 18+
vibes: drunk jack, shakespeare nonsense, married chaos, comedy, soft devotion
summary:
A very drunk Jack Abbot decides he is not simply coming home to his wife. He is courting her.
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Where Is My Husband
jack abbot x wife!reader | 18+
vibes: drunk wife, hot husband appreciation, caretaker jack, chaos, comedy
summary:
Girls’ night gets out of hand, and Jack is called in to collect his wife — who may or may not remember she is already married to him.
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Hydrated Justice
jack abbot x wife!reader | one-shot | 18+
vibes: feral drunk wife, jealous wife chaos, attempted bar fight, caretaker Jack, married banter, hot responsible husband, hydration as romance
summary:
When a woman hits on Jack at the bar, his very drunk wife takes it personally. Jack is forced to prevent a bar fight, enforce hydration, and survive being claimed very loudly in public.
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I Want That One
jack abbot x wife!reader | one-shot | 18+
vibes: pain meds with no filter, secret husband reveal, day shift chaos, feral wife commentary, hot forearms, caretaker Jack, married banter
summary:
After a pediatric patient panics during an IV start, you end up in the ED with a dislocated shoulder, a lot of pain meds, and absolutely no filter. The day shift learns three things very quickly: Jack Abbot is your husband, you picked that one, and apparently, his forearms are medically relevant.
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Micahel 'Robby' Robinavitch
vibes: sharp banter, emotional avoidance, exhausted doctor energy, reluctant softness, big feelings under sarcasm
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Marital Dancing Rights
robby robinavitch x wife!reader | one-shot | 18+
vibes: married Robby, girls’ night chaos, jealous-but-trying-to-be-normal husband, dancing, banter, soft domestic aftermath
summary:
When girls’ night gets a little too fun, Robby is forced to confront the fact that his wife is hot, beloved, and fully capable of making him lose his mind in public.
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Animal Kingdom
Pope Cody
vibes: beach town, grief, quiet intimacy, found safety, emotional slow burn, protective softness, complicated family shadows
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series
The House by the Water (Ongoing)
pope cody x reader | ongoing | 18+
vibes: beach mornings, Lena, grief, sandcastles, protective Pope, slow trust, quiet caretaking, emotional intimacy
summary:
When you meet Lena on the beach, building sandcastles becomes the beginning of something softer than anyone expected. Pope Cody is careful, guarded, and difficult to read, but the more you become part of Lena’s world, the harder it is for him to keep you out of his.
| Chpt. 1 |
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