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i love you semicolon. no one look at my 80 word sentence
Not so tough now, Darlin'?
Pairing: jackson!Joel x f!reader
Summary: You're pretty good at pissing off Joel Miller. He's very good at teaching you a lesson during a self-defense training session.
Warnings: +18, MDNI, dub-con, dark!Joel all the way, knife play, brat-tamer!Joel, bound wrists, Joel calls reader kiddo, darlin’, sweetheart, maybe baby girl once?, fingering, p in v (unprotected, sooo… don’t pls), no use of y/n, reader’s acting all tough but has little to no chance against our man, let me know if i forgot any…
A/N: this is the result of a trope survey I did, Joel Miller & enemies to lovers came in first (of course it did :D). If you are interested in the others just follow the link.
wc: 9.2k (Joel is a cruel motherfucker...)
My Pedro-Character-Masterlist
“You’re a spoiled brat. Somebody ought to teach you a lesson. Maybe then you’d start takin’ your damn part in patrol seriously instead of driftin’ along until the day they find you dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Those had been the words that started it.
A surprising amount of them, too, coming from a man who usually communicated in grunts and clipped little sentences. Around Jackson, most people were used to hearing two, maybe three words from Joel Miller at a time.
But that afternoon in the stables he had let loose like a storm breaking.
To be fair - if you forced yourself to be honest about it - you had pushed him there.
The last patrol together had been… relaxed. On your side, anyway. Maybe a little too relaxed. You had missed a couple signs you should have caught, let your attention drift more than once while walking the tree line. Nothing dangerous had happened, but Joel had noticed. Of course he had. The man noticed everything.
Still, the whole lecture had felt unfair.
When you rode patrol with Joel Miller, the man practically absorbed the entire job himself. He checked the tracks, listened to the wind, scanned every ridge like something deadly was about to crawl over it. Half the time he handled things before you even had a chance to step in.
Trying to assist often felt like showing up late to a fight he had already finished.
So yeah - maybe you had been less attentive than you should have been. But it wasn’t because you didn’t care.
It was because when Joel was beside you, the world felt… handled.
That realization had landed right as he was finishing his little speech.
And instead of apologizing like the sensible part of your brain suggested - maybe slipping out of the stables before things got worse - you had planted your boots firmly in the dirt.
“Who then?” you shot back, folding your arms as the words came out sharper than planned. “You're gonna be the one teaching me? I’d love to see you try, old man.”
The moment the words left your mouth, you knew the last part had been unnecessary.
Joel had a particular talent for getting under your skin, but calling him old man had been like flicking a match into dry grass.
The reaction was immediate.
He went still.
Then he released the horse’s reins without looking, letting them fall loosely over the post as he stepped out of the stall. Each step measured enough that your instincts kicked in before your pride could stop them. You weren’t even sure when your own boots shifted backward, but the space between you widened all the same.
Joel’s expression didn’t change much.
That was the unsettling part.
His eyes stayed locked on you, dark and assessing, like he was already calculating something.
“Well,” he drawled after a beat, voice calm in a way that felt more dangerous than the shouting had. “That’s not the worst idea you’ve had.” Another step closer. “Been hearin’ you skipped more’n a few of those self-defense drills lately.” His gaze dragged over you. “Let’s see how tough you act when someone actually puts you on your back.”
And that was how you ended up trudging through ankle-deep snow on what should have been a perfectly quiet afternoon off.
Because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.
The wind dragged like cold fingers through the trees lining the path to the training barn, snow crunching under your boots with every step as you replayed the moment in the stables for the hundredth time. If you had just walked away - if you had swallowed your pride for once - you’d be somewhere warm right now.
Instead, you had challenged Joel Miller to prove you wrong.
And if you were being honest with yourself, the irritation between you two wasn’t exactly one-sided. Getting under Joel’s skin had become a strange sort of sport. The man had a way of grinding against your nerves until you snapped back without thinking.
Apparently the feeling went both ways.
Your breath curled in pale clouds as the barn came into view, the big wooden structure crouched quietly beneath a dusting of snow. No voices. No movement. Just the faint creak of wood shifting in the cold.
You reached it later than the time he had given you.
Technically by accident.
Mostly.
A small, petty part of you had slowed your pace on purpose. Let him stew a little. Pissed people made mistakes. And today you had every intention of knocking Joel Miller down a peg or two.
The barn door groaned softly when you pushed it open.
Inside, the air was colder than you expected, the structure barely insulated from the winter outside. Your boots echoed faintly against the packed floor as you stepped in, shrugging out of your thick coat and shaking snow from the sleeves.
“Joel?” you called, voice carrying through the wide space.
You draped the coat over a small wooden stool near the entrance. If this training session looked anything like the handful of drills you’d bothered attending before, you wouldn’t stay cold for long.
Movement would fix that.
The training area had been mostly cleared out. A broad patch of packed dirt and old mats where Jackson ran its combat practice. Last time you’d been here it had been crowded - laughter, teasing, half the patrol crew watching each other stumble through holds and throws.
Now the place felt different.
Quieter.
Dim light filtered through the high slats in the barn walls, dust and hay drifting lazily through the beams. A few old crates were stacked toward the back, casting long crooked shadows across the floor. Somewhere deeper inside, a loose board creaked softly with the wind.
But most notably - no Joel.
You suppressed the thought that Joel Miller was almost never late. If anything, he was the kind of man who showed up ten minutes early just to glare at everyone else.
Still.
If the universe decided to make an exception today, you weren’t about to complain.
“Joel?” you called again, already turning back toward the door as you reached for your coat. “If this is some kinda joke -”
A faint shuffle cut through the quiet behind you.
Subtle enough that it could have been anything. The wind blowing through a crack in the boards. A rat scurrying somewhere in the hay.
But your brain, helpful as ever, supplied a different thought.
What if something actually had happened?
Joel slipping on ice somewhere behind the barn. Old men did that, didn’t they?
The image made you snort a quiet laugh as you stepped deeper inside, heading toward the darker end of the building where the stacked crates sat like squat shadows.
“Joel?” you called again, tone lighter now.
No grumpy Texan clutching a broken hip greeted you. Just scattered hay, dirt, and the faint smell of old wood.
Then you noticed the tracks.
Boot prints pressed into the thin dust near the crates.
You barely had time to register them before something slammed into you from the side.
Hard.
The impact knocked the air clean out of your lungs as your body was driven backward into the stacked crates. Wood rattled violently behind you, the force of the hit folding you against it so abruptly that even the instinct to shout died in your throat.
All that escaped you was a strangled breath as the world lurched sideways and suddenly felt very, very close.
You only managed to catch yourself at the last second. Your boots slipped in the dust as the crates rattled behind you, but instinct kicked in before gravity could finish the job. One hand shot out, bracing against the wood long enough to steady yourself before you stumbled back into the more open space of the training floor.
And he followed.
“What the actual hell was that, Joel?!” you snapped, the words bursting out before your lungs had even properly recovered.
Joel Miller stepped out of the shadows like he had all the time in the world. The dim light spilling through the barn slats caught the edge of his shoulders, the familiar broad frame moving toward you with the same steady patience he carried everywhere.
He didn’t answer.
Just kept walking.
The deliberate silence set your nerves on edge faster than any insult could have.
Without thinking you took a step back - mirroring exactly what had happened in the stables earlier. Your heel scraped lightly over the packed dirt before you forced yourself to stop retreating. Straightened your back. Planted your feet.
You refused to give him the satisfaction twice.
“So…” You cleared your throat, hating the faint tremor that slipped into your voice anyway. “How are we doing this? Thought these things usually start with rules. You know. Demonstrations. Maybe someone showing the hold first before -”
A low chuckle slipped from him.
It carried about as much humor as a knife.
“You honestly think that’s what it looks like out there?” Joel muttered.
He rolled one shoulder as he moved, the motion stiff enough that you noticed it immediately. The impact must’ve hurt him too when he slammed into you. He masked it well, but the brief tightening of his jaw gave it away.
Still, the look he gave you afterward made it clear he didn’t care.
“Oh, darlin’,” he added quietly, voice dropping into that slow Texan drawl that usually meant trouble. “You’re in for a rude surprise.”
Two seconds.
That was about how long you had to swallow the sudden spike of unease rising in your chest.
Then the panic got burned away by something hotter.
The sheer audacity of this man.
You took two quick steps backward, widening the distance and shifting your weight the way you’d been taught during drills. Feet planted. Knees loose. Hands lifting instinctively toward your chest.
Fine.
If Joel wanted to play instructor like this, you’d show him you had actually listened during those classes.
Unfortunately, you were still underestimating just how serious he was about the lesson.
He moved before you could fully settle into your stance.
One moment he stood a few paces away.
The next he was on you.
Your hands shot up higher, ready to intercept a grab - because that was what the drills usually started with. Wrist control. Balance breaks.
Joel didn’t reach for your arms.
He swung.
An actual punch.
The movement came fast enough that your brain barely had time to process it. You ducked on instinct alone, dropping your shoulder just as his fist cut through the air where your head had been.
You avoided the worst of it.
But not all of it.
His knuckles clipped the side of your skull as they passed, the glancing contact sending a sharp buzz of pain through your temple that made your ears ring.
“Jesus, Joel!” you barked, staggering back a step as your hand flew to your cheek. “What the fuck -”
“Thought you might try talkin’ your way outta trouble too?” he grunted.
Another swing followed immediately.
You barely avoided that one too, stumbling sideways as the punch cut past your shoulder close enough to stir the air.
And that was when the realization finally clicked.
He wasn’t actually trying to hit you.
Not really.
If Joel had meant it - if he’d put his full weight behind those blows - you’d already be down. Nose broken. Lip split. Maybe worse.
This was controlled.
Terrifyingly precise.
“Of course not, you idiot,” you shot back, breath coming faster now as adrenaline started flooding your system. “I just -”
“You just what?” Joel cut in, circling closer. “Thought you could coast through patrols and let somebody else watch your back, kiddo?”
“I just thought -”
You never finished the sentence.
Because that was when he closed the distance completely.
One moment he was a step away.
The next his hands were on you.
His unyielding grip clamped onto your shoulders before you could react, momentum carrying straight through you as he hooked a foot behind your ankle and swept your legs out from under you in one brutal, practiced motion.
The world flipped.
Your back slammed into the old training mats hard enough to knock the air from your lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. Dust puffed around you as your vision flashed white for a split second, stars scattering across the edges of your sight.
You barely had time to register what had happened.
Because Joel was already on top of you.
His weight settled in fast, knees pinning your legs to the ground before you could kick free. One hand locked around each of your upper arms, forcing them down against the mat with a strength that left very little room for argument.
You tried to twist.
Tried to buck him off.
It didn’t move him an inch.
Joel leaned slightly over you, breath still steady despite the scuffle, his shadow falling across your face in the dim barn light.
“Weren’t thinkin’,” he muttered, voice low and rough. His grip tightened just enough to make the point unmistakable. “That right there’s the problem, darlin’.”
“Okay, you know what -” The words came out between clenched teeth as you bucked against his hold again, muscles straining even though every logical part of your brain already knew it was pointless.
Joel barely shifted.
Still, the flash of defiance in your eyes caught his attention for half a second. His gaze dipped toward you and he made a low sound under his breath as he adjusted his weight to counter your movement.
It wasn’t much.
Just enough pressure in the right places to remind you he was still very much in control.
He waited.
Actually waited.
Like he expected some brilliant comeback to fall out of your mouth.
So you gave him one.
“Fuck you, Joel.”
The words snapped out sharp and immediate, and before he could respond you twisted your hips hard - throwing your weight the way you’d been shown once during a half-forgotten training drill.
The motion had a name. Something about breaking a mount by shifting the opponent’s balance.
At the time it had sounded like wishful thinking.
But somehow -
It worked.
Almost.
Joel’s grip slipped just enough that you managed to twist sideways beneath him. Your shoulder rolled, your body following the momentum until suddenly you were face-down instead of pinned flat.
You didn’t wait.
You scrambled forward on instinct, boots digging against the mat as your hands clawed for traction in the dust.
Behind you, Joel sucked in a sharp breath.
The knee you’d driven into his ribs during the maneuver had clearly landed better than you’d planned.
For one brief, glorious second you thought you might actually get away.
Then his hand closed around the back of your belt.
The jerk backward was violent enough that your progress stopped instantly, your body sliding helplessly over the dusty mat as the inches you’d gained disappeared in a heartbeat.
Your fingernails scraped uselessly against the ground.
“Damn it -!”
You barely got the protest out before Joel leaned forward again.
One hand seized both your wrists, yanking them behind your back in a single brutal motion. His grip tightened until your arms were forced together, the angle making it impossible to twist free.
A second later his knees settled heavily against the backs of your legs, pinning you in place while his weight pressed down just enough to make resistance feel laughable.
You opened your mouth to curse him out.
Then you felt it.
The rough scrape of something fibrous brushing your skin.
Rope.
Your stomach dropped.
“Okay - Joel, wait!” The words came faster now as the cord circled your wrists, tightening with practiced efficiency. “Hold on a second -” The rope cinched tighter. “I said wait!” The sharp edge of panic in your own voice caught you off guard.
Joel didn’t react.
“Give me one good reason,” he said simply.
“What reason do you -?” You twisted your head, trying to glare up at him over your shoulder. “This isn’t funny, Joel.”
“It ain’t supposed to be.”
You squirmed beneath him as he pulled the knot snug, the rope biting just enough to make the reality of it sink in. It was too tight for a mere training unit.
You weren’t slipping out of that anytime soon.
Your body shifted restlessly under his weight, trying again to find leverage that simply wasn’t there.
Okay.
New strategy.
“Alright,” you muttered quickly, forcing the words out before the tension crawling up your spine could take over completely. “I get it. Message received. I should’ve paid more attention on patrol. That one’s on me.” The rope tugged tighter. “This is still unfair,” you added stubbornly.
Joel’s knee slid upward slightly as he finished securing the knot, pressing into the small of your back with deliberate weight.
“Fair?” he repeated. His voice carried a faint edge of disbelief. “You think the folks waitin’ out there care about your sense of fairness?”
You turned your head against the mat, cheek scraping the rough surface as you tried to look back at him.
Joel didn’t appear the least bit rattled.
His brows were drawn together the way they always were, deep lines etched across his forehead. The familiar salt-and-pepper beard framed a mouth set in that same firm line you’d seen a hundred times before.
But there was no anger now.
No smirk either.
Just a calm, steady focus that somehow felt worse.
You weren’t sure what exactly he was determined to do, and something about that thought made your chest tighten.
“No, it’s just…” you started, words faltering as you tried to find something that didn’t sound like outright surrender. “I wasn’t expecting you to be such a -”
The sentence cut off when Joel suddenly shifted.
His weight lifted from your back without warning.
Relief barely had time to register before his hands caught your shoulder and hip, rolling you over in one smooth motion.
You landed flat on your back again.
Joel settled over you almost immediately, kneeling around your legs the way he had earlier - only now your wrists were secured behind you, leaving your arms completely useless.
The position pulled uncomfortably at your shoulders, the rope tightening each time you moved. But you decided very quickly not to complain about that. Comfort clearly wasn’t high on Joel’s list of priorities today.
“- such a committed trainer?” Joel finished dryly.
You glared up at him.
“Such an asshole,” you corrected.
Your body twisted again beneath him, instinctively trying to knock him off balance. Your hips jerked upward, attempting to disrupt his center of gravity.
Joel barely shifted. If anything his crotch pushed into your center just as much to secure you.
“Newsflash, darlin’,” he muttered. “World outside Jackson ain’t exactly known for patience.”
You huffed out a breath, rolling your eyes despite the position.
“Yeah, alright. Point taken.” You shifted your shoulders experimentally against the rope. “So untie me already. Pretty sure the lesson stuck.”
Joel didn’t move.
Didn’t even look like he was considering it.
Instead he adjusted his weight slightly, settling into the kneeling position like someone getting comfortable for a long conversation.
Your stomach sank.
“Doubt it,” he said. The words were calm. Almost casual. “Lesson ain’t even started yet.”
Something flickered in his hand then.
Metal catching the faint light filtering through the barn walls.
And when your eyes dropped to it, the breath caught hard in your throat.
Joel had a knife.
For a moment you just stared at it. Then - unexpectedly - even to yourself, a laugh slipped out. It started as a short breath and turned into something sharper, almost incredulous.
Because this was Joel.
Joel Miller might be a lot of things - grumpy, stubborn, occasionally insufferable - but he wasn’t some deranged lunatic who’d decided to start carving people up during a training session.
The man patched fences for neighbors after long patrols. Helped haul lumber for repairs even when he’d already pulled double shifts. Joel Miller carried himself like someone who’d seen too much of the world to waste energy pretending to be nice, but you had never once seen him be cruel.
Rough, yes.
Unfair? Never.
So this?
This had to be part of the scare tactic.
A prop.
A way to drive the lesson home.
And hell… it was working.
Your laugh lingered a little longer than necessary, the sound edged with nerves you hoped he wouldn’t notice. When something overwhelmed you, that was usually how you dealt with it.
“Alright, alright,” you muttered, rolling your eyes toward him. “You can cut the theatrics now. What exactly are you planning to do with that?” You tilted your head slightly, trying to keep the tone casual. “Pretty sure the council won’t be thrilled if I walk back into town with knife wounds from a training exercise.”
You aimed for cool and unbothered. Joel’s eyes flickered briefly over your face. The faint tremor in your voice hadn’t slipped past him.
“Knife ain’t just for stabbin’ people,” he said flatly. “Might need to sign you up for a weapons lesson too while we’re at it.”
Before you could respond, the blade moved.
Not the sharp edge but the flat, dull side. Cold metal brushed lightly across your cheek.
Your head turned instinctively, trying to avoid it, but Joel followed the motion easily - guiding the blade downward along the line of your jaw and throat.
A slow trail of chilled steel.
The tip continued lower, slipping toward the collar of your shirt.
You stilled despite yourself.
The point of the knife tapped lightly against the first button of your flannel, clicking softly against the plastic.
Then the next.
And the next.
Each small contact felt absurdly loud in the quiet barn.
“Don’t see you doin’ much fightin’ right now,” Joel observed calmly. His chin tipped forward slightly, gesturing vaguely toward the position you were stuck in beneath him. “Someone got you pinned like this out there… what exactly’s your plan?”
“I wouldn’t get caught,” you shot back automatically.
Joel’s mouth twitched.
“If an old man can do it half asleep…” he said dryly, tossing your earlier insult right back at you, “I ain’t too confident you’d fare better with a group of raiders.”
Your eyes narrowed.
“If it were raiders,” you countered quickly, “I’d already be exactly where you said I’d end up. Dead somewhere in a ditch.” Your gaze flicked pointedly to the knife. “They’d want my gear. My rations. My weapons. Not my patience.”
Joel’s grin tilted sideways.
Not amused.
Just… knowing.
“You sure about that?” he murmured.
Before you could respond, the tip of the knife slid neatly between one of the lower buttons and its thread.
Your brain barely had time to register what he was doing before he twisted his wrist slightly.
Pop.
The button snapped free.
It shot somewhere over your shoulder, landing out of sight behind you.
“What the - Joel!”
Your head jerked up instinctively, more offended by the destruction of a perfectly good shirt than anything else. Still, something deeper shifted under your ribs.
Because Joel was right. Being captured out there - especially as a woman - wouldn’t end quickly.
Wouldn’t end kindly.
The next button popped.
Adrenaline flooded your bloodstream in a sudden rush and your body bucked beneath him again, instinct overriding reason.
The blade slipped. Not deep. But the point grazed your skin just enough to leave a sharp sting across your stomach.
“Watch it, jerk!” you hissed.
Joel stopped. But not out of concern.
Out of calculation.
Slowly the knife lifted from your half-open shirt and returned upward, the flat of the blade resting once again against the side of your neck.
“If I was one of them,” Joel said quietly, leaning closer, “and I had you stuck like this beneath me…” His voice dropped lower. “Best start pickin’ your words real careful.”
He was close enough now that you could see every line in his face.
Close enough that he had to see the flicker of fear creeping into your eyes.
And he didn’t stop.
Didn’t pull back.
Didn’t soften the pressure of his weight holding you down.
For one alarming second a thought flickered through your head.
He wasn’t ignoring your fear.
He was letting you sit with it.
Maybe even -
Enjoying the effect.
Your breathing slowed. When you spoke again, your voice came out colder than before. Enough that it caught his attention immediately.
“Yeah?” you murmured. Joel leaned a fraction closer, watching you carefully. “Then listen real close, Joel.”
But instead of the clever insult he was clearly expecting…
You gathered saliva.
And spat.
Right into his face.
Joel jerked back just enough that the dull side of the knife scraped lightly along your skin. The movement was quick - reflex more than intent - and for a second his brows pulled together in something close to surprise.
Then he huffed.
And laughed.
Not the dry little breath of amusement people in Jackson sometimes coaxed out of him. Not the brief exhale that usually passed for humor from Joel Miller.
This was different.
The sound came as a real laugh that rolled out of his chest before he could seem to stop it. It carried something sharp in it too - something edged with challenge that made the skin on the back of your neck prickle.
You realized, distantly, that you could probably count the times you’d heard Joel Miller laugh on one hand.
This one felt… new.
“Alright,” he muttered, still chuckling as he dragged the sleeve of his jacket across his face, wiping away the spit without much ceremony. “Go ahead. Act like a brat.” His dark eyes dropped back to yours. “Let’s see how far that attitude carries you.”
The knife returned to your shirt.
Before you could react, three buttons popped in quick succession.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
The sounds echoed in the quiet barn like small gunshots, fabric pulling apart under the pressure of the blade. Within seconds only the top button still held, the flannel hanging open enough that the cold air slipped easily against your skin.
Joel rested the tip of the knife against that final button, his gaze settling back on you.
“Tell me somethin’, darlin’,” he said, voice quieter now. “When does all that stubbornness finally turn into beggin’?” His mouth twitched faintly. “Be real interestin’ to hear you whimper for once.”
The knife didn’t move.
It waited there, hovering against the thread.
“I’d rather you stab me,” you shot back immediately, forcing the words out before hesitation could betray you. “You’re not getting a single plea out of me.”
It was a lie.
You both knew it.
The tension in your chest was already tightening, nerves and adrenaline twisting together into something that made your breathing shallow.
And yet… something inside you refused to back down.
Part pride.
Part curiosity.
Because a small, reckless voice in the back of your mind wanted to know just how far Joel Miller would actually push this lesson.
Surely not that far. Right?
You gave yourself a second to remember exactly who was sitting on top of you.
Joel Miller.
The same man who had barely glanced at you that one patrol when you’d slipped in the brush and torn your shirt on a branch. The fabric had ripped at exactly the wrong place, leaving your cleavage embarrassingly obvious for the rest of the trek back to Jackson.
Joel had looked away almost immediately.
Barely a second.
Like it hadn’t even registered.
That Joel Miller wasn’t about to take things further just to prove a point.
…Right?
And if he did…
Your stomach tightened unexpectedly.
Would it actually be so terrible?
“We’ll see about that,” Joel muttered.
The knife twisted.
Pop.
The final button gave way.
The front of your shirt fell open completely, the two sides sliding apart under the pressure of the blade as Joel used it to push the fabric aside. The cold metal drifted slowly down the center of your stomach, tracing a lazy line over your skin.
Your belly rose and fell beneath it, each breath a little quicker than the last.
“Not even gonna try bargainin’?” he asked, eyes lifting back to yours.
“What for?” you muttered, a little more breathless than you meant to sound. “Don’t exactly have anything worth trading.”
Joel’s grin tilted darker.
“Oh, I dunno,” he said quietly. “Seems like I’m gettin’ a pretty decent view already of what you gotta offer.”
Something in your stomach flipped unpleasantly - and not entirely with disgust.
“Try me, old man,” you shot back, the insult coming out sharper than intended. A thread of nervous energy slipped into the words despite your effort to sound confident. “Bet you wouldn’t even be able to.”
You held his gaze stubbornly, your own grin tight with defiance.
There was plenty of spite in it. Plenty of tension too. Because you still weren’t completely sure what Joel actually wanted here.
To scare you? Or rather something else entirely…
The jab made him chuckle again, deeper this time. His shoulders shifted slightly as the sound shook through him, his weight pressing more firmly against you for a second.
Then he leaned forward.
The knife disappeared between his teeth, clamped carefully by the handle so both hands were free.
Your stomach dipped as Joel’s fingers hooked into your belt.
Opening it took him almost no effort at all. He worked the buckle loose with the same calm efficiency he seemed to apply to everything, his other hand planted beside your head for balance. The knife still sat between his teeth, the metal glinting faintly when the dim barn light caught it. The grin around it was unmistakable - broad, wolfish, the kind that showed just enough teeth to make your stomach tighten.
Your breath hitched the moment his fingers found the button of your jeans.
That was when the realization finally settled in fully.
He wasn’t bluffing.
“Joel…” The word slipped out before you could stop it. It wasn’t exactly a plea - not yet - but it carried something close. A last attempt to catch his attention before the line you’d been dancing around disappeared completely. His head tilted slightly at the sound, like he was waiting for the rest. Waiting for the begging he had predicted earlier.
“You don’t have to,” you added, quieter now. “I get it.”
The sharp edge of your usual sarcasm had faded from your voice, replaced by something more honest - tension, a flicker of fear… and an uncomfortable thread of anticipation you didn’t quite know what to do with.
Joel’s mouth curved slowly at one corner.
The grin that followed wasn’t kind.
His fingers finished undoing the button, lingering a moment at the metal of the zipper without pulling it down. Instead, the back of his knuckles brushed lightly across your center through the layers of denim and cotton, the casual contact enough to make your body twitch in surprise.
Your hips jerked instinctively, trying to shift away from the touch even though the movement accomplished very little.
Joel adjusted his weight slightly, leaning back just enough to free the knife from his teeth. The blade slipped back into his hand, the flat side drifting lazily across your exposed stomach again.
“Bit late for that, ain’t it?” he muttered.
Before you could respond, he leaned forward again.
The knife drove suddenly downward, the blade burying itself in the mat right beside your head with a dull thunk that made you flinch hard enough for the ropes around your wrists to bite.
Joel’s chuckle rumbled low in response.
“Besides,” he added calmly, shifting his weight again, “I ain’t convinced you actually get it yet, kiddo.” His free hand returned to your jeans. “You’re still thinkin’ I’m gonna stop here. Scare you a little. Let you walk off and hope the lesson stuck.”
His thumb caught the zipper. Slowly he dragged it downward. The sound seemed absurdly loud in the quiet barn.
“All you’ve done so far,” Joel continued, voice steady, “is prove you only understand somethin’ once it’s right in front of you.” The zipper reached the bottom. He clicked his tongue softly. “And I ain’t exactly confronted you with much yet.”
“I - I’m gonna scratch your eyes out!” you snapped.
Joel’s brow lifted faintly.
“Be real curious to watch you try that with your hands tied behind your back,” he drawled. “Truth be told, you oughta be grateful you still got ’em.” His tone remained casual. “Seen what raiders do when they’re worried about people fightin’ back. Fingernails, teeth… anything sharp tends to disappear real quick.”
He paused just long enough to make the words settle. Then shrugged lightly.
“Think I can manage you just fine with your claws intact though.”
His hand slid forward again, fingers brushing the edge of your underwear where the open denim now left the fabric exposed.
Your body reacted before your brain caught up.
Your hips jerked upward, the motion automatic.
Joel noticed immediately.
“Now there’s a little fight,” he murmured, the darkness back in his voice. “Thought that tough brat already ran off and left me with somebody a lot more nervous.”
Instead of answering, you twisted harder beneath him.
Your knees drew upward slightly, boots scraping uselessly against the mat as you tried to shift your weight enough to disrupt his balance. It only gained you a fraction of an inch, but the effort felt necessary all the same.
Beside your face, the knife remained planted firmly in the mat.
A silent reminder.
Too close for comfort.
“When this is over,” you muttered through clenched teeth, “I’m gonna make you pay for it.”
Joel huffed softly at that. “When this is over,” he echoed, “you’d be dead in a ditch somewhere.” He tilted his head slightly, watching your expression. “That’s the theory, anyway.” His hand slipped forward again, the rough pads of his fingers brushing lightly against your hip as if testing the reaction.
“In practice?” he continued. His gaze flicked briefly down toward you, as his fingers slipped under the soft cotton of your panties, sliding slowly through your folds, way too wet already for the situation you were in. A slow grin followed.
“Seems like you’re not exactly hatin’ the lesson as much as you pretend.”
You tried to fight it.
Tried with everything you had left in you to keep the reaction from showing, to stop him from seeing what the smallest touch of his hand was doing. Pride alone demanded it. But when Joel’s fingers slid just a little deeper, gathering the slick wetness there before circling lazily over your clit, control slipped through your grasp all the same.
The sound that escaped you was small.
Barely more than a breath.
But it was there.
A whimper.
Joel froze instantly.
Not pulling away - just stilling, the pressure of his hand remaining exactly where it was. Then he leaned forward, lowering his head until his ear hovered close to your lips.
“What was that?” he murmured.
You clenched your jaw. “What, old man?” you muttered back through your teeth, trying to sound unimpressed even as the tension curled tighter in your stomach. “Can’t hear… anyth -”
Your voice faltered.
Because his fingers started moving again.
Slow circles, each motion stealing another piece of your composure until the bite in your words began dissolving into something softer, something harder to contain.
“…fuck,” you breathed, the sound slipping out before you could swallow it back. Another whimper followed, one you tried to stifle by turning your head sharply aside and pressing your lips together.
Joel huffed quietly. “Oh, I can hear those moans just fine,” he said, voice low and amused.
His fingers shifted again, sliding deeper before nudging forward to your entrance with a careful pressure that made your back tense against the mat.
“Just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
Your hands flexed uselessly behind you, fingernails scraping against the mat as your body reacted without asking permission.
“Didn’t realize you were this desperate for it,” he went on calmly. “Could’ve saved myself the whole training lecture if you’d just said so.”
“Don’t - get too excited,” you forced out. Your face remained locked in a scowl, brows drawn tight with irritation, but every small twitch of Joel’s hand kept betraying you anyway. Joel’s mouth curved faintly.
“Funny,” he muttered. “You look like the one getting excited here.”
Before you could snap back, he pressed two fingers into you, stretching you unexpectedly.
The sound that tore from you echoed far louder than you would’ve liked in the quiet barn, bouncing faintly off the wooden beams overhead. Heat rushed through your skin despite the winter air creeping through the walls, your breath coming quicker as your body arched against the pressure.
Joel let out a low hum.
“Well now,” he murmured. “That’s a helpful reaction. Good girl making it easy for me.”
The words good girl slipped from him almost lazily, like he wasn’t even thinking about them.
But they landed.
Harder than anything else he had said.
Being called a brat had been annoying. Something to push back against.
That?
That slid straight under your skin.
Joel shifted slightly above you, his hips grinding forward just enough that you could feel the effect of the situation for yourself. His hard cock clearly visible - and noticeable - through the denim fabric.
“Gotta admit though,” he added under his breath, “didn’t figure you’d let me get this far.”
Your chest rose and fell unevenly.
“Didn’t exactly have much of a choice,” you shot back.
Joel snorted quietly.
“Would’ve stopped the second I saw real fear in your eyes,” he said, almost casually. “That much I promise.”
His fingers moved again, angling just right, the motion pulling another involuntary arch from your back.
“Didn’t expect quite this much anticipation, though.”
Then he withdrew.
Just like that.
The sudden emptiness left you staring up at the rafters for a moment, trying very hard not to look as disappointed as you suddenly felt.
“Anticipating the moment I get to wipe that smug grin off your face,” you muttered.
“Sure,” Joel said mildly. “All talk so far.”
He shifted his weight again, giving your hips just enough room to move - but not enough to actually escape. Before you could twist away, his hand caught your arm, gripping firmly as he rolled you over once more.
The cold mat pressed against the bare skin of your stomach as you landed face-down again, the rough surface biting lightly against your skin.
“Haven’t seen much proof otherwise,” Joel continued. “Well… close to none…”
You could feel the weight of his gaze moving over you as you squirmed beneath him, ineffective against both his strength and the rope holding your wrists.
Then his hands returned to your jeans.
Before you could brace yourself, he dragged the fabric downward in one swift motion, shoving the denim down to your knees and leaving your legs tangled while your butt was suddenly exposed to the chill air of the barn.
“Look at you…” The words slipped out of Joel almost under his breath, less a taunt and more an observation that had surprised even him. His palm drifted across your exposed backside, the touch unexpectedly light at first - almost thoughtful. The calluses of his hand dragged slowly over your skin, tracing the curve there.
Then his fingers tightened without warning.
They dug sharply into the soft flesh, and the sudden sting ripped a startled cry from your throat before you could stop it.
Joel exhaled a low, amused breath.
“Easy now, darlin’,” he murmured. “You tryin’ to let the whole town know how hard you’re fightin’ back?”
The old barn swallowed his voice and threw it back in faint echoes. Winter air leaked through warped wooden boards, brushing cold against the parts of your skin left bare.
His other hand tugged at the hem of your flannel, pushing the fabric upward just enough to expose the line of your back. His fingers wandered there, following the ridge of your spine like a path. They traveled upward, past the tension between your shoulder blades.
From there, they slid higher still. His hand buried itself in your hair and Joel closed his fist.
Your head jerked back as he pulled, forcing your spine into a sharp arch. The position twisted your face just enough that he could see part of it - your clenched jaw, the stubborn crease between your brows.
“Should’ve gagged you,” he muttered, studying the way your expression flickered between anger and something far less controlled. “That’s what a raider would’ve done. Wouldn’t want you hollerin’ for help.” His grip in your hair tightened slightly as he tilted your head further. “You want that?” he asked, voice dropping lower. “Full experience?”
His knee planted firmly beside your hip, grounding your movements. The other nudged your legs apart a little more, creating space as his free hand drifted back down between your legs.
The moment his touch returned to your wet center, the sound that escaped you was impossible to disguise.
He huffed out a quiet laugh against your ear.
“Well… that settles that.”
His fingers resumed their slow movements, and your body reacted before your pride could catch up. Your words tangled in your throat as sensation swallowed them whole.
Joel felt it instantly as you clenched around his digits.
“Can’t lie,” he said after a moment, voice thick with amusement. “Kinda like hearin’ you make those sounds.”
You tried to respond immediately, some sharp retort ready on instinct - but the rhythm of his hand stole the thought clean out of your head.
It took effort to gather enough focus to speak.
“Funny,” you managed eventually, breath uneven but grin stubbornly tugging at your lips despite the pull in your hair. “You’ve said more in the last five minutes than in all our patrols put together.”
Joel clicked his tongue.
“That’s ’cause you never had anything worth talkin’ about, sweetheart.”
His hand slipped away from you abruptly.
The sudden absence again left a hollow ache you refused to acknowledge.
A moment later, the quiet clink of metal broke the air as his hand moved to his belt.
“That is,” he continued casually, working the buckle loose, “until now.”
You couldn’t see him.
That was the worst part.
The outline you’d caught earlier through the denim of his jeans had been enough to plant the thought firmly in your mind - but without seeing it now, you had no real sense of what waited behind you.
And it was coming.
That much had become unavoidable.
Joel Miller was going to fuck you.
Before closing the distance, Joel leaned forward again. His grip in your hair loosened just enough to guide your head slightly to the side.
His lips brushed near your ear.
The scrape of his beard against your skin sent a small shiver down your spine.
“Wouldn’t mind refreshin’ these lessons now and then,” he murmured. “What d’you think?”
His hips rolled forward slightly against your backside as he spoke and you could feel his rock-hard cock against your skin. The pressure alone made it very clear that whatever came next would be anything but gentle. Or small.
Your reaction betrayed you instantly.
Despite every ounce of pride screaming otherwise, your legs shifted apart a little farther - limited only by the jeans and underwear bunched around your knees. Your hips lifted instinctively, pressing back toward him.
Joel felt it.
The chuckle that rumbled out of him vibrated straight through your body.
“That ain’t an answer, darlin’.”
You squeezed your eyes shut.
Your lips stayed sealed for a few stubborn seconds longer.
Then the words forced their way out anyway, your head giving a tight nod against his grip.
“Y-yes… Joel.” The admission came out strained, breath catching halfway through. “I… wouldn’t mind that.”
“Mind what now, darlin’?”
You swallowed the last ounce of pride left in your body. “Wouldn’t mind you fucking me.”
You barely had time to register the shift behind you.
One moment there was the pressure of his cock lining up at your entrance, the heat of his body crowding yours, the grip on your wrists keeping you arched and exposed.
The next -
The breath punched straight out of your lungs.
Joel moved in one hard thrust, leaving no room for hesitation, no careful pause to let you adjust around his girth. This wasn’t patient. This wasn’t gentle.
It was rough, immediate, and entirely on his terms.
The sound that tore from you never had a chance to fully escape. His hand left your hair in the same instant and clamped firmly over your mouth, muffling the cry against his rough palm.
Joel groaned low behind you, the sound thick with the shock of it.
Your breath came hot and frantic through your nose against his skin as you struggled to drag air back into your lungs. That first impact had stolen every bit of oxygen from you.
“Fuck, darlin’…” Joel sounded strained as he leaned forward, pressing himself closer along your back. For a moment his forehead rested against the back of your head while he steadied his breathing and settled into the rhythm he wanted.
Despite the brutal beginning, he slowed.
Not enough to make things easy on you - far from it - but enough that the movements stopped feeling like a single overwhelming blow. There was a rough kind of control in it now, a measured pace that gave your body just enough time to keep up.
You mumbled something against the hand covering your mouth, the words lost in a garbled sound. The strain had tears prickling at the corners of your eyes.
Joel huffed softly.
“Wouldn’t have pegged you for such a good girl,” he muttered near your ear, the words carrying that familiar teasing edge. “All ready for me like this.”
The praise sounded almost mocking paired with the relentless rhythm he kept.
Then, unexpectedly, his lips brushed briefly against the side of your neck - a fleeting kiss that contrasted sharply with the roughness everywhere else.
Before you could process it, he shifted again.
His hand slid away from your mouth, leaving your lips parted as you pulled in a shaky breath. Instead, he grabbed hold of your bound wrists, using them like a handle to pull you upward into a deeper arch. The position tightened everything, forcing your back to curve as his other hand dug firmly into the side of your hip to steady you.
“Let's see how good you take me like this.” You could hear the grin in his voice.
“Will you ever shut the fuck up,” you snarled breathlessly, your voice rough from the air you’d been fighting to catch.
Joel laughed behind you - gravelly and clearly entertained.
“Actin’ tough ain’t gonna do you much good right now,” he replied.
Another sharp thrust stole the rest of your retort, a broken sound slipping from your throat before you could stop it.
“In the end,” he continued casually, “you’re gonna be the one babblin’ nonsense… ’cause the only thing left in that head of yours’ll be me fucking you senseless.”
The blunt boldness of his words hit harder than it should have.
Joel had always been many things - stubborn, gruff, irritatingly calm - but this kind of filthy confidence? That had never once crossed your radar.
And damn it, it worked.
Heat built relentlessly in your core, faster than you wanted to admit. Embarrassingly fast.
Joel noticed once more.
“Look at you,” he muttered, almost amused. “Already cockdrunk.” His tongue clicked softly. “Wouldn’t be much of a lesson if you were enjoyin’ yourself too much, now would it?”
The words sent a spike of panic through you.
You twisted your head, trying to catch sight of his face over your shoulder.
Surely he wasn’t serious.
Joel paused just long enough to lean down near your ear again.
“That is…” he added thoughtfully, “…unless you ask real nice.”
The cruelty in it was obvious.
He wanted it. The attitude stripped away, the stubbornness broken down until you were the one begging for more.
And the worst part?
You weren’t nearly as far from it as you wished.
“Joel…” you swallowed hard, your voice suddenly tight. “Please.” The word slipped out before your pride could catch it.
“Yeah,” he murmured, voice softening just a fraction. “I got you, baby girl.”
Another deep slam made your whole body shudder involuntarily as he bottomed out once more.
“Gonna take real good care of you,” he continued, almost conversationally. “Might turn out you’re useful after all.” There was a faint hint of that raider roleplay creeping back into his tone, the mock threat hanging between the words. “Keepin’ you around’s startin’ to sound better than ditchin’ you out there.”
You let it slide. At that point, resisting the game would have taken more focus than you had left.
The tension building inside you climbed higher, tighter.
“Joel… I’m gonna -”
“There you go, darlin’,” he muttered, his own voice rougher now, the control slipping slightly. “That’s it. Show me how you can come on my cock.”
And when it finally hit, it tore through you hard enough to make the world blur at the edges. For a few seconds you forgot everything - where you were, what you’d been arguing about, even your own name.
Joel’s hand returned to your mouth just in time to muffle the loudest part of it, the sound trapped against his palm.
“Beautiful,” he breathed close to your ear as the aftershocks rippled through you. His grip on your wrists tightened briefly. “Wouldn’t mind seein’ that again.” He shifted slightly behind you. “But this barn ain’t empty forever,” he added, voice still low. “And you already got me so close.”
Before you could even process the implication, wondering if he would really fill you up, he pulled out, leaving you abruptly empty. A moment later hot ropes of his climax landed across your back, your bound hands, and the wrinkled fabric of the flannel pushed up around your waist.
Joel’s grunt came staggered, the sound dragged straight out of his chest as he worked through the last of it. One hand was clearly still wrapped around his length, last droplets dripping down and slow strokes guiding the final waves of his release while the warmth of it still marked your back and hands.
Beneath him, your own body hadn’t quite caught up yet.
The remnants of your orgasm still pulsed through you in fading ripples, muscles clenching instinctively around emptiness now that he’d pulled away. Each aftershock made your breath hitch, your nerves still firing long after the moment itself had passed.
The strength drained out of you all at once.
You sank fully down against the mat beneath you, cheek turned to the side as the cold surface pressed against overheated skin.
“Fuck…” It came out hoarse, barely more than a breath.
Behind you, Joel shifted. You could hear the rustle of denim, the quiet sounds of him putting himself back together, but you didn’t have the energy to turn your head and confirm it. Just lifting your arms felt like more work than you were ready for.
“Yeah,” he muttered after a moment, voice still thick. “That about sums it up.” There was a faint grunt as he adjusted his belt. “Could get used to training sessions like that.”
The comment hit your ears just as your mind began catching up with the rest of you.
Your wit returned the moment he was no longer slamming into you.
“Wouldn’t do your back any favors, old man,” you shot back from where you lay.
The sarcasm came automatically.
There was movement beside you that finally made you crack your eyes open.
You caught it just in time.
Joel leaned forward toward the floor, reaching for the knife still embedded upright in the mat where it had been planted earlier. His fingers closed around the handle and he yanked it free in one smooth, forceful pull.
The metal flashed briefly in the dim barn light.
“Careful there, kiddo,” he said, voice lowering again as the knife traced lightly along the line of your spine.
The cool steel sent a sharp shiver through you.
“Taught you a pretty solid lesson the first time about runnin’ that bratty mouth, didn’t I?”
The blade slid down between your bound wrists.
With a quick, practiced slice, the rope gave way.
The tension disappeared instantly as the fibers snapped apart.
“Don’t mind turnin’ up the heat next time,” Joel continued, cutting the last strands free. “If I get the impression you’re still too stubborn to learn.”
The moment the rope loosened, you moved.
Your arms came forward instinctively, and you twisted beneath him to roll onto your side and then upright, pushing yourself into a seated position, pulling up your jeans cumbersomely while he shifted just enough to allow it. Joel settled back on his heels in front of you, watching as you immediately began rubbing at your wrists. The skin there was red, angry where the rope had bitten in. You circled them slowly, working the stiffness out.
“Maybe,” you said after a moment, lips curling slightly, “you’re just a shitty teacher.”
The smirk that followed was impossible to hide.
Joel’s answering grin was just as quick.
“Sounds like I wasn’t clear enough then,” he replied. His voice carried a tired edge now, the exertion finally settling in, but it did little to hide the faint spark of satisfaction underneath.
For a moment, he simply looked at you.
His gaze drifted over you again, slow and assessing.
Then he pushed himself upright and, almost casually, extended a hand toward you.
You ignored it.
Instead you scrambled to your feet on your own, tugging at your clothing in a half-hearted attempt to put yourself back together. The flannel hung crooked, your jeans still unbuttoned and loose around your waist, and you weren’t entirely sure what you were supposed to do next.
Joel solved that uncertainty by stepping closer. He closed the small distance easily, his broad frame towering over you.
Before you could react, the cold tip of the knife lifted beneath your chin. It nudged your face upward just enough that you had to meet his eyes.
“Better head home now, darlin’,” he said quietly. “And maybe pray I don’t catch up to you to drill the next lesson into that pretty head of yours.”
Your throat tightened.
You actually gulped.
One hand clutched the ruined flannel closed over your chest while you held his gaze just long enough to let him see that stubborn spark still burning there.
“Yes, sir,” you murmured.
Then you took a step back.
Joel didn’t move.
He simply stood there watching as you pulled your coat on and made your way toward the barn door.
You didn’t run.
Not even walked nearly as fast as you could have.
My Masterlist if you crave more...
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i’m foaming at the mouth jesus christ
Not so tough now, Darlin'?
Pairing: jackson!Joel x f!reader
Summary: You're pretty good at pissing off Joel Miller. He's very good at teaching you a lesson during a self-defense training session.
Warnings: +18, MDNI, dub-con, dark!Joel all the way, knife play, brat-tamer!Joel, bound wrists, Joel calls reader kiddo, darlin’, sweetheart, maybe baby girl once?, fingering, p in v (unprotected, sooo… don’t pls), no use of y/n, reader’s acting all tough but has little to no chance against our man, let me know if i forgot any…
A/N: this is the result of a trope survey I did, Joel Miller & enemies to lovers came in first (of course it did :D). If you are interested in the others just follow the link.
wc: 9.2k (Joel is a cruel motherfucker...)
My Pedro-Character-Masterlist
“You’re a spoiled brat. Somebody ought to teach you a lesson. Maybe then you’d start takin’ your damn part in patrol seriously instead of driftin’ along until the day they find you dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Those had been the words that started it.
A surprising amount of them, too, coming from a man who usually communicated in grunts and clipped little sentences. Around Jackson, most people were used to hearing two, maybe three words from Joel Miller at a time.
But that afternoon in the stables he had let loose like a storm breaking.
To be fair - if you forced yourself to be honest about it - you had pushed him there.
The last patrol together had been… relaxed. On your side, anyway. Maybe a little too relaxed. You had missed a couple signs you should have caught, let your attention drift more than once while walking the tree line. Nothing dangerous had happened, but Joel had noticed. Of course he had. The man noticed everything.
Still, the whole lecture had felt unfair.
When you rode patrol with Joel Miller, the man practically absorbed the entire job himself. He checked the tracks, listened to the wind, scanned every ridge like something deadly was about to crawl over it. Half the time he handled things before you even had a chance to step in.
Trying to assist often felt like showing up late to a fight he had already finished.
So yeah - maybe you had been less attentive than you should have been. But it wasn’t because you didn’t care.
It was because when Joel was beside you, the world felt… handled.
That realization had landed right as he was finishing his little speech.
And instead of apologizing like the sensible part of your brain suggested - maybe slipping out of the stables before things got worse - you had planted your boots firmly in the dirt.
“Who then?” you shot back, folding your arms as the words came out sharper than planned. “You're gonna be the one teaching me? I’d love to see you try, old man.”
The moment the words left your mouth, you knew the last part had been unnecessary.
Joel had a particular talent for getting under your skin, but calling him old man had been like flicking a match into dry grass.
The reaction was immediate.
He went still.
Then he released the horse’s reins without looking, letting them fall loosely over the post as he stepped out of the stall. Each step measured enough that your instincts kicked in before your pride could stop them. You weren’t even sure when your own boots shifted backward, but the space between you widened all the same.
Joel’s expression didn’t change much.
That was the unsettling part.
His eyes stayed locked on you, dark and assessing, like he was already calculating something.
“Well,” he drawled after a beat, voice calm in a way that felt more dangerous than the shouting had. “That’s not the worst idea you’ve had.” Another step closer. “Been hearin’ you skipped more’n a few of those self-defense drills lately.” His gaze dragged over you. “Let’s see how tough you act when someone actually puts you on your back.”
And that was how you ended up trudging through ankle-deep snow on what should have been a perfectly quiet afternoon off.
Because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.
The wind dragged like cold fingers through the trees lining the path to the training barn, snow crunching under your boots with every step as you replayed the moment in the stables for the hundredth time. If you had just walked away - if you had swallowed your pride for once - you’d be somewhere warm right now.
Instead, you had challenged Joel Miller to prove you wrong.
And if you were being honest with yourself, the irritation between you two wasn’t exactly one-sided. Getting under Joel’s skin had become a strange sort of sport. The man had a way of grinding against your nerves until you snapped back without thinking.
Apparently the feeling went both ways.
Your breath curled in pale clouds as the barn came into view, the big wooden structure crouched quietly beneath a dusting of snow. No voices. No movement. Just the faint creak of wood shifting in the cold.
You reached it later than the time he had given you.
Technically by accident.
Mostly.
A small, petty part of you had slowed your pace on purpose. Let him stew a little. Pissed people made mistakes. And today you had every intention of knocking Joel Miller down a peg or two.
The barn door groaned softly when you pushed it open.
Inside, the air was colder than you expected, the structure barely insulated from the winter outside. Your boots echoed faintly against the packed floor as you stepped in, shrugging out of your thick coat and shaking snow from the sleeves.
“Joel?” you called, voice carrying through the wide space.
You draped the coat over a small wooden stool near the entrance. If this training session looked anything like the handful of drills you’d bothered attending before, you wouldn’t stay cold for long.
Movement would fix that.
The training area had been mostly cleared out. A broad patch of packed dirt and old mats where Jackson ran its combat practice. Last time you’d been here it had been crowded - laughter, teasing, half the patrol crew watching each other stumble through holds and throws.
Now the place felt different.
Quieter.
Dim light filtered through the high slats in the barn walls, dust and hay drifting lazily through the beams. A few old crates were stacked toward the back, casting long crooked shadows across the floor. Somewhere deeper inside, a loose board creaked softly with the wind.
But most notably - no Joel.
You suppressed the thought that Joel Miller was almost never late. If anything, he was the kind of man who showed up ten minutes early just to glare at everyone else.
Still.
If the universe decided to make an exception today, you weren’t about to complain.
“Joel?” you called again, already turning back toward the door as you reached for your coat. “If this is some kinda joke -”
A faint shuffle cut through the quiet behind you.
Subtle enough that it could have been anything. The wind blowing through a crack in the boards. A rat scurrying somewhere in the hay.
But your brain, helpful as ever, supplied a different thought.
What if something actually had happened?
Joel slipping on ice somewhere behind the barn. Old men did that, didn’t they?
The image made you snort a quiet laugh as you stepped deeper inside, heading toward the darker end of the building where the stacked crates sat like squat shadows.
“Joel?” you called again, tone lighter now.
No grumpy Texan clutching a broken hip greeted you. Just scattered hay, dirt, and the faint smell of old wood.
Then you noticed the tracks.
Boot prints pressed into the thin dust near the crates.
You barely had time to register them before something slammed into you from the side.
Hard.
The impact knocked the air clean out of your lungs as your body was driven backward into the stacked crates. Wood rattled violently behind you, the force of the hit folding you against it so abruptly that even the instinct to shout died in your throat.
All that escaped you was a strangled breath as the world lurched sideways and suddenly felt very, very close.
You only managed to catch yourself at the last second. Your boots slipped in the dust as the crates rattled behind you, but instinct kicked in before gravity could finish the job. One hand shot out, bracing against the wood long enough to steady yourself before you stumbled back into the more open space of the training floor.
And he followed.
“What the actual hell was that, Joel?!” you snapped, the words bursting out before your lungs had even properly recovered.
Joel Miller stepped out of the shadows like he had all the time in the world. The dim light spilling through the barn slats caught the edge of his shoulders, the familiar broad frame moving toward you with the same steady patience he carried everywhere.
He didn’t answer.
Just kept walking.
The deliberate silence set your nerves on edge faster than any insult could have.
Without thinking you took a step back - mirroring exactly what had happened in the stables earlier. Your heel scraped lightly over the packed dirt before you forced yourself to stop retreating. Straightened your back. Planted your feet.
You refused to give him the satisfaction twice.
“So…” You cleared your throat, hating the faint tremor that slipped into your voice anyway. “How are we doing this? Thought these things usually start with rules. You know. Demonstrations. Maybe someone showing the hold first before -”
A low chuckle slipped from him.
It carried about as much humor as a knife.
“You honestly think that’s what it looks like out there?” Joel muttered.
He rolled one shoulder as he moved, the motion stiff enough that you noticed it immediately. The impact must’ve hurt him too when he slammed into you. He masked it well, but the brief tightening of his jaw gave it away.
Still, the look he gave you afterward made it clear he didn’t care.
“Oh, darlin’,” he added quietly, voice dropping into that slow Texan drawl that usually meant trouble. “You’re in for a rude surprise.”
Two seconds.
That was about how long you had to swallow the sudden spike of unease rising in your chest.
Then the panic got burned away by something hotter.
The sheer audacity of this man.
You took two quick steps backward, widening the distance and shifting your weight the way you’d been taught during drills. Feet planted. Knees loose. Hands lifting instinctively toward your chest.
Fine.
If Joel wanted to play instructor like this, you’d show him you had actually listened during those classes.
Unfortunately, you were still underestimating just how serious he was about the lesson.
He moved before you could fully settle into your stance.
One moment he stood a few paces away.
The next he was on you.
Your hands shot up higher, ready to intercept a grab - because that was what the drills usually started with. Wrist control. Balance breaks.
Joel didn’t reach for your arms.
He swung.
An actual punch.
The movement came fast enough that your brain barely had time to process it. You ducked on instinct alone, dropping your shoulder just as his fist cut through the air where your head had been.
You avoided the worst of it.
But not all of it.
His knuckles clipped the side of your skull as they passed, the glancing contact sending a sharp buzz of pain through your temple that made your ears ring.
“Jesus, Joel!” you barked, staggering back a step as your hand flew to your cheek. “What the fuck -”
“Thought you might try talkin’ your way outta trouble too?” he grunted.
Another swing followed immediately.
You barely avoided that one too, stumbling sideways as the punch cut past your shoulder close enough to stir the air.
And that was when the realization finally clicked.
He wasn’t actually trying to hit you.
Not really.
If Joel had meant it - if he’d put his full weight behind those blows - you’d already be down. Nose broken. Lip split. Maybe worse.
This was controlled.
Terrifyingly precise.
“Of course not, you idiot,” you shot back, breath coming faster now as adrenaline started flooding your system. “I just -”
“You just what?” Joel cut in, circling closer. “Thought you could coast through patrols and let somebody else watch your back, kiddo?”
“I just thought -”
You never finished the sentence.
Because that was when he closed the distance completely.
One moment he was a step away.
The next his hands were on you.
His unyielding grip clamped onto your shoulders before you could react, momentum carrying straight through you as he hooked a foot behind your ankle and swept your legs out from under you in one brutal, practiced motion.
The world flipped.
Your back slammed into the old training mats hard enough to knock the air from your lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. Dust puffed around you as your vision flashed white for a split second, stars scattering across the edges of your sight.
You barely had time to register what had happened.
Because Joel was already on top of you.
His weight settled in fast, knees pinning your legs to the ground before you could kick free. One hand locked around each of your upper arms, forcing them down against the mat with a strength that left very little room for argument.
You tried to twist.
Tried to buck him off.
It didn’t move him an inch.
Joel leaned slightly over you, breath still steady despite the scuffle, his shadow falling across your face in the dim barn light.
“Weren’t thinkin’,” he muttered, voice low and rough. His grip tightened just enough to make the point unmistakable. “That right there’s the problem, darlin’.”
“Okay, you know what -” The words came out between clenched teeth as you bucked against his hold again, muscles straining even though every logical part of your brain already knew it was pointless.
Joel barely shifted.
Still, the flash of defiance in your eyes caught his attention for half a second. His gaze dipped toward you and he made a low sound under his breath as he adjusted his weight to counter your movement.
It wasn’t much.
Just enough pressure in the right places to remind you he was still very much in control.
He waited.
Actually waited.
Like he expected some brilliant comeback to fall out of your mouth.
So you gave him one.
“Fuck you, Joel.”
The words snapped out sharp and immediate, and before he could respond you twisted your hips hard - throwing your weight the way you’d been shown once during a half-forgotten training drill.
The motion had a name. Something about breaking a mount by shifting the opponent’s balance.
At the time it had sounded like wishful thinking.
But somehow -
It worked.
Almost.
Joel’s grip slipped just enough that you managed to twist sideways beneath him. Your shoulder rolled, your body following the momentum until suddenly you were face-down instead of pinned flat.
You didn’t wait.
You scrambled forward on instinct, boots digging against the mat as your hands clawed for traction in the dust.
Behind you, Joel sucked in a sharp breath.
The knee you’d driven into his ribs during the maneuver had clearly landed better than you’d planned.
For one brief, glorious second you thought you might actually get away.
Then his hand closed around the back of your belt.
The jerk backward was violent enough that your progress stopped instantly, your body sliding helplessly over the dusty mat as the inches you’d gained disappeared in a heartbeat.
Your fingernails scraped uselessly against the ground.
“Damn it -!”
You barely got the protest out before Joel leaned forward again.
One hand seized both your wrists, yanking them behind your back in a single brutal motion. His grip tightened until your arms were forced together, the angle making it impossible to twist free.
A second later his knees settled heavily against the backs of your legs, pinning you in place while his weight pressed down just enough to make resistance feel laughable.
You opened your mouth to curse him out.
Then you felt it.
The rough scrape of something fibrous brushing your skin.
Rope.
Your stomach dropped.
“Okay - Joel, wait!” The words came faster now as the cord circled your wrists, tightening with practiced efficiency. “Hold on a second -” The rope cinched tighter. “I said wait!” The sharp edge of panic in your own voice caught you off guard.
Joel didn’t react.
“Give me one good reason,” he said simply.
“What reason do you -?” You twisted your head, trying to glare up at him over your shoulder. “This isn’t funny, Joel.”
“It ain’t supposed to be.”
You squirmed beneath him as he pulled the knot snug, the rope biting just enough to make the reality of it sink in. It was too tight for a mere training unit.
You weren’t slipping out of that anytime soon.
Your body shifted restlessly under his weight, trying again to find leverage that simply wasn’t there.
Okay.
New strategy.
“Alright,” you muttered quickly, forcing the words out before the tension crawling up your spine could take over completely. “I get it. Message received. I should’ve paid more attention on patrol. That one’s on me.” The rope tugged tighter. “This is still unfair,” you added stubbornly.
Joel’s knee slid upward slightly as he finished securing the knot, pressing into the small of your back with deliberate weight.
“Fair?” he repeated. His voice carried a faint edge of disbelief. “You think the folks waitin’ out there care about your sense of fairness?”
You turned your head against the mat, cheek scraping the rough surface as you tried to look back at him.
Joel didn’t appear the least bit rattled.
His brows were drawn together the way they always were, deep lines etched across his forehead. The familiar salt-and-pepper beard framed a mouth set in that same firm line you’d seen a hundred times before.
But there was no anger now.
No smirk either.
Just a calm, steady focus that somehow felt worse.
You weren’t sure what exactly he was determined to do, and something about that thought made your chest tighten.
“No, it’s just…” you started, words faltering as you tried to find something that didn’t sound like outright surrender. “I wasn’t expecting you to be such a -”
The sentence cut off when Joel suddenly shifted.
His weight lifted from your back without warning.
Relief barely had time to register before his hands caught your shoulder and hip, rolling you over in one smooth motion.
You landed flat on your back again.
Joel settled over you almost immediately, kneeling around your legs the way he had earlier - only now your wrists were secured behind you, leaving your arms completely useless.
The position pulled uncomfortably at your shoulders, the rope tightening each time you moved. But you decided very quickly not to complain about that. Comfort clearly wasn’t high on Joel’s list of priorities today.
“- such a committed trainer?” Joel finished dryly.
You glared up at him.
“Such an asshole,” you corrected.
Your body twisted again beneath him, instinctively trying to knock him off balance. Your hips jerked upward, attempting to disrupt his center of gravity.
Joel barely shifted. If anything his crotch pushed into your center just as much to secure you.
“Newsflash, darlin’,” he muttered. “World outside Jackson ain’t exactly known for patience.”
You huffed out a breath, rolling your eyes despite the position.
“Yeah, alright. Point taken.” You shifted your shoulders experimentally against the rope. “So untie me already. Pretty sure the lesson stuck.”
Joel didn’t move.
Didn’t even look like he was considering it.
Instead he adjusted his weight slightly, settling into the kneeling position like someone getting comfortable for a long conversation.
Your stomach sank.
“Doubt it,” he said. The words were calm. Almost casual. “Lesson ain’t even started yet.”
Something flickered in his hand then.
Metal catching the faint light filtering through the barn walls.
And when your eyes dropped to it, the breath caught hard in your throat.
Joel had a knife.
For a moment you just stared at it. Then - unexpectedly - even to yourself, a laugh slipped out. It started as a short breath and turned into something sharper, almost incredulous.
Because this was Joel.
Joel Miller might be a lot of things - grumpy, stubborn, occasionally insufferable - but he wasn’t some deranged lunatic who’d decided to start carving people up during a training session.
The man patched fences for neighbors after long patrols. Helped haul lumber for repairs even when he’d already pulled double shifts. Joel Miller carried himself like someone who’d seen too much of the world to waste energy pretending to be nice, but you had never once seen him be cruel.
Rough, yes.
Unfair? Never.
So this?
This had to be part of the scare tactic.
A prop.
A way to drive the lesson home.
And hell… it was working.
Your laugh lingered a little longer than necessary, the sound edged with nerves you hoped he wouldn’t notice. When something overwhelmed you, that was usually how you dealt with it.
“Alright, alright,” you muttered, rolling your eyes toward him. “You can cut the theatrics now. What exactly are you planning to do with that?” You tilted your head slightly, trying to keep the tone casual. “Pretty sure the council won’t be thrilled if I walk back into town with knife wounds from a training exercise.”
You aimed for cool and unbothered. Joel’s eyes flickered briefly over your face. The faint tremor in your voice hadn’t slipped past him.
“Knife ain’t just for stabbin’ people,” he said flatly. “Might need to sign you up for a weapons lesson too while we’re at it.”
Before you could respond, the blade moved.
Not the sharp edge but the flat, dull side. Cold metal brushed lightly across your cheek.
Your head turned instinctively, trying to avoid it, but Joel followed the motion easily - guiding the blade downward along the line of your jaw and throat.
A slow trail of chilled steel.
The tip continued lower, slipping toward the collar of your shirt.
You stilled despite yourself.
The point of the knife tapped lightly against the first button of your flannel, clicking softly against the plastic.
Then the next.
And the next.
Each small contact felt absurdly loud in the quiet barn.
“Don’t see you doin’ much fightin’ right now,” Joel observed calmly. His chin tipped forward slightly, gesturing vaguely toward the position you were stuck in beneath him. “Someone got you pinned like this out there… what exactly’s your plan?”
“I wouldn’t get caught,” you shot back automatically.
Joel’s mouth twitched.
“If an old man can do it half asleep…” he said dryly, tossing your earlier insult right back at you, “I ain’t too confident you’d fare better with a group of raiders.”
Your eyes narrowed.
“If it were raiders,” you countered quickly, “I’d already be exactly where you said I’d end up. Dead somewhere in a ditch.” Your gaze flicked pointedly to the knife. “They’d want my gear. My rations. My weapons. Not my patience.”
Joel’s grin tilted sideways.
Not amused.
Just… knowing.
“You sure about that?” he murmured.
Before you could respond, the tip of the knife slid neatly between one of the lower buttons and its thread.
Your brain barely had time to register what he was doing before he twisted his wrist slightly.
Pop.
The button snapped free.
It shot somewhere over your shoulder, landing out of sight behind you.
“What the - Joel!”
Your head jerked up instinctively, more offended by the destruction of a perfectly good shirt than anything else. Still, something deeper shifted under your ribs.
Because Joel was right. Being captured out there - especially as a woman - wouldn’t end quickly.
Wouldn’t end kindly.
The next button popped.
Adrenaline flooded your bloodstream in a sudden rush and your body bucked beneath him again, instinct overriding reason.
The blade slipped. Not deep. But the point grazed your skin just enough to leave a sharp sting across your stomach.
“Watch it, jerk!” you hissed.
Joel stopped. But not out of concern.
Out of calculation.
Slowly the knife lifted from your half-open shirt and returned upward, the flat of the blade resting once again against the side of your neck.
“If I was one of them,” Joel said quietly, leaning closer, “and I had you stuck like this beneath me…” His voice dropped lower. “Best start pickin’ your words real careful.”
He was close enough now that you could see every line in his face.
Close enough that he had to see the flicker of fear creeping into your eyes.
And he didn’t stop.
Didn’t pull back.
Didn’t soften the pressure of his weight holding you down.
For one alarming second a thought flickered through your head.
He wasn’t ignoring your fear.
He was letting you sit with it.
Maybe even -
Enjoying the effect.
Your breathing slowed. When you spoke again, your voice came out colder than before. Enough that it caught his attention immediately.
“Yeah?” you murmured. Joel leaned a fraction closer, watching you carefully. “Then listen real close, Joel.”
But instead of the clever insult he was clearly expecting…
You gathered saliva.
And spat.
Right into his face.
Joel jerked back just enough that the dull side of the knife scraped lightly along your skin. The movement was quick - reflex more than intent - and for a second his brows pulled together in something close to surprise.
Then he huffed.
And laughed.
Not the dry little breath of amusement people in Jackson sometimes coaxed out of him. Not the brief exhale that usually passed for humor from Joel Miller.
This was different.
The sound came as a real laugh that rolled out of his chest before he could seem to stop it. It carried something sharp in it too - something edged with challenge that made the skin on the back of your neck prickle.
You realized, distantly, that you could probably count the times you’d heard Joel Miller laugh on one hand.
This one felt… new.
“Alright,” he muttered, still chuckling as he dragged the sleeve of his jacket across his face, wiping away the spit without much ceremony. “Go ahead. Act like a brat.” His dark eyes dropped back to yours. “Let’s see how far that attitude carries you.”
The knife returned to your shirt.
Before you could react, three buttons popped in quick succession.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
The sounds echoed in the quiet barn like small gunshots, fabric pulling apart under the pressure of the blade. Within seconds only the top button still held, the flannel hanging open enough that the cold air slipped easily against your skin.
Joel rested the tip of the knife against that final button, his gaze settling back on you.
“Tell me somethin’, darlin’,” he said, voice quieter now. “When does all that stubbornness finally turn into beggin’?” His mouth twitched faintly. “Be real interestin’ to hear you whimper for once.”
The knife didn’t move.
It waited there, hovering against the thread.
“I’d rather you stab me,” you shot back immediately, forcing the words out before hesitation could betray you. “You’re not getting a single plea out of me.”
It was a lie.
You both knew it.
The tension in your chest was already tightening, nerves and adrenaline twisting together into something that made your breathing shallow.
And yet… something inside you refused to back down.
Part pride.
Part curiosity.
Because a small, reckless voice in the back of your mind wanted to know just how far Joel Miller would actually push this lesson.
Surely not that far. Right?
You gave yourself a second to remember exactly who was sitting on top of you.
Joel Miller.
The same man who had barely glanced at you that one patrol when you’d slipped in the brush and torn your shirt on a branch. The fabric had ripped at exactly the wrong place, leaving your cleavage embarrassingly obvious for the rest of the trek back to Jackson.
Joel had looked away almost immediately.
Barely a second.
Like it hadn’t even registered.
That Joel Miller wasn’t about to take things further just to prove a point.
…Right?
And if he did…
Your stomach tightened unexpectedly.
Would it actually be so terrible?
“We’ll see about that,” Joel muttered.
The knife twisted.
Pop.
The final button gave way.
The front of your shirt fell open completely, the two sides sliding apart under the pressure of the blade as Joel used it to push the fabric aside. The cold metal drifted slowly down the center of your stomach, tracing a lazy line over your skin.
Your belly rose and fell beneath it, each breath a little quicker than the last.
“Not even gonna try bargainin’?” he asked, eyes lifting back to yours.
“What for?” you muttered, a little more breathless than you meant to sound. “Don’t exactly have anything worth trading.”
Joel’s grin tilted darker.
“Oh, I dunno,” he said quietly. “Seems like I’m gettin’ a pretty decent view already of what you gotta offer.”
Something in your stomach flipped unpleasantly - and not entirely with disgust.
“Try me, old man,” you shot back, the insult coming out sharper than intended. A thread of nervous energy slipped into the words despite your effort to sound confident. “Bet you wouldn’t even be able to.”
You held his gaze stubbornly, your own grin tight with defiance.
There was plenty of spite in it. Plenty of tension too. Because you still weren’t completely sure what Joel actually wanted here.
To scare you? Or rather something else entirely…
The jab made him chuckle again, deeper this time. His shoulders shifted slightly as the sound shook through him, his weight pressing more firmly against you for a second.
Then he leaned forward.
The knife disappeared between his teeth, clamped carefully by the handle so both hands were free.
Your stomach dipped as Joel’s fingers hooked into your belt.
Opening it took him almost no effort at all. He worked the buckle loose with the same calm efficiency he seemed to apply to everything, his other hand planted beside your head for balance. The knife still sat between his teeth, the metal glinting faintly when the dim barn light caught it. The grin around it was unmistakable - broad, wolfish, the kind that showed just enough teeth to make your stomach tighten.
Your breath hitched the moment his fingers found the button of your jeans.
That was when the realization finally settled in fully.
He wasn’t bluffing.
“Joel…” The word slipped out before you could stop it. It wasn’t exactly a plea - not yet - but it carried something close. A last attempt to catch his attention before the line you’d been dancing around disappeared completely. His head tilted slightly at the sound, like he was waiting for the rest. Waiting for the begging he had predicted earlier.
“You don’t have to,” you added, quieter now. “I get it.”
The sharp edge of your usual sarcasm had faded from your voice, replaced by something more honest - tension, a flicker of fear… and an uncomfortable thread of anticipation you didn’t quite know what to do with.
Joel’s mouth curved slowly at one corner.
The grin that followed wasn’t kind.
His fingers finished undoing the button, lingering a moment at the metal of the zipper without pulling it down. Instead, the back of his knuckles brushed lightly across your center through the layers of denim and cotton, the casual contact enough to make your body twitch in surprise.
Your hips jerked instinctively, trying to shift away from the touch even though the movement accomplished very little.
Joel adjusted his weight slightly, leaning back just enough to free the knife from his teeth. The blade slipped back into his hand, the flat side drifting lazily across your exposed stomach again.
“Bit late for that, ain’t it?” he muttered.
Before you could respond, he leaned forward again.
The knife drove suddenly downward, the blade burying itself in the mat right beside your head with a dull thunk that made you flinch hard enough for the ropes around your wrists to bite.
Joel’s chuckle rumbled low in response.
“Besides,” he added calmly, shifting his weight again, “I ain’t convinced you actually get it yet, kiddo.” His free hand returned to your jeans. “You’re still thinkin’ I’m gonna stop here. Scare you a little. Let you walk off and hope the lesson stuck.”
His thumb caught the zipper. Slowly he dragged it downward. The sound seemed absurdly loud in the quiet barn.
“All you’ve done so far,” Joel continued, voice steady, “is prove you only understand somethin’ once it’s right in front of you.” The zipper reached the bottom. He clicked his tongue softly. “And I ain’t exactly confronted you with much yet.”
“I - I’m gonna scratch your eyes out!” you snapped.
Joel’s brow lifted faintly.
“Be real curious to watch you try that with your hands tied behind your back,” he drawled. “Truth be told, you oughta be grateful you still got ’em.” His tone remained casual. “Seen what raiders do when they’re worried about people fightin’ back. Fingernails, teeth… anything sharp tends to disappear real quick.”
He paused just long enough to make the words settle. Then shrugged lightly.
“Think I can manage you just fine with your claws intact though.”
His hand slid forward again, fingers brushing the edge of your underwear where the open denim now left the fabric exposed.
Your body reacted before your brain caught up.
Your hips jerked upward, the motion automatic.
Joel noticed immediately.
“Now there’s a little fight,” he murmured, the darkness back in his voice. “Thought that tough brat already ran off and left me with somebody a lot more nervous.”
Instead of answering, you twisted harder beneath him.
Your knees drew upward slightly, boots scraping uselessly against the mat as you tried to shift your weight enough to disrupt his balance. It only gained you a fraction of an inch, but the effort felt necessary all the same.
Beside your face, the knife remained planted firmly in the mat.
A silent reminder.
Too close for comfort.
“When this is over,” you muttered through clenched teeth, “I’m gonna make you pay for it.”
Joel huffed softly at that. “When this is over,” he echoed, “you’d be dead in a ditch somewhere.” He tilted his head slightly, watching your expression. “That’s the theory, anyway.” His hand slipped forward again, the rough pads of his fingers brushing lightly against your hip as if testing the reaction.
“In practice?” he continued. His gaze flicked briefly down toward you, as his fingers slipped under the soft cotton of your panties, sliding slowly through your folds, way too wet already for the situation you were in. A slow grin followed.
“Seems like you’re not exactly hatin’ the lesson as much as you pretend.”
You tried to fight it.
Tried with everything you had left in you to keep the reaction from showing, to stop him from seeing what the smallest touch of his hand was doing. Pride alone demanded it. But when Joel’s fingers slid just a little deeper, gathering the slick wetness there before circling lazily over your clit, control slipped through your grasp all the same.
The sound that escaped you was small.
Barely more than a breath.
But it was there.
A whimper.
Joel froze instantly.
Not pulling away - just stilling, the pressure of his hand remaining exactly where it was. Then he leaned forward, lowering his head until his ear hovered close to your lips.
“What was that?” he murmured.
You clenched your jaw. “What, old man?” you muttered back through your teeth, trying to sound unimpressed even as the tension curled tighter in your stomach. “Can’t hear… anyth -”
Your voice faltered.
Because his fingers started moving again.
Slow circles, each motion stealing another piece of your composure until the bite in your words began dissolving into something softer, something harder to contain.
“…fuck,” you breathed, the sound slipping out before you could swallow it back. Another whimper followed, one you tried to stifle by turning your head sharply aside and pressing your lips together.
Joel huffed quietly. “Oh, I can hear those moans just fine,” he said, voice low and amused.
His fingers shifted again, sliding deeper before nudging forward to your entrance with a careful pressure that made your back tense against the mat.
“Just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
Your hands flexed uselessly behind you, fingernails scraping against the mat as your body reacted without asking permission.
“Didn’t realize you were this desperate for it,” he went on calmly. “Could’ve saved myself the whole training lecture if you’d just said so.”
“Don’t - get too excited,” you forced out. Your face remained locked in a scowl, brows drawn tight with irritation, but every small twitch of Joel’s hand kept betraying you anyway. Joel’s mouth curved faintly.
“Funny,” he muttered. “You look like the one getting excited here.”
Before you could snap back, he pressed two fingers into you, stretching you unexpectedly.
The sound that tore from you echoed far louder than you would’ve liked in the quiet barn, bouncing faintly off the wooden beams overhead. Heat rushed through your skin despite the winter air creeping through the walls, your breath coming quicker as your body arched against the pressure.
Joel let out a low hum.
“Well now,” he murmured. “That’s a helpful reaction. Good girl making it easy for me.”
The words good girl slipped from him almost lazily, like he wasn’t even thinking about them.
But they landed.
Harder than anything else he had said.
Being called a brat had been annoying. Something to push back against.
That?
That slid straight under your skin.
Joel shifted slightly above you, his hips grinding forward just enough that you could feel the effect of the situation for yourself. His hard cock clearly visible - and noticeable - through the denim fabric.
“Gotta admit though,” he added under his breath, “didn’t figure you’d let me get this far.”
Your chest rose and fell unevenly.
“Didn’t exactly have much of a choice,” you shot back.
Joel snorted quietly.
“Would’ve stopped the second I saw real fear in your eyes,” he said, almost casually. “That much I promise.”
His fingers moved again, angling just right, the motion pulling another involuntary arch from your back.
“Didn’t expect quite this much anticipation, though.”
Then he withdrew.
Just like that.
The sudden emptiness left you staring up at the rafters for a moment, trying very hard not to look as disappointed as you suddenly felt.
“Anticipating the moment I get to wipe that smug grin off your face,” you muttered.
“Sure,” Joel said mildly. “All talk so far.”
He shifted his weight again, giving your hips just enough room to move - but not enough to actually escape. Before you could twist away, his hand caught your arm, gripping firmly as he rolled you over once more.
The cold mat pressed against the bare skin of your stomach as you landed face-down again, the rough surface biting lightly against your skin.
“Haven’t seen much proof otherwise,” Joel continued. “Well… close to none…”
You could feel the weight of his gaze moving over you as you squirmed beneath him, ineffective against both his strength and the rope holding your wrists.
Then his hands returned to your jeans.
Before you could brace yourself, he dragged the fabric downward in one swift motion, shoving the denim down to your knees and leaving your legs tangled while your butt was suddenly exposed to the chill air of the barn.
“Look at you…” The words slipped out of Joel almost under his breath, less a taunt and more an observation that had surprised even him. His palm drifted across your exposed backside, the touch unexpectedly light at first - almost thoughtful. The calluses of his hand dragged slowly over your skin, tracing the curve there.
Then his fingers tightened without warning.
They dug sharply into the soft flesh, and the sudden sting ripped a startled cry from your throat before you could stop it.
Joel exhaled a low, amused breath.
“Easy now, darlin’,” he murmured. “You tryin’ to let the whole town know how hard you’re fightin’ back?”
The old barn swallowed his voice and threw it back in faint echoes. Winter air leaked through warped wooden boards, brushing cold against the parts of your skin left bare.
His other hand tugged at the hem of your flannel, pushing the fabric upward just enough to expose the line of your back. His fingers wandered there, following the ridge of your spine like a path. They traveled upward, past the tension between your shoulder blades.
From there, they slid higher still. His hand buried itself in your hair and Joel closed his fist.
Your head jerked back as he pulled, forcing your spine into a sharp arch. The position twisted your face just enough that he could see part of it - your clenched jaw, the stubborn crease between your brows.
“Should’ve gagged you,” he muttered, studying the way your expression flickered between anger and something far less controlled. “That’s what a raider would’ve done. Wouldn’t want you hollerin’ for help.” His grip in your hair tightened slightly as he tilted your head further. “You want that?” he asked, voice dropping lower. “Full experience?”
His knee planted firmly beside your hip, grounding your movements. The other nudged your legs apart a little more, creating space as his free hand drifted back down between your legs.
The moment his touch returned to your wet center, the sound that escaped you was impossible to disguise.
He huffed out a quiet laugh against your ear.
“Well… that settles that.”
His fingers resumed their slow movements, and your body reacted before your pride could catch up. Your words tangled in your throat as sensation swallowed them whole.
Joel felt it instantly as you clenched around his digits.
“Can’t lie,” he said after a moment, voice thick with amusement. “Kinda like hearin’ you make those sounds.”
You tried to respond immediately, some sharp retort ready on instinct - but the rhythm of his hand stole the thought clean out of your head.
It took effort to gather enough focus to speak.
“Funny,” you managed eventually, breath uneven but grin stubbornly tugging at your lips despite the pull in your hair. “You’ve said more in the last five minutes than in all our patrols put together.”
Joel clicked his tongue.
“That’s ’cause you never had anything worth talkin’ about, sweetheart.”
His hand slipped away from you abruptly.
The sudden absence again left a hollow ache you refused to acknowledge.
A moment later, the quiet clink of metal broke the air as his hand moved to his belt.
“That is,” he continued casually, working the buckle loose, “until now.”
You couldn’t see him.
That was the worst part.
The outline you’d caught earlier through the denim of his jeans had been enough to plant the thought firmly in your mind - but without seeing it now, you had no real sense of what waited behind you.
And it was coming.
That much had become unavoidable.
Joel Miller was going to fuck you.
Before closing the distance, Joel leaned forward again. His grip in your hair loosened just enough to guide your head slightly to the side.
His lips brushed near your ear.
The scrape of his beard against your skin sent a small shiver down your spine.
“Wouldn’t mind refreshin’ these lessons now and then,” he murmured. “What d’you think?”
His hips rolled forward slightly against your backside as he spoke and you could feel his rock-hard cock against your skin. The pressure alone made it very clear that whatever came next would be anything but gentle. Or small.
Your reaction betrayed you instantly.
Despite every ounce of pride screaming otherwise, your legs shifted apart a little farther - limited only by the jeans and underwear bunched around your knees. Your hips lifted instinctively, pressing back toward him.
Joel felt it.
The chuckle that rumbled out of him vibrated straight through your body.
“That ain’t an answer, darlin’.”
You squeezed your eyes shut.
Your lips stayed sealed for a few stubborn seconds longer.
Then the words forced their way out anyway, your head giving a tight nod against his grip.
“Y-yes… Joel.” The admission came out strained, breath catching halfway through. “I… wouldn’t mind that.”
“Mind what now, darlin’?”
You swallowed the last ounce of pride left in your body. “Wouldn’t mind you fucking me.”
You barely had time to register the shift behind you.
One moment there was the pressure of his cock lining up at your entrance, the heat of his body crowding yours, the grip on your wrists keeping you arched and exposed.
The next -
The breath punched straight out of your lungs.
Joel moved in one hard thrust, leaving no room for hesitation, no careful pause to let you adjust around his girth. This wasn’t patient. This wasn’t gentle.
It was rough, immediate, and entirely on his terms.
The sound that tore from you never had a chance to fully escape. His hand left your hair in the same instant and clamped firmly over your mouth, muffling the cry against his rough palm.
Joel groaned low behind you, the sound thick with the shock of it.
Your breath came hot and frantic through your nose against his skin as you struggled to drag air back into your lungs. That first impact had stolen every bit of oxygen from you.
“Fuck, darlin’…” Joel sounded strained as he leaned forward, pressing himself closer along your back. For a moment his forehead rested against the back of your head while he steadied his breathing and settled into the rhythm he wanted.
Despite the brutal beginning, he slowed.
Not enough to make things easy on you - far from it - but enough that the movements stopped feeling like a single overwhelming blow. There was a rough kind of control in it now, a measured pace that gave your body just enough time to keep up.
You mumbled something against the hand covering your mouth, the words lost in a garbled sound. The strain had tears prickling at the corners of your eyes.
Joel huffed softly.
“Wouldn’t have pegged you for such a good girl,” he muttered near your ear, the words carrying that familiar teasing edge. “All ready for me like this.”
The praise sounded almost mocking paired with the relentless rhythm he kept.
Then, unexpectedly, his lips brushed briefly against the side of your neck - a fleeting kiss that contrasted sharply with the roughness everywhere else.
Before you could process it, he shifted again.
His hand slid away from your mouth, leaving your lips parted as you pulled in a shaky breath. Instead, he grabbed hold of your bound wrists, using them like a handle to pull you upward into a deeper arch. The position tightened everything, forcing your back to curve as his other hand dug firmly into the side of your hip to steady you.
“Let's see how good you take me like this.” You could hear the grin in his voice.
“Will you ever shut the fuck up,” you snarled breathlessly, your voice rough from the air you’d been fighting to catch.
Joel laughed behind you - gravelly and clearly entertained.
“Actin’ tough ain’t gonna do you much good right now,” he replied.
Another sharp thrust stole the rest of your retort, a broken sound slipping from your throat before you could stop it.
“In the end,” he continued casually, “you’re gonna be the one babblin’ nonsense… ’cause the only thing left in that head of yours’ll be me fucking you senseless.”
The blunt boldness of his words hit harder than it should have.
Joel had always been many things - stubborn, gruff, irritatingly calm - but this kind of filthy confidence? That had never once crossed your radar.
And damn it, it worked.
Heat built relentlessly in your core, faster than you wanted to admit. Embarrassingly fast.
Joel noticed once more.
“Look at you,” he muttered, almost amused. “Already cockdrunk.” His tongue clicked softly. “Wouldn’t be much of a lesson if you were enjoyin’ yourself too much, now would it?”
The words sent a spike of panic through you.
You twisted your head, trying to catch sight of his face over your shoulder.
Surely he wasn’t serious.
Joel paused just long enough to lean down near your ear again.
“That is…” he added thoughtfully, “…unless you ask real nice.”
The cruelty in it was obvious.
He wanted it. The attitude stripped away, the stubbornness broken down until you were the one begging for more.
And the worst part?
You weren’t nearly as far from it as you wished.
“Joel…” you swallowed hard, your voice suddenly tight. “Please.” The word slipped out before your pride could catch it.
“Yeah,” he murmured, voice softening just a fraction. “I got you, baby girl.”
Another deep slam made your whole body shudder involuntarily as he bottomed out once more.
“Gonna take real good care of you,” he continued, almost conversationally. “Might turn out you’re useful after all.” There was a faint hint of that raider roleplay creeping back into his tone, the mock threat hanging between the words. “Keepin’ you around’s startin’ to sound better than ditchin’ you out there.”
You let it slide. At that point, resisting the game would have taken more focus than you had left.
The tension building inside you climbed higher, tighter.
“Joel… I’m gonna -”
“There you go, darlin’,” he muttered, his own voice rougher now, the control slipping slightly. “That’s it. Show me how you can come on my cock.”
And when it finally hit, it tore through you hard enough to make the world blur at the edges. For a few seconds you forgot everything - where you were, what you’d been arguing about, even your own name.
Joel’s hand returned to your mouth just in time to muffle the loudest part of it, the sound trapped against his palm.
“Beautiful,” he breathed close to your ear as the aftershocks rippled through you. His grip on your wrists tightened briefly. “Wouldn’t mind seein’ that again.” He shifted slightly behind you. “But this barn ain’t empty forever,” he added, voice still low. “And you already got me so close.”
Before you could even process the implication, wondering if he would really fill you up, he pulled out, leaving you abruptly empty. A moment later hot ropes of his climax landed across your back, your bound hands, and the wrinkled fabric of the flannel pushed up around your waist.
Joel’s grunt came staggered, the sound dragged straight out of his chest as he worked through the last of it. One hand was clearly still wrapped around his length, last droplets dripping down and slow strokes guiding the final waves of his release while the warmth of it still marked your back and hands.
Beneath him, your own body hadn’t quite caught up yet.
The remnants of your orgasm still pulsed through you in fading ripples, muscles clenching instinctively around emptiness now that he’d pulled away. Each aftershock made your breath hitch, your nerves still firing long after the moment itself had passed.
The strength drained out of you all at once.
You sank fully down against the mat beneath you, cheek turned to the side as the cold surface pressed against overheated skin.
“Fuck…” It came out hoarse, barely more than a breath.
Behind you, Joel shifted. You could hear the rustle of denim, the quiet sounds of him putting himself back together, but you didn’t have the energy to turn your head and confirm it. Just lifting your arms felt like more work than you were ready for.
“Yeah,” he muttered after a moment, voice still thick. “That about sums it up.” There was a faint grunt as he adjusted his belt. “Could get used to training sessions like that.”
The comment hit your ears just as your mind began catching up with the rest of you.
Your wit returned the moment he was no longer slamming into you.
“Wouldn’t do your back any favors, old man,” you shot back from where you lay.
The sarcasm came automatically.
There was movement beside you that finally made you crack your eyes open.
You caught it just in time.
Joel leaned forward toward the floor, reaching for the knife still embedded upright in the mat where it had been planted earlier. His fingers closed around the handle and he yanked it free in one smooth, forceful pull.
The metal flashed briefly in the dim barn light.
“Careful there, kiddo,” he said, voice lowering again as the knife traced lightly along the line of your spine.
The cool steel sent a sharp shiver through you.
“Taught you a pretty solid lesson the first time about runnin’ that bratty mouth, didn’t I?”
The blade slid down between your bound wrists.
With a quick, practiced slice, the rope gave way.
The tension disappeared instantly as the fibers snapped apart.
“Don’t mind turnin’ up the heat next time,” Joel continued, cutting the last strands free. “If I get the impression you’re still too stubborn to learn.”
The moment the rope loosened, you moved.
Your arms came forward instinctively, and you twisted beneath him to roll onto your side and then upright, pushing yourself into a seated position, pulling up your jeans cumbersomely while he shifted just enough to allow it. Joel settled back on his heels in front of you, watching as you immediately began rubbing at your wrists. The skin there was red, angry where the rope had bitten in. You circled them slowly, working the stiffness out.
“Maybe,” you said after a moment, lips curling slightly, “you’re just a shitty teacher.”
The smirk that followed was impossible to hide.
Joel’s answering grin was just as quick.
“Sounds like I wasn’t clear enough then,” he replied. His voice carried a tired edge now, the exertion finally settling in, but it did little to hide the faint spark of satisfaction underneath.
For a moment, he simply looked at you.
His gaze drifted over you again, slow and assessing.
Then he pushed himself upright and, almost casually, extended a hand toward you.
You ignored it.
Instead you scrambled to your feet on your own, tugging at your clothing in a half-hearted attempt to put yourself back together. The flannel hung crooked, your jeans still unbuttoned and loose around your waist, and you weren’t entirely sure what you were supposed to do next.
Joel solved that uncertainty by stepping closer. He closed the small distance easily, his broad frame towering over you.
Before you could react, the cold tip of the knife lifted beneath your chin. It nudged your face upward just enough that you had to meet his eyes.
“Better head home now, darlin’,” he said quietly. “And maybe pray I don’t catch up to you to drill the next lesson into that pretty head of yours.”
Your throat tightened.
You actually gulped.
One hand clutched the ruined flannel closed over your chest while you held his gaze just long enough to let him see that stubborn spark still burning there.
“Yes, sir,” you murmured.
Then you took a step back.
Joel didn’t move.
He simply stood there watching as you pulled your coat on and made your way toward the barn door.
You didn’t run.
Not even walked nearly as fast as you could have.
My Masterlist if you crave more...
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happy tipsy touch it thursday everybody
Daddy's waiting for you to finish recording your silly tiktok dance so you two can cuddle up (he's needy af)
Gainin' Control | Joel Miller x f!reader
Summary: Joel is always in command, both in and out of the bedroom, and you always surrender willingly to it. But just once, you want to see what it's like to gain that control over him instead.
Pairing: Old Man!Joel Miller (The Last Of Us) x f!reader
Word Count: 8.6k
Warnings: 18+ mdni, smut, pwp, dom!Joel turned reluctant sub!Joel, dom!reader, rope restraints, dry humping makes joel cum in pants!! cum eating, overstimulation, oral (m!receiving), ball worship, edging & orgasm denial, tiny little bit of ass play, unprotected piv for just a sec (wrap it in foil yall), old man Joel (late 50s-60s), reader age unspecified (is 18+), joel whimpering and begging is a warning in itself, no descriptions of reader other than female anatomy
A/N: i was working on my wips then had this sudden thought of old man Joel and i took a break to write it. this is just pure filth. it was supposed to be a quick under 1k word drabble, but like always i got carried away... really carried away. i love that old man. thanks to anyone who reads <33 dividers by @/saradika-graphics also starting a taglist, just ask!
Masterlist
You can’t stop thinking about it. About him.
About how he’s always in control. Even just in every-day life; he’s always steady, staunch, steadfast.
Thinking before he acts, a burning strength coiling around each of his limbs every time he walks out of your shared house. Like a maneuvering tank, broad and hefty despite his older age and his aching back, hauling a hunting rifle over his shoulder before he places a kiss against your temple when he leaves for patrols in the morning.
Joel Miller is always in control.
You wonder what it would be like for him to have to surrender it, to take instead of give. Just once.
To have him relinquish what he always holds within thick, clenched fists that he sometimes has to strain just to stretch out his fingers, even though he’ll still adamantly pump and curl two or three of those thick digits inside your sopping cunt just to watch you writhe for him.
Even in the bedroom, he likes to have control. And you always give it over to him easily, finding solace in the grasp of his hands on your tender skin, on the scratch of his brown and peppered-grey beard along your flushed neck and your kiss-bitten thighs. And he swallows it down like you succumbing is the sweetest, freshest juice he could hope to find. A caring, blooming, saccharine thing like you gleefully passing over the abundance of your trust with cupped palms like it’s an offering.
You rarely see him stumble in that control. But even he says you’ve always been a determined person.
He’s barely through the front door, his body sagged with exhaustion from the day, movements languid and slow, when your body is practically barreling into him just the same, hands rising to cup his stubbled jaw and lift your face to his, lips pressing to his chin, then his lips in haste.
“Missed you today,” you murmur. Like clockwork, his burly arms wrap around you and despite your blindsiding enthusiasm, he’s kissing you back with equal eagerness, mustache tickling your upper lip as your mouth slots over his.
“Missed you too, sweetheart,” he rumbles back against your lips, pulling away just barely with a sharp breath, swaying slightly when his knees ache after being on his feet all day. His brows are twitched inwards with slight dubiety, even if he isn’t at all repelled by your attention, just curious about your immediate eagerness. “What’s the occasion?”
You don’t keep your mouth off him for long, dipping your face down to litter kisses and short, sharp nips down his neck, eliciting a soft exhale from him, his head tipping back instinctively to allow you more access.
“It’s the end of the week. Meaning I don’t have any more early shifts at the armoury for a month,” you mumble into his skin, tongue whisking out to taste the lingering tang of his day, sweat and earth permeating comfortingly along your taste buds. Like melting wax of a candle, sandalwood and zest.
A grin ticks at the corner of his mouth.
“So we can go back to having regular morning sex?”
A snort of amusement falls from you, rumbled against his throat, along with a toothy grin as you retort back, “Yeah, meaning we can do all of Jackson a favour by making sure you’re not grumpy the entire day.”
Joel tsks as if offended despite his mirth, one of his hands splayed over your lower back sliding up to instead cup the nape of your neck and drag your face back up to him, lips carving over yours firmer this time.
“It’s a good thing, though,” he murmurs, mouth pulling away slightly, biting gently against your lower lip, “you deserve a break.”
You hum in concurrence, hands flexing against his cheeks before guiding downwards, around his shoulders, arms looping. You tilt your head back just slightly, eyes flickering between his, a swirling hunger you don’t bother to swallow down kindling in them.
“Think I also deserve something to celebrate, don’t you?” You suggest, fingers toying with the hairs at the nape of his neck, twirling through a curl. Continuing softly, “Like a reward.”
He pauses, a brow quirking with teasing gaiety, “Does it now?”
Nodding, you lift yourself up higher, deliberately dropping your tone to a coquettish lilt, eyes dipping to a heavy-lidded leer.
Your lips brush with his, a barely-there graze of mingled breath. “Yeah. Think you can help me, Miller?”
His lips are determinedly pressing against yours again. More intentional, purposeful as his hands glide over your curves, tracing your sides with calloused fingers. His tongue traces the seam of your lips, coaxing them apart, opening you up to him. Demanding it.
You conform easily, sighing with repose, shoulders slackening, allowing yourself to lose yourself in the rough movement of his mouth against yours, the taste of his tongue, tangling with yours in a dance that grows heavier and more prudent with each passing beat.
It quickly shifts into something thick, ungraceful- a groan travelled from his throat into your mouth, which you eagerly swallow down. His hands become forceful, urging you backwards until your spine gently meets the plastered wall by the stairs. Your chest arches against his, lower spine preening, his hands pawing at every part of you he can reach; along hips, stomach, upper abdomen, thumbs scathing at the underside of your breasts through the swimming material of his shirt draped over you.
“Upstairs,” you urge breathily against his mouth, never once breaking the kiss- not even as he grunts in approval, large hands sweeping down under your bare thighs, hoisting you up effortlessly. You beam against him, legs mechanically wrapping around his waist and squeezing lightly.
The journey up the stairs is a mess of heavy, panting breaths, grabbing hands and twisting fingers, messy kisses, aching knees, and an exceptionally sore back.
Wood creaks under boot until Joel is haplessly throwing you down onto the bed, joining you a moment later, his hefty body crawling atop yours with surprising speed for a man his age. His hands paw at your legs, clothed in just an oversized pair of his sweatpants, kneading at your thighs to spread them, lifting himself up onto his knees.
“Spread,” he orders in a mutter, darkened eyes hungrily roving over you. Dressed in his clothes like it’s the finest, estimable silk. His large shirt draped over you, white cotton panties peeking out from beneath the hem. And fuck, he swears his heart palpitates at just the sight. He’s positive one of these days you’re going to send him into cardiac arrest earlier than he anticipated.
He shrugs his jacket off unceremoniously, throwing it carelessly to the floor in a haste to get his hands back on you. Soft, pliable you. Then he’s lowering himself back down, hands bracing on either side of you, mouth lowering down to your flushed neck, sucking at the delicate skin, lathing kisses back over to soothe. His hips press flush to yours, letting you feel the effect you consistently have on him over the covering of your centre.
“I’ve.. I’ve been thinking,” you say ardently, caught in between a gasp in the tangled web of hunger.
“About what?” He replies distractedly, mouth moving over your throat, nipping by the flutter of your pulse, by your carotid artery.
“My reward. I wanna try something new,” you explain, pleading with your own volition to remain intact, to not back away.
“Mhm. What’s that, sweetheart?” He mumbles, tongue tracing out to dip by your neck where the collar of his shirt sits over your shoulder.
Your bottom lips purses with the smallest breath of hesitation, hands trailing up his sides, to his chest, splaying there.
“I wanna… wanna be in control this time.”
He pauses.
Head lifting from the crook of your neck to glance down at you, wondering if he heard you correctly. His brows pinch inwards, as though he doesn’t even know how to begin with interpreting the idea.
“You want to be in control?” He parrots dumbly.
Your bottom lip catches between your teeth, wavers of apprehension curdling in your stomach at his reaction. You hadn’t expected him to immediately leap and cheer, sure- but you also hadn’t expected the way his face falls dubiously. Still, you swallow harshly, and nod.
His eyes tilt over your face, scanning, examining. Then they soften, something more tender ticking at his lips.
“You reckon you can?” He rumbles, a teasing curl to his tone, head cocking just slightly down towards you.
“Joel,” groaning his name, you tap your hand against his chest, insisting. “I wanna try.”
His amusement seems to subside there, realising how ardent you are about the idea, that you’re not just toying with his buttons. He looks unsure, multiple leaden beats passing before a heavy sigh falls from him, like there’s an anvil placed atop his spine.
“Please?” You try, desperately hopeful. His gaze flutters, then his lips thin; you see the intrigue murmur past his expression.
“Okay, then. Yeah, a’right,” He huffs, like he’s averse to the prospect of yielding to any control, like his cock doesn’t twitch beneath the zipper of his jeans at the thought of it being with you.
You beam, “Really?”
Affection crosses his features, that permanent furrow of trepidation between his brows smoothing out as he peers down at you. “Really.”
Adrenaline pulses through you all at once, having half-expected for the idea to be shut down. You hadn’t really planned this far ahead, and now you’re stuck with Joel atop you, suddenly uncertain where to go from here.
You hear him chuckle softly, dipping back down to press a kiss against your collarbone, then the curve of your breast over the fabric of his shirt.
“What do you want to do first?” He coaxes, virtually urging the reigns into your clammy palms.
You exhale shakily, mind soaring through an arrangement of crude, potent ideas.
“Get, um.. get on your back,” you direct, nodding your head in gesture towards the empty space of bed beside you both. Joel’s mouth ticks again, as if entertained by your blatant apprehensiveness stepping into this newfound role. You’re determined to stifle that amusement.
He acquiesces, a sighed groan falling from him as he strenuously rolls off you and around onto his back, spine flexing and shifting to adjust himself comfortably on his strained, aching bones.
“Like this?” He murmurs, eyes tracing back around to you, that familiar warmth he reserves for only very few settled comfortably in his gaze.
“Mhm,” you agree, drawing in a final, shaky breath to conceal your nerves and upright your voracity. Rolling around, you flick your leg up and over to straddle his waist, thighs bracketing him. You peer down towards him beneath you, his hands automatically settling on your waist without thought. His chest rises and falls steadily with a strength you’ve become so familiar with.
His body feels newer lately.
Since you both arrived in Jackson, you were gifted the freedom of security, of safety. You were able to let yourself relax, and so was Joel. He didn’t have to be consistently on guard like he always insisted on being, didn’t have to always be astute and keeping a keen eye out for danger- he could let himself be pliable, content.
Present, with you. Instead of with the threats that always loomed when neither of you had confirmed security.
And with that contentment was comfort. A plush, soft bed at night, wrapped in warmth in a place you can call home. And steady, consistent meals. He’s grown softer. His belly slightly rounder, gentler, curving over his belt that he complained is beginning to feel too tight lately.
You adore it.
You’ve always loved how broad he is- how firm and steady beneath your palms he’s always been. The veins in his forearms flexing each time your hands trail along it, how his stomach flexes and clenches with the drag of your fingertips. He once scowled at the idea that he’s grown more plush, but you just beamed in satisfaction, more than pleased to press the curve of your nose against the slope of his tummy where the coarse, graying hairs of his happy trail begins, leading down to slightly unruly curls that disappear beneath the hefty buckle of his belt.
You hook your fingers under the hem of his grey cotton shirt, tugging firmly once. He lifts his hands away from your waist and raises them above his head to assist you, dragging the material away and discarding it carelessly to the floor. Your hands fall back to his plush stomach, and he hisses softly at the light chill of your touch, his jaw tensing once.
You glide your hands up the expanse of him, feeling up his sides, his ribs, along his chest again- and before he has a chance to lower his arms, you drag your touch up his biceps, then his forearms to his wrists, holding them above his head still.
“You trust me?” You murmur, anticipation burning alight through your veins. He peers up towards you, a noticeable flutter of confusion passing his features, before it softens.
“Always,” he answers.
You send him a lopsided grin, then shimmy your body off his lap, climbing off the mattress and towards your backpack stashed by the dresser. You can feel his gaze burning into you from the bed, slinking smoothly over the bare expanse of your legs from behind. You unzip the pack as you crouch by it, hand shovelling around briefly and curling around a frayed, scratchy line you stored in there days ago when this idea first began to forment.
You straighten, turning towards him, a bundle of rope secured in your hands.
It’s not hard to spot the instantaneous uncertainty that crosses over him.
“Baby-” he starts, eyes fluttering sharply between the brown threaded rope in your fingers and your determined face. You trot back towards him, crawling back onto the bed to straddle his hips once again.
“Please?” Your eyes search his face, settling into the hesitation lingering through the air, through his expression.
His bottom lip purses in that way it does when he’s deep in thought, that doubt swirling like wires in his mind. You lean forward slightly, and press your hand to his chest, just beside the frantic pace of his heartbeat, your fingers splaying out, brushing with such reverence it makes his face slacken.
And for one of the first times since you met Joel Miller, you see his shoulders fall, his jaw relax, fingers twitching and unclenching from his fists. Like he’s easing his own grip on the reigns, carefully passing them to your dutiful care instead. Entrusting you with it.
He exhales heavily through his nostrils, like the weight is physically lifting away from him, then he nods.
You tilt yourself forward, fingers brushing over his wrists, before you’re tying them together with slow, meticulous knots, brows pinched together in focus. You secure them to the headboard, tugging softly to ensure it’s steady enough. The rope is frayed and digs into his skin slightly, but it’s steady enough to keep him held.
“Okay?” You murmur, checking in. He grunts in acknowledgement, nodding again, shifting beneath you. Immediately feeling the bulge of him against his jeans, the firm press of his arousal he’d outwardly deny if it wasn’t pressing into your centre so insistently.
You smile lopsidedly, pleased, and trail your palms back down his arms, fingertips brushing over the strain of his neck, tracing over his bobbing Adam’s apple as he swallows, then lower. Over his stomach, brushing through the silver curls of his happy trail. You shift yourself downwards, your fingers tangling with the buckle of his belt. The clink of metal rings out in the room along with Joel’s shallow breaths as you slide the leather through the loops, before working at the buttons of his jeans, keeping your movements slow.
You drag the denim down his legs, tugging off his boots as you go, discarding each item off the bed with a clatter as they hit the floor. Leaving him in only his boxers, you climb back over him, settling down onto his lap, both of you sounding simultaneous sounds as your covered centre meets the firmness against his boxers- him grunting whilst you exhale sharply.
“Look good like this,” you comment, hungry, rounded pupils trailing over him, up the slope of his tummy, the heave of his chest with hoarse breaths, the broad stretch of his shoulders and the flex of his neck and jaw. His dark eyes peering up at you with a mixture of curiosity and blatant lust, and his wrists tied above his head, wrists straining against their binds, his forearms taut with tension.
You lean yourself forward, and in a moment of gifted benevolence, lay a gentle kiss against his lips. Fleeting, making him huff as you pull away, just to brush your lips over his cheekbone, then his jaw, lips pursing against his stubble, grazing over the brown and grey strands that tickle your upper lip.
“You’ll tell me if it gets to be too much?” You muse, and he nods stiffly. You chide him by nipping once at his jaw, stern.
“Say it.”
His eyelashes flutter with surprise, another breath drawing from him, but he relents. “I’ll tell you.”
You hum with triumph, your tongue softly smoothing over the place where your teeth sunk into his pliable skin, coaxing and reverent. You reward his compliance by slotting your hips more firmly over his, rolling down once into his jutting erection, feeling his pelvis twitch at the feeling, his arousal already bundled-up, sitting heavy in his balls yet confined in his boxers.
Like him, you don’t shy away from marking his skin. You apply more pressure to your kisses as you move down the length of his neck, licking just above where his carotid artery sits before parting your lips and sucking. Feeling the gentle stretch of his skin in your mouth as you suckle firmly, teeth barely scraping against the pliable flesh. You pull away with a soft pop, watching with victory as the skin quickly begins to bloom in a blush of maroon and purple.
You continue downwards, kissing along his collarbone, the stretch of golden-tanned skin, your tongue sliding over the dip between his shoulder and the crook of his neck, over the small swoop of the bone there. Your need pulses and writhes, but you keep your movements steady, slow.
“Been thinking about this for a while,” you admit against him, slightly muffled. Nose dragging up the line of his throat, kissing reverently at the erratic flutter of his pulse, feeling it jump beneath your lips.
“Yeah?” He rumbles, and you inhale softly, body preening into his familiar scent. Like woodchips and something heavy- something that smooths over you like the slow flicker of a candle, wax dripping heat down the curve of your spine. You can smell the fresh waver of his shampoo, letting it soothe you as you swipe your tongue over the sensitive patch of skin behind his ear, feeling him tense with a short shudder beneath you.
“Yeah. About giving you what you always give me,” you murmur, one hand returning to his chest and gliding down smoothly, tapping against his ribs until you reach the waistband of his boxers, fingertips teasing over the edge of the fabric. “To have this control.”
His chest inflates with a hefty intake of breath as you let your index finger barely graze over the prominent tent in his boxers, tracing the outline of his length over the fabric, feeling it jolt beneath your touch before you pull it away just as swiftly.
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles beneath his breath, and you lift up to settle more promptly on top of him, hands steadying yourself against his chest, gaze flickering back up to his face. Your chest constricts with joy at his expression- he already looks ruined, his lips parted with curter breaths, the coffee brown of his irises swallowed by the inky darkness of his pupils, swimming with hunger.
He looks nearly desperate beneath you. Cock jumping where your covered centre drags over it when you shift, hips tilting. You can feel wetness pressing into you, and it’s not only from your own arousal already staining the gusset of your panties- but his boxers, dampened where his tip is flush with it, leaking beads of precome onto the worn material.
“Think you like this idea more than you want to admit, baby,” you purr teasingly, a knowing brow quirking towards him. He clicks his tongue, chin jutting upwards like he’s going to defy your suggestion, but he doesn’t quarrel.
“Yeah, know you do,” you tease. Then, finally relenting just enough, you grind your hips down more securely, soaked panties dragging against wettened boxers, over the persistent throb of his cock beneath you. He grunts, fingers flexing where his wrists are bound atop his head.
“Know he does too,” you purr, thighs tensing around his hips, hips ticking forward again, watching his eyelashes flutter.
You don’t give him a chance to respond before you’re continuing, leering down at him,
“Think I should play nice, honey?”
“Yeah,” he answers immediately, hips flexing up towards you with a nod towards his boxers, attempting to assert his own control despite his position beneath you. “Take ‘em off, sweetheart.”
You cock your head at him with a mock expression, unamused.
“Do you ever play nice with me?”
You see the immediate flutter of bemusement that flashes across his face, his eyebrows threading together.
“Don’t be a cocktease,” he scoffs back gently, hips rolling up into you, seeking friction.
You tut, letting him see the sardonic roll of your eyes, and shift yourself back so you’re not slotted so promptly over his clothed erection.
“No, you don’t,” you answer for him, fingers flicking around the hem of his shirt craning over you, tugging it up over your head. You let it fall away, discarding it to the foot of the bed as your arms twist behind you to unclasp the clip of your bra. His eyes instantaneously snap down to your chest as you allow the material to peel off your body, letting it join the growing pile of clothes on the floor, left in only the simple, delicate white cotton panties.
You watch his eyes darken further with lust as he takes in your breasts, sitting against your chest like the most inviting prize he can’t reach, nipples already pebbling in the frigidness of the air that’s stifled with the heat of your arousal swarming through your veins. You see his neck tense as your own hands lift to cup your tits, squeezing the supple flesh, letting it bulge between your fingertips.
Inviting, sweet, a cruel smile stretching along your face. His face is slack, his tongue unconsciously swiping out to dampen his bottom lip.
“You want something, Miller? Gotta speak up,” you urge, coax, fingers tightening around your own breasts, breath stumbling as your thumbs brush over your peaked nipples.
“You know what I want. Jus’ give me a taste,” Joel grunts back, his inky gaze never leaving your chest.
You tut, chiding, tongue clicking against the upper ends of your mouth.
“That’s not how this is working tonight, baby. You’re not calling the shots.”
He frowns deeply at the reminder, unimpressed, his wrists tugging experimentally against the bounds around his wrists, testing. To your relief, they don’t budge.
“Think I like you like this,” you tease, hands coiling, wrapping around his sides then pushing upwards to his pecs, smoothing over his warm chest, up his arms raised above his head.
“Like what? Tied up and desperate?” He huffs, eyes narrowed at your importunate, persistent teasing, his hips tensing in an effort to not buck up into you.
“Exactly,” you breathe, tone like honey dripping from your tongue, breathy, body leaning forward to press your bare chest to his, breasts squishing to him. His eyelashes flutter with a strained breath as your mouth brushes over his bottom lip, “All mine to do what I please.”
“Baby-” Joel groans, chest lugging upwards with another strangled breath, but you promptly cut him off by settling your waist back onto his lap. You grind down, hips rolling, the outline of his thick cock through his boxers pressing to your underwear.
“Can tease you for as long as I want with you like this,” you continue, ignoring his needy breaths puffing against your lips as your fingers brush back down from his arms, your hips keeping a slow, steady pace, not applying too much pressure as you rotate your hips above him, over him. “Could make you ache and beg for it like you always do with me.”
His eyes narrow at the threat, his thighs tensing beneath you. You can feel the pulsing heat of your cunt pressing against him through your panties, drenched and sticking to your puffy, soaked folds. He throbs beneath you, so unremittingly it must be painful, his face flushing with harsher pants, pre-come staining his boxers, leaking steadily from his tip that must be so sensitive and needy.
“Not gonna beg,” he gruffs out, and you straighten, a cocky grin lilting up your lips.
“We’ll see,” you tsk back quickly, coyly, keeping up the grind of your hips. You fix yourself atop him, your ribs constricting with need as a rough, guttural moan slips from his parted lips, his eyes glazed over as they dart downwards to where you’re both connected, hips rolling, covered core sliding over his straining thickness.
You hum, bringing your hands down to his stomach, nails raking over his skin gently to coax his attention back up to your face, quickening your pace slightly. His bleary gaze snaps back up, and now you notice the sheen by his temple, the cover of sweat quickly gathering over his skin.
“Untie me,” he scowls abruptly, his features firming, seemingly fed up with your toying acts, playing with him, his muscles straining in his arms whilst his wrists tug resolutely at their restraints.
You beam down at him.
“No,” you chirp, far too pleased to deny him, the roles so swiftly reversed between you both. You feel his cock jump again, the fabric of his boxers sticking tightly to the length of him, the space between you both growing sticky with your combined arousals sticking to your underwear. His hands ball into tight fists above his head, his eyes rapidly flickering over you like they don’t know where to settle on your body first.
“Sweetheart- let me out of these,” he echoes again, wrists tugging at rope, his brows furrowing with disheveled concentration.
You smirk, lopsided and relentlessly cruel, the thrill of finally seeing him like this beneath you scourging through your veins like ecstasy, the adrenaline it gifts you filling you nearly the same way his length would. Full, brimming with bliss. You hook your thumbs into the waistband of your panties, letting it snap out, before you’re lifting up just to drag them down your legs, throwing them off to the side.
He groans like he’s in pain. Hips bucking up towards nothing.
You circle your waist back down to settle back on him, a soft moan slipping from your lips and your head lolling forth as your sopping pussy makes contact with the dampened material of his boxers, rough and wiry, dragging over your puffy, slick folds.
“Jesus Christ,” Joel grunts, low and hoarse, his head falling back into the pillows behind him with a rasped breath.
“Feel good, baby?” You tease, rolling your hips in a devastatingly slow grind, sliding with how much your arousal has collected on his boxers. He twitches beneath you, hips jerking upwards again, seeking more friction, needing the contact.
“Gonna regret this when I get out of these, sweetheart,” he promises, his eyes dark and forbearing. But you’re formidable, and you can spot the desperate glint of his gaze as he stares down towards where your bare, glistening folds drag over the straining pulse of his cock over his boxers.
You swallow down a whimper, your nails scratching up his belly and ribs to his chest, curling against his collarbone.
“If you get out,” you muse, half-mirthful and half-earnest, an emphatic grin ticking at the edge of your mouth. “Might just keep you like this- laid out for me to use.”
A noise akin to a growl rumbles in his chest beneath your palms. Deep, formidable. But you’re relentless, only responding by quickening your pace, swallowing down a whine as your sensitive clit catches on the damp material of his boxers, your arousal dripping steadily from your hole.
“Baby..” Joel rasps, gaze raking up your body. He looks vulnerable, raw, stripped open for you, unable to do anything but endure the torturous roll of your hips down into his. You clench your thighs around his waist, grind, swivel- and a whimper tears from him.
You want to swallow the sound, let it fester in your ribcage until it’s synonymous with the rush of your blood swinging through your veins.
“I know, honey. Know you want more,” you croon, hands smoothing over his chest, hips never ceasing in their relentless grind against him, your clit puffy and swollen with each wanton roll down into him. He gasps out, his lower back bowing upwards in a jolting motion.
“Baby- I can’t-” he chokes out, a panicked look crossing his face for a beat, his inhibitions cast aside, and you feel his cock jerk nearly violently beneath you.
“You can,” you correct sweetly. His bottom lip trembles like he’s biting back a wail, your name coiling out instead in a shaky, rasped tone. It sends a shudder up along the expanse of your spine, and you only press harder into him, thighs spreading wider to frame his waist entirely.
Another whimper. Wrecked and needy. His arms bulge, veins flexing prominently, hips bucking up.
A strangled groan as his head falls back, his chest heaving with effort, and you see him lock up, his entire body tensing abruptly beneath you-
Then you feel it.
A pulse, heat, his cock jumping erratically beneath his boxers, firm and damp, sticking to the fabric. You feel the drool and wash of warmth below you, a liquid that’s thick, sticky- more than just your arousal or his pre-come.
Oh, fuck.
You still, your breath stumbling in your chest as you watch his throat convulse around a desperate gasp of air, his cheeks flushed over with heat, burning, sweat smeared over his forehead, his greying curls sticking to his skin.
He just came.
Inside his boxers, just from you rubbing yourself over him.
“Fuck,” you breathe shakily, pelvis tightening and churning with arousal. He shifts, an uncomfortable expression pulling like a grimace over his face as the realisation tips over him.
“Joel-” you start, and he responds with a grunt that sounds devastatingly more like a whimper, his hips squirming beneath you and his eyes diverting downwards in a reaction akin to shame. You feel him slacken beneath you, the fabric against your cunt entirely drenched, the outline of his cock prominent, still twitching with aftershocks. But not as firm, softened with his orgasm.
It’s not difficult to see the mortification stretched along his winced features, his jaw set in a firm grind, molars pressing inwards together. Something nearly malicious tugs in your chest, a burning satisfaction curling up through your body to your mouth, curling it upwards unconsciously.
“Oh, baby..” you purr, coo, keeping your waist still as you lean down to meet him, face hovering over his. You brush your lips over his cheekbone, which burns beneath your touch, your breath casting hotly over his skin. “Already?”
His head turns away, his jaw flexing as he bites down against the tip of his tongue, pupils blown wide with a mixture of chagrin and lust, like a reflection of what he usually reduces you to. And each time, he does it without mercy.
“Don’t gotta be embarrassed,” you hum sweetly, ignoring his shame, casting it aside as you dip your face to his neck. Licking a stripe up the side of his throat, tasting his sweat on your tongue, melting against your tastebuds like ash and salt- you can almost taste his humiliation.
“Did so good f’me, coming like that when I haven’t even touched your cock properly yet,” you continue in a pleased rumble, laying a kiss against the crook of his neck. He’s silent- or at least trying to be, his breath coming in short, heavy pants by your ear, arousal swelling thickly through you. Cunt throbbing in neglect, but you ignore it, sliding further down his body, pressing your lips in fleeting kisses over his sweat-slicked chest. His stomach twitches as you kiss over it, a hitched breath cramping his chest when your fingers hook over the waistband of his boxers.
Then, unhurried, seeing as it’s at your leisure, you pull his boxers down. Peeling the drenched material away from his skin, watching as it stretches away from the softened line of his cock.
Your eyes widen taking it all in. His limp cock stuck to his pelvis, pulsing still, and saturated in sticky, white release. It coats over his base, along his inner thighs, sticking obscenely to his heavy, sensitive balls you’re eager to make full again. The coarse silver curls at the bottom of his length damp and flush with his flesh. There’s so much come.
“Fuck.. so messy,” you murmur beneath your breath, which casts just barely over his overwrought flesh, making his hips twitch against the mattress. You drag his soiled boxers down further from his tarnished body, dropping them away to the floor with a wet plomp.
Your attention is rapt on him, his matted curls at his pelvis, the grey darkened with his spend, his skin flush and glistening with it. Your mouth waters at just the sight, and you can’t help yourself, quickly dipping down to swipe your tongue out- starting from the base of him, and licking one smooth, slow stripe up the side of his length until you reach his sensitive tip. Tasting the smear of salt and musk on your muscle.
He sounds a choked version of your name, his cock jumping weakly at the overstimulation.
“I know,” you coo, swallowing with a satisfied noise, eyelashes fluttering as you dip back down, but avoid his cock this time- instead licking at his pelvis, feeling the thick stickiness of his come pool on your tongue in a glob, before you’re curling your tongue up and eagerly swallowing it down.
“See how it feels, hon? Achin’ and unable to do anything about it?” You mock, though your tone sings with feigned innocence, a flint grin sent up to him. Taking in his dishevelled appearance, his hair damp with sweat, chest heaving and flushed, his blown-out pupils locked on you between his thighs, lathing wicked torture on his come-soaked flesh.
Exhilaration burns through you- seeing what you’ve been able to reduce him to. His muscles trembling when you lower yourself to them at lick at the sensitive skin at his inner thighs, cleaning up the mess he made with a complacent hum before nipping at his flesh and making him groan, his spent dick palpitating with interest.
You drag your nose up by his pelvic bone, inhaling slowly, smelling the salty headiness of him, able to taste his lust, his desperation. You wonder if this is the same thrill he so often procures with you- this control clutched and spilling out from between your fingers, hanging on so tightly whilst the other can do nothing but squirm and plead for reprieve.
Sickly sweet, you smile.
Mocking his usual deprived remorseless acts he bares on your body.
Dipping your head down again, your hand rising to press against the base of his dick, worn-out and weary, but slowly gaining thickness once again with the lewd sensations. You angle the soft skin upwards, parting your lips, then wrap them around his engorged head, purple and swollen with sensitivity.
You suckle, and he moans; a ragged, ruined sound.
“Too- s’too much,” he stumbles out from above you, hips jerking downwards into the bed like he’s trying to escape the warm embrace of your mouth. You only suck harder, cheeks hollowing to pull inwards and bring more of him into your mouth, tasting his release directly from the source. He nearly wails as your tongue swipes over him, lilting through his overly-sensitive slit, his thighs quivering and wrists jerking adamantly at his restraints.
“Can’t- baby, stop. It’s too much,” he slurs like he’s inebriated, drunk on lust. You suction him in further, swallowing him down until you reach halfway, his cock stiffening unconsciously in the wet warmth of your mouth, tongue lathing over the underside of him, tasting his smear of release.
“Jesus fuckin’- gonna fucking regret this so much when I get out of these, shit-” he sputters out, all in one breath- hopeless and rushed. He’s cut-off with a wrecked whine, his head slinging back and hips jerking upwards, not of his own accord. His body attuned to you, achingly seeking out more despite the churning wants and needs of his mind.
Allowing some surrender, you pull off his half-hardened dick, which slaps wetly up against his pelvis, base quivering with reactive tension. You purse your bottom lip, blowing a stream of cool air against his sensitive tip, watching in awe as it twitches, pulsing purple and angry.
“Want me to stop?” you croon, coquettish gaze lilting up to him, like the very epitome of a demonic creature posing as an angel, sent to this plane just for his sickened demise. He stiffens, his thick thighs flexing and relaxing rhythmically, jaw churning and chest heaving.
You wait, a brow lifting expectantly. You spectate the bob of his throat, the flick of a greying curl sticking flush to his forehead, and then the tilt of his stubbled, silver and brown chin as he shakes his head from side to side. Wordless, and so, so needy.
You grin up at him, pleased. Effervescent at how you’ve waned this staunch, stalwart man down to something shameless, loose.
Maybe unmercifully, you crane your neck downwards, seeing his cock jump once with intrigue as you lower down further between his thighs. Curling your tongue out with licentious intent, wrapping it along the underside of one of his leaden, sensitive balls.
An obstructed, smothered cry of your name tumbles from his spit-swollen lips. His eyes nearly rolling back into his skull as you repeat the action, tasting the slick of his come on the base of your tongue, before you’re hollowing out your cheeks and suckling the heavy sack into your mouth. Moaning around him, the vibration reverberating up along his spine, making him jerk, then moan- anguished and hasty.
You let his ball fall away from your mouth with a wet pop, angling his cock upwards with two fingers and reaching your head back up before dropping your hand back to his thigh. Wrapping your lips around his tip, a smear of his pre-come splayed out over his pelvis where it dribbled.
You swallow his gradually hardening cock down, down to halfway, then further, relaxing your throat as he nudges at the back, fists curling to reduce your gag reflex. You feel his length twitch against the walls of your throat as you glide your head down, lower, until your nose is pressing against the slope of his tummy, buried in the slick, silver curls of his happy trail.
“Oh, shit..” he breathes hoarsely, his hips instinctually rising to grind up against your mouth. You gag, spluttering slightly, but swiftly retaliate by lifting your hands and splaying them over his thighs, nails raking sternly, warning him to be still. He stiffens, groaning lowly at the sharp pierce of crescents into his skin.
You swallow around him, feeling him thicken, growing girthier against your tongue, a vein pulsing along the muscle, his scent thick and heady, wading through your senses like the drip of a cool lake over your tired bones.
Drooling happily on his cock, eyes slipped closed in content.
You lift your head, cheeks sucking inwards, tongue swirling rapidly over his swelled tip. There’s an obscene slurp as you dip back down, repeating the action languidly, slowly bobbing your head up and down over him. Taking him into your throat, swiping your tongue along the underside of his length, moaning in awe as he hardens, despite his creaking knees and his resisting stamina.
You drag your mouth off him with a wet pop, but don’t give him a moment to protest before you draw in a hasty breath of air and swoop back down to his balls, greedy tongue lapping out on his other come-smeared sac, sucking it firmly into your mouth. He whimpers, pelvis jolting upwards, then grinding down. You decide not to chide him, too lost in the feeling of his heavy, salty balls sitting sluggishly on your tongue, full and sensitive.
You lap and suckle and moan, alternating between each ball, lathering attention on each one, licking up his prior release until they’re both shiny and slick with your saliva instead. One hand drags slowly up from his thigh to curl around his spit-coated cock, nearly entirely hard in your grip now, stiff and throbbing when you squeeze at the base. Veins prominent and pulsing along the length of him, your thumb drags over them as you slowly pump up and down. Continuing to suck firmly on his balls, daubing recognition on either of them, dribbling on his sensitive skin like it’s the sweetest candy you’ve tasted, attempting to suckle them both into the wet pressure of your mouth at once like some twisted game of chubby bunny.
“Tha’s it.. keep on sucking on ‘em like that, sweetheart,” he crows out from above you, rasping and drawling like the drag of a chisel along wood.
Just to deny him, you pull away, his chest constricting with the efforts to huff back a groan of frustration, lamenting. Your eyes dart up towards him, glossy with your arousal, his own inky black with need, wrists tied above his head, cock perched and weeping at full-mast.
You move. The shift barely even registers in your mind, your body moving of its own accord, led entirely on lust and a depraved desire to see him squirm- your chin tilts, dark eyes perched on his to gauge his reaction when you move lower. Press your face forward and experimentally curl your tongue out, letting it swipe over the pucker of his asshole, wet and hot and filthy.
You see his entire body go taught, his thighs tightening and his breath stumbling in his throat like he’s been punched. His eyes widening and pooling round, dumbfounded and he stares down towards you.
“Baby-” he croaks, shaky, his hips grinding down in one swift roll down against the bed sheets like his body is unsure if he’s trying to keen closer to the sensation or climb away from it. Your hand stills around his cock, drumming a frantic pulse and leaking in your touch, your hot breath casting over his tight back entrance.
But you spot it. That flutter of uncertainty in the pull of his bottom lip, his jaw clenching with hesitation no matter how far his eyes darken. Yours search his with a heated sincerity, scanning over his weariness.
You reluctantly pull back. Allowing him reprieve, not wishing to push too far without a rawer conversation, aware of the freshness of the act and how many barriers he’d have to relinquish to release his tension for something of that unknown territory. You don’t entirely abandon the idea, instead just allowing it to settle, thick and coiling through the air like promise, stashed away but present. But you don’t continue, not this time.
Instead you just flutter your eyelashes up towards him, swarmed with understanding and a quiet acknowledgement neither of you speak aloud. You lift your head back up, and wordlessly take his cock back into your mouth, lips wrapping around him and sucking him in deep. Moaning softly with equal need as the primal, gruff sound that rips from his chest when you sink down to the hilt. Swallowing to stave off your gag reflex.
His face twists with tension, deprived and desirous, hips rolling up once again.
You let him this time, the both of you falling into a sloppy, obscene rhythm where you bob along his length, and he meets you with sharp, unceremonious thrusts, lower back preening off the mattress towards the wet embrace of your mouth.
His moans and grunts meet your ears like something sinful, something delicious, your nose bumping against his stomach with each drop downwards, eagerly accepting him into your throat even when you splutter and drool, tears spiking at your waterline with the short cramping of your ribs.
“Feels so- oh, fuck- swallowing me down so good. Baby, ain’t gonna- shit, ain’t gonna last long like this,” he curses, heaving out like it pains him, his eyes lidding as he watches you zealously choke down on his cock like it’s your redemption, pelvis meeting your mouth with enthusiastic puffs from his parted lips. Fucking into your mouth as his wrists strain against the ropes, the frayed material digging reddened marks into his skin that his mind doesn’t even register.
You pull off abruptly.
He groans in protest, whilst you draw in a desperate gasp of air, blinking away the tears that gathered in your vision, a few dripping down your cheeks, slipping from your chin as your eyes meet his.
“You wanna come, baby?” You rasp, palm curling back around him, pumping his slick flesh slowly, seeing his dick drool in your hand, pre-come beading copiously from his tip with just the smallest squeeze.
He nods, firm and quiet, sweaty throat bobbing with his grating swallow.
“Ask for what you want,” you demand, eyes set assertively on his, waiting, expecting.
“Told you I’m not begging,” he gruffs resistantly, pupils narrowing towards you defiantly. It almost makes you want to laugh- how he still refuses despite the position you’ve placed him in, body nearly curdling with throbbing arousal against your hand with every slow drag of your fist.
Your tongue swipes over your bottom lip with an ironical glare towards him.
“I can stop,” you threaten dreamily. Hand stilling around him.
He grunts, like he’s devastated, drawn from his chest with a piercing fish hook. His hips press up into your stiff, unmoving hand to no avail, which he quickly realises. His chest rises and falls, tummy raising with harsh breaths.
His nostrils flare, eyes glistening like he’s going to deny you, refuse to yield. But his lips work with an opposite agenda, forming the words, tongue loose and wanton.
“Please.”
It’s sharp, bitter. Like he has to physically lasso it out from his throat.
“What was that?” You purr, pushing and coaxing.
His jaw works, chewing over the words with blatant vexation. You squeeze around him, fist swiping up to drag your thumb promptly through his weeping slit, his cock jerking violently against the touch.
“Jesus- fuckin’- please, baby- gotta come in your hand, in your mouth-” he scowls harshly, then whimpers, his pelvis tight and rolling upwards, seeking more. Messy and haphazard. Cock leaking like a faucet, nearly drooling down onto your fist wrapped tight around him.
Abandoning all false pretenses, grating, his heart pulsing in a raucous beat, “Let me come, please.”
Triumph swims like blaring, calamitous fireworks in your chest. You nearly purr with your delight, a gratified grin stretching along the swollen, wet expanse of your lips. You tilt, and lay a single kitten-lick to his tip, swallowing down another bead of pearly-white pre-come.
Then you’re crawling up the expanse of his body.
“I’ll let you come, honey,” you promise sweetly, hand releasing his cock as you climb up over him, coming to straddle his hips once again. His breath cracks in his chest as you lower yourself, your sopping, drooling cunt pressing down against the underside of his slick cock.
You both moan simultaneously at the warm, firm contact, your head lolling forward with a tremble that strikes down your spine like electric shocks. Finally placing some stimulation on your abandoned, needy pussy.
You grind down just barely, your folds spreading over him, coating him in your arousal, dragging up and down with a distant squelch.
“Please- take me inside you, shit, let me feel you,” he nearly babbles, eyes glazed over, wrists twisting in earnest against his rope confines. “Gotta feel that sweet cunt wrapped around me.”
Joel’s chest burns with a deep, unfiltered sound, his cock jerking beneath you, his head falling backwards with a rasped whine when his red tip catches at your clenching entrance. Your hands glide up, over his chest, one settling gently on the side of his neck, the other coming to delicately cup his jaw. Holding him in your palms like he’s something fragile, cradling him like he’s precious- which he is, to you.
You soften, heart throbbing with an affection only he has bestowed upon your weakened psyche, an endless stretch of fervour and want you’ve never experienced before. Not with anyone but him. With his firm body that softens in the middle, his stubbled jaw and the wrinkled crow’s feet by his glossy eyes your thumb strokes smoothly over now, his face mechanically tilting into the warmth of your touch despite his haste.
Lowering down, you press your lips to his. Gentle, tender, breathing into him like a life source, exhaling into his mouth the same way his fondness and devotion has for you. He’s still for a beat, before he’s kissing you back with a surprised but careful intimacy, melting into it like second nature. A reverence coiled like a secret between you.
“Gonna give you what you want. Did so good for me,” you mumble into his lips, tongue dabbing gently at his bottom lip as you pull away. You tilt your hips up, the hand against his jaw sliding down between you to curl back around his stiff cock, angling to line him up with your aching entrance.
You notch him against your drooling hole, then finally acquiescing- you sink down. Slow, taking your time, letting you both feel each ridge and drag of him against your wet and warm walls, embracing him like a slick, tight vice.
A groan and a whimper mingling in the air, conjoined like your bodies as you lower, until your hips press flush down with his, thighs bracketing him, his forearms flexing like his hands itch to guide the pace, to settle on your hips with firm intent. He sighs like he’s finally been granted something divine and sensational, his length nudging deep within you, the angle pressed to make it feel as though he’s in your stomach- exactly where you always crave for him to be, and to never leave.
Your body adjusts quickly, your slick sliding briskly over him, mind foggy with relief at the feeling of being so full of him.
You brace your hands against his chest, eyelashes fluttering and head dropped forwards as you tardily drag yourself back up, lifting, your arousal clinging to his pulsing girth and your cunt clenching around him, relishing the feeling of him dragging over your sensitive walls.
Right as you’re about to sink back down, you hear a vague, distant shift, then a noise akin to stretching rubber, unravelling. Then a rumble, deep and low-
The ropes binding Joel’s wrists snap.
"If you can't fight and you can't flee, flow." - Robert Elias M.D
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sorry i barked when i saw your happy trail do you still want me
early bird gets ridden | joel miller
old man!joel miller x needy!you
summary: joel goes to sleep too early for you, so you take what you need while he’s snoring his old head off
includes: using joel while he’s asleep, needy little thing, 18+ MDNI, creaky old man, pinv, SOMNOPHILIA, breeding kink (sorta), teasing & playful miller, cowgirl (his fav), raw sex, tender!joel, age gap (implied) dirty talk, praise, greedy!reader, smut, PWP
note: literally woke up in the middle of the night & imagined how sexy it would be to ride joel awake.. need that old man (need him baaaad)
word count: 4k-ish
You swear you don’t mean to start the night like this.
You mean to be good. To let him sleep the way he always tells you he needs to—old man hours, lights out by eight, boots off by the door and his back cream rubbed in before he groans and settles. He was yawning at dinner, eyes going soft the second you scraped your fork across the empty plate. By the time you finished washing up, he was already in the bedroom, one thigh on the mattress and the other knee cracking when he climbed the rest of the way in.
He still kissed your forehead, gruff and warm. “G’night, honey. Dawn patrol. I’m out.”
“You’re such an old man,” you’d teased.
He’d smirked, that half-shy, half-wicked thing he does. “Old man who can still put you through the mattress, so watch your mouth.”
And then, because he knows you, because he’s been reading you in the dark like braille since the first night you let him, he’d tugged you close by the hips and murmured against your ear, “If you wake up with an ache—wake me up so you can take what you need, sweetheart. You don’t gotta ask.”
You’d laughed then, rolled your eyes, promised you’d be good.
Now you’re on your back staring at the ceiling while he snores, and “good” feels impossible.
Joel’s out cold like he always is, sleep hitting him in one clean drop. It’s barely past eight-thirty, the last ribbon of evening leaking thinly under the curtains, and he’s already gone to that heavy, immovable place. The low rumble in his chest is steady, comfortingly human. His mouth is open the slightest bit, beard flattening into the pillow, one arm crooked behind his head so you can see the gray in his armpit hair and the soft fold of skin at his elbow. The other arm rests over his stomach, hand relaxed, fingers curled like he fell asleep holding a wrench. He smells faintly like your soap and menthol from the cream you rubbed into his lower back. His reading glasses glint from the nightstand; he left the book open facedown on his chest until you slid it away and clicked off the bedside lamp.
You turn. Then turn again. Every rustle of the sheet makes heat pool low in your belly, the restless kind that only grows louder when you try to ignore it. The outline in his sweats doesn’t help—thick where the cotton tents over him. Joel’s body is a constant, a gravity you never escape: the spread of his chest hair; the wide plane of his ribs; the soft give of his stomach under that old T-shirt; the deep dents at his hips that fit your hands like they were carved by you.
“Go to sleep,” you whisper to yourself, as if your pulse will listen. It doesn’t. You breathe and count and try to catalog the day—the fence he fixed, the way his wrists rolled the wire, the veins rising on the back of his hands when he tightened the nails, the little grunt in his throat when he stood up too fast and his knee barked at him.
That grunt echoes in your ear now. You feel it all the way between your legs.
It would be so easy. He said it. You don’t gotta ask.
For a long minute, you wrestle with the thought, chewing the inside of your cheek, eyes glued to the shadowed column of his throat. Joel exhales a deeper snore, head tipping toward you. The corner of his mouth lifts like he’s smiling in some easy dream. You really don’t wanna wake him.
“Okay,” you whisper, the decision breaking free on a tremor. “Okay.”
You inch over him, careful, careful, palms flattening on the mattress on either side of his ribs. He doesn’t stir when you slide a knee across his waist and then the other, your cotton sleep shorts whispering over his T-shirt. You settle on his hips, hovering first, testing the weight. He’s so warm; heat rolls off him in waves. You feel the thick length of him pressed up along his thigh under the sweats, the way it shifts when your weight lands.
“Joel,” you breathe, just to taste his name in the dark. He doesn’t answer. A soft snore drifts from his chest.
You curl your fingers beneath the waistband, slow as a prayer, easing the fabric down just enough. He’s commando under there—Joel’s never had patience for extra layers at bedtime. His cock is heavy and warm against your palm as you free him, thick already, half there just from the heat of you sitting over him. You wrap your fingers around him and sigh, the sound small and ruined. He twitches once, a sleepy instinct, his abdomen tightening under the shirt, and then he settles again into that steady rhythm.
You push your sleep shorts to the side with a barely-there shift of your hips and slide your slick along his head. Your whole body jolts. You line him up and press down, slow, slow, until the head nudges inside, the stretch acute and dizzying, a gasp knocking out of you before you can swallow it.
Joel groans in his sleep, a low animal sound that vibrates through your bones. His hand twitches on his stomach. You freeze, breath held, listening. The snore returns, shallow for a second, and then deeper again.
You take more.
You sink inch by inch until you’re seated on him, stuffed full, the fullness taking the breath from your lungs. Your thighs shake. Heat licks at your spine. He fills you like no one else ever has, like he was built to take up space inside you, every ridge and vein a new line of poetry your body reads without eyes.
“Fuck,” you whisper, completely, helplessly lost. You brace your hands on his chest and feel the slow, even rise of his breathing beneath your palms. Hair tickles your fingertips. His heartbeat is unhurried and deep.
You rock.
Just a little at first, testing the angle, finding that precise place inside you where pressure tilts into pleasure and then drops off a cliff. You move again—shallow lift, slow drag back down—and the wet, obscene sound that rides up your spine makes you clamp a hand over your mouth. You roll your hips, circling, a careful grind that drags your clit along the base of him where you know it will catch.
He groans again, deeper, brows drawing together. The hand on his stomach slides—blind, instinctual—until the heel of his palm lands on your thigh. His fingers flex once, twice, a loose grasp like a man reaching for the last thought in a comfortable dream. Heat sparks low in your belly at the simple weight of it, at how big and sure his hand feels even asleep.
You move more. You ride him like you’re trying not to, like you want to be good but your hips have their own mind and his name is written all over it. Slow lifts. Lazy drops. Small circles that make your vision starburst behind your eyelids. Every slide builds him harder, thickening inside you, the stretch growing more urgent, your breath shorter.
You whisper to him, because he loves it (even though he can’t hear you)—nonsense, endearments, filth. “Good boy,” you murmur against his throat, and you don’t even know if you’re talking to him or to your own body. “You feel so good, baby. So big. That’s it. Give it to me.”
His brow furrows. His ribs expand under your hands. He mutters something unintelligible, the syllables rough and sticky with sleep. When you drop a little harder, chase the angle that makes your clit spark bright, his hips lift to meet you on a reflex—old man instincts, sure as a hammer hitting a nail, body finding pleasure with the efficiency of decades.
You almost come right then, the surprise of it, the depth, the way he meets you blind because even his bones know you now. You stifle the sound with your forearm and ride him harder, a little frantic, a little lost, the wet slap of your body on his body louder than you want it to be. You lift and drop and grind until you feel him throb inside you, until he’s fully hard and you’re shaking.
And then his eyes blink open.
It’s slow, the way he arrives. He squints first, lashes clumped together, brows pulled tight. His head tips and his gaze drags up your body like he’s wading through syrup—throat, chest, the way your tits bounce with every roll—and then lands on your face. Your mouth is open. Your breath is coming fast. One of your hands is on his chest and the other is glued to your own lips to keep yourself quiet.
His voice is a gravel drag. “The hell…?”
Your answer is not a word; it’s a whimper, high and guilty, as your hips betray you and rock again, slow, devastating.
Joel’s pupils swallow his eyes. The sleep haze clears with one long exhale that turns into a laugh, filthy and fond. His hand on your thigh tightens. His other arm slides out from behind his head and lands heavy on your hip.
“Jesus Christ, darlin’.” He sounds wrecked and amused at once. “You usin’ me in my sleep?”
You nod, shameless and shaking. “You told me—” Your voice is breathless, vowels melted. “—told me to take what I need.”
He huffs, a sound that’s half a groan when you drop down again. “Said you could wake me up, greedy thing. Not…Christ.” His head pushes back into the pillow. His mouth falls open. “Not mount me like a fuckin’ mare and ride me till I see God.”
You bite your lip and do exactly that—lift and sink, hips rolling so your clit grinds along the base of him. He watches you this time, fully present now, eyes heavy-lidded and hungry, the smile cut into one corner of his mouth like a secret. His thumbs dig into the soft dips above your hips and he guides you without taking over, indulgent, letting you use him, giving you the precise strength you need to keep your rhythm steady.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice low and ruined. “Couldn’t wait, huh? Old man falls asleep and you climb on and fuck yourself silly on my cock.”
You choke on a laugh and then on a moan. “You were snoring.”
“Old men snore,” he says deadpan, and then his grin tilts mean. “Old men also last, sweetheart. Pace yourself if you don’t wanna pass out on me.”
You don’t pace yourself. You chase. The room narrows to the sight of him under you, the feel of his hands, the obscene sound of you taking him. Heat pours through you like warm liquor; your eyes sting at the corners; your thighs tremble. When your rhythm falters, he sits up with a wince and a chuckle—“hip’s fine, don’t fuss”—and wraps an arm around your back. The other hand slides between your bodies and finds your clit with an old man’s surety, no fumbling, no guesswork, just a precise rub that makes you keen.
“Joel,” you gasp, forehead thunking to his, sweat sticking your hair to your cheek. “God, you feel—”
“Yeah, I know what I feel like.” He kisses you slow and messy, tongue licking into your mouth, beard rasping your chin. He tastes like sleep and sex and the last of his evening tea. “Feel like the thing you can’t go without. That right?”
You nod against his mouth, frantic. “Yes. Yes.”
“Good.” His thumb presses tighter, circles smaller, and your hips stutter. “Then take it. Use me, baby. Use your old man. Milk me like you wanted.”
You break. You come hard, clamping down around him, a strangled sound ripping up your throat. Joel holds you through it, murmuring into your mouth, sweet little nonsense that doesn’t match the filth of his hand. “That’s it—there you go—there’s my sweet girl—yeah, you ride me just like that—fuck.”
You’re still shuddering when he laughs against your cheek and lies back, taking you with him so you’re draped over his chest while his cock is still buried to the hilt. He pets your spine, the path his palm takes more steady than your breath. The aftershocks are still popping in your calves when he slaps your ass lightly, a coaxing tap.
“All right,” he says, and his voice changes—still indulgent, but darker, awake now, the old man fully online. “Playtime’s over.”
You squeak when he moves. He flips you under him smooth as a card trick, the mattress dipping with his weight, his knees settling outside your hips. He pauses the second his back complains—you can feel it, the way his breath hitches—and then he breathes through it with a low chuckle. “Don’t worry. Back’s fine. Old, not broken.”
“Joel—” You’re breathless already. He looks huge above you, hair sticking up, T-shirt rucked to his ribcage, sweatpants a crumple around his thighs. Gray dusts his chest hair, silver strands catching moonlight where it sneaks around the curtain. His palm plants next to your face and the thick scar on his knuckle is close enough to kiss. You do, quick, an apology. He smiles like you just gave him a second youth.
“Listen.” His hand slips to your jaw, thumb dragging your lower lip. “You wake me like that again, you better be ready to be kept awake.”
“I am,” you gasp. “I’m ready, I’m—oh, God—”
He pushes into you in one deep, deliberate stroke, and your head knocks the pillow, back arching off the mattress. He bottoms out and stays there, pinning you with his cock and his weight and the look in his eyes that says he’s not just awake now; he’s present, the whole of him aimed right where you need him.
“Fuck,” he says to no one, reverent. “Listen to you.”
You don’t know what you’re saying; it’s all noise, pleading and gratitude and filth. He smiles like you’re his favorite song and then he starts to move.
He takes his time at first, rolling his hips, finding the same place you chased when you were on top, the place that makes you jerk and gasp. He likes it slow, Joel does; likes to feel it, to savor, to make you look him in the eye while he slides so deep you swear you can taste him behind your tongue. He braces one forearm by your head and the other hand goes to your belly, pressing down so he can feel himself moving inside you, so you can feel the push from both sides. You’re a live wire under him, twitching, eyes glazed, mouth open.
“That it?” His voice is hoarse, smug. “That where you wanted me? Greedy little thing—you gonna tell folks I went to bed at eight so you could do that to me?”
“I’d tell everyone,” you hiss, shameless, already close again from the slow grind and the thick stretch. “I’d tell ‘em how—how good you feel. How big. How—”
“Yeah.” He grins, wicked and pleased. “How your old man still has it.”
You groan. He laughs softly, then drives harder.
The tempo shifts—less mercy now, more heat. His breath shortens; sweat beads at his temple; his hair flops forward and you push it back with shaking fingers, because you want to see his face when he fucks you like this. He gives you everything you asked for in the dark: weight and depth and the rough rhythm that makes the headboard thud the wall in a steady beat. Your body answers him like it was designed for this conversation; every thrust slots into a yes.
“You’re gonna be sore,” he pants, almost apologetic, definitely not stopping. “Gonna be walkin’ around tomorrow with my backache and your knees tremblin’, people’ll think we’re both ancient.
“Don’t care,” you whimper. “Want it—want you—old man.”
His eyes flash. He curses, a sound rich and ruined, and then he grabs your ankles and folds you without warning, knees to your chest, opening you wider around him. Your breath leaves your lungs in a ragged sigh; your vision whites out; your hands claw at his shoulders and he groans at the scratch.
“Christ almighty.” He’s gone, too, into that place he only goes when he’s got you like this. “Look at you takin’ it. Gonna break your little back in half and carry you to the kitchen in the morning, put you on the counter and feed you like a goddamn invalid.” He’s muttering nonsense. That’s what the fuck you do to him. Make his brain fucking mush.
“Do it,” you manage, voice wrecked. “Feed me. Fuck me.”
“Oh, I’m doin’ both.” He laughs, breathless. “Old man’ll butter your toast and then put you back to bed.”
You’re not sure if you come because of the words so domestic, so Joel or because he angles his hips just so, pelvic bone pressing into your clit with brutal precision, but you break with a cry that sounds like a sob. It’s messy—your second one always is with him—and he rides it, talks you through it with a string of praises that makes your throat close.
“There you go. That’s it. Take it. Give it to me. That’s my girl. That’s my desperate baby who can’t wait till mornin’—God, look at you—”
You shake, hands slipping, palms slick on his shoulders. Your heels dig into his back. He mouths at your ankle tucked by his cheek, teeth scraping your skin, eyes on yours. He looks younger like this and older all at once—boyish grin cut deep in a man’s face, laugh lines carved by a life that didn’t give him many things to laugh about until you.
“Joel,” you plead, and he answers you with a rough, broken sound, hips stuttering, rhythm going ragged.
“Yeah,” he pants. “Yeah, sweet girl. I got you. I got you.”
He pushes deep once, twice, stays, groans, stays, stays—and then he spills inside you with a noise that’s almost a prayer. His face collapses into pleasure, mouth open, brows high. You hold him there with your legs, with your hands, with every greedy inch of you, because you want to feel all of it, every throb, every warm pulse.
He sags after, catching himself with a palm beside your head, body heavy over yours. He’s careful—always careful—shifting his weight so it blankets you but doesn’t crush you. His breath is hot at your ear. He kisses your temple without aiming, more reflex than thought.
Silence returns in pieces: the tick of the cooling baseboard; the whisper of the curtain; the slowed, satisfied hum of your blood in your ears. Joel’s cock softens inside you inch by slow inch. You feel possessive enough to keep him there forever.
He chuckles first, a small, disbelieving sound that shakes both of you. “Well. That was a wake-up.”
You grin against his cheek, boneless. “Old men sleep so early.”
“Old men have a bedtime so they can do that at midnight,” he corrects, smug, and then winces when he rolls his shoulder. “Ah, hell. Gimme a second—back’s talkin’.”
You’re instantly, foolishly guilty. “Did I—”
“Hey.” He taps your jaw, firm. “You didn’t do nothin’ but make me happy.” He pulls out slow and you wince at the loss. He makes a sympathetic noise, thumbs the place where your thigh meets your hip like he can press the ache into something gentler. “Stay put.”
He’s up and moving before you can protest, a little hobble in his left knee that he pretends doesn’t exist, sweatpants half-mast around his thighs. He yanks them up with a grunt, snags his T-shirt down, and pads to the kitchen. You listen to the soft clink of the cup, the glug of the water jug, the shuffle of a man who refuses to admit his joints complain after sex.
He returns with water for you and one for himself, the glasses sweating in his big hands. He holds the rim to your mouth until you drink and then wipes a stray drop from your chin with the side of his thumb. His other hand is already sliding a pillow under your hips, lifting you gently. You raise a brow; he shrugs, bashful. “Gravity. Old trick. Don’t argue with experience.”
“You trying to put a baby in me, Miller?” you tease, breathless still.
He sets the glass down, climbs back into bed with the smallest of groans, and spoons behind you, his chest a furnace against your back. “Tryin’ to put me in you for as long as possible,” he says into your hair. “Rest of me’ll creak outta place in a minute if I don’t lay still.”
You laugh, and his arm bands tight around your waist. His palm spreads over your lower belly, protective without thinking about it, possessive in that soft way of his that you feel more than see. He drags the sheet over both of you and uses the toe of one foot to hook the blanket higher; he’s a mess of tenderness and curses and muscle memory, every move both clumsy and practiced.
“Sorry I woke you,” you murmur, though you’re not sorry at all.
“Mm.” He nuzzles the place where your neck meets your shoulder, beard scratching, breath warm. “Best wake-up I ever had.” He kisses you there, a slow press. “You do that again and I ain’t complainin’. Might bitch for show, but I ain’t complainin’.”
You hum. Your eyelids are heavy now, the ache between your legs settling into a satisfied throb, the kind that promises soreness you’ll feel between chores tomorrow like a secret only you and he know. He shifts behind you, resetting his knee, grunting under his breath.
“You okay?” you ask, smiling.
“Peachy.” He gives your hip a squeeze. “Old man’s fine. Might need you to rub that cream in again before dawn, though.”
“I’ll do more than rub cream,” you say, wicked and sleepy.
He groans into your hair. “Christ, you’ll be the death of me. Bury me happy, at least.”
You reach back, find his thigh, squeeze the thick muscle there. “You’ll outlive all of us, grump.”
He doesn’t argue out loud, but you feel the smile against your neck. His breathing slows again, not the dead drop from earlier but the patient, satisfied kind, the one he falls into when he’s not worried about anything, when he’s got a hand on you and knows you aren’t going anywhere. The room goes quiet except for him, your favorite metronome.
You’re almost gone when he speaks, voice low and rough, the words dragging over your skin.
“Hey.”
“Mm?”
“Next time you wanna ride me while I’m sleepin’—” He pauses, mouth curving where you can’t see it. “—kiss me awake first, greedy girl. Let me watch.”
You smile into the pillow, a slow, wicked thing he can probably feel with his palms. “Yes, sir.”
He sifts his fingers lower over your belly, like he’s tucking the promise into you. “Good. And if you don’t—” He yawns, the sound huge and boyish. “—I’ll just have to keep you up all night again.”
“You say that like it’s a threat,” you murmur.
“Oh, it is,” he says, sleep swallowing his vowels. “Tomorrow’s gonna hurt.”
“Worth it,” you say.
He hums. His hand tightens once more at your waist, and then the old man who goes to bed at eight and still fucks you stupid at midnight lets the dark take him back, content now that you’ve spent yourself on him and come apart in his hands. You follow a heartbeat later—full of him, sore in the best way, the pillow under your hips a silly indulgence you’ll tease him for in the morning right up until he makes your knees shake all over again.
When dawn leaks gray around the curtain and his alarm buzzes, he’s the one who groans first, rolling onto his back with an exaggerated old-man complaint you don’t buy for a second. You’re tender and smug and slow to move, and he’s already reaching for you, palm finding your thigh, voice a rasping promise.
“Told ya,” he says, smiling even as he winces, “gonna need that cream.”
You kiss his chest, leave your mouth there long enough to feel his heartbeat answer. “Lie still,” you tell him, and it’s his turn to obey while your hands slide lower with all the patience in the world.
masterlist — love everyone who has been showing my stories some love. it truly means alot. i get all giddy and so excited to show you guys more fics i’m working on. probably write too much!!!!!!!! i have like 10 fics sitting in my drafts….. someone shut my mind off!!!
٠࣪⭑ fighting with your older boyfriend joel
٠࣪⭑ joel doesn’t yell first—he bites. his voice drops, slow and cutting, and he’ll choose the words he knows will sting.
٠࣪⭑ he calls you kid when he’s angry, spitting it out like a reminder of the years between you. “grow the hell up, kid. this ain’t highschool. i gotta work, i can’t baby you all the damn time.” he knows it’ll gut you—and hates himself the second it leaves his mouth.
٠࣪⭑ says things like “you don’t know what the real world’s like yet” or “you’ll get tired of me sooner or later, best you figure that out now, save me a shit ton of headaches.”
٠࣪⭑ you get a little pouty when women closer to his age smile at him, or when his coworkers talk about their wives. joel secretly loves that you want him so bad, but when he’s exhausted, he doesn’t have the patience to reassure you.
٠࣪⭑ sometimes you just want his attention—his eyes on you after a long day. he normally gives it without thinking, but when he’s bone-tired he might snap: “jesus, can I sit for five minutes without you hangin’ off me?” and it cuts deep.
٠࣪⭑ arguments spark when your worlds don’t line up—your college friends vs. his coworkers, your idea of fun vs. his exhaustion.
٠࣪⭑ the fights don’t just sting—they ache. bc dating an older man felt thrilling until you realized when he pulls away, it feels like the end of the world.
٠࣪⭑ joel goes cold after being sharp—crosses his arms, rubs his temples, mutters under his breath, “should’ve known better…” and it makes your chest cave in.
٠࣪⭑ you try not to cry in front of him, but tears slip anyway, and that’s when his anger usually breaks. he sees you trembling and it shatters him. but he doesn’t know how to apologize cleanly. he’ll sigh, tug his hand through his hair, and mutter, “didn’t mean that, baby. you know i didn’t.”
٠࣪⭑ he shows up in the kitchen later, leaning against the counter, voice soft and rough: “i don’t want nobody else. just you. i just get tired. that’s on me.”
٠࣪⭑ his make-up love language is touch: pulling you into his lap, resting his forehead against yours, thumb stroking your cheek. if you’re still raw, he’ll try humor—teasing you gently, voice warm, “clingy little thing, ain’t ya? can’t say I don’t like it.”
٠࣪⭑ joel’s sharp words haunt him. he hates himself for snapping, so when you crawl into his lap later, his first instinct is contrition. his apologies are mumbled into your skin—against your neck, your chest, your thighs. “’m sorry, baby… should never talk to you that way… my sweet little girl, always so good to me.”
٠࣪⭑ he gets slow and indulgent—stroking your hair back, kissing your jaw, murmuring: “pretty little thing, look at you… can’t stay mad when you look so fuckin’ sexy sittin’ on me.”
٠࣪⭑ joel loves when you ride him after a fight—it makes him feel like you’re choosing him again. he’ll grip your hips tight and groan, “that’s it, baby girl. let it out. ride me like you hate me.” and he praises every whimper—soft chuckles between apologies: “so needy… so good for me. my baby girl.”
٠࣪⭑ if it was a bad fight—the kind where you cried, maybe even stormed out—the make-up sex is feral. joel doesn’t wait for slow touches. he pins you, growls into your ear, “you drive me goddamn insane, y’know that? gonna fuck that attitude right outta you.”
٠࣪⭑ he’s mean with his hands—slapping your ass harder than usual, leaving red handprints, fingers digging in where he knows it’ll sting. he loves when you slap him back across the face during sex—sharp little sting that makes him groan. it’s his favorite foreplay, a secret thrill. “yeah, there’s my girl. hit me harder. you’re so fuckin’ hot when you fight me.”
٠࣪⭑ & yes, he loves choking: his palm on your throat, squeezing harder than he normally would. he loves seeing your eyes roll when he does it. grows, “you like when i’m rough, huh? don’t lie.” the release is messy, sweaty, teeth and nails—both of you panting like you can’t decide if you’re still angry or crazy in love again
٠࣪⭑ but even if it was rough, joel never skips the aftermath. he pulls you tight against him, whispers into your hair: “i love you. don’t wanna fight no more, baby girl. just want you.”
٠࣪⭑ he presses kisses to every red mark he left, soothing with murmured “sorry, sorry, i’m stupid, i want all of you, every little goddamn annoying, sexy thing about you, don’t ever wanna lose you.”
masterlist | request box always open | drink water, i love you
STIMULI AND RESPONSE: A STUDY IN CHEMISTRY…
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。𖦹°‧➵ PAIR: Reed Richards x fem!reader
。𖦹°‧➵ WC: 6k
。𖦹°‧➵ CONTAINS: 18+ SMUT MDNI, spoiler free, age gap (unspecified), intern reader, divorced reed (sorry sue), swearing, sexy science, first kiss, lots of data talk but it’s just filth, sex pollen, fingering, p in v, dr. reed ‘any size you want’ richards, finger sucking, nipple play, creampie, porn w/o plot, no use of y/n.
。𖦹°‧➵ NAT’S NOTE: well this was extremely inevitable…we all knew this was coming. i loved fantastic four and i love marvel’s first family, the avengers don’t have SHIT on them. i can’t believe this is my very first (1st) sex pollen fic, like i’ve really been dropping the ball but that ends right now. hope y’all love it, mwah!
dividers by lovely @saradika-graphics & reed pic by angel @iamasaddie!
dr. richards asks a favor of you…
The Baxter Building laboratory always smells faintly of motor oil and hot circuitry, like the very air itself has been charged.
You've long since gotten used to the smell after all these months spent hard at work in your internship.
You're used to the low hum of oscilloscopes, the spotless glimmer of all the different chrome instruments strewn about the room, the tick of Dr. Richards' watch when he's hunched over his workbench with the kind of single minded focus that never fails to make your chest ache.
It’s well past midnight, another day of you staying far beyond the allotted time, but it’s hardly out of the ordinary by now. Dr. Richards research—and mind quite frankly—has no regard for any kind of normal office hours. It’s almost as if he exists in a different realm, tethered only loosely to the rest of humanity by his work.
That’s another thing you’ve become accustomed to. The clipped speech, the crisp white lab coats always just a bit rumpled from long days, and the air of a man who thinks faster than anyone could follow.
You were supposed to be here for observation, honing in on the delicate skills needed to work in a lab as complex as this one. It started off as just another internship credit. Two semesters of assistance. What it’s slowly morphed into is something more like a full time job, if not a full on fixation with your boss.
You’ve become the one person Dr. Richards doesn’t mind in his peripheral vision. Always quiet, always ready, always watching him with eyes a little too attentive, voice a little too eager each time he speaks to you.
It’s something you never let yourself think about too closely. The one thing you’d never stick under the dozens of highly advanced microscopes just beneath your fingertips.
It’s not plausible.
You’re halfway through labeling a series of glass slides when the door softly hisses open behind you.
“Ah, there you are. Wonderful.”
You swivel around on your stool, standing almost automatically—like Dr. Richards' mere presence demands it. At this point, you’re sure that it does.
He’s standing at the threshold of the lab—tall, thoughtful, thin glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose. In the bright, sterile fluorescent lights, Reed Richards looks less like a man and more an idea given form. All poised intellect, sharp eyes, and a mind clearly three steps ahead.
“Dr. Richards,” you greet, smoothing your skirt out of habit, because no matter how hard you try, you always feel like a nervous schoolgirl around him. “I was just logging the slides from the blood pressure data–”
“Excellent.” He cuts in gently, like he always does when your words are just a little slower than his. “However, I have a far more pressing matter at hand.”
Dr. Richards strides past you to his desk, flipping open one of the many notepads cluttering the space. It was quiet for a few beats, only the sounds of pages turning and muted mumbling as he read over the flurry of sporadically scrawled notes and equations.
You stay in your spot a few feet away, hands clasped in front of you as you wait patiently for him to speak again. He isn’t the kind of man you dare to interrupt when he gets lost in his work.
He picks up a stray pencil to scribble one final note in the margin, then straightens and turns his sharp gaze on you. “I need your assistance with a controlled trail,” he says simply, like he’s requesting something as routine as a full body scan.
“A trial?” You blink, taken aback. Your eyes cut to the clock hanging on the opposite wall, noting the time before returning your gaze to his passive expression. “Tonight?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation, waving you over and turning back to his work. The quiet clinking of glass rings out as he cards his fingers through a test tube rack full to bursting with a different array of brightly colored chemicals. “It’s Compound 83. A strain I synthesized last week from the pollen of a Peruvian orchid."
You cross the short distance obediently, perching yourself on the spare stool next to him just as he plucks out a tube filled with a viscous pink liquid.
Dr. Richards swirls the tube gently, brow furrowed as he watches it splash up against the sides. “Genus Cattleya venusta. Extremely rare. Hyper stimulating. A short half life. I’ve…refined it recently.”
You nod, still confused but refusing to let it show. You pick up your own notebook from the pile, the one with a small atom sticker he placed in the top right corner to mark as yours. “What does it do?”
He hesitates, just long enough for you to notice. But the moment is gone just as fast as it came, giving you no time to think on it.
“It’s a neurological accelerator targeting oxytocin, dopamine, and a few obscure hypothalamic pathways we’ve only begun mapping. Thus, when administered in a controlled environment, should trigger an amplified parasympathetic response.”
Dr. Richards’ voice is calm, measured, full of the kind of certainty that makes people believe anything he says. He adjusts his glasses with his free hand as though to punctuate the statement.
You slip the pencil resting behind your ear out and begin dutifully recording his dictations on a fresh page. “Amplified parasympathetic response,” you repeat, as though saying it out loud will cement the idea in your mind. “Meaning…relaxation?”
“Relaxation, certainly. But more specifically…” He trailed off as his long fingers drum along the glass tube. “...heightened sensitivity, increased blood flow to erogenous zones, accelerated dopamine release, and a…well, a state of arousal far surpassing the body’s baseline capacity. Think of it as a neurological catalyst. A kind of–hm–sexual amplifier, for lack of a better term.”
You blink. Your pencil abruptly stills against the paper. “Dr. Richards…” you begin carefully, dreading the answer you were sure to receive. “Are you saying this is…an aphrodisiac?"
“Yes,” he says, dryly. “But I’d prefer we didn’t reduce it to that.”
Your pulse quickens before you can stop it. You try to disguise the sudden dryness of your mouth with a stunted laugh void of all humor. You’re unsure if this is a joke, some elaborate scientific prank to weed out the weak interns—or if Dr. Richards is really asking what you think he is.
He takes a step closer, peering at you over the frame of his glasses. “I need data on its physical, behavioral, and cognitive effects. In vivo. A live trial. Unfortunately, none of the team are suitable candidates due to immunogenic complications. Johnny had a reaction. Ben refused.”
You don’t bring up the obvious member missing from his apparent previous failed trails. The divorce was none of your business, it never will be. You’ve seen Sue and Reed interact less than a handful of times since the news broke to the press and then to the general public. They seem to be working together quite well despite what one might think, still cordial and professional with each other in every facet within the team.
Your grip on your pencil tightens, lips parting. “And you want me to…test it?”
“Yes.” Dr. Richards nods once, deliberate. “Your physiology is well suited to controlled observation. You’re young, in excellent health, no known endocrine disorders. Statistically ideal.”
Your stomach sinks, a flush of warmth creeping up the back of your neck. It’s hardly a compliment, practically the furthest thing from one. It still has arousal sparking deep in your belly, the idea that he’s looked at you. He’s cataloged you. He’s thought about this moment carefully, crunched the numbers and deemed you the best candidate for this experiment.
You don’t realize that you’ve gone quiet, the silence stretching out in the spotless lab as your brain tries to process all the input you’ve received in the last five minutes.
“I wouldn’t ask,” he says quickly, taking your silence as a negative. “if I didn’t think you capable. You’ve shown remarkable composure under pressure. And I assure you—if at any point you wish to stop, you only need to say so. Consent, of course, is paramount.” His gaze finally softens, just enough for you to see the man behind the scientist. “I’d never want to harm you.”
You swallow stiffly, your throat dry. “What about you?”
Dr. Richards brows furrow slightly, like you asked him an extremely stupid question. “It would be irresponsible to not include myself. The biochemical pathways are interactive, and I must assess the shared impact.” He raises the test tube to the light, the liquid shimmers under the bright white rays. He glances at you again, eyes unreadable. “To be perfectly clear, the study would involve direct physical contact.”
It’s the most clinical way anyone has ever told you we’d be having sex.
Heat flares under your skin, like thousands of tiny pinpricks breaking out all along your body. “So, what you’re really asking me is to–”
“Copulate,” he supplies matter of factly, as if he’s describing the weather. “Us, under the influence of the compound.”
He says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like the simple word us doesn’t rearrange your entire nervous system. Like you haven't spent months wondering if Reed Richards—brilliant, remote, obsessively precise—even thinks about you at all when he’s not assigning you lab reports.
You try to find the words, but they all tangle in your throat. “Um, what–what exactly would the study entail?” you finally manage.
“Simple,” he replies, turning fully toward you now. His deep brown eyes pin you to your seat with clinical intensity. “Oral intake of the compound, both subjects will report on their individual symptoms as they manifest. I’ll monitor physiological changes as it begins to take effect—heart rate, body temperature, pupil dilation. Eventually, I’ll…well.” His voice trails off, as if only now realizing the inevitable conclusion. “We’ll engage in various sexual activities to evaluate its full efficacy, at which point I’d assess how, if at all, the effects might be mitigated or resolved.”
“Resolved,” you echo, voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes,” he says softly. “Achieving climax would, in theory, alleviate the overstimulation.”
Your breath catches, sharp and shallow. Once again, he says it like it’s nothing—like sex with him is just another variable on a spreadsheet.
Your heart pounds hard against your ribcage, your palms sweaty. The logic is sound, of course it is. The delivery is methodical, careful. You hear the question Dr. Richards isn’t voicing beneath it all clearly despite all that.
Would you let him touch you?
You should say no.
You really should.
This could complicate everything, in a myriad of different ways. Dr. Richards is your boss, your mentor. The possible legal ramifications alone should be enough to scare you out of the lab and all the way back to the safety of your apartment.
Instead, you hear yourself whisper, “I’ll do it.”
The relief on Dr. Richards face was subtle but unmistakable. His shoulders relax, dropping a beat of tension you didn't realize was there. You have the inexplicable urge to laugh, at how ridiculous this all is. Or maybe, it was because he thought you'd ever be able to say no to him.
"Very good." He nodded once, his face already set with determination. He swept the notebook from his desk, the test tube still secure in his other hand. "Follow me."
You have no choice but to obey.
The isolation room is a sea of crisp white.
White walls. White floors. A single chair is bolted to ground right in the center, padded with spotless white leather.
It's sterile in nature, it was designed that way. Silent except for the low electrical hum of the halogen lights shining overhead. There’s a faint antiseptic tang in the air, like bleach diluted with something floral. Faint enough to almost be pleasant.
You know for a fact there's a camera somewhere, disguised in the ceiling tiles. It's for safety purposes, to monitor subjects from afar when they're deemed to dangerous for an in person encounter.
You wonder idly if Dr. Richards disabled the camera, or if he's kept it on.
The latter seems extremely likely. If you know him at all, he'll want the footage to be available for later use. To review the trial as more of a fly on the wall when all is said and done.
The idea of him re-watching this encounter has your chest tightening, something like embarrassment and arousal churning together sickly somewhere deep in your stomach.
Dr. Richards enters behind you, his footsteps soft against the tile as he passes you and stops next to the chair. "If you'll sit, we can begin."
You lower yourself down into the chair, it was made to cradle the spine and ensure maximum muscular relaxation. You've cleaned it before, wiped it down countless times. Logged its maintenance just as much. You never thought you'd be perched on it like this, legs pressed together nervously, arms resting primly at your sides.
"I'll begin with a baseline assessment." He clicks his pen, flipping his notebook open with brisk precision. "Pulse, temperate, pupil reactivity." His voice is calm, steady. As though he isn't about to feed you something that will make you ache for him.
He doesn't look nervous—he never does—but the faint tightening at the corners of his mouth betrays just how carefully he's bracing himself for what's about to happen.
Dr. Richards leans in closer, and for a moment the clinical facade fades. His scent—clean linen, aftershave, the acrid note of lab alcohol—floods your senses. He takes your wrist gently, sliding his fingers over the delicate skin of your wrist until the press against the throb of your pulse.
"Eighty beats per minute," he murmurs to himself, eyes narrowing as he counts under his breath. "Slightly elevated. Presumably caused by anticipation."
"You think?" You speak before you can think better of it, tone laced with the barest hint of sarcasm.
"I know," he replies matter of factly, jotting the number down. His fingertips linger on your skin for a bit longer than necessary before falling away. "Measuring pupil dilation now."
He plucks a small penlight from the breast pocket of his lab coat. Without warning, he reaches forward and takes your chin between gentle fingers, steadying you. His thumb brushes your check as he shines the small light back and forth over your eyes.
You hope he can't feel the warmth rising beneath your skin. The beam stings, but you hold still, because he expects you to.
"Pupils responsive," he notes, close enough that you feel the fan of his breath. He clicks the pen light off, slipping it back in his pocket before his hand moves up and presses against your forehead.
It takes every bit of will in your mortal body not to lean into his touch.
"Temperature is normal." He nods, dropping his hand to scribble more information into his notebook. "Ninety eight point four."
You fight the urge to laugh. You feel like your skin's blistering.
"All right." Dr. Richards takes a step back, placing his notebook on the tray. "We can proceed."
Your heart skip three times over in your chest as you watch him retrieve the test tube. He unscrews the cap, and a sweet, heady scent drifts through the air between you. It hits your nose like perfume. Your mouth waters against your will.
"Compound 83 has been calibrated to a micro-dose." He picks a pipette off the metal tray resting on the table beside you, sliding the dull tip inside of the test tube and carefully measuring a few milliliters of the liquid. It shimmers rosy pink in the light, filmy and iridescent like the surface of a bubble. "Oral administration. It should take approximately three minutes to cross the blood-brain barrier."
You nod once, jerky and tense. You don't trust your voice enough to speak.
"Tongue out," he instructs softly, taking a step closer.
The command makes your stomach twist.
You part your lips, tipping your head back slightly. The first drop lands on your tongue, and the taste is shockingly sweet—like sugared fruit with bitter, chemical bite beneath. Dr. Richards tilts the pipette, letting the measured dose coat your taste buds.
"Swallow." His tone leave to room for hesitation.
You obey, throat working as you take it down. His eyes track it the movement with the subtle air of fascination. For your apparent bravery? For your insistent need to please? You're not entirely sure.
"Good," he whispers, reeling back to take his own dose. He sets the tube and the pipette down, checking his watch. "Note the taste."
You roll the few drops left around in your mouth, absentmindedly chasing the flavor. "Sweet. Slightly bitter."
Dr. Richards nods in agreement. "Any tingling? Metallic aftertaste? Olfactory shifts?"
You shake your head, wringing your hands nervously. "No. Not yet."
"Good," he repeats, eyes sharp as he keeps his gaze trained on his watch, recording the time down to the second. "Now, describe the sensation. Do you feel warm?"
You do, now that he's brought it up. A pleasant heat thrumming just beneath your skin, like the hot spray of a shower head beating down on overworked muscle. Nothing you can't handle.
You nod, tongue coming out to sweep along your bottom lip. "Yes. If baseline temperature was determined as normal, I'd estimate it's climbed approximately six degrees."
"Fascinating," Dr. Richards mumbles, reaching out yet again. Long fingers catch your wrist, gently circling it to find your radial pulse point. "Pulse is elevated, one hundred and thirteen beats per minute."
Your thighs shift slightly, the hem of your skirt creeping up with the movement. His eyes track it, his gaze feels like a physically caress on the newly exposed skin.
He drags his eyes back up slowly, really looking at you, studying your face. "Pupillary dilation at…remarkable. Nearly thirty percent increase already."
Your hands fall to the armrest on either side of you. "Dr. Richards-"
He cuts you off. "Subject B experiencing similar symptoms to Subject A. Internal temperate is rising steadily."
He sheds his lab coat then, draping it over the back of the chair. He unbuttons the cuffs of his sleeve with deft fingers, rolling them up to expose the corded muscle of his tan forearms. The collar of his shirt is askew, just enough to show off the hairy skin of his chest. His undershirt is thin enough that you can see the slight clench of his abdomen.
He looks more inviting this way, more approachable. Devastatingly handsome.
You try not to notice the way his suspenders hang loosely around his hips. You fail.
White hot heat unfurls low in your belly, sharp and sudden, like the spark of a match catching dry paper. Your skin prickles, sweat beading at your hair line. Every inch of you is hyper aware of Dr. Richards nearness radiating the same warmth.
Your breath hitches, hands squeezing the chair's armrests. "Dr. Richards, I-"
"Reed," he interrupts, his tone tighter than before—strained. "Please, call me Reed."
Your chest heaves, lips slick and parted as you suck in greedy lungfuls of air. Your thighs clench, pressing together tightly. There's an unmistakable dampness spreading over the thin cotton fabric of your panties.
“Breathe normally,” he instructs, eyes glued to your chest, to the hard peaks of your nipples straining against your shirt. “The compound should take effect within-”
You don't hear the rest.
The compound spreads faster now, thrumming in a way that's inescapable. The room feels like someone cranked up the heat as high as it goes, your skin sings under every brush of air. You shift again, and a needy sound escapes before you can catch it.
Blood rushes through your ears, a mess of white noise. Your heart pounds in your chest, adrenaline coursing through your veins to light them up from the inside like you took an injection of kerosene.
"Reed…" You breathe, voice gone airy and taut. "It's-it's getting stronger."
"Wonderful." It's almost as if the word is pulled from him before he can think better of how lewd it sounds. "Describe the sensation in your lower abdomen."
He means your pussy—your brain supplies unhelpfully. The thought alone has another humiliating sound falling from your lips.
"Pressure," you admit softly, eyes never straying from his. "Heat. A kind of almost…pulling sensation."
Reed's eyes darken, it's unmistakable. "Touch sensitivity?"
You blink. "I-I don't know."
"Then let's determine."
Before you can respond, he steps forward. Your thighs part instinctively, giving him the room he needs to loom over you.
You can hardly sit still beneath the intensity of his gaze. Your thighs part further, and he notices—of course he notices. His sharp brown eyes flick down, linger, then return to your face.
Reed reaches up slowly, being sure to let you see the path his hand takes through the air. Gently, so gently, he cups the side of your face.
The touch is featherlight. Measured. His skin is warm, calloused. Your eyes flutter shut, a soft moan falling from your lips. His skin feels scorching, burning a plane of heat along the side of your face.
“You’re—extremely sensitive,” he observes. “Marked increase in reactivity. Pupils dilation increased to 100%. Body language—shifting. Seeking friction.” His fingers trace down your neck, just barely ghosting over your pulse.
You suck in a sharp breath.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs, his own hand shaking. “Very responsive to light contact.”
You want to deny it, but the data is undeniable. Your breathing is quick, thighs pressing tight together, nipples showing through the thin fabric of your blouse.
Another wave hits you hard. Your hips shift against the chair involuntarily, and Reed watches. “Pelvic tension. Motor restlessness. Onset confirmed at three minutes, thirty seconds.”
Your back arches off the chair, sweat dripping down the length of your spine. You finally let yourself lean into his touch, panting at the contact.
“I can feel it as well,” he says quietly, breath hot against your ear. “My palms are sweating. Heart rate elevated. There’s a persistent ache behind my eyes. Blood flow redistribution—predictable.”
You glance down.
There's a very pronounced tent straining behind the fly of his slacks. A patch of wetness darkens the khaki fabric, spreading and so inviting.
You moan at the sight, your hands twitching with the need to touch.
"This will be for data," he says, like he's convincing himself the words are true.
You nod, dragging your eyes back up to his own. Your gaze is dazed like you've been spun in circles.
Reed kisses you.
Your hands fly to the lapels of his lab coat, dragging him down as he leans into the chair with you.
It's not romantic. Not soft. Not scientific. It's hungry, searching. A filthy mess of spit and something delicate and layered shattering like sugar glass between the two of you.
He's trying to map you, to gauge your reaction. His tongue slides past your parted lips and you whimper, aching. Reed swallows the sound, returning one of his own. A deep, low groan that wracks through your body like thunder.
When he pulls back, you chase him.
"Extraordinary," he breathes against your mouth, more to himself than to you. "The compound is creating extreme dopaminergic reinforcement."
"Touch me," you gasp, past the point of desperation. "Please, Reed. Touch me. I need-"
Reed's mouth crashes against yours, hard enough to clack your teeth together roughly. He's more gone than you thought, the careful man who handles each and every lab instrument like they're made of blown glass nowhere to be seen as he claims your mouth. His hands slide up your body—along your waist, up over your ribs, until they cup your breasts.
You cry out into his mouth when his thumbs brush over your nipples. The stimulation is immediate, electric. Explosive.
He pinches them between long, nimble fingers—caution lost in the whirlwind of arousal.
You keen.
“Heightened sensitivity confirmed,” he murmurs against your jaw, now completely wrecked. His voice is hoarse. “God—you're responding faster than anticipated. It's remarkable.”
You gasp when he yanks your blouse open with a sharp tug. Buttons scatter across the floor, clinking against the tile. His hands are on your bare skin now, mouth following. You arch as he sucks a nipple into his mouth, his fingers teasing the other.
Reed groans like he's in pain, panting against your breast. “Where are you experiencing the most acute sensation?”
Your tongue is too thick in your mouth. You try to swallow, try to answer, but it comes out wrong.
He leans closer, resting his forehead against yours. “You’ll need to verbalize, please.”
“Between my legs,” you manage, barely audible. “It—it’s extremely sensitive.”
A low sound rings out in the minuscule space between your lips. It takes your molasses drenched thoughts a few beats to realize it's coming from Reed. From somewhere deep in his chest, clawing its way out.
“Understood.” His touch travels, skating down lower until his fingers are trailing up the inside of your trembling thigh. “Do I have your permission to proceed with physical contact?”
"Yes," you whisper, and it comes out far too fast. Too eager. You can't find it in you to care. "Yes, Reed."
Reed slips his hand under your skirt, seeking out the damp plane of your pussy.
You jolt at the contact, hips twitching forward before you can help it.
Through the cotton, he traces the outline of your cunt, every shift of pressure measured, every reaction recorded in the keen flick of his eyes. He presses just slightly against your clit and watches the way you squirm, the way your breath stutters.
“Fascinating,” he repeats, eyes fixed on you as you start to writhe beneath him. “Clitoral response is heightened. You’re…exquisite. Perfect. Responding exactly as hypothesized—no, better—God, better.”
Two fingers spread you wide, and the slick sound is nothing but downright obscene. Your hand flies to his forearm, gripping it tightly as his index finger teases along your entrance.
You whimper, taking your bottom lip between your teeth.
“Remove your underwear,” Reed instructs, not unkindly—but without pause. “I’d like to confirm those measurements manually.”
You scramble to do exactly as he says. You lift your hips, fingers fumbling with the hem of your skirt and dragging the soaked panties down your thighs. You can’t bring yourself to look at him as you set them aside on the tray. The air hits your bare cunt like a slap—wet and exposed and throbbing.
Reed sinks to his knees.
It’s the first truly shocking thing he’s done all night.
He doesn’t say anything about it, not at first. He just positions himself between your legs, face level with your cunt, and exhales once. A long, slow breath. It's ragged at the edges, tormented.
It makes you shiver.
“Excellent visibility,” he mutters, seemingly unbothered by the fact that your folds are glistening and swollen inches away from the front of his face. You can still hear the slight termor of his voice all the same. “Subject appears to be fully engorged. Labia minora are visibly distended. Vulvar tissue is flushed.”
His first finger enters you with barely any resistance. You’re so wet, the stretch is effortless, obscene. He watches the way you swallow him in, his jaw flexing once as if trying not to react.
“Incredible,” he says, voice low. “Increased elasticity. Temperature is elevated. Constriction around the first phalanx…tight. Responsive.”
He curls his finger experimentally.
You choke on a gasp.
He adds another.
The stretch has your thighs clenching automatically around his wrist. You’re wet enough to hear it—the slick, filthy sound of your cunt sucking him in. Reed doesn’t blink.
“Two digits…full insertion.” He speaks as if he’s trying to distance himself from it. But his breath is shallower now. His cheeks are flushed. “Subject is—remarkably reactive.”
Reed scissors his fingers gently, eyes trained on the place where they disappear into you. “You’re pulsing around me,” he murmurs, full of awe. “That’s…beautiful.”
You’re past the point of embarrassment now. Your hips rock helplessly into the rhythm he sets—slow, firm pumps, angled just slightly until—
“Oh my god—”
“There,” he breathes, and there’s an almost feral edge in his voice. Not clinical. Not detached. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
You nod desperately, your free hand flying to your mouth to muffle the pathetic noises spilling out.
“Dampness-Jesus Christ,” he rasps, voice barely intelligible now. “Lubrication ratio also surpasses hypothesized maximum. You’re absolutely soaked. I—God, I need—I have to be inside you. Now.”
He slips his hand from between your legs and frees himself from his trousers with the same kind of focus you’ve seen him use to construct a fusion coil. Efficient, but trembling at the edges. His cock is flushed a deep red, thick, the tip shiny with precome as it presses against the heat of your cunt.
You moan at the sight. Your mouth waters as your cunt throbs with the raw, visceral need to be filled.
Reed stands, cock sways in the air, hard and heavy, pressing insistently against the slick seam of your cunt. Your body jerks at the contact, thighs twitching open wider, a helpless invitation.
The heat of him is almost unbearable, the swollen head nudging against your entrance like he’s testing the resistance.
His eyes are wild now, pupils blown wide, but his voice is still that low, steady baritone, though it trembles with restraint. “Lubrication is more than sufficient,” he says, breath ghosting over your lips as his hand fists at the base of his shaft. “Your body is prepared to accommodate penetration.”
Prepared—like you’re a lab experiment instead of a dripping mess beneath him. The words shouldn’t make you whimper, but they do.
Reed drags the head through your folds, coating himself in your wetness, collecting every drop. You keen, desperate for him to breach you, hips canting forward as if your body could take him in by force.
And then, without warning, he presses inside you.
The stretch punches the air from your lungs. Reed’s cock slides in slow, thick, impossibly deep, the sweet burn of it making your spine arch off the chair.
It's everything you've imagined it and more. All the guilty nights spent after lab hours with your fingers stuffed inside yourself as you let yourself indulge in the plethora of dirty thoughts floating around your brain couldn't have prepared you.
Nothing in the universe, this one and all the others, could have prepared you for the feeling of Reed Richards cock craving your cunt open like it belongs there.
You cry out his name, hands flying to his shoulders so your nails can dig crescent moons into the muscle there.
His head tips back, a guttural groan tearing from his throat. “Ah—constriction exceeds expectation. Warmth is—” He cuts himself off with a shudder. “You’re perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
There's no easing into it, no letting you get used to stretch. Your whole pelvis burns. The perfect mix of pain and pleasure intertwined together as one.
Reed fucks you with a single minded intensity, the same focus he gives to his equations, except now it's your body under his meticulous study, your cries the data points, your rapidly approaching orgasm the undeniable proof.
Your body arches off the chair, legs wrapped tight around his waist. He sets a brutal rhythm, each thrust deeper than the last, his hands braced on either side of your head.
“God,” you cry, nails clawing at his shoulders. “It’s—it’s too much—”
“It’s the compound,” he pants, his hair damp and curling against his forehead. “It’s magnifying everything. Every nerve. I can feel your heartbeat around me—Jesus—” Reed watches you through half lidded eyes, his expression wrecked, fevered. “Your walls are…milking me,” he mutters, reverent. Worshipful. “Constriction’s incredible. God, you feel—unreal.”
You moan louder when he adjusts his angle, the thick head of his cock rubbing against the sweet spot inside you. Your hand flies to your mouth, trying to muffle the noise.
“Don’t,” Reed growls, catching your wrist. He guides your fingers away from your lips and replaces them with his own. “Open and suck. Need to test oral fixation. S-salivary response.”
You suck greedily, tongue swirling over his fingers. The broken sound he makes only spurs you on. He moans when you suck harder, when you glide your tongue along the pads of his fingers like you want to devour him whole.
“You’re—fuck—you’re responding to every variable,” he says, voice cracked wide open, losing composure fast. “You’re better than anything I could’ve projected.”
You gag softly around his knuckles when his pace picks up, each thrust deep and punishing. Your nipples rub against his shirt, swollen and desperate for friction.
“Good girl,” he breathes, hips slamming harder into you. “God, you look so beautiful—sucking my fingers while I fuck you.”
Reed pauses, trembling, as if his own body is trying to calibrate to yours. “Is the stretch too much?” he manages, voice frayed with strain.
Your answer is a desperate whine, your hips bucking as his fingers slip out of your mouth so his hands can grip your hips tightly. “More. Please, Reed—”
His lips press hard to your ear, and you feel the words rumble out of him. “I can make it better. Adjust dimensions.”
It takes a second for your brain to process. And then he shifts.
You feel him thicken inside you, the stretch intensifying deliciously as his cock grows, swelling to fill you more completely. Your cry is broken and raw, your cunt clenching around him like a vice.
You’re dizzy, trembling, barely holding on. The friction is unbearable, the way his cock drags against your walls like he was designed for you. Reed leans back just enough to watch your face, his own expression wrecked. His cheeks are flush, curls plastered to his sweaty forehead.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against your skin. “Your body’s pulsing, clenching—I can feel it, how bad you need it. You’re going to—God, you’re going to come so beautifully.”
Your hands scramble to sink into his salt and pepper hair, holding him against you, desperate. He growls low in his throat, hips picking up speed, driving into you harder, faster. The lewd slap of skin on skin echoes off the pristine white walls, obscene and unrelenting.
When his free hand slides down to rub your clit, your vision whites out.
“Reed—!”
Your orgasm hits like a tidal wave, ripping through you so violently you sob. Your cunt spasms around him, sucking him deeper, milking him. You’re shaking uncontrollably, tears sliding down your temples as Reed groans against your breast.
His thrusts turn erratic, his composure breaking. “Constriction—fuck, so tight—I can’t—” He slams in deep, burying himself to the hilt.
With one last broken groan of your name, he’s coming inside you—flooding you—his cock stretching slightly, growing thicker as if his body wants to stay buried in you. You feel the warmth of it spread, thick and hot and unstoppable, deep inside where no one else has ever reached.
His forehead drops to yours, sweat slick, breath ragged. “Perfect,” he whispers, almost delirious. “Absolutely…perfect data set.”
Reed places a sweet kiss over your slack lips, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles along the skin of your hips.
You’re still trembling when he pulls back enough to watch the way his come leaks out of you around the base of his cock to drip down onto the leather, eyes dark with awe. His thumb swipes gently along your clit again, just to watch you jolt.
“Reaction remains heightened post-climax,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “I’ll need…further confirmation.”
The look in his eyes tells you he isn’t nearly finished.
MINI NAT'S NOTE: this man is autistic and literally no one can convince me otherwise. i was sitting in that theater like, he’s my people…anyway i need that. those little slutty grey patches? yeah. that’s some good goddamn fucking food.
also, who knew all the hate i spewed on my chem lecture last semester would come back to bite me hard in the ass writing this. i mean i'm really in my chemistry bag with this one. that and a&p. can you tell i’m a stem major? i know all my professors would be proud.
thank you so much for reading, love you!
OH HONEY, HONEY, I COULD BE YOUR KEVLAR || FRANKIE MORALES
|| pedro masterlist || update blog || inbox || taglist || ao3 ||
。𖦹°‧→ PAIR: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x fem!reader
。𖦹°‧→ WC: 4.6k
。𖦹°‧→ CONTAINS: 18+ SMUT MDNI, swearing, drinking, smoking, some spanish dialogue cutely sprinkled in, reader is ex-special forces, established relationship, implied age gap, insecurity, semi-jealous frankie mmmh, oral sex (fem!receiving), fingering, finger sucking, more brief allusions to a foot fetish whoopsies, p in v, public sex (bar bathroom RAAAHHH), creampie, porn w/o plot, no use of y/n.
。𖦹°‧→ NAT'S NOTE: finally got off my ass watched triple frontier and i’m a changed woman. i mean it was kind of a snooze fest but pedro pascal in a slutty little baseball hat saying “come on, baby” for like three minutes? that’s pure cinema. i’m praying that my spanish isn’t absolute dog shit, i’m still not a hundred percent fluent and dirty talk is such a struggle so please give me some grace if it’s ass and maybe some pointers! that would be very very helpful thank you love you. title from beyonce's 'BODYGUARD' because it's a beyonce summer in this house. hope y’all love it, mwah!
dividers by @cafekitsune! extra special shoutout to angel @daydreamingmiller for the wonderful gif!
you and the boys go out...
The bar is buzzing, alive with easy laughter and the sharp crack of billiard balls meeting in the center of pool tables.
It's a dive in every sense of the word, a real shithole. The kind of place where you can smoke indoors because the owner doesn't give a damn. The walls are littered in old road signs and vintage rock band posters.
The floor is sticky and all the booths have tears in the bright red leather cushions. Neon signs are hung sporadically, each one lit up with a phrase more vulgar than the last, drowning everything in different hues of red and blue.
It’s perfect.
It’s familiar, safe in the only way a shithole can be when you’re surrounded by people who’d take a bullet for you. Who’ve taken bullets for you, just like you have for them.
You’re not drunk. You’re not even tipsy.
You’re a couple drinks in and resting on the perfect knife's edge of pleasantly buzzed. You’re warm, a tingly kind of warmth that seeps into your skin all the way down to your bones and loosens your limbs.
The cigarette you bummed from Will only adds to it, smoke flooding your lungs and curling in wispy grey loops around your head like a halo on every exhale.
Music floats in the space all around you, a beat up jukebox is shoved in the corner spitting out song after song.
Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Rolling Stones. The Who. Guns N’ Roses. The Doors. Aerosmith.
Fleetwood Mac when that quarter you spent thirty minutes ago finally gets put to good use.
You’re standing near the same booth the five of you always pack yourselves in, sleeves rolled up to the elbow and some beat up darts in your hand. Benny goaded you into a game of 501 after his third beer made him feel cocky enough.
You’re sitting at 113. Ben’s only at 326.
He’s at the throw line, one eye squeezed shut as he lines up his aims for what feels like the hundredth time. Going Mobile kicks on as you wait for your turn with dwindling patience.
"You gonna hit the board or just warm up your wrist for later tonight?" you say over the music.
“Fuck you.” Ben doesn’t let his gaze stray from the board, flipping you off with his free hand. He finally takes his shot, but his dart hits wide—buried in cork about four inches from the bullseye. ”Damn!”
You laugh, a low, warm sound, pulled from the back of your throat. “Alright hotshot shove over, my turn.”
“Come on, Sniper.” Santiago’s voice calls from behind you. “Make it three in a row.”
Your laughter doesn’t fade as you step up to the throw line, rolling the darts in your hand to feel the weight of them. Your fingers curl around them, metal cool against your skin, the sharpness of the tips familiar. You take your stance without even thinking—weight balanced, eyes narrowed, limbs loose. It’s second nature.
The first dart hits just inside the treble thirteen. Sharp thunk. Clean.
The boys heckle you from the table, ranging from supportive—Santi and Will—to whining about the board being rigged—Ben. You don’t turn around, but you can’t fight the smug smile on your lips.
Another flick. Another hit—just right of the center. Double twelve.
“Bullshit,” Ben groans. “You said you were rusty, you goddamn liar.”
“I am rusty,” you say over your shoulder, spinning the last dart between your fingers. “If I wasn’t I would’ve beat your ass three rounds ago.”
You line up your last shot.
“Call it,” you say to no one in particular.
“Bullseye,” Will says.
You exhale slowly, wrist held high and right foot forward. You throw.
Bullseye.
The table behind you erupts. When you turn around, Ben’s groaning from where he’s leaning against Santi’s shoulder, who just gives a few approving slow claps. Will’s got that quiet, impressed smirk on his face.
You catch Frankie’s eye, he’s grinning behind the rim of his Modelo. All spread out on the left side of the booth, one leg kicked up over where you were sitting. The first few buttons of his shirt are undone, showing off the dark hair scattered along his chest and the chain he bought from a street vendor in Ciudad Juárez when he was there on an assignment.
The very same one hangs around your neck, just under your collar.
You smile, a real one—small and just for him in the way it tugs your lips up. Frankie winks at you from under the brim of his hat, a look you’ve seen hundreds of times swirling through the chocolate brown of his eyes.
Later, it says. A promise.
You can't wait.
“Loser buys shots.” You make your way to the table, leaning your hip against the edge. “Next round’s on Benny.”
Ben rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “Kiss my ass.”
You smile down at him like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth. “Not with aim like that, Miller.”
The laughter that surrounds the table is easy. That’s how it’s come to be with them. Even on days like this, when you all feel like ghosts, carrying sand in your shoes and shrapnel in your lungs.
It started a long time ago. You met Santi first, back in Kandahar. You weren’t officially on the books with the same unit as him back in the day—your ops were blacker than theirs—but you'd cross paths on enough shared missions to get familiar. He was cocky. You were mean. He liked that.
You pulled him out of a burning Humvee with a busted comms rig and a bullet in his thigh. He paid you back when one of your jobs got blown wide open in Girardot and saved you from bleeding out in a ditch after he dragged you two klicks to a medevac sight.
Through him came Frankie. He was quieter than you expected after all the stories, and thoughtful in a way that made you curious. It didn’t take long for something to shift there—some gravity between the two of you that pulled you closer before either of you had a chance to name it.
You still aren't sure when exactly it had changed. There hadn’t been one single moment. Just a hundred small ones. Quieter nights. Warmer looks. Shared smokes in the silence. And eventually, one drunken night back in Bogotá when he kissed you outside a safehouse, the rain dripping off his cap and into your collar.
Neither of you looked back.
Will and Benny came much later. A package deal, good on their own but great together. One couldn’t exist without the other. Ben brought the noise and a young, unshakable enthusiasm. Will brought the strategy and experience.
They all introduced you to Tom when you were back stateside. He was calculated and quiet, the only man you’ve ever seen clear a building with a heartbeat under sixty.
It all seems like a lifetime ago.
When you think back to it, it’s the smell of gunpowder and the phantom ache in your shoulder from the viscous recoil on your Barrett M82. It’s kevlar squeezed around your ribs tight enough to leave angry red lines of remembrance branded in your skin long after you took it off and the sound of bullets piercing flesh.
The six of you were never an official unit. You were all off-books more often than not. Contracts, black bag jobs, unofficial recon. Nothing that would stick. But when it went bad you called each other. Always. No matter the time zone. No matter the cost.
You’ve seen the best and worst of each other—on dirt roads, jungle trails, blacked out hallways. In safehouses and active war zones and cheap motels.
They’re your people. Your family, even if the word is slick with blood and drenched in ash.
It’s family nonetheless.
So when Santiago called about recon work in Colombia, you didn’t even let him finish the pitch.
You were in.
Now, months after everything went down—the heist, the Andes, the loss and anguish you all carried home—you’re here. In a shitty bar with your family. With Frankie.
You wouldn't have it any other way.
“Alright, alright.” Ben stands from the booth, carrying five empty shot glasses. “Nobody ever said I wasn’t a man of my word, what are we drinking?”
“Surprise me,” Santi says, already on his feet. “I gotta hit the head.”
Ben nods as he walks off, turning his attention back to the table. “Surprises all around?”
You shrug, stealing a sip of Frankie’s Modelo. “Works for me.”
Will shakes his head, sliding out of the booth. “Hell no, I’m coming with. This isn't spring break, I’m not knocking back any damn tequila shots.”
You watch them go, disappearing deeper into the crowd until you can’t make out their silhouettes anymore. You turn to Frankie, resting your palms flat on the table. “You up for a game, Morales? I’ll let you win if you promise to make it worth my while back home.”
Frankie laughs. “Only if you throw it just bad enough I don’t notice,” he says, chin dipped low, voice just rough enough to make your skin prickle. His eyes are fixed on yours—warm, focused, like he’s already replaying whatever making it worth your while might look like. Probably more than once.
You smirk, pushing off the table. “No promises.”
You make your way over to the board, plucking the darts out one by one. You’re alone for the first time all night, almost.
“Are you always this good, or is tonight just for show?”
The voice is unfamiliar—low and a little too close.
You glance over your shoulder. Young, younger than you–early to mid-twenties if you had to guess. He’s tall, lean and muscular in a way that screams college wrestling. Sharp jawline, white teeth.
You give him a polite smile. Nothing that invites, but nothing too rude either. You’re good at being nice. Trained for it. There’s strength in it, control.
“Used to be better,” you say, turning back to the dartboard and yanking out the last one. “But I’ll take the compliment.”
“Wasn’t just a compliment,” he says, stepping closer. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve got a great arm.”
He’s not the only one.
Frankie’s watching you. You can feel it before you see it. Like a hum under your skin. A pressure point at the base of your neck.
“Thanks.” It’s as dismissive as you can make it, a clear send off.
The guy doesn’t take the hint. “Let me buy you a drink, maybe we could play a round? I’d love some pointers, I’ve never seen a girl throw like that before.”
A girl. You don’t even flinch.
“I don’t think you could keep up.”
He chuckles. “Oh, I don’t know.” His eyes rake up and down your body with all the subtlety of a car crash. “I’m a fast learner.”
You keep your posture relaxed, but your hand tightens a little around the dart. “Maybe, but I’m already here with someone.”
His eyes follow the way yours flick to Frankie out of habit, sizing him up unashamedly. He snorts, turning back to you with a cocky grin. “Is that your dad, or something?”
You don’t even blink, just cock your head and smile—sharp as a blade this time. “Careful,” you say, voice overly sweet and saccharine. “This girl might just lay you on your ass for that.”
It takes him a beat too long to realize you’re not joking. Your tone is calm, flat, with that old edge you haven’t used in years. When it sinks in, his eyes narrow, mouth working like he’s deciding whether to double down or cut his losses.
Smart boy chooses the latter. “Didn’t mean to cause trouble,” he mutters, taking a step back.
You toss the darts on a nearby table. “Then don’t,” you say, and turn your back on him.
Frankie’s standing by the time you reach the booth, he’s already got that look in his eyes. Quiet, a little withdrawn. His mouth twitches like he’s going to say something but doesn’t. You close the space between you, laying your hand on his chest.
“You mad?” It’s soft, quiet enough so only he can hear it.
He shakes his head, brows pinching together. “Of course not.”
His arm slides around your waist, big hand spreading out possessively over your stomach. He’s not lying, you know he isn't. It’s not you he’s mad at, it’s not even the jackass slinking his way back to his buddies he’s mad at.
He’s angry at himself.
You can see it still simmering under the surface, and it’s not real anger. Not entirely. It’s something else entirely—the insecurity he carries. The one that creeps in late at night when he’s lying behind you in bed, one arm slung heavy over your waist.
The kind that whispers in his ear that he’s not good enough when he sees someone younger—someone who hasn’t been through what he has, who doesn’t have a road-map of scars or night terrors or hands that still shake sometimes when they’re too still for too long. Someone without graying hair or creaking joints or the softer gut that comes with love and recovery.
Frankie still doubts himself, even after all this time. He doubts that he’s really what you want, that you’re not just stuck with him out of guilt or some fucked up version of shared trauma that ties you together.
“Hey,” you say gently, reaching up to hold the side of his face. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” His voice is gruffer now, lower. The furrow of his brow makes the skin in-between crease, you rub your thumb over it a few times until he relaxes his face.
You’re always struck by how handsome he is, even in the shitty neon lights bathing you both. His round, chocolate brown eyes stare down at you with so much care and love that it makes your chest ache.
“Get in your own head. You really think I’d be out here flirting with some college guy when you’re sittin’ twenty feet away looking like this?”
Frankie shakes his head, embarrassed. “I’m fine, baby. Just didn’t like the way he was looking at you, that’s all.”
You lean into him, pressing your chest to his so there isn't an inch of space between you. “You’re the only one I want. You’re it for me, Frankie.”
He doesn’t speak, his lips pressed into a thin line as he holds your unwavering gaze. You hope he can see the look on your face, that he can hear the truth and the weight of your words.
He wraps his arms around you and he breathes you in, pressing his nose into your hair. The tension in his shoulders eases the way it always does when you’re close.
It’s nice, a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. Not yet. You can still feel the stiffness lingering in his body, the way he’s holding you more out of possessive worry than relief—like he’s still scared you’ll bolt at the last second.
You bite your lip, an idea sparking to life in your mind. It’s a risk, especially when Frankie’s feeling like this—but it also has an undeniable warmth flaring up in your stomach, phantom flames licking their way up your legs.
Besides, you’ve never been one to back down from risky situations. You made a career out of it.
You pull back, only slightly, just far enough to catch his eye. You notice the second he sees your pupils, blown out and dark as an oil spill. His brows furrow again, but it’s different than before. It’s curious, a silent question you’re more than happy to answer.
“If you want…” Your hand trails down his chest languidly until you’re toying with his belt buckle, hooking your pointer finger under the band of his jeans and tugging gently. “I could show you just how much I want you.”
Frankie’s eyes darken, his lips parting on a shocked breath. His arms twitch around you, fingertips digging into the fabric of your shirt. “Yeah?”
You nod. “Yeah.”
You don’t even wait for him to respond, your patience fizzling out into pure, blinding need.
You grab his hand and pull him behind you, slipping into the crowd without a backward glance. You lead him down the narrow hall past the pool tables, past the jukebox playing Dream On, until you reach the dingy single-stall bathroom.
The door’s not even all the way closed before Frankie’s on you. He backs you up against the graffiti covered wall, mouth already on yours—hungry, possessive, a little desperate. You love it when he kisses you like this, like he’s staking a claim.
His tongue licks a dirty stripe over the seam of your lips, fucking into your mouth when you moan. He tastes like beer, like lime and salt and something under it all that’s just him. It’s addicting, you can’t get enough—you never can.
Your hands are greedy—yanking his hat off and letting it topple to the ground carelessly, your fingers tangle in his curls, nails scratching along his scalp.
“You’re mine,” you murmur against his lips, breathless.
“Yeah?” he pants, kissing you again, hands skimming down your body.
He presses you into the wall harder, his hips grinding against yours, and you can feel him already. Hard, thick and aching through his jeans. Your pussy leaks wet and sticky into your panties, impatient and wanting.
“You really think I’d want anyone else?” you whisper against his jaw, licking the stubble, biting it. “You think anyone could fuck me the way you do?”
Frankie groans, hips jerking forward. His hands dig into the meat of your hips, hard enough to ache in the best way. You hope that it takes, that your skin is bruised come morning.
You rut against each other like you’re still overseas, like there’s mortar fire behind you and you’re stealing time you don’t have.
“Tell me what you want, baby,” you breathe, arching up against him. “Tell me how to make you feel better.”
“Wanna taste you,” he says roughly, voice thick. “Muero por saborearte, princesa.”
Heat rushes through you like an electric shock, lighting up every inch of your body. “Fuck, yes–”
Frankie drops to his knees before the words leave your mouth, hurried hands not even bothering to unbutton your jeans before he’s yanking them down your hips. He groans when he sees your panties—damp and clinging to your folds, soft cotton pulled tight.
“Que cosita linda...” It whispered, soft and almost secretive—like he’s saying it to himself more than to you.
You brace yourself against the wall, one hand gripping the chipped edge of the sink, the other in his hair when he mouths you over the fabric. He presses wet, open-mouthed kisses to your pussy, the hot drag of his tongue through the soaked material making your knees threaten to buckle.
“Frankie,” you gasp, hips twitching toward him. “Don’t tease—”
He hums like he likes hearing you beg, like he needs it, and then hooks his fingers into the waistband of your panties and drags them down your thighs in one swift, greedy motion.
The moment you’re bare to him, he’s buried between your legs.
He licks up your slit, slow and obscene, tasting everything you’ve made for him. He groans like it hurts, like your pussy’s a salvation and a punishment all at once. He spreads you open with thick fingers and dives in, eating you like he’s starved.
“Fuck—Frankie,” you gasp, knees almost giving, fingers fisting tight in his curls. He only groans, the vibration making your hands twist his hair tight in your grip as his nose bumps against your clit.
It’s loud, the way he devours you. He’s always been messy with it—and soon the filthy sounds of his mouth fills the bathroom, dirty slurps and sucks bouncing off the walls. Your head thunks against the hard brick behind you when you toss it back on a broken moan, you hardly notice.
You lift your foot off the ground, not hesitating as you press it against the thick line of his cock still tenting the front of his jeans. Frankie shudders, his eyes screwing shut as he bucks up into it, chasing the pressure.
“Shit, Frankie, I—” You whimper, dizzy, aching. “Need more—need your fingers—please—”
His eyes flick up to yours, dark and molten. “Show me,” he rasps, pulling back just enough to kiss your inner thigh, teeth scraping along the delicate skin there. “Show me what you want, hermosa.”
Your hand trembles as you reach down, slipping two fingers through the wet mess of your pussy. Slick and saliva coats your skin, eases the way as you circle your clit—once, twice—before you push them into yourself with a soft moan.
Frankie watches, eyes wide and rapt with attention. His hands knead the muscle of your thighs, his hips jerking up against the sole of your boot like he can’t help himself. “Mierda…look at you. So fuckin’ perfect.”
You fuck yourself slow, wrist twisting—and just as your thighs start to shake, you slip your soaked fingers out of yourself, strings of slick catching in the air, and bring them to his mouth. You don’t say anything, but there’s an unspoken order that fills the air between you.
Frankie’s a good soldier, he’d never disobey a direct order.
He looks up at you, gaze dark as he slowly parts his lips—his hot breath fans over your skin. Eyes locked on yours, he takes them in, sucks them deep, tongue curling around them lewdly. He moans at the taste, hand closing around your ankle to keep you in place as he grinds up against your foot harder.
You press your fingers against his tongue, rubbing the taste of yourself over his taste buds. Your pussy clenches weakly, pulsing with pleasure and emptiness.
Frankie pulls back, your fingers falling from between his lips with a soft pop. “Sabe como cielo.”
He doesn't give you a second to recover before he’s on his feet again, surging up like a man possessed. His hands grab your thighs, lifting you with ease, you wrap your legs around his waist instinctively. Your boots clatter against the stall wall with the motion, the dull thud-thud-thud drowned out by the blood rushing in your ears.
"You're gonna let me fuck you right here?" he pants, rutting against your slick heat through his jeans, the zipper catching on your swollen clit. "Right here, in this filthy fucking bathroom where anyone could hear us?"
You nod frantically, arms looping around his neck. "Yes—yes, fuck, Frankie, please—"
"Say it again," he growls, teeth scraping over your jaw. “Say my name like that again.”
"Please, Frankie," you whimper, biting his earlobe. "I need you to fuck me. Right now. Right here.”
That’s all it takes.
Frankie fumbles with his belt, one-handed, the other arm bracing your ass, keeping you pinned to the wall like you weigh nothing. The second his cock springs free, it slaps hot against your thigh, smearing precome across your skin. Thick and flushed, angry red at the tip.
You glance down and moan, already slick for him, already open.
He fists the base of his cock, running the head through your folds once, twice—and then he’s pushing in, slow and deep.
The stretch makes you cry out, back arching off the wall as he sinks in slow, his hips flexing forward inch by inch until he’s buried to the hilt. You’re soaked and open from his tongue, but he’s still thick enough to sting just right. You feel all of him—every vein, every twitch.
Your nails dig into the muscle of his shoulders, your thighs tightening around his waist to drag him as close as you can.
"Mierda…tan apretadita," Frankie groans, forehead pressing to yours, sweat already dotting his temple. “Siempre tan buena pa’ mí.”
You whimper, heels digging into his back as your pussy flutters around him. He holds still for a moment, letting you adjust, his breath hot and erratic against your cheek.
“You feel that?” he pants, grinding up into you slow and deep. “Nobody else gets to feel this. Nobody else gets to fuck this pussy.”
“Only you,” you manage, voice thick. “Just you, Frankie—fuck, please—”
He starts to thrust, hips snapping into you with filthy, wet smacks, the obscene sound echoing in the tiny stall. The sink creaks beside you, the mirror rattling in time with every thrust. You’re soaked, dripping, cock-drunk already.
Frankie captures your lips in another dirty kiss, all tongue and teeth and stealing the breath from each others mouth. “¿Que sucia, te gusta eso, eh?” He whispers against your mouth, nipping at your swollen bottom lip. “You like taking it like this, with all those people out there? Anybody could walk by and hear us, baby. They could hear how good you're taking my cock.”
You whine into his mouth, nails dragging down his back, you can feel the thin material of his shirt straining under the force. The silk is so delicate, so fragile. That much more strength and you’d tear it clean down the middle. It makes your stomach clench, the idea of Frankie walking back out into the bar with his shirt in tatters, the angry red welts your surely leaving on his skin on full display.
“Tell me,” he pants wetly against your cheek. “Dime la verdad.”
“Yes,” you whine. “I love it. Fuck—I want everyone to know. Want them to know how good you fuck me, how good you make me feel.”
Frankie groans, a deep, almost animalistic sound. He grips your thighs harder, burying his face in the sweaty column of your throat.
Your whole body jolts when he pounds into you deeper than before, the angle filthy, punishing. The dark hair around the base of his cock scrapes meanly against your sensitive clit with every thrust, teetering just on the edge of too much and just perfect.
You’re gonna come—you can feel it already coiling inside you, white-hot and snapping.
“I’m—fuck—I’m gonna come, Frankie—” you cry, clutching his curls.
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down.
"That’s it, baby," he pants against your throat, licking the sweat from your skin. “Dámelo. Come for me. Let me feel you soak my cock.”
Your orgasm rips through you like a gunshot—fast, brutal, and all-consuming. Your thighs tremble around his hips, your boots slam into the wall, and you clamp down around him so tight that Frankie lets out a raw, strangled groan.
“Dios,” he groans, the rhythm of his hips stuttering. “You gonna let me fill you up?” His voice is a snarl now, hips slamming forward. “Gonna let me come inside you, baby? Gonna walk out of here dripping with it?”
“Yes,” you beg, drunk on it. “Come in me—fill me up, Frankie—want you to come inside—wanna feel it—”
“Fuck.” He slams into you one last time and stills, every muscle in his body drawn tight as he spills inside you with a rough groan. You can feel it—thick and warm, leaking down your thighs even before he pulls out.
You stay like that for a long moment—both of you panting, trembling, stuck together with sweat and come and something sticky-sweet that lingers in the silence.
When Frankie finally pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes are soft again. Warm and full.
You reach up, brushing a sweaty curl off his forehead. “Feel better?”
He nods. Kisses you slow this time. “I love you,” he says against your lips, almost shy.
“I know,” you smile, cupping his face. “Now help me clean up before someone breaks the door down.”
“…I’m not pulling out yet.”
“Francisco—”
“I just got in a good mood, bebita. Don’t ruin it.”
You laugh into his mouth, still full of him, still dripping down your thighs, and it feels like the first time all over again.
mini nat's note: thank you so much for reading! i had a lot of fun with this one love you chickens <3
Too smart
dbf!Ted García x f!reader
summary: Ted García hires his best friend’s daughter to be his campaign manager for this election.
cw: 18+, p in v, oral (f! and m!), dad’s best friend, age gap, power imbalance (boss/employee), Ted calls reader pet names (kid, sweetheart, etc.), degradation i guess, hair pulling, choking, light ass eating, Ted is a MUNCH, public fucking-ish, ted is an upstanding guy…. Mostly, Ted knew reader growing up (if this is not your thing don’t read this), not beta’ed
note: reader has no description except having hair that can be pulled, being afab and able-bodied
wc: 2.9k
dividers by @/saradika-graphics
read on AO3!
The lights in Ted’s bar flicker on and the thud of his boots echoes in the empty air as he steps behind the bar, setting two glasses on the counter.
When you got back to Eddington after graduation, your dad gushed about you to anyone who would listen, and given that Mayor García is his oldest and closest friend, that gushing often landed on his ears. Which is why, when your dad suggested that you would make a wonderful assistant to him, Ted could not refuse him.
“But not my assistant,” he chuckled, clapping his hand on your dad’s shoulder. “She’s way too smart for that.”
So he figured he’d hire you as his campaign manager. Now, being a campaign manager for a mayoral election in a town as small as Eddington meant you'd have to wear many hats as you'd basically be the entire team for Ted.
The first day of work, you'd shown up in a real put-together outfit, crisply pressed shirt, a smart pencil skirt and polished heels. When you walked into Ted's home, iPad in hand and ready for the day, he came out in his usual get up consisting of vibrant blue jeans, a nice printed button-down and a tan vest. Your face heated up when his eyes landed on you, doing a quick swoop up your body then immediately away. "No need to get all dolled up for me, sweetheart," he chuckled.
As more days went by, you came to the realization that the election felt like a big formality. People liked Ted, they liked having him around, and he was a big part of the Eddington community. He knew exactly what he needed from you and he gave you precise and direct instructions on what he needed you to do, though some days it was just kind of a body doubling situation. You'd sprawl like a cat on his couch, reading your books or preparing a video that was to be posted on Ted's Facebook page.
That was not the case today, though. You'd had to trail behind him all morning to different meetings, and you'd had to plan a "party," or whatever restriction-compliant term they were calling it. There had been a run-in with Sheriff Cross, and it had gotten pretty intense. Ted had slapped him, and you'd had to escort the Sheriff out, not that he'd needed much motivation, what with all the shame of being slapped in front of all those people. It had also served as a quiet outing for you to slip into the bathroom to relieve yourself.
You locked the door behind yourself and pulled your pants and panties down. Growing up, your friends would tease you all the time about the fact that whenever they'd ask if you had a crush, your answer had always been Ted. It was an innocent thing, how could it not be? He was always nice to you, always showing up with a bouquet to your dance recitals, picking you up from extracurriculars when your dad couldn't, bringing you your favorite treats when your dad told him you were sick. As the years went on, your answer had not changed. You'd name different boys in your class, but Ted's name lingered at the tip of your tongue. And it's not hard to see why. He's a handsome man, a safe man, and exactly the kind of man who would never, ever touch you. Your fingers trail down and collect the slick that had formed on your entrance, coating your clit in it for lubrication before circling it aggressively.
The fact that he would never is the biggest part of the fantasy. You want him to want you, of course, but the idea of having to break him made your pussy sopping wet. You can hear the way you're reacting, quiet panting and muffled moaning, as you rub yourself off in this stupid and cramped bathroom. Your hips buckle, adding to the friction between your fingers and your sensitive nub. His name lingers on your tongue the same way it used to. You imagine his grunting as he's fucking you, the same type of grunting he does when he has to get up from his chair after a particularly long meeting. Maybe his lip snarls the same way it does when he's going particularly hard on a debate. Fuck. There is a quiet knock on the door, bringing you back to reality. You think of saying 'coming', but any semblance of that has just been lost because of said knock. You opt for saying "I'll be out in a second!" After a quick rinsing and fixing your clothes, you exit to allow the guest into the bathroom.
After the long evening, you climb into Ted's car. He drops you off at home every night, non-negotiable, he says. You buckle up as per his request and look out the window. "I think I need a drink. Care to join me?" he asks, looking at you with a lopsided smile.
"Sure," you nod and smile.
"Did real good today, my smart, smart girl. Everyone was charmed by you," he praises, eyes on the road. And thank heavens for that, because you felt your face go hot immediately.
You let out a small giggle. "No, that's all you, Ted. People love you."
"I don't know about that, kid," he chuckles. "I'm sure at least a few of the people there would vote for you over me in a heartbeat. Who knows? Maybe I'll pass the torch to you eventually."
A heartfelt laugh escapes your lips. "You give me too much credit, I think."
"I don't give you enough," he peeks over at you once more and pulls the car over, parking in front of his bar.
You watch intently as he pours whiskey into the ice-filled glasses. His big hands wrap around the glass closer to him and raise it a bit. "To the best mayoral campaign this town has ever seen," he drawls.
"And to the best mayor," you reply, raising your glass to clink with his.
He smiles that shy smile, like even after all this time the praise gets to him. His eyes are trained on the glass in front of him.
You wave your hand in front of his face slowly. "C'mon, Ted. Don't tell me you get shy when people point out the truth. It is the truth, by the way."
Ted's eyes flicker up to your face and back down to the glass. As if desperation ran through him, he picks up the glass and downs the amber liquid. "I-I just do my best."
Following suit, you empty your glass as well and lean a little closer on the counter, your tits pressed against the top. "Can I ask you something?"
"'Course you can," he says, turning around to pick up the bottle and refill your glasses.
"Have you considered getting remarried?" you look up at him with half-lidded eyes. He puts down the bottle for a second then resumes pouring. "Not really, you saw how messy that whole situation got when my wife walked away. Plus Eric… he's too young to consider… no, I guess is the short answer."
You bite the inside of your cheek. "I've seen the way all the women in town look at you," you shrug. "And the way they approach you."
The air feels warm around you, almost palpable. "Yeah, well. I ain't interested," he grunts, sliding your glass back to you. "And pace yourself with this one, don't wanna have to explain to your dad why I'm dropping you off drunk."
"I can keep a secret if you can," you say softly before bringing the rim of the glass to your mouth. You take a slow sip, eyeing him slowly. "Besides, it's not the first time I'm drinking, you know? Did a lot of stuff in college my dad should never hear about," your lip quirks up in amusement.
Ted clears his throat, and pushes himself off the bar, moving to sit next to you so he can avoid your gaze. "If your dad can't hear about it I'm not sure I should, either."
Your hand inches a little closer to him. "Really? You're not even a tiny bit curious?"
He shakes his head, the curls on his head reflecting the lights. "The way you're talking 'bout it, I can already imagine."
"So you are imagining it," you tease, placing a hand on his forearm. "It's okay, I won't be mad if you do."
Ted's body freezes for a second as your words hit his ears and as your hand wraps around his forearm. "Sweetheart, I hardly think this is appropriate…"
"It's okay, we're just talking, aren't we?" your hand falls to his lap, painfully slowly creeping up.
It's audible the way his breath hitches. "Kid, I… don't do that."
"So stop me," you challenge him, eyes trained on him.
"You keep talking like that and I'm gonna dump you in my truck and take you home," he warns you quietly, finally looking back at you. His expression is stern, but his eyes have glossed over a bit.
You lean in, lips brushing against his ear. "Now, why don't I believe you?"
Almost as soon as the words have finished coming out of your mouth, his hand grips your jaw firmly, fingers digging into your cheeks. "Watch it baby, I really don't want to do the wrong fucking thing here."
A little whimper escapes you, almost echoing in the stillness of the bar. Your eyes widen, and your face goes a couple of shades redder.
"Was this the plan all along, baby?" his hand tightens on your face. "Follow me around like a puppy, be so obedient and good to then rile me up? You knew I wouldn't be able to resist you, kid."
"Maybe," you smile wickedly. "It's cute that you tried your best to resist, though."
Ted's nostrils flare and a single strand of hair falls to his forehead, in between his furrowed brows. "This is so fucking wrong," he whispers, more so to himself than to you, before standing up and turning your stool to face him. "Not a word of this. Is that clear?"
"Crystal," you say, already wrapping your arms around his neck. You go to kiss his jaw before his lips, trailing your lips sloppily down his neck.
His neck cranes to the windows, "Let me just… close those," he tries to pry your arms off him.
"It's okay Mayor, no one's supposed to be in the streets, right?" you giggle, pulling him closer.
Ted sighs, but a little something stirs in him at the sound of you calling him Mayor. You'd always been so close to him that you rarely ever called him that.
"Christ, sweetheart," he grunts, nudging his nose into your neck, lapping at the skin there. He's standing between your legs, and you can feel his cock hardening under his pants. "Feel what you do to me? Giving me those damn eyes."
You reach down, palming his cock over the fabric. "You're terrible, getting all worked up over your best friend's daughter."
His mouth separated itself from your neck and his hands dropped to his own pants, unzipping and freeing his cock before taking a step back. He grabs a fistful of your hair and pushes your mouth onto his cock. "Don't… say those things," he grunts, bucking his hips up to have his cock hitting the back of your throat. He lets you go, a panting and slobbering mess. You look at him, with tears formed in your eyes, but the pulsating in your cunt reveals your true feelings.
"You gonna be good now or am I gonna have to do that again?" he frowns. You give him a defying look, but position yourself to keep sucking his cock, but he pulls you back up by the forearm. "Shirt."
You roll your eyes at him. "Am I supposed to do everything for you?"
He tugs at your hair, bringing you closer to him. "Who takes orders from who, huh?"
With that same annoyed expression, you remove your top, leaving you in your bra. "That's my girl," he coos, pressing a kiss right on the tip of your nose.
You flush just at the thought of how you look, kneeling in front of him, mouth open, taking his hardened length in inch by inch. His lip snarls up exactly the way you expected it would, and he hisses through his teeth. You run your flat tongue along on your way back up, before bobbing back down. He tastes so clean it's almost sweet. Addicting and better than your mind could ever have imagined. Your mouth makes a bigger and bigger mess, coating him completely in your spit.
He pulls his hip back and picks you once more, clearing out the section of the bar in front of him before pushing you against it with your back facing him. You watch him disappear under the bar, and the first thing you feel is him pulling your pants down, letting them pool at your ankles before his big meaty hands begin to knead at your asscheeks. He spreads you open and you can feel his mustache before you feel his tongue sliding down from your asshole to your cunt, slipping it in just a little, teasing your hole.
"Ted!" you squirm on the counter. Your hips begin to rock autonomously, grinding your cunt against his warm mouth.
He laughs meanly, and slaps your ass with a single smack, "Sweetheart you're goddamn soaked."
You moan, and reach back to push his head closer, and he doubles his efforts, his tongue lapping at your folds with renewed energy. His mustache brushes against your skin, sending a little shiver every time. You can feel his nose dragging along your seam when he licked back up, God, you'd thought about it a million times. You turned your head a little and caught a glimpse of you two on the reflection of the windows, you bent over the counter and Ted on his knees, with his head buried in your pussy.
When he pulls away from your pussy, you feel a little cool breeze hit your now-messy-with-slick-and-spit cunt. You feel yourself shake a little and look back at Ted, who groans while standing up, but immediately goes to line up his leaking cock in your entrance. He takes advantage of how wet you are to fuck into you completely on the first thrust, punctuating it with a kiss on your shoulder that turns into a small bite.
"Holy— shit," he grunts into your ear. "You've been holding out on me, baby. Walking around with this perfect fucking pussy." He begins to pick up the pace, still using his hand to spread your ass open. His free hand goes to grip your throat, and brings your head closer to him.
His cock is perfectly curved, and after a few minutes, Ted's reached that perfect fucking spot, and your eyes roll to the back of your head. His hand squeezes a little tighter around the sides of your neck. "We're there, aren't we honey? God, I can feel her squeezing."
Instinctively, you drop your hand to your clit and begin applying pressure on it, allowing Ted's thrusts to do the heavy lifting, but your orgasm is coming quicker and quicker. His hips falter for a second, and before you can even turn to ask, his hand releases your throat and pushes your head onto the counter. You're left facing the window again, a crystal clear view of the two of you fucking, and the empty street on the other side.
"Such a little slut, I bet you fucking love watching yourself like this," he hisses, hips snapping against yours loudly. Your only response is some pathetic type of moaning.
He leans down, closer to you, and you can feel his belly hit your back. "Or is it that you like that someone might be watching? Hm?" He picks up the pace, fucking you almost relentlessly now while you're a whining needy mess under him. "I bet you love that, huh, kid?"
You nod, as much as the hand he's got pushing your head against the counter will allow. "Look at you," he chuckles. Your whole body trembles with desire, pussy clenching and throbbing around his cock.
Your eyes dart at him and your hand keeps pressing on your clit, and you’re hit with this intense wave of pleasure, your knees bucking and your eyes going to the back of your head. “Good job, kid.” You can feel him throbbing inside your pussy, and his hips snapping a little less rhythmically. "You on the pill?" he grunts desperately.
Shaking your head, your eyes widen. "Fuck— okay—you will," he grunts as he pulls his cock out of you and starts stroking furiously before you watch him almost convulse as he spurts thick ropes of cum onto your back.
He collapses onto the stool next to you, and hands you a wad of bunched-up napkins, plucking one to dry his forehead. You reach back awkwardly to clean the cum off your back, your face burning hot as the heat of the moment subsides and you realize what just happened. Ted watches you silently as you dress, but you can't tell exactly where his head is at.
"C'mon, sweetheart. I'll drop you off," he says, nodding his head in the direction of the door.
The car ride is oddly quiet, and once he's pulled up to your house, he turns to you. "You did great work today, bright and early tomorrow. Okay?" He picks up your hand and places a kiss to it. Your dad waves at Ted from the porch, saying something or other about him making sure to pay for the overtime. You try not to linger outside, face warm and still feeling the emptiness of not having him inside you.
taglist: @shaunasrabbit
summary: you teach joel how to choke you
|| smut MDNI 18+, horny musings, not much plot, choking, pinv, dirty talk (god I love nasty joel! what can I say he gets the mouth of a sailor when he’s turned on), bicep choking!!!!!!!, daddy kink, praise kink, little bit of pussy pronouns, anxious!joel, nervous!joel, sweet!reader, established relationship, jackson!joel, mentions of big scary joel bark bark bark, but actually I just love him so there's also tender fluff in here too. I can't make smut without making it abundantly clear im helplessly in love w him || a/n: oh yeah so I was on vacay this whole week and this was all I thought about. okay maybe one more thing you might see from this week of inspiration but plz enjoy!!! a/n II: thinking about joel's anxiety makes me sad but I feel like it's not written about enough plz don't make me cry anymore wc: 2.2k short and sweet 4 u
You knew your best chance was when he was at his most…pliable.
That slow-breathing, skin-sticky softness that only came in the after. When both of your bodies were loose and lazy with release— oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin still thick in the bloodstream. Joel’s soft hazel eyes were warm and drowsy, blinking slowly beneath the fall of his thick lashes. How unfair, you always thought, that he got to have such astonishingly beautiful lashes. Men often did, didn’t they? His cheeks were still flushed pink, his chest rising steady beside yours. You watched the corner of his mouth lift into a crooked smile as he burrowed into the pillow, a bullish breath releasing from his lungs.
Your hand found his hair, dark and streaked with silver, damp at the nape. You pushed your fingers through it, nails scraping gently as he purred beneath your touch.
He pulled you in, tucking your body against the broad wall of his chest. His chin came to rest at your shoulder, and you felt his breath as it moved across your skin—slow, heavy, hot. You let out a small sigh and traced the length of his arm, following it down to where his fingers splayed wide over your hip. He was still inside out from it all. Both of you warm and bare, still slick with the sheen of sweat and the fading intensity of the post-coitus high.
You brought his hand up in front of your face, holding it in both of yours like something precious. You traced the creases in his palm, the coarse curls of hair on the back of it. He was such a big man, all of him thick and solid and heavy. You loved it so deeply about him. How he could be so big and scary and yet so tender all at once.
That was the thing about Joel Miller. He was the most dangerous man you'd ever met. But in your home, in your bed, in these quiet moments, he was gentle. So, so gentle.
You made your move.
Guiding his hand slowly, you carefully set it down to your neck. You knew he was watching out of one squinting, peering eye. Always watchful, always aware of your movements.
“What’re you doin’, young lady?” he asked, voice like honey and gravel on asphalt.
You settled his palm against the sensitive flesh of your throat, pulling his thumb to one side and resting his fingers on the other. Just gently letting the broad stretch of his hand rest under your jaw.
God, he was so warm.
And even though his expression had softened in this post coitus high, even though his breath moved gently against your skin, this kind of calm didn’t come easy to him. When he was like this—sated, warm, still wrapped around you—all you could do was hope he’d stay there in it. You hoped he wasn’t going to bark or bristle or retreat behind that rough voice he used when his chest got too tight.
Because Joel’s anxiety didn’t come in skittishness or shaky hands. It was silence, stillness. It was the way he watched everything, how fast he could go from soft to sharp, always ready to protect. Even when there wasn’t a threat. Even when he thought the threat was himself.
You felt him stiffen as he realized what you were doing.
He tried to pull his hand away, and you let him—again, not wanting to spook the big, terrifying, yet sweet and sorrowful creature you’d come to love.
“How would you feel if I asked you to choke me?” you asked, voice calm, your tone low and careful. Coaxing the beast within.
His answer came quickly and without hesitation: “Ain’t happenin’.”
Whatever softness had still lingered in him was gone now. His voice was flat, and his whole body had gone still beside you, his heart hammering through his chest and against your skin.
“Joel, baby, I’m sorry—” you whispered, reaching for the calm you’d just shared, trying to soothe what you’d stirred.
“There ain’t nothin’ to be sorry for,” he said, and his tone wasn’t cruel, but it was set. Final. He wasn’t angry, he was afraid, you knew that. Knew him. “I just ain’t doin’ that.”
You turned towards him, wrapping your arms around him, nuzzling your nose into the thick, wiry hair of his chest. You waited as his heart settled, kissing his chest, interlaching your fingers behind his back, tracing gentle circles into his damp skin.
And maybe it was because you knew him. Knew how to coax that big, nervous animal in him into gentleness, into calm. Knew how to read the quiet tension in his body, how to recognize the moments when he pulled away. Because he was never angry at you, that you’d come to realize long ago. He was afraid. Full of gut churning fear and worry. He was just a man who had seen too much, done too much, and lost even more. And now, he was trying, so hard, to be good.
That’s why, when you answered, you didn’t push. You pursed your lips against his thick chest of hair and said, “Okay.”
“I promise you won’t hurt me, baby,” you told him softly, your voice slow with wine and warmth as you laid back on the bedspread, still smelling like smoke and sugar from the community bonfire. You’d been out with Tommy and Maria, drinking too much under the string lights, and Joel had come home handsier than usual—emboldened by the night, maybe, or just finally brave enough to give you the thing you’d been asking for.
He was already hard and thick and stretching you open, your body split in two around his cock, your hips cradling his breadth of a body. Your thighs hooked tight around his waist as you tried to pull him in even deeper, closer than skin would ever allow as his hand rested against your throat.
“Don’t you think it makes a pretty necklace?” you teased, breathless already. Just the weight of his hand there was enough to have your hips rolling up in search of more, desperate for that aching stretch and the sweet pressure you craved.
He hesitated, voice thick and low. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
But you reached up, took the hand at your throat into both of yours, and guided him to press his digits to your skin. Just his thumb, just the fingers on the other side of your throat.
“Right there, daddy,” you whispered, eyes fluttering. “Just pinch. Don’t push.”
His brow was furrowed, his hazel eyes swallowed up by the black of his arousal. You circled his thick wrist with your nimble fingers, grounding him, showing him how safe he was here. He was always so god damn warm, your personal furnace, all heat and weight and steady flame. The fire in the hearth of your chest, your soul, your heart. His chest pressed down against yours, his cock buried so deep you could feel him in your ribs, your arousal slick and messy, dripping down his shaft and onto the bed beneath you.
You whimpered, high and needy.
“Please, Joel,” you whispered. “I trust you.”
That seemed to loosen the shackles he kept tight around himself. The ones forged in fear, in longing, with a want too big and too dangerous to trust within himself. He exhaled, sharp and tight, and gave the faintest, featherlight squeeze. Not even enough for your head to go light, but enough for your cunt to flutter helplessly around him. He sucked in a tight hiss, the sound breaking in his throat.
“Oh, fuck,”
His eyes squeezed shut, then opened again, blown black and flicking from his hand on your throat to your face and back. Your mouth was slack, your head tilted back, eyes rolling in ecstasy. Your pussy clenched hard around him again and he groaned.
“Again, again, again,” you pleaded, rocking up into him, your hands urging his wrist to hold you tighter.
He did it again.
And your walls seized around him.
“Christ, baby—Jesus fuck,” he choked out. “You’re—she’s— grippin’ me—chokin’ my cock while I hold your pretty little neck—”
And thus, it was the start of something wholly beautiful and euphoric and filthy.
He had you prone on the bed, your legs spread wide and stretched beneath him, back arched, ass pressing and pushing back greedily into every stroke. His weight draped heavy over your spine, chest slick with sweat as it laid across your back. The room was thick with the sound of skin, the slap of his hips meeting the swell of your ass, again and again and again.
“I love you, baby,” he whispered into the shell of your ear, his voice rough with breath and effort. Every word was broken by a grunt, by the slap of his pelvis slamming into you.
You moaned helplessly, drool slipping from your parted lips, soaking into the thick muscle of his arm where it curved around your throat. Your chin was tucked to his elbow, held snug in the crook of it, his bicep pulsing as he held you close. His forearm pinned you in place, tight and possessive. Your anchor, just how you’d begged for it.
“Got you all cock drunk now, huh?” he muttered, low and smug, the bastard, dragging the words across your skin like velvet. You could hear the grin in it, even feel the curl of his mouth as he pressed a kiss into your ear, “Can’t even talk while I’m fuckin’ you, baby?”
You mewled in response, the only sound you could manage as his thick cock punched into you, each thrust stealing another breath, another thought. He was deep, impossibly deep, stretching you to the edge of your limit and keeping you right there, stuffed full and shaking.
“So pretty like this,” he groaned, voice pitching low in his throat. “Takin’ daddy’s cock so good, princess. So fuckin’ good.”
You tried to answer, tried to give him something back, but what came out was a garbled, wet sound as your tongue dipped out to collect the spit dribbling out on your slack lips. You were trembling beneath him, wrecked and ruined and still asking for more.
“You know,” he rasped, his breath warm against your ear, “I’ve killed men by doin’ this. You know that, right?”
Your eyes rolled back. Your walls fluttered around him, involuntary and tight.
“Oh, yeah, she loves that. Killed ’em easy, baby, just my arm to their neck. Watched their lights go out. That turn you on?” His voice was rougher now, throatier, but still careful, still asking. Still watching you.
You pushed your ass back into him with a sob, wordless, every nerve in your body crying yes.
“Tell me, baby,” he murmured, thrusts slowing in their tempo. “Tell me. Use your big girl words.”
“I love it,” you cried, the words torn from your throat. “I love it, I love it, I love it—” You were close, almost there, your voice climbing higher with every breath, every roll of his hips, every squeeze of his arm.
“I know, sweet angel,” he groaned, his cock twitching inside you as your walls clenched tighter. “My nasty girl loves when daddy chokes her, huh?”
You could barely nod, could barely think. He just kept fucking into you, the drag of his cock thick and slow, then sharp and deep, until your body curled and tightened beneath him. He was everywhere—his chest on your back, his balls slapping your clit, the heat of his breath against your cheek, your pussy leaking down his shaft and onto the sheets in creamy slick. His weight pressed you into the mattress like he could mold you there and never let you go.
“But I love my girl,” he said, softer now, almost like a confession. Maybe to remind you, to remind himself. “Love her so much. I’d never hurt her, you know that, right?”
You nodded, jaw slack, lips kissing the sweaty skin of his arm as you forced your mind to work, for your tongue to follow orders, “I know d-d-daddy, I know—I love—oh fuck—I love you too…oh oh, ah!…hmmmppphhh—”
“Oh, good girl, that was hard, I know. That’s alright. That’s it. Right there,” he growled, hips snapping harder now, erratic, desperate. “I feel her chokin’ daddy’s cock back. Feel how much she loves it. C’mon, baby girl. Come for me. That’s it. Fuck—”
Your body seized beneath him, a full-body tremor that started at your core and rippled outward, your vision going white as your orgasm crashed over you like a wave. You sobbed through it, breath stuttering, your cunt fluttering around him in tight, wet pulses that had him growling through his teeth.
“Good girl,” he grunted, barely hanging on. “That’s my goooood fuckin’ girl.”
He followed you down a moment later, groaning raggedly against your shoulder, his cock twitching deep inside as he spilled into you, thick and hot, his weight sinking heavy over your back. You breathed there together for a long moment, lost in that same fuzzy cotton haze.
And then his arm loosened around your throat, sliding down to your sternum to shift the both of you. His cock slipped out of you with a wet drag, still heavy and shining, your slick clinging to him as your body clenched around the sudden emptiness. The loss made your limbs tremble, thighs twitching where they rested against his. He moved you onto your side, then onto your back and settled beneath you, his own back pressed to the sheets, your spine stretched along his chest.
He sighed in relief before shifting slightly, just enough to reach and press his lips against your temple.
"You alright, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice low and hoarse, still catching on the edges of his breath.
You nodded, face softening as you tilted your head toward him. He reached down and kissed you, slow and warm, and you hummed against his mouth.
“Perfect,” you whispered.
You both sighed then, content and drowsy, riding the soft haze of afterglow. The hormones still moved thick through your bodies, warmth blooming in your limbs as you looked up at him. Your fingers slipped into his hair and you held him close.
“Thank you,” you murmured. “For trusting me.”
“Don’t need thankin’, honey,” he said, his voice low, eyes soft and steady on yours. “If anything, it’s me who oughta thank you—for keepin’ me here. For trustin’ me.”
“I do trust you. With everything,” you said. “And I love you.”
He kissed you again, and you kept your eyes open, watching the furrow of his brow, watching his mind whirr with the thoughts and big feelings he once was so afraid to say.
“I love you too, baby,” he whispered when he finally released your mouth, voice rough at the edges. “So much.”
“To touch is to be touched” —Hélène Cixous
september was practice… in october I’m getting my shit together
in november I'm getting my shit together
in december I’m getting my shit together
i do feel somewhat ruined forever. but it’s okay we stay silly
i think i deserve financial compensation for everything. all of it. i’m not even gonna specify

