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Synopsis: Your boyfriend, Valko, is ready to show you what it’s like to experience him during his rut. Too bad you’re both on a camping trip. Too bad you’re a brat. Too bad you’re into being chased in the woods.
CW/BEFORE YOU READ: primal play/chase kink, predator/prey dynamics, intense rut sex, knotting with stretching and breeding, mild blood from a lip bite, possessive and filthy dirty talk, scent marking, grooming, and brat taming. Consent, safewords, color checks, and emotional aftercare present. Minors Do Not Interact || WC: 3.4K
As always, likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated!
Banner by me. Divider by @sisterlucifergraphics
One of Valko’s greatest fears is losing control around you. He doesn’t often appeal to his base animal instincts–years of having to hide who he is has taught him to keep himself on a leash, for lack of a better term. But when it comes to you, his inner wolf is insatiable, and if he’s being completely honest–fucking insufferable. The first time your scent hit his nose, it slammed straight into his soul. His inner wolf threw its head back and howled in a way that said it had not only found something it had never even thought could exist, but there wasn’t a universe in which it was willing to let you go.
And the rest was history.
But you being his, and him ravaging you as a result of his rut, are two very distinct things.
So for as long as you have been with Valko, he has taken suppressants to quell the extreme, insatiable hunger brought on by his rut. He reassured you that it’s something he always did as the Chairman of EonCore Tech because it could interfere with his ability to make decisions that could possibly negatively impact the company.
Lies.
That it would get in the way of the other, more mysterious work he did that called for him to slip away at night.
More lies.
But truthfully?
His rut was always intense, and with you it became something else entirely. Everything about you felt like the most exquisite skin-prickling overload. With you, it felt like a delicious shiver racing down his spine, the phantom caress along the back of his neck, the softest stroke against every fine hair on his tail. When it came to you, feelings weren’t simply felt… they were imprinted.
But eventually you have to face the proverbial music — or in this case, the music you choose to blast in his car — the same music he pretends to be annoyed by but turns up the volume just to hear you sing along to your favorite parts.
You two were barreling down a long stretch of highway, bounding straight towards a very intentional weekend at a secluded campsite. And for once, Valko had conveniently forgotten the suppressants at home.
Something felt off the entire car ride. It wasn’t off in an unpleasant way, but it just felt charged in a way that felt heavy. Sure, Valko regularly touches you in some fashion when you’re his honorary passenger princess, but this time his hand — usually casually placed comfortably on your thigh — had a tighter grip than normal. His grip was so intense that the prominent veins in his hands were standing out as if stress was flowing from the tips of his fingers and up to his thick, muscle-corded forearms. Even his tail, which usually lay limply in your lap so that you may card your fingers through, was flicking incessantly at the tip as if the appendage was just as restless as the body it was attached to.
Now, setting up the campsite was proving to be more of a group effort in theory only. Valko had decided he was doing the heavy lifting — though “heavy lifting” was a relative term depending on whether you asked an Alpha wolf or a hunter who could easily bench her own body weight.
Around the fifth time his large hands gently but firmly plucked whatever you were holding out of your grasp, he flashed you that charming grin.
“Hey, beautiful. I got that.”
Each time he took something from you, he lingered. He’d lean in close, rubbing his cheek and jaw along your shoulder or the top of your head in a slow, deliberate scent-mark, his tail giving a pleased little flick behind him. By the umpteenth time, you finally planted your hands on your hips.
“You’re SCENT-MARKING me!”
Valko throws his head back, canines glinting white and sharp in the sun “Who taught you that word?!” he barks incredulously.
Your cheeks burn and you expertly avoid the question, too embarrassed to admit you’ve spent many nights researching wolf mannerisms and mating rituals.
“I know LOTS of things…! Anyway, answer the question.”
Valko looks down at the stake in his hand, rolling it around in his palm clearly in heavy consideration of what he’s weighing in his mind to share with you. Finally, he tosses the stake on the ground near the other tools and closes the distances
As the sunlight catches his golden eyes, you noticed how much darker they had become — molten honey edged with something wild and hungry. A shiver races down your spine, instinctive and electric, your body lighting up with the ancient signal to either run or submit.
He reaches out, taking your palm in his. “Look, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, and I really don’t want you to freak out.”
Your quick nod and undivided attention are all the silent encouragement he needs to continue.
“Wolves usually experience a rut, right? I’ll spare you the biological details since you seem to have done so much offline research, you pervert-”
Your hand shoots out to pinch at his skin in retribution at his comment, but he swats away your attempt with a smirk and continues.
“Usually I take medication to suppress that rut, but I guess I’ve been feeling like lately I’ve wanted you to see me. All of me. Me, the wolf, and my rut.”
You blink. Once, twice and three times as you process what he’s saying to you. “And so you thought the best time for me to experience your rut was in the woods where we are miles away from civilization?”
He snorts, arms reaching out and pulling you against him so your cheek is pressed against those beefy pectorals you love so much. “I promise that if things get too intense, I’ll be able to control myself, alright? All you have to do is tell me to stop or use any of the safewords we’ve discussed in the past, ok?”
And because he can’t help himself, he pauses and adds a cheeky, “I’m not an animal, babe.”
After rolling your eyes, you exhale softly. Truth be told, you have never felt unsafe with Valko. Even if his rut is coming, there’s not a world where he’d ever take it too far. It also helps that you’re a world-class hunter and would throw the absolute gnarliest hands if you needed to–boyfriend or not.
“I trust you. Always.” you whisper into the clean linen of his shirt.
You receive a pleased growl in return.
Hours go by without incident. You both efficiently set up the tent you’ll be sharing over the next couple of days and Valko even manages to get a fire roaring. As you both settle on a large log Valko dragged over near the firepit as a makeshift seat, the silence is a comfortable lull between you. However, the quiet is soon broken by a deep growl from within his chest. His cheek meets the top of your head as he begins to scent mark you once again.
“You smell like everything I need.”
“Everything?” you laugh softly as you turn around in his arms.
“Everything.” he whispers, palm rising slowly to cup your cheek as his lips press against yours in a kiss that steals your breath and sets your blood on fire in equal measure. Your tongues tangle quickly, the time you spent together in your relationship eliminating any need for reserved touches. You let out a surprised gasp as his fangs nip your bottom lip, another deep, pleased grumble erupts from his chest. You feel the heat of his hands and the sharp tips of his nails on your arm as he grips you, inevitably pulling you into his lap.
The demanding nature of his rut is clear as he grinds his hips upward, the stiff ridge of his cock rubbing at the clothed part of your ass. The intensity of his kisses grows and the growls coming from his throat grow louder and deeper, sending vibrations through your own chest. Eventually his lips part from yours, but quickly take up purchase along the column of your throat, one hand rising to grip the nape of your neck and shift your head exactly where he wants so his tongue can dart out and taste your skin.
You let out a breathy moan that emboldens him, but before he can get ahead of himself, you choose to be the opposite of his peace.
You grip his broad shoulders, briefly appreciating that every inch of this man is yours, before you firmly push him away, giving you a couple of inches of distance. He attempts to close the distance again with his lips, but you turn your head and offer him your cheek.
“Sorry, but you expect me to let you mount me out here in the forest without a little bit of teasing?”
Before he can rebuttal, you jump up and press your boot against the hard expanse of his shoulder and nudge him completely off the log with a resounding thud that echoes through the forest.
You don’t bother glancing back. The wild, rapturous howl tearing through the trees behind you says it all.
The chase was on.
“Overgrown puppy got the zoomies?!” you call over your shoulder. You briefly glance behind you, careful not to collide with the trees zooming beyond your peripheral vision. You are not surprised to see this massive man vaulting over a log and landing on his feet in an instant, easily picking up the pace into a sprint and gaining on you.
Banter is how you two usually connect and bond, but in this moment, you know it’s only fueling his desire to catch you.
You're fast, but he’s faster. He closes the distance, tackling you into a bed of moss and fallen leaves from the trees above. And despite the way in which you both collide with the floor and the roaring in his veins to take, Valko’s arms still cradle your body to completely absorb the blow.
As your eyelids flutter open, your eyes connect with something primal in his. The bright gold of his eyes are now a deeper, molten honey, pupils dilated as his ears and tails twitch as if tuned into every inch of you.
“Color?”
“Green,” you breathe.
The kiss that comes after is far from the controlled kiss by the firepit. His tongue is demanding as it slides into your eager mouth. You meet his lick for lick, sweeping into his own mouth and grazing against his fangs.
You both groan at the taste of copper, unsure of whose blood you're tasting since you can’t tell where one of you starts and the other one ends. He settles himself heavily between your thighs, that insistent bulge once again making itself present and known as he hooks your thigh over his hip and grinds against you.
“Fuuuuuuck,” he growls. “I’m going to stretch your pretty pussy out on my knot, baby.” He pulls back, that smirk you adore gracing his features despite the tortured expression on his face from holding back–from not being inside of you.
“Question is, do you want to bounce on it or do you want to be mounted like you so kindly offered earlier, brat?”
You reach up, gripping his shirt which is damp from the exertion of chasing you through the forest. “For a Chairman, you sure leave a lot of decisions to me. Not very Alpha of you, pup.”
The electricity that cackles between you both could set the forest on fire.
“Oh, baby…” He leans in until his forehead rests against yours, breath hot and ragged across your lips. “You really can’t fucking help yourself, can you?”
In one smooth, powerful motion he rears back, grabs the front of his already-damp shirt, and rips it clean off his body. The fabric tears with a satisfying sound that makes your breath quicken. Moonlight paints the cut of his abs, the heavy expanse of his chest, the dark burgundy trail of hair that disappears into his waistband. His tail sways behind him, thick and restless. The scent rolling off him—leather, musk, warm cedar, and raw desire—hits you like a drug.
Your man is clearly feral for every inch of you.
He doesn’t give you time to truly admire the way moonlight slides over every cut of muscle before he’s on you again.
His hands, which are large, veined, claws just barely pricked, grip your hips and flip you onto your stomach with effortless strength. Moss and soft earth cushion you as he yanks your hips up, forcing you onto your knees while your chest stays pressed to the ground. The position leaves you arched and open for him. You feel even more exposed when you feel your bottoms and panties being shoved down without fanfare.
Valko settles behind you, one big palm smoothing possessively down your spine before he settles one palm against the mid-section of your back.
“Not very Alpha of me?” he repeats, voice husky and laced with amusement and hunger. He leans over your back, caging you completely, his thick cock sliding hot and heavy between your thighs, gliding through your slick without entering you yet. “You mouthy little hunter… I was trying to be a gentleman. Give my mate a choice.”
He nips sharply at the back of your neck, then soothes it with a slow drag of his tongue.
“Choice revoked.”
You gasp as the thick tip of his cock presses into you, spreading you so nicely for what you both know is going to leave you pleasantly, yet achingly sore tomorrow. Your cunt is wet, and that’s painfully clear as the sound of the head of his cock pushes into your sloppy, hungry pussy with an overwhelmingly loud squelch. You both groan at your surrender, the sound of him pressing into you loud and obscene in the quiet of the forest.
“Fuck, you may be a brat but your greedy pussy knows what she wants.” The burn of him sliding in you is perfect, overwhelming in the best way. He doesn’t stop until his hips are flush against your ass, the swollen base of his knot kissing your folds.
He doesn’t give you time to adjust as he’s pulling back and sliding back in, savoring the feeling of your tight hole sucking his thick cock, welcoming him back eagerly with every thrust.
The rut is riding him hard, his control fraying at the edges, but even now, he’s still Valko: protective enough that one arm stays curled around you, ready to catch you if your arms give out, whispering filthy praise between the growls. With each groaned praiseful remark that escapes his lips, you clench harder.
“Look at you, big bad hunter… all dripping and whining while I mount you. Who’s the prey now, baby? You don’t even have it in you to fight back, don’t you? Good fucking girl.”
“This knot's got your name all over it, pretty girl. You didn’t have to mouth off, all you had to do was present this pretty pussy like an offering.”
He rears his hips back and accentuates each word with a thrust. “Just. Like. This.”
“Fuck, listen to that,” he groans, voice thick with rut, with his desire to mount and knot his mate. “Big bad hunter, all soaked and sloppy for me. Thought you were supposed to be dangerous, baby. Right now you’re just a pretty little thing getting mounted in the dirt.”
Your cheeks burn, but the moans and gasps coming out of your mouth are encouraging, especially as you reach behind and claw at his thick thigh. His soft, lush tail wraps around your wrist, which is a clear message: that even in this moment, you’re both still connected despite the intensity.
You can feel his swollen knot pressing against your entrance. You brace yourself on your hands, but gasp as his broad, hard chest blankets your back and forces your hands out from under you and presses you completely into the dirt. His thrusting turns into pistoning as his knot goes from kissing your cunt to demanding entrance into your sweet, tight heat.
“Beg sweetly for it, baby. Let your mate hear how bad you want to be knotted by your Alpha.”
You feel the smirk in his words, the way his tail, which has moved from your wrist, tightens around your waist like a furry leash. He’s enjoying this—enjoying the way your strong hunter body chooses to yield so perfectly for him.
A broken moan escapes you as the knot catches harder against your entrance, bullying its way forward. You clench around the thick shaft already buried inside you, trying to pull him deeper even as you manage a shaky, bratty laugh.
“You… want me to beg?” you gasp, turning your head just enough to catch his molten gold eyes. “After you chased me down like some helpless prey?”
Valko’s answer is a dark, delighted chuff. “Prey should struggle if they want to be entertaining. And fuck are you entertaining.”
His pace turns relentless, hips snapping against your ass with every thrust. The heavy swell of his knot catches at your entrance more insistently now, stretching you wider with every pass, demanding to be let in.
You feel him throb and twitch inside you, hot and huge, as he waits for you to break.
“Come on, baby. Tell me how badly this tight hunter cunt needs to be locked on my cock. Tell your Alpha how empty you feel without it.”
The words send a sharp spark down the length of your spine and straight to where his knot was pushing, pushing, pushing…
Valko groans against your neck, fangs sinking in your shoulder, as his swollen knot finally pushes inside you, sliding home with a slow, slick pop that leaves you both breathless. The gasping, whine that escapes his throat despite the clench of his teeth pushes you over the edge. Your body quakes with an intense orgasm that has your slick coating his thighs and the dirt beneath you both.
Thick ropes of his cum, more than usual as a result of the suppresent, floods your welcoming womb. You feel every twitch, every pulse against your battered cervix, even as he gives a few more valiant thrusts into your cum-filled cunt.
Moments pass as you both pant, sweat dripping down your bodies. The haziness is broken as Valko rubs his chin and cheek against the top of your head, similar to how this fiasco started in the first place.
“You okay?” he whispers in your ear, voice softer than it was moments ago, tongue darting out to continue to groom you.
You let out a breathless little laugh, eyes still half-lidded as you melt back into his chest. “Mmm… more than okay. Just feeling full and will definitely feel this tomorrow.”
A low, pleased chuff rumbles through him. His arms tighten around you, one big hand stroking down your side while the other stays splayed over your lower belly, right where you can feel the heavy warmth of his knot pulsing inside you.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, nuzzling into your hair. “You took my knot so beautifully.” He presses a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the bite mark he left on your shoulder earlier, then rests his forehead there. “I was worried I’d be too much tonight. I was worried my rut would scare you off-”
You reach back lazily, threading your fingers through his damp hair and giving a playful tug. “You were a lot, but I loved it. I love you, Valko. All of you. Even the overgrown puppy parts.”
Valko laughs against your skin, the sound warm and relieved. His tail curls tighter around your thigh as the knot continues to throb gently inside you, keeping you locked together. For long minutes he just holds you. For a few moments more, he continues his grooming, scenting, and whispering of quiet praise between soft kisses along your neck and jaw.
You close your eyes in contentment, loving that you were able to show your mate that, despite his initial fears of showing you this part of him, you could reassure him that he’s more than enough.
a/n: I’m mourning this wolf real heavy. Can't believe I broke my writing hiatus on a canceled character (please come back). I really hate the turn of events after his reveal and don't think it should have escalated to the extent it has. For now, I'm boycotting a game that I have played consistently for 2 years, refusing to spend any money, not opening the app, and unfollowing all their social media accounts. During Anime Expo, I even chose not to participate in their cosplayer event (despite winning a slot) or purchase any items at the official LADS booth. I have written several emails with only the JP cs team responding. I miss Zayne SO much, but this is about the principle. I don't have much of an online presence, but I can't support Infold until they reinstate Valko. So while I boycott, I cope.
I was super intrigued by the concept of this fic, and the set-up definitely drew me in. However, the moment that I absolutely fell in love was this:
“You’re SCENT-MARKING me!”
Valko throws his head back, canines glinting white and sharp in the sun “Who taught you that word?!” he barks incredulously.
Your honor, I'm obsessed with them 😂💕 Such a fun dynamic, and I am a sucker for banter. I love reader's attitude, I love Valko's response, I love them together 🩷
And they are SO doomed 😆 (but like in a fun way lol). Valko out here saying every set of famous last words in the book. Yep, sure, uh-huh. You can definitely control your rut, big guy. The same rut you've been taking medication to suppress because it's so intense? The rut you're about to experience at full force for the first time around your mate? Surely nothing could go wrong... 🤗🤭
“Sorry, but you expect me to let you mount me out here in the forest without a little bit of teasing?”
Yes 👏 Yes girl, yes 👏 I love this reader so much 😈 MAKE HIM WORK FOR IT
And you know what? I know I was joking earlier about them being doomed by the narrative, but actually they are SO ADORABLE I'm gonna cry 😭🩷 The aftercare/pillow talk part was my favorite moment in this fic. We've got a couple that can do it all: from banter, to frantic primal sex in the woods, to genuine care and love 💕
Thank you for keeping the Valko girlies fed during this trying time. Your note at the end was so sweet and so heartbreaking, all at the same time. Having fic to read definitely helps, but I'm hoping we get our wolf back soon 😭
Valko takes you to the lake for a camping trip. When he finds out that you can’t swim, he makes it his mission to teach you.
A/N: Stay strong, Valkyries. Thought of this during my holiday and it turned out so cute!
Words: 1606
Warnings: super fluffy
“Luna Lake?“
“Yeah,“ Valko answered, kissing your temple as he peeked at the voucher he’d gifted you. “That’s what the pack calls it anyway. A whole weekend, just you and me, to make up for the fact that I was gone for so long. The campsite will be closed for renovations over at the huts, but we won’t need those. I got a tent, sleeping bags, lots of chocolate and marshmallows, and I’ll make a campfire.”
“That…that sounds great,” you choked out. Except for the fact that it was by the lake, and Valko surely expected you to go for a swim with him at some point. You hadn’t told him yet that you didn’t know how to swim. This irrational fear of deep waters had been weighing on you ever since you were a kid—but didn’t exactly look good on a grown Hunter who killed Wanderers and tracked down werewolves for a living.
“You don’t sound very happy about it, bunny. Would you rather do something else? We can.”
“No, no. It’s… a sweet idea. I like it. Let’s do it.” You’d just have to make sure not to wade too deep into the lake, right? Easy peasy.
Not easy peasy. At all. After you’d helped Valko set up your tent and inflate the air mattresses, you were soaked through. Today was a particularly hot day, and the sun was shining down like hellfire. Valko didn’t waste any time. Deliciously shirtless already and skin all shiny from sweat, he made a run for the little dock, skipping the ladder and diving into the water headfirst like a professional swimmer.
You chuckled when he re-emerged, and slowly waded in at the rocky shore. The gravel and sand pricked at your feet as the water level rose. You stopped when it enveloped your waist.
“What are you waiting for, bunny?” He swam over to you, circling you like a hungry shark.
“You look so damn beautiful in that bikini, you know that?”
Heat crept up your cheeks. You bent down, letting the water rise up to your chest without letting your feet lose the ground.
“It’s lovely here. Thank you for bringing me.”
“You’re welcome. We can come here as often as you like. I, uh… actually bought the lake and the land surrounding it.”
Your jaw dropped. “Huh? You said it was closed for renovations.”
“It is. Because I bought it. I just wanted a private patch of land for the cubs to hunt safely. And for you and me, of course. Come on. Let’s swim towards the middle. The view is amazing. When it gets dark, you can see the moon over the trees and the light reflecting in the water. But even now, it’s breathtaking.”
“Oh… we can do that later then. I’ll stay here for a while; the view is nice from the shore too.”
Valko chuckled, oblivious to your uncertainty. “How about a race? Or… a chase?” A wolfish grin spread on his lips.
“V-Valko, I‘d rather not, I—” You yelped when he jumped at you and threw you over his shoulder as if you weighed nothing. He carried you deeper into the lake, not immediately noticing your rising panic. Under normal circumstances, his carefree laugh would have warmed your heart, but right now, you were too busy freaking out.
Banging on his back with your fists, you struggled in his tight grip.
“V-Valko, let me down, please! Let me down, let me down right now!”
Valko was still laughing, not realising how much your voice was trembling, right until he attempted to throw you in. You clung to him like a monkey, shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind. That must have been when he started to smell your fear. He froze.
His arms tightened around you, holding you close.
“Hey, hey, hey, are you alright? Shit… Hey… Bunny… what’s going on? Talk to me.”
You didn’t realise you were crying until he carried you out of the water, still holding you tightly against his chest.
He put you down inside the tent, reaching for a towel to gently dry you off.
“I’m sorry, I’m making a scene…”
“Hey… no, you’re not. Talk to me about this. If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry for not realising you were uncomfortable earlier. Please, bunny, tell me what’s wrong so I can make it better.”
Heaven, he was so cute. You nuzzled into him, clinging to the towel he’d draped over his shoulders.
“I can’t swim,” you muttered.
“You… you can’t swim?”
You shook your head. “I don’t even know why. It’s silly, really. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had this irrational fear of deep water, and I was never able to overcome it, so I secretly skipped the swimming lessons and hid in the changing rooms until Grandma came to pick me up again. I almost didn’t pass my Hunter’s exam because of it.”
“You should have told me earlier, cub.” Cub. He usually used that nickname with you when he sensed how vulnerable you were being with him. “I never would have scared you like that if I had known. I should have pried more when you hesitated about the trip.”
“It’s okay, Valko. You couldn’t have known.”
“No, but I still should have asked.” He stroked your cheek.
“I didn’t want to tell you. I’m supposed to be the strong and fierce Hunter, remember?”
“You are a strong and fierce Hunter. Nothing changes about that. Having weaknesses is not a bad thing. It makes you human. And you’re allowed to be scared. Don’t you think I’m afraid of things too?”
You sniffed. “Maybe… I… I don’t want to ruin the mood. Let’s… let’s eat something and enjoy the weekend. We can still cool down and all, I just… I just don’t want to go in too far.”
Valko rubbed your back, warming you up. Each stroke calmed you further and dried your tears. “Hey… how about… I teach you how to swim?”
You leaned back, reddened eyes meeting his innocent and soft smile.
“You… you want to teach me?”
“Yeah, why not? Tell you what, bunny. Let’s have a nice dinner and eat those barbecue chicken skewers we brought, and then we’ll try together, alright?”
You nodded. “But aren’t you supposed to wait an hour to go swimming after a meal?”
Valko chuckled. “Sure, we could wait. I can think of something else to do in the meantime.”
“Valko!” He cuddled you in his arms as you both laughed.
“It’s alright…slowly. I’ve got you, bunny. I won’t let you go under.”
Clinging to Valko like a little monkey once more, you allowed him to glide deeper into the water with you, away from the safe ladder attached to the dock.
“Just like we practised earlier, alright?” Earlier, when you couldn’t decide between focusing on the swimming motions he was teaching you or his hands on your waist steadying you in the water so you wouldn’t flop about helplessly like a fish out of water.
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you. Just try. I’m right here with you, I won’t let anything happen to you.” His words were like a balm, healing years of childhood trauma when the other kids laughed at you for staying in the shallow pools during school trips. Caleb had once pushed one of your bullies so hard he slipped on the wet tiles and ended up with a broken nose.
“And if you were to go under, what do we do?”
“Don’t flail, get my feet on the ground and push off to break the surface.”
“Good girl.”
Oh. Heat pooled in your lower regions, distracting you from the swimming motions you were supposed to be doing.
Valko gently pushed you an arms-length away from him and positioned you belly-down in the water, his long fingers gliding over your wet skin. You took a shaky breath in.
“Swim,” he ordered gently, as if it was merely a suggestion. You did as you were told, mimicking the motions he had demonstrated to you earlier. And… it worked. Your practice earlier paid off, and you’d argue you were a fast learner. “I’m doing it! Valko, I’m doing it!”
“I can see it, bunny. Keep going. You’re doing great.” His praise fuelled you like a power reactor. “Just keep going,” he said again. “I’m right here. I won’t leave you.” His hands moved away from under your belly… and all of a sudden, you were swimming all by yourself.
Valko followed suit. For him, the water was still shallow enough to stand.
“I’m going it! I’m actually doing it, I’m doing—” Your last words got muffled by a swell of water when your head dipped under because you might have gotten a little too excited, but your panic didn’t last long. Your wolf was by your side within a second.
You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him. “Did you see that? Heavens, I’ve never been this deep in the water by myself without a life jacket!”
“You did so well, cub. I’m proud of you.” He nudged your nose with his. “Keep at it, and you’ll soon be a pro. Then we can actually race each other.”
You bit your lower lip. The taste of his mouth lingered on it still. “How about we race back to our tent for now, and I’ll show you just how grateful I am for you?”
Valko’s yellow eyes darkened with desire. You laughed when he lifted you out of the water bridal-style and carried you back to shore without another word.
I wanna go camping with him so so so badly; thank you for writing this fic so that I can live out my dreams in fantasyland lol~
Because he would be a total cutie and pack lots of chocolate and marshmallows. We KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE 🐺🍫 Only the camping essentials, of course 😋
And oh my goodness, I love your characterization of Valko! He's so loving and eager and a gigantic simp for reader. I was basically just kicking my feet from beginning to end, continuously, over every little thing he did.
"Please, bunny, tell me what’s wrong so I can make it better.”
Like???? 😭🥰 He is literally perfect and nobody can tell me otherwise. I totally get these vibes from him too; like I think he's very solution-oriented and wants to just take on and take care of everything. Again, I just... I love how you write him so much 🩷
Also, him buying the whole dang lake gave me such a good chuckle 😂
The actual teaching-her-to-swim part was so adorable!! What a supportive (and horribly distracting) teacher 🥰
The endinggggg 🩷🩷🩷 A perfect conclusion hehe~
Last thing I have to mention is that I loved the playfully competitive aspect of their relationship. I absolutely get those vibes from him as well, and thought it was super cute to give reader the "goal" of racing him to look forward to. If these two ever leave that tent for the rest of the trip, I'm sure she'll be focusing hard on improving her new skills!
Thanks again for writing this lovely fic, @sserpente 💕
lovie, i got Q... and apparently there's a kink with that????
quirofilia with wolfie please 🙏
Hello honey dearest!
Ok folks, quirofilia aka, hand kink.
--------
"Like that baby girl?" Valko teases as he pulls his fingers out of your sopping cunt. They're sticky and covered with your juices, which he licks clean, tongue darting out to between his lips.
You moan at the loss, your hole fluttering around nothing, hot and achy like you're staving off a fever. Valko quirks a mischievous eyebrow at your dazed state.
"Missing these?" he asks, waving his hand in front of your face, glistening with the remnants of his saliva and your musky nectar. You bite your lip at the crude sight, unable to stop from gawking.
His hands were large and veiny, with wide palms and long fingers that you swore reached your cervix. The sight of them makes the coil in your belly tighten with shameless want, and your pussy spasms in protest, all but begging for him to bury them back inside.
"You're so mean, Val…" you pout, and he laughs, low and deep, before pressing his index finger against your lips. Your tongue boldly flicks out, tasting him, tasting yourself, the lingering tang and salt, before sucking the digit into your mouth.
"That's a good girl," Valko croons. "Get em nice and wet for me." He adds his middle and ring fingers to the mix, your lips stretching to fit them all, a small trickle of saliva escaping from the corner of your mouth.
When he drags them out, they're glistening, and he pauses for a second too long to make sure you saw before dipping back down between your moist folds. You moan as he rubs your clit, nice and slow, spreading the wetness all over the little nub before stroking lower, lower, and...
A loud cry escapes your lips as he pushes, one finger, then two, then - oh god, oh god - a third, until you're split impossibly wide. Your cunt clenches in delight, sucking him in as his thumb takes over stimulating your clit.
"Fuck, Valko..." you hiss, but all you can do is cling to his other arm, leaving half moon dents into his biceps.
"Who'd have thought you're such a whore for my hands?" He crooks his fingers to brush your gspot, and you swore you saw stars. "All this time, dreaming of all the dirty things these fingers could do." He nips your ear and you whimper.
"Now be a good little mouse, and show me how much you love making a mess. Don't be shy. I want you dripping all over my palm by the time I'm done with you."
I did not know there was an official term for hand kink. Which is frankly embarrassing considering the sheer amount of fic that I've read and written about it lol. Thanks for enlightening me, and thanks for writing this! Literally no better hands to drool over than Valko's hehe~
✧･ﾟ:bucky doesn’t waste time after sex with cuddling. You’re spent and tired, he’s got the serum pumping through his body, and he’ll do everything that needs to be done. Water and some food, using the bathroom, cleaning up, he puts it all on himself with methodical precision, until you catch his elbow and ask him to rest. He tells you that he is resting, but folds under your stern glare, kissing the back of your hand before trailing after you into the shower. You wash his hair, if he lets you. You lead him back to bed and make him rest as well, because you know he won’t if you don’t make him.
B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)
✧･ﾟ:it takes Bucky a while to see any part of his body as good, but he could list everything about yours for a million years without stopping. Soft lips and pretty eyes and gentle hands that feel right in his. Every single curve and dip is perfect, because it’s yours, and you’re the best thing he has. If you make him chose one thing about himself, he’ll dodge around the question for as long as he can manage, before muttering he doesn’t hate his mouth. It’s useful on your body, and that’s all he needs.
C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)
✧･ﾟ:the serum had some… side effects. At first he’s embarrassed by them, worried that he might hurt you, or you’ll find it disgusting. It’s a lovely surprise, the way your eyes get blown out and glossy with desire the first time he cums in front of you. It’s endless, shooting out of his cock until it’s raw and sore, almost drowning you when it’s on your face and stuffing you up when you convince it to keep it in. He’ll moan in your ear and double over, giving shallow micro thrusts as you milk him dry, and your eyes roll back in your head with the sheer, thick, beautiful volume of him.
D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)
He doesn’t like to ask for things, but that doesn’t stop his head from running wild with lewd, obscene images that almost make him blush. He’s got a vivid imagination, and he’s spent more showers and nights than he’ll admit indulging in it. The images of you on your knees, ass up and cunt exposed—or folded in half beneath him, or riding his cock and crying his name—seep into his dreams, until he can’t close his eyes without being haunted by the idea of how gorgeous you’d be, coming apart for him. Even after you get together the dreams won’t relent. You’ve woken up many nights to Bucky almost humping you in his sleep, his eyes fluttering and your name falling from his lips. You indulge him, and pretend you don’t notice the dark stain on the front of his sweats in the morning. It’s hotter than he needs to know, anyway.
E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)
Back in the 40s he might’ve been called a womanizer, but the standards were different. Fooling around wasn’t too kinky, and often didn’t really even go past second base. And after Hydra, intimacy was mostly forgotten. Bucky knows what he’s doing, but with your body more than his own. He’s good at the hand and mouth stuff—so good you sometimes still can’t believe it—but penetration takes a while for you both to build up to. Sometimes he still blows it a little early when you put your mouth on him, not used to that kind of warmth and care. He’s a quick learner, though, and it doesn’t take long for you both to find a nice, shared rhythm in how you fuck.
F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)
At first, when you’re still learning each other, he says there’s nothing better than some good, old fashioned missionary. It’s the good, Christian boy in him coming back out, taught well by his Ma that rough is no way to treat a lady. But then you talk him into doggy, and he’s a goner. The way he gets to hold you up with a single arm and play with your clit with the other, the way your arms give out from how well he’s giving it to you, the vision of your ass in the air, it’s enough to drive a man mad. Combine that with how you moan when he forces your back to arch—giving him an even deeper angle, making your walls clench down around him like a sin—and he never stood a goddamn chance.
G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)
He might’ve been playful before, and after a while he starts to find it again, but sex is mostly something serious. It’s close, vulnerable, impossibly intimate. He doesn’t do casual, and it shows. A single smile might not be cracked some days, but the worship of your body more than makes up for it. His brow gets furrowed in concentration, his mouth hangs open with awe, and if you’re lucky, his lips twitch slightly when you shiver under his touch. He calls you perfect, and you’ve never believed anyone more.
H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)
The military training doesn’t fade away. Bucky keeps himself clean and neat, more for himself than anyone else. He lets a little hair grow out as he settles into an easier life, but it’s well-groomed and clean. When his chest hair comes back he thinks about keeping that shaven as well, but you just manage to talk him out of it. He lets you have that. It’s another thing he learns to love about himself, just because of you.
I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)
While reserved at first, Bucky quickly becomes the most romantic man you’ve ever known. Random gifts are frequent, too the point that you’re so spoiled as to expect them. It translates smoothly into sex, where he gives and gives and gives until you almost can’t take it anymore. Praise is showered down like flower petals, affection whispered into your skin and kissed onto your lips. You can almost feel his love in every single touch, and even if you couldn’t, it falls from his lips like a prayer when he’s buried inside of you. He kisses you almost every second, everywhere he can reach, every inch of you that he wants you feel.
J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)
Before he met you, it was something he did quick and fast in the shower when he needed some release. An itch he needed to scratch, a way to quickly relieve stress before moving on with his day. But then you’re there, and it becomes another part of his devotion. It starts with shame—his head bowed, his hand braced on the wall, his cum slipping down the drain while he pretends it’s on your face—but quickly evolves into something more. He whispers your name into countless pillows and sheets before he has you, then discovers his favorite part of this century. Calling you while he’s away, and moaning your name into the phone while you gasp his, and he hears your pussy, wet and ready for him in the background.
K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)
Bucky loves your voice. How it gets breathy and high for him when he’s got you on the edge, how it whimpers and calls out his name like a song, even how it scolds him when he gets on your bad side. You could say anything to him, and he’d find his pants getting tight and his hands flexing to touch you. You notice, and whisper sweet nothings in his ears when you want to work him up. He grunts and forms a fist on his thigh, trying to stop himself from tossing you onto the table and giving you something to really moan about.
He’ll never admit it, but there’s nothing he loves more than wrapping around you like a shield. Than—even if he’s not—feeling bigger than you, like a protector rather than a weapon. When you’re cradled in his arms he feels almost worthy of it, when your little pussy tightens around him, he’s sure this is exactly where he needs to be, and when your hands tangle together and his envelopes yours, he’s sure he’s never going to let go.
There’s nothing more he loves more than a mouthy girl who can tell him off and boss him around, half because you’re never sexier than when you’re confident, and half because that’s a confidence and sass he gets to fuck right out of you. The one place he wants you dumb and babbling is below him, trusting that he’s taking good care of you, blinking up at him with doe eyes and a blown out, cockdrunk expression. You get the attitude right back when he’s done, but he just chuckles and rolls his hips just right, making you stutter and whine. His girl is nice and stupid for him, and just him, and that’s exactly what he wanted.
L = Location (favorite places to do the do)
Bucky doesn’t know how good it can feel to take you against the wall or in the kitchen until he does, and suddenly he wants to fuck you in every corner of the apartment. There shouldn’t be a place that you haven’t felt good in, a spot in this home that doesn’t know how perfect you are. And after testing every single surface and edge, he finds that he might be in love with taking you on the floor. There’s something desperate and dirty about it, that you can’t wait for the bed to crawl all over him and bed. He gets to cradle you in his arms and keep you safe from the low windows of your apartment, or hold you above him and protect you from the ground. You’re even more of a mess after, when he takes you like that, and that’s just how he likes it.
M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)
At first it’s small things. Touches and flashes of bare skin that make him feel like a teenager again, a kiss on his cheek that makes his cock twitch or a squeeze of his shoulder that forces him to squeeze his eyes shut for control. Then you get more comfortable together, and you start sassing him, and he’s never realized he could be this fucking horny. It doesn’t matter what you’re saying or how you’re saying it, if you’re talking at him—rolling your eyes or bossing him around or huffing about something silly—he wants to crawl over you like a tiger and kiss you until you’re giggling and starry eyed. There’s nothing better in the world than his smart girl, and there’s no one better to deal with it than him.
N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)
The lines are harsh and clear, grooved into the bedrock of your relationship, along with Bucky’s trust. Nothing with binds, nothing where he can’t see you, nothing in public and nothing that might really hurt you. His metal hand doesn’t go around your throat, you tap out immediately if anything is too much, and you tell him exactly what you want so he can give it, and nothing more. And he gives it. Over and over with ease, but only as you ask. And you ask. He’s too good not to.
O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)
Bucky likes eating you out, a little more than he thinks he should. It’s easy to him, a simple way to get on his knees and show you just how good he can make you feel. You get whiny, when he’s got his head between your thighs, and that’s just how he likes you. Writhing and squirting on his face, pulling at his hair until he groans your name against your cunt, and you let out a strangled gasp of his name. It makes him feel more human, more grounded, and so impossibly real. You’re softer than anything else he’s ever known, and tasting you is the closest he can get to being drunk. When you get on your knees for him, though, he sometimes tries to pull you back up. He never wants you to feel like you have some kind of obligation, and it can take a while to convince him you’re there because you want to be. He always comes apart embarrassingly fast, when your warm lips wrap around his cock. It’s hard to blame him. You just have that effect.
P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)
He can go fast and rough, but you have to beg him for it. He never wants to go harder than he has to, and there’s a low fear under every movement that he’s going to snap you in half. He prefers to kiss every inch of your body and draw out the time he’s buried inside of you, losing himself in your heat and dazed, adoring expression. He can be mean like that, if you want him to be. The pace has nothing to do with teasing you like you deserve, with slow, lazy thrusts that bully against your g-spot, giving so much and not enough, all at once. Making you cry for him, perfectly safe and wound tight enough to burst beneath him, just how he likes you.
Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)
Sex is important enough that Bucky doesn’t like rushing it, but sometimes you get to him—bending over in a little dress, sitting on his lap and rolling your hips in the way you know drives him mad—and his cock gets so hard he can’t help himself. If there’s no one around he’ll hitch up your skirt or shove his hand into your pants, playing with your little pussy until you’re dripping for him and begging. When he decides you’re ready he thrusts in brutally, rutting up into your cunt with his face pressed into your neck and his moans low and desperate. You both cum with gasps, and Bucky slaps your sensitive clit. He’ll nip at your neck and warn you not to tease him again. You never listen. You know he likes it too much.
R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)
Maybe when he was younger, Bucky might’ve let a pretty girl talk him into something crazy, but now he’s old. Tired half the time, itching to get out of his skin the other half, sure what he likes in bed and—more importantly—sure of what he doesn’t. You’re the only one who can get him to take the small step outside his comfort, because he knows you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t really want it. And there isn’t much he wouldn’t do for you. A small experiment that makes you cum all over him is a small sacrifice to make .
S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)
The super solider serum has it’s benefits, and this might be the only one that Bucky never regrets. Before he was batting a strong two or three with proper recouperation time, but now he can go up to ten without flinching. He’s more than grateful for it. He’s worried he wouldn’t be able to keep up with you, if he didn’t have that extra leg up. Your appetite for him is so great that you push him to his limits, and he didn’t know that was possible, but he still lets you every time. You seem determined to find out exactly how long he can go for. He’d be worried about it, if he wasn’t having the time of his life.
T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)
A lot of things have changed in the past century, and toys are a one of the things Bucky hasn’t really gotten yet. He doesn’t need one for himself, and he’s of the mind that—with how expensive vibrations are—there’s no need for you to have one either. He’s got a mouth and cock that can go all night, and a metal arm that can work like a toy if you’re that needy and desperate. You’d never thought to throw out your vibration until you had a massive super soldier next to you in bed. Metal fingers can fuck you until tears are springing to your eyes, and he can move his thumb so fast across your clit it basically feels like you’re at the mercy of a toy. A toy with soft lips, that drawl low praise and look at you like you’re an angel. Who could need anything else?
U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)
Bucky doesn’t like to be too public or obvious—another roll over of 40s sensibilities—but if you’re begging for it, he won’t stop himself from landing a sharp, teasing slap on your ass or tracing his fingers up your inner thighs. Never enough to make you do anything rash, but that’s not his goal. He wants to see you squirm and flush, to smell that sweet arousal pooling between your legs. He’s making sure that, when he finally does get his hands on you, you’ll be more than ready for him. Just how he likes it.
V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)
He’s not too loud unless you really get him going. Most praise and dirty talk is whispered in your ear or against your skin, and his own grunts and moans are low and controlled. But then you get your mouth on him, or clench down on his cock just right, and a deep, loud moan rumbles through his chest. You toy with his balls in a trembling hand, and he doubles over with lidded eyes, almost shouting your name for the whole of New York to hear. You smile at him, kissing every roar off his lips, and his control starts to slip, only for you.
W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)
Phone sex is something he never wants to give up. He has to leave frequently, for missions and meetings and work, and the knowledge that you’re still thinking of him like he’s thinking of you almost gets him there all on its own. A lewd part of him likes the idea that someone might hear him calling your name through the thin hotel walls, so everyone knows how well you’re worshipped, how thoroughly he adores you. He likes just the sound of your voice calling his name. He thinks he could make it off of phone sex only, for at least a month. He’d need you back eventually, but this is almost enough.
X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)
Bucky was packing before the serum, but it didn’t neglect his cock when it made everything bigger. The first time you see him, you’re worried you’ll barely even be able to get the head in. He’s got a cock so big it makes your mouth water and your eyes prick with tears from just sliding between the lips of your pussy. Once you tried to talk him into a dildo because it would’ve been smaller and easier. He always kisses your brows and coos that you can take it, and you can, but barely. The stretch hits places inside of you that you didn’t know you had, and Bucky has the nerve to be sweet and humble about it. It just makes it easier, though. So, so much easier, when that monster cock is attached to that perfect man.
Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)
Before you, it was more of an itch that he really couldn’t ignore, no matter how he tried. He had a drive, but it was more mechanical. Then you strolled into his life, and suddenly he’s something akin to an animal. You can walk around the apartment in pajamas and slippers, and Bucky feels his dick twitch to attention. He wants to be as close to you as he can, all the time, and if that means bending you over the closest surface and showing you just how much he loves you, than so be it.
Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)
He might not need it like most people, but Bucky loves his sleep. He’d keep you both in bed all day, just cuddling and napping and having mindblowing sex if he was allowed to. Once you’re both settled and cleaned up, you’re not allowed out of bed for at least a few hours so Bucky can get some rest. He sleeps better after sex, and better with you in his arms, and the two combined can even work to keep the nightmares at bay. He tells you that it’s all you, but you think it’s him. Working to get past it, to stay with you, to find slices of peace and hold onto them, with you laying right where you belong, at his side.
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - read on AO3!✦
✦Author's Note: he's such a soft lil guy i need him✦
✦Buy me a coffee!☕️✦
I'm in love with your characterization of him 😍 Totally agree that he'd be the biggest sweetheart who's kinda afraid of hurting his lover because of his sheer size and strength, but is simultaneously unable to get enough of them hehe~
Beefy Bucky being a (maybe nervous) gentle giant during lovemaking?
Bucky Barnes is careful in a way that feels calculated, like every movement is something he’s chosen for you. For this. For the space between your bodies where everything feels softer than it should, given the sheer size of him.
He’s big.
There’s no other word for it.
Broad shoulders that block out the lamplight, thick arms corded with muscle even when he’s still, chest warm and solid where it presses against yours. The weight of him should be overwhelming, should pin you down and steal the breath from your lungs, but instead he holds himself just above you, braced on one arm, like he’s afraid to crush something fragile.
You huff a quiet laugh, fingertips brushing the tense line of his jaw. “You know I’m not made of glass, right?”
His eyes flick to yours immediately—blue, bright, just a little too sharp with concern. “I know that,” he murmurs, but his voice dips low, threaded with something that feels almost like nerves. “Just… don’t wanna hurt you.”
It does something warm and aching to your chest.
This man who has survived wars and worse, who could lift you like you weigh nothing at all, is worried about you.
You curl your hand behind his neck, tugging him closer until your foreheads press together. “You won’t,” you promise softly. “You’re not him anymore, Buck.”
There’s a flicker in his expression at that—something shadowed, something old—but it fades quickly when your thumb traces along his cheek. He exhales, long and slow, like he’s letting something go.
“Still,” he says after a moment, quieter now. “Gotta be careful with something this pretty.”
Your stomach flips at the sincerity of it.
You shift beneath him, letting your legs slide around his hips, drawing him down that last inch he’d been holding back. The contact makes him inhale sharply, the sound catching in his throat like he hadn’t expected it, like it hits him every time no matter how many times you’ve done this.
“See?” you whisper, brushing your lips against his. “I’m okay.”
His answering kiss is soft at first. Always soft at first. Like he’s easing into it, testing the edges of you, making sure you’re right there with him. His mouth moves against yours slowlyand you can feel the way his restraint trembles under your hands when you grip his shoulders a little tighter.
It’s not that he doesn’t want more, you can feel it in the way his hips shift, in the low, almost frustrated sound he makes when you deepen the kiss, but he waits. For you.
He always waits.
“Tell me if—” he starts, pulling back just enough to look at you, brows drawn together.
You cut him off with a quiet, breathless laugh, pressing your finger to his lips. “Bucky,” you say gently, “I will.”
He studies your face for another second, searching for something, and whatever he finds must settle him because his shoulders loosen just a fraction.
“Okay,” he breathes.
And then he lets himself go.
Not all at once, but in slow, careful increments. His kisses grow deeper, more certain, his mouth moving against yours with a quiet kind of hunger he doesn’t try to hide anymore. His hand slides along your side, warm and grounding, fingers splaying over your waist like he needs to feel all of you at once.
Even then, he’s still mindful. His grip never tightens too much, his movements never rush. It’s strength held on a leash, power softened down into something gentle and consuming all at once.
When you shift under him again, guiding him closer, he pauses just enough to look at you.
“Still good?” he asks, voice rough now, edged with something deeper.
You nod, breath catching as he moves, as the closeness becomes something more, something that makes your toes curl and your hands clutch at him instinctively. “Yeah,” you whisper. “More than good.”
That’s all he needs.
He exhales your name like it’s something sacred and finally settles fully against you, careful even in the way he lets his weight rest there, adjusting instinctively until you’re comfortable beneath him. His forehead drops to yours again, his eyes slipping closed for a moment like he’s overwhelmed by the feeling of you.
“God,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “You feel—”
He cuts himself off with a soft groan, like he can’t find the words.
You smile, brushing your nose against his. “I get it,” you tease lightly. “I’m incredible.”
That pulls a quiet laugh from him, low and warm, the sound vibrating through his chest where it presses against yours.
“Yeah,” he says, and this time there’s no hesitation at all. “Yeah, you are.”
The rhythm he finds is steady, unhurried, like he’s savoring every second instead of chasing an end. Every movement is measured, his body moving with yours rather than against it. He watches you the whole time, eyes open and intent, like he’s memorizing the way your face changes, the way you react to him.
It makes something inside you melt.
“Buck,” you breathe, fingers tangling in his hair as the tension builds, as your body arches up into his without thinking.
Immediately, his hand slides up your spine, supporting you, grounding you, his touch firm but gentle. “I got you,” he murmurs, voice soft but certain. “I’ve got you, doll. You’re okay.”
There’s no fear in it anymore. No edge of doubt. Just reassurance, steady and warm, like he believes it now as much as you do.
You let yourself fall into it, into him, because you trust him completely.
And he handles that trust like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever been given.
By the time everything slows, by the time your breathing evens out and the room feels quiet again, he’s still hovering over you, still watching you with that same careful attention.
“You alright?” he asks, brushing your hair back from your face.
You laugh softly, reaching up to pull him down into a proper embrace this time, your arms wrapping around his broad shoulders. “I’m perfect.”
He relaxes then, his full weight finally settling against you as he buries his face in the crook of your neck.
“Good,” he murmurs, pressing a lingering kiss to your skin. “That’s all I want.”
And somehow, despite everything he is—despite the strength, the history, the sheer size of him—he fits against you like he was always meant to be gentle.
Oh, my heart is exploding!! (In the best possible way) Gentle giant Bucky my beloved 🩷🩷🩷
The way he's so careful with her, even as he's letting himself give more and more was so 🤌 It just fits him so well. And I loved that little playful moment where reader makes him laugh. Auuugh, they're so cute together!
Fluffy smut is truly what makes the world keep on spinning. Thank you for writing this!
Bucky find his shy wife’s (reader) sex toys she uses when he’s on missions❤️🔥
Bucky steps into your shared house with a sign of relief. Another mission done—long, exhausting, the kind that leaves ghosts clinging to his skin even after the hottest shower. He drops his duffel by the coat rack and rolls his neck, listening.
The kitchen clock ticks, steady and quiet. Somewhere, deep in the house, he can hear the hum of the laundry.
But there’s no you.
No soft footsteps. No sleepy greeting.
You’re probably already in bed, curled up beneath the blankets with the lamp dimmed low, a book slipping from your fingers as you fight off sleep. His wife. The one who still blushes when he catches you staring too long at his metal arm, even after two years of marriage.
The thought pulls a tired smile from him as he moves down the hallway in socked feet, instinctively quiet. He doesn’t want to wake you if you’ve already drifted off.
The bedroom door is slightly ajar. Warm lamplight spills into the hall.
He pushes it open and pauses.
You’re not there.
The bed is made neatly, the covers pulled tight the way you like them. But the nightstand drawer, the one you always leave just slightly open, is wider than usual. Not much. Just enough.
Something inside catches his eye.
Bucky steps closer like he’s approaching something dangerous.
The drawer holds a soft pink silicone toy, half-hidden beneath a silk scarf. A smaller bullet vibrator sits beside it, sleek and black. A bottle of lube. And something bigger—realistic, unmistakable—that makes his mouth go dry.
He stills.
The soldier in him catalogs everything in an instant. The husband in him… feels something else entirely. Something hot. Possessive. Coiling low in his gut.
These aren’t new. The pink one shows signs of use—subtle wear along the edges.
His mind fills in the blanks without mercy.
You, alone in this bed while he’s gone for weeks. Cheeks flushed, thighs spread, biting your lip to keep quiet as you move one of these inside yourself. Thinking of him. Missing him. Needing him.
Heat floods his veins.
He reaches out before he can stop himself, picking up the pink toy carefully. His thumb brushes over the soft material, and there—faint, but unmistakable—is your scent. Clean. Warm. Intimately yours.
His breath hitches. His cock stirs in his sweatpants.
The front door lock turns.
Bucky exhales sharply and sets the toy back exactly as he found it. The drawer slides nearly shut—left just the way you had it. Like he was never there.
By the time your keys jingle and the door opens, he’s standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
You step inside with a grocery bag hooked over your arm, cheeks pink from the cold. The moment you see him, your face lights up.
“Bucky. You’re home early—I didn’t think—”
He crosses the room in three long strides and kisses you.
He kisses you deeply. Possessive in a way that steals the breath from your lungs. You make a startled sound against his mouth, the grocery bag slipping from your fingers and thudding softly to the floor as your hands scramble for him—his chest, his shoulders, his neck.
When he pulls back, your lips are swollen, your eyes wide.
“Missed you,” you whisper.
“Missed you more,” he murmurs, voice rough. His hands settle at your waist, thumbs brushing the strip of exposed skin beneath your sweater. “Went looking for my wife.”
Your breath catches.
“Found something interesting in the nightstand.”
Your entire face goes red.
You try to step back, embarrassed—but his hands hold you in place.
“Bucky, I—”
“Hey.” His voice softens. He brushes your hair back, fingers warm against your cheek. “Nothing to be embarrassed about, doll. You think I don’t know how hard it gets when I’m gone? How quiet this place feels when it's just you?”
You look down, fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt. “It’s not the same,” you admit softly. “Nothing is. I just… needed something. When the missions run long.”
Something in his chest tightens at that.
He hooks a finger under your chin, lifting your gaze back to his. His eyes are darker now. Warmer. Intent.
“Show me.”
Your breath stutters. “What?”
“Show me how you use them,” he says, low and steady. “When I’m not here. I want to see.” His thumb brushes your bottom lip. “Then I want to replace every single one with me.”
You hesitate.
He doesn’t rush you. Just leans in, pressing slow kisses along your jaw, the corner of your mouth, the sensitive spot beneath your ear.
“Only if you want to,” he adds quietly. “But sweetheart… the thought of you touching yourself, thinking about me? Haven’t been able to shake it since I saw them.”
You nod. Small. Shy.
And he takes your hand, guiding you back to the bedroom.
He sits on the edge of the bed while you stand between his knees, hands trembling slightly as you pull your sweater over your head, then your jeans. You reach for the drawer—but his fingers wrap around your wrist.
“Slow,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the inside of your wrist. “Like you do when you’re alone.”
You swallow, then open the drawer.
The pink toy comes first.
Your cheeks burn as you climb onto the bed beside him, settling back against the pillows. You don’t hide—not from him. You never really can. Your breath quickens as you slick the toy with lube, a soft gasp slipping out when you press it against yourself.
“Easy,” Bucky murmurs, one hand resting warm and steady on your thigh. “That’s it.”
You ease it inside, inch by inch, eyes fluttering shut as a quiet moan escapes you. He watches like he’s memorizing every second. Every sound. Every shift of your hips.
“Tell me what you think about,” he says, voice rougher now.
“You,” you breathe. “Your hands. The way you hold me down. How full I feel when you’re inside me.” Your hips begin to move, slow at first. “I pretend it’s you. Always you.”
The sound he makes is low and wrecked.
He leans in, pressing his mouth to your neck as your rhythm builds, your body softening and opening under your own touch. Your fingers clutch at him, anchoring yourself to something real.
When your hips start chasing that edge, when your breath turns uneven and desperate, he moves.
The toy is gone.
His fingers replace it first. Then his mouth.
You gasp his name as he works you through it, patient and relentless, until the tension snaps and you fall apart beneath him, thighs trembling, hands tangled in his hair.
He doesn’t give you long to come back down.
Clothes disappear in a blur. He settles between your legs, heavy, aching, real.
“Watch,” he tells you, guiding himself to your entrance.
And then he’s inside you.
Slow. Deep.
You both moan at the same time.
The stretch, the heat, the way your body molds around him—it’s everything those toys could never be. He moves with intention, each thrust deliberate, grounding, real. You cling to him, breathless, overwhelmed by the sheer presence of him.
Later, you’re tangled together beneath the sheets, your head resting on his chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns along your spine.
“You’re not… mad?” you ask quietly.
He lets out a soft chuckle, the sound rumbling beneath your ear.
“Mad?” he repeats. “Doll, I’m honored.”
You huff a quiet laugh against his skin.
“But next time,” he adds, tilting his head to press a kiss into your hair, “you need me—even when I’m gone—you call. Or send a picture.” His hand tightens slightly on your hip. “I’ll find a way to be there.”
You hide your smile against him, still shy, even now.
He just holds you closer, the last of the mission’s weight finally slipping from his shoulders.
Their reunion was the cutest thing in the world, and then the whole rest of this fic was absolutely SCANDALOUS!! Loved it. Perfection! I'm gonna need Bucky to go riffling through my nightstand more often...
And him saying “I’ll find a way to be there.” Wwaaaaah 😍🫠🤭🥵🩷 All of his dialogue was incredible, but this line made me kick my feet extra hard!
We're one month in, and I've been having a blast working my way through some squares for the summer reading bingo by @ficreadingchallenge! Wanted to take a moment to share my progress so far. Plus, of course, rec the wonderful fics that I've filled the prompts with!
KEY: 🌶️= smut 🌸= fluff 💔= angst 📚= multipart
*All fics are character x reader*
BUCKY BARNES (MARVEL)
- Sleepy Confessions by caeruleusbarnes | 🌸🌶️📚
- Touchdown by earthsmightiestbenders | 🌶️
DARYL DIXON (THE WALKING DEAD)
- I'd Give Up Forever to Touch You by spacejjunk | 🌸🌶️
- Rabbit Heart by spacejjunk | 🌸
GOJO SATORU (JUJUTSU KAISEN)
- Overboard - Drag Me Down by iamsoclone | 🌶️
LEVI ACKERMAN (ATTACK ON TITAN)
- This Chosen Hell by Kayteelou22 | 💔🌶️
SOLDIER BOY (THE BOYS)
- Happy Birthday, America by prettyinpeaches | 🌸💔
VALKO (LOVE & DEEPSPACE)
- I've been drowning in these sheets, feeling lonely, wishing you were here with me… by moonlightindeepspace | 💔🌸
- True Love by valkoslight | 🌸
Haven't quite gotten a bingo yet, but we're on our way! Trying to pace myself and also read what I'm interested in at the moment, rather than go after a bingo at all costs. But I'm sure I'll have managed one by next month!
I've been drowning in these sheets, feeling lonely, wishing you were here with me...
You're drowning in your own thoughts, but he's never seen you like this before...
Featuring: Valko, gn!reader
Contents: Mentally ill!reader, reader has abandonment issues, new but established relationship, hurt/comfort, lots of wolf cuddles
Wordcount: 1,417
You have a headache.
It's not the most pressing thing on your mind, nor the loudest, but it's the only one you can hold onto with any semblance of stability.
It's the type that aches just behind your eyes—you can't hide it forever, he'll find out eventually—and makes you just want to bury your face in a pillow. Which you've already done, but you—you really think he'll be any different? No one really loves you once they see—shift around and press it deeper anyways, trying to relieve more of the pressure.
It helps, sorta. It lessened the physical pain, if only slightly, but that made room for far worse things to slip into the forefront of your mind.
He loves you now, but it's conditional. It's always conditional. You really think he'll stay after he sees the real you?
You barely even register the whine you let out as you grab a separate pillow and wrap it around your ears; but the barrier can't do anything against the voices inside your head.
You don't believe them. Don't want to believe them.
Your relationship with Valko is new, sure, and yeah, it started out a little rocky. But once you two found your path? He was always stuck to you like glue, whenever possible. It makes your heart swell and ache and do flips all at once. In this moment, you kinda hate it.
Your phone is on the bed, right next to you. You could text him. Should text him, maybe. But you just can't bring yourself too.
He's never seen you like this. Hurting, emotions out of control, brain fighting itself to keep you alive. It wasn't pretty to live, so you can't imagine what it's like to look at. To be around.
You don't want to imagine the look on his face when you tell him you feel unloved, or ignored, or any other thimgs you know aren't rational, how—just like everyone else—he'd take the blame. How it'd be too much for him, and he'd leave.
You were imagining it. You were imagining it and the idea brought you to tears, and it shouldn't. It hadn't happened. You wanted to believe it would never happen.
But do you know that?
And that was the kicker, wasn't it? You didn't know. And that would always be a wrench in whatever minimal comfort you could dredge up in yourself.
You should put on a movie. Play a game. Anything to get this—to get him—out of your head.
Right when one of your hands connects with the sleek plastic of your phone case, you freeze. The balcony door creeeeeks open, and heavy footsteps make their way to the living room.
"Sweetheart? You home today?" Fuck.
You burrow deeper into your pair of pillows. Maybe if you're quiet enough, he'll think you're at work.
You hate that the idea makes tears well up in your eyes.
Somewhere else in the house—the living room, maybe—boots hit the wall with a distinctive thunk. Then the footsteps resume, drifting around to each room and calling out your name. You try your best to pretend you're not there.
He stops in front of your bedroom door. You curl up further into yourself.
"…honey, I can smell you in there." Fuck. Stupid wolf senses. "You…you don't have to let me in, but can you at least say somethin'? Just so I know you're all good?"
You aren't all good. That's the problem. You're in a horrible headspace and he's never really seen how bad it can get, how bad you can get, and you don't want him to. No matter how desperate you are for his arms around you.
There's some shuffling outside the room. A whine that you're praying you imagined. Then the knob turns.
You hadn't bothered to lock it. Maybe you'd been hoping he'd find you.
"…babydoll?" His voice was clearer through the crack, concerned and adoring and dejected all at once. The sound of it crumbles any and all resolve you have left.
"Valko…" his name slips out of your lips in a whimper, and for a moment you're scared he won't hear you.
You shouldn't have been. Those 'stupid wolf senses' come in handy sometimes, too. Within seconds, broad hands connect with your body—roaming, searching, investigating. Checking for injuries.
A laugh bubbles up in your chest, escaping as merely a weak giggle, but you cling to it. To that little bit of warmth and light in the storm around you.
Your body aches as you force it to roll over, reaching up to grab at and pet his ears. "'M not hurt, puppy. Not like that."
Sharp yellow eyes whip around to meet yours, a deep frown lining those handsome features. You don't like the look of that, so you give a good scratch to the point behind his right ear—right where he likes it.
As always, he melts, tilting into your hand as his tail starts to thump on the mattress.
But he fights it off. You watch him do it, watch the way his gaze seems to refocus completely on you. It damn near takes your breath away.
"If you're not hurt…" Suddenly, warm skin presses against your wrist; nuzzling, scenting. "Then what's wrong? 'Cus if you try to tell me you're fine or some shit I will bite you."
Another sound that might've been a laugh escapes your lips as you bring your left hand down to cradle his face. "I…my brain's just really loud." You look down at his hands, still resting on your body even after you'd moved. "And mean. I don't…I don't want the stuff in my head to hurt you." You pull your lip between your teeth. "Or…or scare you."
There's silence for a moment, and then—a scoff. He honest to god scoffs. You feel like you've been dunked in ice water.
It must show, because almost immediately afterwards hands cup your face and turns you to face him—golden eyes wide, anxious. "'M sorry, doll—I wasn't laughing at you. I mean it." Lips press against your forehead. "It's just…the idea that I could ever be scared by you…it's so unimaginable to me. But I shouldn'a scoffed like that." His nose presses into your hair, and you feel the deep inhale he takes. "Forgive me?"
'The idea that I could ever be scared by you…it's unimaginable.'
You press your face into his neck, taking a deep breath of your own to fill your nose with the new-yet-familiar scent of pine and musk and petrichor and home.
"Yeah, I can forgive you." You raise your arms to wrap them around him, pressing as close as you can from your angle. He quickly lays down to accommodate. "I…I don't think it's a good idea to tell you what they're saying, though."
He makes what sounds like a cross between a hum and a chuff, shifting to hold you against his chest. "You mean the bad thoughts?" You nod. "Are they yappin' away right now?" A pause. You let yourself sit in the silence for a moment. Then, you shake your head. "That's all that matters, then. I don't needa know exactly what they're yappin' about, just if they're doing it."
Soft fur tickles your leg as his tail wraps around it, and you can't help the quiet giggle it draws out. Valko makes a satisfied huffing noise in return.
"If they're being quiet now, let 'em be quiet. Enjoy it." You feel his every breath on your scalp, warming you from the top down. "We can cross the bridge of discussing what they're saying when we get there. For now, just tell me if they get loud again, yeah?"
You take a few deep breaths, trying to fight through tears you hadn't even realized were flowing.
"…yeah." The word is quiet, barely above a whisper, but of course; he hears it.
Bulky arms tighten around you, lips pressing against your scalp with firm determination. "Good. Wanna hear a story about my cousins?"
After pretending to think it over for a moment, you give a shy nod. You feel the rise and fall of his chest as he takes a dramatically long breath, starting on his tale with reckless abandon.
You just curl further into him, enjoying the way his tail thumps against your leg as it wags.
Aughghghh my heart was aching for reader in the opening scene. I've struggled with anxiety my whole life, and the way you wrote reader spiraling was really relatable. It's so tough to pull yourself out of those thoughts that tell you you're a burden and not worthy of love. Beautiful writing; painful to read lol 😅🩷
You burrow deeper into your pair of pillows. Maybe if you're quiet enough, he'll think you're at work.
You hate that the idea makes tears well up in your eyes.
Like omg, this hit me hard 😭 You did a great job capturing the embarrassment and the shame and the shame AT being embarrassed. I just wanted to reach through the screen and give reader a hug 😭😭 (good thing Valko is there to do it instead!)
Also, Valko being able to smell reader even when they don't answer - oh my gosh, I'm cryingggggg
You press your face into his neck, taking a deep breath of your own to fill your nose with the new-yet-familiar scent of pine and musk and petrichor and home.
I LOVE when fic authors write about what they think a character would smell like (is it any surprise I love Valko lol) and these scents fit him so perfectly! I really do think he would smell earthy and comforting 💕
And aaah, what a sweet, caring puppy dog Valko is 😭🩷 I really liked how he comforted reader; it feels very in character for him to just start yapping as a distraction from the bad thoughts. And I'm not saying a hug from Valko would fix all of my problems, but... it would definitely solve a few of 'em 😂🐺
Hard agree with your note at the end as well - he would never leave if he had the choice! I'm still hopeful that we'll be getting our little wolf back, but for now, this fic was a lovely and comforting read. Thank you for writing it, @moonlightindeepspace!
Synopsis: You and Valko have been friends for years, but what happens when Valko starts to feel something more?
Note: Story inspired by the song True Love by Taylor Swift
Warnings: none
You can hear it in the silence, silence, you
You can feel it on the way home, way home, you
You can see it with the lights out, lights out
You are in love, true love
You are in love
When was the moment Valko realized he loved you? He remembered it perfectly, it was a day in July, you stayed at his house for the night after spending hours and hours chatting and watching series on his couch. Valko insisted that you should stay for the night, it was raining and it was late, and it wasn’t like it was the first time you stayed in each other’s houses to sleep. So you did, you stayed at his house and when the next morning, you appeared in front of Valko with one of his long T-shirts, covering your body, something inside him turned.
You left after eating breakfast with him and Valko couldn’t shake you from his head. He left to work but even then, even after his shift, you were still on his mind. He started thinking about all the moments you have spent together. He started thinking about your smile, your excitement for the smallest things, your love for reading, your curiosity, your love for rainy days, the way you would fall asleep whenever you said you could still watch more episodes… He kept thinking about all those moments, all those details, all about you.
He was on his way home and his mind was only thinking when the two of you were going to meet again, when he was going to be able to embrace your body, when he was going to smell your cologne, when he was going to feel your hands on his hair while giving him a massage. All those questions were on his head, but one stood out. Why was he feeling like that? It couldn’t possibly be right? You were his best friends. He couldn’t be thinking about you otherwise, he just couldn’t.
But as much as Valko wanted to deny the feeling that was growing inside of him was there and he knew what it meant. He was in love, true love.
One night, he wakes
Strange look on his face
Pauses, then says "You're my best friend"
And you knew what it was, he is in love
You turn on the light in the living room, it was already dark outside and you wanted to keep reading the book you recently bought. Just like the other night it was raining, you loved rainy days, reading books while hearing the sound of the rain, gave you some type of comfort.
You sighed, turning the page, the memories of the other night in Valko's apartment came to your mind. It was no secret for any of your friends that you were so down for him, everybody knew, except for Valko who simply saw you as his friend. And you didn’t want to complain, because you knew how difficult it was for Valko to open to others and to even consider them friends, but the feelings he would make you feel whenever he was around, were something you couldn’t control and it was ripping your heart open.
And you have tried, for months, to shake those feelings out, going out on dates to see if you could click with someone else but at the end of the date your mind would be always thinking about Valko and how it would be going on a date with him. You even tried to stay away from him, but nothing worked. You always ended up hanging out in his apartment or vice versa, sharing small hugs, caresses, touches, that meant everything to you but to him they were nothing.
You closed the book and threw it away, reading romantic novels were the two protagonists ended up having the most romantic moments, wasn’t something that could help your feelings.
“What should I do?” You looked at your cat, who was on top of you looking at you with his big eyes. You stroked her head and closed your eyes.
You didn’t want to lose Valko, you wanted to keep his friendship, even if that meant never confessing your feelings and suffering that agony in silence.
Two knocks on the door took you out of your mind. It was late, no one should be knocking at your door at those hours. You stood up slowly, trying not to make too much noise, and you looked through the peephole. You sighed when you saw that it was Valko and opened the door to welcome him.
“Hi Valko…” You looked at him and realized he was completely wet. “Wait, what happened to you? You didn’t bring your umbrella with you? You will catch a cold.” You held his arm.
Valko didn’t speak, he didn’t say a single word, not even when you dragged him inside your apartment or when you threw your towels to his face. Nothing came out of him, he just looked at you.
“Valko… you’re scaring me. Did something happen?” You sat next to him.
You could not describe the look on his face, a strange look, something you never saw before on Valko.
“You’re my best friend.” He whispered.
A silent tear rolled down your cheek, but Valko whipped out.
“Yes…” You responded, feeling the tears in your eyes.
You knew at that moment, you saw it in his eyes, you knew what those words meant and you knew what that look on his face meant. He was in love. Valko didn't need more to know that you were both in love.
He took your face and brought it closer to his, kissing you in the warmest, most affectionate and loving way possible.
And you understand now
Why they lost their minds and fought the wars
And why I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words
December came in a blink of an eye, snow started to fall on the city and you were looking at yourself in the mirror. Valko was going to take you out on a date that day. Ever since you started dating he would take you on dates as much as he could.
You walked out of your bedroom to see Valko playing with your cat on the couch.
When he looked at you, his whole world stopped, you looked beautiful, he felt like he was falling in love all over again.
“Doesn’t matter which words I use to tell you how beautiful you look today, because they will never be enough to describe your beauty.”
You blushed. “Shut up Valko.”
“Make me. But it’s the truth baby. I try to put it into words, but all I know baby is that I’m completely in love with you. True love.” He kissed you.
Not me sitting here reading this with my cat right next to me and my ambient rain soundscape pulled up on youtube lmao 😂 This reader is totally like me 🩷
And oh my goodness, what a sweet fic! I loved how you wrote Valko's perspective. Seeing how he was falling for reader was just the cutest thing ever. All the little moments they share together that mean so much to him! My heart!!
Also idk why, but the moment of him sitting on the couch playing with reader's cat hit me right in the feels! It's just something about seeing him integrated so comfortably into her life 🥰 Super cute!!
I hadn't ever heard the song you used as inspiration, but listened to it after I finished reading, and it fits Valko so well! Thank you for writing 💕
dad!valko who picks up your daughter by the neck of her fluffy onesie with his bare teeth, like how a wolf picks up it’s pup. he’d walk around the house with her like that, swinging around in the air and giggling as she gets a front row view of her dad’s laptop screen and this week’s Eoncore tech report…that is, until you freak out and force valko to put her in a carrier.
dad!valko who’s not super great at buying baby clothes for your baby girl. he keeps on coming back with sleepers that spell ‘PUPPY PRINCESS’ in big pink font, socks with grippy paw prints on it’s feet, sweatpants with a polyester tail…least to say, you’ve taken over buying the clothes for now. but you keep the little wolf onesie with wolf ears on it’s hood, because seeing your baby match your husband is too cute.
dad!valko who sleeps curled around you and your daughter, tail wrapping around the both of you, the same way he’d slept practically circled around you when you were pregnant. the baby disappears against him. you have to peel away from his muscular arms if you want to get up in the middle of the night. even if you’re being careful, his eyes would snap open and pepper you with questions of ‘where are you going?’ before following after you dutifully to sit outside the bathroom to wait for you (or hold your hand through the door). it comes from a place of love, promise.
dad!valko who is aghast when his toddler daughter refuses a home-made chocolate cake for her second birthday. instead, she points to the picture of a cream cheese frosted slice of carrot cake with wide pleading eyes, her tail swishing behind her in the exact same way her father’s did when he wanted something from you.
“aw, but sweetie, don’t you want a yummy milk chocolate gateu—“
“no!”
“ow, ow! okay, okay fine, carrot cake it is, now let go of daddy’s ears—“
dad!valko who likes to go on woodland hikes with you and your baby. you used to have to put one of those dog walking leashes on him so he doesn’t get too excited and break off to chase a deer or a squirrel. but now, you’ve got to put one on your daughter too (who recently started walking) so she doesn’t run after him. like father like daughter. sigh.
dad!valko who likes to tickle your daughter’s teeny nose with his fingers to hear her laugh, and tickle her toes with the fluff of his tail. she’s the cutest thing he’s ever set his eyes upon. the sweetest, though albeit a bit toothless smile he’s ever seen. every time she beams up at him, valko’s heart clenches. every time her little paws find his, he can’t help but to squeeze up next to you, give you those eyes, and ask…
“awwww, babe, do you think we should make our little pup another little brother or sister?”
The little wolf-ear onesie made my heart explode with cuteness 😭🩷🩷 Girl dad Valko my beloved. He would spoil his babies so much; I'm in love with these headcanons!
valko, on the other hand, while he oozes charisma and sex appeal, i like to think he’s actually a bit of a shy boy in front of the love of his life.
this big bad wolfie is all bark and zero bite (well, unless you ask nicely!). all that experience and easy charm he has go flying out the window when you’re close.
you sneak your hand into his while the two of you are walking on your date. he almost jumps three feet into the air, but then he quickly collects himself and his signature smirk is back before he’s swinging your joined hands back and forth, a skip in his step.
“can i try yours?” you ask, eyeing his plate at the restaurant he’s taken you to.
“of course baby, whatever you want,” and then he moves to slide his food over so it’s closer to you, but then you grab his wrist to maneuver his fork into your mouth.
“yum!” you squeal, still chewing before you go back to your own entree, not realizing valko’s red all the way up to his ears. “wanna try mine?”
you put your own fork out, saying “ahhh” to prompt him to open his mouth. he’s just blinking at you like—
brb, brain.exe has stopped working.
then later, at the mall, you drag your poor boyfriend around from store to store and he’s carrying all your bags. but then you get to the perfume section of a department store.
“pick for me?”
“me?” then he’s grinning, suppressing the urge to let his tail pop out and start wagging it like crazy.
“yeah, i want you to like my scent,” and then you’re leaning against his shoulder and he wants to scream he loves you so much. he loves your natural scent already, but the fact you’re asking this of him makes him so freaking happy.
and you try one he picks out, spritz it on, and he gets adorably flustered when you tilt your chin up, allowing him a full view of the column of your throat. “what do you think?”
“baaabe…” he groans into his hands, “you’re killin’ me here.”
Valko in the perfume department 😭🩷 This man is NOT spending anything less than four straight hours in there, sniffing and re-sniffing everything so he can find the perfect perfume. But yes he is ABSOLUTELY getting himself all flustered because of it!! I love how you write him and totally agree that he has a secret shy side that comes out in moments like these 😋 Thank you for writing!
pairing: foreman!Bucky Barnes x ranch owner!Reader
summary: You were born to run the ranch, Bucky was raised to work the land. Somewhere between exhausting days of work, barn hookups and ten months of something neither of you dared to name you've crossed a line you can't uncross. But love doesn't mean the same thing to both of you. And when pride, class, and everything Bucky thinks he should be start pulling him away from you you realize loving him might not be enough to make him stay.
word count: 19.8 k (longest one posted yet omg)
warnings: +18 MNI explicit sexual content, unprotected p in v, oral sex (f receiving), secret affair, angst, mutual pining, class difference, miscommunication, power imbalance, harassment, attempted intimidation, physical violence, alcohol use, happy ending. | english is not my first language so I'm sorry for any grammar mistake or mystipo
a/n: as some of you may or may not know, I'm from Mexico so that means I grew up watching telenovelas full of drama and all of that, this idea came to me when I suddenly saw a picture in pinterest and my mind started thinking a lot of what if? I hope you enjoy it! dividers by @saradika-graphics & beta read by my girls @herejustforbuckybarnes @buckysdecaflove & Denice ꨄ︎
read in AO3
The sun hasn't cleared the horizon when you step onto the porch, coffee mug in hand. The ranch is already awake. You can hear the low murmur of cattle in the distance, the sharp whistle of someone calling the dogs, the creak of the barn doors and machinery coming to life. This was your ranch. Your responsibility. Your pride.
You'd grown up with dirt under your fingernails and hay in your hair, your father's shadow stretching long over every fence post and pasture. He'd raised you to run this place since you were little. Mainly, because you were his only child, but also because he knew you would take care of the land accordingly.
Now the shadow is yours and you wear it well.
"Morning, wildfire."
The voice comes from near the equipment barn. You don't have to look to know who it is—you'd recognize that low rasp anywhere, the way he says that nickname with practiced ease.
Bucky Barnes leans against the fence, one boot propped on the lower rail, his work shirt already dusty though the day's barely started. His dark hair is combed back, a few strands escaping to frame his face, and his blue eyes track you as you descend the porch steps.
"Morning," you say, keeping your voice level professional. "Crew's here?"
"Most of 'em. Sanchez is running late—truck trouble. I sent Pete to pick him up." He straightens, falling into step beside you as you head toward the barn. "We're rotating the herd to the north pasture today. Fencing's solid, checked it myself yesterday."
"Good." You pause at the barn entrance, turning to face him. "What about the irrigation system? Johnson said there was a blockage in sector three."
"Already working on it, it should be cleared by noon."
You nod, taking a sip of your coffee. This is how it always goes—Bucky anticipating problems before you have to ask, handling details before they become emergencies. Your father had hired his dad twenty years ago, and when the old man got sick, Bucky stepped into the role like he'd be born for it.
Which in a way, he had been.
"You're thinking too hard," Bucky says, his mouth quirking. "I can see those gears turning."
"Well, I'm always thinking. Kind of part of my job."
"Yeah, well." He shifts his weight and for a moment, something flickers across his face, something soft and unguarded… you blink and it's gone. "Try to not hurt yourself."
You shoot him a look that would wilt lesser man. He just grins and tips an imaginary hat before heading toward the equipment barn, leaving you with your coffee and the creeping warmth in your chest that you refuse to name.
By midday, you're elbow-deep in the business of running the ranch, fielding calls from suppliers, reviewing feed costs, checking the schedule for the county livestock show next month. Your office is a converted tack room in the main barn, all exposed beams and the faint smell of leather and hay. You liked it here. It feels real in a way that glass and steel never could.
You're on the phone with the feed supplier, arguing about bulk pricing, when Bucky appears in the doorway. He doesn't interrupt, just leans against the frame and waits, and you're hyper-aware of his presence in a way that's become second nature over the past— how long has it been? Ten months since that first kiss in the summer heat, all sweat and impulse and that kid of chemistry that burns.
Ten months of this thing between you that has no name, no rules, no promises.
You finish the call—a victory, 10% discount— and set the phone down. "What's up?"
"Got a situation with the new colt. He's favoring his left foreleg, might be nothing, but I want you to take a look before I call the vet."
You're already standing. "Show me."
The colt is in the training pen, a gorgeous chestnut with a white blaze and too much attitude for his own good. You'd purchased him at auction three months ago, saw the potential in his bloodline and the fire in his eyes. Now he's limping, and your stomach tightens.
Bucky's already in the pen, speaking low and calm as he approaches the colt. The animal sidesteps, nervous, but Bucky doesn't rush. Just keeps talking, that steady murmur that works in horses and people alike, until the colt allows him close enough to run a hand down his neck.
"Easy, buddy."
You slip through the fence rails and approach from the other side, moving slow. The colt's ears flick toward you, but he doesn't spook. Between you and Bucky, he's boxed in by a kind of trust, and after a moment he settles.
"I've got his head," Bucky says. "Check the leg."
You crouch, running your hands carefully down the colt's foreleg, feeling for heat, for swelling, for anything out of place. The colt shifts but doesn't pull away, and you can feel Bucky's presence above you, solid and grounding.
"There," you murmur, fingers finding a tender spot just above the fetlock. "Minor strain, I think… it's not serious, but he needs rest."
"Figured." Bucky's voice is close—closer than you expected. You glance up and find him watching you with an expression you can't quite read. "You want me to call Doc Johnson anyway?"
"Yeah, better be safe than sorry." You straighten, brushing dirt from your jeans. "Good catch."
"Just doing my job."
"You do it well."
Something passes between you— a look, a breath, the weight of words unsaid. The colt stamps impatiently, breaking the moment, and you step back.
"I'll handle the rest of the rotations," Bucky says, his tone careful and neutral. "You've got that conference call at two, right?"
You'd forgotten. "Shit, yeah. Thanks."
"Anytime, wildfire."
There it is again. That nickname. The way he says it—affectionate and just a little bit awed, like you're something bright and untamed and worth admiring from a careful distance.
You walk away before you can do something stupid like ask him what it means, why he started calling you that. If it means what you think it might.
That evenings you stop by Miller's feed store in town to pick up supplements. Bucky's with you—he'd been checking on a part for the tractor at the hardware store next door.
Old Miller's behind the counter, and his eyes light up when he sees you.
"Well if it isn't the lady rancher herself," he says warmly. "How's business?"
"Good, been busy lately." You hand him your list. "Need these loaded up when you get a chance."
"You got it," he glances at Bucky. "And how's your foreman treating you" Working you too hard?"
It's a joke, everyone knows you're the one who sets the pace, but you see Bucky's jaw tighten slightly.
"Bucky runs a tight ship," you say. "Couldn't do it without him."
"That's good, that's good. 'Course your daddy always said the Barnes men were the best workers in the county." Miller starts pulling items from shelves. "You keeping busy, Bucky? Staying out of trouble?"
"Yes, sir" Bucky says evenly.
"Good man," Miller chuckles. "Though I gotta say, at your age, figured you'd have your own spread by now. Following in your old man's footsteps is fine work, but eventually a man wants something of his own, you know? Something to build on."
The words are casual, friendly even, but you see Bucky's shoulders stiffen.
"I'm exactly where I want to be," Bucky says, but there's an edge to it.
You pay quickly and get out of there, but the damage is done. Bucky's quiet on the drive back, staring out the window with that same look from earlier.
"Miller's an old gossip," you say. "Don't listen to him."
"He's not wrong though." Bucky's voice is carefully neutral. "I'm thirty-two and I don't own anything but a truck and a cabin on someone else's land."
"You own half the knowledge that keeps this ranch running," you counter. "That's worth more than—"
"It's not the same," he cuts you off gently. "And you know it."
You don't know what to say to that. Because in the world you both live in—where land equals legacy and property equals status— maybe he has a point.
But it doesn't make it right.
By the time the crew clocks out, the sky is bruising purple and gold, the heat of the day giving way to the cool promise of night. You make your rounds, checking that everything's secured, the animals settled, the equipment stored. It's a ritual, this final sweep and you always find peace in it.
You're in the main barn, running through inventory counts one last time, when you hear footsteps behind you.
You don't turn around. "Thought you left already."
"Had some things to finish." Bucky's voice is low in a way that sends heat curling through your belly. "Saw your truck was still here, figured you were doing your obsessive end-of-day check."
"It's not obsessive, it's thorough."
"Right." He's closer now, close enough that you can smell him—sweat and hay and something uniquely Bucky that makes you want to turn around and close the distance, and— "You done?" he asks and there's an edge to his voice that makes your pulse quicken.
You set down the clipboard and turn to face him.
He's still in his work clothes, shirt untucked and streaked with dust, hair falling loose from its tie. There's smudge of grease on his jaw and his eyes are dark in the dim light of the barn, and you know this look. Know what comes next.
"Yeah," you say, your voice already dropping to something lower. "I'm done."
The space between you evaporates. You don't know who moves first—maybe it doesn't matter. His hands find your hips, fingers digging in with just enough pressure to make you gasp, and your fingers curl into his shirt, yanking him closer. Then his mouth is on yours, hot and demanding, and you open for him immediately.
God, you'll never get tired of kissing him. The way he tastes like coffee and the mint he chews when he's working, the way his stubble scrapes against your skin, the way he kisses like he's starving for you.
His tongue slides against yours and you moan into his mouth, pressing closer, needing more. His hands slide from your hips to your ass, squeezing, lifting, and suddenly your feet aren't touching the ground anymore. You wrap your legs around his waist instinctively, feeling the hard length of him pressed against your core even through layers of denim, and the friction makes you both groan.
"Fuck," he breathes against your mouth, walking you backward "You feel—"
"Don't talk," you manage, biting his lower lip hard enough to make him hiss. "Just—"
Your back hits the wall of the tack room and he pins you there with his hips, grinding against you making your head fall back and desperate sounds tear from your throat. His mouth moves to your neck, teeth and tongue and the kind of rough attention that you crave. Your hands are already fumbling with his belt, impatient, needing him out of these fucking clothes.
"Wildfire," he murmurs against your throat, and the nickname sounds different now. "Let me—"
He sets you down just long enough to yank your shirt over your head, his flannel following seconds later. Then his hands are on your breasts, thumbs brushing over your nipples through the fabric of your bra, and the sensation shoots straight between your legs.
"Off," you demand, reaching behind yourself to unhook it, and he helps, tossing it aside before his mouth replaces his hands.
The first pull of his lips around your nipple makes your knees buckle, makes you grab his hair to stay upright. He works you with his mouth—sucking, biting, soothing with his tongue—while his hands work open the button of your jeans. You're already shoving them down your hips, kicking off your boots in a graceless rush, and then you're standing there in nothing but your underwear, while he's still mostly dressed.
"Not fair," you gasp and he pulls back just enough to flash you a wicked grin before dropping to his knees. Oh. "Bucky—"
"Let me," he says again, and this time it's not a question. His hands slide up your thighs, thumbs tracing the edge of your underwear, and when he leans forward and presses his mouth against you through the fabric, you nearly come apart right there.
"Jesus Christ," you manage, fingers tightening in his hair as he mouths at you, the friction not nearly enough. "Stop teasing."
He hooks his fingers into the waistband and drags your underwear down, helping you step out of them, and then he's right there, face level with your cunt, looking up at you like you're something sacred.
"You're so fucking wet already," he murmurs and then his tongue is on you and coherent thought becomes impossible.
He eats you out like it's his religion—long, slow strokes of his tongue followed by focused attention on your clit that makes you shake. Your fingers are fisted in his hair, hips rocking against his face, and he takes it all, groaning like your pleasure is his, like this is what he needs.
When he slides two fingers inside you, curling them just right, you cry out his name.
"That's it," he encourages, voice muffled against you. "Let me hear you, wildfire. Let me—"
The orgasm hits you like a lightning strike, sudden and devastating, and you come with his name on your lips and your legs shaking and his fingers still working inside you, drawing it out until you're oversensitive and trembling.
He pulls back, mouth glistening, and the look on his face is pure hunger.
"I need you," you manage, still catching your breath. "Now."
He's on his feet in seconds, shedding his jeans and boxer in quick, efficient movements, and then he's sitting on the old wooden bench and you're straddling him, lining him up, sinking down onto him in one smooth motion that makes you both groan.
He feels so good, thick and hard and perfectly filling, the stretch of him always just on the edge of too much in the best possible way.
"Christ," Bucky grits out, hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise. "You're fucking perfect."
You start to move, rolling your hips, finding the rhythm that works, and his head falls back against the wall, throat exposed, jaw clenched. You lean forward and bite the tendon in his neck, and his hips buck up involuntarily.
"Harder," you demand against his skin. "Don't hold back."
His hands tighten on your hips and he starts to thrust up into you, meeting your movements, and the angle is perfect—hitting that spot inside you that makes your vision blur. You brace your hands on his shoulders and ride him harder, chasing the pleasure building in your core, and he watches you with dark, hungry eyes.
"So fucking beautiful," he murmurs, one hand leaving your hip to cup your breast, thumb circling your nipple. "You look so beautiful like this, taking what you need from me—"
"Bucky," you gasp, rhythm faltering as the pleasure builds. "I'm—"
"I know, wildfire, I can feel that pretty cunt of you squeezing me so tight…" His other hand slides between you, thumb finding your clit, and the added stimulation makes you cry out. "There you go, come for me wildfire. Wanna feel you come on my cock."
His touch and relentless thrust sends you over the edge and the orgasm crashes through you, walls clenching around him. You can hear him curse as he follows you over, spilling inside you with your name broken on his lips.
For a moment, neither of you moves. You just lay down breathing, tangled together in the half-dark of the barn, the smell of hay and sex and the summer breeze in the air, your bodies still joined, hearts pounding against each other.
Then—and this is different, this is new—Bucky doesn't pull away immediately.
His arms wrap around you, pulling you against his chest, and your head finds the curve of his shoulder like it was made to rest there. His hand slides up yous spine, tracing patterns on your bare back, and you feel him press a kiss to your temple.
That wasn't part of your routine. The sex? Yes. The intensity? Definitely. But this tenderness, this soft aftermath… that was new territory.
"Hey," you say quietly, not moving from where you're tucked against him.
"Mm?"
"You okay?"
He's quiet for a moment, then his hand finds your hair, fingers threading through the stray strands absentmindedly.
"Yeah," he says, but his voice sounds strange. "Yeah, I'm just… catching my breath."
You pull back just enough to look at him, and what you see in his face makes your chest tighten. There's something unguarded there, something raw and almost frightened, like he's said too much, shown to much.
His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb brushing your cheekbone, and for a second you think he's going to say something important, something that will change the shape of this thing between you.
But then he blinks and the moment fractures.
He lifts you gently, helping you off him, and you both reach for your clothes in a silence that feels heavier than before. You watch him dress—jeans first, then his shirt, fingers working the buttons with a focus that seems excessive for such a simple task. He doesn't glance at you once.
"Same time tomorrow?" You ask, trying to sound casual, trying to rebuild the easy rhythm that's kept this simple for ten months.
He stills, shirt half-buttoned, and for a long moment he doesn't answer.
When he finally looks at you, there's something in his eyes that makes your stomach drop. Something that looks like longing and resignation all tangled together.
"Yeah, sure."
Not "same time, wildfire" with that hint of warmth. Just "yeah, sure". Like you're asking him to check the fences, not meet you here tomorrow night.
He finishes dressing in silence, and you pull on your own clothes, hyper-aware of every movement, every breath. When you're both decent again, he moves toward the door. Just before he reaches it, he pauses. Doesn't turn around.
"You know Miller's not wrong," he says quietly. "About… a man wanting something of his own."
Your stomach drops. "Bucky—"
"I'm just the foreman," he continues, still not looking at you. "Always will be. That's—" He shakes his head. "That's just how it is."
"That's not—you're more than—"
"Goodnight, wildfire."
The nickname sounds wrong in his mouth now. Distant like he's already pulling away.
Then he's gone, the door swinging shut behind him, and you're left in the tack room, fully dressed now but somehow feeling more exposed than when you were naked.
You sink onto the bench, hand drifting to where his thumb had traced patterns on your back, and Miller's words echo in your head.
Eventually a man wants something of his own.
And Bucky's response: I'm just a foreman, always will be.
Like that's all he'll ever be. Like that's all he thinks he's worth. Like loving you—if that's what this is— means settling for scraps instead of building something real.
The thought settles in your chest like a stone, and you realize with creeping dread that something's changed. And if Bucky's convinced himself he's not good enough, that he can't give you what you deserve because he doesn't own land or have money or status… you don't know how to fight that. Or if he'll even let you.
The first sign that something's wrong comes three days after that night in the tack room. You're going over breeding schedules when Bucky comes in to report on the north pasture rotation. He's all business, standing near the door instead of leaning against the frame like usual, keeps his eyes on the clipboard in his hand.
"Rotation's complete," he says. "Moved the last of the herd this morning without issues."
"Good," you wait for more—the usual back and forth, the easy conversation that filled spaces between work tasks, but he just nods.
"Need anything else?" He asks instead.
You, you want to say. I need you to look at me like you did three nights ago. I need you to stop acting like a stranger.
"No," you say instead. "That's all."
He's gone before you can figure out how to ask what's wrong.
Within the days, things get worse.
Bucky starts sending Pete or Sanchez to give you reports instead of coming himself. When you do see him, he's never alone; he's always with the crew, always busy, always with a reason he can't try for long. The nickname disappears entirely. Now he calls you by your name, said in a tone so professional it feels like a reprimand.
Meals with the crew become exercises in studied avoidance. He sits at the opposite end of the table, talks to everyone but you and leaves as soon as he's done eating.
The nights are the worst. You wait in the barn like always, telling yourself you're just finishing paperwork, but he doesn't come. Not that night,not the next, not the one after that.
On the fifth night, you stop waiting.
On the sixth day, you corner him in the equipment barn.
"We need to talk," you say, closing the door behind you.
He doesn't look up from the harness he's mending. "Kind of busy."
"Bucky, what the hell is going on?"
"Nothing's going on, just work."
"That's bullshit," you move closer and he shifts away and the retreat stings. "You've been avoiding me for almost a week, you won't look at me, won't talk to me—"
"I talk to you every day, about work."
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
His jaw tightens. "Don't know what else you expect from me."
"I want you to tell me what changed!" Your voice rises despite yourself. "I want you to tell me why you're acting like—like we're nothing to each other."
"We're not nothing." He finally looks at you, and his eyes are so carefully blank it makes your chest ache. "You're my boss, I'm your foreman, that's what we are."
"That's not— we're more than that. You know we are."
"Are we?" He sets down the harness, standing up. "Or was it just convenient? You scratch an itch, I scratch an itch, nobody has to call it anything more?"
The words hit like a slap.
"You don't mean that."
"Don't I?" His voice is even, controlled, and somehow makes it worse than if he was yelling. "Been thinking about it, about what this is, and maybe Miller was right, maybe it's time I figure out what I want instead of just—" He gestures vaguely. "Instead of this."
"Instead of me, you mean."
Something flickers across his face—pain, maybe— but it's gone too fast to be sure.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." You're trying to keep your voice steady and failing. "If you want to end this, Bucky, just say it. Don't make up excuses about figuring out what you want."
"I'm to making excuses." His hands clench at his sides. "You're running a multi-million dollar operation, you're smart, successful and I'm just—"
"Stop." You know where this is going and you can't stand to hear it. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."
"I'm the hired help," he says anyway. "That's the reality, and maybe it;s time we both stopped pretending it's anything else."
You laugh, but it's an ugly sound. "Is that really what you think you are to me? After everything we—"
"After everything, that's still what I am." His voice is flat. "That's all I'll ever be."
You stare at him, at this man you've known for years, loved for months even if you haven't said it out loud… and you don't recognize the stranger looking back at you.
"You're a coward," you say quietly.
He flinches. "Maybe I am."
"This isn't about what you are, this is about you being too scared to—"
"I need to finish this repair," he cuts you off, turning back to the harness. "Was there something work-related that you needed?"
The dismissal is clear and absolute.
You leave before he can see you cry.
The Hillside County Livestock Show is your least favorite event of the year, and that's saying something considering you spend most of your life covered in dust and dealing with literal bullshit. But there's something about the forced socializing, the political maneuvering disguised as friendly conversation, the way everyone sizes up everyone else's cattle like they're comparing dick sizes—it grates.
Still, you go. Because your ranch has a reputation to maintain, and because your breeding program produces some of the best cattle in three counties, and because your father never missed a year and neither will you.
You're standing near the action ring, catalog in hand, watching a decent Angus heifer go for more than she's worth, when you feel someone approach from your left.
"Impressive animal," a voice says. Deep, smooth, with the kind of confidence that comes from never being told no. "Though I'd say she's overvalued by at least fifteen percent, maybe is some sentimental bidding."
You glance over. The man beside you is older, mid forties probably, with silver threading through dark hair and a smile that has probably charmed plenty of people. Expensive boots, custom shirt, a watch that costs more than most people's trucks. Everything about him screams money.
"Sentimental bidding keeps the market interesting," you reply neutrally, turning back to the ring. "Besides, she's got excellent bloodlines, she'll be worth the premium to the right buyer."
"Spoken like someone who knows her stock," he extends a hand. "My name is Clayton Sheridan, I just purchased the Meadow brook Ranch, east of your property."
So this was your new neighbor. You'd heard someone bought old man Peterson's spread after he retired to Arizona, but you hadn't paid much attention to the details.
You shake his hand briefly. "Welcome to the area."
"Thank you, I've heard impressive things about your operation, fastest-growing herd in the county, certification for quality genetics…" His hand lingers a moment too long before you pull away. "It's rare to see a woman running a ranch this size… and running it so well."
There it is. There it's the compliment wrapped in condescension, the implication you're an exception rather than simply capable.
"My father raised me for it," you say, voice cool. "Gender doesn't have much to do with whether you can read a market or manage a land."
"Of course, of course." His smile doesn't falter. "I didn't mean to imply otherwise, just… admiration. It must keep you very busy, handling everything by yourself."
"I have an excellent crew."
"Ah yes, your foreman Barnes, isn't it? Son of your father's foreman?" Something in his tone makes your jaw tighten. "Lucky to have someone who knows the place so well, family legacy and all that."
You're trying to formulate a response that's polite but firm when you catch movement in your peripheral vision. Bucky, standing near the equipment displays about thirty feet away, his attention locked on you and Clayton with an expression you can't quite read.
Even from there, you can see the tension in his shoulders.
"Excuse me," you say to Clayton, not waiting for a response before you start walking toward Bucky.
But by the time you navigate through the crowd, he's already gone.
You get home from the show late, exhausted and frustrated. The house is dark and empty, and you should go to bed, but instead you find yourself walking to the stables.
Copper's in his usual stall, the big bay gelding lifting his head when you approach. Twenty-two now, long retired, but still your father's horse.
"Hey, old man," you murmur, letting yourself in. He presses his nose into your palm, warm and familiar, and you lean your forehead against his neck. "Long day."
He huffs softly, patient like always.
You're running your hand down his shoulder when you hear footsteps.
"Thought I saw the lights on."
Bucky's in the stable entrance, hands in his pockets.
"Couldn't sleep," you say.
"Yeah, me neither." He shifts his weight. "How's old Copper doing?"
"Good, little stiff in the mornings." You stroke the horse's neck. "I should take him out to pasture more."
"I can do it tomorrow if you want," Bucky offers quietly. "Give him a good walk, let him stretch his legs."
Something in your chest aches at the offer. Even with all this distance between you, he's still thinking about what you need.
"You don't have to."
"I know," he takes a step closer. "But Copper's important to you."
"My dad's horse," you say quietly. "He was the first horse I rode."
"I know," his voice is gentle. "I remember."
For a moment, the walls between you feel thinner. Like maybe you could reach across this space, say what needs saying. Then Copper shifts, and Bucky clears his throat.
"I should let you finish up. Just wanted to check you were okay."
"I'm fine."
It's obviously a lie, but he doesn't call you on it.
"Goodnight, wildfire," he says softly, and then he's gone.
"He still cares," you tell the horse. "He wouldn't check on me if he didn't, right?"
Copper just snorts and goes back to his hay.
You stay a while longer, taking comfort in the familiar routine of checking water, running your hands over Copper's legs to make sure he's sound, whispering all the things you can't say to Buck into the horse's patient ear.
When you finally head back to the house, you see Bucky's cabin light is still on.
Neither of you is sleeping tonight.
Clayton Sheridan doesn't understand the concept of boundaries, as you discover the next two weeks.
The flowers arrive first, expensive arrangements delivered to your door with cards that are just on the edge of appropriate.
Looking forward to being neighbors.
Thinking of you.
You throw most of them away.
Then, he starts showing up: at the feed store when you're picking up supplies, at the diner where you grab Saturday breakfast, at the county planning meeting where you're discussing water management.
"What a coincidence," he says every time, with that practiced smile.
It's not a coincidence and you both know it, but he keeps playing his game.
The gifts escalate: wine, a leather portfolio with your ranch name embossed, an invitation to some charity gala in the city, hand-delivered.
"I think we'd make quite an impression together," Clayton says when he drops off the invitation. "Power couple of the ranching community."
You haven't even said yes to coffee.
"I'll think about it," you answer, because outright rejection seems to make him more persistent.
Through it all, Bucky gets quieter, more distant. Like he's disappearing piece by piece.
You catch him watching sometimes— watching Clayton talk to you, watching the gifts arrive, watching you navigate the attention with gritted-teeth politeness. And every time, his expression is the same: resigned, like he's watching something inevitable play out.
Like he's already decided how this story ends.
Three weeks into Clayton's courtship, you're in the barn doing evening checks when Bucky appears in the doorway. Your heart jumps at the sight of him. This is the first time he's sought you out in almost a month.
"Hey," you say carefully.
"Hey." He shifts his weight, not quite meeting your eyes. "Wanted to let you know… the mare's showing signs, probably foaling tonight or tomorrow."
"Okay, you need help monitoring?"
"No, I got it." He starts to turn away, then pauses. "Your neighbor came by today. Sheridan, he was looking for you."
Your stomach sinks. "What did he want?"
"Didn't say, just asked where you were, when you'd be back." Bucky's jaw tightens. "Seemed pretty comfortable helping himself to the property."
"I'll talk to him."
"Sure." Another pause. "He seems… interested."
"Bucky—"
"Just an observation." His voice is carefully neutral. "A guy like that— successful, established. Probably looking to settle down with the right person."
"I don't care what he's looking for."
"Maybe you should." Bucky finally looks at you and there's something in his eyes that makes your breath catch. "Opportunities like this don't come around often."
"Opportunity?" You stare at him. "He's a stranger who won't take a hint, that's not an opportunity, that's a problem."
"Is it?" Bucky's voice is soft, almost sad. "Or is it exactly what someone in your position should be looking for?"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Means he can give you things, things I—" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching again. "Just think about it."
He's gone before you can respond, leaving you alone in the barn with a sick feeling in your stomach.
Clayton makes his move the following week. You're at Miller's feed store, alone for once, when he corners near the grain.
"I was hoping to run into you," he says, blocking your path to the checkout. "Saved me a trip to your property."
"I'm kind of in a hurry—"
"It'll just take a moment." He steps closer, and you resist the urge to step back. "I've been patient, I think. Given you time to get to know me. And I'd like to think we've developed a… bond."
"Clayton—"
"Let me take you to dinner." It's phrased like a request, but it feels like a demand. "A real dinner, not as neighbors, not as business associates… a date."
"I appreciate the offer, but—"
"I know I can give you what you need," he continues, like you haven't spoken. "Partnership, stability. A merger of our operations could be incredibly beneficial for both of us. I know you're a smart woman, you have to see the potential."
There it is, the assumption that this is about business, about strategy, like you're an asset to be acquired.
"I'm not interested," you say clearly. "In dinner, in partnership, in any of it. Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but—"
"The wrong impression?" He interrupts you again, his smile doesn't reach his eyes. "You've been accepting my gifts, letting me court you."
"I've been polite, there's a difference."
"Is there?" He is closer now, close enough that you can smell his cologne. "Or are you just playing hard to get? Because I have to tell you, it's getting old."
"I'm not playing anything," your voice goes cold. "I said no. That's final."
Something flickers across his face—surprise, then anger, quickly masked.
"You're making a mistake," he says quietly.
"That's my choice to make."
"Is it?" He glances toward the window, where your truck is parked. "Or does your foreman make your choices for you?"
Your blood runs cold. "That's none of your business."
"In a town this size, everything is everyone's business." His smile turns cruel. "You're fucking the help, everyone knows it. So stop acting high and mighty with me when you're spreading your legs for some ranch hand who'll never be able to give you what a real man could—"
"That's enough." The voice comes from behind you. Miller is standing at the end of the aisle with a bag of feed in his arms and steel in his eyes. "Mr. Sheridan, I think it's time for you to leave my store."
Clayton's expression smooths back into charm "We're just having a conversation—"
"I heard what kind of conversation you were having." Miller sets the feed down with a heavy thump. "And I won't have you speaking to a lady like that in my establishment. Time to go."
"This is ridiculous—"
"Now." Miller's voice is firm. "Before I call sheriff Morrison and have you removed for harassment."
Clayton looks between you and Miller, jaw tight with barely contained rage. Then, he smooths his expression into something coldly polite.
"Of course, my apologies if I caused any… discomfort." But his eyes hold a dark promise when they land on you. "We'll continue this conversation another time."
He's gone before you can tell him there won't be another time. Miller waits until the door closes before turning to you with concern.
"You alright, honey?"
You nod, but your hands are shaking. "Thank you for stepping in."
"That man's got a mean streak under all that polish," Miller says. "My wife had a cousin who dated a man like that once, all charm until you say no, then…" He shakes his head. "You be careful. Men like that don't handle rejection well."
"I will."
"And for what it's worth?" Miller's voice gentles. "Whatever that jackass said about you and Bucky? That's your business and nobody else's. Young Barnes is a good man, his father was good people and he is too. Don't let anyone tell you different."
The kindness breaks something in you and your eyes sting. "Thank you, Mr. Miller."
"Call me if you need anything. And tell Bucky to keep an eye on that one, Clayton Sheridan strikes me as the type to hold a grudge."
You pay for your supplies in a daze and load them into your truck with shaking hands. You should go home, go straight to your bed. Instead, you park near the stables.
Copper's in his stall, and he lifts his head when you approach, nickering softly.
"Hey, old man," you manage, voice cracking.
You let yourself into the stall and he immediately presses his nose to your chest, and that's when you break.
You cry into Copper's neck—from anger, from humiliation, from the way Clayton looked at you like you were something he could buy or break. From the fear that maybe he's right, that everyone is talking about you and Bucky, judging you, seeing something shameful in what feels sacred.
"He doesn't know anything," you whisper into Copper's mane. "He doesn't know us, doesn't know what we—"
But even as you say it, Clayton's words echo: Fucking the help.
Is that what people see? Not two people who care about each other, but something tawdry and wrong?
You're still crying when you hear footsteps.
"Wildfire?"
You straighten quickly, wiping at your eyes, but it's too late. Bucky's standing at the stall entrance, and even in the dim light, you notice he's been drinking. Not drunk yet, but there's a flush on his cheeks, a looseness to his shoulders that means he's had a few. And his eyes look sad, pained.
"You heard," you say flatly.
"Whole town's heard by now," his voice is rough. "Was at the diner grabbing lunch and Pete and Sanchez were with me. Table next to us was talking about how Sheridan got turned down by the ice queen rancher who's too busy fucking her foreman to see a real opportunity."
You flinch at his words.
"They didn't know we were there," Bucky continues, stepping into the stall. "Didn't know Pete and Sanchez were ready to flip the table. I had to practically drag them out before they started throwing punches."
"Bucky—"
"Then I heard the rest of it, how you rejected him at Miller's, how he got nasty about it, how old Miller had to throw him out." His jaw clenches. "And I wasn't there, I was checking fence posts while he cornered you and I wasn't fucking there."
"You couldn't have known—"
"I should've been there!" The words burst out of him. "I should've been the one telling him to back off, to leave alone, to—" He stops, hands clenching into fists. "But I can't, can I? Can't defend you publicly without everyone knowing exactly what we are to each other. Can't step in without proving every goddamn thing they're saying about us. Can't stand next to you in town and tell assholes like Clayton Sheridan that you're mine."
"I don't need you to—"
"Well maybe you should." His voice drops. "Maybe you should have someone who can do all that, someone who can take you out without counting cents."
"Stop," you cut him off, voice shaking.
"Why? He's right about one thing, wildfire. I can't give you what someone like him could. Can't give you respectability, or stability, I can't give—"
You cross the stall in two strides and kiss him hard. He freezes for half a second, then he's kissing you back something that feels like desperation… and fear.
His hands fist in your hair and you grab his shirt, pulling him closer, needing to erase Clayton's words, the town's gossip, the shame trying to creep into something that's never felt shameful before.
"I don't want respectable," you gasp against his mouth. "I don't want public dinners, or whatever the hell you think I need. I want you."
"You're upset."
"I'm fucking furious," you correct. "At Clayton for being an entitled asshole, furious at this stupid town for their gossip, furious for you thinking any of it matters—"
He kisses you again, harder this time, walking you backward until your back hits the stall wall. His body presses against yours and you can feel how much he wants this despite all his protests about what you deserve.
"We shouldn't," he breathes against your neck. "You're upset, I've been drinking, this is—"
"I don't care," your hands work at his belt. "I need this, I need you, please Bucky—"
Something breaks in him. He lifts you and you wrap your legs around his waist, and then you're fumbling with clothes, desperate and graceless. When he pushes inside you, you both groan like it's a homecoming and a goodbye all at once.
The sex is different this time. Rougher, more desperate. Like you're both trying to prove or forget something. Or like you're trying to hold onto something that feels like it's slipping away.
When you come, it's with his name on your lips and tears on your cheeks. He follows moments later, your name broken and his forehead against your shoulder. For a moment, you stay like that, connected, breathing hard, coexisting in the same space. Then he sets you down carefully and reality crashes back in.
You both fix your clothes in silence. The air feels heavy, charged with everything still unsaid.
"I'm sorry," Bucky says finally. "For drinking, for not being there when Clayton—"
"Stop apologizing." Your voice comes out sharper than intended. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Didn't I?" He won't look at you. "Miller threw him out, Miller defended you. And where was I?Where the fuck was I?"
"You were working, doing your job."
"My job." He laughs, but it's bitter. "Right, because that's what I am. The foreman, the employee, not the—"
"Not the what?" You push. "Say it."
"Not the boyfriend," he says quietly. "I heard what he said about you, about us. And I wanted to kill him, wanted to drive straight to his ranch and—"
"But you didn't."
"Because what would that accomplish? Everyone would know then, would see exactly what we are and—" He runs a hand through his hair. "Maybe they're right to gossip, maybe we are—"
"Would you please stop?" You grab his arm, forcing him to look at you. "Don't let him do this, don't let their gossip make this into something shameful."
"It's not shameful," he says. "But it's not right either. You deserve better than barn hookups and secrets, you deserve someone who can stand next to you proudly, take you to dinner, court you the way you should be courted—"
"I don't wanna be courted by anyone else!"
"Well maybe you should! Maybe you should want someone who can give you a normal relationship, someone who's—" He swallows hard. "Someone who's your equal."
"You think you're not my equal," you say slowly.
"I know I'm not." His voice is flat. "I'm the foreman, you're the owner. And no matter what we feel, that's the reality, that's what everyone sees when they look at us."
"I don't care what they see—"
"Well, maybe I do." He's breathing hard. "Maybe I care that I can't defend you without it looking like the hired help overstepping. Maybe I care that men like Clayton can say whatever they want about you and I have to just— just take it because what am I? What right do I have?"
"The right of someone who loves me," you say, and watch his face go white.
"Don't," he whispers.
"Why not? It's true, isn't it?" You step closer. "You love me, and I—"
"Don't say it," he backs away, hands up like he's warding off a blow. "Please don't say it."
"Why not?"
"Because it doesn't change anything!" His voice breaks. "It doesn't change that I can't give you what you deserve. It doesn't change that I will never be enough. I'll never be enough for you, wildfire. And the sooner we both accept that, the—"
He doesn't finish, just turns and walks out of the stall, leaving you standing there with Copper and the ruins of your heart. You sink down onto the bench and Copper nuzzles your shoulder gently.
"He's wrong," you tell the horse. "He's so wrong."
But the words feel hollow even as you say them. Because how do you fight someone who's convinced themselves they're not worth fighting for?
You threw yourself into work because work didn't require you to think about the way Bucky's jaw had tightened when you'd said the word "love".
Work was spreadsheets and feed orders and the county extension agent calling about soil testing. Work was quantifiable, solvable, something you could actually control… unlike the man who was currently avoiding you like you carried some contagious disease.
It had been two weeks since the stable. Two weeks of Bucky sending Pete or Sanchez to deliver reports that he used to give himself, two weeks of catching glimpses of him across the property—always busy, always moving, always just out of reach. When you did cross paths, his eyes would slide past you like you were part of the landscape, something to navigate around rather than toward.
"Boss?" Pete stood in your office doorway, hat in hand. "Bucky wanted me to tell you the irrigation system's back online, no more issues in sector three."
Bucky wanted me to tell you. Not "Bucky said", or "Bucky asked", like even the mention of his name in connection with you required careful phrasing.
"Thanks, Pete." You kept your voice level. "Anything else?"
"No, ma'am, that's all." He hesitated. "Though uh… if you need anything else, I can—"
"I'm fine," the lie came easily now. "Tell the crew I'll do the evening walk-through myself tonight."
After Pete left, you sat back in your chair and let your eyes drift to the window. You could see the training pen from here, the fence where you and Bucky had worked with the colt just weeks ago, where his hands had been steady on the animal's neck, his voice low and soothing, and the three of you—you, him, the skittish colt— were the only things that mattered in the world.
Your mind drifted before you could stop it, reaching back to a different summer. You'd been sixteen, and Bucky had been nineteen, home from community college for the summer to help his dad with the heavy work.
Your father had sent you both to check the fence line at the north property border, and you'd spent the whole afternoon trying not to stare at the way Bucky's shirt stuck to his back in the heat, the flex of his forearms as he drove new posts into the hard ground. He'd caught you looking once and grinned—that easy, boyish grin that always made your stomach flip—and you'd turned away so fast you nearly tripped over the wire spool.
Later, sitting in the shade of the truck bed sharing a canteen of water, he'd looked at you differently. Not like his boss' daughter, not like the kid who used to chase him around the barn.
"You've got dirt on your face," he'd said.
"Where?"
Instead of answering, he'd reached out and brushed his thumb across your cheekbone, so gentle it barely counted as touch. Your breath had caught, and then… so quick you almost thought you'd imagined it, he'd leaned in and pressed his lips to yours.
Just a peck, soft and sweet and over in a heartbeat.
He'd pulled back immediately, eyes wide. "I shouldn't have—"
"It's okay," you'd whispered.
But he was already climbing out of the truck bed, putting distance between you, and the rest of the drive back had been silent. Neither of you mentioned it again, not that summer, not the next. By the time he came back to work full-time after his dad got sick, you'd both learned how to pretend it never happened.
Except you've never forgotten.
And now, seventeen years later, he was looking at you the same way: like you were something he wanted but couldn't let himself have. Only this time it wasn't because you were too young, or because he was overstepping with the boss' daughter. This time he'd convinced himself you were too good for him.
You pressed your palms against your eyes, willing yourself not to cry in your office in the middle of the workday.
Your phone buzzed, another text from Clayton Sheridan that you immediately deleted without reading. He'd been trying to "apologize" for a week now, messages that sounded sincere until you read between the lines and saw the entitlement still lurking here.
The afternoon sun slanted through the window, dust motes dancing in the golden light, and you forced yourself back to the feed cost analysis spreadsheet on your screen. Work didn't ask questions you couldn't answer, work didn't look at you with resignation and longing tangled together… work was safe.
So you buried yourself in it and pretended you couldn't feel the Bucky-shaped hole in your chest getting wider every day.
Bucky sat at his kitchen table with his laptop open and a beer he hadn't touched going warm beside him. The numbers on the screen hadn't changed in the last hour, no matter how many times he refreshed the page or recalculated his math.
$58,000 in savings. Fifteen years of hard work, of living cheap and saving steady, and that's what he had to show for it.
He pulled up another tab showing land listings in the county. The cheapest viable spread was listed at $425,000. The nicer properties started at $650,000 and went up from there.
He took a long pull from the beer, grimacing at the taste. The smart move would be to look further out, maybe two counties over where land was cheaper, but that would mean leaving the ranch, leaving you, and what was fucking point of building something if you weren't part of it?
His phone sat face-down on the table. He'd been staring at it for twenty minutes, trying to decide if he should call his cousin Hugh. He had made something of himself, built a successful business in Denver, bought a house. Hugh would probably tell him to forget the ranch work, come to the city, learn a trade that paid better..
But Bucky wasn't Hugh. He didn't want an office or a crew of subcontractors or a house in the suburbs. He wanted land, cattle and horses and the kind of legacy his father had helped build for someone else's family. He wanted to be able to stand next to you and not feel like he was taking something he hadn't earned.
His father's voice echoed in his head, rough from years of cigarettes and dust: A man provides for his family, son. You work hard, build something and give your wife and kids a life worth living.
His old man worked himself into an early grave trying to live up to that standard, died at sixty-two with nothing but a paid off truck and a pension that barely covered his medical bills. Bucky's mother had held it together with grit and his father's life insurance, but she's had to move into town and had to make herself smaller to fit into what was left.
Bucky had sworn he'd never put a woman in that position, that he'd build something solid before thinking about settling down… and then you'd kissed him in the barn last summer with dirt on your jeans and challenge in your eyes, and every promise he'd made to himself had evaporated.
Ten months of telling himself it was just physical, just chemistry, just two people scratching an itch. Ten months of lying to himself and to you and pretending it wouldn't end in exactly this kind of pain,
He opened a new tab for job listings this time. Foreman positions at other ranches—most paid about what he was making now, maybe five thousand more if he was lucky. Manager positions required degrees he didn't have. The oil and gas jobs paid better but required months away at a time, and what good was money if he couldn't be near you?
He closed the laptop harder than necessary.
This was about building something with you, about not being that guy who moved into your house, worked your land, lived off your success. He'd seen it before: men who married into ranching families and became permanent accessories, useful but ultimately replaceable.
His pride wouldn't let him become that.
But how the hell was he supposed to close a $400,00 gap? Even if he worked himself into the ground, saved every penny, made all the right moves he'd still be forty before he had enough to buy anything worth having.
And you'd be what? Waiting around for him to get his shit together? Turning down men like Clayton Sheridan who could give you everything right now? The thought of you with Sheridan made him want to put his fist through the wall, made him want to drive to that bastard's ranch and make it crystal clear that he'd never speak to you like that again.
But he hadn't, because what right did he have? He wasn't your boyfriend or your husband. He was just an employee, the man who was too proud to be with you on your terms and too poor to offer his own.
His phone buzzed, it was a text from Pete:
Boss asked me to tell you she's doing the evening rounds herself tonight, thought you should know.
Bucky's chest tightened. You were avoiding the crew now, doing the work yourself rather than risk running into him. Or maybe you didn't trust him to do his job anymore.
He typed back: Thanks, I'll check the north pasture, make sure everything's locked down.
It was cowardice, making sure he'd be on the opposite end of the property when you made your rounds. But he wasn't strong enough yet to see you and not break, he wasn't ready to look into your eyes and see the hurt he'd put there.
Not until he had a plan and could offer you something more than apologies and empty promises.
Bucky drained the flat beer and got back to work on the numbers. Somewhere in these spreadsheets, in these listings, in the careful mathematics of sacrifice and saving, there had to be an answer, there had to be a way to become the man you deserved… he just had to find it.
You found him in the equipment barn three days later, and this time you didn't let him walk away. You were done avoiding him.
He was replacing the hydraulic line on one of the tractors, his shirt off in the afternoon heat, and for a moment you just watched him work, watched the flex of his shoulders, the concentration on his face, the competent sureness of his hands. This was the Bucky you'd grown up with, the one who could fix anything, who moved through the wold with quiet capability.
The one you'd loved since you were sixteen years old.
"We need to talk," you said.
His hands stilled on the wrench, but he didn't look up. "Kind of in the middle of something."
"I don't care." You stepped into the barn, letting the door swing shut behind you. "You've been avoiding me for three weeks, I'm done pretending this isn't happening."
"Nothing's happening," his voice was carefully flat. "I'm working, you're working, that's all there is."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
He finally looked at you, and the exhaustion in his eyes made your chest ache. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to stop running," you move closer. "I want you to stop deciding what's best for me without asking me what I actually want."
"I know what you want."
"Do you? Because from where I'm standing, it seems like you've built this whole story in your head about what I need and what you can't give me."
His jaw tightened. "You deserve someone who can give you a real future."
"I deserve someone who loves me," you countered. "Everything else is just details."
"They're not just details!" His voice rose, frustration finally breaking through. "They're the difference between being your partner and your charity case. I don't want to just be the guy who lives in your mansion, works your land and gets to be with you because you're generous enough not to care that he's got nothing to offer."
"That's not—"
"It is, though." He set down the wrench, finally giving you his full attention. "You're telling me the money doesn't matter, that the land doesn't matter, that I don't need to be able to provide anything because you've already got it all covered. You're telling me to just… accept the fact that I'll never contribute equally to this relationship, that I'll always be the hired help who got lucky enough to fuck the boss."
The crudeness of it made you flinch. "Don't talk about us like that."
"Why not? That's what everyone else is saying." His laugh was bitter. "And maybe they're right. Maybe that's exactly what this is—you slumming it with the help because it's convenient and exciting, and me being too stupid to see that I'm just a phase before you settle down with someone appropriate."
The accusation stung like a slap. "You think you're just a phase to me?"
"I don't know what I am to you!" His voice cracked. "Because you keep saying it doesn't matter, that we'll figure it out,that love is enough, but it's not! Not when I lie awake every night doing math that doesn't add up, not when I have to watch men like Clayton Sheridan circle you like sharks because I can't protect you… not when I know that staying with me means you'll never have a man who can stand beside you on his own as an equal—"
"You're my equal—"
"I'm your foreman! I earn in one year what you make in one month! We're not equals, no matter how much you want to pretend we are."
"Money doesn't make someone more or less valuable, Bucky. We—"
"It's not about value!" He ran both hands through his hair, pulling slightly like he wanted to tear something out. "It's about being able to build something together, about me being able to contribute more than just labor and good intentions… about not feeling like a kept man every time you solve a problem I can't afford to fix."
"So what do you want from me?" Your voice shook. "You want me to pretend I don't have money? Want me to apologize for inheriting this ranch? To make myself smaller so you can feel more like a man?"
"No! Christ, no, it's completely the opposite. I want—" He stopped, his jaw working. "I want to be worthy of you, I want to look at you without feeling like I'm stealing something that should belong to someone better. But I can't do that with fifty-eight thousand dollars in savings and a truck I've had since college."
Fifty-eight thousand dollars. That number hit you like a gut punch. He'd been counting, calculating, measuring himself against some impossible standard and finding himself lacking.
"Bucky," you said softly, stepping toward him. "I don't care how much money you have, or if you own land or if you live in that cabin for the rest of your life. I care about you because I love—"
"Don't," he backed away, hands up. "Please don't say that again."
"Why not? It is the truth."
"Because it doesn't change anything!" His voice was ragged. "You saying you love me doesn't change the fact that I can't give you what you deserve, doesn't change that I wake up every morning knowing I'm not enough or that I want to be the kind of man who can take care of you."
"I don't need you to take care of me, I can take care of myself, I just… I just need you to be here, to stop running from our love, to—"
"That's exactly the problem." His voice went quiet, deadly calm. "You don't need me, not really. You need a good foreman and a warm body in your bed, and I can be both of these things but that's not what I want to be. I want to be necessary, I want to provide for you. I want to build you a life instead of just existing in the one you already have. And you telling me none of that matters, that I should just be grateful that you want me anyway…"
He laughed, but it sounded like something breaking.
"I don't need your pity, ma'am."
The formality hit like a physical blow. Not wildfire, not your name, not even a cold distant boss. Just ma'am, with all the professional distance that implied, with all the class and power differential laid bare.
Your throat closed. "That's not— I'm not pitying you, Bucky, I'm trying to tell you that I love you—"
"And I'm trying to tell you that's not enough. Not when loving you means giving up every shred of pride and self-respect I have left."
"So what?" Your voice broke. "You'd rather have your pride than have me?"
"I'd rather become someone worthy of having you." He picked up his shirt, pulling it on with sharp, angry movements. "And I won't let you settle for less than you deserve just because you think you love me."
"I don't think I love you, I know I love you, I've been in love with you since I was sixteen years old." He froze, shirt half buttoned. "That kiss by the north fence, you think I forgot about it? You think I didn't spend the last decade wondering what would've happened if you hadn't pulled away?"
"Stop," the world was barely a whisper. "Don't do this."
"Don't tell me what I feel, Bucky, don't tell me I'm wrong about loving you, and don't you dare walk away just because you've convinced yourself matters more than—"
"Don't you understand? It's not about the money!" He shouted, and you'd never heard him yell like that, not in twenty years. "It's about what the money represents, about being able to look my father's ghost and say I built something… it's about not being the guy who couldn't make it on his own, so he shacked up with the rich girl who felt sorry for him. It's about not being enough, and I'm not, not yet. I have to at least try to become someone who can stand next to you without shame."
You stared at him, this stubborn, proud, heartbroken man and realized you were fighting a ghost. Not just his father's expectations, but generations of them… every man in his family who'd worked someone else's land and dreamed of their own. Every lesson about what it meant to be a provider, the man of the house.
"And what if you never have enough?" You asked. "If the math never adds up and the land prices keep rising and you're still chasing this impossible standard in ten years? What then?"
His silence was answer enough.
"You're going to let this destroy us," you said. "You're going to choose pride over love, over happiness, over us, because you can't accept that maybe your father's way isn't the only way. That maybe I don't need you to own land to prove you're worthy of me."
"It's not about what you need," he said quietly. "It's about what I need. And I need to be able to respect myself when I look in the mirror, which I can't do right now."
He moved past you toward the door, and you didn't stop him this time. At the threshold, he paused, but didn't turn around.
"I'm sorry, wildfire," he said and the nickname sounded like a goodbye. "I'm sorry I'm not the man you think I am."
Then he was gone, and you were alone in the equipment barn with the smell of motor oil and the wreckage of your heart scattered across the concrete floor. You sank down onto the workbench, pressing your palms against your eyes and let yourself finally break.
Because he was right about one thing: love wasn't enough. Not when one person had already decided they weren't worthy of it.
You were in your office when you heard a truck. The engine was too loud, too aggressive, not the familiar sounds of Pete, Sanchez or Bucky's trucks. Something was wrong.
You looked up as footsteps approached, uneven and heavy on the gravel outside, and Clayton Sheridan appeared on your doorway. The smell of whiskey hit you before his expression did.
"There you are," his words spurred slightly at the edges. "Been looking for you."
Your hand moved toward your phone on the desk, but he saw the movement and stepped fully into the small office, blocking the only exit. The space suddenly felt suffocatingly small.
"Clayton, you need to leave." Your voice came out steady, but without its usual steel. You were so tired lately, tired of fighting, of hurting, tired of everything. "You're drunk, this isn't—“
"This isn't what?" He moved closer, and you stood up instinctively, chair scraping back. "Isn't appropriate? Since when do you care about appropriate? You've been fucking your foreman for months, don't talk to me about appropriate."
"Get out of my office."
"Or what?" He was close enough that you could see the anger in his bloodshot eyes, the mean set of his jaw. "You gonna call your cowboy to come save you? Oh, wait. I heard you two had a falling out, guess even he figured out you're not worth the trouble."
The words hit hard, landing right on the wound Bucky had left bleeding. Your breath caught, and Clayton saw the flinch, the way you'd gone still.
"That's it, isn't it?" His voice dropped, almost soothing, which made it worse. "He finally wised up, left you all alone in this big ranch, and now you're realizing what a mistake you made by turning down a real man for some hired hand who couldn't even stick around."
You should tell him to leave again, move past him, get out of this small room, get your phone, do something. But you felt frozen, hollowed out, like all the fight had been burned out of you in that equipment barn when Bucky had called you ma'am and walked away.
Clayton took another step, you backed up until your hip hit the desk.
"I'm trying to be reasonable here," he was so close, invading your space, using his size to intimidate. "Trying to give you another chance, because despite you embarrassing me, rejecting me and making me look like a fool, I'm still willing to overlook it. Still willing to offer you a real partnership."
"I don't want—" Your voice came smaller than intended, and you hated how weak you sounded. But you were so empty, so worn down by weeks of heartbreak and loneliness and loving someone who'd convinced himself he wasn't worthy of being loved back.
"Don't want what?" Clayton's hand came up, palm flat against the wall beside your head, caging you in. "Don't want stability? Success? A man who can actually provide for you instead of living off your charity?"
You turned your head away, trying to duck under his arm, but he shifted and suddenly you were truly cornered, desk behind you, Clayton in front, his other hand coming up to block your escape route.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you," his voice had gone hard. "I've been patient, I've been courteous. I've given you space and time and you've thrown it back in my face over and over, and I'm done being nice.
"Let me go," you tried to put command in it, but it came out defeated.
"Not until you listen and understand what you're throwing away by being stubborn about some ridiculous idea of love with a man who has already given up on you. He doesn't want you enough to fight for you, but I do. So you're going to stop being difficult and—"
"Get your fucking hands off her."
The voice came from the doorway, low and lethal, and you'd never heard Bucky sound like that. Clayton turned, hands dropping, and you could see him trying to recalibrate, trying to pull on charm or authority, but he didn't get the chance. Bucky had already crossed the small office and his fist connected with Clayton's jaw with a sickening crack.
Clayton staggered backward and hit the wall. "What the hell—"
"You don't fucking touch her." Bucky hit him again, this time in the ribs and Clayton doubled over with a wheeze. "You don't corner her, or come to her property drunk and put your hands near her talking like she's something you can intimidate into—"
He grabbed Clayton by the shirt and hauled him toward the door. Clayton tried to swing back, caught Bucky's cheek with a glancing blow, but Bucky barely seemed to notice. He shoved Clayton out into the barn aisle, following him out.
You stood frozen in the office, watching through the doorway as Bucky grabbed Clayton again and drove his fist into his stomach. Clayton crumpled, coughing and Bucky dragged him upright.
"You ever come near her again," Bucky's voice was shaking with barely controlled rage, "and I will fucking end you. I don't care about consequences, or going to jail, you don't get to scare her and make her feel small. Are we clear?"
"You're insane—" Clayton choked out.
Bucky shoved him toward the barn entrance. "Get the hell out."
He punctuated it with a kick to Clayton's ass that sent him stumbling forward. Clayton caught himself, turned back like he might try to fight, but whatever he saw in Bucky's face made him think better of it. He spat blood onto the barn floor and shot you a look full of venom before limping toward the exit.
"This isn't over," Clayton said.
"Yeah, it is." Bucky's voice was flat. "You're done. Now get the fuck off this property before I make you."
Clayton left, and you could hear his truck start up moments later, tires spitting gravel as he sped away.
Silence filled the barn. You were still standing in the office doorway, arms wrapped around yourself, shaking. Not from fear but from shock, from the crash of adrenaline, from everything finally being too much. Bucky turned to look at you, and his expression crumpled.
"Did he hurt you?" He stayed where he was, like he was afraid to get closer. "Did he touch you?"
You shook your head, the words wouldn't come.
"Jesus Christ," he ran both hands through his hair, pulling hard. "I was just walking back from the equipment barn, heard his voice and— If I hadn't been walking by, if I hadn't heard him say that shit about you, if he'd—"
He couldn't finish, his hands were shaking, knuckles already swelling and split.
"Bucky—" You managed, but your voice sounded wrong and distant, like it belonged to someone else.
"Boss!" Pete appeared in the barn entrance, Sanchez right behind him. They must've seen or heard the commotion. Pete took in the scene: you trembling in the office doorway, Bucky with blood on his knuckles, the tension still cracking in the air. "What happened?"
"Sheridan," Bucky's jaw was tight. "Showed up drunk, cornered her in the office. I handled it."
"Handled it?" Sanchez was looking at Bucky's hands. "Jesus, man."
"Is he gone?" Pete asked.
"Yeah," Bucky's eyes hadn't left you. "He's gone."
Pete moved toward you carefully, like you might spook. "Boss? You okay?"
You nodded, but it was a lie and everyone knew it. You weren't okay, hadn't been for weeks, and this had just broken something that was already cracked.
"Why don't you come with me?" Peter said gently. "Maria's at home, she can make you some tea, you can get away from here for a bit."
"I'm fine," but your voice shook on the words. "I don't need—"
"I insist," Pete said. "Just for a few hours, let us make sure Sheridan doesn't try to come back, let yourself breathe."
You wanted to argue, stay here and deal with this yourself, prove you didn't need protecting, but you were so tired of fighting, so tired of being strong. And the thought of Pete's warm, comfortable house, of his wife Maria's kind presence, of being somewhere that felt safe for just a little while…
"Okay," you whispered.
Bucky's face did something complicated. "I can stay here, keep watch—"
"No." Pete's voice was firm. "You need to clean up and cool down. Sanchez and I will handle security, you go home."
For a moment you thought Bucky would argue, but then he just nodded. His eyes met yours one more time, and the guilt and longing and helplessness in them made your chest ache. But he didn't say anything, he walked away, disappearing into the darkness beyond the barn, and you felt the distance between you like a physical wound.
Pete's house was warm and lived-in, smelling like the chicken Maria had roasted for dinner and the vanilla candles she loved. She met you at the door with soft hands and softer eyes, asked no questions, just guided you to the kitchen table where a chamomile tea was already waiting for you.
"Pete called ahead," she said settling into the chair across from you. "Said you had a rough evening."
"You could say that," your hands wrapped around the mug, seeking warmth even though you weren't cold. You were shaking again, small tremors you couldn't control.
Maria reached across the table and covered your hand with hers. "You're safe here, mija. Whatever happened, you're safe now."
You nodded, throat tight. Through the window, you could see Pete outside, on the phone—probably coordinating with Sanchez, making sure your property was secure. Making sure Clayton wouldn't come back.
The simple care of it broke something loose in your chest.
"Pete's a good man."
"The best," Maria's smile was soft, full of easy affection. "Drives me crazy sometimes, leaves his boots in the middle of the floor and falls asleep during every movie, but he's good all the way through"
You watched Pete through the window, the way he moved with easy confidence, the way he glanced back at the house, checking on his wife to make sure she was okay. There was something so simple about it, so uncomplicated.
"How do you make it look so easy?" The words came out before you could stop them. "Being together."
Maria tilted her head, studying you. "It's not always easy. We've had our share of hard times—money troubles, my mother getting sick, that year Pete threw his back out and couldn't wait for three months. But we're partners, you know? We figure it out together."
Partners. That word sat heavily on your chest.
"What if one person thinks they're not good enough?" You stared into your tea. "What if two people love each other but one of them is convinced… they don't have enough to offer?"
Maria was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was gentle. "This is about Bucky, isn't it?" You looked up, startled. She smiled sadly. "Honey, everyone knows you two have been circling each other for months, and everyone can see you're both miserable right now. Whatever he thinks he doesn't have… does it matter to you?"
"No," the answer came immediately. "It doesn't matter at all, I don't care about money or land or any of it. I just want him."
"Have you told him that?"
"Yes, multiple times, but he won't listen. He's convinced that loving me means being able to provide for me the way his father provided for his mother, the way—" Your voice broke. "The way Pete provides for you, and he can't. At least not in the way he thinks he should, so… he'd rather let me go than accept that maybe I don't need what he's supposed to give me."
Maria's eyes were sad. "Men and their pride, especially the good ones. They get these ideas in their heads about what it means to be a man, what they owe the women they love, and sometimes those ideas do more harm than good."
"So what do I do?" You hated how desperate you sounded. "How do I fight someone who's already decided he's not enough?"
"I don't know if you can, mija." She said it kindly, but it still hurt. "Sometimes people have to figure things out for themselves, have to learn that love isn't about what you can provide in dollars and cents.It's about showing up, being present, building a life together even when it's hard… But you can't force someone to believe they're worthy of love, that's something they have to find on their own."
You felt tears prick your eyes. "What if he never does?"
"Then that's his loss. Because from where I'm sitting, he's throwing away something real and good because he's too stubborn to see that you already chose him, that you'd choose him every day if he'd let you."
The tears spilled over then, you tried to wipe them away, embarrassed, but Maria just moved her chair closer and pulled you into a hug. You let yourself cry against her shoulder—for Bucky, for the relationship that was dying before it ever really lived, for the loneliness that had become your constant companion.
"I love him," you whispered into her shoulder. "I've been in love with him since I was sixteen years old and I don't know how to stop."
"Oh, sweetheart." Maria rubbed your back. "Maybe you're not supposed to stop, maybe you just have to love him from a distance while he figures things out. And maybe he'll figure it out on time… but you can't sacrifice yourself while you wait. Can't make yourself smaller or quieter just to make him comfortable with loving you."
You pulled back, wiping your eyes. "I don't know how to do this."
"None of us do," she smiled sadly. "We're all just making it up as we go."
Pete came back inside then, took in your tear-stained face and his wife's protective posture, and his expression softened.
"Everything's secure, Sanchez is doing perimeter checks, but the property's locked down tight." He hesitated. "You're welcome to stay here tonight, the guest room is ready."
You shook your head. "I appreciate the offer, but I should go home. I can't let Clayton chase me out of my own house."
"You sure?" Maria asked.
"Yeah," you stood, steadier now. "I'm sure."
They walked you to your truck, Pete insisting on following you back to make sure you got inside safely. The drive was short, and when you pulled up to your dark house, Pete waited until you unlocked the door and turned on the lights before giving you a wave and heading back to his own home.
You stood in your empty living room and felt the silence press in. You've always loved this house and all the memories that it contained, but lately it felt too big and lonely. Tonight it was just you and the weight of everything that happened.
You should eat something, shower or try to sleep.
Instead, you sank onto the couch and let yourself feel everything you'd been holding back—the fear from Clayton's visit, the heartbreak from Bucky's rejection, the bone-deep exhaustion of loving someone who wouldn't let himself be loved.
Eventually you dragged yourself upstairs, changed into sleep clothes and crawled into bed. The house settled around you with familiar creaks and sighs, and slowly, finally, you drifted into an uneasy sleep.
The smell woke you first. Acrid, wrong, burning.
You sat up in bed, disoriented. The clock read 2:17 AM. For a moment you thought you were dreaming, but then you heard it— the panicked whinnying of horses, the sharp crack of wood giving way. Fire.
You were out of bed and running before conscious though kicked in, flying down the stairs in your sleep clothes, your slippers hitting the porch steps, and then you saw it: the stables lit up against the night sky, flames already consuming the east side of the building, spreading fast through the old dry wood.
The horses.
Copper.
You didn't think or stop to call for help or consider the danger. You just ran.
The heat hit you when you reached the stable doors, but you ripped your shirt up over your nose and mouth and plunged inside anyway. The smoke was thick, black, choking, but you knew this building like you knew your own heartbeat, knew exactly where each stall was, which horses were where.
"I'm coming!" You shouted, voice muffled through the fabric. "I'm coming, it's okay!"
The first stall was Daisy's, the chestnut mare. You fumbled with the latch, hands shaking,a nod shoved the door open. She reared back, eyes rolling white with terror, but you grabbed her halter and dragged her toward the entrance. "Go, go, go!"
She bolted past you into the night, and you were already moving to the next stall. Juniper, the bay mare heavy with foal. She was screaming, hooves striking the stall door, and you got it open just as part of the roof above groaned ominously.
"Out!" You slapped her hindquarters and she ran, coat slick with sweat and far.
The smoke was getting thicker. You couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you, couldn't breathe without coughing, but you kept moving. Duke and Ranger in the double stall, the two yearling colts next, skittish and terrified but moving when you shouted at them.
Your lungs were burning. Each breath felt like inhaling glass, and your eyes streamed tears from the smoke, but you pushed deeper into the stable. Eight horses out. Copper was the only one missing.
His stall was in the back, farthest from the entrance, and the fire was spreading fast. You could feel the heat on your skin, could hear the ceiling beams cracking and shifting. You should leave, get out while you still could, but Copper was your father's horse. Your first horse. The only living reminder of him, and you wouldn't leave him.
"I'm coming, old man!" You choked on smoke, stumbled, caught yourself against a stall door. "I'm coming!"
You found his stall by memory more than sight. The smoke was too thick now, the world reduced to burning shapes. Your fingers found the latch and you yanked it open. "Copper! Come on, baby, we gotta go—"
He was pressed into the back corner, wild-eyed, making sounds you'd never heard from him before. You grabbed his halter, pulled, but he wouldn't move.
"Please," you begged, coughing so hard you nearly doubled over. "Please, Copper, please—"
He finally moved, and you were leading him toward where you thought the entrance was, one hand on his hater and one hand trailing the wall, it the smoke was everywhere now. You couldn't see or breathe properly anymore.
Your foot caught on something and you went down hard, hand ripping free from Copper's halter. You heard him bolt, heard his hooves on the concrete floor, and you tried to get up and call after him, but your lungs wouldn't work. The smoke was too thick and the world was starting to gray at the edges.
Get up, you told yourself. Get up, you have to get out.
But your arms wouldn't hold you. You collapsed face-down on the concrete floor near what you thought was the entrance, and distantly you realized you were going to die here in the stable. On the land you loved.
You couldn't breathe anymore, couldn't move. The smoke filled your lungs and the world went soft and strange, and the last thought before everything went black was of Bucky's face when he told you he wasn't enough for you and walked away.
Then nothing.
Bucky had been awake when the fire started.
He'd been lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the way you'd looked when Clayton had you cornered in that office. The fear in your eyes, the way you seemed so small, so defeated, like all the fight had been burned out of you.
It was all his fault. If he hadn't pushed you away, if he hadn't been so goddamn stubborn about his pride and his plans, maybe you wouldn't have been so vulnerable when that bastard showed up.
He was still stewing in guilt and self-loathing when he smelled the smoke.
For a second, he thought maybe someone was burning trash, but it was 2 AM and the smell was too strong. He got out of bed and looked out his window toward his property.
His heart stopped.
The stables were on fire, visible even from his cabin, and he was running before his brain fully processed what he was seeing. Running toward the fire in just his sleep pants and boots he grabbed by the door, no shirt, no phone, nothing but pure animal panic driving him forward.
The horses were scattered in the yard, wild-eyed and panicked, and his first thought was relief—someone got them out, they were safe—but then he got closer and saw the stables entrance and his world tilted sideways.
You were lying face-down just inside the doorway, smoke billowing around you, and you weren't moving.
"No!" The scream tore out of him, raw and animal. He was at the entrance in seconds, dropping to his knees, hands on your back. "No, no, no, please—"
You weren't breathing. Your skin was gray, lips tinged blue, and there was ash in your hair and you weren't fucking breathing.
"Help!' He screamed it into the night, voice breaking. "Help! Someone call 911! Please help!"
He got his arms under you and lifted, staggering away from the entrance as part of the roof collapsed inward with a shower of sparks. You weren't breathing limp in his arms, a horrible dead weight, and he couldn't—
"Please, don't be dead, please wildfire, please—"
He laid you down on the grass far from the fire, hands shaking so hard he could barely function. Tilted your head back, checking for breathing… nothing. He pressed his fingers to your throat, searching desperately for a pulse.
There. Weak and thready, but there.
"Call 911!" He screamed it again, looking around wildly, but no one was there. Everyone was asleep or too far away to hear. "Somebody please help us!"
He started CPR, hands laced over your sternum, counting compressions like the training he'd taken years ago. Thirty compressions, two breaths. Your lips were so cold under his, and you still weren't breathing on your own, and he was going to lose you before he ever got the chance to tell you, that he'd been an idiot, that his pride meant nothing compared to you.
"Come on, baby, come on," he begged between breaths. "Breathe for me, please breathe. I'm sorry, I love you, please don't leave me, please—"
He continued, thirty compressions, two breaths. Your chest rose and fell when he breathed for you, but then nothing. No response.
"HELP!" His voice was wrecked, tears streaming down his face. "Please, someone help!"
Lights flickered on in the distance. There was a truck approaching. Thank god.
Thirty compressions, two breaths.
"You don't get to do this," he told you, voice breaking. "You don't get to die because I was too fucking stupid to tell you I love you. Come on, wildfire, fight, I know you're strong."
Another thirty compressions, two more breaths.
Your body jerked and you coughed, harsh and wet and he rolled you onto your side as you vomited up smoke and ash. You gasped, a horrible wheezing sound, but you were breathing. Your eyes fluttered but didn't open, and your breathing was labored and wrong, but you were alive.
"That's it, that it baby, breathe." He was sobbing openly now, one hand on your back and one stroking your hair. "You're okay, you're gonna be okay, just keep breathing for me."
Pete's truck roared up, and he was out and running before it fully stopped. "Jesus Christ— what happened?"
"She went in," Bucky choked out. "She went into the fucking fire, got the horses out and she— call 911, she's not breathing right, she needs oxygen."
Pete already had his phone out and was shouting into it about the address and fire and person down.
Sanchez appeared from somewhere, still pulling on his shirt. "Holy shit— is she—"
"She's breathing, but barely." Bucky couldn't stop touching you, couldn't stop checking your pulse like it might disappear if he looked away. "She inhaled too much smoke, she was unconscious—"
You coughed again, weaker this time, and made a sound like you were trying to speak.
"Don't talk," Bucky said. "Don't try to talk, just breathe, help is coming, you're gonna be fine—"
But you weren't fine. Your breathing was getting worse, more labored, and your skin was still that terrible gray color. He gathered you against his chest and pressed his forehead to yours.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so fucking sorry, I love you, I was just too stupid and proud and scared to—" His voice broke completely. "You have to be okay, because I can't do this without you, wildfire, I can't."
Sirens in the distance getting closer. The volunteer fire department, the ambulance. Pete was directing them, shouting coordinates.
You made another small sound, and your eyes opened just a crack. "Bucky," you breathed, barely audible.
"I'm here," he was crying so hard he could barely see. "I'm right here, I've got you, you're gonna be fine."
"Copper—"
"He's fine, all the horses are fine. You got them all out, you crazy, brave, stubborn—" He couldn't finish, just held you tight as the ambulance pulled up, as EMT's swarmed with oxygen and equipment.
They tried to take you from him but he couldn't let go, couldn't release you until one of them put a hand on his shoulder.
"We've got her," she said gently. "Let us help her."
He forced himself to release you, watched as they got an oxygen mask on your face, loaded you onto a gurney. Your eyes found his one more time before they put you in the ambulance, and he saw fear there.
"I'm coming with you," he told the EMTs.
They didn't argue. He climbed into the ambulance and took your hand, and as they pulled away, he pressed his lips to your knuckles and made you a promise.
"You're gonna be okay," he said. "And when you are, I'm gonna tell you every single day for the rest of my life that I love you. Gonna prove to you that I can be the man you deserve, that my pride was bullshit, that yore all that matters. Just— don't leave me before I get the chance. Please, wildfire, please don't leave."
Your fingers twitched in his, the barest squeeze and he held on like you were the only thing keeping him anchored to the earth.
The first thing you became aware of was the beeping. Steady, rhythmic, accompanied by a mechanical hiss that matched the uncomfortable pressure around your face. The second thing was the voice.
"—and I know I don't deserve it, I know I fucked everything up, but if you wake up, I swear to God, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Proving that I can be the man you think I am, even if I don't believe it yet."
That was Bucky's voice, coming from somewhere to your left.
"I'm sorry I pushed you away, I'm sorry I let my pride and my own stubbornness matter more than you, I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention when the fire started. I'm sorry for all of it."
You tried to open your eyes but they felt crusted shut, heavy. Your throat burned like you'd swallowed razor blades, and breathing hurt in a way that suggested your lungs had been through something awful. And then you remembered it all: the fire, the stables, Copper.
You tried to move or speak, but all that came out was a rough sound that might have been a cough.
There was movement immediately, a warm hand closing around yours. "Wildfire? Hey, hey, don't try to talk. You've got an oxygen mask on, your lungs need time to heal. Just— just squeeze my hand if you can hear me."
You squeezed, or at least tried to. Your hand felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"Thank god," his voice broke on the words. "You scared the hell out of me, I've aged like ten years tonight."
You managed to get your eyes open finally, blinking against the harsh hospital lights. Everything was blurry at first, but slowly it resolved: white ceiling tiles, an IV stand, medical equipment beeping away. And Bucky, sitting in a chair pulled up close to your bed, still shirtless under the blanket someone had draped over his shoulders, covered in soot and ash, eyes red-rimmed.
He looked like he'd been crying. Bucky Barnes, who you'd never seen cry, not even when his father died, had been crying over you.
"Hey," he said softly, and his thumb traced circles on the back of your hand. "Welcome back."
You tried to speak, but the oxygen mask muffled everything, and your throat was too raw anyway. You lifted your other hand weakly, gesturing at the mask.
"No way," he caught your hand gently, brought it back down. "Doctor said you need to keep that on for at least another few hours, your oxygen levels were scary low when you came in, you inhaled a lot of smoke."
You made a frustrated sound, and he actually smiled. "I know, I know, wildfire. But just rest, okay? Everything else can wait."
But you didn't want to wait. You'd heard him confessing, apologizing, saying things you'd been desperate to hear for weeks. You needed him to know you'd heard and needed to respond, needed—
The door opened and a nurse came in, checked your vitals with practiced efficiency. "Good to see those eyes open. How's the pain level? Blink once for manageable, twice for severe."
You blinked once. Everything hurt, but it was distant, muted by whatever they had you on.
"Good, the doctor will be in soon to check on you." She adjusted something on your IV. "You're very lucky, young lady. Another minute or two in that smoke and we'd be having a very different conversation." Her eyes cut to Bucky. "And you should probably get checked out too. That cough doesn't sound good."
"I'm fine," Bucky said automatically.
"You performed CPR for several minutes and you've been breathing smoke residue all night, at least let me listen to yous lungs."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but the nurse had already pulled out her stethoscope with a look that said she wasn't asking. While she checked him over—pronounced him "borderline but not critical"— you watched him. Catalogued the soot in his hair, the redness along his eyes, the exhaustion in his body… He'd stayed all night.
After the nurse left, silence fell between you. Bucky was still holding your hand, his thumb still stroking your knuckles, but he was looking down at your joined hands like he was afraid to meet your eyes.
"The horses are all okay," he said finally. "Pete's got them in the training paddock and the north pasture. Copper's fine—spooked but fine. You got every single one out before you…" He swallowed hard. "Before you collapsed."
You squeezed his hand.
"The stable's gone, total loss. But Sanchez thinks the fire was deliberately set, he found evidence of accelerant near the east wall. The sheriff's already investigating, smart money's o Sheridan."
That should have made you angry, should've sparked fear or rage, but you just felt tired. You'd deal with Clayton later. Right now, all you cared about was the man sitting beside your bed, still covered in ash from pulling you out of the fire.
You tugged weakly at the oxygen mask, and this time Bucky didn't stop you, just helped you pull it down to rest under your chin.
"Wildfire—"
"Did you mean it?" Your voice came out as a rasp, barely audible, your throat shredded but you needed to know. "What you said earlier, did you mean it?"
His eyes finally met yours, and they were so raw it hurt to look at. "Every word, I love you. I've been in love with you for so long I can't remember what it felt like not to love you. And I'm sorry I let my pride and y stupid hang-ups about money and worth keep me from saying it. I'm sorry when I pushed you away when all you wanted was—"
"Bucky," you interrupted him, voice still rough. "I'm not gonna die."
He blinked. "What?"
"I'm not gonna die," you repeated. "So you can stop with the dramatic deathbed confessions."
For a second he just stared at you, then incredibly, he laughed. "You almost died and you're making jokes?"
"Someone has to lighten the mood." You tried to smile but your face felt stiff. "You look like shit, by the way."
"Yeah, well." He scrubbed a hand over his face, smearing the soot. "Watching the woman you love nearly die in a fire will do that to you."
The woman you love. He'd said it again, and this time the words settled in your chest like something warm and permanent.
"I heard you," you said quietly. "In the ambulance, and when I first woke up, I heard you."
His hand tightened on yours. "Then you heard me say I'm sorry, that I was an idiot, and that I'm going to spend every day proving I can be man you—"
"You already are." You cut him off. "You've always been, that was never the problem."
"Then what was?"
"You not believing it." You coughed, wincing at the pain in your chest. "You letting your father's expectations and your own pride convince you that you weren't enough… but you were always enough, Bucky, you were always more than enough."
He was quiet for a moment, just looking at you with those blue eyes full of things he'd never let himself say out loud.
"I thought I needed to build something first," he said finally. "Thought I needed to have land, money, something concrete to offer you, something that would make me your equal instead of just… the foreman who got lucky."
"I never wanted an equal. I don't want a business partner or a merger, or someone who can match my net worth. I just want you, the guy who checks on Copper because he knows the horse matters to me. The guy who fixes problems before I know they exist, the guy who punched Sheridan for cornering me and then ran into a burning building to save me even though—" Your voice cracked. "Even though I'd already gotten myself out."
"Barely," he said roughly. "You barely got yourself out, and when I found you lying there not breathing, I—" He stopped, jaw working. "I couldn't breathe either, felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. And all I could think was that I'd wasted so much time, weeks we could have had together because I was too proud to accept that maybe love doesn't care about bank balances and property."
You brought your other hand up to cup his face, felt the scrape of stubble and the warmth of his skin. "Life's too short."
"Yeah, it is." He said leaning into your touch.
"I was at Pete and Maria's house yesterday before the fire," you ran your thumb along his cheekbone. "Watched them together, the way they move around each other, the easy affection, how simply it all looked… and I just wanted that with you so badly it hurt. Just simple love, coming home to each other, building a life together without all the weight and the expectations and the fear."
"I want that too," he said quietly. "But I don't know if I know how to do simple. Don't know if I can turn off the voice in my head that says I should be providing more."
"Then we'll figure it out together." You held his gaze. "I'm not asking you to change overnight. I'm not asking you to suddenly be okay with everything you're not okay with, but I need you to try. Need you to let me in instead of pushing me away when it gets hard."
His eyes were bright again. "What if I fuck it up?"
"You will," you smiled slightly. "And I'll fuck it up too. We'll fight and disagree and drive each other crazy, but we'll do it together."
He was quiet, and you could see him wrestling with it—the pride and the fear, but also hope, all tangled together in a know he'd spent his whole life tying.
"I don't have much," he said finally. "Don't have some grand plan, damn, I don't even have a shirt on right now, but I love you, wildfire. I love you so much it terrifies me. And if you're willing to take a chance on a stubborn idiot who almost lost you because he couldn't get out of his own way—"
"I'd give it all up," you interrupted. "The ranch, the money, the legacy… all of it. If it meant I could have something like what Pete and Maria have, If it meant I could have you."
His breath caught. "You don't mean that."
"I do," you held his eyes, let him see the truth "I love the ranch, the work, the land… but I would walk away from all of it tomorrow if it meant having a simple life with you. A small place, horses we actually have time to ride, mornings where we drink coffee together. I'd trade the empire for the everyday, Bucky, every single time."
"Don't say things like that, wildfire." He pressed is forehead to yours, careful with the oxygen tubes and the IV lines.
"Why not?"
"Because it makes me want to take you up on it, makes me want to say fuck the ranch and the town and everyone's expectations and let's just run away together."
"Maybe we should," you said.
He pulled back to look at you. "You're delirious from smoke inhalation."
"I'm serious," and you were. "Not today, or tomorrow, but maybe eventually."
"You'd really leave?" He searched your face. "You'd really walk away from everything you've built."
"For us?" You smiled. "In a heartbeat."
He kissed you then, gentle and careful with your injuries, tasting like smoke and salt and promise. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet again.
"I don't deserve you."
"Probably not," you agreed and he huffed a laugh. "But you love me anyway."
"I do," he said it like a vow. "God help me, I do."
"Then that's enough," you laced your fingers through his. "We'll figure out the rest, but right now, can we just… be?"
"Be what?"
"Together." You squeezed his hand. "Just two people who love each other… just us."
He settled back into the chair, brought your joined hands up to press a kiss to your knuckles. "Yeah, wildfire. We can do that."
You drifted off to sleep with his hand in yours and his voice soft in the darkness, telling you about how Copper had tried to break back into the paddock, about how Pete was already talking to contractors about rebuilding the stable, about how the sun was going to rise soon, and when it did, everything would look better.
One year later
You woke up to the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window and the smell of coffee drifting up from downstairs. For a moment, you just lay there, hand drifting to your still-flat stomach, the secret sitting warm in your chest.
You've known for three weeks, ever since you'd taken the test in the bathroom of the main house while Bucky was out checking the irrigation system. You'd been waiting for the right moment to tell him, something that matched the enormity of it.
You are going to be a father.
The other side of the bed was rumpled and empty, Bucky's watch still on the nightstand beside a book about investment strategies he's been reading. Your husband had surprised you over the past year while you've been scaling back the ranch operations, he'd been building something of his own. Nothing that took him away from you, nothing that required sacrifice or absence, but careful investments in stocks, a small stake in a friend's agricultural tech startup, some rental properties two counties over that he managed remotely.
"Not trying to match you," he said when he first told you about it, almost shy. "Just building something for us, for the future."
And now there was a very specific future growing inside you.
You pulled on one of Bucky's old flannel shirts, over your sleep clothes and padded downstairs barefoot. He was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter in jeans and nothing else, two mugs of coffee already poured.
Well, one mug of coffee… the other was herbal tea.
Your heart stuttered. Had he noticed? You've been so careful, switching to decaf when he wasn't looking, making excuses about wanting to cut back on caffeine.
"Morning, wildfire." He turned and smiled, and you searched his face for signs that he knew. But he just looked like himself—happy, relaxed, the permanent tension he used to carry finally gone from his shoulders.
"Morning, husband." You crossed to him, let him pull you in for a kiss that tasted like coffee and mint toothpaste. "You made me tea?"
"Figured you might want something different." He handed you the mug."You've been drinking less coffee lately, thought maybe you were getting tired of it."
Not suspicious, then. Just Bucky taking care of you the way he always did, paying attention to the small details.
"Thank you," you took a sip. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep." His hands settled on your hips. "Kept thinking about that trail ride you promised me."
"Did I promise you a trail ride?"
"You definitely did," he kissed your temple. "Said something about finally having time to actually ride horses instead of just breeding and training them."
He wasn't wrong. In the year since the fire, things had changed. You hired two additional hands, promoted Pete to co-manager, and started actually delegating tasks. The ranch still ran beautifully, but you and Bucky had something you'd never had before: time.
And soon, you'd need that time for something else entirely.
Your hand drifted to your stomach before you could stop it, and you caught yourself, turning the gesture into smoothing down the shirt. But your mind was already spinning—would you still be able to ride in a few months? Would Bucky insist you stop? Would he be overprotective, or excited or scared or—
"Wildfire?" Bucky's voice pulled you back. "You okay? You look a little pale."
"I'm fine," you smiled, probably too brightly. "I'm just hungry, should eat something before we ride."
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he just nodded. "I'll make breakfast, you sit."
You perched on one of the kitchen stools and watched him move around the kitchen with easy familiarity. This was your favorite part of the new life you'd built, mornings like this, just the two of you before the day really started.
Soon there would be three of you, and the thought made your chest tight with joy and terror in equal measure.
"Actually," you said as he cracked eggs into a pan, "what if we skip the trail ride this morning? We could go this afternoon instead, make a whole thing of it… pack a picnic, ride out to the creek, spend a few hours just existing."
He glanced over his shoulder a bit surprised. "Yeah? You want to play hooky from ranch work on a Tuesday?"
"We're the bosses, we're allowed." You wrapped both hands around your mug. "Besides, when was the last time we just took an afternoon for ourselves?"
"Good point," he played the eggs, added toast and brought it over to you. "We can do the morning checks, make sure everything's running smooth, then disappear for a few hours."
"Perfect."
The world came out soft, full of meaning he didn't quite catch yet, but he would. This afternoon, by the creek, you'd tell him about the baby, about your future, about how everything was about to change in the best possible way.
You just had to make it through the morning without giving it away.
By noon, you'd packed a basket with sandwiches, fruit, and the fancy cheese Bucky loved from the market in town. You'd also packed ginger cookies for the nausea that had been creeping in the past week, and a bottle of sparkling cider that you hoped would work for a toast.
Bucky was tacking up Duke and Ranger, and you were trying to calm your racing heart. You've told people difficult things before, you've fired employees, negotiated contracts, stood up to your father when he was being stubborn, but this felt bigger than all of that.
"Ready?" Bucky appeared in the tack room doorway, looking unfairly handsome in his worn jeans and work shirt, hair pushed back from his face.
"Ready," you grabbed the basket and let him help you mount Ranger.
You rode out in comfortable silence, taking the familiar trail north toward the creek. The autumn day was perfect—cool but not cold, the leaves just starting to turn gold and red. When you reached the creek, Bucky dismounted first and came to help you down, hands lingering at your waist a moment longer than necessary.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked. "You've seemed… I don't know, different today. Nervous, maybe?"
Damn his observant nature. "I'm fine, just happy."
"Yeah?" He smiled, some of the concern easing. "Me too."
You spread out the blanket you'd fought while Bucky loosened the horses' girths and let them graze nearby. The creek burbled softly, and the sun filtered through the trees in dappled patterns, and everything felt almost too perfect.
"This was a good idea," Bucky said settling beside you on the blanket. "We should do this more often, just disappear for a few hours."
"We should," you busied yourself unpacking the basket, hands shaking slightly. "Especially now that you've got your investments working for you, Pete can handle more of the daily operations."
"Speaking of which," he took the sandwich you handed him. "I wanted to talk about that. Remember the tech startup I invested in? They're doing really well, better than projected. My stake has almost doubled in value, and—" He paused, looking almost shy. "I've been thinking about diversifying more, maybe some agriculture projects or another rental property, something that can generate passive income."
"That's amazing, Bucky." And it was. You'd watched him transform over the past year from someone who measured his worth in sweat equity to someone who understood there were other ways to build security.
"Yeah, well." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know I used to be weird about money, but this feels different. Feels like I'm building something that's ours without sacrificing time with you. Without having to choose between being present and being a provider."
"You've always been a provider." You set down your untouched sandwich. "But I'm proud of you for finding a way to do it that works for you."
"I had a good teacher," he kissed your temple. "You taught me that there's ore than one way to build a life together."
This was it. This was the moment. Your heart was pounding so hard you wee sure he could hear it.
"Speaking of building a life together," you started, voice shaking slightly. "There's something I need to tell you."
He set down his sandwich, his attention immediately focused on you. "What's wrong? Are you sick? Is it the ranch? Is—"
"Nothing's wrong." You took his hand, pressed it against your still-flat stomach. "Everything's right, actually. Everything is… perfect."
He froze and you watched understanding dawn slowly: the tea instead of coffee, the fact that you'd been tired lately, the way you'd been careful about lifting heavy things. All the small signs he'd noticed but hadn't put together.
"Wildfire," he breathed. "Are you—"
"I'm pregnant." The words came out in a rush, nervous and excited all at once. "About six weeks. I found out three weeks ago and I've been trying to find the right moment to tell you and I thought here, by the creek, it felt—"
He cut you off with a kiss, so deep and full of joy so pure it made your chest ache. When he used back, his eyes were bright with tears.
"You're pregnant," he said, like he was testing the words. "We are having a baby."
"We're having a baby," you were crying now too, laughing through the tears. "I know we didn't plan this, we haven't even talked about kids yet, but I'm so happy, I'm so—"
"Happy," he finished for you, his hands coming up to frame your face. "God, I'm so happy I can't even— I don't have words, I don't know what else to say except I love you and this is everything."
He pulled you into his arms, held you tight against his chest, and you could feel him shaking.
"Holy shit, I'm going to be a dad" he whispered into your hair.
"You're gonna be a great dad," you pulled back to look at him.
"I know, thanks to you. And this baby is gonna have everything they need, not because of money or any of that shit I used to obsess over, but because we'll be their parents."
"Yeah," you covered his hand with yours. "Yeah, they will."
"How are you feeling? Are you sick? Do you need to see a doctor? Should you even be riding? Jesus, should I have let you get on a horse—"
"Bucky," you laughed, cutting off his spiral. "I'm fine, I saw the doctor two weeks ago, everything looks good. I can ride for another few months as long as I'm careful. The morning sickness is mild, just some nausea, nothing terrible. I'm healthy, baby's healthy, everything's perfect."
"Everything's perfect," he repeated, and then his eyes went wide again. "Wait, does anyone else know? Pete? Maria? Have you been keeping this secret by yourself."
"Just me," you squeezed his hand. "I wanted you to be the first to know, wanted it to be just us, just this moment."
"Best moment of my life," he kissed you again, soft and sweet. "Well, second best, first was marrying you."
"Third best was punching Sheridan's face."
He laughed, loud and bright, and the sound of it made your heart soar. This was the man you'd fallen in love with, the one who could still laugh, who could let go of his pride and just be happy, just be present in the moment.
"We should celebrate." He reached for the basket, pulled out the sparkling cider you'd packed. "Did you plan this?"
"I hoped," you watched him pour two glasses. "Hoped you'd be happy, and this would be the right way to tell you."
"It's perfect." He handed you a glass, raised his own. "To our future."
You clinked glasses, sipped the sweet fizz, and then he was kissing you again, laying you back on the blanket with careful hands.
You laid there together as the afternoon sun shifted through the trees, talking about names and nursery colors and whether you'd find out the gender or be surprised. About how the ranch would need some adjustments, but nothing you couldn't handle. About how Pete and Maria would be thrilled, how the crew would rally around you, how this baby would grow up surrounded by love.
About the future you were building, not just the two of you anymore, but three.
He placed his hand over your stomach, and you covered it with yours, and for a long moment, you just sat there together, listening to the creek and the horses and the perfect silence of a life finally fully lived.
When you finally rode back, the ranch was settling into evening—crew heading home, lights coming on in the main house, the familiar rhythm of end of the day routines. But everything looked different now, felt different.
Because you weren't just coming home to the ranch you ran together. You were coming home to the place where you'd raise your child, whey you would see their first steps, teach how to ride their first horse, learn what it meant to work hard and love harder. Where they'd grow p knowing their parents chose each other every day and created a life worth living.
Bucky helped you dismount, hands lingering in your waist, his eyes soft with wonder and love and barely contained joy.
"Ready to tell everyone?" You asked.
"Ready," he laced his fingers through yours. "Let's go tell our family."
I'm convinced that Bucky Barnes in a soft button-down shirt and jeans is the meaning of LIFE. Thank you for writing this; it's such a fun AU! And you are a wonderful writer!
Fair warning that there is a frankly obscene amount of live-reaction rambling below the cut lol
There it is again. That nickname. The way he says it—affectionate and just a little bit awed, like you're something bright and untamed and worth admiring from a careful distance.
Like this paragraph?? So beautiful! So much yearning with the perfect hint of angst - he can't get too close or he'll get burned, but he also can't look away. AAAaah!
And oh my gosh, the build-up of tension in that scene where they're in the barn at night after visiting town!! I could feel the anticipation in my veins.
And the smut?!? I understand his nickname for reader now, because holy hell I am ON FIRE 🔥🔥🔥 You have such a way with words and I love their dynamic so much. Reader in charge, but in a way where you can tell she's just so caught up in the moment and being with Bucky. And him willing and wanting to give her whatever she needs. The way it mirrors their professional relationship!! I am gnawing on the bars of my enclosure 😬🫠😍
"Catching my breath" - YOU LIAR. You have EMOTIONS and FEELINGS and a lot of them involve being completely SMITTEN. Admit it!!!
You watch him dress—jeans first, then his shirt, fingers working the buttons with a focus that seems excessive for such a simple task. He doesn't glance at you once.
I am literally eating up all this tension and drama 😋😋 And it's delicious.
But oh, it hurts! Ow, owie, ouch, my heart 💔 The awkward silences, and them not being able to talk about what they really mean to each other lowkey tore me apart. And then Bucky not even believing it when reader tries to tell him *highkey* tore me apart. How can I reach through the screen and give this man even the tiniest drop of self worth? 😭😭
I also love love loved the scenes with Copper the horse! Him being kind of a stand-in for reader's father was so sweet. All the history between Copper and reader and Bucky, and the nostalgia wrapped around it. I'm *totally not* crying, I promise 🤞
Clayton Sheridan you rascal!! But also I'm rubbing my greasy little hands together because I love it when a rival shows up and forces the will-they-won't-they love interests to get together for real!! Such a classic trope, and for good reason. It hits every time.
Like Bucky, PLEASEEEEE - you would not still be working at this ranch with so much tension between you and your boss if you weren't madly in love and wanting desperately to make her yours and thinking maybe just maybe there's hope. WE ALL KNOW THIS!! ALL OF US EXCEPT YOU 😭😭😭
"But I can't, can I? Can't defend you publicly without everyone knowing exactly what we are to each other. Can't step in without proving every goddamn thing they're saying about us. Can't stand next to you in town and tell assholes like Clayton Sheridan that you're mine."
OH MY GOD THE DRAMA. I AM SALIVATING. I'm so sorry I'm quoting every other line of this fic - they're all just so good ❤️ The way you write relationships is so captivating. All the dialogue is incredible; I'm on the edge of my seat with my heart in my throat!
And the way you slapped me across the face with him not being able to even listen to her say the words "i love you"?! Chills, I tell you!!
I am ripping my hair out for real over how stubborn this man is. I need to shake some sense into him right now, or else I'm gonna lose it 😂 But also, the way you wrote his thoughts on everything makes total sense, and it just makes me want to shake him even harder. Like sir, I understand where you're coming from and why you feel like you need to improve and that letting yourself be in this relationship now would feel be letting go of your self-respect, but also!! Consider that none of that shit even matters and that love conquers all. Have you ever thought of THAT? 😂😭 BUCKY COME HOME THE COWS MISS YOU
"You're going to choose pride over love, over happiness, over us, because you can't accept that maybe your father's way isn't the only way."
👏👏👏 Tell him, girlfriend!! Reader, my emotionally mature queen!!
"It's not about what you need," he said quietly. "It's about what I need. And I need to be able to respect myself when I look in the mirror, which I can't do right now."
Bucky nooooooooo 😭😭 Hissing at him, hissing at him. Get your ass back in that barn!!
I'm sweating rn; I have no clue how these two are gonna overcome all of this, but I'm clinging to that happy ending tag in the warnings list like it's a lifeboat. Or maybe the reins of a horse that's about to trample me lmao 🐎🤠
I can say with complete confidence that I hate Clayton Sheridan's guts and would spit in his face if I saw him on the street.
Had to physically stop myself from squealing when Bucky showed up for the office confrontation scene, because my spouse is sitting next to me and I do not have time to explain myself - holy cow, I need to know what happensssss 😬😬😬
Aaaaaand ngl, Bucky beating Sheridan up is kind of incredibly hot. "You don't get to scare her and make her feel small." UGH I LOVE HIM. Like seriously, I really appreciate that despite the major theme of this fic being Bucky feeling inadequate, he never tries to diminish reader's success or force her to give up anything so that he can feel the way he wants to feel. He just wants to be her equal from his own merit. He truly admires her and only sees her being "better than" him as a problem because he wants to be able to meaningfully provide for her, not because he thinks she shouldn't be where she is.
Anyway, back to gooning - how dare Pete and Sanchez show up right when we were about to make passionate, vulnerable love on the floor of the barn? 😂 Jk, jk ...unless...
Except actually I'm not mad at all, because that conversation with Maria was SO SWEET! Not me getting all emotional over Maria and Pete being couple goals 😭❤️
CLAYTON SHERIDAN YOU CRIMINAL?!! 😡 But also, how thematic, with the fire motif wrapping back around to be the final push to bring Bucky and reader together. I was reading this whole scene with a hand to my mouth. Oh my god, oh my goddddd 😭😭😭 Happy ending tag, happy ending tag, happy ending tag...
AAAAAH YESS! HAPPY ENDING TAG CAME THROUGH!!! I am such an enormous sucker for a pregnancy reveal ending. I can't help it; its so cute and wholesome and I love it ❤️❤️❤️ And you know what else is cute and wholesome? Bucky making reader tea, just because he'd noticed she was drinking less coffee. Ugh, he's such a sweetheart. End of the fic, and I'm still SO sappy about how he takes care of her. I will never get over this.
I am so very sorry this comment got so wildly out of control. But I loved this fic so much - thank you for all the work you put into writing it, and thank you for sharing it with us. My heart is so full after reading this 🥰
my dear @reading-with-rats: I always come back to read your reblog, I love love love when people ramble about fics, thank you so much for giving me that joyꨄ︎
@w1nter-fairy oh my goodness, thank YOU so much for writing this!! I still think of this fic constantly. Like at least one a week, it will pop into my head and I'll think about how much fun I had reading it! I'm glad my rambling has brought you joy, and hope that your pillow is always cold as well 🩷🩷
If you're anything like me, you have a TBR twelve miles long and just never can find a chance to get back to those fics you swore you were going to read months ago.
Now is the time!
But, oh! Where to start? Oldest to newest? Shortest to longest? Have no fear, a BINGO is here!
Let's dedicate this summer to shortening that TBR just a little, and spread some dedicated love while we're at it!
Rules are simple:
You have from June until August to complete a bingo (or go for a blackout!)
You must leave a comment on every story that you read, but you can do so in your favorite way! Keyboard smash, emojis, listing you favorite parts - whatever works for you!
You MUST reblog the story from the source. Reading on A03? That's okay - just share the link here!
If you start a fic and realize it's not your jam, leave quietly. Don't like, don't read. We're here to promote positivity.
At the end of August, share your bingo card and all the amazing fics you devoured!
Let's show our fandom writers a bit of love this summer!
୨୧ — Valko was sprawled on his stomach, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, hair an absolute disaster, ears twitching occasionally at sounds only he could hear. His tail had escaped the covers sometime in the night and lay flopped over your legs like a furry anchor.
It wagged once. Twice. Even in sleep, some part of him always knew you were there.
You'd been awake for an hour already- crept out at an ungodly time to execute your master plan, then slipped back in to wait. The apartment smelled like vanilla and sugar and slightly burnt frosting (you'd scraped off the evidence), and the living room was housing a mountain of wrapped presents you'd been secretly hoarding for weeks.
His nose twitched.
There it is.
You watched his brow furrow, still mostly asleep, processing the unusual scent data. His tail started wagging faster. Then his ears perked up- one, then the other, swiveling toward the bedroom door like little radar dishes.
“Mmrph” A grumble. His arm reached out blindly, patting the mattress until he found your thigh and latched on, “Why's it smell like... cake?”
“Good morning to you too.”
One golden eye cracked open. Then the other. He squinted at you suspiciously, clearly not trusting his own senses this early, “‘S not my birthday.”
“It literally is.”
He buried his face back into the pillow, “Birthdays are for people who age. I refuse. I'm eternal.”
You snorted and scratched behind one ear. His whole body went boneless, a low rumble building in his chest.
Cheater, he thought hazily. Using the ears against me.
“Made you a cake,” you said in the sweetest fucking voice.
His head lifted. Both ears now at full attention, pointed directly at you with laser focus.
“…What kind?”
“Chocolate. Three layers. Homemade buttercream… There may also be irresponsible amounts of presents. That leather jacket you've been staring at for six months? Those limited edition headphones that sold out in three minutes?" You grinned. "Oh, and I contacted that artist you like for a custom commission- it won't be ready for weeks so you're getting an IOU with a badly drawn wolf on it. Don't judge my art skills."
His tail was going insane now- hard enough to shake the bed. But his face was doing that thing where he tried to look cool and unaffected and was failing spectacularly.
She remembered, he thought, something warm and overwhelming expanding in his chest. Every stupid little thing I mentioned once. She was listening. She planned this. For me.
You didn't get to finish the sentence.
Valko moved fast and suddenly you were pinned beneath him, his weight pressing you into the mattress, his face inches from yours.
“You,” he said roughly, “are so annoying.”
“Rude. I made you cake-“
“The most annoying person I've ever met.” He kissed your forehead. “Insufferable even.” Your nose. “Absolutely unbearable.” The corner of your mouth.
You cupped his face in both hands.
“Happy birthday, my little wolfie.”
He made a small, undignified sound. His tail drooped. His ears flattened.
And then he buried his face in your neck, arms wrapping around you tight enough to squeeze the air from your lungs, and just... stayed there. Breathing you in.
You held him tighter, scratching at the base of his ears as his whole body melted against yours.
His tail started wagging again- slower, softer.
Best day, he thought. Best person. Gonna marry her.
“So,” you finally said, breaking the silence, “wanna see your presents? Orrrr is it still too early?”
He bit your shoulder. Not hard. Just enough to make you yelp.
“Five more minutes.” He lifted his head, flashing that sharp grin- still slightly watery but getting cockier, “Then presents. Then cake. Then I'm gonna show you exactly how grateful I am. Repeatedly.”
“...It's eight AM.”
“And? I've got all day. You gave me three layers. That's at least three rounds.”
“That math doesn't-“
He dropped back down, pressing a kiss to your pulse point, “My birthday. My math.”
Valko's tail wagging in his sleep while he's next to you - OH MY GOD 😭😭🥹 I'm not even five seconds into this fic, and I'm already squealing. He's so loverboy 🩷
Reader's gifts for him were so sweet and thoughtful too🥹 And oh my goshhhhh that hug! We are all absolutely never letting go of him, and you captured the emotion of that perfectly.
I kept thinking that moment between them couldn't get any sweeter, and then it DID and it just kept going and aaaagh!! I loved this fic. Exactly the pick-me-up we all need 🩷
The last line made me giggle 🤭 You've heard of girl math - now get ready for wolf math 🐺
Everything is feeling a little heavy, but that's alright because Valko is heavier.
ABOUT | 2500 words. fluff. pre-relationship. first kiss. UST. self indulgent. emotional hurt/comfort.
"Whatcha watching?"
Your body jerks in surprise, sending your phone tumbling to the floor as your hands come up to muffle the high-pitched yelp startled out of you.
The sound of the cat compilation video echoing through the living room undermines the fierceness of your glare when you turn to face your intruder. That teasing rumble all too close – and all too familiar – to belong to anyone else but-
"Valko," you chide, wishing you could blame the jumpscare when your stomach dips at the sight of his windblown hair and innocent expression so close to yours.
Though letting himself into your apartment like this was nothing new, had become a part of your routine for months at this point, if you're honest, there was something that had been feeling different about Valko's visits to you lately. Less vexing and more… comforting.
An increased awareness of him, maybe? The sound of his voice. His size. The way his laugh and personality managed to fill the room more than his bulky body. Of the way he always tripped over your living room rug or tried to sneak a rub of his scent into every pillow. Of the way he stood so close when he spoke to you, capturing you in the sweet honey of his eyes.
It was something warm that pulsed in your chest, something intimate that had started to hook your gaze to his mouth and magnetize your palms to his skin even today, when you're at your lowest.
His right ear twitches at the sound of his name as he grabs your phone from the floor, a crease of distaste scrunching his nose when he clicks on the screen to stop the noise and tsks, "Looks like my 'dogs are better than cats' speech needs some work."
"Maybe I'll be more in the mood to hear you out–" you take your phone back and set it on the table with a huff, "–when my 'please use the damn front door' speech finally penetrates that thick skull of yours."
A crooked grin scrawls over his face. The pointed tips of his incisors reflecting the dim light of the small lamp you'd flicked on purely to save you from feeling like a complete gremlin while you moped this evening.
"Gonna tell you the same thing I tell Ma every time she says that." He unfurls from the crouching position he'd been in and drops his weight beside you, making your normally sizeable loveseat suddenly feel cramped. "Processing info is for the ears, not the skull."
Resting your cheek in your palm, you narrow your eyes at him with a considering hum.
"What?" Your uninvited houseguest turns to face you, eliciting a concerning creak from the loveseat as his knee comes up to rest on the cushion and his arm drapes over the back. An oversized paw just shy of brushing your shoulder. "What d'you mean, 'hm?'"
"Trespasser, jumpscaring people, terrible manners, and a smart ass to your mother?" You note each transgression by holding up a finger. "No wonder you're always prowling around Linkon alone."
"Hey, hey! Woah, woah, hold on." His hand darts forward, covering yours like it'll hide the evidence. "No– I mean– sure I may be some of those things, but trust me," he puts one of your fingers down and leans forward, another sad groan coming from below the cushion as he rests his elbow on his knee. "I wouldn't be sitting here, or hanging out with you – or breathing – if I were a smart ass to my mother."
Despite yourself, you feel the corner of your lip twitch, the closest you’ve come to a smile all day.
It surprises you how naturally it comes, how much lighter you feel, as you take in his easy grin, his warm palms, his artless gaze. Makes you worry that you're becoming used to this feeling, to something you might be misreading.
"Why?"
"Well, she has this really brutal way of grabbing you by the ear and–"
"No–" the word dissolves on a giggle that has both his ears twitching and an expression you can't quite interpret crossing his face. "I mean, why are you sitting here? Hanging out with me?"
"Oh. I kind of–" He stops, a hint of pink creeping onto his cheeks as he looks down at your still-linked hands. "I mean, I sorta felt like something was… off. With you." You're suddenly glad for the loss of his gaze as he starts to fiddle with your fingers, pressing the pads of his fingers to the tops of your nails as if to test their sharpness. "It's like a.. tug?"
Your mind races with panic as you realize just how much your attraction to him has been tugging at you over his last few visits. "Are you saying that with this– this bond or whatever, you can feel my emotions?"
"Nah, it's not like that." You hope he can't see the stark relief in your gaze when his eyes meet yours again, letting go of your hand to press a palm to the center of his chest. "It's not emotions that call me, it's, well… you. Calling me, that is. Needing me. Or, pulling at me, more like."
Your brows arc upward. "Like a leash?"
His head shoots back dramatically, paired with a groan that sounds almost as distressed as the loveseat still suffering under his weight. "Mercy, little hellion. Let a man keep at least a little dignity." He shakes his head with a bark of self-deprecating laughter. "But yeah. You've got me leashed up good. Happy?"
His question is gentle but pointed, hopeful. His frame still leaning over you, an umbrella shielding you from the sadness and negativity that have been pelting you all day.
Your chest warms at the sight, making it all the harder to respond with a sad smile and the shake of your head as the all the reasons you're not happy come flooding back.
"Alright," he says easily, unphased and unrelenting. A considering look enters his eyes. "Just means I've gotta take more drastic measures here."
In a blur of movements you barely have time to process, he turns his back to you, kicks off his boots – an oddly polite gesture that has you reconsidering just how serious he was about that leash comment – and flops backward. The broad span of his shoulders forces your bent knees down to accommodate the weight of his head as it nestles into your thighs.
"V-Valko! What are you doing?" you stutter, heartbeat galloping as the scent of amber and pine and him wash over you. His ear twitches as he takes your awkwardly hovering hands, placing one behind the wolf ear on his right and the other behind the human ear on his left.
"There," he says with a wiggle of his shoulders, like your thighs are a pillow he's nestling into.
When he notices your hands haven't budged, he gives you an expectant look, nudging the sides of his head into your palms until your lips twitch and your fingers start to move.
"This is your drastic measure?"
He hums in response, eyelashes fluttering as your nails scrape gently over a rose-coloured mix of silky hair and plush fur.
"And this is supposed to…" The question trails off but your hands continue.
He shrugs, the heat of his shoulders anchoring your thighs as one of his arms sneaks around your waist.
"I dunno, distract you? Annoy you, comfort you, take your pick." His eyes lock onto yours, sincere, earnest. "Whatever you need."
The combination of his touch and his words act like a stick of dynamite, blasting through the boulder of tension and worry that's been sitting on your chest all day.
You take a deep breath as he sighs in what you instinctually know is relief. And for the first time since he's mentioned this "bond" of yours, you think, maybe this thing goes both ways.
The thought that you might be starting to figure him out as well as he always seems to understand you brings a small smile to your face.
His lips mirror yours. "That's what I like to see," he says, voice low.
You roll your eyes and flick his ear to disguise the way your stomach flips when the praise rumbles through your thighs, flexing them to jostle him and joke, "What? Me being suffocated?"
His finger comes up to tap the end of your nose with a self-assured grin. "Stop pretending you dont like it, I saw that weighted blanket on your bed." You're not sure if it's you or the loveseat that squeaks when he tugs you into his face and nuzzles into your stomach. "Wanna tell me what's got you down?"
There's something about Valko's bluntness, about his willingness to tackle everything head-on, that catches you more off-guard than his casual and abundant displays of affection ever do. It's straightforward, without artifice. And though there's no hesitation in his request, there's somehow no pressure in it either. As if no response you give him could ever result in offense or resentment or awkwardness, making it feel like the most natural thing in the world to tell the unvarnished truth.
So you do.
"It's just… everything? I don't know, it's all piling up. Like, there's work, lack of sleep, friends I'm not keeping up with, not to mention the general state of the world."
You pause, finding his attentive gaze already on you when you look down to see if you're making any sense. He nods encouragingly, the ears on his head twitching in unison like an attentive audience.
"So I guess I've just been thinking about it all and it feels a little overwhelming. Right here." You press a hand to your chest. "And… heavy, I guess. Like–" You raise a pointed brow. "Like getting crushed by a giant mutt on my own sofa."
His jaw drops in dramatic affront. “You– did you just-” He snaps into a sitting position, your loveseat groaning in despair before he points a finger at himself, as if there could be anyone else you were talking about. “Mutt?! Oh you just crossed a line, you hellion.”
Any response you might’ve had morphs into a high-pitched squeal as you’re scooped up by a muscular arm and thrown over his shoulder.
“Valko! What are you doing? Put me down,” you manage through giggles and laughter as he hauls you to the bedroom with what sounds like a muttered 'I’ll show you a giant mutt.'
You land on the mattress with a breathless oomph, the stray laughs bubbling from your throat feeling foreign but welcome as Valko descends over your figure in an army crawl, finally stopping when you're nose to nose.
Your chests meet on each breath as he reaches up to brush hair from your face. His eyes seem more yellow than amber in the dim light, like marigolds, and you can't think of anything more fitting for the resilient, protective man above you.
"Hi," you breathe, grinning wide.
"Hello, gorgeous," he murmurs, darting a glance at your lips that has your heartbeat pounding against your ribs.
The shadow of his tail swishes behind him as he lowers his weight onto you, fitting his body over yours in a way that anchors and comforts you rather than stifles you.
"Better?" He mumbles into your neck, the heat of his breath awakening gooseflesh over your collarbones. "You know, now that you've made my pedigree your punching bag?"
"Yeah, actually," you realize with a giggle, fingers brushing over the soft bristles of his undercut. "I do."
You haven't laughed this much in a while. In fact, despite being pinned under the heaviest man you know, you haven't felt this light for a few weeks now, you think, which was… the last time he visited you. You close your eyes briefly, mourning the loss of your sanity at the realization that he was right earlier. You had needed him.
"Then listen to me real quick." Your hand slips to his jaw when he raises his head, his smile smaller, his eyes intent. "Next time you feel overwhelmed, or if it's all feeling like too much, you don't have to isolate yourself, or doomscroll, or muscle through it alone. I know I look like I'm all brains but I can help carry things. So just call me, yeah?"
You smile, agreeing with a small nod, pausing before you joke, "With the leash?"
"Okay, who's the smart ass now?" he mutters with a shake of his head, crooked grin back in place. "I meant with a phone. But the leash works too, I guess."
"What's it like?" you ask, curious for the first time since you've learned of it.
"The bond?" His eyes flicker between your eyes and your lips, a knuckle tracing your cheek. "It's like one of those less traveled paths in the woods. Barely visible to the naked eye, but once you find it and start walking on it, everything starts to feel… right."
"Your chest gets really warm and you have this zappy feeling in your gut." His lips tip up in a faraway smile as his eyes follow the path his knuckle makes over your ear, your neck, your collarbones. "Everything feels possible when it's there. Lighter. And when it's gone? Anything you do feels wrong. Empty."
"But…" You swallow past the heartbeat in your throat. "I thought you couldn't feel my emotions," you protest weakly.
A spark ignites in his eyes, electric enough to charge the air between you as his expression morphs into what you can only identify as a primal satisfaction. He inhales deeply, as if he's trying to memorize the scent of this moment, holding your gaze as his eyelids lower.
"I can't," he breathes, so close his nose brushes against yours when he shakes his head. "Those were all mine."
Your lips part, tongue hovering in wait between your teeth as his palm comes up under your chin, fingers settling on both sides of your jaw to draw you in. Your eyes shut as his lips descend over yours, and despite the warmth of his palm, the first brush of his tongue feel like being doused in flame. You wrap your arms around his neck on a moan, humming when he tilts your head to lick into your mouth again and again.
"Valko." The soft, fuzzy sensation of his buzzed hair grazes your knuckles and he sighs into your mouth, as if you're breathing life back into him with the sound of his name.
You take the chance to nip at his lip, holding it hostage between yours until he answers in kind. The sharpness of his teeth like bee stings on your mouth, soothed only by the sweet honey of a tongue that's licking, tasting, consuming the flushed skin between your lips and your throat.
His body sinks into yours, each of his muscles and contours taking shape around yours like heated metal, a weapon being forged for its master, its weight the heaviest thing you'll ever have to carry again.
➻➻ MASTERLIST
NOTE: They can take my undomesticated wolf man from me in the game but he will live on as a terrible house guest in my delusions forever xoxo
This was so cuteeee! Rambly comment below the cut 🩷
Hehe, I was hoping that Valko would make a cheeky comment on the fact that reader is watching cat videos, and I was not disappointed 😋 Excellent little detail, and I love their banter! Reader clapping back 👏👏👏
"Trespasser, jumpscaring people, terrible manners, and a smart ass to your mother?" You note each transgression by holding up a finger. "No wonder you're always prowling around Linkon alone."
Oh she's savage 😂😂 I love this reader - she's not pulling any punches (and that's exactly how Valko would want it lol 🩷)
Mama Valko is the real icon though!! May we all follow humbly in her footsteps 😇 I love it when she's mentioned in fics; it just feels right that Valko would be a total mama's boy, and also a little afraid of her wrath haha
Therapy dog Valko!! 💕 It's impossible to be upset when you're petting him; he's right 😂
And omg I actually felt a wave of relief for that poor loveseat when he picked reader up and moved her over to the bed. That sofa is not going to survive long with Valko rolling all over it 😂
In fact, despite being pinned under the heaviest man you know, you haven't felt this light for a few weeks now, you think, which was… the last time he visited you.
Oh noooooo~ Everyone, come quick - it's happening! She's realizing her feelingssss! This whole part was so cute! I loved the "leash" motif and the way they're both learning how to navigate it. It's such a cool dynamic where like there is this connection between them already, but they haven't quite felt it all out. Super well written!
"It's like one of those less traveled paths in the woods. Barely visible to the naked eye, but once you find it and start walking on it, everything starts to feel… right."
Ugh, be still my beating heart 😭🩷 His description of their bond is incredible. The imagery! The sheer adorableness! It's so full of uncertain new love; I'm cryingggg 💕
"But…" You swallow past the heartbeat in your throat. "I thought you couldn't feel my emotions," you protest weakly.
This part. This part!!!! OH READER 😭 You poor naive sweetheart!! Accept your emotions, babygirl. You're in looooove 🩷
Also eeeee! That was not the chaste and gentle first kiss I was anticipating ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥 They really do like each other~ Valko is NOT dodging the mutt allegations; WHERE have your manners gone, mister? 😂😋 Not that I'd be complaining...
And oh. my. god. That last line!!! Wraps everything up so nicely, with a callback to the theme of heaviness and with a reference to his evol?? Bravo 🩷 I'm in love with this fic; it was exactly what I needed to read today.
Thank you for sharing this with us, @deepspacenova 💕
Hi. First of all thank you for your reports and for the fanfics of Valko, I read them and I love them. I would like to give you an idea or ask you a favor. Could you make an NSFW Alphabet of Valko? I know you could do a very good one, when you have the time obviously. Take care. 🤗
I hope you know I chuckled maniacally when I read this. Rubbing my hands together like an evil fly. This is a very welcome distraction.
I'm not following the template I see most people use. We creative and freaky in this household. Even if it takes two hours, which it did.
Valko NSFW Alphabet
A — Aftercare
Valko is so sweet afterwards, despite how thoroughly he had ravaged you only moments prior. He'll draw you a bath, make sure you have water and a snack, and massage the soreness from your muscles. He's always clingy and affectionate, but it multiplies by a hundred after sex.
B — Breeding kink
I think we can all agree on this one. Like I've said before, it's not necessarily a conscious choice on his end—he just can't bring himself to pull out. You feel too good clenching around him, so warm and wet and perfect. He can't help but bury himself as deep inside you as he can go.
C — Cunnilingus
He's an eater. He gets off on it, actually. The way you taste, the way you smell, the way you sound when he laps at your clit—it's intoxicating. He could do it for hours. Sometimes, that's all he wants. After a long day, a man his size needs a good meal, after all.
D — Dick
Obviously I have to talk about this. Valko walks like its heavy, and it is. It's long, thick, and he's way too good at using it to make your mind go completely blank. The way it stretches you out leaves you deliciously sore, sometimes for days.
E — Edging
Sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes it's not. He just loves the way you sound when you're right on the edge, the way you claw at him and writhe beneath him. He can't get enough of the sweet little whimpers and moans spilling from your lips. He'll keep you right on the edge for as long as he can just to keep hearing them.
F — Fingering
Oh, how he loves to watch your brows furrow and your lips part when he curls his fingers into you. He loves to feel you clench around the slender digits as his lips trail down the column of your throat. Making you feel good is his greatest achievement, and he never wants to stop.
G — Grinding
You're in his lap, your lips slanting over his as his fingers dig into your waist. He's guiding your hips, dragging them against his lap, groaning into the kiss at the friction. He doesn't attempt to take off your clothes—not yet. He enjoys the tension, the build-up, the way your grip on his hair tightens with each passing second.
H — Hickies
He loves marking you up almost as much as he loves being marked by you. His lips are everywhere he can reach—your neck, your shoulder, your chest, your stomach. His fangs graze the inside of your thigh before sinking in ever so slightly, just enough to leave a noticeable mark. He loves seeing the aftermath, the faint red bruises that mar your beautiful skin. Each and every one is a reminder that you are entirely his.
I — Intimacy
Yes, he's freaky. Yes, the sex is great. But it's more than that. There's an intimacy to being in bed with Valko that's simply unmatched. It's primal, all breath and lips and skin. He's filling every one of your senses at the same time. He's everywhere—around you, above you, inside of you. His voice is low when he murmurs into the crook of your neck, telling you how good you feel, how beautiful you are, how much he adores you.
J — "Just the tip"
When he's extra needy, he'll practically beg you to let him put in "just the tip." It's never "just the tip." He'll try—god, he tries so hard to control himself—but he can't resist sinking into you. Your body is like a siren call, and he's all too eager to get dragged into the sea.
K — Knotting
He's a werewolf—of course he has a knot. He tries to be careful about it—the last thing he wants to do is hurt you—but his instincts tell him to sink as deep as he can. It's too much, but so good. The tip of his cock kissing your cervix, his knot swelling just enough to stretch you even further—it's a delicate balance between ecstasy and ruin.
L — Love
Everything Valko does is rooted in love, and he makes it obvious. He doesn't fuck you, he worships you. Your body is a temple for his hands and lips to explore, and your pleasure is nonnegotiable. It's not about sex for him. He doesn't just want your body. He wants you—every piece, every inch; body, mind, and soul. And he wants you to know that he is completely, irrevocably yours.
M — Mating press
His favorite position, of course. He has you practically bent in half, your knees almost to your chest and your hips angled up towards his. His lips linger on the side of your neck as your nails rake across his shoulders, eliciting low, rough groans from his chest. He's so deep, and still your body tries to pull him in deeper—and he's more than willing to oblige.
N — Narratophilia
A fancy word for talking you through it, and Valko certainly does. Your mind doesn't even get the chance to drift. His hands are all over you, his lips and teeth trail down from your jaw to your neck and up again, his voice is low and sultry in your ear. "Doing so well for me, sweetheart. Lift your hips for me. That's it."
O — Overstimulation
It's on accident, really. He overstimulates both of you simply because his body can't stop. His grip tightens, his teeth sink deeper, his thrusts grow deeper and sharper. You've lost count of how many orgasms you've had, and he's already knotted you twice. And still, he just can't stop. His stamina is utterly inhuman.
P — Praise
The words spill from his lips unfiltered and uncontrolled, almost unconsciously. "You're taking me so well, love." "God, you're so beautiful. So fucking perfect." "Just like that. That's my girl." "Fuck, I love you. I love you so goddamn much."
Q — Queening
Another fancy word for face-sitting. Valko loves it—your weight on him, your scent overwhelming him, the way you taste. His large hands wrap around your thighs, forcing you to sit down fully—hovering simply won't do. His tongue laves at you like he's starving, he groans against your skin, his hips buck but fail to find any friction. He swears it's the closest to heaven he'll ever get.
R — Rut
God help you when his rut hits. His body temperature spikes, his gaze sharpens, his senses heighten. He could probably smell you from a mile away if he tried. He's insatiable. His stamina is impressive on a normal day, but during his rut...the only way he's stopping is if you make him. He'll force himself to obey, but his body makes his reluctance obvious.
S — Somnophilia
Consensual, of course. You're just so beautiful when you're sleeping, so peaceful and warm. And you smell so sweet. You'll wake up to his lips on your neck, his arms tight around your waist, his broad chest pressed flush against your back. You're hardly awake when his hand slips beneath the hem of your shorts, but your body knows his, and it seeks him out instinctively.
T — Teeth
Valko's fangs are sharp. He's careful with them, of course—he wouldn't dream of hurting you or drawing blood. They graze your skin just enough to feel like something between a promise and a threat. He notices the way you lean into it, like you're inviting him to sink his teeth into you. The thought makes a smirk tug at the corner of his lips, and he might just oblige—if you ask nicely.
U — Under the desk
The CEO seems rather...distracted during his phone call. Perhaps his secretary didn't make his coffee right, or it might be the stack of paperwork sitting on his desk. However, the most obvious culprit is his mate, who took it upon themself to crawl beneath his desk and help to relieve some of his stress. It's a conscious effort to keep himself from groaning into the phone, but his grip on your hair is more than enough evidence that your distraction is a successful one.
V — Voyeurism
"Touch yourself for me." He's sitting in the chair in the corner of your shared bedroom, nursing a glass of whiskey as his laptop sits untouched in his lap. His glasses only make the glint in his amber eyes more obvious. Sometimes, he simply likes to watch you, to observe you like the most beautiful piece of art he's ever seen.
W — Wax
Lotion candles are multipurpose—they're wonderful for massages, and the perfect excuse for him to have his hands all over you. The oil makes your skin slick and smooth, and it's just hot enough to send a shudder up your spine. He buys the unscented ones—your scent is far too appealing to him to cover up.
X — X marks the spot
Valko knows your body like the back of his hand. He made it a point to learn every spot that would make your breath hitch, your heart pound, your toes curl. He could make a map of your skin if he wanted to. His fingers trace your curves oh so delicately, like he's memorizing every inch.
Y — "You were made for me"
As his mate, one could argue that you were, in fact, made for him. But it's more than that. Your bodies fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. It's too perfect to be something as simply as fate or chemistry. There's an unspoken language that your bodies speak, and they understand as if it's written into your soul.
Z — Zzz...
Sweet Valko has a habit of wearing himself out. His stamina is godly, no doubt, but even a werewolf reaches exhaustion at some point. Once you're both sated and your limbs are heavy and weak, he'll collapse beside you. He's quick to drift off to sleep, but not before he pulls you as close as he possibly can.
You are literally out here doing the LORD'S work. Thank you for all your service 🫡🐺 Not only our faithful Valko reporter, but a talented fic writer as well! This was so fun, and I loved your twist on the standard alphabet prompts 💕
