otw! michael jackson x 𝒇em! black reader ╱ fluff ╱ established relationship ╱ drabble
Era: off the wall
Summary: After watching you detangle your hair, Michael asks you to help him work his ever so abundant curls.
Tags: fluff, black hair care, michael is inexperienced with taking care of his hair (reader helps him tho), reader is intended to hair 4c hair (bc i have 4c hair), michael calls reader “baby” and “mama” (bc I SAID SO), reader calls michael “mikey” and “baby”, michael ragebaiting reader lol, not proofread i was tired asf
Word count: 548
Masterlist
Michael laid across your bed, silence echoing across your apartment. You sat at your vanity, brushes, combs, and small jars of hair moisturizer scattered across the table. A small detangling brush in your hair, working through the kinks of your hair. Detangling, brushing, and styling. A simple process you’ve grown accustomed to. Your hand moving from grasping your hair to scooping small finger-fulls of moisturizing cream and massaging it into your curls. He admired how your hands worked the brush through each tangle and knot, barely even wincing at the light tugging.
“Baby, how do you do that?” He asked one time.
You looked back at him, brushed in hand. “Do what?”
“Detangle your hair without it hurting, it always hurts when I do it myself.”
You put down your brush, ushering him over towards you, “I can show you if you want.” Michael immediately obliged, rolling off the bed, and walking over to sit in between your legs. Back against the legs of the chair.
“Okay, first you need to dampen your hair.” You grabbed a spray bottle and spritzed the water onto his hair, wetting it evenly. Michael flinched at the cold water dusting his scalp and the back of his neck, but relaxed as you gently rubbed his shoulder, comfortingly.
You dipped your fingers in the moisturizer jar, rubbing your hands together before working it into Michael’s hair. “Then, put a moisturizer in your hair to make the brush pass through easier.” You then started gently parting each new moisturized bunch of hair into 8 neat sections, moving them of the way with scrunchies. “After you section your hair, detangle it with your fingers first. It gets the bigger knots out first.” Michael listened closely as he felt your fingers gently pass through his hair, weaving out any large knots, and tangles.
“Now for the big guns.” You say, your tone playful as you pick up the detangling brush. You started to bring it close to Michael’s hair, but you were interrupted by an ever so dramatic scream. You paused, looking at Michael, who was trying not to giggle. You reached over again, another scream. You put the brush down and reached your hand over, another scream.
“Mikey stop playing!” You say, spraying him in the face with the spray bottle as punishment, earning a laugh out of your (now soaked) boyfriend. “I’m just messing with you, mama-“ Michael started, but was cut off by your continuous spraying. “Stop! Stop! I’m getting soaked, baby!” Michael pleaded, still laughing loudly.
You pulled him back against the chair, grabbing the brush again. “Okay, now be still.” You said firmly, a hint a playfulness still in your tone, as you started to brush his hair, from the tip to the roots. Despite your attempts to act stern, whenever Michael flinched, you immediately rubbed his shoulder gently while kissing his temple.
After detangling all 8 sections, you ran your fingers through his newly detangled hair. “All done, Mikey. Here, take a look.” You handled Michael a handheld mirror. He stared into the reflection, gently touching the soft strands. “Woah…” Michael stared into his reflection, running his fingers through his hair, not hitting any tangles along the way. You leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You look so handsome baby.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
a/n: this was written after going through the pain and suffering which is wash day (first work kinda nervous lol), also first time posting an MJ work (sorry if it’s ass)
So, for the taglist since I’m dropping soon…if you said tag me in all Smoke x Annie fics or more than one then you’ll always be tagged. If you only commented on one specific coming soon then I will just tag you in that one unless you let me know you would want to be tagged in general.
Summary: Jackie thinks you look wayyy too pretty to not take a few photos.
“You look like an angel.” Jackie stopped and looked at you relaxing on the bed.
You smiled and rolled your eyes, “Take a picture and It’ll last longer.” You weren’t expecting him to actually go get his camera right there in that moment.
“And you’re full of good ideas, damn I’m lucky!” He wipes the lens off and begins to angle it at you.
“Pose for me” you don’t miss the sudden desperation in his tone.
“i’m only doing this because I love you,” you tease as you gathered your hair and flipped it to the back exposing your neck.
*click*
“Wait Jackie I wasn’t ready!” You turn and your silk robe falls off your shoulder.
“You looked ready baby…”
*click*
“Sigmund!”
He smiles and bends down to kiss your cheek, by the look in his eyes you can tell he’s enjoying himself. You watch him as he fans the polaroid picture and sets it on the night stand.
“Let’s try one with you leaning back with one leg up.” When you lean back your robe falls further hardly covering your breasts, he puts his knee next to your flat leg and takes a picture
“let it fall all the way...” your nipples peaked in the cold air.
He muttered, “you’re gonna kill me.” You giggle and your eyes fall below the camera to see the tightness in his pants.
“lemme help you with that,” Jackie stops you before you can reach your hand out.
“not yet pretty girl, want all of you photographed for me”
You kept eye contact with him and took off the robe that was pooled around your waist as well as your silk panties.
*click*
“You know how else I wanna see you?”
You nodded and turned around on your stomach crossing your legs.
*click*
“That’s it,” he runs his hand across your ass and you hear the camera shutter again.
I had this in the drafts for a minute now, hope you enjoy! 🤍🤍
Leave Him!
Jackie Jackson x Fem!Reader
Warnings: Warnings: NSFW 18+ MDNI. Reader is sneaking around with Jackie, Dom! Jackie, longer fic.
Summary: Jackie doesnt respect your boyfriend at alll...
“Break up with him pretty mama.” He’s laying on your sofa with no shirt, both of your clothes strewn around the floor, and the blanket your boyfriend bought you covering his lower body.
“You know I can’t! He’s nice," you stutter trying to come up with something else. "He actually helped me pay for a lot of this stuff.” You looked around at your furnished home. There was no love in there besides the love you and Jackie made. Your boyfriend liked to keep up appearances with no regards for how you felt.
“Baby you act like he’s the only one with money…” Jackie sounded slightly offended, with him you would always have what you wanted and then some.
“It’s not just the money.“ Your voice strained with frustration.
“Then what is it? I know it’s not because I don’t make you happy…or because I don’t make your legs sha-“
You ran your hand over your face “just-just get your clothes on before he comes back!”
“See look! Can’t even deny it baby.”
He gets up and dresses you, something your boyfriend has never done.
“I can do this myself.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t have to. I like treating you like a princess.”
Your heart raced. Hearing that made you want to leave with Jackie and just the clothes on your back. You’ve always said one day you’ll do that.
Just then you hear the front door knob jiggle.
“Oh shit, Jackie go!" You push him towards the back while he puts his shirt on and zips up his pants.
He opens the door but before he leaves he kisses you, grabbing your waist almost lifting you from the floor. It was one of the most passionate things you ever felt. It was almost like he was saying “think about it.”
“I'll see you tomorrow morning.” He made sure to stand there till the last second of the front door opening before turning and walking away. He didn’t care about the trouble he’d be in, all he cared about was freeing you.
The rest of the night you felt like a shell of yourself. Your boyfriend didn’t talk about anything but himself, and when he did try to reference something in your life he got it wrong.
"We'll just send it to your sister in Maryland, no big deal"
You roll your eyes.
"My sister is in Georgia, I told you that!"
"You know what I mean, anyway..."
You washed your face and stared in the mirror. It was well over a year together with that man and all you had to show for it was a nice house and nice clothes. He gave you no love letters, no nicknames, not even your favorite fast food. Jackie has given all of those things and never complained once. It was that realization that made you come to a final decision. You were gonna leave him.
Just like Jackie said, he was there bright and early.
You opened the door to see his face already lighting up at your presence.
“If it wasn’t a good morning then, it is now”
You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help but bite back a smile. He always said something ‘smooth’
“Jackie, nice to see you man. Sorry for the early meeting but we’d get done quicker.”
Jackie slowly took his eyes from you and smiled
“You know I don’t mind coming here, seeing all these pretty things you got.”
Your boyfriend laughed seemingly oblivious to the double meaning “Let’s go this way.”
They walk down the hall leaving you there with your thoughts.
You finished some tasks around the house before you seen Jackie appear in the kitchen behind you.
“You done for the day?”
“Yeah your lil boyfriend wanted to take lunch.”
“Oh, are you hungry then?”
“Very”
He stood behind you taking the dish out of your hands before laying your palms flat on the counter.
“I usually take my time, but I gotta dine and dash”
He slowly kneels on the ground and rolls your dress up.
“Jackie!”
He licks a strip over your panties “hm?”
He does it again but slower
You already felt your stomach dip
“Just real quick honey”
He lightly sucks on the cotton material before taking them off and putting them in his pocket.
Before you can protest he latches on to your bud sucking gently and makes audible kissing sounds.
Your arms shook as you gripped on the counter stifling your moans. Your boyfriend didn’t leave yet so you had to be careful.
Jackie started to place firmer licks where you needed them most. You ended up grabbing his hair and rocking back and forth on his tongue. This earned a surprised sputter from him before he sped up.
You heard your boyfriend’s steps from down the hall, Jackie heard it too and started to slow down. In a panic you try to keep your pace, Jackie wouldn’t be so cruel to deny you like that, right? He gave your slit one last kiss before he stood up and pulled your dress back down. It was just in time too. Your boyfriend grabbed his coat from the table.
“I’m going out to eat, I’ll be back later. You coming Jackie?”
“Nah, I ate something already, but I’ll follow you out”
Jackie waited after your boyfriend left the room to give you a kiss.
“You’ve gotten to be so mean” You pick the dish back up and start shakily scrubbing.
Jackie chuckled “You left me high and dry too so it’s even” You couldn’t even look over at him as he left.
Later that night you leave your house and go straight to Jackie’s place. You knock on the door wondering if this was the right decision. You don’t even have enough time to turn around before Jackie opens the door.
“Hey mama, everything okay?” He steps aside and takes you in his house.
“yeah I j- I need you. I should’ve left him earlier like you said” You look down awaiting his response.
Jackie tries hard to not look smug but he just can’t help himself.
“We all make mistakes sweetheart, now show me how much you need me.”
You try to strip out of your clothes quickly but he stops you.
“Im not in a rush, take them off slow.”
You obey slowly pulling them off one by one. Once you’re completely undressed he tells you to lay down.
“I want you to show me where you want me, go head and point.”
“Jackie stop playing!”
“I’m not! You know I’m not always the best listener baby...”
You scoff and bring your inner knees up and apart
“There!” You run your finger over your bud and he stops you.
“I said point not touch it, you might be a worse listener than me…” He now stands over you lining himself up to enter.
“I shouldn’t even let you have this” he runs himself over your slit.
“I’m gonna leave him- no more sneaking around I only want you!” You don’t know if your tears were desperation for Jackie or the relief of saying it out loud.
“If that’s the case then-“ he pushes himself in all at once.
“Yes, yes I swear Jackie!” You wrap your legs around him and cling on for dear life.
“You should’ve been left him” he kisses the side of your face.
“I know!”
“It’s not all on you though baby, I liked keeping a secret.” He pulls out all the way and looks at you ruined underneath him.
“Should we send him a picture? I mean I don’t think he’s ever seen you like this…”
“Mhm” you bite your lip as his thumb sweeps over your clit.
Jackie places the polaroid camera so your body would be perfectly in frame.
“Smile princess!”
Only Jackie could get you to do these things, he took two photos before he entered you again. The sounds of your skin colliding was too much for you.
“I can’t hold it Jackie”
He didn’t say anything but you know he heard you because he put his thumb back and circled you firmly.
You let go with a loud cry, all the stress and tears your boyfriend caused you seem to wash away with your juices. When the ringing in your ears stopped you could hear Jackie’s whimpers about treating you so right and how you’re the one for him. In your haze it makes you giggle.
“I’m serious.” Jackie laughs.
“I know.”
He grabs the camera and takes another photo, this time of his cum leaking out of you.
You tease him and push it back in with your finger.
“You’re crazy...” he whispers as he lays beside you
“Goodnight pretty girl”
“Goodnight Jackie”
For the first time in a long time you slept without a care in the world.
Summary: You pull your Michael, who’s been your celebrity crush for years. Only one problem—you’ve been writing fanfiction for years for the man, and now you have to find a way to keep your worlds separate. However, what happens when Michael finds out about your smutty little blog?
Warning(s): SMUT (18+, MDNI), smut writing, dirty talk, fingering, unprotected sex (m/f), deepthroating, spitting, cum swapping, daddy kink, backshots (if I missed something, don’t beat me up lol) I hope you guys enjoy. Let me know what you think!
You’d always found solace in fanfiction.
There was something so special about all of the stories that you’d read throughout the years about your favorite celebrities or your TV crushes. Your first introduction to fanfiction was Wattpad. Your friends had let you in on the coveted website and suggested it to you.
The first fanfic that your friend suggested just so happened to be a Mindless Behavior fanfic about Princeton. You were hooked. How had this world–this fandom–been escaping you for the past years?
Naturally, your relationship with the site continued to progress as you read more stories. You’d stay up till 2 AM just to read a story written by someone who was no doubt the same age as you.
Next, there was fanfiction.net.
You’d spent countless hours scouring through all of the Vampire Diaries fanfiction that you could get your hands on. You can’t recall the exact moment that you landed on Tumblr, but you knew that it just all clicked together for you.
The ‘x reader’ tag became your home.
You thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the stories about your crush on Zayn from 1D. With Tumblr, there seemed to be this brand new world of possibilities for you to read. However, there’s something that you’d noticed in your many hours of scrolling through Tumblr.
There weren’t many ‘x black!reader’s stories for you to indulge in. There was a handful of writers who’d become your solace when you looked to be shipped with a certain character or celebrity, but there weren’t many. You’d long grown tired of clicking on an interesting story only to have the reader be described as having long, flowy blonde or brunette locks that the male character could run his hands through. Similarly, you’d grown tired of reading smut where the reader was clearly described as having pale skin and pink nipples.
That wasn’t your story. As a black woman, you weren’t able to visualize yourself in these spaces or stories because they weren’t written with women like you in mind. To make matters worse, it seemed like fandoms were intent on erasing black women, who look like you, from the lexicon of the content.
It was all so draining and so very degrading.
Growing up, you’d always envisioned yourself as a writer. You loved stories, and reading was your way of escape. On sites like Wattpad and Tumblr, you could be transported to worlds and stories where you were the center of the story. There’d been many times when you opened up a Word document and started to type a story, only to never finish it.
For you, you compared yourself to other writers and their ability to write a compelling story. When you looked back at your own words on the paper, it felt like child’s play. So, you stopped writing. You subjected yourself to the role of an avid but silent reader who admires her favorite writers.
That was your role for a few years.
You’d silently heart the stories, but you were never brave enough to comment.
There were so many different stories in your head that you wanted to see on the platform. Silently, you wished that your favorite writers would somehow read your mind and bring the story to life without you asking. However, as the saying goes, “a closed mouth doesn’t get fed.”
The turning point for you was Black Panther.
You were there as the explosion of fanfics arose for Erik Killmonger, T’Challa, and M’Baku. What a time to be alive when all of your favorite writers were putting out work that should’ve been receiving some type of literary award. One night, after an hour of constantly reading about Erik Killmonger putting the reader through the mattress, you made your move.
You wrote and published your first-ever Tumblr fic.
As soon as you pushed the publish button, you immediately closed your laptop like it was an explosive waiting to detonate. You couldn’t bring yourself to go back and check to see what the reviews were.
What if they thought it was trash? What if your grammar was terrible? What if you didn’t capture the essence of the characters? What if no one read it all? For the sake of your mental health, you didn’t go back to check how your story was doing until two days later.
At the two-day mark, you found yourself logging back into Tumblr. You’d worked up the courage to see if there was any feedback. To your absolute shock and delight, people loved your story.
The hearts and comments overflowed as people asked for more. Thus, stargirlwriteswas born. Through your blog, not only did you give room for yourself to grow and see yourself be represented, but you made space for other black women to feel like they were being seen and heard. In your stories, the black women were always being loved on, worshipped, and cherished.
You’d grown a following and support system so big that you couldn’t imagine a future where you weren’t writing on Tumblr.
Honestly, you don’t know what to call what happened.
Fate. Coincidence. God.
You honestly have no clue, but this is the story of how you met your celebrity crush and bagged him. It started at the library–naturally. You liked the library. You liked coming to the library to work on your stories and your books. You’d recently been picked up by a publishing company to release your new Southern Gothic thriller. Between writing for your books and working on screenplays, you still found the time to work on writing on Tumblr.
There was no way you were letting your community down. Not after all of the support and love that they’d given you up to this point. In the library, you liked to sit at the back table that was conveniently away from everyone, but still, there was a giant window that allowed you to see outside.
It was the perfect spot.
No one had dared to venture into your self-proclaimed territory. Not until today.
You heard the light footsteps as they approached the back table and saw the man from the corner of your eye. He had a cap on his head, and from his body language, you could tell that he didn’t want to be seen. He was craving privacy just as you were.
The man looks over at you before clearing his throat, “Hey, I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, but do you mind if I sit here? It’s just, I kind of want privacy, and this spot just seems like fewer people come here.”
There was a distinct nagging in your head that let you know that you knew his voice from somewhere, yet you brushed it off. Truthfully, you could’ve told the man no, but there was something inside you that begged you not to.
Plus, the table was huge, so it’d look a little weird if you were hoarding it for yourself.
“Yeah, of course.” You slide some of your scattered papers down towards yourself as the man takes a seat. After a few seconds, you and the man both begin working simultaneously on your projects. You can see him glancing over at you a few times, but you choose to ignore it.
From the corner of your eye, you see him take the hat off his head. He takes a tentative glance at you, but you still don’t entertain the notion of looking at him. For the next twenty minutes, the only sounds are you and the man typing on your computers and then writing down notes on your respective journals.
You finally look up and happen to glance in his direction and freeze.
You now understand why he was so adamant about hiding his face. You try not to freak out as you finally clock the fact that Michael B. Jordan is sitting across from you. The man whom you’ve had a crush on for years. And also the same man whom you’ve been writing the filthiest smut for. Talk about an embarrassing predicament.
Yet, you decide to play it cool. The last thing you want is for the man to think you’re fangirling over him when he’s trying to work.
Michael looks in your direction, “Hey, sorry to bother you again, but do you know where they keep the printers?”
You nod, “Yeah, they’re just around the corner. You can just click print, and it’ll ask for your name so that they don’t mix it up with anyone else’s papers.”
Michael nods at your instructions before giving you a sheepish smile, “Would you mind coming with me and helping? I just know I’ll forget everything at the printer.” He gives you a tight-lipped smile before quickly adding, “That’s if you’re free. I wouldn’t want to take you away from your work.”
“Sure. I got you,” You said, laughing a little before standing from your chair. Michael slides the cap over his head again before falling in step beside you. As expected, the printer is exactly where you said it would be. Michael leans over your shoulder to get a look at what you’re doing. A chill travels up the length of your spine at the feel of his body against yours. You can feel the heat from his body seeping into yours.
You bite your lip softly while peering up at him. Michael seems to notice the close distance and steps back. An embarrassed look crosses his face, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to all up in your space.”
“It’s fine.”
You click the file that has his name on it, and the papers start flowing from the printer. You grab them and hand the stack to Michael. The tips of his fingers brush against yours as he grabs the papers. You try to ignore the tingle that rushes up your skin at the feel of his skin. He gives you a quiet “thank you” before you both venture back to your corner of the library.
You take your seats at the same time.
Michael reaches across the table with his hand outstretched, “I’m Michael, by the way.”
You give him your name as you connect your hand with his. Internally, you’re freaking out at the fact that out of all days, you’re sitting across from your celebrity crush and practically holding his hand. The delusional part of you is telling you that he’s down bad for you, and this is the start of something beautiful. The writer part of you is mentally tracking all of the subtle movements that Michael makes with the full intent of incorporating them in your writing.
However, you quickly push those thoughts to the side because it feels a bit parasocial in a way.
You and Michael fall back into your rhythm of working on your projects. He looks up at you as you scribble down notes on your notepad. “What are you working on?”
You lift your eyebrows in surprise, “Just a play.”
“That’s neat. What’s it about?” Michael seems genuinely interested in your work as he leans further on the table.
“It’s a Southern gothic play about a young woman returning home to face her past trauma.”
Michael nods, “That sounds really dope. You planning to put it on Broadway?”
“Yeah, my agent and I have been working to get everything in motion.”
“Good luck. I’d like to come see it when you get it off the ground,” Michael said, sparing another dazzling smile in your direction.
You smile in response, “Definitely. What are you working on?”
Michael gives you a shy smile, deep dimples popping out of both cheeks, “I’m working on a romance, actually. It’s a story of two people who are married, trying to make it work, but somewhere along the line, their communication becomes lost. The only way that they know how to reach each other is by speaking through this new technology system.”
“That sounds like an amazing concept. You’re working on the script now?”
“Yeah, I’m just getting stuck on a few things, especially with my main woman lead. I’m struggling to get her voice just right, especially in the scene where they’re confronting each other,” Michael states, leaning back in his chair.
You bite your lip nervously, “I could read it if you wanted me to. I mean, I have experience writing romance, and I’m also an avid reader, so maybe I could give you a few pointers.” You’ll definitely leave out the part where you write avid romance and smut stories with him as the male lead.
“If you don’t mind, that’d be great. I’d hate to take you from your thing, though,” Michael responds.
You quickly shake your head, “No, I promise it’s fine. Plus, we writers have to stick together.”
Michael slides his laptop over in your direction before strolling to the part that he wants you to read. He unintentionally starts to watch you and your facial expressions as you’re taking in the work. Your eyes quickly skim across the work, and you make mental notes along the way until you stop at the point where Michael stopped typing.
He looks at you expectantly once you stop reading. “It’s good. The storyline that you’ve crafted so far in this scene is good. I like the tone, but I’m only getting one side of the argument. I’m hearing your male protagonist’s voice very clearly in this argument, but what about the female lead? What does she ultimately want to express in this argument?”
Michael takes a second, “She wants to feel heard. She wants him to understand that she hasn’t felt seen by him in a while in their relationship.”
“Good. You know your theme and intentions, but it’s not coming through in the scene. All I hear is his voice. Even the lines that you have for her, they’re still in line with his wants. Put yourself in her shoes and react. If you have a partner who hasn’t been meeting your needs, how would you respond as a woman?”
Michael goes through his brain for the answer. On some level, he knows how he wants it to go, but he’s still stuck. He gives you a helpless look, which makes you chuckle.
“How about this? You rewrite it again, and I’ll give you my critique.”
Michael nods before sliding the computer back towards himself. He takes your words into account and begins typing on the document again. He peers over the top of the computer as you continue scribbling in your notebook. You don’t catch the way that his eyes zoom in on the way that your teeth bite at the end of the pencil. He’s fascinated by you. You don’t even react to the fact that you clearly know who he is.
Little does Michael know, you’re having a full-blown panic attack on the inside.
After a solid twenty minutes pass, he stands and leaves the table. You expect to see that he’s packing up his things, but once you clock that all of his stuff is still here, you shrug. Maybe he had to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later, Michael plops into the seat with a handful of snacks.
Wordlessly, he slides a pack of Hi-Chews and chips in your direction. You stop writing and give him a questioning look. Michael shrugs, “To say thank you for your help.”
“What if I didn’t like Hi-Chews?”
“There’s a wrapper sticking out of your bag,” Michael points out, nodding his head towards your open laptop bag. You glance at the bag, and sure enough, a brightly-colored wrapper sticks out.
You can’t stop the laugh as it bursts from your lips, but you cover your mouth. Soon, Michael joins you in laughing.
“Let me take you out for a coffee after this.”
That’s the story of how you pulled your celebrity crush.
Your relationship with Michael surprises you each day. It really blows your mind that the man that you’ve been writing about for years is finally your boyfriend. Initially, you slow down on writing fics for Michael on Tumblr. It all feels a bit parasocial, especially when you’re with him most of the time.
But that still doesn’t stop the writer in you.
The more you fall for Michael, the more ideas pop into your head for possible stories. However, you channel the energy into working on writing your own novels. You really try to fight the urge to write on Tumblr. But the Tumblr app on your phone calls to you like the green goblin mask.
It only takes one specific kiss from Michael, with him pressing you against an elevator wall, to run to Tumblr. The community that you had built over the past years all express how happy they are to have you back, and you fall back into posting naturally.
Most of the people reading your writing would never suspect that you’re Michael’s new beau.
‘@donwrites: ugh sis, you write Michael so good! It’s like you know him personally.’
If only they knew that you had been kissing the man seven days out of the week and cuddling in his bed.
You keep the writing from Michael. If you’re typing at his house, you’ll play it off as working on a new novel or screenplay. He’s none the wiser to the fact that his girlfriend is writing the most downright filthy smut involving him.
It’s a random Thursday when Michael gets suspicious.
He’d invited you over under the guise of working together. You both found that you were a lot more productive when you worked across from each other. You slide the glasses up the bridge of your nose as you type quickly on the computer. You’re honestly in a flow state with the current story that you’re writing about Michael. You’d had the idea to write a story about him dominating the reader after a recent miscommunication.
You move to exit the bedroom. Sharp tears sting at your eyes as the heat builds in your chest. You sniffle loudly and wipe furiously at your eyes. The ache in your chest increases with each step that you take towards the door. You’re so close to the door when Michael grabs your arm. You try in vain to tug your arm from his grip, but he tightens his hold on you.
“Michael, let go of me,” You mutter, your chest heaving up and down.
“No, you don’t get to walk away. I don’t know about any of them other niggas you’ve been dealing with, but we talk things out around here. Go sit down,” He states, a hard edge to his voice.
You shoot him a hard look, defiance swirling through your irises. Michael matches your stance and squares his shoulder as he stares down at you, “You think I’m playing?”
He takes a step closer, his eyes growing darker. He moves until he’s standing chest-to-chest with you. Michael moves a hand up to your face and smushes your cheeks between his fingers. Your wide eyes meet his as he brings his face closer to you.
“Does it look like I’m playing with you?”
You give him a surp––
“What you working on over there, baby?” Michael questions from his side of the office.
You give him an awkward smile. How does one say, “Oh, nothing, babe, just writing out some nasty smut involving you for some equally freaked out women to read?”
Instead, you just respond, “Oh, nothing. Just some romance stuff.”
It’s not a lie, but it’s not the complete truth either. Michael doesn’t push the issue. He’s asked to read some of your writing before. You’ve obliged and let him read the things that aren’t fanfiction. Though he suspects that you may be writing something else that you don’t want him to see.
Michael’s not dense. He’s well aware of the rise of smut and spicy scenes in the book community. He figures that you may be writing something along that vein, but he respects you too much to pry. Though he secretly wonders what freaky stuff you could be writing.
The sex between you and Michael was good. Real good. However, there were certain aspects that you and Michael had explored. For example, he didn’t know about your desire to be dominated by him. He didn’t know about all of the nasty and explicit things that you imagined him doing to him. With Michael, he was very sensual and emotional in the act of sex, which you loved.
But you also yearned for him to turn you every way but loose.
For the next ten minutes, you type more for the story, including starting on the smut scene. You’re genuinely reaching flow state when your phone vibrates on the couch.
“I’ll be back, my agent is calling,” You said to Michael. He nods before looking down at his own computer. You minimize the Tumblr tab before exiting the room.
Once you leave the room, Michael can’t help the way that his eyes gravitate over to your laptop. The MacBook Pro is practically calling him to take a look. Maybe just a quick peek. He tiptoes across the room and lifts the top of the laptop. He peeks through your folders, including the one labelled “stories.” There’s nothing out of the ordinary there. It’s all the stories and screenplays that you’ve let him read.
He suspects he was overthinking and is about to close your computer when he notices your web browser is still open. Michael slides the mouse over to the open tab and quickly clicks on it.
Tumblr.
Now what’s this? His curiosity gets the better of him, and he browses through the website. He’s surprised when he sees stories popping up about himself. He clicks on the “Michael B. Jordan x black!reader” tag and feels like the world shifts for him. There’s a myriad of things here. Some sweet stories, but his intrigue goes up when he sees the NSFW stories.
Michael looks off to the side where there’s clearly a profile and clicks “view blog.”
dollhousewrites.
Is this you? He clicks on the post labelled Masterlist and finds that you have an extensive body of work. Michael clicks on the post labelled with his name and realizes that there are a lot of stories about him. He clicks on the most recent post from two weeks ago called “Terms and Conditions.”
Just as he’s about to start reading, he hears your footsteps approaching. He quickly airdrops the link to himself before closing your laptop and sitting at his desk.
He’s the picture of perfect innocence as you enter the room. He smiles at you, “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, she just wanted to let me know that my publishers want to talk about my next book release for the fall,” You respond, giving him a wide smile.
“That’s great, baby. I’ll take you out tomorrow so we can celebrate,” Michael said, and he meant it. Even when you were both still forming a friendship, he watched how hard you worked on your books and screenplays. You were careful with which details you ingrained in your characters. He’d forever be talking about how you’re his favorite writer, and how he has one of the world’s greatest writers as his girlfriend.
Still, he yearns to know more about you, and that starts with delving into your Tumblr stories.
That night, while you’re sleeping next to him in bed with your back turned, Michael pulls up the Tumblr link on his phone. He strolls through the stories again and starts from the beginning of what he learned is called “a masterlist.” Your initial stories are centered more around Erik Stevenson. You truly capture the essence of what makes the character tic. The recklessness and die-hard mentality for his cause. Michael thinks that you may understand Erik better than he does.
As he progresses through your masterlist, he clocks the different eras of his career that you write for. Hell, you’d even written about Vince Howard from a college perspective. He notices the shift once he enters his Sinners era. The works are a lot more mature and erotic. It’s during this part that he reaches the stories that you’ve personally written about him.
He clicks on Terms and Conditions once again. He’s sucked into a world where you’ve characterized him down to the tee. You’ve incorporated some of the subtle mannerisms that you’ve noticed him doing from your time of dating him.
He even catches a few of the phrases that he commonly says in the story. It’s when he makes it to the smut portion of the story that things shift for him. Michael feels the heat rising within his chest and traveling further down.
Michael removes his head from between your legs, your juices shining all over his mouth. He presses one last lingering kiss to your pulsing clit. You whimper at how sensitive you are. He gives you a dark smile, hunger swirling beneath his brown irises, “You taste so good, baby.”
“Please, Michael,” You beg, doe-eyes desperately begging for more.
Michael brings his hand up to encircle your pretty neck, “What do you need from me, baby? Just tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
“I want you to fuck me, daddy.”
He groans at the sound of your desperate words and gently lays you back on the counter. Chills run through your body at the cool marble pressing against your heated skin. Michael takes the moment to look at you, naked and vulnerable, in his hands. Love bites litter the expanse of your skin from where he got greedy earlier. He takes both of your thick thighs in his hands and pulls you closer to the edge of the counter.
He crudely slaps his dick across your pearl as you flinch from the pleasure.
“You don’t want me to be nice to you tonight,” He inquires. You shake your head. You always liked him when he toed the line between cruel and permissive. Michael gathers the spit in his mouth and lets it drip down on your pussy. He slides his dicks through the mess, combining it with the slick that he’s oozing from you.
He takes the tip of his dick and notches it in your––
You shift in the bed and turn on your side to face him. Michael all but jumps out of his skin as he quickly locks his phone and glances to see if you’ve caught him. Peering closer, he lets out a deep sigh of relief once he concludes that you’re still sleeping.
He takes a second to just breathe. He’s never felt so overwhelmed by reading something. Is this what you wanted him to do to you? He’s dabbled here and there with some rough play and kinks in his sexual life, but he can’t recall a specific moment where he’s allowed himself to fully lose control and just give in. He spares you another glance and fully looks at the content expression on your face. His sweet girlfriend has been writing all this filthy stuff right under his nose.
By the way that his dick is straining against his brief, he concludes that he likes it just as much as you and your readers do.
Michael’s being weird, and that’s putting it lightly because he’s naturally kind of weird at home. No, this is different from his usual weird behavior. He’s been a lot more clingy, which you definitely don’t mind. But he’s been crowding your space more and seemingly more horny for you, which again you aren’t complaining, but you wonder where the shift came from.
Even now, as you both leave the after-party of an event that he was invited to, he’d been all over you. Throughout the night, he kept his grip tight on your waist and would frequently press kisses to the side of your neck.
Now, inside the car, he reaches across to rest his hand on your thigh, which isn’t unusual for him. However, you clock the way that his hand slides up the apex of your thighs, where your dress has shifted. Michael grips your thigh as he keeps his eyes on the road.
“Are you okay?” You ask, which makes him jump in surprise.
Michael looks down and clocks where his hand is. He goes to remove his hand until you place yours over his to keep it there.
“I’m sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?” Michael asks, worry filling his eyes. You always admired that about Michael. He was a gentleman through and through, and consent was always key with him.
“You’re not making me uncomfortable. I’m just asking if you’re okay. You’ve been crowding me all week. At the party, you were all over me. Now, I’m not complaining, but I could swear you’re ovulating,” You said, smiling widely at him.
Michael shrugs, “I can’t help it. You just look so sexy.”
He chooses the moment to venture further up where his fingers brush against your panties, which are growing wetter by the second. He peeks over at you, “Take them off for me.”
You give him a surprised look, to which he smirks, “Just humor me, babygirl.”
You slide your hands under your dress and tug your panties down your legs. Michael opens his hand to you and gestures with his eyes for you to put the panties in his hand. You oblige, and your jaw drops when you see him bring the wet material up to his nose.
“Open your legs,” He orders.
You spread your legs, but try to scooch down so that you’re not dripping down on his leather seats. Michael smacks his lips, “Baby, don’t worry about making a mess. That’s the whole point. I wanna smell your pussy on my seat the next time that I get in here.”
You’re clutching at your invisible pearls. Michael guides his hand back to your wet center and trails his fingertips up and down to gather your wetness on his fingertips. He slides two fingers across your clit and rubs circles across the throbbing pearl. Your pretty lips form a pout as the whimpers drop from your mouth. Moving down, Michael’s fingers dip in and out of your entrance as you roll your hips to meet his touch.
Michael bites his lip at how needy you are. It’s turning him on more knowing that he can’t fully watch you how he wants, but he has to rely on his touch and hearing. “Spread your legs wider for me, baby.”
You open your legs, and truthfully, you can’t pretend to be shy with your pussy out in his car. Michael plunges two fingers inside your dripping hole. Loud wet noises fill the car as he curls his fingers in and out of you. He presses the palm of his hand into your clit. You throw your head back against the seat as you loudly moan. You clutch at his hand, and Michael’s even more turned on; he clocks you humping against his hand.
The driveway to his house appears, and he turns to you briefly, “Go ahead and cum for me, babygirl.” He curls his fingers across your spot, and soon, your walls tighten as your release consumes you. Michael pulls into the driveway and has the pleasure of watching as you ride your release out. His eyes wander over your form as your breasts press against the dress. As you come down, your eyes meet his. He gently pulls his fingers from you, which are drenched with your release. Michael slides his fingers up to his mouth and sucks your juices from his fingers.
He makes a big display of it by closing his eyes and moaning. Once he opens his eyes, he catches your lustful stare. “Come on, we’re not done yet.”
Inside the house, you and Michael are all over each other. Hands messily groping at each other as he slams you against the wall. You can see the brief moment that he pauses, afraid that he’s hurt you, but you smile widely at him. He leans closer until his breath ghosts over your lips, “You don’t want me to be nice to you tonight.”
You freeze. Your confused eyes meet Michael’s as he smirks at you.
“Pause,” You state, pushing gently at his chest. He sets you down on your feet before you move to create distance between yourselves.
You rack your brain at how he could know that sentence. That sentence of all the possibilities of things that he could’ve said to you. Michael waits patiently on the other side of the room for you to make the connection.
You groan loudly, “You read my story, didn’t you?”
Michael looks like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He tries in vain to appear aloof, but he fails miserably. “Yeah, that night your agent called. I was just curious about what you were writing. I didn’t mean to disrespect your boundaries. I’m sorry.”
You bite your nails, a nervous habit of yours that Michael had been helping you break.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I mean, this is so embarrassing. You literally found out that I’ve been writing fanfics about you, and I’m dating you!” You exclaim. You begin pacing back and forth in the room until you move to walk towards the door.
Michael frowns and quickly crosses the space to stop you, “Why are you leaving?”
He frowns even more when he sees the tears in your eyes. Guilt courses through his body. He steps in front of you and grasps your face in his hands, “Baby, I’m really sorry. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you or anything like that. This is on me, I shouldn’t have been snooping through your stuff. But I just wanted you to know how much I liked it and to incorporate some of it.”
You sniffle and frown at him, “What? You liked reading my story?”
“Yeah, you know I always like reading whatever you write. If anything, I was flattered that you put that much work into writing for me and my characters. The way you write me, baby, I’ve never seen myself that way. It turned me on, to be honest.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm. I keep going back to read all of your stories over.” He pauses to laugh, “I even created an account to start liking your stories.”
You think back to your recent follows and laugh loudly, “Boy, are you bakari87?”
Michael laughs before nodding, “Yeah, mbjlover was already taken.”
There’s a moment of silence before you both break into laughter. Michael looks at you before pressing his lips to yours. “I mean it when I say that I really liked it, babygirl. I was kind of hoping that we could recreate some of the moments from your Terms and Conditions story.”
“You really liked that one?”
“Yeah, the part about me spitting on the reader’s pussy really did it for me.” He slides his hand down to close around your throat. Your eyes move to meet his as the heat floods throughout your body.
Michael keeps his hand around your throat as he carefully navigates you toward the couch. He gestures for you to take off your heels, which you do. With the heels off, it adds to the height difference between the two of you. He navigates behind you to toy with the zipper of your dress. The sound of the zipper fills the room as you can feel the excitement building in your core.
The dress falls to your feet as you stand naked before Michael. He runs his across your figure, taking in all the details that he’d committed to memory. Once he’s in front of you, he roughly grabs your face in his hands and smushes your cheeks together.
“This is the part where you have fucking the reader’s throat. Let’s start there,” He orders gently. You nod obediently and sit on the couch. You go to button his pants when he stops you, “You can’t remember your own story, babygirl? You open my pants with your mouth.”
Your mouth waters as you remember the plot point. Moving forward, you run your face across his bulge. You mouth at the button and move your head to the side to pop it open. You look up at Michael through your lashes as you grasp the zipper between your teeth and move down. Michael is nice enough to remove his pants for you.
He grabs the back of your head and presses your face into his covered dick. You mouth at his covered dick, your spit staining the front of his briefs. Kissing upwards, you lick at the happy trail of hair leading down into his briefs. Grasping the fabric between your teeth, you pull the briefs down until Michael’s dick is finally exposed to the air.
“Let me feel your throat, baby,” Michael mutters. You shudder at the realization that he’s quoting directly from your story. You don’t even need directions for your next actions. You lick along the underside of his dick right along the pretty vein that runs through it.
Your lips close around the tip of Michael’s dick, where his precum covers your taste buds. You suck at his sensitive tip as he groans and throws his head back. You move your mouth down to begin bobbing up and down on his dick. Your hand follows to cover the base where your mouth doesn’t reach.
Michael curls his hand through your hair and pulls you back, “Stick your tongue out.”
You do, and he leans down to release a trail of spit into your waiting mouth. Your eyes flutter as you moan at the filthiness of the act. Michael guides you back to his dick, but this time it’s different. You cross your arms behind your back just as you had written in your story. Michael looks down at you for consent, and you gladly give it.
The first push of his dick makes you gag a little. He pauses to let you adjust. You nod in his hold, and he resumes thrusting. You breathe through your nose as he enters your throat. Spit from your mouth drips onto your breasts and the floor. Tears fill your eyes as your mascara begins to run. Michael looks down and moans loudly, “You look so beautiful, Princess. You’re doing so good for Daddy.”
Pleasure sparks through Michael’s body at the whole scenario. It turns him on even more with how much you trust him to use you like this. Feeling bold, he pushes your face down so that your nose is engulfed in his pubes. You breathe through your nose and moan around his dick as it settles in your throat. Michael shudders at the feel of your warm throat. After a few seconds, he pulls out of your mouth completely.
He looks down at you again as you give him a wide smile. Tear, spit, and mascara streak across your face, but to Michael, you’ve never looked more beautiful.
He helps you to stand as he lifts you in his arms. You see him walking to the counter, and your pussy clenches in anticipation. Gently, he lays you across the marble counter. He quickly discards his shirt before moving between your legs.
“Please, Michael,” you beg, wide eyes meeting his.
“What do you need from me, baby? Just tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
“I want you to fuck me, daddy.”
He pulls you closer to the edge of the counter. He takes both of your thick thighs in his hands and pulls you closer to the edge of the counter. Just like the story, Michael gathers the spit in his mouth and deposits it crudely on your wet center. He slaps his dick across your clit where the spit landed and rubs the mess in with your combined slick.
Only this time, he won’t be getting interrupted.
He guides his tip to your entrance, and you both watch as he slips inside your warm walls. Your combined moans fill the empty kitchen as Michael’s thigh touches the back of yours. He pulls back and watches as pussy clings to him. His dark eyes find yours, “You see that? Pretty pussy is begging to keep me in.”
A deep breath leaves your mouth as he thrusts back in. Michael covers your body with his as he thrusts in and out of you.
“Michael..” you whine, once he lifts one of your legs to hang over his shoulder.
“I know, baby. You’re doing so good for me,” He responds, connecting his lips to yours. You whimper as he pulls out of you. You can feel your walls clenching in response to the loss.
Michael maneuvers your body from the counter and bends you over. You shiver as your nipples brush against the cool surface. You look back as Michael lines his tip up with your opening again, “I wanna see that pretty ass bounce on me.” You arch your back in the way that you know he likes, which makes him groan.
Michael slides inside you as he watches your backside ripple under his thrusts. You look back at him as you start thrusting back against him. Michael’s gaze is focused on the motion of your ass and the ring of cream that’s coating the base of his dick.
“You’re so deep, baby,” You whimper.
Michael can feel his own release building inside of him. He grabs your hips to start thrusting again. He reaches under you to start stroking your clit. He leans over to your open mouth, and you stick your tongue out again. A string of spit leaves his mouth and falls into your waiting mouth. A loud cry leaves your mouth as your orgasm hits. You shake in Michael’s hold as tears trail down the side of your face. He kisses your tears and continues to thrust inside of you.
With one last stroke, Michael moans loudly at this own orgasm consumes him. His own body shakes against your own as he pulls you flush against him. You and Michael moan at the mutual feeling of his cum shooting against your womb. When he pulls out, his cum trails down your thighs.
You surprise him by dropping to your knees and taking his cum-stained dick into your mouth.
“Baby, wait..”Michael pleads, still sensitive from his own orgasm. You ignore him and keep bobbing your head while fondling his balls. Michael practically screams as he cums again, his white release painting your tongue.
You stand up, and Michael clocks that you haven’t swallowed yet. You gesture for him to open his mouth. Your own hand comes to close around his throat as you spit his cum back into his mouth. You don’t waste any time sliding your tongue into his mouth as you both swap the cum back and forth until it’s gone.
You both pull back as you give him a demure smirk.
“I hope you write that into the next story for all of your freaky followers,” Michael comments.
“Oh, I most definitely will. I’m sure that they’ll love to hear that their Oscar Winner loves the taste of his own cum,” You mutter against his lips.
Michael laughs, “I like it when it’s coming from you. But I’m not done with you yet. There are a few other stories that I wanna recreate, starting with your Sinner story.”
Let’s just say, the girls were treated to a lot more Michael content, approved by the man himself.
I don’t know who cares about this, but I’m about to start writing for my dear and close personal friend, Andrew “Pope” Cody. I need to write about those wide puppy dog eyes.🙂↔️
Warnings: Contains smut, MDNI. Oral sex (f!receiving.) Masturbation (f.) Fingering. Finger sucking. Dom!Reader. Sub!Lion. Hypno-adjacent. Clicker training. Praise kink. Begging kink. Being (a little!) mean to Lion.
Author's Note: Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Enjoy this one when you have a second to sneak away from your family. That's how it was written, that's how it should be enjoyed. I am very, very thankful for all of you; thank you for all the love and support you've shown to me over the last year. Enjoy.
Special thank you and endless gratitude to abhi @scannainscanrula for beta reading and for all your input on this story! I'm very thankful for you and your worms, mo phéist.
Reblogs, comments, and likes always appreciated! Please reblog if you like what you read; it helps keep writers engaged in fandom spaces and creating cool shit for you!
You sit down on the edge of the bed, pouting up at him.
“Lionnnn…can you help me?
You pathetically kick out one foot, displaying your heel to him.
“Oh, uh, sure,” he stammers.
You’re coming back from a friend’s birthday party, and you’re wearing your favorite white platform heels with the ankle straps. You had a little too much to drink, and wrestling with the tiny buckle around your ankle had proven to be too difficult a task while your head was still spinning.
He kneels down in front of you and gently rests your foot on his knee, his big fingers fumbling with the dainty buckle.
“Thank youu,” you coo at him.
“Yeah, sure,” he mumbles again, his cheeks flushing red.
He frees your foot from the shoe, then picks up your other foot and begins the process again. When he’s removed your heels, you gently bring your hand to his cheek. He glances up at you through his long lashes.
“Thank you,” you whisper. “My sweet boy.”
He gently turns his head and presses a kiss to your palm. You giggle, and his cheeks brighten again at the sound.
“F’course,” he mutters.
It didn’t take long for a delicious idea to work its way into your brain.
Every time you came home from an evening out, you’d sit on the edge of the bed and ask Lion to take your heels off. It didn’t matter if you were black out drunk or stone cold sober, whether you were wearing classic pumps or elaborate laced-up platforms. He became so accustomed to the routine that he eventually began to follow you straight to the bedroom after stepping through the front door.
He’d kneel down, place your right foot on his knee, take the shoe off, then repeat. And you always thanked him, called him your sweet boy, made him blush. But you’d waited a while, established the routine, before introducing your latest toy.
You stand outside the apartment door while Lion turns the key in the lock. When he holds the door open for you, you cross to the coat closet, shrugging off your white wool trench and revealing the outfit you’d worn to dinner. A soft velvet dress, deep burgundy and short, short enough that you’d caught his eyes lingering on your legs more than once throughout the night. You notice him doing it now, too; his eyes drift from your shoulders, following the curves of your body, down to your dark red platform heels. You grin as you hang your coat up in the closet.
“I had fun tonight,” you start. “Did you?”
“Uh-huh,” he says half-heartedly, still looking you over as he takes off his own jacket.
You dig around in your purse for the toy as he hangs up his coat. When you find it, you slip it into your palm, a wicked smile creeping across your face. He shuts the closet door and turns to you, but before his hands can reach your hips, you cross into the bedroom, your heels click-clacking across the floor. When you reach the bed, you spin to face him and sigh as you sit. You lean back on one hand and gently kick your feet back and forth. He sinks to his knees in front of you.
click.
His head cocks to one side.
“What was that?”
“Hm? I didn’t hear anything,” you lie.
He turns back to your shoes and continues his routine.
“Good boy,” you mumble, gently tracing your thumb down the length of his jaw.
His lashes flutter as he closes his eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath. When he removes both shoes, he turns back to you.
“You want your kiss?” you tease him.
“Mhmm,” he hums, the sound low in his throat.
“C’mere,” you grin.
He sits up and gently places his hands on your knees.
click.
His brows furrow for just a second, but he leans up to meet your lips. His mouth presses against yours, warm and wet and wanting.
click.
When he finally pulls back from you, you smile, breathless.
“Good boy.”
You carried on like that for a while. Giving him a single click each time he knelt in front of you, each time his hands rested on your knees, each time he kissed you.
Then, you started to push him.
You’re coming home from a night out with some friends. Lion wanted to object to the length of your skirt, but hadn’t mustered the nerve before you were running out the door, afraid of being late. When he opens the apartment door, both of you a little more buzzed than usual, you head directly to your bedroom, with him on your heels like a puppy. You sit on the bed and he immediately kneels in front of you.
…
His brows knit together in confusion.
“What?” you ask him innocently.
“N-no, no, nothin’,” he mutters, turning his attention back to your shoes.
He lifts your foot onto his knee and tugs at your shoe, gently removing it. When he finishes with both, he brings his hands to rest on your knees.
click.
“Good boy,” you coo. “Thank you for helping me.”
“F’course, baby,” he replies quietly, looking up at you with those big pathetic eyes that drive you wild.
“You want your kiss?”
He nods silently.
“C’mere.”
He pushes himself up to meet your lips.
click.
He kisses you slow and sweet, his hands drifting to your waist. You pull back from him, and his hands halt their wandering movement. You bring one hand to the back of his head, holding his forehead to yours.
“Good boy,” you sigh, the air leaving your mouth and entering his as he gulps down quick, erratic breaths.
He hums in pleasure, eyelids fluttering closed.
He once again brings his hands to your hips, softly skimming the fabric of your dress that doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
“Y’look so pretty in this dress,” he mumbles, his voice low.
“Awww, thank you kitty cat,” you murmur. Lion flushes at the nickname you only use when you’re especially sweet on him.
“Can we…d’you wanna…”
“I wanna take a shower,” you yawn.
“O-okay,” he stammers.
You run your hands over his shoulders and down his arms.
“Thank you for takin’ care of me, kitty,” you purr.
“Y’welcome.”
click.
Lion began to love the clicker. He’d eagerly kneel at your feet, remove your shoes as quickly as he could, and bring his hands to your knees promptly just to hear the sound. You were still pairing each click with a bit of praise; you hadn’t quite weaned him off of rewards yet.
You stand at the mirror in your bathroom, fiddling with your earring. You carefully remove it and set it to the side before starting on the other one. Lion slinks into the bathroom and stands behind you, gently wrapping his arms around your waist. You smile at him in the mirror and grab the clicker from where it’s sitting on the counter in front of you.
“Y’need help with your shoes?” he asks timidly.
You roughly grind your hips back against his and a tiny noise escapes him.
“Mm, what do you say?” you chide him gently.
“Please?”
click.
“Good boy,” you grin. “Sure, you can help me.”
You turn to face him, your face tantalizingly close to his. He glances from your lips back up to your eyes. His brows are drawn together in a pathetic pleading gaze. You gingerly take his hand in yours, running your thumb over the bruises that paint his knuckles.
“Y’wanna do it here? Or the bedroom?” you ask him sweetly.
“Can we go to the bedroom?” he mumbles. “The tile…”
click.
“Please?”
You smile.
“Of course, sweet boy.”
You drop his hand and brush past him back into the bedroom, Lion following behind you. You take your usual seat on the edge of the bed.
click.
Lion drops to his knees and gets to work. He sets your shoes to the side when he’s done.
click.
He rests his hands on your knees, his palms hot over your skin.
This is usually where you’d ask him if he wants his kiss—dangling a treat out in front of him like a carrot on a stick. Clicking to make him lean up and crash his lips into yours. Lion stares up at you intently. You smile down at him sweetly.
And then you part your legs.
His rough hands are still on your knees, and his eyes dart down between your thighs.
“Shit,” he breathes.
“Yeah? See somethin’ you like, kitty cat?” you tease him. “See somethin’ you want?”
“Yes…” he mutters under his breath.
click.
“Yes, please.”
“Good boy,” you hum.
“Y-you’re…you’re not wearing…” Lion swallows.
“Well what’s the fun in that?” you taunt.
“All night?” he asks weakly.
“Alllll night, baby boy,” you grin. “Coulda been playin’ under the table the whole time. If you were payin’ attention to me.”
You punctuate your last sentence with a pout, exaggerating hurt.
“I was-I was payin’ attention,” he chokes, his eyes still glued to your exposed cunt.
“No you weren’t,” you whine. “Too busy talkin’ to everyone else.”
You had spent the evening at a dinner to celebrate Lion’s recent win. He hated going out to eat after a fight—all he wanted was to go home, cover you in kisses, and sleep—but you found a compromise. He’d let you schedule a nice dinner with a few close friends the day after a win; it did occasionally result in a few cancelled reservations, but generally, it was a good middle ground.
Lion had spent the night being a little more sociable than usual. He made polite conversation with your best friend’s newest boyfriend whom you weren’t entirely sure you liked yet. He even remembered that your friend Liz had started a new job recently and asked her how she was liking it. You were proud of him for going out of his comfort zone a little more. He was ordinarily pretty shy and reserved at these dinners, uncomfortable being the center of attention. You’d seen a change in him over the last few weeks, and were pleased that he was getting more and more comfortable in his own skin.
But you were so pissed that he had politely taken his hand off your knee when you placed it there instead of fingering you under the table like you wanted.
“Too busy talkin’ to Liz…and Molly…” you guilt him. “Didn’t even notice I wanted these inside’a me.”
You slowly lift one of his hands from your knee and bring two of his fingers to your lips. You greedily take them in your mouth, staring at him as you suck on them. You can feel his fingernails towards the back of your throat, the calloused pads of his fingertips pressing into your tongue. He winces when your teeth graze one of the bruises blooming on his knuckles. You pull him out of your mouth, a string of saliva stretching between you obscenely.
“Still hurts, baby?” you ask softly.
“Mm–mhmm,” he hums, his brows knitted together against the painful sensation.
“Sorry, sweetheart.”
You run your hand through his hair, using your nails to gently scratch his scalp. He groans under your touch. You draw your hand into a fist, grabbing his hair at the root.
“Gimme my kiss,” you tell him.
He brings his free hand back to your knee and goes to sit up. You tug on his hair, yanking him back down. He cries out in surprise.
“Not your kiss, silly. My kiss.”
You part your knees further and angle your hips up towards him, your skirt riding up around your waist. Lion gets the hint. He leans forward and presses his lips to your folds, placing a delicate kiss over your clit.
click.
A sigh tumbles out from your lips. You release his hair and fall back onto the mattress, propped up on one elbow.
Lion drags his tongue down your folds, the warm, wet feeling of his muscle against your sensitive skin relieving some of the pent-up frustration that’d been building in you since dinner.
“Fuck, just like that baby,” you breathe.
click.
He speeds up, licking and sucking on your cunt with fervor.
“A little higher, Lion,” you command him gently, your breath light and airy in your throat.
He obeys, dragging his tongue back up to your clit and massaging the sensitive nerves there.
click.
“Gooood boy,” you moan.
Lion hums against you, the low rumble reverberating through your body and making your thighs shake. He mumbles something you can’t hear.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” you tease.
He pulls away from you, his eyes glazed over with want. He looks delirious.
“Can I make you cum?” he asks, those puppy dog eyes almost melting you on the spot.
click.
“Please?” he corrects.
“Fuck, yes, Lion, make me cum.”
He dives back into you. His tongue feels divine, the pressure against your clit making it harder and harder to catch your breath.
“Ke-keep going, baby, yes, good boy, righ-ah, right there, right there-!”
He expertly swirls his tongue over you again, drawing the heat in your stomach down into your pelvis.
“Nng–Lionnnn,” you whine. “M’gonna, fuck, I’m…”
He roughly presses your legs further apart, his rough, bruised hands warm against your inner thighs. He sucks your clit into his mouth as he pulls away from you, releasing your flesh with a lewd wet sound. He slides his hands up, resting one on each side of your soaked core. Using his thumbs, he spreads you, the exposed angle making you blush and squirm under his touch. He gently blows cool air against you, the sensation making you even more sensitive. When he brings his mouth back to you, his tongue burns against your clit. A broken cry jumps out of your throat.
“L-Lion, Lion, please,” you pant. You toss your head back, staring up at the ceiling as he brings one thumb up to your clit, firmly pressing and rubbing in small circles.
The heat in your stomach blooms throughout your body, your cheeks flushing as you fall apart under his tongue and his touch. The sound of your groans and his wet kisses on your cunt fill the room as he works you through your orgasm. You gently push against his head when the stimulation becomes too much. He detaches from you and gazes up at you intently, eager for his reward.
click.
“Good boy,” you laugh lightly. “You want your kiss?”
He nods quietly, his chin coated in his spit and your slick.
“C’mere.”
click.
Once Lion started to understand each click as a reward, you began to train him with only the clicker. You didn’t give him praise or call him sweet names or show him affection until after he made you cum, after he obeyed every command. He knew that every click held the promise of a treat, and followed your orders with reverence.
It’s Friday night and you’re coming home from a date at a little wine bar around the corner from your apartment. You’re wearing your favorite dress, the black one that hugs your body just right, the sweetheart neckline displaying your cleavage perfectly. Your black stilettos clack against the floor of your apartment as you enter and head straight to the bedroom. Lion locks the door behind you and follows quickly behind.
He had been especially needy at the bar, stumbling and stammering over his words stupidly as he stared at your chest. When you stepped out of the dimly lit bar onto the sidewalk, Lion produced a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, shaking one out and holding it between his teeth. He fumbled around in his jacket pockets for his lighter before you opened your purse to let him borrow yours. Seeing the little black clicker in your purse, casually resting next to your lipstick, almost made him faint. Knowing that you carried his sanity around in your tiny designer purse made his knees buckle. He lit the cigarette and took a long drag before grabbing your hand in his and quickly starting towards home.
You sit on the bed now, clicker in hand, as Lion tumbles into the bedroom.
“Kneel.”
click.
He does.
“Take off my shoes.”
click.
He does.
“Get me my vibrator.”
click.
He reaches over to your nightstand and fumbles with the top drawer. He pulls out the small black satin bag and hands it to you. You notice the way his hands are shaking.
“Undress me.”
click.
He brings his hands to your knees and spreads your legs. He reaches under your dress and slides his thumbs underneath the lacy fabric of your black panties, pulling them down your legs and tossing them aside.
You remove your toy from the bag and drag it through your folds, collecting the slick lingering at your entrance. You’re already wet from the anticipation that started building in you when you started the walk home. You love having him wrapped around your finger.
You sigh as you switch the vibe onto the lowest setting, just barely grazing your clit. He watches your every move intently, awaiting his next command.
You tap the button on the toy, increasing the speed. You massage your cunt and the vibrations stimulate your nerves in a way that has your hips twitching into your own touch. Lion just kneels on the floor in front of you as you make him watch you get off on this tiny toy instead of his face.
You cum surprisingly quickly, even on just the medium setting of the vibrator. You can feel your juices coating the silicone and the tips of your fingers as you pull the toy from between your legs, your orgasm making your body feel buzzy and flushed. Lion stares at the shiny remnants of you on the vibe.
“Use your words,” you tell him. It was one of your favorite commands, though it took some getting used to. Where you would ordinarily ask him what was wrong, what he wanted, what he was thinking about, you instead gave him an order.
click.
“Can I have a taste?” he asks meekly.
click.
“Please?” he adds.
“No,” you reply cruelly, relishing every second of it. “Get me a tissue.”
click.
He rises and crosses to the bathroom, returning with the tissue. You take it and wipe your vibrator clean before putting it back in the bag.
“Throw this away,” you tell Lion, handing him the sticky tissue.
You know it’ll kill him, throwing away your cum that he so desperately wanted in his mouth. Not only watching you waste it on a toy, but being forced to be the one to discard the evidence only twisted the knife you’d sunk into his chest.
click.
He reluctantly crosses back into the bathroom and tosses the tissue in the trash can with a wince before returning to you.
“Kneel,” you command him again.
click.
He does.
You stare down at him as he stares up at you, those soft, sweet eyes boring into yours. It takes everything in you to maintain your composure. All you want to do is stroke his hair, pepper his face with tiny kisses, breathe in his breath like it’s your own. But you don’t.
“Gimme my kiss.”
click.
He leans forward and starts eating you like he’s been starved for days. His pace is immediately unrelenting as alternates between swirling his tongue around your clit and dragging it through your folds.
“Lion, oh God, yes,” you huff, your body still reeling from your first orgasm.
His facial hair scratches against your inner thighs as you squeeze them around his head. He hums in satisfaction and tosses your legs over his shoulders, tugging your hips closer to his mouth and the edge of the bed.
You lie back completely, flopping your head against the pillowy mattress. Lion continues to devour you, lapping and slurping up your wetness. It sounds like you’re in a cheesy porno, his weak, tiny moans harmonizing with the vulgar sounds of his tongue.
“Yes, baby, yes, yes, fuck.” You can hardly catch your breath. Your thighs are trembling around his head, your hips twitching and grinding against his face. “Use your words, kitty cat, talk to me.”
click.
He groans.
“Y’so pretty, so gorgeous, baby, couldn’t stop starin’ at you all night,” he mumbles. “Not fair when y’wear this one…”
“You like it?” you tease him through hurried breaths.
“Y’so sexy, fuck, I was gonna cum just starin’ at your tits in the restaurant,” he continues, pressing a sloppy kiss to your clit. “Just wanna make you cum, princess, please, please?”
He runs his tongue along your cunt and swallows the juices that collect on his tongue.
“Please, please, please, baby, please, I need you to…”
He sounds ruined. His breath is filling his lungs almost as fast as yours is, and his voice is wavering.
“I need you to click it baby, please,” he begs.
“Make me cum first, Lion,” you chastise him.
“But ‘m sayin’ please,” he whines.
He was still a little attached to his old habits, seeking clicks like treats. He was still learning.
“You get a click for making me cum, not just for saying please,” you reply sternly. He whines against you.
“M’sorry baby,” he breathes.
“It’s o-okay,” you respond, stuttering when he brings his mouth back to suck on your clit. He lets go of you with a lewd pop!
“Can I use my fingers, too?” he asks you sweetly, staring up at you through those long lashes.
“You can use your fingers,” you whisper.
He brings his hand to your cunt and slowly drags two fingers through your folds, slicking them with you, before he pushes in. You whimper at the full feeling. He usually starts with one, but now he’s pumping two fingers in and out of you at a torturously slow pace while his tongue flicks your clit over and over. You can feel the spark in your stomach ignite again, and you bring one hand down to tangle your own fingers in his hair.
You pull him closer, and he picks up the pace. You can feel him part his fingers inside of you and you cry out at the stretch. He keeps working you, his deft fingers curling up to find that spot inside of you that has your head spinning. You arch your back off the bed, angling your hips towards his face and giving him better access.
“Right there, fuck, yes, Lion, don’t stop,” you cry.
He strokes you again, and you can feel your heart thundering in your chest.
“Cum for me baby, please,” he begs.
He hits that spot one more time, his calloused fingers applying just the right amount of pressure. You scream, gripping his hair so tight you’re almost worried about hurting him. Your orgasm shoots through you, heightened by the first one still lingering in your body. Every limb feels like it’s on fire, and your legs shake around his head. He slurps down the juices you release onto his tongue, savoring the taste of you. When he finally pulls his fingers out of your aching cunt, he brings them to his mouth and greedily sucks off the remainder of your orgasm.
You lie back in the bed, flushed and giddy. You chuckle softly in your bliss. Lion sits back on his heels, staring up at you as your chest rises and falls.
“Good boy,” you praise him through panting breath. “Good boy, Lion.”
You glance back down at him. He stares at you with his giant, sad, puppy dog eyes.
“C-can I have m-my k-kiss now?” he whimpers.
Thanks for reading! As always, likes, comments, and reblogs highly appreciated! Check out my masterlist here if you're looking for more.
E // MDNI // WC: 2.6k // dom sub dynamics, overstimulation // masterlist //
Working in the district attorney's office in Boston as anything other than a white man was hard, but a black woman of all things? Even harder.
When DeCourcy Ward thundered his way in with a hard head for change, you expected an ally, some bumps in the road? Sure, but at least you would have one person on your side.
Someone who would get it. Someone who understood what it was like. Someone you could relate to.
How wrong you were.
Secretary you were not, but you were often mistaken for one. Your position was a hybrid of things: paralegal, somehow private investigator correspondent, and any and everything else that needs to be seen to that the head lawyers around let slip through the cracks when they were too busy with other things, or in Ward's case— have blinders on for one thing and one thing only, that they forget about all the little things that needed to get done.
The DA appreciated your "team player" sensibilities and liked to say it was a shame you weren't a lawyer in his office.
You weren't too sure you'd want to be in his office even if you were one. As shiny as assistant DA and DA sounds— being one in Boston? A scary scary thought. Now with the knowledge of how they'd treat a black man? Even scarier for you.
DeCourcy Ward seemed pleasant enough in the beginning, neutral even, but soon you came to know, like many of the other men here— he was not.
"Here are the backgrounds for Kimly and Davis' cases, separated and organized accordingly. Kimly has no formal/legal employment records or bosses that can support any of his claims— and Davis is clean as expected."
He nodded while flipping through each file briefly as you spoke.
"Where's Stone?" He said low, not looking up at you and went back to what he was doing. The sound of his voice sent off a wave of butterflies in your stomach, regardless of his formal dismissive tone.
Were you expecting a thank you? No.
But straight into a question about the one thing you have no control over and knew little to nothing about.
"I'm not sure, sir. He hasn't called." You forced yourself to say through a smile, fighting not to grit your teeth too hard as you do.
"Well did you try to call him!" His voiced thudded loudly in your ears, booming against the walls of his office, loosing its charming lilt and falling into something a little more terrifying, but now that you've almost been here a month, the intimidating level his voice could reach when he was upset no longer had an effect on you.
"I'll try that." You hold your breath and turn on your heels, knowing you won't be able to keep your mood in check for a second longer.
"Do your damn job, so I can do mine!" He calls out as you close the door behind.
Out of ear shot, you groan under your breath back to your desk. Muttering several curses his way.
Today was going to be a day huh?
You dialed the private investigators number one more time and left a message that you will not be waiting for whatever the fuck it to be was supposed to get, and that you were going to get it yourself, and take his pay for it too because you do not get paid to take shit from Ward all day, so he can man up and do his job— or you'll do it.
You grabbed your coat and keys.
Looking back between DeCourcy's office and the door, you make sure no one sees you, and you quickly and quietly make a break for it.
You had to lie to a woman, not only to get into her house, but to also sneak into her husbands office when you asked to go to the bathroom as well as record your conversation with her and then the husband in question we he got home.
Another shitty cover up by a shitty cop who doesn't really feel that bad.
You feel less bad for having to lie now.
You were just an innocent bystander in the neighborhood visiting her friend who just got a divorce and wanted a glass of water after all.
It was late when you back, needing the rest of your things you left at the office before finally going home.
The light was still on in Ward's office and you did your best to ignore it. He could wait until tomorrow. After all, he deserved to have as shitty of a day as you had, especially with the way he talked to you.
But as you shuffle away the stray papers for tomorrow and pack your belongings into your bag you sigh. Your heels clacking, echoing in the hall behind you as you ultimately knock on his door.
"Yeah." He confirms in a low voice that flushes your cheeks with heat.
You clear your throat, stopping yourself from manipulating your hair or picking at your clothes before you enter.
"Got something for —"
"What are you doing here this late?" He says it in a harsh stern voice you know not to take personally. He talks to everyone that way— supposedly, but it's a little extra snappy. His eyes too interpersonally cool for you to take it as anything but personal.
Something in you snaps.
Silently, you fume, but you give him a slick and cheery smile laced with as much malice as you can muster.
You make your way behind his desk and smooth your hand up his chest. His eyebrows scrunch in confusion, the attitude in his face wavers as he subconsciously leans into your touch.
You start low at his abdomen.
His skin is warm through his shirt, the night air warmer and stuffy, though not as suffocating as it had been over the last few weeks, signaling Autumn was close around the corner but not quite here yet.
You slide the palm of your hand up his chest, going over one of his suspenders to over his heart. It beats wildly underneath your palm, and you resists the urge to squeeze. The soft muscle of his breast was tantalizingly sweet under the palm of your hand. The rising heat of his skin relentlessly teased your senses, tempting you to give into your darkest of impulses.
His nostrils flared suddenly in the corner of your eye, tearing your gaze back to his face.
His eyes glossed over with a glaring anger, and his lips parted. No doubt a fiery quip was on the tip of his tongue.
Before he could utter a single sound or form a single syllable you grabbed him by his tie and pulled him close to your face, giving him a glare of your own.
"One day." You hold up the tape recorder and envelope with your other hand. Your hold on his tie is so tightly wrapped around your fist he can only dart his eyes to the side to see what you have. "One day," you say again, "and I have the piece of evidence that can help you close the case on Kimly that Stone's been claiming he couldn't get for weeks."
"W—" he opens his mouth to speak and you pull tighter. The fabric creaks in your hands, straining in your grip as the knot pulls closer around his throat. His Adam's Apple bobs, tearing your attention away, just for a moment.
A small fear rises at your spine that he might have noticed, but when your eyes dart back to his face. You have to force yourself to hold your composure when you see his pupils have dilated behind glossy eyes. His eyelashes fluttered so heavily, it looked as if he were about to close them in some sort of bliss.
"I put up with so much shit, and I don't need you adding onto it," you keep going, ignoring the look on his face, ignoring the heat starting to rise through your body, and the way his eyes move widely as they scan very inch of your face, "I am good at my job, and I can be a valuable asset," you squeeze just that much harder for emphasis, letting the small cotton material close around his throat, not enough to choke him fully, but enough to make your message clear, "or I can be a pain in your ass and make your already miserable position in this hell hole much more worse than it already is."
He swallowed thickly. The small sound filling in the room, accompanying his slow ragged deep breaths.
"Do, you, understand?" You squeeze harder after each word, making him gasp. His hand squeeze the arms of his chair so hard, his knuckles look close to splitting.
After a few heartbeats you let go, and he gasps. "Yes," he moans in a low gravely voice, "I understand."
You let go and he doesn't allow his body to slump back. He remains sitting straight. His back erect and his head high, despite how low he keeps his gaze, showing how he really feels in his refusal to look at you.
You nod, not allowing him a response and ready to turn on your heels, but as you move your head to the door, you notice the odd way he moves one leg over the other.
If it weren't so late and quiet, you wouldn't have heard it. You wouldn't have noticed, but you do.
As soon as your eyes land back on him, he inhales sharply.
"Move your legs."
He stills, freezing for just a moment.
But his lips part slightly and he breaks eye contact with you again. His shoulders drop just a tad as he slowly parts his legs, revealing the thick hard dick, straining through his pant leg against his thigh.
DeCourcy Ward was a loud and proud black man who did not care for making his peers more comfortable around him, often sitting with his legs spread wide, never hiding the furrow of his brow, or his visible displeasure at any of their antics.
But right now in front of you he sits with slightly less than perfect posture, and his head turned sheepishly in front of you.
You lick your lips and swallow. Your heart thuds in your chest and your pantries grow wetter by the second.
Just what have you done?
You don't hesitate and take a step forward into his space.
You gently place a hand on his face, lifting it up until he faces you once more. You put on a brave unyielding face, similar to the one before. Ignoring how the heat of his cheeks that sear under the pads of your fingertips matches the one on your own.
Thankful, that he can't see through the dark undertones of your skin. That he can't see just how bashful you were about the whole thing as well. That you could bring a man such as this to his knees, was not a power you know you had.
You slide your free hand down his chest, making sure to brush against the swollen nipples under his shirt.
Without further warning, you push down against the tip of his dick that strains though the fabric of his pants.
He moans, the sound coming out high at the top of his throat. Higher than any word you've ever witnessed coming from his lips.
You rub it relentlessly. Watching how he closes his eyes, every whimper that bubbles out of his throat, and how the muscles of his thighs flex at your sweet relentless torture. He grows wet under your hand, a dark spot pools larger and larger on the blue material over his thigh.
"C-close," he sputters out in a strained high voice. A tear falls from the corner of his eye, "pull it—" he chokes out a sudden sob, "more." He cries.
"No," you say in a soft sultry voice. Your words brush against his eyelashes and they flutter open, "you're going to cum just like this, and after," you press your thumb firmly on his tip, stopping the movement of your hand. As if doing as he was told, he cums in his pants.
He finally slumps back in his seat and something warm comes over your chest. His eyes are closed again and his chest falls up and down raggedly. as your eyes scan over the mess he's made of himself, the feeling intensifies.
Pride.
What you were feeling was pride.
But what were you proud of? Was it for yourself and what you did? Or was it for him?
"You. . . You were so good." You praise and discretely clear your throat, playing off the stumble like you were distracted by him or . . . Something, but then you remember what just happened and how he looks.
He definitely had not noticed. You were just in your head.
His eyes flutter open, regarding you with some sort of reverence. An awe you did not understand.
You move to unbuckle his pants. The sound clanging loudly in the room along with his deep breaths. Just so he couldn't see you fluster.
Just what was that look, and why did you want more?
He was so big. The thick velvety smooth skin of his dick felt so good, you just couldn't help your self.
You jerked him off with no thought of his being. His current emotional or physical state or even how overstimulated he might be.
He moaned deep and loud, closing his eyes as he threw his head back.
You had to get on the floor in front of him, half sitting on your knees for a better look, admiring how his dick bobbed in your grub,, how his balls bounced at the bottom of your hand.
You wrapped your hand around them— just to feel.
Like the rest of him, they were neatly trimmed, almost bare. The smooth sensitive skin felt heavenly, heavy and full in your palm. You massaged your hand around is balls with one hand and moved your other hand after along his dick, making sure your grip was tighter.
His low moans we're getting higher, falling into whimpers.
Before you could even think of what to do next, his orgasm sputtered out of him.
Thick ropes of his cum spilled over your fingers, some of it catching on your cheek, and some on his chin. The rest all over his clothes.
You stood putting some space between you. Your panties were more than soaked. Your arousal pooled between your thighs, threatening to trickle down your leg.
Your pussy was aching to be touched. You ignored it, and forced yourself not to squeeze your legs together.
Instead you grabbed a sticky note, scribbling quickly on it.
"Soak your pants in oxy clean and warm water, and spray this to your shirt before letting it sit for half an hour to two as needed before washing with these."
You handed it to him.
He silently placed it inside his jacket pocket.
In the short time you had taken to write how to treat the mess he's made of his very nice and expensive clothes, he'd put his dick away.
"Thank you." His voice was hoarse. Ruined even.
Wordlessly, you give him a sickly sweet, but intimidating smile, and turn on your heels. Rushing to grab your things from your desk, desperate to get home as quickly as possible, so you could replay everything in your mind while you touch yourself.
Warnings 18+ MDNI, Sub!Reader, You’re lowkey in trouble
Mature!Michael does crossword puzzles while you lay flat on the couch legs open facing him. He gave you a toy to use while he was gone, but you complained about it not being the same. You pushed his buttons too far when you suggested that he was too old to give you more.
“Since I apparently can’t keep up with you, you’re gonna fuck yourself with this till i’m satisfied.”
“I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant it wasn’t enough-“
“Do as I said. Always so greedy, you should be happy with this.” He leaned back on the couch and watched you for a while before turning his attention back to the crossword.
You don’t know how long he made you speed up and stop but there was a visible wet mark underneath you and slickness covered your thighs.
Michael tsked, “that’s another thing I have to get cleaned now. You like making problems for me?” He smiled as you poorly defended yourself.
“Start again.” Michael flipped the page and kept at his puzzle.
ೃALWAYS VENUS ᝰ
jaafar jackson x oc! ( venus taraji hamilton )
Venus Taraji Hamilton has spent most of her life pretending not to notice the way Jaafar Jackson looks at her.
Four years older, fiercely independent, and one of the most sought-after fashion designers in the industry, Venus has always known better than to entertain whatever has been simmering between them since they were young. Their families are close, their lives are tangled, and Jaafar has always been just close enough to want — but just complicated enough to deny.
Jaafar, however, has never believed in denial.
Not when it comes to Venus.
a/n : i know Jaafar doesn't speak spanish but for this fic he does cause i said he do dammit
Jaafar did not think he was insane for this.
Desperate, maybe. Reckless, perhaps. A man driven half-mad by patience, certainly. But insane? No. There was nothing insane about going to retrieve what had always, in some quiet and ancient part of him, belonged to him; nothing deranged about finally reaching for the woman he had spent years orbiting like some punished god circling the same forbidden star, condemned to watch her glow from a distance while lesser men warmed their hands at her fire.
Because he had been patient.
He had been kind.
He had been more gracious than he was naturally inclined to be, if he was being honest, and Venus Taraji Hamilton had worked his last nerve — not the first, not the second, not even the frayed little string of restraint he kept tied around his pride for her sake, but the very last one.
And the worst part was that she knew what she was doing.
She knew exactly what she was doing when she announced her engagement at that family dinner, the one where the Jacksons and the Hamiltons sat together under warm lights and polished silver, mingling like two old bloodlines in some mythic hall, laughing over wine and legacy as if they had not all spent years pretending they could not see the storm gathering between him and Venus. She knew what she was doing when she let another man place a ring on her finger and then offered the news up like a blessing, like a toast, like it was not a blade laid carefully at Jaafar’s throat.
And he had not even been there.
That was what nearly made him laugh, though there was nothing funny about it.
He had been away filming, swallowed whole by the tedious, sacred, gratifying work of becoming his uncle — of bending his body, his voice, his spirit toward a man the world had already turned into myth — when his mother called to tell him the “good” news. The word had come through the phone bright and harmless, dressed in congratulations, but Jaafar had heard it for what it was.
A warning bell.
A prophecy.
A door closing somewhere it never should have been opened for anyone else.
The woman at the front desk, bless her heart, had been so visibly starstruck at the sight of him that she forgot the shape of her own job, her eyes widening, her smile trembling at the edges as though Hermes himself had stepped down from Olympus and asked for a room key. She was too dazzled to follow procedure, too flustered to question why a man who was not listed under Venus Hamilton’s reservation was asking for access to her floor, and though Jaafar made a quiet mental note to raise that with Venus once they left the hotel together — because no, they would not be booking here again, not if any pretty face with a famous name could charm his way past security — he still gave the woman a soft, devastating grin, thanked her like a gentleman, and made his way toward the elevators with the calm certainty of a man walking into a temple he believed had been built for him.
He rolled his neck as the elevator doors closed, the soft gold light catching along his jaw while he pressed the button for the penthouse suite — because of course Venus would be in the penthouse, of course she would spare no expense when it came to her own comfort, her own privacy, her own little palace in the sky; and yes, he assumed she had paid for it herself, because Venus Taraji Hamilton did not let men buy her luxury when she could purchase divinity with her own black card, and Jaafar’s assumptions about her were rarely wrong.
By the time the elevator climbed to the top floor, he had already loosened his shoulders, already swallowed the last bitter mouthful of restraint sitting beneath his tongue, already made peace with the fact that whatever happened next would happen because Venus had forced his hand — or at least, that was the lie he fed himself as the doors parted with a quiet chime.
The corridor beyond was hushed and expensive, all muted carpet, low lighting, and the kind of silence that belonged to people who paid not to be disturbed. Jaafar stepped out just as a room service attendant approached her door, tray balanced carefully in hand, knuckles lifted and ready to knock.
“I got it,” Jaafar said smoothly.
The man paused, recognition flickering across his face, quick as lightning over the Aegean, and Jaafar only smiled — that easy, devastating smile that had opened doors long before he ever touched a handle — before slipping two crisp hundred-dollar bills into the man’s hand with a murmured, “Keep the change.”
It was enough. Of course it was enough.
The attendant blinked down at the money, then back up at him, already retreating with a polite nod, and Jaafar waited only until he disappeared around the bend of the corridor before he turned toward Venus’s door, slid the keycard from his pocket, and let himself inside like a man entering a room he had already claimed in every version of the future that mattered.
The suite was quiet when he entered, too quiet, the kind of expensive silence that did not feel empty so much as carefully arranged, curated by money and taste and the kind of woman who had learned very early that peace was something you could purchase if you knew which floor to book and which people to keep outside the door.
Venus had left pieces of herself everywhere.
Not mess, never mess, because Venus did not do mess unless it was emotional and even then she had the nerve to make it look intentional, but evidence; a white satin heel tipped lazily near the chaise, a pearl earring abandoned on the marble console, a bridal shower sash folded over the back of a chair as if the words printed across it had offended her and she had stripped them from her body the moment she crossed the threshold. There were flowers everywhere, blush roses and white peonies spilling from glass vases like offerings left at the altar of some beloved, cruel goddess, and along the far table sat champagne, untouched cake, little gift bags tied with silk ribbon, and enough pale, pretty bridal nonsense to make his jaw tighten.
Bride-to-be.
The phrase seemed to glare at him from every corner.
Jaafar shut the door behind him with a quiet click, the sound small but final, and for a moment he simply stood there with the room service tray in his hands, taking in the ridiculous theatre of it all; Venus in white, Venus with flowers, Venus celebrated, Venus wrapped up and handed toward another man as though she were not the same woman who had once laid beneath him until dawn with her fingers twisted in his hair and his name broken soft against her mouth.
He exhaled through his nose, slow and humourless.
“Playing house,” he murmured under his breath, setting the tray down on the dining table, his eyes drifting toward the half-open bedroom door. “You really lost your mind.”
A sound came from deeper in the suite then — the low rush of running water, maybe the bathtub, maybe the shower, and beneath it, faint but unmistakable, the soft hum of Venus’s voice carrying through the room like smoke from an oracle’s bowl. She was singing to herself, absentmindedly, some old song he had heard her play in the car years ago, back when he was still young enough for her to laugh at him without consequence and old enough to know he hated every man who made her smile.
For one second, one dangerous, merciful second, the sound softened him.
It brought him back to summers in too-large houses where their parents drank wine on patios and Venus wandered barefoot through kitchens, hair piled on top of her head, skin glowing in the heat, calling him baby Jackson when she wanted to irritate him and Jaafar when she wanted something. It brought him back to being sixteen and furious at his own age, watching her leave parties with men who had full beards and real cars and the audacity to place hands at the small of her back. It brought him back to twenty-four, when she had stopped laughing long enough to look at him properly, and the whole world had tilted on its axis like Olympus itself had leaned down to see what they would do.
Then he saw the ring box on the dresser.
Not the ring itself — no, that was probably still on her finger, where she insisted on wearing her lie — but the velvet box it had come in, open and waiting, black against all that bridal white like a funeral flower.
Whatever softness had risen in him went cold.
He crossed the room slowly, every step measured, his body held with the kind of restraint that was not peace but the last wall before ruin. He touched nothing at first. He only looked. At the flowers. At the sash. At the programme from the shower with her name printed in elegant script beside the name of a man Jaafar had never liked, not because the man was cruel or foolish or unworthy in some obvious way, but because he had committed the unforgivable sin of arriving late to a story and acting like he had written the beginning.
That was what sickened him.
The arrogance of it.
To meet Venus in the middle of her life and think a ring gave him claim to what Jaafar had known since boyhood.
The bathroom door opened.
Venus stepped out wrapped in a white robe, steam curling behind her like mist from some sacred spring, her hair pinned up loosely, tendrils escaping around her face, her skin bare and luminous from the heat. For half a breath she did not see him. She was looking down, twisting a lotion cap back into place, comfortable in the privacy she had paid for.
Then she lifted her head.
And stopped.
The air changed so violently it felt like a god had entered the room and taken offence.
Venus’s hand tightened around the bottle. Her eyes moved over him once — the open collar, the tension in his shoulders, the calm, terrible set of his face — and then, slowly, to the door behind him.
“Jaafar.”
His name did not sound like surprise.
It sounded like warning.
He smiled, but there was no joy in it. “Venus.”
She blinked once, as if giving herself time to decide which version of herself would answer him: the friend, the almost-lover, the bride-to-be, the woman who had spent years stepping over the same burning line and acting shocked when her feet blistered.
“What are you doing in my room?”
“Our room, for tonight,” he said lightly, glancing around. “Apparently. Since security downstairs is decorative.”
Her mouth parted, disbelief cutting through her composure. “You bribed your way into my room?”
“I tipped a room service attendant.”
“You got a keycard.”
“I smiled.”
“Jaafar.”
There it was again, sharper now, but he only tilted his head, watching her the way he always had, like there were languages written beneath her skin and he had spent his life learning how to read them.
“You should be more careful where you stay,” he said. “Front desk nearly fainted. Didn’t ask for a thing. You could’ve had anybody walking in here.”
Her brows lifted. “But I got you.”
Something flickered across his face.
A wound, quickly dressed.
“Yes,” he said, voice lower. “You got me.”
Venus looked away first, which would have pleased him once, back when every crack in her composure felt like victory, but now it only made something bitter twist inside him. She moved toward the dresser, setting the lotion down with deliberate care, as if the ordinary motion could restore order to a room already splitting open around them.
“You need to leave.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
Her shoulders tensed.
The room went still.
Jaafar took one step closer, not enough to crowd her, not enough to touch, only enough to make the distance between them honest. He watched the line of her throat shift when she swallowed, watched her fingers curl once at her side before she remembered herself and smoothed them out.
“Say it,” he repeated softly. “Tell me to leave, Venus, and I’ll go.”
She turned on him then, eyes bright with anger, but anger had always suited her too well, had always made her look like Athena before war — beautiful, armed, impossible to reason with because she had already decided she was right.
“You don’t get to do this,” she said.
A small laugh left him, quiet and stunned. “I don’t get to do this?”
“No.” She pointed toward the door. “You don’t get to show up here, today of all days, and act like I owe you some performance.”
“Today of all days,” he repeated, tasting the words like poison. “Your bridal shower.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Congratulations, by the way.”
“Don’t.”
“No, really.” His eyes dropped to her left hand, to the diamond sitting there with all the smug confidence of a thief in a palace. “Beautiful ring.”
Venus tucked her hand slightly into the sleeve of her robe.
The movement was small.
It still ruined him.
“Don’t hide it now,” Jaafar said, his voice dipping, something harsher bleeding through. “You wore it all afternoon.”
Her eyes flashed. “You weren’t even there.”
“No,” he said. “I heard.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I heard.”
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Beyond the glass doors, the city glittered beneath them, distant and indifferent, all those lights burning like the scattered remains of some fallen constellation. Venus stood in the middle of the suite in white, damp from steam, furious and beautiful and guarded to the bone, and Jaafar thought, not for the first time, that the Greeks would have started a war over less. Men had crossed seas for faces like hers. Men had burned kingdoms for women who looked at them with less history than Venus had in one raised brow.
He had waited years.
He had swallowed years.
And she stood there wearing another man’s promise like he had never touched the truth of her.
“You announced it at dinner,” he said finally. “With both our families there.”
Her lips pressed together.
“I wasn’t there.”
“You were filming.”
“I was working.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” He stepped closer again, then stopped himself, his hands flexing once at his sides. “You don’t know, because if you knew, if you had any idea what it felt like to get that call from my mother, to hear her tell me you were engaged like she was telling me the weather, like she wasn’t handing me a blade wrapped in ribbon—”
“Jaafar,” she said, quieter now.
“No.” His voice cut through the room, not loud, but final. “No, you don’t get to soften me right now. You don’t get to say my name like that and make me remember I love you before I finish being angry.”
Venus went still.
There it was.
Not implied. Not dressed up in teasing, jealousy, old friendship, bad timing, childhood history, or whatever else she liked to use as fabric to cover the naked thing between them.
Love.
Plain as a wound.
Her eyes searched his face, and for one brief, devastating second she looked afraid.
Then she looked away.
And that, somehow, was worse.
Jaafar laughed again, but this time it was almost broken. “Look at you.”
“Stop.”
“No, look at you.” He gestured toward her, toward the robe, the flowers, the ring, the whole immaculate crime scene of her denial. “You’ll stand in front of a hundred people in white and smile until your face hurts, but you can’t look me in the eye when I tell you the truth.”
Her voice sharpened again because softness had gotten too close. “The truth according to you?”
“The truth according to both of us.”
“There is no both of us.”
He stared at her.
The silence that followed was cruel.
Then Jaafar nodded slowly, once, as if she had finally said something so absurd it brought him clarity.
“No both of us,” he echoed.
Venus’s throat moved.
He looked at her mouth, then back to her eyes.
“So I imagined it?”
She said nothing.
“The way you used to wait for me at parties even when you pretended you weren’t?” he asked. “The way you’d touch my arm and then act like you forgot your hand was there? The way you couldn’t stand any woman near me, but had the nerve to call me childish when I noticed?” His voice dropped. “That night? I imagined that too?”
Her face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“Don’t bring that up.”
“There she is.”
“Jaafar.”
“No, there she is,” he said, almost tenderly now, and that tenderness felt more dangerous than the anger. “That’s the woman I came to see. Not the bride. Not the designer. Not whatever perfect little statue you’ve been posing as all afternoon. You.”
Venus wrapped her arms around herself, the robe pulling tighter, and for the first time since she had stepped out of the bathroom, she looked less like a goddess carved from marble and more like a woman cornered by her own heart.
“You have no right,” she said, but it came out softer than she wanted.
“I know.”
“You waited years.”
“I know.”
“You said nothing.”
“I said everything except the words.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“No,” he agreed, eyes burning. “It wasn’t. And I hate myself for that. I hate that I let you make me your secret without even asking. I hate that I stayed close enough to bleed and called it friendship because I was scared if I asked for more, you’d shut the door completely.”
Her lips parted.
He shook his head, almost smiling at the irony of it, at the humiliation of his own honesty.
“But I’m not twenty-four anymore, Venus. And you don’t get to keep talking to me like I’m some boy with a crush you can outgrow on my behalf.”
Her eyes flashed again, wounded this time. “I never said that.”
“You never had to.”
That landed.
He watched it land, watched her absorb it, watched the pride on her face tremble under the weight of everything she had refused to name. Outside, the city kept glowing. Inside, the room felt ancient, fated, like every choice they had ever avoided had finally risen from the floor and stood between them.
Venus turned away, one hand lifting to her forehead.
“I’m getting married,” she said.
“I know.”
“You keep saying that like it means nothing.”
“No,” Jaafar said quietly. “I’m saying it because it means everything.”
She looked back at him.
His voice lowered.
“That’s why I’m here.”
For a while, she only stared at him, and he let her. He let the truth sit there. He let the ring shine. He let the flowers wilt in their vases. He let every ghost of every almost between them crowd into the room and bear witness.
Then Venus whispered, “Why today?”
His face hardened, not with anger this time, but hurt.
“Because today they celebrated you leaving me.”
Her expression cracked.
Just barely.
But he saw it.
He always saw her.
“Jaafar…”
“Don’t marry him,” he said.
The words left him cleanly.
No poetry. No metaphor. No myth.
Just the thing itself.
Venus looked like he had reached into her chest and closed his hand around something living.
“You can’t ask me that.”
“I’m not asking.”
Her eyes narrowed, instinctively bristling.
He corrected himself, softer but no less firm.
“I’m telling you the truth before you ruin all three of us.”
“All three?”
“You. Him.” His eyes held hers. “Me.”
Her breath shook once, barely audible.
“He loves me,” she said.
Jaafar nodded. “I’m sure he does.”
“He’s good to me.”
“I hope he is.”
“He’s stable.”
“I hate him already.”
Despite herself, something almost like a laugh broke through her anger, tiny and disbelieving, and the sound struck him straight in the chest because there she was again, his Venus, the girl who used to laugh at him across dinner tables, the woman who had never once understood how dangerous her joy was in his hands.
He smiled faintly, but it faded too fast.
“He can be good,” Jaafar said. “He can be stable. He can love you properly, on paper. I’m not saying he’s a bad man.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you don’t love him like you love me.”
The room went silent.
Venus did not deny it.
That was the first confession. Not spoken, but there, heavy and bright as the diamond on her hand.
Jaafar’s gaze dropped to it again.
“Take it off,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“Take it off.”
“No.”
His jaw flexed.
“Then tell me you love him.”
She stared at him.
“Tell me,” he said, stepping closer, “and I’ll leave.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Jaafar watched her fight herself, watched pride wrestle with truth, watched fear lay its pretty hands over her throat. He should have felt victorious. Some small, ugly part of him did. But most of him only felt tired. Tired of the game. Tired of being a shadow at the edge of her life while other men stood in daylight beside her.
Venus looked down at her ring.
For one moment, her thumb brushed over it.
Jaafar stopped breathing.
Then she whispered, “You shouldn’t have come here.”
His voice was almost gentle. “But you’re glad I did.”
Her eyes lifted.
The space between them seemed to collapse without either of them moving.
“Tell me to leave,” he said again, quieter now.
Venus swallowed.
Her eyes shone, furious and helpless and hungry with five years of silence.
“Leave,” she said.
But it was weak.
A word without a spine.
Jaafar tilted his head. “Like you mean it.”
She said nothing.
“Venus.”
That did it.
The sound of her name in his mouth, low and broken and reverent, seemed to pull something loose from her. She crossed the last of the distance first, not gracefully, not carefully, but like a woman stepping off the edge of a cliff she had spent years pretending was only a balcony.
Her hands hit his chest.
For one second, it could have been a push.
Then her fingers curled in his shirt.
Jaafar looked down at them, then back at her, his face changing in slow, devastating recognition.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He did not touch her yet.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you already know.”
His voice softened.
“I do know.”
Venus’s breath caught.
And when he finally lifted his hand, he did it slowly, giving her every second in the world to stop him, to step back, to choose the door, the ring, the life waiting for her with polished shoes and sensible promises. But she did not move. She only stood there, trembling with anger or want or grief, and let his knuckles brush the side of her face.
The touch was barely anything.
It still ruined the room.
Her eyes closed.
Jaafar’s thumb grazed her cheek, and his voice came like a prayer dragged through smoke.
“You don’t get to marry him with my name still sitting in your throat.”
Venus opened her eyes.
Then she kissed him.
Or he kissed her.
Later, neither of them would be able to say who moved first, only that the distance between them finally gave up pretending it had ever been real. One moment they were standing in the middle of a room full of bridal flowers and lies, and the next Venus had both hands in his shirt and Jaafar had one arm around her waist, pulling her to him with a sound low enough to shame thunder, kissing her like he had spent years starving politely at a table where she kept passing him empty plates.
It was not gentle at first.
It was not sweet.
It was punishment and relief, accusation and apology, the breaking of a drought, the return of a tide, the kind of kiss that made Venus stumble back against the dresser and sent one of the little perfume bottles rolling onto its side. Jaafar caught the edge of the furniture with one hand, caging her without trapping her, his other hand still at her waist, still careful despite the storm in him.
He pulled back first, breathing hard, his forehead nearly touching hers.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
Venus’s eyes were dark, unfocused, her mouth parted, her fingers still holding him like she hated him for being solid.
She looked at him.
At the door.
At the ring.
Then back at him.
And instead of answering, she reached down with a trembling hand, slid the diamond from her finger, and placed it on the dresser beside them.
The sound it made against the marble was small.
Tiny.
Almost delicate.
But to Jaafar, it might as well have been the fall of Troy.
The sound of that ring touching marble should have sobered him.
It should have reminded him that this was not some flirtation tucked beneath a dinner table, not some old private joke passed between them in a crowded room, not another almost they could dress up in denial and leave behind before sunrise. It should have reminded him that there was a man somewhere in the world who believed Venus Taraji Hamilton was his fiancée, that there were mothers planning flowers and aunties saving dates and a whole wedding slowly assembling itself around a lie beautiful enough to pass for a blessing.
But all Jaafar felt, watching that diamond sit cold and useless on the dresser, was satisfaction.
Not relief.
Not surprise.
Satisfaction.
Because the ring was pretty, yes. Expensive, certainly. Tasteful in the way Venus’s things were always tasteful, all quiet wealth and polished restraint, a stone chosen by a man who had clearly studied her enough to know what would look good on her hand.
Cute.
That was the word that came to him, cruel and dismissive and almost amused.
The ring was cute. The engagement was cute. The idea of Venus walking down an aisle toward that man, smiling beneath flowers, letting him take her hand like he had ever once held the storm of her properly, was cute in the way children playing at kingdoms was cute; elaborate, earnest, and entirely dependent on everyone pretending the crown was real.
Because it would never be him.
That man could give her vows, houses, honeymoons, clean promises wrapped in white linen and family approval, but he would never have what Jaafar had. He would never know what it was to be twenty-four and finally have Venus look at him like she had run out of excuses. He would never know her laughter turning breathless in the dark, her pride slipping, her voice losing all its sharp edges around his name. He would never know the unbearable intimacy of being wanted by a woman who had spent years insisting she knew better.
He could marry her.
He could not touch the myth.
Jaafar looked from the ring back to her, and whatever Venus saw on his face made her breath catch.
“There,” he said softly.
Venus’s eyes narrowed, but it was a fragile thing now, anger trying to stand upright on trembling legs. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
His mouth curved.
That was the problem with him, she thought distantly — one of many, really, but the most dangerous one in that moment — Jaafar had always been beautiful, always, even when he was too young and too eager and too irritatingly sure of feelings she refused to take seriously, but adulthood had given his beauty weight. It had put command in his shoulders, arrogance in his stillness, a slow, devastating patience in the way he watched her as though he had never needed to chase because history itself had already handed him the ending.
He stepped closer, and the room seemed to shrink around him.
“I’m not pleased,” he said, though the lie sat shamelessly on his tongue.
“You look pleased.”
“I look right.”
Her lips parted.
He smiled then, not sweetly, not kindly, but with the kind of confidence that had ruined her once before, the kind that did not ask permission to exist because it had never doubted its own welcome.
“Don’t confuse the two.”
Venus should have slapped him.
She truly should have.
There were several sensible, dignified things she could have done. She could have snatched the ring back up, put it on her finger, and ordered him out. She could have reminded him of her fiancé, her family, the bridal shower downstairs, the months of planning, the life waiting for her beyond this suite. She could have told him that whatever had happened between them years ago had been a lapse in judgment, a fever, a moment of weakness caused by champagne and nostalgia and the dangerous mistake of looking too long at a boy who had become a man while she wasn’t paying attention.
But then Jaafar lifted his hand and touched the belt of her robe.
Not pulling.
Not untying.
Just touching.
Two fingers against white silk, gentle enough to be respectful, bold enough to be obscene.
Her whole body remembered him before her mind could gather itself.
That was what made him so dangerous.
He did not have to rush. He did not have to beg. He did not have to perform hunger like men who were afraid a woman might forget they wanted her if they stopped proving it for more than ten seconds. Jaafar was worse. Jaafar stood in front of her with that unbearable calm, that dark-eyed certainty, that mouth still damp from kissing her, and looked at her like he had already seen the future and she was late to it.
“Still want me to leave?” he asked.
Venus swallowed.
His gaze dropped to the movement of her throat, and the corner of his mouth lifted, barely.
“Careful,” he murmured. “You’ve never been good at lying to me up close.”
“I’ve lied to you plenty.”
“No.” His fingers slid from the belt of her robe to her wrist, circling gently, thumb pressing once against her pulse like he was checking whether the truth was still alive beneath her skin. “You’ve performed for me plenty. There’s a difference.”
Her pulse jumped under his thumb.
He felt it.
Of course he felt it.
His smile deepened.
“See?”
The arrogance of him should have offended her into sanity.
Instead, it dragged her back five years.
Back to that first night, when the air between them had finally split open after too much wine, too much laughing, too many years of him looking at her as if age was a locked door and he had simply been waiting for the key to appear. He had not fumbled then either. That was what embarrassed her most when she let herself remember it. He had not been nervous in the way she expected him to be, had not treated her like some impossible older woman granting him mercy. He had looked at her like he had been preparing for that moment his whole life and had no intention of wasting it pretending he was surprised.
That was why she had let him in the first time.
Not because he was pretty, though God help her, he was.
Not because he was a Jackson.
Not because he was younger and flattering and hungry for her attention.
Because Jaafar had stepped into his want like a throne.
Because he looked at her like choosing him was not a risk, but a correction.
Because when she had whispered, “You’re too young for me,” he had only smiled, slow and wicked and impossibly calm, and said, “Then stop wanting me like I’m not.”
And now, years later, standing in her bridal suite with her ring abandoned beside them, he looked exactly the same.
Worse, actually.
Older. Sharper. More certain.
A grown man who had outlived her excuses.
“Jaafar,” she warned, but her voice betrayed her by softening around the middle.
His thumb brushed over her wrist again.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“My name,” he said, eyes lowering to her mouth. “The way you say it when you forget you’re pretending.”
Venus’s breath left her in a thin, irritated laugh. “You are so full of yourself.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No shame.
Just yes, smooth as oil over marble.
Her eyes flashed. “That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I didn’t take it as one.”
He moved then, not suddenly, not roughly, but with such surety that Venus found herself backing into the dresser before she had decided to move at all. His hand came to the marble beside her hip, caging her in only because she let herself be caged, his body close enough for heat, not pressure, his cologne and skin and rain-dark confidence filling her lungs until the room no longer smelled like roses and expensive soap, but like him.
Like trouble with a pulse.
Like the last honest thing left in the suite.
“You think that man downstairs doesn’t have an ego?” he asked quietly.
Venus lifted her chin. “He’s not downstairs.”
“Good.”
Her brows rose.
Jaafar smiled. “I don’t feel like being polite.”
“You were never polite.”
“I was very polite.” His eyes held hers, dark and amused. “Painfully polite. Saintly, even.”
She almost laughed, but she caught it too late, and he saw the corner of her mouth betray her.
His face changed at once.
Softened, but not weakened.
That was another thing she hated. How quickly he could find the girl in her. How he could strip away the designer, the fiancée, the woman with the immaculate public image, and uncover the Venus who used to sit barefoot on kitchen counters during family parties, eating fruit from a bowl and telling him to stop staring before she started charging him rent for the view.
“You remember,” he said.
“Remember what?”
“Me being polite.”
“I remember you being annoying.”
“You liked it.”
“I tolerated it.”
“You watched for me when I walked into rooms.”
Her smile vanished.
He leaned in a little, voice dropping, warm and low.
“You still do.”
Venus looked away.
He touched her chin, lightly, turning her face back to him with the kind of gentleness that somehow felt more commanding than force ever could.
Then he said, in Spanish, soft enough that it seemed meant for her skin more than her ears, “Mírame, mi Venus.”
Look at me, my Venus.
Her lashes fluttered.
That did something to her. He saw it. He had known it would.
Not because the words were complicated, not because he had dressed them in poetry, but because he said them like possession and worship were the same language when it came to her. Like her name belonged in his mouth with an accent of inheritance. Like he had not come to steal her from another man so much as retrieve her from a bad translation.
“No me mientas, preciosa,” he murmured.
Don’t lie to me, beautiful.
Her hands went to his chest, and again, for one breath, it could have been a push.
It was not.
Her fingers spread over him instead, feeling the steady, infuriating confidence of his body beneath his shirt, the calm rhythm of a man who should have been trembling but wasn’t, because Jaafar had never been afraid of wanting her. He had only been afraid of losing access to her. There was a difference.
“You think you can just come in here,” she whispered, “say a few things in Spanish, smile at me like that, and I’m supposed to forget I have a whole life outside this room?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
Too confidently.
Her eyes searched his.
“No?” she challenged.
“No,” he said again, dipping his head until his mouth was near her ear. “I think you already forgot. I’m just the first person honest enough to say it.”
Her breath broke.
He kissed the space just below her ear, not enough to undo her, just enough to remind her that he knew exactly where to begin. Venus’s fingers tightened in his shirt, and Jaafar smiled against her skin because there it was again, the old truth rising between them like Aphrodite from seafoam, beautiful and shameless and impossible to drown.
“You’re engaged,” he murmured, his lips brushing her jaw.
“Yes,” she said, but the word came out thin.
“To a good man.”
“Yes.”
“With a good ring.”
Her eyes closed.
“A beautiful wedding coming.”
“Jaafar—”
“A cute little future,” he said, and this time the arrogance sharpened, turned golden and cruel at the edges. “Very cute, Venus.”
She opened her eyes.
He lifted his head and looked at her fully.
“But don’t stand here and insult me by pretending it holds a candle to this.”
The room went silent.
Every flower, every gift bag, every delicate bridal ribbon seemed suddenly ridiculous.
Venus stared at him, and Jaafar stared back with no apology at all, his face close to hers, his hand steady at her waist, his whole body speaking in the language of a man who had already compared himself to the competition and found the competition wanting.
“You’re unbelievable,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You think one night means more than a proposal?”
Jaafar’s expression shifted.
The smugness did not leave him, not entirely, but something older moved beneath it, something wounded and devoted and frightening in its certainty.
“No,” he said. “I think our one night meant more than his whole proposal.”
Venus’s lips parted.
“And that’s why you’ve been running from it for five years.”
The words hit her so cleanly she had no defence ready.
He watched her absorb them, watched anger flare and fade behind her eyes, watched the truth settle where pride could not immediately reach it. His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, and still he did not pull her in. Still he waited.
That made it worse.
He was giving her the dignity of choosing her own ruin.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.
She inhaled.
“Tell me,” he repeated, quieter. “Tell me you don’t remember how it felt to stop fighting me.”
Venus’s eyes glistened, furious with him, with herself, with the ring sitting beside her like a witness.
“You don’t get to make this romantic.”
His smile was faint. “Baby, I didn’t have to make anything.”
Her face tightened.
He lowered his voice.
“You did that when you took the ring off.”
For a moment, Venus looked as if she might break.
Then she kissed him again, and this time there was nothing accidental about it.
She reached for him with both hands, pulling him down to her like she was tired of losing arguments to her own body, tired of being noble, tired of being sensible, tired of standing in rooms full of flowers while pretending she was not haunted by a man who had learned too young how to want her and too well how to wait.
Jaafar caught her immediately.
Of course he did.
One arm closed around her waist, the other bracing against the dresser as her back met marble and her mouth opened beneath his, and the sound he made was low, pleased, almost victorious — not surprised, never surprised, because in Jaafar’s mind this had always been where they were going. Every engagement party, every avoided conversation, every man she put between them, every year she spent calling him younger like it was a spell strong enough to keep him out; all of it had only been a delay.
Not a denial.
Never a denial.
He kissed her like he wanted her to understand that.
Like he wanted the memory of him to bruise every future she tried to build without him.
When his hands found her waist again, he lifted her easily onto the edge of the dresser, and Venus gasped against his mouth, one hand flying to his shoulder while the other knocked into the perfume bottle behind her. It clinked against the marble, sharp and delicate, but neither of them looked at it.
Jaafar did pull back then, only enough to see her.
And that was almost worse than the kissing.
Because he looked at her with his lips slightly swollen, his shirt gripped in her fists, his eyes dark and alive with the kind of masculine satisfaction that made Venus want to curse him and kiss him harder in the same breath. He looked beautiful and unbearable, like Apollo with a grudge, like a prince arriving late to a wedding he had every intention of interrupting.
“What?” she snapped, because his silence was too much.
He smiled.
“You’re mad.”
“I am.”
“No.” His thumb brushed her lower lip, slow and possessive. “You’re mad because you missed me.”
Her stomach turned over.
He leaned closer.
“And you’re mad because I know exactly how much.”
Venus shook her head, but there was no conviction left in it. “You’re so arrogant.”
“I had to be,” he said. “You gave me nothing else.”
That quieted her.
His face softened, just slightly.
“I had to believe this meant something,” he said, his voice lowering into something almost tender. “Even when you acted like it didn’t. Even when you put that ring on. Even when you smiled for everybody today like you weren’t sitting there lying through your teeth.”
Venus’s throat worked.
“Jaafar…”
He kissed her once, slower now, less punishment than proof.
Then he rested his forehead against hers.
“Do you know what I thought when my mother told me?” he asked.
She did not answer.
His hand slid up her back, holding her with maddening steadiness.
“I thought, she’s really going to make me come get her.”
Venus huffed out a laugh, broken and disbelieving, even as her eyes shone. “You are insane.”
“No,” he said, smiling against her mouth. “Desperate, maybe.”
Her hand rose to his face before she could stop herself, fingers grazing his jaw, and the touch stole some of the triumph from him. For a second, the ego, the confidence, the controlled arrogance all thinned, and beneath it was the boy who had loved her too early, the man who had waited too long, the friend who had stood beside her life while slowly starving on what she refused to give him.
Then he turned his face and kissed her palm.
Soft.
Devastating.
“Pero no estoy loco,” he murmured. “No por ti.”
But I’m not crazy. Not for you.
Venus closed her eyes.
And Jaafar, seeing the surrender move through her before she could name it, smiled like a man watching the gates of Troy open from the inside.
“Does he even know how you like it?” he murmured against her skin, his mouth moving slowly over the slope of her shoulder, not quite kissing, not quite sparing her either, his lips ghosting over the small pale scar she had carried since childhood — a thin, stubborn little mark from the summer she had fallen off the monkey bars and scared everyone half to death, including him, though he had been too young then to understand why seeing her hurt had made something violent and helpless twist inside his chest.
His thumb brushed beneath it now, reverent and possessive all at once, as though he remembered not only the scar but the girl who had earned it: Venus at twelve, furious with tears in her eyes because everyone kept fussing over her, swatting hands away while pretending she was not shaken; Venus at sixteen, rolling her eyes when he asked if it still hurt; Venus at twenty-eight, arching beneath his mouth like she had finally stopped pretending she did not know exactly what he had grown into.
Jaafar smiled against her shoulder, slow and arrogant, because that was the thing her fiancé would never understand.
He could learn her schedule, her favourite flowers, the cut of her gowns, the polite version of her smile.
But Jaafar knew the scar, he knew Venus, better than anyone would.
“Hard from the back while you watch.” Venus shuddered as he pressed another kiss against her shoulder, a hand weaving around her waist as he drew her back into him
“I’m telling you right now, Venus,” he murmured, his voice low against her skin, all velvet and warning, the kind of calm that came before gods split seas and men burned cities for women they had no intention of losing. “There ain’t no way in hell you were walking down that aisle with me still alive.”
Venus went still beneath him.
Not because the words shocked her — no, some part of her had known, had always known, that Jaafar’s patience had limits, that beneath all his charm and careful restraint was a man arrogant enough to believe fate itself had made a mistake by giving her another man’s ring — but because hearing him say it out loud made the whole room feel smaller, hotter, more dangerous, as if every flower from her bridal shower had suddenly become funeral lilies.
He lifted his head just enough to look at her, his mouth close to her shoulder, his eyes dark with five years of swallowed want and wounded pride.
“You really thought I was gonna sit there?” he asked, almost amused now, and somehow that was worse. “In a suit? Smiling? Watching him take your hand like I don’t know what it feels like when you stop fighting me?”
Her breath caught.
Jaafar’s thumb brushed over the old scar on her shoulder, gentle in a way that did not soften the possession in his voice.
“Baby, please,” he said, the faintest smile touching his mouth. “I would’ve objected before the preacher got his mouth open.”
“So this what you gon’ do for me,” he whispered, his voice low and steady against her throat as his fingers found the silk ties of her robe, tugging once, slow enough to make her breathing change, deliberate enough to make it clear he was not rushing a thing.
Venus’s hands tightened against his shoulders.
“Jaafar—”
“No,” he murmured, kissing beneath her jaw, the word warm against her skin, almost gentle, though nothing about him felt soft right then; not the set of his mouth, not the weight of his hands, not the impossible certainty in his voice as the silk loosened beneath his fingers. “You done talked enough. You done lied enough too.”
Her breath caught, and he smiled like he heard it, like even that belonged to him.
“You gon’ call downstairs,” he continued, dragging his mouth to the side of her neck, “and switch the card on this room to mine, because I’m not having another man pay for the place where I remind you who you belong to.”
Venus’s eyes fluttered shut.
“And after that,” he said, voice deepening, lazy and lethal with confidence, “you gon’ book five more days.”
Her eyes opened then, sharp despite the way her body leaned into him. “Five?”
“Five,” he said, without hesitation, as though he had already decided it somewhere between the elevator and her door, as though the number had been handed down from Olympus itself. “Maybe six if you keep looking at me like that.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I know.”
He kissed her again, slower this time, letting the arrogance of that answer sink into her skin.
“Then you gon’ take that pretty little ring,” he murmured, glancing toward the diamond sitting abandoned on the dresser, “put it back in its box, and give it back to that man when you get home.”
Venus stilled.
Jaafar lifted his head, his eyes finding hers, dark and calm and far too sure of himself for a man who had just walked into her bridal suite and started rearranging her entire life with his mouth on her neck.
“And you gon’ be kind when you do it,” he said. “Because he ain’t do nothing wrong except think he could marry a woman who was never really his.”
Her lips parted, but no words came.
His thumb brushed her cheek, almost tender.
“After that,” he said, softer now, but somehow more devastating, “we gon’ change the invites.”
Venus stared at him.
The city glittered behind him, all gold and glass and distant little stars, but Jaafar looked brighter than all of it, beautiful with audacity, wearing his confidence like a crown he had no intention of taking off.
“You lost your mind,” she whispered.
He smiled.
“No, baby,” he said, dipping his head until his mouth hovered over hers. “I found my wife.”
Her breath broke.
Jaafar kissed the corner of her mouth, then the other, slow enough to be cruel and patient enough to be obscene, as if he had all the time in the world now that the ring was off her finger, as if the bridal suite, the flowers, the wedding plans, the man waiting somewhere with her future in his hands — all of it had become little more than theatre dressing around the only truth that had ever mattered.
“Because you and me?” he whispered, his mouth hovering against hers, his voice low and velvet-dark, heavy with the kind of confidence that did not ask to be believed because it had already crowned itself king. “We finna get married instead.”
Venus stared at him.
For one suspended second, the whole room seemed to hold its breath: the city burning gold beyond the glass, the white roses and peonies spilling from their vases like offerings at Aphrodite’s altar, the closed velvet ring box sitting on the dresser like a dead prophecy, and Jaafar standing between her knees with his hands on her waist and certainty all over his face, looking at her as if Zeus himself had leaned down from Olympus and told him, Go get what is yours.
Then Venus laughed, but it was not amusement that broke out of her, not really; it was disbelief, panic, fury, longing, and all the years she had tried to keep stacked neatly inside her chest finally rattling loose.
“You are out of your damn mind.”
Jaafar smiled, slow and devastating, his lashes low, his mouth still too close to hers. “No,” he said, and the word came out soft, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse. “I’m done letting you act like you don’t know what this is.”
“This?” she echoed, breath catching despite the sharpness she tried to force into her voice.
“This,” he said, and pulled her closer with one sure hand at the small of her back, not rough, not careless, but with the calm authority of a man who had waited so long that waiting had become a second skin and now, finally, he was stepping out of it. “You and me. All these years. All this back and forth, all this timing our lives wrong on purpose, all this pretending we just kept missing each other by accident.”
Venus’s expression shifted.
There it was.
The little fracture.
The tiny betrayal of the face before pride could cover it.
Because that was the part neither of them had ever wanted to say out loud: whenever Venus was single, Jaafar had someone, some beautiful girl with bright eyes and a soft hand tucked through his arm, some woman smiling too widely in photographs as if she had not sensed the ghost standing between them; and whenever Jaafar was finally alone, Venus had someone, some polished man in tailored suits, some collector or architect or financier with the right watch, the right manners, the right age, the right everything except the one thing that mattered.
He was not Jaafar.
And they had done that dance for years.
Round and round, like two foolish mortals cursed by some bored Greek god, always reaching for each other only after placing somebody else in the way, always pretending jealousy was coincidence, always pretending the timing was tragic when the truth was far uglier.
They had both been cowards.
Venus swallowed, her hand tightening in the front of his shirt. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you weren’t part of it.”
Jaafar’s mouth stilled against her skin.
For the first time all night, something like guilt moved behind his eyes, but it did not weaken him; if anything, it made him more dangerous, because even his guilt came wrapped in confidence, wrapped in the quiet arrogance of a man who believed that everything he had done, even the mistakes, had still been orbiting her.
“You think I didn’t know?” Venus asked, her voice low now, shaking not with fear but with all the old hurt she had taught herself to wear elegantly. “You think I didn’t see you? Every time I was finally alone, there you were with somebody else. Some girl smiling at you like she had won something. Some girl wearing your jacket. Some girl touching your chest in pictures like she had permission to touch what I—”
She stopped herself.
Jaafar’s eyes darkened.
“What you what?” he asked softly.
Venus looked away.
He touched her chin and brought her face back to him, his fingers gentle, his gaze not gentle at all.
“No,” he murmured. “Finish it.”
“Don’t.”
“Mírame, Venus.”
Look at me, Venus.
The Spanish left his mouth like heat over marble, intimate and inherited, not performed but pulled from somewhere deep in him, from blood and memory and the side of his family that had taught him affection could sound like command when spoken softly enough.
Venus’s lashes fluttered.
Jaafar saw it, of course.
He saw everything.
That had always been the problem with him.
He noticed too much, remembered too much, knew too much; he knew the scar on her shoulder from the monkey bars, knew the perfume she wore when she wanted to feel untouchable, knew the way she went quiet when she was hurt, knew that she laughed louder around people she did not trust and softer around people she did, knew that she hated being rushed in the morning, knew that she kept handwritten notes in a box like little relics from a private temple, knew that she could design gowns fit for goddesses and still sleep in old T-shirts when no one was watching.
Her fiancé knew Venus Hamilton.
Jaafar knew Venus.
That was the difference.
“No me mientas, preciosa,” he whispered, thumb brushing along her jaw.
Don’t lie to me, beautiful.
Venus exhaled shakily, her fingers curling tighter in his shirt. “No me mandes.”
Don’t order me around.
His smile came slow, pleased, wicked at the edges.
“Then stop obeying.”
Her eyes flashed, and for a second the woman he had known all his life came back in full force: sharp, proud, radiant, impossible, Athena with lip gloss and a temper, ready for war even with her robe loose at her shoulders and her ring abandoned behind her.
“You are so arrogant,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
No shame.
No hesitation.
Just yes.
Venus let out a disbelieving breath, but it trembled too much to be a laugh. “You’re not even going to deny it?”
“Why would I deny what you like about me?”
The sentence landed between them like a match dropped in oil.
Her mouth parted.
Jaafar tilted his head, watching her with that infuriating calm, that unbearable certainty, that grown-man confidence that had ruined her the first time because, God help her, he had not come to her like a boy begging for a chance, had not stumbled over his want, had not treated her like some older woman he was lucky to touch.
No.
At twenty-four, Jaafar had stood in front of her like a young Apollo already aware of his own beauty, already certain the sun would rise because he told it to, and when Venus had whispered, “You’re too young for me,” trying desperately to place four years between them like a locked gate, he had only smiled, stepped closer, and said, “Then stop wanting me like I’m not.”
And that was why she had let him in the first time.
Not because he was famous.
Not because he was beautiful, though he was beautiful in a way that felt almost offensive, all dark eyes and long limbs and mouth made for trouble.
Not because he was younger and wanted her with the devotion of a man who had turned longing into religion.
But because Jaafar had never made his desire feel uncertain.
He had looked at her like choosing him was not a scandal, not a mistake, not a lapse in judgment, but a correction the universe had taken too long to make.
And now he was looking at her that same way again.
Only worse.
Older.
Sharper.
More assured.
A man who had grown into every dangerous promise his younger self had made.
“You think one night means more than a proposal?” Venus asked, but the question came out too soft, too wounded, too much like she already knew the answer and hated him for making her ask it.
Jaafar’s hand slid from her waist to her back, firm and warm through the loosened silk. “No,” he said. “I think our one night meant more than his whole engagement.”
Venus went still.
“And that’s why you’ve been running from it for five years.”
The words hit her cleanly.
There was no mercy in them, but there was truth, and truth had always been more dangerous between them than touch.
“You don’t know that,” she whispered.
Jaafar smiled faintly.
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t.”
“Venus.” He leaned closer, his mouth near her ear now, his breath warm enough to make her close her eyes against her will. “If he had touched anything in you that could make you forget me, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
Her breath broke.
There it was, the ego.
Not loud, not childish, not desperate.
Worse.
Certain.
Jaafar looked at her fiancé’s ring and saw something pretty. Expensive. Tasteful. Cute, even. He could admit that much. The man had chosen well. But the ring did not frighten him, the proposal did not humble him, the wedding did not make him feel beaten, because in Jaafar’s mind, all of it was surface — lace over a wound, flowers over a grave, a polished altar built on ground that had always belonged to him.
Her fiancé could give her a diamond.
Jaafar had given her a memory she could not survive.
Her fiancé could put her name on invitations.
Jaafar had his name sitting in her throat.
Her fiancé could stand at the end of an aisle.
Jaafar was the reason she would tremble before she took the first step.
“That ring is cute,” he murmured, glancing toward the velvet box.
Her lips parted, and Jaafar’s smile deepened because he felt it — the pulse jump beneath her skin, the old truth rising between them like Aphrodite from seafoam, naked and beautiful and impossible to drown.
“He can put a ring on you,” Jaafar said, his voice low and slow, every word deliberate. “He can stand in front of everybody and promise you stability, houses, children, Sunday brunch, whatever pretty little life he thinks he’s offering.”
Venus swallowed.
“But he can’t stand in a room where he ain’t even present and make you forget how to breathe.”
Her eyes shone.
“Jaafar…”
“No me corras más,” he whispered against her cheek.
Don’t run from me anymore.
She closed her eyes.
He kissed the side of her face, just beneath her temple, so tenderly it nearly hurt more than the arrogance.
“No me corras más, mi Venus.”
Don’t run from me anymore, my Venus.
Venus made a small, wounded sound, and his hand tightened at her waist, not to trap her, never that, but to hold her steady beneath the weight of what they were finally saying.
“You were my problem,” she whispered, the words slipping out in Spanish before she could dress them in English and make them safer. “Siempre fuiste mi problema.”
You were always my problem.
Jaafar went still.
For the first time, the godlike certainty flickered.
Only for a heartbeat.
But Venus saw it.
She saw the boy beneath the man, the child who had watched her fall from monkey bars and cried after everyone else stopped fussing, the teenager who had scowled every time she brought someone older to a family party, the twenty-four-year-old who had kissed her like he had been waiting his whole life to prove he was no longer too young, the man standing before her now, beautiful and arrogant and wounded by every year she had refused to choose him.
So she said it again.
“Siempre.”
Always.
His eyes darkened, but not with victory this time.
With ache.
“Venus…”
She shook her head, her voice trembling now, Spanish and English tangling together because one language was no longer enough to hold everything bleeding out of her. “Every time I tried to be smart, every time I tried to be good, every time I chose the man who made sense, the man who was there at the right time, the man who didn’t come with all this history, all this mess, all this—”
“Love,” Jaafar said.
The word cut through her.
She stared at him.
He stepped closer, until there was barely anything between them but breath and silk and five years of cowardice.
“Say it.”
Her eyes filled. “No.”
“Dilo.”
Say it.
“No me mandes,” she whispered again, but weaker this time.
Don’t order me around.
Jaafar smiled, soft and devastating.
“Then stop wanting to obey.”
Venus kissed him like she was furious that he knew her, furious that he could stand there wrapped in arrogance and tenderness and be right, furious that the whole world had made sense an hour ago and now every safe thing she had built was turning to ash in his hands.
Jaafar caught her immediately.
Of course he did.
He caught her like he had always known she would come to him eventually, like every year, every lover, every jealous performance, every photograph with the wrong person, every almost, every silence, every family dinner where they sat too close and said too little had only been the long road back to this room.
His mouth moved against hers with slow command, heat and restraint braided together, his hands firm at her waist, his body close but not careless, his confidence so complete it became its own kind of seduction.
He did not touch her like he was lucky.
He touched her like he had been chosen.
That was what ruined her.
Jaafar pulled back only enough to look at her, his mouth slightly swollen, his eyes dark, his expression beautiful in its shameless satisfaction.
“You’re mad,” he murmured.
“I am,” Venus breathed.
“No,” he said, thumb brushing her lower lip. “You’re mad because you missed me.”
Her face tightened.
He smiled.
“And you’re mad because I know exactly how much.”
“You are impossible.”
“I know.”
“You think you can just walk in here, speak Spanish, kiss me, tell me I’m marrying the wrong man, and I’m supposed to fall apart?”
Jaafar’s gaze moved over her slowly, from her loosened robe to her wet eyes to the ring box behind her, and when he looked back at her face, the arrogance in him glowed like Helios dragging the sun across the sky.
“No,” he said. “I think you already fell apart when you took the ring off.”
Venus’s breath caught.
He leaned in, his lips brushing the old scar on her shoulder, the one he knew before any man had thought to study her, the one her fiancé had probably seen but never understood.
“Does he even know how you like it?” he murmured against her skin, the question low enough to be wicked, tender enough to be cruel.
Venus’s eyes closed.
Jaafar kissed just above the scar, not quite on it, as if he were worshipping the memory as much as the woman. “Does he know this?” he asked. “Does he know you cried when you fell off those monkey bars, then yelled at everybody for acting like you cried?”
A breathless laugh slipped from her, broken and unwilling.
His mouth curved against her shoulder.
“Does he know you hate being called delicate, but you keep every fragile thing anybody ever gives you?” He kissed her again, slower. “Does he know you get quiet when you want something too much?”
“Jaafar…”
“Does he know you?” he asked, lifting his head, eyes locking onto hers. “Or does he just know how pretty you look behaving?”
That one hurt.
She looked away, but his hand found her cheek and brought her back.
“No,” he whispered. “Don’t hide now. Not after all this.”
Her eyes shone.
“I was scared.”
His face changed.
The arrogance softened, but did not disappear; it became protective, almost reverent, like Ares lowering his sword not because the war was over, but because the woman in front of him mattered more than victory.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” His thumb brushed under her eye. “You were scared because I wasn’t supposed to be it.”
Venus stared at him.
“I was supposed to grow out of you,” he said quietly. “You were supposed to laugh about my little crush until it became harmless. Then I got grown, and you got quiet.”
Her lips parted.
“And after that night?” His voice dropped, rich and low. “You couldn’t call me young anymore. Not honestly.”
Venus looked at him, and the shame of it, the truth of it, moved through her like heat.
Because he was right.
After that night, the four years between them had stopped feeling like a reason and started feeling like an excuse.
“You think very highly of yourself,” she whispered.
Jaafar smiled.
“Only because you taught me.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” he said, mouth brushing hers. “That first night? The way you looked at me after?” He shook his head slowly, almost amused. “Baby, I been unbearable ever since.”
A laugh broke from her, wet and helpless, and Jaafar grinned like the sound belonged to him too.
Then his expression softened again.
“Five years,” he murmured. “Five years of sitting beside you at dinners, watching you laugh, watching you touch my arm like you forgot what your hands do to me. Five years of you calling me your friend like it didn’t disrespect both of us.”
A tear slipped before Venus could stop it.
Jaafar caught it with his thumb.
“No llores, preciosa.”
Don’t cry, beautiful.
Venus gave him a shaky, wounded smile. “You don’t get to make me cry and then tell me not to.”
“I know.”
“You’re cruel.”
“Only when you make me beg in silence.”
That undid something in her.
Not the kiss.
Not the Spanish.
Not the arrogance.
That.
The confession buried beneath the confidence.
Venus lifted her hand to his face, fingers tracing his jaw, and for one rare second Jaafar went still beneath her touch, all his ego quieting just enough for her to see the devotion underneath it.
“I did love you,” she whispered.
His jaw flexed.
“Don’t say it in past tense.”
Her breath trembled.
“Jaafar…”
“No.” His voice was soft, but absolute. “Don’t give me a grave when I came here for a future.”
Venus closed her eyes.
The room blurred around her: flowers, silk, glass, gold, the ring box, the city, the life she had built because it was safe enough to survive.
Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.
Really looked at him.
The boy she had known.
The man she had wanted.
The god she had tried to make mortal by calling him young.
“Te amo, Jaafar,” she whispered.
I love you, Jaafar.
Jaafar stopped breathing.
Venus’s hand trembled against his face, but she did not look away.
“Todavía te amo.”
I still love you.
For a moment, all the arrogance left him.
Not because it had been defeated, but because the thing beneath it — the thing he had armored for years with charm and ego and other women and pretty smiles in photographs — had finally been touched directly.
He looked almost stunned.
Almost young.
Almost like the boy who had loved her before he knew what to do with love that big.
Then his hand slid to the back of her neck, and when his confidence returned, it came back quieter, deeper, more dangerous, like Poseidon pulling the tide back before swallowing the shore.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
Venus’s eyes fluttered.
“Te amo.”
His thumb brushed her pulse.
“Again.”
“Te amo.”
Jaafar kissed her then like the words had given him back his own name, like Troy had burned, Olympus had opened, Aphrodite had laughed, and every wrong turn they had ever taken had finally led them to the only room where the truth was waiting.
And somewhere behind them, inside its velvet box, the ring sat closed and silent.
Cute.
Pretty.
Finished.
He picked her up with ease, as if all the years between them had only been training his body for this exact moment, one arm locked beneath her while the other swept across the counter with quiet arrogance, swiping the velvet ring box into his hand before tossing it farther down the marble as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience, some pretty little trinket left behind by a man who had mistaken proximity for possession.
Venus watched him with a shaky breath caught behind her teeth, watched the way his shoulders moved, the way his jaw flexed, the way he handled her with that infuriating confidence, as though carrying her was not effort but instinct, as though he had been waiting since boyhood to hold her without apology.
“Jaafar,” she whispered, but it came out too soft to be a warning.
He only looked at her.
That was all.
Just looked at her with those dark, devastating eyes, his mouth still touched by her, his face beautiful with victory and restraint, like some young god come down from Olympus with no intention of returning empty-handed.
Then, without looking away, he lifted her foot and pressed it against his chest.
The gesture should have been ridiculous.
It should have broken the tension.
Instead, Venus felt her breath leave her altogether.
Jaafar’s hand curled around her ankle, warm and steady, his thumb brushing once over the delicate bone there before he lowered his mouth to the ball of her foot, kissing her slowly, reverently, as if even that part of her deserved ceremony. His lips moved upward, over the arch, to her ankle, then higher, each kiss unhurried and deliberate, climbing her like a prayer spoken against skin, like he had all the time in the world to remind her that he did not worship gently when he had been denied for too long.
Venus let out a breathy sigh and shut her eyes, her head tipping back as heat moved through her in slow, golden waves, warm as Helios dragging morning over the sea.
Jaafar smiled against her skin.
Of course he did.
He heard everything — every unsteady breath, every swallowed sound, every little betrayal her body offered before her pride could stop it.
“Still think I don’t know you?” he murmured, his voice low, amused, unbearably sure of itself.
Venus’s lashes fluttered, but she did not open her eyes.
His mouth moved higher, his hand firm beneath her calf, the other steadying her with such control that she hated how safe she felt in his arrogance.
“Answer me, Venus.”
She swallowed.
“Eres insoportable,” she whispered.
You’re unbearable.
Jaafar’s smile deepened against her.
“Y todavía me amas.”
And you still love me.
Her breath caught, and when his lips brushed the inside of her knee, slow and warm and devastating, Venus’s fingers tightened in his shirt as if she needed something to anchor her before the last of her common sense slipped beneath the tide.
“Sí,” she breathed, barely audible, the word breaking out of her like surrender. “Todavía te amo.”
Yes. I still love you.
Jaafar lifted his head then, eyes dark and triumphant, the kind of triumph that did not need to shout because it had already won.
“I know,” he said softly.
And God, that was the worst part.
He did.
She watched as he brought her knee to his shoulder, tossing the other over the other shoulder too. He looked up to watch her, his brown eyes meeting her own as he hiked up her robe and latched his lips onto her slit.
He hadn’t tasted her in years, he realised, five years to be specific, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days ( not that he was counting, of course). He’d spent half of a decade wanting this, dreaming of the day they’d reconcile, and now that they were here, together, where they should’ve been all along, he didn’t think he’d be able to let it go again.
She bit her lip to stop her loud moans, grinding her hips against his face as he sucked on her clit, pulling it back before releasing and blowing cool air and watching with wonder as her mound twitched. He moved down to her pussy, running the tip of his tongue on the edges of her lower lips. He watched as she curled her toes when he spat on her lips and flattened his tongue to lick it up once more.
He remembered it all, he remembered what she liked and how she liked it, he remembered how to curl his tongue when he ate it, he remembered how hard to suck and how much to curl his fingers the way she liked, the same way that made her writhe that one night burned into his brain more than he wanted to admit, more than it should’ve been; but fuck why wouldn’t it be? He kept her up all night, years of desire melding together into that one moment as her sighs and moans became his favourite symphony.
Just as the pressure began to build up, she tried to write away from him, the polished wood of the grand piano she was hoisted on making her movements smoother as she whined, but he just tightened his grip around her waist, pulling her back to where he wanted her. “Deja de estar jodiendo conmigo, Venus.”
Stop fuckin’ playing with me, Venus
And then he returned, adding two fingers and eating at the same time. Just like that, her mouth flew open with a moan, spurring Jaafar on, her hand tangling in his curls as he curled them to the right, an action he knew would make her lose the shred of sense she claimed to have.
With every moan, her chest rose, and the robe came looser and looser, the cool air caressing her skin, cooling her down and yet still she felt hot, like she wasn’t getting enough air in her lungs. He was making the Venus Taraji Hamilton succumb to him, the same Venus that claimed to have it all together, the one who was as strict as a ruler growing up, was here, with him. Her moans grew louder as she felt a pit form in her stomach, it wasn’t long until she released with a loud cry, succumbing to an orgasm so intense the corners of her vision whitnened, as she fought her consciousness. Like a beggar, he feasted at all he gave her, lapping her juices up as he groaned to himself.
He lifted his lips, pressing a kiss to her lips, ensuring she tasted herself on his lips. Then he pulled her closer to him as he unblocked his belt with his left hand , the right tugging the robe away from her body.
She cared for Kenan, she truly did, and that was perhaps the cruelest part of it all, because there was no easy hatred to hide behind, no convenient flaw she could point to and say, There, that is why this was never enough. He was kind to her, attentive when his life allowed it, successful in the steady, impressive way men like him were expected to be, and yet no matter how many times they had found their way into each other’s arms, no matter how familiar his touch became or how earnestly he tried to make her feel chosen, it had never compared to this.
Granted, they had both been busy. Venus had been drowning in fabric swatches, tailoring appointments, and sleepless nights designing Jaafar’s looks for the premiere of his movie, while Kenan had been consumed by boardrooms, acquisitions, and the endless machinery of his companies; their love, if she could call it that, had learned to exist in scheduled windows, between flights, after meetings, beneath the polite exhaustion of two people with too much to do and too little fire left to burn.
But with Jaafar, nothing felt scheduled.
Nothing felt polite.
Nothing felt like something she could fold neatly into the margins of her life and return to later.
This was consuming, unreasonable, almost mythic in its intensity, like some reckless offering laid at the feet of Aphrodite and set aflame before either of them could think better of it. Truly, Venus felt crazy — crazy for wanting this with him, crazy for wanting the very man she had spent years trying to outrun, crazy for craving him with a hunger so deep it frightened her, for wanting him to consume her whole again and again until the world outside the suite blurred into nothing, until the ring, the wedding, Kenan, and every sensible choice she had ever made became distant and weightless, until she could barely tell where Jaafar ended and where she began.
She felt the head of his dick nudging her entrance. While she was embarrassingly drenched she didn’t seem to care, not as her eyes met his, not as he took her hand and intertwined their fingers and became one, not even as her walls stretched around the familiar yet overwhelming stretc of him.
“For better or for worse,” she whispered, the words trembling somewhere between a promise and a surrender as she gazed into his brown eyes, her fingers lifting to brush the loose hair away from his face with a tenderness that made the whole room feel quieter.
Jaafar stilled beneath her touch.
There was something unbearably intimate about it — not the heat, not the want, not even the wreckage of the ring sitting somewhere behind them — but this, Venus looking at him as if she had finally stopped running long enough to recognize the man who had been waiting for her all along.
Her thumb skimmed his temple, soft and reverent.
“For better or for worse,” she repeated, quieter this time, like she was testing the weight of forever in her mouth and realizing, with a terrifying kind of peace, that it sounded like him.
Jaafar’s eyes searched hers, the heat in them quieting for just a moment, softening into something more dangerous than desire, something old and aching and almost boyish beneath all that confidence.
He turned his face into her palm, pressing a kiss there, slow and deliberate, before his hand came up to cover hers.
“Para bien o para mal, en esta vida y en todas las que vengan después,” he whispered.
“For better or for worse, in this life and the ones after it.”
…
By the time Venus Taraji Hamilton was twenty-four, she had already mastered the delicate art of pretending not to notice when Jaafar Jackson looked at her. It was not that he was subtle, because God help him, he was not; he had the nerve to believe silence could hide devotion when devotion had already made a home in his eyes, when every glance he gave her lingered too long, burned too warm, settled too low in her chest to be mistaken for anything innocent. But Venus had grown skilled at turning away before the moment could become a confession, at laughing when he became too serious, at calling him young whenever the air between them grew too thick to breathe through.
Young. That was the word she kept like a little shield tucked against her ribs. Four years younger. Family friend. Baby Jackson, when she wanted to irritate him. Jaafar, when she forgot herself. He was twenty then, tall already, beautiful already, dangerous in the unfinished way young gods must have been before Olympus gave them thrones — all dark curls, long lashes, quiet confidence, and that strange, steady way of watching the world as though he expected it to open for him eventually. Venus should have known then that time was not going to save her.
They had ended up in the pet shop because of rain. That was what she would remember years later, though she could never decide if the rain had been coincidence or conspiracy, some private orchestration from the gods, as if Zeus had cracked open the sky just to push them beneath the same little awning on a quiet afternoon when neither of them had intended to be alone together. Their families had gone ahead to lunch, their mothers distracted, their fathers talking too loudly about old friends and business, and Venus had stepped away to avoid the chaos, ducking into the first open shop on the corner with Jaafar right behind her like a shadow with a heartbeat.
The bell above the door chimed when they entered, and inside, the world softened. The pet shop smelled faintly of cedar chips, clean water, birdseed, and rain-soaked pavement carried in on their shoes. Parakeets chattered near the window, bright as stolen jewels; sleepy puppies pressed their noses against glass pens; and a fat orange cat watched from a carpeted tower with the offended dignity of Hera herself. Everything inside felt warm and gold and strange, a tiny ark hidden from the storm outside, humming with life.
Venus shook rain from the ends of her hair, frowning at the dampness on her sleeves. “You didn’t have to follow me,” she said, though they both knew that if she had truly wanted him gone, she would have said so long before the bell above the door stopped ringing. Jaafar only leaned against the doorframe for half a second, pushing wet curls from his forehead, looking entirely too pleased with himself for someone who had just been caught trailing her through bad weather. “I didn’t follow you,” he said. “It was raining.” Venus gave him a look, and he smiled, and that smile was already a problem.
Not fully grown yet, not as lethal as it would become later, but enough to make her look away, enough to irritate her because she knew exactly what it would become once age finished carving patience into his face. Jaafar at twenty did not yet have all the weight he would carry as a man, but he had the promise of it, the early shape of confidence, the beginning of that infuriating certainty that one day, if he waited long enough, she would run out of excuses.
“You are so annoying,” she muttered, moving deeper into the shop, pretending to be interested in a display of tiny ceramic bowls painted with paw prints. Jaafar followed at an unhurried pace, hands in his pockets, watching her with the kind of calm that made her want to throw something soft at his head. There was no rush in him. That was the truly dangerous part. Even then, even young, even with all that longing sitting visibly beneath his skin, he had never behaved like a man afraid of losing the race. He behaved like someone who believed the race had already been won.
The aquarium section glowed blue in the back of the shop, and Venus saw it first. Against the far wall, beneath soft white lamps, glass tanks shimmered with small flashes of moving colour: goldfish, bettas, little silver schools of minnows flickering like coins tossed into sacred water. But in the largest tank, set slightly apart from the rest, two koi moved slowly through the water with a grace that made the whole shop feel suddenly hushed. One was white with patches of deep red across its back, bright as pomegranate seeds spilled over snow, and the other was black, orange, and gold, its scales catching light like pieces of Helios’s chariot broken across a river.
They circled each other. Not chasing, not fleeing, but turning in the same slow rhythm, one passing beneath the other, then beside it, then around again, their bodies folding through the water like silk ribbons pulled by an invisible hand. Venus stepped closer despite herself, and Jaafar came to stand beside her. For once, neither of them spoke. The rain tapped against the front windows, the parakeets quieted, somewhere in the shop a dog whined softly in its sleep, and there, before the koi tank, time seemed to lose its shape.
“They’re beautiful,” Venus whispered. Jaafar looked at the koi for a moment, then at her. “Yeah,” he said, quietly enough that she knew, without needing to ask, that he was not only talking about the fish. She turned toward him, ready to scold him, ready to call him young, ready to tuck the moment safely back into the box she kept for impossible things, but he was already watching her, and there was nothing boyish in his eyes. That was what stole the words from her.
At twenty, Jaafar should have looked at her with hunger, with impatience, with the clumsy intensity of youth. Instead, he looked at her as though he recognized her from somewhere older than memory, somewhere before language, before family dinners and age gaps and all the careful little rules people built around desire. He looked at her the way Orpheus must have looked back toward the underworld, not because he doubted what he loved was following, but because love itself had become unbearable without proof.
Behind them, a soft voice said, “They always know.” Venus startled slightly and turned. An elderly Japanese woman stood near the end of the aisle, small and neat in a navy cardigan, silver hair pinned back, a name tag clipped to her chest. Her eyes were kind, amused, and far too knowing, the way old women in stories always seemed to be, as though age had given them access to secrets the young kept embarrassing themselves trying to hide.
Jaafar straightened, polite at once, but the woman only smiled and stepped closer to the tank. “Koi are good to look at,” she said. “They teach patience. In Japan, koi are symbols of perseverance, strength, and good fortune. They swim against the current. They endure. Some stories say that when a koi is brave enough to climb the waterfall, the gods turn it into a dragon.”
“A reward for not giving up?” Jaafar asked, his eyes moving back to the fish, interest sharpening his face. Venus laughed softly before she could stop herself. “That sounds like something you would like.” He glanced at her, and there it was again, that little flash of arrogance she found so irritating because it suited him too well. “I have a high opinion of being right,” he said.
The old woman smiled like she had seen this exact argument a thousand years before in a thousand different forms. “Two koi together can also mean harmony,” she said. “Balance. A love that must keep moving, even when the water is difficult.” Venus’s smile faded a little. Jaafar went still beside her. The koi circled again, one pale, one dark, touching only for a second as they passed, then separating, then finding the same rhythm once more.
The woman lifted one finger, pointing gently toward the red-and-white koi. “That one always waits,” she said. “The black one goes ahead, then turns. The white one follows, then waits. They keep losing each other for one moment, but they do not panic. They know where the other will be.”
Something moved through Venus then, so quiet and sharp she almost missed it. They know where the other will be. Jaafar did not say anything, and that was worse. If he had joked, if he had smiled too widely, if he had made some arrogant little comment, Venus could have rolled her eyes and dismissed the whole thing, but he was silent beside her, his shoulder barely brushing hers, his attention fixed on the two koi as if the woman had reached into the water and pulled up some hidden truth he had not yet earned the right to say.
“There is another story,” the woman continued. “Not koi. A red thread. Many people mix the meanings now, but the old idea is that two people who are meant for each other are tied by an invisible red thread. It may stretch. It may tangle. It may take years.” Her eyes softened. “But it does not break.”
Venus’s heart gave one foolish, humiliating beat. She laughed because she had to. “That sounds dangerous.” The old woman looked at her with gentle amusement. “Only if you fight it.” Jaafar finally looked at Venus, and she felt it before she met his eyes. The thread. It was ridiculous. There was no thread, no bright red string looped around his thumb and her finger, no visible proof that the universe had tied them together behind their backs while they were busy pretending family history and four years could protect them.
And yet, standing there beneath the blue aquarium light, with rain blurring the windows and two koi circling like fate had given itself scales, Venus could almost feel it — something fine and red and impossible, a line drawn from him to her, not tight enough to trap, not loose enough to ignore.
Jaafar lifted his hand, and for one breath she thought he might touch her. He did not. He only reached toward the glass, placing two fingers lightly against it as the gold-and-black koi swam past. “Does it hurt?” he asked quietly. The old woman looked at him. “What?” Jaafar kept his eyes on the fish. “The thread. If it stretches.”
Venus turned to him, something in her chest going painfully soft. The question was too young and too old at the same time, too bare for a boy who had spent most of the afternoon smirking at her like confidence was armour. He did not look at Venus when he asked it, but she knew, somehow, that the question belonged to her. The old woman studied him for a moment, then said, “Only when one person keeps walking away and the other stands still.”
Venus forgot how to breathe. Jaafar’s hand dropped from the glass. Outside, thunder rolled faintly across the sky, low and distant, like Zeus had overheard enough and was warning them not to make him repeat himself. Venus cleared her throat, forcing a smile that felt too thin. “Well,” she said, “that’s dramatic for a pet shop.” The old woman laughed gently. “Love is dramatic everywhere.”
The two koi had begun circling more tightly now, one turning around the other in a slow, endless shape, like an infinity symbol drawn in water. “They look like they’re dancing,” Venus said, because it was safer than saying what she was thinking. Jaafar watched the fish, his face suddenly quiet and reverent, less like a young man sheltering from rain and more like Apollo standing at the edge of a prophecy he had not yet learned how to survive. “They keep missing,” he said.
“Only by a little,” Venus murmured. “They come back around.” Jaafar looked at her then. “Yes,” he said quietly. “They do.” Venus should have said something clever. She should have called him annoying again, reminded him that he was twenty, that she was twenty-four, that whatever lived under his skin when he looked at her was not something she could entertain without feeling like she had betrayed common sense itself. But the words did not come.
The old woman eventually returned with a tiny paper cup of fish food and handed it to Venus. “Here,” she said. “You feed them.” Venus took it carefully, then glanced at Jaafar. “Why me?” He shrugged, smiling faintly. “Maybe they like you.” She rolled her eyes. “Everything likes me.” His smile widened. “There’s that ego.” “Learned from you.” His expression shifted, amused and soft all at once. “I’m younger. How you learning from me?”
She froze. He knew it instantly. The forbidden thing had slipped between them again, dressed as a joke and yet not a joke at all. Younger. There it was. Her shield. Her excuse. Her little gate. Jaafar’s smile faded by inches. “You always mean it when you say that,” he said, and there was no accusation in his voice, which somehow made it worse.
Venus looked down into the cup, guilt sitting sharp beneath her ribs. “I didn’t mean—” “Yes, you did.” The words were quiet. Steady. Too honest. Then, before the moment could split open completely, he nodded toward the tank. “Feed them before they start judging us.”
Venus turned back to the koi and sprinkled a few flakes over the water. They rose at once, mouths opening softly, bodies brushing the surface, colour flashing beneath the blue light. Jaafar came to stand beside her again — not too close, just close enough — and for a while, they watched the koi eat in silence.
The black-and-gold koi moved first, then the red-and-white one followed, close enough that their fins brushed. A strange little hush moved through Venus as she watched them, and before she could stop herself, she imagined the invisible red thread the old woman had described. Stretching. Tangling. Crossing years. Looping around other lovers, other cities, other rooms, other mistakes. Never breaking.
When she looked down, her smallest finger was close to his hand. Not touching.
Almost.
Jaafar noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His gaze dropped to the narrow space between their hands, to the delicate almost of it, her smallest finger resting close enough to his that the air itself seemed to tremble there. Venus could have moved away. She should have moved away. She could have tucked her hand behind her back, reached for the paper cup again, made some sharp little comment to cut the moment down before it grew teeth.
But she did not.
For one dangerous second, their hands hovered side by side over the edge of the tank stand, his little finger near hers, the space between them so small it felt indecent; then Jaafar moved, barely, just enough for his pinky to brush hers. The touch was so light it could have been an accident, except Jaafar Jackson had never accidentally wanted her a day in his life.
Venus’s breath caught.
He did not look at her.
She did not look at him.
They stood there like that, hands almost touching, koi circling, rain falling, and Venus thought with sudden terror that maybe the gods did not always announce destiny with thunderbolts. Maybe fate arrived quietly. Maybe it smelled like aquarium water and cedar chips. Maybe it wore damp curls and a too-calm expression. Maybe your soulmate did not arrive with some grand, flaming sign from Olympus; maybe he simply stood beside you long enough for your body to recognize him before your mind could object.
“Venus,” Jaafar said softly.
She closed her eyes for half a second. “What?”
“When I’m older,” he said, stubborn as a prayer, “you gon’ stop saying that.”
Her eyes opened.
The shield rose in her immediately, familiar and automatic. He was twenty. She was twenty-four. That was supposed to mean something. That was supposed to protect her from the way he looked at her, from the quiet certainty in his voice, from the awful little truth sitting between them like the red thread itself had tightened around their fingers.
“Jaafar,” she warned.
But he only turned to her fully, his gaze steady, his voice low enough to belong only to her. “What you mean is you need a reason to act like you don’t feel this too.”
Venus went still.
The koi moved beneath them, red and gold and black and white, circling, circling, circling, two little gods trapped in glass and still somehow freer than she felt. She looked down and realized their pinkies were still touching. Barely. Almost nothing. Enough to ruin the air.
“You don’t know what I feel,” she said, but it came out too quietly to be convincing.
Jaafar’s gaze dropped to their hands, then lifted back to her face. “Yes, I do.”
The confidence should have made her furious. Instead, it made her afraid, because there was no cruelty in it, no demand, no childish arrogance dressed up as romance. Just certainty. Warm and calm and devastating. The kind of certainty that did not need to raise its voice because it believed time itself would eventually testify on its behalf.
Venus pulled her hand away.
Jaafar let her.
That was almost worse.
He did not chase. He did not grab. He did not make a scene. He only nodded once, as if this too was part of the pattern, as if she was the koi swimming ahead and he already knew she would circle back.
“You’re impossible,” she whispered.
His smile returned, softer this time, touched with something that made him look younger and older all at once. “You keep saying that.”
Before Venus could answer, the old woman passed behind them again and glanced once more at the tank, her expression warm with that unsettling wisdom old women in stories always seemed to possess. “They like you two,” she said.
Venus gave a weak laugh. “You think so?”
“Yes,” the woman replied. “They can tell when people are tied.”
Venus’s body went still.
Jaafar’s eyes moved to her face, but she kept hers on the water because looking at him right then felt too much like confession.
“By the red thread?” he asked.
The woman shrugged lightly, as if fate was not something to be proven, only recognized. “Maybe. Maybe by water. Maybe by something older.”
Venus tried to smile. “Older than what?”
The woman looked at them both, then at the koi moving below the blue light. “Than the reasons people make to stay apart.”
The words settled over them like a blessing and a warning.
Venus looked back at the tank.
This time, the koi were side by side.
No circling. No missing. No thin ribbon of blue between them. Just moving together through the water, slow and certain, two bodies following the same invisible current as though they had been doing it long before anyone thought to name it love.
For once, Jaafar said nothing.
He did not need to.
The rain softened outside, and soon their families would begin wondering where they had gone. The world would return with its noise, its rules, its ages, its careful little categories. Someone would call Venus’s phone. Someone would ask why Jaafar had disappeared too. Lunch would resume, parents would laugh, old friends would hug, and Venus would have to step back into a life where pretending was easier than admitting that something in her had shifted in the blue glow of a koi tank.
But for that one suspended moment, she let herself stand beside him.
She let herself feel the brush of his sleeve against hers. She let herself imagine the red thread. She let herself imagine two koi swimming through difficult water, separated by turns, tangled by timing, always circling, always returning, always finding the same current again.
And though she would not say it then, though she would spend years swallowing the truth until it grew teeth inside her, some quiet part of Venus knew.
Not hoped.
Not wondered.
Knew.
Jaafar Jackson was going to be the hardest thing she ever tried to outrun.
And one day, when she was tired enough, honest enough, brave enough, she would stop swimming against him and call it fate.
tags <3 : @lov3lylxvender @melaninjoys @cinnamoncunt @healthenature @kryptonianheart @sagittalust @tenacioustestamentambush @tatumcelts @jakardyz @freaky1nterlude @daliscrim @michealsapplehead @asiatarg @imgenuinelyinsane @mrs-dylanobrien265 @plan3tch1ld @mamasturn ( lmk if you want to be added or removed)
gummygunk
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
origamiaround
kaledo-art
titsay
germansingergirl
