Prompt: Two strangers discover they’ve been swapping items unknowingly through a communal space, each leaving an X in return until curiosity forces a meeting.
Summary: After discovering some unfamiliar clothes in your laundry (and losing some of your own in return), you begin exchanging messages with another resident in your apartment complex.
Word Count: 15.5K
Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Modern AU, unspecified age gap (Ezra is intended to be older, but use your own imagination on how much older), no use of Y/N, minimal descriptions of reader character, second-person POV, reader is getting over a recent breakup, mildly pervy Ezra, pleasure dom Ezra, SMUT (dry humping, vaginal fingering, squirting, biting, unprotected P in V sex, overstimulation, creampie, Ezra’s filthy yapping and filthy fucking).
Written for @jolapeno’s Dear-uary Epistolary Writing Challenge. Dividers by @saradika-graphics.
Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist
You have never considered yourself to be an especially domestic person.
Sure, you are a decent cook, but the handful of recipes you rotate between each week require little in the way of culinary skills. The ingredients are simple and cheap, the prep work is minimal, and the actual cooking involves nothing more than a couple of burners on the stovetop or perhaps a slow cooker if you’re feeling especially ambitious. The final products are always serviceable, but nothing more complex or skillful than what a college student might be able to achieve in their first apartment.
You’re a reluctant cleaner, as well. Your dishes tend to pile in the sink for days before you work up the gumption to scrub them, and you’re embarrassed to admit to the amount of time you have gone without vacuuming your carpets or mopping your kitchen floor. When you make plans to have friends over – or god forbid a date – you often have been guilty of racing around your apartment at the last possible minute, frantically cleaning things that ought to have been cleaned ages ago. It seems the potential shame of someone else thinking you lived in a messy home is the only motivator strong enough to get you into gear.
But there is perhaps one domestic task in which you find genuine joy. Laundry.
You love the ritual of it – the simple satisfaction of sorting, the methodical, repetitive action of folding, the tidy little piles of underwear and socks and pajamas and jeans spread out over the surface of your bed as you worked. You love watching the way your dresser goes from barren to pleasingly full as the soft drone of your current audiobook or a favorite podcast drifts through your headphones. You even love the scent of your detergent – it’s a small luxury, but you notice it every time you open your closet, and it never fails to make you smile.
Every Sunday morning, the routine is the same, and with it comes a meditative calm that always helps you center and reset yourself for the coming week. You’ve found yourself leaning on the consistency, the predictability of it all even moreso in recent weeks, which is why when you encounter a peculiar piece of clothing mixed in with your clean laundry, still warm from the dryer downstairs, you almost toss the thing straight into the garbage.
It's a large men’s sock – charcoal gray, crew length, and heavily worn. It sports two holes, one in the toe and one in the heel, and the knit fabric has pilled so intensely that from far away, it almost looks speckled. A ragged piece of clothing if you’ve ever seen one and nothing like anything in your own wardrobe. Instantly, you presume it must be his.
The mere thought of him leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you eye the offending sock with reproach. Eight months of your life wasted on a man who could never seem to remember your takeout order, who called your master’s degree cute, who always had some new excuse to not introduce you to the gaggle of fellow finance bros constantly blowing up his phone and filling his evenings with cocktail hours and “networking events.”
Looking back on it now, you can be more honest with yourself about all the things you had ignored in the moment – all the little red flags that might have been passable on their own but combined with everything else painted a picture of a man who saw you as a convenience rather than a privilege, a little something to be kept on the side, held at arm’s length until he grew bored of you and moved on. And he had moved on, in the tritest way possible – with an intern from his office named Kyleigh.
You are eager to do the same, to pack the lackluster memories of him away in a box and shove that box so far into the back of your mind that you forget it even exists. This sock, sticking out bizarrely in the basket of soft creams and delicate blushes that you favor, has derailed those efforts. You’ve been doing so well avoiding thoughts of him.
You toss it into the paper grocery bag you have tucked into the corner of your bedroom, the one containing the handful of little things you’ve found around your apartment in the three weeks since his departure that you know belong to him. A blue silk tie. A bulky black phone charger that is incompatible with your phone model. A half-used tube of plain, unflavored Chapstick. A dogeared copy of Atomic Habits. And now this sock.
You have no idea how it ended up in your hamper in the first place, but it hardly matters, you decide. You refuse to let the thought of it – or the man it belongs to – darken your peaceful morning any longer. You’ll get the bag of stuff back to him at some point. Until then, he’ll simply have to make do with a missing sock.
What begins as a singular sock, however, quickly becomes more as over the next several weeks, you continue to discover foreign items of clothing in your laundry.
First, another sock, this one navy blue and even more worn than the first, the fabric loose and shapeless with time. Then, a pair of maroon men’s athletic shorts with frayed, raw hems around the legs and worn-out elastic at the waist. A ribbed undershirt in age-patinaed white comes next, and then finally, a true treasure – the softest, most perfectly worn-in gray t-shirt. It is oversized (for you, anyway) and pure cotton, stretched and softened with countless washes and wears so that it pools like butter in your hands, and for the first time, it occurs to you that there is no way that these mysterious items of clothing are relics of your relationship that you had simply missed on your first pass through your apartment to gather his things. Your ex, for one, had had many flaws, but hanging on to shabby, hole-riddled clothing that was nearly falling apart was not one of them. And for another thing, you feel certain that you would have known if your ex had owned a t-shirt like this one while you were together. If he had, you would have stolen it for yourself a long time ago.
For lack of something better to do with them, the navy sock, basketball shorts, and undershirt all make their way into the paper bag anyway. The t-shirt, however, gets folded neatly and added to your pajama drawer. Some poor man in your apartment building may be missing it now, but in a building with over a hundred units and only one basement laundry facility, you cannot imagine the complexities of attempting to reunite it with its owner.
His loss will simply have to be your gain.
The week following the fortuitous discovery of the most perfect t-shirt known to man, you encounter another disruption to your sacred routine, though this time, rather than a mysterious item of clothing somehow joining your basket, it comes in the form of a hand-written note.
The laundry facility in your apartment complex is nothing to speak of, and for as much as you enjoy this particular chore, you prefer to spend as little time in the dingy, windowless room as you can manage. Two rows of stainless steel, coin-operated washers abut each other down the center of the linoleum-tiled square, while matching dryers stack two high and six wide against the far wall. The air there is stuffy, warm and humid and smelling strongly of bleach, and the constant hum and rumble of the machines is almost more than the noise cancelling in your headphones can handle.
Typically, you don’t choose to linger – you grab your favorite washers as quickly as you can manage, and you set a timer on your phone for the duration of the wash so you can return to your apartment to wait out the cycle. Today, however, as you are slotting your collection of quarters into your machines, something out of place catches your eye.
Stuck to the wall of dryers is a crumpled piece of lined paper, clearly ripped from a spiralbound notebook and scribbled on in haste. You cock your head at the sight, frowning. You’re certain it must have been left by a fellow resident, for any messages from the complex’s management would have at least been typed and printed out.
Internally, you roll your eyes – how often had a passive aggressive note left in a common area actually resulted in changed behavior? You came across them on occasion, in the mail room or in the lounge or in one of the elevators, and whatever it was the poster was disgruntled about only ever seemed to worsen after that. Still, once you have your washers going, you can’t help but approach the dryers to get a better look at the curious thing.
Your suspicions are quickly confirmed – it is from another tenant, written in a tight, hurried scrawl in dry, patchy blue ink and taped to the steel face of one of the dryers with a raggedly-torn piece of masking tape. It reads:
You find yourself quirking a puzzled smile as you read, the corners of your lips curling up at the writer’s flowery word choice. It’s almost comically formal for something clearly written in a rush, and the juxtaposition of the courtly language with the humble, jagged-edged notebook paper sparks your intrigue. Of course, there’s also the matter of the handful of mysterious garments you have been collecting. You can’t help but wonder whether this…loquacious neighbor of yours is the owner of the scruffy clothing items slowly collecting dust in the corner of your bedroom.
That would be another odd comparison, you think. That someone so meticulous with their words should be so careless with their clothing. You suppose you shouldn’t judge – perhaps he simply cannot afford to replace his things when they wear through. But still, you can’t reconcile the image you have created in your mind of the author of this note with the unkempt man who owns the clothes that keep ending up in your laundry.
It might be worth responding if only to satisfy your growing curiosity.
When you return to the laundry room to move your clothes from the washers to the dryers, you bring with you a bright pink, oversized sticky note from your favorite stationary set and attach it to the wrinkled piece of notebook paper.
Your curiosity drives you back down into the laundry room the next day.
It’s rare for you to deviate from your routine like this, but there’s something that feels almost fantastical about this nameless, faceless exchange. The author of that note might be someone you have encountered a thousand times without ever knowing.
The thought inspires your imagination, makes you think of fairytales and fate and all kinds of other childish things. Perhaps you have crossed paths with this stranger – with their funny, fanciful language and their unkempt presentation – in the mail room or in the elevator or outside the leasing office. You trade courteous hellos and the occasional polite smile with your neighbors when you see them, but you have never intentionally sought any of them out before. This person could be anyone, and that has you making your way back to the basement long before your next planned laundry day.
The moment you enter the stuffy, grimy little room, your eyes go straight for the wall of dryers where the last note was left. A smile splits your face almost immediately. The note from yesterday is gone, as is your bright pink reply. In their place, another torn piece of notebook paper has been left, this time stuck to the face of the dryer with a clear strip of packing tape. More secure, more intentional, like whoever had left it had intended for it to be able to stick in place for a long time even in the humid, poorly-ventilated space.
Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in anticipation, you’re thankful to be the only person in the room as you eagerly dart over to read it.
In the same hurried penmanship as the previous note, this one reads:
A rush of satisfaction floods you as you read. This is the mysterious owner of the clothes you’ve been finding! You must have a washer or dryer preference in common, you think, if his belongings continue to be mixed in with yours. You can see how it could happen, particularly if he was in a rush. A dark colored sock left in the bottom of the drum or stuck to the side after a spin cycle wasn’t unheard of.
Perhaps you ought to do a better job of checking your machines before blindly dumping your clothes in…
You also feel confident now that this is, in fact, a man that you’re dealing with, which makes his choice of vocabulary all the more intriguing. Not that there is anything especially feminine about his choice of words, but more that the men you find yourself spending time with tend to get their intellectual stimulation from manosphere podcasts and YouTube comedians. This man writes like a scholar, like a patron of the arts, like a Regency-era lordling. It is as refreshing as it is puzzling, and the sparkling prose combined with the mystery of the whole thing has you feeling rather enchanted.
And, perhaps the greatest victory of all, is that E makes no mention whatsoever of your new favorite t-shirt. The thin, buttery-soft thing has become a staple of your loungewear collection over the last few weeks. The way it falls over your skin so perfectly, the way it wraps itself around you like a friend – you can’t imagine parting with it now. Thankfully, it sounds like you won’t have to.
Pulling your pink pad of sticky notes out of your bag, you excitedly pen your reply.
Several more days pass before your now-daily trips to the laundry room finally bear fruit.
It’s Saturday morning, and rather than finding a new piece of crinkled notebook paper in place of the old, instead you find that someone has written on your pink sticky note, adding their own message to the bottom of the scrap of stationary. You recognize the handwriting immediately, though it’s even more irregular than usual. Scribbled in the lower right corner of the note, it reads:
In cramped, halting, angular strokes, a phone number has been added to the bottom of the note – even smaller than the words he somehow managed to fit on the same sheet of paper as your own. But by some miracle, with a squint and a turn of your head, you’re able to read it, and you pull your phone out of your pocket to quickly save it in your contacts.
laundry neighbor🧦, you call him in your address book with a smirk, and you decide to shoot him a text when you arrive back at your apartment. In the meantime, however, you are quick to yank both of the old notes off of the dryer, crumple them up into a ball, and toss them into the nearby garbage can.
As you catch the elevator back to your floor, you can’t help but wonder about the kind of man who was perfectly comfortable leaving his personal phone number in a public space for anyone to read and do with as they chose, but who drew the line at retrieving a small stack of holey, threadbare clothes from the same public space. You can’t imagine who in their right mind would want to steal the things that you had inadvertently collected from this man over the last several weeks; in fact, you feel confident that if you had ever seen them there while doing your own washing, you wouldn’t have spared them a second thought.
If anything, you think, if they had been left there long enough, I might have taken the liberty of throwing them in the trash.
Still, you suppose there’s no accounting for taste. And E had admitted to being superstitious about the shorts in particular, so perhaps this strange man was simply a creature of habit, one who did not part with such things easily.
A creature of habit who keeps strange hours and writes like someone from a different century. No matter how much you try, you simply cannot make heads or tails of this mysterious man.
Several hours pass before you receive a reply from the enigmatic E. You’re preparing to settle in for the night, a book and a glass of wine in hand, when your phone vibrates in the pocket of your pajama pants. Digging it out, you quirk a curious smile at what you see.
hi e! saw your response to my note about your clothes. when would be a good time for us to meet up so i can get those back to you?
Ah! Good morning, little bird!
I suppose I should say good evening, though it is my morning. Apologies for the delayed reply. As I mentioned, I keep odd hours.
I would be available to meet with you tonight after my shift, if you are amenable? I typically return home around 4 in the morning.
You make no attempt to smother the incredulous laugh that bubbles up in your chest as his suggestion. What kind of person tried to make plans for 4:00 in the morning? You couldn’t imagine dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to meet with a stranger just to hand off a couple socks. Shaking your head, you’re quick to type out a reply.
4 am??? 😳 you weren’t kidding, those are some weird hours 😅
sorry dude i will def be asleep at 4 😪
how about this time tomorrow? if you work nights, would you be awake then?
Three bouncing dots appear at the bottom of the screen, flashing in and out of existence a handful of times before his message finally coalesces.
An astute observation and suggestion. Ordinarily, yes, I would. But unfortunately, I have already agreed to an extended shift tomorrow to cover for a colleague.
A frown knits across your brow, your thumb tapping against the edge of your wine glass as you ponder your options. In your mind, you run through your schedule for the week, matching it up against what little you know of E’s availability. It’s a challenging fit. A brief flash of irritation passes through you at the strange man’s stubbornness. If only he would allow you to simply leave the clothes in the laundry room – then he could collect them at his leisure, and the issue would resolve itself.
However, as you begin to type up precisely that suggestion (with no small amount of snark), you find yourself pausing.
If you leave the clothes for him to pick up on his own, you may never have the opportunity to meet him, to finally put a face and a voice to the person behind the notes. As it stands, you don’t even know this man’s name, but this odd little exchange easily has become the most entertaining thing to happen to you in a long time. It’s been a nice distraction from the absence of your ex, strangely making you feel a little less alone.
Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in contemplation, you delete the message you had been typing and compose another one instead.
You would put the ball in his court, put the responsibility on him to coordinate a plan for you to connect. The moment the message marks as delivered, you see those bouncing dots appear again. His reply is quick, as though he had been waiting on the other end of the line the whole time you deliberated. The thought has a strange warmth settling in your chest, blooming in your cheeks.
ok no worries. you wanna just text me whenever you’re free and we’ll see when our schedules line up? i’m pretty flexible but it sounds like we might work opposite hours 😅
Indeed, a common occurrence, I’m afraid, but such is the life of a bartender.
But yes, I will be in touch. I appreciate you looking after my things until we can arrange a meeting! I am in your debt for your patience.
Your flush deepens at the compliment, and you cannot fight the grin that tugs at your lips. Flatterer, you think to yourself.
not a problem! we’ll make it work eventually 😊
Not ten seconds passes, and then:
Looking forward to it, little bird. Enjoy the rest of your evening.
you too 😊 have a good shift
Good morning, little bird! The sun is rising, and I am preparing to retire. Do you perhaps wish to meet in the lobby before then? I’m unsure of your schedule, but I know many of the other tenants are departing for work at this time.
sorry e 🙁 I left about 20 min ago, got a workout class on monday mornings. sleep well!
Thoughts of the man who has ostensibly become your pen pal linger at the back of your mind throughout your work day. It’s been a while since you received a “good morning” text from anyone, though you are quick to scold yourself for the little flutter that thought sets off in your stomach.
You think of the appalling collection of socks and lounge clothes, now removed from the bag of your ex’s belongings and taking pride of place on your kitchen counter, right next to the entrance to your apartment. That, truly, is all you know about him, you remind yourself – that he wears socks with holes in them and shorts with no elastic and undershirts with pit and neck stains. Not exactly the most appealing prospect.
Not that there ought to be anything appealing about him. He could be barely out of school. He could be an old man. He could be married. If his glittering prose and flattering pet names have charmed you, then you have no one but yourself and your own fanciful imagination to blame.
Of course, none of these musings stop you from shooting off a quick text to him on your way home from work.
hey! i’m headed home now, you awake? could meet up downstairs in 15?
To your disappointment, your message remains unread for several more hours. It isn’t until you’re queueing up your third episode of your favorite syndicated reality show, wrapped in a blanket and cradling a late-night bowl of ice cream in your lap, that you receive a response.
Apologies once again, birdie. By the time I noticed your message, I was already in the car. Thank you for keeping in contact – your diligence for a neighbor you do not even know is admirable.
lol i try 🤷♀️ 😊
The next time you hear from E, it is early in the morning. You’re barely awake, eyes still bleary as you prepare yourself a cup of coffee, and the notification that greets you when you open your phone for the first time is two new messages from him, sent a couple hours ago.
I am certain you will not see this until morning, but be cautious using the northeast elevator tomorrow. It is making the most bizarre noise, and the door is rather sluggish on opening. Just now, I was nearly unable to fit through to exit the car when I reached my floor.
I have informed maintenance, but I am sure you know as well as I how long it takes that old codger to get anything done. If it is not blocked for use by the time you leave tomorrow, I would suggest waiting until the other is available.
Your chest warms at the consideration, that he would have such a harrowing experience and think to warn you against it. Fully awake now, you thumb a reply and send it off, hoping he sees it when he wakes tonight for his shift.
omg thanks for the heads up! glad you’re okay and didn’t get stuck!
Later, after safely making your way downstairs and over to the parking deck, you cannot seem to stop yourself from sending another.
there is an out of service sign on it now, thank god! have a good sleep e!
[Attached: JPG]
fyi reno crew in the lobby today. idk if you have your car in the deck but you may wanna take the side exit and walk around. the workers gave me a dirty look for walking on the unsealed floor lol
Awful rude of them. You couldn’t have known.
If management didn’t want tenants in the lobby today, perhaps they ought to have put up proper signage.
Thank you for the message, birdie. I will do as you suggested. I hope you had a pleasant day at work.
…what is it that you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking?
i’m a librarian 🤓 📚
!!!
Forgive my ineloquence. I was unaware I have been corresponding with a scholar!
lmao says the man who writes like someone out of an austen novel
I will take that as a compliment!
Do you enjoy it?
the way you talk or being a librarian? 😉
Clever girl. 😏 Both. Either.
yes very much! to both 😇
and how do you know i’m a girl? all you know for sure is we live in the same building. i could be anyone 👀
The way you speak is decidedly feminine, though you’re right, I should not make such assumptions.
I apologize if I have offended you. No disrespect was intended.
😂 you’re fine, just giving you a hard time. you assumed correctly anyway
how about you? do you enjoy what you do?
It certainly is not my first choice of occupation, but it pays enough for me to make my way through the world, which is a privilege in itself.
It also helps that I am quite good at it, if I do say so myself.
lol nothing wrong with knowing yourself!
what would be your first choice? if not bartending?
I would be an academic. I do love books.
well if you ever find yourself awake during normal business hours you’re welcome at the library anytime. we have a few of those 😉
Cheeky bird.
Things continue in this vein for several more days – courteous, neighborly messages about things happening around the complex that turn into brief, companionable conversations. Missed offers to meet, incompatible schedules, sleep and work and fitness classes and plans with friends somehow always seeming to come at the worst possible moments. You find yourself equal parts aggravated and entertained by what has turned into a never-ending game of phone tag with someone who you still, somehow, have never met. It wasn’t exactly what you had signed up for when you responded to the bedraggled little note in the laundry room, but you couldn’t say you were disappointed at how things had turned out.
At this point, the novelty of the clothes taking up space on your kitchen counter has faded, the little pile melting into the background and simply becoming part of your daily scenery, and every time you see E’s moniker and the little sock emoji come across your phone screen, you can’t help but smile. It’s been the best distraction you could have asked for, though a part of you knows that such a sentiment is leaning further away from whimsical and more toward delusional.
Perhaps that’s why when the charming, fresh-faced barista at your favorite coffee shop finally works up the gumption to ask for your number, you give it to him.
Perhaps that’s why when that same barista asks you out for dinner and drinks, you agree.
Little bird, I have tremendous news! The coworker whose shift I covered a while back has offered to return the favor. I am available this evening to collect my laundry from you. When would be best for us to meet?
oh e i’m sorry ☹️ this would have been a great night for it too! but i actually have a date. i’ll be gone most of the evening.
I see. Not to worry, birdie. I hope you enjoy yourself.
thanks 😊 i hope so too lol
You’re nothing but a lump of dry mouth and regret the next morning when the cheerful little buzz of your phone draws you out from under the downy refuge of your blankets. Your curtains are pulled tight, though a bit of the late morning sunshine still manages to spill through the gaps around the window frame, and you frown at it venomously as though your stare could will the light to dampen itself in spite of the idyllic weather.
Dragging the brightness of your phone screen all the way down, you open your notifications with a grumble.
How do you fare this morning?
[Attached: GIF]
Haha! That well? Not the pleasant evening you were hoping for, little bird?
date was boring
he was so boring
drank too much trying to make it fun
Ah, I see. In my experience, a good breakfast and an electrolyte-boosting beverage would do you well.
You glance over at your bedside table where two bottles of pale blue liquid sit, leaving rings of condensation on the painted wood surface. One is half empty, the other still unopened.
doordashed a couple bottles of gatorade. too hungover to make breakfast.
Less than 30 seconds later, another notification appears at the top of your screen.
Venmo: @Ezra-1982 paid you $20 “🍳🥓🥞”
Order yourself the “Farmer’s Combo” from the diner on 35th. Have them add cheddar to the scrambled eggs. You will not regret it.
Ezra.
His name is Ezra.
Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, forcing the fog from your throbbing head, you tap out your reply as quickly as you can manage.
omg you did not have to do that
Perhaps not, but you deserve nothing less after such a lackluster experience.
The unexpected generosity has you melting, as does the sweetness of his words. After the disappointment of your first foray back into the dating world, such kindness from a total stranger was equally surprising and moving. It makes you want to share it all with him, to explain in detail all of the various ways in which the barista had been a terrible choice. His stilted manner, his excessive fondness for vodka Redbulls, his awkward sense of humor…
ugh you can say that again
he sucked so bad e omg
idk why i said yes to him in the first place
His sloppy mouth, his grabby hands, his clumsy fingers, his complete lack of interest in making sure you came…
The way he had completely and utterly failed to keep quiet as he stumbled out the door in the middle of the night.
def should not have brought him home
You pause for a moment, the words of your most recent message staring back at you from your phone screen as though taunting you. The blush rising in your cheeks is enough to make your blankets feel suddenly stifling, and your stomach drops at the realization that E – Ezra, your neighbor, a man you have never met but on whom you are quickly developing a bit of a schoolgirl crush – is going to read it. The two of you have never discussed anything like this before. Even in your little occasional flirtations, there has never been even the suggestion of anything sexual.
This unknown stranger really does not need to know anything about your sex life, you decide.
However, just as you are about to recall the message, you watch in horror as the “delivered” status flips to “read.”
A wave of nerves floods your system, pushing out the last of the grogginess still clouding your mind, and try as you might, you can think of no excuse you could spin, no joke you could tell.
shit was hoping you hadn’t read that yet
Alas, little bird. There is no need to be embarrassed.
sorry idk why i’m trying to gossip w/ you like one of my girlfriends. plz forget i said anything
i don’t wanna make this any weirder
For a handful of long, tense moments, your message remains unanswered. You watch, vaguely nauseous, as the three bouncing dots appear, then disappear, then reappear again. After a breathlessly long time of no typing at all, another notification pops up at the top of your screen.
Venmo: @Ezra-1984 paid you $5 “☕”
Add a latte to your order from the diner. I find that everything looks a bit brighter after a good cup of coffee.
Even a night of disappointing congress.
Your cheeks flare to life once again, the flush reaching from the tips of your ears down your neck to your chest. “Congress,” he called it. What a classy, delicate word for the sweaty, inept fumbling you had experienced last night in this very bed.
Which reminds you. You need to wash your sheets.
💀💀💀
thank you e 🙈💗
[Attached: JPG]
holy shit this food is incredible. it’s bringing me back to life.
also 10/10 recommendation on the eggs and the latte. you’re the best e, thank you
You’re most welcome, little bird. Be gentle with yourself today.
i will 🤗
any chance i could grab you before you go to work tonight? feeling much more human, got your clothes all ready to go by the door
I have underestimated you, birdie. I must stop doing that.
I did not assume you would have any interest in social interaction today given the state you were in this morning. I am already at the bar.
ah ok no worries
i really will get your clothes back to you, e. i promise.
I know you will, sweetheart. I trust you.
You feel a bit crazed as you dig through the drawers of your dresser, rummaging through the neatly folded piles of clothing with such frustrated carelessness that you know you’re going to have to reorganize it all later. It isn’t like you to misplace something like this – you’re meticulous about your clothes, far more so than you are in any other area of your life (except perhaps your work). The idea of anything just up and disappearing from your wardrobe is unheard of.
Perhaps, if it were anything else, it wouldn’t bother you so much. Perhaps, if tomorrow was any other day, you wouldn’t mind choosing something else to wear. But it does, and you do.
You have another date tomorrow night.
Not a repeat of the disastrous liaison with the barista, thank god, but a friend of a friend, someone you encountered occasionally at parties or bars who often offered to buy you drinks and smiled at you a little too long to be strictly friendly. You had never taken his flirtations especially seriously, but after the unmitigated failure that was your last attempt at getting back into the dating scene, your ego admittedly is feeling a bit bruised. It makes you willing to give him a real shot. Even if it winds up being underwhelming, you feel certain that anything would be better than the fucking barista.
Which means that you need those god-forsaken panties.
They’re your favorites – the cheeky, lacy, baby pink pair that stretched over your skin so softly, that framed the globes of your ass so delicately you couldn’t help but feel every inch a woman in them.
Pulling them on over your hips is a one-way ticket to feeling your sexiest, most feminine self, and you can’t imagine going on a first date without them to boost your confidence. And you just washed them – they should be right at the top of the pile, nestled precisely in your top dresser drawer, exactly where they belong. And yet…they aren’t.
Collapsing onto your bed in an aggravated heap, you tug your phone out of the pocket of your lounge shorts. Opening your messages, you tap on your conversation with E and fire off a quick text before you can think better of it. The flush that follows arrives not far behind, part of you a bit mortified at what you’re about to ask your faceless neighbor. But you’re desperate, and you know he will help you if he can.
i have a longshot of a question for you
Please, shoot!
did you happen to do laundry last night?
I did, indeed! Why do you ask?
did you use the same washers and dryers you normally do?
I always use the same machines. You’ve got me terribly curious now, little bird. What’s this about?
would you mind checking your dried clothes for me? i seem to be the one missing something this time.
i know the chances of them ending up with you are slim but i had to at least ask lol
Of course, hold on a beat.
A few tense, nerve-wracking minutes pass as you stare at your phone, tapping your foot anxiously, chewing on your lower lip as you wait. You doubt he has them. What would be the chances? Your apartment building has over a hundred units – there was no way with all of the other residents whose faces you had never seen, whose names you did not know, that E had been the one to use the same machines directly after you.
And yet…what if he had?
What if your favorite panties are currently tangled in his laundry basket, all mixed up with his well-loved shirts and shorts and jeans and socks? What if he goes to check for them, and the little flash of baby pink peeks out at him from between the grays and the navys and the olive greens, all feminine and delicate and sweet?
What if this mysterious man, who calls you his “little bird” and who has managed to thoroughly charm you over notes and texts and money for coffee, was about to catch a glimpse of your underwear for the first time, and you’re not even there to see his face when he does?
[Attached: JPG]
You wouldn’t happen to be missing these delicious little things, would you, birdie?
And there they are – draped over a calloused palm, dangling from thick, long, achingly masculine fingers. The blushing pink color of the lacy fabric contrasts stunningly with his tanned skin, and although you wouldn’t describe yourself as being particularly petite, the size of his hand somehow manages to make them look delicate in his grip.
The flush in your cheeks spreads instantly, making your ears burn, your chest feel tight and hot. Low in your abdomen, something stirs, something that had woken a handful of other times before – like when he had called you a “clever girl” or a “cheeky bird.” You had wondered then – what this man looked like, what he sounded like, whether he was as attractive in reality as you pictured him in your mind. Even without seeing his face, you feel now you know with certainty. You don’t have to wonder anymore.
Anyone with hands like that would turn your head. Knowing they were attached to someone who spoke to you like someone out of a regency-era novel is the final straw.
omg e
Am I to take that as a yes?
yeah those are mine 💀🙈
Are you at home, by chance?
You frown, your heartrate picking up as it beats a tattoo against the insides of your ribs.
yeah i’m here. why?
Well, I am clearly in the building, as well. I will be for the rest of the evening. Would you be amenable to coming over? I would happily come to you if you would prefer, but I would understand if you wish for your precise unit number to remain unknown.
Oh, god.
You take a deep, steadying breath and will your hands not to shake at the sudden wave of nerves twisting your belly into knots. He wants to meet you. Finally. And right now.
ok. yeah i’ll come to you if that’s okay
Of course. I’m in apartment 802. Come on over whenever you’re ready.
The frown between your brows deepens. 802? You’re in unit 902. Is it possible…
Has E been directly beneath you this entire time? Is it possible that not only does he share a building with you, but he is your downstairs neighbor?
wait. 802???
…yes?
He is. E – Ezra, your correct yourself (if you’re going to meet the man, you ought to be able to call him by his name) – lives directly below you. At least you know precisely how to get to him, you muse as you type out your response.
ok just making sure. be there in 10.
The next few minutes are spent in a flurry – brushing your teeth, fluffing your hair, refreshing your perfume, and confirming that you haven’t accumulated any unknown stains on your favorite oversized gray t-shirt or your shorts. You contemplate briefly whether you should change your clothes before making your way down to Ezra’s apartment, but ultimately you decide against it. Your lounge clothes are cute, and wouldn’t it be odd, you think, to show up on his doorstep looking like you felt the need to dress up for something when he knows your routine enough by now to know that you wouldn’t be leaving the complex today?
As you tuck your bare feet into your favorite pair of slides, you consider that you might be overthinking things.
It takes you another minute to gather your phone, your keys, and the small stack of his clothes that you are embarrassed to note has started to collect a fine layer of dust. The sight serves as a stark reminder of what this really is, all it has ever really been – a neighbor doing a favor for another neighbor. The return of items lost, even though the loss was weeks ago now. That is all your acquaintance with Ezra really is, at the end of the day. It’s friendly, but it is also impersonal.
These reminders to yourself ring hollow in your mind as you make your way to the stairwell. You don’t believe them, and you can’t help but hope that Ezra won’t, either.
The man that answers the door of apartment 802 looks both exactly like and nothing like you pictured.
He opens the door with confidence, an open and charming smile splitting his face the moment he lays eyes on you. He takes you in with a sweep of his dark, soulful eyes, tanned skin crinkling at their corners as he grins, and nothing could have prepared you for the way your heart begins to race as you do the same. Fuck, he is so handsome. Wild, dark brown hair, shorter on the sides and back than on the top, sticking up every which way with a single shock of blonde directly over his right eye. A prominent, Romanesque nose perched over a pair of full, soft-looking lips. Patchy, scruffy facial hair. A thin, pale scar twisting across his left cheek.
He looks like a creative, like a scoundrel – an artist or an activist or a rebellious academic who refuses to play by the rules. Precisely your type, you think, heat pooling low in your belly.
As you take in his attire, it immediately becomes apparent that the clothes you hold in your hands are an excellent representation of the rest of his wardrobe. He’s barefoot, a pair of navy-blue athletic shorts hanging low and loose on his narrow hips, and the black t-shirt that stretches snugly across his impossibly broad chest is heavily faded with many washes and sports several tiny holes along the seams.
Another hole, this one much larger than the rest, reveals itself as he shifts to rest his arm high against the doorframe. Leaning over you with casual self-assurance, the man tracks the way your gaze immediately darts to his underarm with the move. You can see the thick, dark hair of his armpit through the gap in the fabric, and the strangely intimate sight almost instantly brings a flush to your cheeks.
“Well, now,” he croons, slow and long and with an accent that flusters you even more. “Either you’ve found yourself on the wrong doorstep, or you must be the mysterious little bird that’s been chirping so sweetly in my ear every day for the last month.” He drops his grip on the old brass doorknob and extends his hand to you. It’s the same hand that had been photographed holding your panties mere minutes before – big, broad-palmed, calloused. “Name’s Ezra. What’s yours, birdie?”
You accept the handshake with minimal hesitation, offering him your name in return. “I’m, uh. I’m glad we could finally make this work,” you stammer. “I was kind of starting to feel like I had taken your stuff hostage.”
To that, Ezra chuckles, and the warm rasp of the sound settles itself somewhere beneath your navel. “Your willingness to be so flexible and communicative is deeply appreciated,” he drawls. “I’m sure most people in your position wouldn’t have been so accommodating.”
The earnestness of his words has you feeling almost bashful as you quickly reassure him, “Oh, I didn’t mind, really. You were the one who had to go without your stuff for this long. It was the least I could do.”
“See, that is precisely what I mean. Sweet as sugar and twice as lovely.” The man winks, offering you another charismatic smile, and you can’t smother the flustered chuckle that bubbles up in your chest.
There is a moment then when the two of you stand in silence – just the span of a heartbeat where you look at each other through the archway of his apartment door, him inside, you outside, each of you sizing up the other, quietly putting a face to all of the little pleasantries you’ve exchanged over the past weeks. That moment stretches, becomes two, and you watch as something akin to a blush, the first vulnerability he has displayed thus far, blooms across the tips of his ears.
Just before the quiet begins to edge into awkwardness, Ezra claps his hands and steps back away from the doorframe, sweeping his arms in a wide, beckoning gesture.
“Well, let us not delay any longer, shall we?” he says brightly. “Come, birdie, step inside, and I’ll retrieve your own garments which have gone astray.”
You hesitate only a moment before accepting his invitation, and as you cross the threshold, he closes the door behind you. You think that perhaps the sound of the knob catching in its place ought to make you nervous – after all, you have never really met this man before today and now here you are, alone with him in his home. But instead, the way your pulse picks up speed feels more like anticipation than fear.
As you hover in the narrow entryway, you notice that the floorplan of his unit is perfectly identical to yours. The open kitchen, the modest living room, the short hallway down which you knew you would find a single bedroom and bathroom. You’ve never been inside another unit in this building before, and it feels almost surreal as you take in a space that bears so many resemblances to your own while still very clearly being inhabited by someone else.
Ezra seems oblivious to your observations. Instead, he is all business as he retreats without preamble down the hallway toward his bedroom. You stare after him, confused for an instant as to why he would just leave you alone, but then you realize –
Your panties are in his bedroom.
Trying desperately to distract yourself from that brain-melting thought, you allow yourself to glance around the place. Your first impression is of the almost overwhelming number of plants that take up the living space. You recognize a few – snake plants and ZZ plants in mismatched pots on every available flat surface, spider plants and pothos dangling from macrame hangers in front of the windows, a lush monstera taking up most of the western corner, a fiddle-leaf fig standing sentinel by the sliding glass door. The rest you couldn’t even begin to guess at, but the overall effect is one of a vibrant oasis of greenery, and you can’t help but be impressed.
“Wow, you have so many plants!” you gasp, wandering deeper into the apartment as you marvel at your surroundings.
Ezra’s voice is muffled as he replies from the bedroom, “Indeed. This side of the building gets such abundant sunshine during the day, but I don’t often have the opportunity to enjoy it. It somehow feels less wasteful to know that another living thing is reaping the benefits.”
“Huh. Never thought about it like that.” You feel a charmed smile tugging at your mouth. “Maybe I should get a few.”
His decorating taste is clearly eclectic, almost every item found in the dusty labyrinth of a thrift store or at an estate sale. There’s a vintage sofa in burnt orange corduroy that has plainly seen better days, a cracked leather armchair that looks like it once belonged in the study of some wealthy professor, and an overflowing bookshelf stuffed to the brim with books of all sizes and levels of wear. Butted up against the kitchen island is a little 1960s dining table with a single chair, the surface of which is littered with several abandoned, half-drunk cups of coffee. You also can’t help but smirk as you notice the chunky green ashtray on the coffee table in the very center of the living room with a partially-smoked joint resting in the middle.
“It’s quite a rewarding past time. I would encourage anyone with the time and the interest to try their hand at plant guardianship.” He emerges from the bedroom as he speaks, the smallest scrap of pale pink lace visible in the clench of his right fist. “Does your dwelling get light such as this?” he asks, gesturing at the tall windows, the sliding door leading out onto the balcony, the streaming sunlight painting the room a pale gold.
The question jerks you back to the present, reminds you why you’re here and of the strange coincidence you had discovered just before coming down to meet him.
“Actually… You know, it’s funny. Mine is almost exactly the same.”
Ezra quirks a dark, prominent brow at you, his expression pleasantly interested. “Is that so?”
“It’s, uh. Actually why I wanted to verify your unit number.” You rub the back of your neck, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious. “I’m in 902.”
The man goes still at your confession, and the look of intrigue on his face shifts to a frown. He’s quiet for a moment, pursing his lips, before echoing, “…902?”
You nod. “Yeah. I’m directly above you.” Pointing to the white, spackled surface over your heads, you add, “My floor is your ceiling.”
A pause, and then a slow, creeping grin spreads across his roguish face, warping the thin white scar across his cheek. His dark eyes shine with something like awe as he murmurs, “Fascinating.”
“I know! What are the chances, right?”
“You are the unfortunate neighbor who has such abysmal luck with men.”
All good humor leaves your body then, and you find yourself blinking dumbly back him. His unexpected words hang in the air for a moment, and as you take a deep breath, you manage to stammer, “…What?”
Ezra’s grin transforms into something closer to a smirk, a knowing gleam darkening his gaze. “There was a man a while back, a frequent visitor. I could hear the weight of his footsteps often.” With slow, even steps, he approaches you, closing the distance between you with every word he drawls. “And sometimes, on the weekends, I would be woken from my sleep during the day to the sound of your bedframe squeaking and scraping across the floor, directly above me. You put on quite the performance for him, all those little cries and moans.” His words have the gentle flush you’ve worn since he opened the door flaring to life once again, and you fight the urge to cover your cheeks with your palms, to hide your eyes from his.
“Did he ever figure out that they were all fabricated?” he rasps, leaning into your space as he comes to stand before you. He whispers the question like something asked in the strictest confidence, like the two of you are gossiping together over a bottle of wine or a pot of tea. It’s ingratiating as much as it is humiliating, and the casual intimacy is enough to have your stomach clenching in your abdomen.
“I-I don’t know what you mean.” Your words lack conviction even to your own ears. You have never been a skilled liar, but this attempt is truly abysmal.
Deep wrinkles form between Ezra’s brows as he frowns at you, his tone taking on the soft timbre of reproach. “Oh, come now, little bird. I know the difference between manufactured pleasure and the real thing. Now, the unfortunate boy you drunkenly brought back to your domicile a few nights ago, the one that you said, and I quote, ‘sucked so bad.’ You didn’t even attempt such a performance for him, though if I recall, he was rather loud.” He looks you up and down, that perceptive gaze tracing from the top for your head to the tips of your toes and back again. “And it’s no wonder you did not find your rapture with him, birdie, he lacked all sense of rhythm.”
Involuntarily, you are thrown back to that regrettable night – the awkward barista’s sharp, angular body hovering over you, his too-wet kisses, his grabby, wandering hands, his irregular thrusts, the barely-lukewarm interest all of it inspired…
You do cover your cheeks then, spinning on your heel to break his all-too-discerning stare. “Oh…my god.”
But Ezra is undeterred. He continues, “When we conversed the next morning, I did think it an odd coincidence that you should describe such an underwhelming night when I knew for certain my upstairs neighbor had had much the same experience. Imagine my surprise to learn that it was not a coincidence at all.”
Swallowing thickly, you shake your head, as though the motion might erase the last few moments and somehow bring you back to a time when you did not know that this man – your neighbor, your friend, the person you have been casually crushing on in spite of never having seen him before today – has not only been hearing you have sex for the last several months but also has known all this time that it was bad sex. Somehow that little detail makes it all the more appalling, though you aren’t certain you could explain how.
“This is mortifying,” you mutter, almost to yourself, the words coming out smothered and strange as you slip your fingers over your eyes, palms pressing against your mouth.
Before you manage to disappear into yourself, however, a large, warm, calloused hand wraps itself around one of your wrists and draws your hand away from your face.
“Nonsense, birdie, nothing at all to be embarrassed about.” His voice is low and gentle as he bids you to look at him. “If anyone ought to feel any humiliation in this scenario, it ought to be those incompetent fools granted the unparalleled privilege of getting the share the bed of a kind, intelligent, and heart-stoppingly beautiful young woman such as yourself.”
Your brows draw upward in surprise, and you drop both your hands, thoroughly disarmed and taken aback by his words. “T-Thank you, E. You’re sweet.”
Shifting on his feet, the man inches just that little bit closer to you, enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off of him, enough that you’re overwhelmed by the scent of him. Something woodsy and green, deep and fresh and colored with an inescapable undertone of sweat. You think it ought to be repellant, being this close to a strange man who undeniably smells like he didn’t bother to put any deodorant on this morning, but instead, it just makes you feel a little weak in the knees.
Ezra smells like a man, like a sweaty man in the middle of a dense, evergreen forest, and it makes some primal part of you, deep inside, ache and throb and want.
You startle softly as he gently takes ahold of your chin between his thumb and forefinger, the touch pulling you out of your reverie and forcing you to meet his eyes. God, his skin is so warm, his dark brown eyes so beautiful and earnest. You couldn’t look away even if you wanted to.
“Far as I can tell,” he croons, his accent elongating and softening his words in a way that has your heartbeat stuttering, “it’s been a tragically long time since you were properly satisfied. And that’s just a cryin’ shame.”
With the most delicate pressure, he slowly, tenderly tugs your chin forward and upward. You can feel his breath on your cheek, on your lips, hot and damp and smelling of spearmint. The sensation has your eyelids flagging, your mouth parting. He’s so close now, a hairsbreadth away. You wonder what his stubble will feel like, whether it will leave friction burns on the tender skin of your jaw.
You’ve never slept with a man with facial hair before, you think to yourself. Would he leave those same burns under your breasts, on the insides of your thighs, too?
The moment the thought crosses your mind, you rip yourself out of his grip with a gasp, practically throwing yourself backward and colliding with the edge of the coffee table. The edge catches against the backs of your calves, and you stumble, rattling the ash tray and sending the half-smoked joint rolling across the table.
“Birdie! Are you – ”
You brush off his concern, retreat to the kitchen in a flurry of excuses.
You don’t know this man, you remind yourself, willing your heartbeat to stop racing, the space between your thighs to stop throbbing. Prior to five minutes ago, you had never even seen his face, and you were about to kiss him? And not only that, but you’re already thinking about fucking him?
Sure, the E you knew was kind. Intelligent, well-mannered, thoughtful. Wickedly funny. All things you looked for in a potential partner. But was all of that real? Was this man – Ezra – the same man you thought you knew?
He follows you into the kitchen, handsome face pinched with contrition, dark eyes wide and shining. “I apologize if I – ”
But you do not let him finish. Instead, you gather up the little pile of clothes you had brought for him and thrust them in his direction. “Here – your clothes,” you say hurriedly, avoiding his eyes. “All the socks, the undershirt, and the shorts. So if I could just get my – ”
This time, it is Ezra who cuts you off. “Your lacy little unmentionables?”
He opens his fist, and you watch as your favorite pair of panties tumbles from his grip and dangles tantalizingly in mid-air, his thick index finger threaded through the gusset.
Abandoning his stack of laundry on the kitchen counter, you lunge for them, but he sees you coming a mile away. He yanks them out of your reach before your fingers can close around them, like a child on the playground teasing another with a coveted toy, and you stare at him incredulously.
“Ah, ah,” he tsks, his smile placid, almost smug as he watches your frustration and embarrassment grow. “You know, until I saw you on my doorstep, I wasn’t certain, but now that you’re here, I’m afraid there’s one more thing I’m going to need if you want these delightful delicates back.”
Unsure whether to blame your pounding pulse on anger, humiliation, or arousal, you can do nothing but blink back at him. “What?”
“Your shirt,” he specifies, gesturing to the oversized gray t-shirt currently draped over your frame. “Or, perhaps more accurately, my shirt.”
“This is my shirt,” you snap venomously. You are certain now – it’s anger. It has to be. The audacity of this man –
But Ezra is unperturbed, unmoved by your vitriol. His tone is calm and matter-of-fact as he replies, “No, little bird, it’s mine. Lost about the same time as the rest of articles you recovered from the laundry facility.”
You shake your head in confusion. “But…you never mentioned – in your notes, you always just said – ”
“I know, that it is true, but I was mistaken.” He glances down at the pair of underwear in his hand, allowing the intricate fabric to slip between his fingers and pool in his palm as he speaks. “You see, the shirt you’re wearing is not one I reached for often. It’s even older than those shorts you’ve been looking after for me. It took me well over a week to notice that it had disappeared from my wardrobe, as well.” His eyes flick back up to yours, dark lashes lowering as he studies you. “By that time, you had already established which of my items you had in your possession. It never occurred to me to ask if you had the shirt, as well.”
Your jaw works, mouth opening and closing as you struggle with how to respond. You think back to the day you found this shirt, tangled up in one of your bath towels fresh from the dryer, the same day you had found the sweat-stained undershirt. You couldn’t believe your luck, couldn’t believe the soft, perfectly-aged flawlessness of it – the way it had caressed your skin, the way it draped so effortlessly over your shoulders and skimmed your curves so delicately. It had never once occurred to you that this shirt might have been owned by the same person as the undershirt that had clearly seen better days.
“But… This is my favorite shirt,” you murmur despondently, all the fight leaving you as you run your fingertips over the hem.
Ezra’s gaze follows your touch, tracing across the edge of the shirt with an almost feverish gleam. “I can see why,” he rasps, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lower lip. “It is…enchanting on you. But I really must insist. You see, if I allow you to keep it, I will be plagued for the rest of my days by thoughts of you in this shirt – my shirt. And it will surely drive me mad.”
Your eyes snap to his, and for the first time, you feel as though you are able to glimpse a sliver of the man beneath the fanciful language and the slovenly clothes and the cluttered, eclectic apartment. Ezra has an edge to him, a ferocity he keeps well-hidden, but as he allows himself to take you in, you can see it – something animalistic, something raw and ragged and hungry. You watch as his hand clenches tightly around your panties, his thumb rubbing possessively over the little satin bow on the front, and all at once, the anger and embarrassment warring in your chest falls away, leaving only burning need in its wake.
You had never felt anything like this – this crackling electricity, this smoldering desire – with your ex. And certainly never with that worthless barista. This feels primal, a dangerous compliment to the silliness of the swooning, blushing infatuation you had felt for him before today.
How were you supposed to stand strong, to not give in to him when you had fascination, affection, and lust all working against you?
Did it really matter that you had never seen his face until this afternoon?
You’re certain that your conflict must be showing on your face because Ezra looks ready to charge across the kitchen and throw you up onto the kitchen counter at a single word from you. He’s twitchy and eager, his fingers spasming down by his sides, his fist clenching around your panties so hard you can see his knuckles turning pale.
“Come on now, birdie,” he urges, the stretch of silence almost seeming to cause him physical pain. “Have mercy on an old man and hand it over.”
His words have you swallowing thickly, a wave of heat flooding your chest and spreading to the apex of your thighs. You shift on your feet, pressing your thighs together in an unconscious search for friction, but he spots it – of course, he does. You watch as a muscle in his jaw jumps at the sight, his nostrils flaring as though to catch a whiff of your scent, and god, there’s that animal again – that feral savagery that you never would have known he possessed if you hadn’t coaxed it out of him. He’s beautiful like this, you think, just on the ragged edge of his self-control; it is that look that has you crossing your arms over your chest and drawing your t-shirt up and over your head.
The man blinks heavily, releasing a long, shuddering breath as you hold the shirt out to him by its collar. You dangle it from your fingertips, just as he had your panties, and he looks on with burning eyes as you let it drop to the floor in a puddle of gray cotton.
“Gods above, girl, look at you.”
You have no more words to describe the look on Ezra’s face. He looks enraptured, like a man in thrall, and you resist the urge to cover yourself. Your plain cotton bralette is easily one of the least glamorous underthings in your collection, but with the way he drinks in your figure, you would think that you had just revealed the most intricate, salacious piece of lingerie the man had ever seen. It makes you feel beautiful, powerful, and in control for the first time since you stepped through his door.
“Happy now?” you ask, your voice coming out weaker, breathier than you had intended. Your words are confident, almost taunting, but your tone betrays that you are just as affected by this game you’re playing as he is.
The smallest hint of a smile quirks the corner of his mouth. “I am, indeed. And yet now I fear I will find myself plagued by thoughts of another subject but a…similar flavor.”
With one last sweep of his gaze, the look like a caress as it trails across your body, he takes a step forward, then another, then another. When he finally stands no more than a handful of inches from you, he crouches down and scoops the abandoned shirt off the tiled kitchen floor. Heart in your throat, pulse in your pussy, you watch as he slowly rises back to his full height, brings the shirt to his face, and inhales.
“Goddammit,” he growls, eyes falling shut as he breathes in the soft fabric. “Smell so sweet, little bird. And it’s still warm.”
Your stomach bottoms out at that, the desperation in his voice like a drug that has your knees weakening beneath you. You’re so wet now; you can feel it slicking your panties, dampening your little cotton shorts.
“Ezra.” It spills softly from your mouth like a plea, unbidden and unashamed, and he nods slowly, eyes still closed, as though drinking in the sound of your need like water.
“I do so enjoy the sound of my name on your lips,” he admits. He makes no attempt to hide his own hunger anymore, and it calls to the one in you, stoked so confidently and carefully by his words. “Would you like me to see if I can make you say it again?”
Ezra kisses like a man starved. You’ve never experienced a need like his, the heat and the urgency of it a physical thing, dragging its silvered claws along your nerve endings, leaving you with no choice but to melt into him as he ravages your mouth. Desperation drips from his tongue past your lips, radiates from his hands into the very marrow of your bones. There’s something almost unhinged in the way he grips back of your neck, the way he runs his fingers through your hair, the way he eats at your mouth with a decadence that has you whimpering. It’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure – that he could have such an effect on you so immediately.
He had lamented how long it had been since you had been “properly satisfied.” From the way he touches you, you wonder if he ever has.
“Gods, birdie,” he groans, dragging his mouth across the edge of your jaw to your ear, catching the soft little lobe between his teeth. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. What divinity is responsible for bringing you to my doorstep?”
You can do nothing but sigh in reply, the heat of his breath on your neck sending sparkling shivers down your spine. You cling to him tighter, dig your nails into the cotton of his T-shirt, and he groans at the dull bite of them embedding themselves in the ropey muscles of his shoulders.
“Hnng – the delicate little bird has claws.” He drops both hands to your ass with a smack, each one taking a broad palmful of your cheeks, and grips you so hard you can feel your pussy lips start to spread with them. Your face burns as you realize that he almost certainly can feel your heat on his fingertips – he’s mere inches from the core of you, the only thing separating his touch from your cunt the thin, damp layers of your shorts and panties.
“You should know…” he murmurs into the soft, vulnerable patch of skin behind your ear. “I am going to wring every. last. ounce. of pleasure out of you. I want to savor every drop of it. And if you even think about attempting to placate me with one of those fake little cries I know you favor, I can assure you, I will know, and I will not stand for it. Do you understand?”
You nod, sliding your fingers up into his dark, unruly hair. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
The scruff of his beard scrapes along your neck as he grins. “Atta girl. Now. Hold on tight.” And with little warning, Ezra slips his hands down to the underside of your ass cheeks and lifts you into the air. You let out a little yelp, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct alone, and the hum of his laughter sings in your veins as he carries you to the bedroom.
“There she is. That’s what you needed, isn’t it?”
“Ezra…!”
“Fuck, sweet girl, I know. Keep on grinding for me. Keep going ‘til I say so.”
He has you on his lap, knees on either side of his hips as you straddle him in the center of his bed. His torso is propped up on an abundant pile of pillows stacked artlessly against the wall behind him, and his hands haven’t left your tits in countless minutes. He has no headboard, you notice absently, just a thin photo-realistic tapestry depicting a moss-covered forest hanging at the head of the bed, but as off-putting as you would find that under normal circumstances, in this moment, you can’t bring yourself to care.
“Feels so good,” you whimper, head thrown back, eyes drifting shut, hips working, working, working over the sizeable bulge pressing insistently against your cunt through the fabric of your clothes. He’s so hard beneath you, and his hands – his broad, thick, calloused hands – are performing magic on your nipples.
He had long since pulled down the flimsy cups of your bralette, allowing the soft swell of your breasts to spill over the tops, and after drawing the tips of them into achingly hard points with his tongue, he has contented himself with endlessly rubbing, pinching, and tugging at them while you grind against him. The constant stimulation is driving you insane – every caress of his thumb is like a crackling arm of lightning arcing down your nerve endings to your slick, swollen clit, and every thrust of your hips has the leaking head of his cock catching on that clit, and god damn, you’ve never come just from dry humping before, but you feel dangerously close to doing so right here in this near-stranger’s bed, all over his lap.
And Ezra knows it, too. With a smug, filthy smirk, he nods slowly, encouragingly. “Yeah, it does. Can feel you soaking me through my shorts.”
You pant, leaning back to brace your palms on his knees behind you, shifting your angle, seeking more of his hardness. The moan that leaves your mouth as you find the perfect position would be embarrassing if you weren’t so far gone. As it is, it barely even registers. “Oh my god, oh my god – ”
Your neighbor shakes his head, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he traps each of your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezes, making your hips judder. “No god here, baby. Goddess, maybe. Never seen anything that made me believe in the almighty quite so much as you.”
His praise sends a wave of heat through you, and you can feel sweat starting to bloom along your hairline, under your breasts, in the creases of your thighs. Fuck, your legs are burning, your hips are sore from being spread so wide over him, and god, why won’t he just fuck you already?!
“Ezra, please – ”
“You can come like this, birdie.” His voice is low, strained and rasping but somehow steady. “Come just like this, and then I’m all yours.”
And he’s right – it doesn’t take much longer for it all to become just too much. His torturous attentions on your tits, the low, rich, rasping drawl of his encouragements, the impossibly hard and thick length of him pressing so perfectly against your dripping pussy – all of it stokes the flames in your belly, winds that coil deep inside. In the end, all it takes the wet drag of his tongue against your neck and a whispered “let go, little bird, I got you” in your ear, and you are gone.
Ezra’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face as you come down, his thumb stroking your cheek with surprising tenderness as you whimper and sigh and shake under his grip. “There she is,” he croons, all gentle warmth. “How’d that feel?”
All you can manage in reply is a weak nod. You list forward, seeking his mouth with your own, and you feel him grin into the kiss as you slot your lips against his.
“Fuck, E, please?” you murmur, fingers finding the short, wild strands of hair at the base of his skull and tugging gently.
“Please?” He echoes the word into your mouth, his breath hot on your face as he traces the tip of his prominent nose along yours. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his pupils blown wide, but they shine with good humor just the same. “Please what, baby?”
“Fuck me.” You sound petulant, demanding, almost childlike to your own ears.
With a warm chuckle, his slick tongue darts out to flick playfully at the seam of your open, panting mouth. “Soon. Very soon.”
“I dare not admit to how many times I thought about this. It would surely ruin your good opinion of me.”
You can barely string together enough brain cells to process Ezra’s words, let alone form a coherent response.
You’ve shed the remainder of your clothes, as has he, and you’ve traded places now – your reclined torso supported by the pile of pillows against the wall while your neighbor kneels on the mattress between your spread legs. He pumps his cock – even thicker than you had guessed, flushed ruddy and dripping pearls of precum – with one hand, while the other busies itself between your legs. The stretch of his first two fingers is incredible, the gentle, focused swirl of his thumb on your clit only adding to the sensation. It’s so delicious you can’t keep still, your hips grinding and thrusting to meet his touch.
Eyes fluttering with overwhelm, weak little moans dropping from your open mouth, you stammer, “Y-You thought about this?”
He nods, that blonde shock of hair over his right eye bobbing with the motion. “I did, indeed. Couldn’t help myself, gods forgive me.” His dark, burning gaze remains focused on your cunt, intent on not missing a moment of the way his fingers glisten with your wetness. The intensity of that stare makes you tremble. “From that very first missive I found in the laundry facility. That…precious pink stationary, with the strawberries around the outside. It smelled sweet. Damn near drove myself mad thinking about it.”
Fuck, his fingers – they keep dragging against something inside you – something along the front wall of your pussy, something you know exists but have never found a partner who was interested in seeking it out. The feeling is foreign but completely spine-melting, a pleasure so deep and round and full that you can barely keep your eyes from slipping shut.
“I wondered what you might look like, what you might sound like. I wondered if you got as much satisfaction from our correspondence as I did. I wondered whether you enjoyed it when I dared to flirt, even if it was just a little bit.” His gaze flicks up to yours briefly, his hand still working his cock, his fingers still buried in your wetness. “Did you, little bird? Did you like when I flirted with you?”
You nod, blinking heavily as you try to hold his eye contact. “Yes,” you sigh, the sound coming out high-pitched and whining. “I did, I liked it.”
“And what about now? Do you like this? Do you like how I toy with your captivating little cunt?”
You moan and nod again. “I do, yes, E, fuck.”
The desperation in your voice makes Ezra smile. “She’s so pretty, sweetheart. So soft and juicy, spilling down my fingers like a ripe little peach in the middle of summer.” He pulls his fingers from you then, and you yelp in protest, your hands flying to his wrist to try to drag him back inside you. But he brushes off your grip like a harmless pest. Instead, he sticks out his tongue and drags his pointer and middle finger across it, leaving a trail of your milky slickness across his tastebuds. “Sticky. Sweet. Rich,” he groans, eyelids dropping closed, losing himself in the taste of you for a moment. “Full to bursting.”
He seems to remember himself, to finally hear your pleas of protest, and it takes him no more than half a beat to slip his fingers back inside you once again. “I want one more moment of ecstasy from you, birdie,” he growls, and you feel your deepest muscles clench down around him at the sound. “Let me watch you fall one more time, and then I will give you this cock.”
You nod again, your head bobbling on your neck as weakly as a newborn’s, and the grin he gives you in return in positively filthy.
“Excellent.”
The stroke of his fingers changes then, no more drugging, hypnotic in and out, no more tender swirl around your over-sensitive bundle of nerves. Instead, he starts to press on that soft, spongy, elusive spot deep within you, the pressure strong and insistent. Your back arches at the sensation, your hands flying out to grip onto his bare, freckled shoulders to hold yourself steady, but even the heat of his skin under your fingers isn’t enough to ground you. Instead, all you can do is drop little rhythmic moans synched with the motion of his hand. He jacks his wrist up and down, quick and firm and unrelenting, his fingertips pressing releasing pressing releasing pressing releasing, and slowly, steadily, something begins to build in you.
It’s searing hot and molten, pooling in your abdomen and leaking into your bloodstream. Your chest flushes, then you neck, then your face, and you swear your limbs are going numb as the pressure below your navel ratchets higher and higher.
“Ez-Ezra,” you whine. “That feels – I – ”
Somewhere at the edges of your awareness, you can sense him nodding, can feel the heat of his stare as he watches you. “I know, I know. Don’t fret now. You can give in to it. Feels good to surrender.”
A bolt of adrenaline rushes through you as that pressure morphs, transforms into the sudden, immediate, and desperate need to pee. The feeling mortifies you, and you shy away from it immediately, hips squirming away from his touch as you try not to embarrass yourself in front of this man you just met, but before you can get far, Ezra abandons his grip on his cock and instead uses that hand to push down hard on your lower stomach, holding you in place.
“Ah! Ezra!”
“Don’t fight your rapture, girl,” he rumbles. “Give me all that sweet nectar.”
Your orgasm hits you like a freight train.
It bowls you over, knocking the wind from your lungs, robbing the voice from your throat, and you can’t even manage to cry out as that dam inside you breaks and you flood his hand. Liquid gushes from you with such force that you can hear it hit his forearm, his knees, his bedsheets. He groans deep in his chest, resonant and victorious, but it sounds far away to you, like you’ve dunked your head underwater or filled your ear canals with cotton fluff. You’re so lost to your own ecstasy, you can hardly be bothered to acknowledge him, but still his miraculous fingers fuck you through the throes of it.
As you drift back to awareness, as your eyes blink open, you find that your nails have left deep, blood-red crescents in the tanned skin of his shoulders, and Ezra is gazing at you with something like pride shining in his dark eyes.
Your throat is dry and hoarse as you stutter, “I didn’t know – I’ve never – ”
“That’s my girl,” he whispers, dropping a surprisingly tender kiss to the very tip of your nose. “Lie back now. I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve.”
“Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”
He’s so deep inside you now, thick and long and throbbing, and tears are starting to gather at the corners of your eyes from the stretch and the force of him. He has your knees hooked over his shoulders, your hands braced against the bare wall above you to keep your head from bumping into it, and between your legs, Ezra pants and sweats and grinds his teeth as he pounds into you with enough force to rock the bedframe.
“In all my time…on this green earth…never felt anything like you, birdie. What did this old man…ever do…to deserves something so sweet? So…soft. So wet. So fucking…tight, goddammit, sweetheart – ”
From the moment he slipped inside you, he hasn’t shut up. Not that you want him to, but you’ve never had a bed partner be quite so vocal before. You think it might take some getting used to, though if what you’ve experienced with him so far is anything to go off of, you feel confident that it would be worth it for the orgasms alone. This man treats your pleasure like it’s his, like he gets just as much out of watching you fall apart as you do experiencing it. It’s intoxicating, making you want to deliver for him just as badly as he clearly wants to for you.
Your pussy feels swollen and almost achy, your clit throbbing with the paired sensations of pain and pleasure with every grind of his pubic bone against yours. You’re exhausted, your vision hazy, your mouth parched, your hips sore. If he manages to make you come even one more time, you think you might actually pass out.
And yet, you fight to keep your eyelids open, to keep your gaze on him. Your cunt still drools for him in spite of your overwhelm, and you’re gripped with the bone-deep need to stay the course. You want to make him feel as good as he makes you feel. You want to be good for him.
He deserves it, you think. He deserves everything you can offer him and more.
“All those theatrical moans, those high-pitched cries,” he continues, voice dropping to a husky growl as he drags the tip of his nose along the soft, supple skin of your calf. “Where are they now, little bird, eh? Turns out when someone really fucks you right, you go almost totally quiet. Isn’t that so?”
You gasp out a soft, strained, “Mm hm.”
Ezra’s teeth flash as he grins, sweat dripping from his brow, slicking down both blonde and brown hair to the surface of his forehead. “I know, baby. Dick so good, you can’t even make a sound.”
He shifts slightly, bearing the weight of his upper body on one hand instead two as the other delicately brushes your wild hair out of your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, all folded up like this under him, drenched in your own sweat and his, your hair tangled and your eyes fighting not to cross in pleasure.
“Thought about you so many times, birdie. Thought about the girl that made those sounds, too,” he confesses. He’s breathing heavily, his pace never slowing, never stopping. You can feel the flex of his abdomen as he thrusts, can feel the delectable friction of the tip of his cock against your tender G-spot. “What cosmic alignment…what turn of fortune…that you and that girl should be one and the same.”
“E-Ezra. It’s – it’s so – ”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” His fingertips are so gentle against your cheek, a spine-melting contrast to the rough, powerful, insistent way he pounds into your body. Fuck, his cock is so good – you clench down around him involuntarily, the weight and the girth and the heft of him pressing so perfectly against every swollen, over-worked nerve ending within you. “But I told you – every last drop, remember? And you’ve still got one more to give me. I can feel it.”
On instinct, you shake your head, a whine bubbling up in your throat as your vision starts to blur. “Can’t – it’s too much – ”
“You can.” Ezra’s voice is breathless but firm, leaving no room for negotiation.
“But – ”
He groans your name then, and the sound of it on his lips forces your eyes open once more. “I can feel this precious little pussy clamping down on me. She’s speaking to me, baby. She wants to come, doesn’t she? One more time? She wants to squirt her delicious nectar all over me, I can tell.”
You have no more brain power left to formulate a response. A weak, whining “fuck” is all you can manage.
“It’s all right, little bird.” The wicked smirk on his face is audible in his voice. “You don’t have to say a thing. I can do all the talking for now – you just relax.”
Before long, that pressure returns – that weighty, swollen, urgent sensation low in your abdomen, the one that makes you seize up on instinct, one of your hands flying to his hip as though to push him away. But you are entirely too weak and overwhelmed to have much of an effect. Instead, Ezra just nods knowingly and chuckles.
“Right there? Is that what this pussy needs to give up her treasures?” He holds steady, hitting the exact same spot over and over and over, and you can’t help but whimper through clenched teeth. “Breathe, birdie. Breathe deep and let go.”
You’re too far gone to even consider disobeying.
You do as he says – dropping your jaw, drawing a deep, soothing breath into your lungs, feeling your belly rise with it, feeling your diaphragm stretch, and like magic, all of the resistant tension in your hips and core releases, and you’re coming.
You’re thighs-trembling, neck-straining, hands-clenching, cunt-gushing coming. Your mouth open on a silent scream, you ride the tidal wave with half-awareness, barely hearing Ezra’s babbled praises, barely feeling the vital grip of his fingers around your hips, barely sensing the bloom of warmth deep inside you as he fills you with his cum. The only sensation that breaks through it all is the sharp pinch of his teeth biting into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. But you don’t mind – you think you might actually relish the bruise that is sure to come later.
The world is hazy as you come down – the late afternoon sun streaming through Ezra’s window casts long shadows across the bed, and you notice belatedly that the two of you have cast every single pillow and blanket onto the floor during your tryst. You shiver as the sweat between you begins to cool, and for the first time, you start to feel the sopping wet mess you have made of his fitted sheet as it sticks to you unpleasantly. You hope he has a waterproof mattress cover underneath it – otherwise, he is in for a very expensive steam cleaning bill.
Even in your growing discomfort, however, you cannot bring yourself to move. Every muscle in your body feels wrung out; every joint feels weak and wobbly. And your mind – your mind is blissfully, delightfully blank. You smile faintly, allowing your fingertips to trail leisurely over your chest, your stomach, your hips. You are entirely sated, and it is glorious.
Ezra, for his part, appears to feel the same. He braces himself over you with lax, rounded shoulders, his head hanging loose on his neck, his eyes closed, silent at last. His softening cock still rests inside you, but you don’t mind it – he’s warm, and you’re starting to chill. Not for the first time, you’re struck by how beautiful he is. So much more so than you ever could have imagined when you first responded to that crinkled little note in the laundry room.
When he finally withdraws from you, he lets out a soft, rasping groan, and between your legs, you feel the slick warmth of his cum dripping out of your swollen, sensitive hole. You catch him watching it for a moment, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth, before he collapses onto the bed next to you with a sigh.
“Well, birdie,” he quips after a moment of satisfied silence, “I suppose I have some more laundry to do, eh?”
His words surprise a laugh from you, the motion forcing even more of his cum to slip down between your ass cheeks. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” you say with a tired smile, turning on your side to face him. “I can help, if you want.”
His grin broadens, and he shoots you a cheeky, crinkle-eyed wink. “No need, sweetheart. I know how to clean up my own messes.”
It’s hours later when your phone vibrates on your night stand, pulling you from your shallow, restless sleep. The time reads nearly midnight, but you rub the grit from your eyes anyway as you scan the message lighting up the screen.
The next time I fuck you, little bird, you’re wearing those lacy panties.
A delicious thrill trips down your spine at Ezra’s words. Drawing your lower lip between your teeth, you thumb a quick reply.
🤭 on one condition
i want to wear the tshirt too 😜
Oh, you mean MY t-shirt?
no
MY tshirt 😇
Please, rb the fics you appreciated, that's how they live 🧡🙏
Check the warnings before reading
(dividers @/saradika-graphics 🙏)
Joel Miller
Warmth @time-for-my-weekly-spanking
Feeling him embrace you from behind, steady and ardent, warming you on Jackson’s dark, freezing nights, gives you a sense of security that nothing has ever given you before. You can’t fall as long as he holds you tight
Sight of love @sawymredfox
Joel learns something during a weekend getaway
Prank @pedge-page
The best man @baronessvonglitter
Decades after your hot summer fling, you run into Joel Miller at his brother's wedding
You should feel lucky | part XI @ess-evo
He wants you, and he is going to find you
Better in my head | part 2 @broad-shouldrs
Textfic! a wrong number text turns into something neither of you meant to start
Joel dealing with preggo wife @pedge-page
At your pace @time-for-my-weekly-spanking
Love shack @aurorawritestoescape
You confess to your stepdad about having a crush and he gets angry and horny about it
Din Djarin
D. @aurorawritestoescape
Din pays a visit to his beautiful little pet — you
Harry Castillo
Safe @time-for-my-weekly-spanking
Harry brings you to the company party and finally gets a revenge on his asshole dad. You give him the best reward for finally being brave
Frankie Morales
Obsessed @aurorawritestoescape
Still in love and completely obsessed with his ex girlfriend, Frankie sneaks into your house at night where you live with your new man, Joel Miller
The best friend @baronessvonglitter
After a disastrous breakup, Daisy's best friend Frankie offers her the jumpstart she needs to get over her ex
Javier Peña
Sabor a mi part 2 @cozymochaa
You and your ex husband are forced to see each other every week since you share custody of your daughter. arguments are the only thing left between the two of you, but is that enough to let him back in?
One of Pablo's @fckyeahsaltandpeppercurls
Multi p boys
Imagine @gutter-noise (Ezra x reader x Frankie)
IMAGINE Frankie and Ezra begging to go down on you, but you're shy and insecure
My writing
Never tear us apart | part 3 (Joel x reader)
September 26th. The day the world went dark, you were on the other side of the country, separated from the love of your life For 20 years, you and Joel have been surviving, unaware of what happened to each other, until your paths finally cross again
Never enough (Joel x reader)
You don’t want Joel to go on patrol, so you make him an offer he can’t refuse
The buttoned dress (javi p)
After coming back from Judy Moncada’s house, Javi can’t stop thinking about fucking her
Lust - Taste in men part 2 (Javi p x Joel x f!reader)
You’ve spent a perfect night with your best friend Javi and your ex-boyfriend Joel, and the next day holds the promise of what’s to come
Unlike the room Pedro is - ahem - getting dressed in there's no exit once you peek into the world of DARK!Pedroboys. I'm doomed and the boys wanted me to drag you down with me. They want some fresh meat 👅🩸 Try looking in those eyes and saying no.... Daddy gets what Daddy wants right?? Especially when he's BAD. Beware he will seduce you through the phone... and do anything else that he pleases with you 🫦❤️🔥☠️
All of these fics have a monster or "evil" Pedroboy 🏴👹💀😈
18+ mind the warnings, when I say dark I MEAN IT. Will update the further down I go......
Here’s a list of some my favorite fics written by very talented people. It will be updated regularly with new fics but also with some older ones as I am trying to catch up with the ones I missed.
Some fics are tagged as mature so please do not read/interact with these works if you are under 18.
If you enjoyed any of these fics as much as I did, please take a moment to send some love to the authors ♡
The job posting was easy to overlook.
Help Wanted: seeking farm hand, manual labor and caring for livestock. Eight hour shifts, six days a week with one free day and a weekly stipend based on work completed. Room and board included. Employment guaranteed for five planet-standard seasons.
Flowerbud Farm in Flowerbud Village on the planet HM-64 in the Bokujo Monotgatari system. It's a tiny farm on a small island on a remote planet in the middle of nowhere.
Surely plant life would be easier to handle than caustic chemicals and the delicate organic matter that made aurelac. It would be something different. Something new.
The marriage clause in the job contract was definitely new.
oh my gosh a distortion detective x reader writer 🥹🥹🥹 may i please ask for general headcanons for the crew!!! tyvm!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️
i mourn distortion detective like a dead friend. kjh please resurrect it i can only reread it so many times
moses , ezra , vespa general headcanons
🫧a relationship is far from her highest priority. it usually isn't something that crosses her mind. maybe she doesn't believe that she deserves it, maybe she thinks she'll do something to ruin it, or maybe she just doesn't have the time. whatever it may be, it's going to take a long time before she's even willing to entertain the idea, feelings be damned. to her, it couldn't be a worse idea to let you in. but moses is selfish, and you're more than capable of deciding if she and all of her baggage are what you want
🫧but even before that point, she's softer with you than she would be with just anybody, in ways that are likely only noticable to the few who know her the best. she's more willing to put up with your nonsense, she keeps a close eye on you, watching and memorizing your little quirks and habits. she never calls attention to just how well she's gotten to know you, but she always shows it in ways you never realized she was aware of. you don't point out your favorite color, but she knows it. she recalls some plans you talked about having on this particular day a few weeks ago.
🫧you have absolutely no shot of hiding anything from her. if something is going on, she can tell-- even if she doesn't know right away what it is. the fact that she can see your distortion makes things a little more complex, but unless it starts to get out of control, she trusts you to come to her if you need it
🫧loyal in a "you've actually earned it and i choose to stick with you" way. she's seen the issues and faced the consequences of mindless following, and it's not a routine she'll ever fall into again. the fact that she stays with you is intentional, the way that she looks out for you and values your input is a sign that you've got it. it means more coming from her than you might initially realize
🫧more "traditional" terms of endearment like dear, usually only in private or if you're upset/hurt. doesn't often initiate physical affection, but when she does, it's in little ways. if you're taller than her, she might either lean up or wait for you to sit so that she can more easily kiss you on the cheek or forehead. likes giving your hand firm, brief squeezes when she can tell that something is going on. otherwise, she likes your touch more than she lets on
🫧she doesn't really bring it up or express it in a conventional way, but she does enjoy seeing you and ezra get along. they're sort-of a package deal in a way, and while she knows ezra can be odd and may even act a bit distant with you at first, she'll come around. if not because she wants to, then because she wants moses to be happy
🫧i can't really see her having much relationship experience at all. she's typically very busy, always remembering that despite whatever feelings she may be developing, her absolute loyalties lie elsewhere and she can't let herself get too distracted. for all of her upbeat energy and confidence, it would probably take a while for her to take the next step. she would psych herself out too much every time. anyone can see that there's something off about her in those moments, no one is used to seeing her act quite so... girlish.
🫧ezra is a very protective woman by nature. she tries not to smother you, but your safety is her priority. she's not about to beat anyone who looks at you the wrong way senseless or anything, but she does have to be reminded that you're capable of handling yourself.
🫧likes it when you wear something of hers, particularly her coat. it scratches a somewhat possessive itch, but she also thinks that it looks absolutely adorable. she's very proud to not only call you hers, but to call herself yours. she can use discretion when she wants to, sure, but why would she for this? she brags about you to anyone that will listen, even if it's just about the smaller things like how you picked up her favorite food yesterday, or how you brought her fake flowers on account of remembering she was allergic. but on a more grounded note, it feels good to belong to somebody in this way
🫧physically affectionate, typically in a much louder and more sappy way, especially when she's trying to be playful or get a smile out of you. loud kisses on the cheek, great big bear hugs, and personalized nicknames. but there are times when she settles down too, where it's not quite so... not performative exactly, but it's definitely quiet. she'll just approach you, wrap her arms around you, and rest her head on your shoulder. these are the times outside of combat when it's the easiest to remember who exactly ezra is and what she's been through, what she's capable of doing. and you can tell that she recalls those things at those moments as well
🫧you and moses don't have to be best friends or anything, but at the very least you have to show her respect, and she has to be at least neutral on you. ezra values her judgment more than she can put into words, and after all of these years, nothing is going to change that. like moses, she does enjoy seeing the two of you get along, though she'll own up to it and maybe get a bit mushy over the whole thing
🫧he doesn't confess. or really even formally ask you out at all. he didn't really see a point in it? you two are spending more time together, you're getting closer, and so naturally he would find comfort in your presence and seek you out. it didn't feel like something that needed a label, since he clearly wasn't looking into seeing other people before or after the two of you met, and you didn't seem to be either. so if you really want to make it official for real, you're going to need to be the one to initiate it
🫧acts of service is a big one for him, and yet he never expects to be on the receiving end of it. he'll do just about anything to make your life easier, to take some of its burdens of your shoulders, but will always be caught off guard and touched when you do the same for him when you can. doesn't always know how best to express his appreciation; he isn't the best with words that aren't direct and objective. but it's likely one of the things that made him fall for you in the first place
🫧vespa also just really enjoys quality time together. whether it be cooking together or sitting and enjoying some tea, he's glad to just have the opportunity to sit and enjoy your company. he's busy a lot, so he doesn't get to spend as much time with you as he'd like, and when he does he may be worn down from a long day of work. even if he can just listen to you talk about something, he's content. it almost feels shockingly domestic? he gets to know your routine, your preferences, the things you need the most help with. there are moments where he considers himself lucky to be able to get close enough to become familiar with these things
🫧not always the best at physical affection, but he does enjoy a kiss on the cheek, or having your arm linked with his. also likes to rest his head in your lap if you'll let him. he's not about putting on grand displays or anything like that, but he's not exactly opposed to smaller things. will let you sit on his lap in private though. no objections there
I LOVE YOU WOMEN!!!!! and vespa is neat too<3 hashtag my wasp. hope this is anything
a/n: this is all filth and no beta this time, please be gentle 🙏🏻enjoy! ❤️
Series Masterlist
—
“I need to cut this mop,” he muses, fingering a longer curl above his ear. “It’s been awhile.”
Shifting behind him to give him space at the sink, you peer at his reflection over his shoulder. The warmth of his bronzed skin calls to your mouth, and you hesitate for a moment, unpracticed in open affection. Leaning forward, you press a kiss to his bare skin and are instantly rewarded with his hum of relish as he relaxes into you.
“Can I watch?” you murmur against his shoulder. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” he grins. “I love an audience.”
Rolling your eyes with indulgence, you lean against the door.
His bicep flexes as he drags a comb through his hair, a slight frown pinching between his brows as he assesses his reflection. The focused expression is surprisingly arousing – yet, with how you’ve been spending your days with him, you haven’t found anything that isn’t.
He studies himself, turning his chin one way, then another. The light catches the hooked scar that marks his cheek, and he drags his hand over the scruff that dusts his jaw. Picking up the scissors, he takes his first snip. Your eyes follow the lock of dark hair that falls into the basin.
Taking a seat on the toilet, you prop your chin on your knee to watch. “How long have you been here?” you ask. “That you need to do this?”
He blows out a breath, thinking. “I don’t even know at this point. Time, it gets all turned around here.” He glances at you in the reflection, before bringing his attention back to himself. “Every day seemed the same, all of it blending together after a while. I stopped keeping track. When my crew mutinied and took my ship? I couldn’t even tell you how long ago that was.”
Your eyebrows raise and stay there, a vision he laughs at.
“Which part of that last sentence are you the most surprised at?” he muses. “That I had a crew, or that they mutinied against me?”
“.....All of it, I guess. Both. You had a crew?”
Plucking a few curls, he snips the ends. “Well, I did. They weren’t the most hospitable sort, but then again, neither am I. Not here, anyway. Harvesters are their own breed, and this place demands the worst of them. I couldn’t fault them in the end.” He stares at his reflection a beat longer, his jaw shifting with thought. “Though, I have dreamt many a night of seeking my revenge.”
“What would you do to them?” you ask.
His face shifts slightly, and you see the man you met the first night. The rogue, the one who shot his partner without hesitation. The warmth you’re used to leaves his gaze, a scene of revenge clearly unfolding in his mind. His eyes narrow, and the reminder of who he is should scare you, but it doesn’t.
If his crew was anything like the men who’ve already tried to kill you, you’re thankful both for his taste for vengeance and his ability to deliver it.
He pulls himself free of the thought, his eyes lightening as he looks down at you. “It’s probably best for those particular daydreams not to be vocalized.” He turns back to the mirror, turning his head to one side, then the other. “Can you help me? With the back?”
“Oh. Sure.” Still thinking about the way he flits effortlessly between the man he is to others and the man he is to you, you take the scissors from him, fingering through the silky hair at his nape.
“Precision now, Birdie,” he teases. “I’ve still got pride I’d like to hang onto.”
The statement cuts the earlier tension in the room, and you blow out a laugh.
Though he stays still while you work, you can feel his eyes on you in the mirror. You work carefully, neatly snipping off the unruly locks that seem to stick out from the rest while all the while, you try not to focus on the warmth of his body so close to yours. His smooth skin, his muscular back, his masculine scent. You know he knows what you’re thinking too, with the edge of his lips turning up in the reflection.
“Do you think they’ll ever come after you? Do they know where you are?” you ask, avoiding his gaze.
“Oh, they knew. They seized their opportunity, and my ship, and set a course for home. They’re long gone.”
“What about anyone else? Have you made any other enemies that I should know about?” you tease.
“Well, you know of some,” he teases right back. “They’re enemies of you now, too.” You smirk, and he continues. “Either way, there are always enemies out there, lying in wait.”
He goes quiet for a moment, and you glance at him in the mirror, frowning. Before you can ask what he means, he interrupts your train of thought.
“How’s it looking back there?”
“I think I’m done.” You snip the last curl, brushing the stray hairs from his skin.
He turns, and you stand facing each other in the small space, the bathroom shrinking around you. The pull that forms between you builds between your bodies to wrap around your lungs. It thrums in the air, the space weighted with it, and his hands reach out to grab your hips, gently tugging you close. His deep brown eyes study yours, watching, waiting.
Bending forward, he holds his lips over yours, just long enough to make you tremble with anticipation.
“Thank you,” he whispers, just before pressing his mouth to yours.
The kiss is slow and savoring, his hands coming up to cradle your jaw, his tongue dipping into your mouth. You lean into it, your arms winding around his neck and he wraps his arms around your torso to turn you until the sink presses against your back. His mouth moves with intent, with hunger, and he grabs palmfuls of your ass with a groan as he lifts you, setting you on the edge of the sink. Pressing his hips between the cradle of your thighs, you can feel as he begins to harden, a solid, thick promise that rocks against your core as he guides you further back. The need in his kiss matches his grip on your hips.
“You want to know something else, Birdie?” he hums, his mouth moving to the slope of your neck.
You tip your head back, giving him access. “Hmmm?”
His teeth nip at your pulse, gently scraping against the tender flesh. “I checked this morning, underneath the bandage.” His mouth opens, his tongue laving a wide path of delicate, firm warmth. “Everything seems healed. Good enough, anyway.”
Your heartbeat rockets, a heavy pulse gathering between your thighs. You squirm, and can feel him smile against your skin. “You did?”
He nods, his mouth still busy. His tongue smears across your skin as he presses an open-mouthed kiss to it.
“Wait,” you stop him, and he freezes.
Brushing your hand over his wound, you try to remind yourself of reason. “I think…I think we should take it easy.”
He replies immediately, his eyes fixed on your mouth. “I don’t think I care much for that idea.”
“I know you don’t,” you softly tease. Sighing, you press your fingers along the edge of the gauze. “Let me look.”
He nods, and you both watch as you gently work the edges of the tape off his skin. The wound underneath is still raw, but it has the look of skin that’s freshly healed, shiny in its newness. It puckers around where the staples should be, your fingers skimming over it.
“What happened –”
“I took whatever hadn’t already dissolved out this morning. In the shower.”
You give him a reprimanding look, and he shrugs.
Running your thumb along the closed gash, you inspect it for any infection, and find none. “How does it feel?”
You both watch as your touch dances over it once more before stroking the skin surrounding it. You finger the dark trail of hair that collects under his navel and he swallows hard, catching your hand right before it brushes along his waistband. Lifting your touch, he presses his lips to the tips of your fingers.
“Good,” he answers. Slipping the tip of your finger into his mouth, he gently sucks before sliding it out. “Great.” His eyes find yours, and you watch as he slides it back into his mouth, his tongue brushing along your skin.
The gesture is so openly lewd, your breath holds in your lungs.
“Perfect,” he whispers. “Like it never happened.”
A universe forms within the pod, where only the two of you exist. Everything else can wait. Outside doesn’t exist. Your life isn’t in danger, and you aren’t trying to get back home. All of those threats dissipate into the thick air between your bodies, your body begging for his touch. Your want thrums like a live wire under your skin and he’s the conduit, his touch causing it to flare bright.
Taking a step forward, you press your mouth to his.
He groans deeply into the kiss, his body instantly molding to yours. Tilting his head to deepen hsi access to you, he slides his tongue against yours, tasting what you’re offering, his fingers splaying in their hold to spread over everything he can reach. You cling to him, feverish and needy, soaked and slick from the taste of his mouth alone and stumbling from the bathroom to his cot, your mouths never part.
Your fingers curl around his nape as he guides you back, his fingers pushing up the hem of your shirt, breaking his kiss long enough to drag it over your head. His frame envelopes you, his mouth dipping to the crook of your neck, and he tastes the skin there as he works at the clasp of your bra. It opens just as your calves hit the edge of his cot, and the kiss of the metal makes you pause.
Palming the weight of your bare breasts, he bends to take one in his mouth when he finally sees that you’ve stopped moving. Straightening, his hands slide to your waist.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
His eyes are pitch dark with need, and you want nothing more than to keep going. To be the thing he wants, to give him pleasure. Everything you’ve been aching for, and yet you hesitate.
“I’ve not…,” you struggle. “I’m not…”
He frowns in concern. “If you’ve changed your mind, just say the word.”
“No no,” you reassure him. “It’s not that. It’s just…I’m not sure I’m any good.” You gesture at the cot. “At…this.”
Your previous experiences have always been lackluster at best, and you know he knows that, but what he doesn’t know is how you sometimes wonder if it’s you. Never feeling as good as you think it should, you’ve always ended up letting your other partners use you for their pleasure, never insisting on your own. Your body has always been elusive. Ezra’s made you come more than anyone ever has, but even that gives you pause – a reminder of his obvious experience. Thinking about how much you’ve both waited for this and the idea that he might be disappointed in you, you bite at your lip.
Your admission steeped in humiliation, you avoid his gaze until he crooks his finger to tilt your chin up, forcing your eyes to meet his. Expecting a reprimand, you find reassured confidence in his expression.
“The more you tell me about your previous partners, the less impressed I am. No one tasting your sweet cunt? No one telling you how good you are?” He shakes his head in disappointment. He steps forward, seeking to ease the air of uncertainty that surrounds you.
“You’ve been wasted, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his words weighted as they glide over your lips. “A perfect creature, a gem kept hidden.”
Under a spell, your body is still, hot and passive under his touch, his words rebuilding the fire that was within you before your nerves took hold. Hypnotic, dazed, you listen to the praise that pours from his mouth, smooth like molasses.
“You’re so eager.” His nose skims a line along your jaw. “I bet you are good at it. I bet you’re better than I can even imagine.” His teeth skim the round of your shoulder. “I don’t know who made you feel this way,” he pauses, delicately kissing the hollow under your ear, “But I’ll add them to my list, along with my crew.”
At the thought of him avenging your honor, you surge forward.
Keeping him pressed to you as he guides you down onto his cot, your skin is flush with his, leaving no space between your bodies. His chest is a broad wall, his shoulders blocking out the light, heat pouring off him in waves as he positions himself on top of you. Your breasts brush against his skin, the pebbled peaks tightening with need, and he breaks away from the kiss to dip lower, taking each tight bud in turn into his mouth with a suck. His groan resonates against your skin, and you arch your back in offering, closing your eyes.
Nerves tossed to the side, this is where you wanted to be: consumed by the wave that is him. You want him to crash over you, to pull you down into the depths, to keep you there underneath him.
Your hips cant up to meet his, and he grinds down in response, forcing a space for himself between your thighs. You need more, you need it all, and your hands work in tandem to shuck his bottoms down and off. He wrenches your own off between thick, devouring kisses pressed to your bare hips, and your legs spread wider in silent invitation.
Looking down at your spread cunt, he drags his tongue along his bottom lip, fixated on the glistening sight, like he’s at war with himself. Eager to taste yet just as eager to slide into your tight heat, he lets out an impatient groan of frustration just before tugging your hips closer, burying the bottom half of his face in your cunt.
Your body arches off the cot, a moan pouring from your lips, your fingers pushing through his curls to keep him close. He’s starved, feral, eating you with the same ferocity you’ve seen come pouring out of him in different ways. His tongue takes and takes, forcing everything inside you that you always assumed was broken to draw up fast and quick, your hips riding his open mouth.
When he’s confident you’re wet enough, his damp mouth works its way back up your body, tasting everything within reach.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he breathes. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve thought about this.”
“Me too.” Your words are laced with a whine as he slides his cock between the lips of your cunt, rocking his hips forward. You part slickly around him, your body making way for him, his thick tip brushing against your clit with a weighted drag. “I’ve thought about what you’d feel like for so long. I used to get myself off thinking about this.”
“I know. I heard you once.” He looks both pleased with himself and wrecked all at once, his hips grinding, your slick wetness aiding his slide forward. “I was in the shower, and you were out here, and we were doing the same thing. Denying ourselves.” The tip of his cock catches at your entrance, and you both groan. “And for what? We could have been indulging this whole time.”
Tugging him down, you stop him from saying anything else with a fevered kiss. Notching himself in place with a thick inch, the keening sound you let out underneath him is muffled by his mouth. He swallows it, consumes it, and though you’re full of relief, you’re yet still so unsatisfied. Your hands grasp at his upper arms, your fingers digging into the firm flesh and he pushes his hips forward, the filling pressure of his cock breaking you open.
“Ezra,” you sharply inhale, your brows pinching together at the fullness.
Fully seated within you, he pauses, breathing hard.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice strained.
You nod quickly, needing him to move. “Yes. Please, keep going. Please.”
Sliding out, he thrusts forward and a moan tears from your throat – again, when he does it again. His hips roll effortlessly with smooth, firm strokes that shift you underneath him and you hitch your knees higher, forcing him deeper.
“Fuck,” he groans, resting his forehead against yours so he can watch himself slide into you. Heavy pants that match the rhythm of his hips, his breath washes over your open mouth and his forearms brace themselves around your head, the full weight of his body resting on yours.
“Tell me what you need,” he asks.
Cradled underneath him the way your thighs cradle his hips, this is what you need. Full, bursting at the seams, the empty ache between your legs finally being sated by the thick stretch of his cock, your body blanketed in his feverish warmth. His strength is evident in every kiss of your palms against his skin: your hands skimming over his broad shoulders, along his firm sides, resting on the small of his back. Above you, his eyes are shut tight with relish as he moves, moves, moves.
The intimacy is almost suffocating, but yet…it’s not enough.
“Tell me,” he begs.
It’s been a struggle for you your whole life, asking for what you want. But what has he ever done for you, if not given you a voice? And so, you use it.
Shifting, you roll until he’s on his back, and you’re straddling his lap.
Pride like you’ve never seen shines through the depth of arousal in his eyes.
“Is this what you need?” His hands wrap around your hips, forcing you down on his cock as he grinds upwards.
It’s a lot. Deeper than before, thicker – but better. You nod, bracing your hands on his chest as you get used to the feeling. You can tell from the look on his face that he is barely holding it together, his eyes flitting between your face and where you’re joined. You shift again, and he groans, almost as if in pain.
“Then take it,” he coaxes. “Ride my cock, Birdie. Make yourself come.”
Something that rises within you when he puts a challenge in front of you, confidence unfurls to bloom bright.
Starting off slow, you focus on what feels best. Hips tilted to take him deeper, the hair under his navel slides against your clit, sticky with how wet you are. He feels so good buried deep inside, a satisfying slide with every slow rock forward and back, the tip of his cock brushing against something deep that you’ve never felt before.
“You feel so fucking good, Birdie. So good. A natural, just like I knew you’d be.”
You clench involuntarily around him, and chasing the feeling, you roll your hips faster. A raw moan crawls out of his throat, and you feel a bright flare of pride at the way even he is coming undone. Him, the master of every situation, barely able to form words at the tight squeeze of your cunt.
You dig your fingers into his chest, and his eyes open, darkness circling his irises. His hands reach down to grab palmfuls of your ass, and his biceps strain as he tugs you forward and back, forward and back.
“I’m going to fucking come. You’re going to make me come harder than – maker,” he grits, his breathing heavy and fast. His jaw tenses, a deep groan felt under your hands. “I need you to come first, because I’m not going to fucking last.”
An agency not felt with any other partner aside from him, you lean forward and brace your hand on the pillow next to his head while your other hand finds your clit, nestled above where he’s stretching you wide. The pressure from your hand being squeezed between your bodies hits your clit just right, and the groan he lets out when your cunt squeezes him covers your own.
“Show me,” he groans. “Show me what you’re doing. I wanna do it for you.”
You shake your head, and he growls.
It feels too good to stop, and though you know he wants to watch, he lets you decide. The first time you’ve ever been with someone and been confident in putting your needs above their own, you bear down on his thick cock, the pads of your fingers swirling, swirling, swirling. Grinding your hips into his, the pressure hits a perfect point, and you feel your thighs start to tremble.
“Ezra,” you cry out, and he soothes you with a shush.
“I’m right here. That’s it, Birdie. That’s it.”
Everything you’ve ever needed yet never asked for, everything you hoped it could be like – and he’s center stage, basking in your light.
“Keep going,” he encourages.
Needing something to hold onto, you find his hand with your own, and twine your fingers together, pressing the hold into the pillow next to his head. Your other hand keeps working, a whine crawling from your throat as you fuck him and underneath you he’s just as undone, hanging on long enough to see you take what you need.
When you come, you’re shocked at the intensity of it.
Just like the wave you envisioned before, this one drags you down into the deepest depths, the sounds around you disappearing underneath the weight of it. Ligthheaded, your whole body lights with sensation, your hold gripping Ezra’s as an anchor and in a cinch, he’s sitting up, gathering you into his arms.
“Yes, Birdie. Yes.” His praise is thick with a desperation of his own, his hold splaying across your ass cheek with a firm, harsh grip. Tugging you into him in a desperate rhythm, you’re still coming down from your high as you hold on tight as he chases his own. His hips grind up into yours faster and faster, sweat sliding between your bodies, his harsh panting filling your ear.
He surrounds you, cradles you, fills you fuller than you’ve ever felt – and when he comes, he squeezes you so tight you can’t breathe, growling a promise into your skin that you catch only the end of.
“...Never going to stop. Never.”
–
Later, when he’s sprawled on his cot, asleep and relaxed, you slip into the bathroom. Using the toilet, you stand to wash your hands and spy two locks entwined in the basin of the sink: a rich brown, one stark white.
A small smile on your lips, you carefully gather them in your palm and then wrap them in a tissue, keeping them safe.
