#jaime talks

[initforthethrill]

heatseeking missile aka cate gets fucked into heat and bred during a weeklong sex marathon tw: girlcock, g!p reader, alpha omega dynamics, omega!cate, alpha!reader, rough sex, vaginal sex, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, creampies, knotting, impregnation, tender sex, aftercare 7.3k+ words

did someone say they wanted!omega cate being bred so full her alpha ends up knocking her up? no? just me? well i was asked for more mommy!cate so hopefully this sorta kinda delivers?

You’re barely holding it together—sweaty, flushed, radiating heat and pheromones so strong they’re practically buzzing in the air around you. The professor could hardly even make it through the lecture with you panting in the back row like you were going to drop to the floor and knot someone on the linoleum. Girls were squirming. Boys were glaring. Everyone was staring. And you? You were seeing red—because none of them were your omega.

You storm out moments later, half-hard and fully deranged, heading straight to Cate’s dorm like some sort of heat-seeking missile. Don’t knock. Don’t text.

Cate’s dorm smells like her—cinnamon, pheromones, something sweet and intoxicating—and you nearly black out the second you walk in. The door clicks shut behind you, but you barely register it. All you know is your omega is lounging on her bed in nothing but your old tee and a pair of lace panties, hair pulled back, bare thighs on display.

Cate doesn’t even look surprised. She’s been waiting for this, after all.

She just tilts her head, all smug and sweet, and says, “Let me guess. You scared another TA.”

It’s not fair—how smug she is. How ready. How wet. The scent hits you like a sucker punch to the gut.

Your vision tunnels.

You groan. Loud. Low. Wrecked. Already palming yourself through your jeans, hips twitching, trying to resist the urge to mount right then and there.

“I need you,” you grit out, voice so rough it could sand paint off a wall. “It’s bad this time, baby—fuck, you smell so good already, I—”

Cate sets her book down with a soft thud and rises slowly, walking over with all the casual confidence of someone who knows her alpha’s on the verge of going feral.

“You know what happens when you fuck me like that during rut,” she murmurs, standing toe-to-toe with you. “You think you’re the only one who gets knocked sideways by pheromones?”

You press your foreheads together. “I know. I know. But I can’t—can’t touch anyone else. Can’t even think about anyone else, Cate, I swear—”

“I know that, dummy,” Cate purrs, smirking. “That’s why I wore your shirt to bed last night. That’s why I’ve got slick on my thighs already. You think I didn’t plan for this?”

You whine—whine—and practically drop to your knees right there. Cate catches your chin before you can, holding you in place, tilting your head like she’s inspecting a prize.

“Oh, you’re so fucked,” Cate whispers, smile sharpening. “You’re gonna put a baby in me if you’re not careful.”

Your pupils blow wide. Your cock throbs.

“Don’t fucking tease me, Cate.”

“I’m not,” Cate says, breathlessly delighted. “You’re the one who loses control and fucks me through my little dorm mattress until I’m crying for mercy. You’re the one who sets off my heat with those stupid growls and that knot you never pull out.”

“Off,” you growl, and you don't mean yourself.

Cate giggles, already reaching for the hem of the tee. “God, you’re so easy when you’re like this.”

You surge forward and grab her, hands under the shirt before it’s even over Cate’s head, palms skating up warm, flushed skin. Cate squeals, breathless and delighted, as she’s lifted clean off the ground and shoved up against the wall.

“Don’t play with me,” you hiss into her neck, pupils blown and body trembling. “You knew what you were doing. Sitting in here, marinating in pheromones. Wearing my old fucking shirt to bed.”

Cate wraps her legs around your waist and grinds down against the hard bulge pressing through your jeans. “Knew it’d drive you crazy. Wanted to see how long you’d last.”

“I got kicked out of class,” you snarl. “Professor asked if I was having a medical emergency. I almost took my cock out in the middle of a fucking lecture, Cate—”

“Poor baby,” Cate purrs, tugging at your curls, tilting your head back to kiss you. “Gonna feel so much better once you’re inside me.”

That breaks something in you.

Your mouth crashes over Cate’s, hard and claiming. Your teeth knock together. Cate moans and claws at your back. You don't even bother with foreplay—just tear her panties down mid-kiss and shove your hand between Cate’s legs.

“Dripping,” you groan. “Fuck. You’re gonna make me—”

“Not yet,” Cate gasps. “Want your knot.”

“You’ll get it.” You kiss Cate again, dizzy with need. “You’re made for it.”

Cate lets herself be hauled to the bed and thrown down like a ragdoll. You’re stripping with trembling hands, the air thick with heat and rut and the pull of two bodies designed to wreck each other.

Cate’s thighs are slick and parted, fingers already between them like she can’t help herself. She watches you crawl over her like a beast, mouth parted, eyes blown wide.

“I missed this,” Cate whispers. “The way you fuck me when you’re not thinking straight. Like you’re afraid I’ll disappear if you don’t cum inside me right now.”

You growl and slam into her with a single brutal thrust.

Cate screams.

It’s too much. It’s perfect. She’s so full so fast she swears she blacks out for a second. You don't give her time to adjust, don't want to. You’re pounding into her like you need to split her open, hands bruising Cate’s hips, mouth buried in her neck.

“Mine,” you snarl. “My omega. You’re not going anywhere. You’re gonna cum just from my cock, aren’t you? From your alpha claiming you—”

Cate’s nails dig into her back. “Don’t stop. Baby, I’m—fuck, I’m gonna—”

“Do it,” you pant. “I want you to soak me. Want you to cum on me ‘til I’m the only thing your body remembers.”

Cate shatters.

She arches, gasps, convulses around her alpha’s cock, and that—that—is what breaks you.

With a guttural sound, you slam deep, hips locking, and knot inside her—throbbing, swelling, holding you together as you both cry out.

It’s messy. It’s desperate. It’s so good Cate can’t stop trembling.

And you?

You’re still rutting.

Because of course you are. That was only round one.

You cup Cate’s jaw, kissing her like it’s the only thing anchoring you to this plane of existence. “You’re gonna go into heat after this.”

Cate, breathless and dazed, giggles. “I know.”

You thrust again—slow, grinding, knot-deep. “I’ll fuck you through all of it.”

Cate moans, already drooling. “You better.”

You finally ease your knot free, the thick swell dragging against Cate’s stretched walls until she’s whining at the loss. Cate barely has time to catch her breath—barely has time to blink—before your hands are on her thighs, pushing—no, folding—her knees up until they’re pressed to her chest, looming over her with that wild, rut-drunk gleam in your eyes.

“Stay just like this,” you growl, bracing her calves over your shoulders and locking her in place. The position leaves Cate wide open, slick and swollen and glistening.

The bedsheets are a wreck, your scents tangled thick in the air, and Cate can feel the heat coiling tighter inside her with every second. She knows what’s coming. She wants what’s coming.

Your hands slide down her thighs, spreading her further open, pinning her to the mattress. “Round two,” you rasp, cock still slick and heavy against her folds.

Then you drive back in—one relentless, claiming thrust that buries you to the hilt.

Cate’s scream echoes, then cuts off into a moan that sounds like it was ripped from her throat. Your thick cock is seated deep, pressing against that aching, perfect spot inside Cate like it was made to live there.

“Fuck—fuck, baby—” Cate gasps, legs shaking as her back arches off the bed. “You didn’t even give me time—”

“I can’t,” you growl, already rutting into her with brutal, punishing thrusts. Your hands grip Cate’s thighs harder, holding her open, down, in place, because her body’s trying to curl up, trying to run from the onslaught. “I need you too much, baby, I need—”

Cate’s whimpering beneath you, fists twisting in the sheets, her body already drenched in sweat. Slick is everywhere—coating your cock, smearing between her thighs, soaking into the sheets below her. Cate's scent is flooding the room, growing richer, warmer, heavier—

“Oh, god,” Cate moans, eyes fluttering wide. “You’re—fuck, you’re pushing me into heat—”

You snarl in victory. “Good girl. Let it happen. Let me fuck it out of you.”

“Y-You can’t—” Cate gasps, nails raking down your back as another thrust steals the breath from her lungs. “You can’t just decide when my body goes into heat—”

“You’re mine,” you pant against her mouth. “Your body listens to me. Look at you. Already pulsing around me like you need to be knotted again.”

Cate lets out a high, keening whimper. Her thighs twitch. Her eyes go glassy. She’s spiraling, fast. That sharp edge of rut-fueled dominance has her omega instincts kicking in hard. She can feel the shift—her womb aching, her scent changing, her body soaking with fresh slick as her body begs for it.

“Gonna—gonna go into heat, I can feel it—” she gasps, clinging to you now, arms locking around your neck like she can’t bear even an inch of distance. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop—”

You fuck her harder.

Your rhythm is brutal now—possessive, claiming, perfect. You’re saying things you don't even remember thinking, drunk off Cate’s scent and the way her walls flutter around you.

“Gonna fuck a baby into you,” you growl against her throat. “Gonna fill you ‘til it takes. I’ll keep you here, breed you over and over, make sure every inch of you smells like me—”

Cate sobs.

It’s too much. It’s everything. Her body seizes and breaks, pleasure exploding through her as her heat finally slams into her all at once. Her scent bursts in the air—ripe and fertile and so sweet it nearly takes you down with her.

“I’m—fuck, I’m in heat—”

“I know,” you snarl, hips slamming forward one last time as your knot catches and swells inside her.

Cate screams again, writhing helplessly as she’s locked in place, as you grind deeper, slower, claiming every inch.

“Mine,” you whisper, kissing the tears off Cate’s cheeks. “You’re mine. Gonna keep you full, gonna fuck you through every wave. Not stopping. Not for hours.”

Cate is trembling, ruined, already so deep in heat she can barely speak—but she moans, “Don’t. Please don’t.”

Cate is gone.

It’s not just heat—it’s deep heat. Full body, feral, dizzying. Her body is slicked in sweat, flushed and quivering, her thighs locked tight around your hips now, trying to drag you even deeper despite the already throbbing knot inside her.

“Alpha,” she pants, voice soft and desperate, “baby, I can’t—I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” you growl, not slowing in the slightest. You’re still rolling your hips in that slow, maddening grind, your knot dragging thick and swollen against Cate’s most sensitive spots with every rock forward. “You will. You’re made for this.”

Cate lets out a sob that turns into a moan, then a choked little gasp as her body spasms around her alpha’s cock again. Another orgasm. She’s lost count. Everything is wet and aching and blissful in the most overwhelming way.

“I feel so full,” she whimpers.

You lean down, licking a slow stripe up Cate’s throat. “That’s because you are. My cock’s still leaking, baby. Your pretty little cunt’s just milking it out of me.”

Cate keens. Her legs jerk. She tries to twist her hips away—instinct, overstimulation—but you just growl and pin her down.

“No running,” you murmur, dragging your cock back with effort and thrusting again—deep, hard enough to make Cate cry out. “You know better.”

“Y-you’re gonna break me—”

“I’m gonna breed you.”

Another snap of your hips. Another wrecked little cry. Cate’s nails scrabble at your back, leaving streaks, but it only spurs you on.

“You smell like mine. Look at you, sweet girl—so far gone. Don’t even care who hears you anymore, do you?”

Cate’s mouth falls open. She shakes her head.

The bed’s creaking now. The sheets are soaked. Cate’s skin is flushed and shining and so pretty, you could cry.

You do. Just a little.

“I love you,” you whisper roughly, not even meaning to say it out loud. “I love you so fucking much. Gonna give you everything. Keep you knotted for days if I have to. Want my pup inside you so bad it hurts—”

Cate’s next orgasm hits like lightning.

She clamps down around your knot so tight it forces a shout from her throat, her entire body seizing beneath you. She cries out your name—broken, high, wrecked—and then shakes, full-body, as her heat crests into its sharpest wave.

Your hands shake. Your hips stutter. “Fuck, fuck—Cate—!”

Your knot throbs deep inside your omega’s body as you release again—pulsing warmth flooding Cate’s womb, your cock jerking as you pump her full another time.

Cate’s eyes flutter, unfocused and tear-glossed. “Still c-coming,” she whispers, delirious. “Still—oh god, baby, please, I c-can’t—”

You hold her through it.

Through the sobs. Through the shaking. Through the slick and sweat and aching, stretching fullness. Through the trembling cries and little hiccups as Cate finally slumps back, boneless and devastated in the best way.

And you still don't pull out.

You can’t. Knot’s too tight. Cate’s too hot and wet and needy around you. And your rut? Not even close to over.

You brush a strand of hair from Cate’s sticky forehead and kiss her cheek.

“Still with me?”

Cate blinks slowly, “…barely.”

You smile. Wild. Wrecked.

“Good. Because I’m not done yet.”

Cate’s body is glowing.

Not literally—but it feels like she’s been lit from the inside out, every inch of her flushed and warm and owned. Her thighs are trembling. Her hips ache. Her neck is covered in your marks, and her tummy is full—so full—of alpha cum.

And she wouldn’t change a single thing.

You haven't moved yet.

You’re still knotted together, Cate curled in your lap now, straddling you with shaky legs barely holding on, your cock still buried deep and locked tight inside her. The position started as desperation—Cate begging not to be pinned again, too sore and overstimmed to take another pounding—and has since melted into quiet affection.

Cate rests her head on your shoulder, eyes half-lidded, lips parted in lazy afterglow.

Your arms are wound around her back, one hand stroking up and down the ridges of her spine, the other cupping the back of her neck, fingers playing gently in her hair. You smell like rut still—strong and heady—but it’s soothed now, softened into something more tender.

Cate breathes you in. Lingers in it. Melts deeper.

“I feel like a fucktoy full of cum,” Cate mumbles against your collarbone, voice wrecked.

You chuckle, low and fond. “You are a fucktoy full of cum.”

“Don’t make me punch you. I don’t have the strength.”

“Could still pin you if you tried.”

Cate hums. Shifts just slightly and whines at the tug on her stretched heat-slick walls as your knot pulses in response.

“Okay, ow. Rude.”

“Sorry, sorry—” your voice dips instantly into apology, stroking her hair more gently. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” Cate snuggles closer. “Just—full.”

You kiss her temple. “I’ll never get tired of it.”

“Of what? Fucking me stupid?”

“No.” A pause. “Of seeing you like this. Soft. Warm. Mine.”

Cate bites her lip. Her chest aches in a different way now—gentle, blooming. “You’re the only alpha I’d ever let wreck me like that.”

You look down at her. Cate’s mascara is smudged, her lips are swollen, and her thighs are still twitching. She’s never looked more perfect.

“I’d rip my own cock off before I ever put it in anyone else,” you say softly.

Cate chokes on a laugh. “Romantic.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do,” Cate whispers, brushing her nose against your jaw. “I can feel it. Every time you knot me like that, I feel how much you love me.”

You press your lips to Cate’s forehead, eyes closed, holding her tighter. “I’d keep you in heat forever if I could. Just to have you like this.”

Cate sighs against you, completely surrendered. “Maybe I’d let you.”

Your scents are tangled now—indistinguishable. The room is thick with it. Alpha and omega. Claim and surrender. Love and need and the soft, afterburn glow of belonging.

You shift just enough to kiss her lips.

“Still not done,” you murmur. “Knot hasn’t gone down yet.”

Cate, dreamy and dazed, tilts her hips with a teasing smile. “Mm...later. ‘M sleepy.”

You hum a low, pleased sound, and roll your hips upwards slowly, keeping you both anchored, grounded. Cate hums right back, eyes slipping shut as warmth seeps through her sore muscles. You stay like that—tangled, locked, trading soft kisses and half-conscious murmurs—until the rhythm of your breathing syncs.

At some point, Cate drifts. She’s not sure when exactly—just that one second she’s kissing you, and the next she’s floating in the warm haze of post-release, her alpha’s hand heavy at her hip and the steady thump of your heartbeat under Cate’s cheek. The heat’s not gone, but for now, it’s sated. Contained. Safe.

Soft golden light filters through the blinds, casting warm stripes across the wreckage of the room—discarded clothes, upturned water bottles, the dent in the wall where Cate’s headboard cracked on day two. The air is heavy with the scene of omega-sweet heat, warm alpha musk, and the unmistakable smell of sex. Pungent and undeniable. The kind of thing that clings to the walls.

Neither of you know exactly how much time has passed. The days have blurred together—sunlight to darkness to sunlight again—since the first time you came to her dorm. Meals forgotten. Phones ignored. You haven’t stepped outside once. The world beyond these walls doesn’t exist right now; there’s only heat, and rut, and the endless loop of claiming and being claimed.

Cate stirs, tangled in your hoodie—well, one of them. It’s oversized and smells like sex and shampoo and leather and safety. Her hair’s a mess, her lips are kiss-swollen, and her inner thighs are glossy and raw, slick drying sticky against her skin.

And she’s still plugged.

You’re behind her, chest pressed to her back, one possessive arm slung over her waist, your knot swollen and seated deep inside her from the last lazy round sometime around dawn.

Cate hums sleepily. She shifts, instinctive, and whines when her movement tugs at her overworked walls.

“Easy, baby,” you murmur, voice gravel-rough from overuse and groaning. “Still locked in.”

“Mhm,” Cate slurs, eyes barely open, cheek squished into the pillow. “Kinda like it…”

You smile against her neck, kissing just below her ear. “Yeah?”

Cate nods slowly. “Feels safe. Like you’ll never leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you breathe, pressing closer. “You’re mine.”

Cate’s lashes flutter. “Gonna…keep me pregnant forever, huh?”

That makes you freeze.

Then groan.

“Oh fuck, don’t say things like that.”

Cate giggles—soft, dazed. “Why not? You keep talking about it.”

“You’re in heat,” you grit. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Cate rolls her hips just enough to feel the knot pulse.

“I do.” Her voice is a whisper. “I want it. I want you to fuck a baby into me.”

You groan again, forehead pressed to Cate’s shoulder, trying desperately not to start again even though every part of you is begging to.

“We are not starting another round before breakfast,” you growl.

Cate whines, pouty. “We could.”

“You’re gonna break.”

“I wanna break,” Cate says, eyes fluttering. “Wanna stay like this forever. You inside me. All warm. Making me yours.”

Your self-control is shredding. You tighten your arm around Cate’s waist and whisper, “You already are, baby. You’ve been mine since day one.”

Cate smiles—blissed-out and dreamy.

“Baby?”

“Yeah?”

“If you really did knock me up, I think I’d be okay with it.”

You exhale like you’ve been shot. Your whole body presses into Cate’s, knot twitching, cock trying to swell again.

“Oh god,” you groan. “I’m gonna have to call out sick again. We’re not leaving this bed for the rest of the fucking week.”

Cate just giggles, draping her arm over yours, lacing your fingers together, and settling back into her hoodie cocoon.

“Kay. Wake me up when it’s time to fuck again.”

You don't even protest.

Just kiss her and hold her tighter, knot still snug, pulsing gently.

You mean to let her sleep. Really, you do. But Cate’s heat-sweet scent keeps curling into your lungs, winding tighter and tighter until it’s all you can think about. Your hips twitch once. Twice. By the third slow grind forward, you feel Cate’s breath catch.

“You awake, omega?” You murmur against her ear.

Cate hums drowsily, but when you roll your hips again, deeper this time, she lets out a soft, needy whimper.

“I thought you were gonna let me sleep,” Cate mumbles.

“I was,” you admit, kissing along her jaw, “but you smell too good. Can’t help it.” You push a little harder, the swollen knot nudging against her sensitive walls. “And I think your body’s ready for more.”

Cate shifts in her hoodie nest, pressing back against you instinctively. “Maybe…”

That’s all the permission you need. You ease Cate onto her sides, working your cock free with slow, deliberate thrusts that make Cate gasp, then roll her gently into your lap.

By now Cate’s trembling.

Her skin is sensitive—like even the air brushing across it hurts, like every molecule in her body is begging to be touched and soothed and fucked at the same time. Her thighs are slick again, even though you’ve already knotted her twice that morning. Her nipples are hard under the fabric, too much and not enough.

She’s curled up in your lap, facing you now, straddling your thighs with her arms looped around her alpha’s neck, clinging like she might float away otherwise.

“I c-can’t take it,” she whispers, rocking softly against your stomach. “I feel like—I don’t know what I feel like, I just—need.”

“I know, baby,” you murmur, voice soft and grounding. “I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

Cate whimpers when you cup her hips. Her whole body flinches, but she doesn’t pull away.

“Too much?” you ask, instantly pausing.

Cate shakes her head. “No—n-not too much. I need it. I just—it’s like it hurts, but I want more. Is that normal?”

You kiss her forehead. “It is. Your body’s working overtime. You’re doing so good, sweetheart.”

Cate melts at the praise. Her eyes flutter shut, and she breathes in your scent like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered.

“I feel like a…like a hole. Like I’m just waiting for you to fill me up again.”

You let out a breath that’s part groan, part heartbreak.

“Oh, omega,” you whisper. “Let me take care of you.”

You’re gentle this time—so careful, so slow.

You lift Cate just enough to line her up, kiss her jaw, murmur affirmations into her skin like prayers: You’re perfect. You’re mine. Gonna make you feel good, baby. Cate’s already dripping, already fluttering around nothing.

And when you finally press in, your cock sliding thick and warm and slow into Cate’s slick heat, Cate cries.

Not from pain. Not from overwhelm. From relief.

“Thank you,” she whimpers. “Thank you, thank you—”

“Shhh,” you soothe, holding her close as you begin to rock your hips, slow and deep. “You don’t have to thank me, baby. This is what I’m for. You go soft, and I stay strong. You get needy, and I give. You feel, and I’ll carry it.”

Cate sobs into your shoulder as her body gives in again, grinding down against your knot, pulsing and fluttering and soaking you all over again.

You stay steady.

One arm locked around her waist. The other hand petting her hair. Hips moving slow and sure, keeping her plugged, keeping her grounded. Not chasing your own pleasure—just giving.

“I love you,” Cate babbles softly, words tumbling from her heat-drunk mouth. “I love you, I love you so much, I don’t wanna come down, I just wanna stay—”

“You will,” you promise, voice low. “I’ll keep you here. As long as you need. You want more cum, baby?”

Cate nods desperately. “Need it.”

“Then take it,” you whisper, voice breaking. “Take everything I have.”

You knot her again, slow and sweet. Cate cums sobbing.

And afterwards—when Cate’s trembling and slick and curled against your chest like a kitten—you just hold her and rock her and whisper, “You’re safe, omega. You’re mine.”

And Cate, half-conscious and completely wrecked, hums, “Forever.”

You stay that way for a long time, tangled under the blankets, the air thick with your combined scents. You keep petting her hair long after Cate’s breathing evens out, your knot still locked deep inside, keeping you together even in sleep. Eventually, your own eyes close, lulled by the warmth, the steady rise and fall of Cate’s chest, and the comforting hum of knowing you’re right where you belong.

The next time Cate stirs, the light is different—brighter, sharper. A new day. Her body feels heavy and slow, every muscle languid from days of being used, loved, filled. She tries to sit up, but her hips ache in protest, and her legs immediately threaten to give out.

She huffs a soft, pitiful laugh and sinks back down against your chest.

So now?

You’re carrying her.

Arms looped under her thighs, face tucked into her neck, Cate being doted on like the soft little omega she is—because after six straight days of knotting, overstimulation, and endless praise-fueled orgasms, you owe her that much and more.

“I feel like a doll,” Cate mumbles, eyes fluttering as you reach the bathroom. “A sore, leaky, used-up little doll.”

You hum, peppering kisses over Cate’s face. “You are. My perfect little doll.”

Cate blushes, giggles slipping freely from her lips. “You knotted me twenty-two times.”

You grin as you set her down on the closed toilet lid, hands lingering at her hips. “Twenty-three, technically. You passed out during the last one.”

“Oh my god.”

“You came, though,” you shrug, turning toward the tub to run the water. “Twice.”

Cate groans and drops her head into her hands.

The water starts to pour, and you add your favorite vanilla-oat soak—a calming, gentle scent Cate always associates with comfort. The room starts to fog with steam. The bath fills slowly.

You glance back over your shoulder. “Think you’ve got enough strength to let me undress you?”

Cate lifts her head just enough to smirk weakly. “You wanna peel me out of your hoodie and see the damage?”

“I’ve seen the damage. I did the damage.” You kneel between her legs and kiss the inside of her knee. “I just wanna hold you in the bath. No knot. No fucking. Just us.”

Cate softens immediately.

“Okay,” she whispers.

You strip her gently. The hoodie peels off, the soft cotton panties next. Cate’s skin is marked up—bruises and bite marks, swollen nipples, red streaks on her hips. Your breath catches, but you say nothing—just kiss every mark like a blessing.

Then you lift her again, like she weighs nothing at all, and sink into the steaming bath with Cate on your lap.

Cate lets out a sound so soft it’s almost a whimper. Her body melts, the warmth easing some of the ache from her joints. She slumps back against your chest and lets herself be cradled.

“This feels so good,” she whispers.

“I know, baby.”

You gently dip a washcloth into the water and begin to clean her. Slow strokes along her thighs, her belly, under her arms. You’re careful near her overstimulated center, avoiding pressure, just soothing your omega with warm touches and a soft hum under your breath.

Cate sighs. “You take such good care of me.”

“I love taking care of you.”

“I’m still leaking,” she says, embarrassed.

You press a kiss to her temple. “It’s okay. You’re mine. You should be leaking.”

Cate shivers. “You’re gonna break me next heat.”

You smile. “Only if you let me.”

Cate nuzzles in deeper. “I always let you.”

You stay there until the water goes lukewarm. Until Cate’s breath evens out and she starts to doze, arms loose around her alpha’s neck. Until the soreness in her body fades just enough for her to whisper—

“Next time, I wanna try on top.”

You choke on a laugh. “You’ll last five minutes.”

“Maybe. But I’ll look amazing.”

Afterwards, you insisted on brushing her hair.

Cate didn’t argue. She just let her alpha sit behind her, legs around her, slowly working the brush through her damp curls while she sipped from a mug of miso soup and tried not to melt all over again.

Now she’s curled back under the covers, hoodie sleeves covering her hands, phone in both palms while you kiss down the side of her neck in slow, lazy presses.

Her group chat is blowing up.

OMEGA COVEN<3

Emma:girl did you DIE??? we haven’t heard from you in like. five days.

Marie:u alive orrrrr did your alpha knot u into another plane of existence

Jordan:do we need to send soup or a shovel

Cate:sorry sorry sorry! hehe was a little busy being the most bred bitch alive<3

Emma: oh she did you like THAT???

Cate:like you don’t even understand i haven’t stood up since wednesday she knotted me TWENTY THREE times i saw GOD during round eight

Marie:twenty three jfc??girl are you okay?? is your PELVIS okay???

Cate:no and i don’t care she spoon-fed me soup and shampooed my hair after and she’s STILL hard she’s so obsessed it’s SICK

You lean over and murmur, “You tellin’ them about the part where you begged me to knock you up?”

Cate gasps—scandalized, delighted—and smacks you with the back of her hand.

“Not yet!” she hisses.

Jordan:receipts??? NOW

Cate:sorry i can’t my alpha is right here and she just growled in my earif i disappear again it’s bc she knotted me into a coma

You snatch her phone and type:she asked me to xoxo the alpha

Marie:i’m sick i’m throwing up i’m crying

Emma:i’m going into heat out of pure SPITE

Cate giggles and grabs the phone back, burying her face in your chest.

“Why are you like this,” she mumbles, blushing.

“Because you’re cute when you brag,” you say, kissing the top of her head. “And you should brag. You survived my freakishly long rut. Not many omegas could handle it, y’know.”

Cate peeks up at her with a smug little grin. “Good thing I’m not like other omegas.”

You smile wide. “Damn right you’re not.”

Cate settles back down against you, the weight of the last week catching up with her in a wave. The room is warm, the bed smells like both of you, and for the first time in hours there’s no urgency—just the steady comfort of being tangled up together. Your breathing slows, your body relaxing under Cate’s cheek, and it’s easy to match your rhythm.

You’re half-asleep beside her, one hand resting low on Cate’s belly like it belongs there. And maybe it does. It certainly feels right—like something her body has been waiting for.

Cate’s eyes flutter lazily toward the ceiling.

She still feels full.

Not just fucked-full. Not just used-full. Not just knotted and leaking and sore.

No—this is something else. Something deeper. She feels claimed. Filled to the brim with heat and love and your cum. Her belly is soft, warm, a little bloated from all the hours she spent with her alpha locked inside her—and it makes her wonder.

Her fingers slide beneath her hoodie. Trace across her stomach.

What if?

She’s thought about it before, sure. Fantasized. Teased you with the idea. Whispered filthy things mid-heat about being bred and kept barefoot and pregnant, just to rile you up. But this time…

This time she means it.

“I feel so full,” she murmurs softly, not sure if you’re awake enough to hear.

But you are.

You hum, low in your chest. “Still leaking?”

Cate nods. “Yeah. But it’s not just that. I feel…” She hesitates, pressing her palm against her belly. “I feel different.”

Your breath stills.

“Like something’s changed?”

Cate nods again. “You filled me up so much, baby. I could feel you every time you came. I swear—I could feel it soaking into me.”

You roll onto your side, pulling her closer, your hand joining Cate’s over her stomach.

“I wanted it to take,” you whisper. “Even if we weren’t trying. I—I wanted it.”

Cate’s throat tightens. “Me too.”

You lie there in silence, hearts racing softly under the quiet.

“It hasn’t before,” Cate says after a beat. “All those times. All that knotting. But this one felt… different. Like…maybe—”

You kiss her, slow and reverent, like you’re scared to jinx it. “If it doesn’t take, we’ll keep trying.”

Cate smiles softly. “Think I’ll survive another week-long heat?”

You grin. “Not sure I will.”

Both of you laugh, muffled and sleepy, tucked under the covers like a secret.

But as Cate drifts off, her hand still resting on her lower belly, the thought stays with her.

What if I’m pregnant?What if she really did breed me this time?What if this wasn’t just another heat—what if this was the beginning of everything?

And honestly?

She hopes it is.

Cate's hands are shaking.

She told you she was running to the dining hall. She even put on makeup to sell the lie. But instead of going to grab smoothies, she detoured to the campus pharmacy and stood frozen in the feminine care aisle for a solid ten minutes before finally grabbing two different tests, just in case.

Now she’s barefoot, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, sitting on the closed toilet lid in her own dorm room while the test rests on the counter beside her. She didn’t even have the strength to look at it when the timer buzzed.

Her heart is pounding so hard she feels dizzy.

It hasn’t taken before.

Not the first time. Not the third. Not even after the double knot weekend over spring break when she was sure she’d been bred.

And you had never said it, but Cate knew. Each time it didn’t happen, her alpha had curled a little more tightly around her in bed. Like you could feel Cate’s disappointment radiating through her skin.

But this time? This time was different. Six days locked in heat. You leaking cum inside her with every knot. Cate begging for it. Wanting it. Needing it.

She can still feel it. The fullness. The ache. The hum in her chest every time she rests a hand on her belly like it might be sacred.

“Okay,” she whispers, standing up on legs that feel like twigs. “Okay, okay, okay—”

She crosses the room. Picks up the stick.

Looks.

And—

Positive.Clear as day. Two perfect pink lines.

Cate goes completely still.

She doesn’t gasp. Doesn’t cry. Just stares.

Like she’s trying to commit this exact feeling—this moment—to memory. The air in the room. The way the sunlight hits the countertop. The sound of her own heartbeat racing in her ears.

Then—softly, barely audible—

“Oh my god.”

It takes a second before it really hits. But when it does, it comes in waves.

Tears well in her eyes. Her lips part. Her hand trembles as she sets the test down like it’s something holy.

She presses both palms to her belly, flat and soft, still untouched by anything visible—but something’s in there now.

She’s pregnant.

Your baby is growing inside her.

“Alpha,” she whispers, voice trembling. “You did it. You got me pregnant.”

The realization is too much. She sinks to the floor in a heap of hoodie and bare legs, crying quiet, happy tears.

And she knows—somewhere, two floors above—you have no idea that the dream you both only whispered about between heat-fueled kisses is real now.

Cate wipes her cheeks, breathing shaky but steadying.

“She’s gonna lose her mind.”

She sits there for maybe thirty seconds, staring at the little plastic stick on the counter, before she’s already up and moving. Shoes half on, hair a mess, phone forgotten on the bathroom sink. The test gets wrapped in tissue and tucked into her hoodie pocket like something precious, her fingers curling around it the whole way down the hall.

She doesn’t even text. Doesn’t think. Just goes.

Every step makes her heart race faster, each one carrying her closer to the girl who unknowingly just changed her life.

The door to your dorm room clicks shut behind her.

Cate’s heart is pounding so hard she feels dizzy all over again—but it’s a good dizzy. A glowing, floating kind of dizzy, like her whole body is made of sunlight and nerves and love.

She crosses the room quietly, slipping out of her shoes. Your bed is a half-tangled mess of sheets and blankets, your bare legs sprawled out over the comforter. You’re on your stomach, arm curled under the pillow, hair a chaotic halo. Your hoodie’s riding up your back. Your cheeks are sleep-flushed.

Cate stops just short of the bed and watches you for a second—her beautiful, exhausted, perfect alpha—and whispers softly:

“Hey, baby.”

You stir, blinking open one bleary eye. Your voice is hoarse and half-mumbled into the pillow.

“Cate?”

“Hi,” Cate says, biting her lip. “Didn’t mean to wake you. I just—can I come under?”

You grunt, immediately scooting over and lifting the blanket. “Always.”

Cate crawls in.

She’s careful, slow, settling herself under the covers with her knees tucked up and her body curled toward your chest. The second she’s in place, you wrap yourself around her without question—instinctive, protective, still more wolf than girl in this hour of the morning.

Cate tucks her face into your neck.

You kiss her hair. “You smell good.”

“I brought you something,” Cate whispers.

You’re still half-asleep. “Mm?”

Cate reaches into her pocket and pulls it out—the test, wrapped in a tissue, cradled like something precious. She hesitates, fingers trembling again, then slides it gently into your hand.

“What’s this?” you mumble, sitting up slightly.

Cate watches.

Waits.

You blink.

Look down at the test. See the lines.

Stop breathing.

The silence stretches for a beat. Two. Cate’s heart pounds in her throat.

“Cate.” Your voice breaks.

Cate bites her lip, nodding fast, eyes already filling again. “I took it this morning. I—I didn’t wanna get my hopes up but it’s real, baby, I swear. I’m pregnant. It took.”

You stare at the test like you’re not sure if you’re dreaming.

Then you lunge.

Wrap Cate up so tightly she gasps, pull her into your lap, crush her against your chest. Her whole body is shaking.

“You’re sure?” you whisper, voice wrecked. “You’re really—?”

Cate nods, eyes spilling. “You did it, alpha. You got me pregnant.”

Your hands splay over her stomach like they’re drawn there magnetically. “Oh my god. Cate. We’re—we’re having a baby?”

Cate laughs through her tears. “You sound so surprised.”

“I thought we had time,” you breath, still stunned, still holding her like she might float away. “I thought—I didn’t know I’d already done it—”

Cate leans forward, presses your foreheads together.

“You bred me so deep,” she whispers, smiling. “There wasn’t any room left. You think I’d not get pregnant after that?”

You let out a half-sob, half-laugh. You’re already crying. Already kissing her all over. Your hands don’t leave Cate’s belly.

“Fuck,” you say softly. “You’re carrying my pup.”

Cate hums, tearful and happy and full in every sense of the word.

“I really am.”

Now Cate’s tucked under the blankets, curled on her side with one hand pressed to her lower belly. She’s barely showing, of course—it’s day one—but her body already feels different. Heavier. More precious.

And you haven't stopped looking at her.

You’re sitting up, one arm braced behind Cate’s shoulders, the other resting reverently on her stomach. Your thumb brushes slow circles over the soft skin there, like you can feel the life beginning inside.

“You’re staring,” Cate says, amused.

“You’re pregnant,” you whisper like it’s a spell. “You’re literally carrying my child. I’m allowed to stare.”

Cate blushes, tucks her cheek into the pillow. “You’re gonna make me cry again.”

You lean down and kiss her temple. Then her jaw. Then her shoulder. “Good. I want you to feel everything.”

“You’re being weirdly romantic.”

“I’m in love with you and you’re having my baby, of course I’m weird.”

Cate giggles. “You’re so annoying.”

“You love me.”

“I do.” Cate sighs, eyes fluttering shut. “More than anything. Even when you completely ruin my body with rut knots.”

You let out a warm, deep laugh and start pressing kisses to her belly.

Cate squirms. “I’m not even showing yet!”

“I don’t care. I’m kissing it anyway.” You kiss lower. “Hey, little thing,” you murmurs against her skin. “I’m your mom—or…dad?—or whatever. Can’t wait to meet you.”

Cate’s eyes fill again. “Baby…”

You look up, eyes shining.

“I’m calling out,” you say softly. “No class. No combat training. No nothing.”

Cate raises a brow. “So you’re just gonna stay here and dote on me for nine months?”

You smirk. “I was gonna make breakfast. But now that you mention it…”

Cate laughs so hard she has to curl into her hoodie.

Breakfast turns out to be a questionable stack of over-buttered toast, two scrambled eggs that might have been cooked in pure cream, and a mug of tea so sweet Cate jokes she’s getting a cavity just smelling it. But she eats every bite anyway, because her alpha made it, and because you watch her the whole time like you’re making sure your omega is properly fed.

By the time the plates are pushed aside, Cate’s legs are draped over your lap and you’ve pulled your laptop into bed with you, balancing it on a pillow with a baby name list open. Cate keeps rejecting every suggestion with narrowed eyes.

“No naming our daughter after a tree,” she says flatly. “I am not giving birth to a Juniper.’”

You grin, sipping your tea. “Okay, fine. What about something musical? Melody? Aria?”

Cate scrunches her nose. “I’m not birthing a Spotify playlist either.”

“Wow. High standards, mama.”

Cate hides her flustered face. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” You lean in. “You are one now. My omega. My pretty little mama.”

Cate nearly spills her tea.

“God, you’re gonna ruin me again.”

“Give me ten minutes to finish my tea,” you deadpan.

Cate hurls a throw pillow at you.

You both dissolve into giggles, tangled in warm blankets and sunlight and possibility.

Eventually, Cate ends up tucked under your arm, her cheek resting against her alpha’s bare chest while you continue scrolling lazily through the baby name list on your laptop. Cate isn’t even paying attention anymore—she’s too wrapped up in the steady rise and fall of your breathing, the warmth of your skin, the safe weight of your arm around her. One hand idly plays with the hem of your boxers, brushing over the elastic without thinking, just enjoying the contact.

“I want them to have my eyes,” Cate murmurs, eyes fluttering shut. “But your freckles. And your stupid messy hair.”

You hum, stroking your fingers through Cate’s hair. “I want them to have your laugh. And your big mouth.”

“Excuse me—”

“And your smartass comebacks. And your stubborn little omega glare.”

Cate grins against your chest. “That’s fair.”

“I hope they’re strong like you,” you add softly. “Kind. Fierce.”

Cate looks up at you. “They will be. Because they’ll have you.”

You kiss her, slow and sweet and endless.

And when you both fall asleep again—full bellies, warm hands, heartbeats in sync—there’s nothing but peace.

Just two girls in love.

And the tiniest beginning of a third heartbeat, fluttering quietly between you.

omega!cate bots here for your filthy enjoyment<3

[phoenixandjacob]

i got a sciencey ramble

someone smarter than me could probably puzzle this out but like, what if the existence of magic/chaos in the Witcher universe was caused by the Higgs boson field being metastable and then succumbing to false vacuum decay early on? and by that i mean, near the relative beginning of the universe

if the false vacuum wasn't too far off from the true vacuum, that wouldn't result in too much catastrophe but possibly a shift in the physics of that universe and changes to some fundamental particles that could result in the chaos/magic we see on the Continent

although, if that world had a different ground state right off the bat, that could also result in the same changes a metastable Higgs boson field would cause

[tamartia]

everyone is simultaneously calling for police/prison abolition while also celebrating the incarceration of guilty officers.

I understand that this is the system we have, and under the current system they should be charged, arrested, indicted, imprisoned, etc.

but aren't we also trying to move away from that ? how does a world without cops handle the social workers who abuse/mistreat their clients ?

[initforthethrill]

how to ruin a nerd: a case study in film foreplay aka cate learns that shy girls are often the most rewarding to unravel tw: girlcock, g!p reader, college au, mutual pining, netflix and chill, film references, nerd!reader, popular!cate, seduction, blowjobs, handjobs, oral sex, cunnilingus, fingering, size queen!cate, non-explicit penetration, etc. 19.4k+ words

author's note: hiiii<3 i’ve been working on this one for a while now (after being inspired by this art) and i’m so excited to finally share it hehe i also snuck in a few little requests along the way—grey sweatpants, a star wars movie night, and cate getting very, very well taken care of amongst other things😌 hope you enjoy!<3

Cate notices you the way a starving person notices the scent of freshly baked bread—first the shape of it in the air, then the texture when it clings to the back of the throat. The student union is loud with people whose laughter bounces off the high ceiling, and yet Cate keeps tuning to the same frequency: a low, bright laugh from the corner couches, shy and pleased, like someone’s surprised by their own joy and trying not to show it.

You, the campus rumor with a pulse.

You’re folded into the corner with Luke Riordan, a lanky blur in varsity blue, dressed like the catalog definition of “nobody look at me,” which only makes Cate—and half the room, honestly—look harder. Black band tee with a cracked logo, the sleeves shoved to the elbows, rings on narrow fingers, uneven nails you’ve probably chewed through a cutscene, hair in that artfully chaotic shag that makes you look like you’ve perpetually just hopped off your skateboard. There’s a laptop open on the low table, the lid sticker-bombed with Star Wars, Godzilla, and an anatomically correct heart diagram, because of course you’re the kind of nerd who would be romantic about ventricles.

Cate forces her attention back to her own table and the two women across from her. Emma is doing the thing where she stirs an iced latte like she’s trying to hypnotize it. Marie is trying to decide between a muffin and the awareness that muffins are just a type of cake.

Emma leans in, stage-whispering. “Okay, why are you staring at Wallflower McBiceps again when you could be looking at literally anyone else?”

Cate lets the question sit, because she likes her friends to work for it. She bites delicately into her straw, unhurried. “Consider the problem set,” she murmurs. “Every other person I could look at would know I’m looking. She doesn’t.”

Marie follows Cate’s gaze. “She does. She’s pretending she doesn’t. Her ears are red.”

“Are they?” Cate smiles, delighted, and does not look back immediately. She loves a shy creature. Loves the way it takes patience and gentleness and a little bit of wickedness to coax them into blooming. Also: the rumors. Obviously the rumors.

Emma squints toward your corner, then twists back around and drops her voice. “Okay, so, I have heard things.”

Marie deadpans. “You heard things because Cate made you go hear them.”

Cate lofts a shoulder. “I’m a scholar. I research.”

“Uh-huh,” Emma says. “And your findings?”

Cate adopts a solemn tone. “The subject—twenty, double major, god help us all—may be catastrophically shy, immensely loyal to one Luke Riordan, and—this is anecdotal but from multiple sources—carrying a situation in those jeans.”

Marie’s brows arch nearly to her hairline. “A…situation.”

Cate’s smile turns private. “An ethics violation. A hazard. A public health emergency.”

Emma snorts into her drink. “Wow. Who did you bribe to get this intel?”

“I didn’t bribe anyone,” Cate says primly, then ruins it by adding, “People are eager to gossip about the hot nerd in the ripped denim, and I am a steward of institutional knowledge.”

Marie: “And you’re a size queen.”

Cate tips her head like a confession. “Guilty. In my defense, I’ve been…disappointed before.” She toys with the edge of her napkin. “I want to be pleasantly surprised.”

Across the room, you laugh again at something Luke says, a short, breathy exhale that pitches up at the end, unguarded. Cate feels the sound like a fingertip drawn down her spine. She watched you last week in the library, hunched over a textbook and a bag of flaming hot chips, mouth dusted devil red as you absently licked your thumb to clear the spice away. She watched you once through the glass of the arts building, tightening a stubborn lighting rig and checking focus marks while a TA snapped a slate and counted off. Watched you again on the quad, cross-legged on a blanket, guitar resting lazy against your knees as you plucked something melancholy and pretty, pretending not to notice the girls who slowed down to stare.

Shy isn’t small. Shy is a locked room with a thunderstorm inside. Cate wants the key. Cate wants the thunder.

Marie nudges her ankle. “Cate, seriously. You’re hot. Just go say hi.”

Cate could. She could tap the rim of your laptop with a manicured nail and say something simple and dangerous like, Hey, I hear you like monsters and space wizards—want to come watch them with me? She can already picture the way you would blink and bite your lip and stammer over your answer, eyes darting to Cate’s mouth. Cate could be gentle with it. She could be terrible with it. She could be both.

Instead, she chooses a different route—the build up, the plot, the long con of anticipation.

“I could,” Cate says, “but then I wouldn’t get to be clever about it.”

Emma groans. “Not the elaborate plan again.”

Cate’s smile goes sharp. “The elaborate plan always works.”

By the time their coffees have sweat rings into the table, Cate has the outline in her head: not too forward, but not coy. A casual message that reads like she remembered you mid-scroll, and then—if it goes well—an invitation disguised as something normal. Cate considers movie options and discards them like outfits: anything too horny-coded (Drive) will scare you off, anything too quaint (Amélie) is not your vibe. Cate already knows the right answer because she’s shamelessly been tuning herself to your frequency for a month. The stickers on your laptop aren’t just decoration, they’re a map.

Star Wars. Not as a performative nerd test, but as a love language: you love this, so come love it near me.

“Fine,” Emma says. “What’s step one, General Hux?”

“Don’t call me that,” Cate says, amused. “Step one is to casually follow her on Instagram. Then I give fate a nudge.”

Marie sips and eyes her. “And step two is?”

Cate’s phone is already in her palm, naturally. “Step two is the DM.”

She writes it there in the bright light of the student union, thumbs steady, heart not. She keeps it quick: Hey! This is Cate—we’ve got class together at ten on Tuesdays, I sit two rows behind you, hi. Random question: are you still a practical-effects purist or will you watch the remasters without throwing popcorn at the screen? I’m doing a Star Wars night and realize I don’t actually know anyone with strong opinions besides the internet.

She deletes and retypes “Star Wars night” three times. “Movie night” sounds like code even when it isn’t, and Cate wants to thread the needle: flirty, not predatory, specific, not weird. She adds a self-own—Also: I had a crush on Han Solo for like…six of my formative years, so feel free to judge me—and hits send before she has to fight her own nerve.

Immediately her stomach flips like she’s the shy one. Emma clocks it, viciously pleased. “Oh my God, she actually did it.”

Cate hides her face behind her phone like a teenager and laughs, giddy and appalled at herself. “Shut up.”

Across campus and two floors up in the North Residence Hall, your phone buzzes against your thigh at the exact worst moment. On-screen, The Tarnished rolls left instead of right and takes a full-body love letter from Godrick’s axe. YOU DIED blooms across the TV in terrible crimson.

“Dude,” Luke groans. “You good?”

You don't answer, you’re too busy staring at your phone like it’s a live grenade. The banner says “Cate,” which: fine, lots of girls on campus are named Cate. Except the little circle icon is the Cate. The one with the belly-button ring and sunlit hair and laughter like something expensive. The one who can turn a lecture hall into a room where she and the professor are having a charming private conversation. The one you cannot seem to stop noticing like a reflex, whose perfume—whatever it is, something light and mean with citrus—has become a campus weather pattern.

Luke elbows you in the side. “Open it, coward.”

“What if it’s…spam,” you try lamely. Your mouth goes dry. You click the notification anyway.

Your brain goes blank. Your hands make panicked little gestures in the air as if they could conjure the words into meaning, as if they could cool down your face. “Oh my God,” you whisper. “Oh, my God.”

Luke peers over your shoulder with zero shame. “No way,” he breathes, thrilled. “She wants to watch Star Wars with you? Dude. Dude. See? This is why you don’t eat ramen in lecture, destiny can smell that shit and takes pity.”

“It’s a prank,” you say immediately, because that’s safer than hope. The room feels too hot. You scrub a hand over your face in shock. “Like someone dared her. Or I’m being…socially experimented on.”

Luke tilts his head. “By Cate Dunlap, famous sorority menace and seminar whisperer, who is absolutely drowning in options? I don’t think she needs a dare to DM you, man.”

You snort, disbelieving. The thing you believe in most is gravity, the second is that gravity works harder on you. Girls do not DM you. Well. They DM to ask for DAW presets or if they can borrow a lens for a night shoot or the name of your nail polish (it’s just black Sharpie, but you pretend it’s a color with a cool name like Wicked Cathedral or Death Venom). They do not send messages like this, warm and easy and aimed like an arrow straight at your heart.

You scroll again, catching on the part about Han Solo, about judgment. It’s impossible not to grin. You can’t help imagining Cate at twelve, the kind of kid who organized her school supplies like a little general, swooning over a scruffy space scoundrel and thinking the future belonged to girls who could talk fast and shoot faster. It doesn’t fit and also fits perfectly.

“Well?” Luke demands.

“I don’t—what do I say?” You hiss. Your thumbs hover, petrified. “Do I play it cool? Do I say, ‘I prefer the theatrical release because Han Shot First’ and then like…leave it there? Do I—oh my God—do I put an emoji?”

Luke grabs your shoulders and shakes you very gently. “Breathe, padawan. Say yes. Then lock this down before the algorithm remembers who you are and rips it away.”

You inhale like you’re about to jump off a cliff. You type: Hey! Yeah, hi—that’s me, from the two-rows-ahead-zone. I will absolutely watch any version as long as we get to argue about it. I’m Team Practical Effects But Also Sometimes Team ‘George Please Put The Puppet Away.’ I can bring popcorn? I promise not to throw it :)

You hover over the smiley. The panic is genuine now. You delete the smiley. Put it back. Delete it. Start sweating. Luke rolls his eyes and presses your thumb down on send because he’s a menace.

Across the quad, Cate’s phone brightens. The reply lands like a little bell.

Oh, she thinks, pleasure sparking from sternum to knees. She can almost feel that shiver of nervous humor in the message, the careful joke, the way shy people use wit to move through a room without ever getting caught in it. She types back: Perfect. Wednesday? I have a good couch and a terrible projector. 8 pm?

Your thumbs go crazy with yes. Yes is the whole feeling. But then your brain yanks the leash. Play it cool. Don’t sound like a labrador. You try again: Wednesday is great. I have a…uh…collection of gummies that make any projector seem like imax? Kidding. Mostly. 8 works.

Cate giggles, lone and private, because she can hear the stammer inside the joke. She fires back her dorm number and adds, if you bail I will simply assume you were run over by a landspeeder and not take it personally.

Your heart does something stupid and acrobatic. You save the number like it's a sacred text. “Oh my God,” you say for the thousandth time. “Luke. What do I wear?”

Luke looks at your outfit: shirt with a skull, jeans with a rip at the knee that is absolutely not strategic, socks with tiny X-Wings. “You literally look like Star Wars already.”

“I can’t show up looking like a fangirl,” you groaned. You scan your closet. It’s mostly variations of the same thing: tees and hoodies, a couple button-downs for presentations. You imagine Cate’s dorm—what it smells like, the way it’s decorated, the way Cate will lean one hip against the counter while the microwave hums and ask you a question that is secretly a test of whether you can keep up with someone of Cate’s caliber.

You need a shirt without Cheeto dust as a memory. You need…what, exactly? To be less yourself? No. Cate DM’d you. Cate invited exactly this: a nervous creature with ink-stained fingers and a head full of space opera.

Luke flops backward on the bed and stretches like a cat. “If you’re asking me, go with the faded black tee that makes your arms look like you’ve lifted something heavier than a textbook, wash your hair, brush the chip dust out. Bring the good popcorn.”

You nod, swallowing. “Okay. Okay, that I can do.”

You spend the next twenty minutes making a list like you’re prepping for a midterm: popcorn, two sodas (don’t show up empty-handed), deodorant (Jesus), chapstick (double Jesus), condoms (panic thought—why would she—oh God—don’t be a creep), working set of lungs. You glance at the mirror, push your bangs to the side, then muss them back, because the polished version of you looks like you’re going to a job interview you’re doomed to fail.

Your phone buzzes again.

CATE: Disclaimer…my bedside lamp flickers like a séance.

You, without thinking: I’ve got a multimeter and a healthy disrespect for haunted wiring. Want me to take a look?

Cate has to clap a hand over her mouth to contain the laugh. Emma and Marie both stare, hungry for updates, and Cate, benevolent for once, slides the phone over so they can see the screen. Marie whistles. “Oh, she’s charming and handy.”

“She is,” Cate says softly, almost to herself. It thrills her how shy can still be funny, how quiet can still be sharp. She pictures you sitting cross-legged on a dorm bed with a controller in your hands, thumbs flying, tongue caught in your teeth the way it was in the library when you were thinking too hard. Cate feels possibility expand in her chest.

“Do not,” Emma says, wagging a finger, “eat her alive on Wednesday.”

“I would never,” Cate says, then, because she can’t help herself, adds under her breath, “Not without seasoning.”

They pick at that for ten minutes, Emma recounting the one time Cate tried to watch a movie with a girl and ended up learning the runtime of the girl instead, Marie asking questions like a scientist about the size-queen hypothesis and whether there are control variables. Cate smiles and plays along, but under the table her phone rests against her thigh like the sleek warm weight of good news.

On the other side of campus, you try one more boss run with Luke as your eager onlooker. You die faster than you have in weeks because your brain is not even remotely locked in anymore. It keeps darting to a dorm room couch and a girl with a mouth made for ruining someone’s GPA. Luke pauses the game, grabs your face in both hands, and says, “We will practice breathing before Wednesday like it’s a sport.”

You nod miserably. “What if she sits close to me?”

“She will,” Luke says. “What are you going to do if she kisses you?”

“Cry?” You say, dazed. “Ascend?”

When Luke finally leaves for his night class, you stare at the ceiling and let the panic metabolize into something sweeter. You imagine the opening crawl. You imagine the lights low. You imagine Cate close enough that you can smell whatever that heart-stopping citrus thing is, close enough that when you make a joke Cate might put a hand on your knee without thinking.

You check Cate’s message thread again. A date, a time, an address. It’s real. It exists.

Cate, somewhere across campus, curls her hair into a lazy loop with a finger and sends one last message: See you Wednesday.

You brace both hands on the bedspread like you need to hold on to the planet. Then you type, quick before you lose the nerve: Looking forward to arguing with you about space wizards.

The week stretches like taffy. Cate pretends to be busy—outline due, readings to annotate—but her real work is curation. She launders the soft throw that makes a couch look like an invitation, swaps the harsh bulb in the lamp for something warmer, coaxes her room into smelling like citrus and good intentions. She shaves everything she wants shaved, moisturizes everything she wants admired, polishes her belly-button ring because she is ridiculous and knows it. She keeps her thumbs off her phone on principle and then breaks her own rule twice to send small, deliberate sparks: Wednesday still good? and later, I will be grading your opinions. Each ping returns with your careful yes, your shy little humor, and Cate has to bite back her own smile in order not to grin at nothing.

You live inside a countdown. You give yourself pep talks in the bathroom mirror that start with “don’t be weird” and ends with “be weird but on purpose.” You trim your pubes—not because you assume anything (you keep insisting), but because hope is a creature with tiny scissors. You cycle outfits like a film montage—hoodie, button-down, hoodie again, finally surrendering to denim. You don't text unless Cate opens the door first. When Cate does, you answer like you’re walking a tightrope. You practice breathing like Luke told you, then forget every technique whenever you picture Cate’s mouth in your immediate vicinity.

By Wednesday night you’re orbiting each other so hard that the week feels like gravity resolving into a straight line. The campus does its normal midweek prep—late office hours, someone blasting a playlist that sounds like a car alarm—but for both of you the air tastes like the edge of something.

You make yourself leave five minutes early because being late would kill you and being on time feels like hubris. You tuck the good popcorn and two sodas into your backpack, slide a little roll-up tool pouch beside them, and double-check the electrolytes like they’re a passport. Luke walks you to the end of the hall, fixes your hoodie strings like a dad on picture day, and says, “Breathe, don’t monologue, lead with your mouth.” You flip him off, laugh, and do exactly as told.

Campus is all Wednesday static: laughter ricocheting off brick, a longboard whispering past, the smell of something burned masquerading as dinner. You count light poles to stay out of your head and fail immediately, because your head keeps replaying Cate’s lipstick, Cate’s laugh, the way Cate writes messages that feel like she knows where every nerve ends. Outside Cate’s building you choose the stairs over the elevator, pause on the landing to practice one normal inhale and one functional exhale, and check your reflection in the dark window: hair behaving, ears already pink, mouth—yeah, that’s a problem.

You thumb out the world’s bravest, smallest message—here :)—then pocket the phone before you can delete the smiley. Down the hall: the door with the little number you memorized, the soft spill of warm light at the threshold. You wipe your palms on your sweats, knocks once, and think, with a bolt of impossible, reckless happiness: don’t be cool—be real.

Cate answers the door like she’s been waiting in that exact pose for years—one palm braced high on the frame, cardigan sleeves pushed to her elbows, a mouth that looks like it knows where this is going and plans to enjoy every mile of road between here and there. The hallway light slips over her like champagne. You forget how to swallow, then remember all at once and nearly choke on your own spit.

“Hi,” Cate says, amused already.

“Hi,” you echo, equally useless.

“You came prepared,” Cate says, eyeing the backpack slung over your shoulder.

“Popcorn,” you blurt. “And, um, two sodas. I also brought—don’t laugh—a mini tool roll. Multimeter, spare HDMI, zip ties, needle-nose, and a tiny screwdriver set in case your projector throws a tantrum after I fix your lamp.”

“You’re either the most charming person alive or a very dedicated electrician.” She takes the bag, lets her fingers brush yours, and hums like she’s testing a note. “Come in.”

The dorm is somehow both curated and lived-in: a white couch and a soft throw, canvases tucked away neatly, edges taped with blue painter’s tape, a jar of brushes clouding in murky rinse water, charcoal stains ghosting the desk like constellations. On the bookshelf: riding ribbons and a silver trophy with a tiny horse on top, a framed show number and a sun-faded photo of a chestnut mid-jump. It smells faintly of citrus cleaner and linseed oil—and, somewhere near the bed, the lamp with the loose switch waits like a patient in triage.

“I like your museum slash tack room,” you say, grinning.

Cate’s mouth tilts again. “Mixed-use space. I’m sat in front of a canvas more than on a saddle these days…some stuff just refuses to retire.”

You nod, feeling it click in your ribs. Some passions refuse to retire. Hell, you’re in your twenties and still rearranging shelves to make room for yet another collectible and posters you swore you didn’t need.

The projector throws a blue rectangle on the wall. Cate sets the popcorn on the coffee table and plugs in the sodas like they’re guests. “You can sit,” she tells you, not quite a command, not quite not.

You sit. Your knee starts bouncing of its own accord. Cate locks the door with a quiet click that feels louder than it is and crosses the room with the lazy grace of a person who never hurries because the world waits for her. She drops onto the couch beside you and doesn’t bother with modest distances. The cushion gives and your shoulders touch, two magnets failing to pretend they’re not designed for this.

“Okay,” Cate says, reaching for the remote and—oh—resting her other hand casually on your knee. “Ground rules. You’re allowed to have wrong opinions about which cut is definitive. You are not allowed to judge twelve-year-old me for having a poster of a certain smuggler on my bedroom wall. Deal?”

You make a sound that is legally pathetic. Cate’s hand is warm through the denim. Your brain throws up warning flares: do not panic, do not be weird, do not say something like I, too, had a formative poster experience, except it was Transformers era Megan Fox and she taught me the beauties of nightly jerk off sessions.

“Deal,” you manage, and then the lights dim a fraction and Cate’s hand doesn’t move.

The opening fanfare hits. You try to watch. You really do. But Cate is a gravitational event at the edge of your vision. Cate does the little lean that says I’m listening, her perfume is citrus caught in cool air. When she laughs at a line you love, she tips her head toward you like you’re sharing a secret no one else on earth would understand.

“Okay,” Cate murmurs around the end of the first scene. Her thumb traces a lazy line back and forth, back and forth, over the seam of your jeans. “Popcorn or me?”

You look down at the bowl, at Cate’s hand, then back at the bowl like it might explain things. “Uh,” you say, very intelligently.

Cate relents and offers the bowl, because she’s kind even when she’s terrible. Your fingers brush as you take a handful. Electricity is such a cliché word for it, still, your pulse does the exact thing circuits do when they close.

“No glasses tonight?” Cate asks eventually, like she only just remembered to be casual about it.

“Uh…no, they’re…mostly a costume piece—my nerd badge,” you admit, clearing your throat. “I see fine.”

“Good,” Cate says, leaning in, slow and deliberate, to make sure you can make out every sharp comet of mascara on her lashes. “Then you can see me perfectly?”

You swallow. “Tragically.”

Cate’s smile flashes, delighted. “Cute.”

You blue-screen. Your ears go pink like your system just rebooted. The word hits like a system prompt you can’t close—cute? Did the hottest girl on campus just call you cute?—and every smooth reply you’ve ever practiced falls through a trapdoor. Your brain throws up junk code (say something clever, reboot, abort), your body queues up seventeen impossible tasks (breathe, smile, don’t die.) What comes out is a scrambled, “I—uh—y-yeah—cool,” which is not a language recognized by any major civilization. You clear your throat, try again. “Confirmed. Visuals…excellent.”

Cate’s eyes warm, she coasts a thumb along the seam of your jeans again, clearly pleased, as if you short-circuiting was the most interesting thing in the room and exactly the reaction she was hoping for.

Silence resumes, companionable in theory. Cate’s hand wanders. It climbs from knee to mid-thigh, fingers pressing in just enough to make you very aware of muscle and bone and the fact that your breathing has become deeply optional. Cate doesn’t push, exactly. She…explores. She maps the hem of your hoodie, the edge of your belt, the little dip where pelvic bone meets fabric. She plays with the ring on your index finger, twisting it, then glides her fingertip under the leather bracelet at your wrist like she’s checking the time on your pulse. You're pretty sure you stop breathing for a straight minute and don't die only because Cate hasn’t given you permission.

“Is this okay?” Cate asks softly, not moving her hand away at all, which is somehow a thousand times more devastatingly considerate than removing it.

You nod so hard your curls bounce. “Yeah. Yes. Very yes.”

“Good girl,” Cate says, praise she didn’t know she’d say until it slipped out. You feel it behind your ribs, a bell rung in a cathedral.

The movie keeps playing. Cate pretends to watch it. You watch Cate watch it and try not to burst into flames. You’ve had crushes before. You’ve had dates that felt like you’ve been invited to audition for the role of yourself. This is different. Cate isn’t making room for you, Cate is filling the room and then handing you the better view.

A spaceship roars across the screen. Cate’s palm slides to your stomach, a teasing pressure through cotton that makes your spine straighten like a string being pulled. Cate glances up at you and smiles without any pity in it—just interest, just hunger, just a bright scientist’s curiosity.

“Relax,” Cate whispers. Her thumb drifts higher, then lower, never quite settling. “You’re very tense.”

You give a small, helpless laugh. “That’s crazy. Why would I be tense? I’m watching spaceships with the prettiest girl on campus while trying not to embarrass myself or spontaneously combust.”

Cate’s hand goes still for a beat, then presses, like a reward. “Flatterer.”

“You’re—” You start, then shut your mouth before the sentence can get embarrassing and sincere. You look at the screen instead, where an argument you can recite by heart is playing. It doesn’t help. Cate is rewriting every line.

You make it to the cantina. Cate has a thing for the scene—you can tell because Cate’s knee nudges yours when the music starts. “Now this,” Cate says, warm with nostalgia. “This is camp. This is the hill I’ll die on. The original puppet work? Untouchable.”

“Greedo shot first,” you tease, just to watch Cate do the scandalized gasp.

“How dare you,” Cate says, delighted. She shifts, curling toward you, one arm sliding behind your shoulders along the back of the couch, wrist brushing the nape of your neck. The light hits her cheekbone, the gloss on her mouth. She’s close enough that you can see the dimples that only show up when Cate is laughing.

You should make an argument about editing choices. Instead you say, small and honest, “I’m really glad you messaged me.”

Cate’s eyes soften, but not in a way that takes any heat out of the room. “I’m really glad you said yes.”

Then, like she’s been waiting for that exact permission, Cate tilts those last few inches and kisses you.

It’s not dramatic. Cate doesn’t seize or devour. She sets her mouth to yours like it’s a new book she’s been saving for a day when she has nothing else to do but read. Your breath catches. Cate’s hand at your stomach flattens, holds, anchors. The first slide of Cate’s lips is gentle, curious, a question shaped like warmth. You answer with all the honesty you have.

Cate smiles against you, then deepens it—an elegant escalation. Her fingers tip your chin, guiding. Her mouth opens, and you follow, catching the soft, slick cadence of it like learning a song by ear. Cate tastes like citrus and heat and something sweet you can’t name. At some point, your hand finds Cate’s waist, careful at first, then firmer when Cate makes a pleased little sound and presses closer, thigh aligned to thigh.

“Better than IMAX,” Cate whispers, wicked, and steals another kiss for proof.

You laugh into it because you can’t help it. The sound breaks and turns breathless when Cate nips lightly at your bottom lip, soothing the spot with a drawn-out kiss that feels like a promise. The projector hums.

Cate pulls back just enough to study your face. “Still okay?”

You nod, a little dazed. “Yeah. Yes. I—yeah.”

“Good,” Cate says, and brushes her thumb along the arc of your cheekbone. “Because I’ve been very patient.”

“I noticed,” you say, hoarse and grinning, and then Cate laughs softly, approval and mischief braided together, and slides closer until there’s no air at all between you two.

The movie keeps trying to happen in the background. Cate keeps not letting it. She kisses you until you forget what your own hands are for and then remember in a rush, learning the weight of Cate’s shoulder beneath your palm, the fine line of her back. Cate’s cardigan slips halfway off like a stage direction. Cate’s thighs bracket yours, an elegant, unhurried claim. Every time you shiver, Cate leans in and collects the shiver.

“Tell me if you want me to slow down,” Cate says, voice gone low, her mouth at the corner of your jaw.

“I’ll file a complaint,” you manage.

Cate chuckles and noses along your throat, satisfied. “Nerd.”

“Menace,” you return, dizzy with it.

Cate nips, gentle punishment for the backtalk. “You have no idea.”

She draws back just long enough to look at you again—really look, cataloguing the flushed cheeks, the wrecked little smile, the way your hands are fisted in the couch throw like you’re hanging on for dear life. Cate’s expression is bright victory edged in tenderness, the kind you only get when you’ve been wanting something for so long that finally having it feels like an ache you’d happily keep forever.

“Cate,” you say, soft and startled, because the name on your tongue feels like a new word when you say it.

“Mm?” Cate answers, already leaning in again, thumb stroking the collar of your hoodie in a slow, promising loop.

You swallow, bravery bubbling up like soda fizz. “I’m…trying very hard not to say something extremely uncool.”

“I like uncool,” Cate says. “Say it.”

“I can’t believe you’re real,” you blurt, mortified, and then flinch, waiting for honesty to do what honesty does.

Cate’s smile goes molten. She presses her forehead to yours for a beat, like she has to steady herself, too. “Oh,” she murmurs, and there’s so much fondness in it that you actually do feel weightless for a second. “You’re in so much trouble.”

Cate kisses you again, decisive now, hand skimming up, up, to the place just under your throat where your pulse flutters. The movie is a rumor and the world is this couch and the question is inside Cate’s hands. Watching Star Wars has officially become surviving Cate Dunlap.

You exhale like you’ve just run a mile and smile into Cate’s mouth. If this is a study session, you think hazily, you’re going to pass with extra credit.

Cate pulls back half an inch, eyes lit with victory and wicked patience. “And now,” she says, while the projector hums and the cantina band plays on, “let’s see how shy you really are.”

Cate doesn’t so much move her hand as let gravity make the decision for her. One moment it’s a warm suggestion at your stomach, the next it’s sliding lower, like the natural conclusion to a sentence her mouth has been writing against yours. Not pushy. Not a grab. Just a careful palm settling over denim, testing the heat and the shape beneath with the same curiosity she’d use on a new book or a locked door.

You make a small, startled sound into the kiss—half gasp, half yes—and it shoots straight through Cate’s spine. She swallows the sound, smiles against it, then breaks the kiss a heartbeat later so she can watch.

“Research,” Cate murmurs, as if that’s a perfectly normal word to say while pressing her fingers along the seam of someone’s jeans. “You know. For my dissertation.”

Your eyes fly open. You’re flushed, pupils blown wide, mouth a little slick. “Your…dissertation?”

“Mm.” Cate’s thumb presses, slow, circling, not quite over the center of anything, “…on urban legends.”

It’s more than a tease, it’s confirmation bias. Beneath the denim, you're getting hard fast, and Cate can feel the way it changes—weight, angle, the instinctive twitch that betrays both arousal and shy panic. God, the heat. If the jeans weren’t in the way, Cate would lick the seam of her palm to cool it. As it is, the rough fabric gives her just enough friction to map the length pressed along your thigh.

You squeeze your eyes shut like the room is too bright. You grab for composure and land on protocol. “I—um. Cate, I—wait, is this…are we…?”

Cate leans back an inch, bracing her free hand on the couch cushion by your hip so she can keep her palm right where it is. “We are,” she says, gentle. “Unless you don’t want to.”

You open your eyes. There’s so much earnestness in them that Cate feels something tender and dangerous under her ribs. “I do,” you blurt, as if the sentence has been trying to get out of you for years. “I absolutely do, I just—I didn’t want to assume that the movie night was like—code, and also I’m—” You falter, color rising high on your cheeks. “I’m a lot.”

The last two words come out tiny and mortified, like you’re confessing a crime.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Cate says, and the endearment slips out before she can catch it. She watches it land—your breath hitches, shoulders loosening a fraction—and Cate smooths her palm once, slowly, an apology to the part of you that’s braced for being too much. “I invited you because I wanted you here.” She makes the words very clear, as if they’re coordinates. “On my couch. In my hands. Everything else is…bonus.”

You blink. It’s almost comical how your whole body tries to decide what to do with relief. Your throat works, you nod, still a little lost in it. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Cate echoes, pleased and unhurried. She strokes again, firmer now, up the line and back, letting her knuckles drag. The shape in her hand answers like it has its own pulse separate from yours. Cate’s smile goes a little feral. “Urban legend confirmed.”

You drop your head back against the couch and laugh helplessly. “That’s not—okay, mean.” You cover your face with one hand, the other fisting in the throw pillow like you need something to hold onto or you might float away. “Jesus.”

Cate coaxes your hand down. “Let me see you,” she says softly. “Please.”

You obey. Of course you do. You look at Cate like Cate has spun the planet a quarter-turn closer to the sun. Cate’s chest aches with it. The shyness isn’t smallness, it’s generosity in a room that hasn’t always known what to do with it. Cate could go slow forever just to watch.

Her fingers toy with the button of your jeans, then detour—deliberately—up under the hem of the hoodie to the warm skin of your lower belly. She wants to know how you’re built, she wants to learn this topography by hand. Her fingertips meet a soft line of hair disappearing downward, a neat little path that makes Cate’s mouth go dry.

“Well, look at you,” Cate hums, delighted. “A little happy trail.”

You seize up in place. “Nope, that’s illegal. You are not allowed to call it that.”

“What, ‘happy’?” Cate laughs quietly, eyes bright with mischief. “Is there a different adjective I should use?”

“Cate,” you groan, but you’re grinning so hard her teeth flash. The grin crumples at the edges when Cate strokes along that faint line of hair with the backs of her knuckles. It’s not even a proper touch—more suggestion than contact—but the way your hips jump means Cate files the trick away for later. For always.

She tugs the hoodie up just enough to expose more of the trail and bends to press her mouth to the skin beside it. Not a mark, not yet. Just an inhale, a taste, a soft scrape of teeth that earns her a tiny, desperate gasp. Cate stays there for a beat, indulging her own small worship: the warm scent of you, the way your belly goes tight under Cate’s lips, the little tremor your thighs can’t seem to stop making.

“Cate,” you try again, more helpless than before. “I—God—I want this, I want you, I just—” You swallow. The words are working their way out in a jumble. “I don’t want to scare you. Or like…hurt you. Or make you think I assumed anything. And if we don’t—if you want to just—kiss and watch the thing and make popcorn and—” You run out of road.

Cate lifts her head. The first impulse is to tease you about getting in your own lane on an empty highway, but Cate is not cruel with the people she actually wants. She cradles your jaw in one hand and kisses you once—slow, reassuring—and then sets her forehead to yours.

“Listen to me,” she says, and the cadence softens. “You are not going to scare me.” She lets her palm settle back against you through the denim, more definite now, so the words have a body to live in. “If I ever want to stop, I’ll say so. If I want to slow down, I’ll tell you. Right now?” She gives a careful squeeze. “Right now I want to enjoy how stupidly pretty you are when you blush and how good you feel in my hand.”

Your exhale is a whole-body thing. You nod so earnestly that Cate’s heart does a little somersault.

“Good girl,” Cate adds, quiet and pleased, and there’s the bell again—your pupils blow even darker.

Cate works the button open. The zipper tugs down with a sound that feels indecent in the hush, and then there’s only a thin layer of cotton between her fingers and the rumor. Green briefs, soft and cruelly cute, waistband sitting under the line of your abs in a way that has absolutely no business being that appealing. The outline pressing along your thigh is…generous. Thick. Heavy. The head sits proud against the fabric, the damp spot at the tip already betraying just how fast shy can turn to wrecked.

Cate swallows discreetly. She shouldn’t be charmed by a color. She is.

“Hi,” she says to the shape like she’s being introduced. The grin she tips up at you is pure trouble. “You weren’t kidding about being a lot.”

You make a dying noise. “Please. Please, you can’t just—narrate.”

“But you’re so narrative,” Cate says, delighted. She closes her hand over your length through cotton, thumb angling to rub that damp spot in small, coaxing circles. You jerk, one hand flying to Cate’s wrist—not to stop her, to hold on. Your breath stutters, your eyes squeeze shut again, a useless defense against sensation.

“Eyes on me,” Cate whispers.

You obey like it’s gravity. Cate strokes again, slower. The way you swell under her palm is obscene and beautiful. The jeans frame you. Cate loves the visual, loves that this is still restrained enough to feel like a secret you’re keeping together. She digs her nails lightly into your hip, then glides her palm down the length and back up, learning the exact point where pressure turns your jaw slack.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Cate says, conversational and reverent all at once. “About how you’d feel. How you’d fit in my hand.” She squeezes, savoring the sheer weight of you. “How you’d look when I touched you.”

You swallow so hard it’s audible. “You—God—did you really?”

Cate leans in to kiss the corner of your mouth. “I did. The day you sat on the quad with your guitar and pretended not to notice anyone noticing you.” Another stroke, another soft, intoxicating sound from you. “The afternoon in the library with the chips dusting your fingers red. I wanted to lick them clean.” She ghosts a laugh against your cheek. “And now you’re here being obscene in green.”

You tip your head back and laugh—wrecked and bright in the same breath. The laugh breaks into a helpless sigh when Cate spreads her fingers to cradle the base and draw up, pressing along the ridge.

“Is this okay?” Cate checks again, even though your body is saying yes in about five different languages.

“Yes,” you say. Then, with ridiculous sincerity: “Please.”

“Mm.” Cate drops a kiss just below your navel, then another along that little trail. “I like your manners.”

“They come with the…hardware,” you try, breathless and embarrassed by your own joke, and Cate snorts into your skin, shoulders shaking.

“God, you’re cute,” Cate says, throat gone warm. “Weaponized cuteness.”

She eases the waistband down a little to give herself better access to that happy trail, just enough to expose more skin, to let cooler air kiss it. She doesn’t pull the briefs any further—not yet. Worship means patience. She thumbs the elastic, then presses her mouth to the line where skin meets fabric, a slow, open-kissed drag that makes your hips go searching for friction. Cate tightens her grip and gives it to you, a steady pump through cotton that’s almost unbearably intimate for how clothed you technically still are.

Your hand finds Cate’s shoulder and holds like it might anchor you to the planet. Your other hand fumbles at the couch, then lands—bold as a miracle—at the back of Cate’s neck, fingers sliding into the hair there. Cate rewards the courage with a firmer stroke and a soft scrape of teeth where her mouth has been learning your stomach.

“You’re doing so well,” Cate says, and she means it. Not as a script—she loathes rote praise—but as an observation: this shy creature, this generous nerve-ending, giving her everything without any performative cleverness. “Breathe.”

You drag in air like Cate told you how. Your voice scrapes. “You’re really—God—you really want this.”

Cate lifts her head. The projector throws blue light across her face, it makes her eyes look oceanic. “I really want you,” she corrects, and then, just because she wants to watch the way the words ripple through your whole body: “All of you.”

Your throat works. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Not before I take a very long, very smug victory lap,” Cate says primly, then ruins it by dropping a soft kiss right at the base of the trail. She smiles against skin when your breath catches, then looks up again, hand steady where it strokes. “Tell me if anything feels like too much.”

“It already does,” you confess, wrecked and grinning. “In the best way.”

“Good.” Cate leans up, meets your mouth again, keeps her hand moving. She kisses you slowly, lazily, like you have all the time in the world to learn each other—which, if Cate has her way, you do. Your hips start to find a rhythm against her palm, the kind of helpless, shy grind that makes Cate want to applaud. When you break for air, your eyes are glassy and sweet with disbelief.

“You’re adorable,” Cate says. “Also: unbelievably hot.” She squeezes, gentler now, easing the edge. “That rumor? I’m going to write a peer-reviewed paper.”

You groan into her shoulder. “Please don’t publish.”

“I’ll submit it under a pseudonym,” Cate promises solemnly, and strokes you again, deliberate and adoring. “Breathe for me.”

You do. The shy, the nerves, the spiraling—Cate can feel them all reshaping into something brighter under her hand. It’s not that the anxiety disappears, it’s that it has somewhere to go. Somewhere to be held.

Cate kisses the corner of your smile and lets her free hand pet a distracted line up and down your side—over ribs, over the small curve under your arm, back to the waistband so she can tease the elastic again. “I’m going to take such good care of you,” she says, almost a vow, almost a warning. “But right now I’m going to enjoy watching you come undone in my hands.”

Your answering shiver is full-body. You nod, speechless, and then—bless you—force out, “Yes, ma’am,” like you’re not sure where that came from and are too far gone to be embarrassed.

Cate’s grin is all teeth. “That’s my good girl.”

She tightens her grip just enough to make your eyes roll and lets the moment hang there, bright and precarious, before she decides exactly how soon she wants to put her mouth where her research has led. For now, she savors the study: denim tugged open, green cotton damp, a shy nerd panting softly on her couch, and a little trail of hair that points her home.

Cate treats permission like a door she already knows how to open—slowly, with her wrist, so the hinges don’t squeak. She kisses you until the world shrinks to the give of the couch and the hum of the projector, then lets her palm drift, patient, down the soft slope of hoodie and under the loosened waistband.

The reaction is instant. You jolt like a struck tuning fork, breath breaking, a helpless sound catching in your throat. Cate can feel the yes of you everywhere—under her hands, in the way your knees go a little wider without being asked, in the way your mouth seeks another kiss like thirst.

“Hey,” Cate murmurs against her lips, smiling. “Breathe.”

You try, fail in a very charming way and try again, hands hovering, not sure where to land. Cate solves the problem for you by catching one wrist and setting it at her own waist, an invitation and a grounding line at once. The other hand Cate brings to her shoulder, and you hold on.

“Let me look at you,” Cate says softly.

It’s not a question, but she waits anyway. You nod—shy, wrecked, so, so game—and Cate eases the green waistband lower, just enough to bare warm skin and that neat little trail she’d teased moments before. The intake of your breath is a visible thing, a tide. Cate’s eyes flick up to meet yours. “Pretty,” she says, not as a verdict but as fact.

The inventory isn’t clinical, it’s a kind of reverence. Cate notices the flutter at your throat when Cate’s knuckles skim lower. She notices the flex of your thigh, the way the muscle jumps when Cate’s thumb draws an idle circle. She notices the way heat gathers and radiates like a hearth. Every small twitch and jump is catalogued, not as data points but as proof of life: here is where touch becomes a tremor, here is where a stroke turns the tremor into a quake.

Your brain whirs like it’s trying to cache every second. Cate sees it—the dazed, disbelieving loop of oh my God she wants me she wants me she wants me—and kisses you to quiet it. The kiss is slow, possessive in an elegant way, the kind that makes you whimper into her mouth because you’ve been daydreaming about Cate’s lips for weeks and reality is worse, better, both.

“Keep watching me,” Cate whispers when you part, an inch of air between your mouths that feels like a ravine. “If you drift, I’ll come find you.”

You let out a shaky laugh. “Okay.”

Cate’s hand firms, finding a rhythm that feels inevitable once she finds it. It’s not showy. It doesn’t have to be. She moves with the kind of confidence that comes from paying attention, letting pressure and pace be answers to what your body asks without words. You clutch the hem of Cate’s cardigan like a lifeline, eyes glassy, dazed by the luxury of being handled this carefully.

“Look at you,” Cate praises, voice gone light with pleasure. “All this for me?”

You nod helplessly, color high, hair sticking to your forehead. You keep trying to talk and get steamrolled by sensation. At one point you manage, “You’re—God, you’re really—” and then give up and kiss Cate like gratitude.

Cate drinks it in, hums into your mouth, never breaking the cadence of her hand. She loves the way you answer on instinct now: the hitch when Cate tightens, the soft curse when Cate loosens and drags, the way your hips learn to meet the next pass. It’s worship disguised as study, it’s study that can’t help becoming worship.

“I knew you’d be good to touch,” Cate says, conversational in that quiet, lethal way. “Didn’t know you’d be this good.”

Your laugh breaks in half. “You—you’re saying that like there’s a scale.”

“There is,” Cate says solemnly, and leans in to kiss the corner of your mouth. “And you’re wrecking it.”

The projector chatters to itself. Cate does not look away from your face. She keeps kissing you—small, greedy kisses, then slow, coaxing ones. Once, a soft press at the hinge of your jaw that makes your hands scramble for purchase. When Cate’s tongue sweeps past your lip, you sigh into it, the sound bright and broken, every daydream you’ve had of Cate’s mouth suddenly feels woefully underwritten.

“Your mouth,” you gasp, almost angry about it. “I—think about it all the time.”

Cate smiles, tasting the honesty. “Do you?”

“Since class,” you admit, mortified, eyes darting to Cate’s lips again like they’re magnetic. “You were arguing with the professor and I—kept staring at your lip gloss. I don’t even care about lip gloss.”

“Oh, you sweet thing,” Cate says, and kisses you with slow, decadent reassurance. “You can stare as much as you want.”

The confession seems to set something free in you. Your hands grow braver. One slides up Cate’s spine and rests at the nape of her neck, thumb rubbing there unconsciously. The other anchors at Cate’s hip. You meet the rhythm now—shy, earnest little rolls that make Cate think of tidepools and patience and getting pulled under with a smile.

Cate feels it when the edge arrives for you—not a dramatic flood, but that hot, breathless narrowing of the world to one point where everything inside you leans forward. She eases the tempo a fraction, lets the line quiver without snapping.

“Cate,” you say, low and wrecked. The sound of her name in this tone feels like Cate’s favorite secret. “I—please.”

“Mm.” Cate kisses the plea off your tongue. “I know.” She keeps her hand working, eyes on yours, delight and tenderness braided together. Then, finally, she tips her wrist just so and feels you break beautifully around the adjustment, trembling, eyes blown wide like a night sky.

Cate slows her touch, smoothing you down, kissing you through it until the shivers settle into shyness again—until you laugh, breathless, overwhelmed, shining. Cate presses her forehead to yours and breathes with you until you’re both steady.

And then Cate sits back a little, gaze cutting downward, considering. The hunger hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, it’s sharpened to a point she could thread a needle with. You follow her look and flush all over again.

“Hey,” Cate says, thumb stroking the little line of hair at your stomach, soft as a secret. “You doing okay?”

You nod, dazed. “I—yeah. More than. You’re—God.” You swallow. “I keep staring at your mouth and thinking I’m going to short-circuit.”

Cate’s smile slowly turns into one of delight. “Good to know the daydreams were accurate.”

You bite back another laugh, then fail. It breaks out of you anyway, breathless and fond. “They were…underfunded.”

“Then let’s fund them properly,” Cate says, and the line would be ridiculous out of anyone else’s mouth. From her, it’s a promise.

She kisses you once more—savoring, anchoring—then slides down the couch, the picture of unhurried purpose. Her hands settle at your hips, thumbs stroking reassurance where skin meets fabric. She presses a kiss low on your belly, then a second lower, feeling the fine tremor that moves through you like a swallowed lightning strike. When she glances up, you’re watching her like you’re witnessing your first sunrise.

“Okay?” Cate asks, voice gone velvet.

Your answer is a sound Cate will keep—soft, wrecked, reverent. “Please.”

Cate gathers her hair, smiles up the line of your body like she’s about to write a thesis in a language only you two speak, and leans in to put her mouth exactly where her research has been leading all night.

Cate starts with her mouth like it’s a promise and a problem she’s thrilled to solve.

She kisses lower, slow, because the point isn’t to hurry—it’s to watch you come apart in sequence. A kiss to the soft place beside the happy trail. A kiss to the waistband of green cotton, tongue teasing the elastic until your breath stutters. Then Cate peels the briefs down with both hands, careful and greedy at once, and you shiver as the cool air hits you.

“God,” Cate whispers, and it’s not for effect. It’s worship that slipped out. Your cock frees heavy against your thigh—thick, flushed, beading. The kind of generosity that makes a girl’s mouth water and her better judgment pack a bag. Veins stand under satin skin, the head is glossy, already leaking, pulsing with your heartbeat. You twitch when Cate’s breath ghosts over you, a startled jump that travels from hip to knee.

Cate’s smile goes feline. “Hi there,” she says to the length of you, then up at you, eyes bright. “You doing okay?”

You can only nod. Your hands flex on the couch, then—because you’re trying to be brave—one finds Cate’s hair, tentative, reverent, not guiding so much as asking to stay connected. “Y-yeah,” you manage, wrecked and soft. “You’re…God, Cate.”

“Relax.” Cate kisses the inside of your thigh—one, two—and feels the muscle loosen under her mouth. “Let me look.”

She does. She palms you once, deliberate, a slow wrap that measures and praises in the same motion. You jerk again, a helpless little buck into Cate’s hand, then bite your lip like you’re embarrassed at being so responsive. Cate squeezes, thumb gliding over the wet crown to smear slick into shine. Her other hand fits under your balls to cradle their weight, fingers gentle, exploratory, drawing a shocked sound from deep in your chest.

“Sensitive?” Cate asks, already knowing.

“Apparently,” you huff, cheeks pink. “You’re—fuck—very good at this.”

Cate laughs, low and delighted, and then bends and gives the head a warm, unhurried kiss. Your whole body answers—hips lifting a centimeter, breath snapping. Cate licks once, the lightest flick over the slit, tastes salt and sweetness and something purely you, and hums like she found the line she was searching for. Her lips part. She takes the head into her mouth, heat and pressure, just the crown, just a teasing seal.

Your eyes go wide and glassy. “Cate—”

“Mhm,” Cate says around you, which vibrates obscenely, and your fingers clench in her hair without pulling. Cate relaxes her jaw and slides down another inch, tongue cupping the underside, letting spit and gravity help. She draws back—slow, shiny—and watches a bead of pre gather and spill. She chases it with her mouth, tongue stroking the slit, and you choke on a sound that’s almost a laugh and almost a prayer.

“Eyes on me,” Cate murmurs, hand firm at your hip to settle you.

You obey. Of course you do. You can’t stop watching anyway, the fixation is written all over you—pupils pinned to the gloss of Cate’s lips, the startled awe every time Cate’s mouth stretches around you again. You track the way Cate breathes through her nose, the delicate flare, the way her throat works as she takes another inch, then another. You keep whispering nonsense—Cate, oh God, you’re—Jesus, that’s—please—and Cate devours every syllable like sugar.

Cate sets a rhythm with her mouth and hand, slow and ruinous. Her fist at the base twists subtly on the upstroke, thumb stroking the thick vein, her mouth seals and slides down to meet it, heat and suction and tongue in a pattern that feels inevitable once you’re inside it. When you twitch, Cate moans, low and shameless, like the weight on her tongue is everything she’s been craving all week. The sound ricochets through your body. You jolt and shudder, throat bobbing, eyes fluttering.

“Good girl,” Cate says when she pulls off to breathe, spit webbing from lip to crown. “You taste so good.”

You actually whine, a small, ruined sound, and then laugh at yourself, shaking. “You—oh my God—you can’t just—I’m gonna—”

“Shh.” Cate kisses the slick head again, then licks a broad stripe from base to tip, luxuriating in the way you shiver at the long, wet drag. “We’ll get there when I say.” She sucks one of the sensitive spots she found with her hand—the spot on the right side where the vein rises—and your hips jump as if yanked. Cate pins them gently with her forearm, not stopping, letting the whine play out in the back of your throat.

Cate goes deeper the next time, patient and precise. She opens her jaw, softens her tongue, breathes through her nose and slides down, down, until she feels the press at the back of her throat. Her hand at the base tightens to keep control of the depth. She holds there, eyes up, and swallows carefully. The squeeze ripples around the head, you swear, voice breaking, one hand flying to cover your own eyes like you can’t stand what you’re seeing.

“No hiding,” Cate says when she eases off, voice roughened in a way that makes you shiver. She curls her fingers around your wrist and pulls your hand down so she can see the wreck she’s making. “Let me see your face.”

You give it—flushed, astonished, so gone it hurts. “Cate, I—fuck—you’re going to kill me.”

“Good.” Cate grins and slides down again.

She builds heat the way she builds an argument—layered, relentless, too logical to escape. Mouth down, hand up. Twist, swallow, seal. She breaks only to breathe and to spit—messy, gorgeous strings that make everything slicker, easier, filthier—and to mouth at the shaft, to lick the thick root, to drag her tongue over the seam beneath, to suck each ball in turn until your head knocks against the cushion and a helpless fuck spills out, high and startled.

“Please,” you manage, wrecked and breathless, hips trying to keep still and failing in tiny, pleading motions. “Cate, I’m—oh God—please—”

Cate pulls off with a soft pop and strokes you tight, mouth hovering a breath away, lips shining. “What do you want?”

“I want—” Your gaze jerks between Cate’s eyes and her mouth like you’re drunk on both. “I want your mouth. I want to—God—watch you take it and not be a complete animal about it.”

Cate’s laugh is sinful. “Disaster. You’re allowed to be an animal.” She kisses the tip, tastes another spill. “But you can be my polite animal.”

Your answering groan is half arousal, half mortification. “You’re mean.”

“And you like it.” Cate’s tone is silk and certainty. She tightens her grip at the base and sinks back down, faster now, letting the rhythm turn hungry. Her free hand slides up to your stomach—petting the little trail, feeling the muscles jump—then lower to cup and roll, thumb circling, a ridiculous kindness. Your mouth falls open. Your eyes go unfocused and glassy and then sharpen again to fixate on Cate swallowing you, on the way her lips stretch, on the hollow of her cheeks.

“Your mouth,” you say, barely audible. “I—think about it all the time—how soft, how—fuck—how it would feel—”

Cate hums hard around you, pleased, and watches you stutter like someone cut the power and plugged you back in. She pulls back until only the head is in her mouth, tongue teasing, hand working, then slides down again in one smooth take that makes you gasp her name like a profanity.

“Cate—”

“Uh-uh,” Cate murmurs without lifting, fingers tightening. She wants the plea to build properly. She wants to feel you climb the edge, toes curling, careful brain dissolving into instinct under Cate’s hands. She wants to be the last thing you think when thought becomes impossible.

Your hips start to find a rhythm against her mouth without meaning to. Cate lets you, keeps a firm brace so it stays controlled, so you can fuck just the shallow of her throat. It’s messy now—spit slicking her fist, spit shining down the length, Cate’s chin wet, the obscene, wet sounds of pleasure turning the dorm room into something private and feral. Cate moans again—because she can’t not—and the vibration unravels something in your belly you’ve been trying to hold.

“I’m close,” you choke, panicked and grateful. “Cate—please, I’m—oh God—”

Cate doesn’t make you ask twice. “Give it to me,” she says, mouth slick against the head, voice so sure and tender your eyes go wet for a second. “Look at me and cum, good girl.”

Your whole body bows. The words hit whatever switch Cate’s hands have been reaching for. Your pupils are blown black, fixation zeroed to a single point: Cate’s lips sealing and sliding, Cate’s tongue flattening, Cate swallowing like this is what she’d been hungry for all along. Cate strokes fast and tight at the base, sucks hard around the crown, and you tip with a shattered sound, hips jerking despite yourself, spilling hot and thick into Cate’s mouth.

Cate takes it with a soft, greedy hum, hand milking you through each pulse, not flinching when the second twitch makes you punch a breathless, apologetic “sorry” into the air. Cate shakes her head minutely: don’t be. She swallows again, slow, savoring, and then eases back to lick you clean—one last thorough sweep along the underside, a final kiss to the head that makes you shudder and laugh at the same time.

Cate’s hand slows to idle comfort. She tucks you back into the green, pulls the waistband up with fussy care, and then climbs back up your body, kissing a path: hipbone, belly, sternum, mouth.

You meet the kiss like you’re starving for it, like your mouth forgot how to kiss and then remembered in a rush who it belongs to. You taste yourself and Cate and something sweeter beneath, and it makes something tender crack open in your chest. When you finally come up for air, you're smiling like an idiot—dazed, bright, a little overwhelmed.

“You—” You swallow, breath still unsteady. “You’re unreal.”

Cate strokes sweaty hair off your forehead and looks privately proud of the ruin she’s made. “Empirically real,” she says, pleased. “Hypothesis confirmed, data collected, peer review pending.”

You laugh, helpless and adoring. “I’m going to file a complaint with the ethics board.”

“For what?” Cate asks, kissing the corner of your mouth.

“Weaponizing your mouth,” you mutter, blush rising again. “And, uh…excessive use of ‘good girl.’”

Cate smiles slow and wicked, thumb tracing the damp curve of your lower lip. “Oh, baby. I’m just getting started.” She kisses you again—soft, then not. “And you were perfect.”

Your eyes flutter, that word landing somewhere deep. You press your forehead to Cate’s, breath syncing, the world narrowing back to citrus and heat and the hum of the projector. “Yeah?” You ask, small.

Cate answers against your mouth. “Yeah.” She cups your jaw, thumbs gentle. “You listened so well. You watched me like you promised. You made the prettiest sounds. I could do that to you again just to hear the next set.”

You groan and laugh all at once. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

Cate grins, smug and fond. “Not a threat. A forecast.” She nips your lip, then settles close, palm warm over the soft belly she’d adored, thumb idly stroking that little line of hair like it’s a private signature.

On the projector, starfields keep drifting by, oblivious. On the couch, Cate smooths your bangs and watches your blush fade by degrees, satisfaction rolling through you like a tide. You watch Cate’s mouth like it’s still around you, like it will be again, and think—with that simple, annihilating sincerity Cate keeps earning—I could daydream about this forever.

You make it to the credits—barely. Cate had spent the last five minutes “rewinding” a single kiss over and over with her mouth, and your brain had dissolved into the soft hum of the projector and the feel of Cate’s palm warming the skin just below your belly button.

“Last thing,” Cate murmured as she popped your button back open with a wicked little smile. Her lipstick was a little smudged, her eyes were unholy. “For my notes.”

You blinked, still floating. “Notes?”

“Scale.” Cate tipped her head, smiling like a sin. “You know how the internet puts bananas next to things to prove their size?”

“That’s…not a sentence I expected to hear tonight,” you said weakly, and then your throat went dry because Cate eased off the couch and sank to her knees between your legs, guiding them wider with gentle hands. She tipped her head, suggesting. “Wait. You mean—”

“Photographic evidence,” Cate said, sweet as sugar, conspiratorially low. “Only if you want. You take it on your phone. Then text it to me.” She pitched her voice up half a note, mocking herself: “For research.”

It shouldn’t have lit you up the way it did. But something about Cate being both generous and shameless—about handing you control and then kneeling there looking like trouble under oath—fried whatever circuits were left. “O-okay,” you said, and your hands shook only a little as you retrieved your phone.

Cate stretched her neck long, chin lifted, gold hair brushing your thigh. She nudged your waistband down with ridiculous tenderness, hummed at the sight, and settled with her cheek against the shaft, a sly, pretty juxtaposition of glinting rings, gloss-stained mouth, and—Jesus—scale. Then she let her tongue peek out, in a deliberately slutty little pantomime, one hand resting possessively at the base of your cock. She looked up the length of your body with those bright, greedy eyes and batted her lashes as if to ask the question without saying a single word.

You exhaled like you were about to pull a lever in a spaceship. You framed the shot—Cate’s face, your own lap, the obscene truth of rumor—and took it. The shutter click sounded like a chapel bell.

“Good girl,” Cate praised, pleased beyond reason. “Now,” she said, rising with lazy grace until she was in your lap again, cheek against yours, her voice in that little hollow below the ear, “text me so I can label the file ‘catastrophic evidence.’” She read off her number like it was a secret spell.

You sent it. The photo slid away into a new thread with an unnamed contact. Cate plucked your phone from your hands for one more second—typed something, handed it back.

When you looked, the new name at the top of the thread read: Cate (menace)

You laughed so hard you had to bury your face in Cate’s shoulder. Cate kissed you once more for the road and then—unfair, impossible—walked you to the door like you’d only watched a movie together, all soft-voiced goodnights and the watchful glare of the projector pulsing on like an unimpressed chaperone.

“You’ll text me when you get back?” Cate asked, palm smoothing down the front of your hoodie like she couldn’t stop touching you even to say goodbye.

“I’ll—yeah,” you said, already grinning like an idiot. “Yes, ma’am.”

Cate’s smile sharpened. “That’s my girl.”

By noon the next day, the quad hummed with autumn heat, frisbees scything past in lazy arcs. Cate sat cross-legged on the grass with Emma and Marie, a container of strawberries open and already half-finished, her sunglasses doing exactly nothing to hide the glow she was wearing like new jewelry.

“Okay,” Emma said, stabbing a strawberry like it had wronged her. “You’re beaming like you just got proposed to by a PhD program. Spill.”

Marie added, “She’s been smiling at nothing for ten minutes. That’s either love or a stroke.”

Cate pretended to consider. “Maybe both.”

Emma leaned in. “Did you watch any of the movie?”

“We watched,” Cate said primly. Then, unable to help herself, she let the memory pull the corners of her mouth up. “And then we conducted a series of…supplementary experiments.”

Marie’s eyebrows climbed. “On?”

“On whether shy can coexist with filthy,” Cate answered, picking a strawberry hull and tossing it into the grass. “Spoiler: it can. Also on oral fixation as a personality trait. Also on scale.” She popped a berry into her mouth, slow, wicked. “Conclusive results.”

Emma clapped once, delighted. “You did your little science. Proud of you.”

Marie narrowed her eyes. “Scale?”

Cate toyed with her straw. She could play coy, she didn’t. “I have a photograph I will be buried with.”

Emma squealed. “Cate,” she said in a wail of reverence and scandal. “Cate Dunlap, you menace.”

“Consent,” Cate said at once, hands up in saintly surrender. “I merely requested a, mm, comparative sample.”

Marie laughed into her hand. “For…scholarship.”

“Exactly.” Cate let the smile go soft. “She’s…God, she’s adorable. You know that thing when someone is shy and funny and tries so hard to be good at handling you that you want to ruin them and then brag about it to anyone who’ll listen?”

Emma flopped back on her elbows with a groan. “You’re down bad.”

“So bad,” Cate said fervently. “She was all please and okay and then she’d look at my mouth and forget her name. If I’d given her a pop quiz on her own major she would’ve misspelled her name.”

Marie, trying and failing not to grin: “And?”

“And,” Cate said, savoring their attention like a sunbath, “she’s packing like the rumor says. Generous. Looked even bigger because she’s so polite about it.” She plucked a new berry and bit into it. The juice slicked her lip, she licked it away with purpose. “Green briefs. A very sweet happy trail. I am accepting donations to the Church of Nerds.”

Emma collapsed sideways into Marie’s shoulder, cackling. “I hate you. I hate that you get to be this smug.”

“It’s not smug,” Cate protested, then let the word tilt. “It’s field reporting.”

Marie nudged. “So…are you going all the way next time?”

Cate tipped her head, eyes sliding out of focus just enough that her friends groaned at her. She could still taste last night. The weight of you on her tongue, the way you had watched her like you’d learned a new religion. Cate’s chest ached in a lovely, troublesome way.

“Very likely,” she said, and then allowed herself one (1) sigh. “She makes me want to be both patient and reckless.”

Emma wagged a berry at her. “So what’s the plan, General. You lured her with space wizards. What’s phase two.”

“I’m trying to choose something nerdy and accidentally horny,” Cate said, serious as a committee. “Blade Runner 2049 is moody and has the hologram girlfriend—horny-adjacent. The Mummy is a bisexual awakening in a bottle. The Matrix has the latex and philosophy, but then we might talk about free will all night and never get her pants off, which would be devastating for the scientific community. Me, especially.”

“Dune,” Marie offered. “Nerdy, desert thirst, people whispering intensely.”

“Desert thirst is a brand,” Emma agreed. “Also: Annihilation, but that’s like horny in a fatalist way.”

Cate considered. “Too existential. I want her to put her hands on me and forget English, not contemplate the self as a shimmer.”

“The Mummy,” Marie said with finality. “Brendan Fraser’s forearms. Rachel Weisz saying ‘I am a librarian’ with her whole chest. Horny-nostalgic nerd bait.”

Cate pointed. “Sold.”

Emma leaned forward, conspiratorial. “Text her right now and tell her you found a cursed artifact and need help desecrating it.”

Marie made a face. “Absolutely not.”

Cate smirked, already pulling out her phone. “No cursed artifacts before lunch.” She typed: Do you believe in archaeology as foreplay? Considering a Mummy night. I’ll supply the library card and the curses. You bring your good manners. She watched the dots appear, dissolve, return—then tucked the phone face-down on the blanket like a good girl and pretended not to care.

“You’re impossible,” Emma said fondly.

“True,” Cate said, then—because she was not made of stone—picked the phone back up when it buzzed.

YOU: Yes. Also oh my god yes. When?

Cate bit back a grin so big it would’ve broken her face. Saturday? 8. I’ll provide desert hydration.

YOU: I’ll bring offerings to the librarian gods. Also, not to be weird, but…I can’t stop thinking about your mouth. I’m trying to study and it’s not working.

Cate’s heart did something foolish and sweet. Tragic. Come let me ruin your studying later. She sent a second text, meaner: Picture still safe in your care?

YOU: Absolutely not. I’ve looked at it approximately a hundred times this morning. I’m going to fail.

Cate laughed out loud. Emma and Marie exchanged faces. “She’s besotted,” Cate said, delighted. “I’m going to go insane.”

“You already did,” Emma said. “Congrats.”

Across campus, you’d been sitting on the edge of your bed in the same hoodie and a pair of sweat shorts for a nontrivial amount of time, staring down at your phone like it was scrying a future where you didn’t make a fool of yourself. The photo sat in her camera roll like a tiny sun. You kept opening it, closing it, opening it, then getting lost in the memory of Cate’s cheek against your cock, the gloss on her mouth, the way Cate had made the most indecent thing on your camera roll feel like a prayer.

Luke barged in, stopped dead, and waved a hand in front of your face. “Earth to Hobbit. We have class in six.”

You blinked up slowly. “Hm?”

“Hm?” Luke echoed, because he was rude. He glanced at the screen and then clapped his hands and pointed at the door. “Up. Shoes. Backpack. Stop staring at your own—oh my God.” His face cracked into a grin. “Is that a—did you—did she—”

You slapped the phone to your chest like a Victorian maiden. “It’s for research.”

Luke’s laugh was a weapon. “I’m so proud of you I could cry.” He made a grab for the phone, you dodged and glared, which would’ve been more effective if your ears weren’t pink.

“It’s not for you,” you said, mortified and glowing. “It’s for our files.”

“That’s worse,” Luke said, wiping his eyes dramatically. “Okay, Bambi, we’re going to walk and breathe and talk about literally anything else for twenty minutes so your brain doesn’t liquefy. Shoes.” He hauled you up by the wrist, then softened when you swayed slightly, smiling despite himself. “She really got you, huh.”

You made a little shape with your hands like you were forming a heart and then crushed it like a soda can. “She really got me.”

You made it halfway across campus before you tripped over a crack in the sidewalk because Cate had texted and your feet forgot how to function. Luke set a hand on the back of your neck and steered. “Eyes up, dork. Read it to me so it leaves your head.”

You obeyed because he’d kept you alive this long. “She wants to watch The Mummy.”

Luke groaned, delighted. “Oh, she’s trying to kill you.”

“She said ‘archaeology as foreplay,’” you reported, dazed, and then made a small dying sound. “She says things like that while asking me what time works.”

“Of course she does,” Luke said. “She’s a menace with a bow on top.”

You texted back, pocketed the phone and didn’t immediately take it back out, which was a feat of willpower and also maybe proof that Luke was contagious.

When you got to the arts building, you walked directly past the door.

Luke hooked two fingers in your hood and reeled you back. “Inside, disaster.”

“I can’t stop thinking about her mouth,” you confessed in a rush, cheeks warm. “It’s like…my brain keeps overlaying it on everything? Like a HUD. The professor’s talking and I’m nodding and it’s just…lips.”

“Gross,” Luke said, approving. He held the door with one foot. “Say one normal thing before we go in.”

“She said my demo made her smile,” you offered, desperate and pink at the ears. “Which apparently means I impressed her.”

“Perfect,” Luke said. “Hang onto that, because you’re about to be quizzed and you can’t answer ‘Cate’s mouth.’”

You made a strangled noise, laughed, and let yourself be pulled into the classroom. For the next hour you tried very hard to think about class and failed spectacularly because your palms remembered the feel of Cate’s hair and your tongue remembered the weight of Cate’s praise and your phone in your pocket felt like a live wire.

Halfway through, you snuck a glance: a new text, Cate again.

Quit thinking about my mouth in class, I can feel it all the way over here. Work hard, menace.

You covered your grin with the back of your hand. Under the desk, your leg bounced like it had its own motor. Luke watched the bounce, rolled his eyes, and slid over a sheet of scratch paper on which he’d drawn, in tiny block letters: BREATHE.

You breathed. You daydreamed. You waited for Saturday like the week was a test you suddenly, miraculously wanted to take.

Back on the quad, Emma reached to steal the last strawberry and Cate smacked her hand away on principle. Marie shaded her eyes and squinted. “So. You’re going to invite your shy nerd over to worship at the shrine of Brendan and Rachel and seduce her with 90s bisexual lighting.”

“That is the plan,” Cate said, and allowed herself, just for a second, to drift—to picture the way you would look the moment the library scene started, the exact shape your blush would take when Cate slid her hand under the hem of your shirt again, how very polite you’d try to be about losing every last scrap of your composure.

Emma nudged her knee. “Hey. Don’t float too far.”

Cate blinked back into the warmth and the grass and her friends’ faces. She smiled, dizzy on it in a way that felt like standing up too fast and loving the head rush. “I won’t.”

“Liar,” Marie said fondly.

“Criminal,” Emma added.

“Scientist,” Cate corrected, sly, and slid her sunglasses back into place. Her phone buzzed, she didn’t even have to check to know who. Somewhere across campus, she pictured you half-listening to a lecture, pretending not to stare at a phone screen, pretending not to press your thumb to the corner of your mouth like you could still taste Cate there.

Saturday couldn’t come fast enough—for research. For worship. For the simple, catastrophic pleasure of being wanted by a girl who looked at her like gravity had finally found something worth working for.

Cate opens the door already smiling, ready to make a quip about desert curses—and forgets the English language for a second because you’re standing there in a hoodie and gray sweatpants.

Unfair. Flag on the play. Five yards for indecent suggestion.

The sweats sit low on your hips, soft and slung, and even though you’re soft (for the moment), the outline is…not theoretical. It’s a polite, devastating rumor waving hello.

“Hi,” you say, grinning like you know exactly what you’ve done.

“Oh,” Cate says, deliciously rude for once. “So this is a crime...”

You look down, fake-innocent. “What, these? Laundry day.” Then you tip your head, mouth tugging wicked. “Should I go change?”

“Don’t you dare,” Cate says too fast, then dignifies herself by stepping back. “Offerings?”

You lift a tote: good popcorn, electrolyte packets, and—because you’re a menace with manners—a library card you must have made on your laptop, laminated, with Librarian Gods—Admit One in tiny caps. Cate laughs helplessly and drags you in by the hoodie strings, kissing you in the doorway like she’s cashing a check.

You do the basics—the projector, the snacks, the pillow fluffing—and then The Mummy rolls and the room goes gold. Cate’s in a black tank and a soft skirt that skims mid-thigh, hair pinned up in something lazy and dangerous. She drapes a blanket over both of you, leans in, and vows to behave for at least twenty minutes.

You make it fourteen.

Because somewhere after the fourteen minute mark, Cate feels the shift: your thigh presses firmer, your palm—warm, callused where it counts—skims over Cate’s knee and up, a cautious question that doesn’t quite stop at the hem. Cate glances over and finds the shy version of that smug grin, the one that asks may I while already doing it, because maybe this nerd has a little menace in her after all.

Cate arches one brow. “Are you seducing me during an educational film?”

“Trying to be a good student,” you say softly, sliding your hand another inch, thumb finding the inside of Cate’s thigh and stroking there like it’s a secret you’ve been dying to tell. “Also trying not to think about your mouth and failing.”

Cate’s pulse quickens. She could drag this out. She could make a speech about focus and foreplay. She picks a different lesson. She nudges her knees apart under the blanket.

Your breath hitches. “Okay?” You ask, even though Cate’s body is doing the answering for her.

Cate hums approval, hand finding the back of your neck—gentle anchor, silent yes. “Show me what you studied.”

You lean in and kiss her, slow and intent, and while Cate is trying to behave, you shift, sink, and then—in a move Cate will replay with unholy fondness for weeks—duck under the blanket like a thief.

“Um,” Cate says, already smiling too hard to sell the admonishment. “Movie?”

From beneath the blanket, muffled and earnest: “Field trip.”

Cate’s laugh breaks into a gasp when your warm mouth presses to the inside of her knee and then higher. The blanket rumples and settles with your shoulders. Your hands turn reverent immediately, careful and sure: one smoothing up the outside of Cate’s thigh, the other curving under to lift and open her, to hold her exactly where you want her. Cate wants to see—she always wants to see—so she catches the edge of the blanket and tugs it down enough to make a little tent of privacy.

Your hair is already a mess from static, cheeks a soft pink, eyes wrecked with focus. “I thought I’d return the favor,” you say, voice low and frayed, and then you don't wait for permission you already have. You nose along the seam of Cate’s panties like you’re cataloguing scent, breath hot, then kiss there—right over the damp spot—so sweetly Cate’s head tips back on instinct.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Cate murmurs, fond and ruined at once. “You are going to be the death of me.”

You look up at her from under your lashes, shy and starving. “Promise?”

Cate’s answering noise is embarrassing.

The first lick is tentative—mapping the shape of her cunt through fabric. The second is bolder, a slow press of tongue that makes Cate’s thighs shiver and part wider. You hum like a pleased animal and slide your fingers under the edge of the panties, pulling them aside with the kind of careful eagerness that makes Cate’s chest ache. Cool air, then warm mouth: you kiss her directly now, open and wet, and Cate hears her own breath grow ragged, hears the movie turn to static in the corners of her head.

“Good girl,” Cate praises, hand threading into your hair to hold you there, not pushing, just claiming. “Use your tongue. Slow.”

You obey instantly—of course you do—drawing one long, unhurried stroke from entrance to clit, tasting, learning. You pause to press a kiss just where Cate is slickest, then circle the clit with a barely there touch that makes Cate swear softly and rock up into it. You moan like the praise tastes good, and the vibration—Jesus. Cate’s fingers tighten in your hair.

“Eyes on me,” Cate says, because she’s greedy for that image, and you lift your gaze, mouth still working. The look nearly undoes Cate by itself: devoted, wrecked, a little desperate to please. Cate tugs her skirt higher with her free hand so she can watch you lick her again—slow, then faster, then with a little flick at the top that makes heat spear low and bright.

“That’s it,” Cate breathes. “Just like that.”

You settle into a rhythm, finding Cate’s cadence by feel. You flatten your tongue and drag, you point and circle, you learn the exact angle that makes Cate’s thighs tremble. Your hand slides up and you slip two fingers along the slick heat, teases, presses. Cate’s breath hitches, she nods, and you work one finger inside, careful, slow, palm up, searching for the place that will make Cate grab at the couch.

You find it. Cate’s gasp tells you that you have. You curl, stroke, curl again, timing it to the soft suction at Cate’s clit, and the combination turns Cate boneless. Cate hears herself say yes like a confession, she hears the projector hum, she hears the mini-fridge in the corner kick on.

“Look at you,” Cate manages, voice gone rough. “My polite animal.”

Your cheeks go hotter. You sink another finger—patient pressure, no rush—and when Cate’s body opens around it with a shiver, you make a helpless noise and redouble your devotion. Your mouth gets a little messier now, wetter, needier. You suck softly, then firmer, tongue flicking a little hello at the peak before you seal your lips over Cate’s clit. Cate’s hips answer without permission, tiny, urgent rolls that make the blanket slide and the couch creak.

Cate wants to catalog, the part of her that loves notes tries to take inventory—the way your shoulder muscle jumps under her palm, the way her own pulse stutters when you swallow, the dim outline of gray sweats tenting a little even while you eat her out, wholly focused, selfless and greedy at once. But the catalog dissolves. Pleasure steals language. Cate breathes through it and lets herself be handled.

“Good girl,” she says again, and the praise makes your eyes darken. Cate can feel you smile against her, just for a second, before you close your mouth around her again and suck her clit into the warmth of your mouth.

Cate breaks. Not loudly—beautifully. Body tightening around your fingers, thighs closing gently around your ears, a sound that is halfway between a laugh and a moan because of course the world’s shyest menace would be this good at worship. You lick her through it, steady and sure, mouth never leaving her, fingers gentled to a slow thrust that spreads the heat out until Cate is smiling helplessly and petting your hair like you’ve just done the bravest thing anyone has done this week.

When Cate breathes enough to think, she tugs the blanket fully down. You blink up, flushed and slick-lipped, hair wrecked, gray cotton absolutely giving away that you’re as ruined as Cate feels. Cate cups your cheek, thumb gliding over damp, swollen lips. You kiss the pad of her thumb like it’s reflex, like you can’t help it.

“What are you doing,” Cate murmurs, the faux-scold soft as a kiss itself.

“Returning the favor,” you say, sheepish and proud and so earnest it hurts. “And maybe…proving I can be a menace, too.”

Cate laughs, greedy with fondness, and pulls you up, pulls you into a kiss that is all thanks and claim and promise. She tastes herself on your tongue and deepens it, slow and filthy. You make a small sound and settle over her, the line of your body fitting like you’ve been doing this together for months.

“You,” Cate says against your lips, “are going to ruin me.”

“Okay,” you whisper, dizzy with it. “If that’s…okay.”

“God, yes,” Cate says, and then, because she can’t help herself and because you earned it, she adds, low against your mouth, “That was perfect. My good girl.”

You shiver like Cate tightened a hand around your spine. You hide your face in Cate’s neck and laugh, breathless. In the movie, the desert turns to a wall of sand and Brendan Fraser yells. In Cate’s lap, shy turns smug and then back to shy again in one heartbeat.

Cate strokes down your back, leisurely, until her hand inevitably finds the waistband of the gray sweats. She palms over the outline there, a light press that makes you gasp into her throat.

“Still unfair,” Cate says, sweet and dangerous. “Stay after the credits and I’ll decide an appropriate sentence.”

You lift your head, eyes bright and undone. “Yes, ma’am.”

Cate kisses that grin right off you, tucks the blanket back around your bodies, and lets the movie play to an audience of two people who are trying very hard not to make it background noise. Every few minutes she rewards you with a slow stroke through gray cotton, and every time, you look at Cate like gravity finally found something worth orbiting.

The movie is sprinting toward its big, sandy finale—booby traps and chanting and a lot of heroic shouting—when Cate decides she’s had enough of pretending to be a historian.

She scoots forward under the blanket, one hand on the back of the couch, and then…backs up. Slow. Deliberate. Her ass finds your thighs, her shoulder blades settle against your chest, the soft weight of her hair brushes your jaw. The couch sighs. You do, too.

“Educational film,” Cate murmurs, deadpan.

“Mhm.” Your voice lands low, startled by how close it is to Cate’s ear. “Studying very hard.”

“Prove it.”

You don't rush. That’s something Cate’s already learned about you: the more you want, the more careful you get. Hands that could be greedy find the hem of Cate’s tank and pause there, thumbs rubbing the smallest circle against ribs. Cate feels the question and answers without being asked, a long, satisfied exhale that tips her head back into your shoulder. Permission, written in the cadence of her breathing.

You bow to the arc of Cate’s neck. The kiss placed there is almost reverent, the second one has teeth. Cate smiles at the ceiling. “Menace.”

“You like me this way,” you say, a little shocked to hear it out loud, which makes it even better.

Cate pushes back more firmly, the blanket shifting with your bodies, the movie’s gold light throwing a crown across the curve of her shoulder. Your hands slide over her waist—one flattening beneath the soft slope of her stomach, the other bracing at her hip—and the little pull you give turns Cate boneless in an instant. It’s not obscene, it’s honest. It says I want you closer and I’m allowed to ask.

Cate lets out a pleased sound she doesn’t bother disguising. The sound lands in you like a match in tinder. You breathe like you’ve been running and nuzzle once more beneath Cate’s ear. “Okay?”

Cate nods, slow. “Keep going.”

Gray cotton and the world’s most dangerous black skirt make low friction enemies of each other. Each subtle rock back sends a warm, unmistakable answer through fabric. Even at rest, you give yourself away. Cate swallows, amused at how your body can’t hide its happiness, then deliberately settles so that the press is undeniable.

“Unfair,” she whispers.

Your laugh is a quiet break in your chest. “You said not to change.”

“And I was right,” Cate decides, voice gone sweet. “Hands.”

You slide one beneath the hem of the tank, palm spreading—heat and certainty—over the smooth plane of Cate’s stomach. The other settles at her thigh and nudges gently, a wordless command that makes Cate open for you without thinking. The blanket tent is suddenly its own small weather system: warmer, close, the smell of popcorn and laundry and Cate’s bright, citrus perfume curling together.

Onscreen, a wall of sand howls. On the couch, the blanket falls over your legs as Cate draws it higher one-handed, to better hide the way she’s rocking back. You catch the rhythm, meeting it with a tiny roll of your hips, careful, careful, careful, like you’re coaxing a skittish thing to take food from your palm.

“Good student,” Cate says, nearly laughing at how earnest she sounds in praise.

“Trying to pass the class,” you admit, mouth at her jaw. Cate feels the smile in the words and it makes her stomach tilt.

You trade quiet for a while—breath and the rustle of fabric and the soft, indecent creak of the couch. When you finally slide a hand even lower, fingertips skimming the arch of Cate’s thigh beneath the skirt’s hem, Cate’s answer is instant. Her shoulders lift, then soften. One hand reaches back without thinking and finds the nape of your neck, anchor and approval in one small press of nails.

“Here?” You ask, the question a warm fog at Cate’s ear.

“Exactly there,” Cate says.

Time turns bright and narrow. The movie becomes a lantern in a distant room, the blanket a curtain. Cate lets herself ride the careful, building line of sensation, and you—God bless that shy, stubborn heart—keep checking in with every shift, every new little risk, never breaking that quiet, wordless conversation of touch. When Cate turns her head, searching, you find her mouth easily. The kiss is unhurried and deliberate, it says yes, it says now, it says this.

“Cate,” you murmur when you finally come up for air, voice gone hoarse with wanting, “I—tell me if you need me to slow down.”

“I need you to keep going,” Cate says, and there’s no flippancy left. Just clarity, warm and bright. She twists in your lap, to face you, to ruin you with a look. The blanket drags, your breath catches. Cate smiles like she’s being given all the answers for an exam. “Take me to bed.”

A beat. You blink, stunned, then grin like you’ve just been awarded a medal by the sun. “Yes, ma’am.”

Together you tumble the short distance with surprising grace, the way people do when they’ve already memorized the other’s gravity. The bedroom is small and bright and sweet—plants on the sill, a stack of dog-eared paperbacks, the pale ghost of a highlighter stain on the duvet. Cate backs up until the mattress catches the backs of her knees. “Come here,” she says, like it’s the easiest sentence she’s ever said.

She meets you halfway, taking your mouth with a softness that steals air. The urgency doesn’t go away, it refines. Layers of fabric become the only problem either of you have ever had. Hoodies end up somewhere on the floor with half-laughed apologies, the soft gray of those unfair sweatpants slides down, and Cate kisses the corner of your smile just because she can. Your hands, respectful to the point of torment, pause before they touch bare skin. Cate solves the problem by taking them in hers and setting them where she wants them most.

You both talk as you go. Not banter—touchstones.

“Okay?” You ask again, even as your eyes darken with the want Cate keeps stoking.

Cate nods, anchored by the steadiness in you. “Yes.”

“Tell me if—”

“I will.”

“You’ll—”

“I promise.”

Trust slots into place like the last piece of a map. The rest of it is a matter of following the directions you’ve both had in your hands all night.

When it turns from teasing to certain—when you both stop pretending you’re two people in a room and become the one thing your bodies have been angling toward since the first kiss on the couch—Cate’s laugh breaks into something softer and far less articulate. Your forehead lowers to hers. “Cate,” you say, as if that can hold you both steady.

“Look at me,” Cate murmurs, and you do, eyes blown open and bright, every line in your face a promise to be careful even as careful gives way to how much you both want. The first long, perfect slide turns the room into white noise. Cate clutches at your shoulder and you make a sound against her cheek that Cate feels all the way down her spine.

“God,” you breathe, wrecked and almost relieved, “you—”

“I know,” Cate says, because she does. She cups your face in both hands and kisses you until you’re moving without thinking, until the rhythm finds you both and stays.

It isn’t frantic. It’s not slow, either. It’s the kind of urgency that comes from patience finally rewarded—steady and sure, hands everywhere, mouths that won’t stay apart for more than a heartbeat. You move like someone who can’t stop checking the map, Cate keeps saying yes like she’s pressing a stamp into wax. When Cate tips her hips, asking for more, you learn the lesson instantly. When your breath stutters, Cate soothes you and pulls you in closer and closer, the way you do when home is an arm’s length away.

“Good girl,” Cate whispers once, helpless at the way it changes your entire body—how your shoulders set, how your breath catches, how gentleness turns into a kind of fierce devotion. You answer by holding her just a little tighter, by listening with more than your hands.

Neither of you hurry the ending. You let it come on its own feet—building, cresting, pulling you both under. Cate warns you with a broken little laugh that isn’t really a warning at all, and you say “I’m right here” into her mouth and stay there, exactly where Cate needs you, through every bright, shaking moment. When you follow—surprised, almost, by how thoroughly Cate takes you under with her—Cate is already waiting, already there, already steady in the way that makes the landing feel like something sacred.

After, the world takes a long time to filter back in. Your breathing returns first, then the brush of the plant leaves against the window in the breeze, then the ridiculous hum of the ancient mini-fridge in the corner. Cate finds she’s smiling at nothing, which is unlike her and not unpleasant.

You, flat on your back beside her, blink at the ceiling like a planet just came into view. “I think I saw God,” you say, dazed and delighted.

“You saw Brendan Fraser,” Cate corrects, smug and soft, and props herself on an elbow to look down at you properly. Hair a wreck. Cheeks warm. Lips pink and swollen from kissing. It’s catastrophically endearing. “And then you saw me.”

You turn your head and look like that might actually be true. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Cate echoes, and leans down to kiss you again just because she can. The kiss goes lazy and grateful. Your hand finds the small of Cate’s back and settles there like it’s been waiting its whole life to do that very small, quiet thing.

After a while, Cate laughs softly and taps the tip of your nose. “For the record, archaeology is excellent foreplay.”

“Peer-reviewed,” you say, giggling into her shoulder, which is going to be a problem for Cate’s heart, long-term. “I brought electrolytes,” you remember suddenly, lifting your head like you’re worried Cate will dock you points.

Cate kisses your cheek for the attempt. “You’re hired.” She lets herself sink back into the pillow, an arm draped over your stomach, proprietary and pleased. “Stay. We can make out through the credits and then figure out if dessert is more movie or less clothing.”

You pretend to think very hard. “I’m a fan of all of your research proposals.”

“Good answer,” Cate says, and nuzzles into the skin just below your jaw, contentment and hunger braided into something sustainable. Outside, the campus has started to soften toward evening. Inside, the little room holds your shared laughter and the quiet aftershocks of your intimacy.

On the forgotten projector, the heroes are probably riding off into the sunset. In here, Cate traces idle patterns on your ribs, already planning the debrief for Emma and Marie—nerdy and horny accomplished—and you study the ceiling with a smile that won’t stop happening to you and think, happily doomed, that you’ll never again hear the words ancient curse without tasting Cate’s kiss.

At some point the movie dissolves into credits and then into a blue, idle screen, the projector’s fan a steady hush. Your conversation thins into murmurs and little, lazy kisses that get slower every time you find each other again. Cate’s hand stays on you like it belongs there, and your breathing evens out without your permission, warmth pooling heavily in your limbs. Cate drifts first, mouth still curved as if she fell asleep mid-joke. You follow, half-awake enough to register the weight of Cate’s arm and the soft slide of her hair across your collarbone, not awake enough to do anything but hold on.

Sometime before dawn, you blink into the dim and remember, abruptly, that you’re a guest in Cate Dunlap’s dorm and also a person with exactly one (1) functioning self-preservation instinct. You don't want to overstay. You don't want to be the girl who wakes Cate by accident, all elbows and apologies, and turns something perfect into something awkward. So you move like a thief with good manners: careful inches, a breath held, the slow extraction of your arm from under Cate’s cheek. Cate makes a small, sleepy sound and burrows into the pillow instead, still warm, still smiling. You freeze, watch her for a beat like you’re memorizing a painting, then lean down and press a gentle kiss to Cate’s temple.

“Thank you,” you whisper, ridiculous and sincere, and slip out.

Cate wakes like a girl who fell asleep in a sunbeam and then tried to run a marathon in her sleep—warm, wrung out, and sore in the very best ways. Her thighs feel used in that delicious, complaining way that makes putting both feet on the floor a negotiation. The inside of one knee bears the ghost of a kiss, there’s a bright ache low in her belly that flares when she stretches.

On her nightstand, her phone is face-down like it’s trying to behave. Cate flips it over anyway and gets hit with the painfully polite proof that you left without waking her.

YOU: Sorry I slipped out. You were asleep and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. Thank you for…everything.

YOU: Also you look so cute when you’re asleep and I almost didn’t survive that.

YOU: Text me when you’re up? No rush. Just…hi :)

Cate smiles into her pillow like a teenager. She scrolls once more, because she’s shameless, to the labeled file she definitely did not name Catastrophic Evidence. The photo is still there, sinful and silly and somehow weirdly tender—her cheek against your cock, the scale of the rumor no longer rumor. She locks her phone before she can get sentimental about an image that should be illegal in three countries and gets moving.

By the time she crosses the quad to meet Emma and Marie, she’s put on sunglasses and a very smug cardigan. She is also, it must be said, walking with a single degree of extra care that makes Emma sit up and point with glee.

“Oh my God,” Emma crows. “You’re sore.”

Cate lowers herself to the blanket like it’s a rite, tries (fails) not to grin. “I am gloriously inconvenienced by my own choices.”

Marie bites back a smile and offers a coffee. “Field report?”

Cate accepts the coffee and the premise. “Phase Two of the research initiative was a resounding success. The Mummy: nerdy and horny. Gray sweatpants: war crime. Nerd: shy menace with perfect manners and absolutely devastating ethics.”

Emma kicks her ankle. “Wait, devastating ethics?”

Cate sighs, helplessly pleased. “She kept checking in. The whole time. Like she was worried she’d break me and then…” She trails off, remembering the way that careful turned to hungry in slow, gorgeous increments. The way your forehead had rested against hers like a promise. “She asked so pretty and then she lost her mind in slow motion. It was—” She searches for a word that isn’t embarrassing and gives up. “God.”

Marie and Emma both burst into delighted laughter. Marie leans in, eyes bright. “So—you went all the way.”

“We went as far as bodies can reasonably go,” Cate says primly, and then the prim cracks. “Yes. We did. She—” Cate’s throat goes warm and traitorous. She takes a quick sip of coffee. “She ruined me very politely.”

Emma puts a hand to her chest, mock-fainting. “Did you die?”

“Briefly,” Cate admits. “Saw Brendan Fraser, saw God, saw stars, saw my ceiling fan in a way that made me consider calling maintenance afterward to thank it for its service.”

Marie grins. “And now you’re walking like a girl who had an excellent evening.”

Cate tilts her head, sly. “I’m also thinking about dinner.”

Emma wheezes. “Of course you are.”

“I am a scholar,” Cate says. She slips an index card out of her bag and lays it on the blanket: Librarian Gods—Admit One, laminated. “From her. An offering.”

Marie presses a hand to her mouth and makes a high, delighted noise. “She made you a prop?”

“She made me a covenant,” Cate says, ridiculous. “She also brought electrolytes in case ‘archaeology as foreplay’ lived up to its name. Which, tragically, it did.”

Emma leans forward, eyes sharp with curiosity and care. “And…you’re okay? Not just sore—okay.”

Cate hears the question under the question and softens. “I’m okay,” she says, honest and warm. “She was…careful. And then not careful in exactly the right ways. And she—” The memory tugs at a smile she can’t stop. “She looked at me like she finally found something worth staying for. It was…a lot. In the best sense.”

Marie squeezes her knee, pleased. “You’re doom-glowing.”

“Shut up,” Cate says, but there’s no heat. She’s sunshine and smirk and the dangerous ease of a woman who got exactly what she wanted and discovered she wants more. “Anyway, I need a follow-up film that’s both nerdy and horny. Blade Runner will make her philosophical, Heat will make her want to talk about camera blocking, The Matrix will derail us into ‘the desert of the real’ and then I’ll have to climb into her lap to shut her up.”

“Problem?” Emma says, innocent.

Cate pretends to think. “Not a problem.”

Marie chews her straw. “Pacific Rim.”

Cate blinks. “Giant robots as foreplay?”

“Drift compatibility,” Marie says. “Two people hooking into each other’s minds to pilot a single body. If that’s not your brand, I don’t know you.”

Cate stares at her, then laughs helplessly. “I hate you for being correct.”

Emma lies back, satisfied. “It’s decided. Giant robots. Horny science.”

Cate opens her mouth to argue, but her phone buzzes. Reflexively, stupidly, she smiles before she reads it.

YOU: Good morning. Do you…want a bagel? For you I will brave the bakery’s morning rush.

Cate texts back: You’re so sweet, thank you. I’m with Emma and Marie by the fountain.

YOU: Copy. I look ridiculous. Don’t be alarmed.

CATE: If you show up in the gray sweatpants, I’ll call campus security.

YOU: Gasp. I would never abuse power so wantonly…probably.

Cate’s smile doubles down into ridiculousness. Emma sees it and groans. “Oh, you’re already gone.”

“Not gone,” Cate says, affecting dignity. “Invested.”

“Doomed,” Marie corrects.

Cate shrugs. “Occupational hazard.”

Across campus, you're sitting on your floor with one sneaker on and one sock in your hand, staring at the wall like the wall said something unforgivable. Luke, who has already cycled through patience, mockery, and breakfast, leans in the doorway chewing his gum like a concerned uncle.

“So,” he says. “How was movie night, and do I need to Lysol the couch?”

Your face does something deeply unscientific. You try to answer and emit a noise somewhere between a squeak and a hymn. Luke’s grin goes predatory.

“Oh ho,” he says. “You had sex.”

You cover your face. “Luke.”

“Did you or did you not put your whole nerdy back into it.”

You peek between your fingers, pink and smiling, and the softness in it almost knocks Luke over. There’s a reverence there that isn’t just post-orgasmic glow. “I think I love her,” you say, stunned at yourself and not taking it back even a little.

Luke blinks. “Is this because she let you nut in her?”

You choke on air. “Can you—please—never say that sentence again.”

Luke flops onto the bed, delighted. “Answer the question.”

You shove at his knee, mortified and grinning in helpless equal measure. “No? Yes? I mean—it was…yes, that happened, and also it was—Luke, she was so careful and so mean in exactly the way I like and she kept saying ‘good girl’ and then she smiled at me afterward like I’d done something impossible and I just—” You run out of words and exhale, laughing at yourself. “I don’t think it’s just the sex.”

Luke sobers a notch, eyes kind. “I know. I’m busting your chops because I love you. And because phrasing it like a caveman will keep you from floating into the rafters and getting eaten by a ceiling fan.”

You wipe at your eyes like a dork and laugh. “She already thanked her ceiling fan for its service.”

“Oh my God, you two deserve each other,” Luke says, sincerely. “Okay. Logistics. Are you going to see her today?”

“She’s on the quad with Emma and Marie,” you say, looking suddenly like a car that just realized it has gas. “I’m going to bring bagels.”

Luke stands and grabs the forgotten sneaker. “I’ll walk you partway so you don’t get hit by a bike while daydreaming about her mouth.”

“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.”

“Don’t you dare gender me,” Luke says, offended. “I’m a saint.”

You laugh, lace the sneaker, grab the paper bag you’ve neurotically re-tied three times, and let Luke tow you into daylight.

You make it halfway to the fountain before Luke peels off toward the arts building. He taps the bag. “Breathe. Don’t propose. Do propose. I don’t know. Text me if you pass out.”

You salute and keep going, heart doing tricks in your chest. From a distance, you see the blanket, the halo of Emma’s hair, Marie’s crossed legs, Cate’s ridiculous sunglasses and the way she sits with her weight on one hip like she invented hips. The sight of Cate is like stepping out of air-conditioning into summer—blunt, sweet, overwhelming.

Cate turns at the sound of your sneakers on the path. The smile that floods her face is so immediate and so unguarded that you actually stumble on nothing. Emma and Marie share a look so smug it should be illegal.

“Hi,” you say, suddenly shy, suddenly eighteen again. You hold up the bag. “I, uh, braved the bakery.”

Cate’s expression goes gentle around the edges, like a soft focus filter you can feel. “Heroic.” She pats the blanket beside her. “Come sit, polite animal.”

You obey without thinking, which is becoming a pattern. You lower yourself carefully, glance once at Emma and Marie—both pretending to be cool, both failing—and then back to Cate, who is not pretending at all. Cate has that smile again: a little dazed, a little feral, unspeakably pleased.

“Hi,” Cate says, softer.

“Hi,” you say back, even softer, and then realize you’re staring and try to say something impressively neutral, like the weather exists. What comes out is: “You look really…happy.”

“I am,” Cate says, as if it’s easy. Then she turns, shameless, and kisses you in front of God and frisbees. Not filthy, but not PG. A hello that tastes like coffee and laughter and last night. Your ears go hot. Emma makes a noise like a kettle, Marie kicks her to keep her from squealing. Cate pulls back, eyes amused. “Apologies. Research follow-up.”

You swallow a grin. “I’m available for longitudinal studies.”

Emma collapses onto her back like a fainting goat. “They’re disgusting.”

Marie props her chin on her hand and studies you with the air of a scientist who likes her results. “So you’re the shy menace.”

You duck your head. “I’m trying.”

“She’s doing very well,” Cate says, and the pride in it turns your bones to liquid. Cate plucks the bag from your hand. “What did you get me?”

“Everything,” you say. “And, um, a cinnamon raisin because I panicked and thought you might secretly have the taste of a grandmother.”

Cate laughs, delighted. “I’m offended and yet touched.” She divvies up bagels with queenly grace, flicking crumbs from her skirt and introduces you properly to Marie and Emma.

“Hi,” you say, wanting to be impressive and landing squarely on earnest. “I’ve heard…good things.”

Emma props herself up on her elbows, eyes glittering. “We’ve heard better.”

“Emma,” Cate warns, amused.

“What,” Emma says, angelic. “I’m just saying you look like a girl who got absolutely decimated by a librarian.”

You make a wounded little noise and hide behind your bagel. Cate pats your knee, radiating fondness. Marie, merciful, changes the subject. “Any plans for the weekend, Shy Menace?”

You look at Cate before answering, which is its own answer. “Uh—robots?” You offer. “Giant ones. Drift compatibility.”

Cate points at Marie without looking away from you. “She said it was the correct choice for us.”

Marie accepts her laurels. “I am occasionally useful.”

Emma takes an enormous bite of bagel. “You’re doomed,” she declares to the group at large, scattering crumbs like confetti. “All of you. Especially her.” She points to you.

You, pink but brave, nod. “Seems right.”

Cate leans into your shoulder, unbothered by the public softness of it. “Tragically,” she says, “I concur.”

You eat. You tease. You arrange robots and pretenses to sit very close in the near future. When Cate shifts and winces the most microscopic wince, your hand is there without thinking, warm at the small of her back in the least performative bit of caretaking imaginable. Emma and Marie watch it happen and exchange a look that says oh, she’s done for and oh, she’s good for her, both.

“Drink water,” you murmur, extra electrolyte packet already in your palm like a magic trick.

Cate stares at it, then up at you, stupid happy. “You’re absurd.”

“You hired me for my absurdity,” you say.

“True,” Cate says. She knocks her knee against yours. “And for your research compliance.”

You hide a grin in your bagel. “Yes, ma’am.”

Marie groans. Emma claps her hands once like a seal. Cate tries to be dignified and cannot stop smiling long enough to pull it off. She gives up and lets herself glow—sore, smug, and already thinking about giant robots and the soft, dangerous truth that’s been circling her ribs since last night.

Doomed? Probably.

Grinning about it in public with a shy menace who keeps remembering to bring water? Absolutely.

[initforthethrill]

sweat equity aka cate turns a professional rivalry into something far more personal tw: girlcock, g!p reader, pilates instructor!cate, gym-rat!reader, rivals to lovers, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, power play, daddy!reader, blowjobs, fingering, vaginal sex, dickriding, multiple orgasms, semi-public sex, etc. 4.8k+ words

Cate Dunlap hated the sound of chalk.

Not the old-school classroom kind—no, that she could forgive, softened by nostalgia and tidy in its dust. She hated the quick, smug clap of lifting chalk off someone’s palms, the way it punctured the air like airborne illness. It floated under the shared hallway like an insult, drifting from the grimy gym next door into her studio’s foyer to mingle with eucalyptus and money. It always arrived before you did, like a warning. Then you followed, tall and annoyingly gorgeous, shoulders damp, jaw set, keys hooked through two fingers like you might also use them to open throats. You left powder fingerprints on the glass door whenever you sauntered in to “borrow” the bathroom or “clarify” a parking policy you knew perfectly well.

Cate had designed the Pilates studio to be a sanctuary. White walls that felt clean, blond wood that looked like sand, reformers lined up with surgical precision. Every strap looped, every spring color-coded and facing the same way. Every lemon wedge at the hydration station cut into a perfect crescent. If you exhaled wrong here, the mirrors made you feel it. If you sneezed, you apologized to the plants.

You sneezed like a thunderclap and never apologized to anything.

On Tuesday, the parking lot was lava. Heat shimmered over the asphalt in wobbly waves while Cate tried to coax a Tesla into a tight spot with two fingers and a whispered prayer. She wore a linen set the color of clean sand and sunglasses she’d bought specifically to look like a woman who never sweat. An elderly client in a silk headscarf watched with confidence from the passenger seat. “You’re a magician, Catherine,” she said, as Cate tucked the car with a final, decisive maneuver and parked with a clean click.

A motorcycle snarled behind her. Cate’s smile cracked.

Here came the key villain of her rustic-luxury romance.

You rolled to a stop across two spaces like you paid property taxes on the lot. Your helmet came off in one smooth motion that felt pornographic if you were vulnerable to forearms, which Cate was not, obviously. Short hair, an almost shaved nape, freckles that made you look like you’d fallen asleep in a sunbeam and the sun had become greedy. Sunglasses on, black cutoff muscle tee with armholes dropped to the ribs, edges rough and rolled, flashing the strap of a sports bra and the clean carve of your lats. Cargo shorts riding low, a chain shouting about bad decisions. You kicked the stand with your heel, glanced at Cate’s parking miracle, and grinned in a way that made Cate’s body whisper treacherously: oh.

“Bold move,” you called, voice rough from yelling over gym playlists for hours. “Bringing a spaceship to work. Knew you were an alien.”

“We call it ‘parking between the lines’ here on Earth.” Cate stepped out into the heat, shoulders back, jaw poised. She was careful with posture like other people were careful with knives. “You should try it sometime. It’s like manners, but for asphalt.”

Your grin widened. “Manners aren’t really my sport.”

“Yeah,” Cate said, letting her gaze drift once—only once—over your chest, the sweat-dark collar, the heavy lines of your thighs. “I can tell.”

The elderly audience clucked approvingly. “Darling,” she called. “Don’t torment the girl.”

“Just saying good morning, Mrs. Parker.” You winked at her and then at Cate, like Mrs. Parker and Cate belonged in the same category of delicious mischief. “Gotta open up the sweat palace. Try not to steal my clients again?”

Cate lifted a brow. “You mean when they wander in because they’ve finally realized ‘leg day’ isn’t a personality?”

“Because your place smells like a fancy hotel lobby and you give them water with fruit in it.” You slung your helmet onto the bike and rolled your neck. “We can’t compete with infused water.”

“You could try a mop.” Cate smiled with all her teeth and felt a pulse low in her belly at the way your eyes lingered. “It’s very cutting-edge.”

Your stare warmed. “Come by on your lunch break and show me how it’s done.”

“I have a full roster,” Cate said. “Some of us are popular for our expertise.”

“Some of us are popular because we wear matching linen,” you shot back, and then you were gone, boots heavy, whistle twined around two fingers as you shouldered into the gym with a gust of hot air and a wall of noise—metal on metal, a playlist that sounded like it wanted to brawl, laughter, shouts, the entire place alive and feral.

Cate inhaled her studio, her order. She reminded her bones that she hated you. The reminder was getting less effective lately. Desire, inconvenient and sticky as gum, had attached itself to the bottom of the word. Hated the way you leaned on her front desk at exactly 11:53 like a witch’s curse, leaving little, insolent chalk ghosts. Hated how you teased Cate’s clients about “coming to the dark side” and then left a discount membership code with a doodled smiley face. Hated that Cate had once, by accident, watched through the blinds as you pulled a heavy deadlift, back flat, bar snug at your shins, and had felt something electric thread her spine that had nothing to do with posture. Hated that you never looked like you needed anything, when Cate always wanted too much.

At 1:03, the heatwave broke something. A shout went up next door, followed by a round of good-natured boos. The music died. The fans died. The air, somehow, grew hotter.

Cate’s receptionist poked her head into the practice room. “They lost AC,” she whispered, like reporting a death in the family. “It’s a hundred degrees in there.”

Cate had a very mature thought: good.

Then an extremely inconvenient knock hit the glass door. Cate didn’t have to turn to know who it was. She straightened anyway, spine articulating like a textbook, mouth forming a cool line. She pivoted on one clean heel.

You stood in the doorway, sunglasses up, hair damp against your temples, shirt clinging. You looked annoyed in the way that was almost a joke—like you’d built your personality around being vexed by the world and was secretly delighted every time it obliged. The kind of annoyed that made Cate want to argue with you until someone cried and someone kissed someone against a wall.

“Truce flag,” you said, hands up. “AC’s dead. I’ve got lifters melting. Can we use your space until the repair guy gets his soul back?”

Cate stared. There were classes booked. There were timetables lined up like dominoes. “Absolutely not,” she said, and then glanced at Mrs. Parker, who was fanning herself with a Pilates ring and looked like a grandmother at the opera. “We can spare one reformer,” Cate amended, voice steady. “Two. For active recovery only. No…dropping anything.”

You nodded solemnly. “I would never drop anything in here.”

“You drop things as a hobby,” Cate said. “You drop things recreationally.”

“Not if you look at me like that.” Your mouth tilted. “I’ll behave. Promise.”

Cate swallowed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

You negotiated in the doorway like opposing generals. Cate listed rules in a crisp, efficient cadence. You agreed with a seriousness that would have inspired trust if Cate were anyone else. No chalk. No shoes on the reformers. No barbell anything. No yelling. No…sweat puddles. Cate had to say sweat puddles, she had to, and the word trembled as it left her mouth because your collar was dark with exactly that, the hollow of your throat shining, the faint thread of a vein visible, and Cate’s brain decided this was an emergency.

You stepped in, bringing a different climate with you—heat and static and the smell of bodies that worked hard. Behind you, a few of the gym rats filed in, suddenly sheepish in a room that felt like it might judge them. You clapped your hands once, quiet. “Alright, meat monsters,” you said, softer than Cate had expected. Your voice in this room found a different register. “Active recovery, respect the floor, listen to Cate.” She turned to Cate. “You’re the boss.”

Cate should not have liked the way that sounded. She did.

You got to work. Cate coaxed unfamiliar bodies onto reformers, hands precise at shoulder blades, ribs. She watched the gym crew figure out the slow burn of control, watched you—predictably, infuriatingly—learn it fastest. You followed Cate’s instructions like a game you intended to win, eyes on Cate’s mouth when she spoke, then the ceiling as if you were trying to memorize it. Your hips moved against the carriage in a slow push-pull that made Cate have to forcibly blink. You looked, in this serenity, like someone had put a wolf in a cashmere sweater.

“Lower ribs,” Cate said, closer than necessary. “Soften through the sternum.”

You exhaled and obeyed, mouth parting. “Like that?”

Cate nodded. “Exactly.”

“Say it again.” It was nothing—only words—but the way you said it, rough at the edges, made Cate’s heart skip a beat.

Cate leaned down, apparently to adjust a spring. “Exactly,” she murmured, and your lashes flicked. There it was again: that spark that leaped between your bodies whenever proximity overruled common sense. It felt like standing too close to an outlet—dangerous, humming, inevitable.

It lasted an hour before the repair guy texted you a photo of a fried unit and a shrug emoji. You showed Cate the image like a sorrowful child. “He says…tomorrow, maybe. If the Gods are kind.”

Cate pinched the bridge of her nose. Her schedule was a machine and you had thrown a wrench into it with your ridiculous shoulders. “Fine,” she said. “After-hours. When I don’t have clients. You can run your people through mobility. Quietly.”

“Quietly,” you promised, like you had ever been quiet in your life.

At 8 p.m., the studio exhaled its last daytime breath and cooled into the expensive hush of evening. The city outside roared like a stove. Cate locked the front door, then turned to find you already inside, leaning against the front desk, a paper bag dangling from one hand.

“I brought a peace offering,” you said, opening it to produce a cluster of glass bottles. “Electrolytes. The kind with salt that tastes like the ocean tried to drown you.”

Cate accepted one, fingers brushing yours by accident. Not accident. “I prefer to be caressed by the ocean.”

“I can work on that.” You twisted your bottle with your teeth, absolutely feral. You swallowed and winced like you liked it. “Thanks for letting us crash.”

“We’re neighbors,” Cate said lightly. “It’s civilized.”

“That what we are?” Your voice dropped. “Civilized?”

Cate turned away too quickly. The mirrors were everywhere, meaning there was no safe angle to hide in. “Your crew’s late.”

“They’re not coming,” you said. “I gave them homework and sent them home. Thought I’d try to not be responsible for any heatstroke tonight.”

Cate looked at her. “So it’s just you.”

Your mouth crooked. “If you can tolerate it.”

Cate should have said no. The smart answer was always no where you were concerned. But she could feel curiosity tugging at her tendons. What would it be like to have the wolf to herself? To witness what you did when you weren't holding court, when you weren't splitting yourself between everyone else’s demands? To watch you work in a room that asked for silence and attention?

“Ground rules,” Cate said, because she needed a life raft. “No chalk. No shoes on the equipment. No—”

“—sweat puddles,” you finished, amused. “I’ll be careful with my droplets.”

Cate flushed, traitorously. “Set up on the far reformer.”

You obeyed, stripping your tee as you went. You wore a dark sports bra that clung to you like a vow, and your chest moved under it in ways that made Cate’s mouth go dry. You kicked off your boots, tugged your socks off with something like a growl, and padded barefoot to the machine. Cate watched the way the muscles of your back flared around your spine, the way your waist narrowed into hips built for leverage and sin. You moved like someone who trusted your body more than you trusted language.

Cate set the springs. “We’ll work from the inside out,” she said, proud of how steady she sounded. “Deep core, hip articulation, breath patterns. You’ll hate it.”

“I like hating things,” you said, settling onto your back. “Keeps me faithful.”

Cate stifled a laugh and stood at your shoulder. “Breathe in. Breathe out. Melt your spine into the mat like you’re…honey.”

“Hot,” you said, eyes up, a smile tucked into the corner of your mouth. But you did it, breathing slow, chest rising, skin shining faintly in the soft light. Cate resisted the urge to press her palm right against your ribs and feel the expansion for herself.

You moved through footwork together, carriage gliding as you pushed and pulled with deliberate control. Cate adjusted ankle angles with two fingers, adjusted the strap length, adjusted her expectations for how long she could withstand this without doing something stupid. The studio smelled like her eucalyptus diffuser and your sweat. The fans whispered overhead. Somewhere outside, a siren went by like the city agreeing with Cate’s pulse that something here was dangerous.

“You ever do this for you?” You asked, breath evening into the exertion. “After hours?”

“Sometimes,” Cate said, catching your knee as it started to cave and guiding it back into line. “But I don’t like spotting myself.”

You looked at her, eyes slit with effort but intent. “You like someone watching.”

“I like someone correcting me,” Cate said, and immediately regretted the way it sounded in this room with this woman and these mirrors.

“Lucky me,” you murmured.

You worked until sweat slicked your hairline and drew a thin line down the valley of your throat. Cate’s hands grew brave in increments—an ankle here, a hip there, the curve of a shoulder. She was always professional. She was also human. Each touch made something in your expression flash—surprise, then hunger, then the kind of focus Cate recognized from her own reflection when she’d decided to buy something very expensive and refuse to regret it.

Your legs were long enough that the carriage traveled like a planet’s orbit. When Cate cued hamstring curls, your thighs trembled in an exquisite confession. “Christ,” you said on a laugh that nearly broke, “I take it back. I love this and I hate you.”

“Good,” Cate said, mean and sweet. “Again.”

You did it again. And again. And on the fifth, your hand found the frame to anchor and your other hand found the waistband of your shorts, tugged where sweat had made it stick to your skin. The shorts obeyed, sliding low, and in the mirror Cate saw a glimpse of the thick line of your cock, pressed up and heavy against fabric, indiscreet as a fire alarm. Heat flashed through Cate so bright she wobbled.

You saw it—of course you did. You stilled, carriage hovering, breath held in the gorgeous space between effort and relief. Your eyes flicked to the mirror, then back to Cate. The grin that arrived was slow and dangerous. “Something to correct there, boss?”

Cate could have played coy. She could have pretended she hadn’t seen. But she was a woman who loved precision, and lies were messy. “Don’t grind on the carriage,” she said, voice even. “You’ll bruise.”

Your eyes went darker. “You worried about me?”

“I’m worried about equipment damage.”

“Sure.” You slid your hips an inch back on the pad, away from the carriage lip. The adjustment was so small it was technically obedient. It was also obscene. “Better?”

Cate swallowed. “Yes.”

You finished your set like a woman trying to impress God. When you sat up, the sports bra glued to your skin, a curl of hair stuck to your temple, Cate’s composure buckled. You saw it happen. You swung your legs to the side and sat still, hands braced on the reformer, watching Cate like a problem worth solving.

“Come here,” you said softly.

Cate did, like she was on a string. She stopped a breath away, heat making her pulse loud in her ears. Your knees bracketed her thighs without touching. Up close, the freckles at the bridge of your nose looked like a constellation Cate could name. The smell of you, sweat and detergent and cologne, threaded the clean air like an invitation to misbehave.

“Tell me you don’t want me on your floor,” you said. “Tell me you want me out of your pristine little church. I’ll go.”

Cate heard her voice answer from somewhere low and honest. “I want you where I can see you.”

“Yeah?” Your smile turned worshipful and wicked at once. “I can do that.”

You reached up. Cate let herself be pulled down. The first kiss was nothing like Cate had imagined in all her furious, idle fantasies. It was slower, truer. Your mouth was warm and sure, your hand a steady weight behind Cate’s neck. Cate opened the way she knew how to open—incrementally, a calibrated release—and then you licked her lower lip and the calibration snapped. Cate made a sound she didn’t recognize and stepped in, between your spread knees, hands finding your jaw like it belonged to her.

You groaned into her, full-bodied, and reached down blindly to slide the carriage stopper into place with a practiced flick. Then your hands were on Cate’s waist, anchoring, lifting a fraction to fit you together. Cate felt the thick pressure of your cock through clothes and nearly bit your lip in gratitude.

“Fuck,” you muttered against her. “You…taste like expensive fruit.”

“Lemon,” Cate said, and kissed you again before any sense arrived to stop her. You kissed like you trained: not to win, exactly, but to be undeniable. Cate found the edge of the sports bra and slid her fingers under to feel skin. You gasped, then leaned back on your hands, chest lifting, an offering and a dare. Your nipples were already peaked, flushed and so beautifully reactive that Cate had to put her mouth on one just to prove she could. Your back arched, your breath fracturing into pieces and falling all over the floor.

“Jesus, Cate,” you whispered, hands flexing on the reformer. “You consecrate the altar first or just skip straight to the human sacrifice?”

“Blasphemy is extra,” Cate said, and closed her lips again, sucking gently until you cursed like a pledge.

The shorts were a crime. Cate solved it with a tug and a breathless laugh when you lifted your hips to help. The fabric peeled down and caught on the line of your cock before releasing with a sticky sound that made a shiver travel through Cate’s body. You bared yourself without shame—thick and heavy, flushed dark at the head, a smear of precum slick as a confession. Cate had watched plenty of men get hard in mirrors—had tolerated it, corrected posture around it, ignored it with cool professionalism. She had never wanted to get on her knees the way she did now, not as performance but as science: to study how you sounded when Cate’s mouth was full, how her hands grabbed for purchase when the room had no bed to wreck.

You watched her like someone standing on a cliff and loving the drop. “C’mere,” you said, voice gone hoarse. “Let me—fuck, let me taste you too.”

Cate’s laugh came out shaky. “On my floor?”

“On your fucking altar.” Your hands slid up the backs of Cate’s thighs, thumbs pressing into the place where muscle met curve, possessive and reverent. “Please. I’ll clean it, I swear. I’ll mop it up with my shirt. I’ll—”

Cate kissed you to shut you up and then guided your hand under the hem of her linen shorts. You swore again, softer, when your fingers met warm, slick proof. Cate rocked into it, shameless now, gratitude rising sharp for a woman who made her feel like she could be messy and still be adored.

“Tell me,” you said, breath hot against her cheek. “Tell me what you want.”

Cate closed her eyes. The truth lived under her tongue like a seed, already sprouting. “Want you to make a mess of me,” she whispered. “Then fix me after.”

Your jaw tightened like you’d been given the exact command you’d been craving since the day you’d met. “Yeah,” you said, and slid two fingers through Cate’s slick with a tenderness that somehow felt filthier than anything else. “Yeah. I can do that.”

Together you fumbled toward the corner, bodies laughing and cursing and urgent, Cate pushing you down onto a long line of mats like she was cashing in on all her daydreams. You went easily, a big, obedient sinner, arms up over your head for a second as Cate stripped the sports bra away. Cate took a breath at the sight of you—broad-chested and freckled and soft in exactly the places that made Cate crazy, hard in the places that promised ruin. You looked up like you’d found your favorite kind of trouble, cheeks flushed, pupils blown, cock heavy against your own belly, leaving a wet smear where it kissed skin.

“Condoms?” Yoi asked, sanity doing its due diligence.

Cate chuckled and dug in the drawer under the front desk that held everything: wipes, bandages, a roll of tape, a single packet of salvation. She held it up. “I plan for contingencies.”

“Show-off,” you murmured, but your eyes were almost shy for a flash, quick as a pulse, like a thanks you didn’t know how to say out loud. Cate climbed back over you, tore the foil, rolled latex down with hands that didn’t tremble because trembling would be a loss of control and she’d already decided to lose control elsewhere.

You reached for her, palms anchoring on Cate’s hips, thumbs drawing circles that felt like promises. “Ride me,” you said, low and certain, and then, a little grin like a spark: “Please.”

Cate sank down slow, savoring the slide, letting her body adjust around the stretch that should have hurt but instead felt like a lock clicking open from the inside. You swore in a voice that made Cate’s bones shiver, then breathed out her name like it was the only thing you knew.

The first grind made you both gasp. Cate braced her hands on your chest and moved in the rhythm she taught and rarely got to keep for herself—controlled, deliberate, a bloom of sensation tracked breath by breath. You took it like worship, eyes on Cate’s face, hands curving around her, a constant recalibration to keep Cate exactly where you wanted to be. It didn’t stay quiet, couldn’t—the small sounds began, the soft curses and the broken pleases, the slap of skin meeting skin, the wet, impossible music of it. The mirrors caught it from every angle, evidence and exhibition. Cate watched herself come undone and found it transcendent.

“Fuck, you look—Jesus, you look like trouble,” you rasped, trying to keep still and failing, hips tipping up to meet Cate’s, not hard, but hungry. “You feel like—Cate, you feel so good, I’m—”

“Good,” Cate said, and pressed down harder, chasing the place inside that lit her up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Your thumb found her clit with criminal intelligence. Cate almost cried. “Don’t stop.”

“Never,” you said, and meant it with a fervor that wrecked Cate. “I’ve got you.”

You did. You had her perfectly, matching every roll with a new calculation, watching Cate like you were solving an equation and trying not to celebrate when you got it right. Cate felt the crest coming like a storm across open water, she rode toward it with her chin up, body shaking, sweat slipping down her spine in a line that your hands followed as if mapping a coastline.

“Cum for me,” you said, and the word please clung to the end like a secret. “C’mon, Cate. Be a good girl and cum on my cock, let me feel you—”

Cate broke open. It happened without thought, just a hot, bright rupture that stole her posture and her breath and left her a creature of desire. She fell forward with a gasp, forehead to yours, clutching at your shoulders, grinding through it, relentless until every last shiver fizzled out to her fingers. You held her and said ruined, reverent nonsense into her mouth—good girl, so gorgeous, fuck, I’ve got you, I’ve got you—hands moving like a prayer down her back.

When Cate could breathe, she laughed. “You’re terrible,” she said against your cheek, voice ragged.

“Uh huh.” Your smile felt like it belonged there under Cate’s mouth. “Gonna let me cum now? Please. Daddy’s begging.”

Cate, dizzy and delighted, rolled her hips and got to watch your eyes go hazy and desperate. She braced her feet, changed the angle, and started to move the way she had wanted to since the first chalk print on her glass door. You moaned in a way that was almost a sob, and then there was nothing left to do but take you there. Cate did so mercilessly. Your orgasm hit with a low groan and a full-body shiver, hands grasping for purchase and finding Cate’s waist, holding on like it was all that kept you from coming apart completely. Cate rode it out until you whined for mercy, then slowed, then pressed a soft kiss to your mouth like a benediction.

You laid tangled on the mat together, breathing like you’d just ran a marathon. The fans hummed approval. Outside, the city felt far off. Inside, sweat cooled, eucalyptus filled the air, and Cate’s studio held the mess you’d made without judgment.

You laughed first, a shaky, delirious sound that turned into a groan as you stretched like a big cat. “So,” you said, voice wrecked. “About those…sweat puddles.”

Cate snorted against your shoulder. “You’re mopping.”

“Yes, boss.” Your grin was audible. “Every last drop.”

“Start with your fingerprints,” Cate murmured, kissing the place on your neck where sweat had pooled and a pulse fluttered. “On my door. On my desk. On—” She bit gently. “—me.”

Your inhale was loud with promise. “You want me to put my hands all over, just say that.”

Cate lifted her head, unhurriedly obscene, and looked down at you. “Put your hands all over.”

“Fuck,” you said happily. “Okay.”

You didn’t make it to the cleaning supplies right away. You made it to the front desk, where Cate sat on the edge and let you kneel, where the mirrors did unkind things to the restraint of both of you. You made it back to the reformers, which turned out to be a perfect height for a second round that had Cate whispering please into a shoulder she’d pretended to hate. You made it to the door at last, where you actually did wipe your fingerprints off the glass with an apologetic little huff while Cate watched, sated and smug and wrecked, thinking, I’m doomed, and feeling oddly relieved.

At the threshold, you fumbled your helmet and caught it, grinning like you’d just broken into a church and stolen the cross. “Truce?” you asked, tentative around the edges, like the word wasn’t part of your usual vocabulary.

Cate considered, indulging in the power of it, the yes balanced carefully on her tongue. She reached out and tugged your chain gently, drawing you back for one more kiss that tasted like sweat and lemon and something sweeter she didn’t want to name yet.

“Temporary ceasefire,” Cate said against your lips. “Terms negotiable. Daily.”

Your laugh scraped along her nerves in the best way. “Can’t wait for tomorrow’s negotiation.”

“Don’t be late,” Cate said. “We open at six.”

“I’ll bring chalk,” you teased.

Cate arched a brow.

“Kidding.” You kissed her once more, quick and soft, a contradiction Cate wanted to keep arguing with forever. “I’ll bring coffee. The good kind. You like it pretentious, right?”

“I like it correct,” Cate said.

“Perfect.” You stepped backward into the night, every line of your body a promise you’d make good on later. “I’m annoyingly good at that.”

Cate watched you go, watched the motorcycle’s tail light flare red like a punctuation mark on a sentence she could not wait to continue. She turned back to her studio, to the mats you’d disorderly sanctified together, to the bottles sweating gently on the front desk. She exhaled into the lemon-scented air and felt something inside her shift, not away from precision but toward the kind that allowed for joy.

She hated chalk. She hated noise. She hated how you had already made her studio a little less perfect.

She wanted, with a terrifying and exquisite clarity, to let you keep doing it.

[initforthethrill]

☠︎︎ kinktober day #8 ↳ initforthethrill's birthday choice!

divine corruption aka freshly legal cate is determined to corrupt her local priest tw: girlcock, g!p reader, corruption, age-gap, slut!cate, barely legal, catholicism, female priest!reader, temptation, corruption, daddy kink, daddy!reader, public sex, sacrilege, exhibitionism if you consider god a witness lmao, god is a voyeur, fingering, finger sucking, vaginal sex, penetration, creampies, blowjobs, multiple orgasms, etc. 5k+ words

author's note: this is lengthier as a (now belated lol) birthday gift to myself...armed with nothing but my limited knowledge of catholic practices and very extensive religious trauma, i present you this :)

The first time Cate Dunlap walked into the chapel after her eighteenth birthday, she did it like a dare.

She showed up to the Saturday vigil in a white sundress that might have been innocent if it hadn’t been cut to knife-edge ribbons at the hem, the fluttering cloth barely kissing the midpoint of her thighs when she walked. The neckline was soft and scooped and wholly inadequate. She wore lip gloss that smelled like strawberries and took her place two pews from the front and crossed her legs like it was an invitation, heel dangling, anklet glinting. And when the church fell quiet for the prelude, when you stepped out from the sacristy in cassock and stole and a face that had learned to keep its serenity stitched tight—Cate slid a lollipop into her mouth and sucked the red candy with slow, dreamy decadence, looking up at the woman in the collar as if the only sacrament she acknowledged was hunger.

Your eyes flicked over the congregation and—no, not to Cate, not yet—but the choir’s first chord rang a little sharp. Cate smiled around the lollipop, tongue gleaming as she dragged it slowly from her lips when the bells rang, tongue flattening to catch the sugar string, and made a show of tucking her hair behind her ear.

That was only the beginning.

She became a regular. Never missed a Mass. Sometimes she wore sweater sets and modest shoes and knelt very properly. Sometimes she wore skirts that flashed the satin edge of something sinful when she bent to worship. She learned how to time her little displays to liturgy: how long the homily usually ran, where your gaze drifted when you quoted from Paul, how the church sounded when Communion was about to begin, restless and shuffling, the organist’s fingers perfuming the air with a soft song. She learned the rhythms of desire like a second liturgy as she counted her own heartbeats under the stained glass saints.

As time went on, your lapses multiplied. A tremor near the altar. A sudden flush beneath the collar. Nights where you ended up on your knees on the stone floor of the rectory kitchen, forehead pressed to the cabinet door, fingers biting into your own thighs because prayer didn’t rid you of the heat Cate left behind.

Weeks like this. A season like this. You learning on a cellular level the cruelty of heat and gravity—the weight of your collar, of your vows, the drag of a cock you never asked for against the inside of your slacks when you climbed the altar steps and Cate watched with parted lips. “Lead me not into temptation,” you would say, and Cate would tilt her head, as if the words were music and she could harmonize with them.

It wasn’t one thing that broke you. It was all of them, stacked like thin wafers until the slightest touch turned them to dust.

The confessionals were the worst—and, like some cruel joke, that was where you eventually broke.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Cate would purr through the screen, fingers tucked primly into her lap, and your voice, rubbed-smooth, would answer, “When was your last confession?” Cate could hear the starch of discipline in it, the tightness of a vow she wanted to unlace with her teeth.

“Last week,” she’d say. “But I keep…slipping.”

“What sins are you confessing?”

“Impure thoughts,” she’d whisper. “So many impure thoughts.”

Sometimes she said she’d touched herself while thinking about someone she shouldn’t. Sometimes she said she’d let a boy kiss her in the back of a car and thought about someone else’s mouth the whole time. Once she said—delicately, tongue to tooth, letting it click—“I keep wanting to be on my knees, Father.”

Silence, like the pause between lightning and thunder.

“For…prayer,” you managed.

“For worship,” Cate said, and watched through the lattice as the shadow of your throat worked around a swallow.

She did penance every time, of course. Hail Marys with her skirt rucked high on her thighs, Our Fathers with strawberry sugar still sticky on her tongue. She was greedy, shameless and yearning, and every week she confessed and every week she went home damp between her legs and giddy with the victory of it—how the calm in your voice frayed like thread, how the peace be with you’s came a little too brisk, how your hands—strong, elegant hands—tightened around the chalice until your knuckles blanched.

And receiving the host—oh, God, that was Cate’s favorite. She wanted to be artless, pious, good, but there was a worship that tasted like mischief and she lived for it. She’d step into the center aisle and fold her hands and tilt her chin up. You’d say, “The Body of Christ,” and Cate would part her lips and let her tongue show just the slightest bit, a pink crescent behind gloss, and whisper, “Amen,” like it meant I can take you, I’ll take all of you, I’ll swallow it down and call it holy.

She always felt the tremor where your fingers almost, almost brushed her lower lip.

Six weeks into Cate’s campaign, the parish gossips started to murmur that Miss Dunlap was spending too much time at church. The altar boys stared. An old woman said the word scandalous three times in one breath. Cate wore a demure navy dress just to fuel their confusion and then sucked a lollipop on the steps anyway.

The night it broke was late and lavished with rain, the roof hissing with each droplet. Adoration had ended, the last of the faithful had gone. Cate waited outside the confessional until the candles wavered low and the red sanctuary lamp was the only star left. She had dressed like a nightmare on purpose—soft knit cardigan, white cami beneath it, no bra, a flirty pleated skirt that skimmed the curve of her ass and did not bother to apologize. She carried her lollipop between two fingers like a cigarette before finishing it with a crunch, making the sign of the cross before she slipped into the booth.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she breathed. The confessional smelled like varnish and incense and the ghost of rain. She could hear you on the other side: a breath in, a breath out, then a pause as if you had to gather your will by both edges.

“When was your last confession?” You asked.

“Last Saturday.”

“What sins are you confessing?”

“I’ve been… coveting,” Cate exhaled. “Authority. The feel of it. The sound of it. Wondering how it would be to kneel in a different way.” Cate leaned toward the screen, eyes half-lidded, and let her voice ease slowly like honey. “I thought about…what it would be like to do it here.”

A beat. “To do what?” Your voice was careful, pastoral. It cracked anyway.

“Everything.” Cate smiled, wicked and young, divine feminine weaponized. “To let someone—let you—bend me over the pews and teach me how to pray the way grown-ups do.” She brushed her finger along the wooden lattice. “I thought about your mouth and your hands and your—” She stopped, savoring the tension she could feel hovering between you two like static, like a match just waiting for a strike. “I thought about being such a good girl you couldn’t help yourself.”

On the other side of the screen, fabric rasped. There was a small thud, as if you’d knocked the back of your head lightly against the paneling. Cate’s pulse galloped in her throat.

“Cate,” you said, and it was the first time you’d said her name in the booth, the first time you hadn’t softened it with Miss or framed it in the safe glass of distance. “You cannot—”

Cate slid her hand under her skirt and pressed her fingertips against the slick heat of herself through cotton. She didn’t make a sound.

“—keep doing this.” It came out rough as gravel, an exhale. “This is a sacrament.” Your heart beat at double time, your body making its own litany. Sin—sinner. You closed your eyes and saw the exact place on Cate’s thighs where the light through the stained glass always landed in a bar of red.

Cate’s laugh was a breath against the wood. “So’s the other one.”

Silence again. Cate imagined you: collar snug at your throat, hair tucked behind your ears, mouth chapped from kissing the chalice. She felt a dizzy wave of tenderness for her own villainy, for the way she wanted you to be strong and to break, both at once.

“I’m sorry,” Cate said sweetly, and then she didn’t try to hide what she did next. She tugged her panties aside and slicked two fingers through herself and let the tiniest sound slip, a bitten-off whimper that was more prayer than sin. “I’m just—thinking about forgiveness.”

You thought of your usual words, say your Hail Marys and go in peace, but the words felt hollow even in your own head. Your heart hammered, your cock ached, and when Cate whispered, “What penance would make me clean, Father?” you felt something old and careful inside you rise up with a new, dangerous grace.

You slowly touched your forehead, chest, left shoulder, right—the sign of the cross felt like a key turning, unlocking the desire you’d kept buried for weeks. “Forgive me, Father,” you said to the dark, to the box, to the God who had listened to you hunger for this girl for months. “For I am about to sin.”

You stood. The curtain to your side of the confessional opened. Cate’s heart punched the inside of her ribs. The curtain on Cate’s side spread too, slow, like the last inch of restraint being peeled back.

You filled the doorway in black, your face cut by the chapel’s low light, rain threading behind you against the windows. For one long, stunned second you looked at each other. Your eyes were blown wide, the line of your mouth was ruinous. You looked like a woman who had walked forty days and forty nights with a burden on your back and had finally, finally set it down.

Cate stepped past you out of the booth with her little smug face and skirt that was a threat. She could feel the heat rolling off you, the tremble in the air where self-control had once been. Cate reached, like she would for a chalice, and touched two fingers to your throat just below the Roman collar. She felt the hammer of your pulse.

You caught her wrist.

It wasn’t delicate. The restraint was firm and unambiguous, fingers wrapping, thumb pressed to the racing blue vein of Cate’s pulse. Cate’s breath fluttered out. Her knees, a little shamefully, threatened to give. “Yes?” She said, giddy and bright, because this was what she had wanted all along: that strength, that decision, the way your eyes darkened as if something had finally stopped fighting you and started feeding you instead.

“Enough,” you said, and your voice, stripped of its Sunday gentleness, made Cate’s slick cunt throb. “You want to play at sacrilege? You want to be obscene in God’s house?”

Cate’s grin was incandescent. She tried to speak—tried to say, got you—but you were already walking, already pulling with the clean certainty that you’d been called to something other than denial.

You didn’t drag her so much as steer her—the grip at Cate’s wrist, the heat of your body close behind her—down the side aisle and into the nave, where the pews stood like ribs and the stained glass saints looked on with dreamy mercy. The rain hissed against the windows. Somewhere, water ticked from stone.

“Hands on the rail,” you ordered, voice low. You put Cate before the front pew, where Cate had knelt and closed her eyes and fixed her lip gloss sweet all those weeks. “Bend.”

Cate set her palms on the polished wood and folded, the posture obscene in its echo of reverence. Her skirt bared the swell of her ass. She looked back over her shoulder with a smile that scraped. “Teach me,” she whispered. “Please.”

Your breath punched your ribs out and in. You stood close enough that Cate could feel the line of you, the hard length in your slacks grinding the small of Cate’s ass. The realization lit Cate up from spine to throat. She wiggled, sinful and daring, and it broke every last tether.

You took the hem of Cate’s skirt and shoved it to her waist, hands rough and sure. Cate gasped as the blunt rail of the pew pressed into her hipbones. She arched, obscene and devout. You cupped her, palm greedy against the soft heat. Cate pushed back into it, helpless. “This is what you wanted,” you said. “You wanted to make me want you.”

Cate nodded, cheek against polished wood. “Months,” she admitted, wrecked and proud. “Every Sunday. Every time you looked at me from the altar I—oh—” Her confession dissolved into a moan when you slid two fingers through her cunt, testing.

“Look at you,” you groaned. It was equal parts awe and accusation. “You little liar. You come in here every week dressed like sin, talking like sin, and you’re so wet you’re shaking.” 

“Because of you,” Cate said. It came out embarrassingly soft. She couldn’t help it. “Because you’re—Father—”

“Don’t,” you said, but your mouth skated over Cate's ear, your grip tightening. “Don’t call me that.”

“What do I call you, then?” Cate purred. She rocked back, greedy for contact, for the full weight of your restraint. “Daddy?”

You made a sound like a prayer escaping from a throat you’d been keeping closed too long. “Cate.”

“Stop holding back,” Cate said, shivering. “Please.”

Your hands slid to her hips and clamped down. You leaned, the heat of your breath at Cate’s neck, the scrape of teeth just the tiniest bit cruel. One hand left Cate’s hip and smacked her ass once, sharp and echoing. Cate’s breath fractured.

“Quiet,” you whispered, and then, as if realizing the hypocrisy, laughed, dark and breathless. “As you can.”

Cate nodded frantically. She could feel the growing shape of your cock against her, thick and undeniable through black fabric. She reached back with one hand and fumbled for it, desperate. You caught her wrist again, pinned it to the curve of Cate’s spine, and Cate almost moaned in relief.

“Please,” she whimpered. “I want you so bad.”

“You’re going to get me,” you muttered, not kind, not cruel—hungry. “Christ, Cate, I’m going to—”

You unbuttoned your slacks with a jagged sound that lodged in both your throats. Your cock hit air and you swore, low and grateful, and pressed yourself along the cleft of Cate’s ass once, twice, the head catching at the top like a promise. Cate was shaking, but she pushed back shamelessly anyway, little sounds breaking apart as she did.

You spit into your own hand and stroked yourself, breathing rough. Then you spit again and slid your fingers back between Cate’s legs, slicking her, working her open with patient, filthy reverence. Cate clutched the pew with one hand and rocked, pushing down onto the fingers that circled and filled and withdrew until she was panting like a thing chased.

She felt you guide yourself, the heavy hot head of your cock sliding against Cate’s dripping cunt. The first press made Cate bite her lip hard enough to taste copper, smiling like a little heathen as she bared her throat to the light.

You lined up and pushed.

The first inch made you both swear—you at the tightness, Cate at the stretch. You held her there, one palm heavy on Cate’s nape, the other now braced to the pew.

“Relax,” you hummed, and the gentleness there almost undid Cate more than the roughness. “Breathe for me.”

“I am,” Cate said, shaking. “I’m—oh—”

The next stretch carved her open in a single, ruinous glide. You were big enough that Cate felt the world narrow to a single bright line of sensation as she was filled. Her fingers scrabbled on the pew rail. Your hand covered hers, lacing your fingers together, and the other hand held her hip like a force of nature.

“All the way,” Cate begged, voice wrecked. “Please—Daddy—please.”

You sank home. The noise that left Cate was not church-appropriate. She slapped her free hand over her own mouth and tried to obey, tried to be quiet, tried to be the good girl she’d teased about. She could feel you tremble against her, forehead dropping to Cate’s shoulder, breath burning.

“You feel like sin,” you said raggedly into her hair. “God help me.”

Cate tilted her head, offering her throat like a sacrament. “No one’s watching but the saints,” she whispered, delirious. “They love a good martyrdom.”

You laughed, wrecked and reverent. Then drew back and drove in again, the sound of it a wet hush that seemed obscene in the nave and therefore perfect.

It was not tender. It was not careful after the first few strokes proved Cate could take it and wanted it. It was a rhythm that punished and blessed in equal measure: a grip on Cate’s waist that would bruise in the shape of your fingers come tomorrow, the slap of skin against skin, the wet obscene sounds of Cate’s cunt taking you. You fucked like a woman who had kept yourself shut for far too long and had been pried open by a girl’s pretty mouth and prettier sins. Cate met every thrust with a shameless little push of her hips, greedy and worshipful all at once.

“Tell me,” you said, panting. “Tell me what you said in the confessional. The thing that made you put your hand between your legs.”

Cate’s laugh broke into a whimper as you bottomed out. “I said I wanted you to bend me over a pew,” she gasped as you drove deeper, “teach me how to worship, make me your good little church girl.”

“You are,” you confirmed, almost furious with it. You reached, caught Cate’s jaw, and turned her head, “Open.” Cate obeyed, lips parting, tongue out like a communicant. You slid two fingers in and Cate sucked them like she had sucked the lollipop, eyes glazed, drool slicking your knuckles. She moaned around them when your thrusts went deeper, faster, timed like a call-and-response: thrust—amen, thrust—amen, thrust—amen.

You withdrew your fingers from Cate’s mouth and shoved the wetness between Cate’s legs to circle her clit, rubbing hard, a ruthless tempo. Cate’s knees buckled, but you caged her in with the weight of your body and the lock of your wrist. Your thrusts turned punishing, perfect. Cate broke, high and helpless, clenching around you with a cry she could not bite back. You quickly covered her mouth with your palm, fingers splayed across sugar-shiny lips, and whispered, “Shh, easy—good girl, good, just take it—” into the crown of Cate’s head.

Cate tried. Oh, she tried. Her eyes watered with effort, with pleasure, with the way your cock dragged against a spot inside her that made her see lights like flares in the stained glass windows. She let her head droop, hair sticking to her temple, trembling apart, grinding back to meet whatever you gave her, needy and wrecked. Sweat was gathering under the hem of her cardigan, the edge of the pew biting her palms. The church smelled like rain and incense and sex and the sanctuary lamp burned red like a witness.

“Look up,” you said hoarsely. “Look at the crucifix.”

Cate did. Her eyes caught the pale figure in the low light, the bowed head, the wooden ribs. She thought: I am being remade. I’m eighteen and alive and filthy and so loved. This is what worship looks like.

“You’re blasphemous,” you said into her neck, and the hand between Cate’s thighs quickened, cruelly kind. “And I’m—” A shudder. “I’m worse.”

“Then be worse,” Cate begged, and reached back to catch the nape of your neck, to pull you in, to let your teeth find the sweet meat of her shoulder and hold. “Be the worst with me.”

You swore, the word nothing like a prayer, and fucked her harder.

Cate felt her orgasm like a procession building in the nave: the first stir, the whisper, the swell. She fought the noise in her throat and failed and let it leak into the wood. Your hips were relentless. Cate’s body locked around you, clamped down, keening. She came with her forehead pressed to the rail and her mouth open and a sound that would haunt the church for weeks. She shook and shook and you held her through it, never stopping, rhythm jagged now, voice a low litany of oh God, Cate, Cate, Cate.

“Inside,” Cate begged, not remotely shy. “Please—inside me—please, Daddy—fill me up—”

Cate’s orgasm dragged yours out of you like confession drags truth. It hit hard, bright, a seizure of the gut and a flood. You buried yourself deep and spilled with a shudder, making a sound like something sacred breaking, heat flooding, cock throbbing. Cate could feel every pulse, every helpless twitch, could feel the way your breath sawed, the way your fingers dug into Cate’s hip like anchorage. You didn’t let go of Cate’s hand on the rail until after, until both your heartbeats had started the long climb down from the steeple.

For a long moment, there was only rain and the creak of wood and the ache that bloomed sweet in Cate’s body. You rested your forehead between Cate’s shoulder blades like you were praying against her. You stayed pressed there, bodies locked, the pew your altar. Cate was shaking in the fine aftershocks, soft whimpers thinned to breath. You felt the pulse of it around you, the damp heat where you were joined, the stupid tenderness that rose to flood your lungs.

“You okay?” You asked, voice thready. The question nearly undid Cate.

“Mhm,” Cate hummed, and the sound trembled with happiness.

You pulled out slow, tender now, tugging Cate’s skirt down, hands smoothing reverently over the curve of her ass, the backs of her thighs, like an apology, like thanks. Cate turned, cheeks flushed, lips plump, cardigan sliding off one shoulder. You—Father, her mind corrected, and then, greedily, Daddy—looked at her like she was a catastrophe and a miracle both.

“Am I forgiven?”

You looked at her—at the cherry mouth and the damp thighs and the smile like a lit match—and felt a love you would not name because naming it would feel like the worst and truest proclamation. “Not remotely,” you said, and brushed your thumb across Cate’s swollen lower lip. “But I can teach you penance.”

Cate caught your thumb with her tongue and sucked, quick and sharp. “Another form of worship?” she asked, bright as sin.

You glanced toward the altar, then back at the girl who had dragged you from your own confessional into a life you both feared and wanted with a ferocity that made you ache. “Kneel,” you said softly.

Cate went down without hesitation, the floor hard under her knees, the pew pressing her shoulder as she settled between your legs and looked up, adoring and depraved. Cate’s hands slid along your thighs like prayer, and you thought, wildly, that if there was a hell you had already been living in it without this.

“Open,” you said again, gentler now, power softened by awe.

Cate obeyed. You guided her, slow, reverent, watching your own cock vanish between cherry lips with a shiver that left your knees weak. Cate’s tongue was clever and desperate. She made eager, hungry noises that echoed faintly off the vaulted ceiling, and you had to put a hand against the railing to stay upright. Cate stroked what her mouth couldn’t take, fingers messy at the base, the flat of her tongue swiping at the sensitive underside like she wanted to lick you clean of sin.

“You’re going to make me—” you warned, throat tight.

Cate hummed in approval, a pleased little sound that vibrated through flesh and bone. She looked up with bright, wet eyes and swallowed the warning like it was another sweet.

You came with your head tipping back and a gasp that broke open into something like a prayer gone ragged. Cate took it, obedient and greedy, eyes slipping closed as if to memorize the taste. When it was done, she let you slip from her mouth with a soft pop and licked her own lower lip, smearing shine.

“Now?” Cate asked, sly and breathless, wiping the back of her hand across her chin. “Forgiven?”

For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of your breathing—ragged, uneven, threaded through with something too heavy for satisfaction. The air still smelled like incense and sin. Your pulse thundered in your throat, and beneath it came the slow, familiar crawl of guilt. It settled deep, cold as holy water down your spine. You looked at Cate—at the wreckage you’d made of your vows—and thought you’d never seen anything so beautiful or so damning.

“I shouldn’t have,” you said, and Cate heard the whole catechism of shame line up behind those words. She rose quickly to shut it up with a kiss: soft, deep, explicitly not a tease. You trembled and kissed her back like a drowning woman burning your lungs on oxygen for the first time.

“You wanted to,” Cate said against her mouth. “So did I.”

“I’m supposed to—”

“Be perfect?” Cate smiled, cupping your jaw. “You’re allowed to be a person.”

Your eyes searched hers, bright and wrecked. Cate felt it land: the way desire had cracked open a different kind of honesty between you two. Cate didn’t flinch from the weight of it. She laced your fingers together again and lifted your joined hands to her mouth, kissed across the knuckles that had gripped her so hard they’d leave her little constellations tomorrow.

“Besides,” Cate added, wicked soft, “I did say please.” Her eyes glittered, tender and defiant all at once. “And God would never want a shepherd to neglect one of His flock, would He?”

You laughed, broken and beautiful, brushing Cate’s hair back with fingers that had trembled inside her. “You did,” you admitted, voice roughened by everything you’d just done. “Though I don’t believe sacrilege was what He had in mind.”

“Mm…well maybe He just wanted to watch,” Cate said, glancing up at the crucifix with a smirk too fond to be truly cruel. “He’s been watching me torment you for weeks.”

“You’re insufferable,” you said, but your mouth found Cate’s again, lingering, slower this time, less punishment and more promise. When you drew back, you pressed your thumb to Cate’s lower lip where gloss had smeared and murmured, “No more lollipops at Mass, hm?”

Cate only hummed, catching the pad of your thumb between her teeth again, a teasing graze, before letting go. Your breath hitched, eyes flicking down to where Cate’s lips still glistened. 

“Then you’ll have to give me something else to do with my mouth,” Cate murmured, voice sweet as sin.

You went still. Your thumb lingered at the corner of Cate’s mouth, the faintest tremor running through it. For a heartbeat you looked caught—jaw tight, eyes dark, torn between sanctity and surrender, between kissing her again and delivering a sermon. Your breath dragged in slow, deliberate through your nose, disciplining yourself back into control. Then, with visible effort, you eased your hand away and forced your voice steady, the edge of command creeping back in.

“And wear something decent on Sunday.”

Cate’s eyes flashed as if the word decent was the funniest joke she’d ever heard. She smoothed her skirt with a palm that still trembled, grin shameless. “I’ll try to behave,” she promised, which meant nothing. 

Your sternness thinned at the edges. A ghost of a smile tugged at your mouth like you couldn’t quite help it, fondness seeping through the cracks of discipline. Your gaze lingered on Cate’s flushed lips, then climbed to her eyes and softened—dangerously, domestically. Your hand found Cate’s face, fingers splaying over cheek and jaw with a tenderness that refused to be hidden. “Go home,” you murmured, voice gentled by something almost like affection. You tucked a strand of hair behind Cate’s ear like you two were anywhere but here. “Before you get me in even more trouble with God.”

Cate stepped close, daring to press a quick, grateful kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Thank you for my lesson, Father.”

Cate gathered herself in small, sinful rituals: tugged her cardigan back up on one shoulder, smoothed her skirt again, and bent to straighten the hem of her underwear, the motion slow, the memory of what you’d done together still warm against her skin. She glanced toward the crucifix and—because she couldn’t resist—made a neat little sign of the cross that felt more like a wink than penance. When she turned, the nave stretched before her, pews like ribs, rain whispering at the stained glass. She took three steps down the aisle, the echo of her heels threading into the hush.

You caught her wrist for the barest second—returning the first gesture, closing the circle. “Cate.”

Cate looked up, chin lifting like an offering.

“Don’t mistake the collar for mercy,” you reminded. Her thumb stroked once, slow. “I meant what I said. Come to confession tomorrow.”

Cate’s grin turned radiant, victorious. “Yes, Father.”

She slipped down the aisle, hips swaying like a benediction. The sanctuary lamp burned on. You stood among pews that still smelled like wax and want and made the sign of the cross with a hand that shook. Forgive me, Father, you thought, and was surprised to hear the echo—not in the rafters, not in the stone, but somewhere low and warm inside you where Cate’s laughter had lodged.

You had never understood before that worship could feel like this: not contrition, but flame. Not self-denial, but the brave, corrupt joy of saying yes.

[initforthethrill]

the only exception aka cate discovers that wanting something badly enough can make it yours tw: girlcock, g!p reader, omegaverse, alpha!reader, omega!cate, non-canon college au, not quite dating to bonded mates, jealous!cate, possessive!cate, bonding, mating bite, knotting, breeding kink, bareback sex, vaginal sex, dickriding, creampies, cunnilingus, fingering, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, praise kink, daddy kink, aftercare, emotional vulnerability, love confessions, porn with some plot, etc. 13.9k+ words

author's note: following the gen v cancellation, here's some omega!cate for the soul. remember when i used to write short fics? me neither. i was only going to write one sex scene for this and then…well. here we are<3

Cate knows better than to wear your hoodie out in public when she’s like this.

Cate is twenty and change and old enough to know her own appetites. She is also an omega and therefore doomed to lose arguments with her body the second you walk into the room. The hoodie hangs off her like a stolen promise—black heavyweight cotton that still carries that sharp, citrus bite of your soap under the heavier, thick press of alpha scent. It’s an all-caps announcement even with the strings cinched tight around Cate’s jaw: I WAS NEAR HER. I WANT MORE.

The quad is a churn of lunch rush, of coffee breath and windburned cheeks and early-winter sun. Cate clocks every omega who turns their head when the smell hits, that little flick of attention like a bird tilting on a branch. Some of them have had you inside them. Plenty have had your mouth. A handful have had the mercy of you during heat: reliable, unflappable, hands steady even when they weren’t. You call it your duty when anyone asks, say it with a smirk that leaves the door open for filth. Cate is not immune to the smirk. She’s merely drowning in it.

“Staring’s rude,” you say behind her, like sin dropped directly into Cate’s ear.

Cate turns too quickly and the world blurs, hoodie cuff tugging over the heel of her palm. You’re dressed like every fantasy Cate refuses to share with her friends, eyes bright and unreadable. The brightest thing about you is the scent, it runs through the nose of every omega in a ten-foot radius, the air turning heavy and slow as syrup. Heads turn. Throats flex.

“I wasn’t staring,” Cate lies, even though she had been—at two Omega Arts Council girls who’d gotten glassy-eyed the second the wind changed. Cate can be manipulative, sure, but mostly she’s honest in her greed. “I was—breathing.”

“Dangerous habit.” You crowd closer, your jacket creaking. “Gonna cause a panic, baby. I told you not to wear my hoodie on days like this.”

“You told me not to wear it around other omegas when I’m—” Cate pulls back before she says it, before she offers up her throat on a platter. The word is funny in her mouth when she’s not fully there. “Sensitive.”

“You’re always sensitive.” Your voice is both a tease and a warning, it warms the inside of Cate’s skull like whiskey. “Class in five.”

“I don’t have class today.” Cate looks up only to look away again, because your mouth is pink and soft looking, and there’s an omega on the bench across the path with a book half-open on their knee and a hunger that looks a lot like Cate’s. Cate could be generous. She could share. She could.

She won’t.

“We can share lunch,” Cate tries, which is a stand-in for everything else she wants: your time, your bed, your scent, your future. “I got us—”

“Cate.” You tip her chin up with two fingers. The touch feels like a spell. A shiver travels down Cate’s spine. “You’re not in heat.”

“No,” Cate says, horribly proud of herself.

“You’re wearing my hoodie.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re vibrating.”

“Maybe,” Cate whispers. “Just a little.”

You glance down the path. The line of your throat has made Cate stupid since September, she thinks about it when she falls asleep and when she wakes up and sometimes during lectures she’s not even registered for. “You follow me to class and I’m dragging you back to my apartment by your pretty mouth,” you murmur.

Cate beams. “Okay.”

“Not a reward.”

“I’ll behave.” She won’t, and you know it. Cate is the kind of omega who was born to drape herself over things she wants and whine. “Promise.”

“You’re trouble.” You lean down and kiss her like you own Cate’s air supply, and the world tilts. Cate’s spine melts. She hears someone nearby mutter, “Jesus,” and someone else laugh. The quad keeps moving, and Cate floats helplessly toward the mouth that ruins her composure. You have always kissed like it’s evidence, like Cate is a thesis you intend to defend with the weight of your body. It’s almost enough. Almost.

You pull back when Cate lifts on her toes, not enough to get free of the taste. Cate makes a noise she hates hearing herself make in daylight.

“What do you want?” You ask.

Cate thinks about lying. Doesn’t. “You.”

“You have me.”

“Not the way I want.” It bursts out, shaky and true. “I want the other thing.”

Your pupils grow wider. “What other thing?”

“You know.” Cate drags her thumb along the edge of your jaw. “The thing you keep not doing.”

“Cate.”

“You don’t mark anyone,” Cate says, high on begging now that she’s started. The hood of the sweater is swallowing her peripheral vision and she leans into it. “Not even me.”

“Not even you,” you echo, quiet.

“I hate sharing you,” Cate blurts, throat hot. She can’t stop now, every sentence spills into the next like beads off a broken string. “I know it’s your job. I know you—help. You’re good, and you’re careful, and they love you for it. I—” She swallows. The taste of the kiss sits on her tongue. “But I want you to be mine. I want to be yours. I don’t want to be just another omega you see on the way to doing your duty.”

You watch her with that wary softness Cate only gets in private. “We’re not dating,” you say, as if it’s a question you both haven’t been failing to ask for months.

“I want to,” Cate says. The wind slides under the hem of the hoodie and it smells like you and cold and a little like snow. “But even if you don’t want to call it that—mark me.”

“Those aren’t different asks,” you say, half a laugh in it to soften the blow. “You’re asking me to bond.”

Cate’s heart pounds. “Yes.”

“You’re not in heat. I’m not in rut.”

“I don’t care. Please.” Her pulse is a trapped bird, her hands ache to hold. “Bite me.”

You go still enough that the scene sharpens around you, a crispness Cate associates with danger and with want. It’s ten thousand little reasons all singing the same note in your head—Cate can tell, because she knows your face like a page she keeps rereading.You’re twenty-one and a miracle of bad decisions harnessed into good hands, the most desirable alpha on campus for reasons that had only a little to do with pheromones. You’re an alpha who spreads yourself out when needed and never once lets yourself anchor. An alpha who calls it duty like a joke because the truth scares you more than being horny in public.

“After class,” you say finally, and then, lower: “After I shower. And after you eat. You’re not getting a bond bite on an empty stomach, baby.”

Cate sags, relief washing through her like heat. It takes a second to understand she isn’t being told no. She’s being given terms.

“Okay,” she breathes. “Okay. I’ll—wait.”

“Mm. You’ll try.” You kiss her once more, too fast, a flare that makes Cate reach again like a fool. “Go home. My dorm. Don’t let anyone talk to you.”

“I’ll tell them to go away.”

“You’ll bat your lashes and invite them to smell my hoodie,” you say, amused, and then serious in a blink. “Home. Lock the door. I’ll be there.”

Cate nods, thrilled, greedy, already turning to run.

“Cate,” you say.

Cate pivots again, everything loose. “Yes?”

“Good girl,” you say, and Cate’s knees do something embarrassing. When she catches her balance, you're already walking away, shoulders squared, scent smearing the space you leave like a signature. Two omegas on the bench watch you go with expressions Cate recognizes from any mirror. Cate clutches the hoodie tighter around herself and carries her hunger off like a secret.

Your dorm is always too tidy for a college place. The couch is clean, the record player dustless, the coasters actually used. Cate knows where she’s allowed to be messy. The bed, the shower, the space between your ribs and your hips when Cate tucks herself in. She kicks her shoes into their little tray and eases the hoodie off her shoulders, laying it over the chair in the corner. It keeps breathing. Cate climbs into the bed and inhales until the worst of the fidgeting ebbs.

She tries to eat one of the granola bars on the nightstand while she waits. It’s like chewing rocks. She manages half and washes it down with water, hands trembling on the glass. She’s not in heat, not really. It's not the mindless, gnawing, ruinous thing she gets when biology grabs the wheel. This is the other kind, the one she’s learned to respect, the thrum she gets when you promise. That’s what this is—a promise, finally. A bite at the hinge of her throat where anyone would see it. Property, to anyone who believed in that. To Cate, a home.

The shower kicks on at exactly the time Cate expects, the pipes in your building whining like old ghosts. Cate’s already naked. It feels like a strategy.

You step out twenty minutes later damp and pink, towel hooking low on your hips. Cate’s breath stalls. Your breasts are damp too, drops working their way down between them like tiny runaways. Cate wants to lick their path and loses half a minute to that thought alone.

“Eat,” you say, hair darkened with water, a second towel in your hand you use to dry your hair with short, inefficient impatience.

“I had half,” Cate says.

“Cate.”

“I tried.”

You sigh, go to the mini fridge, and return with a plate that does not feel like college: toast, a banana, a little pile of turkey slices folded into themselves, a drizzle of honey. “Half is a start. Try a finish.”

Cate scrunches her nose. “I’m not a child.”

“Never said you were.” You sit at the foot of the bed and peel the banana with fingers that could break Cate’s spine or make her cry out loud, depending on where they land. “Open.”

You feed her. Cate glares and opens and swallows and hates how fast it soothes. You don't make a thing of it. You’re quiet, patient, a little smirk breaking across your face the first time Cate tilts forward to lick honey off your thumb. Cate chews because you asked, because you're about to do the thing Cate has been begging for in corners and elevators and with her mouth for months. The willingness sits warm, steady, not rut-crazed. It’s not instinct. It’s you choosing. This matters. Cate clings to it, to the way it lights up her chest like the flip of a switch.

When the toast is gone, you wipe a crumb from the corner of Cate’s mouth with your thumb. “Water.”

Cate drinks. Sets the glass down, wicked fast, and climbs forward on her knees until she’s straddling your lap, the towel trapped under her ass. You make a rough, startled sound that Cate will build a shrine for in her mind.

“Cate.”

“You said,” Cate says, breathless. Her hands are already on your shoulders, her own breasts brushing the damp warmth of your chest. “You said after. It’s after.”

“I did.” Your pupils blow, your hands find Cate’s waist, fingers biting in. “You’re sure.”

“Yes.” She rolls her hips against the loose towel and the heat thrumming below it. “I want to be yours. I want everyone to know.”

You swallow and Cate feels it, a shift under her mouth like a seismic event. Cate kisses there and feels the sound you make with your whole body.

“You don’t—” You breathe. “You don’t get to take it back.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ll have to put up with me.”

“I hope so.”

“I won’t stop fucking who needs me when they need me.” It’s honest, and it hurts only in the fragile thin place where Cate keeps her wish. “But I won’t be theirs.”

“I know,” Cate says, meaning I’ll still hate sharing right up until I can smell me on you, meaning I’ll survive it because the bite will be a door I can shut. “Make me yours.”

Your grip tightens. “Hands where I put them?”

Cate laces her fingers behind her head instantly, spine arching, ridiculous with happiness. “Yes.”

“Good.” You lean forward, catch a nipple in your mouth, and Cate’s brain sheds civilized language like a coat. The heat that licks out from the pull is molten, slick pool blooming low. She gasps, hips tilting, towel slipping. Your teeth flirt with the edge of pain, just this side of perfect. Cate swallows her own little cry and keeps her hands up when they want to scramble, desperate to clutch.

“Daddy,” Cate whines, shameless, because she knows what it does, because it always kicks some private door in you open. It works now. You growl against Cate’s chest, the vibration skittering across her skin.

“Yeah?” You ask around the curve of her breast, words hot and damp. “What do you need?”

“You. In me. Marking me.” Cate’s thighs quake. “Please.”

“Greedy,” you huff, and drag your mouth to the other nipple, everything Cate’s brain craves: wet, firm attention—the slow suck countered with a flick of the tongue like a match. Cate whines. It won’t be enough until your cock is inside her and maybe not even then. She wants the weight, the fill, the burn, the pressure she only gets when you knot and hold her so deep Cate feels full all the way up into her ribs.

You push the towel aside. Your cock is thick and heavy, half-hard already from Cate’s shameless squirming. Cate looks and shivers at the sight. She rubs herself shamelessly along the length of it, slick already making everything slide with ease. Your breath stutters. Your hands go rough against Cate’s hips.

“Turn around,” you say, voice already a wreck.

Cate does, sprawling forward on her hands and knees, face in your pillows, palms flat like she’s being searched. You swear softly behind her, the sound low enough to make Cate’s stomach pull tight, and then Cate flicks her gaze toward the nightstand before you can reach for it.

“No condom,” she says.

You go still.

Cate feels it in the air before she feels it in your hands, that sudden animal silence, every instinct in the room lifting its head. She turns her face just enough to look back over her shoulder, hair mussed against her cheek, mouth swollen from kissing, eyes too bright to pretend this is anything but what it is.

“Cate.”

“No,” Cate says again, softer now, almost pleading, though there’s a stubborn little edge under it. “Not this time. Please.” Her fingers curl into the sheets. “I want to feel you. I want you to fill me. If you’re going to mark me, then don’t—” Her breath catches, embarrassment and hunger tangling until she has to press her cheek into the pillow for half a second. “Don’t want anything between us.”

Your hand lands on her hip, hot and heavy, but you don't move. “Baby, you need to think.”

“I have.” Cate’s voice trembles, not with doubt, but with the force of wanting too much and finally saying it plainly. “I’ve thought about it all day. Longer.” She swallows, hips shifting back a fraction in helpless invitation, and your grip tightens hard enough to make her gasp. “I want your knot. I want your cum. I want to smell like you everywhere. I want to feel it after. I want—” Her throat works around the worst, neediest truth. “I want it to mean something.”

For a second, you only breathe.

Then you bend over Cate’s back, one hand sliding up to the nape of her neck, not pushing yet. Just holding. Grounding. Making sure Cate can feel the choice still belongs to her even with your whole body gone taut behind her.

“You’re sure?” You ask, and your voice has dropped into something rougher, something with teeth under it.

Cate nods against the pillow. “Yes, Daddy. I’m sure.”

You exhale through your nose, almost a laugh and almost a curse, and kiss the back of Cate’s shoulder with a restraint so careful it aches. “You’re going to fucking ruin me.”

Cate’s smile is small, hidden in the pillowcase, wet-eyed and wicked. “Good.”

With all pretense gone, your thumbs press into the soft curve of Cate’s ass, opening her up, and Cate is gone before you even touch her properly, every nerve already reaching out, begging. There’s no crinkle of foil this time, no pause, no thin barrier snapped into place. Just your hand at her hip, your breath on her spine, your bare cock nudging slick and heavy between her thighs until Cate makes a sound so broken it barely counts as language.

Everything is pressure and promise.

Cate tries pushing back deliberately like a tease, hungry enough to be reckless, but you don't let her. One hand clamps at Cate’s hip, strong enough to claim, while the other presses broad and steady between her shoulder blades, keeping her folded there in the sheets.

“Pretty thing.” You stroke the slick seam of her with practiced tenderness until Cate’s arms start to shake and she hates you a little for it, hates and loves you equally, a perfect balance. The first push is measured, the head of your cock catching at the edge of Cate’s cunt, the stretch hot enough to make Cate gasp. The second push is deeper. Cate pants, face buried in the pillowcase, which smells like laundry detergent and something cleanly alpha, something you even when you refuse to mark anyone with it. The third push is home.

“Oh,” Cate says helplessly, grunt turned into a whimper.

“Yeah,” you say, just above a growl, and still with half your cock inside, like you’ve got all the time in the world. “You’re so wet I can hear you.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not. It’s beautiful.” Your fingers splay over Cate’s hip like a brand. “You want it rough?”

“I want you,” Cate says, which is the same thing.

You slide in the rest of the way and Cate breaks, a sound tearing out of her that she’ll pretend later she didn’t make. It’s the pressure at the root of everything that ruins her—the way your size makes her feel sweet and stupid and perfectly shaped for this. You fold over her back, chest to Cate’s spine, breath in her ear.

“Still good?”

Cate nods too fast.

“Words.”

“Yes, daddy,” Cate says, and you bite Cate’s shoulder—not the place, not yet, just enough to make Cate’s vision blur. You start to move. It’s not the brutal pace Cate sometimes begs for when she’s fevered and gone, but it’s still deep and thorough and designed to make Cate feel every inch. The sound is obscene, the slide of it, your cock working her open and fucking her slow until Cate wants to cry from pleasure, and then faster, and then—God—slow again like a punishment.

“Hold on,” you say when Cate pitches her hips back to chase it, a little slap to Cate’s ass that makes her clench. “Let me. You asked. I heard.”

“I’m so close,” Cate moans. It’s not quite true. She’s hovering, refusing to drop because she wants the bite at the same time, wants the sharp and the sweet braided together so she’ll think about it forever. “Please.”

“Shh.” Your hand shifts from Cate’s hip to her belly, pressing down as you thrust, pinning Cate to the mattress in a way that rearranges her thoughts. Cate keens. “I’ve got you.”

The knot builds at the base of your cock, a thickening you can’t hide even when you aren't in rut. Cate feels it and goes feral, shame lost in a rush of want. She pushes back helplessly, hungry for the lock it promises, for the fullness that makes her feel delirious and cherished at once.

“Baby,” Cate says, breath breaking. “Baby, bite me. Please, daddy, please, do it, I want—”

You stop moving.

Cate sobs—frustrated, pleading—and then your hand is on her throat, gentle and absolute, drawing her up from the mattress until Cate is arching into the cradle of your body, cock still deep. Your other hand slides up, palm settling over Cate’s sternum, holding her there. Cate trembles.

“You’re sure,” you ask again, and there’s nothing but the promise of it, no duty, no anything but choices. “You want the bond. You want me to tie myself to you.”

“Yes,” Cate says, dizzy, happy enough to die of it. “Tie to me. I want to be—” She can’t say owned, it sticks in her throat. Instead she says, “I want to be yours. I want you to be mine.”

You exhale into her hair like you’ve been sprinting since September and have only just stopped. Cate feels the moment you decide, something inside you easing and making room.

“Hands,” you say, and Cate lifts them where she’s told, reaches back, laces her fingers behind your neck. You bury your nose behind Cate’s ear and inhale, and Cate hears the tremor you’re trying to hide. “I’m going to mark you.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to bond with you.”

“Yes.” Cate’s eyes sting.

“And you’re going to cum on my cock while I do it.”

Cate laughs, wet and a little wild. “Obviously.”

You bite—first a scrape against the wrong spot, warning heat, a test—and Cate shivers all over. Then lower, where it’ll show if Cate tilts her head just so. The pressure is enormous. Cate all but sobs, not from pain—there is pain, yes, a bright warmth that makes her clench around you so hard you swear into her skin—but it comes paired with something else, a flood through her body that feels like rain hitting parched earth. Cate thinks of all the ways she’s been empty before this. She clings as she’s filled, opening her mouth on an astonished little cry that might be your name.

Your cock jerks. The knot swells as you push, one hand holding down on Cate’s belly again, keeping her flush as you lock together. The catch and pop as the knot passes the ring of muscle makes Cate wail. The bite seals at the same second the knot locks you, two kinds of tether in the air between heartbeats. Cate falls through it like a trapdoor.

“Cate,” you say into the bite, voice breaking like it doesn’t often do, and Cate comes. It’s not graceful. It’s not quiet. She clenches down around you and holds the knot and shakes through it, slick heat flooding where you’re joined, breath strangled into wet little gasps. You rock into her, slow, hips shifting as much as the knot allows, keeping her blissed out and shaking. The bite sings. The mouth over it gentles. You lick at the mess you made and Cate’s whole body arches. The taste must be iron and something sweeter because you make a greedy noise and Cate’s orgasm tips into a second one, less violent, more like a tide that finally reaches land.

You follow with a reverent noise as your cock throbs and throbs and throbs, the hot spill of your cum filling Cate to the brim. The bond flares: Cate feels it like an anchor thrown from your chest to hers and back, an echo that ignites—mine, mine, mine—in both your bodies until she’s dizzy with it. Your arms fold up around Cate as if to contain the aftershocks. Cate buries her face in the pillow and sobs out a laugh.

“Oh,” she says when she gets air. “Oh.”

You don't move. The knot holds you together, a too-perfect plug, the bite throbs in time with Cate’s pulse, and beneath it Cate can feel the bond easing into place, the initial burn cooling into something steady and marvelous, like a hearth finally lit.

“Okay?” You ask eventually, as if Cate hasn’t just levitated.

Cate hums, too drunk on the feeling to be articulate. Her cheek is pressed into your pillow, her body still trembling around the knot, and the whole room smells like you two now. Not you over Cate. Not Cate clinging to what you left behind. Both of you. Woven together, heat and sweat and slick and blood and cum, every inhale thick with the impossible fact of it.

“I love you,” Cate manages.

You go still.

The bond settles between you, alive and strong. Cate tries not to smile into the pillow because she isn’t manipulative, not really—not when it counts—except she is sometimes, and sometimes she plays with fire on purpose. Or with alphas. Same difference, really, except this time the fire has crawled into bed behind her and branded its name into her skin.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Cate says, softer, a spill of truth into the bed sheets. Her fingers curl uselessly into the pillowcase, searching for something to hold because she can’t reach you from this angle without moving too much, and the knot keeps her pinned in place with a sweet, aching finality. “I just—” She swallows, cheek hot against the rumpled cotton. “Now you know.”

You make a sound Cate has never heard from you before. Not quite a laugh. Not quite pained. Something dragged up from under the armor, raw and startled by the weight of the moment.

You wrap a hand around Cate’s wrist and bring it down over Cate’s chest, flattening Cate’s palm there until Cate can feel her own heartbeat hammering under her ribs. Then you cover it with your own hand, broad and warm and shaking just slightly.

“I love you,” you exhale.

Cate’s vision does a funny, stupid kaleidoscope thing. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Your laugh is ragged, joy pulled free. “Yeah, baby.”

You nuzzle the mark like you can’t stop touching it, your mouth careful around the swollen edge of the bite, thumb stroking the hinge of Cate’s jaw. The bond pulses with each touch, sending little golden sparks of sensation through Cate’s chest and down her spine. Your cock pulses inside her again, not with the hard urgency of before, but with some aftershock of possessive awe.

“I didn’t know,” you say.

Cate blinks slowly. “Didn’t know what?”

You’re quiet for a second, and through the bond Cate feels the shape of it before the words come: fear, wonder, a sudden violent tenderness, the awful collapsing realization that something you’d been treating like appetite had never been hunger at all.

“I didn’t know it would feel like this.” Your voice scrapes low. “I thought I knew. I thought it was just—instinct. Alpha bullshit. Body doing what bodies do. Help someone through heat, make it good, walk away before anything has teeth.” She swallows against Cate’s shoulder, breath hot against the bite. “But this?”

Cate’s throat tightens.

You press closer, as much as the knot allows, one arm folding around Cate’s stomach. It’s not performative. It’s not confident. It’s need made physical, your body saying what your voice is still learning how to survive.

“This is different,” you exhale. “You’re different.”

Cate’s heart turns over so hard it hurts. “Baby.”

“No, listen.” You kiss beside the mark again, then rest your forehead there, almost bowed over Cate. “I kept telling myself I was useful. That it didn’t mean anything if I didn’t mark anyone, didn’t stay, didn’t give them anything they couldn’t get from somebody else. And maybe that was true. Maybe it was true enough.” Your fingers flex over Cate’s ribs. “But I don’t want that anymore.”

Cate goes absolutely still beneath you.

The room narrows to the slow, wet pulse of where you’re joined, the ache of your knot still lodged deep, the burn of the bite cooling into a claim. Cate is afraid to breathe too loudly in case she startles the words back into your mouth.

You exhale, rough and certain.

“I don’t want anyone else,” you say. “Not like that. Not after this. Not after you.”

Cate makes a small, wounded noise, because that is exactly the sentence she has wanted so badly but taught herself not to ask for directly.

You hear it. Of course you do. You hear everything when it matters. Your hand slides up from Cate’s chest to her throat, not gripping, just covering the mark with your palm like you can keep it warm.

“You get me,” you say. “Not first. Not the most. Not when I have time left over.” Your voice hardens there, not cruel, just done making loopholes for yourself. “Only you get me.”

Cate’s eyes sting so fast she has no time to prepare dignity. “You mean that?”

You huff a breath against her skin, half offended Cate could even ask, half wrecked because of course Cate needs the confirmation. “Yeah, baby. I mean that.”

“But the others—”

“Can find someone else.” You say it plainly, and there’s no bravado in it, no casual cruelty. Just the clean click of a decision being made. “I’m not the campus heat relief program. I’m not community property. I was acting like I could be touched by everyone and owned by no one, and maybe that worked before because I didn’t want to belong anywhere badly enough to stop.” Your mouth brushes Cate’s ear. “But I belong here.”

Cate’s breath breaks.

Your hand tightens, not enough to hurt. Enough to anchor. “With you.”

Something in Cate folds and unfolds all at once. She wants to preen. She wants to cry. She wants to turn around and claw her way inside your ribs and sleep there for the winter. Instead she presses her palm over your hand at her throat, holding it against the bite.

“I’m selfish,” Cate whispers.

“A little bit.”

Cate laughs, watery and helpless. “Rude.”

“It’s true.” You kiss the corner of her mouth when Cate twists enough to offer it, the angle awkward, your bodies still locked too tightly for grace. “You’re selfish. You’re jealous. You’re a nightmare when you think you’re not getting enough attention.”

Cate should argue. She doesn’t. “And?”

“And I love you, anyway.” You say it easier the second time. “And I like that you want me like that. I like that you want the whole fucking thing. I like that you weren’t going to settle for scraps and pretend you didn’t know you deserved better.”

Cate’s tears finally slip, hot against the bridge of her nose where it’s mashed into the pillow. “I hated it.”

“I know.”

“I hated smelling them on you.” The confession comes out thin, ugly, childish, and therefore true. “I hated pretending I didn’t. I hated being good about it.”

You go quiet, and the bond gives Cate the truth of your guilt before you can smooth it over. It doesn’t feel defensive. It feels like pain finding the bruise it made.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

Cate closes her eyes. The apology moves through her with almost unbearable tenderness. “I know you weren’t trying to hurt me.”

“No.” Your voice is low, rough. “But I did.”

Cate swallows. “A little.”

You press a kiss to her shoulder, then another to the mark itself, so soft Cate’s whole body quivers around you. “No more.”

The words are small. Sturdy. A bridge built board by board across a river Cate had nearly drowned in.

“No more?” Cate asks, because she needs to hear it again. She will probably need to hear it fifty more times. You, cruelly and perfectly, seem to know.

“No more,” you repeat. “No one else. I’m yours.”

Cate’s smile trembles into something almost feral. “Say that again.”

Your laugh warms the side of her throat. “Greedy.”

“Yes.”

“Mine,” you murmur against the bite, making Cate gasp at the little bright pulse it sends through the bond. “My omega. My girl. My Cate.”

Cate goes boneless, ruined by every word.

“And I’m yours,” you add, quieter, the sentence offered without armor. “Only yours.”

You breathe together. The knot loosens slowly, easing you into a little slide that makes Cate shiver all over again. When it goes, Cate whimpers at the sudden emptiness and then blushes at herself for it. You hold her steady through the release, murmuring sweet nothings into the bite.

There’s an ache when Cate shifts, the kind that really only wants more. She doesn’t want to move, but you’re slick and messy, the sheets a crime scene of longing. You slip out of bed reluctantly and return with a warm washcloth that makes Cate mewl. You clean between Cate’s thighs with the kind of care Cate’s mother used to reserve for skinned knees and birthday cake icing on cheeks. Cate melts, pliant.

“Let me look,” you say when you’re done, and Cate bares her throat without thinking, tipping her chin up, hair a wreck, eyes sleepy.

You look like you’re looking at an eclipse. You touch the edges of the bite—gentle, reverent—and then kiss a good inch away from it like you’re restraining yourself. The restraint finds its way to Cate through the bond. It feels like a hand pressed over a drum to stop the beat from growing too wild.

“Is it awful?” Cate asks, flirting because it’s easy when she is this owned.

“It’s perfect,” you say, and then ruin Cate by laughing, soft and wrecked. “It’s so pretty on you I want to cry.”

Cate beams, and the insecurities that had sat like stones in her gut for months simply…aren’t there anymore. There’s your breathing, and the bond humming like a freshly tuned instrument, and a future that smells like citrus soap and old leather and the metallic sweetness of blood remembered fondly.

“Will they know?” Cate asks, greedy still, because there’s a part of her that wants to parade the mark across the quad like a medal. “That you’re not theirs anymore?”

Your expression changes.

Not dramatically. But something settles in your face, some quiet, possessive certainty that makes Cate’s stomach go warm all over again.

“Only when you’re ready.” You fetch a long-sleeve from your drawer and help Cate into it like she’s breakable, like it’s a game you both enjoy too much to quit. The shirt is too big. You look delighted with yourself. “You can keep it hidden until you’re ready to show off.” Your grin goes sharp and smug at the edges. “And when you do, I expect chaos.”

Cate lets the sleeves fall over her hands, soft and ridiculous, and tilts her chin just enough to make the fresh bite pull. “Jealous?”

You cock a brow and drop a kiss to the inner curve of Cate’s wrist. “Proud.”

Cate rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling, which looks exactly like every other college dorm ceiling—a little cracked, a little yellow at the corners—but for the first time since she set foot on campus, hers to look at like this. You stretch out beside her, damp hair bleeding onto the pillowcase, and Cate rolls to face you. The hood of the hoodie she abandoned gapes from the chair in the corner. She’ll wear it tomorrow. She’ll wear it on purpose.

“Stay,” you say, casual and careful, as if this isn’t the thing Cate has built a cathedral out of in the back of her mind.

Cate shoves her toes under your calf. “Yes, daddy.”

Your laugh is as soft as the sheet. “You’re going to kill me.”

“You’re a big strong alpha,” Cate says sweetly. “You’ll survive.”

“Mm.” You lift your hand and lay it, slowly, over the mark. Cate shivers. The bond hums. “We will.”

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand like a wasp. You ignore it at first. Cate, because she’s nosy and high on love, glances anyway.

The name on the screen belongs to an omega from Cate’s bio seminar, a pretty girl with a soft mouth who’d once asked you politely if you had time this weekend. You’d apologized, midterms had been hell, and the line had been long.

Cate’s good mood curdles for half a second, old jealousy lifting its little poisonous head. “Do you need—” Cate starts, because she wants to be good, and stops, because she wants to be selfish. Her fingers drift to the bite before she can stop herself. “Do you want to take that?”

Your gaze flicks from the phone to Cate’s face. Something amused and possessive settles in your mouth.

“No,” you say. Then you reach past Cate, pick up the phone, unlock it, and hold it out. “You can answer.”

Cate blinks.

The bond gives her a warm flare of your certainty, steady and shameless. No reluctance. No test. Just the clean offer of the thing Cate has wanted all this time: proof, placed in her hand.

“I can?” Cate asks, softer than she means to.

Your thumb strokes the edge of the mark, making Cate’s lashes flutter. “Yeah, baby. Tell her.”

Cate takes the phone with hands that are only a little shaky. The message is exactly what she expects, politely needy, heat-adjacent, wrapped in enough casual punctuation to pretend it’s not a request. Cate reads it once, then looks up.

You're watching her like she’s beautiful and dangerous and entirely yours.

That helps.

Cate opens the camera first. She angles herself carefully, hair pushed back, your too-big shirt slipping off one shoulder just enough to show the fresh bite dark against her throat. It’s swollen and unmistakable, a bruise-shaped signature, your claim written where anyone with a nose and half a brain could understand it. Cate snaps the picture, studies it, then sends it before she can lose her nerve.

Under it, she types:

This alpha’s off the market. Sorry 💕

She stares at the words for one charged second, heart thudding, then hits send.

You make a low sound behind her, half laugh, half growl, and Cate barely has time to set the phone down before your arm hooks around her waist and drags her back against your chest.

“Sorry?” You murmur against Cate’s ear, delighted and appalled in equal measure. “That’s what we’re going with?”

Cate tips her chin, giving you better access to the mark. “I’m being polite.”

“You sent a bite picture.”

“Yes.” Cate’s smile blooms slow and wicked. “Politely.”

You laugh into her neck, and the bond warms so brightly Cate almost forgets how to breathe. The phone buzzes again a few seconds later, then again, then stops. Cate doesn’t look. You do. You reach over, flip the phone facedown, and settle your hand back at Cate’s throat, thumb brushing the edge of the bite as if you’re sealing the room shut around you both.

“Done,” you say.

Cate’s pulse jumps beneath her palm. “Done?”

“With everyone else.” You kiss the mark once, slow enough to make Cate’s thighs tense. “With that. With anything that isn’t this.”

Cate’s breath catches, and your mouth curves against her skin like you felt it through the bond.

“Now,” you say, and your voice does the thing it does when you have plans that end in Cate making embarrassing sounds, “I’m going to put my tongue in you and see how sensitive a newly bonded omega can get before she cries. Then I’m going to feed you again. Then we’re going to nap, and when you wake up you’re going to ride me until you forget your own name and only remember mine. And then—if you’re very, very good—I’ll take you for a walk across campus with your hair up and your bite out and my scent all over you, and we’ll watch the way people look.”

Cate should play coy, but she’s constitutionally unable to. “I’m always good.”

“Debatable,” you say, clearly delighted. You roll onto your side and kiss Cate like a seal pressed in wax. Cate yields and takes in the taste of herself and the last, thin trace of iron and the particular mint on your breath that she will now forever associate with morning afters and the evenings before them. When you lift your head, Cate’s eyes blur again.

“Hey,” You say softly, thumb swiping under an eye where nothing has yet fallen. “You okay?”

“I’m happy.” It sounds like a confession. Cate doesn’t care. “I didn’t know I could be.”

Your jaw works. The color of your eyes deepens. The bond thrums, resonance across a new bridge. “You’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” Cate echoes, a greedy little song. She tugs the too-long sleeves down over her hands and lets you tangle your fingers together anyway, fabric rasping between your palms. “And you’re mine.”

“Always.” You kiss the corner of her mouth, then the bite again, as if to prove it—as if proof is still necessary after what you’ve just done together. Maybe it is, maybe it always will be. Cate likes the idea of collecting proof for the rest of your lives.

Your mouth trails down, and down, and down. Cate opens for you like morning glory. The ache of the bite keeps perfect time with her pulse, the bond purrs, the hoodie sighs in the corner, haloed by sunlight that didn’t know it was walking into a room with a new center of gravity.

Cate thinks about campus, and the bench, and the girls who looked at you like you were an altar. Cate respects the worship. Cate understands it. Cate will still smile when she catches them staring, a little sharp, a little mean, a lot joyous, and she will tilt her head to show them the mark. There’s no shame in claiming—there’s only relief.

Your thumb drifts over the bite, and the imagined quad dissolves under the pressure of your touch. Campus can wait. The staring, the whispers, the bright little violence of being seen can all wait. Right now there is only the room, the sheets, the slow heat of you moving down her body with infuriating devotion, and Cate realizing, with a shiver that starts under your mouth and ends between her thighs, that being claimed is not the end of wanting. It’s a door opening into a whole new world.

You take your time getting there.

It’s the meanest thing about you, Cate thinks, which is unfair because you’re currently being devastatingly gentle. Still, Cate has a brand-new mark throbbing at her throat, your cum still warm and messy between her thighs, and every inch of her feels peeled open. She doesn’t have the patience for reverence. She wants teeth and tongue and proof, wants you to put your mouth on her like Cate’s body is the only language either of you has left.

The worst part is that everything is different now. Not different in shape, not really. Your hands still know where to hold her, your mouth still knows how to make Cate forget the architecture of language, your body is still the same impossible geography Cate has been studying for months. But the bond has tuned every nerve between you two until pleasure stops belonging to only one body at a time. Cate feels your hunger answer her own. Feels the low, dark satisfaction you try to hide every time Cate whimpers. Feels every lick and touch and thrust reverberate twice, once in her skin and again through that new cord pulled tight between both of your ribs. It is obscene, how intimate it is. How there is nowhere for either of you to pretend distance exists anymore.

Because you’re cruel and know it, you start at Cate’s knee.

Cate makes a wounded sound into the pillow. “Baby.”

“Mm.” You kiss the inside of her knee, then the tender place above it, slow and deliberate. Your hands are wrapped around Cate’s thighs, keeping them open without forcing them wider than Cate can comfortably give. It’s not restraint yet. It’s possession with manners. “You’re sensitive.”

“I wonder why.”

You laugh softly against her skin. The vibration skates up Cate’s leg and lands low in her belly, where everything is already too hot, too swollen, too aware. Your knot is gone now, but its absence has become its own kind of ache. Cate can feel the stretch you left behind, the slow wet drip of where she’s been filled, the humiliating little pulse of her body trying to keep every last bit of you inside.

You notice. Per usual.

Your thumb drags through the slick of Cate’s cunt, slow enough to be obscene. Cate’s hips twitch before she can stop them.

“Look at you,” you murmur, and Cate hates how quickly praise turns her molten. “Still trying to keep me.”

Cate lifts her head just enough to glare, though it is ruined somewhat by the fact that her hair is mussed, her cheeks are flushed, and her mouth is still kissed pink. “Don’t be smug.”

“I’m being factual.”

“You’re being unbearable.”

Your mouth presses to the inside of her thigh again, closer this time. “You love that.”

Cate could deny it if she had any dignity left, but dignity is apparently in the same place as her underwear and higher reasoning, which is to say gone. “A little,” she admits.

Your eyes flick up. Dark and glittering with it. “Only a little?”

Cate’s breath catches because your mouth is inches from her cunt now, because the air cools every wet place you’ve left exposed, because the bite at Cate’s throat pulses when you inhale. The bond sends something through you both, a little echo of hunger doubling back on itself until Cate’s thighs shake under your hands.

“Fine,” Cate whispers. “A lot.”

“Good girl.”

Cate’s head drops back.

You don't make her wait after that. You lower your mouth and licks into her with one broad, unhurried stroke that turns Cate’s spine to ribbons. It’s not delicate. It’s not tentative. You eat her like you’re tasting what you’ve claimed, like the mess between Cate’s thighs is evidence you intend to study thoroughly. Your tongue drags up through swollen slick, catches over Cate’s clit, then dips lower again, and Cate makes a sound so high and helpless she feels embarrassed for half a second before you groan into her.

That groan finishes off whatever remained of Cate’s pride.

She grabs at the sheet with both hands and tries not to clamp her thighs around your head. Your grip tightens, holding her open, thumbs pressing into soft flesh with just enough pressure to remind Cate she’s not getting away unless she actually asks to. The thought makes her entire body burn hotter, which is both predictable and deeply unfair.

“Baby,” she gasps.

You hum in answer, mouth occupied, and Cate’s vision crackles white.

The first orgasm creeps up on her. It doesn’t crash all at once—it gathers in little tremors, in the wet press of your mouth, in the precise flick of your tongue, in the scrape of your nose against sensitive skin. Cate tries to breathe through it, tries to stay elegant in some impossible, theoretical way. Then you slide two fingers inside her, careful through the tenderness, and curl them exactly where Cate is already wrecked.

Cate comes with a broken little cry, hips bucking into your mouth despite herself.

You hold her through it. That’s the thing that undoes Cate. Not just the pleasure, not just the sharp bright pulse of release, but your hands steady at her thighs, your mouth softening without stopping, swallowing every twitch and gasp like it belongs to you. The bond flares, warm and golden behind Cate’s ribs, and for a moment Cate feels your satisfaction through it. Not pride exactly. Not conquest.

Devotion.

Cate sobs on the tail end of it, startled by herself.

You lift your mouth only enough to kiss the inside of Cate’s thigh, lips wet, breath hot. “You okay?”

Cate laughs weakly, because of course you ask after making her see God and two minor campus deities. “Mhm.”

“You cried.”

“You said you were going to see if you could make me.”

“I did.” Your mouth curves against her skin. “Fast results. Very efficient.”

Cate slaps at your shoulder with no force at all. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” You kiss her clit, quick and light.

Cate yelps your name.

“There she is.” Your grin is audible. “Still got my whole name in there somewhere.”

“Barely.”

“Then we’re not done.”

Cate opens her mouth to complain, but you're already back between her thighs, and the argument leaves her body in a shudder. The second time is worse because Cate knows it’s coming. The sensitivity has sharpened into something unbearable, pleasure threaded with too much feeling, every pass of your tongue tugging at the fresh bond until Cate can’t tell whether the heat is between her legs or under her sternum. You keep one hand on Cate’s thigh and slide the other up her body, palm spreading over her lower belly, then her ribs, then the center of her chest.

Cate catches that hand with both of hers and holds on.

“Please,” she whispers, though she doesn’t know if she’s asking you to stop or keep going. You know. You always know in the exact way Cate both needs and resents.

You slow—which is somehow worse. Your tongue turns patient, coaxing, worshipful, each touch drawn out until Cate is shaking before she’s even close again. You don't force it. You let it build. Let Cate arch and whimper and press her heels into the mattress. Let her breathe. Let her fall apart by degrees.

Cate’s second orgasm rolls through her softer but deeper, a long trembling spill that leaves her body loose and flushed and wet-eyed. She doesn’t cry out this time. She just goes silent, mouth open, fingers clamped around your hand while the pleasure empties her of everything but warmth.

You kiss your way up slowly after, ignoring the mess on your mouth with the serene shamelessness of a woman who has no intention of apologizing for any of it. Cate watches through heavy lashes as you crawl over her, careful not to press too much weight onto her. The sight of you should be illegal: damp hair falling over your forehead, pupils wide, lips glossy from Cate, expression softened into something almost unbearably fond.

Cate reaches for you before she can think better of it.

You let yourself be pulled down. Your kiss is messy and slow, and Cate tastes herself on your tongue, tastes the salt and slick and faint iron from the bite you kept worrying with your mouth. It should make her shy. It doesn’t. It makes her clutch at your shoulders and drag you closer, needy even in exhaustion.

“You’re okay,” you murmur against her mouth.

Cate nods, then shakes her head, then nods again.

You still. “Words, baby.”

“I’m okay.” Cate’s voice is hoarse. She blinks, and one tear slips sideways into her hair. “I’m just…a lot okay.”

Your face changes. The amusement goes soft at the edges, leaving only the care beneath it. You kiss the tear before it can cool, then kiss Cate’s cheek, the corner of her mouth, the bite. Cate shivers when your lips brush the swollen mark.

“Too much?”

“No.” Cate’s hands slide up your back, restless and weak. “No, don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“The face where you decide I’m made of glass.”

You snort, but the sound is tender. “You’re currently doing a very good impression of it.”

“I’m not glass.” Cate tucks her chin stubbornly, which pulls at the bite and makes her wince. “I’m just newly bonded and sexually victimized by your mouth.”

A laugh bursts out of you, sudden and delighted, warming the whole room. “Sexually victimized?”

“With enthusiasm,” Cate clarifies.

“Good to know.”

“With consent.”

“Obviously.”

“With maybe more later?”

Your eyes darken again, but you only brush Cate’s hair back from her face. “Maybe later,” you agree. “After water. And a nap. And you stop trembling.”

Cate had not realized she was. Now that you say it, she feels the fine vibration through her thighs, her stomach, her hands. Not fear. Not distress. Just the aftermath of it, her body ringing like a bell struck too many times.

You move carefully, one hand stroking Cate’s hip as you shift off the bed. Cate makes a small unhappy sound at the loss of weight.

“I’m two feet away,” you say.

“That’s far.”

“You’ll live.”

“Unconfirmed.”

You give her a look over one shoulder, fond and dry, then disappear towards the mini fridge. Cate lies there boneless and listening: the fridge door, the clink of glass, a drawer opening, the faint peel of a yogurt lid. The window is cracked, and cold air threads through the overheated room, raising goosebumps along Cate’s bare legs. The scent is riotous. Sex, bond, your alpha warmth sunk into the sheets, Cate’s slick drying tacky at her thighs. It should feel embarrassing. Instead, it feels like evidence.

You come back with a bowl and a glass of water balanced in one hand. Competence as foreplay. Cate hates you.

“Sit up a little.”

Cate doesn’t move. “I can’t. You broke me.”

“Mm.” You set the glass down and slide an arm behind Cate’s shoulders, lifting her with infuriating ease. “My condolences.”

Cate lets herself be propped against the pillows, because being handled is different when you do it. You’ve put on boxers by now, but nothing else, which Cate finds rude and considerate in equal measure. The bowl is yogurt with honey and strawberries sliced into it. You feed her the first spoonful without ceremony.

Cate accepts it, lashes lowering. “This is very alpha of you.”

“Feeding you?”

“Feeding me after fucking me stupid.”

Your mouth twitches. “You were stupid before.”

Cate kicks you under the sheet.

“Violence,” you say solemnly. “From the patient.”

“I’m not a patient.”

“You’re definitely under observation.”

Cate opens her mouth for the next bite because arguing is harder than eating, and because the honey is good, and because your face does something devastating every time Cate obeys. The first few spoonfuls settle her more than she wants to admit. Her body, traitorous and grateful, stops shaking quite so much. The bond hums lower, no longer a bonfire, more like banked coals.

You watch every swallow like it matters.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Cate says eventually.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m—” She gestures vaguely with the spoon you’ve let her steal. “A miracle or something.”

Your expression barely changes, but the bond gives you away. A flare of feeling, private and unguarded.

Cate goes quiet.

“You kind of are,” you admit.

The spoon lowers in Cate’s hand. She looks away first, because there are some kinds of sincerity that feel almost obscene after sex, more intimate than any mouth between her thighs. You don’t chase the eye contact. You simply take the spoon back, scoop another bite, and offer it.

Cate eats.

After the yogurt, you make her drink half the water, then wipe her thighs with a warm cloth again, slower this time. Cate’s skin is too sensitive. Every brush makes her twitch, and you murmur apologies without stopping the necessary care. It’s absurd, how undone Cate is by being cleaned. By being fussed over. By your hand steady at her ankle, turning her gently, making sure she isn’t sticky or cold or uncomfortable.

When Cate is finally tucked under the sheets, you crawl in behind her and pull her onto the cool side of the bed. Cate groans at the relief of it. The pillowcase is chilled. The cracked window lets in a ribbon of air that cuts through the room’s heat and makes the bond bite ache sweetly.

You settle close but not smothering, one arm around Cate’s waist, palm spread over her stomach. Cate wriggles backward until she’s pressed fully against you. You give in with a soft huff and hook a leg over hers.

“Better?”

Cate nods, then remembers. “Yes.”

You kiss the back of her shoulder. “Sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m basking.”

“In what?”

Cate closes her eyes. The room smells like sex and strawberries and cold air, like your skin and Cate’s shampoo and the dark, animal proof of your new shared bond. Her body is sore in places she wants to keep remembering. Her throat throbs. Her heartbeat has slowed, finally convinced it doesn’t have to run.

“In being yours,” Cate says.

Your arm tightens.

For once, you don’t make a joke. You just press your mouth to the bite and stay there, breathing against it until Cate’s thoughts loosen and drift. The last thing Cate feels before sleep takes her is your thumb stroking small, absent circles over her belly, right above where she can still feel the deep, satisfied ache of being filled.

She wakes because you're touching the bite.

Not roughly. Not even enough to wake her on purpose, Cate thinks, surfacing through sleep in slow, syrupy pieces. The room is blue at the edges now, afternoon cooled toward evening, the cracked window breathing winter into the overheated dark. Her body is warm under the sheet and sore in that deep, used way that makes every small movement bring you back to her in flashes. You're behind her, chest to her back, mouth at Cate’s neck, fingers resting lightly around the mark as if you’ve found some holy thing and still haven't decided whether you’re allowed to keep it.

Cate keeps her eyes closed for a second, shamelessly listening.

Your breathing is steady, but not asleep steady. Awake steady. Watching her sleep steady. The bond between you hums low and warm, drowsy, and beneath it Cate can feel your want before you say anything, before you shift, before the hard length of you nudges more deliberately against the curve of Cate’s ass.

Cate smiles into the pillow.

“Are you pretending to be asleep?” You ask, voice rough from the nap.

“No.”

“Convincing.”

“I’m resting my eyes.”

“You’re grinding on me.”

Cate opens one eye. She is, technically, pushing back in tiny, slow movements that could be mistaken for sleep if you were stupid, blind, or dead. Unfortunately, you're none of those things. Your hand slips from the bite to Cate’s waist, fingers spreading under the shirt, palm warm against bare skin.

Cate lets out a tiny sigh, all wounded innocence. “My body misses you.”

You huff a laugh into the nape of her neck. “Your body has had a very busy day.”

“My body is committed.”

“Your body is spoiled.”

Cate turns carefully, muscles protesting in small, delicious sparks. You help her, one hand braced at Cate’s hip, the other under her shoulder until Cate is on her back with you over her. The shift pulls at every sensitive place. Cate makes a sound before she can swallow it, and you still immediately, eyes sharpening.

“Too sore?”

Cate shakes her head, then stops because that makes the bite tug. “Not too sore.” Her voice comes out sleepy and earnest. “Just aware.”

Your gaze drops to Cate’s mouth. “Aware.”

“Very.”

“Yeah?” You kiss her chin, then the corner of her mouth, missing on purpose. “Aware where?”

Cate should refuse to answer out of principle. The problem is that she has no principles left, only your hand on her waist and the steady ache low in her belly where she’s empty again. The nap has done something terrible to her. It has turned the frantic edge of need into something slower, heavier, more intimate. She doesn’t feel feverish now. She feels hungry in the old-fashioned sense: body awake, mouth dry, thighs parting before she gives them permission.

“Everywhere,” Cate says.

Your smile flickers. “Specificity, Dunlap.”

Cate hooks a knee around your hip, dragging you closer. “Inside.”

The word changes the atmosphere of the room.

Your amusement thins into something darker, more focused. Your hand slides down Cate’s thigh, following the line of muscle with slow possession, and Cate watches you watching. That might be the worst part, how you look at her now, not like a girl you’re about to fuck, not like a problem you’re trying to solve—like a bond you made and still can’t believe answered back.

“Still want to ride me?” You ask.

Cate’s pulse jumps hard enough to make the bite throb. She’d almost forgotten you said that before the nap, not because she didn’t care, but because the day has been a series of impossible gifts and her brain can only hold so much joy before it starts dropping pieces on the floor.

“Yes,” she says instantly, then, softer because the want exposes her, “If you still want me to.”

Your face does something complicated. It passes quickly, but the bond gives Cate the truth of it: the startled ache of being asked, the violent tenderness of being wanted gently. You duck your head and kiss Cate’s mouth, slow enough that Cate feels the answer before she hears it.

“Always,” you say.

You roll with easy care, pulling Cate with you until you're on your back against the pillows and Cate is straddling your hips. The sheet slips down Cate’s thighs. The borrowed shirt hangs crooked off one shoulder, the collar stretched just enough that the bite sits visible in the dim blue light. You see it and lose half a breath.

Cate straightens a little, letting her hair fall back, letting the shirt pull farther down her shoulder, letting the mark show. The movement makes her thighs tremble around your hips, but she holds the pose for one shining second because your expression is worth the effort. Dark-eyed, open-mouthed, utterly caught.

“Pretty?” Cate asks, unbearably pleased with herself.

Your hands close on her waist. “Dangerous question.”

“Answer it.”

Your thumbs stroke up the narrowest part of her waist, under the shirt, then back down. “So pretty I’m considering doing something embarrassing.”

Cate tips her head. “Like what?”

“Keeping you in this bed forever.”

Cate’s smile warms and goes soft at the same time. “That’s not embarrassing. It’s romantic.”

“It’s kidnapping with benefits."

“I’d write you a glowing review.”

You laugh, and Cate leans down to kiss you. It starts sweet, sleepy, full of the strange tenderness of waking up already held. Then your hands slide lower, grip the curve of Cate’s ass, and pull her forward until Cate’s cunt drags along your cock where it rests already hard against your stomach.

Cate breaks the kiss with a gasp.

“There,” you murmur. “That where you’re aware?”

Cate nods, mouth parted. “Yes.”

You do it again, guiding her, dragging her back and forth along the length of you. The slide is messy almost immediately, Cate still wet from before, still leaking a little of you, the friction catching on her clit in a way that makes her spine arch. The head of your cock nudges near her entrance every time Cate rocks back, not going in, just threatening to. Cate’s hands brace on your chest, fingers splayed over the soft rise of breast and muscle, over the heartbeat kicking beneath.

“Don’t tease,” Cate whispers.

You look up at her with lazy ruin in your eyes. “I’m not teasing.”

“You’re absolutely teasing.”

“I’m warming you up.”

“I’m warm.”

“You’re also sore.”

Cate hates that you're right. She hates even more that the care works on her. Her body melts around it, softening because you're paying attention, because you know when to hold back and when to press, because your thumbs are steady at her hips and your voice is low enough to crawl under Cate’s skin.

You reach between your bodies, wrap a hand around your cock, and angle it with infuriating patience. Cate feels the blunt head settle against her, slick and hot, and her breath stops. The bond flares. Your eyes flick to her throat like you can feel the mark answer.

“Slow,” you say.

Cate nods, but the first inch still steals the air out of her.

It’s different on top. She knows this, obviously, but knowing and feeling are two separate disasters. Her thighs shake with the effort of controlling the descent, of taking you into her body by degrees instead of being opened from behind or held down through it. The stretch is both familiar and new, because she can choose every fraction. She can stop. She can sink. She can watch your face change as she takes you.

Your hands stay at her waist, not forcing, not dragging her down, just there. Anchors. Permission. Want.

“Good girl,” you say, voice barely steady. “Just like that.”

Cate whimpers. Praise sometimes slides through her faster than touch. She lowers another inch, breathing through the pressure, through the sensitive ache left from the knot, through the way your cock fills her so perfectly she has to close her eyes.

“No, look at me.”

Cate’s eyes fly open.

You're staring up at her, jaw tight, hair mussed from sleep, freckles shadowed in the low light. Your whole body is controlled beneath Cate, rigid with restraint, and that does something awful and gorgeous to Cate’s chest. You could take over so easily. You could grab her hips and fuck up into her and make Cate helpless in three seconds flat.

You don't.

You let Cate have it.

The thought makes Cate sink the rest of the way down.

You both make a sound. Cate’s is a broken little sob, yours is a low curse, punched out of you. Cate sits there fully seated, you buried inside her, and for a moment neither of you move. The fullness is enormous. Not just physical, though God, that too, the thick pressure of you stretching her open and sitting deep enough to make every muscle flutter. But the bond takes it and gives it back doubled. Full in her body. Full in her throat. Full under her ribs where your want presses against hers until she can’t tell whose ache started first.

Cate laughs once, breathless and close to tears.

Your thumbs stroke her waist. “What?”

“Nothing.” Cate wipes at one eye with the heel of her hand and looks mortified immediately. “I’m just happy.”

Your expression softens so hard it almost hurts to see. “C’mere.”

Cate leans down carefully, still joined, and you kiss her. Deep and slow. No urgency at first, just mouth and breath and the sweet, dizzying pressure of being held open around you. Cate rocks her hips by accident, a tiny shift, and you both gasp into the kiss.

“There she is,” you murmur against her mouth.

Cate sits up again, cheeks flushed. “Don’t sound so smug.”

“I’m incredibly smug.”

“I hate that.”

“You’re clenching around me while you say it.”

Cate closes her eyes for one long, suffering second. “I hate you.”

You grin. “Sure you do.”

Cate moves to punish you.

It’s meant to be dramatic, maybe even mean, a sharp little lift of her hips and a drop back down that will wipe that smug look off your face. Instead she gets halfway up, feels you drag along every oversensitive inch inside her, and nearly folds over. Her thighs quiver. Her hands slap down onto your chest for balance.

You catch her by the hips instantly. “Easy.”

“I’m fine,” Cate says, offended and panting.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m passionate.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“I’m bonded,” Cate shoots back, and then loses her breath when your eyes go dark.

“Yeah,” you say, and your hands tighten. “You are.”

This time when Cate rises, you help. Not controlling. Guiding. Your hands move with Cate’s hips, steadying the pace until Cate finds it: lift, slow drag, sink. Again. Again. Again. The rhythm starts clumsy because Cate’s body is too sensitive and her muscles are still loose from sleep, but you’re patient with her, unnervingly patient, murmuring praise every time Cate gets it right.

“That’s it.”

Cate’s mouth drops open.

“Just like that, baby.”

Her thighs tighten around your hips.

“Take what you need.”

Cate starts to ride you in earnest.

It’s slower than the way you usually fuck her, and somehow worse for it. There’s nowhere for Cate to hide from the sensation. Every descent is chosen, every rise a loss she immediately wants to correct. You fill her again and again, bare and hot, the drag slick and obscene, and Cate can feel the mess between her thighs, can feel the way her body has learned your shape and still trembles every time she takes you fully. The room fills with small sounds: the creak of the bed frame, the wet slide where you’re joined, Cate’s breath breaking on every other stroke, your low, almost reverent curses when Cate rolls her hips just right.

The first time Cate finds that angle, your head falls back.

Cate stills, panting.

You open one eye. “Don’t you dare.”

Cate smiles, slow as spilled honey. “Oh?”

“Cate.”

She does it again, grinding down instead of lifting, circling her hips until the pressure inside her turns sharp and bright. Your hands flex hard on her waist, and Cate feels the tremor through the bond: restraint, want, pride, desperation. All of it. The fact that she can make you feel this way with just a shift of her hips makes something darkly pleased unfurl in her.

“You like that,” Cate says.

You laugh once, rough and disbelieving. “No shit.”

Cate does it again.

You swear and sit up.

The motion changes everything. Cate slides down harder with the shift, gasping as your chest presses to hers, as your arms wrap around her back, as the bite at Cate’s throat brushes against your mouth. Suddenly Cate isn’t above you so much as wrapped around you, knees planted on either side of your hips, body held close while you look at the mark from inches away.

“Fuck,” you say quietly.

Cate’s breath shivers. “What?”

You don't answer with words. You kiss the bite.

Cate clenches so hard around you that you groan.

The mark is sensitive in a way Cate doesn’t have language for yet. Not pain exactly, though it aches. Not pleasure exactly, though it lights her up. It’s both and neither, a direct line from skin to bond to cunt, and you figure that out immediately because you're terrible and brilliant and hers. You kiss it again, softer, then drag your tongue along the swollen edge.

Cate sobs.

“There?” You ask, voice wrecked.

Cate nods frantically, hands scrambling into your hair. “There.”

Your grip slides to Cate’s lower back, holding her close while Cate rides you in smaller, deeper movements, grinding more than bouncing now, every roll of her hips forcing your cock to press hard inside her. You keep your mouth on the mark. Kiss it. Lick it. Scrape your teeth just beside it, never breaking skin again, just reminding Cate that you could.

Cate’s orgasm starts building too fast.

“I can’t,” she gasps, which is a lie and a plea and a warning.

“You can.” Your voice is soft. Certain. “You’re doing so good.”

Cate shakes her head, overwhelmed by the praise, the fullness, the bond roaring awake between you again. “It’s too much.”

You still immediately. “Too much stop or too much keep going?”

Cate hates that she has to answer because answering requires speech and speech requires a brain she no longer has. She grabs your wrist and drags your hand to the bite, pressing your palm over it.

“Keep going,” she manages. “Please.”

Your face changes again, pleasure and tenderness and something dangerously close to awe. You tighten your arm around Cate and thrust up once, carefully.

Cate cries out.

“There we go,” you murmur. “Hold on.”

Cate does. Barely.

You begin fucking up into her from below, not hard at first, not enough to take the rhythm away from Cate entirely. Just enough to meet her, to give her something to fall onto, to make every downward roll land deeper. Cate clings to your shoulders, face tucked against your neck now, mouth open against warm skin. She can smell herself on you. Smell the bite. Smell the bond. Smell the end of every lonely thing she used to pretend she didn’t want.

The orgasm hits her while your hand is still over the mark.

It tears through her in a bright, shaking wave, sharper than the ones before because she’s sitting so full, because you’re inside her and under her and around her, because the bond catches the pleasure and throws it back until Cate is sobbing into your shoulder. Her cunt clamps down around you in helpless pulses, body trying to hold you there, and you curse so softly it sounds almost devotional.

“That’s it,” you say, rocking her through it. “That’s my girl.”

Cate laughs and cries at the same time. It’s not dignified. It’s not even close. She’s shaking too hard to lift herself anymore, hips twitching uselessly, pleasure still spilling through her in little aftershocks.

You don't stop touching her. You slide both hands to Cate’s hips and help her move, slow, shallow rocks that keep you inside but don’t push Cate past where she can breathe. Your mouth presses to Cate’s hair, then her temple, then the corner of her eye where tears have gathered.

“Still with me?”

Cate nods against your neck. “Yes.”

“Just checking.”

“You’re annoyingly good at that.”

Your laugh is breathless. “At checking?”

“At being—” Cate loses the word when you shift your hips and the head of your cock drags over something still sparking. “Fuck.”

Your grin brushes her cheek. “At that?”

“Among other crimes.”

“Want to stop?”

Cate considers it. She really does. Her thighs are trembling, her body is sore, her throat aches, and she’s so sensitive that even the slight shift of you breathing under her makes her stomach tighten.

Then your knot starts to swell.

Cate feels it at the base, the gradual thickening, the promise of being locked full again. Her entire body answers before pride can interfere. She clenches. Your breath punches out.

“Oh,” Cate whispers.

You go very still. “Cate.”

“I want it.”

“You just came.”

“I know.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I know.”

“Baby.”

Cate lifts her head. It takes effort. Her hair is stuck to her cheek, her eyes wet, her mouth swollen, her bite dark and tender. She looks, she suspects, exactly like an omega who has been loved stupid and still wants more.

“Please,” she says, because there is no performance left to hide behind. “I want to feel you again.”

You stare at her for one long second, then kiss her hard.

The restraint breaks differently this time. Your hands are firmer when they grip Cate’s hips, your thrusts deeper, your mouth rougher against Cate’s as you guide Cate down harder to meet you. Cate moans into every stroke, too sensitive to be quiet, too far gone to care. The knot grows thicker, catching slightly on every downstroke now, making Cate’s body stretch around the promise of it.

“Almost,” you say, voice strained. “Fuck, Cate, almost.”

Cate presses her forehead to yours and rocks down with everything she has.

The knot catches.

For one suspended second, there’s resistance. Pressure, almost too much, the edge of pain blooming bright enough to make Cate gasp. You freeze, hands tightening, ready to stop.

Cate kisses you, messy and desperate. “Don’t.”

Your control frays with an audible breath.

You hold Cate steady and thrust up, not brutally, but with enough force to push through the tight ring of muscle. The knot slips inside with a thick, final pressure that makes Cate’s vision flare white.

Cate laughs.

She can’t help it. The sound breaks out of her, breathless and stunned and absurdly joyful, because the sensation is so enormous, so complete, so utterly ridiculous in its perfection that crying would be too small for it. She’s full. Locked. Held open around you again, body claimed from the inside while the bite burns at her throat like a second heartbeat.

You cum with your face buried against Cate’s neck.

The pulse of it is deep and unmistakable, your cock throbbing inside her, filling her again in hot, helpless waves. Cate’s laughter dissolves into a moan. She wraps her arms around your shoulders and holds on through every shudder, every breath, every tiny aftershock the bond sends singing through you both. The knot keeps you sealed together, and Cate, gone silly with happiness, giggles again against your hair.

You lift your head, eyes dazed. “Are you laughing at me?”

Cate nods, then shakes her head, then laughs harder because you look offended and ruined and beautiful. “No.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m laughing because I’m happy.”

Your expression softens all over again, helplessly. “Yeah?”

Cate nods, biting her lip around another little burst of laughter. “I’m full of you and I’m bonded to you and you’re stuck in me.” She makes a small, delighted sound, half sigh and half giggle, and tightens her arms around you. “This is the best thing that could ever happen to an omega.”

You stare at her, then drop your forehead to Cate’s shoulder and start laughing too.

It shakes both of you, which makes the knot tug, which makes Cate gasp, which makes you go still and apologetic, which makes Cate laugh again. For a minute you’re both useless. Sweaty and tangled and locked together, laughing like idiots in the dim room while the bond hums so brightly Cate can almost hear it.

Finally you groan and tip your bodies carefully sideways, keeping Cate on your lap but easing the strain out of her thighs. Cate clings, boneless now, her cheek tucked against your shoulder. The knot holds. Your hand slides up and down her back in slow, grounding strokes.

“You’re going to be impossible now,” you murmur.

 “Now?” Cate smiles against your skin. “I was impossible before. Now I’m legally recognized.”

“By who?”

“The bond.”

You snort. “Very official.”

“It has paperwork.”

“Filed where?”

Cate presses a kiss to your neck, lazy and pleased. “My cunt.”

You choke on a laugh. “Jesus Christ.”

“You asked.”

Cate settles heavier against you, still smiling. Her body is one enormous ache now, but it’s pleasant, golden around the edges. The bite throbs. The knot pulses softer inside her as you come down, and each little shift makes Cate hum. She can feel the mess of you sealed in, the heat and slick and cum, the intimacy of not being able to move apart yet. It should make her restless.

It doesn’t.

It makes her quiet.

You feel the shift. Your palm pauses between Cate’s shoulder blades. “Okay?”

Cate nods without lifting her head. “I think I might be dead.”

“Should I call someone?”

“No.” Cate nuzzles closer. “You’d have to explain what happened.”

“I’d say you rode me to death first and I retaliated.”

Cate smiles, eyes closed. “Mutual destruction.”

“Romantic.”

“Very.”

You kiss her hair. Then, more softly, her temple. Then the edge of the bite, which makes Cate shiver even half-asleep.

You stay like that while the knot slowly eases, the room cooling around you, the outside world reduced to a faint hush beyond the cracked window. Cate doesn’t ask what time it is. She doesn’t care. There is more food somewhere, probably. Water. Classes you’re both going to miss or pretend you meant to skip. A campus full of omegas who don’t know the rules have changed yet.

For now, there is your hand on her back. Your heartbeat under her cheek. Your scent all over her skin and inside her body and threaded through the bite like red string.

When the knot finally slips free, Cate whimpers at the loss, and you immediately tighten your arms.

“I know,” you murmur. “I’ve got you.”

Cate believes you so completely it almost frightens her.

You shift just enough to reach for the sheet, dragging it over Cate’s back. Cate remains draped across you, too heavy-limbed to help, too content to pretend otherwise. You don't complain. You tuck the sheet around you both, then cup the back of Cate’s head, holding her in place like she belongs there.

Cate’s voice is muffled against your shoulder when she finally speaks. “Still taking me for a walk later?”

Your laugh is low and fond. “You can barely lift your head, baby.”

“I’ll recover.”

“You’re ambitious.”

“I’m claimed,” Cate says, opening one eye. “There’s a difference.”

You look down at her for a long, quiet moment. The smugness softens into something much deeper, much harder to joke around.

“Yeah,” you agree. Your thumb brushes the bite. “You are.”

Cate smiles, sleepy and ruined.

“And so are you,” she whispers.

Your breath catches. The bond warms.

For once, you have no comeback. You just hold Cate tighter, and Cate lets herself sink into the silence, body sore, heart bright, the ache between her thighs still full of proof.

Later, you walk across campus together, Cate’s hair pulled up, the collar of her jacket not quite high enough to hide the bite. Heads turn. Your arm is heavy around her, easy and shameless. Cate tilts her chin just a fraction and watches an omega near the library door blink, swallow, and look away. Something inside Cate that had been sharp-and-nervous smooths into something sleek.

You nudge her with her hip. “Chaos,” you say, satisfied, and kiss the top of Cate’s head in a way that makes someone audibly gasp. Cate fights a wicked smile and loses.

“You like showing me off,” Cate murmurs.

“Like claiming you,” you correct, low and pleased. “Like being claimed back.”

Cate stops under the bare branches of an old oak and turns in your arms to face you. The late sun speckles your hair and makes your eyes look darker. Cate slides her hands into the pockets of your jacket and leans in, not kissing, just close enough to watch a dozen people not-try to listen.

“Say it again,” she asks, a brat who’s not sorry, a princess who just found a throne already shaped to her spine.

You smile like a knight who’s retired their armor. “You’re mine,” you say, voice deep enough to move the earth. The bond flares warm in agreement. “And I’m yours.”

Cate kisses you. Someone wolf whistles. Someone else mutters something about decency. Cate laughs into your mouth and thinks, savagely and sweetly, Let them all watch. Let them know. Let them smell.

You break the kiss and bump her nose. “Hungry again?”

“For you?” Cate teases, and then blushes, and then—because she is needy and devoted and shameless—adds, “Also for tacos.”

“Two cravings I can handle.” You steer her down the path toward the student center. “Tacos first. Then I’m taking you home.”

Home. Cate lets the word curl up inside her like a warm, pleased animal and pretends it isn’t the first time you let yourself use it out loud. You smell like citrus and leather and bond. The mark throbs with a tiny ache that promises to be pleasant for days.

Cate rests her head on your shoulder as you walk. She has you. Not to the degree campus legend promised, not locked down in the way other omegas whisper and scheme for—no crown, no collar, no leash. Something better. Something that requires both of you to hold it, else it falls.

Cate has never been the only one. She’s been an exception. Today, finally, she is both.

[initforthethrill]

patchwork heart aka cate discovers the cure for separation anxiety tw: girlcock, g!p reader, ceo!reader, daddy kink, petplay, puppy!cate, nesting, separation anxiety, scent kink, pillow humping, masturbation, fingering, vaginal sex, dickriding, creampie, cockwarming, praise, established relationship, etc. 5.7k+ words

author's note: been thinking about this particular ask a lot lately, and felt like a fic expansion was necessary hehe, please enjoy!<3

Cate starts to build the nest without even noticing she’s doing it.

It’s muscle memory now: the closet door yawns, the laundry hamper gives up a sigh of clean cotton and heat, and her hands move without thinking—your faded band tee with the cracked white letters, the threadbare black hoodie that smells like leather and cedar shampoo, a pair of boxers she’s “borrowed” for three months and sworn to return. The pile gathers on the bed in an almost perfect circle, then becomes a crescent, then a burrow. She tucks her face inside it and breathes in like someone who’s been running for blocks and finally found a fountain. The smell is everything she’s too proud to beg for out loud—warm, salty sweet, a little metallic from jewelry, a ghost of cologne where the collar folds. It’s your neck and hands and chest. It’s home.

The suitcase wheels click in the hallway.

“You’re not even out the door yet,” Cate says, muffled by the hoodie sleeve she’s chewing, “and I’m grieving.”

You lean on the bedroom doorway in that cocky, awful way—grey slacks, white shirt, tie loose because you’re trying to coax a smile. Your hair is still damp from a shower. You smell clean, which is cruel. “It’s a one night trip, pup.”

Cate drags the hoodie higher so it covers her whole face. “One night is forty-eight in dog years.”

“That’s not how dog years work.”

“It is in my heart.” She peeks over the cuff with big, tragic eyes. This is a bit, mostly, except her chest’s already tight. She hates that her body keeps score.

Your smirk softens. You cross the room, sit on the edge of the bed, and the nest collapses around you like a tide. Cate crawls without dignity into your lap, nosing at your throat, hands pulling the tie to the side so she can get to skin. A low, involuntary sound slips out of her. The animal part of her brain is very simple about this: stay with your pack, stay with your partner, stay. You kiss her hairline. “Baby.”

“I know,” Cate says into your shoulder. “You have to go play capitalism.”

“Negotiate a merger,” you correct, amused, though your hand is skimming the back of Cate’s neck and that’s not fair. “Sit in a too cold conference room. Pretend I enjoy steak dinners with men named Doug.”

Cate makes a face, climbing higher until she can get mouth to mouth. You meet her halfway. The kiss is sweet and exasperated and so full of a familiar ache it’s almost funny. She breaks it to murmur: “If a Doug tries to christen you with a Scotch you do not like, bite him.”

“I am not biting a board member,” you say, grinning. “That’s your job.”

“I only bite with permission.”

Something complicated and hot plays through your eyes. Cate feels it like a flicker in the power lines. “I’ll be back tomorrow night,” you say gently, “before you can even make a proper mess.”

Cate groans. “You think I need time?”

“You need something.” You nuzzle her nose. “Hey.” Your voice dips, coaxing. “Look at me.”

Cate does, and the expression she finds makes her swallow. You’re careful with this part—always have been. You grew up rough and alone and hate the idea of anyone feeling abandoned on purpose. “I’m not leaving you,” you say. “I’m going to bring our paycheck home and then I’m coming back to you. You’re safe. You’re mine.”

Cate’s throat tightens. “Mine,” she whispers back, fierce and small at once.

You sit together like that, pressed together in a nest of your scent, for another minute. Then the clock clears its throat from the dresser. The driver will text soon. You kiss her once more, stand, rub your thumb over Cate’s lower lip in a way that’s entirely unfair, and go to fetch your jacket. Cate trails after you like a shadow to the front door, where you do a last kiss, then a last-last kiss, then a—“Do not get on the elevator with me,” you laugh, breathless. “You will follow me into the car and then to the airport and then to—”

“I could fit in a carry-on.”

“You would hate it.”

“Only the part where we can’t cuddle.”

You cup her face. “One night,” you promise. “You’re my good girl.”

Cate’s blush goes down to her toes. She nods, obedient, and lets you go.

The door closes. The apartment recalibrates itself around a silence Cate doesn’t want. It’s so good when you’re here—noise and motion and the low metronome of your voice on calls, the rhythm of someone moving through a space and existing alongside her. In the absence—well. Cate wanders. She tries a show. She paces. She demotes the show to background music and opens the group chat so Emma and Marie can send her memes and threats (“if you chew through another phone charger I’m buying you a rawhide muzzle, babe,” Emma writes. “Hydrate,” Marie adds, because she is kindness disguised as sarcasm.)

Eventually Cate winds up in the bedroom again, because gravity is real and it pulls toward the nest. She burrows. She gnaws the cuff of the hoodie until it’s damp. She rubs her cheekbone on a patch of shirt that smells like your chest and shivers, because the dumb animal part of her brain unknots at that—pack. There you are. It’s embarrassing how much better it makes everything. She pulls your pillow to her hips and grinds on the soft cotton, tiny helpless hums stuttering out of her. It’s not even about chasing anything to the end yet, it’s just about relief. Just about scent, and pressure, and pretending well enough that her body forgets the difference.

She falls asleep curled around the pillow like it’s the ribcage of the person she loves.

You learn to sew at 1 a.m. in a hotel room with a view of a river you can’t name without squinting at the welcome binder. You should be asleep. You should be resting for a day full of negotiations. But the image of Cate’s face in the doorway—brave, and open, and a little wrecked—won’t allow you. So you propel yourself through downtown after the dinner with Doug, buy a cheap sewing kit from a pharmacy with a fluorescent hum, and then have your assistant order two yards of muslin and stuffing from a craft store site for rush delivery to the hotel front desk. You’re a CEO. You make the shipping department do strange things sometimes. They love you. Or fear you. Either works.

When hotel security rings your room phone with a “we have a package and it’s… fabric?” message, you smile, thank them, and ask the front desk to send it up. Back in your room, you pull up a how-to, then kill the how-to because a stern woman tells you not to start with shapes and that makes you perversely determined to start with the most impractical shape you can imagine.

You sketch on notepad paper: a wolf. Or at least a wolf-shaped idea, rounded and friendly, snout like a smile. You draw a little tail. You draw pricked ears. It looks like a wolf the way a child’s first love letter looks like a paragraph: earnest, cluttered, true.

You prick your finger three times trying to practice ladder stitch on a sock. You swear softly and suck your fingertip. You sign a multi-million-dollar deal the next morning with an index finger wrapped in a tiny cartoon bandage.

On the hotel desk, you spread everything and added the rest: sacrificial fabric with history that you deliberately tucked into your carry-on before you left. You’ve been hoarding them, without quite admitting it to yourself—clothes too far gone to wear but too soaked in their life to throw away: a henley from your first winter together, where Cate fell asleep against your ribs in front of a terrible movie. A cotton tee that took the brunt of paint the day you moved in together and found out the wall was actually four coats of beige. A flannel with a tear right where Cate likes to grab for leverage. You washed nothing. The point, after all, is scent.

You cut carefully. You lay the shapes like a puzzle: henley for the belly, flannel for the back, the paint-splattered tee for the tail. You make two ears from the cuff of a sweatshirt and smile because they already curl a little like real ones. For the eyes, you do not trust buttons. Instead, you embroider clumsy dark ovals and pretend the crookedness is charming. When you reach the chest you hesitate, then reach into your carry-on for an old tee Cate always teases you for keeping. It’s so thin it’s almost translucent. You press it to your face and inhale, and there it is—your years together, the particular alchemy of skin and soap, sleep and sex. You cut a heart-shaped patch from it, wide and generous, and stitch the heart right where a wolf’s would be.

You add a final, secret pocket inside the belly—just big enough to tuck a square of fabric—and think, experimentally, about how to saturate it with yourself. The answer comes with a heat that rises like a blush. You glance toward the floor-to-ceiling windows—empty, quiet—and laugh at yourself for looking guilty in a hotel room. The idea, though. It’s exactly the kind of thing Cate would curl around shamelessly, grateful and feral and safe.

So you do it right: shower, then don't dress. Watch the late night city through the glass. Slide to the edge of the desk chair and tug what remains of the thin old tee over your lap. You take your time because you know what Cate will smell, later, and you want it full and honest—salt and breath and the ache you feel when you think of Cate making a nest out of emptiness. You come with your bottom lip caught in your teeth and Cate’s name muffled, the tee catching slick warmth. After, you sit there hazy and smiling and a little shameless, fold the soaked fabric into the pocket, and close the seam.

The wolf is not perfect. It is a little lopsided, a little lumpy. One ear leans, as if listening. But when you lift it the weight is right—the heft of a thing you can throw your arm around and feel it answer with a soft, speaking silence. You press it to your chest and it fits.

You carry it to bed and sleep with it tucked beneath your chin like you’re doing a crash test for comfort. In the morning it smells like the two of you. You don’t say out loud that you made this because sometimes your pup needs a substitute ribcage to curl around so her heart remembers the rhythm. You don't have to say it. You sew a little tag into the seam that reads: LITTLE WOLF. STAY, SAFE, HOME.

That evening, Cate hears the key in the lock and bolts, toes catching on the rug, the tail in her brain wagging hard enough to make her dizzy. She skids into the entryway in your boxers and a hoodie that hangs to mid-thigh and socks that don’t match. She looks like a closet thief. You laugh, doorswing barely finished, and Cate throws herself into your arms with a noise that’s almost a bark.

“Twenty-four hours,” Cate accuses, hugging viciously. “You said.”

“Door to door?” You kiss her forehead. “Twenty-two and change. I hustled.”

Cate pulls back to scan your face like a sailor fixing on a familiar star, memorizing glow. “Did you bite Doug?”

“I threatened to,” you say solemnly, “and then I charmed him into handing me the better clause.”

“Hot.” Cate nuzzles. “I missed you in every language.”

“I brought you something.” You step aside so Cate can see a tote dangling from your wrist. “And no, it isn’t Doug’s head.”

Cate’s eyes brighten. “You brought me a head?”

“A present,” you correct, as Cate drags you to the couch. “I made it.”

“You what?”

Your cheeks go faintly pink, which is illegal. “I made it,” you repeat, and from the tote you lift the wolf.

Cate freezes.

The wolf is patched and earnest and clearly, unmistakably stitched by your long, sure fingers. Its belly is the soft off-white of the old henley. Its back is flannel, the pattern cut so the plaid runs like a spine. Its tail is splash-painted, jaunty as a flag. One ear tilts like it’s listening for Cate’s smallest sound. The heart on its chest is a pale ghost of a shirt she knows too well. LITTLE WOLF. STAY, SAFE, HOME, says the tiny tag.

Cate makes a sound that is too wet to be dignified. She holds out her arms and you set the wolf into them like a baby. Cate tucks it under her chin and shudders as scent hits—you, fresh and deep, layered with sleep, the faintest thread of your favorite cologne, and under it something darker, private, that makes Cate’s knees go soft. Her body registers pack, pack, pack so loudly she sways.

“You made this?” she asks roughly, stroking the seam where belly meets back with the pad of her thumb. She kisses the stitched heart. “For me?”

“For us,” you say, voice low. “But really for you.”

Cate curls on the couch without meaning to, arms full, the wolf’s tail tucked beneath her wrist. There’s a weight in the belly that feels like a secret. She buries her face in the neck seam, breathes, and the ache in her chest loosens by degrees she didn’t know she could measure. When she looks up, her eyes are glassy. “You learned to sew.”

“I learned to stab myself repeatedly and then sew,” you say dryly. “Worth it.”

Cate starts to laugh and then it breaks, turns into a swallow of emotion that has nowhere to go. She hugs the wolf tighter and then reaches with one hand, urgent, grabbing you by the tie like a leash and hauling you down for a frantic kiss. You meet her halfway and then all the way—mouth opening, palm to Cate’s jaw, one knee dropping onto the couch between Cate’s thighs. Cate whimpers and tilts, dizzy with relief, with gratitude, with the way this woman keeps building bridges across the places she’s ashamed of falling through.

“Thank you,” Cate says feverish against your lips. “Thank you, thank you—”

You sit back, breath audible, and cup Cate’s cheek with your palm. “Do you like him?”

“Him?” Cate looks down at the wolf, then back up, sparkling. “You made our son.”

You snort. “I am not explaining to people why our firstborn is a patchwork wolf.”

“You don’t have to,” Cate says primly. “He’ll be homeschooled.”

You laugh, helpless, and then pull Cate into you again like relief is a centripetal force. You kiss until the edge behind Cate’s ribs softens. Then you move aside enough to study her, thumb brushing the curve of her cheek, eyes searching. “Do you think it’ll help? Having something to curl around?”

Cate nods, honest as hunger. “I make a mess without you.” She presses her face to the wolf’s head and nuzzles, an affectionate nudge. “But this—God, baby. He smells like you.” Her voice lowers, throat thick with the truth of it. “I can breathe with this. I can be good.”

Your gaze flicks darker at that, quick and possessive. “You’re always good,” you say, automatic, then add frankly: “Even when you hump my pillow and leave your wet little prints all over it.”

Cate flushes but refuses to look away. “Sometimes I pretend it’s your hip.”

Your mouth crooks. “Now that I’m home, you can grind on the real thing.”

Cate’s breath catches, then you’re both smiling and suddenly serious at once. Silence stretches. Cate looks down at the wolf, thumb stroking over the stitched heart, then peeks up through her lashes. “What’s his name?”

You pretend to consider. “Mr. Protective.”

“Too literal.”

“Executive Wolf-icer.”

“Baby.”

“Cedar,” you offer, softer now, eyes flitting from the wolf to Cate’s mouth. “For how he smells. For where you bury your face.”

Cate holds very, very still. “Cedar,” she repeats, savoring it. “Our Cedar.”

“Yours when I’m gone,” you say. There’s a shadow of apology at the edges of your words. “And also—” You don’t blush often. You’re doing it now, heat high on your cheeks. “There’s a little pocket inside. You can’t really see it. It’s just…if you need more scent. You’ll figure it out.”

Cate opens her mouth, closes it. Opens it again. It takes a second for the implication to catch up to the animal part of her brain, which is busy performing joy. When it does, her pupils dilate, and her smile goes decadent and grateful in the same breath. “Oh.”

You clear your throat, pretending for exactly one second to be dignified. “Oh.”

Cate buries her face in the wolf again and laughs, a shocked, delighted sound. When she resurfaces, she’s glowing. “You’re obscene.”

“You’re welcome.”

Cate sets Cedar carefully on the couch and climbs into your lap, slow and sure, knees bracketing your hips, hands sliding under the crisp white of your shirt like a thief. She kisses your jaw, then your mouth, then lower, a little trail of possessive nips that say mine in a language older than words. “Thank you, daddy,” she whispers at your throat, voice a shiver. “For taking care of your pup.”

Your breath stutters. Your hands wrap around Cate’s waist automatically, fingers digging into familiar soft skin. “Always,” you say. It’s not a promise so much as a law of nature. “Always yours.”

You don’t tumble there into the heat—there’s time for that soon, and you both know that when absence turns to presence, the first thing Cate needs is anchoring, not unraveling. So you do small domestic things around the gravity of each other: order greasy noodles and eat on the floor, bodies touching at the knee. Cate keeps Cedar near, like a guard. You watch with an expression Cate doesn’t have to read minds to understand, it’s aching and proud. After, you brush your teeth together like it’s the height of intimacy. In bed, Cate builds her nest not out of absence but around abundance—you in the center, Cedar tucked behind the curve of her elbow, hoodie and flannel over both of you like banners.

“Tell me the boring parts,” Cate says, face pressed to the hollow under your jaw. “How was the weather? Did the coffee suck? Did Doug’s laugh sound like a scooter horn?”

You laugh into her hair, low and real. You tell the boring parts like they’re crucial plot points: the cab driver with a parrot tattoo, the neon flicker of the hotel sign, the way the air tasted like rain. Cate hums and drapes a leg over your hip, satisfied in some feral way only you get to see. When you pause, Cate sneaks a hand back to the wolf and strokes the heart like she’s winding a music box. “You made me something to curl around,” she says after a while, quiet and fierce. “You learned a whole new thing so I wouldn’t feel so alone.”

“You aren’t alone,” you say into her hair, like a warding spell. You cup Cate’s nape, thumb flattering over the little hairs there like devotion, like prayer. “Even when I’m in a different city, you’re not alone.”

Cate swallows. “I know that in my head,” she admits. “Sometimes my body needs…a prop.”

“That’s what he’s for,” you say. You nudge Cedar’s ear and the wolf leans forward as if listening. “He can stand watch. He can be the scaffolding until I’m back. He’s got my scent, and his heart is literally my shirt.”

Cate smiles against your skin. “You’re ridiculous,” she murmurs, flooded with fondness.

“Disgustingly in love,” you correct, unbothered. “Get used to it.”

Cate goes boneless, like someone melted her down and poured her gently back into the shape of a girl. She’s warm everywhere and her chest doesn’t hurt. She dozes for a minute, wakes when your hand moves in her hair, settles again, safe. The city hums. The apartment breathes with you both. Somewhere between the second and third time Cate drifts, she turns her head and kisses the stitched heart on Cedar once, reverent. “Thank you,” she whispers to wolf and woman in one breath. “Home.”

She finds your hand in the dark and threads your fingers together until the knuckles line up like teeth in a zipper. With you home and Cedar standing guard between your bodies, sleep finally comes easy.

The plan works too well, creating a nice problem.

Two weeks later, you have to travel again—two nights this time, across two time zones. Cate is—objectively—okay. She’s better than okay. She wraps Cedar in her arms, makes herself tea, and nests on the left side of the couch with a low-stakes nature doc you reduce to background noise when you’re both home. The anxiety still pads the edges of the room like a suspicious cat, but it never pounces. Every time Cate inhales, it flattens its ears and sulks back under the bed. Cate texts you a photo of Cedar “guarding” the remote. You replied with a hotel mirror selfie and a tie undone and a caption that reads: Tell him he has my authority. Cate tells Cedar and Cedar, being competent, keeps watch.

Night arrives easily. Cate tucks Cedar beneath her chin and—curiosity, finally—fishes for the tiny pocket. When her fingertips brush the stained cloth inside, the scent unfurls like heat. She exhales a shaky sigh. It feels obscene in the best way to hold proof of your desire to her face and inhale until her eyes sting. She grinds slowly against a pillow while she does it, not chasing so much as rocking in the feeling of being wanted in advance. She sleeps in a curl that’s more a smile than a defense.

And yet when you return, you’re wrecked in a different way—by the sight of Cate asleep with the wolf tucked like a second spine against her back, by the ten real seconds it takes for Cate to wake, sniffle, register your scent, and come alive like fire catching. Cate lurches into your arms with a happy growl, and you, ruthless in boardrooms and even tempered in traffic and devastating in any room you choose, go instantly soft bodied and tender. You push a hand into Cate’s hair and the world slots back into place.

“I missed you,” Cate murmurs. She peeks back at the wolf and pats his head. “Cedar did an excellent job standing guard. But I missed you more.”

“I missed you most,” you say, which is both childish and true. You kiss Cate once, twice, and then breathe her in like a cure for loneliness. The seam along your sternum that you learned to live with years ago seals a little tighter every time you do this. You don't tell Cate that part, it’s too sacred. You show it with your hands instead—cupping Cate’s jaw, stroking the hinge, reading the faint stress lines and smoothing them flat.

Cate catches your wrist and tugs. “Come admire our son,” she says solemnly, drawing you into the bedroom, toward the bed that’s neatly made except for a circle of rumpled clothes where Cate clearly attempted to nest politely and then gave up on pretense. Cate climbs on the bed and gathers both wolf and woman into her arms like a greedy girl who won the lottery, and honestly, she did.

You sink down beside her, chest loosening. “We created a monster,” you say. “He’s going to unionize the other stuffed animals.”

“He’s the only stuffed animal,” Cate points out, outraged.

“We’ll see,” you say thoughtfully, eyes glinting with mischief. “I did watch a tutorial on how to make tiny hoodies...”

Cate gasps, hands flying to her mouth. “Cedar in a hoodie?”

“With a kangaroo pocket.”

Cate flops onto her back, wailing with joy. “You’re a menace.”

“Disgustingly in love,” you remind, propping yourself on one elbow to look down at Cate like you can’t decide whether to kiss her or frame her like art. “And I’m never going to stop.”

“Good,” Cate says, suddenly serious, eyes searching your face like she can’t believe she gets to keep this. “Me neither.” The smile that follows is all soft belly and bared throat.

Then she moves with that sudden, decisive purpose that always unspools you—rolling to her knees, reaching to capture your wrist in both hands, and tugging. It isn’t frantic, it’s reverent. Cate kisses the inside of your wrist once, then sets it—carefully, like a token—over her own sternum.

“Skin,” she whispers, pupils blown wide. “I need you. I need you on me—inside me. I need to feel you everywhere or my stupid wolf brain is going to keep barking at shadows.”

Your mouth tips—affection, a flash of heat, an understanding so thorough it reads like muscle memory. “C’mere.” You peel off your shirt and Cate follows, shedding hoodie and boxers, kicking socks into the dark. Your bodies meet like a door closing softly, heat to heat, rib to rib. Cate pushes, hungry for weight, for nothing between you, for the press that finally convinces her body that the absence has ended. You give it—front to front, thigh levering between Cate’s to guide her open, palm spread at the small of her back to keep her there. You breathe into each other until the rhythm syncs.

Cate turns her head enough to look toward the nightstand. Cedar sits at attention on the neatly made half of the bed, ear cocked like he’s listening. She reaches, grabs him by the midsection, and rotates him solemnly until his little stitched face points at the wall.

You snort, delighted. “Modesty for our son?”

“He’s innocent,” Cate says, gravely obscene, and then her voice drops to a rasp, sincerity undercutting the joke. “Please. Inside.”

The please flips a switch every time. Your hand slides down Cate’s spine and over the arch of her ass, thumb riding the dip, the rest of your palm hot and claiming. You kiss Cate slow—mouth coaxing, not careful because you don’t have to be, just precise. A murmur of praise catches on Cate’s lower lip, and Cate’s body answers with a shiver like relief.

You reach between your bodies, knuckles grazing the soft of Cate’s inner thigh, two fingers slipping through slick heat like they’ve been expected. Cate inhales, high and sharp, the sound of something unclenching in her chest. “Yes,” she breathes. “God, yes.”

“Look at me,” you say, low as a hand between the shoulder blades, and Cate does—blue eyes wet, mouth bitten pink, every inch of her open and wanting. You push your fingers in, shallow first and then deeper, a steady cadence that feels like counting back from panic. Cate rocks down to meet it, eyes fluttering, lashes wet. The bed creaks. Cedar looks away dutifully.

“Say what you need,” you murmur.

“Cock,” Cate answers, immediate and honest, hips chasing. “Daddy—please—fill me up, stay. Don’t leave me empty.”

Empty is not a word you permit in the bed for long. “I’ve got you,” you promise, and it’s not flourish. It's binding.

You draw your fingers out and Cate makes a wrecked noise at the loss, both hands flying to your shoulders like she’ll climb into your skin if permitted. You fit a knee between Cate’s thighs and nudge, and Cate straddles on instinct, kneeling astride your hips, chest to chest. You both groan at the contact, the way it drags you together. You fist your cock and slide the head through Cate’s slick, slow, painting her open. Cate is trembling in that small, telltale way that means the animal part of her is just now convinced—here, touch, heat, weight. Here.

“Now,” Cate whispers, frantic and soft at once. “Please, now.”

You line up and push, steady pressure giving to the easy, clutching give of Cate’s body. Cate’s head goes back with a sound that is all yes. She sinks down, thighs shaking around your hips, palms braced on your chest like prayer. You pause buried to the hilt and the pause is the point—breath locked, your chests pressed, heart to heart, the twin drums finding each other. Cate makes one small, helpless movement, inner muscles fluttering around you, and you swear, jaw tight, hands cemented to Cate’s waist.

“Stay,” Cate says, fervent, eyes blown black. “Just—stay. Don’t—” She swallows, tries to laugh at her own urgency and fails. “I need you to pin it down. The shaking. The empty.”

You kiss the corner of her mouth, then her cheekbone, then the damp place under her eye. “Okay,” you say, and your voice is the warm weight of a body over yours in a thunderstorm. “I’m here. Take me as deep as you need.”

Cate lowers with that purpose again, until your bodies kiss. There’s no room left between you. The fit is possessive, a lock meeting its key. Cate breathes out like relief hurts, then sets her forehead against yours and moves—small rolls that are all pressure and no hurry, friction that says mine mine mine in a dialect older than language. You keep a hand low at the base of her spine, holding her there, and another cupped over Cate’s breast, thumb easing over the peak until Cate’s gasp breaks into a whine.

“Eyes,” you remind, and when Cate drags them up, the recognition there is a jolt. Not only sexual hunger—recognition. Pack. Partner. Home. The sound that escapes from Cate’s throat is not pretty, it’s better. She moves harder, slick pulling on your cock, the drag of it making both of you swear. Sweat blooms where your bellies touch, your thighs a knot of heat.

“Good girl,” you say, a rasp now, fingers digging into the soft at Cate’s hips to give her a rhythm. “Take it. That’s it. Let me in.”

“You’re in,” Cate says, the words slurring, drunk with pleasure, desperate and grateful. “Stay in—don’t pull out—don’t you dare.” She braces her hands on either side of your head and snaps her hips, and the angle is suddenly perfect. The sound she makes is raw. “Baby—Daddy—”

The name hits you like a palm to the chest, like scent on a hoodie. Control tightens down your spine, not withholding but concentrating. You push up into Cate, meeting her in the middle, breath stuttering, eyes fixed on the blue of your girl’s. The bed thuds a rhythm against the wall. Cedar faces the corner like a gentleman. Cate’s mouth falls open. You steal it, kiss right through the sounds, swallow I missed you as if it were a sacrament.

“Fill me,” Cate begs at your mouth, shameless now, rhythm wrecking into need. “Mark me. I need to smell like you everywhere. Please.” The last word is small, and you break on it.

“Mine,” you say, a vow, and flip your bodies without breaking contact—one hand under Cate’s knee to fold her open, the other braced beside her head. Cate melts into the mattress with a relieved cry, ankles hooking high at your waist. You drive in, deeper than the straddle would allow, chest grinding against Cate’s, a press so complete it’s almost brutal in its tenderness. Cate moans, high and wrecked, nails scoring your shoulders like she’s mapping a constellation there.

“Stay,” Cate repeats, a litany, every third breath. “Stay, stay, stay—”

“Always,” you answer, a counter-beat. You snap your hips, finding the place that knocks the breath from Cate and hammering into it, soft mouth gone ruthless, teeth on Cate’s jaw, then a lick to soothe, then a kiss like apology and claim. Cate’s body seizes sweet around you, inner muscles gripping. You swear low and filthy and true.

It crests without warning. Cate’s breath shatters into pieces and then into a keen that sounds like relief finally allowed to be pleasure. Her orgasm rolls through her in wild, shaking waves. She clutches at you with everything—legs, arms, cunt, lips—like the sea clinging to shore. You bear down, ride her through it, mouth at Cate’s temple whispering good girl, I’ve got you, I’ve got you—

Cate’s still coming when you go rigid, heat strobing up your spine. The last thing you manage to say is “mine” before you bury deep and spill, hips locked to Cate’s as if the idea of distance were an insult. Cate feels it open and flood, warmth claiming her from the inside, and sobs—grateful, filthy, sated. You keep moving in tiny pulses, giving the last of it, chest pressed hard to Cate’s, sweat sticking you together where even air isn’t invited.

After, the room narrows to breath and the fluttering, wet clasp of Cate still milking you, unwilling to let go. You try to shift and Cate whimpers, arms tightening.

“Stay,” Cate says, already half-gone, voice a child’s prayer and a woman’s command. “Inside. Please. Don’t go anywhere.”

You exhale something like a laugh and a surrender. You settle, braced on your forearms so your full weight is comfort and not crushing, cock softening only enough to be a warm plug. Cate shudders and then eases, the tremor along her ribs finally settling. Her hands find the back of your shoulders and flatten, palms open.

“Look at me,” you whisper again, softer. Cate blinks her eyes open—blue and glassy—and smiles that unguarded, dopey smile that you would go to hell and back to earn. She reaches blindly for Cedar and pats his turned head in thanks, then goes slack with satisfaction, re-clinging to you like the tide coming home.

“Mine,” Cate murmurs as her eyes start to drift closed. “Inside, mine. Stay.”

“Still here,” you answer, breath stirring the hair at Cate’s temple. “Not leaving.”

Cate’s breathing evens, that shaking animal thread finally, blessedly quiet. You kiss where it lies—right at Cate’s pulse—and stay plugged into her, skin to skin, sweat cooling together. When Cate twitches in her sleep, you press a little deeper, a reassurance by reflex, and the twitch dissolves into a sigh.

She says it again into the hollow at your throat later, and into the soft fur of Cedar’s head, and into the pillows when she’s laughing, breathless and blissed-out, after the way you two unravel everything that didn’t break because something lopsided and perfect held it together while you were gone.