A Slice of Orange
chp. 3
*FKA The Orange Slice*
pairing: joel miller x reader
summary: The most dangerous man in town has been staring at you nonstop, but keeps his distance until the night he walks you home...
tags: smut, medium burn, sexy stuff starts in chp.3, age difference, M/F, a lot of goddamn eye contact that turns into porn, porn w plot, zaddy joel, hand/finger kink, praise kink, mild blood in later chps, TLOU pt.II, NO Y/N
notes: Set at the beginning of The Last of Us Part II when Joel and Ellie live in the Jackson, Wyoming community, a few years after TLOU part I. Deviates from canon apart from that. Characterizations based mostly on the first game.
AO3 link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/45087460/chapters/113424721#workskin
CHAPTER THREE
Joel leads you from the hall, and you feel the looks from his family following you both to the entry way.
Are you embarrassing him? A girl half his age coming onto him in front of everyone? Is he walking you home to get it all to stop? So no one thinks he would actually be interested? To let you down easy without a crowd watching?
You feel empty and shaky and grab your coat, fumbling to slide it on. Joel holds the door open and the sudden chill of the night smacks you as you step out onto the road with him. The moon hangs low and oblong in the sky and a soft snow is beginning to fall. The streets are dark now, most of the lights off.
The quiet and cool night helps to clear your head and you hug your arms to yourself as you suck in several breaths, the air sharp and clean.
It doesn’t matter. So, he doesn’t feel the same way. You’ll survive this like you survive everything else. Let him walk you home, let him tell you he isn’t interested. It doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the walk with him before he goes.
You turn to him and see him watching you, waiting for your cue. He seems like he wants to ask you if you’re okay but can’t find the words. The idea of him pitying you makes you want to rip your skin off. You need to get him to stop looking at you like you’re wounded.
“Lead the way” you say, diffusing the moment, “You know where I live, after all.”
To that Joel smiles, slightly abashed, but turns right, heading into the velvety night. You sigh in relief at join in step besides him, walking in silence for a while. The streets wind before you as you flick your eyes to Joel, as subtly as you can. Snow has started to collect on his salt and pepper hair, a few on his eyelashes, framing those unnervingly sweet-shaped eyes. Stoically, he surveys the surroundings, his massive frame graceful as he strides forwards, confidence so clear in how he holds his shoulders. You feel yourself shift to mirror the way he walks, to try and emulate that same presence.
He hasn’t moved his eyes away from the path before you, but you see a smile tug at his lips in response.
You snap your head forward, embarrassed. Wanting to divert the focus away from your heating face you decide to bring up something that might embarrass him for a change.
“Can I ask you something?” you say boldly.
He stays silent as you both near the mouth of an alleyway leading to your side of town, a shortcut, but he finally turns his head towards you, indicating his attention.
“How…do you know where I live?”
He coughs and then laughs awkwardly at this, the hint of bashfulness returning.
“I suppose I should have expected that.”
“Are you stalking me?” you ask teasingly, expecting a quick response.
A moment passes but Joel is silent. You inspect his face, wary and unsure.
Holy shit.
“Are you??” you ask, halting your walk, stopping just as you both enter the alley.
“No! I-I’m not. I just…have seen you go there before. And I figured, that…” Joel says stopping too.
“You’ve seen me go there.” you say, repeating the information.
“I’m not-I haven’t. I just…” he trails off.
This is the first time you’ve ever heard Joel stutter, stumble over his words. The first time he’s ever seemed uncomfortable in his skin. He puts his hands in his pockets and shifts his weight. His sudden lack in confidence seems to embolden yours.
“You’ve been watching me.” you speak, not a question.
He observes you, flicking his eyes between yours, fast and searching before he utters a single word.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
A long pause.
“I wanted to make sure nothing happened to you.”
“Why?”
Joel just stares at you.
Bits of the night come back to you now. The way Joel pointed out the men looking at you. Their obvious interest that you previously have been blind to. The only person whose attention you had noticed had been Joel’s. For months he had been giving you attention, just like they had tonight. Because they wanted you, your body. Because…he might want that too.
You’re seeing half a perfectly peeled orange held out to you, when the ground swings up at you at an odd angle, the alleyway suddenly becoming horizontal.
“Shit.”
It sounds far away as the snowy road comes dangerously close to smashing into your face but arms, lightning fast, catch your frame and haul you upright. They stay wrapped around your back as everything levels out.
“Are you ok!?” An edge of hysteria lines Joel’s voice.
Does…does he…?!
You look up at Joel and his face is so close now you can smell him. It’s warm and woodsy, leather and citrus and amber. The smell fills your head and you struggle to stay afloat in the sea of him, your desire pulling at your ankles, wanting to drown you in it. His arms are so secure around you, the muscles hard and steady. You are again unable to avoid staring at the beauty before you. His scarred nose is strong and straight, though it looks like it may have been broken in the past, his bearded jaw sharp and sturdy. His face holds the edge of someone dangerous, capable of death and destruction, but in this light, the person he perhaps used to be seems to shine though. An eager and more exposed person. His hair has fallen in front of his face slightly and he looks younger, the light in his jade and chocolate eyes burning with concern and something else, something primal now as he takes you in.
The moon sheds a soft opalescent light on his features, and combined with the fat flurries sashaying around you, you feel as if you’ve entered a dream. You can’t hold it back any longer.
“Please.” You all but whisper it. Hoping, begging.
Joel’s face is aflame with conflict. You see burning, wild desire there, raging through the forest of his thoughts, consuming every tree. But he also seems incredibly unsure. Of what, you don’t know. All you can do is ask, so again, you do.
“Please.”
This time the word is a prayer, a plea, offered up with abandon. A promise on your knees, a request for salvation. You don’t care how vulnerable you sound.
“Fuck.” Joel whispers it roughly, desperately, and then crushes his mouth to yours.
The wildfire from his gaze catches on every kindling of painful yearning that you have collected over the years, a piled-up mountain of desire, and you burn with it. You burn and burn. His mouth is rough and needy against yours and you open, letting him in. His tongue presses against the inside of your teeth, exploring and claiming every centimeter of you. You snake your arms around his neck as your skin blazes white hot, tangling your hands in his hair, gripping so tightly it probably hurts but all he does is groan with pleasure into your open mouth.
Suddenly, he pushes you up against the brick wall of the alley. His hands leave your back to grab your fists tangled in his hair. He collects both in his left and pins them against the cold wall above you without breaking the kiss. His right grabs your jaw, firm but not painful, his hand so large his thumb and pointer span from earlobe to earlobe. You stand there, fully at his mercy, needing more of him. You curse your clothes, wishing you could feel his skin against yours, his heat surrounding you, his width inside you.
A whine of need slips out of your throat and he groans again, his grip on your jaw tightening for a second before he lets go, breaking the kiss to look at your chest. He trails his hand downwards until it rests flat against your heart.
Low in your belly, a heat tangles through you, snaking around your insides, sinking its teeth into your trembling thighs.
You arch your back, trying to move your heaving breast into his palm but Joel presses your chest back into the wall, pinning you there until you stop wiggling. He levels your gaze with his, his eyes vast pools of inky black in the shadows.
“Don’t rush me.” he commands, his voice dragging on the ground.
You feel fucking psychotic, like if he doesn’t put his skin on yours soon you might actually pass out. But you wait, your arms still pinned above you, as he slowly, maddeningly, unzips your jacket and pushes it open to reveal your button-down shirt. He undoes one button, then two more, and finally flings your shirt open. Your bra is thin and the icy night swirls against it, your nipple hard and poking through the fabric. Joel hooks a finger on the edge of the cotton and slowly slides it down to the edge of your peaked nipple. He eyes your chest, a wolf to a rabbit, starved and lethal. With a quick motion, he yanks the fabric and your breast springs free, your nipple so hard it’s almost painful. He moans in approval and palms your breast, squeezing it hard, moving his fingers until he grabs your nipple between his pointer and thumb and gently rolls it. You release a noise halfway between a sob and a squeak.
The heat deep inside you is infernal now as the place between your legs throbs with aching need. You buck your hips forward, hoping to gain some friction against him, to relieve some of that pressure pounding within.
He senses this and uses his boot to kick your feet wider apart and then presses his thigh between yours, pushing against you. You curse your clothes again.
“Is this what you want pretty girl?” Joel asks, his voice gravelly and low, his teeth grazing the shell of your ear now. He gently flicks your nipple.
You’re whimpering, the noises coming from you less than decent. You grind down onto his thigh, moving on it, wishing he could feel how wet you were, wishing he would slide his fingers inside of you. The thought of that, of what you’ve been imagining for months, drives you mad. His large, capable fingers pumping in and out of you; it feels so close to being real it’s agonizing. You pick up the pace of your grinding, straining your caught wrists against his vice grip above your head.
“Tell me what it is you want, pretty girl. Use that soft pretty mouth to tell me what it is you need.” he says, and leaves your breast to grab the flesh of your hip, moving your body against him harder.
You gasp, no words coming.
“Do you want to feel me against you…inside you? Use your words, I want to hear you say it.”
For such a silent man he sure talks a lot when he’s turned on.
“P-please I-I-”
“You what?”
“I want…I need-”
“What do you need, pretty girl? Hmm? So pretty, she’s so pretty.” he coos.
The words were almost too much to absorb right now, your insides coiling so tightly at all the stimulation.
“I want to feel you-your fingers, i-inside me, p-please. Please.” you choke out, ragged and breathless.
That’s all Joel needs to hear as his right hand quickly unbuttons your jeans in one motion, shoving it under the waist band of your underwear. His fingers just barely graze the edge of your pussy, soaking wet now, when the sudden noise of incoming conversation cuts through.
Joel freezes at the edge of the center of you and you think you might shriek in desperate, crazed need. Your thoughts too scattered to catch up to the significance of the talking growing near.
He quickly pulls his hand out of your pants, releasing your arms, and swings around until his back faces the street and he completely covers you from view.
You are still trying to catch up fully to what is going on, wanting to clutch and claw at him to come back to you when a group of maybe five people walk right by the mouth of the alley. They pass by, laughing and singing, obviously drunk. You peek from behind Joel and see the group stumble by happily. A few of them throw glances to you both in the alley, but from the street it must just look like a man leaning against the wall, perhaps in conversation with someone else. It’s nothing too note-worthy for the intoxicated strangers, and they continue on their way.
Your heart is still beating wildly, the ghost sensation burning where his fingers were, what they were about to do.
The noise from the passerbys fades into the distance and Joel steps away from you, pushing his hair back, breathing unsteadily. He turns to you, his face etched in concern, eyes wild, but he only finds you with your hands on your knees, shaking in laughter.
“You’re laughing?” he asks, incredulous.
“I mean, it’s kind of funny.” you respond, still giggling, fixing your shirt.
Seemingly despite himself, he lets out a single chuckle, but puts his face back in his right hand.
“Jesus Christ.” he mutters to himself.
You want to push off the wall and walk towards him, to erase the distance between you two again. But your legs shake slightly and you’re not sure you can make the distance without tumbling to the ground.
“Come here.” you urge him, extending an arm out.
He looks at you for a moment, something flitting in his eyes, too fast to catch, and walks back to you. You reach up for his face, leaning in again but he grabs your hand, keeping it captive an inch away from his cheek. You search his face and only find a carefully crafted wall.
“You don’t like being snuck up on, do you?” you asked him.
A pause.
“Let me walk you home.” is his only response.
You open your mouth to object; that is the furthest thing that you want right now, but there is a warning in his eyes, not to push him. You can’t help the disappointment that blooms within you. Like ink in water, it spreads out, consuming. You’re sure it’s obvious on your face because Joel turns his head to lightly press his lips to the tips of your fingers.
“You’re freezing.” he says.
You haven’t noticed, feeling like you were on fire this entire time. But as that fades, the chill of the night seeps back in and you realize you’re shivering.
“That jacket ain’t much.” he nods to your thin coat, made for weather probably 15 degrees warmer than this.
“I’m saving up for a new one.” you say, feeling the need to defend yourself.
“Here.” Joel says shrugging off his thick, tan jacket. He holds it out to you.
“Won’t you be cold?” you ask, concerned.
“I’ll be fine.” he says and winks.
You reach for the jacket and slip it on. It’s warm from his body heat, and it smells like him, concentrated and delicious. You can’t help yourself, you turn towards the shoulder and inhale deeply, the scent almost dizzying.
He smiles at this, but his eyes seem almost…sad.
You want so badly to ask him what he’s thinking, what barriers lie in that head of his. You want to know what this meant to him. Was he actually interested in you or was it a crazy, spontaneous event he didn’t wish to repeat? Was he just taken by surprise by those strangers or was he embarrassed at potentially being caught with you.
You have no language to communicate with him about those sorts of things though. Instead, you merely follow him as he leads you through the alleyway towards your apartment.
**********
Later, in your bed, you wonder about your goodbyes. You think about how much you wanted to kiss him, but his guarded eyes kept you where you stood. How you reluctantly slipped off his jacket to hand back to him and how a flurry of emotions passed over his face before he slowly accepted it. How you both stared at each other, how you wanted to say so much, ask so much. How his face showed a million things then that you could not decipher, like looking at an unreadable text, the information falling on blind eyes. You wished you could touch him just one more time, in case it was the last, but he simply nodded his head once and loped off into the dark. How you got home and opened your journal to sketches of oranges and vehemently wrote down everything you could remember about his face up close, lest you ever forgot. As if you ever could. How you lay in your bed, still smelling him on your skin, still could feel the pressure of his lips on yours, and you concentrated on those things as your fingers moved under your waistband. Their shape all wrong compared to his, but finding your release nonetheless, replaying the feeling of him all over you. And you wonder and you wonder and you wonder as you turn and stare out your small square window at the moon hanging low in the night sky, a crescent shy of being full.
