Summary: Joel's exhausted by the time he makes it to bed. But when a pretty little thing crawls in beside him, he finds the time for you, just like he always does.
Warnings: +18 MDNI, post outbreak, jackson!joel, unspecified age difference, joel pov, porn no plot, dry humping, slow and soft sex, smut with feelings, internalized shame, intimacy, unprotected piv, clit stimulation, kissing
Note: i haven't written for joel in monthsss but i hope you enjoy!!
WC: 2k
[masterlist] [AO3]
Joel’s the kind of exhausted that only comes with age.
Weary bones, heavy limbs, tired eyes.
He’s falling into bed as soon as he gets home, often forfeiting dinner in favor of blissful rest. Sometimes even before the sun’s fully set.
And today is just one of those days. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, trying to massage away a kink in his neck that persisted well into the afternoon. But he hadn’t had time to complain or think too much about how excited he was to crawl back beneath the sheets, because the northernmost barn was falling to pieces.
So, not only was he functioning half empty from the start, but the work today was also strenuous. Sawing raw timber to the perfect length, sanding down the sharp edges, hammering nails into plywood. A full day.
And when Denise had stopped him on his way home, waving him down with a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade in hand, she’d given him that bright, hopeful smile and said, “Little Sammy ran that damn bike into the back door again. Would you mind fixing the hinges?”
His back ached and his knees were creaky, but Joel soon found himself knelt on Denise’s porch, screwdriver and fresh nails in hand.
It didn’t take long, but it did take every last scrap of energy that remained inside of him.
Joel’s house was always quiet. Too big for him, really. Ellie was in the garage already, lights still on, up too late when she had early patrol the following morning. But Joel didn’t have it in him to remind her how important sleep was. Not when he was running on fumes himself.
So he dragged those tired, old bones inside. Kicked off his boots and jeans right at the door of his room, hung his flannel over the back of the chair at his work bench, and let out a long sigh as he climbed beneath icy cotton sheets.
He’s half asleep, eyes closed and muscles sinking into the mattress, when he hears it.
The click of the latch on the unlocked front door. The creak of your careful steps as you climb the stairs.
Joel feels you before he sees you. Too exhausted to pull himself out of blissful almost-sleep. The mattress dips beneath your weight, limbs outstretched, seeking him out of instinct.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Not the first time you’ve found yourself peering out of your window next door waiting for him to get home. Not the first time you’ve ended up in his bed or in his arms.
And Joel knows he should put a stop to it—you’re too young, too sweet, too…good.
But he’s too worn out to fight his impulses. He’s tried for months to keep his thoughts pure when you cross his mind, but it’s been a losing battle from the start.
Especially when you’re like this. Warm and soft, pressed up against his side, wearing an old t-shirt he’d let you borrow the night before and not much else. A comfort that feels more like home than this house does.
The tips of your fingers tickle his forearm, rousing him just enough that he lifts the heavy limb so you can crawl right into his embrace.
Joel holds you tight. He always does. Biceps big and strong around your shoulders. He holds you like he might lose you tomorrow, because there’s a part of him that fears one day you’ll wake up and see something you don’t like.
He worries you’ll begin to see him for what he is; old, weary, tired. Not even half the man he used to be. Not half the man you deserve.
But for tonight at least, you still wear those rose tinted glasses. Pressing sweet kisses to his face; his nose, his forehead, his cheeks. Nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck, making cute, whiny noises at the back of your throat. Like you’re desperate, unable to get close enough despite every inch being pressed against him, leg hooked over his hips.
You find a comfortable position and still beside him, letting out the same sort of long sigh Joel did just moments ago. But you don’t sleep—your breathing doesn’t even out, your muscles don’t go slack.
Joel knows what you need. Long before your hips tilt, before you press your center against his thigh, before you whisper his name in the dark.
“S’okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice deep and dark and sleepy. “C’mere.”
He reaches over and brackets his arm around your waist to drag you on top of him, your center already warm and wanting.
It’s starting to get out of hand, he knows. Starting to become a routine. But Joel doesn’t have many sweet thing in his life, not anymore, and he finds you near impossible to resist. “I’ve got you,” he says. “Take what ya need.”
You lay against his chest, ear pressed right over his heart. Joel kisses the crown of your head when your hips begin to tilt, rubbing yourself against the steadily growing bulge beneath the thin fabric of his boxers.
Soft, wanton sighs leave you at the sensation, and even with a barrier still between you he can feel your clit pulse against the underside of his cock.
Needy little thing you are. But Joel doesn’t mind—he likes the feeling. Of being needed, wanted. Especially by a girl as sweet as you.
You grind on top of him for a while. Not seeking release, not yet. Just feeling the hard warmth of him beneath you, savoring the weight of his big hands stroking softly up and down the expanse of your back.
He can feel your arousal growing with each pass, wetness slowly seeping through his boxers, slick and sticky. Joel nudges you gently with the tip of his nose, the prickly hairs of his mustache tickling the side of your face. “C’mon, sweet girl. Let’s get this shirt off, hm?”
When you nod, you pull yourself up tiredly. The movement is slow and thick like molasses, so Joel uses the last of his energy to help you.
His hands find the hem of the oversized t-shirt and pull it upwards, over your head to be discarded on the floor beside his bed. It leaves you completely naked, bared for him in more ways than one.
In an instant, you fall back against him, breasts pressed up against his chest. Your skin feels cool against his, smooth and pillowy. “S’warm,” you mutter, rubbing the side of your cheek against the coarse hair that litters his chest, graying in some places.
Joel’s cock throbs beneath you, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He just lets you settle back down and allows you to rest. His hands wander, though, the way they always do.
Sliding down your back, over the sides of your thighs, thumbs massaging gentle circles. He strokes his fingers gently back up to your shoulders and then brings them down your arms, smiling when he sees goosebumps rise in his wake.
When they settle back at your hips, his touch is a little more eager. Kneading at the softness, inching over the curve of your ass until that’s all his hands are filled with.
Joel loves touching you. Not just suggestively, but intimately. He loves feeling the closeness and the trust you put in him to take care of you, to keep you safe, to make you feel good.
He massages the supple flesh, holding you close, until his need for you begins to grow teeth, gnawing at his psyche.
Joel knows he shouldn’t. He knows that.
But he’s just so tired, and you’re so soft. Gentle and kind. And you make him feel loved—something Joel Miller has not felt for a very, very long time.
He guides you with his hands gripping at your curves, sliding your slick cunt over his aching cock. His breath feels hollow, stuck in his lungs.
When he lifts upward, just a little, enough to provide a little extra pressure, you mewl in response.
Joel is quick to soothe, shushing softly into your ear. “Shh, you’re alright. Hang on, sweet girl. M’right here.”
He knows what you need. It’s become a nightly ritual at this point. You come to him seeking connection, seeking the comfort of an older man. Most nights you just need to be held, to be nurtured, to be loved the way you deserve.
But other nights, Joel knows you need a little more. A connection that runs a little deeper.
He reaches beneath you, hooking his thumbs in the elastic band of his boxers and tugging them down his tired legs. Just enough to free his cock, already hard as stone just from your proximity.
Joel pulls your forward, up his torso, giving himself room to line his length up with your entrance.
He slides in real easy.
You’re already soaked, dripping with arousal. And the moment he’s fully seated inside you, stretching you real wide, filling up your belly, you let out a breathy whine.
It feels right, being here like this with you. It feels like coming home.
Joel moves you slowly, guiding each roll of your hips, slowing you down when you try to pick up the pace.
There’s no rush. Not here, not with him. He’ll get you there. He’ll get you what you need. What’s the sense in hurrying through it?
He wants to savor it. The feel of your sweet, soft pussy, clenching and leaking around his length. The way your stuttering breath tickles his skin. The way your hands grip him harder and harder, holding him impossibly closer.
He wants to savor the way you love him.
“Gimme a kiss, baby,” he whispers in the dark.
You turn your head, just enough so that he can press his lips to yours. In this, too, Joel moves painfully slow.
It’s not a claiming, it’s an exploration. His lips move against yours, memorizing the feel of them, the shape and the taste. He slowly licks into your mouth, tongue gliding against yours, breathing in your exhalation.
The building coil around his spine is anything but slow, however. He loves being here with you maybe a little too much. He loves you a little too much.
Joel thrust upwards, keeping a steady, unforgiving rhythm while he slides his hand between you. His fingers search blindly for your clit and he finds it in seconds, circling those slow, tight circles around the pulsing nerves.
Your sounds grow louder, release building. The sound of your joining echoes in the empty room, slick and wet and feverish.
He knows your close when you start manually breathing—lungs stuttering, chasing the delicious relief that only he can provide.
“You got it,” he encourages. “S’right there, baby. Give it to me.”
Your eyes stay locked to his, lips parting on a jagged moan. You don’t say anything; no warning, no begging. You just feel it, feel him, moving deep inside you, fucking you through it.
“That’s it,” he says, voice all soft and warm the way it only ever is when he speaks to you. “There you go.”
He doesn’t stop until you find the natural rhythm of oxygen again, until the shaking in your thighs relents to an easy tremble.
Joel feels that white-hot coil beginning to spool within himself, and pulls out of you with just enough time to shoot thick ropes of cum over your pubic bone.
He thrusts the underside of his cock through your syrupy folds, a gentle rocking until he’s spent. He somehow finds the energy for a few extra thrusts, smearing his release over your clit.
You don’t move an inch, and Joel doesn’t want you to.
Instead, you just lay there on top of him, sticky mess between you, your head resting delicately on his chest.
When you reach up to card your fingers through his graying hair, Joel feels his muscles go completely slack, tension bleeding from his weary bones.
“M’sorry I woke you up,” you say, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I know you were tired.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Joel says, and he means it. “I’ll always have time for you."
summary: You love being part of the community of Jackson. But when you try to learn how to defend it, one humiliating accident makes you realize just how useless you feel with a gun in your hands.
smut MDNI 18+ shooting instructor!joel, Jackson!joel, baker!reader, gardener!reader, jack of all trades kinda reader, grumpy!joel, insecure!reader, biggggg joel miller, size kink, enemies to lovers, grinding, kissing, dirty talk (as always), f!receiving oral, fingering, pinv, missionary, outdoor smut, mean to sweet joel miller, some pussy pronouns used, irresponsible gun handling, nightmares, age gap mentioned but not specified, joel calls reader lots of pet names, tiniest bit of brat taming ||
a/n: guys I can't even lie this was inspired by the song ill make a man out of you from mulan....enjoy!!!
wc: 11k
The woods were still crisp for early summer. It was something you'd come to appreciate about Wyoming, after all. No matter how bad winter had been, or how slow spring had sprung, you could always count on a beautiful summer, and even better summer mornings.
But this morning was far from beautiful.
You were sitting with a few others from town, mostly newer folk who'd settled in and were looking for work to do. The woods were quiet around these parts, a couple miles out from Jackson, where the trees thinned just enough to make room for the patrols to see into the valley. It had been a lookout since the beginning, or so you'd heard. A small cabin with a slanted roof, a fire pit out front ringed with blackened stones, a target range cut into the dirt nearby, and guns and ammo stored in the basement in case of emergency and training.
Why you were here, when you could be baking loaves of bread for folks getting out of Sunday worship or sending actual lookout shifts off with their breakfast freshly made, was, well…because you'd started to feel a little useless.
Not useless exactly. That was probably unfair. You did have multiple jobs. You were a part of the community of Jackson. You had a few close friends and plenty of acquaintances. You got along with almost everyone. It was nice, feeling like you knew who took their coffee black, who liked the butt of the bread, who always tried to sneak an extra roll into their coat pocket when they thought you weren't looking. You gardened and sometimes even helped with the horses or the livestock.
But still.
There was a part of you that knew, if anything ever went to shit, you'd never be able to defend your town, let alone yourself. So you'd come out with a group to train up on an early summer morning.
But you sure as shit were terrible at it.
Luckily, the ammo you used on the training grounds were empty shells, nothing actually being wasted on your awful, awful aim.
Because an hour later, the glass bottle in front of you remained whole and smug on the fence line, catching slice of sunlight along its shoulder while the wood of the fence several inches to its left had suffered greatly.
It didn't help that the man that was meant to be teaching you was a grade A Asshole.
Joel Miller was many things. Strong, capable, brave. So many epithets that could be used to describe him. You'd even dare to add handsome if he wasn't always frowning at you or cursing under his breath every time you managed to miss something standing perfectly still.
But the main thing you wanted to call him, was Asshole. Though…you thought if you ever did to his face, it might just be the last thing you ever do.
He was helping a kid down at the end adjust his stance when you heard an argument from beside you about a bet.
“Bullshit,” one of the boys hissed. Matthew, you thought. Maybe Michael? He was one of the kids from town you'd seen around the stables with hair too long, cheeks still a little chubby, and an ego too big. “You did not get Maisie Bell to kiss you.”
“I didn’t say kiss,” the other one said, and in the corner of your eye you watched as he lined up his shot, one eye squeezing shut. “I said she would’ve.”
“That ain’t a bet.”
“It is if I’m right.”
“You’re not right.”
“Two ration cards says I am.”
“For Maisie?”
“For Maisie,” he said, then nodded toward the line of town below the ridge, where you could almost see the church roof through the trees. “And the redhead from the kitchens. Sheesh what I wouldn't do to my hands on 'er. Oh, and that new girl Dina?" he let out a low whistle, "She is so goddamn fine I could—"
The heat that went through you had nothing to do with the morning sun. It rose hard beneath your collar, crawling up your throat until your jaw clenched around it. It pissed you off. Dina was funny and charming and more than a hot piece of ass for some stable boy to run his mouth over. Maisie and Riley were nice girls too, both in your book club, both worth knowing for more than the curve of their mouths or the sway of their hips.
“Maybe you two should spend less time betting on girls who wouldn’t touch you for a warm bath,” you spat, turning toward them, “and more time actually practicing—”
But you'd turned without lowering your gun.
Worse— you'd turned without taking your finger off the trigger.
A loud sound cracked through the clearing.
It wasn't like a typical gun shot, just a sharp, quick pop that punched the rest of your sentence out of your mouth.
Michael grabbed his shoulder and stumbled back, knocking into the rack behind him. A glass bottle tipped from the table and burst in the dirt by his boot, spraying green shards through the dust.
For one second, no one moved.
Then he said, “Ow—fuck!”
Your hands were still around the shotgun, finger still squeezing the trigger, your body stuck in shock.
The kid beside him lowered his own gun in a hurry. A low muttering started to rise from around you— someone else asked if Michael was all right, and Michael, pale and furious and embarrassed, said, “She shot me!"
"Think it's more of a graze—" someone was saying, pulling at the torn cap of his sleeve.
More voices began to overlap as people clustered around him, worry amplifying the noise until you couldn't hear anything because of the panicked buzzing in your ears.
"Give me that."
You blinked to your right. Joel Miller was looming next to you, a thunderous look over his features.
You looked down at the shotgun still in your hands, a gasp running through you.
Your fingers opened at once as if you'd been burned by the wooden barrel. The shotgun dipped toward the ground, and Joel caught it before you could swing wrong again. He took it from you with a look that made your stomach hollow out.
Your mouth open and shut, your voice quiet and lost to the rising murmur around you: "I'm—I'm so sorry—"
Joel didn’t answer. He checked the shotgun with a hard jerk of his hand, jaw tight, eyes not leaving the chamber until he was sure. Then he bent down, grabbed your pack from the dirt, and pushed it into your arms.
“Go.”
You froze with your hands around the straps. A burning, icy thrill ran through your spine, your skin lighting up in humiliation.
“I got no use for kids who don't give a shit about rules or make habits of gettin’ other people killed,” he said. “Go on now. No use to me here.”
You didn’t even think you could speak if you wanted to. You looked down at your backpack, torn and duct-taped in spots, the top strap sewn back down at least ten times since you'd gotten it.
You'd shot someone. What if it hadn't been a blank? What if it hadn't just grazed?
“I—”
“Don’t wanna hear it,” Joel cut in. “Go tell Jesse you're done for the day. He’ll take ya home.”
You bit your lip so hard you tasted copper and nodded, turning away.
For the next two weeks, you went back to being useful.
That was the word that seemed to dig its way into your head, after all. Useful. You baked loaves in the morning with flour dusted up your forearms and dough stuck beneath your fingernails. You wrapped bread in cloth and stacked it on the front table before the church bell rang. When you were done, you gardened the weeds that to creep into the squash beds and watermelon patch, and spent the late afternoons mucking stalls. You went to bed so exhausted you barely thought about what happened at the range.
Michael was fine, of course. He'd come by to apologize for his words the next day with Maria's stone face behind him. You apologized too, made sure he was really okay. Offered him a free bagel or two in exchange for maiming him.
Sometimes you saw Joel.
He didn't laugh or pat your arm understandingly the way the others did when retelling the story that of course made its way around town like wildfire.
He hardly looked at you at all, really. And at first you were grateful for it, too embarrassed to even meet his eye if he ever came by the stables for the horses before training or patrol up in the mountains. You'd run and hide before he even got the chance to spot you, truth be told. And when he came by the bakery, you'd disappeared into the back so fast that one time you’d knocked over an entire sack of rye flour in your haste to vanish.
But by the third week, it'd began to piss you off. Because it was one thing to be ashamed—and you were. But Joel was walking around town like you were something to be scraped off the bottom of his boot. It began to put a sour feeling in your stomach, the fact he had so much power to make you feel so small. Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid glare and his silent brooding.
You stopped hiding.
The next time he came into the bakery, you were at the front counter with your sleeves rolled up as usual, tying string around a parcel of bread. Ellie was next to him as they entered, talking with her hands, telling him some story about Dina and a loose chicken that morning.
“Morning,” you said when they sidled up to the counter.
Ellie looked over, her green eyes brightening. “Hey.”
Joel said nothing.
You pulled down the ration bread from the shelf with their name and house number written across the paper wrapping.
Ellie grinned as you handed it to her, "Do you have any of those sweet rolls from last week?"
You hazarded a glance at Joel, who said nothing again.
"Sure do. You staying for breakfast? I could make some coffee."
Ellie perked up, looking at him. “Can we?”
“No,” Joel said stiffly.
“Oh, come on—didn't you hear her say your favorite word, old man? Cofffeeeeeee!" she sung out before huffing a breath, "Do I need to get your ears checked by the nurse again?”
“We got work.” he grumbled, ignoring her jab.
“You always have work.”
“Funny how that happens.”
You reached for the tray beneath the counter and set a couple rolls out, taking your time. “There’s fresh icing too from this morning, I just need to drizzle it on.”
You went into the back, grabbing the small bag of sugary sweet icing you'd made, and began letting it fall in a steady cascade onto the sweet buns.
Ellie leaned both elbows on the counter. “See? Now we have to stay. It would be rude not to.”
You pretended not to notice how Joel's jaw ticked under his beard.
“She makes a good argument,” you said, sliding the small plate toward Ellie next to their wrapped weekly bread loaf.
Finally, those dark eyes landed on you. It was quick and could almost pass off as an accident. A muddling of color that shown in the morning light, his mouth flat. The same hard set to his face as always. But you smiled back anyway.
Because fuck him.
Ellie took one and barely hesitated before taking a giant bite, delighted. “Thank you.” she said with her mouth full.
You looked away quickly, back at Ellie. “Anytime.”
Joel reached into his pocket and set the ration slips on the counter. His hand was close enough that you could see the scar across one knuckle, the dust caught in the creases of his fingers. He took the parceled bread from the counter, leaving the second sweet bun untouched.
"Let's go, Ellie." he said stiffly. Before you could even call goodbye, they were walking out the shop, Ellie throwing you an apologetic glance and a wave of her hand as she stuffed the roll into her mouth.
You picked up the rations he left, and for a moment, thought about chucking that leftover roll at the back of his head as he disappeared from view.
Instead of learning how to shoot guns, you began learning how to take care of them.
Learn it from the inside out, you told yourself.
And to be fair, you picked it up rather quickly. Quicker than you’d picked up aiming, anyway. There was a comfort to it that shooting never gave you, all the pieces laid out on an oil-stained cloth in front of you, metal pins and springs and screws set in neat little rows beneath your hands. There was no bottle on a fence line waiting to make a fool out of you here in the small rec room of the cafeteria after the dinner shift had come and gone.
Tommy Miller taught the class every other night, his sleeves rolled to the elbows and voice patient and kind as he showed you and a few others how to take a handgun apart and put it back together. He had a way of teaching that was so different than his brother. He was patient, never made you feel stupid for asking questions. If a piece didn't fit, he'd simply say: “The gun’ll tell you what it needs most times. You just gotta quit arguin’ with it long enough to listen.”
And maybe, a small mean part of you liked the fact that the first time Joel Miller saw you there, he stopped dead in the doorway.
You'd bitten your cheek so hard to keep the smug smile from tugging your lips as he made his way across the room with a box of empty shells the night you were learning how to make ammunition. His eyes moved across the room to his brother, who patted him jovially on the back, and then the elder Miller's eyes came back to you. And you knew you didn't look very nice—smudge of grease across your cheek and your hair pulled haphazardly away from the gunpowder, thick work gloves that hardly fit and your plaid sleeves rolled up.
But he'd stared long and hard anyway. And then, as if nothing was amiss, his face went back to its hard, frozen state, and he walked out.
It was that night that you woke from an awful dream.
A horde of infected had broken through Jackson, tearing through everything you'd always loved and cared for. The gate was splintered open, the watchtower burned down to the ground. People were running through the street in their nightclothes, slipping in mud and blood, screaming names you knew.
You woke in a drenched sweat, feeling every bit as useless with a gun in your dream as you did in waking life.
But it was the kind of dream that didn't really feel like a dream at all. You'd felt like you were there, like the chill of night was actually on your face, like the roars of infected in your ears were truly bone-chilling. Your chest had filled with so much doom as you tried to fight back. But you couldn't. Every shot went wrong, every squeeze of the trigger sent another round into a fence post, a doorframe, the packed dirt beside an infected's rotting foot.
You could load the gun. You could take it apart and put it back together. You could clean the pieces until the metal shone beneath your fingers. You'd done it a hundred times now.
But you couldn't shoot.
In the dream, it had been all your fault. The deaths. Friends, loved ones, people who had waved to you from the church steps and leaned over the bakery counter telling you all about their latest town gossip.
Even Joel Miller.
He had died in the dream too. Because of you, and your awful aim, and your utter uselessness when it came to defending anything you cared about.
So, instead of trying to fall back asleep— afraid the dream might return—you got up and headed downstairs. Making your way through your dark house that was a small thing in the middle of town, you heard the floorboards creaking beneath your socks until you stepped into your boots properly.
You threw on your Carhartt over your nightclothes, fumbling with the zipper in the dark. It was just the start of summer now, but the mornings still could be biting. The mountains liked to keep their cold weather as long as possible, holding to it until the sun finally dragged it out when summer solstice came.
On the kitchen table, the shotgun you'd been working on for Tommy’s class sat wrapped in an old cloth, its oiled barrel catching a thin line of moonlight from the window.
You stared at it for a moment.
Then, decision made, you slung the strap over your shoulder and headed out.
Surprisingly, Joel Miller was awake at the odd hour as well.
As you walked down Rancher Street, you spotted him on his porch in the old rocker, one boot planted against the floorboards to keep the chair steady. A steaming cup of something was in his hand as he looked out onto the empty street. No one was up at this hour. You shouldn’t've even been up either. You wouldn’t have to open the bakery for another several hours, and the whole of Jackson seemed to know it. The curtains of the houses you passed were still drawn in the houses along the street, the chicken coops were quiet. Even the dogs that usually barked from behind fences must have been sleeping away the dawn with their owners still in bed.
It made your boots sound so loud on the road.
When his eyes caught the movement of your form coming toward the house, you saw him pause. His brows shot up high, then narrowed back into their usual glower. As you got closer and closer, it seemed so did his brows, threading deeper, causing harsher lines to form between them. The sun was just barely beginning to peek over the east mountaintops, the sky beginning to let go of its inky blackness with only a pale line of light touching the surrounding rooftops.
Joel Miller didn’t say anything as you stepped up from the street onto the path to his house. Or as you walked through his front yard. But his eyes never left you.
You tried—very hard and very much in vain—not to care what he saw as you walked up to the porch. He was an asshole, after all. An asshole who had told you he had no use for you, dismissed you for one mistake, and ignored you for weeks after. You shouldn't care if he saw some clumsy girl with a gun too big for her hands, or the bags under your eyes, or the matching floral sleep set beneath your jacket, long sleeves buttoned to your wrists and matching cotton pants tucked messily into your boots.
"Good morning, Mr. Miller." you said, stopping just at the bottom step of his porch.
He took a long sip of his steaming cup before resting it between his hands on his lap.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, kid?"
In any other circumstance, that could’ve been a polite greeting. But the flatness to his voice, the utter disapproval or contempt that threaded through it, made it sound exactly as he meant it.
You stared at him for a long, long moment.
He just stared back.
The rocker gave a faint creek under his weight. You could just smell the contents of the mug—coffee, for sure then. Bitter and dark how he liked it. You shifted the shotgun off your shoulder and set the butt of it into the dirt beside your boot, one hand rested at the top so it pointed up towards the sky.
Finally, it was Joel who broke the silence as he sighed, getting up to stand at the railing, setting one large, calloused palm against the wood as he looked down at you.
"Kid, I don't know what yer—"
"Shut up."
Joel Miller, for the first damn time since he'd met you, seemed to be stunned. His eyes went wide in disbelief.
"Excuse me, young lady?" he scoffed, standing still on his porch.
"Shut up—" you said, and if your voice shook a little, he made no notice, "and listen."
His eyebrows lifted. Then he looked down the empty street, like maybe someone else had heard you speak to him that way and he needed a witness. But there was no one, of course. Not at this hour. Only the closed houses, the pale line of morning over the rooftops, and a dog two porches down watching through the fence with its nose pressed between the slats.
When Joel looked back at you, he only gave a small shrug, one palm tipping up from the railing.
Go on then.
"I am a baker," you said curtly, taking in a shaky, deep breath, "I am a gardener, I am a sewer, I've become a damn good gun cleaner. I've been in Jackson for two years. I deserve to be here."
"Never said—"
"—and I deserve to learn how to defend it too."
Joel's eyes never left you as he heard your case. His face didn't change much, but at least it wasn't glowering anymore. He made no move to dismiss you or walk back inside even if he'd have enough reason to.
"Just because I had a shit first day doesn't mean I can't still learn, old man." you said. It wasn't a term of endearment. "Just because I'm not shooting bullseyes or killing infected yet doesn't mean I can't try, alright? I— I'm brave and—and—" you took another deep breath, "And you're going to teach me how to shoot."
"Like hell—" he stopped, scoffing again, and then went on, shaking his head: "Kid, you and I—clearly, we ain't jivin', why don't you ask another—"
"No."
Joel clicked his teeth, shifting his weight between his feet behind the wooden balusters.
"No one is as…" you glared up at him, the words searing your tongue before you could force it out, "No one is as good as you. If anyone is gonna teach me, it's you Mr. Miller."
There was a long pause, and Joel set down his mug, the steam wafting in the chilly summer morning. You almost wished you hadn't come, that you could go back to ignoring each other for weeks. What was it to you, what this man thought of you? You knew you looked ridiculous standing here, asking for help. You should be shouting at him, telling him he's mean and grouchy like a dog.
"Christ," he sighed, "you don't give up do ya?"
"Nope."
He pulled in another deep breath, looking up and down the road again for a long moment, before his eyes found you once more. You saw how they roved over your figure, over the muck boots and the white blue floral set, over your tan Carhartt, and then onto your face, where he paused for a moment before saying:
"Well first thing, don't hold the damn gun like that."
You looked down where you were leaning your palm over the muzzle of the shotgun.
"Gonna blow a hole in your palm, then I wouldn't be able to teach ya shit."
Your face burned, but you moved to grip the barrel lower and pulled the gun carefully across your belly, holding it with both hands now, pointed well away from either of you.
He nodded, lifting his mug and taking another sip of coffee, watching you, The slurp of the drink filling his mouth held the silence while the birds began waking up around you.
"You sure you'll be warm enough?" he asked finally.
You nodded.
"Alright. Let me get my shoes and we can hit the trails. Stay put."
You nodded again, and then—
"Joel?"
He turned.
"I um... I promise I won't let you down."
He took one more look at you, the harsh line of his mouth eased, eyes settling in a way you hadn't seen before.
He nodded once, and said: "I know, kid."
The sun was well over the mountain top by the time you made it to the ridge.
He hadn't taken you back to the training ground, whether it was to save you the humiliation of seeing the leftover shards of green glass on the ground, or because he liked the view better by the forgotten ranch, you weren't entirely sure.
It sat a few miles out from Jackson, tucked up where the land opened into a long slope of yellow grass and thin fence posts. One of the old checkpoint places, Joel had told you on the ride over. Not one people used much anymore, not unless they were cutting through on patrol or needed to seek shelter from a storm. There was a little graying house at the top of the rise with peeling paint along the porch rail and a tin roof gone dull from years of snow. Beside it, an old barn leaned slightly into the hill, its red paint worn down to bare wood in places, its door hanging open on a rusted hinge.
You barely registered the bird song that filled the skies as he set up a training course, the beautiful view of the mountainside and your horses grazing in pasture of the barn. Every now and then you saw one lift its head to look at you, ears flickering around, before bending down and resuming its peaceful morning loitering.
Joel was beside you, close enough that you could smell the pine of his body wash and the musk of sweat lining his shirt. He had been mostly quiet on the ride here, but not in the punishing way, you began to realize. Just quiet and focused as his is eyes kept moving over the land, the fence line, the barn, the empty windows of the little ranch house behind you.
“Lean just a little over now,” he said from behind your shoulder as you got into position by the wooden posts. “Use the fence as a brace. Easier when you got something steady under the stock.”
You shifted forward until the gun found the flat part of the top of the wood. The air was still chilly through the sleeves of your sleep set, the fence rough enough to catch on the ribboned cuff of your pant leg when you moved into it. Ahead, he’d pinned a target to the trunk of a tree, three rings and a bullseye in the center.
“First thing,” he said, “you don’t point that barrel anywhere you ain’t willing to put a hole through. Don’t matter if you think the thing's empty. Don’t matter if I told you it’s empty. You treat it like it’s loaded every second it’s in your hands.”
"I know, Joel."
"Repeat it," he said, a little firmer, and the way his breath brushed the side of your neck, it made you shiver. You didn't reaalize he'd gotten so close.
"Treat it like it's loaded." you muttered, leaning over the stock, looking down the line of the barrel.
"Good." he grunted. "Finger stays off the trigger til you're ready, keep both eyes open."
"You sure are bossy." you said under your breath.
"'Scuse me?" he chuckled, "Ain't you the one who dragged me out here at the brink of dawn?"
You rolled your eyes, but bent forward.
“Careful with that,” he said. “Eyes are useful for shootin’. Would hate for 'em to get stuck like that.”
You couldn't help the chuckle you let out—great, so he's got dad jokes too.
“Now stay where you are,” he said. “I’m gonna move the shotgun where it’s supposed to sit. Easier than tryin’ to explain it five different ways, alright?”
You felt your cheeks burn a little, but nodded.
He moved behind you, close enough that the warmth of him settled at your back before he ever touched you. One hand reached around yours, thick fingers closing over the fore end of the shotgun to shift it against the top rail of the fence, enough to settle it steady against the wood. His other hand came to your shoulder, guiding the butt of the stock into place. It was heavy, but bearable thanks to the support of the fence in front of you.
"Want it over your shoulder, not pushin' into the collarbone. S'gonna kick harder than a mule and you'll be hollerin' about bein' sore for days."
You scoffed a bit, but let the stock settle over the crest of your shoulder as he positioned it.
“Now press your cheek right here,” he said, moving his hand from the barrel to tap the side of the stock. You tilted your head, trying to place it right. You nearly gasped when you felt the thick press of his fingers on the other side your neck as he guided you into position without thought. Not rough or impatient, only warm, certain, his callouses catching lightly against your skin. "There ya go."
Your body became suddenly very aware of him from that one touch. The scrape of his jacket against yours as his chest came in closer, the weight of him behind you, the heat of him against your back.
"Stay still, you're squirmin'—"
"—am not—"
You felt the breath of a laugh over your shoulders, and it made your skin rise in gooseflesh. The target was becoming blurrier by the moment.
"Now—"
You held very still as you felt him line his body behind yours, his breath now against your neck, his voice low and gravelly like honey on hot asphalt.
“Think about all that bullshit you been carryin’ around,” he grumbled. “Starin’ daggers at me for weeks. Comin’ up on my porch tellin’ me to shut up, callin’ me old, actin’ like I decided you don’t belong.”
"Joel—" you protested.
"S'okay, didn't take none personal." he said as he stepped up even closer, one hand going to your hip. “Breathe in.”
You sucked in a shallow breath.
He clicked his teeth. “Try again. You know none of that is true, don't ya, darlin'? Let it all go here. Don't belong in that head a'yours.”
You closed your eyes, annoyed and a little embarrassed, and pulled air in deeper this time, taking in the smells of the open Wyoming air. Cold morning. Damp grass. Coffee on his breath. Mint from when he'd been chewing the sprig on the way there. Pine soap. The fence rail rough beneath the gun.
His breath was so warm against your cheek as he murmured: "That's it, now let it out."
You let the breath leave you, nice and long and through your mouth—and with it went the bickering on his porch, the shame of the range, the weeks of him not looking at you, the ugly little voice that kept saying you were useless no matter how many loaves you baked or horses you brushed or shotguns you cleaned.
"Open your eyes now, and squeeze that trigger." he murmured, lips brushing your ear. As he said the word, his hand pressed forward on your hip, long, thick fingers winding around the sensitive skin just under the waistband.
When your eyes opened, the sun felt a little brighter, the day a little clearer. The target sharpened against the tree, the black rings settling in your sight.
Your stomach dipped for one horrifying moment, and then—you squeezed.
The shot cracked across the ridge, echoing off the sides of the mountains. Joel was right—the butt of the gun kicked hard, but you only felt it jostle your body back into his, harder, the force caught by your shoulder instead of biting into your chest.
You gasped, everything happening so fast before you were blinking rapidly and seeing the paper on the tree ripped just left of center.
“Shit—”
“Not bad for a first try.” you heard him say.
"I wanna go again." you said, breathlessly.
“Jackson’s gonna be needin’ their morning bread soon,” Joel chuckled, but he didn’t move. “Tommy’s gonna be wonderin’ where his cinnamon rolls are.”
You smiled wide, the adrenaline of the shot still coursing through you.
As your breath settled, both of you were still leaning over the fence, your body pressed back into the hard line of his. His hand hadn’t moved from your hip. Neither had yours from the shotgun. It would’ve been easy, maybe, to step away. To laugh, to clear your throat, to make some comment about those cinnamon rolls or old men or how if he'd stop being so bossy you could've probably hit the bullseye.
But…you didn't.
You only tilted your gaze over your shoulder.
He was so close—so close you could see almost every gray hair in his thick beard like winter's snowy streaks in a dark sky. You could see every line on his plump bottom lip, the shining spot where his tongue had just passed over it.
"Thank you, Joel." you whispered, "For…"
You trailed off, because Joel wasn't looking in your eyes anymore. They were such a pretty hazel you'd never noticed, and were fixed on your mouth.
"You're welcome." he whispered.
Your lips parted lightly when he tilted his head over your shoulder, and he took that as invitation to lean in.
He was so warm.
Like kindled fire in a cabin, like the first morning of solstice. The prickle of his mustache brushed your nose as he took your lips with his, breathing you in so deeply it made your knees go soft beneath you. You let out a whimper, hands tightening around the barrel and grip of the shotgun, wishing so badly to put them in his hair, all over his broad shoulders and thick muscles.
He seemed to know exactly what you needed, his one hand coming up to take the gun from your hands, placing it quickly but carefully against the fence. He only broke the kiss to turn you fully towards him before his lips were on you again, hungrier and needier as he pushed his body into yours.
His hands were all over you in an instant, planted on your hips and squeezing you harder, making you whine under his touch.
Your tongue traced his bottom lip, teeth nipping, begging wordlessly for entrance, and he gave it so easily. So eagerly. He groaned, opening his mouth for you, letting you lick inside, suckling on his tongue before you nipped again at that nice bottom lip.
His hands were everywhere—under your jacket but above your cotton top, sliding up your waist and back down again, never settling for long. They were so big and broad, squeezing and groping anywhere he could hold.
Yours wound around his neck so you could drag him closer, breasts pushed to his chest, the layers between you suddenly unbearable. His jacket. Your sleep shirt. His flannel. It was too much fabric—too much of everything that wasn’t his fevered skin against yours.
How could you ever have thought he was such an asshole? This grumpy old man— this stubborn, bossy, impossible man, was just as needy as you. Maybe worse. All that silence, that staring. Those weeks of pretending he didn’t see you across bakery counters and barn aisles and muddy streets. He needed this as much as you did, someone to set him straight, yes, but also… to tell him he was needed and good, too.
You moaned when his hands traveled lower, both palms filling with the round flesh of your bum, dragging you up against him. One hand pulled up beneath your thigh so your leg was over his hip, opening you enough for him to grind the hard denim of his cock against you.
“Oh shit—” you gasped as your back got pushed into the rails of the fence.
He was thick. You could feel it even through his jeans, through the stiff seam and the metal of his zipper, the heavy shape of his length ground into the cradle of your legs perfectly.
Joel’s mouth left yours with a wet sound and moved to your jaw, then your chin, then the side of your throat. His beard scraped at your skin, his mustache rough beneath your ear.
“S’alright, darlin’,” he murmured, rocking into you again, slower this time, meaner for how much control he had over it. “Just needed someone to show you how it’s done, didn’t ya?”
Your nails bit into the back of his neck.
“Joel—”
“Been fightin’ me all mornin’,” he said, his mouth dragging lower, teeth grazing where your pulse beat too fast. “All damn month, really.”
You couldn’t even argue. Not with his hips pressed just right and his hand gripping your thigh harder, holding you open against the fence.
“S’okay,” he said, voice rough against your throat, tongue laving over your carotid. “I’ll show you how to take me just as good, yeah?”
“Oh, yes,” you breathed, already nodding. “Yes, please, Joel.”
"What good manners you have, baby," he cooed.
Luckily he couldn't see the way your eyes rolled at that, but your mouth fell open as he bit down on the tender flesh of your shoulder.
"Oh!"
He growled, pleased, the sound vibrating up from his rib cage and against your skin before he push his cock into you harder than before. The fence post pressed into your back, a little painful through your jacket, his hands holding you tightly between it and himself.
“Tell me,” he groaned. “How long?”
"How long what, old man?" you tried to clipped retort, but it came out more like a whimper as his hands pulled you closer, dragging your cotton-covered seam over him harder. You had one hand thrown back over the fence rail to keep your balance, the other fisted tightly in his hair. Your head fell forward to watch where his lap met yours, thin floral pajama pants bunched tight where his stiff denim pressed into them over and over, the friction making your thighs tremble around his hips.
"How long has this sweet little pussy been wet —since we got up here, hm?"
"Fuck you," you moaned, which only made him laugh.
His head came up to look you straight in the eye, one hand going to the side of your face, thumb against your cheekbone, the wide breadth of his palm covering your cheek. His fingers dug lightly into the side of your neck as he forced your gaze back up to him. It was shockingly sweet for how menacing his smile was.
“Your little act doesn’t work on me, sugar,” he murmured, staring at your lips. “C’mon now. Tell me.”
You glared up at him, though it was a weak thing with your chest heaving and your leg hooked around his waist. "You're such an asshole."
He bent down to nip at your nose, "'fraid I think you might like that most about me."
The both of you were very still now, though you'd brought both of your ankles up to lock at his lower back, fully relying on him for balance. Your chest heaved with fresh lungfuls of air, finally catching up to what had felt lost and shallow before.
"And what about you?" you asked, tipping your chin up. "You really hate me as much as you act like you do?"
“Could never hate’cha,” he murmured, leaning down again, his voice lower now, almost too soft for the way he was still holding you against the fence. “Only thing I hate is how fuckin’ bad you make me want you.”
You blinked up at him.
"Is it really that much of a surprise, baby?" he added when he saw your expression.
"I mean—you—"
He was beginning to kiss you again, your flustered state seemingly invitation enough to resume his affection, gentler this time. He kissed your mouth softly, then the corner where the seam of your lips met, then up your cheek and over your brow.
"—you said we don't get along, that I should find someone else to teach me—that, that you had no use for me—"
Joel pulled back one more time, looking down at you. The hand that had been hooked under your knee came up to your face too, until he was holding your head between both hands, palms rough against your cheeks, fingers cupping the bowl of your skull.
His eyes moved over your face, and for once, there was no glower there. No hard set to his mouth. Just Joel, looking at you like the words had been sitting badly in his chest too.
"Should'a never said that, I know. I'm sorry. I was an asshole up at the trainin' range that mornin'."
"Yeah, you were." you pouted.
“Only said them things on the porch ’cause I know I shouldn’t want’cha like I do.” He shook his head, jaw tight, the confession seemingly costing him something. “Can’t fuckin’ help it though, baby. I can’t.”
“Then don’t,” you whispered.
"You're too young—" he whispered, "—too sweet for me. You're right, I'm old, I'm mean as a dog…"
Your delicate fingers wrapped around his thick wrists, holding him there, keeping his hands on your face.
“Truth?” you offered.
He nodded quietly.
Out there, you could just hear the breeze over the open fields around you. The soft nickering of the horses grazes, the birdsong of the woods beyond. It was awfully quiet where just you and Joel stood pinned against the old fenceline.
"I've wanted you for so, so long." you murmured.
His eyes flickered between yours, narrowing, almost disbelieving. Your grip on his wrists tightened.
"I have. And…and… I've been wet since we got here. Thinking about this—being all alone with you and—even if I can't fucking stand you glowering at me like that—"
He pushed his lips into yours again, but this time, it wasn't only the flame of hunger and eagerness, but the gentleness of tender affection.
“C’mere,” he whispered into your lips, hands sliding down your sides.
His hands were back on your body, pulling you closer, slipping under your jacket once more before finally reaching under your cotton night shirt. You could feel just how rough-hewn his fingertips were, how calloused and worn they were against the tender flesh of your body. But they felt so right, like this was where they belonged all along.
“You’re so soft, baby. Wanna feel how soft you are under these.” His fingers hooked lightly at the waistband of your cotton pants. “Take ’em off for me.”
You listened, of course you listened. He let your wobbly legs down gently from his hips, one hand staying firm at your waist until your boots found the grass again. Your knees felt useless beneath you, weak from the heat of him, from the way his voice had gone low and syrupy thick against your mouth. You reached for the ribboned hem of your sleep pants with clumsy fingers, and Joel watched you like he was trying very hard to stay patient.
The cotton slid down your thighs, catching for a second at your knees before you stepped out of them and your boots. Morning air touched your bare skin at once, cool enough to make you suck in a breath.
You started to pull your coat off too, but Joel caught the front of it in one fist and held it closed around you.
“You’re gonna get cold, baby,” he murmured, bringing you back into his arms to kiss you on the lips once more. “Keep it on.”
He was soon bending, kissing your chin, the soft skin of your throat, down your top and lifting it just enough to lick into your navel, making you giggle and squirm. He threw you a knowing look when you bit back a laugh at the crack of his knees, and you nearly opened your mouth to say something rude before his lips found your skin again.
He kissed lower, down the soft slope of your belly, until his mouth was pressed just above your mound where your panties still covered you. Stupid sleep underwear, you chastised yourself, suddenly annoyed you hadn’t thought this far ahead. But Joel didn't seem to care. He kissed the little bow at the waistband, something slipping from his mouth that sounded awfully like 'how cute'.
Your breath caught in the crisp morning air when his tongue dipped out over your cotton panties, right where your clit pulsed beneath. He let out a low hum of satisfaction, one thick finger coming up to pull the cotton aside.
“Why don’t you spread these pretty legs for me, hm?” His eyes flicked up to yours. “Or do I need to teach ya how to do that too?”
You scoffed, still in your head enough to want to bite back a curse at him, but he was already moving your leg for you, pushing your knee toward the fenceline until your boot found footing on the bottom rail. His eyes never left the damp spot darkening your panties.
As he pulled the cotton aside fully, he sighed, face tilting a little as he looked.
“You’re staring,” you murmured, nervousness fluttering in your belly.
His eyes glanced up at you, and your heart ricocheted into your throat. You felt bare. Exposed. Ready for him to turn cold again, to go back to that surly look and stone quiet like he’d only just remembered himself.
Instead, his thumb stroked once along your thigh.
“S’just so pretty,” he murmured. “Tryin’ to take my time, is all.”
Your mouth opened in another quick gasp as his lips pressed onto the swollen bud of your clit. You felt his tongue dip out lazily, curled like a basin for collecting the arousal that had pooled for him. He licked up and up and up, before suckling on your sensitive bud again. He moaned with you when your head fell back, your fingers digging harder into the fenceline where you held yourself up.
"That's it, that's it," he cooed when he pulled away to blow gentle air against your pussy. "What a good girl you are, just want a little taste before I put my cock in ya."
Oh god, the old man really had a filthy mouth.
He was diving back in again, now with a finger to prod at your entrance. Your knees suddenly felt wobbly, hardly able to keep you standing.
He licked and sucked at your pussy like he’d been waiting for it, messy and hungry now, no patience left in him. His finger pushed inside, thick enough to make you gasp, your walls clenching down around it as he groaned into you.
"Ohhhh…" you chorused together.
"Fuck, you're tight," he breathed.
"Oh god, Joel." you said at the same time.
"I know, I know," he cooed again. His voice had gone dark and syrup-thick, coated in arousal, every word dragged rough from the back of his throat.
“Just gotta open ’er up,” he murmured, kissing the inside of your thigh before looking back at where his finger disappeared inside you. “Ain’t no way my cock’s fittin’ in here before I get you ready.”
“It will,” you chanted, hips undulating up into his mouth. “It will, it will—”
He moaned at your eagerness, crooking his finger before pulling it out to the first knuckles, and inserting a second finger. You gasped, stretched over his thick digits, the ache of it full and perfect and worse because he looked so pleased with himself. Because he knew exactly where to press, where to push, how to lave his tongue over your clit until your body was singing his praise.
“Fuck, baby,” he breathed, watching your face as his fingers worked deeper. “There you go. There you go.”
Your head tipped back against the fence post, wood catching at your hair.
“She gonna squeeze my cock this tight too, huh?” he murmured, mouth brushing slick over your clit. “She likes my fingers in ’er.”
"Yes, yes, yes," you whispered, your eyes hooded but forcing yourself to watch him. Your other hand carded into his thick graying hair at the crown of his head, nails scraping through, and he made a rough, pleased sound into you. Almost a purr. Almost a growl. His eyes fluttered for half a second before he looked back up at you, mouth wet, beard shining, fingers still buried inside you.
"M'so close, Joel, so so close, pleeeaseee…"
"There's those sweet manners again, baby. Why don't you go ahead and beg me some more? Maybe I'll let you come right now, and then I'll make you come again around my cock. Huh? Sound good? Let me hear your pretty little begging again, baby, go on now."
He said it all while panting, tilting his head up so his eyes could watch you. You put on your best pout, bottom lip sticking out so he could see how much you really really wanted it.
"Pleeeeease, Joel, please—" you mewled, "your fingers feel so good, so thick, please let me come. I'll be good, I'll be good."
"Good girl," he murmured, breath hot against you, "go on, let me feel her soak me. Come, baby,"
It felt like your belly had been waiting for the words. The overwhelming build finally tipped, the wave cresting hard before crashing through you all at once. Your body went molten as you locked up around his fingers, pleasure coursing through your veins in hot, licking bursts. Your eyes squeezed shut, your mouth falling open around a low, obscene moan you had no control over.
Joel rocked you through it, fingers pushing in and out, fucking you with them while his tongue pressed gently at your overstimulated clit until you were twitching and pulling away from his mouth.
When he pulled his fingers from your walls, you nearly fell to the ground, your legs unable to hold you up. Joel caught you before you could drop, hands firm beneath your thighs as he lifted you fully against him, both your legs winding around his waist now. Lazily, sleepily, you watched him shrug out of his coat and throw it down over the grass. Your eyes were still too heavy to take all of him in properly, so your hands did it instead—big shoulders, broad chest, thick arms built from hard work and long hours.
Just as much a part of Jackson as you were. Maybe more.
He could do everything. It made you a little sick with envy, even now, even with your body still humming from his mouth and his fingers.
Joel saw your face change, but he was busy lowering you onto his coat, easing you down into the grass instead of keeping you pinned against the fence.
“What is it, baby?” he whispered, one hand cradling the back of your head as he settled over you. “What’s in that pretty little head of yours?”
He was half watching you, half working open his jeans until his cock was freed from the denim, heavy as it bobbed, flushed red and bobbing thick between you as he leaned closer.
You licked your lips, reaching for him, but Joel caught you by the wrist before your fingers could wrap around him. You gasped in surprise, but he only brought your hand to his mouth, kissing each pad of your fingers one by one.
“Don’t think I’ll last too long if you start that,” he murmured. “Tell me what’s goin’ on.”
You shook your head. “Nothing. You’re just…you’re so…”
You sighed dreamily, distracted by the feeling of his swollen, wet lips against the tips of your fingers.
“Old?” he offered. “Cranky? Rude?”
Your mouth twitched. “Yes, and…”
He laughed a little, but you went on anyway.
“I was just thinking about how perfect you are.”
Now he really smiled wide, shaking his head before nipping at your index finger. "Think you've got the wrong man, baby," he groaned a little, and then leaned over you.
You shook your head again, winding your arms around his neck, one hand cupping the nape of his hair while your nails scraped lightly along his scalp.
“Don’t think so.”
He hummed, kissing you again, and began to roll his hips against you so his cock slid up your belly, heavy and hot against your skin. The kiss deepened, lips slotting together, wet and tender, tongues sliding slow as your hands tightened in his hair and his weight settled over you.
“I don’t know if you’re gonna fit,” you whispered when he pulled his hips back too far and the head of his cock slipped up through the seam of your pussy.
He licked his lips, looking down at you. “Told ya I’d teach ya, didn’t I?”
You smiled, nodding. “M’nervous.”
“Don’t gotta be. I got ya, baby.” His thumb brushed along your hairline. “We’ll start nice and slow.”
He did as he said, sitting back a little just so he could grasp his cock in one hand, the other still cradling your head, petting your hair where it had fallen across his jacket. The head of him notched at your entrance, wet with arousal and spit, but the difference between two fingers and his cock suddenly felt impossible.
“Easy now,” he whispered, kissing your lips. “Take a breath for me, honey.”
You did as he said, for once without some retort, and pulled in a deep breath.
What started as control quickly turned into a gasp as he pushed inside.
“Oh fuck!” you squealed, clawing at his shoulders over his shirt.
He chuckled, and you wanted to slap him.
“Come on now, honey,” he murmured, kissing the corner of your open mouth. “You’re all tensin’ up. Curl your toes. Deep breaths. C’mere, gimme a kiss.”
Your toes curled automatically, did your best to pull in another breath, and he leaned down to kiss you earnestly, swallowing the next rough sound that left you as he pushed in another inch.
His tongue licked behind your teeth. His chest pressed yours down into the coat. The weight of him made the ground feel farther away somehow, the grass cool beneath your hips, his jacket bunched soft and worn under your shoulders.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed against your mouth, rougher now. “Ain’t that so good, baby? How’s that feel?”
Your head fell back onto the collar of his jacket. “Soooo…full. Fuck.”
“Almost all of it,” he murmured, jaw tight. “Just a little more. Pussy feels amazing, baby. S’like heaven.”
Your eyes squeezed shut as he pulled back a little, your mouth opening in a small, helpless shape when the drag of him caught every tender place he’d opened with his fingers.
“Yeah,” he sighed, watching your face. “There you go. She’s warmin’ up to me now.”
One of his hands slid from your hair to your throat, resting just beneath your jaw, not squeezing, only holding you there while his thumb brushed the jumping line of your pulse. "think she's even startin' to like me."
“You’re so corny,” you groaned, but your chastising cut off when he slid his cock in all the way, his heavy balls pressing against your ass at last.
“Oh—” you choked. “Oh, oh oh.”
Joel nodded like he felt it too, like he needed the confirmation just as badly as you did. Then he kissed you again, and you let him, loose and dazed beneath him, tongue sweeping out to taste his. You could still taste yourself there, musky and sweet on his mouth, and it made your walls contract around him.
Your body was starting to understand him now. The first sharp stretch softened into heat, your muscles loosening by degrees, letting him settle deeper until the fullness became less frightening and more necessary.
“Fuck,” he breathed, forehead pressing to yours. “You okay? How’re you feelin’, baby?”
“So good, Joel,” you whispered, fingers flexing in the fabric at his shoulders. “So good. Please, please fuck me.”
He groaned, ducking his face into your neck. “Gonna give it to you good, baby.”
He started slowly. Though, you weren't sure if he was exactly gentle. He was so big and there was too much of him for anything to feel really gentle. But he was careful, controlled in the sawing of his hips that pulled halfway out, and then pressing back in. Each stroke was concise, your fingers digging harder into his shirt, each little hiccup of air pressed from you.
His coat dragged beneath your back, the grass brushing cold against your bare thighs. Your sleep top had ridden up beneath your own jacket, leaving your stomach exposed to the morning air, but Joel was warm over you, broad and heavy and panting against your throat. Every time he pushed in, your body shifted against his, the ground catching you, the earth taking what the fence no longer had to.
The open air of the field collected your simpering sighs and loud, mewling moans, the day warming around you so that you saw sweat beginning to dapple his forehead when he brought his head up to look at you.
“So pretty, baby,” he breathed. “Such a pretty girl takin’ cock so well.”
You cried out when he changed the rhythm, picking up speed.
“I know, I know,” he moaned, his voice catching rough in his throat. “God, you feel so good, baby. Pussy feels like it was made for me, huh?”
“Yes, Joel, yes—ohhh, yes, yes, yes.”
“She’s tightenin’ up on me again,” he panted, eyes dragging over your face. “Gonna come for me already? What a good girl you are. C’mon, I wanna feel it around my cock.”
Your eyes widened when Joel’s hand slid down your body again, over your thigh, hooking it higher until your leg was thrown up over his shoulder. Your body folded beneath him, his cock reaching deeper as he leaned down into you.
“Fuck!” you squealed, holding tightly onto his hair.
He looked down at you with a little pout, a mock-sympathetic expression pulling at his mouth.
“Doin’ so good,” he murmured. “Takin’ my cock like such a good girl, baby. Come on now, let me feel her again. She feels like fuckin’ heaven.”
“Jooooel,” you whined.
But that crest of a wave was swelling worse now, higher, blood coursing hot through the river of your veins, sparking as it flooded your belly. Your hips tightened. Your muscles locked. Your whole body seemed to pull toward him, toward that hard, dragging stroke, toward the pressure building so tight you could hardly breathe around it.
“Oh god,” you gasped. “Oh god.”
“Make your old man happy, baby,” he panted, hips snapping harder now. “Come on my cock. Know you wanna. Know your pussy loves it.”
“Shut up,” you cried. “Shut up, shut up.”
He grabbed your face again, mock pout gone, teeth bared with the strain of holding himself together.
“Where are those sweet manners you had not too long ago?”
You squealed as he built up a faster rhythm. His hand hooked around your neck, pulling you up just enough to make you look down between your bodies, where his cock was splitting you open over and over.
“You see that, baby?” he groaned. “She’s milkin’ me. Beggin’ me to let her come, ain’t she? Look how good she’s takin’ me.”
“So good,” you murmured between moans.
It was true. His cock was covered with your thick arousal and come, pearly white and glistening around the shaft every time he pulled out, only to swing his hips back into you again.
“So why don’t you use those good manners and ask me?” he rasped. “Hm? Too proud already? Or are you too cock drunk?”
You pushed weakly against him, and he let you lay back down fully, following you down to kiss you. His mouth was wet, his breath uneven, his body still working yours into the coat beneath you.
“Gonna make me beg for it now, sweetheart?” he asked against your lips. “That it?”
You shook your head, too far gone to answer properly.
“I ain’t above beggin’,” he chuckled, though the sound broke wetly into a groan when you clenched around him again. “Wanna feel it so badly.”
He reached down between you, his thumb finding your swollen clit and strumming it with the perfect pressure.
Your eyes popped open, you didn’t even have time to beg. To ask. To tell him.
Your body locked up all at once, eyes squeezing shut as the pleasure burst bright and black behind your lids. It tore through you in waves, hips jerking beneath him, thighs shaking where he had you folded open. Your mouth fell wide around a sound you barely recognized as yours.
Somewhere outside the buzzing of your orgasm, outside your own moans and the pulse pounding in your ears, you heard Joel groaning louder.
“That’s it,” he gritted against your cheek. “Fuck, that’s it, baby. Give it to me. Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl.”
His thrusts started to lose their rhythm, turning deeper, rougher, his hips driving into you with less control each time. His hand tightened at your jaw, his forehead pressing hot to yours mouth open against yours, and then he pushed into you one last time, burying himself as deep as he could go.
Joel groaned your name like it had been dragged from somewhere low in his chest, and then he filled you, cock pulsing inside you as his body went heavy over yours, his breath breaking against your mouth.
For a moment, neither of you moved. There was only breath.
Yours, thin, uneven, still catching in your dry throat when you tried to swallow. He felt heavy over you, his breath thick against your cheek. His weight felt good, like a blanket, though your legs had begun to cramp until he let your leg down.
The open summer morning moved on around you. It all came back to your ears eventually, the cricking of the open barn door, the horses in the pasture and the birds singing from far away. The field smelled like fresh grass and weeds and sunshine, Joel's coffee still faint on his breath.
You hummed against him as he kissed the crook of your neck, his mustache and beard prickly against you. He feathered his lips up your throat until they were over your own lips, which you pressed gently against his. He pulled back, just looking at you. And you did the same. You brought your hand up to his face slowly, tracing the line of his brow, down his sharp nose and over the bow of his top lip.
"You are so perfect." you said dreamily.
He breathed a little laugh through his nose, a crooked, disbelieving smile pulling his lips. A shyness you weren't sure you'd ever seen.
The heat between you had started to cool. Your skin prickled beneath your open jacket, the air finding every place his body didn’t cover. You shivered, and Joel noticed at once.
“Chilly?”
“Only a little.”
He sighed, like he hated that he had to move, then leaned down to press one more long, lingering kiss to your lips before sitting back.
You made a small sound when he pulled out of you, your body too sensitive for even that. Joel’s eyes dropped between you, his jaw tightening for a second at the sight of himself slipping free, slick and spent against your thigh.
"Poor baby," he said, his thumb reaching out to slide up your wet and abused folds. You whined at the touch, and he pouted down at you.
"Easy, easy, I know. Gonna take care of her when we get home."
He sat back on his heels and tucked himself away first, hands slower now, less steady than they’d been when he’d taken the rifle from you. Then he reached for your sleep pants where they’d been left in the grass, shook them once to knock off the loose dirt, and turned back to you.
You blinked up at him, limp and boneless, still spread over his coat.
Joel looked down at you for a second, one brow lifting. “Don’t make me do all the work now, baby.”
You smiled sleepily. “You seemed to like doing all the work a minute ago.”
His mouth pressed into a line, but it didn’t hide the amusement in his eyes. “Smart mouth,” he muttered.
Still, his hands were gentle when he guided one foot through the pant leg, then the other. He pulled the cotton up your calves carefully, pausing when the fabric caught at your knee, easing it loose before working it higher. You lifted your hips only when he tapped them, and even then, barely.
“There ya go,” he murmured, drawing the waistband back into place beneath your rumpled top. He helped you sit up slowly in his lap, one hand braced behind your back, the other fixing the front of your coat around you. His knuckles brushed your stomach as he straightened your shirt, then pulled the jacket closed enough to keep the morning air off your skin.
You stayed like that for a moment, hiked up over his thighs, and he let your limbs fold around him again, hands back into his messy hair.
"I meant it—you—" you began, then licked your lips, staring up into his pretty hazel eyes again, "you're good, Joel. You're perfect."
He opened his mouth to protest, but sighed instead.
"Thank you for bringing me out here," you went on, "I'm sorry if I was mean earlier."
He smiled crookedly, "I was too."
You shook your head, "You had reasons to be."
He leaned down and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to your lips, "Bakery is gonna be wonderin' where you are, we better get back."
You held on tight even when he began to move, and a little mischevious smile twitched your mouth.
Summary: your boyfriend begs you to have anal but knows jack shit about the act. Much to your surprise and pleasure, his dad steps up and teaches him. By example.
Tw: +18, mdni, smut, age gap, soft!Joel, consent king Joel, reader calls him Mr Miller bc she’s respectful and bc it’s hotttt, size kink, competency kink, pussy/ass fingering (different fingers ofc), cuckolding, ass play, rimming, anal, lots of lube, f!masturbation, creampie, praise kink.
Word count: 5,4k
A/n: I think this is the porn-iest story I’ve ever written ahah It’s very depraved but also sweet in some places. I had a blast working on it and I hope you’ll like the result♥️ Soft Joel kisses to @milla-frenchy for beta-ing😘 Dividers by @/saradika-graphics 💞Enjoy, my lovely freaks🍑
Part 2 Let Me Teach You More || MASTERLIST
“Number one rule of anal sex is ‘No rush’,” Mr Miller says to his son. The older man is sitting by your side, his hands gently kneading your naked asscheeks. You hold your breath when he spreads the globes of your flesh and exposes your pussy slit and butthole. Both entrances clench.
You’ve been going out with Jack Miller for almost a year and you know his dad Joel relatively well. He’s single, works as a contractor, loves spending his free time playing the guitar, woodworking, watching old action movies and going to the bar with his brother Tommy. What you haven’t known before tonight is how good his fingers feel when he pushes them into your asshole. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
It all started with an argument. Jack was getting on your nerves, begging you to have anal.
“C’mon, baby,” he said, clinging to you like an annoying lap dog. He had just fingered you as a foreplay so you were sweaty and sleepy, lying naked on his bed. As always it had taken him too long. He had trouble finding the right rhythm and the right angle like he’d never touched your pussy before. While he was fiddling with your lady parts, a slideshow of your favorite porno scenes was playing on a loop behind your tightly closed eyes until finally you reached an underwhelming orgasm.
Probably relying on endorphins clouding your judgement, Jack began his anal pitch. He was promising you heavenly pleasure and an unforgettable experience, mostly turning himself on - a pole was proudly tenting his sweatpants.
Despite the passion in his voice, you were adamant in your decision. You’d never done it with anyone before and doubted that Jack was experienced enough to show you a wonderful world of anal.
“It’s not that simple, Jack! Jerking off to anal porn is not enough! What if you hurt me! You need to educate yourself first. You need to know… stuff.” You pulled the cover over your naked breasts and crossed your arms.
“What stuff?” Jack frowned.
“Exactly!”
You stared at the ceiling, contemplating getting dressed and going home. You were sure he wouldn’t let it go. And he didn’t.
“I’ll be careful, I promise. Just a tip first, you won’t even feel it. I’ll be super slow and then bam! I’m inside.”
BAM! No one in the history of mankind wanted to hear Bam! and their ass in the same sentence. So you shook your head and gave Jack an alternative,
“Why don’t you fuck my pussy?”
Jack palmed his clothed boner with interest but then shook his head, doubling down.
“Baby, pleaseeeeee..”
Nothing extraordinary would have happened if Jack hadn’t kept nagging and whining, pleading you to give him your butt. You kept saying ‘no’, he kept begging. It got so annoying that you decided to leave but before you sat up there was a loud knock on the bedroom door.
“Dad,” Jack grumbled and got up. He adjusted his hard cock and you pulled the bed cover higher, covering your chest.
“What’s up, dad?” Jack said, annoyed by the interruption.
“Can I …?” Mr Miller stepped into the bedroom. You swallowed loudly. It was weird to be completely naked under the sheet in front of your boyfriend’s father.
“Sorry for intrudin’, sweetheart,” he said, turning to you and then to his son. “Jack, I can’t listen to it no more! Don’t you get what she’s sayin’?”
“Dad, what the hell?” Jack’s cheeks grew red, he was shifting on his bare feet, throwing nervous glances at you. And you definitely shared his confusion.
“I wasn’t eavesdroppin’ I swear. These fuckin walls are cardboard thin. You were whinin’ like a little bitch, son. Sorry, sweetheart,” Mr Miller apologized to you again and then said the words that you’d never expected to hear from your boyfriend’s dad.
“Let me teach you anal.”
Jack was shocked and embarrassed. He was gawking at his dad with widened eyes while the older man was standing by the bed, towering over his son, feet planted firmly on the ground. He kept saying that he only wanted to help, gesturing with his big hands. To your surprise you immediately pictured those hands on your naked body.
You wondered how Mr Miller would teach you. Maybe he’d watch Jack and you, guiding you both, giving advice, or maybe he’d take matters (your ass) into his own hands. Those huge veiny hands. The thought made your core pucker and while Jack was asking his dad to leave, saying that he lost his mind, you pressed your thighs together under the cover, trying to alleviate the ache in your pussy.
“I couldn’t hear the TV, Jack! Only your pathetic attempts to put it in her ass. Sorry, baby,” Mr Miller looked at you, his hands raised palms to you.
“Don’t call her that,” Jack grumbled. He looked and sounded like a boy who didn’t want to share his toy truck.
“‘K,” his father nodded and turned at you. “Jus’ wanna help.”
He dropped his hands by his sides, his sad puppy eyes moving from his son and to you and back. Your heart swelled. Your pussy throbbed.
“Ok,” you said, surprising your boyfriend and yourself. Jack gawked at you.
“What do you mean ‘ok’?!”
“You want to have anal, yeah? But you got no clue what to do, don’t even lie, Jack! Let your dad teach us.”
That’s how you ended up in a position you couldn’t imagine being in your wildest dreams — lying naked on your front, your legs spread, your boyfriend's dad playing with your butt.
“Help ‘er relax,” Mr Miller says to his son, his voice soft and soothing, his tone casual as if he’s teaching Jack how to fix a lawn mower. Your boyfriend is seated in a gaming chair a foot away from the bed, his arms crossed, eyes narrowed. When his gaze meets yours, you quickly look away. He doesn’t seem pleased, rather mortified. Whatever. You always thought that Mr Miller was hot, in a rugged and dilf-y way.
Once you had a dream about blowing him in their kitchen, your mouth full of his fat cock, his fingers tight in your hair, no Jack and his cuck gaming chair in sight.
“Draw ‘er a nice bath, give ‘er a massage, somethin’ like that,” Joel says as his calloused palm glides up and down the back of your thigh. You’re one big goosebump, his touch is electrifying.
“No harsh movements.” He carefully pushes on your inner thigh until you bend up your leg. Your hips open and slightly rise off the bed. “She needs to be pliant, ready to take you in her most vulnerable place.”
Jack swallows hard. Your cheek is resting on the pillow, your head turned away from Mr Miller, but you are seeing him perfectly in the wardrobe mirror that stands lengthwise the bed. He’s wearing his usual flannel, sleeves rolled up, and dark blue jeans. It’s not his home clothes and you wonder if he dressed like this for you.
Mr Miller’s salt and pepper locks curl up at the nape, he needs a haircut, but you like his hair longer. You imagine running your fingers through his curls, tugging on them while he’s plowing your wet needy …
“Are you comfortable, sweetie?” Joel interrupts your dirty daydream with a question, his voice soft and raspy. It could have lulled you to sleep if not for a finger that grazes your butthole, making you flinch.
“Uh-huh.” You don’t sound too sure.
“We’ll get there,” he says with a little smile and adds, “Together.”
While you’re slowly melting into the bedsheets from his gentle tone, Mr Miller turns to Jack.
“Another important thing is lubrication. You have some?”
It looks like Jack’s using all his energy to dissociate at the moment thus he misses the question.
“Huh?”
“Lube? You have it or I need to go get mine?”
You widen your eyes, picturing Mr Miller squirt lube on some lucky lady in his master bedroom. And to think you considered him almost celibate!
Your boyfriend blinks a few times, then gets up. You hear him rummaging through a mess in his nightstand drawer, mumbling the word ‘crazy’ before he throws a little bottle on the bed and returns to his chair.
“It should be warm,” Joel says, rolling it between his wide palms.
“May I?” His reflection points at your ass in the mirror and you nod with a quiet ‘yes’. Mr Miller opens the lid with teeth and moves your left asscheek to the side for better access.
“Oh!” You gasp when a slight cold glob of lube lands on your tight ring.
“Bit more.” Joel adds another squirt and then starts spreading the liquid around your ring with a tip of his finger.
“Ahhhh,” you whimper and bite your tongue immediately. Jack’s chair creaks.
“Feels good?” When Joel asks you the question you don’t see a point in lying so you say “yeah.” Wet arousal pools in your core, it’s a matter of minutes before it slides out of your hole and reveals how insanely horny Mr Miller is making you.
“We’re just startin’ and look at her response,” Joel says with pride in his velvet voice while his finger is slowly drawing circles over your asshole. “She’s enjoyin’ it. Even if we stop now she’ll remember the act as something pleasant.”
“Maybe we should,” Jack mutters but neither Joel nor you pay it any attention. Hot flames are licking at your core, the ache in your pussy growing so fast, you roll your hips against the bed, searching for friction.
Adding gasoline to your horny fire is the sight in the mirror in front of you — Joel’s sexy hand moving rhythmically over your ass, his plush lips slightly parted, his dark eyes focused on your puckered hole.
Mr Miller lowers his voice and asks, “Growin’ needy?”
Your eyes lock in the mirror. Fuck! A hot flash burns your lower belly when his black pupils meet yours. Sparks flying, gazes drawn to each other for a few long seconds, promising pleasure and trouble. The intense eye contact does something to you, drowns you in an ocean of lust, pulls you so deep you panic and hastily flick your eyes to your boyfriend who seems very pale.
“Sweetheart,” Joel calls you as if hating to share your attention with his son. You hum but don’t look at him.
“Do you give your permission for the next step? To open you up I need to eat your ass. Is that alright?”
“No!”
“Yes!”
Both you and Jack answer but you are the one calling the shots.
“Yes!” You repeat louder and raise your brows at Jack. Your boyfriend lets out a defeated sigh and drops his head.
“Good,” Joel says and gives your butt a light pat before cupping both asscheeks and spreading them apart. Cold air laps at your holes and you shiver. Joel smiles, probably noticing goosebumps on your skin.
“We’ll start slow.” In the mirror you watch him unhinge his jaw, stick his tongue out and lower his head.
You gasp when Mr Miller slowly licks your tight butthole. “Oh my God!”
Joel chuckles and repeats the depraved action. Soon he’s licking your asshole gingerly, his fingers digging into your flesh with passion. You’re softly moaning, your eyes are rolling to the back of your head. You’ve never had your ass eaten and the sensation is incredible. You wish he’d get lower and take care of your leaking pussy but fuckkk you can come just from Mr Miller’s tongue dancing over your little butthole. So when he parts from your ass, your needy whine rings in the room.
“I’ll be right back, sweetie.”
His wet lips are curled up at the corners, pride sparkling in his blown out eyes, Joel glances back at his son and announces,
“Now we gonna start openin’ her up with a tongue.” Your breathing hitches. You don’t see Jack’s expression because you can’t tear your eyes off Mr Miller in the mirror. “Gently push the tip inside her just so” — Joel leans down and his hot tongue prods at your ring, your mouth forms an O as you moan.
Joel mutters, “Slowly go in,” then his head begins moving up and down while his tongue slides into your ass deeper with every bop. He’s salivating onto your crack, the wetness dripping down to your pussy, covering your folds with the warm spit.
You are losing your mind over how amazing it feels, meanwhile Joel alternates between licking your ring and tongue-fucking it for what seems like hours or so you wish. His lewd slurping fills the room and mixes with your soft noises. You apply all your willpower to stop yourself from moaning like a whore out of respect for your boyfriend who is now sitting with his legs crossed, probably hard but too shocked to accept it.
“How you feelin’, baby?” Joel asks, licking his spit-covered lips.
“S—so good, Mr Miller,” you stutter, staring at him in the mirror with your half lidded eyes.
“See, she’s already gapin’ a little,” Joel says, showing your asshole to Jack.
“Hm-m,” Jack hums, his brows furrowed, his suspicious gaze trained on your ecstatic face.
“Now let’s add a finger.”
You squeak like a little mouse and your holes clench. Joel notices.
“Hey, don’t be scared, babygirl. You’re open nicely now. And I’m gonna be gentle, yeah?”
“Ok,” you reply and hold your breath.
“Nuh-uh. None of that. You should be breathin’, sweetheart.” He puts his warm heavy palm on your back, between your shoulder blades and rubs it up and down, giving you a rhythm.
“In— out—in— out.”
You follow his direction and soon your muscles relax, your eyes flutter close, your jaws unclench. It seems like your body is seeping into the mattress.
“I’m puttin’ one finger in.”
His voice is so quiet you barely register his words, barely notice his finger going inside your ass, miss a slight burn of the stretch, that’s how serene you are feeling.
When you finally open your eyes you see Mr Miller’s reflection thrusting his index finger in and out of your butthole, his eyes on your ring, his lip between his teeth.
“Wow,” you mutter, in awe of the hot sight and the new sensation. All your holes clench again and again, your pussy pushing your generous slick out and you catch yourself wanting Joel to fuck you.
"Another finger? Is that alright, sweetie?" With your heart pounding in your ears, Joel's raspy voice seems both close and far. You nod and mumble a shaky 'yes' before he inserts a second digit into your lubed up asshole. You moan, Joel growls, both at the same time. Your boyfriend curses under his breath.
"Hooooooly hell," you exhale against the pillow, clenching bedsheets with your clammy palms while Joel's scissoring your tight ring open. "This … it's amazing."
Joel pulls his fingers out of you and chuckles yet it comes out strained. You know it takes everything from him not to whip his cock out and fuck you right now. Jack seems to feel it, too.
"Dad, maybe that's enough?"
"No."
"No!"
Your yell drowns out Joel's reply. Your cheeks burning, lust clouding your mind and overtaking your body, you lift your head off the bed and glare at Jack.
"Mr Miller needs to... we need to learn what to do next. Right?"
Jack crosses his arms, his lower lip sticking out.
Completely disregarding his son's suggestion to stop, Joel nods at you and asks Jack as if it's some depraved sex ed class.
"She's nice and ready now. What's next?"
Jack blinks at his dad, a mixture of frustration and confusion plastered on his face. He shrugs. "I fuck her."
"Wrong!" Joel sits up straight and gives him a disappointed look. "Son, the most important thing about anal is consent."
You drop your head back on the pillow and nod with the 'obviously' expression meanwhile Joel continues.
"Even after you did all the necessary prep, you ask her again. And if she says 'no', you stop! Got it?"
You watch Joel in the mirror, his bushy brows furrowed, two obsidian eyes piercing Jack. He's not fucking around.
"Yeah."
"Huh?"
"Yes, sir," Jack mumbles. He looks so pitiful now you get scared of your pussy turning into the Sahara so you hastily move your eyes to the mirror with Joel's reflection in it.
You watch and feel your boyfriend's dad lean down to you. His hot breath fans your naked back, sending chills down your spine, as he asks,
"Can I fuck your ass now, baby?"
Your voice is wanton and needy, you're almost drooling onto the bed, as you reply,
"Yes, Mr Miller. But..?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Can I be on my back?”
Joel kisses your shoulder and coos,
“Sure thing.”
Your body buzzing with want, you slowly and awkwardly roll over. Your exposed tits jiggle as you get comfortable and Joel takes you in— your puffy pussy, your heaving belly, your nipples hard as diamonds, desire plastered on your face.
Jack nervously clears his throat and leaves his cuck chair.
“You ain’t really doing it, right?”
You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or his dad but Joel is the one who answers,
“I’m teachin’ you two. And this is the most crucial part. You wanna go in now and ruin all the progress?”
Jack closes and opens his mouth, but when you shake your head at his attempt to intervene, your boyfriend plops back in the chair, looking gobsmacked.
“This is insane,” he murmurs and you have to agree. You’re feeling insanely good.
With a nonchalant expression on his flushed face Joel grabs a pillow.
“Raise your hips for me, baby.”
You do what he asks and he quickly places it under your butt. When your hips are raised Joel hums in approval.
“Grab your knees for me, please.”
Like an obedient student you do it immediately.
“That’s it. Good girl.”
His praise, his scent - manly and dizzying, his warm smile, his obsidian eyes set between your thighs — all of it makes your blooming pussy contract and a drop of clear slick beads at your entrance.
Joel smirks, his dark gaze darts to yours and then back to your leaky hole. He opens his mouth but words die on his lips.
Instead he takes a sharp breath and climbs on the bed, grunting. With your body trembling in anticipation you watch Mr Miller kneel by your propped up butt, unzip his jeans, his back now to his son.
Just for your hungry eyes, he pulls his cock out. Big, veiny, hard as steel fuck machine. Hnggg!
You clench your jaws, killing a moan that rises in your throat from the sight of his manhood. You see a drop of precum on the slit and your mouth waters.
“Need more lube.” Joel squirts a generous amount on his hand and then strokes his cock spreading the liquid.
You squirm on the bed, fear and excitement coursing through your veins. He wants to stick that huge thing where?!
Joel seems to read the worry on your face. With one hand around the base of his stiff shaft, he brings the other to your knee and gives it a light squeeze.
“If you want me to stop I will.”
You don’t reply, just stare up at him, fear and desire playing tug-of-war in your heart.
“See?” Joel gets his son’s attention but doesn’t look away from you. “This sweet thing is unsure but she’s bein’ brave and doesn’t stop me.”
Jack sighs with relief from behind Joel’s broad body. He probably hopes that you’ve changed your mind.
Then the older man addresses you.
“You don’t have to be brave for me or anyone else, ok?” You hum while warmth spreads in your belly, reaches your clit and makes it throb. You open your mouth but words don’t come out. Joel gives you a knowing smile and offers,
“How ‘bout I open you up again with my fingers? Two steps forward, one step back.”
Jack’s chair creaks unhappily when you breathe out, “Yes, please.”
Joel gives you a curt nod and sits on his heels, his cock still hard and waiting. His strong hand circles around the back of your thigh as he keeps it steady for you.
Jack’s view is blocked by Joel so he doesn’t see when his dad traces your pussy hole with his fingers and brings the wetness down to your ring. His eyes dart up to yours just for a second, you see lust and mischief there.
“Alright, here we go,” he mumbles to himself, easing two lubed up fingers inside you. This time you take them easily, dull pain of the stretch is present but also welcomed. You moan.
Mr Miller closely watches your face twisting with pleasure while his fingers are fucking your butt. You watch him back, suddenly swept by a feeling so strong, you forget how to breathe for a second. There's no one else in the room, in the whole world, only you and this big older man, giving you an unforgettable experience, filling the hole that’s never been filled and you don’t want it to end, hate for him to stop. Stop giving, taking, watching you melt for him.
Ahhhh! A scorching heat floods your belly and hits you like a tsunami. Your core walls clench once, twice, your head digs into the pillow underneath, your eyes close and a loud moan slips out of your mouth. You’re shaking and crying ecstatic tears, your ass squeezing Joel’s thick digits, your pussy contracting around nothing.
“D— did you just come? Jack’s cold tone brings you back to reality as if a bucket of icy water was thrown over your head. Still jerking with climax you snap your eyes open, your breathing heavy, and see Joel’s lopsided smile in front of you.
Fuck! Your cheeks and neck burn and you cover your face with your hands, embarrassed by unraveling in front of your boyfriend’s dad. With his fingers in your ass.
Joel comes to your rescue. He gently rubs your thigh with his paddle of a hand and coos,
“She’s one of a kind, Jack. The anal stimulation isn’t as pleasurable for women as it is for men. In the right hands though… you did wonderful, sweetie.”
You bite your lip, hiding a grin that’s about to bloom on your face, and grip your knees tighter.
“We can stop now if…,” Joel starts.
“No!” You cut him off and push your knees to your chest. “I want to be ready. For the real thing.”
“I’ll give you the real thing,” Joel whispers so quietly it’s barely audible but you hear. Your eyes lock as he plants his palm on the bed by your side and hovers over your lower half.
“Ready, sweetheart?”
After you say ‘yes’ Mr Miller glances back in the direction of his son.
“Jus’ the tip at first. Maybe only. Depends on how she takes it.”
He looks down at you with that soft but feral gaze of his and talks to Jack.
“Watch her face closely when you push inside.”
Joel’s hot leaky cockhead kisses your pussy hole and you gasp, your entrance winking at his manhood, inviting it to come in. Joel whispers,
“Only teasin’.” You smile and shake your head at the man. He gives you a wink and drags his tip down along the delicate skin between your pussy and asshole and then nudges your tight ring.
“If she scrunches her pretty nose, stop. Means she’s hurtin’.”
Joel presses his crown against your asshole and applies pressure. Your mouth parts when he starts pushing it into your asshole, the stretch far bigger than with his fingers. You take a few deep breaths, not stopping him, craving to be fucked.
“Yeah, breathe for me, baby. In and out. Like I taught ya.”
In! in! in! your pussy screams and throbs with the rhythm of your heartbeat, your body desperate to be ruined by your boyfriend’s dad.
Mr Miller pauses and closes his eyes, his forearm muscles tense with restraint, the veins of his hand that’s wrapped around his shaft are bulging. He speaks, trying to keep his voice steady.
“The most difficult thing now—is to control yourself — all you wanna do — is shove your dick deep inside her— to the hilt—- she feels so fuckin’ good.”
His arousal and your desire merge together and form an electric cloud around you two, the scent of sex heavy in the air. Mr Miller moves another inch deeper and you whimper.
“But you musn’t,” he grunts to his son or to himself. “You should be in control— think of her first and your pleasure second —Yeahhh?”
The last word sounds like a moan and you smile dizzily, ecstatic to see how much bliss you’re giving him. Joel pushes in some more and then looks into your eyes. “Wanna see?”
You nod eagerly and place another pillow under your head, propping it up to get a better view.
The sight before your eyes takes your breath away. Joel’s big hand wrapped around his girthy cock, the veins on his shaft thumping, glistening with lube. But the best thing is your stretched asshole, hugging Joel’s tip buried inside.
“Wow,” you breathe out. Joel smirks, his smile lopsided and boyish. He drops his head to your butt and asks,
“Wanna stop here? Done so good already.”
You crane your neck and glance at Jack, expecting him to scream ‘Yes! Stop! Now!’ but he’s hunched over in his cuck chair with a blank stare, chewing on the nail of his thumb.
You bring your gaze back up at Joel and purr,
“I want all of it.”
Joel nods and thrusts in.
Mr Miller’s fucking your ass like it’s been made solemnly for this purpose. His hands are gripping your spread thighs, leaving marks on your soft skin, his hips snapping against your asscheeks, drowning the room in the lewd Slap slap slap! Sounds.
By now you’ve lost all the composure and your loud moans are flowing freely from your lips, mixing with Joel’s animalistic growls.
“Yeahhhh.. good girl…she’s a fast learner… takin’ me like a champ.”
“Thanks, Mr Miller,” you mewl with your eyes rolling to the back of your head when you feel a second orgasm building. Hungry for it you lick your fingers, reach for your throbbing clit and start rubbing it while Joel’s steel shaft is massaging your insides.
“Lemme… want some help?” Joel asks, consent king as always.
“Yes, please.”
Not minding his son watching you two from the back, Joel brings his calloused thumb to your puffy clit and starts drawing infinities over it.
You arch your back, losing your mind over how amazing it feels. Your ass is full of Joel’s cock, but your neglected pussy hole is crying desperately. You look for your boyfriend behind Joel’s broad back. He still looks shell shocked, his widened eyes lowered, and you realize that he’s watching his dads heavy balls slap against his girlfriend’s asscheeks.
Opps.
“Mr Miller,” you whisper, staring at the older man again, “Could you..?”
You lift your hand, stick two fingers out and move them up and down, fingering an invisible pussy.
Joel flashes you a knowing smile.
“Gotcha, sweetie.” He glances back at his son and raises his voice, talking to you,
“You strugglin’, baby? Ok if I help you relax?”
You consent loudly so Jack could hear and the next second Mr Miller changes hands and his dry index and middle fingers easily enter your sopping pussy.
Yeahhhh! You whimper, so full of his fat cock and digits, it feels like you’re going to come apart at the seams.
Joel’s massaging your g-spot with two fingers, his thumb working your clit, his cock relentlessly rutting into your ass. You’ve never been fucked this good and you try to hold off your second climax, hating for the sex to end.
But Joel’s too hot, too experienced and soon you come with a wail, arching your sweaty back off the bed and clamping Joel’s hips with your thighs. Blinding ecstasy is coursing through your body, your cunt pulsing around Joel’s fingers, your asshole choking his cock so hard he stills.
“Here— we g—goooHngggg….” he roars, retreats his fingers out of your pussy and covers you with his huge frame. He pushes his face into your sweaty neck but holds his weight over your thrashing body.
“Where?” He chokes, his chest rumbling with groans, and you wrap your arms around his broad back and press your naked tits to him, mumbling into his ear,
“Inside my ass, Mr Miller. Please.”
His whole body tenses up over you and he begins squirting his hot cum deep inside your butt. The warmth of his load fills you more and more, every erratic thrust of his cock pushes the sticky spent back into you and you hold him tight, wishing to be stuffed to the brim. It doesn’t take long with how much he comes and soon his jizz covers your asscheeks and his balls, sticking them together like glue. You feel filthy and sexy, with your boyfriend’s dad busting inside you, the former having a perfect view of your asshole sucking the older man’s cum in. Too abundant it rolls down your crack and onto Jack’s bed.
Both of you are panting when Joel carefully pulls his cock out of your asshole and falls on the bed next to you, still fully clothed except for the pulled down jeans and boxers.
“Dad, put your dick away,” Jack grumbles.
“Yeah yeah.” Joel tucks his cock back in, leaving his jeans open. He sounds exhausted. You cover yourself with a sheet suddenly remembering that you’re naked next to your boyfriend’s dad.
You turn your head to him resting next to you, his forearm covering his closed eyes, his chest rising and falling quickly, his leg dangling off the edge of the bed. He’s so handsome you want to bite him. The man had a full day of work and then rocked your world. You find it incredibly hot but also feel guilty for exhausting him even more.
You watch Mr Miller for a few moments, warmth spreading in your belly and chest, until he takes a deep breath, opens his eyes and turns his head to you.
“Dad?” Jack calls impatiently, hurrying the man to leave but Joel doesn’t spare him a glance and asks you,
“How you feelin’, baby?”
He nods down at your pussy but you know he’s asking about your butt.
“I’m ok.” You squirm on the bed, trying to access your state. “A little sore but good.”
“Good,” Joel repeats with a warm smile. You’re staring at each other silently, his gaze soft and warm, grinning like two fools. You want to kiss him but stop yourself. It’s inappropriate.
Then you remember where his cock was just a few minutes ago and giggle.
“What is it?” Joel asks, his eyes dart between yours and then slide to your lips.
You shake your head, silence thick and loaded between you two.
Jack rips it apart as he clears his throat.
“Thanks, dad. Fucking hell. You can go now.”
He gets up from the chair and crosses his arms, frowning at the two of you. You wonder if he’s going to break up with you after this. Whatever.
Joel sits up with a grunt and gets out of the bed. He sways a little and you smile proudly — you did it to him.
“Thank you, Mr Miller.” You sit up, holding the sheet over your body. He zips up his jeans and winks,
“Don’t mention it, baby.”
Jack scoffs. Joel heads to the door but as he passes his son he pauses.
“Get her a wet towel. And some water,” he commands. “So .. if she took my cock, she wouldn’t even notice yours. You’re welcome.”
With that he pats his son’s shoulder and leaves.
Who needs Jack, amirite? Maybe Joel can teach them something else?🤔 Thank you for reading! Please, leave a comment and reblog if you enjoyed the story💞
Summary: After a heated encounter at the Tipsy Bison, Joel’s possessive streak is set off when a cocky newcomer makes a crude comment about you. Tension boils over into desperate, filthy lovemaking back home, where Joel reminds you exactly who you belong to.
Pairing: joel miller x fem!wife reader
Word count: 5k
Content warnings: smut, established relationship, married joel, possessiveness, heavy dirty talk, mama pet name used, other pet names, breeding kink, fingering, oral, squirting, p in v sex, creampie, aftercare, some fluff, banter/teasing from Tommy
A/N: divider by @saradika-graphics. Do I want kids? No. Would I give Joel a litter? Yes. New kink unlocked. Also, this is not an original idea; sue me. I'm just feral over Pedro.
The Tipsy Bison buzzed with low laughter, the clatter of glass against wood, and the scratch of boots on the scuffed floorboards. Warm, smoky air clung to your skin when you stepped inside, the scent of old whiskey and woodsmoke curling in your nose. Conversations hummed around you, mixing familiar voices and the occasional burst of raucous laughter from the corner tables.
You didn’t bother stopping at the bar or pretending you were here for anything but him.
Your eyes found Joel instantly, as if your body knew where to look before your mind caught up. He was bent over the pool table, cue in hand, the curve of his broad shoulders and thick forearms framed by the golden glow of the overhead light. His tanned skin gleamed, stretched tight over muscle, the sleeves of his Henley shoved up to his elbows. Every practiced movement he made, every shift of his hips, sent a pulse of heat through you.
Goddamn, he was handsome.
You dragged your lower lip between your teeth, pulse fluttering low in your belly. It didn’t matter that it was late or that the whole town might whisper about you chasing after your husband like a lovesick fool. Let them talk. All you wanted was him — home, in your bed, with his arms around you so you could finally sleep.
Tommy stood nearby, beer in hand, a lazy grin tugging at his mouth. A few other men lingered around them, voices blending into the warm hum of the room.
“Think your wife’s lookin’ for you, big brother,” Tommy called out, his teasing voice cutting through the chatter as his gaze landed on you.
Joel straightened, glancing over his shoulder. The moment his eyes met yours, something in his expression softened, the faint crease in his brow easing. He set the pool cue aside, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a way that made your breath catch.
“Whatcha doin’ here, sweetheart?” Joel rumbled, his voice low and rough.
You didn’t answer immediately, just crossed the room like some invisible thread was pulling you. The noise and light of the bar dulled at the edges of your senses the moment you reached him, your arms sliding around his waist like it was the only place you belonged.
“Couldn’t sleep without you,” you murmured, voice soft enough that only he could catch it.
His familiar scent filled your head, grounding you in a way nothing else could. Joel let out a quiet sigh, one hand resting on the small of your back, his thumb tracing a slow, lazy circle against your spine. His gaze flicked toward the clock above the bar, and you felt the tension in his chest when he realized the hour.
“Shit,” he muttered, voice thick with regret. “Didn’t realize it was so late, baby.”
You shrugged, fingers toying absently with the edge of his belt, the rough denim warm under your touch. The simple act made Joel’s throat work in a swallow, his free hand tightening on the pool cue.
From behind him, one of the younger guys — Wes, you thought his name was — chuckled into his drink. “Jesus, Miller,” he drawled, grinning around the rim of his glass. “A man that whipped, I swear. Must be some kinda magic between her legs, huh?”
The words landed like a spark in dry grass. Joel stiffened, his jaw ticking as he slowly turned to glare at the kid, his arm pulling you a fraction tighter against his side. The easy, good-natured grin he’d worn moments ago was gone, replaced by something colder, sharper.
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Joel said, voice calm in that dangerous, unhurried way.
The table went quiet for a beat too long. Tommy let out a short laugh to cut the tension, clapping Wes on the shoulder a little harder than necessary. “Ah, c’mon now. Don’t poke the bear, son. He’ll tear your damn head off.”
Wes raised his hands in mock surrender, but Joel’s eyes were already back on you, softer now, like nothing else in the room mattered.
“Let’s go home, handsome,” you murmured.
Joel’s jaw flexed, a muscle ticking in his cheek as his hand slid from your back to your hip, holding you close. His gaze stayed on yours, something unspoken passing between you. He gave a stiff nod, about to walk away when Wes opened his damn mouth again.
“Shame you’re leavin’ already,” Wes called, leaning back against the pool table with a cocky grin. His eyes dragged over you, slow and bold. “Didn’t realize Miller’s wife had such a pretty mouth on her. Bet she’s a fuckin’ firecracker in bed too, huh, Joel?”
The words hung in the air, sharp as broken glass.
The room stilled. A few guys exchanged glances, Tommy’s grin fading into a scowl as he straightened up from his stool.
“The hell is wrong with you?” you snapped, stepping toward Wes before your brain could catch up to your mouth. Heat rose in your chest, anger snapping through you like a whip.
But you barely made it two steps before Joel’s hand clamped around your waist. He hauled you back against his chest like you weighed nothing at all, his body slotting between you and Wes with lethal precision.
“Behind me, baby,” Joel growled, his voice low and dangerous, laced with a possessive edge that sent a shiver down your spine.
You felt the tension rippling through him. The tight coil of muscle, the storm brewing behind his eyes. His fingers flexed against your hip as his other hand balled into a fist, making Wes flinch.
“That’s my fuckin’ wife you’re talkin’ about,” Joel said, each word slow, deliberate, and deadly. His voice dropped to a dark, dangerous rasp. “And you’re one more word away from pickin’ your teeth up off this floor.”
Wes’s smirk faltered, his throat bobbing as the color drained from his face. The rest of the bar went quiet, save for the crackle of the fire and the faint clinking of glass in the far corner.
“Alright, alright,” Tommy cut in quickly, stepping between them, a hand on Joel’s chest. “Easy, brother. He’s an idiot, ain’t worth it.”
You reached for Joel’s hand, which gripped your hip, lacing your fingers with his. “Come on, baby,” you murmured, your voice steady despite the pulse pounding in your ears. “Let’s just go.”
Joel didn’t move. His glare was still pinned to Wes, who had the good sense to look away. Then Joel huffed a sharp breath, squeezing your hand before turning toward the door, keeping you close at his side.
Tommy clapped Joel on the shoulder as you passed. “Get her home, big brother. I’ll handle this shit.”
Joel didn’t answer, focusing entirely on you as he opened the door and guided you into the cool night air.
The walk home was thick with silence. It hummed with tension, electric and heavy, stretching between you. Joel’s grip on your hand was firm, his palm rough and warm against yours, his thumb brushing over your knuckles like he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
You could feel it in him. The rigid line of his shoulders, how his jaw stayed tight, his strides just a little longer than usual, like he was still chasing the fight he’d left behind in that bar. Every few steps, you rubbed your thumb along his wrist to soothe the fire simmering beneath his skin.
The lights of your house came into view, a soft glow in the darkness. Joel’s voice finally broke the quiet, low and rough.
“Is Ellie home?” he asked, eyes fixed on the front door.
You shook your head, your pulse picking up even before the words left your mouth. “No, she’s at Dina’s—”
You didn’t get the rest out.
Joel’s hand tightened around yours as he spun you toward him, backing you up against the porch rail before you could blink. His mouth was on yours in an instant. The kiss wasn’t soft. It was teeth and tongue and the low, possessive growl in the back of his throat, his hand sliding to the small of your back, pressing you into the hard line of his body.
You gasped against his mouth, fingers fisting in the front of his shirt as heat flared through you, molten and sudden. His other hand cupped your jaw, angling your face the way he wanted, deepening the kiss like a man starved.
“Goddamn it,” Joel rasped against your lips, his breath hot and uneven. “You don’t get it, do you?”
Your heart pounded, your skin flushed from the sudden rush of him, from the possessiveness still radiating off his body like heat from a fire.
“Get what?” you managed, voice breathless.
He kissed you again, slower but no less intensely, his hand sliding down to squeeze your hip. “What you do to me,” he murmured, lips brushing against the corner of your mouth, cheek, and jaw. “Watchin’ some punk look at you like that… talk about you like that… Jesus, baby.”
You shivered, arching into him, your fingers tugging at his belt like they had in the bar, but now with clear intent.
“Then show me,” you whispered.
Joel’s eyes darkened, and the ghost of a smirk tugged at his lips. “I plan to, sweetheart.”
Joel reached past you, shoved the door open, and pulled you inside like a man past the point of reason. The door slammed shut behind you, the soft click of the lock barely audible over the sound of your own ragged breathing.
Before you could take a single step, his mouth was on your neck — hot, open-mouthed kisses, his teeth scraping just enough to make you gasp. He sucked at the delicate skin just below your jaw, a low groan rumbling from his chest when your fingers dug into his shoulders.
“Fuck, Joel,” you moaned, your head tipping back to give him more access.
His hands found your hips, dragging you against him, the hard line of his arousal grinding into your belly. Every touch was rough and needy, as if he was still chasing the high of what happened at the bar, and the only thing that could settle him was you.
Somehow, you made it to the couch, stumbling, pulling at clothes between frantic kisses. Shirts tugged halfway off, jeans yanked down just enough — it wasn’t graceful. It was heat and desperation, limbs tangling and mouths colliding like you’d fall apart if you didn’t touch.
By the time Joel dropped to his knees in front of you, your top was still on, bunched up over your ribs, your legs spread wide on either side of him. His hands gripped your thighs, holding you open, his eyes dark and hungry as he looked up at you from between them.
“Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ night,” he rasped, his voice a gravelly promise that sent a shiver racing down your spine.
Then his mouth was on you.
A sharp cry left your lips as his tongue dragged through your folds before his lips closed around your clit. He sucked, hard, sending a bolt of pleasure straight through your core. Your back arched off the couch, fingers tangling in his hair as heat bloomed low in your belly.
Joel groaned against you, the vibration of it making your hips buck. His hands pinned you down, thumbs digging into your thighs as his tongue worked you over — long, wet strokes mixed with sharp flicks of his tongue, his scruff rough against your sensitive skin.
“Joel—oh, God—baby,” you gasped, your voice breaking on a whimper as he sucked your clit between his lips again, his tongue relentless.
He grunted in approval, one hand leaving your thigh to slide a thick finger inside you, curling just right. You cried out, the pressure building fast, your body strung taut, teetering on the edge.
Joel pulled back just long enough to murmur, voice thick and wrecked, “Told you I’d show you, darlin’. Gonna make you come all over my tongue.”
Then he was back on you, tongue and fingers working in perfect, devastating rhythm, and you knew you wouldn’t last long.
Every flick of Joel’s tongue, every curl of his fingers pushed you higher, the pleasure building sharp in your belly. You could barely breathe, panting, gasping his name like a prayer, your fingers fisting so hard in his hair your knuckles ached.
“F-fuck—Joel, I’m—” you stammered, voice trembling, hips bucking despite his iron grip.
He groaned against you, the sound deep and hungry, his mouth sealing around your clit and sucking hard. His fingers curled inside you just right, and the coil inside you snapped.
Pleasure shattered through you, sharp and white-hot. Your cry broke from your throat, back arching off the couch, legs shaking as your orgasm tore through you.
And then it happened — a rush of wetness, sudden and overwhelming. You felt yourself gush against his mouth, a choked moan tumbling out of you as your vision blurred.
“Oh my— fuck, Joel, I—I can’t—”
But Joel didn’t stop.
He growled low in his throat, his tongue lapping at your release like a man possessed, hands tightening on your thighs to hold you open as you writhed. The way you’d fallen apart, the way you soaked him — it only drove him wilder.
“That’s it, darlin’,” he rasped, pulling back just enough to speak, his lips slick, beard damp with you. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide with pure, feral hunger. “Look at you… fuckin’ perfect. Such a good girl.”
His mouth was back on you before you could catch your breath, tongue working you through every aftershock, every tremble, drawing out every last bit of pleasure until you were a whimpering, shaking mess against the couch cushions.
“J-Joel—s’too much,” you gasped, half-laughing, half-crying as your body shuddered under him.
He only grunted, one last possessive suck against your clit before he finally let you go, his mouth glistening, his chest heaving. He looked up at you like he hadn’t even begun to get his fill.
“You make the prettiest fuckin’ mess,” he said, voice rough, thumb lazily stroking your inner thigh. “And I ain’t even fucked you yet.”
A slow, wicked grin tugged at your lips. You bit down on your lower one, teasing yourself with the scrape of your teeth as you looked at him through heavy lashes. “Ain’t my fault you looked so hot defending my honor,” you shot back, voice breathy but teasing, the words making his mouth twitch like he was trying not to smile.
Joel huffed a dark little laugh, shaking his head as he pressed another hot, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh. “You’re my wife,” he muttered, like it was the world's simplest, most obvious thing. His lips dragged higher, soft kisses turning hungrier as he worked his way up your body. “’ Course I would. No one talks about you like that. No one looks at you like that. You hear me?”
Each kiss scorched a new mark into your skin, his scruff rasping against sensitive flesh, until he reached your stomach. He nipped there, the sharp sting of teeth making you jolt, your breath hitching in your throat.
“And I’m gonna make damn sure everyone in Jackson knows you’re mine,” Joel promised, voice thick and possessive.
You smirked, your hand weaving into his hair again, tugging just enough to make him grunt against your skin. “Gonna make me a mama, Joel?” you murmured, eyes locked on his.
The words seemed to snap something in him.
His pupils blew wide, his nostrils flaring as his hand slid up to palm your still-quivering belly, rough fingers splaying possessively. His gaze flicked up to meet yours, and the hunger in his eyes made your pulse spike.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he growled, dragging his lips up your body, stopping just below your breast, his breath hot against your skin. “Gonna fill you up, get you nice and round. Put a baby in you so there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind you’re mine.”
You whimpered, your hips canting toward him, need flaring bright and sharp in your gut.
Joel smirked against your skin, his voice dropping lower, more dangerous. “Bet you’d look so fuckin’ pretty all swollen with my baby. Takin’ me so good every night, beggin’ for it.”
“Then do it,” you whispered, shivering under his touch, a throaty little plea.
He lifted his head, his mouth crashing into yours, tasting of whiskey and you, his hands already pushing your top higher, moving to claim every inch of you.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Joel rasped, dragging the tip of his nose along your jaw as he positioned himself between your thighs. “I’m gonna fuck a baby in you.”
Joel didn’t waste another second.
His eyes dragged over your body, hungry and wild, and when he settled between your thighs, his cock heavy and flushed in his hand, you swore you could feel your pulse in every inch of your skin.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, look at you,” he rasped, fisting himself as he lined up with your slick entrance, the fat head of his cock nudging at your folds. “Already so wet for me. Messy little thing.”
You whimpered, hips tilting up to meet him, your fingers digging into his arms, desperate for more.
“Beg for it, mama,” Joel gritted, his voice rough. He leaned down, teeth catching your earlobe. “Tell me how bad you want it.”
“Joel,” you gasped, head falling back as your body ached for him. “Please. Need you inside me. Need you to fuck me. Fill me up—give me your baby.”
A deep, wrecked sound tore from his throat — half a growl, half a groan — and then he was pushing into you in one hard, slow thrust, sinking deep until his hips met yours. The stretch burned, your walls clenching around him.
“Goddamn,” Joel grunted, head dropping to your shoulder as he bottomed out. “Squeezing me so fuckin’ tight. Feels like heaven.”
You could barely breathe, could only cling to him as he set a punishing rhythm, his hips slamming into yours with desperate, brutal intent. The couch creaked beneath you, every slap of skin against skin loud in the otherwise silent house.
His mouth was everywhere — your neck, collarbone, and jaw underside. He muttered filth into your skin between ragged breaths, every word fanning the fire already consuming you.
“Gonna fill you up so good,” he growled, his hand sliding to your belly, pressing down just enough to feel the bulge of him moving inside you. “Put a baby right here. Get you so fuckin’ full you’ll be beggin’ me for more.”
“Fuck, Joel,” you sobbed, the pleasure sharp and overwhelming, your nails raking down his back.
He grunted, his thrusts somehow rougher, deeper. “That’s it, mama. Take it. You were made for this — for me. Always knew you’d look so goddamn pretty carrying my kid.”
The word mama on his lips sent a shockwave through you, your whole body reacting with pleasure. Heat coiled low in your belly, a deep, needy ache blooming, the edge of your orgasm creeping back up so fast it made your head spin.
You barely recognized your voice — breathless, wrecked, laced with a teasing, desperate kind of heat. “Wanna give you a baby,” you whispered, your nails raking down his sweat-slick back, hips arching up to meet every thrust.
Joel let out a sound that was half growl, half moan, like the words cracked something inside him wide open. His hips stuttered for a heartbeat before slamming into you even harder.
“Fuck,” he groaned, voice thick and ragged, his mouth dragging along your jaw. “Say it again, darlin’.”
You gasped when he hit that perfect spot, the pleasure stealing your breath.
“Wanna give you a baby, Joel,” you choked out, fingers gripping his hair, pulling him down until his forehead pressed to yours.
The snarl he made against your lips was pure filth, his pace turning brutal, desperate.
“Yeah, you do,” Joel rasped, his voice rough with tenderness and possessive heat. “Gonna knock you up, fill this pretty pussy ‘til it takes. Get you nice and round, let everyone see what I fuckin’ did to you.”
Your body broke again, pleasure slamming into you like a wave, your moan spilling into his mouth as you came, clenching around him so tight it dragged a loud, broken curse from his throat.
Joel’s hips jerked, his cock twitching deep inside you as he followed, coming with a low, possessive growl. “Mine. All fuckin’ mine, mama.”
And the way he kept moving, soft, shallow thrusts as his come spilled inside you, made your head swim, the aftershocks rippling through both of you.
“Gonna fill you up again in a minute,” Joel murmured, his lips brushing against yours, his breath hot and uneven. “Ain’t stoppin’ ‘til you’re carryin’ my baby.”
You shivered, a giddy, breathless laugh escaping you as you kissed him, your heart pounding against his.
Joel groaned against your lips, the sound deep and wrecked, his tongue slipping into your mouth like he couldn’t get enough of you. His hips gave a sharp, involuntary thrust, and you felt it, that familiar, liquid heat spilling deep inside you as his cock twitched inside your still-clenching walls.
A dark, possessive noise tore from his throat, his hands gripping your thighs so hard you knew there’d be bruises come morning. The weight of him, the heat, the lingering pulse of his release made your whole body tighten in response, another soft, needy whimper escaping your lips.
You bit his bottom lip, just enough to make him grunt, a wicked little smirk curling your mouth as you tugged before letting go.
“Can feel you,” you whispered, your voice breathless and teasing, your thumb brushing his jaw. “Fillin’ me up again, handsome.”
Joel’s gaze darkened, his breath hitching as his hand slid possessively over your belly, pressing his palm flat against it like he could already feel something growing inside you.
“Can’t fuckin’ help it,” he said, his voice a gravelly rasp, kissing you again. “This pussy’s too good, sweetheart. So goddamn tight, squeezin’ me like you’re tryin’ to keep every drop.”
Your body shivered at his words, arousal flaring sharp and hot all over again.
Joel groaned when he felt the way your walls fluttered around him, a wicked smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah… you like that, huh?” he murmured, teeth scraping along your jaw. “Bet I could make you come again just like this, keep you stuffed full ‘til you can’t even think straight.”
The way he said it made your pulse stutter, your hips instinctively rocking against him despite the oversensitivity.
His hand slid between you, two fingers teasing your swollen, soaked clit with slow, lazy circles.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” he coaxed, his voice thick with hunger and rough affection. “One more for me. Let’s see how much more this pretty pussy can take.”
You moaned his name as Joel rocked his hips in slow, deep thrusts. Each one dragged along oversensitive nerves, the thick slide of him inside you sending heat curling low in your belly, sharp and insistent. Your fingers clutched at his shoulders, your body trembling, every lazy grind pushing you closer to the edge.
“Yeah, that’s it, mama,” Joel rasped against your ear, his voice rough and tender. “Feel that? Still so full for me.”
The tension in your belly coiled tight, your walls fluttering around him, and then it hit — your orgasm cresting sharp and hot, pleasure tearing through you in thick, rolling waves. You cried out his name again, your body clenching down around his cock, slick flooding around him as you came hard.
Joel groaned low, his hips giving a final, deep push before he stilled, buried to the hilt, savoring every pulse of you around him. His head dropped to your shoulder, sweat-slick skin sticking to yours, his breath hot and uneven against your neck.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to your collarbone.
He pulled out slowly, and you both let out soft, wrecked sounds at the wet, filthy slide of it. A warm, sticky mix of your arousal and his seed spilled out of you, slicking your thighs.
Joel watched it, pupils blown, a dark, possessive hunger flickering across his face. Without a word, he slid his fingers through the mess, gathering it up, and then eased two of them back inside you, pushing it deep.
“Not wastin’ a fuckin’ drop,” he murmured, voice a gravelly promise, his eyes flicking up to meet yours as his fingers worked it back in. “This’s all mine, darlin’. You hear me? Every last bit of it.”
Your breath caught, a whimper escaping you at the stretch and the possessive tenderness in his touch.
“Gonna keep you nice and full,” Joel went on, his voice softer now, fingers dragging slowly inside you, his other hand splaying over your belly again. “Get you nice and round for me.”
Your body shuddered, another wave of heat crashing through you at his words.
“Yeah,” you whispered, your lips brushing his. “All yours, Joel.”
Joel stretched out on top of you, his head resting against your chest. Both of you were too wrecked and sated to care about the mess clinging to your skin or the sticky heat between your bodies. His fingers lazily traced circles along your hip, his breathing evening out against your skin as the frantic pulse of earlier settled into something warm and steady.
You carded your fingers through his damp hair, scratching lightly at his scalp the way you knew he liked. He released a low, contented sound and pressed a soft, unhurried kiss above your heart.
Eventually, Joel shifted, lifting his head to meet your gaze. His thumb brushed across your cheekbone, the rough pad of it catching on your skin. “C’mere,” he said, voice still thick and gravelly from the aftermath.
He helped you sit up, wincing a little as he did, and you both chuckled softly at yourselves.
Joel disappeared for a moment, returning with a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned you up gently, his touch careful and tender. He murmured soft apologies every time you flinched from oversensitivity.
When he was done, he leaned down, kissed your forehead, and scooped you into his arms like it was the easiest thing in the world. You nuzzled into his neck, your body limp with exhaustion, your heart still pounding slowly and content beneath your ribs.
“You good, darlin’?” he asked quietly, kissing your temple as he carried you upstairs.
“Mmm,” you hummed, too tired to say much else but letting your lips brush his throat in answer.
You both stripped off what little remained of your clothes in the bathroom. The shower was quick and lazy — more leaning against one another than washing — the warm water washing away the sweat and mess while Joel kept his hand on you when your knees went weak from pure exhaustion.
Afterward, you both climbed into bed, skin still damp, limbs tangled beneath the worn quilt. Joel pulled you close, your head tucked under his chin, one big hand spread over your belly in a possessive, tender gesture.
The night was quiet around you. The only sounds were the faint chirp of crickets outside and the steady beat of his heart against your ear.
“Love you,” Joel murmured against your hair, voice already thick with sleep.
You smiled, pressing a lazy kiss to his chest. “Love you too.”
Sleep took you both not long after, wrapped up in each other, as if you never wanted to let go.
The next morning, Joel padded downstairs barefoot, the house quiet except for the creak of the old floorboards under his weight. The scent of sex and sweat still lingered faintly in the air, clinging to the room like a memory.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, still feeling the ache in his muscles, a hazy mix of satisfaction and guilt gnawing at him. Hope I didn’t wear her out too bad , he thought, glancing toward the stairs. You’d been so boneless, half-asleep when he kissed your temple and slipped out of bed, still curled up in the mess of sheets.
Joel filled the coffee pot and started a fresh brew before grabbing a rag to wipe down the couch. The dried streaks of sweat and arousal, and the faint outline of a handprint in the fogged glass of the side table, made his lips twitch in amusement.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, shaking his head as he scrubbed.
He’d just finished, the rag still in hand, when a sharp knock rattled the front door. Joel sighed, tossing the rag over his shoulder as he padded over.
The door swung open to reveal Tommy, leaning against the frame with a shit-eating grin and one brow raised.
“Oh good,” Tommy drawled, giving his brother a once-over. “You’re alive.”
Joel rubbed at his eyes with a groan, still half-asleep and in no mood for whatever this was. “Yeah, barely. Ain’t got patrol. Why the hell you here so damn early?”
Tommy didn’t answer immediately — just snorted and jerked his chin toward the house behind him. “Neighbors complainin’,” he said, barely holding back a grin. “Said they heard some woman screamin’ her head off last night. Thought maybe some infected made it past the gate.”
Joel’s stomach dropped, his eyes going wide. “ Shit, ” he muttered, heat creeping up the back of his neck.
Tommy’s grin split wide as he let out a bark of laughter. “Relax, big brother. I told ‘em it was just you bein’ an animal. Didn’t even blink.”
Joel scowled, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Goddamn it, Tommy.”
“Hey,” Tommy chuckled, backing down the steps, clearly enjoying himself. “Least now the whole town knows you ain’t as old and tired as you look.”
Joel shot him a glare, but there was no real heat. “Keep runnin’ your mouth and see if you don’t end up limpin’ on patrol tomorrow.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Tommy quipped over his shoulder as he walked away.
Joel watched him go, shaking his head with amusement before shutting the door. He turned, grabbed two mugs off the shelf, and filled them with coffee, still grinning.
Carrying them upstairs, he peeked into the bedroom, finding you still curled under the covers, hair a wild, messy halo around your head.
“Hey, darlin’,” he murmured, setting the mugs down and crawling back beside you, kissing your shoulder. “You know we got the whole town talkin’?”
You groaned, burying your face in the pillow. “Joel Miller, if you tell me what I think you’re about to…”
He chuckled, pulling you closer. “Might’ve made ya scream a little too loud last night.”
You smacked his chest with a sleepy grin. “Next time, I’m gagging you.”
Joel’s laugh rumbled against your back as he wrapped you in his arms. “Fair’s fair, sweetheart. Fair’s fair.”
Summary: You marry Joel Miller not for love, but for convenience, and now you are bound by vows to a man whose gruffness hides more than you expect.
CW: 18+ MDNI, marriage of convenience, lots of fluff, slow burn romance with eventual smut, lil bit of angst, jackson!Joel, husband!Joel, wife!reader, mild anxiety, outbreak, alternate universe, big age gap (unspecified), oldman!Joel, dirty talk, pet names, p-in-v, multiple orgasms, oral, fingering, spitplay, praises, cumplay, one premature ejaculation, grinding, aftercare, size kink, talk of pregnancy, breeding kink.
Word count: 9.4k
Note: I wrote this one for my birthday today. Joel Miller as a husband is concerningly close to being a birthday present. I want that old man. I wouldn't mind unwrapping that old man on my birthday lol, sorry not sorry.
All characters are fictional and adults. Read at your own discretion. I’m not responsible for your media consumption.
This is not what you thought your life would be, but somehow you find yourself here in Joel Miller's house while the fireplace glows, warming the room.
You took his last name just this afternoon, in front of your friends and his family. He took a vow that you were not really sure if he meant it from the heart.
As you were unsure about your own.
Because you do not love Joel Miller, but now you are his wife.
Deep down in your mind, you have a selfish idea that you can still leave now. Everything will be forgiven. You do not have to stay if you are not sure. But you also know that this was your decision.
Either it was a wise decision or a desperate one, you are not sure.
Three weeks ago, when you were peacefully eating your stew in the hall, Tommy Miller approached you with a grin on his face. "Hey there, sunshine," he greeted.
"What do you want?" you eyed him.
"Can't I jus' say hello to my dearest ol' friend?" he chuckled, sitting down next to you. "Those boots suit you well," he nudged your boot with his.
You smiled but rolled your eyes at him. "I'm not interested in married men, sorry. Scram now, good sir."
Tommy let out a loud laugh. "M'not flirtin' with ya for fuck's sake. Maria would cut off my balls, y'know that."
"Yeah, I know. And I would help her happily," you said before eating a spoonful.
"Need a favor from ya," he muttered. "For old time's sake."
You turned to look at him. "And which old time's sake?" you asked. Tommy gave you a look that told you he was being serious. You sighed, "Alright. Spit it out."
You knew exactly what Tommy meant, but you just wanted to taunt him a little. You two had known each other long before Jackson. Tommy first met you when he saved you from a raider. His short-tempered nature made him smash a glass bottle over the head of the bastard, and he threatened to shoot him in the head if he did not want to leave you alone.
You did not trust anyone back then, so you spat on Tommy after he saved your life. One thing led to another. He had been friends with you ever since, despite how much older he was compared to you. None of that mattered when the two of you were just surviving, trying to see another day.
Until you two ended up here in Jackson, a place with a new hope. Where Tommy met the love of his life, Maria.
You had never seen Tommy so happy in his life as when you saw him after he married Maria. You were happy for them, even when you and Tommy had a fling a long time ago. It did not matter now. Neither of you made a big deal out of it. You loved him as a friend, and you were truly happy for him.
Tommy stared at you deep. "Promise me you won't overreact."
"I promise," you declared, feeling annoyed at him.
He looked around for a second, making sure no one was eavesdropping. And no one was. People were eating and chatting, minding their business.
Tommy cleared his throat, then he leaned closer and whispered, "I want you to try goin' on a date with my brother."
As the words left his mouth, you turned fully to stare at him in disbelief. "Your— WHAT?!" you yelled.
People turned their heads to look in your direction. Tommy muttered a sorry to them while you were still stunned. Shocked. Horrified.
"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR GODDAMN MIND?!" you yelled again at Tommy.
People turned their heads once again to check on you before returning to their own business.
Tommy flicked your forehead. "I told ya not to fuckin' overreact, goddamn it."
You finally looked around, finally noticing that you just made a scene before glaring back at Tommy. "You just fucking said you want me to go on a fucking date with Joel Miller," you whispered, feeling scared that anyone would hear. "Tommy— what—" you paused, "Are you fucking insane?"
"What's wrong about one date with Joel? S'not a big deal."
You made a face. "Did a clicker eat your brain out somewhere during patrol?" You scowled at him before whispering again, "He's old, Tommy. Like so, so old."
"You usually have a crush on older guys anyway. It's only Joel," he muttered as if it wasn't a big deal.
He wasn't wrong. But you still did not want to go. "Why does it have to be me? Can't you ask someone else? It's fucking weird. Joel is like a really mean old man. I have nothing in common with him."
"Hey, careful there. That's my brother you talkin' about," Tommy warned. "He's been through some shit. Things that would keep him at night. And now that Ellie's all grown up... he's been alone most of the time."
"That's not my fucking problem," you mumbled.
Tommy glared at you, making you stop complaining for a second, and listened to him. "Maria and I told him s'no good for him if he keeps drownin' in his loneliness. And guess what? The man finally listened once in his life. Now he's lookin' for a wife."
"The fuck?" you looked even more annoyed. "Do I look like I'm interested in getting married any time soon? I don't even wanna go on a date with him."
"Why not?"
"He's old."
"Didn't stop you from sleepin' with me back then."
You frowned at the reminder. "That was one-time. And— he's even older than you, asshole."
"It's jus' Joel," Tommy muttered. "He's way better than those punks you had a crush on."
"I don't even know him, Tommy," you grumbled. "The man's barely said three words to me since he got here years ago. He's mean."
Tommy sighed. "Listen, Maria told me you cried to her the other day," he muttered, making you turn your gaze from him. "Sayin' things like you feel tired doin' everythin' on your own. Said you need someone to love ya in this new part of the world we live in, 'cause you feel so alone, even in the crowd. Ain't that right?"
"Shut up," you mumbled as you looked away.
"Guess even your sunshine has its cloudy days, huh?" Tommy stared at you. "Then try with him."
"Ask someone else."
"I could've. Y'know, women in all Jackson would be all over him if I informed them of this. But I came to ya first."
"Why? Because you think he's the right one for me?"
"'Cause I care 'bout ya, stupid. I know my brother wasn't a saint, well, none of us was. But he sure does protect the ones he loves. And, hell, I jus' want the best for ya," Tommy said before getting up from his seat. "Though I can't decide anythin'. It's your call. Jus' sleep on it," he stated before patting your back and walking away.
You did end up going on that date.
The one that leads you here now. In your husband's house. Even if it still feels foreign to you to think that you are someone's wife now.
You refuse to believe that you are only here because you are desperate. But you know you are.
This marriage is supposed to be convenient for both of you. Joel needed a wife, and you wanted someone to love or care for, or to be loved. Hell, you were not sure. All you knew was that you were so tired of being alone. You were used to surviving all your life, so the calmness of the future days scares you. It made you feel so alone sometimes in the past few years. Even Tommy and Maria knew that, and they were trying to help you so you would not feel so alone anymore.
You were fine with it. Had always been fine with being alone. Finding peace in your own company and cherishing the moments you have with your friends in the community. But there were times when the voices in your head got too loud that you wished you had someone to make you forget about them, to tell you that everything is going to be fine.
And then there was this option for you to marry Joel Miller.
You had asked Tommy why Joel asked for your hand after one date, and the younger Miller said, "Joel don't do casual no more, not after he's lost so many people he cared about. He wants to make things right. Wants to live his life." Tommy stared deep into your eyes, even when you frowned as you considered the older Miller's proposal. "If he asked to marry you, then he meant it. He wants to marry you," he explained back then.
You keep fidgeting with the hem of your flannel as you sit on the couch near the fireplace while waiting for your husband, as he brews coffee for you both in the kitchen.
"You okay?" Joel asks, putting both mugs on the table in front of you.
You nod and grab one of the mugs. "Thank you."
The coffee smells good. You are not sure if you should have one, though. Your heart is already beating so fast. But Joel said it is a celebration for the two of you tonight, and you both love coffee.
It is so awkward now. You do not know what to say, and Joel does not say anything either. The silence is deafening.
"Where's Ellie?" you ask, breaking the silence.
"In her room in the garage. She seemed happy today. Talked a lot. A rare thing to see these days," he admits.
"What do you mean? I think Ellie talks a lot just fine. Well, maybe she wasn't as cheerful as she was when you two arrived in Jackson. She was just a kid who loved to tell silly puns back then."
Joel chuckles. "Yeah, she talks to you. Not t'me. She mostly jus' hates me now," he takes a sip of his coffee. "I remember how she used to lighten up when we talked about space. The girl wanted to be an astronaut. Not sure if she wants to be anythin' now."
You turn to look at him. "I'm sure she doesn't hate you, Joel," you mutter, "I think she's just going through a phase. All girls do."
To your surprise, Joel takes your hand in his calloused one and squeezes it. "Yeah. Hope so."
His hand is huge compared to yours. You stare at how he keeps holding your hand until he finally lets go.
"Wanna go to bed?" Joel asks.
Your breath hitches. "Mmm, not yet," you murmur.
"Are you nervous, sweetheart?" he turns to stare at your face clearly, and you turn your gaze to the mug on the table. You feel your cheeks getting hot from his stare. "Y'know we don't gotta fuck tonight if you don't wanna, right?"
That makes you turn your head to look at him. "We don't?"
"Yeah, we don't have to if you're not ready."
"You mean it?" you ask quietly.
Joel smiles, pulling your hand toward his lips, then kisses the back of your hand. "I mean it. We ain't gotta do what you don't wanna do, honey. You bein' here, lettin' me be your husband already makin' me full of joy."
You finally smile at him. "I thought you weren't really happy. You didn't look happy when we got married earlier today."
"That's probably jus' my face. Goddamn, I was nervous as hell, honey."
"You were nervous?" you ask in disbelief.
Joel nods. "Trust me. I was. My heart was racin' too damn fast that my ears started to ring."
"No way."
He laughs now. "What? Ya don't believe me?"
You shake your head. "You didn't seem nervous. You just look angry."
"Told ya that's jus' my face. How could I be angry when you jus' made me the happiest man today, hm?"
You open your mouth, but you are not sure how to say it, so you say nothing as you turn to stare at the empty mug again.
"What is it, darlin'?" he asks, concern in his voice. Joel lets go of your hand and reaches to cup your chin softly. "Hey... what's on your mind?"
"I just— I don't know. I'm scared, Joel."
He frowns. "Of me?"
"No. It's just... What if this is a mistake? This marriage. You know there is no love between us. Even when we took a vow."
The second it comes out of your mouth, you realize how stupid you are being. This is the night after your wedding, for fuck's sake, and now you are saying these things to your husband. What is wrong with you?
"Yeah, I know," Joel mutters. "I'm aware that there ain't no love between us. Well, not yet," he caresses your cheek with his thumb. "I had my doubts about this marriage too, sweetheart. But I ain't thinkin' it's a mistake. Not once. Especially not after I took a vow."
"Why did you wanna marry me?"
"Didn't we have this conversation already?"
"Yeah, we did."
"Then stop overthinkin' 'bout it, honey. C'mere," Joel reaches to hug you. "This okay? Me huggin' ya like this?" he asks.
"Mhm," you hum before hugging him back.
You stare at the fireplace from over his shoulder as you both hug. Staring at the flame as you cherish the feeling of how soothing his hug is. This is the closest either of you has ever dared. He kissed you earlier today in front of everyone after getting married, yes, but this hug is the most intimate gesture you two have ever shared.
"There will be a time... when we fall in love with each other during the mundanes," Joel whispers, "and there will be a time when we wish we'd done it sooner. But for now... we ain't gotta rush nothin', honey. We can jus' live our life."
His words... God, his words calm you down in an instant.
You have never considered that a man who looks as cold as Joel Miller could calm your mind down this very instant. This is only your first night with him, and he already brings peace to your chaotic mind.
Maybe you did feel that kind of peace when you were on that date with him. The magnetic pull you felt around him, even when you tried to deny it. The way he could make you feel seen when he gazes at you with those eyes of his. No one had ever stared into your soul that deep.
Maybe those feelings were the reason you said yes to the absurdity of this marriage.
"You wanna go to bed now, darlin'?" he asks, and you nod.
Once in his room, the tension in the air feels thick. The awkwardness comes back again. You stare at the ceiling of his room as you lie down on his bed, already in your modest nightgown with a blanket around your body.
"You comfy?" he asks before getting in bed himself. "Need anythin'? A glass of water?"
"I'm okay," you murmur.
Joel nods and lies down beside you on his side of the bed. "If you need anythin' in the middle of the night jus' wake me up, alright?" he turns to look at you. "And you ain't gotta ask my permission for anythin'. This is your house as well."
You nod and smile. "Thank you, Joel."
"Alright. Good night."
"Good night," you answer before turning to your side, facing away from him, and so does he.
But none of you goes to sleep. This is what happens when you drink coffee on your first night with your husband but without fucking.
Minutes later, Joel notices you keep tossing and turning behind him. He turns to look at you. Your eyes are closed, your face is scrunched.
"Sweetheart? You okay?"
You open your eyes and glance at him. "I can't sleep. I'm sure it's the coffee."
"Yeah, me neither," he sits up, "I think I'm jus' gonna do some carving until sleep gets to me."
"Alright," you nod.
You turn back to your side and close your eyes, trying to fall asleep, until around five minutes later, he comes back into the room. The sound of the door makes you open your eyes and look up at him.
Joel smiles at you as he stands near the bed, holding two mugs. "Hey... did I wake ya?"
"No, I haven't fallen asleep," you sit up on the bed, "What's that?"
"Raw milk. I jus' finished heatin' it. Here," he gives one of the mugs to you. "People say milk helps makin' ya sleepy. Don't know if it's true or not. Worth tryin' though."
You take the mug from him. "I thought you were carving."
"Yeah, I was about to carve," Joel mutters before he sits down on the bed. "But then you crossed my mind. I felt like a dick knowin' my wife was restless and alone on my bed. So I went downstairs to warm the milk."
"You don't have to..." you smile, "but thank you. It's so thoughtful."
"No problem. S'the least I could do after makin' my wife restless from the coffee I brewed for her," he smiles back.
The raw milk does not work like Joel thought it would. But somehow, the two of you manage to fall asleep around thirty minutes or hours later and sleep side by side through the night.
In the morning, you find his side of the bed empty. You get up to go to the bathroom and grab a robe to put over your nightgown before going downstairs.
"Morning," you greet him when you enter the kitchen.
Joel turns to look at you with a smile on his face. "You sleep well?" he asks, and you chuckle, knowing you both had terrible sleep last night. He grabs three bowls from the cabinet. "We're havin' soup and bread for breakfast."
"Here, let me help," you say as you grab the bowls from him and set them on the dining table.
"Ain't ya too sweet? Thank ya, darlin'." Joel smiles at you before hollering into the hallway, "Ellie! Breakfast. Now."
"Give me five more minutes," Ellie shouts.
"Now, Ellie," Joel orders.
A few seconds later, Ellie appears with a frown on her face. "I was playing the guitar. I'm not even hungry, Joel."
Joel looks at her with a stern face. "The guitar can wait. Eat first. Soup's gettin' cold waitin' for ya."
Ellie walks toward the table, feeling annoyed at Joel, then she looks at you. "Oh, hi. I totally forgot you live here now," she smiles at you, ignoring Joel.
Even before you and Joel became a thing, you had known Ellie first, so familiarity is not a problem between the two of you. Somehow, you even feel more comfortable with her than your own husband for now.
You smile back at her. "Good morning to you too, Ellie."
"Mm, yeah, my morning was shitty," Ellie mutters, "So how's your first morning being married to the old man?" she asks. You open your mouth to answer, but then she cuts you off, "Wait, no. Don't tell me. You two are clearly being gross. No, I don't wanna know. Let's eat."
Even if you did not make love to Joel last night, people would assume you did. Even Ellie assumed you did. Because that's what married couples do on their wedding night, normally.
Neither you nor Joel comments on it. But you do share a knowing glance. He gives you a smirk, and you hold your laughter before the three of you have breakfast together.
Days turn to weeks. The season gets colder, but Joel gets warmer and even warmer to you.
And you do feel happier, it turns out. You thought this was an unwanted marriage to you at first, but somehow it is everything you ever wanted.
You feel delighted having someone to come home to. Someone who always listens to all your problems without judging you. Someone who gives you hugs and kisses when you have a bad day. You had no idea that someone who was once so cold to people could be so very patient with you.
Your husband turns out to be the type of man who can calm you down and shut your brain off with his presence. He always holds your hand in the streets and leads the way while you chatter to him nonstop about everything as you two stroll around.
And somehow, even when he has a gruff expression on his face, Joel always reddens a little when any of the folks in Jackson congratulates you two. Never once did you think in your life that the icy-cold Joel Miller would blush over some simple comments.
Joel is the kind of man who always makes time for his wife, even after a long day. One time, he is about to take a nap after a long patrol, but the moment you mention going to tend to your horse, your husband ends up following you to the stable. Lingering in the stable and listening with a slight smile on his face as you tell him stories.
"I've always wanted a horse, so when Maria let me have one— a week after I arrived here with Tommy, I was so excited," you squeal. "Isn't she the most precious?" you ask as you guide your husband's hand to touch the mare.
Joel chuckles at your excitement. "Yeah, she is, sweetheart. Jus' like her rider," he smiles, watching you start to blush. "C'mon now, let's go home and get you a warm bath 'fore supper. Ya startin' to smell like horses."
You roll your eyes at him, but the smile on your face gets wider, letting him take your hand as you both walk back home.
You love how sometimes your inner child feels safe enough to appear around him. It just happens. Like he draws out a softness you thought you had outgrown.
Every morning, Joel would prepare breakfast for you and Ellie. Even when you tell him you can help with making breakfast, he tells you just to enjoy your mornings and have those extra minutes of sleep while he prepares breakfast. And it has become a routine for him to kiss your forehead before heading to the door when he needs to leave the house.
"You two are so gross," Ellie teases every time Joel is being sweet to you, making him glare at her.
And you would laugh at her comment and laugh even harder when Joel decides to kiss the top of Ellie's head. Even when she pretends to be annoyed at his affection, she always smiles later after Joel walks out the door.
One day, when you are out on patrol with Tommy, he keeps talking about Maria's morning sickness. "I'm sure the baby's torturin' her. My poor wife," he mutters.
"Then you should pamper her even more," you say before looking around at the scenery from your horse.
"I did everything I could," Tommy mutters, "and by the way, you're doin' a good job with my brother. The man has never smiled more in his life."
You turn to look at him with a grin. "He makes me happy too. Thanks, Tommy. For... everything."
Tommy chuckles, riding his horse beside yours. "Can't believe you're thankin' me. I remember you wanted to kill me with a kitchen knife the day after I told ya to go on a date with him."
"To be fair, my mind was all over the place because of you back then."
"Yeah, well, you're welcome," he says with a smile. "Marriage looks good on ya."
Everyone tells you that lately. Some say you look glowing. Your friends joke that you must have been fucked well by your husband.
None of them knows the truth. In the weeks you have been married to Joel Miller, you two have not had any sexual encounters. Yet.
He never urges you to do something you are not ready for. It is not like you never popped the cherry before you end up here in Jackson. It is not the lack of experience. Joel knows you were not comfortable enough to have sex with him yet, and he is okay with that. And maybe a little too okay with that.
But now you feel guilty because you feel like a bad wife. Have you been neglecting your husband? The realization hits you like a freight train.
"How's your patrol with Tommy today, sweetheart?" he asks during dinner.
It is just the two of you tonight. Ellie is out somewhere with a friend.
"Just a normal one," you answer. "How's yours?"
"Nothin' special either. Jus' saw some of those frozen infected," he picks up his empty plate before looking at yours. "You done eatin'?"
"It's okay, I can clean it up myself."
He shakes his head. "No worries, honey. Jus' get ready for bed. I'll be right upstairs."
You mutter a thanks and go upstairs. Sometimes you wonder if you have fallen in love with him already. Joel is so thoughtful and sweet to you. He never once raises his voice at you, even when his mood is sour. And he makes your life ten times easier to live.
The door to his room creaks when you open it. You walk toward the drawer in his room and smile when you stare at a picture of him and Sarah that he still keeps, and next to it, a picture of him and Ellie.
It always fills you with bliss to know how full of love your husband actually is. His heart is soft, though his past is rough.
You open the drawer and grab one of your modest nightgowns before walking into the bathroom to have a quick shower. But then you stop on your track as an idea forms in your head. You go back to the drawer that is filled with your nightgowns and underwear, then you grab one that you have not worn once since you got married.
It is a short nightgown. A really short one. The fabric is white and so thin that it is kind of see-through.
You have only worn modest nightgowns every other night, but tonight you have a plan.
After your shower, you expect to see Joel already in bed, but he is not. So you walk out of the bedroom and spot him at the carving table. He is working on the wooden bear you requested a couple of days ago, carving the wood with full concentration.
You notice how handsome Joel looks right now. He has always been attractive. You were just in denial at first because he was a real grumpy old man. But he is not as grumpy anymore, at least not to you.
"Hey... I thought you were already in bed," you mutter, making him turn to look at you.
The moment Joel sets his eyes on you, his eyes widen as he drops the wooden bear from his hand to the floor. "Sweetheart..." he murmurs.
"You drop the bear," you say before leaning down to grab it and give it back to him, "Here."
Joel blinks before taking the wooden bear from your hand. "Thanks, baby," he mutters, then puts it on the table. He turns to look at you again, "Your nightgown..." he freezes for a second before continuing, "It's real pretty."
"You think so? It's not too revealing?" you ask, teasing him while acting innocent.
You can see the blush forming on his cheeks, creeping down his neck.
Joel clears his throat before answering, "It's not if it's only for bedtime. It's real pretty on you."
"Okay..." you say as you hold back a laugh. "You wanna go to bed with me or... continue carving the bear?"
"C'mon, let's go to bed," he says, leading you by your waist.
You are unsure if you are teasing him or testing yourself. The way he puts his hand on your waist as he leads you to bed makes your insides all flutter. It's just a simple gesture, but the butterflies in your stomach go wild.
You watch him take off his watch and put it on the nightstand. The watch that stopped working around the time he lost his daughter, Sarah, in the earlier outbreak. He told you about that one night when you two stared at the ceiling while being vulnerable to each other.
You two slowly peeled back each other's trauma and talked it through during the nights you spent together as you got to know each other better. And it did feel great to have someone to talk to about it without feeling any regret afterward. You cried when you told him about yours, but he listened to you, and somehow the old man managed to make you laugh so loud that you had tears from laughing too much just two minutes later. Then he held you until you fell asleep in his big arms.
"Joel."
He turns to look at you after putting his watch down on the nightstand. "Yeah, baby?"
You say nothing else before you tiptoe up to kiss him on the lips. Joel kisses you back immediately as he puts one of his palms on your cheek and the other on the back of your head.
The kiss lasts for a while until you end up lying on the bed with him on top of you, his forehead on yours, and you both gasp for air.
"Joel... I want you."
He pulls back a bit to look at you better. "You ready f'me?"
You nod desperately and try to kiss him again, but he pulls back this time, making you frown at him.
Joel gets up from the bed and stares down at you lying on his sheets, all flushed. "Give me a sec, honey. I gotta appreciate how pretty my wife is."
That makes you chuckle. "Come back here..." you whine as you reach for him.
He smiles at your whine and gets closer to touch your stomach through the thin nightgown with his fingertips, making you gasp. The way his fingertips brush against your stomach through the nightgown gives you goosebumps all over.
"You look like an angel in this nightgown. And the pretty little bow... makes you look like a gift sent straight from heaven, f'me to unwrap."
"Joel..."
"I know, baby. I know," he mutters before pulling his undershirt over his head.
Your eyes widen at the sight. It is not your first time seeing his upper body bare like this, but it still surprises you to see how good he looks for a man his age. You stare at his salt-and-pepper happy trail, which leads to under his pants. Hell, there is a bulge there now.
And somehow it gives you more ideas to make it up to him since he has been so patient with you all this time. You want to make him feel good physically, as he did you emotionally so many times before.
"Joel..." you murmur, feeling nervous before you admit. "I wanna suck your cock."
The shame gets to you right after you said it loudly. Even Joel looks surprised at that.
"Honey..." Joel murmurs, getting closer to you again, then caresses your cheek with the back of his fingers. "You serious?"
"Yes."
"Alright," he reaches to take off his pants and briefs, finally showing you his hard dick for the first time.
Your face lights up as you stare at how huge it is, and you get on all fours on the bed in an instant, crawling closer to his veiny dick as he stands near the bed.
You palm his dick, already leaking on the tip, then smile at him. "Can I?"
Joel smiles back at you. "Wait, c'mere," he says before leaning down to kiss your lips deeply, making you melt as you close your eyes at the feeling, still on all fours. Then he pulls back and kisses your nose softly before pulling away to position his dick back in front of your face. "Okay, have at it, sweetheart."
You hold the base and kiss the tip before putting the head in your mouth. It is the biggest you ever put in your mouth. His girth, his length. Hell, even his balls are huge.
"Fuck..." Joel groans when you put his dick deeper in your mouth.
You take him even deeper until it hits the back of your throat, making you gag. Then you pull away on instinct and look up at him with teary eyes.
"Hey..." Joel reaches to cup your cheek, "you okay, baby?" he asks in a concerned tone, and you nod.
"I'm okay."
"You ain't gotta put it all inside your mouth, sweetheart," he caresses your cheek with his thumb. "Jus' suck the tip and stroke the rest with your hand, s'fine."
You do as he tells you for a while. But to Joel's surprise, you manage to almost put it all inside your mouth even when tears fall down your cheeks.
Joel groans at the feeling. This feels so unreal to him. His sweet wife is making every effort to take him all the way in her mouth. And fuck if it does not make him closer to blowing up his load deep in your throat.
When Joel feels you start sucking his balls while stroking his dick with your hand, then back at sucking his tip, he is losing it.
He accidentally starts spilling his cum all over your face as he grips your hair a little rough, making you gasp. It spills on your lips, your tongue, your chin, your nose, one side of your cheeks, and even some on your forehead.
"Goddamn..." Joel groans, "fuck— baby, m'sorry. I'm so sorry," he murmurs as he pulls his dick away from your face and looks down at you with full concern.
Joel stares at your face in regret and worry. His sweet young wife is all messy with his cum. He did not mean to cum so fast, nor did he mean to spill his cum all over you like this.
Now he feels bad because he made a mess all over your face, and he knows he cannot get it up again, at least not for a while. Fuck, he feels so guilty for being so old.
But to his surprise, you smile at him. "It's okay," you say.
"No, it's not okay. I'm real sorry, sweetheart," he mutters as he tries to wipe the cum off your face with his thumb, but then you clasp his hand and suck on his thumb instead.
He stares down at you in surprise.
"It's okay, Joel," you mutter, "I like it."
Joel shakes his head, but then he sighs and smiles at you. "I owe ya two or three orgasms at least 'cause of all this, darlin'. C'mon, let's get you cleaned up first. S'the least I could do for now."
You laugh at that. "Hmm, 'kay. I'm not complaining."
He prepares a hot bath for you and gives you privacy as he looks away, facing the wall when you take your nightgown off before getting in the bathtub. You really appreciate how he always gives you privacy, despite being married.
"I'll wait outside, alright?"
"You don't want to join?" you ask, looking up at him from the bath.
"Do ya want me to?" he asks, and you nod. "Alright. Scoot over, darlin'."
Joel gets in the tub and groans when he puts you on his lap, straddling him. He can see your tits fully bare now in front of him, glistening from the water. Your cheeks are slightly flushed now, either from the hot bath or from how intimate this night turns out to be.
He had cleaned up your face with water and soap earlier, saying that he felt so guilty seeing you all messy because of him, while you just giggled from the feeling of his calloused hand on your skin.
"I know you wanted to fuck, sweetheart..." Joel murmurs, "and I'm real sorry I can't get it up yet. Not after I came that hard. Guess it's jus' 'cause of how old I am," he caresses your cheek with his thumb, "m'sorry 'cause I'm so old, baby."
You shake your head at that. "No... don't be. I enjoyed it too, Joel. And I don't mind at all. I like that I could make you feel good."
He chuckles. "You're jus' too sweet. How could I get so lucky to have you as my wife, huh?"
You run your fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. "Could it be that you and me are the lucky ones?"
Joel smiles and pulls you to him to kiss your lips. Then his kiss trails down to your neck, and down to your breast. You moan as you hold onto the back of his head. He licks one nipple, then looks up at you. "I taste soap," he mutters, "I didn't know you would taste like soap, darlin'."
You make a face for a while before laughing hard when you realize he made a joke. "That is so fucking lame, Joel," you say before splashing his face with water.
He laughs and shrugs. "It made you laugh, honey. Means it's a good one."
"I laugh at everything. Doesn't change the fact that you tell bad jokes."
After a bath and lots of laughter later, Joel helps you put on a towel around your body as you get up from the tub, and he accidentally gets a glimpse of your pussy for the first time. He did feel you on top of him during the bath, but he had not seen it properly. Not like this.
Fucking hell, he thinks. Now he feels like he just wants to fuck that pussy of yours with his dick. Not that he can do it anytime soon, though. Thanks to his old age.
When you walk toward your drawer, Joel pulls you to him. "No need to wear anythin', honey. C'mon, jus' get on your back on the bed," he watches you do as he says. Lying on your back with the towel still wrapped around your body. "Still as pretty as an angel, even in a damn towel," he murmurs as he stares down at you.
You smile at him.
"Can I unwrap this towel from my beautiful wife?"
"Yes."
The moment Joel sets eyes on your fully naked body, spread on the bed before him, he feels his old man's dick stir a little under his towel. He caresses your ankle before pulling it to his lips and kissing it. Then he rubs your foot against the salt-and-pepper stubble on his handsome face, making you bite your bottom lip at the sight.
Then he kisses your calf before bending your knees toward your chest, then spreads your legs in front of him, with his eyes all over you. You shiver beneath him. You can see the flames reflected in his eyes.
"Fuck if this ain't the prettiest pussy I've ever seen in my life," Joel murmurs. "Can I?" he asks for your permission.
You never nod so fast in your life.
Joel kisses your pussy. Then he sniffs on it while he rubs his stubble on your sensitive part.
You moan at the feeling. "Joel—" you grab at his hair, making him smile as he looks up at you.
Joel finally slides his tongue upward in one lingering stroke, licking you as if he were hungry for it. He sucks on your clit until you grab the sheets so hard while shaking.
"Hmm, s'wet enough now," he mutters before licking the two of his fingers and putting them inside you all the way to the knuckles. "I do okay?" he asks, looking up at you as he fingers you.
You nod and grab at his hair again as you get closer and closer to your orgasm. When he curls his fingers and nudges that spot while sucking on your clit, you are done. You cum on his mouth and fingers.
Joel smiles, licking the sweet nectar, his salt-and-pepper stubble wet as he pulls back from you to remove the towel from his lower waist. His old man's dick is finally half-hard.
"Do you want my help?" you ask as you come down from the high.
"S'okay, baby. I'm jus' gonna rub my cock on ya for a while. You mind?"
"Go ahead," you smile.
He rubs his half-hard dick on your wet pussy. Getting it all lubed up from your wetness. Then he jerks off with his hand, using your wetness as lube. "M'sorry, honey. S'not that you don't turn me on. My damn dick is jus' as old as me," he mutters.
"It's fine. Come here," you reach for him. He leans down to devour your lips while his hand keeps jerking himself off for a while until he is finally fully hard.
When Joel aligns his hard dick to your leaking hole, your breath hitches. You know it is going to feel like your first time again, having that huge dick inside you. You know his size would stretch you so good it hurts. But you are so wet now, and you really want your husband.
Only halfway in, Joel already feels how tight your pussy is gripping his dick. He can feel your wetness, your warmth, the tightness of it all around his dick. He looks down to stare at it. "Fuck, sweetheart. Your drippin' pussy looks so good around this old man's cock. Look at 'er suckin' me in."
But when he looks up at your face, you are wincing as if you are in pain. He stops his movement and reaches to touch your face. "Honey... you okay? Am I hurtin' ya?" he caresses your cheek, "You want us to stop?"
"Don't stop."
Joel feels your pussy clench even more when he leans down to kiss your cheek. "She wettin' my cock so good, baby. Fuck..." he whispers as he keeps thrusting in and out of you, still halfway in. He pulls back to stare at your pussy again before spitting on your swollen clit and pushing an inch deeper.
"Joel..."
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Feels so good," you whisper, moaning when he puts his cock deeper. "Hurts a little, but I want it all in me, Joel," you beg, "wanna feel all of you."
A few thrusts later, Joel finally manages to bottom out in you. He groans when he feels his dick nudging your spot. "Holy fuck..." he mutters when you cum on his dick for the first time after he scratches that spot of yours over and over.
Your second orgasm of the night makes you feel lightheaded as you feel Joel still thrusting in and out of you in a steady movement.
"I feel sleepy, Joel," you mutter as you look up at Joel, and he slows his movement a bit. Then you continue, "Maybe we should've done this on our wedding night instead of drinking that raw milk, huh?"
That makes him chuckle. He leans down to kiss your lips, resting his forehead against yours while thrusting into you harder, making you gasp.
"I'm so close, baby. Where do ya want me to cum?" he asks between thrusts.
"Inside me?" you offer.
His eyes darken at that as he stares down at you. "You serious, darlin'?"
"Yeah. Can we?"
Joel smiles. "I'll do anythin' you ask me to, honey. I'm all yours."
You wake up late the next day. It is almost noon when you go downstairs after you pull on a sweater and jeans, finding the house completely empty. You feel bad because now the breakfast that Joel prepared for you earlier has gone cold.
After you finish eating your meal, you wash the dishes in the sink when you hear the sound of him walking into the house. Just from the sound of the footsteps, you know it is him. Your husband.
The art of knowing. You smile to yourself when you think about it. The way you always know the sound of his footsteps around the house, notice the silhouette of his wide shoulder. The way you search for him in the crowd when you hear his voice from afar. The way a smile appears on his stern face when he sees your angelic one.
"Hey, darlin'."
You turn to look at him. "Hey..." you say with a smile. Then you reach out to grab a mug you are going to wash, but Joel stops you and grabs the mug first.
"I got it, honey. Jus' sit down. I'll finish the dishes."
"No, it's fine. I can do it on my own. You just got home anyway."
You try to take the mug from him, but he puts it up high in the air, out of your reach. Joel chuckles, seeing your annoyed face as you turn to wash your hands. He finally puts down the mug and circles his arms around your waist, brushing your hair to the side as he kisses your neck from behind. You giggle from the feeling of his stubble rubbing your skin. He keeps tickling your neck with his stubble until you yield.
"Okay, okay..." you laugh, "fine. Wash the damn mug if you want it that bad. Ugh, you're gonna get us both wet."
"I don't mind gettin' wet 'cause of ya," he chuckles.
You eye him. "Yeah, right," you mutter before opening one of the cabinets. "I'm gonna make coffee. You want some?"
"You know I never say no to coffee, sweetheart."
Minutes later, you both enjoy your coffee while sitting on the couch near the fireplace. This gives you déjà vu. The very similar setting and proximity to what it was on your wedding night a month ago.
But the feelings you are feeling now are a lot different from last month.
You two are chatting about what Joel did earlier today. He tells you that he did construction work with Tommy for the community. And one thing leads to another, you end up telling him the story about how you hunt Tommy around his house with a kitchen knife the day after he told you to go on a date with Joel.
"You did?" he asks in disbelief. You nod, and he chuckles. Then he shakes his head as he puts down his mug on the table. "Makes me think of our first date," he mutters.
"What of it?" you ask, taking a sip.
"You called me Mr. Miller," he chuckles. "It was the most ridiculous thing ever. I've never once gone on a date with a woman and got called Mr. Miller before you."
"I had to respect the elderly," you shrug.
Joel laughs so loud at that. "Oh, honey. That mouth of yours."
You smile at him then. "I was just being polite, calling you that. To be fair, we were not even friends back then, and you are a lot older than me, so..."
"Yeah, I know," he leans his head against the backrest of the couch, pulling you closer to him, and squeezes you into his big arms. "I thought you were real sweet back then. And hell, you laughed at my dumb jokes. Maybe that's the real reason I asked you to marry me right away."
You roll your eyes at his smirk but chuckle.
Joel brushes his thumb along your cheek. "I think I'm fallin' in love with ya."
Your heart nearly stops beating when you hear his confession.
He clears his throat and continues, "Think I was already in love with ya during those days we spent together. I honestly don't know when it started, sweetheart."
"Joel..." you murmur as you look up at him.
"You ain't gotta say nothin', baby. M'not tryin' to pressure ya on anythin'."
You hug him without saying a word. Joel smiles and hugs you back. You nuzzle him closer until you end up straddling him, and he puts his big hands around your waist.
You kiss his lips until the skin near your mouth reddens from his stubble as you grind on top of him. When you finally pull back, Joel notices the redness on your skin. "Damn it, sweetheart. You're all red 'cause of me."
"I love you, Joel."
The moment the words come out of your lips, Joel feels the world stop spinning around him. His mind goes blank, and he suddenly hears the ocean crashing against the shore in his head while the violins begin to play.
And then he blinks.
And there you are. His wife. The light of his life, staring deep into his eyes after confessing the words he was longing to hear.
A second later, you are pinned under him on the couch while he devours your lips. Kissing all over your face, making you giggle. Inhaling the scent of your neck while his hand travels down to unbutton your jeans.
"Wait, wait... Joel— what if someone walks in?" you ask, gasping from all his affection.
"I locked the doors," he mutters.
"But are you sure?"
Joel pulls away from you and gets up without another word to check on the doors. "Already locked," he hollers from the hallway.
You smile when he walks back toward you on the couch while unbuckling his belt, then unbuttons his jeans. You notice how attractive he looks right now. The sleeves of his flannel shirt pushed up to his forearms. The watch on his wrist. This view in front of you definitely drenches your panties.
"C'mere," Joel mutters as he sits back on the couch, his jeans and briefs pooling around his ankles. He helps you undress before positioning you on his lap.
"Me on top?" you ask, feeling unsure but aroused.
"Only if ya want to," he murmurs.
"I want to," you answer before helping him put his hard, leaking dick inside of you. "Oooh, fuck..." you curse when his dick is halfway in.
"Atta girl, darlin'," Joel murmurs as he helps you bounce on him slow at first. "You look so pretty bouncin' on my cock," he smiles at you. "My pretty wife. Doin' so good f'me."
The way he says those words makes you even wetter. Joel keeps helping you move on top of him until he finally bottoms out.
You moan hard at the feeling. "It's so deep, Joel."
"It is," he murmurs, "I can see the bulge on your lower belly."
You are too concentrated on chasing the feeling that you ignore him as you put your hands on his chest and bounce on his dick harder.
Joel gets so turned on seeing you like this. He lets go of you and leans back on the couch while looking up at you bouncing on his dick. "Yes, baby... fuck," he groans, feeling your warmth around him. "Ride me, my precious cowgirl," he murmurs. "Ride me all ya want."
The sound of your wetness around him is obscene.
You fall on his chest when you finally cum on his dick as he helps you grind your swollen clit on his pubic hair with his dick buried deep inside you, making you cum even harder from the sensation. He strokes your back with his calloused hand while whispering sweet words in your ear. His other hand is grabbing your ass cheek playfully.
"Did I ever tell you that you have a very nice ass?"
You look up at him from his chest and laugh at that.
After a minute or two, Joel pats your butt, "C'mon, lie on your stomach, baby. I wanna see my wife's perfect ass when I'm poundin' 'er drippin' pussy with my cock."
You hold onto the cushion as you lie on your stomach on the couch, facing the fireplace.
Joel leans down to bite your ass cheeks playfully before positioning himself behind you. "Fuck me..." he groans when he thrusts into you, bottoming out in one go. "So fuckin' wet f'me. Pussy takin' me so good," he murmurs before kissing your shoulder. His thrusts get harder as he pounds into you. "I ain't gonna last long now, baby. Where do ya want me to cum, hm?" he whispers into your ear.
"Inside me."
Joel grabs your face with his hand to look into your eyes. "You do realize if we keep fillin' that pussy of yours with my cum, we gonna end up with a bunch of little Millers sooner rather'n later, right?"
Heat creeps into your cheeks.
"Y'want me to make you a momma, darlin'?" he asks, his dick swelling inside you as the words leave his mouth.
You cannot think straight because of how much you are feeling right now. But the thought of giving Joel Miller a baby...
"Can we have one?" you ask, feeling nervous if he denies it because of his age.
Joel grins. "Anything you want, honey. One is fine," he kisses your lips briefly before whispering, "though ten more is tempting..."
You laugh, and he taps on your nose before starting to thrust in and out, deep until he hits that spot inside you again.
"Joel..." you moan, "I— I'm close again."
To your surprise, Joel wraps his hand around your throat as he pounds into you harder from behind. "This okay?" he asks, and you moan yes, yes, yes into the cushion before creaming around his dick as you reach your second orgasm. The feeling of your warmth around him makes him start spilling his cum deep inside you. "Oh, darlin', fuuuck—" he groans as his dick pulses inside you, shooting ropes of his seed. A broken moan you have never heard before slips from his lips as he fills your womb with his cum.
The two of you go quiet for a minute as you both catch your breath, with his weight pinning you down, until you tell him to get off because he is crushing you into the couch.
Joel chuckles when you settle back onto the couch, legs lifted against the backrest. "Don't laugh," you mutter, "this is supposed to help increase the chances of getting pregnant, I think."
"Alright, Mrs. Miller," he teases. "Y'want my baby that bad, huh?"
You turn to look at him, half smiling. "Don't call me that. You make it sound like I'm a hundred years old."
Your husband laughs at that before placing a blanket around your naked body and leaning down to kiss your nose. "I would still adore you when you're a hundred years old, sweetheart," he chuckles, "though, I'm sure as hell gonna miss that pretty ass of yours."
You chuckle and gently caress his scars. A flicker of surprise crosses his rough face. "Honey..." he murmurs.
"I think you're gonna be a great dad..." You paused, looking into his eyes, "You're a real good dad to Ellie, as I am sure you were a good dad to Sarah," you mutter. "You might not be a good man for what you did, but you've always been a good dad... and a good husband to me."
Joel says nothing, but he smiles at you as he caresses your cheek with his fingers.
You smile back, looking up at him from your position, then grab his fingers toward your lips and kiss the wedding ring on his finger, the one that matches yours. "I thought this kind of love's never meant that much to me, Joel..." you murmur, "guess I was wrong," placing the back of his fingers on your cheek as you look into his eyes, you continue, "It means everything to me if it's with you."
"Sweetheart..." Joel whispers, tears forming in his eyes as he puts both palms on your cheeks. "You mean everything to me. I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you, baby. Not after everythin' I've been through. But now I can't even imagine life without you in it."
Joel hugs you in his arms so tight, like he never wants to let go. And you smile as you hug him back, feeling content and full of love.
For the first time, the future days no longer seem so scary. Because you have him. Your Mr. Miller. Your husband.
Nothing worries you anymore. Not with Joel Miller beside you. Not with this kind of love.
Um... okay... I'm not okay... When I wrote this, I had so many emotions all at once. I felt excited most of the time, but also sad when I wrote the part with Joel and Ellie. It was like reliving Part II, but with my own ending, I don't know. I didn't mean this to be 9.4k words so sorry. This was supposed to be a special one for my birthday on January 12, and I didn't expect it to be this long.
I'd love it if you leave a note on what you think about this. Reblog would be appreciated. Love y'all! 🤍
Fun fact: I wrote The Older Miller for my birthday actually, but I couldn't help but post it because I was so excited when I finished it, so yeah. I'm glad that I posted it on November tho, 'cause it gave me so much motivation to finish my thesis.
blurb - Separated by miles, years, and the undead, you and your husband have been ghosts in each other’s lives for two decades. The thought of Joel being alive hurt just as much as thinking he was dead. But when a stand-off forces you face-to-face with a familiar man—older, harder, and still devastatingly him—all the pain resurfaces.
warnings - nsfw, mdni 18+, attempted murder, violence, yearning, loss of a child, parent!Reader, grief, fear of intimacy, slight suicidal wishes, female masturbation, mutual masturbation, 69, cuddle fucking, creampie (don't try this at home), emotional sex, scent kink???
author's note: I did listen to "Back to Me" by the Marias the entire time I wrote this...
One shot requested by: anyomous
wc: 18.3 k
Mwah!
“Joel…”
Mwah!
You giggled this time, voice caught somewhere between exasperation and a smile. “Joel.”
Mwah! Mwah!
“Oh my God! You’re gonna ruin my hair!”
He didn’t stop. He kissed you once more—loudly, obnoxiously—right on the top of your head, arms wrapped around you so tight you could barely reach for your keys.
“You ain’t leavin’ yet,” he said against your hair.
You tried to twist out of his hold, but he just shifted with you, his body like a weighted blanket. “Joel—”
“My birthday is tonight,” he murmured, cheek pressed to the side of your head. “Keyword: Tonight.”
“You’re not six.”
“Don’t need to be,” he muttered, “To wanna spend it with my wife.”
Somewhere down the hall, Sarah’s laughter drifted from her room, soft and muffled. You exhaled, melting into his chest despite yourself. He smelled like sawdust and soap, and you hated how safe it made you feel, because you did need to go.
“Joel,” you whispered again, gentler this time. “It’s an ER shift. You know I can’t just—”
“I know, I know.”
He finally leaned back enough to look at you. His face was that ache that always peeked out when you had to leave for your night shifts.
“I packed you dinner,” he said finally, nodding toward the counter.
Your gaze followed. A brown paper bag sat neatly by your keys, the folded top pressed flat with ridiculous precision. You could see his handwriting scrawled across it: Eat every bite.
You looked back at him, and his expression was stubbornly casual, like you hadn’t watched him make sure your thermos didn’t leak and your sandwich didn’t get squished while you changed into your scrubs.
“You didn’t have to—”
“Yeah, I did,” he cut in, quiet but sure. “You forget to eat when it gets busy.”
“I do not forget.”
“Mm,” he said, unconvinced. “That’s why last week you came home and inhaled pizza like you ain’t seen food in a week.”
You shoved at his chest, and he caught your wrist with a smirk, pressing one more kiss to your knuckles.
And that’s when the sound of socked feet sliding down the hallway interrupted you.
“Ew,” Sarah groaned, appearing in the doorway, half-eaten apple in hand. “Not this again.”
Joel didn’t even look her way. “What’s this ‘gain?”
“You being a total sap,” she said, hopping up on one of the stools. “She’s just going to work.”
Joel’s head turned slowly to his kid. “You don’t get it.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re dramatic.”
You covered your mouth to hide a smile, pretending to check your bag again.
Joel lifted a brow at her. “You done?”
“Not even close,” she said sweetly. “Stop hogging her.”
He glanced back to you, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth. “Why’d wanna talk to her so bad, huh?”
“Maybe I wanna talk to someone other than you for the next twelve hours.”
Joel let out a low noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and grabbed his mug. “Uh-huh. I’ll remember that next time you need a ride to the mall.”
You and Sarah watched him disappear around the corner. There was a beat of silence, and then the sound of him shutting the bedroom door echoed faintly.
“Did it get fixed?”
Her grin was instant, mischievous, like she’d been waiting for that cue all night.
“You bet it did.”
She glanced over her shoulder once more, then ducked into her backpack and pulled out a small box. When she cracked it open, the soft ticking filled the quiet kitchen.
Joel’s watch. Working.
You hadn’t seen it tick since—well, since ever. Not once in all the years you’d known him. She smiled so wide it almost broke your heart. “He deserves it,” she said softly.
You wrapped your arms around her before she could hide her blush. “You did good, baby.”
Her hair smelled faintly of coconut shampoo and laundry detergent. You pressed a kiss into her curls, and she squeezed you tight.
“When I’m back in the morning,” you murmured against her hair, “Your dad gets me, then it’s all you and me, okay?”
She pulled back, grinning. “Deal. I need a dress. Homecomings, like, next week and everyone already has theirs.”
You smoothed her hair from her face. “Then we’ll find you the perfect one. Promise.”
Her eyes sparkled. “It’s gonna be the best.”
You smiled, meaning it. “It will.”
For a moment, it was just the two of you, the low hum of the fridge filling the silence, the clock ticking in time with the watch.
Then you glanced up—and froze.
“Shoot,” you muttered. “I’m late.”
You moved fast—badge, phone, keys—but she was still standing there, smiling at you.
“I love you, Sarah!” you called as you backed toward the door.
“Love you too!”
The night air was cooler than you expected, the kind of fall chill that hinted at rain but hadn’t quite decided to commit. The street was quiet, just the whisper of trees and the hum of a streetlight flickering at the corner.
The porch light cast a pale gold over the hood of your car, and you were halfway to opening the door when you heard it.
“Hey!”
You turned.
Joel was coming down the porch steps, hair mussed.
“What—?”
Before you could finish, he reached you. His hands found your face, warm and calloused, and his mouth was on yours before another word could form.
Steady. Familiar.
You smiled against his lips, your fingers curling in his shirt. “Happy birthday,” you murmured.
His eyes softened, lines crinkling at the corners. “Thank you, baby.”
He kissed you again—slower this time—and then rested his forehead against yours.
“You sure you can’t call in sick?” he whispered, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Y‘know I can’t.”
“Doesn’t hurt to try.”
For a few seconds, neither of you moved. You brushed your thumb along Joel’s jaw, tracing the familiar edge of stubble.
“Tomorrow morning,” you promised quietly. “I’m all yours.”
He nodded once, like he was filing it away. “All mine,” he repeated, voice low, half-rasp, half-prayer.
You stepped back, his hand still holding yours until the distance forced it to fall away.
“Go on,” he said, smiling now. “‘Fore I think of another excuse to keep you.”
You opened the car door, sliding in. The engine coughed to life, headlights washing the driveway in white.
Joel leaned down to your window as it rolled open, bracing one hand on the roof. “Text me when you get there.”
“I always do.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Still.”
You looked up at him for a moment—just a man standing under the porch light, watching the woman he loves drive away to work.
Then you smiled one last time, lifted your fingers in a small wave, and pulled out of the driveway.
The taillights disappeared down the street.
And behind you, Joel stood there for a long while, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes on the road that led toward the hospital, until the light finally went out.
That was the last quiet night.
┈┈・┈┈
The gas station sits at the edge of the highway like a fossil—half-buried in snowdrift, windows caked in frost, the faded sign creaking against the wind.
You pull your scarf higher over your nose and push through the door. The bell above it gives a tired little jingle, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the emptiness inside.
The place smells of dust and fuel. Rows of cracked candy wrappers and long-dead flies line the counter. A can of peaches sits upright on a shelf like it’s been waiting for you all these years.
You pause, listening. Wind sighs through a shattered window. Nothing else.
Good.
Your boots crunch on the tile as you move down the aisle. You check under the counter—some old batteries, half a lighter, a few shotgun shells. You pocket the shells, roll the lighter between your fingers, flick it. Spark. No flame. You toss it back.
You find the storage room behind a warped door, push it open with your shoulder. The metal hinges wail.
Inside: shelves toppled over, a spill of canned goods frozen to the concrete. A single cot in the corner—torn, mold creeping up the side. But it’s shelter.
You run a hand through your hair, exhale through your scarf.
You start sorting through the wreckage. Your bag was already heavy, but there’s always room for something that might keep you alive another week. A can of beans, a box of ammo if you’re lucky, maybe even a flask with something that burns on the way down.
Outside, the wind changes pitch—sharper now, colder. Snow was coming quick.
You glance through the window. Clouds roll over the mountains, dark and low, swallowing the last streaks of light.
Wyoming. You’d always wanted to see it. The peaks in the distance look soft under the gray sky, like something out of a dream you half-remember. You lean against the window frame, watch the world blur behind the snow.
The beans taste like dust. You chew anyway, slow and mechanical. You swallow, stare at the dented can in your hand, and wonder—not for the first time—why food never tastes like anything anymore.
The silence stretches long and thin.
Outside, the wind howls low through the busted doorframe, slipping under your coat. The storm’s closer. You pull your scarf tighter and sit cross-legged on the moldy cot.
The flickering fluorescent light above you buzzes. Once. Twice. Then dies completely. You sit in the dark for a long moment.
You fish out a flashlight from your pack and click it on. The beam slices through the dark in a narrow cone. Dust motes float like ghosts.
You set the can aside, grab your knife, and start sharpening it against a stone. The rhythmic scrape fills the space. Shk. Shk. Shk.
You stop only when you catch your reflection in the blade. Eyes sunken. Hair streaked with gray. Skin roughened by twenty-four winters too many.
You huff a breath through your nose, letting the knife fall beside you and lean your head back against the wall.
For a moment—just a flicker—you see it again.
The hospital. The gurneys. The screaming.
You still smelled antiseptic and blood, heard the alarms, and felt the heat of panic flooding every hallway.
Your hands had been shaking so badly back then that you couldn’t even hold the scalpel right. And when they shoved the rifle at you—you’d dropped it. You remember that clearly. You’d dropped it, and the nurse beside you had died two minutes later.
You open your eyes fast, drag in air until your ribs ache. You stare at your hands. Calloused. Scarred.
The storm outside is getting heavier now, snow slamming against the roof in thick, rhythmic waves.
You sit for a while, just breathing.
Then you reach pass your collar. Metal is cold against your fingers, smooth from years of handling. You pull out the necklace—its chain tangled from travel, the ring catching faint light from the window.
Your wedding ring.
It still fits around your finger, though you haven’t worn it in years. The gold has dulled, edges rough from weather and time. You turn it between your fingers, feeling the tiny engraving on the inside—J.M. The letters are faint now, nearly worn away.
Since rings were a ripping hazard through gloves, you always ended up leaving your ring in Joel’s hands. Meaning you left it when you escaped.
Years later, you went for it. Maybe to see if someone took it, or if it was possible that time had stopped in that house, just waiting for you to come home.
Half the roof gone, windows shattered. You’d stepped over the debris, heart thudding in your chest, and found the ring sitting in your dresser. Dust-coated. Waiting.
The rest of the house had been silent, save for the groan of wood and wind slipping through the cracks. There’d been blood by the entryway—dark, old. But no bodies. The truck was gone.
That had meant something. You’d clung to that, smiling through the tears back then.
“They made it out,” you’d whispered into your old bedroom. “He got her out. He always does.”
Now, years later, you still hold the ring like it’s proof that somewhere, somehow, they’re still alive.
That Sarah’s grown—thirty-eight now, if you’ve done the math right—maybe with her father’s strength, that same stubborn tilt of her chin.
You smile, just a little. And for that small, fragile moment between exhaustion and faith, you let yourself believe it.
That if you keep walking, keep breathing, fate might finally let your paths cross again.
The wind howls against the window. And then—a noise. Not the wind. Not the shifting of snow. You freeze.
It’s faint, beneath the storm. A crunch of a can, the muted thud of boots.
You snap out of it fast, tucking your necklace back underneath your layers, and you grab your rifle. You move silently, muscle memory taking over. The scarf wanted up, covering your mouth. You sling the rifle over your shoulder, knife in your other hand.
Another sound. Closer this time.
You forced your breathing to be small. Listened. The sound is human—not the ragged rasp of infected but even, purposeful steps. You creep to the door, ease it open a crack. Cold air hits you.
You don’t take chances. You move through the gas station like a ghost.
Shelves cast long black teeth. You navigate by sound: the snap of a plastic wrapper, a muted clink of metal. You pass an aisle and there—under a hanging sign that reads ‘SNACKS’ in flaking red paint—is a person.
She’s young-ish, brown hair dusted with snow. Pale. Focused on canned goods. You watch her for a beat, then you’re beside her; blade at her throat, gloved hand clamping her jaw before she can scream air into the room.
“Don’t make noise,” you whisper, teeth pressed to the syllables. Cold breath fogs between you.
She makes a sound—a sharp intake—but you clamp harder until it’s a single pulse under your fingers. Her green eyes are wide and furious.
You press the tip of the knife, close enough the metal kisses her skin. She doesn’t flinch. “Who are you with?”
Her eyes flick left, then right, then back up to your face. She groans something obscene. You tilt your head.
“Nod if you’re alone.”
Slow, stiff nod. Her gaze keeps sliding. You don’t believe her.
“Walk.”
She huffs and starts shuffling. You edge behind her, blade at the hollow of her throat in case she bolts.
Outside, horses stand tethered to a dented pickup. Two adult-size steeds, their breaths steaming into the night. Packs sewn onto their flanks look new—canvas stitched and mended, not the scavenged mess you usually see.
“Community,” you mutter.
The girl mumbles behind your glove—garbled words, half-swallowed by the wool. You pause, glancing down at her. Her eyes flicker with something sharper than fear. You can’t tell if it’s anger or a plan.
You loosen your hand just enough for her to speak. “You’re making a mistake,” she says, voice low, shaky but not scared. Not really. There’s defiance there. “You don’t wanna do this.”
“That right?”
“Yeah,” she breathes, chin tilting toward the dark. “Because—”
She stops. Eyes dart past you. Just a flicker. Barely a second. But it’s enough. Your instincts snap tight.
You spin, knife still at her throat, snow exploding under your boots. The world narrows to metal and breath and the small, frantic drum in your ribs. A man stands a few yards off. Broad shoulders, an old bandana pulled up over his mouth, thick winter jacket bulking up his frame more that it is; only his eyes are free.
They’re cold. Wild. Protective.
He’s holding a blade too. The wind howls between you.
“I’ll slit her throat before you take a step.” you snarl.
He doesn’t blink.
You circle, keeping the girl as a shield. He mirrors you both of you counting the breaths, looking for the twitch that means fight. Wind keens between the pillars, the horses stamp and throw up more steam.
“Back off, I swear I’ll—”
“I’ll kill you ‘fore you can.” he interrupts, stepping closer. There’s a cadence to the sentence that slips under your skin, some pattern you know but can’t name. Texan accent. Worn by the years, but Texas nonetheless.
Your hands tighten around the girl. Then she jerks—twists. You shove her back against your chest and press the knife harder; she hisses.
“Stop movin’, Ellie!” The man yells.
“Goddammit!”
She spits, and the world completely inverts—just by one word in her next sentence detonating in your chest.
“Kill her already, Joel!”
Joel.
The name stops you cold.
Joel.
It hits like a gunshot under your ribs. Your grip falters—barely, but enough.
Joel.
“...What did you just say?” you whisper.
The girl feels it, the hesitation. She wrenches free. In the same motion, she grabs your scarf and yanks it down. Cold air hits your face.
Then—pain. A hot, sharp slide near your ribs. You stumble back with a strangled noise, clutching your side.
For a second, you don’t feel it. Not really. Your body’s in survival mode, your mind already screaming move, move, move.
Two against one. You’ve been in worse. You’ve survived worse. But still—your pulse hammers so loud it drowns out the rest of the world.
The wind whooshes past your ear. White noise. You can barely hear anything else.
Except the softest call you’ve heard in years. Your name. Spoken like a memory dragged out of the grave.
You haven’t heard it in years. You’d forgotten the shape of it, the way it used to sound. You’d forgotten what it felt like to belong to it.
You look up.
The man’s eyes are on you—wide, unsteady. His chest rises and falls like he’s staring at a ghost. His knife is forgotten, dropped to the snow. You stumble back a step, confused, dizzy. He mirrors it, stepping forward, matching your retreat. One for one.
“Stay back,” you rasp, though your voice cracks halfway through.
He doesn’t. The girl says his name again, a sharp exhale of confusion. “Joel! What are you—?”
No.
No, no, no.
The world tilts. The light from the moon flickers across his face, and in that fractured second, you know. He rips the bandana from his face—
It’s him. Your life. Your love. Your other half. Your soul. Your husband.
Your Joel Miller.
Lines carved deep into his face, gray hair decorated his beautiful brown. His face is more wrinkled than before, his body more wider. But those eyes—same as the day you lost saw him.
Your breath catches in your throat. “Joel…”
The word breaks, splintering halfway out. It sounds nothing like how you used to say it. He takes another step. His voice shakes.
“Darlin’...”
You want to run. To reach for him. To scream in fear. To laugh. You can’t do any of it. You just stand there, the world narrowing until it’s just the two of you and the ghost of everything you lost.
Your knees go weak. You can feel pain now—the slow, spreading warmth of something sticky seeping through your coat. You press your hand harder to your side, but it doesn’t stop the tremor.
Joel takes another step.
“Don’t…” you manage, breathless. “Don’t—come any closer.”
You stumble back again, your boots slipping in the snow. The light-headedness hits harder now. The sky spins. You reach out, steadying yourself against the cold metal of the building behind you.
The girl’s hand tightens around her knife. Her voice is shaking now, too. “What are you waiting for?! She’s…she’s—why are you hesitating—”
You sway, vision blurring. Ellie takes another step, as if she’s going to finish the job for Joel, and that’s when you see it—the blade in her hand. Red. Glinting as it drips. Your blood.
“Christ…” you whisper.
You can barely keep your eyes open now. The snow feels softer under your boots than it should. You blink, slow and heavy, your breath coming out in short, white bursts.
Then, you fall.
Joel moves fast. A shadow through the storm. The next thing you feel is his arms wrapping around you, pulling you in. The warmth of him hits like a blow, his chest against yours, his breath shaking against your temple.
You forgot this.
The sound of him breathing, the rough rasp in his throat. The weight of his hand and how they shake when they press against your side, trying to stop the bleeding. His voice breaks through the wind, hoarse, terrified—words you can’t quite catch, just the vibration of them.
Your fingers find his coat, clutching it. It feels real. Too real. You lift your head—barely—and see his face. That face.
The man from your dreams, the one you used to stare at when you couldn’t sleep. The one you buried with your past. The one you thought you’d never touch again.
You try to speak, but it comes out as a shiver.
He presses his hand harder, cursing under his breath. His mouth opens over and over, forming words but you can’t really hear him. The wind eats at his words. You can only see his eyes frantic.
You forgot how soft his eyes could be when he was afraid. Your vision blurs around the edges. His face flickers in and out, the snow dimming into a wash of gray and white.
He yells something over his shoulder—maybe to the girl, maybe to no one. You can’t tell. The world’s shrinking too fast.
Then—his voice, raw, breaking:
“Not ’gain. Not ’gain.”
You blink slowly, trying to focus on his mouth, the way his voice trembles like he’s said this before.
Again?
The thought cuts through the haze for a second. Did he mean you? Did he dream of you, too? See your face in strangers? Hear your voice in the dark like you did his?
The thought makes you smile. You look up at him—just once more—and the sight fills you whole.
Then the light fades. You go limp in his arms.
He calls your name again, but you don’t hear it. The world folds inward—black and quiet.
┈┈・┈┈
The church wasn’t much.
A narrow, sunlit room with peeling paint and crooked pews. The air smelled faintly of wood polish. There was no music—just the soft hum of cicadas outside and the creak of the floorboards under your heels.
It was perfect.
Your mother sat front row, tissues clutched in both hands, whispering something to your father that made him chuckle under his breath. Tommy was beside them, sleeves rolled up, tie loose, trying and failing to keep a squirming little girl in her seat.
“C’mon now, darlin’,” he muttered as Sarah kicked her legs and reached toward the front of the hall. “Your daddy’s a little busy right now, alright? You’ll see him in a minute.”
Sarah let out a squeal that echoed through the church, a bright little sound that made Joel’s shoulders stiffen and then sag.
You laughed under your breath, watching him. His hands were clasped nervously in front of him, the tie around his neck slightly crooked. His hair was damp from sweat, combed back but already falling out of place. There was a flush high on his cheeks.
“I swear I listened when you told me to feed her. She jus’—” He sighed, the corners of his mouth twitching. “She don’t like sittin’ still. Guess that’s my fault.”
“She just wants her daddy,” you said softly.
Joel’s eyes flicked to you, warm and nervous all at once. “Well, can’t say I blame her for that.”
“You always this confident at the altar?”
He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Confidence or stupidity—hard to tell.”
There was a pause. Sarah let out another squeal and Tommy groaned, muttering something about ‘should’ve brought snacks.’ Joel grinned, shaking his head, then looked back at you with that same teasing glint.
“Still time to back out, y’know,” he said. “Ain’t too late to change your mind.”
You gasped, hand flying to your chest. “Excuse me?”
“I mean—not like that, darlin’. Jus’... y‘know I’m not exactly prime real estate.”
“Joel Miller…” you said, voice full of mock outrage.
“What?” he said, laughing now. “I’m jus’ bein’ honest!”
You took a step closer, your dress brushing the floor. The minister cleared his throat softly, but neither of you looked away. You reached up, caught his tie in your hand, and tugged him just enough that his eyes widened a little.
“Never,” you whispered.
He blinked, his breath catching. And then you kissed him.
The world went still for a moment. It was just the two of you—your hand fisted in his tie, his palm finding your waist, the rough scrape of his stubble brushing your cheek. He kissed you back, slow at first, then deeper when you smiled against his mouth.
Behind you, your mother and dad sniffled audibly. Tommy muttered something, but there was laughter in his voice.
When you finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours.
And when Joel finally whispered, “For as long as I got breath…”, you knew—this was how it was always meant to be.
┈┈・┈┈
You wake to the sound of wind and the slow, steady rhythm of breathing that isn’t your own.
Your lashes flutter open. Wooden beams. No patched roof. The air smells faintly of pine and smoke, warm from… a heater? For a moment, you think you’re dreaming. Then a deep ache blooms along your side.
You jolt upright—too fast. The pain punches through you. A strangled noise escapes your throat as you clutch your ribs. Bandages. Tight, clean, freshly changed.
That’s when you hear it again.
You whip your head toward the sound—instinct first, reason later—and shove back against the headboard, teeth bared, ready to fight through the pain if you have to.
“Hey—hey, easy, easy.”
That voice.
Joel’s sitting in the chair beside the bed, elbows on his knees, that same rugged face you’ve seen a hundred times in dreams, weathered now by years and loss. The gray in his beard catches the light. His flannel’s frayed at the cuffs. Sleep wears on his face. He must’ve just woken up.
It’s all impossible. It has to be.
“Joel?”
His mouth parts just slightly, like he’s afraid to breathe wrong. “Yeah, darlin’. It’s me.”
You shake your head, trying to make sense of it, but the world feels warped. His eyes are the same—warm brown, flecked with gold—and that hurts worse than anything else. Because they look real.
For a long, unbearable moment, neither of you move. The room hums around you—wind through the cracked window, the faint thud of boots outside—but all you can hear is your heartbeat and the sound of Joel’s shaky breath.
You shift again, the pain in your side flaring white-hot. A groan slips out before you can stop it. Joel’s expression crumples.
“Stop movin’,” he mutters, half rising, hands twitching uselessly like he wants to reach for you but doesn’t dare. “You’ll rip the stitches.”
You swing your legs over the bed, ignoring the protest in your ribs. He flinches like it physically hurts him to see you do it. He stands with you, crossing around the bed to get in front of you.
His jaw works, like he’s trying to find something to say.
But all that comes out is your name.
It roots you to the floor.
You blink hard, throat burning, and when you look up again, his eyes are wet. He tries to blink it away, to look like the same man who used to fix things, who used to steady you.
He says it again. Softer this time.
Your breath stumbles. There’s a tremor in his hand when he finally reaches out.
When his fingers brush your cheek, you flinch— from a strange mix of fear and disbelief. His hand’s rough, warm. He drags his thumb slow across your skin, tracing your jaw, your cheekbone, your nose.
Like a blind man who had just earned his sight back.
For a second, there’s nothing but the sound of both of you breathing—fast, uneven, disbelieving.
And then—
You take a step back. Another. Another.
Distance.
You hit the metal tray behind you, the clatter piercing through the air, and Joel’s brow furrows. “It’s alright,” he says, voice low, coaxing, like you’re some frightened animal.
You shake your head, breath catching. “No—no, it’s not.”
“Darlin’, it’s me—”
“Don’t.” The word rips out of you, sharp and trembling. “Don’t call me that.”
His mouth parts, but nothing comes out. His hand drops uselessly to his side.
You can’t breathe. The air feels too thick, the walls too close. Your body won’t stay still—your fingers twitch, your shoulders jerk. You can hear your pulse in your ears.
He was here. You wanted this. You wished for it, but now that it was here… it was all too much, him standing here, alive.
“I knew you died,” you whisper, voice cracking. “I knew and I still believed—"
“I didn’t,” he interrupts, desperate. “I didn’t die, darlin’. I—”
“Stop!” You press your hands to your temples, nails digging in. “Stop calling me that!”
“You’re shakin’. Lemme me—”
“No!” You stumble back, hand slamming into the cabinet. “You can’t—no—you can’t just—”
Your chest caves. Breath stutters. You can’t fill your lungs, can’t find air. The room tilts, the fluorescent light overhead flickering like a heartbeat gone wrong.
He’s reaching again, trying to catch your shoulders, but the touch only makes it worse. You jerk away, a strangled sound tearing out of you.
And then—
Bang.
The door slams open.
“Joel!” Tommy’s voice, rougher now, deeper, but still that same drawl that once filled your old house with laughter.
You stare at him. He’s got a mustache now. Older, broader. Wrinkles that line the corners of his eyes.
You make a small, broken sound in your throat. It’s too much—the sound of his voice, the sight of Joel, your world cracking open and mending together all at once.
Tommy’s eyes soften when he sees you, but his tone is firm. “Step outside, brother.”
“Hell no,” Joel snaps, stepping in front of you. “My wife’s panickin’, Tommy—”
You twitch at that word—wife—and your breath catches, shuddering.
Tommy lifts a hand. “Out. Now.”
“Tommy—”
“Joel.” His tone hardens. “Get out.”
The two stare each other down, that familiar stubborn silence passing between them. Joel’s chest heaves. His jaw flexes.
Then his eyes flick to you. Just once. And that look—raw, gutted—undoes something in your chest. He goes. But not without a fight in his stance, not without looking like every step toward the door costs him blood.
Tommy stays behind long enough to look at you. His smile’s thin, a shade of what it used to be. “Why don’t you sit down, huh? Maria’s comin’ over real soon. She’ll take care of you.”
You don’t even nod, just stare like those abandoned mannequins in the windows of clothing stores. He hesitates, looks like he wants to say something else, but doesn’t.
Then he leaves. The door shuts behind them with a soft click.
You stand there for a long time, trembling, until the sound of your breathing evens out. The air still smells like alcohol and metal. You press your back to the wall, sliding down until you’re sitting on the cold wooden floorboards.
You don’t cry. You just listen.
Through the crack of the door, their voices filter in—muted, low, but heated.
“You’re overwhelmin’ her, Joel. Can’t you see that?”
Joel’s voice, rough and unsteady, comes right after. “She knows me, Tommy. She—she looked at me. You saw it too. She knows me.”
“Yeah,” Tommy says, dry. “Don’t mean she can handle you right now.”
“I ain’t some stranger, dammit! I’m her husband. That’s my wife. You understand? My wife. I thought she was gone. I thought—”
“You thought a lotta things, but that don’t change what’s in front of you. I get it.”
A pause. You imagine Joel’s face—the way he presses his lips together when he’s holding back something too big to say.
Then his voice again, lower. “You didn’t see her eyes, Tommy. I did. She remembered me. She didn’t forget.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“She belongs with me. She should live with me—get used to things ‘gain, get used to me.”
“The hell she should,” Tommy snaps. “That’s the worst idea I’ve heard come outta your mouth, and that’s sayin’ somethin’.”
“Why? Why the hell not? Y’think I can jus’—what—leave her sittin’ in some damn corner, pretendin’ like she didn’t spend almost half her life with me?”
Tommy doesn’t answer right away. The silence stretches, filled with the sound of boots shifting on wood, wind against the windows.
When he does speak, his voice is steady. “’Cause she’s scared of you, Joel.”
The words land heavy. You can feel the air change on the other side of the door.
“She flinched when you touched her.”
Joel says nothing.
“She damn near stopped breathin’ when you got closer,” Tommy goes on, quieter now. “And not ‘cause she don’t care. It’s ‘cause she’s been out there, alone. Y’know what that does to a person.”
Joel finally mutters something, too low to catch.
Tommy sighs. “Y’think she had folks lookin’ after her all this time? Hell, for all we know, she’s been walkin’ ‘lone for years. One, two, five, ten—Christ, maybe since the whole damn thing started.”
A pause. Then Tommy again, voice soft but heavy.
“She ain’t the same person you lost. And neither are you.”
The words twist deep, where you don’t want them to reach.
Eventually, you hear the floor creak again—Tommy’s boots moving away, Joel’s slower behind him. The sound fades down the hallway, swallowed by the hum of your own thoughts.
You tilt your head back against the wall and stare at the ceiling light until your eyes blur.
He’s alive.
He’s here.
And you don’t know whether to thank God or curse Him.
┈┈・┈┈
To say you’re skittish is an understatement.
Tommy and Maria’s house feels too clean. Too normal. Every sound—every creak, every low murmur from the kitchen—puts your nerves on edge. You keep expecting someone to barge in and tell you to pack your things, that you don’t belong here.
The curtains remain half-shut, and you sleep on top of the blanket instead of under it, because the bed is too soft. The first night, you woke up gasping, the fabric bunched around your throat, the scent of cleanliness sharp enough to make your eyes sting.
Now you avoid it altogether. You sit on the edge, knees drawn up, staring at the wooden nightstand. You run your fingers over the lamp switch. The clock. The drawer handle.
Twenty years ago, these things were nothing. Background. White noise. Now they feel like relics from a life that belonged to someone else.
Beds. Nightstands. Floors that don’t creak from rot.
Hot water. Toothpaste. A door that locks from the inside.
You leave the room only the bathroom, since they bring you your food. Once, Maria knocked to tell you that there had been snow on the Christmas tree they just set up, and it was gorgeous with the lights, and you almost said yes to following her out there.
Almost.
But the second your hand touched the doorknob, something inside you froze. You mumbled an apology and stayed put.
They never complained. Not once.
Maria—she tries. She smiles at you when she offers you fresh bread, tea, small comforts. She has that kind of strength like she’s seen her share of ruin and decided not to let it show. You can see why Tommy married her.
He checks your wound every couple of days, his hands steady, his voice low. “Healin’ good,” he says. “Maria’s been keepin’ the bandages clean. You’re lucky she’s the one runnin’ the place.”
You nod. You never know what to say back.
He talks a lot, though. Tries to fill the silence with something easy. “Jackson’s different,” he tells you. “We got systems. Rules that keep folks fed, safe. We all pitch in.”
You hum under your breath, skeptical. “Sounds like a QZ,” you croak out before you can stop yourself.
Tommy chuckles, but his eyes narrow just slightly, like he knows what you mean. “Ain’t no QZ. No FEDRA. No soldiers. Nobody hoardin’ food. We look out for each other here.”
You study him a long time, trying to decide if you believe it. He must see the hesitation in your face, because he adds, quietly,
“I wouldn’t have stayed if it wasn’t what I said.”
He means it. You can tell.
Days pass. A week and a half. You fall into a rhythm, if you can call it that. You wake up, sit on the edge of the bed, watch the light crawl across the floorboards. You listen to the faint laughter that sometimes drifts from the street outside. You eat when someone leaves a plate at your door. You wait until night to move around.
Then one morning, Maria breaks it by knocking softly.
You’re sitting on the bed, fingers picking at the loose threads of the sheets, half-lost in thought.
When she opens the door, her face is lit by that calm, unshakable smile. “Got someone who wants to see you,” she says.
Your stomach tightens. Your hands flex, unflex. “Who?”
Her smile widens, but her eyes study you carefully, gauging every twitch of your face. “A visitor.”
You nod, pushing yourself up. The floor feels uneven under your bare feet. Your heart thuds in your throat. “Alright.”
She waits in the doorway until you follow her. The house smells faintly of coffee and wood polish. You pass the family photos hanging on the wall—Tommy with Maria, and beside them, a small boy with his father’s grin. You pause for half a second, staring.
A son. You hadn’t known.
Your pulse stutters.
Maria’s voice pulls you back. “You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah,” you lie.
Every step down the hallway feels heavier than the last. The closer you get to the living room, the louder your thoughts get. What if it’s Joel? What if he came here, decided he’d had enough of waiting? You can almost hear his voice already—low, stubborn, that Texas gravel tone saying your name.
No. You can’t do that. Not yet.
Maria stops at the doorway, her hand on the frame. She glances back at you, softens her voice. “Don’t worry. She’s kind. Sometimes.”
She.
The breath you were holding spills out, shaky and uneven.
Then you see her.
Sitting on the couch, her elbows on her knees, head down, fiddling with something in her hands—a knife, no, a pocket tool. Her hair’s brown and tamed now, no longer wild from the wind. The anger that once burned in those green eyes is gone.
It takes you a second to place her. That girl from the gas station.
Maria’s voice is light. “Ellie. I brought her.”
Right. Ellie.
She looks up then, blinking at you, and for a moment you both just stare.
Her mouth opens first. “Uh… hey.”
You nod once, your throat too tight for words.
She clears her throat, awkwardly rubbing her palms on her jeans. “You, uh… you probably don’t remember me. I mean, I guess you might. Back at the station, you were kinda…” She makes a vague gesture with her hands, grimacing. “Y’know. Your knife to my throat, my knife in your side, whole thing.”
“I remember.”
“Oh.” She blinks too, like she wasn’t expecting that. “Cool.”
Maria hides a smile, stepping back toward the kitchen. “I’ll let y’all talk.”
You and Ellie both look after her as she leaves, then at each other again.
The silence is prickly. Ellie shifts in her seat, taps her knee a few times, then blows out a slow breath. “I wanna… apologize.”
She says that last word like it’s a grater dragged across her throat.
You raise an eyebrow.
“For—uh—stickin’ you like a pig.”
Your frown comes without effort. “You stabbed me.”
“Yeah. Guess that’s another word for it. My bad.”
You just stare at her.
She scratches at her eyebrow, mutters, “You were sneakin’ around, and I was freaking the hell out, and I just—look, I didn’t know who you were, okay?”
There’s a beat of silence. Then, maybe because her discomfort is so naked, maybe because she’s just a kid trying too hard to sound grown, you huff out something that almost sounds like a laugh.
“I’ll live,” you say quietly.
She sighs, quick and relieved. “Yeah, looks like it.”
Ellie seems to notice the change in your posture, how you loosen slightly, and leans back a little, studying you in that curious, unfiltered way teenagers do.
“So,” she says, drawing out the word. “You were… married to Joel?”
You stiffen. That one hits bone.
“Okay, too soon.”
You shake your head. “No, it’s—” You pause, gathering your voice back into something flat, neutral. “Yes. We were married.”
“Wow.” She whistles softly. “I mean, huh. You and Joel. That’s—” She stops, shakes her head, smirking. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothin’. Just. Hard to imagine him married. He kinda strikes me as the lone-wolf-and-whiskey type, y’know?”
“He wasn’t always.”
“Yeah?”
“He liked to dance.”
That makes her laugh—loud, surprised. “Bullshit.”
“He did. Badly.”
She snorts. “Okay, now I gotta see that someday.”
You don’t answer. You just look down at your hands, tracing the small scar near your knuckle. A moment passes. Then she shifts again, like she’s working up the nerve to keep going.
“So… you guys got, uh…” She squints. “What’s the word—divorced? Before the outbreak? You said ‘were married’.”
The question hits you like cold water.
“No,” you say softly. “No, we didn’t.”
“Oh.” She looks at you for a second too long, then nods slowly. “Just been a long time, huh?”
You exhale through your nose. “Yeah. Long time.”
Ellie is easy in a way you’ve forgotten how to be. She swears under her breath, uses her hands when she talks, doesn’t know how to sit still. She reminds you of… you, before the world before it burned down.
You find yourself leaning forward, asking her small things. How long she’s been with Joel. Where she came from. Whether she likes Jackson.
She answers, haltingly at first, then quicker, sharper. You learn she’s got a sense of humor that you enjoy. You understand it.
And then—
Ellie hesitates. Her gaze flicks toward the window, then back to you. “You… you must’ve known Sarah, then.”
The name slices through you like wire.
Sarah.
You blink, too slow, too hard.
“Sarah,” you echo, the syllables thick on your tongue. “Of course I do.” You can’t stop the small laugh that breaks out of you—shaky, a little too high. “God, how did I not ask? I didn’t even—she’s grown now, right? Almost forty. Jesus. Does she—does she still paint? Or play soccer? She always had that little pink ball she’d kick around the kitchen—drove Joel crazy, used to leave scuff marks all over the floor—”
You stop. Because Ellie isn’t smiling.
She’s staring at you.
And her whole face has gone still.
“Oh.”
Just that.
And you know.
Instantly.
Your mouth opens, but no words come. The world seems to narrow, sound folding in on itself. You can’t feel your hands. You can’t feel anything.
“No,” you whisper, but it’s barely a sound. “No. Not Sarah.”
Ellie doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just watches you, stricken.
You shake your head, your body already rejecting it, like maybe if you move fast enough, you can outpace the truth. “No, she—she’s just a kid. She is—she—”
You don’t finish. The words choke, collapse.
Something inside you caves in slow motion. The air leaves the room, the floor vanishes. You sink to your knees before you even realize you’ve moved.
You see Sarah’s hair, the way it stuck to her forehead when she ran. Her laugh. The way she used to look at Joel. The way she looked at you. The smell of pancakes on Sunday mornings. Her tiny hand tugging at yours when she wanted to show you something she’d drawn.
Gone. Forever fourteen.
Gone twenty years ago, while you were out there convincing yourself it wasn’t true.
You cover your mouth with both hands. The sound that breaks out of you isn’t human—it’s raw, keening, dragged from the deepest part of you that never healed.
Ellie’s eyes are wide. She moves before she thinks, kneeling beside you, uncertain, awkward. “Hey, hey, I’m—shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
You stumble backward, your legs barely obeying you. The room is too bright, too close. Ellie’s voice is muffled, like it’s coming from underwater. You don’t even hear what she’s saying anymore. You can only hear Sarah. Sarah laughing. Sarah crying. Sarah’s voice calling for you in the dark.
Your throat closes. You can’t breathe. You can’t see.
“She’s gone,” you whisper to no one. “She’s gone. Sarah’s gone.”
Maria appears in front of you, gentle hands hovering but not touching. “Hey—hey, slow down. It’s okay. You’re safe, you hear me?”
You shake your head. “No. No, I—she—” You choke, your chest collapsing under invisible weight. “She’s just a kid. She—she calls me—she calls me mama—”
Maria’s eyes soften, and that’s worse. You can’t bear it. Her pity feels like fire.
You hear Tommy’s boots pounding against the floor, his voice low but urgent. “What happened?”
Ellie’s voice, trembling. “I—I told her about Sarah.”
Maria glances over her shoulder, and Tommy growls. “Christ almighty.” He doesn’t look at you for long—maybe he can’t.
You hear Tommy leave with a string of curses, his boots thumping until he disappeared into the snow.
You press your palms over your face, rocking slightly. The room feels like it’s tilting. Every breath comes in sharp bursts, tearing your lungs.
“She’s gone,” you whisper, voice trembling. “She’s gone, and I didn’t—”
Your breath shudders out of you, and you clutch at the wall like it might hold you up.
Maria glances toward Ellie, and something passes silently between them—understanding, guilt, something like fear. Tommy curses quietly under his breath. “I’ll get him,” he says, and he’s gone before Maria can stop him.
Your voice breaks. You press your hands over your face, curling inward. “I wasn’t there,” you whisper. “I wasn’t there.”
Maria’s hand hovers near your shoulder, then pulls back. She looks helpless.
A sound—heavy boots, the door opening. You don’t have to look up. You know that sound. You could find it in a storm.
Joel’s frozen in the doorway, chest heaving. His eyes land on you. You see the recognition hit him like a hammer.
“Darlin’,” he breathes, his voice hoarse, wrecked.
You shake your head, stepping back.
He doesn’t listen. He never did. In three long strides he’s kneeling in front of you, hands hovering before settling on your shoulders. His touch is rough, too warm.
“Don’t—don’t touch me—” You push at him weakly. “She’s gone, Joel. She’s gone.”
He pulls you into his chest anyway, his arms tight around you as you struggle. “I know,” he says, his voice low, shaking. “I know, baby, I know.”
You pound your fists against him, but the strength’s gone from your body. “You don’t—”
“I do,” he cuts in, desperate. “I do.”
You stop fighting. His arms hold steady, the kind of hold that used to calm you down. You can feel the tremor in his hands, the way he keeps his face buried in your hair.
“She’s gone,” you whisper, smaller now. “Our girl. She—”
He doesn’t let you finish. He shifts, lifting you the best he can, one arm under your knees, the other at your back. You cling to his shirt on instinct, your body shaking as he carries you down the hallway. You can barely see through the blur of tears.
Joel shoulders the door to your room open and nudges it shut behind him with his boot.
He sets you down gently on the bed, but you push yourself away the moment your feet touch the floor. You back up, hands shaking, your breath sharp and uneven. “Don’t—don’t do that,” you rasp.
He goes quiet. The silence stretches. You can hear the whoosh of snow starting against the window.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low. “You wanna know what happened?”
You don’t answer, but he tells you anyway.
He talks like a man digging up a grave. His words come in fragments—him and Sarah on the couch, the sirens, the Alders, Tommy’s truck, the soldiers, the gun. His voice falters only once, when he says her name.
“\We were tryin’ to get out. Got stopped by a soldier. They told him—told him to take us down. I was holdin’ her when he fired.” He swallows hard, eyes shining wet. “She was scared. Cryin’. I told her I had her. That I wasn’t gonna let go.”
You stare at him, unmoving. Every breath feels like swallowing glass. “You held her,” you say, the words barely forming. “You—”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he murmurs. “I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t—” His voice breaks, and he turns his head, like looking at you hurts.
You sit on the edge of the bed, shaking. The words echo in your skull, each one heavier than the last. The room feels too small, the air too thick.
You look at him. His hands hang useless at his sides, his face drawn, hollow. You think of all the years he carried that weight alone. How you carried your own.
You reach out.
He hesitates, then closes the distance, kneeling in front of you again. You rest your head against his chest, the fabric of his shirt damp from your tears. His arms come around you, slow and sure.
You cry until you can’t anymore—quietly, your hands fisted in his shirt. He doesn’t tell you to stop. He doesn’t move to fix it.
Now it’s just the two of you again. Broken. Breathing. Holding on because there’s nothing else left to do.
┈┈・ ☣・┈┈
Joel didn’t give Tommy a choice to get you to move in with him.
He showed up the next day, the expression on his face enough to silence any argument before it began. Tommy stood there on the porch trying to say something that wouldn’t get his head bitten off. But when he looked at you—eyes blank, body barely holding itself upright—he just sighed, nodded once, and stepped aside.
The guest bedroom smelled faintly of cedar and dust, and cleaner than it should’ve been—like he’d gone through it himself and made it ready before he even brought you here. You didn’t thank him. You just sat down on the bed and stared at the wall until it blurred.
The first night, you cried so hard you made yourself sick. Joel stayed outside the door the whole time, boots heavy on the wood floor. He didn’t come in.
By the third night, he’d moved a chair into your room and sat there while you slept—if you could call it that.
Every memory twisted just enough to hurt. You’d wake up gasping, and Joel would already be there, and sometimes just murmur, “You’re alright,” though neither of you believed it.
By the end of the first week, he’d stopped pretending to sleep in his own bed. He just curled up at the foot of yours with a blanket and pillow, a quiet shadow. When you woke up sobbing, he was there. When you refused to eat, he was there, pressing a spoon into your mouth, his jaw tight with that quiet patience that looked more like punishment than care.
Never turned away when you cried from shame. Wiped your face clean. Tucked you in. Never said a word about it.
Tonight is like every one of those nights.
It starts before the sun sets. The light through the blinds looks too much like the color of fire, like the burning hospital, and something in your chest just snaps. You curl into yourself, hands gripping the blanket, and Joel’s there in a second, just coming off his patrol.
“Hey,” he says softly, like you might shatter if he breathes too hard. “Hey, now. Look at me.”
You don’t. You can’t. You’re somewhere else entirely.
He sits on the edge of the bed, careful, slow. “You’re safe,” he tries again. “You’re right here, darlin’.”
That word—it tears something open in you. You turn your face into the pillow and sob so violently your ribs ache. Joel just sits there. Then he moves closer, kneeling beside the bed, his hands braced on the mattress.
“It’s okay,” he whispers.
But it isn’t. It isn’t okay.
Your voice comes out hoarse, like you haven’t spoken in years. “She was scared.”
Joel freezes.
“She was—she was scared, and I wasn’t there.”
He swallows hard, the sound loud in the quiet room.
“I just know it.”
His jaw flexes, and his breath stutters. For a moment, he looks like he’s going to argue—but then he just lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh, only it’s broken right down the middle.
Joel drags both hands down his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until his knuckles go white. “I was supposed to protect her,” he chokes out. “That was my job. My one Goddamn job, and I failed.”
Your breath catches. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his arm.
He doesn’t flinch away.
“She was—she was so little,” you whisper.
He nods, eyes closed. His chest rises and falls too fast. “She was,” he breathes.
Neither of you speak for a while. You can hear the crickets outside. The faint, uneven hitch of his breathing.
When you finally speak, it’s a wish you didn’t plan to say.
“I wish Ellie’s knife killed me.”
Joel’s head snaps up.
“What?”
You meet his eyes—really meet them this time, even through the blur of tears. “That knife,” you say, voice breaking. “When she stabbed me—I didn’t think it then. But now…” Your throat locks. “It should’ve killed me. I can’t… can’t live in a world that took Sarah.”
He stares at you like you just reached into his chest and pulled out something he’d buried. His eyes glisten. His mouth opens, then closes again.
“Don’t say that,” he rasps.
“Joel—”
“Don’t,” he snaps, sharper now, voice cracking under the weight. “Don’t you ever say that. You hear me?”
You flinch. His hand shoots out before he can stop himself, gripping your wrist.
“I can’t lose you too,” he says, barely more than a whisper. “I can’t—I ain’t strong ‘nough for that.”
“You already lost me.”
“No. No, you’re still here. You’re breathin’. You’re here.”
Something inside you caves in. You don’t know which one of you moves first, but suddenly he’s holding you, arms around you tight enough to hurt, his face pressed to your shoulder. His whole body trembles.
You cling back. For the first time since you moved in, you hold him just as tightly.
He leans in until your foreheads touch again, his thumb brushing over the tear tracks on your cheek. There’s no logic in the way he looks at you—just devastation and recognition, like you’re both staring into the same pit and realizing you’ve been standing beside each other the whole time.
He stays that way until the trembling stops, until your breathing evens out, until the room softens around the edges. Then, quietly, he moves to the foot of the bed, to settle in like always.
But this time, when you reach out, your fingers find his sleeve.
He looks up, startled at first, like he’s not sure he felt what he did. Your hand stays there, curled into the fabric, your knuckles white.
“Don’t,” you whisper.
He blinks. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t go.”
The words come out small, almost childlike, and you hate how fragile they sound—but they’re true. Every piece of you feels hollow when he’s not near.
Joel’s throat works. He studies you like he’s trying to find the right answer in your face. “You sure?” he murmurs.
You nod, but it’s shaky. He still doesn’t move.
“I mean it,” he says again, voice rough. “You—don’t gotta say things you don’t—”
“I said don’t go.”
That’s all it takes. The bed dips when he sits beside you. You move without thinking—your hand on his shirt, then his chest, then his arm, like you’re checking to make sure he’s real.
He doesn’t stop you. You pull him closer.
He hesitates, every muscle in him tight, like he’s fighting instinct. His hand hovers in the air for a moment before it lands gently at your waist.
You tug him down until he’s lying beside you.
You can hear his heartbeat, feel the heat of him under your fingers. The two of you are stiff at first—two unfamiliar bodies trying to remember something that used to be second nature.
You don’t know what you’re doing. Neither does he.
He exhales against your temple, like he’s afraid the air itself might hurt you. You breathe him in, and it feels like something old and safe and terrifying all at once.
His hand finds yours under the blanket. His thumb moves, back and forth, the smallest stroke. You don’t realize you’re crying once more until he brushes one away with his knuckle.
He whispers something you can’t quite catch. Maybe it’s your name. Maybe it’s hers. You don’t ask. You just trace the rough line of his throat, the scars on his hand, the dip of his collarbone. He does the same, learning you by touch—your shoulder, your hair, the hollow at the base of your throat.
It’s clumsy, reverent, too gentle for how much it hurts.
You both crack there—slow, like spreading a fracture through glass. Thumb brushing along the edge of his jaw, his nose skimming your cheek, your jaw. He tucks you in against his chest. You listen to his heart until it steadies.
And this new ritual continues.
Time folds in on itself—weeks slide past like snowmelt, impossible to hold. You stop counting by days or calendars; you measure life instead by the smallest things.
The sound of boots at the door. The shape of his hand around a hammer, around a map, around the edge of your world.
By late November, you’ve grown familiar to the smell of coffee, sharp and earthy. He always makes two cups, one waiting for you by the sink. You don’t always drink it. Some days you only stand there, palms around the mug, letting the heat soak into your fingers until it cools.
He pretends not to watch. Sits at the table with a stack of repair notes or a half-folded map, eyes flicking up just long enough to catch you breathing. Sometimes you think he’s waiting to see if you’ll join him. You rarely do.
Instead, you spend time washing dishes. Folding blankets. You cook, sometimes—only simple things. Never what Sarah loved. Not the pancakes she’d drown in syrup, not the chicken stew she’d claim was “better than school lunch.” You can’t.
The world outside turns whiter, the light shorter each day. Ellie drifts in and out of the house, mostly keeping to the garage. You learn she’s been staying there. She has her own rhythm—friends, her girlfriend. It’s soft, watching her have something sweet.
Some days, Joel tries to coax you outside. Mentions the farmers’ meetings, the community dinners, the patrol schedules. You always shake your head.
“Maybe next week,” you say
He nods like he already knew. But he keeps asking.
And he keeps bringing things home. A pressed flower. A basket of foods you loved. A novel he found in the old library, the corners worn soft. He never makes a show of it. Just leaves them on the counter.
Sometimes you thank him.
Sometimes you just stare at the gift, fingertips brushing its edge, shock and disbelief running through your system.
Then one morning, the sky pale with early snowlight, you wake up to the house quiet. You move through the rooms on autopilot—bare feet against cold floors, the air sharp in your lungs.
You’re about to shower, something you’ve started looking forward to. You love the feeling of water washing away the ache, if only for a little while.
But when you open the drawer for clothes—nothing. Every shirt, every pair of jeans you’ve gathered from Maria and Tommy over the past few weeks is gone, tangled in the bottom of the basket. Unwashed.
You curse softly under your breath.
Passing through the kitchen, you spot a folded note on the counter. Joel’s handwriting—blocky, uneven.
Went to help at the barn.
Didn’t get to the laundry yet. My bad.
You can borrow whatever of mine you need.
—J.M.
You stare at it for a long time, thumb brushing over the edge of the paper. The thought of him doing your laundry hits you sideways. You can picture it too easily: at the sink, sleeves rolled up, that furrow between his brows.
Your face warms. You forgot he’s been the one washing your clothes. Your shirts. Your jacket. Your jeans.
Your bras.
Your panties.
God, you were married to the man for almost 15 years, yet now you were getting bashful and flushed over the fact that he was touching your underwear. You cursed your mind.
The note ends with a postscript, scribbled small:
Stay warm. Water heater’s touchy again—let it run first.
You let out a quiet, reluctant smile.
You take a shower. The water sputters and steams, hot enough to sting. You stand under it longer than you should, until the mirror fogs and your skin glows.
When you step out, the air bites against your damp hair. You wrap yourself in a towel and pad barefoot to his bedroom. The floorboards creak like they recognize you. The dresser drawers are stiff; they don’t like being opened. You rummage through the top one, the smell hitting you before your fingers even find it—cedar and faint tobacco.
Soft flannel. His.
You pause, thumb running over the collar, the worn edges. You haven’t worn Joel’s clothes in years—a whole lifetime has happened since. But the muscle memory is still there; you remember exactly how the fabric has been mended to shape.
You hesitate anyway.
“Jesus,” you whisper to no one. “You’re ridiculous.”
You slip it on.
The sleeves hang long, brushing your wrists, the fabric rough. It still smells like him, even washed. You close your eyes and breathe, until it almost hurts.
And suddenly you’re back there. In that other life.
The early mornings. The arguments about stupid shit. The way he’d leave his boots by the door and say, “I’ll get ‘em later,” and you’d roll your eyes and pick them up yourself. The nights when he’d come home late, exhausted and half-awake, and still manage to find you in the dark.
You don’t mean to move, but you do—backward, step by step, until your knees hit the edge of the bed. His bed. You fall onto it, the mattress giving beneath you. You press your face deeper into his pillow, chasing that comfort.
“Goddamn you,” you whisper into the cotton.
But what you mean is thank you.
It’s like being wrapped in him. And God, you’re terrified of what it means. Not of him—never of him—but of this. Of the way he lingers in everything.
He lingered on everything. Your soul, your life, your heart. Your body on those cold winter nights, him between your in a way only a lover knows how. Your body as you pinched and stroked you to ecstasy like it was his sole purpose.
Your breath hitches, and your fingers twitch against the fabric. You shouldn’t. You won’t. You’re stronger than this—or so you tell yourself. But your resolve frays like threadbare cloth.
Your hand moves before you can stop it, tentative at first, grazing the hem of his flannel. A shiver runs through you, sharp and electric.
No, you think, biting your lip hard enough to sting. Don’t do this.
But his voice echoes in your mind, soft and teasing, unraveling you.
C’mon, darlin’. Let go for me.
You’re lost in him, in this need whispered against your skin.
Your hand drifts lower, fingertips grazing the skin just above your knee. The touch is feather-light, testing.
You part your thighs, with cool air kissing your slick heat; you’re already drenched. When’s the last time you let yourself feel this? Years, maybe. Survival doesn’t leave room for want.
You slide through your folds, parting them, circling the swollen ache that built so quickly, just off his smell.
Please, Joel. Touch me. I’ve been so cold.
One finger slips inside, then another. The stretch is perfect, but not enough. You curl them, searching, and when you find that spot, your breath stumbles out in a broken moan.
You take me so good, baby. Always have.
You nod against the fabric, and then hastily pull the buttons undone down to your navel, and you push one side aside with trembling fingers.
Your breast spills free—flushed, nipple peaked tight. You cup it, thumb flicking with your nail once, twice, then pinching hard enough to make your breath hitch. The sting shoots straight to your cunt. You roll the nipple between finger and thumb, tugging until your back lifts off the mattress.
You move your head to the side, the collar in front of your nose, and you stay inhaling him while you fuck yourself on your fingers, deep, steady strokes that match the pulse in your ears.
The rhythm turns frantic. Wet sounds fill the small space, obscene and perfect. You add a third finger; the burn is exquisite. You imagine his weight pinning you down, hips snapping, voice rough in your ear.
You want me to come in the pussy I put a ring on?
You come with a muffled cry, body shuddering. Your walls clamp down, thighs trembling. Pleasure crashes in sharp, endless waves, your fingers still buried deep, slick coating your hand and the inside of your thighs.
The world narrows to the pulse of your heartbeat, the ragged rhythm of your gasps. Slowly, the waves ebb, leaving you trembling in their wake. Your hand falls away, slick and heavy, resting against your exposed breast. You don’t move to cover yourself.
The room is quiet again, save for the soft creak of the bedframe beneath your weight and the faint chirping of morning birds.
Your chest heaves, each breath a struggle. Staring at the ceiling, your eyes tracing the cracks as your mind catches up to your body. The pleasure lingers, but it’s drowned by the slow creep of something else.
Guilt, maybe.
You close your eyes, willing the thought away, but it lingers like the scent on the pillow, like your next thought:
You might be falling in love with your husband again.
┈┈・ ☣・┈┈
He was early.
You spotted him through the restaurant window, standing under the awning with one hand tucked into his jacket pocket, the other rubbing along his jaw. He looked… nervous. The sight did something funny to your stomach, seeing this broad, quiet man fidgeting like a teenager on prom night.
When he caught sight of you walking toward him, he straightened so fast it almost made you laugh. His hand dropped from his face, and a faint, almost shy smile tugged at his mouth.
“Hey,” he said, voice low and rough, that easy southern drawl curling around the word. “You look—uh. Nice.”
You smiled. “You too.”
He was wearing his usual—plaid shirt, denim jacket, jeans—but somehow it worked differently tonight. Maybe it was the effort. The way his hair was combed down, neat but still a little messy near the edges, or the fact that his boots looked like he’d actually wiped them off before coming.
The hostess seated you near the window. The two of you sat across from each other, menus up like shields, both pretending to read while you waited for the other to speak first.
“So,” Joel started after a few moments, clearing his throat. “Uh—”
You looked up. “Uh?”
“I should probably jus’—jus’ say this upfront.”
You set your menu down, a small smile forming. “Okay.”
He leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping against the table once before curling into a fist. “I got a kid,” he blurted. “Her name’s Sarah. She’s one. Almost two.”
He paused, eyes flicking between you and the salt shaker.
“She’s… well, she’s my whole damn world. I jus’ don’t wanna waste anyone’s time pretendin’ otherwise.”
He said it like he was bracing for a hit. His shoulders were stiff, jaw tight. You could tell it wasn’t something he said often—probably something he practiced in his head on the way here.
“You love her.”
He let out a breath, softer than a sigh. “Yeah. More’n I thought I could love anythin’, to be honest. It’s jus’ been me and her since—well, since birth.” His lips twitched, almost a smile. “So that’s kinda my life. I work, I come home, I make sure she eats somethin’ other than pancakes, and I pass out by nine. Not real excitin’.”
You grinned. “You sound like a good dad.”
That stopped him. He blinked, mouth opening like he didn’t quite know what to do with the words. “You ain’t—uh—you’re not scared off?”
“By a good dad?” you teased. “No. I think that’s actually kind of attractive.”
His ears went a little pink. He looked down, rubbed the back of his neck. “Well,” he murmured. “That’s a first.”
After that, the tension broke.
You asked him about his work—how long he’d been building houses—and his face lit up when he talked about it. He told you about learning carpentry, working with his brother Tommy. You told him about your job, about the people you worked with, the work politics he’d probably hate.
And then somehow the conversation drifted back to Sarah.
“She’s wild,” Joel said, shaking his head with a fond smile. “Got more attitude than I do. Last week she told Tommy he was ‘too old’ to play hide and seek.”
You laughed, and he grinned wider, encouraged.
“She’s obsessed with dinosaurs right now. Keeps askin’ me if there’s any still walkin’ ‘round Texas. I told her, no, but she says maybe there’s one hidin’ in the Hill Country.”
“She sounds smart.”
“Too damn smart, sometimes.” He took a sip of water, then added in a quieter voice, “Her mama—well. She ain’t ‘round. So I’m jus’ tryin’ to figure it out best I can.”
You didn’t press. You just nodded, the silence that followed soft.
Between courses, you caught him watching you once or twice—quick, flickering glances that he pretended didn’t happen when you met his eyes. He asked if your food was good, made a few jokes about the size of the portions, grumbled when the waiter brought him a fancy small plate that “wouldn’t fill a bird.”
It was nice. Simple.
By the time the check came, you felt lighter. The awkwardness from the start had melted into something easy, something warm. You tried to grab for your wallet, but Joel was faster, already sliding his card onto the tray.
“Joel—”
“Nope.”
“C’mon, at least let me—”
“Darlin’, don’t even try.”
You stared at him, fighting a smile. “Darlin’?”
He froze, caught off guard by his own mouth. “Oh. Uh—slipped out. Sorry.”
You laughed. “Don’t be.”
He looked down at his plate, hiding a grin.
When you stepped outside, the night was cool and damp. Streetlights hummed overhead, and the air smelled like rain waiting to happen. Joel walked beside you, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, close enough that your sleeve brushed his once or twice.
At your front door, he stopped.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “I had a lotta fun tonight. Really did.”
“Me too.”
He shifted, eyes darting between you and the porch light. “If you wanna… maybe—I don’t know—keep goin’. Not tonight, I mean—well, maybe tonight, but not like that—jus’… I mean, if you wanna see me ‘gain.”
You tried, you really did, but the laugh bubbled out anyway again. He went red to the ears.
“Sorry,” you said between breaths. “You’re just—”
“Terrible at this?”
“Adorable,” you corrected.
“Ain’t heard that one ‘fore.”
You stepped closer, your voice quieter. “Then I guess you were overdue.”
And before he could come up with another flustered thing to say, you leaned up and kissed him.
It was gentle, brief, testing. His breath hitched, the soft scratch of his stubble grazing your chin. But then he kissed you back, slow and certain.
When you finally pulled apart, both of you were smiling without meaning to.
“You wanna come inside?” you asked, barely above a whisper.
He hesitated, mouth curving into something between a grin and a question. “Sarah’s with Tommy.”
You blinked, and shook your head at your mind. “Right. So you should probably—”
“I’ll jus’ pay him more,” he said quickly, like it was the easiest decision in the world.
That made you laugh. “You sure?”
He looked at you, really looked at you, eyes soft and steady. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
You stepped back, opened the door. He followed you in.
The click of the lock behind you sounded louder than it should have. The rain started to fall outside, soft against the windows.
And that, was the start of it all.
┈┈・ ☣・┈┈
Lights wind around the lampposts, glowing gold through the frost, and you swear the whole town smells faintly of cinnamon and pine.
The crowds gathered around the tree—families, couples, kids running around with half-eaten cookies and sticky fingers. The fire pit crackles, throwing warmth into the cold night. You stand beside Tommy, watching Maria up on the platform giving a short speech about community, about making it through another winter together.
Tommy’s got Benji in his arms. The kid’s nodding off, head tucked under his chin, thumb hanging loose from his mouth. His curls are sticking up in every direction.
You lean a little closer, smile softly. “He’s about two minutes from a faceplant.”
Tommy grins, voice low so he doesn’t wake the boy. “Yeah, he’s a fighter though. Ain’t givin’ in easy.”
Benji stirs, blinking up at you with heavy-lidded eyes. You offer your arms without thinking. “Want me to take him?”
Tommy looks between you and the sleepy kid, then chuckles. “Hey, bud, wanna go over to Aunt, huh?”
Aunt. You’re not even sure he realizes he said it until your throat tightens. You just nod, arms open, and Benji reaches for you without hesitation.
He’s warm and smells like sugar. His little hand curls into your jacket as his head droops against your shoulder. You sway a little, rocking him out of habit you thought you’d forgotten.
Tommy watches, something soft flickering in his expression. “You always were good with kids,” he says.
You smile, brushing a curl from Benji’s forehead. “Guess it’s like riding a bike.”
“Yeah,” Tommy murmurs. “One hell of a bike.”
You don’t respond. Your eyes trace the curve of Benji’s lashes, the faint freckles under his eyes. He’s got that same Miller look—those brown eyes, that furrow even when he’s half-asleep. You’ve seen it in Tommy. In Joel. In Sarah.
Your chest tightens. You look away before Tommy can see the wet shine starting in your eyes.
Maria’s speech winds down, her voice softening into a smile. The crowd claps. Maria steps off the platform, her eyes finding Tommy and Benji immediately.
“There’s my boys,” she says, coming over.
She holds her arms out for Benji. He mumbles something sleepy, reaching one hand back toward you before his head falls against Maria’s shoulder.
“Out cold,” she whispers, smiling.
You nod, hands feeling strangely empty once he’s gone.
The music starts again—a few people strumming guitars, someone singing off-key but earnest. Around you, people start exchanging small, wrapped gifts. You’d almost forgotten you brought yours.
“Hey,” you murmur, reaching into your coat pocket and pulling out the little parcel. “This is for Benji.”
Tommy takes it, grinning as he peels back the paper. Inside is a tiny carved horse, the wood polished smooth, the details careful—each line of the mane precise. You spent weeks finding it, trading with an older man in the workshop who’d carved it by hand.
“Look at this,” Tommy says, awe threading through his voice. “You serious? You got this for him?”
You shrug, a little bashful. “He’s obsessed with the ones you keep in the barn. Figured he needed one he can keep in his pocket.”
Maria smiles, kissing her son’s temple. “He’s gonna love it.”
You hand her two more small bundles—one for each of them. A new leather glove set for Tommy, stitched tight and warm. A scarf for Maria, deep green, softer as anything you’ve felt in years.
Tommy whistles low. “You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to.”
They glance at each other. That wordless kind of look. Then Maria reaches behind her coat and pulls out a square, neatly wrapped in cloth.
“This one’s from us.”
“You didn’t—”
“Jus’ open it,” he says, voice low.
The paper rustles softly. You fold it back, careful with the corners. Then your breath catches.
It’s a photo.
A real, glossy photo in a simple wooden frame. The edges yellowed with age but the image clear.
You and Joel—both asleep, tangled up on a sunlit porch. His arm draped across your waist. Your head resting against his chest. Sarah’s in the background, hands on her hips, grinning at the camera like she’s in on a secret. And in the far corner, barely visible in the reflection, a familiar shadow—Tommy, holding the camera.
Your throat closes.
You trace the edge of the frame with your thumb. “Tommy… how—”
“After the outbreak,” he says quietly, staring into the fire instead of at you. “First couple years. Went back to Austin. Most of it was gone, but the photo box was still there. Been keepin’ it safe.”
You don’t realize you’re crying until the tears blur the image in your hands. You blink fast, but it doesn’t stop the ache building in your chest.
“I thought they were all gone,” you whisper.
Tommy shrugs, smiling a little.
You step forward and hug him. Tight. Your arms around his shoulders, the photo pressed between you so you don’t drop it. He hesitates, then holds you back just as firmly.
Maria watches with a soft smile, Benji sleeping peacefully against her.
You pull back eventually, eyes red, voice rough. “Thank you,” you murmur.
Tommy’s face is all soft lines. “Go eat. You look like you’ll fall into the fire otherwise.” He grins and gestures toward the Tipsy Bison like he’s offering you heaven on a platter.
It smells like cinnamon and cheap liquor and something toasted that turns your stomach into guilty wanting. You thread through people, keeping the picture safe against your ribs. The crowd moves slow; laughter spills from somewhere, and someone is playing the guitar off-key and everyone loves it anyway.
A man steps in front of you—too close, his breath warm with old-cologne regret. He’s around your age, maybe a decade younger if you squint, wearing a patched jacket and confidence like it’s a badge.
“You lookin’ lonely,” he says, grin crooked. “Mind if I—”
“I’m not,” you say. Your smile is small and final. You tuck the word away and step to the side to keep the crowd moving. You make it to the bar, and order your drink. It comes quickly.
He doesn’t take the hint, following you. “Come on, lighten up. I’ve got a bottle with your name on it.”
“Not interested,” you say, firmer. The drink in your hand clinks. You can feel the edges of the photo under your palm like a talisman.
He laughs like you’re the joke. “Someone’s touchy. You look like you could use a good time.”
“Or maybe you could use a lesson,” you say. “Either way, back off.”
People nearby glance. A woman in a knitted hat gives you a sympathetic look; a boy laughs and points. The man’s jaw tightens. He takes a step closer until his fingers brush your arm.
“Don’t,” you say. Loud enough now. Heads turn.
He bends, leans in. “I said—”
You lift the cup and pour. The liquor arcs, wet and immediate, over his face. His hair plastered flat, his mouth opens in surprise, then anger.
“Jesus—” he spits, hand flying to his face. His laugh is gone. He wipes at his eyes, fury hot and immediate.
“Don’t touch me,” you snap. “Don’t touch any woman who doesn’t want it. Fuck off asshole.”
He glares at you, anger thick enough to taste.
The he moves.
Your body reacts before your brain: the shove, the pressure of a palm against his chest to put distance between you and the hand that hovered too long. Something clamps down on your neck—hard—and cold fingers braided through your hair. Pain flares hot along your scalp as he pulls. Instinct roars, everything narrowing to the shape of the man’s face.
You twist, ready to break his nose, but you doesn’t get the chance.
A blur of motion—then the man’s body jerks sideways. He hits the ground hard, air leaving him in a grunt.
You stumble away from the sudden relief of pressure on your head. You cradle it, and look over your shoulder with harsh breaths.
Joel’s there.
Not the quiet Joel. Not the ‘coffee in the morning’ Joel. Not the Joel who sleeps in your bed, holding you tight. This is something else. A version of him pulled straight out of the man you met at the gas station—feral and unfiltered. His chest heaves once before he moves again, towering over the man.
“Get your fuckin’ hands off my wife!”
The words tear out of him, raw, louder than the music, louder than the people shouting. And then he’s on him.
Fists. Over and over. Flesh hitting flesh, the sound thick and wet. Someone screams his name.
Joel doesn’t hear. He’s somewhere else: lost to the sound of his own heartbeat, to the cruelty of a world that took too much from him and dared to reach for you.
“Joel!” you shout, pushing through the people trying to pull him off. “Joel, stop!”
He doesn’t.
You grab his shoulder, hard, nails digging into the fabric of his jacket.
That gets him. His fist hangs midair, knuckles split, breath ragged. He turns. His eyes—they’re wild. Like he doesn’t even recognize where he is.
Then he sees you.
The rage drains fast, leaving him pale. His hands fall. He looks down at the man beneath him, half-conscious, face bleeding into the floor. The silence that follows is brutal. Everyone’s staring. No one moves.
Joel’s chest rises and falls, too fast. Then he stands, his hands—bloodied and shaking—on your face.
“Hey. Hey, look at me. You okay?” His voice cracks halfway through, the old, broken edge of it cutting through everything else. His thumbs brush your cheeks, leaving streaks of red. “He hurt you? Tell me if he did.”
You shake your head, swallowing hard. You’re fine. You were fine. You always were.
He growls something at your lack of words, looking around the crowd before tucking you against his side and his hand steady at your back. You can hear the crowd murmuring, whispers darting like fish through water.
Exiting the Tipsy Bison, you spot Tommy’s face through the haze—brows drawn, mouth tight. Maria’s beside him, arms crossed, listening to someone whisper in her ear. Her expression doesn’t change.
You hold your photo tighter. You stare straight ahead, past the people, past the lights.
The fear comes slow.
Maybe Joel did love you once. Maybe he still did. But you can’t stop thinking about what love costs now. What it demands.
He doesn’t speak until you’re well past the town square, the noise fading behind you. The snow crunches under your boots, slow and steady, the kind of silence that feels heavier than shouting.
Then you pull away.
“Stop,” you say.
He does, immediately. Turns to you in the middle of the empty street, breath clouding in the cold. Snow gathers in his beard, catches on his lashes. He looks older like this—softer really, though the blood on his hands hasn’t dried yet.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “If I scared you. I didn’t mean to. I’m—so sorry, darlin’.”
You shake your head, words shaking with your breath. “No. It’s not that. I just—” You press a hand to your chest. “I can’t do this anymore.”
His brow furrows. “Can’t do what?”
“This,” you say. You motion between you, your voice thin. “You. Me. The way you—look at me like I’m still…” You stop, shaking your head. “Like we’re still the same people.”
He steps closer, hand half-raised, hesitant. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“You scare me, Joel.”
The words hang there, suspended. You can see the way they hit him, like a punch he doesn’t block.
He blinks. “What?”
“You scare me,” you repeat, quieter now. “Not because of what you did. But because you think you owe it to me. Like I’m still yours.”
“You are mine.”
You close your eyes. The snow’s starting to fall harder, catching on your lashes. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
He shakes his head, steps forward again, pleading. “I didn’t mean to lose control. I jus’—he touched you, and I saw red. I couldn’t—hell, I ain’t proud of it, but I’d do it ‘gain if it meant—”
“Joel.” You interrupt, firm. “Just stop.”
He freezes mid-sentence, mouth still open like the air left him.
You take a step back. Then another. “You keep saying you’re sorry, but you’re not. You’re still justifying it. You think it’s love, but it’s not. It’s fear. It’s control. You think if you hold on tight enough, you won’t lose me again.”
His chest rises and falls, ragged. “You don’t understand—”
“You were my husband,” you say, your voice shaking now. “You were the best thing I had. And then the world ended, and I lost you. I learned to live without you. To fight. To protect myself. And now—now you’re back, and I don’t know how to breathe with you around, yet at the same time I can’t. You smother me, Joel.”
“I ain’t tryin’ to smother you, I’m tryin’ to keep you alive.”
“I don’t need you to keep me alive,” you fire back. “I already did that for twenty years without you.”
He takes a step closer, voice breaking. “I don’t know how to not care ‘bout you. You understand? I don’t know how to turn that off. I’ve already lost everythin’ once, I can’t—”
“But you aren’t my husband anymore.”
He stops cold.
The snow falls thicker now, lazy flakes settling in his hair, catching in his lashes. His breath comes out uneven, fogging the air between you. He looks at you like he’s trying to recognize a face in a dream—one that keeps slipping away every time he blinks.
“No.”
“Joel—”
“No.” He shakes his head hard, eyes wide, something wild behind them. “Don’t say that. Don’t—don’t do that to me.”
You step forward, voice soft. “Joel, listen to me—”
“You don’t get to just say that like it’s some Goddamn fact. Like it ain’t—” He cuts himself off, running a hand down his face, the motion trembling. “Y’think I can jus’ stop bein’ your husband ‘cause the world went to shit?”
You feel your throat close. “That’s not what I—”
“‘Cause I never stopped.” His voice cracks, raw and broken. “Not for one second. Every day, I—” He presses a fist against his chest, like he’s trying to hold something in. “I woke up, and I thought of you. I went to sleep thinkin’ of you. When I saw—when I saw Ellie—I thought, ‘you’d like her,’ because I still—still thought about what you’d like.”
“Joel…”
He’s breathing hard now, his voice shaking. “Y’think I don’t know what I am? What I’ve done? Y’think I don’t hate myself every time I look in the mirror? But I never—” He stops. His jaw clenches, and then, in a shaky motion, he reaches for the zipper of his coat.
“Don’t—stop—”
But he’s already pulling it open, shoving the heavy fabric aside. His fingers dig under his flannel, and when something comes out, something holding on a thin chain.
The moonlight catches it. A dull glint of gold. A wedding band, pressed against his chest like a second heartbeat.
You go still.
Your throat burns, but no sound comes out.
“I didn’t wear it for twenty-somethin’ years, carried it ‘round in my pocket,” he says hoarsely. His eyes glisten, fixed on yours. “Couldn’t. Didn’t feel right. But when I found you ‘gain, when I—when I saw you—” His hand trembles as he grips the ring. “I started wearin’ it ‘gain.”
You stare at him, lips parting, chest heaving with too many emotions at once.
“I thought of you every day,” he says, voice rough as gravel. “Beat myself bloody over losin’ you and Sarah. Over not savin’ you. And now you stand here and tell me I ain’t your husband.” His voice cracks. “How the hell am I supposed to live with that?”
You want to speak. You want to tell him that this isn’t fair. But when you open your mouth, nothing comes out.
Because your hands are already moving.
You reach up, fingers shaking, fumbling at your collar. The chain catches against your skin as you pull it free, and the air leaves your lungs when you pull our your own glint of gold.
Joel’s breath stutters. He takes a half step forward, like he’s afraid it’ll disappear if he gets too close. His lips part, trembling.
“You… you didn’t have it, when you left. How did you—”
“I couldn’t let it go.”
He makes a sound—half sob, half gasp—and suddenly he’s moving.
The distance between you collapses in a heartbeat. His arms are around you before you can breathe, before you can think, and then you’re both crashing together like you’ve been pulled by the same gravity. His mouth finds yours, desperate, broken, and you respond just as fiercely, clinging to him like he’s the only thing holding you upright.
The picture slips from your hand, falling face-down into the snow. You don’t even notice.
You taste salt—tears, his or yours, you can’t tell. His hands are in your hair, on your back, clutching, trembling. Yours are pressed to his chest, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat under your palms, the metal of the ring chain warm against your fingers.
He pulls back just enough to look at you. His forehead rests against yours, breath mingling in the freezing air.
“Please,” he mutters against your lips, his voice trembling like the rest of him. “Don’t—don’t go.”
“No,” you whisper back, voice rough, almost lost in the wind. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He chokes again, pulling the picture from the snow with shaking hands. His eyes go wide and hollow for a second, taking in what it is, before the sound escapes him—low, guttural, broken.
“C’mon,” he says hoarsely, tugging you toward him. “Let’s go… home.”
“Okay.”
He pulls you in close again as he guides you down the snow-lined street toward home. Rancher Street comes into view, quiet and empty, the glow of porch lights soft against the dark.
Inside, the house smells faintly of woodsmoke and something sweet. You see light spilling from the garage; Ellie’s there.
Joel sets the picture frame down gently on the entry table, reverent almost, before his attention snaps back to you. He steps forward, pressing you harshly against him again. A kiss, long and desperate, his hands clutching at your arms, your shoulders, like he’s relearning your weight against his.
You reach to his side, and he lets out a sharp wince against your lips. He curses softly, half-grunt, half-groan. “Joel—” you start, moving to check, but he shakes his head.
“Don’t care. Keep goin’,” he insists.
He leans in again, brushing against your lips, but you step back, firm. “No. Joel, c’mon. Sit.”
He huffs, muttering, but follows your gesture, settling onto the couch where you point. You rush to the kitchen, retrieving the small medical kit you know is there. When you return, he’s already watching you, breathing a little faster, eyes shadowed with something between exhaustion and longing.
“Take it off,” you instruct softly.
He frowns but complies without argument, peeling off the heavy winter coat, then the flannel, then the shirt beneath. Now bare to the waist, he’s different. The chest beneath your hands is broad, scarred, marked by years you don’t need to ask about. Hair dusts his shoulders and chest. His wedding band glints at the center, catching the firelight.
Your fingers move to the red mark forming along his ribs. You hiss softly, careful, cleaning and pressing gently. He leans into you, eyes closed, letting the quiet comfort of your care anchor him.
“You need to be careful. You aren’t young anymore, can’t heal at the same rate. We can only hope that it just stays a bruise and not something really bad.”
He doesn’t answer with words, just tilts his head, the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly. Then, without thinking, his hand brushes a strand of hair back from your face.
You feel it deep in your chest. The brush of his fingers lingers longer than necessary, a gentle weight that makes your pulse catch.
You can tell he’s unsure what to say, and for once, it’s the same for you. Just the storm, the couch, the soft clink of mugs.
Joel’s thumb traces along your jaw, quiet, careful. He’s watching you, and it makes your chest ache.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” you finally whisper, voice soft, almost swallowed by the roar of the snow.
You shift closer, letting your forehead rest against his. There’s something in the way he exhales, a tension you’ve both been holding for months, released in the brush of skin to skin.
There’s a beat of silence, and then another. Neither of you moves. The room shrinks until it’s just you, him, and the heat simmering between your bodies.
You finally tilt your head up, catching his eyes.
Both of you know what the other wants. Words aren’t needed in a relationship like yours and Joel’s.
“I… are you sure?” you still check. “It might be too much. And your side might be—”
“Darlin’.”
“Yes?”
He leans up to press a quick kiss to your temple. “Stop talkin’.”
You smile just a fraction. He drags you down to be on the couch with him. Then, slower than you expect compared to before, he lowers his head, lips brushing yours—soft, tentative.
Your body responds instantly. Your hands roam from his back to your chest. He moans softly, lips parting, teeth grazing, tongues brushing, and you taste him like you’d dreamed of for countless nights.
Your hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, and he responds in kind, his grip firm on your waist, his body pressing into yours.
The kiss turns into a tug-of-war, pull and counter-pull, lips and hands claiming, taking, giving in equal measure.
In the midst of it, you find yourself on his lap, heart pounding. It’s been years since you’ve experienced anything like this, and your body recalls only fragments.
Your cheeks flush, and you give him a shy, light peck on the lips.
Joel pauses briefly, pulling back just enough to study your face with concern and intensity. “Hey… are you ‘kay?” he asks, his voice low and gentle.
“I’m fine,” you reply, slightly breathless, hands resting on his shoulders. “It’s just… been a while.”
His lips curve into a small, crooked smile. “You’re ain’t alone in that.”
Relief washes over you, comforting you like a warm blanket.
Joel’s hands steady your hips, guiding you as you press against him. Your hips move together, a desperate rhythm. The couch creaks faintly beneath you, but neither of you notices.
Your hands slide up to his neck, fingers threading into the hair at his nape, and he lets out a low, shuddering breath. His eyes darken, watching you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.
“Goddamn,” he breathes, almost to himself, his voice rough with awe. “Look at you.”
You feel the heat rise in your cheeks, but there’s no room for embarrassment. The rhythm slows, and he leans back and before you can process it, he’s easing you off his lap, guiding you to lie back.
He kneels between your legs, his movements unhurried. His fingers find the hem of your jacket and shirt, and he pauses, looking to you for permission. You nod, and he peels the fabric away, exposing your skin to the cool air. His hands move to your jeans next, unbuttoning them. You lift your hips, helping him slide them off, leaving you in just your panties and bra.
Joel sits back on his heels, his eyes raking over you. He huffs out a breath, a low sound that’s half awe, half restraint. His fingers trace a slow path over the fabric covering your slit, and you both shiver at the contact.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “One thing I forgot was how pretty you looked in these. How fuckin’… soft.”
You whimper, the sound escaping before you can stop it. His eyes flick up to meet yours, and his expression shifts to something almost pleading.
“Touch yourself. Wanna see.”
You hesitate for a moment, but his gaze is patient, urging you on without pressure. Slowly, you slide your fingers down, pulling your panties to the side. You touch yourself, tentative at first, moving through slick, then with more confidence as you feel his eyes on you.
Joel groans, a deep, guttural sound. His hand moves to the front of his jeans, unzipping them but not pulling them down, just enough to let his bulge sit heavy in his boxers. You swallow hard, your eyes flicking to the outline of him, your fingers faltering.
“Keep goin’,” he murmurs, his voice strained. “Need somethin’ pretty to watch. My cock… it don’t work the same no more, but you—” He breaks off, his hand palming himself through the fabric. “You’re doin’ so good.”
His words sink into you, warm and safe, fueling the fire. You circle quicker, your fingers finding a rhythm, and Joel’s breath grows uneven.
He shifts, pulling his boxers down just enough to free himself, his soft cock in his hand as he begins to stroke slowly. The sight makes your breath hitch, and you reach behind to unclasp your bra, letting it fall away. Your skin prickles under his gaze, and a flicker of insecurity creeps in.
“I’m… sorry,” you mumble, eyes dropping. “My body’s not what it used to be.”
Joel’s hand stills, and a low growl rumbles from his chest. “Get that the fuck outta your head,” he says, his voice sharp but not unkind. “I ain’t a catch, darlin’ no more. Look at me—gray hairs, creaky knees. But you? You’re still everythin’.”
You moan softly, emboldened, and slip a finger through your folds, the stretch drawing a shudder through your body. His gaze darkens, his strokes growing firmer as his cock hardens, springing up against his soft belly.
Without warning, Joel leans forward, his hands finding your waist. “C’mere,” he says, and before you can protest, he’s standing and pulling you up with him, and promptly bent down to put you over his shoulder with a grunt.
You gasp, your center of gravity thrown off.
“Joel, don’t show off!” you say, swatting at his back.
He chuckles low, and gives your ass a smack as he climbs the stairs. “Don’t matter if I’m sixty or thirty-six, darlin’. I’m makin’ sure you don’t lift a damn finger.”
The world tilts back to normal as he sets you down on his bed with a huff. He steps back, eyes raking over you, then lies back on the bed, his hand brushing his lips as he looks over at you.
“Sit,” he says, his voice low and commanding.
Your cheeks flush, and you hesitate, glancing down at yourself. “I’m… I’m too heavy,” you murmur, voice barely above a whisper.
“’Gain with this? Sit, darlin’. I ain’t askin’.” His hand reaches for yours, and the certainty in his voice pulls you past your hesitation.
You slip your soaked panties off and move to hover over his face, your thighs framing his head, your own gaze drawn to his hardened cock, now fully erect and resting against his stomach. Joel’s hands grip your hips, and with a low growl, he pulls you down, his tongue finding you with familiar skill that makes you gasp.
The heat of his mouth, the way he works you, makes you wetter than you thought possible.
Your eyes drift to his cock, and you lean forward, your breath catching as you take in the sight of him. Tentatively, you reach out, your fingers brushing against the ridges, and Joel groans against you, “Keep touchin’ me.” he mumbles into you, his voice muffled.
You wrap your hand around him, stroking slowly, matching the rhythm of his tongue. “You’re so good,” you whisper, barely aware of the words spilling out. “Joel, I—”
His hands guide your hips, urging you to move faster, and you comply, grinding harder against his mouth as your hand works him in tandem. Suddenly, a thought crosses your mind, and before you can shy away, you lean forward further, taking him into your mouth, and Joel’s hips buck slightly, a choked groan escaping him.
You hum around him, the vibration drawing another groan from deep in his chest. Pre cum fills your mouth, and you kitten lick at the tip. You can feel Joel’s thighs tense around your head, his groans against your pussy groaning.
The rhythm between you grows frantic, you sucking deep with hollow cheeks, his tongue entering and exiting.
“Joel—” you gasp, pulling back just enough to speak. “I’m close—oh fuck—shit, shit, shit!”
He doesn’t respond with words, but his tongue moves with renewed purpose, pushing you closer to the edge. The tension in your core snaps, and you come undone, a wave of pleasure crashing through you as you cry out, your body trembling against his mouth.
You ride it out, hips moving instinctively, chasing every last pulse of sensation until your breath steadies and you slump forward.
Joel’s hands are gentle now, easing you off him as he shifts beneath you. Before you can catch your breath, he flips you onto your side with a swift, the sudden change making your head spin. You laugh, breathless and a little indignant.
“Joel, you gotta stop manhandling me like that.
He chuckles, his eyes glinting with mischief, his cock pressed flush against your ass. “What, you don’t like it?” he teases, leaning over shoulder, his hand braced on your side. “Thought you’d be used to me by now.”
For a moment, neither of you speaks. Joel’s gaze locks on yours, and he moves closer, notching himself against your sopping core. This feels different—different to all the touching and kissing and sweet gestures. Like the years apart have carved out a space that only this moment can fill. .
You turn your head, looking over your shoulder, and the sight of him—his weathered face, the gray in his stubble, the liver spots on his face, the unguarded emotion in his eyes—hits you like nothing before. Tears prick at your eyes, unbidden, and your voice trembles as you speak.
“I’ve missed you.”
He groans like you stabbed him.
“...I love you.”
He lets out a sound that’s half pleasure, half pain, and pushes into you slowly, filling you with a tenderness. “I love you too,” he says, his voice rough with emotion, cracking slightly on the words. “Always have. Always fuckin’ will.”
Your lips meet over your shoulder, the kiss sloppy and desperate, but neither of you cares. It’s love, pouring into every messy press of lips, every shared breath.
His hands find yours, fingers lacing together, grounding you as he moves, slow and deep, each thrust a reclamation of what you’ve both lost.
His forehead rests against your shoulder, and you feel the tremor in his grip. “Missed you so damn much,” he murmurs, like a secret meant just for you. “Thought I’d never get this ‘gain.”
“Me too,” you whisper, your voice thick with tears. “I didn’t think… I didn’t know if we’d ever—”
“Don’t think all that,” he cuts in softly, his lips brushing your shoulder. “We’re here now. That’s what matters.”
You nod, and let the moment carry you. His movements grow steadier, more purposeful, and you match him, like when things were simpler, when it was just you and him against the world.
His hand slides up your side, resting over your heart, and you feel its frantic beat under his palm, mirroring his own. Eventually, his hand holds your ring, holding so tight your worried it might snap off, but all you can focus on is the pleasure and the cold sting of his own ring against your back.
You feel the tension coiling in your core, and Joel’s movements falter slightly, his own release building. “Your close…” he simply notes, his lips brushing your ear.
“Yes…” you breathe, your voice trembling. “You?”
“Fuck, yeah,” he mutters, a faint chuckle in his voice, but it’s laced with something else. “Together, alright? Stay with me.”
His hand moves to your cheek, turning your face so he can look at you, and the vulnerability in his eyes undoes you. You move together, faster now, chasing the edge together.
You cry out, your body trembling as the pleasure overtakes you, and Joel groans, deep and guttural, his grip tightening as he spills into you, his forehead pressed to your shoulder. His cum fills you warm and sticky.
Your bodies shudder together. You’re both gasping, clinging to each other, the intensity leaving you both raw and exposed.
For a moment, neither of you speaks, staying tangled together, his arms wrapped around you, your fingers still laced with his. The silence is comforting, a space where words aren’t needed.
Joel shifts slightly, his breath still uneven, and reaches for his handkerchief on the nightstand. “C’mere,” he murmurs, his voice soft but steady. He gently wipes the sweat from your skin, his hands careful and deliberate. You lean into his touch, your body relaxing under his care.
“You okay?” he asks, his eyes searching yours, concern etched into the lines of his face.
“More than okay,” you whisper. “You?”
“I’m good.” His thumb lingers on your cheek, and for a moment, the world feels soft, safe, just the two of you.
His eyes search yours, and then, something sparks behind them.
He sits up with a sudden burst of energy, slipping out of you gently. “Sit with me.” He gestures to the edge of the bed, his voice gentle but insistent. Your dazed, but you still follow him, pulling the covers with you. You wrap yourself and Joel underneath the sheet, pressed flush against each other.
No words are traded, no noise, nothing but feelings.
Joel’s hand moves to the chain around his neck. He tugs it, snapping it free. He holds your gaze, then reaches for your neck. You swallow hard, your heart pounding, but you nod, giving him permission. He tugs, and the chain breaks with a quiet snap, falling away.
He unspools the rings from their respective chains, tossing the broken metal over his shoulder without a second glance. He stares at them, his eyes glistening, and you feel your own throat tighten.
“What are you doing.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Are you going to make me guess?”
Mwah!
“Joel…”
Mwah!
You giggled this time, voice caught somewhere between exasperation and a smile. “Joel.”
Mwah! Mwah!
“Oh my God! You’re gonna ruin my hair!”
He didn’t stop. He kissed you once more—loudly, obnoxiously—right on the top of your head, arms wrapped around you so tight you could barely fight him off.
“Joel, what are you doing with our rings?”
He looks down at them, tracing the gold edge.
Then he began to speak, low and raw.
“I loved you ‘fore everythin’, y’know?”
“I know baby.”
“I loved you in every sunrise I saw without you, every quiet night I spent thinkin’ of you. I loved you through fear, through anger, through losin’ myself trying to find you ‘gain. And I… I still love you. Always have, always will.”
Tears spring to your eyes, and you hide your face against his shoulder.
“I never stopped,” you whisper. “Not once.”
“I know darlin’.”
His hand lifts yours, and together you trade rings—his for yours, yours for his—as a silent acknowledgment of every scar, every loss, every year separated.
“I vow,” he continues, voice steady despite the tremor beneath it, “To keep findin’ you. To stand with you through the shit, through hell. Ain’t ever let you feel alone, not ‘gain. You are my heart, my home, my life.
He swallowed.
“My wife.”
You reach for his hands, steadying them in yours. “And I vow… I vow to love you. To stay by you side, never let something come in between us again. I will walk with you, always.”
You smiled wider than you have in years.
“My husband.”
The rings slip onto fingers that know each other so intimately.
You pull each other close, pressing foreheads together. And then, finally, lips meet—slow, then urgent, sure. A kiss that stitches together all the lost time.
And you knew—this was how it was always meant to be.
pairing: husband!Joel Miller × f!reader
summary: The worst part about injuring his hand isn’t the pain. It’s having to take off his wedding ring—and being unable to jerk off properly. Luckily, Joel has a wife who’s more than happy to lend him a hand.
a/n: I’ve had a really rough few weeks, so this is pretty much unedited! A little Joel never hurts when you’re trying to pull yourself out of a slump, I guess ❤️🩹
warnings: smut, established relationship, implied age-gap, husband!joel, male masturbation, shower handjob, praise kink, “good boy” used two times, dirty talk, teasing (kinda), male orgasm, mild injury and pain, mentions of urgent care and painkillers, caretaking, aftercare and a lot of love!
wc: 5634 k
I’d love to know what you thought, so please don’t be shy and leave me a little comment. Hearing from you truly means so much to me .⋆❀°
The shower had been running long enough for you to read the same paragraph three times.
Joel had claimed the heat might help his hand, although the doctor had prescribed ice, elevation and several days without gripping anything. The X-ray had shown no fracture. Joel had treated that information like permission to ignore the rest, trying to open the truck door with his injured hand before you had even left urgent care. By dinner, the bruising had spread in deep violet shadows across his knuckles, and you had needed soap to ease his wedding band over the swelling.
That had bothered him more than the pain.
He had watched you work the ring slowly over his knuckle, his mouth set in a hard line, and when it finally slipped free into your palm, his thumb had rubbed once over the pale indentation it left behind.
“Only for a few days, honey,” you had told him.
“I know, I know.”
But he continued staring at his empty finger until you placed the band on the bedside table beside your own things, safely within view.
You opened his painkillers, replaced his bandage and left him to shower while you climbed into bed with your book. But the water continued to run and you had retained nothing from the page before you.
You closed the book.
“Joel?”
No answer.
You glanced at the clock, set the book aside and crossed the bedroom.
Steam rolled through the bathroom when you opened the door. His discarded bandage lay damp beside the sink, his clothes gathered in a careless heap near the hamper. The mirror had fogged completely, but through the glass of the shower you could make out the broad, blurred shape of him standing beneath the water.
“Joel?” you called again.
No answer came, though beneath the steady rush you heard the faint scrape of skin against tile, followed by a low curse that was unmistakably his.
You undressed and stepped inside quietly, drawing a breath when the hot water struck your shoulder.
Joel stood with his back to you.
He had his head bowed and his right arm braced against the wall from elbow to wrist, protecting the swollen hand from bearing his weight. Even in the softened light, you could see the mottled bruising across his knuckles, his fingers held stiff and slightly apart. His left palm rested lower on the tile. His broad shoulders were drawn tight, every muscle along his back rigid beneath the water as it streamed through the silver beginning to thread the dark curls at the nape of his neck. It followed the shallow groove of his spine, split around the soft fullness above his hips and disappeared between his legs.
For several seconds, you simply watched him.
His left arm moved, but the motion lacked the steady, practiced rhythm you knew, his fist travelling over his cock with an awkwardness that seemed to frustrate him more each time. He adjusted his grip, tried again and shifted his hips forward, chasing a sensation his other hand could not quite give him. His shoulders tightened. A harsher curse slipped from him when his injured fingers flexed instinctively against the tile.
The sight sent heat through you with such sudden force that your breath caught.
Joel touching himself would always affect you—the thick length of him flushed dark in his fist, water shining over the soft curve of his stomach and the wet hair beneath his navel—but it was the vulnerability of the moment that drew you closer. This was the man who noticed when your shoulders hurt before you complained, who left water on your bedside table every night because you always woke thirsty, who could read the smallest change in your breathing beneath his hands and know whether you needed more, less, faster, slower. He had spent years learning every language your body spoke.
Yet he stood alone beneath the water, unable to give himself what he needed, too proud to call for you and too stubborn to stop trying.
You stepped closer without speaking.
He was so absorbed in the effort that he did not hear the shower door close behind you. He did not notice the water shift when your body interrupted its path or the quiet whisper of your bare feet against the tile. It was only when you placed your mouth between his shoulder blades, lips pressing softly to the center of his wet back, that his entire body jolted.
“Jesus!”
His head turned sharply. Pain flashed across his face when his injured fingers contracted against the wall, and he forced them open again with a hiss.
“Didn’t hear you, darlin’.”
“I noticed, baby.”
Your lips moved over his back once more, slower this time. Water ran between your mouth and his skin, tasting faintly of soap. Up close, the heat of him felt different from the heat surrounding you, deeper and alive, held taut beneath skin that shivered when you kissed the raised ridge of an old scar near his shoulder.
“What’re you doin’ in here?” he asked.
“Checking on my handsome husband.”
You rested your chin against him and looked down the length of his body. His left hand had gone still, the grip around himself loosening now that he knew you were watching. Embarrassment was not something Joel wore easily; on him, it appeared as a stubborn tilt of his chin and a refusal to look directly at you.
“Looks like I was right to worry.”
“Ain’t anythin’ to worry about.”
“You’ve been in here twenty minutes.”
“Lost track.”
“That so?”
Your palms settled at his waist and moved around him, spreading over the curve of his belly. He had grown softer through the middle over the years, his body shaped by long workdays, evening beers and all the second helpings he accepted after insisting he was full. You loved the weight of him, the solid breadth of his chest, the coarse hair flattened beneath your fingers. You loved the familiar scars and the places age had begun touching him. You loved that you could stand behind him with your eyes closed and know precisely where your hands rested.
“Seems like you’re hurting yourself because you’d rather wrestle with the wrong hand than call your wife,” you murmured.
“Wasn’t hurtin’ myself, sweetheart.”
“No?”
Your nails travelled upward through the hair on his stomach before descending again, leaving pale trails across his flushed skin. Joel’s breath changed when your fingertips passed beneath his navel.
“That hand doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much either.”
His jaw tightened, but his hips shifted subtly into his fist.
You closed the remaining distance between you and pressed your naked body to his back. The instant your breasts touched him, his breath caught. Your mouth found the side of his neck while one hand remained spread over his stomach and the other followed the dark line beneath his navel.
“Couldn’t get it right?” you asked softly.
“Left hand don’t feel like mine.”
There was so much quiet frustration in the admission that your teasing softened.
“You could’ve called me.”
“Didn’t wanna bother you, baby.”
You lifted your head. “Joel Miller, I don’t care if I’m reading, sleeping or halfway through the best dream of my life. Asking me to touch you is never going to bother me.”
“Ain’t exactly somethin’ you should have to—”
“No.” You kissed the back of his shoulder as your hand slipped lower, fingertips barely grazing the coarse hair at the base of his cock. “You take care of me so often that half the time I don’t notice you’re doing it until it’s already done. So let me have my turn.”
The rigid set of his shoulders loosened by a fraction.
His left hand opened around himself, although surrendering even that unsatisfying contact made his hips follow your hovering fingers.
“Need a hand, don’t you, cowboy?” you teased, catching the edge of his ear gently between your teeth.
A strained breath left him, somewhere between a groan and a protest.
“You gonna help or keep makin’ fun of me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” You clicked your tongue. “You do look awfully pretty struggling, baby.”
“Christ, woman.”
“Although…” Your hand settled over his left wrist and guided it away from his cock. He allowed you to place his palm on the tile, but his body remained tense, caught somewhere between wanting what you offered and resisting the act of receiving it. “I suppose I could lend my favorite cowboy a hand. If he asks nicely.”
Joel lowered his forehead to the wall.
Water slipped through the grey in his beard and fell from his jaw. Pride held him silent for another moment. You could almost feel the struggle taking place inside him—the same man who would carry too many grocery bags rather than make a second trip, who would work through a fever and insist he was only tired, who treated being needed as though it were the simplest form of love but had never learned how to need someone without apology.
You spread your palm over his bare ring finger.
The touch made him look down.
His gaze rested on your hand covering his, your wedding band shining through the water while his finger remained pale and empty beneath it. His thumb moved once against the tile, reaching for yours before remembering the awkward angle.
Then his weight shifted back into you.
“Need you,” he admitted quietly.
You waited with your lips resting against his shoulder, though the answer had already travelled through you. Joel asked for so little that sometimes you resented him for it. He would mention that his boots needed replacing only after the soles had begun admitting water, would say he was hungry once you had already placed a plate before him, would carry an ache for days until you noticed the careful way he avoided turning his neck. Even now, naked and hard between your arms, he had tried to make the request smaller than it was. Need you. Two words offered in place of everything his body had already confessed, as though wanting something from you was still harder than enduring without it.
His breath left him slowly. His empty ring finger shifted beneath your palm. When you still did not move, his hips pressed back against you before rolling forward, his cock brushing heavily against the hand you kept just beyond his reach.
“Please,” he said, whatever remained of his pride finally yielding to the need roughening his voice. “Put your hand on my cock. Stroke me. Been tryin’ to come for so goddamn long, and I can’t—I need you to do it for me.”
Joel had trusted you with his home, his daughter, the parts of his past he still struggled to name. He had stood before everyone you loved and placed a ring on your finger with hands that had trembled more than his voice. Yet this small surrender seemed to cost him something too.
You kissed the pale place where his wedding band belonged.
“Good boy.”
Joel went utterly still.
His breathing stopped for one suspended second, his stomach turning rigid beneath your forearm and his left palm pressing flat against the tile. His cock pulsed before you had even closed your fingers around him.
Slowly, he looked back at you.
Steam had gathered in his lashes. His dark eyes found yours over his shoulder, surprise exposed there before he could conceal it, followed by a heat so immediate that your thighs drew together behind him. A flush travelled higher along his throat. He appeared almost offended by the force of his own reaction, as though his body had answered you before his pride could intervene.
“What’d you call me?”
“You heard me, baby.”
His gaze dropped to your mouth. “Say it again.”
A smile touched your lips, but you did not laugh at him. There was something too open in his expression, too uncertain beneath the want.
“Later,” you promised. “Face the wall and lean back against me. Let your wife take care of you, big boy.”
Joel held your gaze for another moment before looking forward again. His forehead settled against the tile as his shoulders gradually loosened beneath your arms. He moved back until the curve of his ass pressed firmly against your lower stomach, giving you more of his weight than before.
You kissed the center of his back and slid your right hand down.
This time, you did not stop.
Your fingers curled around the base of his cock, and Joel’s entire body answered.
His abdomen contracted beneath your forearm. His left palm slipped before flattening against the wall again. A sound left him—low, involuntary, pulled from somewhere beneath the frustration he had carried into the shower—and the thick length of him hardened further in your grip.
You held him without moving at first, letting him feel the fit of your hand around him although your fingers could not quite meet. Heat pulsed beneath the slick skin, his heartbeat fast and heavy against your palm. You adjusted the showerhead until the strongest part of the spray struck his back rather than your joined hands, then tightened your grip. Another broken breath warmed your cheek.
“There,” you murmured. “Better?”
“Fuck, yes—”
“I thought so.” You stroked him slowly from base to tip, watching his stomach pull tight beneath your arm. “Next time you need my hand around your cock, come put it there.”
Joel’s hips followed your fist as it descended. “Knew you’d enjoy this.”
“You knew correctly.”
Your thumb swept over the broad head before your fist travelled down again. At the base, you loosened your grip and slipped your free hand beneath him. Joel groaned when your palm cupped his balls, the swollen, heavy weight of them filling your hand while the other continued moving slowly along his cock.
“Oh, baby...” You rolled them gently beneath your fingers, and his hips pressed forward as though even that small touch had reached somewhere deeper than he expected. “No wonder you were getting so frustrated. These are awfully full.”
“Don’t start.”
The words lacked any real warning. They came roughened by the careful twist of your wrist, Joel’s breath catching when you tightened your fist beneath the head. You smiled against his shoulder and gave him another long stroke, refusing the faster pace his body was beginning to seek.
“I’ve already started.” Your lips followed a rivulet of water toward the sensitive place behind his ear. “You should’ve seen yourself, hiding in here with all of this aching for relief.”
“Enjoyin’ yourself?”
“Very much.” You squeezed the weight in your palm once more, tender enough to make his thighs tense. “I’ve got my handsome husband naked in my arms, getting harder every time I tease him. I can feel how badly he needs to come, and he’s making the prettiest noises while I take my time giving him exactly what he asked for.” Your thumb gathered the slickness from the tip and spread it beneath the head. “What’s not to enjoy?”
“Mean woman.”
The complaint dissolved into a groan when your fingers tightened around him. His hips followed your hand instinctively, cock sliding through your wet fist while you maintained the slow rhythm already wearing away his restraint.
“Mm. And you love me.”
“Yeah.” His answer came without hesitation, broken slightly by the next stroke. “More than anythin’.”
The words entered you with the familiar weight of truth. Joel could spend ten uninterrupted minutes complaining about traffic, Tommy or the price of lumber, but anything that mattered was pared down until only its simplest form remained. More than anythin’ was extravagance from a man like him, offered with his forehead resting against the shower wall, his injured hand held carefully before him and his body surrounded by yours.
You kissed him behind the ear and released the heavy weight beneath his cock, bringing your free arm around his middle. Your palm spread over his stomach as you drew him more securely against you.
“Good,” you murmured. “Then be sweet and let me take my time with you.”
You kept the first strokes long and measured, your fist gliding over every thick inch before closing more firmly on the descent. Joel attempted to follow you, but impatience made his hips arrive too early. You adjusted without comment, refusing to hurry; the next time he thrust forward, you slowed near the head and held him snugly in your palm until a strained breath escaped through his teeth.
Water ran over his shoulders and divided around your arms, gathering briefly in the dark hair beneath his navel before disappearing between your joined bodies. The shower could not conceal the low sounds he made whenever your grip changed or the unconscious contraction of his stomach beneath your palm. You understood what he wanted—the shallow movement of his hips asking for more speed, his left hand spreading against the tile to brace for the pressure he preferred—but kept him at that patient rhythm a little longer. By the time you tightened your fist, frustration no longer held his shoulders rigid. He was waiting for you, and his cock pulsed heavily against your palm.
“That’s it,” you whispered, your mouth close to his ear. “You can move with me now.”
Joel released a deep, uneven breath and rolled his hips forward. You met him, your fist descending as he pushed into it and closing more firmly when he reached the base. On his retreat, you stroked upward, letting the swollen head drag through the circle of your fingers before guiding him into the next movement. He followed more carefully this time, the rhythm hesitant only for the first few strokes before pleasure taught him what you wanted.
“There you go, baby.”
“God—feels so damn good.”
You held him close and let the rhythm develop between you. Each thrust grew deeper, Joel’s ass pressing into your lower stomach when he drew back before he drove forward again. Your fist worked over him in time with the motion, no longer making him wait, though you retained enough control to keep his impatience from carrying him too quickly toward the edge.
The change reached his breathing first. Those deep, measured pulls of air began catching halfway into his lungs, his mouth opening against the tile to release the low sounds he had tried to suppress when you entered. Soon he no longer seemed aware of them. His attention had narrowed to your fingers around his cock, your palm against his stomach and the body supporting him from behind.
You kissed the wet slope of his shoulder.
Joel had touched you in darkness and sunlight, slowly and with desperate hunger, had learned your body so thoroughly that sometimes a single adjustment of his hand could make you fall apart. Yet this felt different from simply returning the pleasure he had given you over the years. Tonight, he could not reach back and distract you with your own need. He could not turn, gather you against him and assume the responsibility of taking care of both of you. All he could do was remain inside your embrace and trust that being wanted did not depend upon what he could offer in return.
Your grip tightened. Joel groaned and drove forward with enough force to push the air from your lungs. You widened your stance and continued meeting him as the movement grew rougher, each thrust dragging his cock rapidly through your closed fingers before your hand followed him back to the base. Wet skin moved against wet skin beneath the shower, punctuated by his heavier breathing and a broken curse whenever you changed the angle of your wrist.
You pressed your mouth beneath his ear.
“Take it, baby,” you murmured. “Use my hand exactly how you need.”
Joel stopped trying to follow each movement you gave him and began taking the friction for himself, thrusting through your fist with all the force he had been restraining. You let him, your hand closed and steady around him while your other arm held him against you—until his injured fingers curled instinctively against the tile. The hiss that left him cut through the pleasure. You caught his wrist at once and drew his arm away from the wall without slowing the motion between his legs.
“Give me this one.”
Joel allowed you to fold his arm across his chest. You tucked the bruised hand against his opposite shoulder and covered it with your own, your forearm securing it safely in place.
“Ain’t bad,” he managed.
“Shh.”
You kissed the uninjured edge of his wrist. Your fist continued working steadily over his cock as though caring for one hurting part of him required no sacrifice from the rest.
Joel’s chest rose beneath your arm. His bruised fingers gradually relaxed against his shoulder, and his left hand left the tile to cover yours where it held him. His thumb searched through the water until it found the smooth band around your finger and rested there.
You turned your face and kissed his cheek.
Joel leaned into it for a fleeting second before the next stroke pulled a groan from him. His thumb remained pressed over your wedding band as he settled farther back, giving you more of his weight without looking to see whether you could hold it. You planted your feet, tightened your arm around his chest and did.
He was letting you have all of his need now: his injured hand held safely beneath yours, his balance entrusted to your body, his pleasure naked in every sound he could no longer contain. When your fist moved faster, his hips answered immediately. The rhythm that had belonged to both of you began to unravel as he pushed forward too soon and retreated only far enough to thrust again, each movement shorter and rougher than the last.
You adapted without breaking pace, concentrating the friction where his body responded most strongly. A rough curse left him when you repeated it, his cock almost painfully rigid within your fist, the pulse against your palm heavier and more insistent. His thighs began to tremble as the measured roll of his hips disappeared altogether. He was no longer fucking your hand with any discernible rhythm; he was chasing it, moving on instinct whenever your grip reached the sensitive head.
Your own breathing quickened against his back. Heat gathered low in your stomach as you watched the man who could reduce you to pleading with the smallest movement lose himself in your arms. You pressed your thighs together, but every sound he made travelled directly through you, every desperate thrust sending another pulse of want between your legs. None of it made you want to turn his attention toward you. Tonight, his pleasure was enough.
Your mouth found the place beneath his ear that always made his shoulders rise.
“Look at you,” you whispered, affection wrapped around the teasing words. “You were so determined to handle this yourself, and now you can barely keep those legs steady.”
Joel tried to answer, but your fist tightened and the words collapsed into a hoarse moan. You smiled against his skin.
“No clever answer for me?”
“Hard to—” He broke off, thrusting roughly into your grip. “Hard to fuckin’ think.”
“That’s all right, baby. You don’t need to.”
You increased the pace until the movement became relentless, your slick fist closing around him as quickly as his hips could push forward. Joel’s forehead pressed against the tile, shoulders drawing tight as pleasure gathered beyond his control. His breathing fractured into rough, shallow pulls, each ending in a sound he no longer attempted to swallow.
His left hand abandoned yours and flattened against the wall, fingers splayed wide for purchase. Your wedding ring remained warm beneath the place his thumb had pressed it. He drove into your fist once, twice, then faltered, the next thrust arriving shorter as his cock throbbed heavily in your palm. You felt the approaching release before he spoke—in the sudden rigidity of his stomach, the way his thighs locked as if bracing might delay what your hand was already pulling from him, the helpless twitch that travelled through his cock whenever your grip reached the head.
“Baby—” His voice cracked around the word.
You kissed his jaw. “I know.”
“Close—”
The admission came through clenched teeth, barely louder than the water. You kept your fist moving at the same firm pace, refusing to startle his body with any sudden change.
“How close?”
“Real fuckin’—close.”
Joel attempted another thrust, but the rhythm had abandoned him entirely. His hips jerked into your hand and stopped, leaving you to carry the movement while he trembled within your arms. His weight tipped backward. You accepted all of it, your forearm held securely across his chest and his injured hand protected beneath yours.
“Please,” he rasped. “Don’t slow down—”
“I won’t, baby.”
Your fist travelled over him in fast, complete strokes, drawing the tension tighter with each pass. His cock pulsed violently against your palm, so close now that every movement seemed to pull a broken sound from the deepest part of his chest.
You caught his earlobe gently between your teeth.
“Every drop for me?”
“All yours.” The answer came instantly, stripped of breath and pride. His head dropped as his hips gave one final, desperate drive through your fist. “Every fuckin’ drop.”
A tender satisfaction spread beneath the heat in your chest. You tightened your embrace, lips brushing the shell of his ear while your hand gave him the exact rhythm his body had been seeking from the moment you entered the shower.
“That’s my good boy,” you whispered. “Give it to me.”
The praise undid him.
Joel came with a sound so raw it seemed torn from the center of him.
His entire body locked in your arms. His cock jerked hard in your fist, the first hot pulse spilling over your fingers before the shower could carry it away. His hips punched forward with the next one, wrenching a broken groan from his throat as another thick streak struck the tile beneath him.
You kept your hand moving, drawing every stroke from base to tip while release continued to pulse from him. Each one seized a different part of his body—his stomach clenching beneath your arm, his thighs jumping, his shoulders drawing taut beneath your mouth. You felt the force of it pass through him until there was nothing left with which he could hold himself upright.
His knees buckled.
You caught his full weight before either of you could fall.
Your chest pressed tightly to his back, your arm banded across his ribs and your palm protecting the swollen knuckles tucked against his shoulder. Joel trembled through every aftershock, forehead resting heavily against the wall. His cock gave one final, helpless pulse into your slowing hand.
“Fuck,” he choked. “Baby—”
“Easy. I’ve got you.”
You continued moving until the last throb softened beneath your palm. Only then did you loosen your fingers, careful of the sensitivity that made his hips flinch when your thumb grazed the head. The water washed your hand clean, carrying the evidence of his release toward the drain.
Joel remained folded against the wall, his breathing coming in ragged pulls. You kept him gathered within your arms, lips moving over his shoulder and along the nape of his neck while the final tremors passed through him.
“Take your time, baby,” you murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His left hand covered your forearm where it crossed his chest. His thumb rubbed slowly over your skin, Joel still searching for some way to touch you even while you bore most of his weight.
Eventually, he lifted his head.
“Need to turn around.”
“You steady?”
“With you holdin’ me? Yeah.”
You helped him move carefully, keeping his injured hand against his chest until his back met the wall. The moment he faced you, his left arm came around your waist and pulled you against him.
Joel kissed you before you could speak.
The kiss held none of the frantic hunger that had taken him apart moments earlier. It was slow and open, his lips moving over yours with an exhausted tenderness that left you more exposed than anything he had said. His damp beard scraped gently across your chin as he kissed you again, lingering this time, breathing you in as though the release had stripped him down to the simplest things he knew.
Your hands settled against his chest.
He rested his forehead against yours.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You never have to thank me for touching you. Your needs are my needs too.”
“Ain’t only that.”
His hand moved slowly up your back, keeping you close.
“Been meanin’ everything else.”
You traced the wet line of his jaw with your thumb. “Joel…”
He watched you, something tired and unguarded in his eyes.
“You’d do the same for me,” you said.
“In a heartbeat.”
“Then quit acting like it only works one way, my love.”
The corner of his mouth lifted before he kissed you again. His hand travelled down your arm until his fingers found yours, and he raised your left hand between you. His thumb passed over your wedding band with quiet concentration.
“Feels strange not havin’ mine on.”
“I know.”
“Kept reachin’ for it all night.”
“I noticed that too.”
You guided his injured hand closer and pressed your lips to the bare place where his ring belonged.
“Still all mine without it.”
His eyes softened. “Always.”
You stayed beneath the water until his breathing settled, holding each other in the humid quiet. When you finally turned off the shower, Joel allowed you to dry him, although he complained when you knelt to run the towel down his legs.
“Can dry my own damn feet, darlin’.”
“With which hand?”
His mouth closed.
“That’s what I thought.”
You wrapped the towel around his waist and guided him into the bedroom with your palm resting at the base of his spine.
The wedding band remained exactly where you had left it.
Joel looked at it while you sat him on the edge of the mattress and knelt between his knees with fresh gauze. You worked carefully around each bruised knuckle, smoothing the bandage without pulling it too tightly. He watched your hands throughout, quiet and heavy-limbed, his left palm resting warmly against the back of your neck.
When you finished, you raised his injured hand and kissed the pale indentation once more.
His gaze moved from his bare finger to the ring on the table.
Then he reached for it with his left hand.
“Joel, you can’t put it back on yet.”
“I know, baby, but I was thinkin’…” He picked up the band and held it toward you. “You still got that chain in your jewelry box? The one you don’t wear?”
Your heart gave a small, painful pull.
“I do.”
You retrieved the thin chain and sat beside him. Joel placed the ring in your palm, trusting you with it as he had trusted you with everything else that night. You threaded the chain through the band before fastening it carefully around his neck.
The ring settled against the damp hair on his chest.
Joel looked down and touched it with two fingers. His thumb passed slowly over the familiar curve before he closed his hand around it, holding it against his sternum. The tension that had lingered in his face since you removed it finally eased; his shoulders dropped, and the breath he released sounded deeper than any he had taken since leaving urgent care.
“Better?” you asked.
“Yeah.” His eyes lifted to yours, tired and unmistakably relieved. He gave the ring another small squeeze but did not release it. “Much better.”
You covered his closed hand with yours. “You really hated having it off.”
Joel glanced down at the pale indentation around his finger. “Kept feelin’ for it.” His thumb rubbed over the empty place as though demonstrating a habit his body had not yet learned to abandon. “Every time I looked at my hand, somethin’ felt wrong. Like I’d left part of myself sittin’ on that table.”
The quiet confession tightened your throat. It was only a circle of gold, small enough to disappear inside his broad palm, but Joel had worn it through years of work, sleep, arguments, dinners and mornings when neither of you had anything more important to say than asking who had finished the coffee. He had grown so accustomed to carrying the visible proof of your life together that its absence had left his hand feeling unfamiliar to him.
You curled your fingers around his, pressing the ring gently against his chest. “It was never going anywhere.”
“Know that.” His gaze returned to yours. “Still didn’t like bein’ without it.”
You leaned forward and kissed the crease between his brows, lingering until it softened beneath your mouth.
“Come here,” you murmured, drawing back the covers. “Let me hold you, my love.”
He lay down without argument, his injured hand elevated safely on the pillow. When you settled beside him, Joel rested his head against your chest and curved his left arm around your waist. The ring lay cool between his skin and yours, warming slowly where your bodies met.
His thumb found your wedding band once more.
“Mine safe, sweetheart?” he asked, already half asleep.
You covered the ring resting over his heart.
“Right here, baby.”
Joel released one final, tired breath against your skin. His entire body softened into the mattress, giving you its full and familiar weight.
This time, when you held him, he did not try to hold you up in return.
summary: joel has been working a lot lately and not properly been paying attention to you, at least, that's how you feel during ovulating. so, you come up with a plan, which leads to him scolding you for wearing a short dress like that. and more.
trigger warnings: age gap (joel in his 50s, f!reader in her 20s), jackson!joel, possessive, oral sex (m receiving), rough sex, breeding kink, spanking, dirty talking, light praise kink
words: 2,2k
a/n: hii guys, im currently laying in bed sick with a fever, but I thought, there's no better time to write some smut again. credits to povsmommy28 on tiktok, because i saw this pov and i thought this is an amazing idea hihi
he was just at work. on patrols. doing construction work here and there.
you know he is very important to the town. and you knew from the beginning he is an workaholic. even before you got together a year ago. but still, the last few weeks, you got no real attention from him.
because of all his work, you barely even fucked. yes, there was some lazy making out, but mostly, you were already asleep when he got home. also, you were on your period a week and a half ago, so you were in not a good mood, there was nothing going on, but now, you were fucking ovulating.
and you felt it. just instantly at the thought of him, you were fucking soaked.
you tried to initiate intimacy with him two days ago, and it wasn't even that he didn't get hard.
oh, he did.
but then suddenly tommy knocked at our damn door, because there was some kind of emergency with that one construction side at the end of town.
whatever.
now, you came up with a plan. you 'planned' a girls night out with your friends from the clinic you were working at. but what joel didn't know, there was no girls night out. you already had a lovely brunch with them the day before.
but you knew joel. and besides that he's pretty possessive, he has a soft spot for short dresses.
plan was, get his attention, tease and argue with him, which then leads to him fucking you till you can't think right.
so, you got all dolled up. hair down, some soft blush on your cheeks, and wearing your short white whimsical dress, which was just right over your butt a little, leaving a bit to the imagination.
joel was downstairs, just came home like fifteen minutes ago, and was on the couch, cleaning his shotgun.
he looked up as he hears your soft steps running down the stairs. you didn't look at him, but hell, you could already feel his eyes burning right through you.
"where are you going all dolled up like that?", he asks. deep, thick.. oh, and warningly.
"going out with the girls'— believe i told ya about that yesterday?", you play dumb. innocent. as you start to put on your cowboy boots.
"m'not recalling that'", he remarks.
silence.
then you hear his weight shift as he got up from the couch. you turn around to look at him. your heart was pounding. your legs weak. his shleeves were rolled up and he had his hair back. he was looking at you like a predator watching his prey.
fuck, he's so hot.
"well, i do need to leave so—"
he cuts you off.
"you're not wearing that.", he grunts.
the fish caught the bait.
"excuse me?", you raise an eyebrow.
"you heard me." , he growls.
god, you could already give in. your body was definitely.
"i told you that i will be going out with them. maybe, if you would've been around more, you would remember.", you sass.
"well, and i am not changing—", you shrug as you turn back around to the front door.
he puts his hands on his hips.
"you want everybody starin' at you? eyeing you like you're a fuckin' piece of meat? i know the men around here—", he says with his deep, thick southern accent.
"oh, like how you're eyeing me right now?", you say as you turn back around, crossing your arms in front of your chest.
yes, you had a death wish.
his gaze darkens. he clenches his jaw.
"careful, love", he warns.
you sigh. "look, it's not that big of a deal— i like that dress, and i think it looks good on me, so, I'm gonna wear it"
you were about to turn back to the front door again, but he grabs you at your wrist, spinning you towards him.
"you do look good. fuck, you look fuckin' amazing in that dress. but it's only for me to see. you want everybody to see your cute lace panties huh—?", he takes a deep breath.
"so, now, you're gonna do as you were fuckin' told and you're gonna change like a sweet and nice girl you are.", he growls.
you were literally melting for him.
"well, maybe i am not a sweet girl today.", you whisper teasingly, biting your lip.
he looks at you. like really looks.
then, you feel his hand wrap around your neck and pull you into a hard kiss.
mission successful.
"well, im gonna damn make ya one'", he growls into the kiss, crowding you against the front door, one hand around your neck and the other besides your head. you pull him down to your height at his shirt, obviously kissing him back until your lips are slightly swollen.
"you're a damn tease, ya know that?", he whispers as his kisses travel down to your neck, leaving marks.
"and got a hell of an attitude either", his hand runs down to your breast, squeezing it hard, while he runs his thumb over your clothed nipple.
a small giggle slips out of your throat. he looks up at you, his breath and yours out of sync.
"oh, now she's giggling huh? you think this is funny?", he growls.
"i guess i haven't fucked you properly the last few weeks huh? and that's why you're dancin' out of line, are you?"
you just shrug with an innocent smile. you try to lean in back for a kiss, but he pushes you back with one finger at your chest.
"get your ass upstairs.", he commands.
"what about my-", you try to argue, still keeping up your plan, obviously.
"i said, get your fuckin' ass upstairs. when im done putting you back in line, you may go afterwards.", he tells you. then, you gulp but slip out of his grip and tiptoe upstairs. with him slowly following.
gosh, you were so fucking desperate. he's gonna ruin you. you already know.
you were already standing in front of the bed as he walks through the door into your shared bedroom.
he chuckles slightly at the sight. he steps towards you. closely.
"first, im gonna make you properly apologize to me for mouthing off—"
"i wasn't—"
"get on your knees."
and you do.
he sits down at the edge of the bed, tilting up your chin, his thumb running over your swollen lips from the kiss before. you were practically drooling.
as you sit on your knees, your thighs were completely bare, your short dress pooling right over your hip. revealing your soft pink lacy panties a little. joel opens his belt, opening his zipper and pulling down his pants.
through his boxers, you can already see the outline of his dick.
"gonna put your mouth to better use than arguing with me", he growls as he watches you pull down his boxers and getting out his thick hard cock.
you lick your lips, before you take his length into one hand and take a long lick from bottom to the top. precum was already leaking slightly, tasting slightly salty on your hot tounge.
"there you go..", he breaths. he grabs your hair and guides your head down. his thick length goes down your throat. he groans softly. then, you speed up. he kept his hard grip in your hair as you bump your head up and down, taking his whole length. you were pushing back on your gag reflex.
his breaths fill up the room. "fuckin' taking me like that— shutting you up real good huh", he groans as he pushes your head down. your vision gets slightly blurry by you tearing up, not able to really gasp after air.
he's truly shutting you up.
you could feel his dick start to twitch in your mouth. you wanted to make him come.
"hey— easy, girl- easy-", he says with a shaky breath. he pulls your hair back and lets his cock out with a pop. you gasp after air, with a soft whine and a disappointment look.
he grabs you by your arm, hauling you up onto his lap, bending you over it. his dick pressing against your stomach.
"look at that, your dress is so fucking short, I don't even have to lift it up to see your ass huh", he chuckles as his hand runs over your butt, tracing over your lace panties.
you gasp as he delivers a hard spank onto your ass. "gonna give you a damn good spanking so you remember how to listen—"
in the following, the room echos with the sound of his hand coming against your bare ass, turning your cheeks pink. "god, i can practically feel you dripping on my lap, darlin'", he says.
"im sor— ah-", you yelp as you feel another hard spank against your butt. right after, you feel his fingers pushing away your panties and pushing two of them right into you spoaked folds.
you arch your back, moaning loudly. "now you're sorry huh? you're fucking soaked— have I been neglecting you for that long huh?", he observes.
he pumps fingers in and out of you, but as you were just starting to clench around them, he pulls them out. but before you can protest, he hauls you up onto the bed, leaning over you.
he rips off your panties, grabs your legs and puts them over his shoulders. "gonna remind you who you belong to— and who you are to fucking listen to-", he growls and then thrusts right into you.
you moan loudly, your dress now pushed up around your stomach. he doesn't let you adjust. he starts right thrusting into you, while he kept you legs over his shoulders.
"so fucking tight..", he groans as the room feels with the sound of skin slapping together.
"joel..", you moan his name as you roll your eyes back. you already started clenching around him, not far away from already coming.
"already—?", he chuckles. he noticed at the change of your breath, the change of sound in your moans, how they got louder and louder. you blush immediately.
yes, it's been a while. and fuck, you could just already cum by him touching you briefly.
"joel.. im gonna cum— please", you moan louder. he speeds up. the wet sounds filling the air, as he talks you through it.
you finally feel the long awaited wave of pleasure coming over your body, as you tense up, your legs shaking.
he rides you through the orgasm, but he does not let you catch your breath. he pulls out of you, turns you onto your belly, grabs your hair, so your head was buried in a pillow, before he thrusts into you again from behind.
you whine. you were so overstimulated.
"joel— it's too mu—", you whine as you gasp after air, already feeling another orgasm building up between your legs.
"you're gonna fucking take what i give you— and then the next time you can decide if you're gonna argue with me or not—", he growls into your ear, while he places some soft kisses onto your shoulder blade.
you could feel his dick twitch either in you. he was close. as you started to clench around him again, one hand of his slips around you, and finds your clit, starting to circle it.
"joel—", you try to squirm away from the overstimulating feeling, but he fully caged you in. him leaned over you, his other hand in your hair, keeping you in place, while you were laying flat onto the bed.
"gonna fill you up, baby—", he groans, as he keeps up his thrusts while circling your clit, you squeezing around him more and more.
some tears of overwhelming pleasure run down your cheeks, as you let out a scream at this point, as you cum a second time.
as you clench around him, as you cum, you feel his warm cum filling you up. you gasp.
you were totally spend.
mission successful.
you both remain in that position for a little bit longer as you both catch your breath. as he pulls out of you, the warm liquid mixed with your wetness slightly runs out of you. he turns you onto your back, pressing soft kisses on your cheek, kissing away your tears.
"im gonna tell you again now..", he whispers as he catches his breath, his hand brushing over your cheek. "you're gonna change, yea?", he raises his eyebrows, looking at you.
your smile turns into a smirk.
you were never going anywhere.
and he realizes.
you can see it.
"there was no girls night, was there?", he mumbles as he raises his one eyebrow.
you shake your head. "nope."
you smirk.
"you were gone so often and i figured that was the easiest way to get your attention..", you reveal your intention.
he sighs. rolling his eyes.
"neglected you that badly, huh?", he asks with a small grin.
you nod dramatically.
he chuckles softly.
"well, guess im gonna make it up to you then", he whispers as he disappears under the blanket, between your legs.
you arch your back and moan as you feel his tounge on your pussy.
