𝐀/𝐍 ➳ I’m back and I will never abandon this app ever again. Life was AWFUL when I stopped writing lmao.
𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓 or I’ll whoop your ass
𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐍 𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄 (riding/cowgirl)
Absolutely loves it when you ride him. He needs you on top of him at all times so he can stare at your tits all night. Only downside about this position is that he NEVER lasts long. How could he when he’s got the chance to swirl your nipples in his mouth.
PACE ➳ He always makes sure that you ride him nice and slow. Nothing too crazy because he doesn’t want to cum too fast. Your tight walls clenching around him as you slowly move up and down. The way you clench extra hard when you reach the tip because you know it makes him shiver.
BONUS ➳ he HAS to nut in you because of his breeding kink. He just wants to prepare you for the future incase y’all decide to have kids.
𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 (backshots + pronebone + anything that’ll get him to see that ass)
He’s sick and tired of all the attitude you give him while he’s on the job, so he’ll definitely make sure you pay for that shit later. He’ll let it slide, making you think you’ve gotten away with your bratty attitude earlier. But later in the night, he’ll get you when you least expect it. He’ll pin you down on your stomach and force you not to move. This man will talk you through it ALL.
PACE ➳ Fast strokes cause he just can’t help himself. It drives him crazy knowing that he can’t fuck you while he’s on the job.
He’ll also put you in a headlock, forcing you to apologize after talking shit all damn day. Makes it his sole mission to make you cum at least three times. The night ain’t over unless he gets what he wants…
Lastly, he will never NOT cum in you. At the end of the day, he needs to know that you belong to him and ONLY him.
BONUS ➳ On the days that it’s too risky to fuck, then he’ll make you get on your knees and give him head. Ropes of spit dripping down your chest as he fucks your mouth. Pushes your head down and makes you swallow all of his nut without spitting that shit out. He just wants to fix that smart ass mouth you got.
𝐓𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐘 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑 (missionary)
That goofy persona of his disappears the second he gets you in bed. He needs to kiss you as he gets deeper inside of you. This is his favorite position because he gets the chance to kiss you all over the place. Neck kisses, cheek kisses, jaw kisses, hand wrapped around your throat, etc. The sound of your moans turn him on so fucking much he just can’t get enough of you.
PACE ➳ moderate. Not too hard or fast. Slow enough to where y’all can both see it go in and out.
BONUS ➳ if he’s feeling bold enough, then he’ll put your legs on his shoulders and dig into you. He’ll rock his hips up and down to hit your sweet spot. Or if he’s feeling REALLY bold then he’ll press his hand on your lower stomach and fuck you til your gushing all over him.
𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃 (spooning)
He’s a big softie so he doesn’t want to do anything that could hurt you. Rubs your clit with soft, tiny circles as he’s digging in you from the side. Squeezes the FUCK out of your titties. Got his hand on your throat as he kisses your neck too.
PACE ➳ DANGEROUSLY slow strokes that got you begging for him. Chokes you even harder when he’s ready to go faster.
𝐀𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐍 (backshots)
Loves seeing that ass jiggle as he fucks you. Pushes you down into the bed to fuck you even harder. He ain’t done unless he got you screaming and shaking. Makes it his sole mission to make sure you can’t walk after this. Your raspy moans and get louder as he thrusts deeper inside you.
PACE ➳ a rough but steady rhythm. Keeps his grip extra tight on your hips to make sure you ain’t going nowhere.
BONUS ➳ He’ll certainly make you work for your nut. He’ll force you to throw that ass back on him when he knows you’re desperate to cum.
Synopsis: after date night had to be rescheduled, you two enjoy a quiet evening together but when wine is involved, all inhibitions are lost!
Warnings/tags *MDNI*: soft!dom Ledger, fluff, “baby” used as a term of endearment, he’s a sweetheart, dirty talk, praise, plenty of kissing, dry humping, reader has a birthmark, unprotected piv, creampie, couple instances of spanking, hickeys, alcohol consumption (wine), cowgirl, missionary, only proofread once!
WC: 4.0k
A/N: Ross and Rachel arguing about who came onto who first definitely crossed my mind at some point during this LOL
Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy <3 !
Your eyes drifted to the clock. 9:32 pm. Ledger was about 12 minutes past his eta now. Before you could pick up your phone to call, you heard the familiar sound of his truck pulling into the driveway. Rolling off the couch you made a beeline for the door, opening it to see him walking up with bags of groceries in both hands. You silently watched with a soft smile, waiting for him to explain. When he met your eyes he gave you the same expression, shaking his head as he began his declaration. “I’m sorry, I know I’m late!”
You moved to let him past, absentmindedly shutting the door before following him to the kitchen. Once he set the bags down, he made his way over to you. Circling your waist to pull you close, he dipped down, placing a lingering kiss on your lips. Leaning into his touch, your hands trailed along his chest. Giving your hip a reassuring squeeze, he parted. “To make up for having to reschedule tonight, I figured we can still have one here”.
Ledger informed you sometime in the morning that your date night would have to be rescheduled due to a bar emergency. You understood, assuring him that it was fine. And although that was the truth, you missed him during that period. He ended up spending majority of his time—during his day off—at work. It wasn’t often that you two got to spend one day together, even on weekends.
Intrigued, an amused smile came across your features. Raising a brow, you questioned, “oh…? And I assume that’s what the groceries are for?” Your gaze briefly shifted to the bags located behind him before focusing back to see a wide grin forming on his face.
“There’s two more things in the truck”. Ledger left another peck on your lips, urging, “stay right here”, before heading back outside. You listened for about five seconds before your curiosity sparked. Just as you began wandering over to peek into the groceries, you swiftly turned around upon hearing him step into the house. When he rounded the corner, a warm smile formed on your face at the sight. Feeling heat creep up your neck, you glanced down to the products he held. A bottle of your favorite wine and a large bouquet of flowers from the local florist.
Ledger studied your initial reaction, chest warming upon seeing the familiar sparkle in your eyes. Bringing you flowers was nothing new, yet every time he did you adorned the same expression. “For you”, he gestured, handing them over as a small laugh escaped you at the size. You breathed in the scent, expressing your appreciation while you did.
“Thank you. I love them!” Giving him a grin, you turned, setting them down on the counter. Ledger came up behind you, setting the bottle right next to the flowers before snaking his arm around your waist, pulling you back.
Pressing you flush against his body, he mumbled, “you’re welcome”. Shifting his head now, he murmured next to your ear, “and I’m cooking your favorite tonight”.
Settling into his touch, you gently traced along his forearm, resting your head against his chest. Your eyes floated over to the wine, a feeling of anticipation beginning to stir. It never took long for things to get explicit when alcohol was in the equation. Gnawing on your bottom lip for a moment, you pointed out, “I can’t finish the bottle by myself…”. Turning to face him now, you teasingly trailed your hand up his neck. Swiping your thumb across his jaw, you suggestively asked, “you’ll help me, right baby…?”.
Lips curling into a faint smirk, Ledger gave your hip a squeeze, responding, “of course”. He pressed a kiss to your cheek before moving to put some of the items in the fridge. Nodding in the direction of the bathroom once he was done, he began unbuckling his belt. “You want to join me in the shower?”
“As much as I’d love to…”, you started, briefly pausing as your eyes trailed down to his waist, following the movement. “I took mine right before you came home”.
“that’s alright…”, he said before removing his shirt, slinging it over his shoulder. Giving you one last look up and down, Ledger smirked. “I’ll make sure we can take one together later”.
……….
Nearing the end of dinner now with the wine rapidly decreasing, you had merely suggested that Ledger would lose if you two were to compete and see how long you could hold out before giving in. He swiftly responded with laughter to your claim.
“Why are you laughing? I’m serious!” Feeling the familiar tingle of warmth begin to spread across your body, laughter bubbled out of you in response to his reaction. You had been in the middle of your meal and two glasses in when the thought had come to your mind before mentioning it.
Through his chuckling, he questioned, “you really believe that?”
“Yes, I do! Cmon baby, we both know you’ll break first…”. Keenly studying his face now, you teasingly brushed your foot along his calf under the table. “And we both know it won’t take that long…”. With the buzz from the wine gradually traveling down to your core, you tilted your head, analyzing his body language. Staring at you through dilated pupils, he wet his lips.
“You sure about that…?”
An impish smile gradually forming on your face, you nodded, taking another sip of wine. “What… you don’t think so?”
He tilted his head in the same manner, sending you an amused smirk. “You know how you get”
Raising a brow, you crossed your legs, playfully challenging, “enlighten me”.
He grinned, coaxing, “Come here then”. You hesitated, shifting your gaze in between his eyes. “You said you want to be enlightened baby, come here”. Noting your apprehension, he circled a hand around the chair of your leg, scooting you close. He rested his hand on your knee, leaning in to speak against the shell of your ear. “If I’m correct, you started clenching your thighs after one glass right…?”
When his familiar enticing scent wafted in your direction, you took a deep inhale, feeling the coil of anticipation sink into your core. You fought the urge to move as he ran his hand up, stopping mid-thigh to gently massage your flesh. “Can’t stop thinking about it, can you…?”
Caressing his forearm now, you shifted your face back, faintly brushing your nose along his in the process. You softened your tone, quietly voicing, “can’t help it…”. Eyes lingering on his parted lips for a moment, you gently raked your nails up his arm, moving to whisper in his ear. “Neither can you, hm?” Throbbing uncomfortably in his sweat pants once your voice echoed in his mind, he leaned back in his seat, drinking in the expression that settled on your face.
“The rules…?”, he inquired, tilting his head to add, “need to know what the boundaries are first”. Heat creeping up your neck under his penetrating gaze, you stood up, scooting the seat back to place yourself right in front of him. Making space for you to shuffle closer, he grasped the back of your thighs, gradually massaging his way up. Savoring the cozy sensation simmering throughout your body, you pondered for a moment.
Roaming your hands over his shoulders now, you stated, “we’re allowed to touch—”, pausing when he started caressing your ass. Peering down at him with a coy smile, you clarified, “nothing explicit! But whoever initiates a kiss first loses. Sound fair?”.
Ledger had already decided to partake when it was simply a thought you had voiced, but what fun would it be to admit that when he could tease. “Think I need some convincing baby…”
Tracing your thumb along his jaw now, you sweetened your voice, “Please…?” Humming into his ear, “for me…?” You then placed a kiss on his cheek to seal the deal.
“Think I need more than that before I consider playing…”.
You jokingly pushed at his chest, mumbling out, “you’re irritating!”, before preparing to step out of his grasp. Laughter bubbled out of you when he tightened his grip, chuckling at your response.
“Wait I’m kidding! I want to do it, I promise!”
Happy at the sound of that, you smiled, grasping both his arms, “C’mon then”. Urging him to stand up now, you pulled him in the direction of the living room. “We can watch a movie”.
………..
Settling into the couch now, you draped your legs across his lap, holding eye contact while you took your last sip of wine. Once you set the glass down, an idea flashed through your mind, causing you to abruptly announce, “I’ll be right back”. Ledger gave you a questionable look, watching in amusement as you clumsily walked toward the bedroom.
After what felt like several prolonged minutes searching through your dresser, you found what you were looking for. One of your satin, lace trim nightgowns that stopped mid-thigh. You changed out of your pajama pants and tank top, taking a second to admire your appearance in the mirror. A small smile spread across your features as you began analyzing the gown. Eyes focused on the bow in the center of the deep, v-cut, neck line, they dropped down, viewing the last two bows placed intricately above the small slits located at the bottom of the garment, beginning at your hips.
You were about to make your way back to the living room before remembering the second thing you came for. Swiftly shuffling back around, you quickly grabbed your favorite scent, dabbing a bit on your pulse points. From your own observation, Ledger seemed to love your natural scent regardless of what fragrance you wore but this one proved to be the most tempting. Doing one more once over in the mirror, you finally went out to join him again.
Ledger clenched his jaw when his gaze shifted in your direction. Eyes gradually roaming down your figure, he watched as you sauntered over, settling back into your position. Casually turning your attention towards the tv, you tried to ignore the dull ache forming between your legs at the feeling of his hand traveling along your calf. “You’re not playing fair baby…”
At the sound of his voice, you turned your focus on him, “when have I ever done that, hm?” You tilted your head, offering him a small smile after intentionally grazing your leg along his bulge. The subtle movement causing him to twitch, Ledger began breathing heavy, tightening his grip on your leg. Seeing he was close to breaking, you teased, “already giving in…?”
Still in a haze, he reminded himself to stay on task. Sending you a sly grin, he tapped your legs, motioning he was moving. “I’ll be right back”. You saw him retreat into the bed room before emerging after a couple minutes. The sight caused your heart to race. He had taken off his undershirt and sweats, leaving just his boxers riding dangerously low on his hips. Your eyes briefly lingered on his v line, trailing over to his erection and his happy trail before he took his position on the couch again. Thoroughly forgetting about the movie, you continued to brazenly study his body.
Heat pooled in your core as your gaze drifted down his arm. He knew exactly what his tattoo did to you… clearly, he wasn’t playing fair either. You quietly mumbled, “Ledger…”, catching his attention. He hummed, immediately shifting his head to peer down at you laying in the cushion. “I need another hug baby… I’m cold”.
Repositioning himself to lay in between your legs, he was flush against your body now. You wrapped your arms around his back, tenderly raking your nails along his skin while he rested his head on your breasts. Keeping one arm firmly placed underneath you, he grasped your thigh, slinging your leg over his hip to nestle closer. Ledger paused, squeezing your waist as your fragrance traveled to his nose, drawing him in. You continued the soft motions with your hands, releasing a small, content sigh when you realized your techniques worked.
Lifting his head, Ledger peered down at you through hooded eyes. Tempted through the needy look on your face, his gaze fell to your lips. Deciding to forget about the rules, he leaned in, pressing a light kiss on them before resting his forehead on yours. With a new wave of arousal swirling through your body now, you reconnected, whimpering into his mouth as it grew heated. Gown riding up to your stomach, you cinched your legs, drawing a groan from him when his heavy length rubbed against your folds.
He smoothed his hand up your thigh, kneading the soft tissue while every teasing roll of his hips nudged your clit through the thin lace. You moaned, clutching onto him as each grind caused more warmth to settle in your core. Shifting his head, he deepened the kiss swallowing each small moan you emitted. Beginning to feel lightheaded, you reluctantly parted, softly panting against his lips. Gently cupping your jaw now, Ledger slightly tipped your head to the side, murmuring into your ear, “how do you want me to take care of you tonight, hm…? You want me to fuck you right here or spread you out on the bed?”
Whispering out, “right here”, a tremor ran up your spine at the thought of both options. “We can move to the bedroom later”. Smiling at the sound of that, he grazed his thumb along your cheek. Drawing your face back into view now, he leaned back down for a kiss. Bringing your hand around to trail along his abdomen, a moan slipped out as he nipped at your bottom lip. Growing impatient, you fumbled with the seam of his boxers. Ledger abruptly parted to remove your underwear, dragging the fabric off your legs at an agonizing pace. He then stood to pull his down before you grasped his wrist.
Coming into a kneeling position, you began tugging his boxers down. He absentmindedly caressed your cheek, twitching at the sight as you peered up at him through your lashes. Gaze dropping to his dick, you gave him a light stroke, swirling the bead of precum around his tip before bringing your attention to his face. Voice laced with longing, you expressed, “l want to ride”.
Hand shifting down to your throat, Ledger tipped your chin up with his thumb. “What do you say baby…?” You clenched your legs in response, feeling your arousal seep out as you palmed his forearm now.
Shifting uncomfortably on the couch, you mumbled, “please…?” Cracking a satisfied grin at your response, Ledger took a seat, pulling you onto his lap to straddle him. Circling your arms around his neck, you lifted your hips, letting him align with your entrance before gradually lowering. Simultaneously letting out a noise of pleasure, you dropped your head to his shoulder, pausing to take a breath. You were only halfway down when the twinge from being stretched set in.
Ledger tenderly ran his hands up and down your thighs, bringing one arm up to wrap around your waist, holding you steady. Feeling him place a kiss on your shoulder, you heard his muffled voice ring out, “take your time”. You raised your head, seeking out his lips to soothe the stretch while you continued descending. Hand drifting inward, he rubbed gentle circles on your clit, groaning into your mouth once he was completely inside.
You disconnected, a broken moan slipping out when the pleasure fully rooted deep in your core. Immediately drawing his focus to your jaw, he blazed a trail of open mouthed kisses down to your neck. Releasing a shaky breath, you started a slow pace, biting your bottom lip as you found a steady rhythm. He grunted, palming your ass to help guide you up and down. Stuttering out, “f-fuck”, you canted your hips, coating his length with your arousal.
A loud smack resonated throughout the room when he landed a slap on your ass. The lingering sting spreading a buzz straight through your stomach, you clawed at his shoulder. Spurred on now, you increased your pace, chasing that familiar sensation bubbling under the surface. “Just like that”, he praised, striking the other cheek before massaging the flesh. You moaned, hips faltering a bit as your thighs trembled. “Let me see your pretty face baby, look at me”.
Mouth parted, you listened, shifting your face into frame. Hand flying down to his chest, another tremor ran through your body once he came into your line of sight. Eyes hooded beyond belief and lips swollen, he twitched. Taking in your hazy expression, the state of your hair, and the small, visible love bite beginning to form on your neck, Ledger groaned out, “fuck… you were right”, pausing to let the sound of your whimper hit his ear. “I can’t help it…”, voice breaking into a rasp, “not when you look this perfect”.
Brows furrowing, you struggled to keep your gaze focused. Heart racing at the low tone of his voice, the dizzying feeling in your stomach grew intense. Breath hitching, you began to vocalize, “I’m clo—”, before the peak of your orgasm caught you off guard. Ledger grasped your hips, grinding you back and forth to stimulate your clit, prolonging your climax. He tensed, throbbing as you quivered around him in intervals.
Nuzzling in his neck again, you dug your nails into his abdomen, riding out the wave that traveled throughout your body. Willing himself to hold out until he gave you one more, Ledger clutched your hips, bunching the fabric of your nightgown in his hands. After your breathing evened out, you kissed his shoulder, nipping at the skin with your teeth before going over it with your tongue. He clenched his jaw, cautioning, “baby…” as the pit in his stomach twisted.
Purring in his ear, “It’s only fair I give you one too”, you ran your hand up his chest. “I’m ready to go to the bedroom now…”. Ledger stood, holding you in his tight grasp as he ventured off in that direction. Once he reached the foot of the bed, he carefully pulled out, dropping you onto the plush comforter. Maintaining eye contact, you sensually dragged the thin straps off your shoulders before removing your pajamas entirely, throwing the material off somewhere to the side. You never got tired of seeing his face when you were fully exposed, vulnerable, and comfortable in a way that only he could get you.
Kneeling over you now, Ledger grasped your ankles, kissing each one. He trailed his hands up your calf to part your legs a bit more, pausing once he reached your knees. With his gaze following every movement, he paused, fixating on your right thigh. Rubbing tender circles into the skin, he tilted his head, mumbling as he stared, “I love every mark on your body… each one… but this one right here?” Skimming his thumb across the flesh, he sucked in a harsh breath, adding, “this is my favorite…”.
Briefly lowering your eyes to peer at the small birthmark in contrast with his hand, you looked back up. You felt heat rising up your neck as he fixed his view back on your face. Squeezing his wrist out of need, you grabbed his waist, pulling him in. He groaned into the kiss, hiking your legs around his hips. Moaning as his dick glided along your puffy lips, you detached with a string of saliva to utter, “stick it in”.
He rose, grabbing a pillow next to you as he instructed, “lift your hips”. You listened, raising them so he could place it underneath the small of your back before guiding his length up and down your folds. Slipping in after slapping it on your clit a few times, Ledger shuddered, grasping the underside of your thighs while he watched. “Look how well you take me baby”. You were blissed out at this point, mouth parted just staring at him. The way his biceps flared… how his abdomen flexed with each languid thrust… his focused expression.
Eyes eventually wandering down to where you were joined, you Involuntarily clenched down hard at the sight. The base of his dick was visibly covered with your fluid, beginning to form a creamy ring. Biting your lip to stifle a loud moan, you braced yourself, balling the sheets in your hands. “Don’t get all quiet on me now”. Bending your thighs up a bit more, he muttered, “let me hear how good I make you feel”. The new angle causing him to penetrate deeper, your stomach tensed.
“Oh f-fuck!” A shaky moan passing your lips, another sharp pang of pleasure spiraled up your core. Feeling himself throb underneath your flutters, Ledger increased the speed of his strokes. The obscene wet squelching noise accumulating from each plunge against your walls echoed throughout the room. He watched the way your breast bounced in sync before dropping his gaze again. Your juices had started dribbling onto his skin, creating lingering threads on his abdomen with every slap of his skin.
Twitching at the view, he squeezed the soft flesh of your thighs. “Can’t help but make a mess, can you baby?” Moaning when the raw pitch of his voice rung out, you shook your head. Seeing your eyes begin to drift shut, he cupped your jaw, brushing his thumb across your bottom lip to focus your attention. “Feel so fucking good”. Desperately clinging onto his forearm while your other hand twisted in the sheets, the coil in your stomach tightened. Breath stuttering, your vision blurred.
Quickly losing any thread of restraint he had, Ledger groaned. Swiping his thumb along your jaw, he gripped your wrist, pinning your hand in the sheets. Leaning down to be flush against your body, he fisted his other hand above your head before interlocking your fingers. Immediately embracing him, you clung to his back. Mumbling into your ear, “where do you want me?”, his lips ghosted your cheek.
Locking your legs around him, you whimpered, “inside”. Brows furrowing when you felt his veins become more pronounced, a hushed, breathy, “fuck”, escaped you. Knowing how to send him over the edge, you started sweet talking. “Love feeling you cum… hearing that strain in your voice—”, partially losing your train of thought when he twitched again and his thrusts grew shallow. Eyes snapping shut now, you quivered, “w-when you’re close”. The low, throaty groan he released on instinct caused your orgasm to spark, sending an entire ripple through your body. Following you, his hips stuttered before ropes of cum spilled out.
Writhing underneath him, you dug your fingers into his hand. He slowed his movements, breathing heavily as continued pulsating around his dick. After settling enough to open your eyes, a smile spread on your face when he placed a kiss on your cheek. Once you gave him the signal tap that you were good, he started, “so…”. Coming into your frame of view now, he finished, “this means we can take a shower together now, right…?”
You looked at him for a few seconds before laughing. Nodding at his request, you confirmed, “yes”. Thought coming to mind last minute, you added, “however, on one condition”. Nodding, he waited to hear it. “Admit you lost”, you said, finishing with a smile.
He immediately chuckled, “I’m not a liar baby!” Ledger shook his head, clarifying, “you gave in as soon as you went to go change so technically… you lost!”
Laughing upon hearing that, you corrected, “that’s not the rules! You know you gave in first Ledger!”
“You made up ‘the rules’ on the spot!” Pausing when he pointed that out, you let out a playful, dramatic sigh.
“Ok, fine. How about we both agree we lost??”
Shaking his head in agreement, there was a shred of mischief in his eyes when he went in to press a kiss on your lips to seal the deal. As soon as he parted, he gave you a few seconds to register his words, grinning ear to ear while uttering, “sounds like something a sore loser would say”, before he abruptly started tickling you.
Masterlist
Also happy Cinco de Mayo, hope you all enjoy ur day!
heyyy girly. i have cameron cade request. could you write abt him coming home after a long road-game trip and only wanting to spend time w f!reader because he missed her a lot and yeah. just fluffy and plss include smut. ty i love your stuff already!!
🜼 A/N: i was giggling and kicking my feet writing this. whoever recommended this, i love you forever. i hope you enjoy this my cherries <3 muah.
You had been watching Cameron's location like a hawk ever since he told you he was on the way home. It had been nearly a week since you last saw him, so of course, you missed him like no other. He still had around four more hours left on the road, so to occupy your time, you decided to do your hair and watch movies. So, when your doorbell finally rang, you were sitting on the couch with your roller set in and bonnet on, drinking a cup of tea.
You pretty much sprinted to your front door, throwing it open with a big smile on your face as you looked up at your boyfriend. Cameron immediately dropped his bag and reached down to hug you. Your arms went around his neck and your legs around his waist. He wasted no time in hoisting you up so you were sitting comfortably in his arms. "I missed you, mama." Cameron said with a small laugh as you pressed kisses all over his face. "I missed you too!" you said in a soft-excited voice.
He finally walked inside the house with you still in his arms and closed the door and locked up the house smoothly. Cameron walked into your living room and sat down on the couch, pulling you into him in a tight hug. You could tell he missed you just as much as you missed him. Every chance he got, he would text or call you just to tell you that. He pressed his face into your neck and inhaled.
You giggled softly and moved your neck to indicate that it tickled. "Have you been home yet?" You asked curiously. "Nah, I came straight to you."
"Why?"
"I needed to see your pretty ass face. Like, I really missed you. A nigga was really 'finna go insane." He said, looking at you with a smirk on his face.
You grabbed the nearest pillow and hit him with it. "Whatever, nigga." you said with a laugh, which ended up making him laugh. Cameron was the most serious unserious person you had ever met. To someone who had never met him before, they would probably think he was being serious all the time.
"Nah, forreal though, it's been a long ass week. It was starting to drain the life out of me. Being with you makes me feel grounded; it reminds me that I'm doing all this for a reason. You my safe space, ma. Ain't that what y'all be saying?"
You squealed and grabbed his arms, wrapping them around your waist. You gripped his face in your hands and kissed all over it. "Awwww! I'm your safe space, Cam?"
"Hell yeah, on some forever shit." You gasped dramatically and pretended to faint. Moving off his lap and onto the couch. He used your moment of vulnerability to tickle you. You jolted up immediately. "Cameron!" You hit him in the chest, making him stop. "You just tried to kill me!" you gasped, trying to take in all the air that you could.
"Dramatic ass."
"You hate me." Cameron grabbed one of your arms with one hand and your waist with the other to pull you upwards, now straddling his lap again. "I could never hate you, baby." It was the tone of voice in which he said it that made you swoon. He said it like it was the only thing in the world he was sure of. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into his chest, hugging you tightly.
You and Cameron sat that way for a little while, just holding each other and enjoying each other's company. You couldn't help but to be grateful for him in your life. He was the best boyfriend you could have ever asked for.
"Are you hungry?" you asked.
"Yeah, ma. I could eat." Cameron nodded against your neck.
"Okay," you moved off of his lap and started your walk to the kitchen. Of course, being the clingy nigga he is, he was right at your ass following you to the kitchen. As you made food for both of you, he was right there with arms around your waist and his face in your neck; and when you brought up personal space to him, he had the audacity to say: "Don't know what that is." Like at this point dont even bother.
When you were done plating the food, you jumped up to sit on the kitchen counter. "Thank you, baby." Cameron moved to stand in front of your legs. "You're welcome, my love." He kissed you again, and again… which led to a more passionate kiss. You moaned into his mouth, enjoying the feeling of his lips on yours. Before things got too carried away, you softly pushed him away. "Eat, nigga." you pointed down at his bowl, and he let out a laugh before moving to finish his food.
After you were done eating. Cameron took your bowl from you and washed both of them out. "You didn't have to do that. I could've done it, baby." He shook his head subtly, not responding. He always wants to do things for you— and it's always been that way, ever since you met him.
After he was done washing the dishes, you grabbed his arm and pulled him back in between your legs. "Thank you for doing that." You pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he put his arms on both sides of you, caging you in. "What you thanking me for?" He genuinely looked confused. You laughed softly and reached up to smooth out the furrow in his brow. "I can't say thank you?"
"Nah, I gotta nother way you can thank me," he lifted his hand and double-tapped his lips—this goofy ass man. You laughed and gripped his face in your hands and pressed a kiss to his lips. "Hmmm," he said in that deep, smooth voice. "Again." You gave him another kiss. "Damn, that shit still didn't satisfy me."
You scoffed playfully; you knew you had no problem with giving him another kiss. When you went in to kiss him this time, you gave him multiple pecks at once, so you knew he would be satisfied. As soon as your lips touched his for the last time, Cameron decided to use that opportunity to deepen the kiss.
His tongue glided against yours with precision, the sounds of your lips moving against each other didn't do anything but turn you on even more. You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled it up, resting your hand on the center of his chest, feeling his body heat radiate off of him. You ran your hand up and down, feeling the smoothness of his chest and the ridges of his abs.
"More, please," you pleaded. He obliged immediately, pulling your sleep shorts and your panties down at the same time. Cameron grabbed behind your knee and pulled it up. The move stretched your legs apart, allowing him easy access.
He used his unoccupied hand and put it against your pussy, moving against the skin slowly, teasing you. "Babyyy," you whined. He looked up at you, staring straight into your eyes, as he inserted a finger inside of you. Your mouth fell open wordlessly. As he inserted a second finger, his eyes stayed on you the entire time, watching your reaction for any change. You let out a shaky moan when he pulled his fingers out and pushed them back in. He repeated that action—slowly— again and again to get you used to the feeling of his fingers inside of you.
Once he saw your eyes roll back, he began to pick up his pace. "Fuckk, you look so pretty like this, baby." He leaned down and started kissing your neck, licking and sucking all of the area he could reach, causing you to get wetter and wetter.
"You hear this pretty shit gushing, mama?" In your blissful state, you did your best to nod your head. "Yeah?" you nod again. "Yesss, I hear it, baby." He started to move his fingers in a 'come here' motion, touching your G-spot every single time. The feeling snuck up on you without warning. You gasped and gripped the front of his shirt, balling it up in your hand. "I'm cummingggg!"
Cameron slammed his mouth onto yours as you clenched and pulsated on his fingers. You moaned in his mouth and convulsed in his grip. He picked you up, wrapping your legs around his waist, and carried you into your bedroom.
He set you down on the bed, and when you started to lie down, he stopped you. "Nah, turn around." Oop. You stopped in your tracks. From the corner of your eye, you could see him start to get undressed.
You obliged and got on your hands and knees, arching your back and pushing your ass into the air. When Cameron got behind you, he smacked one of your ass cheeks— hard. You squealed from the unexpectedness of it, and he did the same to your other cheek before soothing them both.
"You so pretty, Y/N. I missed you, mama." It sounded like he groaned out the words, like he was in complete awe of the scene before him. He put himself at your entrance and pushed in. Drawing a moan out of you as he did so. He eased out of you and slammed back in. "Cam!" you moaned.
He set a steady pace, drawing out every sound from you that he could. You stretched out both arms in front of you and started meeting his thrusts. "Yeah, you got it, mama. Throw it back for me." You felt him slow his pace, so you did as you were told and began throwing it back on him. "Good girl," he grunted. Smacking your ass hard, then smoothing it over.
His grunts and moans were doing something to you; it was something about a man not being afraid to be vocal in the bedroom. Cameron leaned down, his back on yours, and grabbed your arms, putting them behind your back and pulling you upright— your back now against his chest. "You're doing so good, baby. Taking this dick so good, fuck." He said in your ear. Followed by grunts and moans that had your eyes rolling back.
"It feels so good, please don't stop." You mewled. Cam wrapped one of his hands around your neck and the other gripping your breast, pinching and twisting the nipple. His strokes became more erratic, and he moved in and out of you at such a relentless pace. The sounds the two of you were making was music to his ears.
"I feel you tightening around me, you finna come for me, mama?"
"Yessss,"
"Go ahead, come on this dick," he bit down on your ear. When the pleasure that was building up inside of you exploded, your mouth fell open on a silent moan. You felt him tense up behind you, indicating that he came at the same time as you did.
When he let go of your neck, you dropped onto the bed, panting and waiting to catch your breath. Cameron fell beside you on the bed. You were out before you could even watch Cam clean you up. When you woke up the next morning, you were greeted by the smell of breakfast and fresh fruit.
You climbed out of bed, body still a bit sore and legs still wobbly, and walked to your kitchen. In there, you saw a shirtless Cameron, only wearing a pair of sweatpants, plating breakfast for you and him. You walked up and hugged him from the back, basking in his body heat. "Morning, mama," you said it back to him and kissed the center of his back before walking away and towards the table.
That day, Cameron dedicated it to taking care of you and only you. You truly did have the best boyfriend ever.
i thank yall so much for the love and support, it means so much to me that yall are enjoying my work. i hope you guys enjoyed this. dont be shy to request what you would like to see next! (any fandom) see you in the next one my cherries, muah <3
Warnings: 18+ Readers Only, Sexual Situations, Explicit Language, PWP, Unprotected PIV (wrap your willies!), Car Sex, Outdoor Sex, (light) Dirty Talk
About: Ledger lets the bed of his truck down for the two of you. (Word Count: 1.3k)
Ledger’s truck was the stage for many bumbling, unforgettable firsts in your relationship. A nose-bumping first kiss, the taste of tequila and lime juice from Ward’s, sugared sweet from the remnants of shot glasses and the words he breathed in your ear just moments before. The memory of your skin’s scent, saturated in body butter, seemed to seep in the cracks of well-loved leather cushions and into his head, mesmerizing him the very first night he picked you up for a date. That first ‘I love you’ that slipped out amid deep belly laughs, promised between breaths, a confession that would become routine as you entered and exited his passenger side.
Tonight is the first time Ledger takes you to the place he visits to clear his mind. He had parked on one of the hills surrounding his unfinished estate, the two of you arriving minutes shy of sunset. The sky, set ablaze with hues of crimson and maroon lay a backdrop to the trees and mountains that stood tall in the distance.
“I got somethin’ to show you.” He clicks off his seatbelt and yours, almost bolting to the back of the truck. He honored you with a set up that brought you butterflies, you spot a bouquet of peonies and roses as you rounded the car with him.
Layers of sheets and pillows that were detergent-soft and a six pack of hard cider placed in the back of his pickup truck, lie askew from fevered movements. The bright orange painted metal bounced on its hinges, mirroring the sensuous rhythm shared between you.
Your thighs spread wide over his lap, muscles flexing with each languid roll of your hips. Unabashed moans and grunts rang out into the open air around you as you rode him. The evening breeze gave way to heat festering at your center, whispering along your exposed shoulders and wrapping around you.
Your shrug was long discarded in the backseat, flung haphazardly when you and your boyfriend kissed like adolescents discovering the wake of desire. It was surprising to you that you made it to back of his truck, with Ledger’s hands pulling at your clothing before you could catch your breath, the anticipation of what was next leaving your bodies buzzing.
The smacking sound of bare skin atop skin joined the cacophony of mewls rivaling the hum of nature around them. Ledger had removed his jeans and briefs, then yanked apart the panties you wore, snapping them apart beneath your skirt. You could barely protest as his next move was to rut up into your slippery folds, effectively stealing your breath away.
“Fuck,” Ledger’s voice dragged out the vowel in the expletive, blue-green eyes flitting up from where you two connected to your face. Your eyes fluttered closed, lip taut between your teeth until a particular snap of your hips pulled them apart with gasp.
“Ugh, Daddy!” He grunted in response. The nickname stumbled from your mouth before you could realize it, as it only left you once before this night. You remembered how it spurred him to fuck you harder, as if he had to showcase his title. Ledger took pride in taking care of you in all arenas of your relationship, lovemaking no different.
Your nails bit into his shoulders, impromptu handlebars for you as you continue to grind down on him. “So fuckin’ pretty riding this dick,” he gritted from beneath you, his neck cording from the feeling of your walls clenching around around him. Your chest and cheeks warmed underneath the praise, “You feel so good, baby,” you shot back.
“Yeah? How good?” He breathed, his hands kneading the flesh at the junction of your hip and thighs. Ledger lay back against the pallet he created, watching your body curl with each wind of your hips. The sight of your arousal gathering around the base of him, milky white, sheathed his groin generously, making it easier for you to reach that spot.
“So good…” you whined, “M’so full, baby.”
You had to adjust to his size the first time you had sunk down, his size all-consuming as he broke you in inch by tormenting inch.
His eyes—eyes that always found themselves in trouble—glossy and blown so much you could barely see his irises, did not migrate from you. Curves backlit by warm light eclipsed the sun setting from his view, a feast for his sight and touch, taste the next sense he dreams of exploring.
Calloused hands give your waist a squeeze before roaming up your torso to thumb at the bralette marking the barrier between himself and your bare peaks. A wave of pleasure crashed into you as Ledger’s grips tightened, guiding you in an up and down motion over his length. The redirection had your head spinning as the change of pace brought you closer to the brink of your climax.
“Shit…you’re soaking me darlin’…” His mouth nearly watered with instinct the way you wet his lap, reminded of the other times he has tasted you on his leather seats. Your movements faltered as sweet heat began to unfurl from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head.
Your voice broke off into a whine when his tattooed arms wrapped themselves around your middle. He planted his feet to the floor of the truck and thrust his hips upwards. You fall forward at once, clinging to his skin with sweat, some of which he licks off your collar. He wanted to get lost in you, in your scent and how you tasted, disheveled and needy for his dick.
It is with shaky forearms on either side of his head you hold yourself up. He lands an obscenely wet kiss on your lips as you tumble face to face. He nudged up once more, deeper this time, and your body quaked with the intensity of your approaching orgasm.
“You can take it, baby. I know you can,” His voice is gruff in your ears and thick with his own desire. He sets an unrelenting pace beneath you, holding tight to your waist with each stroke. You are unable to move, thighs shaking and body clenching around the source of your torture.
“Y-yes! Yes! Don’t—don’t stop.” You whimper, holding on tight to the sheets below. Ledger has his face inside your neck, sponging the sensitive skin there with kisses. He was deep in your stomach at this angle, the feeling filling you with flutters and dreams too soon for now. Until then, you let him pull you apart at the seams, a gentle cry and your seizing body letting him know you have hit your limits.
“That's it. That's my girl." Ledger moaned with a coaxing smack to your ass cheek.
He eased you through your orgasm, hands massaging your waist as spurts of wetness coat his lap. Another deep, sweltering kiss pulls you back into reality, where tension is bubbling over between you. You hiss through the overstimulation of Ledger’s thrusting, the erratic rhythm letting you know he was close. Looking down and seeing his chiseled face slackened with ecstasy had you clamping down on him.
“You want me to fill you up, hm? I could feel you beggin’ for it.” The familiar pulse of him inside you and his groans growing in volume were signs of his own release. His hands smoothed over your ass, spreading as he pistoned inside you. You could barely answer coherently, babbling what you hoped sounded like, “I want it, Daddy. Make me feel it, please, please.”
“Damn, baby,” White flashed behind Ledger’s eyes as he began to spill inside you in hot spurts. His face returns to your neck, laving along it while his body tightens beneath you with the strength of his orgasm. He holds you as he rides out his high, hips twitching, finishing with a satisfied groan.
You remain in place, leaving soft pants near the other's ear for a minute. When you do raise up, he’s on you again, covering your chest in open-mouthed kisses.
“You just can’t get enough, can you?” You say, squealing when nips at one of your peaks through your lace bralette. He gets ready to peel the layer off and chuckles.
“Never.” Ledger replies, easing you down on the duvet beneath you.
• • •
IDK this was just sumn sweet for the grown folk, ok! Thank you so much for reading. <3
⋆.ೃ࿔AN EYE FOR AN EYE ᝰ
In which Dasha learns that perhaps she is better with her husband
pairing : dasha 'wonder' ward x ledger ward
warnings : ledger being a crash out, grown folk shit too chile
song recs : losing you - naomi scott, hurt you - toni braxton, loud - olivia dean , all the way home - tamar braxton
Dasha had only seen Ledger truly irate once in her life, and even then the rage had not belonged wholly to him so much as to grief wearing his face like borrowed skin. It had been during that jagged, brutal stretch after Scotty died, when mourning had stopped looking like tears and started looking like ruin, when he had driven his fist clean through the drywall in a single, ugly burst of helplessness and stood there afterward breathing like a man who had lost the war against his own body. She had patched his knuckles up herself that night, sitting him down at the edge of the bathtub while he refused to meet her eyes, and the apology had come almost as quickly as the violence had, clumsy and low and ashamed, because Ledger’s anger had always flared hard and then burned itself out, leaving behind guilt and silence and the hollowed exhaustion of a man already halfway to the next stage of grief.
Back then, she had thought that was the extent of him. Thought that even at his worst there was some invisible line he could not cross, some final border his love for her would not let him approach. Thought, perhaps foolishly, that whatever darkness lived in her husband, it did not know how to rise in defense of itself so completely that it became frightening.
Standing in the doorway of that cabin, with dawn still bruising the mountains blue and the porch boards cold beneath her bare feet, Dasha realized how wrong she had been.
She saw Ledger’s hand unclench once, then again, then a third time, each slow flex of his fingers looking less like movement and more like restraint dragged into the light by force. It was the kind of gesture that made the air itself seem to tighten, as though the morning had suddenly become too narrow to contain him. His body had gone unnaturally still in every other place, all six foot five of him drawn up and held together with a kind of terrible, vibrating control, but that hand kept betraying him, opening and closing at his side like something in him was trying to remember whether it was made for reaching or for damage. The ring sat heavy in his pocket. His jaw had locked so tightly she could see the strain of it from where she stood. Even the silence around him felt dangerous now, dense and electrical, like the hush that settles over the world a half-second before a storm splits the sky open.
The man on the porch felt it too.
Of course he did.
He had been awkward from the moment the door opened, all polite posture and borrowed ease, but the second Ledger stepped fully into view, the poor fool seemed to realize all at once that whatever little domestic scene he had just wandered out of did not belong to him, had never belonged to him, and that he was now standing directly in the path of something older, bigger, and infinitely more volatile than he had the right to be near. He looked from Dasha to Ledger and then back again, his whole frame losing its shape under the weight of that stare. Ledger did not shout. He did not move. He did not need to. Fury radiated off him with the cold, merciless force of a blade held steady in a large hand. It turned his height monstrous. Turned the breadth of his shoulders into a warning. Turned the mountain air mean.
The other man shifted, suddenly all elbows and swallowed words, the steam from his coffee twisting uselessly between them like it, too, wanted out of the moment before it got worse. He took a backward step down off the porch so quickly it almost looked like retreat, the mug wobbling in his hand, his pride shrinking in real time beneath the sheer, imposing fact of Ledger Ward in full and terrible silence.
“Should be all good, D,” he mumbled, voice thinned out by nerves, by caution, by the unmistakable instinct for self-preservation that had finally kicked in with some urgency. Then, as if even speaking another sentence might count as provoking fate, he dipped his head and scrambled off with all the graceless haste of a man trying not to run while very much wanting to. Gravel shifted under his boots. The screen door gave a pitiful little shudder behind him. Within seconds he was halfway down the drive, making himself scarce so fast it bordered on comical, if there had been anything at all funny about the expression on Ledger’s face.
Because Dasha had never, not once, seen him look like that.
Not devastated.
Not grieved.
Not merely angry.
No, this was something blacker, quieter, more primitive than any of those things, like every sleepless night, every unanswered call, every police update, every image his mind had forced on him over twenty-one days of absence had just now found a body to pour themselves into. He stood there at the foot of her porch like a man who had driven straight through hell and arrived only to find another man at her door before he had even gotten the chance to knock. The sight of him made her stomach drop in one long, cold line, because for the first time since she had known him, Dasha understood that Ledger’s rage had never been small at all. It had only ever been leashed.
And now, with his hand opening and closing at his side and his eyes fixed on the retreating back of the man who had just come out of her cabin, the leash looked very, very thin.
“So this what you been up to for three weeks?” he muttered, the words dropping low and ugly from his mouth as he stared her down, and whatever remorse had still been clinging to Dasha in thin little shreds burned clean out of her body right then and there. It did not merely fade, did not soften or retreat politely into the background; it left her in a rush, as if his accusation had lit a match to it, and all that remained in its place was offense, bright and hot and immediate. She looked back at him with the full force of her temper, chin tipped up, eyes narrowed, every bit of mountain-cabin softness stripped from her face in an instant.
“Negro, please,” she said, rolling her eyes with a kind of exhausted contempt that landed harder than if she’d screamed, and then she turned from him and walked back into the cabin like he was the one trespassing on her peace and not the other way around.
Ledger followed, of course he did.
He filled the doorway so completely that the morning light seemed to bend around him, all broad shoulders and hard lines and storm-cloud silence, physically imposing to damn near anybody else on earth, but not to her, never to her, because Dasha had known him too long, had patched too many holes in him, had seen him cry too many ugly tears in private to ever be properly cowed by the sheer size of him. Other people might have looked at Ledger and seen intimidation. Dasha looked at him and saw nerve, grief, audacity, and a whole lot of bullshit wrapped in expensive cologne and righteous male anger.
“Dasha, I’m talking to yo’ ass.”
His voice cracked through the cabin after her, low and sharp and used to being obeyed, but Dasha did not so much as break stride. The place was warm with woodsmoke and coffee and the stale ghost of the morning she had been trying to claim for herself before he tore it open with his arrival. The kitchen sat tucked into one side of the room, small and neat in that mountain-cabin way, dish towel on the counter, half-drunk mug still sitting by the sink, a cardigan thrown over the back of one chair. Too intimate. Too lived in. Too easily misunderstood by a man already bleeding from his own imagination. She knew that, and maybe some smaller, meaner part of her enjoyed it for exactly three seconds before the pleasure soured into anger again.
She spun around near the kitchen table so quickly the chair legs gave a little scrape against the floorboards.
“Oh, now you acknowledge me?” she shot back, one hand planting on her hip while the other sliced through the air in disbelief. “Shit, Kenna must’ve left your sorry ass for you to come all this way.”
That landed exactly where she meant it to, a blade slipped neat between the ribs.
Ledger’s face darkened at once, not with shame, not yet, but with that dangerous male offense that came when a woman found the wound and put her finger directly into it without trembling first. He took another step into the room, and the cabin, already small, seemed to shrink around the force of him. There was road dust on his boots. There were shadows under his eyes deep enough to bruise. He looked like a man who had not slept properly in weeks and had driven across state lines powered by nothing but fear and spite and love he no longer knew how to hold cleanly.
“Watch your mouth,” he said, but the warning came out rough around the edges, frayed by exhaustion and something harsher than anger.
Dasha laughed, and the sound was wicked in the way only hurt laughter could be.
“Or what?” she asked, cocking her head. “You gone save me too? That what this is? Another rescue mission? Another sad little broken bird for Ledger Ward to take under his wing?”
His jaw flexed so hard it looked painful.
“You really wanna do this?” he asked.
“Do what?” Dasha snapped, throwing both hands up. “Say out loud what your dumb ass was too cowardly to say in front of all them people back home? Because trust me, nigga, I got time today.”
Ledger let out one bitter breath through his nose, a sound with no humor in it whatsoever, then raked a hand over his mouth and looked around the cabin like the room itself had offended him. His gaze landed on the second mug still on the counter and sharpened. Dasha saw it happen. Saw the moment his mind stitched a story together from woodsmoke and coffee cups and one man walking out the door too early in the morning. Saw the jealousy go dark and old in him, primitive enough to make his shoulders square.
“So what,” he said, voice dropping lower now, more controlled and therefore more dangerous, “I’m supposed to pull up after three weeks of not knowing if you alive, and I find some nigga coming out your door at dawn, and I’m just supposed to what, Dasha? Smile?”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don’t get to stand in my face and act brand new now,” she said, her voice gone silky with fury, which was always when he should have worried most. “You do not get to come all the way up this mountain and start puffing up your chest at me like I owe you some clean, respectable explanation. Not after the shit you pulled.”
“The shit I pulled?” Ledger repeated, staring at her like the words themselves had insulted him. “Dasha, you vanished. You disappeared on everybody. You had police involved. Maya ain’t know where you was. Your sponsor ain’t know where you was at first. Diem kept asking for you. You had me out my damn mind for three weeks, and I get here and there’s another man in your house.”
“Not my house,” she snapped automatically. “This cabin belongs to my people.”
“Oh, that’s what the fuck we correcting right now?” he shot back, incredulous. “That’s the part that matters?”
Dasha crossed her arms over herself, not because she felt small but because she knew if she did not hold herself together physically, her temper might shake clean through her skin. “What matters is you barging in here full of bass and bullshit like you got some moral high ground.”
Ledger barked out a laugh so humorless it sounded like it scraped his throat on the way up. “Moral high ground? Dasha, I found another man walking out your door.”
“And I found my husband emotionally laid up with the woman who killed his best friend,” she said so fast the words seemed to leap from her mouth on instinct. “We both seeing shit we don’t like.”
The room went still.
Not quiet. Still. There was a difference. Quiet was absence. Stillness was a held breath before impact.
Ledger’s eyes went flat in a way that made the hair on her arms rise, but Dasha was too far inside the fight to care now, too wounded, too stubborn, too unwilling to let him drag her into defense when she had spent twenty-one days trying not to drown in the consequences of what he’d done.
“That man was helping me with firewood and checking the damn generator,” Dasha said, her mouth twisting with that cool, poisonous kind of contempt that always showed up when her feelings were too big to carry plainly. Then she tipped her head and kept going, because once Dasha got hurt enough, she did not merely argue, she reached for the sharpest thing in the room and made language of it. “But even if he wasn’t, even if I had him laid out on that couch all comfortable in his drawls, eating pancakes and calling me ‘baby’ in your face, hell—” her laugh came out low and ugly, more blade than amusement, “—if I was on my damn knees when you walked in, you still would not have room to look at me crazy.”
The cabin went still.
Not quiet. Still.
The kind of stillness that made the wood in the walls seem to brace itself.
Ledger did not answer right away, and that—more than shouting, more than cursing, more than any fast little flare of temper—was what made the air change. He just stood there in the middle of that small mountain kitchen with his shoulders squared and his jaw locked so hard it looked painful, his eyes fixed on her with the kind of dark, depthless intensity that made him seem larger than six foot five, as though rage had filled out the silhouette of him and made him monstrous in the oldest, most masculine sense of the word. His hand opened once at his side. Then closed. Then opened again, slow enough to look controlled if you did not know him, and Dasha knew him too well not to recognize the violence in the restraint.
When he finally spoke, his voice came out low and level and terrible.
“You would’ve watched me kill him.”
There was no bark in it. No theatrical flare. No heat for the sake of noise. He said it with the dead calm of a man who had already seen the whole picture in his mind and was speaking from the center of it. That made it worse. Infinitely worse.
Ledger took one step toward her, then another, and the floorboards answered beneath his weight with old, protesting groans. “You wanna play in my face, cool. You wanna say the foulest shit you can think of just to see what lands, cool. But don’t stand there and talk to me like I’m some ordinary nigga with ordinary feelings about you.” His nostrils flared once, and he gave a short, joyless laugh that sounded like it had scraped his throat on the way out. “You think I would’ve came all this way, half out my damn mind, after twenty-one days of not knowing if you was breathing, and then stood there politely while another man made himself at home where my wife lays her head?”
He shook his head slowly, once, like the very thought offended him down to the marrow.
“Nah,” he muttered. “Nah. There would not have been no talking me down. No noble little speech. No stepping back and trying to hear both sides. If I had walked in here and seen another man touching what belongs to me, looking at you like he had some claim, breathing too easy in your space like he forgot whose wife he was near…” His eyes dropped briefly, then came back to her face darker than before, lower and meaner and far more honest than was safe. “That would’ve been his last comfortable morning.”
The words landed in the room like iron.
Water still ticked softly somewhere deeper in the cabin, the shower not fully turned off, the old pipes talking to themselves in the walls, but here in the kitchen everything had gone taut as a wire. Dasha could feel her own pulse now, loud and hard and angry in the base of her throat, but Ledger looked like his had sunk lower, into that dangerous, cold place where men stopped posturing and started meaning every syllable exactly as spoken.
“You know what the difference is?” he asked, taking another step until the space between them had thinned into something charged and volatile. “What happened with Kenna was me being weak. Me being selfish. Me being a coward in places I should’ve been disciplined.” His jaw ticked hard. “What you just described? That would make me something else entirely.”
He planted one hand flat on the counter beside her then, hard enough to make the wood knock against the wall, and the sound cracked through the room like a warning shot. Not because he meant it for her. Never for her. That was the thing that made Ledger most frightening when it came to Dasha: the violence in him never turned toward her, only outward, toward anything foolish enough to threaten, touch, diminish, or lay claim where he believed claim had already been made.
His head dipped, and when he looked at her again from beneath his brow, the expression in his face was dark enough to make the morning itself feel too soft for what lived in him.
“Do not confuse my guilt with gentleness,” he said. “Do not confuse me knowing I failed you with me suddenly becoming the kind of man who’ll stand there and eat disrespect where you’re concerned. I can hate what I did, I can hate myself for what I let happen, and still lose every last piece of good sense over you in the same damn breath. Both things can be true.”
Dasha’s mouth parted, but Ledger kept going, his voice dropping quieter, which only made it more dangerous, more intimate, more likely to slide under the skin and stay there.
“You wanna know what I saw when that man stepped out your door?” he asked. “I saw twenty-one days of fear turn into one second of pure black rage. That’s what I saw. I saw every mile I drove up this mountain, every call that went unanswered, every night I laid there thinking maybe I’d never see you again, and then I saw some nigga coming out your morning like he belonged in it.” His upper lip curled slightly, not in disgust at her, but at the memory. “If he hadn’t had enough sense to get the hell off that porch when he did, you would’ve seen a version of me I ain’t proud of and ain’t apologizing for either.”
He straightened a little then, just enough to drag in a breath, but it did nothing to soften the hard, ruinous set of him.
“Because you are my wife,” he said, and the sentence came out with all the weight of oath, of blood, of old-world possession sharpened by love. “My wife. Not a title I say when it sound nice. Not a pretty little word for public. Mine in the way that means if another man gets stupid where you’re concerned, I stop being a reasonable person. Mine in the way that means there are parts of me built specifically to destroy whatever tries to come for what I love.”
That was when something flashed in Dasha’s face, hot and offended and wounded all over again, because of course it did. Because she was Dasha. Because even now, with all that darkness in him laid bare, she would rather square up to it than step around it.
“Oh, hell no, I know prison barbie ain't got you feeling goddamn entitled," Dasha took a step toward him then, small compared to him in size and not in spirit at all, her voice climbing with every syllable. “Nigga, you the one showed up at my door like some aggrieved husband in a Tyler Perry movie, talking ’bout, ‘So this what you been up to for three weeks?’ as if you didn’t spend months making me feel like I was standing outside my own marriage knocking.”
Ledger’s stare cut into her.
“You really gone keep comparing this to that?”
“Yes,” she said flatly. “Because that is exactly what the fuck it feels like.”
He dragged both hands down his face, then planted them on his hips, pacing two short steps away before turning back to her with all that restless, caged-up male energy making the little cabin look far too small for his body. “I came up here because I thought you could’ve been dead.”
Dasha’s expression flickered, just for a second, but he saw it and pushed right through.
“You hear me?” he demanded, voice cracking louder now, the rage in it braided tight with fear. “Dead. Drunk. Hurt. Gone for real. That’s what I been living with while you was up here playing Little House on the Prairie with random niggas bringing you wood.”
Her mouth dropped open in offended disbelief.
“See, that’s exactly why I left your ass,” she said, giving a little laugh and shaking her head like the stupidity of him was too large to hold in one body. “Because no matter how wrong you are, you say shit with your whole chest like it turns into truth just ’cause it came out loud.”
Ledger pointed at the door, his restraint visibly thinning. “Then help me out and explain why the hell there was a man at your door looking comfortable.”
Dasha threw her hands up. “Because life did not stop moving just because you finally decided to come find me, Ledger. Damn. My cousin sent him up here to help fix shit around the cabin because, unlike you, some people know how to ask what I need instead of accusing me the second they get in my face.”
That one hit hard enough to make him go quiet for a beat.
Then, with all the precision of a man choosing violence because honesty had started hurting too badly, Ledger said, “You knew exactly what it looked like.”
Dasha stared at him.
Then she smiled.
It was not a kind smile. It was not a pretty one either. It was the smile of a woman whose heartbreak had finally fermented into meanness.
“Well, Ledger, maybe we should find a bar for you to give more Kennas a job, since you’re Captain Save-A-Hoe.”
The words cracked across the room like a whip.
Ledger recoiled before he could stop himself. Not physically, not by much, but enough. Enough that she saw it. Enough that the satisfaction came sharp and immediate and disappeared just as fast, leaving behind the old ache she had been trying so hard to turn into anger.
“You know what?” he said, voice gone eerily calm now. “You real slick when you hurt.”
“And you real self-righteous for a nigga who caused the whole damn fire.”
She moved past him then, shoulder brushing his arm hard enough to make the contact feel deliberate, and went to the counter for no reason other than motion, than needing to do something with her body besides throw another object or another sentence. She snatched up her mug, realized it was empty, and set it back down harder than necessary. Behind her, Ledger turned slowly, tracking her with his eyes like she was both the center of his fury and the only thing keeping him upright.
“You think I don’t know I fucked up?” he asked.
Dasha laughed without turning around. “Please. Knowing and changing are two different things.”
“I came here, didn’t I?”
That made her whirl back toward him so fast the mug nearly tipped over.
“Oh, congratulations,” she said, clapping once in a nasty little mockery of applause. “You found your way to North Carolina. You want a cookie? A plaque? You want me to cry because the nigga who emotionally abandoned me got in a truck and followed a transaction alert?”
Ledger’s expression hardened again. “I followed that alert because no one knew if you were okay.”
“And whose fault is that?” she shot back. “Who pushed me to a point where disappearing sounded easier than staying and looking at you?”
His mouth flattened. “So that’s my fault too.”
“Yes!” Dasha shouted, the force of it shaking through the cabin walls. “Yes, nigga, it is. Not all of it. I know I’m grown. I know I made my own choice. But stop standing there acting confused about how I got to the edge when you the one who kept walking me to it.”
The truth of it hung hot and ugly between them.
For a second neither of them moved.
Then Ledger took one slow step closer, his voice dropping, losing some of its noise and gaining something heavier in its place.
“You think I was okay without you?”
Dasha’s eyes flashed with fresh tears she refused to let fall. “I don’t know, Ledger. Was you? ’Cause from where I was standing, you looked mighty occupied.”
His nostrils flared again. “That’s foul.”
She pressed a hand to her chest with false innocence so sharp it bordered on art. “Oh, now I’m foul. Interesting.”
He looked at her then with the kind of tired fury that only comes from loving someone enough to be wounded by every sentence they say. “You say whatever you can to cut deep.”
Dasha held his stare. “And you always act surprised when I bleed back.”
He went quiet again, and this time the quiet felt more dangerous than any shout. The fire had changed shape. It was no longer wild and flailing. It had settled into coals now, bright and mean and capable of burning just as bad with less noise.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low enough that she had to hear him with her whole body.
“You really think that’s all Kenna was to me?”
Dasha tilted her head, mouth trembling with contempt and hurt all at once. “I think whatever she was, it should’ve never been enough to make me feel like I was competing with a ghost and the woman who made him one.”
The sentence landed with a force that seemed to move the air itself.
Ledger closed his eyes for half a second, and when he opened them again, the anger was still there, but behind it sat something rawer, older, more ruinous.
And Dasha, still breathing hard, still slick at the mouth because if she stopped talking she might start crying again, realized with a fresh sting of fury that he was still her match in every way that mattered. Same temper. Same sharp tongue. Same ugly little instinct to strike where the flesh was already torn. He might have towered over her in size, but in spirit they stood eye to eye, two hardheaded, hurt souls in a mountain cabin, throwing sparks at each other and pretending not to notice the whole place already smelled like smoke.
Ledger laughed then, but it was the kind of laugh that had no joy in it whatsoever, the kind that came out of a man when he was too angry to shout without saying something truly unforgivable. He turned away from her for half a beat, dragged a hand over his beard, then looked back at her with that hard, bright stare of his, like he was lining his next words up in the chamber before he fired them.
“Aight,” he said slowly, the syllable dragging. “Since we being honest now, let’s talk about Calvin.”
Dasha’s mouth twitched, not with amusement, but with the sharp little satisfaction of somebody who had been waiting for the ugly center of the matter to finally show its face. She leaned one hip against the counter and folded her arms, chin lifting a fraction, every inch of her posture saying she was not about to be cowed into contrition just because he had finally gotten around to naming the thing that had been chewing on him since the bar.
“Oh, now we cooking,” she said coolly. “Go on then. Say what you really wanna say.”
Ledger took another step toward her, slow and heavy, the floorboards letting out low groans beneath his boots as though even the cabin itself knew this conversation was about to turn uglier before it turned truthful. “You knew that nigga wanted you.”
Dasha rolled her eyes so hard it bordered on disrespect as an art form. “And?”
That one little word struck him like a slap.
“And?” he repeated, voice dropping, incredulous in a way that sounded almost offended by the size of her nerve. “That’s what you got for me? ‘And?’”
“Yes, and.” She shrugged, careless in the way only a woman who knew she was getting under a man’s skin on purpose could be careless. “Calvin want a lot of things. That ain’t automatically got shit to do with me.”
Ledger stared at her for a long second, then gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. “You so full of shit.”
Dasha’s brows lifted. “Excuse you?”
“No, don’t ‘excuse you’ me,” he snapped, pointing at her with that thick, accusatory finger of his. “You knew exactly what the fuck you was doing. You knew he been sweet on you since before all this. You knew he be standing too close, talking too soft, looking at you like he trying to solve you. And you invited him into my bar anyway.”
Dasha let out a little sound that was half laugh, half scoff, and turned away just long enough to grab her mug and realize all over again that it was empty. She set it down with a click that felt like punctuation. “First of all, Calvin did not come into your bar. He came into the bar. Let’s not get possessive now, nigga, it’s unbecoming.”
Ledger’s jaw clenched. “You stay playing in my face.”
“And you stay acting like every man that look at me oughta drop dead on the spot because you finally remembered I’m desirable.”
That one hit so clean and so square that he went still. Not speechless, because Ledger Ward was rarely ever fully speechless, but still in the way a man got when a woman laid out an ugly truth he had no quick, clean way around.
Dasha saw it and pressed harder, because of course she did, because they were both bleeding and neither one of them had sense enough in that moment to stop touching the wound.
“You know what the funny part is?” she asked, voice gone syrup-slick, all dangerous sweetness. “Calvin did not have to do much. That’s what should really piss you off. He ain’t have to pull me nowhere. Ain’t have to whisper nothing scandalous in my ear. Ain’t even have to try that hard. All he had to do was look at me like I existed.”
Ledger’s expression changed then, and the shift in him was subtle but immediate, like a weather front rolling dark over open land. “Watch yourself.”
“Oh, I’m watching myself just fine,” she replied, pushing off the counter and taking one measured step toward him. “Been watching myself for months, actually, because somebody had to. Since apparently my husband got distracted saving the woman who wrecked everybody’s damn life.”
“That’s not what the fuck this is about,” he bit out.
“No?” Dasha’s eyes flashed. “Then why you still standing here talking about Calvin instead of talking about why I even noticed the attention in the first place?”
Ledger barked out another humorless laugh. “Because I’m trying real hard not to lose my shit over the fact that another nigga felt comfortable enough to flirt with my wife in front of me.”
“Maybe he felt comfortable because I was acting like a woman whose husband forgot she was his,” she said, quick as a match striking, and the sentence crackled just as hot.
He looked at her then with the kind of anger that came from feeling not only challenged but exposed. “You wanted me jealous.”
Dasha tilted her head. “Did I?”
“Yes,” he said flatly, with far too much certainty to be bluffing. “You wanted me jealous, you wanted me twitching, and you wanted me to look over there and see exactly how easy it would be for another man to step into the space I been leaving empty.”
For the first time in the argument, Dasha’s face flickered.
Not enough for him to call it softness. Not enough for her to lose the upper hand entirely. But enough for the truth of his read to move through the room like smoke, thin and undeniable.
She laughed anyway, because if there was one thing Dasha was not about to do, it was hand him the full win that easily.
“Well,” she said, lifting one shoulder in a small, hateful shrug, “if the shoe fit, nigga.”
Ledger took another step closer, and now there was barely any room left between them at all, only a sliver of mountain-cabin air and all the old hurt they kept throwing back and forth like it was currency. “That shit was childish.”
“And Kenna wasn’t?” Dasha shot back so fast the words nearly collided. “You got a whole lot to say about childish now.”
His mouth flattened. “Don’t do that.”
“I will do exactly that,” she said, and there was something regal in the way she held herself even in fury, some old queenly thing in her spine that made her seem taller than she was. “You do not get to come in here with your chest puffed out over Calvin when you had me out there looking stupid over a whole emotional entanglement.”
Ledger’s nostrils flared. “Entanglement?” he repeated, disgust coloring every syllable. “That’s what the fuck we calling it now?”
Dasha’s smile was all teeth and no warmth. “You want a prettier word? I’m sure Kenna got one. Maybe she can write it down for you since y’all was over there building intimacy and community and whatever other Oprah-ass shit y’all had going on.”
“Dasha.”
“No, don’t ‘Dasha’ me in that tone.” She lifted a finger between them, a warning and a dare wrapped into one. “You wanna sit here and interrogate me about Calvin like I’m the one who stepped out emotionally? Calvin never got what you gave Kenna, and that’s exactly why this line of questioning is insulting.”
Ledger’s eyes darkened. “You let him think he had a chance.”
The sentence landed low and mean, and Dasha, because she was Dasha and headstrong to the point of destruction, smiled wider.
“Maybe I did.”
He stared at her.
The room held its breath.
Then Ledger leaned in just enough to make the next words feel private and dangerous at once. “You bold as hell saying that to my face.”
Dasha did not budge. “Who else face I’ma say it to?”
For one thin second, something close to admiration flickered beneath the anger in his eyes, because that had always been the thing about them, hadn’t it? Dasha would mouth off at a lion if she thought he deserved it, and Ledger, for all his temper, had always loved her most in the moments she refused to shrink. Loved it and hated it, sometimes in the same breath.
“You know what, I’m not even surprised,” he said at last, voice low and lethal. “You get hurt and your first instinct is to make sure I hurt too.”
“And your first instinct,” Dasha fired back, “is apparently to find another woman to pour yourself into and call it grief.”
That got him good.
He looked away from her then, just for a second, just long enough to betray the fact that the hit had landed beneath the ribs where all the important damage got done. When he looked back, his eyes had gone cold and bright.
“Calvin ain’t me,” he said.
Dasha’s lips curved faintly. “Thank God.”
Ledger took that one right on the chin, and when he answered, his voice had turned velvet-dark, which was always the most dangerous version of his anger, because shouting meant he was still reaching. Quiet meant he’d found the knife.
“You right,” he said. “He ain’t me, because that nigga been circling around you like a hungry dog for years and still ain’t get close enough to matter.”
Dasha blinked once, then let out a little offended laugh. “Oh, so now we insulting people for being decent?”
“Decent?” Ledger repeated, his brows lifting. “That’s what he is? Decent?”
“Yes,” Dasha said, slick and quick, “decent. Educated. Fine. Gainfully employed. Knows how to look a woman in her eyes when she talking. Real tragic set of qualities, I know.”
Ledger’s head tipped back for half a second, and when it came down again, he looked at her like he could not decide whether to drag her into a kiss or strangle the next sentence out of her. “You saying all this like you trying to prove something.”
“I am proving something,” she said. “I’m proving that I had options, Ledger. I’m proving that while you was over there wrapped up in your perfect little sympathy project, there were men right in my face willing to treat me like I was still the center of the damn room.”
He went so still at that phrase that she almost regretted it, almost, but pride was a vicious little thing and she let the moment pass without softening.
“Perfect little sympathy project,” he repeated, and now his voice was barely above a murmur, all the more dangerous for it. “That what you think she was?”
Dasha folded her arms again. “If the title fits.”
“Nah,” he said, stepping into her space in a way that would have made another woman retreat, but Dasha only lifted her chin higher. “Say what you really mean.”
She looked him dead in the face and did not blink. “I mean while you were busy being emotionally available to the woman who killed Scotty, I had another man in my face reminding me I was still worth paying attention to.”
There it was.
No dodge.
No slick turn.
No joke to lighten the blow.
Just the truth, mean and plain.
Ledger absorbed it in silence first, the kind of silence that gathered weight with every passing second, and when he finally spoke again, his voice came out rougher, fuller, like it had been dragged up from somewhere deep and bruised.
“And did it work?”
Dasha frowned. “What?”
“Did it work?” he repeated, eyes fixed on her with a steadiness that felt almost cruel. “All that little shit you was pulling with Calvin, all that letting him stand close, letting him smile in your face, letting me see it. Did it do what you wanted it to do?”
She held his gaze and said nothing.
Ledger laughed once, quietly, and there was something exhausted in the sound now, something angry and ancient and wounded down to the bone.
“That’s what I thought,” he muttered.
Dasha’s temper flared fresh. “Nigga, don’t stand there acting smug. If anything, the fact that you noticed proves my point.”
“It proves you know exactly how to get under my skin,” he shot back. “Ain’t the same as proving you wanted that man.”
“No,” she said, and the word came out harder than the rest, “I didn’t want Calvin.”
Ledger went still again.
Dasha could see the question rise in him before he said it, could see the ugly hope and jealousy and hurt wrestling in his face over who would win the right to speak next.
“So what the fuck did you want, then?” he asked.
And Dasha, because she was headstrong and hurt and too honest when the wound got pressed just right, looked at him with all that fury and all that ache shining under her skin and said, “I wanted you to act like you still saw me.”
“So why don’t you go back to Barbie, have your dreamhouse, shit, Ledger, I don’t give a damn,” Dasha muttered, the words tossed over her shoulder with all the flat, exhausted cruelty of a woman who knew exactly how to make a sentence sound like dismissal when what it really held was hurt sharp enough to draw blood.
Then she turned away from him and walked deeper into the cabin, down the narrow little hall toward the single bedroom and the attached bath, her shoulders stiff, her steps clipped, every line of her body announcing that if he followed her, he did so at his own peril.
song recs : hurt you - toni braxton , the one - jorja smith, issues/ hold on - teyana taylor, mulholland drive :snopp dogg and october london
Ledger stood there for one suspended second after she disappeared from view, the old floorboards creaking under the shift of his weight, and shut his eyes hard enough to make the bones of his face show. It was not peace he found in that darkness, nor calm, nor anything close to gentleness. What he found instead was the ragged edge of his own temper, the raw and splintered place where fear had been sawing at him for three weeks, and he had to stand there and force patience into his bloodstream like medicine. He dragged a hand down his face, breathed once through his nose, then bent and kicked off his boots with a kind of tired violence before heading after her, because there were some moments in a marriage when distance helped and some when it only gave lies more room to grow, and Ledger knew this one belonged firmly to the latter.
By the time he reached the bathroom, the shower was already running.
The sound of it filled the little space before he even crossed the threshold, a steady rush against tile and glass, hot enough that steam had begun claiming the room in pale, ghostly sheets, clouding the mirror, softening the sharp edges of everything. The air in there was thick and wet and faintly scented with soap, and through the blur of it he could see her—her bare silhouette behind the shower screen, head bowed slightly, one hand braced on the tile as the water poured over her like she was trying to stand still long enough to rinse the whole argument off her skin.
Ledger stopped in the doorway and watched her for a moment.
Not as a man watched a stranger, not even as a husband watched a wife, really, but as someone watched the center of his whole damn life after thinking for twenty-one days that he might never lay eyes on her again. Steam curled around her in silver ribbons. The water struck her shoulders and broke into streams that ran down the shape of her, turning her into something half-real and half-memory, soft at the edges but no less devastating for it. And because his body was still his body, because his love for her had never once been cleanly separate from the ache she stirred in him, the sight landed low and deep in him all the same, but it was not lust leading him into that bathroom. It was urgency. It was the need to stop this from becoming another moment where she turned away and wrote a whole story in the silence he left behind.
So he stripped down with quick, practical movements, peeling off one article of clothing after another and letting them fall where they landed, because modesty was a strange thing to reach for in a marriage that had already seen each other ruined in every possible sense. Then he tugged his briefs down, stepped into the shower behind her, and immediately the heat struck him too, a full-bodied rush of water and steam and the clean scent of her soap. Dasha startled at once, half-turning.
“Ledger, wha—”
“Imma need you to shut up for a minute and listen.”
The words came out low and rough, not shouted, but heavy enough to sit in the steam between them like another form of weather.
Dasha’s eyes flashed through the mist. “Don’t tell me to shut u—”
“Dasha Stevie Ward, shut your ass up and listen, damn, always running that damn mouth, shit.”
That would have been too much from another man. It might even have been too much from him on another day. But there was something in the way he said it now—less contempt than desperation, less command than a man finally cornered into saying be still long enough for me to tell the truth before your hurt writes the ending for both of us. He planted one hand against the shower wall beside her, not trapping, not crowding, but making it plain he was not about to let her wriggle out of this one on a technicality.
Water streamed over both of them, hot and relentless. It slicked his hair dark against his scalp, traced the hard cut of his shoulders, ran down the tattoos on his arms in darkened lines. Dasha stood with her chin lifted in pure offense, steam beading along her lashes, every inch of her still bristling, but she did not step out. She did not leave. She only stared at him with that same mean, shining fury she had been aiming at him all morning, and Ledger, breathing hard through the heat, understood that this was the opening he was getting.
So he took it.
“Ain’t no Barbie,” he said, and his voice lost some of its bite now, settling into something steadier, deeper, the kind of tone that came from a man laying bricks one by one because he finally understood how much of the house had to be rebuilt by hand. “Ain’t no dreamhouse. Ain’t no cute little fantasy I’m trying to run back to. You hearing me, or you just gone stand there making faces at me?”
Dasha’s mouth parted on instinct, ready to fire back, but one look at him seemed to make her pause. There was no performance in his face now, no macho righteousness, no easy indignation. Just exhaustion, soaked clean of pretense. The kind that lived in bone.
“She is not some secret life I wanted,” he went on, each word deliberate, like he meant to pin them down before she could twist them into something else to survive him by. “She was grief. She was guilt. She was me being too fucked up and too stupid to know the difference between feeling sorry for somebody and letting that sorry shit turn into something that had no business breathing in the first place. That’s what it was. Ugly, weak, selfish, yes. But it was not my dream, Dasha. It was not my home. It was not no damn ‘dreamhouse.’”
The water kept rushing around them, turning the room into a little world apart, one where every breath sounded closer than it should have, every silence fuller.
Dasha folded her arms over herself, not because she was cold, but because anger had become a kind of armor and she was not yet willing to stand there with nothing between her and what he was saying. “Could’ve fooled me,” she muttered.
Ledger’s jaw flexed, but he stayed with it.
“Nah,” he said, taking one careful step closer, not enough to touch her yet, just enough that she had to feel the heat of him in the steam. “Don’t do that. Don’t stand there and act like I came all this way because some woman put me out and now I’m circling back to where it’s comfortable. I drove my ass up this mountain because I thought you could’ve been dead. I thought you could’ve relapsed. I thought I might find your body before I found your mouth, and that shit…” He broke off and swallowed, hard enough for her to see it. “That shit tore me up in ways you clearly still ain’t got room to imagine.”
That landed.
Not enough to soften her entirely, but enough to disturb the surface.
His hand left the wall and came down to his side again, fingers flexing once under the water. “So no, I’m not here because ‘Barbie’ left me. I’m here because you did. I’m here because my wife disappeared, because every day you stayed gone another part of me started thinking maybe I wasn’t ever gone get the chance to hear you cuss me out again.” A humorless little breath escaped him then, almost a laugh, almost grief. “I’m here because there ain’t no version of my life that makes sense with you cut clean out of it.”
Dasha looked away then, briefly, but Ledger was too far in now to let her slip through a crack.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t.
So he reached, not rough, not forcing, only enough to touch two fingers beneath her chin and turn her face back toward him through the steam. Her skin was hot from the shower. Her eyes were still angry, still bright, but there was hurt in them too, old and fresh all at once, and the sight of it made his voice lower still.
“You wanna call her Barbie, cool,” he said. “You wanna say Captain Save-A-Hoe, say it. You wanna hit every ugly nerve in me on the way through, you obviously already started, so hell, keep going. But don’t you stand there and tell yourself I had some perfect little dream with her. Don’t you reduce what I did to some shiny fantasy like I was off building a second life and forgot to text my wife back.” His thumb brushed once, absently, through the water beading at her jaw. “That would almost be easier to explain. Easier to hate. Easier to leave me for.”
She stared at him, breathing slower now, though no less sharply.
“What I did,” he said, and this time there was no hiding inside the sentence at all, no distance, no euphemism, no man-sized trick of phrasing it two feet to the left of the truth, “was let grief make me disloyal in my spirit while standing right next to the woman I vowed never to leave alone in it. That’s what the fuck I did. I let guilt turn me into a coward. I gave another woman emotional room that belonged to you. And because of that, I made you feel like you had to invite Calvin into the picture just to prove to yourself you could still be seen.”
For the first time since he stepped into the bathroom, Dasha went properly still.
It was not surrender. It was impact.
He saw it and pressed on, because sometimes tenderness came dressed as refusal to let a person retreat from the truth.
“You wanna know why I was so pissed seeing a man come out that door?” he asked, voice dropping quieter, rougher, until she had to hear the ache in it. “It wasn’t because I thought you owed me sainthood. It was because for three weeks I been living with every sick little image my mind could make, and then I get here and the first thing I see is some nigga stepping out your cabin looking like he belong in your morning. And after what I did, after what I know I did, you think I wasn’t gone feel that? You think I wasn’t gone taste my own medicine and damn near choke on it?”
Dasha’s mouth trembled then, just barely, before she steadied it.
Ledger exhaled through his nose and leaned back just enough to put a sliver more air between them, enough to prove this was not about crowding her into agreement. “I’m not asking you to forget what I did,” he said. “I’m not even asking you to stop being mad. Hell, be mad. You earned that. But set the picture straight when you paint it. I did not choose her over some better life. I chose confusion over honesty. Guilt over courage. Self-pity over my damn marriage. That’s the truth. That’s ugly enough on its own. You ain’t gotta dress it up like some fairytale for broken white girls.”
That last line tugged something unwilling at the corner of Dasha’s mouth, so brief and bitter it hardly counted as a smile, but Ledger saw it all the same. Saw it and kept going, because even a crack that small was still a crack.
“You are not competing with some perfect girl,” he said, and the force of the sentence seemed to settle under the water, deep and final. “There wasn’t no competition. There wasn’t no comparison. There was just me being too far gone in my own bullshit to honor what was already mine. To honor who was already mine.”
The steam had thickened by then, wrapping around them so heavily the bathroom felt less like a room and more like the inside of a confession. Water ran over her collarbones, over his chest, over the tattoos she knew too well, and the whole scene held that strange, dangerous intimacy only long marriages ever seemed to know, where fury and closeness and old desire all stood in the same small space and breathed the same air.
Dasha swallowed.
Her voice, when it came, was quieter than before, but no less sharp for being low. “You sure know how to talk when you’re in trouble.”
Ledger let out one tired little huff and shook his head. “Nah. I know how to talk when I’m scared you already decided what the story is and I don’t get to fix the part where you got it wrong.”
She looked at him then, long and hard, as if trying to decide whether the man in front of her was the same one she had run from or some wrecked variation the mountains had made of him overnight. The water kept falling. The steam kept rising. Somewhere beneath all of it, the fight still lived, but its shape had changed now. Less knives. More exposed nerve.
Finally, Dasha tipped her head and said, “Then why did it feel like I was losing you to her?”
And there it was.
Not the slick talk.
Not the back-and-forth.
The wound.
Ledger closed his eyes for one brief second, opened them again, and whatever answered in his face before it reached his mouth was so raw it made the whole room feel suddenly smaller.
Ledger’s face changed the moment the question left her mouth.
Not because he had not expected it, not because he had not heard some version of it in every silence she had given him for the past three weeks, but because hearing her ask it out loud made it impossible to hide from the ugliest part of the truth. The water kept pouring over both of them in hot, relentless sheets, steam climbing the walls in ghostly veils, and there in the middle of all that heat he looked suddenly colder, as if the answer lived somewhere so deep in him that reaching for it meant dragging up something half-drowned and ugly besides.
“Because I made it feel that way,” he said at last, and there was no fight in the sentence, no slick little dodge, no masculine instinct to spin it prettier than it was. “Because I let my guilt get familiar. Because I let that shit linger. Because I stood there trying to play noble with my grief and forgot that every second I let that line blur, you were standing on the other side of it wondering if you still had a husband in full.”
Dasha laughed then, but the sound was too brittle to be mistaken for amusement.
“Well, damn,” she muttered, blinking water and anger from her lashes. “Look at you finally growing a spine in the shower.”
Ledger’s jaw ticked.
There she was again, that sharp little mouth of hers, that instinctive reach for sarcasm whenever the truth got close enough to touch bare skin. He knew her too well not to recognize it for what it was. Dasha got slick when she was cornered emotionally, when tenderness threatened to drag something real out of her before she had decided whether she could survive saying it. It was armor. Pretty armor, yes, and often funny and often mean, but armor all the same.
“Stevie,” he said, and her middle name in his mouth sounded less like affection just then than warning.
But Dasha only tipped her head and gave him that look, the one that had made him lose arguments and patience and peace of mind since the day he met her, all honeyed defiance and hurt dressed up in attitude.
“No, I’m serious,” she said, voice smooth as river stones and just as slick. “This is nice. This is real nice. You drive all the way up here, stomp through my morning, accuse me of shacking up with the handyman, and now suddenly you want to talk like a nigga with emotional intelligence. I’m proud of you.”
Ledger inhaled slowly.
She saw it, the way his chest expanded, the way he looked at the ceiling for half a beat like he was counting backward from murder, and some tiny wicked part of her felt satisfaction anyway. Because if he was going to drag her into honesty, then he could stand to be scraped up on the way there.
“Keep playing with me,” he muttered.
Dasha’s eyes flashed. “Who’s playing? You the one who came in here acting like I had a whole man stashed in the woods. Maybe if you spent half this energy acting right in the first place, we wouldn’t be having Bible study in my damn shower.”
That one nearly made him smile, nearly, but what rose in Ledger was not amusement. It was something darker and more strained than that, the kind of feeling that came when the woman you loved kept turning every open wound into a joke because the alternative was to stand there and let you see how bad you had really hurt her.
“You want to joke, joke,” he said, taking one slow step closer, water streaking down the hard planes of his chest, his voice dropping until it seemed to vibrate through the steam itself. “But don’t get it twisted. I’m answering you straight, and you keep trying to dance around it because if I say the thing plain enough, you might actually have to stand still and hear me.”
Dasha lifted her chin. “Maybe I don’t want to hear you.”
“Bullshit,” Ledger said immediately. “If you ain’t wanna hear me, you would’ve kicked me out before I ever got my boots off.”
That landed, because it was true, and Dasha hated when he did that, hated when he stepped past her tone and her attitude and put his finger right on the nerve underneath it all like he had every right. She folded her arms tighter over herself and looked away, but only for a second.
“You real cocky for a man that got left,” she said.
Ledger’s expression sharpened. “And you real mouthy for a woman that still want answers.”
“Oh, please,” Dasha scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself. You could fall off this mountain right now and the trees would have more comfort for me than you.”
That did it.
Not in some explosive, out-of-control way, not with shouting or grabbing or anything ugly like that, but with a kind of exhausted finality. Ledger moved before she could launch the next sentence, before she could sharpen another clever little blade and throw it just to see where it landed. His hand came up, broad and warm and callused, covering her mouth in one swift, firm motion that startled the breath right out of her, and with the other he backed her into the tiled wall of the shower, not hurting her, not manhandling her, but crowding her just enough that the steam and the heat and the sheer fact of him made it impossible for her to slip sideways into another joke.
Dasha’s eyes went wide in outrage.
Ledger leaned in, water streaming off his brow and down the bridge of his nose, his hand still over her mouth, and looked at her with a kind of dark, tired intensity that made the whole little bathroom feel too small for both of them.
“No,” he said, low and rough and dead serious. “You done. You had your little slick-mouth moment, now you gone stand here and listen to me if it kill you.”
She made an offended sound against his palm, sharp and muffled and furious, and tried to jerk her face away, but Ledger only held steady, not tighter, just steadier, his other hand braced beside her on the tile so she had nowhere to turn except toward him.
“I know,” he muttered, eyes narrowing when she glared at him harder. “I know you mad. Be mad. Hell, stay mad. But you are not gone keep running your damn mouth every time I get close to saying something you don’t wanna sit with.”
Her lashes were wet, whether from steam or anger or the tears that had never gotten very far away, he could not tell. Maybe all three. She looked so offended she might have smited him where he stood if God had loaned her the lightning, but she was listening now, and that was all he needed.
“Because listen to me, Stevie,” he said, and the way he said her middle name then had none of the softness from earlier, none of the teasing warmth, only gravity and possession and the rough edge of a man who had spent too many days talking to her absence. “I did not love that woman. I did not want that woman. I did not look at her and see a future, or peace, or home, or none of the shit you keep trying to put on it so you can be mad cleaner. What I did was weaker than that and uglier than that. I let myself get caught in guilt because it made me feel useful, and I let that usefulness grow where it should not have, and that made me disloyal to you in a way I will hate myself for longer than you probably ever could.”
Dasha’s eyes flickered then, just once, anger and hurt and something more treacherous moving beneath both.
Ledger felt it and kept going, because there was no stopping now, not with her breath warm against his palm and that fierce little stare fixed on him like she would rather choke on pride than give him one inch.
“You hear me?” he asked, and when she stayed stubborn, he gave a tiny, incredulous shake of his head. “Nah, don’t do that. Hear me. There was never no world where Kenna was the better choice. There was never no world where I looked at her and saw what I see when I look at you. She was my guilt. You are my wife. She was a place to hide from what I felt. You are the place I was supposed to bring it. Them two things is not the same, and you know it.”
Her eyes flashed again, and she smacked his wrist lightly in protest, the gesture more indignant than forceful, and Ledger let out one dark little breath through his nose that might have been irritation and might have been relief that she was still fighting him.
“I’ma move my hand,” he said. “And if you start being cute again, I’m putting it right back. You got me?”
The glare she gave him then was so deeply, purely Dasha that despite everything, despite the steam and the anger and the fresh bruise of old hurt, something almost fond moved through him. He lifted his hand slowly.
She took one furious breath the instant her mouth was free.
“You got a lotta damn nerve,” she snapped.
Ledger closed his eyes for the briefest second and then opened them again, his forehead almost dropping to hers from sheer exasperation. “See, this why I be saying you don’t know when to stop.”
“And you don’t know when to shut up,” she shot back immediately, because of course she did, because headstrong lived in her bones and obedience had never once been the language she spoke best. “You come in here manhandling folks and think a speech fixes everything.”
“I did not manhandle you,” he said, scandalized and annoyed in equal measure. “I covered your mouth because you was talking shit every three seconds.”
“That is literally the same—”
“It is not literally the same, and you know it.”
She rolled her eyes so hard he was honestly surprised she didn’t fall over from the force of it. “Lord, save me from emotionally articulate niggas.”
“No,” Ledger said, stepping even closer, and this time when he braced his hand at her waist it was only enough to keep her from slipping away, not force, just presence, just that maddening Ledger steadiness she hated when she was trying to stay angry. “Save you from your own damn mouth, maybe.”
Dasha opened hers immediately, ready with another line, but Ledger cut in before she could swing it.
“You want the picture straight?” he asked, gaze locking onto hers with renewed intensity. “Here it is. I lost Scotty and I lost my damn mind for a while after. I let guilt make me think keeping her afloat meant I was honoring him somehow. That was stupid, that was weak, and that was unfair as hell to you. But even in the middle of all that stupidity, I was still coming home to you. Still wanting you. Still building my whole life around you. Still looking at you like the center of every room. The problem wasn’t that I wanted her more. The problem was that I got lazy with the woman I trusted most to stay.”
That one knocked the fight out of the room for half a beat.
Not because it made things better, but because it named a cruelty so ordinary and so devastatingly common that it hurt different from the rest. Dasha’s face changed. Not softened, not completely, but changed enough for him to see the truth of the hit.
And because Dasha was Dasha, because slickness was the only shield she still had in reach, she lifted one brow and muttered, “So you neglected me because you thought I’d still be there. Oh, that’s much better, Ledger. Thank you for the clarification.”
The sentence was sharp enough to draw blood, but Ledger only huffed once, tired and dark and too honest now to retreat.
“It ain’t better,” he said. “It’s worse. That’s the damn point.”
Her mouth closed.
For the first time since he’d stepped into the shower, she had nothing immediate to throw.
The water kept running around them, hot and steady, steam thick enough now that the room felt close and hidden and a little unreal, like they were standing inside the mouth of their own confession. Ledger looked at her, really looked at her, at the anger still vibrating in her, at the intelligence in her eyes, at the hurt she kept trying to make sarcastic so it wouldn’t look as much like heartbreak.
Then, quieter, “I know you wanted me to feel you turning away. That’s what Calvin was about. You wanted me to see another man standing where I should’ve been standing. You wanted me to be reminded that while I was busy making you feel unseen, the rest of the world still had eyes.”
Dasha looked away.
That was answer enough.
Ledger’s hand slid from her waist to the wall beside her again, caging nothing, only holding the space. “And I did feel it,” he said, voice low. “I felt it like a knife. I felt it at the bar, I felt it on that porch, and I’m still feeling it now. So if that was the point, congratulations, Stevie. Mission accomplished.”
She glanced back at him then, chin up, but her eyes gave her away for a second.
“Good,” she said.
Ledger stared at her for a long beat, then let out the kind of tired laugh that comes when a person is too wounded to be surprised by cruelty anymore. “You are a piece of work.”
“And you married me.”
“Yeah,” he said, gaze dropping briefly to her mouth and then back to her eyes, something darker and more complicated moving under the anger now, something almost helpless in its devotion. “And I’m still standing here, ain’t I?”
Dasha swallowed, her slick little comeback arriving a second too late.
“When did you fall out of love with me?”
Ledger looked at her as though the question had stripped every last convenient lie from him and left him standing in nothing but the wreckage of himself.
For a moment he did not move, and in that suspended little pocket of steam and water and grief, he seemed almost unbearably human, not the broad-shouldered, sharp-tongued man who had followed her up a mountain with fury in his blood, not the husband who had stood in doorways and thrown accusations like stones because hurt had made him stupid, but simply a man who could finally see, in full and terrible detail, what he had done to the woman he loved most in this world. The shower ran over both of them in warm, relentless sheets, striking tile with that soft, ceaseless rhythm that made the room feel almost confessional, like the walls themselves had agreed to hold witness. Steam climbed around them like ghost-breath. Water tracked over his face and disappeared into his beard, caught in his lashes, slid down the hard line of his throat, but he did not wipe any of it away. He stood there and let himself be seen.
Then, very slowly, as though the motion cost him something sacred, Ledger dropped to his knees.
Not with drama. Not with performance. Not in the cheap, theatrical way men sometimes begged when what they really wanted was to hurry a woman back into softness before she had the chance to examine the wound. No, this was different. This was a man lowering himself because there was nowhere left for him to stand with any honesty. The tile kissed his knees through the rush of hot water, and the sight of him there, all that height folded down, all that pride bent into something humbler and more devastating, shifted the air in the room so completely that Dasha’s breath caught on it.
“Baby,” he said, and Lord, the word sounded wrecked, sounded like it had been dragged over broken glass on its way out of him. He rested his hands lightly against her thighs, not holding, not claiming, just there, like he needed some contact with her to keep himself from slipping clean out of his own body. He tipped his face up to look at her through the steam, and whatever she had been bracing herself for, it was not that expression. It was not that nakedness. “I need you to hear me all the way through before you decide I still ain’t shit, because maybe I am, maybe I been one, but I need you to hear me anyway.”
Dasha swallowed.
The old slickness rose to the back of her tongue by reflex, some sharp little thing she could say to keep this from getting too close, too raw, too dangerous, but it died there before she could shape it. Because Ledger on his knees did not look like a man trying to win. He looked like a man trying not to drown with his eyes open.
“I did not go to her because she was better than you,” he said, his voice low and rough and gathering force only because the truth in it had become too heavy to speak lightly. “I did not go to her because I was unsatisfied with you. I did not go to her because there was some hole in my marriage that you created and she filled. Don’t you ever, ever put that on your head, Dasha, because that would be the cruelest lie of all.”
His thumbs moved once against her skin, small and absent, as if the old instinct to soothe her had survived even the worst version of himself.
“What happened was uglier than romance and weaker than love, and I’m ashamed of that because men always want their sins to at least sound noble when they confess them, and mine ain’t.” He let out one humorless little breath, almost a laugh, but there was too much self-disgust in it to be mistaken for anything but pain. “Scotty died, and that shit hollowed me out in a place I didn’t know had a bottom. It made me angry, and then it made me guilty, and then it made me tired in a way sleep could not fix. I kept looking at all that hurt like it was something I had to carry alone because if I put it down in front of you, then I had to admit just how much of me was broken by it.”
The water ran harder over his shoulders then, flattening the dark fabric of his hair, making him look even more stripped-down, more bare, more honest than he had a right to be after all the ways he had failed her.
“And then there was her,” he said, and even now, even speaking of Kenna in front of Dasha’s hurt, he did not dress it up. “Not because I wanted her. Not because I loved her. But because she was carrying her own version of the same grave. And somewhere in my stupid, grieving, self-pitying mind, I let myself believe that if I stood near her pain, if I understood it, if I helped her hold it, then maybe that meant I was still doing something for Scotty. Maybe it meant I was honoring him. Maybe it meant I wasn’t as helpless as I felt.”
His face twisted then, a brief, ugly movement of revulsion aimed wholly inward.
“But that was coward shit,” he said, and the sentence landed like iron. “That was coward shit dressed up as compassion. That was me finding a place to pour my grief where I did not have to look directly at what it was doing to the woman who loved me. That was me choosing the easier ache over the harder honesty of coming home and letting my wife see me broken.”
Dasha’s eyes burned.
The steam made everything shimmer slightly, made the room look almost unreal, but his voice cut through it clean and hot and human.
“I need you to understand this part,” he said, leaning forward just a little, not enough to crowd her, only enough that she could feel the urgency in him like another pulse in the water. “I was not reaching for her because I felt less for you. I was reaching for somewhere I could put my guilt without having to face how badly I was failing the best thing in my life. And yes, that makes me selfish. Yes, it makes me weak. Yes, it makes me exactly the kind of nigga who deserves to get left standing in a bar with a ring in his hand and no wife to put it on. I know that. I know it now in a way I will never unknow.”
Dasha’s mouth trembled, just once.
Ledger saw it and dropped his gaze for a second like even that tiny fracture in her composure felt too intimate to witness carelessly.
“I know my actions weren’t good,” he said, more quietly now, the volume lowering only because the confession had gone deeper. “I know they weren’t harmless just because I never touched her. I know emotional betrayal still got teeth, still got hands, still leaves bruises in places nobody else can see. I know I made you feel alone while laying right next to you, and if there is an uglier thing a husband can do than that, I do not know what it is. I made you question yourself when I should have been the place your self-doubt came to die. I made you feel second when you are the first, last, and only woman who ever made this life feel like home to me.”
That one struck her square in the chest, and it showed.
He kept going.
“I know I got lazy with sacred things,” he said, and now his voice had gone unsteady around the edges, as though the truth itself was starting to take pieces out of him on the way through. “That’s what really happened, Stevie. I got lazy with something holy. I got used to you loving me right. Got used to your loyalty, your softness, your sharp mouth, your patience, your body next to mine at night, your laugh in the kitchen, the way you know how to look at me when I’m lying to myself even before I know I’m doing it. I got so used to you being my constant that I stopped acting like I had to protect what I had. And that… that is on me. Not on grief. Not on her. Not on circumstance. On me.”
By then the water had long since soaked every inch of him, but still he looked thirsty, thirsty in that old biblical way, like a man kneeling in the middle of his own drought asking for rain he knew he did not deserve.
“I need you to hear me say this plain,” he said, lifting his face to hers again, and his eyes were so open, so full, so frightened in their sincerity that it made something low in her chest ache. “I did not stop loving you. I stopped behaving like a man afraid to lose you, and that is its own kind of sin. I behaved like your love was guaranteed. Like your heart was some fixed thing that would survive whatever I put it through. Like you would keep being home no matter how badly I neglected to act like I lived there too. And baby…” His voice cracked on the word, softened, broke, then came back rougher. “Baby, I know now that is not devotion. That is entitlement. That is carelessness. That is me treating the greatest thing I have ever been given like it would never get tired of bleeding for me.”
A tear cut through the water on her cheek before she even knew it had fallen.
Ledger’s hands tightened, just barely, against her thighs, and his own breathing changed at the sight of it.
“I hated myself every day you were gone,” he whispered. “Not in no dramatic, poor-me way. In the real way. In the way where the whole world starts looking like evidence of what you ruined. I hated the bed because you weren’t in it. I hated my phone because every time it lit up it wasn’t you until one day I started being scared it might be a coroner instead. I hated the bar because your laugh wasn’t in it. Diem asked for Mama Stevie, and I swear to God that little girl saying your name almost took me clean out. Every single day you stayed gone, I kept thinking maybe this is it, maybe this is the punishment, maybe I don’t get to hear her cuss me out again, maybe I don’t get to fix shit, maybe I really did love the one person who knew me best into walking clean out my life.”
His head bowed then, and when he spoke again it sounded like prayer said by a man who had never once trusted himself enough to pray pretty.
“I drove up here with your ring in my pocket and fear in my throat, and all I knew was that if I got one more chance to stand in front of you, I was not gone waste it hiding behind pride. So here it is. The whole ugly thing. I did what I did because I was weak and grieving and selfish and too full of my own hurt to see that I was passing it into you like poison. I did it because guilt made me feel righteous for a minute and I let that righteousness turn into familiarity where it never should have. I did it because I trusted your love to survive my negligence, and that was a betrayal all by itself.”
The steam curled around his shoulders like smoke off a burnt offering.
“And I know that may not be enough,” he said, looking up at her with a tenderness so raw it hurt to meet. “I know understanding why does not magically make what I did smaller. I know saying I’m sorry doesn’t crawl inside your chest and put your heart back together neat. I know begging might look pathetic right now, and maybe it is, but I am way past being worried about looking pathetic in front of the woman I want my whole damn life with.”
Then, as if the last defenses in him finally collapsed under the sheer weight of truth, he brought one hand up, palm open against the center of his own chest, right over the frantic hammering of his heart.
“I love you,” he said, and there was no flourish in it, no slickness, only devastating fact. “I love you in the ugly, ordinary, everyday ways that matter when the adrenaline gone and the lights come on. I love you in the way I reach for your side of the bed half-asleep. I love you in the way I know your footsteps. I love you in the way every room still looks arranged wrong if you ain’t in it. I love you in the way my body knew you were missing before my mind caught up. I love you in the way I was losing my fucking mind every day you stayed gone because there is no version of my life that does not bend around your name.”
His eyes closed then, and when he opened them again, they looked wet and wrecked and almost boyishly unguarded.
“And if you tell me I gotta spend the rest of my life proving that love got discipline in it now, then that’s what I’ll do. If you tell me I gotta earn every inch of softness back, I’ll do that too. If you tell me you hate me today and maybe tomorrow and maybe next week too, I’ll stand there and take it as long as you don’t shut me out of your life for good.” He swallowed hard. “But do not stand there and think I came all this way for pride. I came because I cannot do this world without you in it. I came because my wife left and took the oxygen with her. I came because I know exactly what I risked, and I am telling you on my knees, in the only way that means anything now, that I know I was wrong.”
He shifted closer then, not enough to press, only enough that the heat of him lived fully in her space, and his voice lowered to something deep and aching and reverent.
“Take all the time you need to be mad,” he murmured. “Take all the time you need to hate what I did. But don’t you ask yourself again if I fell out of love with you, because that never happened. What happened is uglier and dumber and more human than that, and I am ashamed of it all the way to the bone. But I never stopped loving you, Dasha. I stopped deserving you for a while. That is the truth.”
Another tear slipped over her cheek.
Ledger reached up like he wanted to catch it, then checked himself halfway and let his hand fall again, because even now, even on his knees, he was learning that wanting to comfort her and having earned the right were not the same thing.
So he stayed there and let the words finish stripping him clean.
“I want my wife back,” he said, and the sentence came out so wrecked, so stripped of ego, that it did not sound like possession at all, only yearning in its oldest, most humble form. “Not just your body. Not just your face in my house. Not just your ring on your hand. I want you back. Your trust, if it can grow back. Your mouth, even when it’s slick. Your honesty, even when it hurts. Your laugh. Your weight next to me in bed. The way you make a place feel like ours just by standing in it. I want the chance to love you with the kind of care I should have had the first time.”
His breath shook.
“I am begging you,” he said, and now there could be no mistaking it, no dressing it up as anything else. He was. On his knees, under hot water, looking at her like she held the answer to every prayer he had been too cowardly to pray aloud until now. “I am begging you not to let the worst thing I ever did be the last thing I get to be to you. Be mad at me. Make me work. Make me sit in it. Make me tell the truth every single time you need to hear it. But please… please do not decide I loved you too little. I loved you so much I got stupid with the safety of it, and I know now that stupidity can break a heart just as bad as hatred can. Let me fix what I can. Let me spend however long it takes learning how to be the kind of man your love should have always been safe with.”
And there, beneath the relentless rush of water, with the steam curling around him like the remnants of burned pride and all six foot five of him folded down into remorse and reverence, Ledger Ward looked less like a man trying to save himself and more like one finally willing to be remade if it meant he might still have the woman he loved when the water stopped running.
Then, quieter, with a kind of tenderness that nearly broke the room in half, he whispered, “I miss my wife so bad it hurts to breathe, Stevie. Please don’t leave me kneeling here for nothing.”
Dasha stood there looking down at him, and for the first time since he had stepped into the cabin, since the porch and the accusations and the sharp, ugly little knives they had both been flinging just to keep from bleeding too openly, there was no slickness left in her face at all.
It had all gone.
The sarcasm.
The defiance.
The quick, mean wit she used when she needed to turn pain into performance before it swallowed her whole.
What remained in its place was worse, and softer, and far more dangerous.
Just hurt.
Just love.
Just the trembling, naked truth of a woman standing over her husband while he knelt in the steam, and finally no longer having the strength to disguise what his betrayal had actually done to her.
The water poured over them both in warm, ceaseless ribbons, kissing her shoulders, running down the line of her arms, soaking his bent head and broad back until he looked less like a man in that moment and more like an offering laid bare. Steam moved around them in pale, ghostlike swirls, climbing the tile, clouding the mirror, turning the bathroom into something almost dreamlike, as if the world outside had been temporarily shut out so there would be room enough for only this—this marriage, this wound, this brutal little mercy of still loving one another after the worst part had been spoken aloud.
Dasha’s chest rose slowly.
Then slowly again.
And when she finally spoke, her voice came quiet and full and trembling at the edges, not because she was unsure of what she meant, but because the meaning of it was too large to carry carelessly.
“That’s the part that make it hurt so bad,” she whispered. “Not just that you broke my heart, not just that you made me feel alone, not just that it was her of all people, but that you are my best friend, Ledger.”
The words seemed to settle on him physically.
She saw it happen.
Saw the way his shoulders tightened under the water, the way his head bowed a little lower, the way his hands—those big, capable hands that had built things for her, held her, fed her, touched her, steadied her—went still against the tile like even they did not know what to do with that truth except receive it.
Dasha swallowed.
Tears had begun gathering again, not dramatic, not wild, just there, thickening her eyes until the whole room looked slightly blurred around the edges.
“You are my best friend,” she said again, more softly this time, and there was something almost disbelieving in the repetition, as if she were still trying to understand how a sentence that sweet could contain so much ache. “You are the person I tell everything to. You know my face before I know my face. You know when I’m lying and when I’m tired and when I need to be left alone and when I’m saying I’m fine but really I just need you to keep asking until I crack. You know what my panic looks like before it even fully gets a hold of me. You know how hard I fought for my sobriety. You know what scares me. You know what makes me feel ugly. You know what makes me feel small. You know where all my soft places are.”
Her mouth trembled then, and she pressed her lips together for a second, trying to steady them, but there were some truths that shook the body on their way out and could not be forced into elegance.
“And that,” she said, a little more brokenly now, “is what made this feel different. Because if it had been some man I barely knew, if it had been somebody who ain’t ever really seen me, who ain’t know what I carry, who ain’t know what it cost me to get here, maybe I could have called it cruelty and left it there. Maybe I could’ve said, well, he was careless, or he was selfish, or he was weak, and maybe all of that would still be true, but with you…” Her breath hitched. “With you, it felt like something else. It felt like the one person who knew exactly how to handle my heart picked it up with full knowledge of what it was made of and still let it slip.”
Ledger shut his eyes.
Dasha watched him do it and hated, even now, that some part of her wanted to comfort him through hearing about her own pain, because that was the tragedy of loving your best friend, wasn’t it, that tenderness did not always obey logic, and care did not leave cleanly just because anger had every right to.
“You knew me,” she whispered. “That’s what keep circling back in my head. You knew me. You knew how my mind works when it gets dark. You knew how long it take me to trust somebody with my whole chest. You knew how I loved you. Not in some vague, surface way. You knew it in the little ways that matter. In the way I reached for you in my sleep. In the way I called you first. In the way I still looked for your face in every room without even meaning to. In the way I folded you into every version of my future like it was automatic. You knew that, Ledger. You knew how fully I was yours.”
The water ran harder over his shoulders, or maybe it only looked that way now because he had gone so still beneath it.
Dasha drew in another breath, and this one shook all the way down.
“And because you knew me so well,” she said, “it made it feel like you had to know what this would do to me too. Maybe not all the way, maybe not every detail, maybe not the full violence of it, but enough. Enough to understand that if you blurred that line, if you let that woman live in emotional spaces that belonged to us, if you turned away from me while I was still standing there trying to love you through it, then I was gone feel it. You had to know I was gone feel it.”
A tear slipped over then, and she let it.
She did not wipe it away.
Did not hide from it.
Did not make a joke around it.
She simply stood there in the steam and let the grief in her face have its own shape.
“That’s why I was asking myself if you fell out of love with me,” she said quietly. “Because the other option hurt worse. The other option was that you still loved me and did this anyway, and I did not know how to hold that without it turning me inside out. I did not know what to do with the fact that my best friend, my husband, the man who knows me better than anybody else on this earth, could still be the one to put this kind of loneliness in me.”
Ledger’s face folded at that, not dramatically, not with big visible tears or anything easy to absolve, but with the awful, silent devastation of a man being made to sit inside the full architecture of the pain he built.
Dasha looked down at him and felt the weight of their whole life at once, years of laughter and routine and private language and ordinary tenderness, the thousand small moments that had made him the safest place she knew, all pressing up against this one ugly fracture where safety had failed her. And because she was no longer being slick, because the performance had burned off and only truth was left, her voice softened into something almost unbearably tender despite everything.
“You were the one person I thought would be careful with me without me having to ask,” she admitted. “That’s the grace I gave you. That’s the faith I had in you. I did not feel like I had to guard myself with you. I did not feel like I had to stay halfway packed and halfway suspicious and halfway hard just in case. With you I let my shoulders drop. I let my guard down. I let myself be soft. I let myself trust that if the world got mean, I could come home to you and not have to fight there too.”
She laughed once then, softly, bitterly, sadly, and the sound of it almost seemed to shiver in the steam.
“So when it started feeling like I had to fight for your full attention too, I ain’t even know what to call that. It felt like my own house turning strange on me. It felt like reaching for the light switch in the dark and realizing somebody moved the damn wall.”
Her fingers curled loosely at her sides.
The shower was warm, but something in her still looked cold.
“And I don’t think you meant to be cruel,” she said after a moment, and there, at last, was the grace, fragile and exhausted but real. “That’s part of what makes this so hard, because I don’t think you woke up trying to break me. I don’t think you sat around plotting how to make me feel little. I know grief had your ass in a chokehold. I know guilt got in your bones. I know you was lost in it. I know all of that. And maybe that’s why I’m still standing here talking to you instead of slamming this shower door in your face, because I know you. I know your heart. I know the difference between you being evil and you being weak. And you were weak, Ledger. God, you were weak. But I know weak ain’t the same as wicked.”
That one seemed to undo him almost more than the harshest thing she had said all morning.
Because mercy, when it comes from the person you have wronged, never arrives light.
It arrives heavy.
Holy.
Humbling.
Dasha’s voice dropped even lower then, barely louder than the water.
“But grace don’t mean it didn’t hurt,” she whispered. “Grace don’t mean I wasn’t sitting up there in that cabin wondering what part of me you stopped treasuring. Grace don’t mean I wasn’t questioning myself in ways I hate. Grace don’t mean I didn’t spend three weeks feeling like maybe the person who loved me best had looked right at me and still decided I was sturdy enough to survive neglect.”
Ledger bowed his head further, and Dasha saw his throat work, saw the visible effort it took for him to remain there and receive this without interrupting, without rushing to comfort, without making her pain smaller just because his own guilt was screaming to do something with it.
“And I’m trying,” she said, voice fraying at the edges now. “I’m trying real hard not to make your worst mistake the whole story of you, because I know the rest of you too. I know the man who makes my coffee the way I like it before I’ve fully opened my eyes. I know the man who can clock a panic attack before I even say a word. I know the man who rubs my feet when I’ve had a long day, who talks to me in the kitchen, who knows how to make me laugh when I’m trying not to. I know that man too. That’s why this is so hard. Because I’m not grieving a villain. I’m grieving the place where my best friend failed me.”
That sentence seemed to ring in the room after she said it, thin and clear and devastating as a struck bell.
The place where my best friend failed me.
Dasha’s face crumpled then, finally, not in full collapse, not in a way that suggested hopelessness, but enough that the whole vulnerable center of her was visible, trembling in the open air between them.
“I still love you,” she confessed, and her voice broke clean on the words. “That’s the part that make me maddest. I still love you. I still look at you and see home mixed up with hurt. I still want comfort from the same man I’m hurt by. I still know your face better than mine some days. And I hate that I have to figure out how to hold all that at once.” A tear slipped over her mouth and she tasted the salt of it without wiping it away. “Because you’re not just my husband, Ledger. You’re my person. You’re my best friend. So when you broke my heart, it wasn’t just a man doing it. It was my safest place going wrong.”
The bathroom felt very small then.
Very warm.
Very close.
Very sacred.
Dasha looked down at him where he knelt, all that strength folded into remorse, and for the first time since he’d arrived, what moved through her was not only fury, not only grief, but the first fragile shape of mercy trying to rise through both.
“I’m telling you this because I need you to understand the scale of it,” she whispered. “Not so you drown in guilt. Not so you sit there and hate yourself more. But because if there is a way back for us, it got to be built on you really understanding what broke. It wasn’t just trust. It wasn’t just fidelity in some neat little marriage-counselor sense. It was friendship. It was knowingness. It was me believing that the man who knew me deepest would also be the man who protected me best.”
Her breathing hitched again, but she steadied it this time.
“And I want to believe you can be that man again,” she said, and there it was—the grace, the little opening, the sliver of light through the door. “I do. I would not still be standing here if some part of me ain’t believe that. But you gotta understand why I’m hurt like this. You gotta understand why this cut all the way to the bone. You didn’t just lose sight of your wife for a while. You lost sight of your best friend too, and I felt that.”
The last words came out almost in a whisper.
And then she fell quiet, standing there under the shower with her face wet from more than one source, looking down at the man she loved with all the tenderness and sorrow of somebody who had finally stopped trying to be sharp enough to hide how deep the wound really was.
And because she loved him, because she knew him, because even now she was still giving him the truth in a way meant to save rather than destroy, there was no final cruelty in it, no closing of the door, only the awful, beautiful honesty of a woman finally letting the man who broke her heart see exactly where it had broken—and exactly why he might still, if he was worthy enough now, be the one to help hold it while it healed.
For a moment after she finished, Ledger did not move at all.
He just stayed there on his knees beneath the shower, water running over him in silver sheets, his head bowed like a man who had just been handed something too holy to touch without first trembling. Dasha could see the weight of her words settle over him in real time, could see the way they moved through his face and shoulders and breath, not glancing off, not deflected, but entering and remaining. He looked altered by them. Struck through. Softened in the deepest places. And when he finally lifted his head to look at her, there was something in his eyes so open, so full, so helplessly devoted that it made her stomach clench before he even laid a hand on her.
Slowly, reverently, Ledger rose.
He did not spring to his feet. He unfolded. Like something solemn. Like a prayer being lifted. Like a man returning from the floor of a chapel with his faith bloodied but intact. Water streamed down the length of him as he stood, over the hard planes of his chest, the dark lines of his tattoos, the broad, wet slope of his shoulders, until he was fully upright in front of her again, all heat and remorse and that terrible, beautiful steadiness he only seemed to find once he had told the whole truth.
Dasha did not realize she had gone still until he reached for her.
His hand came up first to her face, not fast, not greedy, just warm and sure and shaking ever so slightly where his palm settled against her cheek. That tiny tremor nearly undid her more than anything else. Because Ledger was many things, but careless with her when he was sincere had never been one of them. His thumb brushed once beneath her eye, catching water or tears or both, and the tenderness of it made the room feel smaller, the air thicker, the space between her heartbeat and her body more perilously thin.
“You hear me now?” he murmured, and his voice was low enough to curl through her like smoke. “You know where I stand?”
Dasha looked at him through wet lashes and tried to answer, but whatever was meant to come out dissolved somewhere in her throat. All she managed was the smallest nod, and something in Ledger’s expression broke open at the sight of it, not into grief this time, but into want so steeped in tenderness it felt almost dangerous.
“Good,” he whispered.
Then he leaned in and kissed her.
Not hard. Not hungry at first. Not the kind of kiss that rushed to take because it was afraid the moment might vanish. No, this was slower than that, deeper than that, the kiss of a man who had just had his wife’s heart laid open in front of him and knew better than to touch anything in a hurry. His mouth found hers like he was returning something, like he was placing his own heart there to see if she would still allow it to beat in her direction. Warm. Deliberate. Wrecked with gratitude. The kind of kiss that carried apology and awe in equal measure, that said I hear the scale of what I did and I am still here, and I am still yours enough to tremble.
Dasha felt the sound she made before she heard it, a small, involuntary thing, soft and frayed and far too intimate to belong to anyone but him. Ledger answered by deepening the kiss just slightly, angling his head and drawing her nearer with the hand at her face while his other found her waist and settled there with a steadiness that nearly made her knees weaken. He did not grab. He held. He held her the way one held something found again.
The shower water poured over both of them, hot and ceaseless, running between their bodies where they stood close enough now that the heat of his skin felt indistinguishable from the heat of the water. Steam gathered around them in pale veils, and the whole room blurred at the edges until it seemed there was nothing left in the world but tile and breath and the slow, devastating press of his mouth.
When he finally drew back, it was only far enough to let his forehead rest against hers.
“You are still my best friend,” he said, and the line landed low in her body like a bell. “Still the first person I wanna tell shit to. Still the only person I want in my bed when the lights go out. Still the woman I look for first.” His thumb moved against her jaw in one slow pass that felt far too intimate for how little it was. “Still my wife in every way that matters.”
That did something ugly and beautiful to her at once.
Before she could stop herself, her fingers rose and caught at his shoulders, then slid higher, tracing the wet line of his neck, and Ledger let out a breath against her mouth that sounded almost like pain. Not bad pain. Not exactly. The sort of pain that came when relief arrived dressed as touch and the body did not know whether to cry or thank God.
He kissed her again.
This time there was more of him in it.
More ache.
More want.
More of the old Ledger pull she knew too well, the one that always made her feel like he was kissing not just her mouth but the entire history of them, every private softness, every ordinary tenderness, every time they had ever found each other in the dark and known exactly where to go.
His hand at her waist slid around to the small of her back, warm and broad and unignorable, and drew her flush against him until no space remained between them but steam. Dasha felt the shape of him, the solidity of him, the living, breathing fact of her husband there with her after three weeks of absence and fear and rage and unanswered questions, and the contrast of it made her head go light. Because this was what had always been so dangerous about Ledger, wasn’t it, that even his tenderness had weight to it. Even when he was gentle, he still felt like something a woman could give her whole self to and never get back the same.
“You drive me out my damn mind,” he murmured against her lips.
It was almost a smile, almost a complaint, almost a confession, and before she could shape some half-hearted retort, he kissed her again and swallowed it whole. Dasha’s hands slid fully into his hair now, wet and dark beneath her fingers, and the sound that left him this time came from deeper, something rough and low and thoroughly male, the kind of sound that made her heart jump and her stomach clench at once.
Ledger tipped her face back just enough to look at her, really look at her, and what lived in his eyes then was enough to ruin a woman’s peace all by itself.
“You have any idea,” he said softly, “what it did to me to not know where you were sleeping?”
Dasha’s breath caught.
He did not wait for an answer.
“Any idea what it did to me,” he went on, his mouth brushing the corner of hers between every phrase like he could not bear for too many words to exist untouched, “to not know if you were warm, if you were eating, if you were crying somewhere by yourself, if you were reaching for me and stopping your own hand because of what I did?”
That one went straight through her.
She felt it physically, felt it land like a hand around the center of her, because that was the ugly intimacy of him, the way he always seemed to know the exact line that would turn her insides soft and trembling if he spoke it low enough.
“I hated every mile between us,” he whispered. “Every single one.”
Then he kissed down the line of her jaw, not hurried, not rough, each touch of his mouth a small act of worship made dangerous by how badly he seemed to mean it. Dasha’s head tipped back against the tile with a quiet little breath she did not mean to give him, and Ledger’s hand at her back spread wider, as if the sound itself had called something possessive and aching up out of him.
“Ledger,” she whispered.
He lifted his head just enough to meet her eyes.
“What?”
The way he said it made her pulse stutter. Low. Intimate. Entirely too aware.
She shook her head once, but whatever she had meant to say dissolved when he looked at her like that, wet and intent and all but burning with a devotion made sharper by guilt.
“Tell me not to kiss you again,” he said quietly. “Tell me that, and I’ll stop.”
The line landed like a blade wrapped in velvet.
Because he knew.
Of course he knew.
He knew there was no world in which she wanted him to stop, not really, not here, not now, not after everything they had just bared between them. He knew, and instead of wielding that knowledge carelessly, he laid it in her hands and let her decide what to do with it.
Dasha looked at him, at the water running down his face, at the patience and hunger coiled together in the set of his mouth, at the way his hands held her like she was still the holiest thing he had ever had the right to touch, and she felt the last of her resistance melt into something warmer, deeper, far more treacherous.
So she did not tell him to stop.
She only kissed him.
And Lord, that changed everything.
Ledger made a sound low in his chest and gathered her in closer, one hand leaving her waist to brace against the tile beside her head while the other held fast at the base of her spine. The angle of him shifted, all broad heat and controlled urgency, and Dasha felt herself pinned between the wall and the full, unignorable fact of her husband in a way that should have made her feel trapped and instead made her feel chosen, cornered by love, by apology, by the exact man she had spent three weeks trying and failing not to miss.
Their kisses grew fuller after that, still not rushed, still reverent in their own way, but threaded now with something darker and more alive, the old insatiable current between them returning by slow, devastating degrees. Dasha followed his mouth when he pulled back for air, and the little sound of frustration she made at the loss of it drew a flash of something almost wicked from him.
“There she is,” he murmured, mouth hovering just above hers.
Her brows drew together faintly, dazed. “Who?”
“My wife,” he said, and then kissed her so deeply the answer lived in her pulse.
That line.
That damn line.
It made her stomach drop and flutter all at once.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, and Ledger shuddered, actually shuddered, the reaction moving visibly through him from shoulders to hips, and the sheer force of what her touch still did to him made something hot and helpless unfurl in her chest. He kissed her like a starving man who had been made to remember his hunger only after being told exactly what he had almost lost. Like a man who had spent three weeks talking to her absence and had finally been allowed to touch something real again.
“I missed this mouth,” he breathed against hers.
And then, lower, rougher, with his forehead pressed to hers and his hand spread hot and heavy at her back:
“I missed my damn girl.”
That one nearly took her out.
Because it was not slick. Not rehearsed. Just his voice, stripped down to the hidden, needy center of it, saying the one thing that had probably lived under every call, every mile, every sleepless night.
Dasha’s eyes fluttered shut as he kissed the corner of her mouth, then the place just beside it, then came back to her lips like he had no intention of being anywhere else for very long. The steam had gone thick enough now that the whole bathroom felt cocooned in heat, the mirror fully clouded, the air dense with water and skin and the ache of two people standing very close to the edge of forgiveness and not yet brave enough to call it that.
Ledger’s thumb brushed once along the side of her ribs, almost absentminded, and she drew in a breath so sharp he looked at her instantly, eyes dropping to her mouth.
“Too much?” he asked.
Dasha shook her head.
“Say it,” he murmured.
“No.”
His gaze held hers another beat, checking, always checking now in a way that made her chest hurt all over again, and then he leaned in and kissed her with the kind of gentleness that felt indecent in its intimacy.
“Good,” he whispered. “'Cause I’m not done reminding you.”
There it was again, that low, dangerous Ledger softness, the one that always sounded like a promise and a threat and a prayer braided into one. His nose brushed hers. His lips lingered just shy of hers.
“You are still the only woman I know how to come undone for,” he said.
And God.
That line did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Heart jumped.
Stomach clenched.
Everything inside her went warm and liquid and horribly aware.
Before she could gather herself enough to answer, his mouth found hers once more, slower now but no less frisky for it, all aching patience and building heat, and the room seemed to draw in tight around them, the water still running, the steam rising, the rest of the morning slipping further and further away until there was nothing left but his hands, his voice, and the terrible, beautiful way he kissed like he was trying to melt repentance and desire into the same language.
And that was where the rest of it began.
**song recommendation: " Close by Ella Mai **
“You gon’ let me touch you, Wonder?” he murmured against her lips as he looked down at her. Dasha’s breath stuttered as her body involuntarily folded into his, like a moth to a flame, a masochist to pain. He was too ingrained in her system for her to say no, to ever fully push him away. She let out a breath as she nodded, not trusting her voice not to crack from the weight of the moment.
Backing her against the shower wall he knelt between her legs, putting one over his shoulder as he pressed a kiss to her pussy lips, pulling her closer to him as he took a deep inhale of her, sending his senses haywire a smile twitched on his lips as he looked up at her, the way her curls ran down her back, free from the tracks and the sew in, black like ink coills and curls drenched by water as she pushed them from her eyes, unfiltered lust in her eyes as she looked down at him.
He ran his tongue through her folds, and she gasped so hard he thought she was going to jump up off him. It had been a while, he thought. Damn near two month since he’d done this, tsken the time to worship his wife, his one and only, to show her how much he worshipped her, he wanted to eat her whole, to be full of all she was, her rage, her love everything, he wanted Dasha in ways thst weren’t physically people and would make a therapist concerned, he was a fool he realised as he buried his face deeper into her, tasting her ambrosia and his instincts coming back to him like second nature, like a muscle he’d been training all his life, a language only he knew the dialect to.
“Oh, baby,” she moaned out into the steamy bathroom.
He hummed into her, the vibration made her jolt as she shut her eyes with a whine as he continued to flick his tongue over her, taking her clit into his mouth as he sped it up, her hand raked into his overgrown buzzcut, his facial hair scratching her thighs, a delicious burn that spurred her closer to the edge. “You missed me eating your pussy, baby?”
Words jumbled together she responded in gibberish, his tongue deep inside her, removing her ability to respond let alone thing straight. “You needed me in those guts for you to stop thinking that stupid shit didn’t you baby? On some ‘When did you fall out of love’,” he mumbled against her as he spread her wider against the wall, as he inserted his middle and index finger, her back arching against the tiled wall, with a while as she moved her hips, fucking him back, frinding onto his face as her hand tightened against his scalp, fingers digging in slightly as she moved against him, using him for her own release. Not that he minded…he’d be content to live his life between her thighs.
Releasing her clit, he looked up at her ignoring her whine as she worked herself over on his fingers. “You give my shit away Dasha?” he asked her as he inserted a third finger into her, ignoring the cramping in his arm, he’s used to playing through pain, so much so that if he got it while tending to his girl? He’d relish it, take it as penance, a worthy punishment for his wrongdoings.
When she didn't answer his gaze darkened and he took his fingers out of her, spreading her juices on his hardening cock as he stared her down before grabbing her by the throat and hauling her forward so they were face to face. “I asked you a question, Dasha.”
“N-no I didn't, I would never,”she whispered and Ledger hummed as he connected their lips, their lips sloppy as they moved against one another, tongues intertwining as be brought her hand onto his throbbing cock and encouraged her to wrap her hand around him, his tongue exploring her mouth as she stroked bim, from base to tip, increasing pressure gradually as she neared his flush tip and rubbed the flesh underneath, ensuing to flick her wrist slightly and lightly graze her nails against the sensitive flesh.
Just as she moved to get on her knees Ledger stopped her.
“Nah, bend over for me, hands on the glass.”
Knowing not to test him she did as she was told, he widened her stance as he stood behind her, grazing the blunt head of his cock through her folds once, twice, thrice before entering her. He watched as dasha’d fingertips curled in on themselves as he bottomed out, the curve of him dragging against her walls in a way that made her whimper at the stretch…it’d been so long, so so long.
“I know, I know baby,” he soothed as he ran a hand over her spine, soothing her so he could move,
“So tight, still so damn tight, fuck,” he cursed as he tried to get her to ease up on him.
He bent down to kiss her shoulder and down her back as he rubbed at her clit. She sighed as she relaxed, and he took that as his cue to pull out slowly, almost all the way and slam back in hard. The wet slap echoed in the room as she let out a long moan. Pulling her up so her back was to his front, he took her mouth into his as he swallowed her moans, his steady thrusts hitting that spot over and over
He spotted the shower head from the corner of his eye, and reached blindly to ease the pressure, from a harsh steam to a light shower, keeping his one arm groping her breast, fondling the flesh while he stroked in and out of her he brought the shower head to her clit, he watched as she jolted from ghe stimulation, her body hummed wiith pleasure as she whined into his mouth as he stole her air, making her go lightheaded, his hand abandoning her brest ti press fown on where he could see the outline of him as he thrust into her, over and over and over.
“You know imma kill a nigga behind you,” he rasped low into her ear as he punched the air out of her with his hips. “Yeah, you do, you know that shit, you bring a nigga into our bar again, Dasha, that's exactly what imma do, and I'm gonna make him watch too. You’re mine, Dasha, mine, took me a minute to remember I’m yours, but trust, daddy’s back, baby.”
He sucked at her neck, purplish bruises blossoming against her dark brown skin as he ran his tongue over them to soothe the ache. “You not gon’ hide these either, gonna show everyone who the fuck you belong to.”
Her nails dug into his forearm, pushing pack on Ledger as she met his thrusts, eager to fuck him back as he sped up, punishing rolls of his hips making her toes curl and her mind go blank as she clenched down hard, a broken moan tore from her throat as the pressure snapped, thighs trembling and pussy pulsing around him as he fucked her through it; walls fluttering as stars clustered at the corner of her eyes. He groaned low as he fucked her though it, thrusting deeply as hus hipd stuttered, “F-Fuck.” his deep raspy moans tumbled put of his lips as he buried himself down to the hilt, pressing down on her belly feeling evrey twitch as he spilt hot and heavy inside her, two moths worth of release painting her walls dripping down his balls and washed away by the water from the shower.
She whimpered as her body shook from the aftershocks. He kissed down her neck as he shallowly thrust into her, putting the shower head back where it was as she sighed from relief.
“You alright, mama?”
“Mhm.”
“Good… turn around for me, I ain’t done, got months to make up for.”
…
Dasha sighed as she lay in bed, her hair tucked away in neat twists beneath her bonnet, her body heavy with that delicious, bone-deep weariness that came after too much emotion, too much truth, too much of each other all at once. Behind her, Ledger was folded into her like he had always belonged there, tucked warm and shameless between her thighs under the blanket, claiming something about being cold in that low, gruff voice of his that never fooled her for even a second, and still she let him stay, let him seek whatever comfort he was after in the cradle of her body, because for all the sharpness they’d thrown at each other, for all the hurt still tender between them, there was something in the way he curled himself around her now that felt less like appetite and more like relief. His chest was warm against her back, his breathing slow and full and satisfied in a way that made the whole room feel softer, and with a long sigh that sounded like contentment dragged all the way down into the soul, she let her eyes drift half-shut as his hand moved lazily beneath the oversized shirt he had draped over her, tracing the quiet geography of her body with absent reverence, as if even now he could not quite stop checking that she was still there.
Her once-bare ring finger sparkled in the low light.
That tiny flash of gold caught her eye before she meant for it to, and for a moment she simply looked at it, looked at the ring sitting back where it belonged as though it, too, was still trying to understand how it had made its way home. There was something almost unbearably intimate about seeing it there now, not because it solved everything, not because one piece of jewelry could undo three weeks of pain or erase what had happened, but because of what it meant in this particular room, in this particular hour. Not certainty. Not absolution. Something more fragile and perhaps more honest than that. A decision made in tenderness. A door not closed. A vow returned to the hand that had once thrown it away in grief and fury, not because the marriage had been magically mended, but because neither of them had stopped belonging to it, not really.
Ledger noticed her looking.
Of course he did.
He noticed everything when it came to her, especially now, as if nearly losing sight of her had sharpened every instinct in him into something almost supernatural. His fingers slowed beneath the shirt, then slid lightly over her wrist before finding the hand resting in front of her and threading through it. His thumb brushed once over the ring, slow enough to feel deliberate.
“You keep staring at it like it might bite you,” he murmured into the back of her neck.
Dasha let out a sleepy little huff. “I’m trying to decide if I like you again or if I just had a moment of weakness.”
Ledger’s breath warmed the shell of her ear, and she felt, more than saw, the crooked little smile that touched his mouth.
“That what we calling all that?” he asked. “A moment of weakness?”
“Nigga, please,” she muttered, though there was no real venom left in it now, only that old slick softness that always showed up when she was too tired to properly fight and too fond of him not to answer back. “Don’t get cocky because I let you back in my good graces enough to breathe on me.”
“I ain’t cocky,” he said, sounding immediately offended, which only made her mouth twitch. “I’m grateful.”
Dasha snorted. “Liar.”
“Mm-mm,” he said, tightening his arm around her waist and settling closer with the kind of sleepy possessiveness that might have irritated her if it didn’t feel so much like home. “Try again.”
For a few quiet seconds, they said nothing else. The room held them gently, the lamp low, the sheets warm and slightly rumpled around their legs, the night deep and hush-filled on the other side of the windows. It was the kind of silence only married people really knew how to share, not empty, not strained, but lived in, with little pockets of feeling moving around inside it. Dasha could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing behind her, could feel the occasional ghost of his mouth against her shoulder where he seemed unable to stop pressing absentminded kisses, as if his body was still in the habit of thanking God for her return without asking permission from the rest of him first.
Eventually, she spoke, and when she did, the playfulness in her voice had softened into something lower and more thoughtful.
“I really am sorry,” she said quietly. “For the running.”
Ledger went still against her, not hard, not tense, just attentive in that immediate way of his, like every cell in his body had turned to listen.
Dasha swallowed and kept her eyes on her hand, on the ring, on the little gold circle catching the light like something both fragile and stubborn.
“I know I was wrong for disappearing like that,” she went on. “I know I scared you. I know I scared everybody. Maya ain’t deserve that. Grace ain’t deserve that. Diem sure as hell ain’t deserve that.” Her voice thinned a little at the little girl’s name, but she held it steady. “And I know, no matter how hurt I was, cutting everybody off the way I did was… it was cruel in its own way. I know that.”
Ledger’s fingers flexed once around hers, but he let her keep going.
“I wasn’t trying to punish Diem,” she said softly. “Or Maya. Or even you, at first. Not really. I just… I needed to get out before I shattered in a way I couldn’t put back together. Everything in me felt loud, Ledger. My pride, my hurt, my anger, my love for you, my embarrassment that I still loved you that hard after feeling played in my face. It was too much, all at once, and I knew if I stayed, I was gonna either say something I couldn’t unsay or fold right there in front of you, and at the time both of those felt worse than leaving.”
Behind her, Ledger exhaled slowly.
Dasha’s voice dropped further, almost to a whisper. “I should’ve called somebody sooner. I know that. I should’ve. That part is on me, and I’m sorry.”
The apology sat between them a moment, warm and honest and undramatic, which somehow made it hit harder. It was not the kind of sorry people gave to smooth conflict over or rush toward resolution. It was the kind that came after you’d sat with yourself long enough to know exactly where your own wrongness lived.
Ledger shifted then, rising just enough to prop himself up on one elbow behind her so he could see her face better, even if only in profile. His hand left hers only long enough to come up and brush the edge of her bonnet lightly, then the line of her cheek, his touch so soft it made her chest ache.
“Baby,” he said, and his voice had gone low and tired and tender in that way she had always loved most, “I ain’t gonna sit here and tell you disappearing like that was okay, because it wasn’t. You know it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t. I damn near lost my mind.”
Dasha let out a tiny sound that was half acknowledgment, half apology all over again.
“But,” he said, and then paused, because he was taking care with this, taking the time to say it clean, “I understand why you ran.”
That made her eyes close for one brief second.
Ledger’s fingers moved over her cheek slowly. “I do. I hate it. I hate what it did to me, and I hate what it did to everybody else, but I understand it. You were drowning in what I did to you. You were hurt, and you were humiliated, and you didn’t trust yourself to stay in the room with me without breaking in half.” His mouth brushed her shoulder once, a kiss so light it felt almost like breath. “I get it. You ran because staying felt more dangerous.”
Dasha let out a shaky little exhale.
“That don’t make it right,” he continued quietly, “but it makes it make sense.”
For a long second she said nothing, and then, with that old stubbornness of hers still somehow alive even in vulnerability, she murmured, “You still got on my nerves coming up here accusing me like I had a nigga stashed in the woods.”
Ledger actually laughed at that, a low, tired sound right into the back of her neck.
“Stevie,” he said. “I found a man walking out your door at dawn.”
“And you was gone crash out whether he was the mailman or not.”
“Absolutely,” he said without a scrap of shame, and the immediacy of it made her bark out a little laugh in spite of herself. “That ain’t even up for debate.”
“Nigga, you are insane.”
“For you? Deeply.” His hand slid down beneath the shirt again, slow and familiar, settling at her waist. “I thought I was about to end up on an episode of Snapped.”
Dasha gave him an incredulous look over her shoulder. “You are not the victim here.”
“I ain’t say I was the victim,” he muttered. “I said I was mentally unwell.”
That pulled another laugh from her, warmer this time, and Ledger smiled into her skin like the sound itself was medicine.
Then the room quieted again, and with it came that softer honesty that always seemed to rise in the aftermath of their little slick-mouthed back-and-forths, the thing beneath the chemistry, beneath the gamesmanship, beneath all the sharpness that made them such perfect opponents and such devastating lovers.
“I don’t want us fighting like this again,” Dasha said after a while. “Not like that. Not to the point where we saying shit just to scar each other.”
Ledger’s arm around her tightened just slightly. “Me either.”
“I mean it,” she said. “Because I know us. I know how we get. We both know exactly where the soft spots are, and when we get mad, we don’t just throw punches, we aim.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “We do.”
Dasha turned the ring once around her finger. “And I don’t want to become ugly with you.”
Something in that sentence made Ledger still all over again.
He kissed the back of her shoulder, then rested his forehead there for a second before speaking. “You won’t.”
She huffed. “Please. I was already ugly with you.”
“No,” he murmured. “You were hurt with me. Big difference.”
Dasha looked down, and the tenderness of that undid her a little.
“I said some foul shit.”
“So did I.”
“You covered my mouth in that shower.”
“You needed it.”
She snorted. “Nigga—”
“You did,” he repeated, and she could hear the smile in it now. “Cause you was being reckless with them smart-ass remarks.”
Dasha rolled her eyes, though he couldn’t fully see it from behind her. “You lucky I love you.”
“I am,” he said simply.
That took the air out of her comeback before it had a chance to form.
Ledger pressed a slow kiss beneath her ear, then another, and when he spoke again, his voice had turned more serious.
“We gotta do this different,” he said. “Not tonight. Not all at once. But going forward. I can’t ever let myself get lazy with you like that again. I can’t hide in grief or guilt or being a protector or any of that noble-sounding bullshit and leave you starving in the meantime.” His hand moved over her stomach in a slow pass, soothing without even thinking about it. “And you can’t vanish on me like that either, Stevie. You need space, you take space. You need to curse me out, curse me out. You need your own room, your own week, your own damn mountain if it come to that. But not silence like that. Not disappearing.”
Dasha nodded slowly.
“I know,” she said. “I won’t do that again.”
“You promise?”
She let the question sit there a second, not because she didn’t mean it, but because promises felt heavier now than they had before, less decorative, more sacred.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I promise.”
Ledger kissed the back of her neck once, deeply, like he was sealing the words somewhere private. “Okay.”
“And you,” she said, turning slightly in his arms now so she could catch more of his face, more of the honesty in it, “you don’t get to decide for me what I can survive in this marriage. You don’t get to look at me loving you strong and assume that means I can take whatever.”
His eyes met hers at once.
“I know.”
“No, I need you to really know.”
He nodded, slow and solemn. “I do. I do now.”
Dasha searched his face for a long moment, and what she saw there must have been enough, because some of the guardedness in her expression eased.
“I need you to come to me,” she whispered. “Not every time perfectly. Not every time pretty. But come to me. Don’t go making emotional homes somewhere else because you think I’m strong enough to survive the draft.”
Ledger’s face softened into something that looked almost pained in its sincerity.
“I will,” he said. “Even if it’s ugly. Even if I’m ugly. I’ll bring it to you.”
“Good,” she murmured. “Cause I’d rather fight with you in the truth than sleep next to you in a lie.”
That line sat between them, hot and clean and right.
“Damn,” Ledger muttered after a beat, his mouth curving. “That was cold.”
“It was real.”
“Still cold.”
Dasha smirked faintly. “You’ll live.”
“Only cause you let me.”
There was that chemistry again, easy and dangerous and theirs in a way nothing else could ever quite imitate. It softened the room, made the resolution feel less like a formal treaty and more like the kind of imperfect peace people who truly belonged to each other learned how to make—honest, tender, still carrying bruises, but real.
After a moment, Ledger slid his hand over hers again and looked at the ring.
“You sure?” he asked quietly.
Dasha knew what he meant.
Not sure forever.
Not sure everything was magically healed.
Not sure the pain was gone.
Sure enough to wear it tonight.
Sure enough to keep trying.
Sure enough not to walk away from the marriage while they were still standing in the truth of it.
She looked at it too, the gold glinting softly in the bedroom light, then at him.
“I’m sure enough for tonight,” she said.
Ledger’s expression changed at that, became softer, more reverent, because he understood the gift in it. Not a sweeping absolution. Not a fairytale. Something smaller and far more trustworthy.
Enough for tonight.
He kissed her hand, right over the ring.
“That’s enough for me,” he murmured.
Dasha studied him for a second and then asked, with just the faintest trace of mischief returning, “You really thought I was up here playing house with the handyman?”
Ledger tucked himself closer behind her again, shameless and warm and heavy in the most familiar way.
“I thought a lot of things,” he admitted.
“Like what?”
“That I was gone kill him.”
She laughed, tired and real, and hid her face in the pillow.
“Nigga, you are ridiculous.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But you my wife, so I get a little leeway.”
“You get no leeway.”
“Mm.” He kissed the back of her shoulder. “That’s not what this ring say.”
Dasha turned just enough to squint at him. “You really feeling yourself right now.”
“I’m feeling relieved,” he corrected. “Different thing.”
She held his gaze for a second longer, then let herself settle fully back into him, into the heat of his chest and the safety of his arm and the weary, aching peace they had managed to carve out of a day that might just as easily have destroyed them all over again.
The room quieted.
His hand stayed on her stomach.
Her fingers stayed over his.
The ring caught the light every now and then when she shifted, small and gold and stubborn as hope.
And because they were who they were, because neither one of them knew how to leave sweetness alone too long without nudging it sideways into something playful, Dasha murmured, just before sleep could properly gather her,
“You still ain’t shit for how you acted on that porch.”
Ledger’s breath laughed against her neck.
“And you still got a reckless-ass mouth.”
“But you like it.”
“I love it,” he said, kissing her once more. “Big difference.”
That made her smile into the dark.
And this time, when the silence came, it stayed gentle.
tags : @mamasturn @sheinaskirt @authentic-girl03 @k0niiii-blog @trustmymood @glizzymcguirex @ms-mosley-ifunastyyy @blackfemreaderr @blckblossom @trustmymood @unicoo @yourleogf @uniqueoutlierblog @og-goddesstrill @determinednot2fall @melaninhawtie @xoadaraox @thatssokarii @kirayuki22 @the1miscief @plan3tch1ld @daliscrim @szatears @that-one-anxious-mango @sonder-slut @saintaquarius (lmk if you wanted to be added or removed )
⤥ ☜♡☞ actor!tyriq withers x influencer!black reader — a social media au.. kinda
⤥ ☜♡☞ ☜♡☞ s͙y͙n͙o͙p͙s͙i͙s͙: it was just a tweet— a quick joke, a fangirl moment, and.. maybe a little out there. kynadi didn’t expect anyone to care, let alone him. but by morning, it’s everywhere. what started as a simple reaction turns into something bigger, pulling her into something she could’ve never prepared for.
{ authors note: hiiii!! this is my first tumblr fic/short series 😭. i also will be publishing on wattpad as well @girlslovejahseh (https://www.wattpad.com/user/GIRLSLOVEJAHSEH )! sorry for any errors, please give me feedback of your thoughts! part 2 soon! <3 ~ K 💋 }
The purple glow hits first—soft, dim, wrapping around everything like a filter she didn’t have to add. LED lights trace the edge of her high ceiling, reflecting faintly against her wall mirror and the glossy top coat of her acrylic nails as she taps them together absentmindedly.
Her room is clean but lived-in—makeup spread across her vanity in organized chaos. Open palettes, lip liners uncapped, a lip gloss tube resting on its side. Her Canon PowerShot sits steady on a tripod, wide-angle lens catching everything: her, the vanity, the edge of her bed, and the TV mounted across from her playing HIM. on low volume.
Her mini piebald dachshund, Willow is curled up near her pillows, occasionally shifting.
Kynadi leans into the mirror, slightly hunched, one leg bent behind her as she balances on the other. She’s mid–soft glam makeup tutorial, already a few clips in—foundation laid, thanks to Haus Labs of course. Brows done, mink lash extensions freshly done and fluttering every time she blinks behind her oversized black glasses.
“okay… so boom,” she murmurs softly, lining her lips. “i’m trying this new liner ’cause the last one? yeah no…”
She taps the pencil twice against the rim out of habit, focusing more on her reflection than anything else.
Behind her, the movie plays—background noise at first.
Until it isn’t.
—
On the TV, the energy shifts.
What looks like a normal play tightens—helmets clashing, bodies colliding under bright stadium lights. The camera cuts closer, following the motion.
Cam steps in.
Too close.
There’s a split second where it could’ve been a regular tackle—
but he doesn’t pull back.
He drives forward.
A sharp crack echoes as his helmet snaps into another player’s face, forceful and intentional. The impact sends the other player stumbling, balance completely gone before he drops hard onto his back.
It goes into a x-ray filter. Cam cheers, screaming “dead body alert! dead body alert!” as he stands over him.
The player seizing.
Chest rising and falling under his pads, head tilted slightly downward as he looks at him on the ground. No panic. No hesitation.
Just… cheering— celebrating.
Then—
He lifts his hand.
And drags his thumb clean across his throat.
Slow. Deliberate.
The gesture lingers.
The other athletes look at the scene unfold, shifting into something uncomfortable almost—they walk to their positions quietly as the player lays on the floor.. his head leaking blood.
And Cam?
He slowly realizes what happened as he takes off his helmet.
—
Kynadi pauses mid-line.
The pencil hovers just above her bottom lip.
“…wait.”
Her eyes flick to the TV.
Then back to the mirror.
Then back again—longer this time.
“…oh—”
A beat.
Her brows lift slightly, lips parting as she leans forward, squinting through her glasses like she didn’t see that right.
“oh— why he look kinda…”
She trails off, already reaching for the remote without looking, knocking a gloss over in the process.
Rewind.
The scene plays again.
This time she turns fully, one knee pressing into her chair as she leans toward the TV, completely abandoning her reflection.
She watches it through.
Slow blink.
A small, disbelieving laugh slips out of her as she pursed her lips.
“he fine as hell— hold up.”
Rewind.
Again.
Now she’s locked into the tv, lips slightly parted, liner still in her hand, completely forgetting the camera is still recording behind her.
“why nobody said nothing…?”
She leans in closer, like the distance is the issue. Like maybe she missed something. But she didn’t, and she knows she didn’t. The camera keeps rolling—catching everything.
Kynadi snaps a picture of the movie. Pressing the record button to stop on her iPhone 17 ProMax, she clips that 10 second part going to twitter tweeting:
She reads it over once.
Twice.
A quiet huff of amusement leaves her.
“whatever.”
Tweet.
Just like that.
No second thought.
No overthinking.
She sets her phone back down like it doesn’t matter, like it won’t matter, picking her liner back up and turning slightly toward the mirror again.
The movie keeps playing.
The camera keeps recording.
And somewhere, already—
the tweet starts moving.
—
SUNDAY, OCT 19
10:17 AM — HER MASTER BEDROOM | ATLANTA, GA
Her phone is the first thing that wakes her up.
It buzzes against her nightstand—loud, aggressive, nonstop. The sound cutting through the quiet of her room before she even fully opens her eyes.
She groans, turning slightly under her covers. Her cheetah print bonnet nearly sliding off her spanish curly 34 inch frontal wig, she reaches blindly toward the noise.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Her fingers finally find it, dragging the phone toward her as she squints at the brightness.
Her screen is… bright.
Too damn bright.
Notifications stacked on top of notifications, piling faster than she can even register them.
Her brows pull together.
“…what?”
She’s still half asleep as she unlocks it, thumb hesitating for a second before tapping into Twitter.
It takes a second to load.
Then—
Everything hits at once.
Likes climbing in real time.
Retweets.
Quote tweets.
Mentions flooding in so fast they barely make sense.
Her tweet sits at the top.
And the numbers—
keep jumping.
“…wait.”
She pushes herself up slightly, back pressing against her headboard now, eyes narrowing as she refreshes.
Again.
Again.
Each time the number jumps higher.
10.2K.
10.8K.
11.4K.
Her stomach drops a little.
“…no fucking way.”
Her mentions tab is worse.
People tagging him.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
@tyriqwithers
@tyriqwithers
@tyriqwithers
Fan pages.
Edits. The small video clip.
She scrolls faster now, heart starting to pick up in her chest“…oh my God.”
She exits out.
Goes back in.
Refresh.
The number jumps again, 1.2 million views. She laughs rubbing her face, “are you fucking kidding me?”
Willow stretches as she looks at her owner, tilting her head almost like she understood.
Hopefully he won’t see it right? It’s not like THEE Tyriq Withers is chronically online.. right?
Kynadi stares at her phone a second longer, like it might answer her.
It doesn’t.
Another buzz.
Her eyes drop back down.
12.3K likes.
“…oh my God.”
She presses her lips together, thumb hovering over the screen before she taps into her mentions again like she has to.
Big mistake.
“@tyriqwithers you got one 😭”
“HE NEEDS TO SEE THIS IMMEDIATELY”
“nah she real for this”
“KYNADI STAND UP 😭”
“@tyriqwithers she said you kinda 🫦 LMFAOOOO”
She physically winces.
“…whyyyyyy y’all tagging him like this?” she mutters, voice still thick with sleep.
Another refresh.
13.1K.
Her stomach tightens.
She drops her phone onto her chest, staring up at the ceiling, purple LEDs now off—just plain daylight creeping in through her blinds.
“Jesus please be with me…” she mumbles.
Buzz.
She grabs it again immediately.
“…okay wait.”
Back to Twitter.
A quote tweet catches her eye.
“oh boo this scene got me too, he so mf fine mann 😭”
Kynadi squints. She taps the clip and watches it… Again.
Her lips press together, trying not to smile.
“…no ‘cause he did look good right there,” she defends quietly, like somebody’s arguing with her in the room.
Willow shifts on the bed, stretching out before crawling closer to her thigh.
Kynadi absentmindedly rests her hand on her, still scrolling.
Buzz.
Another one.
“SHE SAID WHY NOBODY TOLD HER 😭😭”
“…because bitch nobody did,” she says under her breath.
Refresh.
14.6K.
Her eyes widen slightly.
“…okay wait wait wait.”
She clicks her own tweet.
The numbers jump again in real time.
15.2K.
“…nah.”
A small, nervous laugh leaves her.
“stop y’all before he sees it.”
She scrolls down again—more tags.
More fan pages.
Clips and gifs of Tyriq now being posted under her tweet.
Edits.
Slow-motion cuts.
“…oh y’all are insane.”
She shakes her head, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
Another notification drops.
“___ liked your tweet”
“___ retweeted your tweet”
“___ mentioned you”
Her phone doesn’t stop.
It doesn’t stop.
“…okay i’m not opening this no more,” she says out loud, already opening it again.
A new quote tweet pops up:
“if he reply it’s over 😭”
Kynadi freezes.
Just for a second.
Her thumb stops moving.
“…he not gon reply.”
She says it quickly.
Too quickly.
Like she’s shutting the idea down before it can even sit.
“…he’s not,” she repeats, quieter this time.
Buzz.
She refreshes again.
16.9K.
Her heart picks up.
“…oh my God.”
She locks her phone.
Unlocks it again immediately.
Goes to her profile.
Clicks the tweet.
Refresh.
17.4K.
“WHY is it still going up?” she whisper-yells, glancing at Willow like she’s about to explain it.
Willow just blinks at her.
“…exactly,” Kynadi mutters.
She drops her phone onto the bed this time, pushing herself up and swinging her legs over the side.
“I’m not looking at it no more. I’m not,” she says, standing.
Beat.
She grabs it again.
“…okay last time.”
Back to Twitter.
A fan page has posted her tweet.
Another one.
Another one.
Her eyes widen.
“…oh— we’re really doing this.”
She scrolls faster now.
Her name is everywhere.
Her tweet is everywhere.
Clips of him under everything.
“…nah this is actually embarrassing.”
But she’s smiling a little.
She can’t help it.
Buzz.
Another notification.
This one bigger.
She taps it.
A verified account liked her tweet.
Her brows pull together.
“…wait.”
She taps their profile.
A fan page.
A big one.
“…oh.”
Her stomach flips slightly.
Refresh.
19.8K.
“oh my—”
She cuts herself off, pressing her lips together.
“…okay.”
She inhales.
Exhales.
“…okay.”
She sets her phone down again.
Buzz.
This time it’s not Twitter.
It’s a text.
“Lai 🩵”
Her brows lift slightly before she opens it.
Another message comes in immediately after.
Kynadi’s eyes widen as she sits up straighter.
“…oh my God, Lai no—”
Her fingers move fast.
Three dots appear instantly.
Disappear.
Come back.
Kynadi squeezes her eyes shut for a second, dragging her hand down her face. “…I hate y’all,” she whispers, already typing back.
Her phone buzzes again before she can even lock it.
Kynadi freezes.
“…what?”
She immediately flips back to Twitter.
Refresh.
19.8K → 20.2K.
“…oh my—”
A nervous laugh slips out, louder this time, disbelief written all over her face as she shakes her head, pacing slightly at the edge of her bed.
“No, no, no… this is actually crazy.”
Her phone buzzes again.
“…WHAT fan page?” Kynadi says out loud, already going back to her mentions, scrolling faster now, eyes scanning everything at once until—
There.
A verified fan account.
Her tweet reposted.
Climbing just as fast.
“…oh my God,” she breathes, pushing her glasses up her nose as her heart starts beating harder, not even from fear exactly—just… the intensity of it.
Kynadi pauses.
Her thumb stops moving.
“…he’s not gon see it,” she says quickly, like she’s correcting the situation out loud.
A beat.
“…he’s not,” she repeats, quieter this time, but even she doesn’t sound convinced.
Refresh.
40.8K.
Her stomach flips.
She drops onto her bed again, staring at the screen like it’s doing something to her personally.
“…why is it still going up,” she mutters, half laughing, half stressed as she rubs her forehead.
Buzz.
Kynadi’s eyes flick down to that message.
Then back to her tweet.
Her screenshot.
Her words.
“…no,” she says softly, almost surprising herself.
She bites her lip for a second before typing back.
A pause.
Then:
Lai responds immediately.
Kynadi shakes her head, smiling despite herself, then drops her phone beside her for a second, pressing her palms over her eyes as she exhales slowly.
“I’m not checking it no more,” she says out loud, pointing toward the phone like she means it this time. “I’m serious.”
Willow looks at her.
“…don’t look at me like that,” Kynadi mutters, sliding off the bed and heading toward the bathroom.
—
Deep breath.
Unlock.
Twitter.
Refresh.
The number jumps instantly.
Her jaw drops.
“…no.”
Refresh.
68.3K.
“NAH.”
She starts laughing again, pacing this time with more energy, running her hand over her face as her bonnet slips back even more.
“This is actually insane.”
Her phone buzzes again.
Kynadi types back while still walking in circles.
A pause.
Then—
Kynadi shakes her head, smiling even though she tries not to, glancing back at her tweet one more time, at the picture, at his face frozen in that moment.
This time she actually walks away—toward her bathroom.
“I’m not checking it for like… an hour,” she says, pointing at her phone like it can hear her.
Willow watches her from the bed.
“…don’t look at me like that,” Kynadi mutters, disappearing into the bathroom.
—
11:06 AM
She lasts exactly eleven minutes. The bathroom door creaks open slowly. She peeks out first stepping back into her room.
Her phone is exactly where she left it.
“…okay.”
She walks over.
Picks it up.
Deep breath.
Unlocks it.
Twitter.
Refresh.
The number jumps so fast it barely registers.
94.1K.
Her jaw drops.
“…no.”
Refresh.
111.1K.
“NO.”
She starts laughing now, fully pacing her room.
“nah this is actually crazy.”
She runs a hand over her face, bonnet slipping back more.
“…oh my God.”
Her mentions are worse.
Way worse.
“@tyriqwithers WHERE YOU AT”
“HE NEED TO SEE THIS ASAP”
“she already down bad 😭.. ion blame her im starting a rumor!”
“KYNADI YOU STARTIN SOMETHING”
“…I didn’t start nothing!” she defends out loud.
A pause.
She flops back onto her bed, staring at her phone again.
Scrolling slower this time.
Taking it in.
Her tweet.
His face in the screenshot.
Her words.
“…i’m deleting my socials…” she whispers.
But she doesn’t delete it.
Not even for a second.
Instead—
She taps her profile.
Scrolls.
Back to the tweet.
Refresh.
156k.
Her heart does a small, stupid flip.
“…okay.”
She bites her lip slightly.
“…well.. too late now.”
She nods to herself.
Just once.
Then immediately shakes her head.
“…no it’s not. this is bad.”
Buzz.
Another notification.
She taps it without thinking.
Another fan page post.
More traction.
More people.
More attention.
“…oh my God.”
She presses her phone to her chest this time, staring at the ceiling again.
“if he see this…” she starts.
Stops.
“…he not gon see it.”
But her voice isn’t as convincing now.
Not even to herself.
Willow crawls up beside her, resting against her arm.
Kynadi sighs, staring at nothing for a second before slowly lifting her phone again.
Just one more time.
Just to check.
Refresh.
166.3K.
And climbing.
Fast.
Her eyes flick down to the mentions again.
Then to the tags.
Then—
She pauses.
Her thumb hovering.
Because his name—is everywhere.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
“…y’all really not gon leave that man alone,” she mutters.
But this time—
there’s a small, nervous smile pulling at her lips. What's the worst that could happen?
synopsis ⁀➷ aspen moore desperately needed a break. from troubles with her ex-boyfriend to struggling to complete the finishing touches of her long awaited novel. she plans a trip to her family’s cabin home in wisconsin. all is well, until she finds out she’s not alone and has to share the space with handyman ledger ward.
song(s) of the chapter ⁀➷ ‘man i need’ & ‘i’ve seen it’ by olivia dean, ‘pisces’ by trey lorenz ft. mariah carey & ‘blue moon’ by zara larsson.
word count + warnings ⁀➷ 9.5k || 18+, nsfw, no minors! forced proximity, foul language, snowy weather, snowed in, mentions of celibacy, alcohol usage, flirting, tickling, kissing, breast play, nipple play, pet names (baby, doll, babygirl, babe) fingering, praise, small teasing, body admiration, p in v, floor sex, condom less sex (wear a hat!) riding, missionary.
a/n— this was supposed to be published a while ago yall😭. i lost track of time and started posting other stuff, but i hope you guys enjoy this one. it’s a little lengthy, but i promise it’s worth it!! yall will throughly enjoy this fic. think of it as the morning paper!! grab a mug of whatever you want to drink and sit back and relax!
‘you’re overthinking that i’m only here to hurt you, that never crossed my mind.”
❆
the distinct smell of homemade peppermint bark mixed with notes of cedar and smoke, felt all too familiar to aspen moore.
her hefty silver suitcase thunked against the vintage hickory oak flooring as she hurriedly entered the cabin home, attempting to escape the ferocious windstorm outside.
“shit,” she huffs, slamming the wooden door behind herself. taking a second to catch her breath, aspen untied the crème cashmere scarf from around her face and neck.
deep inhale and exhale.
it felt good to be home. she couldn’t worry too much about the storm brewing on the other side of the door because she was here taking in the beauty of her family’s cabin home.
a moore legacy, this space was.
memories of aspen and her older sister running through the front yard tossing snow at each other crosses her mind as she peeks out the den’s window. the charming rustic kitchen, illuminated by yellow overhead lights, brought her back to the delicious soups her father prepared to warm his family up. the brick and mortar built fireplace her parents lit right before the girls went to bed, reading them a quick story as they cozied up to the flames.
aspen kicked off her furry snow boots and undid the zipper of her columbia maxi coat. she placed both items in the hanger closet nearby and proceeded upstairs to unpack.
treading up the stairs, aspen turns on the light to she and her sister’s erin’s bedroom. the same decor and set up as they left it a few years ago. a full-sized walnut wooden bed, covered in various stitched quilts, a cute matching dresser and nightstand tucked in the corners of the room and two rectangular windows on each side of the bed, giving a beautiful view of the winter forest outside.
she spent the next thirty minutes, unpacking her items and placing them into drawers, before searching the linen closet for bath and dry towels. aspen couldn’t be more excited to shower and hit the hay.
an exhausting four-hour drive over to the cabin, whooped her for the evening. she’d already been stressed with responsibilities back home, she should’ve known the ride here would only add to the strain.
with an incompetent boyfriend who served almost no purpose in her life, aspen felt it deep within she’d be the one to call things off. almost three years in the making and no wedding or family plans in sight, the relationship was bound to go down the drain. the two of them held different ideas of happiness. aspen craved love, attention, affection. maybe kids and a wedding were too soon, but absolutely no kissing or touching was asinine and she would be an even bigger fool to stick around.
the next thing was the novel in dire need of being finished. pressure from her publisher and supporters from all over became a never-ending cycle in her head. there wasn’t exactly a deadline, but more-so the need to create an exciting follow-up to her highly acclaimed story ‘lovesick’. this week's vacation would be her time away to really outline the plot of her sequel. seclusion, deactivated social media and a nice hot mug of cocoa would get her together. she’d be able to focus and get her writing in order.
aspen stripped off her jogging set and tossed the items in a nearby clothing bin. she collected her body wash and oral care supplies, heading into the bathroom to bathe. the bathroom was probably aspen’s favorite part of the home. a modern yet country feel to the space. round corner glass shower, freestanding flat bottom bathtub, all wooden ceilings and walls, freshly cleaned from the housekeeping her parents hired throughout the months.
she took a much-needed shower. soaking in the hot water and scrubbing her skin of today’s labor. the gentle smell of dove’s rejuvenating pomegranate and hibiscus body wash wafted through the air as she brushed and flossed her teeth. rinising her mouth in the sink, aspen finished her routine for the night. tiredly she dried her body down, before wrapping the white towel around herself, aspen exited the bathroom and proceeded back to the bedroom.
aspen dressed in a comfortable silk striped pajama set after applying her favorite vanilla body cream to her skin. her macbook, reading glasses and favorite pink furry ballpoint pen rested in the bed before she did. aspen read the time from the analog clock hung above. 11:35pm. still early. she was ready. at the very least, a chapter of this story would get written tonight.
aspen pulled the duvets to the bed back and prepared to slip into the comfy mattress, but the faint sound of someone pounding at the front door stops her dead in her tracks.
“what the hell?” her voice is a confused hush. who could be here this late? furthermore, who could’ve known she’d be here? hardly anyone visited this home if they weren’t already staying here or were paid to clean the place.
aspen turned on her heels and began a quiet tiptoe down the stairs. she quickly searches the kitchen drawers for a weapon. something compact but could still do damage if need be. a box cutter. small with a sharp blade.
the knocking ensues again. rough and loud along the wood door. she should’ve ignored it, but the person on the other side wasn’t letting up. aspen grumbled and stomped over to the door, peeking out the peephole, she can only get a glimpse of the back of someone’s neck.
“who is it?!” she yells from the safe inside the cabin home, hoping the person would answer her and eventually leave.
“um?” his deep voice grumbles against the strong winter wind. his? it was a man standing opposite of the door. “um, is this mrs. moore?”
mrs. moore? he knew her last name, albeit the wrong title, but she got the point nonetheless. aspen stood on the tips of her toes again and glared out the peephole. this time, she’s able to see the blue orbs of his eyes as he stared back into the peephole. she gasps, fumbling backwards.
who was this?
“do you think you can open the door, mrs. moore, it’s freezing out here.”
her eyebrows raise as she scoffs. “i absolutely can not. i don’t have a clue as to who you are, and i’m not letting a stranger into my home. are you insane?”
he chuckles after a brief pause. deep and sardonic. “is something funny?”
“you must be aspen, the moore’s youngest daughter.”
she was, but how did he know that? “is there a reason why you’re here, sir?”
“yes, i believe there’s been a miscommunication of some sort. maybe you can call someone and try to get things cleared up for us.”
“call someone like who?”
“i don’t know, possibly your mother or father. they’re the ones who hired me to work here.”
hired?
“hired? what did they hire you for?”
“house repairs. maintenance a few times out of the week during the winter, stuff like that,” he sighs. “now, do you think you can open the door?”
aspen ignores him and searches for her mother’s contact. with speed, she calls her, waiting as the phone drones in her ear. the first call goes to voicemail. it was late, after all, her mother must’ve been fast asleep. she tries again and waits as it rings once more.
“are you still there?”
“i’m here,” aspen answers with annoyance in her voice. “give me a sec.”
her mother, rachel, answers the phone with a drained voice. aspen didn’t intend to wake her mother this late at night, but this situation needed her urgently.
“hi, mommy, i don’t mean to wake you but, i’m at the cabin in wisconsin and i got a visitor saying you and daddy hired him to work, is this true?”
“baby,” her mother groans, squinting into the bright facetime camera. “yes, that’s ledger ward, we hired him a while back, he’s supposed to be staying there.”
aspen’s stumped. “but, mom, i’m staying here. i’m trying to finish up some work out here.”
“oh, sweetheart, i understand, but we need ledger to fix the leaky sink upstairs along with countless other things. you know your father and i are trying to get the house approved for air b&b. had i known you’d be staying there this week, i would’ve told you beforehand or sent ledger elsewhere.”
aspen scratches her head, the yellow box cutter still in hand for safety. “so, i’m supposed to just let him in?”
“yes, penny, could you, please? ledger is a good guy, you should have no worries,” aspen can hear her father groaning in the background of the phone. he must’ve been waking up from her mother’s current conversation. “he’s denice’s nephew, remember my friend denice, baby?”
“denice with the sphynx cat that bit me when i was twelve?”
“yes, her. did you know she recently got surgery on her knee? something ab—” if aspen let her mother continue this conversation, they’d be on the phone all night.
“okay, mom, i’m gonna call you in the morning, alright? love you, goodnight.”
aspen hangs up the call and sets her phone on the nearby coffee table, now gripping the box cutter tightly in her hand. she twisted the locks on the front door and braced herself to face this strange man.
and to her surprise, he was everything but strange.
“it’s fucking freezing out there,” he’s shivering as he slowly enters the home, dragging a utility bag and suitcase in tow.
aspen scoots to the side and allows him room to enter. she still held on tightly to the box cutter for emergency use. aspen silently watches him as he dusts off the snow from his head and shoulders.
“you should really be wearing a coat.”
she says it without hesitation, noting the hunter green flannel and light jeans he wore. of course, he was shivering and on the verge of hypothermia, he dressed as if he were taking a stroll through a rainy forest preserve and not a subzero snowstorm.
his gaze flicks upwards at the sound of her voice, and their eyes meet. stone-cold. probably colder than the 12 degree weather outside.
ledger, or whatever his name was, didn’t look like a handyman to aspen. he looked as if he belonged on the cover of gq magazine. maybe shirtless and oiled down—aspen could see that, undoubtedly. and it wasn’t just the nine-month celibacy drought she was going through talking.
maybe…
a light-brown low cut with a scruffy beard and moustache to match in color. the sleeves of his flannel are buttoned up to his forearms, showing a sample view of the tattoos he had etched alongside taut muscles and veins. maybe nordic, greek or even viking symbols? they seemed familiar, but aspen couldn’t quite put her finger on it. the one thing she could confirm was his height. he was tall. much taller than aspen and she came in at about 5’9 to 5’10—-a height she struggled with as a child but came to love and appreciate as she got older.
all in all, this man looked nothing like a maintenance worker, and aspen was sure he came here to bullshit and lounge around.
“i’m ledger, i believe mrs. moore introduced me already,” his tone is sarcastic as he extends his giant hand for aspen to greet, a smirk pulled on his thin lips. she takes it against her will and shakes his hand for only a second.
“aspen. i’m sure my parents mentioned me before.”
“that they have,” he nods.
he’d meet the moore parents and the oldest sister, erin, a few times before. they’d hired him to work on whatever repairs their home needed, thus leading him to stay every so often throughout the years.
he’d never met aspen, though.
heard about her, saw a few pictures the moore couple showed and occasionally came across her name in the ‘sizzling authors’ section of the nearby bookstore, but never ever had he’d met the beautiful woman before him.
she looked a lot like her older sister erin. same cute features, coily hair type and deep olive skin undertone—the main difference was their body types. erin was a slimmer figure and shorter in stature, while aspen was built like a fucking stallion. a few inches shorter than him with full hips, ass and bosom that he tried his hardest not to eyeball at.
silk pajamas wrapped around her waist in all the right ways, a small lining of her plush stomach exposed as the shirt she wore hung off her sculptured shoulders. little smooth hairs cascaded around her neck and ears as the rest of her tresses set tucked underneath an all black bonnet. and just a smidge of lip balm glossed over her pretty two-toned lips as she pulled them into a soft pout, most likely from irritation of his presence.
“i hope they’ve said good things.”
“that they have,” he repeats, chuckling while aspen shakes her head, turning around to go back to her bedroom. he notes the little box cutter wedged in her hand as she walks away.
“there’s two other bedrooms in the house. i’m bunking in my old one, so it’s already occupied. please take off your shoes and make yourself at home.”
ledger snorts. he’d been here a few times before and already built a routine of his own in the cabin home, but whatever princess aspen wanted, he’d happily oblige to.
‘i’ve seen the films, i’ve read the books. my mom and dad, they got me hooked.’
❆
“my thing is why even bother to have a store sale, if you’re only going to take twenty percent off, that’s stupidity. it’s after christmas and prices are practically the same.”
“do you want me to apple pay you some money, erin? i can help you get whatever you need, sweetheart.”
“thank you mommy, but it’s not about the money, it’s the principle. these stores are robbing people with no gun to their heads, it’s injustice.”
aspen sighs and shifts in the desk chair. the conversation her mother and sister were having was completely valid and she even agreed with their sentiments, but her focus was supposed to be on the blank document before her. the only thing she managed to type was the letter ‘t’, while the text cursor continued to blink. she felt like spongebob when he had an 800-word essay to write and did everything but.
and matters only worsened as the distracting clanging from the basement downstairs became unbearable. ledger spent the entire morning stomping around the house, going to and from, fetching tools as he fixed things around the house.
he was noisy as all hell.
“penny, baby, you okay?”
aspen’s mother noted the heavy sigh her daughter continuously expressed. “yes, mommy, i’m fine. i’m just trying to get some writing done here, that’s all.”
“well, what have you done so far?” erin chimes in.
aspen chortles. “absolutely nothing. i have nothing typed on this page and i don’t know what's wrong with me.”
“there’s nothing wrong with you, aspen. your brain juices just aren’t flowing at the moment.”
that garnered a small smile from aspen.
her family were the sweetest people ever. a mother and father who supported her every move and an older sister who never talked down to her, aspen couldn’t ask for better. the moore family’s legacy began in 1980, when rachel and brian fell in love while attending stanford university. together, the two of them finished schooling and began their law firm, winning cases throughout the years by helping their clients get the rights they deserved.
much later they introduced two baby girls to the world, erin and aspen, two angels born three years apart. erin followed in her parent's footsteps. she joined them in their family firm, while aspen took another route. finding more interest in writing stories, she began by reading erotic fanfics online, from there her love with the art blossomed.
she began writing on those websites and thoroughly enjoyed the engagement she received, but ultimately decided to take things further. short stories first. smutty short series that publishers and fans alike couldn’t refuse. aspen created something other authors hadn’t. her works were realistic. she crafted stories readers could relate to—stories that showcased every day life. the fun, the insecure, the ugly and the intimate. through the positive feedback, aspen built the courage to publish a full-length novel.
the love and admiration from people all over was overwhelming. aspen couldn’t believe everyone enjoyed her writing so much. as always, though, the imposter syndrome came to creep in. the fear of doing and executing put a blockage in aspen’s writing, thus making it impossible to complete a sequel to the novel. she had solid ideas of endings to the story, but ran into a brick wall when time to execute.
a difficult process, but aspen loved her career and was willing to do whatever to bring her dreams into fruition. which is why she booked a trip to this cabin home miles away. it’d been her peace since childhood. she hoped coming here would bring back that peace and give her the ability to write and potentially finish her novel.
“i don’t know you guys, maybe i should shave my head, move into the mountains and become a monk or something.”
the group facetime call erupted into laughter as erin and rachel cackled at aspen’s foolishness.
“aspen, girl, you’re so dramatic. you got this. your sequel is gonna be fire, you’re going to get loads of love from folks and possibly get your work made into a movie. if bullshit like colleen hoover’s gets admiration and love, then i know real book readers will enjoy your work.”
aspen’s heart swelled at her sister's compliment. at the expense of colleen hoover, unfortunately, but oh well. “you think so, ‘rin?”
“i know so, ‘pen.”
their mother chimes in. “yes, aspen, we know you’re going to create magic. me and erin can’t stop rereading the first part of ‘lovesick’. i’m still stuck on how cree’s character could get away with a crime that grand.”
“hopefully, i’m able to finish this story and you guys can get your answer.”
“we’ll be wai—-”
the conversation stops abruptly and the phone call ends, at the same time her macbook and bedroom lights go out.
“what the fuck?” she huffs, standing from the chair. aspen checks underneath the desk to see if she accidentally unplugged something. everything remained intact. she then inched over to the light switch and agitatedly flicked with it, and once again nothing came about.
marching down the stairs, past the den and straight to the basement entrance, aspen became furious upon realization. aspen at the breaker panel ledger stood. entirely ignoring aspen’s presence while continuing to work diligently, a bright headlamp perched on his cranium.
“ledger, what’s going on with the power? everything’s out upstairs.”
voice muffled as he holds a screwdriver between his front teeth. “i’m working on that right now.”
aspen scoffs. he doesn’t seem to take this seriously. “i have work to do, how long do you think this will last?”
“not quite sure. still getting everything in order now.”
she blinks. “this is crazy. the power was working perfectly fine an hour ago, now everything’s out. i’m not understanding.”
“have you eaten today?” he changes the subject completely, confirming to aspen that he thought she was a joke. she wants to smack that smirk right off his chiseled face. “i cooked some breakfast a while ago. i see you’re a late riser, so i put away a plate for you.”
she could give a damn less about breakfast right now. aspen thinks to say something, something like “you stupid, handsome asshole, do you think this is a fucking game?”
she instead takes a deep breath, turns and stomps up the basement stairs and back to her bedroom where she patiently waits for the power to be restored.
it’d only taken a whole hour.
‘already know i can’t leave it alone. you’re on my mind.”
❆
aspen spent an entire night and two days with ledger ward. she didn’t know much about him, but there were a few things she’d picked up on in their short time together.
firstly, ledger rose early every morning. two full days in the cabin home, and each time he’d awaken at 6 am sharp. she couldn’t believe it. aspen slept in late. maybe a good 10 to 11 o’clock—12 if she’d been up rewatching ‘gilmore girls’, but nothing earlier for sure, so it was a surprise to her when she heard the distant banging of drills and hammers in the early hours.
second thing. he whistled all day long. whether he’d be working, watching sports or even showering, aspen knew when the songbird tweets of ‘walk on by’ by dionne warwick began, ledger ward wasn’t very far.
the last thing was the heady scent of his cologne. a delicate mix of pine, powder and natural musk, made aspen stomach flutter each time he passed her bedroom door. ledger would knock and occasionally peek in to ask if aspen needed anything. each and every time she declined. he’d leave, but the smell of him lingered throughout.
aside from the distractions of ledger, aspen was finally able to complete two chapters to her novel. she worked—and she worked fucking hard. tucking herself into her father’s work study for peace and inspiration.
she remembered being an excited child, running into the book and paperwork filled office to spin around in her father's leather chair. she thought of all of his and her mother’s sacrifice—the difficult hours put in to achieve their dreams, and used them as ammunition to type into her keyboard.
not an easy task, but aspen preserved. even if she had to type nonsense and bullshit onto the word document, aspen filled the page with content and that’s all she needed. she could always come back and edit whatever don’t make sense, but for right now she required a break.
a drink, a slice of cake—hell, even a cigarette. she’s unsure as to which comes first, but aspen knew one of them would be the remedy to her stress.
fetching her winter coat and scarf, aspen jogged down the hallway steps into the quiet den where ledger is. on his hands and knees he’s analyzing the inside of the fireplace, unaware of aspen’s presence.
she speaks softly, not wanting to scare him. “it doesn’t work.”
his back tenses as he sits up from the squatted position. he turns around to face her, that cheshire grin on his thin lips. “i see that. i’m trying to get it back running now.”
“it hasn’t worked in years. i honestly can’t remember the last time we’ve used it.”
he nods, taking her words into consideration, before twisting his head in realization. “you going somewhere?”
“uh, yeah. gonna try to head out to the market and find some food, i’m starving in here.”
“i don’t know if that’s the best idea,” he stands up from the floor, dusting leftover ash onto the sides of his dark denim overalls.
“and why not?”
“well, for one, it’s freezing like hell out there. i also believe another storm is about to hit, meaning many stores are either closing or already closed.”
aspen chuckles and ledger’s brow raises. “a lot of talk for someone who didn’t even bring a coat.”
“i have a coat, it’s in my truck, thank you very much and this isn’t about me, it’s about you. i can’t let you go out in the weather all by yourself.”
why did he care? “ledger, there’s no food here. no one’s delivering anything this far up the road, and i refuse to stay here and starve.”
“you’re not going to starve,” he walks into the kitchen, pulling open the retro white refrigerator to showcase the contents inside. “there’s plenty of food here.”
aspen examines from the other of the room, arms folded across her chest in slight frustration. “everything is ingredients. it all requires cooking.”
“what do you usually do at home, aspen?” he’s asking with genuine curiosity.
“i order out, buy frozen meals, let my friends cook for me—i don’t know, why do you ask?”
he licks his lip as he laughs lightly. “because you’re scaring me. how are you surviving off junk food?”
“i make do,” she shrugs. “now, if you don’t mind, i will be back in just a few.”
aspen cuts the conversation at the seams, heading for the front door. ledger watches from behind and shakes his head at the determined woman ahead of him.
it didn’t take very long. approximately forty-seven minutes and aspen shivered her way back to her car. rushing to blast the heat, her teeth chittered and clicked together as she blew hot air onto her frozen hands.
this stupid town, she thinks.
wisconsin is always cold throughout the winter. it’s not like the snow just magically dropped from the sky. you’d think the townspeople would be better prepared for this kind of weather. unfortunately for aspen, she came up short on finding food to eat. only a metal tin of oatmeal cookies follow her back to the cabin home.
she pissed, but tries not to let it show as she enters the house. she didn’t need ledger to see that she failed in her stubborn trip into town. exhaling an airy breath, she pushed through the house doors, immediately greeted with the warm aroma of something delicious.
removing her scarf and coat, aspen glares into the kitchen to see ledger working at the stove. he’d changed his clothes from earlier and now wore a clean pair of blue jeans and a white shirt.
“you’re back,” he says without turning around, hearing the slam of the front door when aspen returned. “how’d it go?”
he’s so smug. charming eyes twinkling from the kitchen counter. aspen hates him. “don’t ask. i’m going upstairs to sleep for a bit. i’m fucking exhausted.”
“wait, aspen,” he calls before she goes too far away. “i got the fireplace fixed and i made some soup. i was thinking you’d join me for dinner—no problem if you don’t want to.”
she gazes over him and to the pot bubbling goodness inside. “what kind of soup are you cooking?”
“chicken tortilla,” he smirks, already knowing what the look on her face meant. “now go get cleaned up so we can eat.”
aspen showers and dresses. now wearing a green slip embroidered with lace patterns. bought online from a black owned company, aspen felt glamorous. her glittery ‘flower power’ pink toenails are on display and pressed out curls drape across her shoulders as she saunters through the house. her intentions weren’t to wear something so…inviting, but then again, she thought she'd be the only guest here. this was how she dressed on the regular. delicate silk and fabric lounge wear were her favorite pieces.
ledger would live.
“ledger?” she calls, heading into the kitchen. an array of ingredients are prepped along the table, making aspen want to steal a bite of guacamole and chips. she decides against it and continues her search for ledger.
“ledger, are you in here?”
right outside the basement door is a wine cellar wall her parents had installed. they spent years collecting their favorite bottles from all over. napa valley, france and spain just to name a few. keeping them safe in their wisconsin cabin home, they occasionally enjoyed a bottle as a wind down for the night.
ledger was currently searching through the stash.
“hey,” aspen frowns, finding the man of the hour, her eyes immediately dart to the dark amber bottle in his large hands. “what do you think you’re doing?”
she’s teasing, right beside him in the pursuit for the best wine. ledger stands fully, turning to her, gazing for a second as she searches through the wine bottles. she’s so fucking pretty, it makes him want to faint. a daring smile pulled on her full lips as she questions him.
“i’m looking for a treat. something for the both of us.”
“my parents are gonna kill you.”
he shakes his head. “nah, i think i’m good. mr. moore gave me access to the cellar, told me to help myself anytime.”
aspen’s surprised. “they let you in here?”
“yeah,” he laughs. “mr. moore is the first to put me on to cabernet sauvignon wine.”
he says it so perfectly, so smoothly. it rolls off his tongue as if it’s his native language. aspen found it extremely sexy.
“that’s unfair,” she pouts. “they’ve threatened me about this damn cellar and here you are grocery shopping in here. you gotta be kidding me.”
ledger laughs, letting aspen lead the way back into the front of the house. he watches as her hips sway with each step, the body molded dress accentuating her every curve.
“they probably just like me more.”
“don’t you even,” she bursts into a full laugh and ledger follows, enjoying the sound and smile coming from her beautiful face.
‘more smiles than the usual, a little sweeter than i’m used to.’
❆
the soulful tunes of anita baker’s ‘rapture’ album began to play quietly in the background of the mellow living room. aspen is full—satiated. her stomach rumbling comfortably as it digests a mix of dark wine and spicy chicken soup.
ledger ward was an excellent host, truly. an appetizing black bean, corn and chicken soup cooked in a savory broth, garnished with crumbled tortilla chips, fresh homemade guacamole and a creamy jalapeño sauce was the perfect warm up on this frigid evening.
aspen couldn’t ask for better.
subdued yellow lighting from table side lamps are sources of illumination in the peaceful atmosphere. the sun had gone down completely at this time, all thanks to daylights saving.
“i hope you don’t mind. i just prefer old school music,” he imitates the iconic instrument intro of ‘sweet love’ while aspen sits back to enjoy the show.
“i don’t mind at all.”
they’d also ransacked through her parents music collection. vinyls of classic r&b were practically stacked to the ceiling. ledger hooked up their crosley cruiser record player and began to spin his favorite albums. anita first on his list.
he takes a seat on the couch beside her, the leather cushions weighing down from the wear and tear throughout the years. her parents were certainly getting rid of a lot of this stuff before listing their home on the air b&b website.
“how you feeling?”
aspen blinks, forgetting why she’s here. the wine currently working a number on her. “i feel good—i feel great. how about you?”
ledger smiles. “i’m good. i’m chillin’.”
“me too,” aspen giggles, loving his choice of words. “i appreciate you. thank you for the food and keeping me warm.”
they both glance over at the fire place crackling softly with burning flames, all thanks to ledger’s work and numerous pieces of collected wood. her bare feet felt warm against the floor, the heat radiating through her body and skin.
“it’s nothing. don’t want you freezing and starving out here.”
aspen’s hands rest right beside his. she’s leaning close on the couch seats, unknowing of just how close she truly is.
“how’s things with your book going?”
she’s surprised just a bit. he knew about her writing? “they’re going well. much better than when i first arrived here.”
“that’s good,” he tapped his long fingers along the arm of the couch, following the bass of the song. “what’s your story about again?”
“um, it’s a book about a couple with their own relationship troubles. it’s takes place in the deep southern area of new orleans. there’s hints of voodoo and things like that, but you probably don’t want to hear my drawn out talking about it.”
aspen waves, cutting herself short with a giggle. ledger is still listening. “i want to hear about it. tell me more.”
she realizes at this moment that she wasn’t too much. aspen didn’t talk too much or get on people’s nerves with her rambling because here ledger was with open ears, ready to hear all she had to say. maybe it was the troubles of her previous relationship making her think negatively—that her thoughts and feelings were unimportant.
she chuckles, amazed he’s listening so intently. “well, the main character is a housewife by the name of cree. she’s deeply devoted to her husband joseph, but he’s not the best husband to his wife. they have relationship troubles—as many couples do, right? the difference with cree and joseph’s is cree sees and hears things. she might sound crazy to others, but she’s fully aware of the surrounding spirit’s lingering about. with this thing going on in their marriage, cree and joseph find themselves at odds more than any other couple in their small town.”
“oh, wow,” he hums, lost in her lips and intriguing words.
she giggles. “there’s a whole lot more, but i prefer not spoil things for you. i’d much rather you read for yourself.”
he nods, understanding her wishes. “it’s called ’lovesick’, right?”
“yes!” she grins, laughing, accidentally brushing her soft hands along his calloused ones. “how do you know that?”
“your mother told me about it,” he shrugs. “and i might’ve done some of my own research.”
“oh, god,” she groans, holding her face. “don’t tell me this is like the stephen king film ‘misery’.”
“aspen,” he deadpans, cackling at her nonsense, a full deep smile on his face as he does so. “you can’t be serious.”
she’s laughing. “i mean, we’re snowed in, i’m an author mapping out her next novel—it only makes sense.”
“it’s nothing like that. you’re insane.”
“i’m only kidding,” she brushes the outside of his strong arm, surrendering in peace. “i don’t think you’re like that, ledger.”
“hm.” he settles, still smiling. “you’ve been writing for a while now, haven’t you?”
“since i was fourteen years old. i’m thirty-three now.”
“fourteen?” he’s surprised. “what could a fourteen-year-old be writing about?”
she laughs. “fanfics filled with smut. i joined different fandoms and followed other people who had the same interests as me.”
“mr. and mrs. left their babygirl to unrestricted internet access?” he blinks, laughing and aspen follows.
“i know right! i literally talk about that all the time. it was crazy looking in hindsight, but it’s what lead me here to this very moment.”
ledger’s invested. “from prepubescent smut to a beloved author of today?”
“time is a crazy thing, isn’t it?”
“it truly is.” he snorts. “what made you take such a long break? why haven’t you written anything else.”
she pauses and considers her next words. “writers block, as cliche as it may sound. it played a major part in my career. i have so many endings for my sequel and i’m unsure of which i like most.”
“you think i can take a peek and see which one works?” he’s hiding behind his hands shyly, pretending to be scared of aspen’s response.
“stop it,” she swats him. “i would actually love that. it’ll be nice to have an opinion from someone outside of erin, my mother and friends.”
there’s a small silence between them. lasting only five seconds before aspen speaks again. “i know i‘ve probably been rude since the moment we’ve met, but i really don’t mean any harm. i don’t mean to take my frustrations out on you.”
“you’re all good, aspen. i understand totally.”
“i just want to thank you again, ledger,” she says it once more and you would think it’s the alcohol making her repeat previous sentiments, but she’s never meant something so much in her life. “i really mean it. you take care of this place like it’s your own, my parents love you and you seem like a real genuine guy.”
“i try to be,” he chuckles richly. “but, i appreciate your kind words, aspen, i really do. you seem like a good girl as well—a true sweetheart when you’re not upset.”
she laughs because he wasn’t entirely wrong. aspen stands from the couch and heads to the kitchen to fetch the tin of cookies she purchased earlier today. she takes her original seat on the couch, her knee and foot bump ledgers thigh as she gets comfortable.
“you want one?” she opens the container and extends it, offering the hunky handyman a treat.
“yeah. what kind are they?”
“i’m not sure. they’re loaded with coconut shreds, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. a woman at the store convinced me to get some.”
ledger reaches across his seat to grab one of the snacks aspen held, taking a small bite in between the soft treat. “they’re fucking delicious.”
“right! you can hardly taste the coconut and stuff,” aspen shifts in her seat, changing the subject right along with her. “i like your tattoos. i’ve been looking at them since we’ve been here. you got quite a few.”
“yeah, i’ve had these for a while now.”
they both brief over the dark ink etched onto his tawny skin. rose and thorn drawings along broad shoulder blades, intricate leaves traced over sharp collarbones and tiny symbolic tattoos on top of rugged forearms.
“what do they mean?” she leans closer, thick thighs touching his toned ones now. “these symbols right here, do they have any meaning?”
“yeah—uh, these two triangles means balance, union of opposites, you know?”
aspen’s all ears. showing genuine interest as he recalls the meaning to his body artwork. ledger smiles softly as she continues to listen.
“and this one is viking, means “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” nothing major really.”
“no, they’re really nice, ledger. i really like them.”
“well, thank you, aspen. i appreciate it.”
they’d finished their cookies and now sit side by side with each other. ledger can almost taste the chocolate on her breath and the toasted vanilla perfume misted on her skin. she’s so close, it makes his skin hot despite the freezing temperatures outside.
“do you have any?”
“oh, god,” she groans. “i do, but i cannot show you.”
he laughs, a little confused. “why? is it embarrassing?”
“extremely. i actually need to get it removed, if i’m being honest.”
he smacks his lips, unconvinced. “it can’t be that bad, let me see.”
“no, ledger, you’re gonna laugh at me,” she frowns, shaking her head.
“i’m not aspen, i just want to see it. i promise i won’t poke fun.”
“i don’t trust you, ledger,” she’s pulling away, but ledger holds her still by her wrist. he’s chuckling at her resistance.
“tell me what it is, at least, aspen.”
“that’s just gonna make you laugh more.”
“i’m laughing more at you expecting me to laugh, if i’m being honest.”
his fingers inch up to her, and aspen can’t brace herself fast enough for what’s going to happen. “ledger! ledger!”
she screams wildly as he begins to tickle her sides. flipping around the couch, aspen shrieks in laughter while ledger smirks behind folded lips. light touching on the sides and front of her stomach, inching slowly up her arms and neck. aspen can’t sit still, fidgeting all over the couch to free herself from his grasp.
“ledger, stop! i can’t…breathe!” she’s laughing so hard the wind is knocked out of her chest. through their silly moment, aspen and ledger find themselves collapsing onto the hardwood floor.
“oh shit,” he wide-eyed, realizing his mistake before racing to check on her. “i’m fucking sorry, aspen, are you okay?”
her eyes are filled with tears from laughter. she’s coming down from the giddy high, still smiling from ledger’s previous actions. “yeah…yeah i’m fine, are you okay?”
ledger lays on top of aspen, the weight of his heavy body making her breathing shallow. their faces are mere inches from each other’s. he can practically taste the air surrounding her.
“yeah, i’m good. i like the floor better anyway.”
they both chuckle, noticing the multicolored square tribal rug underneath them both. aspen’s fingers glide across the smooth material, before switching roles and finding purchase on the back of ledger’s neck. she cradles him, fingertips brushing through his soft short hair.
“you’re so pretty,” her voice is low as it’s just the two of them in this intimate moment. “you have the nicest eyes and lips.”
she’s bold, ledger thinks. she’s the first to speak her mind, after he’d been holding these feelings inside since the day they’d met. “i’ve been saying the same thing to myself about you. you’re like a fucking angel.”
“yeah?” her eyes sparkle with wonder.
“fuck, yes. you’re all i’ve been thinking about.”
“why haven’t you said anything, ledger? why haven’t you made any moves?”
he stutters. “i-i don’t know. thought you hated my guts or something. i didn’t want to bother you or make you feel uncomfortable in any way.”
aspen doesn’t have very many words after his confession.
it lingers. silent and all consuming.
she slowly lifts her head from the carpet, while ledger meets her halfway, lowering his to connect their lips in a kiss. passionate and loving, ledger leads the way, pink lips smashing into aspen’s as she pulls him closer.
he grips her the side of her dress while his jean clad leg pries her open, growing a hard on that pokes at her inner thigh. it makes aspen’s mouth to fall open. she gasps hotly into ledger’s and it causes him to groan. immediately turned on beyond understanding, his tongue slips inside her sweet mouth, tasting hints of oatmeal cookies and aged wine on her lush tongue.
“want you, ledger,” she’s hushed as she whispers her truth to him.
“you got me, doll. i’m right here.”
“want you in me. need to feel you, baby.”
ledger growls, her words stirring something deep within him. “how long has it been? how long since you been touched—been fucked?”
aspen’s back arches, pushing herself further into his chest. “too long—months, nine months, ledger.”
he stops his movements for a moment, watching closely. “nine months, aspen? no one’s pleased you in months?”
“yeah,” she’s a bit shy, but certain that she wants this. “haven’t seen anyone since things ended with my ex.”
ledger’s dick jumps at the mere thought of aspen being all his to take care of. he’d be the only one to break her apart and put her back together. she’d be all his for tonight.
“what do you want, baby? where do you want me?”
“everywhere,” her eyes close, already feeling heat pace through her stomach. “touch me all over, ledger.”
he follows her command. peeling away the thin straps to her slip. they fall to her shoulders, exposing plump tits in the process. ledger’s mouth moistens at the sight. rose pink nipples stiff and heavy ample breasts present before him. he kisses one. simple and slow. and it makes aspen moan. she lifts from the floor to get more of him.
he’s a tease, though, whispering out a— “be patient, aspen. wanna take our time.”
how could she? she was in dire need of some stimulation and ledger was here taking his sweet time. but she listens. for the first time since they’d been in this shared space of a cabin home—aspen listened to what ledger asked of her.
he reaches for her left breast, mouth opening to swirl his delicate pink tongue around the poking nipple. aspen hisses, cradling his head and holding him still.
“yes,” she exhales softly. “ledger.”
his substantial hand grips her right breast, coarse thumb bumping aspen’s nipple with this movement. he squeezes around the juicy flesh, mouth continuing to suck on the pebbled nipple in front of him.
“please, touch me, baby. i need to feel you ledger.”
she’s begging, and ledger finally decides she deserves it—deserves more of him. he kisses her skin, littering wet pecks all over the front of her neck and between the valleys of her breasts.
“want you to relax. i gotta know you’re calm, aspen.”
“i am,” she promises. “i’m calm.”
a heavy hand pulls her thighs open further, ledger clutches aspen firmly, fingers surely leaving indents on her skin. aspen can’t be bothered to care because finally, he was touching her where she needed him most.
he fiddles around, searching for true treasure. and ledger groans darkly once he finds what he’s looking for. tucked behind a pair of lace black panties, sat aspen’s soaked pussy. he pushes past a small patch of soft damp hair and bumps directly into her firm clit.
aspen’s moaning upon his arrival, goosebumps prickling her arms and legs. she’s so excited and unable to contain it as ledger proceeded to please her. his large thumb drags lazily over her clit, sending shockwaves through aspen’s body.
she tries to be calm, tries to follow what ledger asks of her, but it’s nearly impossible. he pushes against the button roughly, applying pressure that makes aspen gasp out into the room.
“said be patient, baby,” his lips maneuver back up to hers, collecting the air she expels, swallowing it back down as he kisses her. “you gotta listen, ‘pen.”
he calls her by her nickname, and aspen could overflow right here and now. “i’m trying, ledger, i’m trying to.”
“you gotta listen, ‘member what i said?”
“yes, i remember, ledger, i remember—oh fuckkk.”
with his thumb still attached to her clit, ledger adds a middle finger to the inside of her wet pussy. aspen shudders, unyielding in her grasp of his shirt, that’s now folded into a ball tucked between her fist. he draws in and out of her, a faint squelching sound forming from the explicit act. aspen’s sensitive and wet. so fucking wet, it has ledger wondering how she’s gone without any satisfaction all this time.
“just like that, fuck—yesss.”
“pussy’s been needing some attention, hasn’t she? hasn’t been taken care of in some time, huh?”
“no,” aspen’s answer forms high in the back of her throat. “it’s been forever.”
“damn shame,” he tutts, huge finger plunging deeper, making aspen keen and arch her back to the sky.
he’s trying to ruin her. it’s like he wants aspen to make a three-hour drive up to wisconsin every weekend to visit him and only him. aspen’s still stuck on his words and the work of his middle finger, in such a cloudy haze that when he adds another, she cries in surprise at the action. a whimper flying from her mouth, as ledger jerks his fingers deeper inside, thumb still glued to the drawn bud. she clenches around him, her juices escaping down his fingertips.
she comes unexpectedly and it washes over her like waves at the beach on a sunny day. shaking and spasming around ledger’s hand, her face is tucked gently between his thick neck, muffled moans vibrating through his skin.
“let it out. let that shit out,” he coos, watching as she gyrates onto his calloused palm, pushing herself to the edge.
“i see you, i fucking see you, doll. get what you need. use me if you have to.”
and she does. riding the rollercoaster that is ledger ward, aspen comes down from the wild attraction. full lips pressed to his neck, she lingers kisses there, soft hand rubbing against the bulge in between his jeans. he’s huge. she finds herself trailing to the middle of his thigh as she massages him.
ledger gathers a fist full of her tresses to drag his lips across hers. a heated exchange—hotter than their previous kiss, their foreheads and noses knock into each other as they fervidly touch. ledger’s unbuttoning his pants with a free hand, holding still in the kiss with aspen, not wanting to miss a second.
“i wanna see you. wanna see your body, baby.”
“you gotta let me get up, ledger,” she giggles on his lips, eyes fluttering as he moves down peck to her cheeks and chest.
he groans, but ultimately allows aspen to be released. she stands from the carpet and ledger stretches out on the floor. she can’t take how sexy this man is. spread out like he was getting his picture taken, a tent in the front of his dark briefs and sculpted chest on display, muscles constricting when he stretches.
“so fucking sexy,” ledger admires her as she is. blown curls flowing all over her head, full and ample body filling out every inch of her night gown. she should be framed with how gorgeous she looks.
“thank you,” aspen blushes, reaching behind herself to tug at the fastening on the back of the dress.
she’s able to find it and un-clicks the button, allowing the night gown to fall to her sides. ledger grunts, dark and deep, palming himself as she holds full breasts in her hands.
“you’re like magic. i can’t believe you’re real, ‘pen. shit—you got me so hard right now just from watching you.”
aspen whimpers at his confession, toying with the tips of her nipples, missing ledger’s touch.
“come here,” he commands and she follows, walking over to where he lays, taking a seat over his bent legs.
“do you see it?”
ledger squints, confused for a bit, before glancing down to the small design beside her thigh. aspen’s face is hot with embarrassment as ledger smirks.
“don’t laugh!”
he raises his hands. “i haven’t said anything, baby. it’s cute, i like it.”
the tiniest drawing of an animated avocado rests along her skin. “my best friend and i drunkenly got one years ago, back when avocados were all the rave in the 2010’s.”
he laughs. “you made it seem bad. i’ve seen so much worse, aspen. that’s adorable in comparison.”
“you’re just saying that cause you wanna fuck me.”
ledger snorts, not denying it. “i was planning on doing that anyway, babygirl.”
aspen laughs as she leans down to kiss him again. she begins to grind, wet cunt leaving a damp spot on the front of his underwear. right beside the intimately lit fireplace, aspen and ledger hold each other in a gentle embrace. sharing a moment of bliss where aspen’s small hands glide upside ledger’s toned chest and sides, while his drift to the fat of her ass.
“i don’t have any protection, aspen. i haven’t done anything with anyone and i get checked often, but i don’t know if you’re comfortable with that,” he speaks truthfully.
he’d been in the same boat as aspen when it came to affection. work, home and sleep were his routine with the occasional beer and masturbation shower session to follow up.
“i want you, ledger,” she hums, kissing along his dusty colored beard and mustache. “i believe you.”
her hips rock in the same motion as his, conjuring pleasure up for the pair despite the clothing blocking them. “take that shit off.”
excitedly, aspen slides away her panties as ledger removes his briefs. both garments tossed to the side while the lovers embrace each other in the heat of the dim living room.
ledger’s dick is hot against aspen’s ass. she can physically feel the heat radiating as she bumps into him, plush ass rubbing over him in anticipation. he hisses as he grips the base of the lengthy, veiny member. aspen’s hand attaches right along with his and she strokes him languidly, aligning him with the entrance of her soppy pussy.
“slow,” ledgers reminds. “take your time like i said.”
“yeah, yeah, take my time, i remember,” aspen babbles, truly not listening as she’s too focused on the way his dick is gonna feel when he fucks her.
carefully, she sheathes him inside, lowering her cunt over his member, aspen takes a deep breath, preparing herself for the stretch and burn of ledger. it doesn’t matter how many deep breath or beats she takes, aspen still finds herself crying out in pain and pleasure.
“fuck, baby!” ledger extends his large hand to help her find comfort, clasping her hers into his.
“it’s okay, aspen. take your time, baby, take all the time you need.”
he needed aspen to be patient. she hadn’t done this is so long and he didn’t want her to be overwhelmed—to overindulge in this moment and something go wrong. he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he were to hurt her.
it’s part of the reason why ledger coaches aspen so often, but another reason is because slow motions felt much better. a paced buildup to the ecstasy they were bound to, would please the both of them greater than a rush job.
ledger’s breathing is just as quickened, sharp pants escape his lips as he tries to adjust as well. aspen’s saturated pussy swallows him whole, tight walls begging for motion as he sits still between them.
aspen’s lips are pulled into a profound pout, thick eyebrows drawn close together and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. she still had ways to go before she could fully ride him.
“you’re so big,” gasping, she opens her eyes to look down, taking in just a few inches more before finally settling over him. “ledger, baby you feel so good.”
ledger senses how emotional this moment was making her. whatever aspen felt she spoke it directly, no beating around the bush—she was unable to hide her true emotions and seeing the way tears pricked her pretty eyes, he knew he had a keeper on his hands.
he wanted to be the only one to make her feel this way—the only man to bring tears to her eyes as he pleased her.
“you got it, babe,” his hands rest at her sides, gently caressing her thick hips. he’s so sweet and patient. taking every second to make sure aspen’s okay, even if her slow pace is killing him inside.
that makes her want him even more.
sniffling, she begins to move her hips. in a slow tandem ledger joins her, rolling within aspen as she holds onto his chest for safety.
“i got you ‘pen—fuck you look so good from up here. wish you could see how sexy you are.”
ledger praises, adding a boost to aspen’s confidence. “really?”
she was fucking adorable. “fuck yes, you got me trying not to nut over here, girl.”
she laughs and it’s brief before indulgence replaces her expression. she’s loosening up, able to move faster than before as the heat of ledger’s dick appeases. soft claps of her thick ass smacks against his thighs when she starts to buck, hips picking up in tempo. the sound collides beautifully with the repeated chorus of anita’s ‘you bring me joy’. the vinyl probably looped for a third time now.
“fuckin’ beautiful,” he slaps the back of her ass, surely reddening the skin there. “takin’ it so fuckin’ good, i’m proud of you, baby.”
“ledger, oh, my god—fuckkk, you’re so deep in me, baby, you’re so fucking deep.”
it’s quick how he does it. without a word ledger flips aspen onto her back, now owning the moment. she shouts in pure ecstasy as the weight of him crushes her in the best way possible, big dick taking the air from her lungs as he pistons inside of her.
“right—“ she pauses, losing her voice, instead following the cutoff with a strangled moan. “right…fucking…there. keep going, keep fucking going, i’m about to cum.”
“push that shit out,” he smacks her thigh, holding her face as close as possible to his, gnawing at her check with kisses and bites. “give it to me, cum on this fucking dick.”
he’s rough and aspen doesn’t expect it, but she’s not complaining in any way. he must’ve grown tired of holding it together and desperately needed to release. his teeth are clenched together as he grittily curses out to her, burning her ass and thighs each time he sends a harsh slap to them.
aspen’s neck cranes in his hold, eyes rolling to the back of her skull as she moans out. “i’m cumming, fuck, i’m fucking cumming.”
she squirts unexpectedly, soaking ledger’s abdomen in the process. he’s surprised, but quickly pulls out and jerks himself off using aspen’s splashing juices as lubricant. she trembles, thighs shaking as the orgasm pushes her over.
“that’s so fucking good, ‘pen. don’t fucking stop, soak me up, baby, get that shit.”
“unghhh,” she heaves and quivers at ledger’s praise and the heavy thump of his dick slapping against her puffy clit. “babyyy. ledgerrr.”
she’s whining, breathless as ledger slides back inside of her. twitching in his arms, aspen watches from a haze as ledger’s groans rumble through the room, tattooed body attached to hers while he fucks with vigor until he’s finally cumming inside her pussy.
“so fucking good. you’re so fucking good, baby. god fucking damn—you got me nutting all in you.”
his words are so obscene. so much so that aspen has to clamp her lips over his to get hush him. holding his praises and grunts behind her lips, aspen moans back in response of ledger’s words.
when they finish, the pair stay on the floor for just a little while longer, snatching a throw blanket from the couch as they heat up near the fireplace.
afterwards they clean themselves up, having another round in the shower, before sitting down to go over aspen’s novel rough draft.
summary: This summer is one for the books. you've graduated from your dream school and you get to be outside with your favorite cousin. But returning to the town you ran away from has its little patch of drama
warning: 18+ mdni!!, aaron!fromatl!xreader, bully!aaron, black!fem!reader, prissy!reader (as she should be), southern dialect, Racist remarks towards reader, manipulative side character, drama drama drama, n-word ,smut, very dirty talk, they kind of get aggressive?, a slightish daddy kink, pet names (mama, ma, baby), unprotected p in v (keep the rub ON!) ,dom/sub switch, missonary, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, from the side. trifling phone calls, cheating (kinda)
wc:9.1k (I got carried away)
Music, smoke, and the overwhelming smell of alcohol practically made the party more crammed than it already was. Your back held up the wall as you watched people laugh and dance. You were waiting for your cousin to return but for whatever reason she had not made it back. Not that you were anxious about her absence though, you were enjoying yourself…surprisingly enough.
Fifteen year old you wouldn’t have thought twice about attending a party with anybody from the place you ran from first thing out of graduation. It wasn’t even in your plans to be here but Mina had brought it to your attention the minute you got back home. The host was a former homecoming king of your school and had just graduated themselves.
Leaving town, despite your parent’s wishes, to attend an HBCU hundreds of miles away. Despite the horrible commute from the eastside to the Northside, they made it a mission to get you away from your “unpleasant” and “radically diverse” neighborhood. That was all according to them though. You made your best memories with the most amazing people over the years. The blend of cultures motivated you to want to explore your own. Even with your parents trying to cut down your play time short everyday as a child to avoid influence, you always made the most of it.
You’d spend hours upon hours researching black history during school hours and during your free time. The Good, the bad, and the treacherous but most importantly…the beauty. At just 10 years old, you became infatuated with all things you. When old enough, most of your paychecks, sometimes all if you had it to spare, went towards clothes, self care items, etc. Your mom often had plenty to say and despite their shared opinions about your influence by the surrounding area, your dad wasn’t one to interfere with your spending habits.
“Y/N, you need to start picking a more age appropriate style for yourself. You can’t go around presenting yourself to others like some 5 year old still obsessed with princesses and fairy tales.” Your mom announced as you maneuvered around the kitchen looking for items to throw your breakfast together. “I’m tired of that school calling me for nonsense and I scheduled a silk press for you on Thursday. Take care of that bird’s nest you got up there.” she mumbled the last thinking it went unheard.
Your brows furrowed. You’d spent hours on your hair the night before. You thought it looked cute despite the multiple attempts you made to just stop and throw it in a puff. Your hair was rather thick stopping a little past your bra strap with type 4 coils that sometimes had a mind of their own.
“Oh no need. I already have my hair done.” You politely dismissed, stuffing an apple into your bookbag.
“I wasn’t asking y/n.”
“I know” your eyes met hers as you finished zipping up your bag.
Your dad signed. “Leave her alone. She looks fine and her outfit is within the dress code.” he had heard and wasn’t about to listen to another argument this early. “Punkin go wait in the car. I’ll be out in a little.”
On the other hand, your school was not the most accepting and you knew why too.Your family was one of early bloomers so you filled out your clothing a little more than the girls around. Not that you cared though. Mainly because you couldn’t change it and you didn’t want to either. You were comfortable in your body, your hair, and your skin. People around were not used to this and that was their problem not yours.
You’d always receive stares and hear the not so quiet jokes made. One would think you were the only black person attending. In all actuality, you were just the first to not shy away from yourself
That being said, you were almost always the talk of the class. As outspoken as you were, how could you not be? But it was one particular group of boys you always caught the attention of: Joshua, Michael, Logan, and Aaron.
It was their everyday mission to antagonize you. The satisfaction on their faces when you would end up in trouble with your teachers, or your principal, was infuriating. The snide remarks as you would leave from being chastised would always end up with you locked in a bathroom stall crying tears of anger. You couldn’t seem to understand why they would target you so much.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Ruby bridges! Been waiting for you! Where’s the rest of the black panther party?” the prepubescent voice of Michael, the brunette ringleader, rang in your ears. Every day it was a new insult with him. It was so strange because you just knew he did his research solemnly for insults and never to diminish his ignorance. You weren’t in the mood for him today so your response to him today was silence.
An eraser was launched into your afro and snickers sounded off throughout the classroom. Your hands reached to remove it. “Nothing to say today?”
Still you said nothing, continuing to focus on the video that played on the projector ahead. Your hair being pelted with different items and the laughter becoming more audible. A subtle shake of your leg became audible through the classroom.
“Can you stop the tapping? I can’t hear” you turned seeing a smirking Janica. Yet your foot still continued to go and the taunting didn’t subside. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Aaron dap up his friend, and a smile on his face that showed almost all 32. That was always his thing. Never saying anything but finding his friend’s jokes so very funny.
“Baaabbeee stop” a blonde haired, green eyed girl under his arm chirped into the air. You were over this class and these people.
“Y/N can you stop with the tapping? Janica asked you nicely.” Your teacher called from the front of the classroom. A look of surprise almost flashed over your face before you got up from your seat and exited the room. As you expected, your mom and your dad were contacted and you were put on punishment. But not fully with your dad taking your side.
You’d moved on from that though. Kinda..
“Whew! I’m sorry boo I got a little caught up with my new boo daddy over there” your cousin appeared, two red solo cups in her hand. One extended towards you, “I got you some el jimador”
Sucking your teeth, you turned your lip up quick. “You know I said I was cool off tequila Mimi. I don’t need a repeat of last time.”
“Oh stop complaining you were so fun that night!”
“I was so drunk that night”
“I took care of you though! You made it out” she pointed. “Now loosen up boo. Cmon now” she tipped the cup towards you. “You’ve graduated in the Top 3% and you already got a job lined up boo! You don’t think you deserve a little night out? I know you was put up all them years.”
You waved her off. “I got out Mimi” you attended a darty or two…freahman year. Couldn’t find it in you to continue.
“I hate liars” she sipped from her drink, looking around at the party. “We gotta get you a man-”
“No we don’t”
“Why not? Boo daddy got a cute friend. I’ll put you on”
“Mhm” you sipped from your cup, uninterested.
“I see what the problem is” your face frowned up a little
“What?”
“You still stuck on ole boy”
“Ew, hell nah” disgust written all over your face.
“So you did hook up with that one kappa you were always talking about?” she smiled, nudging you with her shoulder.
“See how you draggin’ it though? I mentioned him twice and no I did not hunch on that man.”
“I knew you wasn’t no solider for real.” she shook her head.
“I was not bout to get with him. That boy was a free for all”
“That’s why they have condoms.”
“You so damn nasty” you laughed. “And I’m really cool off this tequila”
“Well come dance with me then” she pleaded, pulling you towards the slightly crowded floor.
As you danced with your cousin, you could feel the liquor coursing through at this point. The DJ was mixing together hit after hit and all you and your cousin could do was move. Hyping each other up as if you were the only two out there.
It had been a long time since you’d gone out with her. She was your favorite cousin after all and with you being away, you didn’t have anyone to go out with. Truth be told that was the reason you didn’t attend as many parties while away.
Even with all the back to back hits the dj played and the fun you were having, you kept bumping shoulders with just about everybody. And for whatever reason you felt like you were being watched. The darkness of the party combined with everything, overstimulated you quickly. Exhaling hard, you leaned into your cousin telling her it was time to go. The tequila making your body hot and the influx of people on the dance floor only added to fire. She agreed and you two made your way out of the party.
“Finally some fresh air” You breathed.
“They were goin crazy in there. Got choked up a little myself honestly.”
“Aye!”
“‘scuse me!” You stopped and you turned to face a tall figure. “Ion know who but, this belong to one’a y’all” his low but clear tone of voice announced as he made it a few feet in front of you.
Patting your back pocket, you signed, “Oh my gosh, thank you.” you took the phone from his hand looking at his face finally.
“Fasho…Y/N right?” your face scrunched.
“Yeeah” tilting your head slightly as you observe the person’s features. The buzz cut, piercing blue eyes. I know this not..”Aaron?”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah”
“Uhuh” you assessed him from head to toe.“Thank you again. Bye” you grabbed your cousin’s hand continuing your way to the car. He moved to object.
“Wait-” Mina barely gets a chance to look back at the stranger again. “Wait girl hold up! How do you know him?” she breathed trying to keep up with your steps.
“Went to school with him” you said as you fumbled with the key fob trying to unlock the car.
“Wait he that little boy-”
“Not right now mimi” you interrupted about to get into the passenger side.
“Y/N!” your door was refusing to open at this moment for whatever God awful reason. You could hear his footsteps approaching.
“Please get from round me” you held your hand up halting him from getting any closer. “Mimi, open this door.” You jiggled the handle in frustration.
“I’m trying!”
“I ain’t tryna take up too much more of your time-”
“You not taking shit. I’m not tryna talk to you, period.” Your voice remained calm despite your true feelings.
“Cmon now. I know you not holdin’ grudges from all them years ago.” The cocky smirk on his face pissed you off. His hands were tucked into his pockets and head tilted, looking at you with all the audacity in the word. You looked at him trying to find the words right now but all you could muster up was:
“You for real right now?” The sound of the car unlocking caught your attention and you immediately pulled the handle. “I already said thank you for the phone. It’s no reason for you to be in my face.”
“You don’t know that”
“Don’t know what?”
“That there isn’t a reason”
“I know it’s not.”
He took a step closer, the door acting as a barricade between you two. “You coulda dropped something else.”
“I didn’t”
“Maybe your girl could have”
“She didn’t”
“Maybe it was just an open opportunity for me to come talk to you.” he shrugged and his hands found the door leaning on it. “Maybe it just took you being careless for me to finally have a good enough reason to talk to you.”
You stood there completely unmoved by his words.”Wow..”
“What?”
“Just…wow” your head shook in disbelief. You moved to make your way inside the car, closing the door behind you. Taking a step back from the car, he watched as you put on your seat belt and you and your cousin exchange inaudible words. That same stupid smirk on his face when you two pull off into the night.
Several days had gone by since that night. You would be lying if you said the moment hadn’t interrupted your thought process at least one time out of each day. What you couldn’t really understand is how different Aaron looked. It had been years of course, but his whole demeanor had changed.
It was a quick realization from the minute he approached you. He was not the same dude you would see in school. Never did ya’ll hold conversation before that night but you know for a fact he didn’t have that form of dialect in school. He didn’t have that sense of style either. It was as if you and him didn’t attend the same school. As if he didn’t hang around the friend group that he did.
The main question was..What the hell changed?
“I hate that auntie and nem sent you across town to that overly republican ass school. And I really don’t understand how the same dude from the other night went there with you. You sure that’s how you know that boy?”
“MiMi I really don’t want to talk about him right now” you continued to look at the T.V. screen in your cousin’s living room.
“I mean he was dressed kinda nice, talked smooth as hell, and my God did he smell good. Did you smell him?” rolling your eyes and looking over at her you sighed.
“So you don’t want to watch the show?”
“I just need to know a little more punkin. Like are you sure you ain’t meet him while away at college?” groaning softly you faced her.
“I am positive. We went through the same school district for majority of my life. He chilled with the same three white dudes everyday from middle school til graduation. You are just as confused as I am but Mimi I really want to watch the rest of this so can we please?”
“Okay okay” she threw her hands up in surrender. “No more mystery dude.” she fixed the blanket you two shared and turned up the volume on the T.V.
The episode concluded and your cousin turned to you. “OOh you know what would be good right now? Some pizza and a little sweet treat” her fingers pinching together as she picked up her phone. “You want pepperoni?”
“Sounds good to me. We getting the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls or going to that little bakery?” you started to put on your shoes moving to get your things. “And order two pizzas. I’m hungry as hell.”
“Not gone lie, I already had both in the cart” you laughed a little reaching for the handle of the door. “And I want the Pillsbury ones. Miss Addie be too packed on Thursdays. You want me to come with you or you got it?”
“Oh please you weren't getting up to go anywhere” your head shook opening the door. “Text me what you want to drink!” closing the door behind you and making your way down stairs you hit the corner and right into somebody.
“Oh my Gosh! I am so sorry” a petite brunette quickly apologized to you. Her country accent was obvious as she continued to explain how she didn’t see you coming around the corner.
“No problem really, we both weren’t paying attention.” you assured. Going to move around her, you stopped seeing none other than Aaron. His face almost held a little bit of confusion before the corner of his lip curved upward. He finished making his way up the steps and stood beside the girl.
“Wassup?” he greeted.
“Oh nothing babe, just had a head on collision.” she chirped, laughing and oblivious that he wasn’t inquiring but talking to you. As you stood there trying to avoid eye contact with him, you decided to end this interaction.
“Yeah, ya’ll have a good one though.” you went to move around but your path was blocked slightly but his figure.
“Where you off to?” aaron took in your attire. Your oversized pink graphic tee and grey flowy bottoms attempted to cover your curves but failed. He could see the slight movement of your thighs as you shifted to your right leg. Your puff pulled back, complimented with an oversized baby pink silk scrunchy.
“None of your business, ‘scuse me” you side stepped again as did he. His finger accidentally grazes your arm and almost makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. He was close enough for you to smell his cologne and your eyes fluttered close for half a second. Pull yourself together
“Just makin’ conversation” he eyed you, tongue grazing over his bottom lip before taking it in. your eyes following the moment before looking into his eyes.
“Well stop” a small laugh left him. “You always this annoyin?”
“Only with you”
“Lucky me”
The brunette stood eyeing you two. “You guys know each other or?..”
“Yeah” “No” you and him faced off a little. You lightly smacked your teeth ready for this to be over.
“Went to school together.” his attention never leaving you, despite your eyes finding every other thing in the hallway to look at right now.
“Ooooh that’s cool!” looking at her, your face contorted a little. She not there all the way I see.
“Right” he agreed with a smile growing on his face watching the aggravation settle on your face.
“You two should exchange numbers! Aaron’s parties are the best! He has one coming up soon. He can text you all the details.” You had never been so irritated with a stranger this far into your adulthood, but these two were really doing it to you.
“No-”
“Good idea Ashley” his gaze still laser focused on you. Looking back and forth between the two, you contemplated pushing him down the stairs. “Would love to catch up with an old friend”
“Stop with the bullshit Aaron” you mumbled.
A small smile with the tiniest bit of mischief adorned his face. “Cmon Y/N it's been a minute and it’ll be fun.
Side eyeing the girl, you almost rolled your eyes at her smile that was urging you two to swap information.
Just get it and block him.
Reluctantly you held out for his phone, he willingly placed it in your hand. When finished you turned away from them. “Alright, I really have to get going.”
“Okay, see you soon!” Ashley waved as you started to go down the stairs again. Passing by Aaron you could feel his body heat from just a few feet away. You were pissed that your heart was actually racing right now because you really didn’t know why. Breathing deeply, you hurried down the stairs.
The sun was long gone by now and the light from the T.V. was the only thing that lit the room up. You had both fallen asleep after consuming half of your pizzas and downing a couple cinnamon rolls. Netflix was asking if you still wanted to watch the show when you came to.
Ding ding
Looking over at your phone, you tried to make your eyes adjust to the brightness from both screens. Your eyes almost acted as lenses as you focused in on the screen. Seeing it was imessage, you unlocked it trying to see who it was.
Xxx-xxx-3874
You up?
Bye Aaron
Xxx-xxx-3874
So cranky
Your girlfriend know you text girls this late?
Xxx-xxx-3874
What girlfriend?
Ew
Xxx-xxx-3874
I’m fr
Your boyfriend must be next to you right now.
Tryna deflect nd shit
You more annoying than I remember
Xxx-xxx-3874
So you been thinkin bout me?
Don’t flatter yourself
Xxx-xxx-3874
lol I been thinkin bout you too.
Asked around nd heard you graduated. Congratulations.
The text makes you sit up a little.
What you want aaron? Like fr
Xxx-xxx-3874
Just checkin in on you.
stop. never did nothing like that before.
Xxx-xxx-3874
don’t be that way.
I got a bit of a business proposition for you
No.
Xxx-xxx-3874
you not even gone let me say wassup first?
No
Xxx-xxx-3874
It's a job though
I know you looking for one, just graduated nd shit. you really gone turn down some extra cash?
…what is it?
Xxx-xxx-3874
Tutoring
They really need this credit too
Said they’ll pay well
Ok, how much and what subject?
Xxx-xxx-3874
Biology course
$25 hr
I’ll sleep on it.
You didn’t read his reply but instead turned your phone face down and nuzzled further into the couch under your blanket. Twenty-five an hour sounded like the perfect amount to get you enough for a deposit on an apartment. You were actively waiting on your first day at a job that had interviewed you last week. They’d hired you almost immediately offering slightly above the intermediate salary.
Excited was an understatement but when looking for a place outside of your parent’s residence, it was nearly impossible. Your monetary graduation gifts and your dad’s gas fill every few days kept you stable. Even with your job away at school, you had managed to save but application fees were adding up.
You had text Aaron scheduling for next week and told him where the person could meet you at and when. You’d already been sitting there for thirty minutes prior to when the person was supposed to actually arrive. You messed with the waistband of your capris as you read from the books that you had searched high and low in the library pertaining to biology. This was your favorite course so you were beyond ready for this session to start.
A chair pulled out in front of you and a waft of floral perfume invaded your nostrils and made you glance up.
“Hey!” the girl greeted with an eager smile on her face. “I’m Ashley, from y'know the other day.” Laughing a little she placed her bag on the chair beside her. “I would’ve set this whole thing up myself if I knew you would be my saving grace for this semester.”
Your brows lifted and a sharp exhale left your nose. “All things happen for a reason, yeah?”
“Oh for sure! I have been sulking all week trying to get a tutor at my school but the minute Aaron started talking about how smart you were in school, and how you were salutatorian and everything. I couldn’t help but know if you were interested in tutoring!” she continued on and on but you were still stuck on Aaron bragging about you to a complete stranger.
“Of course! I don’t mind at all. We can get started right now actually..” you reached for your stack of books and she revealed hers and the session began.
It was going very well to say the least. Ashley was someone that preferred strict clarification on the lesson and she could not receive that from her professor. She expressed how he was a foreign man whose accent was..rather thick. That sometimes he was so preoccupied with his other job that all she could rely on was zoom meetings and not in person class.
You definitely understood and by the time you two wrapped up Ashley was still continuing her ramble. Not that you cared, She had already paid you and now you were just being a listening ear.
“It's just so funny because Aaron never talks about high school or anything but with you, it was the most he had ever mentioned that place. You two must have been very close and just lost touch.” She packed her books and you put away your things.
“Oh no. we never really talked”
It was as if that went over her head because she continued to ramble. “I’ve met a lot of his friends or homeboys, as he calls it. He doesn’t have any lady friends though. Well there is one but he met them through me…” she continued to rant as you nodded your head, mind in the clouds.
You thought you knew how to talk but this girl blew you by a long shot.
“I guess he really doesn’t go for black girls” that pulled you out of your daze.
“I’m sorry?” she looked at you.
“Oh no offense or anything, he just mentioned how he had his heart broken by a black girl before and blah blah blah….” She waved it off as if she just told you the weather or something.
“I mean, do you know any girl that urges her boyfriend to get another girls number ? he’s not really one to go for blacks so I know it wouldn’t have been any funny business going on.”
You stood kind of frozen in place trying to understand how the conversation even got here.
“Uhuh”
“But you know how some guys are with their preferences and everything. And no offense again yknow no hard feelings, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing yeah? Like I have no problem dating black guys. Most of them seem to flock to me anyway. Like white girl magic or something” she looked at you smiling a little and as always, completely oblivious.
Almost in shock , your mouth slightly agape trying to find out what is going on right now. “Um I don’t think-”
“I’m not trying to make you mad or anything. It's just a majority of black men prefer white women. Like your beautiful but from my understanding they just kind of grow tired of some of the..other ones”
Your head tilted slightly “Other ones?”
“Yeah like” she stopped and looked around before saying “the ghetto ones”
“Ooooh” your brow rose in a mock realization. “I see”
“I knew you would understand! I knew you were a nice one”
“I think that concludes this session for today” you got up from the table starting out the door.
“See you later! Oh wait I didn’t get your nu-” you had made it to the library’s steps, fumbling with your phone trying to dial your cousin. The phone rang twice before she picked up.
“Mimi”
“What girl? What’s wrong?” her tone of voice was laced with concern when she heard yours.
“I think I’m being punk’d!”
“Huh?!”
“Everything was going so well Mina. We were reading together, she was asking questions, we had genuinely reached flow state and somehow everything went left.” You proceeded to tell her about what just transpired and if you were there to see it, you would have seen how her jaw collapsed to the floor.
Already you were in your car continuing your chat with her on the way back to your house.
“I have never been more confused in my life, Mimi. It was like a switch just went off in her head and words just started flowing out non stop. Like this was definitely a conversation you would expect to hear between her and a best friend maybe but this is just-”
“Some bullshit!” she yelled through the phone. Mina was honestly more pissed than you were. You and her clearly had different up bringings but because she was ready to run one with Ashley. You were used to this type of talk just caught off guard by it. “This hoe called you an ugly black bitch and that her nigga wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole! Then she proceeded to tell YOU! She understands WHY!?! This bitch is looney!
“Damn…you right” now parked in your driveway, you were zeroed in on her rant.
“Bi- YOU DAMN RIGHT I’M RIGHT”
Sighing a little, your head hit the back of your seat. “This is far too much. I need that $25 an hour but not that damn bad.”
“I’d tell you what you best do, but you wouldn’t like it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Betta go snatch his lightskin ass up! He clearly ain’t tellin her the whole truth the way he was lookin at you the other night. He look like he one to trick too?!? Yeah i’d be on that as of yesterday”
You shook your head. “I don’t even want to insert myself in that mess Mina. Not even worth it.”
“Oh you onna them.”
“Onna who?”
“Them women that like to take the high road. I like to too, being a lady and all but bitch I’d be zoomin’ down the back road today.”
Laughing, you got out of the car and started toward the porch. “Imma call you back in a few, just let me get in here and get settled.”
“Okay, but call me back!”
“I will Mimi bye!”
Dragging yourself through the house and into your room, you plopped on your bean bag chair in the corner. Closing your eyes, sleep started to take over mind before your phone started vibrating again.
Picking it up without looking at it, you groaned “Mimi I said i would call you back later.”
A deep laugh came from the other side of the phone. “Ain’t a day that goes by that you not irritated”
Sighing hard “Why are you calling me?”
“Was checking to see how the tutorin’ went today…and wanted to invite you and ya girl to a kickback at my place.”
“It was good until it wasn’t and no”
“Whatcha mean, why not?”
“Cause you and your girlfriend are weird.” you hung up before he could say anything else.
Aaron called back immediately. You sent it to voice mail and he called back once again.
“What?!?”
“Man you can chill out on that girlfriend shit”
“Bye Aaron”
“Hol’ on Y/N, damn! You rushin’ and I know you ain’t got nothin’ to do.”
“There ain’t never been a time when me and you needed to talk to one another””
“So you didn’t just hear me invite you to a kick back at my place?”
“Didn’t you just hear me say no?”
“Y/N”
“Aaron”
He laughed a little, “Stop pretending like you don’t wanna pull up”
“I’m not pretending”
“Right. See you this weekend.”
“You won’t” you hung up growing tired of the back and forth. “Arrogant ass nigga”
A couple days later
You and Mina sat in her car, parked along the cul de sac right outside of Aaron’s house. You two had spent the last hour arguing about how you failed to say anything about the party. She had found out about it from social media. A close friend of a close friend of Aaron's decided to post the set up and upon asking you if you wanted to go to a party, you’d let the unaccepted invite slip.
“What part of ‘We outside this summer’ don’t you understand?”
Leaning back in the passenger seat and looking over at her, you shook your head. “We can be outside at the club or something. We didn’t have to come here.”
“Girl boo! You actin’ real put up right now. Just because ole boy and you not on the best of terms don’t mean we gotta miss out on a good time.”
“That’s exactly what that mean”
“I-Get out the car.” Mina went to open her door, mumbling to herself. “Not bout to do this with you. All these fine ass men out here.”
Get out the car she mouthed through the windshield.
Having a mini protest before opening the car door you looking around at all the people. The bass could be felt when you were still seated in the car but now, music flowed through every limb of your body as you and Mina made your way inside.
“And to think we were going to miss out on- ooh he fine who is that?” locking eyes with a tall darkskin dreadhead. He smiled at her revealing his pearly whites, nodding.
“Ladies”
“Hey” you both replied. Well Mina more so purred. Seeing where this was going you ventured off.
You made your way to the kitchen. Looking at the array of liquor bottles set up. Deciding not to go with any liquor, you just settled for some juice. As you sipped from your cup, you looked over the rim, seeing none other than Aaron. He approached, stopping right in front of you.
“Look who decided to show up.”
You rolled your eyes, “Not in the mood”
“Knew you wanted to see me”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Mina forced me over here”
“Excuses, excuses”
“Aaron”
“You love sayin’ my name huh?”
“I barely like you existing”
He faked being hurt, putting a hand on his chest. “Dang baby, what I ever do to you?”
“Don’t play dumb”
“I’m for real”
“I am too” he smacked his teeth.
“We were kids Y/N.”
“That don’t make it any less disrespectful Aaron”
“I never even said anything though, that was mostly Michael and them.”
“You laughin’ was participation” he sighed a little.
“Y/N, I was a kid. Just followin’ the crowd man you know how it was”
“No I don’t, cause I never did no weird shit like that” he nodded slightly.
“You right you right. In all seriousness I didn’t realize I was hurtin’ your feelings and for that I am sorry.”
Looking off to the side and then back at him, you scanned his eyes and could honestly say you saw the sincerity in them. You sighed a little.
“You forgive me?” a small smirk on his face, he took a step forward. You avoided his gaze trying not to smile. “Ahh! see you playin””
“I’m not”
“Yes you are. You know you wanna be my friend.”
“Ew stop that”
“Go ahead and say it”
“Stoop Aaron, damn!” a hand going out to push his chest but he didn’t budge. “Irritatin’ me”
“Say it”
“You don’t give orders to me”
“This my shit baby. Way I see it, I can.”
Tilting your head, your eyebrows rose in surprise. “Real snippy for somebody who wants forgiveness”
He laughed, throwing his hands up in surrender.
Swirling the cup in your hand and sighing, “ I forgive you” you mumbled
“Damn it's loud in here! Say that again for me” his cupped his ear leaning close. A smile was evident on his face.
“I forgive you, dummy”
“Aww look at that, sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship”
“Yeah right. You owe me though”
“Owe you what?”
“I’ll let you know. Just get your pockets ready lightbright”
Shaking his head laughing. “Whatever it takes” he shrugged.
“uhuh” you studied his face. “What ever happened to your best friends anyway?”
“Got into some shit senior year and we ain’t been in contact since.” he wasn’t mentioning everything.
“Some shit like…?”
“Nosyyyy” he picked, leaning back a little. Your laugh filled his ears and caused him too as well.
From there you two flowed into a conversation. He was surprisingly funny and so much of a casual flirt, that you barely noticed it. The bass from the speakers had completely stopped and his space was starting to clear out. But none of that had really registered to the both of you. Mina was somewhere with that dreadhead. She made sure to find you and update you on her whereabouts before giving you and Aaron a look that only you caught.
“Aye man we bout to head out” a friend of his came, dapping him up. “We headin’ to Ray’s if you want to pull up.
“Aight Imma slide through”
“Baby!” an all too familiar voice rang in your ear over the music. You mentally groaned and sipped from your cup.
“Babe! You didn’t hear me calling you?” a chipper Ashley came to stand by Aaron. “Oh hi y/n, how are you?!?”
A closed mouth grin was all you could muster up. “Wassup?”
“I had the best time at tutoring. Babe, she is a genius! Like truly my saving grace” she rambled.
“Really?“ Aaron's attention is still on you.
“Yes! Ugghh tell him about…” and motormouth was off. Somehow Aaron was engaging but you couldn't bring yourself to actually listen to whatever she had to say.
“Like babe she is one of the nice ones I was telling you about!” that caught your attention. Aaron’s face contorting into one of confusion.
“Nice ones?” he mumbled to himself.
“Oh and I love your hair! This is yours right?” her hand reaching out to touch your curls and your neck craning to the side. The only thing that surprised you was not her question but Aaron's hand going to push hers away from your hair. Not trying to have her see you sweat, you put on a smile.
“What babe I wanted to feel it”
It?!?!
“Ashley you can’t be doing that” he looked at her as if she had lost her marbles.
“She knows I mean nothing by it Aaron no need to be all serious”
“Yes, this is my hair”
Ashley shrugged a little, “Yeah but like “I brought it” and it’s all mine or “I grew it myself” all mine?” looking over her face you noticed that same funny expression that all the little girls used to have when making fun of you in middle and high school. Seeing where this was headed, you looked back and forth from her to Aaron.
“Where you get off asking me some dumb shit like like that?” you stepped to her.
“I was just asking a question”
“No you were just being funny”
“Why are you getting so defensive?” feeling your body get hot. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath.
“You one ignorant bitch you know that?” Your finger pointed in the middle of her face. Another gasp left her mouth and she turned to look at Aaron. By now Mina and Quan, the dreadhead, had returned and could hear you and her. She walked around the island and made her way to your side.
“You cool y/n?”
“I'm straight. Bout to check this hoe temp though” your eyes never leaving Ashley's.
Gasping, she turned to look at Aaron. “Baby are you gonna let her talk to me like that?”
“This hoe…” mina said already over this. “She clearly not gone do shit”
“Fuck you, you ghetto hood rat! You don’t kn-” you lunged forward but was caught mid air and carried to the other side of the kitchen
“Let me the fuck go!” your screams traveled through the house. Mina was trapped behind the dreadhead trying to find a way to wriggle out of his grasp.
“Y/N you good bruh, Y/N Chilout!” Aaron held your waist trying to get you as far away from her as possible.
“You tried to hit me!” Ashley screamed, still stuck in her place in the kitchen.
“Bitch when I get my hands on you!” you shouted with Aaron carrying you down the hallway. You were trying to grab hold to every wall you could think of to keep from being pulled but it was no use.
“Ashley, take yo ass home!” Quan yelled. He had just caught Mina from jumping off the counter and was struggling to not keep her steady.
Aaron eventually got you into a room pushing you in and shutting the door. “Let me outta here Aaron! I’m not playin’ witcho ass!”
This went on for almost thirty more minutes and instead of being mad now all you could do was sit on the bed, arms crossed, and wait for somebody to let you out. You didn’t even bother to cut the light on. The screen saver on his Roku T.V kept the room illuminated. Quan had come to the door saying he had taken Mina to her car. She and you were on the phone talking when the room door finally opened and in walked the prison guard.
“You cool now?”
“Aaron don’t piss me off again, please” you ignored him getting back to your conversation.
“I already told her I would take you home. Y’all just getting each other mad all over again”
“Mina hold on” you hung up facing him. “Wassup wit you and her? You usually take in stray white girls off the side of the road? or you caught her attention.” he stifled a laugh coming to stand in front of you.
“What is ya’ll beef? You just got done tutorin’ the girl the other day.”
“It’s clear she’s threatened by me.”
“Why though?”
“Cause she think I wanna fuck you dummy.” a look of surprise graced his face.
“She said that?”
“Aaron, it's pretty obvious she does.” you looked at him irritated he would ask such a stupid question. “If I wanted to, I would’ve already had you.”
“Oh really?”
“Hell yeah”
A sharp breath left him as he studied you. Rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay bruh”
You tilted your head, "Wouldn't be that hard to do, really”
“What you tryna say?” He looked amused. You stood from your spot on the bed walking up to him. Due to your height, you were just about chest to chest with him.
“I’m saying it’s nothing to fuck you and send you back to your delusional ass girlfriend” your eyes scanned him from his eyes down to slightly below his belt. Going back up his body you could see his pulse pick up as you as the confidence leave his body a little. Truly, he was holding it together but your words were breaking his facade.
“You trippin Y/N”
“Am I though?” you moved closer. His reply was nothing.
“I mean you have yet to defend her and I don’t see you movin away” you started to trace a vein on his forearms moving up.
“S-she not my girl. I told you that already”
“Mm she don’t seem to think so.” your fingers touched the back of his neck but with no help from you, he had craned his head down to closer to yours. You could feel the coolness of his breath, looking into his eyes. “Now, tell me something” your tone soft and inquisitive and “What you doing keepin’ a bitch like her around?”
“Just a quick fuck” he mindlessly spoke, shrugging his shoulders.
“Really?” you stepped back, holding his hands. “So you wouldn’t mind helping me take these off?” moving his fingers to the buttons on your shorts. “Right?” a slight groan rumbled in his chest.
“Y/N” his eyes zeroed in on your bottoms.
“I can’t do it by myself baby help me, please?” the softness of your voice having him almost entrancing. With your fingers over his, you helped him to undo the button and zip the zipper down. Walking back until you felt the bed on the back of your knees, you sat down. He said nothing as he walked forward and stopped watching you look up at him through your lashes.
Reaching up and grabbing the collar of his shirt, you pulled him down to you.
“You makin’ this shit hard”
A light chuckled left you. “Well let me make it easy for us both.” pulling him down even more, he has no choice but to kneel. Aaron, being used to not being in control in the bedroom, was so confused how he was so turned on by the dynamic at the moment. Yet he obeyed, pulling down your shorts and panties.
As you spread your thighs to him he almost moaned. “Sexy ass” he whispered to himself before slowly dragging his tongue up and down your slit. His tongue circling around your clit pulling a gasp out of you. Your hand finds the back of his head, gently pulling him in deeper.
“auughh” a moan leaving you as you watched him work. His eyes closed as his mouth latched onto your clit and he softly suckled at the bundle of nerves. “Look at me” his eyes fluttered open but his tongue never ceased. Staring into your eyes his pace picked up slightly and the sounds of pussy eating and your moans filled the space of the room. “Shit just like that baby”
His underwear was starting to become uncomfortably tight with hearing your moans. He’d never heard anything so beautiful before. There was no doubt his precum had completely soaked through his underwear by now.
Watching your every reaction, paying attention to how your body jolted when his tongue found its way inside, or how you would grind hard and desperate when he would stick his tongue out for you to use. He groaned as you took off your top leaving you completely naked before him. Your titties sat perfectly as you played with your nipples head falling back.
You noticed, “You like em baby?”
He moaned, nodding his head still eating. Grabbing his hands you guided them to palm your boobs. He massaged them carefully, his hands barely able to grasp the entire mound. With light pressure his fingers played with your nipples.
“Yess just like that don’t stop” his eating even sloppier now. “Oooh my gawd, yes”
“Aaron I’m gonna cum” you almost whined. Your hands coming to the back of his head, chasing your release. “Don’t stop baby please!” his suction grew a little harder helping you chase your climax.
“Don’t stop baby don’tstop- I’m cumming ooou-” a sharp gasp followed by a long moan left you as it did Aaron too. His eyes closed as he finished just at the same time you did. Slurping up your slick from your pussy, he came up your body meeting you in a heated kiss.
“Mmm” you moaned into the kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue. Your tongues clashed with one another, greedily as the kiss grew more and more heated. Your hands went to undress him and he eagerly helped. Pulling away you looked down at his underwear noticing the wet stain on the front.
“Somebody got a little carried away” you teased.
Smacking his teeth he went for your neck leaving sloppy kisses, “chill out bruh- ssshit” you started to stroke him using his cum as lubricant.
“You fucked her raw?”
“F-fuck no ma” chuckling you planted a kiss to his ear. Guiding him in you both released a sigh. Wrapping your legs around his waist, you leaned into a slow yet needy kiss. Aaron started to move, finding the urge to not cum so quickly almost impossible.
“Shiit baby just like that..don’t stop aaron please..this dick feel so gooood oh my gaaw-ahhh” your talking made it no better. Your walls wet and hugging him so.
“Damn y/n..pussy so fucking good ma shit…could live in this shit baby” his forehead rested against yours. His hips grinding harder as his hands beside your head gripped the covers.
“Ooohh yess..right there” his pace picked up and your legs opened wider. Your hands held your ankles as you looked down between you two meeting. The sight making aaron groan. His buried in your neck. “You fuck this pussy so good baby” you moaned caressing his back. Nails digging into his back when he started hitting it at a different angle. Your lips finding his ear.
“I-” a moan left him and his thrusts started to lose rhythm.
“What baby?”
“I’m not gone l-last long”
“No?”
“S-shit”
“You gonna cum for me baby boy?” the name almost making him nut right then. “Say baby aoo-my goodness”
“Yeesss y/n shit”
“I want you to come on my pussy baby. Okay?”
“I hear you”
“You gonna make me cum baby” he kissed your cheek making his way to your mouth. He reached down, thumb finding your clit drawing circles to match his pace. Your head was thrown back into the bed as your orgasm tore through you.
“Look so fucking pretty coming on my dick ma” he grunted. Thrusting twice before he pulled out not even needing to stroke as his cum coated your folds.
Pushing him onto the bed you climbed on top of him. Rubbing his nut into your clit moaning. The site made him catch his bottom lip between his teeth. Grabbing his length, you ease down on him.
“You wet as hell y/n” he groaned, hands finding your hips.
“Just for you baby..uuh..just for you” picking up the pace, Aaron tried to hold in his moans. “You stretchin’ this pussy out so good”
“Don’t talk like t-that y/n..damn right there” he eyes closing and head falling back. Feeling you stop he looked confused. sitting up on his forearms he started to say something but it didn’t take for him to see you straddle his legs with your back to him. aww shit.
Easing him back inside, you began to bounce.
“Keep ridin’ this dick baby…don’t stop…good ass pussy..feels too fuckin’ good..work that shit baby” his mindless drabble making your head spin but you leaned forward arching your back more going a little faster. “Hell yeah y/n….just like that” his hand came down on your ass.
“Harder baby” you moaned. Earning you one smack after another and another.
Watching his dick disappear into your pussy over and over again was a sight. The clapping of your ass hypnotizing him. Your coils sticking to your back as he thrusted up into you, catching your rhythm. “s-shit so fuckin fat..c-creamin all on this dick ma..who makin you cream like this?”
“You”
“Who baby?” a concentrated wave of thrust started to push up into your spot, his hands moving you back onto him. Unable to say anything, your mouth wide open as you have no choice but to take it. “Tell me baby…hm?...who got yo shit this wet?”
“F-fuuuucckk you aaron uuughh”
“Been wantin’ yo sexy ass so mothafuckin’ long girl. Ain’t nobody getting this pussy but me..f-fuck..fuck allat otha shit”
“Aarroonn” your eyes tearing up as you tried to brace yourself.
“That’s right. you gone come on my dick again baby?”
“Yes!”
“Yeah? Show me mama. Gimme all that nut” and that you did. Except this time your arousal squirted onto his member. His hand reached forward and found your clit again.
“OOOhh my Gawwdd”
“Yess baby there you go..mhm..don’t stop..don’t you fuckin stop gimme all the shit baby come on…So fuckin good.” he cooed.
“Mmmm” you whined as he stroked you through it. He rubbed your back helping you come down from your high. You could feel him peppering kisses on your back. His member left you as he pulled you off and laid you beside him, pulling your back into his chest. You had begun to relax but the sound of a phone ringing interrupted the moment. Listening closely, it was clear it was not your phone. Reaching behind him on the night stand he sighed seeing the contact.
Looking back you see it was none other than Ashley. “Pick up” he looked at you like you were crazy but you had already reached up and pressed the green button, then the speaker when it connected.
“Hello? Babe?”
A smirk forming on your face hearing her voice.
“Ashley, what you callin me for?” he sighed.
“Baby, I just wanted to apologise for earlier cause I know those girls won’t. That was so uncalled for! I know how you don’t like drama in your space.” oh she wanna…okay.
“Ash you can’t put all of the blame on t-them” he stuttered feeling you reach back and stroke him before guiding him into you. Leaning forward some, you started moving. Your walls swallowed his dick again in what felt like a vice grip from this position. “C-chill” whispered.
“But it so was! You saw how defensive she got over nothing?!” you started throwing it harder. You moaned purposefully for her to hear. “What was that?”
Reaching for the phone you threw it above your heads, and moved Aaron’s take hold to your waist. “S-shit nothing” you were about to laugh but a hand came up to your jaw forcing your head back “ole nasty ass” his mouth coming to your ear. Your wetness and the sound of you two connecting were audible now.
“A-aron are you watching porn or something” you guided the hand on your hip to your boobs making him grope them. He didn’t need much help, your nipples getting trapped between his thumb and forefinger. You slowed down reaching the tip of his dick before slamming back down.
“Get that shit” he mumbled in your ear.
“You feel so good daddy” you moaned out loud. The name and the sensation of you rolling from his top on down making his eyes roll back.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now Aaron?!”
“You gone make a nigga nut y/n..gone make me..oouu shit” his mouth finding your neck. He still held a firm grip on your jaw making your back arch even more. “So fuckin’ nasty ma”
“Mhm baby”
“Are you fucking her right now?!? Oh my God!” Aaron was too lost in your pussy to care about the phone.
“You want daddy to nut in this pussy, don’t you baby?..hm?”
“S-shit yes nut in me pleeeaassee” you threw it back harder.
“Aaron! I swear to God”
“You fuckin this dick so good mama..keep fuckin me baby..Just like that..I’m bout to nut..sssshhhiiittttt” his body stilled as you pulled his nut out of him. Your fourth one ripping through you as well. Hitting so hard, your loud moan ended in a sharp gasp. The heavy breathing between you two loud but the three beeps from Ashley hanging up.
“Damn we in some shit” he laughed a little, catching his breath.
“I don’t care” your voice coming out hoarse making you and him look at each other. You hit his chest as he laughed. “Shut up!”
“Man come on” he got up from the bed. Guiding you to him, he picked you up and walked to the ensuite bathroom. Your head laid on his shoulder, lids heavy until he put you on the cold toilet. You groaned and pouted while he turned on the shower.
“Girl you better pee and stop playin”
“It's so cold though” you whined while peeing. “Can you get out? I need to wipe” you looked at him.
Smacking his teeth, “if you don’t getcho ass up so we can get in the shower.”
