cw: dubcon, explicit sexual content, praise kink, daddy kink (mentioned), breeding kink, john price wife-hunting/wife at first sight, perfectionist/workaholic/lonely reader, stalking, manipulation
John spots the ad as he punches a pin through his card.
It’s impossible to miss.
Bright red hearts, pink-and-white checkered borders on glossy paper someone paid extra to print. A heart-shaped tack centered perfectly along the top edge. Big looping letters—MEET YOUR MATCH SPEED DATING.
It looks absurd next to his card. A dull rectangle of plain cardstock, his name printed in clean, unembellished letters, ‘John Price - Handyman’, and his number below. No bright colors, no flourishes. Simple like the work. Honest. Keeps his hands occupied between deployments.
The disgust arrives on a delay, a spark traveling along powder. A twist in his gut, a curl of his lip. His eyes rolling hard in his skull. It’s an affront—not just to him, but to the very idea of how things are supposed to go.
He yanks a trolley free, muttering under his breath.
Who in their right mind would waste time like that? Spinning around, talking to strangers, volleying shallow questions, forcing laughter. Acting like most people don’t make up their minds in the first thirty seconds about whether or not they want someone in their bed.
The whole affair reeks.
He shoulder-checks another man in power tools, too distracted by the voices of his sergeants drifting uninvited through his head, summoned by all his grousing.
Stubborn, cantankerous Price. Twice-divorced, stuck in a year-long dry spell because he’s got a habit of scaring off any decent woman who strays into his orbit. The mean old bastard who always moans about the good ol’ days—when men met women face-to-face, not through some app where you swiped left or right like you were picking out a meal deal.
When he could pick them up right off the street, like the first Mrs. Price. Or the supermarket, like her successor.
The memories leave a bittersweet taste. An ache in his groin. It’s been a minute since he took a girl home. Since he tried.
Through the shelves, the poster shines like a fucking beacon.
He breathes sharply through his nose, shakes it off, and shoves deeper into the store.
He never should’ve looked at the bloody thing.
Four fingers’ worth of amber sloshing around in his belly, he swallows the burn of embarrassment with another glass. Lets it dull his better judgment. The tips of his ears red hot as he punches his bank card into the online checkout, grumbling some half-formed excuse to himself.
The confirmation email arrives in seconds. He ignores it.
He spends the week installing cabinetry, letting the scream of a circular saw drown out his thoughts. Shovels dirt over it when he lays a garden path for a neighbor one afternoon, determined to bury it one stone at a time. Tamping it down along with the dirt, out of sight, out of mind.
But then the reminder lands in his inbox, bright and cheery. Evidence of his lapse in judgment. His mood sours, dragging him into the muck like a boot caught in deep, clinging mud. He knows he ought to ignore it again, chalk it up to a stupid mistake, but—
An itch flares on the back of his ring finger. He scratches it raw, but there’s no relief.
On the night of, he drives white-knuckled to the next town over, pulling into the car park twenty minutes early. He leans against his door, cigar in hand, smoke curling into the cold air as others arrive.
Most of them come in groups, chattering and laughing, familiar. He jumps from one face to the next, cataloging. His finger rests on an invisible trigger, caught between decisions—go in and see what the fuss is about, or make a quick retreat, head home, and catch some pretty face’s stream instead.
Then, a small cluster of girls passes by, giggling behind manicured hands, casting sidelong glances that scream daddy issues. He exhales a ribbon of smoke, watching over the glowing cherry of his cigar.
Whether or not he, by some miracle, finds a match tonight, there’s always the potential for a consolation prize.
As soon as he slaps a name tag onto his chest and scans the crowd, it’s obvious—he’s one of the older men present. Hell, scratch that, he might be the oldest by a fair stretch.
The younger bucks don’t spare him a second glance, too busy puffing out their chests, checking the competition among themselves. The women, though, they’re more forgiving. A few give him passing looks, flickers of intrigue as they clock him standing off to the side, arms crossed, watching.
John knows what he looks like. North of forty, gray threading through his temples, a soft layer of fat settling over the muscle beneath. Dressed sensibly, nothing flashy. Not like the men peacocking around in too-tight shirts, drowning themselves in cologne, preening. He’s here, and that’s about the extent of his effort.
And then the first round begins. He sits across from the first girl, and the second her eyes widen—not in the way he’d like—he knows exactly what kind of night this is going to be.
It proceeds as expected.
The fascination with his years, the curiosity. What’s a man like you doing at something like this? The inevitable prying. Married before? Twice? Oh, well, then. Or worse, the giddy birds, buzzing in their seats with smiles that say, yes, he is the answer to some life-long wound, a stand-in for the attention they never got from their fathers.
Then there are the unbearably shy ones, pulling teeth just to get a full sentence out before the round is called. Good girls. Decent girls. Girls who stare at him as if he’s about to vault the table and sink his teeth into their throats.
Which is absurd.
He’s a war dog. He prefers a bit of fight. Skin in the game. Make it worth his while, tucker him out.
By the end of it, his card is full, but he’s unimpressed.
His knees and back ache from all the repetitious standing and sitting, moving from seat to seat like some wind-up toy. His jaw is sore from clenching, his temples pulsing from two hours of forced patience. Hands itching for a smoke. It’s nothing like sitting and waiting for a clean shot. That always results in at least a job well done. A mission accomplished. This? A lousy scorecard and a couple of numbers he won’t call from girls who don’t have a clue what they’re looking for?
He’s out of his fucking mind for even bothering.
It’s demeaning.
The organizer flicks on the mic, sending a screech of feedback through the speakers, and he rips the name tag from his chest, teeth grinding. He didn’t listen the first time—only a fucking moron would need the rules explained twice. He’s already angling toward the door, ready to make his exit, when he sees you.
The evening turns on its head.
The last hour wiped clean with a look.
Bright red hearts dangle from your ears. A matching necklace rests at the hollow of your throat. A pink-and-white checkered clipboard sits on your hip, a matching pen twirling absently in your fingers. Chipped crimson varnish on your thumb, like you’ve been peeling it off. Chewing, maybe.
Glittery boots lend you height. Shoulders squared, posture straight. Doing your best to exude confidence.
Candyfloss sweet, with a pinch of salt.
You prattle on. Platitudes, mostly. How engaged everyone looked in their conversations, a playful quip about how some already seem like goddamn lovebirds. Your voice lilts with charm, a smidge warbly. You must’ve given this speech a hundred times before. Then comes the boasting.
Your agency’s success rate. The numbers, the percentages. How many second and third dates attendees report back. How you’ve helped introduce hundreds of couples. There’s pride in it. Your eyes brighten. But it’s a veneer. Thin as lace.
He sees it. The beads of sweat gathering at your hairline, the faint sheen behind your ear, the subtle tremor in your voice when you get too caught up in your own enthusiasm. A broken-off giggle. The occasional tap of your fingers against the edge of that clipboard, a tic, a tell. You’ve got the confidence, but it’s over-rehearsed. As much of an accessory as the ornament wrapped around your neck.
And he can’t help but wonder.
What would you do if someone called your bluff? If he found you after? Stepped in close, trapped you against one of those god awful stiff-backed chairs, close enough that you felt the weight of him hovering? What would you do if he gave you his honest opinion about your ‘work’, face-to-face?
His mind spins on it for half a second before you say something that derails him completely.
Babies.
It lands like a stone dropped in a pond. Ripples outward in nervous laughter, uncertain shuffling. The younger attendees shift on their feet, casting shy, uncertain glances at each other. You fumble through it, quick and awkward, as if you’ve only realized the present demographics aren’t quite ready for the stork.
He hopes it’s an exaggeration. An offhand comment, a bone tossed out for the older guests in the room.
(Him, because who else fits the bill?)
His blood runs hot at that.
Something stirs in his gut, rising insistent and uncoiling in his chest. A want he thought he’d discounted out years ago, snuffed like a match between his fingers. Delayed by his climb through the ranks and waylaid by fizzling romance.
Children.
Can one ever really bury an instinct like that deep enough?
His own father soured him on the notion—spiteful, unforgiving, malignant tumor of a man. Impossible standards, an intolerance to match. A rage John inherited, honed, funneled into the one bloody release he found in service. An ugliness that made him swear off continuing the line.
Still, something funny holds him back. That itch.
He’s canceled every vasectomy he’s ever scheduled in the last decade. Reversible or not, it’s intoxicating to know what he’s capable of.
With you wandering into the crosshairs, it clicks into place. He understands.
He swallows, jaw clenching, and forces himself to look at your face instead of the hollow of your throat, where that ridiculous necklace rests. Forces himself to focus on what you’re saying instead of the shape of your mouth as you say it.
A-ffirmed. He’s out of his fucking mind for coming here.
He tells himself he won’t hunt you down afterward.
No. You’re insulated. Shielded by a flock of hens who swarm the second you return the microphone back to its stand, all clucking approval, dishing out compliments, asking their inane questions about your services. You nod, smile, say your thanks, gracious and warm, and it’s exactly the excuse he needs to leave.
He should leave.
Instead, he declines to give your colleague his scorecard, stuffing the useless sheet into his pocket without so much as a second look-over. He chews the inside of his cheek, locked on you. Takes what he tells himself will be his last look. Prints you on the inside of his eyelids.
Then he sees your hand.
A short stack of business cards, matching the damned poster that started this whole ridiculous mess. He moves before he can think better of it.
Crosses the hall in a handful of long strides. The younger women scatter in his wake, parted by his low, muttered pardon me’s.
And you, you—
Eyes wide, lips parting around a breath, half a sentence, “Here, sir,” before he plucks a card from your fingers.
Then he’s gone.
Straight out the door. Across the car park. Sliding into the driver’s seat, his pulse thundering in his ears, his hand already reaching for the glove compartment. Lighter. Cigarette. Routine to steady himself. Busy his hands so he doesn’t barge right back inside and drag you out behind him. Fire to distract the caveman clawing at his brain.
He doesn’t look at your card right away, not until the first drag burns through his lungs.
It’s just as garish as the poster. Wine-red lettering. Your name. The dating agency you work for. Your number.
And if that isn’t convenient.
That’s half the battle won.
He should call. Go through the proper channels, hire you for your services like any decent man would. But there’d be no way to lie about what he’s really looking for and what he really wants.
He can’t be too direct, can’t risk scaring you off, but he also can’t leave it up to chance. Experience—and two spousal payments—have taught him better than that.
He won’t make the same mistake a third time.
John does his research.
Your online presence is threadbare, limited to a short bio on the agency website and a sparsely populated profile on a corporate network. Matchmaker, professional hostess. He scrolls, picks apart the scraps. Posts you’ve written and shared, abbreviated comments you embellish with hearts.
Little as he has to study with, it adds up.
You’re all work, no play. Polite, sweet, and a real go-getter, as a former colleague describes you. All butterflies and whiskers on kittens. Sugar-coated professionalism. Your accomplishments and certifications laid out like medals, ambitions clear. Ruthless, in your own way, but the kind with puppy teeth, growing into your bite, he’d bet.
He saw you struggle and the nerves you tried to hide. Maybe others bought it, but he didn’t. If that’s where you are after years on the job, he imagines what you were like in the beginning. Easily rattled, unsteady on your feet.
Still. You’re trying. Look where you are now. Go-getter.
The effort and determination, however clumsy, fascinates. It keeps him searching for a glimpse beneath the polished exterior, but there’s nothing. Not a single mention of friends, family, or, notably, a boyfriend.
It makes his teeth ache.
He needs more.
A hideous, modern building. The very opposite of you—cold, plain, and impersonal. Expensive, not without amenities. His favorite?
The floor-to-ceiling windows.
Blessedly, you are a creature of routine.
Home to work, and work to home. A seamless loop, unbroken save for brief, reasonable deviations. Trips to the shops, a walk through the park near your flat, a community gym. Even then, there’s no idle wandering or wasted time.
Sometimes, when you duck into the market, you emerge with a bouquet of flowers, petals and leaves wrapped in crinkled brown paper, or a bottle of wine, its slender neck peeking out. Small indulgences you buy yourself.
Because there’s no one else to do it for you.
He’s all but confirmed it, watching you ferry yourself between the same points, alone every time. No one welcomes you home. No one goes home to you. Big, lofty place like yours and no one to share it with.
It doesn’t sit right with him, on two fronts.
The first—you pride yourself on your expertise. The training, the certificates, the metrics. It’s all laid out online, your badges of honor, but you’re missing the biggest one, aren’t you? Lacking firsthand knowledge. Quite the albatross hanging around your neck.
The second—it’s self-flagellation, needless and punishing. Pretty, smart thing like you, locking yourself away. A princess banishing herself to a tower. The persistent, cynical part of him wonders if it’s simple snobbery. That you think you’re too good for men like him.
Yet that’s not quite it either, is it?
You shut yourself off from everyone.
Twice in one week, from his spot in the mouth of the alley outside your office, he hears you decline invitations for drinks from your colleagues. The same excuse, too much to do, and a pat to the stuffed tote slung over your shoulder.
You work hard, pour yourself into the gig, and when you manage to unwind, it’s always in isolation. A quiet dinner, a solo glass of wine, a book balanced on the arm of your couch. Those big yoga stretches in the morning and at bed time.
The thought solidifies into certainty: You need someone to step in. Someone who sees you.
Luckily for you, John does.
(You never pull those shades down all the way. A fancy place like yours? It’d be a shame to keep them covered, lose the view.)
Satisfied he’s learned all he can from a distance, John decides to meet you properly, on familiar ground. A lonely, overworked girl deserves at least that much. He isn’t cruel.
Buying another ticket to another fucking night of pointless dating doesn’t taste so bad when he has you to look forward to.
This time, it’s in the back room of a restaurant. Smaller, intimate.
Perfect.
John glides through the song and dance. Sign in, take the name tag, acknowledge your coworker, let them believe he’s another hopeful looking for love.
He is, in a way. Different from the last time. He strides with purpose now, heat-seeking. He sidesteps the idle chatter and growing crowd.
Eyes on the prize, and there you are.
As primped and polished as the first night, dressed in soft colors that contrast the tension strung tight in your shoulders pulled up to your ears. Just as on edge, if not more.
That damn clipboard is back on your hip, clutched like a lifeline, and it takes less than a second for his mind to replace it. A warm weight settled against you. Small hands grasping at fabric. A dark-haired child perched, fingers curled in your blouse.
His throat tightens.
You really shouldn’t have mentioned babies.
You move through the space in a current, pulled in every direction at once. Checking in with your coworker, refusing to delegate. Pointing guests toward the toilets, fielding messages on your phone, juggling it all with a thin smile.
It’s admirable.
Nevertheless, hairline cracks form. The light dulls in your eyes, the stress shakes your hands. You’re tired, and not the kind he wants to see on you.
Not the delicious, drowsy fatigue of a body thoroughly spent, melted into the mattress after he’s wrung you dry. Not the half-hearted whimper of a protest as you nuzzle into his chest, mumbling about your ruined makeup staining pillowcases and how it’s his fault. Not the slow, syrupy exhaustion of pleasure that makes you pliant and warm in his arms. The kind of fatigue that leaves you soft, content. His.
Nor the bone-deep weariness of a woman woken in the middle of the night, cradling—
He blinks, biting down on the thought, and suddenly, you’re within reach.
“Oh, hi again,” you chirp, passing a scorecard into his hand. “You came a couple of weeks ago, right?”
That ugly impulse rises within him again, the desire to drag you away outside and make your problems disappear. “I did.”
“Thought so. Well, good luck,” you check his name tag with a smile. “John. Hope you find someone tonight.”
If only you knew.
“One question, if you don’t mind,” he says, barely keeping his face neutral. “Ever find your own match at one of these?”
Your eyes widen with an almost comical look of confusion. “Excuse me?”
John doesn’t lower his head but instead stares right down his nose. “No ring on your finger,” he muses. “Boyfriend too scared to step up?”
“I–I’m not–”
“Don’t tell me,” he chuckles under his breath, “Miss Matchmaker is single?”
John tucks his chin to his chest and watches your pulse jump under your necklace. “Now that,” he murmurs, tilting his head, “is interesting.”
You freeze like you’ve been caught in a lie. Here you are, a professional playing cupid to the lovesick masses, and yet you’re fumbling. Single.
To your credit, you recover quickly, wetting your lips and pasting on a smile. “I don’t see how my personal life is relevant.”
“Oh, but it is,” he insists. “Handin’ out happy endings left and right, and you don’t have your own? How am I s’posed to believe your expertise?”
A line creases your brows. “My job isn’t about me.”
“Isn’t it? You sell love for a living, but you don’t believe in it enough to keep it for yourself?”
“That’s not—I do not sell love…” You stop yourself, sucking in a breath. “I’m focusing on my career.”
“Right. Too busy pairing up strangers to find someone of your own.”
You bristle, shifting your weight, trying to hold your ground.
He likes that. Likes knowing he’s getting to you, pressing into a tender spot. Chipping away at the outer, painted shell.
Before you muster a response, he breaks into a warm laugh to play up the angle. “Only teasin’.” More like testing, sussing out how much give there is until you crack open and spill. “Well,” he pockets his hands, “guess that means you’re up for grabs, huh?” He winks. “Talk to you later, sweetheart.”
He leaves you stuttering, clipboard clutched to your chest.
The night is a blur. He couldn’t name a single woman he spoke to. Unlike last time, his sheet is empty. No scores. If any woman sees it as a loss, he wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t care.
John steps out for air until more bodies trickle out, and then returns inside. He skirts the edges, poking around the tables at the far end where you’re collecting placards, setting the scene.
In his periphery, he sees the moment you realize you’re on a collision course.
“Lose something?”
Fuck, your voice. Your normal voice, not the chirpy affect you slap on for work. Even if there’s a new wariness to it.
“Think I managed to misplace my card.”
Your eyes widen, darting over the tables you cleared. A good and helpful girl, ignoring that little voice in your head.
“Oh no, I’ll help you look. Do you remember what table you ended on?”
He grins. “That’s kind of you, darl.”
He peeks as you check beneath tables, bending and huffing in frustration when you come up empty-handed. The apologetic smile when you finally admit defeat.
“I guess it’s long gone,” you say reluctantly.
John lays it on thick. Shakes his head with exaggerated disappointment, crumpling the sheet hidden in his jacket into a tight ball. “That’s too bad. What a wash.” A wistful sigh. “And you put on such a lovely event, too.”
The conflicted delight on your face is delicious.
“I’m so sorry.” you murmur. “Let me comp you a ticket to another event. I can’t let you go home empty-handed.”
What a turn of phrase.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I insist. You took time out of your schedule–”
“Grab a drink with me instead.” He interrupts smoothly. “Lift my spirits.”
You hesitate, before shaking your head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“A friendly drink?” he teases. “Where’s the harm in that?”
Not like you have a boyfriend to make jealous.
“It’s just, I ought to get this stuff back.” You nod toward the neat stack of placards, the tote overflowing with the event’s paraphernalia. “Calculate the scores, check compatibility…”
“Can’t your colleague do that for you?” he presses. “Think you deserve a drink for a job well done,” he adds, watching the way you react to the compliment, soaking it in like it’s the first kind word you’ve heard all day. “I saw you working hard all night. Busy girl, eh?”
Indecision shines behind your curled lashes. The gears turn in real-time, weighing the consequences of saying yes.
His nails puncture the paper in his pocket when you flash yet another sorry smile.
“I’m flattered,” you say, ever so gracious, “but I really can’t. I’ll send that free ticket to your email.”
The dismissal lands like a slap. Indignation sprints across his mind with disbelief snapping at its heels. You don’t give him a chance to tell you where to send that email instead, just the brush-off, slipping away before he can get a word in edgewise. Choler floods the chambers of his heart, draws a bit of blood.
Well, there’s that bit of fight he wanted.
You don’t look back, and he doesn’t blame you. You must feel the weight of his stare between your shoulder blades, on the curve of your ass. You whisper to your coworker, gesturing for their help with you.
His jaw flexes, fingers uncurling from the shredded card in his pocket.
That’s alright.
What kind of man would he be if he didn’t have a backup plan?
The moment unfolds as if coincidence.
John times his approach as you exit the florist, fingers idly stroking the petals of the bouquet in your arms, the same tulips you buy every week. He pictures doing the same to you.
He moves as you step onto the pavement. The collision is gentle, considering, but hard enough that his shoulder clips yours to knock your balance. Enough that you let out a startled gasp, grip faltering, sending the bouquet tumbling from your hands and bag jerking down your arm.
“Shit,” he mutters, crouching before you can. He gathers the flowers, offering them back with a small, sheepish smile. “Didn’t see you there, love. My fault—Wait.”
He tilts his head, narrows his eyes like he’s only just putting it together. Like he didn’t spend the morning in your shadow to ensure this exact moment.
Your attention jumps up to him in pure surprise.
“I know you. Miss Matchmaker.”
Recognition washes over your face, and in the span of a breath, confusion gives way to composure. It’s impressive how quickly you smooth it over, tucking away irritation.
“John?”
“You remember me.”
How could she not?
“Of course,” You take the flowers, clutching them tight. Never without a shield. “What a, um, small world.”
John huffs a short laugh, rocking back on his heels. “‘Fraid so.” He lets the silence stretch, drinking you in. You’re too poised to flinch outright, but he’s trained to catch it anyway. Fingers crinkling the paper, chin tipping a fraction higher.
You’re dressed for errands, wrapped in a trench that frustrates more than it should. He knows what’s beneath—having committed the curve of your waist to memory, the shape of your hips. It’s irritating, really.
Still, he likes the look of you like this. Definitely the type to never step outside without making yourself presentable. The type to live by the mantra you never know who you might run into. Collar turned up against the chill, hair styled meticulously away from your face, not hiding that guarded expression. You’re assessing him the same.
Good.
No catching you on the back foot today, not without a push.
“Draw up any matches since last we met?”
You exhale a short, amused breath. “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”
He grins. “Ah, right. Can’t have the matchmaker giving away her secrets.”
“Yep. Sorry again about your missing card and, um…” You trail off, and John fills in the blank. The rejection. Your insult is forgotten. Water under the bridge, as far as he’s concerned. “I hope you come next time. We’ll get you sorted.”
“Don’t think you’ll see me there again.”
“No?”
“Don’t think speed dating’s for me.”
You nod knowingly, and hike your bag higher onto your shoulder. “It isn’t for everyone. Some people prefer or have better luck meeting the old-fashioned way.” You lift your wrist and check your watch, the impatient thing that you are. Eager to get home to the hour or two of work you needlessly do every Sunday evening. You start to pull away, already checking out. “Well, I better–”
He steps forward, boxing you in toward the wall.
“Like this?”
Your brow knits, mouth pressing into an unsure smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. Polite and strained. You glance at the busy walk, weighing whether it’s worth stepping around or if that would be too rude.
“Like ‘this’? I don’t–”
“Two people, running into each other by chance.”
The corner of your mouth twitches. Smile lapsing, dropping in and out. Curiosity buried beneath skepticism.
“John…”
He likes how his name sounds on your lips. He wonders how it’d sound under other circumstances.
“Have dinner with me.”
You blink and shrink back, though there’s nowhere to go. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” He doesn’t let your words land. He leans into them. No retreat. Not when the unseen thread fixing the two of you together tugs on the knuckle of his ring finger.
You adjust your grip on the bouquet. “I don’t date clients.”
“Haven’t hired you for anything, have I?” He tilts his head, innocent.
“A technicality.”
“But not untrue.” He cocks a brow. “One dinner. No strings. If you decide halfway through you’d rather be anywhere else, I won’t stop you.”
Another beat of hesitation. He’s patient. He knows how this works.
Then, finally, you sigh. “Fine. One dinner.”
John smiles. “That’s all I ask.”
For now.
In the days leading to dinner, there’s not enough work to fill his hands.
Certainly not enough to fill his mind.
His thoughts, however, are consumed by you. Maddening how much of his attention you command, how the brief moments shared echo in his mind long after. A constant reverberation, shaping his thoughts, making him imagine another life. Branches reality in two—one without you, unthinkable, and the other?
A home. A two-storey house with a garden. Kids. Maybe a dog. A do-over. His childhood, but through the looking glass and done right.
A life he’s determined to see the latter into fruition.
There’s very little he’s set his mind to that he hasn’t achieved.
He assembles an outdoor playset for a young family. Decent-sized house and lot. Not unlike the one he sees behind his eyelids. The little ones badger him with questions, tug at his sleeves, chatter away as he carefully fits the wooden frame together and hangs the swings. It’s good practice, what with his plans.
When their mother pops outside to offer water, she compliments his aptitude with children. His patience. Assumes he must have a brood of his own, and he doesn’t correct her. It’s in the works.
Her nails are red, like yours, but perfectly maintained. Despite the slight bags under her eyes, there’s a lightness to her smile that tells him she’s exactly where she wants to be.
And when she steps away to take a call, he imagines you in her stead. Having it all—a home, a family. He’ll give it to you.
She disappears inside. Her children shriek with laughter, and he wipes the sweat from his brow.
Yes. You, standing in the threshold, tea mug warming your hands. Watching a runt or two running wild, belly low with another. Your nails painted that same cherry tint. Chipped, but perfect.
The restaurant’s host recognizes him, he’s sure of it, but he doesn’t recognize you. How would he?
You’re younger than your predecessors, for one. Smiling, for another. Not on John’s arm as a captive for one of his fruitless, belated apologies. Nor are you clearly hostage to obligation, for a tired anniversary ritual, a repetition of mistakes. No. You’re here as someone new, a departure. John’s future.
He erases the other man’s disapproval with a banknote slipped into his palm. The coward keeps his lips sealed, ushering you to the table you deserve.
Price, party of two.
Maybe this time next year you’ll be celebrating a party of three.
If you’re upset over the server’s harmless assumptions about the two of you celebrating a special occasion, you hide it behind the menu. After ordering, you’re forced to relinquish it. Nothing left to hide behind.
The scrape of your finger over your thumbnail betrays agitation. A nervous habit he’ll break after the engagement. Can’t wear his ring without a flawless set.
He doesn’t want to change you. Not much. Not beyond what warrants influence.
As the conversation unfolds—your preferred wine, the rhythm of your day, the idle pleasantries—he studies. His first unobstructed view. No more staring across a crowded room or through your window from his car. Up close and personal.
You are everything he wants. Intelligent, pretty, industrious, and amenable. A woman made to be adored.
A wonder you deprive yourself of it.
John’s old hand at extracting information. There’s little difference between threats, praise, and encouragement. The right pressure and tone—all surface some truth. He’s practiced on plenty of folks with everything to lose.
But this? Far more delicate. High stakes.
And for all your sugar-spun sweetness and girlish, heart-strewn wardrobe, you are no easy conquest. You play coy. Meet his questions with half-answers, sidestep when you can, parry when you can’t. You know you’re being led, but not quite where.
Puppy teeth, but the same sensibility—you don’t know when to give up and roll over.
All the more proof you need him around.
It’s cute when you try to go dutch on the bill, flustering all over again when the server informs you John’s already paid. Damn near insulting, isn’t it? To be taken care of. That insistence on covering yourself, as if you can’t afford even the notion of dependency. A lifetime of self-sufficiency turned reflex.
You don’t know what to do when someone else takes the reins, and does a good job.
It shouldn’t surprise you. Not after he’s played the perfect gentleman. Holding the door. Pulling out your chair. Helping you in and out of your coat. Adamant on following through with escorting you home.
You made him meet at the restaurant. A necessary concession at the time, but a bruise nonetheless.
He acts surprised when he parks outside your building. Compliments the structure, neighborhood, all that. He leans against the driver’s side door, hands tucked into his pockets. Casual, as if he hasn’t plotted out how he’d get you inside.
You tiptoe around a goodbye. Promising.
The nerve comes, eventually.
“Were you…?”
He tilts his head, feigning mild curiosity. “Was I what?”
You square your shoulders in that trumped-up confidence. “Coming up?”
He lets the question hang for a beat longer than necessary to let you hear yourself.
This is a surprise. You pushed back on the date, but here you are asking him up. Lonely, needy creature. You’re probably wet.
Briefly, he reconsiders crowding you into the lift and watching that wide-eyed surprise melt. Years of stratagem hold him in place. The long con is always the smarter play.
“Oh, darl,” he murmurs, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I am flattered.”
He injects enough warmth seep into his voice to make the rejection sting without cutting deep. “I was only teasing earlier,” he adds, a playful glint in his eyes, the perfect balance between charm and rebuke. “Think we ought to get to know each other better before that, don’t you?”
The shift is immediate. Your face falls. A flicker of surprise, a flash of embarrassment that you rush to mask with a nervous laugh, waving your hand as if physically brushing it off. That confidence of yours really is paper-thin. Fragile. So easy to poke and prod. Moldable.
“Ah, of course. I didn’t mean—”
No, but you did, and that’s the beauty of it. You want to mean it. You don’t know how to ask for what you want yet. Another lesson to teach.
“Don’t fret,” he soothes, taking a step closer, fingers finding your chin, featherlight, guiding it back. “How about a kiss goodnight instead, hm?” He taps the divot of your chin. “Tide you over until next time?”
He tastes your perfume first, having caught hints of it all night. Now it’s stronger, heady as you lift your chin. He waits until your eyelids flutter shut before leaning in, smelling burnt sugar before he samples it.
John knows indulgence best through cigars and smoke rolling over his tongue. But you? You cut through what that’s dulled, brighter. Red wine, velvet and ripe, staining the sweetness like crushed cherries. It’s Herculean, the effort to not change his mind and hustle you indoors. His mouth presses more firmly, and for one dizzying moment, he imagines the taste of your skin—licking sugar out of the bowl.
You try to get closer, but he cuts it off.
Your lips are wet, trembling when he pulls back, and you wear shame—white-hot and burning. In disbelief that you asked, aren’t you? What has gotten into you?
“Oh, I got lipstick on your mouth, let me–”
“Leave it.”
He pulls over once on the drive home, rummaging through the glove compartment to wipe the smear of your lipstick from his mouth. The sight of the red stain sends a pulse of heat straight down. You’d lose your head if you saw him now, he thinks, flicking open his belt in the dark. What you do to him.
He barely gets a good tug in before he ruins that stain, tasting sugar in the back of his throat.
Home in bed, he pulls up the headshot from your agency’s website and dips a hand under his waistband again.
Just something to tide him over.
You wait a standard three days to text. He calls instead.
You sound breathless, which makes sense. Now’s about the time you leave the gym.
“I’m scoping out a potential venue,” you explain, rushed, coming down from whatever routine you finished. He pictures it. Tight leggings, top clinging to sweaty skin, earbuds half-pulled out because you’re walking home alone. “I was thinking you could help?”
“Help? What do you need me for?”
“The atmosphere’s different when I’m alone. I don’t get a good sense if a space is conducive to dates.”
You’re asking him to play along. To be part of your world. Giving him another opening.
He smiles, unseen but satisfied. “Right. What am I getting out of this?”
There’s a short laugh on the other end, meant to cover your nerves. “Dinner,” you offer. “And the opportunity to let me know how you really felt about our services.”
Clever girl. Keeping it professional and leaving yourself an out.
“How could I refuse?”
The restaurant is a hole in the wall. He’d’ve never found it on his own. A perfect setting, but not for what you said. Testing the atmosphere. John knows better.
You’re staring through the menu, picking your thumb.
“Would it help if I set a timer and moved to the next table in five minutes?”
Your head snaps up. “Excuse me?”
“You’re fidgeting, sweetheart.”
You pull your hand away like you’ve been caught, setting it flat on the table.
“Nervous?”
A quiet admission. “Maybe.”
“Don’t date much, do you?”
Your spine straightens. “I told you, I’m focused on my career.”
“Mm.” John hums, leaning back. “Not a judgment, sweetheart. Just an observation. I merely find it interesting. You run speed dating. Introduce people. Help them make connections…”
“I’m good at it,” you murmur, a shield being drawn up.
“Never said you weren’t. Simply curious why someone so good at helping others find their person hasn’t found one of her own. Especially when she’s a catch.”
You don’t answer, not right away. But you don’t look away, either.
Good girl. Let him in.
The silence goes taut. Then, a sigh, and you lift your eyes again. There’s something different in them now. A crack in that carefully maintained composure. Vulnerability.
“I used to date a lot, actually. I had bad luck with men, though.”
John’s thighs flex under the table, hot and hungry pulse running through him. Finally. Finally, some answers.
“Tell me about them.”
It’s not a question. An invitation. One you’re teetering on the edge of accepting. Curiosity wins out in the end. You bite.
“There were…a few. Nothing serious. Not for lack of trying.” You confess, embarrassed. “I attract the wrong kinds of men.”
Funny. “What kind of wrong?”
“A flake,” you start, bitter. “Canceled more dates than he showed up for. I stopped bothering after a while.”
One.
“A man-child. Wanted a girlfriend who was more like his mother. Expected me to cook, clean, take care of everything while he played video games.”
Two.
“A cheapskate.” A hollow laugh escapes. “Took me out on a ‘fancy’ date and made me pay after he ‘forgot’ his wallet. On my birthday.”
Three.
“And…” Your throat works around the last one. The worst one. “A cheater. Slept with one of my friends. I walked in on them.”
Four.
Your four horsemen of the dating apocalypse.
John’s jaw clenches, though he schools his features. He can’t have you seeing what that information really does to him. Can’t let you know how badly it makes him want to hunt them down and fix it.
On top of it all, you tack on how they made you swear off dating for a year. Which turned into two, then three.
“Three years?”
You bite your lip, insecurity crossing your face. “Is that…bad?”
Three years. Three years of no one waiting on you, no one to spoil you. An empty flat, and, he assumes, a cold bed.
“Not at all. Only been on a few dates in the last year, myself.” ‘Date’ is a strong term for tossing part of his pay at pretty girls on screen for a chat. “Is that what this is, then? A date? Could’ve sworn I was here to help scope out the space.”
“No, I–I did ask you here to help with the venue, John. That’s all. Really.” A lie that twists you into knots, wrings your hands, fiddles with your necklace. It’s short-lived. “I suppose, if you want, it can be a date.” The words come out shy, testing the waters. “But so we’re clear, I’m not looking for anything serious, alright? I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Another lie. A thousand nights alone? You’re ready.
He smirks. “Well. Regardless, y’know how to make a man feel wanted, sweetheart.”
And if that doesn’t make you preen.
The conversation shifts when dinner arrives, treading into gentler waters. John alludes to his job, a morsel, and you, sweet girl that you are, don’t press for more. Content to gnaw on the bones he offers, easy details meant to keep those puppy teeth of yours busy. His parents. Where he’s from. How he wasn’t much of a student. How he worked under the table as a kitchen porter at a golf club until he joined up.
It works better than the wine, softening you bit by bit. The prick who poked at your insecurities earlier? He’s dissolving into someone else entirely. Someone you’re trying to figure out. Someone you might even like.
Your eyes linger longer when he speaks now. Your smile turns natural, less forced. You lean in when he talks, hanging on his words.
John knows exactly what he’s doing, feeding you enough to keep you intrigued, to have you looking at him through softer eyes. Because if you’re trying to piece him together, trying to understand him—you’re already invested. That’s how he’ll get you.
One crumb at a time.
It’s necessary groundwork. Sooner or later, details’ll come out. After all, you’re going to marry him. Certain things will have to be—
“Any, um…notable girlfriends? Since I told you about my four awful exes.”
Innocent. Fair. It still puts him on edge.
A big test for both of you. He told himself he’d lie weeks back. A fabrication to allow him to censor the truth and leave his past behind. See if he couldn’t get out of his payments and wash his hands completely of his ex-wives, call in a couple favors, push papers.
Yet now, now that you’ve bared your heart to him like a good and honest girl, he suppose it’s only right to tell the truth.
That’s not the plan, though.
He’ll phone a few names tomorrow. Get started on the paperwork.
“No one worth mentioning.”
The rest of the evening is easygoing from there. You remain relaxed, the earlier stiffness gone, but you’re still holding back. You let him toy with one of your rings for a few seconds before pulling away. Your feet bump under the table, and you tuck yours beneath your chair. Your eye contact’s better, but you find reasons to look away.
You’re resisting what’s building between you. He can see it clear as day. For one simple reason, John bets.
You don’t believe in love. Don’t trust it, at least.
Not anymore. Maybe you did once, back when it was uncomplicated, hadn’t soured in your mouth, and burned you down into the frazzled woman he’s observed. Before it became studied instead of felt. A series of points and calculated risks, a numbers game that you understand better than most. An expert on what works for everyone else but never quite trusting enough to let it work for you.
It’s why you throw yourself into your work. Why you obsess over climbing a ladder built on the successful couplings of others, measuring fulfillment in repeat dates and engagement announcements. If you can’t have it for yourself, at least you can manufacture it for someone else.
The problem is, he does believe in love.
He’s just never been any good at it.
It’s one of the few things he’s never let go of, even if he’s never known how to hold it properly. He’s always been better at destruction than construction—an arsonist, never an architect. He sets the foundation only to strike the match and burn it to the ground. That’s why his ex-wives only speak of him through intermediaries. That’s why his relationships have been more like wrecking balls than anything resembling stability.
It’s why he throws himself into his work.
It’s why you’re perfect for him, even if you fuss about it and tell yourself otherwise. Insist you want nothing serious to do with men again.
He knows better. Knows that under all that steel and sugar, there’s a heart that wants and aches, no matter how stubbornly you try to deny it.
This time, you surprise him. The dinner is pre-expensed on a company card. The grief that stirs with his ego ends smothered by the victorious look on your face when he pockets his wallet.
It makes you bold.
You suggest a pub a street over for afters, and he lets you lead. Men shrink away on the walk with him beside you, a hand on the small of your back.
The tables are smaller here, giving your legs nowhere to go when he spreads his underneath and cages them in.
Another round comes. Time slips by. The noise of the pub hums in the background, but his focus never wavers. With every sip, the distance narrows.
Inevitably, the conversation returns to speed dating and its apparent science. You try to stick to your principles. Too bad he has years of experience in bending those. It doesn’t take much more prodding.
“I can’t tell you what your dates said, word for word.”
“Then summarize.”
“You were…” You vacillate, searching. “Largely described as, um, curt, reserved, and distracted.”
Not inaccurate. He’s had worse appraisals and assessments.
He chuckles. “Must’ve had my eye on someone already.”
“Oh?” you say, trying for nonchalance, but it falls flat, hovering awkwardly in the air.
John shifts, stretching his legs out and closing them back into your space like he owns it—owns you.
God, you are so close. Skirting his reach.
You’ve reached a critical juncture. Make or break. Two dates, that’s all it takes, isn’t it? Two dates, and life itself stretches out with endless possibilities. Weeks of wanting have led to this. All the work he’s put in to get you here, to this goddamn table, where he can almost taste what could be.
His ring on your finger. His baby on your hip. Your own success story.
No one’s ever gotten anywhere worth going without a push. Without a nudge to take that last step and get over that line they’ve drawn for themselves.
John licks his lip. “Think you know who, sweetheart.”
It will take time, he realizes on the way to yours, to fully tear down the walls you’ve built around yourself. He feels it in the tentative kiss you place on the corner of his mouth at your building’s door, and again in the lift.
He’s no stranger to controlled demolition. This time, he won’t half-ass it. No more mistakes or half-hearted efforts. Third time’s the charm, and he’s ready to make sure of it.
Whatever backsliding occurs between the pub and your front door, he erases mouth-first. For a split second, he catches that flicker of uncertainty in your eyes, the subtle hesitation that says you’re not sure whether you should give in, but he doesn’t give you the luxury of doubt. You’re here. He’s here. It’s inevitable.
With both of you starved for something—anything—there’s no room for second-guessing. The barren years of your dry spells? Tinder, piled high.
Between fervent kisses, he steals glances at your place, cataloging details. Every corner of your world is his to explore now, but the bedroom is the prize. The view is better here, inside. No longer looking up at some unreachable, untouchable version of you from the outside. He has access now. Control. It’s a quiet triumph that settles in his chest, a thrill he can’t quite suppress. It seeps into his touch, his hands finding the hem of your dress, claiming inch after inch as if he’s laying claim to the territory he’s finally breached.
All it took was a little patience—and a hell of a lot of persistence.
John pushes you until your legs hit the bed, hands dimpling into your hips, half-tucked under your dress. He tugs at the fabric. “Want to take this off f’me, baby?”
“Yeah, okay…”
While your view is obscured by the dress, his eyes roam your bedroom. It’s exactly as he imagined—sophisticated and cozy with shades of rose, peach, and marigold. A collection of framed photos on the bureau he’ll study tomorrow. On your nightstand, a tray with jewelry and lipstick tubes. Dog-eared books—romance, unsurprisingly.
The dress pools at your feet. John takes in the sight of you, his smirk widening. Rubs circles with his thumbs on the skin exposed by the high arches of your deep plum panties.
“You wear this for me?” He abandons the bottoms, touch drifting up to cup your breasts through the matching brassiere. “All dolled up, planning on getting lucky?”
His thumbs roll over your hard nipples, coaxing a gasp from your lips, and your hands fly to his wrists. Not to stop him, but to steady yourself. Your legs tremble, barely holding you up.
“No, it’s not–I didn’t want to assume–“
“Mm.” He hums, eyes half-lidded. “But you hoped.”
Your weak denial dies on your lips when he guides you down, gently but insistently. He maneuvers you like he owns you already, coaxing you to sit, then easing you back until your spine meets the mattress. His hands work their way down your legs, kneading the goose-pimpled skin of your thighs and calves. Each press of his thumbs is purposeful, a silent reminder of who’s in charge now.
And then he sinks lower.
John shoulders between your legs, prostrating himself on the floor, knees hitting the carpet as if this—you—are worth worship. His head dips, lips grazing along the inside of your thigh.
“Easy, love.” His hands are steady as they hook behind your knee, lifting and folding one of your legs over his broad shoulder. The angle opens you up to him and reveals the damp staining the cotton. He sets your other foot on the edge of the bed. “Let me take care of you.”
Your breath hitches, and that’s when he sees it. The moment you let the reins slip.
“Good girl,” he praises. His grin, hidden between your thighs, stretches with a kiss.
Candyfloss sweet, with a pinch of salt.
He called it like he saw it then. He’s smug that it’s true.
Even filtered through the thin barrier of the gusset sopping up its share, you are a wonder on the palate. A delight on the senses. He noses over the slight springiness of the curls trapped underneath, tongue laving over every dip where the fabric clings. Everywhere but where you want him.
“John, John, please,” You’re gasping on the bed, bright whines spilling out. Hands strangling the duvet.
“Need somethin’?” He puffs over your drenched panties, rubbing his rough, bearded cheek on your thigh deliberately. “Gotta ask.”
It’s another minute of torture for you to work it out. It comes out in a whisper. “Take them off, please.”
“There’s a girl. Lift up.”
The panties come away and promptly disappear. In the low light, your cunt’s a mess, shiny with a mix of soaked-in spit and arousal. Perfect like the rest of you.
“Oh,” the single word you manage when John gets his mouth on you unimpeded.
Victory tastes like burnt sugar melting on his tongue, slow and rich, heating into syrup. He groans into your cunt, digging one hand into your thigh to keep it hooked over his shoulder. His other hand wraps around your ankle, anchoring your other foot in place.
You twitch, moans pitching higher and higher, trying to press yourself closer into his mouth. He doesn’t let you. He keeps you right where he wants you—pinned open with every tremor and gasp fueling that molten heat rolling down his spine and thickening his cock.
“Easy, love,” he murmurs, lips brushing skin. His thumb strokes soothing circles over your ankle, a mockery of tenderness compared to the ruthless way he’s devouring you. His tongue works with intent, coaxing you to the edge.
His grip deserts your thigh, and you clench around the finger he slips in while you’re nice and distracted. Lets off your clit with a pop, pulling back to admire your face scrunched in pleasure.
John kisses the crease of your thigh. “This what you’ve been doing all by yourself, baby?” His taunts, dripping with satisfaction as he works you open. “Bet they weren’t enough, were they?”
His smirk deepens when he adds a second, savoring the way your pussy almost sucks them in. When you don’t answer, he stills. “Were they?”
You’re a quick learner. “No, no, they weren’t.”
“Thought so. Gonna give you one more before I fuck you, gonna need it.”
You take the third with a quiet thread of praise. His cock’s pulsing hard against the zipper of his trousers, aching to switch places with his hand. It’s magnetic. The whole world centers on your weeping cunt, squeezing three of his fingers to death with how badly you want to come. It’s a miracle you still haven’t yet, given how you circle the edge. He’s an inkling of what you need, but he won’t let you backpedal.
You speak in front of rooms of lovelorn strangers. You will speak to your man.
He gingerly pumps his fingers into you as deep as they’ll go, curling and petting in all the right places. Your clit twitches, abandoned.
“John–” Yes. “–will you–mouth, please.”
“Hm?”
“My clit, please, need your mouth–”
He’ll work on articulation another time. He dips his head and licks a broad stripe over your neglected bud, then molds his mouth to it. Grunts around it when your fingers thread into hair and tug down.
That’s when the floodgates open, and you finally give into everything you’ve held at arm’s length for too long. Toes curling, muscles tensing, a heel digging into one of his vertebrae. Must be a relief.
John rises to his feet as you come down, knees popping in the silence. He licks his lips, wiping them off on the back of his hand. He towers, intentionally overwhelming and blocking out the room as he looms. Casts a shadow he hopes you feel on every inch of your skin.
He works his belt open while you piece yourself back together, though there’s no point in that. It’s a bright spot when you awkwardly reach behind your back and free your tits without being asked.
A wild look in your eye. Smudged makeup, hair coming unstyled. The loss of composure he’s waited for. Naked hunger in your gaze, eating him up as his clothes hit the floor. You’ve been with boys, sure, but John knows what he looks like. And he looks like a man.
He doesn’t ask about a condom. Gentleman enough he has one in a pocket, but not enough that he’ll do the decent thing and remind you about it.
You squeak in his neck when the steel wool above his cock scrapes your inner thighs. He grinds against you lazily, holding you in the band of his arms to kiss and share your taste.
“It’s a lot, baby,” John warns, rutting himself through the mess between your legs. He swallows hard when he prods your hole with the tip, squeezing the base to warn himself. It notches, your body yielding despite your squirming. Skittish even now. From there it’s a smooth, slow glide.
Still knocks the breath out of the both of you.
“Oh god, John, f-fuck, it’s so–”
Your cunt’s hot as an oven. Wet and fitted for him. Gives in easily now that the right man’s filling it. Knows he’s it for you, meaning it’s only a matter of time for your head and heart to catch up.
His chest and belly meld to yours as he keeps you pinned, hips pushing until they’re flush, and he’s sunken to the hilt, grinding in to claim whatever space is left. “Good girl. Let me in.”
“S’good, big,” you sound delirious, slurring as nonsense tumbles out in a breathless rush.
He barely lifts his hips those first minutes. Warming you up for what’s coming, what he’s been starving for this whole time. Getting an eyeful of your sweet, dumbfounded expression, coming to terms with it. Figuring it all out while your pussy stretches around his cock and greedily swallows it whole.
John readjusts, peeling his sweaty skin from yours, keeping himself pressed deep into the spot that’s got you strangling his cock. His hands wedge under your knees and push, allowing himself to finally build up to his desired pace. An urgency that speaks to his need to usher in the future and slip a ring on you.
“Feel like a dream,” he pants, staring down at the bounce of your tits through half-shut eyes. The smell of sweat and sex and your cunt under his nose. “You’re so pretty like this, sweetheart. Yeah, look good under me.”
You struggle to breathe around his thrusts.
“Knew the moment I saw you, y’know. Took one look and knew. Knew that not a single girl I’d speak to would measure up to you.” His rhythm never faltering. “But you made me work for it, didn’t you?”
You pant, fingers clawing the pillow above your head. “You–You made me work, too–you didn’t come up–ah, that night.”
John laughs, the sound rough as sandpaper, deep and throaty, and it rattles through you. It drives him to push a little harder, to coax more of those desperate sounds out of you. “And look where we are now, baby.”
Tears slip out of your eyes, painting black streams of mascara on your cheeks. You’re wrecked and he’s barely scratched the surface.
You shouldn’t have ever mentioned babies if this isn’t where you wanted to end up.
Your second orgasm builds similarly to the first. Shaking legs, head sinking into the mattress, spine arching. Stars appear in your pupils, shiny under the glass of tears, and lock onto him, transfixed. A whole mess of big feelings. Uncertainty, confusion, disbelief. Fury, ardor. He can tell, despite everything, a part of you does not want to want this. But gravity doesn’t ask permission before it pulls.
He fishes spit out of his cheek and drops it under a thumb on your clit to bring it home.
“Gonna come on my cock, pretty girl? Squeeze me tight?”
“John, I’m gonna–I’m gonna–”
“You can do it, too good of a girl not to–Christ.”
Whatever plea you utter gets lost in a feverish rush and a full-throated moan. You go tight as a vise, clamping down on him as you come. Liquid heat rolls down his spine and his pace turns choppy. Fingers slipping from your knee and clit, taking bruising handfuls of your hips he’ll kiss better later.
He plugs himself deep, coming to a sudden halt to spill. Every muscle in his body goes rigid as he plants himself at the root, filling you in hot, desperate spurts. It goes on longer than he thought it would. You milk it out of him, and it leaves a stringy, sticky mess, tagging over your folds when he reluctantly withdraws.
A whimper sputters from your bitten lips when he lets his drooling tip spew its last over your winking, fucked hole.
The two of you catch your breath in silence.
You said—I don’t know if I’m ready.
He wonders what you’ll say in the morning.
John coaxes a third and final orgasm out of you as he massages his cum back into you, shushing when you cry a little more on his shoulder about it. Whining about it being too much. Same as when he wipes you clean and you go shy on him. Only cracking your legs open again when he reminds you how proud he is of you for taking him so well. For everything.
He waits until you’re deeply asleep, mouth slightly open, completely immovable, to climb out of bed.
He pads through your flat bare like he owns the place. A glass of water to keep him company as he leisurely tours.
Your work bag sits, still packed, next to your desk at the window. He kicks it under. This will be the first weekend you don’t lift a finger if he has his way.
At least. Not in the service of others.
John stares at the pill case on your bathroom vanity as he empties his bladder. His next hurdle.
He’ll let you keep your job. It makes you happy, and he’s not so cruel to take that from you. But if you ever change your mind, if your investment in it wavers, he won’t stop you. Between his pay and benefits, the handyman business—he’s more than capable of providing for the two of you. And when the time comes for more, when you need to feed, clothe, and house his whelps, he’ll take care of that too.
After all, there’s very little he’s set his mind to that he hasn’t achieved.
Tall trucker man with hair all over his body he's really buff and kinda chubby and and and puts you in a head lock while he ruts inside you, also and also also and and
Yes, I want to be his neighbor. Of course I want to be the stripper at the club he owns. I want to be his fated omega. I want to be his co-worker. I want to be his doctor, his arranged wife, his enemy, his childhood friend, his kid’s babysitter, his girlfriend, his wife, his ex-wife, his barista, his soulmate, his strange cryptid, his favorite blood bag, his divorce attorney, his pr relationship, his boss, his secretary, his sugar baby, his... I think you get the point.
In all universes, physical forms, and realities, I want that man.
dude in the other side of the confessional, smoothing back his more salt than pepper hair, tugging at his collar, breaking into a slight nervous sweat that highlights his crows feet and laugh lines: Is that so?
you are not a disgusting person for exploring and enjoying dark themes in fiction. you do not have to defend yourself or justify the content you consume. have fun with it, get freaky and weird with it. you can do whatever you want forever
so I’m a little freak that gets a raging boner when stupid doofus characters realize how much they messed up and hurt someone
would cum in my pants a little if you made college Johnny from the promethean series suffer I’ll be real
I’d like to think Simon actually manages to coax shy!reader out of their shell and make some cute noises for him during sex :(( and Johnny has to hear just how sweet they sound when someone fucks them right
need that dog to come begging for scraps (please)
This also gives me a boner
Promethean: Coming home to roost
Why is he doing this? Why is he doing this?
He’d come to Simon’s room to talk about his their the bird. The logic just didn’t click in his brain in time. Obviously if his door was closed, it meant she was inside with him, didn’t it? That he was inside of her—
Soap was about to knock when he heard it. Angelic. That was the word for it, really. He prided himself on his skills, but he didn’t know women could sound like that. That you could sound like that.
Johnny had made you cum. Every time he was with you— at least once, usually more. But your sounds were so hushed. You bit your lip and whined. It was cute, and he wasn’t so invested in your pleasure that he needed you to scream for him or anything. He knew you were having a good time, that was enough. Right?
But the moans he heard through that door. He could picture you, mouth wide and back arching while Simon held his calloused fingers at your clit, his strokes careful and deliberate. Soap felt himself rooted at the door. He shouldn’t be listening. But he can’t bring himself to walk away.
Your sounds change. Punctuated. Like you’re crying out for more with every thrust. Johnny can just barely hear the wet smack of flesh on flesh, of your cunt gushing she takes everything Simon has to give.
“Yes, yes— Simon, oh, fuck— please? Oh my god—“
Johnny’s used to getting so horny is brain fogs up. It’s normal for him to get hard and think “this is the hardest I’ve ever been”. But this time it might be true. And he hates it. Why didn’t you sound this good in his bed? Why did he give a fuck?
He knew why you didn’t sound as good back the . He could hear your cries being swallowed by Simon’s mouth as he kissed you. Fucker probably had you in missionary (he did) and was holding your hand (he was) while cooing in your ear about how gorgeous you were and how perfect you felt (it was more like growling).
You were getting fucked proper. And here he was, the once proud hound now pawing at the master’s door like a stray. He doesn’t just want you back, which is horrific enough to realize— he wants to be in the room with the both of you. Wants to see how Simon’s cock is making you feel religion. Wants to stroke his cock and watch how it’s done, then take a turn in your creamy pussy after he’s done and get scolded with Simon’s hand pinching his neck from the back— scolded for not knowing how to fuck you, love you, appreciate what you’d—
Your near sobbing cry from beyond the door snaps free the coil that’d wound so tight in his belly.
Oh fuck. No, no, no. He couldn’t have. Untouched? Never— not him. Fuck.
You’re on your side, nestled under Simon’s arm and nuzzling into his chest when you hear a door slam in the hallway.
baby daddy simon who dated you for a year before you got pregnant, you’d gone through most of the pregnancy alone, him being deployed 3 weeks after you found out and gone until the very last month of it. the both of you had tried at keeping the relationship together, but the distance and loneliness got to you, you’d been fine when it was just you but now with baby, you can’t let the father go in and out of their life. he wasn’t very happy with the decision to end your relationship, in his mind you were together forever now, tied together by this beautiful thing you two created, he didn’t even want children before you told him you were expecting but his whole world view changed when he realized that he not only had you to protect but a baby as well.
but you’d moved out against his wishes, finding a small flat you like and making it home for you and baby. he would come over sometimes, when he could, and spend some time with baby but honestly he felt more like some glorified uncle, would be convinced he was nothing to this child until he saw those brown eyes staring back at him, the ones that are so completely his, and he comes to the conclusion that this isn’t gonna work.
he starts small, coming over once a week instead of every other weekend, takes the two of you out for dinner instead of letting you cook or ordering in. stays late enough that you offer him the spare bed in the guest room, even with the distance you’ve put between yourselves, you can’t help but care for him, knowing nobody else will.
then he puts more pressure on you, making sure you see just how valuable he is, taking night shift feedings and waking up early with baby when they’re fussy. he offers to take baby for the night so you can go out with your friends, do things you haven’t been able to since baby’s arrival, even pays for a spa day for you to really relax. he stocks your fridge, full of the snacks you love and a bottle of wine for the hard nights. he buys and sets up new decor in the house, finally gets you the pretty white vanity and a new washing machine that doesn’t squeak. he really just does what he considers ‘husband duties’, things that he should have been doing this whole time.
and when you don’t budge on the separation, he goes nuclear, “no, love, i haven’t seen your birth control pills”, “look how cute this baby is, remember when ours was that small, sweetheart”, “you’re so stressed darling, let me help you” which basically means you end up getting rawdogged within an inch of your life, condom long forgotten, one of simons hands held over your mouth to muffle the sounds you’re making. he just hopes he’d tracked your cycle right, that you’re actually ovulating, because you can’t possible refuse his ring after having two of his babies right? you wouldn’t do that to him, would you pet?
Okay well now you need to write the secret baby trope for Soap and Gaz. It’s only fair man (I’m such a sucker for this trope I will never get sick of it)
I did a secret baby post with gaz somewhat recently, so I’ll give soap a go lol
Soap knows that if, by some miracle there is still space for him in your life, that he’d better do more than just get on his knees and beg. He needs to put his head to the ground and pray at your feet.
It had been a fledgling relationship at best. You’d said you loved each other, but he was the one who pushed things to go further when you were inclined to take it slower. He wore you down until you finally let him move in with you (your place was a lot homier than the flat he hardly touched). It was said implicitly: don’t make me regret this.
And he was sure he wouldn’t. Because he was that much in love.
So it should come as no surprise that fate, or rather, Price, should come along and need him for an extended stretch on an emergency, covert basis. No time or clearance for you to be told. At best, he was in for a tongue lashing. At worst, you’d burned all his shit and prayed to god for his swift demise while he was gone.
What he does not expect is to hear splashing and singing when he comes through the front door. His stuff is still around, what little of it he had. His mum’s knit blanket still over the couch, his novelty mug shaped like a boob is over on the counter. He’s able to pull himself out of the reverie when he hears you call at the sound of the front door.
“Mom? Is that you?” What’re you expecting your mom for? It’s the middle of the week, not a holiday, and your mom doesn’t live particularly close. He realizes he has to say something, or you’ll get scared.
“Nah, hen. S’me. Johnny.” Fucking lame, but he was barely able to force it out.
“Oh.” You don’t sound angry, at least. So there’s hope. “You should probably come here, then.”
He kicks off his shoes, since it looks like he’ll be staying. Sets his duffel down.
“Rubber ducky, you’re the one.” You’re a shower person, really. He doesn’t know why you’re in the bath. Damn, are you naked? God, he has to get to the bathroom before your good mood ends. “You make bath time so much fun!”
He opens the bathroom door just in time to hear a giggle and some more splashing. From chubby little arms. There’s a familiar vacant blue staring up at him from the water and copious bubbles. You are, unfortunately, clothed, sitting on a stool by the tub.
“John, this is Soirse.” John. So he’s not out of the woods yet. “Make yourself useful and hand me that towel.” You point to the fluffy thing with bunny ears that’s on the counter. Speechlessly, he hands it over and watches you lift the baby— his baby— out of the tub. At least, he’s really fucking hoping she’s his. How else could he already love her so much?
The little towel has a hood. So she’s wearing the bunny ears once you wrap her up. How fucking adorable is that? Then you hold her out— to him.
price x f!reader | 1.9k words
series directory
tags: exes, angst, references to depression.
a/n: an ex boyfriend. a story. a kiss. ☕
a surprise trap door. an errant self-driving car. a jet engine falling from the sky. anything to get you out of this.
hyperbolic? maybe. necessary? absolutely. forty-five minutes, and you haven’t gotten a word in edgewise. ben drones on about his studio and his upcoming exhibition. you brought this on yourself by doing the polite thing and asking him how are you?—lesson learned.
it hurts. it blisters to hear how happy and successful he is and how he’s moved on from the breakup. as if he didn’t leave you hanging with a dinner you couldn’t afford after admitting that he cheated. he hasn’t asked about your wrist, your old flat, or your art career.
eventually, he stands. sets you free.
“i should go, long trip home,” he says, eyes glued to an incoming text. “it was lovely to catch up. thanks for holding onto this junk for me.” he hoists the box off the seat beside him and tucks it under an arm.
you let him kiss your cheek. “yeah. of course.”
he doesn’t look back. you wish you could do the same.
you order another cider and resolve to not remain looking like the miserable slump you are.
~~~~
>> are you in town?
>> if you are, i could use a drinking buddy
john’s hair is still damp when he spots her at a two-top in the garden, nursing a cider. he waves, then ducks inside for his own drink. his head buzzes with whatever this invite means.
he checked with the florist twice to ensure the flowers arrived intact at her place. made the woman on the phone read back his apologetic note and bit his tongue when she reminded him it wasn’t her ‘place to say whether it sounded good enough or not’. he never heard if she liked them.
there’s a stiffness to her smile but relief in her voice. “you came.”
“‘course.”
“how’re you?”
in six words or less, he knows something’s off. he eases onto the seat, trying to exude a sense of humor and not telegraph his one hundred questions. “undercaffeinated, but i’m more interested in how you’re doing.”
“i noticed you hadn’t stopped in.”
“didn’t think you wanted me to.”
“about that. it was rude of me to kick you out without warning.”
guilt isn’t what he wants. he adjusts course to shoulder the blame. “i crossed a line.”
she isn’t having it. “please, it was rude. i know you weren’t trying to…”
“cross a line? overstep?”
her mouth wavers undecided between a frown and a smile. “you didn’t know. i could’ve explained. spare you £45.”
you. little.
“so you did get them. the note, too?” she nods. “then why the radio silence? hyacinths a bad choice?”
“no, they’re perfect. i just. i sort of froze. i had a rough couple of days.”
the hangdog expression she hides with the glass makes his chest hurt. “i’ve been told i’m a decent listener.”
“it’s a long story.”
“i got time.” he offers quietly. “just got back. caught me in the shower, actually.”
her eyes narrow, curious. “did you dress and come straight here?”
“well, it’s generally frowned upon to walk around naked.”
he beams at her laugh, her shaking shoulders. for a moment, her whole face lights up. it relaxes her posture as it peters off, leaving her looking less like a cornered mouse than when he initially sat down.
“so.” john pushes carefully. “the paintings.”
her smile lapses into something unreadable, a pause to find the right place to begin. her fingers trace the table’s grate.
when she finally speaks, she refocuses. meets his eye. good. he doesn’t want to twist her arm to get the story. the tale starts innocently enough.
the woman is hannah, her best friend and a ceramicist. they met on the first day of her mfa and were paired for the terms project shortly thereafter. they quickly became inseparable, until his girl met ben.
~~
“i can’t talk about hannah without talking about ben. to talk about ben, you need context.”
john leans in. his thick eyebrows lift in a silent go on.
“they say it happens when you’re not looking, right?” you nervously laugh, smiling at the table sheepishly, unable to meet his eye. “well, i met ben at a networking event. last place i thought i’d find a date, rubbing elbows with alumni. but he introduced himself, said he liked my portfolio book. told me about his work and all these shows he’d done. he took me to lunch the next day.”
you wince at the memory, crystal clear and acutely embarrassing. how starry-eyed you’d been. your throat dries, sandpaper scraping down your esophagus at the thought of ben scribbling his number on your wrist. you clear your throat.
“then he asked me to dinner. during lunch.”
if john’s disgusted or disappointed, he doesn’t show it. his self-control is infuriating yet reliable. steady where you’re shaky.
why can’t i be like that?
you push on.
“without diving into minutiae, i eventually had to introduce hannah and ben. they hounded me, because if i wasn’t with one, i was with the other.”
“jealous of each other.”
“i think so. i agonized. they’re big personalities, i thought they’d clash.” you replay their first meeting in your head. you have a thousand times. “and they did.”
~~
‘differing artistic opinions’ and ‘absurd expectations’ are the root causes of the squabbling she describes. her words, not his.
(he thinks of less charitable ways to characterize interpersonal conflict.)
barrages of text messages competing for her attention. underhanded attempts to get her to cancel plans with the other. emergencies that turned out to be trivial. guilt trips. one particularly ugly screaming match at a mutual friend’s birthday.
(if it were him, he thinks, they’d’ve lost privileges long ago.)
“it took weeks for them to come around to the idea of each other.”
“what was the catalyst?
“me again.”
john hums. he watches her rest against the back of her seat, her arms crossing and tightening over her chest. compressing herself as much as she can. embarrassment rolls off her in waves. he doesn’t say a word, afraid he’ll cut what courage she’s mustered off at the knees.
she has her own idea.
“can we—are you finished?”
his glass is two-thirds empty, and he polishes off the rest. a fist squeezes his heart when her lip twitches at his abruptness. she makes it difficult to be collected with his interest.
“where to?”
“where else.”
it’s a challenge, defending oneself from an insistent, bullying cat. cece shows no mercy.
“she likes beards.”
“does she see many beards?”
“just a theory.” she leans against the cushions, watching him and the cat, a glass of water held in both hands. “yours is the only one she’s tried.”
in the end, after negotiations, cece loafs between them. her purr a white noise.
“where were we?” her tone suggests she knows precisely where.
“the truce and you.”
her eyes find a spot past his head to rest. he’s tempted to tilt his head into her line of sight, assuming that nudging her on home turf’s a safer bet than in public. but the hesitant, almost imperceptible exhale that leaves her keeps him still.
“alright. so. me.” her chest expands with another sigh. “i was already struggling two terms into school. really struggling. when i applied, i had this clear vision, but then classes started, i met my peers, and suddenly it felt like everything i thought i knew just disappeared. nothing looked right, nothing felt right. i pulled constant all-nighters. sat through brutal critiques. i’m lucky i had thick skin from my job, otherwise, i might have dropped out to join a convent or the circus.”
immediately, his mind conjures the image of a tattooed nun, swiftly followed by a tattooed strongwoman. his lip quirks. he hastily buries what those do for him. later.
their gazes meet briefly to share a smile.
she licks her lips after a drink and sets the glass aside.
“they realized their bickering wasn’t helping, so they put their heads together. kind of forced us to become the three musketeers. they helped me where they could, and things smoothed out between them in the process. he found her ceramics shows to exhibit. let her move her wheel into our joint space. we were in close quarters, and i needed it. i needed them.”
a couch width is suddenly too far a distance with how she crumples. something difficult passes over her face, and she excuses it with a shrug.
“despite their joint efforts, i barely scraped by that first year. i was burnt out, miserable, and i spent two weeks holed up alone, trying to not go off the rails.”
oh, sweetheart.
“where were they?”
“hannah was visiting family stateside, and ben was traveling for work.”
not that his schedule allows flexibility, not that he’s behaved the perfect partner in the past—but john knows instantly that he would not have left her. he’d’ve been there. the more he hears about ben, the more he wants to meet him. come to a violent understanding. impart a lesson or two on loyalty.
“when ben returned, he told me he decided to move here to ‘reconnect with the country’. something about ‘capturing and celebrating the bucolic’. he wanted long-distance, but i, uh, i said i’d rather quit and move with him. we fought and he called in reinforcements. at hannah and ben’s…encouragement, i finished out the term. and it nearly killed me. as you know, i withdrew.”
john often reads between the lines. a vital skill, interpreting indirect and unintended communication. what’s unsaid. shame pulls her inward again, a moment where she seems smaller. swallowed by the enormity of whatever she doesn’t say. can’t say.
“i know they were disappointed. they didn’t need to say anything. hannah felt abandoned, and ben burdened by my tagging along. i got this awful feeling the morning we left and i ignored it. i was convinced leaving school behind and taking a break from art would fix me.”
cece stretches, stands, and allows herself to be scooped up.
she holds the cat under its front legs, bringing their faces closer together. “but it’s like that saying or whatever. ‘wherever you go, there you are’. i got here. settled in. and i was still a loser.”
it’s instinct.
“you’re not–”
she bulldozes.
“i started working at the café. ben booked murals. he painted the big one a few streets over.”
he’s familiar. “the one with–?”
“yep.” she releases cece. “he tried to get me to paint. he begged me. but i couldn’t do it. things took a turn last summer when ben won a huge job in the city, which snowballed into an invitation to exhibit. hannah got busy with the final stretch of the program, and couldn’t visit much.”
“so you were alone again.”
“yeah.” her voice thins, then breaks. “alone again.” she digs the heels of her palms into her eyes before a single tear drops off her lashes.
john’s beside her before doubt seeds itself in his mind. one arm gathers her to his side, his chin lifting then settling atop her head when she tucks closer. his other arm winds around her, and the slight tremors of her distress ripple through him. she’s quiet, not quite sobbing, but sucking in deep breaths. he rubs her back in a slow circle, murmuring nothings.
“what do you need?” he asks as she gradually stills.
she sniffs.
“sleep.”
without thinking, he kisses the crown of her head. “okay.”
john only catches a glimpse as she hands him a quilt. but he sees them. blue hyacinths, pinned and drying above her bed.
price x f!reader | 1.5k words
series directory
tags: stalking mention, white lies, jp fears no 'friend zone', entitled cats
a/n: john price vs. his feelings. john price vs. old man allegations. john price vs. his barista . ☕
john’s grip tightens on the wheel as he turns onto her street. he’s imagined this moment since he set her in his sight. possessing the patience of a sniper comes in handy with endeavors such as this, and it’s good to pull a trigger that isn’t lethal for once.
she’s waiting outside. good girl.
nose-deep in her phone, she doesn’t notice him until he’s a building away. his heart jumps into his throat when her eyes lift, and her face follows. she squints, then shades her eyes with a hand. a smile breaks the mild confusion, and she rises to her feet from the steps outside her door.
he forces himself to relax, painfully aware of the intensity of his gaze. he can’t risk running her off, but he has to see it—the moment of realization.
~~
it cannot be the same car. calm down, you order yourself, plastering a small smile on your face as john rolls to a stop, grinning back through the window. it’s statistically impossible. there are thousands of cars in town, plenty of the same make and model. this is just the universe’s idea of a cruel joke: giving your favorite customer the same car you smashed your face and arm into. your good hand shakes as you open the door and sink into the passenger seat.
coincidences happen.
~~
“hey.”
“afternoon. you look nice.”
“yeah? i was worried you wouldn’t recognize me without the apron.” she says wryly, draping her bags over her lap.
i’ve memorized your face and more. which one would think would help decipher the minutiae of her expressions. does she recognize the car? remember it? she was drunk and crashed hard enough to break bone—fuck, he hadn’t thought of the effects of the impact. too caught up.
he watches her buckle, eyes falling to her cast. it’s filling with signatures fast. the space that held his number is covered in a drawing of a cat. all that remains is ‘john’.
“did you draw over my number?”
“i didn’t think you’d want the free advertising.”
smart girl. the number isn’t traceable further than falsified records, but it's best to avoid nuisance. he lets the doodle eclipse his grand scheme and pretends to adjust the mirror. he’ll wait until the time is right. “that i don’t.”
the drive to her preferred market is ten minutes by car. she might’ve managed alone, but he’s done some of his best work in ten minutes. performed miracles and misdeeds. he spends this bit on recon.
he susses out a little more information about her life: she’s worked, on and off, as a barista for nearly a decade. she recently took in a kitten, the very one depicted on her arm, and named her chicken cutlet a tortoiseshell.
“it's all i had for food. now cece’s a snob.”
“points for uniqueness.” he grins and gestures at the doodle on her arm. though he doesn’t have much of an eye for art, it’s obviously stylized. “and creativity. bet you did her justice, like a regular artist.”
the comment, meant as a compliment, makes her wince. she ducks her head in poorly concealed shame, pretending to check something in her wallet. it comes out casually, like a weather report—she dropped out of an mfa program to move here, for the ex, a year ago.
the details resurrect his anger.
the tremble in her hand tells him to leave it. he will. for now.
the car park is packed, and it’s all he can do to not celebrate when he finds a space on the first go. he cannot be much older than her, but he’d rather avoid feeding the ‘old man’ reputation his sergeants encourage.
she separates her reusable bags as they climb out of the car. “do you have any pets?”
he circles to her side and takes them without asking, “no. afraid my schedule doesn’t allow for it.”
“oh.”
he beats her to the baskets, tossing her bags into the bottom, and she strolls past him. he traipses behind, head on a subtle swivel, inwardly tickled at how normal it feels. it’s not often he shops, let alone in the company of a bird. it makes him puff up. go a bit softer in the face, especially when a woman roughly his mother’s age gives them a long, wistful look in produce.
it’s nice playing house, even in the middle of a bustling supermarket, dodging the less spatially aware and rogue children. it strokes his ego to flex an arm over her head to reach the shelves she can’t and carry a bag of cat litter in the other. he cracks a joke about tinned fish, and though she doesn’t laugh, he can tell she wants to. how she ignores his suggestions and color commentary on other shoppers. it’s fascinating to watch her, all business, as if she were behind the coffee bar. tapping items off the list on her phone, triple-checking a recipe.
while she’s distracted, slowly loading the conveyor belt one item at a time, john pushes his luck. he slips his card and pays.
her focus breaks when she sidles up, reaching for her wallet, only for the cashier to offer the receipt. she takes it, confusion turning to understanding, and her jaw clenches. her thanks are muttered, and she promptly joins him in bagging what’s left.
he knows she’s upset before she speaks, practically punching items into the bag.
“please don’t do that again.” she whispers. “my wrist is broken. i am not broke.”
angry as she is, she sails out the doors without waiting. clearly expecting him to tote her bags like a porter and follow.
which he does, of course. it’s what he signed on for.
good view, at least.
the ride back to her place is quiet, but he feels the tension burning away with the light. it’s damn distracting how the sun plays off her skin and hair. ten minutes fly by. she turns to him as the car idles, a storm of thoughts in her eyes. severe, tempestuous, and pretty.
“park. you’re not off the clock.”
“yes, ma’am.”
the bag handles loop into one fist, and the litter rests on his shoulder. he beams, and with the complete confidence he usually carries himself, he starts up the steps of her building.
“uh…john?”
he glances over his shoulder and sees her fidgeting at the bottom of the stairs.
“that’s…not actually my address.”
his brows raise, fall, and pinch in rapid succession. the minx. a fake address. smart.
she sheepishly apologizes on the walk to one street over and explains.
“i mean, this part’s weird.”
“what part?”
“befriending regulars,” she shrugs. “the counter’s there for a reason—to sling espresso, yeah, but it’s also a social barrier.”
“do you often befriend regulars?” he hopes not.
“god, no.”
thank christ. he’ll start memorizing faces on his next trip, just in case.
“but being polite to people is part of my job.”
he cracks a careful grin. “do you get reprimanded for that?”
her eyes roll. “ha. ha. no. my manager’s a coward and afraid of me. what i mean is, it’s a tightrope. be nice, but don’t be too nice to the wrong people, else they’ll stalk you or something.”
john’s gut tightens. what was his plan again? expose her? he manages a chuckle. “and am i one of those…wrong people?” effortless.
“well, you’re a minute from my kitchen with an invitation. so.” she smirks after a second. “are you fishing for a compliment? for me to say you’re special?”
heat shoots up his neck and colors his cheeks. “i am not–”
“relax. i’m joking. but you are the first customer i’ve brought back to my place.”
the phrasing instantly sets him on high alert. it could mean nothing. it could mean anything.
her place is markedly worse than her fake one. he does not like the look of the neighbors, but the exterior light reaches the walk. he bites his tongue when she veers to the side, cutting down a set of steep stairs to the basement. it won’t do, not long-term.
but the interior of her flat—it’s everything he did and did not expect.
it’s sensibly furnished and lit to compensate for its floor plan and limited windows. it’s cozy and colorful, with artwork fixed to the walls and littering various surfaces. some pieces are more notable than others: tiny statuettes of women, a diptych of a cow, and a collage of what looks like found notes. in the living area, there is a console and a headset, a small collection of games and dvds, and ten too many knickknacks. a stuffed backpack occupies a seat at the table.
he moves mechanically behind her, toeing off his shoes and treading straight into the surprisingly decently sized kitchen. he sets the bags and litter down, rolling his shoulder as he soaks it all in.
might be his only chance, after all.
something bumps his shin. two big amber-colored eyes stare up at him, unblinking.
“you must be the famous cece.”
“the one and only.”
the young cat weaves through his legs, then jumps, immediately sticking her pointy head into the bag containing the chicken. she meows, indignant, when her human automatically hooks her around the middle without looking and returns her to the floor.
“bad.” she murmurs, unpacking. “would you mind setting the litter next to the door down the hall?”
john obeys, though he lingers outside of said door, staring through a crack into the dark of her room. she has a big, comfortable-looking bed. a shudder passes over him. an unhelpful throb. christ. feels like a fucking teenager. he pulls himself together, retreating toward the door to leave. probably overstayed his welcome.
just as he turns to say his goodbyes, she glares from the kitchen. around her neck, untied, hangs an apron—don’t be afraid to take whisks.
2087
vaporwave
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
gummygunk
janainaart
