A/N: Oh would you look at that? I’m finally getting around to posting these! This fits into the PoNR timeline somewhere in the second year that Ezra and Clara had together before he left that final time for The Green Moon. It includes my HC for what the Ephrate looks like (loosely inspired by the image of Pismis 24 below!), and I fully enjoyed getting the chance to finally flesh that out.
Request: “falling asleep in the sun” and “fireflies” from @paracosmenthusiast
Synopsis: Embattled survivor, protective older sibling, surrogate parent, town leader, skilled craftsperson. Fifty something Di has a lot more in common with Joel Miller than either of you would ever admit. An enemies to lovers romance that proves it’s never too late for love.
Warnings: MNDI, 18+ story, mature themes, canon gore and violence, character injury and death, eventual smut, PTSD, cursing, alcohol consumption, enemies to lovers, Joel Miller x you but has a nickname Di that is used sparingly, physical descriptions include being in her early fifties who is tall, strong, physically able, has greyish hair and some tattoos
Chapter Summary: When a storm damages Jackson’s church, Joel ends up helping Di to repair it. A long evening of hard work and quiet conversation brings them closer than either of them expected.
Masterlist
Previous Chapter
Chapter 4
As August arrives, so does a thunderstorm. The heavy rain damages fences around the perimeter of Jackson and leaves the church roof leaking badly.
There's a community meeting in the hall early the following morning to make a plan. You take your place beside Maria as everyone discusses the damage.
Tommy volunteers to gather a crew to repair the fencing so it's up to you to organise the repairs to the church. The rain isn't over yet so there's no time to waste. The electricity can't be restored until the church is watertight again. There's a lot of people depending on you to do it fast.
A while later, you step inside the old building, where the water has pooled on the floor. Shaking the rain off your jacket, you take in your surroundings. You assess the damage, shining a torch across the ceiling. It's worse than you thought.
A few of the roof timbers have rotted completely, so you'll need to use some of the lumber that was put aside for housing to keep the church dry instead.
But that can't be done today. The most important thing to do is to seal the roof for the moment.
You spend most of the day in the rafters trying to patch up the hole in the roof. Despite the ache in your muscles, you keep going.
There's a group on the ground, including Ellie and Dina who are clearing away the debris and mopping the floors. It's an old building and used by the whole town. You can't afford damp to set in.
Jesse and a couple of the others are repairing the damaged tiles in the roof on the outside. It's a tricky thing to do and you don't want anyone to get hurt on your watch. You're relieved when they are back on solid ground.
As evening arrives, everyone has worked their fingers to the bone. It has been a joint effort and you're proud of how everyone pulled together.
One by one, they all leave. Seth is the last one to go, telling you he'll be on standby to turn on the power when you think it's safe.
It's been a long day but you're damned if you'll let the repair drag on for another day. You notice that the covering on the ceiling will need to be reinforced further if there's more heavy rain.
Rather than asking anyone to come back tomorrow, you decide to do it yourself. You're prepared to be here all night, if you have to.
Tommy and Joel return to Jackson as dusk sets in. The fencing is all fixed but it was a tough day being out in the elements. Tommy is so weary, all he does is wave to Joel as he goes in the direction of his house, back to Maria and Benjie.
Joel continues down the empty street, passing all the buildings in darkness until he notices a faint light in the church window.
He makes a split second decision to go to the church instead of his house.
As he climbs the stone steps, he hears the faint noise of a hammer in the distance.
He looks up to the ceiling in the dim light and there you are, up high in the rafters. You have a look of concentration on your face.
"Hey" he calls up to you.
You’re so absorbed in your work, you don’t seem to hear anything. After a moment you notice him.
"Hi. Could you pass me up some more nails?"
He glances around and shows you a box but you shake your head "No, must be all out. I'll come down".
He watches as you manoeuvre yourself, climbing down gradually until you get to the ladder and back on solid ground. He notices the beads of sweat on your forehead as you pass near him.
"Must be 'round the back" you mutter as you go to the back room of the church.
You leave him there.
Soon someone else bustles in the front door.
"I've sandwiches for ya Di" Shirley calls before she notices Joel. "Oh you're back, I've plenty for you too Joel".
Joel takes a roast beef sandwich, it's the first thing he's eaten since the jerky he had at lunch, "Thanks Shirley".
"No bother. I'm making the rounds, with the light out we're makin' sure everyone has somethin' to eat tonight. Did ya fix the fencing?"
"All done" he tells her as you come back in the room.
You wipe your brow with a clean rag as you look exhausted, "Thanks Shirl, I'm starving".
"Don't work too late, ya hear? We'll manage another day or two yet. No good climbin' up there on your own, it's not safe" Shirley tells her friend with a hint of a smile, knowing that's exactly what you were doing.
"I'll be careful" you respond, a sheepish smile on your face.
"I'll check on Gigi and Joshua so don't worry" Shirley tells you, patting your shoulder.
"Thanks. Remember Joshua is allergic to-" you say as she interjects "I know, eggs. None here. See ya both tomorrow".
Joel and you just wave to her as you grab a sandwich. You both lean against a table as you eat in silence. You drink out of your flask of coffee, it's lukewarm but ok. You're completely wrecked but still have so much more to do.
Your shoulder is killing you though. You rub it in circular motions to loosen the tense muscle.
"Somethin' wrong?" he asks curiously.
"Well I got shot there so it still hurts sometimes. Been using my arm all day".
"When did it happen?" he asks.
"It was back in Boston, maybe two or three years after the outbreak" you tell him.
"That was you?" he frowns as he tries to remember. "Thought it was someone else".
"No, it was me alright. You helped me up that day and killed the bastard who did it" you meet his eyes for the first time that evening.
"I…I can't remember much 'bout that time. Wasn't doing so good" he looks at his boots.
You take a deep breath as you hold your shoulder "Didn't know if you even knew my name back then".
"I remember you all right" Joel glances at you, before standing up to face you "Figured ya only wanted to hang out around Tommy and the younger crew."
"I hung around with most people" you insist. Thinking of your pals, some who didn't survive. "Tess was cool".
Joel looks out the window, "…She was".
Spurred on by a need to know, you ask, "What happened to her?"
Joel shifts from one foot to the other, looking uncomfortable.
"She got bit" he admits as you just nod.
"She, ah" he hesitates, "She's the reason Ellie and I met".
You just nod as he continues, "We were leavin' Boston. After she died, Ellie and I kept goin'".
"Sorry" you say genuinely as you lay a hand on his arm.
He glances briefly at your hand but doesn't pull away.
There's silence for a moment but it's not awkward. You don't think you ever touched each other voluntarily before.
"Better get back" you say eventually as you finish your drink.
Joel looks up at the ceiling and notices you still wincing.
"I'll help ya" he offers.
"It's ok. I'll manage. You were working all day today" you say.
"So have ya, can't have ya climbin' on your own" Joel tells you. "I'll go up this time" he insists as he starts climbing the ladder, the packet of nails in his pocket.
"Fine," you say, your gaze lingering on his ass in those jeans before you shake your head, reminding yourself that just because he'd stayed doesn’t mean anything.
Once you’re satisfied that everything is secure, you tell Joel you're going to give Seth the go ahead to turn the power back on.
As you walk back in the door, the place is bathed in bright light. You stand shoulder to shoulder, taking it all in. You can't help but smile in relief.
Joel is about to leave when you say "Thanks Joel".
He looks back at you, muttering "G'night".
Next chapter
Things will ramp up next Chapter, I promise! 😉
Tag list: @aheavylid, @shadowqueen2024, @vodkaandpizza, @milla-frenchy
Likes, comments and reblogs are really appreciated
If you enjoyed reading this, please let me know if you would like to be added to a tag list
Prequel Fic - The Ghosts of Bogota (With Javier Peña)
Chapter Summary: Frankie gets really into one of Esie's smutty books and puts some old skills to new uses. They talk about some shared experiences. Frankie looks at he potential of working for the DEA permanently.
All the smutty content warnings: MDNI, Dom!Frankie, bondage, overstimulation, oral (f. receiving), vaginal sex, gags, fingering. Also some talk brief talk about war and references to death, car accident.
AN: if you just came for the Frankie Rope bondage smut it's all before the first chapter line break
The Book Boyfriend
It was a rare weekend where there were actually people in Esie’s house. Helena, her baby sister, had been valedictorian. Much to Esie’s great pride – and mild sisterly annoyance- so the San Antonio house was full from hosting the family who’d stayed overnight after the convocation ceremony. Frankie had maintained a standing appointment on Saturday with the sitter. Esie still hadn’t spent the night at Frankie’s. Though she had spent a few more Sunday afternoons or the occasional Saturday evening with both father and daughter. They’d spent less time out mostly, while Lilly was with the sitter. Preferring to take the girl with them on activities and now using their allotted alone time on adult only activities.
Which is why Esie was lying on Frankie’s tidy bed that Saturday afternoon, top already discarded. Looking, as she often did, a little impatient as Frankie rooted around in his closet for a moment. She let out a dramatic sigh, indignant that she was half naked and not currently holding Frankie’s attention, then she gave up and started scrolling her phone.
“Hey!” she said startled after he pulled out a paper back book and threw it on her bare stomach. It was one of her smutty novel’s she’d lent him. He’s been burning through about one a week now. He’d started to read them almost as much for their stories as he did to learn what his beautiful girlfriend found sexy about them.
“What was your favourite scene from this?” He asked keeling above her on his bed. She’d gotten her wish; he was now very much focused on her.
“Guess.” She sent him a trademark smirk.
“The one where he ties her up then fucks her?”
“How’d you know?” She purred.
“Because it’s filthy and debauched.” He tugged her legs quickly, so she was now lying flat on the mattress. She made a small noise of surprise at his easy show of strength. Then he loomed over her, so they were face to face as he grinned at her. “And because it’s my favourite too.”
“It is?!” This was very good news to Esie.
“Yeah.”
“You ever tied anyone up before?”
“You mean in bed?” He clarified. “No.”
“But you want to tie me up?”
“No.”
“No?” This was puzzling and disappointing news for Esie.
He leaned forward, his voice low and gravelly. “No, I want to tie you up and gag you.”
“Okay…Master.” She grinned cheekily. She was finally getting her kinky little way. She wasn’t even going to be that bratty about it. Not this time anyway.
Frankie pulled out some soft rope he’d neatly packed in a bag along with a soft kerchief with a large knot tied in the centre. He took his time binding her wrists. Pulling her hands up and tying them to his headboard.
Frankie was the sensual sort; he liked the feel of things. But now he was also taking pleasure in the look of them. He didn’t just tie her to restrain her. In the book the apparently sexy demon had made a harness with the rope so he could manipulate the damsel’s body. Frankie’s mind kept flashing to what he imagined Esie’s skin would look like pressed up against the thick rope ties. He’d got so lost in the idea of what that would look like that he’d stopped reading and fisted himself roughly, pumping his cock to the idea of it. Cumming quickly before he’d even finished reading the scene. Then that night his mind had started working out how to make that fantasy a reality.
So now, he created the harness, a simple one that wrapped around her chest, breasts, hips and thighs. He knew to make a sturdy knot. He knew how to restrain and immobilize someone too, he knew how to do it down to the varying degrees of comfort. He knew all that as he tied and manipulated her naked body as he saw fit. He did it with confidence and precision of a man who had done it before. But this was the first time Frankie had ever done it for his own pleasure. And he took great pleasure in the process, teasing her flesh as he manipulated her body.
Once he had her strung up, immobile, tied to the frame of his bed. He took his time exploring her body. The evil genius of Frankie’s plan slowly dawning on his impatient Esie. Tied up and probably soon to be gagged Frankie could finally take as much time as he wanted torturing her body with pleasure. He ran his hand up her now naked body, admiring where her flesh spilled out of the rope bounds around her thighs, hips and chest... He tied her legs so they were bent, securing her thighs and shins together then he tied her legs spread open. Her pussy wide open, vulnerable and waiting, glistening ready, for him. It was beautiful. Soon he could settle in-between her legs. And use his tongue to coax her into her first - of what he planned to be many - orgasms of the night. But not just yet.
His hand traced upwards. Playing firmly with both plump breasts until he saw her squirm a little against his bounds. Then he grabbed the knot between her breasts, the rope he used to bind them taught and knotted in-between above her sternum he jiggled it a little admiring how her breasts bounced. He liked Esie for who she was a vibrant smart and surprisingly caring woman. But it didn’t hurt that he also thought her body was amazing. She was strong from working on the ranch, but her body still lent itself to softness, she wasn’t short on curves. Her breasts filled his very big hands nicely as he grabbed them. Frankie liked to look, but he really, really, loved to feel. Almost as much as he loved to taste.
“Frankie, I need you now.” She whined. He’d been waiting for that.
He slid his hand up her body covering her throat with one large hand. He squeezed gently at the sides, not closing her windpipe but making her head feel a little light. She closed her eyes as he told her firmly. “No. You can call me master, like your demon prince.”
She couldn’t help herself, as she said in a slightly strangled tone, “Technically he’s a demon knight.”
“And be quiet of I’ll gag you and keep you that way till I’m done with you.”
“Yes… master,” but she rolled her eyes sassily her tone sarcastic and defiant. He’d expected that too.
“Ok trouble,” his hand met her throat again squeezing a little harder. “Open up.”
He tied a soft kerchief around her head, that he’d knotted twice where he shoved it in her mouth. He debated stuffing her panties in first, next time, he decided. This would do for now.
He took his time exploring he now immobile flesh with his hands and mouth listing for little muffled groans and squeaks of pleasure.
Then he settled between her thighs and finally he buried his face in her cunt. Alternating between lapping and sucking at her clit and shoving his thick fingers into her. As he worked her up, he saw her trying, and of course, failing to close her legs against the bounds. A knee jerk reaction to the intense stimulation of his mouth demanding arousal from her sensitive clit and lips. Usually, he loved the feeling of her thighs surrounding his head while his face was buried against her folds. But today he like that she had to stay open to him, helpless against the onslaught of his mouth and hand as he played with her body.
He’d told her he’d been learning how to navigate her body and now he was flying it deftly like he could in the most complicated of cockpits. So now he loved playing with her body just like he loved flying. He liked it so much he found himself grinding his hips into the mattress creating slight relief of friction against where his now, very hard, and very neglected cock was trapped in between the mattress and his stomach. He heard her panting begin to quicken as her thighs started shaking as they protested against the ropes. Then he pushed his tongue into her desperate hole lightly scraping her now engorged clit with his teeth and lips as she cried out her first orgasm into his makeshift gag.
When he finally pushed his cock into her, he took the gag out so he could hear her again, hoping they’d be noises of pleasure. They were. He caught them with his mouth kissing her as he lightly crushed her with a perfect strong steady rhythm of his deep thrusts. Her body felt relaxed in the right ways, but her vagina still gripped his cock perfectly. So, he made deep grunts of pleasure in between the kisses to her mouth and throat as he fucked her.
Her body drew him in deep. His cock was borrowed so deep inside her, as she got close to her next climax her body drew him in and kept him there. He thought he might not be able to physically part from her in that moment. Not that he wanted to. Unable to grab onto him with her hands she bit his shoulder hard, and whined. He knew she was so close; he pushed up a on his arm unfortunately sacrificing her bite only for the benefit of the mesmerising view for his cock pushing into her. Then he brought his hand to her throat as he pumped into her, applying the dizzying erotic pressure as he told her in a rough deep voice, “come on baby, that’s it...” She let out a final whine as she started to come. Hard.
Fuck he was getting soaked. Now it wasn’t just the look of the feel of her body but the sound of their fucking that egged him closer to his own orgasm. He could feel, She’d squirted maybe even came. Frankie loved that. He stared between them again pumping quicker now, into the beautiful wet mess of her pussy, as he watched her eyes widen at her surprise of her own body. “That’s it, baby,” he said his voice soft again. “That’s it, baby, so fucking good for me.” He moaned softly as he added to the mess with hot spurts of his own cum deep inside her.
They stayed there for a moment panting as they caught their breath.
When Frankie finally regained some composure, he began quickly untying her. He’d made her ties to the bed quick release knots. Then he shifted her away from the wet spot before going to work on the rope harness.
“I’m sorry.” She told him as he moved to grab a towel once that ropes were off of her. “That’s never happened before.” She sounded a lot surprised with maybe a hint of embarrassment.
But Frankie didn’t even bother trying to hide how smug with pride that had made him. “Only with me then?”
At that the hint of embarrassment faded as she rolled her eyes and drawled, “Yes, Sarg, only with you.”
They laid with her cuddled on his chest, now on both on the other side of the bed. As they came down from the remaining highs of their physical pleasure.
“Frankie?”
“Yeah?
“Have you ever tied anyone up…not for sex?”
The was a long pause, he knew what she was really asking. Finally, Frankie admitted, “Yeah.”
Esie didn’t look surprised or horrified, “That makes sense.”
Frankie, now no longer fuck drunk worried if he might have been too harsh, her pain was a moving target, though he imagined she would have told him if it was more pain then please. “Was it too tight?”
“No, just right.”
“Ok good, I bought rope that was supposed to be gentle. And I made sure the knots weren’t cutting off circulation, but I know sometimes your body hurts…”
She ran her hand along his chest in an effort to reassure him he hadn’t gone too far or don’t anything wrong. “It wasn’t today.”
“Okay. Good, I haven’t done something like that before in bed, but I did research a bit before. And obviously I have some training, but not for pleasure...”
“Did you tie people up and hurt them… on missions and stuff.” Esie, had been trying to push lightly since their talk about the cocaine addiction to gently learn more. Frankie wasn’t the sort to just volunteer that sort of thing, and Esie was no idiot, she knew to be what Frankie had been meant that he’d seen and done a lot of hard things. Her first big job as a journalist had been in Afghanistan, she’s barely been out of college then, but she was still older than most of the troops she’s been embedded with.
Frankie looked away when he answered quietly.
“I did.”
“Okay, I thought maybe you might’ve.”
“You still think I’m a good guy?”
“Yes, of course Frankie.” Esie scoffed.
Frankie sat quietly for a moment, but Esie could hear him thinking. Finally, he said. “None of the guys in in your smutty books are good guys.”
“They aren’t bad guys either, most of them are just complicated. And complicated is hot… you’re a little complicated.”
“Yeah, but not kidnapping you and taking you to my demon lair complicated.”
“Too bad.” Esie joked.
They where silent for a moment as Esie drew little circles on his chest.
“Go ahead.” Frankie said eventually.
“What?”
“Ask whatever it is you been trying not to ask.”
“Were you ever posted in Afghanistan?”
“Yes, I’ve been lots of places, especially when I was in special ops, we didn’t always stay deployed in one area as long.”
“Suppose that’s why it helps to have a pilot… I was there too.”
That surprised Frankie, “Right I remember you said you had been, for your first job abroad, right?”
“Yup, my first job as a staff writer, right out of college. So, you probably wouldn’t even find my articles if you looked, my name wasn’t even on the by line for most of it. Plus, all the shit that got buried. I wondered if we were there at the same time.”
“It’s possible, that would have been what? ’04, ’05? I’d just been put in my first special ops unit around then. Where were you?”
“It was ‘05… Kunar Province, we were the furthest imbedded journalist team to Korengal Valley during Red Wing, it was a fluke, it was meant to be the human-interest side of war. Talking to villagers that sort of thing.”
“Is this an off the record bed?” Frankie asked only half joking.
“The is an off the record relationship Frankie. I’m not asking for intel, I’m asking because I want to know you.”
“I know… there’s… there’s going to be stuff I can’t say.”
“I know honey, that’s ok.”
“I was in Death Valley too in ’05.”
Esie nodded, she knew they lost helicopters, it wasn’t unlikely that he knew those pilots. Or that he’d been in the fray himself. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, not right now.”
“Okay.” She kissed him lightly.
“We should shower, I’ll pick Lilly up soon and then I can make dinner.”
“Ok…but I’m not sure I can walk just yet.” That brought back Frankie’s smug good humour.
“Look his records is squeaky clean.” Chris told Javier that same night in the bar they’d often met at over the years to discuss things, that shouldn’t be heard in the walls of the DEA offices.
“Too clean.” Javier grumbled.
“What?”
“You don’t think maybe the US government didn’t brush some shit under the rug? Look at this weird gap here, then he resigned a contract.” After he’d flown Esie in Peru.
“Airforce though, they get a tone of bonuses for sticking around, and it was right after he had the kid, probably figured he could use the cash.” Chris said.
“And the mother?”
Chris scoffed. “You’re acting like this guy’s some cokehead murder.”
“So, you didn’t look, she’s not in the picture though, right?” Javier asked.
Chris sighed and dropped a small file in front of him. Not as big as the one Javier had already looked through. Chris summarized it, “Died in a car accident, I knew you’d ask so I looked into that too. She was in the middle of a massive 10 car pile-up, nothing to do with him. They weren’t even together then. She was engaged to someone else, he was in the car with her. Nothing there but bad luck. Far as I can tell the guy's got one priority and that’s his kid. Respectfully, I’ve met a couple of the pricks Esie’s dated …this guy’s better. And you weren’t even this insane about that prick with the Range Rover.”
Ignoring that Javier read the file “He was in Florida before here.”
“Buddy, you’re on your own from here. Don’t fuck with my pilot please, I like him and he’s very good.”
“Hey.” Chris Fiestl said when Frankie came into the DEA building a couple days later. Chris. emboldened by the reassurance of the background check had got a head start on some paperwork that morning. “Can you come to my office? Your contract is expiring soon. I was hoping that we could take a look at a first draft of your full-time contract. I know you have a couple extra requirement because of your daughter.”
“Oh, cool. That’d be great.” Frankie was expecting this conversation wouldn’t happen for a few more weeks.
After they’d gone over the contract, Frankie was about to stand up to leave Chris’s office when Chris said, “Just one more thing…”
Frankie sat back down.
“On a personal note, Frankie. I’m just going to say this once. The Peña’s are good friends of mine, I’ve known Esie since she was 17, I stood with Javier at his wedding. So, you seem like a good man, and what you do is your business, however, Esie is a nice girl, so whatever happens between you two, just make sure you aren’t an asshole.” That was the sternest warning Chris was willing to give about something that really shouldn’t be any of his business.
“Understood, I don’t intend to be.”
“Good, good, I think that’s wise, I’ve seen… well… let’s just say Javier Peña doesn’t fuck around when it comes to his family. He might be getting old but… I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.”
“I won’t.”
“Right, well I’ll lets you get back to…whatever the hell it is you do here when you aren’t flying.”
“Thank-you sir.” Frankie stood up
“Oh! Wait! I almost forgot,” Chris reached into his desked and pulled out a black baseball cap yellow embroidered letters the read DEA. “Finally got around to getting this for you.”
Frankie did his best to rearrange his expression into something that might look like he was pleased to be receiving it. “Oh… Thank-you.” He said as he took the hat from the man. Desperate to get the hell out of that office.
Javier had never been famous for his ability to let things go. If anything, it was the opposite. He had one more string to pull. Steve Murphy, his old partner, his only true work partner really, the man he had taken down Escobar with. Steve had left after he caught Escobar, rather than staying in Columbia for one more round like Javier. But he hadn’t left the life entirely. He’d eventually worked his way up the ladder in the Miami police department. He now had the highest position you could get without bothering with things like elections.
If there was anything to be found in Florida. Steve would find it.
“You don’t like the guy?” Steve asked Javier over the phone. He was surprised, Javier was protective of his family, but he’d never gone quite so deep. Especially on some guy Esie was dating, he’d met her as a teen and had always given her a decent amount of respect and freedom when it came to her life choices.
“I don’t know the guy.” Javier answered a little cryptically.
Steve sighed and pinched his brow. Whatever this was, there was no way Javier would just drop it. “Alright, I’ll make some calls.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you ahh run this past Ana?”
“I’ve been married for 17 years I don’t need marital advice from you, Murphy.”
“I’m going to take that as a no.”
“I’ll tell her this weekend when she’s at the ranch.” Javier grumbled.
Steve smiled to himself; Ana was going to kill Javier for this. “Oh right, how’s full-time ranch life treating you?”
“Fuckin’ hot, dusty and my back hurts.” Javier complained.
“You’ve gone soft in San Antonio partner.” Steve teased.
“Fuck off, you live in a condo. You don’t even take out your trash.”
“I do! It goes in the garbage shoot down the hall. Well, give my best to Ana, let her know that I agree, you are being insane and I’m only doing this because I know you’ll just keep digging anyway.”
See Masterlist : See AO3 : See Prequel Fic - The Ghosts of Bogota (With Javier Peña)
See Prologue : Previous Chapter : Next chapter
Chapter summary: Esie talks to her captor.
Warnings: Content warning for references to assault, rape and torture, not graphic here.
“Here,” The man placed the water bottle and a granola bar on the table with little ceremony. Esie’s antics were already wearing thin. But she’d gleaned some information from them. There was very little ambient noise coming from the hallway he’d stepped into. Wherever they were it was uncrowded, hopefully there were few other people there. But he’d told her, “they’d,” grabbed her so she could assume there was at least one more person there on top of the guard. Likely more than that. But she was starting to narrow down how many. A good thing to know if you wanted to make a run for it. If you could make a run for it.
“Is that gluten and dairy free by any chance?” she asked.
“Eat it. José is going to untie you, if you try anything while you eat it, this conversation will be much less pleasant.” With her hands freed Esie, cracked the water bottle and downed the pills, then ate the bar like a good little hostage. She wasn’t a fool, she’d surveyed the room. There was no way she’d be able to get out of the room. And even if she did, she had no idea where she was, it could be a house an abandoned factory or an office building. There was no way she could physically out -match the men too. She needed to do what she did best, talk to her captor, get information. Strategize.
“So, did you just bring me here for a lovely picnic, or is there something I can do for you…” she knew the man across from her, but there was no reason he needed to know that. The more he told her and the less she could tell him, the better.
“My name’s Bill Stechner. I’m an old friend of your “father’s”. But I think you already knew that, didn’t you?”
The man threw a book down on the table. One she knew well. She had won her second Pulitzer with it after all. “Hunting Escobar”. The summer she came back from Afghanistan they’d started. It took them ten years to get the thing right, to tell the story, as much of the story as they could. She’d interviewed both Steve and Javier. They’d both been honest, too honest sometimes. That had been part of the challenge. It was why it had taken so long to craft the story, one that painted a picture and one that neither lionized nor villainized the DEA agents too much.
Esie held onto the story for years, guarding it, guarding Javier’s life’s work, one that he had trusted her with. It had been a show of respect at first from him. Javier had told her that he thought enough time had past, that there were things the world ought to understand about what happened. But he didn’t trust anybody else with it, he wanted her to tell it properly. He’d sat down in the ranch study with her, and pulled out stacks of paper, newspaper clipping of articles. Her articles, highlighted and noted by him. He told her how talented she was. that it would be hard for him, that he couldn’t tell her everything, and that some stories weren’t his to share. That he could tell her things that she couldn’t put in her story too, not if she didn’t want to visit him in federal prison every Christmas. But if she’d agreed, he’d tell her about Columbia. And she did.
“I never identified the CIA agent in this book,” she reminded Stechner.
“No, just in your fucking arms dealing article, you bitch.” A loophole, Esie had gone hunting too, she couldn’t quite leave alone what her adopted country had done to South America. So, she figured if they’d been up to shit in the eighties and nineties, they were still probably up to shit in twenty twelve, which was how she’d ended up in Peru. Stechner had still been playing his games there then, and Esie had hunted him like a fucking bloodhound. “I had to go underground; I was reassigned to the fucking jungle for the rest my life. You know I used to fucking run this entire continent?” His rage was simmering, but he didn’t yell, in fact he ended his rant with a little smile which was even creepier.
“Ah, so this is personal.”
“It’s not fucking personal.” The man with the balding wiry grey hair snarled. Esie smirked, she’d struck a chord. Despite what the man said. “It’s about you being here and fucking up my work… again.”
“I’m sorry that I made being an asshole harder for you. But you seem to be thriving still. I’m not surprised, you CIA assholes love screwing around down here. What are you up to now? Putting Fentanyl in baby formula? Or are you starting some sort of preschool for future dictators?”
“You know your, papi, Javier, wasn’t all sunshine and roses either, sure I set it up, but he’s the reason Los Pepes where able to conduct their reign of terror here in the nineties.”
She did, it was the first time she’d seen Javier as more than her sweet, slightly lame, adopted father. The first time she’d realized he was a man, a man with a complicated past. But the way he’d explained it, the guilt, the complexity, well, she’d ended up coming to an understanding. “A book both critical and sympathetic of it’s subjects.” The New York times had said. Esie hadn’t hidden the fact that she was related to Javier, but she’d kept her name in the byline of her works all those years ‘Ezperanza Cordona’ for a reason. The name still Peña carried weight, it carried a history, one that was darker than it first appeared.
“I know, I wrote the book after all.”
“That wasn’t in the book.”
“Yes. It’s called confidential information. So what? You brought me here for fucking revenge? Why am I still alive then?”
“A good question. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Despite you being a pain in the ass, you and I do have something in common. We both trade in information. Now, I want to know why the fuck you’re sniffing around Arturo Vega.”
And just like that, all the little pieces snapped into place. “You’re working for Vega.”
“With him, for the time being, we have certain goals that align. Now why is a fucking Peña back here looking into another one of my fucking operations.”
It was Esie’s turn to laugh. She finally saw her escape route. “You wouldn’t fucking believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I think he’s my father, so if want to go tell him his daughter’s here to see him… that’d be great. A family reunion.”
The man’s face cracked as he cackled. Not the reaction she’d been hoping for. He tapped the book in front of him, “I noticed something else wasn’t in your dear old papi’s recollection of events. Did he tell you how he got most of his information?”
Esie assumed Stechner was trying to find out if she knew about Don Berna, at least his involvement with her, Javier said he figured the old cartel man was still operating somewhere deep in the jungle too. A competitor for Vega. “The concept of confidential informant shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to a CIA chief”
Stechner actually laughed in bitter disbelief, then said ruefully, almost to himself, “Javier Peña fucks a whore in Bogotá, falls in love, and now there’s another fucking Peña in Columbia that’s a pain in my ass.”
Esie rolled her eyes, how cliché, “You calling my mother a whore, very original, you gonna tell me I’m a slut next too?”
The man leaned forward, beady eyes sparkling, now. A cat ready to toy with its prey.
“Ah so you don’t know everything do you?” Stechner grinned, “do you even know your real last name should be Sotomayor?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know that your mother, was Helena Sotomayor, who was Javier Pena’s CI?”
“What part of, I wrote the fucking book, is so hard for you to understand?” But Esie was beginning to see an escape route form in her mind. If this man could vouch that she was Helena Sotomayor’s daughter… Vega’s daughter, then maybe, just maybe, she could figure out a way to get out of this alive.
“She wasn’t in the book though, was she?”
That was true. It had been Javier’s biggest stipulation. All his confidential informants would remain anonymous. And he didn’t want her mother mentioned at all. He said he was worried it might impact her mother’s career. She had a reputation with the clinic, one that needed to be protected. It hadn’t been a big deal leaving her out. Some bartender at a salsa club informing on who was meeting with who wasn’t exactly a major key to the case. “Most of my father’s CI’s weren’t mentioned in detail. It’s not like I was writing a love story.”
“No, no, you sure weren’t. Did he tell you how he got most of his CI’s?” Esie didn’t answer, she hadn’t thought too much about that, Javier never provided those kind of details, unless it was a big fish like his CI, Don Berna. One of the only informants she’d been able, and allowed to name. Her silence told Stechner what he wanted to know. The man had been looking for leverage, something to lord over her, throw her off kilter.
The yellow lamplight glistened off the top of the man’s head as he told her. “Your dear old daddy used to get most of his information from prostitutes. Javier Peña was famously the DEA’s man whore. He used to go to the brothels, pay them with American DEA cash, fuck them until they liked him and trusted him enough to give him information. If they were lucky, they got out alive.”
Not exactly the image someone wants to have of their beloved father, but Esie held his gaze, unmoved, “So?”
Stechner continued, knowing he’d yet to deliver the real blow. “Which is where he met your mother, she was a was a whore in Bogotá, as in the kind who took money and let narcos fuck her, and apparently asshole DEA agents too.” Esie perhaps for the first time in her entire life, was actually too stunned to speak. Stechner smiled as he read her face, then continued, “If it makes you feel any better, she was at least a successful one, until your dear old papi, Javier, made a bad call, got too ambitious, wanted information too badly. He sent her into the lion’s den, dangled American citizenship to her and the other girls like a shiny fucking carrot. So, he sent her in, the night of la Margita, to get fucked by monsters and find out what she could. A real gentleman that guy, anyway your mami fucked up, they caught on to her, and they raped her so bad she nearly died. Bad enough he had to send his sweet little whore away. Just as well, she wasn’t useful to him anymore.”
Esie’s stomach dropped but she said nothing. She wanted to believe he was lying; it didn’t reconcile with the parents she knew. But her brain couldn’t come up with a reason he had to lie about it. Instead that cursed reporter mind of hers started to place the pieces together… the way they never seemed to reminisce about old times in Columbia, the way Javier had been cagey, when he talked about his female informants. How valuable would a bartender a salsa club really be as a long-time informant, the loud music, the dark room, how would she know who to look for in the first place… Stechner’s story sounded less like a fairytale romance, something closer to a Grimm and dirty truth. Still, she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of letting him see her rattled.
Unfortunately, Stechner was trained in reading people. “Ahh so papi Peña didn’t tell you everything. Vega isn’t going to take the word of a whore, especially not a DEA snitch, that you are his blood. I’m your only shot of making it out of here alive. So, I would start being a little more cooperative.”
“Fuck you.”
The man raised his arm and for a moment Esie braced for a blow. But instead, he slapped down a file in front of her. “It’s not my fault that’s what happened. Now if you’re a very good girl you might even be able to ask your mami about it one day. Now that I’ve helped illuminate your past, there’s one thing I don’t understand. I’m hoping you’ll have some answers. I don’t think I need to explain to you that I know ways to get them, with or with out your willing cooperation.”
She did, you don’t get to be a man like Stechner without being well versed in all manner of torture. “Well, then I guess I’m happy to help.”
Stechner opened the file, and pointed at photo, it was clearly from a surveillance camera, one from Lorea’s compound, similar to the ones Trujillo had showed her, but not an angle the Columbian police had. And it showed in grainy black and white a man in a standard oil cap, with and assault rifle pointed at the lense. Brown eyes she knew all too well, but they weren’t soft like she knew them, they were hard and deadly almost detached. But there was no question, that was Frankie.
“I can’t figure out why your little boyfriend raided Lorea’s compound five years ago.”
Next Chapter
AN: I always hate the part of fic where the romantic leads separate... oh well...
Ok, here we go! The first chapter is here! I hope you'll like it. Thanks to @schnarfer for the beta read and your insights, and to my besties @thundermartini, @encasedinobsidian, and @thedilfdiaries. Love you!♥️♥️
Part II// Series Masterlist// Masterlist// AO3
pairing: Joel Miller x fem!able bodied original character
summary: Three people become strangers no more.
word count: 4400
tags/warnings: fluff, some angst, chosen family, soft Joel, first meeting, consensual forced proximity
Dividers by @saradika-graphics
Witch. Witch. Witch. Witch.
She dances naked under the full moon!
It's always the same old story, ingrained, embedded in the human brain, in every society that has existed in this world, for eons. The need, the urge to signal what is different, to push it away with a slash, damaging, vicious, being unnecessarily cruel, causing a wound, a shame for something uncontrollable, a part of a person that makes them whole and unique. The part that makes them special.
The apocalypse has changed many things; it has stolen and destroyed, allowing nature to reclaim what is hers, but this primitive instinct has remained unperturbed in far too many.
Sage had weathered the storm of the apocalypse. She had prevailed as it unfolded, forging a cuirass around her as she matured, becoming stronger against the hurt. Sharper. Bold. Quick to defend herself, to bite anyone who dared to aim that pettiness and cruelty towards her. But tonight, it hadn't been enough.
Sage had found herself alone when she thought she wasn't. Surrounded by the entire town celebrating Halloween in the Bison, standing next to Joel, yet isolated. Unexpectedly, the centre of everyone's attention, of Rachel, one of the patrol leaders, and her vicious words - made bare and exposed, an easy prey. Too distracted to see it coming, too trusting, too eager, teetering on the edge of a change, welcoming it, too slow to react and protect herself.
Discovering a new type of pain, deeper and excruciating, coming from someone Sage trusted, someone she loved; Joel. Stabbing her with his stillness, his silence. Allowing Rachel's touch, her hand on his arm, allowing her to stake a claim on him and badmouth Sage.
The hurled accusations had bruised Sage, shamed her as her hopeful heart shattered into a thousand little pieces.
Why then?
Why is she still hopeful?
Why does she still dare to try? Put herself on the line when the answer is always the same one?
Perhaps, because she's stupid. Naïve.
Because she wants to believe there is still goodness in the world. She wants to be hopeful and not get swallowed by her misery.
Because her soul longs to love and be loved, be seen and understood. Accepted, wanted for who she is. Cared. Desired. Have a partner to call hers and be his.
Because her heart chose Joel before she knew it. It gave itself to him, selflessly, without asking anything in return, let him carve his name on its surface, declare his ownership as they learned to coexist under the same roof, and gave him her trust as they got to know each other, falling for him in a way she had never done before.
The Halloween party, her presence in the bar, had been a foolish idea. Truthfully, Sage had known it as soon as the first news and the bubbling excitement for the upcoming celebration had started to fill the streets.
It had been easy to dismiss at first, keep her pattern as she had done for years, muffle the noise, and focus on her tasks and duties until Joel had broken Sage’s resolve, like he had been doing since the day she met him. He hadn't needed to do much for her to fold. A question with the first cup of coffee of the day between his hands and the morning sun bathing the kitchen, a whisper of hesitation, of longing shimmering in his irises as he gazed at her, reddening, wondering about her attendance, endearingly mumbling an offer to share a drink. That alone had been enough for Sage to say yes to him, to accept Maria's proposal to watch her daughter for the night.
Now everything is different. Darker. Bitter. Pungent. Dangerous.
Flying away, escaping, as Sage scolded her lack of self-preservation, furiously wiping the tears from her face as the skin of her arms and fingers burned from her barely contained power, demanding revenge, it had been the only option. The only way to ensure everyone's safety. Even if she inevitably ends up on the losing side, even if the rumours running rampant around the town about her cloud her mind and claw at her insecurities, and her sister's voice deafens her ears, berates her for making herself small, for caging her potential -the one she'd always desired to yield, but couldn't- and not defending herself, claim what is hers to take.
She should have known better.
Be careful, just a few words from her mouth, and she could curse you for the rest of your life.
The day their story began…
She talks to the spirits.
Life is not easy; nothing worth it is. It's complex, with ups and downs, happiness and sadness walking alongside like two sides of a coin.
This week has been difficult, more than she anticipated. As if the sorrow was fresh, a cut still oozing, bleeding with every breath instead of closing. These past days have been a battle against the melancholy and loneliness overwhelming her. It doesn't matter that she's surrounded by people who care about her, that she has friends with some close enough to consider family. She keeps suffocating, adrift, lost in her grief.
For grief is mercurial, a wound, superficial at times, and at others, runs deep enough to uproot and reshape. It is tangible, weaves a scar as it heals, never entirely, but enough to keep going and seek happiness again. Grief always aches on some level, coming and going in waves, never predictable, striking by surprise, ambushing her when she believed she had made peace with the past and moved to a better place.
Why now? Because, while Sage’s season has always been autumn, forever drawn to its spookiness, its colder temperatures, the crisp scent of fallen leaves, and the mist that saturates the sunrises, her younger sister, her Isobel, had always sided with the spring. The fragrance of wildflowers enhancing the air and the warmth returning after the winter. Vibrant and cheerful just as she had been. And with the spring finally blooming, the memories roused and spread like the breeze Isobel adored so much.
These memories flood Sage’s mind as if it hadn't been five years since she had begun to live in Jackson, since Isobel left her, breaking her promise to grow old together and die the same day. They stab Sage, making her soul anguish for the past, the things she cannot change anymore. But as her grandmother often said, the path of an Owens is not an easy one.
Sage wishes life came with the important dates marked, those pivotal instants that would shape her life signaled with bold letters to highlight their importance for the future, and having time to prepare.
It would have been easier to cope with her father's loss, the void he left behind, a sign to treasure his goodbye, and request one last hug that morning he went to work, never to return. Ensure Sage was ready for the Outbreak and understood her mother's requests, as she died two days later trying to drive her and Isobel to their grandmother's property, a woman she had only heard tales of. Believe her mother. Strengthen her will to find the path and have faith in the amulet her mother gave Sage. Trust it to protect and guide Sage and her sister to their destination. Help her realize she wasn't just a girl but something else, something unusual, something her mother had shied from, the reason why she had left her hometown, something Sage had learned fast as soon as she had started to live with her grandmother.
Some kind of omen would have been welcomed to shield her heart from the older boy who stumbled into the cottage years later as she shed her teenage awkwardness and ventured to discover who she was as a young woman. The boy Sage got infatuated with, but who chose her Isobel instead. An augur that the heartbreak would be healed with her niece's birth. Her Ginevra -her little tree, strong and resilient as the junipers guarding the lands, imbued with the same vitality and beauty.
Only for the heartbreak to come back ten times harder when it all crumbled, collapsing, falling like dominoes after her grandmother died of old age, and Sage wasn't good enough to foster the house's drive to protect and preserve the sanctuary. Sinking deeper into her despair, the guilt that corroded her bones when the barrier keeping them invisible from evil faded, and the raiders came -just two. Scouts, scrawny and malnourished but still dangerous enough to kill Mark, her brother-in-law, before Sage could stop them, leaving her sister unable to go forward, fading, allowing her broken heart to extinguish her will to live, and leaving her alone with a baby, forcing her to become a mother when she'd only supposed to be an aunt.
Leaving her home had been one of the most difficult decisions she had ever endured. A necessity she had confronted, alone, less daunting thanks to nature's help and the knowledge of where to go. To Jackson. The settlement her family had traded with a handful of times.
A community that has been her salvation, her heaven. An ideal spot to raise her adopted daughter, her baby, who has seen six summers and winters. A place that has given her room to thrive - to help to protect it, nurture health with her plants and herbs, and give back as much as she receives.
She tries to be grateful for what she has and not to ask for more. But when the wind sings and the leaves start to fall, she yearns for more, a bond, a connection she doesn't know how to seek or where to find. A love that's gentle and passionate, a love that beats time, that matures and lasts a lifetime.
Did you know she came here by foot, walking for a week with a baby strapped to her chest, three horses, and a bunch of goats and chickens like it was nothing?
Time heals, but it doesn't make Sage forget. It helps but doesn't erase her history. And when the grief almost suffocates her, distractions are welcomed, like the one walking towards her in this instant, one that stirs her curiosity and causes goosebumps on her skin. Putting down the scrubber and the dish she's washing, Sage dries her hands. Thanking the house for her forewarning as she leaves the kitchen.
“I’m sorry about your house.” Tommy’s voice is no more than a murmur, an apology that Joel barely pays attention to. Almost an incomprehensible buzz as he misses the snow from the first time he stepped inside the settlement, the memories attached to its coldness and the crushing noises underneath his shoes, the days before David and the Fireflies sank their claws on Joel and Ellie's bodies and spirits. "It was out of my hands. The winter was harsh, and the storms damaged way too much. We ended up welcoming more families than the houses we had prepared to live in. I don't think you'll have to wait too long to get assigned a new one. The repairing crews should be fast with the good weather now, and your help," Tommy says, bumping his shoulder with Joel's, "it will be like old times, brother, working together."
"Mmm..." Joel hums as they walk, perceiving Tommy's concern. It has been embedded in every look, comment, and touch he has directed at Joel and Ellie since they returned. Since he saw their haunted eyes and the new baggage on their backs. But Joel is not ready to say anything. He's weak, powerless to ease his worries. Joel's too overwhelmed to share Tommy's excitement about his presence and decision to stay in Jackson, haunted by Maria's mistrustful glare -the reminder of his tenuous acceptance in the community. Drowning in his feelings while he concentrates on Ellie. Keeping track of her and her quietness as the anxiety that presses his sternum and clutches his heart thickens the air, leaving him breathless.
Joel’s exhausted, tired of roaming and fighting, of having to sleep ready to battle. Joel feels old. He longs for a home, a place to rest and be, something he can own, be safe, and provide for Ellie. He’s terrified to feel again, to lose what he has just found, what has awoken him from his grief, the void, the darkness he let himself plunge into.
Telling Ellie the truth about what he did at the hospital had been the correct choice, but the consequences are still unknown, a source of unrest, a source of nightmares, a gut-wrenching terror so vast Joel is sure he won't survive.
"Sage is a good woman, honest, and a hard worker. A hell of a patrol partner. You’ll like her,” the pressure of Tommy's hand on his shoulder, squeezing him gently, grounds him and brings him back, “She supplies Jackson with medicinal plants she grows in her greenhouse and cultivates the ingredients to make soaps, lotions, and shampoos. Marissa and Dee help her. You’ll meet them soon. She could use some help. The house needs some repairs. But they are not a priority now," Tommy says, pointing to the cottage that will be his and Ellie's residence.
She has haunted the house. I know it.
Stillness surrounds them as Joel gets the first glimpse -even the trees remain frozen, not daring to break the spell- an eerie sensation that collides against the aliveness of the streets they have just crossed.
It's big, old, still robust, and elegant, with history behind its two floors of faded white walls, a well-kept garden encircling the greenhouse attached to one side, and a roof that could use some fixing.
There's only one thing moving, distracting him from his thorough observation: a cat with its tail shifting from side to side, a guardian dark as coal sitting comfortably on a wide chair on the porch, overseeing the comings and goings of the town's inhabitants with intelligent yellow eyes.
“Don’t listen to the rumours," Tommy advises Joel as he climbs the three porch steps, "she gets picked up because she’s a w... a bit different,” picking up Joel’s wariness with his lapse. Having to live with a stranger is not a thing Joel is excited about, but he will take anything to stay here. Tommy continues, "She lives with her kid. Ginny."
The banister is rough under Joel’s hand, sturdy as he leans on it, as he follows his companions, listening to the wood creak under their weight, betraying their age.
The atmosphere is heavy as they cross the distance towards the front door. He’d even say colder. As if the next exhalation will come out of his mouth with a characteristic winter mist. As if the house were sentient, an entity observing and judging them.
As if an invisible force settled around them and froze time and space. One, two, three seconds -or perhaps not even that, barely a fleeting instant, enough to prick the hairs on the back of Joel’s neck, before fading away just as swiftly, leaving behind a friendly warmth that embraced them and deemed them trustworthy in its stead, a sense of acceptance and welcome. Leaving Joel baffled. He’s confused, wondering whether his mind is playing tricks on him, especially when he realizes he's the only one who has been affected. And the door is ajar when Joel’s convinced it was closed a beat ago. Barely requiring a light nudge to open completely, jostling a vintage doorbell, greeting them with a soft jingling noise.
Joel can't see much of the house as they leave the foyer and step into what would have been the dining room. He decides to stay beside his brother near the counter as the rich aroma of herbs envelops him, potent but not unpleasant. While Ellie wanders around, observing the transformed space, the shop -the light coming from the windows, its simplicity, the wood shaping it, making it functional, the plants lounging in every nook, and the shelves full of bottles and recipients on the walls.
“I already told you no, Tommy!" Sage exclaims, approaching the shop. Charmed by Tommy's unrelenting campaign for her to team up with him on Jackson's betting pool. "I won’t do it. I don’t care how much you bet on it!”
The voice blindsides Joel. It's melodic and gentle, lighter than he expected, with no hint of hesitation coming from the room next door, where he assumes the kitchen is. It incites his interest because, as far as he knows, they hadn't made any peculiar noise to give away his brother's presence.
"Don't be so harsh, sweetheart. We would split the winnings," Tommy jokes, grinning, amused by her attitude, and Joel's eyebrows rise at his brother's lack of surprise at being recognized so easily, at the familiarity, the playful banter that seems natural between them.
"Don't try to sweeten me, Miller. You know I have no trouble going to Maria." Sage’s threat pushes a laugh out of Tommy as she knew it would, curling her lips upwards and sharing his joy.
Walking towards Tommy, she remembers the spark she had felt when they first met -the attraction and the potential for more that briefly shimmered between them. Beautiful and captivating, yet ultimately imperfect, lacking that essence, unique, and irresistible. It hadn't been hard to let her feelings go, nurture their existing friendship instead, and allow it to grow and become one of the most meaningful relationships she has.
It's a decision Sage’ll never regret, even if Tommy’s relationship with Maria hadn't blossomed, for she has gained more than she had lost: a friend, a confidant, the overprotective older brother she never had.
“You drive a hard bargain, Sage. I'll stop. I promise. It’s not what I’m here for. I brought you some housemates.”
“Oh,” she mutters, caught off balance, as she steps into the shop and sees a man and a young girl standing beside Tommy, observing her. She had been so concentrated on Tommy that she hadn't sensed he hadn't come alone. They look weary, completely worn, with a shadow of torment looming, coercing a divide between them.
Joel’s gaze is unwavering, without blinking, while Ellie sneaks glances between peeks at the shelves. They study Sage with inquisitive dark eyes. Akin yet unrelated. Reserved, broken, but not bent without repair. Deciding what she will mean to them -whether she will be a friend or a foe, as the hush takes hold in the room and grows solemn, as three people become strangers no more.
Joel is left speechless. He doesn't know what to think, other than Sage’s not an abstract concept he created in his mind anymore, as Tommy described her. And she's nothing like he predicted.
She has a real body now, soft, not of a fighter, shorter than him, with silky chestnut hair, barely contained in a hair clip, cascading down her back, with a few locks framing her cheeks and the angle of her jaw. She's wearing clothes he's not used to anymore. Who wears a long skirt these days? Floral, with white specks of green, red, and pink. A pair of old sneakers and a cardigan to fight the chill over a tank top.
Sage’s younger than he had pictured her, around mid-thirties, Joel gathers, with an open face full of life, showing her emotions freely. She dissects him as intently as he does her, taking account of every detail unflinchingly, without a flicker of fear, not skittish of the weight of Joel’s stare. Her eyes are stunning. Joel is not sure of their colour, hazel or perhaps dark green. There's a gleam in them, a magnetism that calls him, a mysticism shimmering below the surface that beckons him and tempts him to discover, encasing an old soul, mesmerising and intriguing. Everything in Sage is alluring.
Her tongue peeks between her lips, licking them as they curl, and a smirk gets sketched, promising trouble, leaving Joel rooted where he's standing. Dumbstruck as his heart somersaults and his hands tingle, closing into fists.
Although Sage knew she might have to share her home at some point while the houses got repaired, the council had carefully avoided her to the point she had been sure no one would come. But not Tommy -she's not surprised he went directly to her.
What Tommy’s asking for is not something trivial or unimportant; it's much more than a roof. It's safety, understanding, friendship, a home. She could refuse the implicit question in his visit, and he would understand. Sage has no doubt. He wouldn't pressure her to accept, just as she knows he'd never bring someone she couldn't trust or who could harm her or her daughter. But even without the house's approval, the push, the importance she's instilling in her to acquiesce, Sage’d never deny Tommy.
The man is handsome. Big and thick. Older than her. With broad shoulders and strands of silver peppering his curls and patchy scruff. He shares Tommy's gaze, rich brown, weary, deep pools to his soul, crowned by aging lines. With so much sadness and grief, it breaks her heart.
She knows who he is. Joel. Tommy's older brother. He's unmistakable. His essence leaves no doubt. It's the same one as Tommy's. Good men, strong and honourable, darkened by the world surrounding them, scarred by the things lost, stolen, stripped mercilessly from their hands despite their fight, and forced to leave them behind.
"Joel." His name slips from her teeth smoothly, unhurriedly. It curls on her tongue as she tastes it for the first time, savoring it, granting it a velvet-like texture, "It's a pleasure to meet you. I've been wanting to put a face to Tommy's stories for a while."
Joel stays quiet, with his brow settling, shock and cautiousness overtaking any anger for being caught off-guard.
His astonishment is charming, easy to concentrate on when his presence is so intense -when his soul sings for her in a way she's never felt before, a kindred spirit, aching for the same hers does- and prompts her to keep talking, "Your resemblance with Tommy is uncanny. You have the same core. Is that your kid?"
If he's Joel, the girl has to be Ellie, the teenager Tommy mentioned while talking about his brother, the reason why he's been so cagey and worried these past months.
"She's..."
“He's not.."
The harshness in Ellie's tone bites as their voices merge, pushing Joel away till he physically recoils, saturating the room with tension as she glares at him. Joel inhales slowly through his nose to steady himself, grinding his jaw to swallow what he almost said, shifting his sight to Sage.
"She’s Ellie." Joel's response is infused with caution, afraid of Ellie's reaction. Admitting he views her as his daughter would be too much, crossing an invisible line, taking a step too far when their relationship is so tenuous and the uncertainty is so vast it threatens to destroy him.
"What's this?" The question, the jar in Ellie's grasp, becomes a buffer, diverting the focus on her.
She reminds Sage of a raccoon, a cat too, a spicy one, tiny, full of fire, always wandering, touching everything with their little paws, exploring, inspecting their surroundings. She reminds Sage of her fiery sister, evoking the times her inquisitiveness had gotten them into trouble.
"Shaving foam," Sage happily answers. She'd filled the jar on Ellie's hands and the others on the shelf yesterday. It takes no effort either to recognize the haunted shadow in Ellie’s irises, she can see the tormented memories, the demons striving to conquer the dreamland. Sage’s seen it before -she still struggles with her own- and this time won't be the last.
"Mmmm..." Ellie’s eyebrows furrow, musing for a flash, as a hue of mischief glimmers in her, the only hints before firing her snark, "You should get one of these, Joel. It might make you look younger. You know? Those white whiskers are stealing your face, man."
There's a proud glee playing in the upturned corners of Ellie’s mouth as her sass thieves a good laugh from Sage and Tommy. But not Joel. He gapes at her in awe, as if being the victim of her pun was a reward, a privilege to treasure. He tries to mask it, scolding his expression and hiding behind his closed eyelids.
“Jesus, Ellie…” He starts, but it has no bark. It’s too gentle, flooded with hope at the olive branch Ellie has offered, to the fact that she hasn't left him.
"What?" Ellie interrupts him, looking at him as if to dare him to rebuke her till Sage babbles.
The idea, the thought of Joel shaving his scruff, it feels somehow sacrilegious to Sage, loosening her tongue, pushing her to speak, "Not everyone needs it."
Joel grows bashful, oblivious of how Ellie and Tommy look at them, smiling shyly, elated, and amused in equal amounts. Enjoying Sage’s reaction, how she can't conceal her shock, the blush coloring her face as her eyes round.
“So… Yeah… I’m sure you want to clean up and rest for a while, so… rooms... they are right this way."
Sage bolts, rambling about the bedrooms, flustered with the image of Joel's expression, the sparkle she saw etched in her mind, opting for a quick escape before what she admitted can be digested and cause a reaction, attempting to bypass Joel and any potential teasing from Tommy. Ruminating her attitude, the fascination Joel has fired up, wondering why he has her this agitated, this nervous. Thinking again about those signalled days and how one of them would have been helpful today, to be ready to meet this man and the sensations, the desires he's awakening.
"Just be careful with Sal," Sage suggests, already halfway up the stairs to the second floor, while Joel scarcely avoids stepping on the black cat he saw outside meowing as it trails her, "he's a bit moody."
Joel follows her, and as much as he would prefer not to, he cannot stop the wish to admire her, to stay in her company and see what else she has to say, get to know her, learn what else gets her flustered, nervous, what makes her giggle, what brings her joy and pleasure, understand why Tommy has chosen her, why he feels safe in this house, willing to trust, why he's all wired-up when it's been years since he has felt anything remotely similar.
Don't touch her broom, who knows what will happen.
tag list! @milla-frenchy @jennaispunk @whocaresstillthelouvre @bergamote-catsandbooks @604to647
(beautiful mood board by my baby @/aurorawritestoescape 🥰🥰)
5k1 | Joel Miller x fem reader | ao3 | se7en collection | masterlist
Summary: after you promised Joel to try something new in bed and managed to make him skip patrol and stay home, he makes sure you mean it. So you enjoy a chill morning with him, and then you make good on your promise
Warnings: 18+ mdni. Established relationship, Joel can lift reader, feelings, smut, fluff, soft!Joel, consent king!Joel, oral (f/m), nipple play, breast fucking, pussy pronouns, praise kink, size kink, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, piv, spit as lube, anal play, rimming, anal, creampie, aftercare
a/n: this is a part of the se7en collection, and a sequel to Never enough but can be read alone
Thank you @aurorawritestoescape for beta-ing and for everything 💕💕 dividers @/saradika-graphics 🙏
Your breathing was slowly calming down, your head was resting in the crook of Joel’s arm. Your fingers were lingering on your bare hip, right where his hand was pressed just moments ago as he was using it as leverage, his thrusts hard and fast.
Joel’s eyebrows furrowed as he leaned toward you, his calloused fingers caressing your curves with a soft touch.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked with a note of concern in his voice.
“No. No, you didn't,” you reassured him immediately. “I love it when you hold me like that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” he asked, kissing the top of your head.
“Because it reminds me of how strong and yet how gentle you are. It’s hot.”
It made him chuckle and he laid back down, pressing you against him to hold you closer. It always felt like you were disappearing, melting into him; his body a shelter where nothing could reach you, the strongest protective barrier.
Silence and morning light filled the room as you were gradually drifting off back to sleep, lulled by Joel's fingers brushing your bare skin from your hip to your ass, and the slow rise and fall of his chest under your hand.
Lazy mornings in bed with Joel were quite unusual. He was an early riser and wasn't used to staying in bed. When he wasn't out on patrol before sunrise, he was busy fixing things in Jackson or working on his wood carvings at his workbench in the early morning light.
It was nice to stay in bed with him, with no rush, no alarm clock, no upcoming deadlines.
His voice roused you from your thoughts and that misty state, when he murmured a low “sweetheart?”
“Yeah?”
“About what you said earlier…”
“Mmm?”
“We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I know you didn’t want me to go on patrol, and that’s ok.”
You leaned on your elbow to look at him, taking in the view from his gentle gaze on you to his lips, shoulders and tanned chest, dusted with freckles. His strong body was always a call to sin, and even now, when his cock just left the heat of your pussy, you still had the need to lick at his skin, taste all of him under your tongue, nibble at his nipples and pepper his soft belly with kisses. You wanted to run your tongue along his softened cock, suck on his tip and feel him throb.
You wanted him, like you never wanted any other man.
And every part of you wanted him.
“I want to do it,” you said without an ounce of hesitation. “Yeah, I wanted you to stay with me, to spend all day and night together, but… I really wanna do it.”
He nodded, but you could see the gears turning in his mind. You knew what was spinning there, a shadow lingering — his fear to hurt you.
“Have you done it before?”
“No. No, never. I never found the right person, I guess?” you added after a couple of seconds, searching for the words. “The one I would trust enough, who would make me wanna do it,” you said almost shyly. “What about you? Have you done it?” you asked him, you hand caressing his belly and the scar that was there. You kissed it and looked back at him.
“I have, yes.”
“And you wanna do it with me?”
Joel chuckled, hearing your question.
“Baby. I wanna do everything with you.” He pulled you on top of him and kissed you. You had never said the three words to each other yet, but you could feel them ready to slip from your lips at the slightest opportunity.
"Listen,” he said, caressing your cheek with his calloused fingers, “we have all day to ourselves, yeah? So we'll spend it together and if you still wanna do it later, we will. But if at some point you feel uncomfortable, or it hurts, or you wanna stop for whatever reason, you tell me, ok?”
Dear lord. This man was too good to be true in a post apocalyptic world where the law of the strongest was everywhere.
But not here, in Jackson, and not with Joel. He always made a point of making you feel safe.
“Promise me,” he insisted.
“I promise.”
“Ok. I want you to know that, because I was kinda… in the moment, earlier. When I told you, you know…”
“Told me what?”
It was adorable to see that big guy blush, and you giggled. “You’re blushing. It’s cute.” Your words made his neck turn red.
You couldn’t resist and kissed him just below his ear. The moan he let out made you fall for him a little more.
“Sweetheart… Not that I don't like these sweet lips of you on me, but it’s important, you know? I wanna do things right.”
“Ok, ok,” you smiled. “When you told me what?”
“When I asked if… you thought your tiny hole could take it,” he added, his gaze on you uncertain, hoping he didn’t go too far in the moment. He let out a long breath when your smile brightened your face.
“Oh, yeah, I remember. I think that’s when I came on your big cock, sir…”
“Jesus… Anyway… Just… Tell me if it’s too much, OK?”
“Ok. You have my word,” you replied seriously. You wanted him to know you meant it.
“Good. Now come on, let’s take a shower. I wanna take care of my girl.”
The three words were closer to your lips than ever.
The shower alone was an incredible privilege in this world, but sharing that moment with a man like Joel always felt even more surreal. You loved feeling his skin under your touch, taking the time to roam over his pecs or biceps under the hot water. And you were melting each time his hands were on you, marveling at how gentle they were, or the way he was ogling your curves as if it was the first time he was seeing them.
Your hand covered with soap lingered on his cock a little longer than usual, but not only to play with him.
It was getting more and more difficult to keep the istance.
“Teasing me, huh?” he said, pressing you against the tiles, their coldness making you gasp. Gasp that he silenced by pressing his lips to yours.
He seized your hips, keeping you consensually caged against the wall, and his mouth trailed down your neck until he knelt in front of you and grabbed one of your thighs to put it on his shoulder, opening you up for him.
“Joel, we just….”
“I know. Don’t care. Wanna eat you out.”
He made out with your cunt, his growls echoing in the shower despite the loud sound of the water, lapping at your folds and swallowing your arousal, then twirling his tongue on your clit, releasing you only when you came on his month.
“Jesus,” you murmured once you stopped shaking, your knees so weak that it made him chuckle, nuzzling your neck, his arms keeping you steady.
“Hey, you’re playing dirty, Joel Miller,” you asserted, a mischievous tone in your voice, not only from the post high.
“Oh this wasn’t me playing dirty, baby. Just me takin’ care of you,” he said. “Playin’ dirty would be mighty different,” he added, a teasing look on his gorgeous face, and your thoughts were already wandering. “Okay, now let’s eat,” he stated, knowing exactly what you had in mind, confirmed by the way his lips were slightly curling when you glanced at them.
“But I wanna stay in bed with you all day, I’m not hungry,” you pouted, whining exaggeratedly.
“Non-negotiable,” he added, his tone soft but firm, and a new rush of desire ran through your body. “You need to regain some strength.” He stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel.
“Aw, bossy. That’s hot. Strength for what you’re planning to do to me?” you grinned and he pinched you gently, but you noticed the way his expression changed, and shivered when his hand traced the curve of your ass. “You taste so fucking good I could go down on you for hours,” he murmured in the hook of your ear. “Bet your ass tastes just as good,” he added when he looked at you, leaving you speechless.
“Kitchen now, sweetheart.”
Back in the bedroom, you put on panties and picked up one of his flannel shirts in his wardrobe.
“It looks good on you,” Joel said, watching you from the bathroom doorway. “Better than on me.” You shook your head and smiled, hearing him.
“You really have no idea how hot you look when you wear these shirts, do you, Joel?”
He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and followed you downstairs, his hand lingering on your lower back.
You sat at the kitchen island when he asked you. While he was making the meal, you were talking about a movie night planned for the next day, carvings he was working on, new refugees who had arrived in the last few days.
You couldn't take your eyes off him as he was cooking. His clothes were simple but looked so good on him. A plain white T-shirt hugged his biceps, muscles of his back working under the garment, and grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips, showing the outline of his cock. He was the most handsome and the hottest man in Jackson, hands down. And he was yours.
You noticed a light frown of his eyebrows, as if he wanted the meal to be perfect. His thoughts were surely less sinful than yours right now. You were trying your best not to get up and press yourself against him, feel his warmth against your chest.
“You know,” Joel said as he threw a towel over his shoulder then turned back to face you, “we gotta work on some houses. Turn them into proper homes for the new people joining Jackson. I was thinking that maybe I'd drop the patrols for a while. Work on the houses only, for a few weeks.”
A big smile lit your face at his unexpected words, and an invisible weight fell off your shoulders. “Really, Joel?!”
“Yeah…” he nodded, smiling back at you, before turning his attention back to the pan. You felt grateful. You knew he was doing it for you, even if you never asked him to. But he was aware how worried you were when he left. Even if he was the most skilled patroller in town, you never knew what could happen in the wild.
“So it's a deal. I'll tell Tommy about it,” he added while setting the full plates down on the island.
“Proteins, huh?”
“Yep."
Ultimately he was right, you realized how hungry you were after a first bite. While Joel took his time eating, you gulped down the food like a starving woman under his amused look.
Once you were done, your plate so clean it looked like it had just come out of the cupboard, you gazed at him, your elbows resting on the table. You didn’t even realize you’d stopped listening to what Joel was saying until he chuckled.
“You’re staring, sweetheart.” He set his fork down on the table, his plate also empty.
You felt heat in your cheeks, got up to clear the table and put everything in the sink.
“Let me do it,” he offered, but you raised your hand. “You cooked. Let me wash the dishes.”
Stubborn as always, he still got up and joined you to dry off the kitchenware.
It was a quiet moment and once again you realized how everything felt natural and easy between the two of you since you started dating. Everything felt like a dream. Falling asleep with him. Waking up with him. Fucking him. Cuddling with him. Sucking him off and coming on his tongue.
You restrained a concern that started gripping you on the inside. You moved in with Joel not so long ago, and you never shared your feelings. Not with words, at least, and you couldn’t help but feel insecure. What if he wasn’t feeling the same about you? What if he fell for someone else?
You’d never been the jealous type, before. But now? Now it was different and you hated those awful feelings crawling into your heart and mind.
You grabbed a glass to wash it, but an image of a woman hitting on Joel, at the Tipsy bison, or in her house while he’d be fixing things, flashed in your mind. Could this happen? The thought made you sick, jealousy running in your veins, even more when you realized that of course it was possible. Everybody knew him in Jackson because he helped everyone, went on patrol, kept the town safe.
And he was so handsome, with his salt and pepper beard, little pieces of silver in his hair, his broad silhouette.
You couldn’t bear the idea of losing him, and your mind started rolling in full overthinking mode in just three little seconds.
“You ok, sweetheart?”
Joel’s voice brought you back to the moment and you pushed this awful vision away, making it disappear totally at least for now, when you saw his concerned look fixed on you, and your heartbeat returned to its normal pace. “Yeah,” you answered, smiling at him.
You seemed to reassure him and he nodded, hung the dish towel on a hook then came up behind you. He slid his arms around your stomach, sending dozens of butterflies fluttering there. You wondered if he realized the effect he had on you, how wrapped around his finger you were.
Joel kissed your neck, unaware of your inner turmoil, and murmured unexpectedly, “I could get used to these lazy mornings. It’s nice to have a day off,” then rested his chin on your shoulder. He watched the water drain away while you were wiping down the sink, trying to resist the urge to turn around and kiss him.
Your mind went blank when he fully closed the gap between you, his hands travelling to your hips and his hard bulge pushing against your ass.
“Have I ever told you how much I love when you’re wearing my shirts?” he murmured, trailing kisses down your neck, making your hair ruffled. “A couple times,” you tried to smile, to keep your voice steady. “Mmm, only two?” he breathed, his touch firm on your hips.
You pushed back to feel him more and his hands tightened on your curves, the urge of feeling him inside you growing higher every second.
“I wanna fuck you all the time, you know that? Drivin’ me crazy like a damn teenager…” he mumbled, sliding a foot between your legs to spread them slightly while his hand pushed on your shoulder blades, bending you over.
“Yeah? Show me how much,” you teased, letting yourself lean forward, letting him do whatever he wanted with your body. He hiked the flannel shirt up over your ass and caressed your skin, and you could barely remember how to breathe while you were waiting for his next move, obedient and submissive. His hand lingered on your ass cheek while the other one was keeping you steady, the way he wanted. The way he knew you wanted to be held.
Joel pushed your panties to the side, his mustache tickling your ear, his finger brushing your wet folds, and a groan escaped him.
“You think you can take me like that, sweetheart?” he murmured, sending a spike of heat in your core, and you nodded.
“Words,” he said.
“Jesus, it’s so hot when you talk to me like that… Yes! Yes… please,” you begged.
“Asking so nicely for me,” he murmured, lowering his sweatpants to free his cock and nestling his tip at your entrance. You imagined the strong hold of his fist around the girth, the thought only making your mouth go dry.
“Yeah, you sure can. She’s so wet for me,” he asserted, his voice as soft as velvet against your ear, and you gasped when he pushed in, spreading your folds with his fat cock.
“Fuck,” he groaned, hands on your hips, yours gripping at the sink to keep steady, your mouth half opened.
“Joel,” you whined. “Fuck, Joel…. you feel so good…”
”I want you to come on my cock. Here first, and then in the bedroom. Can you do that for me, baby?”
“Yes,” you replied hastily, finger brushing your clit, ass arched back. He was fucking you slowly, taking his time, brushing that perfect spongy place while spreading your ass cheeks, and you imagined his eyes on your ass, wondered if he was thinking about how tight your ring would feel around him. You felt his cock throb when his thumb lingered on your puckered hole.
“So fucking pretty, always taking my cock so damn well,” he rasped when you shuttered around him under his thrusts and constant praise.
Just like that. Nice and easy for me.
Such a good girl.
Always so perfect for me.
The prettiest woman I’ve ever seen.
This little pussy was meant for me, wasn’t she?
So tight for me, squeezing me perfectly.
Joel kissed your neck when you came, fucking you through it until your whimpers stopped.
“Good girl. That’s one,” he murmured, his chest pressed to your back, moustache tingling your ear.
“One?” you stammered.
“One.”
He tucked his hard cock back into his pants while you turned around.
“But Joel… you didn’t come?”
“I’m not done with you, baby. You're mine, all day and night. Gonna take my sweet time fucking you properly.”
He gripped your thighs and lifted you up, heading toward the stairs. You didn’t stop kissing on the way, your arousal drooling over his pants, right where you were pressing yourself to feel his hardness.
“On the bed for me, sweetheart,” Joel said when he laid you down, his voice so low, so sexy that you had goosebumps just hearing him. You sank back against the mattress and shifted up toward the pillow and he followed you, towering over you, making you feel so safe, so desired that your heart melted once again. You spread your legs to welcome him, letting him kneel between them, his hands moving from your thighs to your hips, then reaching the bottom button of the shirt. He undid it slowly, moving up to the next one, working his way up until he got to the last button, then parted the edges of the garment, just as slowly, revealing your navel and breasts. He smiled when he noticed how your breathing quickened and put his hand on your belly, his touch so perfectly sweet, caring and protective that you trembled. You left out a moan when he leaned forward and rounded his lips on your tit, sucking and playing with it with his tongue before moving on to the other nipple.
“Take off that shirt, baby. And your panties. Let me see all of you,” he said as he stood up, facing you at the foot of the bed while he removed his t-shirt. His gaze swept over your body as you obliged, while yours went down, looking for the outline of his cock pushing against the garment. You couldn’t wait to feel him again.
“You’re so beautiful. I’m the luckiest man on earth.”
“Joel…” you cooed, heart rate increasing.
“Don’t ‘Joel’ me,” he scowled fondly. “I am. Now, remember what I told you right here, earlier?”
“Yeah.”
“Repeat it.”
You bit your lip at his firm tone, your wetness running along your folds.
“If I wanna stop, whatever the reason, we stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop you fucking my ass.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, glare turning black, and he removed his sweatpants, his cock spranging free.
His huge cock, fat tip.
You weren’t sure how your body could accept it, let him in. The only thing you knew for sure was that you fully trusted him.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said softly as if you were an open book. “If you want it, it will be ok, I promise.”
“I want it.”
He nodded, stroked his length slowly. “Fuck, you’re so hot,” you asserted and he smiled then laid down, wrapping his hands around your thighs.
“I’m gonna make you come. Make you drool and soak this little hole,” he said before pressing a kiss to your mound, his stare fixed in yours enough to send a rush of need in your core. When he brushed your cunt with his thumb, you rested your head against the pillow, your hands running through his curls. His tongue slipped between your folds, tracing them with its tip, as the curve of his nose pressed against your bud.
“Joel,” you whined.
“I know, baby. I know,” he murmured, his beard brushing against your inner thighs and he stopped to press a kiss just there, as if he wanted to erase the scratch. You hummed when his wet tongue slid again along your pussy, pushed into your hole and then moved back up toward your clit.
When Joel released your folds to focus on the little bud of nerves, licking and sucking, and slid two digits in your dripping cunt, you felt a climax already rising. You grabbed his hair, pressing him against you, rolling your hips towards him, and you came quickly, his mouth and tongue still on you, keeping his fingers in you to feel you clench on it.
“That’s two.”
“That’s definitely two,” you whined and laughed softly.
He moved up, straddled you, and leaned down to kiss you, his tongue sliding against yours. You loved tasting yourself on him, loved playing with him, teasing his tongue and his lips.
Joel’s cock rested over your breasts, hard and oozling precum, and you cupped your tits to wrap his length.
“Fuck, baby… What are you doing?”
“You want me wet, right? Want me to soak my asshole? Spit on your cock and move for me, jerk off between my tits. Let me suck on your tip. I love your cock so much…”
“Fuck… ok.”
He spat and started to slide between your breasts and you pointed the tip of your tongue at his slit each time his balls were pressed against your tits.
“Shit, yeah… fuck yeah, that’s good. Keep doin’ it, baby…” he said, his curls framing his face, beaded with a few drops of sweat. He was so sexy, so hot, that you couldn’t resist the need to slide your hand down to your pussy to play with your sensitive clit.
“Fuck, you’re such a dream, baby. So gorgeous, so hot, fuck… I gotta stop… Fuck,” he panted. “Hands on knees for me, little minx, before I bust on your gorgeous tits.”
You offered yourself to him, completely exposed in the daylight, fully aware of how free Joel was making you feel, open to all your desires and fantasies, confident in expressing them.
His thumb traced a line from your folds to your puckered hole, and soon he plunged in, as if he was already missing your taste, lapping and sucking your pussy, his nose brushing against your tight ring. His tongue moved up and it grazed your ass, the new sensation exquisite, and you leaned forward on your elbows to give him full access, starting to feel yourself loosen up for him.
“Gonna get my dick wet in that sweet pussy,” he said, and bottomed out in one go. His hands were on your hips at first but soon he spread your buttocks and let his saliva drool on your hole. He smeared it with his thumb, pressing lightly, testing its resistance.
“This little asshole, damn… he’s opening up for me, isn’t it?”
“Yeah… Yeah I feel it. I want it, Joel.”
“I know, baby… I know. You really want this big cock fucking it raw, right?”
“Shit, yes,” you whined.
“You’re gonna get it, as soon as you’re ready. Lemme open it up, ok?”
“Yeah.”
Joel spat again and pressed harder, pushing on the barrier which gave way easily beneath his fingertip. It was good, it felt good, pussy filled by him, while his thumb was brushing there, pushing in.
“Fuck, this pussy’s so damn good around my dick… and soon… soon, I bet this little hole is gonna feel just as good.”
He pulled back, spreading your buttocks, and you looked at him over your shoulder. His eyes were fixed on your two holes, your dripping pussy and your ass waiting for him. He leaned forward, his tongue aiming straight for your ring while he slid two fingers inside your cunt. A rush of arousal covered his fingers. He kept thrusting and licking, your moans increasing in the room, until he withdrew his digits and licked them, then he pressed his middle finger against your ass and pushed inside. His second finger hovered at the entrance, waiting for you to open up a little more, then pushed in as you relaxed. He spat, then used his fingers to work the saliva inside.
“You still want it, sweetheart?”
“Yes… Yes. I want it.”
He leaned forward to kiss your shoulder then pushed deep into your pussy again, covering his cock with your slit, his two fingers still working your ass, before finally pressing his tip against it.
“Breathe for me, baby,” he said, then spat again, his saliva sliding from his tip to your ring, and he started pushing slowly, his other hand tightening on your hip.
“Relax for me, sweetheart. I’m almost in.”
“Ok, Ok… Can you…”
“Yes?” Joel asked, instantly stopping. “Tell me what you want, baby.”
“Can you… talk to me? Like… dirty, and tell me what you feel? It’s always so hot, I’m sure it will help.”
“Yeah? You want me to talk dirty? Say how much I wanna fuck this little ass?”
“Yeah… fuck…”
“Alright. Now,” he said as he started to push again, “you know you’re gonna be fully mine, right?”
You felt your body trying to resist, so you clenched the sheets in your fists and breathed calmly.
“Y… Yours?”
“Mine. This pussy’s already mine, right? And this ass? Soon this ass is gonna be mine too,” he added, pushing a little more when he felt you relax, welcoming him in.
“Because I can’t get enough of you. I’m so fucking hard, right now. Gotta keep my head straight to not push in, balls deep. I wanna claim my girl’s holes, marking you with my cum, everywhere. Let all the men smell me when they’re near you.”
“Fuck… Fuck, Joel!”
“I know you want it too, right?” he added as he kept pushing, and his crown passed the ring, making you gasp and take a long breath.
“I already wanna fuck this little pussy, all day, and all night,” he said, rolling his hips inside you, going deeper inch by inch. “Wanna see your pretty lips around my cock, wanna look at my dick covered in slick while I fuck you, see how much you drool for me, yeah?”
“Yeah…”
He spat on his shaft again and kept thrusting until he was fully buried in you, his hands squeezing your hips. It was breathtaking, to feel him like this, a mix of slight pain and pleasure that felt so good. Because you were giving him something that no one had before. Because he was the only one who made you want to do it.
“Shit, baby… I’m in… I’m right here, and you feel so good. I… fuck… I knew you’d feel good but… fuck… Can I move, baby?”
“Yeah, fuck me, Joel. It’s so… it’s like I’m feeling you everywhere.”
He set a slow pace, thrusting in and out, panting. You could only imagine his gritted teeth, his furrowed brows fixed on your hole wrapped around his cock.
“God…Fuck, sweetheart… this little hole was waiting for me, right?”
You hummed, and feeling that you were ok, hearing your moans, he quickened his pace, letting go of your hip to graze your clit, and the sensation, that new sensation, was almost surreal.
“Oh my god, Joel… Keep going, please, don’t stop. Make me come, please… I wanna come like that.”
“I will. Fuck! Taking me so good, sweetheart… swallowing me right in. Taking my whole cock here, like you were meant for it. You feel so good, Christ,” he said, his voice breaking, and you came, clenching on his shaft fully buried inside you, making him whimper, his hands gripping your waist, his eyes fixed on your ass. You let him use you to get off, until he came too, sending his hot spurs in your most intimate place, his length throbbing.
“Fuck, that’s three” you half whined half laughed, your heart beating so fast you were afraid it’d explode.
“Are you ok, baby?” Joel asked, slowly pulling out, then helped you turn over to lie on your back, his big paw cupping your cheek and eyes diving into yours.
“I’m… sore, oh my god Joel, you almost killed me,” you laughed, and he smiled, pressing his lips to yours, then he grabbed a towel from the nightstand to wipe you off.
“C’mere.” He invited you into his arms and wrapped you in his embrace. He was warm. Strong. It was your favorite place in the world.
“Damn, I should use these kinds of magic tricks every day, to keep you from leaving me,” you smiled, brushing his torso then pressing yourself closer against him.
You felt good. Really good.
“It was perfect, Joel. You were perfect. Thank you for being so careful and patient.”
“Of, course, sweetheart. That’s all I wanna be with you. You’re sure you’re ok?”
“I am. Truly,” you smiled weakly, feeling closer to him than ever, and even more when he kissed your forehead then pinched your chin to make you look at him.
“It was amazing, baby. Thank you for trusting me,” Joel rasped, brushing your cheek. He took your hand to press a kiss on your fingers, and when your eyes met, his were warmer than ever.
“I love you,” he murmured, his voice trembling, opposite to his glare, more confident than ever.
Emotions overwhelmed you. You knew he wasn’t the kind of man to say these words, to express his feelings, lightly.
But he was yours, and you were his, you were sure of it now. This dumb jealousy wasn’t meant to be, and you felt relieved and grateful for crossing Joel’s path.
“I love you too, Joel.”
You nuzzled his nose with yours and kissed him, heart beating fast.
“How about we spend the rest of the day in bed, sweetheart?”
“Best idea ever,” you answered and cuddled up against him.
More "romantic anal" : 6 pm (Joel Miller x f reader, but different AU)
Joel masterlist
Thank you for reading 🙏 Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated ❤️
Follow @millafics and turn notifications on for fics updates
🥵🥵🥵 this was crazy hot. But also there was such beautiful communication. (Is good communication a kink? if so, it one i have and it got FED with this fic)
Here are three flowers that would be perfect for a bouquet inspired by Francisco Morales:
Firewheel 🌺 — A symbol of endurance, warmth, and resilience. With its sun-burnt red and gold tones, the firewheel reflects the life Frankie has lived — shaped by harsh environments, hard choices, and the weight of responsibility. Like the wildflower, he endures quietly, carrying everything without asking to be seen.
White Scabiosa 🤍 — Representing quiet, lasting love and emotional depth, scabiosa mirrors the way Frankie cares — steady, unspoken, and deeply rooted. It reflects a love that isn’t always expressed in words, but in presence, loyalty, and the small things that matter most.
Sage 🌿 — A symbol of healing, reflection, and growth after hardship. Sage captures Frankie’s quieter journey — a man trying to make peace with his past and become something better, especially for those he loves. Grounded and unassuming, it reflects both his wisdom and the weight he carries.
An exchange with @queenofslowburn had me remembering a favourite little passage from The Ghosts of Bogota about Javi's sluttiness flirtatiousness.
He finally found his way to Ana’s office. He was led to her by Ana’s co-worker -who gave Ana look he couldn’t see that said, “you will be filling me in on who this handsome man is later,” before she went to leave them alone.
“Thank-you miss, beautiful dress by the way.” Javier told the woman as she left.
“I forgot that you flirt with women like you need it to breath.” Ana said when the door closed behind her co-worker. Surprised to find that his attention on someone else bothered her, it never had before.
Javier grinned slowly, “Are you jealous?”
“No, but this is my job, I’d prefer it if you didn’t get written up for harassment.” Ana supplied a half truth.
Javier rounded the desk leaning on the arm rests of her chair so he could study her face. “You are! I’ve never seen you jealous before. I think I like it.” He gave her a quick kiss on her scrunched nose. She glared at him, but his eyes danced playfully, his voice lowering, “Relax hermosa, I was just being nice. Think about it, she’s a pretty enough girl, but she has to work every day with you, I’m sure no one pays her any mind while you’re here, looking like you do, she even wears bright pretty dresses just to hope to stand up to your shine, corazón.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like its fucking oxygen to you, Javi.” But she kissed him anyway then he helped her out of her chair, offering to carry her book bag.
Because that man checked out every single woman he saw for years, so even if he's in love he's still gonna be a cheeky fucker.
dont forget that YOU 🫵 are the backbone of this fandom. oh but im not a- DONT CARE. write a bad fic, draw that silly art, make that tumblr post with your headcannon. oh but i have nothing to share- DONT CARE. kudos that fic, write a nice comment, gush in the tags of a reblog.
YOU 🫵 ARE CREATING A FANDOM SPACE BY EXISTING AROUND AND ENCOURAGING CONTENT CREATION
tags: cock worship/blowjob pwp, clint comes twice (2!), a little overstim, established relationship, f!reader is able bodied with curly hair mentioned (if you don’t have curly hair and you can’t imagine it for this then it’s not for u, sorry not sorry my poc babes catch pink pussy strays all the time with no warning; you can pretend or not idc), my adhd brain cell can't edit anymore so if there are words missing in sentences soz
a/n: i love this character and the vibe he had with his girl; this fic IS written as reader x clint but, yeah i was picturing grace the whole time (sue me) and i added a reference to the movie she wanted clint to rent bc fuck it why not- this can be read pre-canon or as post-canon-she-lived!au but no baby, pregnancy, or marriage references are made (you can imagine them if you want just don’t tell me about it thx)
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Clint planted the idea in your head, so it’s his fault really. Maybe he didn’t say it out loud—but he said it with his actions. He never lets you make it all about him. Not in the way you want.
He’s too proud. Too stubborn. Too efficient.
Too fucking good looking when he’s breathing like he just ran ten blocks and his eyes are clouded with that intoxicating blend of lust and possession.
So you always fold.
Or, you always let him pull you off his cock and fold you into whatever position he’s been holding himself back for. Maybe he wants to eat it from the back until you’re collapsing in front of him or lay you on your back and fold your knees to your chest so he can see everything while you melt.
But you’re determined to watch him fall apart. Not in submission, but in safety. You want him to lean into that feral edge he gets when you’re on your knees and he palms the back of your head. When he almost slips into something raw and selfish.
Clint isn’t a selfish man, though. He’s built with devotion and grit. He takes it as his duty to be the kind of lover he thinks you would want to brag about. The kind of lover that focuses on you and your pleasure.
And in his man flavored brain he hasn’t considered that you might get off on pleasing him.
So he doesn’t indulge. Doesn’t surrender. Doesn’t luxuriate.
You can practically hear his inner voice. His thoughts and the visceral sensation from his perspective.
When he nears the edge—testing his resolve—he’s prideful about his self-control. Thinks it makes him a better man to hold off. Never falling too deep into the seduction of your mouth.
Your teasing tongue. The soft, warm slip of your lips, enveloping just the tip. Like a warm bath cascading over every nerve, cushioning every ridge and vein.
Slipping and sliding, in and out and in and out. He loses his tether to space and time.
Squeezing, sucking—engulfing him in your mouth, freeing his mind in waves.
Until the abstract starts to take shape.
Building and building.
The pressure.
Building and building.
The escape.
Relief is so close, but the build up is fucking divine.
And then your eyes. The glassy, faraway gaze you get when you’re so lost to the baser carnality of flesh and sin. The way your lips swell and shine as you work harder, faster. Bobbing up and down. Sucking in your cheeks. Using your hand to coat his shaft in saliva.
Until you’re hungry. Ravenous.
Taking more and more.
Until his dick is nudging the back of your throat, the spongy tip working deeper as your muscles constrict.
Until something clicks deep inside you, and that low, filthy moan starts rolling out without permission.
Until your groaning vibrates against the head of his cock, and he nestles deeper into your throat. You both feel it—his length throbbing desperately inside of you.
When tears run down your cheeks, and everything is a wet mess, dripping from your chin—
When just the tip grazing the back of your throat is about to turn into shoving his cock mercilessly deeper and deeper?
That’s when he always stops.
That’s when he pulls you off of him. His hands holding you back like he’s holding off a demon. Like he has to stop you from devouring him whole. For his survival.
Your gnashing, vicious glare is quickly softened. But a mess of tears and anguish bubbles instead. Tempting him, like only his body can release you from this torture.
But you don’t get your way. You’re shushed.
Dismissed. You argue with teary eyes and a ragged, hoarse voice. Protesting his cruelty.
You think that part might clue him in.
The fact that he’s the one dragging you off of him.
That you’re crying on your knees for more by your own volition.
You think, maybe, if he’s so devoted to bringing you pleasure, to coaxing you into waves of bliss—mindless, syrupy, boneless bliss–that just maybe, he’d let you keep going. Let you spend the time you want with your lips wrapped around his thick cock. That he’d give himself to you with trust.
If he wants to do such a good job pleasing you–then maybe he ought to let you have your way.
Let you twist your soft fist, pumping his cock from base to tip. Filling the room with debased wet noises as the pool of saliva under your tongue drips, thick and shining, over your knuckles and beneath your palm.
Let you hear him. Unfiltered. No more strangled grunts and throaty groans. You want to hear him call out for you openly, from his heart and from the caveman part of his brain he keeps domesticated most of the time.
You crave the deep, thrumming moan of satisfaction. His elation reverberating in your bones.
….
So this morning, before he got out of bed, you made him agree. You drive a sharp, no-nonsense bargain. No outs. All your demands spread on the table—or the sheets—between you. You wanna take your time and you want him to enjoy it. No, there's no ulterior motive and there’s no anniversary he’s forgetting about.
“Okay,” he murmurs into your ear before giving you a chaste good morning and good-bye kiss. He hesitates when he catches the hard line between your brows.
“You always say that.”
“Do I?”
“Mhmm. You say ‘okay’ when we start messing around—during the movie I picked and before I know it you’re fucking the daylights outta me and I’m passing out in your ratty old t-shirt again.”
“I thought you liked wearing my shirts to bed,” he argues but the soft smile peeking out the corner of his eyes tempers you.
“Maybe.” You shift your hips to pull at the aforementioned shirt where it’s twisting and bunched up underneath you. With a soft huff you add, “Just say ‘yes’.”
“You got it backwards, babe. Nancy says ‘just say no’.”
“Shut up.” You toss a pillow at him for that. “I’m not offering ‘free’ drugs. Just let me do something for you. You work too hard. Too much dangerous shit.”
He gives you a sober look as he pulls his arm through the sleeve of his shirt. “It’s not forever. And I’d do it every day for us, there’s no you owing me anything.”
“I know,” you sigh softly. The sun filtering through the dusty blinds is already warm on your skin. Neither of you have a lot. But you have each other. And that fills him with enough pride to fight tooth and nail to get out of the debt he was born into—no matter the job.
“Why don’t you consider it doing something for me?”
“This shouldn’t even be an argument.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” You stretch dramatically before crossing the room, feet padding across the worn carpet. “Don’t trip. I just wanna see my man let go and come down my throat.”
He lets you pull him in for another kiss. You can feel the heat of your words dancing on his tongue as he deepens it, palm firm around your jaw, encouraging you to keep going. You pull back with a soft laugh.
“We could do it now.”
“Baby, you weren’t even listening!” You scoff, giving him a gentle push. “I said I wanted to take my time. I’d miss half my shift.” He relents and you send him off with a stern ‘be safe.’
He thinks you’ll forget. But you won’t. You can’t.
You told him over and over again that this is all you’ve been able to think about. And despite the fact that he scares the shit out of anyone that looks in your direction, he doesn’t scare you with his attitude.
And when you get home from your shift it’s only gotten worse. The insatiable thirst to feel him clear your mind—fucking your mouth like he means to replace every thought with the weight of him. To only have the mental capacity to focus on breathing and relaxing your muscles.
It keeps you fired up enough to drag him straight to the bedroom, before you’ve even gotten out of your work clothes.
You warn harshly that if he tries to stop you, you’re going to come up with your own punishment for him. You don’t miss the way his eyes darken and his nostrils flare when you threaten him.
No. Today, your hulking debt collector—with his sour looks, dry humor, and leather jacket—is going to let you take what you want. And you tell him as much in a rant interrupted by a few kisses punctuated with your teeth tugging at his lower lip and clothes being pulled off and tossed to the floor.
Stubborn as he is, he knows you’re even worse. So he’s pliant when you push him to sit at the edge of the bed, settling onto the mattress with a knowing gaze.
Clint is still and quiet as you start. His own head is still full of enough bullshit from the day.
Just watching. Breathing. Nothing else exists when you drop to your knees in front of him. When you look up at him it’s not loaded with faux innocence and the frustration is already dissipating, all that’s left on your face is the joy and a hint of sinister satisfaction. It sparkles in your eyes and has you buzzing.
He’s yours and you’ve got no mercy now. Just a desire to give. And Clint? He starts to slip so quickly now. Enjoying the way you hum, tongue flat against the underside of his cock, vibrating soft and low. As if you’d been starved, you start with making out with his tip, lathing your tongue along the crown, suckling and swirling it between your lips and letting your saliva and his precome pour from your tongue so you can coat his shaft down to his balls.
Messy. Sloppy. Eager.
Wet, obscene sucking sounds mix with his throaty grunts in the warm evening air. He’s beginning to loosen up and you’ve barely gotten started.
You pay special attention to the sensitive spot that you know makes his stomach muscles tense and his toes snap. His own groan is cut off with a strained curse. You ease off the intensity, but for every sound he makes you reward him with a more enthusiastic response. Trying to tell him you love to hear him. To keep going. Louder.
“Fuck, that feels good.”
Yes! Like that.
You stroke him with your mouth and hand in tandem, hoping to milk another sentence out of him. It’s not that he doesn’t praise you normally or that he doesn’t love to murmur something filthy in your ear in bed—in the checkout line at the grocery store.
It’s that you just wanna hear it pouring out of him without a filter. You want to hear him so fucked out—because of you—that he can’t help but spill whatever’s in his head. You want to hear him unravel out loud.
He’s getting there. Encouraging you with more soft praise that makes your chest swell and your cunt flutter.
You pull off his dick with a wet pop, moving to kiss and suck at the base. You continue with your hand, slow, firm, pumping along the smooth skin and twisting your wrist—keeping him revved up, but not overwhelmed. Not a race.
“Keep talking.” You meant for it to sound like a seductive purr—but to your surprise it’s edged with something desperate. His cock jumps in response, the muscles in his thighs ripple with tension. “Please, I need to hear you.” Again, you’ve got his number, the kick in his shaft and the clench of his jaw confirm your discovery.
“Shit. Yeah, okay.” His chest is already heaving, and his eyes half-hooded. He pushes some loose curls back from your face as you start to take one of his balls into your warm mouth. You play with silky smooth skin on your tongue.
“You make me feel so fucking good.”
You move to the other. Letting your eyes fall shut for a moment and breathing deep. The musky scent is grounding. It also makes you want to dig your nails into his thighs and take him for a fucking ride.
His hand slides around to your jaw and you pull back, licking your lips. Then his thumb finds your mouth, slow and deliberate, tracing your lower lip before slipping past your teeth, like he’s trying to soothe the riot in his chest.
You suck on it, eyes locked on his, and something shifts in his expression. A quiet flicker. Awe, maybe. Or disbelief.
“Come here,” he murmurs, voice gone gravel-soft. He guides you back onto his cock, his other hand cradling the back of your head, fingers lacing through your hair as he settles in.
“Just like that,” he breathes. “Goddamn, you look so pretty like this.”
His thumb stays at the edge of your mouth, wiping a smear of spit from your cheek as his hips lift just a little, more instinct than control. “Like you were made for me.”
His words swirl over you, thick and sweet like the smoke from a Black and Mild, curling slow down your spine. The heat flows smooth and slow, flowing down your spine as droplets of sweat threaten to form.
You work him with precision, knowing his body like an instrument. Conducting an orchestra of one.
His sentences turn to grunted single-syllable words each time you take a little more of his dick. Sweat beads form in constellations on his chest as it rises and falls.
He’s in deep now. Under your spell.
Entranced by your bright little moans and the gleam in your eyes as you stare up at him.
He knows no more words.
Just heavy, ragged breathing interspersed with choked sounds. You use your tongue to tease, swirling and tracing along every nerve you can locate.
Involuntary moans, frustration and something raw are strangled in his throat and reflected in your own. You’re frenzied, just as fucked out from taking him apart as he is from being deconstructed by your mouth.
He strains, thighs flexing, as you suck and swallow lewdly. Your tongue could be numb, but you need more. You don’t stop. You can’t stop.
He swells on your tongue, getting heavier and harder like your mouth is coaxing it out of him.
Your lips strain around him, stretched just wide enough to ache, your jaw protesting each inch. The head of his cock drags slow against your palate, thick and impossibly hot, filling every inch until your throat has no choice but to yield.
You breathe through your nose, fighting the instinct to gag. Your whole body tightens like it’s wired straight to your throat. The delicious pressure—dense, unrelenting—makes your throat pulse around him.
He’s reduced to something primal. Revealed to be just as debauched at his most raw and unfiltered. He thrusts harshly, finally shoving himself down your throat the way you wanted. Fucking your mouth with abandon, his eyes rolled back and tendons in his forearms rippling as he clenches his fists.
You gag, obscene and choking on the force of it. He’s heavy on your tongue, riding the edge of unbearable—until his wide hands force you off. He cradles your jaw between his hands, briefly letting you back off to cough before he supports the weight of your head.
You stare up at his face, taking in every detail. The patchy flush scaling up his neck and his mouth drooped in a stupor. Wrecked and euphoric.
But Clint’s dark eyes are glinting with an alertness you weren’t expecting. He looms over you with something wicked and enticing settling into his features.
The view sends a rush of hedonistic desire barreling through you. And a deviant grin spreads on your face, before you open your mouth wide, laying your tongue out for more.
A dark chuckle shakes Clint’s ribs.
“So fucking stubborn,” he growls, his voice rough and dangerous. He releases his grip, watching with an amused smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth when he sees the effort it takes for you to hold your own head up.
You squirm under his heady gaze, rubbing your thighs together seeking any relief for your throbbing pussy. Hoping he doesn’t call you out for it. Not right now.
If you were to give in. Fold. Beg him to fuck you now, you know he would. You’d sob, writhe, and wail at just the kiss of his cockhead against your clit. The heat and pressure would have you undone before he could sink it inside of you. Your swollen bundle of nerves pulses with anticipation and frustration.
You know he’d torture you deliciously. Fuck you slow and heavy, make you feel every inch before giving it to you like you want. Arousal drips from your achingly empty cunt, and your walls clench as if his dick were just out of reach.
He grins like he knows exactly what you’re thinking.
“Stubborn and greedy,” Clint adds, before tapping each of your cheeks with his shining, slick shaft. He sits proudly, letting his cock bob in front of your open mouth before repeating the same motion. He tilts his head, studying you with rapt attention as he listens to the sticky slap of skin against skin.
Saliva pools under your tongue as if you weren’t a slippery, spit coated mess already. You can feel the energy between you humming. A switch flips somewhere deep. Heat rushes your veins, thick and sudden, like liquor spreading through your chest and rolling low.
Clint grips himself with a tight fist. Big hand. Big dick. You go a little dumb for it, your vision blurring at the edges. He pumps his hand once. Twice. That’s as far as you can count right now. He fucks his fist with a tight grip, hips canting just slightly. A few more strokes, then—“Open.”
He taps the blunt tip of his dick on your shining, pink tongue. “This what you want?” he asks with mockery edged with disbelief. “You want it nasty? You wanna suck on it just to make me feel good?”
You hum your affirmation as he starts to rock back into your mouth with slow thrusts.
It’s not long before he works back up to a brutal pace, holding you steady as he slips past your lips over and over again. His strangled, handsome grunts punctuate every movement, and you moan back in call and response. Lascivious. Depraved. Mindless with ecstasy.
“Oh, shit.” His voice is untethered. “You love it.”
You moan again in agreement and encouragement. He’s getting it.
“Making a fucking mess, baby.”
“Mmm,” you purr, muffled by the wet sounds filling the air.
“Yeah, you always get what you want, don’t you?”
Your entire body alight, thrumming with delight and lust. For a moment your eyes flutter shut and you’re lost in the most rudimentary form of existence. Just a body. Not dehumanized like an object—but human. Flesh and blood and bones and nerves. Controlled by gravity and pleasure.
His.
When you pull back to catch your breath—ragged and gasping—you hold his heavy lidded gaze. Instead of wiping the saliva off your face you smear it down your chin, drawing your hand down to squeeze your tits in a show for him.
A thousand remarks silently float on his heavy exhales. Praise and awe and filthy teases he can’t put together. You revel in the weight of the moment but can’t hold back the impish smile that spreads across your face.
You have another silent conversation with his cock. Studying it. The curve, the heft, the thick vein pulsing just beneath the surface. The fat droplet of precome leaking from his slit that joins your saliva catching in streaks and gathering at the base—where it sinks into the soft, dark curls there, slicking the roots and making everything look unbearably erotic.
It’s almost stupid. The way it’s just him. Maybe that’s just biology or a little bit of Freud (which you’d never admit), but the dick is really built just like him. Strong and gorgeous and molded by something greater than you to show his devotion, just like his hands, and his fucking intuition—and most of it’s so alive.
You can feel his pulse under your fingers as you spend a little too long enjoying your moment of appreciation, until you trace down, down, down, to massage his balls. Vulnerable. Just for you. In the most twisted romantic sense you could tear up if you thought too long about the way your man is vulnerable just for you.
The things he does just to keep you both afloat. The violence he deals in, the hard edges, the determination and gall. And yet—he never chose this. To be born into a world that demanded so much.
You pull off with a gasp, breath ragged, and spit slow onto the head of his cock. It drips, glistening, and you drag your tongue through the mess before taking him in again. Slow and deep, like a fucking performance. Your lips seal around him, cheeks hollowing as you sink lower.
Clint huffs out a short breath, half groan, half laugh. “Jesus,” he mutters, like he can’t believe how far gone you are. Like he loves it.
You salivate faster than you can swallow. Slick rushes down his shaft, noisy and obscene. Salt and musk coat your tongue—warm, earthy, a little bitter.
You slide your hand up slowly, twisting your palm like a prayer. His breath hitches. He twitches. You chase that with your mouth, leaning into the gravity of it.
You don’t just suck his cock—you kiss it.
Your whole body is pulsing. You can feel your heartbeat in your clit. In your fingertips. In your tongue.
You lick along the crown, slow and pointed, tracing the soft ridge where the color darkens. He jerks. You chase that movement with your mouth, then your hand, then your whole body leaning forward like it’s gravity pulling you down.
Tongue first. Then lips. Then again and again. Plush kisses. Sloppy kisses. Filthy, noisy, open-mouthed adoration.
You drag your tongue down the underside. Flat and slow. Tasting where he’s softest. You hum, low in your throat, and he shivers like you just said his name.
Clint lets out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan. You swear it scrapes up from somewhere he never lets anyone near. His hands find your face again.
“Don’t stop,” he rasps, broken and breathless. “Don’t fucking stop. Baby, please.”
His voice hits that hunger that’s been gnawing at you.
This is what you want. His unraveling. His trust. The heavy roll of his hips and the deep, animal sounds in his throat. So raw and desperately close.
So, you give it to him, tight and perfect, your hand stroking in sync with the rhythm of your throat, never breaking eye contact.
You feel the shift when he’s too far gone to hold back. His thighs tense. His breath cuts off. The curse he mutters is strangled and low—your name folded into it like a prayer.
Then he comes.
Hot and deep in your throat, pulsing with every wave. He tries to pull back but you don’t let him. You hold steady, swallowing around the weight of him, letting him give it all to you. His fingers curl tight in your hair, his hips stuttering as it shakes through him.
When all the fight is finally gone from his body, you lick your lips, smiling unapologetically.
Quiet seeps in as he catches his breath. His voice is barely audible when he speaks next, wrecked beyond repair.
“You’re gonna kill me,” he whispers.
There’s a beat. A flicker of mischief in your smile.
“How would I do it? I couldn't live without ya.” You murmur in your best Sid Vicious accent, earning you an eye roll and a soft exhale from Clint.
“You and that fucking punk movie.” He scoffs without animosity.
“Mhmm,” you hum, letting the relaxation settle into his bones.
You rest your head on his thigh and watch his fat cock soften in front of your nose—the way it twitches, rolls, like everything inside of him is still shifting and settling.
The air is thick. Sweet. Like sex and sweat and reverence.
You’re high on it. On the quiet, wrecked man under your cheek. On the trust. The way he gave in.
It’s not just about giving anymore.
Your pussy is still swollen and wet just from watching him fall apart.
You haven’t come. You’re not even frustrated. Just restless—wired and buzzing.
You still need him in your mouth.
Not hard. Not dominant.
Just warm and soft and spent. His taste still clinging to your tongue. The scent of skin and salt in your lungs.
You want to feel him twitch back to life against your lips. To savor it slow.
Greedy. Curious. Unhurried.
You’re not sated. You’re still hungry—but not for release. For him.
Just to feel it on your tongue again.
Soft and pliable, still sticky with spit and come.
Still heavy. Still his.
You drag your tongue along the cooling dampness, the velvety, stretchy skin, reverent and insatiable, already craving the weight of him, hot and hard in your mouth.
Clint is still coming down when you move again.
Your head stays on his thigh, lips brushing against the inside of it, inhaling deep like you’re grounding yourself in the scent of him.
His body is lax, legs spread wide, leaned back on his elbows.
"You done?" you ask, soft and sweet, like you aren’t already pressing your lips to his hip, nipping gently.
Clint makes a rough, exhausted sound, falling flat to the mattress and dragging a hand over his face, groaning deep in his chest.
"Yeah, baby," he mutters. "I’m done."
But you know better.
His cock is still right there, softening but still thick, still kicking with life, still heavy against his thigh.
Your lips part, hovering just above the swollen tip, breath fanning against him, watching for his reaction. Your breath is warm where it ghosts over the sensitive skin, and his leg jerks beneath your touch.
"Don’t—" he exhales sharply, fingers twitching like they want to push you away but can’t quite commit. "Too much," he mutters, but his voice is weak, lacking the sharpness of a real command.
Not a real warning. Not convincing.
Because when you press a kiss to the flushed, glossy tip of his dick, his whole body jerks. It’s slow and reverent.
His hand spasms where it rests on the bed, like he might reach for you. Like he might pull you away.
But he doesn’t. But he never does.
His body is betraying him.
"You don’t get it," he pants, eyes squeezed shut. "It’s not gonna happen. Not again."
Wrong.
Because his cock is already yours again. Already swelling before you take it back into your mouth. Heavy and helpless. Thickening against your tongue.
Clint groans. Low, drawn-out, almost pained. "Oh, fuck—"
But you hum against him, savoring the way he jumps at the sensation and whimpers at the tail end of a wrecked gasp.
His hands clutch your head, body shaking, legs trembling, no fight left in him.
Offering gentle licks and soft, open-mouthed kisses, worshipping him like he’s a divine being.
The room feels heavier with each passing moment. His body is trembling now, muscles taut beneath your touch. He leans back up to watch you, glued to your mouth.
You’re meticulous, lavishing every inch of him with attention. Feather-light brushes of your lips along his shaft. The tip of your tongue tracing the sensitive ridge beneath the head. You’re not trying to drive him mad. You’re succeeding.
And when he gets it…he breathes your name. Dazed and destroyed.
Something in you sings at the sound of it. It’s not just filthy—it’s sacred. He’s falling apart, and you’ve never felt so full. So loved. So in control and completely out of it all at once.
“You. Fucking menace,” he rasps, voice hoarse and raw. A sound you want to hear more of.
You smirk up at him and Clint groans, tipping his head back, already broken, already yours.
He’s yours now. Completely undone.
So you shift, wrapping your hand around his base, watching his thigh jump beneath your palm like his body’s trying to wrestle itself out of control. His jaw ticks. His brows pull together like he’s fighting to keep his eyes open. But he has to watch you.
He bucks once, involuntarily jerking toward you. The noise that slips out of him is caught somewhere between a gasp and a moan. You just lean in and swirl your tongue slowly around the ruddy, deeply flushed flesh.
The noises he makes are guttural, unrestrained. The growls in his chest vibrate against your lips when you take him back into your mouth.
His shaft throbs against your tongue, impossibly sensitive, and every movement of your lips sends sharp jolts through his body. He’s panting now, the sound raw and ragged, as you bob your head seeking more.
You’re not just getting off on his sounds. You’re addicted to his surrender. Every breath, every tensing muscle, a confirmation that he’s still letting you have him.
You can feel him straining to hold on, his body taut with the effort, but he’s unraveling fast.
His chases more unconsciously, rocking toward you and forcing himself deeper into your throat. The pressure is overwhelming, but you don’t stop. You press forward, letting him own the space in your throat as you swallow him whole.
The sounds are pornographic and lewd. Echoing in the air between his gasps and the muffled moans vibrating from your chest. He’s lost now, completely at your mercy, and you’re relentless.
You pull back to tease him with just your hand, rubbing along the most sensitive nerves. So concentrated. You hold your tongue out–knowing he’s close again.
“Like this?” you ask, already glowing with the high of reading his body so well.
He can’t answer. Just squeezing his eyes shut. Fighting the urge to collapse. But he’s determined to watch you. His jaw flexing as he struggles.
“Come for me,” the words are soft, like a prayer not a demand. “Again.”
“I can’t—shit, baby, you’re too good,” he chokes, like the truth is dragging its nails up his throat. He pants out another curse and, “Gonna—”
When he comes the second time, it’s not as strong but just as physically and psychologically devastating.
It lands on your tongue and lips before you swallow and give him one last suck and squeeze, milking every last drop from him—along with an almost pained, broken groan.
Even as he softens, you don’t stop. You lick at the sensitive head, suckling softly, drawing a sharp hiss from his lips as his hips jerk away instinctively. His body shudders beneath you, his muscles trembling uncontrollably.
When you finally release him and his length slips from your mouth, you can’t stop from pressing one last kiss to the tip.
He lies back flat, utterly spent, the sheen of sweat on his skin catching the dim light. His eyes closed, his mouth slack as he tries to catch his breath.
You watch him, lips swollen, your whole body humming—sated, smug, and a little in love with how completely he gave in. You’ll never forget this version of him.
Soft.
Spent.
Yours.
You kiss the inside of his thigh, quiet and slow. Then drag your palm along his thigh. Still loose. Still recovering. But he’s watching you now, head tipped forward to keep his eyes on you.
A smile pulls at the corner of your mouth.
Clint exhales like it’s half a laugh, half a warning. “Didn’t think you’d go that fucking hard.”
You smile, just a little. “I told you I wanted to take my time.”
“Okay,” he admits. His voice is gravel, stripped bare. “You’re right.”
You don’t say anything to that. You stay there, the ghost of a grin on your spit-slick mouth, cheek pressed to his thigh like it’s holy ground.
You don’t move. Don’t gloat. Just exist with him like this.
Quiet. Sated. And a little exhausted.
Still his fault, really.
He loves you like a rock. Solid. Unshaken.
And maybe he still doesn’t let you make it all about him.
But tonight he did.
You gotta worship that when you can.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
thank you for reading pls let me know what you liked or hated or ???
join my tag list here
@yxtkiwiyxt my clint babe <3
@lovely-vamp-princess @gothcsz @auteurdelabre @adoreyouusugar @swankyorange @itwasntimethatdidit40 @ivoryandflame @indiegirlunited @syd-djarin @miss-oranje-disco-dancer @harriedandharassed @bbyanarchist @94namkooksworld
other a/n: a long time ago @gothcsz posted the first part of unscripted desire and these two lines:
Javier tuts, walking over to you with his soft cock hanging between his legs and you do your best to not let your eyes drop down to it. He’s got an unlit cigarette hanging from between his lips.
and it made me think about soft cocks for weeks, WEEKS! …which led to a wip that died when i lost my whimsy in the dark months, but now… NOW it is HERE bc it was meant for clint all along so extra ty for that <3
it is hard for me to put into words just how hot this was. i really like how you wrote clint - his reaction to all of this felt very him. and i do not blame reader one bittttt for fantasizing about this. damn. truly, this was so good. the dialogue between them was delicious. thank you for this tasty story. 🖤
@bergamote-catsandbooks you’re playing with fire!🤭 Don’t you think? @simpingforjoel Those are wonderful examples. Can you imagine those hands? Big and sturdy, with this thick fingers and wide palms, a little bit rough in the right places thanks to a life working with them. They are strong and capable, greedy for your warmth, your skin… they grope and squeeze, seeking any excuse to be on your body, your skin if possible, sneaking inside your clothes if needed, not caring of where you are… always worshipful, always aware of the privilege they have, always loving, sometimes a little bit rough when passion runs hot, always insatiable for your body, thighs, breasts, tummy, hips, ass…
I’m adding some extra options in case my words need some more visuals🤭
See Masterlist : See AO3 : See Prequel Fic - The Ghosts of Bogota (With Javier Peña)
See Prologue : Previous Chapter : Next chapter
AN: Not gonna lie this one isn't my favourite but I need to post it to stop my insanity. Sometimes the only way out is through.
From Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Columbia episode; “The planes travel with their own mechanic to cobble together anything that might go wrong, and stuff can go wrong. The risk is that we’ll be able to land but not take off again, so this guy is our return ticket out of the jungle.”
But don't worry,
She'll Make It
It took a moment, she didn’t quiet have her bearings. Her situation so dim, so impossible, that is seem more probable that she was in a dream. That was until the pain slammed in to her brain. When her eyes came into focus they were glaring at the cretin of a man staring down at her from the other side of a table.
“So, what is this, you drugged me and brought me here, for what?” Esie asked the man the second she found her voice in the dark room.
“No. Well, not exactly.” To her surprise the man, who stepped forward, responded in English to her query. He was old, probably had at least 30 years on Esie. But it was hard for her to see much else in the dimly lit room, with her head in screaming pain. “You were already passed out when they came to take you.” The man said, voice sounding more bemused than bewildered.
“Oh yeah, that happens sometimes,” she nodded to the counter in the corner of the room, as she spotted her little backpack she’s brought with her to the market,“Ooh can you grab my bag,? I have some pills in there is need to take for my head, I have a lot of pain actually so if your aim is to grill me on what ever the fuck, your best bet is to give me some of those.”
The man stood up with an exasperated sigh, and rifled through the bag, he pulled out a pill bottle triumphantly, “Here.”
“Oh no, actually I should probably take those too, but I have to take a stomach pill first.” The strange man searched some more and pulled out another bottle.
“Yeah, those are the stomach ones, but I still need the ones for my head.” When he’d found the other bottles.
“How many?” he asked.
“One for the stomach pills and then two for the head.” He parsed them out and walked over holding them out to her, “Could I get some water or something for that?”
“Are you serious? You can’t just swallow them?”
“No, you can choke and die like that you know.”
“Are any of those pills anti-psychotics by any chance?”
“Not yet… bottled if you have it, my gut biome isn’t adjusted to the local water. This doesn’t feel like a good time to get dysentery.”
“Fine.” He cracked the door and she squinted as light flooded in from the hallway. Esie clocked that it was artificial light, so it was either late or there were also no windows outside. “Jose, come inside and watch her for a minute” He called in fluent Spanish.
A giant guard who wore a Glock tucked into his belt stepped into the room as the other man went to get her water. “So,” Esie said, still pretending to be causal about the whole affair, “do you have any hobbies?”
Frankie and Javier drove to a small airfield just out of the small city of Villavicencio. A man emerged from the hanger they’d parked in front of. He seemed to recognize Javier as soon as he stepped out. He extended his hand and Javier took it. “Long time.”
“Not long enough.” Javier told him.
“Who’s this?” The man said nodding a suspicions eye towards Frankie.
“My pilot.” Javier answered simply, clear that he had no intention of elaborating further, the other man shrugged and nodded before unlocking the door to the hanger.
“Alright well, I’ve got what you asked for if you want to look it over.” The man said, leading them to a collection of weapons and gear laid out neatly on a table.
Frankie inspected the two assault rifles. “A modified M16 with night force scope. I did my first tactical training with this for Delta.”
“I wanted something you and I would both be familiar with, this was state of the art in ’98. It’s the last assault rifle I used for a jungle rescue of an asset out there.”
That surprised Frankie a little. “You rescued an asset in the jungle, I thought you were more of a cop in a political position here.”
“I told you kid, my list of sins is a mile long. The cartel kept my CI with militia in the jungle. We had to retrieve her. Will that work for you?”
“Yes.”
Javier picked up a black handgun, “The 92FS Compact it’s a slight improvement on the 92SB Compact.” The man explained, The 92SB compact had been the gun Javier had used as his side arm through most of his time in Columbia, “not quite as stylish as the 92SB, but’s lighter and slightly more reliable.”
Javier disassembled and examined the gun before reassembling the weapon with practiced ease. Then handed the other one to Frankie for inspection. Frankie repeated the process with similar competence, then he nodded at Javier. “These will do.” Next his eyes fell to the rest of the equipment, scopes, knives, rope, extra bullets.
“These goggles are heat-sensing, likely more advanced then the ones you used, some of the tech has come along way in the past 20 years. Developed for us special forces, they are the best thing you can get on civilian or black markets.”
Frankie picked them up, “I’m familiar with these.”
Javier picked up the flank jackets, “Lighter, than your old one. Better for traversing lots of ground but even more effective than the old ones.”
Javier seemed to have more tactical knowledge then Frankie had anticipated. It made Frankie feel a little better, like it might not be all on him when it came down to the wire. I gave him more hope that this wasn’t a fool’s errand, that they could save Esie. But only slightly more hope, if Frankie was a little rusty, Javier was corroded for the time he’d spent away. Frankie knew his reaction time, and his mind, weren’t as sharp now pushing 40 as they had been even 5 years ago. Javier, 20 years out of the job, and in his 60s, was nearly a liability. Except he knew this country, this world better than Frankie. And as he looked at the kit Javier had requested it was nearly what he’d have asked for too, and there was no way he’s have been able to get the equipment in a day’s notice. But there were a couple things Frankie wanted, just in case. “Can you get me antibiotics for our med kits. And wound packing kits.”
“I requested standard med kits.” Javier told him.
Frankie might not argue with Javier about what he wanted to do with cows, but Frankie knew he’s knew better about this. He’d already burnt whatever shot he’d had of building a proper relationship with Javier when he’d told him about Lorea. Even if he hadn’t getting Esie out alive, in whatever condition they found her in was the only thing Frankie cared about. “I understand sir, but I’ve carried a wounded soldiers out of the jungle before. Id rather have it if it’s possible.”
Javier looked at the man. “Can you get those inside of an hour?”
“Should be able to.”
"And some zip ties." Both men gave frankie a quzzical look.
"Interesting pilot, Javier."
Rather than ackowledge the quip Javier only said. "Zipties too, Jorge."
"I can arrange for that."
“Alright let’s see the plane.” Javier wasn't interested in fucking around.
The plane unfortunately was not what Frankie would have wanted. It made sense, it was too far to use a chopper, the plane would cover more ground, and it needed to be able to land on a small jungle airway. It would also allow them to fly in low, and it was still used in the area. So it could go reasonably unnoticed, with only two men, they'd need to use stealth as their main tool. But this, this was the oldest plane Frankie had ever seen outside of a museum.
“Will that work?” Javier asked Frankie.
“Do you mean does it run or can I fly it? Answer is maybe and probably.”
“What?”
“I’m helicopter pilot mainly, but I can fly both. But that thing is older than time.”
“It’s all we got.”
“Then, it’ll work.” He hoped stepping to inspect the ancient plane. It was a light cargo plane, probably from the 1950’s. He would have found it cool if he didn’t need to fly it through the fucking jungle. Or if he could have a few weeks to look it over, make sure nothing was rusted, or no bolt was out of place. But time was not on their side. So, Frankie preformed a quick circle check on the outside of the plane then hopped in the cockpit where there was, hopefully, some sort of instruction manual.
Frankie was reading some specs he’s found on his phone. To his mind just a step above a fucking YouTube tutorial video. But he was making do, and doing his best to ignore the pit in his stomach. The door to the small cargo hold slammed open and Javier started throwing their gear in. Frankie was looking at the cockpit controls with a grimace. “What’s wrong?” Javier asked when he saw Frankie’s furrowed brow.
“Nothing’s automated, I’m going to have to chart this flight the old-fashioned way. And I’m not sure about the fuel to get us back.”
“We can fly back into Florencia, it’ll be a shorter flight.”
“That could work, that’s if this thing even gets us into the air in the first place, it’s older than you.” Frankie was lost in thought; he’d forgotten who he was speaking to. To his surprise that comment drew a soft chuckle form the older man.
“Do you think it will?”
“I think it could.”
“Look, I can try and get up another plane, but it needs to be one that is off the radar that can land on a tiny jungle runway, this plane probably was an old smuggler’s plane, it probably even flew out that smuggler’s strip back in the day. But if you don’t think it will work, well we can get another one but that’s going to take time, a day maybe two…”
Time. Time was something Frankie and Javier knew they didn’t have, every hour, every minute every second, lessened the likelihood they’d find Esie alive. “No, she’ll work.” He said it more confidently than he felt, but what else was knew.
“Okay, I’m gong to get the rest of the shit you requested. How soon can we be in the air.”
“Give me 10.”
Javier returned to the hanger, shook the man’s hand and handed him a bag of American cash. When he returned to the plane he closed the cargo door with a bang then climbed up into the co pilot chair. He’d changed into a green t-shirt and fatigue pants. Yellow aviators perched on his nose. It was odd to see him in anything other than jeans and a button up.
Frankie, turned back to the task at hand, his eyes danced over the control panel of the old plane. He knew how to do this, few pilots could, or would know how to hop into a plane with tech that out dated, and fly it with no manual. But Frankie wasn’t just any pilot. “Alright,” Frankie said softly to the plane, a gentle negation, “come’ on baby lets see if we can get you going.”
He felt Javier’s dark eyes glaring at him. When he turned to look at the older man, Javier asked, “Are you planning on flying this thing or fucking it?”
Instead of responding he flipped a couple switches and the plane groaned to life. Then they were off.
Next Chapter
AN: I always hate the part of fic where the romantic leads separate... oh well...
Prompt: Two strangers discover they’ve been swapping items unknowingly through a communal space, each leaving an X in return until curiosity forces a meeting.
Summary: After discovering some unfamiliar clothes in your laundry (and losing some of your own in return), you begin exchanging messages with another resident in your apartment complex.
Word Count: 15.5K
Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Modern AU, unspecified age gap (Ezra is intended to be older, but use your own imagination on how much older), no use of Y/N, minimal descriptions of reader character, second-person POV, reader is getting over a recent breakup, mildly pervy Ezra, pleasure dom Ezra, SMUT (dry humping, vaginal fingering, squirting, biting, unprotected P in V sex, overstimulation, creampie, Ezra’s filthy yapping and filthy fucking).
Written for @jolapeno’s Dear-uary Epistolary Writing Challenge. Dividers by @saradika-graphics.
Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist
You have never considered yourself to be an especially domestic person.
Sure, you are a decent cook, but the handful of recipes you rotate between each week require little in the way of culinary skills. The ingredients are simple and cheap, the prep work is minimal, and the actual cooking involves nothing more than a couple of burners on the stovetop or perhaps a slow cooker if you’re feeling especially ambitious. The final products are always serviceable, but nothing more complex or skillful than what a college student might be able to achieve in their first apartment.
You’re a reluctant cleaner, as well. Your dishes tend to pile in the sink for days before you work up the gumption to scrub them, and you’re embarrassed to admit to the amount of time you have gone without vacuuming your carpets or mopping your kitchen floor. When you make plans to have friends over – or god forbid a date – you often have been guilty of racing around your apartment at the last possible minute, frantically cleaning things that ought to have been cleaned ages ago. It seems the potential shame of someone else thinking you lived in a messy home is the only motivator strong enough to get you into gear.
But there is perhaps one domestic task in which you find genuine joy. Laundry.
You love the ritual of it – the simple satisfaction of sorting, the methodical, repetitive action of folding, the tidy little piles of underwear and socks and pajamas and jeans spread out over the surface of your bed as you worked. You love watching the way your dresser goes from barren to pleasingly full as the soft drone of your current audiobook or a favorite podcast drifts through your headphones. You even love the scent of your detergent – it’s a small luxury, but you notice it every time you open your closet, and it never fails to make you smile.
Every Sunday morning, the routine is the same, and with it comes a meditative calm that always helps you center and reset yourself for the coming week. You’ve found yourself leaning on the consistency, the predictability of it all even moreso in recent weeks, which is why when you encounter a peculiar piece of clothing mixed in with your clean laundry, still warm from the dryer downstairs, you almost toss the thing straight into the garbage.
It's a large men’s sock – charcoal gray, crew length, and heavily worn. It sports two holes, one in the toe and one in the heel, and the knit fabric has pilled so intensely that from far away, it almost looks speckled. A ragged piece of clothing if you’ve ever seen one and nothing like anything in your own wardrobe. Instantly, you presume it must be his.
The mere thought of him leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you eye the offending sock with reproach. Eight months of your life wasted on a man who could never seem to remember your takeout order, who called your master’s degree cute, who always had some new excuse to not introduce you to the gaggle of fellow finance bros constantly blowing up his phone and filling his evenings with cocktail hours and “networking events.”
Looking back on it now, you can be more honest with yourself about all the things you had ignored in the moment – all the little red flags that might have been passable on their own but combined with everything else painted a picture of a man who saw you as a convenience rather than a privilege, a little something to be kept on the side, held at arm’s length until he grew bored of you and moved on. And he had moved on, in the tritest way possible – with an intern from his office named Kyleigh.
You are eager to do the same, to pack the lackluster memories of him away in a box and shove that box so far into the back of your mind that you forget it even exists. This sock, sticking out bizarrely in the basket of soft creams and delicate blushes that you favor, has derailed those efforts. You’ve been doing so well avoiding thoughts of him.
You toss it into the paper grocery bag you have tucked into the corner of your bedroom, the one containing the handful of little things you’ve found around your apartment in the three weeks since his departure that you know belong to him. A blue silk tie. A bulky black phone charger that is incompatible with your phone model. A half-used tube of plain, unflavored Chapstick. A dogeared copy of Atomic Habits. And now this sock.
You have no idea how it ended up in your hamper in the first place, but it hardly matters, you decide. You refuse to let the thought of it – or the man it belongs to – darken your peaceful morning any longer. You’ll get the bag of stuff back to him at some point. Until then, he’ll simply have to make do with a missing sock.
What begins as a singular sock, however, quickly becomes more as over the next several weeks, you continue to discover foreign items of clothing in your laundry.
First, another sock, this one navy blue and even more worn than the first, the fabric loose and shapeless with time. Then, a pair of maroon men’s athletic shorts with frayed, raw hems around the legs and worn-out elastic at the waist. A ribbed undershirt in age-patinaed white comes next, and then finally, a true treasure – the softest, most perfectly worn-in gray t-shirt. It is oversized (for you, anyway) and pure cotton, stretched and softened with countless washes and wears so that it pools like butter in your hands, and for the first time, it occurs to you that there is no way that these mysterious items of clothing are relics of your relationship that you had simply missed on your first pass through your apartment to gather his things. Your ex, for one, had had many flaws, but hanging on to shabby, hole-riddled clothing that was nearly falling apart was not one of them. And for another thing, you feel certain that you would have known if your ex had owned a t-shirt like this one while you were together. If he had, you would have stolen it for yourself a long time ago.
For lack of something better to do with them, the navy sock, basketball shorts, and undershirt all make their way into the paper bag anyway. The t-shirt, however, gets folded neatly and added to your pajama drawer. Some poor man in your apartment building may be missing it now, but in a building with over a hundred units and only one basement laundry facility, you cannot imagine the complexities of attempting to reunite it with its owner.
His loss will simply have to be your gain.
The week following the fortuitous discovery of the most perfect t-shirt known to man, you encounter another disruption to your sacred routine, though this time, rather than a mysterious item of clothing somehow joining your basket, it comes in the form of a hand-written note.
The laundry facility in your apartment complex is nothing to speak of, and for as much as you enjoy this particular chore, you prefer to spend as little time in the dingy, windowless room as you can manage. Two rows of stainless steel, coin-operated washers abut each other down the center of the linoleum-tiled square, while matching dryers stack two high and six wide against the far wall. The air there is stuffy, warm and humid and smelling strongly of bleach, and the constant hum and rumble of the machines is almost more than the noise cancelling in your headphones can handle.
Typically, you don’t choose to linger – you grab your favorite washers as quickly as you can manage, and you set a timer on your phone for the duration of the wash so you can return to your apartment to wait out the cycle. Today, however, as you are slotting your collection of quarters into your machines, something out of place catches your eye.
Stuck to the wall of dryers is a crumpled piece of lined paper, clearly ripped from a spiralbound notebook and scribbled on in haste. You cock your head at the sight, frowning. You’re certain it must have been left by a fellow resident, for any messages from the complex’s management would have at least been typed and printed out.
Internally, you roll your eyes – how often had a passive aggressive note left in a common area actually resulted in changed behavior? You came across them on occasion, in the mail room or in the lounge or in one of the elevators, and whatever it was the poster was disgruntled about only ever seemed to worsen after that. Still, once you have your washers going, you can’t help but approach the dryers to get a better look at the curious thing.
Your suspicions are quickly confirmed – it is from another tenant, written in a tight, hurried scrawl in dry, patchy blue ink and taped to the steel face of one of the dryers with a raggedly-torn piece of masking tape. It reads:
You find yourself quirking a puzzled smile as you read, the corners of your lips curling up at the writer’s flowery word choice. It’s almost comically formal for something clearly written in a rush, and the juxtaposition of the courtly language with the humble, jagged-edged notebook paper sparks your intrigue. Of course, there’s also the matter of the handful of mysterious garments you have been collecting. You can’t help but wonder whether this…loquacious neighbor of yours is the owner of the scruffy clothing items slowly collecting dust in the corner of your bedroom.
That would be another odd comparison, you think. That someone so meticulous with their words should be so careless with their clothing. You suppose you shouldn’t judge – perhaps he simply cannot afford to replace his things when they wear through. But still, you can’t reconcile the image you have created in your mind of the author of this note with the unkempt man who owns the clothes that keep ending up in your laundry.
It might be worth responding if only to satisfy your growing curiosity.
When you return to the laundry room to move your clothes from the washers to the dryers, you bring with you a bright pink, oversized sticky note from your favorite stationary set and attach it to the wrinkled piece of notebook paper.
Your curiosity drives you back down into the laundry room the next day.
It’s rare for you to deviate from your routine like this, but there’s something that feels almost fantastical about this nameless, faceless exchange. The author of that note might be someone you have encountered a thousand times without ever knowing.
The thought inspires your imagination, makes you think of fairytales and fate and all kinds of other childish things. Perhaps you have crossed paths with this stranger – with their funny, fanciful language and their unkempt presentation – in the mail room or in the elevator or outside the leasing office. You trade courteous hellos and the occasional polite smile with your neighbors when you see them, but you have never intentionally sought any of them out before. This person could be anyone, and that has you making your way back to the basement long before your next planned laundry day.
The moment you enter the stuffy, grimy little room, your eyes go straight for the wall of dryers where the last note was left. A smile splits your face almost immediately. The note from yesterday is gone, as is your bright pink reply. In their place, another torn piece of notebook paper has been left, this time stuck to the face of the dryer with a clear strip of packing tape. More secure, more intentional, like whoever had left it had intended for it to be able to stick in place for a long time even in the humid, poorly-ventilated space.
Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in anticipation, you’re thankful to be the only person in the room as you eagerly dart over to read it.
In the same hurried penmanship as the previous note, this one reads:
A rush of satisfaction floods you as you read. This is the mysterious owner of the clothes you’ve been finding! You must have a washer or dryer preference in common, you think, if his belongings continue to be mixed in with yours. You can see how it could happen, particularly if he was in a rush. A dark colored sock left in the bottom of the drum or stuck to the side after a spin cycle wasn’t unheard of.
Perhaps you ought to do a better job of checking your machines before blindly dumping your clothes in…
You also feel confident now that this is, in fact, a man that you’re dealing with, which makes his choice of vocabulary all the more intriguing. Not that there is anything especially feminine about his choice of words, but more that the men you find yourself spending time with tend to get their intellectual stimulation from manosphere podcasts and YouTube comedians. This man writes like a scholar, like a patron of the arts, like a Regency-era lordling. It is as refreshing as it is puzzling, and the sparkling prose combined with the mystery of the whole thing has you feeling rather enchanted.
And, perhaps the greatest victory of all, is that E makes no mention whatsoever of your new favorite t-shirt. The thin, buttery-soft thing has become a staple of your loungewear collection over the last few weeks. The way it falls over your skin so perfectly, the way it wraps itself around you like a friend – you can’t imagine parting with it now. Thankfully, it sounds like you won’t have to.
Pulling your pink pad of sticky notes out of your bag, you excitedly pen your reply.
Several more days pass before your now-daily trips to the laundry room finally bear fruit.
It’s Saturday morning, and rather than finding a new piece of crinkled notebook paper in place of the old, instead you find that someone has written on your pink sticky note, adding their own message to the bottom of the scrap of stationary. You recognize the handwriting immediately, though it’s even more irregular than usual. Scribbled in the lower right corner of the note, it reads:
In cramped, halting, angular strokes, a phone number has been added to the bottom of the note – even smaller than the words he somehow managed to fit on the same sheet of paper as your own. But by some miracle, with a squint and a turn of your head, you’re able to read it, and you pull your phone out of your pocket to quickly save it in your contacts.
laundry neighbor🧦, you call him in your address book with a smirk, and you decide to shoot him a text when you arrive back at your apartment. In the meantime, however, you are quick to yank both of the old notes off of the dryer, crumple them up into a ball, and toss them into the nearby garbage can.
As you catch the elevator back to your floor, you can’t help but wonder about the kind of man who was perfectly comfortable leaving his personal phone number in a public space for anyone to read and do with as they chose, but who drew the line at retrieving a small stack of holey, threadbare clothes from the same public space. You can’t imagine who in their right mind would want to steal the things that you had inadvertently collected from this man over the last several weeks; in fact, you feel confident that if you had ever seen them there while doing your own washing, you wouldn’t have spared them a second thought.
If anything, you think, if they had been left there long enough, I might have taken the liberty of throwing them in the trash.
Still, you suppose there’s no accounting for taste. And E had admitted to being superstitious about the shorts in particular, so perhaps this strange man was simply a creature of habit, one who did not part with such things easily.
A creature of habit who keeps strange hours and writes like someone from a different century. No matter how much you try, you simply cannot make heads or tails of this mysterious man.
Several hours pass before you receive a reply from the enigmatic E. You’re preparing to settle in for the night, a book and a glass of wine in hand, when your phone vibrates in the pocket of your pajama pants. Digging it out, you quirk a curious smile at what you see.
hi e! saw your response to my note about your clothes. when would be a good time for us to meet up so i can get those back to you?
Ah! Good morning, little bird!
I suppose I should say good evening, though it is my morning. Apologies for the delayed reply. As I mentioned, I keep odd hours.
I would be available to meet with you tonight after my shift, if you are amenable? I typically return home around 4 in the morning.
You make no attempt to smother the incredulous laugh that bubbles up in your chest as his suggestion. What kind of person tried to make plans for 4:00 in the morning? You couldn’t imagine dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to meet with a stranger just to hand off a couple socks. Shaking your head, you’re quick to type out a reply.
4 am??? 😳 you weren’t kidding, those are some weird hours 😅
sorry dude i will def be asleep at 4 😪
how about this time tomorrow? if you work nights, would you be awake then?
Three bouncing dots appear at the bottom of the screen, flashing in and out of existence a handful of times before his message finally coalesces.
An astute observation and suggestion. Ordinarily, yes, I would. But unfortunately, I have already agreed to an extended shift tomorrow to cover for a colleague.
A frown knits across your brow, your thumb tapping against the edge of your wine glass as you ponder your options. In your mind, you run through your schedule for the week, matching it up against what little you know of E’s availability. It’s a challenging fit. A brief flash of irritation passes through you at the strange man’s stubbornness. If only he would allow you to simply leave the clothes in the laundry room – then he could collect them at his leisure, and the issue would resolve itself.
However, as you begin to type up precisely that suggestion (with no small amount of snark), you find yourself pausing.
If you leave the clothes for him to pick up on his own, you may never have the opportunity to meet him, to finally put a face and a voice to the person behind the notes. As it stands, you don’t even know this man’s name, but this odd little exchange easily has become the most entertaining thing to happen to you in a long time. It’s been a nice distraction from the absence of your ex, strangely making you feel a little less alone.
Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in contemplation, you delete the message you had been typing and compose another one instead.
You would put the ball in his court, put the responsibility on him to coordinate a plan for you to connect. The moment the message marks as delivered, you see those bouncing dots appear again. His reply is quick, as though he had been waiting on the other end of the line the whole time you deliberated. The thought has a strange warmth settling in your chest, blooming in your cheeks.
ok no worries. you wanna just text me whenever you’re free and we’ll see when our schedules line up? i’m pretty flexible but it sounds like we might work opposite hours 😅
Indeed, a common occurrence, I’m afraid, but such is the life of a bartender.
But yes, I will be in touch. I appreciate you looking after my things until we can arrange a meeting! I am in your debt for your patience.
Your flush deepens at the compliment, and you cannot fight the grin that tugs at your lips. Flatterer, you think to yourself.
not a problem! we’ll make it work eventually 😊
Not ten seconds passes, and then:
Looking forward to it, little bird. Enjoy the rest of your evening.
you too 😊 have a good shift
Good morning, little bird! The sun is rising, and I am preparing to retire. Do you perhaps wish to meet in the lobby before then? I’m unsure of your schedule, but I know many of the other tenants are departing for work at this time.
sorry e 🙁 I left about 20 min ago, got a workout class on monday mornings. sleep well!
Thoughts of the man who has ostensibly become your pen pal linger at the back of your mind throughout your work day. It’s been a while since you received a “good morning” text from anyone, though you are quick to scold yourself for the little flutter that thought sets off in your stomach.
You think of the appalling collection of socks and lounge clothes, now removed from the bag of your ex’s belongings and taking pride of place on your kitchen counter, right next to the entrance to your apartment. That, truly, is all you know about him, you remind yourself – that he wears socks with holes in them and shorts with no elastic and undershirts with pit and neck stains. Not exactly the most appealing prospect.
Not that there ought to be anything appealing about him. He could be barely out of school. He could be an old man. He could be married. If his glittering prose and flattering pet names have charmed you, then you have no one but yourself and your own fanciful imagination to blame.
Of course, none of these musings stop you from shooting off a quick text to him on your way home from work.
hey! i’m headed home now, you awake? could meet up downstairs in 15?
To your disappointment, your message remains unread for several more hours. It isn’t until you’re queueing up your third episode of your favorite syndicated reality show, wrapped in a blanket and cradling a late-night bowl of ice cream in your lap, that you receive a response.
Apologies once again, birdie. By the time I noticed your message, I was already in the car. Thank you for keeping in contact – your diligence for a neighbor you do not even know is admirable.
lol i try 🤷♀️ 😊
The next time you hear from E, it is early in the morning. You’re barely awake, eyes still bleary as you prepare yourself a cup of coffee, and the notification that greets you when you open your phone for the first time is two new messages from him, sent a couple hours ago.
I am certain you will not see this until morning, but be cautious using the northeast elevator tomorrow. It is making the most bizarre noise, and the door is rather sluggish on opening. Just now, I was nearly unable to fit through to exit the car when I reached my floor.
I have informed maintenance, but I am sure you know as well as I how long it takes that old codger to get anything done. If it is not blocked for use by the time you leave tomorrow, I would suggest waiting until the other is available.
Your chest warms at the consideration, that he would have such a harrowing experience and think to warn you against it. Fully awake now, you thumb a reply and send it off, hoping he sees it when he wakes tonight for his shift.
omg thanks for the heads up! glad you’re okay and didn’t get stuck!
Later, after safely making your way downstairs and over to the parking deck, you cannot seem to stop yourself from sending another.
there is an out of service sign on it now, thank god! have a good sleep e!
[Attached: JPG]
fyi reno crew in the lobby today. idk if you have your car in the deck but you may wanna take the side exit and walk around. the workers gave me a dirty look for walking on the unsealed floor lol
Awful rude of them. You couldn’t have known.
If management didn’t want tenants in the lobby today, perhaps they ought to have put up proper signage.
Thank you for the message, birdie. I will do as you suggested. I hope you had a pleasant day at work.
…what is it that you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking?
i’m a librarian 🤓 📚
!!!
Forgive my ineloquence. I was unaware I have been corresponding with a scholar!
lmao says the man who writes like someone out of an austen novel
I will take that as a compliment!
Do you enjoy it?
the way you talk or being a librarian? 😉
Clever girl. 😏 Both. Either.
yes very much! to both 😇
and how do you know i’m a girl? all you know for sure is we live in the same building. i could be anyone 👀
The way you speak is decidedly feminine, though you’re right, I should not make such assumptions.
I apologize if I have offended you. No disrespect was intended.
😂 you’re fine, just giving you a hard time. you assumed correctly anyway
how about you? do you enjoy what you do?
It certainly is not my first choice of occupation, but it pays enough for me to make my way through the world, which is a privilege in itself.
It also helps that I am quite good at it, if I do say so myself.
lol nothing wrong with knowing yourself!
what would be your first choice? if not bartending?
I would be an academic. I do love books.
well if you ever find yourself awake during normal business hours you’re welcome at the library anytime. we have a few of those 😉
Cheeky bird.
Things continue in this vein for several more days – courteous, neighborly messages about things happening around the complex that turn into brief, companionable conversations. Missed offers to meet, incompatible schedules, sleep and work and fitness classes and plans with friends somehow always seeming to come at the worst possible moments. You find yourself equal parts aggravated and entertained by what has turned into a never-ending game of phone tag with someone who you still, somehow, have never met. It wasn’t exactly what you had signed up for when you responded to the bedraggled little note in the laundry room, but you couldn’t say you were disappointed at how things had turned out.
At this point, the novelty of the clothes taking up space on your kitchen counter has faded, the little pile melting into the background and simply becoming part of your daily scenery, and every time you see E’s moniker and the little sock emoji come across your phone screen, you can’t help but smile. It’s been the best distraction you could have asked for, though a part of you knows that such a sentiment is leaning further away from whimsical and more toward delusional.
Perhaps that’s why when the charming, fresh-faced barista at your favorite coffee shop finally works up the gumption to ask for your number, you give it to him.
Perhaps that’s why when that same barista asks you out for dinner and drinks, you agree.
Little bird, I have tremendous news! The coworker whose shift I covered a while back has offered to return the favor. I am available this evening to collect my laundry from you. When would be best for us to meet?
oh e i’m sorry ☹️ this would have been a great night for it too! but i actually have a date. i’ll be gone most of the evening.
I see. Not to worry, birdie. I hope you enjoy yourself.
thanks 😊 i hope so too lol
You’re nothing but a lump of dry mouth and regret the next morning when the cheerful little buzz of your phone draws you out from under the downy refuge of your blankets. Your curtains are pulled tight, though a bit of the late morning sunshine still manages to spill through the gaps around the window frame, and you frown at it venomously as though your stare could will the light to dampen itself in spite of the idyllic weather.
Dragging the brightness of your phone screen all the way down, you open your notifications with a grumble.
How do you fare this morning?
[Attached: GIF]
Haha! That well? Not the pleasant evening you were hoping for, little bird?
date was boring
he was so boring
drank too much trying to make it fun
Ah, I see. In my experience, a good breakfast and an electrolyte-boosting beverage would do you well.
You glance over at your bedside table where two bottles of pale blue liquid sit, leaving rings of condensation on the painted wood surface. One is half empty, the other still unopened.
doordashed a couple bottles of gatorade. too hungover to make breakfast.
Less than 30 seconds later, another notification appears at the top of your screen.
Venmo: @Ezra-1982 paid you $20 “🍳🥓🥞”
Order yourself the “Farmer’s Combo” from the diner on 35th. Have them add cheddar to the scrambled eggs. You will not regret it.
Ezra.
His name is Ezra.
Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, forcing the fog from your throbbing head, you tap out your reply as quickly as you can manage.
omg you did not have to do that
Perhaps not, but you deserve nothing less after such a lackluster experience.
The unexpected generosity has you melting, as does the sweetness of his words. After the disappointment of your first foray back into the dating world, such kindness from a total stranger was equally surprising and moving. It makes you want to share it all with him, to explain in detail all of the various ways in which the barista had been a terrible choice. His stilted manner, his excessive fondness for vodka Redbulls, his awkward sense of humor…
ugh you can say that again
he sucked so bad e omg
idk why i said yes to him in the first place
His sloppy mouth, his grabby hands, his clumsy fingers, his complete lack of interest in making sure you came…
The way he had completely and utterly failed to keep quiet as he stumbled out the door in the middle of the night.
def should not have brought him home
You pause for a moment, the words of your most recent message staring back at you from your phone screen as though taunting you. The blush rising in your cheeks is enough to make your blankets feel suddenly stifling, and your stomach drops at the realization that E – Ezra, your neighbor, a man you have never met but on whom you are quickly developing a bit of a schoolgirl crush – is going to read it. The two of you have never discussed anything like this before. Even in your little occasional flirtations, there has never been even the suggestion of anything sexual.
This unknown stranger really does not need to know anything about your sex life, you decide.
However, just as you are about to recall the message, you watch in horror as the “delivered” status flips to “read.”
A wave of nerves floods your system, pushing out the last of the grogginess still clouding your mind, and try as you might, you can think of no excuse you could spin, no joke you could tell.
shit was hoping you hadn’t read that yet
Alas, little bird. There is no need to be embarrassed.
sorry idk why i’m trying to gossip w/ you like one of my girlfriends. plz forget i said anything
i don’t wanna make this any weirder
For a handful of long, tense moments, your message remains unanswered. You watch, vaguely nauseous, as the three bouncing dots appear, then disappear, then reappear again. After a breathlessly long time of no typing at all, another notification pops up at the top of your screen.
Venmo: @Ezra-1984 paid you $5 “☕”
Add a latte to your order from the diner. I find that everything looks a bit brighter after a good cup of coffee.
Even a night of disappointing congress.
Your cheeks flare to life once again, the flush reaching from the tips of your ears down your neck to your chest. “Congress,” he called it. What a classy, delicate word for the sweaty, inept fumbling you had experienced last night in this very bed.
Which reminds you. You need to wash your sheets.
💀💀💀
thank you e 🙈💗
[Attached: JPG]
holy shit this food is incredible. it’s bringing me back to life.
also 10/10 recommendation on the eggs and the latte. you’re the best e, thank you
You’re most welcome, little bird. Be gentle with yourself today.
i will 🤗
any chance i could grab you before you go to work tonight? feeling much more human, got your clothes all ready to go by the door
I have underestimated you, birdie. I must stop doing that.
I did not assume you would have any interest in social interaction today given the state you were in this morning. I am already at the bar.
ah ok no worries
i really will get your clothes back to you, e. i promise.
I know you will, sweetheart. I trust you.
You feel a bit crazed as you dig through the drawers of your dresser, rummaging through the neatly folded piles of clothing with such frustrated carelessness that you know you’re going to have to reorganize it all later. It isn’t like you to misplace something like this – you’re meticulous about your clothes, far more so than you are in any other area of your life (except perhaps your work). The idea of anything just up and disappearing from your wardrobe is unheard of.
Perhaps, if it were anything else, it wouldn’t bother you so much. Perhaps, if tomorrow was any other day, you wouldn’t mind choosing something else to wear. But it does, and you do.
You have another date tomorrow night.
Not a repeat of the disastrous liaison with the barista, thank god, but a friend of a friend, someone you encountered occasionally at parties or bars who often offered to buy you drinks and smiled at you a little too long to be strictly friendly. You had never taken his flirtations especially seriously, but after the unmitigated failure that was your last attempt at getting back into the dating scene, your ego admittedly is feeling a bit bruised. It makes you willing to give him a real shot. Even if it winds up being underwhelming, you feel certain that anything would be better than the fucking barista.
Which means that you need those god-forsaken panties.
They’re your favorites – the cheeky, lacy, baby pink pair that stretched over your skin so softly, that framed the globes of your ass so delicately you couldn’t help but feel every inch a woman in them.
Pulling them on over your hips is a one-way ticket to feeling your sexiest, most feminine self, and you can’t imagine going on a first date without them to boost your confidence. And you just washed them – they should be right at the top of the pile, nestled precisely in your top dresser drawer, exactly where they belong. And yet…they aren’t.
Collapsing onto your bed in an aggravated heap, you tug your phone out of the pocket of your lounge shorts. Opening your messages, you tap on your conversation with E and fire off a quick text before you can think better of it. The flush that follows arrives not far behind, part of you a bit mortified at what you’re about to ask your faceless neighbor. But you’re desperate, and you know he will help you if he can.
i have a longshot of a question for you
Please, shoot!
did you happen to do laundry last night?
I did, indeed! Why do you ask?
did you use the same washers and dryers you normally do?
I always use the same machines. You’ve got me terribly curious now, little bird. What’s this about?
would you mind checking your dried clothes for me? i seem to be the one missing something this time.
i know the chances of them ending up with you are slim but i had to at least ask lol
Of course, hold on a beat.
A few tense, nerve-wracking minutes pass as you stare at your phone, tapping your foot anxiously, chewing on your lower lip as you wait. You doubt he has them. What would be the chances? Your apartment building has over a hundred units – there was no way with all of the other residents whose faces you had never seen, whose names you did not know, that E had been the one to use the same machines directly after you.
And yet…what if he had?
What if your favorite panties are currently tangled in his laundry basket, all mixed up with his well-loved shirts and shorts and jeans and socks? What if he goes to check for them, and the little flash of baby pink peeks out at him from between the grays and the navys and the olive greens, all feminine and delicate and sweet?
What if this mysterious man, who calls you his “little bird” and who has managed to thoroughly charm you over notes and texts and money for coffee, was about to catch a glimpse of your underwear for the first time, and you’re not even there to see his face when he does?
[Attached: JPG]
You wouldn’t happen to be missing these delicious little things, would you, birdie?
And there they are – draped over a calloused palm, dangling from thick, long, achingly masculine fingers. The blushing pink color of the lacy fabric contrasts stunningly with his tanned skin, and although you wouldn’t describe yourself as being particularly petite, the size of his hand somehow manages to make them look delicate in his grip.
The flush in your cheeks spreads instantly, making your ears burn, your chest feel tight and hot. Low in your abdomen, something stirs, something that had woken a handful of other times before – like when he had called you a “clever girl” or a “cheeky bird.” You had wondered then – what this man looked like, what he sounded like, whether he was as attractive in reality as you pictured him in your mind. Even without seeing his face, you feel now you know with certainty. You don’t have to wonder anymore.
Anyone with hands like that would turn your head. Knowing they were attached to someone who spoke to you like someone out of a regency-era novel is the final straw.
omg e
Am I to take that as a yes?
yeah those are mine 💀🙈
Are you at home, by chance?
You frown, your heartrate picking up as it beats a tattoo against the insides of your ribs.
yeah i’m here. why?
Well, I am clearly in the building, as well. I will be for the rest of the evening. Would you be amenable to coming over? I would happily come to you if you would prefer, but I would understand if you wish for your precise unit number to remain unknown.
Oh, god.
You take a deep, steadying breath and will your hands not to shake at the sudden wave of nerves twisting your belly into knots. He wants to meet you. Finally. And right now.
ok. yeah i’ll come to you if that’s okay
Of course. I’m in apartment 802. Come on over whenever you’re ready.
The frown between your brows deepens. 802? You’re in unit 902. Is it possible…
Has E been directly beneath you this entire time? Is it possible that not only does he share a building with you, but he is your downstairs neighbor?
wait. 802???
…yes?
He is. E – Ezra, your correct yourself (if you’re going to meet the man, you ought to be able to call him by his name) – lives directly below you. At least you know precisely how to get to him, you muse as you type out your response.
ok just making sure. be there in 10.
The next few minutes are spent in a flurry – brushing your teeth, fluffing your hair, refreshing your perfume, and confirming that you haven’t accumulated any unknown stains on your favorite oversized gray t-shirt or your shorts. You contemplate briefly whether you should change your clothes before making your way down to Ezra’s apartment, but ultimately you decide against it. Your lounge clothes are cute, and wouldn’t it be odd, you think, to show up on his doorstep looking like you felt the need to dress up for something when he knows your routine enough by now to know that you wouldn’t be leaving the complex today?
As you tuck your bare feet into your favorite pair of slides, you consider that you might be overthinking things.
It takes you another minute to gather your phone, your keys, and the small stack of his clothes that you are embarrassed to note has started to collect a fine layer of dust. The sight serves as a stark reminder of what this really is, all it has ever really been – a neighbor doing a favor for another neighbor. The return of items lost, even though the loss was weeks ago now. That is all your acquaintance with Ezra really is, at the end of the day. It’s friendly, but it is also impersonal.
These reminders to yourself ring hollow in your mind as you make your way to the stairwell. You don’t believe them, and you can’t help but hope that Ezra won’t, either.
The man that answers the door of apartment 802 looks both exactly like and nothing like you pictured.
He opens the door with confidence, an open and charming smile splitting his face the moment he lays eyes on you. He takes you in with a sweep of his dark, soulful eyes, tanned skin crinkling at their corners as he grins, and nothing could have prepared you for the way your heart begins to race as you do the same. Fuck, he is so handsome. Wild, dark brown hair, shorter on the sides and back than on the top, sticking up every which way with a single shock of blonde directly over his right eye. A prominent, Romanesque nose perched over a pair of full, soft-looking lips. Patchy, scruffy facial hair. A thin, pale scar twisting across his left cheek.
He looks like a creative, like a scoundrel – an artist or an activist or a rebellious academic who refuses to play by the rules. Precisely your type, you think, heat pooling low in your belly.
As you take in his attire, it immediately becomes apparent that the clothes you hold in your hands are an excellent representation of the rest of his wardrobe. He’s barefoot, a pair of navy-blue athletic shorts hanging low and loose on his narrow hips, and the black t-shirt that stretches snugly across his impossibly broad chest is heavily faded with many washes and sports several tiny holes along the seams.
Another hole, this one much larger than the rest, reveals itself as he shifts to rest his arm high against the doorframe. Leaning over you with casual self-assurance, the man tracks the way your gaze immediately darts to his underarm with the move. You can see the thick, dark hair of his armpit through the gap in the fabric, and the strangely intimate sight almost instantly brings a flush to your cheeks.
“Well, now,” he croons, slow and long and with an accent that flusters you even more. “Either you’ve found yourself on the wrong doorstep, or you must be the mysterious little bird that’s been chirping so sweetly in my ear every day for the last month.” He drops his grip on the old brass doorknob and extends his hand to you. It’s the same hand that had been photographed holding your panties mere minutes before – big, broad-palmed, calloused. “Name’s Ezra. What’s yours, birdie?”
You accept the handshake with minimal hesitation, offering him your name in return. “I’m, uh. I’m glad we could finally make this work,” you stammer. “I was kind of starting to feel like I had taken your stuff hostage.”
To that, Ezra chuckles, and the warm rasp of the sound settles itself somewhere beneath your navel. “Your willingness to be so flexible and communicative is deeply appreciated,” he drawls. “I’m sure most people in your position wouldn’t have been so accommodating.”
The earnestness of his words has you feeling almost bashful as you quickly reassure him, “Oh, I didn’t mind, really. You were the one who had to go without your stuff for this long. It was the least I could do.”
“See, that is precisely what I mean. Sweet as sugar and twice as lovely.” The man winks, offering you another charismatic smile, and you can’t smother the flustered chuckle that bubbles up in your chest.
There is a moment then when the two of you stand in silence – just the span of a heartbeat where you look at each other through the archway of his apartment door, him inside, you outside, each of you sizing up the other, quietly putting a face to all of the little pleasantries you’ve exchanged over the past weeks. That moment stretches, becomes two, and you watch as something akin to a blush, the first vulnerability he has displayed thus far, blooms across the tips of his ears.
Just before the quiet begins to edge into awkwardness, Ezra claps his hands and steps back away from the doorframe, sweeping his arms in a wide, beckoning gesture.
“Well, let us not delay any longer, shall we?” he says brightly. “Come, birdie, step inside, and I’ll retrieve your own garments which have gone astray.”
You hesitate only a moment before accepting his invitation, and as you cross the threshold, he closes the door behind you. You think that perhaps the sound of the knob catching in its place ought to make you nervous – after all, you have never really met this man before today and now here you are, alone with him in his home. But instead, the way your pulse picks up speed feels more like anticipation than fear.
As you hover in the narrow entryway, you notice that the floorplan of his unit is perfectly identical to yours. The open kitchen, the modest living room, the short hallway down which you knew you would find a single bedroom and bathroom. You’ve never been inside another unit in this building before, and it feels almost surreal as you take in a space that bears so many resemblances to your own while still very clearly being inhabited by someone else.
Ezra seems oblivious to your observations. Instead, he is all business as he retreats without preamble down the hallway toward his bedroom. You stare after him, confused for an instant as to why he would just leave you alone, but then you realize –
Your panties are in his bedroom.
Trying desperately to distract yourself from that brain-melting thought, you allow yourself to glance around the place. Your first impression is of the almost overwhelming number of plants that take up the living space. You recognize a few – snake plants and ZZ plants in mismatched pots on every available flat surface, spider plants and pothos dangling from macrame hangers in front of the windows, a lush monstera taking up most of the western corner, a fiddle-leaf fig standing sentinel by the sliding glass door. The rest you couldn’t even begin to guess at, but the overall effect is one of a vibrant oasis of greenery, and you can’t help but be impressed.
“Wow, you have so many plants!” you gasp, wandering deeper into the apartment as you marvel at your surroundings.
Ezra’s voice is muffled as he replies from the bedroom, “Indeed. This side of the building gets such abundant sunshine during the day, but I don’t often have the opportunity to enjoy it. It somehow feels less wasteful to know that another living thing is reaping the benefits.”
“Huh. Never thought about it like that.” You feel a charmed smile tugging at your mouth. “Maybe I should get a few.”
His decorating taste is clearly eclectic, almost every item found in the dusty labyrinth of a thrift store or at an estate sale. There’s a vintage sofa in burnt orange corduroy that has plainly seen better days, a cracked leather armchair that looks like it once belonged in the study of some wealthy professor, and an overflowing bookshelf stuffed to the brim with books of all sizes and levels of wear. Butted up against the kitchen island is a little 1960s dining table with a single chair, the surface of which is littered with several abandoned, half-drunk cups of coffee. You also can’t help but smirk as you notice the chunky green ashtray on the coffee table in the very center of the living room with a partially-smoked joint resting in the middle.
“It’s quite a rewarding past time. I would encourage anyone with the time and the interest to try their hand at plant guardianship.” He emerges from the bedroom as he speaks, the smallest scrap of pale pink lace visible in the clench of his right fist. “Does your dwelling get light such as this?” he asks, gesturing at the tall windows, the sliding door leading out onto the balcony, the streaming sunlight painting the room a pale gold.
The question jerks you back to the present, reminds you why you’re here and of the strange coincidence you had discovered just before coming down to meet him.
“Actually… You know, it’s funny. Mine is almost exactly the same.”
Ezra quirks a dark, prominent brow at you, his expression pleasantly interested. “Is that so?”
“It’s, uh. Actually why I wanted to verify your unit number.” You rub the back of your neck, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious. “I’m in 902.”
The man goes still at your confession, and the look of intrigue on his face shifts to a frown. He’s quiet for a moment, pursing his lips, before echoing, “…902?”
You nod. “Yeah. I’m directly above you.” Pointing to the white, spackled surface over your heads, you add, “My floor is your ceiling.”
A pause, and then a slow, creeping grin spreads across his roguish face, warping the thin white scar across his cheek. His dark eyes shine with something like awe as he murmurs, “Fascinating.”
“I know! What are the chances, right?”
“You are the unfortunate neighbor who has such abysmal luck with men.”
All good humor leaves your body then, and you find yourself blinking dumbly back him. His unexpected words hang in the air for a moment, and as you take a deep breath, you manage to stammer, “…What?”
Ezra’s grin transforms into something closer to a smirk, a knowing gleam darkening his gaze. “There was a man a while back, a frequent visitor. I could hear the weight of his footsteps often.” With slow, even steps, he approaches you, closing the distance between you with every word he drawls. “And sometimes, on the weekends, I would be woken from my sleep during the day to the sound of your bedframe squeaking and scraping across the floor, directly above me. You put on quite the performance for him, all those little cries and moans.” His words have the gentle flush you’ve worn since he opened the door flaring to life once again, and you fight the urge to cover your cheeks with your palms, to hide your eyes from his.
“Did he ever figure out that they were all fabricated?” he rasps, leaning into your space as he comes to stand before you. He whispers the question like something asked in the strictest confidence, like the two of you are gossiping together over a bottle of wine or a pot of tea. It’s ingratiating as much as it is humiliating, and the casual intimacy is enough to have your stomach clenching in your abdomen.
“I-I don’t know what you mean.” Your words lack conviction even to your own ears. You have never been a skilled liar, but this attempt is truly abysmal.
Deep wrinkles form between Ezra’s brows as he frowns at you, his tone taking on the soft timbre of reproach. “Oh, come now, little bird. I know the difference between manufactured pleasure and the real thing. Now, the unfortunate boy you drunkenly brought back to your domicile a few nights ago, the one that you said, and I quote, ‘sucked so bad.’ You didn’t even attempt such a performance for him, though if I recall, he was rather loud.” He looks you up and down, that perceptive gaze tracing from the top for your head to the tips of your toes and back again. “And it’s no wonder you did not find your rapture with him, birdie, he lacked all sense of rhythm.”
Involuntarily, you are thrown back to that regrettable night – the awkward barista’s sharp, angular body hovering over you, his too-wet kisses, his grabby, wandering hands, his irregular thrusts, the barely-lukewarm interest all of it inspired…
You do cover your cheeks then, spinning on your heel to break his all-too-discerning stare. “Oh…my god.”
But Ezra is undeterred. He continues, “When we conversed the next morning, I did think it an odd coincidence that you should describe such an underwhelming night when I knew for certain my upstairs neighbor had had much the same experience. Imagine my surprise to learn that it was not a coincidence at all.”
Swallowing thickly, you shake your head, as though the motion might erase the last few moments and somehow bring you back to a time when you did not know that this man – your neighbor, your friend, the person you have been casually crushing on in spite of never having seen him before today – has not only been hearing you have sex for the last several months but also has known all this time that it was bad sex. Somehow that little detail makes it all the more appalling, though you aren’t certain you could explain how.
“This is mortifying,” you mutter, almost to yourself, the words coming out smothered and strange as you slip your fingers over your eyes, palms pressing against your mouth.
Before you manage to disappear into yourself, however, a large, warm, calloused hand wraps itself around one of your wrists and draws your hand away from your face.
“Nonsense, birdie, nothing at all to be embarrassed about.” His voice is low and gentle as he bids you to look at him. “If anyone ought to feel any humiliation in this scenario, it ought to be those incompetent fools granted the unparalleled privilege of getting the share the bed of a kind, intelligent, and heart-stoppingly beautiful young woman such as yourself.”
Your brows draw upward in surprise, and you drop both your hands, thoroughly disarmed and taken aback by his words. “T-Thank you, E. You’re sweet.”
Shifting on his feet, the man inches just that little bit closer to you, enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off of him, enough that you’re overwhelmed by the scent of him. Something woodsy and green, deep and fresh and colored with an inescapable undertone of sweat. You think it ought to be repellant, being this close to a strange man who undeniably smells like he didn’t bother to put any deodorant on this morning, but instead, it just makes you feel a little weak in the knees.
Ezra smells like a man, like a sweaty man in the middle of a dense, evergreen forest, and it makes some primal part of you, deep inside, ache and throb and want.
You startle softly as he gently takes ahold of your chin between his thumb and forefinger, the touch pulling you out of your reverie and forcing you to meet his eyes. God, his skin is so warm, his dark brown eyes so beautiful and earnest. You couldn’t look away even if you wanted to.
“Far as I can tell,” he croons, his accent elongating and softening his words in a way that has your heartbeat stuttering, “it’s been a tragically long time since you were properly satisfied. And that’s just a cryin’ shame.”
With the most delicate pressure, he slowly, tenderly tugs your chin forward and upward. You can feel his breath on your cheek, on your lips, hot and damp and smelling of spearmint. The sensation has your eyelids flagging, your mouth parting. He’s so close now, a hairsbreadth away. You wonder what his stubble will feel like, whether it will leave friction burns on the tender skin of your jaw.
You’ve never slept with a man with facial hair before, you think to yourself. Would he leave those same burns under your breasts, on the insides of your thighs, too?
The moment the thought crosses your mind, you rip yourself out of his grip with a gasp, practically throwing yourself backward and colliding with the edge of the coffee table. The edge catches against the backs of your calves, and you stumble, rattling the ash tray and sending the half-smoked joint rolling across the table.
“Birdie! Are you – ”
You brush off his concern, retreat to the kitchen in a flurry of excuses.
You don’t know this man, you remind yourself, willing your heartbeat to stop racing, the space between your thighs to stop throbbing. Prior to five minutes ago, you had never even seen his face, and you were about to kiss him? And not only that, but you’re already thinking about fucking him?
Sure, the E you knew was kind. Intelligent, well-mannered, thoughtful. Wickedly funny. All things you looked for in a potential partner. But was all of that real? Was this man – Ezra – the same man you thought you knew?
He follows you into the kitchen, handsome face pinched with contrition, dark eyes wide and shining. “I apologize if I – ”
But you do not let him finish. Instead, you gather up the little pile of clothes you had brought for him and thrust them in his direction. “Here – your clothes,” you say hurriedly, avoiding his eyes. “All the socks, the undershirt, and the shorts. So if I could just get my – ”
This time, it is Ezra who cuts you off. “Your lacy little unmentionables?”
He opens his fist, and you watch as your favorite pair of panties tumbles from his grip and dangles tantalizingly in mid-air, his thick index finger threaded through the gusset.
Abandoning his stack of laundry on the kitchen counter, you lunge for them, but he sees you coming a mile away. He yanks them out of your reach before your fingers can close around them, like a child on the playground teasing another with a coveted toy, and you stare at him incredulously.
“Ah, ah,” he tsks, his smile placid, almost smug as he watches your frustration and embarrassment grow. “You know, until I saw you on my doorstep, I wasn’t certain, but now that you’re here, I’m afraid there’s one more thing I’m going to need if you want these delightful delicates back.”
Unsure whether to blame your pounding pulse on anger, humiliation, or arousal, you can do nothing but blink back at him. “What?”
“Your shirt,” he specifies, gesturing to the oversized gray t-shirt currently draped over your frame. “Or, perhaps more accurately, my shirt.”
“This is my shirt,” you snap venomously. You are certain now – it’s anger. It has to be. The audacity of this man –
But Ezra is unperturbed, unmoved by your vitriol. His tone is calm and matter-of-fact as he replies, “No, little bird, it’s mine. Lost about the same time as the rest of articles you recovered from the laundry facility.”
You shake your head in confusion. “But…you never mentioned – in your notes, you always just said – ”
“I know, that it is true, but I was mistaken.” He glances down at the pair of underwear in his hand, allowing the intricate fabric to slip between his fingers and pool in his palm as he speaks. “You see, the shirt you’re wearing is not one I reached for often. It’s even older than those shorts you’ve been looking after for me. It took me well over a week to notice that it had disappeared from my wardrobe, as well.” His eyes flick back up to yours, dark lashes lowering as he studies you. “By that time, you had already established which of my items you had in your possession. It never occurred to me to ask if you had the shirt, as well.”
Your jaw works, mouth opening and closing as you struggle with how to respond. You think back to the day you found this shirt, tangled up in one of your bath towels fresh from the dryer, the same day you had found the sweat-stained undershirt. You couldn’t believe your luck, couldn’t believe the soft, perfectly-aged flawlessness of it – the way it had caressed your skin, the way it draped so effortlessly over your shoulders and skimmed your curves so delicately. It had never once occurred to you that this shirt might have been owned by the same person as the undershirt that had clearly seen better days.
“But… This is my favorite shirt,” you murmur despondently, all the fight leaving you as you run your fingertips over the hem.
Ezra’s gaze follows your touch, tracing across the edge of the shirt with an almost feverish gleam. “I can see why,” he rasps, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lower lip. “It is…enchanting on you. But I really must insist. You see, if I allow you to keep it, I will be plagued for the rest of my days by thoughts of you in this shirt – my shirt. And it will surely drive me mad.”
Your eyes snap to his, and for the first time, you feel as though you are able to glimpse a sliver of the man beneath the fanciful language and the slovenly clothes and the cluttered, eclectic apartment. Ezra has an edge to him, a ferocity he keeps well-hidden, but as he allows himself to take you in, you can see it – something animalistic, something raw and ragged and hungry. You watch as his hand clenches tightly around your panties, his thumb rubbing possessively over the little satin bow on the front, and all at once, the anger and embarrassment warring in your chest falls away, leaving only burning need in its wake.
You had never felt anything like this – this crackling electricity, this smoldering desire – with your ex. And certainly never with that worthless barista. This feels primal, a dangerous compliment to the silliness of the swooning, blushing infatuation you had felt for him before today.
How were you supposed to stand strong, to not give in to him when you had fascination, affection, and lust all working against you?
Did it really matter that you had never seen his face until this afternoon?
You’re certain that your conflict must be showing on your face because Ezra looks ready to charge across the kitchen and throw you up onto the kitchen counter at a single word from you. He’s twitchy and eager, his fingers spasming down by his sides, his fist clenching around your panties so hard you can see his knuckles turning pale.
“Come on now, birdie,” he urges, the stretch of silence almost seeming to cause him physical pain. “Have mercy on an old man and hand it over.”
His words have you swallowing thickly, a wave of heat flooding your chest and spreading to the apex of your thighs. You shift on your feet, pressing your thighs together in an unconscious search for friction, but he spots it – of course, he does. You watch as a muscle in his jaw jumps at the sight, his nostrils flaring as though to catch a whiff of your scent, and god, there’s that animal again – that feral savagery that you never would have known he possessed if you hadn’t coaxed it out of him. He’s beautiful like this, you think, just on the ragged edge of his self-control; it is that look that has you crossing your arms over your chest and drawing your t-shirt up and over your head.
The man blinks heavily, releasing a long, shuddering breath as you hold the shirt out to him by its collar. You dangle it from your fingertips, just as he had your panties, and he looks on with burning eyes as you let it drop to the floor in a puddle of gray cotton.
“Gods above, girl, look at you.”
You have no more words to describe the look on Ezra’s face. He looks enraptured, like a man in thrall, and you resist the urge to cover yourself. Your plain cotton bralette is easily one of the least glamorous underthings in your collection, but with the way he drinks in your figure, you would think that you had just revealed the most intricate, salacious piece of lingerie the man had ever seen. It makes you feel beautiful, powerful, and in control for the first time since you stepped through his door.
“Happy now?” you ask, your voice coming out weaker, breathier than you had intended. Your words are confident, almost taunting, but your tone betrays that you are just as affected by this game you’re playing as he is.
The smallest hint of a smile quirks the corner of his mouth. “I am, indeed. And yet now I fear I will find myself plagued by thoughts of another subject but a…similar flavor.”
With one last sweep of his gaze, the look like a caress as it trails across your body, he takes a step forward, then another, then another. When he finally stands no more than a handful of inches from you, he crouches down and scoops the abandoned shirt off the tiled kitchen floor. Heart in your throat, pulse in your pussy, you watch as he slowly rises back to his full height, brings the shirt to his face, and inhales.
“Goddammit,” he growls, eyes falling shut as he breathes in the soft fabric. “Smell so sweet, little bird. And it’s still warm.”
Your stomach bottoms out at that, the desperation in his voice like a drug that has your knees weakening beneath you. You’re so wet now; you can feel it slicking your panties, dampening your little cotton shorts.
“Ezra.” It spills softly from your mouth like a plea, unbidden and unashamed, and he nods slowly, eyes still closed, as though drinking in the sound of your need like water.
“I do so enjoy the sound of my name on your lips,” he admits. He makes no attempt to hide his own hunger anymore, and it calls to the one in you, stoked so confidently and carefully by his words. “Would you like me to see if I can make you say it again?”
Ezra kisses like a man starved. You’ve never experienced a need like his, the heat and the urgency of it a physical thing, dragging its silvered claws along your nerve endings, leaving you with no choice but to melt into him as he ravages your mouth. Desperation drips from his tongue past your lips, radiates from his hands into the very marrow of your bones. There’s something almost unhinged in the way he grips back of your neck, the way he runs his fingers through your hair, the way he eats at your mouth with a decadence that has you whimpering. It’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure – that he could have such an effect on you so immediately.
He had lamented how long it had been since you had been “properly satisfied.” From the way he touches you, you wonder if he ever has.
“Gods, birdie,” he groans, dragging his mouth across the edge of your jaw to your ear, catching the soft little lobe between his teeth. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. What divinity is responsible for bringing you to my doorstep?”
You can do nothing but sigh in reply, the heat of his breath on your neck sending sparkling shivers down your spine. You cling to him tighter, dig your nails into the cotton of his T-shirt, and he groans at the dull bite of them embedding themselves in the ropey muscles of his shoulders.
“Hnng – the delicate little bird has claws.” He drops both hands to your ass with a smack, each one taking a broad palmful of your cheeks, and grips you so hard you can feel your pussy lips start to spread with them. Your face burns as you realize that he almost certainly can feel your heat on his fingertips – he’s mere inches from the core of you, the only thing separating his touch from your cunt the thin, damp layers of your shorts and panties.
“You should know…” he murmurs into the soft, vulnerable patch of skin behind your ear. “I am going to wring every. last. ounce. of pleasure out of you. I want to savor every drop of it. And if you even think about attempting to placate me with one of those fake little cries I know you favor, I can assure you, I will know, and I will not stand for it. Do you understand?”
You nod, sliding your fingers up into his dark, unruly hair. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
The scruff of his beard scrapes along your neck as he grins. “Atta girl. Now. Hold on tight.” And with little warning, Ezra slips his hands down to the underside of your ass cheeks and lifts you into the air. You let out a little yelp, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct alone, and the hum of his laughter sings in your veins as he carries you to the bedroom.
“There she is. That’s what you needed, isn’t it?”
“Ezra…!”
“Fuck, sweet girl, I know. Keep on grinding for me. Keep going ‘til I say so.”
He has you on his lap, knees on either side of his hips as you straddle him in the center of his bed. His torso is propped up on an abundant pile of pillows stacked artlessly against the wall behind him, and his hands haven’t left your tits in countless minutes. He has no headboard, you notice absently, just a thin photo-realistic tapestry depicting a moss-covered forest hanging at the head of the bed, but as off-putting as you would find that under normal circumstances, in this moment, you can’t bring yourself to care.
“Feels so good,” you whimper, head thrown back, eyes drifting shut, hips working, working, working over the sizeable bulge pressing insistently against your cunt through the fabric of your clothes. He’s so hard beneath you, and his hands – his broad, thick, calloused hands – are performing magic on your nipples.
He had long since pulled down the flimsy cups of your bralette, allowing the soft swell of your breasts to spill over the tops, and after drawing the tips of them into achingly hard points with his tongue, he has contented himself with endlessly rubbing, pinching, and tugging at them while you grind against him. The constant stimulation is driving you insane – every caress of his thumb is like a crackling arm of lightning arcing down your nerve endings to your slick, swollen clit, and every thrust of your hips has the leaking head of his cock catching on that clit, and god damn, you’ve never come just from dry humping before, but you feel dangerously close to doing so right here in this near-stranger’s bed, all over his lap.
And Ezra knows it, too. With a smug, filthy smirk, he nods slowly, encouragingly. “Yeah, it does. Can feel you soaking me through my shorts.”
You pant, leaning back to brace your palms on his knees behind you, shifting your angle, seeking more of his hardness. The moan that leaves your mouth as you find the perfect position would be embarrassing if you weren’t so far gone. As it is, it barely even registers. “Oh my god, oh my god – ”
Your neighbor shakes his head, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he traps each of your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezes, making your hips judder. “No god here, baby. Goddess, maybe. Never seen anything that made me believe in the almighty quite so much as you.”
His praise sends a wave of heat through you, and you can feel sweat starting to bloom along your hairline, under your breasts, in the creases of your thighs. Fuck, your legs are burning, your hips are sore from being spread so wide over him, and god, why won’t he just fuck you already?!
“Ezra, please – ”
“You can come like this, birdie.” His voice is low, strained and rasping but somehow steady. “Come just like this, and then I’m all yours.”
And he’s right – it doesn’t take much longer for it all to become just too much. His torturous attentions on your tits, the low, rich, rasping drawl of his encouragements, the impossibly hard and thick length of him pressing so perfectly against your dripping pussy – all of it stokes the flames in your belly, winds that coil deep inside. In the end, all it takes the wet drag of his tongue against your neck and a whispered “let go, little bird, I got you” in your ear, and you are gone.
Ezra’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face as you come down, his thumb stroking your cheek with surprising tenderness as you whimper and sigh and shake under his grip. “There she is,” he croons, all gentle warmth. “How’d that feel?”
All you can manage in reply is a weak nod. You list forward, seeking his mouth with your own, and you feel him grin into the kiss as you slot your lips against his.
“Fuck, E, please?” you murmur, fingers finding the short, wild strands of hair at the base of his skull and tugging gently.
“Please?” He echoes the word into your mouth, his breath hot on your face as he traces the tip of his prominent nose along yours. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his pupils blown wide, but they shine with good humor just the same. “Please what, baby?”
“Fuck me.” You sound petulant, demanding, almost childlike to your own ears.
With a warm chuckle, his slick tongue darts out to flick playfully at the seam of your open, panting mouth. “Soon. Very soon.”
“I dare not admit to how many times I thought about this. It would surely ruin your good opinion of me.”
You can barely string together enough brain cells to process Ezra’s words, let alone form a coherent response.
You’ve shed the remainder of your clothes, as has he, and you’ve traded places now – your reclined torso supported by the pile of pillows against the wall while your neighbor kneels on the mattress between your spread legs. He pumps his cock – even thicker than you had guessed, flushed ruddy and dripping pearls of precum – with one hand, while the other busies itself between your legs. The stretch of his first two fingers is incredible, the gentle, focused swirl of his thumb on your clit only adding to the sensation. It’s so delicious you can’t keep still, your hips grinding and thrusting to meet his touch.
Eyes fluttering with overwhelm, weak little moans dropping from your open mouth, you stammer, “Y-You thought about this?”
He nods, that blonde shock of hair over his right eye bobbing with the motion. “I did, indeed. Couldn’t help myself, gods forgive me.” His dark, burning gaze remains focused on your cunt, intent on not missing a moment of the way his fingers glisten with your wetness. The intensity of that stare makes you tremble. “From that very first missive I found in the laundry facility. That…precious pink stationary, with the strawberries around the outside. It smelled sweet. Damn near drove myself mad thinking about it.”
Fuck, his fingers – they keep dragging against something inside you – something along the front wall of your pussy, something you know exists but have never found a partner who was interested in seeking it out. The feeling is foreign but completely spine-melting, a pleasure so deep and round and full that you can barely keep your eyes from slipping shut.
“I wondered what you might look like, what you might sound like. I wondered if you got as much satisfaction from our correspondence as I did. I wondered whether you enjoyed it when I dared to flirt, even if it was just a little bit.” His gaze flicks up to yours briefly, his hand still working his cock, his fingers still buried in your wetness. “Did you, little bird? Did you like when I flirted with you?”
You nod, blinking heavily as you try to hold his eye contact. “Yes,” you sigh, the sound coming out high-pitched and whining. “I did, I liked it.”
“And what about now? Do you like this? Do you like how I toy with your captivating little cunt?”
You moan and nod again. “I do, yes, E, fuck.”
The desperation in your voice makes Ezra smile. “She’s so pretty, sweetheart. So soft and juicy, spilling down my fingers like a ripe little peach in the middle of summer.” He pulls his fingers from you then, and you yelp in protest, your hands flying to his wrist to try to drag him back inside you. But he brushes off your grip like a harmless pest. Instead, he sticks out his tongue and drags his pointer and middle finger across it, leaving a trail of your milky slickness across his tastebuds. “Sticky. Sweet. Rich,” he groans, eyelids dropping closed, losing himself in the taste of you for a moment. “Full to bursting.”
He seems to remember himself, to finally hear your pleas of protest, and it takes him no more than half a beat to slip his fingers back inside you once again. “I want one more moment of ecstasy from you, birdie,” he growls, and you feel your deepest muscles clench down around him at the sound. “Let me watch you fall one more time, and then I will give you this cock.”
You nod again, your head bobbling on your neck as weakly as a newborn’s, and the grin he gives you in return in positively filthy.
“Excellent.”
The stroke of his fingers changes then, no more drugging, hypnotic in and out, no more tender swirl around your over-sensitive bundle of nerves. Instead, he starts to press on that soft, spongy, elusive spot deep within you, the pressure strong and insistent. Your back arches at the sensation, your hands flying out to grip onto his bare, freckled shoulders to hold yourself steady, but even the heat of his skin under your fingers isn’t enough to ground you. Instead, all you can do is drop little rhythmic moans synched with the motion of his hand. He jacks his wrist up and down, quick and firm and unrelenting, his fingertips pressing releasing pressing releasing pressing releasing, and slowly, steadily, something begins to build in you.
It’s searing hot and molten, pooling in your abdomen and leaking into your bloodstream. Your chest flushes, then you neck, then your face, and you swear your limbs are going numb as the pressure below your navel ratchets higher and higher.
“Ez-Ezra,” you whine. “That feels – I – ”
Somewhere at the edges of your awareness, you can sense him nodding, can feel the heat of his stare as he watches you. “I know, I know. Don’t fret now. You can give in to it. Feels good to surrender.”
A bolt of adrenaline rushes through you as that pressure morphs, transforms into the sudden, immediate, and desperate need to pee. The feeling mortifies you, and you shy away from it immediately, hips squirming away from his touch as you try not to embarrass yourself in front of this man you just met, but before you can get far, Ezra abandons his grip on his cock and instead uses that hand to push down hard on your lower stomach, holding you in place.
“Ah! Ezra!”
“Don’t fight your rapture, girl,” he rumbles. “Give me all that sweet nectar.”
Your orgasm hits you like a freight train.
It bowls you over, knocking the wind from your lungs, robbing the voice from your throat, and you can’t even manage to cry out as that dam inside you breaks and you flood his hand. Liquid gushes from you with such force that you can hear it hit his forearm, his knees, his bedsheets. He groans deep in his chest, resonant and victorious, but it sounds far away to you, like you’ve dunked your head underwater or filled your ear canals with cotton fluff. You’re so lost to your own ecstasy, you can hardly be bothered to acknowledge him, but still his miraculous fingers fuck you through the throes of it.
As you drift back to awareness, as your eyes blink open, you find that your nails have left deep, blood-red crescents in the tanned skin of his shoulders, and Ezra is gazing at you with something like pride shining in his dark eyes.
Your throat is dry and hoarse as you stutter, “I didn’t know – I’ve never – ”
“That’s my girl,” he whispers, dropping a surprisingly tender kiss to the very tip of your nose. “Lie back now. I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve.”
“Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”
He’s so deep inside you now, thick and long and throbbing, and tears are starting to gather at the corners of your eyes from the stretch and the force of him. He has your knees hooked over his shoulders, your hands braced against the bare wall above you to keep your head from bumping into it, and between your legs, Ezra pants and sweats and grinds his teeth as he pounds into you with enough force to rock the bedframe.
“In all my time…on this green earth…never felt anything like you, birdie. What did this old man…ever do…to deserves something so sweet? So…soft. So wet. So fucking…tight, goddammit, sweetheart – ”
From the moment he slipped inside you, he hasn’t shut up. Not that you want him to, but you’ve never had a bed partner be quite so vocal before. You think it might take some getting used to, though if what you’ve experienced with him so far is anything to go off of, you feel confident that it would be worth it for the orgasms alone. This man treats your pleasure like it’s his, like he gets just as much out of watching you fall apart as you do experiencing it. It’s intoxicating, making you want to deliver for him just as badly as he clearly wants to for you.
Your pussy feels swollen and almost achy, your clit throbbing with the paired sensations of pain and pleasure with every grind of his pubic bone against yours. You’re exhausted, your vision hazy, your mouth parched, your hips sore. If he manages to make you come even one more time, you think you might actually pass out.
And yet, you fight to keep your eyelids open, to keep your gaze on him. Your cunt still drools for him in spite of your overwhelm, and you’re gripped with the bone-deep need to stay the course. You want to make him feel as good as he makes you feel. You want to be good for him.
He deserves it, you think. He deserves everything you can offer him and more.
“All those theatrical moans, those high-pitched cries,” he continues, voice dropping to a husky growl as he drags the tip of his nose along the soft, supple skin of your calf. “Where are they now, little bird, eh? Turns out when someone really fucks you right, you go almost totally quiet. Isn’t that so?”
You gasp out a soft, strained, “Mm hm.”
Ezra’s teeth flash as he grins, sweat dripping from his brow, slicking down both blonde and brown hair to the surface of his forehead. “I know, baby. Dick so good, you can’t even make a sound.”
He shifts slightly, bearing the weight of his upper body on one hand instead two as the other delicately brushes your wild hair out of your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, all folded up like this under him, drenched in your own sweat and his, your hair tangled and your eyes fighting not to cross in pleasure.
“Thought about you so many times, birdie. Thought about the girl that made those sounds, too,” he confesses. He’s breathing heavily, his pace never slowing, never stopping. You can feel the flex of his abdomen as he thrusts, can feel the delectable friction of the tip of his cock against your tender G-spot. “What cosmic alignment…what turn of fortune…that you and that girl should be one and the same.”
“E-Ezra. It’s – it’s so – ”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” His fingertips are so gentle against your cheek, a spine-melting contrast to the rough, powerful, insistent way he pounds into your body. Fuck, his cock is so good – you clench down around him involuntarily, the weight and the girth and the heft of him pressing so perfectly against every swollen, over-worked nerve ending within you. “But I told you – every last drop, remember? And you’ve still got one more to give me. I can feel it.”
On instinct, you shake your head, a whine bubbling up in your throat as your vision starts to blur. “Can’t – it’s too much – ”
“You can.” Ezra’s voice is breathless but firm, leaving no room for negotiation.
“But – ”
He groans your name then, and the sound of it on his lips forces your eyes open once more. “I can feel this precious little pussy clamping down on me. She’s speaking to me, baby. She wants to come, doesn’t she? One more time? She wants to squirt her delicious nectar all over me, I can tell.”
You have no more brain power left to formulate a response. A weak, whining “fuck” is all you can manage.
“It’s all right, little bird.” The wicked smirk on his face is audible in his voice. “You don’t have to say a thing. I can do all the talking for now – you just relax.”
Before long, that pressure returns – that weighty, swollen, urgent sensation low in your abdomen, the one that makes you seize up on instinct, one of your hands flying to his hip as though to push him away. But you are entirely too weak and overwhelmed to have much of an effect. Instead, Ezra just nods knowingly and chuckles.
“Right there? Is that what this pussy needs to give up her treasures?” He holds steady, hitting the exact same spot over and over and over, and you can’t help but whimper through clenched teeth. “Breathe, birdie. Breathe deep and let go.”
You’re too far gone to even consider disobeying.
You do as he says – dropping your jaw, drawing a deep, soothing breath into your lungs, feeling your belly rise with it, feeling your diaphragm stretch, and like magic, all of the resistant tension in your hips and core releases, and you’re coming.
You’re thighs-trembling, neck-straining, hands-clenching, cunt-gushing coming. Your mouth open on a silent scream, you ride the tidal wave with half-awareness, barely hearing Ezra’s babbled praises, barely feeling the vital grip of his fingers around your hips, barely sensing the bloom of warmth deep inside you as he fills you with his cum. The only sensation that breaks through it all is the sharp pinch of his teeth biting into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. But you don’t mind – you think you might actually relish the bruise that is sure to come later.
The world is hazy as you come down – the late afternoon sun streaming through Ezra’s window casts long shadows across the bed, and you notice belatedly that the two of you have cast every single pillow and blanket onto the floor during your tryst. You shiver as the sweat between you begins to cool, and for the first time, you start to feel the sopping wet mess you have made of his fitted sheet as it sticks to you unpleasantly. You hope he has a waterproof mattress cover underneath it – otherwise, he is in for a very expensive steam cleaning bill.
Even in your growing discomfort, however, you cannot bring yourself to move. Every muscle in your body feels wrung out; every joint feels weak and wobbly. And your mind – your mind is blissfully, delightfully blank. You smile faintly, allowing your fingertips to trail leisurely over your chest, your stomach, your hips. You are entirely sated, and it is glorious.
Ezra, for his part, appears to feel the same. He braces himself over you with lax, rounded shoulders, his head hanging loose on his neck, his eyes closed, silent at last. His softening cock still rests inside you, but you don’t mind it – he’s warm, and you’re starting to chill. Not for the first time, you’re struck by how beautiful he is. So much more so than you ever could have imagined when you first responded to that crinkled little note in the laundry room.
When he finally withdraws from you, he lets out a soft, rasping groan, and between your legs, you feel the slick warmth of his cum dripping out of your swollen, sensitive hole. You catch him watching it for a moment, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth, before he collapses onto the bed next to you with a sigh.
“Well, birdie,” he quips after a moment of satisfied silence, “I suppose I have some more laundry to do, eh?”
His words surprise a laugh from you, the motion forcing even more of his cum to slip down between your ass cheeks. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” you say with a tired smile, turning on your side to face him. “I can help, if you want.”
His grin broadens, and he shoots you a cheeky, crinkle-eyed wink. “No need, sweetheart. I know how to clean up my own messes.”
It’s hours later when your phone vibrates on your night stand, pulling you from your shallow, restless sleep. The time reads nearly midnight, but you rub the grit from your eyes anyway as you scan the message lighting up the screen.
The next time I fuck you, little bird, you’re wearing those lacy panties.
A delicious thrill trips down your spine at Ezra’s words. Drawing your lower lip between your teeth, you thumb a quick reply.
🤭 on one condition
i want to wear the tshirt too 😜
Oh, you mean MY t-shirt?
no
MY tshirt 😇
