WolfieMarley

⋆˚꩜｡

[wasiana]

𝑺𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒍

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚 | sneaking out for the first time led you to meet your husband whose fallen head-over-heels for you, spoiling you every chance allowed. rebellion, now, has transformed into a domestic obedience

𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 | 16k+

𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒔 | fem pov, age-gap (20+ yrs), forced marriage, power dynamic present, fingering, consensual p in v, missionary position, doggystyle position, descriptions of smaller chest, non-virgin reader, creampies/breeding, lots and lots of cum 

𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 | i was gonna write something for valentines with miller, but i’m thinking of making it into something different… enjoy tommy, he’s a little out-of-character, but we’ll just say he’s lovestruck

(!) kinda proofread.

You shouldn’t have been there. 

The thought followed you from your dressing table mirror all the way down Iron Row, and it clung to you like the perfume you’d generously dabbed at your throat. You planned your first outing as a young woman with precision, to dare past what your parents expected of you, what society expected of you.

In the mirror, you studied yourself with ruthless concentration. Everything felt new, or at least updated. Your hair, your dress, your demeanor. Tilting your chin higher, shoulders kept back, bosom propped up until you made yourself blush. Your eyes had to be half-lidded, not wide, wide meant young, naïve. You attempted boredom instead, leaning against the burle walnut with your chin resting in your palm.

Refined women, the women who belonged in dimly lit rooms, were bored, you decided. Nothing tonight would surprise or frighten you. Your eighteenth birthday was celebrated recently, you took it upon yourself to make sure you’d have nights like these and stories to tell, to whom you weren’t sure. A smile spread on your face as you looked at yourself in the mirror, and you knew your parents would turn ghastly pale if they saw you.

Peeking out of your doorway, you listened for any signs of suspicion. Your father’s house hummed quietly beyond the door, grandfather clock ticking in the hall, as if counting down the seconds before ultimate misbehavior. There was the faint clink of china as the maid cleared away supper, humming to herself a bit mindlessly.

You moved carefully, lifting the lid of your vanity as if it might have cried out. Red lipstick, borrowed from a schoolmate, was wrapped in tissue and hidden beneath your fur-lined gloves. You’d drawn the line slowly, steadying your wrist. Once, then again blotted.

Then, your eye makeup, it wasn’t meant to look natural, it was meant to shape. Smoky eyes weren’t meant for girls your age, they were mature, subtle. 

The woman in the mirror stared back at you, with your large eyes and someone else’s mouth.

The dress was new as well, beautiful on your skin even if it was going to be covered by a mink coat. Your father would have called the neckline “smart.” Navy silk, bias-cut, backless. It fell in a line too fluid to be modest when you moved, and it clung when you breathed in. You bit your lip as it made you more aware of your body than Sunday dresses ever had.

Turning sideways, you looked at how the lamplight traced the curve of your hip. You swallowed, you looked older, old enough. With that knowledge, you began stepping out into the hallway, your heels held by your fingers as you tip-toed.

The large door to your father’s study was closed. A green banker’s lamp cast a hard circle of light across his ledger; columns of numbers marched in obedient lines beneath his pen. The scratch of nib on paper carried down the hall like a metronome.

You paused outside the doorway, shoes in hand, silk hem lifted clear of the rug.

He didn’t look up. Your father liked things that could be totaled. Contracts. Inventories. Losses. Reputation most of all. Reputation could be measured in handshakes and church pews and who nodded first on Coppersmith Lane. He did not account for daughters.

Another clock somewhere on the mantel chimed the quarter hour. Somewhere else in the house, you heard a page turn. You moved steadily

The gravel traitorously crunched under your heels as you crossed the garden. You paused by the hedge, heart hammering, waiting for a shout from an upstairs window that never came. The house remained pristine and respectable behind you. You turned your back on it anyway.

Iron Row stretched unfamiliarly ahead in long, uneven lines of brick and soot. Your mother always warned you to stay out of trouble, to not even think of traveling to the market. Factories exhaled all day; thick smoke and smog hung low, refusing to disperse. It had rained earlier that day, cobblestone, shining like fish scales beneath the lamps. 

Your almond-toed heels sounded too sharp against them. Keeping your stride lengthened, you forced your shoulder back the way you practiced in the mirror. Keep your chin lifted, you thought. Eyes ahead, don’t glance. Women who belonged out at this hour didn’t dart their gaze over their shoulders for passerbys.

Men stood in open-lit doorways smoking. Feeling their gazes find you, a small part of you wanted to remind yourself this was for your better persona. One muttered something you pretended not to hear, something that made you pull your coat a bit tighter around yourself. The silk at your thighs whispered when you walked. Coppersmith Lane came into view. So did the Garrison.

It wasn’t like other buildings, it didn’t simply stand at the corner; it seemed planted there, stubborn as a taproot. Red brick dulled to brown by years of soot, windows bleeding light yet clouded with grime and nicotine. The glass was so dark it could have reflected the street instead of revealing the interior. 

You slowed without meaning to. It wasn’t hesitation, you were assessing. From inside came the low thud of boots on boards, the dull percussion of laughter, the clink of glass. Smoke seeped from the seams around the doorframe, carrying the smell of beer and something metallic beneath it.

This moment was imagined by you with a certain elegance. In your mind, you would glide in confidently. A glance or two would follow. You would order something daring and sip it slowly, unimpressed. Instead, your stomach tightened so sharply you pressed your hand there, as if to hold yourself together. 

You could’ve still turned back. Your father wouldn’t have known. The house would’ve swallowed you whole again. But you reached for the handle. The wood was worn smooth where countless palms had gripped it. It yielded under your hand with a reluctant groan. Heat hit you first. Heat and smoke.

The door shut behind you with a solid thud, and the sound of the street cut off like a curtain falling. Inside, the air was thick enough to chew. Sour ale soaked into the beams overhead. Greasy men and workers clung to the walls. Old wood, scarred and dark, held the memory of spills and fights and years of men leaning hard into it.

The floorboards dipped slightly toward the center of the room. The ceiling felt low. Lamps cast yellow halos that left the corners in shadow. The bar stretched along one wall, heavy oak polished by elbows rather than cloth. Behind it, shelves of bottles glinted through the haze. A narrow staircase rose toward the back, its railing worn smooth. 

A dartboard hung crooked near the fireplace, where embers glowed beneath a mantle blackened by smoke. The hearth smelled faintly of peat and spilled porter. Conversation faltered at the scent of perfume, not stopped entirely, but changed.

You felt the shift ripple outward like a stone dropped into water. So extraordinarily foreign in a place you expected to not welcome, but to blend in. A man at a table near the door paused mid-sentence. Another leaned back in his chair, boot hooked over the rung, gaze traveling slowly upward from your shoes to your mouth. 

Someone snorted softly. Someone else nudged a companion with an elbow. You kept walking. Drunken chatter resumed its course, though you could feel eyes staring into your back. Each step sank slightly into boards softened by decades of damp. Your heels made a different sound here, muted, swallowed. The silk at your hips brushed your stockings with a quiet hiss. The bar loomed closer. 

Up close, the wood wasn’t glossy but layered, thick varnish over stains, over scratches. The edge bore shallow cuts where knives had once bitten. A dark stain near the corner had been scrubbed but not erased; the grain there ran darker. You placed your hands on the counter. It was sticky as the mug outside.

The varnish clung faintly to your palms, resisting when you shifted. The bar came just beneath your ribs. You adjusted your stance so you would not appear to be bracing yourself. The bartender approached without hurry as you slid your coat further down your bare back.

Broad shoulders. Sleeves rolled past his forearms. A towel draped over one shoulder like afterthought. His eyes slid over you once, shoes, hem, waist, mouth. They paused at your lipstick.

“What’ll it be?” he asked. His voice was flat, Birmingham through and through.

You swallowed carefully, as though swallowing steadied your voice. “Gin.”

One brow lifted a fraction. “Gin.”

You held his gaze. “Yes.” You were aware of every breath you took.

He reached for a glass from beneath the counter. It had been wiped, not washed; a faint ring lingered at the bottom. He filled it from a tap behind the bar, the water running cloudy before clearing. You wrapped your fingers around the glass. The condensation dampened your gloves.

Your father would never step foot in a place like this. He would speak of it in numbers; losses, risks, associations. He would shake his head at the recklessness of men who conducted business where fists flew.

Your first sip was harsh, burning your throat bittersweetly. At the illicit taste, you managed to cough a small amount back into your glass before clearing your throat. You were thankful that no one was paying attention to you for the first time since you walked in. Minutes passed slowly, you felt as though the night wouldn’t end.

Then the door opened.

A man beside you, who’d been laughing with his mouth wide and gums showing, stopped mid-note. The sound died in his throat as if he choked it down. You refused to turn, believing it to be, hopefully, another young lady.

A chair leg screeched and then settled. Someone cleared his throat. Glass met wood at the bar. Curiosity, piqued. You looked back, your eyes young and wide at the sight of two Peaky Blinders.

Thomas Shelby stepped over the threshold as if the air parted for him alone. Dark overcoat falling clean from his shoulders, the wool uncreased despite the grime of the street. Flat cap angled low, brim cutting a deliberate shadow over his eyes. His brother, you assumed, followed closely.

A cigarette burned between his fingers, smoke curling upward in a pale ribbon. You hadn’t seen him strike a match, he must prefer carrying them between his teeth. The ember glowed steadily, already halfway through. 

The door closed behind them, unhurried. The men nearest the entrance shifted their weight back to clear a path. They knew something you didn’t, or maybe something you were afraid of. 

You heard his name spoken in drawing rooms where heavy curtains rippled against walls and the decanters, crystal. Your father had once said it over supper, fork suspended midair. “Shelby.” Now he was here in the flesh, in your line of sight.

He didn’t look at you right away. He spoke to the barman first. 

The barman straightened, wiping his hands on a rag already damp. “Evenin’, Mr. Shelby.” 

Thomas removed one glove, finger by finger. “Evenin’.” His voice was low. Not loud enough to command the room. It didn’t need to be. 

You should have looked away, you knew that. Instead, you stared. Not because he was handsome, though he was, in a severe, cut-glass way, but because there was something wrong about how still he seemed. As if the world moved around him and not the other way round.

Gin sat barely-started in your hand. The condensation of it dampening your glove. You came there alone, no chaperone, no driver outside, you and your feminine hubris. The Garrison had felt theatrical when you stepped in earlier, upon Thomas's arrival, it shrunk to a meek pub.

He spoke to someone at the back table without raising his voice. The man stood halfway from his chair, deferential without quite bowing. Shelby’s expression didn’t change, a murmur and a nod sufficed.

By then, conversation found another way to spark. Thomas took a slow drag from his cigarette, ember flaring. That may have been when you realized what unsettled you; his stillness. Not motionless, of course. He breathed and blinked, but no motion went wasted. He wasn’t young at all, no restless shifting or scanning.

Your father filled rooms, too, but he did it with volume. A booming voice and presence forced outward. This was much different, this was gravity.

Too late you became aware that you were staring. Too poorly did you attempt to correct it and lower your gaze with the excuse of idle observance. 

Too slow. His eyes found you.

Blue. The color of winter river water beneath a thin sheen of ice. You felt it strike like a fingertip pressed against your throat. Your breath caught before you could prevent it. Heat crawled up the column of your neck, beneath the silk of your dress, pooling beneath the borrowed red on your lips. 

Stop looking at him. Intimidation at its finest caused you to drop your gaze, eyes no longer half-lidded but shy, embarrassed at such a situation. But it was too late.

Unknown to you, that brief exchange was an assessment recorded. He didn’t blink away as other lecherous men had, he didn’t smirk or leer. He measured you. From beneath your lowered, dark lashes, you felt him take you in again.

The dress first, perhaps. Navy silk clinging to your waist and revealing where it shouldn’t cling to a girl who still had to ask permission to dine out alone. The fabric traced the lines of you too honestly. Your waist. The gentle rise of your hips. Not fullness. Not yet. Youth sharpened into something almost dangerous by intention alone. 

Your hands, gloveless around a glass of amber gin, hands perched nervously as you trace the rim out of distraction. As if you didn’t want to seem innocent in your serving choice.

Your heels, good leather, wealthy leather. Polished, not purchased from a market’s stall. Your hair, cut a bit fashionably, but still extremely soft at the edges. As if changing times didn’t phase you just yet. Your skin unlined, unweathered. Roundness lingering in your cheeks, both pairs, that no amount of lipstick or dresswear could disguise.

He knew. You did not at all look like a child, but he’d seen too many women to mistake the difference between one who had chosen the night and one who had slipped out to taste it. His gaze returned to your face. 

You felt the scrutiny linger on your mouth, the precision of a deep red. Not sloppily drawn. Careful, a girl’s attempt at a woman’s armor. Knowing his gaze lingered, you lifted your chin a fraction higher, as if daring him to contradict your mystique.

The corner of his mouth moved, barely. He took a drag of his cigarette without breaking his stare, smoke leaving his lips as he made out the lines of your back.

The room resumed its murmur around you, but the space between his eyes and yours held steady, taut as wire. You became acutely aware of your pulse, of the slight tremor in your fingers where they touched the glass. You set it down carefully to still them. The base clicked faintly against the wood. 

Your throat felt tight. You swallowed against it and found your voice lodged somewhere below your ribs. Look away, you ordered yourself again. Instead, you met his gaze properly. Just for a heartbeat. 

The world didn’t collapse. But something in your stomach dropped as if you had stepped off a curb you had not seen. His eyes sharpened with interest. He tilted his head slightly, studying you as though you were a ledger he meant to balance. The silence stretched long enough for you to feel the weight of it pressing against your skin. 

You rose from the stool. The movement felt exaggerated, though you kept it smooth. Your knees threatened to betray you, but you locked them into cooperation. You smoothed your skirt down your hips, more to give your hands purpose than from necessity. 

He watched every inch of it, every inch of you. You could feel the path of his gaze as you turned toward the door. Not possessive. Not yet. The handle felt cooler beneath your palm when you reached it. The noise of the room seemed muffled now, distant behind the pounding in your ears. 

You stepped back out into the comfortable evening. Dusk clung to the street in bruised shades of purple and smoke. Gas lamps flickered to life along Iron Row, their glow catching the edges of still-wet cobblestone. The air tasted cleaner than the pub but no less heavy. 

You drew in a breath that trembled despite your effort. 

Your gloves were in your clutch. You fumbled them, fingers clumsy, silk snagging on your nails. You forced them on, tugging each one tight over your wrists as if they could restore order to your skin. Behind you, through the half-open door, the murmur resumed its normal rhythm. 

Inside, he had not moved from his place at the bar. He didn’t turn his head to follow you or the full-glass of gin you left. He didn’t need to. 

He took another drag from his cigarette, eyes still fixed on the doorway where you had disappeared, and spoke to Arthur in a tone so even it barely disturbed the air. 

“Who’s that?” 

Now, a month into marriage, you wake before him.

The room is dim, washed in the pale grey that creeps through Birmingham before the sun even commits to rising. Heavy curtains soften the cool morning light but don't keep it out entirely. It pools along the ceiling in thin ribbons, tracing plasterwork you have yet to memorize. The air smells faintly of starch and tobacco, even here, even in silk sheets that’re changed twice a week.

Thomas'ss arm rests across your waist. Not draped carelessly out of fatigue. It lies heavy and deliberate, palm flattened against your stomach as if testing him that you remain where he left you. Even in sleep, his fingers curl slightly, the tips brushing the soft silk of your nightgown. His body is warm at your back, solid. He breathes a steady rhythm in your neck, measured and slow.

You stare at the ceiling instead of turning to look at him. Your thumb traces over his scarred one, perhaps the only pattern you’ve recognized are the ones he’s acquired.

A month. 

The ring, a navette-shaped marquise, presses cool against your finger where your hand rests on his. It catches on the sheet when you flex your fingers. You roll your wrist slightly and feel its weight, a small, polished diamond that seems denser in the mornings than it did at the altar. Thomas shifts, his face coming into your neck to breathe your hair.

Outside, a car rattles over cobblestone, more likely than not, one of his brother’s stopping by as they often did without protocol. The sound travels through the window glass, muted but distinct. Somewhere further in the courtyard, a man calls out, his voice carrying the flat vowels of early trade. The house is quiet, but not peaceful.

Even now, in the grey hush, there’s always a faint tension beneath the silence, like a wire pulled too tight. The pattering footsteps of old maids can be heard, but the younger ones are the ones who like to talk the most about you amongst themselves. A faint crunch of gravel as someone shifts their stance outside. There are always men at the gate, one near the door. They’ll tip their caps to you when you pass, step aside too. They too call you Mrs. Shelby with careful respect.

Turning your head slightly, you look down to see Thomas's eyelashes resting against his aged undereyes, from this perspective, you can count his gentle freckles. Your hip shifts a fraction beneath his arm, testing the small space between his hand and your waist. You feel his fingers tighten. 

“Don’t.” The word is low, roughened by sleep, but it carries an intact edge. You pause, breath stilling halfway in your chest as his eyes slowly open. He doesn’t blink against the warm light seeping in. He simply looks at you, as though he’d been aware of you long before waking.

For a moment, Thomas says nothing. His hand remains on your stomach as he takes in your appearance graciously. His gaze moves slowly over your face in the quiet, hair loose and let-down around your shoulders, the crease at your brow you’d always seem to make when he raised his voice a decibel, and the faint shadow beneath your eyes from a sleep that’s not without overthinking.

Then, he leans in, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, his lips lingering much longer than necessary. Though, his fondness is something you find hard to deny your pleasure to. Leaning in, your hand slides up to the side of his cheek, holding him against you as you sigh tiredly.

“You’re up early,” he says. His voice settles in now, pausing with gentle kisses that trail towards your jaw. 

“So are you.” Your tone comes out steady, much steadier than you feel.

A faint curve touches his mouth as he hears the softness of your tone. “I wasn’t.”

He pushes himself onto one elbow, letting your arm fall slowly back down your stomach. The sheet slides down his chest, revealing pale, muscular skin scored with faint lines that catch the light, scars you’ve traced only once, carefully. Your eyes slowly make out his Forrard tattoo against his muscle. His hand remains at your waist.

He studies your expression, the way you’re leaned back against the soft linen, how your brows still curve as if you disobey. You hold his gaze, despite how easy it would be not to. It’d be simpler to look toward the window, out into the foggy morn, to play the role expected of you in this house with its high ceilings and low voices.

“You didn’t sleep,” he says, not a question. Thomas watches the way your hand holds onto the sheet as you bring it over your chest.

You turn on your back, looking up at him, cheek pressing against his bicep. He smells good, like his cologne. “I did.”

“You moved.” He corrects gently, a hand coming up to hold your cheek as you instinctively press against his palm. You swallow as he rubs your bottom lip. “Everyone moves.”

His thumb shifts slightly against your lips, the smallest deliberate motion. His gaze flick to your mouth, then back up to your eyes. “Not that much.”

The curtains stir faintly with the draft that seeps beneath the window. The light glows marginally stronger, outlining the sharp line of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone. Mornings like this, Thomas looks less like a man just risen and more like one who’s resumed watch. He’s been like this since the wedding; attentive in affectionate ways.

He notices when your voice tightens at the sound of raised chatter downstairs, holding onto his sleeve as if you’re being the one scolded. When you pause too long at the window overlooking the garden, wondering what other views you can take in without being so domicile. When you linger near the door to the yard as if measuring the distance to the gate. 

You once asked him, standing in his office with a subtle wall of paperwork between you. 

“If you plan on leaving, at least take the carriage,” he’d replied without looking up from the whiskey he was pouring. You’d stood uncertain at the time, your hands fisted in your skirt under the assumed scrutiny.

Your hair was let down, just coming back from visiting the horses. “When may I?” 

The amber liquid had caught the lamplight as he tilted the bottle. Thomas set it down with care, lifted the glass, and only then glanced in your direction. He looked as though he already knew where you’d end up. “Whenever you’d like.”  

He took a sip, gaze already elsewhere. That had been the end of it.  

You know now how quickly he moved after that first night at the Garrison. Arthur had been sent with instructions murmured too low for you to catch. Your family name gathered. Your school records and photos. Parish books, even. The value of your father’s contracts calculated as precisely as any bet placed on a horserace.  

You remember the evening your parents called you into the sitting room. Both of them sitting across from one of the plush booths, maids peering in from behind open doorways. Your mother’s hands were clammy and damp where they clasped her skirt. She smoothed the fabric once, twice, then again, as if it refused to lie flat. 

A letter had been opened, resting in your father’s clenching hand. He cleared his throat and refused to meet your eyes immediately. More concerned with how you met Thomas Shelby in the first place.

“He’s… an ambitious man,” your father had said, choosing the word like it might bruise if handled roughly. Ambitious. As though that accounted for the way neighbors lowered their voices when the name Shelby was spoken. As though ambition alone could empty a bookmaker’s till without argument.  

You said no. First softly, the word barely rising above the ticking clock on the mantel. Then again with enough force that your father’s brows drew together, not in anger, but in something more complicated. The refusal felt unfamiliar on your tongue, as though it belonged to someone braver than you. It left a dryness behind, a faint tremor in your hands that you hid by folding them in your lap. 

Your mother had crossed the room before the silence could settle properly. She took both your hands in hers and squeezed until your knuckles pressed together, her rings biting into your skin. 

“He can offer security.” Her voice carried urgency beneath its gentleness. You could smell lavender water on her cuffs. You could see the faint sheen of worry along her upper lip. 

Your mind had betrayed you then, conjuring the image of the Garrison door swinging inward. The way conversation thinned at the edges when he entered. The men outside who did not laugh, who did not fidget, who stood as if carved into place. You had heard, quietly and more than once, that he did not strike his wife. That he kept a clean house. That he provided. 

A week later Thomas Shelby stood in your parents’ sitting room. Hat in hand, yes, but there was no bend in his spine. His overcoat was impeccably cut, dark wool falling in straight lines. The light from the window struck his profile and sharpened it further, cheekbones like something etched rather than formed. 

His eyes moved across the room once, taking in the furniture, the framed certificates on the wall, the polished clock, and then settled on you. He declined the cigar your father offered with a small incline of his head. “Not just now,” he said, voice low and even. 

He asked about your schooling. About the languages you’d studied. Whether you rode. Whether you enjoyed the theatre. Each question delivered as though he were assessing a ledger entry rather than conducting courtship. His tone remained polite, almost warm. He smiled at your mother at appropriate intervals, reassuring in a way that might have convinced anyone who did not know how to look beneath it. He didn’t once ask whether you wanted him. He didn’t need to. 

When he rose to leave, your father walked him to the door. Their handshake lingered a fraction too long. Your father’s shoulders seemed narrower afterward, his hand remaining at his side as though it had been weighed down. Your mother’s smile trembled at the corners until she pressed it back into place. 

The wedding followed before you could find another no. 

The church smelled of polished wood and cold stone. White lilies lined the aisle, their sweetness heavy in the air, almost cloying. You remember the weight of your veil more than anything else. It brushed against your cheeks when you turned your head, soft but suffocating, muting the world at the edges. 

He stood at the altar already, dark suit cut perfectly to his frame. The congregation parted around him without being told, a quiet radius of respect. When you stepped into view, his gaze lifted. It did not flicker. It did not widen in admiration or soften in tenderness. It held steady, blue and exacting, traveling from the crown of your head down the line of your veil, over the silk of your gown. 

You felt it pause at your throat, where the pulse fluttered visibly beneath pale skin. Then lower, to the shape of you beneath lace and satin. He measured, then. You walked toward him on legs that felt both uneasy. Each step of your satin heels echoed against the stone floor. The organ hummed above you. 

Eyes could be sensed from every direction, but his were the only ones that mattered. When you reached him, he took your hand gently. His grip was firm, not crushing, but decisive. His thumb settled against your knuckles as though fitting into a place already marked. 

The vows moved past you in fragments. Obedience. Cherish. Honor. His voice didn’t waver, nor rush. Each word placed carefully, as if it were an agreement being signed rather than a promise offered. 

When the time came, he lifted your veil himself. The lace caught briefly on your hair before falling back. His fingers brushed your cheek in the process, cool and controlled. For a moment, you were close enough to see the faint lines of his crows feet, the small scar near his temple. 

He looked at you as though the room had emptied. The kiss was gentle, deep, tongue reminding itself to remain where it had been before.. His hand came to your waist, steadying you. His mouth pressed to yours with deliberate pressure, not searching but sealing. The contact lingered just long enough to establish something undeniable. 

You felt the faint scrape of his teeth against your lower lip, the firm line of his jaw as he angled his head. Applause rose somewhere beyond you. He didn’t look away when he drew back. 

That night, in a bedroom prepared for you by other hands, he closed the door with quiet finality. The house had hummed with voices and celebration downstairs, but up there it was contained, insulated from the world. He removed his jacket first, folding it over the back of a chair with methodical care. 

His movements were unhurried, controlled, as though there were no audience left to impress. When he approached you, he didn’t seize. You were frightened, of the thought of being in private with him more dangerous. Thomas touched your face with his fingertips, tracing the curve of your cheek as if reacquainting himself with something already chosen. 

His gaze searched yours for a fraction longer than usual, not asking, not apologizing, simply confirming. When he kissed you then, it was slower. Less for display. His hand slid from your jaw to your shoulder, easing you back onto the mattress without force. He moved with restraint, as though aware of the difference in years, in experience, in certainty. 

There was weight to him, yes, but also precision. He didn’t want to overwhelm you, he wanted to guide you. Even if tears burned down your cheeks, he was careful. Not gentle in the way of novels whispered about by girls at school, but deliberate. 

He watched your face closely, adjusting himself when your breath hitched too sharply, when your fingers tightened against his sleeve. His voice, when it came, was low and brief. “I’ve got you.” 

Your gaze flicks back towards Thomas now. 

He’s shifted closer without you noticing the exact moment it happened, not that you would’ve sunken back, you don’t do that anymore. His breath reaches you now, warm, faintly laced with tobacco and sleep, brushing the curve of your cheek each time he exhales. 

“You’re thinkin’,” he says, fingers resting against your forehead as he plays with your hair. His voice is quiet, but there is no laziness in it. Even in this half-light, even with the imprint of the pillow still faint along his temple, he sounds alert. 

“I usually am,” you murmur. The words come softer than you intend. Your throat feels tight from holding too much inside. 

His eyes never leave your face. His thumb shifts where it rests against your waist. Slowly. The pad of it traces a line just beneath your ribs, not quite a caress, not quite idle movement either. He follows the rise and fall of your breathing as if he’s decided belongs to him. 

“About what?” Nothing in his question is impatient, and that’s what makes your pulse stutter under his hand. 

You tell yourself it’s because he’s watching you so closely. Because he’s always watched you this way, as though waiting for the smallest fraction in your composure. “Nothing worth losing sleep over,” you say softly. 

Thomas's gaze sharpens at that. You feel it like a shift in pressure. As if you’ve said something worth causing aggravation. “Sleep isn’t what you’re losing, love,” he replies. 

His thumb drifts again, lower this time, mapping the narrow line where silk meets skin. The touch is unhurried, testing. You feel heat gathering beneath it, blooming outwards in quiet betrayal. Your hand meets his, holding it gently as he leans in, kissing your collarbone.

“You think too much in the mornings,” he says. His hand, holding yours, slides from your waist to your hip, fingers spreading slightly as if to anchor you there. He leans in further, his forehead nearly brushing yours. The air between your mouths thins. “You wake up, already halfway gone,” he murmurs. 

“Gone where?” His gaze drops to your lips. He doesn’t answer immediately. The pause stretches just long enough for your stomach to tighten. 

“Somewhere I can’t see.” 

You search his face for mockery finding none, just steady blue, but threaded now with something else. Not softness. Something more guarded than that. Something he doesn’t name. 

“You see enough,” you say as your gaze lowers, though the admission comes out less certain than you mean it to. 

He hums faintly in his throat, unconvinced. His hand leaves your hip only to cup your jaw instead. His fingers are cool at first against your skin. His thumb presses lightly just beneath your ear, tilting your face upward. 

“I see what’s mine,” he says. The words settle low in your stomach, heavy and warm. 

“And what’s that?” you ask, a playful lilt in your tone. You do not know why you push him. Perhaps to hear how far he’ll go. 

“This,” he says simply. His mouth closes the space between you. 

The kiss begins as pressure. His lips brush yours once, testing, before returning with more intent. His hand remains firm at your jaw, guiding the angle. You feel the slow exhale he releases through his nose as your mouth parts beneath his, how his tongue lathes over yours salaciously. There’s no rush in him. He takes his time, as though proving something neither of you has said aloud. 

His other hand slides back to your waist, fingers curling into the silk of your nightgown, drawing you closer until your body aligns with his. Your hand finds his shoulder without thinking. The muscle beneath your palm is solid, warm. He deepens the kiss gradually, not demanding, but coaxing. The slow drag of his lower lip against yours sends a shiver down your spine. 

When he pulls back, it’s only enough to look at you. To take in your flushed cheeks and swollen lips. Your breathing is uneven now. You hate that he notices. You hate more that you know he does. 

“There,” he says softly. The word almost to himself. His thumb brushes your lower lip, wiping away the faint smear of color left from last night’s lipstick. “Still here.”  

His gaze holds yours a moment longer, searching for something you can’t name. Then his mouth curves faintly, and he leans down again, this time without hesitation, without pause, kissing you with a depth that leaves no room for distance, only the slow, deliberate surrender of breath and thought and the fragile illusion of escape. 

The morning light strengthens, cascading in pale bands across the sheets. It outlines the planes of his cheekbones and catches in his eyes, sharpening the blue to something almost metallic. His thumb lingers at your jaw before he releases you, pushing himself upright. The day begins around him quickly. 

But by evening, the estate has settled into a different kind of quiet. One that’s domestic, far away from the world of business.

You’re brushing through your hair at the vanity as the fireplace snaps softly from behind the grate, sending up small bursts of amber that flicker against the walls. The curtains are drawn tight against darkened cobblestone, thick velvet muting the nighttime of the outside world to a distant hum. The air carries the faint tang of his cigarettes, woven into the starch of freshly pressed linen and the polish of old wood. 

Gentle fingers rest lightly against the edge of the mahogany wood, surface gleaming beneath the lamplight, smooth enough to mirror gold and shadow in molten streaks. Your reflection hovers in the glass, bare shoulders above the neckline of your evening dress, the delicate band of your wedding ring catching the light as your hand shifts. 

Your breathing is visible in the slight rise and fall at your collarbone. You tell yourself your expression is composed, that you’re more developed than the mirror shows. 

Behind you, the door clicks shut. You don’t turn. You always know when Thomas enters a room. The air adjusts, tightening a fraction. The fireplace seems to steady its crackle. 

Even the quiet rearranges itself. His shoes make almost no sound against the persian rug, yet you feel him cross the space between the door and your back. It is not noise that announces him. “Stay there,” Thomas says. Low, even. Not a request.

Your fingers tighten slightly on your brush, feeling the warmth of your hold against the handle. On the polished surface before you lies no velvet box tonight. No hinged lid waiting to be lifted. You swallow as he approaches, looking up at him in the reflection before he whispers under his breath. “Beautiful girl.” 

Thomas's eyes linger on yours through the looking glass. He steps in close behind you, hands finding your waist without hesitation, palms settling with unerring familiarity. Heat seeps through the thin fabric of your dress. He doesn’t grip. His thumbs press lightly into the curve of your sides before sliding upwards. 

Shivering as he traces up your gown, over the sides of your breasts before pulling something from his sleeve. A necklace. The soft gold catches in the lamplight deliberately. A heart-shaped locket, heavy enough that you can sense its weight even from his palm.

“Thought you’d like something a little less mature, love,” he murmurs. The words brush the shell of your reddening ear, the faint rasp of his voice vibrating through you. Less mature.

Your gaze flickers towards your own reflection. The locket gleaming as he dangles it between his thick index and middle finger. You almost smile at the phrasing; as if you’re not already his wife, as if the ring on your finger doesn’t already gleam with olden finality.

His breath drifts into your hair. Thomas inhales slowly, the scent of Lady York lingering as his chest expands against your back. He likes to do that sometimes before he leaves in the morning, too. As though carrying something of yours with him into smoke-filled rooms and threatening deals.

Thomas's right hand, the one not holding the locket slips onto your side unhurried. He rubs your hip, tracing the laced edge of your chemise slip beneath your evening gown. Slowly, Thomas traces higher until reaching your ribs, rubbing the expanse of fabric below your ample breast. 

You feel your pulse quicken before you can stop it, his hand has already found your pulse at your neck. A faint breath of amusement warms your hair. “Still fast,” he says quietly. 

You lift your chin, eyes focusing on his through the mirror. “You startle me.” 

“I don’t.” He says it calmly, almost conversationally, and the certainty in it sends a different kind of shiver through you. The acknowledgement makes you smile.

“Let me, love,” he adds. You lower your hands without argument. 

The necklace is cooler than you expect when he picks it up. The chain whispers faintly as it slips between his fingers, metal sliding against skin. He brings it around your neck, his knuckles brushing the sensitive hollow at your nape. 

You instinctively tilt your chin further upward, exposing your throat. 

The clasp clicks shut with a quiet, decisive sound. He doesn’t withdraw. Instead, his hands linger at the base of your neck. One thumb drifts forward, guiding the locket until it rests precisely at your collarbone. The gold warms quickly against your skin, the weight settling into place as though it has always belonged there. You look at it in the mirror. 

Ornate without excess. The engraved lines catch the light in sharp, deliberate patterns; your initial and his in cursive script. Behind you, his eyes lift to meet yours in the reflection. 

The bedroom holds its breath. His gaze doesn’t wander the way other men’s might. It fixes onto the way your lips curve in a gentle smile. At the knowing of his subtle claim, charming you with delicacies. There’s something almost reverent in it, and beneath that, something far more possessive. 

“Perfect girl,” he murmurs, the words escaping like a thought not meant to be heard. 

Your throat tightens. His hands slide from your shoulders down to your waist again, fingers spreading wide as if reacquainting themselves with territory already claimed. Thomas draws you back against him until the line of your spine aligns with his chest. The steady beat of his heart can be felt through his shirt. 

You search your reflection. The locket gleams against your throat, a bright, deliberate heart resting where your pulse beats strongest. Lamplight slides across its engraved edges, catching in the hollow at the base of your neck. Your cheeks hold a faint flush that deepens when you tilt your chin. Your lips are parted slightly, softened by his earlier kiss, though you don’t remember parting them.  

You don’t see the girl who stood at the Garrison bar with borrowed lipstick and a practiced stare.  You see someone composed. Chosen.  

His mouth brushes your cheek, then the angle of your jaw. The kisses are unhurried, measured. Each one placed with quiet precision, as though he is charting territory only he understands. His breath warms the sensitive skin beneath your ear before his lips follow, slow and deliberate.  

“I’ll give you the world if you ask for it, princess,” he murmurs. The endearment lands softly, almost tender.

His hands tighten fractionally at your waist, drawing you back until your spine presses fully against him. You feel the steady beat of his heart through the layers of fabric. His thumb drifts along the curve of your hip, then stills.  

“I’ll give you anything,” he continues. The words settle between you, heavy and sincere in their own way. 

The fire shifts in the grate with a sharp snap, sending a scatter of sparks upward. You watch them in the mirror for a moment, their brief flare and fade. His mouth lingers at your neck, then pauses. You feel his breath change.  

“And what would you ask for?” he asks quietly, his lips gently pressing against your pulse.

You consider the gold at your throat. The silk at your waist. The warmth of him behind you. You think of the house with its tall windows and guarded gates. Of shopkeepers who bow their heads and neighbors who lower their voices.  

Your fingers lift slightly, brushing the locket as if to test its weight. Thomas moves up from behind you, his arms encircling your waist. “I don’t know,” you admit.  

He exhales softly, almost through his nose, and the sound brushes your hair.  

“That’s because you’re tryin’ to think of the right answer.”  

Your gaze flicks to his in the mirror. He watches your reflection, not the jewelry. “Is there one?”  

“There usually is.” His hand leaves your waist and slides upward, not possessive now but guiding. His fingertips skim your shoulder, then your collarbone, tracing the line just above the locket. 

“You don’t have to stand so straight all the time,” he says after a moment, before chuckling against your scalp. “It’s like you’re imitating me.”

The remark catches you off guard. “I’m not-”  

“You are.” There’s no accusation in it. Only certainty. 

“You walk into a room like you’re negotiating terms.” His mouth curves faintly. “Chin up. Eyes level. Measuring.” Thomas slowly begins massaging your shoulders as you huff, a small pout threatening to reveal itself to him as your cheeks flush with embarrassment.

You feel heat rise along your throat, though his tone is mild. “I don’t want to look foolish.”  

“You don’t.” The response is immediate. His hand slides down your arm, taking your wrist gently. He turns you toward him, not sharply, just enough that you have to meet his eyes without the mirror between you. “You don’t have to be… so grown all the time,” he says. The words are quiet. 

You search his face for mockery and find none. Only that steady focus. “You think I’m pretending,” you say carefully, “like I’m some unmannered temptress.”

He smiles with his teeth and shakes his head, lowering his stroking fingers until reaching your smaller hand. “I think,” he replies, brushing his thumb across the inside of your wrist where your pulse flutters, “that you’re trying to be someone you aren’t.”  

The room feels warmer, the he fire humming behind you. You’re aware of how young your skin looks in his, the flesh smooth, the veins faint beneath it. You look down at both of your silver bands barely touching each other, the sacred covenant they entail.

“I’m your wife,” you remind him softly. His gaze warms a fraction, not in weakness, but in consideration. “You are,” he agrees. 

“That doesn’t mean you have to carry the whole world on your shoulders yet.” 

Yet. The word lingers. He lifts your hand slightly, studying the ring there. His thumb circles the band once, thoughtfully. 

“You’re allowed to laugh too loud,” he says. “To want things that aren’t sensible. To ask for sweets instead of diamonds.”  

A faint crease appears between your brows. “You bought me a diamond bracelet last week.” 

 “I did.”  

“And now you’re telling me to ask for sweets?”  

He huffs a quiet breath that might be amusement. “I’m telling you,” he says, stepping closer, “that I don’t need you to be anything but what you are.”  

Your gaze drops briefly to the space between you, to the line of his tie, the rise of his chest. “And what is that?” you ask.  

He tips your chin up with two fingers, not commanding, steady. The fire has settled into a patient glow by now, embers sending up tiny sparks that die against the chimney. You can feel the locket’s weight against your throat with each shallow breath you take, a small, hot presence at the base of your neck where silk meets skin.

“You’re young,” he says simply. “Be young.”  

The tone surprises you, carrying none of the ledger’s economy you’d come to expect from him. It isn’t the blunt currency of bargain; it sounds, oddly, protective. You search his face for the usual hard geometry, the absence of irony leading you to his intimate stare.

“I don’t want to seem like…” you drift, quieter now. You feel ridiculous voicing them, as if confessing a private practice of disguise. Sometimes, you’d been careful on purpose; a lifted chin, slow smiles, and practiced indifference you’d learned from Thomas at parties. For him, its armor, for you, a costume.

“You won’t,” he assures you with a swift and gentle turn of your bodice to face him. His hand moves to your waist, gentler this time. His thumb brushes the edge of the locket, letting it sway slightly against your skin. 

“Stop trying to look older than you are,” he murmurs. “It doesn’t suit you.”  

Your breath catches. “What does?” you ask, wanting to see whether he’ll answer with more contract talk or with something that belongs only to you. 

He laughs then, a sound that surprises you as it softens the line at his mouth. It’s low, private, like a thing meant for safes. “This,” he says, and when the single word falls it comes with the light movement of his hands: not letting go, but opening enough that you can read the shape of his meaning. 

He tips your chin up with the pad of his thumb, exposing the pale line of your throat, the place where the locket nestles warm. “Not all the time,” he adds quickly, as if he fears being mistaken for a fool with sentiment. 

“Not that you should throw things away. But laugh louder, love.” His hands come to hold your shoulders, squeezing them together. “Wear the color you like without counting the years. Dance in the kitchen at two in the damn morning if it pleases you. Let someone else be sure for a while, let me take care of it all.”  

You feel heat, embarrassment, maybe, and something stranger like relief, rising behind your ribs. The offer of small rebellions sounds almost dangerous when it comes from Thomas; from the man whose name shapes the town and whose presence can make a room full of men hush. 

How can you accept the liberty he proposes without conceding that you had, up to now, been playing a part he or anyone else could interpret at will?  

“So, not always grown?” you say, testing the way the words fit in your mouth. You let your voice wobble on the last syllable deliberately, watching his reaction. 

“Not always,” he agrees. He slides his hand up through the hair at the nape of your neck and presses his forehead against yours. The motion closes the distance between thought and action; a small, private collusion. 

His breath warms the hollow of your ear. “Be reckless in ways that don’t ruin you,” he whispers. “I’ll cover the rest.”  There it is again, that promise that feels like a shelter. 

Your laugh comes out before you can stop it, brittle and honest, and he matches it with a smile that softens his whole face. You let your hands leave your lap and splay against his chest, feeling the steady beat there, a counterpoint to the panic you’d learned to keep at bay. 

“There’s my spoiled girl.” Thomas smiles, kissing you quickly. The words brush over you in a tone that might be teasing, but the way his hand tightens at your waist makes it something else, something indulgent, edged with ownership. 

You feel the laugh fade from your mouth, though the warmth the kiss sparked still lingers in your chest. “I don’t recall being spoiled,” you reply warmly, though your voice carries less bite than intended. 

Your palms are still spread against his chest, fingers grazing the line of his waistcoat. The fabric warm beneath your hands, faintly scented with tobacco and starch. You can feel the steady thud of his heart under the layers, unhurried, certain. His eyes drop to your mouth before lifting again. 

“No?” he murmurs, as though considering it. “You laugh at me. You question me. You look at me like I owe you something.” His thumb traces the seam of your bodice, slow and deliberate. “That’s not how most people stand in front of me.” The reminder slides between you like a blade wrapped in velvet. 

You tip your chin slightly higher, meeting his gaze without flinching. “Perhaps you should stop standing so close.” He huffs a quiet breath through his nose, not quite a laugh. 

Instead of stepping back, he leans in, pressing the line of his body more firmly to yours. The contact steals the air from your lungs in small, controlled sips. His hand moves from your waist to the laces at your back, fingers testing the knot there without undoing it. 

“Stay,” he says softly. 

The request settles in your stomach. Not an order barked across a room. Just that low, even tone meant for you alone. You become acutely aware of every inch of yourself, the way your shoulders draw in, the rise and fall of your breathing, the faint tremor in your hands as they hover uncertainly at your sides. 

His fingers work the laces loose with practiced patience. Each tug loosens the bodice a fraction, the fabric easing its grip on your ribs. You feel the heat of him close behind you, feel his breath ghost across the exposed skin at the nape of your neck. 

“You hold yourself too tight,” he murmurs, more to the stubborn laces than you. “Even now.” 

“Maybe I have reason,” you whisper, though the protest lacks force. The gown slackens further, and you draw a deeper breath than you had all evening. It feels almost indecent, the way relief mingles with anticipation. 

The dress slips from your shoulders under his guidance, careful hands catching the fabric before it can pool at your feet. He sets it aside with an attention that surprises you, smoothing it over the back of a chair as though it were something precious rather than an obstacle. 

When his hands return to you, they don’t rush. They skim along your arms, down to your wrists, then back up, mapping the shape of you as if reacquainting himself with a claim he had already made. You turn back to face him, suddenly unwilling to remain half-hidden.

You can see it in the way his jaw tightens, in the measured way his gaze moves from your face downward and back again, lingering without apology. “You don’t look spoiled now,” he says quietly. 

“What do I look like, then?” you ask, though your voice comes softer than before. He steps closer, closing the last inches of space between you. His hand comes up to cradle your jaw, thumb pressing lightly beneath your lower lip. 

“My wife,” he answers, not as a boast, not as a threat, but as a simple fact he expects the world to accommodate. The word sends a slow warmth down your spine, pooling low and insistent. You reach for him, fingers moving to the buttons of his waistcoat. If he noticed the slight tremor in your touch, he doesn’t comment. He only watches, eyes hooded, as you work each button free. 

The fabric parts under your hands, revealing the crisp linen of his shirt beneath. “You’re staring,” you murmur. 

“Mm.” His hands slide to your hips, drawing you closer until the layers between you feel negligible. “I’m allowed.” 

You roll your eyes, but the gesture lacks conviction. The final button comes undone, and you push the waistcoat from his shoulders. He shrugs out of it easily, letting it fall wherever it lands. Your fingers move to his collar next, loosening it, tugging it open just enough to expose the line of his throat. His breath changes. It deepens roughened slightly, though his hands remain steady. 

“Careful,” Thomas warns, but the word carries no real restraint.“Be foolish sometimes,” you echo softly, meeting his gaze with a challenge that makes his mouth curve. 

He doesn’t answer with words. Instead he bends and captures your mouth in a kiss that carries underlying desperation. His hands slide up your back, fingers splaying wide. 

You feel the shift in him, the protective promise giving way to something more immediate, more urgent. Not careless, never that, but eager in a way that makes your pulse stutter, yet again. When he pulls back, it’s only far enough to look at you, to take in the flush rising along your cheeks, the quickened rhythm of your breath. 

“Bed,” he says quietly, the single word thickened by want. You don’t argue. Instead you wrap your arms around his neck, letting him carry you, the fire casting long shadows against the walls as the night folds in around you.

Thomas's breath steadies against your neck, not yet ragged with desire, but measured with control. The kind of control that makes you anticipate this moment more than any demand or threat. 

His fingers trace the line of your stocking where silk meets skin, following the seam with the same precision he uses when he studies ledgers. The touch is unhurried. Deliberate. As though confirming something he already owns. 

"Relax." It's not a request. Your spine stiffens its arch anyway. 

The mattress dips beneath his knee as he shifts closer, and his other hand slides to your lower back, broad palm spreading, anchoring you where you sit. He doesn’t force you down. He hardly needs to. The pressure firm enough to remind you of the size of him, the certainty of him. 

You become acutely aware of the difference in years, in experience. The ring on your finger feels heavier in this light. You’ve been married scarcely long enough for the housemaids to stop staring at you with curiosity. 

He’s been a husband before. He knows how this goes. His mouth brushes your neck. Not quite a kiss. The warmth lingers without claiming. He inhales, and for the first time you catch the faint shift in him, the restraint drawing tight beneath his skin. "Steady yourself, love."  

You swallow. “I am steady.” His thumb slides a fraction higher along your thigh, testing the truth of that. Your breath betrays you before your pride can intervene.

"Look at me." The command from him is soft. You turn your head, and his eyes meet yours in the dim glow of the fire. They’re not wild. As if he is gauging not just your reaction, but his own. There’s whiskey and smoke on his breath, but there’s also hesitation, faint but real, flickering beneath the surface like something he does not allow many to see. 

“You understand what this is,” he says, quieter now. Not a question. Not quite a statement. Your heart beats hard enough that you feel it in your throat. “Marriage,” you answer carefully. 

Thomas’s jaw tightens. “More than paper.” 

His hand moves higher, not invasive, not abrupt, but with a certainty that leaves no room for pretending innocence. He watches your face as he does it. Every shift of your mouth. Every hitch in your breath. He doesn’t look away. 

“Don’t make this something it isn’t,” he says. His forehead lowers until it rests briefly against yours. The contact is startling in its softness. “I won’t hurt you, sweetheart.” The promise is simple. 

Your hands rise slowly, almost cautiously, until your fingers brush his jaw. The stubble there scratches your palm. He stills at the touch. It is the smallest pause, but you feel it. “I know,” you whisper. Something in his expression flickers. Relief, perhaps. Or something closer to fear. 

He kisses you, not with hunger, not yet. It’s slower than before. His mouth moves against yours with restraint, as if he is reminding himself that you aren’t a conquest to be taken, but a wife to be kept. 

"You belong here," he murmurs, the words almost inaudible. "With me. To me."  His lips finally touch your neck again, this time with more intent. The kiss is soft but insistent, a brand. A promise. His grip tightens briefly in your hair, then loosens, fingers smoothing the strands back into place as though correcting himself. 

“You’re my girl,” he says against your lips, the words roughened by something deeper than desire. You hesitate only a heartbeat before answering. “I’m your girl.” 

Your mouth parts beneath his, from the simple fact that you forget to guard yourself in time. He feels it. The shift is immediate, though subtle. His inhale falters as his tongue weighs onto yours. His hand tightens in your hair, not enough to hurt, but enough that you feel the decision in it. His composure does not shatter outwardly. It draws inward, condenses, like heat forced into a smaller space. 

“Greedy,” he murmurs against your mouth. There’s no mockery in it. If anything, the word lands closer to approval. He kisses you deeper, and the restraint he has been wearing all evening thins to something transparent. His tongue traces the seam of your lips, slow, testing. 

When you respond, tentative at first, then with more certainty, his breath roughens. He lowers you back against the mattress without breaking the kiss, one hand braced beside your head, the other still threaded in your hair as though he needs the anchor. The weight of his body hovers, controlled. He doesn’t collapse his hips onto yours. 

The firelight flickers across his face, catching the hard angles of his cheekbones, the scar at his temple. His eyes search yours with a look you have seen across boardroom tables and over betting slips. There’s hesitation. 

“You want more, love?” he asks. His voice low, stripped of the sharpness he uses with other people. Your throat feels dry. You nod anyway. 

For a moment he just watches you, as if testing whether you understand the weight of that answer. Then he exhales through his nose, almost a laugh, but not amused. “Christ,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. 

He shifts, settling between your thighs with care. The pressure is deliberate, his body aligning with yours in a way that makes your breath hitch. He pauses there, giving you space to push him away if you choose to. You don’t. 

Your hands hover uncertainly at his shoulders before gripping the fabric of his shirt. His palm slides along your hip, thumb pressing into the curve as though steadying both of you. He moves with patience that feels heavier than urgency ever could. When his fingers slip beneath the hem of your chemise skirt, the contact is warm, unhurried. He traces the edge of your stocking again, following it upward inch by inch, giving you time to feel every second of it. 

“You’re trembling,” he says quietly. You are. The tremor runs through your thighs and into his hand. “Not afraid,” you manage softly. His mouth tilts slightly. It’s not the sharp, public smile. This one is smaller. Private. 

“Good,” he says. “Because I won’t rush.” There’s something in that tone that makes your chest tighten. He leans down and kisses you again, slower now. His lips move with a kind of concentration, as if memorizing the shape of your mouth. 

When his hand slides higher, skimming the delicate edge of your undergarments, both of you go still. The air shifts. His breath catches audibly. His eyes lift to yours, and for the first time tonight you see something unguarded there. Not lust alone. Something closer to uncertainty. “Tell me you want me,” he says. The words aren’t possessive. They’re raw. 

“I do,” you whisper. His eyes search yours one last time, as if he expects the answer to change. When it doesn’t, something inside him settles. Not completely. Thomas Shelby doesn’t surrender completely to anything. But enough. 

The words settle into him like a benediction. His shoulders relax incrementally, the tension that's been coiled in them for hours finally easing. He doesn't rush. That's not in his nature, but he doesn't hold back either. 

His fingers slip beneath the delicate edge of your lacy undergarments, and the touch is as if he's afraid of breaking something precious. You’re wet, not sopping, but damp. “Fuck,” he mutters, the curse soft against your skin.

His other hand slides down your back, fingers curling into the fabric of your chemise. He pulls you closer, aligning your bodies with a precision that speaks to years of careful planning, even this.

Even intimacy with him feels calculated in some fundamental way, as if he's mapped out every possible reaction. As his fingers trace the soft outline of your slit through the chemise, he breathes out slowly through his nose, jaw clenched as though fighting some internal war.

“Tell me again,” he says, his lips brushing your ear. “Tell me you want me. Not the idea... Not what I could be for you.” His other hand’s thumb presses against your throat, you feel him take hold of your neck, pressure emitting a breathy moan from your lips.

“You. All of you,” you whimper, and mean it.

His breathing hitches. For a moment, his control slips; you see it in the way his hand trembles against your cunt, the way he presses his forehead to yours. "Sweet girl,” he breathes, the word strangled. 

His fingers sink deep into your cunt, making you whine as his thick knuckles curl into your sweet depths. Thomas feels you lean into his neck, your small hands clutching at his shirt like a stretching cat. The sound you make, soft and helpless as your nails gently claw his back, it does something to him. Something he doesn't have a name for.  

Thomas’s digits are fully inside you now, knuckles pressing into your tight walls, the feeling of your wetness almost overwhelming to him. 

He's seen bodies before. Used them for his own pleasure when the loneliness consumed him. But this is different. It’s you. He holds you tighter, the arm wrapped around you pulling you flush against his chest. You can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong against your ribs. The scent of him fills your senses.  

“Shhh,” he murmurs against your hair, though you're not sure what's troubling you more. The unfamiliar fullness or the way he's looking at you  in a way you've never been before. He shifts his fingers inside you, watching your face in the flickering firelight. The shadows play across his sharp cheekbones, his jaw, that scar at his temple. 

You look up at him, whimpering soft noises. He looks like a man who's seen hell and survived it. You wonder if this, you, are part of his salvation or another layer of damnation.  

“You're squeezing tight,” he breathes, the admission small and rare. His thumb finds your clit, stroking with a gentleness that's almost contradictory to the rough man he is in every other moment.  

“Thomas,” you gasp. He kisses the top of your head, holding you like you might break if he moves too fast. His arm slides down from your throat to encircle your waist, holding your elbows behind your back as he grips you.

“I know, sweetheart.” He feels you tighten around his fingers, your body trying to accommodate him with small, fluttering movements that make his breath catch. He adds another finger, pushing in slowly, deliberately, giving you time to adjust.  

“Christ, you're so fucking beautiful like this,” he murmurs, his lips against your ear. His words are rough, sincere in a way he rarely allows himself to be. 

You write gently as his wrist rotates gently, the obscenity of his actions blurring into his gentle cradling of your back. It’s as if there’s a knot of fire within your core, something unfamiliar, something you didn’t allow yourself to feel the night of your wedding.

“So perfect. Taking me like you were made for it.” His hand tangles deeper in your hair, holding your head steady as if he's afraid you might disappear if he lets go. Not that he'd ever say it aloud, but his grip tightens, possessive and desperate in a way that has nothing to do with domination and everything to do with need. He slides his fingers in and out of you slowly, testing, preparing. 

You can feel him watching your face in the firelight, studying every expression that crosses your features. There's something raw in his eyes, a vulnerability he rarely shows, like he's checking in with you, making sure you're still with him.  

“Tell me if you need me to stop, yeah?,” he says, though his voice suggests he's terrified of the answer being yes.  

Nodding, a small whimper escapes from your throat. His thumb brushes over your clit again, and your hips buck off the mattress involuntarily. He groans at the sight, low and guttural.  

“Fuck,” he breathes, and then he's kissing you again, deep and hungry, as if he can't get enough of you. His fingers move faster now, scissoring inside you, stretching you open for what's coming next. “You're going to take all of me, aren't you?”

Your breath is a sweet hum in his mouth as your voice tinges with soft whining. You nod, his lips still attached to yours with a connection that borders manic. “Mmm… Yes, Tommy,” you manage breathlessly. 

Thomas hears you say his name like that, Tommy, and something in him cracks completely.  

“Fuck,” he breathes against your mouth, his fingers sinking deeper, faster. He watches your face, the way your eyes go hazy and unfocused, the way your lips part around his name. It's a sight he'll burn into his memory.  

His thumb presses harder against your clit now, rubbing in slow circles that make your thighs tremble. He feels you clenching around his fingers, your body getting ready to come for him. The thought makes his breath hitch. 

“Come for me,” he commands softly, his lips trailing down your neck. His voice cracks on the words. “Come 'round my fingers like a good girl.”

Knowing you’re both so vastly different in age makes him feel a wave of guilt so sharp it almost hurts. You're so young. So perfect. So good for him in a way that feels almost obscene. But looking at you, watching you trust him with this, with your body, with your pleasure, he can't find it in himself to regret it.  

“You're mine,” he whispers, his free hand sliding from the grip he has on your elbow into the dip of your waist, cupping your breast through your chemise. His thumb brushes over your nipple, feeling it harden under his touch. 

You arch as he roughly gropes your chest, looking away with a hot flush on your cheeks before feeling him press open-mouthed kisses to your neck, up to your soft cheek.

“My sweet girl.” His fingers move with increasing urgency now, and you can feel him hard against your thigh, can feel the tension building in his shoulders, the way his jaw is clenched tight. He's fighting himself, trying to hold back, but you're too perfect, too willing, too his.  

“Tell me you're mine,” he demands, nipping at your earlobe. “Say it while I fuck your little cunt with my fingers.” Your cheeks flush with heat as you whimper quickly, “y-yours…” Your orgasm is at the brink, and when Thomas slowly arches his fingers, you cum on his hand.

He watches you unravel, your body shuddering and clenching around his fingers in waves that make his breath catch. The sight of you, so lost in pleasure, so utterly his, it does something to him that he’ll never be able to part from.  

“Fuck, you're beautiful,” he breathes, watching your glistening cunt gush out onto his wrist. Your knees are shaking at the edge of the bed as you huff, your stockings hanging from your ankles like soft chains.

“Tommy,” you huff, eyes brimming with overstimulated tears as he cradles you in his muscular arm, rubbing your back as you whine. 

“Look at you. So perfect. So mine.”  He pulls his coarse fingers out slowly, one by one, and you feel the emptiness like a physical ache. But then he holds his hand up, showing you what you've done to him, his fingers sopping with your wetness, slick and shining in the firelight.  

“You see this, love?” His voice is rough, filthy, as he brings his fingers to his mouth, tasting you. His eyes are dark, possessive. “This is you, sweet girl. My gorgeous wife.” The sucking noises he makes on his own digits are obscene and embarrassing, his cheeks hollowing as he watches your expression. 

When he’s finished lapping up your remnants of arousal, his rough hands gently begin at the edge of your chemise. You close your eyes before feeling him pinch the edge of your shirt, lifting it over your head before watching your chest rise and fall, nipples perked from arousal.

Thomas looks down at you, watching your chest rise and fall beneath his palms. Your nipples are pinkened and swollen, your skin flushed in the firelight, and he can't help but admire you. As an aging man, even after mere weeks of knowing your body, he can't get enough of you.  

He cups your breasts with reverence, thumbs brushing over the sensitive peaks and watching you shiver. “Perfect,” he murmurs, the word like a prayer. His touch is gentle now, almost worshipful, a stark contrast to the rough fingering before. 

You look up at him as his gaze remains focused on your bare chest, the movement slight beneath him as he rubs the softened, plump flesh. “You're small,” he says, his voice rough with emotion he won't name. A mad blush flusters your face at his comment, you look away and towards the fireplace. Thomas breathes an amused sigh.

“Still so fucking perfect... I've always loved these.” His thumbs circle your nipples, and he watches your face, the way your eyes go soft and hazy again. His hands slide up to your shoulders, gripping gently, holding you like you might disappear if he let go. 

Legs still suspended by air, you huff in embarrassment. “You’re lewd, Thomas.” Something in his jaw clenches imperceptibly at the breathless note. His hands remain where they are, curved possessively on your breasts whilst he presses your hips flush against his. 

“Am I?” His voice is low as he leans in, hovering close above your face. He watches you from beneath his lashes, assessing the way you slightly tremble before looking away. 

Precious, he thinks.

He doesn't move his hand to touch your face or lift your chin. Instead, he lets silence stretch, just to see you become uncomfortable when he’s letting you lead, or at least offering. The kind that makes ordinary people squirm and confess. But you remain quiet; his shying, young wife.

“You know what I think?” He leans down slowly, deliberately, until his breath ghosts across your ear. “I think you're the one who's been lewd. The way you waltz into my rooms. Lookin’ at me like that.”

You look up at him hazily, feeling him lean down to suck at your skin. His thumbs trace over your nipples as they harden. “Tell me, love,” the nickname rolls off his tongue with dark familiarity. “What did you expect when you wandered in The Garrison, eh?”

“I wasn’t wandering,” you whine softly, feeling your sensitive peaks being brushed by his tongue. “No? Who were you looking for then?” He hums against your sensitivity as he smiles, because he knows you’ve been caught in another meandering facade. 

His teeth gently clench onto your chest as he suckles, squeezing the opposite breast before lifting himself off. Thomas's hand begins moving to his own belt, unfastening it with steady fingers, keeping his eyes locked on you before tilting your cheek to look at him. 

“Eyes on me,” he's breathing hard now, his control fraying at the edges. You can hear his heartbeat, steady and strong as his hand slides down to fish out his heavy cock. 

Thomas watches you as you part your legs for him, the gesture sending a jolt straight to his groin. He's already half-hard, throbbing in his hand as he strokes himself, but the sight of you, spread and wet and wanting him, erects him fully in seconds.  

He grips his shaft, stroking down slowly as he looks at what's on offer, your soaked cunt glistening in the firelight, your thighs trembling and spread for him, and your sweet locket glimmering with every faint breath you take. He swallows hard, his hand tightening on his cock as he leans in close.

“You remember our wedding night?” he murmurs, his mouth hovering over yours. “All the filthy noises you made when you tried to hide them?” He bites your lower lip gently. Your chest rises and falls in anticipation, voice meek. “What about them?”

“I heard them. Every fuckin’ sound. And I want to make you scream even louder. Make you wake the whole estate with how much you need me.” His hands slowly open your legs wider as you bite your plump lip. “I'm going to make you feel so good, love,” he promises, his voice low and guttural. 

His eyes never leave your face as he positions himself at your entrance, pressing his cock against your slick folds. The sensation is almost overwhelming, the heat of you, the soft give of your folds, the way you clench around his musk even without him being fully inside. 

Your eyes squeeze shut at the hot pressure, your lips have barely parted, only beginning to take his heaving tip. He watches as your mouth parts, thanking him silently for making you cum beforehand, knowing the mistake it was to attempt to fit all of him the first time you fucked on your wedding night.

Thomas breathes out in increments, trying to steady himself. He knows he should be gentle, knows he's already too rough with you, but God, you're so perfect. He presses in slowly, watching your face, listening to the wet slide of his cock into your cunt. You're tight, so impossibly tight, and it makes his breath hitch.  

“Thomas…” you whine, head leaning back as you murmur erotically again, “please…” 

He’s always had the ability to melt the words in your mouth whenever he fucks into you, it’s never savage, but he savors the unspoken words that remain inescapably in your mouth.

“I know, love,” he nods, gently holding his hands underneath your knees as he sinks deeper, “I’ll go slow.” He smiles as you let out another wanton sigh, you aren’t begging obscenely, yet, and that’s what makes him think you’re the sweetest thing.

Your eyes squeeze shut as he buries himself inches at a time, his hands gripping your soft legs, holding you steady as you open up for his cock with every flutter of your aching pussy.

“Fuck,” he breathes. When he's finally seated to the hilt, he pauses, letting you feel all of him. Breathing slows as you try to relax around him; he’s always had to wait a few moments before moving, not wanting you to tear or cry from pain.

“How’s that feel?” He murmurs, seeing the utter bliss etched on your face.

“Legs up s’more, sweetheart.” You nod weakly as his hands retreat from your knees, shakily wrapping them around his muscular back, stockings dangling on one ankle, soft cotton tickling the back of his thigh.

Thomas lowers himself now, his elbows meeting the sheets as his fingers begin toying with your hair, gently moving strands out of your face so his palms can cup your cheeks without obstacles. His cock is twitching, aching deep inside of you, but he doesn’t move just yet until you’re ready.

“No burning?” He asks softly. The first time he fucked you, he stuttered his hips inside too quickly, deeply, when he pulled out, there was a distinct tear that bled onto his thick pubes. You had to lie in bed with a cold bottle of bourbon between your thighs for three whole nights.

You slowly blink, half-lidded eyes looking up at him as you manage a tiny breath, “no.”

He’s still getting used to having you, and only you, this way. Usually, he’d be finished by now, patting a whore’s thigh and telling her the money’s on the nightstand. Even if he treated them well, even if he used to make time for that bargain, he always knew it was a mere transaction. 

But with you, he’s relearned how to take his time, how to fuck without scaring you into burying your face in his neck. His presence lingers still, even if you’re his wife. After all, he’s Thomas Shelby, you can tell when it’s him entering through any doorway. 

You nod, eyes squeezed shut as you wince. “It’s…” you moan, feeling his hips arch slightly until his cock tents from inside your stomach. 

“Use your words, Mrs. Shelby,” He doesn’t often call you that, especially not in bed. His hips roll slightly, just a small movement, testing. When you whimper and roll your head back against the sheets, he starts to move slowly. 

Parting your lips and slowly looking up at him, you finish. “It’s big…” Thomas grins as he holds onto the hair at your scalp, gently pressuring you deeper onto his cock. The wet sounds of his hips beginning to slowly roll into you fill the room, slick and obscene.

“You knew that, didn’t you?” He roughly mutters. The gentle rocking becomes a harder, more insistent rhythm. Thomas feels you clench around him, your cunt gripping his cock like it's the only thing keeping you together, and it makes his breath come in harsh, uneven gasps. 

“Ah, ah..” you huff, it’s wanton, hot to him. Your nails gently claw onto his shoulders as he fucks into you, Thomas watches your exasperated face, the way your eyes roll back. 

He watches you try to move your head to look down, his clasp in your hair faltering before he leans into a deep kiss, his hands sliding down to grip your hips, using you to pull himself harder inside. The wet schlop of his cock sinking into you fills the room, slick and obscene as he pistons into you.  

Thomas releases your lips, the wet string falling onto your lips as he grins darkly, watching your hair sway with every thrust. “Tom-” You wince, your back softly arching before his lips catch a hold of your dampening skin. 

He keeps his teeth clenched onto your neck, biting hard enough for you to wince before licking the bruising wound. “Christ, you're so good for me,” he mutters, his breath harsh against your neck. You wince, feeling the scars forming from the mere cuts of his sharp teeth, “That hurts…”

“You’ll take it.” He mutters, knowing how well bruises will pair with your new gold. “You’re a good girl…” Thomas likes the way the term of endearment rolls off his tongue, his lips sucking your youthful throat, feeling each vibration your moans become the culprit of.

His movement transitions into a slow, deep rocking that grinds his thick tip against your cervix, dick curving into your sweet spot as your escaping moans lift their pitch.

His hands clench your hips before lowering his hips quickly, hands grabbing hold of your waist as he lifts your back. He feels you clench around him, your cunt pulsing and trying to milk him already, and it makes his control slip further. 

“I can’t,” you pant, tears falling down your cheeks. Not from pain, far from pain. “It’s too much, I can’t!” Your whimpers are quiet, hiccuping with overstimulation, your chest undulating with every deep thrust. 

“You can.” He assures, hands sliding to cup your chest as he lowers his face between the valley. “You’re being so fuckin’ good,” Thomas mutters, his voice vibrating against the side of your breast he’s kissing as he fucks you deeper.

“No, please, I c-” You cry out at the feeling of him biting your nipple, the sting making you clench around him, gushing around his cock. "Fuck, you're soaking," he groans, his head buried in your breasts.

His movements are getting more desperate now, losing the careful control he's maintained since the moment he entered you. The sound of skin slapping against skin, the slick glide of his cock fucking into your tight cunt, the rough huffs of his breath, it all combines into a symphony that makes his head spin. 

Your eyes have rolled back by now in lustful haze, your previous protest blending in with utter pleasure as his hips dominate against yours.

His hands slide up from the sides of your soft chest, tracing your nipples before reaching to cup your face, thumbs brushing your flushed cheeks. “Tell me who you belong to,” he commands, his thrusts growing a bit longer, a bit deeper. 

He delves his hot tongue straight onto yours, mouth sucking at yours deliciously, swallowing every petite moan you can handle, the escape of. His breath is hot in yours, lips hovering barely to mutter filthily onto your lips. “Tell me who this sweet little cunt belongs to.”

“You… Tommy,” you whimper, he smiles against your mouth. His movements speed up slightly, still barely controlled but losing some of that careful precision. You cry out as shifts his angle, hitting a spot inside you that makes your legs squeeze his lower back.  

“Yes, sweetheart. Mine.” He can feel your inner walls fluttering around him, clenching and relaxing in waves that threaten to send him over the edge. The thought of you coming again so soon after he just brought you to your first orgasm makes something primal in him wake up. 

“Don’t stop,” you beg weakly against his lips. Thomas cradles the back of your head now, rocking his hips into yours slowly.

“That's it, love. My good girl,” he rumbles, dark eyes drinking in the picture of sweet submission you paint. His other hand traces the elegant column of your neck, pausing at the racing pulse he finds there.

“I've barely had to raise my voice. Not a flicker of defiance in those pretty eyes.”

You sniffle, panting against his lips as he holds you still. “I’m there…”

He slowly begins pulling out, making you whine before he shushes you with a kiss. His cock drags out of you until his tip is lodged near where your hymen used to be torn apart. 

“Look up at me.” He orders, squeezing the back of your neck as you tense. You obey, tears wettening his palm as you try to move your hips against his. “I’m not gonna pull out tonight,” he whispers. Your eyes widen, yet you aren’t entirely afraid of the idea of carrying his firstborn.

A part of you wants to shake your head but you’re frozen, all but for your hips attempting to suck him back into you, he takes in your silence before murmuring. “You’ll be a good mother, I know you will,” he nods. 

“But I’m not…” He lets you pause, slowly sinking back inside. “Not even…” You can’t finish moaning gently as his cock buries itself back inside. A method of madness he’s used on only you. 

Thomas stirs his cock deep inside, brushing your hair out of your face once more. “You want me to finish inside, love?” He asks roughly, though he knows your question will be subdued by his ministrations. 

His finger takes hold of your hand, trailing down until holding it against the tent in your stomach as more tears fall from your blushing cheeks.

“Right here, sweetheart.” He murmurs in your ear, feeling your hands tremble on his back. “I’ll fill you up here.” You imagine him plotting with other members of the gang with the same precision, but never the same amount of lewdness as in this moment.

Thomas pulls you flush against him as he grinds deeper into your soft pussy, feeling its walls and ridges arouse him further. “Fuck... This is what it means to be my wife, fuckin' adoring all of you.” You wince as his other hand fists in your silky hair, forcing your tearful gaze up to meet his heady stare.

“Tell me, love. Tell your husband how bad you need his cum to fill up your greedy cunt.”

It's not until now that you've noticed the way his balls feel as they twitch against your taint, heavier than you'd wanted to acknowledge. He begins quickening his pace, not wanting to lose your orgasm. Except now, his pounding begins outside of your pussy, and it rams deep into you until your throat emits broken sobs.

His hand pets your hair as he groans above you, “Shhh, don't cry, sweetheart...” he shushes. “I'm going to fill you up so fuckin' full.” His voice rumbles lowly as he laps up the salty tears of your cheeks. Your breath hitches as you sob sweetly.

“Breathe for me,” he coaxes breathlessly, his thumb swiping across your trembling lower lip. “Let me hear you, loud as you can now.” His hips snap forward, burying his thick shaft to the hilt.

You convulse around him, a silent scream tearing from your raw throat. Thomas leans in, biting your pulsepoint again, snarling as he feels your tight heat beginning to throb.

“I'm gonna cum,” you sniffle, crying as he nods his head.

Chest heaving, he grips onto your wrists and dives his chest onto yours, pinning your limp form beneath his sweat-slicked muscles. He captures your mouth in a searing kiss, plundering the warm cavern with his tongue. You whimper into the invasion, tasting traces of your arousal mingled with his triumphant male musk.

Your body stiffens beneath him, spine arching as your sweet climax crashes through you with devastating intensity. You wail in his mouth, voice ragged and desperate. Tears stream down your flushed cheeks as your velvet walls clench and spasm wildly around his pistoning cock, milking him for every last drop.

Thomas deepens the kiss with a guttural groan, driving into you one final time as his cock erupts. Ropes of hot semen paint your insides a pearly white, flooding your fertile womb with his potent seed.

“Fuck, that's it, sweetheart.” He rocks into you, grinding his pelvis against yours as spurt after heavy spurt pumps into your convulsing sex. 

“Take this fuckin' load.” He groans against your tongue as his hips roll again and again, not stopping until your stomach begins to swell subtly from the sheer volume, stuffed to capacity with his virile essence. You keep crying, knees wobbling as he holds them against his sides, your own strength faltering as you feel yourself dripping onto the bedsheets.

“My beautiful girl,” he pants against your bruised lips. “You took your husband's cum so well. Such a good girl.” His large hands stroke along your curves almost reverently as you both bask in the aftermath, bodies entwined and sated. 

You feel his hands slowly begin turning you, and your breath becomes a forced, tiresome murmur. “Tommy, wait-“ You huff as he rolls you onto your belly, tear-stained cheek pressing into the rumpled sheets. His calloused hands roam possessively over the lush curves of your ass, kneading the plush flesh.

“Shh...” He parts your thighs wider, exposing your dripping, well-fucked cunt to his hungry gaze. Watching intently, he sees rivulets of his thick cum oozing out of your swollen, stretched hole, painting obscene streaks down your inner thighs.

“Fuckin' hell, look at you... leakin' everywhere.” He reaches out and catches some of the pearlescent fluid with his fingertips before bringing them to his mouth. Licking them clean, he hums in satisfaction. "”Mmm, your pussy makes it taste sweeter.”

Turning his attention back to your glistening slit, he parts your folds with two fingers and pushes the rest of his escaping release back inside your fluttering passage.

You bite onto the bedsheets, trying to halt the twitching of your holes before whining, “stop it...” Thomas chuckles from behind as he plunges his digits deep into your core, curling them upwards to rub insistently against that sensitive bundle of nerves nestled within your depths.

“Don't be embarrassed,” he whispers, giving your bottom cheek a sharp spank. The sound echoes loudly in the quiet bedroom followed swiftly by your yelp of surprise, followed by the heaving of your back as you cry. He massages the reddened skin before gripping your rear hard enough to leave imprints in your supple flesh.

Coming back up, he presses his lips against the shell of your ear. Hot breath washing over your neck sends tingles racing down your spine.

“Sweetheart...” He copes softly, rubbing your bottom as he hardens once more without your knowledge.

“You took me so beautifully.” He praises huskily as he continues pumping his fingers slowly, working his load deeper into your spasming walls. Each thrust forces another burst of cream to ooze out and trickle down his invading knuckles.

“This sweet little quim, all fuckin' mine,” he declares arrogantly, circling his thumb firmly against your swollen clit as his free hand drifts to squeeze the underside of your breast possessively. Rolling and plucking at your nipple until it pebbles tightly against his palm.

“Don't say that,” you huff, sniffling. Thomas pauses before shaking his head. “Let me worship you a little longer, love.”

His lips kiss your cheek before he tilts your face with one hand, tongue lathing over your lips as he sucks some of the blood off your cut. He releases you as you huff, watching your leg slowly come up. 

“And this perfect body too,” he emphasizes, giving your curved hipbone a light pinch as he nips sharply at the juncture of your shoulder blades. The sting quickly fades into pleasant pulses of pleasure radiating outward. His teeth scrape teasingly over your nape before he suckles a dark mark into the tender skin.

“You'll carry my children soon.” He predicts smugly, knowing instinctively that his seed has found purchase in your fertility. You whimper at the plurality. His ego inflates with each inch his cum travels higher, burrowing deep into your vulnerable cervix. Soon, in the coming months, you'd swell round with his offspring. 

“Stay right there,” he murmurs, pressing your hiked-up knee against the mattress. He withdraws his soaked fingers only to replace them with the broad head of his rehardened cock, nudging demandingly against your entrance. 

You try to turn your head, “I thought you-” You’re cut off by a swift flex of his hips as he sheathes himself fully inside your dripping channel once more. Bottoming out, he grinds his pelvis against your ass as he hilt his thick cock deep within your clasping cunt. Reaching new depths previously untouched by missionary. 

“There we go...” He groans, squeezing your bottom as you arch. He's filling you impossibly fuller than before. Stretching you wide around his girth as he sets a steady rhythm, pumping languidly into your molten heat.

Thomas grips your hips tighter, lifting them higher off the mattress to force you into a lewd display. Your cries of pleasure escalate, tears flow freely down your burning cheeks as he exposes your dripping, thoroughly used sex. He's so deep you can feel a foreign twitch in your throat. Rivulets of his thick cum dribble down your thighs as he spreads your legs wider, pushing your knees apart.

“Please, Thomas, not so hard!” you beg, voice choked with emotion. He lines himself up once more, the bulbous head of his member nudging insistently at your puffy, sore entrance.

You're incredibly sensitive, nerve endings screaming from the intense fucking you just received. 

“I know, I know, I'll be gentle,” he murmurs as he drives forward with a soft grunt, diving into your wet pussy with one deep thrust. He hilts himself completely now, balls slapping lewdly against your clit. Your pussy, slick with your combined juices, offers no resistance to his renewed virility.

“Thomas!” you whine desperately as he starts pumping into you, setting a restrained pace.

Each drive of his hips forces fresh gouts of semen to bubble out around his pistoning shaft, splattering onto the bed below. The vulgar squelches and schlicks of your coupling fill the air.

“There, sweetheart. Take your husband's cock like a good girl,” he growls, gripping your hips hard enough to leave livid marks. One hand snakes around to find your sensitive clit, rubbing firm circles around it as he pounds mercilessly into you. He's determined to fill you, to have legacy begin tonight.

Tears blur your vision as you arch helplessly into his dominance, impaled on his rigid, heavy flesh. Broken sobs escape your lips with each brutal impact of his pelvis against your upturned bottom. Pleasure and stinging pain intertwine, overwhelming your senses.

Your pussy, battered and abused, flutters weakly around the invading intruder. Thomas leans over your arched back, covering you with his larger frame. He bites your earlobe before whispering hotly, “Gonna pump you so full of my seed, sweetheart... Fill this greedy cunny 'til it's drippin' outta ya...”

You blush, feeling him grin before kissing your cheek, his hands removing themselves from your hips and moving to intertwine with your fingers from behind. Sighing into him, you unclench your heat and allow even more of him inside. He smiles against your lips before huffing. “Deeper now, love?”

Sniffling beneath him, you manage a breath. “Yes… Please...”

Thomas nods, staring into your eyes before allowing your face to press against soft sheets. He lifts himself, looking down at your bodice beneath him, the chain of your necklace being weighed by gravity. His hand sweeps over your neck and moves thick hair to weigh past one shoulder instead of your damp back. 

He groans, letting his head fall back as he lets his hips find a proper rut inside you. The bed creaks ominously beneath the force of his thrusts. Thomas's grip on your fingers tightens as he increases the tempo of his relentless thrusts. 

“Ah, fuck!” He grits his teeth, his own whines gravelly and drawn-out, fighting the urge to explode prematurely.

Sweat beads on his brow and trickles down the cords of his neck as he loses himself in you. He watches the ridges of your back beneath him and curses to himself. Leaning back down, he latches onto your shoulder, sucking a vivid hickey into the delicate skin, marking you as irrevocably his.

“That's it, take it! Fuck, your sweet cunt...” He gasps, hammering harder, chasing his rapidly approaching climax. The obscene slap of flesh against flesh fills the room, accompanied by the debauched squishing sounds of your overflowing pussy being stirred yet again. 

Thomas hasn't fucked you like this, ever, spurred on by the debased sight of you sprawled beneath him, drowning in ecstasy and desperation.

You knew he was holding back, but you shudder at the thought of him still restraining his base needs even now. His free hand finds your neglected breasts, pawing and kneading the generous mounds. He pinches and rolls the stiff peaks cruelly between his fingers until they ache deliciously. 

You wince as his fingers pinch your nipples, knowing the sight of them isn't what turns him on most, although his cock is practically ripping through your back.

Humming beneath him, you feel another wave come crashing down onto your hips, and your knees buckle as he continues pounding into you. Overstimulated and needy, you cry beneath him. Thomas moans as you cum onto his cock so soon already, he quickly increases his pace.

“Gonna... pump you so fuckin' full.” He snarls savagely against your neck, sinking his teeth into the tender junction of your collarbone and throat. Biting down hard enough to draw a bead of crimson, marking you, claiming you utterly and completely.

His rhythm turns erratic, hips jerking spastically as he nears the precipice of release.

“Fuuck!” With one last violent surge forward, he hilt himself to the root inside your clutching pussy. His cock pulsing and throbbing uncontrollably as he unleashes a torrent of scalding seed straight into your vulnerable cunt.

Thomas collapses heavily upon you, crushing you into the mattress with his superior weight as spurt after copious spurt of potent semen pumps into your spasming core. 

“Unggh… Fuck, yes,” he groans gutturally, shuddering and twitching as the last vestiges of his release drain into you.

Finally spent, he drapes over your nubile form, heaving and panting hotly. His cock remains inside you as you breathlessly pant, feeling him turn you around, cum seeping from the sliver of an opening your stuffed cunt allows.

Thomas's pupils relax their dilation as he stares down at you, the fireplace's embers gradually burning out as he cups your face.

“Oh, sweetheart...” He lowers himself onto you again, kissing you as you hold onto him, hands searching immediately for his support.

Pride and possession suffuse his expression as he gazes down at your ravaged beauty, drinking in the sight of you defiled and debauched, dripping with his essence. Tenderly, he strokes the sweat-damp tendrils of hair plastered to your brow and cups your tear-streaked cheek in his broad palm. 

“And you think you aren't spoiled, eh?”

[bifauxnenarmand]

daniel molloy, complete the holy trinity and you will be reincarnated as armand’s vibrator

[bifauxnenarmand]

close enough 💕

[tommyhayward]

Look how excited he is to tell his surrogate parents that the girl he loves said YES

[circaxriot]

New photos have hit Dónal twt

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

thoughts of riding chibs telford bc im literally incapable of getting him out my mind

fem!reader, mdni. 300ish words. cw. a horny ovulating writer with no shame

both of you are on the sofa, you atop chibs’ lap. you’re facing him head on, arms loosely connecting behind his neck — fingers twirling with the ends of his greying hair. you sit on his cock, the full length of him tucked inside you comfortably. the small, lazy grinds of your hips momentarily releasing the suction-like grip you have around him.

your chest pushes outwards as your head falls back, tits squishing somewhere near his sternum, holding him close with the hands you have behind his neck. your lips part and your eyes squeeze closed, growing far too engrossed to notice his lusty gaze on you. soft dark brown eyes following with entrancement.

he peppers kisses to your elongated throat, trailing upwards until he meets your chin. he nibbles at it faintly, toothed hold mere as it keeps your head pinned back — keeping you exposed for him.

“fuckin’ fantastic, lovie,” he whispers into your skin, sealing his praise with a kiss into where he just spoke. 

his hold on your mid back falls, palms settling on your hips as if to help guide you — urge your movements like he was becoming restless. the subtle, wet clicking of your cunt increases in volume, strained breaths from you both accompanying the lewd noises. 

with the pace quickening ever so slightly, you slip your fingers up the back of his head, needily raking through the cigarette-stained strands of hair.

“pussy’s makin’ a mess,” he teases, accent thick despite his voice being soft.

he couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. more and more of your arousal seeping out and spilling down his cock and off his balls. a milky white trail providing evidence for the leisure, loving fucking. though the inability to see the said evidence practically killed him — his curious and attentive nature eager to see your cunt’s messy state. impatient and hopelessly desperate to see it.

⎯ ☆ ⎯

sigh.. daydreaming. found this in my drafts and cba to check if makes sense😭 it’ll have to do

[totoro9806]

the photos that live rent free in my head😭❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

[brummiereader]

Yours, Sincerely (Part Seven)

Summary: As business pulls Tommy away from Arrow House once more, a church sermon and a single overheard conversation shatters the fragile balance of your marriage. But this time, it's not jealousy or pride that drives your reaction, it’s something far older, buried in your bloodline. And as “just business” echoes between you and your husband, the past quietly begins to make its voice heard.

Warnings: Language, angst, infidelity.

Word Count: 3.5K

[Masterlist] [Previous Part] [Trailer]

You're my wife.

Three words. Three bloody words.

He heard himself say them. The way he said them. The weight of how he said them. And Arrow House, unforgiving and unmerciful, heard them too.

It wasn't some romantic, everlasting declaration of love, it was panic. The unfiltered and completely uncalculated panic of a man under pressure.

You hadn't struck one nerve, my darling, you'd struck three. Three questions, simultaneously asked and entirely unanswered.

Where did you stand in your husband's emotional hierarchy?

Where did you rank between business and his brooding mind?

And just why had your husband disappeared the moment those three damned words echoed off the walls of Arrow House last night?

Because you, brilliant, strong and beautiful you, had managed to strike the one place Thomas Shelby never liked to be struck.

That stupid bloody thing in his chest.

His heart.

But Arrow House remembered. The words still chimed from champagne glasses. Still lingered in the walls. And God love him, the poor bastard hoped they'd gone up in smoke alongside the endless noughts you'd burnt bright and mighty into the night sky.

But In the quiet that followed, as you stood stunned into silence, and he ordered you to bed in a desperate attempt to restore order to his rapidly unravelling world, Tommy slipped away with paperwork to file, phone calls to be made. Excuses rattling out one by one on deaf ears.

Because you and I are no fools, dear. Cupid up above in his candy-floss kingdom, no fool.

For the only fool in the West Midlands that night was Thomas Shelby. Foolish enough to believe his words had gone unheard. Foolish enough to think nobody noticed. Foolish enough to forget that Arrow House, always remembered.

There he stood, the brooding bastard caught in the crossfire of his own heart's betrayal, lingering at the threshold of your bedroom door watching you sleep in sunlight as dust motes glittered around you, driving the point painfully home of how he'd always found his wife.

For poised and polite, were the biggest lies you had ever told yourself you were.

Because as Tommy watched with the weariness of man hoping you wouldn't wake, hoping he could keep these mornings, these moments greedily to himself, he had, and always would find his wife…

Beautiful. Untouchable and completely unwilling to abide by his rules, his rigidness, his relentless need for control.

Perfect. You were fucking perfect.

And that? That was the bloody problem.

Go on then, you prat. Go fuck it up with more buffonary.

One step into your room, another step away from his iron control. Away from pretending he didn't feel an ounce of anything real.

Your husband's hand reached for the pen resting on the bedside table, scratching out yet another note that was beginning to look suspiciously like a roadmap to one man's increasingly doomed state of mind.

“ Gone into the city on business. Won't be back until late tonight. Ask Frances for an aspirin. And eat. Make sure you eat.

Yours sincer…”

Steady on Tom, what was that?

Not the bit about business. Your late return. The remedy to a hangover, or the growling demands of your wife's stomach.

That little flicker that escaped your thoughts and bled into the fountain pen.

You sure you wanna put that?

As Tommy's hand lingered over the last syllable yet to be scrawled, he reminded himself of his day's plans. The plan to prove to himself that the title of ‘Wife’, was but a mere note in the margin of his business books. A namesake assigned by law.

So, with a sharp scratch of the pen, he crossed out and erased any sign of sentiment he held for you and ended his note with a simple…

“T”

T. T for bloody twat, more like.

Look. It’s not my fault the frolicking fuckboy had found himself in yet another hotel room. I am but the mere pen to the treacherous little tart’s misgivings.

Believe me, my long-suffering sweet child, I am as mad as you are.

But before we call for his head on a spike, his heart the central ingredient in every hex we could ever curse the heathen with, let us pause. Let us clear our minds of the noise, the fury, the fog. And take one daring step into the seedy hotel room he was currently sat in.

“ Mr Shelby” she cooed, swaying her hips with each sultry step towards him, as he sat sprawled on the velvety lounge settee, like a businessman hungover on power, like a god who no longer enjoyed what stood before him. Or worse, like a man trying too hard.

Kneeling between his legs, hands sweeping up his tailored trousers, her nails traced the seams, eyes fluttering under his steel gaze as she played surrender, played the role of something that once gave him pleasure when his hand suddenly shot out, catching her chin.

“ What's your name?” His voice was rid of its usual control, the composure he armoured himself, fracturing under the pressure of performance.

He sounded hollowed out. He sounded tired. He sound utterly, completely, fucking exhausted with himself.

“ Whatever you want it to be” she purred, hands continuing their work, already assuming when Tommy's grip tightened, halting her half a second away.

He could do it. Let himself stoop that low. Let himself replay his wedding night with another woman and your name on his lips. Could perform, could pretend it was you under him, that he hadn't thought about that night every single night since.

But as his thumb swept slowly over her cheek, eyes shuttering a fraction to have your face appear in front of him instead of hers, he found himself wanting more than a replacement to warm his wrecked heart.

“ Leave” his voice dropped low, eyes snapping open, rising to his feet away from her to the window, away from the illusion of something he had almost convinced himself might prove he didn’t think about you every waking second of the fucking day.

“ But…” she began, uncertain, whether from the threat of an unpaid encounter or the sudden fear she was somehow lacking in what men were supposed to want.

“ Did I do something wrong?”

“ No” the word came out sharp, clipped, control snapping back into place before she believed he was anything more than the man he'd let you see. The one that cracked after a week of marital warfare. The one that had seen him suffocating in nightmares of the Somme. The one that couldn't even shag the stupidity out of himself.

“You didn't do a thing wrong. You did exactly what you were supposed to” he gave her some half-arsed form of an excuse as he nodded to the bundle of cash on the counter.

“But she didn't…” he murmured quietly to himself, eyes returning to the window, looking for the man he'd suddenly lost, when his tired gaze caught the wink of his wedding band.

But she didn't.

There it was. That nameless presence behind everything.

She didn't do as she was told. Didn't follow the rules of the arrangement. Didn't sit still, the obedient wife. Didn't stop his heart from thundering every time she walked by. Did absolutely everything wrong and somehow everything right to make Tommy realise that after three encounters, three women, third time truly wasn't a charm.

Go home, Thomas.

So, Polly was pissed off.

Not just with you, but with her harloting nephew you called husband.

And although I will always be partially biased on your behalf, darling, I can also see why the Shelby matriarch was currently knee-deep in damage control as she dealt with you two divs and the fallout from your spectacular firework display.

You see, Tommy did go home after his hotel visit that saw him come to the rather inconvenient realisation that the only woman he wanted was his wife. A revelation that, unfortunately for everyone involved, still existed entirely inside his own bloody head.

But alas, we'll do the mental arithmetic on that particular disaster another day. Because currently, word had travelled well beyond high society's circles about your little outburst.

Yes. That's right.

The word on Warwickshire's roads, stretching all the way to Birmingham's grotty gullies, was that the Shelby marriage was already in trouble, a mere month in.

Still with me? No?

Alright. The bloody maids had started yapping about your marital misery.

Christ.

And Christ was exactly the theme of today's little plan.

Because that's who you, Tommy and a grumbling, gangly-legged Arthur were currently being dragged off to visit. Like a trio of misbehaving children, under threats of God's judgement and one woman's wrath should you so much as dare put a foot wrong.

Heaven help us all. Polly was taking you to church.

It was suspiciously sunny when the four of you stepped out of Tommy's Bentley dressed in your Sunday best. Polly looking elegant in emerald as the church bells tolled for everyone to take their seats. Arthur looking awkward, like the church roof might collapse if he crossed the threshold. Tommy looking smart in Savile, with his hand to the small of your back. And then there was you, dressed in white, the wife of one month, being guided by Tommy into a sky-high building made out of granite and village gossip.

“Smile, darling. Play the part” Tommy hummed quietly in your ear, fingers flexing against the fabric of your dress, eyes cast down at you with, was that...a boyish smile?

No. It can't be.

Nobody made that man blush unless it was red with fury.

But as he walked you down the aisle, all eyes on the newlyweds who'd already made a name for themselves thanks to one maid's lack of discretion and love of distilled cider, that's exactly how Tommy felt.

A bloody boy.

Walking a tightrope, now he'd made a decision. Had constructed a new life plan without even informing one fundamental, and rather important, factor of said plan.

You, his wife.

“Why the fuck am I here?” Arthur murmured quietly beside Tommy as you found your seats, Polly bracketing the other side, containing you and Tommy into something manageable in case either of you decided on mischief during Sunday mass.

“Because these two idiots have made a holy show of their marriage. And you are well overdue a seat in God's house of repentance” Polly leaned across you, hushing her halfwit nephew before she had to deliver a backhand of damnation to his skull.

“ Pol” Tommy breathed heavily, irritation threading through his voice at the reminder of the current state of his marriage. Not because he wanted to distance himself from the mess. But because he'd already made his decision, already resolved to turn this thing between you into something more than an arrangement, to stop running from it, while you remained ten steps behind, still believing he'd spent the week hopping between brothels disguised as hotel rooms.

But before Polly could snap back, and double down on every reason why she'd hauled you two here this sunny Sunday morning, the priest began what would become an hour-long sermon, carefully chosen and precariously pointed.

The sanctity of Marriage.

Blimey. Clearly the gossip had made its way to the pulpit as well.

As each word droned out across the congregation in that same practiced, lifeless cadence, a man speaking on vows he’d never once had to live, Tommy found himself shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Wanting.

Or rather, wanting your attention that was.

Because as the priest spoke of duty and devotion, the sacred bond between husband and wife, Tommy’s gaze, despite himself, kept drifting back to you.

“ Still waiting on that call from Holyhead, Tom?” Arthur murmured quietly beside him, or at least, as quietly as Arthur Shelby was physically capable of being.

“Mm” came Tommy's mumbled reply, eyes drifting back to you for the fifth time in as many minutes, while above him, the priest's voice rose a fraction for those in his flock he found seemingly distracted.

“Marriage, is not a convenience of the flesh nor a passing arrangement of comfort, but a covenant forged before God Himself”

“The Scots are putting pressure on the Liverpool line” Arthur returned under his breath, all whiskey-laced and tobacco-tongued, entirely unconcerned with the holy man now looking increasingly offended by the Shelby side of his congregation.

“ It's handled, Arthur” Tommy murmured, eyes fixed on you sat poised and perfect beside him as he fixed the cuffs of shirt, while the priests rose an exasperated octave above the brothers.

“For in the vows exchanged at the altar, there is no clause for selfishness, nor amendment for betrayal”

“ What did our man say at the docks…”

“ Would you two pack it in” Polly cut through Arthur's hushed whispers with a sharp tongue and even sharper eye. “You idiots would do well to listen”

Told off and halfway to being grounded despite having outgrown shorts by three decades, the two brothers straightened in their seats as Polly shot them one final formidable look.

Feeling the weight of the priest's eyes, his aunt's, and every gossiping granny in a five-mile radius waiting for him to prove Sandra the maid right, Tommy did what any husband under public scrutiny would do.

He staked his bloody claim.

“ Don't fight me on it. People are looking” he murmured against your ear, halting your little grumble before it could evolve into a fully formed growl as his arm slipped around your shoulders while the sermon rattled on.

"It is a wife's sacred duty to honour, obey, and esteem her husband above all earthly men. Not challenge him, but support him faithfully in all things”

Christ almighty. This man was a breath away from a bludgeoning.

Had he forgotten he was preaching to West Midlands wives and not law-abiding ladies of London?

But before you could react and get yourself hauled to the witch's pyre, Tommy did you the service of putting his own two bloody cents in.

“ Here that, darling? Honour and obey. No challenging me” Tommy grunted beside you, as an increasingly dangerous grin began to emerge on his smug face. “You've been slacking on your wifely duties”

Look at him. Thoroughly enjoying himself now he'd finally found a sermon that supported his argument.

The bastard.

But then…

"The Lord asks far more of husbands than obedience. He asks for devotion. Fidelity. Self-sacrifice and patience. For a wife is a fragile creature, to be handled with care and love”

Ah. Now that tasted scrumptiously sweet.

And as Arthur snorted with amusement, like he'd just been informed the Pope himself was making a pilgrimage to the holy land of Small Heath, a thoroughly smug smile flashed across your face now.

“Dont start getting a big head. You're far from fragile, sweetheart” Tommy whispered low and gravelly against your ear, thumb coming up to steal that smile straight off your face.

“ Careful now, Tommy. Handle me with care” you replied quietly, brow cocking in a challenge that looked nothing like a fragile woman, and everything like one looking to pick a fight.

“ Of course there are many ways to honour, or even worship, a husband beyond supporting him” Tommy shifted closer, voice hushed, though not quite hushed enough for Polly to miss as she readied herself to smack the boy into next Sunday.

“ I’m sure there are” you replied in an equally quiet whisper, indulging his little game as you turned your head and caught the mischievous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

This was good. You were flirting. This was flirting, right?

And for one brief moment, it certainly looked like it. Until you opened your mouth and decided to scandalise the entire Shelby pew just to watch your husband squirm.

“Just don't forget, Tommy” you murmured sweetly, as you gazed adoringly into his blue eyes before you went for the kill. “A woman only needs to get down on her knees to worship. A man, on the other hand…”

“ Must bow much lower. Onto his…stomach”

Holy mother Mary of God, girl.

The silence that shrouded you four was almost deathly loud, the kind that rang in the ears, thundered in the heart.

Arthur, bless him, nearly choked on his own breath.

Poor Polly closed her eyes and prayed for the salvation of your soul.

And Tommy, who had faced guns, knives, and the Somme itself, suddenly found himself completely unprepared for the woman sitting beside him.

You had quite literally, dear, taken the air from his very lungs.

And you weren't done.

Because just as Tommy was trying to recover from the racy implication you'd just forged permanently into his mind, you decided to hammer another thought into it.

“ I was thinking, while you were away on business” you leaned into him now, voice warming his ear now.

“See, I might not ever be able to take a lover physically. But I can in…thought.

“ What did just you say?” Tommy's head snapped towards you, his body going rigid beneath the weight of your words.

“ I said, in thought” your voice remained sweet, conversational and composed. “Could be the man two pews down. Could be one of the workers on Arrows Houses grounds. Could be anyone”

“ I have a very vivid imagination” Your eyes drifted lazily around the church as Tommy tracked every movement, every glance that landed anywhere but on him.

“ Enough” he breathed, a one worded command balancing on the edge of a growl as possessiveness flared in his eyes, like he could simply will the words back into your mouth and erase them from existence.

Because here he was, having finally abandoned the easy release he'd sought in Soho hotel rooms. The terms he'd once agreed with your uncle now quietly cut from the contract in his own mind.

His wife had just calmly informed him that she'd live her life fantasising in a way he couldn't stop her. Reach her.

And despite every mistake he'd ever made, despite every hotel room and every act of stubborn self-sabotage, the thought of you imagining anyone but him warming your body and bed, felt like a physical blow.

The rest of the sermon passed in complete silence. As silent as the ride back to Arrow House, where Tommy smoked his way through a packet of cigarettes, carrying the weight of every fuck-up he’d managed to make in the month he’d been married to you.

He wanted to fix it. Wanted to reach for you and tell you he’d worship you in every way imaginable if you’d just forgive him for his own cowardice.

But that’s not how it works, Thomas.

You can’t scramble to salvage the wreckage you created simply because you finally realised you were too afraid to feel anything beyond business.

No. Now Tommy would have to wait. Watch. Endure. For however long it took for you to want something other than the arrangement he’d once so adamantly insisted on.

You’d only made it three steps into Arrow House when the phone in Tommy’s office shrilled, and business came calling.

You shouldn’t have listened in. Should’ve stayed in your wing and kept to yourself, like you’d managed to do for most of your marriage.

But when you overheard his plans to travel with his brothers, not to London, not to Manchester, but to Holyhead in Ireland via passenger ship, all poised politeness drained out of you, and you walked straight into his office, a wife frankly fed up with her husband’s fuckery.

“ You're leaving. Again” Your voice was sharp now, void of any softness or care you took with your words. Because this wasn’t just a weekend away. This was Tommy crossing countries, leaving you, the wife, behind with nothing but sharp words and threatened thoughts of imagined men to keep her company.

“ I don't have a choice” his voice answered differently this time, no sharpness, no constructed words said to placate you. Only regret, and a softness that showed he truly did care.

For as you stood there staring at him, afraid you were about to lose him to someone else’s warmth, Tommy stood there afraid he had already lost you to his own stupidity.

“ It's just business, love” he murmured gentler, quieter. And he meant it, he meant every single bloody word of it as he took a careful step towards you.

But all you heard was something older, familiar. Something inherited.

Words spoken to a woman not so different from you as she stood on a doorstep and watched her husband disappear down the road without looking back.

Words that had shaped your world into something that went so dreadfully wrong once before.

“ That's what my father used to say…”

*I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter in the comments below 🖤*

[Next Part] coming soon!

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[siredbykat]

— prince aerion “brightflame” targaryen; as a vampire

[valarrsgirl]

MISSIONARY IN A COFFIN

a/n: thank you anon for this delicious request!! was really picturing how their coffins would look like

cw: nsfw, explicit sexual content, confined space, biting/bloodplay, degredation, rough sex, obsessive behaviour

vampire!valarr — the coffin is lined with the deepest, softest black velvet, the color of a moonless sky. the inside is cool, a sanctuary from the sun he can no longer bear, smelling faintly of sandalwood and frost. he arranges you within it as if preparing a sacred offering, his movements slow, reverent. he lays you back, your head pillowed on the plush lining, and settles over you. his silver steak, longer and finer than in life, falls like a curtain around your faces. he moves inside you with a deep, relentless rhythm, the velvet whispering beneath you with every thrust. his mismatched eyes glow faintly in the dark, fixed on yours.

his fangs brush your throat, not piercing, just teasing. “hm?” he murmurs, his voice a soft, hypnotic hum against your skin. his hips snap forward, a fraction harder, making you gasp. “what’s wrong, pretty girl? am i being a little rough?” he kisses the corner of your mouth, his lips cool. “tell me.” he doesn’t wait for an answer. he sinks his fangs into the side of your neck, not to feed deeply, but to leave a bruising claim. the dual sensation-the deep, filling stretch of him and the sharp, sweet pain of his bite-makes you arch and whine, a helpless, eager sound. he drinks a sip, just a taste, and pulls back, licking the twin wounds. a soft, dark laugh rumbles in his chest, vibrating through you both. “you are,” he whispers, answering his own question. “you enjoy it. being so good for me, so perfect.” he kisses you, and you can taste your own blood, metallic and intimate, on his tongue.

“do you taste as sweet everywhere?”

vampire!aerion — the coffin is carved from a wood so dark it's almost black, polished to a high sheen, and lined with blood-red silk that feels sinfully smooth against your bare skin. he throws you into it, not lays you. there’s no reverence here, only hunger and impatience. he's on you before you can orient yourself in the dark, pushing your thighs apart. the silk is cold, his body is cold, but the friction between you is fire. his blue eyes burn like twin suns in the darkness, full of madness and something sinister.

“look at you,” he sneers, his voice a cruel, breathless rasp. his hips hammer into you, the coffin creaking with the force. “trapped in a box with a monster. and you're wet for it.” he leans down, his fangs gleaming. he doesn’t tease. he bites to hurt. he sinks them deep into the curve where your neck meets your shoulder, and he drinks. not a sip. a greedy, pulling draw that makes you cry out, a sharp mix of pain and shocking, unwanted pleasure. he groans against your skin, his rhythm turning jagged and frantic. “you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”he pants, pulling back. blood-your blood-smears his perfect, cruel mouth. “fucking pathetic.” he licks his lips, watching you writhe beneath him, trapped by his body and his bite. “but it's what you deserve. it's what you want” he flips you over onto your stomach, the red silk slick under your cheek, and takes you again, harder, his fangs finding a new spot to claim as he drinks you down.

“your pulse is racing, dove. is it because of fear..or something else?”

taglist: @valarrmylight @icebearcucumber @wooceanic @baeylei @sunshineflowersandkisses @darylandbethfanforever9 @pinkdoeweirdo

[fishalthor]

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor in The Wheel of Time 3.01

[notbuckybarnes]

AIDAN TURNER British Vogue

[doofuses-deactivated20200101]

literally like 95% of girls have stretch marks on their body and if you’re going to give them a hard time about them then you didn’t deserve to see her body in the first place

[czarina55]

fiery fuckable front man 🎤🙂‍↕️🥵👅👅👅🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

shawn is the second from the right with his band, element, circa 1995

📸 last pic from mikedawsonsdrums on ig

🔗: https://www.instagram.com/p/DPxA8lZjyGY/?igsh=bmY1a2FkaTdnemFk

[sofia-the-scholar]

this pic is the origin of magic

[czarina55]

@sofia-the-scholar you’re welcome 🙏🏻🫶🏻

[putm]

Advent Drabble - Thranduil

Prompt: You take care of his elk.

The elk's antlers cast a shadow just onto your eyes as you looked up at it, caressing its neck as you admired its magnificence. The creature was as regal as the elf king who rode it. "You must be hungry," You spoke to it, smiling as you did. Its eyes followed you as you moved to grab the extra treat you had taken with you for him, getting it from your satchel. "Well, you are in luck because I have food for you with me," You revealed the mushrooms you knew he liked to him, and he immediately took a step forward towards you. Sniffing the food only once before trusting your good intentions and taking one of them in a single bite. "Do not worry, I have more than enough for you."

"You spoil him," A sudden voice then appeared from behind you, all too recognisable to startle you.

"Does he not deserve to be spoiled?" You teased Thranduil, turning around to face him with a smile, one which he returned after he took another moment to admire the sight before him.

"Well, it is not like I could stop you if I tried," He chuckled, moving to you.

Tags: @alriguess

©putm 2025: no permission to repost, upload, translate or plagiarise on any platform. I do not own these characters. All rights to the original creators.

[just-a--figment]

[restsy]

[restsy]