hi!! im ann (she/her). i like reading, writing, plants, cats, and playing games. im in a lot of fandoms, have a lot of guilty pleasures, and will write for media i have never consumed at the slightest provocation.
hi ăœ(ÂŽâœ`)ă ive been getting some messages and asks (by 5 people idk who i think i am) about my posts, and i SWEAR im nearly done with 3, but working in healthcare leaves me little time to write about fictional men đ
Iâm the anon that wrote the unfinished bit about the healer!reader AU, I accidentally sent it off before finishing đ Feel free to use the idea if you feel inspired! The blurb that was supposed to be short ended up becoming a whole fic and I decided to post it to my writing page instead of finishing it in your asks box haha. Love your work! Binge read all your fics today and it inspired me to write my own, so thank you!
STAAAWPPP I'm so curious!! I was on holiday and couldn't log on my PC. Your prompt was so fun!! I actually copied your request on my Word without reading this đ„Č I had some rough outline, and maybe I can finish ităœ(ÂŽâœ`)ă
I tried finding your blog but I couldn't ): i know its on your bio but for some reason it doesnt show up? I'd love to read it if youd let me!
Hello! Have a request for price and bratty reader where they hate eachother and she refuses to listen and take orders from him to the point she nearly gets herself killed so he puts her on leave and sheâs not happy about it and they get into a very heated argument where she starts taking low blows to get a rise out of him and he canât stand it anymore and they fuck on top of his desk and someone nearly walks by so heâs covering her mouth and choking her
You hate Priceâin and out of the bedroom.
pairing: John Price x fem!reader
cw: dom!Price, light spanking, choking, mouth-covering, oral (f receiving), hate sex (?), porn with plot.
wc: 10k (HELP)
an: KISSING YOU ON THE LIPS FOR THIS REQUEST. i honestly got too into the plot đ but i think the end is worth it!! it was so so fun, i hope you enjoy it!
You werenât part of the 141.
You werenât part of the 141, nor did you have the foolish, idiotic desire to be. The lads werenât awful, in fairness. Gaz was charming and respectful enough to be tolerable, Soap had a thick skull, thick accent, and big heart, and Ghost was⊠well, Ghost. Whatever the hell there was to say about a man who dressed like the Grim Reaper and spoke like he was rationing oxygen.
The real pain was none other than John Price.
When they told you youâd be briefly reassigned to his unit for a coalition operation in Bosnia, tracking a merc youâd been following for months, you almost asked whether the bullet would come with the paperwork or if you were expected to provide it yourself. It was too convenient. Too much like someone, somewhere, had decided your life needed complicating in a way that wore a boonie hat and reeked of cigar.
You wondered, briefly, if Price had been involved in the decision.
Those suspicions were quickly proven right when he personally greeted you at the helipad.
The rotor sound tore at your jacket as you stepped down onto the ground, kit heavy against your spine, cold air sipping through the seams of your gloves. Bosnia was dull that morning, the whole base painted in grey. You adjusted the strap over your shoulder, lifted your chin, and found him waiting a few yards off with his arms folded.
John Price looked exactly as you remembered him.
Annoyingly smug and annoyingly calm. Beard a little fuller, eyes just as quick, posture loose but never relaxed.Â
His mouth twitched the second he saw you.
âLovely to see you, rookie.â
The concrete could have cracked open under your boots and swallowed you whole, and you would have considered it a kinder welcome.
You stopped in front of him, keeping your distance. Never too close with Price, because he had a habit of making proximity feel more meaningful, even when it wasnât. Especially when it wasnât.
âCaptain.â
âLieutenant.â
He said it like he was humouring you.
You held his stare.
You had not been called rookie in years. Not by anyone with a functional sense of self-preservation, anyway. It was a nickname people only used when they wanted to remind you of a version of yourself that no longer existed, back when your boots were too clean and your hands shook after your first close call. Price, unfortunately, had known that version. Worse, he had survived long enough to keep referencing it.
âI was told this was a temporary coalition assignment.â
âIt is.â
âI was also told Laswell requested my direct involvement.â
âShe did.â
âAnd yet here you are.â
Price gave you a mild look, and it would have seemed innocent on a less irritating man. âThat a problem?â
Yes. You wanted to say that being dragged into his orbit less than a month before your promotion meeting in late November was a problem. That you had spent the better part of the year being told, plainly and repeatedly, that you were on track to captain. That this could well be your last operation as a lieutenant, and instead of being allowed to finish it cleanly with your own people, you were standing on foreign concrete in front of a man who had once seen you at your worst and intended to keep the memory alive.
Instead, you shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. âNo, sir.â
Polite, for untrained ears. Damning, if one knew how to listen.
Price did.
His brows lifted a fraction. âGood.â
It became clear within the first forty-eight hours that you hated John Price. You didnât only dislike him. No, you hated him with enough force that even a blind man would have worked it out.
You answered his questions when they pertained to Aleksandar KovaÄ and ignored most of the rest. On comms, your acknowledgements arrived late, shortened down to the barest syllable, and sometimes not at all when you decided the order did not require one. During briefings, you sat with your arms folded and your attention fixed somewhere over his shoulder, treating the entire affair like an administrative delay between landing and doing the job properly.
Price noticed every instance.
The first time, he let it pass. The second, his eyes narrowed. By the fourth day, he had begun saying your rank like he was imagining how satisfying it might be to demote you himself.
It did not help that you were good. Had you been careless, obstructive, or merely unpleasant without the competence to justify it, he could have removed you from the operation and sent Laswell a report thick enough to stop a door. Instead, every time you ignored his preferred approach, you produced something useful. You recognised one of KovaÄâs couriers from the shape of his shoulders in grainy surveillance footage. You corrected a mistranslated call sign that had sent British intelligence looking for a village instead of a person. You identified three fallback properties no one else had connected because KovaÄ had purchased them through companies registered under the maiden names of dead relatives.
Aleksandar KovaÄ had been born in Mostar, trained in military logistics, and spent the better part of two decades making himself indispensable to people who preferred wars without official involvement. He moved weapons, men, forged documents, and occasionally bodies across borders with the same fluidity. Governments had been looking for him for years; you had been looking for him for eleven months.
No one knew more about KovaÄ than you did.
Laswell knew it. Price knew it. The lads knew it too, which meant everyone had to tolerate you regardless of whether they wanted to.
They did not.
Gaz had made an effort on the first evening, asking about your flight and offering to show you around the temporary barracks. You had thanked him, declined, and watched the friendliness retreat from his face by degrees. Soap tried once to draw you into a card game and received a look unpleasant enough that he never tried again. Ghost had dispensed with the pretence entirely and simply moved around you as though you were an unexploded shell someone had neglected to mark.
Still, they werenât rude. They were professional, civil, and unmistakably loyal to Price.
You understood why.
Damn him, John Price was a good captain.
Now.
He knew when Soapâs knee was bothering him before Soap admitted it. He noticed when Gaz had gone too long without eating and pushed a protein bar across the table without interrupting the briefing. He adjusted patrols when Ghostâs shoulder stiffened in the cold, never drawing attention to the fact, and stood the least desirable watch himself when the team had been running too long without proper sleep. When plans went wrong, he absorbed responsibility before anyone else had the chance. When they went right, he handed the credit down.
The men trusted him because he had earned it.
That made your contempt worse.
To them, Price was the captain who brought everyone home. The captain who measured risk carefully, who never spent lives cheaply, who understood that the people under his command were not expendable simply because the objective mattered.
You had known him before he learned that.
The incident in the operations room did little to improve matters.
You had been leaning over a satellite map with one hand braced against the table, tracing an old smuggling road through the foothills when Price moved in behind you. He reached past your shoulder to shift one of the markers, his chest close enough to your back that cigar smoke clung to the air between you.
You stopped speaking. Price, either oblivious, left his hand on the table.
You planted your palm against the centre of his chest and shoved him backwards.
It was not hard enough to hurt him. It was, however, hard enough to throw him half a step back in front of his entire team.
The room went silent.
Soap stared down at the map trying his hardest to seem another piece of furniture. Gazâs mouth tightened. Ghost did not visibly react, which in Ghost amounted to watching very closely.
Price looked first at your hand, then at you.
Something worked in his jaw.
You returned to the map and finished explaining the route.
He could have reprimanded you, and, frankly, he should have. Instead, he waited until the meeting ended and caught you in the corridor, one hand closing around your upper arm before you could walk past.
âWhatever this is,â he said quietly, âyou keep it away from my op.â
You looked at his hand until he removed it. âThe op is the only reason Iâm here.â
âIâm aware.â
âThen we understand each other.â
His nostrils flared. For one brief, gratifying second, you thought you might finally have pushed him past that infuriating restraint. Price had always possessed a temper; age had merely taught him where to put it. You could see it gathering behind his eyes, pressing hard against the calm expression he wore for the benefit of everyone nearby.
Then his radio crackled with Laswellâs voice, and the moment passed.
KovaÄ had surfaced again.
You were needed.
Price stepped aside.
He was furious, but there was nothing useful he could do with the anger. He could not send you home. He could not confine you to base or remove you from field work without losing the only person who could reliably anticipate KovaÄâs movements. Every alternative source had either vanished, been killed, or started lying the moment the money changed hands. You were not merely helpfulâyou were the reason the operation had moved at all.
So Price endured you.
By the end of the week, the tension had become another piece of equipment the team carried everywhere.
The forward camp stood beneath a range of black mountains, little more than two armoured vehicles, three tents, and a line of thermal sheeting stretched between the trees. KovaÄ maintained a hunting property somewhere beyond the northern ridge, though the house itself had never appeared on local records. The approach roads had been watched for two days. No movement. No lights. Nothing on thermal except deer and the occasional fox cutting through the snow.
Price ordered rotating patrols through the surrounding woods.
You drew Ghost for the midnight watch.
Neither of you objected, although Soap looked relieved not to be paired with you himself.
The temperature dropped drastically after dark. Frost gathered along the low branches, and every breath emerged white in front of your face. You moved along the southern part of camp with your rifle held close, boots digging into the crusted snow. Ghost kept several paces to your left, large enough that the trees seemed narrower around him.
For the first hour, neither of you spoke.
It suited you.
Ghost did not feel compelled to fill silence merely because it existed. He checked the tree line, paused when you paused, and shifted formation without discussion when the trail tightened. There was none of Soapâs restless energy or Gazâs careful politeness.Â
Near two in the morning, Ghost stopped beside a fallen pine.
You watched him scan the ridge before lowering his rifle. He hooked two fingers beneath the edge of his balaclava and lifted it just enough to expose his mouth, then reached into his vest and pulled a battered packet of cigarettes.
He held it out.
You considered him for a moment before taking one.
Ghost placed another between his lips and struck his lighter. The flame threw a brief orange light across the lower half of his face, catching on old scars before he drew in and snapped it shut.
You stepped closer, cigarette poised between your fingers.
He raised the lighter again. As you bent towards it, he pulled it away.
You stared at him. Ghost stared back, smoke rising from beneath the raised edge of the mask. âWhatâs your issue with Price?â
For several seconds, the only sound was the wind moving through the branches. Then you scoffed as you reached into your own pocket, bringing out a lighter.
Ghost made no attempt to hide the satisfaction in his eyes.
You lit the cigarette, took a long drag, and resumed walking. The answer, when you gave it, had nothing to do with the light. âWorked under him a couple of times.â
Ghost fell into step beside you. âFigured.â
âLast time was six years ago. Joint task force running counter-proliferation across central Europe. Price wasnât captain then, nor was I anything worth mentioning.â
Your boots found the narrow track between two rows of trees. Beyond them, the land dropped steeply into darkness.
âThere was a broker named Milan Varga. He supplied rifles to militias, explosives to separatists, anti-air to anyone with enough cash and a border dispute. Half the weapons recovered from unsanctioned conflicts in Europe could be traced back to him if you had the time and enough dead informants.â
Ghost took a drag but said nothing.
âWe had been trying to locate him for almost two years. Everyone knew his name, no one knew where he slept. He changed houses every few days, travelled in other peopleâs passports, never used the same driver twice. Priceâs task force had lost three assets before I joined.â
You flicked ash into the snow.
âFound a guy.â
That had been the beginning of it. A young freight coordinator named Petar RadoviÄ, ambitious enough to work for Varga and frightened enough to regret it. You had noticed discrepancies in customs records, shipments declared twice under different weights, and spent months arranging conversations that looked accidental. A drink in Vienna. A cigarette behind a hotel in Bratislava. A train journey during which neither of you acknowledged the other until the final stop.
RadoviÄ had not trusted British intelligenceâhe had trusted you.
âHe agreed to take me to Varga,â you continued. âOne meeting. No phone, no comms, no weapon. I was to meet RadoviÄ alone, get into his vehicle, and go wherever he took me. Varga would speak to me if he believed I was ready to sell access to NATO procurement routes.â
Ghostâs head turned slightly towards you. âYou went in as a traitor.â
âI went in as someone young enough to resent being overlooked and arrogant enough to think she deserved more. It wasnât a difficult performance at the time.â
That earned no reaction, though you saw his gaze linger before returning to the woods.
âThe meeting was set for eight in the evening. At nineteen forty-three, Price received an intercepted message confirming Varga already knew who I was.â
Ghost stopped walking.
You went another two steps before turning back.
âHe knew?â
The cigarette burned between your fingers. You watched the ember brighten in the dark. âYes.â
Ghostâs face revealed little even with the mask raised, but his stillness changed. He was no longer merely listening.
âThere was enough time to stop it,â you said. âPrice could have sent a team to intercept RadoviÄâs car before it reached me. He could have triggered the abort through the secondary contact. Either option would have pulled me out.â
âBut Varga would disappear.â
You looked at him, surprised. Ghost had already reached the same conclusion Price had years ago.
âRadoviÄ would have been exposed. Varga would have killed him, abandoned the network, and vanished for another five years. We would lose the first reliable route to him anyone had found.â
Ghost lowered the cigarette from his mouth. âSo Price let you go.â
âHe let me get into the car.â
The wind picked up along the ridge. Below, ice cracked with a sound like a distant branch breaking.
RadoviÄ had been nervous that night. You remembered that more clearly than anything else: the dampness at his hairline, the way his fingers kept tightening around the steering wheel, the smell of clove gum in the enclosed car. He had apologised twice for the blindfold before putting it over your eyes.
He had not known, that you were certain of.
âHe took me to a warehouse outside Brno. Varga wasnât there. Four of his men were.â
The old wound sat beneath three layers of clothing, invisible but suddenly present.
âThey asked who else knew about RadoviÄ. I told them no one. They asked how long Iâd been intelligence. I told them I worked in acquisitions. They broke two fingers before they stopped pretending to believe me.â
You had not spoken about it in years. The official debrief had reduced everything to sequence and duration, injuries described in detached clinical language by men who had not been there. Contusions. Fractures. Ballistic trauma. No permanent compromise.
The body could survive a great deal and still be considered an acceptable outcome.
âThey moved me the next morning,â you breathed out. âPriceâs people tracked the first vehicle to the warehouse, then lost the second in an underground loading bay. They found RadoviÄ dead in the original car.â
Ghostâs jaw tightened.
âI was held for thirty-one hours. They shot me when they realised the extraction team had located the compound. Through the abdomen. Low enough to miss the liver, high enough to make the surgeons complain.â
You took another drag and found the cigarette had burned nearly to the filter.
âVarga was captured alive. His records dismantled six trafficking routes and put fourteen men in prison. The press called it the largest counter-arms operation in a decade.â
Ghostâs cigarette had gone untouched between his fingers. âAnd Price?â
A laugh escaped you, but there was no humour in it. âHe came to the hospital.â
You remembered waking to the smell of cigar smoke. Price had been sitting in a plastic chair beside the window, elbows on his knees, looking as though he had not slept. Younger then, less grey in his beard, but already practising the expression he wore now when carrying the weight of a decision he had no intention of regretting aloud.
âHe said the objective had required a difficult call,â you told Ghost. âSaid he knew I understood the stakes when I volunteered for intelligence.â
Ghostâs eyes hardened. You ground the cigarette beneath your boot.
âThree months later, he received a medal for the operation. Exceptional judgement under pressure. Decisive command action resulting in the capture of a high-value weapons trafficker. I was not included in any of the ceremonies.â
Ghost looked back towards camp, though the trees blocked any view of it.
âSo thatâs my issue with Price,â you said bitterly. âYour captain is very good at bringing his people home now, Iâm sure thatâs comforting. But know that he learned that from me.â
Ghost watched in silence before he held out the cigarette packet again.
You took one, and this time, when he flicked the lighter open, he did not pull it away.
The patrol ended just before dawn.
Price was waiting near the vehicles when you emerged from the tree line, cigarette in one hand, hat pulled down against the cold. His attention moved over Ghost first, checking automatically for injury, then settled on you.
âAnything?â
âNothing on the ridge,â you answered. âTracks near the eastern boundary, but theyâre at least a day old. Two men, possibly three.â
Price nodded. His eyes shifted between you and Ghost, picking up whatever subtle alteration had occurred during the night.
Ghost handed him the patrol log.
âLieutenant knows her work,â he said.
Priceâs gaze lingered.
It was not praise. From Ghost, it was something more thought out: a correction entered into the record.
You continued towards the tents as the first weak strip of daylight appeared over the mountains, grey spreading slowly across the snow.
They found Aleksandar KovaÄ two days later.
A burst transmission intercepted shortly before dawn placed him at a hunting lodge eleven kilometres north of the forward camp, where he was expected to meet a transport team and disappear across the Croatian border before midday. The building belonged to a forestry company that had ceased to exist nine years earlier. No electricity on record, no legal road access, no reason for four vehicles to be sitting beneath camouflage netting behind it.
By four in the morning, the camp had been stripped down to essentials.
Price stood over the map with one palm pressed flat against the folding table, assigning routes while snow tapped softly against the canvas overhead. Soap and Gaz would take the eastern slope, where the terrain narrowed around the access road. Ghost would move above them through the trees and cover the upper windows. Price would approach the rear of the lodge through the service yard.
You were going with him.
KovaÄ knew you. More importantly, you knew how he ran. If he had built an exit into the propertyâand he would haveâthen it would not follow the most obvious path. KovaÄ disliked underground tunnels because they became graves when compromised, but he trusted old service corridors, drainage channels, and construction gaps that did not appear on plans.
Price finished outlining the breach and looked directly at you.
âWe move together.â
You leaned against the table, eyes on the map. âI understand how pairs work.â
Soap became suddenly interested in checking the magazine he had already checked twice. Gaz kept his face neutral. Ghost, positioned near the tent entrance, watched without appearing to.
Priceâs gaze remained fixed on you. âYou do not break off. You do not advance without confirmation. You do not decide youâve spotted something the rest of us are too stupid to see and vanish after it.â
âYouâve made your point.â
âI havenât started.â
Price straightened and gathered the photographs from the table. Since the night patrol, Ghost had become less actively cold towards you, though not warmer. He had not repeated what you told him. You knew that because Price had not looked at you differently afterward, and John Price was not capable of hearing something like that without carrying it visibly somewhere in his face.
Still, Ghost had begun watching the space between you and Price with a new kind of attention.
The team moved before dawn.
The snow had deepened overnight, soft enough to swallow the sound of boots but deep enough to make every step dangerous. You approached from the south beneath a low canopy of pine, moving single file until the lodge emerged through the trees. It was larger than the aerial photographs suggested, built from dark timber over an older stone foundation. No lights. No visible movement. The vehicles behind it were cold.
That meant little.
Price crouched beside you behind a fallen trunk and raised two fingers to his headset.
âBravo, report.â
Gaz answered first. âEast road covered. Two outside, both armed.â
âUpper floor,â Ghost murmured. âMovement behind the northern window. Canât confirm how many.â
Soapâs voice followed. âSouth side clear. Got a cellar vent near the foundation.â
You looked towards the rear of the lodge.
The service yard was enclosed by a low stone wall, much of it collapsed beneath years of frost. There were two doors at the back. One newer, reinforced, with a camera positioned above it. The other narrow and almost hidden beneath an overhang, the wood warped and grey.
Price indicated the reinforced door.
You shook your head and pointed towards the narrow one.
He frowned.
You moved closer, keeping low, and spoke beneath your breath. âServantsâ entrance. Original building is older than the upper structure. That door will lead into the stone section.â
âAnd?â
âKovaÄ always takes the oldest exit. Less likely to appear on updated plans.â
Price studied the building for another second, then changed direction.
The narrow door opened into a passage barely wide enough for Priceâs shoulders. The walls were unfinished stone, damp near the floor, with electrical cables running overhead. A single yellow bulb burned at the far end. You entered first, pistol raised, moving past stacked firewood and shelves of cleaning supplies until the corridor divided ahead.
Price touched two fingers to your shoulder.
Hold.
Ghost had not yet confirmed the upper floor. Soap and Gaz were still moving into position. The breach was supposed to happen simultaneously, before anyone inside had time to burn documents or reach the vehicles.
You stayed where you wereâfor perhaps seven seconds.
Then a door clicked somewhere beyond the junction.
You knew the sound because you had heard it in three different safe houses connected to KovaÄ: a weighted fire door releasing from an electronic lock.
Someone was moving.
Priceâs hand closed around the back of your vest as you shifted forward.
âWait.â
âThereâs an exit.â
âWe hold until Ghost clears the second floor.â
âIf KovaÄ reaches the rear channel, heâll be under the tree line before we breach.â
âYou donât know itâs him.â
You looked down the passage. There was a scrape beyond the wall, then the unmistakable drag of something heavy crossing stone.
âHeâs moving.â
Price tightened his grip. âLieutenant.â
The warning in his voice should have stopped you, but you pulled free and rounded the corner. The corridor opened into a storage room with a second door at the opposite end. A man stood beside it with a rifle already raised.
The muzzle flashed.
Something hot tore past the side of your face. Stone exploded from the wall behind you, fragments striking your cheek and collar. Your ears rang so violently that the second shot seemed to happen at a distance.
Price hit you from the side.
He drove you behind a support column with one arm locked around your chest, turned, and fired twice over your shoulder. The gunman staggered backwards into the door, his rifle dropping from his hands before he collapsed against the frame.
For half a second, neither of you moved.
Priceâs body was pressed hard against yours, his breath rough near your ear. His hand had closed over the front of your vest so tightly that the knuckles had gone pale. You felt the violent rise and fall of his chest before he shoved you further behind cover and checked the corridor.
âContact rear,â he snapped into comms. âOne down. Breach now.â
Gunfire erupted elsewhere in the lodge.
Soap detonated the eastern charge. Glass shattered above you, followed by Ghostâs rifle from the tree line and Gaz shouting movement near the stairs. Price grabbed your jaw and turned your face towards him.
A thin line of blood ran from your temple to the edge of your cheek.
The bullet had not struck you. A piece of stone had. It had missed your skull by less than an inch.
Price stared at the blood with fire in his eyes. âWhat the fuck did I just tell you?â
You pulled your face out of his hand. âWe donât have time.â
His expression changed, going from irritation to coldness in a matter of seconds. âStay behind me.â
You stepped around him.
Price caught your vest again and slammed you back against the stone. âI said behind me.â
The wall jarred your shoulder. His face was close enough that you could see the burst blood vessels in the whites of his eyes, the fine snow melting into his beard, the restraint holding his jaw rigid.
The second door at the end of the room swung inward.
Price released you immediately and raised his weapon.
Aleksandar KovaÄ appeared between two armed men.
He looked older than the last photograph. Thinner too, his grey hair cut close to the scalp, one hand gripping a hard-sided case against his chest. Recognition crossed his face when he saw you, oddlyâŠdisappointed?
âLieutenant,â he hummed.
One of his men fired.
You and Price moved in opposite directions. Price took the left gunman while you dropped behind a steel worktable and fired beneath it, catching the second man through the calf. He went down hard. KovaÄ turned and ran through the doorway behind him.
Price followed.
You were by his side despite the order.
The passage beyond the room descended sharply, the old stone stairs slick with moisture. KovaÄ abandoned the case halfway down and reached the lower door just as Price caught the back of his coat. The fabric tore. KovaÄ twisted, produced a compact pistol from beneath his jacket, and raised it blindly over his shoulder.
You struck his wrist with the butt of your weapon.
The pistol fired into the ceiling.
Price drove KovaÄ face-first into the wall, dragged one arm behind his back, and forced him to his knees with enough pressure to pull a strangled sound from his throat. You kicked the pistol away.
âTarget contained,â he reported.
Soap answered through a wash of static. âGround floor clear.â
âEast clear,â Gaz added. âTwo detained.â
Ghostâs voice came last. âUpper level secure.â
It was over.
Nearly a year of tracking shell companies, bribed customs officials, false passports, dead intermediaries, and abandoned houses had ended in a stairwell beneath a hunting lodge. KovaÄ knelt against the wall with blood running from his mouth while Price searched him and you stood close enough to feel your pulse beating in the shallow cut beside your eye.
KovaÄ looked up at you.
âHe will spend you too,â he said, accent thick.
Price stopped searching him.
You met KovaÄâs gaze without answering.
Price hauled him upright and passed him to Gaz when the others reached the lower level. He did not speak to you for the remainder of the extraction.
The flight back to London took just over three hours. Soap slept through most of it with his arms folded beneath his head. Gaz reviewed body-camera footage. Ghost sat opposite you, still enough to resemble part of the aircraft, his eyes occasionally moving to the plaster taped beside your temple.
Price remained near the cockpit.
Once, during turbulence, you looked up and found him watching you.
He looked away first.
KovaÄ was transferred into British custody shortly after landing. You were separated from the team for medical assessment, then debriefed twice by people who had not been in Bosnia and wanted to know why your camera footage showed you advancing before the agreed breach.
You told them you heard movement consistent with an escape attempt.
They asked whether Captain Price ordered you to hold.
You told them yes.
They asked whether you complied.
You told them no.
The second debrief ended at half past six in the evening. You expected to be released back to your own unit after that, perhaps with a formal reprimand waiting by morning. Instead, a uniformed aide intercepted you outside the secure conference room and handed over a visitor pass for the upper level.
âCaptain Price wants to see you.â
You stared at him. âWhere?â
âHis office.â
Of course he had an office. A proper one, at that.
The brass plate on the door bore his name and rank. Inside, there were shelves, locked cabinets, a scarred wooden desk, and a wide window overlooking a section of Whitehall. A framed regimental photograph sat near the corner, beside a smaller picture turned slightly away from the room. Price had removed his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves to the forearms. His hat rested on the desk beside a closed file.
He did not tell you to come in.
You did anyway and shut the door behind you.
Price remained standing. âSit down.â
âNo.â
His mouth tightened. âThat wasnât a request.â
âThen you can record my refusal.â
You stayed near the door, arms folded. The cut at your temple had begun to throb beneath the dressing. Priceâs gaze flicked towards it before returning to your face.
âYouâre suspended from field duty, effective immediately.â
For one clean second, you thought you had misheard him.
Then you laughed. âYouâd like that, wouldnât you?â
âIâve already done it.â
âYou donât have the authority.â
He placed one hand on the file. âI do.â
âYou are not my captain.â
âNo?â
Something in his expression warned you before he opened the folder, but the satisfaction of saying it had already carried you too far. Price removed a document and slid it across the desk.
You did not approach.
âRead it.â
âI know who I report to.â
âRead the bloody order.â
You crossed the room, snatched the paper, and scanned the first page.
It was an operational attachment authorisation, amended three days earlier. Your placement under Task Force 141 had been extended through the formal closure of the KovaÄ investigation, including debriefing, evidence recovery, source review, and any resulting action against associated networks. Tactical and administrative control remained with Captain John Price until Laswell formally released you.
Laswellâs signature sat at the bottom. Beneath it was your own commanding officerâs.
You read the page twice.
Price watched you do it.
âThis operation is finished.â
âKovaÄâs in custody. His network isnât. The operation remains active until Laswell closes it.â
âYou had this amended before the raid.â
âYes.â
âYou went around me.â
âI went through your chain of command.â
âWithout telling me.â
âDidnât realise I needed your permission.â
You dropped the paper onto the desk. âYou smug bastard.â
Priceâs eyebrows lifted. âCareful.â
âNo. You do not drag me into your unit, extend my assignment behind my back, then suspend me the moment youâve got what you need.â
âYou suspended yourself the moment you ignored a direct order and stepped into a rifle sight.â
âI stopped KovaÄ from escaping.â
âYou nearly painted the wall with the back of your skull.â
âBut I didnât.â
The desk stood between you, though neither of you treated it as much of a barrier. Price planted both palms against the wood and leaned forward. âA round passed your head close enough to cut you with the debris.â
âNothing else happened.â
âYou think that makes this better?â
âI think we captured the target.â
âThat was not the only acceptable outcome.â
Priceâs face hardened. You stepped closer to the desk. âThatâs interesting.â
âDonât.â
âThe target is in custody. The networkâs compromised. No one on your team was killed. I would have thought that qualified as a success.â
âThis isnât Brno.â
âNo. In Brno, you had the decency to let somebody else pull the trigger.â
His hands curled against the desk.
You saw it. The slight shift of his fingers, the tendons standing out through his forearms. Price looked down once, briefly, before meeting your eyes again.
âYou donât get to use that to justify what you did today.â
âWhy not? You taught me the calculation.â
âI taught you the wrong fucking lesson.â
The room went still.
Rain ran in thin streams down the window behind him. Somewhere beyond the closed door, phones rang, footsteps crossed the corridor, someone laughed at something you could not hear. The ordinary sounds of the building continued while Price stood across from you and finally said what he had avoided for years.
You searched his face for mockery and found that there was none.
âWhat?â
His jaw locked. âYou heard me.â
âI want to hear you say it.â
Price pushed away from the desk and straightened. âI was wrong.â
You almost laughed again, but nothing came.
He continued before you could recover. âI was wrong to let you get into that car. I was wrong not to abort the operation the moment we knew Varga had discovered you, and I was wrong when I walked into that hospital and spoke to you like the result justified what happened.â
Your throat tightened, which only made you angrier.
Priceâs voice remained controlled, but the effort had started to show. âThere. Is that proper enough?â
âYou had years.â
âI know.â
âYou took the medal.â
âYes.â
âYou let them write your judgement into the citation and erase me from the report.â
âI know.â
âYou knew I was walking into a trap.â
âYes.â
Each answer came without defence, which shouldâve helped your anger. To know he acknowledge how wrong heâd been, how he didnât take pride in itâbut it did little to ease the anger bubbling at the pit of your stomach.
âYou canât just confess this because one bullet came near me and frightened you.â
Priceâs eyes narrowed. âFrightened me?â
âThatâs what this is, isnât it? You saw blood and decided to discover a conscience.â
âI watched that muzzle turn towards your face.â
âAnd you got me out. Congratulations. Youâve finally balanced the books.â
âThis is not a ledger.â
âIt is to men like you.â
Price came around the desk. âYou think I suspended you because Iâm trying to punish you?â
âI think you cannot tolerate that I donât worship you like the others do.â
âYou nearly got yourself killed to prove I couldnât control you.â
âI did my job.â
âYou disobeyed because the order came from me.â
âYou donât know why I did it.â
âI know exactly why.â
He stopped several feet away. Without the desk between you, the office felt smaller. Price was still in his tactical pants, shirt collar open, the smell of rain and cigar smoke clinging to him beneath the cologne.
âYou heard that door,â he said, âand decided the objective mattered more than the instruction. You knew the risk. You took it anyway because you were certain you understood the situation better than the man responsible for you.â
âI did understand it better.â
âPerhaps you did. That doesnât make you bulletproof.â
âIt made me right.â
âIt nearly made you dead.â
You scoffed and looked towards the window. âGod, youâve become tedious.â
âLook at me.â
âNo.â
Price caught your chin and turned your face back towards him.
The movement was not gentle, but neither was it rough enough to hurt. His fingers stopped beneath the edge of the plaster at your temple. For a second, his attention shifted to the wound, and the anger in his expression became something more difficult to look at.
You knocked his hand away.
âDonât.â
âYou think because I failed you once, Iâm required to stand back and watch you do this to yourself forever?â
âYou didnât fail me. You almost got me killed.â
âAnd I have lived with it every day since.â
You stared at him.
Price breathed through his nose, shoulders rigid. âYou think I donât remember that warehouse? You think I donât remember how you looked when they brought you out? I can still tell you which surgeon took the bullet out. I can tell you how long the operation lasted and which corridor they made us wait in. I know you stopped breathing for forty-three seconds.â
The words struck hard enough to empty your lungs.
He had never told you that.
Price looked almost disgusted with himself for saying it, but he did not stop. âI know exactly what I did.â
âThen why did you never apologise?â
His mouth opened, but nothing came out.Â
You smiled without warmth. âFigures.â
âI didnât think an apology would be enough.â
âSo you chose nothing.â
âI thought staying away was what you wanted.â
âWhat I wanted?â You stepped closer. âI was twenty-four years old, half my insides were stitched together, and the officer I trusted most told me I understood the risk. You made it sound as though I had done it to myself.â
âI know.â
âStop saying that.â
âItâs the truth.â
âNo, itâs what you say when you want credit for admitting something without having to repair it.â
Priceâs temper finally broke through.
âWhat would you have had me do?â he demanded. âTurn up at your door every year with flowers and another fucking apology? Follow you from post to post until you decided Iâd suffered enough?â
âYou seem to enjoy following me now.â
âBecause you are under my command.â
âThere it is. Everything has to be an order with you.â
âBecause that is the only language youâve left me.â
The room had narrowed to the space between you.
You could see the pulse beating in his throat. Priceâs anger did not make him loud so much as intensely still, every movement reduced to what was necessary. It was the same stillness heâd known before violence, and some unwise part of you recognised it with an awareness that had nothing to do with fear.
You ignored that too.
âWith this attitude,â you said, breathing through your mouth as you tilted your head, âitâs no wonder your ex-wife doesnât let you see your son, John.â
Price did not move.
For a second, you thought he might not have heard.
Then his face emptied.
It was not the anger you expected. It was more like an abrupt removal of every expression, every trace of the man you had been fighting with, until only the officer remained.
âDonât speak about them.â
You looked towards the photograph beside his desk. A boy of perhaps nine stood beside a river, grinning at whoever held the camera. Price was not in the frame.
âYou make every room a chain of command because itâs the only way anyone stays. Your wife left. Your son has to be kept from you. The only family youâve managed to hold onto are three soldiers obliged to answer when you call.â
Price crossed the remaining distance.
âEnough.â
âPerhaps she realised what I did. That you can turn anyone expendable if the report reads well afterward.â
His hand closed around your arm.
You looked down at it, then back at him.
âTake your hand off me.â
âStop.â
âOr what?â
His grip loosened immediately, but he did not step away. You could feel the heat of him through your uniform, his chest rising hard beneath the open collar of his shirt.
âYou want me to be that man forever,â he said. His voice had dropped quiet enough that you had to listen closely. âBecause then you never have to admit what you did today had nothing to do with KovaÄ.â
âYou donât know what youâre talking about.â
âYou heard me order you to hold and went anyway. You wanted to know whether I would stop you this time.â
You shoved him. Both hands against his chest, harder than you had in the briefing room.
Price took one step back.
You followed.
âDo not try to climb inside my head because youâve run out of ways to control the room.â
âYou wanted me to make the choice again.â
âYou see everything when itâs too late.â
âAnd you keep putting yourself in front of the gun.â
âAt least I know where I stand when itâs pointed at me.â
Price caught your wrists when you shoved him again.
The movement happened quickly, his hands closing around yours and lowering them between your bodies. He held them while you stared up at him, both of you breathing too hard for an argument that had not become physical.
His eyes dropped to your mouth.
The office seemed to tilt around the silence. Your wrists remained inside his hands, pulse hard and fast.Â
âLet go,â you said, though the words lacked the force they should have carried.
He did.
His gaze moved over your face, from the plaster at your temple to your eyes, then lower again. There was anger in it still, but no longer the clean sort. It had become tangled with recognition, with years of resentment forged into an intimacy neither of you had agreed to acknowledge.
âYou hate me.â
You almost laughed. âBrilliant deduction.â
His jaw tightened at the answer, but the hand that rose towards your face stopped before touching you.
It hovered beside your neck.
A question, however badly phrased.
You lifted your chin.
Price kissed you.
There was nothing tentative about it. His hand closed around the side of your neck and his mouth met yours with all the restraint he had failed to maintain elsewhere, rough and furious and tasting of coffee and tobacco. The first impact pushed you back half a step.
Then you caught the front of his shirt and dragged him with you.
Price made a low sound against your mouth.
It went straight through you.
Your back met the edge of his desk, scattering the papers you had dropped there. His free hand found your waist and tightened, fingers spanning the space above your hip as he crowded closer. The kiss deepened without becoming softer. His beard scraped your skin. You bit his lower lip hard enough to make his grip flex.
He answered by pressing you more firmly against the desk.
It was hateful.
It was hungry.
It felt like every argument neither of you had finished, every conversation he had avoided and every accusation you had sharpened in his absence, driven into the space between your mouths until there was no room left for speech.
Your fingers slid beneath the open edge of his collar, feeling heat and the coarse hair at his chest. Price inhaled sharply. His mouth moved to the corner of yours, then along your jaw, beard scraping a raw path that left your skin singing. When his teeth found the curve where neck met shoulder, your head fell back without permission.
It gave him more room.
Price took it.
The hand still braced against your waist tightened, fingers pressing into the muscle above your hip bone hard enough that tomorrow there would be marks. He was not gentle, but you had not expected him to be. His breath came hot and uneven against your throat, and when you arched into him, the solid line of his body against yours answered with an insistence that bordered on demand.
âYou never listen,â he said against your skin, the words muffled by proximity.
âAnd you never stop talking.â
His laugh was a short, humourless exhale. His free hand moved from your neck to your jaw, tilting your face until you had no choice but to meet his eyes. The blue of them had darkened to something nearer storm than sky. His thumb pressed against the corner of your mouth, and when you parted your lips in responseâdefiance, invitation, you could not have said whichâhis gaze flickered down to watch.
The thumb at your mouth pushed inside.
The taste of salt and coffee, the rough pad pressing against the flat of your tongue, shut you up more effectively than any shouted command ever had. Your teeth closed around the first knuckle, not biting, but threatening.Â
Priceâs nostrils flared.
He withdrew his thumb slowly, dragging it across your lower lip until it came away wet.
âYou want to know what I thought about,â he said, voice scraped low, âwhile you were in surgery?â
âEnlighten me.â
âWhat I would have written to your next of kin.â
Your fingers, still tangled in the open collar of his shirt, tightened until fabric strained against buttons. âLiar.â
âI had the letter drafted. Three different versions.â
âYouâre a bastard.â
âIâm your captain.â
You pulled him down by the shirt and kissed him again, harder, all teeth and fury and a horrible kind of desperation. He met you measure for measure. His hand fisted in the back of your shirt, twisting the fabric until it pulled tight across your shoulders, and when you gasped at the pressure, his tongue slid past your lips and took what you had not offered.
The kiss went on until your lungs burned.
It ended only because his hands moved to the front of your uniform shirt, and the first button came undone with a jerk that sent it skittering somewhere across the floor. Then the second. The third.
âYouâre breaking my uniform.â
âIâll buy you another.â
âThatâs government property.â
Price did not answer.
He opened the rest of the buttons with an efficiency that suggested he had done this before, though not to you, and the thought made something hot twist behind your sternum. The shirt fell open, and cool air hit your chest before his palm flattened against your stomachâjust below the band of your sports braâand pushed.
Your spine met the desk.
Papers that had not already scattered crumpled beneath you. Something hardâa pen, a paperweightâdug into your shoulder blade. Price followed you down, one hand braced beside your head, the other still splayed low on your belly, and the weight of him between your thighs made coherent thought impossible.
âThe door,â you managed.
âLocked.â
âWhen did youââ
âThe moment you walked in.â
That should not have been as attractive as it was. The forethought of it. The anticipation. As though he had known, even then, where this argument was headed.
Your hips rolled up against his without conscious decision.
Priceâs jaw tightened.
The hand on your stomach slid higher, pushing the bra upânot off, just out of the way, the elastic band digging into the flesh above your breasts as he exposed you to the dim light of his office. The window behind his desk looked out onto a courtyard. Anyone walking past would see only the back of his chair and the top of his head. The angle of the desk, the height of the sillâhe had thought about this too.
Bastard.
His mouth dropped to your chest.
The hollow of your throat first, where your pulse hammered visibly against the skin. Then the slope of your breast, the curve where rib gave way to softer tissue. His beard burned a path that you would have to explain tomorrow, and in the moment you could not find it in yourself to care.
When his lips closed around your nipple, your back arched clean off the desk.
He held you down.
The suction was cruel. Sharp pulls of his mouth alternating with the flat of his tongue, and between them the scrape of teethânever hard enough to hurt, always hard enough to draw out a groan. His free hand found your other breast and treated it with the same merciless focus, thumb circling the bud until it ached with sensitivity, rolling and tugging until you made a sound that was hard to describe.
âBe quiet.â
You laughed, breathless and unsteady. âDonât tell me what to do.â
He bit down.
Your hips bucked, and the seam of your pants ground against the front of his, and the contact was so inadequate it made you want to scream. Your hands, which had been braced against his shoulders, slid to the back of his neck and pulled.
Hair softer than you expected. You twisted your fingers through it and held.
Price made a sound against your breast and the vibration travelled through your rib cage and into your lungs. He pulled back far enough to look at you, and the expression on his face was a ruin of composure. His lips were wet. His pupils had nearly swallowed the blue. The flush that crept up his throat disappeared beneath the salt-and-pepper of his beard, and you wanted to follow it with your tongue.
Later.
He straightened.
The loss of his weight was a physical shock. You levered up onto your elbows, ready to protest, and found him looking down at you with an expression you could not read. His hands went to your belt.
âLift.â
You did not lift.
âI said lift.â
âI heard you.â
Priceâs eyes narrowed. For a long moment neither of you movedâyou propped on the edge of his desk, shirt gaping open and bra rucked obscenely above your breasts, him standing between your thighs with his hands paused at your buckle and a muscle ticking in his jaw.
Then his hands moved anyway.
He unbuckled the belt without your cooperation, threading leather through metal with short, hard tugs. The button on your pants followed. The zipper. His knuckles brushed the skin below your navel, and the casual contact made your stomach muscles jump.
âYouâre insufferable,â he grunted.
âAnd youâre still here.â
Your pants came down with your underwear in one motionâhe did not bother separating them, did not bother with the boots you still wore. He pulled fabric down to mid-thigh and left you bare from the waist to the knees while you watched his face.
He looked at you the way a strategist looked at a mapâcataloguing terrain, noting vulnerabilities.
Your first instinct was to close your legs.
You ignored it.
Price dropped to his knees.
The sight of him, between your thighs on the floor of his office, shoulders level with the desk edge and breath ghosting against the inside of your knee, did something horrible to your brain. His hands found your thighs and pushed them apart with an authority that demanded compliance.
You did not comply.
He pushed harder.
Your knees parted.
His mouth landed on the sensitive skin just above your boot, where leather met the bare stretch of your calf. The kiss was surprisingly gentle. Almost reverent. Then his teeth scraped upward along the inside of your thigh, and the contrast made your hips shift forward.
He took his time.
âPrice.â
He ignored you.
His mouth moved to your other thigh and started the same slow ascent. His beard left a trail of sensation like sandpaper, and the wet heat of his tongue chased it, and by the time he reached the crease where thigh met pelvis, your hands had fisted in the papers beneath you and torn somethingâa report, a memo, you did not care.
Then his mouth reached your cunt.
The first touch was his tongue, flat and broad, dragging through the slick that had gathered there. Your head fell back against the desk with a sound that was louder than you intended.
âQuiet.â
The word vibrated against your clit.
You clamped your mouth shut so hard your teeth clicked. Above you, the ceiling was the same institutional white as every other ceiling in the Ministry of Defence, and you stared at it while his tongue circled the place that made your vision blur, and you did not make a sound.
His tongue was clever.
It mapped you with the same thorough attention he brought to missionsâmethodical, cataloguing responses, noting which movements made your thighs tremble and which made your breathing hitch. When he found the rhythm that made your hips chase his mouth, he settled into it and did not deviate.
The pressure built.
You bit the inside of your cheek and tasted copper.
His thumb joined the effort, pressing just below where his tongue worked, and the combination was other-worldly. Your foot kicked out involuntarily. Something fell off the desk with a clatter. Priceâs free hand clamped down on your hip and held you in place while his tongue pushed you further, faster, closer.
Your back arched.
A sound escaped.
âI said quiet.â
He stopped.
His mouth lifted, his thumb retreated, and the sudden absence of sensation was so abrupt that your hips chased him without your permission. Price leaned back on his heels and looked up at you from between your thighs, and the smug satisfaction in his expression made you want to hit him.
âOr what?â You asked. The words came out hoarse, stripped of defiance.Â
Price stood.
The movement was unhurried. He rose from his knees like a man who had all the time in the world, and when he reached the desk, he bent to retrieve something from the floor. Your shirt.
He tossed it at you.
The fabric landed across your chest.
âGet dressed.â
Rage spiked through you like a flare. You pushed up onto your elbows, almost completely naked and furious and dripping onto the edge of his desk, and the look you levelled at him could have stripped paint.
âYou chose the wrong woman if you think Iâm going to beg.â
Price caught your chin between his thumb and forefinger. He tilted your face up until your neck strained, until you had to look at him, and the expression in his eyes was something that had no business being in a commanding officerâs face.
âI donât want you to beg,â he said. Each word was a separate, deliberate thing. âI want you to shut up.â
You stared at him.
He stared back.
Your chin, still trapped in his grip. His thumb, pressed into the soft hollow beneath your lower lip. The wetness cooling on your thighs. The shirt crumpled against your sternum.
Slowly, deliberately, you lay back down.
Price watched you for another moment. His grip on your chin loosened, then fell away. His hand moved to the back of your neck instead, fingers threading through the short hairs at your nape, and the grip there was almost tender before it tightenedâjust enough to communicate that tenderness had never been the point.
He pushed you flat.
Your spine met the desk again. The shirt slid off your chest. You did not pick it up.
And Price went to town.
His mouth returned to your cunt like a man starving, like the interruption had only deepened his appetite, and the noise that tried to escape your throat was stopped only by sheer stubbornness. His tongue pushed inside youâdeep, then deeper, then curling in a way that made your inner walls clench around nothing when he withdrew. His thumb found your clit and pressed circles that matched the rhythm of his mouth, and the dual sensation was so much, so fast, that your hips jerked against his hold.
He did not let you move.
His forearm braced across your pelvis pinned you to the desk, and the restraint itself became another layer of sensation. You could not grind against his mouth. You could not chase the pressure where you wanted it. You could only take what he gave you, exactly how he gave it, and the surrender of control was infuriating and intoxicating equally.
His tongue circled your entrance before two fingers pushed inside.
The stretch was immediate and perfectâcallused fingers, thick knuckles, curling forward against the spot that made sparks burst behind your closed eyelids. Your hands scrabbled for hold on the desk and found none. The papers were gone, the pen and paperweight long since knocked to the floor. You had nothing to grip but the edge of the desk itself, and your fingers ached with the strength of your hold.
His fingers moved inside you in a rhythm that his tongue echoed on your clit, and the combination was building something behind your navel that you could feel in your teeth. His beard was soaked. You could hear itâslick sounds that filled the quiet office, obscene and unmistakable, and the knowledge that anyone walking past the door might hear only sharpened every sensation.
âPriceââ
His mouth lifted. âWhat did I say?â
You bit your tongue so hard you tasted blood.
His lips curved against your inner thighâinsufferable, insufferableâand then he added a third finger.
Your vision whited out for approximately three seconds.
When it cleared, he was still working you, dragging you toward a precipice you could feel approaching like a wall of heat. His fingers curled and your hips tried to buck and his forearm held you still and his tongue was doing something you had no vocabulary for andâ
He stopped.
Again.
Your snarl of frustration was cut short by his hands on your hips, pulling you forward. The movement dragged you across the desk, pants still tangled around your boots, until your legs hung over the edge and your ass was barely supported. Price grabbed the back of your neck and hauled you upright into a kiss that was more teeth than lips.
âWill you ever fucking listen to me?â
You could taste yourself on his mouth, the flavour strong on the wetness that coated his beard pressed against your chin. Your chest heaved against his, bare skin against the fabric of his shirt, and the roughness of it against your nipples made thinking impossible.
âLook where listening to you has gotten me,â you gasped.
The sound he made was barely human.
He spun you.
The movement was efficiency itselfâone hand on your hip, the other between your shoulder blades, and suddenly your chest was pressed against the cool wood of the desk and your boots were scraping the floor for support. Your bare ass was in the air, and you could feel him somewhere behind you, still fully clothed, breathing hard.
His boots appeared on either side of your ankles.
Metalâa belt buckle, his belt buckleâclinked in the quiet.
The head of his cock pressed against your cunt from behind, and you felt him pause.
Waiting.
For what, you did not know. Permission? You had never given itânever even been asked. Perhaps he wanted you to say something. Perhaps he wanted you to object.
âCan you hurry up,â you said instead, voice muffled against the desk.
He slammed into you.
The sound you made was not quiet.
It was not quiet at all, and before you could draw breath for another, his hand clamped over your mouth from behind. His palm sealed across your lips, his forearm pressed against your throat, and the angle of his entry shifted with the movement until he was so deep you could feel him in your stomach.
âYouâre in the Ministry of Defence,â he said against your ear, voice ragged, voice wrecked. âYou will be silent, or I will stop.â
You bit his palm.
He fucked into you harder.
The rhythm he set was brutal, a pace that did not ask permission and did not offer reprieve, and your body took it and took it and took it. The desk creaked beneath you with each thrust. Your boots slipped on the floor. His hand on your mouth kept you still and quiet, pinned while he drove into you from behind with a force that felt like a tornado.
Your walls clenched around him.
He groaned directly into your ear, and the sound bypassed your brain entirely on its way to your cunt.
The hand that was not covering your mouth found your hip before sliding forward, palm flattening against your belly, and when you arched into the contact his fingers tracked lower. Through the thatch of hair, parting the flesh that his cock was already splitting.
His fingertip found your clit.
The touch was devastating.
It was the lightest pressure, but combined with the relentless rhythm of his hips, it was enough to send you hurtling toward the edge you had been approaching for what felt like hours. Your scream was muffled by his palm. Your body tightened around him, and he did not slow, fucking you through it while his finger circled your clit and his breath rasped against your ear.
The orgasm hit in waves.
Not one peak but severalâeach one triggered by a different angle, a different pressure, the sound of his breathing or the scrape of his uniform against your bare back. Your vision went white. Your hands, trapped beneath your chest, clawed at the desk and found nothing. The only solid thing in the universe was himâhis cock, his hand, the weight of him behind you.
It went on long enough that you forgot how to breathe.
When it finally ended, when your body stopped convulsing around him and the world reassembled itself, you were limp against the desk and Price was still hard inside you.
He withdrew.
His hand left your mouth. You heard him breathing behind you, harsh and uneven, the sound of a man holding himself together by the thinnest of margins. His fist moved against himself in quick, desperate strokes, and when he came, it was across your back. Hot and thick and pooling in the dip of your spine.
His palm landed on your ass, the slap hard enough to echo.
âYouâre still suspended.â
It took three full seconds for the words to register. When they did, you pushed yourself upright so fast your vision swam. Your trousers were still around your knees. Your shirt was somewhere on the floor. His come was dripping down your back.
âExcuse me?â
Price was already doing up his belt. His hands were steady. His expression, when he looked at you, was the same one he wore on the fieldâprofessional, impenetrable, completely and utterly unreadable.
âThe suspension stands. Two weeks. Desk duty.â
âYou absolute bastard.â
âI prefer Captain.â
You grabbed the edge of the desk because hitting him would have required standing, and standing required pulling up your trousers, and pulling up your trousers meant acknowledging that you had just let him fuck you on his desk while the afternoon light streamed through the window and his cum cooled on your skin.
His hand found your chin again.
The grip was gentler this time, almost caring. He tilted your face up until you met his eyes, and the storm-dark blue held something you could not name.
âThis suspension wonât get in the way of making captain,â he breathed out. The words were quiet, each one placed like a chess piece. âSo youâll shut up and take it.â
Your jaw tightened in his grip.
âOr?â
âOr I will make sure you never see a promotion board for the rest of your career.â
The threat was delivered without malice or anger, only certaintyâa man aware of how much power he held and had no fear of using it.
And, damn him, you had no spirit left in you to fight as you felt the warm liquid dripping down your back.Â
pairing: Simon Riley x fem!reader
cw: dom!Ghost, bondage, edging, denial, overstimulation, fingering, piv!sex, praising, brief aftercare, porn with little plot
wc: 2993
an: ovulating as we speak
The metal table was cold against your back, seeping through the thin fabric of your sports bra, the only thing left on your body besides the ropes. Your wrists were bound above your head, the coarse fiber digging into your skin as your fingers flexed and grasped at nothing, the rope leading down to the tableâs legs at the other end. Your ankles were similarly secured, feet tied to the legs at the edge, leaving your legs spread and completely exposed. You'd lost track of how long youâd been lying on the surface. Your skin was slick with sweat, every muscle in your body trembling from exertion and denial.
Ghost stood at the foot of the table, his mask discarded somewhere in the room hours ago, revealing the force of his expression, the close-cropped blonde hair, and those dark eyes that seemed to take in every twitch and whimper you made.Â
Simon.Â
Youâd known him as Ghost for months before you'd ever seen his face, and even now, after weeks of dating, the sight of him without the balaclava still made something flip in your chest.
He was fully clothed, making the whole situation even more shameful. You were laid out like a feast, naked and dripping and desperate, while he stood in his tactical pants and black t-shirt, his arms crossed over his broad chest, watching you with the same calculating focus he used in the field. His sleeves were short, revealing the tattoos that snaked up his forearms.
âSimon,â you breathed out, your voice cracking. Youâd said his name so many times tonight that it had lost all meaning. âSimon, please.â
He tilted his head slightly, his jaw working as he studied you. âPlease, what?â His voice was low, that rough Manchester accent shocking your very core. âUse your words, Sergeant. I know you have them.â
Your hips lifted off the table involuntarily, seeking contact, seeking anything, and you were met with nothing but air. The motion made the ropes pull tight, and you gasped at the painful bite against your ankles and wrists. âPlease let me cum. I canâtâI canât take anymore. I needâ"
âWhat do you need?â He stepped closer, his hand landing on your thigh, warm and heavy. The touch was barely there, just his palm resting against your trembling flesh, but it made you whimper like heâd thrust inside you. âTell me exactly what you need.â
âYour cock. Your fingers. Your mouth. Anything.â You were babbling now, the words tumbling out without thought. âPlease, Simon, Iâll do anything. Iâll be good. Iâll listen during drills, Iâll follow every order, Iâllââ
âShouldâve thought about that sooner.â His thumb began to move, tracing slow circles on your inner thigh, maddeningly close to where you needed him most. Your core was throbbing, your clit swollen and desperate for attention. You could feel your arousal leaking out of you, dripping down between your legs, making a mess of the metal table beneath you. âBefore you decided that you knew better than me.â
âIâm sorry.â The apology came out strangled, buried beneath a sob. âI'm so sorry. I didnât mean toâI just reactedââ
âYou reacted against orders.â His thumb moved higher, closer, and your breath caught in your throat. âYou saw an opening and you took it without thinking about what could have been waiting for you. What was waiting for you.â His eyes hardened. âIf this had been real, youâd be dead right now.â
The memory of the training exercise flashed through your mind. The mock hostage situation, the building theyâd cleared room by room. Youâd spotted a target through a doorway, had lunged forward to neutralize it before anyone could stop youâand straight into a tripwire that would have triggered a live explosive in a real scenario. Simon had grabbed you by the back of your vest and hauled you against the wall just as the training system registered the detonation. Youâd both been splattered with paint, marking you as casualties.
Youâd expected him to yell at you. To report you to Price for disciplinary action. To do anything other than what heâd doneâgone silent, finished the exercise, and then grabbed you by the arm as soon as you were back at base, dragging you to the room without a word.
âI know,â you whispered. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, born from frustration and guilt and an overwhelming need that threatened to consume you. âI know I messed up. I won't do it again.â
âNo.â His thumb finally brushed against your outer lips, and your whole body jerked at the contact. âYou wonât.â
Heâd been at this for hours. You knew that was an exaggeration, that it had probably been closer to one, but time had lost all meaning somewhere between the first time heâd brought you to the edge with his mouth and the fifth time heâd stopped just as you were about to tip over. He knew your body better than you knew it yourself, having mapped every sweet spot and sensitive area with the precision of a soldier conducting reconnaissance. He knew exactly how to touch you to build you up, and exactly when to stop to keep you dangling.
His thumb traced the seam of your lips, gathering your wetness and spreading it around, avoiding your clit entirely. You whined, high and pathetic in your throat, your head thrashing against the metal table. âSimon, please, youâre killing me.â
âNot killing you, love.â His voice was calm, maddeningly so. âTeaching.â
âTeaching what?â The words came out as a sob. âHow to lose my mind?â
His eyes met yours, and something flickered in themâsomething that might have been amusement or might have been hunger. âHow to follow orders. How to think before you act. How to control your impulses.â His thumb pressed harder, parting your lips and sliding through your slick folds. âHow to endure when every instinct tells you to act out.â
Your back arched off the table, pressing your body up toward his hand, but he pulled back just enough to maintain the distance he wanted. A frustrated scream built in your chest, dying in your throat as his other hand came up to pinch your nipple.
The sensation shot straight to your core, making you clench around nothing. Your nipples had been tortured almost as thoroughly as your clit, Simon's fingers and mouth taking turns teasing and pinching and sucking until they were swollen and red and so sensitive that even the air in the room felt like too much.
âBodies are fascinating things,â he said, his tone almost academic as he rolled your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. âThey can be trained to respond in certain ways. Conditioned to obey. It takes repetition. Consequences.â He twisted, and you gasped, your hips bucking. âAnd rewards.â
âReward me then,â you begged. âPlease, Simon, Iâve been good. Iâve taken everything youâve given me. I havenâtâ"
âYou havenât learned.â He released your nipple, and you both mourned and celebrated the loss of contact. His hand returned to your thigh, squeezing hard enough to leave bruises. âYouâre still thinking about what you want, but what I want you to.â
Your mind spun. What did that even mean? You wanted him. You wanted release. You wanted the pressure that had been building in your core for what felt like an eternity to finally snap and wash over you. What else was there?
âI don'tââ You swallowed hard, trying to focus through the haze of arousal clouding your thoughts. âI don't understand.â
Simon moved around to the side of the table, his presence looming over you. You could smell himâthe clean scent of soap mixed with gunpowder and something distinctly him that made your mouth water. His hand came up to cup your face, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone, almost tender.
âRight now, your body is screaming at you to chase satisfaction. Every nerve ending is firing, telling you to move, to grind, to do whatever it takes to get what you need.â His thumb traced your lower lip, and you parted your mouth, desperate for any contact. âBut Iâm in control. I decide when you cum. I decide if you cum. And your body needs to learn that fighting that control wonât get you anything but more frustration.â
Tears spilled from the corners of your eyes, trailing down your temples to soak into your hair. âI'm not fighting. I'm notââ
âYouâre tensing up. Pulling at the ropes. Trying to move your hips toward my hand every time I get close.â He leaned down, his face inches from yours. âStop fighting. Submit. Let me decide everything.â
It was too much. The pleasure, the denial, the weight of his wordsâit crashed over you like a wave, and you felt something break inside your chest. The tension didnât leave your body, but it changed. You stopped pulling at the ropes. Stopped trying to lift your hips. You went limp against the table, your breath coming in ragged gasps, your entire being focused solely on him.
âThatâs it,â Simon murmured. âThat's my girl.â
His reward was immediate. His hand slid down your body, over your stomach, through the slick coating your inner thighs, and pressed against your entrance. Two fingers sank inside you without resistance, your body opening for him like it was made to do nothing else. You moaned, your walls clenching around him as he curled his fingers upward, finding that spot inside you that made lights explode behind your eyes.
âGod, youâre soaked.â His voice was rougher, a crack in his composure. âThis whole time, youâve been dripping for me. Making a mess of yourself.â He started thrusting his fingers, a steady rhythm that had you climbing higher and higher. âSuch a good girl when you actually listen.â
âSimon,â you gasped. âSimon, Iâm closeâIâm going toââ
He pulled out. The denial hit you like a punch to the gut, and you sobbed, your body clenching around nothing. âNot yet.â
âPlease!â You were crying now, tears streaming down your face, your entire body trembling with the effort of holding back. âPlease, I canâtâI did what you saidâI stopped fightingââ
âYou did.â His fingers returned, sliding inside you again, resuming their relentless rhythm. âAnd you'll keep doing it. Every time you get close, youâre going to tell me. And youâre going to hold back until I say you can cum.â
It was torture. Sweet, agonizing torture. He brought you to the edge three more times, each time pulling back just as your orgasm began to crest, leaving you shaking and sobbing and more desperate than youâd ever been in your life. Your voice was hoarse from begging, your throat raw from the sounds he was pulling from you.
After the fifth timeâsixth? Youâd lost countâSimon stepped back from the table. You watched through blurred vision as he reached down and undid his belt, the metallic sound of the buckle making your core clench. He unzipped his pants and pushed them down just enough to free himself, his cock springing forward, hard and thick and perfect.
You moaned at the sight, your mouth watering. You wanted to taste him, to feel him in your mouth, heavy on your tongue. But that wasnât what he had planned.
âTell me what you want.â He wrapped his hand around himself, stroking slowly as he looked down at you. âUse your words.â
âYou.â The answer was immediate, automatic. âYour cock inside me. I want you to fuck me. I want you to let me cum.â
He hummed, considering. His hand moved faster, his thumb sweeping over the head, spreading the bead of moisture that had gathered there. Your eyes were glued to the movement, mesmerized by the sight of him pleasuring himself while you lay bound and helpless beneath him.
âPlease,â you whispered. âSimon, please.â
âYouâve done well.â He stepped forward, positioning himself between your spread legs. The head of his cock brushed against your entrance, and you both groaned at the contact. âBetter than I expected.â
Your hips twitched, trying to press forward, to take him inside you, but the ropes held you in place. âIâve been good. Iâve been so good.â
âYou have.â His hands gripped your hips, his fingers digging into your flesh hard enough to leave marks.Â
He pushed forward, sinking into you in one long, slow thrust. You threw your head back, a moan tearing from your throat as he filled you completely, stretching you wide. It was too much and not enough after so long without, your body quivering around him as you fought the urge to cum immediately.
âDonât.â His voice was strained, his control hanging by a thread. âNot yet.â
âI canâtâSi, I canât hold itââ
âYou will.â He bottomed out, his hips flush against yours, and held still.Â
You whimpered, your walls clenching around him, trying to adjust to the intrusion. He felt huge inside you, thicker than usual, filling every inch of you until you couldnât tell where he ended and you began. Your thighs were shaking, your toes curling against the air.
âDeep breaths.â His hand slid up your side, over your ribs, to cup your breast. He squeezed gently, his thumb brushing over your nipple, and you mewled. âFocus on me.â
It was impossible. Your body was all you could think aboutâthe fullness, the pressure, the overwhelming need that threatened to swallow you whole. But you tried. You focused on his face, on the beads of sweat gathering at his temples, on the way his jaw clenched as he fought his own urge to move.
âGood.â He pulled back slowly, agonizingly, until only the head remained inside you. You gasped at the loss, your body trying to follow him, to keep him inside where he belonged. âSo good for me.â
Then he snapped his hips forward.
The sound that tore from your throat was inhuman. He set a brutal pace, each thrust driving into you hard enough to push you up the table, the ropes pulling tight against your restraints. The metal table creaked beneath you, the sound mixing with the wet slap of skin against skin and your mingled moans.
âIs this what you wanted?â He growled, leaning over you, his hands planted on either side of your head. âMy cock? For me to use you?â
âYes!â You were beyond words, beyond thought. âYes, Simon, yesââ
âYou want to cum?â His thumb found your clit, pressing down hard. âYou want me to let you cum?â
âPlease!â The word was a sob. âPlease. I needâI needââ
He circled your clit with his thumb, matching the rhythm of his thrusts, and you felt the pressure building to a breaking point. It was too muchâthe fullness, the contact, the sight of him above you, his eyes dark with desire, his teeth bared in a snarl of pleasure.
âCum for me.â
The orgasm hit you like a freight train. Your entire body seized, your back arching off the table as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over you. You screamed his name, your vision whiting out, your muscles clenching around him so hard he groaned, his hips stuttering as he followed you over the edge.
He buried himself deep inside you, his cock pulsing as he spilled himself, warmth flooding your core. His groan was guttural, raw, his forehead dropping to rest against yours as you both rode out the aftershocks.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of your breathingâheavy, ragged, interspersed with whimpering moansâand the feeling of him inside you, still hard, still filling you. Your body was trembling, every nerve ending hypersensitive, aftershocks rippling through you each time he shifted.
Slowly, Simon lifted his head. His eyes met yours, and the mask of dominance had slipped, revealing something softer beneath. His hand came up to cup your face, his thumb brushing away the tears that still leaked from the corners of your eyes.
âYou did well,â he murmured. âYou learned.â
You sniffled, a laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep in your chest. âLearned that youâre a sadist?â
A corner of his mouth quirked up. âAmong other things.â
He pulled out of you slowly, and you whined at the loss, at the feeling of his cum trickling out of you and down onto the table. His hands went to your wrists, untying the ropes with practiced moves before moving to your ankles. As soon as your limbs were free, you let them fall limp, your muscles too weak to hold them up.
âI canât feel my legs,â you mumbled, and Simon huffed a laugh.
âYou will.â He gathered you up from the table, lifting you like you weighed nothing, and cradled you against his chest. You nestled into him, your face pressed against his neck, breathing in his scent. âRest now. Iâve got you.â
Your eyes were already closing, exhaustion washing over you in waves. You felt him move, felt him sit down somewhereâon a crate, maybe, or a benchâand settle you in his lap. His arms wrapped around you, warm and secure, and you let yourself drift.
But just before sleep claimed you, you heard him speak, his voice soft against your hair.
âAnd tomorrow, Sergeant? Weâre doing drills again. And this time, youâre going to listen.â
Your lips curved into a smile against his neck. âYes, Lieutenant.â
His arms tightened around you, and you felt the rumble of his voice in his chest. âGood girl.â
You were floating somewhere between consciousness and sleep when a thought drifted through your mindâtomorrow was going to be a very long day. And if this was your punishment for disobeying orders, you werenât entirely sure you didnât want to misbehave again.
Ghost with a touch-starved partner
Ghost with a sleeptalking partner
Boyfriend!Simon Riley picking you up
Ghost needs to discipline you (*)
John Price
You didn't follow ordersâPrice needs to do something about it (*)
Price with a partner who sleep talks
You hate Priceâin and out of the bedroom (*)
pairing: Nanami x gn!reader
cw: FLUFF
wc: 1272
an: self-indulgent nanami fluff no one asked for. i miss this man more every single day (i am literally in a relationship).
Nanami was an efficient man in every single aspect of his life. He took the quickest route to work, which happened to be two minutes faster than the most sensical one. Heâd ran the numbers and compared different brands of lint rollers and canned tuna, much to your dismay and irritation. Heâd come up with a sleeping schedule he had followed religiously since before he could remember.Â
That efficiency had always translated well to his work, no matter the nature of it. Whether wizardry or sitting before a computer the entire day, if he had a job to do then he would do it right. He kept his area clean, his tasks organized, and his deadlines in check. There was no hubris in it, merely factsâhe was efficient.
Which is why overtime was excruciating.
There was no possible scenario where staying overtime was his fault. And such was the case when, because of his coworkerâs uncanny ability to leave everything to the very last minute, the entire team had to stay in the office well past eleven at night so they could submit an appeal that couldâve been submitted at any point in the past ten days.Â
By the time Nanami locked the apartment door behind him, it was a few minutes past midnight. He stood in the entryway with a defeated grimace on his face, keys still in hand, shoulders stiff beneath his coat. The apartment was quiet, the lamp beside the couch still on, a book left open on the coffee table. Two mugs sat beside it.
Nanami closed his eyes.
He did not sigh, because that wouldâve implied surprise, and he had known for hours that he would likely come home to something like this. Still, the sight of it made him simmer in a horrible mix of guilt and frustration. You had made tea for him, assuming today, for once, heâd come home and sit down and drink it with you. You had waited long enough for it to go cold, long enough to fall asleep crookedly against the couch cushions with one arm tucked beneath you and your neck bent at an angle that made his own ache to look at.
You were wearing his sweater.
He rubbed his hands over his face.
He set his briefcase down quietly. His coat followed, hung properly on its hook, because even exhausted he had rules. Then he crossed the room, careful not to wake you.
The tea, as expected, was completely cold.
He picked up both mugs, intending to rinse them out, but stopped when you shifted in your sleep and made an uncomfortable sound. Your posture had somehow gotten worse in the few seconds since he had turned around, your body slipping farther toward the arm of the couch.
Nanami set the mugs back down.
âYouâre going to regret that in the morning,â he muttered.
He leaned over you, sliding one hand carefully beneath your shoulder to ease you upright enough to free your arm. You stirred almost immediately, face tightening as your hand found his wrist.
âKen?â
Nanami went still.
It was not the first time you had called him that, but there was something disarming about hearing it softened by sleep, without thought or effort. No one at work called him that. No one from his old life did either. It belonged only here, to the quiet apartment, to cold tea after midnight, to you.
âIâm here.âÂ
Your eyes opened, unfocused before they found him. âItâs late.â
âI know.â His voice lowered. âIâm sorry.â
Your gaze drifted toward the mugs on the table. âI made tea.â
âI saw. Thank you.â
A hum left you, already gone again. âGot cold.â
âIâll make another cup in the morning, love.â
That seemed to be enough. Your eyes closed, but your hand stayed loose around his wrist, warm against skin left chilled by hours in an over-air-conditioned office.
Nanami looked at you for a moment longer than necessary, eyes softening at the sight. He brushed a stray piece of hair away from your face and tucked it behind your ear.Â
âIâm taking you to bed,â he said quietly.
You made a sound that might have been agreement, or protest, or simply sleep refusing to let you form words. Nanami slid one arm beneath your knees and the other around your back, giving you time to understand before he lifted you.
Your arms came around his neck clumsily.
He held you closer.
The apartment was not cold, but his hands were. His fingers were stiff from typing, from carrying files, from gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly on the way home. Against him, you were warm and heavy with sleep, tucked into the worn cotton of his sweater.
âCold,â you mumbled against him.
âMy hands?â
A nod.
âI know,â he muttered, feeling more guilty than you probably wanted him to. âIâm sorry.â
You did not answer. Your fingers shifted at the back of his neck, and Nanamiâs hold tightened in return.
The bedroom was dark, the sheets still neat from the morning. He lowered you onto the mattress with more care than the act required, one hand supporting your head until you settled against the pillow. When he began to straighten, your fingers caught weakly at the front of his shirt.
âDonât.â
Nanami paused.
Your eyes were closed, but the frown on your face made it hard to believe.
âIâm only changing. Iâm not leaving.â
The frown eased.
Nanami was an efficient man, which meant, regardless of the time, he still had things to doâhe needed to wash his face, brush his teeth, rinse the mugs, turn off the lamp, set his alarm. There were steps, and he had already lost far too much time tonight to other peopleâs mistakes.
But tonight he wasnât efficient, and tonight he sat on the edge of the bed.
Your grip loosened, but did not fall away.
Nanami bent and pressed a kiss to your forehead. It was meant to be brief, but you went still beneath it, your face softening in the dark, and he allowed himself another second.
âThank you for waiting for me,â he muttered so softly he doubted you could hear him.
Much to his surprise, your eyelids fluttered open and shut momentarily, your voice just as tired as you looked. âMissed you.â
Nanami inhaled slowly.
There were many things he wanted to say, all of them relating to logic, to sense, to the fact that waiting up didnât help either of you. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized, while logical, those were all things he did not mean.Â
So he covered your hand with his and brushed his thumb once over your knuckles.
âI missed you too.â
You were asleep again before he finished speaking.
He took care of the apartment quickly after that. The mugs were rinsed, the lamp switched off, the door locked. When he returned to the bedroom, you had shifted toward his side of the bed, leaving space for him without waking enough to know it.
Nanami stood at the foot of the bed, looking at you in his sweater, curled beneath the blanket, still warm from waiting.
Something in him ached.
He slipped into bed carefully, and you turned toward him almost immediately, drawn by habit more than consciousness. Your hand found his sleeve as your forehead brushed his shoulder.
Nanami gathered you close, keeping his cold hands away until you caught one loosely between both of yours.
pairing: Simon Riley x gn!reader
cw: pure fluff
wc: 1515
an: drooling like a dog whenever i write simon. the new trailer has been inspiration, and i want to marry this man.
Simon Riley had never known physical affection. Heâd known fists, knives, and kicks to the stomach. Heâd known the smell of bourbon and cigarettes from the second heâd been born. Heâd known violence and pain from a man supposed to love himâor at the very least, shield him from danger. Unfortunately for Simon, itâd been his father whoâd presented the biggest threat to him.Â
His brother hadnât been much better. While heâd never hurt Simon, he hadnât been any help. His mother hadnât been the worst, but she hadnât been the best. Sheâd never been one to go to talent shows or to hang Simonâs picture on a wall. There hadnât been a single person in his life whoâd cared about him enough to keep him safe.Â
Heâd never known a gentle touch, and heâd never been bothered enough to seek it.Â
He didnât mean for it to happenâit just did. When you spend your entire life correlating someoneâs touch to being hurt, you learn to cower away from it. Simon didnât do hugs, or hand holding, or cuddles. He didnât care about which side of the pavement he walked on or what temperature the thermostat was set to.Â
Until you rolled around, that is.Â
You came into his life mercilesslyâin the best possible way. Simon had been through more than enough unforgiving shit to believe in any higher power, but if he did, then there wouldnât be a single doubt in his heart that God himself had sent you. You fit into him like youâd been put on earth for that purpose. Everything heâd been through suddenly wasnât nearly as bad, so long as he could have you in his life.  Â
You understood him without speaking, you comforted him without prodding, and you loved him without hurting.Â
The night terrors didnât startle youâyou still slept by his side and poured him water when he couldnât even form coherent sentences, too shaken by his memories to think straight. The scars that adorned every inch of his skin had become a familiar map you traced with feather-light touches every night to put him to sleep. Whenever you spoke about him, there was always a trace of pride in your voice heâd never heard from anyone else.Â
Maybe Simon Riley didnât do hugs or kisses or cuddles, but you did.Â
You sought his touch like your life depended on it. While you didnât shy away from mundane, fleeting momentsâsqueezing his arm, running a hand through his hair, planting soft kisses on his cheekâwhat you really craved was to be held.
It took him embarrassingly long to notice the link between your shift in attitude and how long itâd been since his arms had been wrapped around you. It wouldâve been easier if youâd used your words, until it became clear to him even you werenât aware of it.Â
It was gradual, but not subtle. One moment, youâd be curled on the sofa, book on your lap and humming something absentmindedly. Youâd smile at him, or compliment him, or give him that look so full of love it made his brain short-circuit. Then youâd be irritable, annoyed the slightest of noise, and would stop whatever you were doing.
Today, you gave him a small wave before returning your focus to the book whoâd stolen you from him for the past three daysâsomething about dragons, something about riders. He had no idea, but heâd gotten you the second one already, just in case.Â
He kissed the top of your head, drawing a satisfied hum from you.Â
âMâgettingâ a drink with Johnny,â he said, tapping the page of your book so youâd pay attention to him. âWonât be long.â
You barely registered his words as you waved at him the way heâd wave at a cashier. He rolled his eyes, a gesture he never knew could carry affection, and grabbed his keys from the counter.Â
The second he walked through the doorway, he heard the clock ticking in his head. He heard it while he sipped on his first pint of Boddies. He heard it while Johnny talked about his football team like the Celtic had any chance at winning anything outside the confines of Scotland. He heard it while he waited by the pump at the petrol station, foot tapping impatiently against the concrete. He heard it while he fumbled with his keys at the door, well aware of how long heâd been gone.Â
It wasnât until he stepped into the flat that the clocked stopped ticking, and in its place rang an alarm. A loud, jarring one in the shape of your abandoned book on the coffee table and the sound of the shower running. He pressed his lips into a thin line as he roamed through the flat, slowly removing his layers.Â
He knew how to play the gameâone you werenât even aware of.Â
He left his coat on the rack, next to your own. His shoes were left by the door, otherwise you wouldâve cut off his legs. His face-mask had been thrown in the bin the second he walked into the bedroom. He left his phone on the nightstand and lowered himself on the bed, just by the edge.Â
By the time you walked out of the bathroomâhair dripping wet, Simonâs shirt sticking to your body in ways that made him wish he hadnât gone out with Johnny, shorts so short they barely covered anythingâhe sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin rested on one of his palms.Â
You were upset.Â
He could see it on your furrowed brows and slow, deep breaths. He could see it on the way you walked up to him without saying a word, silently looking down at him with those eyes of yours. He could see it on the pout on your lips.Â
He didnât give you the time to speak. He reached and intertwined his fingers with yours. You smelled like that bodywash that drove him crazyâthe one youâd used since you first met. The shirt smelled like him, which threw him off guard only for a second before he pulled you onto his lap.Â
You straddled him with ease, a clear sign of how many times youâd done this. His lap had become your preferred spotâreading, kissing, talking. He let go of your hand only to move his palms to the small of your back. You wrapped your legs around his middle and let your forehead crash against the curve of his neck, taking in his scent.Â
The alarm in his head went quiet.Â
He ran a slow hand up and down your spine, letting the moment simmer in comfortable silence for a beat longer. You wrapped your arms around himâone over his shoulder, the other under his arm. Your hold wasnât tight, but it felt desperate. You nuzzled the curve of his neck, and Simon felt almost pathetic for the groan you drew from him.Â
The same arms that had held military-grade weapons now wrapped around your frame with utmost care. He pressed you against his chest tighter as he placed a slow kiss on your temple, your skin warm against his lips.Â
Like a plant thatâd finally been watered, you perked up at the gesture. You sighed softly before placing a slow kiss on his neck, finally lifting your head.Â
He grunted at the sudden warmth that spread through his body, closing his eyes momentarily. âCareful there.â
You giggled, arms now wrapped around his neck. He took in the sightâyour now bright eyes, your frown gone, and your smile wide. You placed a kiss to the corner of his lips, and it was then that Simon knew your tank was nearly full.Â
His grip on your hips tightened, fingers digging into the soft, exposed flesh. He closed the distance between the two of you, lips crashing against your own. You tasted like toothpaste, he probably still tasted like beerâit didnât matter. You let out a surprised groan against his lips, which lit a fire in his chest.Â
You pulled away smiling. With your arms still wrapped around his neck, you leaned back, trusting Simon to keep you from falling over. He couldnât help but smile back at you, almost involuntarily. His hold didnât falterâheâd never let you fall.
âHowâs the book?â he rasped, eyes still locked onto your lips with something that resembled hunger.Â
You huffed. âCouldnât finish it. Suddenly didnât feel like reading anymore, dunno why.â
He chuckled, full of amusement. Maybe you hadnât figured it out, but he knew why. But he wouldnât say it, because if youâd been put on this earth for him, then heâd also been put on this earth for you. And Simon Riley would hold you in his arms for the rest of his life if youâd let him.Â
He wrapped his arms around you and threw himself back on the bed, loving the way your giggles echoed in his head while he kissed you like a starved man.Â
pairing: Simon Riley x gn!reader
cw: mentions of sleeptalking, honestly just fluff
wc: 1085
an: STAWWPP this is so cute, i had so much fun writing this. I used to sleepwalk (and talk) like crazy, so maybe im projecting here. I might like this version more than Price's. Enjoy!!
To say Ghostâs sleeping schedule was thoroughly fucked would be an understatement. Even before he enlisted, heâd had his fair share of reasons to indulge in insomnia. Sleep had never come easy to him, no matter what pills he took, which meditation techniques Gaz wouldnât shut up about, or the amount of times Soap had offered to knock him out with the butt of his gunâtempting, but not sustainable.Â
Which is why it was so jarring to have met you. A soldier, hardened by bloodshed and angry COs who, somehow, was able to fall asleep on command. At first, it was odd to find you sleeping in every possible place, flat surface available or not. Briefing room, supply tent, comms building, mess hallâsometimes your head would fall against a table, sometimes youâd be seated, sometimes, somehow, youâd be standing up, asleep like a mummy.Â
He didnât understand how youâd developed the habitânot until he slept with you for the first time. It was that night, when both of you were covered with a shit blanket that did little to keep out the cold, that he realized why you were exhausted all the time.Â
You talked in your sleep. And not just talkedâyou rambled like crazy. It made sense why you got no rest, given you spent most of your time asleep arguing with people who didnât exist.Â
Tonight, far from the gunfire, safely tucked in your flat while the two of you awaited deployment instructions, you were still plagued by dreams you couldnât explain once awake.Â
He exited the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, drying his hair with anotherâthe one he always stole from you after insisting he didnât need a second one. Steam followed behind him as he took quiet steps across the room, eyes locked on your sleeping form.Â
You lay sprawled on the bed, wearing nothing but your underwear and an old shirt heâd accidentally forgotten once and never managed to recover. Not that heâd tried very hard to get it backâhe loved seeing you in it. The only source of light in the room came from the bathroom behind him, engulfing you in a warm hue of yellow in an otherwise dark room. The blanket was kicked to the feet of the bed, covering only half of your leg. The clock on the nightstand glowed in neon-red, late enough to let Simon know he wouldnât be getting any sleep tonight.Â
As he was about to turn to the dresser where youâd mercifully given him a quarter of a drawer to put all of his belongings in, you muttered something under your breath. He halted at the noise, knowing exactly what would follow. You had the same routineâmumble, conversation, yawning, sleep. Heâd memorized it, as he had memorized all theâŠcharacters that seemed to live in your dreams.Â
Tonight, however, it wasnât a non-existent figure who had earned your anger. Tonight, you were mad at Soap.
âCanât understand shit he says, Simon,â you whined lowly, barely comprehensible as you drawled out the words. âStop him.â
Ghost stilled, hand covering his mouth to keep his smile from breaking into a full grin. He walked closer to the bed, legs pressed against the mattress by your feet. He tilted his head, wondering what Johnny couldâve done to be a subject of your irritation tonight. He let the spare towel fall to the floor, knowing youâd be annoyed at it the following morning.
âThose bloody Scots,â you huffed out. Despite the arm thrown over your eyes, he could practically hear the frown forming on your face.Â
He pressed his lips into a thin line, bending forward to place his hands on your ankles. âYeah? Whatâd he do this time?â
You hummed at the touch, seemingly struggling to form a sentence as he ran his hands up your leg, fingers digging into your skin once he reached your thighs. After a beat, you dropped your arm from your face and sighed softly, eyes still closed. Ghost lifted a knee to the bed, letting some of his weight fall on your thigh as he leaned forward, eyes practically glowing with amusement.Â
It seemed the topic was too much for you to linger on Ghostâs touch, however. You pouted as you answered, as if this weighed heavily on you. âHe keeps askinâ me to eat haggis, Simon. Haggis.â
 He couldnât stop himself from smiling. The sentence was so ridiculous he couldnât help it. Yet, a small part of him wondered how much of it was trueâJohnny did like haggis, after all.Â
He dipped his head lower and planted a kiss on your hipbone. âYou donât have to eat haggis,â he assured you, enjoying the way you shivered beneath him as he placed a kiss on the other side. âIâll kill him if he makes you.â
Ghost finally placed both knees on the bedâone between your legs, the other to the side. He placed slow kisses on your stomach, your ribs, your collarbone. Each kiss caused your voice to come out quieter and slower than before. As much as he enjoyed your nonsense and barely-coherent conversations, the longer you talked, the less you rested.Â
By the time his lips reached your jaw, you had stopped talking about sheep intestines and Soapâthank God. Speaking about Johnny in your bedroom at four in the morning was far from his definition of late-night romance.Â
He planted a slow kiss on your jaw, feeling the vibrations of your hum against his lips. You yawned once, loud and wide. That was the cue heâd learned to interpret as your rambling finally coming to an end. He let himself fall by your side, still wearing nothing but a blanket that seemed to struggle to stay in place.Â
You turned your body with impressive speed. In a blink, you had already wrapped a leg over his, and had snaked his middle with your arm. After another, briefer yawn, you placed a slow, lingering kiss on his throat. If you felt the way he swallowed dryly at the sudden proximity, you showed no signs.Â
âHaggis,â you muttered, and it was the last thing Ghost heard from you that night.Â
He shook his head as he pressed his palm against your warm cheek, rubbing your cheekbone gently. He let his forehead fall against your own, smiling at the sight.Â
âBloody haggis,â he muttered back, well aware that you wouldnât remember any of this in the morning.Â
You didn't follow ordersâPrice needs to do something about it.
pairing: John Price x afab!reader
cw: nsfw, spanking, oral (f receiving), piv!sex, dom!John Price, teasing, porn without plot
wc: 1193
an: please send me your dirtiest requests I am begging, I need to write more smut but I have NOOOOO inspiration. enjoy!!
Price had built wall after wall when it came to you. Heâd buried every feeling, pretending he didnât careâpretending his gaze didnât linger whenever you walked into the room, that his heart didnât leap to his throat at the slightest brush of contact. He triedâhe really didâto feign a nonchalance that simply wasnât real. Not with you.
Heâd been warned by countless people not to get involved with anyone he worked with. Mixing love and duty, they said, would never swing in his favour. Rank came at a cost, and sooner or later heâd find himself entangled in a power dynamic that would strain everything.
And, to his dismay, theyâd been right.
Whenever you were in the picture, it was near impossible for the captain to think straight. He dreaded missions where your name appeared on the briefing file. He hated having to play the role of your commanding officer and nothing more. He hated the look on your face whenever he had to put his foot downâwhen duty demanded he reprimand you, not protect you.
It had been taxing on the two of youâuntil John found a way to correct you without letting it bleed into the relationship.Â
âJohn,â you moaned against the pillow, voice muffled and strained. âPleaseâfuck. Please, John.â
Your pleas fell on deaf ears. The sound of your whimpers blended almost seamlessly with every slap he let fall on your ass. The sound of his palm against the tender flesh made his cock twitch in his pants, still fully clothed as he hovered behind your naked frame on the bedâface down against the pillow, hands tied behind your back with your own shirt, ass perked up.Â
He took a long look, licking his lips like a thirsty man. The sight was enough to make him come undone, which is why heâd deliberately focused on you.Â
His hand fell roughly on your ass, the skin reddened and swollen from the aggressive, nonstop slapping youâd endured for the past twenty minutes. You whimpered at the contact, burying yourself deeper into the pillow.Â
âHow many times,â he groaned, violent hands now turning kind as he caressed one swollen cheek in gentle motions, âhave I told you Iâm your captain?â
You let out a shaky breath, eyes closed and mind clouded in what could only be described as a trance. Sweat beaded along your brow and neck, lip quivering from the sheer, painful bliss of being completely under Johnâs control.
Every nerve in your body seemed to pulse in rhythm with his voice, impossible to ignore. You were hyper-aware of everything: the heat of his hands, the weight of his gaze, the way your body responded without permission. That acute awareness was both a blessing and a curse.
When he pressed his hot mouth against your swollen cunt, he couldâve sworn you saw stars. The noise that escaped your throat didnât feel human, but he didnât care. He lapped at the slit, arms trapping your thighs with nearly painful force. The bed beneath you creaked as the repositioned himself, dragging his tongue from bottom to top. It circled around your clit in a rhythm that made your eyes roll so far back, you couldâve seen your brain.Â
He was relentless. Ruthless in the way he lavished attention on you. The warmth of his mouth sent an electric shock all the way up your spine, rendering you useless and incapable of straining together coherent sentences. His tongue found your entrance, pushing inside exquisitely slow. One of his hands found your reddened cheek, rubbing slow circles on it before harshly slapping it, drawing a whimper from you.
He sucked on your cunt again, causing you to reach for him with your bound hands, useless and infuriating. Before you could ask what he was doing, you heard the sound of his belt unbuckling.Â
âOut there, Iâm your captain,â he repeated, voice gruff and undeniably angry. âIâm not your partner, and I sure as hell am not your friend.â
On that last word, he delivered a painful slap to your ass. The sound you made was something between a whimper and a sob, testament of how close to the edge you were. John had been brutal for the last thirty minutes, insistent on getting his point across.Â
âJohn,â you pleaded, tears welling your eyes. You couldnât see anything behind you, but you could feel everything.
You flinched when he caressed your ass, recoiling away from his touch when his lips trailed lazy kisses from one cheek to the other, lingering on your soaked lips while he dragged his tongue across the slit one last time.Â
The unmistakeable sound of fabric rustling signalled to your aching cunt that the torture was over. His calloused hands were now soft, even tender as they rubbed the angry skin. You felt his legs pressing against the back of your thighs, and the familiar weight of his cock lined up against your entrance.Â
He dragged the tip across your swollen lips, letting out a groan as he did. You leaned further back, desperate to feel him, only to hiss in pain when he lay a palm on your cheekânot as punishment, but as a warning.Â
âYou listen to me,â he said with a low growl. He gripped your hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh. You moaned with anticipation, biting your lip as to not tell him to just fuck you already.Â
When you felt the tip push in only an inch, you couldnât help it anymore.
âChristâokay,â you cried out. âPlease, please, pleaseâ.â
He yanked a fistful of your hair, bending over your arched back in an attempt to close the distance between you. The sudden pull rubbed his thighs against your ass, eliciting a painful moan from your throat. The movement pushed his tip even further in, which you couldnât have been more grateful for.
His lips were close enough to your ear to raise every hair on your body. His voice was low, grave, dangerously velvety despite the situation. âAsk nicely, love.â
Maybe if you hadnât been so desperate, you wouldâve. But your skin was painfully raw and bruised, you were sweating from places you didnât know sweat, and you were so empty it was nearly tortuous. Instead of asking, you thrusted back in a swift move, and whimpered against the pillow when his entire girth filled you, stretching you so, so deliciously painful.Â
He was caught so off guard he momentarily lost all strength, letting his weight fall on your back. With your hair still tightly in his grip, you had to crane your neck in an unnatural angle. Despite the pain on your bottom, you couldnât stop yourself from smirking victoriously at the sight of this man, this captain, fall like a puppet without strings when buried deep inside you.Â
That victory was short lived, because once he regained his strength he yanked on your hair forcefully, breath ragged and laboured.Â
âYou shouldnât have done that.â
He rammed into you at full force, and you wondered how the hell you were meant to survive the following hours.Â
pairing: John Price x gn!reader
cw: sleeptalking
wc: 903
an: price, the man you are. id forgotten my obsession with him until I found my Tumblr archives on my pc. this was SOOO fun to write, enjoy!
John Price had never been a heavy sleeper.Â
While it was a part of himself that had been apparent to him since before his time in the military, it would be foolish to say it didnât play an important role in it. He rarely got more than a couple of hours of sleep, which his body had adapted to over the yearsânot without putting up a fight, that is.Â
Heâd always struggled with the civvie life. Before you came into his lifeâa whirlwind of colour and a warmth he did not believe himself capable of deservingâheâd hated sleeping outside of the comfort of his quarters. His house was suffocating in its quiet loudness.Â
He had become acquaintances with the cat who rummaged through his trash at three in the morning, on the dot. He still woke up whenever the fridge clicked without explanation in the middle of the nightâthat sharp, sudden noise that had him shoving a hand under his pillow before he could even process the fact that he didnât need to aim his gun at an electrical appliance. The electrical line that had been busted for almost three months, constantly emitting a loud buzzing noise, had pushed him to the edge.Â
Then youâd come along. Quietly, sneakilyâlike mould. And, God help him, heâd never been more grateful for anything in his life. A toothbrush here, spare socks there, your things all over his house. What could only be described as a parasitic infestation had never felt better.Â
Along with your banter over lunch and your tea in his cupboard, came yourâŠpeculiar nightly habits.Â
Heâd heard of sleeptalkers, of course. He was guilty of his own nonsensical mumbling late at night after a string of stressful ops. But what you did wasnât mumble or whisper softlyâit was borderline paranormal.Â
The first night he got to witness it, you were jolted awake by the sudden weight laid over your neck. His forearm pressed against your neck, gone as fast as it had appeared. You blinked once in shock, unsure as to what the hell had happened and if you had imagined it in the first place. Itâd been John, the following morning, who recalled the events for you.
âThought someone had broken in,â he mumbled, and if you hadnât known any better you wouldâve sworn he was mad at you. âScared the shit outta me, love.â
He acclimatedâunwillingly. While his military instincts were hard to quiet down, he become almost fond of the late-night conversations and complete lunacy that came out of your mouth whenever midnight rolled around.Â
That night, he was woken up by the sound of you arguing with someone who had quickly become Priceâs number one nemesis.Â
âColonel Duck,â you whispered with a frown on your face. âThis was discussed in the briefing.â
John woke the way he usually did once his body had learned to recognize your nightly conversations as non-threateningâgroggily, slow, exhausted. He lay on his side, propping himself up on his elbow while his other hand rested above your stomach. Your shirt, caught in sheets and whatever else you had done to it through the night, lifted to reveal your cold skin. He flattened his palm over his stomach as he stiffened a yawn.Â
Outside, only the sound of a nearby creek and crickets were carried by the wind. Inside, Price watched as your nose scrunched at whatever this colonel had dared say to youâa civilian whose only contact with the army was through whatever the man shared with you.
He dragged his palm closer to your waist, twisting you effortlessly so that your chest would be pressed against his. He nuzzled your neck, his beard scratching the sensitive skin in a way that earned a quiet laugh from your otherwise serious façade.Â
âJohn, do something,â you whined against his ear. âHe wonât listen.â
Despite the exhaustion, he chuckled against your neck. He pressed a quick, albeit soft, kiss to your jaw before pulling away, feeling the tiredness that clung to his bones slowly bleed into his muscles.Â
âMâafraid I canât, love,â he whispered. âHeâs a colonel.â
Johnâs smile widened at the sight of your poutâso genuine and upset he almost asked Laswell to dig through whatever archives needed to be dug to find this Colonel Duck who had plagued your dreams for the past two months.Â
Your arm slid over his waist as you finally closed the distance between you. You muttered something he couldnât hear, even in the silent room, before burying your nose in the crook of his neck. He chuckledâlow and revibrating against your chest.Â
âHeâs drunk on power,â you mumbled with that voice heâd come to recognize as your finally going back to sleep voice.Â
John laughed, then sighed at the feeling of your body going limp beneath him. He felt your hair against his chin and your breath against his skin. His fingers dug into your hip as his lips found your forehead.Â
âWeâll report him,â he assured your sleeping form.Â
He let his lips linger on your forehead for a beat longer before he let his head fall against the pillow again, arms safely wrapped around you. Your breathing evened, and he listened to it like a lull to fall asleep to.Â
John Price had killed a general already. Heâd taken on a bloody colonel if needed.Â
pairing: Simon Riley x gn!reader
cw: mentions of drinking
wc: 504
an: hello hi, if you've ever read this blurb or any of the other i'm gonna post, hi!! i deleted my account lol. enjoy!!!
Simon Riley, who said he didnât do dating. The man with the skull balaclava who practically rolled his eyes anytime Johnny mentioned someone batting their eyes at him in a pub. The operator with a kill count high enough to concern international authorities. The soldier with too many skeletons in his closet unrelated to his military duty.Â
The same man who fell for a fucking civvie, out of every possible option.Â
Simon Riley now finds himself doing shit he didnât think he was capable of doing. He remembers your favourite books and what you order at the coffee shop. Heâs met your closest friendsâalbeit quite reluctantlyâand those distant relatives you only see once every blue moon. He knows when youâre asleep and when youâre just pretending to beâyou canât possibly think youâre slick, he always mutters as he pulls you closer to him, back against his chest.Â
Simon Riley, who now finds himself parked outside a club heâs never been to, nor is he interested in the slightest about. Except, of course, for the fact that you went out with your friends to that very same club.Â
The hood of the car feels warm beneath him, which proves to be the only sign of how far he drove to pick you up. He wonât mention his flat is almost forty minutes away, or that he was just told heâd be deployed again soon, or that the shoulder he dislocated during his last op gave him hell the entire drive.Â
Tonight, he isnât Ghostâthereâs no mask, no face-paint, no bloodshed or violence. Tonight heâs a man picking you up.Â
When you stumble outside of the club, he spots you immediately. Red-faced, swaying like the ground beneath you has turned to Jell-O, muttering something to your friend that even they canât seem to understand. When you spot him, you give your friend a half-assed hug and practically sprint in his direction.Â
He meets you halfway, otherwise you wouldâve eaten shit against the concrete. You trip on nothing, but one arm snakes your waist almost instinctively, the other supporting your elbow. You grin against his shoulder, and the way you laugh echoes in his ribcage like youâve replaced the very heart that beats for you.Â
âHey, handsome,â you slur, grin wide on your face.Â
He shakes his head in what could look like irritation to anyone else, although the smile on his lips is one youâve learned to recognize as affectionate. He helps you to the car as you tell him everythingâhow someone hit on you quite poorly, how the tequila was lightwork, how you wished heâd gone with you.Â
âActually, no,â you shake your head with furrowed eyebrows. âYouâre a party pooper.â
Simon chuckles lowly, and by the time he looks back at you, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on your thigh, youâre fast asleep. He gives himself two seconds to look away from the road, but the smile stays on his lips the entire drive back home.
