A collection of 141 headcanons only featuring Ghost, Soap, Gaz, and Price.
Requests: open (boundaries/rules)
Task Force 141 (Price, Ghost, Soap, Gaz Only):
suggestive - nsfw:
Pegging // Toys // Aftercare // First Orgasm // Backshots // Period Munch // Mistletoe // Pound Town // Pain // Mine // Wrong Name // bull riding // Bed Breaking // Bow // BJ // Submissive // Virginity // CNC
Dad!141:
Newborn // Twins // Discipline // First Time Dads // Return Home // No Kids (i) // No Kids (ii)
Domestic!141 (general):
Nightgown // Sleep Positions // Sleep // Shower Time // Late Nights // Lazy Day // Hair Care // Self Care // Love You // Pet // Clingy // Weighted Blanket // Shave (i) // Shave (ii) // Shave (iii) // Cravings // Coloring // Weighted Blanket (ii)
Engagement - Wedding:
Proposal // Wedding Dress
Misc. - Uncategorized:
First Kiss // Rage Bait // Rage Room // Gamer // Beach Day // Dracula // Surprise // Ren Fest // Musician // Artist // Breakdown // College Care // Tics // Social Skills // Homesick // Transmasc // Scars // Tornado // Yoga // Party // Face Card // Smoke // Flowers // Laugh // Baker // tattoo // Taxidermy // No Vibe // Sushi
A collection of 141 headcanons only featuring Ghost, Soap, Gaz, and Price.
Requests: open (boundaries/rules)
Task Force 141 (Price, Ghost, Soap, Gaz Only):
suggestive - nsfw:
Pegging // Toys // Aftercare // First Orgasm // Backshots // Period Munch // Mistletoe // Pound Town // Pain // Mine // Wrong Name // bull riding // Bed Breaking // Bow // BJ // Submissive // Virginity // CNC
Dad!141:
Newborn // Twins // Discipline // First Time Dads // Return Home // No Kids (i) // No Kids (ii)
Domestic!141 (general):
Nightgown // Sleep Positions // Sleep // Shower Time // Late Nights // Lazy Day // Hair Care // Self Care // Love You // Pet // Clingy // Weighted Blanket // Shave (i) // Shave (ii) // Shave (iii) // Cravings // Coloring // Weighted Blanket (ii)
Engagement - Wedding:
Proposal // Wedding Dress
Misc. - Uncategorized:
First Kiss // Rage Bait // Rage Room // Gamer // Beach Day // Dracula // Surprise // Ren Fest // Musician // Artist // Breakdown // College Care // Tics // Social Skills // Homesick // Transmasc // Scars // Tornado // Yoga // Party // Face Card // Smoke // Flowers // Laugh // Baker // tattoo // Taxidermy // No Vibe // Sushi
When you are ovulating, Simon’s cock weeps from overstimulation, but he never complains.
You’ve been riding him for who knows how long, and he’s on his… actually he can’t even remember how many times he’s cum. You’re feral, truly feral, bouncing up and down his length, sitting down fully until his tip is pressed against your cervix and leaking precum. Grinding down on him, your hands fall to his chest, digging your nails into his skin to steady yourself as he writhes beneath you.
He’s a whimpering, whining mess, cursing under his breath, with his eyes rolling to the back of his head when your pussy clenches down on his length. Every time your ass slaps against his thighs a breath of air is knocked from his lungs, leaving him gasping and clutching the bunched-up sheets around his limp body.
“C-can’t take anymore l-lovie,” he stutters, placing both hands on your hips, but instead of moving you away, his own hips buck up just to feel more of your warm, wet walls around his aching cock.
His mouth hangs open as drool drips from his chin, his eyes half-lidded while he watches your breasts bounce directly in front of his face, and he can’t help but suck one nipple into his mouth to bite down and relieve some of the unbearable pleasure. You moan out, your fingers moving to tangle in the hair at his nape, pulling harshly on the strands before pushing your chest out for him by arching your back.
“One more Si, p-please… need it, need your c-cum,” you beg, gazing down at him with fucked out eyes, obscene moans flooding his ears each time his cock knocks against your cervix.
Your knees dig into the mattress on either side of him, caging his body underneath yours while you ride him as if your life depends on it. Skin slaps against skin, the sounds sharp and loud, the headboard bangs against the wall, sure to leave a dent or scrape the paint, not that either of you care. The smell of sex hangs in the air so thick you can taste it, musky from the salty sweat beading across the two bodies that move together in tandem.
“So g-good,” you praise, bouncing harder, faster, pushing him deeper inside of you while your walls suck him in, and clench down as if your pussy never wants him to leave.
The veins and ridges of his cock slide through your walls, filling you up to the brim, leaving no parts of you empty for too long. He sucks, bites, licks on your nipple, letting it peak between his lips before moving off with a pop and focusing on the other. One of his hands slides from your hip, finding your clit with ease to rub tight, quick circles on the sensitive bundle of nerves instead.
You cry out in pleasure, sinking down fast to grind against his fingers before lifting up once more. With the added stimulation, your body grows weaker the closer and closer you reach your climax, and you beg him to help you.
“C’mon lovie… I g-got you,” he says, planting both feet on the bed behind you, and steadying you on top of him before he begins to pound into you from below.
His balls clap against your ass, sensitive and empty, and he whimpers every time. You slump against his chest, your nipples dragging across his rough skin, his fingers still working your clit, and you’re walking the edge of your orgasm faster than you would like.
“C-close… I’m so…”
He thrusts in deep and hard, knocking the air from your lungs, cutting off your words as a sharp gasp rips from your throat when his tip nudges against your sweet spot. Stars burst behind your eyelids, the sheer ecstasy rushing through your body is enough to have you cumming on his long, thick cock.
“That’s it. Cum on m-me,” he encourages, eager to feel you come undone, his cock crying out for him as it bullies your insides and bruises your cervix.
Your muscles draw taut, your body becoming rigid as pleasure consumes your entire being. Cum gushes from your entrance, leaking out around his length for the umpteenth time tonight, dripping from his skin and pooling onto the already wet sheets below. Your pussy clenches impossibly tight and pulses rhythmically around him.
He fucks you through your high, drawing it out as long as possible before giving himself the same release, his fingers only letting up on your swollen clit when your body begins to jerk and twitch from his overstimulating touch.
“Shit- gonna f-fill you up again lovie.”
With a few more thrusts he’s burying himself to the hilt and releases his seed deep inside of you. Long, thick ropes of warm cum flood your pussy, leaking out from his tip against your cervix, coating your walls and dripping out when there is no more room left inside of your raw walls. Your belly tingles from the sensation, your skin burning from his touch, your body weak on top of his as his thrusts slow and he collapses onto the pillows again.
Simon’s chest heaves against yours while he tries to catch his breath, his heart pounding in your ear as he comes down from his intense high. You do your best to recover too, your breathing coming in short, ragged gasps, the sound of your blood whooshing past your ears louder than any of the lingering whimpers and whines from stimulated sensitive body parts, your legs and arms trembling from the prolonged activity, it is all too much and not enough at the same time.
His cock continues to twitch inside of you, the mess continues to pool underneath you, and knowing you, you still would want more.
When you are ovulating, Simon’s cock weeps from overstimulation, but he never complains.
You’ve been riding him for who knows how long, and he’s on his… actually he can’t even remember how many times he’s cum. You’re feral, truly feral, bouncing up and down his length, sitting down fully until his tip is pressed against your cervix and leaking precum. Grinding down on him, your hands fall to his chest, digging your nails into his skin to steady yourself as he writhes beneath you.
He’s a whimpering, whining mess, cursing under his breath, with his eyes rolling to the back of his head when your pussy clenches down on his length. Every time your ass slaps against his thighs a breath of air is knocked from his lungs, leaving him gasping and clutching the bunched-up sheets around his limp body.
“C-can’t take anymore l-lovie,” he stutters, placing both hands on your hips, but instead of moving you away, his own hips buck up just to feel more of your warm, wet walls around his aching cock.
His mouth hangs open as drool drips from his chin, his eyes half-lidded while he watches your breasts bounce directly in front of his face, and he can’t help but suck one nipple into his mouth to bite down and relieve some of the unbearable pleasure. You moan out, your fingers moving to tangle in the hair at his nape, pulling harshly on the strands before pushing your chest out for him by arching your back.
“One more Si, p-please… need it, need your c-cum,” you beg, gazing down at him with fucked out eyes, obscene moans flooding his ears each time his cock knocks against your cervix.
Your knees dig into the mattress on either side of him, caging his body underneath yours while you ride him as if your life depends on it. Skin slaps against skin, the sounds sharp and loud, the headboard bangs against the wall, sure to leave a dent or scrape the paint, not that either of you care. The smell of sex hangs in the air so thick you can taste it, musky from the salty sweat beading across the two bodies that move together in tandem.
“So g-good,” you praise, bouncing harder, faster, pushing him deeper inside of you while your walls suck him in, and clench down as if your pussy never wants him to leave.
The veins and ridges of his cock slide through your walls, filling you up to the brim, leaving no parts of you empty for too long. He sucks, bites, licks on your nipple, letting it peak between his lips before moving off with a pop and focusing on the other. One of his hands slides from your hip, finding your clit with ease to rub tight, quick circles on the sensitive bundle of nerves instead.
You cry out in pleasure, sinking down fast to grind against his fingers before lifting up once more. With the added stimulation, your body grows weaker the closer and closer you reach your climax, and you beg him to help you.
“C’mon lovie… I g-got you,” he says, planting both feet on the bed behind you, and steadying you on top of him before he begins to pound into you from below.
His balls clap against your ass, sensitive and empty, and he whimpers every time. You slump against his chest, your nipples dragging across his rough skin, his fingers still working your clit, and you’re walking the edge of your orgasm faster than you would like.
“C-close… I’m so…”
He thrusts in deep and hard, knocking the air from your lungs, cutting off your words as a sharp gasp rips from your throat when his tip nudges against your sweet spot. Stars burst behind your eyelids, the sheer ecstasy rushing through your body is enough to have you cumming on his long, thick cock.
“That’s it. Cum on m-me,” he encourages, eager to feel you come undone, his cock crying out for him as it bullies your insides and bruises your cervix.
Your muscles draw taut, your body becoming rigid as pleasure consumes your entire being. Cum gushes from your entrance, leaking out around his length for the umpteenth time tonight, dripping from his skin and pooling onto the already wet sheets below. Your pussy clenches impossibly tight and pulses rhythmically around him.
He fucks you through your high, drawing it out as long as possible before giving himself the same release, his fingers only letting up on your swollen clit when your body begins to jerk and twitch from his overstimulating touch.
“Shit- gonna f-fill you up again lovie.”
With a few more thrusts he’s burying himself to the hilt and releases his seed deep inside of you. Long, thick ropes of warm cum flood your pussy, leaking out from his tip against your cervix, coating your walls and dripping out when there is no more room left inside of your raw walls. Your belly tingles from the sensation, your skin burning from his touch, your body weak on top of his as his thrusts slow and he collapses onto the pillows again.
Simon’s chest heaves against yours while he tries to catch his breath, his heart pounding in your ear as he comes down from his intense high. You do your best to recover too, your breathing coming in short, ragged gasps, the sound of your blood whooshing past your ears louder than any of the lingering whimpers and whines from stimulated sensitive body parts, your legs and arms trembling from the prolonged activity, it is all too much and not enough at the same time.
His cock continues to twitch inside of you, the mess continues to pool underneath you, and knowing you, you still would want more.
You tend to Simon’s wounds. An argument follows with makeup sex. The fragile accessibility to contraception is broken. The first Pillar looms.
Chapter Twenty-Two // Chapter Twenty-Four
ao3 // main masterlist // dog with no teeth masterlist
Blood graces the tips of your fingers.
A few fresh drops form hairline rivers, the rest is darkly dried and flaking, drifting to find a home on the back of your hand. Simon’s face is the worst of it. Bruising mars his upper jaw near the lobe of his ear. A large, stitched gash stands stark against his skin above his right brow, the edges of the wound inflamed and puffy from the needlework and initial blow.
“This will need ice.” Your thumb grazes over the mark. “The area is swelling.” Dropping your hand, you reach for the damp towel, removing the blood from your fingers. The fresh stuff wipes clean. The dry bits stick, forcing you to scrub. “What the hell hit you?”
“A food tray,” answers Simon, monotone.
“A food tray?” you repeat, disbelieving.
“Made of hard plastic.” Simon shrugs. “Cleans easy. Won’t break if used as a weapon.”
“Unbelievable,” you huff, checking under your nails.
Simon rolls his neck with an audible pop. “Had worse injuries.”
Perched on the edge of the coffee table in the living room, you stare dumbly at your husband. Simon sits on the floor, leaning against the edge of the couch. One leg bent, the other outstretched. A first aid kit lays open beside you, the contents spread out on the table.
Grasping Simon’s chin, you guide his face to the right. “I know.” The bruising will only deepen with time. “Still need to take care of it.” A bit of gauze and antiseptic will clean the area. “Should have this done at the hospital.”
As you add pressure to the afflicted spot, Simon inhales sharply. “I like your hands better.”
You snort, dabbing at the wound. “My hands aren’t meant for this.”
“Not meant for taking care of me?”
You drop your hand quickly. “This isn’t funny.”
Simon grasps your wrist, bringing your fingers back to his face. Palm upward, Simon rests his cheek against it, eyelids closing as he inhales deeply. “Didn’t say it was.” Those gorgeous brown eyes reappear, striking and sharp. “Should see Fields. That man needs the hospital.”
“You’re insufferable,” you mutter, not drawing your hand away. It’s warm where his cheek rests, radiating into your arm. As strong as Simon is, this is the most vulnerable you’ve seen him, seeking comfort with a gentle touch.
“Don’t regret what I did,” he says, firmly. “Do it again given the chance.”
“Simon,” you sigh. “Are you not worried? About what will happen to you?”
His voice is firm. Nonnegotiable. “Nothing will happen.”
The finality in his voice gives you pause. You’re not ignorant of the roles and rules of a military force. Regardless of who, to strike another soldier, to strike one of your own, results in punishment.
“Nothing?” you exhale, wanting nothing more than to roll your eyes but thinking better of it. “They punish soldiers all the time for this. What makes you any different?”
Simon slowly draws your hand away from his cheek. Clutching your hand in his, he brings it down to his lap. “Captain Price decides what happens to us.”
“I doubt that very much.”
His hand squeezes, drawing you closer. “I’m not some grunt, dove.”
That you know. You’ve been victim to it firsthand. “Real convenient then. Sounds like you can do whatever you want.” You don’t mean to sound as snarky as you do. Frustration, and concern for Simon’s injuries, outweigh your neural processing.
Simon leans in, shortening the small sliver of distance between you. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”
Not a lecture, even if it feels like one. The delivery is gentle, like a brush of wind against the cheek.
“I know you nearly beat a man to death.” Try as you might, your voice cracks. The emotion isn’t for Fields, it’s for everything else, and how scared you were.
“Fields deserved it. Plenty of witnesses heard him. What he said. I had every right to do what I did to him.”
You shake your head. “I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t kill him,” he says, as if that makes it better.
Yanking your hand out of Simon’s grasp, you bolt up from the table, stepping over him. “You let yourself get carried away.”
Placing his hand on the sofa behind him, Simon pushes himself to standing. “I’ve killed enough men to know when they can’t take another hit. Fields had plenty left in him.”
That’s not the point. It was never the point.
Inside your chest is a twisted nest of vines, shredding your heart and ribcage, caving it in.
“You worried me.” You turn on him, voice rising slightly. “Receiving a call like that? I dropped everything and went to the hospital looking for you.” Your chest heaves, adrenaline spiking. “Jesus, Simon. Thought you were seriously injured.”
“Dove—”
“And then you weren’t at the hospital,” you continue right over him. “No one could tell me where you were. And I didn’t even find you. You just,” you gesture vaguely into the air, “appeared. After I searched everywhere you could possibly be.”
Simon’s shoulders soften, gentleness easing in. Rage would be preferable. Have a screaming match and fuck each other afterward.
“Stop looking at me like that,” you murmur, all the energy deflating like a slashed tire.
A slow saunter and he’s right there, on you, resting his hands on your hips, squeezing, drawing you in until you’re pressed against him. Simon’s arms slide up, and you melt, wrapping your arms around his middle as Simon encircles your shoulders.
“Don’t make me worry,” you say into his chest, eyes watery.
Simon kisses the crown of your head. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You still haven’t said what will happen to you.”
“Already told you,” he chuckles, “nothing.”
Leaning your head back, you stare into his face, searching for a hint of a lie. “That’s impossible.”
Simon releases your shoulders, cradling your face with both hands. “Not repeating what Fields said. But he said it loudly. Enough for everyone to hear. Left too many witnesses. Can’t defend himself.”
“What did he say?”
A pause blooms, and a muscle in Simon’s face twitches. Whatever Fields said, Simon is still angry over it.
“He said things about you. What he’d do to you if you were his. Couldn’t let that stand.”
Simon doesn’t just swing on anyone. His dislike for the Fields is thick like cooling tar, but Simon has never struck out at the man with his fists. What the fuck did Fields say about you? Enough for Simon to nearly beat him to death?
“I still don’t see how you won’t face consequences.”
Dipping his head, Simon comes in for a kiss. It’s slow and soft, more tender than he’s ever been.
“Price will drill me about it. Assign me grunt work for show. Keep me out of sight until we leave. But it’s Fields that’ll face a harsher consequence. To publicly say what he did, loud enough for me and everyone else to hear, that’s seen as disloyalty, and provoking conflict.” Simon rests his lips against your forehead before continuing. “He also has a record. It’s an embarrassment to Graves. He’ll want it swept under the rug and forgotten.”
You snuggle closer. “That’s not comforting.”
Simon seeks a few more kisses. These are deeper than the last and just as sweet.
“I was defending you. That’s how it’ll be seen. If Graves demanded punishment for bloodying one of his men, everyone would question his leadership. A drunken scuffle is one thing, but to not punish the soldier that talked about assaulting another’s wife?”
You jerk backward. “He said what?” Simon exhales through his nose. “That is not what you said a minute ago.”
“See why I couldn’t let it stand? Man deserved it.”
Burying your face in Simon’s chest, you breathe deep, lingering in his scent, filling your lungs with him. As much as you’re frustrated, having Simon here, holding you, is calming.
“I’m just happy you’re okay,” you whisper.
“I’m fine, dove. Promise.”
Tucking you against his chest, Simon sways, rubbing your back. Closing your eyes, you settle into him, silently counting your inhalations and exhalations, finding a place of calm, or a semblance of the concept.
“Still upset with me?” asks Simon.
“Only a little.”
“A little?”
You hold up one hand, bringing your thumb and forefinger close together but not touching. “Little bit.”
“Little bit,” repeats Simon, playfully kissing your fingers.
Laughing, you pull away, slipping out of his arms. Simon allows you to take a few steps before he’s on you again, grabbing, diving in for more kisses as you attempt to flee. This is a different side to Simon, a playfulness you didn’t think he possessed. Of all the times you’ve seen him smile, it’s never been with his whole mouth or even his teeth.
But this man is enraptured with you. Completely happy. It is soft and sweet and perfect enough to bottle. Let it be your perfume, or the honey in your tea.
“Simon,” you chastise, slapping at his hand. “Enough. You’re hurt.”
“Just my face,” he replies, a flirty drawl creeping in. “Not my dick.”
You burst out laughing, unable to contain yourself. Simon chases, herding you to the bedroom, dispelling you of clothes until you’re completely bare for him. Simon’s demeanor shifts from teasing to seductive, cradling your face in his hands, kissing you with a ferociousness that steals your breath.
“Want my mouth on your cunt.” Simon’s words are blunt. “Need your taste on my tongue. Need to hear you scream my name.”
A twinge seizes your thighs, pussy clenching like he’s inside you.
“Can I do what I want?” he asks, hushed.
Simon has controlled this entire relationship, but he’s seeking permission this time, laying it before you to take or reject. He’s asked you what you’ve wanted before, yet this is different, a desperateness that lingers beneath the surface.
The fight. The looming deployment. The idea of the two of you being separated for a month or more.
“Have your way with me,” and your voice is a whimper.
Simon seizes your mouth again, consuming until you’re clawing at him, needing to be within and without. His mouth descends, finding jaw and throat, shoulder and breast, stomach and thigh. Burying his face between your legs, he inhales, his hands supporting your ass as you fist his hair.
One minute you’re standing, and the next you’re on your back, the bed sinking beneath your weight. Simon is precise, turning you onto hands and knees, forcing your ass up and your legs wide.
You choke on your next inhalation as Simon tongues your pussy, using the tip of his tongue to trace lines that may very well be his name. A branding all its own.
“Fucking love your taste, dove,” groans Simon. He draws back, inserts a finger. It slides in easily. “And how your body takes me.”
A few strokes and then it’s gone, replaced with his tongue. You fist the bedding beneath you, squirming as Simon switches between fingering and tasting, coaxing your orgasm to the surface.
“Don’t fight it,” he says. “Don’t fight.”
Simon brings both into play, forcing the orgasm out. It’s harsh. Searing. You burst into a brief sob in the unrelenting pressure. Ceaseless, Simon continues to fuck you with his fingers, running his tongue over and around, sucking on your clit.
Another. Another.
The withdrawal is sudden. Suddenly full, then empty. Cool air and nothing, lasting but a moment. Lifting, pressed up against him, Simon slides his cock between your thighs, rocking back and forth in an easy motion. Not inside you, simply grinding, keeping you still as he coats himself in your slickness.
An urge crawls forth, of wanting to sink to your knees, to take him into your mouth, have him spill down your throat.
“Simon,” you gasp. “I want—”
Your words are stolen as Simon’s fingers slide into your mouth. His arms around you tighten, keep you aloft and on your knees at the edge of the bed, your legs pointed outward as he stands between them.
“You can suck my cock later,” he growls, knowing exactly what you desired.
His hips draw back, and the head of his cock finds its home. It’s a slow ease as he feeds you his dick, bringing more of him inside until there’s no more space between your bodies. Simon bites down on your neck, not hard enough to break skin, but the area will be tender. Might even leave little indents from his teeth.
Another slow move as he withdraws, leaving just the tip. Simon stays like that, the two of you simply breathing. His teeth are still on your skin, still pressing, causing a twinge of pain. A release, and an absence of teeth, followed by lips.
“Hold still, dove,” he murmurs.
Simon thrusts. It’s all fast, all rough, all primal need. You’re caged against him, the little sounds you make muffled by his fingers. Whatever this is, Simon needs it, desperately. To claim you, perhaps, to make them understand you’re his, even if no one is watching.
Your head falls back, resting against the top of his shoulder. There is no place for you to go to, no way to escape, not that you want to. His strokes are rough and deep, the penetration alone hitting somewhere that sparks with intensity, increasing with his thrusts.
Muscles relaxing, you remain weightless, eyelids fluttering as another orgasm rolls in, this one less intense but just as venomous. Behind you, Simon is all feral grunts and groans. It’s right in your ear, puffs of air that brush over your earlobe and across your skin.
All you can smell is sex and sweat. It mixes with your pathetic moans and Simon’s animalistic noises, and the slap of skin. Your thighs are wet and sticky, growing drenched by the second, likely to leave a small pool on the bed.
With a grunt, Simon’s arms shift. His fingers retreat and you gasp for air. The arms holding you grab your own, seizing your upper arms, drawing them back. Your top half is bent slightly, hanging over the bed. And Simon is still fucking you, rough and wanton.
He doesn’t cease, even when he fills your pussy with his cum. Your husband fucks it into you, only stopping to bring your bodies together, holding his dick inside you. The air is thick with breathing and sticky bodies.
Simon’s arms become a cradle, guiding you both down to the bed. Draping himself over you, still nestled in your cunt, he begins again.
“I’m out.”
Your stomach flips, threatening to spill your breakfast onto your feet. “I thought there was one left. What happened to it?”
Hannah frowns. “Didn’t you use it?”
You try to think, to roll back in time and recall when, or if, you used the last emergency contraceptive. The fact that they can make it at all is an accomplishment, which is why they’re rare and only ever given to women who have a history of complications or the potential for a difficult pregnancy. Hannah managed to snag what she could but that doesn’t mean the supply is endless. There are thousands of others that might need it.
“Maybe I did,” you laugh awkwardly, brushing it aside, even though the room is fucking tilting. “Can’t remember.”
Hannah quirks an eyebrow. “I can get you condoms. There are lots of those. Plenty to supply. They’re easier and cheaper to make.”
Simon might be hurt if you brought them home. He understands your reasons for wanting to delay, but he desires to be a father. He’d listen to you now, hear you out, even talk about it, but it would still cut.
“I’ll take a few,” you smile, accepting the box from Hannah. “Wouldn’t hurt.”
Not like it’ll help now.
How many times did you and Simon fuck last night? You won’t even count this morning in bed, in the shower, and then in the kitchen because you’d need more fingers. Even now, as you stand here, you feel his cum leaking out of you to dampen your underwear. If you didn’t have that it would be all over your thighs.
Eloise bursts through the door, her hair windswept, arms full. She drops the mess onto her desk, muttering under her breath in French.
“No cart?” asks Hannah.
“No,” Elose emphasizes, digging through the loose papers like she’s desperately searching for something. “The bastards.”
As she digs, she sorts. Pushing her hair out of her face, Eloise holds out a small stack of envelopes to you. “Yours,” she says, clipped.
Rushing over, you take them before she can throw them at you. Not that you think she would, but Eloise appears irritated enough to do anything.
“Thank you,” you say brightly. The fakeness hurts.
Eloise is still muttering to herself as Hannah tries to calm her when you plop down into your office chair, staring down at the small letter from the family planner you haven’t seen since you first signed your marriage contract.
If you weren’t at work, you’d fucking scream, rip the letter apart into thousands of little pieces. Doubtful they’d send a letter to Simon. He’s not the one with a womb.
“Everything okay?”
Your head snaps up into Hannah’s concerned face.
“Course. Yeah,” you lie, folding up the piece of paper with the appointment time and sticking it into your bag.
The clock on the wall is two hours off.
You consider saying something, then think better of it. Claire’s face is serious despite her smile; her clothes ironed to smooth perfection. There isn’t even a single hair out of place.
“This is just a follow up,” she says, hands clasped and resting on top of her desk. “To check on our progress.”
Simon remains impassive, a solid wall. “Progress?”
To her credit, Claire’s smile doesn’t waiver. “On a baby.” Her tone gives her away, because why else would they be there?
That is Claire’s purpose. She’s not for the singles but the newlyweds, to play up all the joys and benefits of pregnancy. Contribute to the population, and all will be well. The first Pillar is the most important. Scratching the woman’s eyes out isn’t an option, so you settle with silence. Your opinion is not wanted, and Simon has enough presence for both of you.
“Already?” he questions. “Last we spoke, we discussed my job. Trying for a baby while I’m expected to be gone isn’t ideal. And it’s not good for her. I should be here.”
Claire sighs like she’s about to correct a child who confidently rattled off an answer. “Yes. I agree with you. It is important you’re here. But you don’t need to be here while she’s pregnant.” She smooths her hands over the wood, clasping them again.
“I’m right here,” you retort, because why won’t Claire look at you? Why is she only addressing Simon? “And I’d like my husband present.”
Claire’s gaze shifts to you and then reverts to Simon. “I’ve already spoken to a few of your superiors—”
“You spoke with Price?”
Claire cocks her head. “Who?” She quickly waves away the question. “No. It doesn’t matter. From what I can gather, you’ll only be gone, at max, two months.” She turns, finally addressing you. “You really won’t be showing then, and something might happen.”
You swallow, your tongue growing dry. “Like a miscarriage.”
Claire nods. “Exactly.” She turns to Simon. “There’s no reason for you to worry over that. Your wife is in good hands here. She’ll be looked after. Cared for.”
“That may be true, but I’d rather be here. Especially if she were to miscarry. A husband shouldn’t be away if that happens.”
Simon is without the balaclava, but you sense the Ghost you meet all those months ago. There is a dangerousness lurking under his skin, awaiting the trigger to burst forth and devour.
Claire is still dismissive. “Even so, there have been changes. The counsel overseeing the first Pillar are concerned about numbers. We sustained significant loses over the tragic fighting that happened at one of the Safe Zones.”
The same Zone Simon is leaving for in less than a week.
“They’ve raised the goal birth count to counteract the loss. I’m afraid I must insist on this. You’re also a new couple, without children. Eyes are on individuals like you.”
Without thinking, you reach out and place your hand on Simon’s thigh. He glances down and then covers your hand with his own.
“But he’s leaving,” you say. “You can’t expect this of us now.”
Claire’s expression is unmoving. This is not an argument. It’s an order. Not from her, but from people far above them. People at the top. People who have a say on what happens. The old fear, the one you thought you unburdened yourself with, seeps in, taking root in the folds of your brain. Choice is what you want, even veiled, even fake, you’ll take it. This is not choice. Funny to think you could circumvent the inevitable.
“As I said,” she sighs. “There have been some changes. For couples like yourselves,” and she opens her hands wide, “we’ll be closely monitoring your progress.”
Simon snorts, showing more emotion than he has this entire meeting. “By giving us a tracker? Keeping tabs on creampies?”
Claire’s left eyelid spasms. “Not in such crass terms. But yes. In a sense.”
“I’m not comfortable with it,” you state, loudly and with conviction. “Sex is private. That should stay between Simon and I.”
“We have no intention of being present for it. Whatever you do on your own time is between you two. But twice a week, starting today, and then resuming when Lieutenant Riley returns, you’ll come here. There are private rooms where you’ll copulate, and a doctor will discreetly confirm that Lieutenant Riley’s sperm—”
“No.”
Simon’s voice cuts through the air. It is cold, tinged with anger. Ghost is back, ready to emerge, to show fang and claw.
“I’m sorry?” coughs Claire, clearly startled.
Simon delivers each word slowly. “You heard me. No.”
Mouth open like a dead fish, Claire blinks rapidly. Always the professional but even she has her limits. “This isn’t negotiable.”
“I don’t care,” and Simon’s voice remains lethal. “Not happening.”
“We could track at home,” you offer. The safest route is compromise, and tracking at home means things can be faked.
Claire makes a sound of disgust. “I’m sorry but it’s out of the question. This is from top. There are no allowances.”
Simon stands abruptly. “We’re leaving.”
Claire rises, too. “Lieutenant Riley.”
“Piss off,” he snaps, and Claire’s face goes beet red. Reaching for your arm, you allow Simon to guide you out of the chair, and away from this mess.
“You can’t say that to her,” you say to Simon as you exit Claire’s office. “No matter how angry you are.”
“I did,” he growls. “Deserved it, too.”
You walk together, hand in hand, your mind spiraling. There’s no way the woman is serious, but why does she have any reason to lie. Family planners spin the truth all the time, but Claire was upfront about this. Confident, if you had to put a word to it.
“Simon.”
A grunt.
“Simon,” you hiss. “You’re squeezing too hard.”
His grip eases. “Sorry, dove.”
With your free hand, you gently grasp his bicep, squeezing with soft reassurance. “You’re angry.”
“How’d you guess?”
Before Simon can open the front door to the building, you come to a halt, stepping to the side. “Hey,” you murmur, tugging him along. “Listen to me.” He goes to you without hesitation, and you draw him close, placing one hand over his heart. “It’s fine. Okay? Everything is going to be fine.”
Simon’s knuckles brush against your cheekbone. “I promised you a year. Not walking back on that promise.”
“No. I know. I believe you.”
Your hand rubs absently against his chest. “They can’t force us. They can’t.”
Hey!! For years I’ve been searching for this fanfic on Wattpad and ao3. It’s a Simon ‘ghost’ Riley x Russian girl fanic. All I remember is that it was ongoing, SUPER slow burn and had like 30 chapters and they still haven’t kissed yet. It followed the mw2 game storyline. And the first chapter she was a prisoner and they broke her out. She and Soap also didn’t get along and it was really funny. Please if you have the time could you try to find it?
Is it this fic? @youmatter4416
RISK [AO3, Not Rated, 154k words, 23/? chapters, last updated Dec 2025, ongoing]
734 days. You'd been a prisoner, locked and hidden away in this solitary cell for over two years. Others there had committed petty crimes or made themselves an enemy of the Ultranationalists, and before them— the Soviet Union.
A majority of prisoners hadn't done anything wrong at all, though they were too poor, too educated, or simply too much of a threat to the regime. Anyone could have been in the cell next to yours for any reason. But you? You knew why you were expected to rot away there.
It was either die of disease or malnutrition in your cell, long forgotten by anyone who'd known your name, or be found by either side of the conflict and be killed. Death had called to you for a while; you didn't fear it. And you didn't fear the three, foreign operators when they broke through the door to your prison cell— or when the one with the skull mask held an assault rifle to your head.
❝And who the fuck is this?❞
Warnings & Tags: Implied/referenced sexual assault, implied/referenced alcohol abuse/alcoholism, sadism, torture. AFAB/Fem Reader, some use of Y/N, canon divergence, canon-typical violence, graphic depictions of violence, anxiety attacks, psychological trauma, emotional hurt/comfort, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn, explicit sexual content, switching, choking, mask kink, voice kink, blood kink, size difference, other additional tags to be added
↣ pairing: simon "ghost" riley x OC
↣ status: ongoing
↣ genre: rivals to lovers (sort of?), dramedy, angst, hurt/comfort, smut, slowburn, idiots to lovers
↣ rating: +18
↣ total word count: 248k
↣ warnings & tags: depictions of violence, injuries, military inaccuracies, smut (masturbation, grinding, fantasies, oral sex, p-in-v), minor character death (mentions), slight sexism, depictions of torture, depression, 2nd person POV
↣ listen to the playlist here
Simon Riley had always been a man in control of himself. He'd mastered his mind, his body, and his temper, all to become the perfect killing machine. Analytic, emotionless, efficient. The perfect soldier. Nothing could ever stop him. Nothing could ever tame him. So why the fuck was the new Lieutenant able to make him lose every ounce of control in his body without trying?
Michaela Duarte swore to the heavens that she wouldn't make the same mistake again. She buried herself in her work, shoving her feelings, her past, into a neat little box nestled deep inside her heart, out of reach, so that no one could hurt her ever again. So she could endure. So she could survive. So why the hell was Lieutenant Riley so good at breaching the walls she'd so carefully put up?
NSFW chapters are marked with an asterisk (*).
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗈𝗇𝖾: 𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖼𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇
one. guns akimbo
↳ the one where you're rescued.
two. paperwork
↳ staring contest no. 1.
three. the staring
↳ the one where simon stinks, stares, and scans.
four. tequila
↳ alejandro invites the 141 for some drinks in his office.
five. melatonin
↳ you help kyle stretch at the gym, then you head home.
six. protein shakes
↳ back in hereford, the 141 returns to their routines.
seven. shorts
↳ you wear short shorts to the gym.
eight. the dip
↳ it's game night. while the guys are playing uno, you decide to make an artichoke dip.
nine. do you yield?
↳ a week after the dip incident, simon offers to spar.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗍𝗐𝗈: 𝗐𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗌
ten. if the shoe fits
↳ lines start to blur the moment you set foot in azerbaijan.
eleven. the long way around
↳ frustrated, you try to get along with simon during recon.
twelve. bigger fish to fry
↳ things aren't what they seem during the raid on the factory.
thirteen. headaches
↳ the morning after the raid.
fourteen. caring makes you blind
↳ with your temper rattled by the bathroom accident, things go wrong during the raid on the lab.
fifteen. one thousand paper cranes
↳ after the mission, simon patches you up.
sixteen. the cockroach
↳ confessions, late night talks, and coffee in the morning.
seventeen. vantage point
↳ desperate, you intercept valeria's convoy in georgia, but things rarely go the way you want them to.
eighteen. toxins
↳ you try to make a risky play for the sarin.
nineteen. the bane of my existence
↳ after the mission, you reach the airstrip.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗍𝗁𝗋𝖾𝖾: 𝗅𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗋𝖾𝗇𝖼𝖾
twenty. bed rest
↳ med leave keeps you restless. ten days after the mission, you make too many pancakes.
twenty-one. the pub
↳ the 141 celebrates your recovery by heading out to a pub.
twenty-two. indulgence*
↳ desperate and frustrated, simon goes on a run to clear his head, but soon finds out that his growing obsession runs deeper than he imagined.
twenty-three. weakness*
↳ you and simon give sparring another try.
twenty-four. punishment*
↳ try as you might, the sins just don't wash away.
twenty-five. denial is a river*
↳ your body keeps betraying you.
twenty-six. playing matchmaker
↳ something's wrong between you and simon, and john intends to find out one way or another.
twenty-seven. something's burning
↳ as a token of your gratitude, you bake cookies for kyle.
twenty-eight. little deaths*
↳ it's hot outside. you're going insane. there's only one way to get this over with.
twenty nine. had to open your mouth
↳ as part of price's scheme to get you and simon together, you're forced to endure a gruelling pub quiz session that ends terribly.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗈𝗎𝗋: 𝖺𝗏𝗈𝗂𝖽𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾
thirty. london
↳ to clear your head, kyle invites you to spend the weekend with him in london.
thirty-one. damage control
↳ with you gone, johnny and price stage an intervention for simon.
thirty-two. the laundry room*
↳ duty calls price and kyle on a mission. with them gone, it's only a matter of time before the tension between you and simon explodes.
thirty-three. you shouldn't want me either
↳ hours after the encounter in the laundry room, simon gets a call.
thirty-four. losing grip
↳ in cyprus, price, kyle, and johnny struggle to maintain the status quo.
thirty-five. fallingwater
↳ a storm looms on the horizon as you infiltrate konni's base in the black sea.
thirty-six. simon
↳ falling, falling, falling, falling.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗂𝗏𝖾: 𝗅𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗂𝗇𝗀
thirty-seven. the mouth of the wolf
↳ one year ago.
thirty-eight. saviour and ruin
↳ the mask comes off.
thirty-nine. lovesick
↳ at the ULF base, the team suffers from your fallout with simon.
forty. the war ahead
↳ emotional and physical exhaustion threaten to rip the 141 apart.
forty-one. paper trails
↳ thanks to shepherd's intel, you set the course to pluto island to find makarov's oligarch financier.
forty-two. sitting ducks
↳ as the team ambushes a convoy in the frozen siberian tundra, simon wrestles with his feelings, while you finally make a decision.
forty-three. stay
↳ before you head to verdansk, you and simon finally have a conversation you'd been putting off for way too long.
forty-four. in one piece
↳ you, johnny, and simon head to verdansk to stop the gora dam from being blown to bits.
forty-five. something stupid
↳ after the mission, you patch simon up.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗌𝗂𝗑: 𝗌𝗎𝗋𝗋𝖾𝗇𝖽𝖾𝗋
forty-six. a light among the darkness
↳ simon holds your hand.
forty-seven. r&r
↳ back at hereford, simon proposes to spend some time together.
forty-eight. more than air*
↳ you're not ready to say goodnight.
forty-nine. daylight*
↳ the morning after.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗇: 𝗋𝖾𝖼𝗄𝗈𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀
fifty. trojan horse
↳ makarov is in london. with time running out, the 141 rushes to find out what he's doing before the unthinkable happens.
fifty-one. johnny
↳ the hunt reaches its breaking point.
fifty-two. what remains
↳ blood. so much blood.
fifty-three. it weighs on me
↳ johnny wakes up. the team waits in the hospital.
fifty-four. a river, an ocean
↳ simon slowly crumbles.
fifty-five. all the love i have
↳ in london, you prep for extubation. in captivity, johnny encounters an old enemy.
fifty-six. no use
↳ lines are crossed just as proof of life arrives.
fifty-seven. bring him back
↳ things finally feel like they're starting to get better.
fifty-eight. about bloody time
↳ with their hopes high, the team takes a gamble.
ghost x f! reader
tags/cw: smut (eventually). fixed simon pov. forced proximity bordering on captivity. somno. voyeurism. all that said this is probably the most wholesome thing i've ever written lol
your car breaks down in a snowstorm. a crude stranger takes you in from the cold.
After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival.
Parts:
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
thirty-nine
forty
For years I’ve been searching for this fanfic on Wattpad and ao3. It’s a Simon ‘ghost’ Riley x Russian girl fanic. All I remember is that it was ongoing, SUPER slow burn and had like 30 chapters and they still haven’t kissed yet. It followed the mw2 game storyline. And the first chapter she was a prisoner and they broke her out. PLEASE ANYONE HELP ME!!!
synopsis: You move to the countryside looking for peace, space, and a life that finally feels like your own. Instead, you find routine, watchful silence, and a neighbor who's always there before you ask.
Wc: 15.8k
CW: fem!reader, artist!reader, butcher!simon, lowkey stalker!simon if you rily squint, kinda mean!simon ( he calls you stupid but in a sexy way), slight slow burn, mention of blood, praise, rough sex, fem! masturbation, mention of breeding, unprotected sex, choking, throat-fucking, spit play, spanking, cunnilingus, analingus, brief mention phlegm, brief aftercare.
a/n: this is a reupload bc the og got labeled and i refuse to be silenced so if you read this already no you didn’t🫵🏼. Jk ily<3
MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!!
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
── .✦ The devil's in the details
A life that felt like your own.
It's all you've wanted for as long as you can remember.
Growing up meant learning the rules of the real world far too early—waking up every morning just to drag yourself to a grueling job, putting up with nagging customers and insufferable bosses who never seemed to respect boundaries.
Work. Pay the bills. Tend to responsibilities.
It disturbed your soul in a way you couldn't explain to anyone else—this idea that life was just endurance, not living.
Yet you always looked ahead. You never confined yourself to the standard everyone else seemed content with—and that refusal was why you were never taken as seriously as you wanted to be.
You learned early that dreaming meant working harder than everyone else.
I wanna make things with my hands!!
You used to squeal as a child whenever someone asked what you wanted to be when you grew up. The laughter that followed always left you quietly confused.
What a cutie.
Wait till she grows up.
As if you weren't standing right there. As if it really was unattainable.
As you got older, that desire only split open and spilled into everything else—into baking, painting, shaping.
Anything that lets your hands create something beautiful. Something meaningful.
Over time, you realized it wasn't just about making things. It was about the space to make them—to exist without being watched, corrected, rushed. To live somewhere quiet enough that your thoughts could finally settle.
It wasn't that you were a complete introvert. You loved people—you loved the ones who mattered. But there was always that persistent pull, that quiet urge to disappear for a while. To exist in a world that belonged only to you. You would spend days on end just imagining.
And lately, that wasn't enough anymore.
You didn't just want escape. You wanted peace. Quiet.
Which was why you took the first opportunity to leave everything behind—a small farming town in rural England, offering work in exchange for relocation. Painting homes. Restoring old businesses. Fixing what had been forgotten.
Everyone had something to say about it. Your family. Your friends. Even your professors warned you against it.
But you didn't hesitate.
You've technically been here for a week already. Long enough to learn the unfamiliar quiet by heart, to wait while the cottage was cleared and signed off and made official. This is the first time you're really standing in front of it.
Ideas crowd your mind faster than you can catch the—paint, repairs, small changes that would make it yours. Your chest tightens, heart swelling, a quiet certainty settling in.
The place is neglected. Weathered. Clearly left behind.
And yet, all you can see is possibility.
For the first time in a long while, it feels like everything is falling into place.
"Excuse me?"
You're pulled from your thoughts by the soft voice beside you. You blink, realizing the man has been standing there the entire time.
He smiles, polite but tentative. "I just wanted to make sure everything was to your liking. It's an older cottage, so...lt isn't exactly our best."
"No," you say quickly, unable to stop yourself from smiling. "It's perfect."
Something about your response seems to catch him off guard. He clears his throat.
"Right. Then there are just a few things we should go over before we-"
A sound cuts him off.
An animalistic, sharp, distant squeal loud enough to make you flinch, the noise carrying unnaturally through the trees. You turn instinctively, scanning the hillside.
Up the slope, partially hidden by the trees, stands a barn. One you hadn't noticed before. The doors open with a loud thud.
For a split second, you don't register what you're seeing—only that something too big has stepped into the light.
Then your stomach drops.
The man fills the doorway, massive shoulders nearly scraping the frame, his silhouette swallowing what little light spills out behind him. He's enormous-not just tall, but wide, built thick and heavy like he was carved for brute force rather than grace.
He's covered in blood everywhere. Dark, soaked into his clothes, smeared across his arms, clinging in thick, ugly patches that glisten wetly in the sunlight. There's a faint metallic smell that drifts through the air, making you scrunch your nose.
To top it off, he had a skull—patterned balaclava covering the lower half of his face.
The printed grin feels out of place against the quiet countryside, against the green fields and open sky. You can't see his mouth. Can't read his expression. Just the size of him, the way he carries himself like nothing around here surprises him anymore.
Your shoulders tense on instinct.
It was straight out of a horror movie.
"Um," you let out a small laugh, more nerves than humor honestly. "Is that... normal?"
"Oh—yeah." The man beside you clears his throat.
"Yeah, that'll be Simon. Local butcher." He gives a small, awkward laugh. "Looks worse than it is."
Suddenly, you remember everything they warned you about.
A woman alone in the woods.
Right.
You watched cautiously as the man walked toward the cottage right next to the barn, slightly more hidden in the woods than yours, slightly smaller as well.
His steps are steady, boots pressing into the dirt with an easy familiarity, like he's walked this path a thousand times.
Halfway there, he slows and glances over.
Just a look - brief, assessing—the kind of look anyone might give when they notice someone new standing where no one usually does. You tell yourself that immediately.
Still, your chest tightens in an unsettling way.
Even from this distance, his attention feels heavier than it should. He doesn't smile. Doesn't wave. Just takes you in for a moment longer than you're comfortable with.
"Don't mind him. He's a private bloke—won't be any bother."
You nod slowly as you turn, stepping back toward the cottage, the normal sounds of the countryside slowly filtering back in—though the image of him, bloodstained and broad-shouldered against the barn, stays longer than you'd like.
His view of you was completely different.
All he saw was a small figure standing out in the open.
Too small for this place.
You were dressed simply, soft neutral colors that didn't draw any immediate attention—yet somehow, you managed to draw it anyway. A long skirt brushing your ankles. A fitted tube top clinging in all the right places, bare skin catching the last of the daylight. Gold glinting faintly at your throat and wrists.
He has been watching you since the moment you arrived.
Could see you almost too clearly.
The thought settled heavy in his chest. The cottage next to his. Empty for years.
And now occupied.
His hand tightened around the handle of the front door as he went inside, the knowledge of you settling somewhere in the back of his mind.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
You wake up before the sun does.
The room is still dark, the cold from the night before still lingers stubbornly around the corners. The smell of wood and damp earth seeps into your space as you lie still beneath the covers, listening to the sound of your breathing and distant chirping of birds.
The nerves you thought you left behind start to stir low in your stomach. You barely slept, drifting in and out of shallow rest. It's funny how the waiting -the planning and the packing was easier than actually waking up inside this new life. A whole week spent imagining, filling the gaps with maybes and what-ifs, had felt gentler than this moment.
But now, lying in your own bed, on the edge of your first real day here, the anxiety creeps back into you like it never really left.
You force yourself up, wrapping your arms around yourself as if to shield against the morning cold. The wooden floor bites at your bare feet as you cross the room.
You move through your room on autopilot. Pushing aside clutter and digging through your box filled with your things to wash up. You pull on a simple black crop top and black leggings—easy and practical, something you don't mind making a mess out of. You fix your hair the way you always do before big jobs, muscle memory taking over as you gather your tools, hand steady despite the tight, resistant pull in your chest.
Your first job is a simple mural for a little flower shop in town.
You'd already been introduced earlier in the week.
Names, faces, smiles. Florence, the owner, had shown you the wall, fingers dusted with soil, excitement bright in her eyes. They'd given you free rein over the design, only asking that you keep to a preferred color palette.
"Okay," you mutter to yourself, crouching by your supplies. "One, two, three-"
You line the cans up on the floor. Reds. Yellows. Whites. Count them twice. Then again.
"Four."
You tap each lid as you go, checking them off in your head like that'll keep your nerves in place. Everything's been ready since last night. Packed. Repacked. Adjusted.
You're stalling. You know you are.
Keys cold in your palm, you stand by the door longer than necessary. Your hand rests on the handle. You inhale once before stepping out.
A loud, wet huff greets you immediately.
You freeze.
Right behind you—way too close—is a dog. If you could actually call it that.
He doesn't look very friendly. Honestly, you can't even process whether or not he is friendly by the way he stands there.
He's massive—thick-chested, broad, and you're pretty sure you saw veins popping out of his shoulders, only reinforcing how strong this dog could be. His paws dig heavy into the dirt at the bottom of your porch. Drool clings to the sides of its mouth, slipping free as it stares at you.
And for a fleeting second, the image of yesterday resurfaced. Barn doors, and a blood covered man standing in the middle of the field.
Your heart jumps straight into your throat.
You lift your hand instinctively, bending just slightly at the knees before you can stop yourself.
"Oh-okay," you breathe. "This is... fine."
"Hi," you try, softer. "Hey, puppy."
The dog doesn't move, just tilts his head to the side.
You glance around, suddenly very aware of how quiet it is. No neighbors. No cars. Just you and the beast blocking your path.
The distant sound of a truck came before you could react, stopping abruptly in front of you.
"Oi," the voice is rough and hoarsed.
"Mate. What'd I tell you?" He reaches over and pushes the door open from the inside.
The dog perking up instantly before running toward him obediently, tail wagging like nothing just happened.
It's only then you realized who it is. Who's standing in front of your door.
The butcher straight out of a slasher movie.
"You botherin' this bunny?" he asks the dog while scratching the back of his ears, happily wiggling his short tail.
Bunny?
"No bunny, just me," you laugh awkwardly before you step down off the porch, forcing yourself to stand straight even though your grip tightens on your bags.
He huffs, something close to a chuckle. "Right."
"Sorry about him," he adds.
"He likes to wander."
"You sure about that?" you ask, looking at the dog.
"Because he looked like he wasn't planning on leaving."
His lips twitches, eyes glinting with amusement.
"Saw you movin' your things yesterday," he says. "The place's been empty for a long time."
"Yeah," you reply quickly. "Feels a little weird, but I'll make it a home."
"Takes time," he shrugs, watching you for a second longer than necessary.
"You heading into town?" he asks, pointing at your bags in hand.
You blink. "Yeah. I was just—"
"Hop in," he says, nodding toward the passenger seat.
"I'll take you."
You hesitate, words catching. "You don't have to—"
"Already going," he replies simply.
You pause for a moment, eyes lingering down the road, wondering whether or not you should climb into this stranger's truck. The bark of the dog breaks your thoughts, deciding to climb in anyway. The smell hits you all at once—raw meat, metallic and heavy, softened slightly by the clean interior and a faint pine-scented freshener.
Large freezers are secured in the back.
The dog squeezes itself between the two of you, panting proudly. Still massive. Just... not focused on you anymore.
cute, you think.
"Simon,"' he introduces himself.
“Y/n."
The car ride is silent, tires crunching over gravel as the hills roll out around you. Fields stretch wide and open, cows grazing lazily, sheep dotting the landscape like pale stones. Trees sway gently in the breeze.
You watch it all pass, mesmerized. Though your thoughts are running wild, thoughts going back to the sellers words.
Private bloke
Not private enough clearly.
Your gaze shifts from outside to his truck, trying to catch a glimpse at the man.
Simon drives easily, his hand on the wheel completely scarred, you wondered if he got it from his line of work or something else, the other holds a cigarette out the window. He looks different like this—clean, relaxed, almost ordinary. He looks handsome. In a rough, rugged way.
"Need somethin'?" he asks, eyes still on the road.
"Sorry," you say quickly, eyes snapping away "Just— thinking."
"Didnt scare you too much yesterday, did i?" he asks, looking at you briefly. "You seem slightly jumpy,"
Your neck snaps almost instantly toward his hard face.
"No of course not!" You reply hurriedly,
He hums in understanding.
The truck slows outside the shop, gravel crunching under the tires.
"This good?" he asks.
You nod, already reaching for the door. "Yeah. Thank you."
He watches you for a second longer than necessary, then gives a short nod.
"I'll be back," he states.
You hesitate, but smile anyway. Shutting the door with a loud thud.
You can feel his eyes on you until the bell above the shop door rings and the world shifts back into place.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
The day goes by quicker than you expect.
One moment you're unpacking your things, the next you're moving on instinct alone. You work mindlessly— sketching, painting, letting your hands take over where your thoughts would only get in the way. People drift past on the sidewalk, slowing as they pass, curious eyes gazing at your art. A few linger. Most keep walking. You trade small smiles, nods of acknowledgement.
"Lovely," some say as they walk past.
It brings you back to before, when this was only just a distant dream.
At some point, you stop paying attention to the time.
By the time the sun begins to sink, warm light stretching long across the street, you finally step back.
The mural sits before you—unfinished, but already alive.
You begin packing up your supplies. Brushes rinsed.
Papers stacked. Movements slow, trying everything to not break the spell of the day just yet.
"Alright, Miss Florence," you call out as you step inside, setting your things down on the shop's counter.
"I'll be back around the same time tomorrow."
"Of course, love," she says easily, looking up from where she's standing. "The mural's coming along quite nicely. I'm impressed."
You smile at that, a quiet swell of pride warming your chest.
As you turn to say your goodbyes, her hand comes to rest gently on your shoulder.
"Is everything alright, love?" she asks, concern written plainly across her face.
You pause, staring at her, head tilting slightly in confusion. "Of course," you say. "Why?"
She doesn't answer right away-just nods toward the door, past the front window.
You follow her gaze.
A small sound of surprise slips from you at the sight of the red pickup truck parked outside. The big dog hangs halfway out the open window, tongue lolling as he pants happily. And leaning back against the hood is the man himself—somehow larger than he'd been in your memory. Smoke curls lazily around him, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
"He's been waiting out there a while," she says, careful.
"Oh, we live on the same road. He's just doing me a favor." You smile reassuringly.
That doesn't ease her expression the way you expect it to.
"Why?" you ask, lowering your voice without thinking.
"What about him?"
"Oh—nothing," she says. "He's just a private man, is all.
We were a bit surprised seeing you come out of his truck... and now."
"That's all?" you press, eyes flickering towards the truck.
She pauses long enough that you lift your brows.
"Not much to him, really," she says finally.
"He's been up there longer than most people remember. Bought that land years back. Kept it when no one else wanted it."
"He's the butcher, though, right?" you ask, still trying to understand the wariness.
"He is. But it's odd," she admits. "He doesn't hire out.
Doesn't expand. Doesn't sell beyond what he needs to." She presses her lips together.
"Most folks around here like things that grow, y'know? But he stays exactly the same."
You wait for more. It doesn't come - and the lack of it frustrates you more than anything she's said.
Someone near the counter clears their throat. Another voice adds, quieter, "Never missed a delivery, though."
Florence nods in agreement. "Meat's always clean. Always fresh."
You let out a small, incredulous laugh. "So... he's just serious about his work?"
She clicks her tongue.
"He's particular," she says. "About his space. His time."
"And people?"
She doesn't answer right away.
"He doesn't come into town unless there's a reason," she says instead.
"And he doesn't wait around for nothing."
You glance back toward the window, toward where the truck had been.
"Oh," you say softly.
Florence squeezes your arm once before letting go.
"Just... take care, love."
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
On the laptop by the counter, your mom watches you with that same careful look she's had since you told her where you were moving.
"So," she says, folding her hands together. "How was your first real day?"
You laugh a little. "Good. Actually... really good."
"The shop was busy enough to keep me distracted. People came in and out all day. A lot of staring at first, but not in a bad way." You popped a grape into your mouth.
"More curious than anything."
She hums, unconvinced but listening.
"They let me set up like we talked about," you continue. "People stopped to talk. Asked where I moved from. What I do. It felt nice." You glance toward the window. "Normal."
"Were you nervous?" she asks, giving you that look you know so well.
"I was," you admit. "But once I started working, it faded. I kind of forgot about everything else."
Her eyes soften at that, just a little.
"You didn't sleep much last night, though," she says. Not a question.
You pause, then shrug.
"Not really. New place. New sounds."
You smile like it's nothing. "I'm sure l'll get used to it."
She presses her lips together. "That's what worries me. You out there by yourself, in the woods."
"Mom—"
"I know," she sighs. "You're an adult. I just don't love the idea."
"I get that," you say gently. "But it's fine. Really. It's hidden, yeah—but not in a scary way."
There's a beat of silence before you add, almost offhand, "Although... people in town do talk."
Her gaze sharpens immediately.
"About?"
"About my neighbor," you say, a small laugh slipping out. "Apparently he's been up there forever. Everyone has an opinion, but no one says much."
"That doesn't make you uneasy?"
You pause, just for a second. "Not really. I mean, I met him yesterday. He was... normal. A little intense, maybe.
She doesn't look convinced.
"He even gave me a ride into town this morning," you add quickly, like it's no big deal. " ...and back
"A ride?" she repeats.
You stop to look up at the screen, finally aware of how that must sound.
"Mom, it was fine," you say. "We live on the same road. It was convenient, truly”
She exhales slowly. "I just don't like you being so isolated. Especially with people you don't know."
"I know," you say softly. "But today was good. I promise."
She studies your face through the screen, searching for something you're not even sure you could name.
"Just be careful," she says. "That's all I'm asking."
You nod.
"I will."
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
You're not sure when it became a routine.
At first, it was just convenience. You'd step outside and Simon would already be there, his red truck waiting at the end of the driveway.
Then it happened again.
And again.
Waking up. Getting ready. Eating breakfast standing by the counter because you never quite sit down anymore. Stepping outside into the cool air and the familiar sight of Simon and his dog waiting patiently for you.
Somewhere along the way, you started bringing him breakfast.
You didn't plan it. It just... happened. A plastic cup balanced carefully in your hand, still too hot to hold properly. And a sandwich wrapped in foil. You remember the first time you handed it to him-how he paused, just for a second, fingers hovering before taking it. His eyes flicked down to the cup, then back up to you.
"Didn't have to," he muttered, voice rough with sleep.
You shrugged it off, like it was nothing.
You did it again the next morning.
And the one after that.
Soon, it felt strange not to. Like something was missing when you stepped outside empty-handed.
Simon never commented on it again. He just took what you gave him every morning. Always made sure the dog stayed put while you climbed in. Always waited until you were settled before pulling away from the driveway.
"Hi baby," you'd coo, rubbing the happy dog's ear as you settle into the familiar leather of his car. Shadow-you'd come to learn the scary dog's name.
You don't remember when that became part of your normal either.
By the sixth day you stopped questioning it.
Simon always said he had business in town. Always said it like it was obvious. Like it explained everything.
And maybe it did—except some mornings, when you glanced toward the back of the truck, the bed was completely empty.
No freezers. No crates. Nothing.
You noticed it once.
Twice.
Then you stopped looking.
It was true what everyone said about him—he was private. Didn't speak unless necessary. Most of your rides passed in silence, broken only by the sound of tires on rocks and dirt and your small comments about whatever you saw outside.
He was intense in ways that was hard to ignore.
On the way he watched the road, eyes steady, barely blinking. The way his jaw tightened when he smoked, like he was holding something back even when he was alone with you.
But there was softness there too-and that was the part that caught you off guard.
It slipped in when he spoke to Shadow, voice dropping low, careful, like the dog was something fragile instead of built like a tank. The way his scarred hand reached down without him even looking, fingers rubbing the dog's belly in slow, absent strokes, like muscle memory.
Even the way he asked about the radio. Not choosing for you. Just a quiet, "What d'you want to listen to?"
You didn't know when you'd started noticing these things. Only that once you did, you couldn't stop. The intensity didn't scare you—it made the softness feel deliberate.
It was.... pleasant.
Comforting even.
Two weeks had passed before someone finally said something.
"Sure looks like Simons has a sweet spot for the new girl in town," a voice from behind the counter says, making you instantly perk up.
"Hm?" You look up, paintbrush still in hand.
They nod toward the window.
Outside, the red truck waits.
"Hes my neighbor," you shrug.
the comment lingers, even after the conversation ends.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
"You should speak more to everyone," you murmur later that night, leaning your head against the window, tired and worn out from the day.
"You eaten yet?" He asks without glancing over, completely ignoring your comment.
"You really do need to learn how to have a conversation Simon," you roll your eyes, shifting your position to where your knees are facing his side, careful not to bother the sleeping pup in the middle.
"Don't know what you mean," he hums.
You smile to yourself, eyes on the road ahead. After a bit, you add, the interaction from later that day crossing your mind, "Someone mentioned you've been acting... different lately."
He glances over for half a second. "Different?"
"Mmhm." You nod.
He doesn't say anything after that, just nods once and keeps driving.
"Have you eaten?"
You click your tongue.
"No."
The car slowly comes to a stop in front of you home, and so does the engine.
This wasn't part of the routine.
You look at him confused, head tilted to the side.
"Worked on a fresh cut today." He says, reaching forward to take the keys out. "Wanted you to have it,"
You blink, caught off guard. Before you can decide what to say, the truck door opens and he's already stepping out, calling Shadow after him with a short sound.
You watch him circle the hood, a flicker of something tightening in your chest when he reaches for your door.
It opens before you can protest. You hesitate before swinging your legs out anyway, letting him guide you without quite remembering when you agreed to it.
He doesn't crowd you. Just walks ahead, like he expects you to follow.
And you do.
When you stop at the door, keys cool in your palm, he stays a step behind you. Close enough that you're aware of his presence, the quiet weight of it pressing between your shoulder blades as you unlock the door.
You glance back once. He meets your eyes, unreadable.
Inside, you barely get the chance to say anything before he turns to the dog.
"Stay," he says—low and firm by the door.
"Simon—he doesn't have to" you say, too soft to be much of a protest.
Shadow listens anyway.
Your house oozes warmth. Simon thinks.
Not just heat—the kind of warmth that settles in your chest comfortably. It's nothing like his place. His is all cold surfaces and silence, everything where it's supposed to be, like no one's meant to linger too long.
Yours doesn't try to hide you.
There's stuff everywhere. Half-finished things. A stack of sketchbooks by the couch, paint-stained rags shoved into a corner, a couple of framed pieces leaning against the wall because you haven't decided where they go yet. It looks like someone keeps starting things and coming back to them.
It smells like you.
Not perfume. Not candles. Just you - soap, clean fabric, something faintly warm. Simon notices it as soon as he steps inside. It's different from his place.
His house never really smells like anything at all. It's just... neutral.
The kitchen's small. He isn't.
He fills the space without trying, shoulders close to the cabinets as he reaches for your drawers to find what you need. Most of them are empty. Just spices. The basics. He sets the steak down, still wrapped in paper.
You begin fixing things that don't need fixing to distract yourself. Sliding a notebook out of the way. Moving a mug. Your chest stays tight. It's the first time he's been inside your house, and the thought sits heavier than it should.
This is definitely not how you pictured your night ending.
The butcher up the road, in your kitchen. Talking about a fresh cut like it's nothing. Like this isn't strange. Like he hasn't just stepped into your space and started moving through it with quiet ease. The shift from how the night should've gone to how it's unfolding now hits you all at once, sharp enough to leave you reeling.
You reach for the remote, turning the TV on just to break it. The sound. The stillness. Anything. You crack a window open too, breeze slipping in as you step back, giving yourself something else to focus on.
"Do you need help?" you ask finally, mostly to fill the space.
"Mmm," he hums, "Where do you keep your pans?"
"Oh." You move on instinct, opening drawers, pulling things out. A pan. A cutting board. Knives. Setting them down beside him without thinking twice.
He works quietly. Salt first. Pepper. The sound of it hitting the meat sharp in the small kitchen. He heats the pan, waits for it, tests it with a flick of water that hisses and disappears.
You lean back against the counter, watching.
The steak hits the pan and the sound fills the room - loud, immediate. He doesn't rush it. Just let's it sit, pressing it down once with the tongs, then leaves it alone. The smell starts slow, then builds. Rich. Savory.
It crawls through the air until your stomach reacts before you can stop it.
You laugh under your breath, hand pressing briefly to your middle.
"That smells amazing," you beam.
He flips the steak once. Cuts into it to check. Juice beads along the surface, catching on his fingers as he pulls a small piece free.
He lifts his hand without comment, holding it out toward you.
You swear you short-circuit for a second before leaning in, taking the bite he's offering, your lips lightly grazing his finger.
He stares at you—openly this time. Long enough that it makes you shift, a shiver running through you before you look away with a quiet, breathy laugh.
"Wow," you murmur, eyes fluttering shut as you chew, letting the taste settle properly this time.
You swallow, then glance back at him, still leaning against the counter. "That's... fucking incredible, Simon."
It slips out softer than you mean it.
For a second, you forget about everything else-the tightness from earlier, the fact that he's here, in your kitchen. There's only the warmth on your tongue and the way the moment hangs between you.
"How long have you been in this business?" you ask after a pause, watching his face like you're checking for a reaction. Questions aren't usually part of your routine. Neither is this.
"Long time," he answers simply as he fixes the plates.
"Old man ran the business. Guess I kind of inherited it."
You hum, thinking it over. "Must keep you busy.
Between the shop and... everything else."
"Enough," he says, shrugging one shoulder. "Mostly keeps me close to home."
That's when he adds, almost as an afterthought,
"Don't like going into town much."
You snort softly. "Could've fooled me."
You meant it as a joke-only half truth.
He exhales through his nose, something like a huff, and shakes his head once before turning back to the plate.
The conversation ends there, easy and unspoken.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
The better part of your day had been spent exploring and wandering the area. Something you haven't gotten to properly do since you got here.
Bare feet planted right on the grass as you wandered into the field behind your backyard, the earth cool and uneven beneath you. You kept breathing in deep without really thinking about it—grass, dirt, something clean in the air. Birds flew low overhead, noisy and playful.
The trees out here were huge. Like, old old. Thick trunks, branches stretching everywhere. You caught yourself staring up at them, wondering how long they'd been standing there, what they'd seen before any of this existed.
You kept walking, pencil moving absentmindedly as you added loose doodles to the sketchbook tucked tightly under your arm. Shapes. Lines. Little half-ideas you'd probably forget later.
You explored every area you could think of, picking rocks and flowers as you went.
Every area except one.
You didn't mean to head that way at first. It just... happened. Your steps slowed as the land subtly shifted, the trees thinning just enough for a familiar structure to come into view.
The closer you got, the clearer it became.
Simon's barn sat just beyond the tree line-close enough that if you turned around, you could still see your cottage. The roof peeked through the branches, almost reassuring. Close enough that you told yourself it didn't really count as trespassing.
The barn itself was a faded, rusty red, the paint chipped and sun-worn, like it hadn't been touched in years. It clearly needed a new coat. You filed that thought away automatically, like you did with everything else.
You slowed your steps, circling wider instead of heading straight toward it.
For some reason, your mind kept dragging you back to the first day you'd seen him there. Bloody. Intimidating.
Almost unreal. The unease returned now, settling low in your stomach as uou get closer.
You'd been sneaking glances at the place ever since, careful not to get too close. Careful to remember that conversation.
"So will I ever get to see your workplace?" you'd asked once, half-teasing.
All he'd given you was that small, almost-missed smile.
"S'not meant for a bunny like you to see."
Today, though?
Today, you wanted that angle.
Simon be damned.
You huffed softly to yourself, shaking your head as you settled into the grass and opened your sketchbook. He really did have a way with words.
You started with the barn first-loose lines, quick strokes-then added his cottage beside it. It stood only a few feet away, smaller than yours, but somehow cozier. It looked like him. Minimal. No decorations. No unnecessary clutter. Just a single chair on the lawn, a small table beside it, an ashtray resting on top.
You shaded, erased and worked until the world narrowed down to paper and graphite.
You looked like a lost bunny.
The thought crossed Simon's mind as he watched you move along the upper slope behind the barn. Delicate sundress, sketchbook tucked under your arm, hair pulled back out of your face. Careful steps, like you weren't sure you were meant to be there.
He paused what he was doing and just stared.
You'd been out since early. He remembered you mentioning you had a few days free from work, maybe more, before someone else found something for you to fix or soften or make pretty. You didn't seem like the type who sat still for long. Always moving. Always making.
Simon hadn't meant to care. He usually didn't.
Years of work had trained that out of him. Grind. Routine. Blood when there had to be blood. He liked his life simple, contained, predictable. The land. The barn. The quiet. When he heard the house down the hill was being rented, it pissed him off. Change always did. New noise. New eyes.
Then you showed up.
He didn't know when exactly he started noticing the warmth—your laughter carrying up the hill, music bleeding out of your windows, sound settling into places that had been empty for too long. It didn't belong here. Neither did you.
And yet.
You stopped near the side of the barn, turning slowly, taking it in. He watched you look around like you were measuring the space, committing it to memory. You could still see your cottage from there - close enough that you were probably telling yourself it didn't count as trespassing.
He wiped his hands, stripped the gloves off, and stepped outside.
By the time he rounded the corner, you were already sitting, sketchbook open on your lap. Pencil moving.
Focused enough that you didn't notice him right away.
You were so in deep you didn't even notice the shadow towering over you at first.
He stopped a few feet in front of you-close enough to notice the tension in your shoulders, the way your fingers smudged charcoal without you realizing it.
"Can I help you."
You startled—not badly, but enough that he knew you'd forgotten the rest of the world existed.
You looked up at him, your eyes flicking briefly over the apron, the stains, the evidence of the day's work.
Your pulse jumped—he could see it—but you held his gaze anyway.
"Just….. scoping the area," you say easily, like you hadn't been caught at all, even though your heart was pounding. "Gaining inspiration."
He exhaled through his nose.
"Told you," he said. "This place ain't meant for a bunny like you."
He meant it.
Your cheeks warmed. You didn't deny it.
"I didn't walk in, though, did I."
Silence settled between you —thick, but not uncomfortable. Your pencil resumed its quiet movement against the page. He stayed where he was. Didn't tell you to pack up. Didn't step back either. You took it as a good sign.
He watched you for another moment, then shifted-just slightly. Half a turn. Enough to give you a better angle.
He didn't comment on it, but you noticed anyway.
He stayed like that—half-turned, broad shoulders cutting against the quiet of the field.
The contrast caught you off guard.
He didn't belong in a place this calm, you thought. Not with the way he was built-all sharp lines and restrained violence, hands stained from work that wasn't meant to be pretty. And yet the grass bent easily around his boots. Wildflowers pushed up near the barn wall, soft and careless, brushing against wood that had seen such degeneracy.
Sunlight filtered unevenly through the trees, catching the edge of his jaw, the scar across his face, the quiet tension in the way he held himself like he was always braced for impact.
Your pencil hovered uselessly above the page.
This—this—was the angle you hadn't known you were looking for. The way he looked out of place and perfectly rooted all at once. Feral, yes—but framed by something gentle. Something alive.
The thought settled before you could talk yourself out of it.
"Let me draw you," you said suddenly, not even pausing to think.
"Now?"
"Like this?" he asked, glancing down at his clothes.
Your cheeks warmed, suddenly aware of how dirty he must feel.
"Right-sorry, that was a weird ask," you laughed it off.
"I'll just draw your house." You shrugged, getting up from the grown and walking past him.
"Fine,” he said. "I'll do it."
You stopped short and turned back to him.
"You sure? I don't want you to be uncomfortable. I'm not the fastest-,"
He started walking before you could say anything else, already heading toward the cottage like the decision had been made the moment you asked.
You look around for half a second furrowing your brows before following.
The ground changed under your feet as you left the grass, dirt packed firmer near the house. Up close, his place felt even smaller than it had from afar. The door stood open just enough for the smell of him to drift out—wood, smoke, something iron-sharp beneath it.
He stopped at the steps and sat, elbows resting loosely on his knees, forearms bare. The position looked natural on him.
You looked at him properly then.
The daylight caught his face in a way that made you pause.
You noticed things you hadn't before.
The tattoo peeking from his neck and rolled sleeves. The way his jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, every few moments.
He looked. feral. You weren't sure that was the right word. Beastly, maybe. Grounded. Dangerous in a way that made your thoughts take a turn you didn't want to examine too closely.
You tightened your grip on the pencil, your eyes drifting despite yourself.
Brutal. Masculine.
Your heartbeat picked up as unholy thoughts flashed through your mind.
"You alright, bunny?" he asked.
You froze-caught, like a deer in headlights. Heat rushed to your face.
"Yeah," you laughed softly, shaking your head as you forced your gaze back to his face.
"Here" you say, already leaning closer before he could answer. You reached into your bag for one of the flowers you picked earlier. Small and delicate.
As you lifted your hand toward him, he tensed and leaned back slightly.
You were about to apologize when he spoke.
"Careful. Don't want you getting all dirty."
You blinked-then laughed again.
"Can I?" you asked again.
This time, he stayed still.
You tucked the small white flower behind his ear, fingers brushing skin warmed by the sun. He watched you closely, eyes tracking every movement.
The contrast—him and the delicate bloom resting there—felt almost cinematic.
"You have soft hands, bunny." he says, dead serious.
"Thanks." You breathed out, not realizing you were holding it in.
"Why do you call me that?" You ask after a few minutes.
He shrugged, like it had never needed explaining.
"Because you look like one."
You huffed a quiet laugh, shaking your head—but you stayed. Kept drawing. Like the answer was enough.
You went back to his face. Really focused. Honey-brown eyes. Thick brows. Plump, chapped lips. The scar cutting across him, running from one eye, down his nose, into his cheek like a map of where he'd been.
You shifted slightly, adjusting your grip on the pencil as you leaned closer, angling the page to catch the light.
Your knee brushed the step without you noticing.
"You got a boyfriend?"
Your hand stilled mid-line.
"Why the sudden question?"
"Well," he said evenly, "you asked one. Now it's my turn."
You laughed at that.
"No," you said. "I don't."
He hummed in acknowledgement.
Silence settled again, filled only by the pleasant sound of trees moving with the wind. You wanted to keep talking. Wanted to know him. But you weren't sure where the line was.
"You," you started. "How long have you been up here?"
"Mmm. Couple years."
You click your tongue.
"Couple years? I didn't know vague answers were allowed."
He shrugged.
"You can allow whatever you want."
You smile at that, soft and a little crooked, and let your pencil move again.
For a while, neither of you speaks.
The sounds around you settle into something easy— the wind threading through the trees, the faint creak of the barn in the distance, the quiet scratch of charcoal against paper. Simon stays still on the steps, only shifting when his knee starts to ache, careful not to disturb your line of sight.
He glances down at the page after a minute, curiosity getting the better of him.
"So," he says, casual, like it just occurred to him. "You always draw scenery?"
You hum thoughtfully, eyes never leaving the sketch.
"Sometimes. Helps me understand how things fit together."
"People included?"
"Especially people," you admit.
He watches the way your mouth curves around the words, the focus in your eyes. There's something intimate about being studied like this—not in the way people usually look at him, measuring or wary.
"You any good?" he asks.
You laugh quietly. "Guess that depends who you ask."
"Hm." A beat. "You don't look like you're guessing."
You glance up at him then, catching the corner of his mouth lifting just slightly. Not quite a smile. Something warmer than indifference.
You go back to drawing.
Time slips by without either of you noticing.
The light shifts gradually, the sun lowering behind the trees, turning the field gold and then amber. Shadows stretch across the ground, softening the sharp edges of everything around you. The flower behind his ear wilts a little, petals curling inward, but you leave it there.
Simon moves once when his leg goes numb, rolling his shoulders, flexing his hands. Letting out a low groan of discomfort. You adjust without thinking, tracking the movement, adapting your lines.
"You don't have to stay still," you say after a moment of watching him.
"I know," he replies. Then, quieter, "I don't mind."
You chuckle to yourself, heat creeping up your neck as you look back down at the page.
"You're a good model," you say, a little too quickly.
The breeze cools as evening creeps in, brushing over your bare arms and drawing a light shiver from you.
You shift your weight, knees stiff, and finally lean back, lowering the sketchbook into your lap.
"I think that's enough," you say softly.
Simon straightens a little. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
You hesitate before standing, brushing grass from your dress. There's a strange reluctance in the air now, like neither of you wants to be the one to end it.
You step closer, tearing the page free and holding it up beside his face. The distance shrinks without you meaning it to.
You tilt your head, eyes flicking between him and the sketch, comparing angles and the way the light catches him in real time versus graphite.
"Here."
He grabs it without question. For a long moment, he doesn't say anything.
That usual uneasy feeling in your stomach creeps up slowly, the one that shows up every time you finish a piece. Like you did something a little too personal and now it's just... out there.
Then, quietly, "You see a lot."
"O-oh," you say, eyes wide in surprise. "Only what's there." You lift a hand, brushing the comment off like it's nothing.
He nods once.
"Thank you," he says.
The words hang steady.
"Of course!" You smile softly.
The sun has dipped low now, the sky washed in muted pinks and purples. You step back, slinging your bag over your shoulder.
"I should probably head back," you say. "Before it gets dark."
"Yeah." He stands as well. Drawing still in hand.
"You can keep that, if you want," You call out.
"I owe you a better one, though." you laugh lightly-but the sound fades as soon as it leaves you, suddenly aware of how that might've come out.
Before you can overthink it, you give a quick wave and head down the slope, not waiting for his reaction.
His eyes linger a bit longer till you fully disappear from his view, gaze dropping to the piece of paper then back at you, breathing out slow.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
It's been a month now since you've settled into your new life. A month of building and creating and slowly disappearing into your little cottage, filling it with your things until it felt like a place you'd lived in for years instead of weeks.
A month, too, of growing closer to the local butcher.
The one who had a reputation for keeping to himself. For not interacting with anyone. Somehow, that rule never applied to you.
You were almost inseparable now. Him showing up unannounced to fix small things—a loose lightbulb, a squeaky door-like he'd been waiting for an excuse.
Any time you needed something from town or had a job lined up, he'd already be outside your door, keys in hand.
Sometimes he'd bring uncooked steak even when you'd try to refuse. Fresh cuts wrapped in paper, held out with a casual shrug. He'd say it didn't fit in his fridge. Leftover. No big deal.
A stupid white lie. One that worked every single time.
He'd gotten softer, too. Softer than you suspected anyone else had ever seen him. Letting you borrow his thick coats—or leaving them behind and claiming he'd forgotten them. When you tried to give them back, he'd just shake his head, lips pressed into that tight little smile, like the conversation was already over.
"It's cold, bunny. Shouldn't be wearing that outside," he says immediately, voice stern and low, eyes cutting straight through you.
You swallow, feigning innocence as you shrug one shoulder.
"I thought it was just gonna be a light storm,"
you reply plainly—ignoring the warning as you lean back on your hands, legs crossed, chest subtly pushed forward while you look up at him.
He scoffs and drops down beside you with an exaggerated huff, his damp shoulder bumping into yours. He's close—close enough that you can feel his heat, the steady pull of his breath. It makes your head spin.
His forearms rest on his knees as he settles in, but his eyes never leave you. Those same hungry eyes that have been plaguing your thoughts every night.
"It's gonna get really cold," he repeats, quieter now, looking straight at you.
You swallow thickly before standing, deliberately slow, giving him a full view.
"I can handle a little cold," you tease.
You barely make it inside before you're running, laughter spilling out as you hear his heavy footsteps thudding after you.
Now you're stuck inside, alone, heavy rain hammering against the roof and rattling the windows. Moisture beads along the glass near the heater, the room dim and warm. You sit on the bed with a towel wrapped around your body and hair, picking at a bowl of cut fruit balanced on your thigh.
It's one of those nights.
The kind where loneliness creeps in quietly, twisting into something darker. Where your mind betrays you with memories of every interaction you've had with him.
You'd wanted to relax. Wash the day off, eat fruit and watch tv.
But moments like this don't let you.
They turn that restlessness into something else entirely.
It makes your cunt ache.
Your thoughts drift back to the time when he showed up unannounced, claiming your grass was too high. Brought his own tools, mowed the lawn like it was nothing. Sweat clung to his skin as the sun hit him, shirt damp and sticking in all the wrong places.
You'd worn an incredibly short sundress. The kind that shows off every inch of your curves.
You remember the way he wiped sweat from his forehead with the thin fabric, lifting it just enough to give you a glimpse of his hard bulging stomach. The sight had made something low in your belly twitch.
The way his hand rested at the small of your back when you brought him cold lemonade. How close he stood. The smell of him-clean and earthy. The way his Adam's apple bobbed with every swallow.
Fuck.
Your left hand drifts down without thinking—first over your chest, then higher, barely grazing your nipple. A quiet sound slips from your lips.
Your body feels overly sensitive. Needy.
You picture his hands on you—large, rough—teasing your skin, gripping your waist, your ass. Your free hand slides between your thighs and you gasp when your fingers brush against your slick heat.
You barely touch yourself at first. Just graze your clit. Then down your folds. A soft hiss escapes you.
You're already a mess. You have been since you stepped out of the shower.
His image won't leave your mind. Everything he'd do to you. Everything you'd let him do. You saw him differently today, and it did something to you. It was something you feared from the moment you started becoming close. But you pushed that thought down.
Your fingers begin to move in slow circles, the other hand latching onto your hardening nipple as your thoughts spiral. His hands. His weight. Him bending you over, tugging your hair.
Your thighs squeeze together.
You wonder what he'd smell like fresh from a shower. What he'd look like with water clinging to his skin, a towel slung low on his hips. The thought makes your toes curl.
Your breathing picks up as pleasure builds, slick heat spreading with every movement of your fingers.
A moan slips free.
"Simon," you breathe, barely above a whisper, like saying it out loud makes it too real.
Your hand moves from your nipple to your breast, groping desperately, trying to recreate the way his scarred hand would feel. Would he pinch you? Roll it between his fingers? Replace his hand with his mouth?
Your breaths turn uneven. Your hand between your thighs moves faster.
The image of today is burned into your mind-him rough and bloodied from work, yet speaking to you so softly. It's overwhelming. He consumes your thoughts until you nearly forget why you're even here.
"F-fuck," you moan, eyes falling open as you look down at yourself—naked, wet, undone. Your hips lift, chasing the sensation.
"Si-"
Boom.
The crack of thunder is immediate, violent, followed by sudden darkness that steals the air from your lungs.
You jolt upright with a gasp, heart slamming against your ribs as if it's trying to escape. For a second you just sit there, frozen, the rain pounding against the roof like it's trying to cave it in.
"Oh-fuck," you whisper, the word shaky.
Your body catches up a second later. Awareness hits all at once and sends a fresh wave of panic through you. You scramble, grabbing the towel from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around yourself clumsily, hands trembling as you try to ground yourself. The room feels too quiet without the hum of electricity, the shadows stretching and shifting with every flash of lightning outside.
"Y/N!"
The sound of his voice cuts through the rain.
You fumble for your phone, fingers slick as you swipe the flashlight on, the harsh beam making you squint.
You don't stop to think—just move. Sweats and a tshirt. You tug them on hastily, heart still racing as you rush down the hallway, the floor cold under your bare feet.
The power's out.
When you pull the door open, rain mist clings to the air immediately. Simon stands on your porch, shoulders damp, flashlight in hand, Shadow pressed close to his leg. His face shifts the moment he sees you-concern sharpening, eyes flicking over you like he's checking for injuries.
"Hey," he says, firm but low. "You okay?"
“I—yeah” you nod too quickly, suddenly very aware of how warm your face feels, how close he is. "The power just…went out."
"Yeah." His gaze lifts briefly to the dark windows behind you before settling back on you. "You're coming with me."
"What?" You blink. "Simon, it's really not-"
"Not up for discussion," he cuts in, already stepping past you like he owns the place. He moves with practiced ease, flashlight sweeping through the room as he heads for your bedroom. "Storm's getting worse.
This place isn't insulated well enough for it."
You trail after him, flustered, hugging yourself as you watch him grab a few essentials—your charger, a hoodie, shoes—moving through your space with unsettling familiarity.
"I'll be fine," you insist, even though your voice lacks conviction. "It's just for the night, plus my things are here. I need to make sure everything's in order."
"Y/n," he replies, glancing back at you. His tone softens, just slightly. "Humor me."
You don't argue after that.
The rain blurs everything on the drive over. The road glistens under the headlights, water streaking across the windshield in uneven patterns as the wipers struggle to keep up. The cab of the truck is warm, quiet except for the storm and the low hum of the engine.
Every now and then, lightning flashes bright enough to turn the inside of the truck white, and you catch him glancing over at you like he's checking you're still there.
When you finally pull up to his place, your nerves spike all over again.
You swallow as you step out, rain speckling your skin, heart pounding harder with each step toward his door. This would be your first time inside. After everything. After all this time.
He unlocks it and nudges the door open, motioning you in first.
The warmth hits you immediately.
The house smells like him—burnt wood, something clean and sharp, iron underneath it all. It's quiet, small, almost stark. The living space is simple: couch, TV, dining table pushed close to the kitchen. No decorations. No clutter.
And then you see it. Your drawing. The same one you drew of him months ago.
It sits on the side table framed neatly. It surprised you. Your steps slow without you meaning to, something tightening in your chest as you stare at it. It's not really a big deal but, seeing your drawing there—framed, dusted, given a place—feels strangely intimate. Like walking into someone's thoughts and realizing you've been there longer than you thought.
"Oh my god," you laugh softly, reaching for it. "I can't believe you kept this."
"Hm?" He glances over, distracted at first. Then he sees what you're holding. "Oh. Yeah." He shrugs, like it's obvious. "You make beautiful art."
The words hit harder than they should.
Your face warms instantly as you duck your head, pretending to inspect the frame. "This was so long ago. I thought you'd thrown it away."
"I would never," he says, without hesitation.
Something short-circuits in your brain at that. You clear your throat, setting the drawing back where it belongs before you can overthink it.
"That's... sweet," you say, lighter than you feel.
You move toward the couch, perching on the edge at first before letting yourself sink back. It's smaller than yours, but comfortable.
Simon disappears into the kitchen for a moment, and you hear the faint clink of a kettle being set down. You sit on the couch, hugging the mug when he hands it to you, grateful for something warm to hold onto.
"Wait," you frown slightly, glancing toward the dark kitchen. "How'd you even make tea if the power's out?"
He pauses for a second before answering. "Backup electric stove,"
"Keep it around for storms." He adds
You blink. "Of course you do."
He almost smiles.
The silence that follows is comfortable, not awkward. Just the storm outside and the low crackle of the fire starting to catch as he moves to the hearth. You watch him from the couch as he kneels, stacking logs with practiced ease, striking the match. The flames take quickly, casting a soft orange glow across the room.
"There," he says, standing again. "That'll help."
He grabs his coat from the back of a chair as he passes, hesitating only a second before draping it over your shoulders. The weight of it makes you exhale.
"You don't have to—"
"I know," he says quietly. "Drink your tea."
You do, pulling the coat tighter around yourself. It smells like him. When he sits down beside you, it's close but not pressing. His knee brushes yours. Just once. Neither of you move away.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Yeah," you nod. "Just... settling."
"Mm." He leans back slightly, stretching his arm along the back of the couch. Not touching you. Not yet. But there, like an open invitation you don't acknowledge out loud.
You shift a little closer anyway, more instinct than decision. The fire pops softly. The storm fades into background noise. For a moment, it almost feels like you've done this before—like this is normal.
"You're quiet," he says after a while.
"Oh my god," you scoff softly. "Are you calling me annoying?"
He looks at you, eyebrows furrowed, and then his shoulders shake with that quiet laugh you've come to love.
"No," he says. "Just noticing."
You smile into your mug, cheeks warm.
"Y'know, i never really liked tea till i met you," you mention out of nowhere.
And he looks at you with an almost blank expression, it would've made you nervous if it was for the twitch to the side of his lips.
"Tea's good for you,"
The fire crackles. The coat stays around your shoulders. This is definitely not how you imagined your night going, but you couldn't really complain.
The quiet stretches again, but it's different now. He's closer than before-not just beside you, but aware of you in a way that makes your skin prickle. When you shift, he shifts too. When you breathe, he seems to notice.
"You're shaking," he says softly.
"I'm not," you lie automatically.
He doesn't call you on it. He just reaches out, tentative at first, resting a hand on your arm. It's warm, and it has you spiraling. Just a minute ago you were talking normally to each other, but the air shifted.
"Come here," he murmurs.
It's not an order. Not this time. Just an invitation.
You hesitate for half a second before leaning into him, your temple brushing his shoulder. His arms come around you slowly, careful, like he's giving you time to change your mind. When you don't, he tightens his hold just a little.
This is new for the both of you.
Your heart starts to race, loud in your ears, the warmth of him seeping into places you weren't prepared for.
His hand moves absently, rubbing small circles into your back. Your fingers curl into his shirt without thinking. This isn't just friendly anymore.
You pull back slightly, laughing under your breath as if that might diffuse the moment. "Okay," you say, voice a little breathless. "I— I need a second."
He releases you immediately, hands dropping, but his eyes stay on you.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," you nod quickly, already stepping away.
You turn toward the kitchen, more to put space between you than because you actually need anything.
The counter is cool under your palms when you brace yourself against it, breathing in slowly, trying to stop your heart from beating out of your chest.
You're raking your brain trying to put yourself back together, breathing in the cool air when you hear his footsteps behind you.
"You don't have to run," he says gently.
You glance over your shoulder—and that's when you realize how close he is again. Not pressing. Not touching. Just close enough that the room suddenly feels much smaller than it did a moment ago.
You straighten without thinking, taking a step back.
The space behind you disappears faster than you expect, the counter cold against your lower back. You didn't mean to corner yourself, but Simon always had a way of filing a room without ever touching you.
He's only a hair away from you. You could feel his warm breath with a hint of black tea.
Your hand comes up on instinct—flat against his chest.
He stops immediately.
"Simon," you say, quieter than you meant to.
His eyes drop to your hand, then back to your face. He waits.
"If we do this," you say, swallowing, "I don't want to pretend it's nothing."
A beat passes.
Then he nods once. Slow and certain. It's crazy how quickly your nerves and fears ease.
"It's not," he says.
His hands settle on your waist, firm, pulling you flush against him. The contact knocks the air from your lungs, your body reacting before your mind can catch up.
His mouth finds yours slowly this time-testing, deliberate. Like he's giving you a chance to pull away.
You don't.
The kiss deepens, unhurried but heavy, his lips moving against yours with a pressure that makes your knees soften. He kisses you again. And again. Each one lingering longer than the last.
His hands stay at your waist, thumbs digging in just enough to remind you he's there, holding you in place.
You breathe him in-cigarettes, beer, heat-and it makes your head spin. Your fingers curl around his neck, tugging him closer when he pulls back, chasing his mouth without thinking.
"Taste so fucking good," He exhales against your lips, a low sound, before kissing you again—rougher now.
Hungrier.
As the kiss deepens and your thoughts start to slip, you barely register his hand moving-gliding over your chest, your stomach—until it slides into your shorts with ease. You're already wet.
"Fuck, bunny—you're fucking soaked," he grunts, hands gripping you, making you gasp in surprise. He doesn't pull away, just uses the moment to kiss you again, shoving his warm tongue into your mouth.
He sucks and licks, messy and unrestrained, saliva slipping down your chin as he keeps you close, like he can't get enough.
You feel your knees buckle as he begins rubbing your clothes core with the palm of his hands, his lips trailing down your neck.
"Ah-" you squeal in surprise, the sound tearing out of you before you can stop it.
"Hump on me, bunny," he murmurs, low and steady, stilling his hand just enough to make the words land harder.
"W-what?" You blink, pulled back into yourself by his voice, trying to make sense of it as you look up at him.
His expression doesn't change.
"Want you to grind this wet cunt on me bunny," he pressed his hand harder into you.
"Oh my….. god," you breathe, the words barely there as you roll your hips down, tentative at first, trying to find your rhythm. You gasp when the pressure shifts, when his hand flexes and your body lights up in response.
Your thighs start to tremble, weak and unsteady, and you instinctively wrap your arms around his neck, anchoring yourself as your movement grows more desperate.
"Thaaat's it," he encourages, his voice rough, threaded with something that sends a fresh wave of heat down your spine. "Just like that. Feel good for me."
Your hips move on their own now, chasing the sensation without thought. One hand grips the back of his neck, fingers digging in as you struggle to stay upright. You're acutely aware of yourself-too warm, too sensitive, skin slick with sweat, the contrast of cool air and burning need making everything sharper, more overwhelming. The pleasure is dizzying, addictive, pulling you further out of yourself with every movement.
You can't imagine what you must look like right now.
You're sure you wouldn't recognize yourself—messy, unfocused, clinging to him as your body reacts faster than your mind can follow. Every shift makes your breath hitch, every second stretching thinner than the last.
The pressure suddenly increases, firmer now, more insistent. A broken moan spills from you before you can stop it, your hand flying to your mouth to stop the embarrassing sounds coming from you.
"No," he mutters, catching your wrist and pulling it away, pinning it above your head with one strong grip.
His other hand doesn't slow. If anything, it moves with more purpose, stealing the strength right out of your legs. Your head tips back against the wall as you let him take over completely, your body yielding without protest.
Your vision blurs. Everything goes white at the edges, your mouth falling open on a silent gasp as you cling to him, holding on like he's the only solid thing left. The sensation rolls through you in waves, too big to process all at once, leaving you breathless and shaking.
He keeps you close, holding you steady as it passes, murmuring praise against your skin—soft words, grounding words—until your breathing slowly evens out again. Your chest feels tight, full in a way you don't quite understand yet.
"I-" you try to speak, but the thought slips away before you can finish it.
Without warning, his arms hook behind your knees and lift you effortlessly. You gasp, startled, hands flying to his shoulders as you cling to him, eyes wide, your body leaning into his instinctively despite the shock.
"What are you doing?" you ask, breathless.
"M'gonna take care of you properly, bunny."
His room is simple. A bed. A chair. A small desk. No TV.
No pictures. Exactly what you expected.
He lays you down carefully before gripping the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head. Moonlight spills through the open window, tracing every scar and mark along his skin, the faint trail of hair leading up his chest. It makes you press your legs together, biting your lip.
"Like what you see?" he teases.
"Shut up," you mutter-cut off when his mouth crashes into yours. The kiss is hard, wet, unrelenting. He doesn't hesitate, tugging the flimsy top over your head and tossing it aside, leaving you bare beneath him.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and you catch the strain in his pants, dark and obvious. Your mouth goes dry at the sight.
His hands slide up your stomach, stopping at the hem of your panties. He doesn't pull them down. Just hooks his fingers there, eyes roaming over you like he's taking inventory. It almost makes you self-conscious.
The hunger in his gaze burns through you, settles low in your belly, makes you feel exposed in a way that's almost empowering.
Your hands fall uselessly to your sides as you whine softly, body arching. Back arching as you expose yourself more to him. You want his weight back on you—his warmth. You need it.
"Look at you, bunny," he murmurs, hands coming back to grip your stomach before leaning up to cup your breasts. "So fuckin perfect."
Your head tips back at the sensation, a soft, surprised sound slipping from your throat. Heat coils tight in your lower belly, dampness clinging to the fabric between your legs. The cool night air brushing over your skin only makes it sharper.
His eyes rake over you, eyes shining as he takes you in.
Your chest rises and falls unevenly, skin flushed, lips swollen from biting and kissing. He leans down, mouth trailing from your neck to your chest before closing around your nipple.
You moan, fingers tangling in his hair as his tongue circles, sucking hard. His other hand grips your opposite breast, kneading, rough enough to make your breath stutter. Dark marks bloom in his wake.
"Si-" you swallow hard, hands clutching his shoulders as his mouth drags lower, down your stomach, lingering before pressing against your soaked panties.
He inhales deeply.
You're so sensitive it makes you shake, his touch warm and overwhelming, like he knows exactly how to pull every reaction from you.
His lips brush your thighs, soft at first, teasing. His tongue slips out, tasting you through the fabric, biting and nibbling while his hands draw slow circles along your legs. Your thighs tremble, the sensation sharp enough to sting your eyes.
"Smell so fucking good," he mutters.
"Please," you whisper, lifting your head to look at him.
"Need you."
Your body burns with want, embarrassment mixing with it until you don't know which is worse.
"Be patient," he groans, eyes flicking up to meet yours.
"I'm gonna take my time with this sweet cunt."
You whine, defeated, frustration curling tight in your chest.
True to his word, he doesn't rush. He kisses, licks, bites—taking his time, savoring every sound you make. You can hear it in his breathing, feel it in the way his grip tightens.
Your hands fly everywhere, unsure where to land as his mouth traces every freckle, every curve, every soft stretch of skin.
His fingers hook into the waistband of your panties, thick and rough, pausing there. The thought of how easily he could tear them away makes your breath hitch.
"Don't zone out on me," he murmurs, tapping your hip before hooking his fingers properly into the fabric. He looks at you, waiting.
"Please."
He kisses your stomach once before tugging them down, tapping your ass so you lift for him. He slides them off with practiced ease, tucks them into his back pocket without a word.
You instinctively try to close your legs, face burning— but he grips your thighs, forcing them apart. His stare is slow, intense as he takes you in, swollen and slick, clit peeking out, folds glistening in the moonlight.
"Prettiest fuckin' pussy l've ever seen," he groans, hands rubbing up and down your thighs, gaze burning into you until you tremble under it.
"Stop messing around," you reply, tummy filled with butterflies as he continues to watch you with mindful eyes. You lift your hips up, wanting any sort of friction from the man.
He smirks, leaning down without breaking eye contact.
His tongue slips out, presses flat against you—covering you fully, dragging over your hole and your clit before he seals his mouth around you.
The contact steals the breath right out of your lungs.
You throw your head back instantly, overwhelmed by the heat of his mouth—warm, wet-slick with his saliva and your own juices. It's too much all at once, your body reacting before you can even think.
He takes his time with it. Licking. Sucking. Lapping at every sensitive spot, tongue tracing your folds with intention. A low moan leaves his throat, vibrating straight through you, sending a sharp jolt up your spine.
He grunts into you, fully focused now, like nothing else exists. His tongue doesn't stop, doesn't rush—just works you steadily while his cock strains hard and aching beneath him. Every sound you make matters.
Every moan, every broken whine, every shaky plea. You feel it in the way he presses closer, the way his breath stutters.
You were a weakness he learned to accept the moment he met you.
He pulls back just long enough to make you shiver before pressing a finger against you. Your mouth snaps shut as you watch, breath caught. His fingers are thick. Calloused. The stretch alone makes you slicker.
One finger pushes in. Slow. Then a second, following behind it, filling you deeper.
"Oh my god, Simon—"
They're big. So big it takes a second for him to settle, fingers stopping fully buried inside you before his mouth drops back to your clit, sucking it in again like he's been waiting for it.
Your thighs start to shake. Your end is nearing embarrassingly quick. But you didn't care, only focusing on the immense pleasure he was giving you.
"C'mon, give it to me," he groaned against your cunt, fingers rubbing inside you faster, harder. Your thighs shook, and the room filled with the sound of your squelching. "Gimme your cum."
It hits you in waves—fast, blinding, overwhelming. You cry out, tears slipping free as your body tightens around his fingers, pleasure tearing through you in a way that leaves you sobbing. You've never felt anything like this. Never been this far gone.
The world narrows to sensation. Sound. Heat.
He laps it up like an animal, only adding to the sensitivity of your core. He doesn't let you come down.
"Si-" you whine, hands pushing at his head just enough to make him look at you.
"Hmm?" he hums, lips brushing a soft kiss where he just had you before standing up off the bed.
Your ears are still ringing from the mind-numbing orgasm, head fuzzy, body slow to catch up. Your eyes are wide as you stare at him, at the way his cock twitches between his thick thighs like it's got a mind of its own. You didn't even notice when he had fully undressed himself.
It's huge.
So thick it barely holds itself upright.
Your brain scrambles, a thousand thoughts crashing at once. There's no way. That can't possibly-
Would this even fit inside you?
But your body doesn't care what your mind thinks.
Your heart kicks up again, anticipation curling low in your stomach, your still—sensitive, drooling mess aching for more even after everything it's just been through. The sting is still there. The fullness lingers. And somehow, you want it again anyway.
The tip of his shaft catches the light, a thick vein running along it, pulsing. His balls hang heavy and full beneath it. Trimmed hair. Thick, solid thighs flexing when he shifts his weight.
You're pretty sure you're drooling when you're ripped out of your thoughts when he speaks.
"You think you can take it, bunny?"
Your body burns, but you nod nonetheless. The arousal you felt was almost too much to bare.
"Let me see that pretty cunt," he lifts your knees up, exposing both of your holes.
Your arms hook beneath your knees, making it easier for him to position himself, lining his cock right at your greedy hole. Your heart pounds in anticipation, lip caught between your teeth hard enough you're sure you might draw blood.
He drags the head along your clit first, smearing you with his precum—then taps it there. Hard.
"Hurry-" you whine, brows furrowed in frustration.
"Just the tip, baby," he breathes, more to himself than you. "Just the tip."
For a split second, you think you understand what he means. Then he pushes in.
"Fuck-" you cry out, sharp and startled, your body locking up on instinct as your walls convulse around him, struggling to take his size. The sensation borders on too much immediately—too full, too sudden. It pulls a low grunt from his chest as he freezes, every muscle in his body going taut.
No. He can't do that. Can't hurt you.
"Shhh," he soothes quickly, voice dropping, steadying.
His hand moves where you need it most, rubbing slow, gentle circles, grounding you while your body panics around him.
Your head feels fuzzy. Like everything is happening underwater.
"Si-ah-too-" you babble, words falling apart as your eyes roll back, fingers digging into his shoulders. You can feel him inching deeper, barely moving, and every fraction of an inch feels like your body is being asked to do something impossible.
Too big. Too thick. There's no way this should fit.
He's not even halfway there, and you already feel stretched past anything you've known. Your mind flickers in and out—whines and broken cries are the only sounds you can make as he keeps going slowly, carefully.
Your hands slide down to his, gripping tight like you're anchoring yourself.
"Hey," he whispers. "Breathe for me."
You try. A shaky inhale. Then another. Tears slip down your temples as you force your body to listen.
He looks nothing like you feel.
He's calm. Focused. Completely present. Sweat beads along his forehead, his chest rising and falling in measured breaths, eyes locked on where you're taking him in.
Then warmth—unexpected.
You jolt lightly as he spits, the heat of it hitting your clit before spreading where you're connected, slicking things enough to take the edge off.
"Too big," you cry, lifting your head to look.
You almost wish you hadn't.
It looks unreal. Wrong. Your body stretched wide around him, doing something you don't understand how it's doing. You swear you can feel him everywher—high, deep, overwhelming.
He hasn't looked away once.
"Almost in, baby," he tells you.
Then he stops. All the way in.
You lose your breath completely. You've never felt this full—like there's no space left inside you at all. His body presses close, skin slick with sweat and your heat, and you can't tell where you end and he begins anymore.
Everything inside you feels pulled tight, stretched to its limit. He's so deep you swear you feel him kiss your cervix.
Your eyes squeeze shut as you cling to his shoulder, focusing on the slow movement of his hands as they slide up your sides, steady, reassuring. You breathe again slowly . Letting your body adjust inch by inch.
Letting the shock fade.
"Tell me when to move," he says quietly.
You don't answer right away. Just a quick nod after a while of feeling his body pressed to yours.
When he finally does move-just barely-the discomfort softens into something else entirely.
Something deep and rolling and unfamiliar. Pleasure replaces the sting in waves, so intense it makes your toes curl.
He moves at a languid pace, dragging himself out of you just a bit before pushing back in. Slowly. Making you feel everything.
You're growing desperate. All the pent—up tension you've been carrying for months finally spilling over, burning hot and restless.
You want him. So bad.
"You can be rougher-ah,"
"Rougher?" he chuckles, lifting a hand to wipe the tears from your face. His thumb brushes your cheek, so gentle it makes you purr. "You don't want me to be rougher, baby."
His hips snap forward sharply, pulling a surprised gasp from your throat.
"I do!" you say breathless.
You see it then-the veins standing out along his arms, the way his jaw tightens as he clenches his teeth. He's losing it. Barely holding on anymore.
And you don't want him to.
"Please," you whisper, voice low, rolling your hips just enough to make him groan.
His hands fly to your hips, pinning them hard against the bed.
"You don't know what you're asking for."
The smile on your face disappears just as quickly as it came when he snaps his hips forward again—harder this time. The movement is rough and powerful, stealing the air from your lungs.
"You ever had your neck squeezed before, bunny?" His large hand comes up loose at first, fingers barely resting against your throat, and your breath already hitches. Then he squeezes harder, thumb pressing into the side of your neck.
Your vision blurs around the edges, pleasure shooting straight through you. You don't hear a word he says after that, though the soft smile that creeps on your face doesn't go unnoticed.
Something flips inside him.
He's not the caring giant anymore-the one coaxing orgasm after orgasm out of you, softly rubbing your side and clit to ease the stretch of his cock. No. This version of him is different. Rougher. Bolder. It makes your toes curl in the best possible way.
All you hear is ringing and the sound of his hips hitting your ass.
Your mouth hangs open in a perfect O, no sound coming out except the faintest whimper dragged from you with every thrust. Your eyes cross as you let him do whatever he wants with your body.
You're a drooling mess. Nothing but babbles and broken cries spill from your lips as your eyes roll back, nails clawing at the messy, wet sheets that smell like nothing but you and him.
"Stupid thrust fucking thrust bunny thrust."
The sound sends a warm, overwhelming rush through your stomach, like the drop of a roller coaster. His hips don't falter, and neither does his grip.
With every movement, he rolls his hips in slow circles, making sure you feel every inch, every vein dragging against your sensitive, gummy walls. His hand loosens at your throat only to slide down and grab your tits hard.
"Simiiimon-ah—ah-ah," you cry, voice breaking with each powerful snap of his hips. Short, deep thrusts. His pubic bone slamming into your swollen clit every time.
"So fuckin' tight," he growls. "You feel so fuckin' good一fuck.”
He lets go of your neck, hands moving down your body as his hips slow, grinding into you instead. "I'm gonna rip you in half," he mutters to himself, the rumble in his chest deep and dark.
You don't hear him.
You're too busy gripping the sheets for dear life as the sinful sounds of skin slapping, cunt squelching, and your broken moans fill the room.
The sounds you make only fuel the heavy throbbing of his cock. "Feel good, baby?" he breathes, chest heaving as he looks down at your fucked-out expression, a small smile pulling at his lips.
"Yesyesyes," you babble, drool slipping from your mouth, eyes fluttering as you struggle to keep them open.
"Please-" Your cheeks are wet with tears, hair a mess, body buzzing with heat and pleasure. "Please go faster."
You lift your hips, digging your heels into the mattress, grinding back into him with everything you have left.
He lets out a deep grunt-surprised, pleased.
"Yeah, baby," he teases, thumb sliding down to rub your clit. "You want me to go faster?"
"Please, need it," you sob pathetically. The only thing you care about is pleasure—coming apart on him and letting him ruin you again.
"Work for it, then," he pants, chest rising and falling as he watches your blissed—out face. Beautiful. Fucking wrecked.
Your hips jerk erratically now, calves trembling, sweat slicking your skin as he lets you use him to get yourself off.
"You're-ah-being—mean," you sniff, your legs giving out slowly.
The familiar pressure coils tight in your stomach. Your clit is red and angry with every twist of his thumb, his free hand coming up to squeeze and play with your tit.
Before you can stop it, another orgasm washes through your whole body.
"Fuck," he he throws his head back when you clamp around him, tight and desperate, refusing to let go.
It takes everything in him not to come right then and there, buried deep inside your hot, gummy walls.
You're left gasping, clutching the sheets to your chest like you need something solid as you come apart on his cock.
As you come down, he slowly pulls out of you.
"Ah—" you yelp, the sudden emptiness uncomfortable, almost cold without him.
"Bend over."
His eyes are completely dark as he steps back, cock twitching and leaking. Before you can even lift your head, he's gripping your thighs, dragging you forward and flipping you onto your stomach, then onto your knees. The sheets beneath you are soaked.
"C'mon, bunny," he says, slapping your ass impatiently. "Bend over."
"M'gonna breed this fuckin' cunt," he mutters.
His hands grip your waist, putting you exactly where he wants you—on your knees, tits pressed into the bed, ass up just like he's imagined too many times before.
And you. You're just a cock-drunk, drooling mess. You can't even form words. Just cries and whines spilling out of you.
Music to his ears.
Fuel to his aching cock.
He positions himself behind you, a heavy hand coming down on your ass. The sharp sound echoes through the room, followed by your broken cry.
"Sii-"
His thrusts are messy—messier than before.
Desperate. His grip is bruising, fingers digging into your hips as he pounds into you harder, deeper. You chant his name like it's the only word you know.
Your body starts to betray you first. Your legs tremble, knees threatening to give out as the rhythm stutters, breaks, turns reckless. You can't keep up anymore—can't tell where one movement ends and the next begins. Every nerve feels lit, stretched thin, buzzing too loud inside your skin. Your breath comes apart in your chest, sharp little gasps you can't control, like your body already knows what's coming before your mind does.
You're right there—so close it hurts. The need swells until it feels unbearable, like pressure behind your ribs, behind your eyes. Your grip tightens, fingers clawing uselessly at his pillow.
"Fuuuuck, baby!" he nearly yells, hips snapping animalistically, your whole body jolting with every thrust.
"Fuckfuckfuck-" you scream, loud and unfiltered, grateful there aren't neighbors close enough to hear.
The pressure builds again-and just before you can release, he pulls out.
You sob at the emptiness, looking back at him. "No! — please.
He smirks, gripping his cock, a white ring of your slick at the base before he leans down, spreading your ass. Both holes are on display. You can't stop him even if you wanted to.
He spits directly on your asshole before burying his tongue there, licking and slurping like a man starved.
From your clit to your ass, messy and obscene. His hand pumps his cock as he eats you, smacking and pinching your ass, tongue pushing deep enough to make you cry into the pillow.
"Please—want your cock, Simon," you beg, pushing back into his mouth without thinking.
“Yeah, baby,” he mocks, voice pitched higher. “You want this fat cock in your tummy?”
His fist tangles in your hair, jerking your head back until your neck strains, eyes lifting to meet him looming over you.
"Yes, please," your voice is horsed, neck straining with veins popping out. Chin wet and you're panting like a dog.
It made Simons cock impossibly harder.
He sinks into you again-no pause, no waiting. He bottoms out and immediately starts fucking you without restraint, the bed squeaking so loud you're sure it'll break. He slaps your ass, pulls your hair harder, forcing your back into an uncomfortable arch.
"This is what you wanted huh baby," he pants, hips never faltering, yet they get sloppy. His end is nearing.
He knows it by the way his balls tighten. Still dripping a sticky mess of both of you.
Then everything disappears.
Your vision blurs as you cum all over his cock again—no warning, no buildup.
You don't even know how many orgasms you've had.
This last one knocks you out completely.
You collapse onto the bed when he finally lets go, lying there motionless, drool slipping from your mouth as he uses your body for his pleasure.
"Fuck, bunny," he laughs. "Came so fast."
He doesn't give you time to recover.
He hauls you back up onto your hands and knees, positioning himself at the edge of the bed-your face level with his throbbing cock. Every twitch sends a bead of precum sliding down the angry red tip, already mixed with your cum.
"Make me cum, bunny."
"Wha-?" you mumble, still coming down from your high, vision spotting as you look up at him.
"C'mon, bunny," he groans. "You can't just leave me high and dry."
His hand comes down to grip his thick cock, the other cupping his balls. Your mouth waters instantly.
And then his earlier words echo in your head.
M'gonna breed you.
You whine softly and reach up, nudging his hands away so you can replace them with yours. You shuffle forward on your knees, settling in as you lean closer, both hands moving slowly up and down his shaft.
You tilt your head, staring up at him as you muster the best face you can manage, cheek brushing against the warm weight of him. You love the sounds he's making—ragged moans as he loses control.
"Want it inside," you beg.
Simon's eye twitches.
His breathing turns rough, uneven, gaze hardening as they lock onto you. For a split second, you almost wonder if you've crossed a line.
His grip snaps tight in your hair, the burn sharp enough to steal your breath. You barely have time to yelp before he's shoving his cock into your mouth, the tip hitting the back of your throat hard.
It's sudden. Too sudden.
You choke, gagging around him as he thrusts shallow and rough, spit bubbling at your lips and dripping down onto him.
Your head rocks back and forth as you grip his thighs to steady yourself, fingers digging in.
His grip doesn't falter, using it as leverage to drive you deeper. It's brutal. Too much. The sounds you're making would make you blush under any other circumstance.
Your throat burns, gag reflex overwhelmed as you choke around him, fluids spilling from your mouth every time he pushes deeper. Your cunt gushes as he uses your throat for his own pleasure.
"Yeeeeah gimmie that—gurg, gurg—baby."
He grips the base—what you can't fully take-along with his balls, forcing it down. Your eyes widen as you physically feel the stretch of your throat around him.
You tap at his thighs hard and fast, panic spiking just before he finally releases you.
You pull back immediately, coughing, gagging as phlegm spills from your mouth. Your face is a complete mess when he grips your hair again, jerking himself fast and hard. His expression twists with pleasure and desperation, lips caught between his teeth.
Your hand slips down between your legs, rubbing at yourself as he works his cock over your face.
"M'close," he breathes, chest red and heaving, focus razor-sharp.
"Fuuuck, bunny."
Before you can say anything, you feel it—sticky ropes splashing across your face, catching in your hair, your lashes, your brows, your lips. Everywhere. It lasts longer than you expect, enough to leave you stunned.
He grips the tip, giving a final stroke before tapping your cheek and pulling away.
You look up at him as he backs off, dragging your fingers through the mess on your face and bringing them to your mouth, licking them clean.
"Don't do this to me, bunny," he groans.
You giggle softly, the sound weak and breathless, before collapsing back onto the bed. The exhaustion finally catching up on you. Every muscle feels loose, heavy, like your body forgot how to work all at once.
The mattress dips as he moves closer again, slower now.
"Easy," he murmurs, hand settling at your side to keep you from rolling awkwardly. He grabs something off the nightstand—a cloth, a shirt, whatever's closest—and gently wipes at your face, patient, thorough.
Your eyes flutter half-closed as he works, the room quiet except for the sound of your breathing finally evening out. The tension from before disappearing and turning into something soft, and peaceful.
"There you go," he says softly, brushing your hair back from your forehead. His thumb lingers there for a second longer than necessary.
You hum in response, too spent to form real words.
He shifts again, sliding into the bed beside you and tugging the covers up around you, making sure you're warm. When he settles beside you, he pulls you in without asking, arm firm and grounding around your shoulders.
You melt into him easily.
For a while, neither of you says anything. You just lie there, your head on his chest, his breathing steady beneath your ear. His hand traces slow, absent lines along your arm.
"You okay?" he asks quietly.
You nod against him, eyes closed. "M'good,"
His arm tightens just a little.
"Good."
You smile to yourself, fingers drifting over the scars and dips along his chest. "Thought you said you were gonna breed me," you joke softly.
He lets out a low laugh, warm and deep, the sound vibrating through you.
"That was heat talk, bunny," he says easily. His hand slides to your waist, fingers trailing along your stretch marks.
You tilt your head, listening.
"When i do cum in your pretty pussy," he pauses, other hand reaching to drag a finger along your cheek. "It's gonna be for a reason.
Simon paints a pretty picture bent over the open hood of your car wearing his tight black tee and blue jeans.
You've put your car through some wear and tear lately, and being the sweetie pie boyfriend he is, Simon offered to look things over, see the state of things and start fixing anything that might need it. He roped you in as well, pulling you over to his side and talking through the things he started messing with.
He also insisted you get your hands in there, to be the one to uncap, unplug, and pull things out and put it back together again. Which is how the both of you end up with oily, car-gunk covered hands.
Simon's going on a spiel about spark plugs, asking how old the battery is, mentioning that you're a little low on wiper fluid but that's alright he's got some rolling around somewhere he'll use to top you off when you take your hand, covered in that gunk, and land it solidly right on his ass, an impeccable, tar-black hand print left behind on the blue of his jeans.
Everything about Simon stops. His voice cuts off mid sentence and his muscles freeze like someone just hit his pause button. Eventually, his head turns towards you at a glacial pace to see you biting back a shiteating grin, your laughter locked down behind your teeth. His body twists a little bit to be able to look at the hand print that now adorns his backside like a brand in the perfect shape of you.
His dark eyes slowly roll back up to yours, a familiar glint flickering in their depths which makes you start to back up. You hold up a finger at him as if to ward him off as that impish look spreads to his scarred lips.
He follows you, no, he stalks towards you as you try to make your escape around the car. The saunter in his hips and the way he holds his shoulders up, looking down at your nervous giggling makes your heart pound a little faster for a multitude of reasons.
As he passes it, he swipes his hand over the side of your admittedly filthy-as-fuck car, getting a good handful of the dirt and road muck.
"Don't you dare," you try to scold him, but it doesn't have the effect you want it to spoken between your nervous laughter. All he does is put his hands together and wipe his palms against one another, getting both of them nice and coated.
You bolt.
And you barely get two steps away until arms wrap around you from behind and you're lifted off the ground. Simon manhandles you as you let out a squeal you would later deny you're even capable of making.
His big, nasty hands grab all over you as you try and fail to wriggle away from them. You can barely get a breath in from the release of your laughter and your pleas for him to, "Unhand me, you brute!"
Eventually, when he's deemed you good and marked up, he hoists you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and brings you back over to your car. He lowers the hood back down and sits you down on it. He stands between your knees, hands grabbing your hips as you try to get a hold of yourself.
The both of you are gross, neither of you spared during the ruckus. He wipes the side of your face with the cleaner back of his hand.
"You're lucky you're cute," he says before leaning down to give a gentle kiss to your smiling lips.
You just reach around and grab the other side of his ass to even him out.
↣ pairing: simon "ghost" riley x OC
↣ status: ongoing
↣ genre: rivals to lovers (sort of?), dramedy, angst, hurt/comfort, smut, slowburn, idiots to lovers
↣ rating: +18
↣ total word count: 228k
↣ warnings: depictions of violence, injuries, military inaccuracies, smut (masturbation, grinding, fantasies, oral sex, p-in-v), minor character death (mentions), slight sexism, depictions of torture, depression (will update as the story goes on)
↣ listen to the playlist here
Simon Riley had always been a man in control of himself. He'd mastered his mind, his body, and his temper, all to become the perfect killing machine. Analytic, emotionless, efficient. The perfect soldier. Nothing could ever stop him. Nothing could ever tame him. So why the fuck was the new Lieutenant able to make him lose every ounce of control in his body without trying?
Michaela Duarte swore to the heavens that she wouldn't make the same mistake again. She buried herself in her work, shoving her feelings, her past, into a neat little box nestled deep inside her heart, out of reach, so that no one could hurt her ever again. So she could endure. So she could survive. So why the hell was Lieutenant Riley so good at breaching the walls she'd so carefully put up?
NSFW chapters are marked with an asterisk (*).
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗈𝗇𝖾: 𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖼𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇
one. guns akimbo
↳ the one where you're rescued.
two. paperwork
↳ staring contest no. 1.
three. the staring
↳ the one where simon stinks, stares, and scans.
four. tequila
↳ alejandro invites the 141 for some drinks in his office.
five. melatonin
↳ you help kyle stretch at the gym, then you head home.
six. protein shakes
↳ back in hereford, the 141 returns to their routines.
seven. shorts
↳ you wear short shorts to the gym.
eight. the dip
↳ it's game night. while the guys are playing uno, you decide to make an artichoke dip.
nine. do you yield?
↳ a week after the dip incident, simon offers to spar.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗍𝗐𝗈: 𝗐𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗌
ten. if the shoe fits
↳ lines start to blur the moment you set foot in azerbaijan.
eleven. the long way around
↳ frustrated, you try to get along with simon during recon.
twelve. bigger fish to fry
↳ things aren't what they seem during the raid on the factory.
thirteen. headaches
↳ the morning after the raid.
fourteen. caring makes you blind
↳ with your temper rattled by the bathroom accident, things go wrong during the raid on the lab.
fifteen. one thousand paper cranes
↳ after the mission, simon patches you up.
sixteen. the cockroach
↳ confessions, late night talks, and coffee in the morning.
seventeen. vantage point
↳ desperate, you intercept valeria's convoy in georgia, but things rarely go the way you want them to.
eighteen. toxins
↳ you try to make a risky play for the sarin.
nineteen. the bane of my existence
↳ after the mission, you reach the airstrip.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗍𝗁𝗋𝖾𝖾: 𝗅𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗋𝖾𝗇𝖼𝖾
twenty. bed rest
↳ med leave keeps you restless. ten days after the mission, you make too many pancakes.
twenty-one. the pub
↳ the 141 celebrates your recovery by heading out to a pub.
twenty-two. indulgence*
↳ desperate and frustrated, simon goes on a run to clear his head, but soon finds out that his growing obsession runs deeper than he imagined.
twenty-three. weakness*
↳ you and simon give sparring another try.
twenty-four. punishment*
↳ try as you might, the sins just don't wash away.
twenty-five. denial is a river*
↳ your body keeps betraying you.
twenty-six. playing matchmaker
↳ something's wrong between you and simon, and john intends to find out one way or another.
twenty-seven. something's burning
↳ as a token of your gratitude, you bake cookies for kyle.
twenty-eight. little deaths*
↳ it's hot outside. you're going insane. there's only one way to get this over with.
twenty nine. had to open your mouth
↳ as part of price's scheme to get you and simon together, you're forced to endure a gruelling pub quiz session that ends terribly.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗈𝗎𝗋: 𝖺𝗏𝗈𝗂𝖽𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾
thirty. london
↳ to clear your head, kyle invites you to spend the weekend with him in london.
thirty-one. damage control
↳ with you gone, johnny and price stage an intervention for simon.
thirty-two. the laundry room*
↳ duty calls price and kyle on a mission. with them gone, it's only a matter of time before the tension between you and simon explodes.
thirty-three. you shouldn't want me either
↳ hours after the encounter in the laundry room, simon gets a call.
thirty-four. losing grip
↳ in cyprus, price, kyle, and johnny struggle to maintain the status quo.
thirty-five. fallingwater
↳ a storm looms on the horizon as you infiltrate konni's base in the black sea.
thirty-six. simon
↳ falling, falling, falling, falling.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗂𝗏𝖾: 𝗅𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗂𝗇𝗀
thirty-seven. the mouth of the wolf
↳ one year ago.
thirty-eight. saviour and ruin
↳ the mask comes off.
thirty-nine. lovesick
↳ at the ULF base, the team suffers from your fallout with simon.
forty. the war ahead
↳ emotional and physical exhaustion threaten to rip the 141 apart.
forty-one. paper trails
↳ thanks to shepherd's intel, you set the course to pluto island to find makarov's oligarch financier.
forty-two. sitting ducks
↳ as the team ambushes a convoy in the frozen siberian tundra, simon wrestles with his feelings, while you finally make a decision.
forty-three. stay
↳ before you head to verdansk, you and simon finally have a conversation you'd been putting off for way too long.
forty-four. in one piece
↳ you, johnny, and simon head to verdansk to stop the gora dam from being blown to bits.
forty-five. something stupid
↳ after the mission, you patch simon up.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗌𝗂𝗑: 𝗌𝗎𝗋𝗋𝖾𝗇𝖽𝖾𝗋
forty-six. a light among the darkness
↳ simon holds your hand.
forty-seven. r&r
↳ back at hereford, simon proposes to spend some time together.
forty-eight. more than air*
↳ you're not ready to say goodnight.
forty-nine. daylight*
↳ the morning after.
𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗇: 𝗋𝖾𝖼𝗄𝗈𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀
fifty. trojan horse
↳ makarov is in london. with time running out, the 141 rushes to find out what he's doing before the unthinkable happens.
fifty-one. johnny
↳ the hunt reaches its breaking point.
fifty-two. what remains
↳ blood. so much blood.
fifty-three. it weighs on me
↳ johnny wakes up. the team waits in the hospital.
fifty-four. a river, an ocean
↳ simon slowly crumbles.
fifty-five. all the love i have
↳ in london, you prep for extubation. in captivity, johnny encounters an old enemy.
fifty-six. no use
↳ lines are crossed just as proof of life arrives.
fifty-seven. in the dark
↳ things feel like they're starting to get better, until they're not.
it's been decades since Alpha!Ghost had a rut. something that's probably for the best, really. his want is as hideous as he is. as ugly as his goddamn mug. it's best kept tucked away, secured under lock and key.
but then he finds you. and you're all alone. unclaimed, on the verge of heat. poor thing. it triggers a voracious rut. decades worth of want spilling out over you. you're it, he knows. feels the certainty in that statement simmering in his hindbrain, in his essence. he'll have you—now, forever. non-negotiable. where you go, he will follow.
but you run from him. stupid girl. didn't anyone teach you not to run from a starving wolf?
dubcon. size kink. size difference. a/b/o dynamics: knotting, rut. breeding kink. spit kink. implied virgin!reader. obsessive behaviour. possessive!Ghost. semi-public sex. reluctant reader bullied into submission lmao. forced bonds. implied kidnapping. basically, you're hunted down and fucked by Alpha!Simon who growls in your ear about how he's waited his whole life for you. and lucky him. he finally found you
AO3
It's been years, decades, since he had a rut.
(Broken Alpha. Ruined.)
Trauma, they tell him, will do that. Sever the drive in the back of his head, the one that rears—vicious and angry—each mating season, bringing with it the urge to breed. To claim. Own.
A form of self-preservation. It pitches a plexiglass of protection between him and his instincts, not letting them merge. Join. Done so because to be in rut, to want, to need, is vulnerability. It costs hypervigilance. Turns man into beast. Animal.
This bodily reaction makes an alpha extend themselves, like an overarching limb, to shield the omega they pick as a mate. Bearing their own neck to save another.
Naturally, they say, if he couldn't help himself, how could he ever hope to protect a fragile little omega?
They tell him it could be as permanent or temporary as he allows. Healing, they say. Time. Laughable, really. And utter nonsense because Ghost is fine.
Trauma tampered. Revenge sought, found. There's no one out there who could ever harm him, and still—
His last rut was before the mission that buried him alive. That turned him into the living dead. A mockery of man. Frankensteinian beast.
It's not something he cares much for, anyway. From what he remembers of his youth—vague snippets of memories, disjointed, blurred sensation; a profound need, an urge, to sink his cock into something, to plug them up, to bite—ruts have always been a nuisance. In the way. An annoyance that took time away from what he'd rather be doing.
And as Johnny enters his—skin pallid, waxy; cheeks flushed, eyes darkening like a brewing storm on the horizon; snapping at anything that breathes, whining like a dog, miserable and hot, all the time (ahm’a bleedin’ furnace, s’what ah’m)—he finds he doesn't care very much to go reclaim what he lost.
No skin off his nose. Nothing to concern himself with.
Besides. Omegas know better.
Even before he lost himself, dying, rotting in a tumulus, pretty little omegas with their soft hands and bashful smiles always went out of their way to avoid him. Miserable alpha. His scent alone wards them off—burnt leather, charred bones; sarcophagus dust, dirt—and he found himself alone during his burgeoning ruts more often than not.
No pretty little thing to tender the sweat on his brow, or bend over and present for him—offering up a sweet little cunt he got to bury himself inside, tie up nice and tight on his knot.
It was usually his hand. A bottle of bourbon. A printed porn stash he swiped from Tommy, who nicked it off their old man—
And when he did find a partner, it was always transactional. Hand to hand, an exchange of money. All clinical and detached. Empty. Fucking into a concept instead of a person; a vacuum eating away at his soul because he knew, then, that they wanted to be there almost as much as he did.
But what choice did either have when their home was the rotted gullet of a dying beast?
(Simon told them to stay away from shitty men like him, who broke bones in the throes of his heat, snapped his jowls at anything that got too close, and had to be chained to the bed like an animal during it—)
Nothing to miss. Nothing to mourn.
And it's not like he doesn't get the urge. Wanting to sink his cock into something warm, wet, is as recurring as a sweet tooth. A prickle in the back of his head after he devours his dinner that says, dessert might be nice.
He can fuck, but his knot never pops. A worry the doctors had—unsure what the consequences would be in the long run for such a virile, young Alpha already experiencing nature's version of erectile dysfunction so early in life.
(“pity the poor omega who has to deal with that rut,” they whispered. “might not be much of anything left of them when he's through.”)
Inconsequential now because he's pushing forty and his last rut was a false trigger. One dragged out of him by drugs and torture. The last true rut, natural and instinctual, was when he was eighteen.
It's doubtful he'd suddenly be cured at his age.
This is what he tells Johnny when he asks, pries. Broken fuck, ain't he? Unmated. Can't knot. Piss poor excuse of an Alpha. Doesn't he think it's—
“a shame,” Johnny grouses, words muffled slightly by the way he's hunched over the cheap plastic table in the canteen. His fingers dig harshly into his temple. “Alpha like you—” it's enunciated in clipped Queen's English, the barb makes Ghost scoff. “—ack! a waste. ma mam would be livid. no grandbabies t’show off? sacrilegious.”
—funny. If he's being honest. Laughable:
because for as long as Ghost can remember, he's always had a predilection to ruin his favourite toys. slaking his unquenchable lust on their tender skin, biting down to the bone, sipping on their marrow—
not really the sort of thing omegas today go for, is it?
his want is as hideous as he is. as ugly as his goddamn mug—
Instead, he shrugs. “hardly.”
“yer no’ missin’ it?”
“missin’ what, Johnny?”
“knottin’, ye surly prick.” He jeers, then, jabs his elbow into Simon's arm. “a bonnie omega to stick yer prick in. ain't missin’ th’, no?”
“no,” Simon gripes. The last thing Price needs is another order of protection against his Lieutenant. But to humour the alpha in an early stage of rut, he jabs out, hollow and full of wretched derision. “i can barely remember what it felt like. must be heaven, though. is that your plans for tonight, Johnny? gonna go and knot some sorry omega?”
It's meant to prod, poke. Sharp barbs aimed at Johnny's threadbare control, the same one held in place by a fraying, unspooling knot. Alphas in the early stage of rut are considered safe enough to be around. Not yet mindless drones, hosts to an ugly little parasite; a being forced to obey a single, instinctual drive to mate, to gorge themselves into a post-rut stupor.
Safe. Or so they say.
But Ghost knows what Johnny's feeling in the same sense as a phantom limb. A broken, fragmented memory. So, he twists his mockery in deep. All in jest, of course.
And Johnny pales suddenly. Wavers in his seat. The affirmative comes after a bout of contemplative silence. A jagged, choked yeah slips from his Sergeant’s mouth as he drops his head to the table, and groans. Miserable.
“go fuck yerself, Lt.”
Simon intends on taking Johnny up on that offer, lazying out on the futon with his hand stroking lazily along his flaccid cock, thumbing through the latest series of snapshots Johnny—ever the photographer—snapped up during his previous rut. Images of pretty omegas dressed up in fine silk, blood-red lingerie, and coy little grins on their faces, a vixen pastiche of demureness. Jejune appeal in all its coquettishness.
Innocent sluts—Johnny's preferred type. Ones who'll bat their eyes at him, nervous and full of faux modesty, while they rock back and forth on his face, tugging on his mohawk to make him lick their cunts just the way they like. Sweet, like candy. Dressed in sin.
He likes to take before and after photos of them—often with the pretty models unaware (adds to it, aye, Lt?). Ones with them batting their eyes at him, soft and shy in all their twee delight, and then fucked out, ruined and chewed up like a broken toy when he finishes with them. Bitten off more than they can swallow. Cheeky brats sobbing for mercy on his bed.
Likes, even more, to send them to Ghost. A little tease. One he has no compunction about partaking in. Enjoying to his heart's content.
Or—
Intended to, of course. Because what ends up happening is this:
Price calls just as he's getting into the new series sent to his phone—the tear streaks streaming down this omega’s face are particularly appealing, bound in intricate Celtic knots (Johnny, the artist), and gagged with their own panties—and tells him he has a job for him.
Something simple. Discreet. And local, too. Bears have been sighted in town—a mama and her cubs. Dangerously close.
The prelude to the phone call is a clipped take care’a it before the line goes dead.
Ghost doesn't need to pack much—he can't remember the last time he unpacked his duffle bag, anyway—and stays in the recliner until the mission file comes in, idly stroking his thumb across the pixelated, tear-streaked face of the omega in Johnny's clutch. Moussed. Messy. They make the prettiest picture, don't they? Drool dripping down their chin, a spillover from what the lacy, white panties couldn't catch.
Flesh peppered with jagged circles, bite marks. Johnny knows better than to claim them, and their neck is bereft of his teeth. Smooth. Unblemished.
To claim is to bond. To bond—
Well.
His earliest recollection of a relationship is his parents’. His mum, tied and trapped to a man she wanted no part of, but stuck. Unbondings, divorce, were rare during that time. Unheard of. Even now.
And under his old man's influence, he's always seen claiming as ownership. As possession. A lingering remnant he’s told is wrong, but can't shake. Can't change. It glues in the fibrils of his mind. A rotten, pulsing scab that no amount of sanctioned reconditioning can ever seem to get rid of, to scrape out of his skull.
(one he knows would be there no matter what because his sole purpose is exsanguination; bloodletting—
in his warped desire to protect the things he cares about, he ends up smothering them in the end. a child holding a firefly too tight in its chubby fist.)
But Johnny knows better. Good Catholic boy. Knows to keep a muzzle on himself when he sucks desperate kisses into the small omegas' sweet neck, breaking apart the blood vessels of their scent glands, soaking himself in their musk—potent pheromones of a needy omega in heat. Aching for a bite. To be held down and conquered.
It's wrong, they say. This ugly mass sits inside his chest like a foreign body. Scandalised eyes drilling into the side of his head like he's a monster for thinking this way.
And he is.
(always has been)
But he knows better. Knows to keep those uglier, rotten parts of himself hidden away from prying eyes. Got good at it, too. Enough that they let him into the brothels time and time again.
Still—
He can remember the closest he'd come during a rut to biting a shrill omega who screamed in his ear until his head rang, ached. Nearly did it, too. Teeth razoring over their jugular, pinching delicate skin.
Clarity came like a gunshot when he tasted blood. Chiselled a hole through his delirium, broke up the haze, and snapped his jaws up tight, locking them as he finished with a muffled growl, tongue swirling over his teeth for another taste. Another drop.
His ruts have always been messy. Bloody. Got him banned from several centres, brothels, where they offered up betas drenched in the artificial musk of an omega in estrus. Ones resilient enough to withstand the harsh coupling of an unhinged Alpha in need.
He had a problem, they said, with treating their workers like chew toys. Biting to break skin, drilling in deep enough to scratch his teeth on their bones.
Deranged, they hissed. Fuckin’ mental, mate. Stay the hell away!
Some are just prone to violence. Need to be half-sedated before they can mate without ripping their partner to pieces. Ghost has always been that sort. Aggressive. Hard to control. Rabid.
His appetite is bigger than the expanse of their skin. He sometimes thinks he could eat the whole world and still starve.
He hums, thumb sliding to cover the omega's neck. Trapped in his hand, his clutch. They're cute when they're ruined like this. Begging. Whimpering.
His cock gives a half-hearted twitch. His work phone chimes, signaling the end of his leisure.
shame, he thinks, squeezing his hand until the metal dents, the screen cracks, splinters. Pops. Hairline fractures split across their distorted, tear-stained face. He closes his fist over it until it breaks. Goes black.
really. such a goddamn shame.
Some things are just not meant to be—
—but they have a habit of falling into his maw, anyway.
It's a simple set up.
Man—
beast, monster, thing
—with his empty, growling stomach and teeth made to bite, tear, goes out hunting for a meal. In that search, he finds you.
You, Persephone personified: damned (eternal), standing beneath a spruce tree. Limned, halo gold, in the waning sunset's bashful kisses, you lean on the rough bark, idling your timelessness away.
Postcard beauty. Pinup demure. Alluring.
(creature of sin
and oh,
do you reek:
The air is saturated in the tantalising scent of honeybush, roasted hazelnuts, and clove. Saccharine—almost nauseatingly so—but with a hint of spice, black cardamom, cinnamon. He drags in lungful after lungful until it tangles deep within his chest, nearly suffocating. Smothered in this earthy sweetness. Drowning. Drowning—
the perfect dessert)
It unleashes something in him. Chips at the lock buried deep in his mind, cudgelling through the hinges until they pop. Rusted, slick with oxidising oil. It peels back from the gate, unveiling this gaping, ravenous chasm, polluted and gangrenous, rotten down to the marrow. Noisome. Noxious. This frothing pit sloshes, geyser-like, and greedily foams at the maw, the mouth, aching for a taste. Something to quench this gnawing hunger.
This bottomless abyss hadn't seen light since he was eighteen, and—
The hollow space where his rib once sat throbs, aches. phantom bone. He holds his chest with his hand, feeling for the gap, the chasm, stolen from him. Ripped away, taken.
By you. you—
—so,
it's only fair that he steals something back.
(quid pro quo, or something, right?)
You greet him with a small nod when he wanders close, eyeing him warily under the black rim of your ballcap. Tense. Small hands curl into fists, partially hidden under the rain-soaked windbreaker nearly two sizes too big. It smells like you—honeyed milk, molasses; lilac, lavender and warm bread—and he fights the urge to pull his mask down, to shove his misshapen nose into your neck, and breathe it in right from the source. Drinking, feasting, on it.
This want is visceral. It coils in his guts, bubbling in his veins. His musk—heavier than yours, pungent—beads along his scent glands, mushrooming into the air like a fine mist.
Your nostrils flare. He takes a step closer, eyes skewering into you, taking in everything you have to offer. The rucksack left at the bottom of the tree, stained with dirt and leaves. A sprig of Saskatoon berries peeks out from the lopsided flap. And—
Ah.
Foraging is off-limits in this area unless granted a permit. One you don't seem to have based on the skittish way you keep avoiding his eye.
His scent thickens, tainted sour with faux suspicion, and you wince, ducking your chin, tucking it close to your chest, hiding from his spearing gaze.
All it does is give him a voyeuristic view of your fragile nape, your vulnerable neck.
His teeth ache. Jaw clenched up tight.
It looks so bare. So naked.
(Be a shame to keep it that way forever, wouldn't it?)
“Hi,” you stammer, seemingly oblivious to the musk you leak into the air, into his lungs. Forcing some sense of staid indifference into your tone. Like being here, out in the middle of the forest is normal. “Did you need something?”
On the verge of a heat like this, wobbling where you stand—
He wants to chew you up. Spit out the pieces on the pavement. Drink from the gash he'll rip into your jugular,
quench this unbearable thirst.
He doesn't know how you made it out here as long as you have, smelling like you do, and the thought burrows through the haze spuming, clotting, on the fringes of his muted periphery. Anger is an icy deluge of white water raging through his veins.
Under the mask, the remnants of his scarred lip curls. His hands close into tight fists. Balled up. He feels the tension crackling along his muscles, his body. Coiled spring. Ready to leap—
But:
There's clarity. Focus. Where he was meant to become a mindless monster, driven by instinct, he instead feels the pieces of himself snap back into place. Missing puzzle pieces. It shifts. Settles. Locks.
He wants you. Will have you. It's non-negotiable. Ironclad. You just—
Belong to him, don't you? Pretty little thief. And wandering around like this, reeking like you do, you must want him, too. Need him.
(protect, protect, protect—)
Honed in, drilling into your face to catch every expression that flickers past, he sees the moment you take a sniff, when realisation blooms in the inkpools of your gaze that you are less than an arm's length away from a starving predator. Supple, soft. All plush flesh seated seamlessly against brittle bone. Fragile.
“hi,” he echoes, and it sounds hollow. Garbled. Like he's speaking underwater. Thinks, for a moment, that he's buried again. Drowning under the crushing weight of dirt. His own tumulus. Suffocating. Choking on dirt—
But you twitch. Feral little thing. It breaks him out of this nightmarish obtundation; shaking the cobwebs loose. He tracks it like a viper. Attention narrowing, shrinking, into nothing but the way you move. Smell. You anchor him in his place, keeping him stable amid this horrific onslaught of emotions that rip talons down his chest.
“I–” you breathe in again, lashes fluttering. Strains of silk batting over your etiolated cheeks. You breathe him in. Deep. He sees your chest grow, expanding with his air. His musk. Has to bite down on a growl before it forms, the lash of a whip in his throat. Aching.
There's something spellbinding about you—caked in a layer of grime, briny sweat clogging your natural scent; wild and untamed. Uncharted wilderness, untouched by man and their dirty hands. A corrie after a rain shower. Snow melt. He wants to bathe in it. Carry it with him wherever he goes.
As if scenting this thickening desire, your eyes widen. You take a step back, swallowing audibly when he follows. Marionette on strings. Your shadow.
“I should go—”
And he knows he can't let you do that.
Won't.
He hums, a fickle, brittle thing in the far reaches of his chest.
“Go?” he flicks his hand toward your bag, head cocking to the side in a mockery of contemplation. “Don' think you got a permit for that, do you?”
“A permit…”
He has you. Your eyes lower, falling to the badge on his chest. Game Warden. You stare at it, eyes widening. Swallowing thick.
With you distracted, he leans in. Curves his body over you mockingly, like he's bending down to whisper a secret in your ear. Cupping a pretty little firefly in the palm of his hand.
When his shadow falls over you—dark and damning—you flinch back, fists trembling under the hem of your jacket. Brows furrowed, knotted tight. Your lower lip wobbles. You try to hide that, too, by sinking your teeth into your flesh until it floods white under the strain.
He wants to pry it apart with his own teeth. Take the bruised flesh into his mouth until you start to drool, whining from the abuse he inflicts on you in a mockery of a kiss.
(wants to tear through it, taste your blood on his tongue—)
“An’ I don't reckon tha's a good idea, pet.”
You shiver when he places his hand on the truck above your head. Boxing you in completely, nothing to spare—not even an inch.
He hums at that, cock giving a vicious jerk inside his trousers at the almost impossible dearth between your sizes, at the way he swallows you up in an instant. Has to take a deep breath to steady himself, to keep the inkblack tendrils swirling, gathering, at the edges of his periphery from bleeding in. This starving murder of crows.
When he speaks again, it's low. Deep. Kittenish licks from the tongue of a tiger; abrasive, rough. Mocking baritone of a shifting canyon, a mountainside, before it buries anyone alive under rubble.
“Not reekin’ the way you do. Might ‘ave every alpha in a one square mile radius frothin’ at jaws for a taste. Ain't safe out there.”
And it's definitely not safe with him.
He watches, transfixed, the moment this clicks. When your eyes waver between the hard bulk of his body—spread out, laxed; plumage unfurled—and the noisy clatter of the town just within reach. It's this thicket that cups your scent, that protectively curls over you, and keeps the Alpha's prowling about the market square from sniffing you out. A beaten trail. Hidden desire path no one was supposed to wander down.
Except the bear problem in the woods, infringing on town, and him, the gun bolstered on his thigh still hot from his warning shots into the bush.
(lost little Lamb—
wandered too far from the herd.)
You take another step, cautious. Small. It brings you flush against the tree. Your polyester jacket whines at the friction. He can see indecision play out on your face. Oscillating between the badge on his uniform shirt, the gun on his massive thigh, and the clamour of muted noise from the town just within reach. Alphas prowling. Their acrid scent is unmistakable even through the dense foliage spreading around you.
It's an impasse. Neither option affords you much choice in the long run—it's either stay here with him, with the heady scent of want, of an Alpha on the incipient cusp of a voracious rut; or risk yourself in town. There are police officers patrolling. Ones who can sedate an alpha who gets too out of hand, but still.
The mimesis of desire pooling around you might send you into heat sickness. That, or you'll get in even more trouble for fleeing a pursuing officer. Resisting arrest. Jail time, certainly.
The pendulum wavers. Your knotted fists wobble.
Then—
Your eyes leave his chest, the gun, trailing over his shoulder. Widening in surprise at whatever is there in the distance.
He ought to commend you, really. The rouse is quite believable—
But:
“Not bad,” he murmurs, leaning down further. If you won't jump, he'll push you—
He sees his mistake as soon as it happens.
As he bends, you drop. Waiting until his attention seemingly drifts elsewhere, to when he's distracted and off balance. Lured in by your faux attempt at distraction.
And it might have worked on a lesser being, but all Ghost has ever been is raw, unadulterated instinct.
He lashes out as soon as you move again, palm curling over your wrist in an instant. Snapping jowls of a defensive snake. Shackled. Locked. He tugs—
But the movement costs momentum. You use this against him, going limp. Forcing him to take the brunt of your weight on the spread of his fingers. Tricky little minx. His mouth breaks out in a feral smirk, tugging harshly on scars, on burns. Stretching skin. Distorting it under the mask, ugly and vicious.
Your scent plumes up around him, sickly sweet. His jaw aches, gums itch. He wants to bite, snap his jowls around the scruff of your neck, chew on your skin until you sob out his name—
In seconds, you twist. Swinging your body back in a beautiful pivot, clumsy as it is. You're all animal now. Reckless in your pursuit to escape. Throwing out pheromones at him—purposeful, he realises a moment too late.
And it works. Distracts him long enough for his grip to slacken. Your arm slips out of his grasp, and you're on your feet in an instant, darting through the thicket in a maddened dash to escape the heavy, starving alpha and his burgeoning hunger.
Escape, or—
Weighed down by the afterbirth of his sudden rut, a prickle of his old self buoys, brims, from beneath the mess. He shouldn't chase you. Should leave you alone, call someone—Price, perhaps. Bark out between a clenched jaw that he needs a tranquiliser and chains. Will have to break Simon's teeth to stop him from biting into you like a man starved, famished. Tie him to the back of his pickup truck, drag him to the edges of the forest. Knock him out. Knock his teeth in.
Anything.
Because they said this might happen. The doctors’ who poked and prodded. Therapists—all mandatory, non-negotiable, when he signed his name on the dotted line—murmured about unravelling. His self-control snapping like a twig. Sense of self retreating. All hiding away, protecting itself from the torrent of chemicals flooding his hindbrain. A heavy, unrelenting accumulation of a decades-long bout of rut celibacy all washing over him, all at once.
Said to lock himself up if it happens. Chains. Shackles. Nuts and bolts. Heavy tranquiliser. Immediate sedation.
And in Price’s office, in that messy filing cabinet he keeps, is a folder. A playthrough of everything that's supposed to happen if this happens.
(“but that won't happen, will it, Simon?”
and he'd rolled one massive shoulder in an easy, effortless shrug.
“no.”)
The failsafe is that he's meant to call in if it does. Precious seconds of clarity, cognisance, enough time for him to dial the number, to bark out the order. To be hunted down, rounded up, and thrown in a pit.
where he belongs.
He should. Should. It's the book. Rules. Coloured in red ink. No option to negotiate.
But as you slip through the dense foliage, angelic gold against the phthalo green bosky, the knot in his shoulders abates. Uncoils. In this sense of ease that permeates within him, he finds that he's shockingly cognisant. In full control. The plexiglass shatters, and in the ruins he finds purpose.
You smell good. Too good. Any alpha will scent you in an instant, will claim you. Take you. It makes something in his broken, moulted head shift. Crack. He can't let that happen. Has to protect you the only way he knows how—
To wrap his paws around your throat before any other Alpha has the chance to sink their teeth into you. To claim you.
All his. Little Persephone tucked tight against his ribs where you belong.
And if the way the air clots with your cloying smell—heady, potent; the unmistakable ripeness of an omega in heat—then you must want him to chase you. Want him to follow.
(escape, or—
a game.)
He tracks your movements, honed in on the rustle of the underbrush. When you're out of sight, Ghost flexes his hand, curling his gloved fingers over the leather on his palm. There's an itch in the back of his head. Festering. Rotting. He wants to reach in, rake his claws down the mass, shred it to pieces, but it affixes one simple truth inside of him:
you need him. want him. why else would you run in the opposite direction of help if you didn't want him to give chase?
And so, he does.
You're a crafty little thing. To throw him off of your trail, you leave scent markers on the tree trunks you pass, doubling back to run in the opposite direction.
It might have worked on someone else, but Ghost has spent half of his life buried in this thicket, and knows better than to follow smells in the forest. A vacuum, a great chasm; it plays tricks with sounds. Distorts scents wafting through the canopy, mingling with the natural loam, the disturbed humus underfoot.
Instead, he hums at your cleverness—his smart little omega—and shifts his gaze to the forest floor, roaming over the footprints sinking into the soft soil, the peat and moss. A breadcrumb trail leading right to you. Broken twigs, crushed bushes.
Ghost follows it. Places each foot down carefully, nose angled upward to catch the fresh wave of your heat leaking through the tangled furze. It beckons him forward. Calls out to him.
(come, come, come—)
This lost little lamb needs a shepherd.
He intends to give you just that.
(—find me)
The path you cut through the forest is a twisting sawtooth meant to throw him off your trail. Traps laid out in tall tussocks, weaved through sweetgrass all drenched in your scent. Pieces of your clothing torn at the hem, the shorn fabric pressed on pine needles and tangles furze.
These breadcrumb trails—a neat nest of wile, it seems—are cunning, he'll give you that.
Even with his eyes to the forest floor, he finds himself throwing a wayward glance in the opposite direction, snagged in your webbed subterfuge. Somewhere between the visitors centre and the first trail meandering into the thick taiga, you seemed to have realised that your boots leave indents in the mor. He follows the deep impressions in the podsol until he finds them shoved under a Saskatoon berry bush. Another dead end.
Clever little thing, aren't you?
But even when strays from the path, he's right on your tail. Confident in his scenting abilities. His prowess has always been tracking down wily little rabbits when they try to flee, picking them off in stasis from high above. The layout might have changed—his perch closer to the ground instead of a deer stand—but his eyes are just as keen. Your winding trail is ingrained in his mind. A long loop through the eastern trailhead, and he knows, instantly, that you'll try to throw him off at the placard where the west trail branches off through the dense conifers, and the east meanders downslope to the hidden stream where hunters like to trawl.
He feels a pinch of pride simmering low in his guts. Anyone else would have lost you three pitfalls back. He's enraptured by this pursuit. Smitten by you. Your clumsy little escape. Your sweet little ploys. He wants to chew into you, let his teeth leave jagged scars, false starts, on your bones. Permanent. Starlight—dusting meteor showers in milk white.
Ghost’s belly gives a tremendous growl. He huffs at the ache clawing against tissue, ravenous and unbearably empty.
He'll have you soon. All to himself.
The thought makes fresh blooms of pleasure spume from the rot in his chest, prickling through the layers of muskeg and peat, etiolated little sprout. Germinating in wet gangrene. Feasting on necrotised flesh.
He swipes his hand over a honeybush, catches the lingering scent clinging to the leaves. You must have fallen here. Tangled yourself in the furze, overcome by your heat.
Poor thing. Tired already.
He holds his hand up to the fading gossamer of twilight trickling through the dense canopy, clenching the lingering remnants of your scent in his fist. It's fresh. He wants to tuck it in his pocket, carry it around with him.
He finds you in a small clearing, bent down with your palm resting on the trunk of a tree. Nails digging into the rotting bark, desperately struggling to catch your breath. Your heat is a wildfire. It scorches the earth. Burns his nose.
You're no longer on the cusp of it anymore, but in the throes.
His rut, he finds, isn't too far behind.
Perfect synergy. Meant to be. You call to him, and the gaping, gnarled chasm inside of him answers with a growl—
Before you can blink, he moves.
He falls over you, felled timber. The earth shakes under his indomitable weight. Palms slam into the rough bark of the gnarled spruce you've taken respite against, boxing you in.
You fall against it with a gasp, hands pushing against his broad chest as he backs you into the tree. Little fists pounding on his sternum, mouth pinched, twisted in a snarl. There are pieces of bush caught on your clothes, tangled in your hair. Leaves. Sticks. A spot of dirt on your nose.
It's mesmerising.
The ballcap falls first. Morning sunlight over a boscage in bloom. Pitfalls, ravines. The canyons of your eyes quiver; this new topography shifting, sliding. Tectonic beauty in muted midnight.
He wants to reach in, feel these granite walls of yours with his bare hands. Clamber up the colluvium, the scree, until he reaches these rugged peaks gleaming at him, angry and feral, in fading twilight.
Time is endless. There's no limit to how long he has to know you—drink from your rivers, feast on your valleys; find all the hidden nooks, the crannies, shaded under the towering monoliths of your body. Chart your couloir. Defile your flume. Bathe in your estuary. Tangle himself inside your dells. Tame your chaparral.
Fastidiously. Expertly. Until no part of you is unknown to him.
Your chest heaves, mouth open as he crowds you further. Pressing into you. Over you.
He wedges his broad thigh between your legs, presses it tight against your pussy. Your thrashing stills when he touches you, when he angles his knee up, up—
There. Through the layers of clothing that separates his bare skin from your cunt, he feels the heat bleeding out against him. The wetness from your sodden panties. Undeniable proof of how much you want him. Need him.
“All wet f’me?”
“Fuck you—!” You spit, angry and feral, but you arch into his touch, pushing your pussy onto his thigh. Aching for friction.
It makes him hum. A low growl caught in the back of his throat.
“Reckon I'll be the one fuckin’ you, pet.”
And he will be. This is fact.
You shudder, brows notching together in a vicious glare. “I don't want you.”
It's hissed between the sliver of your clenched teeth. Full of heavy conviction. Forging truth out of lies—
And that's all it is. A lie. A fallacy.
(and even if it wasn't, unlikely considering the way you arch into him, needy despite the disdain dripping down your brow—he really just can't find it in himself to give a fuck; he'll make you want him—)
Ghost leans down, muzzle pressed against your neck. He inhales deep, audible. Chest expanding, lungs swelling. Full of the aroma bleeding out of your pores. Proof of just how much you do, in fact, want him. Betrayed by your own body.
He huffs out, paints the air with his derision. “Is that so?”
Ghost drags his hand down the solid line of the tree, dropping it to rest against the jut of your hip. He ducks his head, watching. Staring at the way his palm nearly swallows you up when he rests it over your waist. Spanning nearly the entirety of it—hip to hip.
It bludgeons into him. Knocks the air clean from his lungs.
He's always had a hunger for things he can cup in his palm. The barrel of his rifle. The hilt of a knife. Your wrist in his hand. The curve of your hip.
His gloved fingers slip under the hem of your shirt. Pads ghosting over your skin. Warmth bleeds through the leather, an unmistakable tell of your heat reaching its first equinox. It'll be all fire, all smoke, from this point onward. Desperate. Feral.
Groaning deep, wanting, he pushes into you further. Chest rumbling. Eager.
It takes a great deal of effort to pull his hand away. To bring it up to his mouth, fingers hooking over the edge.
The fight in you abates—marginally—and you watch him with a keen look of suspicion dancing in the moulted dirt spread over your nullah. Wary. Anticipatory.
He fights the urge to laugh—deep and delirious—and instead works on prying his mask down over his crooked nose, his mangled mouth. Letting the hem snap under his chin, kept there. Bearing himself to you for the first time. Naked. Exposed.
Your eyes widen, trailing down the jagged lines, mauled ridges of scar tissue. Drinking in everything he offers in the fading embers of a summer twilight.
He grins—a rivened, ugly thing—when you let out a heavy, quick breath, and your hips drop, rutting your sopping cunt over the wide heft of his thigh. Gyrating subconsciously. Quietly pleased by the way he looks—as maimed, as beastly as he is. He lets you. Lifts his knee, pressing his cap tight into the bark, and bumping the top of his flexing quadriceps at the apex of your groin, right where he knows your clit sits.
The breath you take is pulled in through clenched teeth, biting on the rind of a moan. Its shapeless silhouette ducks, hides from sight.
He lets you have it. Lets you run.
But it's not without recompense.
With his upper lip curled, he sinks his teeth into the leather tip of the glove above his middle finger. Letting you see them for yourself—these thrawn teeth he'll bury into your neck. Claiming you entirely as his.
Your pupils start to eclipse your irises. Lagoons of liquid black blotting over rugged peaks.
Ghost slowly tips his head back, dragging the glove with him. Eyes setting along his lashline, he drinks in the sight of you swallowing thickly, your gaze darting between his teeth, his mouth, and now—his bared neck. Voracious, greedy, in the way you feast on him. Drilling into the stretch of skin slowly unveiling itself to you.
The muscles in his neck flex against rimy skin. Adam's apple bobbing with his slow swallow.
You follow it all, but your gaze seems to fix itself on the brawny arch of his neck, falling—and then glueing— to the thick vein protruding from his flesh, pulsing with the steady rhythm of his heart, and the small, swollen bump of his scent gland beneath it.
Hunger, he finds, paints such a pretty picture on your face. The greedy, anfractuous glances a bludgeon into him; so heavily affixed with desire that the shake of your head when he pulls the glove free, letting it dangle from between his teeth, and drops his hand back to your skin, is minute. Meaningless.
You want him as much as he wants you.
The clause in this, the axiom, is ironclad. Irrefutable. Bound in brass when you shiver at the touch—feverish skin on feverish skin—and arch into his palm for more. Panting through clenched teeth, each hiss striking against that fraying coil leashing his threadbare control. To distract himself from the unspooling knot, the ache in his gums, he charts the first inch of skin he passes with his thumb, committing the sloping plains of your body to memory. The jut of your hip, the stutter in your breath when he runs the rough pad of his forefinger over the slope of your underbelly.
It's easy to marvel at the sheer enormity of his size compared to yours. Simon hitches his thigh firmly into your clothed cunt, nearly lifting you up off the ground. You teeter on the tips of your toes, falling forward into his chest to stabilise yourself. Little fists curling into the fabric of his jacket, knuckles tight against his the last rungs of his ribcage. Your head lifts, a glare chiselling into the soft fields of your face.
You hiss something at him—feral and scathing. He drops the glove, leans down to meet you in the middle, and eats your feeble protests from your lips in a bruising kiss. Scorching. His teeth knock into yours. Tongue lashes out to catch the vitriol dripping from your fangs. You make a noise in the back of your throat, and he swallows that, too. Devours it all.
It's a vicious kiss. All teeth, tongue. Bullying. He lets you sink your teeth into his tongue, huffing into the seam of your lips when you coo, victoriously, at the first drop of blood spilled.
In retaliation, he sets his hands over your ribs, and lifts you up off the ground. Making you gasp. Mewl. Your legs kick out as the back of your head catches on loose bark, raining it down over your shoulders in flakes. He doesn't stop kissing you throughout. Eyes half-mast, still open, as he drinks in the sight of yours rolling back in your head when his thigh, one the width of both of yours—fuckin’ hell—catches the perfect angle on your clit.
Loose-limbed, caught, you have no choice but to wrap your ankles around his waist, curl your arms around his broad shoulders. Clinging to him desperately to remain grounded, held aloft.
His hand falls down, cups the back of your thigh, fingers spanning the entire curve of your cheek. Held tight in his palm. He bucks into you—quick, hard. Letting you feel the unmistakable bulge of his stiffening cock, leaking spend already in the tight confines of his trousers. This groin, inner thighs, already sticky with the mess dribbling out.
You fall apart at this. Head tipping back, crown thudding against the truck of the tree. He has your lower lip between his teeth, and it pulls, skin stretching until he huffs out another breath, mocking, and unhinges his jaw, letting you go.
Mewling, whining low in the back of your throat, you clumsily rut your cunt into the hard press of his cock. Eyes hazy, liquid, with your blooming heat.
Its approach is quicker than he thought it would be, and he hums, tongue rolling over his teeth to catch the lingering taste of you. Under his hand, your skin burns. Singing with the urgency of your desperation. He answers it with a grunt, falling forward to smother you under his weight.
There's a flash of clarity in your eyes when they crack open. Brief. Fleeting. He feels your sluggish attempt to push him away, to free your hands from between your chests, and he has to dip his head to stifle another groan. It feels good to have you under him like this. Covered entirely in his bulk, his shadow.
His hand pulls away from your flesh, snaking between your bodies to catch your wrists in the palm of his hand. Only one swallows them up, and the easy way he subdued you—effortlessly—has him nearly coming undone in his trousers. Untouched.
“Fuck, want it bad, don't you?” he snarls, hips bucking into you. Chasing pleasure. He pulls your hands out, lifting to arm to trap yours in the shackle his fingers make high above your head, and—
It's devious, this.
Somewhere in the loosening agency of his self, his autonomy, he knows this is becoming dangerous. Something that ought to be stopped before he rips into you with a rabidness that promises nothing at all will remain intact when he's finished. When he's had his fill. He needs to clear his mind. To get away from the way you fit against him so perfectly. Tiny in his wicked embrace.
Like you were made to fit between his ribs. His teeth.
He gnashes them together, trying to stem the ache in his gums.
He wants to fuck you. Needs to—
But as ripe as you smell to him now—tender melon, warmed honeycomb—he knows that you're not yet ready to take him.
Ghost steps back, letting your feet drop to the soil below. With the sparse inch of space between your bodies, he breathes in the lingering scent of your breath—sharp, burning; imbued with a heady thrum of adrenaline electrifying your nerves—and finds the musk a near-perfect pantomime of ozone. The arid tang in the air just before the air. A lightning strike. It rolls over his tongue, tastes of wet pennies in the back of his throat. Heavy with anticipation.
Something he feels very keenly as well. An eagerness he hasn't met in decades. Absolutely famished for it, for this familiarity of want. Potent desire.
He mourns the loss of the way your ass fits in the cradle of his hand when he pulls it free, fingers trailing over the feverish skin of your hips, your belly, as he goes. He doesn't stop until he comes to rest on the button of your trousers, eyes flickering down to catch your gaze. Purposeful, now. Intent clear.
Nothing is stopping him from taking. Your protests are paper-thin, dissolving the moment it touches the dense blanket of humidity in the air, but he wants your submission. Wants to see your resolve break, crushed by your own hand.
The gossamer wings of a butterfly, crumpled up in your palm, and offered to him for the taking. How sweet—
You seem to realise his intentions when his thumb dips below the hem of your pants. Just a tease. Brushing against the soft skin he finds there with the curve of his nail.
Your glare is instant. The sharp tug of a drawstring pinching tight between your brow. Mesmerising as it closes over your lax expression. A fierce snap. He wants to pry it apart. Wedge himself between the seam. Create a gap wide enough for him to fit.
“I won't beg,” you grind out, acidulous. Firm.
He huffs, quietly amused by the fight still sparking in you despite the evidence of your arousal, your want of him, evident in the stain at the seam of your pants. His other hand rests on the trunk of the tree above your head, boxing you in when he leans closer. Taunting. “That so?”
You don't respond, but your glare sharpens, mouth tugging downward in a harsh frown. Displeasure sparks in the air. Cutting into him like fine glass shards. He lets it graze his naked flesh, the warning ghosting over him in needlepoint pinpricks. Entirely too captivated by you to notice the sting.
Your ire is a heady, tangible thing dripping down your brow, slashing over your cheeks. Anger, however misguided it might be, paints a pretty picture over your face. Darkens the inlets nestled in the corner of your eyes. Drenches the ravines, gorges in a startling chiaroscuro. Limns the alpines, the valleys, in a halo of golden starlight.
He wants to drink it down. Hold your fury in the palm of his hand—
Crush it between his fingers.
Because despite the dissent, your desire cuts through, and hews the air in a thick tapestry of want.
mutinous, teeth bared, but your eyes burn, rage against the prison walls, and scream, please—
His fingers dig into the bark above your head, catching flecks of sap between his nails. Knuckles turning white under the flaxen hair dusting over them, strained. The grip is unintentional. Unconscious. He keeps thinking about you beneath him. The heat of your thighs around his waist was a mere tease. A morsel when he wants a meal—
The pressure in his knuckles grounds him. Cuts through the phosphenes blanketing the edges of his vision, smothering the clarity, the cognisance, that lingers in the centre. Threadbare as it is.
There’s an ache in his jaw.
(the need to bite—)
He pulls it off, and shoves his hand tight between your thighs, cupping your cunt in his palm. Feeling the heat bleed through the gusset of your pants. The touch is harsh. Firm. He bullies his fingers into your flesh, letting out a mocking chuff when he feels the fabric dampen.
“Somethin’s’ tellin’ me otherwise.”
Your hand lashes out, grabbing the thick of his wrist. Holding firm. It should be a warning, but the obvious gap between your middle finger and thumb makes him groan instead.
“You're wrong.”
“Am I?”
You twist away from him when he leans down, chin ducking to your shoulder. Hiding. Denying him your mouth, your taste. This meagre measure of control you grapple for is easy to give. He presses his lips to the shell of your ear instead, letting you run. Flee. For now.
His voice is thick when he continues, husky. He pitches it low, lets it swirl into the seashell coil of your inner ear, earning him a shiver in response. Your nails biting into the skin of his wrist. Holding tight.
“‘m a lot of things, pet—” rucked gravel, sodden with his derision, spills into your ear. Your shudder makes him want to bite, to maim. “Wrong ain't usually one of ‘em. But you'll learn that soon enough.”
Your breath hitches. Expression morphing, shifting. Changing into something adorably beleaguered as he encircles you like a tiger, eyes drilling through the tussock, aimed directly at your head. With his body boxing you in, coiling over you like a hideous shadow, he has you trapped, caught. Little lamb writhing between the paw of a tiger.
You seem to be keenly aware of this. Your eyes are shrewd, searching, as you probe around for any escape route, but he's a bulwark around you. Inescapable.
Finding none, you suck in another breath, and slowly lift your chin, glancing up at him through your lashes. The look on your face is—
Enigmatic.
Something changes in the morphology of your mien. Fracturing. Cracking.
“Yeah?” You breathe, soft and goading. Your hips buck into his hand, rutting shallowly against the tops of his fingers. Unconscious. Like you just couldn't help it.
And he supposes you can't.
A fine sheen of sweat has been building since he took after you into the forest. Gathering around your temple, your hairline. The harsh reminder of your festering heat, once dammed by your raw disdain for him—hatred, he'd say, and doesn't the thought just make him want to laugh; you're all bark, no bite, and he knows he'll have fun breaking you in, breaking you apart—but flooded over by the primal drive to mate.
And he's perfect for you, isn't he?
Hideous bastard that he is. It's a sharp juxtaposition to your prettiness, your earthly beauty.
Under the spinel sky, you break. The hand on his wrist tightens, your hips flexing into his palm. Seeking friction. Needing pressure. Needing him. And pissed off about it. Delicious.
“Prove it,” you snap, irritation blanching the corners of your eyes arsenic white. Edging into a frenetic desperation hot enough to burn the threads of your resolve. But there's a gleam of reluctance pushing through the syrupy murk folding over you, heavy molasses. You want to give in, but there's something about him, his appetite, that makes you hold back. That makes you visibly sick at the sight of him—
Unfortunately for you, he has no such compunction to shelf his barbarity. To leash his desire, to muzzle the overwhelming urge to crush you under the weight of his accumulated need. It's decades of listless apathy. Divorced from anything resembling human emotion at the root. Carved out, scraped off bone. He was left to stagnate. A misfortunate creature submerged in a bog, dead but unable to rot.
The deluge of his savage, bestial hunger rages in his veins. It's corrosive, vile, and—
unrestrained.
Ravenously esurient. He wants to sink his teeth into you and never let go—
but first:
he needs to eat.
His meal is a feast, it turns out. Simon gorges himself until he's full. Promises that he'll stop as soon as he's satiated.
(but he's lying to himself, and to you, because he never is—
never will be.)
Tears pebble along your lash line as he feasts on your sopping cunt, licking at your fluttering rim, slurping up your slick. Your clit is pressed tight against the crooked arch of his nose, sliding and catching on the jagged ridge each time he moves his jaw to dig deeper inside of you as if he's trying to taste the seal of your womb. You pant, whine. The noise muffled half-heartedly behind your palm. Teeth sunk into your skin, lodged against your bone.
Angry rivulets rain down your cheeks, dangling like fine beads, gems, on your jaw. He wants to taste them next, as soon as he fills his gullet with the earthy tang you release.
Your tears remind of that pretty omega Johnny sent to him—a brat, he'd said; the best, Lt—and it churns in his stomach, dredging up something awful. Terrible. He wants to make you weep harder. Wants you sobbing, begging. His own little brat to take over the knee whenever he wants—
But that's where the uncanny resemblance ends.
You're not a brat. No. You're a headache. The kind that will have him written up, sat like a bad dog in his best suit, as they level him with charges, and orders, and the like. The sort of thing that even the old man wouldn't be able to string him out of—not that he would. Price is three days away from a much-deserved retirement to the mountains and sitting on his hands to keep from snatching up the pretty conservation officer who moons at him whenever he passes by.
He won't be much help to get Ghost out of trouble. That leaves only Gaz and Soap. And while he's sure they can swing it, he doesn't really want to be under their ahh, guess ye/ya owe us one, Lt/Riley.
So—
It stands to reason then that he should have you tamed before dawn. Shackled down, locked up tight. Only right considering he's the best in town to keep bears at bay. Do you really want to deal with a mama grizzly and her defenceless cubs? Or a starving male clumsily pawing his way out of hibernation?
Probably not.
So. So.
He pulls back, rests his chin on your thigh.
“Gonna be good for me, pet?” He asks, lowering his tone considerably until it catches on the gravel below.
He's not surprised when you hiss through a cloud of tears. “Go fuck yourself—”
Ghost tips his head, suckles your clit into his mouth. Tongue laving over your flesh. Blunt teeth pressing flat against the swollen bead, a tease. You tense, gasping. Hand pushing his head back, back—
“Don't, don't—” you're mewling, nails raking over his scalp. Hips bucking, pulling back. Struggling to get away. The bite marks along your thighs weep fresh blood in your struggle, filling his nose with the heavy scent of iron.
They serve as a harsh reminder of what he can do with these jagged teeth of his.
He chuckles, mouth still closed around your clit. The vibrations have you choking, spine curving into a beautiful arch.
Fingers digging into your hips, keeping you still. Trapping you. He's not quite done with your cunt, yet. And all this wriggling is something he can do without. With his hand pressed to your hips, he notches the other down your thigh. Tracing his index finger over your soft skin, dragging it close to your outer lips. Catching the tacky slick drying on your flesh with the tip.
Tiny fists rain down over his shoulders. Urging him forward, eager for more. Selfish, spoiled little thing.
What a monster he's made—
“Patience, pet,” he coos, mocking and mean. Likes the way you react to the patronisation in his tone. All taut shoulders, shaking fists. Bearing your teeth at the slight, the stinging barb. Shaking in an amalgamation of embarrassment and shame.
You seem to like it when he's a little awful to you. A little mocking. Cruel.
“Shut up—!” You hiss, lips curling as you glare down at him. “I'm not your pet—”
He ignores you. Bends down to sniff at your cunt instead, and finds his answer is the white hot desire he can taste in the back of his throat when he breathes you in.
His fingers pry apart your folds, and he greedily drinks in the sight of your drenched hole, clenching down on nothing. Poor you. His heart thunders in his chest, rages. He wants to sink inside of you—impossibly deep—until the beginning of him and the end of you ceases to exist. Rolled into a single being, atoms merged. Bodies fused. He wants to take everything from you. All of it. Eat it out of the cup of his hand like pomegranate seeds, let the skin get stuck in his teeth.
He wants to devour you whole.
(to eat—)
Settles, instead, for pawing at your cunt.
Pressing the width of it against your slit, feeling the heat of your core on the palm of his hand. Branding himself with the intensity of your desire. Another scar among many. An uncountable number of jagged asteroids cratering along his flesh, making a home out of a ghost. A shell.
Reinforced, too, by the absurdity of how terribly contrasted his flesh is to yours. Monstrous. His scarred hand rests over your pussy, encompassing it entirely with extra digits to spare. Folding each finger on top of the other to wedge between the basin of your thighs. And as his gaze comes to rest on the way he swallows you up, he is struck by the garishness of his hand—hideous scar tissue, burns—falling over your pretty cunt.
Sinful. Frankensteinian beast palming the sweet pussy of a pretty, human woman, and—
Fuck.
His cock twitches, spits out a thick glob of pre-cum.
Ghost has never wanted to ruin something as badly as he wants to ruin your cunt. You. Mess you up so badly that everyone will know you belong to him, and him alone. To brand you with the tattoo of his teeth on your mons; force a claiming bite on the pillowy skin above your clit. His ownership bracketed between your thighs, at the very apex of your hip bones. Buried into tissue right under the bulge of your womb. A fecund valley for him to lay waste; for you to grow beauty from the rot, the ash.
Cinder scraps over his nerves. Fells his resolve in a brutal sweep.
He comes undone at the seams, unravels.
Simon curls his fingers into a loose fist, passing the rugged peaks of his bone over your soft flesh. Gathering slick on thick, scarred knuckles. He holds it there, folds pried apart by his hand, content to luxuriate in the softness of your flesh, the scorching heat.
Possessively, he unhitches his thumb from the coil of his fist, and swipes it over your clit. More slick leaks out as you keen.
“Sweet omega like you should ‘ave been claimed by now,” he rumbles evenly despite the sour twist in his guts at the thought. “Might not ‘ave ended up ‘ere, would you ‘ave? Beggin’ the first alpha you see to fuck this sweet little cunt.”
“Begging?”
“Practically gaggin’ for it, weren't you?” And even though the words are his own, they sit in his gut like a stone. An angry knot tangled in his intestines, snaking its way up his gullet. Bitter. It's quelled by the sight of your bare neck. Ripe for his teeth. And his alone.
But even if you had a pretty ring made by another alpha, Simon knows that wouldn't have stopped him from taking you, anyway. Biting over the claim. Breaking it between his teeth. Precious, loving union shattered by his crooked greed. He'd have relished in it, too. Basked in the way you sobbed as he tore your alpha into pieces. An obstacle turned into a pretty effigy at his feet. Wicker pyre burning to keep him warm.
(he'd have caught dinner for you, too; hunted caribou, moose, and roasted it over the open flame. Fucked you under the blume of orange. Let the fire lick across your skin as he sunk in deep—)
He rocks back on his haunches. Mood labile, quicksilver, as his rut grows. Festers.
You deny it, breathless, as he slips the mountainous peak of his bent middle finger into your hole, stretching your rim around the scarred cartilage. You pulse around him like the fluttering wings of a hummingbird. Rapid, quick. Wanting. It draws him in. Makes him want to spit on your pretty pussy, and then break you apart on his cock—
“Such a needy cunt, eh? Starving for a good knot, ain't it?”
You hiss out your protests, but clench tight around his knuckle. He chuckles, and it's liquid. Wet rot. Lungs polluted, spitting nocuous, black smoke into the air.
“I'm not—”
“You are.”
He pulls back, pursing his mouth, and spreads your lips apart, opening you up wide and vulnerable to his prying eyes. Saliva puddles on his tongue. He gives you a moment to clue into what he's about to do, your fingers tightening, nails digging into his scalp as you do on a shallow gasp of disgust. Then, brutish, he leans forward, and spits. Lets the glob hit your clit, and he has to hold you still when you jerk, cringing away from him, snarling out your displeasure.
“You're disgusting—”
The protests are weak. Your knees tremble, giving away the growing slickness gathering on the insides of your thigh.
He hums, watches as it oozes down between your folds, over your fluttering hole, before it falls to the ground between your legs. He lets his hand fall back over your cunt, middle finger gathering his spit. Rubbing it around your pebbled clit. It's done detachedly, perfunctory. A means to an end with hardly much concern for your pleasure. Not yet, anyway.
You've given him nothing in return yet.
He intends to change that soon.
As you grapple with the harsh reality he presents to you—one of ownership, humiliation, and pleasure on his whim—he drags his finger down, sliding it between your soft lips until he reaches your hole once more. Petting around the drenched entrance slowly, softly, humming under his breath about how wet you are.
Your hips drop, greedily chasing after his finger. You won't ask—not yet—but he likes the way you rut against him: all hateful, spiteful. Like you can't decide on what you want more—to bash his head in, or keep it locked tight between your thighs. Sweet thing.
“Need me, don't you?” He sinks his finger in. Nearly whites out at the pressure, the tightness, he feels. Soft, wet. Squeezing him in a vice as you yowl, whimpering into the stretch like it matters. Like his thick, scarred finger is the most you'd ever taken before. Sweet girl. So naïve.
He drinks in the sight of your flesh forcibly being parted around his knuckle, matting the wisps of blond on his skin as it leaks down to his wrist, until that, too, is pushed up into you. His whole finger now engulfed in the wet heat of your body as you squirm around the stretch, pulsing around him like a heartbeat.
He groans when he tastes your discomfort on the back of his tongue.
“Don't worry, lovie. M’gonna take good care’a you.”
You watch him with slitted eyes as he pushes you down to the forest floor, glaring over your shoulder as he adjusts you the way he wants. Maneuvers you around like a little toy. Forearms braced against the trampled grass, knees sinking into soft moss. Thighs spread. Cunt bare, drenched. Ready to be claimed. Taken.
He drops to his knees, shuffling close from behind you. His hand drops to your lower back, pressing your torso down further into the ground below. His cock aches between his thighs. Heavy, fat. He reaches down with his other hand to where it droops, smearing pre-cum over his inner thigh. He catches it in his fist, flushed the colours of a fresh bruise—angry red, purple—and strokes along the sensitive skin of his shaft, dragging it up and over his engorged head. Pre-cum weeps from the tip, drools long strains down to the forest floor. Puddles thick between your knees.
A prelude, perhaps, for what's to come. When he has you tied like a bow around his knot, milking all the pent-up spend from his heavy, full balls.
It's been decades since he had this—
(“shame.”
he concurs.)
Simon pulls his cock up, taps it against your pebbled clit. Drinks in the sight of you keening, cunt gushing more slick out of your empty hole, dribbling down your thighs. Mingling with the mess he already started making.
It shocks him how good it feels just to tap his cockhead on your pretty pussy. To drag it through your slit, teasing it against your fluttering hole that drools copious slick over him.
He wants to make a mess of you. Fuck your pussy until you cum, until all you can feel is the split of him inside of you. Filling you. Ruining you.
Until all you can think about is the thick drag of him against your stuffed walls. Empty without him plugging you up. Desperate for his cock, his knot—hungry little slut just for him. All for him.
He presses the head of his cock against your rim, letting it catch. Holding it there. A tease. Just a little taste.
Likes when you whimper, head hanging between your shoulders, fingers curling into the moss below. You make such a pretty picture like this—the expanse of your back bare for his eyes to roam, locking on the dimples of your hips, the curve of your waist. The plump shape of your ass inviting him in—eager for a bite. Your flesh looks bare, lonely, without his mark. The contrast of his own inked palm—fingers webbed with faded lettering, some slogan he picked up in his youth. Hands etched in black. Lines bleeding, bulky. The unmistakable tremble of an incipient artist’s first brush of a needle on real skin. Jagged, garring. Ugly. He lets his hand rest against the small of your back, groaning at the way it looks.
Sinful.
You're made for soft silk and a fluffy bed. Head resting on a plush cushion instead of your arms, forehead braced over the uncomfortable squeal of your polyester windbreaker that he didn't even have the courtesy to let you take off. No. Just trousers. Panties. Pushed haphazardly down your legs, left in a pile by the spruce tree so he could throw your ankle over his broad shoulder, feasting on your cunt.
There's a spot of dirt on your asscheek. The curve of it is scraped from the bark, red and raw.
The glare you aim at him from over your shoulder is venomous. There's a smear of moss on your cheek.
You're made for epsom salt baths. Being tended to by a besotted alpha who treats you like fine china, only to be taken out on special occasions. Brushed, always, in a fine layer of dust from disuse. Sweet, tender lovemaking under the waning summer sky. Your alpha apologising for ruining you like this, for making you take the brunt of his rut. Poor thing. Gentle kisses, and hands clasped together.
He can see it so vividly in his eye. So viscerally that it almost feels like a crime when he glances down at his cock, the weeping, engorged head almost comically too big for you. The thick of him could easily swallow your cunt up if he flattened his length against you. Covering you wholly by his girth.
It's a thought that makes his hand tighten, and nearly chokes him on a moan.
Even his thighs bracketing the backs of yours is hideous to look at. Bigger, broader—there's a considerable gap on both sides of his legs that he thinks nearly his whole fist can fit there, notched against the outside of your thigh, covering the expanse of his own. Garish.
He can't wait to lay you down on your belly, lock his thigh tight on either side of your own and rut into you like that. Crushing you under his weight. Swallowing you whole. Until anyone misfortunate enough to wander by thinks he's fucking the cold ground.
His thumb strokes along your fevered skin, collecting the sheen of sweat building up on the pad. Rubbing it in. He feels it too. This unrelenting swelter. A cage, pushing down from all sides. Inescapable.
The only way to quench it is on you. In you.
“Ready for me, pretty girl?” The words are mangled in his throat, thick with want.
Your shoulders tremble. In worry, he thinks. Scents the air like a viper, letting your emotions curdle in the back of his throat. “Just get on with it—”
He meets you in the middle of that taunt, teeth against your throat.
Ghost pushes inside with a groan, eyes rolling back at the way you swallow him up. Stretching around the considerable girth, fluttering around him. Pulsing like a heartbeat.
It's heaven.
Nirvana nests between your thighs, bracketed by rings of blood. Red. Absolution imbued in tender flesh, parting perfectly around his cock in a loving embrace.
You haven't confirmed it for him, but the tightness of your cunt around his fingers, the heady scent of discomfort burning the back of his throat when he buried them inside of you, make him mutedly aware that you're inexperienced. A fact he pockets for later because if he thinks about being the first alpha, the first man, to ever claim you, take you, then he might lose his mind, he might fall down that yawning chasm that reeks of damnation, of brimstone and ash, and never recover—
So, he doesn't. Won't.
Can't.
His pace is slow as he feeds you the fat length of his cock, eyes drilling into the way you swallow him up. Rim stretching taut, flesh paling under the strain of taking him. With one hand anchored against your hip, holding you tight, and the other curled over your shoulder, fingertips resting on your collarbones, he slowly, slowly, sinks inside of you, bottoming out with a deep groan.
The outstroke drags with it an iron scent in the air. He huffs, nostrils flaring. Greedy for more. There's discomfort leaking from your pores. His girth is more than you can conceivably take, even with the preternatural help from your heat, leaking slick down your inner thighs in thick rivulets.
He holds himself there, breathing—heavy, tremulous—through his nose. His hands shake. The pressure, the pleasure, is indescribable. It coils in his guts, spumes liquid bliss in his veins. The way you feel pulsing sweetly around him is—
Equilibrium.
Every misfiring synapse inside himself is slowed. Imbued with a potent sense of ataraxia. His mind comes to a standstill. Thoughts looping over themselves, tangling into the gossamer threads of control floating in stasis. Unmoored. You unravel him.
It's further proof that you are his missing part. His ruts in the past have been calamitous. Snarls wrenched from the trenches of his chest; a gluttonous feast—a sacrifice to Hēdonē. Violent, vicious.
But this—
It's drinking ichor from the vein of Anteros.
There's a crack in the back of his head. The sound of everything, all of it—
Falling into place.
His hands tighten. Tighten some more. He holds you, sure and firm, keeping you nestled in the anchor of his embrace, unable to run, to flee. You're his. Settled. The caveat is ironclad, bound in permanence.
And Simon moans. Deep, and low. The noise jutters out of his chest, and seeps into the evening air. Fine mist, crystallising in front of him. Phosphenes of ice cemented his decision, gluing to his cheeks. The nape of his neck.
His ears burn.
“Fuckin' hell, sweet thing,” it's a guttural growl in the hollow of his throat. “Where ‘ave you been all my goddamn life?”
It's a nauseating confession, one scraped out from the vacancy between his ribs. It peppers the air in a soft, saccharine kiss. Makes you shiver beneath him, gasping in lungfuls of loam, dirt in your throat.
He grunts. Stills. He doesn't want that for you. Ever. Would rip off his own limbs before he ever let you feel the crushing weight of dirt congealing inside of your lungs.
The way he arches over you is damning. Nauseating. He curls his arm around your shoulder, your chest, traps a heaving breast in the palm of his hand, holds tight. The other falls from your hip, closes over your mons. Greedily feeling your slick, hot sex pulsing wildly around him when he passes over your clit, toying with your stretched, swollen rim. It's perfection, this.
He pulls you up, up, leaning back on his haunches until you're balanced on your knees, nearly sat on his lap. Taking him deeper than before. He drops his head back with another moan when he feels your slick gather, dripping down to coat his balls.
Everything about you is just—
Perfection. Absolution.
Your hands fly up, curling over his forearm, mewling when he pinches your nipples between his middle and ring finger.
“C’mon,” he rasps, leaning forward to press his face into your nape. You smell sweet. “Play with ‘em for me, pet.”
Nails bite into his skin. You whimper. Squirming around on his lap. But you do as you're told. Slowly, slowly, reaching up. Touching yourself the way you like. Fingers ghosting over your flesh, brushing across your nipples. Pulling, petting, the way you like. He hooks his chin over your shoulder, watches. Devours. Commits each movement to memory. Every sound, every breath. Everything.
He keeps a slow, languid pace like this. Content to just feel you pulsing around him, listening to the slick, wet squelch of him filling you up. Over and over again. A lazy rut.
It's unexpected, he knows. You've been bracing yourself this whole time, fingers digging into the podsol, spine tightening up. Waiting for the savagery to befall you.
When it doesn't come, he feels your quiet acquiescence come in a soft breath. In the way you slowly drop down to meet the deep rut of his hips. Taking your pleasure, pulling him in deeper. There's an edge to your voice, one still dipped in threads of discomfort, a waning pain that rings out, shrill, in the satin spill of moonlight over the indigo forest.
It's good like this. Tender. Not something he'd have ever imagined for himself, and the reality of it is dizzying.
Reedy, he groans. Nuzzles his misshapen nose into your scent gland. His gums pulse, ache—
But he ignores it. Swallows it down.
He's not sure what compels him to do so. Spellbound, maybe, by this unnatural softness that spools silken threads between you. Sutured in tenderness—so unbefitting of the man he is. The monster—
His hips stutter. Jerk.
“Simon—!”
You whine into it, arching back. Sweat gathers, drips down your spine, smears into his chest, belly. Matts the thatch of hair running in sparse, patchy clusters down the thickness of his midsection. A bountiful spring fattened him up. Made him soft and pillowy over his abdomen. Something you can't seem to get enough of—pressing the flat of your back against him, leaning into it. Groaning when his arm shifts, boxing you in. Crushing you to him.
Wily little kitten, purring so sweetly in his lap.
He draws lazy circles over your clit, grunting with each clench of your cunt. You're soft in his arms. Malleable. He slides his hand up from beneath your breasts, catches your jaw in his palm. Fingers spanning from cheekbone to temple and, oh—
Doesn't that just make him preen.
He drags your chin to the side, catching your mouth in a sickening kiss. All tongue, teeth. He wants to taste, to devour, every part of you. Bones and all.
It's a fight, though. You tense in his grasp, lidded eyes snapping open, wide and around. Cheeks bulging between his fingers when you twist, trying to pull away.
“Don't—I don't want to—” he bites the protests from lips. Messy, sloppy. He flicks his tongue over yours, wrapping it around you like a satiated snake burrowing in after a heavy meal. “Don't—f–fuck—”
It earns him a nip. Teeth digging into his bottom lip. Drawing blood.
He huffs into the seam of your mouth. Only fair, he supposes, and then pulls you down—hard, fast—onto his cock. The air is punched out of your lungs, flooded into his esophagus.
“Be a good girl for me,” he warns, bucking into you. It's harder this time, deeper. Tempo increasing. Growing. He feels himself thicken. Knot fattening up. Each piston of his hips seems to knock something inside of his head loose. Common sense, maybe—
The fraying knot of his self-control winding tight. Pulling taut.
He huffs again, feeling himself slip. Lost in the sensation dripping down his spine, the unified pleasure blooming in the pit of his stomach.
The air plumes with the thickening tang of your arousal—all sweet, spice. You can take it, now, he knows, and tries not to growl when you hiccup his name wetly into the air.
The muscles in his thighs bunch tight. Corded and powerful. He arches up, up, forcing his cock deep inside your cunt, splitting you apart. Rutting desperately, edging into something animalistic.
It runs a knife along the thin skin of his hindbrain. Come out, come out, come play—
He moves you again, pulling his hand away from your jaw and pushing you back down the forest floor. He stays glued to your back. Tucks his arm under your chin, and smothers you under his bulk, groaning when your thighs give out, sliding on the sweat-slicked moss below.
“Simon, ah—” your voice tapers off into a breathless cry when he pulls his hand free from beneath you, wrapping it around to join the other. Holding on, clinging to you. Keeping you locked tight against him, under him. You can't move at all like this—
The swell of his knot bumps against your stretched rim. He presses the brunt of his weight into each thrust now, spurned on by the needy way you yowl into his forearm, drooling all over his skin. Begging for it.
“Please, please, please—”
Your body is jostled forward with each harsh buck of his hips as he gives you everything he has, feeding his cock into your sopping cunt over and over again. Eager now to fill you up, to flood you with his cum. Make you swell with it. Overstuffed.
Perfect little omega, you rut back into him with each thrust, taking his thick cock to the root. Mewling sweetly when his knot begins to catch. Too much, he thinks. It might just wreck you for good—
pomegranate seeds splitting over your teeth, blood red juice leaking from the tear. spilling into your mouth. just a drop. just a drop, and Persephone is all his
—Perfect.
He teeters on the edge of ferality and control. Spinning, spiralling. Loosefooted on the wobbling chossy. Coming undone in a magmatic end—wicked heat, ashes, brimstone; he catches fire, and smoulders you under his heat. Letting the flames lick across your skin until you whine his name, desperate and needy, in the back of your throat. The thrill a bludgeon against his skull, spilling pleasure, bliss, in the broken hole you wrought.
You tighten like a vice around him—tight, tight—and he pistons into you, burrowing deep. Deeper still. Until you thrash around beneath him, soundlessly screaming his name into the dark forest. Begging for mercy, mercy, please—
He won't. Can't.
He can't get enough of the way you feel wrapped around him like this. Silken, whitehot. Tight. Tight—
It squeezes the air from his lungs. Static in his head—
And then you let go. Pulsing, throbbing around him. Pulling him in deeper, blanketing his mind in white noise. In nothing but magmatic pleasure.
“Fuck—!” He snarls, almost angry. Vicious. Chasing after his end in the aftermath of yours. Instincts are at war within him, banging against his skull. Demanding recompense. Paid it's pound of flesh.
It's what he's promised. What it's owed.
(and he always keeps his promises, doesn't he?)
Most describe their ruts as mindless, driven by instinct. No control. But Ghost has never felt more present, more alive, than when he sinks his teeth deep into your nape, nearly choking, drowning, on your blood.
For the first time in decades, he feels the crater inside himself, suffused with spare, broken parts, seal when you yield with a mangled yowl of his name, raw and fractured as it splits between your teeth. Pretty pussy swallowing up his knot when he bullies it in deep, locking you together.
pretty little lamb—
a perfect fit between his teeth.
His rut is a voracious thing.
Ghost has you on your back for the second and third round, heels resting on his shoulders as he bucks into you. Makes you stare at him—don’t look away from me, pet—as he commandeers your body with an ease that seems to break apart all demurrals as they form, rendering you sweet, malleable, beneath him to do with as he pleases.
And you are, aren't you?
So fuckin’ sweet.
(“gonna give me a cavity,” he rasps, thick with pleasure, into your ear. he has you on your belly now. holds you down with his weight, crushes your chest against the soft moss below, thighs squeezed tight between his own. you can barely make a sound with his forearm digging into the dirt right above your crown, swallowing you whole under his bulk.
(owns you like, he finds. no one would be able to see you beneath him if they wandered by. encompassed wholly by every iota he has to give—
he cums like that. nose buried in your crown, moaning low, scorched, in the back of his throat as you twitch beneath him, unable to move at all—)
It's early in the morning when he finally finishes, when his rut begins to slowly recede, and a fresh bloom of clarity yawns over his periphery. Moonrise peppers soft kisses over his aching shoulders as he glances at you curled up against his side, sleeping soundly. Exhausted by the hours and hours of mating, fucking. Taking him, his knot, drinking down everything he has to offer.
The sight that greets him is gnarled fingers wrapping around his rotting heart, affection peeking out between the brackets of his ribs. His appetite for you is dizzying. Unquenchable. He wonders if he'll ever be able to look at you without wanting to crawl inside your body. To reshape your tender flesh around his bulk until it is indiscernible from himself.
This want is agony. It's dread, desire. Greed.
His shoulders bite back in protest when he reaches up to drag his dirt-crusted nails through the prickly hair on his scalp. As dawn slowly unfurls across the midnight blue aether, he knows he'll have to leave soon. Can already feel the creeping heat gnawing in the pit of his belly. His rut starting anew. The scant hours he has of mental clarity, moments meant to eat, to feed, and regain strength for the next marathon of fucking, are needed to feel out his next move.
He glances at you again, and feels the same covetous tug in his chest as he did before, when he was thickly entrenched in the urge to mate. But as the burnt orange of the sun smears hazy fingerprints across the moulted sky, he sees you in a new, cleaner light. You're young. Much younger than he is.
It's something he ought to worry about. To feel some shred of shame, of despondency over shackling you to himself—a defective alpha with more scars than morality—when you're in the burgeoning bloom of your freshly untethered youth. All jejune beauty outclasses nature itself. Snow melts on the alpines, trickling down to feed the valley below. Life itself—
But you are his.
The ugly rings around your throat—mangled tissue swelling in the morning dawn, caked in a thick river of blood—all signify that you belong to him. And while it's a little extreme as far as claiming bites go—one would suffice, but he buried his teeth in you over and over again, biting down on both sides of your neck, your jugular, your nape; inner thighs, mons, wrists—it’s proof enough that you are meant for him. Made for him.
His pretty omega.
The rest doesn't matter. He ought to feel shame, but instead he luxuriates in it. Stares down at you with a needy sort of possession spuming in the putrid remains of his chest, mapping out the marks he put on you. And the ones he'll add to later, not stopping until covered in the perfect impression of his crooked teeth. Tattoos of his ownership all over your body.
Mutual, of course. There's a scant patch of skin, restive and empty, above his heart, save for a fine, jagged line from a serrated dagger. He'll have you bite down on the flesh until your teeth meet inside his muscle. Scarring down to the bone. He'll go, then, to the man who inks him up whenever he has the whim to desecrate scar tissue, and have him etch midnight black against fine silver. Permanent, forever. Always.
And anyone who kicks up a fuss—stupid as they might be—he’ll sort them out. Prove to them that you are meant to be his.
(unshakeable:
his spend leaks out of you, drying, tacky and thick, on your thighs. under the sleepy citrine of the dawning sun, it's tinged pink, and looks just like pomegranate juice.)
Ghost rolls his shoulder, and reaches for his discarded trousers. He's covered in a thick layer of dirt, and reeks like soil. But the thought of being buried alive is miniscule compared to the want of being buried inside you again. The urge. Insatiable. He groans with it, cock throbbing already.
He leaves you naked. No point in dressing when he plans on going home and sinking back inside of you before midday, anyway. An unneeded obstacle, really—
The clearing is close to his truck, and he sets a leisurely pace, yawning into the dawn, as he gathers you into his arms. Carrying you to it as you drool on his chest, brows pinched at the soft jostle of him trudging through the thicket until he reaches it.
He's not in a rut when he stretches you out in the back seat, spreading your sticky thighs around his hips, sinking inside, bottoming out just as you come to, waking up with a gasp.
The intense fucking from before lingers in the air. You're soft, molasses; arching into his chest, whimpering out the name he hissed into your nape only hours ago, folding into him with a somnolent submission. It won't last, of course—
You're a vicious little thing, and his back and chest twinge with the rivers you carved into his flesh when he didn't move the way you liked. Wolfish, aren't you? Spitfire hiding under the soft pelt of a slain lamb. He wants to devour you, bones and all.
He takes his fill of your malleable concession, rutting into you with a sluggish ease. Mapping out the starlight sparking in the depths of your glossy eyes. Magnetic. It pulls him deeper. Unravels him at the seams.
His hand spans the expanse of your jaw from ear to ear. He holds you like this, thumb buried in the tender embrace of your soft tongue, and begins to understand the reason behind Johnny's niche appetite when you toy with his flesh, coquettish and sweet, suckling him in—pretty seductress—and then mewl when he pushes in too deeply, bringing crystalline gems to corners of your eyes.
Angelic innocence. The type that demands he prostrates himself at your altar, let his bones be picked clean when you so wish it. And he'll give it to you—body, blood, tissue; all of it. The entirety of him, however broken, shattered the fragments might be.
He promises it all to you without a word, drilling holes in the gaps of your eyes, chasms wide enough for him to fit. When he cums, it's to a songbirds sonata. Your moans are a whisper, your pleasure swallowed down as it ghosts over his lips, clenching around him like a vice. Pretty bow. He doesn't hold back—groans, baritone; woodsmoke, into the gathering symphony, filling you to the brim. Thick, copious. He wants it to stick. To root.
When the blood sputters back to his head, he gathers you in his arms once more. Keeps you seated on his lap—shush, pet; s’alright, jus’ close your eyes an’ I'll ‘ave us home in a bit—as he starts the old pickup, and puts it into drive. One hand on the wheel, knuckles blanching white in the glimmering sunrise; sparse forests of muted blond catching, limned in the coruscating light. The other is placed on the small of your back, holding your belly to his.
Quietly, your body eases. Melts. You press your face into his chest, fingers curling into the fabric, and nuzzle into the heady scent of his sweat, his musk, still clinging to his shirt. Signing, soft and twee, in the cup of his embrace as you slip back to sleep.
He drives home like this. Mind a quiet place for once. Silent in its contentment, it's comfort. There's an itinerary still left to do, but he pushes it back for now, gaze roaming the dense green of the forest bracketing the road.
You'll like it, he knows. There's a fen on the outskirts of his territory, a little pond where wild rabbits have been known to make burrows. Deers, elk. Bears. They all come and go. You'll amuse yourself in the untamed wilderness of his abode, drawing delineations of your own as you carve out places in his home just for you.
And as he makes the turn to his hidden driveway, this buried sanctuary, he can't help but glance down at your crown, and think—
Persephone, finally home.
He finds your identification in your rucksack, nestled underneath the contraband you smuggled from the park—mushrooms, berries, bark, feathers—and sears your name to memory. Every part of you will be unravelled in the coming days, pulled from the depths of your being until it's all ingrained in his head. A gaping chasm chiselled into bone just for you. All for you.
Your address is a rental. He'll have to call them later today to cut your lease. Your job, too. They'll need to be notified on both your off time for his rut (and your burgeoning heat), and to update your contact information.
But that's later. Now, he just wants to get home. Sink down into his bed with you beneath him, and fuck you until sundown all over again. Stain the house with the scent of you. With the potent tang of your coupling.
It's yours too, after all. Should smell just like you.
And when you wake up later to him fucking his tongue into your drenched hole, fingers toying with your pebbled clit, Johnny will be busy packing the rest of your things into the pack of his pickup truck. The majority of it is already stacked on the porch, waiting for you to rearrange it all in your new house. Lease cut. His name added to your contacts as spouse, husband. Address updated. Marriage certificate laying on the table, only one line unsigned. Waiting for you.
Maybe it's too fast. You'll certainly protest like it is, bearing your teeth and hissing at him from across the room about too much, too fast, slow down, you don't even know his last name—
(“Riley,” he grouses, arms folded over his broad chest. Eyes burning in the cresting twilight. “S’your last name now as well, pet.”)
Fast—sure. He might think so too for a brief moment when he as you purring against his chest, submissive and docile after he fucked the fight right out of you, bullied you into agreeing to everything—it's for the best, after all. No one could ever protect you like he can.
Made for each other. Reinforced when he presses your fingers to the soft spot where his last rib once hung—
(“stole it,” he murmurs into the seam of your lips. “right from under my nose. only fair that i get to steal somethin’ right back, ain't it?”
the look on your face is rapturous when you press your hand to your side, eyes widening when you feel the extra rung—)
He's had decades of waiting. Waiting. And now that he's found you—
He's never letting go.
You're it, he knows. Feels the certainty in that statement simmering in his hindbrain, in his essence. He'll have you—now, forever. Non-negotiable. Where you go, he will follow.
(after all, there's something about three-headed dogs and their bones—)
🌽 link; sometimes the only way to get a man to stop talking is to step on him and fuck him dumb
“If I fuck you, will you leave me alone?”
Ghost freezes mid-bite, your pretzels halfway to his mouth. He doesn’t even like pretzels. That’s the worst part. He only eats them because they’re yours. Somewhere along the way he decided that “sharing” means what’s his is his and what’s yours is also his, and he’s been committed to that interpretation ever since.
Honestly, you’re pretty sure Ghost thinks his entire reason for existing is to be a pain in your ass. He steals your snacks, eats your leftovers, sits next to you with enough manspread to colonize the couch, moves your things just out of reach just to watch you struggle to get it, claims you for sparring even though he outclasses you in at least ten disciplines just to pin you and watch you squirm under him, and dumps his full weight across your shoulders when you’re at your desk, pretending to read over your work.
You arrived at this base already having heard tales of the Ghost: silent, stoic, solitary. But after months of this routine, you’re convinced there must be two Simon Rileys on site. Because you’ve yet to meet the grim reaper they described.
What you have met is a tall, muscular nuisance with a mask, boundary issues, and an obsession with exactly one person: you.
You can’t fix him. You’ve accepted that.
But you might be able to calm him down long enough to buy yourself a quiet night.
Which is why you finally snap, stare him dead in the eye, and say the only thing you think might work.
“If I fuck you, will you leave me alone?”
The kitchen falls dead quiet save for the humming of the fridge. Ghost doesn’t move for a second, pretzel paused halfway to his mouth, pinning you in place with those sharp, unreadable eyes. You watch the corner of his mouth flex, a crease you’ve learned means he’s fighting a grin. Bastard.
He breaks the silence with a low, lazy rumble. “No.”
You blink. “No?”
He takes the slowest bite of your pretzel, chews, swallows like he’s got all the time in the world. “Won’t leave you alone. Might shut up for a bit, though. Depends how well you do.”
You scoff, crossing your arms. “You’re impossible.”
He shrugs, rolling his broad shoulders. “Never said I wasn’t.” He drops the rest of the pretzels on the counter, hands splaying wide in surrender like he’s presenting evidence in court. “Terms?”
You should walk away. Instead, you plant your feet, meet his gaze dead on. “You don’t talk unless I ask you a question. For the whole night.”
His eyes flicker- calculating, hungry. He leans back against the counter, crossing his arms over that ridiculous chest. “Just for tonight?” His voice goes quieter, darker. “Could’ve had me all week, y’know.”
You bite your lip, heat crawling up your throat. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Riley.”
He steps in, so close you’re bracketed by counter and muscle and the scent of soap and gun oil and, faintly, your pretzel salt on his breath. He dwarfs you, crowding in until you have to tip your chin up to keep eye contact. One gloved knuckle lifts your jaw, gentle but inescapable.
He murmurs, voice gravel low, “Use your words, love. Don’t make me guess.”
You try to look tough, but your pulse betrays you. “I want you quiet. I want your mouth. I want your hands where I tell you. I want- ” you hesitate, nerves fighting with desire. “I want to shut you up. Think I’ve earned it.”
Ghost hums, lips twitching. “Should’ve said something sooner.” He coos, the threat of a smirk audible. “Could’ve saved yourself a lot of grief.”
You jab a finger into his chest, feeling solid heat under layers. “Off with the gloves. And no mouthing off.”
With a little roll of his eyes, he peels his gloves, slow and deliberate, dropping them to the counter with a slap.
“There,” he says, lips barely moving. “No smart comments. What now, boss?”
You fist a hand in his shirt and drag him down, close enough to feel his breath fan across your cheek. “Now you listen for once in your life.”
He grins, slow and vicious. “M’listening.”
You kiss him hard, searching, hungry. His mouth is hot and skilled, tongue curling possessive against yours, letting you set the pace while his hands rest heavy at your waist.
You break away, breathing hard, and tug him toward the bedroom. “On the bed,” you order. “And if you so much as smirk, I’m putting a pillow over your face.”
He follows, mock salute and all, boots quiet on tile, the ghost of a smirk never really leaving.
“I’m never smug,” he lies, voice muffled as you shove him down, finally climbing over him like you’ve wanted for months. “Just well prepared.”
You roll your eyes, straddle his hips, and press a palm flat to his mouth. “Don’t test me, Ghost.”
He grins, bites your palm, teeth scraping just enough to make your stomach drop, and heat flares bright in his eyes. For once- miracle of miracles- he finally goes quiet.
You don’t trust it. Not for a second.
“Shirt off,” you order.
He obeys instantly, palms flattening on the mattress as he sits up just long enough to let you grab the hem and yank. The fabric drags up over carved muscle, over scars that look like map lines and bad decisions, until the shirt clears his head and you toss it somewhere behind you. His chest is hot when you press your hands to it, warm skin under your palms, heartbeat thudding steady like he’s not worked up at all.
Smug bastard.
“Your turn,” he murmurs, breaking the rules already. You shoot him a look, and he raises both hands in a mock surrender. Silent again.
But his eyes say everything.
You strip your shirt, toss it aside. Ghost’s gaze drops straight to your chest, zero shame, zero hesitation. His pupils blow wide. He looks hungry in a way that pisses you off because he doesn’t deserve to be that pretty about it.
His hands come up, slow, giving you time to slap them away if you want to. You don’t. His palms slide over your ribs, up your sides, rough thumbs brushing the underswell of your breasts.
Then he leans up and takes your nipple into his mouth.
“Ghost- ” you hiss, nearly losing your balance as heat zings straight down your spine.
He hums against you, tongue circling slow, evil little flicks of the tip against your nipple that make your back arch despite your best intentions. He sucks once, a sharp tug that sends your breath stuttering, and looks up at you with a knowing tilt of his brow.
This man lives to be a problem.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you mutter, grabbing a fistful of his hair. “Of course you’re good at this.”
He smiles against your skin- smiles- and drags his mouth lower, teeth grazing your sternum before he kisses along the line of your ribs. His hands grip your hips, thumbs stroking the dip of your waist as he mouths at every inch he can reach, like he’s tasting you and critiquing the flavor with a vibrating groan.
“You’re supposed to be quiet,” you snap, breath hitching as he noses up the curve of your breast, lips brushing your nipple again.
He doesn’t answer. He just sucks harder.
You swear, shoving him back down onto the bed.
“Pants. Off. Now.”
He gives you a slow, dangerous look, like he’s debating whether to break the rules on purpose, but then he lifts his hips and strips his pants in one fluid, precise motion that makes your mouth dry. Cock heavy and thick against his stomach, and he knows exactly what he looks like because he sits back on his elbows and waits for you to react.
You don’t. You won’t. You refuse.
You peel your pants off in answer, kicking them away, settling back onto his hips. His hands claim your thighs immediately, thumbs drawing slow circles that make your stomach flutter even though you tell yourself you’re immune.
Then he drags you forward and kisses you again, full, filthy, confident, like he’s been waiting months for you to snap.
He’s good. Too good. Tongue sliding against yours with lazy movements, mouth hot and sure. You hate how easily he knocks the air out of you. How your fingers curl in his hair like you’re trying to drag him deeper into the kiss. How he groans into your mouth when you grind down on him.
You break away, panting, cheeks hot with irritation and want in equal measure.
“You,” you breathe, shoving him back onto the mattress with both hands, “are way too good at that.”
His grin is sinful. “Mhm.”
“Not a question,” you warn.
He taps over his mouth like he’s zipping it shut, eyes dancing with mischief.
“Hands behind your head,” you say.
He laces his fingers over the pillow, biceps tightening, obedient and smug at the same time. “Bossy.”
“Quiet.”
You wrap your hand around his cock, relishing in the way he hisses, his hips jerk in response before lining him up with your cunt and sinking down slow onto him, taking him inch by inch until your breath breaks. He swears under it, jaw going tight, but keeps his grip locked where you told him. You sit there a beat just to feel it: thick, deep, the heavy press right where you want it. Then you plant your left knee at his hip and slide your right leg long, sole pressing flat to his sternum.
His eyes flare. “Fuck.”
“Shh.” You lean back, palms braced on the slab of his thigh for balance, heel pressing into his chest to pin him. The angle is obscene, your hips tipped, the stretch perfect, and when you rock your weight forward and roll back again, the friction sparks up your spine so fast you gasp.
Ghost’s fingers twitch against the pillow. He’s breathing hard, chest rising into your foot. “Look at you,” he rasps, failing at silence. “Using me.”
You bear down harder with your heel until he groans. “That a complaint?”
“Not a chance.”
You ride him just how you want: long, dragging strokes that bottom you out, then sharp, mean snaps of your hips that punch breath out of both of you. Your hands slide on the heat of his quad, tendons standing out under your palms as he fights not to move. He’s trembling with the effort, thighs like stone, cock thick and pulsing inside you.
“Eyes on me,” you tell him.
They snap back to yours, wrecked and obedient.
“Good.” You grind down and circle, greedy for the catch of pressure that makes your belly drop. He chokes on a sound you want to hear again, so you do it again, slower, feeling your own slick make everything lazier, filthier.
“Please,” he says before he can stop himself.
“For what?”
“Touch.” His fingers flex against the pillow like he’s in pain. “Let me.”
You pretend to think about it, then shift, lifting and slamming back down hard enough to make the headboard tap the wall. His head goes back, throat working, a curse torn from his chest.
“Hands,” you say, generous, “on my hips. Nothing else.”
He’s there instantly, big palms hot and sure, dragging you down, grounding your rhythm but not stealing it. You’re the one setting the pace, the angle, the way his breath stutters when you clamp around him. He can only hold you there and take it.
You press your foot higher, right below his collarbone. “Stay.”
“Yes, love.” He’s gone glassy with it, voice rough. “Fuck, you feel-”
“Inside voice,” you warn, and then you lean back farther, arms straight, fingers digging into his thigh for leverage as you ride. It’s pornographic, your body arched, his chest caged under your sole, the slap and slide and sweaty heat. He’s losing it; you can feel it in the stutter of his hips, the way his thumbs press into the brackets of your hipbones.
“Harder,” he begs, and you give it to him; fast now, relentless, friction right where you need it. He slips a hand, just one, between you without asking, and you catch his wrist on instinct-
He freezes, eyes wide.
You hold his gaze, then guide his fingers exactly where you want them. “Here. Don’t stop.”
“Christ,” he groans, circling your clit just right, matching your rhythm. “That’s it. C’mon-let me have it.”
It hits quick and hot, your whole body tightening, mouth falling open on a sound you can’t swallow. You bear down hard, heel driving into his chest as you shatter, pulsing around him, riding it out messy and desperate. He swears and follows you over, thrusts going short and deep, fingers bruising your hips as he spills with a broken noise you’ll think about later when you want to feel smug.
Silence after: your breath, his heartbeat thudding wild under your foot, the soft hiss of the AC. You peel your heel from his sternum and plant it on the mattress, legs shaking.
You lean forward slowly, hands still on his thigh, and watch him try to school his face back into unreadable. It doesn’t work. He looks ruined in the best way, mask crooked, hair damp, eyes all over you.
“Get it out of your system?” you ask, voice shredded.
He grins under the skull. “Not even close.”
You roll your hips once, lazy, making him hiss. “Good. I wasn’t finished.”
