Ali

The way he just…sits there behind the wheel. Not speeding, not talking. He just drives.

But Tommy can feel it. The wrath bleeding out of him, staining the air with tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Joel’s knuckles blanch around the steering wheel, old leather creaking beneath the force. His jaw feathers, but for too long he remains silent.

Tommy knows better than to speak.

They make it all the way out of Joel’s neighborhood. Past the suburban houses and onto the long, empty stretch of road that’s nothing but rolling fields until you reach the highway twenty miles away.

And then Joel laughs. A deep sound from somewhere in the back of his throat, devoid of amusement. “You know, I uh…I been wrong about一about a lot of things in my day. Made some bad calls. I’m old enough now to see that. To admit it.”

Tommy’s stomach twists.

“Matter of fact, there’s a whole lot of things I’m bad at. Like keepin’ records, for example,” Joel continues. “That wood workin’ company came by to pick up those benches this morning. The ones we rented for the wedding. Did I mention they were coming?”

There’s this expectant look on Joel’s face when he glances at his brother. Tommy shifts uncomfortably and forces a nod. “Yeah, I think you did,” he says. Quiet. Uneasy.

“Right, well. They were askin’ for an invoice. Wanted to make sure we paid the bill in full ‘cause they offer payment plans and such,” Joel explains with a wave of his hand. “Now, record keepin’...too much of a hassle for me. But luckily, I have this step daughter. Doubles as my secretary. Real good at stuff like that.”

He doesn’t know what to do. What to say. So Tommy just keeps quiet.

Joel clears his throat. “She’s got this little file folder where she keeps stuff like that. Separates everything by month. Says it’s easier to get rid of the things we don’t need anymore,” he chuckles. “Smart kid, that girl. Anyway, I went searchin’ for that invoice. Remembered it was one of the first things we bought for the wedding. So I knew it had to be pretty close to that consultation I sent ya’ll on for the house in Stratford. You remember that, little brother? You remember that far back?”

Joel’s toying with him now, he knows. Goading for a reaction. Tommy doesn’t give it to him. “I remember.”

“Found the invoice pretty quick. Gave it to the guy, helped him load up his truck. Went to put it back after an’ I found…well, I found somethin’ I don’t think I was ever supposed to see.” He reaches into his front pocket. Pulls out a white piece of paper, folded twice.

The creases in the paper are fresh. Crisp. When he hands it to him, Tommy takes it and his mouth runs dry. He unfolds it slowly, and his heart plummets when he reads what it is.

A receipt. The one for that shitty hotel you had stayed at that weekend. And right in the center, glaring and painfully obvious, it reads; room 314, single king bed.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, off to the right of the paper, just below the total, there’s a deduction. 

Newlywed discount.

Tommy reads it over and over, heart hammering against his ribcage.

For a single second, he thinks about lying. About explaining it away, saying it was cheaper, that there was a couch and a pull out mattress he slept on. A force of habit. 

But Tommy thinks there’s not much point in it now. No use in lying when the truth was supposed to come out today, anyhow. 

“Joel, I—”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Joel interrupts. Voice louder now. More firm. “Was layin’ in bed that weekend with my wife, an’ she asked me somethin’ I never thought I’d have to answer.” He scoffs. Shakes his head and scratches the stubble on his brow. “Ain’t her fault. She’s a momma, after all. Worried about her kid, and you know, I get it. I would be too if the roles were reversed. Asked me if…asked me if you were a little too close.”

Tommy tries to focus on his breathing. Tries not to think about the fact that he’s never seen Joel this furious before. 

“An’ I thought—” he laughs. “I thought, Tommy? Nah. He ain’t like that. Said you just…just care about her feelings. Don’t wanna upset her. Cause it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the way that girl looks at you. Got a crush or somethin,’ always starin’ like you done hung the damn moon in the sky. But you wouldn’t…you wouldn’t act on it. Said she had nothin’ to worry about—I said that.”

Silence hangs between them for a few moments. Heavy, demanding. 

And then Joel says, “So, not only have you been lyin’ to me, but you made me lie to my fuckin’ wife, Tommy.” The muscles in his forearms flex. 

It’s the only tell he seems to have apart from the wrinkle between his brows. His voice still remains calm and steady.

“I’m gonna give you one chance. One. You’re gonna tell me what’s goin’ on between you two. And if I find out you lie to me again at any point, you’ll never set foot in my house again. I promise you that.” Joel flicks his attention away from the road, just for a moment, to stare his brother right in the eye. To let him know he means what he says. 

It’s unnecessary, though. Because Tommy’s known all along this was coming. Still, it’s devastating. Feels like he’s been stabbed and the knife just twists and turns with each word his brother speaks. 

The only thing that brings him comfort is knowing that you’ll be there. By his side, hand in hand—at the end of all this.

Even if he has no one else, he’ll have you.

Tommy swallows hard.

And then Joel asks it plainly. “Are you messin’ around with my stepdaughter, Tommy?”

“Ain’t like that,” Tommy says. The denial comes quick. Because while what you two have is a lot of things, it’s never been that.

“So what is it like, then?” Joel sees the wide eyed look on his brother's face and scoffs. “Don’t tell me some stupid shit, either. Like how you love her.”

“I do,” Tommy insists, patience beginning to wear thin. “I do, Joel. You really think I could do something like that?”

“Not like you’ve got the best track record with women—”

“But not to her,” Tommy says. “You…” he shakes his head. “Christ, Joel. You can’t seriously think I would—”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.” 

The words sit there in the cab of the truck.

And even though he doesn’t say it, Tommy can feel his brother’s disappointment. He wonders why it hurts a little more than usual when he should be used to it by now. 

It would be easier, Tommy thinks, if Joel was an explosive type of man. Could handle a right hook and screaming insults. But the silence is what kills him. 

“Look. I…I tried, okay? For months. I tried to do the good thing, to be the man I’m supposed to be to her. But the man I’m supposed to be isn’t the man that I am, and maybe…maybe that means you’re right. Maybe that makes me the pissy little brother you see every time you look at me, but that ain’t how she sees me.”

“That’s ‘cause she doesn’t know you like I do,” Joel grits out. “She’s young. Blinded. And God knows what you’ve told her, what you’ve—”

“You sayin’ I talked her into this?” Tommy scoffs. Feels a different kind of emotion rising up in him. Hot. Angry. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Stop actin’ like it makes me some sort of villain ‘cause I love her.”

Joel cuts the wheel to the left, hard enough the truck tires squeal beneath the sudden shift in weight. He pulls into the empty field and doesn’t even turn the engine off. Leaves the keys in the ignition, shoves open his door and barks out, “Get the fuck out.”

Tommy does as he’s told. Knows good and well what’s coming. Thinks it’s better this way, just to get it done and over with. He follows Joel out into the field and says, “I didn’t plan for—!”

Joel hits hard. He always has.

His fist flies through the air—cracking against Tommy’s jaw. His vision goes blurry, pain pinpricking below his skin. 

Tommy doesn’t fight back. Just stares at his brother, lip bloody, tears in his eyes.

Joel hits him again, but his momentum falters. “She’s my responsibility as much as Sarah is. My fucking kid, Tommy!”

“You think I don’t know that?!” He scoffs. “Think I don’t see how fucked up the whole thing is? Think I haven’t torn myself apart tryin’ not to love that girl?”

“Tried,” Joel laughs bitterly. “How in the hell do you expect me to believe a word that comes out of your mouth?” This time, Joel shoves him.

Hard enough for Tommy’s balance to falter. He feels dizzy and a little afraid, but underneath all that there’s something akin to relief.

Because he doesn’t have to lie anymore. 

And Joel might not like it—might cut his little brother off completely, but at least he’ll know the truth. At least Tommy will have you. 

“I know,” he mutters. “I’m sorry.”

Not sorry that it happened, just that it came at the price of this wedge between them.

“Fuckin’ sick in the goddamn head is what you are,” he says. Joel shoves him again, putting every ounce of his energy into it. 

Tommy falls, panting. Doesn’t even try to pull himself back up. Doesn’t fight back. Thinks for a second, a single second, that Joel may just kick him in the ribs, and Tommy would let him.

But he doesn’t. 

He just towers over him with this look on his face that’s half sorrow and half disgust.

“I love her,” Tommy says, softer now. “But I’m sorry for this.”

Another second passes. And then Joel reaches out his hand. 

Tommy takes it. Lets his brother pull him off the ground for what feels like the millionth time in their lives. And that look on his face doesn’t change; fury, disappointment, heartbreak.

But then he stares harder. Searches his face with narrowed eyes in that way he does. And then Joel’s eyes begin to soften.

They climb back into the truck in silence. Tommy finds an old napkin crumbled in the glove compartment and uses it to dab at the cut on his lip, spitting the coppery taste of blood out of the window.

Joel drives slow. Rolls the windows down, rests his head in his hand and his elbow on the doorframe.  He has no more questions to ask, no more truths to unearth. Lets out a few long sighs, but doesn’t speak.

So Tommy does instead. 

“My life wasn’t bad before I met her. I was happy. Had you and Sarah and a few good friends. And maybe I could’a gone on, livin’ like that,” Tommy explains. “But once she was there, man…” He shakes his head. Tries to find the words. “Everything changed. The way I saw the world, the way I saw myself. S’like there was a part of me just waitin’ to come alive. Waitin’ on her.”

Joel glances at his brother, giving him that hard stare again. Judging. Weighing.

“An’ I think…I think there’s a part of me that had known, even that first night I’d met her, that it was always gonna end up like this. A part of me that knew I could never really look away once I’d seen her. Still, I’m…I’m sorry, Joel. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire. Sorry that I didn’t just rip off the bandaid an’ tell you in the beginning.”

A long silence settles between them. Different this time. Less like a loaded gun. 

They make it halfway into town before Joel says, “For what it’s worth, I believe you.”

It’s not forgiveness. Not even quite acceptance. 

But it’s something.

When they pull into the driveway, Tommy hears your mothers voice first. Loud, firm, irate. Words muffled by walls of the house, but with the cadence in her tone alone Tommy can guess what she’s yelling about. 

But then he hears you—and he’s out of Joel’s truck before it comes to a complete stop. He can’t see you but he can hear the tears in the way you speak, can hear the panic in your voice. 

Joel grabs him by the elbow with a too rough grip. “Don’t,” he warns. “You’ll just make it worse.” 

Tommy glares at his brother, then at the front door, then at Joel again. Feels trapped, unsure about the balance anymore or if it even still exists.

But then the front door is ripped open, and you’re standing there with bloodshot eyes. You’d clearly been trying to find space, but freeze when you see them standing in the driveway. 

When your eyes find Tommy, you visibly relax. Shoulders slumping, frown deepening, feeling your upset more as if only now it’s safe for you to do so, now that he’s here with you.

The realization would warm his heart if it weren't for the problems at hand. 

You take a single step off the front porch and then stop again. Close enough now to see the cut on Tommy’s lip and the purplish bruise beginning to form on his jaw. 

Something changes in your eyes. You don’t speak, but your edges sharpen. Your gaze becomes fiery, glaring at Joel with a look that would level God himself. 

And then you’re turning around and running up the stairs.

He doesn’t understand at first. Just hears Joel when he turns to him and orders, “Go home, Tommy.”

But his home is underneath that roof, and Tommy isn’t going anywhere until he knows you’re safe. Until he knows your tears have dried and you can breathe a little easier. Until you tell him to go. 

Joel disappears inside, no doubt going to find and comfort your mother, and Tommy…well, he lingers. Is too afraid to blatantly defy his brother but is more afraid to leave you here alone, stuck.

So he leans against the front of his truck, arms crossed over his chest, here if you need him but just…just far enough away. Searching for the balance again. 

And then you come barreling back down the stairs, except this time there’s a backpack slung over your left shoulder. You snatch your sneakers from the floor behind the door and your mom finally comes into view. 

Her face is ruddy and tear stained, not dissimilar to yours. She watches you walk out of the front door with your shoulders squared and says your full name with a cutting edge in her voice.

You pause. Stare right at Tommy, shoulders heaving with every uneven breath, refusing to turn and face her.

Joel puts his hand on your mom’s shoulder in the doorway. Says something soft in her ear, but she doesn’t listen. Just clenches her jaw tight and tells you, “If you leave right now, don’t expect a place here when you come back.”

Tommy sees the flicker of disquiet in your eyes. Not doubt, just…sadness. Deep and pensive.

Deciding. Giving up one thing for another. Losing either way.

“I’ll still be here,” Tommy whispers. “Today, tomorrow—doesn’t matter. You don’t gotta make this decision right now. I’m yours.”

He sees something inside you shift.

And then you’re tossing your backpack into the bed of his truck and ripping open the passenger door without a second thought. 

Tommy would be lying if he said something within him didn’t loosen, watching the way you slide into the leather seat with practiced ease. 

He gets in, turns the engine over, and the last thing he sees before pulling away from Joel’s house is your mother slamming the front door behind her. 

You only make it a block away before he’s flicking on his hazards and pulling off to the side of the road. Doesn’t even have the truck fully in park before a sob breaks through your chest and you’re desperately clinging to him—fingers gripping the back of his shirt collar, climbing into his lap, face pressed into the crook of his neck. 

“C’mere, sweet girl. I know, baby, I know.” Tommy wants to say it’s okay, wants to promise that this will pass and things will get easier with time, but he knows it’s not what you need to hear. 

So he just holds you close. Runs his fingertips soothingly up and down your spine, thumbs pressing into the tender muscles at the small of your back. He kisses the top of your head and your temple and your wet cheekbone, tasting the salt of your tears on his lips. 

“I love you,” he mumbles into your hair. “An’ I swear to you, I swear, I’ll never make you regret this.”

You lift your head then, and Tommy’s heart breaks a little more to see it up close. Your pretty, starry eyes all bloodshot and filled with grief.

With the back of your hand, you wipe the tears from your face and say, “I’d never regret you, Uncle Tommy.” 

Then you smile. Despite all that’s happened, all that’s unfolded—you give him one of those sweet, sunshiney grins and Tommy begins to think he holds the bravest woman alive in his big arms.

He can’t help but mirror it, allowing himself to feel the joyous part of the tectonic shift for the first time. Feeling the loss, the erosion…but the rebirth, too. Sees your courage and matches it.

Tommy laughs. A quick, low sound that bubbles out of him. But once he starts, he finds that he can’t stop. 

And you’re laughing, too. Sweet, summertime giggles that fill him with warmth. You cradle his face in your hands, feeling the stubble on his cheeks, and then you kiss him. 

Gentle, easy, real.

When you pull away, you sniffle and say, “I’m sorry for crying so much. I’m sad, but I’m…I’m happy, too. Really happy. With you.”

Tommy nods because more than anyone, he understands. “S’okay to be both,” he tells you. “You can be happy and sad about it.”

A bright smile pulls up the corners of your mouth again, as if hearing the words alone brought much needed ease. You press your forehead to his and say, “I love you, too. Let's go home.”

He kisses you once more before you move back into the passenger seat. Breathes a little easier now that the dust is beginning to settle. Not quite calm, exactly, but…steady. Safe. 

You slide your hand into his and rest your head on his shoulder, and Tommy finds himself overwhelmed with gratitude.

Truthfully, he’d never thought much about his future before you. Had always just assumed he’d die the same way he lived, with Joel and Sarah at his side and not much else. Had never asked for or expected more. Had never thought he deserved this.

But now you’re here, sitting beside him, reaching for the stereo to press play on the Paramore CD he’d bought not long ago with you in mind. The music plays softly through the speakers, and for the first time in his life, Tommy Miller sees his future through a crystal clear lens. 

Can see himself coming home from work, beat and dead tired but rejuvenated by the sight of you standing on the front porch of a house he built. Still wearing those sequined denim shorts and those high top sneakers, hair pulled back with one baby on your hip and another with its chubby little hand wrapped around your middle finger.

His heart swells at the thought. Pinches tight, desperately trying to find the same solace it finds in his fantasies. Tommy’s hand squeezes around yours.

You don’t speak up again until he drives past his apartment, completely bypassing the turn he needs to get into the parking lot. That pretty crease forms between your brows and you lift your head to look up at him, a silent question hanging between you.

Tommy smiles. Says, “Relax, baby. You trust me?”

And you nod instantly. No hesitation, no doubt. Just surety. As if trusting him is the easiest thing you’ve ever done. “Always.”

He kisses the top of your head and keeps on driving. Doesn’t stop until you’re just outside of the city limits, surrounded by trees and emptiness. The asphalt road gives way to gravel and then dirt.

When you come to a small clearing in the trees, he pulls off to the side and puts the truck in park. Feels the smallest bit of anxiety bubble up in his chest. Not because he’s afraid, but just because he’s not quite sure what your reaction will be.

Tommy knows you, but this is…different. New territory.

So he picks at the peeling leather of his steering wheel, unable to meet your eyes. “I’ve never been sure about much of anything in my life except for you,” he says. It’s not flattery, just true. Real. “Never had much ambition. And what little I did have just got…overshadowed. Tossed aside. I don’t—I don’t know.”

When he shakes his head, you move closer. Lace your fingers between his and use the other to wrap around his bicep. A steady, glowing warmth at his side, giving him strength.

“What I’m tryin’ to say is that you changed that. For me. S’like you make me want to be better. Someone you deserve.”

He can feel you tense beside him. Knows you have something to say before you even open your mouth. “I hate that you feel that way,” you admit. “You’re a good man, Tommy. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you, even for a single second.”

Your words land heavy on his chest and Tommy wonders if they’ll ever feel easier to believe. And if they don’t, he hopes you’ll never grow tired of saying them. “You’ve always been good with words,” he says, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Always know just what to say. S’one of my favorite things about you.”

He takes a slow, steadying breath. Reminds himself that it’s you. Not just the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with, but his best friend. The only person who’s ever understood him.

“When we were in Stratford for the consultation, the first time we started plannin’ a future together. One with a big ol’ house and a bunch of kids an’ chickens in the back yard, I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it. S’like it took over my goddamn brain.” He laughs softly. “I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever wanted as much as I want that. With you. An’ so…when I got that check, after the work was done. I didn’t…I didn’t have a use for it. Other than this.”

Your brows furrow in confusion when Tommy nods his head towards the windshield, right at the clearing. “What?”

“This place,” he clarifies. “Five and a half acres. Can’t see it, but there’s a pretty big pond towards the back. Clean enough to swim in. Spent some time here already, built a dock for it一”

“Tommy,” you interrupt. “What? I mean…what? You…you bought this? For us?”

He shrugs. “Well, yeah. I thought maybe I should’a waited ‘til you could be here. So you could decide with me. But once I saw it, I realized it was everything we talked about. I signed the deed the first time I came out here with the realtor, two days after the check was deposited.”

“But that was before we decided to tell my mom and Joel,” you say, eyes wide with disbelief. “How did you know it would turn out like this?”

“I didn’t,” Tommy answers. “Just knew what I wanted. Made my choice.”

You stare at him a little longer, eyes full of…something. Something he can’t quite name. Heavy, the way everything feels these days, but good.

“Do you…do you want to go look?”

You nod frantically and fill the space with your soft giggles as you climb out of the truck.

Tommy rounds the front and takes your hand in his once more, walking into the clearing. There’s nothing there, not yet. But he points to the back of the open space, right before the tree line begins, and says, “Thought we might put the house back there. Far enough away from the road, but close enough it won’t be a damn trek for the mailman. Could build a chicken coop in that back corner ‘cause there’s a little stream back there. Real cute, thought you might like that. But we don’t have to do it that way一it’s your home, too. You just tell me what an’ where, and I’ll build it.”

He turns to the left and says, “You see that tree way down there? The one with the orange paint on it? That’s the end of our property.”

He turns to the right, and you follow, holding onto him and pressing your cheek against his arm. 

“And it goes all the way to that street sign, right at the crossroad. You see it?”

“Yeah,” you say with a nod. “I see it.”

But Tommy notices when he looks down at you that you’re not looking at the road sign at all. You’re staring right up at him, with those pretty stars in your eyes, looking like he’s the best thing to ever happen to you.

He feels his face warm beneath your acute attention. All his, all alone, with no secret and no shame in it. You’re not hiding, not here, and it’s the most freeing realization he’s ever come to. The air feels lighter like this. Cool against his face. Easy.

Right.

“Will you show me the pond?”

Tommy does. Walks you through the forest, between the trees, letting you take your time. You run your fingers through the tall grass and along the rough bark and Tommy soaks up the feeling. Relishes in the time you now have.

He lets the tension leave his bones. Lets himself relax into the safety of you. Lets all that longing, all that wishing bleed from his psyche and sink deep into the earth beneath his feet where you’ll build your life together.

When the pond comes into view in the distance, you let go of his hand and run towards it. Spread your arms out wide and turn your face up to the sun and say, “God, Tommy. This place is perfect.”

He wants to explain that it’s not this place, it’s you. That the last few times he’s come here it’s never felt like this. That it’s just been soil and green and space with no significance until you stepped foot on it. Turning something empty and baron into potential, the way you always do. The way you did with him.

But he’s not good with words. Not like you are.

So he just asks, “You like it, then?” Tommy meets you near the water’s edge just as you sink to your knees and lay back in the plush grass. He mirrors you一the way he always does, the way he always has. Tucks his hands behind his head and lets the sun warm his skin, brightness reflecting off the clear, blue water.

“I love it,” you say. And then you turn your head to the side, facing him. “I love you.”

Tommy reaches out his hand to cradle your cheek in his big palm. “You’re everything to me,” he whispers. “My favorite girl.”

You give him a wide grin, and he watches the seriousness fade and something a little sillier takes its place. “You think it’s too early to christen the place?”

It makes him laugh. A full-bodied sound that’s joy in its purest form. “Christen what? Ain’t even got a foundation laid yet, darlin’.”

“I don’t know! The land,” you say, the words slipping out between playful giggles. You move closer, throwing your leg over his waist, straddling him.

His hands find you on instinct; pressing flat against the denim over your thighs, squeezing gently. “You feelin’ needy, baby? S’that what it is?”

You run your fingers through his hair, tugging lightly at the roots, a soft smile on your face. “I just…I wasn’t sure if we were going to get this, you know? The happy ending. I always hoped we would, but for a minute I was…kind of scared. And now we’re here. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

Tommy smiles so hard the apples of his cheeks begin to ache.

You reiterate, “I’m happy and I love you and…yeah. Maybe I’m a little bit needy, too.”

He chuckles at your admission that was never needed, because Tommy can read you like the back of his hand. Has always been able to. He shifts his hips, lifting them up towards you, and delights in the way your lips part in response. “Look so fuckin’ pretty all the time,” he says. “But especially right now.”

Backlit by the bright afternoon sun, sky overhead clear and blue, possessing only a fraction of the beauty held by the perfect little girl on top of him.

“All sweet an’ soft an’ all mine,” he continues, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of your jeans. He starts to undo the metallic button and you begin to move of your own accord, hips dragging over his waist, grinding yourself against the bulge of his cock, already hard and aching for you.

“Touch me,” you say, breathless, and he does. Slides one hand beneath your shirt, smiling when you sigh the moment his skin presses against yours.

Tommy reaches further, palming the swell of your breast, tugging the fabric of your bra down to run the rough pad of his thumb across the peak of your nipple. “Gonna give you everything,” he promises, both to you and to himself. “Deserve it all, baby.”

Once he’s got your zipper down, there’s just enough room for him to slip his hand into your jeans. He runs his fingers gently down your slit, over the cotton of your panties, already wet and sticky with arousal.

The rhythm of your hips shifts in focus; chasing friction from his hand instead now, grinding against his palm. “Oh, sweetheart…she really does need me, huh? Pretty pussy needs her Uncle Tommy.” 

A whimper leaves you as you nod frantically in answer, pace picking up speed. “Feel’s so good.”

“I know, baby, I know,” he mutters. Tommy touches for a little while longer, lets you rut yourself against him, lets you build up that delicious pressure. 

And you whine when he pulls away, because of course you do一sweet, desperate girl. 

“Shh,” he coos. “S’alright. Stand up for me, baby. Take your clothes off.” 

You follow his instructions so beautifully, so easily.

Tommy watches, hand palming his aching cock over the fabric of his jeans, as you pull your t-shirt over your head and reach around to unclasp your bra, leaving them in a pile on the ground below.

You move a little slower as you pull your jeans down, exposing the softness of your thighs, tugging the denim over your high top sneakers. When his gaze finds your face again, he realizes you’re watching him. Putting on a show.

Eyes dark, pupils blown wide, a flush on your cheeks and that troublesome smirk on your face. 

You’re the most enchanting thing he’s ever fucking seen.

When you begin to pull your panties down your legs, you turn away from him, showing off the supple curve of your ass. Pretty and tempting and so fucking delicious.

The cotton sticks between your legs, fabric clinging to your pussy, slick with arousal. You tug them the rest of the way down, leaving you completely bare in front of him save for your sneakers.

There’s something about the image that sends a shiver down his spine. Somehow both a perfect picture of innocence and corruption. An angel and siren all in one; calling to him, pulling him into your intricate web, forbidden and wicked and filthy but his all the same.

A soft giggles bubbles out of you, pulling him from his reverie. “See something you like, Uncle Tommy?”

His answer comes quickly. “See somethin’ edible, baby.” And then he’s moving, leaning up on his knees and taking hold of your thighs in a bruising grip.

Presses a firm, desperate kiss to the small of your back. Flicks his tongue across the skin, tasting you, a groan rumbling somewhere deep in his chest. His mouth moves lower, greedier, biting and sucking a mark into the soft globe of your left cheek.

He presses one hand against your spine, bending you over just a little more, and uses the other to spread you open. Leaving you completely exposed to him, unashamed, obscene in the way that only you can be. His perfect fucking girl, made special just for your Uncle Tommy.

“Christ,” he hisses. “She’s fuckin’ crying for me, ain’t she?” He reaches between your legs and slides his thumb through your folds for emphasis, spreading the sticky wetness, pulling it back until his thumb drags gently over the one part of you he’s never claimed.

You shiver at the touch, but make no move to run from it. Tommy’s mouth waters at the sight of you, body quietly begging.

“S’it okay if Uncle Tommy kisses you here, baby? I’ll be real gentle. Promise.”

The words sound filthy in his ears. But he can see the way they make your thighs clench, sees the goosebumps rise along your spine. Dirty, wicked girl. His perfect fucking match.

Tommy waits for your nod, and then he’s leaning forward, tongue hot and wet, sliding against your tight entrance, clenching beneath his ministrations. He moans against you—a breathy, ragged sound. Savors the heady taste, fingers sinking deep into the softness of your skin. 

“Oh, God—” you reach your hand back, clutching his shoulder. 

He flicks his tongue, up and down, up and down. A dizzying, steady rhythm. He presses his face against you, insatiable, spit dripping down his chin. 

Your moans are so pretty. Music to his ears. And when he reaches around your thigh to press his fingers to your clit, you cry out his name. 

His cock strains in his jeans, hips tilting ever so slightly, chasing the sweet relief that comes with the subtle friction of fabric. Just hearing you, seeing you, tasting you has Tommy teetering on the cusp of euphoria. And he knows the moment he sinks inside you he’ll be close一too close.

So he plans ahead. Shoulders your legs further apart to make room for his other hand as it finds your sweet pussy with muscle memory. He presses two fingers in deep, caressing that most sacred spot inside of you, and grins when you whimper for him.

“Fuck, Uncle Tommy, please一!”

His words are breathless, panting. “That feel good, darlin’? Huh? That what you need?” 

“God, yes, it’s so much,” you say, voice all soft and pretty.

His fingers on your clit move slowly, intentional, precise in just the way you like, while the ones inside you hook upwards, curling deliciously, pulling sweet sounds from your lungs. 

“You can take it,” Tommy promises. And then he’s pressing his mouth to your ass again, kissing, licking, tongue circling the tight ring of muscle. A chorus of pleas leave your mouth, echoing in the open air.

“So..God, so good, so fucking一hmm一don’t stop, please don’t stop一!”

He feels your thighs begin to shake, feels your silky walls clench tight around his fingers. Knows you’re close even though you don’t say the words. Waits until you hold your breath, until you’re right there, chasing the high一and then he pulls away. Slides his fingers out of you and they come away slick and syrupy and glistening. 

You toss your head back in a dramatic display of frustration and it makes Tommy laugh, a dark, maniacal sound. Maybe even a little bit mean.

“No, please, Tommy, please, please一!”

Sound so fucking pretty when you beg, Tommy thinks. 

“S’enough whinin’ girl,” he says, belt buckle clinking as he pulls it loose. “Ain’t ever let you down before, m’not gonna start now.”

He reaches into his boxers and shoves them down just enough that his cock springs free, hanging heavy between you. He props himself up a little further, stabilizing his balance, knees digging into the dirt below, leaving grass stains on his jeans. “C’mere, baby. Come sit on Uncle Tommy’s lap.” 

With greedy fingers, he pulls you back by your waist, until your sneakers are planted firmly in the ground on either side of him. And then he pulls you down, holding his cock with one hand, guiding it into your tight, wet heat.

You moan in tandem at the contact, at the sweet, aching stretch. He pulls you all the way down onto his length, buries himself deep inside you. “Yeah, there you go. Takin’ it so good. Fuckin’ made for this cock, huh?”

“God, yes,” you whimper. You roll your hips, and Tommy’s fingers find your clit again, sliding over the sensitive nerve endings, movement made easy by the wetness between your thighs. 

Tommy presses gentle kisses to your shoulder as you ride him, breath ragged. Bathes you in a song of praise, saying, “Fuckin’ love every goddamn inch of you, baby. So pretty. My perfect, filthy girl. All mine. Never gonna let you go, not now. Uncle Tommy’s gonna keep you forever. Build you the house of your dreams an’ fuck you in every room. Hm? Fill you up ‘til you’re all full’a me. ‘Til I make you a mama.”

He can feel the way you pulse around him when he says it, as if waiting kills you. As if you want it now. Tommy understands, the way he always does. Can feel that familiar coil of pleasure building at the base of his spine at the idea alone.

“You like that, darlin’? Hm? You’d be the prettiest mama,” he says. “My favorite girl. Christ, fuckin’ dripping all over me.”

His fingers stay steady at your clit, letting you work yourself up and up and up, until一 “I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum, oh my fucking God, I一!”

Tommy leans back just in time to see a rush of liquid leave you, drenching him, slick leaking down his length. The sight is filthy and obscene and does him in completely. Tommy thrusts up into you, reaching impossibly deeper, and his orgasm hits him like a fucking freight train.

Hard, smothering, blinding. But he doesn’t stop, even though you’re shaking and fall forward, catching yourself with your palms in the plush grass.

He chases after you, hips slamming into yours, cock heavy and twitching as he paints your insides all sticky and white. “Yeah, there you go, baby. There you go. Doin’ so fuckin’ good. Take it all, pretty girl. Shit.”

Tommy doesn’t stop, not until your moans change cadence. Until he’s given you every last drop, spent himself completely. Until you’re boneless and panting beneath him. He leans back, still inside you. Pulls out slowly until just the head of his cock lingers, and then he thrusts back in. Deep. Relishing in the way you squeeze your eyes closed and the sight of your fingers as they curl in the dirt.

He kisses the back of your neck, and then finally pulls out completely. Tucks himself back into his jeans and buckles his belt. You begin to move, pushing yourself back up, but Tommy stops you with a heavy hand at the small of your back. “Hang tight, sweetheart.”

Sifting through your clothes, Tommy finds your cotton panties and has full intentions of using them to clean you up. But when he turns back to see the mess between your legs; a mixture of you and him, dripping down to your clit, pussy swollen and thoroughly taken care of…Christ. You look so fucking pretty.

And he never would have asked before, but now that you're well and truly his…Tommy feels like maybe he can. Maybe he can let himself steal this moment, to cement it forever, to hold on to it without feeling shame.

You read his mind. The way you always fucking do. “You can take a picture, if you want,” you mutter shyly. 

It’s all the permission he needs.

Tommy pulls his phone out of his back pocket and opens the camera with one hand and places the other on your ass cheek, careful not to cover the bruise he’d sucked there with his big palm. He spreads you open, just a little, his touch reverent and gentle, and the shutter on his phone clicks loudly in the silence as he takes the photo.

He opens his gallery to see it there on full display, and something eases inside him when he sees the subtle golden glint of the ring on his finger in the photo. The one with the pearl set in the center, twin to the pendant still clasped around your neck.

Like it belongs here. Belongs with you. Like he does. Like he always has. 

Tommy leans forward and hands you his phone. While you take it, eyes roaming over his handiwork, he cleans the mess from between your legs and pockets your panties.

You giggle, a wide grin on your face as he helps you to your feet. “Cute,” you say. “Should we get it framed?”

Tommy laughs hard as he holds your jeans out for you, steadying yourself with your hands on his shoulders as you step back into them. “Jesus, girl,” he says. “You’re fuckin’ crazy.” 

But the idea isn’t half bad, Tommy thinks. Wouldn’t hate it if somehow that photo ended up in his wallet.

He takes you out to lunch after. A little dive bar on the south side of town, one you admit you’ve snuck into a couple of times before your twenty first birthday. You talk about your plans for the future—the house, the chickens, the kids. 

Things you’ve only scratched the surface of because you’ve never been given a chance to dive deeper until today. And you’re both eager, but still careful.

Tommy admits he wants to go slow. That he wants to do this right. Finish the house and then marry you first. Reminds you that you can move slowly now that there’s time—a whole life of it.

When he takes you back to his apartment, you spend most of the evening moving things around. He cleans out the nightstand on the right side of his bed and the left side of the medicine cabinet.

You unpack your bag, but didn’t bring much in your haste to get out of Joel’s this morning. A couple of shirts he hangs up in the closet, a pair of jeans he folds into the top drawer of his dresser, your toothbrush that he sticks beside his in the cup on the bathroom sink.

And when it’s time for dinner, Tommy apologizes for the lack of options. “Never really been good at that part. Cookin’ and all that,” he admits quietly, scratching the back of his neck, feeling suddenly nervous. Too exposed. He adds optimistically, “But I can learn. Think there’s some cooking classes online and stuff, right? I’ll learn for you.”

“Hey.” You grab his elbow gently and turn him towards you, face lit by the fluorescent kitchen light, a stern look in your eye. You say, “I don’t love you because of what you can give me, Tommy. I just love you. Period.”

And it makes pressure build behind his eyes and his ears ring. Because he doesn’t think anyone has ever loved him like you do, not even his own brother. It’s pure, unbridled. Real. There’s no limitations or conditions attached to it. 

He’s not used to a love like this. Not sure he’ll ever be.

You slide your hand down his forearm, fingers squeezing tight around his. “I don’t know how to cook, either. We’ll learn together. Okay?” There’s this smile on your face; sweet, gentle, accepting. More kindness than he’ll ever deserve.

Tommy nods and swallows hard. “Okay,” he echos.

You take inventory of everything in his kitchen. Odds and ends and a single frozen solid chicken breast in the freezer that you put in a bowl of cool water to thaw. Inspiration strikes when you find a can of black beans in the back of his cupboard and a half-empty bag of rice.

The rice is the hardest part. You have to google the water to rice ratio and it still comes out a little sticky, but edible. Tommy slices and seasons the chicken because you discover you hate the feel of it, which leads to a whole rambunctious chase around the kitchen island while he dangles a strip in his hands.

You rinse the beans and warm them up in the microwave while he checks the chicken on the stove fifteen times with the meat thermometer in his junk drawer that he’s never used even once before today.

The evening is full of laughter. You move around each other effortlessly. He touches your waist when he slips behind you to put the spices back in the cabinet above the stove, and you know right where the utensils are even though he’s never shown you. 

It ends up being a sort of protein bowl—rice and beans and chicken and way too much hot sauce. You put the plates on the coffee table in the living room—Tommy doesn’t have a dining table.

When he promises to get one you say, “Save it for the house,” with a dismissive wave of your hand and it puts his mind at ease.

You both sit on the floor beside each other with a comedy skit playing on the TV in the background. Take a single, tentative bite…and then proceed to spit it back out in tandem. 

“Jesus Christ,” Tommy says, laughing so hard his side aches. 

“That’s fucking awful,” you add, giggling and pressing your hand to your mouth. “How did we do that? I mean, it’s just rice and chicken!”

“It’s so dry. And the rice is…why is it slimy?”

You’re laughing even harder now, face flushed from exertion, pushing your bowl away. 

An hour later, once the dishes are done and all your hard work gets scraped into the garbage bin, you and Tommy sit on the couch and share a pizza. All pepperoni, half with black olives. You don’t even use plates.

He just sits in the corner of the cushions and you sit beside him, tucked up under his arm, insisting he start that vampire show you love from the very beginning. And Tommy grumbles and says he’s not interested in no fucking teen drama.

But he doesn’t say a peep when you click the next episode, more locked into the plot than he ever would've thought he’d be. When the sun’s set, you tuck the remainder of the pizza into the fridge and brush your teeth together in the bathroom.

Tommy squeezes toothpaste onto the bristles of your brush for you with a soft smile on his face. Thinks he could get used to this, to doing small, everyday things for you. With you.

It isn’t until you’re lying beside him in bed, blankets pulled tight around you, the moon high in the sky, when it finally trickles in.

The reality of it all. The loss. 

You’ve got tears in your eyes when you ask, “Do you think…do you think she meant it? That I’ll never have a place with them again?”

Tommy hates the way you sound like this. Like a frightened little girl, afraid of losing her parents. It hurts him to see. Hurts even more that he can’t give you a certain answer.

So he just places his hand against the side of your face, thumb caressing your cheekbone. “I don’t know, baby,” he mutters. “But I do know you’ll always have a place here. With me. Okay?”

You sniffle and nod, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. “Okay. Yeah, I’m…I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry for, sweet girl.”

The sound of your phone rings out in the silence. Shrill and loud, cutting through the softness you’ve built.

You turn in his embrace and pull the device off the charger, brows furrowing as you answer and put the call on speaker. “Sarah? What’s wrong?”

Something slams in the background. Heavy, metallic. “Fucking一ow! God damnit, I just dropped all my shit. Can you一?”

Her phone clatters to the floor, and her loud, dramatic groan can be heard even with the distance.

“Dude,” you say. “Are you drunk?”

The moment you move out of bed, Tommy follows you. Pulling on his jeans and leaving the bedroom to grab his boots and your sneakers from the rack by the front door.

“I’m coming to get you,” you insist, shoving your feet into your shoes the moment Tommy drops them in front of you. “I’ve got your location already just don’t move一”

“I’m not drunk, I’m fucking pissed,” Sarah interrupts. “And I’m outside, can you help me? I haven’t been to Tommy’s apartment in, like, two years. Is it the third floor or the second? I can’t remember一” Another clatter. Another, “Oh my fucking God, dude. I’m about to freak out.”

You’re moving in tandem, leaving his apartment behind without even locking the door. Tommy doesn’t have a shirt on and you’re only wearing a clean pair of his boxers and a tank top you’d grabbed from Joel’s, but neither of you seem to care.

All that matters is getting to Sarah.

And you find her, just outside the building’s front doors, arms full with duffel bags and two old school backpacks, all while dragging a suitcase behind her. Her shoulders slump and she drops everything onto the concrete the moment she sees you.

Tommy doesn’t know, exactly, what happens. Just that it’s mutual. A shared relief, seeing each other. You run to her and she opens her arms and you fall right into them, tears rushing to the surface, wetness marring both of your cheeks.

As if you’d been fighting it all day, pushing it out. But the moment you see Sarah, the walls you’ve steadily built for the last twelve hours come crashing down as easily as if they were made of glass.

“God,” she says into your shoulder. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She holds you for a while, and Tommy just stands there. Watching it happen, watching the bond between you two and trying not to think too hard about his brother.

When you slowly begin to pull away, she shakes her head in disbelief and says, “I can’t believe they would do that. I would never leave you. Never. You’re my sister. Do you hear me?”

You nod, slow, certain. And then you laugh softly. “I’m older, I’m supposed to be the one comforting you, not the other way around.”

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m sure the time will come unless Summer decides she’s done fucking frat boys or not.” 

Tommy takes that as his cue. Remembers that Summer is the girl from Sara’s biology class and knows that whatever’s going on between them is absolutely none of his business.

He moves to pick up Sarah’s bags instead. All heavy and overflowing. “You movin’ in, too, kid?”

Tommy says it as a joke, but then Sarah answers, “Guess so. For a little while, anyway. That okay?”

He looks at you, a little overwhelmed. Feels sort of like his life has turned completely upside down, tilting on its axis. You answer for him, and Tommy’s grateful.

“Of course it is. We’ll figure something out.”

The words bring him comfort. Knowing he doesn’t have to make decisions alone anymore. That things might get a little overwhelming and chaotic for a while but he’ll still have you. It’s such a grounding thought that it’s hard to feel afraid of anything the future might hold.

You all bring her bags up together. Most of which, it turns out, are filled with your things. The majority of your clothes, the throw blanket from the end of your bed, your laptop and your favorite water bottle and your lime colored bikini.

Sarah explains that she could sense something was wrong the moment she came home from tutoring. And when Joel and your mom explained what happened, how they’d pushed you away and forced you and Tommy both out, that she could hardly believe it.

“I tried to make them understand,” she says. “Tried to explain that all that matters is that you’re happy. That you’re not suffering and sad all the time the way you were. And I think…I don’t know. I think maybe my dad understood a little bit, but your mom’s still pretty upset about the whole thing. I think she blames herself.”

“For what?” You shake your head. “I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a grown woman and I didn’t make a mistake.”

Tommy hears you say it from the kitchen as he pours everyone mixed drinks. Alcohol, it seems, is the one thing he has in his kitchen in excess.

Your words bring a strange feeling to his chest. Gratitude, maybe. Something warm and reassuring.

“I don’t know,” Sarah says, dismal. “But they’re heading out tomorrow to that cabin for their honeymoon. Maybe it’ll be good for them to cool off for a bit, anyhow. I’ll go home tomorrow once they’re gone, but I told them I’m not staying there unless they let you back. That I don’t want to be a part of their stupid fucking exclusion party.”

It surprises Tommy to hear it, in truth. Can almost see the reaction on Joel’s face in his head. Knows they’d raised Sarah to stand her ground, to stick to her guns, to protect those who need protecting. And she’s doing it, Christ is she. 

But Tommy knows, too, that she’s breaking her old man’s heart in the process.

She turns to Tommy as he sets three glasses on the coffee table. “So when they come home…”

“You’ll need a place to stay,” he finishes. “Couch is always open to you, Sarah. You know that.”

But the couch is not where she ends up on that first night. 

Instead, all three of you end up in his queen sized bed. Tommy on the left, you in the middle, Sarah on the right. Cramped as hell, but not awkward. You whisper to Sarah in the dark, thanking her a hundred times, reminding her that she doesn’t have to do this, and she reminds you that she does.

You fall asleep clutching her hand. 

And he finds himself eternally in debt to his niece for being able to comfort you in ways he’ll never be able to. Tommy can try, he knows. Can be whatever you need, can hold you tight and wipe away your tears. But he’ll never be this.

He’s thankful you have Sarah. Thankful, too, that she has you.

Tommy wakes up before you both. Slips out of bed, showers, and picks up three iced coffees from the shop downtown all before either of you crack open an eye.

It’s awfully cute, though, when he comes back to see you both sprawled out, taking up every last inch of his mattress, legs draped over each other.

You wait until late afternoon to leave his apartment, until you’re certain that your mom and Joel have left for the remainder of the week. 

Sarah helps you pack up the rest of your things. Jewelry and bed sheets and makeup products and soaps from the bathroom. Odds and ends, little things, but items that he knows will make you feel more at home in a new space.

“I’ll stay here while they’re gone,” Sarah says just before you leave. “But let me know if there’s anything else you need and I’ll bring it over after I’m done tutoring. Okay?”

You hug her, holding tight to her shoulders. Tell her how much you appreciate her and add that Summer would be stupid to pass up on a girl like her. 

That night, you spend an hour making a grocery list. Jot down recipes you want to try and add all the ingredients to the notes app on your phone. You eat the leftover pizza from the fridge and swear you’ll go shopping after work tomorrow. 

And when you do, it’s easy.

Tommy’s the first to veer off the list, adding mint chip ice cream and a fresh box of cinnamon toast crunch. You spend way too much time in the aisles, singing to the soft pop music that plays on the speakers overhead, stopping not once but twice to frantically google lyrics to a song you don’t know so you can add it to a playlist.

He waits, every time, smiling wide and admiring your profile and the soft curve of fluorescent light as it hits the slope of your nose. He pushes the cart, reaches everything on the top shelf, and kisses you in front of the cashier when you’re checking out.

It’s not lewd. Just a quick, easy peck on the lips. But it has his heart skittering behind his sternum, pace picking up, because he realizes this is your new normal.

Tommy doesn’t think he’ll ever grow tired of kissing you in public. Thinks back to all those times he wishes he could have but wasn’t able to and cherishes the small form of affection a little deeper. 

Dinner on the third night is better. Just bowtie pasta with half a jar of alfredo sauce and pre-shredded parmesan cheese, but it’s edible. Not the best thing you’ve ever had, but it’s yours. 

He goes to sleep that night with a smile on his face.

Everything, he finds, is easier with you. Getting up in the morning, dragging his old bones to work, cooking, chores around the house, going to sleep every night. You start to form a routine, settling in. It’s peaceful and full of easy bliss.

You start making a list of things you want for the house. Lots of windows, wood flooring, brass hardware, a wrap around porch.

Once, you wake him up a little after two in the morning just to say, “Four bedrooms, not three. One for Sarah, just in case.”

Tommy smiles sleepily and presses his mouth to yours. You taste like mint and sunshine and home. “Four bedrooms,” he agrees.

He gets with Mike on Friday after work. He’s got more years of excavating and concrete pouring experience than anyone else on the job site. Tommy asks if he’ll lend a hand when the time comes, once he’s got a full blueprint and a good chunk of change saved up. 

Mike just gives him a knowing smirk and says, “Made your choice, did you?”

“Long time ago,” is Tommy’s answer.

“‘Course I’ll help. Just let me know when.”

Your mom and Joel come home from the cabin Sunday morning, and Sarah shows up not long after with a scowl on her face. Grumbles, “God, sometimes I swear I could rip that man’s head off.”

Tommy makes three servings of spaghetti and sets one in front of her. “What happened?”

“He just talks to me like I’m a kid all the time,” she explains, kicking her shoes off and tossing them to the side of the couch.

“S’just cause to him, you’ll always be his baby girl no matter how old you get,” Tommy tells her. “Don’t matter if you're five, fifteen, or fifty. Still a baby to him.”

She just rolls her eyes, and the three of you eat and watch your vampire show together. Sarah likes it, too, and giggles every time the blonde one comes on screen. 

You and Tommy spend fifteen minutes the following morning, trying to decide if you should still swing by Joel’s house to pick him up for work. Admit to each other that there’s a part of you that hopes he’ll just drive himself, but another part that would be a little hurt if he did.

Eventually, as you’re climbing into the back seat, you say, “Let’s just…we’ll drive by. If his truck is still in the drive way, then we’ll stop.”

Tommy turns in his seat. Presses his mouth firmly to yours, tongue sliding against your bottom lip. Kisses you hard, and smiles when he pulls away and you’re breathless and flushed. 

“What was that for?”

“‘Cause I love you,” he says.

He turns the engine over and chuckles lowly when he watches you press your cheek to your shoulder in the rearview mirror. Thinks it’s the cutest thing, watching you get all embarrassed. 

When you get to Joel’s, he’s waiting on the front porch. Keys in hand, lingering. Uneasy. 

But when Tommy pulls into the driveway, he climbs into the passenger seat with practiced ease. Sits there in that godforsaken, damnable silence.

You don’t speak, and neither does Tommy. The tension is…horrible. Makes Tommy’s stomach turn. He half expects Joel to glare or sigh or something.

But he doesn’t. He just…just sits. And flies out of the truck the moment Tommy pulls up to the job site.

You let out a long sigh the second Joel closes the passenger door behind him. “That was fucking awful,” you say, head lolling back against the seats.

Tommy reaches back and finds your hand. Squeezes it three times, saying I love you without actually using the words. “It’ll get easier,” he promises.

But it doesn’t. Not for a while, at least.

You start bringing him coffee in the mornings. You and Tommy share a cup over breakfast together, trying not to wake Sarah as she snores on the couch, and take one mug to-go

The first time, it’s an awkward exchange. Joel takes it with hesitation, reaching for it as if it were a snake poised to strike and not a gift out of the kindness of your heart. The first extended olive branch. 

But the next day is easier. He even utters a quiet, clipped, “Thanks.”

The silence breaks during that second week on the way home. 

Right before he gets out of Tommy’s truck, Joel turns to him and asks, “Sarah…is she…?”

“She’s alright, Joel,” Tommy reassures, staring right into his brother’s eyes so he knows he means it. “Safe. Still goin’ to school, still tutoring. About to take exams. Been studying pretty hard.”

He nods. Slow, thoughtful. And then he turns and sets his eyes on you. Doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t have to. The sorrow is there, plain as day, written on his face. “You’re still my kid,” he says. “No matter what.” 

When you tell Sarah about it that night over dinner, tears fill your eyes as you admit that you don’t regret your decision, but you still miss them. Miss Sunday dinners and the terrible movies Joel rents and those god awful dad jokes he makes. You miss the sound of your mom’s laughter and the way she always had food on the stove no matter what time of day it was.

Sarah rests her head on your shoulder. A small comfort, but it’s enough.

Things don’t really start to change until a month after your mom and Joel come back from their honeymoon.

It’s Saturday morning. Sarah doesn’t have classes and you don’t have work, so the three of you sit around the coffee table in the living room playing monopoly.

Sarah’s the banker, which Tommy warned would be a mistake the moment she took control of that little plastic tray full of paper money. And he’s complaining, saying, “I passed go two turns ago now. You owe me that two hundred an’ you’re trying to cheat me out of it.”

You’re a mess of laughter and so is Sarah, even though she’s shaking her head and vehemently denying it. “You don’t get the two hundred, I do! You landed on the boardwalk last turn and never paid your rent, that makes me the debt collector.”

“Makes you a damn cheater一!”

Tommy’s phone rings on the corner of the table, Joel’s name flashing across the screen, effectively silencing all three of you.

He answers it slowly, hands trembling. “Hey, Joel. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah…I, uh…was just callin’ to see if…if maybe you guys wanted to一to go out to breakfast? The five of us? Like, uhm…I dunno. Like old times. That little restaurant over on Jefferson, uhm…what do you…?”

You’re the one who speaks. Leaning in close to the phone in Tommy’s hand. “Is my mom okay with that?”

“It was her idea, actually,” Joel answers.

You look between them. First at Tommy, then at Sarah. Searching for something to make this easier, but knowing in the back of your mind that nothing will.

In the end, it’s Sarah who makes the decision. “We’ll be there,” she tells Joel. “Meet in an hour?”

The cadence of his words is a little higher when he speaks again, thick with relief to hear his daughter’s voice for the first time in weeks. “Yeah, of course. We’ll see you then.”

You get ready together,leaving  the monopoly game abandoned on the table. Sarah braids your hair in front of the bathroom mirror and you return the favor when she’s finished. Sisters, through and through, and it warms Tommy’s heart to see it. 

When you pick out a pretty sundress to wear, Tommy zips up the back and drags his knuckles gently over the top of your spine. Feels a sense of deja vu, except this time there’s no tears. No impending sense of doom.

Just safety. Just home.

“Whatever happens,” he says, “I’ll still be here. Yeah? Always got me, baby.”

Sarah drives, and Tommy tucks his too long legs into the back seat of her car so you can sit beside her.

Your mom and Joel are already at the restaurant when you get there. She avidly avoids your eyes, and Tommy notices that her hands shake in the same way yours do when you’re nervous.

He reaches out to you with his fingers, lacing them through yours, and finds them still. No tremble to be found. Not even clammy. Unwavering and certain, unafraid to face the changes ahead. His perfect, brave girl. 

Joel holds the door open for everyone and nods when his eyes find Tommy’s. “S’good we’re doin’ this,” he says. “Long overdue.”

The waitress is a young girl, likely just now old enough to have a job. She stumbles over her words as she grabs five menus and leads you to a round table near the back of the open space. The air smells like syrup and seared bacon and stale coffee. The kind of place that’s seen years and will probably see a hundred more.

Tommy sits on one side of you, Sarah on the other. A makeshift wall of protection. Feeble, though, because Tommy knows good and well that they’re unable to keep you safe from the kind of hurt that’s already been burrowing deep.

Your mother, still, doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at your face. 

The young woman takes everyone's drink orders, writing them down with a fuzzy and glittering pink pen on a little yellow notebook.

You touch her hand, just before she leaves. Say thank you and tell her that you like her necklace. A dainty, gold chain with a heart shaped ruby in the center.

She smiles wide, relaxing into your soft, easy energy the way everyone around you always does, explaining that it was a gift from her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day.

Tommy stares at the side of your face as you talk to her. Admires the way you always make everyone feel at home一not just him, but this waitress and the cashier at the grocery store and the old lady across the hall of his apartment and Miranda during her consultation.

The kindest, most selfless girl he’s ever met. And somehow, unbelievably, you come home each night to him.

He doesn’t deserve you. Thinks he probably never will. But, Christ…he’ll never stop trying.

Just before the waitress walks away, Tommy turns back to the table to find everyone staring. Right at him. Joel, Sarah, and your mom. All three caught him red handed, admiring you, seeing glimpses behind his eyes of that future together that no longer feels like only a fantasy.

His face heats.

The energy shifts from something tense and uncomfortable to something a little bit calmer, less heavy.

And then, finally, your mother speaks.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she says, only to you. “I didn’t understand at first, but I think I’m starting to.” She turns to Tommy then. “I want you in our lives一both of you. I think I just need time to adjust. Can you…be patient with me?”

You reach across the table and take her trembling hands in yours, a comforting embrace. “Of course we can,” you answer honestly. Sure.

Real.

It doesn’t happen overnight. The change. The acceptance.

But breakfast is how it starts. 

You get the hard conversations out of the way first. Tell everyone that this wasn’t a sudden thing that just happened, admitting that it started long before the consultation in Stratford. And both your mom and Joel admit that, in hindsight, it was a bit obvious.

Tommy’s only a little surprised to discover that you’d told Sarah the truth months ago, shortly after they’d announced their engagement. The picture Sarah paints as she tells the story pains him.

She talks about coming home late one night, half drunk from cheap beer at a campus party. Says she’d found you still awake, crying quietly beneath your sheets. She hadn’t asked at first, just crawled into bed beside you and held you tight until you could catch your breath.

In your distress, you’d whispered the whole truth to your little sister who hadn’t even flinched upon learning it.

“Wasn’t my job to tell her who to love,” Sarah explained simply. “Was just my job to love her anyway.” 

She says it with a slight edge to her voice, and Tommy doesn’t miss the glare she casts across the table.

The next week, your mom invites you and Tommy over for Sunday dinner and Sarah moves back into her room at Joel’s house not long after. 

Tommy overhears you and Joel talking one night in the kitchen after watching a new age western he rented. Joel promises that you still have a place in his home, swears that you always have, even during that first month, even though he was angry. Says you’re more than welcome to come back, too.

But you don’t take him up on the offer. Tell him that Tommy is your home. That he’s always been. “The only difference now is that I’m not afraid to say it.”

And Joel respects it. He doesn’t poke or prod or try to dissuade you. Just gives a short nod in response and says, “Alright, then. Well…you don’t have to. That’s your room. Always will be, an’ I wanna make that clear. But…f’ya want, we can move the rest of your stuff out next weekend. I can help bring it over.”

The uncomfortability eases with each passing day. You spend some time alone with your mom. Book shopping and errands and gardening in the back yard.

Tommy spends time with Joel, too. They go to a consultation together in Sweetbriar and it feels good. Like old times. Joel starts to laugh again at Tommy’s inappropriate jokes and takes all of his concerns to heart about the property. 

And on the way home, with Johnny Cash playing low on the speakers in Tommy’s truck, Joel makes an admission that Tommy never thought he’d hear. 

“You know, I…I didn’t raise her. Can’t take full credit for that. But I’d like to think that I played a hand in raisin’ you.”

Tommy swallows. Knows Joel’s remembering their father the same way he is—the loud nights, the heavy fists.

Joel clears his throat. “An’ I know it took me a minute to come around to the idea, but I think you’re good for each other. Can see the way you keep her safe. Guess, at the end of the day, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted for her. And she…I don’t know. Slows you down. Focuses you. Can see the way you’re tryin’ to be a better man for her, an’ just wanted to say that I’m…m’proud of you, Tommy. Proud of you both.”

It’s the first time in all his life he’s ever heard those words from his brother.

He has to focus on the road to abate the stinging in his eyes.

Tommy forces a laugh. Changes the energy to something more lighthearted. Something easier for them both. “You sayin’ I’m slow, big brother?”

Joel scoffs and shakes his head and shoves Tommy’s shoulder, but there’s a big smile on his face while he does it.

Things change gradually. Slowly mending the bridges you’d set fire to in the process of keeping true to yourself.

When the dryers at Tommy’s apartment go out again, your mom insists that you just start doing it once a week at Joel’s. And that becomes a tradition, too. Just like Sunday dinners. You bring over your laundry Wednesdays after work, and always get sent home with cookies or pastries or a copy of a new book your mom recommends to you.

She kisses your cheek before you leave, and makes you swear to call if you need anything. Says, “And the same goes for you, Tommy.”

But you never call, because you never need anything. Not when you have each other.

He finishes the blueprints of your home on a random Tuesday night. Lays them out flat on the floor in the kitchen to show you the full layout.

Tommy’s got a pencil tucked behind his ear, and you’ve got your hair tied up in a towel, fresh out of the shower, wearing only his t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy pink socks.

The two of you sit on the kitchen floor, hunched over the large paper, eyes focused as you point at each entrance and exit, double and triple checking everything that could be wrong. Making sure it’s right, that it’s exactly what you want. 

He can hear Joel’s teachings in each question you ask. Tommy pulls the pencil from behind his ear and makes small edits as you go over it.

The two of you spend twenty minutes there, sitting on the kitchen floor of his apartment. Debating, deciding, going back and forth. Minor adjustments.

And then you turn to look over at him, eyes all starry. Smiling big.

Tommy laughs. “What?”

“Nothing, just…we’re really doing this,” you say, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Gonna be a lot of work.”

Tommy slides his hand to the back of your neck. “Yeah, it will be,” he agrees, leaning forward to kiss you slowly. Not careful, not anymore. Just…reverant. Worshipping. Real. “But at least we’ll have each other. Right?”

You nod, forehead pressed against his. “Yeah,” you say, still grinning. Happier than Tommy’s ever seen you. “At least there’s that.”

Two peas in a fucking pod.

[check out @feelherlove who has made beautiful, gorgeous, incredible edits of this fic over on tiktok!]

note: god i love these two so much and the relief i felt writing this last chapter knowing that in the end they both found the courage to choose each other!!! lord have mercy

i want to thank a few people specifically that have been so much help throughout the entire writing process of this fic.

first and foremost is @sunshinegirl29 who genuinely has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since i posted part one of this fic. one of the sweetest people i've ever met, and ive loved talking about reader and uncle tommy with you. im forever grateful to you for always making me feel better every time i wasn't sure about something in this fic and for always rooting for me <3

second is @feelherlove, who was the first to make a tiktok edit of one of my fics, and i'm not even kidding you when it came across my fyp on tikok that first day i was sitting with friends at work eating lunch and had to leave because i was so happy and couldn't stop smiling. Stephanie, i love you so much girl and i've said it before and it'll say it again; i may have written this fic, but you're the one bringing it to life. <3

third is LIZZYYYY MY BELOVEDDD @thaliagracesgf for being so, so unbelievably supportive. i know you love uncle tommy just as much as i do and i cannot begin to explain how much i loved seeing your asks and comments every single chapter.

and last but not least is you, sweet reader. this fic would have gone on and remained a one shot had it not been for all of the kind things you've all said. whether it was a comment on the fic, an ask, a dm, i want you to know that you guys are what make this whole thing fun for me. i love writing, i always will, but the world can be an awful place these days and knowing that i could brighten someone's day, even a little bit, with my fangirl crazed words on a screen reminds me that even in all the chaos and negativity, you can still find a little goodness. and even if you can't, you can always create some.

so from the bottom of my heart, thank you <3

sorry just tell me to stfu

@theretrofuturista @chuutu @gabymalikk @nana90azevedo @alidiggory92 @marisemonteiroo @ivyinthesun @hollowgracie @moyavsemoya @feliciahardysgf @polkadotsocks1993 @malewifejoelmiller @mmmunson @ssssc0m @skye-44 @tateypots @joelscowgirl69 @dbs5647 @cuntyhunty22 @thaliagracesgf @whossbunny @jamespotterismydaddy @whatdoyoumeanhesnapped @rainydayathogwarts @urfavhanna @subconsciouscollapse @worhols @joyridinginzombieland @emmaaas-posts @millers-girl @strawberrytreecake @atjlovverr @magicxmiller @reidswifeyyyyyy @avaluna @joelsslutt @krystal---meth @bbhfilms @virginesquee @njdluvr @royaltyinlife @bunniacula @gojosanna @streamermattsgf @emmasveinyahhdih @yslgreen @dissentientss @rubyscooby @thisisajdesing @millersdoll @pattwtf @zoeyjadetice2010 @akah565 @mxxny-lupin @hammerhead1776 @angllvk4

Surely, it hurt.

It had to.

Whatever was happening in the confines of the bedroom next to yours, the woman didn’t sound like she was having fun. A sharp cry had startled you out of your sleep, only slightly muffled by the cabin’s walls, and when you were awake, you heard all of it. Everything.

“Tommy.” The voice rose, pitchy and shrill. “Pleeease!”

It sounded as if someone were begging for their life, frankly; the responding male groan was near-deafening. The quick, hollow thumps against the wall picked up, and before you could even begin to wonder at what that was from, you heard Tommy Miller’s voice rejoin in turn:

“You fuckin’ love it, don’t ya, baby?”

No, clearly, your wife is in pain.

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing with your own two ears; you and Joel had come to visit for the weekend, since the two of you lived a little ways away from Jackson and the balmy summer weather was too good not to travel. It wasn’t all that often you got to see Joel’s only living family, but whenever you did, it was fun. Tommy, his brother, and Maria really seemed to suit one another, and you relished any opportunity to be around other people. You didn’t get very much of that with Joel.

He was technically your closest, and oldest, neighbor.

Since your grandmother had passed some years back, he had taken it upon himself to care for you. At first, it’d been just a matter of stopping by every now and then to make sure you were fed, safe, and content, but that had morphed slowly over time to you moving into his place. Taking up residence in his little two-bedroom abode out in the middle of nowhere, and becoming something like a friend to him. A pet, a plaything, a ward—you weren’t totally sure what to call your relationship to Joel, seeing as though you’d never been anything to any man before.

That was one of the drawbacks to being born and raised in the remote, post-apocalyptic world as you were: pure naïveté. Not knowing one thing by way of societal norms.

You rushed over to his bed now, no hesitation stalling your limbs as you tore off his sheets in a state of panic:

“Joel!”

The man lay there, motionless. His big, broad, black-and-silver speckled chest rose up and down, again and again.

Joel always slept heavy as shit. He wore boxers and nothing more, which you were used to seeing by now.

And you felt such a singular familiarity with him after all this time that you didn’t think twice to climb into the bed, right on top of him. This was just Joel, after all.

Round, brown eyes flew open as soon as you did.

“Fuckin’ sh—” he started, voice thick with sleep.

“Joel, hurry!” you hissed. Straddling his hips, grabbing at his bare shoulders and shaking them as hard as you could. “T-Tommy’s hurtin’ Maria! We need to help.”

A low groan sounded in Joel’s throat—not entirely unlike the one that you’d heard from his brother through the wall, you thought for half a moment—and shortly, a set of hands landed on your waist. They squeezed you tight.

And, just as it seemed they were about to lift and nudge you sideways, you bore down. Insistent, and frowning.

“Just listen! Right now. Please, Joel, I-I’m serious.”

You were pleading with him now, unable to contain the fear in your tone as you clamped a hand over his mouth.

Honestly, you probably didn’t even need to do that—the room was dead quiet, save for the sounds of you and Joel’s breathing, the soft whistle of the wind, then—

“Ohhhh, fuck me! Tommy, it’s—shit!” Maria whimpered.

“You asked for it, baby. Wanted me poundin’ ya, huh?”

Tommy’s words seemed to bounce off of every surface in the room with a grating, nauseating turn. It made your eyes widen, and your palm press even tighter to Joel.

“See?! He—He’s hittin’ her! We gotta g—”

Joel groaned again. Louder, and more pointed this time.

You hadn’t realized it, but your thighs were holding pretty hard, too. Your groin was aligned perfectly with Joel’s, your weight was sinking down, and that touch was concentrated. If there had been any room to consider your current spot, you could’ve sworn you felt a…lump?

“Fuck,” Joel gritted through his teeth. Finally lifting you off him, and wincing as he did, he sat up. He met your gaze with a sharp, stern, and bewildered sort of look.

“What—” he panted, “—are ya talkin’ about, darlin’?”

“Don’t you hear it?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

You blinked.

“So…go!”

“What?”

“Stop ‘em.”

“From what?”

“Fightin’, Joel!”

Now, it was his turn to blink.

He waited several seconds, then continued.

“Babygirl, Tommy and Maria ain’t…ain’t havin’ no fight.”

For a while, you had only to stare back at him, confused.

The ride home was awkward.

Joel could feel it in his bones, beneath his skin, itching from within the deepest recesses of his body: that morning had changed things. For you and for him.

What he had come to suspect for the longest time—and what had only made sense, since the one, lone soul you’d known all your life until him had been your grandmother—was true. You didn’t know what sex was, or what it did.

Joel swallowed thickly, pretending not to be conscious of the warmth on his back. Your arms snug around him. Your cheek resting gently against the cotton duck fabric of his jacket while the two of you rode on horseback to get home, and a pout the size of Texas no doubt marring your pretty face. You’d been cross with him all that day.

“Venison and cornbread for supper. How ‘bout it?” He tried supplying his tone with some playful inflection, hoping to entice with the promise of your favorite meal.

Clearly, though, he would need to try harder.

You shrugged against him.

“Fine by me.”

Joel knew that tone. Could probably pinpoint with surgical precision what you were feeling before the emotion even rose to your eyes. He couldn’t see you now, but he could feel the frustration bleeding through your words. Being treated as if you were too young, too innocent, too dumb to be told this hurt, plain and simple.

He wrestled with this thought the whole way home, then trudging into the cabin that you’d been sharing for months. You strode ahead, steps brisk and decided, and you peeled off your long, light cardigan without a care in the world. You kicked off your boots and set them beside the rest of his in the mud room. Joel followed you, softly.

He set his hands on his hips after toeing off his own Luccheses, watching you and not knowing what to say.

Then you turned to face him.

The cough was both reflexive and immediate. Joel had never seen—hell, it’d been years since anybody, but this…this was even worse, more jarring than he ever…

He forced his gaze away in a blink. He coughed again.

“Sweetie,” Joel started, low. “I think your, uh—”

“Will you just tell me?” you snapped. You threw your hands up, as if sick of having had to hold your tongue this long. “Whatever was going on. With Tommy and Maria. I know you think I’m…I’m…young, or whatever, but, Joel, I am a full grown adult!” Another pause just long enough for you to gnaw at your bottom lip and cross your arms. Bad, bad move for Joel’s resolve. “Ain’t like it’s my fault I was born after outbreak and never learned.”

You were right.

Joel shouldn’t have been so narrow-minded.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that you were wearing what looked to be the most slight, translucent fucking frock of all time. Something short and sweet and swept up in a sea of white tulle: you could’ve been modeling for a wedding night lingerie specialty line, bare as you were.

He must’ve missed it under your sweater. Not turned his head to meet your eyes or your ensemble that morning before you climbed up on the horse behind him and set out. Joel knew he’d never seen this…thing once before.

Your tits practically spilled out of the top. Your arms remained crossed, and you eyed him with a wary look.

“Well?” you said.

“Well,” Joel repeated, still floundering for words. “Wh—Well, y’know, I…see, I’ve—I’ve been…‘S’always been…”

Shit.

He was tongue-tied.

More helpless than a fish trying to ride a bike.

And, like a teenager with an untimely boner growing in his jeans—even though, at his age, Joel couldn’t get bricked that quick if his life depended on it—he shuffled away. Sidestepped you in the hallway and made a beeline for the kitchen, where he could feel an odd stir start to take root in his lower half. He cursed the half-cocked mass in his pants and sincerely hoped it wouldn’t interfere with what he knew he needed to do now.

“I’ll…I’ll explain it, sweet pea. While we cook, OK?”

“Alright.” You started trailing behind him slowly.

You didn’t sound convinced. Joel wasn’t remotely disposed for the conversation awaiting him in the kitchen, or having to look you head-on while half your body was on display to him. You didn’t seem to see it.

You were as innocent and clueless as the moment you’d bat your lashes at him in the half light of the bedroom that morning, straddling his hips, and replying to his last quip by saying, ‘If they ain’t fightin’, what are they doin’?’

“Who gave you that dress, anyway?”

Joel retrieved the meat from the ice box, setting it out to let it thaw while you and him prepped the rest of the meal. Across the room, you were already grabbing some of the ingredients you’d need: flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt

“Maria,” you answered, simply. “She let me have whatever clothes of hers I wanted. ‘S’nice, ain’t it?”

“It looks like something you’d wear on your honeymoon.”

After turning to preheat the oven, Joel sidled up beside you. His gaze affixed itself to the counter through pure force of will, though in his periphery, he caught sight of the outline of your breasts. He tore open a bag of sugar.

Then you turned to him, voice rising a little:

“What’s a honeymoon?”

Joel couldn’t help it; he had to meet your eyes lifting to find his. Inside them, he saw genuine curiosity brimming.

Innocence, too.

“Just a, uh…trip that folks would take right after their wedding,” he said, before clearing his throat. “Vacation.”

“Oh.”

For a brief space of time, silence settled into the grooves and bumps of that slightly uncomfortable realization—what the world was like before it all splintered apart—and neither one of you tried to speak. You worked nimble fingers over the dry ingredients, Joel cracked eggs one by one, and together, you made relatively quick work of readying the cornbread mixture for baking. It was easy.

Stupidly, Joel thought that he might be off the hook in terms of not having to discuss the mechanics of marriage and sex to you then, when you piped up again.

“So this is what I’d be wearin’ after gettin’ hitched? Like…like Tommy and Maria did?” You licked sugar off your thumb before sliding the tray to him, and he took it.

“Yeah. I mean…”

Joel opened the oven door, and more carefully than he probably needed to do, pushed the baking dish inside it.

“…not immediately.”

When he had, you were right back beside him.

“Doin’ whatever we heard this morning, you think?”

The curiosity in your tone was unmistakable. Perhaps emboldened by the plain look of discomfort that was twisting his every feature, you could say it more freely.

Having sex, of course.

Why the hell hadn’t your grandma bothered to tell you?

“Yes,” Joel replied, stiff as anything. “That’s…part of it.”

“How much of it?”

“Well—”

“And why’d it sound like Maria was in pain?”

“Baby, that—that ain’t any real pain, I pr—”

“She was screamin’, Joel! Really hollerin’.”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

He absolutely hated this.

With you pressed up beside him, eyes wide and glossy and shimmering with intrigue, his cock half-hard in his jeans and his mind thrumming with that constant, paralyzing thought—‘I promised I would keep her safe, not completely obliterate her innocence like this’—he balked. He took a step away from you and shook his head, like something had just rocked him to his core.

Your brows pinched.

“So then, what were they—”

“—can’t do this right now, sweetheart. ‘M’sorry.”

Joel’s whole chest seemed to cave with his sigh: the kind that reminded him how old he was, how naïve you were, and how wrong it would be if he gave you the wrong impression of sex. Make you afraid of it, or averse to it.

“We can go back to Jackson. Have one of them teachers in the schools explain it to you much better than I ever could.” Joel was walking to the pantry now, resealed food items cradled haphazardly in his arms. He didn’t slow.

And, before he had even gotten the chance to open the door, much to his shock and sheer, unmitigated dismay, he heard your voice again. Behind him, as defiant as ever.

“Whatever, Joel.”

Your voice was hard; he could feel the eye roll baked in. Then you stalked past him, straight for the living room.

Stomping ahead, and calling over your shoulder, you said: “If you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask some other guy to explain. Maybe the boys my age won’t be such prudes!”

It was the closest you’d ever gotten to downright bratty in your life. Joel had only to stand there, arms full of various powdered fixings and his jaw gone partly lax. He stared at your back, gaze following you as you went over to the den. You flopped onto the old and weathered sofa.

He dropped whatever he was holding then.

With something red-hot and ugly beginning to pool in his gut, mind reeling from the words you’d just spoken to him, Joel acted without thinking. Footsteps echoed.

“Darlin’.”

He wouldn’t get angry.

“Sweetheart. Sw—Hey. Look at me.”

That simply wasn’t in his nature. He loved you too much.

You turned to face him in your seat, and this time, Joel didn’t feign not to see you. Half-naked as you were, pert nipples poking through your dress and chest rising and falling in fast, shallow breaths, you looked like a dream.

So what if he couldn’t be with you how he wanted?

He could teach you, and that would be enough.

Joel tugged you back up onto your feet.

“Fine. You wanna learn about sex?”

As soon as he said it, your eyes went wider. A heat must have spread from your cheeks all the way down to your toes and strangled your tongue as it did, because all you could do was close and unclose your mouth, repeatedly.

How fast that brave, no-bullshit attitude was to disappear, Joel thought idly. He wanted to smile.

You didn’t even know what sex was, and still, as if by instinct, you knew that that word meant something.

It made you shift on your feet, toes curling.

“I, um…”

Huh.

“What?”

“It’s just…” you went on, sounding uncertain.

“Baby, if you can’t even stomach the word, I’d say we’d be better off saving this conversation for another day.”

That made you tense up again.

As if he’d just shocked you with a live wire, muscles jumping and skull surely shaking a, no, Joel, I can stomach it fine, I promise, you cut right back in.

Eyes lifting to his, bottom lip no longer snagged between your teeth, and then with your body lowering, slow, back down to take a seat on the sofa, you finally forced it out.

“Joel, I—I want you to teach me how to fuck. Really, I do.”

Well, shit.

Joel reckoned that had ‘pretty please’ beat all to hell.

Your words damn near knocked him sideways.

It was all the man could do to keep from keeling straight over and croaking on the spot—he had to get away from you, if only by a couple extra feet. He shuffled back. Stood at the center of the living room with his feet planted firmly in place, then tilted his head to you.

“And just where did you learn that word, young lady?”

Paternal condescension came too easy to him.

Joel blinked hard to keep his face in check.

You shrugged before him. Hummed back.

“Dunno. ‘S’what Maria said, right?” you replied, eyes locking with his. “Moanin’, ‘Fuck me, Tommy, pleee—’”

“That’s enough.” Joel held his hand up to stop you.

What was he going to do with you? Gaze glittering bright, lips parted, practically careening over the edge of your seat to hear the rest, while simultaneously looking terrified to learn for certain. You knew some words, but not other ones. You had an innocence and an obscenity bound up inside you at once. Joel was afraid to touch it.

“If I’m teachin’ you a thing…” he resumed, slow, stance widening where he stood and arms folding. “I mean one thing, sugar, we’re only using the clinical terms, y’hear?”

Joel scarcely had the words to describe the depth of his own emotion and what he felt toward you; he knew he’d need to keep some…distance when discussing this subject. Making his jargon dry, unappealing, and scientific seemed like the best way of doing that.

“Alright,” you said, tucking your legs underneath you.

Another beat of silence.

Another ripe, strangled breath slicing through his teeth.

“OK…” Joel went on, trying his best not to grimace. “Has anyone talked to you about the, uh…birds and the bees?”

“You mean dicks and vaginas?”

“Hey.”

Joel choked.

His hand scrubbed down his face in an almost vicious way, and he had to shield his stubbled mouth with his palm, for fear of another less-polite sound tumbling out.

Sat on the couch, you wore a faint, smug little smile.

“Sorry. Penises and vaginas,” you corrected yourself.

Again, Joel was blinking furiously, but now his index finger was lifting, too, pointing at you: ‘Thin ice, kid.’

You weren’t going to make this easy on him, clearly. Whether you were aware of the reasons why, or knew just how to wield your power over him was a separate question. Either way, Joel would need to keep moving.

So, pretending to clear a cough from his throat again, he went on. Recovering the grit to his voice, and scowling:

“Yes. Penises and vaginas. Pretty simple stuff, really.”

You raised your brows. Joel ignored it.

“Pole goes in the hole, and—”

“How’s it fit?” you cut in.

“What?”

Joel’s frown deepened. You sat straighter in your seat.

“I mean…every time I’ve seen one, it’s, um…wormy.”

Wormy?

“Wormy?” Joel returned immediately, in disbelief.

And he couldn’t contain the next, which all but launched itself off his tongue: “You’ve—You’ve seen a dick before?”

“Penis, Joel.”

“Penis.”

He sucked in a breath to try and calm himself, but the effort, evidently, was for nothing. He was near-seething.

You peered up at him.

“Just yours,” you said. A little sheepish. “Once or twice.”

Joel let the breath out. His mouth tightened.

“You’ve—” Then he stopped himself. The question was stupid; of course, you’d caught glimpses of him naked before. That was inevitable living in a house this small.

Before you could even try to apologize, he pressed on.

“OK, well, what’s…what the hell’s ‘wormy’ mean?”

“I dunno. Just, like, squishy and pink, I guess.”

“That’s—” Another brief pause. Joel had to steel himself right. “Well, hon, it doesn’t stay like that. It…It gets hard, when a man feels good. Helps him fit inside the woman.”

Not terrible.

Not perfect, but not terrible.

You perked up where you sat, and it was in that moment that Joel realized that his joints ached. His legs burned. The forearms crossed over his chest had unconsciously constricted tighter to the point that it was getting a little tough to breathe, so he released his hold. His hands fell to his sides at the same time you stood up in front of him

Damn that smile of yours.

Damn those gleaming eyes.

“Can you show me how?” you asked softly.

Your gaze trailed to his crotch, and Joel could feel it like a real, bona fide weight sinking him. It was curious. Sweet.

‘That ain’t right,’ was Joel’s first instinct, which he said.

Even faced with the stern, stormy exterior of a man no less than several decades your senior, though, you didn’t seem deterred by those words. If anything, it made the little tilt in your lips kick higher. You smiled lightly at him.

“How come?” you asked. “It’s just teachin’, Joel.”

Too easy.

Joel swallowed and shook his head.

“No. Sweetheart, teachin’s a whole other beast from…from me showin’ you what I mean. You gotta know that.”

Still, his eyes were glossing over, and a haze was settling over his mind like a mist in the sky just before the break of dawn. His limbs felt heavy, and his tongue went dry.

You were too fucking sly and sweet for your own good.

As if on cue, you drew closer to meet him where he stood. The hem of your dress shifted and swayed, barely long enough to scrape the tops of your thighs. Joel couldn’t bear to look higher, so he just stared at your legs. Scrambling like hell to come up with an excuse as to why he’d need to leave the room in less than a second, he wasn’t remotely prepared for what you ventured next.

You took the hem in your hands, and you lifted it.

Not just an inch or two but ten, easily, all the way until the fabric was touching your navel. The move exposed your entire lower half to him, and Joel found himself ogling a pair of bright, white, matching underwear.

Before he could move, you tilted your hips. As if showing him a new bump or bruise—which you often liked to do whenever you were hurt and needed attention—you said:

“Joel, look.”

He did.

He almost had to.

Old and awful and ashamed as he was, he couldn’t keep his eyes away. They were unblinking and ravenous, soaking in your form like a hunter surveying its next meal

Then you shifted on your delicate, socked feet.

“How ‘bout me? Can you show it on me?” you whispered.

Joel didn’t have the bandwidth to mince words right now

Teachin’, touchin’, lovin’, squeezin’—he had that craving.

One look between your legs and the man would’ve died on the spot if you told him. That was how needy he was.

Your fingers wavered a little when you didn’t hear a response. Joel was too busy eyeing you and trying not to drool, but the sight of you starting to lower your skirt snapped him out of it. He placed his hands on your waist.

“Wait.” Then, realizing how abrupt and sharp that sounded, he paused. He tried softening his tone a little. “Sorry. I mean. You…you want me to show ya, sweetie?”

Finally, his gaze slid up to meet yours.

You were watching him closely.

“If that’s…OK,” you said.

Well, shit.

Nothing would make him happier.

Still, fighting his base instincts, and just narrowly managing to keep his hold steady, Joel reeled it in.

Every thick, callused finger splayed across your sides was practically humming with primal energy; all the same, his love outweighed the lust. He lowered his voice to only the gentlest of tones and asked you, point-blank:

“Is that OK with you? Do you want me to teach you?”

Waves of chill bumps seemed to answer first: your skin, your eyes, your smile, every breath betraying that eager, nervous need. Then your grip moving from your dress. One hand clasping around his wrist and nudging it in.

You nodded.

You let him brush one sweaty palm across your skin.

Joel lowered without thinking. Sinking to the floor, onto his knees, felt like exactly what he needed to do, and he didn’t give a shit if it pulverized his joints beyond repair.

“Right here?” he breathed, now level with your heat.

Wooden floorboards creaked under his weight, and the air swelled thick and warm where he knelt. Sunlight streamed through the windows, bathing the space in a dreamlike sort of haze. Joel inhaled through his nose and almost pitched forward; you hummed your soft assent.

You didn’t know what you were doing then.

By what remaining, fraying thread of resolve the man possessed, Joel stopped himself before he went too far.

He blinked fast and moved his hands to your hips, just below where you were holding your dress’s hem for him.

Clinical.

Educational.

Fucking academic was what this would be.

“Anyone ever teach you about her?” Joel asked gently.

A ringing in his ears succeeded that question, louder than anything he’d ever experienced, and he looked up at you. You stared down at him, and one bat of your eyes was all it took to remind him he’d have to take this slow.

“Her?” you murmured.

“Yeah. Her.”

Joel wished his hands weren’t so big, seeing how easy it was to move his thumb: his palm glided across the slope of your tender mound, and in no time at all, he had a thick, callused pad stroking you over your panties. It traced your seam carefully—cautiously, like a single wrong move might wind up losing you to him forever—and then he searched your face. He swallowed, watching the features contort the slightest, slightest bit in yours.

Your breath hitched, and you whimpered.

You spread your thighs a little more.

“Private parts have…pronouns?”

That thumb swiped up. It grazed a tiny bud beneath cotton, and in under a second, your lips were twitching again. Your hips stirred, as if beyond your conscious control, and Joel eased off of you. He nodded his head.

“‘S’called a ‘vulva,’ baby.” Then his palm cupped it. Holding you in place, repeating: clinical, educational, academic like a broken refrain in his mind, over and over again. “This whole thing. Pronouns make it a little more personal, y’know? But can you repeat that word for me?”

“Vulva.”

The word was foreign on your tongue. You didn’t seem acquainted with the taste or the feel, and that forced a tiny line of worry between your eyebrows. Joel went on.

“Just like that, baby. Good. Reckon it’s best you learn about you before we take on any other stuff, for now.” Holding your heat like a weight in his hand, he crooked his fingers, and the pads grazed a smooth, clothed orifice. “Now what’s this called? You already said it.”

“The…um, vagina.” With a smidge more confidence, you still balked when his index and middle fingers prodded the fabric. That was all he needed for it—two tips poised above that tight, tender hole through the cotton of your underwear, and Joel could sense how acutely you felt it.

You shifted on your feet and let out a sharper noise. You clapped a hand to his shoulder and squeezed it, shortly.

“Joel.”

Then it felt like you were pulling back.

“What’s’a matter, baby? Everything alright?”

Inundated as he was with desire, Joel kept a firm grip over his self-control. His touch retracted from your heat.

“Y-Yeah. I’m fine. I just feel…”

A beat passed, and it seemed you were looking for words

“Is it normal? I feel a little…weird, and…and…”

Still searching. Joel was watching you closely, puzzled.

“Yeah, darlin’? What feels weird? Talk to me.”

At length, the internal foray ended, and you had only to clamp your other palm onto his shoulder, holding tight with both hands and letting your hem drop down again.

A sigh escaped you.

“Joel, I’m…I’m just…sticky down there.”

You said it, and at the same time, your thighs clenched.

Joel was no longer touching between your legs, but the gesture, along with your half-whispered, half-whimpered words nearly sucked him back in all over again. His head spun. His fingers were practically aching with need, wanting to tug your panties down and show you that this was a good thing, but, as before, restraint stopped him.

Instead, he nodded up at you.

With your palms pressing hard and your body positioned over him—towering, compared to his obeisant kneeling—Joel could only be sweet. Understanding. Softly coaxing.

“Yeah? Wanna show me, sweet pea?”

It took some more effort after that. Cajoling, for one thing, but also assuring you that the sticky, wet feeling you got between your thighs wasn’t something to hide but a perfectly normal, natural bodily function of yours. That it helped facilitate the act of sex, as a matter of fact.

“Means she’s happy,” Joel said, watching as you peeled your panties down—very nearly hearing the tacky sound.

Sure enough, the truth came to light. Quite literally, he was proven right with a pool of something thick and crystalline collected at the gusset of your undies; the stuff stretched in a half-dozen strings from the fabric to your drooling cunt, bared to him and pulsing with heat.

Clinical.

Educational.

Fucking academ—

“It hurts, Joel,” you said.

“Hurts?” Joel blinked once. “Where’s it—”

Suddenly, you were rubbing two fingers between your folds in a crude sort of way. Your underwear was in a puddle at your feet, and your free hand was back at the hem of your dress, lifting it slightly. Joel’s eyes widened.

“Right—Right here. It aches. Make it go away, please.”

“Baby—”

“Please, Joel. You said you would teach me, right?”

He did, of course.

He just never thought it’d include touching you half-nude

Leaning in on his knees, pretending he wasn’t decades your senior, chock-full of grays, and a man who had sworn to your grandmother that he would keep you safe. Ensuring you would be taken care of. Surely, that promise encompassed the perils of men and their darkest intentions, yet, here he was. Basking in your glow, reveling in the heat, sleek, and that fucking scent.

His lips were the first to give way.

They seemed to act of their own volition as they sank in to press a kiss between your own—lower, and wetter, but still your lips all the same—and they didn’t hesitate. They formed an ‘o’ directly over your throbbing clit and kissed.

Your stomach clenched in response. Your hips stuttered.

The hand that was clutching your dress jerked to Joel’s salt-and-pepper locks and made a fist, tight as anything.

‘Joel,’ you whined.

‘Joel,’ you pleaded.

‘Joel’ became the quietest, most plaintive refrain in a matter of seconds, with that old, lined, and weathered mouth latching onto your little nub and suckling her in.

Joel pulled off with a wet pop. He didn’t waste time.

“That’s your clitoris, sweetheart.” Hooded, hazy brown eyes drifted up to meet yours, while your legs trembled around his head. “Sensitive, ain’t she? Say ‘clit’ for me.”

Your jaw was slack.

Short, shallow gasps were working their way in and out of your lungs while it seemed you were trying to recover some semblance of propriety, but all that came out was:

“Joel…oh…oh…”

“‘Clit,’ baby. Say it back.”

Maybe that was mean. Hell, it definitely was.

Here you were, fighting to make sense of the wild, shocky feeling spiraling up from that tiny bundle of nerves, and he was making you talk your way through it. The smallest grin twitched at the corners of his lips, though he worked hard not to let it show too obviously.

He squeezed one of your thighs and forged on, soft.

“How’s about it? Got lots more ground to cover.”

You swallowed, finally blinking back at him.

“Cl—Clit. Can you kiss it again, please?”

And Joel did: to reward you, but also to contain the laughter that was no doubt about to be bubbling to the surface if he didn’t make use of that mouth of his, fast.

He kissed your clit like he’d done before, smiling against slick, sopping wet flesh and loving on it gently. He licked a ring around the hood and was about to use the tip to lift it up—to really hit your pleasure point and make you squirm—when another thought possessed him. Another step, another lesson, another far-too-tempting-to-resist spot where he might continue this campaign of erudition

“Ever heard of a thing called a ‘g-spot,’ baby?” Joel said.

You shook your head no.

With your hips tilted toward him and his head in the way, the fabric of your dress hadn’t slid down much since you’d let go, but all the same, Joel lifted a hand to grip the hem of it. He coaxed your fingers down while he did.

“Watch as you do it. I want you to put those pretty fingers to use, try and find that place. Can you do that?”

“Where?”

“Inside you.”

“But I—why?”

“Feels good, trust me.”

Your brows knit in that familiar way; Joel could fall apart with just one look at it. He didn’t press, even when your fingers fumbled down your tummy and made a pass through your legs—completely unaware of what those digits were meant to do and simply wanting to try. Perhaps you’d hoped to replicate the sensation he’d given you, too, or you wouldn’t have moved so quickly.

Swiftly slicking up your fingertips and toying, but making a face when it seemed like you couldn’t feel quite the same thing as you had before, you peered down at him.

“In here?” Your index hovered over a wet, dripping hole.

“Right there, baby. Push it in f’me if you can, alright?”

When you did, Joel had a front row seat; physically, he was no more than five or six inches away while you slid your small, trembling finger through the soaked band of muscle, but it felt like he was in you for the whole thing. Ogling the spectacle of your tight and untouched virgin cunt stretching, then hugging that little digit, before you whimpered and keened his name, was unlike anything he’d ever felt. He knelt between your legs and observed with all the outward practiced detachment of a doctor, though inside, he felt like every inch of him was on fire.

“It’s tight,” you whimpered.

“I know, honey, I kn—”

“I don’t like it.”

Right as your wrist flicked back to remove that finger, pussy stuffed too full and not in a good way, you’d evidently decided, Joel leapt to act. He didn’t even decide so much as he simply listened to your cries.

It hurts, you’d whined above him, Oh, Joel, please.

Suddenly, his thumb was rubbing your clit to dull the ache. Before your index could slide out, his own pushed in alongside it, coaxing that tight, wet ring to stretch with the heft and grit of his hand. Decades of experience preceded him, which made him confident in his words of assurance then—even when you grimaced and groaned.

“You’re OK,” Joel mumbled, nodding when you winced. “You’re alright, just stings a little bein’ stretched, huh?”

“Y-You said it would feel good,” you keened, mournful.

Clearly trying to buck that uncomfortable feeling, you moved back. You stumbled, as your ankles were still trapped within your panties, and Joel had to catch you.

You were close to the sofa; he nudged you toward it, swift enough that he didn’t need to move his hand and simply guided you onto the wide, cushioned armrest. Your feet kicked off the cotton, and in a second, you were sitting—straddling—that spot. Joel stepped even closer.

His finger sank another inch, and you looked fit to be tied

“I said, I don’t—” you started, sharp.

“—know where it is. Lemme help you.”

Joel had another half-minute, maybe. Laying sprawled out like you were, still impaled by his finger and yours, you clearly weren’t a fan of this feeling and would be shoving him off at any second. He’d have to be quick.

So, steeling himself and standing over you on the couch, he pushed in. To the knuckle. His pointer finger was big and warm and ribbed all over with little calluses, and it probably felt like a hot poker was forcing its way inside of your too-tight cunt beside your index, but Joel kept at it. Your muscles pulsed again, a tiny line or two of moisture crawling down his palm with the excess of your desire leaking out, and you grit your teeth. Your heels dug into the couch, and just when it appeared you’d had enough, he felt it. The tip of that probing digit brushed the place.

It was spongy and slick. Solid, but not without some give

Touching it made you squirm worse than anything.

Or, better might be a more accurate assessment.

“Oh, baby,” Joel said, relief flooding his tone as he saw it. “That’s the spot, ain’t it? That’s that special spot, there.”

Your reply was a light grunt when he stroked it again.

It was like you weren’t quite sure how to answer for it—your body, however, gave its resounding approbation when your walls bore down again and squeezed him.

Clearly, this wasn’t a pained hug. You wanted more.

“Remember what we call this spot, sweetheart?”

Syrup practically dripped from every syllable, and Joel didn’t refrain from leaning in. Pressing his forehead to yours, bracing his free hand against the sofa cushion behind you, the old man worked his finger back and forth. He dragged your smaller one with it, and he grinned when a hoarse little cry leapt out of your throat.

That wasn’t an answer, unfortunately.

Joel held the couch even harder and sawed his finger in and out, grazing that special place with every movement.

“C’mon, darlin’, I know you ain’t forgot it already.”

Your pussy was as full as it had ever been and making wet, squelching sounds each time that your finger and his moved through it. Clearly, your mind wasn’t firing on all cylinders, simply soaking in the sensations as you whined, moaned, and rutted your hips. Just precious.

Joel wasn’t letting you off that easy, though.

Still stroking, still petting that sensitive flesh, he went on:

“Is this what we call your…clit, honey? Is that what it is?”

Without warning, he pushed a second finger inside, and you hissed. Your own index slid out instinctively, and as if knowing the rest of it by heart, you started rubbing that sweet, pulsing, needy nub like your life depended on it.

“N-N-No, this—this is it,” you stuttered. Overcome with the wishing and waiting—wanting to show him what you’d learned, as well—you were keen. “This is my clit.”

Pleasure must’ve bloomed through your lower half when you said it, because your next words were swallowed up in a strangled moan. You tried lifting your hips instead, seeming to say to him: ‘See? I’m really learning, Joel.’

A grin sabotaged his face, and he couldn’t contain the urge; Joel leaned in and kissed your forehead. He tilted his chin to steal a glance where you were touching yourself, seeing how urgent those little circles were getting to be, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe. Pride. He halted his ministrations just long enough to take a seat on the old couch and pull you into his lap.

Now cradling you, placing sporadic and comforting kisses along your hairline as he returned his fingers to your heat, Joel felt he could’ve melted between the cushions with just one whimper from your lips—that was how thoroughly you’d softened him already. He loved it.

“Very good, baby, that’s your clit.” His thumb covered yours easily and helped it draw little lemniscates over the bud, which made you squirm on top of him. You bit down on your bottom lip when he scissored his fingers inside you. Then he curled them and brushed that place again. “And what’s this, sweetie? Remember what we call her?”

Your brow furrowed.

Clearly, you were trying to think while the pleasure mounted and spiraled. You tilted your chin to him.

“It’s…It’s my g-spot, right?” you ventured softly.

“Exactly right,” Joel cooed in your ear.

As if to reward you for it, he curled his fingers and tapped that sensitive, special spot over and over again, knowing just what kind of effect it would have on you then. Your breath hitched, and your reflexes sent you lurching toward his chest. You clawed at his t-shirt.

Joel was certain he’d never seen something so goddamn endearing in his life. His smile widened, and he hugged you to him even tighter, not wanting to lose sight of you for even a second. Your legs trembled around his hand.

He nuzzled your cheek.

“That’s it. Good girl.”

Another clench.

“Daddy’s girl.”

And, as soon as he said the words, your chest heaved. Be it a breath, a whimper, a moan, your whole frame shook with the movement, and suddenly you were peering up at him through your lashes and staring, all glossy-eyed.

“Wh-What?” you stammered.

One more plunge of his fingers, and you keened. You looked bewildered, beleaguered, practically bursting at the seams and having only to meet his gaze and squeeze

You were close.

Joel could hear it.

“Daddy?” you repeated, breaths ragged.

Of course, you’d never heard that one before. Joel just nodded his head and let you bask in it—that feeling of wild curiosity. Perhaps not everything would compute.

He could teach you, but you might not get it just yet.

Seeing this look, and sensing how close you were to your climax, Joel leaned close and kissed your temple before murmuring, low: “Yeah. ‘M’not your old man, but that’s another word folks like to use sometimes. If you like it, then that’s all it’s gotta be. Our own little special thing.”

Your fingers tightened at his collar, like a wave was overtaking your body and you couldn’t control it.

Joel foresaw the question before it even arose.

“You doin’ OK, sweetheart? Feelin’ alright?”

“I—I don’t know. It kinda…sorta feels…”

“What? You got a funny feelin’, baby?”

You nodded.

His fingers had been stretching and pumping and pushing all kinds of fiery sensations inside that tiny space, feeling wet muscles contract around him—it didn’t surprise him in the least that you needed some extra time to come. You didn’t even know what it was.

“That’s an orgasm, honey. ‘S’a good thing. Real good feelin’, if you just let it build and build for a little bit lo—”

“Wanna stop,” you hiccuped. “Feels like I’m gonna pee.”

Joel had to hide a grin behind a bevy of kisses. He kept cradling you, kept fingering your soaked pussy with all the soft, practiced resolve of a man much gentler than he’d ever known himself to be. You weren’t pushing him away; he wouldn’t force you toward it. He just wanted to guide you to a path that would give you replete pleasure.

Hell, maybe he could even get you to squirt.

“You’re not gonna pee,” Joel assured you gently. “Even if you did, I wouldn’t care. You know your pleasure’s the most important thing, right? ‘S’why I’m here, baby.”

It seemed to strike you at almost the same moment it did him: this was not only for you, but about you. More than a step above simple pedagogy, Joel was trying to make sure you understood all the inner-workings of sex.

“That’s makin’ love, y’know? Takin’ somebody’s pleasure into your hands and treatin’ them right. Makin’ it…good.”

“Makin’ love,” you repeated, just like you’d done for every other term he’d taught you that day. You drew in a breath

And, at the same time that Joel’s movements slowed with his speech—fingers pumping slower, deeper, to make your insides all but strangle him with just how good it made you feel—something stirred in him, too. Hell, it was the first real movement he’d had in ages.

Decades, maybe.

Thank the stage of life that he was in, his lack of access to peri-geriatric care, or his blasted uncooperative cock, but the man hadn’t had a real, bona fide erection in a long time. He’d figured that that would help keep his urges at bay while he was teaching you these things.

Now he was almost fully hard in his jeans. You were about to finish all over his fingers, and then what?

“Daddy,” you whimpered. Your feet kicked and inadvertently brushed over the bulge in his pants. “Faster, please. I—I think that feels even better f’me.”

Joel couldn’t have you see it, or feel it, or know exactly what you were doing to him and think that you were in some way responsible for helping out with the rest. No, he wouldn’t allow that. This wasn’t about him getting off.

He slid your body back. He slotted his own, head-first, between your legs and dove in. Out of sight, he started to grind his lower half into the sofa, but only after you’d taken hold of his hair and rocked your hips into his face.

That’s it.

This is for you.

“Daddy’s gonna take real good care of her,” Joel said, as if finishing the thoughts that were brewing in his head. “You just lie back an’ close your eyes. Soak it all in, OK?”

And you did.

When he reared back and spit on your pussy, smeared it in with his fingers and panted again, just for good measure, ‘What’s the word for all this, baby? What do we call her?’, you raggedly answered. You told him that it was your vulva, and then you moaned so loudly that Joel thought it might blow his eardrums out. He rutted his denim-clad cock into the couch and kept going. Pleasure spiraled from some of the furthest recesses of his gut, and he dragged his warm, wet, silver-stubbled mouth up your slit, glistening with saliva and your own arousal.

“Smart girl,” Joel murmured appreciatively. Licking lines around your clit, before dropping a quick kiss over it. “And what’s this little button called, baby? It feel good?”

You replied by digging your heels into the couch first, head lolling back on the armrest. Then, light as anything:

“My clit. It—It feels so good when you do that, Daddy.”

“When Daddy kisses her and licks on her some?”

“Gives me that…funny feelin’ all over again.”

Joel could say the same for himself. Something tightened in his balls, right as he humped the cushion with a little more force, and then he knew it, without a shadow of a doubt—that old, worn, once-dysfunctional member of his was now engorged with blood and stiff. He could probably fuck his fist once and blow his load.

He tried to ignore it.

He pushed two fingers to the rim of your cunt, feeling tender, taut flesh bar his entry again, and he worked his way through it. Delicate as ever, your hole spread for him.

“And this?” he asked.

You told him.

He slid in deeper, and before he could even inquire after that ridged, sensitive wall of your insides, you stuttered:

“Th-That one’s my g-spot, Daddy. That’s—That’s—”

Joel sucked your throbbing clit between his lips and flicked the tip of his tongue, just as his fingers curved in.

“That feels good, Daddy, please.”

Your pussy pulsed against him; it wet his silver beard in streaks and left him groaning between your legs, dry-humping the old couch like he was an animal in heat.

He was much, much too old for you.

This was just a learning experience.

One measly orgasm and then he’d—

“Faster, faster, Daddy. P-P-Please.”

Joel pistoned his fingers and flicked his tongue and sucked mercilessly on that little nub until you squealed.

“Let it happen, baby. Come for Daddy,” he beckoned.

“Come? Where?”

“Here.”

And with that, Joel crooked his fingers one last time and made you finish on his tongue. You didn’t squirt, but your whole body convulsed, and you kicked your feet and made those pretty little whiney sounds and pulled his hair—as if you were stunned by whatever was happening to your body, your thighs clenched around his head and damn near yanked out half the grays. Joel kept licking and fingering and mumbling sweet nothings all the while

Pretty girl.

Precious girl.

Daddy’s girl—you were everything, everything to him.

Heat flooded his jeans, and he didn’t even realize it.

It took him more than a couple seconds; he’d just finished lapping up the last of your release and was trying to catch his breath, panting and blinking and savoring your taste, when that recognition dawned.

The man had reached his peak entirely untouched.

Sticky and warm, trickling down his front, it went quietly.

Joel swallowed and propped himself up on an elbow, meeting your gaze with a hot and semi-hooded stare.

He needed to clean up. He needed to get out of there.

Suddenly, you reached for him, fingers outstretched.

“Daddy.”

It sounded so sweet—still as innocent as ever.

You had no fucking idea how badly he wanted you now. How much he hated himself for even taking as much as he had. But he did, and nothing else would take it back.

He really, really needed to go.

“Are we gonna make love now?” Your smile was crooked.

Joel sat up. His mind was clear. Conscience was fucked.

He shook his head as he wiped his mouth of you.

“No. We aren’t,” he answered, pushing to stand.

He turned before you could see the spot in his jeans. Before you could protest, he hardened his voice out of necessity and, already striding from the couch, said:

“Lesson’s over. Put on your underwear, sweetheart.”

The look you gave him then could’ve broken him in two. It was raw and soft and hurt, clearly. You blinked a little faster as you sat up, dress falling back down to cover your modesty and everything the two of you had done.

“But—”

“Don’t talk back to me, neither,” Joel forged on, despising every syllable coming out of his mouth. He was already at the threshold of the room and turning away. “Whatever happened today was teachin’, remember?”

You blinked again, eyes glossier than a moment before.

You rocked back on your heels and tried to stand, but Joel was already retreating. He pursed his lips together, throat clearing and the most flimsy, pathetic veneer of paternal concern working to stabilize his tone. It failed.

“B-But, Daddy, I—I thought—”

His voice audibly cracked when he curtailed your speech.

“Ain’t nothing, honey.” He shook his head against the lie. “This was wrong. If you wanna pout and whine ‘bout it, best head into your room, ‘cause I don’t wanna hear it.”

That made your lip curl in surprise. Soft, muted fury.

You made a fist at your side as he turned on his heel.

And, though he tried moving fast—pretending to shrug off the moment and trudge his way out through the door like nothing had happened—he evidently couldn’t make it quick enough. Over his shoulder, he heard your voice.

Having just made it onto the porch and felt the warmth of the outdoors on his skin, it was as faint as anything. A slight breeze, along with the crushing weight of knowing how badly he was fucking this up, greeted him swiftly, but not before your words reached him. Joel swallowed.

That hurt just about as bad as anything he’d ever felt.

He knew he was wrong, especially hearing you sob:

“Daddy, please come back.”

Your body was abuzz from head to toe.

Anticipation was one thing, and hatred was another—both feelings seemed to be at war within you constantly.

Though, really, you didn’t hate Joel, and judging by the way things had panned out lately, you likely never could. A week had passed since your little ‘lesson’ with the man, and nothing had ever made you feel so shaken. Or lonely.

One moment being the most precious thing in a person’s eyes, only to fall from that staggering height to nothing. Joel had up and left and brushed you to the wayside, leaving you to clench your fists and kick and cry like a child throwing a fit. But you weren’t. You were a full-grown adult trying to learn what sex meant, and damn if you didn’t feel the sting of being abandoned so easily.

You wanted to hate him more than anything else.

You wished with every fiber in your being not to need a man like him, but you did. It confused you, particularly during moments like these when you’d sneak off to his bedroom in the early morning hours—he’d offered to take you fishing that day, and you’d declined. Now you were in this cabin alone, sifting through all his jackets, flannels, and chambray shirts hanging in the closet and hoping you’d locate one that smelled the most like him.

One you could get off with, maybe.

“Ow,” you murmured presently, having hit your knee on the little hickory nightstand before clambering into bed.

You slid the long-sleeve on. You shuffled forward for a pillow, then grabbed it. Following the same four or five steps you’d been replicating since That Day—seeking identical pleasure and failing spectacularly each time—you stuffed the big, bulky, feather-filled cushion between your thighs and pressed on. You let your eyes droop shut.

Good girl.

Daddy’s girl.

‘S’what you are, right? All mi—

You pivoted and gripped the footboard, bracing your knees even harder against the bed. So what if you needed to wear his shirts and reminisce on all the delicious, filthy words he’d spoken to you just days ago? It wasn’t like you were wailing for the guy’s attention.

That would have been embarrassing. Sad, and all-too predictable for a girl who had been raised without the influence of a male all her life—weepy and needy wasn’t what you hoped to emulate. You wanted to be tough and self-sufficient, just like it appeared Joel had always been.

You wanted to eat, sleep, read and write and cry yourself to sleep whenever you needed it, alone, so long as it meant you wouldn’t have to feel what you had back then, rejected by someone else. That, more than anything, made you realize how dependent you truly were.

This wasn’t working.

After five minutes humping at a pillow like your clit was on fire, you didn’t feel a thing. Well, other than defeat.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” You tugged Joel’s shirt tighter around you, blew out a breath, and leaned back.

Your eyes scanned the room—for what, you weren’t sure.

You’d been in here plenty of times before, whether you were cleaning or doing Joel’s laundry or whatever the case may have been, so your surroundings were familiar: old, five-drawer dresser across the way, stacks of quilts that should’ve been shelved ages ago, little trinkets here and there, a canteen hanging off the side of a ladder back chair, and then a desk, wide and shining and empty.

Finely ground specks of pine littered the surface of it.

This was where Joel did his woodworking. Off to the side, a partway-whittled bucking bronc stood, aloof.

You rose from the bed and walked to it.

Maybe—most likely—you were stupid. Joel had all but told you this to your face. Your fingers were small and helpless, and they couldn’t reach nearly close enough to where you needed them; they didn’t know what to touch.

What if you just…

Your brain didn’t get the chance to finish that thought. Your body acted first, and time sped up as soon as it did.

Before you knew it—and damn, were you so, so stupid—you had a hand on a tool. Vaguely recalling the name, some quarter-inch straight chisel or other, you held it up. Set it down. Shook your head, like this was the single dumbest idea you’d had in your life, then took it again.

You grabbed it and examined the handle briefly.

It was wooden and rounded, maybe three inches in diameter. Five inches long. You hadn’t the faintest idea as to what the appropriate size for a…substitute should be, or what the real deal even looked like, for that matter. All you knew was that man parts were hard, and probably much longer than any one of your fingers. You sat up on the woodworking stool and slid the chisel between the tails of Joel’s worn, buttoned shirt.

You were wet. That was the byproduct of thinking of him and humping a pillow mercilessly, plus brushing your fingers through your folds a few times that morning.

But you were tight, too. As if trying to stick your finger through a concrete wall, your walls wouldn’t budge an inch. If anything, the more you tried it, the more your body started clamming up and shutting anything out. You held the tool upright in your fist, tried sinking down, and, in a too-quick move, damn near slip-n-slided your silly, virginal rear end off the chair and onto the floor. You clamped your legs together and let out a wretched sigh.

“Just…go…inside,” you pleaded helplessly. Missing Joel’s thick, callused fingers and wishing he wasn’t such a dick, you tried thinking of him. Attempted imagining his voice.

“Hey, sweetheart?”

Then the bedroom door flew open.

Your hand released, and immediately, you jumped in place. Out of habit, your palms slammed on the table, like, I have nothing to hide, and you made a pass for the half-finished horse figurine. You grabbed it thoughtlessly.

Right as you flipped the thing upside down, pretending to study the base and looking for anything to fix your gaze on, Joel walked in. His footfalls echoed behind you.

A light touch grazed the nape of your neck.

“Hi, baby.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

It slid out without you thinking, like that was natural.

You tried covering it up as quick as you could anyhow.

Turning to face him, chisel still trapped between your thighs, and wearing nothing but the shirt on your back which also happened to be his, you held your arms out.

For the first time in a week, you smiled at him.

Joel hugged you after you set his latest creation down, and you could feel how surprised he was in that embrace. You hadn’t gone near him in days, and the last things you’d said to him, apart from, ‘No, thanks’ when he’d asked you to tag along on his fishing trip that morning, had been, ‘Whatever’ and ‘Leave me alone.’

You were bratty and full of anger. Who could blame you?

Now you were back to being his pet, or at least behaving like it. Joel seemed to heave the smallest sigh of relief as he stroked your head, kissed the crown of it, and rubbed your back. Told you all about the trout that he’d caught and the bear tracks he found, the sights he wished you’d been there to see and the flowers that he picked for you.

“Sittin’ in a jug in the kitchen if you wanna see ‘em,” Joel said, eyes glittering as he stroked your cheek. He really did seem to miss touching. “Lupines, just like you like.”

You tilted your face away from his fingers, smile tight.

“Thank you, Joel. I appreciate that.”

And, although the words, along with the slight movement away from his touch, were likely more than enough to clue him into the fact that you were still cagey—maybe turn a weaker man away from you, discouraged—Joel just stood straighter. Hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and surveyed the table out in front of you.

“I’ll clean the fish. You sit back, sniff them pretty flowers I picked ya, and afterward, I’ll show you how to whittle. How’s that sound?” The man wore an easy look. Underneath several decades of wrinkles, you could make out an expression that was lighthearted and jovial still.

You had a wood chisel about one inch shy of your pussy.

With that in mind, you shook your head and pressed on:

“I wanna try learnin’ on my own first. That’s what I’ve been doing, sittin’ here and admiring your handiwork.”

Lie.

“Get started in the kitchen, and I’ll be out in a little bit. Wanna try the, um…push-cut technique I read about.”

Whatever that fucking means.

You’d heard Joel mention it maybe once.

In reality, you simply needed an excuse to get him out of your hair so he wouldn’t notice that you weren’t wearing pants underneath that oversized long-sleeve shirt of his.

“Well, shoot, I can show you that right now, sweetie.”

Before you could protest his kindness, Joel bent over you, over the table, and reached for a coffee can full of loose materials. He took what seemed like a regular knife

If looks could kill, the man would’ve dropped on the spot.

Your body sagged a little in your seat, and you crossed your thighs tighter to make sure that the tiny metal-and-wood gadget in between them wouldn’t budge an inch.

Joel held his project up to the light.

“See…whatever you do, you gotta keep a real tight grip on the base. Like this.” He demonstrated by holding the flared bottom of the woodblock. “Wrist is always steady.”

Just shoot you in the head.

Wondering if tetanus might not be a legitimate concern in the event that the rusted chisel nicked your skin, you sat in stiffened silence. You listened to Joel wax poetic on finding the grain, saw how invested he was in sharing all the things he knew about his beloved hobby, and felt his palm fall next to yours on the table. He nudged you playfully, and the warmth of that touch made it hard not to remember. Just a week ago, the two of you together.

Then nothing.

‘This was wrong.’

“Wanna try it out yourself?”

Joel was still standing over you, still smiling, and the look on his face as he held out that mini cottonwood figurine made you want to say yes. You lifted your hand to take it.

Then Joel glanced down, grin stretching wider still.

“Gonna wanna use the quarter-inch straight chisel, hon. Why don’t you take that out from in between your legs and hand it over to me?” he pressed. He didn’t blink.

For a second, your world stood still.

Your breath hitched in your throat.

Meanwhile, Joel’s was flowing easy. He extended his free hand out to you, crooking his fingers in a ‘give it’ motion.

You didn’t think—probably couldn’t have done it anyway. Your eyes were glazed, and your heart was thrumming at at least a hundred beats per minute while you unstuck your legs from the seat. Numbly, you parted your thighs.

You pried the little chisel out of place and held it, shaky.

Joel’s expression above you was bafflingly calm. Like this was an everyday occurrence, he just took the tool that you’d retrieved for him, and then he turned it in his hands. Gave you a once-over that seemed curious.

Amused, even.

“I’m sorry,” you spit out. “It’s…It’s gross, I know. I’m—”

“—not mad at you, darlin’. Ain’t a thing to be sorry for.”

Joel shook his head, and in that low, rasping drawl, you sensed more than just an effort to console. His words were slow, like he was spoon-feeding you honey, and affection bled through every note. He focused on you.

His expression softened even more, if that were possible.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, darlin’. This is my fault.”

You stood.

You didn’t wait for him to tell you not to go, and you moved to leave. More than halfway across the room, you only stopped when he stepped in front of you, hands out.

Pleading with you gently.

“Baby—”

“Stop calling me that!” you snapped, all rancor and heat. “Quit callin’ me sweetheart, and honey, and darlin’, and whatever other name you think’ll make this all OK again.”

You could barely think having him this close to you, but you went on anyway: “Wouldn’t hear one word of that when you left me alone last week. We did what we did, and then you made me feel like I did something wrong!”

Joel’s expression splintered on hearing that. Above you, it was clear that there was a pain behind it—he wanted to reach out and touch you—but he had to control himself. Instead, he swallowed the big lump and shook his head.

“Wasn’t nothin’…nothin’ wrong that you did,” he croaked.

“Was it?” you said, voice cracking in the same way. “Because you haven’t been able to look at me all week, and every time it feels like we might talk, you just leave.”

“‘Cause I was in the wrong. I shouldn’t have done any of those things and…and stolen your innocence from you.”

“But I asked you to!”

“Don’t make no difference. ‘M’too old, and I shouldn’t—”

“—leave me to feel like I’m an idiot!”

“You’re not—”

“Like I’m broken and useless and stupid.”

You probably could’ve talked until you were blue in the face, and Joel’s expression only would’ve grown more distraught. He ran a hand through curls of black and gray and seemed to be making a concerted effort not to let his fingers shake as he did. He faltered in front of you.

He felt for his breast pocket, brows bunching together.

“Baby, you gotta…” He stopped himself shortly. Swallowed like something got stuck in his throat. “Believe me, ain’t none of that true. Wasn’t nothin’ you did—and you shouldn’t feel like you need to be usin’ my woodworking tools, neither…Should be somethin’…real.”

You couldn’t read his expression at the last.

Still, you knew what you hoped it meant.

“So show me,” you said. “Teach me.”

Your voice was weak. His lowered.

“You know why I can’t do that.”

Every spot, scar, and wrinkle gracing those weathered, middle-aged features seemed to harden at once. He wore a stern look, like a father’s, and didn’t budge when you reached out to touch. Just lifted a hand to his chest.

And, sliding something small out of his breast pocket:

“I stopped into town. Got you this.”

A little hand-held mirror.

You took it.

What for?

And you asked him that.

Watched Joel shift from foot to foot as you held it up.

The look in his eyes should have been answer enough. They told you, without prevarication, what this mirror was for. It was up to you to make sense of it yourself.

You took a seat on the bed.

Joel’s bed, big, broad, and soft as a cloud, made for the perfect space to do this. You didn’t have to think about it.

“Like this?” you asked him.

Joel stiffened where he stood. The moment you leaned back and set your heels apart on the bed—facing him directly, with nothing but his shirttails keeping you covered then—he scrubbed a hand down his beard.

He stared no lower than your collarbone.

You sat the mirror between your legs.

“Not here,” Joel said, jaw clenched.

The glass was rounded with a handle.

Perfect for holding it an inch away from—

“Baby,” Joel cut in, a little more choked. “I meant alone.”

“Then go.”

You were tired of feeling spineless—something naïve and meek and incapable of doing things on her own. Guilty as Joel may have felt, it didn’t change the fact that you had needs, same as him. If he didn’t want to see this, so be it.

You lifted the ends of your shirt to take a look at yourself.

The mirror was propped up on the comforter, affording you a near-perfect view of what had made you curious.

She was pretty. Plush. Simple.

You’d never gotten a glimpse at her from an angle like this, but with one look, you realized why the female form had held so many captive for as long as the human race existed. You had power—real, tangible power—inside it.

Joel’s mind seemed to mirror your every thought to a T.

His gaze had tripped from your neck to your shoulders, down your stomach and toward your center. Once it landed on open, dripping folds, it was like they froze him.

Rooting the stubborn, stern, frowning old man into place, your pussy worked like a spell. That knowledge alone was enough to send your muscles pulsing for him.

For yourself, you corrected.

Your pleasure came first.

“Baby…” Joel trailed off.

He stared, and he sulked, right as your middle and ring fingers teased a line up your aching slit. You were so wet that the most featherlight of touches got them soaked.

Joel swallowed again, bracing both hands on his hips.

“Darlin’—”

“What did I say about names, Daddy?” you cut in. You teased him with the D-word at the same time you found your clit, and a ripple of pleasure pulsed through you. “Don’t talk sweet if you’re not gonna treat me like it.”

You surprised yourself with just how steady you spoke. Similarly, Joel seemed to be stunned himself. He took a step forward so that he’d be stood at the foot of the bed.

“‘M’always sweet on you,” he mumbled. “…ain’t I?”

“Maybe when you feel like it,” you countered.

You made a messy circle with your fingers.

Then another, and another, and another. Sensations rose sharp and hot, further heightened by eyes on your body.

“When you need it,” Joel rebutted once more.

His voice was stern. Underneath it, though, a tortured man was trying to claw his way out. Fighting for control.

Losing the battle momentarily, he leaned in.

Hands still on his hips, eyes still glued between your legs, in an act that you would’ve deemed crude were it done just about anywhere else, Joel bent forward and spit.

A glob of saliva landed squarely between your fingers, almost too perfect for you to believe after you’d seen it.

But then you felt it: warm moisture mixing with yours, motions circling faster and faster around that little bud, Joel’s gaze growing even more intent as he watched you.

There was a frown on his face, but he was crumbling.

“Want Daddy to be sweet on you, huh? Is that it?”

The answer he received came in the form of your fingers sliding between your desperate, clenching, needy walls.

One inch.

One measly inch, and then they stopped.

That was all you could fit inside. You whimpered, shrill.

“Daddy, ‘s’too tight. Can’t go any deeper.”

“An’ what did I teach you ‘bout squeezin’? ‘Bout keepin’ her nice an’ wet so the stretch ain’t so painful goin’ in?”

That line of questioning was pointless, clearly.

You were drenched. Your legs were spread, revealing a wet, drooling pussy practically soaking straight through his comforter. The fingers you’d tried to push in wriggled

Joel grabbed the mirror.

“What’s this for?”

With your fingertips otherwise occupied, the man was free to thumb at your clit while holding the mirror to it. Your hips bucked instinctively, and it was like you could hear the arousal trickling out of you. Joel’s eyes slid up.

“Well?”

So this was a review, apparently.

You babbled, “My clit’s for—for makin’ me feel good.”

“An’ where else can you do that?”

“Here.”

Again, your fingers tried to slide in to locate your g-spot, but the effort was fruitless. Your hole was as tight as anything, and you simply didn’t have the grit to get it in.

“Here?”

So Joel did it for you.

With one thick, sure finger, he split your digits apart and entered your pussy pushing in between them. Languidly.

He held the mirror with more force, sawing the finger of his other hand back and forth to coax you open. To no one’s surprise, it was an easier go. Though one of Joel’s was almost as thick as the two of your own, this stretch was good. The pleasure it elicited made your jaw slacken.

And, just as a gasp left your lips, Joel put the mirror down. He reached for the back of your neck and, angling your chin to your chest, made you watch your reflection.

With the mirror resting between your legs, you had a front row seat to see it all: Joel’s finger dragging in and out, a tiny, gaping ‘o’ in its wake, your arousal trailing it.

He’d done this before, but it was your first time watching

You loved it.

You loved how lewd it looked with this big, coarse, liver-spotted hand flexing back and forth, making a finger disappear and reappear outside your pussy over and over again. You relished the sight of your juices trickling down his palm and wrist. You adored the grip at the nape of your neck, how Joel kneeled into the bed and lowered his mouth beside your ear, telling you the filthiest of things while he fingered you. ‘Missed her Daddy, didn’t she?’ and ‘That’s it, open f’me’ made you dizziest.

Then Joel told you to strip down.

Your fingers trembled with the buttons of your shirt—luckily, you’d only done three or four—and you got it off. You shrugged the thing behind you while Joel added a second finger, and you spread your thighs even wider.

It was a tight fit without his tongue to help. Whimpering and whining and murmuring, ‘Daddy, please,’ you made the sting evident, and that was when he started petting your g-spot. At the same time, to your surprise, Joel leaned down and took one of your nipples in his mouth.

The pleasure together was mind-numbing. Joel licked and sucked while his fingers drove in relentlessly; his tongue lapped over that hard, pebbled flesh and smeared the skin all over with saliva. He panted.

“This is…another spot,” he managed raggedly.

Another lick. Another loud, wet pop of his lips.

Your pussy clenched so tight around his fingers you feared you might cut off the circulation, and you moaned

Erogenous zones, Joel muttered against you.

And what a gift it was to be told—shown—where to find your pleasure. To have the doors thrown open wide and nudged inside that special, private place with the help of someone else. Perhaps the act wasn’t so much a loss of control on Joel’s part, but simply that: giving. You hoped he didn’t feel guilty again, and could enjoy this with you.

A minute later, you were watching yourself come undone

Trembling, fluttering, pulsing around Joel’s fingers while he sucked your nipple between his teeth, like he was feasting on you, you were inundated with ecstasy.

A shrill, pleasured shriek starved you breathless. Spit leaked and dribbled down your chin. The sight of your pussy getting stuffed with Joel’s fingers, at the same time he practically tongue-bathed your chest within an inch of his life, drove you wild beyond all understanding.

You pawed at him the second that your orgasm receded.

“M-More, Daddy,” you whimpered, greedy. “Please.”

No making sense of it then: you were desperate.

Beside you, Joel was sucking in deep, shuddering breaths and blinking furiously, as if trying to clear his field of vision or shake his head of some ugly thought.

You touched his chest, and he lurched backward.

He was doing it again.

“Joel—” you tried his name, gentle.

“I—I can’t.” He shook his head. “We gotta stop.”

“But you don’t wanna. You’re just sayin’ that now.”

You were out of breath, panting on the bed, and you realized then with some embarrassment that you were completely naked. Joel was clothed. He started to stand.

The old man had a look on his strained, weathered face like he’d witnessed fifteen wars firsthand. He braced a hand against a bedpost, clenching his jaw, and when your hand reached out to touch him again, he balked.

Groaned.

You must’ve nicked him someplace painful, inadvertently

Glancing down, you saw your hand atop a denim mound.

That hadn’t been your intention. You’d meant to grab at his belt loops and pull him close, help him see that he wouldn’t be doing you wrong, but your palm had landed on his crotch instead. You weren’t sure what this meant, but you couldn’t help but recall the noise he’d made when you straddled him early that morning at Tommy’s place. It sounded eerily familiar—and you really hoped you hadn’t fucked things up and hurt Joel in some way.

“I’m sorry!” you squeaked, yanking your hand back. “I’m— I— I didn’t mean to, I promise. Did I hurt you, Daddy?”

“Go—” Joel swallowed. Turned. “Go to your room, baby.”

Your heart sank.

You’d run him off again.

How many times would it take for this to be enough? When would you not be messing things up so pitifully?

You sniffled at the same time Joel took a step away.

His back was facing you, and his gait was unsteady.

Just as you started to slide off the bed, about to scamper off naked and humiliated, you stopped.

Joel halted where he stood, torso folding in slightly.

“Daddy!” you cried.

Before you knew it, you were in front of him. Hugging him. Trying to fit your arms around that thick, sturdy waist and babbling incoherently, something to the effect of, ‘Are you alright?’ and, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’

Something poked your stomach.

The reason that you weren’t able to fit your wrists around his back, you swiftly realized, was that something was standing at a perpendicular angle from Joel’s lower half.

You pulled back. You stared.

Joel was already hastening to shove the appendage away, but you saw it, clear as day: all of that was him.

He must’ve tugged it out of his jeans in the split-second that he’d been turned, hissing through his teeth and saying some words you were half-certain you weren’t allowed to repeat. Now Joel was fisting the thing, all thick and angry and pink, like it were something bad.

For some reason, the sight made your mouth water.

“Daddy?” And it was more a breath than a question.

Joel’s expression hardened, same as it had earlier—only this time, there was a tinge of pain behind it. He grunted.

“Darlin’,” he said, stern. “This is a grown man problem. Don’t want you havin’ to deal with none of it f’me, OK?”

“But I’m grown, too.”

You said it without thinking.

It was like a primal drive cut in, and your mind spun.

Your fingers trembled by your sides, and when you stole a look at Joel, you saw him eyeing you steadily. Chest rising and falling in shallow breaths and teeth grinding.

“Sweetheart—” he started to warn.

“Can I touch him? Just…just a little.”

Your voice was soft as you asked him.

Your movements were slow as you approached—you didn’t touch until Joel had breathed a fierce sound through his nose and jerked his chin once. Assent.

“One touch an’ you’re done. Y’hear that, honey?”

It was as if he were actively trying to deter you.

And it wouldn’t work—you were reaching out.

Your fingers curled around flesh that was hard and warm, and intrigue blossomed from the tips of your toes to the lips that wanted to grin at the feeling. Your eyes peered down, and you saw it, plain as anything: this…thing in your grip was dense. Long. Veiny. Flushed. And rigid.

It amazed you just how big the flesh could swell, and how hard it had gone underneath your touch. Holding him like you might a length of rope, you couldn’t even reach your middle finger to your thumb—that was how thick he was. You probably should’ve been frightened by the size, but instead, you found yourself admiring him. Ogling one small, shiny pearl of moisture sitting atop the rounded end and feeling your mouth start to water again.

Joel let out another rumbling sound.

He pried you off by your wrist.

“There. You touched ‘im.”

“Daddy’s…penis, right?”

You knew that he’d taught you the word before already; you just liked the way his pupils dilated when you said it.

And, sure enough, Joel’s irises were swallowed up.

His throat bobbed. He put a hand on his zipper.

“Yeah. Now Daddy needs to take care of ‘im.”

He took a load off in the easy chair behind him, collapsing with a sigh. You didn’t follow at first.

You just watched, enrapt, while Joel planted his feet wide on the floor and fisted his length, eyeing you close.

A grown man’s problem.

Not yours. Not now.

“Can’t even stay hard,” Joel said suddenly. Humorless. “Takes me more’n an hour on a good day. That’s why I say it’s a problem for me, not a little thing like yourself.”

That made you bristle.

You stepped closer. “‘Little thing’?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t got nothin’ to do with your bein’ a full adult—which you are—but your experience. Years you got under your belt.” And in a semi-ironic gesture, Joel hooked a thumb through a denim loop and tugged his jeans lower, exposing more of himself to you.

Spit burned in your throat going down. It was the most infuriating thing; knowing your body was just as good and ready as his, but because Joel deemed you little…

You walked to where he was and got on your knees. Kneeling, you saw the man tense and sit up taller.

“That wasn’t no invitation, sweetheart—”

“I want you to treat me like I’m grown.”

And really, that was all you could say.

No amount of pleading eyes or pawing, needy hands, fingers curling into fists and demanding in a shrill voice, ‘Treat me as an equal, Joel’ would ever accomplish what you managed with the uttering of those nine little words.

For the first time, Joel looked like he understood.

Leaning forward, squeezing the base of his length in one hand and cupping your face with the other, he hummed.

“That what you want?” Thumbing at your cheek.

You nodded. You softened under that touch.

“C’mere, baby.”

C’mere.

Come to daddy.

The next thing you felt was a set of lips on yours; Joel kissed you gently. His mouth was warm and soft and tender beyond all comprehension, drawing you to him and tasting you by turns. Heat fluttered low in your belly, and before the rest of your body could even fully respond to it, he was pulling back. His lips shone, red and swollen.

Smiling.

“‘S’what I wanted to do this whole time,” he murmured, sounding a little bit sheepish as he said it. “Should’ve been the first thing I did—that’s how real folks do it.”

Frankly, you were too light-headed to reply.

You nodded airily, jaw hanging slack.

“Now where’s my sweet girl?”

That you could answer without words. So you did.

Letting Joel capture your lips again, setting your hands on either one of his denim-clad thighs and rising off your heels. Kissing him, and feeling the vibrations of a groan.

Hearing him stroke himself faster, then pulling from him.

Gaping.

“Y’know what made him so hard, baby?” Joel asked you, expression going a bit more lax while he rubbed himself. Evidently, whatever he was doing felt good. “Tell Daddy.”

So he was still in teaching mode.

Your spit was practically leaking out in strings at either side of your mouth, but you managed to steel yourself.

“A-Arousal,” you stammered. Swallowing. “Your penis gets big whenever you’re aroused, uh, seein’ something.”

“And what did Daddy see?”

Your face heated.

“Well…”

Joel drew closer, eyes bright and glistening.

“You can tell me, darlin’.”

Another beat.

“Me?”

Very good, baby seemed to shine in every blink of that honeyed gaze, and Joel bent forward to kiss the tip of your nose, then your cheek. You preened under his touch.

“That’s right. You made Daddy so hard,” he murmured.

Trapped between wanting to curl up on Joel’s lap and soak in all his praise and actually hoping to learn another lesson, you let him take the lead. You tilted your chin with the beckoning of his forefinger and thumb, and you squeezed his legs harder, toes curling underneath you.

In his fist, Joel’s length was ruddy-looking and flushed. The little bead of liquid at the tip had grown even bigger, but the sight was fleeting. At the next possible opening, Joel slid his palm up and over that end and stroked it rapidly. He smeared the moisture over his dick and, peering down at you with an almost curious look, widened the spread of his legs. He shifted closer.

“I’m an old man,” he said, a little deflated. Shaking his length near your face. “He don’t…stay hard for very long.”

You swallowed.

You watched Joel continue to pump himself, but it was clear those motions were slowing. His member was beginning to soften in his hold, sagging at the tip.

“Daddy…” you whined. You didn’t like to see him sad.

“Couple kisses from your pretty lips might wake ‘im up, though. Could ya…Could ya do that f’me, hon? Kiss ‘im?”

You didn’t think twice—you treated it just like you did with his mouth before. You bent down and kissed him right on the thick, glistening head, all round and pink.

Joel groaned.

He cursed again.

“That’s it, baby,” he praised you, voice strained.

You were starting to get the sense that certain grunts of pain—or what sounded like them to your ears—were really more bound up in pleasure. Because of this, you went on, quietly, ‘That feel OK, Daddy? That…better?’

“Ten times better,” Joel hissed through his teeth. Releasing his hold on your face to grip the armrest. “That—That’s what Daddy likes. Little game of lollipop, huh?”

You cocked a brow at him.

Joel chuckled, “‘S’what it’s like, right? Lickin’ a lollipop.”

Hearing that, you couldn’t keep your lips from twitching.

Okay. Lollipop.

That made it more fun.

When Joel held his big, still partly flaccid length out to you again, you acted even quicker. You kissed his tip, and then, not needing to map it out, you pressed your lips to the side, the base, someplace near the thatch of black of gray hair by his tummy, peppering pecks. It was a game.

And your old man seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly, as his hips jerked with every other movement of your mouth. You stuck out your tongue and licked a stripe, and you heard a low, prolonged growl peel out of him.

“That’s it, sweetheart. That’s a good fuckin’ girl.”

You licked the warm, gummy flesh again and relished the taste. That texture, frustrating as it may have been for Joel, was tantalizing all the same. You reached up and replaced Joel’s hand with yours, and strangely, you loved the feel of his dick all soft and wormy beneath your fist.

Your old man.

You peered up and met with scars, slightly sagging skin, silver-flecked hairs, a wide, bushy trail that spanned all the way to his navel over a heaping mound of muscle and fat. Joel was thick, and he showed his years through every inch of his body. Words couldn’t begin to describe how much you loved that, and how feral it made you feel.

Parting your lips, about to stick out your tongue to give him another long, wet, and tender lick, Joel stopped you.

He twitched in your palm.

“Baby, how ‘bout you put Daddy’s penis in your mouth?”

He said it so soft—so ragged and broken and wanting, by the sound of it—that you almost froze on the spot. Spit smeared your lips and down your chin, falling in little droplets onto his jeans every now and then, and your mouth hovered over the head of him. Your eyes rounded.

“Like…Like this?” you stammered. Lowering.

You took his tip between your lips; it started out with a kiss, just suckling the edge, but then, swiftly, your mouth opened up around him and stretched. Your jaw ached to accommodate his girth, and with just one inch, you felt the sting of what seemed like ten. You gagged, not used to that sensation, and your head jerked back by instinct.

You expected Joel to be put off—irritated, even.

But when you turned a coy look his way, you were surprised to find his eyes heavy-lidded and glazed. Expression as limp as ever—his member stirring stiffer near your lips and between your fingers, simultaneously—he watched you. He nodded. He sucked in half a breath

And when he spoke again, it was like he really was in pain

“Honey…” Dick swelling nearly to full-size in your fist. Hand moving from the armrest to lay flat on the crown of your head, a little shaky. “Darlin’, I’m—I’m— I can’t last.”

You were about to question that, confused as to how one little suck of your mouth could make him so squirmish all of a sudden, but then Joel’s other hand was moving, too.

This one reached lower.

It shoved his pants and boxers down, almost to the point of the fabric pushing past his thighs, and then you saw it.

More squishy stuff.

It wasn’t…part of Joel’s dick per se but rather sat at the base. Hairy and round and plush in a funny-looking duo.

“Y’know what’s in there, baby?” Joel murmured.

You had no idea. You said as much in a shrug.

That made Joel stiffen more, teeth flashing.

A soft chuckle, “Guess we never got to that part, huh?”

For a second, you were puzzled. In the next, you were being lifted to your feet. You might’ve stumbled, except Joel picked you up and carried you all the way to the bed.

You landed with a soft thud and saw Joel undressing before you’d even regained your bearings. As with most things he did, the man was relatively slow-moving and careful, but there was a grit and a resolve just the same.

He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and didn’t unglue his gaze from you once. He kicked off his boots, toed off his socks, and when he got to his boxers and jeans, he put a hand on one of the closest bedposts and paused, briefly.

“Baby.”

You were lying sprawled out over the bedspread, naked, with Joel standing off to the side, eyes as ravenous and wild as you had ever seen them. At the same time, it looked like the man had just swallowed a cup of nails.

He leaned closer, and you did the same, crawling over.

“Yeah? What is it, Da—”

“We don’t gotta do nothin’ you don’t wanna do, OK?” Joel cut in over you. Cupping your cheek in one hand. “Hell, we can stop this right now. Save your—your, uh, first time for somebody a little more suited to you in—”

Now it was your turn to interject, eyes rolling at him.

“If you say ‘age’ one more goddamn time, Joel…”

And it made you giggle, partly because you weren’t often in the habit of cussing, but also because of the look that was suffusing Joel’s whole face as you said it: the guilt.

You could tell that it was still tearing him up, knowing how that wide, yawning chasm of decades wedged between you two wouldn’t close no matter what he did. Fingers gripping the bedpost like a vise, eyes studying you by turns, and his underwear and pants all but bursting around the strain of his dick, he looked…

“—scared,” you finished presently. Tugging on his jeans. “Isn’t it my job to be freaking out? This thing’s colossal.”

You’d helped him strip completely nude, watching him kick off the fabric at his feet and climb into bed beside you, and there was a granule of truth to what you said.

What were you going to do with it? Would it even fit?

Then Joel was on top; fear dissolved into laughter.

“Hey!” you hissed around short, gasping shrieks.

“That’s a big word,” Joel mused, barely having to move a muscle against your writhing and squirming. “‘Colossal.’”

“You’ve got a big dick.”

“Baby.”

“Sorry. Penis, I mean.”

Above you, Joel had only to shake his head and scrunch his nose—with his length hard and bobbing between your bodies, there was certainly no sense in denying it.

Still pinning you with his weight, he slid you both up the mattress. He nudged your head onto a pillow. Once comfortable, safe, and secure, and only then, did you feel him start to shift. You glanced between your legs.

His shaft was heavy. It stretched all the way from your pubic bone to your belly button and then well past it by an inch or three-and-a-half. Your presence was like a pebble beside a pillar; this walking, talking wall of fur and muscle couldn’t be outstripped by anything, it seemed.

Joel stroked your cheek with his knuckles, at the same time watching moisture from that tip wet your tummy.

“Y’know…” he trailed off, low. “Y’know how this goes?”

You did, sort of.

Your brain flashed back to the noises stifled behind cabin walls; Joel’s fingers plunging in and out of you; tongue dragging circles, telling you it was best to be wet and stretched, to make sure there was plenty of room for it.

Not a quarter-inch straight chisel, a finger, or a tongue.

Not even just the tip.

“All of it goes in?” you asked him, gaze flickering up.

“All of it.”

Joel’s hips canted once forward, then once going back.

Then again, in a sawing motion, as if to show you.

“Daddy goes in…” Another undulation. “…an’ out.”

Over the course of all your time observing Joel, you’d come to realize that the man reverted to modes of teaching when he was worried; concealing his nerves became a game part-detachment, part-pragmatism.

You saw it now as he shifted his hips in demonstration, simulating sex with his length dragging back and forth across your belly. His brow knit, and he held your gaze.

“‘Fore he can…‘fore he can move, or anything, Daddy’s gotta stretch your little hole out for him. Get her ready.”

“Like you did with your fingers?” you supplied helpfully.

Joel winced.

“Well, a—a little like that.” And he paused to consider his words. “Except, uh…Daddy’s gonna stretch you a bit bigger. Tougher. When he goes in for the first time, he might…well, there’s this stretch of skin he might…rip.”

“Rip?” You raised your head off of the pillow, voice taut.

Joel tried talking you down, both literally and figuratively.

“Ain’t that bad, I-I don’t think. You might not even have it. There’s just this thing inside of some women—a little tissue, I s’pose—called a hymen. Might break the first time you have sex, and—and with everything else… stretchin’, y’know, if it hurts, you just talk to me, OK?”

You nodded, “OK.”

Joel lined himself up.

He gripped his length and angled it. Shifted on his knees.

Swiped the head through your folds a couple of times and made you shiver—was this supposed to be painful? You liked him there, and you tried relishing the feeling. Being wet, and sensitive, and spread with your legs wide open to Joel, you felt as vulnerable as you’d ever been.

You wanted to get the hurt over with.

“Put it in,” you urged, soft. “Go on.”

Joel’s lips twitched overhead. A light chuckle rumbled through him, and he continued the languorous strokes.

“Ain’t that simple,” he mumbled back. “It ain’t…polite.”

For what?

You were about to ask him as much, when Joel slid the flushed, leaking head of his dick from just grazing and bumping your slit to tapping directly—poking your clit. Smearing that pearlescent liquid from the little hole at the end to your throbbing bundle of nerves. You gasped.

Pleasure blossomed from that site. Joel tapped the head again—gentle, but insistent—and sparks ignited across your lower half. Your hips jerked, and you let out a whine.

“That’s why, darlin’,” Joel answered your wordless query. He smiled, sliding his dick back and forth between your thighs, over your trembling, glistening mound. “Only polite to knock on the door before he comes inside.”

And if you weren’t almost shaking in fear, you wouldn’t have hesitated to roll your eyes. Told the old, beaming man with his length poised over your pussy he was corny and not funny at all, y’know that? But instead, you just mirrored his grin, all crooked, soft, and indolent, and you leaned in to kiss him. You wrapped legs around his hips.

You trusted him.

Yet another confirmation of it came when Joel cradled the back of your head and kissed you deeper, sweetly, and then dragged his lips from your mouth to either one of your cheeks, your nose, your chin. Peppering kisses.

Trying to distract from what was forthcoming, maybe.

“Just look at me,” Joel murmured, drawing back and meeting your eyes. “Look at Daddy now, alright, baby?”

You did.

You nodded.

Joel pressed his hips forward, and—

“Fuck!” You swore under your breath.

It stung. No side-stepping the pain, the push of Joel’s length a mere quarter-inch inside stretched the rim of your pussy to what felt like maximum capacity. You dug your heels in his ass, and at the same time it felt like that thrust was going to halt where it was, you grit your teeth.

“Keep going. Please,” you begged him.

Joel groaned. His whole body shook.

“Baby, this pussy’s so fuckin’ tight.”

You must’ve felt like a fist to him—whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was yet to be decided, as the man’s mouth fell open, and a string of curses flew out. His hips stuttered, like he couldn’t bear the feeling, and then his hand lifted to stroke your cheek. His thumb trembled down the cusp of your jaw as his throat bobbed

“Oh…oh, honey. Can’t hurt ya, little one,” he said, choked

“You won’t. I want it,” you murmured back.

As if to affirm that statement, your walls clenched around his tip and sucked him deeper. Maybe a half-inch.

Once sheathed almost past his throbbing, leaking head, Joel seemed to grow even more delirious. He opened and closed his mouth, gray stubble shining from the faint lamplight of his woodworking station across the room, and you thought he’d never looked sweeter. Or needier.

You snaked your arms around his neck just as you felt your body begin to leak more moisture down his length. One soft, minuscule squelch where Joel’s most intimate part and yours molded together, mixing juices, and you could almost taste him on your tongue—feel him swelling bigger and harder pointing in toward your belly.

“Right here, Daddy,” you breathed, voice shrill from how badly you wanted him. “Show—Show me where it goes.”

You should’ve known that tapping into Joel’s pedagogical side would’ve stopped him on a dime.

And it did.

He blinked.

Eyes already clouded with lust and need, he swallowed.

“Y-Yeah?” He leaned closer and blanketed your body.

You nodded at him sweetly, spreading your thighs.

“Please, Daddy. Teach me how to be a big girl.”

Your words might as well have knocked him sideways. The man heaved the longest, lowest groan through his teeth, and muscles ticked on both sides of his mouth.

He liked that a lot.

He’d give you exactly what you needed now.

And, in short order, that was what he did—lowering his head, capturing your lips, kissing you sweetly and savoring your taste, he relished you. Pleasured you. Braced his elbows on either side of your head on the pillow and sucked in a breath and then slid in, finally.

“Open for Daddy,” he said, without pretense or pause.

No equivocation to his movements now, he drove deep. Your body followed as if by instinct, blooming around the intrusion and letting him in. It hurt; like you already knew, there was no sense in pretending as if it wouldn’t sting, but Joel was there through every second of it. Caring for you, kissing you, sawing that big, slippery member of his in and telling you, gently, ‘This is where Daddy belongs.’

“In—In my tummy, Daddy. Can feel ‘im in my tummy.”

“Yeah? Show me where.”

Joel’s hand moved under yours, swiftly guided to your stomach. His gaze shone with pride when you started drawing little circles over your belly button, all while his length was plunging in and out of your wet, needy hole.

You felt a bulge under the skin, and he felt it, too. Whatever hymen you had was probably split in half.

“See Daddy there? All up in your guts?”

You did. You whimpered, “Uh-huh.”

Then, somehow, the man sank even deeper—what once felt like it was teasing at your tummy touched your lungs.

Joel let out a strangled sound.

“Feel—Feel Daddy here?”

As soon as you answered yes, Joel rocked his hips forward to make sure he hit that spot again. It made stars fly before your eyes, not unlike the way you’d felt when he was knuckle-deep stroking your g-spot, but you could tell that this place was different, too. Your toes curled in anticipation, and your walls pulsed around him.

You liked it, not only for the feeling, but the meaning of it.

Something more significant lurked under the surface.

“Your cervix,” Joel said, voice thin and near hoarse.

Another stab of his pelvis, and your mind went dizzy with the pleasure—silly as it was, it also scared you, so you hugged Joel’s neck and nodded your head, ‘Cer-vix.’

“You know where…babies come from, right, hon?”

That question stumped you for a second.

Slowly, you shook your head at him.

And, like the time not long ago when you’d told Joel you wanted to be a big girl, this admission seemed to leave a lasting impression, too. Above you, Joel continued to roll his hips in fast, shallow thrusts and stretch your pussy out with it, prodding at your cervix in every movement.

“Well, this—this is what I was gettin’ at, darlin’.”

Another beat. Another thrust and a groan.

Joel had just managed to steel himself when he went on:

“The birds and the bees, I mean. This is…it. This is…”

Making love.

Making…

Joel didn’t even need to finish his thought, but he reached down anyhow. Feeling for the soft, squishy globes attached to the base of himself, between his legs, he ghosted fingertips over them and stifled a grunt.

“In here, ‘s’where a man stores semen. That’s—”

“The stuff that makes babies, right, Daddy?”

The pieces fell into place without him having to say another thing. The jostling of your body underneath him, pussy taking him deep with every stroke, how Joel would grunt and groan and pant in keening desperation, ‘Oh, sweetheart, that’s just what Daddy likes. Keep goin’,’ it only surprised you how long it had taken for you to see it.

Instinct clouded your sense; you said it without thinking:

“Want it in me, Daddy.”

Joel choked.

Oh.

At the same moment, your walls reflexively clenched, and your fingers wound through the dark, sweat-dampened curls at the nape of his neck. Inhaling a whiff of his aftershave and his natural scent, you felt something stir within you. You couldn’t name it.

You couldn’t place that primal need or why you craved him in you, pulsing out however much of that seed his body could give. It was as simple and as insistent as breathing; your pussy enveloped his length from root to tip and gave it a squeeze like your walls were trying to milk him. Joel’s body responded in kind, and he groaned.

“‘M’sorry, Daddy,” you squeaked. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You want Daddy to make a baby in your belly?”

Joel’s mouth was hovering less than an inch away from your own, and the look on his face was that of a man starved. His thrusts slowed. Hard, hot flesh twitched inside you and sank all the way in until you squirmed.

This gruff man, this tough man, this caretaker and wellspring of kindness and warmth. Protection since the day he’d entered your life. And now he was buried to the hilt, hips digging into yours, and he was smoothing a hand over your cheek. Seeming to be waging an internal war, he swallowed and held your hip with his other hand.

“Don’t—Don’t answer that,” he rejoined, hoarse.

“Please, Daddy. Please,” you whimpered back.

In an exploratory move, you reached to lick at his bottom lip. After that, his chin, down the plane of prickly silver stubble and then around his mouth, like you couldn’t get enough of the man. It felt natural; you lifted your hips and raised your eyes to him at the same time, begging.

You didn’t need to ask. Joel didn’t need to speak again.

But after taking a look deep in your eyes and feeling you hug him—tug him in, both between your arms and your thighs—it became readily apparent his resolve was shot.

His hips drew back and rocked forward.

His tip nudged your special spot, and you both groaned.

No further teaching or talking was needed from that point forward; you and Joel seemed both to operate on instinct, with your bodies making all of the requisite decisions to keep moving. Joel slipped his arms under your body and held you tight, pressed himself as near as he could while he drilled you into the bed and pushed you closer and closer to your peak. His length swelled and throbbed, and the whole time through, he couldn’t take his eyes off your face to watch what his movements were doing. Always ‘my girl,’ ‘my darlin’,’ or ‘my sweet, precious baby’ as his pubic bone bumped your clit and he cradled you to him. The bed creaked underneath the weight of each thrust, and before you knew it, your moans were increasing in pitch. Your body tightened.

Joel’s did the same, and with the tight, wet suction of your pussy all but cutting off the circulation to his dick, neither one of you had much say in what followed after—ropes of warmth coated your walls with every pulsation of his length, and euphoria seized you from head to toe.

How long it lasted, or how long Joel remained buried in your aching heat was anyone’s guess. All you knew was that when you re-opened your eyes on recovering from your pleasure, Joel was watching you. Thick, sticky warmth stuffed you to the brim before starting to leak out—and, evidently, your old man loved that feeling, as he couldn’t keep a grin from spreading across his face.

Cheeks glowing, eyes bright, and smile mirroring your own, it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere this time. Joel held you closer, then pressed a kiss to your cheek.

One bad day doesn’t make your whole life bad. 

The message glares back at you, the words etched in Sharpie on the back of the bathroom stall in a shitty gas station in Reno. Next to it is for bad time call 775-397-04, the last two numbers are too smudged to read, and several other doodles you suspect might be the leftover artwork from people using the stall for anything other than its intended purpose. 

You had managed to make it to Reno thanks to a kind older lady, Gladys, who had offered you a ride about 200 miles back. 

“Can’t take you all the way, hunny, but I can get you to Nevada.” 

She was nice; a little Elvis-obsessed, and you’d rather walk through a sandstorm fully nude than smell her breath again, but she kept her promise and got you where she said she would. 

You told her the truth when she asked why you were alone and needed a ride. 

You had followed this guy, convinced he was the love of your life. That was until the day you saw him with another woman, in your bed no less, and everything shattered. In a spur of anger and heartbreak, you decided to leave. Without a car or much money, your only option was to hitchhike back to Texas, silently praying your family would understand and take you back. Not likely, but it’s not like you had any other option. 

“Good luck, Toots. You’ll be alright. Anyone gives you hell, just punch ‘em in the balls.” 

You laugh at that. “I’ll keep that advice in mind, Gladys. Thanks for the ride.” 

She gave you a stiff nod and popped the trunk. You grabbed your modest suitcase, a small thing that held only a handful of clothes, some of your favorite books, and the few memories you cared to bring. 

You watched as she pulled out of the gas station parking lot, her window down, fingertips clutching a cigarette that dangled out of the window. The tires of her Crown Vic squealed against the gravel as she pulled out. And then, she was gone just like that, leaving you alone once more. More alone than you’ve ever been, you realize. 

You turn to walk into the building, quickly scanning the walls for the restrooms, avoiding the clerk. Your life was already embarrassing enough, you didn’t need to add getting silently judged by a 7-11 gas station attendant in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. 

You find the cleanest stall and let yourself cry. 

One bad day doesn’t make your whole life bad. 

Right.

You step out of the stall with a heavy sigh and slumped shoulders. It smells like artificial soap and bleach, and the mirror is scratched and clouded at the edges. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, reflecting harshly on your now puffy eyes. You run cold water over your face, drying it with the rough paper towels that disintegrate like melting snow, and do your best to rid yourself of the grossness you feel. 

You give yourself your best it’ll be okay look in the mirror, and step out. 

You head to the gas station counter and buy a cheap bottle of water with the last of your cash. The clerk gives you a sympathetic look but offers no words. You step outside and lean against the building, scanning the horizon for any sign of a kind soul willing to give you a lift, but no such luck. 

The sun dips lower, and you decide you can’t stay here. You pull out the map Gladys gave you and assess your options. The nearest town is about three miles up the road, give or take a mile or two, you’re not really sure how to read this damn thing anyway. Walking the whole way doesn’t sound ideal, and the flip-flops on your feet aren’t really up for the job either, but you’ve never been one to complain. 

Despite your best efforts, the cars just zoom past, one after another, leaving you with nothing but a cloud of dust each time. You hold out your thumb again, hope dwindling when, finally, a semi-truck slows down and halts to a stop in front of you.

The door swings open, and you look up and into the cab. 

And oh.

His eyes glaze over your body, the suitcase in your hand, looking you up and down before they meet yours.

“Needa ride?” 

You're wide-eyed, like a doe caught in the middle of a highway, the realization hitting you that maybe this isn't such a good idea after all. 

He notices your apprehension and cracks a half-smile. 

All you can do is nod.

“Where ya headin’ to?” 

“Texas,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper. 

He nods, patting the passenger seat. “Hop on in then, Bambi.” 

It might be a no-good, terrible idea, but you do it anyway.  ++++

You’ve never been in a semi before. You wouldn’t necessarily consider yourself afraid of heights, but you have to admit you’re pretty far up. The inside is far more spacious than it looks on the inside. 

You give him a small smile as you adjust onto the seat, barely meeting his eye as you do, trying to look anywhere but. He watches as you pull the safety belt across your lap and nods when he hears it click into place. 

“Joel,” he says, extending his hand out to yours.

You offer your name in return and feel heat rush to your chest when his large hand encloses yours. 

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Joel,” you say, shaking it slightly. 

"Just Joel, darlin'," he says, dropping your hand. He brings it to the mesh hat on his head, taking it off to push back his curls. You notice the strands of grey that thread through the brown. “Ready?” 

You're not sure if you are, but you nod anyway. You watch as he shifts the truck into gear, checks the mirrors, and then pulls out.

You ride in silence. 

Through the corner of your eye, you see him occasionally glance over at you, his lips slightly parting like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. 

After a few minutes, you shift your attention from the road and begin to look around the truck. The front dash is covered in patterned fabric that’s starting to fray at the edges. The interior seems a little dated but relatively clean. There’s a coffee cup in one of the drink holders and a pack of sunflower seeds in the other. There’s a cinnamon-scented air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. 

It’s kind of cozy. Not in a way that feels cozy, like coming home after a long trip away, but it’s comfortable. 

You decide to break the silence.

“Nice setup you’ve got here,” you say, reaching out to touch the fabric on the dash. “Did you do all this yourself?”

Joel glances over, a hint of pride in his eyes. “Yeah. Spend so much time in here, might as well feel like home, you know?”

Home. 

You’re not sure what that feels like anymore. 

You give him your best smile and nod like you understand what he’s trying to say. 

You chat for a little longer, letting him do most of the talking. You learn he’s been in trucking for over a decade, something he got into when his back could no longer handle his contractor job. He plays the guitar. He’s a fan of spaghetti westerns and a native of Texas. He has a younger brother named Tommy. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he seems like a decent man. 

His eyes stay on the road for the most part, apart from the occasional glance over he’ll give you. You notice his eyes drop to your bare thighs every time he does, but you don’t mind. You can tell he’s curious about you. And you would be, too, if the roles were reversed, but he doesn’t pry. 

The conversation naturally ends, and you both begin to ride in silence once more. 

You gaze out the passenger window, watching the sun dip below the horizon behind the rock formations. In true desert fashion, the sunset is spectacular – the sky transforms into a canvas of deep oranges and purples, giving way to night. 

Now hidden in a tinge of darkness, the only light coming from the illuminated buttons on the truck's dashboard, you take a moment to look at him—really look at him. 

He has a strong jawline, a perfect slope to his nose, and facial hair that’s just beginning to gray. You think he might be in his late 40s or early 50s, but he wears it well. He's handsome in a way that’s solid, sure of itself. It unmoors you. 

You shift in your seat, trying to shake off the feeling. You crack the window, letting the cool breeze caress your face. You lean back on the seat and close your eyes; you’re more exhausted than you thought. 

Joel glances over, catching the weariness on your face. He clears his throat, and you blink your eyes to look at him.

“If you’re tired, you can go lay down on the bed in the back,” he says, his voice gentle. “It ain’t the Ritz, but the mattress is pretty comfy. I even have some fresh sheets in the cabinet above it.”

You lean up from the seat, a little surprised by the offer. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure. There’s a TV back there, too, if ya wanna watch something.” 

It’s a simple offer, but the kindness behind it makes your heart flutter a bit. 

“Thanks, a bed does sound nice,” you say as you unhook the seatbelt. 

You move to the back. As you do, he risks a glance over his shoulder, taking in the view of your ass and the flesh that peeks out from the cut of your daisy dukes before quickly returning his attention back to the road. 

Fuck, he’s in trouble.

From the front, the truck seemed huge, but now you realize it's even bigger than you thought. In the center, there's a decent-sized bed with a TV positioned across from it. There's not much room to walk around, but just enough to get by. You drop your bag and pull out the fresh sheets from the cabinet, exactly where he said they'd be.

As you’re pulling the old sheets from the bed, you feel something under the corner of the mattress. Lifting it slightly, you find a bottle of lube. A moment of awkwardness washes over you, but you quickly brush it aside, place it back where you found it, and finish making the bed. 

As you settle onto it, you look around for the remote but can’t find it. 

“Hey, uh Joel, where’s your remote?”

“Oh shit, um, check the nightstand.” 

“Thanks,” you call out, opening the drawer. Inside is the remote, a copy of a Lonesome Dove, a pair of reading glasses, and some Tums. Most definitely in his 50s, then. 

You lay back on the pillows, pull the blankets over your body, and point the remote at the screen. 

When the screen turns on, you’re immediately met with the sight of a woman on her knees, mouth stuffed full of a large cock, hair a tangled mess in the fist of the man above her as he uses it to guide her up and down on his shaft. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

You fumble for the off button, but something stops you. Your ex-boyfriend had a hard rule about you touching yourself without him. That should have been your first red flag, but he was charming enough that you could make do with that. He wasn’t a bad lay, and you did occasionally orgasm with him, but you haven’t actually made yourself come in you don’t even know how long. 

You glance toward the entrance to the back of the cab to make sure Joel isn’t watching, double-check the sound is all the way off, and decide to let yourself watch.

You watch, captivated, as the scene unfolds. It’s a little corny, the way she slobs on his cock, but she looks like she’s enjoying it. You watch as the man tugs her up by her hair and mouths something you can’t hear as he quickly bends her over and fucks her with his fingers. 

You dip your hand below the band of your shorts and rest it above your panties as you watch him slide another finger into her wet, wanting cunt.  Your fingers slide beneath the fabric, slipping through your slick to press against your clit. 

It feels a bit bold to do this here, but boy, do you need it. Your body feels foreign, but you quickly reacquaint yourself, finding that perfect pressure and making small, satisfying circles with two of your fingers.

You can't hear it, but you can tell from the way the camera captures her face, her eyes rolling back into her skull, that she's coming. You’re close, but you hold off from your release, wanting to see him fuck her. The man pumps his cock with his fist a few times before lining himself up against her wet hole. 

You start to pick up the pace of your movement as the tip of him presses against her entrance, parting her swollen folds as he feeds her his cock. He starts slow, taking his time to slick himself in her release. Before long, he’s fucking her hard, holding onto her hips for leverage. You watch as her tits bounce, and he pulls her down and back onto him.

You feel the pressure build, the intensity of knowing you could be caught by Joel at any second only adding to your arousal. 

You come just as the man does, muffling your moans with the pillow, watching his hips flush against her ass as his hands grab her flesh. The camera pans to a close-up of him pulling out, followed by the sight of thick white cum oozing out of her. 

You watch in a daze, hand still between your thighs, as the scene ends. You change the channel, then turn off the TV.

As you stare at the ceiling of the cab, still enraptured by your release, you think about the last time that you actually felt this good. You think about what it might be like to be pumped full of hot cum, filled to the brim by a large cock. 

Everything else in your life was falling apart, but maybe this was one problem you could actually solve.

Trucking must get lonely, after all. 

++++

Joel must have let you sleep for a while because when you wake up, the sun is just starting to rise. You hastily make the bed and change in the back before heading up front, finding Joel right where you left him.

“You drove through the night?” you ask, wiping some sleep from your eyes.

“Got a late start yesterday. Usually like to drive through the night anyway, fewer idiots on the road.”

You must have stopped recently, though, since he's sipping what looks like a fresh cup of coffee. You're surprised when he reaches over to the center of the dash, eyes still on the road, and hands you one too.

“You sleep okay?” he asks. You let the warmth and aroma of the coffee slowly wake you up.

“Yeah, thanks. I really needed that.” You smirk, knowing you needed a little more than just sleep. You buckle yourself into the passenger seat.

“Thanks for the coffee, by the way. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind,” he says, holding his cup in one hand, the other gripping the wheel. Now that you're more alert and less tired than yesterday, you notice how big he actually is. His thick thighs take up most of the seat, and his arms are tan and muscular.

You squeeze your thighs together and try to ignore the aching want that hasn’t gone away since last night. It doesn’t help that he keeps looking at you like you’re the sweetest thing he’s ever laid eyes on. 

“So, tell me about your load,” you say, hiding your smile behind your cup. You watch as his neck turns pink, and he clears his throat. 

“My, uh —” he looks over at you, but you’re already holding his gaze. He wonders if you intentionally phrased it that way. 

“It’s just a bunch of construction stuff; pipe and stuff.” 

He blushes even more when he realizes how that sounds. You get a kick out of him being flustered and decide to press him a little more. 

“And what are you gonna do with that pipe, Joel?” 

He sets his coffee down and clears his throat again, his grip so tight on the steering wheel that his knuckles bleach. 

“What am I — uh, it’s not for me. Just dropping it off for a company,” he says, adjusting his net hat and looking firmly out the windshield. 

You look over at him and try not to make your amusement at his embarrassment too obvious. He’s cute when he’s flustered. 

He doesn’t look over at you for the next hour. 

He can’t. 

Not when you’re asking him questions about his load, looking at him like that. 

It's early afternoon when Joel says he needs to stop for the night. He made good time driving through the darkness, but his company has strict rules about maximum drive times.

He pulls off the highway at the next town and into a motel parking lot. It's a small place, probably no more than 15 rooms. The parking lot is massive, likely a popular stop for truckers with how long and wide it is.

Your stomach sinks. You don't know how to tell him you can't afford your own room, that you barely had enough money for a bottle of water yesterday.

He parks the truck, and as the engine falls silent, he steps out of the cab. Just as you're about to open your door, he rounds the front and opens it for you, offering his hand to help you out. The gesture makes your stomach swoop.

Standing next to him now, you realize how tall he actually is. He's a broad, solid man. His dark jeans grip his legs perfectly, and his t-shirt fits snugly across his broad chest. He's truly a sight.

You reluctantly follow him into the motel and stop him just short of the front desk.

"Joel, I—I don't think I can stay here."

He looks down at you, a deep crease between his brows.

"We can try to find somethin' a little nicer if ya—" you cut him off, bringing your hand to his bicep.

"No, no, it's not that. It's just, well, it's a little embarrassing," you say, pulling your hand back, your arms wrapping around yourself.

"What is it?"

"I can't afford it. I don't have any money for a room," you say, gaze glued to the ground.

"'S alright, Bambi. I can take care of it," he says, bringing one hand to your cheek, using his thumb to tilt it up to look at him.

You smile at him, knowing you should push back, try and fight his kindness a little more, but you don’t.

He walks over to the front desk, and you follow behind. He's greeted by a man who looks like he just rolled out of bed. The name tag affixed to his shirt says Dieter.

"Howdy. Two queen rooms for the night, please."

Dieter looks at his computer, shoots a glance at you, and returns his gaze to Joel.

"Sorry man, no can do. Looks like we're pretty booked. Best I can do is one king room."

"Uhh," Joel says, hesitating, one hand now rubbing the back of his neck.

Joel turns and shoots a look at you, almost a question. You’re looking at him with those doe eyes again.

"We can find another motel in the next town over," he tells you, but you see the exhaustion on his face. You don’t want to make him drive to another town. You’re already more than an inconvenience to him, no need to pile on.

"It’s fine, Joel. I can sleep on the floor."

"You ain't sleepin' on the floor. I'll sleep on the floor," he tells you before he turns back to the man and says he'll take it.

It doesn’t take long to get the keys. The room is on the west side of the building. Joel swings a bag over his shoulder and insists on carrying your suitcase for you, too.

The room isn’t much. One big king bed in the middle, just like the man said, a TV across from it, and a small chair with a side table in the corner. It's sparsely decorated apart from a lamp on the nightstand and a picture of a beach above the bed, one of those cheesy prints from the 90s. It’s not much, but it’s clean and cool.

Joel drops the bags and offers to let you shower first, which you happily accept. It’s been far too long since you’ve had a proper one, not just a quick wash from a bathroom sink

When you’re in the shower, Joel sits in the chair across from the bed, his eyes fixed on the TV in the room. He decides to watch the fucking Weather Channel, a poor attempt at distracting himself from his raging hard-on. 

It came on the second you closed the bathroom door. 

He couldn’t help it, the thought of you naked in the room right next to him, what you might look like all soaped up and wet. 

It doesn’t help that you’re singing in the shower, some song Joel doesn’t know, but fuck if you don’t sound pretty doing it. He wonders how sweet you might sound, moaning his name as he splits you open. 

He’s about to touch himself when he hears the water shut off. You open the bathroom door and emerge from the steamy room, a white towel wrapped around your frame, strands of wet hair clinging to your neck, your skin glistening. 

Fuck. 

“All yours,” you say before walking across the room to your suitcase, leaving the scent of your shampoo in your wake. You smell divine, like toasted coconut with a hint of tangerine. It’s intoxicating.

He gets up from the chair fast, his hand in front of his crotch, quickly turning so you can’t see what you’ve done to him. 

He’s never been one to take a long shower, but you don’t know that. He takes the opportunity to fuck his fist, coming fast and hard into the stream below, doing his best to muffle his moans under the sound of the water.

You try not to stare when he emerges from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. You knew he was in shape from how his clothes fit, but seeing him shirtless is a whole different story. His chest is broad and muscular, with just a little hair there. You can see the faint outline of his upper abs, but he's a bit soft around the middle, with a delicious tummy that makes you want to sink your teeth into him.

You’ve already dried and dressed, but you feel yourself get wet at the sight of him.

“I’m gonna get some fresh air while you get dressed,” you tell him, quickly stepping out of the room. You lean against the building, staring out into the parking lot, trying to ignore the restlessness between your legs, that deep, aching want that only seems to grow stronger.

You’re not sure you’ve ever wanted someone more.

After a few minutes, the door to the room opens, and he steps out. He’s changed into a pair of dark denim jeans and a nice shirt, even wearing a belt. He’s left off the hat, and his dark curly hair is pushed back. And damn, he smells good. The musky scent of his cologne, the fresh mint from his toothpaste, and the clean smell of his deodorant blend together perfectly.

“You look nice,” you say, not even bothering to hide the fact that you’re blatantly eyeing him.

“You too, Darlin’. Now let’s go, ‘m starving,” he replies, his eyes lingering on you just a moment longer than usual, adding to the tension simmering between you.

Your stomach growls, reminding you that you're hungry too. You follow him through the parking lot, initially heading toward his truck, but he gestures for you to continue walking.

“‘Ts not that far, there’s a diner just up the road.”

You catch up to him and walk by his side until the diner comes into view. He holds the door open for you, his free hand resting on the small of your back as he guides you in. The simple touch sends a wave of heat rising to your chest.

The waitress is warm and welcoming, and the kitchen is quick and efficient. You both opt for a burger and fries. Conversation flows easily, and at one point, you even ask Joel about the weather forecast for the week. He lies on the spot, not remembering a damn thing about what was on the screen. As you talk, you get to know each other a little more, and you find yourself opening up about your past, including your ex. Joel's eyes darken with a protective edge as he listens, clearly thinking you deserve better.

When you finish dinner, Joel notices you glancing at the small sign on the table with a picture of a chocolate milkshake on it.

When the waitress stops by to see if you want dessert, you start to say no, but Joel orders one for you anyway. Your visible excitement is unmistakable when it arrives, eyes wide as you take in the mountain of whipped cream on top.

You lick at the cream, a little landing on your lower lip. Joel feels himself harden at the sight. He took care of himself earlier, hoping this wouldn’t happen, but of course, you find a way to make eating whipped cream the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

“Can I ask you a question?” you say, still distracted by your milkshake, its coolness a stark contrast to his hot and heavy gaze.

You bring a scoop of whipped cream on your finger to your mouth and suck on it, holding his gaze while you do. You smile when you see that familiar blush crossing his face.

“Anything,” he says earnestly.

You think he means it.

“Why did you agree to help me?” you ask, taking another sip. “You know, by giving me a ride and stuff. You’re being so nice to me and I guess I just want to know why.”

“Oh. Um, well, I guess the simplest answer is that I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t. Pretty little thing like you, ‘t’s dangerous out here, a lot of bad men in the world. Couldn’t go to sleep at night knowing I just passed you by, knowing I could have helped.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“All that, and that’s what you picked up?” His eyes drink you in, the flush visible on his cheeks. You just smile as you lean back in the booth, holding his gaze.

“Yeah, Bambi. I do.” He says, dropping some cash on the table.

After you’ve finished the last of your milkshake, he slips out of the booth and offers you his hand again. The walk back is silent, but the tension is thick enough to feel. 

You’re not sure what it is about him and the want he awakens inside of you. You think maybe it’s his kindness or the way he looks at you, but you don’t want to overthink it. 

You want him. The ache in your chest and the heat in your veins all confirm it. And you’re starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he wants you, too. 

His hand slips into his jeans pocket, fingers brushing against the motel key. Your eyes lock, an electric current sparking between you. He hesitates, the key poised above the lock, the moment stretched taut like a bowstring.

Everything hangs in the balance, the air thick with unspoken desire. You can't tear your gaze from his lips, noticing the way they part slightly, the soft plumpness inviting you in. Your breath catches as you glance up through your lashes, meeting his eyes with a silent answer. 

The world narrows down to this moment, this decision. He sees it in your eyes, the undeniable yes. 

And with that, he turns the key.

The motel room door isn’t fully closed before he’s on you, one hand on your hip, the other firm on the back of your neck. He crowds you back, pressing you further into the room until he’s pinned you between the wall and him.

He lowers his head to your neck, his lips grazing the skin of your throat. The touch sends shivers down your spine, your pulse quickening under his mouth. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, his breath warm against your skin. His grip tightens, his fingers digging into your hip, grounding you. 

“You sure you want this, darlin’,” he murmurs, “because once I start ‘m not gonna be able to stop.”

You feel the soft press of his lips against your erratic pulse, the slow drag of his teeth drag up the side of your neck.

A moan slips from your lips.

“Need you to use your words, baby.” He sucks a mark on your throat, and you melt a little under his touch. 

“Yes, Joel, I want you,” you say, earning a small groan from him. 

“Music to my fuckin’ ears, sweetheart,” he says, his firm hand still on the back of your neck. You angle your chin to face him, and his lips find yours. He kisses exactly the way you thought he would – it’s deep, intense, commanding. 

You moan into his mouth as he sucks your bottom lip between his teeth, and you twist your hands into the fabric of his shirt. Your fingertips graze the top of his belt, then drop lower, feeling the hard shape of him through the denim.

His breath hitches at your touch, and he presses even closer, his hips grinding against you. You can feel his heartbeat, rapid and strong, matching the pounding in your chest. His lips leave yours, trailing hot kisses down your jawline to the sensitive skin of your neck.

“God, you feel so good,” he murmurs against your skin, his voice thick with desire.

Your hand moves more boldly now, tracing the outline of him with your fingers, feeling him harden even more under your touch. He groans, the sound vibrating through you, and you can’t help but arch into him, seeking more contact.

“Patience, baby,” he purrs, “Wanna see you first.”

His hands roam over your body, exploring every curve and dip. He finds the hem of your shirt and tugs it upward, breaking away from you just long enough to pull it over your head. He discards it carelessly, his eyes darkening as they rake over your now-exposed skin.

You toe off your shoes and work to take off your bra, all while Joel unbuttons your jeans. You wiggle your hips to assist him in removing the barrier. After what seems like no time at all, you’re nearly fully nude in front of him, bare save your white cotton panties.

“Holy fuck,” Joel says, taking a small step back and admiring the view. He looks at you like you’re a piece of art, prettier than anything he could have conjured up in his mind.

He steps forward and puts his hand on your waist, using his thumb to trail over your soft skin. Goosebumps collect like pebbles on your skin from the cool air, and your nipples harden from his touch.

You push your chest to him, for him. He accepts your offering; swipes a calloused thumb across your plush, silky nipple, and crouches to catch the other in his desperate mouth. He groans into your chest the second your nipple meets his lips. You can’t control the deep hum that escapes from your throat. Joel smirks at the sound, lips still attached to your breast.

“Joel,” you moan.

He trails kisses down the valley of your breasts, across the soft swell of your stomach, whispering praise against your skin as he goes. His voice is a low, soothing murmur, each word sending shivers down your spine. You drape your hands over his broad shoulders, fingers threading through the curls that gather at the back of his head, holding him close as he works his way down to the band of your panties.

On his knees, he places both of his hands on the curves of your hips and holds you steady while he looks up at you. He looks up at you like a man starved, his pupils so dark they edge out most of the brown, his hooded eyes are almost a plea for you to let him continue.

“Can I taste you?” he asks, already hooking his thumbs in the band of them, awaiting your permission. 

You pause with your mouth agape a bit, he wants to taste you. Your ex only ever ate you out when he was drunk, his tongue too sloppy to really make it worth it. 

“Only if I can taste you after,” you tease. His prominent nose presses into your mound and groans. 

“Could you get any more perfect?” he praises. His cock twitches against the confines of his jeans.

His hands are warm and sure as they slide beneath the fabric, pulling your panties down with agonizing slowness. You take a small step out of them, and he gently caresses up the back of your calve and back of your thigh, his hand landing on the curve of your ass. He tightly grabs the flesh there. 

He gently guides your leg up onto one of his shoulders, and you press back into the wall and lean your pelvis closer to him. The anticipation is electric, every nerve ending in your body alive and buzzing with need. His lips follow the path of his hands, kissing along the newly exposed skin, his breath hot against your thighs.

“What a cute little cunt,” he praises before leaning in to place an experimental kiss on the top of your mound. You let out a soft little sound at the feeling of his lips on your skin. 

He gets bold with his kisses, and once you’re comfortable with his mouth on you, he glides his middle finger through your dropping folds before flipping it so it’s wrist up, pausing with the pad of it right at the entrance of your tight hole. 

You look down at him with your lusty doe eyes that have been driving him crazy since he first saw you and bite your lower lip in anticipation. He looks at you and gently nudges the nip in, he holds it there for a brief second before fully thrusting it up into your core, holding your gaze as he enters you. You gasp.

“Oh, she’s tight, too,” he moans as he continues to feel you, eventually putting his mouth back on your pussy, his lips sealed around your puffy clit. His large finger pumps in and out of you as his tongue flicks and swirls where you need him the most. 

“More,” you moan, “Fuck–please, Joel, give me more,” you mewle. 

“That’s my girl, gonna stretch you out, get you nice and ready for this cock,” he whispers against your wet skin as he slips another finger in, one you greedily accept. 

He devours you, lapping at you like you’re a popsicle on a hot summer day. His tongue is precise and relentless, each flick and swirl overwhelming your senses. It's so good, so intense, that you feel like you're going to come apart at the seams.

“Joel,” you gasp, your voice trembling with need. “I—”

He looks up at you briefly, his eyes dark with hunger and desire, before doubling down on his efforts. The world narrows to the sensation of his tongue, the heat of his mouth, and the steady rhythm that drives you closer and closer to the edge.

Heat pools in your lower abdomen, and the world becomes fuzzy at the edges of your vision. 

You moan as he sets a relentless pace with his mouth and fingers, slowly tightening the coil inside of you in a way you’ve never felt before. Time slows briefly, and your vision goes white, little specks of light dancing behind your eyelids, heat rushing up to your chest and cheeks. 

Until – 

“Holy shit, yes, I’m coming, oh my god, don’t stop,” you unravel for him, a babbling mess of pleasure, he holds you steady as he works you through it. And when he’s satisfied that you’re satisfied, he gently hoists your leg off of his shoulder and rises to his full height. 

“Such a good girl for me, you come so pretty,” he whispers against your neck, nipping at your jaw until his lips find yours. You taste yourself on them, feel the wetness in his beard. He slips his tongue into your mouth, and you moan. It’s so hot to taste yourself on him, dizzying that wants to taste you on his tongue. 

“My turn,” you wink at him, hooking your fingers into his belt loops. It’s your turn to press him back, and you do, guiding him until he bumps into the bed and takes a seat on the mattress.

On jelly-like legs, you begin to kneel before him, holding his gaze as you do. The look in his eyes is a mix of anticipation and hunger, and it sends a thrill through you.

You place your seemingly tiny palms on his very large thighs, gliding them up to meet his belt. You watch his face as you make quick work of unbuckling it. His breath hitches, eyes darkening with desire.

Pants next, you pull the zipper down, and he helps you take them all the way off. You pause to palm the length of him under the single piece of fabric left on him, feeling the heat and hardness beneath. His breath catches, and you see the muscles in his jaw tighten.

With deliberate slowness, you pull his boxers down, far enough for his cock to finally spring free. The length of him slaps against his soft tummy, leaving a little smear of pre-cum in its wake. You can’t help but take a moment to admire him, the sight of him fully aroused, sending a fresh wave of desire through you.

You wrap your hand around him, feeling his weight and heat, and his hips jerk slightly at the contact. You look up at him, his eyes half-lidded with pleasure, lips parted as he watches you intently.

You take his heavy cock in hand and begin to stroke it slow and rhythmically, admiring its size. Joel's head falls back as if to gaze at the ceiling – you’ve barely touched him, and already he’s melting like putty.  

You wet your lips, duck down to the base of his shaft, and plant a small kiss at the base of his cock. 

“God damn, Bambi,” he retorts. 

You hum as you flatten your tongue and lick a long, wet stripe up the underside of his dick and stop at the top with your mouth open wide. As you hold the tip of him in your mouth, your tongue darts out to taste the salty, musky flavor of his pre-cum. His hands tangle in your hair, gentle but insistent, as you take him into your mouth.

The sound he makes as you begin to move, slow and deliberate, is nothing short of primal. You can feel his thighs tense beneath your palms, his breath coming in ragged gasps as you work him with your mouth and hands.

You hollow your cheeks, taking him deeper, the feel of him against your tongue and the sounds of his pleasure spurring you on. His fingers tighten in your hair, guiding your movements, his control slipping with each passing second.

“Whoa, back up now, Darlin’,” Joel huffs, “Gonna make me blow my load.” 

You smile around him, the vibration of your laughter making him shudder. You ease off his cock, and look up at him with hungry eyes. He pulls you up by the back of your neck and brings his hands to your hips. 

“Fuck, look at you,” he says, turning you around so you’re lying down on your back under him.

“I wanna fuck you,” he rasps in your ear. You reach up and tangle your fingers through his hair as he nips at your jaw. 

“I want you to fuck me,” you coo. 

“I don’t have a condom, but I promise I’m clean,” and you believe him. 

“I have an IUD, and I’m clean, too. Please, Joel, please fuck me,” you wiggle your hips a little under him. He doesn’t need much convincing. 

He positions himself at your entrance and gently pushes his hips forward so the tip of him is inside of you. He pauses there, giving you a second to adjust. Your heart throbs in your chest, and your eyes flicker closed.

“Eyes on me, baby,” he says, his voice a wreck. When you open them, he sinks even deeper. Halfway inside of you, he pauses again.

“Too much?” he asks. You shake your head no, tell him you want all of him.

After he’s confident you’re ready, he pushes his hips forward once again, fully burying himself deep inside of you.

Your pussy walls clench against him, and your jaw goes slack.  He fucks you deep and slow, giving you time to adjust to his size. It’s all whispered praises in your ear, a firm grip on your hips, and his cock barely leaving your cunt before he slams back into you, desperate to keep himself buried inside of you.

“Shit, baby, I can feel you squeezing me, taking me so good —” his words break with a moan as you come for the third time, falling apart on his cock, before he adds, “Little cunt is choking my cock.” 

He begins to set a relentless pace. 

“Touch your clit for me, sweetheart,” and you do. His cock fits just right, pushing and gliding over the spongey spot inside of you that makes you see stars. He pumps in and out of you, eliciting throaty moans from you. The air is filled with the filthy, wanton sound of skin slapping against skin.

“I –” you mewl, “I think I’m gonna come again,” you say, breathless.

“Yeah?” he says, breath short, voice deep, “Such a good girl, want you to come for me, show me how pretty you look when you do.”

You think you could come from just his words alone. 

Your pussy pulses around him as the wave of your orgasm takes over you, your mind hazy and filled with nothing but the thought of the way he fills you just right.

His movements begin to slow. You can tell he’s close.

“Where do you want me?”

“Inside. Want you to come inside of me,” you beg.

After a few more thrusts of his hips, he begins to stutter and slow. He pauses, buried to the hilt inside of you, and groans as his cock paints your insides with thick ropes of cum.

He holds you there, both of your breaths coming a little ragged, his body shaking and jolting a little. You feel him pulse inside of you. He plants kitten kisses on your face and pushes the hair back from your forehead. 

Still plugged, he kisses you again. This time is different—not as intense as the first few, but still scorching, still brimming with passion. His hands travel up and down your back, drawing you closer, as if trying to memorize the feel of you against him. You melt into the kiss, the intimacy of it sinking deep into your bones.

When he pulls out, you let out a small moan, a little sad your pussy has nothing to clench around anymore. He rests on his shins and tells you to spread your legs wide for him.

“Full of me, ain’t ya?” He smirks as he says it, admiring the way his cum dribbles out of you. 

He fills you up twice more before dawn. 

++++

The next two days on the road feel different—you're happy to spend the time with him, admiring him as he drives. There's a comfort and ease between you now, a silent understanding that didn't exist before.

You find ways to keep yourself busy, fighting the boredom from the endless stretch of highway rolling beneath you. Sometimes, you read, the rhythmic hum of the engine providing a soothing background noise. Other times, you watch the scenery change, marveling at how vast and varied the landscape can be. 

You and Joel talk, sharing past stories and funny encounters. You open up to him about your biggest fears and deepest desires, something you've never done with anyone, ever. 

Joel listens intently, his hand still holding yours, his thumb gently stroking your skin in silent encouragement. There’s a sense of safety with him, a feeling that you can tell him anything without judgment.

At one point, he asks you about your biggest fantasy. One immediately comes to mind, of course, but you feel a flush of embarrassment. You hesitate, the words caught in your throat.

Joel squeezes your hand, his voice soft and reassuring. 

“Hey, no judgment here, Bambi. I promise.”

Taking a deep breath, you finally let the words tumble out. “I’ve always fantasized about being with two men at once. I don’t know, there is just something so hot about being used and cummed in twice.”

His eyes darken with understanding, and a slow, knowing smile spreads across his face. “Thank you for telling me,” he says like he’s tucked the information away for later.

But more often than not, between conversations, you find yourself stealing glances at Joel, appreciating the way he handles the wheel, the concentration etched on his face, the way his muscles move beneath his shirt. 

Sometimes, it’s so much that you can’t help but touch yourself. You make yourself come on your fingers in the passenger seat, making him verbally direct each of your moves. There was even one stretch of highway that was so boring that you crawled onto his lap while he was driving, and cock warmed him for an hour before he couldn’t take it anymore and pulled off to a rest stop and fucked you in the back of the cab for hours before you both finally gave in to sleep. 

On your fourth day on the road with him, you wake up with a sinking feeling in your stomach. It’s your last day together, and the thought of it hits you harder than you expected. You both haven’t talked about it and for some reason, it feels like your heart is breaking more than when you caught your ex in bed with another woman. 

Joel curls around you, and you feel the press of his lips on your shoulder.

You sigh, trying to hold onto the warmth of his embrace for just a little longer. His arms tighten around you.

“Morning, baby,” he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep.

“Morning,” you whisper back, trying to keep the sadness from your voice.

He shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look at you. “What’s wrong?”

You force a smile, shaking your head. “Just...thinking about today.”

He frowns, his hand coming up to cup your cheek. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it too.”

Silence stretches between you, the unspoken reality of your impending separation hanging heavy in the air.

“I wish this didn’t have to end,” you finally admit, your voice barely more than a whisper.

“Me too,” he says softly, his thumb brushing gently across your skin. “I didn’t expect...any of this, but I’m glad it happened.”

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, and you blink them away, not wanting to cry. “What happens now?”

He’s quiet for a moment, his eyes searching yours. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to lose what we have.”

You nod, understanding. “Neither do I.”

He leans in, pressing his forehead to yours. “We’ll figure it out.”

You close your eyes, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him against you.

“We should get goin’, sweetheart.” 

You nod, and you’re on the road again before you know it. 

After driving in silence for a while, you and Joel stop for a pit stop. 

You’re in a gas station buying a Diet Coke when Joel gets a call on his CB radio. Another trucker has broken down not far from here and needs a lift. 

Perfect timing, too. Joel knows exactly what will cheer you up. 

++++

You’re unsure why you're exiting the highway again, but you don’t ask questions. As you pull into a gravel lot with a rather plain-looking building in view, Joel turns to you with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Got a surprise for you, Bambi.”

“A surprise?” you ask, curiosity piqued.

“Mhmm,” he hums, “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He leads you across the lot, your hand in his, and your confusion only deepens when you see the sign for an adult video store. 

You glance a him, eyebrows raised. “Joel, what are we doing here?”

“C’mon, you’ll see.” He takes your hand, guiding you inside. The store is dimly lit, shelves lined with tapes and various adult toys. He leads you to a room in the back, your heart pounding with anticipation and a touch of nervousness.

The room is bare for the most part, illuminated by a red light casting shadows on the walls. There’s a legit hole in the wall, the words Go For Glory etched above it. Your eyes widen. Is this…?

“What is this place?” you whisper.

He smiles, his eyes impossibly dark. 

“It’s a place for fantasies, Bambi. Remember what you told me?”

Your breath catches. The memory of your conversation rushes back, and you realize what he’s offering. It’s unexpected and bold, but your trust in Joel makes you feel safe enough to explore it.

Joel steps closer, his hand gently cupping your cheek, looking at you in a way that makes you feel things you didn’t know you could.

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, but if you want to try, I’ll be right here with you.”

You take a deep breath, the mix of fear and excitement bubbling up inside you. Your heart is beating out of your chest, and your stomach is alive with butterflies. 

You nod slowly, a shy smile tugging at your lips. “I – I want to.”

“Atta girl,” he praises as he guides you closer to the wall, his hands steady and reassuring. You position yourself in front of the hole, suddenly frozen. You’re so fucking nervous out of nowhere.

He sees it etched on your face. He remembers what you told him about how you like being with someone who takes control. Someone who knows what they want and isn’t afraid to show it. Someone who you could trust. Trust them to take care of you, to know your needs even before you do. 

So he gives it to you. 

He takes a step forward and grabs your face, cupping your cheeks in his hands.

“You’re in control here, baby. You have your safe word. Use it and we stop, no questions asked. Okay?” he says, voice steady, reassuring.

You look up at him through your lashes and nod. “Okay.”

He kisses your forehead tenderly, his touch soft and comforting.

“Good. Now get on your knees.” 

You do as he says, falling to the linoleum ground beneath you, your hands neatly placed on your knees, awaiting further instruction. He stands above you, palming himself through his jeans. 

You want to reach out to help him, but he hasn’t told you to, so you don’t. You kneel and look up at him, arousal already pooling into your panties.

He undoes his belt buckle and zips his jeans down. The sound is almost deafening in the quiet room. He shifts his pants and boxers down to the ground, revealing himself. His hand wraps around his shaft, he leans down and spits, and begins to pump it, his eyes locked onto yours. The sight of him, fully hard and glistening, captivates you.

You can’t take your eyes off him, your mouth watering at the thought of what’s to come.

“Fuck, you’re pretty. Could probably come just from looking at you.” 

“Please, please let me touch you,” you ask, the words coming out more like a plea than a request. 

The room is cherry red, but you don’t miss the way his pupils dilate from your request.

“Rather see you touch him, first, sweetheart,” he rasps, voice throaty and low. 

Using his free hand, he knocks on the wall. A few moments later, a large cock appears through the hole. It’s big. Not as big as Joel in girth, but a little longer. It has a prominent mushroom head that’s already red and weeping and several large veins visible from under the skin. 

Fuck.

Your hand grips around it, your fingertips barely touching, and you begin to slide your hand up and down, the skin of it velvety soft. The man behind the wall lets out a groan that’s muffled by the drywall. 

“Spit on it,” Joel commands, eyes on you, but still paying attention to his own cock. 

You lean forward and do as he says, the cock now glistening with your saliva. It makes the skin move easier under your touch, and the cock hardens even more. The thumb slips over the bead of precum on the tip, and you work it into the skin.

“Go on, Bambi. Show him how good you are with that little mouth of yours.” 

You start slow, wrapping your lips around just the tip to start. You can tell the man behind the wall wants more from the noises you hear. You wonder what he would be doing to you right now if he could actually touch you, what he looks like. He has a nice cock, you think he might be just as handsome. 

You hum in delight as you sink down onto him more, letting your jaw relax so you can take him deeper, savoring the salty taste of his skin. 

You see Joel fucking his hand out of the corner of your eye, getting off on you sucking another man’s cock. And god, you’re into it – the sounds are filthy, but your delighted little moans have Joel unraveling like a runaway spool of thread. You look up and over at him through your wet lashes and let out a little wink, an innocent act considering you’re practically milking a cock that isn’t his and having fun with it. 

The man behind the wall knocks twice, and Joel tells you to stop, or you’re gonna make him cum.

“Have other plans for you, Bambi. Come here,” he says, helping you up off the floor. He starts to undo the button on your shorts and quickly pulls them, along with your panties, down and off. Your inner thighs are glistening with your arousal, and Joel groans at the sight. He steps forward and cups your whole sex, his thick middle finger sinking into your wet cunt easily. He adds a second and then a third. 

“God, you’re fucking dripping, aren’t you?” He releases his finger and pops it into his mouth, savoring your taste. 

“Yeah, I think she can take it,” he rasps. He turns you so your back is facing the hole, and he pushes you back so your ass is neatly aligned with the hole. 

“Spread your legs, baby,” he says, nudging your foot with his, so you’re standing in a wide V shape for support. “Thas’ it, just like that.” 

He stands a few feet away from you and tells you to bend over at your waist and hold on to his hips for support. His hands grab your forearms for additional support.

Your wet pusy is visible to the man on the other slide, slick glistening on your folds. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to see what you look like, but he takes what he gets.

He steps forward and aligns his cock with the hole, and his tip nudges up against your entrance. You’re on the other side, holding on to Joel, your face nearly eye level with his cock. Your jaw goes slack when the man presses forward, burying half of him inside of you. He pauses for a second, giving you a moment to adjust, before he pulls back and then slams all of him inside of you. 

He’s deep, not as deep as he could be if he could use your hips as leverage, but you feel the tip of him pressed up against your cervix. 

He begins to fuck you in earnest, and you don’t dare move yourself away from the wall, pressing your ass back hard so he has as much access to your pussy as possible. 

“How’s it feel, baby?” Joel asks, and you’re too cock drunk to string a full sentence together, mumbling so good in between your moans. With your other hole occupied, you put your free one to good use. 

Still bent over and taking it hard from a man you’ve never seen in your life, you begin to suck Joel off. He holds you steady while you angle your mouth just right, taking his cock deep down your throat. You think you hear another knock, knock on the wall, and Joel confirms it when he tells you what’s gonna happen next. 

“He’s gonna fill you up, okay, baby? And then you’re all mine,” he growls, his breath a little erratic from the way you’re working his cock. You’re so fucking into all of this it has him teetering on the edge of his release. 

The man stalls his thrusts and presses forward one final time. You can feel him buried to the hilt inside of you and hear a deep groan through the wall. You feel the slight throb of his cock, and then he gingerly pulls out. 

When he does, you gently rise to stand, feeling a little sore from your odd position. You bring your fingers to your pussy and gather some of the cum in your fingers, and run it through your swollen folds. Your fingers brush against your throbbing clit. You were so lost in the haze of your arousal that you didn’t even care that you didn’t get your own release. Although something tells you that Joel will make sure to take care of you. 

“My turn,” Joel rasps.

He turns you around so you’re facing the wall, pressing you up against it. The coolness of the surface causes your nipples to stiffen. His hand trails down your side, over the swell of your ass, and then he brings his hand to your pussy, from the front, the skin coated in cum and your own release.

His fingers find your clit, and you whimper, the sensation overwhelming. He circles it slowly, expertly, sending shivers through your entire body. You press your forehead against the wall, your breath coming in short gasps as he continues his teasing touches.

“You like that?” he murmurs into your ear, his voice low and husky. You nod, unable to form words, your body responding to his every movement.

His fingers move with practiced precision, alternating between gentle circles and firmer pressure, building the tension inside you. Your hips begin to move instinctively, seeking more of his touch. He chuckles softly, clearly enjoying the effect he has on you.

“Does my perfect girl wanna come?” he asks, ghosting your clit with his fingers. He’s giving you just enough to be a tease, not enough to make you come. “Wanna hear you say it.” 

“Yes, Joel, need to come so bad, please,” you moan. 

Right as you’re about to orgasm, Joel stops, removing his fingers. 

You gasp. So close. 

“You’re gonna come on my cock,” he says, running the tip of him through your wet and sticky folds. He collects some of the cum from the man and uses it as lube as he presses into you, entering you in one thrust. You’re so aroused, so ready for it, but the intrusion still knocks the air from your lungs. 

One hand on your hip, he uses it to angle you down and back onto his cock, thrusting up into you with equal force. His other hand returns to your pussy, and he quickly has you on the cusp of your orgasm like he did a minute ago. 

He fucks you hard, barely leaving your wet, tight cunt before he’s thrusting up into you again. 

He begins a relentless pace, thrusting his cock deep inside of you, the obscene sounds of the clapping noises spurs you on. He reangles your body, forcing you to arch your back against him. The new position lets him take you deeper, harder. Holding you against his chest, he snakes a free hand around, and his fingers find your clit once more. He makes soft circles on your clit, working you with each thrust until he once again has you climbing the ladder to your climax.

“Filthy fucking girl, coating me in another man's cum,” he rasps, voice low. “I can tell you like this, baby, letting us both use you, fill you up so good.” 

You moan, your body trembling as he increases the pressure, pushing you closer to the edge. The combination of his skilled fingers and the rough texture of the wall against your sensitive skin is almost too much to bear.

“Joel,” you gasp, your voice barely above a whisper.

“I’ve got you,” he reassures, his fingers never faltering. The intensity builds, your whimpers turning into desperate cries as he drives you higher and higher.

“God you’re perfect,” he praises. 

“You want my cum, baby? Gotta ask for it.”

You squirm and babble yes, yes, want your cum and he holds in place as you begin to unravel once more for him. Your hole contracts around him, your perky tits bouncing as he continues to fuck you through it. You’re so tight, your sweet sounds have his own orgasm not far off.

His hips slow, and he lets out a rough moan, spilling inside of you. He pauses there, and you feel him gently pulsate and twitch as your walls drain every last bit of cum inside him.

When he’s finished, he pulls out and steps back, kneeling down behind you. He looks up at you, his eyes dark with desire, and pulls your cheeks apart. You feel a flood of cum dribble out of you, a thick stream connecting from your pussy to the floor. You must look obscene right now. 

Joel smacks your ass, and you let out a little yelp. 

“Damn near got you bundled out (loaded to max capacity), don’t we?” He smirks as he says it, admiring the way the cum dribbles out of you. 

He stands up, looking down at you with a satisfied smile. “You did a good job,” he says, his voice gentle and full of pride. “Are you okay?”

You nod, a warm feeling spreading through you at his words and the remnants of your orgasm. “I’m more than okay,” you reply, your voice steady and sure.

When you go to put your clothes back on, he tells you that he doesn’t want you to clean yourself up, that he wants to know you’re sitting in his truck, spilling out onto his seats, full of his cum and then some.

His lips ghosting yours, he whispers that you’re his before he kisses you. You lean into him, your breath hitching at the possessiveness in his tone. It’s intoxicating, knowing how much he wants you, how much he’s willing to claim you as his own.

When you walk out of the building, you’re a fucked out mess. He opens the door to the truck and helps you up, his touch steadying you. 

He pulls himself up into the driver's seat, and you start to buckle yourself in, but he gently stops you.

“Gotta move over, darlin’. Come sit near me,” he says, his voice warm, like he didn’t just absolutely wreck you 10 minutes ago.

You slide over, feeling the comfort of his presence. Just as you settle in, another man hops into the truck.

You blink in surprise, glancing at him. “Who are you?” 

The man grins and extends a hand. “Hi sugar, I’m Tommy,” he says, his smile disarming. 

“Tommy, as in Joel’s brother, Tommy?” you ask, glancing up at Joel.

Joel smirks.

“The one and only,” Tommy says.

“He’s the one whose cum is running down your thigh with mine, baby,” Joel winks, “wouldn’t trust anyone else to share ya with,” he says, and the engine rumbles to life.

One bad day doesn’t make your whole life bad. 

As you cross the Texas state line, you let yourself believe it this time. 

END

Joel hadn’t planned to tell you right away when he got his hearing aids.

This thing between you was good. You felt solid. So in sync, most of the time. You’d been through enough together that he knew your foundation wouldn’t–couldn’t– be easily shaken.

But this didn’t feel like a small thing. Sure, you knew his age. You’d met him when you were volunteering at the goddamned senior center.

Hearing aids, though, were a step too far. 

Because that meant he was officially old. People would think he was your dad, even more so than they do already. Or maybe even his caretaker, god forbid.

He looks alright, he supposes, for being a few years shy of seventy. But his bones ache, his hair is more grey than not, and wrinkles line his face. He has to face the fact that he’s an old man. And, while he’s facing the facts, he needs to admit to himself that he really can’t hear for shit these days.

He’s a tired, deaf, selfish old man, and he can’t bear to lose you just yet.

—

You’re out of town for the weekend when he gets the hearing aids. It’s perfect, really, because he can learn how to use them. They’re fairly low profile, and he’s let his hair grow longer these days, making them easier to hide.

Sunday night, you arrive back home. You show up at your door, weekend bag slung over your shoulder. As you pull out your keys, Joel beats you to the lock, swinging the door open wide for you. You’re exhausted, and it must show in the bags under your eyes, but you can’t help but smile the moment you see him.

He reaches to relieve you of your bag and you shrug it off, letting him put it down by the entryway bench.

“You have a good time, baby?” he asks.

“It was fucking wonderful. I really needed that,” you smile, reaching up to kiss Joel, “I’m really glad to be home now though-” 

And then you kiss him again and hum against his lips, a happy little sound.

Joel’s never heard it before.

He wants to hear it again. He has to hear it again–

He kisses you again, a little bit deeper. Presses himself towards you and hears the way you moan against him, breathy and soft and desperate. What he’d felt only as vibration before now has a pitch he didn’t know he’d been missing. 

Need hits him like a freight train, suddenly urgent and dizzying. In a moment, he’s hard and wanting, pulse pounding fast.

"Honey," he sighs, lips still hovering over yours, hot breath tickling against your skin. You look at him, glancing across his face, reading in it whatever he happens to be showing. He wonders if it looks like reverence. "I need you baby, I need you right now--"

You’re surprised at his abrupt enthusiasm, a crease between your furrowed brows, but a smile plays on your lips.  

"I should probably go shower,” you tell him, turning towards the bathroom.

"Nuh uh," he shakes his head and reaches for you, pulling you close. "You don’t gotta. Unless ya really wanna. I just need you right fuckin’ now, baby. Want you any way you’ll have me."

You scrutinize him, looking him up and down. For a moment, he’s certain you’ve clocked him, that you know what he’s hiding. 

Instead of challenging him, though, your expression softens. You shrug, like it’s simple. “I’m yours.”

It's been a while since he's greeted you like this, and you’re certain you must be missing something for him to be so turned on, so out of the blue. Sure, you’d been gone for the weekend, but it was just a weekend, and it’s certainly not the first time you’ve been apart, nor the longest.

He’s desperate though, more desperate than he knows how to be. He can’t keep his hands off of you, can’t stop touching you. His hands trace up and down your sides, making you gasp and whine at his attention. You revel in it.

When he gets you to the bedroom, he tries to pace himself. To savor it. He means to slow himself down.

He peels your clothes off, piece by piece. Gentle fingers fumble with the buttons, and he kisses that spot behind your ear that makes your breath hitch. 

When it does, though– when that sweet gasp passes your lips, Joel is changed. Any restrained passion he’d been trying to keep in check dissolves, replaced by desperate frenzy. 

He rids you of the rest of your clothes, strewn garments in your wake as he guides you to bed.

Joel has always been a generous lover, always watching and learning. In the early days with him, he’d ask you to show him what you like. He’d keep his eyes on you, attentive, reading you with care as he’d replicate the ways you know to give yourself pleasure, as though ensuring your gratification were his life’s only goal.

You’re used to his eyes on you, watching how your body reacts to his touch, touching you gently when you need softness, being firm when you need redirection. 

So, it’s always been good. But it’s never been quite like this. 

He pushes you down onto the bed and grabs you by the knees, shoving them apart, making you gasp. He hums and grabs you, lifts you, and scoots you back towards the headboard. Resets your legs so your thighs are spread again for him and he’s slotted between them. You can feel his cock, fat and heavy against his thigh, straining against his jeans– and fuck the fucking denim– he’s still wearing his clothes.

It’s not fair.

“Get naked, Joel,” you tell him, “I want to see you.”

You can see a blush spread across his cheeks and nose, but he doesn’t look bashful as he used to be. He looks hungry. A smirk twitches on his lips.

You’re bare for him, and so so ready. And, you think distantly, you’re so incredibly comfortable with him. There was a time you would have shrunk away from this kind of touch that allows you to be so seen. For him, though, you love little more than to lean back and spread your legs, so bare and exposed, all for him. To show him every part of yourself, and simply trust that he won’t frighten.

He makes quick work of his clothes. Grabs his t-shirt by the back of the neck and rips it over his head. Unbuttons his jeans and shucks them and his boxers off in one go, his cock bouncing heavy between his legs. You let out a breath, watching.

He slips his arms under your legs and slots back in, rests his body face down on the bed, presses himself in between your thighs.

He examines your cunt; runs a gentle thumb from your navel to just above your clit and presses down with just the lightest pressure. And then a little more, till you’re squirming and whining and his nostrils are flaring, his breaths coming out as pants at your response. He drags wet, broken kisses down your body. His lips trace your tummy, the dips of your hips, down down down til he spits on your shiny seam, making your clit nice and wet.

You tremble, just a little, in anticipation of feeling him on you. But he doesn’t move towards you. He looks up at you, brown eyes looking at you with such love and concern. And then he looks back down, to where you’re spread for him. He hums, affirming.

“Oh– would you look at that– she needs t’ be filled up, don’t she?” he asks, breath hot against your soft cunt, his words making you jerk against him, trying to find some friction. He grins against you as you sigh, pretty little asshole and pussy both visibly clenching in tandem mere inches from his face.

He stills you, hands clutching your hips, holding you down.

“I think she might need a kiss first, though, huh baby?” 

“Mhmm-”, you sigh.

Your breath hitches as he places a gentle kiss against your lips before he slips his tongue between them, gentle, languid- He lets you card your fingers through his hair as he licks into you, humming in affirmation when you grab on tight. He noses at your clit and draws a yelp out of you, groaning, the rumble of it vibrating against your skin.

There’s no rush as he pulls you apart. Just a little bit of time and some very precise pressure. You can feel yourself start to build as he flicks a pointed tongue against your clit. His focus is exact, and in no time at all, your breaths are shallow and desperate, your hips rocking up to meet his strokes, to feel his scruff against your thighs.

He’s eating you out like he needs it to live. Loud slurps punctuate softer licks as he buries his face between your legs. He’s so responsive, growling at every reaction you make. 

He barely brakes for air, but when he does, it’s punctuated with filth. “That’s a good girl, yeah, say my name just like that–” 

All you can do is breathe his name, a soft prayer, Joel, Joel, JOEL–

You chant, till the pull within you builds and breaks, sending you sobbing on his tongue, bliss coursing through every part of you. 

Sounds that he didn’t know he’d been missing surrounding him like the most beautiful symphony, your sighs, gasps, moans– He knows it’s useless speaking with his pussy-stuffed mouth, but he growls into you, letting you ride his face through it, prolonging your orgasm, and not stopping until you can’t handle any more.

When the stimulation becomes too much, you yank his head back by the hair. He grins up at you, sheepish. He's panting, wipes his slick mouth with the back of his hand, and stares at you, so fucking hungry. “Probably a good thing you had me stop where you did,” he tells you, “Nearly came now just from eating you-

"I love you--" you sigh, barely able to think, the intensity of your climax making you fuck-drunk and languid. A smile breaks through the hungry, wild expression on Joel's face, and he draws himself up and pulls you toward him so you're seated. 

"I love you, too," he presses his forehead against yours, damp curls tickling your brow, till he pulls back and swipes his hair away, pressing back against you.

You hum, so comfortable and happy, and Joel sighs.

It takes you a few minutes to fully come back to yourself, Joel holding you close the whole time. When you do, you know you need more. You pull back gently, shifting yourself apart from him until you’re able to straddle him. He’s still hard, painfully so, and neither of you need to say a word. You lift yourself, line him up with your swollen pussy, and sink down slowly, inch by stiff  inch. Your eyelids flutter shut at the sensation. He watches you in awe and adoration.

He reaches around you, grabs your ass with each of his hands, and starts to rock you gently.

“Yes–” you hiss, and tilt your hips to match each thrust.

It’s gentle at first, careful, and considered as he fucks you in his lap. But then, you adjust your position just a little and start to bounce, taking more with each thrust, grinding hard against him as he fucks up into you and hits just the right spot.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fUCK!--” you cry, sensation overwhelming you.

Everything is so much, so deliciously overwhelming, every little breath and moan and gasp that passes your lips finally tipping him over the edge.

“Honey–,” he hums, “I’m– I’m close, not gonna last–”

“Give it to me.”

“Fuck–” He keeps rocking into you, but his movements still just a little as he lets go. You can feel the way his cock pulses and shudders in you, his balls throbbing, your insides coated with cum, all of this sending you over again.

He whines as your clenching pussy chokes him, drawing even more from him. 

It’s pure ecstasy. 

You close your eyes for a moment, trying to reduce the overwhelm. When you come back down, your breathing starting to even out, you open your eyes to discover–

Joel, staring at you, reverential, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

You’ve only seen Joel cry a handful of times, and never once while he was still inside you–

“Oh fuck, babe, what is it?” you ask, suddenly panicked.

He shakes his head, thumbing his tears away, “No, no,” he tries to reassure, “Nothing’s wrong–”

But that doesn’t reassure you. The love of your life is balls-deep in you, crying, and you don’t know why.

“I promise,” he insists, and then he tucks his hair back behind one ear.

It only takes you a moment.

“Joel Miller. Did you get fucking hearing aids and not tell me?”

He laughs; a wet, spluttery thing.

“I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on so much- I–”

You let him collect his words, his thoughts. You love that he tries, even when it’s hard. He makes sure you understand.

“I never heard you like that before, baby-” he tells you, “Those gasps and moans. All those sounds you make for me. I can hear them now. And I could’ve been hearing them this whole damn time if I hadn’t been too proud.”

He shakes his head, frustrated.

“I was worried you’d think I was too old.”

Your eyes widen. Somehow, that wasn’t what you’d expected.

“Baby, you know I know how old you are, right? I met you at the fuckin’ Senior Center,” you frown.

He glares at you. Some of the puffiness around his eyes dulls the intended effect.

You know it’s not exactly that, though. It’s really just the irrational fear that you both have, of losing the other when you’d only just found one another, manifesting in any way it can.

So you press your lips to his, and hold him close. He’s still sheathed inside you, and you can feel him start to twitch hard again. 

“You know,” you tease, rocking your hips again, “I think the hearing aids are kind of sexy.”

Joel scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“No, I mean it–” you insist, “You’ve always been attentive. But– I don’t know. I know it’s something that’s been bothering you–and I also know you weren’t super into the idea, getting hearing aids– I guess I’m proud of you.” 

He snorts, but you can see the smile he’s trying to hide.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he shakes his head, “I just– I shouldn’t have put it off so long.”

“It’s okay, old man,” you tease, pulling forward to kiss him gently. Still seated on him, you roll your hips with just a little more vigor than you’d intended, cutting yourself off with a gasp.

He groans.