darling

Really, he hasn’t seen you anywhere that wasn’t either in your dressing room, or in the studio, so it feels like a dream when he catches you in the corner of his eye. Glitter captures the dim glow of the streetlamp like starlight on your eyelids as you giggle and sway on your feet. He’s never seen you dressed up, either; at least, not of your own accord instead of some stylists choosing. You’re absolutely radiant as you try to fight off the two girls on either side of you, both of who huff and puff at you as they try to drag you towards a running car parked just off the pavement. 

“You’re fucking pissed,” one of them says. “No damn way you’re taking the bus home.” 

Your response to her is muffled behind a whine and then another giggle as you paw at your eyes. Glitter stains your fingertips like dried blood, and you quickly wipe it off on the front of your shirt, spreading it along your body like a curse.

The night air grows heavy as Kyle adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder. Sweat still clings to his skin from a late night workout, but he ignores it as he allows his attention to wander. There’s a dewy glow to your skin — and not just from the glitter — that snitches to him that you’ve had more than enough to drink that night, as if the stumbling wasn’t enough. Despite your disheveled look, you’re still the most beautiful creature he’s ever laid eyes on. 

Except he’s seemed to have kept his eyes on you for a bit too long, because one of the women you’re with glares at him as if he’s human filth. It’s a sharp glare, one that warns him she’s not really one to mess with. It has his teeth digging into his cheek, and his feet stumble under the heat of her gaze. 

“The fuck’re you looking at?” she asks, voice dropping low.

Her biting tone has you looking at her with narrowed eyes before your head whips to the side with such force the rest of you nearly follows. Your eyes don’t quite reach his face, and you end up staring at his chest with squinted eyes for a solid few seconds. He’s sure the distance between you two — a good and safe couple of feet — doesn’t help either, but he stops in his tracks the moment you finally find his eyes. 

“Kyle!” you coo. 

His name sounds like a holy hymn on your tongue, and you slip out of the grasp of your friends in order to throw yourself at him. Catching you is easy. All it takes is his hands on your waist and your palms on his chest to steady you. Sour booze fills his nose, but he doesn’t even flinch at the burn. Your grin captivates him too much for him to do anything but smile. 

“Hey, doll,” he greets, his suave aura hiding the fact his heart pounds in his chest so violently it almost hurts. “Havin’ a good night?” 

“Well I was,” you groan. Your forehead presses against his chest, and Kyle is suddenly aware of the heat radiating off of his body. However, if you do smell the slight musk clinging to him after hitting the gym, you don’t mention anything. “They’re trying to get me into that stupid fucking uber and I just wanna walk home.” 

“You are not walking home,” one of the girls — the one who had glared at him before — interrupts. “And I’m not walking halfway across the city with your drunk ass, either.” 

“It’s not a great idea,” he concurs.

That only makes you groan again before leaning your entire body weight on him. You’re throwing a childish fit, yet he can’t help but chuckle as he wraps his arms around you in a light embrace to help keep you from falling face first into the pavement. Settling down, the two girls you’re with stop looking at Kyle as if he’s the devil himself, and more so just have an overall appearance of embarrassment for you. 

“I hate it here,” you whine. 

“How about this,” Kyle proposes, “you let your friends take the uber home, and I’ll walk you back to your place?”

“You’d do that for me?” you mumble into his chest. 

“Anythin’ for you.” 

Although you’re on board right away, it takes a little convincing to get your friends comfortable enough to have you walking home with an unfamiliar, sweaty man. They refuse to let you out of their sight until you admit to them that he’s technically your coworker (while also not so tactfully admitting he’s seen you naked and fucked you countless times and that you’d trust him with your life). After you promise to text them the moment you arrive home, your friends give you an awkward farewell before allowing Kyle to whisk you off into the night to lay down for a well deserved nap. 

It’s about a block and a half in that Kyle realizes why your friends fought so hard to take an uber. Not only is your flat truly on the other side of the damn city, but keeping you upright on your feet should be a sport. He keeps an arm around your waist for the entire walk just to keep you steady, but it also has the added benefit of warding off any shady eyes. And there are a lot of shady eyes. Enough to be grateful that he was the one who ran into you tonight rather than anyone else. 

By the time the two of you reach your apartment, you’ve hardly sobered up. Not that Kyle minds, of course. You’ve obviously had a fun night, and he rather enjoys your aimless rambling. It’s the most he’s heard you talk. Not even your fucked-out babbling on set gets you to talk that much. 

“Alright,” Kyle says as you unlock the door, “you gonna be alright for the night?” 

You throw him an odd side-eye as the door swings open. “Of course.” 

That was supposed to be where he said farewell, and yet you grab his hand and yank him into your apartment like you’re dragging around a dog on a leash. He figures sticking around for a little longer to at least help you into bed might not be a bad idea, certainly not with how inebriated you are, and somehow he ends up in the bathroom with you. 

Your legs swing carelessly as you sit on the counter, facing away from the mirror. You’ve roped Kyle into helping you take your makeup off, which so far has consisted of nothing but him holding your chin still and tilting your head as he fruitlessly wipes at the glitter on your face with a makeup wipe. There’s easier ways to get body glitter off of skin, but you rather enjoy the serious face of concentration that sets deep in his features as he gently scrubs at you. 

“You’re cute,” you giggle. 

“I’m cute?” he repeats. 

You nod, which makes him huff and readjust his grip on your chin. “You’re concentrating so hard.” 

“‘Course I am, gotta get this damn superglue off your face.” 

Kyle continues to wipe at your face for only a few more minutes before he decides that’s as good as it’s going to get. With his hand in yours, you lead him into your bedroom where the remaining evidence of your preparation for the night litters the foot of your bed in rejected clothing and accessories. You gather them up into a big pile in your arms where you toss it on top of your dresser before raiding the drawers for pajamas to wear. 

You don’t warn Kyle before you slip your shirt over your head. For some reason, it catches him off guard. He’s seen you naked countless times before; hell, he’s quite literally ripped clothes off of your body, yet this feels like a breach of privacy. You’re not in your right mind, still in a drunken stupor after a night out with the girls. It feels wrong, like he’s taking advantage of you, and instead of gawking at you like he normally does,  he turns away. 

It isn’t until you stand there in only your panties that you realize Kyle’s averted his gaze. A smirk pulls at your lips as you forget about changing and trot up to him, forcing his attention back on you. His eyes quickly wander, yet refuse to go any further than past your chest before they flicker back up to your face. Your small smirk quickly turns into a grin. 

“What’re you acting shy for, Kyle?” you tease. 

“Just givin’ you privacy, doll,” he defends. 

“Privacy?” you repeat. A small laugh leaves you as your hands press against his chest, forcing him to stumble backwards towards your bed. “You look nervous.” 

When the back of his legs hit the mattress, Kyle has no choice but to fall back. He sits on the edge of the bed with his hands propping his torso up, but you don’t allow him any breathing room before you’re straddling his hips. Perfume and alcohol fills his nose as you make yourself comfortable, and your eyes drink in his expression. You’ve never seen his eyes so dilated before, and you bask in the way they reflect the dim lighting of your bedroom. 

“Do I make you nervous, Kyle?” you ask, voice soft and low. 

The Adam’s apple in his throat bobs as he swallows, still unable to take his eyes off of you. Warm hands rest on your hips to keep you steady as you lean closer to him, lips ghosting against his earlobe as you continue to tease him. 

“Don’t tell me you’re all bark and no bite. You always said you wanted to get me without the cameras, didn’t you? Fuck me properly? Well, now’s your chance.” 

God, he wants to. It’s almost as if it’s part of his nature at this point; to please you. Your body has become his bread, the only sustenance he needs to keep himself going. As he stares up at you, he thinks of all the ways he could have you right there in that room that he can’t on set. The things he can say, admit; the sounds he could pull out of you for his ears and his ears only. He yearns for it so bad he feels it tearing him apart. 

But as he notices the glazed look in your eyes, he knows he can’t do it. You can hardly sit in his lip without him holding you steady, lest you fall backwards onto the floor. Images of fucking you when you’re like that, far from sober, flood his mind, and he feels ill. 

In order to get control of himself and his wandering mind, he quite literally turns the tables on you. Your vision blurs as you’re suddenly on your back, body resting on the comforter of your bed as Kyle sits back on his haunches between your legs. He taps your thigh before sliding away from you, and much to his surprise, you don’t even pout. 

“I’m gettin’ you water, and then you’re going to bed, yeah?” he says, gaining control of the situation. 

You stare up at him incredulously, hardly believing a word he says. Still, you agree with him as you shimmy up the bed where you rest your head on your pillows. The way you position your body, with your tits on display and a small smile on your lips, reminds him of the way you pose on set for the cameras. He wonders if you even know what it’s like to be fucked without having to perform anymore. 

“Whatever you say, Kyle.” 

When Kyle leaves your room, he wipes at his face with both of his hands and does his best to stifle a groan. It’s late, significantly later than he’s used to staying up, and his muscles ache from that evening’s workout. The mental jump rope he’s playing doesn’t help the fatigue in his body either. This is the most emotionally confused he’s been in quite a while, and he’s hoping he can just go home, take a cold shower, and forget about all of it come morning. 

It takes him longer than normal to get you a glass of water. Adrenaline courses through his veins like boiling water, and he can hardly hear anything over the thumping of his heart in his ears, so he tries to take a moment to panic by himself in your kitchen. By the time he returns to you, you’re passed out. Eyes fluttered shut, chest lazily rising and falling with your breaths, Kyle finds himself stopping at the foot of your bed in awe. 

He’s glad he stopped you. 

After placing the glass on your nightstand, he folds your comforter over you as best as he can, covering your bare body. The light fabric moving across your skin stirs you awake, and your eyes flutter open just long enough to grab his hand. His heart stops as you attempt to pull him closer, and he finds himself kneeling next to your bed, utterly lured. 

“Are you staying?” you ask, not even bothering to open your eyes. 

His thumb brushes over your knuckles as he shakes his head. “Sorry, doll. Not tonight.” 

“Oh,” is all you can say. 

You fall silent again, and he stays kneeling next to you for a moment as he enjoys the feeling of your hand in his. Once he thinks you’ve fallen asleep again, he presses his lips against the back of your hand before returning it onto the mattress. Your lips curl at the sensation. 

“I love you,” you whisper. 

Those words have been in the back of your throat ever since the two of you filmed the honeymoon shoot together, and it has Kyle stopping in his tracks. He wants to stay. Everything in him screams at him to. To crawl into bed with you, to wrap you in his arms and comfort you in the morning when your hangover gets the best of you. But he can’t. He can’t even tell if this is what you truly want, or if it’s the alcohol talking. 

He swallows. 

“Love you too, doll.”