Articulations of Aspen

You went barefoot, toes digging in the mud, and thought that the strange itch developing under your skin was maybe not so strange, not in the grand scheme of things.

Curtis said your body would change. Maybe you had outgrown your skin and your home, until the only thing left to do was to come here and wait to be collected. The urge was stronger than ever, and you could no longer resist, only yield.

The waterline was lower than you remembered, the silt and reeds exposed in the flickering starlight. You waded in ankle-deep, sinking, sensing the soft sucking of the mud as it accepted your feet. The air was loud with crickets, the occasional splash of fish, the far-off call of some night bird. The moon was gone, but the stars provided enough light to see the expanse of the lake, sprawling out imposingly.

And yet the lapping of the water around your ankles soothed in a way you hadn’t felt in weeks. You’ve felt dry in your skin, and these last days even your veins feel like hollowed-out reeds beneath the surface.

It had been eighty-three days since Curtis climbed through your window, the second night he filled you with his seed. It had been one hundred and twenty-three days since the night he claimed your body and pumped you with pleasure and with his spend all night, marked you in ways no mother’s salve could erase, left you shivering on the shore, his seed rooted in your womb.

You kept going, wading past the reeds and the brambles, the hem of your nightdress dragging through the shallows, soaking up moonless water and pond scum.

Even now, you told yourself you’re out here only to see the stars, but you knew you were lying.

The changes in your body had become more pronounced and less deniable. Soon you would no longer be able to hide the swell of your belly, blossoming with the taut dome of new life. The skin had grown soft but oddly cold, even through the high summer.

Your eyes started to reflect light in a way that makes children in the street shy away from your gaze. Your sister, ever helpful, insisted you were simply tired, that the sleepless nights were just exhaustion from your job at the bakery, the endless cycles of flour and heat, the constant lifting and kneading. Your sister believed what she said, but you sensed her growing unease—the way she looked at your belly with furtive suspicion, the way she muttered prayers when she thought you could not hear.

Curtis has not returned. The absence of him was a wound that festered.

You thought, in the aftermath, that Curtis would return often, if not every night. You thought he would haunt your window, your dreams, your shadows. But he was true to his word: he gave you space. There were nights you sat up in the window seat, knuckles white on the wood, waiting to see the gleam of blue scales or the shimmer of his eyes, and nothing appeared but the unbroken dark. Sometimes you convinced yourself this was a mercy, a kindness, and that you hadn’t wanted any of it to begin with. Other nights, you pressed your face to the glass and called his name softly into the silence the night, and the longer he hasn’t come, the more your spirit has withered.

Surely he hadn’t abandoned you.

He had seemed so insistent.

And yet… he was not here, and you were, and inside you the child of him grew steadily, unerringly, as night follows the tides. The thought left you hollow, as if your body had already begun to be carved away by the thing inside it, making you less yourself with each passing week. You felt it now, even as you shivered in the shallows; a dull, aquatic ache that stretched through your hips and lower belly, encompassing all that you were meant to be, and all that you no longer were.

There was only the wind and the water, and you, marooned between them. No answers. Only a hunger, like a current, dragging you under.

You stood, shivering in your thin shift, despite the cloak around your shoulders, and waited.

Waited for—

You didn’t know.

But after some time, you trekked back to the shore. Your body seemed to know where it wanted you to go, and you are not surprised to find yourself back near the trees where it all began, where he both ravished and worshipped your body.

You crouched into the hollow of trees and planted yourself at the base of the trunk. It was humid and close under the branches, the sweet, sharp tang of decaying leaves pressed into the earth, and beneath that, the mineral wet of the lake. You pulled your knees to your chest and listened for footsteps, for anything, but in the night the whole world was quieted to only the whisper of leaves, your own uneven breathing, and the persistent lap of water against the shore.

Though you were well-hidden, there was a break in the trees that gave you a view of the lake. You watched as the surface quivered, reflecting back the warped face of the stars, and you wondered if you were supposed to do something more. If there was a ritual to summon him, or if all of this—the ache, the hunger, the uncertainty—was part of the summoning. You dropped your face into your knees and breathed deeply, searching for any scent of him, any hint that Curtis still lingered on the edges of this world. All you tasted was old wood and lake rot and something soft and almost metallic—a scent that felt like memory.

If you closed your eyes, you could remember the weight of his hands on your skin, the dark press of his body against yours, the way his voice was both threat and comfort. You wanted to hate him for what he did, for what he made of you, but you couldn’t. Not when your own body, traitorous and tender, mourned him even as it craved his presence.

The ache spiked, sharper this time, radiating from the place where your child grew. It was not pain, exactly. More an insistence, like a call you were unable to answer. You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself. But as the night wore on, your body loosened, drooped, gave into sleep—one of the things it had long been craving.

Something woke you in the deep hours, something more than cold or discomfort. You peeled yourself off the ground, stiff and numb, leaned against the tree trunk, and then instantly sensed the difference in the air. It was charged, vibrating with static, and the reeds at the water’s edge were shivering where no wind stirred them. Your heart stammered, your mouth tasted copper, and for a moment you were sure you were only dreaming.

Curtis was there, just outside the ring of trees that sheltered you. He stood perfectly motionless at the water’s edge, as if he’d been carved from the dark itself, a shadow with a suggestion of scales and the faintest luminescence tracing the lines of his body. His eyes shone out of his face, impossibly blue, fixed on you with a ferocity so wild and so focused it made you flinch. You had not heard him arrive. You wondered how long he’d been standing there, waiting for you to open your eyes.

You found that you are not afraid, not in the way you expected. It was something else, a tension like a drawn bow. His tail was flicking behind him, the tip slicing dangerous curves through the humid air.

He moved toward you in an unhurried, even elegant way, each step deliberate, his weight barely imprinting the mud despite his hulking form, so much larger than a human man’s. He didn’t speak; you realized suddenly that he never had to. He only needed to look at you, and your body would answer.

He took your face in his hands—not soft, not gentle, but not cruel either, and tilted your head so he could look into your eyes. You saw the hunger there, a desperation that matched your own, but also a grief, and something nearly like relief.

He didn’t ask permission. He didn’t even speak. His lips crashed into yours, sharp and cold and tasting of brine. It was nothing like human kisses, but you leaned in, lips parting, swallowing the taste of him, that deep, mineral tang, the way his teeth scraped across your lower lip. When he broke off, you gasped for air, surprised at how much of your hunger was for oxygen and how much for something else entirely. His tail snapped up behind you, coiling around your back and waist, pinning you to him so you could not slip away even if you wanted to.

You shivered, but it wasn’t from cold. A sound escaped you, a wet, hungry sob, and your arms went around his shoulders before you could think better of it. You expected roughness; you found yourself enveloped, cradled against a chest so wide and firm that you could hardly breathe for the way it trapped the air in your lungs. He held you like a cherished and broken thing, and you felt the hardness of his excitement against your hip, the way it pressed through both your clothes and his. The scent of him, seawater and something sweetly corrupt, filled your nose, and you worried, briefly, that you would drown on land.

His hands went to your shoulders, then your arms, then he pulled the damp cloak from your body and let it drop to the forest floor. He was more impatient with your shift, ripping the collar so the rest of the garment could fall away and pool at your feet. The shock of air on your bare skin made you gasp, but you didn’t try to cover yourself. Curtis bent down and sniffed you, pressing his face into the hollow where your neck and shoulder met.

He inhaled deeply, pulled a low, vibrating groan from somewhere in the cage of his chest, and just like that, you were entirely, murderously desperate for him, for the feeling of his mouth and the slick pressure of his tongue, for the pain of his teeth and the searing cold of his hands sliding up your thighs. His breath fogged against your skin, cool and alive, and just hearing the ragged need in it was enough to make your knees threaten mutiny.

“Curtis,” you managed, syllables fractured and spilling out before you could stop them.

He growled, the sound vibrating through your chest, resonant and urgent. His claws grazed your shoulders as he shrugged the cloak away from you, letting it slide to the ground where it slumped darkly into the leaf mold. His hands found your waist, spanning it with impossible ease, and then his palms moved, mapping the curvature of your ribs, your breasts, then down, down, his fingers raking over your belly. He lingered on your midsection, ran his knuckles with surprising care over the curve of it, fascination and triumph wrestling for dominance in his gaze.

His hands encircled your belly and held there, as though placing a spell, or as though he expected the child to respond to his pulse. Maybe it did. You thought you felt it, some answering quiver, and you tried not to flinch. You shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t want him, but when his mouth found your collarbone you choked on nothing, a breathless exhale that turned into a moan.

His mouth was cold against your skin but his tongue wet and shockingly warm, as if the heat of desire tunneled underneath his icy exterior, a core of molten need blazing inside him. Teeth pressed, not quite biting, then scraped a line along your clavicle, leaving a trail of sensation so bright it bordered on pain. Your hands went, almost stupidly, to his biceps: smooth, firm, scaled over in patches, reminding you he belonged to the lake.

Your stomach ached, low and deep, with a hunger you refused to call by name. You wanted this, you wanted him, you wanted him to take you apart, fill you until your bones dissolved, until the self you’d been before dissolved in the brine of his touch.

His lips found your throat and sucked until you thought you were being hollowed out, all feeling compressed to the bright ring where his mouth met your skin. His hands splayed at your ass, cupping and kneading, moving you against him until you both groaned in time, a shared, strangled note that seemed to ring out over the water.

He barely bothered to undress himself, simply tore away the layers of sodden cloth as if they were nothing, exposing his torso and hips until the heat of him seared into you. His cock, thick and strange and ridged with whorls of blue-black skin, already pulsed against your thigh. He backed you up against the trunk of the tree and pinned you there, one massive arm braced next to your head, and dipped his head to your chest.

His tongue rasped along the curve of your breast, a wet, hungry line, and when his teeth found your nipple, you cried out, the sound trapped between your tongue and his. He bit, just hard enough to mark, then soothed it with that impossible tongue, flicking and sucking until your head spun and a firecracking ache tethered itself from breast to cunt.

His hand was already between your legs before you could breathe out his name, and his fingers--long, ridged, preternaturally strong--slid through the wetness between your thighs. He pressed in, tasted how ready you were, and when he drew his hand away, he brought two glistening fingers to his mouth and licked them clean with a noise so greedy, so hungry, it made your core tighten almost painfully.

“The desperate smell of your want was intoxicating enough, little one,” he growled, “but your taste?”

His claws sank into the flesh of your hips and he yanked you off your feet, spinning you so fast your head swam. You landed, hands and knees in the leaf mulch, your bare ass exposed to the night and to him, your thighs smeared with your own want. His grip found your shoulder and pressed you down, arching your back, planting you so firmly into the earth you could feel the cool dampness rising through your palms and shins. You didn’t fight when he spread your legs wider. If anything, you shuddered in relief, because this, this was what you needed.

His breath was a frigid fog against your skin, and then the blunt, slick head of his cock was nudging at your entrance, so wide it seemed impossible to take him. You whimpered against the moss, torn between terror and a nearly painful anticipation. Though he had your entrance amply slick with your own arousal, the size of him was still enough to make you gasp when he breached you, slow and relentless. You felt yourself stretch, felt the ache of it, but he did not yield.

He slid in further, relentless, unyielding, and your entire body shuddered around the breach. You scrambled for purchase, fingers digging furrows in the loam, and then his hand was at the base of your spine, stroking small, slow circles in a semblance of comfort.

“Look at you,” he growled, voice low in your ear as he bottomed out with a shudder that rocked you forward. “You were made for me. You fit like a custom-forged scabbard, little one. I could breed you a thousand times and never get tired of the way you clench around me.”

His cock pulsed inside you, impossibly thick, and every subtle drag and shift of his hips sent a shiver through your entire body. He held you there, immovable, his weight pinning you to the mud and leaf litter, fucking into you with a slow, brutal rhythm that left you gasping every time he drove home. Each thrust felt like it would split you, stretch you beyond your limit, and each time you bent, pliant, desperate to be filled further, to be ruined in the same way again and again.

His tail wrapped around your left ankle, hoisting the leg upward and outward, so you were splayed wide, offered to him and the lake and the night. He leaned forward, his chest pressing between your shoulders, bent over you, mouth at your ear now, voice ragged and low. “Little one,” he growled, “I will never let you forget how you felt this night. No matter how many times I take you, I’ll always want to take you again.”

You didn’t bother to hide your noises now; any vestige of shame was gone, burned away by the friction and fullness and the way his hands gripped you with such claiming certainty. You felt yourself dripping down your thighs, making a mess of the ground beneath, and you thought it fitting, to mark the earth as you were marked, to leave nothing untouched by him.

“If the lake had not insisted on a bloodline to restore balance, I would have demanded it. You are the only thing I want in all this world, and every drop of you belongs to me.”

He fucked you harder, faster, driving you into the ground with abandon. Each thrust made you whine, made your elbows buckle and your head drop forward, hair stuck to your face with sweat and dew. He reached around and slid two fingers to your clit, rubbing in tight, ruthless circles that sent the world spinning white-hot.

You came so hard your vision narrowed to a single bright point. Your limbs splayed and trembled, nails sinking into the dirt and your ass bucking up to meet every brutal blow, savoring the way it forced you open, greedily cradling his cock to the hilt with every cycle. Curtis growled so low and animal it vibrated the whole length of you, and his hands tightened on your hips, guiding you, fucking you back onto him, making sure you took every last centimeter his body offered.

You wanted to scream with it. You wanted to howl his name so loud they’d hear it in every village around the lake. But you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but let him use you, let the rhythm of his rutting into you become the only pulse that mattered. All sense of the world dropped away, and there was only the slap of skin, the wet, hungry noises of your cunt taking his cock, the raw, animal sound of your own voice every time the head of him pressed so deep it made your belly ache.

Curtis—no longer the stranger, never just the creature—was everything: the air, the ache, the axis about which you spun. Every time he slurred your name into your ear, mangling the syllables with his animal tongue, a fresh ripple shuddered through you. He rutted you in the dirt, rutting away the remnants of your old life, seeding you so deeply you could feel it pooling hot inside where the child already grew.

He never relented. Even as your body tried to collapse, he pinned you, forced you to take more, forced you beyond your own edge, made it impossible to know where you ended and he began. He held you through it, every time you tried to shudder or twitch away, his hands locked your hips exactly where he needed them, pulling on the strings of want and need until you unspooled every last thread, the tip of his tail tormenting your throbbing clit.

If you had thought yourself hollowed by his absence, you were now made whole by his invasion, every place inside you mapped and remade by him, by this act of mating, of possession. He bit the back of your neck, just at the nape, so hard you cried out and the sound split the night open, echoing off the trees and out to the water, where every living thing had to know what he was doing to you. The air rang with your sounds, and the taste of copper and earth and salt was on your tongue, and you felt the sharp crackle of him biting through the flesh just enough to breach the skin, a mark so carnal it would never fade. You wanted to be marked. You wanted to be his—no, you were his, and always would be, because some part of you had never belonged to anything else, and he simply reminded your body whose it was.

And then he came. You felt it, the flood of cold and the clutching, almost electrical pulse. His cock throbbed inside you, filling you even as you clenched and spasmed around him, milked every last drop of his seed so there could be no doubt, none, what your purpose was. He stayed like that, locked to you, fused to your body as if he could keep you in place for the rest of eternity by the sheer force of want. All up your spine, his scales left the faintest scratch, the imprint of his cooler body temperature, a memory of friction that anointed you as singularly his. Curtis kept you there, cock still embedded in you, his weight almost comforting, the way he spread over you like a shield against the cold and the dark and anything else that could try to threaten you.

Eventually, he shifted, rolling you gently onto your back as though conscious of your fragility. His cock slid from your body with a raw, slippery sound, and you felt some of his spend leak from your fluttering cunt, soaking the ground beneath you.

He hovered over you, gaze unblinking, so close you could see the reflection of your own trembling, ruined face in his eyes. The hard line of his body pressed you flat to the earth, and you felt every inch of him, every scale and muscle, the brutal weight of his presence. He let his hands roam your stomach and your hips, drawing slow, reverent circles, memorizing the curves of your form that he already knew too intimately. For a moment, you thought he was going to say something soft, something almost human. Instead, his mouth settled by your ear and he said, voice stripped to its essential hunger, “You come with me now.”

His tail curled around your thigh, not as a threat but as a matter-of-fact assertion of what would happen next. You were dizzy from the way he’d taken you, your cunt still raw and throbbing.

He lifted you, all at once, as if you weighed nothing. You were limp in his arms, boneless from the waves of pleasure, trailing wetness and ruin as he carried you back to the water. It should have been cold, but when the lake closed around your body it was only a relief, a soft, enveloping embrace that soothed the raw places. He held you afloat, one powerful arm under your knees, the other bracing your back, until your eyes unblurred and you could see his face above you, illuminated by the briefest shimmer of phosphorescence off the water. His eyes were luminous, impossible in the dark.

He kissed you again, more gently this time, and you let your head fall against his chest. He began to swim, slow and tireless, propelling you through the black, star-pocked surface and into the heart of the lake.

Hope you enjoyed a bit of monster-fucking Monday.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

His attempted jab didn’t land right, either. Steve didn’t give a fuck what anyone here thought of him. Those were your neighbours - for now, but not for long. He agreed to take you to this neighborhood bbq because you asked. 

You didn’t ask him not to kill anyone, so that was still an option on the table… 

“You’re right.” Steve knew his smile wasn’t friendly at all. “The skills I would use those grilling tools for aren’t food oriented.” 

As expected, John’s annoying grin faltered and his face paled. People like John sensed a predator, but wouldn’t imagine the man who drove here in an expensive sports car and plated a hot dog for his cute girlfriend was actually a cold blooded enforcer for the mob. 

“Wear your apron proudly,” Steve chuckled condescendingly, patting him on the shoulder, “I’m definitely not aiming to take your sausage king title.” 

Taking the paper plate with him, Steve simply turned around and left. He walked over to the table with sides and started stuffing the bun with things you wanted on your hot dog.

Which was everything. 

It was amusing, but also in a way very hot, that his sweet Cherry ate hot dogs loaded with a horrifying combination of ingredients. The only thing hotter was seeing you in your cute sundress - beaming innocence and joy - eating that hot dog all messily and hungry.

Until you, Steve didn’t consider himself a pervert. He enjoyed sex, he liked to dominate his partners. Simple like that. However, when you caught his attention it was like you opened a Pandora box of all depraved, obscene fantasies. 

When you bounced over to where he was seated on the couch and going through the prints of potential covers for his newest book, Ransom felt the usual warm shiver down his spine that melted most of the tension that accumulated in his body through the day. Your bubbly presence always had that annoyingly soothing effect on him. 

You told him about your day. Unlike with most people, Ransom really listened to you. He liked listening to you. Perhaps because you were rarely complaining. Instead, you tended to tell him about happy things, or funny things. 

Which is also the reason why he is glaring right now. 

Because one of the funny things of the day was a meme you saw. A fucking meme that apparently made you think of him. 

“I’ll send it to you. That meme is so you!” You giggled. 

A ping later his phone screen brightened with a message from you. He opened the picture. And fucking glared. 

It was a picture of a tiny, fuzzy bat. Petted by someone. And the words on it said “No! Stop touching me! I am the night!” 

“It’s not me,” Ransom grumbled. 

You laughed, snuggling closer to his side. 

You’d expected a lot of things when you agreed your husband’s oldest friend should come spend the holidays with you, but not this: you naked and splayed open, your back against Bucky’s chest, and Steve knelt between your legs, focus absolute as they took you apart.

Bucky’s lips moved against your neck, not quite kissing, hand sliding to cup one aching breast. “You want to feel for the ridge, the soft roof inside. Feel it?”

Steve nodded, learning by the tremors that rippled through you.

And you? You could only moan as his fingers sought a place only Bucky had touched before tonight.

Steve’s breath ghosted along your thigh, cool in comparison to the heat pooling where his fingertips pressed. “Like this?” he asked, looking up, seeking confirmation from Bucky.

Bucky squeezed you, barely-there pressure, his thumb circling your nipple. “Yeah, there—you’ll feel it through the front wall. Little bump.”

Steve slid his fingers deeper, slow and careful, and you arched back against Bucky’s chest. The pressure inside shifted, molten but sudden, and you gasped at the feel of it when he found it—that ridge, the soft roof, as Bucky had described it. Steve’s big hand trembled just a little as he kept it inside you, gentle but greedy, desperate to get it right. The man was as worshipping as he was determined, brow furrowed, lashes dark against his cheek as he mapped each element of your reactions.

And Bucky watched, grinning against your ear, voice thick. “That’s it, Steve. Watch her face, see how her mouth falls open? Touch her there, a tiny bit harder, that’s it, yeah.”

He kept the pressure steady, calloused thumb skating circles over your clit while his fingers pressed up, learning you, working with the careful tenacity he applied to every complex operation.

Bucky’s own hand drifted lower, his touch rough at your hip, a grounding force. You couldn’t move if you’d wanted to, pinned between them, the air thick with sweat and something like ozone.

You bucked, pulse thumping in your throat, teeth gritty against a whimper. Steve’s eyes flicked up again, shining, hungry, and your swore you might come just on the taste of his focus. With every press against that spot, your vision stuttered out, blinking in firework-bright bursts.

Bucky’s voice pressed into the shell of your ear, low and lazy, but with that hint of command that still managed to thrill you, even after all these years. “She’s real sensitive right there, Steve. Just steady. Keep the rhythm—yeah, just like that.”

“Fuck, Buck—she’s gonna—” Steve’s fingers jittered, the tip of his thumb ghosting over your wet clit.

“Let her,” Bucky hummed, open-mouthed over her shoulder. His other hand covered her thigh, holding her so wide the ache felt like a dare. “Make her feel it.”

Steve’s hand was huge, careful, coaxing, until it wasn’t, until the motion grew greedy, needy. You’d never been shy with Bucky, but with the attention of two lovers you felt nearly too open and exposed, nerves sparking along every limb. Bucky’s thumb toyed with your nipple, drawing it taut, while Steve’s fingers pursued your impending orgasm relentlessly.

And the orgasm came with no warning, just an unbearable pressure and then a bright, skittering release, your vision white-out as you shrieked and clamped around Steve’s hand. He nearly lost his balance but Bucky steadied him—steadied you—bracing your shaking limbs as you rode the aftershocks. Even after the pleasure crested, Steve’s fingers didn’t stop. He worked you through every shudder, sucking a breath through his teeth, awed. His voice was a fervent whisper, “Jesus. You—fuck, you look good like this.”

“She always does,” Bucky replied, mouth slick on your jaw, catching the sweat there. “You wanna see her come again?”

Steve’s hand stilled, then slowly slid free, leaving you embarrassingly empty and sticky. He watched you with dazed awe, pink flush climbing from his collar to cheekbones, as if he couldn’t believe the thing he’d just made happen, for you.

“Yeah, I do. Will you let me?” he asked, eyes meeting yours again.

You nodded, voice gone to wool and cotton, incapable of anything but a whispered, “Please.” The word left your lips desperate, high-pitched, a note of wildness that made Bucky’s hand tighten against your thigh, a subtle anchor to keep you from dissolving completely.

Steve’s smile broke open on his face, that cocky little tilt that always got him his way. He ducked down and pressed his mouth to your thigh, some kind of benediction, before giving Bucky a look, a question you weren’t included in: permission, or maybe the next step in instructions. Bucky’s hand still gripped your thigh, and the pressure from his fingertips went from comfort to proprietary.

“Take your time,” Bucky told him, slow as syrup. “She’s got plenty more in her if you work it up right.”

You whimpered, and Steve’s hand found your knee, thumb brushing circles that didn’t seem to know whether they were meant to calm or tease. He spread you even wider, fingers delving again, but now the touch was softer, coaxing in a new way. He watched your face the whole time, never letting you look away, and the sheer heat of his attention made it impossible to catch your breath, impossible to be anywhere but here, between them, for them.

You let your head loll back on Bucky’s chest, and he inhaled you like a secret. Steve’s mouth ghosted over the inside of your knee, the lightest of touches, as his hand slid slick with you, coaxing you open again. There was awe in his expression, like he couldn’t believe the things your body was capable of. That he couldn’t believe you let him see it.

Bucky’s voice was right in your ear, velvet and wicked. “You love this, don’t you? How he touches you, how he looks at you?” His teeth grazed just below your pulse, almost biting, his metal hand now flat and heavy on your soft stomach.

Steve’s mouth found your clit then, hot and wet, and you bit your lip, trying not to break apart too quickly, but Bucky’s other hand snapped up to your chin, forcing your jaw open. He slid two thick fingers into your mouth, muffling your gasps as Steve reached for that place inside you again, a blunt presence that made your hips twitch uncontrollably, mouth kissing and lapping at your clit.

“Be our good girl,” Bucky murmured, voice a velvet drag along your nerves. “Let me hear you, sweetheart.” He pressed your lips open wider, thumb tight on your cheek. Everything about him said claim, but you felt less like territory and more like treasure—something precious they’d both agreed to share.

You moaned and sucked on Bucky’s fingers, desperate for something to hold onto. Steve’s tongue drew slow, wide circles, alternating with little flicks that made you see stars, and every time his fingers curled inside you, you wanted to shake apart. Bucky’s hand pressed at the base of your throat, a leash without pressure, just a reminder of where you belonged.

Steve’s tongue moved with a rough, hungry precision that made your lashes flutter, the strangeness of his mouth—different than Bucky’s, somehow broader and needier—forcing you up against the edge of your own appetite. He groaned into you, animal, and the vibration made your toes curl as your hips bucked, seeking more, seeking everything.

The sound of you—wet and needy—filled the room, obscene, and Steve was impossibly focused. You could feel the shift as Steve’s mouth grew unabashed, each lap and suckle more confident. He lapped greedily, not just at your clit but at the desperate, shuddering noises you made, feeding on them, letting them escalate him past any feigned self-control.

Bucky murmured filth in your ear. “Such a pretty thing, all open for Steve. He’s a fast learner, isn’t he?” His fingers slipped from your mouth, gliding down to squeeze your breast with proprietary delight. “Sensitive here, too, Steve. She likes it just a little mean when you bite.”

Steve’s lips left your cunt, replaced by the blunt, perfect drag of his teeth—just a graze, but amplified by the velvet heat radiating between your thighs. The wild sound you made told him everything he needed. He grinned, eyes bright, and gave you another drag with his tongue and the barest scrape of teeth. Your legs shook, clamped for a second around his broad shoulders as he tormented you, licking through the slick he’d made.

“She’s right there,” Bucky insists, “but don’t let up.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, chest heaving, as Bucky’s words poured through you, making it impossible not to want to give him everything, even the parts you thought you’d never let anyone else but him see. He tugged his hand from your mouth, and you gasped, “I’m close, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Bucky coaxed, hand splayed again over your breast, pinching and then soothing. “Let him taste it. Let him taste everything.” He nuzzled the space behind your ear, catching the lobe between his teeth, a punctuation to his demand.

Steve’s hand, meanwhile, never stopped mapping you. His thick fingers curling again against that spot inside, a squirming, irresistible pressure, while his mouth closed around your clit and sucked, hard, and the world melted into a soundless scream in your throat. You bucked up, hands grasping at Bucky’s biceps, and came again, hard enough you thought you might black out.

This time Steve didn’t bother with awe, only a growl of triumph and gratitude as he licked you through every convulsion, not stopping until your thighs trembled against his head and Bucky had to murmur, “Enough, big guy, you’ll melt her.”

You didn’t remember the transition—somewhere in the haze of pleasure, Steve had shifted you onto his lap, his cock thick and leaking, pressed impossibly hard against your hip. Bucky sat facing you both on the foot of the bed, blue eyes greedy and soft at the same time, mouth slack with want. Steve held you to his chest, the thrum of his pulse wild and loud beneath your palm.

“Fuck, honey, you alright?” Bucky asked, thumb brushing along your jaw. You only nodded, eyes glassy, limbs a little insubstantial.

“She gets real soft after she comes,” Bucky explained. His metal hand stroked your cheek, thumb scraping your parted lip. “Steve, you ever eat a girl out til she can’t think straight, and then fuck her so good she gets slick again just from the memory?”

Steve’s gaze flicked down to your face, as if he needed to check in, as if the rules of this odd, shared gravity could change at your whim. But you only leaned harder into his chest, the memory of Bucky’s words blooming low in your gut. “Not like this,” Steve said quietly, the confession tumbling out like an apology. “Never had someone so slick and eager and pliant. She’s so fucking sweet.”

“She likes making a mess, especially when she knows someone’s gonna clean it up nice for her.”

It was obscene and beautiful in the same breath, the way your body pulsed and ached for these two men. You knew Bucky intimately, but Steve was still a new entity, it should be unbelievable what you were letting him do to you, and yet you were willing because Bucky said you could be.

“You wear her out, and she lets you do anything you want.” Steve pressed his lips to your temple, the gesture as tender as a prayer, but you could feel the tension in his body—like he was holding himself back as much as he was holding you up.

“Do you want him to fuck you?” It was as blunt as a knife’s edge; Bucky never did like to leave things to implication.

You meant to say yes, steeled and confident, but the only sound you could make was a whimper. Bucky grinned. “Use your words, honey. Steve’s been waiting a long time.”

Steve’s hands tightened on your hips. “Since your wedding,” he confessed, and you gasped.

Bucky nodded, proud, calm, even though this revelation was ricocheting through your mind. Steve had been overseas for years until just recently, and of course he hadn’t missed his best friend’s wedding—had been the best man—but it had also been the first time you’d met him.

You remembered the speech, the toast. Steve smiling at you across a room of strangers, nothing but friendship and pride in his voice, but now you wondered how long he’d been drinking you in, how long he’d been simmering in this kind of want.

You also remembered—vivid as if it bloomed on the backs of your eyelids—the way Steve’s eyes had lingered at the reception, how his hand seemed to swallow yours when he shook it, holding on a beat too long. You’d caught him watching you and Bucky slow dancing, his smile softer than it ought to have been, heavy with yearning. At the time you’d wondered if maybe he was just that kind of romantic, or maybe a little lonely after so much time away.

But now that memory rewrote itself, charged and electric, searing through you as Steve took your chin in his hand and kissed you—soft at first, learning the taste of you. His mouth tasted like you, and you shivered, deep in your bones, at being desired by these two men.

Bucky reached for you, steady hands bracketing your thighs, and you sank back against Steve’s chest. Your husband ducked lower, pressing a line of kisses from your hip bone to the soft, over-sensitive spot at the seam of your thigh.

You shivered as Bucky trailed his tongue through the wetness Steve had left behind, mouth hungry and reverent. He licked slowly, then nosed at your clit, already swollen and sore from Steve’s attention, and the jolt of sensation made you gasp into Steve’s mouth. He devoured your sounds greedily, tongue parting your lips as if he needed to taste how undone you were.

Bucky’s tongue was firmer than Steve’s, more insistent, and when he flattened it against you and sucked, you felt every vibration in your teeth. You whimpered into Steve’s kiss, and he swallowed the noise, hands squeezing your hips as you rolled against the heat of Bucky’s mouth, your body burning, melting, until there was nothing left but sensation.

You weren’t sure Bucky’s mouth could ever be called gentle, but right now it was a new kind of slow, each lap deliberate, stroking the sharp edge of oversensitivity and coaxing pleasure out of it until your eyes watered. Steve’s hand wound into your hair, guiding your head back against his shoulder, and you let him, lost in the heat radiating from both their bodies.

“She’s shaking,” Steve whispered, awe thick in his voice.

“She knows what she likes,” Bucky replied, voice muffled between your legs. His metal hand dug into your thigh, cool and greedy, while the other traced lazy patterns over your ribs, drawing your skin tight with anticipation for what would come next.

Bucky pulled his mouth away with a slick, obscene sound, smirking up at you. “You ready for cock?” he asked, and this wasn’t an idle question. Bucky wanted you to say it, wanted you to beg for it. Steve’s cock pressed up under you, thick and hot, and you could feel how desperate he was for it. You were too.

“Yes,” you said, or maybe just moaned it, letting your knees fall as wide as Steve and Bucky wanted them. “Yes, please.”

“Fuck, she’s polite,” Steve mumbled, hands already guiding you up, shifting you onto your knees, palms bracing the mattress as Bucky moved to the side of you, one hand fisting his own stiff cock, the other smoothing down your back and skimming over your ass. You could feel Steve’s cock, hot and insistent, nudging between your thighs.

“She likes a full feeling,” Bucky told Steve, the statement an offer and a warning both, and you blinked up at him, swallowing. “When you fuck her, you gotta go deep.”

Steve’s hands caught your hips, palms broad enough to span almost from waist to thigh. There was a reverence in his movements, but also the first hints of impatience—the way his fingers flexed, the way his cock jumped when it brushed against you, smearing precum along the seam of your body. He lined himself up and held, not yet pushing in, and the wait felt like another kind of pleasure, anticipation sharp as a blade.

Your chest seized—with anticipation or hesitation, you weren’t sure—as you realized Bucky was going to let Steve fuck you bare.

“He’s a big one, sweetheart,” Bucky warned, and you could hear the grin on his face. He planted a hand at the small of your back, keeping your spine bowed. “Nice and slow. She likes to feel every inch.”

You pressed your face into the pillow, bracing for a stretch that came slow and monumental—Steve’s cock parting you, nudging inside until you couldn’t breathe for the fullness, the hot-dull burn that quickly blurred into something sweeter.

“There you go, sweetheart,” Bucky murmured. “Let him all the way in.”

You were so wet he didn’t even need to force it; the broad head split you open easily. You heard Bucky’s purr, almost proud, as if he had made you this way, greedy for the kind of ache only they could give. Bucky loved to torment you with this kind of fuck when he slid inside you, so his direction for Steve to as well was to be expected.

Steve held, fully sheathing himself, body trembling with restraint. “You okay?” The sound of your name was different in his voice, kinder, stripped of any artifice.

You nodded, eagerly pressing your hips back, and the slide hit something deep, a place that made your toes flex and your mouth fall open. Steve’s hands stroked your hips, grounding you, his breath rough as he held as still as he could manage. Bucky’s voice was syrup-sweet at your ear, “Go on, Steve. She wants it.”

The first thrust was a slow, rolling motion that stole your breath. Steve drew out nearly all the way, then slid back in, the burn giving way to a greedy, clutching pleasure. You held perfectly still, squeezing your eyes shut, learning the new shape of yourself with Steve inside you. You keened, knuckles whitening in the bedsheets. Bucky stayed close, palm at the nape of your neck, his own cock hard and leaking, pressed to your shoulder as he watched Steve fuck you.

“She takes cock so well, doesn’t she?” Bucky crooned, his tone barely above a purr. “Bet you never seen anyone so hungry before.” His metal hand traced your spine, ratcheting the tension higher as he pet you and praised you, the words a molten thread tangled through every harder, deeper thrust. Steve’s hips pistoned slow, but with such force you swore you could feel it in your throat, each time catching a spot Bucky had mapped just for him.

Steve’s rhythm was a miracle of endurance, slow and deep, every thrust measured, watched, almost academic in its hunger. His hands never stopped moving, stroking your waist, your belly, your ribs, learning every inch of you as if he needed to memorize the route. His hips stuttered occasionally, evidence of his own struggle not to lose himself too quickly to the wet heat you offered him.

And he whispered your name between every other breath, like a vow, like he was kneeling in church.

Bucky’s hands grew rougher on you, easing your thighs farther apart, planting dirty encouragements in your head that made you slicker, filthier than before. “You should see her face, Steve. She’s so beautiful right now.”

Bucky coaxed your head up and to the side so Steve could see the exact, filthy pleasure contorting your features. And you felt it, the slide of your own tears, half-joy and half-overwhelm, as Steve picked up the pace, his thrusts deeper, harder.

Bucky wiped a tear from your jaw with his thumb, then sucked it into his mouth. “So beautiful when you’re ruined like this.”

Steve’s fingers dug into your flesh, and you could feel how close he was to letting go of decorum, of caution, of the last rags of self-control. You wanted it. You moaned for it. Your head swam with the ache of being so fucking full, of being seen and used and loved all at once.

“Not gonna last,” Steve groaned, the confession breaking at the seam. “Feels—fuck, Bucky, how do you keep your head—”

“I don’t, punk. That’s why I always make her come first.” Bucky’s laugh was sharp and breathless, the sound of a man profoundly in love with his own wife. He trailed a hand down your front, fingers gliding over the slick mess Steve had made of you. “And always make it up to her after, too. She loves that part too.”

Bucky’s hand found your clit, thumb and forefinger pinching, rolling it just this side of cruel, and you yelped, the sudden spike of pain-pleasure a match to the fullness Steve was feeding you, and your whole body shuddered. Bucky laughed—warm and wicked—and reached down, fingers sliding through the mess of slick and sweat and precum at the seam where Steve’s body split yours, then smeared it over his own cock.

He pumped himself once, twice, eyes locked on where Steve’s body met yours, and you watched, unabashedly.

Bucky leaned forward, mouth hot at your jaw. “You want me to fuck your mouth while Steve fucks you?”

The question, blunt and bright, sliced through your haze. You nodded, desperate, and Bucky grinned, wolfish. He pressed his thumb to your lips, smearing the taste of yourself across them, and then shifted around in front of you, kneeling up so his cock bobbed level with your mouth. It was already slick, the head flushed dark, and you opened for him automatically, tongue out, dutiful and greedy all at once.

“That’s my girl,” Bucky breathed, sliding in slow, letting you feel the heft of him as Steve’s cock ground into your cunt from behind. You could barely spare the coordination to suck and moan at the same time, the boundary between pleasure and humiliation dissolved.

Your throat worked, helpless, as Bucky fucked your mouth in shallow, reverent thrusts, and your jaw burned with the effort of taking him as deep as he wanted. He pulled back every time you gagged, not to spare you, but to watch the string of spit connect your lips to the tip of his cock. You blinked up at your husband, tears streaming freely now, and saw how it undid him—made him thrust a little deeper, fuck your mouth a little harder, hands cradling your jaw, both anchoring and guiding you.

“Pretty thing,” he muttered, almost gentle, “look at you. That’s it. Just like that. God, Steve, you’re going to love fucking her throat.”

“Buck, you can’t just—” Steve had to groan before he could finish his thought. “You can’t just say shit like that and expect me to last.”

You moaned, mouth full of Bucky and body full of Steve, your whole self strung taut between their appetites. The rhythm between Steve’s hips behind you and Bucky’s in front of you a terrifying, perfect sync.

Bucky smirked, thumb wiping spit from your chin, then dragged it down to your throat, pressing lightly so you felt the stretch of yourself inside. “Bet you want him in your mouth right after he fills you up, don’t you?” Bucky’s voice was honey-thick, tugging need like a thread from your cunt all the way up to your brain.

You nodded, desperate, and that was all it took—Steve’s grip on your hips locked down, his pulse a wild thrum against your skin, and he buried himself in you with one last, shuddering thrust. You could feel it, the way he pulsed and spilled hot inside, and the sound he made—it was raw, almost animal. He held inside, grinding so deep you felt it all the way up your spine, filling you so perfectly a whimper broke loose from your lips even with Bucky’s cock still in your mouth.

Bucky eased out of your mouth, palm still warm against your jaw, thumb stroking where his cock had just been. He grinned at you, all sweet-and-mean, then leaned in to press a kiss over your spit-slick lips. “That’s it,” he whispered, reverent, like he was kissing holy ground. “That’s my good girl.” The words landed low in your belly, twisting up with the mess Steve had left in you.

But his cock was still inside you, too, and he collapsed forward, chest to your back, his arms caging you in. You expected him to pull out, to give you a moment to recover, but instead he rocked his hips, slow and greedy, as if he couldn’t bear to lose the feeling of you squeezing around him.

And then, without warning, his hand slid under your belly, fingers finding your clit, already swollen and overstimulated. He drew tight, precise circles with the pads of first two fingers, not letting up, even when you whined and squirmed beneath him. Bucky’s hands held you steady, anchoring you so Steve could play your body like an instrument.

The friction was so good, so dirty, that your cunt clamped around him involuntarily, milked every last drop as Steve’s fingers worked you up again, your body already betraying just how ready it was to be used a second, third, hundredth time.

“Fuck, she’s insatiable, isn’t she?” Steve said, voice almost fond, the sound of it a pressure at the base of your skull.

“She’s always been that way,” Bucky answered, a frayed thread of pride winding through his voice. “After the serum, I never met a partner who could keep up with me until her. Like you were made for a super soldier, sweetheart.”

You laughed, or tried to, but it came out a shaky, desperate gasp as Steve’s fingers wrung another whimper from you. Your knuckles dug into the sheets, the only tether as your overstimulated clit set off sparks behind your eyes. “Bucky,” you croaked, barely audible, “I can’t—”

“You can, honey. You’ll show Steve just how much you can take.” His gaze was intent, and for a moment you remembered every night the two of you had built trust on, every whispered dare and secret need he’d coaxed from you, every time he’d made you shatter and put you back together.

You barely had time to brace—Steve’s closed closed hard and firm around your clit, pinching, sending a lightning bolt through you, and as your body seized, his mouth found the meat of your shoulder and bit down. Not a warning, not a tease—a real goddamn bite. It ricocheted up your spine and detonated any coherence you had left. Your vision went blinding white, then red, and you screamed, nails gouging at the mattress, his hardening cock still buried so deep inside you it felt like you were cleaved in half.

The orgasm hit different—shocking, jagged, beyond pleasure and into a place that was just sensation, raw and total. You were crying, you realized, drool and tears tracking down your chin, but you couldn’t stop, couldn’t get enough, not even when the world blurred and your whole midsection pulsed around Steve’s cock, milking him for everything he had.

Bucky held your gaze the whole time, watching you unravel, watching every second of you coming apart for his best friend.

“Never gets old,” Bucky said, voice ragged with want, “seeing you come apart.” He stroked your hair, gentling you even as Steve’s cock kept you pinned and shuddering.

Steve pulled out, finally, leaving a slick trail down your thigh, and you expected collapse—rest, maybe, or at least a breath of air.

You got part of what you wanted as you were manhandled with a gentle efficiency—Steve lowering you to the mattress and Bucky rolling you over onto your back. The two men bracketed themselves around you. Bucky’s thumb smoothed tears from your cheeks, his lips hovering at your brow. Steve’s palm swept your hair from your face, tucking the wild strands behind your ears, and he smiled at you, dazed and open and deeply, deeply gone himself.

“You okay?” he asked, voice so hoarse you wanted to laugh, if only you didn’t feel so utterly wrung dry.

Bucky’s hands mapped your body, stroking down your arms, your waist, as if to collect every piece of you that had scattered. “She’s perfect. She’s got a thing for being ruined,” Bucky said, rubbing his thumb hard across your jaw, “but it’s more than just the mess. It’s being wanted, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

You trembled, the answer right there but too big for your mouth. All you could manage was a soft, but firm, “It’s both.”

It was. The ache between your legs, the aftershocks twitching in your thighs, crescendoed in the knowledge that you belonged—here, between them—because you were wanted. Not just by Bucky, whose love for you was a still wildfire after the first few years of the life you were building together, but by Steve, the last person you ever expected to want anything at all.

They held you in the perfect kind of silence for a while. Bucky stroked your sternum with two fingers, tracing the rapid pounding of your heart, while Steve drew lazy patterns on your ribs, the gentle touch making your bones melt.

Steve was the one who broke the silence, voice still thick and slow. “I’m sure Bucky’s told you how everything feels amplified for us, after the serum?”

You nodded, not trusting your voice, but Steve caught your chin and made certain you were listening, blue eyes intent on the fall and rise of your chest. He thumbed the corner of your mouth, gentle in a way that didn’t match the bite mark blooming on your shoulder. “It’s true. Everything’s hotter, sharper. Smells, tastes, touch.” His hand wandered down your neck, tracing the chain of your pulse. “It’s like all the dials turned up past what they’re supposed to do.”

Bucky grinned, mouth curving against your temple, proud and a little feral. “It’s why we’re so good at this,” he said, and the “we” wasn’t just the two of them, but you too, looped into their satisfaction by being the one they found satiation with.

You remembered, dimly, what Bucky had once told you—something about how pain and pleasure were just colors in a spectrum for men like them, how sometimes the best you could do was grab hold of the brightest one and hang on until it faded.

You barely noticed when Bucky’s hand slid lower, two fingers sliding along the seam of you, dipping just inside. You’d thought you were emptied out, rung dry, but the dull ache at your entrance proved otherwise—the evidence of Steve inside you, the slow ooze of it, making your lashes flutter in a way that felt almost innocent.

“You want to keep going, honey?” He asked because this—the consent, the agency—was one of the roots of his pleasure. You nodded again, too spent for speech. “Yeah, you do,” he murmured, pressing his own cock flush against your thigh, hot iron against soft flesh. “And you want Steve to watch, don’t you?”

The way Bucky framed it, you didn’t just want to perform, to be seen—you wanted to be worshipped, to be watched while your body proved itself again and again. There was no performance anxiety; there was only the heat of two impossible men zeroed in on every twitch of your muscles. You felt your own slick between your thighs, the slow, filthy trickle of Steve’s cum pooling out of you, the ache where you’d been so thoroughly stretched.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky chuckled. “Words.”

You tried to say, “Yes, please,” but it came out as a sigh, and Bucky’s grin only widened.

Steve cradled your head like a priceless artifact, thumb pressing a sleepy circle against your jaw while his gaze moved between your eyes and the place where Bucky’s fingers cupped your cunt. You felt your hips roll up, wanton, trying to keep contact with Bucky’s hand even as he toyed with your entrance but never quite let you have the friction you needed.

“You want to show Steve how we fuck when it’s just you and me in the dark, how well you take me.” A statement, not a question.

“Mmmhmm,” you groaned, and Bucky pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then knelt up, hands guiding your unresisting legs apart. He knelt back on his haunches and pulled your hips close. You heard Steve’s breath stutter at the sight, and it filled you with a greedy, wild pride. Bucky teased the seam of you with the head of his cock, up and down, up and down, making you whine.

At the last moment, Bucky relented and pushed inside, filling you with a swift, brutal thrust that bottomed out in one motion. There was no slow stretch, no easing in—just the violent, relentless press of his cock, and you arched off the mattress with a helpless, desperate moan. Your body was made to take him, every inch of you was slick and trembling, so the pain blurred seamlessly into pleasure and back again until you weren’t sure which you preferred.

He moved slow at first, kneeling above you like a god, letting you feel the thickness of him as he rocked in and out, but it wasn’t long before he found the rhythm he liked—a rough, demanding piston that left you scrambling for breath, for touch, for anything to keep you from coming apart entirely. You felt every ridge and vein, every rutting pound as he chased his own need, each thrust fusing the two of you back together.

All you could do—wanted to do—was take it. The raw, pounding pleasure, the relentless stretch, the feeling of Bucky’s cock rutting into you deeply. You heard yourself sob—and it was not a neat or pretty thing, but a wrecked, raw sound that only made Bucky groan above you. He caught your thighs in his hands, spreading you wider, and you felt the obscene heat of the stretch, the way your cunt seized around him with each battering drive. The slick noise of it—your body, his cock, the fucking mess Steve had left in you—filled the room, a rhythm and a punctuation to Bucky’s breathing as he drove deeper, harder, faster.

Steve’s hand found yours in the sheets. He laced his thick fingers between yours and squeezed, grounding you, letting you feel the reverent awe rolling off him in slow, steady waves. But there was an unmet hunger still lingering there under the surface. You could feel it in the tense of his body next to yours, and when you turned your face, eyes seeking his, he met your gaze without hesitation.

Steve bent to kiss you, and there was no veiling tenderness or shy request for permission. His tongue pushed into your mouth, greedy and wild, tasting the ghost of Bucky on your lips, tasting the salt of your tears. You kissed back with everything you had, drawing another moan from your throat as Bucky pistoned into you, the force rocking your whole body up into Steve’s chest.

Bucky’s thrusts didn’t slacken—they were still relentless, still merciless—but as you and Steve kissed, the tempo oscillated into something deeper, a series of slower,seismic detonations. Each time Bucky bottomed out inside you, he held there, grinding, spine arched, as if the sight of you kissing Steve was as much a pleasure to him as the feel of your cunt squeezing him.

Steve groaned into your mouth, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw, and Bucky’s grip on your thighs tightened, like he needed to stake a claim even as he offered you up. With every new roll of Bucky’s hips, a different noise tore its way out of your throat—some for the pain, some for the pleasure, some for the blissful humiliation of being made a spectacle for their eyes.

“Fuck her mouth, Steve,” Bucky said, a low, hungry rumble.

Steve didn’t hesitate, and it was only for a fraction of a second before he was shifting up, the broad line of his thigh braced alongside your head. His cock was still half-hard, glazed with your slick and his own release. The sight of it, flushed angry-red and wet, made your cunt clench around Bucky. Steve cupped your chin, thumb curling along the hinge of your jaw, and you sucked him into your mouth, the taste salty and obscene.

You groaned around him, lips stretching, tongue flattening under the thick, salty weight. He barely thrust, just eased forward, but the size of him still made your throat protest. Bucky continued his slow, tortruous pace below, watching intently as Steve’s cock parted your lips, and the sight of it—his best friend fucking your mouth while he still pounded into your cunt—nearly undid him, you could feel it in the grip of his hands on your hips.

“Deeper,” Bucky ordered, and Steve obeyed. He slid in, careful but insistent, filling your mouth until you gagged, until your eyes watered anew. Steve slid in, your throat stretched, and the assault of it made you gasp around him, desperate for air, for mercy, for more. Steve petted your jaw, his other hand cupping the back of your head, and for all the brutality of the act there was infinite patience in how he held you there, letting you adjust, letting you learn the unique shape of his need. Somewhere above, Bucky laughed—a single breath of filthy awe, a marvel at the spectacle of you taking both their cocks at once like this.

The taste of Steve’s cum was thick in your mouth, the smell of sex and sweat and ozone burning in your nostrils. You wanted them both to know how much you liked this, how much you needed every inch of what they gave. So you hollowed your cheeks and sucked, rolling your tongue with just enough pressure to see the effect in Steve’s eyes—head thrown back, spine bowed glorious, hand clenching your jaw with a desperation that made you burn with pride.

Bucky’s cock pounded up into you from below, and Steve’s pushed into your mouth from above, and you—pinned, stretched, used—were nothing but bliss. The sensation was a hinge, your body swinging wild between the two of them. You felt the echo of your own heartbeat in your cunt, in your mouth, in every thrum of the mattress and grind of their hips.

Steve’s thrusts grew bolder, and at each push he eased a little deeper, patience thinning as your mouth softened to his shape. His voice, when it came, was raw and rough, “Fuck, fuck, you feel so good—” your name murmured as its own curse when it fell from his lips in this moment.

He spilled his seed down your throat, but not all of it. He pulled out and shot the rest over your breasts, warm rope after rope of it across your heaving chest as Bucky pistoned in even harder, the thudding slap of his hips the only sound in the world.

Bucky slammed harder, harder, until you felt the actual bruise of him inside you, some deep purple echo of the violence. He reached for your clit, pinched, and your body shuddered into another orgasm, spasms wracking you so hard you thought you’d bite your tongue. You moaned so sweet and so ruined as he flew over the edge.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you, a shuddering full-body tremor, and then he was coming, hips jammed flush as he spilled molten and messy into the deepest part of you. His moan was raw, unguarded, and he didn’t let up, kept grinding through every spurt, making sure you took every last drop. The pressure of it set off a chain reaction—your body seized, aftershocks tearing up your thighs and into your belly, squeezing around him in greedy, involuntary pulses.

Bucky’s head dropped back, his jaw flexing as he held your hips pinned. You watched him, glassy-eyed and adoring, as every muscle in his chest locked. “Christ,” he panted, eyes flickering to Steve, “This is unreal.” He pulled halfway out—slow, slow—then pushed in again, a wet, obscene sound marking every inch. “She’s still squeezing me, even after you ruined her.” Bucky’s grin was all teeth, all pride and filth. “Can feel your mess inside her, Steve. So fucking wet she’s dripping down my balls.”

You moaned in the hinge between them, wrung out and wild, as Bucky fucked you through the last quakes and Steve’s hand fanned gently against your throat, thumb pressing the pulse there like he wanted to count your heartbeats—maybe hold them for ransom.

Bucky let out a ragged exhalation and pulled out, the head of his cock dragging on hypersensitive nerves, leaving you gaping and gasping and dripping. Bucky didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction. Instead, he watched the spill with a sick, loving sort of pride, then reached down, scooped his own cum with his fingers and smeared it over your breasts, painting you in it, mixing it with his best friend’s seed until your whole chest was slick with it. He held you there for a moment, painted and panting and caught in the liminal pleasure, before tilting your face up and licking a stripe from your collarbone to your jaw, tongue lazy and flat. Bucky’s mouth found yours, and you tasted the salt of Steve and yourself on his lips. You kissed him like you were dying, and Bucky kissed you back harder, swallowing you whole.

Steve’s voice burrowed into your ear with shocking gravity, arms closing around your limp torso as if to protect you from the world outside this narrow, unrepeatable moment. “You are so fucking beautiful ruined like this,” he said, voice half-reverent.

Bucky’s thumb pressed under your chin, tilting your face: “You want more, don’t you?” You did. That was the devastating truth of it. Even as your body ached and stung from orgasm, you wanted all the ways they touched you, every version of this night.

“Are you sure, Buck?” Steve asked, incredulous.

Bucky’s laugh was a bright, sharp crack in the haze, so full of delight it rang in your bones. “Oh, sweetheart. Steve has no idea what you’re capable of after a few more rounds.”

He bent over you, hands braced by your head, and pressed a kiss to the center of your brow—a benediction at odds with the lazy trail of his hand down your body, cupping your breast, then skimming the mess he and Steve had left there. He rubbed their slick together with an idle curiosity, like a child finger-painting, until Steve’s hand joined his, pinching a nipple between two careful fingers and rolling it until you arched up, spent muscles clenching with electric aftershock.

“We could let her rest,” Bucky said, tongue laving your earlobe as he spoke, “but why waste a perfectly good afterglow when you haven’t even fucked my wife in the shower yet?”

WE ALL KNOW I'M RARELY CAPABLE OF CUTTING SOMETHING DOWN

SO

I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY/RUINED RIGHT ALONGSIDE ME.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

“Sorry!” you squeaked, slapping your hands over your eyes to give your brain a moment to reboot. And your heart a moment to return to its normal rhythm. 

“Don’t be, I’m not,” Steve teased, sending you a wink once you were done hiding and trying not to outright stare at him. “Were you waiting around for me?”

“Yes, actually,” your gaze turned shy now as you fiddled with your fingers, feeling Steve’s eyes on you as he patiently waited for you to broach whatever topic was on your mind. “You know how Jake set aside that money for me?”

“Yeah, you need to access it?”

You nodded, peeking over at Steve. “I’d really like to get some new clothes and essentials. With how quickly everything happened, and just, the craziness of that night, I didn’t do a very good job at packing, and there’s just stuff I need, and want.”

“Hey,” Steve moved across the kitchen, until he was looming over you. His hands felt so big and warm as they cupped your upper arms and gave you a gentle squeeze. “It’s your money, and you don’t need to justify using it. I’ll make sure Jensen sets you up so you have direct access to everything. "I'm sorry I didn’t think of that until now.”

“No, it’s okay! You all have been so generous.” You hesitated, biting your lower lip as your next ask teetered on the tip of your tongue. 

“Go on,” Steve encouraged with a soft smile. “I like when you ask for what you want, when you put yourself first.”

Your belly fluttered before you asked, “Do you think maybe you could take me into town to go shopping for everything I need?”

“Of course. We’ll go today–”

“Well, we don’t have to! I’m sure you’re very busy and–” your words turned into a startled squeak as Steve pressed close and kissed you quiet. 

“I’m never too busy for you,” he murmured, stealing another kiss before pulling away with a grin. “Plus, I think it will be fun–watching you try on a bunch of clothes.” 

Your face warmed as he winked at you, but before you could respond, Lloyd appeared in the doorway, as if summoned by the talk of fashion. 

“Did someone say shopping spree? Count me in,” he declared, dropping his hands to his hips and giving a thrust. 

Steve rolled his eyes as you giggled, and Lloyd shot his superior a glare. 

“You know I have an eye for fashion,” he sniffed. Lloyd’s annoyed gaze shifted to you, and softened. “Come on, pumpkin, you want me to tag along, right? I’m the only one in this house who actually likes to shop. And we’ll get you all dolled up real fast.”

You peeked over at Steve to see if he truly looked put out at the idea of Lloyd joining in on your outing, but he just seemed amused as he met your gaze and gave a small nod. If anything, he liked that you were getting on so well with the team.

“Okay,” you smiled at Lloyd. “It will be fun.”

“You bet your sweet ass it will be fun.”

You were still buzzing from your outing earlier with Steve and Lloyd, your smile so big as you glanced at yourself in the mirror and gave a little spin. Your cute new dress flared out around your thighs, and you laughed, feeling pretty–and much more like yourself than you had in a long time. 

You’d been under your father’s thumb for so long, in every possible way, even when it came to what you wore, that you forgot how freeing–and soothing–it could be to just… be yourself, wear what made you happy and comfortable. 

It seemed such a small, meaningless thing, but you felt so happy in a way you hadn’t in years. 

So you had a little bounce in your step as you made your way to Jake’s bedroom. You were excited to spend some time with him, because out of all of the mercenaries, he seemed the most normal.

Down to earth, sweet, funny. 

Truly, Jake was just the icing on the cake of your already great day. 

You knocked on his door, and barely a second later, it swung open to reveal Jake grinning big and warm, and wearing a t-shirt that looked like a tuxedo. 

“Your shirt is so cute!” you giggled. 

“Thanks!” Jake’s grin widened as he glanced down at himself. “It’s kind of the only way I could get dressed up for you, so much of my stuff is just tac gear or novelty shirts, so…”

“I love it,” you assured him. 

“And you! Wow, you look…wow,” Jake stuttered, his eyes taking their time inching over you as you stood before him, nervously wringing your hands.

“Thank you,” you whispered, biting back a stupid smile as your eyes flickered down to your feet. 

“So, um, come in!” Jake encouraged you as he stepped back and waved you inside his room eagerly. Once you were inside and glancing around curiously, he closed the door behind you both before stepping up beside you, his gaze following to where yours was fixed.

Jake’s room as a whole was tidy, with everything in its place, but it was the small two-seater table across the room that had your eyes lighting up. 

It had been set like at a fancy restaurant; there were lit candles in the center of it, lending ambiance to the room. You weren’t sure what was in the takeout food containers set between the plates and glasses, but whatever it was smelled heavenly and had your stomach growling loud enough to make you cringe in embarrassment. 

“It’s okay,” Jake chuckled, shifting his weight beside you. “I’m starving too. You wanna eat now?”

You glanced over at him, your eyes soft as you nodded, because Jake looked just as nervous–and slightly awkward–as you. As he went to step away, you reached for him, your fingers touching his wrist, and then finding his hand so you could give it a squeeze. 

“Thank you for doing this, Jake, it’s so sweet.”

He blushed from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, shrugging those big, round shoulders of his as he gave you a small smile. “It’s no big deal.”

“To me, it is. You’ve made me feel special.”

“You are special,” Jake returned, his brows furrowed a little, like he thought this truth was the most obvious thing in the world. 

Belly swooping, you followed Jake over to the dinner setup, giggling as he acted the gentleman and pushed in your chair for you before darting over to take his own seat across from you. 

“I hope you like Thai food? There’s this awesome restaurant a few towns over, so that’s what I got for tonight.”

You nodded eagerly, your tummy rumbling again and making Jake laugh. He was quick to serve the food, until both your plates were full and you both dove into your meals, 

chatting in between bites and learning more about each other. 

Jake told you about his sister and nieces that he missed so much, and how he always used to attend all of their soccer games. In return, you told him about your mother, and how helping her in her garden had always been your favorite way to spend time together. 

“I’m sorry you had to leave it behind,” Jake frowned, pushing his now empty plate away. “I bet that was really hard.”

You swallowed against the lump in your throat, mustering a smile and shrug so you didn’t totally kill the fun vibe that had been brewing between you. 

“Hey, I bet one day, you’ll have a new garden–your own garden–and it will be amazing!” Jake smiled, his eyes bright in a way that made you believe that he really did wish that for you. 

“Yeah, I bet you’re right,” you smiled back at him. 

You took a moment to just really take him in. His fluffy hair and bright blue eyes, his handsome features and ridiculously built body. Jake really was so handsome, but it was the kindness in his eyes that kept drawing you gaze again and again. 

It was so strange, that you had spent so much of your life despised for merely existing, and now, you were becoming surrounded by people who seemed to genuinely care for you, who looked at you like you mattered, like they wanted what was best for you. 

It was Jake’s resulting smile that made you realize you were smiling at him like a dope, and you gave an embarrassed, nervous giggle as you plucked your napkin from your lap and set it down beside your finished meal. 

“You know uh…” Jake hesitated, rubbing his hands along his thighs as he sat back in his seat. He was blushing again–rosier than before–as he continued, “We don’t have to, yanno, if you don’t want to.”

“Oh.” You blinked, straightening in your seat as your fingers fell to twist the hem of your dress. “Do you… not want to?”

“No!!” Jake said it so loudly, you both winced. “Sorry. I uh want to. Like, wow do I want to,” he emphasized, making you giggle. “But also, I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything."

Feeling yourself melt at his thoughtfulness, you reached across the table, setting your hand on top of his as you met his gaze and gave him a warm smile. 

“How about we just see where the night takes us? No pressure for either of us.”

“Okay! I’d really like that.”

The two of you moved over to the small loveseat against the far wall, chatting some more. Jake told you how he had joined the team, how he felt like he was making a difference even if most people didn’t know about it, but that he also really missed his family. 

And something about how sad he looked as he muttered that confession had you leaning over and kissing his cheek. 

Jake stilled, turning to look at you with wide eyes, and you found yourself smiling as your gaze flickered to his parted lips, the plumpness of which drew you in closer and closer.

You heard Jake’s breath hitch a second before your lips met his, and then your eyes closed and your pussy fluttered at the guttural groan that rose up at the back of Jake’s throat.  

Something about how careful Jake was with touching you–his hands hesitant to frame your face–and then his thumbs gently gliding back and forth along your cheeks, it made you feel so special, so desirable and wanted. 

It had you clambering into his lap until you were straddling him, and you both pulled away from each other’s mouths long enough to exchange wide-eyed wanting looks before you were sinking into another round of sweet, frantic kisses. 

When you started to rock in his lap, seeking friction, Jake moaned, pulling back and panting as he met your floaty gaze and asked, “You wanna move over to the bed?”

He grinned as you nodded enthusiastically, the two of you nearly tripping over each other in your rush to relocate. You both fell atop the bed together, giggling and breathing heavy as Jake leaned up over you and took a moment to just look at you. 

“God, you’re so pretty,” he murmured, his fingers reaching out to caress along your face. “And so soft. And smell so good.” He ducked lower, tucking his face against the side of your neck and breathing in deep before exhaling a “Hnnngh,” against your skin and making you laugh. 

You continued to giggle as Jake snuffled along your neck, your fingers sinking into his hair, gently stroking the blonde locks as you told him, “You’re very sweet.”

Jake pressed a kiss against the top of your chest before pulling away, his gaze meeting yours–both eager and tentative–as he asked, “Can we take this off?” he tugged at your dress. 

“Of course,” you nodded, the two of you quickly working together to rid you of your new dress. 

“Oh god, boobs,” Jake breathed as his gaze fell to your chest, which was encased by one of your pretty new bras.

He reached for your chest without thinking–his gaze going glassy–and just a beat before he touched you, he remembered himself. Pulling up short, he gave you a sheepish grin as he asked if he could touch you. 

Feeling all fluttery that he was seeking consent, you nodded again, shyness creeping up on you as things got steamier. 

You gasped as Jake groped your tits, his hands so big against your softness, the weight of him settling over you now too as he shifted closer. 

His thumbs caught in the edge of lace cupping you, and he tugged it lower, until your nipples popped free and he could pluck at them, making you gasp and arch up into his touch. 

“This okay?” Jake asked, his voice deeper than before, huskier, as his lust-darkened gaze flickered up to yours.

“Y-yeah,” you trembled, licking your dry lips as you told him, “You can take it off if you want, my bra.”

“Hell yeah I want,” Jake nodded, his hands already moving to slip off the pretty, lacy piece. “Fucccck me, you’re so hot,” he groaned once you were bare save for your cute panties. 

His touch was firmer now as he cupped both your breasts and squeezed until you were gasping and writhing beneath him. When he dropped his head to catch one of your nipples in his mouth, you moaned, spreading your legs and rutting up against Jake’s hips, desperately seeking friction. 

Groaning, he pulled away from your tit with a wet pop before showing the other just as much attention. 

“Jake, please,” you begged, your body nearly vibrating with need now as you pawed at him. 

“Wait, I… there’s something I wanna do first, before we, yanno,” he confessed. 

Pressing your thighs together, you tried not to pout as you asked, “What?”

He blushed so hard, he resembled a tomato, as he asked, “Can I please uh fuck your tits? I just… I’ve always wanted to do that, but always felt weird asking, but you… you make me feel brave.”

“How are you being this sweet right now?” you marveled before reaching for the back of Jake’s neck and yanking him in for a very ardent kiss. “And yes, you can do that,” you whispered, too shy to say it out loud, but your pussy was leaking a small river at the idea of fulfilling one of Jake’s naughty fantasies. 

“You’re the best,” Jake grinned, nearly falling off the bed in his excitement to undress. 

You giggled, reaching out to help steady him, and then your eyes were going wide as dinner plates once Jake was completely naked and you realized just how built he was.  You swore every single one of his muscles was either bulging or defined, his body looking like that of a Greek god as he hovered over you. 

“Wow,” you breathed, reaching out to trail your fingers down Jake’s stomach. “You’re so beautiful, Jake.”

“I am?”

“Yeah,” you laughed, meeting his gaze and giving him a soft smile. “Really, really, really beautiful. Like a work of art.” 

He puffed out his chest, looking very pleased–and genuinely surprised–by your admiration. “Thanks.”

Your fingers kept trailing lower, and you bit your bottom lip as you caressed along the head of his cock, your fingers coming away sticky and covered in his pre-cum. You met Jake’s gaze as you sucked your fingers into your mouth, making a delighted sound at the briny taste of his cream.

“Ohhhh fuck,” Jake grunted, his cock twitching as he dropped a hand to grip himself. “You keep doing stuff like that, and I’m not gonna last long at all.”

“Well then you better hurry up and get to the good stuff, huh?” you grinned at him. 

In the back of your mind, you were surprised at yourself–at how playful you were being, how teasing–but something about Jake made you feel confident. Maybe it was the way he had this genuine air of awe for you–to be with you–but it made you feel sexy. 

And it made you want to make him feel good, too. Really good. 

So you didn’t even cringe or shy away at all as you cupped your breasts and held them together in offering. 

“Ohhh my god, it’s happening,” Jake whispered, his gaze glossing over and his lips parted and he moved to straddle your torso. 

His gasp when he pressed his hard, warm cock between the softness of your tits was so wrecked already that it had you gushing into your panties, squirming beneath him as you stared up and watched–mesmeraized–as Jake began to gently rut against your chest. 

“Oh my god,” he groaned as you pressed your curves around him more firmly, increasing the pressure around his cock, until his head was dropping back in ecstasy, and he lost himself to his pleasure. 

When his tempo increased, his rhythm starting to falter, you found yourself sticking out your tongue, trying your best to catch the flushed, leaking crown of Jake’s cock on his next thrust. 

At the first feel of your tongue lapping at his head, Jake’s eyes shot open, his head darting up, his gaze big and shocked and so turned on as you did it again, then again. 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, you’re gonna make me cum,” he panted, curling over you and gripping the headboard as he stilled. 

“You can,” you told him, “I don’t mind, I want you to.”

“Wanna cum inside you,” Jake whispered, staring down at you in awe. “And I wanna make you cum, too.”

“So do it.” 

Laughing at your cheeky grin, Jake scrambled away from you, then on top of you properly, not even asking–not that you minded–as he yanked off your underwear and carelessly tossed them behind him. 

“Oh, thank god,” he breathed once his fingers dragged along your slit and found you soaked and messy for him. “God, you’re so wet.”

“Well, you put on quite the show, Jakey,” you grinned shyly at him. 

“Yeah?” he looked very chuffed that you found all of this–found him–as sexy as he found you. 

“Mmmhmm, now please, I’m so worked up,” you whined, spreading your legs wider. “I think I’ll cum without any real effort at all.”

“Thank god two point oh, because I’m ready to blow,” Jake laughed, sinking down between your thighs and lining himself up. 

You both moaned as he drove into you slowly. The sharp gasp was spilling past your lips before you even realized it, because Jake was so thick. Like, yes, you had seen he had a very impressive cock, but to feel it inside of you, stretching your inner walls to their limits... 

It had your head falling back on a ragged, “Oh my god!” as Jake finally bottomed out with a primal grunt and a sharp rut for good measure. 

“You feel incredible,” he panted, dropping his forehead to yours. 

You fluttered wildly at his praise, making him moan and rock against you in response.  

“Oh god, I’m really not gonna last, please don’t judge me,” Jake laughed nervously, but he looked a little panicked as his chest heaved and he tried to remain very very still. 

Concentrating less on how desperate you were to cum, and more on Jake–on his momentary insecurity–you opened your eyes and met his gaze without wavering. Cradling his cheek with your palm, you gave him a soft smile. 

“Jake, I never would. You’ve been amazing, in so many ways,” you assured him. “And I’m pretty sure I’ll be right there with you, so, let’s just… do this thing.” 

Snickering, Jake dropped the rest of his weight on top of you, making you murmur in approval as he curled one of his arms over the top of your head and began to fuck you. 

You moaned on his very first thrust, arching up against him as you begged him to go, “Harder, faster, please!”

“Fuck,” Jake groaned, burying his face into the crook of your neck as he started to pound into you. 

You keened as he hit a spot that had your body lighting up in a brand new way, making a choked squeal of a sound as you cried, “Right there, oh my god, please don’t stop!” 

Hnnnghing against your sweaty neck, Jake doubled down, fucking you like you wanted and having enough functioning brain cells left to dig his free hand between your bodies so he could rub your clit to hopefully push you to the edge before he himself fell over it. 

You gasped at the added stimulation, your eyes slamming shut as you felt that delightful build up start deep in your core. 

“Yes, yes, yes!” you chanted, your hips rocking and rising to meet the thrust of Jake’s cock, your words dying away into unintelligible gasps and cries as you got closer and closer to your climax. 

“Oh fuck, oh god, oh fuck, Jesus Christ,” Jake’s string of curses and nonsense, along with the way he was relentlessly plowing into you now, rocking the whole bed as he desperately sought his own orgasm–found so much pleasure in your very willing body–it tipped you right over that glorious ledge. 

You came with a sharp, ragged cry, each and every muscle in your body locking up tight as your pussy went wild–fluttering and clenching so hard it sent Jake rocketing over the edge right after you. 

You were still riding the wave of your pleasure as you felt Jake cum inside you, his spend a thick, warm gush that made you moan and flutter all over again as you squirmed beneath him. 

“Fuccccck,” Jake groaned against your shoulder, his teeth sinking into your skin, not hard enough to cause pain, but enough to have you whimpering and clenching around him until he was babbling as you milked his cock of every last drop of cum. 

The two of you clung to each other tightly, both breathing hard–like you had just run a marathon together–as Jake sank against you, feeling just as boneless as you yourself felt. 

There was a long, pleasant stretch of silence as the two of you took your time coming down from your highs. You were nearly dozing with your lips tilted into an almost smile as Jake nuzzled against your neck, pressing soft kisses to your skin like he was wordlessly thanking you for making him feel so good. 

“I have one more surprise for you,” he eventually murmured, his head popping up as he looked as mussed and wrecked as you were sure you yourself looked right about now. 

“You do?” you smiled like a dope. “I hope it’s close by so we don’t have to move because I don’t think my legs will work after that.”

Laughing, Jake shook his head, pouting a little as he broke the bad news that, “We have to walk just a little, but not far, I promise. And I’ll shoulder your weight so you barely need to walk at all.”

“My hero,” you giggled tiredly, groaning as Jake finally pulled away from you before helping you out of bed. 

You didn’t even feel self-conscious to be naked and leaking his cum, still feeling nothing but giddy and satisfied as you curled close to Jake’s side and allowed him to lead you just a few feet away to the closed bathroom door. 

And when he opened it, he stole your breath away yet again, because awaiting you in the small space was a gorgeous bouquet of flowers on the sink counter, and a bath tub rim decorated with candles and rose petals, setting the mood for what you knew would be a relaxing, luxurious bath. 

“Oh my god, Jake! You’re so sweet! I can’t believe you did this for me!” 

His smile was shy as he led you over to sit on the edge of the tub before kneeling beside it and cranking on the water. You watched as he doctored the steamy rush with a bubble bath that smelled incredible, and once the tub was perfect for soaking, Jake took your hand and helped you settle in.   

“Join me?” you asked hopefully. 

“Actually,” Jake looked the shyest you had seen yet. “If it’s okay, I’d really like to bathe you.”

You blinked at him, your shyness creeping up again at that, but you couldn’t help the small smile that curled your lips as you sank back against the porcelain with a quiet, “Okay.” 

“Yeah?” Jake perked up, looking more hopeful and less shy as you met his gaze. 

“Yeah.” 

Smiling, he settled on his knees, reaching for a colorful loofah and pouring some body wash onto it. “I know I’m not as suave or experienced as the others,” he confessed. “But I just… I want you to feel appreciated. And beautiful, because you are.”

Feeling your belly flutter, you caught Jake’s free hand, twining your fingers together as you replied, “I feel both of those things, Jake, thanks to you.”

And it was the truth. 

You felt beautiful, appreciated, and so very, very cared for as Jake gently began to wash you, looking so focused and intent as he drew the loofah over your skin, and lulled you into a state of utter, boneless bliss.

AHHHH! Jakey! The sinful sweetheart sunshine boi we all deserve!!!! I so hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please take a moment to let me know your thoughts! Also, maybe buckle up for what’s coming up next ::nervous laughter:: 

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Resting against Ari’s warm, solid body, something in you awoke with a need to track. You can’t even say exactly what you were investigating, but your own body followed a ghost of an instinct. 

You leaned more into him, face buried into the crook of his neck as your nose rubbed against his neck. It was as if you were in a trance, needing to take in all of the scent and sate yourself with it similar to the way Ari’s cum placated the burning demands of your womb. 

Scenting. The term comes to you suddenly. 

Ages ago, when the designations were still in full capacity of their traits and instincts, people supposedly smelled in specific ways. Nuzzling into someone’s neck or wrist in chase of that scent was either an invitation to sex, or a way to soothe yourself. It especially worked between Alphas and Omegas. 

But there are no scents anymore; nothing beyond perfume, anyway. Ari doesn’t smell of anything special. Just remnants of sweat, transference of your own body wash, and his typical scent. You didn’t see his bottle of cologne - not that you were looking for it - but whatever he used had distinctive ozone notes. 

And you definitely wouldn’t be seeking comfort in the Alpha who took you so brutally, reshaping your future to his desires. 

You’d expected a lot of things when you agreed your husband’s oldest friend should come spend the holidays with you, but not this: you naked and splayed open, your back against Bucky’s chest, and Steve knelt between your legs, focus absolute as they took you apart.

Bucky’s lips moved against your neck, not quite kissing, hand sliding to cup one aching breast. “You want to feel for the ridge, the soft roof inside. Feel it?”

Steve nodded, learning by the tremors that rippled through you.

And you? You could only moan as his fingers sought a place only Bucky had touched before tonight.

Steve’s breath ghosted along your thigh, cool in comparison to the heat pooling where his fingertips pressed. “Like this?” he asked, looking up, seeking confirmation from Bucky.

Bucky squeezed you, barely-there pressure, his thumb circling your nipple. “Yeah, there—you’ll feel it through the front wall. Little bump.”

Steve slid his fingers deeper, slow and careful, and you arched back against Bucky’s chest. The pressure inside shifted, molten but sudden, and you gasped at the feel of it when he found it—that ridge, the soft roof, as Bucky had described it. Steve’s big hand trembled just a little as he kept it inside you, gentle but greedy, desperate to get it right. The man was as worshipping as he was determined, brow furrowed, lashes dark against his cheek as he mapped each element of your reactions.

And Bucky watched, grinning against your ear, voice thick. “That’s it, Steve. Watch her face, see how her mouth falls open? Touch her there, a tiny bit harder, that’s it, yeah.”

He kept the pressure steady, calloused thumb skating circles over your clit while his fingers pressed up, learning you, working with the careful tenacity he applied to every complex operation.

Bucky’s own hand drifted lower, his touch rough at your hip, a grounding force. You couldn’t move if you’d wanted to, pinned between them, the air thick with sweat and something like ozone.

You bucked, pulse thumping in your throat, teeth gritty against a whimper. Steve’s eyes flicked up again, shining, hungry, and your swore you might come just on the taste of his focus. With every press against that spot, your vision stuttered out, blinking in firework-bright bursts.

Bucky’s voice pressed into the shell of your ear, low and lazy, but with that hint of command that still managed to thrill you, even after all these years. “She’s real sensitive right there, Steve. Just steady. Keep the rhythm—yeah, just like that.”

“Fuck, Buck—she’s gonna—” Steve’s fingers jittered, the tip of his thumb ghosting over your wet clit.

“Let her,” Bucky hummed, open-mouthed over her shoulder. His other hand covered her thigh, holding her so wide the ache felt like a dare. “Make her feel it.”

Steve’s hand was huge, careful, coaxing, until it wasn’t, until the motion grew greedy, needy. You’d never been shy with Bucky, but with the attention of two lovers you felt nearly too open and exposed, nerves sparking along every limb. Bucky’s thumb toyed with your nipple, drawing it taut, while Steve’s fingers pursued your impending orgasm relentlessly.

And the orgasm came with no warning, just an unbearable pressure and then a bright, skittering release, your vision white-out as you shrieked and clamped around Steve’s hand. He nearly lost his balance but Bucky steadied him—steadied you—bracing your shaking limbs as you rode the aftershocks. Even after the pleasure crested, Steve’s fingers didn’t stop. He worked you through every shudder, sucking a breath through his teeth, awed. His voice was a fervent whisper, “Jesus. You—fuck, you look good like this.”

“She always does,” Bucky replied, mouth slick on your jaw, catching the sweat there. “You wanna see her come again?”

Steve’s hand stilled, then slowly slid free, leaving you embarrassingly empty and sticky. He watched you with dazed awe, pink flush climbing from his collar to cheekbones, as if he couldn’t believe the thing he’d just made happen, for you.

“Yeah, I do. Will you let me?” he asked, eyes meeting yours again.

You nodded, voice gone to wool and cotton, incapable of anything but a whispered, “Please.” The word left your lips desperate, high-pitched, a note of wildness that made Bucky’s hand tighten against your thigh, a subtle anchor to keep you from dissolving completely.

Steve’s smile broke open on his face, that cocky little tilt that always got him his way. He ducked down and pressed his mouth to your thigh, some kind of benediction, before giving Bucky a look, a question you weren’t included in: permission, or maybe the next step in instructions. Bucky’s hand still gripped your thigh, and the pressure from his fingertips went from comfort to proprietary.

“Take your time,” Bucky told him, slow as syrup. “She’s got plenty more in her if you work it up right.”

You whimpered, and Steve’s hand found your knee, thumb brushing circles that didn’t seem to know whether they were meant to calm or tease. He spread you even wider, fingers delving again, but now the touch was softer, coaxing in a new way. He watched your face the whole time, never letting you look away, and the sheer heat of his attention made it impossible to catch your breath, impossible to be anywhere but here, between them, for them.

You let your head loll back on Bucky’s chest, and he inhaled you like a secret. Steve’s mouth ghosted over the inside of your knee, the lightest of touches, as his hand slid slick with you, coaxing you open again. There was awe in his expression, like he couldn’t believe the things your body was capable of. That he couldn’t believe you let him see it.

Bucky’s voice was right in your ear, velvet and wicked. “You love this, don’t you? How he touches you, how he looks at you?” His teeth grazed just below your pulse, almost biting, his metal hand now flat and heavy on your soft stomach.

Steve’s mouth found your clit then, hot and wet, and you bit your lip, trying not to break apart too quickly, but Bucky’s other hand snapped up to your chin, forcing your jaw open. He slid two thick fingers into your mouth, muffling your gasps as Steve reached for that place inside you again, a blunt presence that made your hips twitch uncontrollably, mouth kissing and lapping at your clit.

“Be our good girl,” Bucky murmured, voice a velvet drag along your nerves. “Let me hear you, sweetheart.” He pressed your lips open wider, thumb tight on your cheek. Everything about him said claim, but you felt less like territory and more like treasure—something precious they’d both agreed to share.

You moaned and sucked on Bucky’s fingers, desperate for something to hold onto. Steve’s tongue drew slow, wide circles, alternating with little flicks that made you see stars, and every time his fingers curled inside you, you wanted to shake apart. Bucky’s hand pressed at the base of your throat, a leash without pressure, just a reminder of where you belonged.

Steve’s tongue moved with a rough, hungry precision that made your lashes flutter, the strangeness of his mouth—different than Bucky’s, somehow broader and needier—forcing you up against the edge of your own appetite. He groaned into you, animal, and the vibration made your toes curl as your hips bucked, seeking more, seeking everything.

The sound of you—wet and needy—filled the room, obscene, and Steve was impossibly focused. You could feel the shift as Steve’s mouth grew unabashed, each lap and suckle more confident. He lapped greedily, not just at your clit but at the desperate, shuddering noises you made, feeding on them, letting them escalate him past any feigned self-control.

Bucky murmured filth in your ear. “Such a pretty thing, all open for Steve. He’s a fast learner, isn’t he?” His fingers slipped from your mouth, gliding down to squeeze your breast with proprietary delight. “Sensitive here, too, Steve. She likes it just a little mean when you bite.”

Steve’s lips left your cunt, replaced by the blunt, perfect drag of his teeth—just a graze, but amplified by the velvet heat radiating between your thighs. The wild sound you made told him everything he needed. He grinned, eyes bright, and gave you another drag with his tongue and the barest scrape of teeth. Your legs shook, clamped for a second around his broad shoulders as he tormented you, licking through the slick he’d made.

“She’s right there,” Bucky insists, “but don’t let up.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, chest heaving, as Bucky’s words poured through you, making it impossible not to want to give him everything, even the parts you thought you’d never let anyone else but him see. He tugged his hand from your mouth, and you gasped, “I’m close, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Bucky coaxed, hand splayed again over your breast, pinching and then soothing. “Let him taste it. Let him taste everything.” He nuzzled the space behind your ear, catching the lobe between his teeth, a punctuation to his demand.

Steve’s hand, meanwhile, never stopped mapping you. His thick fingers curling again against that spot inside, a squirming, irresistible pressure, while his mouth closed around your clit and sucked, hard, and the world melted into a soundless scream in your throat. You bucked up, hands grasping at Bucky’s biceps, and came again, hard enough you thought you might black out.

This time Steve didn’t bother with awe, only a growl of triumph and gratitude as he licked you through every convulsion, not stopping until your thighs trembled against his head and Bucky had to murmur, “Enough, big guy, you’ll melt her.”

You didn’t remember the transition—somewhere in the haze of pleasure, Steve had shifted you onto his lap, his cock thick and leaking, pressed impossibly hard against your hip. Bucky sat facing you both on the foot of the bed, blue eyes greedy and soft at the same time, mouth slack with want. Steve held you to his chest, the thrum of his pulse wild and loud beneath your palm.

“Fuck, honey, you alright?” Bucky asked, thumb brushing along your jaw. You only nodded, eyes glassy, limbs a little insubstantial.

“She gets real soft after she comes,” Bucky explained. His metal hand stroked your cheek, thumb scraping your parted lip. “Steve, you ever eat a girl out til she can’t think straight, and then fuck her so good she gets slick again just from the memory?”

Steve’s gaze flicked down to your face, as if he needed to check in, as if the rules of this odd, shared gravity could change at your whim. But you only leaned harder into his chest, the memory of Bucky’s words blooming low in your gut. “Not like this,” Steve said quietly, the confession tumbling out like an apology. “Never had someone so slick and eager and pliant. She’s so fucking sweet.”

“She likes making a mess, especially when she knows someone’s gonna clean it up nice for her.”

It was obscene and beautiful in the same breath, the way your body pulsed and ached for these two men. You knew Bucky intimately, but Steve was still a new entity, it should be unbelievable what you were letting him do to you, and yet you were willing because Bucky said you could be.

“You wear her out, and she lets you do anything you want.” Steve pressed his lips to your temple, the gesture as tender as a prayer, but you could feel the tension in his body—like he was holding himself back as much as he was holding you up.

“Do you want him to fuck you?” It was as blunt as a knife’s edge; Bucky never did like to leave things to implication.

You meant to say yes, steeled and confident, but the only sound you could make was a whimper. Bucky grinned. “Use your words, honey. Steve’s been waiting a long time.”

Steve’s hands tightened on your hips. “Since your wedding,” he confessed, and you gasped.

Bucky nodded, proud, calm, even though this revelation was ricocheting through your mind. Steve had been overseas for years until just recently, and of course he hadn’t missed his best friend’s wedding—had been the best man—but it had also been the first time you’d met him.

You remembered the speech, the toast. Steve smiling at you across a room of strangers, nothing but friendship and pride in his voice, but now you wondered how long he’d been drinking you in, how long he’d been simmering in this kind of want.

You also remembered—vivid as if it bloomed on the backs of your eyelids—the way Steve’s eyes had lingered at the reception, how his hand seemed to swallow yours when he shook it, holding on a beat too long. You’d caught him watching you and Bucky slow dancing, his smile softer than it ought to have been, heavy with yearning. At the time you’d wondered if maybe he was just that kind of romantic, or maybe a little lonely after so much time away.

But now that memory rewrote itself, charged and electric, searing through you as Steve took your chin in his hand and kissed you—soft at first, learning the taste of you. His mouth tasted like you, and you shivered, deep in your bones, at being desired by these two men.

Bucky reached for you, steady hands bracketing your thighs, and you sank back against Steve’s chest. Your husband ducked lower, pressing a line of kisses from your hip bone to the soft, over-sensitive spot at the seam of your thigh.

You shivered as Bucky trailed his tongue through the wetness Steve had left behind, mouth hungry and reverent. He licked slowly, then nosed at your clit, already swollen and sore from Steve’s attention, and the jolt of sensation made you gasp into Steve’s mouth. He devoured your sounds greedily, tongue parting your lips as if he needed to taste how undone you were.

Bucky’s tongue was firmer than Steve’s, more insistent, and when he flattened it against you and sucked, you felt every vibration in your teeth. You whimpered into Steve’s kiss, and he swallowed the noise, hands squeezing your hips as you rolled against the heat of Bucky’s mouth, your body burning, melting, until there was nothing left but sensation.

You weren’t sure Bucky’s mouth could ever be called gentle, but right now it was a new kind of slow, each lap deliberate, stroking the sharp edge of oversensitivity and coaxing pleasure out of it until your eyes watered. Steve’s hand wound into your hair, guiding your head back against his shoulder, and you let him, lost in the heat radiating from both their bodies.

“She’s shaking,” Steve whispered, awe thick in his voice.

“She knows what she likes,” Bucky replied, voice muffled between your legs. His metal hand dug into your thigh, cool and greedy, while the other traced lazy patterns over your ribs, drawing your skin tight with anticipation for what would come next.

Bucky pulled his mouth away with a slick, obscene sound, smirking up at you. “You ready for cock?” he asked, and this wasn’t an idle question. Bucky wanted you to say it, wanted you to beg for it. Steve’s cock pressed up under you, thick and hot, and you could feel how desperate he was for it. You were too.

“Yes,” you said, or maybe just moaned it, letting your knees fall as wide as Steve and Bucky wanted them. “Yes, please.”

“Fuck, she’s polite,” Steve mumbled, hands already guiding you up, shifting you onto your knees, palms bracing the mattress as Bucky moved to the side of you, one hand fisting his own stiff cock, the other smoothing down your back and skimming over your ass. You could feel Steve’s cock, hot and insistent, nudging between your thighs.

“She likes a full feeling,” Bucky told Steve, the statement an offer and a warning both, and you blinked up at him, swallowing. “When you fuck her, you gotta go deep.”

Steve’s hands caught your hips, palms broad enough to span almost from waist to thigh. There was a reverence in his movements, but also the first hints of impatience—the way his fingers flexed, the way his cock jumped when it brushed against you, smearing precum along the seam of your body. He lined himself up and held, not yet pushing in, and the wait felt like another kind of pleasure, anticipation sharp as a blade.

Your chest seized—with anticipation or hesitation, you weren’t sure—as you realized Bucky was going to let Steve fuck you bare.

“He’s a big one, sweetheart,” Bucky warned, and you could hear the grin on his face. He planted a hand at the small of your back, keeping your spine bowed. “Nice and slow. She likes to feel every inch.”

You pressed your face into the pillow, bracing for a stretch that came slow and monumental—Steve’s cock parting you, nudging inside until you couldn’t breathe for the fullness, the hot-dull burn that quickly blurred into something sweeter.

“There you go, sweetheart,” Bucky murmured. “Let him all the way in.”

You were so wet he didn’t even need to force it; the broad head split you open easily. You heard Bucky’s purr, almost proud, as if he had made you this way, greedy for the kind of ache only they could give. Bucky loved to torment you with this kind of fuck when he slid inside you, so his direction for Steve to as well was to be expected.

Steve held, fully sheathing himself, body trembling with restraint. “You okay?” The sound of your name was different in his voice, kinder, stripped of any artifice.

You nodded, eagerly pressing your hips back, and the slide hit something deep, a place that made your toes flex and your mouth fall open. Steve’s hands stroked your hips, grounding you, his breath rough as he held as still as he could manage. Bucky’s voice was syrup-sweet at your ear, “Go on, Steve. She wants it.”

The first thrust was a slow, rolling motion that stole your breath. Steve drew out nearly all the way, then slid back in, the burn giving way to a greedy, clutching pleasure. You held perfectly still, squeezing your eyes shut, learning the new shape of yourself with Steve inside you. You keened, knuckles whitening in the bedsheets. Bucky stayed close, palm at the nape of your neck, his own cock hard and leaking, pressed to your shoulder as he watched Steve fuck you.

“She takes cock so well, doesn’t she?” Bucky crooned, his tone barely above a purr. “Bet you never seen anyone so hungry before.” His metal hand traced your spine, ratcheting the tension higher as he pet you and praised you, the words a molten thread tangled through every harder, deeper thrust. Steve’s hips pistoned slow, but with such force you swore you could feel it in your throat, each time catching a spot Bucky had mapped just for him.

Steve’s rhythm was a miracle of endurance, slow and deep, every thrust measured, watched, almost academic in its hunger. His hands never stopped moving, stroking your waist, your belly, your ribs, learning every inch of you as if he needed to memorize the route. His hips stuttered occasionally, evidence of his own struggle not to lose himself too quickly to the wet heat you offered him.

And he whispered your name between every other breath, like a vow, like he was kneeling in church.

Bucky’s hands grew rougher on you, easing your thighs farther apart, planting dirty encouragements in your head that made you slicker, filthier than before. “You should see her face, Steve. She’s so beautiful right now.”

Bucky coaxed your head up and to the side so Steve could see the exact, filthy pleasure contorting your features. And you felt it, the slide of your own tears, half-joy and half-overwhelm, as Steve picked up the pace, his thrusts deeper, harder.

Bucky wiped a tear from your jaw with his thumb, then sucked it into his mouth. “So beautiful when you’re ruined like this.”

Steve’s fingers dug into your flesh, and you could feel how close he was to letting go of decorum, of caution, of the last rags of self-control. You wanted it. You moaned for it. Your head swam with the ache of being so fucking full, of being seen and used and loved all at once.

“Not gonna last,” Steve groaned, the confession breaking at the seam. “Feels—fuck, Bucky, how do you keep your head—”

“I don’t, punk. That’s why I always make her come first.” Bucky’s laugh was sharp and breathless, the sound of a man profoundly in love with his own wife. He trailed a hand down your front, fingers gliding over the slick mess Steve had made of you. “And always make it up to her after, too. She loves that part too.”

Bucky’s hand found your clit, thumb and forefinger pinching, rolling it just this side of cruel, and you yelped, the sudden spike of pain-pleasure a match to the fullness Steve was feeding you, and your whole body shuddered. Bucky laughed—warm and wicked—and reached down, fingers sliding through the mess of slick and sweat and precum at the seam where Steve’s body split yours, then smeared it over his own cock.

He pumped himself once, twice, eyes locked on where Steve’s body met yours, and you watched, unabashedly.

Bucky leaned forward, mouth hot at your jaw. “You want me to fuck your mouth while Steve fucks you?”

The question, blunt and bright, sliced through your haze. You nodded, desperate, and Bucky grinned, wolfish. He pressed his thumb to your lips, smearing the taste of yourself across them, and then shifted around in front of you, kneeling up so his cock bobbed level with your mouth. It was already slick, the head flushed dark, and you opened for him automatically, tongue out, dutiful and greedy all at once.

“That’s my girl,” Bucky breathed, sliding in slow, letting you feel the heft of him as Steve’s cock ground into your cunt from behind. You could barely spare the coordination to suck and moan at the same time, the boundary between pleasure and humiliation dissolved.

Your throat worked, helpless, as Bucky fucked your mouth in shallow, reverent thrusts, and your jaw burned with the effort of taking him as deep as he wanted. He pulled back every time you gagged, not to spare you, but to watch the string of spit connect your lips to the tip of his cock. You blinked up at your husband, tears streaming freely now, and saw how it undid him—made him thrust a little deeper, fuck your mouth a little harder, hands cradling your jaw, both anchoring and guiding you.

“Pretty thing,” he muttered, almost gentle, “look at you. That’s it. Just like that. God, Steve, you’re going to love fucking her throat.”

“Buck, you can’t just—” Steve had to groan before he could finish his thought. “You can’t just say shit like that and expect me to last.”

You moaned, mouth full of Bucky and body full of Steve, your whole self strung taut between their appetites. The rhythm between Steve’s hips behind you and Bucky’s in front of you a terrifying, perfect sync.

Bucky smirked, thumb wiping spit from your chin, then dragged it down to your throat, pressing lightly so you felt the stretch of yourself inside. “Bet you want him in your mouth right after he fills you up, don’t you?” Bucky’s voice was honey-thick, tugging need like a thread from your cunt all the way up to your brain.

You nodded, desperate, and that was all it took—Steve’s grip on your hips locked down, his pulse a wild thrum against your skin, and he buried himself in you with one last, shuddering thrust. You could feel it, the way he pulsed and spilled hot inside, and the sound he made—it was raw, almost animal. He held inside, grinding so deep you felt it all the way up your spine, filling you so perfectly a whimper broke loose from your lips even with Bucky’s cock still in your mouth.

Bucky eased out of your mouth, palm still warm against your jaw, thumb stroking where his cock had just been. He grinned at you, all sweet-and-mean, then leaned in to press a kiss over your spit-slick lips. “That’s it,” he whispered, reverent, like he was kissing holy ground. “That’s my good girl.” The words landed low in your belly, twisting up with the mess Steve had left in you.

But his cock was still inside you, too, and he collapsed forward, chest to your back, his arms caging you in. You expected him to pull out, to give you a moment to recover, but instead he rocked his hips, slow and greedy, as if he couldn’t bear to lose the feeling of you squeezing around him.

And then, without warning, his hand slid under your belly, fingers finding your clit, already swollen and overstimulated. He drew tight, precise circles with the pads of first two fingers, not letting up, even when you whined and squirmed beneath him. Bucky’s hands held you steady, anchoring you so Steve could play your body like an instrument.

The friction was so good, so dirty, that your cunt clamped around him involuntarily, milked every last drop as Steve’s fingers worked you up again, your body already betraying just how ready it was to be used a second, third, hundredth time.

“Fuck, she’s insatiable, isn’t she?” Steve said, voice almost fond, the sound of it a pressure at the base of your skull.

“She’s always been that way,” Bucky answered, a frayed thread of pride winding through his voice. “After the serum, I never met a partner who could keep up with me until her. Like you were made for a super soldier, sweetheart.”

You laughed, or tried to, but it came out a shaky, desperate gasp as Steve’s fingers wrung another whimper from you. Your knuckles dug into the sheets, the only tether as your overstimulated clit set off sparks behind your eyes. “Bucky,” you croaked, barely audible, “I can’t—”

“You can, honey. You’ll show Steve just how much you can take.” His gaze was intent, and for a moment you remembered every night the two of you had built trust on, every whispered dare and secret need he’d coaxed from you, every time he’d made you shatter and put you back together.

You barely had time to brace—Steve’s closed closed hard and firm around your clit, pinching, sending a lightning bolt through you, and as your body seized, his mouth found the meat of your shoulder and bit down. Not a warning, not a tease—a real goddamn bite. It ricocheted up your spine and detonated any coherence you had left. Your vision went blinding white, then red, and you screamed, nails gouging at the mattress, his hardening cock still buried so deep inside you it felt like you were cleaved in half.

The orgasm hit different—shocking, jagged, beyond pleasure and into a place that was just sensation, raw and total. You were crying, you realized, drool and tears tracking down your chin, but you couldn’t stop, couldn’t get enough, not even when the world blurred and your whole midsection pulsed around Steve’s cock, milking him for everything he had.

Bucky held your gaze the whole time, watching you unravel, watching every second of you coming apart for his best friend.

“Never gets old,” Bucky said, voice ragged with want, “seeing you come apart.” He stroked your hair, gentling you even as Steve’s cock kept you pinned and shuddering.

Steve pulled out, finally, leaving a slick trail down your thigh, and you expected collapse—rest, maybe, or at least a breath of air.

You got part of what you wanted as you were manhandled with a gentle efficiency—Steve lowering you to the mattress and Bucky rolling you over onto your back. The two men bracketed themselves around you. Bucky’s thumb smoothed tears from your cheeks, his lips hovering at your brow. Steve’s palm swept your hair from your face, tucking the wild strands behind your ears, and he smiled at you, dazed and open and deeply, deeply gone himself.

“You okay?” he asked, voice so hoarse you wanted to laugh, if only you didn’t feel so utterly wrung dry.

Bucky’s hands mapped your body, stroking down your arms, your waist, as if to collect every piece of you that had scattered. “She’s perfect. She’s got a thing for being ruined,” Bucky said, rubbing his thumb hard across your jaw, “but it’s more than just the mess. It’s being wanted, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

You trembled, the answer right there but too big for your mouth. All you could manage was a soft, but firm, “It’s both.”

It was. The ache between your legs, the aftershocks twitching in your thighs, crescendoed in the knowledge that you belonged—here, between them—because you were wanted. Not just by Bucky, whose love for you was a still wildfire after the first few years of the life you were building together, but by Steve, the last person you ever expected to want anything at all.

They held you in the perfect kind of silence for a while. Bucky stroked your sternum with two fingers, tracing the rapid pounding of your heart, while Steve drew lazy patterns on your ribs, the gentle touch making your bones melt.

Steve was the one who broke the silence, voice still thick and slow. “I’m sure Bucky’s told you how everything feels amplified for us, after the serum?”

You nodded, not trusting your voice, but Steve caught your chin and made certain you were listening, blue eyes intent on the fall and rise of your chest. He thumbed the corner of your mouth, gentle in a way that didn’t match the bite mark blooming on your shoulder. “It’s true. Everything’s hotter, sharper. Smells, tastes, touch.” His hand wandered down your neck, tracing the chain of your pulse. “It’s like all the dials turned up past what they’re supposed to do.”

Bucky grinned, mouth curving against your temple, proud and a little feral. “It’s why we’re so good at this,” he said, and the “we” wasn’t just the two of them, but you too, looped into their satisfaction by being the one they found satiation with.

You remembered, dimly, what Bucky had once told you—something about how pain and pleasure were just colors in a spectrum for men like them, how sometimes the best you could do was grab hold of the brightest one and hang on until it faded.

You barely noticed when Bucky’s hand slid lower, two fingers sliding along the seam of you, dipping just inside. You’d thought you were emptied out, rung dry, but the dull ache at your entrance proved otherwise—the evidence of Steve inside you, the slow ooze of it, making your lashes flutter in a way that felt almost innocent.

“You want to keep going, honey?” He asked because this—the consent, the agency—was one of the roots of his pleasure. You nodded again, too spent for speech. “Yeah, you do,” he murmured, pressing his own cock flush against your thigh, hot iron against soft flesh. “And you want Steve to watch, don’t you?”

The way Bucky framed it, you didn’t just want to perform, to be seen—you wanted to be worshipped, to be watched while your body proved itself again and again. There was no performance anxiety; there was only the heat of two impossible men zeroed in on every twitch of your muscles. You felt your own slick between your thighs, the slow, filthy trickle of Steve’s cum pooling out of you, the ache where you’d been so thoroughly stretched.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky chuckled. “Words.”

You tried to say, “Yes, please,” but it came out as a sigh, and Bucky’s grin only widened.

Steve cradled your head like a priceless artifact, thumb pressing a sleepy circle against your jaw while his gaze moved between your eyes and the place where Bucky’s fingers cupped your cunt. You felt your hips roll up, wanton, trying to keep contact with Bucky’s hand even as he toyed with your entrance but never quite let you have the friction you needed.

“You want to show Steve how we fuck when it’s just you and me in the dark, how well you take me.” A statement, not a question.

“Mmmhmm,” you groaned, and Bucky pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then knelt up, hands guiding your unresisting legs apart. He knelt back on his haunches and pulled your hips close. You heard Steve’s breath stutter at the sight, and it filled you with a greedy, wild pride. Bucky teased the seam of you with the head of his cock, up and down, up and down, making you whine.

At the last moment, Bucky relented and pushed inside, filling you with a swift, brutal thrust that bottomed out in one motion. There was no slow stretch, no easing in—just the violent, relentless press of his cock, and you arched off the mattress with a helpless, desperate moan. Your body was made to take him, every inch of you was slick and trembling, so the pain blurred seamlessly into pleasure and back again until you weren’t sure which you preferred.

He moved slow at first, kneeling above you like a god, letting you feel the thickness of him as he rocked in and out, but it wasn’t long before he found the rhythm he liked—a rough, demanding piston that left you scrambling for breath, for touch, for anything to keep you from coming apart entirely. You felt every ridge and vein, every rutting pound as he chased his own need, each thrust fusing the two of you back together.

All you could do—wanted to do—was take it. The raw, pounding pleasure, the relentless stretch, the feeling of Bucky’s cock rutting into you deeply. You heard yourself sob—and it was not a neat or pretty thing, but a wrecked, raw sound that only made Bucky groan above you. He caught your thighs in his hands, spreading you wider, and you felt the obscene heat of the stretch, the way your cunt seized around him with each battering drive. The slick noise of it—your body, his cock, the fucking mess Steve had left in you—filled the room, a rhythm and a punctuation to Bucky’s breathing as he drove deeper, harder, faster.

Steve’s hand found yours in the sheets. He laced his thick fingers between yours and squeezed, grounding you, letting you feel the reverent awe rolling off him in slow, steady waves. But there was an unmet hunger still lingering there under the surface. You could feel it in the tense of his body next to yours, and when you turned your face, eyes seeking his, he met your gaze without hesitation.

Steve bent to kiss you, and there was no veiling tenderness or shy request for permission. His tongue pushed into your mouth, greedy and wild, tasting the ghost of Bucky on your lips, tasting the salt of your tears. You kissed back with everything you had, drawing another moan from your throat as Bucky pistoned into you, the force rocking your whole body up into Steve’s chest.

Bucky’s thrusts didn’t slacken—they were still relentless, still merciless—but as you and Steve kissed, the tempo oscillated into something deeper, a series of slower,seismic detonations. Each time Bucky bottomed out inside you, he held there, grinding, spine arched, as if the sight of you kissing Steve was as much a pleasure to him as the feel of your cunt squeezing him.

Steve groaned into your mouth, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw, and Bucky’s grip on your thighs tightened, like he needed to stake a claim even as he offered you up. With every new roll of Bucky’s hips, a different noise tore its way out of your throat—some for the pain, some for the pleasure, some for the blissful humiliation of being made a spectacle for their eyes.

“Fuck her mouth, Steve,” Bucky said, a low, hungry rumble.

Steve didn’t hesitate, and it was only for a fraction of a second before he was shifting up, the broad line of his thigh braced alongside your head. His cock was still half-hard, glazed with your slick and his own release. The sight of it, flushed angry-red and wet, made your cunt clench around Bucky. Steve cupped your chin, thumb curling along the hinge of your jaw, and you sucked him into your mouth, the taste salty and obscene.

You groaned around him, lips stretching, tongue flattening under the thick, salty weight. He barely thrust, just eased forward, but the size of him still made your throat protest. Bucky continued his slow, tortruous pace below, watching intently as Steve’s cock parted your lips, and the sight of it—his best friend fucking your mouth while he still pounded into your cunt—nearly undid him, you could feel it in the grip of his hands on your hips.

“Deeper,” Bucky ordered, and Steve obeyed. He slid in, careful but insistent, filling your mouth until you gagged, until your eyes watered anew. Steve slid in, your throat stretched, and the assault of it made you gasp around him, desperate for air, for mercy, for more. Steve petted your jaw, his other hand cupping the back of your head, and for all the brutality of the act there was infinite patience in how he held you there, letting you adjust, letting you learn the unique shape of his need. Somewhere above, Bucky laughed—a single breath of filthy awe, a marvel at the spectacle of you taking both their cocks at once like this.

The taste of Steve’s cum was thick in your mouth, the smell of sex and sweat and ozone burning in your nostrils. You wanted them both to know how much you liked this, how much you needed every inch of what they gave. So you hollowed your cheeks and sucked, rolling your tongue with just enough pressure to see the effect in Steve’s eyes—head thrown back, spine bowed glorious, hand clenching your jaw with a desperation that made you burn with pride.

Bucky’s cock pounded up into you from below, and Steve’s pushed into your mouth from above, and you—pinned, stretched, used—were nothing but bliss. The sensation was a hinge, your body swinging wild between the two of them. You felt the echo of your own heartbeat in your cunt, in your mouth, in every thrum of the mattress and grind of their hips.

Steve’s thrusts grew bolder, and at each push he eased a little deeper, patience thinning as your mouth softened to his shape. His voice, when it came, was raw and rough, “Fuck, fuck, you feel so good—” your name murmured as its own curse when it fell from his lips in this moment.

He spilled his seed down your throat, but not all of it. He pulled out and shot the rest over your breasts, warm rope after rope of it across your heaving chest as Bucky pistoned in even harder, the thudding slap of his hips the only sound in the world.

Bucky slammed harder, harder, until you felt the actual bruise of him inside you, some deep purple echo of the violence. He reached for your clit, pinched, and your body shuddered into another orgasm, spasms wracking you so hard you thought you’d bite your tongue. You moaned so sweet and so ruined as he flew over the edge.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you, a shuddering full-body tremor, and then he was coming, hips jammed flush as he spilled molten and messy into the deepest part of you. His moan was raw, unguarded, and he didn’t let up, kept grinding through every spurt, making sure you took every last drop. The pressure of it set off a chain reaction—your body seized, aftershocks tearing up your thighs and into your belly, squeezing around him in greedy, involuntary pulses.

Bucky’s head dropped back, his jaw flexing as he held your hips pinned. You watched him, glassy-eyed and adoring, as every muscle in his chest locked. “Christ,” he panted, eyes flickering to Steve, “This is unreal.” He pulled halfway out—slow, slow—then pushed in again, a wet, obscene sound marking every inch. “She’s still squeezing me, even after you ruined her.” Bucky’s grin was all teeth, all pride and filth. “Can feel your mess inside her, Steve. So fucking wet she’s dripping down my balls.”

You moaned in the hinge between them, wrung out and wild, as Bucky fucked you through the last quakes and Steve’s hand fanned gently against your throat, thumb pressing the pulse there like he wanted to count your heartbeats—maybe hold them for ransom.

Bucky let out a ragged exhalation and pulled out, the head of his cock dragging on hypersensitive nerves, leaving you gaping and gasping and dripping. Bucky didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction. Instead, he watched the spill with a sick, loving sort of pride, then reached down, scooped his own cum with his fingers and smeared it over your breasts, painting you in it, mixing it with his best friend’s seed until your whole chest was slick with it. He held you there for a moment, painted and panting and caught in the liminal pleasure, before tilting your face up and licking a stripe from your collarbone to your jaw, tongue lazy and flat. Bucky’s mouth found yours, and you tasted the salt of Steve and yourself on his lips. You kissed him like you were dying, and Bucky kissed you back harder, swallowing you whole.

Steve’s voice burrowed into your ear with shocking gravity, arms closing around your limp torso as if to protect you from the world outside this narrow, unrepeatable moment. “You are so fucking beautiful ruined like this,” he said, voice half-reverent.

Bucky’s thumb pressed under your chin, tilting your face: “You want more, don’t you?” You did. That was the devastating truth of it. Even as your body ached and stung from orgasm, you wanted all the ways they touched you, every version of this night.

“Are you sure, Buck?” Steve asked, incredulous.

Bucky’s laugh was a bright, sharp crack in the haze, so full of delight it rang in your bones. “Oh, sweetheart. Steve has no idea what you’re capable of after a few more rounds.”

He bent over you, hands braced by your head, and pressed a kiss to the center of your brow—a benediction at odds with the lazy trail of his hand down your body, cupping your breast, then skimming the mess he and Steve had left there. He rubbed their slick together with an idle curiosity, like a child finger-painting, until Steve’s hand joined his, pinching a nipple between two careful fingers and rolling it until you arched up, spent muscles clenching with electric aftershock.

“We could let her rest,” Bucky said, tongue laving your earlobe as he spoke, “but why waste a perfectly good afterglow when you haven’t even fucked my wife in the shower yet?”

WE ALL KNOW I'M RARELY CAPABLE OF CUTTING SOMETHING DOWN

SO

I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY/RUINED RIGHT ALONGSIDE ME.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

There are eighty-six people in attendance at the rooftop restaurant, and you are only sure you know the names of maybe a third. The rest are here because of Andy—to witness or test alliances, play in the ongoing power games, weigh old debts or new risks. It’s the rehearsal dinner for one of Boston Mafia’s elite, so the guest list was meticulously refined for Andy’s part. Yours as well, but not with the same intent or stakes to be considered.

Andy doesn’t own Contessa—the restaurant atop The Newbury Hotel—but he does own the hotel, so it was seamless for your team to arrange this part of the wedding nuptials there. While you and Andy aren’t having a full society affair wedding with all the bells and whistles and three or four days of events and traditions, you do have few significant event pieces woven into the wedding weekend, this being one of them. No one had asked you what to include, but you were part of the overall conversations, and if there had been anything you truly wanted to refuse, you think you might have been able to say so. But your team knows you well enough to create elements you appreciate.

And, annoyingly, so does Andy.

The room is a riot of velvet and silk and black wool, the exact social armor you expect at a pre-wedding gathering of this sort. And yet you can tell this doesn’t scream mafia to the people who don’t know the predators they’re intermingling with. It’s all too reminiscent of how you dismissed the barely-hushed rumors of Andy Barber’s potential connections before he revealed he was one of the kings of organized crime in the city. And for the sake of your parents, your friends, your family, you’re relieved and hope they remain ignorant.

Tonight will be a monumental tell for the future and whether or not you can pass, or rather, who you have to be while passing. You scan the clusters of guests and realize you should have always been able to spot true mafia at ten paces, even when they’re disguised as board members and development officers and venture capitalists. There’s a particular gravity, neither ostentatious nor shy. Men in Brioni suits who know how to vanish into the background, women with hair so immaculate it could have been sculpted from silk.

Andy’s hand has been heavy at the small of your back most of the evening, and it’s somehow almost comforting, an anchor. Occasionally you feel his thumb graze the bare inch of spine between velvet and skin, a touch so subtle it’s only for you.

You look across the room and spot your parents lingering near a tray of passed champagne, your mother straightening the lapels of your father’s jacket with the hopeless affection of people who have been married long enough to know that preening is just another form of devotion. Your mother’s dress is a shade of navy so dark it reads black, and your father looks as if he was born inside a suit, so naturally does this one fit him.

Suddenly Thea is in front of you, plucking a glass of champagne off a passing tray and handing it over, flanked by your other two other bridesmaids. Thea gives you a once-over, and says, “You look like a goddess, a terrifyingly pretty one.” You mutter a thank you, and Thea rolls her eyes. “Please pretend you believe it, just a little bit. You’re a gorgeous bride-to-be whether you want to be or not.”

She’s the only one who knows about your hesitations, and even then you’ve only indulged a fraction.

She winks at Andy, linking her arm through yours. “I’m stealing your fiancé.”

He smirks. “At least you're conceding she’s mine.”

“You wish,” Thea replies, and with a toss of her hair of her shoulder, she leads you away.

The entire evening is a kind of lucid dream. Greetings, handshakes, hugs, careful double-cheek kisses dispensed by those in attendance as you circulate the room. In reality there was no rehearsal for tomorrow’s ceremony, tonight it is merely a small gathering staged for … well, from what you gather, for the sake of it. For those closest to you, it’s to keep up the illusion that this is a wedding you want. For Andy’s world, it seems to be a necessary ritual to confirm the ranks of his order—his trusted soldiers and a handful of his choice allies.

You don’t register that your uncle Rob isn’t there until suddenly he is, and by then, the room has already begun the low-pressure phase transition from cocktails to dinner. The movement is organic—someone dims the lights, the waiters begin the subtle herding, and you are being gently, almost imperceptibly, shepherded toward the long, low banquet table at the far end of the room.

You are halfway to your seat, with Thea close behind and Andy once again at your side, when the double glass doors at the restaurant’s entrance hiss open and Rob strides in, in a full three-piece suit and with the off-kilter swagger of someone who seems to have truly rushed directly from the airport. He gives you a nod and a warm smile, though even at this distance you note it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

You wave him over, ignoring the subtle tightening of Andy’s hand on your hip. Rob moves quickly across the room to you, and immediately drops a palm on your shoulder, squeezing—warmth, family, genuine affection. “Am I horrifically late or just fashionably disruptive?” he asks, and before you answer, he’s already deflecting. “You look tired but good. He treating you right?”

Your uncle’s gaze bores into yours for a half-second, searching for something reassuring. You nod and give him a smile. He softens, but only infinitesimally.

“Uncle Rob, this is—”

“Andy Barber,” he supplies, and his gaze flicks to your fiancé, settling there a half-beat too long, cataloging him. You don’t know what’s transpired between them, but you sense something clearly has as there’s a palpable undercurrent, like two strong magnets meeting, neither yielding.

Uncle Rob gives Andy a stiff nod, but Andy merely meets the moment with an open hand. You sense the silent exchange—neutral ground, white flag for tonight, or maybe just a kind of mutual agreement not to detonate inside a room full of witnesses.

It feels strange, but it’s only another line on the list of things that aren’t normal for this entire affair. The exchange goes unnoticed by nearly everyone else since all in attendance are finding their seats, and Uncle Rob falls in among them and takes his assigned seat by your parents.

The food is dazzling, course after course in small, perfect compositions. You try to taste things, to remember flavors, but you are more conscious of the shifting dynamics around you. You are aware of Andy’s hand ever present—on your knee, tracing patterns on your arm, once just lightly gripping your wrist as if keeping you tethered to the table, to himself. You wonder if it’s meant to keep you under control, but the gesture genuinely feels more like reassurance than possession tonight.

Flanked by Andy on your left and Thea on your right, both seem engaged in a subtle contest to out-maneuver each other in their attempts to manage you. Sometimes it’s by steering the conversation, sometimes by way of silently passing you the better part of a shared dish, with Thea by gambling how much she can make you laugh given the current company and whether the moment is suitable for choking on your wine. You’re not sure if you resent this orchestration or if it’s a balm. Maybe both.

At intervals, you glance over at Uncle Rob. The smile he flashes the room is the same as ever, but his eyes seem to rove the room, always taking stock, never fully at rest. He watches Andy most of all, the way a hunter watches a rival predator—admiring and calculating, never blinking outright. At one point, your eyes meet and Rob lifts his glass in a toast, not quite a salute, but you feel the force of the message: he’s here, for you, and he’s not leaving until he’s sure you’re safe. He’s always been more protective of you than anyone else in the family, but this seems more intense, even for him.

Halfway through the meal, Andy excuses himself to confer with two men in dark suits who materialize at the edge of the room, and you find yourself, for the first time all evening, feeling alone at the lack of him. Thea leans in. “You doing okay?” she whispers, but with a smile on her face so it reads as idle gossip.

“It feels like someone else’s wedding,” you mutter back. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

She gives you a look that is both knowing and impossibly gentle. “If you want to run, just say the word. I have five hundred dollars in cash and a getaway Prius, and that’s enough to get us at least to New Hampshire before anyone notices.”

You snort-laugh, a little louder than you meant to, and feel lightheaded for an instant. There is some relief in naming it, even as a joke, even though you don’t question she’s serious about the Prius and the cash.

There is a moment, a half-second, a single synaptic twitch, in which you consider the offer or vanishing into an Uber for Logan Airport. But the urge passes. You already jetted away once and came back.

And that coming back was your choice.

It doesn’t make sense to escape again now.

The rest of dinner passes in a spiral of rich food and laughter that from most people seems to be unforced. Andy returns, all courteous apologies, and places his warm palm on your back again as if plugging back into a vital organ. He leans in and presses a kiss to your temple, his voice pitched only for you. “I’ll need to disappear for a bit after dessert. Business.” He says it lightly, but the tension is a wire behind each syllable. You nod, and at the same moment he gives your leg a squeeze under the table, as if to say: Don’t worry, I’ll be back. For you. Always that emphasis.

When the meal ends, the room doesn’t thin so much as it condenses. People abandon their seats in favor of looser, more volatile clusterings near the bar or moving out onto the balcony. You sense the shape of the next hours—a kind of shadow afterparty, drinks and ritual toasts and the swerve toward dysfunction that all close social gatherings eventually take. Andy fields a last volley of congratulations, then gives you a look that says thirty seconds, and moves toward a private door near the kitchen, shadowed by his men. You watch him go, feeling again the negative space at your side.

It’s at this point that your uncle finds you again.

“You sure about this?” he murmurs, like you’re trading nuclear secrets instead of making polite familial small talk at your rehearsal dinner. “Not too late to call it off.”

You set your jaw, then, because the answer is yes. Or as close to yes as you’ll ever have. If there’s a question curled up in the base of your spine, it’s quieter now—not gone, but quelled by Rob’s questioning.

You find yourself saying, “I’ve made my decision.”

Uncle Rob’s expression is unreadable, then softens just enough to let a sliver of affection through. “Your folks are damn proud. Just so you know. You do know that, right?”

You give half a shrug and a nod.

“And you know that you can always come to me, for anything.”

“Even ashes and body disposal?” you ask, letting a smirk break through the anxiety. He huffs a laugh, but you can see he’s not disarmed by it, not really.

“Especially that,” he says. But then, gentler, yet more serious, he says, “You ever want out, you just say so. Don’t matter what anyone else wants, least of all him. You come to me. You hear?”

You nod, only then realizing, “You know who he is.”

He nods and knocks his glass lightly against yours. “I’m only a phone call away. Fuck the protocols.”

You don’t know exactly what his ties to Andy’s underworld are, or how long he and Andy may have known each other, but some unexplained parts of Uncle Rob’s past make a whole lot more sense if he’s involved with the mafia. You imagine the more you trace back, the more certain absences and behaviors could ultimately be explained.

You don’t allow yourself to ask the next rush questions assembling in your mind. Instead, you clink glasses with Rob again, and when Thea reappears at your side, he makes an excuse and fades back into the crowd. You watch him go, feeling heavier and lighter at once.

“You want air?” Thea asks, as if the answer could ever be no.

Out on the balcony, you stand at the stone parapet for a while, each of your with a glass in hand, the city shining beneath you. Over the railing, half the Back Bay looks like a jewelry case, all neat squares and gold filigree light.

Thea tips her chin out into the dark. “So what’s it like standing up here, knowing you’re about to be a married woman?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a nervous tickle in your chest. “About the same as it is being an unmarried one, only with more witnesses.”

You expect her to laugh, but instead she fixes you with a sly, assessing stare. “He scares me a little, you know,” she says, so matter-of-fact it undercuts any drama. “Not for anything he’s said or done. More in the way those security guys all treat him like he’s royalty. Which, I guess, he basically is, right? Mafia royalty?”

You hesitate, glass at your lips. Did you ever say it to her? You don’t think you did, because you went to Stockholm on the heels of signing the pre-nup which included the NDA elements… You race back through every conversation, every running-on-fumes phone call, and there’s nothing you can recall that would have spelled it out. But your silence lingers half a second too long.

Thea’s face splits in a grin that’s bright and wolfish at the edges. “I KNEW it,” she crows, as if you’ve just confirmed a conspiracy theory about the moon landing. “Oh my god. I knew it. I KNEW IT! Don’t even try to deny it.”

You gawk. “What are—how did—”

You try to look innocent, but Thea is already cackling, delighted with herself, her elbows resting on the parapet like a triumphant detective. “Please,” she says, waving her hand at the party inside, “He’s waaaaaaaaay too rich, I’ve read way too many mafia romance novels, and you had a security detail when you visited me in Stockholm using his private jet. I was 99% sure, and your hesitation there hesitation gave me the last percent.”

You consider protesting, but technically you’ve broken nothing in the contract, and the fact that your best friend knows—that anyone knows—feels like an instant balm.

You clamp a hand on Thea’s wrist. “Promise me you won’t say a word. Seriously. Not to a soul. I mean it. Not a joke, not even a whisper or a meme reference.” There’s an urgency in your voice, and Thea, reading the shift instantly, sobers.

The brightness in her eyes dims by an iota, the seriousness of your tone cutting through the fizz of her delight. She nods, solemnly, and you know that as cavalier as she can sometimes be, she doesn’t question the gravity of your insistence. “I won’t,” she vows, putting her hand over yours.

In the shared silence, you feel her searching your face for something she doesn’t want to say. You let the air prickle between you, each steadying the other just by being present, until Thea finally asks, “Does he make you happy?”

You don’t answer, not at first. You stare into the bright helix of city lights and let the question slide down your spine and settle into your gut. You want to say yes, or even no, anything definitive, but instead you just tell her, “He makes me feel alive,” and hope she hears the ambiguity for what it is.

She nods, lips pressed together. “I’m still not sure why you’re doing this, but I will admit that even though I still have questions, one of those questions is not how much that man cares for you.”

Thea fixes you with a look so curious and gentle it makes you want to squirm out of your skin. “It doesn’t look like any love story I’d picture for you,” she says. “It’s not the type people write poems about or that you see on Pinterest boards. I don’t even know that it’s love, but it’s definitely fierce, and runs deep.”

“Thea,” your voice is a little choked.

“He looks at you like you’re the last thing on earth he thinks is worth burning for.” She shrugs and takes another sip of her champagne. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s true.”

You’re grateful, even if you can’t manage the words to say so outright. Thea is one of the few souls you trust without hesitation in this world. You study her face in the city-dark, finding closeness there that reminds you, with a pang, of who you were before all this.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you say. You mean it harder than it sounds.

Thea bumps shoulders with you. “I’d literally stand in front of a bullet for you.” She glances toward a distant rooftop bar, probably scouting for snipers. “Metaphorically, but also probably literally.”

You stay there together a little longer, the gentle thrum of summer and the humid glow from the party behind you, breathing easier for the reminder that not all loves are fairy tales, that some are knife-edges, and open secrets, and best friendships.

Shep slides out the glass door with the hush of someone practiced in not disturbing an armed perimeter. He doesn’t interrupt, just drifts into the range of your awareness and waits. When you finally realize on a conscious level that he’s there, turning your head and giving him a small, tight-lipped smile, he says, “Time to make our exit, if you’re ready.”

There’s a quiet emphasis on the word “our,” and you realize how long you must’ve been out here.

“Where’s Andy?” You look over his shoulder, expecting to see him somewhere in the glow and tangle of the party, looming, waiting for you expectantly, but he’s not there. You’re surprised at how keenly you feel his absence. Then you ask Shep, “He’s not coming back tonight, is he?”

Shep shakes his head, a single, precise movement. “He wanted me to see you home. Mark’s already downstairs.” He hesitates, then softens with a half-smile, reading some of your reluctance to leave. “You can have ten more minutes if you want them.”

You take the ten.

It’s enough time for Thea to finish her glass and for you to make the rounds of the party, saying goodnight to your circles of friends and family who were invited to be part of tonight.

Your mother is waiting for you near the coat check, her dark eyes shining, twin tears perilously close to the edge. She pulls you in for a fierce, almost painful hug, her perfume sealing around you like a memory from childhood. “You’re my treasure,” she says into your ear so hard you forget to breathe for a second. She pulls away, fixing your hair with a trembling hand. “Just tell me he’s as good as he looks. That’s all I ask.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and you bob your head, not trusting yourself to say anything more.

Outside, the night air is a slab of heat. Shep guides you to the waiting Range Rover with a balanced mix of deference and I’m still your bodyguard. Mark already has the curbside door open, and you buckle yourself in, feeling the exhaustion of the night releasing through your limbs. You lean your head back against the headrest and close your eyes. As complicated as your feelings are around Andy, his absence gnaws at you in a way you didn’t expect. Especially tonight.

When you walk into the mansion, the silence is as sharp as a slap. You expected it, or something like it, and yet standing in the cavernous hush of the marble entry, clutching your tiny evening bag, you’re overtaken by an urge to slam the door hard enough to wake the dead. You don’t, though. You click it shut, toe off your heels and hook them on your fingers, and walk barefoot through the dark to your rooms upstairs.

Andy’s absence is complete and total—no jacket left half-flung on the banister, no ghost of movement or glass of half-drunk bourbon left somewhere. You resist the urge to immediately check your phone, because you want to feel the ache fully, let it sharpen until it outcompetes the dull, unanswerable questions that have circled every day since you said yes, but especially tonight.

You go to the bathroom and take a long, methodical shower. You take your time as you finish getting ready for bed, drifting through the mechanical rituals of skincare and pajamas and teeth-brushing, but you take no comfort in the delicate, orchid-scented candle you light, or the feel of the silk on your skin.

You check your phone, eventually. There’s a text from him, timestamped an hour ago.

ANDY: I’ll be late, don’t wait up.

You want to scream. You want to hurl the phone at the wall or at least send an angry string of messages to force some reaction from him, but you don’t. You sit at the end of the bed with your phone in your palm, glaring at the glow as if it can blink first. Don’t wait up, as if this is remotely normal. You know he’s got business, but he’s never missed an evening with you, never let you go to sleep without him there, touching you, fucking you, just being with you. And now he’s gone the night before your wedding?

You thumb your phone off, toss it face-down onto the bed, and stand for a moment in the hush. You are lit by moonlight coming by moonlight coming in a narrow spill through the vast window, alone with the hum and pop of baseboard heat, a ghost in your own life. You want to be sated by this, to have the sudden expanse and absence feel like relief, but instead it gathers pressure inside your chest. Under the thin silk of your robe, your skin feels hypersensitive, almost electrical, and the wet ends of your hair drip cold water down your spine.

You don’t want to admit how badly you want him here—how quickly your anger at his text has curdled into a more woeful, sticky missing. It chafes to need him.

You try to zone out streaming something on TV, but nothing cuts through to capture enough of your attention in the absence. You’re so used to the energy of Andy’s presence—the kinetic hum of him near you, whether he’s angry or amused or simply radiating power from the next room—that the void he leaves behind is almost audible.

Eventually you are able to at least focus on reading, legs tucked up under you on the settee.

You must have fallen asleep, because the next sensation is not the passage of time but abrupt displacement.

You’re in mid-dream when you sense the shift, the weightless suck of gravity before the realization: someone is lifting you. You twist, half-awake, to find Andy’s arms locked under your knees and back, carrying you with the unthinking efficiency of someone who has probably hauled bodies at some point. You mutter something into his shirt, a syllable heavy with sleep and protest, and he just keeps moving, your head lolling against his chest, too groggy to fight him off at first.

Then you thrash, not gently. You elbow at his chest, catch his ribs with a knee, and hiss, “Put me down.” You mean it. You’re not just startled—you’re still feeling that lingering anger—and Andy, to his credit, sets you down with more care than you expected. You sway and nearly lose your balance, but he catches your wrist, keeping you upright.

“Easy,” he murmurs, voice absurdly gentle, and that somehow pricks worse for all its reasonableness.

You rip your hand away. “Don’t do that. Don’t just—pick me up.”

He studies you, searching your face with an unreadable patience. “You were sleeping,” he says.

You steady yourself and glare up at him, refusing to let your fatigue soften the edge of your voice. “You missed the whole rest of the night, Andy. Where were you?”

Although his expression remains the same, the tension around his eyes tightens. “You know I’m not going to tell you that.”

You scoff. “How do I know that?”

Maybe it’s the sleep, maybe it’s the hunger you’ve been stifling, but it lands with a new kind of sharpness, how Andy answers a question only by hollowing out the possibility you’ll ever ask again. But you refuse to fold into that silence tonight.

“I want you to tell me,” you say.

Andy closes the gap between you with a slow step, his gaze not leaving your face. “Tomorrow’s our wedding,” he says, low and thick in his throat, a softness that isn’t practice so much as exhaustion. His hand goes to your shoulder, thumb pressing the knot between bone and tendon, and you flinch at the intimacy of it, at how easily he can make you want to forgive him. You step back, and he lets you, his arms falling to his sides in a slow, theatrical surrender.

“Don’t do that,” you say again, voice thin this time. You hate the tremor more than you hated his absence.

He tilts his head, studying you in the low light. “You’re angry.”

He smiles, weary but pleased. “You’re angry because you missed me.” He says it not as an accusation, but a simple, delighted observation, like he’s just solved a riddle in your presence. “You care.”

You make a sound, a cross between a snort and a huff, and turn your head before he can get a better look at your face. “I’m angry because you’ve insisted on all of this—me, the wedding, pulling me into your life—and then you desert me the night before we’re supposed to get married? Leave me during the rehearsal dinner? And all I get is a ‘don’t wait up’ text?”

You hate that your voice rises, hate the heat behind your eyes. Andy comes closer, and you want to slap him and also want him to hold you. You flex your jaw, force your gaze to stay away.

He listens. He lets you say it all, and when it’s out of your mouth, tumbling and ugly, he says, “I know. But there are things I can’t and won’t tell you. I can’t ever expose you to certain things. I won’t allow them near you.” His voice is all iron and velvet. “I’m protecting you, even if it doesn’t look or feel like it.”

He lets the pause hang, then takes a slight step closer—close enough that you nearly shiver at the radius of his heat.

There are things I won’t shield you from, either. You told me to never lie, so I won’t pretend I’m made another way. But I will always come back.” He says it softly, neither a threat nor a comfort.

After a lengthy moment of silence, you tell him, “I don’t want another night like this. I don’t want to ever be stranded in the dark.”

He considers it. Not with a smirk or a challenge, but real intent, a resolution hardening. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I’m not good enough,” he says, and it is the flattest, most relentless admission. “But I am what you’re marrying.”

You should laugh. You almost do, at the incredulity, the audacity, the unfairness of his answer, of this entire situation, but then he reaches out, just a single knuckle under your chin, and you’re suddenly taking in a shaky breath.

You hold his eyes for a full count, your body picking up the stutter of your pulse, anger and want running convergent through your system. You want to turn away, to break the connection, but you can’t.

“Then show me. Make it better,” you say, and your voice is a command, not a plea.

You let him guide your face up. His thumb travels a gentle path down your jaw. He leans in, pressing his words, and his mouth, against your skin. “You want more than this? I will never give you less.” The last of it is a murmur, not a vow, but it lives in the hollow between you, nudging the edge of promise.

He kisses you behind the ear, slow and intentional, and your whole body contracts around the point of contact. You hate how even this controlled display of contrition draws you in. Were you less tired, were it not the night before your wedding, you may have pushed him away. But he knows exactly how to pull on the string that unravels you, and you can’t leave it at that, so you cup his face and press your mouth against his, not sweet or apologetic but with a frustrated need to bite, to mark. He lets you, opens willingly, tongue flicking yours, and the pressure he uses to guide you toward the bed is insistent. You pull him with you, backwards, the two of you bumping knees, bumping hips, his hands already finding the tie at your robe and making short work of it.

He pulls it from your shoulders, lets it float to the carpet with exaggerated gentleness that’s belied by the urgency of his mouth and hands. You take brief satisfaction in yanking at his shirt buttons, two of them tumbling somewhere onto the bedding, but Andy just shrugs out of the rest and lets it fall to the floor.

He is, as you’ve come to expect, taller and heavier than you in the moments that matter. He pins you beneath him, stretching your arms above your head, taking his time as if you both aren’t aching with a violent need. He kisses you with a patience that does not match the tension in his body, hands working down your ribs, touching and teasing the places he’s learned draw your responses.

You let him press you down, let him grind against you, clothed below the waist but with a bare chest and a punishing grip as he presses one of your thighs up and open for him. Your silk nightgown is tangled above your hips, ruined for decency, and the sheets under you bunch as you wrap your leg around him.

You are not even sure when you stop resisting—the anger, the loneliness—maybe when he murmurs, “I’m here,” into the shell of your ear, or maybe it’s before that, at the familiar drag of his teeth across your shoulder. You want to snarl at him, but you can only gasp and tear one of your hands away so you can grab for his waistband, the zipper, too impatient for finesse.

The button resists for half a second before you hear the pop. Andy’s hips cant, the gesture half involuntary. He is, unlike you, a master at not showing his hunger—unless he wants you to see it, and tonight he must, because the restraint rubs your skin raw in a way that’s almost a dare. You dig your heel into the mattress, lift your pelvis to grind into the urgency that’s thickening between your bodies. He lets you, but barely; his hand catches your thigh, squeezes, and you wonder if there will be marks tomorrow. You hope so.

He pulls back, and you make a desperate, wordless noise—appalled at the empty space, the abrupt loss of him. Andy grins, a glint of teeth in the dark, and then he’s dropping to his knees at the edge of the bed, eyes black and bottomless. “Patience,” he says, voice low and hoarse. “I want you naked for me. Completely.”

You’re tempted to resist him, to force him to earn the reveal, but you want the heat and the gaze and—more than anything—the feeling of him unraveling for you. So you tug the nightgown up and off, shimmying as best you can.

Andy reaches out to assist, dragging your panties off in a single, practiced movement, leaving you splayed open and vulnerable in the spill of moonlight, the air cold and sharp against your skin.

He stands, shucking his pants and boxers with ease. His cock is already hard, and he takes himself in hand, stroking slow, almost lazy, but you can see the tension in his jaw, the way his forearm tightens, every line of his body at the edge of restraint. He stands there for a moment, head tipped, just watching you with that focus, just this side of feral. It should alarm you. It should, maybe, make you recoil, the ferocity in him, so unlike the men you’ve known before. It’s a look that should have scared you from the beginning—but no one has wanted you the way he wants you, and you’ve grown addicted to how Andy’s hunger works.

You want to wipe that look of composure from his face, and you know exactly how to do it. You arch your back, knees falling apart, and bring your fingers to your cunt—slow, deliberate. Andy’s mouth parts the barest inch, but he doesn’t move to stop you. You circle your clit with two fingers, the slide easy and slick, and moan just loud enough that you know he’ll hear it for days. He watches, lips parted, and the tension in his neck sings.

“Is this what you want?” you ask.

You don’t wait for an answer. You drag a slick, purposeful circle with your fingertip, then roll your hips up again, forcing his attention onto the precise spot you want it. Your other hand moves to your breast, pinching a nipple until the ache flashes through your belly. You moan again, longer, keeping your eyes pinned to his as though you can draw out his release through sheer insistence.

Andy comes closer, his hand sliding up your calf, kneading the inside of your knee with enough pressure to make you gasp and lose the rhythm of your own touch. He takes your wrist in his, slows your movements, and brings your fingers to his mouth. He licks them, savoring your taste, then sucks the tips into the heat of him, eyes trained on yours the whole time. “You want to make me lose control?” he murmurs. “You’re close, sweetheart.”

You shudder, half from his voice and half from the pleasure needling up your legs. “Then what are you waiting for?”

“Flip over,” he says, and you obey. Not because you care to perform for him, but because this is the only language you speak fluently with each other.

You turn, face pillowed in moonlight, the curve of your ass arched and on display. The sheets are cool under your cheek. Andy’s hands find your hips, not rough but absolute, his palms broad and braced. He kneads you for a long moment, a brief, silent exhibition of ownership, before running his thumb down the seam of you, spreading you open with the same clinical certainty he uses to carve out secrets.

He fucks you in one smooth, relentless motion, every inch filling you until your body feels engineered for the shape of him. You groan from the fullness, and he groans being sheathed inside your cunt. He leans forward, curling over you, and presses a kiss into your neck.

He holds you there, pressed hard against the mattress, your knees bracing apart as his cock drives into you with a steadiness that’s almost brutal but never crosses over into pain. You have only ever known men in this position to get greedy, to lose their pacing almost immediately, but Andy’s rhythm is a ruthless metronome, each thrust a little deeper, a little harder, calibrated to keep you right at the edge.

His weight is a gravity you loathe and crave; you let him press you into the bed and hold you there. You’re still angry, still trembling, but everything is blurred with your arousal, your hunger, the lines so tangled you can barely see the difference.

You try to deny him your pleasure out of spite, but it’s a losing proposition—Andy finds the angle he wants, rocks into you so that you choke on a half-sob, and holds there until you scratch at the sheets, half-crazed. The sound you make is ugly and desperate, and the only thing worse is how much you want him to hear it, to be stoked by it, to see what he does to you. He seems to sense this, his voice a gravel scrape against your shoulder blade. “Take it, sweetheart. Let me hear how much you want it.”

His thumb finds your clit, presses in tight, and for a few strokes you somehow resist, but then your hips buck and your vision splotches out, and you do let him hear how much you want him. It’s exquisite. He continues to fuck into you, working your clit, every nerve burning, every muscle tightening in a white, brutal wave. He fucks you through it, groaning, not letting up until a second, sharper quake rips through your body. Then and only then does Andy let himself go—slamming into you, his hand a vise around your hip as he spends himself, jaw pressed to your spine. The shudder of him fully inside you is shocking, almost convulsive, and he bucks in you until the last aftershocks fade and the only sound in the room is two desperate people fighting for air.

He doesn’t pull out right away. He just stays there, draped over your body, letting you catch your breath, his weight an absolute. When he does finally move, he’s slow and careful, laying beside you and rolling you into his arms, not a word spoken. You’re still too fogged by want and exhaustion to move, content to let him hold you close, the press of his cheek against your hair. Neither of you speak for a very long time.

But there are thoughts you still need him to hear.

You find your voice in the hush, not loud or demanding but plain, with the rough edge of sleep and aftershock. “I don’t want more nights like this,” you say, and you can feel the way Andy’s chest stills under your hand. “I didn’t want to be coerced into your bed, I didn’t want to be forced into an engagement, I didn’t want to get married like this. You exploited the attraction, you’ve made me weak for you, but please,” your voice breaks, “please don’t make me the wife who has to wait up alone for you.”

Andy doesn’t speak, not at first, and the silence unsettles you, but you make yourself hold it—make yourself show that it matters. You refuse to shrink or swallow the need. If he’s going to be the kind of man who pulls you into his orbit, he’s damn well going to know he can’t just leave you in the dark. Not without a fight. He’s made slow but small shifts in some areas you’ve pressed with him. Maybe you can have resonance here, too.

He smooths a hand from your shoulder, down your back, each pass gentler than the last. He’s thinking, you know. Not just brushing off what you said, but actually holding it up to the light, inspecting the seams. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and soft, but firm.

“I meant it when I said I’d do my best,” he says. “I don’t want you to be her—the wife who waits at the window. But I also can’t give up what I am.” His hand lingers at your waist, a heavy presence.

You sigh, too thoroughly boneless to summon the right words, so you simply roll over, and it’s too natural how your body melds against him as he curls his arm around you and pulls your back flush against his chest. All you can do now is hope your sentiments will start to seep into him through osmosis.

You let the silence ride a little longer, curled together as if this is some and listen to the slowing cadence of his breath, to the metallic taste of words you didn’t say, and you wonder if this is what love might be—the willingness to be furious and still stay.

And you wonder if this is love—not because it’s gentle or clean or what you imagined, but because it has weight, because it has teeth, because it sits in your chest like a stone you keep reaching for. Because you are angry and ruined and held, and somehow all three of those things are the same thing. Because no one has seen you the way he does. Because no one has made you feel so wanted, even if it’s infused with possession. But even through the moments you know there are things he isn’t telling you, you know he’s never lied to you. Even when he says things you don’t want to hear, he speaks to you openly. Even when his actions are incendiary and disagreeable, they’re still somehow for you now.

He says your name. It’s a quiet thing, a soft push through the dark, but it lands with a rattle in your chest.

“I want to tell you something,” Andy says. “Not because you asked, but because if you’re going to be my wife, you will need to know.”

You swallow, knowing instinctively that to interrupt is to lose the tiny, trembling momentum inside him. He never initiates these confessions. He’s all action, never exposition. You hold your body still, afraid any breath will snap the thread.

“They brought me in tonight to consult on a sit-down. Not a war, but something close. One of the families in Jersey—Lupo’s people—made a move on Levinson’s properties—of one of our allies—along the North River. Not a huge play, but enough to draw blood. No one got shot. But next time, someone will.” Andy’s hand flexes at your hip, tightening like a vise. “If that happens, everything changes. This life, the way we can have it, ends. The only thing that keeps us—keeps you—safe, is the order.” He breathes out, a single tight exhale. “If the peace goes, I can’t guarantee anything. Not for you, not for me. And that’s not something I’m willing to risk.”

You lie there, staring at the ceiling, sheets cooling under your legs, and you realize what he’s giving you is not reassurance, but the truth of his world, knife-sharp and blood-warm. It should terrify you. It does, to a degree, but you’ve had a security detail, you know there are six loaded guns hidden here in the master suite. There is nothing normal about any of this, but the fact of Andy’s world is that it remains obsessively ordered only so long as no one has reason to start a war.

“When I have to go, I have to go, and I’ll never apologize for that,” he adds when you don’t say anything more.

Thea joked about reading mafia romance novels, but this is not a genre, this is your life now. When you let the reality land, it isn’t just gravity, but something like inheritance: no matter what you wanted or didn’t, you’re marrying into all of this.

And yet, as you lie there, taken apart and held tightly yet again, you find a calm in yourself you didn’t realize you could access. Maybe it’s the spill of adrenaline draining away, or the simple fact that Andy—your future husband, in a matter of hours—has finally handed you the truest thing he’s ever said. Everything is always at risk.

But if the world really is this dangerous, you’ve no doubt you’re held by the most powerful man you’ve ever met, and since he stopped at nothing to secure you, he will stop at nothing to keep you secure.

Uncle Rob! Thea! Andy! A Levinson name drop?!

There are so many things here that I've been plotting for ages, and so I think it's half the reason it took me so long to finish this chapter. Back in May I had written what I thought was about 3k to make up the first half of the chapter, but something about it just wasn't working, so I pulled it apart, kept a few of the scraps, and went back to the drawin board. I'm pleased where it finally ended up, and even though I know parts of this story are frustrating (coughSOMEOFANDY'SBEHAVIORcough), I do hope you all like the chapter.

And I know this is at the verrrrrry tail end of Monday for the first of what I'm hoping will be I'm Your Man Monday, but we made it! So we'll see if I can make this happen and get you another update next week!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

There are eighty-six people in attendance at the rooftop restaurant, and you are only sure you know the names of maybe a third. The rest are here because of Andy—to witness or test alliances, play in the ongoing power games, weigh old debts or new risks. It’s the rehearsal dinner for one of Boston Mafia’s elite, so the guest list was meticulously refined for Andy’s part. Yours as well, but not with the same intent or stakes to be considered.

Andy doesn’t own Contessa—the restaurant atop The Newbury Hotel—but he does own the hotel, so it was seamless for your team to arrange this part of the wedding nuptials there. While you and Andy aren’t having a full society affair wedding with all the bells and whistles and three or four days of events and traditions, you do have few significant event pieces woven into the wedding weekend, this being one of them. No one had asked you what to include, but you were part of the overall conversations, and if there had been anything you truly wanted to refuse, you think you might have been able to say so. But your team knows you well enough to create elements you appreciate.

And, annoyingly, so does Andy.

The room is a riot of velvet and silk and black wool, the exact social armor you expect at a pre-wedding gathering of this sort. And yet you can tell this doesn’t scream mafia to the people who don’t know the predators they’re intermingling with. It’s all too reminiscent of how you dismissed the barely-hushed rumors of Andy Barber’s potential connections before he revealed he was one of the kings of organized crime in the city. And for the sake of your parents, your friends, your family, you’re relieved and hope they remain ignorant.

Tonight will be a monumental tell for the future and whether or not you can pass, or rather, who you have to be while passing. You scan the clusters of guests and realize you should have always been able to spot true mafia at ten paces, even when they’re disguised as board members and development officers and venture capitalists. There’s a particular gravity, neither ostentatious nor shy. Men in Brioni suits who know how to vanish into the background, women with hair so immaculate it could have been sculpted from silk.

Andy’s hand has been heavy at the small of your back most of the evening, and it’s somehow almost comforting, an anchor. Occasionally you feel his thumb graze the bare inch of spine between velvet and skin, a touch so subtle it’s only for you.

You look across the room and spot your parents lingering near a tray of passed champagne, your mother straightening the lapels of your father’s jacket with the hopeless affection of people who have been married long enough to know that preening is just another form of devotion. Your mother’s dress is a shade of navy so dark it reads black, and your father looks as if he was born inside a suit, so naturally does this one fit him.

Suddenly Thea is in front of you, plucking a glass of champagne off a passing tray and handing it over, flanked by your other two other bridesmaids. Thea gives you a once-over, and says, “You look like a goddess, a terrifyingly pretty one.” You mutter a thank you, and Thea rolls her eyes. “Please pretend you believe it, just a little bit. You’re a gorgeous bride-to-be whether you want to be or not.”

She’s the only one who knows about your hesitations, and even then you’ve only indulged a fraction.

She winks at Andy, linking her arm through yours. “I’m stealing your fiancé.”

He smirks. “At least you're conceding she’s mine.”

“You wish,” Thea replies, and with a toss of her hair of her shoulder, she leads you away.

The entire evening is a kind of lucid dream. Greetings, handshakes, hugs, careful double-cheek kisses dispensed by those in attendance as you circulate the room. In reality there was no rehearsal for tomorrow’s ceremony, tonight it is merely a small gathering staged for … well, from what you gather, for the sake of it. For those closest to you, it’s to keep up the illusion that this is a wedding you want. For Andy’s world, it seems to be a necessary ritual to confirm the ranks of his order—his trusted soldiers and a handful of his choice allies.

You don’t register that your uncle Rob isn’t there until suddenly he is, and by then, the room has already begun the low-pressure phase transition from cocktails to dinner. The movement is organic—someone dims the lights, the waiters begin the subtle herding, and you are being gently, almost imperceptibly, shepherded toward the long, low banquet table at the far end of the room.

You are halfway to your seat, with Thea close behind and Andy once again at your side, when the double glass doors at the restaurant’s entrance hiss open and Rob strides in, in a full three-piece suit and with the off-kilter swagger of someone who seems to have truly rushed directly from the airport. He gives you a nod and a warm smile, though even at this distance you note it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

You wave him over, ignoring the subtle tightening of Andy’s hand on your hip. Rob moves quickly across the room to you, and immediately drops a palm on your shoulder, squeezing—warmth, family, genuine affection. “Am I horrifically late or just fashionably disruptive?” he asks, and before you answer, he’s already deflecting. “You look tired but good. He treating you right?”

Your uncle’s gaze bores into yours for a half-second, searching for something reassuring. You nod and give him a smile. He softens, but only infinitesimally.

“Uncle Rob, this is—”

“Andy Barber,” he supplies, and his gaze flicks to your fiancé, settling there a half-beat too long, cataloging him. You don’t know what’s transpired between them, but you sense something clearly has as there’s a palpable undercurrent, like two strong magnets meeting, neither yielding.

Uncle Rob gives Andy a stiff nod, but Andy merely meets the moment with an open hand. You sense the silent exchange—neutral ground, white flag for tonight, or maybe just a kind of mutual agreement not to detonate inside a room full of witnesses.

It feels strange, but it’s only another line on the list of things that aren’t normal for this entire affair. The exchange goes unnoticed by nearly everyone else since all in attendance are finding their seats, and Uncle Rob falls in among them and takes his assigned seat by your parents.

The food is dazzling, course after course in small, perfect compositions. You try to taste things, to remember flavors, but you are more conscious of the shifting dynamics around you. You are aware of Andy’s hand ever present—on your knee, tracing patterns on your arm, once just lightly gripping your wrist as if keeping you tethered to the table, to himself. You wonder if it’s meant to keep you under control, but the gesture genuinely feels more like reassurance than possession tonight.

Flanked by Andy on your left and Thea on your right, both seem engaged in a subtle contest to out-maneuver each other in their attempts to manage you. Sometimes it’s by steering the conversation, sometimes by way of silently passing you the better part of a shared dish, with Thea by gambling how much she can make you laugh given the current company and whether the moment is suitable for choking on your wine. You’re not sure if you resent this orchestration or if it’s a balm. Maybe both.

At intervals, you glance over at Uncle Rob. The smile he flashes the room is the same as ever, but his eyes seem to rove the room, always taking stock, never fully at rest. He watches Andy most of all, the way a hunter watches a rival predator—admiring and calculating, never blinking outright. At one point, your eyes meet and Rob lifts his glass in a toast, not quite a salute, but you feel the force of the message: he’s here, for you, and he’s not leaving until he’s sure you’re safe. He’s always been more protective of you than anyone else in the family, but this seems more intense, even for him.

Halfway through the meal, Andy excuses himself to confer with two men in dark suits who materialize at the edge of the room, and you find yourself, for the first time all evening, feeling alone at the lack of him. Thea leans in. “You doing okay?” she whispers, but with a smile on her face so it reads as idle gossip.

“It feels like someone else’s wedding,” you mutter back. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

She gives you a look that is both knowing and impossibly gentle. “If you want to run, just say the word. I have five hundred dollars in cash and a getaway Prius, and that’s enough to get us at least to New Hampshire before anyone notices.”

You snort-laugh, a little louder than you meant to, and feel lightheaded for an instant. There is some relief in naming it, even as a joke, even though you don’t question she’s serious about the Prius and the cash.

There is a moment, a half-second, a single synaptic twitch, in which you consider the offer or vanishing into an Uber for Logan Airport. But the urge passes. You already jetted away once and came back.

And that coming back was your choice.

It doesn’t make sense to escape again now.

The rest of dinner passes in a spiral of rich food and laughter that from most people seems to be unforced. Andy returns, all courteous apologies, and places his warm palm on your back again as if plugging back into a vital organ. He leans in and presses a kiss to your temple, his voice pitched only for you. “I’ll need to disappear for a bit after dessert. Business.” He says it lightly, but the tension is a wire behind each syllable. You nod, and at the same moment he gives your leg a squeeze under the table, as if to say: Don’t worry, I’ll be back. For you. Always that emphasis.

When the meal ends, the room doesn’t thin so much as it condenses. People abandon their seats in favor of looser, more volatile clusterings near the bar or moving out onto the balcony. You sense the shape of the next hours—a kind of shadow afterparty, drinks and ritual toasts and the swerve toward dysfunction that all close social gatherings eventually take. Andy fields a last volley of congratulations, then gives you a look that says thirty seconds, and moves toward a private door near the kitchen, shadowed by his men. You watch him go, feeling again the negative space at your side.

It’s at this point that your uncle finds you again.

“You sure about this?” he murmurs, like you’re trading nuclear secrets instead of making polite familial small talk at your rehearsal dinner. “Not too late to call it off.”

You set your jaw, then, because the answer is yes. Or as close to yes as you’ll ever have. If there’s a question curled up in the base of your spine, it’s quieter now—not gone, but quelled by Rob’s questioning.

You find yourself saying, “I’ve made my decision.”

Uncle Rob’s expression is unreadable, then softens just enough to let a sliver of affection through. “Your folks are damn proud. Just so you know. You do know that, right?”

You give half a shrug and a nod.

“And you know that you can always come to me, for anything.”

“Even ashes and body disposal?” you ask, letting a smirk break through the anxiety. He huffs a laugh, but you can see he’s not disarmed by it, not really.

“Especially that,” he says. But then, gentler, yet more serious, he says, “You ever want out, you just say so. Don’t matter what anyone else wants, least of all him. You come to me. You hear?”

You nod, only then realizing, “You know who he is.”

He nods and knocks his glass lightly against yours. “I’m only a phone call away. Fuck the protocols.”

You don’t know exactly what his ties to Andy’s underworld are, or how long he and Andy may have known each other, but some unexplained parts of Uncle Rob’s past make a whole lot more sense if he’s involved with the mafia. You imagine the more you trace back, the more certain absences and behaviors could ultimately be explained.

You don’t allow yourself to ask the next rush questions assembling in your mind. Instead, you clink glasses with Rob again, and when Thea reappears at your side, he makes an excuse and fades back into the crowd. You watch him go, feeling heavier and lighter at once.

“You want air?” Thea asks, as if the answer could ever be no.

Out on the balcony, you stand at the stone parapet for a while, each of your with a glass in hand, the city shining beneath you. Over the railing, half the Back Bay looks like a jewelry case, all neat squares and gold filigree light.

Thea tips her chin out into the dark. “So what’s it like standing up here, knowing you’re about to be a married woman?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a nervous tickle in your chest. “About the same as it is being an unmarried one, only with more witnesses.”

You expect her to laugh, but instead she fixes you with a sly, assessing stare. “He scares me a little, you know,” she says, so matter-of-fact it undercuts any drama. “Not for anything he’s said or done. More in the way those security guys all treat him like he’s royalty. Which, I guess, he basically is, right? Mafia royalty?”

You hesitate, glass at your lips. Did you ever say it to her? You don’t think you did, because you went to Stockholm on the heels of signing the pre-nup which included the NDA elements… You race back through every conversation, every running-on-fumes phone call, and there’s nothing you can recall that would have spelled it out. But your silence lingers half a second too long.

Thea’s face splits in a grin that’s bright and wolfish at the edges. “I KNEW it,” she crows, as if you’ve just confirmed a conspiracy theory about the moon landing. “Oh my god. I knew it. I KNEW IT! Don’t even try to deny it.”

You gawk. “What are—how did—”

You try to look innocent, but Thea is already cackling, delighted with herself, her elbows resting on the parapet like a triumphant detective. “Please,” she says, waving her hand at the party inside, “He’s waaaaaaaaay too rich, I’ve read way too many mafia romance novels, and you had a security detail when you visited me in Stockholm using his private jet. I was 99% sure, and your hesitation there hesitation gave me the last percent.”

You consider protesting, but technically you’ve broken nothing in the contract, and the fact that your best friend knows—that anyone knows—feels like an instant balm.

You clamp a hand on Thea’s wrist. “Promise me you won’t say a word. Seriously. Not to a soul. I mean it. Not a joke, not even a whisper or a meme reference.” There’s an urgency in your voice, and Thea, reading the shift instantly, sobers.

The brightness in her eyes dims by an iota, the seriousness of your tone cutting through the fizz of her delight. She nods, solemnly, and you know that as cavalier as she can sometimes be, she doesn’t question the gravity of your insistence. “I won’t,” she vows, putting her hand over yours.

In the shared silence, you feel her searching your face for something she doesn’t want to say. You let the air prickle between you, each steadying the other just by being present, until Thea finally asks, “Does he make you happy?”

You don’t answer, not at first. You stare into the bright helix of city lights and let the question slide down your spine and settle into your gut. You want to say yes, or even no, anything definitive, but instead you just tell her, “He makes me feel alive,” and hope she hears the ambiguity for what it is.

She nods, lips pressed together. “I’m still not sure why you’re doing this, but I will admit that even though I still have questions, one of those questions is not how much that man cares for you.”

Thea fixes you with a look so curious and gentle it makes you want to squirm out of your skin. “It doesn’t look like any love story I’d picture for you,” she says. “It’s not the type people write poems about or that you see on Pinterest boards. I don’t even know that it’s love, but it’s definitely fierce, and runs deep.”

“Thea,” your voice is a little choked.

“He looks at you like you’re the last thing on earth he thinks is worth burning for.” She shrugs and takes another sip of her champagne. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s true.”

You’re grateful, even if you can’t manage the words to say so outright. Thea is one of the few souls you trust without hesitation in this world. You study her face in the city-dark, finding closeness there that reminds you, with a pang, of who you were before all this.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you say. You mean it harder than it sounds.

Thea bumps shoulders with you. “I’d literally stand in front of a bullet for you.” She glances toward a distant rooftop bar, probably scouting for snipers. “Metaphorically, but also probably literally.”

You stay there together a little longer, the gentle thrum of summer and the humid glow from the party behind you, breathing easier for the reminder that not all loves are fairy tales, that some are knife-edges, and open secrets, and best friendships.

Shep slides out the glass door with the hush of someone practiced in not disturbing an armed perimeter. He doesn’t interrupt, just drifts into the range of your awareness and waits. When you finally realize on a conscious level that he’s there, turning your head and giving him a small, tight-lipped smile, he says, “Time to make our exit, if you’re ready.”

There’s a quiet emphasis on the word “our,” and you realize how long you must’ve been out here.

“Where’s Andy?” You look over his shoulder, expecting to see him somewhere in the glow and tangle of the party, looming, waiting for you expectantly, but he’s not there. You’re surprised at how keenly you feel his absence. Then you ask Shep, “He’s not coming back tonight, is he?”

Shep shakes his head, a single, precise movement. “He wanted me to see you home. Mark’s already downstairs.” He hesitates, then softens with a half-smile, reading some of your reluctance to leave. “You can have ten more minutes if you want them.”

You take the ten.

It’s enough time for Thea to finish her glass and for you to make the rounds of the party, saying goodnight to your circles of friends and family who were invited to be part of tonight.

Your mother is waiting for you near the coat check, her dark eyes shining, twin tears perilously close to the edge. She pulls you in for a fierce, almost painful hug, her perfume sealing around you like a memory from childhood. “You’re my treasure,” she says into your ear so hard you forget to breathe for a second. She pulls away, fixing your hair with a trembling hand. “Just tell me he’s as good as he looks. That’s all I ask.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and you bob your head, not trusting yourself to say anything more.

Outside, the night air is a slab of heat. Shep guides you to the waiting Range Rover with a balanced mix of deference and I’m still your bodyguard. Mark already has the curbside door open, and you buckle yourself in, feeling the exhaustion of the night releasing through your limbs. You lean your head back against the headrest and close your eyes. As complicated as your feelings are around Andy, his absence gnaws at you in a way you didn’t expect. Especially tonight.

When you walk into the mansion, the silence is as sharp as a slap. You expected it, or something like it, and yet standing in the cavernous hush of the marble entry, clutching your tiny evening bag, you’re overtaken by an urge to slam the door hard enough to wake the dead. You don’t, though. You click it shut, toe off your heels and hook them on your fingers, and walk barefoot through the dark to your rooms upstairs.

Andy’s absence is complete and total—no jacket left half-flung on the banister, no ghost of movement or glass of half-drunk bourbon left somewhere. You resist the urge to immediately check your phone, because you want to feel the ache fully, let it sharpen until it outcompetes the dull, unanswerable questions that have circled every day since you said yes, but especially tonight.

You go to the bathroom and take a long, methodical shower. You take your time as you finish getting ready for bed, drifting through the mechanical rituals of skincare and pajamas and teeth-brushing, but you take no comfort in the delicate, orchid-scented candle you light, or the feel of the silk on your skin.

You check your phone, eventually. There’s a text from him, timestamped an hour ago.

ANDY: I’ll be late, don’t wait up.

You want to scream. You want to hurl the phone at the wall or at least send an angry string of messages to force some reaction from him, but you don’t. You sit at the end of the bed with your phone in your palm, glaring at the glow as if it can blink first. Don’t wait up, as if this is remotely normal. You know he’s got business, but he’s never missed an evening with you, never let you go to sleep without him there, touching you, fucking you, just being with you. And now he’s gone the night before your wedding?

You thumb your phone off, toss it face-down onto the bed, and stand for a moment in the hush. You are lit by moonlight coming by moonlight coming in a narrow spill through the vast window, alone with the hum and pop of baseboard heat, a ghost in your own life. You want to be sated by this, to have the sudden expanse and absence feel like relief, but instead it gathers pressure inside your chest. Under the thin silk of your robe, your skin feels hypersensitive, almost electrical, and the wet ends of your hair drip cold water down your spine.

You don’t want to admit how badly you want him here—how quickly your anger at his text has curdled into a more woeful, sticky missing. It chafes to need him.

You try to zone out streaming something on TV, but nothing cuts through to capture enough of your attention in the absence. You’re so used to the energy of Andy’s presence—the kinetic hum of him near you, whether he’s angry or amused or simply radiating power from the next room—that the void he leaves behind is almost audible.

Eventually you are able to at least focus on reading, legs tucked up under you on the settee.

You must have fallen asleep, because the next sensation is not the passage of time but abrupt displacement.

You’re in mid-dream when you sense the shift, the weightless suck of gravity before the realization: someone is lifting you. You twist, half-awake, to find Andy’s arms locked under your knees and back, carrying you with the unthinking efficiency of someone who has probably hauled bodies at some point. You mutter something into his shirt, a syllable heavy with sleep and protest, and he just keeps moving, your head lolling against his chest, too groggy to fight him off at first.

Then you thrash, not gently. You elbow at his chest, catch his ribs with a knee, and hiss, “Put me down.” You mean it. You’re not just startled—you’re still feeling that lingering anger—and Andy, to his credit, sets you down with more care than you expected. You sway and nearly lose your balance, but he catches your wrist, keeping you upright.

“Easy,” he murmurs, voice absurdly gentle, and that somehow pricks worse for all its reasonableness.

You rip your hand away. “Don’t do that. Don’t just—pick me up.”

He studies you, searching your face with an unreadable patience. “You were sleeping,” he says.

You steady yourself and glare up at him, refusing to let your fatigue soften the edge of your voice. “You missed the whole rest of the night, Andy. Where were you?”

Although his expression remains the same, the tension around his eyes tightens. “You know I’m not going to tell you that.”

You scoff. “How do I know that?”

Maybe it’s the sleep, maybe it’s the hunger you’ve been stifling, but it lands with a new kind of sharpness, how Andy answers a question only by hollowing out the possibility you’ll ever ask again. But you refuse to fold into that silence tonight.

“I want you to tell me,” you say.

Andy closes the gap between you with a slow step, his gaze not leaving your face. “Tomorrow’s our wedding,” he says, low and thick in his throat, a softness that isn’t practice so much as exhaustion. His hand goes to your shoulder, thumb pressing the knot between bone and tendon, and you flinch at the intimacy of it, at how easily he can make you want to forgive him. You step back, and he lets you, his arms falling to his sides in a slow, theatrical surrender.

“Don’t do that,” you say again, voice thin this time. You hate the tremor more than you hated his absence.

He tilts his head, studying you in the low light. “You’re angry.”

He smiles, weary but pleased. “You’re angry because you missed me.” He says it not as an accusation, but a simple, delighted observation, like he’s just solved a riddle in your presence. “You care.”

You make a sound, a cross between a snort and a huff, and turn your head before he can get a better look at your face. “I’m angry because you’ve insisted on all of this—me, the wedding, pulling me into your life—and then you desert me the night before we’re supposed to get married? Leave me during the rehearsal dinner? And all I get is a ‘don’t wait up’ text?”

You hate that your voice rises, hate the heat behind your eyes. Andy comes closer, and you want to slap him and also want him to hold you. You flex your jaw, force your gaze to stay away.

He listens. He lets you say it all, and when it’s out of your mouth, tumbling and ugly, he says, “I know. But there are things I can’t and won’t tell you. I can’t ever expose you to certain things. I won’t allow them near you.” His voice is all iron and velvet. “I’m protecting you, even if it doesn’t look or feel like it.”

He lets the pause hang, then takes a slight step closer—close enough that you nearly shiver at the radius of his heat.

There are things I won’t shield you from, either. You told me to never lie, so I won’t pretend I’m made another way. But I will always come back.” He says it softly, neither a threat nor a comfort.

After a lengthy moment of silence, you tell him, “I don’t want another night like this. I don’t want to ever be stranded in the dark.”

He considers it. Not with a smirk or a challenge, but real intent, a resolution hardening. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I’m not good enough,” he says, and it is the flattest, most relentless admission. “But I am what you’re marrying.”

You should laugh. You almost do, at the incredulity, the audacity, the unfairness of his answer, of this entire situation, but then he reaches out, just a single knuckle under your chin, and you’re suddenly taking in a shaky breath.

You hold his eyes for a full count, your body picking up the stutter of your pulse, anger and want running convergent through your system. You want to turn away, to break the connection, but you can’t.

“Then show me. Make it better,” you say, and your voice is a command, not a plea.

You let him guide your face up. His thumb travels a gentle path down your jaw. He leans in, pressing his words, and his mouth, against your skin. “You want more than this? I will never give you less.” The last of it is a murmur, not a vow, but it lives in the hollow between you, nudging the edge of promise.

He kisses you behind the ear, slow and intentional, and your whole body contracts around the point of contact. You hate how even this controlled display of contrition draws you in. Were you less tired, were it not the night before your wedding, you may have pushed him away. But he knows exactly how to pull on the string that unravels you, and you can’t leave it at that, so you cup his face and press your mouth against his, not sweet or apologetic but with a frustrated need to bite, to mark. He lets you, opens willingly, tongue flicking yours, and the pressure he uses to guide you toward the bed is insistent. You pull him with you, backwards, the two of you bumping knees, bumping hips, his hands already finding the tie at your robe and making short work of it.

He pulls it from your shoulders, lets it float to the carpet with exaggerated gentleness that’s belied by the urgency of his mouth and hands. You take brief satisfaction in yanking at his shirt buttons, two of them tumbling somewhere onto the bedding, but Andy just shrugs out of the rest and lets it fall to the floor.

He is, as you’ve come to expect, taller and heavier than you in the moments that matter. He pins you beneath him, stretching your arms above your head, taking his time as if you both aren’t aching with a violent need. He kisses you with a patience that does not match the tension in his body, hands working down your ribs, touching and teasing the places he’s learned draw your responses.

You let him press you down, let him grind against you, clothed below the waist but with a bare chest and a punishing grip as he presses one of your thighs up and open for him. Your silk nightgown is tangled above your hips, ruined for decency, and the sheets under you bunch as you wrap your leg around him.

You are not even sure when you stop resisting—the anger, the loneliness—maybe when he murmurs, “I’m here,” into the shell of your ear, or maybe it’s before that, at the familiar drag of his teeth across your shoulder. You want to snarl at him, but you can only gasp and tear one of your hands away so you can grab for his waistband, the zipper, too impatient for finesse.

The button resists for half a second before you hear the pop. Andy’s hips cant, the gesture half involuntary. He is, unlike you, a master at not showing his hunger—unless he wants you to see it, and tonight he must, because the restraint rubs your skin raw in a way that’s almost a dare. You dig your heel into the mattress, lift your pelvis to grind into the urgency that’s thickening between your bodies. He lets you, but barely; his hand catches your thigh, squeezes, and you wonder if there will be marks tomorrow. You hope so.

He pulls back, and you make a desperate, wordless noise—appalled at the empty space, the abrupt loss of him. Andy grins, a glint of teeth in the dark, and then he’s dropping to his knees at the edge of the bed, eyes black and bottomless. “Patience,” he says, voice low and hoarse. “I want you naked for me. Completely.”

You’re tempted to resist him, to force him to earn the reveal, but you want the heat and the gaze and—more than anything—the feeling of him unraveling for you. So you tug the nightgown up and off, shimmying as best you can.

Andy reaches out to assist, dragging your panties off in a single, practiced movement, leaving you splayed open and vulnerable in the spill of moonlight, the air cold and sharp against your skin.

He stands, shucking his pants and boxers with ease. His cock is already hard, and he takes himself in hand, stroking slow, almost lazy, but you can see the tension in his jaw, the way his forearm tightens, every line of his body at the edge of restraint. He stands there for a moment, head tipped, just watching you with that focus, just this side of feral. It should alarm you. It should, maybe, make you recoil, the ferocity in him, so unlike the men you’ve known before. It’s a look that should have scared you from the beginning—but no one has wanted you the way he wants you, and you’ve grown addicted to how Andy’s hunger works.

You want to wipe that look of composure from his face, and you know exactly how to do it. You arch your back, knees falling apart, and bring your fingers to your cunt—slow, deliberate. Andy’s mouth parts the barest inch, but he doesn’t move to stop you. You circle your clit with two fingers, the slide easy and slick, and moan just loud enough that you know he’ll hear it for days. He watches, lips parted, and the tension in his neck sings.

“Is this what you want?” you ask.

You don’t wait for an answer. You drag a slick, purposeful circle with your fingertip, then roll your hips up again, forcing his attention onto the precise spot you want it. Your other hand moves to your breast, pinching a nipple until the ache flashes through your belly. You moan again, longer, keeping your eyes pinned to his as though you can draw out his release through sheer insistence.

Andy comes closer, his hand sliding up your calf, kneading the inside of your knee with enough pressure to make you gasp and lose the rhythm of your own touch. He takes your wrist in his, slows your movements, and brings your fingers to his mouth. He licks them, savoring your taste, then sucks the tips into the heat of him, eyes trained on yours the whole time. “You want to make me lose control?” he murmurs. “You’re close, sweetheart.”

You shudder, half from his voice and half from the pleasure needling up your legs. “Then what are you waiting for?”

“Flip over,” he says, and you obey. Not because you care to perform for him, but because this is the only language you speak fluently with each other.

You turn, face pillowed in moonlight, the curve of your ass arched and on display. The sheets are cool under your cheek. Andy’s hands find your hips, not rough but absolute, his palms broad and braced. He kneads you for a long moment, a brief, silent exhibition of ownership, before running his thumb down the seam of you, spreading you open with the same clinical certainty he uses to carve out secrets.

He fucks you in one smooth, relentless motion, every inch filling you until your body feels engineered for the shape of him. You groan from the fullness, and he groans being sheathed inside your cunt. He leans forward, curling over you, and presses a kiss into your neck.

He holds you there, pressed hard against the mattress, your knees bracing apart as his cock drives into you with a steadiness that’s almost brutal but never crosses over into pain. You have only ever known men in this position to get greedy, to lose their pacing almost immediately, but Andy’s rhythm is a ruthless metronome, each thrust a little deeper, a little harder, calibrated to keep you right at the edge.

His weight is a gravity you loathe and crave; you let him press you into the bed and hold you there. You’re still angry, still trembling, but everything is blurred with your arousal, your hunger, the lines so tangled you can barely see the difference.

You try to deny him your pleasure out of spite, but it’s a losing proposition—Andy finds the angle he wants, rocks into you so that you choke on a half-sob, and holds there until you scratch at the sheets, half-crazed. The sound you make is ugly and desperate, and the only thing worse is how much you want him to hear it, to be stoked by it, to see what he does to you. He seems to sense this, his voice a gravel scrape against your shoulder blade. “Take it, sweetheart. Let me hear how much you want it.”

His thumb finds your clit, presses in tight, and for a few strokes you somehow resist, but then your hips buck and your vision splotches out, and you do let him hear how much you want him. It’s exquisite. He continues to fuck into you, working your clit, every nerve burning, every muscle tightening in a white, brutal wave. He fucks you through it, groaning, not letting up until a second, sharper quake rips through your body. Then and only then does Andy let himself go—slamming into you, his hand a vise around your hip as he spends himself, jaw pressed to your spine. The shudder of him fully inside you is shocking, almost convulsive, and he bucks in you until the last aftershocks fade and the only sound in the room is two desperate people fighting for air.

He doesn’t pull out right away. He just stays there, draped over your body, letting you catch your breath, his weight an absolute. When he does finally move, he’s slow and careful, laying beside you and rolling you into his arms, not a word spoken. You’re still too fogged by want and exhaustion to move, content to let him hold you close, the press of his cheek against your hair. Neither of you speak for a very long time.

But there are thoughts you still need him to hear.

You find your voice in the hush, not loud or demanding but plain, with the rough edge of sleep and aftershock. “I don’t want more nights like this,” you say, and you can feel the way Andy’s chest stills under your hand. “I didn’t want to be coerced into your bed, I didn’t want to be forced into an engagement, I didn’t want to get married like this. You exploited the attraction, you’ve made me weak for you, but please,” your voice breaks, “please don’t make me the wife who has to wait up alone for you.”

Andy doesn’t speak, not at first, and the silence unsettles you, but you make yourself hold it—make yourself show that it matters. You refuse to shrink or swallow the need. If he’s going to be the kind of man who pulls you into his orbit, he’s damn well going to know he can’t just leave you in the dark. Not without a fight. He’s made slow but small shifts in some areas you’ve pressed with him. Maybe you can have resonance here, too.

He smooths a hand from your shoulder, down your back, each pass gentler than the last. He’s thinking, you know. Not just brushing off what you said, but actually holding it up to the light, inspecting the seams. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and soft, but firm.

“I meant it when I said I’d do my best,” he says. “I don’t want you to be her—the wife who waits at the window. But I also can’t give up what I am.” His hand lingers at your waist, a heavy presence.

You sigh, too thoroughly boneless to summon the right words, so you simply roll over, and it’s too natural how your body melds against him as he curls his arm around you and pulls your back flush against his chest. All you can do now is hope your sentiments will start to seep into him through osmosis.

You let the silence ride a little longer, curled together as if this is some and listen to the slowing cadence of his breath, to the metallic taste of words you didn’t say, and you wonder if this is what love might be—the willingness to be furious and still stay.

And you wonder if this is love—not because it’s gentle or clean or what you imagined, but because it has weight, because it has teeth, because it sits in your chest like a stone you keep reaching for. Because you are angry and ruined and held, and somehow all three of those things are the same thing. Because no one has seen you the way he does. Because no one has made you feel so wanted, even if it’s infused with possession. But even through the moments you know there are things he isn’t telling you, you know he’s never lied to you. Even when he says things you don’t want to hear, he speaks to you openly. Even when his actions are incendiary and disagreeable, they’re still somehow for you now.

He says your name. It’s a quiet thing, a soft push through the dark, but it lands with a rattle in your chest.

“I want to tell you something,” Andy says. “Not because you asked, but because if you’re going to be my wife, you will need to know.”

You swallow, knowing instinctively that to interrupt is to lose the tiny, trembling momentum inside him. He never initiates these confessions. He’s all action, never exposition. You hold your body still, afraid any breath will snap the thread.

“They brought me in tonight to consult on a sit-down. Not a war, but something close. One of the families in Jersey—Lupo’s people—made a move on Levinson’s properties—of one of our allies—along the North River. Not a huge play, but enough to draw blood. No one got shot. But next time, someone will.” Andy’s hand flexes at your hip, tightening like a vise. “If that happens, everything changes. This life, the way we can have it, ends. The only thing that keeps us—keeps you—safe, is the order.” He breathes out, a single tight exhale. “If the peace goes, I can’t guarantee anything. Not for you, not for me. And that’s not something I’m willing to risk.”

You lie there, staring at the ceiling, sheets cooling under your legs, and you realize what he’s giving you is not reassurance, but the truth of his world, knife-sharp and blood-warm. It should terrify you. It does, to a degree, but you’ve had a security detail, you know there are six loaded guns hidden here in the master suite. There is nothing normal about any of this, but the fact of Andy’s world is that it remains obsessively ordered only so long as no one has reason to start a war.

“When I have to go, I have to go, and I’ll never apologize for that,” he adds when you don’t say anything more.

Thea joked about reading mafia romance novels, but this is not a genre, this is your life now. When you let the reality land, it isn’t just gravity, but something like inheritance: no matter what you wanted or didn’t, you’re marrying into all of this.

And yet, as you lie there, taken apart and held tightly yet again, you find a calm in yourself you didn’t realize you could access. Maybe it’s the spill of adrenaline draining away, or the simple fact that Andy—your future husband, in a matter of hours—has finally handed you the truest thing he’s ever said. Everything is always at risk.

But if the world really is this dangerous, you’ve no doubt you’re held by the most powerful man you’ve ever met, and since he stopped at nothing to secure you, he will stop at nothing to keep you secure.

Uncle Rob! Thea! Andy! A Levinson name drop?!

There are so many things here that I've been plotting for ages, and so I think it's half the reason it took me so long to finish this chapter. Back in May I had written what I thought was about 3k to make up the first half of the chapter, but something about it just wasn't working, so I pulled it apart, kept a few of the scraps, and went back to the drawin board. I'm pleased where it finally ended up, and even though I know parts of this story are frustrating (coughSOMEOFANDY'SBEHAVIORcough), I do hope you all like the chapter.

And I know this is at the verrrrrry tail end of Monday for the first of what I'm hoping will be I'm Your Man Monday, but we made it! So we'll see if I can make this happen and get you another update next week!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I’m so intrigued by Uncle Rob 👀 I’d love to know more about his history with Andy, and if you have a face claim for him 🤓

I am once again declaring my undying love for Thea 🧎🏻‍♀️

 “It doesn’t look like any love story I’d picture for you,” she says. “It’s not the type people write poems about or that you see on Pinterest boards. I don’t even know that it’s love, but it’s definitely fierce, and runs deep.”

“Thea,” your voice is a little choked.

“He looks at you like you’re the last thing on earth he thinks is worth burning for.” She shrugs and takes another sip of her champagne. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s true.”

Oh my godddd 😭😭😭 Okay, first of all!! All of this was incredibly beautiful, you talented hoe. And also now I’m very much in my feels and they aren’t even stabby 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

You don’t want to admit how badly you want him here—how quickly your anger at his text has curdled into a more woeful, sticky missing. It chafes to need him.

Andy better have a damn good excuse for not being there for us after such a tedious, vulnerable night that was more for HIS benefit 😡

He smiles, weary but pleased. “You’re angry because you missed me.” He says it not as an accusation, but a simple, delighted observation, like he’s just solved a riddle in your presence. “You care.”

I insist you borrow my knife 🔪

…but no one has wanted you the way he wants you, and you’ve grown addicted to how Andy’s hunger works.

Love this 🤌🏻 And can totally see why it would be addictive. 

As smug as Andy would be about it, I do think this story contains some of your best smut 😮‍💨

Because no one has seen you the way he does. Because no one has made you feel so wanted, even if it’s infused with possession. But even through the moments you know there are things he isn’t telling you, you know he’s never lied to you. Even when he says things you don’t want to hear, he speaks to you openly. Even when his actions are incendiary and disagreeable, they’re still somehow for you now.

YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN ✋🏻

Me at that Levinson name drop:

I would like to volunteer to be his love 🙋🏻‍♀️

One option: older Michael Fassbender vibes.

Oscar Isaac:

Morris Chestnut:

Generally I envision him being sort of halfway between your age and your mother's age. You and Andy I imagine vaguely 30s to 40s with Andy being older than you, and Rob older than Andy, but Andy being old enough that they've been connected for a while. In the business.

👀

But I can't reveal to you how yet.

Thea!

Of course we love Thea! But this scene at the end of the party between you and your best friend was incredibly important to me. She's your best. friend. You escaped to Stockholm to put your head above water in the middle of this hurricane of Andy, and so she has been watching him like a hawk. She's not completely settled, but she's not worried that you're completely in over your head or that you're in danger. She sees that you still have your head on straight (and are still evaluating him yourself), and she sees how he interacts with you, how he watches you from across a room, and she doesn't feel like this requires an intervention.

I’m very much in my feels and they aren’t even stabby 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

This is even more ground than I hoped to gain with you and the others in the VERY SKEPTICAL and/or stabby/murderous camp! 🥹

Andy's not free and clear, but he's here for you. Full stop.

I insist you borrow my knife 🔪

LOOOOL, but also valid. He was so shocked to discover this that he let it show a bit too much.

YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN

You can't stop me. 😌 Me and the muse have a long haul plot destination to get to. 😌 And we will drag all of you with us. 😌

While I certainly had my 😡 moments at Andy this chapter, I’m actually very pleased with how he opened up...

And THAT is EXACTLY where we wanted to leave you on this journey (me and my muse). Because this isn't a one conversation 180 turnaround thing. This isn't a 180 turnaround relationship. But there is movement. There's shifting. Had you not railed against him tonight, he wouldn't have opened up. But he did open up because you came to the table, as it were. In my head you and Andy are both negotiating new angles of how you view this relationship every day.

I'm just pleased that this chapter passed!