Articulations of Aspen

He opens the fridge and stands there, hand on the door, looking for the thing he knows he doesn’t have: some dinner that isn’t toast or yogurt. He glances at his phone, no messages. He looks around before releasing a deep sigh. The house always feels too silent.

Now he’s back at the door, peering through the storm glass, the box still waiting unobtrusively before him.

It isn’t his birthday, not for another three months. He’s not sure who would send him a package anyway, and he’d made no orders recently. Andy’s neighbors are too old to bother with pranks. He opens the screen, bends down to collect the box, and slips the package under his arm, carrying it in to the kitchen counter.

A neat arrangement of flowers emerges as he opens the box. No cellophane, just a pale blue tissue cushioning the stems and a small card. Not even in an envelope. The handwriting is blocky: TO ANDY. That’s it. No return address, no signature, just his name as if that alone would explain everything.

He looks at the flowers: some kind of bloom he’s never seen before. The petals seem delicate, and they’re a strange, precise shade of ivory, each petal streaked with a faint green that seems to deepen as he stares. The scent is so thick he almost recoils, first overly sweet, almost rotten with anticipation, syrupy-sweet and high-pitched, but settling, after a breath, into something lusher, like the inside of a greenhouse after rain. The air feels heavy, and on a second, unguarded inhale, his chest swells with a pleasant, tingling warmth. He can feel the pink rising along his neck, the way his hands want to fidget, like he’s standing awkwardly at a middle school dance, which is so strange he almost laughs. The scent—if he admits it, even to himself—reminds him of you, his new neighbor.

He wonders if you’re home, and the thought is so sudden, so absurd, he nearly puts the flowers back in the box. But that would be ridiculous.

He’s only met you twice: once waving from your side of the street as you retrieved your mail from the mailbox at the curb, and once at the neighborhood meeting, where after introductions were made the two of you had exchanged a handful of words about the late pick-up of recycling before Janice had called the meeting to order.

Maybe he should give the flowers to you.

No, that would also be ridiculous. He hardly knows you.

He goes to the kitchen sink and fills a water glass, digs under the cabinet for the only vase he owns—one of those heavy-glass things, left behind by someone in the house before it was his, maybe a relic of a more optimistic era, or more likely, a leftover from a florist’s upcharge. He arranges the flowers, still cautious, sets them in the middle of the kitchen table. For a minute he stands, simply staring, as if they might reveal something by being observed.

He sits at the table, scrolling his phone, forcing himself to focus on the news, but the scent of the flowers—now more bearable, even comforting—keeps lapping at his attention. He tries to read about the city council’s new water restrictions. Then about the meteor shower predicted for next week. When he looks up, the glass vase is throwing long, refracted ovals of green-tinted light onto the table, and the petals are trembling faintly, as if in a draft. There is no draft. He wonders what kind of flowers these even are. The urge to Google it is strong—maybe they’re from some rare local shrub. Maybe you’d know.

He huffs in frustration, then pushes away from the table. He makes his usual evening circuit through the house—checking doors, clicking on the living room lamp, pulling a can from the fridge—but each time he passes the kitchen, the wet-glass shimmer of the flowers is waiting, like a question he forgot to answer. He hovers in the doorway during commercials as he pretends to watch the game while really watching the slow collapse of petals in the vase. He tries to remember what you looked like across the street, what you were wearing, but all he can recall is how you hadn’t noticed him at first, and how that felt sharp and interesting in a way he didn’t know what to do with.

He eats cold noodles over the sink and finds himself rehearsing, in his head, how you might react if he brought you the flowers after all. What kind of note would he write? Would you even open the door?

The phone buzzes—a work group text, something about interviews for the new interns next week—and he thumbs out a reply, then set the phone down and finishes his shoddy meal.

He can’t remember the last time he was this preoccupied with anything. You’ve crossed his mind a number of times since you moved in across the street, but tonight it’s somehow impossible to think of anything or anyone but you. He’s never thought of himself as the “intrigued by a neighbor” type. And yet. The air feels crimped with possibility, which is stupid, because what would that even mean? He wonders if you’re watching the same game, or if you’re home at all, or if you’re across the street eating your own sad single-person dinner, oblivious to the fact that you’ve taken up residence in someone’s mind.

It doesn’t get any better.

He blames the flowers. The scent is everywhere, and he can’t make it stop, can’t crack a window wide enough to dilute it, can’t shake the sense that the petals are folding and unfurling at a speed just shy of human perception. He’s always been able to fall asleep instantly—smirking at friends who whined about insomnia—but now it’s as if his head is a hive. Minutes after crawling into bed, he’s restless, hot, the sheets sticking to him. He twists, then sits upright, the pillowcase damp and smelling faintly of the flowers. He gets up, paces the kitchen, then the living room, then stands at the window and stares across the street.

Your porch light is on. A rectangle of light throws out from your living room, and there’s a silhouette moving inside, maybe you, maybe a coat thrown over a chair, but all the same, the knowledge of you being over there is a burr under his ribs, a contamination in his bloodstream.

He can’t take it. He runs his hands through his hair, then growls in frustration and strides out his front door and down the steps of his porch before he knows what’s happening or what will come next.

The knock on your door startles your heart clean out of your body because no one should be knocking on your door this late at night.

You freeze, bowl of cereal in hand. In place of chewing, you hold your breath. After a full, tense ten seconds, there’s a second knock, insistent and measured, as though whoever is out there has no intention of going away.

You reach for your phone, thumb shaking a little more than you want to admit, and check the time, knowing you should’ve headed to bed ages ago. Not even the delivery apps will come out this late, not in this blissfully suburban neighborhood.

You mute the TV and tiptoe to the entryway, bowl cradled to your chest like a shield. Peering through the peephole, you almost drop the whole thing—milk, cereal, ceramic and all—because Andy from across the street is standing on your porch. He’s alone, wearing lounge pants and a t-shirt that’s wonderfully too tight, his usually soft-looking floofy hair wild, face creased with some expression you can’t decipher.

You step back, breathing through your nose, heart in overdrive. It’s not as if you’ve fantasized about him showing up at your doorstep in the middle of the night. Except you have. Far too many times.

You set the bowl on the entry table and smooth your hair in the faint reflection of the hall mirror. Four seconds elapse. Too long? Too short? You open the door just enough to wedge your face out the crack, just far enough to shield your pajamas, which feature a cartoon from your childhood with a long-defunct brand logo, but not so much that you’d seem like you were hiding. Andy’s bearded face is flushed; he runs a palm over the back of his neck.

“Hey,” he says, honeyed voice low, and pitching right to your twisting core. “Sorry. I know it’s late.”

You make yourself smile. “Is everything okay?”

“I, uh, yeah. I—” He glances back at the perfectly safe, empty street, then leans a little closer to the door frame. “Actually, could I come in? Just for a second?”

There’s a quality in his voice you can’t name. An urgency layered under hesitancy. You nod, opening the door wide, and back up through the narrow entry, suddenly very aware of the state of your hair, your house, the half-finished bowl of cereal.

He nearly pulls the door out of your hand, pushes it tenderly but forcefully shut, and before you can arrange your face into the appropriate social mask, Andy is kissing you like he came here to do exactly this and nothing else in the world has ever mattered. His hands are reverent and greedy at once, one cradling your jaw, the other fisting in the back of your t-shirt. He tastes faintly of toothpaste. You respond as you always imagined you would—if not out loud, then with every part of your animal self—gripping his shoulders like a lifeline, digging into the muscles you’d admired from across your respective sidewalks.

You’re already a little winded when you break apart, but Andy’s eyes are glassy and his breathing is ragged. His thumb is tracing delicate lines over your cheekbone, and you’re trying to remember how to speak when he does it again—lips on yours, but this time slower, like he’s trying to press your molecules together, seam to seam. You let him. He mouths at your lower lip until you open for him, tongue gliding in, deliberate and sure. His body presses yours backward, and you feel the flat cold of the door through your pajamas. Andy’s body is all heat and intention and hard planes against your utter softness, and the pressure of him caging you in is heady.

He pulls back, just enough to look at you, eyes wide and startled as if he can’t quite believe what he’s doing. “Sorry,” he says, almost in a daze of his own, “I just need…”

He kisses you again, mouth hot and desperate, tongue slick against yours, like he’s been thirsty for weeks. His hand never strays from your jaw, thumb stroking the hinge of it with a tenderness that nearly undoes you, but he slides the other down, skimming your side, the subtle flex of muscle through his shirt as he grips your waist. Your mind cracks open, every synapse alert, every cell singing.

You arch into him, needy, shameless. You think there’s no way this can be real. But even as you think it, he smothers a groan into your neck, lips dragging from your mouth to the pulse that hammers there, then back again, like he can’t bear to be away from your lips for more than a single heartbeat.

His palm curves over your hip, slow and decisive, then dips past the loose elastic of your pajama shorts. You gasp a warning that’s half protest, but mostly need, as his knuckles drag against your belly, then he’s inside, palm cupping you, and the simple warmth of his hand makes every thought you’ve ever had vanish. Andy kisses you with the same searching hunger, open-mouthed and ruined, as two blunt fingers sweep through the wet slick of you, slow at first, deliberate, petting the lips of your cunt until you’re squirming for more, until it’s embarrassing how wet you are, how quickly you’re coming apart.

You brace both hands against his chest, meaning to slow him, but instead you just hold on, clutching the soft cotton of his shirt, small noises escaping you. The way he kisses you is relentless—mouth devouring, tongue hot and sure, as if the world might end if he doesn’t taste every inch of you. His hand works down your body, urgent and hungry, and his fingers push deeper into your shorts, parting the seams, as if he’s opening a gift he’s thought about unwrapping for months. He slides two thick fingers into you, curling them with a deftness that feels like it should belong to a darker, more dangerous man—the kind of person your mother warned you about, not Andy, who always walks his recycling bin out at the exact right day and waves at the old lady three doors down.

You’re already trembling and he’s barely started. He fucks you with his hand, slow at first, then ruthless, setting a rhythm that makes your knees threaten to buckle. You clutch his shoulders, gasping into his open mouth, and he swallows the sound, grinning against your lips.

How is this happening?

You can’t think. You feel the split between your thighs and Andy’s hand, the way his palm is big enough to cover all the space there, possessive and gentle at once, drawing out tight circles over your clit. His fingers drive in unyielding and sweet, crooking with precision, the heel of his palm grinding firm as he fucks you through a shattering pleasure—one that comes so fast and hot you actually try to bite it back, your teeth sinking into his lower lip. He huffs a desperate, laughing sound, and when you come, it’s not like climbing some steady hill, but being dropped through a trapdoor.

You gasp and shudder, clutching at the man who just wrecked you. You should’ve protested all of this, shouldn’t you?

You want, more than anything, to collapse to the cool hardwood and drag him down with you, but Andy must sense this, because he presses you harder to the door, trapping you upright between the wood and the furnace of his body.

Andy’s hand doesn’t ease up. He holds you pinned, like you’re an answer he’s demanded from the universe and now that he’s got you, he won’t let you out of his grip. He presses his lips to your temple, riding out your aftershocks, but you feel the tremor in his arm, like restraint is costing him something precious. When you try to shift away, to breathe, he gives a small, strangled sound—almost wounded—and tugs you back, mouth at your ear.

“No,” he whispers, and his hand strokes lower, like he’s determined to find the bottom of you, the root of this need. “I need more. Need to see you—” His breath stutters, and he sucks your earlobe into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth. “Need to watch you lose it for me again.”

You’d argue, but the truth is you want the same thing, no part of you wants him to stop.

The twist of his wrist, the scuff of his palm over the tight bundle of nerves, the softness of his mouth on your jaw, your neck, the corner of your lips—he’s everywhere, demanding and worshipful. Andy’s body presses closer, crowding you against the door, and you can feel every frantic beat of his heart through the thin shield of his t-shirt. He murmurs nonsense into your skin—good girl, so gorgeous, fuck, need, need, need.

You think you’re going to say his name, but it gets stuck behind your teeth, too many syllables suddenly unfathomable. It’s ridiculous. The pressure builds, sweet and sharp, and Andy’s hand is never not exactly where you need it, somehow reading micro-adjustments on your face, your breath. He curses—soft, reverent—when your whole body shivers, when your hips buck into his palm. You’re making noises you don’t recognize, high and pleading and so raw you’d be embarrassed if you could think straight. There’s no shield. There’s just Andy and his hand and you, the way your body opens for him, the way you melt and tremble. The second release is so complete it whites out everything—and what brings you back is not your own breath or heartbeat but the faint, helpless trembling in Andy’s forearms, the way he is shaking almost as badly as you are.

He’s watching you, face open and wild, like he’s just been let out of a cage. And the sight of him—lips parted, brow damp, pupils obliterating the blue—turns your insides to syrup. You are about to collapse, or maybe just melt, when you realize Andy’s hand is still inside your shorts, but now it’s gentle, just a palm pressed over your cunt, and his other hand has caught your wrist and pinned it gently but immovably above your head.

You try to breathe. You fail.

He kisses you, softer this time, and you let your eyes flutter closed. For a long minute, the world is just your breath curling together, the press of his lips, the warmth of his chest pressed to yours, and your heart constricts beautifully, remembering how you’ve longed for a moment just like this.

And then a sudden, vivid memory of the other night, ambushes you mid-kiss.

You, alone and wine-drunk a week ago, flicking through late-night TikToks until you scrolled upon a witch who was too intriguing to pass by. She spoke about manifesting and desires and moon cycles. She was answering comments with wisdom that was tinged with only a whiff of whimsy. The whole thing seemed so exquisitely stupid, so precisely the sort of thing you’d mock with a friend at brunch, but that was half the ache that had you wine-drunk and scrolling. You’d never been in a serious romantic relationship, but now you were also in a new town with no family, no friends, lacking connection, and feeling so alone.

So you’d stayed, wanting to believe, just a little, in magic.

The witch hadn’t seemed much older than you, if at all—hair in two space buns, eyeliner winged so sharp it could slice through time. Unlike the other algorithmic spiritualists who popped up on your feed, she answered comments with candor and missed no opportunity to call out the grifters. She laughed often, cackled sometimes, and radiated a low-budget but compelling earnestness that you respected. Her handle was something like @HexAndFlex, and before you knew it, you’d clicked through to her profile and linktree, then her Etsy, then, in a tangle of embarrassment and fascination, to the checkout page.

Wine glass in hand, you signed up for her $19.99 “Goddess Alignment Manifestation” bundle via Etsy, which included a personalized reading and three PDF guides. You filled out the intake questionnaire at 2:12 a.m., pausing long and hard on the prompts: “What are your hopes? Who are you inviting into your life? What does love feel like in your body?”

Waking up the next morning, you had an email from Sage Moonwater—a name that was either a branding masterstroke or her actual birth certificate humiliation—inviting you to select a time to consult that evening via her convenient Calendly link so you could step into your power and claim the life you deserved, specifically by manifesting “your soulmate’s touch” before the next crescent moon. It was so transparently silly, but her voice had had a way of making you feel less like a joke and more like a person who could actually want things, and what the hell did you have to lose now that you’d already paid the twenty bucks?

You’d set up the call for the same evening, all self-mockery, already rehearsing the text you’d send to Emily about what you were about to do. But as soon as the video chat connected, you felt a weird, grounding nervousness, like maybe you were about to reveal something shameful and true.

Sage had an actual backdrop—galaxy stars on a rich tapestry, a candle burning low, shelves of glass jars and labeled bottles that might hold essential oils or ketchup packets for all you could see. She greeted you with a firm, confident wave and a smile so wide it bordered on conspiratorial. She asked about your day, your mood, how you slept, and the questions came not as a checklist but as a real curiosity, like she wanted to know what you’d eaten for lunch because it was the first data point in a cosmic equation. The whole interaction felt, bizarrely, more intimate than your last three actual dates.

She asked and you talked about desire, about heartbreak, about loneliness, about the years and years of being the person everyone called “so independent” and “so intimidating” when really, you would’ve given up every self-actualized inch of it just to have one person see you across a crowded room and want you enough to cross the distance. You had not intended to say any of this, not even to yourself, but in the slow momentum of Sage’s affirming silences and cocked eyebrows, it all tumbled out. The next thing you knew, you were telling her about the feeling of your last almost-relationship ending, how it made you feel like a fading echo in a canyon, and how the new town had seemed like a possibility for a reset, a new chapter and new connections, but instead just made everything echo louder.

And then you mentioned your neighbor. Andy. Not by name at first, but by silhouette: the broad-shouldered man who was clean cut and seemed so kind and took his trash bins to the curb at the exact legally sanctioned minute, who always mowed the lawn of your elderly neighbor. You admitted—your cheeks burning, as if Sage could sense it across the pixels—that your neighbor looked like the actor who played Captain America, only with a beard that made him look less Marvel franchise and more the Northeast suburban lawyer that he was. You told her that, and Sage grinned, writing notes on an index card, and said you should never apologize for wanting a man whose forearms could probably open a stuck pickle jar with hardly an ounce of effort.

Sage guided you through a ritual that was half guided meditation, half pep talk, and one hundred percent more soothing than you expected. The rest of the call was a blur, but you remembered the precise click of the lighter as Sage torched a little twist of something in a shell, then told you to believe, for just a minute, that the universe would not play you if you simply asked for what you wanted, no disclaimers, no shame. At the end, Sage closed her eyes and murmured something, then said, “Manifestation doesn’t mean sitting still. When you see the signal, walk into it. Be the spell.” You laughed—together as she took her craft but not herself too seriously, you promised to leave her a five-star review, and closed the laptop.

Then you forgot about it. Full on forgot for the rest of the week, until the entire affair reverberates with the force of a sucker punch, the moment Andy’s hand, slick with you, presses harder, grounding you in the exact present of everything Sage told you to want.

Now, as you gasp for air—Andy’s mouth still pressed to the hinge of your jaw, his hand holding your wrist pinned—you have the wild, horrible thought that you might actually have done this. Not just metaphorically, not in the way of I set an intention and now the universe is showing me signs, but in the literal, actions-have-consequences sense of the word. That you, in a fit of late-night desperation, tapped your wishes into the digital void with the help of an Etsy witch, and then the void, bored or mercenary or high on its own power, sent you Andy, unfiltered, nearly deranged with need, to finish what you started.

“Oh, no,” you murmur, breathless, aware at cellular level that you’ve broken something and there’s no undialing it back. Andy’s mouth is still on your neck, but his hand has stilled, fingers wet and honest where they rest. You feel the insane urge to confess all of this, to babble out the chain of cause and consequence, but that would be even more unhinged than what’s actually happening, so you just clutch at his nape like you can anchor yourself to him and ride it out.

Andy, meanwhile, is not waiting for your existential reconciliation. He’s pulling you from the entryway, hands gentle but insistent, urging you through the darkness of your own house toward the living room. Neither of you turns on the light, as if to do so would break this spell and lay bare the ordinary details—your couch’s threadbare arm, the red-wine blot you still haven’t cleaned from the rug.

You stumble a little in front, Andy’s body close behind, and he makes a sound, half-plea, half-laughter, and tells you to, “Wait, wait,” and then he’s pulling you, deft hands at your hips, to the couch.

He presses you down by the shoulders. Not rough, not even assertive—just a gentle, inarguable pressure until you’re seated, knees spread slightly by the width of his own. Then he is on his knees before you, hands sliding up your thighs with a kind of focus you’ve never been on the receiving end of, certainly not from a man who, until ten minutes ago, was no more than a participant in your erotic daydreams. He looks up at you, gaze level and starved, and you realize with a choked hitch in your breath that Andy’s intent is not ambiguous. Not even slightly.

You know how this scene is supposed to go. You’ve read enough, watched enough, spent enough late nights with a hand beneath your sheets and a fantasy running wild to recognize the choreography: the kneeling man, the parted thighs, the hungry eyes and trembling hands. Your heart should be galloping, and your body should be velvet and opening, but what you actually feel in this precise instant is a kind of underwater panic—a clutching in your chest that says, This isn’t you, this isn’t how you imagined it, not even in the most fevered, shame-laced moments before sleep. You want him, yes, but you want the wanting to be mutual, not conjured or compelled or rolling downhill because gravity says it must.

You seize his wrists—not to guide, but to stop him. For a second, the only sound is your breath, jagged and raw in the dark. Andy’s arms tense, and he freezes, hands hovering just above your knees.

“I need to know,” you say, surprised at how thin and breakable your voice is. “Do you actually want this?”

He’s startled, like you’ve splashed cold water in his face, and draws back just enough for a wedge of lamplight from the street to silver his jaw. He blinks, hard, and his mouth forms a quizzical line. “Of course I want this,” he says, and when you don’t let go, he adds, “I need it.”

You should let that be good enough. You should. But something inside you is a little stubborn, a little afraid this isn’t about you, but about magic and that the spell won’t last if it isn’t real.

You tug Andy’s arms higher, make him look at you. “Not need,” you say, the two words sounding childish, a repetition from some earlier, unsophisticated self. “Want. Do you even like me?” It’s an absurd moment to ask, and you nearly laugh, except the stakes are so much sharper than they were a minute ago.

Andy’s head tilts, and you see the fight in his face, the tangle of what’s happening and what he thinks should be happening. His brow knits, lips pursing as if considering this seriously, like you’re a witness in some small, late-night court, and he needs to get the answer right on the record.

“I—” The word is thick. He tries again. “Yes. Jesus, yes. Since you moved in. Hell, I thought I was being subtle. I—” He drops his gaze, and his hands flex hard on your knees.

Then his hands come up to cradle your hips, steady and unquestioning, and for a moment he just looks at you. His hands squeeze your hips, like he’s grounding himself, and he says, “No, I wasn’t being subtle. I was being careful. Guarded.

“Last time I had something that was supposed to be good, it blew up, and I lost it all. I couldn’t keep it, and I swore I’d never want that hard again.” His thumb slides, absently, along the bare skin where your shirt rides up. “But I haven’t stopped thinking about you. Not since the first week you showed up. I don’t even know why I’m here, doing this, skipping a hundred steps. But I want to want you, actually want you, and not just for tonight.”

You stare at him like an idiot, every word a stone dropped in the deep well of your body. You surge forward and now it’s you who’s kissing him like he’s the air you need to breathe. Your mouth meets his and this time there is no hesitation, no apology. You wind your hands into the back of his hair and tug, not to hurt but to anchor, and when Andy’s teeth scrape your lower lip, you welcome the pain because it means presence, it means both of you are here. The kiss tastes a little of resolve and a little of blood, and you devour it, clambering forward until you’re no longer seated but crouched over him, both of you half off the couch, falling together into the negative space between bodies.

He moves with you, arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you into his lap, so you’re straddling him, your knees bracketing his hips, your hands gripping his face. The feel of his beard on your palms is shockingly soft, and you run your thumbs along his jawline, mapping him, learning the shape of what you’ve summoned into existence. “Andy,” you whisper, testing the word against the flat of his tongue, and then again, like this will root him in place and keep him from dissolving away. He shudders, arms banding you tight, and you think, This is what it means to be wanted.

You can’t stop your hands. You want to clutch the collar of his shirt and drag it over his head, but instead you just knead the soft cotton over his shoulders, wanting to memorize every contour, every heat map of skin and muscle. He lets you, hands feather-light at your back, as if he’s still recalibrating to the idea that it’s possible, that this is happening. You dig your nails into his shoulders, shivering at the thought that this is real. Andy shivers too, and when your hips rock down, you both moan, a glorious, unscripted duet.

You laugh, or do something like it—a sound that is threaded with disbelief, with the creeping thrill that this moment is real. Andy is kissing your throat, your jaw, your face, kisses everywhere. You let your arms go slack, let your head fall back so he can drag his mouth along the column of your neck. All shyness has evaporated. You grind against him now, swim in the dizzy, churning heat, and every friction of your body ratchets it higher.

He rocks you in his lap, hands steady, and you can feel him straining hard beneath the soft jersey of his pants. There’s a voice in your head that wants to script this, to slow time and savor every beat—but you’re already gone, fueled by something that feels elemental. You hook your fingers under the hem of his shirt—his body is so warm, too warm, as if he’s been running a fever for you—and drag the fabric up his back. Andy helps you strip it off, and you stake your palms against his chest, which is warm and smooth, and you realize with delight that you had guessed correctly—light brown hair, just enough to tangle your fingers in. You do, just because you can, and Andy hisses, then laughs, catching your wrists and kissing the insides of them.

Your own shirt is next, or maybe he gets there first, but either way you’re bare chested against him, your nipples dragging over the broad terrain of his chest, and the friction is electric. You shudder, and Andy’s breath is hot on your neck as he buries his face there, humming low. His hands find the small of your back—one splayed to anchor you, the other traveling up your spine to cradle the curve of your neck, fingertips tracing fire along your vertebrae. His palm is huge, a brand against your skin, and you arch into it—hungry, greedy, alive.

You reach down, pulling at the drawstring on his lounge pants, and brush your knuckles along the line of his hip, skin so hot you think it might burn you. Andy’s teeth scrape your collarbone, and you laugh again, gasping.

You slide your hand beneath the waistband, push past the taut elastic, and find him hot, hard, and heavy in your palm. Andy’s eyes screw shut, jaw flexing. His head tips back, lips parted, and the sound he makes is so raw, so unguarded, you grip him tighter just to hear it again.

He lets you stroke him for three, maybe four slow pulls, until his patience fails and he tackles you backwards, the suddenness of it sending you sliding to the rug. He lands above you, catching your skull in his hand so you don’t hit the floor, the other braced by your shoulder, and for a moment you both hover, suspended over the thrum of your own need, before he’s tearing at your shorts, shoving them down your legs and off, then pulling your thighs around his hips. You’re naked on your living room rug, limbs akimbo, world reduced to the heat where his body meets yours.

Andy’s hand finds your knee, wedges himself between your thighs, and your heart stutters when you feel the heavy press of his cock against you, notching himself at your entrance. He presses forward, the head of him breaching you, then stops, sucking in a breath so sharp it’s almost a curse. “Fuck,” he growls.

The tenor of it sends a sliver of doubt through you. “What is it?”

He looks down, like this is the first moment he’s considered anything other than skin and the immediacy of you. “I, uh,” he says, “I don’t have anything on me.” The way he says it—on me—drags you back to the shore of reality. “Fuck, I’m sorry, this is so… Do you have anything?”

You don’t have to think hard about it. You know there is no pharmaceutical miracle in your bedside drawer, no leftover Trojan in your purse, not even a faded old wrapper in the medicine cabinet. You are never reckless, never this unprepared, and yet—“I don’t,” you say, and there is no hiding the want in your voice, no matter how much you try to paste on a veneer of caution. So you say the only other thing that’s blaring through your mind, “I don’t care. I want you.” And you mean it.

Andy freezes, some battle of conscience visible in the sharp lines of his face. But your next words crack him open. “I trust you.”

He leans in, presses his brow to yours. “I’ll pull out,” he says, voice a rumble and a promise, but you know even as he says it that you’re both already beyond that kind of discipline. He lets the head of his cock push just inside—enough to make your body go tight, desperate—and then he fucks you. It’s want, it’s intimate, but it’s an unadulterated fuck.

There is no slow easing in, no warmup. He’s already so thick and hard that the first push makes you gasp, makes your knees come up to lock behind his hips, makes your eyes flutter shut so you can concentrate on the sensation of being split with wanting. Andy cradles your head in his palm, mouthing frantic apologies into your neck, but you clutch at his ass, digging half-moons into his skin, urging him deeper. He’s past the point of teasing, and so are you. He drives in, the long, forceful motion grinding your back into the rug, and you can feel every inch of him, feel the way your body adjusts and grabs at him, absolutely unwilling to let go.

The sounds are obscene—yours, his, the wet slick of every thrust amplified by the chamber of your ribs. With each stroke, Andy mutters a gospel of fuck yes, you feel so good, so tight, fuck, never, never, not like this, fuck, need, fuck. You lose the shape of your own voice, the thrum of your body a radio tuned to a single frequency—fullness, friction, the absolute need to have him inside you.

You feel the edge building with every thrust, the thick heat of his cock nearly too much, the sweet ache of him pushing against the deep wall of you, and then—he angles your hips and suddenly he’s hitting something that turns you inside out. Your yelp is wild, and he does it again just to hear it, just to chase it. The rhythm is relentless, not violent but insistent. Your hands catch at his arms, shoulders, back—anywhere, everywhere—and your nails rake lines down the ladder of his spine.

He braces himself above you, then drops onto his elbows, crushing your body beneath his, pressing your breasts to his chest, so every thrust rocks you together. One palm cradles your jaw, tilting your face up, and he kisses you so deep the longing goes atomic, the world turning inside out.

You know that you’re making noises. You know your mouth is open and you’re emitting a sound with each pulse of his body into yours, but you’re not sure what it is, nor do you care. You’re right at the edge, clinging to the lip of it, and the friction is so much, so constant, that when you blurt, “Don’t stop,” you don’t even recognize your own voice.

Andy cants his hips and you swear he’s gotten deeper, impossibly so, and he grazes the spot that makes the world flash white at the edges.

You teeter at the precipice, clutch at his back, your legs straining around him. He feels your body start to come undone and murmurs, “That’s it, just like that,” right by your ear, breath molten. He grinds even deeper, and the pressure is so much you’re not sure if you’re gasping or screaming. Climax devours you in greedy waves—first ripping and sharp, then rolling, sensual, heady. Your cunt clamps hard around him and you feel him stutter, lose cadence, gasp your name like a plea. He’s close, so close, so ready to follow, and you sense his muscles tense, his will battling itself.

He tries to pull out, you feel it, the faltering withdrawal, and something primal and vast surges up from your deepest self. You fist your hands in his hair, drag his mouth to your ear, and whisper, “Don’t. Please. I want you to finish inside me.” Your voice is shredded, a raw thing, almost animal.

He groans, the sound wrenching from him, and he punctuates it with your name, the syllables snapping and falling apart, and then he’s coming inside you, the heat of it blooming in deep, pulsing bursts, and your body cages it, cages him, takes in all of it because it wants to, because you can. He’s heavy on top of you and you pull him down, press your face to his shoulder and hold him through that long, shuddering ride-down, both of you panting, hearts jackhammering against rib and skin and the braided muscle of your entwined bodies.

Eventually, Andy shifts, bracing himself carefully on his elbows so as not to crush you under his weight, but he looks down at you, face awash in disbelief and—if you’re reading it right—something like worship.

For a long time you just breathe. Your body hums, a sweet ache radiating from your pelvis, your thighs, your shoulders. Andy strokes your ribs in slow, lazy circles, like you’re a cat he’s coaxed into his lap. The air smells like salt and sweat and ozone, like something essential has been altered at the molecular level.

Andy is the first to break the silence, resting his brow against yours and exhaling, “Jesus Christ.”

You giggle softly and press a kiss to his jaw. “That was…” You don’t finish the sentence. Can’t. The words would be inadequate.

He nudges at you, gentle as a suggestion, and rolls your entire body with his until you’re both on your sides, limbs still knotted, belly to belly. The rug itches at your hip and the room is cold now that the furnace of him has transferred from on to next to, but neither of you is willing to move. Andy tucks your head under his chin, beard scraping your scalp, one arm pillowed under you, the other banded around your ribs.

You go slack in his arms, the exhaustion of pleasure rolling in after the storm, but your mind is a live wire, all overloaded circuits and impossible, bright newness.

“We should get up,” you say, because you were never one to fall asleep on the living room floor, but now you know you and Andy are both far too old to stay here for long in any kind of comfort.

Andy rumbles a laugh in your hair. “We should,” he agrees, but neither of you does, and you lay there, two bodies caught in a gravity well, breathing in tandem.

You run your palm up Andy’s rib cage, feeling the slight tremor beneath his skin, and look up into his face. He’s already watching you, blue eyes luminous in the dark. You’re both still naked; your bodies are still a tangle, and neither of you is prepared to speak just yet. He kisses your forehead, so light it feels like a benediction, and then he sighs, long and low, utterly without artifice. “You’re unreal,” he says.

You want to tell him, in that moment, about the witch, the twenty-dollar spell, about the two a.m. confessional and the shattering loneliness that made you whisper your want directly at the universe. You want to tell him you think you made this happen, that the ties between coincidence and desire are thinner than dental floss, but the words tangle up in your chest.

Because as surreal as the first moments were rocketing through the two of you as he showed up in your entryway, everything after felt real. The ache in your limbs is a perfect echo of satisfaction. You’re aware of Andy’s hand moving, tracing slow, distracted circles along the small of your back, like you’re something fragile or a secret he’s only just discovered.

It’s only a few minutes later that you do shift and groan at the discomfort of the floor, and Andy laughs.

You both untangle, groaning dramatically at the effort it takes to stand. Andy is first to his feet, and he has the nerve to offer you his hand like he’s some kind of courtly gentleman and not the man who just railed you so hard your vision is migrating out the sides of your skull. You snort and take it anyway, let him steady you as if you might topple, even though you are perfectly well balanced, thank you.

You shuffle toward the bathroom and he hangs back, fastening his pants, fussing with the drawstring. When you turn back to catch him, he’s straightening the couch cushions, gathering your clothes, and—hilariously—folding them into a neat pile on the endtable.

“Andy?” you call softly.

“Yeah?” he answers, turning to look at you.

“Come shower and stay the night?”

He looks at you for the space of four heartbeats, but it’s all intensity and warmth, and so you know before he says it, that the answer is a simple, “Yeah.”

Maybe this will be nothing. Maybe this will be everything. Right now it’s just this: a real thing, a warm thing, a thing with no name yet and no need for one, and the rest of it can wait.

AND???

WHAT DO WE THINK?

Did you like? 🥹 As I said in the A/N at the beginning, I had some immediate AU possibilities come to mind, but then I felt like they were all stories I'd probably read before, and I was happy enough to play in the typical sandbox, but then I thought....

WAIT!

WHAT IF ETSY WITCH?! And then my muse was gleeful in that idea... scrolling through Tiktok, going ahead and just trying the thing, and then maybe the witch thinking... maybe let's give these two a little push and sending those flowers Andy's way, see if she could send just a little bit of harmless magic your way because she genuinely liked you.

A little sex pollen never hurt anyone, right? 😌

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

Yes, the royal family could count on the dragon’s aid in battle against the enemy, but each time that help was required a heavy price had to be paid. Which is why your grandfather hadn’t called for the ancient being, despite the war scything hundreds of lives. 

But your father had called. 

And the dragon came. 

In a beautiful, yet terrifying form. Golden scales harder than any metal, or rock. No weapon was able to even graze him. Claws tearing dozens apart in one swipe. Fire scorching to the bone. 

You watched in breathless horror as the wide span of wings fluidly folded when the beast aimed to land on the castle’s inner courtyard. Enormous body reflecting sunlight and reshaping itself into a smaller form. 

Until it was a man who landed on two heavy feet in the courtyard. His stride was confident and merciless as he approached, disregarding the fact he was naked. Scales still covered parts of his body, but they appeared like a golden armour. 

There was no renegotiating. Your father wouldn’t dare break the oath made by the ancestors. Not toward a creature that could destroy a whole fortress in a blink of an eye. 

So you stood there, in line with your trembling sisters and cousins - royal maidens offered as part of the payment for the dragon.

Along with seven chests of gold and jewels. 

You didn’t know what prompted the dragon to choose you from all the others. You didn’t think the reason behind his decision would change anything for you. Shaking like a leaf, you slipped your hand into the dragon’s big hand, casting one last parting glance at your family. 

He guided you toward the small, wheel-less carriage, where you took a seat and waited as the chests of treasure were loaded on. A transport easy to carry for the fully transformed dragon. Though you were too scared to look through the small window at the ground down below as the dragon flew toward the mountains; the carriage in the grasp of his monstrous paws. 

It wasn’t a cave that you were unloaded into, but a fortress grander than the royal courts. Hidden in the mountains, yes, but with designs and amenities like for humans. 

It made sense, considering the dragon wasn’t keeping in his beastly form most of the time, but in that human-shaped body. 

There weren’t many servants. No guards or warriors. They weren’t needed, since the dragon himself had the power of ten armies. Two elderly ladies guided you through the maze of corridors. Into beautiful chambers decorated with fabrics, mirrors and jewels. 

The main chamber was a bedroom with the biggest, most ornate bed you’ve ever seen. Even the king didn’t sleep in such riches. Attached to it was a room full of gowns and robes, overloaded with sparkling necklaces, bracelets and tiaras. Another door led to a bathing chamber, layered with marble and gold. 

Your quiet maids undressed you and bathed you, gentle and reverent as if you were a precious jewel yourself. 

Deliciously scented lotion was rubbed into your skin, leaving a slight glow. They didn’t wrap you in a robe, however. Nor gave you a dress to wear. Instead, they slowly decorated your body with exquisite jewelry. 

Anklets with thin diamond chains that weaved to the little rings slipped on your toes. Necklace of so many strings studded with sapphires, rubies and emeralds, that it swept over your breast. Bracelets of gold and pink diamonds, a stack on each wrist. Sparkling rings were pushed onto your fingers. A crown with a veil of shimmering diamonds was placed on your head. 

Naked and adorned with jewels, you were led from your chamber and down the corridor to the massive double door at the end. 

When it opened, the maids disappeared into the shadows and you entered the unknown alone. 

Gold and blue dripped from the ceiling in ornate fabrics, jeweled chains, crystal chandeliers. Marble floor peeked its pristine surface from beneath handwoven carpets, which were covered further with softest pillows and silks. 

There wasn’t a single bed, but rather the whole room served as it, with all the soft, lush spots to recline on. 

The dragon was sprawled in the middle of a pile of dark-blue silks and pillows, between two tall, thin windows letting in the frost-white mountain sunlight. 

Shamelessly naked, he had one of his legs bent, one arm resting over his knee, the other leg resting stretched out. His thick cock twitched the moment your eyes fell upon it. 

You forced your gaze to move upward, over the dragon’s chest and to his handsome face. His features were surprisingly soft for someone who turned into a beast. Only his eyes remained inhuman - a blue more sparkling than sapphires crowned with diamonds. 

“Come,” he beckoned you with a single finger. His tone was soft, but he knew you would obey anyway. 

Though the quivering returned, you forced your feet to move towards. Draped in jewels you presented the greatest treasure the dragon has ripped from the kingdom, yet you felt the most fragile. 

“Have they told you what the price is for my service?” He asked as you stepped over the piles of silks. 

“Yes.” You swallowed nervously. “For a battle won, the dragon is to be paid with seven chests of treasures and an unsoiled bride.” 

You stopped when your toes were a mere inch from the dragon’s foot. In his human form he was less terrifying, but no less intimidating. As a man he was still bigger than you. All marble-carved muscles and power beating beneath the golden scales covering his arms and legs. 

You wondered if they were as hard and hurtful in his human state as when he took on the dragon’s form. What sensation would they provide if you touched them?

“Bride.” The dragon shook his head with a pinch of amusement. “There won’t be any formal wedding, my gem. But you are mine, I will treasure you, and take you like a husband would.” 

You couldn’t help it, your eyes dropped to the semi-hard cock nestled between his thick thighs. 

The fact you were a virgin didn’t mean you had no idea what a manhood looks like, or that you didn’t assess he was alarmingly bigger than the cocks you’ve seen when you and your cousins spied on the knights when they bathed in the lake after a full day of sparring sessions. 

Your pussy never had more than two of your delicate fingers. 

You gulped, nervously playing with the string of sapphires between your breasts. 

“You can call me Andy.” He curved his fingers around one of your calves and coaxed you closer. 

“Easy, my gem. You’ll learn to take my cock.” He lowered his bent leg and made you stand wide open in front of him. Both hands were moving up your bare legs. “Your sweet, virgin pussy will open for me and take everything I give. In no time we’ll have your womb warm a dragon babe.” 

“Is that even possible?” You squeaked, clutching the strings of the necklace with both hands as Andy’s face inch closer to your core. 

To be a bride of the dragon was one thing - taken away into the mountains, obeying his commands and servicing him with your body. To bear him children? That never crossed your mind. 

“Not often, unfortunately.” Andy’s lips pressed to your thigh, his gentle kiss so close to your intimate parts stirred a scorching flame within you. A gasp escaped your lips, your fingers falling into Andy’s soft hair. 

“Most humans don’t carry the mark of fire-born magic. Which is why mother nature made sure a dragon lives centuries, heightening the chances of finding the match.” His hands gripped the back of your thighs, squeezing a tad harder as his mouth whispered along the juncture of your thigh. 

Trailing toward the valley where you were pulsing with growing heat and wetness. 

“Your scent holds that taint of resin warmed by fire. As resin captured life to seal it in amber, your body will form life from dragon’s cum.”

A flick of a tongue sneaked between your folds, licking over your clit and making you moan. 

“I’ll breed this sweet cunt of yours,” Andy growled against your folds; vibration of his beastly undertone arousing your body into a burst of flames. “I’ll split it open and flood it with my seed. Daily. Nightly. Until you’re round and heavy.” 

A cry tore from your throat when he squeezed your ass and dove into your pussy. There wasn’t anything gentle in the way he feasted on you, yet the pleasure his savagery elicited was overwhelming. You never knew intimacy could feel so… consuming. 

Gold filled your vision when you came, your scream tinkling like diamonds dropping onto crystals. Your knees buckled, muscles melting into cotton. But Andy was holding you secure, easing your shaking body down until you straddled his lap.

Your head lolled back as aftershocks turned your body boneless, but it snapped up instantly when the hard pressure pierced your virgin pussy. 

Andy cooed at you, holding you tight, but he didn’t stop. His thick cock was tearing into your hole with slow, but merciless force. 

“Take that cock like a good bride, my gem.” Andy grunted. “Open up for me. That’s it. You will take it. You were made for it. For me. Made to be bred by a dragon.” 

His fingers dug into your flesh as he pushed your hips down. A graze of something pointy threatened to prickle your skin and you briefly thought it had to be his claws coming out. 

Your own hands clenched on Andy’s shoulders, feeling the smooth transition from extremely warm skin into steel-hard scales. It wasn’t unpleasant. Quite the contrary, the different structure tingled at the tip of your fingers, adding to the sensations rocking through your body. 

But not a part of you - neither your mind nor your body - was prepared for what happened when Andy slowly dragged his dick out of your pussy after bottoming out.

“Ahhhh!” You cried out, jerking in his hold and staring at Andy with pupils blown wide. 

When he moved out, small, delicate scales at the base of his cock flared slightly, grazing your walls. 

They had to be skin-colored, since you didn’t notice them. Flexible and smooth, not hurting you, but rather… stimulating. 

Andy’s eyes flared with dark satisfaction. His lips curled into a smirk as he watched expressions of shock and embarrassing lust on your innocent face. 

He guided your hips up and down, made you ride him in shallow takes at first. Your pussy contracted, clit throbbing as the scales kept stimulating nerves right at the entrance. You were going to come again, soon.

But what tipped you over that edge was the thought of how more intense would it all feel when Andy started fucking into you deeply. 

Hesitation and shyness melted away quickly, spilling out along with your juices as you came two more times in that position. Andy talked you through it. Sweetly taunted and coaxed, until you were breathing the urge of being filled and bred. 

Jewelry ended scattered all over the chamber, glinting between the piles of pillows and rolls of silk. Your body shined as bright as diamonds as sweat coated you, your thighs turning creamy sticky from how many times Andy made you come. 

Blaze filled your veins when Andy filled you - his cum hot and thick, flooding your pussy with liquid fire. It burned, but caused no pain. Turned you into a mess that would never get rid of the dragon’s mark.

Not that Andy would give you a chance for that. He forced your body to take him over and over again. Flipped you from one position to another. Spread you. Pinned you. Defiled you. 

As the daylight gave way to a starry night, he was still moving within you.

“I dunno,” you hesitated, gnawing on your lower lip as you eyed the small plant. It really was so cute and would be the perfect pop of color on your new entryway table, but… “I’m so terrible with plants,” you confessed, your guilty gaze flickering up to the man who ran the plant and flower booth. 

His smile was soft–his bright blue eyes twinkling in amusement–as he ducked his head to meet your gaze more fully. “I promise this plant is practically unkillable. And I can give you a little card with easy, detailed instructions to help you care for it.”

You sighed, your fingers gently touching the healthy, vibrant leaves of the plant. It really was calling to you for some reason. “Okay…” your eyes caught the man’s, and you frowned playfully. “But if I kill this thing, its blood is on your hands.”

He laughed, and it lit up his entire face, which only grew more handsome in his delight. You felt your belly swoop at the sight, at the way he was watching you with a spark of interest you hadn’t had directed your way in a long time.

“I’m Cole, Turner,” he introduced himself, holding out his big, rough hand for a shake. 

You didn’t hesitate to slip your hand into his, noticing the way he cradled it more than shook it, the way his touch lingered longer than necessary. 

“And I’d happily get blood on my hands for you,” he grinned, then froze, his eyes going wide as he registered his own words. 

There was a beat of silence as you both stared at each other, and then Cole grimaced as he let your hand slip from his. 

“Sorry, that sounded more suave and less serial killer-y in my head,” he cringed, broad shoulders hiking up to his ears.

You laughed, utterly charmed by this sweet, handsome stranger. “Noted,” you murmured in amusement, watching the way Cole’s cheeks glowed pink as he started to gently package your plant for the car ride home. 

You took a shaky breath as you hugged yourself tightly, feeling a chill dance along your spine as you thought of Cole, of the fact that you had been genuinely interested in him, and so happy he seemed to feel the same way. 

You glanced over at Steve to find him watching you with this look of sympathetic concern. His eyes were so soft and earnest as they met yours, that you had to remind yourself that he was a robot and not an actual person.

“You couldn’t have known the way things would turn out,” he assured you. 

“No,” you shook your head slowly. “I really couldn’t have. Cole was so lovely at first. Always had new plants set aside for me at the market, always checking in on the ones I had previously bought. It only took a few visits before he asked me out, and I was happy about it,” your voice broke as tears began to flood your vision. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into…”

The longer you sat across the dinner table from Cole, the more uneasy you grew.  There was this intensity to him tonight, an almost manic gleam in his eyes as he leaned in close and rambled about finally settling down, how relieved his parents would be, how he couldn’t wait to have children, how the farm was the perfect place to raise a family…

“Wow,” you couldn’t help but blurt, laughing uncomfortably as you glanced away. “You really know what you want, huh?”

“I do,” Cole hummed, and when your gaze hesitantly returned to him, it was to find him watching you in this way that made all of your hair stand on end. 

In that moment, as a chill skittered its way up your spine, you felt like prey, and it was nowhere near as sexy as the dark romances you read made it out to be.

Instead of thrilled or flattered, you felt sick. You felt dread the longer Cole stared at you, and disappointment, too, because you had been so excited for this date. 

“So, how many kids do you want?” Cole asked, reaching for his wine glass and taking a drink. 

“Well,” you laughed awkwardly, fiddling with the napkin spread across your lap. “I never actually said I wanted kids, so…”

“Oh you were definitely meant to be a mother,” Cole scoffed, a knowing smile tilting his lips as his eyes slowly trailed over you, making your skin crawl. “I can already see it now. One baby perched on your hip and another growing in your belly. You’d be so beautiful pregnant, glowing.”

This time, you were the one reaching for your wine glass, taking a deep gulp as you discreetly glanced at your watch, praying for dinner to be served so you could get the hell out of here. 

Once you were finally home a couple of hours later, you still felt icky at the way Cole had tried to kiss you goodnight and seemed very disappointed when you’d evaded him and gone in for a quick, fleeting hug instead. 

You waited a while, until you were sure he was home, before texting him to thank him for dinner but also let him know that it wasn’t going to work between the two of you. 

The deluge was instant. 

One text after another flooding the chat thread you had with Cole. Asking why. Refuting your shutdown. Telling you he knew the two of you were meant to be together. That he had never felt this way about anyone.

Then he tried to call you. Repeatedly. Your phone blew up until you finally blocked him with trembling fingers, feeling beyond anxious and strangely scared before turning your phone off entirely and trying to wind down for bed. 

“I thought that would be the end of it, you know?” you whispered, gaze distant and fixed on the fireplace as you twisted your fingers in your lap. “I didn’t dare return to the farmer’s market, I avoided it instead. But it only took a couple of weeks before it started to feel like I was being watched any time I left my home. Then Cole confirmed my suspicions by cornering me one day after work…and I never told him what I did or where I worked…”

“Cole?!” your voice was pitched high–unnaturally so–your panic bleeding into your tone as Cole pressed you up against the driver’s side door of your car. “What…how…”

“You can’t just avoid me forever!” he huffed, gripping your shoulders hard enough to bruise and make you squeak in pain. “Sorry,” he relented his harsh touch immediately, but kept his hands on you, his fingers petting instead of gripping now as you squirmed and tried to recoil. “Look, I just… I can’t stop thinking about you, and I just know if you gave me another chance–”

“Cole, you’re at my work right now,” you said firmly despite your voice shaking, despite your terror. “How did you even know where to find me?”

He looked away, jaw clenched as he remained silent. 

“Please, you need to go,” you trembled. 

“No!” he shook his head, eyes blazing as they returned to you. He took a breath, deflating a little at the look of sheer terror on your face. “Please, sweetheart, I’m sorry for scaring you, I just… I need you.”

“We hardly know each other.” 

“When you know, you know, and I know, with everything inside of me, that you’re it for me. You’re all I want, please…”

You squealed and jerked away as Cole leaned in and tried to kiss you. 

It was instant the way his eyes flashed with displeasure, with malice. 

“Don’t do that,” he snarled, his fingers digging into your arms as he shoved you back against your car with enough force to make you whimper. He opened his mouth again, but before he could speak, one of your colleagues was calling your name from across the parking lot, sounding concerned. 

It was enough to have Cole cursing under his breath before turning on his heel and racing from the parking lot, leaving you weak from fear as your coworker rushed over and asked if you wanted them to call the police.

“But I didn’t want to get Cole in trouble, I didn’t want to make this a big thing, you know?” You sniffled, batting away a stray tear. “I just wanted him to leave me alone.”

“But he didn’t?” Steve guessed, a tic popping in his jaw as you slowly shook your head. 

Curling into the corner of the sofa, you whispered, “No, he didn’t…” 

You weren’t sure what woke you up, but you startled awake nonetheless, feeling the furthest thing from well rested, as your sleep quality had deteriorated over the past few months due to everything happening with Cole.

Just as you thought his name, you realized that he was standing over you.

That it wasn’t just another nightmare or night terror, that Cole Turner was in your bedroom right now–naked, his bare chest heaving as he stroked his cock slowly and shushed your terrified whimper. 

“Shhh, don’t scream–” he started as you opened your mouth to do just that. He cursed, lunging at you, pressing the hand he had been using to touch himself over your mouth to muffle your cry for help. 

You struggled wildly beneath him, something about feeling the weight and warmth of him–his bare skin, his wiry chest hair–it made you feel sick, but it also made you feel angry.

So you slapped at him, clawed at him, continuing to shriek against his damp palm as he tried to subdue you. 

“Shh shh shh, it’s okay! Baby, please, just let me show you how good we can be together,” he groaned as all your writhing and twisting had his hard cock getting trapped against the blankets bunched at your stomach. “Fuck, I know you’re gonna feel so good, cause you were made for me–” 

Cole’s words morphed into a pained cry as you bit his palm hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to have him jerking away from you as he cradled his hand and stared at you with wide eyes. 

Then you opened your mouth and screamed for all you were worth. 

You didn’t stop screaming when Cole scrambled out of the bedroom window he had left open, and onto the fire escape. You didn’t stop screaming when your neighbor pounded on your front door asking if you were okay, or when you heard the police sirens in the distance growing closer. 

You didn’t stop screaming until your voice finally gave out. You sank back against your headboard, sobbing and shaking, feeling like you were going to be sick as adrenaline surged through your body, mixing with the fear and disgust rioting within your very bones.

“But they didn’t believe me, the cops,” you explained. “Not when it was all said and done.” 

At the sound of displeasure–of offense–that Steve made, your tear-filled eyes finally focused and returned to him.

“Cole’s parents gave him a fake alibi, and the cops boiled it down to it was dark and I was hysterical because I’d been stressed and suffering from insomnia. They had no proof, it was my word against his, and…” you shrugged, more tears spilling over as you whispered, “They did nothing. So I moved here and left everything behind–my whole life, my career, my friends and family. Everything.”

You shook your head in disbelief that this was now your life–your unwanted reality.  

“What else was I supposed to do? I knew he wouldn’t stop. He won’t stop,” your face crumpled as you dropped your head into your hands, feeling panic rise within you as you thought of Cole, of how relentless he had been, of the fact that he was still out there. “He’ll never stop.”

Steve was crouching before you in a heartbeat, holding out the box of tissues from the side table, looking hesitant and so concerned as he touched his free hand to your knee and gave it a squeeze.

You shuddered at the soft touch, realizing that you hadn’t been touched by another since that night with Cole. But this was so different–Steve’s touch made you feel safe and cared for. 

Which, for some reason, only made you cry harder.

“I will keep you safe,” Steve promised. “It’s my number one objective, my sole mission. The whole reason why I exist is to protect you.”

It took a moment for Steve’s words to sink in, for you to realize that you weren’t alone in this anymore, that you had support now. 

That you had Steve. 

“I-I’ve been so scared and alone,” you cried. “They didn’t b-believe me! How could they not believe me?”

“I believe you,” Steve’s voice was soft, but his words were firm. “I will always believe you.”

“What if he finds me? What if I have to spend the rest of my life running and hiding from him?”

Steve shook his head, not one solitary doubt flickering across his painfully handsome face as he assured you, “I won’t let that happen.” 

There was a fierceness to Steve now–in his words, in his gaze–and for a moment, you forgot what he was, and what he wasn’t.

Because he seemed like so much more than a machine.

And maybe that’s why you were finally allowing yourself to fall apart, because you had someone else now to help you pick up the pieces, to help you hold all of this. 

You were no longer all alone in the darkness, being crushed beneath an unbearable weight.

“I don’t want to live like this,” you whispered brokenly. “I’m so tired and I’m so scared and I don’t want to live like this anymore! I can’t do this anymore, I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

You hunched over your lap as you sobbed, rocking back and forth, your body buzzing with grief and overwhelm, with absolute turmoil as you finally surrendered to all of the feelings you had been harboring and suppressing for months on end.

You were so lost to it all, that it took a few moments for you to realize that you were pressed against a warm, firm chest. That you were crying into Steve’s shoulder as he gently smoothed his hands up and down your back in soft, soothing strokes.

For some reason, the gesture of comfort only made you cry harder. 

When Steve asked if he could hold you, all you could do was nod before collapsing against him entirely, letting him hold you through the tidal waves of emotion, your calm and steady anchor who, despite the maelstrom raging inside of you, made you feel safe and cared for in his tight embrace.

A little while later found you on the sofa, tucked beneath the cradle of Steve’s arm, your body pliant and tension free for the first time in weeks as you slept soundly against his chest. 

Of course Steve had been briefed on your situation before being delivered to you, but seeing the toll everything had taken on you firsthand–and how vulnerable you truly were–it had Steve experiencing something unexpected.

Beyond his programmed duty to keep you safe, Steve felt this overwhelming need to protect you, to take care of you, to take away all of your pain and distress. 

And it wasn’t so much his undeniable attachment to you–and how quickly it had formed–that had Steve’s brow furrowing. 

It was the fact that he felt at all. 

Because machines shouldn’t have emotions. 

Not even top-of-the-line, meticulously designed custom AIs like him should feel.

But Steve couldn’t deny that he felt strong empathy for you, as well as a fierce desire to keep you safe. It was like a living, breathing thing clawing at him from the inside out. 

And it only grew stronger as Cole Turner’s photo flickered across Steve’s vision. 

He’d gone a few steps further than all of the information on your situation that Sam had already uploaded to his mainframe, running his own in-depth research on the offender as you slept. Seeing Cole for himself, and recalling how terrified and disturbed you had been as you recounted your experiences with him…

It had Steve’s vision bleeding red at the edges.

It had him feeling anger, no, fury for the first time ever.  

And that unexpected, unexplainable ripple of feeling–of something more and outside of his programming–had Steve going rigid in his seat.

It had him worrying that perhaps there was a flaw in his design, in his functioning, in his ability to take care of you like you needed and deserved. 

Steve’s vision flashed green as he initiated diagnostics on himself, coding now speeding across his sight, as he made a mental note to send any findings–and his concerns–to Sam once the process was complete.

But just as quickly as the thought had come to him, it was pushed aside as you shifted against him, murmuring in your sleep. 

Steve’s eyes flew to you, softening as he watched you frown in your sleep. 

He moved before he realized it–before his programming caught up with his actions–his hand smoothing over your head in a slow, gentle caress that immediately had you sinking against him and the line between your brows smoothing.

His touch seemed to have a mind of its own, and Steve could only watch, feeling a sense of helplessness for the first time, as his fingers traced along your face, mapping the terrain of your skin. 

As he looked down at you sleeping against him and processed the way you clung to him, how your fingers curled into the front of his shirt, Steve felt something else that he knew shouldn’t be possible.

Something that should be cause for concern and reported to Sam immediately…

Possessive.

Steve felt possessive.

Of you.

—

AHHHH! AHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH! Okay, I’m fine. I’m fiiiiine. 

RIP slow burn, sorry to say. Or sorry not sorry, I can’t decide yet lolll. 

—

Please take a moment to comment or reblog. It means a lot to hear from my readers after sharing a story that I put so much love into. Serial liking without engagement is the quickest way to kill my writing motivation, so please don’t do that. It only takes a moment to show a little love. Thank you 🙏🏻

I no longer do tag lists, but if you'd like to be notified when I post new writing, follow my side blog @‌sirisshamelesshoelibrary​ and turn on notifications to get pinged when I drop some new hoe fuel 😘

"Thank you, Mr. Barber. I just wish I knew why this was happening."

"Because he doesn't deserve you," Andy mutters under his breath, too quietly for you to hear. "Let's get some of the details ironed out. Do you have a place where you can stay?"

"Um...my mom?"

"You should probably call her. I'll go ahead and cancel some appointments while you do that."

"Mr. Barber, I can't---"

"Andy, please. Just call me Andy."

"I'm sorry, I'm just all out of sorts."

"Understandable. Now go call your mother to make sure you've got a place to stay."

After you've left his office, Andy makes a phone call to a secure number.

"He's followed through on his end of the deal. Send the photos to the usual location."

He hangs up without waiting for a response.

When he'd found out your husband was cheating on you, Andy could've shown you the proof. But with this route, he can be your hero. And when the photos show up in court evidence, he can claim he'd just gotten them, that he'd had no idea. Best of all, you'll get everything in the divorce with that.

And you deserve everything.

"Thank you, Mr. Barber. I just wish I knew why this was happening."

"Because he doesn't deserve you," Andy mutters under his breath, too quietly for you to hear. "Let's get some of the details ironed out. Do you have a place where you can stay?"

"Um...my mom?"

"You should probably call her. I'll go ahead and cancel some appointments while you do that."

"Mr. Barber, I can't---"

"Andy, please. Just call me Andy."

"I'm sorry, I'm just all out of sorts."

"Understandable. Now go call your mother to make sure you've got a place to stay."

After you've left his office, Andy makes a phone call to a secure number.

"He's followed through on his end of the deal. Send the photos to the usual location."

He hangs up without waiting for a response.

When he'd found out your husband was cheating on you, Andy could've shown you the proof. But with this route, he can be your hero. And when the photos show up in court evidence, he can claim he'd just gotten them, that he'd had no idea. Best of all, you'll get everything in the divorce with that.

And you deserve everything.

The snow-white cat stared him down like it paid rent on the apartment and Bucky was the squatter.

Bucky stared back.

“Guess I should’ve fixed the latch on the window.”

He didn’t expect much of an answer, but the cat flicked its tail, then sat back on its haunches, and licked a paw, gaze never straying from Bucky.

The absolute shamelessness made the corner of Bucky’s mouth twitch up.

He edged left a few steps, testing the waters. The cat tracked his movement without flinching, which meant it wasn’t terrified, rabid, or otherwise about to detonate. He could respect that.

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

You’d expected a lot of things when you agreed your husband’s oldest friend should come spend the holidays, but not this: 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 found the place only Bucky had touched before tonight.

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

You could not sleep, not truly, not anymore.

At least it felt that way. You could not remember what it was like to have a truly restful night of sleep now that you were so swollen with child.

Curtis shifted behind you, the weight of him a presence you were still not quite acclimated to, even after all these months. His arm groped around your middle, not gentle, but not cruel either—the grasping, possessive way he always had of reminding you that your body was his, that you had been claimed and would never, ever be unclaimed.

“Settle,” he rumbled, voice thick with sleep and something else—something that tinged the word with an implication, a warning, a plea. His hand splayed over your stomach, thumb tracing the tautest curve of your belly. You could feel the talon at the tip of his thumb, filed to more bluntness now for your comfort, but never quite harmless.

“I can’t,” you hissed, heat rushing up your neck. “It’s not comfortable, Curtis. I feel the stiffness in my hips, in my spine. I feel too tight, too—”

He rolled you to your back, so you faced him and the flicker of his phosphorescent blue eyes. He looked at you with rapt attention, like he was examining a rare specimen, one whose suffering was evidence of profound, necessary transformation. You hated him for it, and wanted to weep with relief that he might touch you, change you, ease the ache.

“Your body was made for this.” His hand cupped your jaw, then trailed down your neck, the pressure just shy of discomfort. “Do you remember the first night I claimed you?”

You did.

You remembered every moment: the sting of his teeth, the shocking stretch, the coolness of his skin, the relentless, remorseless fullness of him inside you. You remembered the moment shame and terror lost its edge and pleasure consumed the rest.

His hand moved to your chest, fingers splaying over the heavy curve of your breast. The child was not the only thing that had grown inside you; the rest of you had blossomed too, flesh thick and ripe, veins congesting with new blood. Every sense was heightened; your skin felt alive, every nerve exposed and raw, hungry for relief. The ache in your hips and spine was nothing compared to the ache between your thighs.

His hand squeezed, and you couldn’t help but arch into it, greedy for the pressure.

“You ache,” he said. It was not a question. “Let me help.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but already his hand was sliding, possessive, down your torso, across the vast swell of your belly. His touch was electrifying, not because it was gentle—he was never gentle—but because it was so exact, so insistent, as if he could knead away every complaint inside you, every complaint and every protest, until there was nothing left but the wanting. It seemed your body was always already in anticipation, every cell addicted to the inevitability of what he would do next.

“Curtis,” you tried, but the word came out as a sigh, as permission.

His tail was already curling under your knee, prying your legs apart with the unhurried strength of a tree root. He lowered his face to your neck and breathed in, the exhale chilling, the inhale so deep it felt like he was drawing the breath from your lungs. His hand was at your thigh now, squeezing the flesh, kneading it as if evaluating the meat on a haunch. He’d told you, more than once, that you’d filled out beautifully, that the lake itself approved of what you’d become.

You squirmed away from his cool heat, the pressure, but he only pressed his palm up to your pussy, and you yelped, not out of fear, but at the obscene, greedy pleasure of it. He inhaled again, and you realized that he was savoring the rising, salt-sweet scent of your arousal.

“You’re restless,” he said, tongue flicking in the hollow behind your jaw. “Let’s cure it.”

You thrashed, but the movement only succeeded in pressing you against his cock, which was already hard and waiting, resting like a threat against your thigh. His thumb found your clit, pressing down until you bucked, the pulse so fierce it brought tears to your eyes. He held you there, his mouth at your throat, tongue darting out—licking, flicking, biting. You could not have moved if you’d wanted to; every part of you was locked between the hardness of his body and the suffocating need in your own.

He took his time, always. He was deliberate; he seemed to relish the slow climb, the way every touch made you shudder, made your skin pebble, made your cunt throb with a greedy, insistent rhythm. His mouth found your nipple and sucked, pulling at it until you moaned, the sensation radiating out from your chest in a dizzying spiral. He bit down, and you couldn’t help it—you reached up and tangled your fingers in his hair, yanked him closer so the pain and the pleasure crashed together at the point of his teeth. His hand scrabbled for leverage on your hip, fingers digging deep as he sucked, scraped, and finally groaned into your chest, the sound wet and low, just this side of feral.

He lifted his head, mouth shiny with spit. “You need this,” he said, his voice ruined and ragged. “You need to be fucked. You need to be relentlessly filled with my seed, flushed with it so thoroughly it stitches your bones together around the ache. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” you choked out, clutching at his shoulders. They were slick with the faintest sheen of lake water, always, always, as if he carried the essence of his world with him, whether he was in or out of the water. Your whole body was trembling, aching, desperate for him.

He pressed the tip of his nose into your cheek, dragging it slowly along until it slid down the side of your neck, his breathing steady, his lips curled against your racing pulse. “You’re changing,” he murmured, and his hand stilled on your belly, spreading his fingers wide as if to encompass the entirety of you. “Do you feel it, little one?”

You whimpered and nodded, because it was impossible to ignore. You felt it wakeful, and you felt it always. Your body was not just growing, it was being remade. The softness of your skin had thickened to something more water-resistant, but only just. At night, you dreamed of gills blossoming open along your ribs, of your hands webbing at the base of each finger. Your eyes now reflected the moonlight with the same shimmer as his.

His hand cradled the base of your skull, claws gentle for the moment, a cage of tenderness you did not want but could not help but need. “It isn’t just the child,” he breathed, as if reciting a benediction. “It’s what happens when one like me mates with one like you. The biology is… transformative.” There was a hint of awe in his voice. “Every time I fill you, your body takes more of me, and less of your old life remains.”

He was fascinated by the heat of you. He had told you, after finally bringing you to his curious lair, that your human body ran so warm inside, and that your cunt felt like a living furnace, a molten trap that threatened to melt and consume him every time he entered you. He said it in the same way he said everything—half-worship, half-mockery, always with the edge of a threat—but you could tell he meant it. The lake was cold and deep, and he was made to thrive in it—the fire of your body was an impossible addiction.

Curtis pressed your legs apart even wider, nestling between your thighs as though he belonged nowhere else. His skin, always cooler than yours, felt almost feverishly good when it touched you. He braced himself on either side of your hips, and then, with unhurried care, pressed the head of his cock to your entrance. He was always so eager for the first breach, he always relished the shock and resistance, that first gasp, that split-second where you didn’t know if you could take him. Now, your body admitted him gladly, almost hungrily, and you felt yourself yield to the pointed insistent pressure, stretch around his girth, suck at him once he passed the initial resistance. The catching pain blended instantly with the pleasure, as familiar now as his voice, as expected as the tides. He groaned when he breached you, grinned so wide it seemed all teeth, and set a brutal, perfect pace at once—the slow, deep strokes that made you claw at the sheets, then faster, the piston rhythm that made it impossible not to buck up and meet him.

“You were born to take this,” he crooned, as he loomed over you, cock pounding out every remnant of sleep and doubt. “To crave it. I could keep you filled for a thousand seasons and you’d still want more.”

His hips never stilled, and his tail snaked behind, curling serpent-like around your ankle, claiming even more of you for himself. Your fingers clawed for purchase on his back, the scales there a cool counterpoint to the fevered pulse of your own skin. You felt yourself coming undone, senses overrun, the pressure building and building, rolling, deep pressure of his cock splitting you open again and again, and, oh, how you wanted more.

You had once thought that his rutting would get less urgent, less insistent over time, but if anything, Curtis fucked you harder every month, every week. He seemed to want to breed you anew every time, as if there was always a possibility you could be more his, more changed, more claimed. He would say things in your ear—“I can feel you opening for me,” “You’re so much tighter for me,” “No one else will ever fuck you this cunt that belongs to me,” “Do you like how I fill you, little one?”—and you did, you did, and you told him so, the words turning to gasps, to high-pitched whines as the pleasure outpaced any language you could give it. The world shrank to the bed, the pounding throb of his cock, the cold pressure of his scales, the way the air itself seemed to hum with the force of his need.

Curtis’s eyes gleamed in the semidark, and he gripped your face in both hands, thumbs pressing to your jaw, holding you steady so he could watch the pleasure breaking across your face with every stroke. “I love how you look when I fuck you,” he growled, hips never slowing. “You try to be strong, but you shatter every time. No one will ever see you like this but me.”

Dawn was hours off, and you had no expectation he would unhand you before then, even if by some miracle you managed to sleep. His stamina was naturally supernatural, and his hunger only that.

You came twice before you even realized it, the first at the seizing stretch, the second at the rolling, unyielding pressure of him grinding your clit with every pass. Curtis liked to feel the way your thighs trembled, the way your cunt clamped around him, the way you lost yourself in it. And you did, again and again, until the world burned white-hot and you were nothing but need and the squelch of your bodies meeting, hypersensitive to every flicker of sensation.

You didn’t notice at first what his tail was doing, too lost in the rhythm, in the hunger, in the collision of your hips. But then the cool, slick tip pressed behind you, teasing at your other entrance, and the shock of it made you jerk and squeal. Curtis laughed, low and wicked, and didn’t pause for a moment.

“Shhh, shhh—” he crooned, voice full of wicked, hungry delight, “just let me in, let me in—” and the pressure increased, cold and smooth and unyielding. He’d done this before, once or twice, always slow, always greedy, and you’d never been able to resistthe insistent, pulsing claim of his tail. The cool pressure breached you, slow and inexorable, until you were trembling, almost sobbing, with the shock of fullness from both ends. He waited only long enough for your body to yield—never gentle, but vigilant to the ways you stiffened, the catch of breath before pain. There was satisfaction in him, an echoing hum that radiated through his hands into your skin: a predator’s pride when prey surrendered to the jaw.

And how you surrendered.

He set a rhythm, fucking you with both cock and tail, every thrust calculated to reach further, fill more, feel more. You could not move, you could only ride out the onslaught, the relentless hammer and thrum and pleasure so staggering it threatened to dissolve you. Your body sang with it, nerves scattering into the ether, your mind reduced to the tidal wave of sensation. Every time you sobbed your pleasure, Curtis redoubled his efforts, drilling into you so hard you thought you could feel your whole womb twisting up to make room for the stretch. The twin fullness overwhelmed your nerves, a bright white so severe you almost begged for mercy. He gave none.

There was a point at which you were certain you could not take more, and yet your body learned to take it, to want it, to clutch him with desperate, greedy spasms, to refuse to let him go. All your muscles burned with the effort, with the need to hold him in, to be filled so absolutely that nothing else existed. Your cunt spasmed and wept and gushed around his cock, and you hardly noticed when your own arms lost the strength to clutch at his scales and simply splayed above your head, limp and pleading.

By the time you felt the first ripples of his climax about to break, you were slick with sweat. Curtis’s whole body tensed, every scale and muscle gone rigid. The groan that erupted from him was guttural, ripped from something ancient and primal inside him. He drove himself as deep as possible, until your breath caught and your pelvis ached with how wildly, impossibly full you were, and then he came. It was an abrupt flood, a torrent, so much and so shockingly intense you could feel it overflow around him, seeping hot and icy down your thighs, leaking from every stretched, desperate inch of you. His tail, still working at your other hole, pulsed too, and you felt another rush fill you there—this flooding from his tail a first, your body trembling, boneless.

You lay pinned beneath him, shuddering and shocked, and when he finally stilled, there was nothing else in the night but breathless, trembling aftermath. For a long time, neither of you moved; the weight of him, the chill and the heat, the press of his tail still inside you, the throbbing ache that was already shifting into a deep, heavy peace.

Then, gradually, you noticed something else—the strange, spreading numbness that radiated from the place where his tail breached you. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it felt like a balm poured over the burning aftermath of climax, a slow, dreamy unraveling of every tension in your body. Your limbs went slack. The ache in your hips dissolved, your spine melted back into the mattress, and every muscle, every fraught, knotted nerve, at last let go. Your body, which had been a battleground of need and pain and pleasure, suddenly belonged to no one and nothing, and you drifted in a haze of perfect, suspended contentment.

“Curtis,” you managed, voice slurred and slow, “what are you—”

He stroked your hair, smoothed your brow, and quietly uttered a, “Shhh,” against your temple.

You didn’t have the strength to reply. The world glowed dimly at the edges but was mostly darkness, punctuated only by the chorus of your own heavy breaths and the lazy, overlapping whisper of the lake at the edge of the cool, cavernous lair of your new home. You lay there, half-buried under his body, feeling as if you might melt into the bed and the earth beneath it.

“I never told you about the venom of my tail. It’s not the kind you think—nothing lethal. But it is… potent.” His tail flexed, and you felt the last dregs of will drain from your limbs, leaving you hollowed out and weightless.

“It’s a sedative,” he explained, rolling you to your side and curling around you, spooning you with the possessive certainty of an apex predator. “It relaxes the bones and nerves, renders any prey motionless.”

He curled himself tighter around you, chest at your back, tail draped over your thigh, anchoring you in the nest of bedding and moss. In your boneless state, you could not escape the possessive drag of his palm over your skin—first up to the arch of your ribcage, then slowly, almost reverently, to the globe of your belly. He pressed his hand there as if you were both a relic and a promise, a rare treasure he’d stolen from another world, and you suppose you were.

In your mind, you felt the distant panic of a body that knew it should not be so helpless, that this creature had seized your survival reflex by the throat and throttled it—but after a few heartbeats, you realized you didn’t care. Curtis was pressed up behind you, his arms a wall of certainty wrapped all the way around your womb, your ribs, your shoulders. The ache was gone. The tightness was gone. You had been wrung out, emptied, and now you were nothing but full of him, inside and out.

He rumbled a sound from deep in his chest, almost a purr. The vibration traveled through your spine and straight to the place where pleasure had left you rawest. He nuzzled your hairline, then traced the shell of your ear with the tip of his rough tongue.

“Sleep,” he murmured, and you did. Or at least, you drifted on the edge of it, not quite inside sleep, not quite awake, suspended in the place where dreams bled into touch. Curtis’s hand moved over your skin the entire time, massaging the rounded slope of your belly, stroking your thigh, sometimes cupping your breast or tracing the curve of your jaw. The cocoon of his arms made you smaller, softer, less yourself and more a thing to be adored and kept.

You vaguely registered the way his cock, not even fully soft, pressed against the seam of your thighs, rutting at the seam like a persistent dream. You couldn’t have moved if you tried, but the feeling of him pushing between your thighs—wanting back in—was, impossibly, not unwelcome.

You wondered, or perhaps only imagined, if he could sense your dream-thoughts; the question seemed to amuse him. He gave you a moment of what passed for tenderness, nuzzling your hairline, rocking you back and forth in his arms, his tail stroking the flesh behind your knee. The sedative in your bloodstream left you blissed and limp, a ragdoll for his pleasure.

He was hard again, or nearly so, and the friction of his cock caught between your thighs was both a comfort and a question, as if your body had become the only vessel for his hunger.

Curtis’s hands never tired. You tried to imagine the monotony of your body, the sameness of your skin beneath his touch, but it seemed he could never get enough. He massaged your belly in long, slow arcs, sometimes lifting the weight of it as if to relieve you, sometimes holding so gentle and so firm that it seemed your flesh was his most prized, fragile artifact. His palm spanned the roundness, mapping every centimeter, sometimes dipping to the underside where your skin felt stretched to near-breaking, sometimes trailing up to the space above your navel. The gentle repetition of it—his touch, the rise and fall of his chest at your back—lulled you deeper into the velvet black of near-sleep. Even your mind became lazy, thoughts smudging at the edges until only sensation remained.

When he was satisfied that you’d gone slack, that your muscles had relinquished every old human defense, he shifted behind you. The cool press of his cock found the seam between your thighs—he never seemed to lose his interest for long, even in the slow moments. He nestled himself between your legs and, with a single, unhesitating thrust, pressed his half-hard length into your cunt. It was not rough, not this time; he moved with the patience of someone tending a sacred fire, easing in until your bodies were flush, and the faint ache became a deep, saturating fullness. Your mind drifted, but your body, trained and conditioned by months of relentless attention, responded in kind: you flexed around him, and a lazy, involuntary moan struggled up your throat. Curtis groaned, his chest pressed flat to your back, and rutted once, twice, before stilling, letting you sheath him while you both floated on the edge of sleep.

He didn’t use his hands now, not for pleasure, not directly. Instead, he gripped your hip for leverage, holding you open and tilted just so, and pulled your ass flush to his pelvis, driving his cock in to the hilt and then simply… staying there. You felt every twitch and pulse of his cock, every shift in the slow, animal rhythm of his breathing. He stayed hard inside you, using your body as a sheath, as a warm, wet cradle; you were perfectly pinned, utterly possessed, and you could do nothing but receive him.

Curtis exhaled into your hair, his voice a thick, slurred mumble. “You’ll keep me, won’t you? Keep me in you all night. That’s what I want, little one. I want to rut in you while you sleep. I want to use your heat, let my cock twitch and throb all night in that perfect cunt.” He rutted once, again, and you felt the faint flutter of his cum oozing out from the last round, slicking your insides. He seemed to relish the sensation, the lazy, languid pleasure of being buried and unmoving, until another aftershock rolled through him and made you gasp.

“I can feel your body holding me,” he said, the words warm and thick as sap with sincerity. “It’s all I want now. Just to be in you. You don’t even need to be awake for it, little one. Let me have you while you sleep. I’ll fuck you in your dreams if I have to, and you’ll wake up full of me.”

You tried to protest, but the sedative still dulled your tongue and every nerve, made your body heavy and dumb with pleasure. He rocked his hips, once, and the sensation rolled through you like a wave, sticky and slow and so deep it made your eyes water. The pressure of him inside you was a kind of lullaby, a constant, anchoring weight, and you found yourself drifting, drifting, until your thoughts were only the animal, helpless response of your body clutching around his cock, milking it with every slow, involuntary contraction.

“I’ll take care of you,” Curtis promised. “You’ll always feel good. I’ll see to every want you have, and every want you can’t even name.” The words were a net, a binding, and you believed him, not for comfort, but because he had never lied to you, he had no reason to.

The night drifted on. Curtis’s hand never left your belly; his cock never left your cunt. There were times, across the long hours, where you felt his fingers knead at your clit with lazy affection, almost absent-minded, and sometimes you came, even in this fugue—little contractions that made you clamp down and wring more pleasure from the fullness. He’d sigh when you did, and sometimes you came, even in this fugue—little contractions that made you clamp down and wring more pleasure from the fullness. He’d sigh when you did, the sound vibrating through your back, and sometimes he’d soothe you with a stroke of his hand, as if petting a restive animal. Occasionally, a tiny aftershock in him would pulse more of his seed into you, and it seemed like he was intent on keeping you topped up, leaking around his cock, overflowing with the certainty of his claim.

Sometimes he’d lick the sweat from the back of your neck, or whisper obscenities in your ear about how perfect you were, how he would keep you filled until it took, until you were more lake than girl, reminding you that you were changing, that every time you let him breed you, you became more his, less the fragile thing you had been. You believed it, because it was true: your body grew more resilient, your hunger more intense, your mind more focused on the simple, ceaseless need to be joined, to be filled.

This is what your life was now, and Curtis kept you like a pearl.

I make no apologies. I need to go shower.

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

You consider abandoning the mission, leaving the damn thing in the trunk overnight and feigning all knowledge in the morning, but you didn’t want to trap sapling so long in stale air and uncontrolled temperature. So, clutching the pot to your chest like a newborn, you brace yourself and walk up to your home.

You make it three steps up the walkway before the front door swings open and your alpha crosses his arms and stares at you. He doesn’t speak, just stands there, managing a sigh that’s both resigned and affectionate.

“Is there some sort of arboretum plan I’m unaware of?” he asks, voice flat but eyes bright.

You walk past him, gently nudging him out of the way with your hip.

“It was going to be composted,” you state, as if that explained everything. “I couldn’t just leave it.”

He trails you, looming, the scent of his aftershave mingling with skepticism and amusement. “We agreed on twelve,” he says, gaze flicking from the lopsided little trunk to the living-room jungle already bulging from every surface. “There are so many more than twelve in this room alone.”

You set the pot down in the corner by the window, the only sliver of space unclaimed by trailing pothos, pepperomias, monsterras, and a zz plant. It’s an ugly duckling—spindly, a little brown at the edges, the kind you adopt out of misplaced mercy—but you have faith.

You kick off your sandals and leave them sprawled beneath the ficus. You make a show of stretching, arms overhead so your shirt rides up and exposes a sliver of your belly, then turn and meet Bucky’s gaze. With deliberate slowness, unbutton your jeans and let them slither to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Bucky drawls, arms still crossed.

You smirk, peeling off your t-shirt so you’re standing in just your bra and underwear. “Distracting you,” you say, “so you forget about the new plant.”

His exhale is half laugh, half groan. He uncrosses his arms. You don’t have time to brace yourself before he’s advancing, the low warning rumble in his throat belying the fondness at the corners of his mouth. His hand curls around your waist just above the hip, thumb pressed into the divot where your skin is always warm, always his.

“You better get to work distracting,” he mutters, but when you reach for his shirt he doesn’t resist, letting you tug the fabric up and over his head in one rough motion. The look he gives you is equal parts exasperation and reverence.

“This is the last one,” you say, which is a lie, and both of you know it. It’s the understood game, the way you get away with your foundling plants, and the way he gets to pretend you might one day stop.

He lifts you easily, sets you on the arm of the sofa where the spider plant arches around your shoulders like a crown. “Liar,” he whispers, and you grin.

His hands find your thighs, fingertips kneading at the soft flesh, prying you open as if you were another of your stubborn orchids, roots tangled and in need of gentle untangling.

He crooks two fingers and tugs your underwear aside, the pads of his fingertips brushing against the slick heat of you, at once clinical and devastating. You clench around nothing, already pulsing, and he huffs out a laugh at your impatience.

“Terrible liar,” he murmurs, catching your mouth with his as he works a rhythm with two fingers, slow and deep. You gasp, legs falling open, toes curling. The spider plant dips a leaf into your hair as you tilt your head back, and he grins, eyes crinkling at the edges, delighted at how easy you make it for him.

You reach for his belt, and he lets you. You unfasten it, then the button of his jeans, then pull down the zipper. He kicks free one leg, never breaking rhythm with his fingers on you, and the heat of his body soaks into your bare inner thighs.

You barely get his cock out before he’s sliding into you, one slow, ruthless thrust. His cutting blue eyes hold yours, the way they always do, as if daring you to squirrel your attention away, but you can’t—never would, not when he’s inside you, coaxing you open, making your world collapse to the moment of his hips fitted to your own.

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

You consider abandoning the mission, leaving the damn thing in the trunk overnight and feigning all knowledge in the morning, but you didn’t want to trap sapling so long in stale air and uncontrolled temperature. So, clutching the pot to your chest like a newborn, you brace yourself and walk up to your home.

You make it three steps up the walkway before the front door swings open and your alpha crosses his arms and stares at you. He doesn’t speak, just stands there, managing a sigh that’s both resigned and affectionate.

“Is there some sort of arboretum plan I’m unaware of?” he asks, voice flat but eyes bright.

You walk past him, gently nudging him out of the way with your hip.

“It was going to be composted,” you state, as if that explained everything. “I couldn’t just leave it.”

He trails you, looming, the scent of his aftershave mingling with skepticism and amusement. “We agreed on twelve,” he says, gaze flicking from the lopsided little trunk to the living-room jungle already bulging from every surface. “There are so many more than twelve in this room alone.”

You set the pot down in the corner by the window, the only sliver of space unclaimed by trailing pothos, pepperomias, monsterras, and a zz plant. It’s an ugly duckling—spindly, a little brown at the edges, the kind you adopt out of misplaced mercy—but you have faith.

You kick off your sandals and leave them sprawled beneath the ficus. You make a show of stretching, arms overhead so your shirt rides up and exposes a sliver of your belly, then turn and meet Bucky’s gaze. With deliberate slowness, unbutton your jeans and let them slither to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Bucky drawls, arms still crossed.

You smirk, peeling off your t-shirt so you’re standing in just your bra and underwear. “Distracting you,” you say, “so you forget about the new plant.”

His exhale is half laugh, half groan. He uncrosses his arms. You don’t have time to brace yourself before he’s advancing, the low warning rumble in his throat belying the fondness at the corners of his mouth. His hand curls around your waist just above the hip, thumb pressed into the divot where your skin is always warm, always his.

“You better get to work distracting,” he mutters, but when you reach for his shirt he doesn’t resist, letting you tug the fabric up and over his head in one rough motion. The look he gives you is equal parts exasperation and reverence.

“This is the last one,” you say, which is a lie, and both of you know it. It’s the understood game, the way you get away with your foundling plants, and the way he gets to pretend you might one day stop.

He lifts you easily, sets you on the arm of the sofa where the spider plant arches around your shoulders like a crown. “Liar,” he whispers, and you grin.

His hands find your thighs, fingertips kneading at the soft flesh, prying you open as if you were another of your stubborn orchids, roots tangled and in need of gentle untangling.

He crooks two fingers and tugs your underwear aside, the pads of his fingertips brushing against the slick heat of you, at once clinical and devastating. You clench around nothing, already pulsing, and he huffs out a laugh at your impatience.

“Terrible liar,” he murmurs, catching your mouth with his as he works a rhythm with two fingers, slow and deep. You gasp, legs falling open, toes curling. The spider plant dips a leaf into your hair as you tilt your head back, and he grins, eyes crinkling at the edges, delighted at how easy you make it for him.

You reach for his belt, and he lets you. You unfasten it, then the button of his jeans, then pull down the zipper. He kicks free one leg, never breaking rhythm with his fingers on you, and the heat of his body soaks into your bare inner thighs.

You barely get his cock out before he’s sliding into you, one slow, ruthless thrust. His cutting blue eyes hold yours, the way they always do, as if daring you to squirrel your attention away, but you can’t—never would, not when he’s inside you, coaxing you open, making your world collapse to the moment of his hips fitted to your own.

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

“Enough with the judgy glare.”

Bucky didn’t ease his absolutely judgement-filled glare.

Across the Quinjet, Walker’s jaw flexed. He shrugged. “What? It’s a good catchphrase. ‘Game time.’”

“When we met, I thought you completely ridiculous,” Ava said, loading mags into her belt. “Then I surmised there was more to you. But my instincts were flawless.”

“Ooo, burn,” Yelena crowed. “You’re like if a golden retriever got hit with bottle of Axe. So much barking, lots of cologne, teenage boy energy, zero subtlety.”

Walker scoffed and countered.

Bucky turned away, smirk twitching his lips.

His circus, his monkeys. Could be worse.

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

The snow-white cat stared him down like it paid rent on the apartment and Bucky was the squatter.

Bucky stared back.

“Guess I should’ve fixed the latch on the window.”

He didn’t expect much of an answer, but the cat flicked its tail, then sat back on its haunches, and licked a paw, gaze never straying from Bucky.

The absolute shamelessness made the corner of Bucky’s mouth twitch up.

He edged left a few steps, testing the waters. The cat tracked his movement without flinching, which meant it wasn’t terrified, rabid, or otherwise about to detonate. He could respect that.

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