cherie

“You’re dripping.”

Caleb cracks one eye open. The bag of frozen peas you set at his neck fifteen minutes ago has gone soft, condensation tracking down his throat and disappearing into the collar of his henley.

“I’ll get him a new couch.”

You cross your arms and raise a brow. “With what money.”

“He can add it to my tab. Right under the chiropractor bill.”

“Careful with the tab, captain,” Sylus warns drily. “I’m very creative about collecting, and I’m starting to think you enjoy owing me.”

Caleb chucks a pillow across the room. Sylus catches it without flinching and tucks under his arm like he won it fair.

“You boys—” you look between Sylus, settled into his armchair like a throne, and Caleb, sprawled on the couch “—are going to play nice.”

“We’re behaving,” Sylus says.

“Barely,” Caleb adds.

Sylus shrugs. “Barely counts.”

They’ve been like this since tonight’s game. Before the game, actually. Since the first time they met on the ice two seasons ago, since something sparked between them the first time your brother knocked your boyfriend flat on his ass only for the silver-haired menace to come up smiling.

Tonight’s third period had been ugly. Caleb’s team down two, Sylus’s team running clock, and somewhere around the seven minute mark Caleb had taken Sylus into the boards in a way that could have looked accidental from the cheap seats and looked extremely on purpose from the bench. Sylus answered with his fists. The refs let them go for longer than they should have. Both were ejected, and you’d watched them get walked off in opposite directions like dogs separated mid-fight while five thousand people screamed.

You’d had the idea on the walk back to your dorm. Stupid. Catastrophically stupid.

Come over, you’d texted Caleb. Sylus’s place.

Three bouncing dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. He’d called you instead.

“You’re out of your mind, pips.”

“Probably.”

“Meimei.”

“Gege.”

He released a long, suffering breath. “Why?”

“Because I love you and I love him and I’m so tired of being caught in the middle like this.”

“He gave me a split lip.”

“You gave him a bloody nose.”

“And you think this is a fix?”

“I think it’s a try.”

He showed up an hour later, of course. You’d never asked Caleb for something he didn’t give you.

“How’s the nose,” Caleb says without opening his eyes.

Sylus touches the bridge of his nose, more out of habit than concern. “Fine.”

“Shame. Could’ve sworn I did more damage.”

“You always did overestimate your impact.”

“Overestimate?” Caleb’s eyes finally open. “I’ll overestimate my fist up your—”

“Okay!” you interrupt, lifting both hands in surrender. “New rule.”

“This should be good,” Sylus says under his breath.

“Each of you has to say one nice thing about the other,” you announce. “One. Single. Nice. Thing. And then we can move on with our evening like adults.”

“I am being an adult,” Sylus counters. “I haven’t poisoned his drink.”

You scoff. “That’s baseline human decency.”

“For me, sweetie, it’s generous.”

Caleb snorts. It’s the first sound he’s made in Sylus’s direction that isn’t hostile, and you watch Sylus clock it with a small flicker at his eyebrow.

“Caleb,” you say. “You first.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re in his apartment drinking his whiskey and bleeding on his furniture, and I think that earns him a compliment.”

Caleb stares at the ceiling for a long second, jaw working, like you’ve asked him to move a mountain with his bare hands.

“He’s fast,” Caleb says, finally.

“Fast,” you repeat.

“On the ice. He’s fast. Faster than he should be for his size.” Caleb pauses. “It’s annoying. Like a cockroach.”

“That’s not exactly a compliment.”

“It’s adjacent.”

You look at Sylus. “Your turn.”

Sylus takes a sip of whiskey, holding it in his mouth for a moment as he turns over his options. He swallows and tilts his glass toward Caleb.

“He doesn’t quit.”

Caleb glances over.

“Down two,” Sylus says. “Most players know when they’re beaten. He apparently lacks that particular survival instinct. Played the last seven minutes like he could bully the scoreboard into changing.” He takes another sip. “It was irritating.”

“So we’ve established you’re both fast and stubborn and you hate each other for it,” you say. “Wonderful. Truly groundbreaking diplomacy.”

“You asked for one nice thing,” Sylus says, swirling his glass. “That was one nice thing.”

“That was one nice thing wrapped in three mean ones.”

“What can I say? I’m efficient.”

“You’re efficiently a prick,” Caleb fires back.

“Mm,” Sylus hums, entirely unbothered. “Is that what you say when you don’t have a comeback, or is that what you say when your sister’s watching and you want her to think you’re tough?”

Caleb sits up. Drains his whiskey in one go, sets the glass on the table, and lets the bag of peas slide from his neck and thud to the floor.

“Watch it, pretty boy,” he says, eyes narrowed.

“It’s a genuine question. Because you do the same thing on the ice. All those big hits, the scrapping, mouthing off at the refs. It’s very impressive. Very masculine. Especially when she’s sitting third row.” Sylus tilts his chin toward you without taking his eyes off your brother. “Must be exhausting, carrying a crush that obvious for that long. I’m surprised she hasn’t said something.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“She’s a kind girl. Probably doesn’t want to embarrass you.”

“I said shut your mouth.”

“Or maybe she likes it. Having her big brother panting after her like a dog at the door every time she—”

“That’s enough!” you yell.

Both sets of eyes snap to you. You’re not one to raise your voice, and they both know it. You don’t know what you’re going to say next until you’re already saying it, and by then it’s too late:

“If you can’t talk it out, maybe you should just kiss and make up.”

You know it sounds wrong the second it leaves your mouth. You’re tired and tipsy and your brother and your boyfriend are having a conversation about you like you’re not in the room, and all you wanted was for them to stop, and what resulted was the dumbest sentence you’ve said in your entire life.

You try to chase it with a laugh that doesn’t quite land. The room doesn’t laugh with you.

You scramble to walk it back. “Kidding. Obviously. God, your faces. I’m going to get more ice—”

Sylus sets his glass down. The sound of crystal on marble is small, though it lands like a gavel.

“Interesting,” Sylus says.

“I was joking,” you reply, too fast.

“Were you.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

Sylus rises from the armchair, crossing to the couch in three steps. He holds out a hand to Caleb.

“What the hell are you doing?” Caleb asks.

“She asked us to make up,” Sylus says simply. “I’m making up. Stand up, captain.”

“You’re out of your goddamned mind.”

“She’s been mediating between us all night, and she’s running out of patience.” Sylus’s hand is still extended, patient and unmoving. “Your poor sister has spent two years trying to keep us from killing each other. The least we can do is give her what she wants for a few seconds.”

Caleb tries to look unbothered, but you catch this jaw tightening at your poor sister. ”She was being sarcastic.”

“Was she?” Sylus glances at you over his shoulder. “Sweetie. Were you being sarcastic?”

You should say yes. You should laugh it off and go get more ice and let the night fade into something survivable.

You just can’t seem to make yourself do anything at all.

Sylus turns back to Caleb, eyebrow raised. See?

“Fine,” Caleb says. “Fine. One kiss.”

He doesn’t take Sylus’s hand. He stands up on his own, because of course he does, and squares up in front of Sylus with his shoulders braced like he’s about to take a penalty shot.

“One kiss,” Caleb repeats.

“One kiss,” Sylus agrees.

Sylus cups the side of Caleb’s face, thumb settling by the butterfly bandage at his brow. Caleb swallows hard, but doesn’t pull away.

“Relax, sweetheart,” Sylus teases. “It’s a kiss. We’ve gotten more physical over a little black puck.”

Caleb’s hands curl into fists at his sides, his face carefully impassive. “Get on with it, pretty boy.”

Sylus leans in and kisses him.

It starts as nothing. A closed-mouth press, chaste, just sufficient enough to satisfy your request. Sylus’s hand stays at Caleb’s jaw. Caleb’s hands stay at his sides. It’s two men doing something for the benefit of a third person they both care deeply about, and nothing more than that.

Then Caleb’s mouth moves.

It’s the smallest shift—his lower lip catches against Sylus’s, and you watch Sylus notice it—tilting his head to change the angle, transforming the kiss from nothing to everything in the span of a heartbeat.

Caleb’s hand comes up to Sylus’s collar, fisting the cotton there. Not pulling, just holding, his split knuckles going white behind their tape. Sylus makes a small sound, approval or surprise or both. His hand slides from Caleb’s jaw to the back of his neck and he deepens the kiss, mouth opening against Caleb’s slowly, like he’s afraid to startle him, afraid for the moment to vanish, and Caleb lets him.

The kiss isn’t for you anymore.

You can see the exact moment it stops being a performance and starts being something private. Caleb’s other hand comes up, both fists in Sylus’s shirt now. Sylus’s fingers curl into the hair at Caleb’s nape, tugging gently. The sounds shared between them are wet and obscene and utterly, nakedly honest.

Your hands are in your own lap, fingers laced tightly together. You’re watching your boyfriend kiss your brother and the thing you're feeling isn't jealousy or shock or any of the things you are supposed to feel. What you feel instead is heat pooling low, the kind that makes you press your thighs together and the friction of your jeans agonizing.

Sylus pulls back first, turning his head just enough to look at you. His eyes scan yours, drop to your lap, then return to your face. His mouth tilts, and he’s beside you on the couch in three strides.

Caleb stands frozen in place, mouth still slightly open.

Sylus pats the empty space beside him. “Sit down, captain.”

Caleb sits.

Sylus settles between you, one arm stretched across the back behind your shoulders, the other behind Caleb’s.

“Well,” Sylus says to no one in particular. “That was overdue.”

Caleb is staring at the muted TV, jaw working, suddenly captivated by what might be the least consequential Division III basketball game of all time. His lip is bleeding again, the split reopened from the kiss, but he makes no move to wipe it clean.

“Caleb,” you say.

“Don’t.”

“Your lip—”

“I know.”

“It’s bleeding again.”

“I know, pips.”

Sylus reaches over and swipes his thumb across the corner of Caleb’s mouth, catching the blood. Caleb flinches but doesn’t pull away. Sylus studies his thumb for a second, then wipes it on his own jeans, satisfied.

“Good kisser, by the way,” Sylus says lightly. “In case that wasn’t clear.”

Caleb closes his eyes.

“Very direct. Bit aggressive. Holds on like he’s afraid you’ll leave.” Sylus glances your way. “You should try it, sweetie.”

Whatever lust-drunk haze you were in is sliced clean through by the implication, cold and brutally sobering.

“Try what,” you murmur.

“Kissing him,” Sylus clarifies. “You should try it. I think you’d like it.”

Heat floods your face. “Sylus.”

“Hm?”

“You know we can’t—that he’s—” you gesture vaguely between yourself and Caleb, then toward Sylus. “—and we’re—”

“Why not? Because we’re dating?” Sylus asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Or because he’s your brother?”

Your stomach falls through the floor.

Because you thought you’d hidden it. You’ve been so goddamn careful—with your eyes, your hands, the way you angle your body when Caleb sits too close and the way you laugh at his jokes exactly as long as a friend would and not one second longer. And Sylus just picked up everything you’ve been hiding and set it on the coffee table between the three of you, and now you’re all staring straight at it, and there’s no putting it back.

“Both,” you say. “Obviously both.”

“What if it’s neither,” Sylus says, holding both of you in the loose parentheses of his arms, as if he doesn’t find any of this complicated at all. ”What if the problem is that you’ve both wanted each other for so long you’ve turned it into something you’re not allowed to have, and the not-being-allowed has gotten so big you can’t see past it anymore.”

Caleb is staring blankly at the TV again. His throat works around his response.

“She’s your girlfriend, Sylus.”

“She is.”

“And I’m her—”

“You’re her brother. Yes. You’re also in love with her. We all know this. We’ve known it all night. We knew it long before tonight.” Sylus inspects his nails, nonchalant. “So let’s stop building the case and move to the verdict, shall we?”

“Sylus,” you whisper.

“Sweetie. Look at me.” You do. He’s giving you the look he gives when he wants your full attention, a look he doesn’t use often and one you’ve never been able to refuse. “Listen to me. Both of you. I’m going to say something, and I’m going to say it once, and after I say it neither of you gets to pretend you didn’t hear.”

You nod. So does Caleb, in sync, and you watch the small flicker pass across Sylus’s eyes that means he noticed.

“Your big brother won’t touch you,” Sylus says to you. “You know that. I know that. He knows that. He’s spent—how long, Caleb?”

Caleb blinks up at the ceiling.

“How long,” Sylus insists.

“Since I was thirteen.”

“Since he was thirteen. All those years deciding he’s not going to touch you. He’s not going to undo that tonight. Not for me. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

Your heart beats so heavily you’re certain the whole room can hear it.

“But,” Sylus continues. His arm tightens behind your shoulders. His other arm tightens behind Caleb’s. “He can touch me. Can’t you, Caleb?”

“...Yes.”

“And I can touch her. Can’t I, kitten?”

“Yes.”

“Then look at that. Look at how convenient that is.”

Caleb leans out of Sylus’s reach, dragging a hand through his dark hair. “Did I knock something loose up there, Qin? Lay into you a little too hard tonight?”

“Not nearly hard enough.” Sylus smirks, the amusement fading into something more focused. “Nobody touches anybody they’re not supposed to touch tonight. Everybody goes home having had exactly the experience they pretend they didn’t want.”

“That’s a nice speech. You rehearse that in the penalty box?”

“I had five minutes. Figured I’d make good use of them.”

“You’re delusional.”

“And you’re still here.”

That lands. You see it hit in the way Caleb’s mouth opens and stays there, the argument dying in his throat. Because he could leave. The door is right there. He has a car. A phone. Yet he’s sitting under Sylus’s arm and hasn’t taken a single step toward any of them.

Sylus sees it, too.

He reaches up and catches Caleb’s jaw, thumb finding the split in his lower lip, and presses into it. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to feel.

Caleb hisses through his teeth. His hand wraps around Sylus’s wrist but doesn’t pull it away.

“Unless,” Sylus says, his thumb resting in the seam of Caleb’s mouth, “you’d rather go back to arguing about hockey.”

Caleb doesn’t argue. He doesn’t say yes, or nod, or do anything at all except sit there with Sylus’s thumb against his lip and his hand around Sylus’s wrist and his chest rising and falling faster than it ever has on the ice.

That’s enough for Sylus.

He tilts Caleb’s jaw down and kisses him, tongue working in slow and unhurried strokes, like he has the whole night and intends to use every second of it. His thumb slides to the hinge of Caleb’s jaw and rests there. His other hand stays on your shoulder, keeping you close. Keeping you watching. A warm, heavy, point of contact that says stay and watch this and you are not going to look away from what I’m doing to your brother’s mouth.

Caleb’s hand finds the back of Sylus’s neck, and you inhale sharply.

Sylus pulls back at your gasp. His hand leaves Caleb’s jaw and finds yours with the same grip, thumb at the corner of your mouth, fingers curving under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his. His eyes scan yours, and something in his expression comes alive and hungry.

“Open, sweetie.”

He kisses you, and it’s a kiss you know. The shape of his mouth, the pace, the pressure of his tongue against yours. You’ve kissed this man so many times you could map it blindfolded.

But there’s something in his mouth that isn’t his.

It takes you a second to place it, a warmth that doesn’t belong to Sylus. A faint copper edge that blooms on your tongue when his presses against it. The blood of a split lip. Caleb’s, carried on your boyfriend’s tongue, delivered to yours with each stroke. You whimper against his mouth, and feel Sylus smile into the kiss—a small, satisfied flex that says his hypothesis just proved correct.

“There,” he says quietly, pressing a parting kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Now you’ve had him, too.”

On the couch behind him, Caleb’s eyes are focused on your face—specifically on your mouth, more specifically on the place where his blood is still sitting on your lower lip and you haven’t wiped it off.

“Now,” Sylus says, turning back to Caleb. “Your turn, captain.”

Caleb opens his mouth and Sylus kisses him, tongue sweeping wet and slow and thorough. Caleb’s teeth close around Sylus’s bottom lip and hold, pulling, tasting the sweetness that’s sitting on Sylus’s lip from yours. The bite pulls a low sound from Sylus’s throat, his eyelids fluttering at the pressure, and Caleb doesn’t let go. If anything he sucks harder, desperately chasing your mouth the only way he’s allowed to. 

Sylus finally pulls back with noticeable effort, running his tongue over his own lip where its newly swollen.

“Well?” Sylus asks, amused and knowing. “Could you taste her?”

“Apple.” Caleb swallows. “Green apple.”

The words hit you hard and low. Your Chapstick. The one he’s bought for you in bulk since you were in middle school and keeps in his glovebox because you always lose yours. The one he tosses into your lap without comment every time you get in his car, the one you reapplied before walking into this apartment.

“Yeah,” Caleb says, rougher. “Yeah, I could taste her.”

Sylus’s mouth curves. “Good.”

“Again,” Caleb says to Sylus, not asking. “Kiss her again.”

Sylus obliges. He turns to you and claims your lips, longer, dirtier, a thin strand of spit connecting your mouths when he pulls away. He turns to Caleb, who catches it with his mouth before Sylus finishes turning, desperate and graceless and nothing like the controlled athlete who commanded the ice earlier tonight. Caleb’s hand comes up to the back of Sylus’s head and holds him there, kissing him harder, letting Sylus feed him the taste of you, only pulling apart when his lungs burn for air.

“More,” Caleb groans.

Sylus huffs a laugh. “Greedy.”

“More, Sylus.”

The rhythm turns hypnotic. Sylus kisses Caleb, turns, kisses you. Kisses you, turns, kisses Caleb. Each pass filthier than the last, a little more urgent, carrying more of your brother to you—not just his taste but his small, wet sounds, his shallow breaths, the barely-held-back noises he keeps making against Sylus’s tongue that Sylus carries to you like gifts.

You don’t know how you end up pressed together.

Caleb’s thigh is flush against Sylus’s, their shoulders overlapping. You’ve managed to end up in your boyfriend’s lap, straddling his hips. And Sylus keeps one hand on each of you the entire time, one at your hip now, the other on Caleb’s bicep.

You lean in after one of the passes and catch Sylus’s mouth before he’s fully turned away from Caleb, the kiss off-center and messy, and you taste Caleb so strongly that your hips buck against Sylus’s.

Sylus laughs. He gives your ass a teasing smack.

“Bedroom,” he says.

Caleb pulls back, eyes widening. “Sylus—”

“We’re moving this to the bedroom. This couch costs more than your car, and your sister’s about to ruin it.”

You frown. “I am not—”

“Sweetie, your hand is on his belt.”

You look down. Your hand is, in fact, on Caleb’s belt.

Not through Sylus, just—your hand, on Caleb’s belt buckle, fingers curled around the leather, and you don’t remember putting it there and you don’t remember Sylus guiding it, and you’re dangerously close to not remembering why this whole thing was ever a bad idea in the first place.

You pull your hand away like it’s been burned.

“Bedroom,” Sylus repeats, an order rather than suggestion. He stands, bringing you with him, your legs wrapped around his waist. He eyes Caleb and tips his head toward the hallway. “Now.”

Nobody argues.

Sylus’s bedroom is all dark wood and low light, with a bed that takes up most of the space. It’s a mattress you’ve been on a hundred times. You know how the sheets feel bunched in your fists, how the pillow positions your hips at just the right angle when he puts it under your stomach, how the comforter feels around your shoulders when he tucks you in with a kiss to your temple.

You have no idea how different it’ll feel with three people on top of it.

Sylus deposits you in the middle of the bed before crossing to his nightstand. 

“Caleb,” Sylus says. He turns the lamp down another notch. “In or out. I won’t ask twice.”

You watch your brother from the doorway, his gaze flicking to and away from you, like the sight of you—leaning back on your elbows, lips kiss-swollen, hair a little mussed, eyes alive and wanting—is too much to bear.

He steps in, locking the door behind him with a loud click. “I’m doing this for her.”

“Of course you are,” Sylus says.

“I mean it, Sylus. This isn’t—I’m not here for you.”

“Nobody asked you to be.”

“Good.”

“Good.” Sylus reaches behind his neck, pulling his shirt up and over his head. “Clothes. Off. Both of you.”   

“All of them?” Caleb asks, still lingering by the door.

Sylus drapes his shirt over the back of his desk chair. “Leave the underwear. We’re not animals.”

“Debatable,” you mutter, and Sylus’s mouth twitches.

The three of you strip in silence, shirts tossed aside, all three pairs of jeans hitting the floor at different speeds— Sylus’s first, folded; yours next, kicked off the edge of the bed; Caleb’s last, shoved down and stepped out of.

You’ve seen your brother shirtless—at the beach, after a shower, when he mows the lawn in the dead of August. What you haven’t seen is your brother in gray boxer briefs that do nothing to hide the way his erection strains against the fabric, tight enough that you can tell where the head of his cock meets the shaft, that you can see the darkened spot at the tip where precum bleeds through.

Caleb catches you staring, eyes finding yours and holding them until you’re the one that breaks. Your cheeks burn violently, fingers fumbling with your bra clasp like you’ve forgotten how it works.

“Eyes up, captain,” Sylus warns, moving to the foot of the bed. “She’ll still be there in a minute.”

“You going to coach me through this like it’s a power play?” Caleb grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“If that’s what it takes. You never could finish without a setup.”

“I have fourteen goals this season.”

“And how many assists?”

Caleb's mouth opens and shuts.

“...Shut up.”

Sylus huffs out a laugh. He pulls you to the edge of the mattress by your ankles, and you yelp.

“I’m going to tell you where to look all night, sweetheart. Get used to it,” he says to Caleb before turning his attention back to you. “Lie back, kitten.”

You settle back. Sylus stands between your legs, one hand braced beside your head, and for a moment it’s just the two of you. He kisses your throat, your collarbone, mouth moving down the center of your chest slow and warm. His free hand finds your waist and holds there, thumb tracing the skin above the waistband of your underwear.

“Caleb,” Sylus says against your skin. “Behind me.”

“I’m not cuddling you, Sylus.”

“Nobody’s cuddling anybody. Get behind me. Hands on mine.”

“This isn’t—”

“For her, captain. You’re doing this for her. Remember?”

Caleb positions his knees on either side of Sylus’s calves, chest close to Sylus’s back but not quite touching. He braces one hand on the mattress, the other settling over Sylus’s at your waist, lining up finger over finger, his broader palm bracketing Sylus’s against your hip. The added weight presses Sylus’s grip firmer into your skin, and you arch up into it.

“There,” Sylus says. “Feel her through me. When I move, you move. Yes?”

Caleb’s voice is barely there. “Yes.”

Sylus’s thumb traces up the curve of your waist. Caleb’s follows—riding the back of Sylus’s hand, tracking every motion. Sylus’s hand slides to your ribs, and Caleb’s follows, up and around. Sylus’s fingertips graze the underside of your breast and you gasp, and Caleb’s knuckle catches the edge of your skin where Sylus’s hand doesn’t fully cover.

Caleb freezes.

“I didn’t—I—”

“Caleb…” you whisper.

You look up at Sylus, but he doesn’t intervene. He watches your face from above, letting you be the one who tells Caleb what’s allowed.

“It’s okay, gege,” you decide. “You don’t have to stop.”

Caleb’s hand unfreezes. His fingers resettle over Sylus’s, and they keep moving.

The next touch isn’t an accident.

It’s the back of his ring finger, tracing a line along your ribs that Sylus’s hand doesn’t cover. A quarter-inch of contact, gone, then back—his pinky, grazing the curve of your waist as Sylus’s hand slides lower, gone just as fast. Ghost touches, so minimal you could pretend they didn’t happen. Caleb finding the gaps and pressing into them, testing, learning you through the spaces between your boyfriend’s fingers.

“Sylus,” you whisper.

“I see it, sweetie.”

“Is he—”

“He’s being creative.” Sylus’s mouth lifts. He shifts his hands enough to widen the gaps between his fingers by a fraction, adjusting his grip to give Caleb more room. “I’m allowing it.”

Caleb presses closer behind Sylus. His chest makes contact with Sylus’s back, and the added weight pushes Sylus’s body down against yours.

“Caleb,” Sylus says, in warning and permission at the same time.

“I know.”

“You’re on top of me.”

“I know. That doesn’t mean I like you.”

“You liked me just fine on the couch.”

“That was—that was the situation. That was for—”

“For her. Yes. You’ve mentioned.”

Sylus lowers his mouth to your breast. His tongue traces the curve, teeth teasing your nipple, and you arch up into him. The motion presses your hips against his, and Sylus’s hips press back against Caleb’s, and Caleb—

Caleb grinds forward.

It’s a small, involuntary roll of his hips against Sylus’s ass that pushes Sylus’s hips into yours, and you feel the force of Caleb traveling through Sylus like a wave cresting against you.

Your mouth falls open.

“Caleb. Do that again,” you urge.

“Pips—”

“Gege, please. Do that again.”

He does it again, harder this time. His hips roll forward, grinding Sylus into you, and the pressure hits you exactly right. You gasp and grab Sylus’s shoulders. Sylus makes a low, strangled sound you’ve never heard from him before, Caleb’s hips driving him forward and yours rocking up to meet him.

“More,” you gasp.

Caleb grinds harder, his exhales ragged against Sylus’s neck. The bed is moving. You’re moving. Caleb’s hands are now white-knuckled on Sylus’s hips and Sylus’s are braced on either side of your head and you’re gripping the sheets with both fists as the room dissolves to nothing but friction and heat and breath.

“Caleb—” Sylus manages, his voice is rough in a way that makes your stomach clench, “Caleb, you need to—fuck—you need to—slow down.”

Caleb doesn’t slow down. His next stroke grinds Sylus into you so hard you nearly scream, grabbing onto Sylus’s shoulders, and your boyfriend shudders—actually shudders—and Caleb’s hips snap forward again, relentless.

Sylus throws his weight backward, driving Caleb off him enough to break away. He holds a hand between you and Caleb like a referee calling a penalty—chest heaving, skin flushed, entire body vibrating with the effort of stopping.

“Christ,” he grits out. “The pair of you.”

You stare up at him, breathless. Caleb has one knee up at the end of the bed, hands still shaped around hips that aren’t there anymore.

“We need to slow down,” Sylus says, pushing his hair back with one hand, “or one of us was going to finish in our underwear like a teenager, and I am not going to let that be me.”

“Could’ve been me,” Caleb says, roughly.

“It was going to be all three of us. And we haven’t even started yet.” Sylus looks between you, eyes dark, still catching his breath. “Underwear off. All of us.”

“Thought we weren’t animals,” Caleb mutters.

“We evolved.” Sylus counters, already halfway out of his own boxers. “Take them off, captain.”

You lift your hips and shimmy out of your panties, tossing them off the side of the bed without ceremony. Caleb relents, kicking his underwear off in the general direction of his jeans.

It’s seeing them side by side that knocks the air clean out of you.

Sylus stands tall, lean and carved, all controlled lines and casual strength. A trail of silver hair guides your eyes to where his cock hangs heavy between his thighs, the tip flushed and leaking. Caleb stands broader, rougher around the edges, the bruise on his ribs going green, tape still half-wound around his knuckles. Dark hair runs in a line below his navel, and when you see your brother’s cock for the first time—thick and eager in his hand—you draw your knees together.

Sylus’s hand catches them before they close.

“Uh-uh,” he says simply. With one palm on each knee, he eases them back apart. “None of that, sweetie.”

He guides you back against the headboard, adjusts the pillow under your lower back, running a hand down your calf once he’s finished like he’s admiring his handiwork.

“Comfortable?” he asks, sitting back on his heels.

You nod. “Yes.”

The mattress dips as Caleb moves to kneel behind Sylus. He reaches for your boyfriend’s hip, already angling to resume the position—his chest against Sylus’s back, Sylus between your legs, the structure of this arrangement he knows and trusts.

“No,” Sylus stops Caleb with a hand around his forearm, pulling him to kneel beside you instead. “I want you to see something.”

Sylus settles between your legs, lowering himself on his elbows. His mouth grazes the inside of your thigh, red eyes pinning Caleb.

“You can look, captain.”

Caleb swallows. “I am looking.”

“Then look properly.” Sylus’s breath hits your aching core with each word, and you squirm. “It’s okay. Look at her.”

Sylus holds Caleb’s eyes as his mouth moves higher. He kisses your hip, the crease of your thigh, the soft skin below your navel. Then his tongue teases your clit, and your hips jerk up off the bed. Caleb’s hand, resting on his own thigh, curls into a fist.

“See how pretty she is?” Sylus murmurs against you.

“Sylus—”

“Look.”

Sylus parts you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue, closing his lips around your clit with a teasing suck before pulling away—giving your brother an unobstructed view, you realize hazily. He spreads you open with both thumbs, displaying your swollen, slick pussy with an almost reverent care. You’re so wet that you’ve made a mess of your inner thighs, so wet it should shame you, but the way Caleb is looking at you right now leaves no room for any feeling other than the dizzying certainty that your brother wants you as badly as you want him.

“You did this, Caleb. Your sister’s pretty little cunt is ruining my sheets. All because of you,” Sylus muses. He drags a thumb up through your slick heat, eyes locked on Caleb’s expression as he circles the wetness around your clit. “She’s been like this since you grabbed me by the shirt. Since you made me bleed on the ice, I’d imagine.”

Sylus lowers his mouth to you once more, tongue patient and expert, licking into you the way he knows you like. The sensation makes your toes curl, but you’re faintly aware that the act isn’t for your pleasure, but for the benefit of the man kneeling beside you with bated breath.

Caleb watches intently—the way Sylus’s jaw works, the speed and pressure that makes you gasp, the way your hips buck when he hums against you every few strokes—studying like an exam he’s desperate to pass.

“Caleb,” Sylus says, lifting his mouth just enough to speak. “Spit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t put your mouth on her,” Sylus explains. “But you can give her something from it. Can’t you?”

Caleb exhales hard through his nose, but doesn’t deny it.

He leans over you, and his face is close, close enough that his breath heats your stomach, close enough that you see his nostrils flare, briefly, involuntarily, his lips parting at whatever he finds there. He lets saliva pool under his tongue and glances at you sideways, a silent plea for approval.

You nod, quickly, anticipation buzzing under your skin. “I want to feel you there, gege.”

He spits.

When it lands directly on your swollen clit, you cry out. The streak of saliva runs down your slit slowly, torturously, so erotic it makes you clench around nothing.

“Good,” Sylus murmurs, and drops his head back down. He works it in with his tongue, and the added slick makes you moan. “Feel that, sweetie? That’s all your brother. You’re taking him so well.”

Your hand finds the nearest solid thing—Caleb’s thigh—and grips tight.

Caleb lets out a strained sound at the contact, but he doesn’t pull away. You can feel the small shifts in his weight as he leans closer, pulled in, unable to help himself. He watches Sylus’s mouth on you with an expression that’s long passed hunger and arrived somewhere more primal.

“Sylus,” Caleb says, more groan than word.

Sylus hums against you but doesn’t move.

“Sylus. Let me—”

Sylus lifts his head, mouth glistening. He looks at Caleb with his chin resting against the inside of your thigh and a lazy, knowing expression that makes your stomach flip.

“Let you what, captain?”

Caleb’s throat moves. “Taste.”

“Taste what.”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I’m going to make you say it.”

“Her. I want to taste her. Sylus, let me—”

“How badly.”

His jaw flexes once. Twice. “Badly.”

Sylus presses a kiss to your thigh before sitting up, giving his cock a few lazy strokes. “Hm.”

He positions the head of his cock between your legs—not to enter, just outside—sliding just the tip up and down the wet of you. You gasp, cunt throbbing, aching to be filled by him—by Sylus, by Caleb, by both.

Caleb is watching with his mouth open.

“How badly,” Sylus repeats, eyes on your brother as he rolls his hips against you this time, dragging the full length of him through your folds.

“Sylus—” Caleb urges.

“Tell me, sweetheart. I want to hear you say it.”

“Please.” It falls out of Caleb’s mouth unauthorized. “Please, Sylus, let me—”

Sylus grinds against you again, slower. He makes sure every inch of him is covered, glistening with you, and Caleb is watching with every muscle tense and his hands gripping his thighs hard enough to bruise.

“More?” Sylus asks Caleb, almost bored, like he’s asking about the weather.

“Sylus, for fuck’s sake—”

“That didn’t sound like more.”

“More. Yes. More, just—Sylus, come on—”

Sylus rolls his hips into you one last time, a long, slow grind that pulls a moan out of you and leaves him drenched. He rises onto his knees, cock gleaming with you, and looks at Caleb.

“Come here, captain.”

Caleb moves before the sentence is finished.

His mouth is on Sylus faster than you can process it—tasting you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue from base to tip; a wrecked, thankful sound torn from somewhere deep inside his chest.

“That’s it.” Sylus’s hand finds the back of Caleb’s head and holds there. “Taste your baby sister, Caleb. That’s what she tastes like when she wants you. And she’s been wanting you all night. Can you taste that? Can you taste how badly her body needs yours?”

Caleb’s hands grip Sylus’s thighs as his mouth works—tasting, chasing it, trying to get every trace of you off Sylus’s skin. You watch your boyfriend lose himself for a moment: his hips jerk forward once, and he looks down at Caleb with an expression you’ve only ever seen him give you.

“God, look at you,” Sylus says, low. “This is what you’ve been missing. Years, Caleb. Years of this.”

Caleb lifts his head. His mouth is wet, eyes nearly black. He looks at Sylus first—a look that is somehow both grateful and furious—and then he looks at you.

“I know,” he says, bitter but not at you. 

“Was it worth it? Being noble?”

Caleb shakes off Sylus’s hold, running his hand over the back of his head like he could erase the man’s touch. “Shut up, pretty boy.”

Sylus raises his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not saying anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“I’m thinking—” Sylus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and settles beside you against the headboard. His hand finds your knee, pulling it closer to your chest. “—your sister has been lying here all alone, begging for you to fuck her, while you’ve been busy showing a lot of enthusiasm for a cock you claim to hate.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Qin.” His words are calm. His ears, unfortunately, are bright red. “That was for her, not you.”

“Was it. Then prove it.” Sylus gives your thigh a squeeze. “Do something for her she can actually feel. Between her legs, captain.”

“No. That’s—no. That’s not what we agreed to.” Caleb’s whole body goes rigid. “You said nobody touches anybody they’re not supposed to. That was the rule.”

“We didn’t agree to anything,” Sylus counters. “We’ve been making it up as we go. And so far, everything we’ve made up has worked, hasn’t it.”

“This—this is different.”

“Is it? You tasted your sister on my cock and the world kept turning.” Sylus raises a brow. “What makes you think this will be any different?”

“It’s completely different and you know it.”

“How.”

“Because she’s—” Caleb gestures at you without looking at you. “She’s right there, Sylus, and I—”

“Look at her, Caleb.”

Caleb looks at you, and you don’t soften it. You don’t close your legs or reach for the sheet or give him something to hide behind. You let him see the aftermath of an hour of being touched through another man, what a lifetime of being so close to your brother but never close enough has done to you.

“Caleb,” you say. “Please. Just come here.”

His hands open and close at his sides. “Pips, you don’t know what’s going to happen if I—”

“I know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“You don’t.”

“You’re going to touch me and it’s going to feel like it should have felt a long time ago. And I’m going to be fine. And you’re going to be fine. And I’m asking you, gege. I’m asking. Please.”

He’s quiet. He looks at Sylus—not for permission, not exactly. Giving your boyfriend one last chance to change his mind, to tell him this is wrong, to kick him to the curb and slam the door behind him and pretend none of this ever happened.

“She’s asking, Caleb,” Sylus says gently. “And I’m tired of being the only one who listens to her.”

Caleb closes his eyes with a heavy exhale. Opens them.

He moves between your legs.

“Closer, sweetheart,” Sylus directs from beside you. “She’s not going to bite. Yet.”

Caleb nods and inches closer on his knees, until the front of his thighs are flush against yours. He takes himself in hand and you open for him, drawing both knees tighter into your chest.

“I don’t—” Caleb starts. “What if I—”

“Just the outside,” Sylus says. “You don’t have to go in. Just feel her against you. That’s all.”

That’s all.

He presses the length of his cock flat against you the way he watched Sylus do, sliding slowly through your slick heat without entering, and the weight of your brother against your cunt makes you forget how to breathe.

“There,” Sylus says from beside you. You watch him wrap his hand around his own cock, stroking it in time with Caleb’s slow rolls, the visual sending a new wave of heat down your spine. “Just like that. Easy, captain.”

Caleb rocks his hips in long drags, hot and devastating as he slides through the wet of everything the night has built. His hand is still on himself, still controlling the angle, still holding onto the last bit of restraint he has left.

“Shit,” he manages. “Sylus, she’s so—feels so—”

“I know.”

“She’s—I can’t—”

“You can,” Sylus assures, gentle and genuine. “You’re fine. She’s fine. It’s just the outside.”

Your hips rock up to meet his on the next stroke, shifting the angle, and the head of his cock catches at your entrance.

All three of you gasp at the same time.

“That’s okay. Just a little is okay,” Sylus says, quieter now. He leans closer to rest a hand on Caleb’s lower back. “You can give your sister just the tip. That’s allowed. That’s nothing.”

“That’s not nothing—”

“It’s close to nothing. Let it happen.”

Caleb rocks forward and the head of him slides in—just barely inside, the tight heat of you closing around the first inch, your legs falling wider open with a small gasp. He collapses forward, free hand fisting into the sheets beside your shoulder. Your mouths open, only inches apart now. His hand tightens around himself like a brake.

“There,” Sylus murmurs. “See? That’s fine. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” Caleb grits out.

“Then go a little further. You can let go of yourself. You don’t have to hold on anymore.” His thumb soothes small arcs on Caleb’s back. “Why don’t you give her a little more. Just an inch. She can take it. Can’t you, sweetie?”

Caleb’s hand releases. He plants it beside your other shoulder.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Yes, more, please—”

Caleb sinks deeper. An inch. Another. His jaw is clenched so hard you can see the tendon at his neck as his eyes lock on yours, searching for the thing that will tell him to stop.

You don’t give it to him.

“More,” you beg. “I can take it. I promise I can take it.”

“Pips—”

“Gege, please. I need you closer. I need more.”

“All the way,” Sylus says, and his hand presses flat against Caleb’s lower back. “All the way, sweetheart. She’s asking so nicely. Give your baby sister the cock she’s been begging for.”

Caleb pushes all the way in.

His forehead drops to yours, eyes squeezing shut. His forearms are shaking where they cage your head, and you’re full of him, completely, finally, and you have never in your life felt more whole.

Your arms come up around his neck, legs wrapping around his waist, and you hold him there, as deep as he can go. Sylus strokes the back of Caleb's head once before returning to your side.

“There you go,” Sylus murmurs. “There. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Caleb’s breath shudders against your mouth.

“Give me a second,” he says. “Meimei, give me one second.”

You give him a second. You give him several. You lie there with him buried inside you and his sweat-slicked forehead against yours and your breath mixing in the inch between your mouths and you wait.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

When he moves, it’s in rolls, not thrusts. He moves like he’s terrified of the end of this, like if he goes slow enough it will never stop, and you let him, because you’ve waited years and you can wait a few more minutes.

Sylus settles back against the headboard, stroking himself slowly, watching the two of you with half-lidded eyes, his free hand resting on his own thigh. Occasionally it drifts—brushing a strand of your hair out of your face, giving a reassuring squeeze to Caleb’s forearm. Though you can barely register anything aside from the way Caleb is looking at you the way you always dreamed he would, like he’s burning alive and doesn’t want to be saved.

“Faster,” you plead, gripping his forearms for leverage.

Caleb doesn’t check with Sylus anymore. He goes faster.

You dig your heels into his ass, pulling him impossibly deeper. He groans against your throat, the loudest sound the room has heard all night, and his hips snap forward and the bedframe hits the wall with each thrust and neither of you cares. You’re nothing but two people who have been starving trying to eat at the same time, and it’s too fast and too much and not enough and—

“Caleb,” Sylus says.

His rhythm stutters. “What could you possibly—”

“Kiss her.”

Caleb cuts Sylus a sidelong glare, but he doesn’t reply.

“You heard me, captain.”

Your brother looks down at you, hips still rolling in a steady rhythm. He lowers his mouth to your forehead and presses his lips there. It’s the kind of kiss you’ve received a thousand times—at the airport, at graduation, in the parking lot after games. Safe. Known.

Sylus clicks his tongue, dissatisfied. “Lower, Caleb.”

Caleb inhales sharply, eyes scanning your face, contemplating. His hips have all but stilled, as if he needs all of his focus to fulfill the request. He picks a lower spot—the apple of your cheek—and kisses you there softly.

“Gege,” you whisper against the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“Please.”

“I know, meimei.”

You tilt your chin up, lower lip brushing his. “Please. Just one.”

Caleb kisses you, and the world falls away.

It’s slow, unbearably slow, just the full, warm weight of his mouth against yours for the very first time. His hand comes up to cradle your face, the gesture so tender you feel the start of tears pooling behind your lashes.

Caleb pulls away a fraction and comes back. His lips part, barely, and yours open to meet them. His tongue finds yours tentatively, nothing like the way he kissed Sylus, and you savor the way it glides against yours like it was always meant to. He tastes like whiskey and copper and Sylus’s skin and underneath all of it like Caleb—not number five, not the hockey captain, but your older brother, the one who taught you to skate when you were nine and held both your hands the whole time and never once let go.

His hips start moving again, each stroke matched to the kiss, each deep roll timed to the slide of his tongue against yours. Your hand moves from his jaw into his hair, and you kiss him back and feel a lifetime of careful distance dissolve like it was never there. Like all those years you thought were keeping something out were really keeping something in, something alive and wound tight and desperate for the chance to break free.

Caleb deepens the kiss, hungrier now, tongue licking deeper against yours as his hips snap forward so hard it’s almost painful.

“There he is,” Sylus says, barely above a breath, hand quickening on himself. “Fuck, look at you two. Let go. Together. Let everything go.”

“Gege,” you manage. “I’m close.”

“I know.” Against your lips. “Me too, meimei. Me too.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m not—I won’t—I—”

You both let go.

You break around him. His hips stutter. The sound he makes into your mouth is the twin of the one you make into his, and there’s nothing poetic or graceful about it. He holds your face like he’s trying to live inside the kiss, like if he stays long enough it’ll become something he can keep. You feel his release pulse hot inside you, your own orgasm pulling him in even deeper, and you hold each other through every wave, never breaking the kiss. Not even when he’s shaking, and you’re shaking, and neither of you can breathe.

Beside you, Sylus comes with his forehead tipped back against the headboard and his hand in your hair, fingers tangled loosely in the damp strands at the back of your neck while the two people he brought together fall apart. His exhale is long and heavy and sounds, if you’re listening for it, like satisfaction.

The kiss finally, reluctantly breaks.

Caleb pulls back an inch, resting his forehead against yours, the two of you trading shaky breaths while you wait for the room to stop spinning.

“I just kissed you,” he whispers.

You laugh, and it comes out wet. “You did a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, but—“ He wipes away a tear from your cheekbone you didn’t realize had fallen, his eyes glassy and dark and full of so many emotions your chest aches. “I kissed you, meimei.”

“Yeah, gege.” You grin. “You did.”

He smiles. It’s a smile you’ve know your whole life but never from this close, and from here it simply looks like pure, wild joy. And you think, without deciding to, that you’d burn the entire world to the ground just to see him smile like that twice.

Caleb stays inside you for a long time. His face is in your neck, your fingers in his hair, the two of you so thoroughly entangled your heartbeats are nearly synchronized.

Sylus is the first one to move.

He gets up quietly. You hear the tap run in the bathroom, the sound of a drawer opening and closing. He comes back with a glass of water and a warm cloth, sits on the edge of the bed, and rests a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

“Out,” he says, gently. “Easy. I’ve got her.”

Caleb pulls out—reluctantly, carefully—and rolls onto his side. He reaches for you immediately, pulling you against his chest, arm heavy over your waist, nose in your hair, like he’s afraid someone’s going to call time.

Sylus cleans you up. Sets the water on the nightstand within reach. Pulls the sheet up over both of you, kisses the top of your head, and goes to the other side of the bed.

He lies down beside Caleb. Not touching, giving the two of you your own space to come down together. Caleb’s palm presses into your bare abdomen, soothing circles over your stomach. And after a minute or two, he shifts backward. Just enough that his shoulders meet Sylus’s chest.

Sylus lifts his arm and drapes it over both of you, over Caleb’s ribs, your waist, his palm settling on your stomach on top of Caleb’s hand.

Caleb exhales. His whole body goes slack against Sylus’s chest.

“Don’t you dare say a word, pretty boy,” Caleb murmurs.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“And don’t bring this up ever again.”

“Bring what up.”

“This. Any of this. Not on the ice, not in the locker room, not ever.”

“Caleb, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m asleep. You’re asleep. She's asleep. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing at all, sweetheart,” Sylus confirms. “Though if it had, I’d be putting myself down for the assist.”

“I will smother you with this pillow.”

“That would require you to let go of her first, captain.”

Caleb’s arm tightens around your waist. Sylus’s arm tightens over his. You lace your fingers through both of their hands where they overlap on your stomach and close your eyes.

Somewhere in the living room, the basketball game has ended, the TV humming without an audience. Nobody gets up to turn it off.

Nobody gets up at all.

if u made it this far....thank u for reading, fellow freak ;)

still hungry, sweetie??? -> masterlist | ao3

The rodeo smells like dirt and beer and bad decisions.

You’re wedged between Tara and some guy in an absurdly oversized cowboy hat who keeps whooping like he’s personally invested in watching men get concussed by livestock. The stands are packed, the sun is setting, and you are profoundly, deeply bored.

“Isn’t this AMAZING?” Tara shouts over the announcer’s voice.

“It’s definitely something,” you say, taking another sip of overpriced beer.

“Come on! Live a little!” Tara hits your arm playfully. “You said you wanted adventure, didn’t you?”

What you actually said three days ago was that you needed a weekend away from your suffocating corporate job and your mother’s passive-aggressive texts about your biological clock. Tara—your chaotic, impulsive, rodeo-obsessed friend and coworker—interpreted that as “drive three hours into the middle of nowhere to watch men cosplay as cowboys.”

“I said I wanted a spa weekend. With wine. And no animals.”

“This is way better than a spa!”

“Tara, I’m watching a man get thrown off of a bull into a literal pile of shit.”

“That’s the best part!”

You’re starting to regret every choice you made that led you here, mentally drafting escape strategies: sudden vague illness, a family emergency of unclear nature, alien abduction—

“Next up,” the announcer booms, “give it up for Sylus Qin, folks! Undefeated this season, riding Wild Cherry—”

The crowd absolutely loses their minds. Apparently this guy is famous. Or infamous. It’s hard to tell.

Tara is suddenly sitting up straighter. “Oh my god, it’s him.”

“Him who?”

“SYLUS. The Sylus Qin. He’s only the best bull rider in the circuit right now. Undefeated. Gorgeous. Thighs that could crush your skull and you’d say thank you.” She’s practically vibrating. “This is why we came.”

“We came all the way out here for one specific cowboy?”

“We came for THE cowboy.” She looks at you like you have brain damage. “He has entire fan accounts dedicated to him, y’know. Sychos, we call ourselves. Get it, like psych—”

“Yeah, I got it,” you cut in. “Naming yourselves after men who sit on angry animals for prize money. Very adult behavior.”

“Adult behavior is overrated.” Tara waves you off. “And just you wait, babe. You’ll be calling yourself one by the end of the night.”

You snort. “If that happens, I give you permission to euthanize me.”

“Fine, but I get your closet.” She bumps your hip with hers. “I’d grieve, obviously. But in designer.”

A group of girls in tight denim shorts and matching red bandanas suddenly flock to the rail below you, phones out, glitter letters spelling STAY ON, SYLUS across posterboard. One of them whispers something to the girl beside her that makes her giggle and bite her lip.

“Those are the Sychos, huh?” you say, like you’re confirming a wildlife sighting. “You count yourself among the faithful?”

“Please. Me? I’m not here to worship him.” She tips her chin toward the girls, sliding her sunglasses into her hair. “I’m here for his disciples.”

You shoot her a look. To Tara, men sit in the same category as traffic cones—loud and in the way, only tolerable when directing her somewhere else.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Unbelievably efficient, you mean.” She tosses her braid over her shoulder and checks her lipstick in the reflection of her phone screen. “They convert easily.”

Before you can respond, the PA system crackles in a sharp burst of static that jolts the arena to attention. Everyone shifts at once, boots scraping against metal as the crowd angles to catch a glimpse of the rider. Someone whistles. Dust stirs around the chute like it’s coming alive.

The girls below you erupt first, phones snapping up, posterboards rattling against the rail.

The announcer’s voice rolls through the speakers—a slow country drawl that buzzes through the bleachers, through your ribs, through the stupid can of beer in your hand:

“Competitor twenty-two…Sylus Qin.”

Tara exhales like she’s been waiting hours for this exact moment. “Showtime.”

“—ain’t nobody lasted more than six seconds on this beast all year—”

“That’s what she said,” you mutter into your drink.

Tara doesn’t hear you. She’s too busy screaming with the rest of the crowd as the gate slams open.

The bull explodes into the ring—twisting, bucking, trying to murder its rider with pure muscle and chaos. The man on top is already locked in, one hand high, the other on the rope, body rolling with each violent buck like he’s done this a thousand times. Because he probably has.

You’ll admit—objectively, technically, it’s impressive. In the same way watching someone juggle chainsaws is impressive. Impressive and dangerous and stupid.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t wobble. Doesn’t even seem winded. Just rides the beast like it was born to be beneath him.

Six seconds. Seven. Eight.

The buzzer sounds. He dismounts smoothly, landing on his feet while the bull handlers rush in. The girls below you are shrieking like someone won the lottery.

You finish off your beer.

“...That’s it?” you mutter.

“That’s it?” Tara whips her head toward you so fast her sunglasses nearly fly. “He just survived a demon with horns and you’re bored?”

“Looked like…balance,” you say with a shrug. “Core strength. Decent stance.”

Tara opens her mouth, ready to annihilate you, but the crowd erupts again as the rider approaches the bleachers—a frenzy of camera flashes, dads slapping shoulders, girls crying.

You glance up just in time to see him.

Sylus Qin. Helmet off, silver hair tousled, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt. A handler says something to him, but he barely responds. His red eyes scan the bleachers, not searching the crowd—hunting through it.

And then they find you.

Not the screaming girls pressed against the rail. Not the sign glittering under the fluorescent floodlights.

You.

His gaze flicks over you once, slow, like he’s taking note of every inch. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t wave, just assesses you in a way that makes your pulse jump.

Tara gasps like she’s witnessing a miracle. “Oh my god,” she hisses, shaking your arm. “He’s looking at you!”

“He’s looking in this general direction,” you correct, throat suddenly dry.

“General direction, my ass.” Tara’s voice is wild with victory. “He’s staring at you like you just spit in his drink. And he liked it.”

You’re about to argue when Sylus drags the back of his glove across his mouth—still looking up at you, the stranger with crossed arms and a steady, blank stare. His eyes narrow, heat flicking to life behind them. Interest. Curiosity. Challenge.

You tilt your head, like you’re still trying to figure out what the fuss is about.

The gesture lands like an insult.

He holds your gaze for a beat too long, tips his hat directly at you with what can only be described as spite, and saunters out of the arena.

Tara explodes beside you the second he disappears through the gate.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Tara is practically screaming in your ear. “What just happened? Did you see that? He looked at you like—like—”

“Like nothing.”

“Like EVERYTHING.” She grabs your face, turning it toward hers. “Do you understand what just happened? Sylus Qin just acknowledged you. Personally. In front of everyone.”

“He probably does that for lots of people—”

“He doesn’t.” A girl in front of you turns around, and she looks furious. “He literally never does that.”

She’s wearing a crop top with “Qin” bedazzled across the chest and more makeup than seems practical for an outdoor event. Her friends beside her look equally angry.

“Excuse me?” you say.

“You heard me.” She looks you up and down with obvious disdain. “We’ve been coming to his rides for months. Months. And you—you didn’t even cheer! You just sat there like you were bored!”

“I mean...I was?”

Tara makes a sound like she's trying not to laugh.

“This is bullshit.” Bedazzled stands up, and her whole group follows. “Come on. We’re going to the back. Maybe if we’re there when he comes out—”

They file out of the row, shooting you looks that range from annoyed to homicidal.

The moment they’re gone, Tara turns to you with the biggest grin you’ve ever seen.

“Oh my god.”

“Don’t.”

“You made enemies in under eight seconds. I’m so proud.” She’s bouncing on her heels now. “Did you see their faces? They looked like you personally victimized them.”

“I didn’t do anything—”

“You existed while looking unimpressed. Apparently that’s a crime here.” She glances toward where the group disappeared, then back at you with a gleam in her eye. “God, they’re going to be so upset when they find out he—”

“When they find out he what? Looked at me for two seconds?”

“That man tipped his hat at you like a declaration of war. That’s not nothing.” Tara is still grinning. “Anyway, I need to pee. Come with?”

“Yeah, sure.”

You both head toward the bathrooms, navigating through the crowd. The line is mercifully short.

“I’m calling it now,” Tara says as you wait. “Something’s going to happen.”

“Nothing is going to happen. He probably tips his hat at people all the time.”

“Sure, babe. Keep telling yourself that.”

You roll your eyes and head into a stall. When you come out to wash your hands, Tara is leaning against the sink, scrolling her phone.

“You go ahead,” you tell her. “I’ll meet you back at the seats.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m going to fix my hair. I look like I’ve been at a rodeo.”

“You have been at a rodeo,” she confirms, already heading out. “Don’t take too long! Next round starts in ten!”

You’re willing your last few flyaways into place when your phone buzzes in your back pocket.

Unknown Number: Tell me.

Unknown Number: Did I disappoint you, or are you always like that?

Your stomach drops.

You: who is this?

Unknown Number: Take a wild guess, sweetie.

Unknown Number: Here’s a hint: silver hair, red eyes, just gave the performance of the night to the most unimpressed audience member in rodeo history.

Fuck.

You: how did you get my number?

Sylus: Your friend. The enthusiastic one in the seat next to you.

Sylus: I asked one of the staff to track down “the girl in section B who looked like she’d rather be getting a root canal.” She was very helpful.

You’re going to murder Tara.

You: that’s borderline stalking

Sylus: It’s resourceful.

Sylus: Also, your friend gave me your number with the promise that I would “show you a good time.” Her words, not mine.

Sylus: Though I’m not opposed to the prospect.

You: you’re insane

Sylus: You’re texting back awfully quickly for someone who thinks I’m insane.

Sylus: So. What’s your damage?

You: excuse me?

Sylus: I just rode 2000 pounds of rage that hospitalized four people this season. People are losing their minds. There are women in this crowd who would commit felonies for my autograph.

Sylus: And you looked like you were waiting for a bus.

Sylus: I need to know what your problem is.

The audacity of this man…

You: maybe i’m just not impressed by men showing off

Sylus: Showing off implies I did it for attention. I did it because it’s my job and I’m good at it.

You: i don’t cheer for men who do their jobs. sets a bad precedent

Sylus: You’re cruel.

Sylus: I like you.

Sylus: Gate 7. Twenty minutes.

You stare at your phone. This cannot be happening.

You: why would i do that?

Sylus: Because you’re curious. Because I’m curious. Because you clearly have opinions about my performance that you’re dying to share.

Sylus: Or are you scared?

You: of what? you?

Sylus: Of admitting I was more impressive than you’re letting on.

You: you’re delusional

Sylus: Gate 7. Twenty minutes. Prove me wrong.

You should block this number. Should go back to Tara. Should absolutely not go to Gate 7.

You: ...i’ll think about it

Sylus: Clock’s ticking, sweetie. Gate 7. Don’t make me come find you.

You pocket your phone and find your seat beside Tara in the stands, heart racing.

“Your cowboy texted me,” you inform her flatly.

“HE DID?!”

You wave your phone in her face as evidence.

“When were you planning on telling me you gave out my phone number to the man who looked ready to challenge me to a duel?!”

“He was asking around for it! What was I supposed to do, say no?” She looks absolutely delighted with herself. “Shit, what did he say? Is he asking you out? Please tell me he’s asking you out.”

“He wants me to meet him at Gate 7.”

Tara screams. Actually screams as she rips your phone out of your hand. Several people turn to look.

“YOU HAVE TO GO.” She’s reading the messages, scrolling rapidly. “He’s obsessed. He’s one hundred percent obsessed with you.”

“He’s not—”

“‘Don’t make me come find you’?” She looks at you with her jaw dropped. “That’s obsessed behavior. When are you going?”

“I’m not going—”

“You ARE going. This is Sylus Qin. Do you understand how many people would kill for this opportunity?” She’s already pointing you to the aisle. “Those girls down there are going to lose their minds. This is the best night of my life.”

“You’re a little too excited about this.”

“Are you kidding? You’re about to go meet the hottest bull rider in the circuit, and his entire fan club is going to implode when they find out. This is peak hurt-comfort material.” She pauses, eyes lighting up with realization. “I’m gonna try to console them afterward. The blonde one is kind of cute when she’s angry.”

“Tara.”

“What? You get the hot cowboy, I get to make the heartbroken rodeo girls feel better. Everybody wins.” She grins. “Especially me.”

You roll your eyes. She physically shoves you toward the exit.

“Now go. Before he changes his mind.” Tara looks down toward the rail where Bedazzled and her friends are still trying to get Sylus’s attention. “I’m going to go offer emotional support. Wish me luck.”

You’re going to strangle her. After you maybe, possibly go to Gate 7.

Just to tell off the cowboy.

Obviously.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

—

Gate 7 leads to a restricted area—trailers, practice equipment, and cowboys in various states of undress. You’re about to turn back when you see Sylus.

He’s leaning against a fence, hat tilted back, stripped down to a white t-shirt that clings to his muscled frame in ways that should be illegal. There’s dirt on his jeans, and a dark bruise blooming on his pale forearm that he doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by.

He’s taller up close. Broader. And those eyes are definitely, unnaturally red.

“You came.” He sounds genuinely pleased.

You nod, keeping a careful distance. “You’re very pushy for a stranger.”

“Sylus.” He pushes off the fence, extending a hand toward you. “Now I’m not a stranger.”

You take his hand, large and calloused and scarred along the knuckles. His grip is warm and firm, and he holds on just a second longer than necessary.

“And you are?”

You tell him your name, and he repeats it slowly, like he’s testing how it feels.

“Pretty. Doesn’t match the attitude, though.”

Your eyes narrow immediately. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You looked miserable up there. Bored. Like you were mentally filing your taxes.” He tilts his head, studying you. “City girl?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Sweetie, everything about you screams ‘I don’t belong here.’” His eyes drag over you slowly—your designer boots, your expensive jeans, the way you’re standing like you’re afraid of getting dirty. “Your boots cost more than most people make in a month. You’re holding yourself like someone might brush against you the wrong way. And you’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one people get when they’re critiquing something they’ve never done themselves.”

“I don’t need to ride a bull to recognize—”

“Recognize what?” He’s close enough now that you have to tilt your head back to maintain eye contact. “Go on. Tell me, princess. What did I do wrong?”

Princess.

He says it like he’s daring you to get offended. You want to hate it. But your pulse clearly didn’t get the memo.

“Second buck,” you say before you can stop yourself. “You held center. But you should’ve leaned into it.”

His eyebrows raise slightly. “Should I?”

“The bull was digging left. You stayed neutral. If you’d shifted your weight—”

“Show me.”

You blink. “What?”

“Show me.” He gestures to the fence rail beside him. “Up. Show me what I should’ve done.”

“I’m not getting on a fence—”

“Ah.” He crosses his arms, stance relaxed like he’s already won. “All that mouth was just for show. My mistake.”

Your jaw tightens. You step forward and grab the top rail.

His hand closes around your wrist before you’ve even set your weight.

“You’ll slip like that.” He adjusts your grip, thumb dragging across your palm. “Fingers here. Wrist locked. Unless you want to fall.”

“I wasn’t going to fall—”

“Show me, then.” He steps back, waiting.

You haul yourself up onto the rail, boots wedging between the crossbars, steadying your weight to keep your balance. You settle there, stable, and you know you’ve done it well because he pauses in that particular way men do when they realize you’re more capable than they assumed.

He moves closer slowly, until he’s standing right there, palm coming to rest lightly on your ankle.

“Your eyes weren’t on the rider,” he says.

“They were on the bull," you tell him. “The rider’s posture only matters relative to momentum. The animal is the variable. You were just—compensating.”

His thumb shifts against your ankle bone, pressure increasing the slightest fraction.

“Compensating for a thousand pounds of rage isn't ‘just’ anything.”

You meet his eyes. “It is when you’re supposed to be good at it.”

He doesn’t smile. He steps between your legs, looking up at you with that unreadable expression.

“Show me,” he says, unhurried. “Show me where you think I should’ve shifted.”

You swallow. “I’m not a professional—”

“That didn’t stop you from having an opinion, did it?” He tilts his head. “You’ve been judging me since I got off that bull. So judge. Show me what I did wrong.”

You lift your hand, pointing to where you’d seen the bull dig in. “Second buck. Right there. If you’d leaned into it instead of holding straight—”

His hand comes to your knee. Not grabbing, just setting the angle. “Like this?”

Your breath catches.

His other hand settles light on your hip—the kind of touch that’s functional, yet makes your skin burn through your jeans.

“Or here,” he asks, voice dropping lower, “if you want to keep your spine neutral?”

The air shifts between you.

“You’re—” You have to clear your throat. “You’re mocking me.”

“I’m learning.” His thumb brushes a slow circle against your knee. “You sat above me for eight seconds looking unimpressed. Now you’re above me again.” His eyes hold yours. “So teach me. What should I have done differently?”

It’s not about the bull anymore. You both know it.

“You should’ve—” Your voice is unsteady. “Weight forward. Hips angled—”

“Show me.” His hands are still on you, patient and sure. “Don’t tell me. Show me where.”

You shift your hips forward slightly to demonstrate and his grip tightens, subtle yet unmistakable.

“Like that?” His words are rougher now. “That’s what you wanted to see?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.” He steps back finally, hands dropping away, and you hate that you immediately miss the contact. “Get down.”

“What—”

“Get off the rail. I’m going to teach you something.”

“I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do.” He’s already walking toward the practice area. “You know the theory. Now let’s see if you can execute. Come on, city girl. Time to back up all that criticism.”

You should refuse. Should go back to the stands. Instead, you climb down from the fence and follow him.

Because he’s right. You’ve been judging from a distance. And something about the challenge in his voice makes you want to prove him wrong.

Or maybe prove him right.

You’re not sure which would be more satisfying.

—

The mechanical bull sits in the empty practice area like a challenge.

“Absolutely not.”

“You just spent ten minutes telling me what I did wrong.” Sylus is already at the control panel, adjusting settings with casual confidence. “Now you get to prove you understand what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t need to ride it to understand—”

“Talk is easy. Execution’s different.” He doesn’t look up. “You can critique all you want, but until you feel it, you don’t actually know anything.”

The dismissiveness in his tone makes you tense. “Fine. Start it up.”

“Not yet.” Now he looks at you. “Get on first.”

You approach the bull, eyeing it skeptically. It’s wider than it looked from a distance.

“Problem?”

“No.”

“Then stop stalling.”

You grab the rail and try to pull yourself up. Your boots slip on the metal and you barely catch yourself.

“Easy, princess.” He’s beside you instantly, hands on your waist. “Step on the platform. I’ll lift.”

“I can do it myself—”

“I know you can.” His grip is firm. “But this is faster. Up.”

He lifts you like you weigh nothing, and suddenly you're straddling the barrel, thighs spread wide, hands scrambling for the rope.

“Don’t.” His voice stops you cold. “Hands off.”

“Then how—”

“You were very confident about hip positioning a minute ago.” He walks around you slowly, assessing your form. “So use your hips. Thighs tight. Core engaged. That’s all you need.”

“That’s not—”

“It is.” He stops in front of you. “You’re trying to hold on because you don’t trust your body. But I watched you on that fence. You’ve got the strength. You just don’t know how to use it yet.”

His hand slides up your outer thigh—not suggestive, testing muscle tension. Your body doesn’t seem to know the difference.

“Squeeze.”

You do, and his hand presses back, checking your stance.

“Harder. You’re holding back.” His thumb digs into your quad. “I can feel it. You’re stronger than this. Show me.”

You squeeze harder, and he makes an approving sound.

“There. That’s what I want to feel.” His hand stays on your thigh, warm and grounding. “When this starts moving, that tension doesn’t drop. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll see.” He moves behind you, his hands settling on your hips. “Lean forward. Hips first.”

He guides your position—forward, tilted, adjusted until you’re perched in a way that feels both vulnerable and powerful.

“This feel unstable?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Good. It should.” His hands don’t leave your hips. “That instability is what you work with, not against. The bull moves, you move. Simple.”

“Nothing about this is simple—”

“It is when you stop overthinking.” His breath is warm against your ear now. “I’m starting it slow. Just feel it. Don’t try to predict or control. Just respond.”

The bull lurches to life.

Your instinct is to grab, to tense, to fight it.

“Breathe.” His voice cuts through your panic. “Hips loose. Let them move.”

You try to focus on your hips, on moving with the gentle rocking.

“Better. But you’re still thinking too much.” The bull bucks slightly harder, and you gasp. “Stop planning your next move. There is no next move. There’s only now.”

“That’s not helpful—”

"No?" He kills the power suddenly. “You want helpful?”

Before you can process, he’s swinging up behind you.

The barrel was already small. With him on it, there’s no space left. His chest is solid against your back, his thighs bracketing yours, his presence overwhelming every sense.

“What are you—”

“Teaching you the difference between knowing and understanding,” he says, like it’s obvious. Like this was inevitable. “You can tell me what I should’ve done. Now I’m going to show you why it works.”

His hands settle on your hips again—firmer this time, fingers splayed wide.

“This is your center.” His fingers press into your hip bones. “Everything starts here. When I move, you’ll feel it here first. Pay attention.”

You can’t do anything besides pay attention. Can’t think about anything except the heat of him, the firm weight pressed against you, the way his voice seems to resonate through your entire body.

“Ready?”

You nod because words are impossible.

The bull starts again, and this time it’s completely different. You feel how his body moves—the subtle shift of his hips, the roll of his spine, the way he absorbs each movement and redirects it. His hands guide you through it, showing you without words how to respond.

“Feel that?” His voice is low against your ear. “That’s what you were trying to describe. The lean, the shift, the weight distribution. It’s not about thinking. It's about feeling.”

His hips roll against yours, demonstrating, and your brain short-circuits.

“Breathe.” His hand spreads across your lower stomach, steadying you. “You’re holding your breath. Don’t. Breathe with the movement.”

You try to breathe, but it’s difficult when you’re this aware of every point of contact.

“Now you.” His hands loosen slightly. “Match my rhythm. Show me you understand.”

You focus on his movement, on the way his body guides yours, and you start to match it. Your hips roll with his, following his lead, and suddenly the movement makes sense.

“There she is.” The satisfaction in his voice goes straight to your core. “Knew you could do it. You just needed to stop thinking you knew better than your body.”

The bull bucks harder and you move with it, your hips rolling, your thighs squeezing, and his hands tighten on you.

“Atta girl.” The words come out rougher. “That’s exactly right. Keep it up.”

You do, and you feel the moment something shifts—the moment it clicks, the moment you stop fighting and start responding.

“You feel that, sweetie?” His voice is strained now. “That’s what eight seconds feels like. That’s what I feel when I ride.”

“Sylus—”

“I know.” His hands slide to your waist, holding you steady as the bull spins. “You’re feeling it now.”

The intimacy of the statement, combined with the movement, the heat, the way his body fits against yours—it’s overwhelming.

“This is—”

“Intense.” He finishes for you. “That’s the point. That's what you were watching from the stands and didn’t understand. The rush. The focus. The way everything else disappears and it’s just you and the movement and eight seconds of pure instinct.”

The bull bucks hard and you gasp, but his grip keeps you stable.

“I’ve got you, princess. You’re not falling. Just stay with me.”

And you do. You stay with him through every twist and buck, your body learning the rhythm, responding to his guidance, until you're not sure where your movement ends and his begins.

When he finally kills the power, you’re both breathing heavily.

“You got it. Eight seconds,” he announces after glancing at his watch. “Not bad for someone who’d never done it before.”

“You were helping—”

“I was teaching. You were learning.” His hands are still on your waist, and he hasn’t moved away. “Big difference. That was all you at the end.”

You’re painfully aware that you don’t want him to let go.

“So.” His thumbs stroke once across your sides. “Still think a city girl knows better than a cowboy?”

Your mouth is dry. “Maybe we’re even.”

His laugh is low and pleased. “Maybe.” He dismounts finally, fluid and controlled, then reaches up for you. “Come here.”

He lifts you down and your legs immediately betray you, shaking and unstable.

His arm wraps around your waist before you can fall. “Easy. Adrenaline drop. Give it a minute.”

“I’m fine—”

“You’re not.” His hand finds your pulse at your neck, pressing lightly. “Heart rate’s still elevated. You’re shaking. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Lunch. Around noon, I think.”

“Hours ago.” He’s already pulling out his phone. “You need food. There’s a diner close by. Best pie in the state.”

“I don’t need you to feed me—”

“Maybe not. But I’m doing it anyway.” He pockets his phone, arm still around your waist. “You just burned through all your energy, and I’m not letting you back out there until I know you’re steady. So. Diner. My treat.”

“This feels like a scheme to keep me around longer.”

“Is it working?” He holds you tighter against him, almost automatically—like his body recognized you before his mind caught up. “Because if it is, I’ve got a whole list of other places I could take you. Hardware store. Feed supply. This town is full of exciting places I could take my time with you.”

Something in the way he says it sends heat down your spine.

“You’re not subtle, you know.”

“Never claimed to be, sweetie.”

Before you can respond, your phone vibrates.

Tara: where ARE u???

Tara: DID SYLUS THE STALLION KIDNAP U???

Tara: if u are in danger pls respond

Tara: if u are having a good time ignore this

You swipe the notifications away.

Sylus watches your thumb move, red eyes half-lidded with amusement. “Emergency?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.” You slide the phone into your pocket. “But if you murder me, my friend knows your name. And your face.”

His laugh echoes across the arena. “Noted.”

You try to step out of his hold, but your legs have other ideas—immediately crumpling under you like two pieces of wet spaghetti.

Before you can hit the dirt, his hand flashes out, hooking a finger through your belt loop and yanking you back against him.

“Careful, city girl. Told you. Adrenaline crash.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to argue, just scoops you up with one arm and settles you against his side.

“Sylus, I can walk—”

“Clearly not,” he counters, but he’s grinning as he starts toward the parking lot, carrying you with ease. “Stop squirming. You’re only making this harder on yourself.”

You’re acutely aware of several things at once: his arm banded around you, the heat of him, the way his shoulder is right there. And—

Oh god.

The group of girls from earlier. Bedazzled and her friends—minus the blonde. All staring as Sylus walks right past them, carrying you like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He doesn’t even glance their way, completely oblivious. But they notice. Oh, they notice. If the looks they shot you were bullets, you'd already be bleeding out on the dirt.

You bury your face against his shoulder, trying to make yourself smaller.

“Cold, sweetie?” His voice rumbles through his chest.

“No,” you mutter into his shirt. “I’m trying not to get shanked.”

He pauses mid-step. “What?”

“Your fan club. They look like they want to murder me.”

He glances back, finally noticing the group of glaring fans, and laughs like you told him a bad joke.

“Oh, them.” He adjusts his grip on you, hauling you higher. In one smooth motion, he tosses you over his shoulder.

You shriek. “What are you doing?! Put me down!”

He dips you, slow, like he’s genuinely about to release you. “If you insist."

Your legs are dangling, the Sychos are staring, and you’re suddenly very aware of the distance between your boots and the ground.

“No—no, I don’t insist—!” You clutch at his shirt, holding onto him for dear life. “Don’t you dare put me down—”

“Thought so.” He straightens, one arm locking securely against you as he keeps walking. “See? Now they can’t reach you. Problem solved.”

“Sylus!”

“You’re the one who said they looked dangerous. I’m just being practical.” His hand settles firmly on the back of your thigh, patting it gently. “Now stop wiggling before you fall.”

“I’m going to fall because you just—you can’t just throw people over your shoulder—”

“Just did.” He heads straight for a massive black pickup, tall enough you’d need a running start to climb in. He pops the door open with one hand and deposits you in the passenger seat. “And you’re still in one piece. I’d say it all worked out.”

Your hands are still fisted in his shirt, arms locked around his shoulders. He notices immediately.

“You can let go now, sweetie,” he says, amused.

Your brain registers that you’re sitting. That you’re safe. That there’s no reason to still be holding on.

Your hands don’t get the message.

“I—” You look down at where your fingers are twisted in his shirt. “My hands aren't listening.”

“I can see that.” He’s trying not to smile. “You need a minute?”

“Shut up.” You force your fingers to uncurl, releasing him. You sink into the leather, groaning into your hands. “My dignity is destroyed.”

“Your dignity was already questionable after that bull ride.” He leans against the doorframe, eyes glinting with mischief. “Besides, it could've been worse.”

“How could that have possibly been worse?”

“I could’ve set you down and let them watch you try to stand on your own.” He’s smirking now. “Would’ve made my point even clearer.”

Your cheeks burn at the implication. “You’re impossible.”

“You keep saying that.” He closes your door and walks around to the driver’s side, sliding in with easy grace. “But you’re still here.”

“Maybe I’m waiting for the right moment to escape.”

“Good luck with that. Your legs still work about as well as a newborn calf’s.” He starts the engine, eyes flicking to you with amusement. “Give it another ten minutes. Then you can make your dramatic exit.”

“You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“I’m enjoying you. The entertainment is just a bonus.” He shifts into drive. “Seatbelt. Then you're going to tell me what possessed a city girl to spend her hard-earned money watching idiots wrestle with livestock for sport.”

—

The diner is exactly what you’d expect—vinyl booths, checkered floors, jukebox blasting something twangy, and a waitress who looks like she’s been working here since the dawn of time.

“Sylus, honey!” She’s got a thick drawl and a smile that crinkles her whole face. “Didn’t expect to see you tonight. Thought you’d be celebratin’ with the boys.”

“Had better plans, Dolores.” He gestures to you.

“Well, ain’t that somethin’.” Her eyebrows shoot up, looking between you both with obvious interest. “The usual for you, sugar?”

“Please. And whatever she wants.”

You order coffee and pie because apparently that’s what you do now. Follow strange cowboys to diners and eat pie at ten PM.

“I’ll get that right out.” Dolores pats Sylus on the shoulder as she leaves, but not before giving you a very obvious once-over that feels almost approving.

“So,” Sylus says once the waitress leaves. “Eight seconds.”

“Are we really doing this?”

“We’re absolutely doing this.” He leans back in the booth, looking insufferably pleased with himself. “You lasted eight seconds on that bull. With my help, admittedly, but still. Eight seconds.”

“And?”

“And I’m wondering if you can last longer.”

The way he says it makes heat crawl up your neck.

“Longer on the bull?” you ask carefully.

His smile is wicked. “Sure. Let’s start with that.”

Dolores brings pie—massive slices that look homemade. You take a bite and it’s unfairly delicious.

“Okay,” you admit. “This is really good pie.”

“Told you. Dolores doesn’t mess around.” He takes a bite of his own, watching you. “So. What do you do? When you’re not being dragged to rodeos, that is.”

“Marketing. Corporate.” You make a sour face. “It’s as boring as it sounds.”

“Can’t be that boring if it pays for those boots.”

“The boots are the only good thing about it.” You take another bite. “What about you? Is bull riding actually lucrative, or do you just like getting thrown around for fun?”

“I don’t get thrown, sweetie. That’s the whole point,” he corrects you with a grin. “And yeah, it pays well. If you’re good at it.”

“Which you are.”

“Which I am.” There’s no false modesty to it, just fact. “Been doing it since I was seventeen. Worked my way up. Now I’m ranked second in the country.”

“Second?”

“For now. I’ll be first by the end of the season.” He says it with absolute certainty.

“Confident.”

“Realistic. I know what I’m capable of.” His eyes meet yours. “And I know what I want.”

The weight of that statement sits between you.

“And what do you want?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

“Right now? To figure out what it takes to actually impress you.” He leans forward slightly. “Because I don’t think anyone’s managed it in a while.”

You open your mouth to respond when Sylus’s phone rings. He glances at it and sighs.

“Give me a minute. I need to take this.” He slides out of the booth. “Stay put.”

You blink up at him, chin tilted just a little. “Yes, sir.”

He stops, eyebrows lifting, then gives a soft, incredulous shake of his head.

“Cute.” He’s walking backward toward the bathroom, phone angled away from his mouth, still looking at you. “But if you’re trying to draw blood, sweetie, you’re going to have to put your jaw into it.”

You’re left alone with your pie, trying very hard to pretend your heartbeat isn’t pounding in places it has no business reaching.

“Can I top off that coffee, sugar?” Dolores appears almost immediately, like she was waiting for him to leave.

“Sure. Thanks.”

She pours slowly, then glances toward the bathroom. “He’s a good one, that Sylus.”

“I just met him like, two hours ago.”

“I know.” She’s smiling. “That’s what makes this excitin'.”

“What do you mean?”

Dolores leans in conspiratorially. “Honey, I’ve been workin’ here for fifteen years. This is the spot all them rodeo fellas flock to after. I’ve seen Sylus in ‘ere dozens of times—always with the boys, always alone. Never once brought a girl here. Not one time.”

Your heart flips. “Maybe he just—”

“Trust me, them buckle bunnies try. Lord, do they try. That boy has more women throwin’ themselves at him than I have napkins in this diner.” She shakes her head. “He’s always polite about it, that sweetheart. But he never takes ‘em up on it. Too focused on riding, he always says.”

“Then why—”

“That’s what I’m wonderin’, honey.” Dolores sets the coffee pot back on the counter, wiping her hands on her apron. “But whatever you did, you got his attention. Really got it. I can tell.”

You notice his hat sitting on the seat beside you—the black cowboy hat he’d tossed there when he sat down. On impulse, you pick it up and settle it on your head. It’s too big, sliding down slightly, and you have to tilt it back to see properly.

Dolores notices and her eyes go wide. Then she grins. “Oh, honey. Do y’know what that means?”

“What?”

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy.” She’s trying not to laugh. “That’s the rule ‘round here.”

Your face heats. “That’s not a real—”

“Realer than them nails on your hand.” She eyes your manicure with a shake of her head, still grinning. “Cowboys don’t play pretend.”

She walks away, leaving you sitting there in his hat, suddenly very aware of what you’ve just done. You consider taking it off. Handing it back when he returns. Playing it safe. But something stubborn and reckless in you keeps it on.

You take a sip of coffee, trying to look casual, when the bathroom door opens.

Sylus walks back toward the booth, phone in his hand, looking slightly annoyed. “Sponsors. Kept going on about—”

He sees you and stops dead in his tracks.

His eyes go dark—pupils blown wide, that red almost glowing in the diner lighting. His jaw tightens, and you watch his throat work as he swallows.

“What do you think you’re doing, city girl?” His voice has dropped at least half an octave.

“Drinking coffee.” You take another sip, holding his gaze, heart hammering. “Why?”

“You know why.” He slides back into the booth, but there’s tension in every line of his body now. “Take it off.”

“Why?” You rest your chin on your hand and blink up at him. “Does it not look good on me?”

He goes quiet for a moment, just looking at you. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, almost laughing. “It looks perfect on you. That’s the problem.”

“I don’t see a problem.”

“Of course you don’t, princess.” He leans back, arms spreading across the back of the booth. “You put on a man’s hat and think it’s just a fashion statement.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.” He’s studying you now, that intense focus that makes you feel pinned in place. “It’s a claim. One I don’t think you intended to make.”

You adjust the hat on your head, tilting it back slightly so he can see your face better.

“That depends on what I’m claiming.”

His gaze traces your mouth, your throat, the line of brim shading your eyes. When his attention finally returns to yours, he drops the word between you like a coin:

“Me.”

You open your mouth, but nothing actually comes out. He smiles like he knew that would happen.

“You publicly claimed a cowboy. Impressively reckless move, by the way.” He leans back, legs stretching under the table like he’s getting comfortable. “So now I have two choices: ignore you, or teach you what you started.”

“And which are you choosing?”

“What do you think?”

Your eyes narrow. “I think you’re enjoying this too much.”

“I am. You’ve been pushing me all night. Looking unimpressed, critiquing my ride, now stealing my hat.” His eyes scan your face. “Now you’re sitting there wearing it like you’re innocent."

“Maybe I just like the style.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you wanted to see what I’d do. How I’d react. Whether I’d actually follow through.” He cocks his head. “So. How am I doing? Meeting expectations?”

Your mouth is dry. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” His voice drops lower. “You’ve been testing me since the moment I met you. Before that, even. Every word, every look.” He leans forward slightly. “This is just you pushing harder. Seeing if I’ll push back.”

“And will you?”

“Absolutely.” He doesn’t waste a breath. “Question is whether you’re ready for it.”

“I can handle it.”

His laugh is quiet. “Can you, sweetie? Because that hat says you want something specific from me. Something I’ve been holding back on all night.” His red eyes are dark now. “And once I stop holding back, I don’t do things halfway.”

The promise in his voice makes heat pool low in your stomach.

“You’re very confident.”

“I know what I'm looking at. Someone who’s been playing it safe. Someone who wants to stop overthinking.” He pauses. “Someone who put on my hat because she wanted me to do something about it.”

“That’s a lot of assumptions.”

“Then take it off.” He gestures to the hat. “Right now. Prove me wrong.”

You reply with a single shake of your head—no.

His smile is absolutely feral.

“We’re leaving.”

You blink up at him. “Maybe I’m not finished.”

He tosses way too much cash onto the table—enough to pay for the coffee, the pie, Dolores’s retirement, and the entire county fair.

“Yes, you are.” He stands, extending his hand. “Come on, city girl. Time to see if you can back up what that hat is promising."

You look at his hand. At the challenge in his eyes. At the way he’s smiling like he already knows exactly how this is going to end.

And you take it.

His palm is warm against yours as he guides you to the door. As you pass the counter, Dolores calls out: “You take good care of her now, y’hear?”

Sylus doesn’t break stride. “Oh, I intend to.”

Outside, the night air hits you, cool and dusty. Gravel crunches beneath your boots as you approach his pickup parked at the edge of the lot. He opens the passenger door, but before you can climb in, his hands are on either side of you, caging you in. One is pressed beside your head against the metal, the other settling on the open door, his body a wall of heat that’s too close to ignore.

“Last chance,” he says, like a warning. His fingers toy lazily with the hat. “You take this off, I drive you back to your hotel. Wish you good night like a gentleman.” His thumb pauses at the curve of the brim. “And the next time we see each other, we’re back to being strangers.”

It’s a terrible idea. You know it’s a terrible idea. But he’s looking at you like he’s already imagining you in his lap, and you’re looking at him like you want to see how good he is without the bull.

You reach up and adjust the hat, making sure it’s secure.

“I don’t want to be strangers.”

He doesn’t respond with words. Instead, his hands settle on your waist as he lifts you effortlessly, taking his time settling you into the passenger seat. He reaches for your seatbelt, pulling it across your body slowly. The click echoes in the quiet of the cab.

“Good,” he murmurs. “Because I couldn’t forget this—”

Only then does he lean in, forearm braced against the doorframe, his face inches from yours. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear with an affection so unexpected you forget how to breathe. For a second, you think he might kiss you.

Instead, he flicks the spot he cleared on your forehead.

“—if I tried.”

—

Sylus doesn’t drive back toward town. Instead, he heads in the opposite direction—away from the arena, away from the lights, into the dark stretch of highway that leads to nothing but open land.

“Where are we going?” you ask.

“You’ll see.”

His hand rests on the gear shift, close enough to your thigh that you’re acutely aware of it. The radio plays something slow and country that you don’t recognize, and the silence between you isn’t uncomfortable—just charged. Waiting.

You watch the landscape change outside your window, buildings giving way to fields, streetlights disappearing until there’s nothing but darkness.

“This is very serial killer of you,” you say finally.

He glances over, amused. “Having second thoughts?”

“Just making an observation.”

“For the record, if I wanted to murder you, I wouldn’t take you somewhere this obvious.” He’s smiling now, thumb tapping against the steering wheel in time with the music. “Besides, you're still wearing my hat. That implies a certain level of trust.”

Your hand goes to the brim automatically. You’d almost forgotten it was there.

“Or a certain level of stupidity.”

“Maybe both.” He turns off the highway onto a dirt road, the truck bouncing slightly over the uneven ground. “We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“Patience.”

The road winds upward, climbing steadily. Trees give way to open sky, and then suddenly you’re at the top of a hill and he's pulling over, killing the engine. The entire valley spreads out below—a sea of twinkling lights in the distance, small towns and scattered ranches creating constellations on the dark earth. Above, the sky is filled with stars, more than you’ve ever been able to see in the city.

“Oh,” you say quietly.

“Yeah.” He’s watching you instead of the view. “I like to come up here after a ride. Bulls fight back, fans scream—up here, no one asks anything of you.”

You tear your eyes away from the sky to look at him. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” he agrees. But he’s still looking at you, not the landscape.

“Pretty stars,” you say, but there's a challenge in the words. “Shame you haven’t looked at them once.”

“If you want to talk constellations, sweetie, I’ll play along.” He shifts in his seat, angling toward you. “Or you can admit you didn’t climb in my truck because you're fond of astronomy.”

“First of all, I didn’t climb in your truck.” You manage to find your voice. “You picked me up and put me in it.”

“Correct.” His mouth curves slow. “And then you latched onto me like a kitten falling out of a tree and said, and I quote, ‘don’t you dare put me down.’”

Your face heats. “My legs weren’t working—”

“Your legs were working just fine once we got to the truck.” His eyes hold yours. “You just didn’t want me to stop touching you.”

The tension in the truck is suffocating.

“Get in the back,” he says quietly.

Your stomach flips. “What?”

“The backseat.” He says it simply, nodding toward the leather bench seat behind you. “Go on. I’ll give you a head start.”

“A head start for what—”

“For getting comfortable before I join you.” His eyes are dark now, heated. “Unless you’d rather stay up here and stare out the windshield?”

You should probably ask more questions. Should probably think this through. Instead, you unbuckle your seatbelt and turn toward the back.

The console is in the way, making you climb over the seat awkwardly. You brace one hand on the seat back, getting one knee up on the console—

“Keep it moving, sweetie.”

You shoot him a look over your shoulder. “Make me.”

The crack of his palm against your ass is immediate, sharp enough to make you gasp. Then his hand is rubbing the spot gently, soothing.

“Consider it done."

“You just—”

“Helped you along. You asked for it.” He sounds completely unrepentant. “Would’ve been inconsiderate of me not to oblige.”

Your face is burning as you scramble the rest of the way into the backseat. You turn to glare at him through the gap between the seats.

“Comfortable back there?” he asks smugly.

“You’re an asshole.”

“And you like it.”

You settle into the backseat, heart pounding, very aware of how spacious it is. How the tinted windows make it feel private despite being parked on a hilltop. How he’s still in the front seat, just watching you squirm.

“Are you coming back here or not?”

“Depends.” He’s taking his sweet time, the bastard. “Are you going to keep that attitude when I do?”

“Probably.”

“Excellent.” He shifts, and you hear the driver’s door open. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

He gets out and you hear his boots on the ground, coming around to the back door. It opens and suddenly he’s there—too big for the space, filling the entire doorway as he climbs in with easy confidence.

The door closes behind him, and suddenly the truck feels very small.

He takes a seat, legs spread, one arm along the back of the headrest, and just looks at you.

“Come here.”

You move toward him and he guides you with hands on your waist until you’re straddling his lap exactly like you straddled the bull earlier. The position is familiar now, but infinitely more intimate. His hands settle on your hips, thumbs pressing into the hollows.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Still wearing my hat, I see.”

“You told me to keep it on.”

“I did.” His hands slide up your waist, then back down. “Looks good on you. Better than I imagined.”

“You imagined this?”

“From the second you put it on.” His eyes hold yours. “Imagined you exactly like this. In my lap, in my hat, in the back of my truck. Reality’s better, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His hand comes up to adjust the hat again, tilting it back slightly so he can see your face better. “Because now I get to see if you can follow through on what you started.”

You swallow. “And what did I start?”

“Everything.” His hand moves to cup your face, turning it toward his. “You sat up in those stands looking at me like eight seconds was nothing. Critiqued my form to my face. Then had the goddamn nerve to put on my hat in front of witnesses.” His other hand presses against your ribs, palm warm and steady through the thin cotton. “And for someone so unimpressed, your heart’s about to beat right through your shirt.”

You glance down at his hand on your ribs, then back up at him, tilting your head with mock innocence. “If you wanted to get your hands on me, you could’ve just asked nicely.”

“Is that right? Then allow me to ask you nicely.” His fingers curve around your jaw, thumb skimming your bottom lip. “Can I kiss you? Can I put my hands on you? Can I make you forget every reason you think this is a bad idea?”

The directness of it steals your breath.

“That's a lot of questions.”

“One word answers all of them.” His eyes search yours, glowing a deep red that’s almost otherworldly even in the dark. “So what's it going to be, sweetie? Yes or no?”

You want to make him work for it more. Tease him, push back, see how far you can take this.

Instead, you hear yourself say: “Yes.”

His smile is devastating. “Say it again.”

"Yes."

Then his mouth is on yours, and every thought evaporates.

The kiss isn’t tentative or testing—it’s all-consuming. His tongue slides against yours with clear intent, his hand tightening in your hair to angle you exactly how he wants you. You make a sound that’s embarrassingly desperate and feel his mouth curve against your lips.

“There it is,” he murmurs, pulling back just enough to speak. “Knew you’d make those pretty sounds.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

You kiss him harder, fisting your hands in his shirt, and his laugh vibrates through you. His hand slides from your jaw to your throat—not squeezing, just resting there, feeling your pulse race under his palm.

“You taste even better than I thought you would,” he says against your mouth, kissing you again before you can respond. “Been thinking about this since you looked at me like I was wasting your time in those stands.”

“That was barely three hours ago—”

“Three hours too long.” His teeth catch your bottom lip, tugging gently. “Could’ve done this in the parking lot. In the diner. Hell, I thought about it on the practice bull when you were sitting in my lap, acting like you didn’t know what you were doing to me.”

You roll your hips like you did on the bull, teasing, feeling exactly how hard he is through the denim.

He hisses through his teeth.

“That's how we’re doing this, hm?” His hand slides from your throat to your hip, holding you still with effortless strength. “You want to play, princess? Fine. Let’s play.”

His mouth finds your neck and you gasp at the heat of it, at the scrape of teeth followed by the soothing stroke of his tongue. He’s marking you, and you both know it—intentional, claiming, leaving evidence that you were here, that you let him do this.

“Sylus—”

“I know. I can feel you shaking. You want more.” His hand slips under your shirt, settling at your low back. “You’ve been worked up since the bull, haven’t you?”

Heat runs up your spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” His teeth graze your earlobe. “I felt how you were shaking. Saw how flushed you got. And I’d bet my prize money that if I touched you right now, I’d find you soaked.”

Heat floods through you at the accusation. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“Am I wrong?”

You don’t answer, which is answer enough.

“Thought so. You want something? Then ask nicely.” His smile presses against your throat. “You made such a point of it earlier. So ask.”

Your pride wars with your need. “I don’t beg—”

“I didn’t ask you to beg. I asked you to ask.” He pulls back to look at you, and there’s heat in his eyes, but something patient, too. “What do you want?”

The way he’s looking at you—like he’ll wait all night if that’s what it takes, like he’ll give you anything you ask for as long as you just ask—makes something in you soften.

“Touch me, Sylus,” you say quietly. “Please.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard.” His hand slides higher up your shirt, fingers tracing your stomach, your ribs, the underside of your breast. “And since you asked so nicely…”

His thumb brushes across your nipple and you gasp, arching into the touch.

“That’s what I wanted to see.” His voice has gone dark, satisfied. “You, letting go. Not thinking so hard about your next smart comment. Just feeling.”

His thumb circles again, slower this time, and you bite your lip to keep from making another embarrassing noise.

“Don’t.” His other hand finds your chin, pulling your lip free with his thumb. “I want to hear it. Every sound. Every breath. No one can hear you out here but me. So let me hear what I do to you.”

He rolls your nipple between his fingers, and you can’t stop the moan that escapes.

“Perfect.” He sounds wrecked. “Do that again.”

“Sylus, please—”

“Please, what?” His mouth finds your jaw, kissing a path to your ear. “Use your words. Tell me what you need.”

“More—I need more—”

“More of this?” His hand moves to your other breast, giving it the same attention. “Or more of me?”

“Both—” Your hips rock forward on instinct, and this time he doesn’t stop you. Sylus lets you grind against him, his free hand at your hip guiding the movement.

“That’s it, pretty girl. Take what you need.” His breathing has gone rough. “Show me how badly you want this.”

You rock against him again and feel him twitch beneath you, hard and hot even through all the layers of clothing.

“Fuck.” The curse slips out raw and unfiltered. “You feel what you do to me? How hard you make me when you move like that?”

“Yes—”

“Good. Because I’d like to return the favor.” His hand slides from your breast down your stomach, fingers playing at the button of your jeans. “Say yes.”

“Yes—god, yes—”

Your yes barely lands before his mouth is back on yours, hot and wet and relentless as he flicks the button open and slides the zipper down with ease. “Lift up for me.”

You do, bracing your hands on his shoulders, and he helps you shimmy out of your jeans and underwear. They get stuck on your boots, and you both fumble with them, laughing breathlessly until you’re finally naked from the waist down.

“Leave them. Boots and hat stay on,” he decides, eyes dragging over you. “I like the look.”

“Of course you do.”

“City girl spread out like a cowgirl in the back of my truck?” His hands are on your thighs, spreading them wider. “That’s a fantasy I didn’t know I had until right now.”

He’s still fully clothed, and there’s something obscene about it that makes you squirm—you half-naked in his lap while he’s still in his jeans and t-shirt.

“Don’t get shy on me now.” His thumb brushes your inner thigh, dangerously close to where you need him. “You’ve been pushing me all night. Testing me. And you’ve been so damn good at it, too.”

He glides a single finger through your center and you gasp at the contact, your body curving into his touch involuntarily.

“Christ,” he groans. “All this for me?”

You can’t form words.

“Since the bull?” His fingers trace through your wetness, maddeningly light. “Since I had my hands on your hips? Or before that—since you watched me ride?”

“All of it,” you manage.

“All of it.” He sounds way too satisfied with himself. “So you were impressed. You were just too stubborn to admit it.”

“Your ego—”

“Is about to get a lot bigger.” He finds your clit and circles it slowly. “Because I’m going to make you come for me at least twice before you even think about taking my cock. Understand?”

Your breath catches. “Twice?”

“Minimum.” His hand slides higher, cupping you fully now. “You’ve been wound up all night. I’m not rushing this on account of your impatience.”

“Don’t—ah—” Your protest dies when his finger circles slowly. “Don’t be smug about it—”

“Too late.” He watches your face with wicked eyes as he touches you, learning what makes you gasp, what makes you grind down against his hand. “But I like that you’re still trying to tell me what to do. Keep it up. See where it gets you.”

His finger slides inside and you cry out, head falling forward to rest against his shoulder.

“That’s it. Take what you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

He works you slowly, adding another finger when you’re ready, his thumb finding your clit with devastating pressure. And all the while he’s murmuring praise against your temple—telling you how perfect you are, how good you feel, how beautiful you look falling apart for him.

“Sylus—I’m gonna—”

“I know. I can feel it.” His fingers move faster. “There. Right there. Come on, princess. Let me see what happens when you finally stop fighting it. Make it count. I've got you.”

The command combined with his fingers and his voice and the heat of him beneath you—it’s all too much. Your orgasm hits with a cry, clenching around his fingers as pleasure crashes through you. He works you through it, drawing it out until you’re trembling and oversensitive, and only then does he slowly withdraw his hand.

You’re still catching your breath when he brings his fingers to his mouth.

Your eyes go wide. “Sylus—”

“Shh.”

His own eyes close as he tastes you, tongue dragging over the pads of his fingers. When his lashes lift again, he looks wrecked in a way you've never seen.

“That,” he murmurs, lips closing around his knuckle, “is going to be a problem.”

You can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but stare at his mouth.

“A...problem?”

“For me. And now for you,” he says, hand already sliding up your thigh once more. “That’s one. Now let’s get you the second one before I lose my mind.”

You shake your head. “I can’t—I’m too—”

“You can. You will.” His two fingers slip inside with little resistance, fucking you slowly but without mercy. “I need you ready for me. Need to make sure your body can handle what it’s begging for. Understand?”

Your hand flies to his wrist—not to stop him, just to hold on.

He looks down where you're holding him, lips brushing your cheek. "Oh? That bad already?"

Your head falls to his shoulder. “This is torture—”

"Maybe." His thumb presses against your clit again and you jerk. “But you’ll thank me for it later.”

His fingers work you back up, and despite the oversensitivity, despite thinking you couldn’t possibly—

“That's it.” His forehead presses against yours, breath hot against your lips. “Feel that? Let it build. Don't rush. I want all of it.”

You’re climbing again impossibly, every nerve ending screaming, and when his fingers curl just right—

“Fuck—already?” He increases the pressure, and you cry out. “Greedy little thing. Go ahead. Give me another one.”

You do, less intense than the first but somehow deeper, clenching around his fingers while he murmurs approval.

“That’s two.” He slowly withdraws his hand, and your breath hitches at the loss. Before you can process the movement, his fingers are at your lips. “Open.”

You do, and he slides them into your mouth—the same fingers that were just inside you. The taste is foreign and intimate and when you automatically close your lips around them, his breathing goes ragged.

“Look at that.” His eyes are locked on your mouth. “So obedient when it suits you, hm?”

You swirl your tongue around his fingers deliberately, and his hips jerk beneath you. Then you bite down lightly and he laughs.

“There she is.” He pulls his hand away, already working his belt. “Now help me with this before I lose what’s left of my patience.”

Your fingers join his at the buckle. “Didn’t know you had any patience to begin with.”

“I’m a very patient man.” He gets his jeans open just enough to free himself. “Just not when it comes to you.”

There’s a moment where your brain can’t connect the visual to reality.

His cock sits in his palm, thick and heavy, already flushed and glistening with precum that's slowly swelling under his thumb. A single vein runs along the shaft, steady and pulsing with each heartbeat you can feel through your own.

You felt him earlier—broad and unforgiving, even through denim, against the curve of your ass every time your hips rolled back into him on the practice bull. You’d convinced yourself it was just the momentum. Coincidence. Adrenaline.

You look up at him. Then down. Then up again.

“Show-off,” you scoff, but it comes out thinner than intended.

He huffs out a laugh, low and disbelieving. "Sweetie, if you're going to bluff to my face, at least don't drool while you do it."

You try for nonchalant, rolling your eyes and straightening your spine. It does nothing to hide the tremor in your knees.

“You’re shaking. Relax.” Before you can protest, he’s already cupping your jaw, kissing you slowly, deeply, thoroughly, in a way that says slow down, you’re okay, I’m right here. He pulls away only when he’s sure you’re not trembling anymore. “You can handle it.”

He positions you over him, hands on your hips, guiding you onto the blunt head of his cock.

“Slow,” he instructs. “Take your time. Let your body adjust.”

You sink down slowly and the stretch makes you gasp. He’s patient—letting you control the pace, hands steady on your waist.

“That’s it. Breathe. You’re taking me so well.” His voice is strained. “Almost there. Just a little more.”

When you're fully seated, you’re both breathless.

“There,” he says roughly. “That’s one.”

Understanding hits you through the haze.

“You’re counting,” you say.

“I’m counting.” His hands squeeze your hips. “You lasted eight seconds on that bull. Let’s see if you can make it to nine on me.”

“And if I can’t?”

“Then we keep trying until you do.” His teeth scrape your collarbone. “I’ve got all night.”

You brace your hands on his shoulders and start to move, rolling your hips the way he taught you earlier.

“There you go. Just like that. Find your rhythm.”

You do, and his hands help guide you, help you find the perfect angle.

“That’s two,” he says when you rock down particularly hard.

When you really start to ride him it’s not pretty, not practiced, but instinctive and desperate. The stretch, the fullness—it's almost too much, the way every shift of your hips makes him groan beneath you. His hands slide up your back, threading into your hair when your rhythm stutters.

“Three.”

You’re already nearing the edge of release again—oversensitized and overwhelmed but chasing that feeling anyway.

“Four.”

“Sylus, it’s—too—too much—”

“You can take it. I know you can.” His fingers circle your clit slowly, and you can't help the way you clench around him. His jaw flexes, eyes closing for half a second. “Not yet, sweetie. Give me five more. I know you’ve got it in you.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. You’re tougher than you think.” You slam down hard, chasing that feeling, and his control visibly cracks. “Five—fuck—”

Your thighs are burning, your breath coming in gasps, but you don’t stop. Can’t stop. You sink onto him once more, inch by inch.

“Six.”

“Sylus—”

“I know. I can feel it. The way you’re clenching around me.” His other hand tightens in your hair. “But you don’t get to come until we hit nine. Think you can hold it?”

It’s torture. Exquisite torture.

You ride him in one long stride, hips lifting until just the tip holds you, then sinking back down until he fills you to the base.

“Christ—Seven—”

Your thighs are shaking now, barely holding on, and he knows it.

“That's it. Take it.” The words are hot against your throat. Everything else fades. “Eight.”

“I can’t hold it—”

“Yes you can. Give me one more." His hands tighten around your hips, holding you steady. "One more, and it's all yours.”

You slam down hard, and he groans your name into your mouth.

“Nine.”

You shatter, clenching around him, and suddenly he’s moving—flipping you both so you’re on your back across the seat, legs spread, boots planted on either side of him as he looms over you.

“My turn.” He pulls almost all the way out, your walls still fluttering around him as you chase the end of your third orgasm. "Unless you want me to stop?"

“Sylus—please—I need—”

He pushes back in, driving deep into you in one motion. You wait for the rhythm, the thrust, the relief. He doesn't give it to you.

“I know what you need.” Your hips twitch once, and his fingers tighten around them in gentle warning. “But I need to hear you say it.”

You clutch at his forearms, nails digging into the taut muscle. "Sylus—move—"

"Move how?" He stays infuriatingly still. "Faster? Harder? You're going to have to be more specific than that, sweetie."

"Harder—I need you to—god, just fuck me, Sylus, please—"

"Finally."

It sounds like relief, like hunger, like he's been holding himself back as much as he's made you wait.

Then he moves—hard and fast and exactly what you asked for—and your back arches off the seat. His hands shift to your thighs, spreading you wider, holding you open at an angle that hits deeper, more intense in all the places you’re already trembling from before.

"Is this what you needed? This what you've been trying to say?"

"Yes—ah—yes—"

One hand slides between you, finding your oversensitive clit, and you nearly sob.

“Wanted this since I saw you—” His hips snap forward harder. “That bored look on your pretty face—wanted to fuck it right off you—”

He’s not counting anymore. Not teasing. Just taking what he needs, and something about the raw desperation in it makes you clench around him.

“Jesus—” he groans, head dropping forward. “—do that again.”

You do, and he’s on you, mouth on your shoulder, teeth catching skin—not to mark you this time, but to survive you. His hand leaves your thigh to brace against the window behind you, giving him more leverage. The truck rocks with the force of his thrusts and you don’t care, can’t care about anything except the feeling of him inside you.

“Too much—”

“Not enough. One more,” he says, and it’s not a request. “Give me one more and I’ll give you everything.”

You’re wound up impossibly again, every inch of you too sensitive, his fingers and his cock and his voice still pushing you higher, higher, higher—

“That’s it. You feel that?” His thrusts get harder, more erratic, fingers circling your aching clit as he pounds into you. “You've got me. Fuck—I'm right there with you, okay? Right there—stay with me. Take me with you. Now.”

You clench around him helplessly, so tight that Sylus feels every pulse, every aftershock, every sensation of your orgasm wrapped around his cock. He follows immediately after, burying himself deep with a sound that’s almost pained, spilling the heat of his release inside you, holding you like he's afraid you'll disappear. His hand grips the leather seat like he might rip it out of the truck, and you feel the way his whole body goes taut before collapsing against yours.

For a moment he stays frozen like that, forehead pressed to yours, breathing hard. Then he carefully pulls out, and you both wince. His hands are immediately around you, pulling you up and gathering you against his chest as he shifts to sit back against the seat.

You end up curled in his lap, dazed and spent, his arms wrapped around you like he's not quite ready to let go yet.

His mouth finds your temple in a single, unhurried kiss. Another follows just under your jaw, then another on your shoulder. He doesn't speak, just holds you while your breathing slowly evens out.

“Holy shit," you finally manage.

“Yeah.” His laugh is breathless against your neck. “Holy shit.”

He shifts you carefully in his lap, pulling you tighter against his chest so you're tucked under his chin, legs draped over his thighs. Your body feels like liquid, every muscle completely melted, nerve endings still firing in aftershocks. His hands are gentle now—one rubbing slow circles on your back, the other reaching for tissues from the center console. He takes care of you with surprising tenderness, his touch soft where moments ago it was demanding.

“You with me, city girl?” He speaks quietly into your hair, pressing a kiss on top of your head. “How are you feeling?”

You lift your head to look at him. “Like I just got thrown off a bull. Except better.”

“Mission accomplished.” His smile is relieved, then turns knowing. “You’re going to feel this tomorrow. Fair warning.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

“It’s supposed to prepare you.” He glances down at you, hand tracing patterns against your hip. “Every time you sit down in those bleachers tomorrow, you’re going to remember exactly what happened in this truck.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll be in the bleachers.”

“You will be. Front row, sweetie.” His voice is confident but not cocky. “So I can see the moment you stop pretending I don’t impress you.”

You could play it cool. Noncomittal. Hedge your bets. But the way he’s looking at you—hopeful and honest and maybe a little uncertain underneath all that confidence—makes you want to be honest with him, too.

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

He goes still for half a second, just long enough for you to catch the spark in his eyes. He looks at you for a long moment like he's trying to memorize something, then clears his throat.

“That's good. Really good,” he says it low, fighting a smile and losing. One hand squeezes your hip while the other reaches for your jeans. “Here. Lift up. Let's get you dressed before I say something that makes you reconsider.”

You do, and he helps you shimmy them back on. They get stuck on your boots—again—and you’re both laughing together like a shared secret by the time you finally get them past your ankles.

“These damn boots,” you mutter.

“Careful." His tone is almost protective. "Those boots are innocent. They stayed on like they were supposed to. That's what matters.” He helps work your jeans over them carefully. "In fact, they're the only thing that behaved." His eyes land on something near his feet as he's tucking his shirt back in. He picks up his hat, holding it between two fingers. "This one apparently couldn't handle the ride."

“When did that happen?”

“No idea. I was distracted.” He settles it back on your head like it belongs there, adjusting the brim. “There. That’s better. That’s the look I wanted.”

“What look?”

“City girl in a cowboy hat looking like she just got thoroughly ruined by a bull rider.” His smile is pure satisfaction. “It’s a good look on you.”

“Your ego is showing again.”

“Can you blame me?” He cups your face, eyes warm as he leans in to kiss you, softer now, but no less intense. “Now. Where are you staying? I should get you back before your friend calls the cavalry.”

While he’s focused on finding the location on his phone, you glance around the fogged interior. The windows are completely opaque—condensation covering every surface, hiding the world outside. On impulse, you reach back and trace your name in the moisture on the back window.

You’re halfway through when you catch his eyes in the rearview mirror, watching you with an expression you can’t quite read.

“Hold on.” He sets his phone in the cupholder and twists around, reaching back to add his name right next to yours in the condensation, then draws a heart connecting them.

“There.” He settles back into his seat, looking pleased. “Now we match.”

Your heart does something complicated behind your ribs. Before you can respond, your phone erupts with buzzing from somewhere in the passenger seat.

Tara: GIRL WHERE ARE U

Tara: are u ALIVE

Tara: send proof of life IMMEDIATELY!!!

“Your friend thinks I've got you hogtied behind the barn,” Sylus says, reading the texts over your shoulder. “Funny. I haven't even gotten my rope out.”

"Yet?" The word slips out before you can stop it.

His laugh rumbles through his chest as he pulls you back against him, like the sound is something you're meant to feel, not hear. “You're unbelievable. Now give me the phone.”

“Why—”

“Proof of life. Come here.”

He pulls you against him with one arm, holding your phone up with the other. You’re both completely disheveled—his silver hair a mess, your face flushed, his hat crooked on your head—both grinning like idiots.

He takes the photo and hands your phone back.

“There. Send that. Should ease her concerns.”

You send it.

The response is instantaneous.

Tara: OH MY GOD

Tara: OH MY GOD

Tara: U LOOK SO HAPPY

Tara: IS THAT HIS TRUCK???

Tara: THATS MY GIRLLLLL

Then another message pops through. A photo.

It’s Tara—equally disheveled, equally pleased—with her arm around a blonde girl. The blonde girl, the one who'd been glaring daggers at you earlier. Both of them look extremely satisfied with themselves.

You stare at your phone. “Oh my god.”

Sylus leans over to look, and his laugh is genuine.

“Looks like you and your friend both got your money's worth out of the rodeo.” He starts the engine, hand immediately returning to rest on your thigh. “You ready, sweetie?”

“For what?”

“The twenty-minute drive where I try very hard not to think about pulling over and seeing if you can make it to ten.”

“Ten?” You blink at him. “That’s…ambitious.”

He doesn’t miss a beat.

“Tomorrow, then.” He says it with such certainty, like it's already decided. Like there's no question you'll both end up here again.

He shifts into drive, thumb tracing lazy patterns on your leg. The radio plays quiet jazz. The world outside is dark except for passing streetlights and the occasional glow of distant houses. You settle back into your seat, watching the open road unfold ahead of you.

Then you catch it in the side mirror—the back window of his truck, still fogged from the heat you created together. And there, illuminated by the moonlight, you can just make out the shapes: your name and his, connected by that careful heart he drew.

Your heart stumbles in that way that always means trouble.

His hand squeezes your thigh once, like he knows exactly what you're thinking.

You look over at him—at his profile in the dim light, at the small smile playing at his lips, at the way he glances over at you like he can't help himself—and cover his hand with yours.

You sneak through the front door at 2:47 AM with your heels in one hand and your purse in the other, moving as if tiptoeing might actually work on the hardwood floor.

It doesn't.

"Fun night?"

You freeze.

Sylus is on the couch in the dark living room, illuminated only by the glow of his phone. With his legs stretched out and ankles crossed on the coffee table, he looks entirely too awake for someone you had planned on being asleep at this hour.

“Dad…you're awake,” you say, as if maybe he hasn't noticed.

"I am." He locks his phone and sets it on the armrest. “Daddy went to bed at eleven. He thinks you're at Tara's."

"I was at Tara's."

"Tara posted her location at a house party three hours ago. You're in the background of two of her stories.” He tilts his head. "You're also wearing significantly less clothing than you left the house in, which suggests a wardrobe change at some point between 'quiet girl’s night in’ and…whatever we’re calling this."

You look down at yourself—dressed in a crop top and miniskirt, yoga pants stuffed in your bag, sparkling with glitter on your collarbones that definitely had no part of a quiet girl’s night in.

"Okay," you concede. "Fine. I went out. And it was fun and I'm fine and I'm home now and Daddy doesn't need to know because it would just—he'd worry, and there's nothing to worry about, and—"

"You're rambling, sweetie.”

"I'm explaining."

"You're rambling while explaining." Sylus swings his legs off the coffee table and stands, crossing to where you're frozen in the entryway. He smells like the sandalwood candle he burns when he reads, and his hair is pushed back like he's been running his hands through it. "I'm not going to tell him."

The relief hits you so hard your shoulders drop three inches. "Really?"

"One condition." He holds up a finger. "A kiss."

Your heart does something fast and stupid, which is ridiculous, because you’ve kissed your Dad on the cheek a thousand times over the years. Maybe it’s because it’s a little too late at night, or maybe you’re a little too drunk, or maybe you're a little too old to be kissing him on the cheek. A little too aware of what kissing could mean and what it could lead to, if two people wanted to take it there.

You want to take it there so desperately you could scream.

You've imagined it—both Sylus and Zayne—in ways you don't let yourself think about in the daylight. In ways that are inappropriate and filthy and wrong, because they’re the closest thing you have ever had to family, your guardians, your protectors, the only two men in this world who put you above all else without a second thought. Because they’ve sacrificed so much just to keep you healthy and happy and safe under their roof when you had nowhere else to go. Because they’re more than twice your age and see you as their little girl, not a woman who desires to be desired by them.

But this isn't anything inappropriate or filthy or wrong, is it? This is Sylus being Sylus, teasing and transactional, the same way he bargains for the last slice of pizza and negotiates who does the dishes and operates an entire criminal enterprise.

He turns his face to the side and taps his cheek.

"Right here, kitten. Quick and painless."

You roll your eyes, go up on your toes, and lean in.

What happens next is a logistical error. A catastrophic failure of geometry and physics and biology and every other branch of science and mathematics known to man. The angle is wrong, or you overcorrect, or he shifts at the last second—you'll never be sure which. But your mouth lands on the corner of his, half cheek and half lip, and for one suspended heartbeat neither of you moves.

His lips are warm and softer than you expected.

You pull back fast. "Sorry. Missed."

"Did you,” he says flatly. His expression gives nothing away.

"Bad aim. I've been drinking."

"Clearly." He studies you for a moment longer, scanning your face like he can see right through it, then steps aside. "Go to bed. Drink water. I didn't see anything."

You pad down the hallway on unsteady legs, and you fall asleep convincing yourself the heat in your face is from the alcohol and nothing else at all.

On a quiet morning two weeks later, you knock Zayne's stethoscope off his desk while reaching for a pen, and it hits the floor with a sound that makes your entire body go cold.

You pick it up. The diaphragm is fine. The tubing is fine. The earpieces are—

One of the earpieces is bent. Visibly, undeniably bent, at an angle that has no chance of escaping Zayne’s attention.

"Oh no," you whisper. "Oh no, no, no."

"What'd you break this time, sweetie?”

You spin. Sylus is leaning in the doorway, eyebrows raised.

"Nothing." You shove the stethoscope behind your back. "Go away."

Striding to where you stand, he reaches around you with one long arm and plucks it from your hands. He examines the bent earpiece and whistles, low and almost impressed.

“Daddy’s going to be upset,” he says.

"I know."

"That's his good one. The one he uses at home."

"I know."

"The one he specifically asked both of us not to—"

“Dad. I’m aware." You grab for it, but he holds it above your head because he's insufferable and a foot taller than you. "Please. Can you fix it?"

"I could." He lowers it, turning the bent earpiece between his fingers. "But it would never sit right. He'd notice."

"Then don't tell him. I'll replace it. I'll order the exact same one and swap it out before he—"

"One kiss."

Your stomach flips so fast it nearly takes the rest of you with it. You tilt your head back to look at him properly. To see if he means it.

He towers above you in a soft black t-shirt, grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips, hair messy from sleep. It’s a painfully ordinary sight, one you've seen almost every morning for the better part of your life. Though from this angle, burdened by the knowledge that his lips feel tender and warm beneath yours, your body reacts as if familiarity has only made the sight more dangerous.

You go up on your toes and will the butterflies out of your throat.

"Fine,” you sigh.

He turns his cheek to you again, the same way he did last time.

You aim for the cheek. You land on the corner of his mouth. Again. Except this time your lips linger for a full second before you pull away, and this time you don't have alcohol to blame for the placement.

"Missed again," he says.

"Must be a depth perception issue."

"Must be."

He holds your gaze for a second, jaw flexing so faintly you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for just that—any sort of tell that signals he’s affected, too. That the want isn’t one-sided, that he lies awake at night, too, and thinks about the girl asleep down the hall and the pressure of her mouth and her breath mixed with his and what her tongue might taste like if he dared to kiss you the way fathers aren’t supposed to kiss their daughters.

Then he bends the earpiece back into shape with his bare hands—one quick, easy adjustment, like it had never truly been a problem at all, like he’d known that from the start—and sets the stethoscope back on the desk.

"Fixed," he says. "Our secret."

He leaves the office. You stand there for a long time, pressing your fingers to the corner of your mouth where it still feels electric.

Our secret.

The third time comes a few weeks later. It’s Sylus’s turn to drive you to school, and you come down the hallway in a dress that could start a war.

He's waiting by the front door, keys in hand, and when he sees you, his hand stills midway to his pocket. His eyes track up your bare legs, to the hem of your dress—which is ambitious—to the neckline—which is more ambitious—and back up to your face.

"No," he says.

"You haven't even said hi."

"Hi. No."

“Dad, please. It's Tara's birthday. She specifically requested—"

"I don't care what Tara requested. You're going to get a dress code violation, and Daddy is going to lose his mind, and I'm going to be the one who let you leave the house like this, which makes me an accessory to the crime.” He pulls out his wallet. "How much?"

"Excuse me?"

"To change." He starts pulling out bills, counting them onto the hall table. “Five hundred to swap the dress. Another five if you pick something with sleeves."

You watch him stack cash on the table like he's negotiating a hostage release. It's so ridiculous you almost laugh, except the earnestness underneath it is doing something to your chest that laughter can't quite cover.

You take the money, fold it neatly, and tuck it into the side pocket of your backpack.

Then you don't move.

“We had a deal," he says.

"There is no deal. I'm keeping the money. And the dress."

He pinches the bridge of his nose with a dark laugh. ”You're impossible."

"I'm resourceful. I might even say I learned from the best.” You lean against the wall, examining your nails like this conversation bores you. "But I could be persuaded to change. For the right price."

“Kitten.” His eyes narrow. "I just gave you a thousand dollars."

You tilt your chin up, faking a confidence you don’t entirely feel. “I don't want money."

The hallway gets very quiet, so quiet you can hear the hum of the refrigerator and your own heartbeat too loud in your ears and nothing else.

"What do you want?" Sylus asks, and his voice has dropped to a depth you've never heard him use with you before.

“One kiss."

The request drains the air from the room.

Sylus doesn't move, or smirk, or deflect with humor or a nickname or any of the things he usually reaches for when things get uncomfortable. He just looks at you—really looks, with those crimson eyes that miss nothing—and you watch him understand that the game has changed. That you’re attempting to rewrite the rules.

And that he’s going to let you.

"You want me to kiss you," he says. "And in exchange, you'll change the dress."

"That's the offer. Take it or leave it.”

"And if I leave it?”

"Then I walk into first period looking like this, and when Daddy gets a call from the principal, you get to explain that you let me.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, but it’s not a smile. It’s something closer to resignation, or surrender, or maybe the recognition that he's been outplayed by someone half his size.

He crosses the hallway in two steps, takes your face in both hands, and kisses you.

On the mouth. Fully, unmistakably, on the mouth.

His lips are tender and firm and unhurried, and his thumbs press into the hollows beneath your cheekbones, and for three seconds the entire world narrows to the pressure of his mouth against yours and the faint sound he makes in the back of his throat that he almost certainly doesn't know you can hear but that you will replay in the darkness of your bedroom for the rest of your life.

He pulls back. His hands drop to your shoulders and give them a squeeze. A totally normal, totally fatherly squeeze that is completely at odds with the heat in his eyes.

"Go change," he says, voice rough. And turns you toward the hallway.

You go to your room and change into something with sleeves, and your hands shake the entire drive to school.

As time passes, it becomes a secret language.

Not one either of you acknowledges in daylight. But a language all the same, one spoken only in hallways and doorways and the kitchen after midnight, existing in the gray space between what men you call Dad are allowed to do to you and what they aren’t.

You eat the last of Zayne's leftovers one night. Sylus catches you scraping the container into the trash, your eyes wide and guilty, his narrowed and amused.

You don't even have to say it anymore. He just tilts his head, and you just lean in, and the kiss lands on his mouth like it was always going to.

This one lasts long enough that his hand comes up to rest against the side of your neck, thumb settling over your pulse, and when you pull back, his eyes are closed.

"You have to stop eating his food," he murmurs.

"Make me."

His eyes open. Something in them sparks, but he just shakes his head and walks away, and you stand in the kitchen with your heart hammering and the taste of him still on your lips.

Then there's the Sunday you use Zayne's favorite mug without asking—the handmade ceramic one from that conference in Kyoto—and you bring it to Sylus like an offering, holding it up between both hands with practiced innocence written all over your face.

"I washed it already," you say. “You won’t tell him, right, Dad?”

Sylus takes the mug from you, sets it on the counter, and pulls you in by your wrist. This kiss is slower, more intentional than any of the others. His other hand rests at your waist, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt. Your hand flattens against his chest, and beneath your palm you can feel his heart going faster than his face would ever suggest.

When you break apart, you're both breathing harder than the moment should warrant.

“Sweetie, we can't keep—" he starts.

The front door opens.

You spring apart so fast you knock the mug off the counter. Sylus catches it one-handed with reflexes that border on supernatural, and by the time Zayne rounds the corner with grocery bags, the two of you are standing four feet apart, Sylus pretending to drink casually from the mug and you examining the inside of the refrigerator like it contains the secrets of the universe.

"Everything alright?" Zayne asks, setting the bags on the counter.

"Fine," you say, into the refrigerator.

"Wonderful," Sylus says, into the mug.

Zayne’s eyes move between the two of you in that investigative way that makes him impossible to fool, yet somehow never quite catches this.

He nods once, then starts unpacking the groceries.

That night, lying in bed, you press your fingers to your mouth and trace the kiss that still lives there. In the room down the hall, Sylus is doing something similar, or you imagine he is, or you hope he is, and the hope is what you cling to day after day after day.

It's a Thursday. Zayne has a late shift. And you’re running out of excuses.

The apartment is dim and still in the way it only can be when it's just you and Sylus, illuminated only by a few candles, a vinyl record humming a soft jazz melody by the window. You stand in the hallway and work up the nerve for something you've been thinking about for days, or weeks, or months—or years, if you’re really being honest with yourself.

Sylus is stretched across the couch, reading with one arm behind his head. He's in a white t-shirt and flannel sleep pants and looks unfairly handsome for someone doing absolutely nothing.

You take a seat on the opposite end of the couch, pull your knees up, and stare at the blank TV screen.

“I used some of Daddy’s favorite tea this morning.”

Sylus turns a page. "Did you."

"By accident. I grabbed the wrong one."

"Mm."

"He'll be able to tell. He always notices."

"He will."

You pick at a thread on the couch cushion. "So."

He doesn't look up from his book, but the corner of his mouth curves upward. "So."

"If you could just...not mention it."

He turns another page, still not looking at you, still giving you the space to close the distance yourself, the way he always does. Holding the door open and waiting for you to be the one to walk through it, even though you want him to drag you through it with both hands.

"Come here," he says.

You cross the couch on your knees, and he sets the book on the side table. You settle beside him, close enough that your knee presses against his thigh, and tilt your face up.

He looks at you. Looks at your mouth. But doesn't move.

"You haven't said it," you whisper.

"Said what?"

"One kiss."

Something shifts behind his eyes. "Do I still need to say it?"

"Maybe I want to hear it."

He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers trailing down the side of your neck before falling away. "One kiss," he murmurs, lower and softer than he’s ever said the words.

You lean in slowly, until your noses brush, your mouth a breath from his, close enough to feel his exhale against your lips. You stay there, letting the almost stretch, letting the space between you turn charged and trembling, and you feel his breathing go shorter and shallower through his nose.

“One kiss,” you agree quietly against his mouth.

You brush your lips across his. It’s not a kiss, just a graze, your lower lip dragging over his upper in a pass so light it barely qualifies as contact, and his breath catches like you've touched an open wound.

You do it again in the other direction, slower, feeling the texture of his mouth, the heat of it, the way his lips part just slightly as you pass over them, and the small, raw sound he makes is so quiet you feel it more than hear it.

Then you press your mouth to his, softly and completely. His lips yield under yours and the heat of it spreads from your mouth down through your chest, your stomach, your fingertips where they're curled against the couch cushion. He doesn't push forward or deepen it, just lets you have his mouth, lets himself have next to nothing.

You pull back.

His eyes stay closed, lips barely parted, still holding the feel of the kiss, and the vulnerability in his expression makes your heart beat faster. When his eyes open, he looks at you like something inside him has shifted and he can't put it back, and he is trying very hard to put it back, and you are trying very hard to shatter it into a million pieces.

You try to lean in again, and he turns his face to the side.

“That’s enough,” he says in that tone you don’t like, the one he takes when you’re in trouble.

You can’t stop your bottom lip from wobbling, humiliation flooding behind your ribs. “Did I do something wrong?"

His expression fractures, like the question hurt him physically.

"No, sweetie. God, no. You didn't—" He stops. His hand comes up and pushes your hair back from your face so gently, so contradictory to the tension coursing through every muscle in his body. "You haven't done anything wrong. That's the problem. I have."

You frown. “You haven't done anything at all.”

"I've done everything." His fingers linger at your temple, smoothing your hair behind your ear. "Every time I turned my cheek. Every time I let you come back. Every time I told myself it was harmless." His hand drops. "None of it was harmless."

"I don't care."

"I know you don't. And it terrifies me."

You lean your face into the space where his hand just was, chasing his touch, and the gesture is so instinctive, so guileless, that his breath leaves him in a rush. His hand comes back to cup your cheek, thumb tracing the line of your cheekbone, and you turn your face into his palm and press your lips against the heel of it.

"One more," you whisper into his hand. “Please, Dad. Just one more."

His thumb traces your lower lip. You can feel the callus at the pad of it, the slight roughness, and when you part your lips and let the tip of your tongue touch his thumb—barely, just a taste—he hisses through his teeth.

"This is a bad idea," he grits out.

You press your mouth against his palm again. "You don't sound convinced."

"I'm not." He brushes his knuckles down the line of your throat, and you shiver. "That's the problem."

You shift closer. Then closer again. And then you're moving without thinking about it, swinging one leg across his lap, settling your weight against his thighs. His hand stays on your neck. His other hand stays on the couch. He looks up at you from beneath you—jaw tilted up, lips parted, lashes low—completely at your mercy and completely aware of it.

“Hi, Dad,” you whisper.

“Hi, baby.”

The endearment runs through you like current. Not sweetie, or kitten, but something new. A word that makes you mean something more to him. Something that feels like permission. Like a promise.

You move to kiss him again, and this time he doesn’t pull away. Instead of starting with your mouth, you touch your tongue to his lower lip.

He goes rigid, his whole body tensing beneath you, and the sound he makes is unfiltered and broken. His lips part wider and the tip of his tongue meets yours, tentative, tasting, and the first full slide of his tongue against yours is so slow and so warm so perfect that your fingers shake where they’ve come to grip his shirt.

You make a noise into his mouth, small and wanting, and you feel his hips shift beneath you. A readjustment, or the beginning of something new, something you don’t have a name for. You sink lower into his lap with each deep lick of his tongue against yours, and through the thin flannel of his pajama pants you can feel how hard he is, pressed right against the seam of your shorts, and the initial contact draws a noise from deep in both of you.

“Fuck,” he curses, a sound so rare it sends a buzz of thrill down your spine.

You loop your arms around his neck and press closer, your chest against his, tucking your face into the curve where his neck meets his shoulder. You can feel his heartbeat against your cheek, hammering faster than his voice would suggest, and for a moment you just stay like that—breathing him in, feeling the warm strength of his body beneath yours, letting yourself want this without justifying it.

You melt into him, arms tightening around his neck, face buried against him, and you move without meaning to—not on purpose, not exactly. More like your body finding what feels good and following it, seeking the hard press of him beneath you, the heat between your legs and his, the way the friction sends a pulse of warmth through your stomach.

He sucks in a breath. For a second you fear he might push you away.

“Again,” he orders.

You do it again. Slower, pressing down with more intention, and this time you feel every inch of him, hard and pulsing, and it hits you like a lightning strike—the sudden realization that you did that to him, that your Dad’s cock is aching to be closer to your needy pussy, makes you whimper softly against his neck.

His palm slides from your neck to your hair. Not gripping, but smoothing, long strokes from the crown of your head down to the nape of your neck, the way he’s soothed you so many times before. His breathing is uneven but his hand is steady, petting you, holding space for what you're doing without rushing it, and the tenderness makes your eyes sting.

"You're okay," he murmurs. “I’ve got you, baby. Take what you need."

You move against him with your face still buried in his neck, your arms tight around his shoulders, hiding from what this means and chasing what it feels like. Each roll of your hips presses the length of him against you through cotton and flannel, and the friction is not enough and everything at the same time, building in waves slow and heavy. You whimper with each pass, small sounds you can't swallow, muffled against his skin.

His hand keeps stroking your hair. His hips stay still, letting you grind against him, his restraint so total you can feel it vibrating through his thighs.

“Dad,” you breathe out. Your hips stutter, losing rhythm, and you press down harder, desperately trying to find the angle again. “Please, Dad, I need you—need more—”

Something snaps.

His hand leaves your hair and grips the back of your neck. His other hand catches your hip, and suddenly he's holding you, pulling your forehead against his until your noses are touching and you can see nothing but his eyes, pupils blown, the darkness nearly eclipsing the red that’s so fierce it seems to glow, so all-consuming you try to turn away.

His hand at your neck holds you in place.

"Look at me," he says roughly. 

You do  

His grip on your hip tightens, and he guides you—making the rhythm his now, dragging you against him in a slow, hard grind that makes the couch creak. His hips push up to meet yours, and you can feel every inch of him, feel the head of his cock catching against your sensitive clit through the soaked fabric that clings tighter to your skin with each thrust, and the moan that tears from your throat makes his whole face change.

"There she is," he breathes. “My sweet, perfect girl.”

He pulls you harder against him. Faster. His hand on the back of your neck keeps your forehead pressed to his, and you can't look away, or close your eyes, or do anything except watch his face as you meet every upward grind with a roll of your hips. Your fingers dig into his shoulders deeper with each filthy word he speaks into your mouth—give Dad your tongue. That’s it, baby, just like that. Such a good girl for me. Your needy little cunt has been waiting so long for Dad’s cock, hm? All while the sounds filling the room become increasingly damning in their obscenity: fabric against fabric, the creak of the couch, his breathing and yours wrecked beyond recognition.

“Dad, I can’t—” you start. “It feels—ah—you feel so—so—”

“I know, baby. I know.” His hand slides from your hip to your lower back, pressing you impossibly closer. "I feel it, too."

Your thighs are shaking. He's driving up into you so hard now that your knees are lifting off the cushion with each thrust, your nails leaving marks, mouth open against his, not even kissing anymore—just breathing into each other, sharing the same ragged air.

The front door opens.

Keys drop into the bowl.

His hips still. Your hips still. His hand stays on the back of your neck. Yours stay fisted in his shirt. Your foreheads are still pressed together, both of you panting, both of you flushed and sweat-slicked and ruined, pressed together in a way that can't be mistaken for anything other than what it is.

The sound of footsteps grows closer.

You look at Sylus. He looks at you. Presses a kiss to your temple.

He's damn near flapping his arms, Suguru hardly holds in his laughter, raising a brow.

"I mean... we could if... I..."

Somehow Satoru ends up in his bed with you bent over, tongue lapping along the underside of his cock, trailing a vein as Suguru sits in the chair, palming his already hard cock. Satoru's eyes betray everything he says out loud, blue eyes darting to your face, brushing your hair back as he watches your tongue swirl right along his tip.

Fuck you're pretty.

He almost babbles it when your tongue scoops out some of that leaking white, eyes glaring right at him, even as you nip his tip with your teeth, making him yank your hair hard.

"Fuckin' brat," he grumbles, you're laughing softly, kissing it instead, he could almost bust from that, hands trembling. "Don't let her bite me, Suguru, fuck."

"Princess," you are so wet Suguru can see it, dripping from your puffy lips. "Show him how good you can be."

"Yes, daddy," Satoru rolls his eyes at that, scoffing - not like he'd ever want you to call him that!?

Right?

No way.

You start really sucking him, slurping him all up, letting him fuck up into your throat with messy, filthy lil strokes, the sounds of you choking on him just urging him more, all while Suguru strokes his own cock. The sight of you swallowing his friend had him pulsing, his veins pressed up, so hard it hurts.

"F-fuck... you're so pretty like - I mean!? You're okay at - ah! It..." Suguru snorts, leaning back further as Satoru's half ass praise has your pussy dripping down his sheets.

"She loves praise, keep goin' hmm?" Satoru lets out a shaky breath, hand gripping your hair at the base of your neck, his other slipping across your bare shoulder, sliding down the side of your neck.

"Doin' such a good job, shit..." He whispers, feeling your moan vibrate around his length, tightening right up. "Feels s'good and... there, fuck you're..."

He's whimpering.

Satoru hates you more for whatever it is you're doing to his cock, sucking him so hard he almost busts, tugging you up instead. You press him back when he tries to flip you over, straddling him with your hands on his chest, leaning low, seeing his snowy lashes all lowered, he's so goddamn needy right now, feeling your slick along him.

"Open, Toru," you tease, he glares, but does just that - opening so you can spit a trail of saliva right in his mouth, landing on his tongue.

Satoru may be in love with his best friend's psychotic girlfriend.

"Good boy," you feel his cock twitch, leaning down and sliding it, letting Suguru watch the sight of his best friend's cock slipping into his girlfriend's pretty cunt.

"Fuck..." That's Satoru and Suguru, when you slam right down on it, making him cry out as he swallows your spit down his throat, his hands right on your waist, your cunt is so fucking tight wrapping him, tip already snug on that puffy cervix.

He could cum if you move.

He pins you down, leaning up and kissing up your chest, teeth nipping your skin, your nails dig into his shoulders, body trembling as you try to take control, but he's wrapping your waist, pinning you down.

"Let me move," you cry out when he uses his muscles to hold you there, pulsing right in your cervix, peeking at Suguru, seeing how thick his cock is right now, making you even wetter. "Don't you wanna come here, Sugu?"

"I wanna watch you two make up," his lips twitch as he sees the filthy sight of your slick dripping down his best friend's balls. "Let me see you make her cum, Satoru - or you won't get to fuck her again."

This could happen again!?

Satoru almost panics at how fucking excited he is, holding it in and leaning back, raising you up and down by the fat of your ass, landing in a filthy, wet smack, your whines escaping your throat as you cling to his chest. "I'll make her cum, Suguru."

Satoru does make you cum, fucking you from one orgasm into another, flipping you over and arching your back, yanking both your arms behind you as he pins your wrists right behind your back, leaving you momentarily under his control, though he knows your crazy ass will have him whining out again.

"Grippy socks, grippy pussy," you gasp, opening your mouth to yell at him just to get your cunt pounded, dizzy from how mean his fat cock is bullying your tacky little walls. "It's true."

"You dick, w-was a few days there," he slams deep, making you arch more. "Sugu, tell him to be nice."

"I love her grippy socks," Suguru's words have you both laughing softly, as Suguru's stroking his cock faster, Satoru pounding you into that mattress like he indeed could fuck every frustration out on your cunt. "Play with her clit, Satoru."

Satoru releases your wrists and leans over you with a hand braced on the bed, his hand reaching around to rub circles on your neglected little clit, the first time he's even touched your cunt. You were so damn wet from sucking him and having Suguru watch, he hadn't had to get you ready.

"Slutty lil brat," he murmurs in your ear, as your head falls back, and he's running meaner circles. "Gonna cum for your boyfriend, gonna have me pump you full and him eat it out of you?"

"Y-you're the slut," you bite out, right before you shatter around him, cunt just clamping right down, as that orgasm fucking wrecks you.

"Fuck, she's squeezing me so tight," Satoru groans, his rhythm faltering for a moment, about to bust right with you with how you're milking his cock. "You like that, don't you? Cummin' on my cock while your boyfriend watches?"

Your only response is a series of incoherent whimpers, ones you'll regret later when this little menace makes fun of you, but you're too fucked out to care.

If this was hate sex, you were here for it.

"Too much, sh-shit," you mumble as he continues toying with your clit, pinching it between two fingers. "Sensitive!"

"Awww, are you crying?" He's chuckling at your tears, when Suguru clicks his tongue.

"Satoru..."

"Sorry, fuck," Suguru's strokes become faster right along with Satoru's thrusts in your loud, messy hole, eyeing the way Satoru's glistening cock disappears into your swollen folds easier and easier, the way your back arches for more, until you're both babbling.

"F-fuck..." Suguru busts his hot, sticky load into his own hand, thick ropes of his release coating his fingers and palm as Satoru cums right with him, filling up your pussy and whimpering your name over and over.

It shows everything he thought.

Satoru didn't hate you, he just really wanted to fuck you.

"God, f-fuck you're so... felt so perfect and..." He's crying out as you laugh, making Satoru glare again. "Psychotic, I swear..."

"You love psychotic pussy," you giggle as he pulls out, and Suguru walks over, tilting your chin up, swiping drool off the corner of your lip. "Hi, Sugu."

"Hi baby," Satoru's gripping your waist, pulling out with a filthy pop, as you eagerly suck the mess Suguru made of his hands off his fingers, and Satoru watches the mess your cunt is, gooey white just drippin' right out and down on his own bed.

"Wasting all this? Tsk," he gathers it and slips it back in your cunt, making you lashes flutter closed as Suguru's fingers slide in your throat, choking you, letting you lap the salty white release off.

"Will you two get along now?" Suguru asks quietly. "Or do I need to fuck Satoru's cum in your cunt, and fill you with mine? Make him eat both loads out?"

"I like that idea," you giggle, expecting an argument, but Satoru likes that idea even more than you do.

Suguru is a master at getting people to make up <3

*****