i'm a fiend for sure, please don't go

You flip the CLOSED sign sideways and hear it — the lazy thunder of his steps before the handle even turns.

“Locked the place down for me?” he drawls, voice low and amused, leaning in the doorway like a storm that decided to dress as a man.

He fills the threshold, scarred knuckles tapping the jamb. When he smiles, it’s all teeth and a dare.

“Sweet.”

“You booked the day,” you say, and it comes out steadier than your pulse. “Come in, wash up.”

He watches your eyes flick to the handwashing sink like you’re pointing a blade. He does it anyway, sleeves pushed to his elbows, veins roped and ridiculous.

Water runs over those hands you’ve guided a hundred times — move, stretch, still — aaaaaaand he catches you looking.

Of course he does.

“What?” He dries off slowly. “Gonna hold my hand later, artist?”

“Only to stretch skin,” you say, snapping on gloves.

Snap, snap — the sound you hide behind.

“Consent forms are in your file. Same aftercare. Sit.”

He sits.

He sprawls.

He makes the chair look small and you feel your shop shrink around the gravity he drags in with him.

The air hums when you power on the rotary; it’s a bright, clean whine, a wasp trapped in a lightbulb.

You start with the thighs.

Clip up the drape over his hips. Shave, wipe, stencil solution, your marker tracing perfect parallels around the muscle — two bold bands, high on each thigh where the quadriceps swell.

Your freehand is cleaner than any thermal, and he knows it, that’s why he only trusts you.

“You’re on your knees for me awfully early,” he says, tone lazy, almost purring. He tilts his head to watch the top of yours. “I should’ve brought flowers.”

“Brought your ID and a clean hoodie,” you mutter, checking that the lines meet true. You shift to the side to sight down the wrap of ink and try to steady your own heartbeat before touching his skin again. “Stop flexing.”

“I’m not flexing,” he lies, flexing, because of course he’s flexing.

You dip the needle.

Black.

The first contact is a kiss and a bite — machine skimming, then settling.

You plant your three-point stretch and pull the line slow, deliberate, north-to-south over living heat.

He exhales like he’s bored, you see the tell in his throat, the swallow he tries to hide.

He can take anything, he enjoys the pain you give him, and he likes that you know it.

“Depth,” you say, more to yourself than him, the way you always talk to the line. “Angle. Don’t breathe like that.”

“How am I breathing?” He grins, eyes half-lidded, voice low and dangerous now that you’re this close. “Like I’m watching you blush?”

“You’re imagining things.”

“You’re blushing,”

“You’re talking,” you counter. “We all have problems.”

“Your ears go pink first,” he murmurs, because he catalogues your tells with the same cruelty he saves for enemies. “Then your throat.”

“Stop talking.”

“You like when I talk.” He says the words between his teeth, a little growl folded in. You refuse to look up. “Look at you. Steady little hands… Are you this neat with everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

You clean the excess with green soap and move.

The second pass seals the band like a vow, the line flat and satin-sharp.

He watches your mouth move behind your mask as you count silently, as you wipe and check and wipe again.

You switch thighs, he says nothing while you measure, only lifts a brow when you nudge his knee wider with the back of your wrist.

“Behave,” you tell him.

He bares his teeth, amused.

“Make me.”

You look up at him and knit your brows together, a silent warning.

He stares back at you with those bright red eyes like you're a puppy snarling.

You do the work.

You always do the work — no hurry, no fear, your focus so complete the rest of the world falls off the table.

He presses closer anyway, without moving at all — he does that with his presence, density listed as obscene on some cosmic chart.

You can feel taut muscle twitching under your hand as you stretch the skin. Roped thighs, hot skin, and your professionalism keeping your eyes where they should be instead of wandering north.

When you finish, the bands kiss perfect around both thighs — mirrored, precise, black as midnight on wet stone.

He sits up without being told and tests the skin with a thumb until you catch his wrist.

“Don’t touch yet,” you say, and your glove squeaks on his pulse. He looks at where you’re holding him, then at your face

For a second, he’s very still.

“Bossy,” he says, softer. “Cute.”

“Face next.”

You strip gloves, sanitize, swap to a fresh setup.

“Go rinse. No caffeine gum when you get back. This is delicate.”

He’s grinning when he returns.

“Delicate,” he repeats, like the word’s something filthy in his mouth.

He sprawls again, head in the cradle, throat bared, lashes bright against his cheeks.

You stand in the space his body makes and hold your marker like chalk.

“Last chance to chicken out,” you say, because you always give him a last out.

The face is another covenant.

People underestimate that.

He snorts.

“Draw me pretty.”

You would tell him he already is if you weren’t committed to outliving him.

You take a breath instead and step close enough to count each ragged thread at the edge of his undershirt.

Purple glides over skin, the bar across the bridge of his nose, clean and unbroken, the parallel marks beneath each eye that sit like stern omens, micro-guides at the temples you’ll wipe away, the fine lines following the sharpness of his jaw, then the chin.

He watches your eyes, not your hands.

“You trust me too much.” you say, more a test of fit than a question.

He smiles like a knife.

“With my face? My body? With the only thing I see in the mirror? I'd trust you with my cock, that's how much I trust your work.”

He lowers his voice to a rumble, amused.

You ignore the last part for your own sanity.

“Don’t mess up.”

“You move, you live with it,” you answer. “Stare at my shoulder, not my mouth.”

“Ah,” he says, delighted. “You noticed.”

You glove up again.

You bag your machine again.

You change needles — liner to eat the tight corners, tight three for the cheeks.

You anchor his brow with your thumb and his cheekbone with your middle finger, and for the first time today he actually stills.

The first touch on the bridge of his nose has his eyes watering from reflex, and he laughs under his breath when you dab the corner of one eye with a pad.

“Don’t you dare,” you say, half teasing, half threat. “If you make me chase tears with ink, I will make the lines thicker.”

“Promise?” he murmurs, and you could throttle him.

The machine kisses the bridge and sings.

The line is a breath held, a string drawn, you run it in one smooth pass and feel him grin when you lift the needle.

He’s an excellent client here where it matters, this is the secret nobody knows — he can meet you in quiet when you ask.

The cheekbones are next — you warn him, and he hums.

“Oughta buy me dinner first, then” he says, words vibrating under your fingers. “You’re close enough to count sins.”

“I stopped counting yours after the third session,” you say, stretching. “Look up. No—eyes closed, chin up. Good.”

“You always sound like that when I do what you want?” He whispers it on the exhale, voice low, a thread pulled between teeth. “Dangerous.”

“Hold still, Ryomen,” you snap, because your hand trembles when he says your name like that.

You pull the line clean. He does not flinch.

The purple flees under black.

A crow outside knocks on the gutter with its beak as if to say, yes, like that.

You clean, you run the lower marks — measured curves that sit under his eyes, mirror-perfect, weighted just enough to look like they’ve always been part of him.

“Breathe,” you tell him, because you’ve been forgetting to, too.

“I am. You smell good.”

You do, but he has no business telling you that.

The last pass on the far cheek lays down like silk being cut. When you wipe, the man under your hands is more himself than the one who walked in — his face completed by lines that do not hide so much as declare, this is him, this has always been him.

You put the machine down and everything in the room goes quiet except the pulse in your own ears.

“Mirror,” he says.

You hold it up.

He looks.

His smile is small and terrible and honest for once.

He touches the air above the marks without letting skin meet glass or fingers meet fresh ink.

“Perfect,” he says, and it comes out like a verdict.

He glances at you over the top of the mirror, eyes catching the flush still stubborn in your throat.

“Told you you’re cute when you’re bossy.”

“Shut it.” you say, which is absurd and both of you know it.

He slides the mirror back and sits forward, close enough that you could count his lashes if you hadn’t already.

He tips his head as if offering his mouth, which is a kind of joke or a kind of threat depending on the day.

“Don’t even try it,” you warn, already reaching for the non-stick pads and the ointment.

“Who said anything about kissing?” he says, tone innocent in a way that is criminal. “I was gonna bite you.”

“New tattoos,” you say firmly, tapping the aftercare sheet with a gloved finger, “mean: no sun, no pool, no makeup, no touching unless it’s washing with unscented soap. Thin ointment. Hands clean. Sleep on a clean pillowcase. Don’t pick. You’ll come back in four weeks and I’ll yell at you if you lied.”

“Promise you’ll yell?” He leans back, eyes half-lidded, owning the chair and the room and your patience.

“Get out of my chair, Ryomen.”

He stands, obeying you, which is always the strangest part — how easy it is for him to do what you say when you say it like this.

He digs in his pocket, peels bills from a roll, ignores your card reader like a man ignoring a stop sign at two a.m.

He leaves too much on the counter and pretends not to notice.

“At least pretend you’re not trying to buy my forgiveness in advance,” you say, stripping your gloves.

“For what?” He cocks his head, dangerous and amused. His voice drops, growled around the words. “For thinking about you when the lines start to itch?”

Your breath trips. You hate that he hears it.

He tips his chin toward the mirror one more time, checking those new marks with naked satisfaction.

Then he looks back at you and says, quiet and sincere in the way that always wrecks your balance,

“You make me look like myself.”

It lands heavier than any filth he’s thrown today, and he knows it.

He watches the flush crawl up your throat again and grins, slow and infuriating.

“See you in four,” he says, mouth curling. “Try not to miss me.”

“Wear sunscreen,” you say, because you’re not giving him the win.

“Boss me around again,” he says, stepping backward toward the door, “and I’ll start to think you enjoy it.”

The bell over the door chimes once.

The shop goes too quiet.

You set about scrubbing your tray, tearing down the setup, logging the session like your hands don’t remember the shape of his face under your gloves, like your ears aren’t still ringing with his laugh.

You turn the sign back to CLOSED for a minute longer, just for the hush.

Then you do what you always do — breathe, reset, get ready to make the next person more themselves.

He comes back on a Tuesday, the way storms do — unannounced.

You’re already gloved when he opens the door.

He doesn’t knock, he never knocks. The bell on the frame gives one startled chirp and then it’s just him, the shape of him, the way his presence makes the air feel a degree warmer.

“Miss me, little saint?” he drawls, voice low and amused.

Your pulse answers before your mouth does and you squint at him.

“Sit,” you say, which is not a no.

He drops into the chair like a king humoring a throne.

You wheel your stool in, click on the magnifier lamp, and lean close.

He stays very still. The face work has healed like a vow — no blowouts, no patchiness, crisp saturation.

The bridge line is satin-flat, the under-eye marks have settled into the skin as if they were always there waiting for you to uncover them.

You wash and dry your hands again out of habit.

“How’s the itch?”

“Thought about you every time it started.” He says it like a sin and a joke, teeth flashed in something feral. He bares his throat so you can sight the angles. “I didn’t pick. Aren’t you proud.”

“You used the ointment like I told you?”

He makes a face.

“Tasted terrible.”

“You’re not supposed to eat it.”

“Didn’t say I ate it.” He cocks a brow, delighted at your glare. “I meant… in theory.”

You tap his jaw lightly, a reprimand.

“Perfect,” you say, and it costs you nothing to let pride thread your voice.

He knows what he looks like — he knows you know.

“Thigh bands?”

He tilts his hips the barest degree so you can check without theatrics.

The bands hug the swell of muscle clean, no silvering, no raised edges.

You press, you watch blanching and refill, you nod once.

“So,” he says, lazy. “I pass inspection? Or you need to put me on the table again to be sure.”

“You pass.” You make yourself say it like you would to anyone, but he grins anyway, because he can hear the thread of heat you can’t pull out of your own voice.

“Good.” He stands without waiting for further ceremony, stretching like a big cat, shirt riding up to flash the start of other ink you already know with your eyes closed.

He watches you notice it.

Of course he does.

“I’m hungry.”

“Order in,” you say, tearing your gloves and dropping them, already reaching for aftercare sheets out of reflex before remembering he doesn’t need them. “I have another client at two.”

“No you don’t.” He leans both hands on the counter and smiles the way a knife does when it remembers its purpose. “You blocked me the whole morning in the calendar. You’re not that subtle.”

You hate that he’s right.

“I didn’t want walk-ins.”

“You didn’t want witnesses.” He’s delighted and maybe a little offended. “Come eat with me.”

You open your mouth to argue and he cuts across you, soft — softer than he’s been all morning.

“I want to take you out.” It lands like the first drop before a downpour, small, decisive, impossible to ignore. He tilts his head, pupils blown wide under the lamp. “Say yes.”

Your yes comes out thinner than you’d like, and he pretends not to hear that part.

He just looks pleased in that dangerous way and taps the counter twice with his knuckles like a gavel.

Case closed.

He chooses a place that has no sign and a door that looks like the back of a refrigerator.

Inside, low light, old wood, a bartender with a sleeve you admire for its linework until you realize you’re staring.

He watches you watch and smirks into his water.

“Did you bring me here to test me?” you ask.

The room smells like orange peel and charred sugar.

His knee brushes yours under the table, you think it’s accidental until it happens a second time.

“I brought you because the food’s good,” he says, and then, lower, “and because it’s dark enough that no one but me will notice when you blush.”

“I’m not blushing.”

You lie.

He rasps a laugh, voice like sandpaper on silk.

“Your ears betray you.”

“You catalogued them?” You wrap your fingers around your glass to remind them not to fidget.

“I catalogued you.” He says it like a simple fact, not an apology. “How else am I supposed to hit where it hurts.” He waits a beat. “Or where it helps.”

You stare at him.

He stares back, wicked, then — briefly — unguarded.

His thumb drifts to the healed bar across the bridge of his nose as if verifying that it stayed.

“You keep touching it, you’ll smudge it,” you say, and he grins because you’ve given him the opening he wanted.

“Will you fix me if I do?” he asks, growling the words from the back of his throat, smirking because he can't help himself.

“Maybe.” you say, because your spine has decided to abandon you in this moment and you need to pretend to be composed for at least another minute.

Food arrives like a rescue attempt.

He orders fast and savage and then passes you plates like offerings — smoky skewers, ridiculous noodles, something sour with herbs that wakes your mouth up.

He eats with a lazy economy that makes you think of violence.

He steals half your pickles without asking and looks pleased when you slap his wrist.

When you talk shop — line weight, blackwork vs. color, healed texture on dark skin — he listens, actually listens, head tipped, mouth smoothed out into something almost gentle.

“You’re worse than me,” he says at one point, delighted. “You love your work like a sin.”

“I love my work like a craft.” You spear a stubborn piece of beef and pretend your hands are not shaking. “There’s a difference.”

“Not to saints.” he murmurs.

“Stop calling me that.”

“I’ll stop when it stops making you look at me like you want to argue and kiss me at the same time.”

You drop your gaze to your plate.

He laughs, low and pleased, and changes the subject with the ease of someone who knows you’ll let him win this round and take the next.

After, he walks you out without touching you.

The night has fallen in the way nights do in this city — quickly, like a trick.

He keeps a step behind and to your left, a guard position you pretend not to notice.

When the door shuts and you’re in that alley smell of wet concrete and citrus and faint smoke, he says, curious,

“You always this brave on dates?”

“You decided it was a date. I decided to see what you do with the power.”

He tips his head, pleased.

“And?”

“You’re less unbearable when you feed me.”

“Less?” He steps into your space with all the patience of tide. “You sure.”

You tip your chin up because you know what he’s doing and also because you want him to do it.

“I’m sure.”

"Mm, let's see about that."

Something in you responds to the way he lowers his voice when he says that like a veiled threat.

He watches your face the way men look at fires.

You realize too late you're staring at him for a while, bright eyes, mesmerized by how the dim street light makes his face look more dangerous and somehow more beautiful with the new lines. It's hypnotizing.

He leans in and you don't move.

Your ears are hot but he doesn't comment on it for once.

He laughs into your mouth instead, the sound bright and indecent.

The first kiss is easy, shockingly so, like a line that pulls true the first time you touch it — no wobble, no second pass. He brackets your jaw in one hand, thumb anchored under your ear, and the other finds your waist.

His kiss is decisive and precise, all intent, deliberate — also makes you want to melt into his warmth.

There’s nothing sweet about it except the way he keeps the pressure of his palm steady so you don’t have to think about balance, about anything at all.

When you break for breath he murmurs, smug and fond, “Knew you’d taste like this,” which makes no sense and too much sense, so it rips a soft sound from your embarrassed self who tried to respond without even having words formed — and then he tilts your face and kisses you again, slower, like he’s taking measurements, slipping the tip of his tongue to taste the seam of your lips, then your mouth, your tongue, everything. He's all consuming. Pressure and heat.

He smiles against your mouth when you make a sound you did not authorize again.

“Don’t—” you say, breathless.

“Talk?” He’s feigning innocence now, it’s a crime scene. “You hate when I’m quiet.”

“Gloat,” you say, and he grins like you told him he could live forever.

He doesn’t drag you, he doesn’t even pull. He just turns, and you turn with him, and then you’re moving, the way bodies move when they’ve already said yes.

The ride to his place is a blur of streetlights and the sound of him humming, some ugly little melody under his breath that, somehow, is for you.

His apartment is higher than you expected and cleaner.

Not precious — never precious — but spare.

It’s a place to sleep and sharpen knives.

There’s a plant in the window that looks both feral and thriving. He kicks the door shut without breaking eye contact and tosses his keys on a dish you could swear is hammered steel.

“You want water?” he asks, all courtesy, voice suddenly ordinary in a way that makes your ribs ache because it doesn't match the hunger in his eyes.

“Yes,” you say, grateful for the dull thing to hold.

He brings it to you and holds the glass while you drink the first swallow like he can’t decide between teasing and feeding you.

When you lower it, he sets it aside and steps into you again, hands careful at first, then not.

“You’re staring,” you say, because his gaze has gone heavy and proprietary.

“I like the way you look at your work,” he says. “I like the way you look at me more.”

“That’s arrogant.”

“It’s accurate.” He sounds bored, except for how close he is. “Come here.”

You’re already there.

The kiss is messier. He laughs when you climb him like a problem you intend to solve and then stops laughing when you do.

He brackets your hips and backs you into his wall to give you something to push against.

He kisses your mouth, your cheek, the line of your jaw and the curve of your neck when you drag him closer, he groans, low, a sound you feel in your knees.

“Careful,” you say against his mouth, not because of the ink — it’s healed — but because of what’s happening under your ribs.

“Never,” he says, but he’s careful anyway.

That’s the worst part.

He’s a menace in the way he places his hands like he’s setting bones.

You end up in his bedroom because there’s nowhere else to go but forward.

He doesn’t turn on the overhead light, a lamp throws a pool of amber on the floor, softening him at the edges, sharpening him where it counts. He sheds his shirt with infuriating economy and you take a second — two — to admire what you made of him and what he made of himself.

He catches the way your breath hitches, and the smile he gives you is small and, somehow, shy.

“Come on,” he murmurs, a growl tucked in the vowels. “You gonna stand there and worship or you gonna—”

You put your mouth on him to shut him up. It works for three seconds.

He’s laughing against your teeth a heartbeat later, hands finding your shoulders and smoothing down, possessive without pressure, the promise of pressure if you want it.

He asks with his mouth and his thumbs and something in your chest decides to open like a fist uncurling.

“You’re not what I thought,” you breath, which is stupid, but he takes it like a gift anyway.

“I’m worse,” he drawls. “But I’m going to be good to you.”

“You’re unbearable.”

“You like me unbearable.”

You do. You don’t say it. You show him.

You could say you let he have his way with you, but that would be an insult, not just a lie.

You want him — probably — as much as he wants you, and he shows you without hesitation the moment he spread your legs open, fingers pressing the soft of your thighs in a way that will have them remembering him, and sink in to devour your cunt like it is his favorite dessert.

Your nails drag against his scalp as you clutch your hands on his hair, pulling and feeling your entire body flush with heat.

He groans, deep, gravelly and moans against your glistening folds every now and then, which sends jolts of electricity up your core and twirls something inside your stomach because he refuses to hide how much he's enjoying eating your pussy.

And he drags not one, not two, but three orgasms with his mouth latched between your legs, wet muscle lapping at your folds, teasing your entrance and savoring your taste as you feel your body getting hotter and hotter.

You beg, you moan and scream his name and thrash but he uses his forearms and strong hands to pry your legs open again and keep them this way as you plea and ride your new orgasm with his tongue circling around your sensitive clit — crimson eyes glued on your face, throat vibrating with a satisfied hum.

He takes mercy on you for exactly twenty seconds before he uses his own thighs to keep yours spread, leaning his massive frame in and engulfing your entire line of sight with his image. It's a breathtaking view.

You blink, vision still hazy from the tears he managed to make you spill between third and fourth orgasms and a lot of begging, but you can see his face, his body, your work adorning his sculpted chest, the lines making him look even more dangerous than he already did, and scrunching every time he opens that damn shit-eating grin.

"Don't need to cry, little saint." he whispers with his lips brushing lightly against yours. "I'll fuck it better." and, as if he just said he would also kiss it better, he lays a single soft kiss on your lips at the same time he aligns his already swollen leaking tip against your slit.

Hot, sticky, throbbing, big.

You feel your body awakening, adrenaline kicking in and your breath catching.

His pupils blow wide when you look like you're finally back from that foggy headspace.

The ravenous look he spares you has you holding your breath for a moment as he pushes slowly first, feeding you just the tip, feeling you stretch around him as your body shivers and your heart pounds hard against your chest.

You never thought about his cock.

Okay, maybe once.

But it only made sense it was this fucking girthy and big — he's entirely huge.

"Ah— Ryo—fffuck!" you curse under your breath and against his mouth and it's enough to flip some kind of switch inside his brain that has him slamming into you with a powerful thrust. "H—AAH!" You arch your back beneath him, the shock of having his entire cock shoved inside you makes you let out a loud cry and has your hands immediately grabbing his shoulders for purchase.

He doesn't move for a few beats, breathing heavily, face still hovering over yours, breathes being exchanged from how close your mouths are.

"You moan so pretty." he husks "Feels like a prayer."

He pulls his face just enough to look into your glittery eyes once again before taking your mouth in another hungry kiss where you can taste yourself for the first time in his tongue.

He ruts into you like he's trying to bury himself even deeper inside your velvety walls. He presses his hips against yours, spreading your legs even further as the shallow first thrusts — still rough — take shape. It's like he wants to fuck you and he also dreads leaving the tightness of your cunt even for a second.

"Fuck, you're so fucking tight." he curses under his breath and into your mouth and slams once again his hips against you, ripping another wet moan from your throat. "I wanna ruin you."

It sounds too much like a confession he's making to no one.

Maybe he's coming to terms with his desires.

Maybe he's warning you.

You feel your pussy clenching around him, every bulging vein adorning his cock grinding against your walls and making your body react with a faint trembling that doesn't go unnoticed.

Nothing goes when it comes to him.

No when it's you.

"Let me be the shrine you come to pray, saint." he's spreading open mouthed kisses on your jaw, under your ear, nibbling on your pulse. "Let me swallow your sins."

You don't know at what point in his life he decided you were a saint.

Little saint.

But every word spilling from his filthy mouth sound like blasphemy.

And you're being easily corrupted by his touch alone.

You feel his hands suddenly bracketing your face — palms on your jaw, thumbs pressing lightly against your cheeks, forearms supporting his massive frame against the mattress.

His searing gaze is once again on your face and you feel dizzy from it alone.

"Let me worship you."

You may have said yes.

You may have moaned.

You may have screamed his name.

The only thing you know for a fact is that his rhythm drilling his dick into you was mercurial.

Your eyes rolled back and your hands clawed at his shoulders, his nape, neck, back — angry red lines would cohabit his skin with the bold, black stripes you also laid there.

His body is already a shrine, but you're the one making offerings and receiving blessings.

"Mn! Fuck! Ry— harder!" you sob, an attempt against your own life.

He hears your prayers like he said he would and soon your face is free from his hands as they find purchase under the back of your knees, folding you in half as easily as he would fold a sheet, and hooking your legs over his broad shoulders.

You're so lucky you're flexible.

This new position, however, allows him to hammer his dick even deeper inside you. You feel your body trying not to split in half every time his hips come down with thundering force and the tip of his cock kisses your cervix.

It's painful as much as it's luscious.

You're already a mess — tears, saliva, your arousal and release mixed with his precum foaming at the base of his dick with every slam of your bodies, sweat, salt, lust.

You're his saint, the only one he trusts to paint his body, and he's your greatest devote.

Which explain how long he can keep up fucking you deep and ruthlessly.

Even after ripping another orgasm from your sore pussy.

Even after filling you with his hot, thick cum.

His stamina keeps unmatched — he's simply lost in you.

In every sob you let out that has the shape of his name, in every pretty moan rolling from your lips, in every tear, every curse, everything.

He's taking it all in and worshiping you whole until both of you come undone.

The night lengthens the way good nights do, elastic, impossible to measure.

There’s laughter and the sound of teeth barely scraping and the thud-thud of your heart doing unreasonable things.

There are breathless commands you didn’t know you had the authority to give until he obeyed them.

There’s the quiet afterward that isn’t actually quiet at all, full of street noise and the plant tapping the window and the soft, ridiculous sound he makes when you run a thumb just under his new lower mark without actually touching skin.

And he's attentive in ways you wouldn't imagine, but you also wouldn't imagine you would be having your organs rearranged by his dick in a common Tuesday.

He helps you clean up. He brings you water. He wipes the corner of your mouth with the back of his hand like he has any right. He pulls you into the shower and helps you wash yourself because he's aware of what he did to you. He lends you one of his shirts and you have to swat his hands away when he gets too grabby and says you look too good wearing his clothes.

Then he turns your wrist over and presses his mouth to the pulse point as if claiming you with a bruise he never actually gives.

“You staying?” he asks, casual like a threat, casual like a plea.

“Do you want me to?”

His eyes cut to yours and away and back again, that stray softness from earlier showing up uninvited.

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

He makes a pleased sound that lives halfway between a purr and a growl, and you pretend it doesn’t go straight to your spine.

He drags the blanket up over both of you with hands that could break anything and lays there, heavy and warm, looking more like himself than anyone has the right to look in their own bed.

“Tomorrow,” he murmurs, already sliding toward sleep, “you can yell at me about sunscreen again.”

“Wear it,” you mutter into his shoulder.

“Boss me harder.” He’s smiling, you can hear it. “I’ll be so good for you.”

“Menace,” you say, but your mouth is soft, and when you close your eyes, the city outside keeps watch while you don’t have to.

He puts a dumb show to play for no one on the TV that hangs in his bedroom's wall and lets you fall asleep with your cheek on his bare chest and your leg resting over his hip.

You consider returning to this shrine to collect more of his offers in the future.

The prayers taste sweeter on his mouth.

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