midnight reveries

Fingers brushing underneath your shirt, sliding up, up, up, until they’re appeased with the skin they’ve claimed. Hands gripping and pushing into the fat of your hips, moving down slowly to cup your ass.

As if moving slow will make his actions unnoticeable to you. Like maybe you won’t realize his fingers are leaving indents in your flesh for him to marvel at later when he peels the fabric from your skin.

His only saving grace is he’s doing it when no one can see the two of you. In hidden corners or when everyone is distracted.

The warm callous of his thumb on the back of your neck drags your attention away from the conversation at hand. Your family is hosting a small party in your backyard. Little tents put up with tables of food and drink underneath them.

There are children running around screaming and laughing with waterguns and parents scolding them when they try and splash the adults. The bright sun is setting on the horizon, casting everything in a golden hue. Cicadas chirp all around, the sound creating a pleasant hum that doesn't help your focus.

The hand on the back of your neck leads you inside from the porch. Now you’re being pulled into the small downstairs bathroom.

Joel is your father’s friend. Albeit a much younger friend, but he wasn’t yours first. Deep down, you know that your parents would be fine with your relationship with Joel. Your father would take some time to come around to it, no doubt having choice words with Joel and then you, but he’d accept it eventually.

That still doesn’t mean you want to broadcast your incredible relationship, incredible sex life, to everyone around you with his hands trying to find purchase in your panties.

“Joel!” You hiss and smack his hands away. His large hands skating up your dress to tease at the edge of your underwear. Dipping just below the waistband and brushing against the curls of hair beneath.

He gives you a lazy smirk and chuckles. You think you hate him when he’s the laid back one. Normally he’s on edge, anxious about how people will interpret your interactions while you give him an evil smile and slip your hand into his back pocket.

You guess this is payback.

“What’s wrong, darlin’?” He asks, leaning in to place a warm kiss to your neck, lips trailing up to your jaw. “Ain’t no one gonna see. Just lemme have you for a min’.”

His words are muffled by your skin, lips never ceasing their movements against your neck. When you feel the slight graze of his teeth against your skin you pull back quickly with a warning glare.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare, Joel Miller. I’ll bite your dick off.”

Joel gives you a lazy smile and mocks insult in his voice, “What did I do?”

“You know exactly what you were trying to do. Like hell I’ll let you give me a damn hickey mid-party.”

Lips are on your cheek, kissing down to your neck once more. When you try and push him away again, half-heartedly, he begins to tickle at your sides.

“Joel!” You giggle at the feeling of his strong hands teasing the skin of your waist.

“C’mon, baby. Just one.” His mouth continues its decent finding the valley between your breasts, “I’ll put it somewhere no one will see.”

He’s leaning slightly against the counter to make himself shorter, head resting on your chest as he looks up hopefully.

“You’ve got two minutes.” You cave, unable to deny him.

“Only two?” He scoffs, brows rising into his hairline.

“Clocks ticking. You just lost 10 seconds, Miller.”

He doesn’t waste any more time after that. Mouth capturing the skin of your chest as one of his hands comes to brush your shoulder. Calloused, warm fingers slide underneath the strap of your sundress and peel it down slowly. Exposing half of your chest to Joel’s eagerly awaiting mouth.

His lips latch around your nipple immediately. Tongue flattening over the hardened peak as he suctions gently. The feeling sends tingles down your spine and you gasp lightly, wary of your volume in the small bathroom anyone could walk by.

His other hand pinches the nipple not currently in his mouth before roughly grabbing the entire weight of your breast. His fingers dig into the skin and you tilt your head back to try and keep yourself from groaning.

Joel’s mouth releases your nipple to begin sucking on the skin of your breast, tongue licking at the sweat that’s gathered in a light sheen over your entire body. He hastily pulls down the other strap to reveal your full chest to his hungry gaze.

When he’s greeted with the sight he groans, looking physically weakened. His hands rise like he’s preparing to touch something sacred and he moves to gently palm over your breasts.

“Fuckin’ perfect tits. Could cum in my pants like a teenager every time I see ‘em.”

His hands are on your waist now, pulling you into the space between his legs as his lips work over your skin again. Sucking and biting and licking everything he can reach.

“Do it then.” You challenge, hand carding through his hair and tugging firmly.

The groan he releases into your chest is more of a whimper in your opinion, but you say nothing.

“Later. Right now I gotta take care of my girls.” Joel doesn’t even try and pull away to say the words, instead pressing them into your skin.

His comment makes you laugh and he uses the distraction to bunch up your dress once more, not giving you time to realize what he’s doing before sliding one of those warm fingers beneath your underwear.

He instantly finds your clit, giving it a small, firm circle as you suck in a harsh breath. Hand tightening on his hair as the other moves to grip his shoulder, nails digging into his flesh through his flannel.

“Joel.” You warn. You hope your voice sounds more stern and sure than you feel.

“Reckon I still got another minute, don’t I? Think you can gimme one that fast, baby?”

You don’t think he’s giving you much of a choice as his fingers continue down to your opening. Already wet and ready, clenching around the promise of his fingers.

Okay fine, maybe you’ve been wanting him to drag you away and fuck you since he showed up at your door with his flannel rolled up to his elbows. Those tan, gorgeous forearms on display. Looking like fucking temptation given human form.

“S’already so wet for me. How long you been like this?” His teeth gently nip at your breast and you moan as he pushes one long finger into your wet heat.

His finger starts pumping, curling the way he knows you like, as if the motion will drag the response out of you.

“C’mon baby, tell me.”

Another finger slides in beside the other, minimal resistance due to how wet you are, but just enough stretch and ache to make you keen into him.

“Since you got here.” You lean your head down, burying your face in his hair as a whine builds in your throat.

He’s set a brutal pace right off the bat, fingers curling and stretching you the way he knows you love. The way that always gets you desperate and needy for his cock.

“Poor baby. Been drippin’ all night, why didn’t you tell me? Know I woulda taken care f’ya. Made you cry and cum all over my cock. All’s you gotta do is ask pretty baby. Can’t never say no to you.”

The words are sloppy, pressed against your tits like he can’t be bothered to come up for air. The sounds coming from your core as you feel yourself begin to drip down Joel’s hand are sloppy as well. His filthy words getting to you so much you think you’re going to cum in record time.

“Joel.” You whine into his hair. The hand on the back of his neck digging its nails into his scalp as you feel the familiar tingles of your orgasm approaching.

The hand on his shoulder slides down to grasp at his bicep, feeling the strong muscle move with each pump of his fingers into your sopping core.

“Oh, fuck.” You’re close, so fucking close, so fucking fast. You feel dizzy, overwhelmed by the pleasure flooding through you. “Joel, please.” You’re not sure what you’re begging for as you clutch onto him with everything in you. Needing something to anchor yourself to reality.

Joel pulls his head off your chest, lips swollen from his assault of your breasts. It forces you to pull your head back to look at him.

“I gotcha, pretty baby. Let it go f’me. Cum on my fingers like the good girl I know you are. So fuckin’ desperate for it, ain’t ya? Just couldn’t help yourself.”

Eyes screwing shut, your jaw drops in a silent scream as you clamp down so hard against Joel’s fingers he wonders if you’ll break them. He takes the moment to slip his tongue into your open mouth, brushing his tongue sloppily over your own.

Your hips are stuttering to meet each pump of his fingers, desperately chasing your release. When Joel’s thumb begins to work fast circles over your clit, you’re done for.

Deep groans come from your chest with every pant you heave to keep from passing out. Joel works you through it, mouth clamped over yours to keep you from getting too loud. He feels the vibrations of your moans against his chest and groans into your mouth at the sensation.

When the aftershocks stop making you whine into his mouth and press your bare tits into his chest, he slows his movements. Letting you regain some sense of lucidness before gently pulling his fingers from you.

Holding the evidence of his efforts up before you, he gives you a devilish smirk before placing his fingers in his mouth. Swirling his tongue around them and pulling them free with a dramatic pop.

He carefully pulls the straps of your sundress up over your shoulders once more, careful not to use the fingers he had stuffed in you only moments ago. When he’s got you decent once more, he leans in to give you a deep kiss.

It’s all tongue and spit. The wet glide of the drool that’s pooled in your mouth and your slick coating his tongue making you feel delirious. Making you consider dropping to your knees to suck him dry.

Joel pulls away from your mouth with a fond smile, leaning in to give you a sweet peck before turning to wash his hands.

“You good?” He asks over his shoulder.

“Yeah. You?” Your breath is still shaky, but you’ll recover soon enough.

Drying his hands, Joel’s deep voice drawls out smoothly, “Fuckin’ great.” Then that southern accent turns mocking, “Did I go over my two minutes, ma’am?”

Turning to face you, his hands come up to help smooth down your hair. You flick his ear in retaliation as you do the same for him, fixing the strands you tugged every which way.

Giving yourself a once over in the mirror, you decide you look relatively unscathed and unsuspicious enough. You’ll blame the flushing and fast pound of your heart on the heat if anyone asks.

“Ready?” You ask, planning to peek your head out before sneaking the two of you out of the small bathroom.

“Nah, you go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Furrowing your brows, Joel sighs. Hands on his hips as he shakes his head, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “Needa minute, darlin’”

Looking down you see what the issue is. Joel is obviously, painfully, undoubtedly hard in his jeans.

“Do you want me to-”

“No. I got my fill. Make it up to me later.” With a kiss to your temple, Joel opens the bathroom door slowly and looks around out of the small opening. Confirming that the coast is clear, he backs away and lets you out with a warm hand on your waist.

“See you out there, Mr. Miller.” You wink. Calling him that always gets a reaction out of him. Either a stuttering in his thrusting above you as he buries his face in your neck or your face pressed into the pillows as he sets a punishing pace.

Joel only groans at the name this time, “I’m tryin’ to calm down here, sweetheart. Stop tryin’ to fuckin’ rile me up.”

Smiling sweetly, you glance around to make sure no one has suddenly snuck up on you before stepping into his space once more. Placing a sweet peck to his lips you give him a look of mock sympathy. Well, he doesn’t know it’s mocking.

Joel lets his guard down for a moment, thinking you’re actually giving him some respite. Then you open your mouth again.

“Yes, sir.”

The woods were still crisp for early summer. It was something you'd come to appreciate about Wyoming, after all. No matter how bad winter had been, or how slow spring had sprung, you could always count on a beautiful summer, and even better summer mornings.

But this morning was far from beautiful.

You were sitting with a few others from town, mostly newer folk who'd settled in and were looking for work to do. The woods were quiet around these parts, a couple miles out from Jackson, where the trees thinned just enough to make room for the patrols to see into the valley. It had been a lookout since the beginning, or so you'd heard. A small cabin with a slanted roof, a fire pit out front ringed with blackened stones, a target range cut into the dirt nearby, and guns and ammo stored in the basement in case of emergency and training.

Why you were here, when you could be baking loaves of bread for folks getting out of Sunday worship or sending actual lookout shifts off with their breakfast freshly made, was, well…because you'd started to feel a little useless.

Not useless exactly. That was probably unfair. You did have multiple jobs. You were a part of the community of Jackson. You had a few close friends and plenty of acquaintances. You got along with almost everyone. It was nice, feeling like you knew who took their coffee black, who liked the butt of the bread, who always tried to sneak an extra roll into their coat pocket when they thought you weren't looking. You gardened and sometimes even helped with the horses or the livestock.

But still.

There was a part of you that knew, if anything ever went to shit, you'd never be able to defend your town, let alone yourself. So you'd come out with a group to train up on an early summer morning.

But you sure as shit were terrible at it.

Luckily, the ammo you used on the training grounds were empty shells, nothing actually being wasted on your awful, awful aim.

Because an hour later, the glass bottle in front of you remained whole and smug on the fence line, catching slice of sunlight along its shoulder while the wood of the fence several inches to its left had suffered greatly.

It didn't help that the man that was meant to be teaching you was a grade A Asshole.

Joel Miller was many things. Strong, capable, brave. So many epithets that could be used to describe him. You'd even dare to add handsome if he wasn't always frowning at you or cursing under his breath every time you managed to miss something standing perfectly still.

But the main thing you wanted to call him, was Asshole. Though…you thought if you ever did to his face, it might just be the last thing you ever do.

He was helping a kid down at the end adjust his stance when you heard an argument from beside you about a bet.

“Bullshit,” one of the boys hissed. Matthew, you thought. Maybe Michael? He was one of the kids from town you'd seen around the stables with hair too long, cheeks still a little chubby, and an ego too big. “You did not get Maisie Bell to kiss you.”

“I didn’t say kiss,” the other one said, and in the corner of your eye you watched as he lined up his shot, one eye squeezing shut. “I said she would’ve.”

“That ain’t a bet.”

“It is if I’m right.”

“You’re not right.”

“Two ration cards says I am.”

“For Maisie?”

“For Maisie,” he said, then nodded toward the line of town below the ridge, where you could almost see the church roof through the trees. “And the redhead from the kitchens. Sheesh what I wouldn't do to my hands on 'er. Oh, and that new girl Dina?" he let out a low whistle, "She is so goddamn fine I could—"

The heat that went through you had nothing to do with the morning sun. It rose hard beneath your collar, crawling up your throat until your jaw clenched around it. It pissed you off. Dina was funny and charming and more than a hot piece of ass for some stable boy to run his mouth over. Maisie and Riley were nice girls too, both in your book club, both worth knowing for more than the curve of their mouths or the sway of their hips.

“Maybe you two should spend less time betting on girls who wouldn’t touch you for a warm bath,” you spat, turning toward them, “and more time actually practicing—”

But you'd turned without lowering your gun.

Worse— you'd turned without taking your finger off the trigger.

A loud sound cracked through the clearing.

It wasn't like a typical gun shot, just a sharp, quick pop that punched the rest of your sentence out of your mouth.

Michael grabbed his shoulder and stumbled back, knocking into the rack behind him. A glass bottle tipped from the table and burst in the dirt by his boot, spraying green shards through the dust.

For one second, no one moved.

Then he said, “Ow—fuck!”

Your hands were still around the shotgun, finger still squeezing the trigger, your body stuck in shock.

The kid beside him lowered his own gun in a hurry. A low muttering started to rise from around you— someone else asked if Michael was all right, and Michael, pale and furious and embarrassed, said, “She shot me!"

"Think it's more of a graze—" someone was saying, pulling at the torn cap of his sleeve.

More voices began to overlap as people clustered around him, worry amplifying the noise until you couldn't hear anything because of the panicked buzzing in your ears.

"Give me that."

You blinked to your right. Joel Miller was looming next to you, a thunderous look over his features.

You looked down at the shotgun still in your hands, a gasp running through you.

Your fingers opened at once as if you'd been burned by the wooden barrel. The shotgun dipped toward the ground, and Joel caught it before you could swing wrong again. He took it from you with a look that made your stomach hollow out.

Your mouth open and shut, your voice quiet and lost to the rising murmur around you: "I'm—I'm so sorry—"

Joel didn’t answer. He checked the shotgun with a hard jerk of his hand, jaw tight, eyes not leaving the chamber until he was sure. Then he bent down, grabbed your pack from the dirt, and pushed it into your arms.

“Go.”

You froze with your hands around the straps. A burning, icy thrill ran through your spine, your skin lighting up in humiliation.

“I got no use for kids who don't give a shit about rules or make habits of gettin’ other people killed,” he said. “Go on now. No use to me here.”

You didn’t even think you could speak if you wanted to. You looked down at your backpack, torn and duct-taped in spots, the top strap sewn back down at least ten times since you'd gotten it.

You'd shot someone. What if it hadn't been a blank? What if it hadn't just grazed?

“I—”

“Don’t wanna hear it,” Joel cut in. “Go tell Jesse you're done for the day. He’ll take ya home.”

You bit your lip so hard you tasted copper and nodded, turning away.

For the next two weeks, you went back to being useful.

That was the word that seemed to dig its way into your head, after all. Useful. You baked loaves in the morning with flour dusted up your forearms and dough stuck beneath your fingernails. You wrapped bread in cloth and stacked it on the front table before the church bell rang. When you were done, you gardened the weeds that to creep into the squash beds and watermelon patch, and spent the late afternoons mucking stalls. You went to bed so exhausted you barely thought about what happened at the range.

Michael was fine, of course. He'd come by to apologize for his words the next day with Maria's stone face behind him. You apologized too, made sure he was really okay. Offered him a free bagel or two in exchange for maiming him.

Sometimes you saw Joel.

He didn't laugh or pat your arm understandingly the way the others did when retelling the story that of course made its way around town like wildfire.

He hardly looked at you at all, really. And at first you were grateful for it, too embarrassed to even meet his eye if he ever came by the stables for the horses before training or patrol up in the mountains. You'd run and hide before he even got the chance to spot you, truth be told. And when he came by the bakery, you'd disappeared into the back so fast that one time you’d knocked over an entire sack of rye flour in your haste to vanish.

But by the third week, it'd began to piss you off. Because it was one thing to be ashamed—and you were. But Joel was walking around town like you were something to be scraped off the bottom of his boot. It began to put a sour feeling in your stomach, the fact he had so much power to make you feel so small. Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid glare and his silent brooding.

You stopped hiding.

The next time he came into the bakery, you were at the front counter with your sleeves rolled up as usual, tying string around a parcel of bread. Ellie was next to him as they entered, talking with her hands, telling him some story about Dina and a loose chicken that morning.

“Morning,” you said when they sidled up to the counter.

Ellie looked over, her green eyes brightening. “Hey.”

Joel said nothing.

You pulled down the ration bread from the shelf with their name and house number written across the paper wrapping.

Ellie grinned as you handed it to her, "Do you have any of those sweet rolls from last week?"

You hazarded a glance at Joel, who said nothing again.

"Sure do. You staying for breakfast? I could make some coffee."

Ellie perked up, looking at him. “Can we?”

“No,” Joel said stiffly.

“Oh, come on—didn't you hear her say your favorite word, old man? Cofffeeeeeee!" she sung out before huffing a breath, "Do I need to get your ears checked by the nurse again?”

“We got work.” he grumbled, ignoring her jab.

“You always have work.”

“Funny how that happens.”

You reached for the tray beneath the counter and set a couple rolls out, taking your time. “There’s fresh icing too from this morning, I just need to drizzle it on.”

You went into the back, grabbing the small bag of sugary sweet icing you'd made, and began letting it fall in a steady cascade onto the sweet buns.

Ellie leaned both elbows on the counter. “See? Now we have to stay. It would be rude not to.”

You pretended not to notice how Joel's jaw ticked under his beard.

“She makes a good argument,” you said, sliding the small plate toward Ellie next to their wrapped weekly bread loaf.

Finally, those dark eyes landed on you. It was quick and could almost pass off as an accident. A muddling of color that shown in the morning light, his mouth flat. The same hard set to his face as always. But you smiled back anyway.

Because fuck him.

Ellie took one and barely hesitated before taking a giant bite, delighted. “Thank you.” she said with her mouth full.

You looked away quickly, back at Ellie. “Anytime.”

Joel reached into his pocket and set the ration slips on the counter. His hand was close enough that you could see the scar across one knuckle, the dust caught in the creases of his fingers. He took the parceled bread from the counter, leaving the second sweet bun untouched.

"Let's go, Ellie." he said stiffly. Before you could even call goodbye, they were walking out the shop, Ellie throwing you an apologetic glance and a wave of her hand as she stuffed the roll into her mouth.

You picked up the rations he left, and for a moment, thought about chucking that leftover roll at the back of his head as he disappeared from view.

Instead of learning how to shoot guns, you began learning how to take care of them.

Learn it from the inside out, you told yourself.

And to be fair, you picked it up rather quickly. Quicker than you’d picked up aiming, anyway. There was a comfort to it that shooting never gave you, all the pieces laid out on an oil-stained cloth in front of you, metal pins and springs and screws set in neat little rows beneath your hands. There was no bottle on a fence line waiting to make a fool out of you here in the small rec room of the cafeteria after the dinner shift had come and gone.

Tommy Miller taught the class every other night, his sleeves rolled to the elbows and voice patient and kind as he showed you and a few others how to take a handgun apart and put it back together. He had a way of teaching that was so different than his brother. He was patient, never made you feel stupid for asking questions. If a piece didn't fit, he'd simply say: “The gun’ll tell you what it needs most times. You just gotta quit arguin’ with it long enough to listen.”

And maybe, a small mean part of you liked the fact that the first time Joel Miller saw you there, he stopped dead in the doorway.

You'd bitten your cheek so hard to keep the smug smile from tugging your lips as he made his way across the room with a box of empty shells the night you were learning how to make ammunition. His eyes moved across the room to his brother, who patted him jovially on the back, and then the elder Miller's eyes came back to you. And you knew you didn't look very nice—smudge of grease across your cheek and your hair pulled haphazardly away from the gunpowder, thick work gloves that hardly fit and your plaid sleeves rolled up.

But he'd stared long and hard anyway. And then, as if nothing was amiss, his face went back to its hard, frozen state, and he walked out.

It was that night that you woke from an awful dream.

A horde of infected had broken through Jackson, tearing through everything you'd always loved and cared for. The gate was splintered open, the watchtower burned down to the ground. People were running through the street in their nightclothes, slipping in mud and blood, screaming names you knew.

You woke in a drenched sweat, feeling every bit as useless with a gun in your dream as you did in waking life.

But it was the kind of dream that didn't really feel like a dream at all. You'd felt like you were there, like the chill of night was actually on your face, like the roars of infected in your ears were truly bone-chilling. Your chest had filled with so much doom as you tried to fight back. But you couldn't. Every shot went wrong, every squeeze of the trigger sent another round into a fence post, a doorframe, the packed dirt beside an infected's rotting foot.

You could load the gun. You could take it apart and put it back together. You could clean the pieces until the metal shone beneath your fingers. You'd done it a hundred times now.

But you couldn't shoot.

In the dream, it had been all your fault. The deaths. Friends, loved ones, people who had waved to you from the church steps and leaned over the bakery counter telling you all about their latest town gossip.

Even Joel Miller.

He had died in the dream too. Because of you, and your awful aim, and your utter uselessness when it came to defending anything you cared about.

So, instead of trying to fall back asleep— afraid the dream might return—you got up and headed downstairs. Making your way through your dark house that was a small thing in the middle of town, you heard the floorboards creaking beneath your socks until you stepped into your boots properly.

You threw on your Carhartt over your nightclothes, fumbling with the zipper in the dark. It was just the start of summer now, but the mornings still could be biting. The mountains liked to keep their cold weather as long as possible, holding to it until the sun finally dragged it out when summer solstice came.

On the kitchen table, the shotgun you'd been working on for Tommy’s class sat wrapped in an old cloth, its oiled barrel catching a thin line of moonlight from the window.

You stared at it for a moment.

Then, decision made, you slung the strap over your shoulder and headed out.

Surprisingly, Joel Miller was awake at the odd hour as well.

As you walked down Rancher Street, you spotted him on his porch in the old rocker, one boot planted against the floorboards to keep the chair steady. A steaming cup of something was in his hand as he looked out onto the empty street. No one was up at this hour. You shouldn’t've even been up either. You wouldn’t have to open the bakery for another several hours, and the whole of Jackson seemed to know it. The curtains of the houses you passed were still drawn in the houses along the street, the chicken coops were quiet. Even the dogs that usually barked from behind fences must have been sleeping away the dawn with their owners still in bed.

It made your boots sound so loud on the road.

When his eyes caught the movement of your form coming toward the house, you saw him pause. His brows shot up high, then narrowed back into their usual glower. As you got closer and closer, it seemed so did his brows, threading deeper, causing harsher lines to form between them. The sun was just barely beginning to peek over the east mountaintops, the sky beginning to let go of its inky blackness with only a pale line of light touching the surrounding rooftops.

Joel Miller didn’t say anything as you stepped up from the street onto the path to his house. Or as you walked through his front yard. But his eyes never left you.

You tried—very hard and very much in vain—not to care what he saw as you walked up to the porch. He was an asshole, after all. An asshole who had told you he had no use for you, dismissed you for one mistake, and ignored you for weeks after. You shouldn't care if he saw some clumsy girl with a gun too big for her hands, or the bags under your eyes, or the matching floral sleep set beneath your jacket, long sleeves buttoned to your wrists and matching cotton pants tucked messily into your boots.

"Good morning, Mr. Miller." you said, stopping just at the bottom step of his porch.

He took a long sip of his steaming cup before resting it between his hands on his lap.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, kid?"

In any other circumstance, that could’ve been a polite greeting. But the flatness to his voice, the utter disapproval or contempt that threaded through it, made it sound exactly as he meant it.

You stared at him for a long, long moment.

He just stared back.

The rocker gave a faint creek under his weight. You could just smell the contents of the mug—coffee, for sure then. Bitter and dark how he liked it. You shifted the shotgun off your shoulder and set the butt of it into the dirt beside your boot, one hand rested at the top so it pointed up towards the sky.

Finally, it was Joel who broke the silence as he sighed, getting up to stand at the railing, setting one large, calloused palm against the wood as he looked down at you.

"Kid, I don't know what yer—"

"Shut up."

Joel Miller, for the first damn time since he'd met you, seemed to be stunned. His eyes went wide in disbelief.

"Excuse me, young lady?" he scoffed, standing still on his porch.

"Shut up—" you said, and if your voice shook a little, he made no notice, "and listen."

His eyebrows lifted. Then he looked down the empty street, like maybe someone else had heard you speak to him that way and he needed a witness. But there was no one, of course. Not at this hour. Only the closed houses, the pale line of morning over the rooftops, and a dog two porches down watching through the fence with its nose pressed between the slats.

When Joel looked back at you, he only gave a small shrug, one palm tipping up from the railing.

Go on then.

"I am a baker," you said curtly, taking in a shaky, deep breath, "I am a gardener, I am a sewer, I've become a damn good gun cleaner. I've been in Jackson for two years. I deserve to be here."

"Never said—"

"—and I deserve to learn how to defend it too."

Joel's eyes never left you as he heard your case. His face didn't change much, but at least it wasn't glowering anymore. He made no move to dismiss you or walk back inside even if he'd have enough reason to.

"Just because I had a shit first day doesn't mean I can't still learn, old man." you said. It wasn't a term of endearment. "Just because I'm not shooting bullseyes or killing infected yet doesn't mean I can't try, alright? I— I'm brave and—and—" you took another deep breath, "And you're going to teach me how to shoot."

"Like hell—" he stopped, scoffing again, and then went on, shaking his head: "Kid, you and I—clearly, we ain't jivin', why don't you ask another—"

"No."

Joel clicked his teeth, shifting his weight between his feet behind the wooden balusters.

"No one is as…" you glared up at him, the words searing your tongue before you could force it out, "No one is as good as you. If anyone is gonna teach me, it's you Mr. Miller."

There was a long pause, and Joel set down his mug, the steam wafting in the chilly summer morning. You almost wished you hadn't come, that you could go back to ignoring each other for weeks. What was it to you, what this man thought of you? You knew you looked ridiculous standing here, asking for help. You should be shouting at him, telling him he's mean and grouchy like a dog.

"Christ," he sighed, "you don't give up do ya?"

"Nope."

He pulled in another deep breath, looking up and down the road again for a long moment, before his eyes found you once more. You saw how they roved over your figure, over the muck boots and the white blue floral set, over your tan Carhartt, and then onto your face, where he paused for a moment before saying:

"Well first thing, don't hold the damn gun like that."

You looked down where you were leaning your palm over the muzzle of the shotgun.

"Gonna blow a hole in your palm, then I wouldn't be able to teach ya shit."

Your face burned, but you moved to grip the barrel lower and pulled the gun carefully across your belly, holding it with both hands now, pointed well away from either of you.

He nodded, lifting his mug and taking another sip of coffee, watching you, The slurp of the drink filling his mouth held the silence while the birds began waking up around you.

"You sure you'll be warm enough?" he asked finally.

You nodded.

"Alright. Let me get my shoes and we can hit the trails. Stay put."

You nodded again, and then—

"Joel?"

He turned.

"I um... I promise I won't let you down."

He took one more look at you, the harsh line of his mouth eased, eyes settling in a way you hadn't seen before.

He nodded once, and said: "I know, kid."

The sun was well over the mountain top by the time you made it to the ridge.

He hadn't taken you back to the training ground, whether it was to save you the humiliation of seeing the leftover shards of green glass on the ground, or because he liked the view better by the forgotten ranch, you weren't entirely sure.

It sat a few miles out from Jackson, tucked up where the land opened into a long slope of yellow grass and thin fence posts. One of the old checkpoint places, Joel had told you on the ride over. Not one people used much anymore, not unless they were cutting through on patrol or needed to seek shelter from a storm. There was a little graying house at the top of the rise with peeling paint along the porch rail and a tin roof gone dull from years of snow. Beside it, an old barn leaned slightly into the hill, its red paint worn down to bare wood in places, its door hanging open on a rusted hinge.

You barely registered the bird song that filled the skies as he set up a training course, the beautiful view of the mountainside and your horses grazing in pasture of the barn. Every now and then you saw one lift its head to look at you, ears flickering around, before bending down and resuming its peaceful morning loitering.

Joel was beside you, close enough that you could smell the pine of his body wash and the musk of sweat lining his shirt. He had been mostly quiet on the ride here, but not in the punishing way, you began to realize. Just quiet and focused as his is eyes kept moving over the land, the fence line, the barn, the empty windows of the little ranch house behind you.

“Lean just a little over now,” he said from behind your shoulder as you got into position by the wooden posts. “Use the fence as a brace. Easier when you got something steady under the stock.”

You shifted forward until the gun found the flat part of the top of the wood. The air was still chilly through the sleeves of your sleep set, the fence rough enough to catch on the ribboned cuff of your pant leg when you moved into it. Ahead, he’d pinned a target to the trunk of a tree, three rings and a bullseye in the center.

“First thing,” he said, “you don’t point that barrel anywhere you ain’t willing to put a hole through. Don’t matter if you think the thing's empty. Don’t matter if I told you it’s empty. You treat it like it’s loaded every second it’s in your hands.”

"I know, Joel."

"Repeat it," he said, a little firmer, and the way his breath brushed the side of your neck, it made you shiver. You didn't reaalize he'd gotten so close.

"Treat it like it's loaded." you muttered, leaning over the stock, looking down the line of the barrel.

"Good." he grunted. "Finger stays off the trigger til you're ready, keep both eyes open."

"You sure are bossy." you said under your breath.

"'Scuse me?" he chuckled, "Ain't you the one who dragged me out here at the brink of dawn?"

You rolled your eyes, but bent forward.

“Careful with that,” he said. “Eyes are useful for shootin’. Would hate for 'em to get stuck like that.”

You couldn't help the chuckle you let out—great, so he's got dad jokes too.

“Now stay where you are,” he said. “I’m gonna move the shotgun where it’s supposed to sit. Easier than tryin’ to explain it five different ways, alright?”

You felt your cheeks burn a little, but nodded.

He moved behind you, close enough that the warmth of him settled at your back before he ever touched you. One hand reached around yours, thick fingers closing over the fore end of the shotgun to shift it against the top rail of the fence, enough to settle it steady against the wood. His other hand came to your shoulder, guiding the butt of the stock into place. It was heavy, but bearable thanks to the support of the fence in front of you.

"Want it over your shoulder, not pushin' into the collarbone. S'gonna kick harder than a mule and you'll be hollerin' about bein' sore for days."

You scoffed a bit, but let the stock settle over the crest of your shoulder as he positioned it.

“Now press your cheek right here,” he said, moving his hand from the barrel to tap the side of the stock. You tilted your head, trying to place it right. You nearly gasped when you felt the thick press of his fingers on the other side your neck as he guided you into position without thought. Not rough or impatient, only warm, certain, his callouses catching lightly against your skin. "There ya go."

Your body became suddenly very aware of him from that one touch. The scrape of his jacket against yours as his chest came in closer, the weight of him behind you, the heat of him against your back.

"Stay still, you're squirmin'—"

"—am not—"

You felt the breath of a laugh over your shoulders, and it made your skin rise in gooseflesh. The target was becoming blurrier by the moment.

"Now—"

You held very still as you felt him line his body behind yours, his breath now against your neck, his voice low and gravelly like honey on hot asphalt.

“Think about all that bullshit you been carryin’ around,” he grumbled. “Starin’ daggers at me for weeks. Comin’ up on my porch tellin’ me to shut up, callin’ me old, actin’ like I decided you don’t belong.”

"Joel—" you protested.

"S'okay, didn't take none personal." he said as he stepped up even closer, one hand going to your hip. “Breathe in.”

You sucked in a shallow breath.

He clicked his teeth. “Try again. You know none of that is true, don't ya, darlin'? Let it all go here. Don't belong in that head a'yours.”

You closed your eyes, annoyed and a little embarrassed, and pulled air in deeper this time, taking in the smells of the open Wyoming air. Cold morning. Damp grass. Coffee on his breath. Mint from when he'd been chewing the sprig on the way there. Pine soap. The fence rail rough beneath the gun.

His breath was so warm against your cheek as he murmured: "That's it, now let it out."

You let the breath leave you, nice and long and through your mouth—and with it went the bickering on his porch, the shame of the range, the weeks of him not looking at you, the ugly little voice that kept saying you were useless no matter how many loaves you baked or horses you brushed or shotguns you cleaned.

"Open your eyes now, and squeeze that trigger." he murmured, lips brushing your ear. As he said the word, his hand pressed forward on your hip, long, thick fingers winding around the sensitive skin just under the waistband.

When your eyes opened, the sun felt a little brighter, the day a little clearer. The target sharpened against the tree, the black rings settling in your sight.

Your stomach dipped for one horrifying moment, and then—you squeezed.

The shot cracked across the ridge, echoing off the sides of the mountains. Joel was right—the butt of the gun kicked hard, but you only felt it jostle your body back into his, harder, the force caught by your shoulder instead of biting into your chest.

You gasped, everything happening so fast before you were blinking rapidly and seeing the paper on the tree ripped just left of center.

“Shit—”

“Not bad for a first try.” you heard him say.

"I wanna go again." you said, breathlessly.

“Jackson’s gonna be needin’ their morning bread soon,” Joel chuckled, but he didn’t move. “Tommy’s gonna be wonderin’ where his cinnamon rolls are.”

You smiled wide, the adrenaline of the shot still coursing through you.

As your breath settled, both of you were still leaning over the fence, your body pressed back into the hard line of his. His hand hadn’t moved from your hip. Neither had yours from the shotgun. It would’ve been easy, maybe, to step away. To laugh, to clear your throat, to make some comment about those cinnamon rolls or old men or how if he'd stop being so bossy you could've probably hit the bullseye.

But…you didn't.

You only tilted your gaze over your shoulder.

He was so close—so close you could see almost every gray hair in his thick beard like winter's snowy streaks in a dark sky. You could see every line on his plump bottom lip, the shining spot where his tongue had just passed over it.

"Thank you, Joel." you whispered, "For…"

You trailed off, because Joel wasn't looking in your eyes anymore. They were such a pretty hazel you'd never noticed, and were fixed on your mouth.

"You're welcome." he whispered.

Your lips parted lightly when he tilted his head over your shoulder, and he took that as invitation to lean in.

He was so warm.

Like kindled fire in a cabin, like the first morning of solstice. The prickle of his mustache brushed your nose as he took your lips with his, breathing you in so deeply it made your knees go soft beneath you. You let out a whimper, hands tightening around the barrel and grip of the shotgun, wishing so badly to put them in his hair, all over his broad shoulders and thick muscles.

He seemed to know exactly what you needed, his one hand coming up to take the gun from your hands, placing it quickly but carefully against the fence. He only broke the kiss to turn you fully towards him before his lips were on you again, hungrier and needier as he pushed his body into yours.

His hands were all over you in an instant, planted on your hips and squeezing you harder, making you whine under his touch.

Your tongue traced his bottom lip, teeth nipping, begging wordlessly for entrance, and he gave it so easily. So eagerly. He groaned, opening his mouth for you, letting you lick inside, suckling on his tongue before you nipped again at that nice bottom lip.

His hands were everywhere—under your jacket but above your cotton top, sliding up your waist and back down again, never settling for long. They were so big and broad, squeezing and groping anywhere he could hold.

Yours wound around his neck so you could drag him closer, breasts pushed to his chest, the layers between you suddenly unbearable. His jacket. Your sleep shirt. His flannel. It was too much fabric—too much of everything that wasn’t his fevered skin against yours.

How could you ever have thought he was such an asshole? This grumpy old man— this stubborn, bossy, impossible man, was just as needy as you. Maybe worse. All that silence, that staring. Those weeks of pretending he didn’t see you across bakery counters and barn aisles and muddy streets. He needed this as much as you did, someone to set him straight, yes, but also… to tell him he was needed and good, too.

You moaned when his hands traveled lower, both palms filling with the round flesh of your bum, dragging you up against him. One hand pulled up beneath your thigh so your leg was over his hip, opening you enough for him to grind the hard denim of his cock against you.

“Oh shit—” you gasped as your back got pushed into the rails of the fence.

He was thick. You could feel it even through his jeans, through the stiff seam and the metal of his zipper, the heavy shape of his length ground into the cradle of your legs perfectly.

Joel’s mouth left yours with a wet sound and moved to your jaw, then your chin, then the side of your throat. His beard scraped at your skin, his mustache rough beneath your ear.

“S’alright, darlin’,” he murmured, rocking into you again, slower this time, meaner for how much control he had over it. “Just needed someone to show you how it’s done, didn’t ya?”

Your nails bit into the back of his neck.

“Joel—”

“Been fightin’ me all mornin’,” he said, his mouth dragging lower, teeth grazing where your pulse beat too fast. “All damn month, really.”

You couldn’t even argue. Not with his hips pressed just right and his hand gripping your thigh harder, holding you open against the fence.

“S’okay,” he said, voice rough against your throat, tongue laving over your carotid. “I’ll show you how to take me just as good, yeah?”

“Oh, yes,” you breathed, already nodding. “Yes, please, Joel.”

"What good manners you have, baby," he cooed.

Luckily he couldn't see the way your eyes rolled at that, but your mouth fell open as he bit down on the tender flesh of your shoulder.

"Oh!"

He growled, pleased, the sound vibrating up from his rib cage and against your skin before he push his cock into you harder than before. The fence post pressed into your back, a little painful through your jacket, his hands holding you tightly between it and himself.

“Tell me,” he groaned. “How long?”

"How long what, old man?" you tried to clipped retort, but it came out more like a whimper as his hands pulled you closer, dragging your cotton-covered seam over him harder. You had one hand thrown back over the fence rail to keep your balance, the other fisted tightly in his hair. Your head fell forward to watch where his lap met yours, thin floral pajama pants bunched tight where his stiff denim pressed into them over and over, the friction making your thighs tremble around his hips.

"How long has this sweet little pussy been wet —since we got up here, hm?"

"Fuck you," you moaned, which only made him laugh.

His head came up to look you straight in the eye, one hand going to the side of your face, thumb against your cheekbone, the wide breadth of his palm covering your cheek. His fingers dug lightly into the side of your neck as he forced your gaze back up to him. It was shockingly sweet for how menacing his smile was.

“Your little act doesn’t work on me, sugar,” he murmured, staring at your lips. “C’mon now. Tell me.”

You glared up at him, though it was a weak thing with your chest heaving and your leg hooked around his waist. "You're such an asshole."

He bent down to nip at your nose, "'fraid I think you might like that most about me."

The both of you were very still now, though you'd brought both of your ankles up to lock at his lower back, fully relying on him for balance. Your chest heaved with fresh lungfuls of air, finally catching up to what had felt lost and shallow before.

"And what about you?" you asked, tipping your chin up. "You really hate me as much as you act like you do?"

“Could never hate’cha,” he murmured, leaning down again, his voice lower now, almost too soft for the way he was still holding you against the fence. “Only thing I hate is how fuckin’ bad you make me want you.”

You blinked up at him.

"Is it really that much of a surprise, baby?" he added when he saw your expression.

"I mean—you—"

He was beginning to kiss you again, your flustered state seemingly invitation enough to resume his affection, gentler this time. He kissed your mouth softly, then the corner where the seam of your lips met, then up your cheek and over your brow.

"—you said we don't get along, that I should find someone else to teach me—that, that you had no use for me—"

Joel pulled back one more time, looking down at you. The hand that had been hooked under your knee came up to your face too, until he was holding your head between both hands, palms rough against your cheeks, fingers cupping the bowl of your skull.

His eyes moved over your face, and for once, there was no glower there. No hard set to his mouth. Just Joel, looking at you like the words had been sitting badly in his chest too.

"Should'a never said that, I know. I'm sorry. I was an asshole up at the trainin' range that mornin'."

"Yeah, you were." you pouted.

“Only said them things on the porch ’cause I know I shouldn’t want’cha like I do.” He shook his head, jaw tight, the confession seemingly costing him something. “Can’t fuckin’ help it though, baby. I can’t.”

“Then don’t,” you whispered.

"You're too young—" he whispered, "—too sweet for me. You're right, I'm old, I'm mean as a dog…"

Your delicate fingers wrapped around his thick wrists, holding him there, keeping his hands on your face.

“Truth?” you offered.

He nodded quietly.

Out there, you could just hear the breeze over the open fields around you. The soft nickering of the horses grazes, the birdsong of the woods beyond. It was awfully quiet where just you and Joel stood pinned against the old fenceline.

"I've wanted you for so, so long." you murmured.

His eyes flickered between yours, narrowing, almost disbelieving. Your grip on his wrists tightened.

"I have. And…and… I've been wet since we got here. Thinking about this—being all alone with you and—even if I can't fucking stand you glowering at me like that—"

He pushed his lips into yours again, but this time, it wasn't only the flame of hunger and eagerness, but the gentleness of tender affection.

“C’mere,” he whispered into your lips, hands sliding down your sides.

His hands were back on your body, pulling you closer, slipping under your jacket once more before finally reaching under your cotton night shirt. You could feel just how rough-hewn his fingertips were, how calloused and worn they were against the tender flesh of your body. But they felt so right, like this was where they belonged all along.

“You’re so soft, baby. Wanna feel how soft you are under these.” His fingers hooked lightly at the waistband of your cotton pants. “Take ’em off for me.”

You listened, of course you listened. He let your wobbly legs down gently from his hips, one hand staying firm at your waist until your boots found the grass again. Your knees felt useless beneath you, weak from the heat of him, from the way his voice had gone low and syrupy thick against your mouth. You reached for the ribboned hem of your sleep pants with clumsy fingers, and Joel watched you like he was trying very hard to stay patient.

The cotton slid down your thighs, catching for a second at your knees before you stepped out of them and your boots. Morning air touched your bare skin at once, cool enough to make you suck in a breath.

You started to pull your coat off too, but Joel caught the front of it in one fist and held it closed around you.

“You’re gonna get cold, baby,” he murmured, bringing you back into his arms to kiss you on the lips once more. “Keep it on.”

He was soon bending, kissing your chin, the soft skin of your throat, down your top and lifting it just enough to lick into your navel, making you giggle and squirm. He threw you a knowing look when you bit back a laugh at the crack of his knees, and you nearly opened your mouth to say something rude before his lips found your skin again.

He kissed lower, down the soft slope of your belly, until his mouth was pressed just above your mound where your panties still covered you. Stupid sleep underwear, you chastised yourself, suddenly annoyed you hadn’t thought this far ahead. But Joel didn't seem to care. He kissed the little bow at the waistband, something slipping from his mouth that sounded awfully like 'how cute'.

Your breath caught in the crisp morning air when his tongue dipped out over your cotton panties, right where your clit pulsed beneath. He let out a low hum of satisfaction, one thick finger coming up to pull the cotton aside.

“Why don’t you spread these pretty legs for me, hm?” His eyes flicked up to yours. “Or do I need to teach ya how to do that too?”

You scoffed, still in your head enough to want to bite back a curse at him, but he was already moving your leg for you, pushing your knee toward the fenceline until your boot found footing on the bottom rail. His eyes never left the damp spot darkening your panties.

As he pulled the cotton aside fully, he sighed, face tilting a little as he looked.

“You’re staring,” you murmured, nervousness fluttering in your belly.

His eyes glanced up at you, and your heart ricocheted into your throat. You felt bare. Exposed. Ready for him to turn cold again, to go back to that surly look and stone quiet like he’d only just remembered himself.

Instead, his thumb stroked once along your thigh.

“S’just so pretty,” he murmured. “Tryin’ to take my time, is all.”

Your mouth opened in another quick gasp as his lips pressed onto the swollen bud of your clit. You felt his tongue dip out lazily, curled like a basin for collecting the arousal that had pooled for him. He licked up and up and up, before suckling on your sensitive bud again. He moaned with you when your head fell back, your fingers digging harder into the fenceline where you held yourself up.

"That's it, that's it," he cooed when he pulled away to blow gentle air against your pussy. "What a good girl you are, just want a little taste before I put my cock in ya."

Oh god, the old man really had a filthy mouth.

He was diving back in again, now with a finger to prod at your entrance. Your knees suddenly felt wobbly, hardly able to keep you standing.

He licked and sucked at your pussy like he’d been waiting for it, messy and hungry now, no patience left in him. His finger pushed inside, thick enough to make you gasp, your walls clenching down around it as he groaned into you.

"Ohhhh…" you chorused together.

"Fuck, you're tight," he breathed.

"Oh god, Joel." you said at the same time.

"I know, I know," he cooed again. His voice had gone dark and syrup-thick, coated in arousal, every word dragged rough from the back of his throat.

“Just gotta open ’er up,” he murmured, kissing the inside of your thigh before looking back at where his finger disappeared inside you. “Ain’t no way my cock’s fittin’ in here before I get you ready.”

“It will,” you chanted, hips undulating up into his mouth. “It will, it will—”

He moaned at your eagerness, crooking his finger before pulling it out to the first knuckles, and inserting a second finger. You gasped, stretched over his thick digits, the ache of it full and perfect and worse because he looked so pleased with himself. Because he knew exactly where to press, where to push, how to lave his tongue over your clit until your body was singing his praise.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathed, watching your face as his fingers worked deeper. “There you go. There you go.”

Your head tipped back against the fence post, wood catching at your hair.

“She gonna squeeze my cock this tight too, huh?” he murmured, mouth brushing slick over your clit. “She likes my fingers in ’er.”

"Yes, yes, yes," you whispered, your eyes hooded but forcing yourself to watch him. Your other hand carded into his thick graying hair at the crown of his head, nails scraping through, and he made a rough, pleased sound into you. Almost a purr. Almost a growl. His eyes fluttered for half a second before he looked back up at you, mouth wet, beard shining, fingers still buried inside you.

"M'so close, Joel, so so close, pleeeaseee…"

"There's those sweet manners again, baby. Why don't you go ahead and beg me some more? Maybe I'll let you come right now, and then I'll make you come again around my cock. Huh? Sound good? Let me hear your pretty little begging again, baby, go on now."

He said it all while panting, tilting his head up so his eyes could watch you. You put on your best pout, bottom lip sticking out so he could see how much you really really wanted it.

"Pleeeeease, Joel, please—" you mewled, "your fingers feel so good, so thick, please let me come. I'll be good, I'll be good."

"Good girl," he murmured, breath hot against you, "go on, let me feel her soak me. Come, baby,"

It felt like your belly had been waiting for the words. The overwhelming build finally tipped, the wave cresting hard before crashing through you all at once. Your body went molten as you locked up around his fingers, pleasure coursing through your veins in hot, licking bursts. Your eyes squeezed shut, your mouth falling open around a low, obscene moan you had no control over.

Joel rocked you through it, fingers pushing in and out, fucking you with them while his tongue pressed gently at your overstimulated clit until you were twitching and pulling away from his mouth.

When he pulled his fingers from your walls, you nearly fell to the ground, your legs unable to hold you up. Joel caught you before you could drop, hands firm beneath your thighs as he lifted you fully against him, both your legs winding around his waist now. Lazily, sleepily, you watched him shrug out of his coat and throw it down over the grass. Your eyes were still too heavy to take all of him in properly, so your hands did it instead—big shoulders, broad chest, thick arms built from hard work and long hours.

Just as much a part of Jackson as you were. Maybe more.

He could do everything. It made you a little sick with envy, even now, even with your body still humming from his mouth and his fingers.

Joel saw your face change, but he was busy lowering you onto his coat, easing you down into the grass instead of keeping you pinned against the fence.

“What is it, baby?” he whispered, one hand cradling the back of your head as he settled over you. “What’s in that pretty little head of yours?”

He was half watching you, half working open his jeans until his cock was freed from the denim, heavy as it bobbed, flushed red and bobbing thick between you as he leaned closer.

You licked your lips, reaching for him, but Joel caught you by the wrist before your fingers could wrap around him. You gasped in surprise, but he only brought your hand to his mouth, kissing each pad of your fingers one by one.

“Don’t think I’ll last too long if you start that,” he murmured. “Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

You shook your head. “Nothing. You’re just…you’re so…”

You sighed dreamily, distracted by the feeling of his swollen, wet lips against the tips of your fingers.

“Old?” he offered. “Cranky? Rude?”

Your mouth twitched. “Yes, and…”

He laughed a little, but you went on anyway.

“I was just thinking about how perfect you are.”

Now he really smiled wide, shaking his head before nipping at your index finger. "Think you've got the wrong man, baby," he groaned a little, and then leaned over you.

You shook your head again, winding your arms around his neck, one hand cupping the nape of his hair while your nails scraped lightly along his scalp.

“Don’t think so.”

He hummed, kissing you again, and began to roll his hips against you so his cock slid up your belly, heavy and hot against your skin. The kiss deepened, lips slotting together, wet and tender, tongues sliding slow as your hands tightened in his hair and his weight settled over you.

“I don’t know if you’re gonna fit,” you whispered when he pulled his hips back too far and the head of his cock slipped up through the seam of your pussy.

He licked his lips, looking down at you. “Told ya I’d teach ya, didn’t I?”

You smiled, nodding. “M’nervous.”

“Don’t gotta be. I got ya, baby.” His thumb brushed along your hairline. “We’ll start nice and slow.”

He did as he said, sitting back a little just so he could grasp his cock in one hand, the other still cradling your head, petting your hair where it had fallen across his jacket. The head of him notched at your entrance, wet with arousal and spit, but the difference between two fingers and his cock suddenly felt impossible.

“Easy now,” he whispered, kissing your lips. “Take a breath for me, honey.”

You did as he said, for once without some retort, and pulled in a deep breath.

What started as control quickly turned into a gasp as he pushed inside.

“Oh fuck!” you squealed, clawing at his shoulders over his shirt.

He chuckled, and you wanted to slap him.

“Come on now, honey,” he murmured, kissing the corner of your open mouth. “You’re all tensin’ up. Curl your toes. Deep breaths. C’mere, gimme a kiss.”

Your toes curled automatically, did your best to pull in another breath, and he leaned down to kiss you earnestly, swallowing the next rough sound that left you as he pushed in another inch.

His tongue licked behind your teeth. His chest pressed yours down into the coat. The weight of him made the ground feel farther away somehow, the grass cool beneath your hips, his jacket bunched soft and worn under your shoulders.

“Oh yeah,” he breathed against your mouth, rougher now. “Ain’t that so good, baby? How’s that feel?”

Your head fell back onto the collar of his jacket. “Soooo…full. Fuck.”

“Almost all of it,” he murmured, jaw tight. “Just a little more. Pussy feels amazing, baby. S’like heaven.”

Your eyes squeezed shut as he pulled back a little, your mouth opening in a small, helpless shape when the drag of him caught every tender place he’d opened with his fingers.

“Yeah,” he sighed, watching your face. “There you go. She’s warmin’ up to me now.”

One of his hands slid from your hair to your throat, resting just beneath your jaw, not squeezing, only holding you there while his thumb brushed the jumping line of your pulse. "think she's even startin' to like me."

“You’re so corny,” you groaned, but your chastising cut off when he slid his cock in all the way, his heavy balls pressing against your ass at last.

“Oh—” you choked. “Oh, oh oh.”

Joel nodded like he felt it too, like he needed the confirmation just as badly as you did. Then he kissed you again, and you let him, loose and dazed beneath him, tongue sweeping out to taste his. You could still taste yourself there, musky and sweet on his mouth, and it made your walls contract around him.

Your body was starting to understand him now. The first sharp stretch softened into heat, your muscles loosening by degrees, letting him settle deeper until the fullness became less frightening and more necessary.

“Fuck,” he breathed, forehead pressing to yours. “You okay? How’re you feelin’, baby?”

“So good, Joel,” you whispered, fingers flexing in the fabric at his shoulders. “So good. Please, please fuck me.”

He groaned, ducking his face into your neck. “Gonna give it to you good, baby.”

He started slowly. Though, you weren't sure if he was exactly gentle. He was so big and there was too much of him for anything to feel really gentle. But he was careful, controlled in the sawing of his hips that pulled halfway out, and then pressing back in. Each stroke was concise, your fingers digging harder into his shirt, each little hiccup of air pressed from you.

His coat dragged beneath your back, the grass brushing cold against your bare thighs. Your sleep top had ridden up beneath your own jacket, leaving your stomach exposed to the morning air, but Joel was warm over you, broad and heavy and panting against your throat. Every time he pushed in, your body shifted against his, the ground catching you, the earth taking what the fence no longer had to.

The open air of the field collected your simpering sighs and loud, mewling moans, the day warming around you so that you saw sweat beginning to dapple his forehead when he brought his head up to look at you.

“So pretty, baby,” he breathed. “Such a pretty girl takin’ cock so well.”

You cried out when he changed the rhythm, picking up speed.

“I know, I know,” he moaned, his voice catching rough in his throat. “God, you feel so good, baby. Pussy feels like it was made for me, huh?”

“Yes, Joel, yes—ohhh, yes, yes, yes.”

“She’s tightenin’ up on me again,” he panted, eyes dragging over your face. “Gonna come for me already? What a good girl you are. C’mon, I wanna feel it around my cock.”

Your eyes widened when Joel’s hand slid down your body again, over your thigh, hooking it higher until your leg was thrown up over his shoulder. Your body folded beneath him, his cock reaching deeper as he leaned down into you.

“Fuck!” you squealed, holding tightly onto his hair.

He looked down at you with a little pout, a mock-sympathetic expression pulling at his mouth.

“Doin’ so good,” he murmured. “Takin’ my cock like such a good girl, baby. Come on now, let me feel her again. She feels like fuckin’ heaven.”

“Jooooel,” you whined.

But that crest of a wave was swelling worse now, higher, blood coursing hot through the river of your veins, sparking as it flooded your belly. Your hips tightened. Your muscles locked. Your whole body seemed to pull toward him, toward that hard, dragging stroke, toward the pressure building so tight you could hardly breathe around it.

“Oh god,” you gasped. “Oh god.”

“Make your old man happy, baby,” he panted, hips snapping harder now. “Come on my cock. Know you wanna. Know your pussy loves it.”

“Shut up,” you cried. “Shut up, shut up.”

He grabbed your face again, mock pout gone, teeth bared with the strain of holding himself together.

“Where are those sweet manners you had not too long ago?”

You squealed as he built up a faster rhythm. His hand hooked around your neck, pulling you up just enough to make you look down between your bodies, where his cock was splitting you open over and over.

“You see that, baby?” he groaned. “She’s milkin’ me. Beggin’ me to let her come, ain’t she? Look how good she’s takin’ me.”

“So good,” you murmured between moans.

It was true. His cock was covered with your thick arousal and come, pearly white and glistening around the shaft every time he pulled out, only to swing his hips back into you again.

“So why don’t you use those good manners and ask me?” he rasped. “Hm? Too proud already? Or are you too cock drunk?”

You pushed weakly against him, and he let you lay back down fully, following you down to kiss you. His mouth was wet, his breath uneven, his body still working yours into the coat beneath you.

“Gonna make me beg for it now, sweetheart?” he asked against your lips. “That it?”

You shook your head, too far gone to answer properly.

“I ain’t above beggin’,” he chuckled, though the sound broke wetly into a groan when you clenched around him again. “Wanna feel it so badly.”

He reached down between you, his thumb finding your swollen clit and strumming it with the perfect pressure.

Your eyes popped open, you didn’t even have time to beg. To ask. To tell him.

Your body locked up all at once, eyes squeezing shut as the pleasure burst bright and black behind your lids. It tore through you in waves, hips jerking beneath him, thighs shaking where he had you folded open. Your mouth fell wide around a sound you barely recognized as yours.

Somewhere outside the buzzing of your orgasm, outside your own moans and the pulse pounding in your ears, you heard Joel groaning louder.

“That’s it,” he gritted against your cheek. “Fuck, that’s it, baby. Give it to me. Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl.”

His thrusts started to lose their rhythm, turning deeper, rougher, his hips driving into you with less control each time. His hand tightened at your jaw, his forehead pressing hot to yours mouth open against yours, and then he pushed into you one last time, burying himself as deep as he could go.

Joel groaned your name like it had been dragged from somewhere low in his chest, and then he filled you, cock pulsing inside you as his body went heavy over yours, his breath breaking against your mouth.

For a moment, neither of you moved. There was only breath.

Yours, thin, uneven, still catching in your dry throat when you tried to swallow. He felt heavy over you, his breath thick against your cheek. His weight felt good, like a blanket, though your legs had begun to cramp until he let your leg down.

The open summer morning moved on around you. It all came back to your ears eventually, the cricking of the open barn door, the horses in the pasture and the birds singing from far away. The field smelled like fresh grass and weeds and sunshine, Joel's coffee still faint on his breath.

You hummed against him as he kissed the crook of your neck, his mustache and beard prickly against you. He feathered his lips up your throat until they were over your own lips, which you pressed gently against his. He pulled back, just looking at you. And you did the same. You brought your hand up to his face slowly, tracing the line of his brow, down his sharp nose and over the bow of his top lip.

"You are so perfect." you said dreamily.

He breathed a little laugh through his nose, a crooked, disbelieving smile pulling his lips. A shyness you weren't sure you'd ever seen.

The heat between you had started to cool. Your skin prickled beneath your open jacket, the air finding every place his body didn’t cover. You shivered, and Joel noticed at once.

“Chilly?”

“Only a little.”

He sighed, like he hated that he had to move, then leaned down to press one more long, lingering kiss to your lips before sitting back.

You made a small sound when he pulled out of you, your body too sensitive for even that. Joel’s eyes dropped between you, his jaw tightening for a second at the sight of himself slipping free, slick and spent against your thigh.

"Poor baby," he said, his thumb reaching out to slide up your wet and abused folds. You whined at the touch, and he pouted down at you.

"Easy, easy, I know. Gonna take care of her when we get home."

He sat back on his heels and tucked himself away first, hands slower now, less steady than they’d been when he’d taken the rifle from you. Then he reached for your sleep pants where they’d been left in the grass, shook them once to knock off the loose dirt, and turned back to you.

You blinked up at him, limp and boneless, still spread over his coat.

Joel looked down at you for a second, one brow lifting. “Don’t make me do all the work now, baby.”

You smiled sleepily. “You seemed to like doing all the work a minute ago.”

His mouth pressed into a line, but it didn’t hide the amusement in his eyes. “Smart mouth,” he muttered.

Still, his hands were gentle when he guided one foot through the pant leg, then the other. He pulled the cotton up your calves carefully, pausing when the fabric caught at your knee, easing it loose before working it higher. You lifted your hips only when he tapped them, and even then, barely.

“There ya go,” he murmured, drawing the waistband back into place beneath your rumpled top. He helped you sit up slowly in his lap, one hand braced behind your back, the other fixing the front of your coat around you. His knuckles brushed your stomach as he straightened your shirt, then pulled the jacket closed enough to keep the morning air off your skin.

You stayed like that for a moment, hiked up over his thighs, and he let your limbs fold around him again, hands back into his messy hair.

"I meant it—you—" you began, then licked your lips, staring up into his pretty hazel eyes again, "you're good, Joel. You're perfect."

He opened his mouth to protest, but sighed instead.

"Thank you for bringing me out here," you went on, "I'm sorry if I was mean earlier."

He smiled crookedly, "I was too."

You shook your head, "You had reasons to be."

He leaned down and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to your lips, "Bakery is gonna be wonderin' where you are, we better get back."

You held on tight even when he began to move, and a little mischevious smile twitched your mouth.

"What?" he asked, smile growing.

"One more shot?"

TWO DAYS LATER //

"Had a good day off?" Poppy asks, swiping mascara through her lashes.

You pull on your bra, clasping it at your back. Sequins and fringe today, the kind that swish and glimmer with every step, catching on the lights.

"I did. Thanks," you say, glancing up at her with a smile.

Just then, Diamond enters, holding a bouquet of flowers in front of her face.

"Scarlett, babe," she exclaims, peeking around them. "You've got a secret admirer."

You blink, hands stopping where they were doing up your bra. "What the hell."

"Jenny said some guy came in and left them for you. There's no note."

Before you can dwell on it, Lacey's voice chimes from where she sits at her vanity and interrupts the thought.

"Do you think it's that guy?"

Poppy gasps, sitting upright so quickly the mascara wand nearly flies out of her grip.

"The knight?"

You frown, shooting Lacey a questioning glance.

"What guy?"

"Oh, yeah," Diamond adds. "The private dance guy. He came back yesterday asking for you."

You straighten, taking the flowers into your arms, shoulders rigid.

"He give a name?" you ask carefully.

"Yeah. Joel something."

You would ask more questions if you could think of something, anything meaningful that springs to mind, but all you manage is—

"Cool... Thank you."

You bring the flowers to your nose, inhale the sweet scent of the lilies before setting them on your vanity.

While you fill a glass to set them in water, Poppy watches you.

Catching her watching you, you ask, "What?"

She comes up behind you, resting her chin atop your head when you settle into your stool, meeting your gaze in the mirror.

"He gets a dance, then comes back asking for you, then he brings you flowers—no questions asked."

She lifts her head, plucking a lip gloss tube from your bag.

"He totally has it bad," she says with a finality that brokers no argument.

You roll your eyes with a huff. "Come on, he does not. He just wants to sleep with me or something," you reason, and the thought settles in your stomach like a brick.

Maybe, you think to yourself.

Maybe not.

You've had admirers before, sure. But they've never brought you flowers. They've never come and gone just to do something nice for you.

This is different and you know it, but how?

"Look," Poppy says, perching on the edge of the table. "I'm not saying to marry the guy, but if he wants to treat you," she shrugs, "Let 'im."

With a sigh, you relent, offering her a lip gloss that better matches her eyeshadow.

"Always the voice of reason, Poppy."

She grins, blowing you a kiss. "And don't you forget it."

All night, your thoughts linger.

On the flowers in the dressing room. On the door, wondering if he'll come in any moment now and take you by surprise. On him.

You go through the motions.

Dance, sway, grind, repeat. Your calves are sore by the time you finish your second number and you're itching for a cigarette.

"Where you goin'?" asks Lola, watching you approach the door. You tug at your robe, pulling it shut, smokes in hand.

"Taking a break. I'll be back in a minute."

"'Kay," she chimes. "Just don't take too long. You know Richie hates when we come in smelling."

"Yeah, well," you slip one between your lips. "Richie can kiss my ass."

She barks a laugh, shaking her head. "Somethin' tells me he wouldn't say no."

You groan, gagging playfully as you head outside. Your lighter clicks. Again, again, again, until you stare at it with a scowl.

"Damn thing," you mutter.

"Need a light?"

You shouldn't recognize that voice, shouldn't remember it like a hymn, but you do. "Sure," you say, turning towards him.

Your eyes don't leave his as he brings the lighter to your lips, setting fire to the tip of the cigarette held between them. As soon as it cherries, he draws the flame away, clicking the lid shut.

You take a drag, draw the smoke deep into your lungs until it burns before blowing it out in a slow breath.

"This is getting creepy now," you tease, gesturing between the two of you. "First, you come on my day off. Then you leave flowers. Now you're loitering."

"Wouldn't call it that," Joel says.

Maybe you should feel unsettled that he's putting in the effort to cross paths with you. Instead, you're elated.

"Guess the flowers were pretty nice," you hum, tapping the cigarette over the ground. You watch the ash flutter down, crossing your arms against the chill in the air, cooling the sweat lingering at your nape.

"Wasn't sure what you'd like."

"And that matters?" you ask, studying him.

He holds your gaze. "'Course it does."

You smile as you look him over. He just came from work, if the dusty boots and flannel are any indication. The cigarette burns steadily between your fingers.

"Well, I liked 'em plenty."

He clears his throat, nods once. "Good."

Your fingers reach out before you can help it, swiping at his shirt just beside the collar, brushing away lint that isn't there. "You back for another dance then?"

"That what it's gonna take?" he asks quietly, enough that you almost miss it.

Your brows furrow, confusion flickering across your face. "What?"

"To talk to you. I gotta pay?"

"Yeah. That's how it works."

Taking another long pull of the cigarette, you put it out on the ashtray beside the trash. "Gotta get back in."

Halfway to the door, you toss him a glance over your shoulder. Still standing in place, looking entirely out of his element.

"You coming?"

"Yeah," he sighs. "I'm comin'."

In the club, the air smells like sweat, cheap liquor, and desperation. It's familiar enough to be comforting—this you know. Not flowers, not sweet words, not whatever it is Joel's trying to offer.

Then you remember his expression, that sheepish look on his face that says he's learning as he goes just like you are.

You turn to face him so abruptly, you nearly collide with his chest. Rising on your toes, like you have any right to, you press a kiss to his cheek.

Quick. Chaste. A barely there brush of your lips against his tired skin.

Watching his ears flush with color, you lean in and murmur, "For the flowers."

Patting his chest, you make for the dressing room. Along the way, the robe slipping from your shoulders, you catch Poppy's eye.

"Oh my god," she mouths.

"I know," you mouth back.

At your vanity, you're halfway through touching up your makeup when Diamond pokes her head in. "Scarlett, baby, you—"

"Have a dance," you finish, already rising from your seat. "I know."

Diamond laughs. "Damn, okay! Go get your man."

"He's not my man."

"Mhm. That's why you're fixing your tits like you care."

You glance down, your hands stilling where they were adjusting your bra. "He's not mine."

"Get your ass to the room already," she exclaims, swatting your ass as you walk past her.

"I'm telling you he's not," you call back. But the way you walk down the hall with renewed energy, heels clicking as you go, betrays you with every step.

He's already settled in by the time you slip inside, watching him fidget with his shirt, shift in the seat like he has no idea what to do with himself now that he's here.

"Didn't think you'd go through with it. Not gonna lie," you tease, stepping further into the room, swaying to the music that filters through the speakers.

He doesn't stare at your hips, doesn't watch you like a piece of meat. Instead, he averts his gaze entirely.

"You don't gotta dance," he says as you climb onto his lap.

"You paid for it," you murmur, staring at his lips for longer than you'd care to admit, bringing his hands to your waist.

"Not the dance. I paid to talk to you."

"And why would you do that?"

You're watching him now, head tilted like he's a puzzle you're keen on figuring out, but half of the pieces are still missing.

"'Cause I wanna know."

"About what?"

"About you."

That makes you freeze, staring at his face and searching those hazel eyes that are looking straight through you. Your hand rests on his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart against your palm.

You want to believe him, but your mind keeps telling you things like this don't happen to girls like you. Still, against your better judgment, you choose to believe him.

"You're serious."

"Said I was," he mutters gruffly.

When the song changes, the momentary lapse between beats filling the room with quiet, you move off of his lap to sit beside him. Thighs touching, his denim-clad leg warming yours.

"What do you wanna know?" you ask cautiously. "I don't think I can give you much."

"Whatever you wanna tell. Why you work here, what you like, what you don't."

You laugh quietly, wryly. Too good to be true.

"Sounds like a date."

"If you want it to be," is all he says, and your pulse thumps a pattern you don't recognize in response.

Swallowing, you glance down at your outfit. A skimpy two-piece covered in fringe and tacky sequins, itchy beyond belief. Heels that leave you blistered after an hour, that dig into your skin until it's mottled and bruised.

"Ain't exactly dressed for one," you murmur, pulling lightly at a strand of the fringe.

He looks at you then, fingers finding your chin, tilting it until you're forced to meet his gaze.

"Think you look pretty."

Without meaning to, your fingers curl against his nape. His hand settles on your thigh, warm and steady.

Not moving. Not trying to grab more than he deserves. Just touching you to feel close to you.

"I don't have a favorite color," you say quietly. "I like multiple, I guess. Pink, green, purple. Things like that."

You watch him for silent permission to continue, and he hums, nodding his head only once.

He doesn't interrupt, doesn't act surprised that you aren't the woman in front of him now all the time. That there are days when you have no sex appeal at all, and you wear granny panties for the sake of comfort.

You tell him you like to read, that you watch old romance movies and pretend you're the heroine the guy falls in love with. That you think falling in love is something that only happens in cinema and not real life.

You talk about how you have days where you feel disgusting and can barely pull yourself out of bed, and only when you feel too vulnerable to continue do you stop.

"I don't know what else to say. No one ever really asks me this kinda stuff."

He leans into your touch, your fingers scratching lightly at his scalp as they comb through his hair.

"S'alright," he says, voice low. "You tell me when it comes to you."

Your lips move before your mind can catch up. "Okay. I will."

The men in the club cheer loudly, the sound spilling through the crack beneath the door, drawing your attention to it. One of the girls must be performing—Poppy, maybe Lacey.

"It's not all bad working here," you admit suddenly, feeling the need to justify your decision. "I need the money, but it's a decent job."

For some reason, you think he'll tell you you're a fool. That this job is degrading, not good enough for a girl like you. Or maybe it's just right, and this is all he thinks you're worthy of doing.

"Never said it wasn't. A job's a job."

"Yeah," you smile. "Yeah, it is. The girls treat me like family, y'know? And the money's something, at least. That's all I can really ask for."

"I know what you mean," he says, and it feels like you parted the curtains on a dark, gloomy day and sunlight filled the room.

He tells you he's a contractor. That he has a daughter. That he struggles often, but does what he can for her. It makes you look at him differently.

"You seem like a good man," you murmur, fingers leaving his nape to toy with the hem of his shirt.

"Don't know about that," he chuckles.

"C'mon. Don't be modest."

A smile teases his lips. "Ain't that either."

You hardly realize how much time has passed until someone knocks at the door. "Scarlett? You have another request."

He looks away without a word, patting your leg. "S'alright. Go on."

You untangle yourself from him, withdrawing your legs from across his lap, watching him stand from the couch in silence. He holds out a hand which you take without reluctance, lifting you up easily.

Adjusting your bottoms, you're about to thank him for coming when he asks, "You got a ride home?"

"What?"

"Could give you one... If you wanted."

You shift on your feet, sore and aching in your heels. "You sure?"

He reaches out to steady you, hands hovering for a moment before settling at your sides, pulling you closer. "Yeah," he rubs lightly at your skin. "I'm sure."

You smile, smoothing his hair back. "Alright. But no funny business."

He snorts. "None of that."

"I don't get off for another hour though," you say apologetically.

"I'll wait."

You snicker despite yourself. "God, you're so weird."

He releases you finally, leading you to the door. "Yeah, you said that last time."

"And I meant it."

"That why you're blushin'?"

You straighten, cheeks burning hot when you press the backs of your hands to them. "I am not."

The corner of his mouth lifts, enough to have you staring at his mouth in disbelief. "Sure," he says, thumb brushing your cheek so gently, you'd think you imagined it. "If you say so."

And then he's leaving the room, gone before you can think of a response. You're left standing there with nothing but the rapid jump of your heart to keep you company.

As you and the girls head outside, the parking lot empty save for a few sedans and the bartender's SUV, you spot Joel's pickup truck instantly. It's a little beat-up, but well maintained despite its age.

He gets out when he sees you hobbling over, feet covered in blister patches beneath your socks.

"Need a hand?" he asks, opening the door for you.

"No, it's okay—"

He lifts you up easily, gripping your midriff to help you into the passenger seat.

A giggle escapes you. "I could've gotten up myself."

"You're limping. Don't mind helping," he says quietly.

It's so kind, the words sweet in your ears, you can't help but sigh softly in response.

"Thanks, Joel."

He shuts you in, rounding the truck to climb into the seat with a grunt. He throws it into reverse, pulling out of the spot and heading onto the main road.

"I'll guide you. Just straight from here, then make a left at the light."

"No problem."

The silence stretches, interrupted only by the idle drone of the radio and the quiet hum of the engine.

His hand rests around the shifter, thumb tapping the leather absentmindedly, your eyes flitting to it every few seconds. You bite at your lip, grip tightening around the flowers, the paper crinkling gently.

"You have a good day?" you ask abruptly.

"Can't complain. You?"

"...Yeah. I had fun."

The turn signal flicks to life—a steady click, click, click until he turns. The moment he straightens out the wheel, your fingers brush his in question.

You graze the line of his wrist, then his knuckles. An accident, you tell yourself. He glances at you briefly then turns his hand over, not saying a damn thing about it.

You slip yours into it, fingers lacing together. When his thumb rubs along your skin, your head leans back against the seat.

"That's nice," you whisper.

He doesn't respond, but you know he heard you when he squeezes lightly.

You watch him sidelong—following the slope of his nose, the scruff along his jaw, the way his lashes flutter against his cheek when he blinks.

"You're starin'," he murmurs.

"I am. Can't help it."

His face softens, jaw working then relaxing again.

"Still goin' the right way?"

You look ahead, recognizing the church on one corner and the McDonald's with its bright sign on the other. "Yeah. Turn right at the next light."

The conversation filling the air isn't small talk. It's more than that. Something unfamiliar that makes your defenses fall a little further with every breath you take in the dark cabin.

"This is me," you gesture, already gathering your things like you'll be expected to leave the second he stops.

It's a dreary apartment complex—a former motel converted into still-overpriced units that you share with more roommates than anyone knows what to do with. No central A/C despite the sizzling Texan summers, hardly a kitchen, and a single closet that scares you to open from how obnoxiously full it is.

To your surprise, he pulls into the spot closest to your door before putting the truck in park. He scans the exterior, and having had to defend it to others before, you do it again.

"It's not that bad inside. A little cramped, but we make do."

"You live with people?"

You shrug a shoulder. "A couple roommates."

"Okay," he says, exhaling slowly. "Ain't my business."

"Isn't it?" you ask, searching his face. "Am I not your business?"

"You wanna be?"

Bringing your joined hands to your lips, you hold his gaze as you press a kiss to his fingers.

"Ask me again the next time you see me."

He mulls it over then.

"Over dinner?"

"Dinner?"

"I ain't a bad cook," he says in justification. "My daughter might disagree, but I can make somethin'."

"Okay... Yeah, dinner sounds good. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow. Six?"

"Six is good," you say quickly, like he'll suddenly change his mind. "Pick me up at six."

You start toward the apartment, flowers in your arms, duffle slung onto your shoulder.

Halfway there, you turn. He's still there, engine idling, watching to make sure you get inside.

You laugh to yourself. "Go home."

He shakes his head. "Get inside first."

"Chivalry isn't dead, huh?" you ask, twirling your keys around your finger.

"Not if I can help it."

Only after you've turned the key in the lock and given him a wave does the truck finally pull away. The engine fades into the night just as the door clicks shut behind you.

a/n: FINALLY I HAVE AN UPDATE 💔💔 forgive me for the constant delays, i was so incredibly busy with work and class, i fell behind on everything, but i'm excited to be back and i'll hopefully have part III up by next week! thank you for reading, and thank you for helping me hit my next follower milestone! ilysm!!! ❤️

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

“This is highly unprofessional,” your voice hitches between syllables, lust a hook that snags the thread of your self-control; a once tightly wound spool that now seems to unravel easily at the whims of the man currently devouring the bare skin of your neck.

“Take it up with HR,” Sam’s hands, never idle, busy themselves with their respective tasks - his left at the base of your neck beneath the curtain of your hair, a steady hold like an anchor as his right travels a gradual path. His fingers start at your knee, dancing along the slit of your dress as he starts to push the satin fabric of it up like an obstacle to be removed. 

But you grab his wrist, pausing him there between your thighs and out of reach from the place you both long for him to be. He kneads the soft flesh there like he can’t help himself, like he’d take what little he can get and savor it anyways, ever the optimist. 

“We shouldn’t.” 

He kisses his way back up to your face, efficient and measured in his attention as he leans back from you not to create any real cavern of distance, but to catch your eyes in his, to give you that wolfish smile that  you know he’s wearing before you see it for yourself. 

“When has that stopped us before?”

He’s not wrong, but you don’t tell him that, instead letting the pendulum of indecision swing somewhere between base wants and rational thought as you take in what little you can see of him in the dim lighting. 

You’re in a rather precarious position, balanced here on the edge of a spare table in some disarrayed supply room, having abandoned both the mission at hand and your propriety. The latter you have no real hope of salvaging, not if Samuel Drake is within twenty feet of you, but the former…that’s not something you’re willing to part with. 

“We still have a job to do, Sam.”  

“So?” he shrugs, and you feel him test your hold on his wrist, finding it ironclad, but smiling still like you were a lock nearly picked, “We can be quick.” 

 “I don’t want to be quick.” 

You keep your eyes on his, free hand playing with the curls at the nape of his neck, and you watch his pupils dilate just a fraction as their attention catches on your lips. 

“You’re killin’ me here,” and he does actually look stricken, starved even, like the very idea of not having you right here and now is a torture not easily beared. And he says you’re dramatic. 

“I think you’ll survive another couple hours,” you trust him enough to unwind your grip on his wrist but he doesn’t move his hand, simply keeps it there halfway up your thigh like he has no other place to be. You offer him a small consolation, a whisper of a kiss, leaning back when he tries to deepen it, “Besides, I’ll make the wait worth your while.” 

“Is that right?” 

“Scout’s honor.”

He snorts, close enough still that you can feel his breath on your face,“They give out badges for bein’ a little slut now?” 

“Asshole.”

“Tease.” 

You shove his chest hard enough that he stumbles backwards, freeing yourself from the cage of his grasp and gaining a small opportune window to hop down from the table before he can trap you again; you don’t trust yourself to resist him twice.

You do your best to undo the damage wrought by your irresponsible decisions, first straightening out the manhandled fabric of your dress to lay properly. You find your hastily discarded clutch on the floor, thrown some feet away in the heat of the moment beside an empty mop bucket, and immediately rummage through it for your pocket mirror. By the grace of some god who must have a soft spot for the lustful, the reflection that stares back at you is nearly untouched, save for a few tangles in your hair. You take a moment to give thanks to yourself for having the wherewithal to don a lip stain tonight; you’d learned that lesson the hard way. 

His gaze stays on you, fixated, begging to be returned, but you make him wait - patience is a virtue he could use a refresher on. And when you finally grant him your attention, you find him looking at you with his head cocked slightly, smug smile on his face, the one that immediately sets your skin alight. 

“What?” 

“Nothin’,” he shrugs, feigning innocence despite the look in his eye implying anything but, “Just enjoyin’ the view.” 

Your groan, throwing a loose mint in your purse at him, “Dude.”

“Oh come on, it’s a good line,” he laughs, that self-pleased rasp you’ve come to love. 

“Yeah for a made for tv movie, maybe.” 

“Trust me - the things I’m thinkin’ of when I’m lookin’ at you would not make it to TV,” he pauses, furrowing his brow in fake-thought, “Well, maybe Cinemax.” 

“Don’t make me throw another mint at you.” 

But it’s a threat ignored, one that does nothing to smother the tangible, vexing look of want in his eye, his smile like a warning you don’t know if you’ll have the strength to heed. You feel claustrophobic beneath the attention, like a target to be honed in on, and when he takes a step toward you, you immediately match his stride but backwards, your laugh a nervous chime, “Nuh-Uh. Park it, grabby.” 

“What - no kiss goodbye?”

“No nothing until we finish this job.”

He rolls his eyes, but the words do what they need to, impeding his approach. “God, you’re startin’ to sound like Victor.” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” 

“Well it certainly isn’t a good thing, I’ll tell you that much.” 

You give him a pointed look, one he’s intimately familiar with, and start to head towards the exit, feeling him in tow behind you at a disconcerting distance. He pauses there at your back when you reach the door, not close enough to touch you but just enough that you can feel the heat of him, steady and maddening, and you’re tempted to elbow him in the gut as a lesson in personal boundaries. 

You can hear the low hum of a crowd even before you crack the door open, the quick sliver of sight only confirming what you already feared. “Shit; there’s people everywhere.” 

“Shame,” but he doesn’t seem even remotely concerned, and you feel him lean down, his next words spoken into the shell of your ear, “Guess we’ll have to find a way to kill the time.”

“Don’t start,” you whip around to face him, no longer trusting him to behave without your eyes on him. 

“I’m just sayin’,” he grins at you like you’re some piece in a game of his own making, perfectly placed right where he wants you, “All work and no play…” 

“I play plenty, thank you very much.”  

“Speakin’ of,” he narrows in on you with a single, calculating step, and you have nowhere to go, not with the wall at your back, finding yourself well and truly trapped in the exact position you were trying to avoid, “Remember that closet in Marseille? You didn’t seem too pressed about foolin’ around then.” 

Oh, you most definitely remember that. Your bodies between hung coats, barely concealed, one leg on his shoulder as he knelt there on the floor and made you cum twice with just his tongue; not a moment one forgets. 

“Sam -” 

And his arms are somehow on your waist again, pulling you into him as sure as the tide, and you hate the way your body folds completely to his aims like it were as inevitable as gravity, no resistance to the wandering feel of his hands. 

“Then there was that out of order bathroom in Mataró, and the random Porsche we broke into in Bristol, and the -” 

Heat crawls up your spine as you swat his chest, trying and failing miserably to gather the non-existent pieces of your restraint, “Those were all after we’d finished the job. Perv.” 

“Hey I hate to break to you, sweetheart,” his voice is a low, dangerous rumble as his lips fall to your cheek, kissing a path to your ear, “but if I'm a perv, then you’re most definitely a perv, too.” 

“Wow, that’s -” you can’t help but laugh, even as he starts to lightly trail his mouth down your neck, “you know, I don’t think a guy’s ever called me a perv to try to get in my pants before.”

He lifts his head to look down at you, eyebrows dancing suggestively, “Is it workin’?”

“You’re incorrigible, you know that?”

“I love it when you talk sweet to me.” 

And god help you, but you wind your arms around his neck as he starts to close what little space remains between the two of you, all sense be damned, when a minuscule, distant part of you picks up the lack of noise outside. The silence like a siren awakens the rational part of you long thought dead, and you turn your face before he can kiss you, unlacing your arms from his neck to peek through the door again. 

You hear him audibly sigh as he rests his head on your shoulder in defeat. 

There’s a lag in the crowd, a gift you don’t want to take for granted, so you hastily tug him through the cracked open door, only creating a gap just big enough to squeeze through, “Come on, Romeo - The coast is finally clear.”

“You know, it’s cruel to toy with a man like this.”

He’s still maintaining that same level of near non-existent distance as you carefully close the door behind you, and it’s entirely reckless, the way he’s shamelessly toying with you even now out in the open, no walls to hide behind.

“You’re a big boy; I think you can handle it,” and it’s not fair for him to be the only one that gets to torment, so you smack his still half-hard dick, smiling sweetly up at him like you’d only just given him a kiss. 

He winces, gritting his teeth as he’s rendered stagnant by an approaching group of partygoers who unknowingly steal any hopes he has for retaliation, “You’re gonna pay for that later.” 

You pretend to fix his tie, saccharine smirk still on your face, “Promise?” 

And he apes that same expression, “You’re terrible.” 

“You love it.”

“Maybe.”

You both willingly cage yourselves here for a moment, eyes locked to one another’s like a silent standoff. But you break first, sighing as you take a few slow backwards steps from him, “Well, this was fun and all, but I’m off to do some work. I recommend you do the same, Mr. Drake.” 

“Much rather do you.”

You point a warning finger, “Behave.”  

“No promises.” 

You turn your back to him, thinking yourself finally free from the clutches of depravity, when you feel, unmistakably, a hard smack to your ass. It’s loud enough that it draws the attention of a few stray attendees around you, but you don’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. You simply walk straight ahead, flushed head to toe, right ass cheek stinging, as if nothing had happened at all. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The snack table at this gala, much to your dismay, is a rather lacking assortment considering the tax bracket you're surrounded by. But you keep any snide comments to yourself as you eat your fourth canape, some concoction of cheese and mystery meat that’s nearly edible when accompanied with a generous swig of wine. You’re nursing your third glass, and probably should’ve stopped after the second, but who were you to turn down an 82 Lafite bordeaux? 

Somewhere off in the distance, a well-paid schmuck is parked in front of a baby grand, playing a distasteful classical rendition of a Madonna song that escapes you. Your feet tap absentmindedly to the rhythm as your eyes scan the snack table for your next victim - a tea sandwich maybe, or a chunk of brie with a nice piece of fig, or perhaps - 

“Nice of you to finally join the party,” Sully’s voice breaks through your grazing stupor, and you jump at the sudden, accusatory sound of it. 

“I was having a dress malfunction,” is the excuse your wine-rotted brain decides to clumsily spew out as you turn to him, food mumbling your words. You try to chew quickly, wiping stray puff pastry crumbs from your chest, the picture of poise and grace. 

"Couldn't've come up with a better lie, huh?” You watch his face fall to an amused scowl, crossing his arms the way he does when he’s about to haggle someone, scotch balanced on his elbow. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You know damn well what I mean.” 

You laugh, not entirely pleased with the sound of it but it’s casual enough, “Uh, I don’t, actually. Hey, how many of those have you had, Sully?” you gesture to his drink, taking a sip of your own to rid your mouth of the stray crumbs still clinging to your teeth, “Maybe the scotch is starting to get to you.” 

“The only thing that’s gettin’ to me is you two bozos on my nerves. You’re growin’ sloppy.” 

Shit.

You can tell by the furrow in his brow that he isn’t going to drop whatever he’s got between his teeth until he’s satisfied that it’s dead, that he’s made his point. But you don’t let yourself give in that easily, foolishly clutching onto a distant possibility that maybe, just maybe, you could gnash your way out. 

“Just because I’m taking a break to enjoy the refreshments does not make me sloppy, thank you very much. And I’ll have you know I’ve been working extraneously this whole night to make sure-”

“You’re really gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”

You shrink beneath the crushing weight of pure disappointment in his eye, but hold your shaky, crumbling ground despite yourself. 

“Say what?”

He sighs, shaking his head, hesitant like he was about to open a door he knew he wouldn’t be able to close, “Alright. Have it your way,” a sip of his scotch is his only moment of pause before he says, “I know you’re sleepin’ together.” 

Your eyes widen before you can stop them, and a laugh leaves your mouth that you have no real control over, a loud, anxious, off-kilter sound, and still, like the stubborn, stupid asshole you are, already knee deep in a grave you dug yourself, you keep burying, “Okay, now I’m seriously worried about you - are you coming down with a fever or something?” 

He wears a placid expression, almost patient, but in the way an experienced fighter knows to wait, to bide their time, let their opponent tire themselves out before making their first strike. And you’re not expecting his debut jaw-shattering hit when he sighs, and shakes his head, and says,  “I’ve got two words for you, kid - shower. Dubrovnik. That ringin’ a bell?”

Fuck. 

FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.

It did, unfortunately, ring a very loud bell. Your memory, cruel as she is, decides to bombard you with flashes of the things you and Sam did to each other in that shower, depraved, borderline animalistic things that apparently, your very good friend Victor Sullivan had borne some form of witness to.

You find yourself wishing the floor would open up and swallow you whole, or a meteor would spontaneously crash through the vaulted ceilings, or a sudden on-set aneurysm would strike you down - anything to save you from this.

“How much did you hear?” 

He recoils at the question, “Nothing x-rated, if that’s what you’re askin’. I got the hell out of there before I could.” 

You let out a sigh of relief that you feel all the way down to your soul. It’s a small but welcomed reprieve, not enough to staunch the horrifying sting of mortification all together, but it’s a minuscule win you’ll take, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I'm sayin’ somethin’ now, aren't I? And not cause I want to, either, but you gave me no choice with you foolin’ around on the clock.” 

Another devastating blow to your dignity, falling somewhere behind your ribs,“How did you-” 

“I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. And normally I'd keep my nose out of it, but the last thing I need is for you two punks to get slapped with an indecent exposure charge while we’re in the middle of a goddamn job.” 

“Shit,” it’s a final right hook, signed, sealed, delivered straight to the marrow of you, as you look up to your friend and feel the only thing the losing side ever gets to feel - shame, regret, guilt. They cling to you like scarlet letters, stitched into your skin. “I’m so so sorry, Sully. You’re completely and totally right. I - I don’t know what I was thinking,” you weren’t, is the crux of the problem; it seems you’re incapable of it when it comes to Sam. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

The handsome lines of his face are completely clear of any animosity as he considers you, and you wonder if you look as outwardly pathetic as you feel. You’re expecting him to dole out at least one more well-deserved hit - something about how he expected more from you or that he didn’t know you were capable of being so insanely thoughtless. Instead, his gaze softens, tone nearly gentle as he says, “Is it serious?”

You feel yourself blush at the frankness of his words, letting out the same habitual, nervous laugh with the futility of donning hole-ridden armor,“Is anything with Sam serious?” 

He shrugs, taking another sip of his scotch, eyes sharp as if he were looking for clues between your every syllable, “Maybe not. But I’ve never seen you act this way with a fella before.”

What?

You're stunned into silence, blinking, waiting for thought and speech to return to you for several long, painful seconds before you awkwardly croak out, “It’s - it’s not like that, Sully. Really. We’re just friends having fun. Nothing more.”

Your own words sound hollow even to you, but he doesn’t push, just studies you carefully for a few moments before he says, “Well -  be careful, yeah? Commitment isn’t exactly his strong suit. And I don’t want my best girl gettin’ her heart broke.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not looking for commitment then.”

“Yeah. Good thing.”

He looks at you with an expression far too close to pity for your comfort, and this elongated silence between you is only making it worse. So you finish the remnants of your wine, and pray that your brain still has some form of humor left to cut the pair of you free from the embarrassing weeds of honesty and vulnerability you’re tangled in now. 

“Well…that was certainly not on my bingo card for tonight.” 

He chuckles, all too happy to follow your detour, “Trust me, it wasn’t on mine either.”

“Don’t tell me we’re going to have The Talk next?” 

“I think we’re way past that, doll.” 

 “Way past?” you scoff, clutching your invisible pearls, “What are you trying to say exactly?”

He knocks his elbow into you, “Nothin’ you haven’t heard before.”

“Wow, okay, funny guy. Keep it up and your next trip is gonna be a one way ticket to a home.”

He barks out a laugh, “N’aw you love me too much for that.”

“Don’t be so sure, old man.” 

“Eh, I’ll push my luck.” 

“Push you right into a wheelchair, more like.”

He points a finger at you, no real malice behind his scornful tone, “Hey watch it, smart ass.”

You shrug, holding his gaze as you smile at each other, “You started it.” 

“Yeah well, serves you right for makin’ me play Mother Hen.” 

“Okay, fair enough,” you hold out your free hand, an olive branch for the taking, “Truce?”

And he grasps it without hesitation,“Truce. Now, come on - let’s go finish scopin’ this joint out.” 

“Yes. Let’s.” 

And you do. You make small talk with the other guests as you take note of all the minute details to fill in the loose ends of your blueprint back at the hotel. The number of exits. The type of locks on the windows and doors. What weapons the security guards are carrying and if they look like they know how to use them. But all the while, in the background of your mind, a constant, insistent buzzing like the hum of cicadas in the summer. 

I’ve never seen you act this way with a fella before. 

What the fuck did he mean by that? 

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The solitude your hotel room offers is little comfort when you know it’s a state not long preserved. 

Sam would be here soon, surely, despite your best efforts to the contrary. There’s little one can do to impede the will of a Drake, but it didn’t stop you from trying, your method of choice a subdued strategy - the cold shoulder. Part of you had hoped it would be enough to steer him clear of you, but you know the bastard is probably just thinking you did it all to drive him crazy; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time, in his defense. 

You’d excused yourself from the debrief back in Sully’s room, your makeshift basecamp, blaming your early exit on a wine-induced headache and feeling nearly-guilty as you left them with nothing more than an apology. But you knew your absence would slow any planning, thus giving you precious time to think. And stew. And panic. And wonder if maybe coming to your room alone wasn’t so good of an idea after all. 

You’ve already abandoned your too-tight dress and too-tall heels, discarding them nearly the moment you got back to exchange them instead for bare feet and a giant t-shirt. You can’t stop filtering between a disjointed routine of sitting, standing, and pacing that at least seems to match the manic tempo of your thoughts.  

I’ve never seen you act this way with a fella before. 

Sully’s words rattle in your mind like a piece knocked loose, one you can’t seem to get righted back into place. And now that you’re alone, there’s no external impediments to stop the dam from bursting. The same way pain can come long after an injury, when the fog of adrenaline passes and the body finally gives in, you find yourself succumbing here to feelings you never took the time to give breath, that you never even knew existed. 

You force yourself to sit with it, truly, this six month old thing neither of you has bothered to give a name. No set terms to review. No real attention bestowed to what it all means, if it means anything at all. You haven’t been with anyone else. Haven’t even given that possibility a passing thought. No. The only man that occupied your mind was him. And it was a change so gradual, so insidious, that you weren’t even aware of it until now. Somewhere, somehow, beneath the cloak of impromptu hookups, the lines in your mind began to blur, and the path blindly taken strayed from casual fun into untraveled terrain you dare not begin to map out. Not now. Not when you can finally feel the extent of which he’s wormed his way into the very sinew of you, an infestation now too far gone to possibly eradicate. Maybe Sully was right. Have you ever felt this way about someone? Have you ever let yourself? 

Fuck. 

Your stomach plummets at the sound of the familiar chime of the key card, a prelude song that’s nearly pavlovian the way your body anticipates the dance that always follows. He steps through the threshold, still donned in his tux sans his tie, looking so infuriatingly handsome it makes your chest seize. 

“Hi,” a soft smile is etched into his face as he takes unhurried steps into the room. 

“Hi.” 

He clears his throat, cocking his head to the side, that playful look in his eye gleaming as he glances around like he has something to find among the bare bones furniture of a chain hotel, “Sorry to intrude, miss, but I came to investigate a noise complaint. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

You try to hide a smile, already caught in the pull of his game as you squint your eyes in pretend thought, “A noise complaint? No. I haven’t heard a thing.” 

“Apparently there’s been repeated reports of - uh - incessant banging. That, and lots of loud moaning.”

“Sounds serious.” 

“It is, actually. A punishable offense, even.”

“Well I hope you find the people responsible then.” 

He twists his head around as if to take in the full expanse of your tiny room, eyebrows furrowed. You watch him as he walks over to the meager two-seated table by the far window to run a finger across the scratched vinyl, inspecting his un-dusted pads like a cheap impression of Columbo, “You do a lot of moanin’ in here, miss?” 

A small laugh slips that you manage to mask as a scoff, “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

"I'm not sure what you’re trying to insinuate, but I've never moaned a day in my life.”

You watch his lips twitch as his eyes fall to you, “Never, huh?”

“Nope,” you shake your head, lifting your nose at him in an act of haughtiness, “So I'm afraid you must have the wrong room.” 

“See, now that’s a much bigger problem,” he tsks, sighing, shaking his head like he faces a job most dire, “I’m afraid I can't leave here in good conscience until we get that little…never moaned problem a’yours all sorted.” 

“What kind of hotel is this?” 

“One that takes the satisfaction of our guests very seriously.” 

He’s wearing a dangerous smile as your eyes lock, but he doesn’t move from the table. 

You hate the way your skin hums with the urge to touch him. “And will I be charged extra for this…service?”

“Oh no. This one’s on the house,” he keeps his gaze on you as he shrugs off his suit jacket, hanging it there unceremoniously against the back of the chair, his dress shoes the next object of his attention. You don’t bother hiding the hungry way you watch him,  eyes lingering on the move of his muscles beneath his dress shirt, on the tapered shape of his waist. 

“Lucky me.”

He closes the distance between you in a few easy strides, seeming to glide against the floral-patterned carpet. You expect his hands to reach for their usual favored destinations, but instead, he frames your face with his grasp, cradling you there as you look up at him. “How’s the head?” 

“I’ll live.” 

His thumb strokes the apple of your cheek, eyes a searching spotlight on your features like he was trying to see through you. “You know, I don’t think I had a chance to tell you how beautiful you look tonight.” 

“Dude,” you shake free of his hold, trying and failing to hide the inching feel of a blush, “You can skip the whole flattery act; I’m already gonna sleep with you.” 

“It’s not an act, you brat,” his arms a lasso that wind around your waist, a firm hold unable to be broken; not that you’d want to, anyways, “I couldn’t keep my eyes off a’you. Seriously. 

“Well that’s rather concerning considering you were supposed to be keeping your eyes on the security system.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you decided to wear a dress like that. And honestly I’m a little ticked off y’didn’t let me take it off you myself.” 

“So your lack of professionalism is my fault?”

“Eh, mostly I'd blame the girls here,” his eyes motion downwards to your cleavage, hidden now beneath your worn sleep shirt, “Violet, especially.”

“You have got to stop anthropomorphising my tits.”

“Never.”

When his lips start their descent to you, you anticipate fire, raging and explosive, but what’s given is a smoldering burn, slow and creeping and all together entirely more dangerous. His hands roam your body as his tongue slides along your bottom lip, a knock on the door of your mouth that you all too eagerly open, pride be damned. But there’s an air of patience to his touch that digs beneath your skin, a pace far too considerate for your liking. Your hands blindly reach for his belt, a catalyst to add kerosene to flame, sliding the cool leather from his pant straps, releasing it from the buckle, and nearly freeing him entirely of its restrictive hold before he stops you. You feel your heart sink, doused with the frigid water of disappointment. 

“Not so fast, sweet thing.”

“Don’t tell me you’re saving yourself for marriage?” 

He snorts, “I’m tryna take my time here, alright?”

“Rather you wouldn’t.” 

A long finger twirls the end of your hair, his other palm planted firmly on your ass, “That’s awful rich comin’ from the girl who gave me blue balls for four hours.” 

“Well I’m trying to fix that, but you’re not letting me.”

“Patience, sweetheart,” he dons a sing-songy tone, looking down at you in much the same way a cat might play with its food.   

“Like you’re one to talk.” 

He presses a chaste kick to your mouth, his next words spoken against your lips, “Don’t move.” 

And you listen. Even as he steps away from you. Even as he plops down at the foot of the bed, making himself comfortable, leaning back against his forearms as you stand there, waiting, waiting, waiting, like the loyal dog you are. 

He’s dripping in a smugness so heavy you’re surprised the bed doesn’t collapse beneath the weight of it, “Undress for me.” 

You feel your whole body blush as you bark out a laugh “What?” 

He shrugs, “You said you’d make it worth my while.” 

“Yeah, I meant more in the way of a blowjob, not a strip tease.” 

“I don’t need a whole show - I just wanna watch you take your t-shirt off.” 

You glare at him, hating the sure way he looks at you as if he already knows you’ll do it, like this whole exchange was merely for your benefit, to let you think you have any say in the matter, “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Would it kill you to indulge me?”

“It might.”

“Well, in the event of your death, I’ll accept full legal responsibility - how’s that?”

“Wow. Soooo romantic, Samuel.”

“Just shut up and take the shirt off.”

A pointed pause hangs between you as you both wait for the inevitable break of your will, that weak, malleable muscle nearly atrophied at this point, useless in the face of him. 

“Fine. But only since you asked so nicely.” 

Your compliance is malicious; the one act of power you have left lies in trying to make your undressing as unappealing as possible. You awkwardly shove an arm out of the sleeve and tug it forcefully over your head, cotton chaffing against your hair, strands alive with static as you throw the shirt somewhere off in the corner. 

He looks about as pleased as if you’d given him a whole burlesque routine, and you’re tempted to throw the nearest object at his stupid, ego-swollen, infuriatingly hot head. 

You hold your arms out expectantly, but don’t move otherwise, “Happy?”

“Elated,” and he looks every bit of it, “Now give me a spin.”

“Oh go fuck yourself,” but you smile, the pair of you laughing like this was all some sort of private joke - you nearly naked and him fully clothed, this habitual cadence of power between the pair of you, or lack there of, in your case.  

“I’m tryin’ to fuck you actually but you’re insistin’ on bein’ difficult.” 

“Me? You’re the one making me play Simon Says.”

“I thought you liked it when I tell you what to do?” 

Shit. He’s got you there. You’d do just about anything if it was him on the other end of an ask; you try not to linger on the gravity of what that means.

His lips curve sideways with a knowing grin, “Nothin’ to say to that, huh?”

“Shut up,” and with gritted teeth, you spin for him, feeling about as helpless as a porcelain figure in a music box, doomed to perform when opened. 

“See? Was that really so hard?”

“I hate you.” 

The fond look in his eye makes you want to jump out the window. 

He ticks his head to the side like a call to be answered, “C’mere.” 

And you do. No distance between you now as you stand in front of him, not quite towering over him, but it’s enough to give you the illusion of an advantage. He wastes no time in smothering his head between your breasts, perfectly placed in front of him like they were for little else.

“God, I missed you two,” he kneads, and squeezes, and nips, and kisses through the thin mesh fabric of your bra with the ferocity of a man reunited with his other half. 

You roll your eyes, “Stop talking to my boobs.” 

“Stop interrupting us.” 

Your hands lace through his hair as his lips start to wander, down to the bare skin of your stomach, where he traverses across you like following a favored path, taking his time in his journey. His hands are gentle against the planes of your body, sweeping against the surface of you, wakeless, calm, You close your eyes to the feel of it, trying and failing miserably to enjoy the quiet attention, but it’s all too sweet and soft and intimate, like salt in a wound you’re trying to soothe, the thoughts in your mind growing louder. You can’t take a minute more of this, every affectionate press of palm and lip a nail in a coffin. You need escape from this sepulcher, need him to remind you of the place you’ve uprooted yourself from, back into the soil of friends with casual benefits. No strings like nooses to choke on. 

You tug his hair hard enough to get him to look at you, “Can I get on my knees for you now?” 

His eyes, pretty even in the lackluster lighting, search your face. You watch him struggle with himself, donning a concerning bit of hesitation and care that you've never seen him wear before; you hate the look of it on him. And then his hands are sliding up your thigh, and he’s marveling up at you in a way that makes your blood start to curdle, and you really just want to die at this point, “Not yet. I wanna kiss you properly first.” 

When he pulls you into his lap, it feels like a death sentence. But it’s easy to ignore your approaching demise with his lips on yours, and his tongue in your mouth, and his practiced hands undoing the strap of your bra. You follow his lead, working at the buttons on his shirt, unconsciously grinding down on the hard shape of him you can already feel through his trousers. He groans into your mouth and you swallow as if the sound could be consumed, hands shakily pushing the sleeves of his shirt down his arms, no barrier now between the skin of your chests. 

You let yourself be tugged along by the current of desire, losing yourself to the blur of the rapids - the bruising feel of his mouth on your tits, teeth and tongue against your nipples, staking his claim on you. You still have remnants of bruises there, and on the inside of your thighs, hidden places for him to carve his initials into your skin. 

Your mouth falls to his neck, and your own lips set to blooming purple against his flock of birds, relishing in the way he hums, the vibration of it like plucking just the right string. His hands knead at the flesh of your ass, hips jerking upwards into yours, a clothed dance between your bodies, of empty friction that only spurs you further. 

“Alright,” you hear him say, resigned, feel it against your skin as you lick your way to his earlobe, pinning the soft flesh of it between your teeth, “You can put that pretty mouth a’yours to work now.” 

You smile against him, “Don’t have to tell me twice,” and gleefully slide down his body to take your rightful spot on your knees. You work together to pull his pants and boxers down, letting them pool around his ankles as his cock springs free. The head of him is already leaking, the unripe fruit of your labor there in the pearlescent hue; you feel your mouth water at the sight of him, red and engorged and looking every bit as needy as you feel. 

You kiss your way up his knee to his inner thigh, and he watches you with bated breath as you let your tongue indulgently slide along the handsome vein that sprawls from his balls to his cockhead, drinking in every detail on his face as you do - the pained furrow of brow, the tight clench of his jaw, the desperate look in his eye. You think about torturing him a little, but the thought of waiting even a second more without him in your mouth is too much to bear; this is, after all, every bit as much for you as it is for him. 

“Be a doll and hold my hair back, will you?” 

“At your service,” he gathers your hair as you finally guide the weeping head of his dick into your mouth, taking him slowly, inch by painstaking inch. You hear him curse above you, a string of jesus, fuck me, christ, stomach shuddering with stunted breaths as your fist pumps the thick base of him, never quite able to fit the full length of him in your mouth, the well-endowed bastard. You don’t bother hiding your moans as he fills you, your twisting hand moving in sync with the bobbing of your head, tongue swirling along the shape of him. He collides with the back of your throat, and you gag, clenching your thighs together as you make him do it again, and again, and again. 

“Jesus Christ,” your eyes flit up to him, flush blooming across his stubbled cheeks, and the word pretty comes to mind at the sight, “Y’have no idea how good you look gaggin’ on me like this.” 

You moan, eagerly waiting for the inevitable that always comes with you on your knees. When the gentle hold of your hair will turn into a rough grasp like a leash pulled taught, when his hips will start to thrust with no regard for the way you drool and choke on him, your throat nothing but a means to an end. When he finally gives you what you desperately need. But, devastatingly, that moment never comes. 

You try to push his own hand down on the back of your head as a gentle nudge towards your desired territory but he doesn’t take the bait. “Stop that.” 

You pop off of him, trail of saliva a lingering link between you and his cock as your hand still pumps him, “You’re being so gentle.”

“And - fuck -”, you grant him a particularly hard squeeze, “What about it?”

“Dont be.” 

“Are you tellin’ or askin’?”

“Does it matter?” 

“It might.”

You pout your lips, “Please?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I shit - ” your thumb purposefully rubs the head of his dick, lingering there, squeezing and twisting like you could coax the answer you wanted out of him with just your hand alone, “Cause I said so.” 

“But I want you to.” 

He takes hold of your wrist, moving your hand off him, and you can’t help but sigh in frustration, “Can I be frank?”

“Rather you be Sam.” 

“Really?”

“You kind of walked right into that one.” 

“Look, wise ass - I - ” he stops himself, and if you didn’t know him better, you’d say he almost looks…shy? but Samuel Drake was not shy. Certainly not when it comes to matters of coitus. He takes a breath, and smiles down at you like he’s about to ask you for a favor you might decline, “I just wanna make love to you like a normal person tonight, alright? We can save that other shit for another time.” 

Fuck. 

He really couldn’t have said a more terrible string of words. They stick to the inside of your guts like thorns, puncturing, and digging, and tearing. And you despise the soft way he looks down at you like his rock hard dick isn’t mere inches from your face. 

“I’m quite partial to that other shit,” you lean your head against the inside of his knee, pouting your lips still as you look up to him with batting lashes; a routine that’s gotten your way more than once before, and maybe, could gain your favor once again. 

“Well, me too,” he lets his knuckles graze against your face, “But it wouldn’t hurt to switch things up a bit, would it?” 

It hurts very acutely, actually, that he would ask this of you tonight, of all nights. You don’t bother mentioning that to him, though.  “Does that mean manhandling’s off the table?” 

He smirks, “I can throw you around a little bit.”

“And how do we feel about light choking?”

“Fine. Light chokin’s fine. I’ll even pitch in a couple’a spanks - that sound acceptable to you?” 

You press a kiss to his knee, “How very generous.” 

“Do we have a deal?” 

You pretend to consider his offer, letting him wait as your eyes drift to the ceiling, wanting nothing more than to tell him no despite being entirely incapable of it, “I suppose I can live with that.”

“Good,” your chin’s in his hand, his thumb stroking along the shape of it as he ticks his head to the side like a sign to be followed, “Now get up here. It’s my turn.” 

So you oblige his request, the way you always do,  following the pull of his hands that guide you upwards. You’re expecting him to tug you into his lap, but instead, he stands too, and you can see him trying to hide a glint of mischief in the curve of his lips as his grasp falls to your hips. 

You narrow your eyes at him, “What are you -” 

You’re roughly thrown over his shoulder before you can finish your sentence, a laugh escaping you that sounds unrecognizable to your ears - high-pitched and giddy and nauseatingly fond. 

“Are you crazy?” 

“Hey, you’re the one that said you wanted to be manhandled -  I’m just givin’ you what you asked for.” 

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” it’s not a terrible view, though, from your vantage point. You’re nearly face to face with the bare curve of his ass, more supple than it has any right to be; a favored part of him he always pretends not to understand why you’re partial to. You can also see the pool of his pants at his ankles still, shackles around his feet that only allow him to awkwardly shuffle as he tries to turn himself around, inch by inch.

“Beggars don’t get to be cho-Oh shit,” you watch his foot snag on his pants, body lurching forward as he trips, catching himself clumsily on the end of bed. Your head collides against his back with an audible thunk.

“Ow. Jesus. Walk much?” 

He laughs, a sound so genuine and sheepish you find yourself doing the same. He plops you down properly on the bed, body bouncing atop the cheap springs as it adjusts to your weight. “Sorry. Really thought I had that.” 

“Quite the feat of grace there, Samuel.” 

“At least y’could never say the sex was boring, right?” He uses the bed to balance himself, making quick work of removing his pants and socks. You soak in the unimpeded view of his body, the strong, weathered planes of muscle that you think Rodin might’ve loved to put to marble. Or, at the very least, Playboy would have a very enticing centerfold on their hands.  

He crawls over you, stopping short of being nose to nose, head in line with your tits instead, and not nearly as close as you want him to be, “Now, I’m going to go down on you, and you’re going to like it. Capiche?” 

Your lips twitch, offering him your best two finger salute, “I’ll try my best to soldier through it.”

“Good girl.” 

He kisses his way down your body, not dawdling on any part of you, dragging your underwear down with him as he takes the spot you were just in, knelt there piously on the carpet like a man about to pray. He pins your legs open against the bed like a bug with its wigs in a frame, on display for his own personal viewing.

“Jesus,” you watch him swallow at the sight of you, and feel heat swarm every inch of your skin, “All this just for me?” His eyes flit up to you as he kisses your inner thighs, stubble against skin like sand. 

“Don’t let it go to your head.” 

“Kinda hard not to when you’re this fuckin’ wet.” 

He runs a finger through your slick to enunciate his point, and your whole body jolts like you were simply a button to be pressed. Your eyes slam shut, senses beginning to fog you as your mind hones in on the beating ache between your thighs.  

“Havin’ my dick in your mouth gets you goin’ that much, huh?” You can hear the smile in his voice, the way the words ooze out of him like honey. 

Your aptitude for any real banter is squandered by the inching feel of his mouth. “Maybe,” is the uneventful response you eventually manage, entirely unconvincing as another sharp inhale has your ribs surging upwards. You clench around nothing, swallowing a whine as he nips at the crease of your thigh. 

Blind to the world behind your pinched-shut eyes, every movement feels heightened - your legs now propped on his shoulders, his breath against your core, hovering over the place he belongs. Your hips arch upwards instinctively, desperate to close that last bit of space between his mouth and your cunt. But he makes no other move, and after a few agonizing seconds of suspension, you wearily open your eyes to look down at him, bracketed there between your legs.

He’s smiling at you in that tortuous way, a prelude to taunting, “Tell me what you want, beautiful.” 

“You know what I want,” you hate the whiny, undone sound of your voice. 

“Yeah but I wanna hear you say it,” a teasing hand sidles up to your breast, and you lean into the touch, feeling on the brink of insanity, wondering if denial suffered long enough could turn a person mad.  

“Sam, please.”  

“Please what? You’re gonna have to use your words here, sweetheart,” he toys with your nipple, pinching it between his slender fingers. 

“Just fuck - put your mouth on me. Please.”  

“Atta girl.”

And he answers your yearning prayers when his mouth dives into your cunt like you’re oxygen in his breath-starved lungs. He works you open as if your body’s a machine of his own design, knows the way to drag his tongue along the seam of you, back and forth like a switch to toggle, the way to close his lips around your clit and suck, soft first, then harder, and harder, until your hands curl into his hair and your body starts to tremble beneath him like a geyser near to bursting. You feel him moan against you, the low hum of it stifled beneath the sound of your wanton cries and the obscene noises of his ravenous mouth against your dripping cunt. 

You grind your hips up into him, craving more, needing more. He seems to read you like a book, pages of you spread there open as he slides a finger into you down to the knuckle and curves it in that way that has your spine mimicking that same crescent shape. 

“Enjoyin’ yourself?” his middle finger quickly joins his pointer, your cunt practically swallowing the digits whole with an audibly wet smack that you’d feel more embarrassed about if you possessed enough brain power to feel anything but lustful hunger. 

His eyes are steady on you, an anchor in the swell of it all. When you meet his gaze, you can see a sheen of your slick across his face, catching in the light, and your cunt closes around his fingers like a vice. 

He smirks, “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

“Sam,” your voice is a broken rasp, a plea. You’re so goddamn close. So, So, So Close that the edges of your body have blurred, fingers, and toes, and limbs all shapeless numb, nothings - all you can focus on is the feel of his fingers inside you, the throbbing need that every movement of him spurs forwards, growing and growing and growing to this insurmountable weight that makes your entire body feel like a branch beneath a boot, taught and on the brink of snapping. 

“Yes?” His thumb starts to rub tight circles against your clit, and like a cue to act your thighs start to tremble around him. 

“I - Fu-please. I’m -” you try your hardest to speak, but your body and mind fail you.  

You’re surprised to hear no snark out of him, no comment about a sex-induced stutter or an order for you to use your words. Instead, he mercifully latches his mouth onto you, tongue taking the place of his thumb, fingers still arched in you as they slide in and out of your soaked cunt. 

You reach for his hand, the one grasped to your hips, placing your fingers between his, and it’s the last thing you feel, his hand squeezing back, holding you in place, before you cum. 

His name rips through your lungs as you cry out, writhing, heaving, shuddering, your release flooding molten through you. And you feel anything but sated as the high ebbs down, as his tongue and fingers guide you, your first orgasm nothing but an impetus to a climbing desperation, a starving, hankering, insistent need for more.  

The moment your legs fall free from his shoulders, you press up from the bed and take his face in your hands. Your lips and tongue hungry against his own, tasting yourself among the amalgam of spit.  

“Need you,” is all you can manage to say, but it’s enough. 

He smiles, sweeping a stray hair of yours behind your ear, “How do y’want me?” 

And you need to regain some crumbling semblance of control so you say, with no hesitation, as if there were no other way to take him, “On your back.” 

His smile grows wider, eyes nearly swallowed whole by his lust-blown pupils, “Yes ma’am.” 

You’re a mess of tangled limbs as he climbs up onto the bed, mouths never straying for too long, hands clinging to the fevered skin of one another like life rafts. At least with him here on his back it’s easier to lie to yourself on whose hands hold the wheel of command. 

His eyes fall to where your trembling hand guides his twitching cock up to your swollen cunt, zoning in on the sight like something not to be missed. You watch his jaw go slack as you slowly push your hips down on him, never quite used to the aching stretch of taking him, the way he seems to fill you past the brink, spilling over into places untouched. 

You fuck yourself on him slow and languid, watching the traveling path of his attention, back and forth between the sight of his dick disappearing into the shape of you and the lazy bounce of your tits. 

His hands fall to your hips, rocking them needily like your unhurried pace was starting to get to him,“You’re so -,” you clench around him, relishing the way his whole body tightens beneath you, “fuck.”

“I’m so fuck?” You smile, saccharine, watching his chord of restraint snap beneath your taunt. You feel his grip on you tighten, feel him tent his knees upwards for purchase as he starts to buck up into you in earnest, every snap of his hips a point proven.

Your eyes roll back as your head follows that same backwards path, body folding beneath his demands, already gone, already his; so much for being in control. 

“Nothin’ smart to say now, huh?”

Oh, you want to reply, really you do, but the bruising feel of being entirely at his disposal blinds out any words.

“Such a big mouth on you but the second my cock or my tongue or my fingers are in you, you go all quiet.” 

You smile, “Can’t -  fuck - help - it,” gasping and moaning between syllables. 

You feel his hand collide with your ass, one a testing slap and the next a sure, hard spank, your skin stinging in the aftermath. “Could watch you take me like this all day.”

You moan, capabilities to do much else abandoning you as you lose yourself to the plowing feel of his cock. 

He lifts his fingers to your mouth, and smiles to watch you open it without a word spoken, “That pretty little cunt a’yours - always so good for me.”

You grip his wrist as you suck, your eyes magnetized to one another, unmoving. 

“So fuckin’ tight.” 

He tugs his fingers from your lips and moves them to your clit, matching the tracing tempo of his hands with the thrust of his hips. 

“OhGod - Sam -” your body strains beneath the attention, every swipe of his fingers, every pistoning move of his cock, a step taken, upwards, towards the place you’ll hope he’ll follow. 

His free hand squeezes your hip like a gentle reminder as he grins up at you, “Can’t believe I get to have you all to myself.” 

The words an arrow to your chest, a bullseye straight through the center of you. You feel yourself clench around him as you sob, nearly incoherent, “Don’t want - shit. Anyone else. Just you,” and you say it before you can stop yourself, regurgitated from a pried-open depth. 

Why did you say that? Why did you say that? Why did you say that? 

Embarrassment surges side by side with your approaching peak, that flood of aching pressure building where your bodies meet. He doesn’t reply, not with words, but his fingers speed up on your clit, and his jaw clenches, and his cock seems to glide deeper and deeper into the wet heat of your cunt. 

“Fuck - Sam - I’m -” 

“Give it to me,” he nods his head as he watches you, pride like a light in his eyes, smiling in that boyish way that makes him look far younger than he has any right to, “Come on, baby.  Lemme feel you.”

You brace against his shapely pecs for purchase like carven handholds as you climb, up and up and up, body trembling. You think you hear him talking, stray words of praise like buzzing background noise as you reach a crest so high you feel taken by altitude sickness, dizzy and breathless. You whine as he fuck you through it, hands steady against your hips as he drives his cock into you, milking every last shudder of your cunt, every shake, every whimper. 

You’re boneless and nearly thoughtless on the gradual descent when he rises to kiss you, one hand cradling the back of your neck like he knew you needed the support, the other tracing circles down your back. 

“You good?”

You nod emphatically, but you don’t mean it.  You’re anything but good. But you can’t possibly focus on the ramifications of that now, not when he’s still inside you, with his eyes speared through you, when your body still craves him like a necessity deprived. 

“You need a minute or -” 

“No,” the pure desperation in your voice makes you want to tear your own skin apart, but you simply kiss him instead, tangling your tongue with his, giving yourself the next best thing when you say,  “Use me.” 

He kisses you hard, all teeth and tongue, like words alone aren’t enough. He moves your bodies with the fluidity of water, flipping you onto your back where you lay there against the squeaking mattress, letting him do with you as he pleases. And what he pleases to do is lift your legs, pressing them together as he kneels there at the base of your body. Both ankles are thrown over his right shoulder like a sash as he starts to press the head of his cock into you, smiling like the sight of you below him is a prize hard one. 

You both groan when he buries himself to the hilt, a slow, aching filling that makes you feel near to bursting as you clench around him. 

“Fuck,” he laughs like he can’t believe his luck,  “Wish I could be inside you like this all day.” 

He moves his hips in sedated undulations like he’s savoring the tight feel of you, dragging out every movement, “Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

You can only nod as you whine pathetically, the snug press of your legs applying just the right amount of friction on your clit that makes speech impossible. 

“Like for me to have my way with you? Make you mine?” 

You let out a sound halfway between a sob and a moan, “YessShit. Plea-Sam-” hands white knuckling the sheets as you try to compose yourself, say your next words with a modicum of articulation. Your chest aches with the effort as you hold his gaze, “Ruin me.” 

He breathes your name like a prayer, and the sound of it goes right to your cunt as his hips start to snap against the back of your thighs, cock driving in and out of you at a maddening pace. The bed squeals in protest below you, headboard a rhythmic thump against the back wall. 

He kisses the inside of your ankle, one, two, three times, letting one of his hands fall from your legs to your stomach, your breasts, kneading at any bit of you he can reach. His traveling fingers eventually find their way to your throat, wrapping easily around you and gifting you with a hardy squeeze that punctures your vision with stars. But even through the haze of pleasure, even in the most ideal position you’re in now, your mind catches on the earlier thought spoken aloud. 

Don’t want anyone else. Just you. 

You’d said it. And it had sprung forth from a deeply earnest place like it was always there, buried in some dark cavern, thriving still without light. The words are a pin pulled from a grenade, an action not able to be undone, and it’s here that it hits you like a dam burst through, here with his cock buried in you and his eyes on yours and the reverent feel of his hand on the column of your throat- 

You love him.

Oh my god. 

You love him. You love him. You love him. 

 You loved him when he broke his finger riding that electric scooter, and you loved him when he pickpocketed a 20 out of some drunk asshole’s wallet to buy you gelato, and you loved him that time you had to spend a night in a cave after one too many wrong turns, when the pair of you had spewed enough vitriol at each other to chew through steel and still, he offered - no, insisted -  you take his coat to ward off the cold. You loved him on the nights sleep evaded you both, when you spent the hours watching M*A*S*H re-runs on crackling screens of motel televisions, loved him that time you both got too high and rock-paper-scissored for who’d have to grab the pizza, and he ended up braving the door for you anyways, even though you were the one that lost. 

You love Samuel Fucking Drake 

And the realization feels like an irreparable fracture, trapping you in a juxtaposition of carnal bliss and a pain so profound you wonder if you’ll break in two at the force of it, split into unequal halves below him. You shut your eyes tight, not able to do much else in the way of escape. 

He moans your name, the possessive hand on your throat squeezing ever so slightly, “Look at me, sweetheart.” 

But all executive function has abandoned you. Your  capabilities amounting only to a pathetic moan as you writhe beneath him, nails digging into the skin of his wrist. 

“I - fuck - Wanna look at you when I cum.” 

You want to cry. Or combust. Or cease to exist all together. It takes every living part of you to do as you're told, to open your eyes, and your ribs start to splinter, brittle and sun-bleached beneath the burning look of open affection on his face. 

“There’s my girl,” he smiles down at you with that cocky, genuine grin, and you clench hard around his throbbing dick at the sight of it alone. You’re already nearing another peak, somehow, beyond all sense, broken, unbound. And you know he can feel it by the greedy glint in his eye. 

He unfurls one of your legs with care, like peeling back a fragile petal, balancing it there on his hip, your left still propped on his shoulder as he caves in towards you. You feel the burning stretch in your thigh first as he bends you in half, chest against chest as he hits a spot so deep inside you you feel it in your lungs. Your hands instinctively reach up to cradle his face, fingers lacing into his hair as if that could steady you. You’re beyond saving, though, too far gone to be anywhere but irrevocably and utterly at his disposal. 

“Gimme another one.”

“I -”, you try to speak but find your tongue caught by the measured thrust of his hips, that calculated rhythm of electric heat, bolting outwards from your sopping wet, swollen cunt to every corner of your body. It’s pure torture, it’s flawless ecstasy. You moan, somehow still coherent enough to feel shame at the wanton sound of it, “I can’t.” 

“I wasn’t askin’.”

His eyes and yours a string knotted together, inseparable, part of you wanting nothing more than to sever it for just a moment of reprieve and the other needing the opposite, craving the sick euphoria you feel to be looked at this way. Consumed. Taken. Used. The angle gives him a catastrophic advantage, grinding against your clit with every move of his hips,  and of course he did it on purpose; he’s never satisfied until you’re a mess. Neither of you are.  

“Sammy, I -” 

The words claw at the base of your throat. 

I love you. I love you. I love you. 

But you abate them with your last dying ounce of self-preservation, even as his cock drains the rest of sentient thought from you. 

“Go on,” he gives you a kiss, sloppy and pleading,  “Let go for me.” 

And it’s the only words your body needs to hear, spine arching into him like a wishbone tugged taught, nails digging for purchase into the freckled skin of his shoulder, as you drown beneath the white-hot pleasure that rips through you, through muscles, through bones, through veins, to the unnamable metaphysical parts of you. The strings of your body remain in the hands of him, room encompassed with the symphony of his machinations - the messy entwinement of your bodies, the cries from your lungs that harmonize with his own guttural whimpers that pierce right through you. You can feel him panting into your open mouth, but you’ve long since shut your eyes, tears pricking at the edges from an elongated crescendo still clinging to your every pore, not yet fading. 

You understand, in this moment, why the French call it a little death, as you feel a piece of yourself die, destroying itself, imploding and bursting. It’s too much. It’s not enough. You need more. You need less. You need him to cum. His hips start to stutter, and he says your name in that desperate, wrung-out way that you know means he’s nearly there. You can’t open your eyes, can’t do much else but lie there as he takes you, feeling the lines between pleasure and pain start to blur as you beg, desperate and wrung-out yourself “PleasePleasePlease,” your hand sliding down his sweat-damp back to grip the firm muscle of his ass. 

He thrusts one, two, three more devastating times before he spills himself inside you, a noise so sweet pulled from his throat that you wish you could drink, let cling to the inside of your teeth like syrup. Neither of you dare to move for what feels like ages. You swear your hearts beat concurrently, two parts of the same whole, sharing an unspoken agreement of brief coalescence. He leans up only slightly to let your leg fall to the bed before he collapses into the crook of your neck, fitting there like a piece in its proper place. 

Your breaths rise and fall together, entangled, hard to tell where one of you ends and the other begins. 

“I’m not crushin’ you, am I?”

You smile at the lazy, muffled sound of his voice despite feeling on the verge of tears, rasping out a “No,” as you give the crown of his head a clumsy kiss. 

Your fingers play with the curled ends of his hair as you lie there, staring up at the water-stained stuccoed ceiling in much the same way one might look to the open sky for help. But there’s no answers among its ecru hue, no guidance given as the rosy high begins to fade, and you plummet down, down, down, back to the belly of the beast you’ve let yourself be swallowed by. 

You love Samuel Drake. And you wonder if it’s supposed to feel like a curse, a cross unwillingly beared, or if maybe, it’s just the unrequitedness that gives it that shape. 

Either way, it's a burden you won’t share with him, you decide, here in the aftermath of passion. It wouldn’t be fair, would it, to want him to carry this thing he never asked for, these feelings that never should’ve been that now, much to your dismay, very much are. After all that’s been taken from him, he’s owed fluidity, deserving of nothing but unbounded freedom, but this? This would undoubtedly be a clipping of his wings. You're his for now, but a day will come when that won’t be the truth, when his legs for new adventures need to be stretched, and you’ll be a chapter finished; you’re sure of that. Commitment isn’t his strong suit, as Sully said, and why should it be? You can live with the bitter inevitability of an ending, especially when the inbetween is so sweet, especially if it’s for him. That’s what love is all about, isn’t it? Suffering. Beautiful, divine, suffering. 

You feel him stir and unravel your hands from his hair as he lifts himself up, severing that final chord of connection when he pulls out of you fully. The sudden emptiness is nearly painful, your body tangibly pouting at the loss as if separated from a part of itself. 

He props himself up on an elbow beside you, body flush against your side. You feel the heat of his gaze on you but can’t bring yourself to move your attention from the ceiling, as if the traces of your thoughts would be written there on your face for him to see in bold print - I LOVE YOU. I KNOW YOU DON’T FEEL THE SAME. I’M SORRY.  You just need a few more moments to neatly pack this all up, fold and stash and bury in a place where even you can forget about it for a while, but then his hand swipes your cheek, guiding your face to him, and you’re caught red handed, sins entirely out in the open. You hate the worried furrow of his brow, that heavy crease that sits between them. You want to press your thumb to his skin and rub it out of his handsome face but don’t. 

“Where are you right now?” 

You blanch at the question, feeling more naked than humanly possible, but you manage to laugh, “What do you mean? I’m in bed with you, weirdo.” 

“Physically, maybe. But your head’s definitely somewhere else.” 

You swallow, those three syllables an unmovable lump, an embedded choking hazard wonder how long it’ll take to pass. The open, patient way he looks at you makes your stomach churn, but you smile at him, letting your fingers brush against his forearm in what you hope is a reassuring pattern, “Look, I just got fucked within an inch of my life, okay? My mental faculties need some time to catch up.” 

He snorts, but you can tell he doesn’t believe you, not fully. You need to escape the glaring floodlight of his attention before he can find something in the open pit of your being, so you turn towards him, not giving him a moment more to search as you kiss your way across his face. Lips press against his cheeks, the crooked bridge of his nose, his chin, the cut beneath his eye. You lean your weight into him, his body eventually acquiescing to your silent request, lying there on his back as your mouth moves to his neck, then his chest where you end your fevered escape journey to lie your head against him. You feel a strange rush of something akin to adrenaline, a capture narrowly avoided, as you lay there, throwing your leg over his. His arms wind around you, one hand settling in your hair and the other against your forearm, his thumb swiping metronomic on your skin. 

You listen to the steady drum of his heart, fingers idly running through his chest hair as you close your eyes to the grounding sound. Every measured beat seems to tamper your panic, your thoughts just as repetitive. 

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.  

You're well versed in duplicity after all, it being a non-negotiable trait for someone in your career. And two things can always be true at once - you love him, yes, but not only romantically. You loved him as a friend first; it’s where it all started, the seed that gave way to the overgrowing weeds. And it’s where it all can end, too. If you starve something of oxygen for long enough, surely death will follow, like a lie told enough times can become truth. 

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. 

He croons out your name, lilting it as a question, and you can tell by the inquisitive note in his tone that he’s unsatisfied with your escape act. 

You offer him a hum, feeling the tepid balance in the seconds of silence, scales in his own mind tipping.  

“You think it’s too late to order room service? I'm starvin’.” 

You laugh, relief flooding through you, and risk tilting your head to look at him, regretting it the second your eyes meet. 

God, you are so fucked. 

“Worth a shot.”

He shoots you wink as he leans to the left towards the chipping side table, pulling you with him to clumsily reach for the phone one-handed. He stretches the power chord to its limit as he places it beside him, trails of curled tangled wires like tentacles spread on the sheets. He’s got the receiver nestled between his shoulder and cheek as his one free hand does the dialing, his other still playing with your hair. 

You’ve tilted yourself so you can watch him, your hands a cushion for your chin as you stay propped on his chest. His skin is flushed, cheeks dusted in pink, hair rustled, faint bruises already painted near the flock of birds where your mouth paid him extra attention, looking handsome in a quiet, effortless way that makes your chest ache. 

You watch the bob of his adam’s apple when he swallows and clears his throat, eyes drifting to the blank screen of the TV as the dial tone sounds, “Yeah, hi - is it possible to still get room service?”

You hear the garbling mumble of a response on the other line, before he says, “Alright just - just gimme one second. 

He flips the phone down into the skin of his shoulder, looking to you expectantly, “They got a burger, grilled cheese, and some kinda chicken wing thing - any a’that sound good to you?” 

“Chicken wing thing?”

“Don’t sass me right now, woman. Are you hungry or what?”

You pause, debating on whether or not you feel like sassing him anyways, before smiling, “Honestly, a grilled cheese would be amazing.” 

“Ask and ye shall receive.”

He puts the phone to his mouth again, but his attention stays attached to you, and only you, eyes hooked to your own, “Hi, yeah, sorry ‘bout that. My uh-,” he pauses for what you can only assume is for dramatic effect, eyebrows raising suggestively with the cadence of his voice, “Lover here will take the grilled cheese.”

“Oh my g-,” before you can properly bemoan his terrible choice of words, his hand’s a gag over your mouth, rendering you speechless. 

“And I can get a couple pickles on the side with that? They’re her favorite.”  

He’s wearing that bastardly, self-satisfied grin that drives you mad in a myriad of ways, the one that makes it nearly impossible to decide if you want to slap it off him or shove your tongue down his throat. You choose to ignore the fact that he’d remembered your taste in snack food though, instead focusing your attention on licking his palm like a rabid dog to try and encourage him to free you. But he’s unperturbed, paying you no mind, and you can’t let him win this easily. 

“And I’m gonna do the AH-jesus,” you pinch his nipple between your fingers, letting your nail dig into the pink nub just the slightest bit, just enough to prove your point. You watch his expression molt between pain and annoyance, and then settle on something that nearly resembles a dare. His hand never leaves your mouth, and now, smirking, he balances the phone between his ear and his shoulder, snatching your wrist in the vice of his grip, both of his hands now occupied with keeping you still. 

“I’m gonna do the burger. No, no, cheddar’s fine. And uh - what d’you guys have for dessert?”

You struggle half-heartedly, smiling beneath his palm. His voice never strays from nonchalance as if he isn’t 

keeping a woman hostage right here in bed, “Can I get two a’those? Yeah, no, that’s everything. Alright. Thank you.” 

He frees you only when the other end goes quiet, phone dropping to the bed with a soft thunk. “Was the nipple pinch really necessary?”

He wipes his wet palm on your shoulder, clicking the receiver back in its worn, peach-colored place.  

“Was calling me lover?” 

“Hey, it’s accurate isn’t it?” 

You roll your eyes, pressing up from his chest to kneel at his side, arms outstretched above your head as you try to work out a knot in your back. You pretend not to notice the way his eyes fall to your tits. Predictable. “I guess.” 

“You guess? What -  you got someone else’s cum drippin’ outta you?” You forget how fast he can be when he needs to, but it’s a lesson you re-learn now, long, lean limbs put to quick work when he flips you down onto your back. He climbs on top of you, a predator capturing its prey, bracing his arms on either side of your head. 

You hate the girlish, love-sick giggle you let out, hoping you can mask it with a grotesque, scrunched up scowl, “Eww. Dude.” 

“Didn’t you hear you complain’ earlier.”

“Must you be so crass?”

“You love it.”

Yes. Yes, you really do. It’s a reminder you wish you could be spared, but your mind does the opposite, sinking its teeth into all the other countless pieces you love that comprise the sum of him. The drumming dance of his fingers when he’s jonesing for a cigarette. The way he hums under his breath when he’s lost himself to the minuteia of a mundane task. The contented noises he makes, involuntary and endearingly honest, nearly every time he eats, like he still can’t quite believe he gets to have nice things. The way the sun brings out the green-gold flecks in his eyes, and that high-pitched laugh you always try your hardest to summon, and the easy way he makes you feel safe just by being near you. But you don’t tell him of these things best kept. Instead you say, “What’d you get for dessert?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“How mysterious.” 

His eyes roam across you, nomadic in their attention, before he finally finds his way back to your gaze. He lowers his face to you, voice a conspiratory whisper as if the pair of you have a secret to keep, “Wanna make out until the food comes?” 

His words summon a smile to your face, fingers slowly tracing the faded outline of his star tattoo as you nod up at him, deeming speech unnecessary. 

He plants a kiss to the bridge of your nose first before his mouth takes its rightful place on yours, lips and tongue in languid tandem. You let his hands wander where they please, pried open and willing, let him take what he wants, give what he can, as you try to desperately smother your damning epiphany, to pretend these are the kinds of intimacies all friends share. Nothing more than that.