formaldehyde

After returning Bandit to his stall, he spots you near the entrance of the stables feeding Dakota. When he first rode in, he’d seen other volunteers milling around, but none of them were you. 

Much like the trees, your skirt catches the wind, revealing the boots you wear beneath. Joel’s cowboy hat shadows his eyes, but you feel the heavy weight of his gaze even before you cast your glance his way. You pass Dakota her last carrot as the gentle thunk of his footsteps quiets several feet away. He tips the brim of his hat when you look up. 

“Howdy,” he rumbles. “Figured you’d gone home early or somethin’.” 

“So you were looking for me, huh?” Your smile is teasing. 

You stroke Dakota’s neck when she presses towards you, though your attention remains on Joel. He clings to the grace of your movements. “How was it out there today?”

Your interest makes him straighten. “Good.” You nod for him to continue when he stops himself. “Looks real nice this time of year with the trees and all. Those forest routes are somethin’ else.”

“Oh, I bet.” There’s a wistfulness to your tone. 

You weren’t a part of the patrol team, so it’d been two months since you ventured beyond the wall. Joel had been the one to take you, but the Clickers you encountered dissuaded your eagerness thereafter. He shot each one before they posed any real threat to your lives, but the prospect of what could’ve been was a blemish that lingered in the back of your mind. Only now, as Jackson creeps towards dormancy, had the desire to leave begun to bud anew. 

“I can take you.” Joel’s eyes flick across your features. “Whenever you’re ready to get back out there.” 

“I’d like that.”

Silence settles in the space between you as he nods. Laughter carries from the near distance. Horses shuffle through hay in their stalls, puffing breaths from their noses. Joel lingers as you grant Dakota your undivided attention, petting her while cooing the whole while. He doesn’t realize he’s begun to smile until the pull in his cheeks has grown too great to ignore.

“You’re such a sweet girl, aren’t you?” you ask her. “My best girl.” 

The way you pitch your voice to be airy and saccharine stirs warmth in Joel’s stomach. He could stand around and watch you for hours, which is how he knows it’s time to go on about his way. If it wasn’t so easy to be around you, he’d be a more disciplined man. 

“Did Ellie mention I’m helping her out this evening?” you ask. 

Joel sets his hands on his hips. “With paint night for the kids?” He thinks a few extra seconds to ensure he doesn’t make a liar out of her. “No.” If she’d told him, he would’ve already planned to be in attendance as opposed to making the decision ten seconds ago. 

“That one hardly tells me anything these days.”

You hum in amusement, studying him. There’s a faint rosiness to his cheeks, flecks of gray in his beard. His hair is long enough to peek from beneath his cowboy hat like Tommy’s. He’s rugged. Handsome. Joel studies you in turn. There’s endless life in your eyes along with that discrete sparkle of mischief. 

“Guess I’ll see you this evening,” he says. 

“You’re coming? Yeah, no, great. Guess I will then,” you ramble. “Should be a lot of fun.”

A smile tugs at his lips. “Should be.” 

With a parting tip of his hat, he turns to leave. He figures he’s said all that’s left for him to say. If you two weren’t in different stages in your life and it wasn’t the end of the world, he likes to believe he would’ve been braver a long time ago. 

There’s a buzz beneath your skin as you dare to call out to him again, “Wanna see something cool before you go?” 

Once upon a time, you wished you knew Joel well enough to call him back to you. To enjoy more of his steady presence. To watch the way his lips moved when he spoke. To see those matured quirks of his up close. Time has granted you access you once dreamed of. Yet, every night when you go home to your uncle’s house and fall asleep alone, it still isn’t enough. These days you cling to every second with him. 

Joel starts back your way with that slow, easy stride you’d always rather see coming than going. Curiosity lifts the corners of his lips in a smile you never have to work hard to earn. 

When he’s close enough, you pluck his cowboy hat off his head and place it on your own, backpedaling a few paces away with a grin. 

Joel pokes his tongue into the inside of his cheek to tamp down his instantaneous smile. There’s magic etched into the crinkles by your eyes, the glint of your teeth. He takes a few steps in your direction before he’s decided whether or not he wants his hat back or wants to be closer to you. A squeal as giddy as they come breaks into the air. He stops then, not because he wants to, but because he can feel the curious eyes that have settled on the two of you. If he were a few decades younger, he wouldn’t mind an audience. 

“Ain’t gonna chase ya.”

“What if that’s the whole point?” 

When Joel starts your way again, you become all the more aware of how broad he is. How much longer his legs are. How many years he’s had to be torn down and strengthened by the world. There’s no chance you’re making it far, but the spark within you dares you to try. 

It’s snuffed seconds after it ignites. 

A misstep over an uneven plank sends you backwards. Air punches out of your lungs the moment your butt hits the ground. 

Joel’s above you in seconds. 

“Jesus,” he breathes, gaze filled with concern. “You okay?” 

He extends a helping hand, but all you can think to do is hold his hat secure to your head so he can’t snatch it back.

“Ain’t thinkin’ about that,” he says. “Here, c’mon.” He wiggles his fingers. 

Joel pulls you to your feet like you’re light as the air. Embarrassment rises to your cheeks with the warmth of a summer’s day. 

“Gotta be careful.” Then, softer, “Didn’t hurt anything, did you?” 

“Yes.” Joel frowns at that. “My pride.” 

A gruff chuckle sneaks up on him. Even then, he looks you over for any signs of discomfort. You still aren’t convinced he can’t see straight down to your marrow. It’d be easier to feel less seen if his gaze wasn’t always so tender. 

Like everyone else in Jackson, there was a period when you only ever saw the intensity. Something had changed towards the end of last year, and you haven’t had the courage to acknowledge what. 

“If that’s the only thing, I reckon you’ll be okay,” he says. 

“I’ll take your word for it.” You place his hat back on his head, pushing it down to cover his eyes, “Cowboy.”

“Good.” Joel readjusts his hat. “Cause I’m gonna need you to be okay.”

He doesn’t backtrack or spin the sincerity of his statement into the fabric of a joke. Both of you are forced to stand there as it lingers in the air and cements into an invisible truth bound to endure. He eventually clears his throat and pushes his hands into his pockets. 

“Is that what you wanted to show me?” 

All there is to do is offer a shy nod that somehow remains unashamed. 

•••

The memory of the night lives in him after it passes. Joel can still hear the chatter, the laughter, paint being squeezed out of tubes, and brushes swirling in water. He can feel your thigh against his, and the sensation of your finger smearing a cool dab of white paint on the tip of his nose. 

A little boy named Thane had dared you, and Joel would never shy away from your touch. Not when you were as delighted as the kids to mess with him without consequence. That’s what happens when you make people feel safe. 

Three knocks sound at the front door as he makes it to the bottom of the staircase. 

It’s you. 

“Hi.” Your voice is small like you hadn’t just spent the evening by his side. “You left this masterpiece behind after clean up.” 

You hold up a small canvas that features the landscape painting you’d convinced him to do. It teeters towards abstraction, but nonetheless features the Teton Mountains and the colorful trees at their feet. 

“Ain’t nothing special.” He opens the door wider, closing it after you step inside. 

“It’s not bad.” 

“Ain’t good either.” 

“I don’t think any of us gave da Vinci a run for his money,” you amend. “I like it, though.” Your sincerity isn’t lost on Joel. “The kiddos loved it.” 

“Alright, alright.” Joel chuckles and scratches the back of his neck. 

You pass the canvas to him. “Gotta find a good place for it.” 

He walks it to the entryway table for now. The hardwood creaks beneath his feet. He’s already changed into his pajamas, plaid bottoms and a gray t-shirt. You’re in jeans and a cable-knit sweater. The stillness of his house washes over you. The refrigerator hums in the kitchen. 

As his back is turned, you say, “I’m really glad you came.” 

There’s a weight to his gaze when he faces you again. You had a habit of saying things that forced him away from the easy out of neutrality. 

Instead of overthinking, he opts for honesty. “Me too,” he decides. “Probably wouldn’t have if you weren’t gonna be there.”

“Guess a little incentive never hurt anybody.” Sparkles dance in your eyes. 

“No,” Joel agrees, glancing down to his feet. “Were you, uh, plannin’ on staying over a while?” 

You lift a shoulder. “If you’ll have me.”

“You’re always welcome.” It’s the most earnest he’s sounded all evening. “Could use the company.” He can’t read the look that flickers across your face. 

“Drink?” 

“Water’s fine.” Your small smile eases his nerves. 

Joel pours two glasses and joins you on the couch. Pictures of the great American West adorn the living room walls—Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon. A few faded Polaroid photos are also peppered around the space. 

“When was that one taken?” You point to a picture of him on the fireplace mantel. 

Joel wets his lips and squints because his vision isn’t the same these days. However, the sway of your hips is crystal clear as you spring up to retrieve it. 

You sit closer to him than before upon your return. He drapes an arm across the cushion behind you as you assess the photo in silence together. He looks tired and a bit disheveled in the light of the flash, but wears that signature closed-lipped smile packed with fondness. From what you can make of the background, he’s indoors. The dark walnut cabinets suggest a kitchen. 

“That was before Jackson. Before all of this.” Reminiscence is thick in his voice. “Had bought Sarah a camera for her thirteenth birthday.” He starts to smile. “Don’t think I’d ever heard her scream that loud.” You smile too. 

“She was so over the moon, I thought I’d never be able to outdo myself again.” 

Drawn in by the warmth of Joel’s voice, you begin to trace absentminded shapes on his thigh. 

“Never did like bein’ in front of the lens, but those puppy eyes got me every time.” A host of other memories ride palpably on his words. 

You share a hushed laugh that wanes into a comfortable silence. Joel’s focus drifts to your hand when your palm stills on his thigh to deliver a soft squeeze. He can feel you everywhere. In his head, beneath his skin, consuming him whole. On New Years Day, you’d hugged him for the first time—properly—and there was only ever after that moment. It’d been a freefall since then. 

“You still look the same,” you murmur after a while. 

Time has etched its passing in some of his features, but it hadn’t completely erased the man he used to be. 

“Think so?” 

Joel holds his breath when you reach out to run a gentle finger along his hairline, then venture down to follow the curve of his jawline. Your touch is so featherlight, it tickles. His lashes flutter when you trace a finger down the bridge of his nose. When it slides off the tip and lands in the divot of his Cupid’s bow, you proceed to line his lips. Then you pull away. 

“A little different,” you amend. “But the same.” 

His cheeks are flushed now. 

“Think I might’ve been a bit braver back then.” His voice comes out thick. 

“I’m sure a few gray hairs haven’t changed much.” 

“Think it’s a bit more than a few.” 

You shrug. “I don’t mind.”

Months worth of tension expels out of him in the only way his body knows how. A laugh. Even though you join in, he’s convinced he’s the only one who feels laid bare and wanting. He was done for the moment he asked if you intended to stay. You, with all your heart, warmth, and charm. Another hush falls over the room. 

For the first time in his life, he can no longer hold your gaze. 

“Y’should probably head back home before it gets too late.” Joel’s posture doesn’t match his words. Nor does the warmth in his gut or the pressure in his pants. He forces himself to look at you. “Can walk you, if you’d like.” 

 “Did I say something wrong?—” 

“Listen, sweetheart.” Joel looks sorry for interrupting, but his dark eyes are nevertheless imploring. Even after he has your attention, he takes a few extra seconds to gather himself. 

“I’ve taken a liking towards you.”

Time stills. You blink at him. 

“I keep tellin’ myself it’ll pass.” He continues when the ghost of a furrow forms between your brows, “But I can’t shake you.”

Your voice comes out quiet but sure, “I feel the same way.” 

Joel doesn’t let himself accept your words quite yet. 

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” he says. “I promise you don’t wanna get wrapped up in whatever the hell I’ve got going on.” 

“Is that your decision to make?” It’s a soft question with a hard punch. 

“‘Course not, s’just,” he straightens up and runs a heavy hand down his beard. “You being here like this, touchin’ me… it’s makin’ it difficult for me to keep minding my manners.”  

“And that’s my fault?” 

That stumps Joel long enough for the corners of your lips to lift just so. Maybe it is a bit funny, all this dancing between the lines when the whole ballroom lies open. He gives you a helpless look that makes him appear years younger, less like a man with all the answers. 

“Jus’ don’t wanna ruin a good thing,” he finally says. 

You stand to your feet. 

“Is me walking out that door the solution?” 

His heart sinks like it’s attached to a millstone. Fear, longing, regret, and hope flicker across his face like changing seasons. 

“Don’t want it to be,” he murmurs hoarsely. 

He peers up at you when you move to stand between his legs. As you run your fingers through his graying curls, his brows furrow and his eyes close like it pains him. It’d been too many moons since someone paid him this much mind. He stops himself from reaching for your hips. 

“You can touch me.” 

Joel tells himself it’s your permission that drives him to place his heavy hands on your waist. That makes him guide you down to straddle his lap. That makes him press a steady palm to your back so you’re forced to lean forward into his kiss. The permission. Surely not the undercurrent of need in your voice that made him realize he couldn’t let you go without. Surely not his own reservations being thrown to the wayside. 

All that exists is his lips, the brush of his beard against your skin, his grip on your waist that you’re certain is the only thing holding you together. Not God or science, just a man. There’s nothing hurried about the way your lips tease and taste, heavy breaths passing between you. Joel kisses with the same steadiness he’s known for everywhere else in his life. 

His body is solid beneath you like he’s a new creation who’d never known doubt a day in his life. You’re soft, and warm, and still smell of the fresh mountain air. A small groan catches in the back of his throat when you roll your hips. 

Joel hasn’t run this hot in a long time. 

He takes the opportunity to catch his breath when you pull away to press kisses along his jawline. Then down his neck where his pulse point flutters with life. He feels like an exposed wire. Left to do nothing but spark and crackle as you scoot to the floor between his legs. 

When the smoke clears, the sight before him robs him of his breath again: you on your knees, lips curled upwards in the coyest smile. Him with his legs spread wide, desire proving itself in the bulge at the juncture of his thighs. 

To reclaim a semblance of modesty, he adjusts himself and rests a hand over his crotch as a shield. You don’t let him get away with it, grasping his hand to kiss over his scarred knuckles. Joel huffs a flustered sound, caught. 

“Lemme take you upstairs,” he insists. 

You nuzzle the inside of his knee in feigned objection. 

“Upstairs, babygirl,” he doubles down. “I’ll take real good care of ya.” Then he grows even more forthcoming, “Won’t last if you get those hands or that pretty mouth on me.” 

“You won’t?” You palm him and he shudders. 

You clench around nothing when he cups your cheek. There’s hopefulness in his big, brown eyes. You turn your head to lazily kiss the meat of his thumb. It feels like an act of mercy when you stand, extending your hand to him so he can get up and lead the way. 

•••

Dim lamplight fills the bedroom. Moonlight peeks through the curtains. Joel’s lips are even gentler when they find yours after stripping you bare and bracing himself overtop of you on the matress. One calloused palm slides up your ribcage to gently cup your breasts, thumbing over your pebbled nipples. You keen into the warmth of his bare chest because there’s nowhere else to go. Joel strains into the confines of his briefs. 

At your whimper, he parts from your lips with a final peck before he begins his descent. Your chest rises and falls with deep breaths as he kisses down your throat. Across your collarbones. Down the valley of your breasts, and to your midsection. Arousal pools between your legs as he bypasses where you need him most. 

It’s him who now lowers himself to the floor. He grunts as his knees pop, but he gets there in the end. The muscles of your inner thigh twitch at the plushness of kiss paired with the scratch of his beard. His breath fans over your core and, for a brief moment, that’s enough. Patience is a virtue. Then he stops. On weak arms, you push yourself to sit upright, peering down at him with fawn eyes. 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” he rumbles. 

Your cheeks grow warm. “I feel that way when you look at me.” 

“You are.” He tugs you closer to the edge of the bed. “Every part of you.”

More hot kisses are dotted along your inner thighs. Closer and closer to where you need him until he parts you open with a careful finger. For a moment, he observes. You’re already a mess. 

“Mind if I have a taste?” His question leaves him bashful. It’s been a while. For all his confidence, you still knock him off his feet and he wants to make you feel good. 

“You can have whatever you want,” you lilt.  

A shaky exhale escapes you when he leans forward to run his tongue alongside either side of your seam. Then straight up the middle as you clench. Each time, his tongue stops shy of your clit. 

“Joel,” you whine. 

Your fingers don’t know what to do when you place your hands on his head. 

He kisses and licks through your slick with a languid, exploratory sort of ease, aquiline nose just barely bumping the swollen bud that aches for his attention. That whisper of contact makes you writhe. Joel soothes his hands over your thighs. You tug his hair. 

His mouth and chin are wet with you when he lifts his head to meet your pleading gaze. 

“What’s wrong?” The tenderness of his voice makes your stomach flip. “You needin’ me somewhere, is that it?” 

At last, he presses a light kiss to your clit. Then another, suckling it between his lips on the tail end. It’s enough to make your walls contract. As he begins to lap through your folds again, he nurses that swollen part of you after every few drags of his tongue. 

You don’t realize he’s suspended you on the edge until you notice how heavily you’ve begun to breathe, how much you’ve begun to squirm, how quivery your thighs have grown. It’s enthralling, the helplessness and desperation he’s invoked in a matter of minutes. And he hasn’t uttered a single word, just hummed along to your pretty sounds.

“I-I’m close.” 

“You close, sweetheart?” he echoes.  

You hum a frantic sound of agreement. 

Devastation strikes when he stands. Your dazed eyes sweep over his bare chest, the pudge of his belly, down his strong legs. His body is a canvas, bearing scars, and moles, and the lot. You swallow when Joel tucks his fingers into the waistband of his underwear and pushes them down. His flushed cock bobs upwards as it’s set free. 

The air of the room is cool where it meets the pearly bead along his slit. Veins ribbon along his shaft. The line of hair beneath his navel leads to the wiry curls surrounding the base. Just below, his balls hang with a heavy fullness. 

He has the nerve to blush, but doesn’t subject himself to your gaze for long. “Scoot back.”

You shakily scramble up the bed. The mattress dips as Joel joins you. Broad-shouldered and longing, he crowds into your space to prop himself overtop of you with care. Electricity buzzes through you as he reaches between your legs to gather your arousal, using the moisture to stroke himself a few relaxed times. 

You’re so turned on, a breath of laughter escapes you. Joel’s cock twitches at the sweet sound, the way it makes your chest shake. 

“What?” He smiles. 

“I really need you,” you murmur.

 Joel runs himself through your folds. Each methodical drag taps your puffy clit. Already, he’s worked you back up to the cliff he left you on. 

To your dismay, he trades his cock with his fingers. They slip through your slick with ease. There’s no resistance when he pushes one into your warmth, humming when your mouth falls open. After a few steady pumps, he adds another, both curling into you with skillful reverence. 

“Feeling good?” he asks, eyes warm. 

“I still—” your breath catches he rubs firm, steady circles over your bundle of nerves. “Still need you.” 

Joel’s stomach flutters. “M’right here.”

Your face prickles with the beginnings of frustration. “Please?” 

He eases his fingers out of you. “Said I was gonna take care of you, right?” 

“Yes,” you croak. 

“So let me.”

Joel grabs his base and runs himself through your folds. Tears prick in your eyes. You’re frayed around the edges, every nerve at alert.

“Know you’re aching,” he purrs. “I’m achin’ too.”

With a steady push, he eases into the warmth of your cunt. 

“Thank you,” you sigh in relief. 

The ridge of his plump mushroom tip is as far as he gets before your climax catches you by surprise. Joel groans as you whimper, fluttering around the head of his cock. 

“You’re welcome,” he manages, pressing in further. 

There’s hardly any distinction between the pleasure of your release and the pleasure of him filling you. It’s a continuous swell that you tremble through. 

“That’s it.” 

“Almost there.” 

“There you go, babygirl.”

Joel’s reassurances sound unreal and far away. When your eyes open, he’s fully sheathed. He swipes your tears away as you adjust. 

“You’re okay,” he whispers.

You nod. 

“You trust me?” 

You shake your head, but a wobbly smile pulls at your lips. 

Joel’s chest shakes with a low chuckle. “Yes you do.” He slips a hand between your bodies to rub a few chastising circles where you’re most sensitive. 

Your gasp is cut off with a slow kiss. When you shift your hips to encourage him to move, Joel stills you with a strong hand and sets his own rhythm. It’s better than whatever you were attempting to spur. There’s no helping the way your back arches, how your hands grip along his arms like they’re your tether to Earth. 

One of your hands strays to his chest, fingertips brushing through the sparse hair. Then your palm flattens against it like you’re debating pushing him away. 

“You can take it,” Joel assures. Then his voice softens, “Know it feels good.” 

There’s so much of him. Everything about him is so much, you knew that before tonight. Heads turn towards him in every room he enters. When he speaks, people listen and things change. 

“So good,” you sigh.

The lewd squelch of your bodies fills the room. Joel makes the mistake of looking to the place where you’re joined, and curses himself for it a million times over. He glimmers in you. Even though you’re tender and swollen, there’s a greed to the way you continue to suck him in. Stars shine in your eyes when he meets your gaze. Sweet, and gone, and bright. 

Maybe this is what the stories of old warned of when they spoke of flying too close to the sun. Here he was in the midst of the flames, enveloped in your warmth so wholly that the two of you were one. After tonight, everyone in Jackson would see the mark you left behind. It was haughty to think he ever stood a chance.  

“M’close,” he groans.

You look directly into his eyes and say, “Fill me up.” 

Your voice sounds too caught up in the clouds for you to have realized the gravity of your request. Yet, with his hand to God, he can’t deny the surge of eagerness that courses through him. 

He gives you a second chance, “Where do you want me?” 

You hold his gaze because you’ve already given your answer. Dizziness strikes him. It starts in his head and works its way down to his gut. Joel makes to pull out before he does something unwise, but you hook your legs around the backs of his thighs to keep him near. 

Sweat dots his hairline, glistens in the divot of his sternum. “Can’t say stuff like that, babygirl.” 

A lopsided smile stretches across your face. “I hope it’s a girl.”

Every rational inclination in Joel’s body dilutes to a whisper. Then he sees it. Rogue flashes. His hands cradling your rounded belly. A baby girl with your eyes, your smile, your joy. A family. More laughter within these lonely four walls. He loses himself to the fantasy.

“Goddammit.” He touches his forehead to yours. “Me too—fuck. Me too.”

Joel’s thrusts deepen like he’s taken your words to heart. An unashamed moan falls past your lips. You guide his face down for a clumsy, loving kiss. His thumb works clit until you arch beneath him, falling into the thralls of another release. One clamp after another, you pulse around him as he sees you through the relentless waves of pleasure. 

“Christ, I’m comin’.” 

The fantasy begins to fade. 

Your legs have fallen from around him, lax with pleasure, so there’s no resistance as he slips from your warmth like he was never really there. 

All that’s left to attest that he was is your swollen folds, the shine of his cock. He strokes himself with a firm fist until his stomach tenses. Until his balls draw upwards, and he surrenders to the inexplicable tug of outward-rushing pleasure. A restrained grunt accompanies each strong rope of his release onto your skin. Low on your tummy, the top of your mound. You admire the scrunch of his face as he shudders through the aftershocks. 

The soreness in his biceps registers as he comes down. He kisses your forehead, your cheek, then rolls to collapse alongside you. Trembling when you reach over to take him in your hand, stroking him a few knowing times before you move to massage his balls. 

“I’m all done, sweetheart,” he rasps, tucking his nose into your shoulder, kissing you there. 

You pull away, but not without letting a lone finger sneakily grace along his shaft one last time.  

“Wanted you to come inside,” you murmur after a few quiet moments. 

And you truly did, a two minutes ago when having his baby didn’t seem like as big of a deal. You repeat it now as a temperature check more than anything. 

“You think you did,” he corrects. 

“I did.”

He believes you a little more this time. 

“‘Member what I said about not wanting to ruin a good thing?” 

“A baby wouldn’t—”

“That ain’t what I’m suggestin’.” Joel props himself on his forearm and tenderly traces along the underside of your breast. The furrow between his brows lets you know he’s deep in thought. 

“Let’s get to know each other. Truly.” His fingers move to the other side of your chest. “No more of this dancing between the lines.” 

He pauses to make sure you’re still with him. “Lemme take you to dinner—hell, all the things. Start over and do this right.” 

Joel’s fingertips brush down to your tummy, avoiding where his spend is gathered. “Then I’ll come wherever you want me to.” 

A shiver runs down your spine at his touch, his words.  

He finally lets his fingers pass through his sticky spend, running them down between your thighs. Your legs startle closed as they bump over the swell of your clit and drag through your folds.

“Joel.” Your hips shift, oversensitive but his touch still feels good. “Okay, okay, okay.”

He pulls away and kisses your temple. “That was just payback,” he murmurs, a smile in his voice. “You alright?” The question is much kinder. 

You nod, entirely too satisfied. Entirely spent. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” You watch as he gets up on shaky legs to head to the bathroom. 

“Joel?” 

He stops, faces the bed again. 

“Everything you said,” you start, taking all his nakedness in. “I’d like that too.” 

To begin again; what a lovely gift to come about in the night. 

-

Thanks so much for reading! All likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated. I promise I see them all!

JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST 

You two had started slow, like always. You were curled into his chest on the old couch of his house, legs draped over his lap, while the fire crackled. Joel’s arm was heavy around your shoulders, his hand warm against your thigh, thumb rubbing little circles into the cotton of your sleep shorts.

“Y’cold, baby?” he murmured, voice all gravel and syrup.

You shook your head against him. “No… m’alright.”

“You’re shiverin’.”

“M’not,” You whispered, even though you definitely were, but it wasn’t because the cold.

He chuckled low, the kind that rumbled from his chest into yours, and then he kissed you slow, like he had all the time in the world to taste you, making you moan softly against his mouth, fingers curling in the flannel of his shirt.

It always escalated the same way, his hand sliding under your shirt, rough fingers toying with your nipple until you gasped into his mouth, letting your hand press against the hard bulge in his jeans, and God, the way he groaned when you rubbed him, the way he’d mutter, “Atta girl… jus’ like that,” until he got so worked up you’d feel him twitch and pulse in his jeans, cumming from nothing but your hand over denim... you loved knowing it was you doing that to him.

But tonight… You were hungry for me more, eager to please him, to show him you were a big girl.

Joel pulled back from the kiss, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek, looking at you like you were some fragile little thing he couldn’t quite believe he got to hold.

“You alright, baby?”

You nodded but your throat was tight with the words you were trying to say.

“Tell me,” he said softly, eyes never leaving yours.

You swallowed. “I wanna… I wanna try somethin’. But I need you to teach me.”

He arched an eyebrow. “What kind of somethin’?”

You blushed, you were so shy you couldn’t meet his eyes right away. “I… wanna go down on you.”

Joel didn’t move for a second, he just stared at you, and then his lips curled into that lazy, crooked smirk you knew so well. You, his little baby, asking him to teach you how to blow him, it was a wet dream come true.

“Oh, baby girl…” He said it like it was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard, but then he leaned back slightly on the couch, spread his legs just a little, and his hand cradled your jaw, thumb brushing over your lips. “You wanna suck my cock, huh?”

The way he said it, teasing, condescending, like you were some precious little thing begging to be taught, made your thighs rub against the other.

You nodded, biting your lip. “Will you show me how, Joel?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he breathed, voice already thick with arousal, “you ask real nice, don’tcha?”

He reached for his belt, undoing it slow like he wanted you to watch every single step of this, like he needed you to see what you’d been touching all this time.

“You sure ‘bout this, honey? You don’t gotta do nothin’ you’re not ready for.”

“I want to,” you whispered. “I want you to teach me.”

Joel exhaled like he was trying to calm himself, jaw clenching for a second before he cupped the back of your head to guide you down, gently, until you were kneeling between his spread thighs.

“Look at you down there… christ, you look like you were made for this.”

Your cheeks burned but you couldn’t look away from him, from the way he sat there, jeans undone, cock hard and straining in his briefs.

“Take him out, baby,” Joel murmured, his voice lower now, husky. “Nice and slow.”

You did, fingers shaking a little as you tugged his underwear down. And there he was, just like you'd expected, thick, flushed, twitching, leaking at the tip already, making your mouth go dry.

“C’mere, wrap your hand around me.” Joel said, his hand curling gently around yours, guiding your fingers to wrap around his shaft, it was huge compared to your tiny hands, which could barely wrap all the way around him. “There we go. That’s it. Hold him just like that.”

He tilted his hips, the weight of him heavy in your hand.

“Start slow,” Joel murmurs. “Yeah, like that. Just stroke it. All the way up, then back down.”

You move your hand like he told you, up and down, watching his face, his eyes flutter closed briefly, his hips twitch.

“Good. Now—“ His voice drops to a groan. “Use both hands. One at the base, one near the tip. Gentle twist when you go up, yeah thassit.”

You do as he says, and his head falls back against the couch.

“Jesus, baby…”

Your confidence builds with every sound he makes. You twist your wrist slightly, slide your palm over the slick head, he bucks just a little, jaw clenched.

“That part’s sensitive,” he pants. “Just a little pressure there, not too much. You’ll know when it’s too much ‘cause I’ll start beggin’.”

You grin. “I like that idea.”

“Lick the tip, baby,” he said, almost gently. “Just a lil’ taste. Like a popsicle.”

You obliged instantly, letting your tongue flick out shyly against the fat mushroom head, in responde Joel groaned so deep it made you clench your thighs together tighter.

“Fuck, that’s it… Good girl.”

You did it again, this time slower, flattening your tongue against the head, tasting the salty precum as you swirled it around. It all felt so filthy, you there on your knees, giving him soft, teasing kitten-licks on his huge cock. Joel was drinking it all in, savoring the sight, trying to burn the image into his memory. No doubt that the man would be jerking off to this whenever you weren’t around.

“Goddamn, you’re good at this already. Natural little cocksucker, huh?”

His words made you whimper, you felt dizzy, your cheeks were hot, maybe because of your shyness, maybe because of how aroused you were. He found it endearing, how innocent you looked and yet how eager and willing you were to please him. It was almost ridiculous, really: that soft, delicate face beneath him, while his thick, veiny cock stood proud right in front of you.

Joel guided you again, thumb brushing your cheek as he spoke.

“Open your mouth now. Wider. That’s it. Just the tip, baby, just take the head in. You’re not ready for the whole thing yet, just enough so I can feel that warm little mouth.”

You almost wanted to whine, to tell him, “I’m a big girl, Joel. I can take all of it.” But if Joel said you weren’t ready, then you trusted him, he always knew better. You wrapped your lips around him, sucking gently, and he hissed, head falling back against the couch. His cock stretched your lips just a little, the taste of him is salty and clean on your tongue.

“Fuck, yeah, thassit baby… nice and easy. Don’t rush. Savor it." He breathes.

He was so gentle but filthy at the same time, his hand petting your hair like you were the sweetest thing while he fed you his cock in tiny increments.

He’d never had anyone suck his cock so gently before, he fucking hated when women just dropped to their knees and deep-throated from the first damn second. The best part of this was getting to mold you to his pleasing, to teach you how he liked it, so you’d only ever do it his way.

“Use that hand, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “Stroke what you can’t fit. That’s it. Just like that.”

Once again, you obeyed him, your hand working in rhythm with your mouth, hollowing your cheeks just like he told you.

“Good fuckin’ girl.”

“Look at you, makin’ Daddy feel so good.”

“Such a sweet mouth on you… you were made for this, weren’t you?”

His hips started moving just a little, it was insane how much just seeing you, his cock stuffed deep in your mouth, was driving him wild. But the way it felt, the warmth and softness wrapped around him? That was a million times better.

“Tell me if it’s too much, baby. Don’t wanna hurt that pretty mouth.”

You shook your head, taking more of him in, loving the way he gasped, the way his thighs tensed under your hands, he was slowly but surely unraveling, you could see it in the way his jaw clenched, the way his hand gripped yours tighter where you stroked him.

“Try takin’ a little more,” he murmurs. “Only if it feels okay.”

You inch down, slow and careful, taking more of him, your lips stretch, your tongue pressed under the weight of him, and you hummed around him when he filled your mouth a little deeper.

“Nghhh yeah, move just like that,” he pants. “Use your hand with your mouth and keep it slick. Little twist when you stroke. Fuck, you’re a fast learner, baby..”

You’re dripping now, feeling the ache between your legs just from how wrecked he sounds, yet you go slow, listening to every sound he makes, the low curses, the clipped gasps, the murmured praise.

“Look at me,” he rasps.

You glance up with your mouth full of his cock, lips swollen, eyes wide, the look you give him makes Joel groans like it’s physically painful.

“Sweetheart, you look so fuckin’ pretty like that.”

You moan softly around him, and his hips twitch, he gasps and pulls back slightly.

“Shit—baby—hang on—”

You blink, lips shiny, confused, if it felt so good, why was he asking you to stop? Were you doing something wrong?

“I’m—close,” he says. “Real close. You probably don’t wanna—”

Silly Joel thought you wouldn't want his cum filling your mouth? You were gonna prove him wrong now, you were gonna get your mouth full of it. You lean forward again, and you take him back in, without stopping.

“Fuck,” he groaned, voice rough and ragged. “You really gonna let me cum on that sweet lil’ face, darlin’?”

You moaned around him, and that was all it took.

“Fuck—oh fuck, baby girl,” he groaned, hips jerking. “Take it, take it, take all that cum for me—”

He spilled hot and thick into your mouth and onto your tongue, groaning like he hadn’t cum that hard in years. You swallowed instinctively, messy and clumsy, and some of it still dripped onto your chin. It felt thick and sticky down your throat, a little salty, unlike anything you’d ever tasted before, but it was Joel’s seed, and that made it feel… special.

He watches you swallow it, stunned, his whole body shudders through the last few spurts and you stroke him gently through it, hand slick, mouth soft.

Joel pulled you back gently, cupping your cheeks as he caught his breath. “Jesus Christ, baby…” he murmured, leaning down to kiss the corner of your mouth, tasting himself on your lips. “You’re somethin’ else.”

You looked up at him, breathless, dazed, and buzzing. “Did I do okay, daddy?”

Joel laughed softly, wiping his thumb across your lip where some of his cum had landed.

“You did fuckin’ perfect, baby. I’m so proud of you. That mouth, Jesus, you just about ended me.”

You curl into his chest, flushed, heart pounding, and he cradles you like you’re breakable.

“You okay, baby girl?”

I nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah… m’good.”

He smiled. “Yeah? That sweet mouth tired now?”

A giggle slipped out of your lips. “Not really…”

He chuckled low, but something about the way he looked at you changed then, his eyes were still hungry. “You want me to treat that pussy real nice too, baby? I bet she's achin’.”

“I…” you hesitated, chewing on your lip.

Joel tilted his head. “What is it?”

You looked down, then back up at him through your lashes. “I wanna try somethin’. But you gotta promise to be careful.”

Joel immediately froze. “Talk to me.”

You felt your heart pounding. “I just… I wanna try the tip,” you whispered. “Just that, but not all the way.”

His jaw clenched. “Baby…”

“Pleeeease?” You said, hand on his chest. “I trust you. I wanna know what it feels like, just the tip.”

Joel stared at you like he was trying to memorize you, like he was weighing the pleasure against his fear of hurting you. He was still hard again, painfully so, and he was dying to know what being inside you felt like, but he was still a gentleman afraid to hurt his sweet little girl.

“You’re still a virgin,” he said softly. “That’s not nothin’. I ain’t gonna take that from you unless you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” you said. “As long as you go slow, I want to feel you, please Joooeel.”

He muttered a curse under his breath, low and southern and filthy. Fuck, what the hell were you even doing to him? He was a grown-ass man, and here he was getting all worked up over just getting his tip wet, like he was some desperate teenager all over again in the back of a car at the drive-in, ready to lose it from a single stroke.

“Fuck, baby girl… you say it like that, I’m gonna lose my fuckin’ mind.”

Joel kissed you hard, then he stood and scooped you up in his arms like you were made out of feathers, carrying you to his bedroom, the one you've been before a couple of times, with the old quilt and the creaky floorboards. He laid you gently on the bed like you were made of glass.

“You tell me if you want to stop,” he said, voice tight. “I mean it. I’ll pull out in a second. Ain’t nothin’ we gotta rush.”

“I know,” You whispered, reaching up to touch his face. “I want this.”

Joel undressed you slow, kissing every inch of skin as he bared it, your nipples were already hard when he pulled your shirt up, making him groan as soon as he saw them.

“Look at these pretty tits,” he murmured, sucking one into his mouth. “Still can’t believe these are all mine.”

You arched under him, gasping, thighs clenching as he trailed kisses down to the hem of your shorts, and when he peeled them off, he found you soaked, so soaked through your panties, making the cotton stick to your folds.

“God damn,” Joel muttered, pressing his thumb against the wet spot. “This all for me, sweetheart?”

You whimpered. “Yes…”

He quickly tugged the panties off slow, baring your aching, needy pussy, then knelt between your legs, staring at you like he wanted to devour you.

“You’re drippin’, baby,” he said, thumbing through the slickness between your pussy lips. “She’s beggin’ for me.”

He made you whimper when he pressed two fingers to your entrance, not pushing in, just teasing you.

“You’re so tight,” he murmured, sucking in a breath. “You sure you want me to put this cock in you, baby girl? Even just the tip?”

You nodded desperately. “Please, Joel. I need it.”

He groaned. “Fuck. Okay. Get up on the pillows for me, yeah? Gotta be real careful with you.”

You did as he said, like every single time, obeying like a good girl, lying back and spreading your legs open for him. He stroke his thick cock, now fully hard again, the head swollen and leaking precum. Joel lined himself up to your entrance, brushing the tip through your folds, making you jolt in anticipation.

“Gotta open up for me, baby,” he murmured, voice condescending and sweet. “Let daddy in just a lil’. That’s what you wanted, huh? Just the tip?”

“Y-yeah,” you breathed. “Just the tip.”

Joel pressed the head of his cock against your entrance and pushed in slowly, stretching your cunt wide with just that first inch, your breath caught at the invation, it burned, but it also made you clench, hips twitching as your body tried to pull him in deeper, as it tried to accomodate him inside you.

Joel cursed everything and everyone, just the fucking tip inside you and it was already better than every goddamn woman he’d ever fucked. Tighter. Hotter. Wetter. Like his cock had finally found where it belonged, like it had spent his whole damn life searching and now it found his home, nothing had ever felt like this, no one had ever felt like you.

“Fuuuck,” Joel groaned. “You feel that? That’s just the tip, baby girl. Just this fat head stretchin’ that virgin pussy. You takin’ it like a good girl.”

You moaned, thighs shaking. “Joel…”

“You like that?” he asked, leaning over you, still holding himself back. “You like bein’ stretched open like this?”

You nodded frantically, tears pricking your eyes, it hurted, yes, but it felt delicious like nothing you've experienced before in your life.

“Yeah, you do,” he cooed. “You’re squeezin’ me so tight, baby. You’re so fuckin’ small… and I ain’t even in yet.”

He pulled out just a little, then pressed back in with just the tip again. “Look at that,” he murmured. “Pussy so greedy, she don’t want me to leave.”

You gasped, arching your back. “It feels… so full…”

“This ain’t full, baby,” Joel growled. “This is just a taste. You let me in any deeper and I’ll ruin you.”

You whimpered. “I want it.”

“You want what?”

“I want you to ruin me.”

Joel growled low in his throat, dropping his head to rest against yours, hips moving just enough to slide that swollen tip in and out of you, teasing your entrance, fucking you with just the head, over and over.

“God, you don’t even know what you’re sayin’, baby. You ain’t ready for the whole thing yet. I’ll split you open.”

“I don’t care,” You whispered, gripping his shoulders. “I want it all.”

Joel groaned like he was in pain, pulling out again to rub his cock through your slick folds, smearing his precum and your wetness together, nudging against your clit until you writhed. You had no right to look so fucking pure while moaning for him to split you open, begging for more cock.

“Not tonight, baby,” he said, kissing you hard. “But soon I’m gonna take this pussy for real. Gonna fuck you so full you’ll be ruined for anyone else. You hear me?”

“I need more,” You moaned. “Pleeease, Jooeeel.”

“You ain’t ready for more,” he growled, but there was no edge in his voice, just hunger. “You think you can take all this cock? I’m a grown fuckin’ man, baby, not some boy.”

Joel rubbed the tip against your entrance again and slid it in once more, slowly, deeply, groaning like it was killing him to hold back, like he was fighting his whole body not to shove deeper. And you were so wet, so full already, you couldn’t stop squirming under him, clenching around the small stretch he gave you, chasing more with every desperate roll of your hips.

“Easy, baby,” he grunted, voice rough. “You’re squeezin’ me like a goddamn vice. You keep doin’ that and I’m gonna blow already.”

His hands gripped your hips like he was holding you still for dear life, his forehead dropped to yours, breath warm and ragged against your skin, and he just stayed there, buried with just the tip inside, grounding his hips against you, just enough to make you cry out, over and over.

“You’re doin’ so good, baby girl,” he whispered in my ear. “Makin’ daddy proud.”

He rolled his hips and ground the tip in deeper, just a shallow push that was barely an inch, but it was enough to make your back arch and your thighs tremble.

“F—fuck,” you gasped, fingernails digging into his shoulders.

“That feel good, sweet girl?” Joel cooed, baby-talking you again. “That lil’ virgin pussy likin’ how daddy’s tip feels stretchin’ her out?”

I nodded frantically. “Feels so good, daddy. Don’t stop, please—please don’t stop—”

“Oh, baby, I ain’t stoppin’,” he said, grinding his hips in slow, tiny circles, keeping that swollen head inside you while the rest of his length throbbed against your soaked folds. “Gonna fuck you like this, gonna make you cum on it. Gonna teach your pussy who she belongs to.”

“Y-yeah,” you breathed. “So big… and you’re not even all the way in…”

“Damn right I’m not,” he said. “You’re too fuckin’ tight, baby. You’ll take me when I say so, not before.”

Part of him was fucking feral over the fact that it was the first cock you’d ever taken, and the only one, he’d make damn sure of that. Seeing you cry from just one fucking inch? One single inch stretching that tight little pussy open for the first time? Christ, Joel would get this moment tattooed onto his chest if he could, nothing had ever made him feel more like a man.

His hands left your hips and slid down, thick fingers slipping between your bodies, parting your folds and rubbing soft and tight circles against your clit as he stayed buried in you just that inch.

“Joel—oh my God—!”

“You gonna cum for me?” he murmured. “Gonna let daddy make this sweet little cunt cum for the first time with a cock in her?”

You nodded wildly, you were so close, your whole body tense and trembling, thighs shaking around his waist.

“Look at you,” Joel groaned. “You don’t even need me all the way inside, do you? You just need this big tip grindin’ right into that little hole…”

He gave a shallow thrust, just a nudge forward, barely anything, but it hit something that has never been touched before, and you cried out in pleasure.

“Oh my God—Joel!”

“That’s it,” he rasped, fingers working faster against your clit. “Let it happen, baby girl. Let that tight little pussy cum for me. So fuckin’ good—my good girl—”

You came with a sob, back arching off the bed, thighs clamping down around his hips as you clenched and fluttered around the tip of his cock. Your whole body went tight and then loose all at once, like you'd been holding your breath since the moment he touched you, or like you've been holding your breath your entire life before this moment.

Joel growled like an animal, hips twitching once, twice, and then he cursed, his voice breaking. “Fuck—baby girl—fuck, I’m gonna—”

He spilled inside you, hot and sudden, still buried with just the tip. He didn’t move, didn’t thrust, just stayed there, pressed against you as thick pulses of his release coated your walls, leaking out around the base of his cock, making you both gasp through it, panting, foreheads pressed together, bodies still intertwined.

You both stayed like that for a long moment, his tip twitching inside you, your cunt still fluttering around him, warm and full and messy between your legs.

Joel kissed you softly. “You okay, baby?” he whispered. “Talk to me.”

You nodded, dazed. “Yeah… yeah. That was… that was…”

He smiled. “Yeah. That’s what just the tip feels like.”

You laughed breathlessly, still flushed and trembling. “So what’s the rest of it like?”

Joel’s smirk turned dark. “Oh, sweetheart. You ain’t ready for that answer yet.”

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it!! I’m planning a little series of one-shots with Joel teaching the reader different things, so lmk if you’d be interested in that. As always, your support means the world to me🩷🫶🏻

It was wrong. You were married. You’d said “I do.” In sickness and in health. ‘Til death and all of that. You had moved across the country for him; left your friends and family behind. You quit your job for him. You cooked for him. You cleaned for him. You were talking about trying for a baby, even. He loved you, and you loved him.

But your husband was gone on business trips increasingly frequently. You saw a smudge of red lipstick — not your shade — on the collar of his shirt when you did his laundry. He’d moved you to Texas, where you knew no one, and left you all alone in a big house that he insisted on making even bigger. Maybe he expected you to look elsewhere, too.

The house he bought had only been built a couple of years ago, the one that you’d described to your oldest friend as a temple to bland opulence. Naturally, your husband thought it needed to be updated. Expanded upon. A new detached garage and a complete kitchen renovation were good places to start, he supposed. He told you the kitchen renovation would be your “little project,” the garage his, and made sure to tell the contractors there was no budget before he set off for his second business trip that month.

Your husband showed affection by letting you spend as much money as you could and occasionally with increasingly passionless sex. The former was more satisfying, and so you told the contractors you wanted the most expensive Carrara marble countertops they could track down.

Miller Contracting came highly recommended to your husband by your new neighbor Mrs. Collins, who said they were a "pure joy to have around.” You understood why: the brothers were very handsome. The older one caught your eye especially. He introduced himself as Joel, wiping grime onto his pants before offering his hand and a preemptive apology for the mess. Sometimes you had a hard time pulling your gaze from his broad shoulders. A single curl at the nape of his neck would entrance you. More than once, you found yourself staring at the tool belt slung low around his hips—a hammer pushing the hem of his shirt up just enough to expose his tanned torso. He was completely oblivious to how hot and bothered his mere presence made you, which somehow made you want him even more. It wasn’t normal how many times a week you found yourself with your hand down your pants thinking of Joel. It couldn’t be normal that you fantasized it was Joel, not your husband, sleeping next to you on the rare occasion your husband was home.

You needed a distraction from temptation. You tried to make a life for yourself in Austin. Or, if not a life, at least keep yourself occupied and out of the house. Tennis and shopping and massages could only fill so much of the void. You busied yourself with various boards and societies and leagues at your husband’s request: it was a good way to make connections, he said, to make friends before you start having kids.

In the beginning, your interactions with Joel were brief and practical. Joel would ask about fixture placements or clarify blueprints the architect had drawn up, and you’d find yourself too focused on the veins in his forearms to respond right away. Once, when Tommy was running late, he asked you to hold a two-by-four steady while he cut it, and you stood shoulder to shoulder, the sharp scent of sawdust and his skin overwhelming your senses. You felt the vibration of the saw through the board and wondered what it would feel like to touch him, just for a moment. When he looked up, your eyes met for a fraction too long. Neither of you said anything.

Joel stayed late one evening, finishing the countertop installation long after Tommy had gone home for the day. You offered him a celebratory drink and he accepted to your surprise, leaning against the island with you. The silence between you stretched, not awkward but thick. When he set the glass of your husband’s whisky down, his fingers brushed yours. You didn’t move away. He looked at you for a long moment, then back at the glass.

“She’s gorgeous, Joel,” you murmured, drawing your fingers along the length of the new marble countertop. The slab was cold and smooth beneath your palm, a coolness at odds with the heat rising up the back of your neck. It was your favorite slab out of the four you’d vetted with Joel, the one you’d insisted upon even when he warned you about its endless tendency to stain, how every glass of red wine or ring of coffee would etch a memory into it forever. Still, you wanted it, and so, there it was: a swirl of creamy white, mottled and streaked, luminous under the new pendant lights. You slid your hand across the veiny surface all the way to the edge and back again.

The rest of the house felt hollow, half-lit by the lingering sunset, but here the air was thick and warm with spice and plaster dust and the faintest trace of sandalwood—Joel’s deodorant, you’d realized, after catching a whiff of it more than once on his discarded shop towels. The kitchen was only lit by a work lamp on the floor behind you, casting your shadows onto the new, bare wall in front of you.

Joel glanced up from his glass at you, a smirk spreading across his face, “mhm,” he nodded in agreement, “real beauty.”

You raised your glass, whisky trembling among an oversized ice cube, and with a gleeful bravado you declared, “To the most beautiful countertop this side of the Mississippi.” Joel suppressed an amused snort but dutifully picked up his own glass and held it toward yours. His hands were broad and nicked in places with old scars; the juxtaposition of a laborer’s calluses wrapped around a delicate tumbler made your pulse quicken. As the glasses met with a restrained clink, the sound sparked in the stillness like the strike of a match.

The whisky scorched a path down your throat, igniting a heat in your chest that had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the man sitting six inches from you. The discrepancy between the polite, measured conversation and the animal yearning in the air made you giddy, almost lightheaded. You felt like a teenager who’d never been kissed, pulse racing.

Joel’s voice startled you, the low register of it vibrating through your chest. “Is your husband gonna mind that I’m here this late?” he asked, and the words fell into the heavy air like an ice cube shattering on tile. You could tell he regretted them as soon as they were out—his jaw flexed, a faint flush blooming along his cheekbones. The question itself was so at odds with the moment you’d both let yourselves slip into. You’d half expected him to lean in, to close the last gap between your faces, but instead he’d summoned your husband back into the room.

You searched Joel’s face, trying to decide if he cared about the answer or was simply fishing for a reason to excuse himself before something happened. Maybe he was only being gentlemanly. Maybe it was a test, and you’d already failed by not mentioning your husband first. Maybe you’d misread the entire situation and made a fool out of yourself.

“Not like he’s here to know,” you said, and it came out much sharper than intended. You cringed in the next instant, hating the way the bitterness in your voice had hung a hard, ugly edge on the air. You hadn’t meant it as confession, or even as a complaint. You didn’t elaborate, didn’t ask Joel to consider the last time he’d seen him there, though you hoped he thought about it.

You tried to remember what rules governed these sorts of situations. Was fidelity measured in minutes, in miles, in the number of times your husband remembered to call you before bed? Was loyalty a question of what you did, or what you wanted to do? Every woman in your family had opinions on this—your sisters, your aunts, your own mother. You’d heard them compare marriages by the way their men failed them: the ones who drank, the ones who gambled, the ones who left red marks and bruises.

You understood that every marriage was an accumulation of secret grievances, some profound and some petty, most never spoken aloud. Your mother’s plight was familiar: the husband and father who spent all day in the garage with an AM radio and a case of Bud Light, the one who started out promising all the right things but, by their fifteenth anniversary, didn’t even pretend to believe in anniversaries at all. Your Aunt Lisa’s husband once spent the mortgage payment on poker. Aunt Carla’s husband crashed a car into a neighbor’s fence and blamed it on an allergy pill. And the women, for all their complaints, hung on. You watched as they grew used to disappointment and pain.

Your husband didn’t yell or drink or gamble. He wasn’t cruel, not really. Instead, he was just … gone. When he finally returned home from a trip, he was tired, and when he wasn’t tired, he was distracted. He bought you nice things and urged you to spend freely to fill the void. His unprovable infidelities seemed inconsequential comparatively.

You’d never allowed yourself to say it, certainly not to anyone who really knew you, and especially not to him. You told yourself it wasn’t so bad. You told yourself that you didn’t deserve to complain, not when other women had it so much worse. The truth was that you wanted to be seen, and touched, and loved, in a way that didn’t feel perfunctory or purely transactional.

You wondered: if you had children, would this be the version of marriage they’d inherit? Would your daughters one day sit in their own kitchens with their own friends and think back on their mother with sadness and a twinge of pity? Would your sons learn to vanish as a means of survival? Maybe this was just how it was, and always would be.

You did not tell Joel about your birthday last year, when your husband hadn’t called from New York: you celebrated by ordering takeout and eating it, cross-legged, on the living room carpet with the TV on mute in fear of missing the phone ring. You did not tell him about the feeling that had crept up on you that night: something like grief, but also like relief, as if you’d finally been granted permission to admit that you were completely alone. You did not tell him about the time you’d found your husband’s text messages to an assortment of women with unfamiliar names, or the way you’d convinced yourself it didn’t matter, since he’d never admit to it and you didn’t care to bring up. You didn’t tell him how you sometimes lay awake for hours, the ceiling fan spinning its blades like a roulette wheel and tried to imagine a version of your life where you didn’t have to wait for someone to finally come home to you.

The unspoken truth was this: you had already left your husband. You’d just never had a witness to it before.

Could Joel see all of this in your face? Was he quietly adding up your loneliness and cataloguing it alongside all the other minor tragedies he encountered on the job. Maybe he’d heard it all before. Maybe every house he worked in was just a different flavor of the same sadness. Bored housewife after bored housewife, looking for an outlet.

You didn’t owe Joel the whole story — couldn’t have given it if you tried — so instead you watched the way he took your answer, slow and considerate, his hands fitting around the glass as if he might squeeze it into something new.

You became hyper-aware of everything: how close you and Joel were standing, how neatly his boots aligned with your bare feet on the hardwood, how the light from the work lamp painted you both in muddled relief against the still-blank wall. He smelled faintly of sweat and something comfortable—laundry, warm skin. It made your stomach clench.

You reached for your glass again, but Joel gently took it from you and set it on the counter. He didn’t break eye contact. He didn’t lean in, not exactly, but his presence tilted towards you, shifting the gravity in the room. You saw the subtle tremor in his hand as he placed your drink down.

“Tell me to leave,” he whispered, as if he was afraid the house might overhear.

You didn’t.

Couldn’t.

You stared at each other through the silence, and out of the corner of your eye, you saw your distinct shadows cast on the wall by the work lamp become one.

His mouth was on yours before you had a chance to breathe. Hot, rough, desperate.

He broke the kiss only to lift you—strong hands gripping beneath your thighs, setting you on your new countertop like it was the most natural thing in the world. Your knees parted instinctively, heart thundering, pulse thrumming so loud it filled your ears.

His hands slipped under your dress. Callused fingers dragging up your thighs slowly, reverently, igniting sparks under your skin. And then he paused, his hand stalling along your wet slit.

His eyes met yours, dark and burning. And then he crouched down, nudging your legs over his shoulders as he dove between them.

You made a sound — breathy, shaky, resembling his name — but he was already there. Already sinking to his knees, already kissing up the soft, trembling inside of your thigh. His mouth was hot and open, each press of his lips reverent and greedy, his stubble rasping your skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake. When his teeth scraped gently, teasing, you flinched. You didn’t care if he left a mark. You wanted him to. Something to find in the mirror tomorrow, a secret bruise that would confirm that this was not just a dream.

The first swipe of his tongue through your folds made your hips jerk like you’d touched something electric, your spine bowing as your fingers slammed down onto the countertop behind you with a loud, ungraceful thud. A breath left you like a punch. “Fuck,” you gasped, eyes fluttering.

Your husband had never just… dove in like that. Never knelt between your legs like he couldn’t wait, like it was an instinct, like he’d die if he didn’t taste you. The few times he’d gone down on you had been cautious, transactional—bookended by negotiations and implied debts. You’d had to convince him. And afterward, you’d had to fake your moans so he’d think he was doing a good job. Bastard.

But Joel—he groaned like he meant it, like he’d been starving for this. That sound vibrated into you, low and raw, and then he latched onto your clit, sucking hard enough to make your vision blur. Your knees nearly buckled. You barely kept yourself upright with one hand gripping the counter, the other tangled in his hair, fisting it tight. He didn’t seem to mind. If anything, he leaned in harder, letting you use him for balance while his mouth ruined you.

You came fast. So fast it shocked you, ripped the breath from your lungs. One second you were gasping, the next you were gone, unraveling with a strangled cry. The orgasm crashed over you like a wave that didn’t wait for permission, hot and dizzying, legs trembling around his shoulders as your stomach seized and fluttered and let go. Your head tipped back against the cabinet behind you, jaw slack, fingers still clutching his hair.

When the white faded from your vision, Joel was still there, slow and deliberate now, licking you through the aftershocks, as if easing you back down. As if soothing the very nerves he’d just lit on fire.

You breathed out his name then and finally loosened your grip, letting your hand fall to his shoulder. Your legs were still shaking. You weren’t sure they’d hold you.

Somehow, you found the strength to lift them, one then the other, back down to the floor. It wasn’t graceful. You slid off the counter, your thighs sticky and weak, bracing yourself as your feet hit the ground. Joel looked up at you, lips wet, pupils blown wide.

Joel stood, chest heaving, face slick with you, eyes dark and dazed, and kissed you again. You tasted yourself on his tongue and the whole thing felt perverted and wrong — and you didn’t care.

He pulled back just enough to speak, a string of his spit clinging between you.

“You come like that for your husband, darlin’?”

You shook your head, breath still catching. God, you’d never come like that for anyone.

Joel’s lips curved, slow and smug, but there was something else in it too, something awed. Like he was proud of what he’d done to you. Like he wanted to do it again just to prove it wasn’t a fluke.

“Thought so,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over your cheek, then dragging it down your jaw, tracing the edge of your lips. “You had that … look.”

Before you could interrogate him – what fucking look? – he kissed you again. You pulled him closer, feeling the hard press of him through his jeans.

He shifted against you, so slightly, but the friction made you gasp. You thought you couldn’t handle anymore but the weight and heat of him gave you a second wind. He kissed you deeper, his hands sliding up your sides, your dress somehow still on.

Your hand slid down to feel him, fingers fiddling with his belt in a poor attempt to get his pants off.

You wrapped your hand around him and felt his cock twitch in anticipation of your next movement. You stroked him once, maybe twice, your thumb teasing along the head, slick with precome.

“Shit,” Joel hissed, jaw tightening. His hips jerked forward into your fist.

But then he grabbed your wrist, fingers curling around it tight, pulling your hand away like he was barely holding on. “Don’t — fuck, darlin’, don’t.”

You looked up at him, breathless, eyes wide, scared you’d crossed a line.

“I’ll come in your fuckin’ hand if you keep that up,” he growled, voice thick with warning — raw, half-wrecked, smirk spreading across his face. “An’ I’m not done with you yet.”

You hopped back up on the counter in excited anticipation.

“Uh uh,” he tutted, pulling you off the counter.

You blinked, dazed. “What?”

Joel’s brow furrowed, mouth still red and wet from where he'd had you moments ago.

“The marble,” he said, nodding toward the countertop. “Ain’t fuckin’ you on it. You’re soaked, darlin’, and I warned you that a speck of dust could stain this thing.”

You almost laughed before he lifted you with one arm, the head of his cock still pressed against you, and shifted down to the floor in one practiced movement. He sat back against the kitchen island, legs spread, pulling you into his lap. You were both completely naked by now, clothes stripped at some point.

Joel’s cock slapped up against your belly and you reached for it, blindly greedy, wrapping your hand around the thickness, feeling the pulse of heat radiating upward into your palm. You glanced down at the length of it, envisioning how much it would fill you up. His skin was burning, lined with veins that throbbed under your touch; his whole body was wound tight, muscles bunched and trembling from holding back.

You tilted your hips up and guided the head to your entrance, stroking it through your slick, and then with a slow, deliberate motion, you pressed down. The stretch was immediate, stinging, and so, so good. You gasped and let your head fall back, the sudden fullness threatening to buckle your knees even though you were already straddling him on the kitchen floor. Joel gripped your hips in both rough hands and held you steady, but didn’t force you. He let you take him at your own pace, patient but obviously desperate, his teeth bared against a groan as you settled into his lap.

“Fuck. Yeah. That’s it, sweetheart,” he growled, voice low and tight, watching you through narrowed, dark eyes. “Sit right there on my cock.” It sounded like an offering.

You rocked your hips, tentative at first, and the movement made both of you moan at the same time. You braced yourself backwards on Joel’s legs until he leaned forward, hands still bracketing your waist, catching one of your breasts in his mouth and circling your nipple with his tongue.

You shifted your hands to his shoulders, gripping tight, using the strength of his body to steady yourself. Then you lifted and dropped your hips, finding your rhythm as heat coiled deep in your belly.

Joel groaned against your breast, then lifted his head, mouth dragging open and wet along your jaw, up to your ear. His hands left your hips to tangle in your hair, guiding your mouth to his, breath mingling, sweat slick between you.

“This what you need?” he rasped, voice muffled against your jaw.

You could only nod, words lost to the pleasure, your body answering for you as you rolled your hips again and again, chasing the edge he kept dragging you toward.

You kept riding him, slower now but deeper, each thrust sending sparks up your spine. The kitchen floor had vanished beneath you: there was only the heat, the slide, the stretch of him filling you again and again.

But your thighs were shaking harder now, the burn setting in - weak and quivering with every lift of your hips. Your rhythm faltered, a soft whimper slipping from your mouth as your legs began to give out beneath you.

Joel felt you tremble.

“I’ve got ya,” he growled, and suddenly his grip on your waist turned commanding, solid.

Before you could even brace yourself, he thrust up into you — hard, deep, relentless.

You cried out, the air knocked from your lungs, and clung to his shoulders as he took over.

His hands guided you, slamming you down onto his cock as he drove up to meet you. The new angle hit something inside you. Your moans turned ragged, your fingers clawing into flesh.

“Fuck, Joel –” you gasped.

“Yeah?” he grunted, fucking up into you harder now, his breath hot and broken against your neck. “Needed this, didn’t’ya darlin’?”

You nodded wildly, terrified he might stop. Your body was coming apart, unraveling under him. The slap of your bodies echoed off the tile and cabinets, the slick, desperate rhythm of it building and building and building.

He was unrelenting now, chasing the edge with single-minded focus, sweat slicking his skin, his thigh muscles tensing beneath you with every upward drive. You clung to him, helpless against the force of it, your mouth parted in a soundless cry as your orgasm crested fast and vicious.

It slammed into you like a wave breaking against rock. You jerked in his lap, spine arching, every muscle seizing. Part of you tried to escape, the stimulation too much, but Joel held you tight in his arms. A strangled sob left your throat as your vision whited out. You clenched down around him, and Joel groaned.

“Jesus—fuck—” he hissed through gritted teeth, his hands bruising your hips now, holding you down as he drove up once, twice more before burying himself to the hilt with a growl and spilling into you.

Neither of you moved, your forehead pressed against the sweat-dampened skin of his neck.

“You alright?” he asked, voice rough and low against your hair.

You could barely hear, heartbeat pounding in your eardrums as the room finally stopped spinning. You gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. Joel shifted, lifting a hand to cup the back of your head.

“Didn’t mean to take over like that,” he murmured, suddenly bashful. “You just — uh, you started fallin’ apart on me.”

You exhaled a shaky breath. A beat passed, then another, before you managed a weak, breathless laugh—hoarse and low.

“You think I’m complaining?”

His chest rumbled beneath you with a muted chuckle, but he didn’t let you go. Didn’t pull out. Didn’t move except to hold you tighter, like letting go might undo the whole moment.

you didn't, but the guilt that gnawed at your throat nearly became too much to bare.

your hand drifted eerily close to the handle as you heard his pleas through your door.

the only thing that made you come back to reality was the pounding of a broom stick on the floor beneath, shouting for the man to shut the fuck up.

that was some days ago, but now, instead of feeling pity or guilt, you’re starting to feel just plain creeped out.

scared he might act on impulse and break into your apartment in the depths of the night.

you're sleeping has taken a plummet, even with a knife by your bed, nothing seems to coax you into relaxation.

that is, until you have the brilliant idea to go next door to your tall, scary, military neighbor, who goes by simon.

you don't know his last name; hell you barely knew his first.

the only reason you knew it was because you heard some girl he brought home moan it through your thin connecting walls.

you felt guilty as you pulled out your small vibrator, goading your sweet release as you heard him groan and curse with every harsh thrust.

even the guilt that swirled in your stomach couldn’t take away the guttural effects he was having on your body, even from so far away.

you ducked your head, avoiding his gaze from then on, until one day, while having trouble unlocking your apartment door, he trudged to your door after examining you for a moment, gently scooting you away and fixing it right before your eyes.

you claimed he was a magician.

he chuckled, deep and gruff, before his name fell off his tongue in greeting, making your thighs clench together.

you hurriedly introduced yourself, before rushing into your apartment, shutting the door behind you, and sinking onto the ground with a deep sigh and hot skin.

pathetic, really.

but, he didn't mind.

he thought you were cute—odd but cute—and you brought him cookies the next day as a thank you, so how could he think ill of you?

so if anyone could help you, it was simon.

“hey, neighbor,” you greet him when he opens the door. he is wearing a simple black long sleeve shirt and dark cargo pants.

he nods towards you. “hello.”

you smile brightly at him, somewhat forgetting your dilemma.

he tilts his head to the side, quipping a brow. “any particular reason you’re here?” he asks, voice rough as always.

you rock on your heels, fidgeting with your fingers. “i need your help.”

he leans against the doorframe. “go on.”

“i’m sure you’ve heard that guy that comes around,” you start, watching his squinted eyes.

“who hasn’t? that bastard is always here,” he says gruffly.

“he’s my ex,” you admit, cringing.

simon stiffens, eyes opening wider slightly.

“he’s, uh… become an issue. he won’t leave me alone, and i’m scared he’s going to break into my apartment while i’m sleeping,” you say, shaking your head, the tension in your voice evident.

“he’s not going to do that,” he shrugs.

your eyes widen at his dismissal, feeling slightly hurt. “how do you know?”

he turns to grab a backpack off a hook beside him. “because i’ll be there. won’t let him through the door,” he casually mutters as he steps out of his apartment, closing it behind him.

you feel a flutter in your stomach at his taking on the role of your protector so quickly—no enticement necessary.

“i really appreciate it, simon.” your voice is full of gratitude.

“don’t mention it, sweetheart,” he shakes his head, heading towards your door. “key?” he asks, reaching for your painted key hanging around your neck.

you hurriedly lean forward, mind completely fogging at the endearment.

his lip quips as he tugs the key up and over your head to unlock the door.

once he unlocks the door, he pushes the door wide open, stepping aside for you to go in first.

“and they say chivalry is dead,” you can’t help but joke as you slip in, a teasing glint in your eye.

he matches your humorous smile with one of his own. “do they? hadn’t heard that,” he murmurs, closing the door as he steps in.

you spin your head away from his gaze, opting to stare at a lonesome flower pot with a dumb grin on your face.

the next two hours are spent lazing until you find yourself on the cushion right next to simon on the couch as he occasionally glanced at the door, while you picked and prodded at reality show stars on the television screen.

But you and simon both stiffen when you hear the familiar hard knock on the front door, followed by a strained male voice pleading.

you look at simon who's already stalking over to the door; you uncross your legs and walk behind him.

with annoyance, simon pulls open the door, and you see your ex’s face whiten and his body sag at the sight. “can we help you?” simon gruffs, cocking a brow at his pathetic demeanor.

your ex stammers, stumbling over his words as he looks between you and simon. “who the fuck are you?” your ex demands, though not daring to try and overpower simon because simon easily has fifty pounds and eight inches over him.

simon crosses his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging bigger as he does so. “you should lose this address,” he urges, voice so gruff and commanding it sends shivers down your spine. “i don’t take too kindly to guys stalking my girlfriend,” he says with an ease that makes you lick your drying lips.

“girlfriend?” your ex chokes out, unable to comprehend what he is hearing.

“that’s what i said, isn’t it?” simon almost sounds disinterested.

your ex’s eyes wander to you. “you're dating this guy?” he almost sounds hurt.

you shift under his gaze, feeling awkward.

“don't talk to her. talk to me,” simon interjected, feeling your unease.

“you can’t—you aren’t dating,” your ex begins, narrowing his eyes. “you’re just doing this to make me jealous, aren’t you?” there is venom behind his words that pisses simon off.

simon’s lips flatline, and just as you go to speak, simon turns his head, hand coming to cup your jaw to kiss you deeply, possessively.

your ex releases a short breath as the sight.

simon’s tongue moves across to skim your teeth, making you whine into his mouth, as his fingers tangle in your hair for deeper contact.

you shallow a whimper of protest as simon pulls back, enjoying the sight of your ex so shell shocked.

simon tilts his head forward, looking into his eyes intently. “this is my girl, and if i find out you’ve been botherin’ her, i’ll make you a dead man. you hear me?” his voice is so lethal it makes you squirm, but in a completely different way than your ex.

your ex’s eyes look like saucers as he nods his head fervently.

“good choice. now leave,” simon instructs.

without another word, your ex spins on his heels, looking like a hurt lamb as he leaves the complex.

simon lets out a dry laugh as he shuts the door behind him.

“thank you,” you murmur.

he gives you a brief smile, gesturing for you to sit back on the couch. you both go back to lazing around, now watching some cooking show you put on.

later that night, he insisted on setting up shop in your living room for the night… or just the next two!

it’s really not a big deal.

he just wouldn’t be able to continue on if something happened to his cute neighbor!

that’s all.

you’re so sweet and still shaken up by the interaction that you let him stay the night.

…and the next one.

…and the one after that.

you’re starting to think he never really counted on staying just one night.

you don’t say anything, but after the second week passes and simon is still around, you find yourself reeling as you start to see his socks and shirts tucked nicely in your drawers.

his coffee mug now kisses yours in the cabinet, and some magnets of the countries he’s visited cling to the fridge.

there isn’t a crevice in your apartment that simon hasn’t explored, or left a piece of himself in.

you should have known better than to invite simon into the same place he had fantasized about for the past six months.

the very place where he listened to your sweet moans, so loud, so tempting.

every. single. night.

he kicked his friends out of his place every time he heard your vibrator start up, so that they couldn’t listen to your breathy whines and so he could sneak away to his room, where your thin walls meet, to tug away at his cock imagining it was you stroking him until he came all over his hand and sheets.

such a sweet girl, you are.

letting a dog into your home to roam free, unaware of the way he watched you with a slobbering tongue and a primal hunger.

Your period was always a thing of force -  heavy and physically taxing, the cramps making you curl in on yourself and unable to stand up straight as they pulsed through you in waves. It was four days of suffering, and you refused to take any of the painkillers Jackson had to offer, not wanting to deplete supplies when there was already a shortage of everything. 

You would just have to ride it out, as you always did. 

Joel hated your period. Not because it was something that grossed him out, but because you always withdrew from him when it was that time of the month. It seemed like you were almost ashamed of him touching you, cutting him off when things shifted from an innocent kiss to heavy petting on the couch, when his fingers would start to dip into the waistband of your pajamas. It was a week of not being able to shower with you, not being able to dive between your legs after a long day of patrol, and he could feel his frustrations and desires simmering under his skin. 

The window of opportunity presented itself when he overheard the town doctor telling you that you should “try making yourself feel good. Orgasms can help loosen up those cramping muscles. Don’t shy away from it.” You had broken off from him on your morning walk to the mess hall, eager to find a natural solution to your pain. Joel had lingered, refusing to go anywhere without you, and those words buried into his head, nestled deep into his mind. You couldn’t refuse doctor’s orders. They looped through his brain as you settled in for breakfast, barely releasing their hold on him when you asked him what he wanted to do on his day off. He shrugged noncommittedly, muttering something about a new project or helping the town as he pushed his eggs around on his plate. 

“Joel. Joel.”

His head jerks up. You’re staring at him, head tilted as you frown from across the table. 

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

“‘M sorry, darlin’. Just tired.”

He isn’t though, and he almost feels guilty for zoning out while you were trying to talk to him. Eyes softening, you reach across the table to brush against his knuckles. 

“Why don’t we just spend the day in bed then? I don’t feel too hot anyway. We can just… exist?” 

He turns his hand over, palm sliding under yours, thick fingers wrapping around your wrist to squeeze gently before releasing you. 

“Sounds good to me.” 

Your meals were tucked away quickly, the promises of warm sheets and warmer touches making you eager to get home and into bed. You can feel the dull ache of your cramps creeping in, shifting in your lower back and sitting there, heavy and present. Your shoulders curl inward and Joel automatically pulls you into his side as you make your way back to your home, his thumb rubbing circles into the base of your spine to try and alleviate the ache. 

The silence that blankets both of you is gentle as you enter your home. The kind that comes with knowing that there were no responsibilities calling your name, the world still turning even if you weren’t an active part of it. Your coat slips off your shoulders, Joel hanging it up next to the door as you toe your boots off and shuffle into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The pain in your back flares and you wince, one hand shifting to cradle your lower stomach. 

Joel is hovering.

His presence is large, taking up the kitchen as you exhale slowly, watching you work through the twinging in your abdomen. His hands drop to your shoulders, kneading at the muscle as you try to settle yourself. 

“Let’s lay down,” He offers, and you try not to melt when his thumbs catch on the knots of your muscles, meticulously working them out. He guides you out of the kitchen and up the stairs, still hovering over your shoulder as you slowly ascend to the top level of your shared house. He ushers you into the bedroom, gentle and firm hands peeling your sweater off, leaving you in your camisole and jeans before he’s settling next to you on top of the covers. You watch him rake his fingers through his hair as he sits back against the headboard before dragging you into his lap. 

“Joel…”

He shakes his head, refusing to hear your protests as he brushes his hands through your hair, moving it out of your face before cupping your jaw and pulling you closer. 

“Jus’ wanna kiss you. Been missing you lately.” 

You can’t help but smile at his softness. It’s a side to him that rarely peeks out, tucked so deeply away that when you first started seeing him, you didn’t think it even existed. Now it shines every time you’re in the comfort of your home together, where the outside world can’t touch the quietness you two built. 

“Alright, one kiss and then we nap.” You grin, leaning forward to brush your nose against his. His mouth quirks into a barely-there smile before he’s dragging you flush against his chest, knees drawing up to bracket you in against him. You slot your mouth against his gently, a whisper of a kiss as your hands land on his chest, fingers twisting in the soft material of his shirt. He lets out a quiet groan, lips immediately parting against yours, the kiss deepening as one of his hands curls around the back of your neck to hold you in place. He licks into your mouth, needy sighs dripping out of you as he pushes further, teeth nipping at your lower lip. You cant your hips down, feeling his growing arousal underneath you as he continues to kiss you senseless.

Joel’s hand glides down the curve of your hip, shifting to your front as he toys with the button of your jeans. He feels you tense above him, can feel your withdrawal before you vocalize it, and pulls back to look up at you. You’re pliant in his lap, cheeks flushed and lips swollen from kissing, eyes glazed over with need. 

“I–  we shouldn’t–”

“No.”

You frown. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

He frowns back at you, hands moving back up to grip your hips. “I wanna make you feel good, sweetheart.” 

“You are, I’m just on my… it’s okay. I don’t–” You flush, and he can’t help but smirk. 

“‘M not afraid of a little blood, baby. Just let me take care of you,” He purrs, gently moving to lay you down on the bed. He shifts onto his elbows, hovering over you as he leans down and presses a kiss against your forehead, and then against your mouth. 

“Doctor’s orders,” He adds, adjusting his weight to smooth a hand down your chest, your stomach, hitting the top of your jeans and flicking open the button. Your eyes flutter closed as he works his mouth against your jaw, your neck, thick fingers hastily shoving the waistband of your jeans down. 

“You don’t have to do this just because the doctor said it’ll help,” You breathe, and he fervently shakes his head. 

“Been thinking ‘bout doing this since the first time.” 

Your thighs clench at his words, hips tilting up so that he can strip you easier, faster. You can feel yourself growing slick from want, your arousal building slowly in your lower belly as his mouth continues to shift down the column of your neck and over the tops of your breasts. He doesn’t bother with taking your camisole off, his impatience leaching into his actions as he pulls the front of your top down and under your breasts, lips greedy as they move across the unveiled softness of you. He works his mouth over your nipples, one hand coming up to pinch and pull as he sucks on the other. There’s a haziness clouding your head, half-formed thoughts dancing around as your desire builds. 

“J-Joel, a towel, we need a towel,” You sputter as he yanks your jeans down your calves. He sits back on his heels, greying curls mussed, cheeks pink, his breathing heavy as he drinks you in. His eyes are dark, pupils blown as they rake over your chest, the way your tank top bunches at your stomach, your underwear that’s hiding your arousal from him. 

He licks his lips and your heart stutters in your chest at his unabashed want. Your eyes flit down, taking in the tent of his jeans, his erection straining against the fabric before flicking back up to his. After a brief staredown, both of you unwilling to interrupt the moment, he sighs. 

“Don’t move,” He growls out, shuffling off the bed and disappearing into the hallway. You listen to him banging around in the linen closet as your breathing slows, eyes focusing on the chipped paint of the ceiling. Your nipples tighten against the cold of the room and you shift, thighs rubbing together in anticipation. It takes him a minute before he’s back, looming over the bed with one of your lesser towels clutched in his fist. 

“Hips up, baby,” He murmurs, spreading the towel out underneath you before nestling himself back between your legs. “Let me take care of you, yeah? Doctor said it’ll feel better, lemme make you feel better. Missed the pretty noises you make when you cum.” 

He’s looking up at you, fingers poised at the waistband of your panties. He’s waiting for the go ahead, you realize, and you reach down to card your fingers through his messy curls. 

“Okay…” You breathe, and Joel spurs into motion, yanking down your underwear and tossing the pair behind him. He groans at the sight of your cunt, glistening pink with the mix of your arousal and blood, his hands coming up to grip the insides of your thighs as he pushes them further apart. 

“Fuck… missed this sweet thing. Making me go a week without tastin’ you, driving me insane. Bet she’s real needy for me too, huh?” 

He slides one hand off your leg, bringing it up to trail a finger through your slick. You twitch, hips jerking from the touch as he watches it cling to his skin, pearlescent and sticky, before bringing his hand up to his mouth and licking it clean. 

“Tastes good, baby. Don’t know what you were gettin’ all shy on me for.” He grins, draping an arm across your stomach to hold you down as he presses his nose against the top of your pussy, inhaling deeply. His tongue darts out, catching on the hood of your clit and you jerk against him, a whimper spilling out of your mouth. 

“Joel, please,” You whine, eager for him to get his mouth on you. Your cramps are still slowly rolling through you, though the weight and warmth of his arm keeps them at bay. He hushes you, pulling back to meet your eyes. 

“You’re gonna let me take my time and enjoy my meal, alright, sweetheart?” His voice is low, rumbling in his chest as he stares you down unwaveringly. You swallow, nodding. 

“Good girl.”

His mouth is back on you before you could get another word out, licking a stripe up your seam as you shake beneath him, fingers curling into his hair and pulling as he works on you. He's a man starved, moaning against your cunt as you tug on his locks, tongue slipping into your weeping hole before moving up and flicking against your clit. He latches on and sucks, the feeling making your back arch off the bed and your toes curl. The hand that isn’t holding you down trails against the inside of your thigh before one finger dips in, pushing and curling to hit the spongy spot inside you that makes you see stars. 

“Fuck…” You moan, writhing against his mouth.

“Yeah?” He breathes, before latching back onto your clit and working a second finger into you. Your eyes squeeze closed, your orgasm building as he curls his knuckles in tandem with his mouth. “Y’gonna come? I wanna see you come, baby, please, let me hear it…”

He sounds as broken as you, voice ragged with need, hips subtly grinding against the mattress as he continues to fuck his fingers into your squelching cunt, the mix of your arousal and blood coating his beard. Your grip on his hair tightens when he crooks his fingers just right, sucking on your clit particularly hard. 

“Joel–!”

Your orgasm rips through you, gasps and moans spilling out of you as your thighs clench around his head. He coaxes you through it, murmuring praises against your cunt. So good, so sweet, so pretty when you come on my tongue like that. He's lapping up your juices as you tremble under him, white spots swimming in your vision, your chest heaving from the sheer force of your orgasm.

Fingers withdrawing, he plants a gentle kiss on your skin, right above your pussy, a soft red print of his lips left behind as he pulls back to look at you.

“Good, baby?” 

He’s a mess, small streaks of blood visibly clinging to his beard and mouth along with the pearly sheen of your come. There’s a visible stain on the front of his jeans where his pre-cum leaked through from him rutting against the bed. You swallow a shaky laugh, nodding as your body settles into a soft hum. A heady feeling nestles in your bones, and you realize that your aches have fully ebbed away. 

“It worked,” You murmur, dropping your head back against the pillows, blissfully fucked out. He grins, pride and satisfaction written across his face as he takes in your satiated appearance. 

“Good.” You hear the familiar cling of his belt buckle, and your breath catches. “Because I’m still not done with you, sweetheart.”

It was (and is) a well-known fact that one in three marriages ends in separation. And of course, you—being the lucky duck you were—found yours rapidly accelerating toward that destination.

You and Joel had agreed that you’d be better off apart. Joel got his own place while you kept the house. And Sarah lived with you every other week.

All you needed to do was send your attorney the signed divorce papers.

Outside of the sympathetic comments you received from acquaintances and relatives almost daily, you were doing just fine.

In fact, tonight you had a date.

A date. The kind that made you choose a tight-fitting dress that hugged your curves just right. The kind that inspired you to wear your hair in something other than a claw clip. The kind that provoked you to shave places you haven’t shaved in a long time.

The lucky bachelor was a fellow divorcee named Mark, whom you had met on a single-parent dating app. He had a full head of hair, a decent sense of humour, and two rescued Labradors. He offered to bring you to his favourite Italian restaurant, bringing up the fact that he’d pick up the bill no matter what, much to your protests. Needless to say, you had a good feeling about him.

After one last check in the mirror, you grabbed your coat and slung your purse over your shoulder, ready to head out the door.

Then, you heard it.

A faint gurgling. 

You blinked twice, trying to zero in on the sound. Proceeding a few moments of intense concentration, you followed the sound into the ensuite bathroom.

The faucet was running. Had you forgotten to turn it off?

You reached for the handle. Twisted it. It spun freely, and nothing happened. 

You tried and tried again, but all your efforts were in vain. You could only watch the tap stubbornly defy you as the handle jutted uselessly, loose in its socket.

“Shit.” You breathed.

The faucet sputtered out a particularly heavy spurt of water as if to say: shit, indeed.

You sighed, staring helplessly at the sink as it stared contumaciously back, water that couldn’t be swallowed by the drain toppling over the edge of the sink.

A quick Google search informed you that you needed to turn off the principal water pipe—the mains. Which you didn’t know how to do. 

So, you resolved to delegate the problem to more capable hands. Like, a twenty-four-hour plumbing service. No, they could easily overcharge you. You could call your dad? No, he was too far.

Or…

Sighing, you dug out your phone from your purse and called your only remaining option. Someone who was a seasoned contractor, someone who dealt with this sink before, and someone who you just so happened to be divorcing. 

He answered on the third ring.

“Hey—everything okay?” Joel’s concerned voice filtered through your phone.

“No.” You inhaled. 

“No?” Joel echoed hesitantly, then waited for elaboration.

When nothing came, he cleared his throat.

Slightly confused, slightly wry, he continued, “This is the part where you tell me what’s wrong.” 

“Um, my sink’s busted.”

“Your sink… is busted?”

“Yeah. Faucet won’t turn off. It-It’s a lot of water.” You bit the inside of your cheek, leaning on the wall. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

A moment of silence, then:

“You need me to fix it?” 

Was that annoyance? Exhaustion? It definitely wasn’t exhilaration at the prospect of doing manual labour at eight o’clock on a Friday evening.

“You know what? Forget I called. This was stupid. Sorry to bother you—”

“I’m on my way.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, after he hung up, the smallest of smiles began forming on your face. 

Fifteen minutes later, a knock came from your front door.

You swung the door open, and there he stood. Tool bag in hand, flannel shirt stretching tightly over his broad shoulders, salt-and-pepper hair just a little bit unkempt.

It had been a good few months since the two of you went your separate ways, but there he was—still at your beck and call. What that meant, exactly, remained to be seen. 

But you were glad to see him, nonetheless.

“Hi,” You said breathlessly.

Upon seeing you, Joel’s brows shot up, and he blinked a few times.

“Hi.” He said back slowly, then cleared his throat. “Am I… interruptin’ something?”

You glanced down. Right. Tight dress and makeup.

“I have a date in…” You raised your left wrist and winced as you looked down at your watch. “Five minutes ago.”

“A date.” He clicked his tongue, nodding to himself. “Well, I’ll try to make this quick, then.”

You hummed a noise of agreement, pivoted, and, with a wave of your hand, invited Joel inside.

He stepped through the doorway with a quiet grunt. And, as he bent down to undo his boots, his coffee-brown gaze landed on a pile of unopened mail by the entryway table. A few envelopes had slipped to the floor, and he crouched to gather them without thinking. 

But, as he straightened up to his full height, his eyes lingered on the recipient line.

“Mrs Miller?” Joel read aloud.

“What?” Your breath caught in your throat, and you spun around to meet his stare.

Joel wordlessly held the envelope up with two fingers, the corners of his lips slightly upturned.

“Oh.” You cringed inwardly. “Yeah.”

“Didn’t, uh, realise that you were keepin’ the name.” He shrugged offhandedly, tossing the stack of mail onto the entryway table.

“I’m not. I just…” You ran a hand through your hair. “Paperwork isn’t final.”

For the divorce.

Joel’s eyebrows pinched together. “I sent you my signed copies, if—” 

“I know you did. I just haven’t sent the papers to my lawyer yet.” You pressed your lips into a thin line and avoided his gaze. “Just got a lot on my plate, recently.”

That was very unconvincing.

Joel hummed a noncommittal noise.

“Well…” He huffed sheepishly. “You know I always liked my name on you.”

You swallowed, feeling your stomach do a funny flip and your ears burn up. Why were your ears burning up?

“C’mon. The problem is upstairs.”

The faucet, to your dismay, hadn’t stopped. It was worse now, if that was even possible, spitting little rogue sprays of water alongside the main stream. Great.

You checked your watch again. Fifteen minutes late. You would no doubt have a few missed calls from your poor suitor if you had the guts to check your phone.

Joel sank to one knee as he inspected the sink, squinting at the appliance and shaking his head. Miraculously, he reached in and, a few rusty squeaks later, the water stopped.

“You fixed it.” You blinked.

“Far from it,” He muttered, frowning. “The cartridge’s shot. And the valve stem’s stripped. Who installed this?”

Without missing a beat, “You did.”

“…Right.”

You leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over your chest. “So?”

“So, this isn’t a quick fix. I need to pull out the whole assembly. Maybe replace the handle, too. And judging by the corrosion around this nut—” He held up a discoloured metal hexagon like it had personally offended him. “You’ve probably had a leak back here for a while.”

You blinked. “And you didn’t notice that when you lived here?”

Joel turned to shoot you a look. “I was your husband, not your handyman.”

“Really? I could’ve sworn I married you for that toolbox of yours.”

“And here I thought it was ‘cause of my radiant personality.”

“Definitely not that.” You huffed out a laugh.

Despite his back being turned to you, you could just about make out a reluctant smile forming through his slightly greying stubble.

You watched as he rolled up his plaid sleeves, exposing tanned forearms that were entirely too bulky for someone in his mid-forties. He then dug into his bag, fishing out an Allen Wrench.

“You can go on your date,” Joel added, not looking at you. “I’ll be out of here in an hour. Two, tops. But… if you feel like gettin’ frisky, maybe do it at his place. Just in case.”

Right, your date.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you took out your phone. Six missed calls and a flurry of concerned texts.

Decidedly, you typed out an apologetic message mentioning a water-related emergency and stuffed your phone back in your purse.

“I’m staying with you.”

Joel froze and turned to look at you from over his shoulder. “No, you ain’t. I’ll take too long.”

“Well, I can’t leave you to fix my problems while I’m out eating overpriced ravioli.” You shrugged and, with a soft grunt, took a seat against the wall near him. “You’re not a plumber, you’re a… you’re my…”

Ex-husband.

You cleared your throat, then emphasised, “You’re not a plumber.”

Joel let out a slow exhale. “Do whatever you want, but I doubt watching me fix your sink is gon’ be as fun as your date.”

“I’ve got a full bottle of Pinot Noir in the fridge.” You tilted your head. “We can make it fun.”

Joel’s eyebrows shot up.

“Not—not in that way.” You rubbed a clammy hand down your face.

To your surprise, that earned you a small, gruff laugh from Joel, his eyes crinkling momentarily the way they only did when he was truly amused.

His voice was soft when he responded. 

“Go on and get the wine, then, sweetheart.”

Two crystal glasses and a little while later, Joel had put down his wrench and opted instead to sit beside you on your tiled bathroom floor, his shoulders brushing up against yours in the cramped space.

Efforts to tame the defiant sink had long since been forgotten. He did the best he could, but retired upon discovering that you had no spare sink handle lying around—how very unprepared of you.

The bad news was that you weren’t going to be able to wash your hands in the master bedroom ensuite tonight. The good news was that you were having a surprisingly good time with Joel. The conversation evolved from discussing your stood-up date (you showed Mark’s profile, Joel was convinced he was lying about his dogs being rescues), then to how his company was going, and then, reminiscing about the good ol’ days.

“All I’m sayin’,” Joel continued through a laugh. “Is that she did it on purpose.”

“My mom has always been bad with names!”

“Bad enough to still call me ‘George’ after a year of us datin’?” He scoffed.

You stifled a giggle. “In her defence, it’s a very similar—”

“Like hell it is. And your dad? He was worse.” Joel chuckled, finishing the last of his wine. “How is he?”

“Fine. Just called him yesterday, actually.”

“He still callin’ me–?”

“He still calls you ‘porn stache’, yes.”

Joel snorted into his hand, his shoulders bobbing up and down with laughter. Real, genuine laughter.

You smiled and turned to steal a glance at his profile.

His eyes crinkled at the corners, his hooked nose scrunched mid-chuckle, and his laugh was exactly as it was before—low and rough, but somehow boyish and unguarded.

You had almost forgotten how his whole face lit up when he laughed.

And, you didn’t mean to stare. But you did. 

God, you missed this.

“I think I prefer George.” Joel ran a hand down his face, still smiling.

You cleared your throat and leaned over to retrieve the almost-empty wine bottle, refilling your glasses.

“Sarah told me to say hi to you, if I got the chance, by the way.” You said, pouring the Pinot Noir into his glass. “She’s with my parents at the lake house.”

“The lake house?” Joel hummed, taking another sip of his drink. “Still disappointed I didn’t get that in the settlement.”

You snorted, amused. “You don’t even like lakes.”

“No, I don’t like the mosquitoes that come with the lakes.” Joel corrected you, pointedly. “But, I don’t know, I guess I just miss it. A lot of good memories there.”

You felt yourself smile. “Yeah. Yeah, there were.”

A beat.

“Hey, at least you kept the cars. And the boat. And the frequent flier miles. And, well, you see Sarah every other week.” You turned to look at Joel, but he was already looking at you.

A certain vulnerability swam in the brown of his eyes. Something you hadn’t seen in a very long time.

“Yeah, well… there were more important things I couldn’t keep.”

The air thinned. The wine, the laughter, the conversation—everything dissolved in the quiet admission, hanging thickly in the space between you.

And suddenly, there was only you and Joel and the mistakes that had wedged you apart yet somehow brought you back together again; on a random Friday evening on the floor of a bathroom you used to share.

“Joel…” You swallowed, your hand falling from your lap onto the tiles.

But you couldn’t form any semblance of a sentence. How could you? 

There was nothing to say. Yes, you missed him. ‘Missed’ was an understatement. 

Sometimes you’d roll over in the night, wishing to feel the weight of his arm resting on your waist, reassuring you that these past few months had only been a bad dream. Sometimes you came to pick Sarah up early, just to get a few more minutes with him. Sometimes—no, a lot of the time, memories of him came rushing back, cleaving your heart into two, further and further each time.

No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t let go of the man you spent so many years loving. 

Joel’s eyes still bore into yours. And nothing in the world could have torn you away.

He exhaled slowly, then set down his glass with care. His hand barely brushed yours, but it was enough to make your breath hitch.

“I think about it,” He said softly. “More than I should.”

“Think about what?”

A quiet, almost sad laugh escaped from his throat. He leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

“How things used to be.”

“Oh,”

A moment passed, marked only by the metre of your incessant heartbeat pounding in your ears.

And then, “Do you ever miss us?” Joel asked.

You faced him once more. The answer was on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. Because that was too complicated. Because that would break you.

Joel didn’t need you to say it. He found the answer in your eyes.

All the time.

Instead, you asked, “Do you? Miss us, that is.”

“Of course, I do.” He said softly. “More than you can imagine.”

You held your breath.

Joel heaved a sigh.

“I think about calling,” He added, voice low. “Just to hear your voice.”

“I’d answer,” You said, barely above a whisper.

He smiled in a bittersweet, melancholic sort of way and leaned in just slightly. Unconsciously, you mirrored him.

And then his eyes flickered down to your lips. It was only for a second, but it was enough to make your stomach flutter.

This was dangerous. You should’ve told him to leave ages ago. Or, maybe you should’ve left yourself and gone on your date.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away.

“Can I ask you something stupid?” You whispered.

Joel whispered back, “Always.”

“Do you…” You trailed off, biting your lip.

“Do I what?”

“Do you—does even a part of you… want what we had back?” 

You knew what he was going to say. You just wanted to hear it for yourself.

And you did.

“Yes,” He admitted earnestly.

You searched his face for any sign of deception, but found none. The only thing in his coffee-brown eyes was regret. And, maybe, something else, too. Something softer.

Your eyes widened. “We fought a lot.”

“We did.”

“And we probably said some shit.” You sighed, looking up at the ceiling, as if all the answers were written there. Joel did, too.

His voice came softly, sadly, “We did.”

Silence again. Thick and fragile and charged with so many unspoken words.

Joel’s knee brushed yours, neither of you pulling away. It was nice to have him close, to feel his familiar warmth, to see him—really see him. Bare and raw and vulnerable. No facades of indifference. No hiding behind closed car doors. Just Joel, your Joel, there beside you; soft-eyed and quiet, like maybe he was seeing you, too.

Your fingers twitched on the floor beside his. You wanted to reach for him, but you wanted him to reach first. Absently, you fiddled with your left ring finger, suddenly aware of its bareness.

He looked at you then. Not a glance, but a full turn, slow and deliberate. His dark eyes searched your face, pausing on your mouth, your cheek, your lashes, then settled on your eyes again. He looked at you like you were something he’d spent months trying to forget, and only just now remembered why he couldn’t.

You held your breath.

Joel’s voice, when it finally came, was low, cracked around the edges.

“I know it was bad in the end, but I meant what I said.” He breathed. “I miss us. I miss you.”

Your heart twisted. And there went that cleaver again, slicing further.

“I miss seeing your keys on the kitchen counter and knowing you were home. I miss kissing you before work and smudgin’ your lipstick. I miss watching stupid movies with you that we’d fall asleep to halfway.”

His throat bobbed. He leaned back against the wall, like it hurt to say it out loud.

“Yeah, we fought and said some real mean shit. But God help me, I’d give anything to go back in time and fight for you like I should have. Because you were it for me. You were everything. Still are.”

His eyes glistened as he held your gaze, fierce and unflinching.

“Because, no matter how hard I try to ignore it,” He smiled to himself, shaking his head like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I love you.”

He loves you.

Those three simple words rang in an echo in your mind. He loves you, he loves you, Joel loves you.

“You love me?” You could barely hear your voice above the deafening thrum of your pulse.

Your faces were barely an inch apart, now. You could smell the familiar scent of his laundry detergent, and traces of his cologne, and wood, and tobacco, and something that was so uniquely him.

Joel nodded.

“I never stopped.” He whispered.

Without thinking, you closed the remaining distance, smashing your lips against his. Joel grunted in surprise, but quickly gave in, exhaling through his nose like he’d been holding a breath in for years. 

He returned the kiss with equal fervour, reaching out to cup your face and pouring all his pent-up emotions against the haven of your lips—longing, relief, desire.

You pushed yourself closer against him. Closer, impossibly closer, until you were straddling his lap, moving against the tent in his jeans, feeling his big hands instinctively settle on your hips, and tasting the Pinot Noir on his lips.

Shit. Was this even a good idea?

You pulled away suddenly. A tiny whine came from Joel, who tried to chase your mouth, but you were insistent.

“Wait,” You panted.

His eyes opened fully. His brows were knitted, his lips were kiss-swollen, and his chest was heaving slowly.

“What?” Joel asked quietly, his thumbs idly tracing circles on either side of your hips.

“This…” You breathed. “I don’t want this to be a one-time thing. I don’t want it to mean nothing.”

Joel smiled softly at your words.

“Means a whole lot to me, sweetheart.” His hand went to gently tuck a stray strand of your hair behind your ear, caressing your cheek in his wake. “We can talk about what this means, if you w—”

“Okay, good. Means a lot. Talk after.”

“After?” His eyebrows rose.

“After you fuck me.”

A breathy ‘Jesus Christ’ slipped from his throat, but Joel didn’t spend a second refusing your bold assumption.

With a hand on your nape, he leaned forward to capture your lips in another searing kiss, which you happily accepted, sighing against him.

His big hands then travelled to the back of your thighs, and the next thing you knew, he carelessly swept away whatever was decorating the base of your faucet, and carried you with ease to perch you atop the sink.

“Joel.” You mumbled urgently into his lips.

“Mmm?” He hummed back, not wanting to break your mouths apart for even a second. 

“Might break the sink again.”

“Don’t care. I’ll fuckin’ fix it again, then. Just… need you,” Joel groaned. “Look too fuckin’ good,”

And he pulled away. His half-lidded, cloudy gaze drank you in, sweeping down the snugness of your dress, and lingering on the generous amount of cleavage it revealed. His hands drifted higher and higher up your thighs, until they reached the hemline—dipping under just slightly.

“Too fuckin’ good,” He snarled.

You smirked. Knowing him, he was definitely going to ask if—

“How much was this dress?”

Sighing amusedly, “It wasn’t cheap.”

“How attached are you to it?” He mumbled, a hand reverently skirting up to your hip.

“A moderate amou—”

“Can I rip it off you?”

There it was.

In the many years you were married, Joel shredded more than enough articles of your precious wardrobe in similar heated moments. If you were to count the offences, you’d likely run out of fingers. Your wedding dress had been among the few survivors of his destructive tendencies, though not for lack of trying on his part.

You stifled a snort and shook your head, reaching up to caress his face. 

“No.” You smiled. “Because I’d like to wear it again.”

Joel held your hand against his face and huffed out an exaggerated sigh. “Next time.”

And then his hands found the zipper on your side, pulled it sharply down, and tugged the dress off you.

His eyes darkened.

You had chosen to don an intricate, black, lacey number underneath your dress that teased just enough and only hid the bare minimum. Of course, you had. You hadn’t had an opportunity to wear anything vaguely provocative in ages and were expecting some luck after your date.

You certainly didn’t expect that your ex-husband would be the one seeing it.

“This for him?” Joel’s lip twitched.

Heat rose in your cheeks. “Well, I—”

“Yeah, these don’t get a pass.”

With a sharp tearing noise slicing through the air, Joel ripped the flimsy lacey bra clean in half, watching intently, hungrily, as your tits spilled out.

“Joel!”

“I know, I know,” Joel grunted. “I’ll buy you a new set… buy you all the fuckin’ sets.”

You were about to object, intent on citing the price attached to that particular pair, but Joel had sunk back on his knees and spread your legs apart.

He pressed his lips on your inner thigh, scruff tickling your skin as he slowly, softly trailed his mouth upward, leaving goosebumps in his wake.

His face came to a stop in front of your core, noticing how heavily you were breathing, and his eyes flicked up to yours, smirking. Smug fucking bastard.

“Joel.” You gritted your teeth.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Don’t fucking tease me.” 

And he leaned his forehead against the lower part of your navel, taking a second to breathe in the unmistakable scent of your arousal seeping through your lingerie. 

He was practically salivating, now. 

“I’ll try not to, ma’am.” 

Without another word, he took the lace into his teeth, yanked his head sharply, and tore your panties open.

Confirming his suspicions, you were absolutely soaked. Slick drooled freely out of your puffy folds, taunting him and draining every ounce of self-restraint he had. 

Fuck, you were gorgeous.

“Tell me,” Joel said lowly, meeting your gaze once more as a thick finger swiped lightly through your lips, collecting your arousal. “This for him or me?”

“You.” You breathed without a second thought.

“Louder, sweetheart. My ears ain’t what they used to be.”

“You.”

Smirking wider, “Damn fucking right.”

Then, he happily hitched your legs over his shoulders, leaned forward, and dove in.

His tongue prodded into your heat, dragging down your walls and sending jolts of electricity down your spine. He worked fast and sloppily, sliding through your folds and flicking into your walls, urgently tasting you like he wouldn’t get another chance. 

Your arousal coated the lower half of his face, his eyes were almost black with desire, obscenely wet noises echoed in the silence of the tiled room as his tongue eagerly devoured you whole—

“Fuck, almost forgot how good you taste. So fuckin’ sweet.” Joel mumbled against your sex, entirely, wholly bewitched. “She missed me, too, huh? Just drippin’ for me…”

He continued to furiously lap at your entrance, scruff rubbing against your inner thighs. And then he moved up, planting messy kisses higher and higher until he reached your swollen clit.

You gasped brokenly, flinging a hand to grasp his curls as his lips alternated from pressing messy kisses along your seam to greedily sucking at your bundle of nerves, latching onto it almost desperately.

After a particularly delicious drag down the roof of your core, you rolled your hips up into his mouth and brought him closer to you with your grip in his hair.

“Shit—sorry.” You panted, breathing heavily.

He barely pulled away to look at you.

“Don’t fuckin’ be. I can handle it, you know I can.” Joel all but growled, before returning to attend to your needy fucking pussy.

He was like a man possessed; lapping frenziedly, groaning lowly into your sensitive skin, curved nose swiping through your folds as he worked.

Very soon, a familiar tingle in your lower stomach introduced itself.

“Joel,” You called urgently, attempting to warn him.

He knew you were close. Oh, he knew. So, he went faster and harder, pressing himself further against you, suffocation be fucking damned.

His low, wrecked voice came slurred and slightly muffled by your sex, “Y’gonna come? Go on, baby, all over my face—thaaat’s it.”

A shattered moan escaped from your throat, and you felt your release take over your body almost violently. You couldn’t help the way your legs clamped down around his head, but Joel loved it, letting you smother him and humming happily into your heat as he worked you through your climax, swallowing your release and eating like a man starved.

Finally, he pulled away with a wet squelch, softly pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, and gently let your legs down.

And you were immediately greeted with the sight of his lower face shining with your slick.

A good look on him, if you’d say so yourself.

He smiled lazily, eyes blown-out and absolutely fucking pussydrunk. 

“That good for you, sweetheart?” He mused.

“You, Joel Miller, are what we call a munch.” You smiled back.

Pride bloomed across his face. “Gladly, sweets.” 

And you pulled him up by the collar of his flannel shirt into a filthy kiss, tasting your arousal on his lips.

He let his eyes fall shut and reached up to curl a hand around your jaw as he returned the kiss, his brows furrowed in concentration.

Not wasting any time, your hands flew to his belt, blindly fumbling at the leather material to slide it out of the loops of his jeans.

Joel chuckled, leaning forward to trail his lips down your neck, leaving a path of open-mouthed kisses.

“Need somethin’, baby?”

“Wanna return the favour,” You glanced down at the bulge in his lap.

“Mm-mm. That was more for me than you. Missed your sweet fuckin’ pussy.” Joel mumbled against your pulse point.

“Munch.” You couldn’t help but giggle.

“Yeah, yeah.” Joel sighed, lifting his head and undoing his jeans just barely enough to pull himself free from his boxers. 

You heard yourself swallow.

Joel Miller was a big man, and you were very aware of that fact. It was written all across his body; from his impossibly broad shoulders, to his beefy arms, to his thick fucking cock.

He stroked himself, once, twice, as his eyes fell to your pulsating, slick core. Beads of precum leaked from his flushed tip and down his length as he did so.

“Spread those legs wider for me, baby. Let me see you,” He breathed lowly.

And you very willingly obliged.

“There’s my girl,” Joel hummed.

With a hand around his base, he guided himself closer to your drooling cunt, nudging his swollen head against you.

Sighing, “Deep breath, baby.”

And he slowly forced himself in, one hand on the small of your back, the other on the underside of your thigh, prompting you to wrap your legs around his waist as he steadily fed you his cock.

You gasped some variant of a plea.

Needless to say, he was a tight fucking fit.

“Takin’ me so well. That’s it, baby, let me in.” He blabbed mindlessly as he continued to sink deeper inside. 

Deeper, deeper, deeper…

He winced. “Shit—there you go.”

When all of him was nested inside your welcoming channel, he let out a gasped expletive at the sensation.

Full. You felt so full with him inside. You always did.

“Fuck, missed this.” Joel panted, resting his forehead against yours. 

You tried to echo the sentiment, but the only thing you were capable of doing was letting out an incoherent groan of his name.

Joel got the message, though.

Maintaining an unhurried tempo, he rolled his hips back and forth, slowly dragging his thickness against your walls, making you painfully aware of every last inch of him.

“How’s that feel, baby?” He mumbled, voice airy.

“Good. Feels so good.”

And, fuck, he did. 

He felt amazing.

His tempo soon picked up, leaving your mouth to fall open as you took every inch of him again and again, stretching you open with enough pleasure to dull the slight pain.

“Tell me,” Joel hummed as he continued to drive ceaselessly in and out of your tight channel, adopting a false lilt of indifference. “Who’s fuckin’ you so good, huh?”

An incoherent syllable slipped from your lips.

“Who, baby?” Joel urged you, unrelenting in his pace. “Sure as hell ain’t fuckin’ Mark.”

Dumbly, you shook your head.

“You, Joel.”

Your words were almost drowned out by the symphony of your own moans, which were accompanied by the obscenely wet slaps that sounded every time his hips fully met yours.

“Louder.” He snarled, punctuating his response with an intentionally rough ram. “Neighbours can’t hear you yet, c’mon.”

“You, Joel!”

Satisfied, his hands went to hold you by your waist, keeping you as still as possible as he drove insistently into you, his tip now kissing your cervix with every thrust.

You cried out at the feeling, nails raking down his back.

Heat pooled in your gut, your vision blurred, a high-pitched ringing almost deafened your ears.

“Joel, Joel, I’m…” You babbled.

“Close? Go on, gorgeous. Let me feel you choke my dick.”

With his blessing, his name left your mouth in a high-pitched scream, and you felt yourself clench around his throbbing length as your orgasm rippled across your body like an earthquake.

Joel, being the overachiever he was, didn’t stop for even a second until your breathing slowed and your eyes fluttered open again.

And, once he saw that you had recovered, he leaned forward to slant his mouth against yours, swallowing your sighs.

“You okay?” He mumbled into the kiss, barely breaking away.

“Yeah.” You exhaled. 

He smiled against your lips.

“Good. Almost there, baby. Gonna take you against the sink, now, and you’re gonna give me one more, how’s that sound?”

You nodded dreamily, feeling him slowly pull out.

He leaned back and, with his hands on your waist, delicately set you down.

“Turn ‘round for me, sweetheart.” 

You acquiesced without hesitation, bracing yourself on the porcelain countertop.

Joel hummed, kicked your legs open even wider, and, not long after, sank the entirety of his cock into you in one deep thrust.

A sharp breath hit the air behind you, and an airy ‘fuck’ followed it. This angle made him feel bigger, if that was even possible.

He didn’t wait long after that. He couldn’t. Overcome with the need to feel you, he started moving. The first thrust was slow. Experimental. The second was hard. The third was harder.

Before you knew it, his big hands found a home on your hips, and he began to drive roughly into you, as if making up for lost time.

He certainly proved he was willing to atone for his absence, thrust after thrust.

“Oh, look at you.” Joel tutted and pulled your hair to tilt your head upwards.

You came face to face with the woman in the bathroom mirror.

Somewhere in between thrusts, your mouth had fallen agape, letting loose a long whine of pleasure, which was stuttered by every slam of his hips against yours.

Your hair was frizzy, your face was flushed, your hooded gaze was flooded with desire, and a light sheen of sweat doused every inch of your skin.

You were a wreck, thanks to the man fucking you so well behind you.

“Eyes up here.” Joel sighed. “Keep ‘em open. Gotta watch how well you take me.”

Joel was even more of a sight. 

The top few buttons of his flannel were undone, his sleeves were haphazardly rolled up, his hair was wild, and the look on his weathered face was nothing short of territorial as he held you to him and fucked you with reckless abandon.

Your eyes fell to where your bodies were connected, hypnotised by how easily his tanned cock disappeared in and out of your puffy cunt.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The corners of his lips were coyly upturned when he cooed, “Don’t we look good, baby?”

You could only respond in broken syllables.

“Yeah,” He grunted. Then, after a particularly forceful thrust, “we do.”

He continued to ram into you, finding your cervix with each thrust, keeping his eyes trained on the mirror, fixated on how your tits bounced so prettily for him.

“Beautiful.” He whispered, jaw tight.

If your brain hadn’t been turned to mush after the two orgasms he forced out of you, you would’ve heard him. But all you were focused on was the rush of another climax approaching.

You gripped the countertop harder and gritted your teeth, feeling warmth collecting in your stomach and bracing yourself for impact.

As if reading your mind, Joel’s hand moved from your hip to your front, trailing down until he brushed your clit, rubbing sloppy semi-cricles and whispering sweet things as you whimpered.

“You gonna give me one more?” He murmured encouragingly, his nose nudging the side of your face.

You could only manage an open-mouthed nod.

His fingers sped in their motions, swiping at your clit feverishly as he continued to rut into you, grazing your cervix each time.

Again. And again. 

“Come for me, sweetheart. I’ll catch you.” He whispered gently.

Your jaw slackened, your heartbeat quickened, and, in a blinding flash of pleasure, you came with his name on your tongue, helpless to the throes of your climax.

“There you go. Shit… so good for me.” Joel groaned. And then, urgently, “Where—where do you want me to–?”

Not even a full second later, “Inside.” 

“You sure?” He panted, starstruck. 

“I have an IUD, just—please.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, he pressed closer, his chest flush against your back, letting you feel every shaky pull of his breath as he caged you in. His hands found yours at the edge of the sink, lacing over them gently. His head dropped beside yours, his forehead nearly touching your temple, and a warm breath fanned across your skin as he sighed. 

And then he resumed his earlier pace.

He rammed into you hard and fast, chasing his own release as if it were a life-or-death situation. And all you could do was take it.

After a dozen more jerky thrusts, his breath caught in his throat and, with a low curse, he came. Hot ropes of his spend spilled inside you, and he rode it out until he couldn’t give you any more, which took a few more lazy rolls of his hips.

His breath evened not long after, warm and steady against your browbone. Soothing, almost.

Gently, he pulled out of you, and you felt his come slowly drip down your thighs.

“Fuck,” He breathed, pressing a soft kiss to your hair, scruff rubbing against your crown as he did so.

And he bowed his head to rest it on the crook of your neck.

“That was great, George.” You panted.

Joel snorted tiredly. “Just couldn’t help yourself, huh?”

“Nope.”

He huffed out a chuckle.

Then, he languidly pressed a trail of open-mouthed kisses wherever his lips could reach—the underside of your jaw, your throat, your neck, and down, still.

A warm, fuzzy sort of feeling radiated from his touch, lulling you into a state of bliss. It felt like love; it felt like coming home.

You couldn’t help the smile that stretched across your face.

Joel mumbled something unintelligible against your shoulder.

“What?” You replied, breaking free from your trance.

“I said,” He pulled away and, with two fingers on your chin, tenderly turned your face to look at him. His voice was wrecked and so very earnest when he finally repeated himself. “Don’t send the papers. Please.”

He held the rest of his plea in his eyes in the way they shone with a certain sincerity.

You smiled softly and shook your head. Because you knew you never really had any intention to. Because you wanted to hold on to him. And you were glad he wanted to hold on to you, too.

Your lips found his. Gentle, delicate, a reassurance. He gave in to the kiss almost immediately, sighing into your mouth.

“I won’t.”

And you meant it.

thanks for reading!!! reqs are open, if you wanna send an idea or anything over :)

Your back aches from work. You’ve been covering extra shifts at the nursery and helping in the community garden—planting, pruning, hauling sacks of soil that left your shoulders sore. Joel’s been on patrol more days than not lately, long routes that keep him away until late. Sometimes overnight. When he does come home, he’s tired. Bone-tired. Limps straight to the couch, boots half-off, rubbing at his knee with a wince.

And you—you haven’t had him to yourself in what feels like forever.

Not really.

There’ve been tired kisses before bed, half-conscious hands grazing each other’s backs in the dark. One shared bath where he leaned his head against your shoulder and barely spoke a word. A few mornings where you caught his eyes lingering on you before he laced his boots and went out the door—but that was it.

No touches. No tension relieved. No time.

Until now.

You feel him before you hear him—his solid warmth behind you, the weight of his presence like gravity pulling you backward. Then a hand finds your hip, slow and sure, and you don’t flinch. You lean into it, let out a long, quiet breath.

“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Joel murmurs, his voice gravel and honey.

You smile faintly. “I knew it was you.”

His hand drifts, thumb sweeping across the swell of your waist. “You always this sure about armed men comin’ up behind you?”

“With you?” you say softly. “Always.”

A beat of silence. You can feel him watching the side of your face, and when you turn, your eyes catch his and hold.

Joel looks tired. Lines around his mouth deeper than usual. His hair’s a little wind-mussed, curls flattened from a too-long day under a patrol cap. His eyes, though—dark and unreadable—those are what make your stomach tighten.

Something’s burning behind them. Need. Frustration. That low hum of wanting that neither of you have had the time or space to give in to. Not until this moment.

You set the dish towel aside and turn fully toward him, drying your damp hands on the front of your shirt as you look him over.

“You okay?” you ask.

Joel’s hand slides from your hip to the small of your back. He pulls you close, eyes still locked on yours. “Been thinkin’ about you all damn day,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

“Didn’t help that they paired me up with Seth. Man don’t shut up. Think he asked me how long you and I been together four different times like he forgot.”

You laugh softly. “What’d you tell him?”

“That it ain’t his business.”

He leans down, mouth brushing yours in a slow, barely-there kiss. You rise up on your toes to meet him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, and for a few seconds it’s gentle—reverent.

But then something cracks open.

Joel kisses you again, harder. Mouth hungrier. His hands flatten on your lower back, pressing your body into his as his tongue finds yours with a groan that rumbles deep in his chest. You moan into it, clutching the back of his shirt, feeling the rise of his breath and the hard press of his body against yours.

His beard scrapes your chin. His scent—leather, cedar, something wind-blown and warm—floods your senses.

You pull back just enough to speak. “Ellie’s out with Dina, right?”

Joel nods, his lips already on your jaw. “Won’t be back ‘til late.”

You exhale sharply. “Good.”

That’s all it takes.

He grabs your hand and leads you out of the kitchen, footsteps heavy on the wood floor, urgency building between you. His fingers lace tight with yours—like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go. You glance at the hallway mirror as you pass, catching the flushed look on your face and the way Joel’s towering behind you, eyes locked on your every move.

The bedroom door clicks shut behind you.

Then it’s just the two of you again. Quiet and breath and the golden dusk sliding across the bed.

Joel stops, chest heaving. Looks at you like he’s not sure if he should apologize or fall to his knees.

“We’ve gone too long,” he says hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

You step toward him and take his face in your hands, fingers brushing the scruff of his beard. “Don’t be. I get it. Life’s been a lot lately.”

His eyes fall shut under your touch. “Still. Ain’t right, me not touchin’ you for this long. I shoulda made time.”

You shake your head. “You’re here now. That’s all I need.”

His hands move—slowly, reverently—finding the hem of your shirt, lifting it inch by inch until you raise your arms to help him pull it over your head. He lets it fall to the floor like it’s nothing, but when he looks back at you, it’s like he’s seeing heaven.

His rough fingers trace along your ribcage, skimming up your sides.

“Goddamn,” he breathes. “I missed you.”

You reach for his shirt next, unbuttoning slowly, watching as the tan fabric parts to reveal the strong line of his chest. That familiar scar on his stomach. The softness at his sides, earned from age and time, and the hardness beneath it that’s pure Joel. Always him.

He shrugs the shirt off and kisses you again, slower this time. Hands finding your waist, your spine, your ass. Your body slots to his like you never left each other at all.

But he pulls back, breath shaky.

“Tell me if you’re too tired,” he rasps. “We can just lie down. I just—I needed to touch you.”

You press your mouth to his ear. “I don’t want to lie down.”

You feel him shudder, feel the tension that’s been building for days finally ripple loose in his shoulders. His hands are already working the button on your jeans before you’ve even finished your sentence, and the look in his eyes—

It’s not just lust.

It’s relief. It’s hunger. It’s that wild, desperate love you see in him only when he thinks no one else is looking.

You kiss him again—longer, deeper—and start to pull him toward the bed.

And Joel follows.

The mattress shifts under your knees as Joel follows you onto the bed, shedding what’s left of his clothes in slow, sure movements. You watch from your back, your body already bare to him, skin flushed with anticipation and the ache of weeks gone without his touch. His eyes never leave yours, not even as he tugs his jeans down his hips and kicks them aside. He’s already half-hard, thick and heavy, twitching when your eyes land on him.

But his face—his face is what makes your breath catch.

That look again. Raw. Unfiltered. A little desperate.

Joel climbs over you, settling between your thighs like he belongs there—because he does—and braces himself with a forearm beside your head. The other hand moves to your cheek, thumb stroking gently as he leans down to kiss you. It starts soft, like he’s trying to remember how your mouth tastes, but within seconds it deepens—urgent, searching. His tongue sweeps against yours, groaning when your hands slide down his ribs and your knees part a little wider.

You can feel how tightly wound he is. His body strung up like wire, muscles tense with restraint. He’s trying to be slow, you can tell. Trying to savor it, to draw it out.

But the moment his cock brushes between your folds, slick and hot and aching to be inside you, Joel falters.

“Fuck,” he breathes against your mouth. “You’re so wet, baby…”

You nod, panting already. “It’s been too long.”

He presses his forehead to yours, trying to gather himself. His hips twitch forward, barely grinding against your core, and his breath stutters.

“Joel,” you whisper, hands sliding down to his lower back. “You don’t have to wait.”

He lifts his head, eyes dark, jaw tight. “I ain’t gonna last.”

You kiss the corner of his mouth. “I don’t care.”

He closes his eyes, groaning low like he’s angry at himself. “No, darlin’, I—shit, I wanted this to be slow, I wanted to take my time with you—”

“You will,” you promise, sliding a hand between your bodies. You curl your fingers around the base of him, and he hisses through his teeth. “But right now? I just want you. Inside me.”

That does it.

Joel’s hips lurch forward, guided by your hand, and the blunt tip of his cock pushes into you with a stretch that makes you gasp. It’s tight—your body unused to him after all this time—but so good. So deep. You feel him tense as he sinks in, groaning loud and unrestrained as he fills you to the hilt.

“Oh, fuck,” he pants, bracing himself on both arms now, head hanging low. “Fuck, sweetheart—Jesus—”

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer. “I missed you, Joel. Missed how you feel.”

He’s shaking above you. Physically trembling.

“Goddamn it,” he grits out, hips stuttering once, twice. “You’re so fuckin’ tight, so warm—I can’t—”

His voice breaks as he thrusts again, just once, and you feel it—his whole body stiffening, his breath locking up as a strangled noise slips past his lips. He buries his face in your neck, groaning loud against your skin, and you realize—

He’s already coming.

Hot, pulsing warmth floods into you, and Joel groans like he’s ashamed of it, like he’s fighting it even as it overtakes him.

“No,” he mutters, almost angry. “No, no, I didn’t—fuck, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

You’re still beneath him, stunned but somehow smiling, your hands stroking up and down his back as he collapses slowly against you.

“Joel,” you whisper, your voice breathy with surprise and affection. “Hey… hey. Look at me.”

He doesn’t move at first, still buried in your neck, cursing himself under his breath. His whole body feels tight with tension, guilt crawling over his skin like fire.

“Joel,” you say again, firmer now, fingers threading through his hair. “It’s okay.”

He finally lifts his head, and the look in his eyes is pure embarrassment. He looks younger like this—unguarded, vulnerable in a way he never lets anyone else see. You can feel how much he’s beating himself up over it.

“Shit,” he mutters. “That’s not how I wanted it to go. I wanted to make you feel good. Not—fuckin’ finish like a goddamn teenager before I even—”

“Joel.” You slide your hand along his cheek, eyes locked on his. “It’s okay. Really.”

He shakes his head. “It ain’t. You didn’t even—baby, I didn’t even touch you properly yet.”

Your smile softens. “You missed me. That’s what that was. You were so into it, so into me, you couldn’t help it. That’s… that’s kind of sweet.”

He stares at you like you’ve lost your mind. “Sweet?”

You nod, laughing softly, cupping his face with both hands now. “I’m serious. It’s sexy, Joel. You’ve been aching for me, haven’t you?”

His throat bobs. He doesn’t answer, but his eyes say enough.

You run a hand down his back, soothing. “You don’t need to be perfect. Just honest. And this?” You press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Was honest.”

Joel groans, low and rough, and leans in again—this time kissing you with something different. Not hunger. Not frustration.

Devotion.

“I owe you,” he murmurs against your lips. “Gonna make it up to you. Lay you out and take my damn time.”

Your stomach flips.

“Promise?” you whisper.

“Promise.”

He starts moving downward then, sliding down your body, pressing kisses to your skin as he goes. Your breath catches as his mouth drags over your stomach, and you feel his hands gently urging your legs apart again, even as his softening cock brushes your inner thigh.

“Let me do it right,” he says, voice gravelly, thick with need and remorse and a deep, aching love. “Let me take care of you now.”

And you do.

You let him.

Because Joel Miller might’ve come too fast—but he’s not done.

Not by a long shot.

——

The room is still and quiet, save for the soft rasp of Joel’s breath against your skin. His body is warm and heavy where he’s slumped partially over you, chest rising and falling with the remnants of that release he hadn’t planned on. His hand rests low on your waist, like he’s afraid to let go just yet. Like if he moves too quickly, the moment might slip away and take you with it.

He hasn’t said much since the words let me take care of you left his mouth, but he doesn’t have to. You can feel the shift in him—his guilt softening under the weight of your acceptance, your touch, your quiet affection. There’s no disappointment in you, no tension left in your limbs. Just heat, need, and love simmering under your skin, waiting.

Joel kisses the inside of your thigh like an apology.

“You still with me?” he murmurs, voice low and thick, a little rough around the edges.

You nod, brushing a hand through his hair, dark and mussed from your fingers. “Still here.”

He presses another kiss, higher this time, just along the crease where your thigh meets your hip. “I hate that I couldn’t wait. I ain’t… I ain’t proud of that.”

“You should be,” you whisper. “It’s proof. How much you wanted me.”

Joel groans quietly, like he still can’t quite believe you’re not mad at him. He shifts lower, nestling himself between your legs with a kind of reverence that makes your breath hitch. His hands smooth up your thighs, warm and wide and steady now, coaxing your knees open just a little more.

“You said I could make it up to you,” he says, his voice a promise now. “So let me. Let me really take my time this time.”

And then he lowers his mouth.

The first brush of his tongue is slow. Deliberate. Not teasing—no, he’s past teasing. This is worship.

He drags the flat of it through your folds, humming low in his chest as he tastes you. The sound goes straight through you, sparks racing up your spine. You gasp softly, hips lifting off the bed, and Joel wraps his arms under your thighs to anchor you down.

“Easy,” he murmurs against you. “Ain’t goin’ anywhere. I’m gonna be here a while.”

You feel it—the truth of that.

Joel eats you out like a man starved, not with urgency but with intention. Every movement of his tongue is slow, sure, patient. He licks and kisses and sucks at you like he’s making up for every missed night, every morning you woke up tangled together but too rushed to indulge.

He knows your body better than anyone, and it shows. He takes his time circling your clit, not too soft, not too fast, just enough to make your toes curl and your hands reach blindly for the sheets. When he slips a finger inside, it’s like your body was already waiting for him—wet and ready, clenching around him instantly.

“You feel so fuckin’ good,” Joel mutters, his voice husky against your core. “Goddamn, baby, you’re squeezin’ me so tight.”

You whimper, hips rising to meet his touch, needing more. He gives it to you—another finger, thicker, curling just right inside as his mouth returns to your clit. The combined sensation is overwhelming. Your back arches, eyes squeezed shut, breath breaking apart in shallow gasps.

Joel hums again, low and proud this time, and the vibration makes you tremble.

“That’s it,” he breathes. “Let me feel it, sweetheart. Let me feel you come.”

Your hand finds his hair, holding him there, hips rolling desperately against his mouth as the pressure builds and builds. He doesn’t let up—his fingers, his tongue, all of him focused on you, like nothing else exists but this. But your pleasure. Your sounds. Your taste.

When it hits, it’s like a wave breaking clean over your body.

You cry out, legs shaking around him, your whole body clenching around his fingers as the orgasm rolls through you. Joel keeps working you through it, tongue softening into gentle strokes, fingers slowing but staying inside until your grip on him loosens and your back sinks into the mattress.

He doesn’t rise right away. He just rests his cheek against your thigh, breathing deep, like you are what steadies him.

“You okay?” he asks after a moment, voice rasping.

You nod, barely able to speak, one hand sliding down to cup his jaw. “Yeah. More than okay.”

He kisses your thigh again, then slowly moves up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake—your belly, the curve of your breast, the space between your ribs where he always lingers like he knows it makes your heart race.

By the time he’s face to face with you again, he looks calmer. Softer. Still Joel—but not the same man who’d tensed with guilt minutes ago. This one’s loose-limbed and warm-eyed, his forehead resting against yours.

“Feel better?” he asks gently.

You smile, fingers stroking his back. “You always make me feel better.”

His hand slides up to cradle your cheek. “I love you.”

You blink at the quiet certainty of it. “I love you too.”

Joel leans in to kiss you—slow and deep and languid. His tongue slides against yours, tasting your own release on his lips, and you melt into it, every muscle in your body humming with satisfaction.

When the kiss breaks, you speak softly. “You’re not allowed to beat yourself up next time that happens.”

His eyebrows rise. “Next time?”

You grin, teasing now. “You keep missing me like that, it might happen again.”

Joel chuckles—really laughs—and it’s the best sound you’ve heard in days. He buries his face in your neck, his body warm and solid over yours, and you hold him there, tangled up and sated and whole.

You even look up if there’s such a thing as a permanent fertile period, because none of this feels normal.

And of course, Joel confronts you about it.

On your father’s birthday night, he invites a few close friends over for a small cocktail party, followed by dinner. When you walk down the stairs, Joel is there, sitting in the living room armchair with a glass of whiskey in his right hand.

He’s listening to something your father is saying but glances at you. You immediately turn your back and head into the kitchen to see if your mother needs help.

Yesterday, you found a movie where Joel played a DEA agent rescuing a drug lord’s wife. He said so many filthy things to her while fucking her inside a police car that the words stuck in your head like Play-Doh in hair.

And maybe the area between your legs feels a little more sensitive too, which only makes you feel worse.

After the cocktail and dinner, spent tensely avoiding Joel’s gaze, you slip out into the backyard with a glass of wine in one hand and your Kindle in the other.

Inside, the party goes on, your father having opened another bottle of whiskey, and you can hear them from here. You need to stay out of your bedroom to keep yourself from typing "Javier Peña" into that damn search bar again, so for the next few minutes, you sip your wine and read.

“Finally, a place where you can’t hide behind the toilet paper aisle.”

Joel sits down on the chair next to you, holding his own whiskey glass. You lose your words because, yes, you actually did hide in the personal hygiene aisle yesterday when you saw him.

You play dumb.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know. You went all puritanical after you found out what you found out.”

“I told you it’s weird.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t need your approval. My life and career are my own. I said I would help you with your thesis, and I will, but if you keep running from me, someone’s going to think there’s something wrong between us.”

You take another sip of wine in silence, staring at the lawn like it’s salvation. Joel’s gaze burns into the side of your face before he asks:

“Have you watched any more?”

“For the thesis.” A lie.

“May I ask which one?”

“The DEA one.”

“Hmm.”

He finds your eyes as he sips his whiskey. He’s sitting with his legs spread, making his jeans stretch tight over his groin and thick thighs. And you know exactly what’s under those jeans.

You can’t resist your curiosity:

“Do you miss acting?”

“My ego does,” he says, like he’s thought about it a thousand times. “Not gonna lie, there’s a certain masculine pride in being a porn actor. It’s easier for men. But personally? No. Especially because of Sarah.”

“She knows?”

He shakes his head.

“She does. I told her when she turned fifteen because I’d rather she hear it from me than stumble across it online.”

“How did she react?”

“Well, I guess.”

You shake your head and cover your face with your free hand, groaning a little.

“I can’t stop wondering if my mom knows about you.”

“I hate to break it to you—”

You cut him off. “Shhh.”

His laugh is low but genuine. Your eyes meet again, and this time, you could swear his gaze dips a little lower, to the neckline of your dress, where a bit of flushed skin is showing thanks to the wine.

But he disguises it and gestures toward your Kindle:

“What are you reading?”

“Some articles to help with my research.”

“Have my films led you to any conclusions?”

“Um, definitely,” you say, staring at the lawn. “You cussed a lot. And you seem very interested in my opinion of your movies.”

“I'm curious.”

You internally roll your eyes. Men.

“You want a performance review? Aren’t the comments on XVideos enough?”

“I want yours.”

You ignore him, because your evaluation of his performance was made perfectly clear when you got yourself off twice in a row thinking about his voice.

Instead, you ask:

“Did the DEA girl really come? Because it looked real.”

Joel stays quiet for a while. When you glance at him, you notice a small smirk playing on his lips as he taps his fingers against his glass. His whiskey’s almost gone.

“Do you really want to get into that?”

“Why not?”

A few more seconds of silence. Then he seems to say "fuck it" internally and answers:

“I liked making the other actresses come. Some directors didn’t like it because it took longer, and ‘who cares if they actually orgasm if they can fake it,’” he says, making air quotes. “But I liked it. Not all of them, of course, and sometimes they’d tell me they were fine without it, but it was a preference of mine.”

“And the DEA girl?” you press.

“Was that your favorite?”

You shake your head.

“Which one was?”

You shake your head again, indicating you won’t tell him.

“The DEA girl was my ex-girlfriend,” he says.

“So it was real.”

Joel shrugs, and that's all the answer you need. The porch light behind you highlights his graying beard and the glint of whiskey on his lips. Your throat goes dry.

“How did you get into the industry?”

Joel clicks his tongue.

“Very personal question.”

“Okay, what made you leave?”

He glances at your wine glass and ignores the question, asking another instead:

“What wine is that?”

You consider not answering out of petty revenge, but your parents raised you better.

“Barefoot. I know it’s cheap, but I like it,” you swirl the red wine in your glass. “Even though I know I’ll wake up with a headache tomorrow.”

Joel rolls his eyes and stands, leaving his whiskey glass behind.

“Come on, bring your glass. I’ll give you some real wine.”

He starts walking toward the gate between your houses, and you have no choice but to follow, leaving your Kindle and the party behind. Joel’s broad shoulders guide you around the side of his house and into the kitchen.

It’s silent and dark, except for a single hallway light. Quietly, because Sarah is probably asleep, you pass through the kitchen and head to a door leading to the garage, where the lighting is dim at best. His truck takes up almost all the space.

Unsure of what to do, you hover at the door, watching as he enters a small room off the garage. It’s a little wine cellar, concrete walls lined with slanted mahogany shelves.

Joel comes back out with a bottle in hand. You recognize the label and freeze.

“You’re not about to open a Rockford Flaxman.”

“I am,” he says, brushing past you just enough to close the door behind you, locking the two of you in the garage. His scent hits you, and you fight the urge to bury your face in the crook of his neck. “Just closing the door so Sarah doesn’t wake up. Hand me your glass.”

“Joel, that bottle’s expensive.”

“Hand me your glass,” he repeats.

You give it to him. Joel pulls a corkscrew from a drawer you hadn’t noticed and pops the bottle open effortlessly. He fills your glass halfway and, as he hands it back to you, asks:

“Mind if we share the glass?”

You shake your head.

From another drawer, he grabs his truck keys, disables the alarm, and turns on a tiny, terrible-quality radio. Duran Duran starts playing.

Joel gestures toward the truck:

“Come on. We can sit inside.”

Heart pounding a little faster, palms sweating, you climb into the passenger side. You settle into the leather seat and finally take a sip of the good wine.

It tastes fruity and oaky, almost sweet on your tongue. You let out a long, contented hum.

“Really good,” you say after swallowing. “Best way to end the night.”

His fingers brush yours as he takes the glass. You watch him savor a sip before handing it back.

He speaks as he does:

“I left the industry because the doubts about real consent started eating at me,” he says, answering the question you asked earlier. Joel leans back in the seat, legs spread, head resting against the headrest, eyes closed. “And I’m not just talking about explicit consent. I mean about the people who were there because they had no other choice.”

“I can’t imagine anyone doing porn unless they had to,” you murmur.

“I get it, but some people genuinely like it,” he meets your gaze as you sip more wine. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m serious.”

“Maybe for men...”

“It’s more common among men, true.”

You offer him the glass. He drinks and gives it back.

“The agency that managed my films didn’t like it when I started giving interviews about that stuff. They gave me fewer scenes or scripts I’d never agree to do, and I had to start turning them down. When they began sabotaging me, I left.”

“Scripts you wouldn’t accept?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” you accept the short answer. “No other agency made you an offer?”

“They did, but when I left, I didn’t want to go back.”

“And yet, you defend the industry.”

“I don’t defend the industry—I defend the work I did, because I know how it was done. I don’t like when you generalize.”

“You know that sounds like ‘not all men,’ right? Of course not everyone was bad, but the industry itself is terrible. So when I criticize it, it’s the majority I’m talking about. And you were exploited too.”

He exhales deeply. There’s more you want to say, but you sense it’s a sensitive topic, so you change the subject:

“Can I ask what you do now?”

“I invest,” he says simply. “I made a lot of money back then and wasn’t stupid enough to blow it on parties and drugs. I invested in public and private construction companies, and now they pay me back.”

“Didn’t expect that.”

Joel gives you a look.

“Male privilege. I got into a lot of good deals just because I was Javier Peña.”

“That wouldn’t happen to an actress,” you guess, and he nods. “So now you just live off your investments.”

“Pretty much.”

The wine in your glass runs out. Joel notices, grabs the bottle, and this time drinks straight from it. You mimic him, putting the glass in the back seat.

“How was it, being an actor?”

“Fun. Lots of parties, admiration, glamor, L.A., and sex all the time,” he says. “The downside was the strict diet, weekly waxing, and almost daily health tests. I probably have a permanent hole in my vein.”

“Did you only date people in the industry?”

“Not a rule, but it was easier, so mostly.”

“Sarah’s mom—”

“No, she wasn’t in it. She was a friend.”

You figure she’s not around anymore, considering you’ve never heard Sarah mention her.

“If someone offered you two million dollars today,” you start, trying to lighten the mood, and his face softens, “for a solo film. Just you, just masturbation. Would you do it?”

“No, because of Sarah. Okay, my old films are still out there, but they existed before she was born. It’s different.” Another sip of wine. Joel continues: “I don’t think I’d even know how to behave in front of a camera anymore.”

“That’s not the spirit of the Longest Cumshot Award winner.”

Joel’s eyes widen in shock, and you burst out laughing at yourself, raising both of your hands.

“I didn’t look it up, I swear. It’s just one of the first pictures that comes up when you search your name.”

“Tell me your favorite film,” he insists.

You think about refusing again, but the wine is warming your face and your throat, and the atmosphere is too cozy.

“The title is ridiculous,” you start, and he grunts for you to hurry up. “Something like ‘Lust Lives Next Door.’”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Where he’s the neighbor?”

Keeping a neutral expression, you sip more wine, feeling his gaze fixed on you.

“Why?” Joel asks.

“It felt so real. You looked so...”

You lose the words. He prompts you:

“So...?”

“I don’t know. You looked like you really wanted her. Sure, you always looked like that—you were an actor—but with her, it was different. At least to me.”

Joel studies you a moment longer. Then asks, seriously:

“Did you touch yourself watching it?”

Your cheeks burn.

“It’s normal,” you defend. “Inevitable.”

“Only with that one?”

“Joel.”

He exhales long and slow.

“If you’re uncomfortable, we’ll stop. I’ll walk you home.”

You open your mouth to joke about how ridiculous it is for him to walk you home when you’re literally neighbors, but the seriousness of his question leaves you speechless.

“I’m not a porn actress. I’m not used to this,” you murmur.

“Then just nod,” he suggests seriously. Your silence is taken as agreement.

He asks:

“Did you touch yourself to any other of my films?”

A pause, then...

You nod.

He breathes deeply.

“Did you watch my films only because of the thesis?”

You shake your head no.

“Do you imagine me doing those things to you?”

You feel like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff. One step back, and you’ll be safe, intact but with a pounding heart. One step forward, and you’ll fall, jump, dive into whatever awaits below.

The blood in your ears almost drowns out the start of “Glory Box” by Portishead playing from that shitty little radio.

You take a step forward.

You nod.

Before he can ask anything else, you’re the one who speaks:

“Do you want to see?” you ask, fueled by all the liquid courage from the wine. You clarify, “How I touched myself.”

The answer comes immediately:

“Of course I do.”

You glance at the garage door, then at him, hardly believing you’re about to do this. Before shyness can take over, you close the passenger door, slip off your sandals, and adjust yourself on the seat so your back rests against the door and your legs stretch across the console. You place your feet in Joel’s lap, and you can’t help but notice the hard bulge pressing against his jeans—you have to fight the urge to abandon everything and just beg him to take you to his room and do whatever he wants with you.

Okay. You take a slow, steadying breath to calm your racing heart. Joel’s hand settles around your ankle, his thumb brushing the bone there, and that small point of contact anchors you.

The dress you’re wearing is short, so it only takes a small tug for the fabric to bunch around your waist. With bare legs, goosebumped skin, and heavy breaths, you hand him the wine bottle.

Joel accepts it without taking his eyes off you.

“I’m not as confident as your porn actresses,” you say, but to your own ears your voice sounds pathetically breathless.

His touch trails up to your shin and back down, his hand wrapping around your left foot. He says:

“If you knew how many times I imagined myself between your legs, you wouldn’t feel insecure right now.”

Your breasts ache against the thin fabric of your dress as you spread your legs. You slide your hand into your panties, and Joel doesn’t look directly at it—he watches your face instead. He studies your reaction when your lips part at the feeling of your fingers touching the sensitive, wet spot between your thighs.

The knowledge that he’s wanted this just as badly as you makes you bolder.

You tilt your head back, resting it against the car window, and look at the ceiling while you speed up your fingers. Everything feels so sensitive that you have to bite your lower lip to keep any sound from escaping.

“Fuck...” Joel murmurs, his touch sliding up your thigh. “I can hear how wet you are.”

“Give me your hand.”

Joel takes one last sip of wine and sets the bottle on the ground outside the truck before offering his hand to you. You barely manage to meet his eyes as you pull your panties aside and guide his rough fingers between your legs.

His fingers glide easily over your clit, so wet that it’s almost slippery, and the feeling is so good—his fingers are larger, different textured than your own—and he lets you use them like a toy.

Joel’s gaze finally drops to where your bodies meet. With his free hand, he palms himself through his jeans, starting to rub.

It’s too much for your mind to process.

You squeeze your eyes shut again, using both your hands to guide his and spreading your legs wider. You have to breathe through parted lips to stop yourself from moaning as he rubs that almost painfully sensitive spot over and over.

“Does it feel good using my fingers like that?” he asks, voice hoarse. You nod. “Then let me fuck you with them.”

You whisper your agreement, guiding his fingers lower after making sure they’re slick enough. You press down gently, and his middle finger sinks inside you with a wet sound.

“Joel…”

“Hearing you moan like that and it’s not even my cock yet,” he mutters, fucking you slowly with his middle finger. “Let me add another one.”

You nod. He adds another finger, and you barely manage to hold in the moan, especially when he starts moving them in a slow, delicious rhythm, dragging the strokes out rather than speeding up.

It all happens so fast. One second Joel is pulling you lower, sliding your ass almost onto the console, and the next, he’s bending down and putting his mouth on you—his tongue tracing a quick, hot path from your entrance to your clit.

You clap a hand over your mouth and grab his hair with the other, the graying strands slipping through your fingers. The position can’t be comfortable for him, half off the driver’s seat and bent over you, but he doesn’t seem to care. His lips close over your clit, sucking and licking, while his fingers keep fucking you. His beard scrapes the sensitive skin of your thighs and the slick heat between your legs—and somehow, that only makes you hotter.

You tug his hair harder, pulling him closer into you, and you swear he’s smiling against you, his mouth opening over your clit.

The third finger teases your entrance, and just that promise is enough—you come with a muffled gasp, both hands buried in Joel’s hair as you ride his face. His beard will definitely leave marks on your skin.

Joel waits patiently until your body stops pulsing around his fingers, even though his occasional licks don’t exactly help. Then he pulls his mouth away and sits back in the driver’s seat, wiping his beard with his hand to clear the mess you left behind.

You barely have time to catch your breath before he grabs you with one hand and, steadying your hips with both, pulls you straight onto his lap.

“Hi,” you whisper, still breathless.

“Hi,” he says back.

“You kiss?”

“What?” He smiles, brushing a lock of hair off your forehead. “You asking if I know how to kiss?”

“I’m asking if you have any rules against it, because I really, really want to kiss you.”

“You do?” His thumb brushes over your lower lip, the crease between his brows soft and nearly invisible. “I’m all yours.”

With that permission, you wrap your arms around his neck and move closer, trying to control your ragged breathing. You keep your eyes locked on his as you kiss his bottom lip, then his top, tracing them with the tip of your tongue, pressing your thumbs under his jaw to coax his mouth open.

You run your tongue across the opening, and Joel fists your hair at the nape of your neck, finally taking the lead and kissing you back.

You’re consumed by the taste of expensive wine, a kiss you’d only ever imagined through a computer screen—and you realize the actresses hadn’t been faking their moans, because when Joel sucks your tongue into his mouth for the first time, the sensation ripples right through the core of you, and you whimper softly into his mouth.

“Take off your panties,” he murmurs against your lips as he trails kisses along your chin, your jaw, and down your neck. You move with him, adapting to the pace and hunger of his kisses.

As he reaches your collarbones, Joel tugs the thin straps of your dress down and pushes the fabric until it bunches at your waist. Your breasts are exposed to the cool garage air—and to his hungry mouth.

“Joel…”

His tongue laps at your nipple, and he grows impatient. He slides a hand between your thighs and yanks your panties down with little care. You hear the lace tear but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when seconds later Joel is maneuvering you onto your knees so he can pull the ruined panties off completely.

Then he balls the fabric in his left hand and brings it to his nose.

It should feel ridiculous—like some cheap porno move—but it doesn’t.

He isn’t doing it for show.

He’s doing it because—

Joel grabs your hair again, keeping you firmly in place, and lifts the panties to your own nose. His mouth hovers at your ear as he says:

“See?” Joel’s lips skim down your neck. You catch the unmistakable scent of your own arousal, and your cheeks burn. “You’ve been dripping wet since the moment you walked into this garage.”

“You’re wrong,” you say, pressing his arm to press the panties harder against your nose. You inhale loud enough for him to hear and murmur, “I’ve been wet since the moment you sat next to me in the backyard.”

Joel looks at you, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He stuffs the panties into the front pocket of his worn jeans before unbuttoning and pushing them down along with his boxers.

You probably stare at his cock like an idiot, because seeing it on a screen was one thing, but seeing it now—right in front of you, the subtle changes from age only making it better—hits you hard.

“You’re smiling. What, is my dick funny?” Joel asks.

You shake your head.

“Your dick is practically a shrine to me.”

Joel rolls his eyes, wiping the corner of your mouth with his thumb.

“I’m real fucking close to come just looking at you,” he mutters, and you feel a flicker of disappointment, but it seems to be true, especially given how hard he is.

Joel shifts you into place on his lap, adjusting you like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

He leans back against the seat, partially reclining, and grips his cock with one hand.

“Come here,” he says lowly, pulling you by your thighs. When his thick cock nestles between your legs, you realize what he wants.

You brace yourself on his shoulders, biting your lip to keep any sounds from escaping as you lift onto your knees just enough to start sliding yourself against him.

The slickness between your legs makes it easy—wet and slippery—and Joel groans, tipping his head back against the seat.

God.

He looks huge beneath you, between your thighs, in the way his hands grip your hips and travel along your waist and back up. The rigid heat of him rubs directly over your clit with every glide, and you wrap your hand around the base of his cock to press him even harder against you as you move.

Joel’s hands grip your hips so hard you wonder if you’ll have bruises tomorrow. He glances down between you, where your wetness has coated him, and mutters a filthy curse between his clenched teeth.

“These tits…” he growls, lowering his mouth back to your breasts, drawing you even closer. “Can you come like this?”

You nod, tugging his curls at the nape of his neck, moving faster when he sucks a nipple into his mouth, leaving a trail of wet heat on your skin.

“Turn around,” Joel orders, licking the corner of your mouth. “I want to come on your ass.”

You obey instantly.

He helps you twist around so your knees stay on the seat but your back is pressed against his chest.

Joel runs his cock through your soaked folds, nudging your clit with the head.

He gathers your hair in one hand, pulling it aside so he can kiss the sensitive skin at the base of your neck.

“Rub yourself on it,” he says, voice rough. Your only support is the steering wheel in front of you, which you cling to as you rock your hips back and forth, grinding down along his shaft.

“You’re gonna fucking kill me doing exactly what I tell you,” he mutters against your ear.

“I like when you tell me what to do,” you whisper, barely able to form the words with the way that familiar tension is building fast in your stomach.

“Yeah, baby, I can tell by how soaked you are.”

You don’t answer, focusing only on your own pleasure now, shifting so the thick length of him is perfectly aligned against your clit.

Your leg trembles, your mind blanking with the focus on your orgasm, and you have to bite down on your sweaty arm to keep from crying out his name.

“Feels good?” you ask, panting.

“Jesus Christ, sweetheart,” Joel rasps, his hand tightening around your throat just enough to tilt your face toward his so he can kiss your jaw, your cheek. The slick sounds of your bodies are filthy, but it only pushes you closer. “Been holding back this whole time not to fucking come inside that sweet pussy.”

And that’s all it takes.

You come with a silent scream, clinging to the steering wheel, shuddering against him as your orgasm rips through you.

“Get up,” Joel says urgently, and, trembling, you lift yourself on wobbly knees.

He pushes your dress up your back, squeezes your ass—and you know exactly what he wants.

You brace yourself against the steering wheel, arching your back for him, and Joel lets out a rough, desperate sound.

Between heavy breaths, you hear the slick noises of him jerking himself off, and it only takes a few seconds before you feel it—hot spurts of cum hitting your ass, dripping down the backs of your thighs.

After what feels like forever, Joel slaps your ass gently and wraps his arms around you from behind, pulling you against his chest.

You let yourself collapse into him, feeling his heart pounding just as hard as yours.

You stay there for a moment, quiet, your lips dry when you finally whisper:

“Good wine.”

He laughs.

“Knew you’d like it.”

You close your eyes, tangling your fingers with his over your waist.

When you wake up the next morning, it’s to persistent knocking on the door.

Startled, heart racing, you open your eyes. At first, you don’t recognize the room you’re in, but then you feel Joel’s arm draped over your hips and everything from last night comes rushing back.

You two had cleaned up the garage as best you could, wiped down the seats of his truck, and then gone upstairs to his bedroom to shower together. You couldn’t bring yourself to leave, and he asked you to stay, so you texted your parents saying Joel needed you to sleep over (not a lie) because of Sarah, since he had to rush out for an emergency (a complete lie).

“Dad,” Sarah knocks again, and you have to replay last night’s events to make sure Joel actually locked the door before you both passed out. “Daaaad.”

He opens his eyes, still half-asleep, and pulls you closer against him. Sarah knocks again, and Joel grunts softly before calling out:

“Is the house on fire?”

She laughs.

“No, but you must be sick if you’re not up yet. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just got in late last night.”

Quietly, you trace your fingers over his beard. He meets your gaze and catches your hand, kissing your knuckles before hugging you closer, and you’re reminded that you’re both still naked under the covers—every inch of his warm body pressed against yours.

“Hangover?” Sarah asks.

“Sort of.”

“I left you breakfast. The school bus is about to get here.”

You watch his expression soften.

“Thanks, baby girl. Have a good day. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Dad.”

You hear her footsteps fading down the stairs, and you smile at Joel.

“That was so sweet,” you murmur sincerely. “You call her ‘baby girl’.”

“She used to hate it when she was younger, but she gave up fighting me on it,” he says, his voice raspy from sleep, making something in your stomach flip. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” you whisper back.

Joel brushes his thumb over your cheek and temple, then asks:

“Do you regret it?” You frown, not understanding right away. He clarifies: “Last night.”

“Of course not. Are you crazy?”

“You fucked a porn actor,” he says conspiratorially.

“An ex–porn actor,” you correct. “And we haven’t even fucked yet. Why would I regret that?”

Joel shrugs.

“Aren’t you the one who hates them?”

“Joooel,” you groan, flopping onto your back. “We already talked about this. I hate the industry. I could never hate you.”

“If you say so.”

You turn your face toward him when you feel his hand sliding over your stomach, your hip, your breast…

“Well, now I have a very subjective perspective for my thesis,” you tease.

Joel smiles, raising an eyebrow.

“Imagine explaining that when someone asks how you gathered your results—you’ll have to say Javier Peña showed you personally.”

You barely manage to suppress the shiver that runs down your spine.

“Our little adventure would make a good movie,” you say, but instantly regret it, shaking your head. “Forget it. Just the thought of any image of me out there makes me sick.”

Joel stays silent, but there’s a stupid little smile on his lips as he props himself up on his elbow, lying sideways. His other hand, which was resting on your belly, slides lower. Past your hip, past your thigh, and back up again.

“What’s with that smirk?” you ask.

He licks his bottom lip.

“Remember when you asked me what my favorite kind of movie was?”

That’s the sentence that leads, twenty minutes later, to you lying on your side, your back pressed against Joel’s chest, the morning light streaming through the thick curtains.

He holds you firmly as you reach between your legs, guiding his cock inside you. You almost melt in his arms, feeling the thick veins pulse against your fingers.

“A little more,” Joel murmurs into your ear, sliding an arm under your thigh and adjusting your position to help you take him. You reach behind you, grabbing his hip. Inch by inch, he fills you.

You look down between your legs, watching the way you stretch around him, and it feels like the bed is dissolving under the weight of it.

“Joel.”

“I’m right here, baby,” he says. You see him licking three fingers before reaching down to your clit, just as he starts moving his hips.

The next few days in Lake Placid pass exactly like that.

Some nights, you sneak across your backyard to Joel’s house, and he usually meets you halfway, catching you on the stairs with a kiss before carrying you to bed.

Other times, he sneaks into your house and fucks you on your bedroom floor, because your bed makes too much noise.

You keep working on your thesis and stop watching Javier Peña’s old movies. You don’t need them anymore—not when Joel Miller is texting you saying he needs you in his bed.

On your last few days at home, your parents throw a barbecue. Among the guests are Joel and Sarah.

It’s Joel who finds you in the kitchen as you’re finishing seasoning the potato salad.

He leans against the counter across from you, holding a can of beer. You glance up from the potatoes to meet his gaze, and flashes of last night hit you—when you two had sex in a ridiculous roadside motel because Sarah was having a sleepover with her friends at home.

“And when you go back to New York?” he asks, and you immediately understand what he means.

You shrug.

“I’m not going to pressure you into a long-distance relationship. We don’t have a relationship anyway. And I don’t want a long-distance thing.”

“But I want you.”

You stab a piece of potato with your fork and bring it to his mouth. He accepts it, chewing slowly while waiting for your answer.

“I want you too,” you confess. “But I know you have other priorities.”

“So do you.”

You nod. “So do I.”

Somehow, it feels like a goodbye.

Two months later, back in New York, you type the final period on the last sentence of your thesis.

You stretch your arms over your head like you just won a marathon and then slowly slide to the floor, lying flat on your back like a starfish.

Your spine cracks, your wrists protest after three straight hours of typing, but you can’t wipe the huge, satisfied smile off your face—you’re free.

You grab your phone and text your friends:

“Thesis done. Beer to celebrate?”

You end up doing a full bar crawl, treating it like a birthday or something equally ridiculous.

All it takes is a low-cut top showing off your cleavage, a sweet voice, and the line “Do I get a prize for finishing my thesis?” to score free drinks all night.

You flirt with a few guys, but none of them make you want to drag them home. None of them have a Texas drawl, a graying beard, and the smirk of a retired porn star.

Actually…

You open your chat with Joel.

The last message from him, sent yesterday, is a photo of the same wine bottle you two opened that night in the garage. You had texted back “wish I was there,” and he’d replied with a kiss emoji.

He’d mentioned he was attending some adult film award ceremony as a presenter or something, but he didn’t say where.

He must have been busy all day.

Tonight, you type:

“went out drinking with some friends to celebrate finishing my thesis and can’t stop thinking about you. swear if you were here, i’d be blowing you under one of the bar tables.”

You put your phone away.

You down a tequila shot and laugh when your friend toasts to the end of grad school.

At three in the morning, you still haven’t gotten a reply from Joel.

You call an Uber after making sure your friends are safe, pulling your leather jacket tight around your body. The ride sobers you up just enough to make you crave a whole bottle of water.

That’s exactly what you do when you get home.

You peel off your pleated skirt and jacket, leaving yourself in just a wool turtleneck sweater, and you’re about to jump into the shower when your intercom buzzes.

You glance at the microwave clock: 3:54 AM.

You answer.

“Hello?”

“Delivery from Javier Peña.”

You gasp and immediately buzz him in.

Your heart is already racing as you open your apartment door, standing half-hidden behind it since you’re not wearing any pants.

You practically bounce with anticipation at the same time you convince yourself you’re not dreaming.

When Joel appears at the top of the stairs, it’s like all the blood in your body rushes to your head. He’s wearing glasses and has that stupid, cocky smile, dressed in a black T-shirt with two simple words printed across the front: adult content.

“I can’t believe you’re actually wearing that shirt.”

“The name of the studio that sponsored the awards ceremony,” he says, stopping in front of you.

He smells so good it makes you a little self-conscious about the sweat clinging to your neck from the night out.

You smile as you step out of the Jeep, the door creaking behind you, and breathe in the cold, clean air rolling down from the mountains and the lake that wraps around the village where you were born. Your parents’ house sits above Mirror Lake Drive, right at the edge of the hill on the northeast side of the village, and from your bedroom window on the second floor, you can see the lake and the distant peaks of the High Peaks.

A far cry from the view outside your New York apartment: nothing but gray swallowed up by buildings. It’s the perfect setting to finally finish your thesis.

As you grab your two suitcases from the back seat, your eyes wander to the house next door, which had been empty for the past three years, mostly because the previous owners were asking too much for it.

Buying real estate in Lake Placid takes careful thought, since turning a profit is unlikely even with upgrades and expansions – the village is just too isolated. So if you’re buying here, it’s not for the money. It’s because you want a life far away from the city.

The house in question is a larger and more luxurious version of your parents’, made of gray stone, with cute white-framed windows, and for the first time in months, you see the lawn freshly trimmed and a new pickup truck parked in the driveway.

Probably the new family your mom mentioned.

The house is empty when you walk in, but you can hear laughter and voices drifting up from the backyard. You head the opposite way, climb the stairs to your room, drop your bags, take a shower, and spend a good while debating whether to sink into sheets that smell like home for the first time in ten months or go downstairs and find something to eat.

Hunger wins.

You throw on a warm sweater and go down. When you open the back doors, six pairs of eyes turn toward you, but it’s your mother’s squeal that makes you smile, followed by the tight hug she and your father give you.

“There’s our girl,” your father says to the others, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as he says your name. You give a small wave. “She always comes home for the holidays.”

The couple sitting together you recognize. They’ve been friends with your parents for years.

But you don’t know the woman who smiles sweetly at you, and you definitely don’t recognize the man, at least twenty-five years older than you, who keeps a neutral expression as he sips from a beer can. He doesn’t seem particularly friendly, but maybe that’s just the impression left by the slightly graying mustache and broad shoulders.

Two minutes later, you’re settled into a lounge chair with everyone in the backyard, a warm burger on your plate and a cold beer in your hand.

“I told Joel he’d have trouble with the house,” says the sweet-smiling woman to your parents, continuing the conversation they were having. “But he really wanted a place here, so I just supported him.”

“What kind of trouble are you having with the house?” your mom asks Joel — the mustached man, now officially identified.

“Nothing major,” Joel replies in a deep, firm, polite voice. “Had to redo the plumbing in two of the bathrooms and fix the heating in the kitchen sink, but it’s all fine now.”

“And are you liking it here?” you venture. You glance at the woman. “You and... your wife?”

Joel gives a faint smile.

“Tess isn’t my wife. And yeah, I’m liking it. It’s peaceful. Not too many teenagers. Feels like paradise.”

“What’s with the teenage hate?” you ask, half-joking, half-serious, silently filing away the Tess isn’t his wife detail.

“Fewer teenagers means fewer cell phones.”

Your response is a light laugh that earns a slight eyebrow raise from Joel, but you go back to your burger and let him be.

The conversation between the adults shifts to Fleetwood Mac, Lake Placid families, suggestions for places Joel should check out, and gossip about someone’s daughter who apparently got knocked up by the neighbor’s grandson, or something like that. You listen in, partly because you’re curious about the latest news (true or not) in the town you grew up in.

Your parents mention that you’re staying longer this time to get a change of scenery and finally work on your thesis, and that’s when the dreaded question comes. From Tess.

“And what’s your thesis about?”

Your mother holds back a laugh, because despite the seriousness of the topic, the initial reactions are always the same.

“I study anthropology,” you say. “My thesis is about the influence of pornography on male behavior over the years.”

That’s because the way men acted around you had always bothered you. When you were ten, wearing a cute chiffon skirt to the grocery store, they stared. When you were fifteen, walking home from school in your uniform, you heard disgusting things shouted at you on the street.

It wasn’t until you got older and realized that behavior like that isn’t natural (and why would it be, if women don’t do it?) that all your anger turned into the foundation for your research.

Tess raises her eyebrows and smiles slightly while the older couple gasps in surprise. Joel doesn’t react at all, except for rubbing the condensation on his beer can with his thumb.

“That’s a very interesting topic,” Tess comments, glancing at Joel, who briefly looks at her, then back at you. “Do you have any conclusions yet?”

“A few,” you say, though you already know the core of your research is the objectification of women’s bodies for the industry’s gain. “But I don’t want to bore you—”

“What’s your research method?” Joel cuts in before you can finish.

“Sorry?”

“Your research method. The system you’re using for the thesis.”

“Mixed methods,” you say, but you sense something more behind the question. Something slightly aggressive that you can’t fully pin down. “I did some fieldwork in New York.”

“Did you interview anyone from the industry?”

You shake your head.

“No one agreed. At least not the newer actors and actresses. The more established ones charged absurd fees just to answer ten questions.”

Joel says nothing, and the silence is broken when your father makes a joke about the topic. Everyone laughs—including you.

The barbecue lasts another hour at most before people start saying their goodbyes. Your mom wraps up two burgers for Joel, and he thanks her sincerely.

Then he turns to you and says:

“Good luck with the thesis, sweetheart.”

You nod, and you could swear you catch a faint smirk at the corner of his lips before he waves goodbye and walks off.

You run into Joel again at the market three blocks from home, standing in front of the fruit display, looking stuck between red grapes, green grapes, and oranges.

Joel’s voice comes suddenly from your left.

“What deep philosophical truth are you hoping those grapes will reveal to you?”

You startle, turning toward him with your hand over your heart as if that could slow it down. Joel raises one eyebrow as he begins placing seedless green grapes into a plastic bag.

He’s wearing worn jeans and a plaid flannel shirt over a white T-shirt. Thin-rimmed glasses rest on the strong bridge of his nose.

He smells like pine and something expensive that you guess it’s aftershave.

“Hi,” you say first, then quickly add, “I was trying to decide between grapes and oranges.”

“Grapes are sweeter this time of year.”

“But I like sour fruit.”

“Then go for the oranges.”

“But grapes are easier to eat. More practical.”

Joel gives you an impatient look, and you answer with a laugh. You grab a plastic bag and start selecting oranges.

After a short silence, while Joel ties off his grape bag and begins picking oranges too, you ask:

“Are you liking it here?”

Joel murmurs:

“There are some interesting things. Sarah likes it.”

“Your wife?” you ask quickly. Too quickly.

“My daughter. Just turned fifteen.”

Oh. Great. He’s a dad. You glance at his hand but see no ring. Joel notices.

“What’s with the marriage obsession?” he asks, although not rudely.

You shrug.

“I’m just curious. And you’d better brace yourself. The older ladies in Lake Placid are going to eat you alive with questions about your relationship status.”

“Really? Why do you think that?”

You freeze with your fingers wrapped around a particularly juicy orange. Without meaning to, you basically confessed that you think he’s a catch: attractive, polite, middle-aged, apparently wealthy, and tall. What other reason would the ladies have to shift their attention from their knitting?

You avoid his eyes.

“You bought the house that had been on the market for years. They’ll want to know who the buyer is,” you say, a half-truth.

He grunts, as if to say he doesn’t care about any of that, ties his orange bag, and places it in the cart. He glances at your basket, scanning the hygiene items (specifically the pads) and the chocolate bars.

“Did you drive here?” he asks.

You shake your head. He does too.

“Then let’s go. I’ll give you a ride home. It’s raining.”

His tone doesn’t invite objection and you don’t want to argue. Silently, and after grabbing a bag of green grapes too, you follow him through the market. He picks up a box of chocolate cereal, milk, kale, and oats, and then you both head to the checkout line.

You pay for your items first, so you end up waiting under the automatic doors, arms crossed beneath the blasting air conditioner.

People come in shaking umbrellas, mumbling about how unexpected the rain is or how cold the drops feel.

Older women walk in, spot Joel, and start whispering to each other with that smile every woman — no matter her age — immediately recognizes. The universal woman-smile.

He, seemingly unaware to all of it, pays with his card, grabs the bags with one hand, and walks over to you.

“Need help?” he asks, motioning toward your three bags.

You shake your head. He nods once and tilts his head toward the door, signaling for you to follow him across the crowded parking lot.

His pickup truck is parked near the exit, looking big and sturdy. You both get in at the same time. The inside smells good but feels stuffy from the rain, so he turns on the A/C and runs his hand through his graying hair to shake off the water.

“It rains a lot here,” he mutters as he starts the engine and buckles his seatbelt. You do the same. “Not sure I like this humidity.”

“Where were you living before?”

“Los Angeles.”

Your eyebrows rise. You can’t picture him with the stereotypical California vibe. It doesn’t fit.

So you ask the million-dollar question:

“What did you do there?”

The sound of the windshield wipers is your only response for a few seconds. Long enough for you to wonder if you crossed a line.

“A bit of everything,” he finally says, and you understand that he doesn’t want to talk about it. Yeah. You were being nosy.

Weird. Joel is weird, and everything about him makes you feel like you should think he’s an assassin, or a retired California mobster, anything that would kick your survival instincts into gear. You probably shouldn’t be sitting in a closed space with him like you’ve known him for years.

“Nothing illegal,” Joel adds when your silence starts to stretch.

That makes you laugh.

“Very reassuring.”

He smirks. At a red light, his fingers tap lightly on the leather steering wheel.

“How’s the thesis going?” he asks.

“Honestly? I haven’t opened the file since I got here.”

“Procrastinating?”

You hum in agreement, resting your head against the seat.

“I think I’m stuck.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“I need to watch some films to move forward.”

He freezes. Then he lets out a low chuckle. You defend yourself:

“I’m serious. I need to understand which narratives work best and why, and connect that to how they influence real-life behavior.”

“Makes sense,” Joel says.

“It does,” you reply, a little proud. You glance at him. The shape of his nose, the mustache, the gray-streaked beard. Then you add, “But it feels weird watching porn in my parents’ house, even if it’s for educational purposes.”

“Porn isn’t always for educational purposes?”

You gasp in horror.

“No!” you exclaim. “Porn is not educational. People don’t have sex like that in real life.”

“Hm…”

“You disagree?”

“I do,” he says plainly. “People do have sex like that.”

“I didn’t mean physically, Joel. Sex is easy: a good position, one thing inside the other, and done.” You catch yourself, because not all sex involves penetration, and something about Joel makes you think he wouldn’t mind sitting through a lecture on inclusivity if it came to that, but you add: “What I meant is that sex doesn’t happen like that. It’s not normal to open the door for the pizza guy and two seconds later be bent over the couch.”

“Says who?”

The frustrated growl that escapes you seems to amuse him. You know he’s teasing, and his grin proves it, but you can’t resist continuing.

“Not to mention the incest plots or the underage fantasies. Do you really think sex happens like that?”

His smile disappears instantly.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“No, I’m not. You can’t separate porn genres like some are less harmful than others, because even the ones that seem ‘harmless’ fuel the same industry that writes those sick scripts.”

“We’re here.”

He cuts you off with that simple phrase, and when you look out the window, you realize he’s right. You’re in front of your house. You turn your gaze back to him, and he meets it firmly, returning all the intensity you just threw his way.

You swallow and reach for your bags.

As if you hadn’t just delivered a monologue on the ethics of pornography, you simply say:

“Thanks for the ride.”

He doesn’t respond. You step out of the truck and walk to the door of your house, feeling like a kid who just got scolded, which is ridiculous. But even more ridiculous is the fact that Joel only drives away after he sees you walk safely inside, even though he literally lives next door.

You meet Sarah — Joel’s fifteen-year-old daughter — the next day.

After running along Mirror Lake Drive, you get home with your lungs burning and your body drenched in sweat, the elastic band of your pink sports bra stuck to your back. As you’re kicking off your sneakers at the door, you spot a pair of pink Converse, way smaller than anything anyone in your family would wear.

In the kitchen, there’s a skinny, unfamiliar girl sitting at the counter, two open books spread across the marble, her curly hair pulled up into two puffs.

She lifts her head, and her brown eyes hit you with a soft echo of familiarity.

“Hi,” you say, as if it’s totally normal to have a stranger in your house.

She waves back. Before you can ask “who are you?”, your mom walks into the kitchen and calls your name.

“This is Sarah, Joel’s daughter. Sarah, this is my daughter I was telling you about.”

Sarah gives you a shy little smile, and you smile back, a bit frozen by the fact that you’re standing face-to-face with Joel’s daughter. You’re not even sure why it freezes you.

“Joel had to spend the night out because he needed to go to New York, and he asked if Sarah could stay with us,” your mom explains.

“I’m old enough to stay alone, but my dad’s crazy,” Sarah chimes in, and you laugh.

You don’t think she’s old enough to stay alone, especially in a new town, but you don’t say that.

What you do say is:

“So, Sarah... what are you studying?”

Sarah needs help with her social studies homework, so after you shower and change into something comfortable, you sit down next to her and go over the assignments together. That’s when you realize she’s ridiculously smart and funny, slipping little jokes into the conversation, blending internet memes with historical facts, and talking to her turns out to be genuinely easy and fun.

Your mom serves dinner, you both eat, and then you settle onto the couch with your Kindles, each of you leaning against an end and your feet meeting in the middle of the cushions.

You’re in the third chapter of Ghost Radio when she calls you.

You peek over the top of your Kindle to let her know you’re listening.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“Twenty-six.”

She looks up at the ceiling as if doing mental math. Then, reaching some conclusion, she raises her eyebrows.

“Why?” you ask.

“No reason,” she shrugs, turning back to the book she was reading. Another question follows, this time without looking at you. “Are you dating anyone?”

“No. I ended my last relationship six months ago.”

“Was he older?”

“No,” you say with a laugh. “I mean, yes, but only by about three years. Why do you ask?”

Sarah wiggles her feet like she’s a little too excited about something.

“Just scientific curiosity,” she says, but her tone sounds more like a villain plotting something mischievous.

The next morning, Joel comes to pick her up at eight o’clock. You’re the one who opens the door since your parents left early to go to the farmers’ market to buy honey and vegetables.

He’s standing on the porch, wearing a thick leather jacket, jeans, and heavy boots. He looks exhausted, and the two-day beard growth makes him even more intimidating.

“Good morning,” you say.

Joel looks you up and down in your pajamas: heart-printed pants and a tank top. You realize too late that you’re not wearing a bra.

“Good morning,” he replies, lifting his eyes back to your face. “I’m here to get Sarah.”

“She’s finishing breakfast. Come in.”

Before he can protest, you turn on your heel and walk away, leaving him no choice but to step inside and follow you to the kitchen. You hear his slow, hesitant footsteps as he returns to the room filled with the smell of butter and coffee.

Sarah is sitting at the counter, devouring pancakes. Joel walks over, presses a kiss to the top of her head, and they exchange a few quiet words before he says something that makes her nod and hop down from the stool, leaving the kitchen.

You hear her going upstairs, probably to grab her things.

“How was the trip?” you ask, filling a mug with coffee and placing it in front of him on the marble.

Joel stares at the pink mug like it’s a threat but eventually wraps his big hands around it. You take a sip from your own cup and look at him over the rim, just the counter between you two.

“Good,” he says simply. He gestures toward the coffee. “Thanks. I needed that. Drove back and forth without stopping to rest.”

“Just thinking about it makes my back hurt.”

“I want my bed.”

You watch him over your cup, blowing on the surface of the coffee. You imagine him in the silence of his own house, in his bedroom, in his own bed. You wonder what color the walls are, what the sheets look like, and whether he sleeps clothed or not.

“Sarah’s really smart,” you say, pushing away the mental images.

That earns a small smile from him.

“She’s fantastic, my girl. But she’s cocky, so don’t tell her that.”

“She takes after someone.”

“I’m not cocky.”

“I’m joking,” you say lightly, offering peace because you don’t want to relive the animosity from the last time you saw him. “Is the coffee good?”

“Very.”

“Want to take some pancakes? Bet you’re hungry. I’ve eaten, Sarah’s eaten, and my parents always grab breakfast out when they leave early.”

Joel drums his fingers against the ceramic, looking like he’s fighting an internal battle, as if accepting food from you would be a terrible crime. Still, you take his silence as a yes and start stacking the remaining pancakes into a thermal container.

When you’re done, you walk around the counter and hand him the container with both hands.

“Here.”

Joel takes it with his left hand. With his right, he reaches out and gently pinches your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says quietly, and you freeze.

He walks past you, saying something to Sarah, who apparently has come back downstairs. Feeling a warm flutter deep in your belly, you turn and follow them to the living room. You hug Sarah goodbye, promise to send her books for her Kindle, and then walk them to the door.

You smile when Joel thanks you for looking after Sarah and asks you to pass his thanks to your parents as well.

You watch them cross the lawn between your gardens, and just before Joel enters his house, he turns to look back at you.

You could swear he deliberately and slowly sweeps his gaze over your body, from your feet to your head.

And then he goes inside.

And you have to mechanically force yourself to close the door.

That same night, you start watching the films.

As you work through your research, you put together a report listing the names of the ten most famous stars from each decade between 1970 and 2020, five male, five female.

You already have a pretty clear idea of what defined the main point of pornography in the ’70s: the start of structured scripts and absurd, fantastical narratives that, one way or another, tied a woman’s pleasure directly to a man’s. Like in Deep Throat, where they came up with a story about a woman whose clitoris is located at the back of her throat. You can already guess what the most "effective" method of stimulation would be.

Porno chic was created to make adult content more palatable to the general public, especially as debates about the legality and morality of filming started to gain traction during that decade.

Sitting on your bed with your laptop open in front of you and your tablet resting on your lap for notes, you watch the films at 1.5x speed while eating green grapes.

You knew you might get aroused watching them, because dopamine responses are inevitable, but apparently there's nothing about '70s pornography that even remotely stirs your body. It feels like you're watching a National Geographic documentary.

You can't push away what Linda Lovelace wrote in her autobiography about the most famous film of that time, the one that made millions of dollars: There was a gun pointed at my head the entire time, she said.

You swallow hard and return to your notes.

By the end of the first week of this stage of your thesis, you finish watching the films from the '90s. You note the radical shift in the female body ideal — all the actresses with breast implants — and the peculiar aesthetic of VHS tapes, since this was the era when films started being widely distributed in that format.

What stands out most, though, is the shift in perspective. Gonzo-style pornography centers the camera exclusively on the man, making him the sole focus, and by extension, reducing women to mere tools for male pleasure. The camera's focus on women's bodies is restricted almost entirely to their genitals, which explains a lot about the birth of violent pornography during that time.

If women exist solely for male pleasure, then it’s no problem if they’re violated, right?

And just like that, the normalization of male domination in pornography begins, which, of course, spills over into social behavior.

You shut the laptop in front of you and lie down on the bed, closing your eyes. You doubt even a sixteen-year-old boy has seen as much porn as you have in the past few days, and there’s still so much left to do.

You reach for your tablet and pull up the list of male stars from the 2000s.

Tyler Cross, Javier Peña, Max Thunder, Ryder Grey, and Clint Fury.

Is there someone in the industry whose only job is coming up with these ridiculous pseudonyms?

You get up, leaving everything behind, and head toward the kitchen to find something to eat. It's already past eleven at night, your parents are asleep, and the only light in the living room comes from the lamp. On tiptoe, you’re halfway to the kitchen when the doorbell rings.

You freeze like you're in the middle of a crime scene.

A doorbell ringing at eleven at night in Lake Placid? Something must be on fire.

When you open the door, it’s Joel standing there on your parents' porch, looking anxious.

“Hi,” he says. Another meeting where you're in pajamas and he's fully dressed. “It's dangerous to open the door in the middle of the night like that.”

“Great way to start a conversation. I'm calculating how many seconds it'll take me to get to the kitchen and grab a knife.”

You get a somewhat tense smile.

“I’m still not used to these small-town habits.”

“I get it. I would never open the door for anyone after eight p.m. in New York, but here it’s normal.”

He nods, then asks,

“Were you sleeping?”

You wrap your arms around yourself as a cold breeze sweeps by.

“No, I was studying. Is everything okay?”

“I need a favor,” he says bluntly. “Sarah’s asleep, and I have to head back to New York. Can you stay at the house tonight?”

“Is everything okay?” you repeat.

“My brother’s wife just went into labor. He asked me to be there. I should be back tomorrow night.”

Your eyes widen, and Joel nods as if to say, “Exactly, got it?” You hold up a finger to ask for a minute, then run upstairs to grab your slippers, your robe, and your phone. When you come back, Joel is still on a call but waits patiently until you close the door before leading you to his house.

He lets you step inside first, and even with the urgency of the situation, it feels a little like you’re a twenty-year-old girl walking into a guy’s house for the first time, especially when Joel shuts the door behind you, finishing up his call.

The house is warm, clearly lived in by a family. There’s a big rug in the living room, a brown leather couch, and pictures of Sarah hanging in the hallway: lifting a soccer trophy, carrying a skateboard, the two of them at the beach. A line of photos shows her growing up, from a baby all the way to now.

The last photo is of her at Jewtraw Park, right here in Lake Placid.

“You can sleep in my room if you want. If that’s too weird, the couch is really good too. I left some blankets and a pillow right there,” he says, pointing to the armchair. Then he adds, “Everything’s clean. The guest rooms aren’t ready yet.”

You roll your eyes.

“I know, Miller. Relax. I’ll manage.”

“Okay. Give me your number. I’ll text you so you have mine. And if you need anything, call me.”

You say your number, and he types it into his old, barely-hanging-on iPhone.

“Thanks,” Joel says, genuine. “Really.”

You smile and give his arm a quick rub without even thinking about it.

“No problem. Just let me know if you need anything.”

After showing you where Sarah’s room is, where the extra blankets are, and telling you about ten times you can eat whatever you want, he leaves. You quickly text your mom, explaining the situation and letting her know you’re staying at Joel’s, then settle down on the couch.

Little signs of Joel are scattered around the house. The reading glasses forgotten on the coffee table, the suede jacket hanging by the door, the boots by the entryway, the faint smell of the same lotion you caught on him at the store.

You feel a little like a criminal as you get up and start quietly wandering through the rooms.

The kitchen is beautiful and organized, but there are a few dishes left in the sink. Since you’re still awake, you start washing them.

You move on to the dining room, all wood furniture and a classic chandelier, and then to a small office off to the side. It feels almost too empty except for the bookshelves. Just a desk with a laptop sitting on it, making you think it doesn’t get much use.

You head upstairs.

Sarah’s door is closed, but you walk softly down the carpeted hallway to the room at the end.

You push the door open, heart pounding like you’re about to find a monster or worse: Joel sitting on the bed saying, “Snooping where you shouldn’t be?”

Instead, you find a huge bed neatly made with gray sheets, dark curtains, and matching desks on either side. There’s a closet and a door leading, you assume, to a bathroom.

It’s empty in the way you’d expect a fifty-year-old man’s bedroom to be.

You almost give in and crawl into his bed but force yourself back downstairs, turn off the main lights, and curl up on the couch, which really is pretty comfortable.

It takes a while to fall asleep in a strange house, but when you finally do, your dreams are filled with gray beards and gray sheets.

You wake in the middle of the night to the ping of your phone. You rub your eyes, still dazed from sleep, and grab the phone from the pillow beside you.

4:47 a.m.

It’s a text from an unknown number:

“Hi. Joel here. Sorry for the hour, I hope you’re sleeping. I just got to New York. Please let me know when Sarah wakes up. I’ll need to call her.”

A sleepy smile tugs at your lips at how formally he writes, no abbreviations at all. You save his contact as Miller.

You type back:

“hey. don’t worry. I’ll let you know. everything ok over there?”

“Why are you awake?”

You don’t tell him it was his text that woke you.

“New place… light sleeper.”

“I see.”

An “I see” with a period and everything. Then another message:

“Yes, everything’s fine. I’m in the waiting room, and Tommy’s with his wife. She’s been in labor for seven hours.”

You type: “ouch. hoping all goes well. lmk if u need sth”

“What kind of vocabulary is that?”

“don’t you have bigger things to worry about, grumpy?”

The impossible happens: Joel Miller sends you a smiling emoji.

You reply with one sticking its tongue out.

His next message comes in text again:

“Tell me about your thesis.

“you’re really curious about it.”

“It’s an interesting topic.”

“sure… men and their obsession with porn.”

“I’m not obsessed with porn. I don’t even remember the last time I watched it.”

Your fingers freeze over the keyboard. This sounds way too intimate.

You type back:

“last time I watched was this afternoon.”

You get a single question mark in response: “?”

You clarify:

“for my thesis. I’m at the stage where I have to watch films.”

“Oh. How are you doing that?”

“picking stars from each decade and watching two movies for each. starting with the 2000s tomorrow.”

Joel reads your message but doesn’t reply right away, which is odd. He had been responding immediately. You wonder if something’s happened at the hospital, if everything’s okay with his sister-in-law.

You stare at the screen until it goes black. Three minutes later, his reply pops up:

“Who are the stars from the 2000s?”

“looking for suggestions?”

“No.”

You open your report from iCloud and copy the list of male and female stars from the 2000s. You send it over.

He reads it. Another little pause.

“I see.”

Then another question:

“And how are you watching? Like a documentary?”

“yeah, pretty much. I put on the films, watch them critically, and take notes.”

“And they don’t affect you?”

“in what way?”

He reads the message but doesn’t answer. After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, you take a deep breath and type courageously:

“are you asking if I get turned on?”

Again, no response.

Still, you type back:

“i do. it’s inevitable and natural. but only starting with the '90s films. the ones from the '70s and '80s were way too gross for that.”

This time, a reply comes.

“Gross?”

“yeah. the men were really disgusting. it’s obvious they had no idea how to have sex to actually please a woman.”

“I see.”

You picture Joel Miller, tall and broad-shouldered, sitting in a sterile hospital hallway, texting you about porn while waiting for his nephew to be born.

The thought makes you smile to yourself. You burrow deeper under the blanket and decide to be a little bolder.

“do you have a favorite genre of those movies?”

“To watch?”

You frown. What else would it be for?

“yeah”

“I don’t watch them.”

“okay, but if you were going to watch one today, what type would you choose? one with a storyline, straight to the point… what? help me out for the research.”

You almost chew on your lower lip as you watch the little “typing” bubble appear and disappear three times. Finally, he sends a simple response:

“No storyline, not a lot of talking. Something filmed in the morning, in bed, right after waking up.”

“morning sex?”

“Yes.”

Before you can stop yourself, your mind fills with images of Joel’s bed, the same gray sheets now rumpled and tossed aside. The cold morning light pouring through the window, the scent of him still on the fabric, the warmth of sleepy skin, the scratch of his beard against the sensitive part of your neck.

A big hand adjusting and lifting your leg into the right position, low, sleepy moans filling the space.

You snap your eyes open wide.

“got it,” you type back, heart racing.

“Do you have a favorite genre?”

“i hate porn,” you reply.

“Okay. But if you were going to watch one today, what would you pick?”

He’s throwing your own question back at you, meaning you can’t dodge it.

You type the whole answer at once but hesitate a dozen times before finally pressing send, knowing Joel will understand exactly what you mean and exactly what you like. It’s probably not right to tell your parents’ neighbor, who’s at least twenty years older, but you don’t take it back.

“in the car. an age gap where he looks a little older than her, slightly graying, and he’s desperate for her, desperate to do things to her in the backseat.”

“Things?”

“you know what I mean.”

“Say it clearly.”

“desperate to go down on her.”

And again, he responds:

“I see.”

Your cheeks burning, you turn off your phone screen.

But another message buzzes through:

“Good choice.”

You cross your legs and lock your phone again.

The next time you wake up, it’s to Sarah poking your cheek with an insistent little finger. She’s standing over you by the couch, looking at you like you’re a science experiment.

The sunlight pouring through the living room windows makes you wonder if it’s already past ten.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, still poking your cheek.

Yawning, you answer,

“You’re about to have a baby cousin.”

Sarah squeals.

Joel calls her twenty minutes later, right after you text him—carefully avoiding rereading the messages you sent each other during the night—that she’s awake.

Afterward, you eat breakfast together, and Sarah gets ready for school, where she’ll stay until six in the evening. You wait until the bus picks her up before going back to your house, crawling into bed, and sleeping a little more.

When you wake up again, it’s time to log onto a video call with your boss, even though you’re technically on vacation.

You help your mom with some work in the garden, bake muffins, and by late afternoon, you lock the door to your bedroom, find a cozy spot in bed and open your laptop again.

2000s.

Now all the actresses definitely have implants, bleached hair, heavy makeup, thin eyebrows, and elaborate hairstyles: exactly the fantasy for any guy with a DVD player and one hand free.

But it’s also the beginning of the internet era, meaning access to all of it is even easier than it ever was with VHS tapes.

Roleplay everywhere. Boss and secretary, student and teacher, best friend's mom, best friend's dad. A fantasy world that definitely fried a lot of men’s brain circuits.

You start with the male stars.

First up is Tyler Cross. He's a tall actor with spiky, gelled hair, a tribal tattoo on his left bicep, and a defined six-pack.

You watch a POV movie, new at the time, and another where he plays the older brother’s best friend. It’s set in a girl’s pink-walled bedroom, teddy bears thrown to the side, and it’s all absolutely disgusting.

You glance at the clock after finishing Tyler Cross’s films. 5:55 p.m. You figure you’ve got about fifteen minutes before Sarah gets home, so you decide to at least start Javier Peña’s movies.

You type his name into the search bar.

The results flood in. One of the first titles you see: No Overtime for the Babysitter: Daddy Comes Home Early!

You roll your eyes. Great, now they’re coming for babysitters’ labor rights too.

You click the movie. It takes a moment to load.

The cover stares back at you while the loading icon spins.

The actress is gorgeous, with breasts you immediately envy and long black hair. Her lips, glossy and slightly open, look like she’s mid-moan. She’s one of the first actresses you’ve seen who isn’t drowning under a pound of makeup.

The scene starts with her dusting some furniture in the living room.

She’s wearing a mini-skirt and a light blue crop top made of thin fabric that shows her stomach. Definitely very appropriate attire for her job.

The sound of a door unlocking fills the room, and then it swings open.

The actress sighs:

“Oh! Mr. Peña! You’re home early!”

The camera pans to Mr. Peña. You blink at the screen.

Javier Peña has that classic '80s kind of handsomeness. He’s tall, lean but broad-shouldered, his dark hair messy in a way that somehow suits him. The thick mustache above his tight lips and the long sideburns give him the look of an old-school movie star, and you have to double-check the release date of the film. 2002.

He’s wearing a button-down shirt and a loose tie, his gray blazer slung over his left shoulder. But it’s his brown eyes that catch you, because they’re familiar. It feels like you know them.

“The meeting was canceled,” Peña says, tossing the blazer onto the couch. “My daughter’s asleep? You can go now.”

The gasp that escapes your mouth is quickly muffled by your hand when Javier Peña’s voice fills your ears through the headphones, because you immediately realize where you know it from.

The voice is a little softer, younger, with more of an accent, but it’s the same voice.

Joel Miller’s voice.

“She is,” the actress says sweetly, crossing the room. Javier looks her up and down, from her bubblegum-pink painted toes to the way her chest strains against her top. “Are you sure, Mr. Peña? You seem really stressed out. Can’t I help you with something?”

You freeze where you are, heart hammering against your ribs. Holy shit.

“Help how?” Javier asks, raising an eyebrow, pretending to be disinterested.

She smiles, grabs his hand, and leads him to the couch, urging him to sit.

You’re almost ready for her to drop to her knees in front of him, because that would be the obvious next step, but that’s not what happens. The actress — Mila, her name — circles behind the couch, leaning over him to start unbuttoning his shirt.

“You’re so tense, Mr. Peña,” she says, pouting as she undoes each button. “Taking care of the house by yourself, your daughter…”

The shirt falls open, revealing a firm, broad chest.

“So responsible… No one to help you out…” She leans in and whispers against his ear: “No one to suck your cock.”

The shocked laugh that bursts out of you is immediately covered by your hand again.

Javier’s shirt falls completely open, and he takes Mila’s hand, guiding it straight to his pants, her long red nails vivid against the gray fabric.

“I’ve got you for that.”

“Mmm…” the actress moans, massaging him through the fabric. She runs her hands back up his shoulders. “That’s right. You do.”

She moves to kneel in front of him, but Javier clicks his tongue and says:

“Take off your clothes.”

You feel a pulse low in your stomach. The actress smiles and obeys.

Once she’s fully naked, she starts to kneel again, and Javier spreads his legs wider, tossing his shirt aside.

She massages him through his pants for a few more seconds before tugging the zipper down and pulling his pants down with both hands. He’s not wearing underwear, of course he isn’t, and suddenly, you’re staring straight at Joel Miller’s cock.

Large, hard, slightly veiny, every inch of it.

Javier shifts on the couch, gathers all of Mila’s soft hair into one hand, and with the other, guides himself to her mouth, and—

Someone knocks on your bedroom door and you nearly slap the laptop closed.

“Honey, I think Sarah’s getting home from school. Aren’t you going to greet her?” your mom asks.

“I am,” you say, but your voice comes out too soft. You clear your throat and try again: “I’m going, Mom. Just a second.”

“Okay!”

Your mom leaves you sitting there, staring at the wall with wide eyes and a racing heart, so much slick between your legs you have to stand up, clean yourself, and change panties before going downstairs to greet Sarah.

She gets home, you both go into Joel’s house, you make her a sandwich, and she heads upstairs to shower. You stay on autopilot, your head still completely full of Javier Peña... and Joel Miller.

Holy shit.

The man was a porn actor.

And apparently, a very successful one, because you distinctly remember seeing that his films topped the charts for years. Is he still doing it?

You rub your eyes and fight the urge to shove your fist in your mouth and scream.

The irony is almost too much. Fate is throwing a former porn star into your lap when it knows all too well the thesis you’re writing, and all your hatred for the industry.

You order pizza for you and Sarah. You eat while watching a cheesy teenage romance movie that keeps her glued to the TV. When she’s yawning hard, you ask if she has any homework (she doesn’t) and send her off to brush her teeth and get into bed.

She hugs you goodnight and heads upstairs. You hear her brushing her teeth, then the door to her room closing.

You take a deep breath. Pull your phone out of your pocket. You type in the search bar: Javier Peña. The image results flood the screen.

Joel Miller in a thousand different styles. At industry parties in clothes that scream early 2000s, at photoshoots with other actresses, even holding up a trophy that reads—

You lean in closer to make sure you’re not misreading it.

Longest Cumshot of 2006.

Wow. Congratulations.

The Google summary confirms it: Joel Miller, born in 1981 in Arlington, Texas, to Chilean parents. Porn actor, best known as Javier Peña. Joel Miller became an advocate for porn actresses’ rights, one of the main reasons he left the industry in 2010.

One of his last public appearances as Javier Peña was in 2016, co-hosting an adult film awards show alongside Tess Servopoulos, his former career agent. Since then, very little is known about Joel Miller, though several producers have tried to lure him back with massive paychecks, even for solo work.

You hear the key turning in the lock.

You lock your phone at record speed and sit up straight on the couch, eyes wide open. Joel will probably think that you’ve been doing cocaine on his coffee table.

He walks in, shrugging out of his coat, and looks at you.

“Hey,” he says, kicking off his boots. “Everything okay?”

You nod, then try to use words:

“Hey. Yeah.”

Joel gives you a strange look, glancing up the stairs.

“Sarah’s asleep?”

You nod again.

Oh, Mr. Peña. You must be so tired. Can I help you? My God. You’re the babysitter working overtime.

“Are you really okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Um… I…” you rub your hands over your thighs. “I’m just tired. That’s all. Is everything okay with your sister-in-law?”

“She’s fine. I’ve got a nephew now,” Joel murmurs, collapsing onto the couch across from you, legs spread, hands over his eyes. “And he’s so small. I almost didn’t have the nerve to hold him. I don’t even remember Sarah being that tiny.”

“Ha ha.”

At your awkward laugh, Joel drops his hands and studies you carefully, narrowing his eyes. He watches you for a moment, like he’s seeing right through you.

Joel says,

“You found out who Javier Peña is.”

You freeze, hands clenched in your lap. Joel rubs his temple with a heavy sigh and sits up straighter.

“Which one did you watch?”

You swallow hard.

“The babysitter one.”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific than that, sweetheart.”

“The film’s from 2002. I think the actress’s name was Mila? She was trying to comfort you about being a single dad.”

Joel raises both eyebrows.

“I know the one,” he says with a dry, humorless laugh. “Right. Here it is. I was Javier Peña for ten years. I guess I still am, when the paycheck’s good enough. I made porn movies. They’re out there.”

“Still are?”

“Not for films. Just for appearances or special gigs at awards shows.”

“Oh.”

He says your name firmly.

“That industry is your thesis. You know those actors and actresses are real people. I’m one of them. Are you going to stop treating me like a normal person now?”

“It’s weird,” you say softly. “Sorry, Joel, but it’s weird seeing you like… that… and then coming here and seeing you being Sarah’s dad, being… Joel Miller.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not,” he sighs, collapsing back onto the couch. “I’m way too tired to be mad, honestly. We can talk more about it later if you want. I’ll even help you with your thesis if you need. But not tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for staying with Sarah, seriously,” he says, shifting back into Dad mode. “Let me pay you.”

“No way,” you say quickly.

He opens his mouth to argue, but you cut him off:

“You said you’d help me with my thesis, right?”

He just looks at you. You explain,

“I’ll take that as payment.”

Slowly, he nods. And just like that, you have a deal.

That night, you head upstairs again and lock the door.

You open your laptop, type Javier Peña into the search bar, and scroll through the films. One title catches your eye: Neighbors: The Lust Lives Next Door.

The irony.

The title is ridiculous, sure, but the movie isn’t. He’s the married woman’s neighbor, and when her husband goes out of town, Javier shows up at the door asking if everything’s alright because he heard a noise and got worried.

He’s wearing tight jeans and a short-sleeve, light pink button-down shirt.

They head upstairs to check the bedroom.

She sits at the edge of the bed while Javier kneels down to look under it, but when he straightens up again, he sees the actress isn’t wearing any panties. Of course.

Two minutes later, Javier spreads her legs and goes down on her for a good while, his dark eyes locked on hers. And you could swear the moans are real. Either that, or she’s a damn good actress.

It’s when Javier starts whispering in her ear, loud enough to be picked up by the mic, but low enough to sound private, that your own fingers hover at the waistband of your pajama shorts.

He grips her thigh firmly, legs wide open, about to sink into her, both of them watching where they meet.

“Like this?” Javier asks.

She nods.

He licks his fingers and touches her clit. Her left leg trembles slightly.

“Sensitive? You’re not gonna come again for me?”

You swallow your shame and remind yourself that no one will ever know about this.

You slip your hand into your panties.

Firefighter!Simon who, miraculously, has the night off. He decides to stay in the hospital until you wake: thinking it would be the gentlemanly thing to do to make sure your friends or family were made aware of the devastating fire. But when you finally blink awake and Simon asks all his questions, he’s stumped when you hit him with a ‘I don’t have any family’. Simon can’t stop himself from blurting out ‘You c’n stay with me. If you want.’

It takes a full day for you to be cleared before Firefighter!Simon picks you up from the hospital to take you to his (more than) humble abode. He finds that you quickly find happiness in the kitchen, but are more than disappointed to see he has barely anything to cook or bake with. “A damn shame” you say. With the remaining daylight hours, Simon finds himself driving you to a little supermarket in the corner of the city he hadn’t had the time to be explore. You insist on buying everything, telling Simon (a man who you really knew nothing about) it was the least you could do since he saved you from homelessness. And dying.

The rest of your first day in your temporary home with Firefighter!Simon is spent cooking. You whip up a marvelous pasta dish with hearty meatballs that almost make drool seep from Simon’s lips. He sits at the island watching you move around his space like you’d been there millions of times, an unfamiliar feeling blooming in his gut similar to fondness. Since picking you up some new clothes, Simon had learned a little bit more about you than Simon thought healthy. It was unfortunate enough for him to have been unable to get laid in over three months, but it was even more unfortunate that he had such a pretty bird in his apartment making him food and insisting on being near him when he sure as hell couldn’t make a move on her.

Firefighter!Simon who gets comfortable in his routine with you. On the days he’s not at work at assfuck 0200, he’s up making a simple breakfast for you and him before rhe day starts. You’ll eat and concerse a little awkwardly but that wont stop you from asking all about how he slept and if his buddies wanted more of those monster cookies you’d made to thank them for saving you and your fellow tenants. Simon had to relay many praises of your work in the kitchen, only ommiting the details and sly jokes about how ‘Simon’s girl’ was already taking care of the family. You’d go to work by bus or train- depending on how you felt- and then come home and make dinner or reheat leftovers. If Simon was at work, you’d laze on the couch in the main room and watch television and read. If Simon wasn’t at work, you’d bring the softest blanket from the room Simon had placed you in and watch a movie. More often than not, you would scoot closer and closer to Simon before falling asleep against him. When you woke up, you were in your bed- undoubtedly carried by Simon. Oh well. Its what friends do.

Firefighter!Simon who sees you as a friend. It’s basing your third week in his home and he feel comfortable around you. You’re good at reading his silence- the set of his shoulders and the future of his brow say enough- and he can’t be more thankful of that. For someone so new to his life, you seem to know exactly when to let a comfortable silence fall between you and when to start chattering about them things that come to your mind. But when you are the silent, short-tempered, and fatigued one, Simon is more than scared to get in your way. “Needa talk?” He offers, sliding you a cup of steaming coffee when you level a glare at the mug that had irritated you at such an inconveniently early hour. You heave a sigh and your head crumbles down into your arms. “I’m a mess, Si,” you tell him. Though your voice is muffled, Simon hears the shakiness in your throat trying to escape. He rounds the corner of island and places a large palm on your back in his attempt to comfort you. You are wrapping your arms around his neck and buring your face into the frail fabric of Simon’s shirt before he even knows what’s happening. And- as avoidant as Simon is to physical touch that doesn’t occur during work hours or when you fall asleep on him or when you slid your hand in his gloved hand during The Ambulance Ride- Simon didn’t mind your arms and warmth around him. When you started shaking in his arms was when Simon had to clench his jaw. It pained him that it pained you- and he didn’t even know what was ailing you! Simon tried to soothe himself with the knowledge that he was giving you the best comfort he could offer.

A day later you wake up to a crime scene in your underwear in the middle of the night so you decide to take a midnight trip to the convenience store a literal block away without letting Firefighter!Simon know. I mean, hey, he needs sleep and you were not going to wake him up to let him know you would be gone for a total of five minutes! But when you were on your way back to his house, you noticed someone following you. As you turned right for the third consecutive block, you finally fumbled for your phone.

The old, crotchety man who’s called the cops on the house five times within the first month of moving in.

You and your small group of friends, three other girls, decided to rent the place out for the second half of your college semester. Better commute, spacier than the cheap accommodation dorm rooms.

And this was the first weekend you’ve actually been able to settle, the inevitable party streak seeming to wane as classes ramped up and work seemed endless.

Joel works weird hours, too—so you’ve noticed. 

Like, there isn’t a sturdy schedule to his job, coming and going as he pleases.

But now, you’re face to face with the gap between your houses holding the tension, spotting the man responsible for you having to charm the town sheriff every weekend. You’ve got it down, obviously. You’re touchy and sweet and laying it on thick before he’s forgetting what the call was even for. 

It never worked, but he still did it.

You’re halfway through pulling your shirt over your head, cloth tight against your chest with your arms through their designated hole when he turns his head, thinking it was a trick of the light—no, it was just him.

You flip him off boldly and refuse to wait for a reaction, swiping the curtain closed before you’re tugging the shirt over your head the rest of the way.

It seemed your luck that you would end up sharing a window with him—praying that the sight of him would be few and far between.

—

As your luck would have it, you saw him again.

And again, until your animosity had melted to a simple acknowledgement, still full of disdain—he’s always freshly showered when you see him, spotting the wet mop of hair even from a distance. 

You try to ignore how his eyes start to linger.

He knows you can’t be that naive, but you don’t offer any signs, curtains often parted as you changed in the comfort and privacy of your own room.

Joel knows it's wrong, but he’s growing curious.

You weren’t like the other girls; not accompanying them on their rowdy nights out or stumbling up to the front door after a late homecoming and not passing out on his front lawn either. 

Though, you are kind enough to wake your friend up the following morning with a disgruntled expression and a slowly cooling cup of coffee in your grip. Patience wearing thin as you attempt to lead them back in the house.

You liked to party and you liked to have fun, but you had a limit—a hard one that you didn’t break, refusing to let distractions steer you in the wrong direction.

But, the reality was that Joel couldn’t stand any of you.

Maybe it was the gap in age, growing up in different times, spending your twenties in a much different manner than he would have. 

Regardless, he could eat shit.

You’re so hopeful of avoiding him for the handful of months you had left on your lease that you swear you’re dreaming when you hear his voice carry up the house from your front door, raised and rather crass for such an early morning after a long night of dealing with rowdy twenty-something year olds with less sense than you.

The birds weren’t even fucking chirping yet.

“Why the hell are we arguing this early in the morning?” You crease, rubbing at tired eyes as you blindly step down the stairs, turning the corner to see your roommate nearly nose to nose, always combative and never one to stop and think.

You loved her, but fuck.

“One of you little shits fucked up my truck,” He griped, thumb jutting angrily over his back, “I need the information for my insurance and this one’s decided violence is easier than cooperatin’—better yet, I’ll just call the damn cops.”

“Woah—wait,” You interject, yawning as you gently pull your friend away from Joel before giving her a look of pathetic plea, hoping she’d scamper off.

Fortunately, she does.

“God—what is it with you and cops, dude?”

Dude? Joel hadn’t heard that one yet.

“Who’s car is it?” He presses, arms crossing over his chest in an authoritative manner that shouldnt intimidate you, but it does, “It’s the one at the end of the drive with the dent on the bumper,”

You peer over his shoulder with a sudden disbelief, eventually reaching out to shove him aside because there is no way…

“Those bitches,” You hiss, “they took my car?”

He knows you’re not asking for an answer, your thoughts becoming audible at the sheer disbelief.

They seemed to take the mantra of sharing everything to a literal sense, forgoing even asking if you were alright with it after you had turned in earlier than the rest of them.

You knew what would come, pitiful excuses masked with fake apologies—it never failed.

We didn’t want to wake you.

It was an accident, swear.

I’ll cover the cost, don’t worry.

“Trouble in paradise?” Joel tries to tease at your expense of misery, running your fingers through sleep-tousled hair before you mirror his position, arms crossed over your chest as you scowl, doing the mental math over the cost.

“Fuck you,” You bite, “I’ll bring the shit you need over later, but for now, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Hey, that ain’t how this works, I need it n—“

“I’m good for it,” You cut him off, not allowing him a word in edgewise before you’re gone, door slamming in his face.

It’s only minutes after you’re gone and Joel is reluctantly turning back toward his house that he realizes you had bested him, forcing him to walk away empty-handed.

And frankly, Joel didn’t like that.

–

He liked it even less when you showed up five hours later looking like hell, the beginnings of spring prickling the air with the sun beating down in the cul-de-sac but the cool breeze satiating the heat. He looked you over, silent judgment in his gaze that made you want to slap him.

He’d probably press charges.

“Slept good, huh?” he drawled.

“Haha. Very funny. Here.” You shoved the folded piece of paper, all information required for his stupid insurance claim, glaring begrudgingly,. “This wasn’t my fault.”

“Was your friend's fault, though—maybe you should keep a better eye on ‘em,” Joel reprimands, “A house full of ya and you aren’t keeping tabs on who’s comin’ and goin’ in your car?”

“I was asleep—and you—mmm, you know what, no—” You laugh to yourself, holding your hand up defensively before you shake your head, “I gave you the info, file your little claim and fuck off. Also, calling the cops isn’t working. So, maybe…I don’t know? Give it a rest?”

There’s a pause where Joel sizes you up, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth, as if he’s savoring the way he can needle you.

“We’re one call away from me offering to fuck officer friendly and accuse you of harassment,” you snap at him, hating how smug he looks, “Is it the noise or are you just so old and miserable you can’t allow anyone else to enjoy anything? No one else is calling the cops.”

To be fair, you kept things at a respectable volume inside–however, the capacity in the house occasionally overflowed and you could only contain so much, the responsibility and leadership always defaulting to you.

“Yes, because I’m a miserable old man,” Joel says flatly, “That’s why.”

He crosses his arms and leans against the sturdy frame of his front door, not at all moved by your outburst, letting the silence stretch until you’re squirming beneath his gaze.

“Jesus, you’re such a prick,” you mutter.

You roll your eyes and start stomping towards your house, and even with your back turned, you can feel the weight of his stare burning into you. You flip him off for good measure, aware of Mrs. Madison across the street curious as she waters her petunias, a look of distaste at your sudden outburst.

That’s when you see the new detail: the side mirror on his truck is held together with duct tape. 

You almost feel bad—you didn’t see that much damage after the mess of last night; whoever was responsible did a number backing into it. But, as quickly as the guilt consumes you, it dissipates. 

Joel could stay in his disdain as long as he wished even as the sway of your hips burned themselves into his memory, tongue filling his cheek before he slipped back into his house.

Both of your reprieves come as school busies your days and work occupies his own, in and out of the house without much of a word or glance, the rowdiness now few and far between, but not the visits—occasionally it was the same boy, a few times before another one inserts himself into the mix, and a few girls. 

At first he assumes you may have downgraded your house parties to smaller get-togethers in hopes that Joel wouldn’t call the cops anymore—which truthfully, he does stop. Only as his workload has increased, his mind occupied and less time spent at home—he finally catches sight of you after two weeks of near silence, it’s through the window of his bedroom into yours.

Joel’s breath catches when he realizes you’re not alone. There's a guy, unrecognizable, only his arms visible as you’re nearly naked and strewn out on your sheets, your bra clad against your breasts but your legs bare and parted, hands curled around your thighs and a head working furiously under the guide of your hand.

He watches you throw your head back and laugh, a pure elation. 

He rubs his eyes, certain the late hours must be playing tricks on him.

You’re in his goddamn head, he thinks.

But, what really grabs his attention is your slightly opened window, the sound from your room filtering into his own, through the screen, the shadow of the curtains and his dark room keeping him hidden but he can hear you. See you.

An itch tangles deep in his chest, something raw and consuming trying to claw its way out.

The moans and giggles tangle in his mind like vines, wrapping tighter with every glance. The days pass in this strange voyeuristic rhythm; more nights than not, Joel finds himself watching, captive to your parade of lovers, growing jealous of the returning faces.

He tries to tell himself there isn’t anything wrong with what he’s doing—it was you leaving the window open, you keeping the lights on for him, curtains parted for him, but the build-up eventually makes him cave and the stress from work leads him to palming his cock on a night when you’re climbing on top of your chosen suitor, breasts on full display and bouncing with a delicious rhythm, and Joel’s hardly hidden now, resting back in his desk chair with his jeans pushed down just enough to tuck his briefs underneath his balls, drawn tight as he fisted his cock.

His hand is rough and calloused, opposite to the way he imagines yours might be if you’d ever stoop to touching him this way. The thought is absurd. Dirty. 

He needs your soft hands on him.

It only makes him buck harder into his palm, sweat pouring down his chest and every muscle strung tight with need. Your moans slip through the open window, finding him in the dark of night like a searchlight.

He pretends you know he’s there—wants him to hear, wants him to see—imagines your eyes on his cock as he grinds his palm over the head, his thumb slipping over the slit and suddenly he’s spilling over his hand with a pathetic grunt, breathing out shakily.

It really has become his routine.

When he gets home late at night, it’s the first thing he checks for: the light in your window.

Sometimes it’s on and you’re alone, studying on your bed with a face of focus, brow drawn in tight as you tapped away on your laptop, but the release you crave is never far away. If Joel watches long enough, eventually you succumb to your own insatiable need, pulling out the small, handheld toy from your dresser and locking your door, afraid your friends might interrupt the precious time but not giving half a shit about your open window or the man watching carefully from across the way.

Then it’s just you and the feeble little toy, and Joel can’t look away.

He can’t do anything other than wish he could give you what it does—what it never seems to: the satisfaction his big, experienced hands would. He watches you edge yourself repeatedly, almost to the point of pain, whining and gasping as you work yourself up, on the brink of the release that only a real cock could give. His.

You drive him mad this way.

He fucks his palm until he sees stars some nights, every part of him feeling feral and raw with need, but it’s never quite enough.

You have to know—with him easing up on calls and complaints, rarely heard or seen, giving you the peace you craved as you settled back into your schedule with school and focused on the necessary parts of your life.

It’s his secret, he’d die with it. With as much sin as he’s committed in his lifetime, there wasn’t guilt so much as shame, but you were just so goddamn tempting.

-

The next conversation you have with him is tense, a culmination of events rising to a nasty head of anger and frustration, all the while unfoundedly attracted to the way he asserts himself. 

It’s pathetic, really.

But, you couldn’t help it—it was kinda hot.

Joel likes to smoke on his porch at night occasionally, with summer in full swing and his yard giving him the perfect view of the nightly neighborhood entertainment, he seems to examine the scene critically, that permanent scowl on his face.

Truthfully, you’re thankful the partying has died down and often found the house emptier than normal as your roommate had started to find fun outside of the comfort of home, often leaving you alone—that is, relatively speaking.

Joel’s come to memorize a few names, the one that stands out most is Dean.

He’s a confident little shit, all suave and little empathy, he’s seen him treat you roughly in a few ways but more importantly, he’s an asshole. He’s the same kid he’s caught kissing another one of your roommates behind your back—a classic dick move, but breaking your heart?

Well, Joel wasn’t going to stand for that.

He had to protect his girl—even if you had no idea what that meant to him and his nightly meet-ups with his bedroom window. Joel waits until Dean is alone and your front door is slammed shut after a tense exchange of words and the inevitable fuck you—that you’ve mastered throwing at Joel plenty of times—slips out.

Joel emerges from the shadow of the porch with an air of defiance, cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes full of skepticism and Dean is on the defense almost instantly. He’s seen Joel before, always perturbed by his presence.

Dean spins around as he approaches his own car parked at the end of your driveway, face already sour. “You got a problem, old man?”

“I don’t wanna catch you back over here,” Joel explains, approaching with a slow reverence, the hand not occupying the cigarette stuffed into the front pocket of his jeans, “that clear?”

“You think you’re some big protector, huh? She doesn’t need you to fight her battles. She’s fine.” Dean retorts, a forced bravado floats from his chest to his mouth, dismissive of how poorly he had treated you about five minutes prior—how easily the words selfish bitch had flowed from his mouth.

“You leave and don’t come back—I see you around here again and I’ll snap your ass like a twig, got it?” Joel threatens, tapping out the ash over the cement, his face unnaturally relaxed.

“Whatever,” he scoffs, shaking his head, “she isn’t worth this shit, anyways.”

With Dean, you weren’t all that upset.

He ghosted you completely, but he was already on his way out.

Then, there’s a small illness that spreads on campus, leading to a week off strictly online classes that comes as a welcomed break, spending extra time outside as you lounge in gaudy furniture your landlord had left behind, a thick chair that reclines and swivels, curled up in the seat as you work your way through an assignment as Joel’s truck roars up the street and into his driveway, toolbox clutched in his hand as he fished for his keys at his front door.

It wasn’t that Joel had been kind to you as of late, but rather less…frustrated?

He smiled on occasion, filtered through misdelivered mail and stuffed it into your mailbox instead of approaching your front door with annoyance, hell—he even apparently offered to clean up the front lawn last weekend while he mowed his own, knowing that none of your girls even owned a lawn mower.

There had to be a catch.

When he catches you looking, he raises a hand in a half-wave, and you feel an unexpected flutter.

What the fuck was that?

It happens a couple more times, no words, just a simple exchange.

Your roommate, Julia, catches it one morning.

“How’s your boyfriend?” she teases as she passes by, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

She’d yet to have a run-in with Joel, unbothered by his presence and rather clueless.

“Please,” you snort, “he’s like fifty.” But there’s no denying the strange gravitational pull you feel, like the man has some secret to him that you want to discover—curious to what has changed.

Days slide by, punctuated by Joel’s presence.

You’d spent the last few days waiting for it—the favor he’d ask for in return or some comment about how you’d better not let the weeds get out of control again, letting the overgrown grass put a bad mark on the neighbors' normally well-kept lawns. But there’s nothing. 

Absolutely nothing.

Friday afternoon, Joel was back on his porch, quietly watching your house while pretending to tinker with something wrapped in a blue tarp in the back of his truck. You pretended not to notice at first, keeping your head bent over your laptop like it was giving you the meaning of life instead of a LATE warning on your English assignment. 

What did this guy want?

Later that evening, you watch him sand down a piece of wood against a table on his porch, lost in his work. You and your roommates had already enjoyed dinner for the night and cleaned up, the rest of them retired to their rooms but here you were, approaching Joel.

The sun bakes the street, turning everything into a mirage of heat waves and distant hums of cicadas. An impulse catches you; before it fully registers, you’re already at his driveway with a couple cold beers clutched in hand, one already open and half-empty.

“Hey,” you called. Joel squinted up at you like he wasn’t sure who he was looking at for a second before his eyes landed on the beer, even more confused, “—it’s a peace offering.”

“Alright,” he responds slowly, unsure as he reaches for the bottle and twists the cap off with a natural strength, “what’s the catch?”

You shrug and Joel hides his instinct to let his eyes fall upon your breasts as he takes a sip and tilts his head back, wanting to reprimand you for wearing such a revealing top despite the sweltering heat, almost like you were begging him to look, sweat clinging to your chest.

“No—no catch, just…never got to thank you for the lawn,” You tell him, spotting the newly replaced mirror on his truck, “Oh, finally got it fixed?”

Joel turns back over his shoulder and nods, eyes squinting as he spotted the still very visible dent to your car, “Can’t say the same for you—some friends you got,”

“We’re college students—we’re broke,” You reply with ease, “It’s just a dent, anyways. It still drives and—”

“I can try and fix it,” Joel offers, “Next weekend, if you’re around,”

“Aren’t I always?” you tease, testing the waters, a flirtatious smile forcing its way onto your face but you catch it at the last second, reprimanding yourself over it.

What were you even doing?

“Seems that way,” Joel decides, taking another long swig of the beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—he’d know.

Well, it was decided.

 And it seemed after a month of tense interaction, things were finally settling. Joel was less tense, you were less combative. It was great.

Curiosity wins, though. It always does.

Joel doesn’t mean to interfere. Really, he doesn’t. 

But when he’s heading out to his truck Saturday morning, grabbing the tools to approach your front door and start working on your car, a familiar guy slips out your front door, tall and lanky—hair mussed, shirt wrinkled, looking a little too smug for Joel’s liking—he can’t resist.

It’s the same spiel that Dean got, though slightly more effective, filling the younger boy with fear.

It’s only when he glances back toward the house and at the living room window—he sees your narrowed eyes watching him through the glass—that he realizes you saw the whole thing, filling you with a rage you’ve never felt before.

And even moreso, there’s no smile this time—just a quiet challenge in his gaze that makes your pulse skip. Joel knew exactly what he was doing.

“Asshole,” you mutter, slipping on your shoes before bursting out the front door. Joel’s at the curb, hands stuffed in his pockets, like he’s waiting for you to come storming over, the remnants of your friendship dissipating as the car speeds away.

“What was that?” you demand, crossing your arms tight.

He shrugs, a maddening little smirk pulling at his lips. “Who was that?”

You nearly choke on your response. He doesn’t deserve an explanation. 

Instead, you jab a finger in his direction, eyes narrowing as you move into his space, his head turning to squint off into the distance before you let the urge take over and unfurl your hand to smack his across the jaw, the sickening crack catching Joel off-guard.

 “How long have you been doing that? Fucking with my friends?”

Joel looks amused. “The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

Friends—alright, sure, he thinks.

Joel catches sight of your wrist as it winds back again, his fingers wrapping around it with ease and tight, a silent warning, you ask through clenched teeth “Do you do this with everyone? Is it some kind of hobby? Being a shitty neighbor? Or are you obsessed with me?”

“Obsessed? Oh, kiddo,” Joel laughs, a low rumble that you feel in your bones. “You think pretty highly of yourself.”

Your stomach flips, and not in the way that you want it to. “Says the guy who can’t keep his nose out of my business. I don’t need your help.”

“You should stay outta trouble,” Joel suggests

"He’s not trouble," you shoot back. "And I don’t need you to play watchdog for me."

“Are you sure about that?” Joel flicks an eyebrow, the challenge in his voice making your skin prickle.

“Is that a threat?” you ask tensely, attempting to wretch your hand away and failing.

"Wasn’t a threat," Joel says, voice dropping lower. "Just know you like to push buttons. Seem real fond of keepin’ your curtains wide open at night." His head tilts slightly, "Almost like you want someone watchin'."

The connection clicks in your mind after a moment, turning to catch the open panels of your bedroom window in the space between your houses before your eyes lock on him, the realization hitting you like a ton of bricks.

“You’ve been watching me?”

Joel chuckles, his grip easing enough to let you pull free. “Not like you’re makin’ it hard.”

“You’re sick,” you spit at him, heat rising in your cheeks.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs help,” Joel counters, taking a step back. “Or, maybe it’s attention.”

The words sting, and it takes everything not to lunge for him again. “You’re disgusting.”

“I’m just being honest.” He shrugs, and it infuriates you how little he seems to care.

Your mouth works around a reply that won’t come out right; all that escapes is an angry huff. 

Joel can see it simmering underneath, the realization that he might be right.

“Lemme show you somethin’,” Joel suggests, nodding toward his house.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” you say, but there’s hesitation in it, a crack that Joel doesn’t miss.

“And you’re curious,” He’s already heading toward his door, leaving you to decide if you’ll follow.

You know you shouldn’t. 

You know this is the worst idea.

But you can already feel the pull—of him—and it’s stronger than anything else.

You trail after him, every step a little betrayal of your better judgment.

Quietly, you follow him into his dark living room and up the stairs, met with a half-open bedroom door that he spears wide with his fingers, footsteps following quietly behind as he leads you to the inevitable window in his room that peers right into your own.

“There’s something wrong with you.” It comes out weaker than you intend, unable to meet his eyes as your fingers wrap over the edge of the windowsill, his presence lingering behind.

Joel just steps aside, gesturing toward the view. “Then I guess there’s somethin’ wrong with both of us.”

You stare through the window into yours and your breath catches. An unmistakable pang hits you when you see it—how clear the sight is in your own room, how well he must have seen everything. Heard everything. You couldn’t remember the last time you actually closed it, annoyed with the constant stuffiness.

“Seems like you want me watchin’,” Joel says, there’s a taunting edge to his voice, but it’s laced with something else you can’t decipher

“Or maybe you’re just lonely,” you suggest, turning to him.

“Maybe,” Joel responds cooly.

“So just like that? You spy on me?” you accuse, but there’s less bite in it than before.

Joel’s grin is slow, infuriatingly confident. “Just lookin’,” he says. “Didn’t think you’d mind much—’round here when we want privacy, we’re intentional about, we don’t leave our windows open while we’re naked and moaning for half the neighborhood to hear,”

The embarrassment hits you quick, palms sweating at the mention as you look away and back out the window, feeling Joel move closer.

“I didn’t think—”

“Yeah, you didn’t think.” he cuts in, but he’s not angry. 

There’s a hint of laughter in it, and it makes you tense, but not in a fight or flight type of way, rather, anticipating his next move, expecting it.

“So, what?” you challenge, “What happens now?”

“Depends on you,” Joel says, his voice low now. Dangerous, almost. “You gonna close it?”

“What if I don’t?”

There it was.

Joel’s eyes darken with interest. 

“Then, I guess you’ll know I’m watchin’ you,” he admits, the words sending a shiver down your spine, his hand soothing the shock as it spreads over the small of your back and down, curving over your jeans as he squeezed your ass between the heel of his palm and fingers, “that alright with you?”

Your heart hammers in your chest as you turn to hold his gaze, feeling the heat of him so close. 

It’s a game—a risky one—and he’s playing it well. You’re hooked, unable to challenge him.

Now that he’s presented you with his reasoning, his motives, you’re entranced. 

He’s always had a rugged way about him, devastatingly attractive despite his age—not that had any affect anyways, but you found yourself intimidated because of it, admiring from a distance before he showed how much of an asshole he could be.

Still, you weren’t blind. 

If he was lonely, it was by choice. Not by lack of interest.

You’re aware of his wandering hands as they slide around your hips to unbutton your shorts, the zipper following quietly before the warmth of his hand is pressing against your mound as his fingers slide into the front of your underwear, simmering with the same heat as his middle finger slides through your obvious slick, a laugh catching in his throat as he crowds you against the open window, his chin hooking over your shoulder as your lips part in a gasp.

“Guess I got my answer,” he teases, voice thick with satisfaction.

You feel exposed and alive, heat pooling low and your fingers clutch at his arm, needing an anchor as your knees threaten to give way.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” you breathe, but the tremor in your voice betrays you.

“Yeah?” His middle finger slides up, circles slow and deliberate, “feels good, don’t it?”

His words are like a spark; you tilt your hips into him, a silent plea for more.

Joel obliges with a low chuckle, teasing you with expert precision. 

“How are they?” Joel asks curiously, unsurprisingly calm as he quietly shifts your shorts down until they fall, pooling at your ankles while he unoccupied hand squeezes at the inside of your thigh, “Do they touch you this good?”

“Good enough, they can make me come,” You admit, eyes falling shut at his practiced movements, the hand squeezing at your thigh sliding up to press inside of you, two thick fingers spreading you open while his other works over your swollen clit, rubbing in furious rhythm with his fingers

“Are you good enough, Joel?” You ask tauntingly, a small waver in your voice, “Or is that why you live alone?”

“I am, kiddo,” Joel reassures, “And I do because s’better for me that way.”

“Or you can’t make a girl come, can’t keep them around so you watch me through your window,” you explain to him, momentarily pausing as his finger rubs over your clit harshly, no circles or practiced motion, just pressure—delicious fucking pressure, “Do the neighbors know you like to be a creep?”

“I think you don’t know shit about me,” he bites, his hand moves with a kind of confident hunger, your breath hitches as you feel it building, raw and electric.

“You’re so full of yourself,” you manage, voice shaking.

“Am I?” Joel’s lips skim the side of your neck, a hot whisper against your skin as his finger presses rough and insistent. “Seems like you wanted me to see just how needy you were. Somethin’ about those boys ain’t satisfying or you wouldn’t fuckin’ be here lettin’ me touch you like this,”

He’s good—fuck, he’s good.

You can’t find the words to deny it, not when he’s curling inside you in perfect tandem with the dizzying friction on your clit. The heat is coiling tight in your belly, pulling you closer to the edge.

“Admit it,” he pushes, “let me hear what those pretty little cries sound like up close as you come around my fingers,”

You’re panting now, thighs trembling under his relentless pace.

“I—fuck—” The admission is lost in a choked moan, grabbing blindly for his wrist as your orgasm crashes into you, eyes squeezed shut as you gasp, hips moving insistently into the motion of his hands as he guides you through intensity of it, almost like he’s rocking you in place, soothing you.

“Good enough?” Joel murmurs, the cockiness in his voice matches the satisfaction flooding through you.

His fingers slide out slowly, leaving you empty but tingling with sharp aftershocks. 

He shifts beside you, smirking like the self-assured asshole he is.

“Admit it,” Joel encourages, “only time I’ve ever seen you come like that is when you’re playin’ with that cheap little toy, alone in your room.”

“Just stop meddling, alright?” you plead with him, quietly adjusting your shorts back over your hips with a small modicum of shame, but the look on Joel’s face reads as insatiable.

“I’ll keep scarin’ ‘em off,” Joel admits, “‘til you realise you don’t deserve to be treated the way they’re treatin’ you—yellin’ and sneaking around behind your back. I see everything, kiddo.”

“Well, stop,” you reply without much bite, “just—go back to being insufferable—”

Joel smirks at the small revelation on your behalf, “I thought you were aimin’ for a peace offering the other day, I’m keepin’ the peace. For you and for me,”

The back and forth was pointless, you begin to realize.

Joel was a natural protector, whether you needed it or not.

–

He does keep his word, though.

It takes a week for you to face him again, but eventually you’re wandering back to his front door and accepting defeat, hushed on the fact your bedroom window has stayed closed since the day in his bedroom and not a single person for Joel to run off.

He answers the door shirtless, thin shorts hung low on his waist and the scowl you return to his own is too natural, trying desperately to stuff down your ego. He must have been sleeping, hair mused and his eyes blinking rapidly as he rubbed at his thick facial hair, scratching at his cheek.

“Whaddya need, kiddo?”

You roll your eyes and turn your head impishly over your shoulder.

Joel chuckles lightly, though tired.

You don’t even have to ask.

“Let me eat dinner and I’ll be over,” he tells you, “no plans tonight?”

“We’re all studying for some big tests coming up so no, I just—I don’t wanna look at it anymore.”

“Gotcha,” he replies easily, “go on—I’ll come knockin’ later.”

He throws the orders around with such ease, ones that you follow without argument.

Joel shows up later that night, hand rapping at the door at the same time you pull it open.

You follow him outside, listen to him explain, and then you’re turning on your heels and half a second from escaping the torture of having to be around him any longer before he speaks up and the inevitable comes out.

“Oh, you’re helpin’,” Joel explains, “get your ass back here—teach you a thing or two this way.”

“Uh huh,” you reply tersely and while it is excruciating to sit through, Joel gets the dent out and fixes your dimming taillight free of charge, that is, for the moment. He’s well-versed with cars and his hands work quickly, and frankly, the way he moves is distracting.

Annoyingly.

You can’t help staring at the expanse of his back and the taut muscle underneath, only able to imagine it and clearing your throat awkwardly as he has to repeat himself a couple times before you realize he’s talking to you again.

“Pop your trunk,” he repeats, following the order quietly before he’s stuffing a few tools in the back that has you eyeing him skeptically, “just a few things, in case you end up with a flat or something, you won’t be completely helpless,”

“O-kay,” you reply with hesitance, watching his fingers curl around the trunk as he shoves it closed, “is that all?”

“A thank you’d be nice,” Joel admits, lowering his tone as he murmurs, “fuckin’ kids these days,”

Your tongue pokes at the inside of your cheek as you approach him again, hand mirroring his as it curls around your trunk and you invade his space, nearly chest to chest as you retort, “Oh, boo-hoo,” there’s a faux frown forming, “do I need to remind you of your behavior? I think this is payment for being a total dick to me for the past couple months.”

You catch the glimpse of his hand flexing as you stand your ground, mouth opening in another sharp sting of words before his hand is squeezing at your cheeks, the curve between his thumb and pointer finger curling around your chin as he forces it up.

“I’ll scream,” you threaten, fingers twisting into his shirt as you attempt to shove him back but he’s completely unmoving, “let—me—go,”

“Do it,” he challenges, “or—I deal with that little problem you got goin’ on,”

He knows it—how unsatisfied you felt, even without having to voice it.

Your silence is the answer, slumping slightly in defeat as you wait him out.

“Let me see your hand,” he asks, surprisingly softer, his palm extending in wait.

As you offer your hand, his fingers curl around it, guiding it to the front of his cotton shorts and you can feel the heat of his cock underneath, hard against the fabric and tucked up to avoid showing the obvious arousal he was dealing with—you weren’t sure how long he’s been sporting it, but the rigidness of it has your breath catch, intimidatingly large even by the feel as your eyes flicker down slightly,

“It’s a shame,” Joel says, “how disrespectful you’re being—seems like you need to learn manners, kiddo.”

“Stop. Calling me that—” you struggle to say, the words half-daring and half-pleading. He slides his thumb down, brushing your bottom lip as his eyes flash with something dark and dangerous.

“What?” he teases, watching you squirm as he keeps your hand pinned to his shorts, “you don’t like that?”

“I’m not a kid,” you insist, trying for defiance but it comes out breathless.

He grins, and you’re startled by how it transforms his face—softening all those hard edges you’ve come to know. For a moment, there’s a flicker of sweetness before he leans in close enough for you to feel the heat of his breath, whispering low.

“Then quit actin’ like one.”

His mouth is over yours before you can find more words, catching on the gasp that slips out as instinct takes over. His kiss is rough but not forceful; it’s got a bruising sort of gentleness that makes your knees weak and you wobble slightly, his hand removing from your face as they wrap under your elbows, keeping you upright.

You’re not surprised by how quickly you melt into him. Your hand never leaves the front of his shorts despite his own hands now elsewhere, one creeping around your waist, pulling you tighter and tighter until there’s nowhere left to go.

His body is a wall, hot and solid, against yours.

Your fingers twitch where they’re trapped against him, squeezing at his shaft as your finger grazes the clothed head, weeping under the fabric, and he makes a noise in his throat that surprises you—a low, gravelly sound that sends a shiver down your spine. 

You feel that dark edge of satisfaction from him, knowing how affected you are.

 How predictable.

“Ain’t got much to say now,” he murmurs against your mouth,

His grip changes, dragging your hand up under his shirt until it’s pressed against the bare skin of his stomach. You can feel him breathing, deep and steady.

It’s not fair how calm he is while you're barely hanging on.

Suddenly, his tongue traces your lower lip and a whimper escapes you, muffled against his mouth. Joel groans, pulling back just enough to let you breathe, “Lift your dress up,” he directs, quietly guiding your chest flush with the trunk as he shuffles with the fabric of his shorts under the darkened sky, thankful the streetlights in the cul-de-sac needed a fresh set, barely buzzing.

“You’re makin’ a mess,” Joel mutters, voice low and rough. It sends you reeling, your face hot as he slides the fabric aside, parting you with his fingers, testing your resistance as you welcome the gentle press as the digits slip inside, your hand squeezing desperately at his cock, a silent plea, “we’re gonna rectify that, alright?” 

You nod dumbly, filled with an undeniable lust for him, even if you couldn’t admit it out loud.

“Ain’t got protection, do ya?” He asks, suspects, “Damn shame you’re lettin’ them fuck you like that, sweetheart,”

“It’s none—none of your business, just because I don’t doesn’t mean—”

“You lettin’ them fuck you raw?” he asks curiously, noting the way your thighs spread to accommodate another finger, you shake your head weakly.

“S’good,” he decides, “but you’re gonna let me aren’t you?”

Your nod is too quick, proudly pathetic.

“That’s right—no need worryin’ about me, right? “Cause, I’ll take care of ya,”

“I just—don’t—dunno if it will fit, Joel,” you admit and Joel chuckles, a subtle noise of agreement before he soothes your worries.

“It’s fine,” he assures, eyes locked on yours as you turn to look at him, voice both commanding and reassuring, trading his fingers for the head of his cock as he pushes you forward and forces your ass on display, pushing the thickness of himself through your folds, coating it with your slick, “You can—fuck—you can handle it.”

There’s something reckless in the way he moves—only Joel could get this from you. Only him.

He eases into you slowly, each inch coaxed through the tight resistance until he’s seated, until you’re stuffed full and squirming. His breath hitches, a low groan vibrating through his chest as he holds there for a moment, letting you adjust to the heavy stretch.

“Look at that,” he murmurs, almost to himself, a hint of pride in the words as he draws back slightly, hand bunched in your dress to enjoy the view as he rocks forward again, “Takin’ it so damn well—it’s like you were made for me.”

He builds a rhythm with each of his ragged exhales, using the weight of his body to keep you pinned beneath him, to bury himself deeper than you’ve ever felt. 

“You like this,” he decides, “no fuckin’ denyin’ it—your friends could look at those windows, open that door, and they’d catch you like this, cryin’ over gettin’ fucked just like you deserve—”

“Joel, please,” you’re not sure what you’re even begging about, but you are, gasping with each rapid thrust he makes, his fingers working in tandem over your clit like he’s done this a million times over, knowing your body better than you do,

“Could be watchin’ right now, but I know you,” he taunts, “You like being watched, don’tcha?”

You nod again, absentminded as he moves against you. There’s nothing gentle about the way he fucks you toward oblivion; it’s intense and raw, overwhelming in a way you’ve never experienced before. He’s got you teetering the line, your orgasm begging for release.

“There it is,” he says in a low rasp, feeling you clench tightly around him, “she’s beggin’ for it, you need me to fill ‘er up, sweetheart? She need to be stuffed full ‘f me?”

“Y—huh, yesyes, please,” you ramble, your eyes falling shut as your climax washes over, his finger insistent on your clit as he pumps his hips lazily, his warm seed spreading inside of you.

“I’ll take that as thank you,” Joel decides with a lazy tone, pulling out of you without warning and adjusting your panties and dress back over your body, “though—still would be nice to hear it.”

“Thank you,” you reply breathlessly, unable to meet his eye, “thank you—for…yeah, thank you.”

“You know where to find me,” Joel tells you with an amused smirk.

And unfortunately, that was often.

–

It's a bad habit—coming to Joel when you need things.

But, he just fixes the problem so easily.

Sprinklers broken, Joel’s got a tool to replace it.

Squeaky hinges? Joel’s got just the fix to quiet the insistent noise.

A hole in your bathroom wall after a fight that wasn’t your fault at all, but ultimately ended up being your responsibility to fix—well, that was a bigger ask.

And your roommates' jaws can’t even begin to remain shut as he walks through the front door on a free weekend, all of them lounging on the couch with admiration in their eyes.

There was a similar sentiment of disdain for Joel, but they could all agree he was attractive.

You tried your best to ignore the strew of late assignments that have become more and more apparent as Joel invaded your life—moments when you would try to slip away and Joel would beg for a little bit more, coerce you into staying over for the night when your mind was battling with the idea.

He was good like that, convincing you of making the bad choices you normally wouldn’t.

“Ignore them,” you tell him over your shoulder as he offers a kind wave, guiding him toward the bathroom and showing him the sizable hole in the drywall.

He whistles low, rubbing the back of his neck, "Hell of a punch."

You shrug, "You can fix it, right?"

Of course, your roommates weren’t oblivious to your growing absence over the following weeks into now, eager to ask questions but knowing you weren’t the type of person to share. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out and ultimately, they couldn’t even blame you.

It was your education and social life that had taken the hit, but for Joel, you couldn’t complain.

Given the opportunity, they would have jumped his bones just as quick, though, you’re not sure if Joel had eyes for anyone but you, always watchful even from a distance.

He still met you at his window on occasion, but you’re more purposeful with your performance.

As is he, watching as he fists his cock to your fingers spreading down the seam of your cunt, pressing the brightly colored toy inside of you wish it was him filling you out.

You always moan a little louder than necessary, letting him know just what he does to you even from afar. He’s perfect in his window—broad shoulders and strong arms flexing as he strokes himself, pumping in time with the rhythm you set. His free hand grips the frame, knuckles white like he needs the support.

The anticipation builds slowly and sweetly. You drag it out for him, teasing your clit with languid circles, hips lifting off the bed. He swears again, and you can almost taste the frustration rolling off him.

“More,” you mouth, knowing it’ll drive him wild.

He doesn’t disappoint you. 

His pace quickens, and you can see every detail—the veins in his forearm tensing, thumb swiping over the head of his cock. Your cunt clenches around the toy at the sight of his impatience.

It always ends the same way, though. Not nearly as satisfying as the real thing.

When you girlfriends catch you sneaking in late on occasion, it’s matched with a smirk that you brush off with a fond insult, an endearment you’ve all come to use out of love.

“Bitch, I swear,” you warn, “not a fucking word. I’m serious.”

“No judgement,” She shrugs, “The dick must be good if you’re leaving the house for it.”

You snort, “Fuck you.”

He’s nearly got the whole patched when you peek your head through the closed bathroom door, house empty for the evening and a curious look on your face as he peers over his shoulder, shirt stripped from his body as he wipes the sweat from his face.

You’ve got that look, one he’s come to read well.

“Can’t even wait until I’m finished?” Joel asks.

“You’re almost done,” you shrug, “finish up after.”

“Bet they’d die if they knew you were sneakin’ around for old man dick,” he taunts, settling you back on the counter as you push your spandex shorts down, spreading your legs out as he moves between them and kneels, already mouthing at the inside of your thigh, “Payin’ for my labor with this,” his fingers spread through your folds, exposing yourself to the cool air as he licks at you teasingly, “delectable little thing.”

“Bet you’d die if I stopped,” you shoot back, breathless but defiant, “fuckin’ heart attack, aneurysm, take your pick—fuck!”

His teeth nip at your clit in warning, eyes flickering up to you as they crinkled around the edges in amusement, “Quiet, unless I speak to you,”

You nod shakily, giving over to his dominance fully like you have plenty of times now.

He’s relentless, holding you right there as you twist and writhe against his mouth, hands gripping his hair to try and guide him, but he pins your hips with a low growl that almost undoes you on the spot.

“Tight little pussy,” Joel pants, thumb circling your clit while he watches intently for the next crack in your composure. It doesn’t take long before you’re clutching at his shoulders, incoherent curses spilling from mouth.

“Of course,,” Joel drawls, “can’t keep that damn mouth shut for nothin’.”

You pull him towards you, needy, as he rises to his feet, fingers hooked into his waistband as you fumble with the button of his jeans, eagerly pulling his cock from the confines, his mouth opening with another witty retort that never comes.

“Shut up,” you mutter, “just—”

He presses inside of you in one harsh thrust, your gasp cutting off the rest of your response and echoing through the house. He grins down at you, smug and rough and exactly what you wanted, your hand slamming against the mirror as you wince, his hand immediately coming up to soothe the ache.

“Shit, babygirl,” He groans, for a few reasons, “you okay?”

“Better, if you’d shut up and fuck me,” you retort, “take a lesson out of your own damn book,”

“Got it,” he agrees tauntingly, before his pace changes on a dime, relentlessly pounding into you, “not a fuckin’ word.”

And it continues like that, his gaze intense on your face and quiet aside from his occasional strained grunt, his eyes staring you down like he’s trying to challenge you, determined to win a battle you weren’t trying to fight—either way, he always seemed to win.

Because, as much as you tried to fight the urge to stay away from him.

You always ended up like this.