Hang Them Off My Keychain

You spent your day off packing. By the time Jack arrived, you had already said your goodbyes to your roommates, condensing your entire life into a single suitcase and two boxes.

“That it?” Jack asked, tossing the boxes into the back of his truck.

You shrugged. “I’ve always rented furnished apartments.”

You caught the way his mouth pulled sideways, his gaze dropping to the pavement. “Not even a lamp?”

Your gut twisted—the softness in his voice scraped against your nerves. “Don’t pity me” you barked, before climbing into the passenger seat and slamming the door.

.

Jack’s apartment was aggressively functional. It was ironic that he’d questioned your lack of belongings when his own home looked like an IKEA display. There wasn't a single photograph on the walls, no decorations, not even a houseplant to suggest a human lived there. Perhaps that was his personality.

He led you to what would be your room. It was sparse, featuring only a double bed and an attached bathroom. Once he set your suitcase down, the silence in the room became deafening, and you felt an urgent need to break it.

“So, I was paying seven hundred dollars before,” you said, the words rushing out in a jagged stream. Your heart hammered against your ribs, and your hands trembled. The terrifying reality began to settle in your bones. “I assume yours is more than that. When do you need the money, and what’s my share?”

Jack looked at you, his brows furrowing in genuine confusion. “What?”

“I can pay my part of the rent,” you repeated, feeling smaller by the second.

He blinked. Once. Twice. Then, his expression hardened. “I don’t pay rent.”

He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving you alone in the quiet, sterile room with nothing but your anxiety.

.

You spent the evening in the kitchen, preparing a simple tomato soup. The apartment was deathly quiet; Jack was either out or deeply asleep behind his closed door. Through the living room windows, you watched the last of the sunlight bleed into dark, bruised purple across the skyline.

You plated a bowl, leaving the rest on the stove, foolishly hoping he might want some when he woke. But he didn’t. Instead, his door opened, and he stepped out, already in sweats and a tee, a sweatshirt slung over his forearm. 

“Going to the gym,” he said, leaning against the counter, his eyes tracking you. “Wanna come?”

“Uhh,” your words stumbling over the offer and the sight of his biceps. “Not today. Thanks.”

“I have friends there,” he pressed. “You should meet them, too.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you said, your teeth catching on your lip as you shivered. “It’s chilly today.”

He nodded, glancing toward the kitchen. 

“There’s soup if you want,” you offered shyly, a thumb pointing at the stove.

Without looking at you, he walked to the door. “Later, thanks.”

He reached for the handle, then stopped. He turned back. “The heater’s in my room. You can adjust it if you want.”

“Thanks,” you murmured, and he was gone.

You cleaned your bowl and retreated to your room, attempting to unpack. You were just lining up your photographs on the dresser when the lights blinked once, twice, and died. The apartment plunged into darkness.

You flicked the switch, pointlessly, then sighed. You lit one of your Bath & Body Works candles, the scent of Warm Vanilla Sugar doing little to lighten the apartment or fight the chill settling into the walls. You layered on a sweatshirt, then another, but it wasn't enough. The november temperature was not going to stop falling just for you.

Minutes passed, then an hour. You climbed into bed, shivering so violently your teeth rattled. You curled into a ball, pulling the duvet over your head, but the cold had seeped into your bones.

The front door clicked open. You heard the heavy thud of Jack’s gym bag hitting the floor, followed by the silence of the power outage.

“Hey,” he called out, his voice deeper in the dark. “It’s freezing here. Did you mess with the heater?”

You didn't answer. You couldn't. Your body was shaking with such force it felt like you were vibrating against the mattress.

He walked closer, the floorboards creaking until he stood at the threshold of your room. The hallway light didn't exist to guide him, but you saw the silhouette of him standing there.

He repeated your name in the darkness, an edge of fear in it. He walked in, his footsteps pausing when he heard the frantic chatter of your teeth. “Jesus.”

Jack was at your bedside in two strides. He pulled the duvet back, and the sudden exposure to the air made you whine pathetically.

He touched your shoulder, and his hand was a furnace against your skin. He didn't ask questions; he just stripped off his hoodie and shoved you toward the center of the mattress. “Move over.”

“welcome home, honey” you managed to tease him. A menace through and through.

“Move over,” he commanded again. He climbed in behind you, pulling you against his chest and dragging the duvet up to cover you both. His immediate warmth had you sighing in relief.

He pressed his chin to your shoulder, his breath hot against your neck as he tried to stabilize your shivering.

“I wasn’t built for this weather,” you whispered, your voice cracking against the silence.

He didn't laugh. He just tightened his hold on you, his arms wrapping around your waist. “I know,” he murmured into your hair. “Just breathe. I’ve got you.”

You were hyper-aware of everything—the scent of him; the terrifying speed of your own heart; the way his stubble grazed your neck when he shifted. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to force your body to stop the violent tremors, but as your temperature rose, your anxiety kicked in.

“You’re still freezing,” he noted, his tone kind and attentive. He pulled the duvet up higher, tucking the edges beneath your sides. 

“This happens often?”

“Not really.” He shifted beneath the covers and pulled out his phone. The brightness of the screen illuminating his features. You saw how his brows pinched and the firm line of his lips spread open. “Oh.” 

“What?”

He locked the phone and put it in the nightstand behind him. His hand, however, returned to your back afterwards. “There is an email from the building administration about this outrage. It’s for maintenance and it’s scheduled to last until 10:30 pm.” 

“What time is it?” 

“Nine”

“Oh”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t check”

“‘s alright. We can always go to my place” You joked.

“No, thanks. I choose freezing.”

You chuckled.

“Wanna go have dinner somewhere nice and with heating?” He shook you softly and your eyes opened, catching his in the dark room.

You shook your head. “I’m sleepy.” 

“Yeah, you are.”

You clinged yourself closer to him, to his chest that radiated warmth. “You’re so hot.” You mumbled, “I mean, your temperat—.”

Jack chuckled against your hair. “I got that. But I’m all sweaty and gross.” 

You shook your head against his chest.

“We’re changing these sheets in the morning.” He murmured.

You huffed a laugh. “Deal” 

He didn't pull away. Instead, he reached down, finding your hand under the covers and interlacing his fingers with yours.

“Thanks” you mumbled. 

His hands shifted, moving to hold you even tighter. “Don’t.” A single order that you had no intention of challenging.

As you stopped shivering you waited for him to move, to leave, to remind you of the nature of this arrangement, but he stayed perfectly still. 

The exhaustion of the day finally began to win. The adrenaline of the move, the anxiety of sharing a space with him, and the sheer physical effort of trying to stay warm drained out of you, leaving you heavy.

You felt his breathing even out, slow and rhythmic. It was hypnotic. You tucked your nose into the crook of his neck, your hand still locked securely in his. You were exhausted, and for the first time in weeks, you felt safe.

The last thing you registered before sleep pulled you under was the feeling of his thumb tracing lazy, tender circles over the back of your hand. You drifted off, held fast by the man who was currently your roommate, your husband-to-be-on-paper, and your only source of heat in the dark.

“Girlfriend,” he said.

Your stomach flipped.

Then his mouth was on yours again.

For a second, everything else disappeared.

The dark apartment. The bookstore bag on the floor. The thin line of hallway light slipping in beneath the door. The quiet that settled around the two of you like the whole world had narrowed to this entryway, this wall, this man, this kiss.

Jack’s hand was still at your waist, warm and certain over the cotton of his shirt, and his mouth moved over yours like he had all the time in the world to ruin you.

Not frantic.

Not careless.

Worse.

Patient.

Like he knew exactly what he was doing to you and had no intention of rushing through any of it.

You made a small sound against his mouth and pulled at his jacket.

Jack let you for one second, then two. The fabric slipped down his shoulders, and you chased him with your mouth, already reaching for more because more was familiar. More was easier. More meant hands and heat and want, and want was something your body understood.

Want did not ask complicated questions. Want did not make your chest ache. Want did not look like Jack carrying your books to your door or asking you to be his girlfriend in the quiet hallway outside your apartment.

You pushed the jacket lower, trying to get it off his arms, trying to get closer, trying to turn the feeling into something you knew how to handle.

Jack caught your hands.

Not hard.

Not stopping you.

Just slowing you.

Your breath broke against his mouth.

You opened your eyes.

Jack was looking at you.

His face was close, his breathing uneven, his eyes dark enough to make your knees feel unreliable. His jacket was halfway down his arms. His mouth was still close enough that you could feel the warmth of it when he spoke.

“Slow down,” Jack said.

Your fingers flexed beneath his. “Jack.”

His thumbs moved once over the backs of your hands. “Slow down.”

You swallowed, your body still leaning toward his, still trying to finish what it had started. “I thought you wanted me.”

Something changed in his face.

Not hurt.

Not offended.

Softer than that.

“I do,” Jack said.

The words landed low in your stomach.

His hands held yours between you.

“That’s why I’m saying it,” he said.

Your breath caught.

The apartment felt too quiet around that.

You tried to smile, but it came out smaller than you meant it to. “That feels backwards.”

Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “I know.”

You tugged lightly at his hands. “Then come here.”

He did.

Enough to make your pulse jump.

Enough to press you more firmly against the wall near the entryway, his body warm and solid against yours, his hands still holding yours like he did not trust either of you to be smart if he let go too soon.

His mouth brushed yours once.

Barely a kiss.

Still enough to make your eyes flutter.

You tried to follow it.

Jack pulled back.

A frustrated sound slipped out of you before you could stop it.

His mouth curved again, but his eyes stayed serious. “There she is.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Do not sound pleased with yourself.”

“I’m not,” Jack said.

You exhaled shakily. “You are.”

“I’m trying to take my time,” Jack said.

Your pulse stumbled.

That was worse than smug.

That was so much worse than smug.

You looked away before your face could give you up entirely.

Jack noticed.

His fingers released one of your hands and found your chin instead.

Not hard.

Just enough pressure to guide your face back to his when your eyes tried to drop.

Your breath caught.

He tilted your face up until you were looking at him again.

“There,” he said softly.

Your chest ached.

Because he was not correcting you.

He was keeping you with him.

You tried to hide behind a breathless laugh. “You are very bossy for a brand-new boyfriend.”

Jack’s thumb brushed once along your jaw. “And you are very evasive for a brand-new girlfriend.”

Your mouth parted.

His eyes held yours.

Warm. Steady. Unfair.

You could have made a joke.

You could have said something about how fast he had learned the job. You could have teased him about the word girlfriend going to his head already.

Instead, you stood there with his fingers beneath your chin and his shirt on your body and the realization that this was different pressing against your ribs from the inside.

Different because he had asked, because you had said yes, because every kiss now had somewhere to land.

You swallowed. “I’m not trying to be.”

Jack’s expression softened.

“I know,” he said.

You hated how easily he said it.

You loved it more.

His hand slid from your chin to the side of your neck, thumb resting just beneath your jaw, and he leaned in again.

This kiss was slower than the last.

Deeper.

His mouth fit over yours like he was trying to teach you the difference between being wanted and being kept.

Your fingers curled in his shirt.

Not the one you were wearing.

His.

Soft gray cotton under your hands, warm from his body. You pulled him closer, but this time you did not yank. Did not rush. Did not try to turn the kiss into somewhere to disappear.

Jack felt the difference.

His hand tightened at your waist. Approval. Encouragement.

You only knew that the sound he made against your mouth was low and rough and enough to send heat down your spine.

The jacket finally slid from his arms.

This time, he let it fall.

You heard it hit the floor somewhere near the bookstore bag.

Jack did not look away from you.

Neither did you. 

That felt impossible. That felt like the point.

His fingers moved to the first button of the shirt you were wearing.

His shirt.

Your breath caught before he touched the button.

Jack stopped.

His eyes lifted to yours. “Can I?”

Your throat tightened.

He had kissed you against the door. Pressed you against the wall. Heard the sounds you made when his mouth got rougher. And still, he asked.

You nodded.

Jack did not move. His thumb brushed once over the cotton at your waist. “Words.”

Your chest went warm and shaky at the same time.

“Yes,” you said.

His gaze stayed on yours. “Yes, what?”

You swallowed. “Yes, you can take it off.”

Only then did his fingers move.

One button. Then another. Slow enough that you felt each release like a pulse. Slow enough that you had time to notice the way his eyes did not stay on his hands. He looked at your face after each one, like he was checking for the answer again and again without making you repeat it.

Your breath changed.

His mouth touched yours.

Soft.

Then the corner of your mouth. Then your jaw. Then back to your mouth again, like kissing you was not something to pass through on the way to the rest of it.

Like kissing you was the rest of it.

Your hands slid up his chest, over his shoulders, around the back of his neck. His hair brushed your fingers, and he made another low sound when your nails grazed lightly at the nape.

You smiled against his mouth.

His jaw shifted.

“Trouble,” Jack said.

The word came out rougher this time.

Less warning.

More promise.

You leaned in to kiss him again, but his fingers found your chin before your mouth reached his.

Gentle and certain.

He tilted your face up.

You looked at him.

His eyes were darker now, his control thinner at the edges, but he was still there. Still present. Still refusing to let the want turn careless just because it would have been easier.

“You keep trying to rush me,” Jack said.

Your breath caught. “I’m not.”

His thumb moved once along your jaw. “You are.”

You wanted to deny it.

You almost did.

But his hand was on your face, and his body was close, and his shirt was open enough now that the lace beneath it was no longer only a hint. It was visible. Deliberate. Yours. For him.

And maybe he was right.

Maybe you were trying to rush.

Maybe rushing was the only way you knew how to survive wanting something this much.

Your fingers curled at the back of his neck. “I want you.”

Jack’s expression softened in a way that made the words feel too small.

“I know,” he said.

Your breath caught.

“I want you too,” Jack said.

His eyes held yours. “That’s not why I’m slowing down.”

The words hit too close.

Your throat tightened. “Then why?”

For a second, Jack did not answer. His fingers stayed beneath your chin. His other hand stayed at your waist. He looked at you like he could see every place you were trying to hide and had decided to be gentle with all of them.

“Because you’re trying to outrun it,” he said.

Your chest tightened. 

You tried to laugh, but it came out too thin. “Outrun sex?”

Jack did not smile.

“No,” he said.

The quiet around you changed. His thumb brushed your jaw.

“Outrun what it means,” he said.

For a second, you could not breathe.

Because there it was.

The thing you had been trying not to name.

The reason the slow kisses felt more dangerous than the desperate ones. The reason his hand on your face undid you more than his hand on your waist. The reason your chest felt too full every time he simply looked at you.

This meant something now.

No.

Worse.

It had meant something before.

You just had no way to pretend otherwise anymore.

Your eyes burned before you could stop them.

Jack saw it immediately.

His other hand came up to your face, holding you carefully between both palms.

“Hey,” Jack said, voice low.

You shook your head once, embarrassed by the sudden heat behind your eyes. “I’m fine.”

“I know,” Jack said.

You shook your head again, trying to shrug it off, trying to make it smaller before it could become something you had to explain.

Jack did not let the moment go.

He did not push either.

His thumbs moved over your cheeks.

“I know you want me,” he said.

Your breath caught.

His eyes stayed steady on yours. “I know you want this.”

Your fingers tightened in his shirt.

He tilted your face up a little more, tender enough to ache. “And I know it’s easier to rush through it than feel it.”

Your face crumpled before you could stop it.

Not fully.

Not enough to become tears you could not come back from.

But enough.

Enough that you felt the truth of it move through you like a bruise being pressed.

Because he was right.

He was right, and you hated that he was right, and you loved that he knew how to say it without making you feel small.

You looked at him, really looked at him, and the realization came so fast it almost hurt.

You were in love with him.

Not close to it.

Not drifting toward it.

There.

Already there.

So far into it that you could not see the edge of it anymore.

Jack’s face blurred for half a second, and you tried to look away.

His fingers stayed beneath your chin.

Not trapping.

Asking.

You let him bring you back.

“I know,” Jack said quietly.

You shook your head, small and helpless. “You don’t.”

His eyes softened.

“I know what it feels like when something gets too real all at once,” he said.

Your breath caught on something dangerously close to a sob.

Jack’s thumbs moved over your cheeks.

“That’s all. I know.”

His forehead touched yours.

For a while, neither of you moved.

The heat was still there.

Of course it was.

His body was close. His hands were on your face. His mouth was inches from yours. His shirt was open on your body, and the air touched the lace every time you breathed.

But the urgency had changed shape.

It was not smaller. It was deeper.

Jack brushed his mouth against yours once. “Do you want to stop?”

You shook your head immediately. “No.”

His eyes searched yours. “Slow down?”

Your throat tightened. You nodded.

“Okay,” Jack said.

Then he kissed you again.

Soft.

Certain.

Like slowing down did not mean wanting you less.

Like tenderness was not the opposite of hunger.

Like this was what hunger became when it finally had somewhere safe to go.

Jack kissed you until your fingers loosened in his shirt, until your breathing slowed enough to match his, until the ache in your chest stopped feeling like something you had to survive and started feeling like something he was willing to hold with you.

His mouth left yours slowly.

Not because he was done.

Because he wanted to look at you.

You could feel it before you saw it, the weight of his attention moving over your face with a kind of quiet wonder that made you feel more exposed than the open buttons of his shirt ever could.

Your breath caught. “What?”

Jack did not answer right away. His thumb moved once over your cheek. Then his eyes lifted back to yours.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

The words landed softly. Too softly. Like he knew they might scare you if he said them too quickly.

Your throat tightened, and you looked away on instinct.

Jack’s fingers found your chin. Gentle. Patient. He tilted your face back to his.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

Your pulse stumbled. “Do what?”

“Make it smaller,” Jack said.

Your mouth parted. His eyes stayed steady on yours, dark and warm and unfairly careful.

“You’re beautiful,” he said again. “And you’re smart as hell.”

Your chest gave one painful little squeeze.

“So damn smart,” he said.

You blinked fast. “Jack.”

“And funny,” Jack said, like he had not heard the warning in your voice at all. “Even when you’re trying not to be.”

A shaky breath slipped out of you. His thumb brushed along your jaw.

“And stubborn,” he added.

Your laugh came out thin and wet around the edges. “That one sounded less romantic.”

Jack’s eyes softened. “It was honest.”

A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it, small and helpless, and Jack looked at you like that laugh had done something to him.

Like he wanted to keep it.

Your chest ached so hard you almost had to look away again, but his fingers were still beneath your chin, not holding you there so much as asking you to stay.

So you stayed.

Jack’s voice dropped. “I like your smart-ass comments.”

Your breath caught.

His eyes moved over your face with a tenderness that made you feel unsteady.

“I like that you don’t let me get away with anything,” he said. “I like that you look at a bookstore like it’s a place you could live. I like that you pretend not to care right before you care so much it gives you away.”

Your eyes burned again.

Not suddenly this time.

Slowly.

Like warmth rising.

Jack’s other hand settled at your waist, careful over the cotton of his shirt.

“I like the way you say my name when you’re annoyed with me,” he said.

Your fingers tightened in his shirt.

“And when you’re not,” he added, rougher.

Heat moved through you, slow and heavy. Not separate from the feeling.

Wrapped inside it.

You were falling apart.

Quietly.

Completely.

In the best, most terrifying way.

Because this was not Jack wanting your body.

Not only that.

This was Jack standing in your dark apartment, with your face in his hands, telling you he saw you.

And you loved him.

You loved him so much that it felt obvious now. Embarrassingly obvious.

Like every part of you had known before you did.

Jack’s gaze sharpened slightly. “There you are.”

Your breath shook. You tried to smile. “You’re making this very hard.”

His brows drew together faintly. “What?”

You swallowed, your hands still curled in the front of his shirt. “Not saying something stupid.”

Jack’s expression softened. He knew.

Maybe not the exact words. Maybe not the full shape of it.

But he knew enough.

His thumb moved over your cheek again.

“Then don’t say anything,” he said.

Your throat tightened.

His mouth brushed yours, barely.

“Just let me have you here,” Jack whispered.

Your eyes fluttered. His fingers tipped your chin up again before they could close all the way.

“With me,” he said.

You nodded once, small and unsteady. “I’m with you.”

Jack’s eyes searched yours.

Then his mouth found yours again.

Slow. Deep. Devastating.

And this time, when the want rose through you, you did not try to run ahead of it.

You let it come with the feeling.

You let it come with the ache.

You let it come with the terrifying, beautiful truth of Jack looking at you like you were already something he wanted to keep.

His hands slid from your face to your shoulders, pushing the open shirt down another inch. His mouth followed the movement, kissing the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the side of your throat.

You tipped your head back against the wall.

Jack paused immediately. Not because he wanted to stop. Because he wanted your eyes again.

His fingers touched your chin.

You looked at him. His gaze dropped to the lace beneath his shirt, then lifted back to your face.

“So beautiful,” he said, softer this time.

Your chest cracked open.

“Jack,” you whispered.

His hand moved to the next button. He waited. You nodded. 

His eyes stayed on yours as he opened it.

Then the next.

And the next.

Until the shirt gave way beneath his hands, loose around your shoulders, white cotton and white lace and his careful, devastating attention.

Jack looked at you like he was in awe.

Not hungry.

Not only hungry.

Awe.

And somehow that was the thing that made your knees weaken.

“You’re looking at me like that again,” you said, voice barely there.

Jack’s thumb brushed the edge of the shirt off your shoulder.

“Good,” he said.

Your breath caught.

He leaned in and kissed the newly bare skin. Then looked up at you.

“I want you to know,” Jack said.

Your breath caught. “Know what?”

His mouth touched your shoulder again. Soft. Slow.

Then he lifted his head, his fingers still resting against the open edge of the shirt.

“That I see you,” he said.

Your chest tightened. His eyes held yours.

“Not just this,” Jack said, his thumb brushing the lace once, light enough to make your breath stumble. “Not just what you let me touch.”

Your throat went tight.

Jack’s hand came back to your face, his knuckles grazing your cheek with a tenderness that made your eyes burn again.

“You,” he said.

The word was simple. Devastating.

You tried to smile, but it shook before it landed. “You’re very intense for a man who bought himself smut tonight.”

Jack’s mouth curved faintly. There it was. The smallest flicker of amusement.

But his eyes stayed soft.

His thumb moved over your cheek. “I’m studying.”

Your laugh broke out quiet and unsteady, and Jack kissed it from your mouth before it could turn into another escape.

This kiss was deeper. Not faster. Just deeper.

The kind of kiss that made your body sink back against the wall instead of strain forward. The kind that made your fingers loosen at the front of his shirt, then curl again because you needed somewhere to put all the feeling.

Jack’s hand slid to your shoulder. The shirt slipped lower. Cool air touched your skin.

Then his mouth followed.

A kiss to your collarbone.

Another to the place where the lace began.

Then back up.

Your mouth. Your cheek. Your jaw.

Like he wanted all of you and refused to let any part become more important than the rest.

Your head tipped back.

This time, when his fingers found your chin, you were already looking for him.

Jack noticed. His expression shifted, soft and almost undone.

“There,” he said.

Your chest ached. You swallowed around it. “I’m trying.”

“I know,” Jack said.

His thumb brushed beneath your lower lip. “You’re doing good.”

The praise went through you slowly. Warm, heavy, and impossible to hide from.

Your eyes fluttered.

Jack’s fingers held your chin, gentle but sure.

“Stay,” he said softly.

You opened your eyes again.

His gaze was waiting for you. Not demanding. Waiting.

Your breath shook. “I’m here.”

Jack’s mouth softened.

“I know,” he said.

Then he kissed you again, and the shirt slipped from one shoulder.

Then the other.

It caught at your elbows for a second, white cotton hanging loose around you, and Jack paused like the sight had knocked something out of him.

You almost made a joke.

Almost.

But his eyes moved over you with so much care that the words disappeared before you could reach for them.

Your voice came out smaller. “What?”

Jack shook his head once, barely. His hand settled at your waist, thumb brushing the line where lace met skin.

“Beautiful,” he said.

You closed your eyes. Not to hide this time. Just because feeling it took everything.

Jack kissed your forehead. Then your temple. Then the corner of your mouth.

“Too much?” he asked.

You shook your head. 

His mouth brushed yours. “Tell me.”

Your hands tightened at his sides. “It’s not too much.”

Jack waited.

You opened your eyes.

“It’s a lot,” you admitted.

His expression softened. “I know.”

“But not too much,” you said.

Jack’s thumb moved once at your waist. “Okay,” he said.

That was all. No pushing. No making you explain it until the feeling lost its shape.

Just okay.

Like he believed you. Like he trusted you to know the difference between overwhelmed and afraid. Like he knew tenderness could make you shake and still be wanted.

Your chest opened around that.

Jack’s hands moved to the loose shirt caught at your elbows.

His eyes lifted to yours. “Can I?”

You nodded once. “Yes.”

He slid the cotton down your arms slowly, his fingers brushing your skin the whole way.

The shirt fell from your wrists and landed softly on the floor between you.

For a second, neither of you moved.

You stood there in white lace and jeans, your skin warm from his mouth, your heart too open to hide. Jack looked at you like he was still learning how much wanting could hurt when it meant something.

You reached for him because standing there being seen was suddenly too much and not enough at the same time. Your fingers found the hem of his gray shirt. Jack’s breath changed.

You looked up at him. “Can I?”

His eyes darkened. Then he nodded. “Yes.”

You tugged his shirt upward.

Jack lifted his arms, letting you pull it over his head.

You dropped it somewhere beside the button-down, but neither of you looked down.

You were too busy looking at him. Bare chest. Steady breathing. The familiar strength of him, suddenly softer in the dark of your apartment.

Your boyfriend.

The thought hit again, less sharp this time. Still terrifying.

Still warm.

Jack’s eyes stayed on yours like he could feel it move through you.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

His mouth curved faintly. “Clear.”

A breathless laugh slipped out of you. “Yes, Jack. I’m okay.”

“Good,” he said.

You stepped closer before he could be the only one doing it carefully.

Your hands settled against his chest.

His skin was warm beneath your palms. Real. Here.

Yours to touch because he had chosen to be.

Jack’s hand came to your back, broad and steady, and you felt the smallest shift in him when your fingers moved over his ribs.

Not impatience. Want. The controlled kind. The kind that made his breathing deepen and his eyes stay on yours anyway.

You swallowed. “Bedroom?”

Jack’s gaze held yours.

Heat moved through his face. Not surprise. Not hesitation.

Want.

Full and quiet and no less intense for being controlled.

“Yeah,” Jack said.

Your stomach flipped.

He took your hand and walked with you toward the bedroom.

The apartment seemed quieter as you moved through it.

Not empty.

Waiting.

Every familiar thing looked a little different with Jack in it like this, shirtless and holding your hand, your books by the door, his white button-down draped over a chair like proof that the night had already become something you could not fold neatly away.

Your bedroom door was open.

You stopped just inside it. Not because you changed your mind. Because the bed was there, and suddenly the next part became real in a way that made your pulse trip. Jack stopped with you. He did not pull. Did not crowd. His fingers stayed around yours, warm and patient. You looked at the bed. Then at him.

Jack’s eyes searched your face. “Still okay?”

Your throat tightened. There it was again. The care. The choice. The unbearable sweetness of him making room for you to answer honestly.

You squeezed his hand. “Still okay.”

His thumb brushed over your knuckles. “Good.”

You looked down at where your hand fit in his, then back up at him. “You’re going to keep asking?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

Your chest warmed.

You tried to make your smile teasing. “Very thorough.”

His mouth curved faintly. “You like thorough.”

Your breath caught.

Jack’s eyes darkened at the sound. There it was. The heat. Still there.

Waiting underneath everything soft.

Your pulse jumped.

“I do,” you said.

Jack stepped closer.

Slowly.

Close enough that your hand flattened against his chest again. Close enough that you could feel his breath when he looked down at you. His fingers brushed your chin, tilting your face up.

“Then let me be thorough,” he said.

Your stomach dipped. You nodded once.

Jack’s eyes held yours. “Words.”

A shaky breath left you.

“Yes,” you said. “Be thorough.”

His mouth came down on yours. Slow. Deep. Thorough enough to make you understand exactly what you had asked for.

Jack kissed you as he walked you backward, one hand at your waist, the other warm at the side of your neck. He did not rush you toward the bed. He did not crowd you until you stumbled. He moved with you, step by step, kissing you like every inch of the room mattered because he was taking you through it.

The backs of your legs met the mattress. You stopped. Jack stopped with you. His mouth left yours slowly, his forehead hovering close enough that you could still feel his breath. Your hands were on his chest. His hands were on you. Neither of you moved for half a second.

Then Jack’s fingers found your chin again. Gentle. Certain. He tilted your face up. You looked at him before he had to ask. Something softened in his eyes.

“There,” he said.

Your chest ached. You tried to smile. “I’m learning.”

Jack’s thumb brushed along your jaw. “Good.”

Then he kissed you again, softer this time, and his hands moved to the button of your jeans. He stopped there. Waiting. Your pulse jumped.

A shaky breath left you. “Yes, Jack. Take them off.”

His jaw shifted. Not because he was unsure. Because hearing it did something to him. You saw it. The way his breathing changed. The way his eyes darkened. The way his fingers flexed once at your waistband before he made himself slow down again.

Jack opened the button. Then the zipper. The sound seemed too loud in the quiet bedroom. You swallowed. His mouth touched yours once, brief and steady, before he lowered himself enough to ease the denim over your hips. He took his time. His hands followed the movement, warm over your sides, your hips, your thighs, like he was not simply undressing you but learning how to hold every place you let him reach.

You stepped out when he guided the jeans down. Jack’s hand wrapped around your ankle for balance, steadying you while you lifted one foot, then the other. It should have been practical.

It was not.

Not with him kneeling in front of you. Not with the way his eyes lifted and stopped. Completely stopped.

You knew the exact second he saw it.

The white lace beneath his shirt matched the white lace beneath your jeans. 

Jack went very still. Your breath caught. His gaze moved over you slowly, from the bralette he had already uncovered to the matching lace at your hips, then back to your face. His jaw shifted.

“You planned this,” Jack said.

Your pulse stumbled, but somehow your mouth still worked. “I planned the shirt.”

His eyes held yours. Dark. Warm. Not fooled for a second.

“Trouble,” he said.

“The rest was good styling,” you said.

Jack’s mouth curved faintly. Then he stepped closer. Close enough that the heat of him came back against your skin. Close enough that your hands lifted to his chest on instinct. His fingers traced the lace at your hip. Barely. Just one slow touch.

“Good styling,” he said, voice rougher.

You tried to smile. It did not quite land. Not with the way he was looking at you. Like the sight of you had undone something careful in him. Like he was losing it and choosing not to rush anyway. That was somehow worse. That was so much worse.

“Jack,” you whispered.

His eyes came back to yours.

“There you are,” he said softly.

Your chest tightened. His hands slid to your waist, then up your sides, careful over bare skin and lace. He kissed you as he touched you, mouth slow over yours, palms warm and deliberate, thumbs brushing beneath the band of your bralette without going farther.

Not yet.

He was taking his time. He wanted you to feel that.

You did. God, you did.

His mouth moved to your jaw, then your throat, then back to your lips before you could tip your head too far back and disappear into it. Every time the feeling got too big, Jack brought you back until there was nowhere to hide except in him.

His fingers brushed the strap at your shoulder. He paused. Your breath caught.

Jack’s voice was low against your mouth. “Can I?”

You nodded, then remembered.

“Yes,” you said. “You can.”

His lips curved against yours, not quite a smile. Approval. Affection. Want. All of it.

He slid one strap down your arm. Then the other. His mouth followed the path, kissing the skin he uncovered, slow enough that your hands tightened at his shoulders. By the time his fingers reached the clasp, your breathing was uneven. Jack’s was not much better.

He looked at you again. You held his gaze. This time, you did not make him ask.

“Yes,” you whispered.

His eyes darkened. He unclasped the bralette and eased it from your body. No rush. No sudden reveal. Just his hands, gentle and steady, setting the lace aside before he came back to you. For one breath, Jack only looked. Not in a way that made you feel inspected. In a way that made you feel witnessed. His face softened around the want.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

Your throat tightened. You almost looked away. His fingers touched your chin before you could. Gentle. Patient. You let him keep you there.

“You’re beautiful,” Jack said again.

A shaky breath left you. Then his mouth lowered to your chest. Your eyes closed. This time, he let them. Because you were not hiding. You were feeling it.

Jack kissed you like that mattered. Like all of it mattered. Your collarbone. The center of your chest. The curve of your breast. The place just beneath it that made your breath catch when his mouth found it.

He learned you slowly. 

With his lips. With his hands. With the soft drag of his thumb over places that made your knees weaken, and your fingers thread into his hair.

You said his name once, maybe twice. You were not sure. Jack seemed to hear it either way. He always did. His mouth came back to yours, and you kissed him with everything you did not know how to say yet.

The love was still there.

Huge. Terrifying. Obvious now.

It moved through every touch, every breath, every place his skin met yours.

You were in love with him.

You were in love with him, and he was kissing you like he could feel the shape of it even if you had not given him the words.

His hands moved to your hips. Again, he waited. Again, you answered before he could ask.

“Yes,” you said, breathless.

Jack’s forehead touched yours for half a second. Then his fingers slipped beneath the lace at your hips. He eased it down slowly, kneeling as he did, his mouth brushing your stomach, your hip, the top of your thigh.

Your fingers tightened in his hair.

Jack looked up.

The sight of him there almost took your breath away. His hands were steady on your thighs. His eyes were on yours. Not rushed. Not careless.

Yours.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

His brow lifted faintly.

A breathless laugh slipped out of you. “Yes, Jack. I’m okay.”

His mouth curved. “Good.” 

Then he kissed the inside of your knee. Your breath caught. He stood before it could become too much too quickly, and his hands came back to your waist, guiding you onto the bed.

You sat first.

Then shifted back when he followed. Jack moved over you slowly, one leg on the mattress, then the other, his body covering yours without pinning you down. The mattress dipped beneath his weight.

Your breath changed. His did too. He noticed yours. You noticed his.

For a second, you just looked at each other. You in nothing. Jack shirtless above you, jeans still on, control held together by what looked like pure will. His hand came to your face. His thumb brushed your cheek.

“Still with me?” he asked.

Your chest squeezed. You nodded. “I’m with you.”

Jack’s eyes softened.

Then he kissed you. Slow at first. Then deeper. His body settled closer, his forearm braced beside your head, his other hand moving from your cheek to your waist, your hip, your thigh. He touched you like he was trying to make every place feel chosen. Your hands moved over his shoulders, down his back, learning the heat of him in the dark.

Jack’s mouth left yours for your jaw. Your neck. The slope of your shoulder. Then your mouth again. Always your mouth again. Like he could not stay away from kissing you for too long. Like kissing you was the thing keeping him present too. His hand slid up your thigh. Slow. Careful. Your breath hitched.

Jack stilled immediately. His forehead touched yours. “Still okay?”

“Yes,” you whispered.

His fingers moved another inch. Your hips shifted before you could stop them. Jack’s mouth curved against yours. You felt it.

You opened your eyes. “Do not look smug.”

His gaze lifted to yours. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

His fingers brushed higher. Your words broke. Jack’s expression changed. Less amusement. More focus. More awe.

“There,” he murmured.

Your chest tightened at the word.

His fingers touched you slowly. So slowly it almost hurt. Your head tipped back against the pillow. Jack’s mouth followed, kissing the line of your throat as his hand moved between your thighs. Gentle at first. Then firmer when your body answered.

He watched every reaction. Every inhale. Every tremble. Every place you softened or tensed, every place you needed more or needed him to wait.

His mouth came back to yours when his fingers moved with more purpose. You gasped into the kiss. Jack swallowed the sound like it was something he wanted to keep. His hand worked slowly, deliberately, the heel of his palm pressing just enough to make your fingers dig into his shoulders.

Your eyes fluttered shut.

Jack’s fingers paused beneath your chin. Not stopping his other hand. Just bringing you back. You opened your eyes. He was right there. Above you. Around you. Everywhere.

“Stay with me,” Jack said.

Your breath shook. “I’m trying.”

His thumb moved along your jaw. “You’re doing good.”

The praise went through you like heat. 

Your body tightened around nothing, and Jack felt it. His eyes darkened.

He kissed you again, deep and slow, and his fingers slipped inside you.

Your breath broke.

Jack stilled for half a second, forehead against yours, letting you adjust, letting the moment settle instead of taking it from you too quickly. Then he moved. Slow. Careful.

Perfect.

Your hands slid into his hair. His mouth moved against yours, then down your jaw, then to your neck, kissing you through every slow stroke of his fingers. It was unbearable. It was perfect. It was too much and not enough and exactly what you had asked for. Thorough. Jack learned you like he had meant that word. Like it was a promise. His thumb found the place that made your hips lift from the mattress.

You moaned before you could stop it.

Jack’s mouth came back to yours immediately.

“There,” he said against your lips.

You shook your head, overwhelmed by the tenderness of it, by the heat, by the way he kept looking at you like he wanted to remember this version of you forever. Your eyes burned again. Jack saw. His hand slowed, but did not stop.

His face softened. “Too much?”

You shook your head quickly. 

His fingers stayed gentle, steady, giving you enough to keep you close without pushing you over too fast.

“Words,” he said.

Your chest ached.

“No,” you whispered. “Not too much.”

Jack kissed the corner of your mouth. “Okay.”

Your fingers tightened in his hair.

“Jack,” you breathed.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

You believed him. That was the thing that undid you. Not just his hand. Not just his mouth. Not just the slow, perfect rhythm of his fingers inside you.

It was the fact that you believed him.

That he had you. That he wanted you. That he knew what this meant and stayed anyway.

Your body tightened.

Jack felt it immediately. His mouth moved to yours, soft and deep.

“That’s it,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

You came with your eyes open.

Barely.

Because Jack’s fingers were beneath your chin again, because his forehead was close to yours, because his eyes were on you, steady and warm and completely gone for you.

The pleasure moved through you slowly at first. Then all at once. Your breath caught. Your body arched beneath him. Jack kissed you through it, mouth gentle and sure, his hand still moving, softer now, helping you through every trembling second.

Your hands clutched at his shoulders.

His name broke out of you, unsteady and wrecked.

Jack’s expression softened like the sound had done something to him. He slowed when you needed him to. Stopped when your hand found his wrist.

Then he kissed your palm. Your wrist. The inside of your forearm. Like even coming down deserved tenderness. Your chest rose and fell beneath him. Your whole body felt loose.

Open. 

Too seen.

Jack shifted his hand away slowly, careful not to startle you, and settled beside you on his elbow. Not far. Never far. His clean hand came to your face. His thumb brushed your cheek. You blinked up at him, dazed and too full to make a joke.

Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “There you are.”

Your throat tightened. You wanted to laugh. You wanted to cry.

You wanted to tell him.

The words pressed hard behind your ribs. Instead, you reached for him. Jack came willingly, lowering himself back over you just enough for your arms to close around his shoulders.

You kissed him. Slow. Messy. Tender. Still shaking.

Jack kissed you back like he knew exactly what you were not saying yet. Like he was willing to wait. Like he was not going anywhere.

Your arms tightened around his shoulders.

For a moment, you only held him there, chest to chest, skin to skin, his weight careful above you and his mouth soft against yours.

You could feel him everywhere.

The heat of his body. The restraint in his breathing. The want he kept pulling back from the edge because he was trying so hard to give you something slower than urgency.

Something better.

Your hand moved down his back.

Jack’s breath caught when your fingers reached the waistband of his jeans. He went still.

Your mouth brushed his once. “Jack.”

His eyes lifted to yours. “Yeah?”

You swallowed. The words felt too big and too simple at the same time.

“I want you,” you said.

His expression shifted. Heat first. Then something softer.

“You have me,” Jack said.

Your chest clenched. You shook your head, your fingers curling lightly at his waistband. “No.”

His eyes stayed on yours. You took a breath.

“All of you,” you whispered.

Jack’s jaw shifted. For a second, he did not move. He only looked at you, like the words had gone through him slowly, like they had found every careful place he had been holding himself together and pulled.

“You sure?” he asked.

Your throat tightened at the roughness in his voice.

“Yes,” you said. “I want all of you.”

Jack closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them again, the look in them made your stomach drop.

“Okay,” he said.

Just that. Okay. Like he was answering you. Like he was promising you. Like he was giving himself permission.

He kissed you once, deep and slow, then pulled back.

The space he left above you felt immediate. Cold. Unfair. Your hands slipped from his body as he moved to the edge of the bed.

You watched him stand.

There was no teasing left in you now. No smart comment waiting on your tongue. Only Jack in the low light of your bedroom, bare-chested and breathing unevenly, his eyes still on you as his hands went to the button of his jeans.

Your breath stopped. He noticed. His mouth curved faintly, but there was no smugness in it. Only heat. Only want. He opened the button. Lowered the zipper. Pushed the denim down his hips. Your fingers curled into the sheets. Jack’s eyes darkened at the movement, but he did not look away. He stepped out of his jeans, then his underwear, and your breath left you all at once.

He was already hard.

Already ready.

And somehow that was the thing that made you ache. Not because you had not known he wanted you. You knew. You could feel it in every kiss, every pause, every careful breath he had taken above you. But seeing what his control had been holding back, seeing how badly he wanted you and how gently he had touched you anyway, did something to you. Something low. Something deep. Something dangerously close to love and lust becoming the same feeling in your body.

Jack’s voice came rough through the quiet. “Trouble.”

Your eyes lifted back to his face. You had not even realized they had dropped. His expression was warm and wrecked at once.

“You’re looking,” Jack said.

Your lips parted. Then you found enough of yourself to answer.

“You’re naked in my bedroom,” you said. “I feel like looking is allowed.”

His mouth curved. There she is. He did not say it. He did not have to. You felt it in the way he looked at you. Then his gaze moved over your body, stretched out on the bed, still flushed, still bare, still open from what he had just done to you.

The air changed.

Your breath caught. Jack moved back to you. Slowly. Not because he did not want to hurry. Because slow was how he was keeping you both inside it. The mattress dipped beneath his knee. Then the other. Jack came over you carefully, one hand braced beside your head, his body settling into the space between your thighs.

Your breath changed.

His did too.

You felt the hard length of him against you, and your hips shifted before you could stop them. Jack’s eyes shut for one brief second. When he opened them, they were darker. Focused. Yours.

“Careful,” he said, voice rough.

Your hands slid up his arms.

His mouth brushed yours, and this time there was a tremor in it. Not hesitation. Control. Thin and fraying. His hand moved between your bodies. You felt him take himself in his hand. Your breath caught hard enough that his mouth paused against yours. Jack lifted his head just enough to see your face. His other hand stayed braced near your head, forearm warm beside your cheek, making the space around you feel smaller, safer, entirely his.

Your fingers curled against his shoulders.

He guided himself against you slowly. Once. Then again. Your eyes fluttered. Jack’s fingers touched your chin. Gentle. Immediate. You opened your eyes. He was looking down at you like he could barely breathe and still needed you there with him more than he needed anything else.

“Stay with me,” Jack said.

Your chest ached. “I’m here,” you whispered.

His hand left himself and slid to your thigh. Warm. Broad. Certain. He hitched your leg higher around his hip, opening you to him, bringing you closer, and the shift made both of you inhale at the same time. Your body pulled tight with anticipation. Jack’s eyes did not leave yours.

“Still okay like this?” he asked.

Your throat tightened. You knew what he meant. No barrier. No distance. No pretending this was anything other than trust.

“Yes,” you said. “Like this.”

Jack’s jaw shifted. His fingers tightened gently on your thigh. “You tell me if you need me to stop.”

“I will,” you said.

His gaze held yours. “Promise me.”

Your chest ached at the softness under the command.

“I promise,” you whispered.

Jack’s expression softened for half a second. Then he kissed you. Soft. Deep. Right as he began to push inside.

Your breath broke against his mouth.

Jack stopped immediately. Barely inside you. Shaking with the effort of it. His forehead touched yours.

“Okay?” he asked.

You nodded, but his hand flexed at your thigh. You knew. Words. Your fingers dug into his shoulders.

“Yes,” you breathed. “I’m okay.”

Jack kissed the corner of your mouth. Then your cheek. Then your mouth again.

He moved another inch.

Slow.

So slow your body did not know whether to tense or melt. You did both. Jack felt it. His thumb moved over your thigh, soothing and steady.

“That’s it,” he said, voice low. “I’ve got you.”

Your eyes burned again. Not from pain. Not even from the stretch, though that was there too, deep and full and overwhelming in its own right.

It was him.

The way he watched your face. The way he stopped every time your breath changed. The way he made entering you feel less like taking and more like being allowed closer.

Your hand slid to the side of his neck.

“Jack,” you whispered.

His eyes held yours.

“I know,” he said.

You shook your head once, overwhelmed by the way he kept knowing. His mouth touched yours.

“I know,” he said again.

Then he moved deeper. Your back arched. Your leg tightened around his hip. Jack’s breathing broke. For the first time all night, his control visibly slipped. Just for a second. A rough sound left him, low in his chest, and his head dipped toward your shoulder. The sound did something devastating to you. Your hands moved into his hair.

“Look at me,” you whispered.

Jack went still. Then his head lifted. His eyes found yours. Wrecked. Tender. Wanting.

Yours.

Your chest cracked open.

“There you are,” you said softly.

Something in his face changed. A flicker of surprise. Then heat. Then something so close to love that it stole the air from the room. Jack kissed you hard enough to make you gasp, and in the same breath, he sank fully into you.

You clung to him.

He stilled there. All the way inside. Forehead against yours. Breathing uneven. Hand tight on your thigh. For a moment, neither of you moved. You could feel him everywhere. The weight of him. The heat. The fullness. The impossible intimacy of having him this close and still not feeling close enough.

Your eyes stayed on his. You did not look away. Jack’s mouth brushed yours once. Then again.

“Okay?” he asked.

Your fingers tightened in his hair.

“Yes,” you whispered.

His thumb moved over your thigh. “Still want all of me?”

Your breath caught.

The words went straight through you. Not teasing. Not smug. A question. A reminder.

A promise.

You lifted your hips slightly beneath him. Jack’s jaw tightened.

“Yes,” you said. “All of you.”

His eyes darkened. Then he moved. Slowly at first. A careful retreat. A steady return. Your breath caught on the first stroke. Jack watched it happen. His mouth found yours before the sound could become something you tried to swallow.

He kissed you through the next one.

And the next. Each movement deeper than the last. Still slow. Still controlled. Still so full of feeling that it almost hurt to hold all of it in your body. You had thought wanting him fast would be easier. You had been wrong. Slow was devastating. It made you feel every inch. Every breath. Every place his body met yours.

It made it impossible to pretend this was only sex. 

Jack’s hand stayed on your thigh, holding you open for him, his thumb moving in small circles against your skin. His other forearm stayed braced beside your head, keeping him close enough that his mouth could return to yours whenever your breathing changed.

He kissed you constantly. Your lips. Your jaw. The corner of your mouth. Your cheek when your eyes burned again. Your throat when your head tipped back. Then your mouth again. Always your mouth again.

Like he needed to come back to you there.

Like kissing you was how he kept saying what neither of you had managed to say out loud. Your body softened around him. Jack felt it. His eyes lifted to yours.

“There,” he murmured.

The word broke something open in you. You pulled him down and kissed him before you could cry. Jack let you. He let the kiss go messy. Let your hands pull at his hair. Let your leg tighten around his hip. Let you take a little more because now you were not running from it.

You were asking.

And he gave it to you.  Still slow. Still deep. Still watching you like the sight of you taking him apart was taking him apart too.

Jack’s control did not snap all at once.

It thinned.

That was worse.

You felt it in the way his breathing roughened against your mouth. In the way his hand tightened on your thigh. In the way the careful drag of his body into yours became heavier, deeper, still measured but no longer untouched by need. He was trying to stay slow. You could feel him trying.

That did something to you too.

Your hands slid down his back, fingers pressing into warm skin, and Jack’s hips faltered for half a second. His forehead dropped to yours. A rough breath left him against your mouth. You held onto him tighter.

Jack’s eyes opened, and the look in them stole what little air you had left. Wrecked. Tender.

Trying.

Your leg tightened around his hip. Jack’s breath broke.

“There,” you whispered.

His eyes changed. You had not meant to say it. Not like that. Not his word. But it slipped out of you anyway, soft and ruined, and Jack looked at you like it had gone straight through him. For one second, he stopped moving. Completely. His chest rose against yours. His hand flexed at your thigh.

“What did you say?” Jack asked.

Your face went hot. Not with embarrassment. With something bigger. Something tender and terrifying and impossible to shove back into your chest now that it had found a way out.

You swallowed.

Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. Soft. Unyielding.

His thumb moved once over your thigh. Your breath caught. He was not teasing you. Not this time.

He wanted you with him.

All the way.

You stared up at him, your body still full of him, your heart too full of everything else, and the truth pressed so hard against your ribs that it hurt.

You whispered, “There you are.”

Jack’s expression changed. Slowly. Like the words had found some place in him he had not guarded carefully enough. His mouth parted. For once, he had nothing ready. No steady answer. No quiet correction. No careful command. Just Jack above you, inside you, looking at you like you had reached for him somewhere deeper than skin. Your chest cracked wide open.

“I wanted you to look at me too,” you whispered.

Jack’s eyes softened.

His hand left your thigh and came to your face.

“You have me,” he said.

The same words from before. Different now. Lower. Truer. Your eyes burned.

“I know,” you whispered.

Jack kissed you. Not hard. Not rushed. So careful it almost undid you worse than anything else. His hips moved again, one slow stroke that made both of you inhale against each other’s mouths.

Your fingers tightened at his shoulders. The feeling built differently this time. Not sudden. Not sharp. A slow gathering pressure that started low in your body and climbed until it filled your chest too.

Jack felt the change. His mouth moved to your cheek. Then your jaw. Then your throat. His hand returned to your thigh, hitching your leg higher, and the new angle made your breath break.

“Jack,” you gasped.

His hips stilled immediately. His eyes found yours. “Too much?”

You shook your head fast. “No.”

His gaze searched your face.

Your hands slid into his hair. “Don’t stop.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. That hit him. You saw it. The little fracture in his control. The way his eyes went darker. The way his body pressed deeper before he caught himself.

His mouth brushed yours. “Tell me what you need.”

You could have said faster. You could have said harder.

You almost did.

Then Jack moved again, slow and deep and devastatingly present, and the word that came out of you was not either of those.

“You,” you breathed.

Jack’s face softened so suddenly it hurt. Your throat tightened.

“You,” you said again. “I need you.”

Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.

His voice came out rough. “You have me.”

Your fingers curled in his hair. “I know.”

The next stroke made your eyes close.

Jack’s fingers found your chin. Gentle. Immediate.

You opened them again.

He was right there. Still watching. Still holding himself over you like he would rather break than look away from you now.

“That’s it,” Jack said.

Your breath came out broken. His hand moved between your bodies, thumb finding you again while he stayed buried deep inside you. Your whole body jolted.

Jack kissed the sound from your mouth. Slow. Deep. Relentless. You clung to him, overwhelmed by the fullness, by the pressure, by his mouth and his hand.

Your hips lifted into his touch.

Jack groaned.

The sound was low and wrecked, and this time he did not hide it against your shoulder. He let you hear it. 

Your eyes flew open.

His were already on you.

The sight of him like that, losing pieces of himself and still trying to take care of you, made the feeling in your chest spill over before you could stop it.

“I love you,” you whispered.

Jack went still.

Everything stopped. His hips. His hand. His breath. For one terrible second, you thought you had broken something.

Then Jack’s face changed. Not shock. Not fear. Something worse.

Wonder.

His hand came up to your cheek, and his thumb brushed beneath your eye before you realized a tear had slipped free.

“What?” Jack asked, barely above a breath.

Your throat tightened. You could have taken it back. You could have hidden behind the fact that he was still inside you, that this was exactly the kind of thing people could pretend was said because the moment was too much.

But Jack was looking at you.

And you were so tired of running. Your fingers loosened in his hair and slid to the side of his face.

“I love you,” you said again.

Jack’s eyes closed. Just for a second. Like he needed somewhere to put it. When he opened them, they were wet and dark and so soft that your chest hurt.

“Trouble,” he said.

Your chest shook. His thumb moved over your cheek.

“I love you too,” Jack said.

The words moved through you slowly.

Then all at once.

Your face crumpled, and Jack kissed you before you could turn away from it.

He kissed you like he had been waiting to say it and terrified he would scare you if he did.

He kissed you like the words had somewhere to go now. 

Into your mouth.

Into your skin.

Into the space between your bodies, where he was still so close that every breath made you feel him.

You whispered his name against his lips. Jack’s forehead touched yours.

“I love you,” he said again, quieter this time.

Your chest shook. His mouth brushed yours. Again. Again. Like he needed to keep saying it in every way he could.

Then his hips moved.

Slowly. Carefully. Like he was asking all over again.

Your breath caught. Your body answered before your words could.

Jack felt it. His eyes darkened.

“Still okay?” he asked.

You nodded, your hands sliding down his back. “Yes.”

His gaze held yours.

You swallowed. “I love you.”

Jack’s control broke a little more.

You felt it in the next stroke. Deeper. Not rough. Never careless. But less restrained. Less careful around the truth because there was no point pretending it was not there anymore.

Your leg tightened around his hip.

Jack’s hand pressed into the mattress beside your head, his other hand firm on your thigh, holding you open as he moved into you again.

And again.

Still watching you. Still kissing you whenever your breath broke. Still murmuring your name like it mattered to him.

Pleasure rose fast this time. Too fast. Your fingers dug into his shoulder.

“Jack,” you gasped.

“I know,” he said.

His mouth found yours. “I’ve got you.”

You shook beneath him, the words echoing through you.

I love you too.

I love you too.

I love you too.

It was too much.

It was perfect.

His thumb found you again, and your whole body tightened. Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.

“There,” he said, voice wrecked. “Come on, sweetheart.”

The endearment pushed you over. 

Your orgasm moved through you hard and slow, taking the breath from your lungs and the last of your control with it. Your back arched. Your leg tightened around his hip.

Jack kissed you through it, swallowing the broken sound of his name as you came around him. His rhythm faltered. His forehead dropped to yours.

You felt the restraint leave him in pieces.

A rough breath. A deeper stroke. His hand tightening on your thigh, then loosening, like he remembered himself even at the edge. 

You touched his face.

“Jack,” you whispered.

His eyes opened. You held him there.

“Stay with me,” you said.

The words did to him what his had done to you. You saw it. The break in his face. The surrender. His mouth found yours, and he came with a low, shaken sound against your lips, his body pressing deep into yours as he let go.

You held him through it.

Both arms around his shoulders.

One hand in his hair. The other at the back of his neck. Jack shook once above you, his breath rough and uneven, his forehead pressed to yours like he did not want even an inch of space.

For a while, neither of you moved.

Neither of you spoke.

There was only breath. Heat. Skin. The fading tremor in your body. The weight of him careful over you even now.

Then Jack shifted, just enough to keep from crushing you, but you tightened your arms before he could move too far. His head lifted. Your eyes met his.

Your voice came out small. “Not yet.”

Jack’s expression softened. He lowered himself again, careful and warm, and tucked his face into the side of your neck.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Your eyes closed.

His mouth brushed your skin. “I’m here.”

The words settled somewhere deep. Deeper than the heat. Deeper than the ache still fading through your body. You held onto him, one hand still buried in his hair, the other resting against the back of his neck, and for a long time, Jack let you.

He stayed exactly where you asked him to stay. Warm. Heavy. Careful. His breathing slowly evened out against your throat. Yours followed because his did. Because apparently your body had learned him that quickly.

Jack shifted after a while, just enough to look at you.

His face was softer than you had ever seen it. Not guarded. Not careful in that controlled way he wore around other people. Just Jack. Your Jack. The thought made your eyes burn again.

Jack saw it immediately.

His thumb brushed beneath your eye. “Hey.”

You shook your head once. “I’m okay.”

His mouth softened. This time, he believed you.

“Yeah?” Jack asked.

You nodded, your fingers sliding along the side of his neck. “Yeah.”

He kissed you once. Slow. Tender. Almost unbearably sweet. Then he moved carefully, easing himself away from you with a low breath, and your body missed him immediately.

The intimacy of it should have embarrassed you.

It did not.

Not with the way Jack stayed close, one hand still on your hip, his eyes on your face like he was making sure the leaving did not feel like leaving.

“I’ll be right back,” Jack said.

Your fingers tightened on him before you could stop them. He stilled. Your face warmed, but you did not let go. Not this time.

Jack’s gaze softened.

“Okay,” Jack whispered.

His thumb moved once over your hip. You looked at him. At the man who had carried your books, asked you to be his girlfriend, and looked at you like wanting you and loving you were not separate things anymore. Your chest ached.

Jack’s expression changed. Something tender passed over his face, quick and devastating. Then he leaned down and kissed your forehead. Your eyes closed. His mouth brushed your temple.

A breath left you.

Jack kissed your cheek. “I love you.”

Your fingers loosened around his wrist. He pulled away only after you let him. The room felt too quiet without his weight above you, but he was gone for less than a minute. Bathroom water ran. A drawer opened softly. Then Jack came back with a warm washcloth in one hand and the kind of quiet focus that made your heart hurt all over again.

“Still okay?” Jack asked.

You nodded. “Still okay.”

He sat beside you on the mattress and cleaned you up gently, one hand resting on your thigh, the other careful between your legs. Not clinical. Not detached. Tender.

Almost reverent.

Your face warmed anyway. Jack noticed, because Jack noticed everything.

His eyes lifted to yours. “What?”

You swallowed. “Nothing.”

His mouth curved faintly, but the amusement stayed soft.

This time, you let it stay small.

A little bit of you. A little bit of him. Enough to make the room feel survivable again.

Jack tossed the washcloth into your hamper, then eased into bed beside you and pulled the covers over both of you.

You turned into him immediately. No pretending. No careful distance. No waiting to see if he would reach first. You tucked yourself against his chest, and Jack’s arm came around you like it belonged there.

Like you belonged there.

His hand settled between your shoulder blades. Warm. Steady. Yours.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You listened to his heartbeat under your cheek. Slower now. Strong. Real. Your fingers traced a small, absent line over his chest.

Jack’s hand moved once over your back. “You thinking again?”

Your lips curved against his skin. “Maybe.”

His voice was low above you. “About?”

You tilted your face up. He was already looking down at you. Your heart gave one soft, helpless twist.

“You,” you said.

Jack’s eyes warmed. The corner of his mouth lifted, barely.

“Good,” he said.

You huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s all you have?”

His hand slid up your back, fingers brushing the nape of your neck.

“For now,” Jack said.

The old words landed differently this time. Not guarded. Not unfinished. A promise with room to grow. You smiled, small and tired and so full it almost hurt. Then your eyes dropped to the place where your hand rested over his heart.

“Jack?” you whispered.

His fingers paused at the back of your neck. “Yeah?”

Your throat tightened. You did not need to ask. You knew. But some small, bruised part of you still wanted to hear it.

“Stay?”

Jack’s arm tightened around you. Immediate. Certain. Like there had never been another answer.

“I’m staying,” he said.

Your eyes closed. The words sank through you slowly. Past fear. Past doubt. Past every morning that had ever felt uncertain. You pressed your face into his chest and breathed him in. Jack kissed the top of your head.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

Your body went soft against his. “I love you too,” you whispered.

His hand moved over your back again. Slow. Steady. There.

For once, you did not try to make it smaller. You did not call it casual. You did not reach for a joke fast enough to outrun the tenderness. You let him hold you. You let yourself be held.

And when the room went quiet around you, when Jack’s breathing evened beneath your cheek and his hand stayed warm on your back, morning did not feel like something waiting to take him from you.

It felt like something you would wake up inside together.

"Hold on."

You tear your lips from Andrew's, gasp for breath, then roll over in bed and reach for your bedside drawer. Opening it and fumbling inside it without seeing, you frown when you can't feel the telltale plastic wrapper of a condom.

"Fuck..." You get up on your elbows and scoot closer to the edge of the bed so you can see into the drawer. Andrew follows you, kissing your back and palming your ass cheeks.

"You're not helping, Andrew," you smile as you look for the one thing that you need to go further. He murmurs something unintelligible but looks up when you curse again.

"Wait, I think I have some in my purse."

You get ouf of bed, stark naked, and leave the bedroom in search for your purse, finding it on the couch in the living-room. Emptying it unceremoniously on the couch, you look over the contents and swear again. You go back to the bedroom and climb into bed.

"Bad news. I'm out of condoms."

Andrew stares at you for a split second before exhaling in frustration.

"Fuck."

"Tell me about it."

"I should've brought some but I didn't think..."

He showed up unannounced just as you were about to go to bed. Apologizing for the late hour and handing you a manila envelope with the rest of the money from the jewelry store job, he had nevertheless come in when you asked him to. You had been out a few times already and it had almost always ended with sex, but the last time hadn't, and you had been aching for it since then. It wasn't difficult to convince him to stay the night.

And now this.

"I didn't keep track, either." You could kick yourself. Your pussy is throbbing and you need it stretched out by that thick cock of his, but that's not happening now. You went to get tested together after only two dates (it was actually a pre-dinner activity that makes you laugh when you think about it) and both tests came back negative for everything, but you're not on birth control so condoms are still necessary. There is no need to mess around with Plan B or abortions. Both of you have been responsible enough to carry condoms, so the timing is really unfortunate for both of you.

Andrew sits up with a sigh.

"I can leave, if you want," he suggests in a low voice. "So you can get some sleep."

You frown at him. "Why would I want you to leave?"

"If we can't... have sex."

"Sex is more than just penetration," you remind him with a small grin, and his ears turn red. His eyes, however, are still fixed on you in a way which makes your face feel warm. You sit down next to him and put your hand on his knee.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you tell him in a low voice, and a small smile plays in the corner of his mouth before disappearing.

“Tell me… what you want,” he asks you. His eyes seem to darken as his tongue darts out to wet his lips nervously. “You want me to lick you?”

A shiver runs down your spine at the thought, but you have other plans.

“No,” you smile, “at least not yet. I want to suck your cock first.”

He actually swallows at that. Gently, you push him down on his back, laying down next to him and kissing him. His arms go around you, pulling you close, and you run your fingers through those charming curls of his. You take your time kissing him, knowing by now he likes it – you sometimes think this man could spend an entire night just kissing you – before you carefully disentangle your limbs from his, and start to kiss your way down his neck, nibbling at his Adam’s apple, sucking at his collarbone, playfully biting his nipple. You lick down his abs, smiling at him when your fingertips brushing down his side makes him twitch.

“Ticklish?”

“A little.” He seems a little huffy by this, but smiles shyly when you kiss his belly button. There is a delicate, almost imperceptible trail of light fuzz leading south, and now you follow it with your lips until you reach the rougher, dark coils of his pubic hair. You take a moment to settle more comfortably next to him before closing your fist around his girthy shaft. A surprised gasp escapes him, you see his abs tighten before they once again relax down into the bedding.

“Just relax,” you tell him softly before bending down to kiss the head of his cock. He sighs deeply and you take it as an invitation to go on. You start to lick him, trailing your tongue up and down the veins of his cock before closing your lips around the head. Andrew hums, and when you glance up at him you see his eyes are closed. His handsome features are almost wiped clean of his usual scowl, of which only a line between his brows remains. His hand finds your shoulder and strokes his, then runs up your neck to your head, cupping the back of it, fingers playing with your hair. You smile to yourself at how easily he surrendered himself to you, and decide to knock it up a notch.

You take as much of him as you can in your mouth, and start to bob your head. Andrew groans and his hand trembles on your scalp, like he doesn’t know whether to pull you away och push you down. You cup his balls and massage them gently, and when he starts to tremble you place your other arm over his hips to keep him still.

He throws his head back, gasps your name between shallow breaths, and it doesn’t take long before he cums in short spurts into your mouth. You swallow quickly and go on, despite his whimpers, your elbow pressing down harder to hold him still. His head shoots up from the bed and he stares at you with equal amounts shock and awe.

“What are you doing?” he whines, and you let go with a wet pop, a string of saliva connecting your lips to the red head of his throbbing member.

“You can do another one, right?” you ask sweetly, pumping him slowly. His lower lip quivers before he surrenders with a moan, head plopping back to the sheets, hands running over his face and through his hair. You grin victoriously and go back to sucking him, this time focusing on the head with your hand helping out. Your pussy is dripping at this point, ready for him, but you rework that hunger into the act of giving. Keeping an eye on him, you relish in having him completely at your mercy like this, and you wonder briefly if any woman has ever had him so defenseless. He’s not just naked in all of his muscled glory; he’s utterly exposed, submitted, raw.

Is it power that makes you feel so exhilarated, or is it the knowledge that this man, with his fearsome reputation and tough outer shell, can still surrender himself like this? Be soft and vulnerable with someone?

You don’t know, and this is not the time to further contemplate on that. You double down on your efforts to make this unforgettable for him, and notice with satisfaction that his hands are fisting into the sheets. When he gets close, he grabs your wrist like he wants to pull you away, but he keeps you there, instead holding you so hard you know you’ll have a bruise tomorrow. Saliva and precum are dripping down your chin but you let it, focusing instead on taking him deeper and deeper. You can’t take him down your throat but you’re pretty good at controlling your gag reflex, and even if it’s difficult with a cock as thick as this, you do pretty well because you can see his abs flexing and feel his strong thighs work underneath you. He’s moaning quite loudly now and when grab his balls again, he shouts out and your mouth fills with cum so fast that you start coughing. You use your fingers to rub the tears from your eyes, then the back of your hand to wipe your mouth. You stretch out next to him, your face at the level of Andrew’s. He’s staring up at the ceiling, panting wildly, and when you cup his cheek and turn his face to his, he flinches. His eyes are wide open and glazed over.

“One more, right?” you query softly, feeling a little sadistic but also more determined at ever to rock his world.

“What?” His voice is small and alarmed.

“You can do one more, can’t you, Andrew?”

“I… no, I don’t think… one more?”

You pass your thumb over his lips. “One more.”

He looks almost scared, so you press a kiss to his lips.

“If you don’t want me to, I’ll stop. But if you want me to, I’ll suck your dick once more.”

He swallows audibly and you hear from the sound that his mouth is dry. Then he nods.

“Say it, baby.”

“One more.” It’s only a whisper, but it’s laced with a quiet confidence, and you kiss him once more before returning to your work.

“You can push my head down if you want to,” you tell him.

“Won’t you choke?”

“I won’t choke,” you promise him before taking his cock into your mouth once more. Your tongue and jaw muscles are starting to feel strained but you power on through, parrying his jutting hips and twitching legs. He’s only now starting to verbalize his pleasure, cursing under his breath between the moans and groans. His feet strain against the sheets and he once again finds fistfuls of bedding to hold on to. You employ every trick in your book – not that they are that many – and ignore the ache beginning to present in your lower jaw. Your throat starts to feel strained but you still take him as deep as you can, humming low when he releases one hand from the bedding to hold your head still. Your eyes tear up again but you focus on your breathing and let him hold you there.

“God, baby…” Andrew is almost sobbing. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

He releases you to let his cock slide out of your mouth. You take a couple of deep breaths, enjoy his hand petting your hair, and then you start to pump his cock again, bending down to lick it. You reach up to tweak a nipple and Andrew’s entire body squirms. Oh, so you like that? You do it again, switching nipples, and are rewarded by a whine. His fist is almost as white as the sheet and the hand on your head pushes you down again, forcing you to take more and more of his length in your mouth. Only when you push back does he ease up on you, but when you start to bob your head down and up he can’t keep up anymore, releasing your head to instead hold onto whatever part of you he can. His chest is heaving with every breath he barely manages to draw, and his stomach is sucked in with the intensity of it, each abdominal muscle tightly drawn. You glance up and see that his head is thrown back, neck muscles stretched taut as he pants. You pinch a nipple and squeeze his balls, and when you taste the first bitterness of semen, you pull your hand back from his chest, curl your pointer finger and thumb around the base of his cock, and squeeze carefully. Andrew’s reaction is immediate: he shakes underneath you as you milk him dry, swallowing every drop, and when you finally release his cock he’s still trembling.

You lay down next to him and pepper his shoulder with kisses. He doesn’t know but you aim for a freckle each time, wishing you could kiss him for each little dot he has on his body. You then let him catch his breath before you speak.

“You okay?”

He swallows tightly.

“Y-yeah. Yeah. Yes.”

You smile and caress his cheek, gently making him turn his face towards you. He looks stunned, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. You don’t think you’ve ever seen a man look at you like this.

“Told you there were more ways of having sex than penetration,” you chuckle. Andrew grins, showing his crooked front teeth that you so rarely get to see. It makes him look even more boyish. Normal.

“What about… you?” he asks carefully.

“Oh, I fully expect you to reciprocate, as soon as you’re up for it,” you let him know with a complacent sigh as you roll over onto your back and put your hands behind your head.

“I don’t know if I can do as well,” he mumbles hesitantly, but you find his hand on the mattress and pat it reassuringly.

“You’ll do great no matter what.”

You give him time to rest even though your pussy is throbbing by now. To his credit, he doesn’t need as much time as you had feared. When he rolls onto his side and kisses your cheek, his hand immediately slides down between your thighs. He exhales hotly against your cheek when he draws a finger through your wet folds.

“You’re very wet.”

“I am,” you acknowledge with your lower lip caught between your teeth. “Want you badly, Andrew.”

“Tell me what to do.” His lips are on your neck, the raspy stubble on his upper lip making chills run down your spine and the hairs on your arms stand.

“You ever made a woman squirt?” you ask. He stops his ministrations and raises his head to look at you.

“No.”

“You want to try?”

“Isn’t that… very messy?” He looks reluctant, and you choose your words carefully.

“It doesn’t have to be. I can get a towel. And it’s not always like it is in porn, if that’s what you think.”

“No?” He seems to realize that he’s been had, and averts his gaze with a sheepish smile.

“Hey.” You run your fingers through his hair, ending with a fond tug. “Girls watch porn, too.”

“Whatever for?” He seems genuinely surprised, and you laugh.

“To get off, of course!”

He doesn’t seem to know what to say, propping his head on his hand, elbow bent on the mattress, so you go on:

“I don’t squirt like a fucking lawn sprinkler. It’s more like a… a gush. But if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine.”

His eyes narrow slightly and his lips purse as he regards you. You notice that his forefinger and thumb tapping against each other, and you give him a reassuring smile. Eventually, he nods.

“I want to try.”

Your pussy clenches, and you lean in for a kiss. Andrew greedily pushes his tongue into your mouth, pauses when he tastes his own cum before sucking your tongue into his mouth and placing his hand on the back of your hand to bring you closer. You have to tear your mouth from his to be able to remind him of the towel.

“Just lemme get it…”

“No.” He puts his strong arm over your upper body. “I don’t care. You’re not leaving this bed.”

You look at him in amazement before he kisses you again, and then he gives you the same treatment as you did earlier: kisses his way down your body, biting your nipples, licking your tummy, kissing your navel, before arriving between your thighs. You separate your legs and he licks his lips when he sees you open up before him. He takes a first, tentative taste of you, tongue dipping inside you before running from your slick hole to your throbbing clit, and you hum from pleasure.

“Tell me what to do?” His breath is warm against your skin and you need a second to answer. You get up on your elbows hold up your hand, first and second fingers together and slightly crooked.

“Do this with your fingers, and put them inside me. A little bit in, on the front, there’s a slightly spongy texture. Keep rubbing that while you lick me, and it should be a piece of cake.”

Andrew looks at your fingers doubtfully, and you give him an encouraging smile.

“Here, let me help you. Right hand?”

He nods, and you reach for his hand on your thigh, crooking his fingers into the right position and bringing them to your pussy. He tries to cram them in immediately but you hiss and grab his wrist.

“Gently.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, letting you slide his fingers through your folds before pushing them against your dripping hole. You moan when they glide in easy, and you lay back down.

“Now lick me, baby.”

His tongue is on your clit as he carefully pushes his fingers deeper, and you hum approvingly.

“Like that, yeah…” You move your pelvis, meet his fingers and moan when he finds the right spot.

“There, right there, stay on there!”

He juts at the spot, forcefully, and you hiss again.

“Gently, baby, like this.” You show the movement with your own fingers and he mimics it, and you melt against the bedding.

“Oh my God…!”

He stays on your G-spot, working it with purpose while his tongue swirls on your clit, and you guide him with moaned praise and the occasional instruction that he follows closely. You find that having to tell him what to do and him actually doing it is surprisingly sexy: you had anticipated that it would take focus away from your pleasure. But it feels good and you attribute it to the man more than anything else: being with Andrew just makes you feel good in every way.

“Getting close,” you pant when you start to feel the pleasure gathering, the pressure rising. “Don’t stop, Andrew, don’t stop!”

You let your head fall back against the sheets as you hand yourself over to the sensations and Andrew’s gaining skill. The moment right before the fall is the most intimidating: the intense pressure makes you feel like you’re going to piss yourself, and you’re afraid you’re going to break if you tip over the ledge. As a younger woman you’d make your lovers stop at this point. But now you let go and embrace the dizzying high and the fierce fall when hot liquid floods your trembling upper inner thighs. Andrew pulls out his fingers and when you open your eyes to look at him, you see him staring at your pussy in fascination. You want to tell him that he did well but you can only giggle, and he looks up at you with a frown between his eyebrows.

“’s good,” you manage to pant, “’s good, baby.”

He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, looking a little unsure about what to do next. You want to ask him if he’s okay because you have a feeling he could be put off by the mess, but before you have regained control of your tongue he dives back down, sucking your clit between his lips. You wail in surprise and over-stimulation, your legs shake and your hips start to writhe. Andrew slips his arms underneath and around your thighs, his hands meeting and locking on your lower belly. You’re trapped with him ruthlessly sucking your clit and you just have to take it. You try to tell him that you can’t, but you can’t form words and besides, you want it, you want him to take control and force another orgasm out of you, you want him to turn you into jelly. So you beat the back of your head against the mattress, pull his hair, and surrender to him. When your second orgasm approaches and you start to thrust again, Andrew growls before the muscles of his arms flex so hard that the veins protrude through the skin and he drags you over onto your side. You keen as you bend over, curled up with his head in your arms, his arms still locking you against him even as you shake and cry out your climax. Only when you manage to stammer stop does he let go of you, panting and wild-eyed.

You roll over onto your back and try to steady your breathing between the involuntary giggles. Andrew sits up slowly and regards you curiously.

“One more?”

“No!” you almost yell, and his eyes narrow although a smile plays on his lips.

“No?”

“I can’t… Jesus fucking Christ, Andrew, I can’t.”

“I could.”

“I’m not as tough as you,” you sigh as you rub your face, your fingers continuing through your hair. “That was… that was intense.”

He lays down next to you and wipes at his chin, and you turn your head towards him.

“Was it very messy?”

“A little. But it was hot.”

“Yeah?” you smile. “You liked it?”

He nods, and you lift your head a little to signal that you want a kiss. He obediently dips down and presses his lips to yours, and you get to taste the salty moss of yourself.

“Mmm,” you hum and lick your lips.

“You sure two is enough?” Andrew looks almost concerned but you sense there’s a good-natured taunt hidden in his question.

“Definitely, when the first one was a squirt,” you let him know, now getting aware of how the wet of your thighs is cooling down.

“Is that different?”

“For me it is.”

He seems happy with that, and rolls over onto his back with a satisfied sigh. You let yourself rest for a while before you start to feel uncomfortable: both the sheets and you are wet.

“I gotta clean myself up, and change the sheets,” you let him know. “Are you staying the night?”

He hesitates, biting his lip as he stares at the ceiling. You guess he has business to attend to, if not already tonight then probably tomorrow morning.

“I have work tomorrow so I need to sleep, but I don’t mind if you stay,” you add, and he turns his head to look at you. The warm light from the bedside lamp reflects in his dark eyes.

“I’d like to stay.”

You smile at him. “Okay. I’ll grab a quick shower, then you can have one while I change the sheets?”

He nods, and you get up, a little wobbly on your feet at first but then finding your footing and making your way to the bathroom. You shower quickly and when you come back, Andrew has stripped the bed and is folding his clothes neatly. You stop and stare at him for a moment: his broad, strong back, those butt cheeks that almost make you blush despite never having cared about a man’s ass before, strong legs, arms that could crush you if he wanted to.

And yet, he touches you so softly when you thank him for helping out with the bed.

“I didn’t want to open your cupboards and dig through them for sheets,” he says, like he owns you an explanation for not having finished the job. You smile warmly and press a kiss to his lips.

the messages overlay the porn playing on your phone screen one by one.

you don't pause the video right away - let yourself stay in the little bubble of horny you're trying to build. the bathwater is going lukewarm around you, but your skin feels warmer now from the small spark of anticipation that's beginning to grow in your stomach.

you can't help but feel a small twinge of grief that six months ago this same activity would have had you throwing yourself at simon - that six months ago you didn't even need to prepare to have sex with your husband. that it felt like the most natural thing in the world, not something you had to manufacture.

but then you remember his words "yer smilin' more. s'nice." and the grief fades, replaced with a pang of fondness so strong it almost hurts.

you let your eyes focus on the video again, letting the sounds of soft moans and the wet noise of skin on skin filter through your headphones; try and remember that the joy you see on the amateur couple's can be yours too.

you pause the video, typing back a quick message.

just getting out. haven't changed my mind. x

you dry off quickly, clean your teeth, slip into one of simon's old t-shirts; the black colour long faded to grey, band logo once printed on it lost to the passage of time. there's a hole in the hem and it's stretched out around the collar.

but it makes you feel safe, and that's what you need right now. not lace bodysuits and stockings. by the time you've padded into the bedroom you can hear the shower running - see that today's clothes didn't even make it to the washing basket in the bedroom, instead left in the one downstairs.

you wrinkle your nose - you know that means you're probably going to need to get the stain remover out later. but you appreciate that simon hasn't brought the smell of whatever it is up into your room. you light a few candles as you hear the shower switch off, pull the curtains and turn off the big light; leaving the room in a soft glow of the candles and bedside lamp.

little things you've learned make you feel more relaxed.

you're just settling on the edge of the bed as the en suite door opens - knees tucked up under your chin, heart beating a little faster than normal. simon appears, towel slung low on his hips, water still dripping down from his blonde hair and onto the scarred plain of his chest. his eyes find yours immediately, soft in the way they only ever are when he's looking at you.

"hi." you say softly, lips pricking up at the corners as you look at him.

fuck. it really does help the situation that he looks like that.

he crosses the room in two strides, one hand reaching to cup the back of your head as he leans down to kiss you - soft, slow; the kind of kiss that's a hello and isn't an expectation. his hand strokes up your bare thigh slowly; fingers pausing at the hem of your - his - t-shirt, stopping short of pushing it any higher. "hey dove," he replies softly. "missed this smile."

your smile. that's what he missed about this situation. that specific, soft, wanting smile that you only ever give him when you're about to get him in bed.

and it's that that has you pulling him down on top of you.

your t-shirt gets pulled off with careful hands; his towel lost somewhere to the floor. he ends up hovering over you, pressing kisses down your jaw, your throat, takes his time. his thumbs stroke an almost soothing pattern across your ribs as his lips trail lower - but when he reaches your stomach he pauses.

"tell me somethin'." he murmurs, "what were you watchin' in the bath?"

your face heats immediately, throat drying out as you stare down at him with an expression of absolute horror.

he just hooks your legs over his shoulders, presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh, looks up at you expectantly.

"just… soft stuff." you manage to murmur back. "couple in their bed. they… they looked like they were enjoying it. not… faking it."

he presses a kiss higher up your thigh, then another, before his breath is ghosting over your core. his tongue traces a slow line from slit to clit; gentle, soft, curling through soft heat like he's not in any kind of rush.

your hips twitch.

simon hums against you, an almost approving noise; like he's proud you actually answered. "yeah? what were they doin'?" he flicks his tongue against you again - more targeted this time. you gasp slightly as he settles in, one arm slung across your hips, fingers tracing over skin. every motion he makes is purposeful - circling your clit, dropping down down to dip inside you, tracing every inch of you with his tongue in lazy strokes.

your fingers thread through his still damp hair, nails scratching over his scalp in the way you know he likes. "they were taking it slow." you breathe. "she was on her back like this. he kept… talking to her. telling her how good she felt."

"slow." simon repeats, "like this?" his lips wrap around your clit, sucking gently before soothing it with broader strokes. your fingers tighten in his hair enough that he groans - all enjoyment and no pain. "you liked hearin' how much he wanted 'er?"

"yes-" the word breaks into a low moan as he slides two fingers inside of you, curling them perfectly against the spot he knows so well; mouth still focussed on your clit. "fuck, si…"

he doesn't speed up. just keeps a steady, slow rhythm - eyes flicking up to watch your face. he pulls away enough to murmur gently, "i want you dove - all the fuckin' time. everything you do is so fuckin' sexy i feel like i'm goin' insane." a soft kiss to your clit, "'m sorry if i stopped tellin' you." another kiss, "jus'… don't want you to ever feel like you 'ave to jus' cause i'd live inside you if i could."

your eyes burn, hands dropping to brush your thumbs over his cheekbones. "i know si. i promise."

he nods once, satisfied that you're not lying to make him feel better by the wet shine in your eyes. he drags the flat of his tongue over your clit again. "was she makin' the same little sounds you make? the ones that make me fuckin' melt?"

you nod, hips rolling under his mouth; the combination of his mouth and hands and the gentle questioning pulling you under. the porn in the bath feels distant now - a distant second to the real thing: simon riley between your legs, focused solely on you, coaxing your body to the edge with nothing but patience.

when you come its with a soft, shuddering cry - the same noise he loves so much - pleasure rolling through you in warm waves as simon works you through it. he waits until your fingers are limp in his hair before pulling back entirely, then kisses his way beck up your body until he's braced over you again, propped on one elbow so he doesn't squish you under his bulk.

"still good?" he murmurs. his cock is hot and hard against your thigh; twitching against you as he presses a kiss against your neck - but he doesn't push forward, doesn't press. just rests his forehead against yours.

“yeah,” you whisper, reaching between you to stroke him gently. “i want you, si. want this.”

he kisses you again, tasting like you, and lines himself up. he presses in -slow, perfect - eyes locked on yours the whole time. your fingers trace the scars on his jaw, eyes widening as he bottoms out; filling you in a way that's so achingly familiar now. he pulls back, pushes in again; soft, shallow rolls of his hips.

you brush your nose against his. "you don't have to be so careful with me, si."

"i want to." he replies simply. "been thinkin' about this since you brought it up. about makin' you feel good."

you, not him.

you thighs slide to wrap around his waist on the next thrust, taking hip deeper just by the nature of the position and he groans - a wrecked noise that carves itself into your memory.

"this alrigh'?" he murmurs against your neck, hips snapping just a little harder; thumb sliding into the space between your bodies to rub gentle patterns against your clit.

you nod, jaw going slack as you feel heat flood your stomach again. "yeah. s'perfect." you manage to murmur back.

he presses a kiss against the corner of your mouth, keeping up that same steady rhythm. "i love you. i love you when you're happy, an' i love you when you're sad. i love you when you're horny and climbin' me like a tree an' when all you want t' do is watch greys anatomy on repeat an' eat little moons. nothin', fuckin nothin', matters to me as much as you do."

you bury your face in his neck, cheeks hot, eyes burning, "i love you too."

your second orgasm is like sinking into warm water; nerves lighting up hot one by one, teeth sinking into the curve of his his shoulder with a whimper of his name. he follows immediately after, the pulse of your cunt around him dragging him over the edge, face buried in your hair as he breathes you in.

he doesn't pull out right away - just holds you, fingers stroking over sweat damp skin, pressing lazy kisses to your temple.

"still smilin' down there?" he murmurs softly.

you huff out a soft laugh, body and brain soft with satisfaction. "yeah, si. still smilin'."

"good." he kisses the top of your head. "that's all i need, dove."

This thing between the two of you is pretty new, only a couple of months old, and John’s managed to get his hands on you a few times. His hand on your thigh while driving, your feet in his lap while watching a movie with his lazy hands on your ankles, his nose pressed to the top of your head while you slept.

He can count on two hands the number of times you’ve let him kiss you longer than a soft press of his lips to yours. He’s tasted your chapstick, knows the taste of your spit mixed with his. 

He’d finally taken you out on a real date. A nice dinner, a bouquet of flowers that you’ve placed in one of your nicest glasses in the kitchen, and a whole evening of John charming the breath out of you. He had driven you home and not even bothered to hide his glee at being invited in. 

“I had a really good time,” you’d admitted, looking down at your shoes. John’s heart has been trying to crawl out of his throat since he came to pick you up. Delicate black shoes, a pair of tights that is hiding a hole in the upper thigh under a pretty red dress the same colour of the blood he’s drawing from biting his tongue all night. 

John had an index finger curled around your middle finger, and he had used it to tug you closer to himself, and this time you let him. Letting him pull you into his lap on your soft couch, halfway through airily suggesting that he find something for you two to watch when he kissed you. 

He keeps you there for almost twenty minutes, pulling those pretty flats off and makes himself dizzy by peeling those ripped tights off your legs. You’re smiley, kissing him back, threading your fingers through his hair with the utmost care and softness. “I had such a good time, baby,” he kisses the fat of your cheek, feeling the way they warm under his touch. “Loved seeing you, look so pretty.” His hand had gone slowly from the back of your knee, up, up, and up, until it was past the hem of your skirt. 

He was being so slow, knowing you’re kind of jumpy and not wanting anything to happen without you having the opportunity to stop him. Hands grabbing at your thighs wherever they could reach, committing every one of your pleased noises to memory. 

You’d pulled away, sounding breathless and looking kissed. “Do you want something to drink? I have tea?”

He had laughed, fully and utterly endeared. “Sure, baby.”

John hadn’t quite thought it through, just wanting to agree with you, feeling his nose against the flat of your jaw. You’d climbed off his lap at that, legs shaky, still giggly, and pranced off to your kitchen, leaving him spread on the couch feeling a little embarrassed and a lot turned on. 

He wants to say he doesn’t care that the two of you haven’t hooked up, but care doesn’t quite feel right. Mind seems too indifferent. It doesn’t bother him, he’d wait forever if he had to. Even if he didn’t have to and you’d just prefer it. A quiet life of the two of you, cohabitating an apartment where he gets to look at you every day. He won’t say he hasn’t thought about it though. Hasn’t collapsed into bed after a twelve hour shift and had his thoughts drift with his hands following suit. 

You’re not quite his girlfriend, but the two of you have been seeing each other for enough time that he doesn’t feel like it’s creepy that he thinks of you that way. As it stands, it’s only on occasion. If it got any further it might be a little creepy. It depends on what you think. The idea of asking you brings a sickly burn to his face - hey, baby, you don’t mind if I touch myself while thinking of you, do you? Don’t worry, it’s only like, half the time. That’s probably worse than if it was every time. 

Fuck, you look pretty. With your dress he can see your upper thighs and your entire upper chest, the top coming to rest just high enough to protect your decency. You kept pulling it up over dinner because you would lean down over your plate and accidentally give him an eyeful. He charitably pretended not to notice. You always look pretty, even when you’re not showing skin. He likes you with your lovely dress, he likes you in the chunky sweater you’d been wearing the first time he met you, he likes you that time he’d accidentally come into your bedroom while you were changing and gotten a glimpse of you pulling your skirt up.

What he had liked even more, though, was the embarrassed smile that had stretched up your face and the quiver of your voice as you’d told him to turn around. 

You’re taking a very long time, turned away from him and fussing with a mug, and he wants to go over to see you. It’s practically been a billion years since he got to see your face. 

“Baby,” he groans, leaning down so the back of his neck is curved with the arm of your sofa.”Where’d you go?”

You cough, startled. “You wanted tea?” Not that bad. 

“You growing the tea leaves over there?” He lilts, voice honeyed and lazy. “I’m forgetting what you look like.”

There’s some twinkling of metal on ceramics, and soon the pad of your feet. You have a mug of tea, slightly misshapen, cream coloured with fruit painted on, and you offer it to him bashfully. “Still like me?”

He takes the mug and puts it down on the floor, hands enveloping yours. “Hmm,” he pretends to think. “Need a closer look,” he presses another kiss to the side of your mouth. “The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Can’t believe you kept me from seeing this for a whole nineteen minutes. Some new kind of torture.” His lips quirk up at the side.

You look down, embarrassed under his intense gaze as he pulls you into his lap again. 

“You couldn’t be a doctor, pretty girl,”’ he says, not unkindly but with a formality that leaves little room to argue. “First rule is do no harm,” he presses a distracted kiss to your temple. “And you’re fucking killing me.” He can feel the plush of your thighs under the pads of his fingers. 

You stutter a laugh and he can feel it against his face. “I’m killing you?”

He looks at you gravely. “To death.”

You giggle and he’s hit right in the gut with a yearning that makes him feel like a high schooler. John feels like his breathing has synced with yours, the two of you drawn together instinctively as he kisses you again. He swallows you sighs, touches your legs, and tries to avoid thinking about the twitchiness of his hardening cock. You accidentally get too close to it and he lets out a deep groan. “Still killing me,” he mutters, not bothering to pull back fully. 

You make a slicing motion across his neck with an index fingernail, teasing. “Don’t think I can stop,” you admit. “You seem kinda weak spirited.”

John laughs, ducking his head to get his mouth on whatever part of your hand is still at his neck, settling on kissing the side of your finger. “Me? Weak spirited?” He laughs. “What gives, babe?”

That makes you smile and he regrets not trying to nip at you, he might have gotten a full laugh. He decides to rectify that, taking his hands and digging his fingers into your sides. He gets something that’s a cross between offense, glee and bewilderment. In your surprise, he bolts up and overshoots, shooting forward to push you on your back. “Woah, officer.” He has each of your wrists in his hands and you squirm under him. “Give a girl some warning.”

“Is that really the path you want to go down?” He kisses you again, perfectly content to keep you smiling up at him, “You want to be a bad girl?” His tone is stilted and awkward, and you’re completely endeared. John’s a flirt, but he doesn’t usually like them as much as he likes you. 

“This is a wrongful arrest,” you insist. “You can check my record, it’s clean.”

He kisses you and you make a happy noise that sends blood straight to the tips of his ears and the pull of his groin. 

John’s grip on you tightens without him meaning it to. He’s trying so hard to keep this light, innocent, plausibly deniable, but you’re looking up at him with those pretty eyes and he can feel his self-control crumbling faster than the arms trying to hold him above you. 

“That’s cute,” he says against your skin. “My girl’s never been arrested before.” His hips shift almost involuntarily against yours, and he knows you can feel he’s half-hard just from kissing you. He doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed, not when he’s trying so hard to behave. The little sigh you let out at the feeling doesn’t help his case. 

“John,” you say his name just to say it, blinking up at him like one time your eyes will open and he’ll be gone. He makes a bit of a face. 

“No one I know really calls me John,” he admits. “Most of the other doctors call me Carter.”

His lips are down at your neck by this point, and he can feel the vibrations of each breath you take. He shoves down the feelings of wanting to swallow them,

“Do you want me to call you Carter?”

He shakes his head, nose brushing your jaw. “No, baby. I like hearing it from you.” You duck your head to try and catch his mouth once he reaches your collarbone and he lets you if only to keep you comfortable.

“Want me to stop?” He asks gently. He pulls back enough to look at your eyes. “Pretty girl, gotta tell me what you want.”

You’re breathless against him. “Want you,” you admit. 

A noise barrels its way from his mouth and dilutes itself against your skin. You’re driving him insane, you’re going to be the fucking death of him. How is he meant to function after you say shit like that?

“Yeah?” he rasps, voice already wrecked. His hips are staying decidedly still, but the way your body arches under him isn’t helping. “You want me?” He swallows against you, mouth suddenly bone dry. 

He lets your hands go, one hand coming to clutch the arm of the sofa behind your head, the other travelling down to rest on the outside of your thigh, teasing the hem of your dress. “What part of me does my girl want, hey?”

He knows, can feel the heat between your legs, wants to push his knee between your thighs and finally feel you. 

“Your fingers…”

Oh, God, you’re going to be his undoing. 

“Yeah, sweet girl?” He’s out of breath and he hasn’t even gotten under your dress yet. He pushes his lips to yours and slides off his position above you, now kneeling at your side. Completely and wholly devoted. “You can have my fingers. Can have anything you want, baby, you just gotta tell me.”

His hands push the skirt of your dress up, bunching it around your waist. His name tumbles from your lips and he feels his cock twitch at the sound. Your upper thighs are printed on the back of his eyelids, he’s never been so hard in his entire fucking life, and if he’s not careful he’s going to admit he loves you. 

“John,” you whimper at the feeling of him rubbing circles into your thighs. “Don’t tease me.”

He plants a kiss to the side of your knee, reaching a hand up to let you thread your fingers through his. His thumb brushes a line up your panties, and he can feel how wet you are already. 

“Fuck, baby,” now he’s started he can’t stop. “All this just for me? You’re so fucking wet.” His thumb finds your clit through your panties and you keen, throwing your head back, already so worked up. His shy girl, out of breath, begging him to make her cum.

“Please,” your voice is uneven. “Don’t- please touch me.”

He can smell you through the saturated fabric and when he slips his hand underneath through the side, pressing his thumb into your folds he groans like he’s the one getting groped under the clothes. 

“Fuck, look at you,” he can’t even get a good view of your pussy with your underwear and his hand in the way, but it’s enough to have him rock fucking hard. “So pretty, all spread out for me? Is this for me?” He knows it is, but he needs to hear you say it. 

Needs to hear you tell him he’s got you dizzy and touched and desperate while his hands is in yours. He knows it, wants to hear you gasp it out. 

“Uh huh,” you nod, eyes clamped shut, vaguely embarrassed at the fact you can’t articulate your feelings. “Just for you.”

He’s rutting against the sofa on his knees on pure instinct, too focused on you to even register. His nose gets up in there to join his fingers, and he’s sure he’s squeezing the life out of your hand. “Fuck, smell so good.” He licks a stripe up your panties and almost cums at the sound that pulls from you.

“Can I take these off?” He looks up at you, eyes wet, one thumb running over your knuckles and the other absently toying with your clit. “Please?”

“Yeah, Johnny,” you breathe. “Yeah, you can take ‘em off.” He lifts your hips enough to tug them down - heart constricting at how pretty they are; pink and lacy and (potentially?) just for your date tonight. They go straight into his back pocket, and he’s distracted briefly at the idea you might forget to ask for them back. 

He doesn’t waste time after that, his face finding purchase at your core as soon as he’s able to. He groans into your pussy at the taste, licking from your hole to your clit. He can vaguely hear you moaning above him, can feel the friction of his cock against the inside of his pants, your nails digging into the back of his hand, but that all falls at the wayside behind the punch-sweet slick coating his chin. 

You can’t recall ever being touched like this, one hand clutching his so tight his knuckles are turning white, the other stroking his hair as softly as you can bear to. “Oh, that’s so nice, can you- oh, just a little up.” He lets you give him direction until an almost violent moan rips itself from your chest and you finally take a good grip on his hair. 

“There?” You can barely hear him because he doesn’t bother to detach himself from your cunt. 

“Uh, huh,” you nod, blissed-out and dazed, hips twitching at the vibration of his voice against your clit. 

John’s eaten pussy before, would consider himself quite good at it, but the way you’re bucking up to meet him, the fluttering of your walls around him, the god-fuckin’-have-him sweetness on his tongue has made every coherent thought fly out the window. “Can I use my fingers, baby?” He gasps out, coming back up for air. “Please? Wanna feel you, wanna feel you so bad I bet you’re so tight, aren’t you, pretty?”

“Yeah, Johnny.” No one calls him John and even fewer have ever called him Johnny. “Please, want your fingers.”

His brain is completely fried as he slips two fingers inside your pulsing hole and feeling the way you completely suck him in. He’s about five seconds from ruining your very nice couch when you clench down on him with an agonising moan.

His fingers are moving so slowly it’s almost torturous, brushing that sweet spot deep inside you that you’ve never been able to reach with your own fingers. John laps at your clit, flat, broad strokes over the swollen nerves as he pushes in deeper with his fingers. 

“So fucking tight,” he groans, barely even talking to you anymore. He feels something drip down his neck and the only thought that goes through his head is a mournful what a waste. All rational thought is gone, he can’t even remember his own name when you’re not crying it, and he doesn’t care to. 

He takes his mouth off your clit - dutifully replacing it with the thumb of the hand that’s inside you - to bring his mouth under his hand. John maneuvers himself so he can lap the drops of your essence where his fingers are fucking you deep enough to make tears prickle at the corners of both your eyes and his. 

John can feel you clenching, so tight he can’t imagine having feeling in the tips of his fingers much longer, and he groans again, pressing his nose to your inner thigh. “You close, baby?” He asks, mouth full. You nod at him, pretty makeup smudged around your eyes, pupils blown and looking somehow impossibly prettier than he’s ever seen you. He’s going to marry you. You’re not even his girlfriend yet. “Gonna make my girl come,” he slurs against your slick.

You make a strangled noise like you can’t breathe, the hand not in his is clenching your skirt so you can see his face. John would let his fingers fall off if it meant you kept panting his name the way you are and getting to feel you grip him the way you are on both of his hands. 

“Can you come for me, sweet girl?” he coaxes, curling his fingers again and moving his mouth back up to wrap his lips around your clit.

“Fuck!” Your hand grips his hair so hard he cries out against your core. “John- Oh!”

He shoves his fingers in further, trying to get as deep as he can to push an orgasm out of you. “There we go, fuck, you look so pretty- taste so good. Need you to come, can you come for me? Please - God - need you to come for me. Please, baby. Fucking- fuck- love-”

You come hard around him, gushing around his fingers with a cry of his name. John’s pressing open mouthed kisses to your core, absolutely no finesse or rhythm, just trying to get as much of you in his mouth as he can. 

“Oh, thank you baby,” he squeezes your hand, trying to stop his eyes from clamping shut so he can see the shine of your lips as your jaw forms the O of his name. 

You jerk, pressing the back of your heel into his back, scrambling to find something to hold in your spare hand that’s gone back and forth between your skirt and his hair, settling on pulling his hair which makes him whine into your thigh. 

You lay them for a moment, still in a daze as you come down from your orgasm, getting hit with an aftershock as he pulls his fingers out of you and presses them right against his tongue. 

John can vaguely feel his heartbeat behind his eyes as he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, revelling in the way his mouth is slick with you. He pulls back on his haunches, squeezing the fingers in his hand gingerly. “You okay, baby?”

You nod, flushed and glowing, smoothing down the hair that’s stuck to his forehead. “Yeah,” you sigh out. “Yeah, John, I’m okay. C’mere,” you tug him off his knees by the collar of his too-fancy shirt and pull him back on top of you. You kiss him firmly, uncaring that the lower half of his face has a sheen of your arousal. 

He lets himself be manhandled, one hand still in yours and the other on your bare thigh. Even though you’ve just had one of the most scathing, white-hot orgasms you’ve ever had, he’s the one who looks completely ruined. 

“You’re crazy, Carter,” your spit mixes with your arousal fluid and he swallows it eagerly. 

He shakes his head against your mouth. “Uh uh, not from you.”

“You don’t like that?” He hums disapprovingly. “John? Johnny? Baby?” He groans and you know you’ve hit the jackpot there. 

John chases your mouth as you pull away. You blink at him through wet lashes and when you speak John feels both his heart and his cock jump. “Can I suck you off, baby?”

He chuckles under his breath, avoiding your eyes and pulling back just enough. “I, uh…” he pulls one of his hands back just to scratch the side of his neck, his skin pink under his palm. He’s suddenly very aware of how sticky his underwear feels. “I kind of already…”

He doesn’t have to say anything, you see the flush of his face and the growing wet patch on the front of his pants. 

“Already?” You seem very excited at the fact that he came in his fucking pants like a virgin. “Just from going down on me?”

He groans. “I- yeah,” he admits, embarrassed. “I was… yeah, just from doing that.” Even the tip of his nose is red. “You’re too pretty, sweet girl, drove me crazy.” He leans in and lets you close the gap - just in case his desperation is too much for you now. 

You kiss him sweetly. “Had a really good time tonight, John,” you can’t quite look him in the eye, like you’re the one who’s embarrassed even though he’s got a sticky mess in his lap. You’re past the point where you have to ask if you’re going to continue seeing each other, but you always try to gauge how he’s feeling after every date. 

And he’ll be damned if he lets you think for even a single second that he’s feeling anything other than completely obsessed with you. “Me too, baby,” he pulls you down, laying back on the sofa and pulling you close.

He’s only half on the couch, one leg hanging off and when he shifts to let you get comfortable there’s a clink of ceramic on wood and you shoot up. “Shit!” You roll off him and scoop up the cup of tea, now mostly cold. 

“Hey, baby?” He lays there, calling out to where you duck off to the kitchen. You hum distractedly to show you’re listening. “Do you mind if I take a shower? Not super stoked at the idea of spending the night covered in jizz.”

You arrive back with paper towels. “Oh you’re staying the night, are you?” He never has before. That’s probably because he’s never had his fingers inside of you before. Your voice is teasing as you get on your knees to clean up the spill. 

“I can’t drive home like this,” he protests. 

You giggle. “Yeah you can shower, you know where it is.” He hauls himself off the sofa, kissing the top of your head as he goes past you. 

“Wanna come with?” he’s not asking you to shower with him and you both know it. You’ve showered with him in the room before, he likes to come sit on the floor and sit with you with you behind the curtain.

You throw a look over your shoulder at him.

You wake up with post-text message clarity the next morning, but there’s little you can do to backtrack now. You gave the man your name and number. You spoke to him on the phone about it, albeit briefly. Sure you could call John again and tell him that you thought it over a little more and decided against it, but then—

“It’s gonna cost four thousand dollars.”

Your coworker lets out a hissed breath, wincing. “That’s not cheap.”

It’s a pea-soupy summer morning, all hot and humid with the sky tinted a yellowish colour from forest fires up in the country, the hazy light seeping in through the windows in the office kitchen. Not a cloud in sight. You wouldn't call it a particularly pleasant morning, with the weather as overcast as your mood, but it could always be worse.

She’s the first person outside of a few close friends that you’ve told about going to the clinic at all, but she reacts exactly as you thought she would. It’s both affirming and annoying; it’s not so bad hearing from someone else that four thousand dollars is a bit pricey for a single person, but part of you wishes she’d try to convince you to go through with it. You need someone to push you in a direction—in any direction. 

You nod, mouth screwed into a grimace. “And that’s only for a single try. I think she said it would be closer to, like, twelve thousand dollars altogether.” 

“So are you gonna do it? Or are you gonna keep looking around?”

“I have another appointment next week,” you half-answer, getting cagey all of a sudden. 

The truth is, that appointment isn’t the only thing you’ve got on the books. There’s another dot in your calendar for a few days before, one that seems to glow ominously when you stare at the date as it slowly approaches, lumbering forward one ground-shaking step at a time. 

You wonder how long you can go without telling anyone. Theoretically, you could keep up this ruse for the rest of your life, pretend you always went through with the treatment. Lie through your teeth when your friends ask you if you know anything about the donor. No, they didn’t tell me anything, I just picked a profile with a good medical record and family history. 

Don’t think about how you live in the same city. Don’t think about the likelihood of running into him around town with the baby in tow. 

You shake your head. Those are concerns that you can foist off onto a future version of you. All the current you needs to worry about is making this all a reality. 

You don’t know what to wear out to dinner with him. It’s both a date and not, more of a prelude to the later events of the night. Part of you wonders if you should just text him your address and tell him to skip the preamble and come on over. 

The only reason you don’t is because a little voice at the back of your mind insists that you at least do your due diligence and screen him a little more over dinner. You can always back out at the last minute if a few too many red flags pop up. 

(You tell yourself that as if a strange man offering to knock you up within five minutes of meeting weren’t a big enough red flag on its own.)

John meets you at the restaurant looking every bit as handsome as the day you met him, once again nearly taking your breath away. A little more buttoned up this time though, actually quite dashing in a proper dress shirt and suit jacket, even his shoes polished. 

You have a second to think about calling it off. A second to consider turning tail and getting as far away as possible. Maybe, with enough time, you could scrape together the money for IUI. You could wait a year, or take out a loan with your bank, or pray for a decent enough raise to manage it on your own. 

But then, as the time before, he turns his head and locks eyes with you. 

It would probably be a good idea to take a picture of him, maybe even a picture of his ID, and send it over to one or two of your friends, on the off chance that he turns out to be a dangerous man, but you don’t need to be inundated by a barrage of text messages and phone calls from your friends trying to talk you out of it. You’ve made up your mind. 

Walnut and burgundy furnishings decorate the large room, and the amber glow of candlelight and antique wall sconces saturates the restaurant in a dark, sensual bloom. A server guides John and you to a table right in the middle of the room, a better table than you might’ve hoped to get on your own. You eye him sideways when he pulls your chair out for you. 

His demeanour is so relaxed that if you didn’t already know the purpose of this dinner, you could be forgiven for assuming that you were out on a real date. John certainly acts the part. 

“You know, we didn’t have to do this,” you start awkwardly, eyes gliding over the room to look at all the other well-dressed patrons, some presumably out on actual dates. 

“Call me old-fashioned, but I was taught that dinner comes before the rest of the evening.”

“I just mean you didn’t have to. I would’ve been fine just…” getting right down to business, you leave unsaid, hoping that he doesn’t make you spell it out. 

“We’re two civilized adults. I thought we might get to know each other first.”

“Well, what do you want to know about me?”

“This is as much for me as it is for you—don’t you want to know anything about the father of your children?”

You wish he’d keep his voice down. He isn’t wrong though; it would be a good idea for you to take his candidature more seriously, actually ask him questions about himself and his parentage. He already emailed you a recent STI panel and bloodwork results, both done through the fertility clinic back when he was still keen on donating, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about him.

“Alright. How old are you?”

“Forty-six.”

You nod, pleased with yourself for guessing it right. “What do you do for work?”

“Just some work for the government,” he says, brushing the question off. “What else?”

That piques your interest though. “Oh, come on. What are you, M16 or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” John laughs, genuinely amused enough for you to believe him. 

You roll your eyes when he doesn’t elaborate any further though. “Fine, leave me in the dark. Anything else you want to know about me?”

“Where are you in your cycle?” he asks, blunt as a hammer.

A classic spit take moment. It’s a good thing you haven’t ordered a drink yet. 

“I think it’s, uh…it’s coming soon actually. Um. Next week or so.”

He chews on that for a second, mulling over the timing. “That’s fine. We should still be able to make it work.”

There he goes again, making comments that leave you fish-mouthed and stunned, jaw slack with disbelief. Never able to conjure up a good enough retort. 

When the server comes by to take your drink orders, both of you still deliberating over your food, John orders a beer for himself and a mocktail for you, not even bothering to consult you about it. 

“No alcohol,” he reminds you before you have a chance to ask. 

To be fair, the spicy blackberry-basil concoction that the server comes back with a few minutes later is a refreshing burst of fruit and fresh herbs, but that doesn’t excuse the overstep. You ignore it only because you know there’s no use getting worked up when you’ve already made your mind up. It’s a peccadillo in the grand scheme of things considering what he’s doing for you. 

Conversation flows surprisingly well over dinner, but at the back of your mind, you can’t stop thinking about how at the end of the night, he’s going to take you home and fuck you. It creeps back in whenever you let your guard down for a split second. 

So, do you have any hobbies? (In three hours, this man is going to strip you naked and have sex with you)

Do you have any siblings? Any twins running in the family? (In two hours, this man is going to climb on top of you and fuck you until he puts a baby in you)

It’s a lot to keep in your head at the same time.

“How long have you been thinking about doing this?” John asks apropos of nothing, the earlier thread of your conversation evaporating on the spot.  

“I mean, I’ve wanted to have kids for a long time, but actually planning to have them…maybe a couple months?”

“Why now? Why not wait a little longer? Wait for someone to start a family with?”

You’re not sure why he’d ask you that, why it would matter. It’s none of his business, quite frankly. You almost want to tell him that, let yourself get righteous, get angry, but you find you can’t fully commit to the anger. It wouldn’t change anything. You aren’t being forced to answer him. 

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m not much of a family man myself. ‘Least not when I was younger, when it counted. Never had the time nor the inclination. Work took me all over—it just wouldn’t have been fair if I had a wife or kids waiting around for me. But since it didn’t seem like having a family was in the cards for me, I thought it would be a waste of good genetics.”

“Oh.” It’s arrogant, but it’s as good an answer as any. 

He waits a beat then lifts an eyebrow when you don’t reciprocate. “So? Why didn’t you wait?”

“I did try, but there wasn’t much out there, and I wanted a baby more than I wanted to be with someone, so…” 

Leave him to fill in the blanks. He met you at the culmination of that longing after all, even changed the course of it, disrupted your plans to place himself at the centre of them.

At the centre for a time, you remind yourself. Not forever. 

After that, he keeps the conversation light, only delving into superficial topics to help pass the time. You excuse yourself after finishing your meal to go to the bathroom, and come back to two coffees laid out on the table with sugar and cream in pretty porcelain cups laid out between them. John must have ordered for you again in your absence. Good thing you like coffee. 

The bill is also there, discretely tucked under John’s napkin, and that makes your stomach flip, realizing that only a coffee now sits between you and the end of this night. 

Then, at a certain point, when all that’s left in your cup is the dregs, sugar spoon bone dry on your plate, John gives you a look from across the table that says it’s time for you both to go. 

Well, here we go, you think a little hysterically as you push back your chair to stand, nearly jumping out of your skin when his hand comes down on your back. 

At your car, you sway back and forth on your heels. “You can, uh…follow behind me, if that works.”

“Why don’t you give me your address and I’ll meet you there?”

You bite your lip, pretending to deliberate, then acquiesce. 

Let him think he’s pulling one on you. You’re bringing him home instead of the other way around because you don’t want to have any memory of a man’s bed when you think about your pregnancy journey. If it’s going to be you alone, then it should be about you alone. Your decision to go out and pick a man to father your baby. 

His participation will be a short blip in your life. A minor footnote. You’ll remember it in bursts throughout the rest of your life: staring at a carton of cream in the dairy aisle of the local grocery store; garden spade buried hilt-deep in a plot of soil, blue bigleaf hydrangea in a pot beside you, sweat dripping down the bow of your lips; your baby’s face, for the rest of your natural life.

In your foyer, his hands glide around your hips, pulling you into his chest, and you realize abruptly that ‘short’ might not have been the most accurate interpretation of what’s about to happen. 

(Honey, you’ve got a storm coming)

“This off first,” John rasps, pulling the bottom of your shirt up and over your head, blinding you for a split second before he yanks it over your arms. 

“Getting right to it, huh?” you joke nervously. 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks, staring down at you assessingly, as if staring into your soul. That cuts the humour from the moment. Vacuums it from the room, leaving behind only the crackling, blistering heat of his gaze and his intentions. 

“Yes,” you whisper. Neither of you mention the tremble in your voice and how unsure you sound. 

It doesn’t stop him from undressing you though. Bra pulled down under your breasts, pushing your tits up into his face like an invitation, one he accepts without question, pulling your nipples into his mouth one by one, hands on your hips to hold you in place when you try to squirm away. Not that it’s bad—it’s amazingly good after all, toe-curlingly good to have a man run his tongue over your areolas and suck each sensitive nipple to a stiff peak, until you’re on the verge of coming—but it’s a lot, a lot that you have to wrap your head around, your bra pinched off shortly after that and underwear next.  

Your touch is hesitant at first, fingers barely gliding down his arms and fisting in the fabric of his shirt to jerk it up, but he makes it easy for you to get lost in it, your nerves fizzling out in the heat and fervor.  

You don’t even notice that John has walked you backwards into the bedroom until he pushes you down onto the bed, the mattress bouncing under you. “One second, love—need to get all of this off myself.”

You watch transfixed as the suit jacket comes off first, shrugged off and discarded. He undoes only a few buttons before wrenching it over his head, eyes on you the whole time, his stare never breaking. Scalding hot. 

That’s how you know that despite all his lofty words, this isn’t some favour he’s doing you. He wants this just as badly—wants it with a vigour that you don’t even know if you’ll be able to handle, aware that you are just flesh and blood. There’s a prickle at the back of your mind, a whisper reminding you that nobody knows that he’s here, that he’s a hot-blooded man about to slake his lust with your body. 

Then he slides the elastic waistband of his boxers down his thighs and your mind goes blank when you see the flushed, heavy shaft droop between his legs. 

The two of you work together to shove a pillow under your hips, John fetching it from the top of the bed and you lifting your hips to give him easier access. You don’t have to ask why. 

Nestled between your thighs, John looks up at you with heavy-lidded eyes and says, “Let’s get you all softened up to start, alright, love?” 

The first touch of his lips to your sex sends a lightning bolt up your spine, and then it’s practically an open mouth kiss. Tongue running up the seam of your lips, pushing into the clenched hole at the centre, the bristles of his beard scraping up the insides of your thighs and the thin skin of your labia. 

It’s good, but it’s taking too long and your heart is a rabbiting mess and you can barely think or see straight, so you tangle your fingers in his hair and try to push his head away. “That’s okay, John, I just wanna—oh fuck, can you please just put it in?”

“No, baby, it’s good if you come first,” he murmurs. “Helps it take.”

That floods your system with a frenetic, crazed exhilaration. Baby fever bubbling and boiling, frothing spilling over the top like a pot left on the stovetop for too long. 

You gasp when he tucks a couple fingers into your hole to stretch you out, a perfunctory, almost clinical motion. Just enough to loosen you up for him, unmindful of the way you squirm and whine, rolling your hips to get him to go faster. He does not. 

It doesn’t take much effort on his part after that to get you to come, too worked up and wound up, core squeezing his fingers like a vice until he gives your clit a suck and you squeal, oh, too much, breath ripping through your chest.

They’re wet when he pulls them out, and he dries them off by rubbing them on your belly. 

The shadow of his body draws over yours as he climbs on top of you. It’s as physical as it is visual though, John’s hands always on some part of your body, dragging up your legs and over your arms, fingers spreading over your belly before he runs a hand up between your breasts and over your throat, lingering there just long enough to close around your throat and hold for a second, then skating up to cup your jaw. 

And then he’s all big body on top of you, coaxing your legs around his hips, one hand squishing your cheeks when he bends down to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his lips, the tongue pushing into your mouth musky with the flavour of your cum. You’d protest if you could, but you can’t, his mouth slanted over yours and demanding. 

“C’mere,” he mumbles against your lips when he draws you in for another kiss, sawing his cock up and down between your folds, coating his length with your juices, until it’s there suddenly, breaching you. 

You have to grab him, loop your arms around his shoulders and squeeze to ground yourself. It’s a lot to take in. He’s a lot to take in. 

“I know, love, I know,” John murmurs soothingly. “Deep breaths, okay?”

You listen to him, letting a shaky breath out. It helps you relax. Barely, but enough to ease the strain a bit. 

He nuzzles his nose into your temple, his breath fanning out against your ear. “A little more, love, alright? You gonna be brave for me?”

“Oh—just get on with it,” you gasp when he eases in another inch, and John laughs in your ear. 

It feels genuinely romantic like this. Your arms wrapped around his neck and his hips slowly rocking into you, whispering sweet nothings like, there we go, you’ve got it, that feel good, love? When he fits his hand around the back of your neck and lifts your head up for a kiss, you swear you see stars. 

The kiss is too much. Too intimate. You wish you would’ve set that boundary ahead of time. It feels pointless now, trapped under the heavy weight of his body and impaled on his member, sucked into it, lips slotting and melting over each other, his tongue running over yours. He’s a good kisser at least, practiced from a lifetime of it. No awkward schoolboy tonguing. 

Too good. You wonder distantly how many other women he’s slept with (probably more than you have any business knowing). If he’s ever gotten anyone else pregnant. Your nails dig into his back instinctively at the thought and he gasps a wet and guttural sound, hips bucking harder. 

He gets rough enough to loosen a bolt of fear in your chest. All of a sudden, it becomes bright and clear in your mind. There’s a grunting, sweating man over you, all two hundred plus pounds of him laid out on top of you, with no protection between you. Raw cock plunging into your pussy. You can barely get a full breath in. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” John grunts, and your eyes flick down instinctively, trying to see past the dense mass of hair on his chest towards the length of his cock sliding into you. He’s pressed too close though. When he catches you looking away from him, he clamps his hand around your face again, forcing your gaze back up. “No, none of that. Eyes on me.”

You think you must gasp. Some horrified sound must escape you because you can feel the aftereffect of it, the big hollow where it used to be. 

His other arm wedges under your back to pull you closer to him, thighs spreading to brace his weight against the mattress before driving into you harder, deeper, the big, concentrated energy of him inescapable.

You can sense it the second before he’s about to come, his eyebrows digging in and his jaw going tight, the vein in his forehead prominent. 

“Christ, you’re gonna take it, aren’t you?” he snarls. “All this fucking cum.” 

On the next stroke in, you dig an ankle into the muscle of his ass and squeeze your inner muscles around his length, grinning hazily to yourself when that makes him shout. 

And then, oh, he surges in and you feel it, hear it, sense it all around you, his fingers from the hand wedged under your back digging hard into the side of your breast. Hips forcefully pumping into you and pushing his cum in deep, your own orgasm lost somewhere in there, a small, forgettable part of it all. 

Eventually, he stops moving over you, letting his cock slip out of you on the next stroke out. You hiss when he does, clenching up involuntarily. With nothing plugging it inside though, his cum leaks out, dripping down the crack of your ass and onto the pillow under your hips. 

John’s hot breath fans over your face as he pants, slowly winding down as well, the red flush in his cheeks still stark, though gradually fading. It’s only in the cooldown that you realize how claustrophobic it is being trapped under him, the sheer weight and heat of his body flush with yours becoming more and more uncomfortable, almost unbearably so. 

When he slumps off to one side, you can finally breathe again, the air rushing into your lungs. There’s sweat in your skin and tears in the corners of your eyes, everything tacky and humid, the frantic beat of your heart only beginning to slow down. The stiffness in your shoulders only dawns on you after a few minutes like that, and you push yourself up onto your elbows just to try to work some of it out. 

“No, don’t get up, love. We’re just gonna lie here for a bit,” he instructs, pushing your shoulder back down. “Better chance of my boys getting the job done if we keep it all in you.”

Of course he just wants to make sure that it takes. That way, you don’t have to do this again. “Oh yeah. I, uh, I didn’t think about that.”

He doesn’t just mean lie there, of course, though your body would like nothing more than to sink into the plush embrace of sleep. Instead he means keeping your hips propped up on the pillow now saturated with cum, and curling you into his side, separating your thighs again to palm your cunt, sliding his fingers through the wet. 

It’s a goopy, sticky mess that John plunges his fingers into, pushing it back up inside of you and shushing you when you whimper, a little gaped from his cock but sore to the touch. 

For much longer than you anticipated, he lies there on his side beside you and keeps two fingers pushed up inside you, blocking any cum from leaking out. 

“How long do we have to do this for?” you ask, voice all high and tight in your throat. 

John hums, unconcerned. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

True to his word, he keeps you there for the full fifteen minutes. Only the sound of your breathing fills the room, quiet otherwise aside from the enormously large weight of his presence, too familiar now with the private corners of your world. 

He doesn’t warn you before idly circling your clit with thumb. You jerk, nearly biting through your lip. “John!”

“Relax, honey, I’m just making you come again.”

“I know that, John—ah, ah, ah—”

A leg hooks over yours, his thigh heavy enough to keep you pinned without even much strength behind it. His fingers don’t so much as twitch inside of you, buried to the fattest knuckle while his thumb circles the tight bud of your clit over and over again until you—

You haven’t finished the thought by the time he draws his fingers out, pearlescent strings of cum webbed between them. He hums approvingly when he sees that, pulling your thighs further apart to admire his work. “Gorgeous. That ought to do it for now.”

Your heart skips a beat and you stare up at him, exhausted, the sweat on the back of your neck now cold. 

so he can't help the surge of panic that surges through his body like a lit match when, a month after he's been out, he's out to lunch with you when he runs into his cellmate, vin.

"so, you must be the missus. huh?" he teases in snarky voice, his eyes raking over you in a slow perusal that makes andrew's blood boil hotter than the flush across his skin, his fist clenching to stop himself from lunging at him.

"the missus?" you ask, laughing a little as you glance at pope. your laugh dies down when you notice the intense look he's giving this guy and the red splotches across his neck. your attention is pulled back to whoever this random guy is when you hear your name come from him. "uh, yeah. that's me. sorry, do i know you?"

"oh, i'm sorry. i guess i ruined the surprise," vin lips his lips, nodding toward your hand. "guess popey here hasn't popped the question. just confused. he wouldn't shut up about you in there, only talked about getting back to his girl. he kept talking about finally cuffing you up when we were inside, just thought he'd do it pretty quickly after getting out. still just the girlfriend, then?"

"o-oh," you stutter out, your face flushing as you glance back at andrew. his face is pinched in that way it does when he's trying to calm himself down, remind himself to breathe. his focus on his cellmate doesn't break until he feels your fingers ghost down his arm. when he finally looks at you, your stomach turns at how quickly his expression softens.

you always thought there was something between you and pope. the first time you came to a cody party, you weren't at all prepared for how overwhelming it'd be. you had been hanging around the cody's for almost two months now after meeting deran at one of adrian's local surf competitions. it was also the day you accidentally walked in on him and adrian being... intimate. you reassured deran that you didn't care, you already knew about adrian being gay and you never told anyone about him so his secret would be safe with you, too.

the night of the party, you made it about an hour before deran completely ditched you to jump off the roof with craig into the pool, the activity quickly becoming competitive between the brothers. you decided you were over it before wandering inside, quickly isolating yourself in the one room you knew no one would find themselves in: andrew "pope" cody. you hadn't expected to find him there already, sitting rigidly on his bed, facing the window. his head snapped over toward his door when you opened it, his posture loosening when he noticed it was just you.

"you okay?" he asked quietly, his voice strained from not using it.

"s'too loud out there, and deran ditched me. i don't know anyone else." you walked further into the room, climbing into pope's bed after toeing your shoes off. "do you mind?" you suppressed your smile when he shook his head with no hesitation. he wordlessly grabbed a shirt and a pair of shorts from his drawer before tossing them at you.

"change." he demanded softly, frowning before adding, "please. outside clothes."

since that moment, you and pope had grown attached to the hip. you came over even without deran just to spend time with pope, which confused him at first considering you two mostly just either sat on the couch in silence of laid in his bed after you changed into his clothes. surely you had more fun with deran. but he never questioned you, afraid you would take it the wrong way and stop coming over.

but you didn't realize pope thought of you as his girlfriend. not that it bothered you.

"popey was a little loopy most days in there. was he talking out of his ass about his pretty, young thing?" vin interrupts the look between you and pope, bringing you back to the present.

"if pope said i'm his girlfriend, then that's what i am," you say easily, giving his hand a squeeze. he squeezes your hand back, tugging you a little closer toward him.

"well, s'nice to meet you, sweetheart," he gives you a wink, his gaze returning to pope. "give me a call sometime, pope. we've got some things to catch up on," he says pointedly, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking away, his shoulder brushing past pope's.

"vin was my cellmate," he offers quietly. "told him, everyone about... well, you. i-i'm sorry."

"for what?" you say softly, one of your hands coming up to brush through pope's steadily growing hair, the curls starting to take form again, much to your delight.

"you're not mad?" he frowns, his brows furrowing when you shake your head. "you're not gonna tell deran?"

"why would deran care?" you say, laughing a little.

"he's your actual boyfriend. i would care."

"what!" you shriek, rearing back in disbelief. "deran is not my boyfriend."

"he isn't?"

"pope, if deran was my boyfriend i'd be an awful girlfriend. i used to sleep with you in your bed. i'd sneak out of his room to sit with you on the couch whenever i did pass out in his room. i've thought about you everyday that last three years you've been away." you sidle up closer to him again, reaching over to grab his other hand so you were holding both of them. "if i'm anyone's girlfriend," you shrug, giving him a sheepish smile, "i'm yours."

"yeah?" he mumbles, letting you maneuver his hands to wrap around your waist, fighting the urge to pull you flush against him when your arms come up to wrap around his neck.

"yeah," you mumble back, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "now," you continue, your lip still pressed against his skin, "let's go get some lunch." your lips press against his cheek one more time before moving to hover just above the corner of his mouth. "i'm starving."

"I fucking hate you." You've lost count of how many times he's almost brought you off only to snatch your release away at the last second, but it's definitely approaching the double digits because it hurts.

Not just your cunt, either; half hovering and half straddling his lap like this you can't even close your legs without him forcing them open again with his own, overextended muscles starting to burn as well-worn denim rub against the insides of your thighs. With one hand in an iron grip your hip and the other buried between your legs there's no escape, no relief.

"I know, sweet thing…" The words are gentle and as soft as silk, dripping with false pity, breath ghosting over your lips in an almost-kiss. But as he cups your cunt in his palm, he doesn't look sorry at all. "So make me stop."

"…No." As if you could, even if you wanted to. Besides, if he actually stopped now you might cry. Or maybe punch him. Possibly both at the same time.

"Thought not." Circling your entrance with a fingertip, the corners of his eyes crinkle as he grins, wide and sharp and perfect. "Jus' one more time, then." Which is precisely what he's been saying for the last twenty minutes, though he doesn't give you the opportunity to point that out as he slips two fingers inside. After being wound up again and again there's barely any resistance, your body greedily swallowing every tiny bit that he'll let you have. A third digit slides in just as easily, stealing the breath from your lungs and making your head drop onto his shoulder with a pitiful little whine.

"Oh, you're so damn mean, you—" With a huff of laughter he adds a fourth finger, making your words cut off with an involuntary squeak as he hooks them up around your pubic bone, all but trapping you on the spot, completely unable to move.

"Funny, that." Breath tickling the shell of your ear, you can hear the grin in his voice. "'Cause I distinctly remember you singin' a different tune jus' a minute ago." There's no use trying to argue, not that he gives you the time to before pushing those gorgeous fingers into you with purpose, so methodical that it's almost cruel. After this long he knows exactly how to take you apart, and every practiced stroke has tension building at your core steadily and so infuriatingly easy. Stuffed so perfectly full there's barely room to breathe or to even think, and as release starts to coil at the bottom of you, sharp and urgent, all you can do is cling to him as every thrust knocks a hiccuping little gasp from you.

"Please, I'm gonna, please, let me, let me, please just let me, fuck…" As you mindlessly grab at any part of him you can reach, you don't even care that you must sound like a broken record. All that matters is his hand, the tips of his fingers nudging against the spot deep inside that always turns you dumb with pleasure and any second now it's going to happen, you can feel it, so close that it's nearly painful. "Please, yes, ye–" As it keeps building you can barely keep still, breath speeding up until your head spins and it feels like you could float away. And then his lips are on yours, swallowing every needy little sound as he as at first slows down and then simply stops, making you keen as your release is kept out of reach once again. He's smiling when he pulls away, completely smug as he greedily drinks in your desperation.

"You're damn cute when you're whinin' for it."

"Stop saying things like that." Slapping weakly at his chest you try to ignore the ache at your core, though the way he keeps wiggling his fingers in teasing little twitches is making it all but impossible.

"Shan't." He sounds incredibly pleased with himself, so smug that despite everything he's still got you wrapped around his fingers in more ways than one. "You gon' hold on for me, now." It's not a question and it clearly isn't meant to be, because he doesn't wait for a response this time either. While not starting completely over he still takes his time when he starts back up again, pushing his fingers deep and pressing the heel of his hand against your clit. It's an all but hopeless battle; with the deep, firm, delicious pressure right where you need it most it's only a matter of when, not if. It doesn't matter that he's hardly even moving, every glacial press-and-release has pleasure lapping at you in syrupy waves.

"Don't stop, you can't, please, I'm—" You're trying, you really are, but as your cunt starts to twitch and tighten all on its own you can't fight it anymore. This time he has to let you come, he has to.

"No, you fuckin' don't." The words are quick, raw, and you dimly realize that he's far from unaffected despite trying to pretend otherwise. "Look at me, lass." You can feel his thighs trembling underneath you, and as he grabs at the back of your neck to force your gaze up it's almost clumsy. "Don't you fuckin' dare." With him wringing the pleasure out of you like you're a wet rag it's an impossible ask. You're not sure how he can expect you to even be able to, not when he's dragging his fingers against the upper wall of your cunt until you can feel yourself starting to drip with it. "Not 'til I say." Push, drag. "Gods, jus' listen to that…" As if you have any choice; the slick noise of his fingers thrusting into you is obscene, too loud in the small room. "So damn wet an' needy, all for me." You're barely holding on as it is, and if he's going to keep talking there's no way you can keep it up. A quick change of his grip has him pushing the pad of his thumb to your clit, focused and merciless, and that's when it finally dawns on you; he's making it impossible on purpose. He was never expecting you to manage it at all.

Asshole. Beautiful fucking bastard.

"Don't you dare fuckin' come," he grits out, breathless and filthy and too good and just like that, you're pushed past the point of no return no matter how hard you try to hold back.

"I'm sorry, I can't, please—" For a second you're sure that he's going to ruin it somehow, that he's going to take it all away again, but he doesn't. Instead he groans, raw and perfect as he drives his fingers in deep, pushing against the front wall of your cunt. As you convulse around his fingers, words lose all meaning. There's only the release that tears through you in great choking waves, leaving you unable to do anything but try to hold on to him, muffling your pathetic cries in the crook of his shoulder as you gush all over his hand. There's a brief moment where you're hazily aware that you're drooling on his shirt but he doesn't seem to care and you can't either, not when he's dragging your release out, pushing back when your body pulls until your legs give out. After, as you sag bonelessly in his lap and struggle to catch your breath he chuckles, wrapping his arms around you in a steadying grip that's surprisingly gentle, all things considered.

"Y'made a mess all over me, sugar." Even though he's still tense and wound up underneath you, he looks almost fiercely proud, satisfied in a way that sends a brief stab of irritation through you. Feeling the sticky fabric cling to your skin as it cools has heat flooding your cheeks, and you quickly duck your head down under the pretense of kissing the side of his neck. Mostly pretense, anyway. While you're there it's too hard to resist nibbling at the heated skin, the salt of exertion stinging your lips. His usually slow pulse is thrumming under your tongue, a beat that you can't resist chasing with your mouth even though it muffles your words.

"You did that on purpose." It's nowhere near as reproachful as it's intended to be, but it probably wouldn't make much of a difference, anyway. If the unrepentant grin on his face is any indication, it definitely wouldn't.

"Couldn't resist." You can feel him through the soaked denim, thick and hard and lovely as he shifts underneath you, hips mindlessly chasing any hint of friction they can find. "An' apparently, neither could you."

"Do feel free to shut up."

"Or what?" The grin widens, turning positively indecent as he grinds up against you. "You're gon' get me back?"

"Something like that."

"Yeah?" Another roll of his hips, the drag of denim against your still oversensitive cunt making you twitch, breath catching as you can feel him pulse through the soaked fabric. Hands going to your hips again he holds you there, not letting you pull away as he leans in for another kiss, slowly rocking against you. "Do your worst, then."

Oh, you are going to enjoy making him regret saying that. As soon as your legs start working again, that is.

Masterlist ★The Master-masterlist