Back On My Bullshit

You nod too fast, cheeks heating as you tug the blanket higher, squishing your thighs together, praying the movement looks causal.

“Are you sure? You’ve been… I dunno… weird tonight.”

“Weird?” you squeak. “What do you mean?”

Caleb turns fully toward you, and you stubbornly keep your gaze locked on the screen. Something shifts in the air under his attention, the room warming and suddenly shrinking two sizes too small. 

“Hey,” his voice is gentle. “Look at me.”

You swallow hard, finding your will, and turn your head. 

Caleb’s eyes are wide, but not with concern alone. They drift over the blanket wrapped around your body, then back to your face, soft but intent. 

“You don’t have to lie,” he murmurs. “I can tell you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m not!” you defend quickly. “I could never be uncomfortable with you. I’m just… having one of those days…”

“Yeah?” His voice drops then, like he already knows. He shifts just an inch closer and it makes everything worse. “Y’know you don’t have to lie to me, pips.”

You close your eyes, exhaling. He’s not going to let it go.

“It’s just… that day during my cycle,” you mutter, fingers twisting in the blanket. “It… makes me all flustered and…” you trail off, never more embarrassed. 

“Can I help?”

Your eyes snap open. “W-What?”

“Can I help?” he repeats, already moving closer to crowd your space. Large arms brace on either side of your hips. His gaze goes hazy, hungry in a way you’ve never let yourself notice before. “Please?”

You choke on a gasp, the sound breaking into a needy whine. Your mind pulls in two opposite directions–your pussy throbbing helplessly at the offer while your heart twists at how much could change if you give in. 

The decision is made for you. Caleb sees the hesitation, but the desire in your eyes win. His lips crash onto yours.

You melt instantly. Of course you do. Your fingers tangle in his hair, dragging him close while you pant into his mouth like you’ve been craving this for far longer than just tonight. 

Your heart pounds in time with the pulse between your thighs, completely soaking you through the dainty fabric. 

No more words. Caleb's hands do the talking, rough and impatient as they yank your shorts down your legs. His gaze immediately darts to your panties and he groans low in his throat. 

“Oh my… fuck…” he breaths, already shoving his sweats down. “Why didn’t you let me help you earlier?” 

“I–I was embarrassed.” You admit, failing against the cushions. 

“You never have to be embarrassed, baby…” the pet name curls around you, warm and possessive. “Never for this.” 

He settles over you, sweats pushed low but boxers still on. His cock is painfully hard, straining against the fabric, but he doesn’t touch himself—just presses the thick length right against your soaked, cotton covered core. 

You gasp, the contact is electric, exactly what your pussy’s been begging for. Caleb dips down and captures your lips, the kiss turning messy almost instantly. You cling to each other, exhaling loud out of your noses to not separate. His hips drag, pulling sweet little whines from your throat.

Caleb’s lip part as a raw moan slips free, his lips still dragging wet kisses across yours. He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes half-lidded and completely fixated, like he can’t believe this is real. The hard line in his boxers grinds against the thin cotton covering your heat again. 

Best friends definitely weren’t supposed to be doing this. But the forbidden edge tastes so sweet, and the simple, devastating fact that it’s him, only makes it more addictive.

You lift your hips aggressively, chasing friction when the head of his cock brushes your swollen clit through the layers. Your panties are drenched now, letting him slide easily, every drag spending sparks up your spine. The wrongness of it, the rightness of him, is intoxicating.

Your sweet, protective best friend, reduced to nothing but a man desperate for any form of contact from you.

“Pips…” he groans, pressing harder. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

A wicked smirk curves your lips before you pull him back into a messy, open-mouthed kiss that's full of a hunger neither of you wishes to hide. Your teeth sink into his bottom lip, then your tongue soothes the sting. 

His large hands roam up from your hips to squeeze your breasts through the thin fabric of his t-shirt you’d stolen tonight. You–all bare legs, skimpy panties, and his shirt–has him twitching in his boxers. 

“Fuck…” he pants, pulling back from the kiss, but never stilling his shallow thrusts. Conflict suddenly flashes in his eyes. “We…we shouldn’t be—ah!—doing this.”

You manage a sweet, dangerously innocent voice, slowly rocking your hips—just once, over his throbbing need. “W-Why not, Caleb? You’re just helping me. We’re…mmph…not doing anything wrong.”

He groans at the obvious lie, bracing himself on his forearms to suspend his weight over you. His muscles are wound tight, straining against his restraint, which crumbles with his next sentence.

“I need to… see you,” he grunts. “See what I’m doing to you, pretty girl.”

Before you can think, his trembling hand hooks your panties aside. The choked sound he makes at the sight of your glistening, swollen pussy, goes straight to your core, then he’s slamming his still-clothed cock right over your directly exposed wetness.

His hips lose rhythm, jerking wildly in a desperate, uncoordinated rut. His cock throbs violently in his boxers, chasing a release he can’t hold back. The friction is filthy, intoxicating, your whimpers mixing with his wrecked moans. 

“So beautiful…” he murmurs, eyes fluttering shut.  “God, you’re so beautiful, honey.”

The most captivating sounds spill from Caleb’s lungs, a mix of whimpers and guttural moans as a sudden warmth blooms and soaks the material of his boxers, seeping out onto your puffy core. He collapses forward, breathing ragged against your ear.

“Did you just–”

“Mhmm…” he hums, voice shaky but completely unashamed. “All in my boxers. I couldn’t help it.”

You huff a gentle laugh, still trembling with want, thighs slick and aching. “Wanna do it inside me now?” 

✮⋆˙— sylus

Your bare feet pad into your shared bedroom, steam spilling out behind you and curling along the ceiling like a lingering sigh. Droplets cling to your skin, sliding down the curve of your throat and between your breasts before disappearing beneath the collar of your robe. You tug the fabric tighter, shifting your hips as the restless heat returns low in your belly.

The bath had meant to ease the tension that haunted you all day, yet all it’s done is make you more aware of it.

To your surprise, Sylus sits propped up against the headboard in nothing but a pair of black pajama pants, glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, a book open in his hand. He must have returned home while you were submerged. 

The second you step into the room, his gaze lifts slowly and pins you in place. The pupils in his eyes widen, something soft but hungry in his gaze. 

He knows exactly what today is. 

“Come here,” he says sweetly, patting the mattress beside him.

You oblige without hesitation, climbing onto the bed and crawling up the sheets before flopping onto your stomach with a muffled groan. The cool fabric against your flushed skin makes you shiver. 

“You didn’t enjoy your bath?” he hums, palm gliding over your robe-clad back in slow, soothing passes that only only makes the ache worse. 

“No, I did,” you mumble into the pillow. “I’m just…” your voice trails off, embarrassment tangling your tongue. The words feel too exposed, even to your husband. 

“I know.” His tone drops, husky and threaded with quiet amusement. “You’re so warm.”

The mattress dips as he shifts to settle behind you. Strong fingers slip to your front to find the tie of your robe and loosen it, peeling the damp silk from your shoulders. His lips follow the path of exposed skin, pressing hot, lingering kisses along your shoulder blades. 

“You even smell sweet today,” he murmurs against your skin.

Heat floods all over again, a slick gush seeping from your sweet hole and onto the mattress. A quiet whimper slips free as you lift your hips, brushing your ass back against the firmness straining beneath his pajama bottoms. 

“Sylus…” you breathe. 

“Yes, kitten?” his hands slide down to your hips, thumbs kneading the soft skin. “Use your words.” 

He rolls his hips forward in a slow grind, letting you feel the heavy weight of him exactly where you’re aching most.

“I need you…” you whimper, voice small. 

Sylus smirks, peppering kisses just beneath your ear. “And why do you need me?”

You're grateful your face is buried in the mattress because your cheeks burn instantly. His teasing is gentle, but relentless–he wants to hear it.  

“Because…” you swallow. “you know… ‘m ovulating.”

Sylus groans as he presses his cock deeper against you. Your robe is peeled down your arms, the silk whispering against your skin as it gives way before it’s tossed aside. Cool air kisses your heated skin, replaced quickly by the warmth of his body hovering over yours.

“Is that so, kitten?” his hands trails down your bare back, fingers tracing every dip of your spine. “Do you want me to take care of that for you?”

“Please.”

A kiss is pressed to your head before he lifts himself long enough to push his pajamas down. You feel him a second later, the gentle tap of his cock once against your ass, a bead of precum smearing onto your skin. The sensation makes you shudder, hips instinctively pressing back for more.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice thick with admiration as his hands spread over your lower back, keeping you still. “You’re so wet for me.”

His cock drags slowly between your slick folds, the glide torturously slow. You can feel every vein, every pulse, your pussy clenching around nothing as he coats himself in your arousal. Praise falls from his lips in soft murmurs—good girl… so sweet… so ready for me—each word sending another wave of heat through you.

When he finally lines himself up and begins to push inside, it's agonizingly slow. Sylus wants you to feel every stretch until you’re gasping into the sheets, fingers curling into the favor. His hand rubs soothing circles into your hip while his forehead presses between your shoulder blades.

At first, it’s gentle. Deep, steady thrusts rock your body forward, the headboard tapping the wall in rhythm. But your soft, broken mewls and the way you push back against him, smearing your slick heat across his abdomen, wears down that compose.

Fingers dig into your hips, tightening until you’re certain the marks will linger. The pace quickens, each thrust landing harder than the last, the quiet room filling with the wet sounds of skin meeting skin and the desperate hitch of your cries. He has you exactly where he wants you. 

Well, almost. 

His arm snakes around your waist while his other hand splays possessively across the top of your spine. The weight of him forces your body into a deep, supplicating arch that maximizes the depth.

There.

He grunts a low, satisfied sound as your walls flutter around him in reply to the new angle. “You like that, sweetheart?”

A round of sharp, breathless inhales answers his question. “Y-yes–hicc–y-yes!”

His hips surge forward violently at the sweet sound, losing any remaining gentleness.

“I’m so deep like this, kitten,” he gasps, each word punctuated by the heavy slam of his cock driving into you again and again. “Could stuff you so full right now…”

A needy whine spills from you, drool dampening the pillow as pleasure muddles coherent thoughts. “C-Could you n-now?” The question tumbles out with a desperate sincerity between gasps.

Sylus leans forward, his breath hot against the shell of your ear. “I could. And you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

A shudder runs down your spine as he pulls you upright against him, your back flushed to his chest. Your head falls onto his shoulder, baring your throat. He takes immediate advantage, slowing his frantic rhythm to deep, punishing thrusts that make your toes curl while his lips work at the sensitive skin of your neck, sucking dark love bites onto the supple skin. 

“You’re already so beautiful,” he murmurs, voice thick with affection as he drags himself out to the tip before slamming back in, forcing a sob from your lips. “Imagine how beautiful you’d be swollen with me right—”

His hand slides from your waist to your stomach, palm spreading wide as his fingers splay possessively over the skin there.

“—here.”

Your eyes flutter shut as the image floods your mind—round and full of him. The thought alone makes your pussy clench, slickness leaking down his length in a fresh rush. 

“Oh, you’d let me, wouldn’t you, kitten?” His hand glides upward, fingers curling around your jaw, firm but tender as he tilts your face back towards his. He needs to see you, need to see the honesty in your eyes. “You’d let me fuck a baby into you?”

The words ignite something molten in your core, spewing a string of moans from your lips. Your gaze locks with his, and the seriousness in his expression steals what little breath you have left. 

His grip on your jaw tightens just enough to keep your focus as his thrusts pick up again. “Words. Use them.”

“Y-Yes,” you sputter.

“Yes what, sweetheart?”

“Yes I’d l-let you—hah!—fuck a b-baby into me, Sy!”

A strangled growl tears from his throat. Your answer unlocks something feral in him. His pace turns ruthless, ramming his cock into you with one intention.

“Gonna fuck you so full, sweetie,” he promises hoarsely. “I’ll make sure it—nngh—takes.”

He’s already throbbing inside you, completely captivated by the sheer thought of getting you pregnant. His lips crash against yours in a heated, desperate kiss, swallowing your moans as his movements grow sloppy with need. With a groan that rumbles through both of you, his tip slams against your soft cervix, releasing hot pulses of his seed. He doesn’t stop, rolling his hips in slow thrusts to ensure it took. 

When he finally stills, he rests his sweaty forehead against yours, a dazed smile tugging at his lips. 

“We have to ensure it takes, kitten,” in a smooth motion he flips you both, letting you sit atop him. “Show me how badly you want it.”  

✮⋆˙— zayne

You watch the clock tick past, the small hand resting on the hour, officially signaling that Zayne is off shift.

Unfortunately, he still won’t be home for at least another hour. Judging by his lack of reply to your texts, there’s probably mountains of paperwork, last-minute calls, and traffic standing between him and this house. You’ll be lucky if you see him before nightfall.

You groan, slumping against the edge of the bed, tilting your head back to stare at the ceiling. The one day you really need Zayne, and he’s nowhere in sight.

Your body aches with need, each pulse a reminder that ovulation has turned you feral. Heat blooms in your lower belly, soaking your panties, and you can't stop pressing your thighs together to try and relieve it. 

Your gaze flicks to the mirror. Your reflection stares back with flushed cheeks. You bite your lip and glance at the clock again. There is a solution. 

Zayne will probably be exhausted when he gets home. If you take care of yourself now, you can tend to him later. 

Fuck it. 

With zero ceremony, you kick off your shorts, the fabric of your soaked panties clinging to your pussy. Your cheeks burn an even deeper crimson as you push them down, peeling away the damp material and leaving your lower half exposed to the reflective glass. 

Desperation makes your movements sloppy. Your fingers dip inside your dripping cunt, index and middle finger instantly slick with your need. You twitch as they withdraw, then drag up to twirl them in gentle circles over your swollen clit, shivering at the surge of pleasure. 

A tiny moan escapes your lips, high and breathless. It's been a while since you’ve touched yourself solo—because you usually have Zayne. But tonight, he’s just an image in your head, and that thought alone is enough to make you squirm. 

You mimic his touch, spreading your folds and teasing your swollen bud just like he would. Stop. Start. Your hips lift instinctively, chasing the delicious burning building in your core. 

“Z-Zaynie…” you whimper to the air, eyes flicking to your reflection, watching your pussy flutter around what would be his cock if he were here. Your thighs threaten to slam together, but you force them apart. 

You lose yourself in the sensation of your fingers' newfound rhythm. Pressure builds, threatening to boil over the edge. Your breath catches, lips parting in moans that are muffled but urgent. 

And then—

Your eyes snap open and they aren’t just seeing you in the mirror. Zayne is in the doorway, tie loosened from work. His expression is unreadable, but dangerously hungry. His arms are crossed, like he’s trying to seem annoyed—but you know that look. He’s definitely turned on and fully amused by your shame. 

“Shit—mmgh—Zayne—!” you squeak, yanking your hand back and slamming your thighs together as if that could hide the evidence of your crime. 

He steps in slowly, never breaking eye contact as he sets his glasses on the nightstand. 

“It’s not—” you start, then stop, as you realize it is. “I’m sorry, I just… ugh.” You bury your face in your hands, cheeks burning hotter than ever. 

“There’s no need to be ashamed,” he says evenly, taking a single step in the room. “Continue.”

You glance at him, confused. “But Zayne—“

“Did I misspeak?” His voice is unnervingly calm. 

“N-No,” you stammer. “B-But I don’t understand. I only did it because you weren’t here, and now that you are—”

“That doesn’t change anything.” He interrupts, voice low and commanding. “You were doing it when I wasn’t here. You couldn’t wait. So go ahead. Finish without my help, just like you intended all along.”

A shiver runs through you. His words are cold, but utterly thrilling. You stare at him, searching for a crack in his expression that isn’t there. 

Swallowing your embarrassment, you part your thighs again and place your hand back between your legs. The time you look at him—not at the mirror—as your fingers slide inside yourself. Your slick folds glisten under the bedroom light, fully displayed for him, yet he doesn’t even look. Zayne moves around the room, loosening his cuffs, rolling his shoulders, and going about his normal post-shift like you’re not bare and dripping a few feet away. 

The normalcy of it makes your stomach twist. He’s doing it on purpose, and every second he doesn’t look is a silent command to keep going. 

So, you continue. The pressure builds, unbearable now, and you bite your cheek to hold back a moan. “Zayne…” you pant, eyes fluttering shut as you buck helplessly into your own hand.

Before you can register it, he’s crouched beside you. His presence is sudden, the faint scent of soap and hospital antiseptic clinging to his skin. When his voice comes, it’s soft, but firm. “Are you going to come?”

You nod, breath hitching, unable to answer. His hand darts out, cradling your jaw, thumb pressing into your cheek as he tilts your face towards the mirror.

“Watch.”

You whimper, locking onto your reflection in the glass. Your fingers move of their own accord, gliding across your puffy clit as you push yourself over the edge. Your body trembles and tips sideways, instinctively leaning against him as the waves roll through you. 

But he isn’t done with you. 

You can’t even fully recover, because suddenly he’s pushing off his pants, his cock springing free before he’s settling in right behind you. One hand tugs greedily at your shirt, dragging the fabric up and off so your tits spring free, nipples tightening instantly in the cool air at the heat of his stare in the mirror. 

“C’mon,” he orders quietly, fingers digging into your hips as he guides you back. “Ride me.” 

You flush as you move to hover over him, still sensitive from your release. The reddened tip of his cock nudges against your entrance, smearing the sticky precum as you line him up with shaky hands. 

“You get so needy when you’re ovulating,” he murmurs, amusement threading through the lust as he fixates where you will be joined. His hips raise once to poke your entrance in impatience. 

“H-How do you–”

He chuckles under his breath, nipping your shoulder. One hand slides up your side to pinch your perked nipple, then swipe the bud of his thumb over it to soothe the sting. “You think I don't know my sweet girl?” 

You whine and shake your head before you sink slowly onto his length, a lewd moan spilling free as the stretch makes your thighs tremble all over again.

But the pace is too slow for Zayne. His fingers flex, then grip your hips and pull you down until you're seated flush against him, his swollen tip nudging your cervix.

“Is it better than your fingers, love?” he asks, lips brushing the curve of your spine as his hand smooths up your back, pressing lazy kisses against the overheated skin. 

“Mmm, y-yes. F-Fuck, yes,” you whimper, rolling your hips while your eyes stay glued to the mirror. Your breasts bounce with every motion, your juices slicking his pelvis. The obscene intimacy of watching yourself take him making your stomach flutter. 

A breathy, almost strained groan slips from him. Zayne’s grip tightens, just shy of rough, as his thumbs dig into the soft flesh of your lower back.

“That’s it… look at you,” he mutters, voice dipping darker, a little mocking. His cock twitches inside you as he leans in, lips grazing your ear. “I love how you feel like this. When your body’s begging for me.”

You clench at the words and ride him harder, chasing the friction. The mirror shows everything—your flushed face, his hungry eyes, the way he watches you fall apart for him.

“Next time,” he groans, lifting his hips to meet your thrusts, never once breaking eye contact with your reflection. “You’ll wait for me.” His hand slides up to your throat, not squeezing, just holding. “Or at least send me a picture. Understood?”

Your pussy throbs in time with your heart, moans punching out from each snap of your hips colliding. “Y-Yes! I understand—!” 

“Good. Now come for me again.” 

✮⋆˙— xavier

Your eyelids flutter to the barely-there presses of his lips. 

It starts on your cheek, then trails to your jaw. You keep your eyes closed as he buries his nose into your neck, inhaling your scent before peppering a few more kisses along the sensitive line beneath your ear. His breath is warm and uneven as he savors you before you fully wake. 

Your body reacts subconsciously, shifting closer to him and giving a tiny shiver at the affection so early in the morning. If you had to guess, the sun hasn’t even risen. The world feels dim and soft, wrapped in the stillness.

You’re aware you lie on your side. Of the weight of the comforter. Of the steady thrum of his heartbeat against your back. 

You’re also aware of his stiffness pressing against you—but it floats through your mind like a distant thought, something you register without fully grasping. 

“Good morning, angel.” Xavier’s voice is a hoarse rasp near your ear, signaling that he too just woke. His hips subtly shift, pressing him more firmly against you before he exhales. “You can go back to sleep, lovely.” 

You hum in reply, still drifting. His hand glides down the curve of your waist, slow and absentminded at first, like he’s memorizing the shape of your curves. The touch keeps you suspended in the blissful space between dreaming and reality—where every sensation feels warmer, heavier, and sweeter. 

You almost sink back under. Until his kisses don't stop. 

They linger longer now, and his fingers toy with the hem of your waistband as if testing whether you’ll stir. You inhale softly, something incoherent slipping from your lips when his warm hand slips beneath the fabric, his palm settling on your abdomen. His thumb traces patterns that send quiet sparks up your spine, each pass making your thighs tighten just a fraction more. 

You should wake. You should turn and face him, acknowledge the warmth that you are suddenly very aware is pooling in your panties—and fast. But you're so comfortable, so pliant against him, letting his touch wander while your thoughts drift like mist. 

“Do you know what today is?” Xavier murmurs, breaking through the haze.

Your blink your eyes open slowly, the dim room slowly taking shape in blurred outlines. You search your memory, but nothing important surfaces. Only the steady rhythm of his breathing and the way his hand stills, waiting. 

But your body seems to know before your mind does. There's a heightened sensitivity humming under your skin, every brush of his fingers sending a ripple through you that feels unfairly intense for how half-asleep you still are. 

Oh.

“It’s a good thing,” he continues softly, his words threaded with a gentle hunger. He finds the hem of your panties, gently rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re extra sweet today… softer. Smell so good…”

Heat creeps into your cheeks even in your drowsiness, and your legs part slightly without conscious thought. The small movement draws a low breath from him, a quiet surrender to how much he wants you. His forehead rests against your shoulder as his hand dips beneath your panties. 

He finds you wet and murmurs out grateful praises into your skin, kissing you again and again like he can't help himself. His fingers instantly begin a gentle dance against your clit, making you arch back into him with a soft, sleepy moan. 

“I saw the calendar… that cute little app,” he pinches your bud softly, soothing the action with slow passes of his fingertip. “So you’re super sensitive for me. Especially in the morning.” 

You whimper, clutching your pillow as you let breathless sounds slip free, your body melting into the pleasure despite how foggy your mind still feels. Even though his touch only abandons you for a second, a needy whine escapes your throat. He pushes your pants and panties down just enough, the material pooling at your ankles. 

“Just stay where you are, star,” he says softly as the warmth of his body leaves yours. 

Xavier trails a path of wet kiss along the back of your thighs, unhurried and worshipful. You shudder but stay curled like he asked, fingers tightening in the sheets. When he reaches your pussy, finding it dripping and open, he lets his warm breath ghost over you first, making your hips twitch.

He inhales deeply, his hips shifting mindlessly against the mattress at your sweet scent. He doesn’t wait another second before his mouth finds you.

You grasp a handful of blonde hair, whining as his tongue licks a stripe from your entrance upwards, then settles to circle your clit. He continues to lap at your heat, devouring how syrupy you are today, sucking you into his mouth and burying his face deep between your thighs like he never wants to come up for air. 

“Feels s-so good, Xavi…” you moan, trembling. 

Your orgasm is already hovering. He groans against you, one hand gripping your ass, kneading the skin encouragingly. Each swipe of his tongue is a silent plea.

Come for me. Let me taste you. Let me make you feel good. 

You break seconds after, squirming against the sheets as pleasure takes over you in warm waves. Pants leave your lips as he doesn't let up, his mouth relentlessly working you through the euphoric waves, and long after they pass. His face is sticky with your cum, dripping down his chin, making him look as if he’s the one who just finished. 

“B-Babe–” you cry out, trying weakly to push his head back. “Honey… ‘s too much…”

He presses one last lingering kiss to your puffy pussy before finally lifting his head. His cheeks are flushed, blue eyes dark and thoroughly satisfied. “Sorry,” he breathes, brushing his thumb along your thigh. “I couldn’t help myself.”

His hands are gentle as they turn you from your side onto your back. Your gaze drifts downward, catching the darkened patch of precum blooming against the front of his tented sweatpants. The sight sends a fresh pulse of heat through your still-sensitive body. 

He follows your gaze before palming himself through the fabric. 

“Think you can handle a bit more for me?”

✮⋆˙— rafayel

The car ride was silent. 

You knew you’d pushed Rafayel’s buttons a little too far at his gala tonight. But honestly… could he even blame you? 

He’d shown up dressed like sin in one of his sharpest suits, hair styled to perfection, eyes gleaming the entire duration of the exhibit. And all of it—all of it—on the exact day you were ovulating. 

Of course you were going to touch him.

Of course you were going to kiss him. 

Of course you were going to corner him beside a marble sculpture and slide your hand a little too low.

“Raaffff,” you drawl into the thick quiet of the car, leaning over the console with a pout that’s half apology, half provocation. “C’mon. Please don’t be mad. I said I’m sorry!”

Rafayel’s brows turn downwards, but there's a sparkle behind the annoyance. “Sorry for kissing my neck while I was speaking to that artist,” he replies coolly, “or sorry for grabbing my dick before I had to greet the commissioner?”

You smirk, entirely unrepentant. “Both. And you liked it! You were hard when I touched you.”

He scoffs, but the sound melts into a quiet laugh under his breath. He isn’t mad, he never really is, and when you poke his side to confirm, he squirms just enough to betray himself. The twitch at the corner of his lips is your victory flag.

You think you’ve won.

That is, until you get home. 

The moment the door clicks shut behind you, he moves. There's no warning. One second you’re toeing off your heels, the next his arms are around you, sweeping you up bridal-style. A startled laugh leaves you as he carries you down the hall, his hold possessive and unhurried. 

His lips find yours before you reach the bed, and they are soft but insistent, pulling quiet gasps from your chest. The heat that’s been simmering in your belly all day flares hotter, burning brighter. 

You land against the mattress with a muted thud, sheets cool beneath your back. “Undress,” he tells you, already slipping open the button of his shirt with graceful fingers. 

You obey immediately, giggling as you shimmy out of your dress, fabric clinging to your hips before you kick it away. Anticipation hums under your skin like static. 

Rafayel, meanwhile, is still mostly dressed. His shirt hangs open just enough to reveal his toned skin, a teasing glimpse of chest that makes your fingers itch for a touch. You reach for him instinctively, only for his hand to close around your wrist mid-air and guide it back to the mattress, pinning you there.  

“Raf–”

“Do you really think I’m going to let you have your way after tonight?” His voice is playful, smug, and dripping with amusement. The smirk he gives you is pure trouble. “You’re so cute.” 

You squirm, a fresh gush of warmth gathering between your thighs. “But… I said ‘m sorry.”

“Oh, I know you did, cutie,” he hums, leaning down to brush a single kiss against your cheek. Then your jaw. The column of your throat. Each one is soft and savoring.

“So then…” you mumble, tilting your neck to give him more space. “Why are you still dressed?”

His lips curve against your skin as he trails lower, the  gentle presses of his lips turning wetter, slower. Goosebumps rise across your body when his hands find your thighs, and ease them open for him. 

He pauses, eyes settling on the soaked material clinging to you. His thumb presses against it, just once. You squeak, and arch into his hand, sensitivity dialed painfully high today. He chuckles, rubbing your pussy through the panties in lazy strokes, up and down, just enough to make you ache. 

“I’m going to take care of you,” he coos, but his eyes are dark. “But you teased me all night… so I’m getting my revenge.”

You gasp when his thumb circles firm over your swollen clit through the fabric. The friction is electric and not enough all at once. 

“Raf… please, this isn’t fair,” you whine.

“Not fair?” he juts his lip in a mock pout. “I didn’t think it was very fair when you were handsy in public.”

Before you can argue, he hooks a finger under your panties and slides them aside, revealing your dripping cunt. He huffs in amusement, admiring the slick evidence of your arousal like its art he curated himself. (He did)

His finger drags through your folds, collecting the sticky mess. He spreads you open, glides over your clit, circles your entrance, but never lingers enough to satisfy. 

Your thighs twitch. Your hips lift. Your fingers clutch the comforter.

It’s torture. Sweet, earned, torture. 

And just as a complaint forms on your lips, his fingertip settles over your clit and begins slow, gentle circles. Pleasure sparks outward, instantly bowing your back and spewing moans from your lips. Every sensation feels amplified. 

“R-Raf… Raf, fuck—baby,” you cry, eyes squeezing shut as the pleasure builds, winding tighter and tighter. 

Rafayel laughs softly, continuing to play with your pussy, admiring how much more wetness gathers at his touch. “You close, cutie? Gonna come?” 

You nod in rapid succession. “Y-Yes…yeah ‘m gonna—“

His fingers stop. 

The sudden absence makes you gasp, blinking your eyes open “W-Why did you stop?”

He lifts his gaze to yours, expression all polished mischief and arrogance. His thumb is still resting maddeningly close to where you’re throbbing. “Did you really think I was going to let you come?” 

Your frustrated whine only makes his smile widen. He leans down, brushing his lips against yours in a slow, taunting kiss. 

“After the way you behaved tonight?” he murmurs against your mouth. “You’re going to beg for it.”

His fingers return before you can even form a reply, and they're faster this time. The slick sounds of how wet you are fills the room. What started as gentle coaxing turns into purposeful rubbing that makes you fist the sheets and sob out. When your legs try to close, he simply prises them back open. 

“You want it so bad, don’t you?” he whispers. “All worked up and needy… yet you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.” His thumb presses just right, drawing a broken sound from your throat. 

“I do… f-fuck I really do…” you whimper, hips chasing him without shame. The pressure builds once again, and just as the waves begin to crest, he stops. 

The absence is devastating. His words following are cruel. 

“Poor thing,” he murmurs, brushing his slick finger against your thigh. His cock strains against his pants, a visible twitch he pointedly ignores as he keeps his attention on you. “You’re soaking our sheets.” 

You lie there in the heat of it, trying to gather yourself. When your heartbeat finally slows enough to think, he starts over. Fingers dragging through your warmth, starting slow, then faster. Each time he brings you near the edge, letting desperate cries and whimpers that you’re close spill from your lips, he stops again.

By the fourth time, tears sting the corners of your eyes. Your thighs shake uncontrollably, pleas dissolving into half-formed syllables that barely resemble words.  

“R-Raf… p-plea–suh–ahh–” his fingers slide into your gummy walls. 

“Think you’ve been good enough?”

“Y-Yea–mmgh–yes–!” 

He exhales through his nose, finally satisfied. His fingers curl to your sweet spot, and this this they don’t pull away. 

“Fine,” he mumbles. “You can come.” 

When Sylus finally received some footage back, initially nothing stood out to him. Until he saw you meet him.

The first instance the redhead appeared in the footage, Sylus raised an eyebrow and began his deep dive.

The results that came up were not what he was expecting.

Name: Valko

Height: 6’2”

Job: EonCore Chairman

Evol: Metallization

Not only was his kitten fraternizing with the EonCore chairman – said chairman held a few secrets of his own.

When Sylus reached the timestamp of Valko transforming in a werewolf – he sat in silence to digest what he’s just seen. Then, he replayed the footage once more, to make sure he didn’t imagine it.

The next few clips of the wolf involved the two of you rough housing, with him avoiding hurting you at all costs – even if it gave you the upper hand.

Then another clip of him as a fully shifted werewolf with you riding on his back through the forest – cute.

It was the last clip that solidified Sylus’ already forming theory. From his research, this wolf was a fierce fighter. As a chairman he handled press conferences, made tough decisions and deescalated fanatics with ease. From his muscled physique to his stern face and closed off aura – he seemed unapproachable.

But around you?

He was like a puppy, always following you around. Smelling and scenting you at every chance he got.

Considering all this information Sylus had much to consider.

When it came to you – your boyfriend never thought he’d be open to sharing. But there was undeniable chemistry crackling between you and Valko. As he thought over the countless times your face reflected sheer joy in the footage, his mind was made up.

Sylus always encouraged you to be greedy in obtaining anything your heart desired. Why should that only apply to jewels, weapons and plushies?

Not one to let things remain unsaid Sylus cornered you when you came over to visit him before he departed for a business trip.

“Sy- I’m here! What urgent topic did you need to discuss with me in person?”

Moving into the living room, you spot your boyfriend sitting in his favorite armchair. Holding a plushie in his hands. As you walked closer you saw that it was the wolf plushie Valko won for you from the claw machine.

“This plushie is cute, is it a new addition to your collection?”

You bristled at his tone, feeling a wave of teasing heading your way.

“How did you even get that? And yes it’s new…Valko won it for me,” you grumbled, crossing your arms.

“I haven’t heard you mention that name before sweetie. Tell me more about this Valko.”

You narrowed your eyes at his line of questioning.

“Why the sudden interest?” you shot back.

“Is it so wrong for your boyfriend to take interest in the people you spend time with?” he smoothly replied.

You huffed at his annoyingly reasonable response.

“I met him while I was on a mission,” you started.

You proceeded to blab about his personality, the fact that his wolfy features made an appearance when he was excited, and how well you two seemed to get along from the start.

Sylus didn’t need to activate his Aether Core to see new desires forming within you. He knew you inside and out – and this Valko was a dead ringer for your type. With his upcoming business trip, the cogs began to turn.

This would be fun.

A huff is heard to your right as Valko crowded even more into your space. The bulky man waved and flashed a toothy grin at the screen.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he replied in an amused tone. Like they were both in on a joke that you weren’t privy to yet.

“You do know that I’m not actually a cat right?” you quipped at Sylus.

While poking Valko’s cheek, “But this man right here is a real werewolf,” you said in a sing-song voice. You absentmindedly scratched his ears then under his chin – just how he liked it.

It never failed to amuse you how Valko could not mask his enthusiasm when it came to you. The minute you let him into your apartment –  his wolf ears and tail popped out like a party trick.

The smell of your contentment enveloped Valko like a warm blanket, and he could not stop his tail from wagging excitedly behind him. Making noticeable thwacking sounds on your couch.

Sylus chuckled darkly, observing you two interact in real time.

“It seems like you have an excited puppy on your hands. How ever will you calm him down?” he teasingly questioned.

A few hours later…

You could barely believe what tonight has devolved into.

If you weren’t so pleased to see Valko at your doorstep, you would have found the time of his arrival suspicious. He knocked on your door 10 minutes exactly before you and Sylus were scheduled to have a video call.

Since your boyfriend, Sylus, already knew about the time you’ve been spending with Valko – you thought it’d only be fair to introduce the two tonight.

It did seem a little odd how comfortable they seemed around each other, even through a screen. But you brushed it off because Sylus was always cool, calm and collected and Valko was a chairman of a thriving business after all.

But then, things took a turn when the carmine eyed man said, “Let’s make a deal.”

A blend of whimpers, growls, and lewd, wet, slurping sounds filled the room.

You were on your back, as a head of dark burgundy hair was all you could see between your legs. Despite how they twitched and attempted to close with each jolt of pleasure – his strong arms held you open with little effort as he feasted.

“She tastes good doesn’t she puppy?” Sylus crooned from the laptop that was placed at just the right angle to catch everything. From the hitches in your breath, to the ravenous pace Valko set. Sylus could not tear his eyes away from the enthralling sight.

You yelped as Valko growled while suckling your clit.

“She tastes amazing, you should smell how her scent blooms each time you speak,” he replied gruffly before going back to his feast.

Your boyfriend hummed. “Does my voice turn you on kitten? While your friend’s face is covered in your essence?”

You frantically nod your head as your attempts to squirm away from the onslaught of pleasure resulted in Valko holding you down harder.

“I think the pup is doing a good job, don’t you agree? Why don’t we…change things up, so everyone can get what they want?”

Valko reluctantly pulled away from your moist heat, facing the laptop with a questioning look on his face.

“What did you have in mind?”

You were struggling with so many things at once.

At Sylus’ instruction, Valko picked you up like you weighed nothing then sat down on the edge of your bed – directly facing the laptop.

You were perched on his lap, your back meeting his chest. With your legs spread over each of his toned thighs. Leaving you exposed to both Valko’s and Sylus’ lustful gazes.

The wolf wrapped a muscled arm around your waist, keeping you upright. Then used his other hand to rub his warm length against your core – gathering the slickness there.

The wolf’s marigold eyes flashed, and he let out a growl from feeling you against him.

“Worked up already sweetie?” Sylus’ voice broke through your lust induced haze.

“She’s practically dripping onto the sheets,” Valko offered behind you.

His minute thrusts against your slick seam pulled punched out moans from your throat.

“What do you want to happen kitten? We will go as far as you want to.”

“P- please inside of me. I can’t take it anymore,” you begged.

Valko whimpered at your request, waiting to hear Sylus’ response before making a move.

“Well?” the carmine eyed man uttered.

“You heard her, what are you waiting for?”

In what seemed like a millisecond, Valko was lifting you to notch his hot mushroom tip against your opening. With how turned on you were, he slipped in easily. The descent down his length was assisted by gravity and your willpower alone. Valko refused to slam into you and accidentally hurt the person he held most dear.

Once you reached the base, you bit your lip as your pussy involuntarily spasmed around the thick intrusion.

“F- fuck don’t do that,” Valko whined behind you. Gasping at the warm, silky embrace of your walls.

“I can’t help it,” you whined back.

“What a delectable sight,” Sylus said wistfully before his tone changed to something more commanding.

“We don’t have all night, move puppy.”

As if being activated by a code word, Valko cups the bottom of her inner thighs in his hands. With ease, he glided you up and down his length. With distinct squelching sounds produced on each pass.

You couldn’t hold back the moans from leaving your mouth.

“That’s what I like to hear. Keep it up puppy.”

Your boyfriend’s encouragement seemed to only add to the wolf’s enthusiasm.

You didn’t dare to dream of such an outcome from introducing Valko to your boyfriend. But to say this wasn’t fulfilling several fantasies of yours would be a lie. Everything about this has been sensual.

The fact that Valko also lifted you like you were weightless.

His repressed growls rumbling against your back.

And the paralyzing feeling of being so full of him each time he bottomed out was making your mind go silent.

The only thing you could focus on was feeling.

In and out.

Silk wrapped steel molding your walls around it.

Your body overheating.

The faint sound of Sylus unzipping his pants.

You were in trouble.

“Don’t forget our deal,” Sylus chimed in, sounding a little breathless.

“Neither of you are allowed to finish until I say so.”

This brutal reminder brought you both back to the present.

You weren’t sure if you were going to make it. Valko’s thick length felt like it was made for you he managed to find all your sensitive spots.

You keened as you felt his length begin to shift and change. Before long, there was a stiff knot tapping against her entrance with each downward pull.

“I-,” your attempt at a sentence cuts off with a garbled moan when Valko grips your hips and grinds you down in a circular motion. Making sure you felt it.

"You're that worked up wolf? I would think an alpha had more control than that,” Sylus breathily taunted as his hand wrapped around his length. Valko released something between a growl/whimper as he tried to hold off on coating your insides.

You felt so overwhelmed and you needed to focus on something.

“Kiss me, please?” you begged as he continued to grind you against his knot with increasing pressure. Valko doesn’t even bother answering before he leans over your shoulder and turns your face towards his.

Your lips slot against his like a connecting puzzle piece.

It’s the first kiss you’ve shared with Valko, so it starts off slow, exploratory. With him sliding his lips against yours until your tongue swipes against the seam of his lips. He lets you in and groans as your tongues curl against one another.

You both playfully fight for dominance; ending with you giggling at feeling him smile against your mouth.

Previously distracted by the kiss, Valko grips your hips once again then starts grinding you down onto his knot.

Before long, it feels like your hole is loosening up to let him in. Practically hanging a banner over your pussy titled “KNOT ME”.

“Are ready to take his knot tonight? Tell me,” Sylus smoothly asks, wanting to confirm that you are still doing okay.

“Yes, I want it so bad!” you keened as Valko redoubled his effort to ease you further and further down.

“Well wolf? You know what to do.”

You feel Valko nod enthusiastically behind you, his tail going wild behind him.

After a few more grinds back and forth, you feel the tip of it begin to sink in.

You let out a gasp at the intense sensation.

Valko mouths your shoulder at the intense feeling, shifting one of his hands down to your clit. Hoping to distract you from the pressure.

“You can do it kitten, you’re almost at the widest part,” Sylus encouraged from the laptop, a distinct shlick sound accompanying his words.

“Oh my god, oh my god, holy shit,” you exclaimed as Valko used your distracted state to fully seat himself inside of you.

Knot and all.

Your spine bows at the unique sensation. You have never been this full in your life and you marveled at the resilience of your body in this moment.

Both you and Valko were left panting, trying to catch your breath.

As you got used to the sensation, the fullness began to feel good, in a completely new way. When your wetness began to drip around him, Valko started to rub your clit once again. This sensation combined with the hot, throbbing knot lodged inside you was euphoric.

At the first involuntary spasm of your pussy Sylus says "Now." Your orgasm starts at your core, spreading up your torso then out to your extremities. Your pussy is so stretched open that you can’t even spasm properly around him. But your pleasure is all consuming, causing your eyes to roll to the back of your skull.

Seeing, smelling and feeling your pleasure pushes Valko right over the edge. Releasing warm, long spurts of cum into you. You were not prepared for the sheer volume. Already feeling it leak out of you, trailing down your still spread thighs.

Sylus spilled over his own hand at the sinful image you both made. His girlfriend, lost to the endless waves of pleasure. And behind her, a delightfully obedient puppy practically howling as he knotted his mate.

Sylus would have to be blind to miss how much you meant to the wolf already. He was just waiting for you both to catch on.

You felt Valko begin to reposition you both on your side, getting ready to go to bed. As you start to drift off you hear your boyfriend say, “That was delicious, make sure you're both rested up for when I return."

But you don't–

“Valkoooo,” your loud purposefully screeching voice reached his ears, abruptly awakening him from that nightmare.

Your eyebrows raised as he sat up almost too fast, a hand coming up to run his fingers through his hair. 

“Bad dream?”

He groans, “the worst.”

“figured. You were whimpering and moving around too much in your sleep.”

“huh…” Valko mumbled incoherent words under his breath before meeting your eyes sharply, “wait, are you messing with me–” when he meets your almost smirking face, his face deadpans before grabbing the nearest pillow and throwing it at your face. 

The soft pillow lands on your lap, and before you could retort back, Valko is already on his feet. 

“Wait! I've got a peace offering,” you scramble out of the bed to catch up with him. “made pancakes. Only the best of course, with chocolate syrup and all that.” you hum with your hands behind your back and valko’s ears perk up. 

He slowly turns to you, and you can sense an evil within coming from him. “i know.”

“...you know?”

“it's the sixth sense.” he brags while tapping on his nose. 

Your shoulders slump, “what are you on? There are only five—oh you little!” you dash when he starts running to the kitchen, and you silently pray he doesn't down the breakfast you were supposed to share. 

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

You supposedly invited your friend over for a sleepover, for a day or two. And after asking him for a little support to cheer you up, he barged in within the next hour. 

Thank goodness it's day two of the sleepover. Might be harsh considering you want him to stay forever— (forever is a little much). 

But the house was a mess. Random reddish hair was sticking to your sofa and cushions, and half decorations were mysteriously knocked over (he fixed them right away.)

And the shoes.

Your eye twitched as you eye your beloved friend making himself home with his shoes on your clean sofa. 

“Uh oh.” valko raises both hands, like he was surrendering to something he didn't even know what. “What i do this time?” he tilts his head, an annoying pout instantly plasters his face. 

You take a deep breath, “the shoes, Mr. Wolf.”

“aye aye, captain.” he takes off the shoes before tossing them towards your front door. 

“better?”

“much.” 

“Gonna tell me what's on your mind now?” 

“...” 

Your silence doesn't make things better, something has been bothering you, and he knows it. He just has been unsuccessful trying to get it out of you. 

You don't know how he's suddenly looming over you, arms wrapped tightly around you to gently sway you side to side, “It's okay,” he whispers with reassurance, fingers cards through your hair, and followed by a tiny affectionate kiss on your head.

“Is it?” you question, expression turning bitter, and he only takes you in tighter. “Okay, that's enough,” your muffled words vibrate against his chest.

“shh, it's okay,” he presses his cheek above your head while continuing to pat your back as if soothing a wounded child. 

“No, I can't breathe—” you slap his back and his amber eyes widen before he grabs your shoulders to pull you back, and you take a dramatic breath of air. 

“sorry…” his ears flatten as he checks on you, thumb running through your pulse point, and… Up your jaw. You clear your throat. 

“Shall we go for a walk?”

Your silly guy’s ears perk right up. 

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

A walk, you said. Are you sure the part where you pet random dogs in the middle of your walk; part of the plan?

“You're such a cutie, ooh good boy.” you coo at the huge labrador dog that's laying on the ground in front of you, tongue out with almost a smile spreading on its face as you continue scratching and petting his belly. 

You thought the sudden whimpering sounds were coming from this cutie pie, and when you stop petting him, you turn around. 

Valko stands perfectly still, staring at you. You both blink at each other before you resume the scratches for the labrador. 

The sounds return. 

You turn. 

You pet again. 

You turn–

“valko.”

“...what?” he asks innocently before pushing his face closer to yours, the amber puppy eyes were definitely shining bright. 

“Can we leave?” he asked begrudgingly. A hand already snaking around your waist, ready to guide you away from this stink before you could protest. 

Valko turns his head at the dog, giving him a low growl, and earning him an aggressive bark in return. 

“down boy.” you say jokingly, but to your surprise, he lowers his head enough to meet your face, “yes, ma'am.” his stupid grin that's enough to show his sharp canines. 

That stupid smile that makes you giggle internally before you lock the fuck in.

“… anyway, let’s get back. It’s getting cloudy.”

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

“Oh, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” you hear the idiot sing-song for the nth time while tiny rocks continue meeting the glass of your window like it was a meteor shower. 

You tried shutting yourself away by listening to some music, and just when your headphones say ‘low battery, please charge.’, you reach your limit. 

You roll out of your bed to slide your window open, just to deadpan right at valko, who has a full blown out grin. 

“Got your faves!” he yells out, a hand next to his mouth while he waves a bag of snacks in his other hand. 

He cares a lot. Cares too much that it makes you… Scared? It's not an act, you're sure of it. (are you?) 

“front door’s open.” you point down and he yells ‘yes!’ before skipping inside like a kid who just got the green light. 

You make your way to the front door before realizing, ugh, you didn't fix yourself before he comes in. 

At least the house looks decent enough. 

Valko bursts inside while chewing on the bar of freshly opened chocolate, hood on, and shoes off this time. 

He swallows the bit of sweet before speaking, “hey, talk to me. What's wrong?”

Valko wraps an arm around your shoulder, guiding you to the couch, leaving no room to protest. 

He opens a bag of your favorite chips, hand feeds you one chip for some energy then gives you the time to talk. 

“... Had a bad dream.” you mumbled while chewing on the crunchy chip, your finger tracing invisible shapes on your thigh. 

“Mhm?” he throws another chip in his mouth while listening in. 

“and you died in that dream, and it was all because of me.” you cover your face in almost embarrassment. He hates you now, you're sure of it, his whole pack will think this is some sort of bad omen and–

“pfffttt—”

You hear a muffled laugh. 

And you part two of your fingers to confirm what you actually think he is doing, enough for your eye to peek at his expression. 

Is he serious right now? He's laughing and you're upset, he's laughing and you're—

“oh, c'monnn,” he elbows you lightly before comfortably resting his head on your lap. Oh this sly wolf! 

“and you decided to ignore me becauseeee?”

“Didn't feel like it.”

“That's not an answer! I'm hurt. Prince charming here needs all the attention from his favorite princess,”

You then pinch at his nose which makes him contort into a playful grimace, his eyes squeezed shut, “ow, ow! Okay!”

He grabs your wrist then without hesitation, he bites on the side of your hand like it was a toy he just caught. 

You gasp, lightly smacking his hand from his silly antics, “bad!” the minute the words leave your lips, you instantly regret it from the way his lips pursed in an exaggerated pout that looked utterly ridiculous on such a massive man, a whine followed afterwards. 

“i didn't mean that,” you sigh heavily, leaning back against the couch like you just fought a stubborn bug. Though, Valko doesn't stop with his clinginess, and presses his face to your stomach. 

You give in too easily, brushing the red strands of his hair to calm both of you down. 

Wait, was this normal between friends? Surely not… you were… AlAlways like this. Comfortable. 

“i just heard your stomach growl.”

“oh, you—!”

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

You feel delusional, does he actually… like you?

No, no. That’s impossible, you refuse to believe it. (Even though your friends said otherwise and the signs are clear as the sky.)

But valko is like that with everyone, you argue with yourself. Or to his family at least. You have yet to see him with his other friends.

You’re best friends, juuust best friends, you’re just close. Close…. Enough for his mood to change 360 when you come over to his house.

“Uhh, hi?” You look up at him from your bending position of taking your shoes off, and his expression changes again, “heyyy, so can we do something?”

You chuckle, “sure.”

“Let’s burn your jacket.” He smiles stiffly through his teeth, and your eyes squint suspiciously at him. He’s having one of those episodes again…

You clear your throat with much exaggeration, “why, oh why, is one requesting something so absurd?” Your arms are crossed while you circle around him dramatically.

“It stinks.”

“Why excuse me?”

Valko frowns. A literal upside down smiley face.

Now you’re scared. What if you actually do smell a little bad? What’s worse is that you’ve been hanging out with your friends all day.

You lift one arm, a slow tilt of your head to take a hesitant whiff off your pits. 

… nothing.

In a one fluid motion, faster than you can ever register it, Valko scoops you up bridal-style against his chest.

“where?” You demand.

“Bathroom.” He answers casually.

This time, it was your turn to frown, “Val, do I actually stink?”

He stops halfway into the bathroom to plop you down on the sink. “Nope.” He hums while sliding your jacket off, and tossing it right to the laundry basket. You didn't fight him off, you just wanted to know what was bothering him.

“Explain.” You look up at him, his hands set on either side of the sink so he could inch himself closer, “you wear other people's scent sometimes.”

“Does it matter?”

“Does my answer matter?”

This back and forth was killing you because Valko sounded incredibly jealous. Something inside you tells you to brush it off and think of it as a sign that he cares about you.

But he isn’t just acting as your friend now, he was testing the waters of crossing that invisible line.

Your eyes avoid him completely, you’re perhaps too afraid to ask, too nervous, but he waits patiently.

“Are you jealous?” The question makes your heart beat faster, and you wonder if his hearing is strong enough for him to pick up the fast thump thump thump.

You already know valko has no sense of personal space when it comes to you, (and his friends too, perhaps? You think?). So you’re not surprised when he nuzzles his cheek into your shoulder like a wounded puppy caught in his act.

“... Yes.” a quiet confession, you notice the way his hands grip the side of the sink until veins show. 

“Valko,” you gently chide, a hand on his chest to push him off a tiny bit. “Listen, i–”

“I'm sorry.” he sputters out, his head lowered, and there's when you notice the slight panic. 

“No, no, no I'm the problem.” your hands cup his warm cheeks, lifting his face up enough to meet those amber yellow eyes that you loved. 

“It's me. I'm a mess. And if you really do feel what I think you're feeling for me–no, scratch that. I don't deserve this, matter of fact, I don't deserve to be really called your best friend—”

Your ramblings die down when the gentlest swipe of his thumb meets your eyelid, almost as if wiping an invisible tear. 

“enough,” he whispers, “I won't allow the very person I love to hate themselves.” 

You blink, and Valko feels your eyelashes flutter with each brush of his thumb, his tail seems to have another opinion, taking it a mile further by ever slowly wrapping itself around your leg. 

You tense from the sudden contact, and he immediately tries retracting it. “... Sorry, it has a mind of its own.”

‘not now—’ you hear him whisper in frustration while smacking his tail away. 

And meanwhile, your brain is still stuck when he utters those words… ‘the person he loves’ the person… love… you…

Huh?

“Val,” your hands are on his shoulders, and he tenses up, the nickname enough to make his head snap back to you as if a dog reacting to his favorite word. 

“you… love me?”

Those yellow orbs meet yours, “certainly.”

“as in…?” your eyes narrow. 

“anything you want it to be.”

Woah. You've heard words like those… Coming from your friends' stories, but now this is just making your hands all clammy. 

Valko steps back a tiny bit like it hurts him, the mood suddenly changing. “... I think it's best if you go home.”

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

It's been three days since you've seen Valko. Since he's texted you even. Was spamming his phone too much? He's basically leaving you on delivered. 

Around this time every six months or so, Valko goes on a “family” trip, he does text you whenever he gets the chance. But something tells you he isn't on some trip right now. 

“oh, girl. It's best not to visit him now. He's… upset? Frustrated.” you called his cousin just to make sure he wasn't on a trip, and that confirmed your suspicions. 

You ignore her advice, and immediately reach for your jacket and keys. 

(Spoiler: honey, a big mistake…) 

It's a full moon, you note. taking in the beautiful sky while already in a taxi on your way to his apartment. You just wanted to calm your racing heart, what if he's ignoring you because he thought you rejected him? And he told his entire family? You wanted to tell him everything. Your worries, your feelings, and to reassure this perfect silly wolf. 

You knock on his door twice, pressing your ear against his door. Nothing. 

“Valko?” you knock again, a bit harsher this time. Was he already asleep? He usually stays up late. 

After impatiently waiting a few minutes, you take the spare key he has granted you, a ‘just in case’ key. “sorry to barge in…” you muttered to yourself while twisting the door open. 

It felt like a horror movie. Why were all the lights off? 

You move straight to his room, peeking through the already creaked open door. 

You almost want to sigh in relief when you see his still figure on the bed, thinking he was asleep–

Wait a minute. 

You squint your eyes to focus, (creepy), just to realize he was panting quietly like he was… Sick? Having a fever? Hold on… Why does he have one of your missing shirts pressed into his face..?! 

Before you could think or even breathe, Valko's head snapped up. Ears up like he sensed something dangerous, and his pupils turning into slits, a sight you've never seen before. Like he was a predator instead of someone you recognized.

A step back was taken without thinking, and you don’t even register how he’s jumped from the bed to grab you inside and shut the door.

“Don’t go—“ his arms are caging your entire figure against, nose pressing into your neck and shoulder like he was going to go crazy if he doesn’t take you in.

“I mean, why are you here?” The tone comes out whiny, ears flattened as he mentally fights the inner voices. To claim, to mate, to mark.

“Valko!” your voice snaps him back to reality, “you have a fever! You're sick and you didn't think to tell me??” oh no, you sound angry. He doesn’t want that. Not now. 

“your scent is making me dizzy, princess.” that stupid petname comes in again, but you try to not fucking giggle when you think your friend is here suffering. “What are you talking about? This is no time for jokes.” you press the back of your hand to his forehead, all the way to his neck. Goodness, his entire body is burning.

“Gosh, I wish I had explained this to you before.” he sounds parched, eyes unfocused as they meet yours again. 

“... Is it a wolf thing?”

He nods, fingers brushing strands of your hair, to admire your face even better. 

“I'm going through a rut.”

Okay. Okay. Calm down. You've read about those in books. Although you don't know the symptoms, you know that they need to mate, yes, mate–

The imaginary light bulb above your head breaks before you slowly look back up at the almost drooling beast. You chuckle nervously. 

“So you need a mate–”

He presses his lips close to your ear to whisper, “i need to fuck. Now. With my mate.”

Your heart drops to your pus–feet. Surely he's not referring to you as his mate? (the doubt creeps in again.)

“Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.” Valko physically rips himself away from your body to circle around the room in frustration, it doesn't really help when your scent is attacking his too sensitive nose. 

How can he even explain now that it's also a wolf thing that you're his mate? Great, now he's scaring you even more. 

Or so he thought. 

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“i was terrified. Terrified that if I told you, the friendship we built through years of laughter, the quiet moments would be swallowed up by the beast.”

“Val,”

“Yeah?” he's back to invading your personal space with just one word, like he was a puppy at your command. 

“I'm not afraid of you.”

The crickets are too loud outside. 

“... I mean, I like you—want you, too. I want to cross that invisible line.”

The bed creaks are about to be even louder. 

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

Your leather jacket is off in seconds. So is his shirt. 

Your first kiss was hesitant at first, soft and questioning, at least Valko was sane enough to take it slow at first. Such an angel you are to help him. 

His lips felt warm, and slightly dry from dehydration caused by his ‘fever’. 

Valko breathes your name against your lips between kisses, each one growing slightly less hesitant as you don't push him away. His hands slide back into your hair to keep you from potentially running away. 

His nose brushes yours as he angles for a better fit, the kiss deepening naturally despite his lack of experience with this affection between the two of you. 

He tastes faintly like chocolate and something uniquely him. Warm, the forest, and slightly salty from fever sweat.

Valko makes a soft, pleased sound in the back of his throat when you grip on his skin, like an eager puppy finally getting petted. His kissing improves rapidly now that he's encouraged; lips parting slightly to deepen the kiss more confidently.

One hand slides down to support your lower back while the other stays tangled gently in your hair, massaging lightly at your scalp without thinking. He is in heaven. 

Since when did you reach his bed? 

“I-it must be painful going through it,” your breaths come in quick breaths when those same warm lips meet your jaw into another round of featherlight kisses, his other hand busy with trying to get in contact with the skin underneath your shirt. 

“It hurts, a lot.” 

“Where? Do I need to do something?”

“my dick.” 

Oh… 

He laughs into your skin while nuzzling his nose against your neck, your face now as hot as the rest of his body. 

You cover his mouth using the palm of your hand, but a swipe of his tongue against your palm makes you retract it quickly. 

“You're such a dog.”

“woof?”

At this rate, everything he is doing or saying is making your heart race tenfolds, are you going crazy? 

“If you could just read what's going through my head… And the things I want to do. You'd hate me forever.”

“There's nothing you can do that will make me hate you.”

Bullshit, he wants to voice out. But his voice quickly dies when he realizes you weren't wearing a bra underneath your white shirt. 

He swallows at the sight of your pebbling nipples peeking through your shirt, “I'm… at my limit.” he growls before lifting your arms up to get rid of any barrier that's stopping him from pressing his face in between your tits. 

Your scent is everywhere. Just how he likes it, on his sheets, his skin, and soon, your scent will be covered with his. 

Valko laps at one of your nipples, how can your skin taste so sweet?, and you immediately melt at the stimulation that's causing you to clench your thighs together, a hesitant moan leaves your parting lips. 

“Come here,” he guides you on his lap as he gets handsy down your ass to part both of your thighs apart. He's hard. Painfully so. Can you even take it?

Both pants are off in the next few desperate kisses of tongue and teeth, and valko wastes no time dragging a finger along your clothed slit to make sure you were enjoying this as much as he was, just to find that you were embarrassingly soaked.

Your brain is too foggy to even register the rip of your panties, flimsy fabric tossed to the side. His breaths are only getting heavier mixed with low growls as he pushes in two fingers at once without warning.

“Mmnh–!” you slightly jump from his lap as he starts pumping and massaging your slick walls with consideration to go slow at first, you do nothing but take it. Face pressed onto his shoulder while you grind your hips into his fingers, his palm pressing firmly at your clit to drive you to your first orgasm. 

Your poor beloved has lost it, eyes unfocused as he starts drilling his fingers faster into your soaked cunt while curling his digits in that perfect spot to make you see stars. Your toes curl as you ready yourself for the upcoming release, “grind yourself into my palm—yeah just like that good girl.” you didn't need to be told twice to bounce on his fingers like a cat in heat, chasing your high so fast it makes your ears ring when that knot in your abdomen finally breaks loose. 

Valko wishes he can give you time to recover, but he will cum in his pants if he doesn't have you in the next two minutes. 

He presses you into the harshest position, legs pressed into chest completely until your knees are nearing the sides of your head. You mewl and scratch at his back, silently begging at this point for him to take you. You can tell he's still hesitant about it all, even as he teases his cock to slide along your slit, still refusing to just push in. 

“Val,” you whisper breathlessly into his dimly lit room, a hand cradles his cheek as another buzzing whimper vibrates your palm. “My precious, don't say my name like that unless you want me to fuck you until the sun rises.” the tone is too innocent compared to the words… Your lips form an invisible zipper anyway. 

A gasp is too quick to leave your lips when the fat tip finally meets home, stretching your pussy open to accommodate the monstrous girth and length of it. 

Your back arches as you shake your head from side to side, “F-fuck you,” you pant and cry out, and the bastards fangs show with his tail thumping and swaying wildly in return.

“Already on it,” he pushes the last of his length before you're met with the enlarged base of his cock that immediately makes you freeze. “... What's happening?”

Valko huffs, “My knot. Don't worry, I won't do anything you don't like.” he reassures with a wet kiss on your forehead, but it doesn't calm your throbbing cunt or racing heart. 

One thing you should've realized when having sex with Valko for the first time is that he would be loud. Whining. Snarling. Whimpering. Moaning. He wants you to know that he is enjoying it, and you are loving every second of it despite your reddening ears. 

“d-don’t go,” his thrusts are erratic and inconsistent, as if he was rutting in rather than properly thrusting in and out. 

His grip underneath your thighs are accidentally too harsh, like he was preventing you from pulling away, like he was making sure your bodies are locked. 

“I'm not going anywhere.” you gently pull his face up from your chest, the spot a drooling mess but you choose to ignore it for now. “easy, easy. Take your time.” you mutter softly before taking one of his hands to interlock your fingers. His panicked expression quickly dies down as he presses his forehead against yours. 

This pouty wolf. 

He thrusts in again, testing how the swelled base of his cock tries making its way in. “y-you gonna come?” you attempt to ask with a broken moan, eyes rolled back when he angles his hips to perfectly press the head along that spongy spot inside. 

“Can't–can't–i want to mark you, to knot you until—” he bites on his lower lip enough for it to almost bleed, but you press your thumb against his lips to stop him from potentially hurting himself. 

“will you give you whatever you want, okay?” you assured, his tail wags even more in response. “only if you stay a good boy, don't think too much, don't hurt yourself.”

Valko’s eyes turn into big boba eyes. “your… your good boy, yesyesyes, please,” his pleas don't fall on deaf eyes as your lips meet in another dance of affection, spit, and moans. 

The slaps of skin against skin only gets louder, and so does the rhythm of his hips thrusting in and out of you, his balls meeting your ass in lewd loud smacks. 

Then it comes in without a warning, his cum fills you up so much that you swear it fills your whole womb and spills out. Dripping down the sheets, and making a mess along your inner thighs. 

Valko doesn't stop rutting his hips into you, slowly this time, and you're confused if he's lost in the feeling or–

There it was. 

“Oh my fuck—!” you nearly scream, nails digging into his back as his knot finally pops inside, it drives you to your next orgasm  as your cunt spasms and milks his entire cock for all its worth. 

“Nonono, I'm sorry, does it hurt?” those stupid innocent eyes locked at your face study your pained expression, his hands cradling your face to litter soft kisses all over. 

He stops moving all together, giving you a moment to breathe because you definitely feel KO’ed. 

You slowly blink to clear your blinding vision, only to be met with a rather concerned Valko. 

“you idiot.”

“i know, i know!”

“i can't even describe it. I'm… I'm filled!”

“i will eat it out of you. We smell good together–”

“Valko!”

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

The red head doesn't stop blaming himself all morning, even after taking a shower together (an innocent shower, that is.)

“i should've told you and stopped playing that guessing game between us,” Valko continues rambling on while you open the small bottle of birth control pills, and just as you were about to take one in, you hear a loud smack coming from your left. 

You head snaps with wide eyes before squinting at the red handprint on his cheek, did he just slap himself?

“carry on.” he waves it off, turns around, and shuts the door to give you privacy inside. 

From inside, and older woman called, “If that's my good plate, I will put someone in the ground before supper.”

Valko closed his eyes. You turned toward him.

He opened one eyes. “She loves plates.”

“More than people?”

“Depends on the people.”

You laughed before you could stop yourself, and relief moved through him all at once, softening his shoulders, loosening the frightened line of his mouth. He'd been nervous all morning. Badly nervous. Valko, who could grin with blood on his teeth and make danger look like a door he'd simply forgotten to knock on, had spent the whole walk here giving you warnings no sane person could have prepared for.

Do not let Mika read your palm. He makes things up and then believes them.

Do not compliment Baba's curtains unless you want curtains.

Do not say you're full.

And, most importantly, if anyone mentions the soup incident, Valko had said, grave as a condemned man, they're lying.

You had asked what the soup incident was.

He had started to walk faster.

Now he stood before the old wooden door with your fingers caught in his, trying to look calm and producing, somehow, the exact expression of a wolf about to be bathed.

“Valko,” you said softly.

“Yes?”

“You're shaking.”

“I'm not shaking.”

“You are.”

“I’m containing myself.”

“From what?”

“Hereditary embarrassment.”

The door flew open.

A girl about his age stood on the other side, dark-eyed and grinning, with flour on her cheek and murder in her posture. She took one look at Valko’s hand around yours, then lifted her gaze to his face with the slow delight of someone finding a knife exactly where she had hoped one would be.

A slow smile cut across her face.

“Oh,” she smirked. “So this is why you changed your shirt twice.”

Valko made a sound. Small, wounded, entirely unlike a wolf.

“I changed once.”

“You changed twice. The first shirt was the blue one. The second was the one that made you look like you were going to court. This...This is the third.”

His ears went red.

The woman held out her hand to you. “Milena. His sister.”

“Unfortunately,” Valko added.

“Fortunately. Without me, you'd still think soap is optional in winter.”

“It isn't optional.”

“Because of me.”

You took Milena's hand. Her grip was warm, firm, and full of judgement she hadn't yet decided to use.

Behind her, the house breathed out heat. Bread, onions, some in old wood, something sweet cooling on a counter. There were voices everywhere, layered and crossing. One person laughing while another complained, a child humming under a table, chairs scraping, a kettle whistling like a bird losing patience.

Milena stepped aside. “Come in before Baba starts saying we were raised by wolves.”

Valko muttered, “We were.”

She looked at him. “And still, some of us learned manners.”

You crossed the threshold. The house was smaller than the noise made it seem, or maybe the noise had simply learned to fill every corner. Framed photographs climbed the walls in crooked rows. Herbs hung drying above the kitchen window. Nothing matched, and yet everything looked touched, mended, argued over... kept.

Valko leaned close as he helped you out of your coat.

“Last chance,” he whispered. “We can run.”

You looked past him to where an old woman stood near the stove, hands folded over her apron, watching you with bright, wolfish eyes.

“Too late,” you whispered back. “I think she heard you.”

“I hear everything,” the old woman said.

Valko went still.

Milena smiled into her shoulder.

The old woman crossed the kitchen with the slow authority of someone who had ruled this house before any of them had teeth. She was small, broad in the shoulders, silver-haired, with flour on her wrist and no softness wasted in her face. The softness, you realised, was elsewhere. In the bread covered by a towel, in the chair pulled out before you reached it, in the way Valko lowered his head without being asked when she came close.

“Baba,” he said, and for the first time that day, his voice lost its jokes.

She, of course, ignored him.

Instead, she took your face between both hands.

Her palms smelled of rosemary, yeast, and soap. Her thumbs rested beneath your cheekbones, and for one strange second the whole house seemed to lean closer. The cousins, the kettle, the old boards, even Valko, holding his breath beside you.

“So,” Baba Vesna said. “You are the reason he forgets to eat.”

“I eat,” Valko protested.

Teta Marika appeared by the stove, wooden spoon in hand. “You came here last week, opened the pantry, stared at a sack of potatoes for six minutes, then said, ‘I wonder what she’s doing.’”

“That was taken out of context.”

“What was the context?” you asked, because love had made you brave and terrible.

Valko looked betrayed. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

A boy leaning backwards on his chair nearly lost balance from laughing, another cousin caught the chair by its back without looking up from peeling an apple.

Baba Vesna patted your cheek once and released you. “Sit, dušo. Eat something before my family embarrass me properly.”

Valko gave a strangled laugh. “Before?”

No one listened to him.

You were placed at the long wooden table as if the decision had been made before you arrived. A bowl appeared, then bread, then butter, then a small plate of pickled vegetables. Teta Marika, Valko's aunt, kissed the air beside your cheeks and took the small gift you had brought. Mika announced that he already knew your favourite colour from Valko’s face. Luka told him that was the stupidest sentence ever spoken in the kitchen, which Mika accepted as praise. The little one beneath the table emerged, solemn and bread-dusted, and introduced himself as Niko.

“Are you going to marry him?” Niko asked.

Valko walked directly into the side of a chair.

The whole kitchen paused. You pressed your lips together.

Milena leaned against the doorway, radiant with cruelty. “Careful, Niko. Val only has two knees.”

“Niko,” Teta Marika turned from the stove, wooden spoon in hand. “We ask guests if they want juice first.”

Niko nodded, absorbing this etiquette with grave importance. “Do you want juice before you marry him?”

Valko covered his face with both hands. You bit down on your smile so hard it almost hurt. This wasn't what you had expected.

Some foolish, frightened part of you had imagined a den in the old sense. Teeth, watchful eyes, a family arranged around blood and law, waiting to decide whether your bones could be allowed near theirs. Valko had never spoken of them casually. Whenever he said home, something tender and embarrassed moved through him, as though the word itself had fingers and knew exactly where to touch.

Now you sat beneath a crooked lamp while his grandmother tore bread with her hands and put the first piece on your plate.

“Eat,” Baba Vesna said.

You obeyed.

The bread was warm enough to steam between your fingers. The crust cracked softly, butter melted into it in golden lines. Across the table, Valko watched you take the first bite as if your mouth held judgment from heaven.

You chewed. Swallowed.

“It’s delicious.”

Baba Vesna clicked her tongue. “Of course it is wonderful. I made it.”

Mika leaned towards you. “He talked about you after the market yesterday.”

Valko’s hand hit the table. “No.”

“Yes, you did” Luka said sticking his tongue out.

“No.”

“You said, and I quote, 'she chooses fruit with such care'.”

The table went quiet for half a breath, your hand stilled around the bread. Valko looked at Luka as if betrayal had entered the room wearing his cousin’s face.

“That was private.”

“You said it in the kitchen.”

“That makes it private.”

Milena sat across from you and rested her chin in her hand. “He also said you have kind hands.”

Valko’s mouth opened, nothing came out. Your heart did something foolish inside your chest.

The teasing had worked him bright and flustered, but beneath it, something softer trembled. He was embarrassed, yes. Horribly, so. Beautifully, so. Yet the thing underneath was more dangerous than shame. This was exposure. A curtain pulled open in a room he had spent so long keeping dim.

He had spoken of you here.

At this table. In this warm, loud house. To these people who teased him because they knew what he looked like with no armour on. He had brought you home long before he ever brought your body through the door.

Baba Vesna filled your bowl with soup.

“He was always like this,” she said.

“Baba, please.”

“He was a strange child,” she said.

Valko groaned. “Please.”

“A sweet child,” Teta Marika corrected.

“A dramatic child,” Luka said.

“A biting child,” Milena added.

Valko pointed at her. “You bit first.”

“You looked biteable.”

“You see what I mean?” Valko turned to you with helpless outrage. “This is what I survived.”

There was love in it, the kind that had been cooked too long and reduced into something strong enough to stain. They spoke to him as if they had known every version of him and chosen, again and again, to keep putting food in front of whichever one came home.

You looked at him while he argued with Mika about whether a stolen spoon counted as a childhood trauma.

He caught you looking. For a moment, the noise thinned.

There he was.

Valko with his hair refusing every law of decency. Valko trying so hard to survive his own family and failing beautifully. His eyes met yours with a nervous brightness that made you want to reach across the table and be cruel to every fear that had ever found him.

Then Niko pointed his spoon at you.

“Are you keeping him?”

The kitchen stopped.

Valko made a tiny sound into his bowl.

Milena closed her eyes as if praying for patience and finding none. “Niko.”

“What? Mika said maybe she is keeping him.”

His gaze dropped to the table, to the bread by his hand, to the small old cuts in the wood. The blush still clung to him, but it had changed into something quieter now. Hope, perhaps. Or terror wearing hope’s coat.

You could have laughed. Everyone would have let you. It would have been easy to throw the question back into the room like a toy and watch them tear it apart.

Instead, beneath the table, you found Valko’s hand.

His fingers closed around yours at once.

“I’d like to,” you said.

The house held itself still for half a breath.

Then Baba Vesna nodded, once, as if some old contract had been signed in soup and honey.

“Good,” she said. “He is difficult, but warm.”

Valko bowed his head.

His shoulders shook.

At first you thought he was upset. Then you realised he was laughing, quietly, helplessly, with one hand over his mouth and the other holding yours under the table like he meant to keep it there until winter.

Mika groaned. “Ah, look at him. Finished. Completely finished.”

Milena reached for the pickles. “Good. He needed finishing.”

Teta Marika smiled into her tea. “Eat more, zlato. You will need strength.”

“For Valko?” you asked.

“For all of us.”

Dinner became less a meal than a storm with chairs.

Bowls moved, hands reached, stories climbed over one another and died unfinished because someone remembered a better accusation. Luka asked you practical questions in a calm voice: where you liked to walk, whether Valko had shown you the old river path, whether he still pretended not to like sweet things. Mika tried to read your palm and declared that you were fated to own a troublesome dog.

“That's just Valko,” Milena said.

“I am not a dog.”

“True,” Luka said. “Dogs listen.”

Valko began quietly placing the best pieces of food on your plate.

A soft carrot, the inside of the bread, a dumpling he pretended to move away from himself and somehow abandoned beside your spoon. He was not subtle. He had never been subtle. He was a wolf trying to hide a whole deer behind a napkin.

You noticed on the fourth offering.

His family noticed on the first.

Baba Vesna said nothing until Valko tried to give you the last honey cake. Then she leaned back in her chair and looked at him over her tea.

“Ah,” she said.

Valko froze.

It was one syllable. It landed like a bell.

“What?” he said.

“No, no.” She waved him off. “Continue. Starve for romance. Very noble.”

Mika threw his head back.

You picked up the honey cake before Valko could die at the table and broke it in two, placing half on his plate. “There,” you said. “No starving.”

He looked at the cake.

Then he looked at you.

His expression opened in a way that made the room, somehow, feel too small for your heart. It opened with that unguarded, bewildered softness he sometimes gave you when kindness arrived before he had prepared himself to receive it.

Milena saw it.

Her teasing quieted.

For a moment, she only watched him with something old and protective in her face.

Then she stood. “Come help me with plates.”

Valko blinked. “Me?”

“Her.” Milena pointed at you.

Valko frowned. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“That's not a reason.”

“It has worked on you for years.”

You rose before he could protest again. Milena took two plates from the table and handed you none of them, which told you at once that this had nothing to do with helping.

She led you down a narrow hallway lined with photographs.

Behind you, Valko’s voice rose. “Do not interrogate her.”

The hallway smelled faintly of beeswax and dried herbs. The noise of the kitchen softened behind you, still there, still golden, but now wrapped in walls. Milena stopped by a window overlooking the yard and leaned her hip against the sill.

For the first time all evening, she let the smile leave her face.

“He likes you,” she said.

You smiled gently. “I got that impression.”

“No.” Her eyes flicked towards the kitchen. “He likes people easily. He likes old men who tell bad stories, stray cats that scratch him, children who throw rocks at windows because they want attention. Valko is built stupid that way.”

A laugh escaped you.

Milena folded her arms.

“He brings things home,” she continued. “Broken things, angry things. Things he thinks no one else will be gentle with.” Her gaze moved towards the kitchen, where Valko’s voice lifted in protest. “He does not bring people home.”

Your throat tightened.

From the kitchen, Valko shouted, “It wasn't soup. It was stew.”

Mika shouted back, “Stew cannot make a grown man cry.”

“I was overwhelmed by flavour.”

Milena closed her eyes for one second. “Bože, give me strength.”

You laughed softly.

She looked at you again, sharper now.

“He was nervous all week,” she said. “Changed his shirt three times. Asked me if the house smelled too much like onions. Asked Luka if his laugh was strange. Asked Baba if she could please not tell the story about the goat.”

“The goat?”

“Later.” A faint smile touched her mouth. “Maybe never.”

You glanced back towards the kitchen.

He had asked if his laugh was strange.

Something in you ached with such tenderness that it almost felt like anger.

You looked down.

“He didn’t need to worry,”

“He is clumsy with precious things,” she said. “Because he thinks his hands are only good for breaking them, even when he is careful. Especially then.”

“So be kind,” she said. “Or be cruel quickly. He will survive either, but I prefer to know which one I’m dealing with.”

There it was.

The knife under the table. The love with its teeth intact. You didn't resent her for it, you thought, strangely, that you liked her more for it.

“I’m not here to hurt him,”

“Most people aren’t, at first.”

“Milena.”

Milena’s gaze narrowed.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with him,” you admitted.

“With any of this,” you continued. “He makes everything feel…” You searched for the word and hated every pretty one that came. Fated. Wild. Tender. All too polished for the mess he made of your heart. “He makes everything feel like I’ve been walking past a door my whole life, and he is the idiot who opened it with his shoulder.”

Milena stared at you.

Then she laughed once, sharp and startled.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re gone too.”

You looked down, caught.

She seemed satisfied. “Good.”

“Is that approval?”

“That is me deciding not to be difficult.”

“You were being difficult?”

“Dušo,” she said, and now her smile had teeth in it, “I was being polite.”

When you returned to the kitchen, Valko was waiting near the doorway as if he had tried to remain seated and failed.

His eyes moved from you to Milena. “What did you say to her?”

Milena walked past him. “That you were adopted.”

“I’m not.”

“Emotionally, you're a wet dog we found in the rain.”

He watched her go, wounded on principle, then turned to you with genuine concern. “What did she actually say?”

You reached up and brushed flour from his sleeve. “That you’re warm.”

“That was Baba.”

“Family consensus.”

His mouth twitched. “You are enjoying this.”

“I am.”

“You were supposed to be intimidated.”

“By Mika?”

“By the bloodline. The history. The general atmosphere of teeth.”

“Mika told me my palm says I’ll own a dog.”

Valko sighed.

You reached up and plucked the dish towel from his shoulder. “You have flour on your sleeve.”

He looked down, surprised, as if his own body had been making decisions without him. Then he looked back at you, and the kitchen noise faded once more, though this time it was only the two of you making the world small.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

The question was casual enough for anyone else to miss the tremor underneath. You heard it. The naked, waiting part. You thought of his hand shaking outside the door. Baba Vesna taking your face between her palms, of bread steaming in your fingers, of honey cake divided in two, of Milena saying he doesn't bring people home.

“I’m all right,” you said. “Are you?”

Valko smiled too quickly. “I’m alive.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

His smile softened.

For once, he did not joke immediately. It cost him something. You could see it in the way his fingers flexed at his side, reaching for mischief and finding courage instead.

“I wanted them to like you,” he said. “I wanted you to like them.”

“I do”

“I wanted…” He stopped, then laughed under his breath. “I don’t know. Something stupid.”

He looked towards the kitchen, where his family had resumed their noise without mercy. Mika was accusing Luka of stealing the larger piece of cake. Baba Vesna had taken down a tin from the highest shelf, probably containing either biscuits or secrets.

“Valko, stop hiding her. I have photographs.”

Horror returned to his face with magnificent speed.

“No.”

“Yes,”

“No photographs.”

“Naked baby photos,” Mika added.

Valko went pale. “You do not have those.”

Teta Marika’s voice drifted after him, serene and deadly. “We have everything.”

He grabbed your hand. “We’re leaving.”

You let him pull you three steps before Baba Vesna appeared in the doorway holding a small album to her chest.

“Sit,” she said.

Valko sat.

It was remarkable how quickly a wolf could become a grandson.

For the next hour, they showed you the evidence of his life.

Valko missing two front teeth and glaring at the camera as though betrayed by dentistry. Valko asleep under the table with one hand buried in a dog’s fur. Valko at thirteen, all elbows and outrage, holding a fish half his size while crying because he had to put it back.

There was Valko covered in mud, Valko wearing a paper crown, Valko with Milena’s arm hooked around his neck while he pretended to hate her and leaned into her anyway. Valko standing beside Baba Vesna in the garden, holding a basket of tomatoes like he had been entrusted with the fate of nations.

Each photograph was another small door.

You had known him in pieces: the grin, the hunger, the awkward tenderness, the jokes he threw like branches over deep water. Here was the rest of him. Here was the child who had survived becoming himself because these hands had fed him, scolded him, dragged him upright, and remembered his softness when he tried to outgrow it.

At some point, while everyone argued over whether the goat incident happened before or after the soup incident, Valko bent close to you.

“You don’t have to keep looking,” he murmured.

You turned a page.

A tiny Valko stared up from the album, holding a wooden spoon like a sword.

“Yes,” you said. “I do.”

He stared at you.

Then, very briefly, he rested his forehead against your shoulder.

It lasted only a second. A shy, exhausted surrender. No one commented on it, though you knew every person in the room saw. That seemed to be another house rule. They would mock the wound, yes, but they protected the pulse.

Later, when the cups were cleared and the album returned to its shelf of holy embarrassments, you stepped outside for air.

The yard was cold, dark and soft around the edges. Herbs grew beneath the window, yhe old trees leaned towards the house as if listening. Behind you, the kitchen glowed gold, laughter pressing against the glass.

Valko followed after a moment, closing the door carefully behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

You looked at him. “For what?”'

“The interrogation. The photographs. Mika. The marriage question. The soup litigation.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Milena.”

“I like Milena.”

“That means she behaved.”

“She said she was being polite.”

He winced. “Then she liked you.”

You leaned back against the porch railing, and he stood in front of you with his hands in his pockets, rocking once on his heels like he wanted to come closer and had forgotten the law of his own body.

Through the window, you could see Baba Vesna pretending to wipe the table while watching you both with shameless interest. You lifted a hand and waved.

She waved back.

Valko turned, saw her, and groaned. “For the love of...Baba.”

“She loves you.”

“That's her usual excuse for crimes.”

“It’s a good one.”

He looked back at you, and the teasing left him slowly, piece by piece. Out here, with the house at his back, he seemed caught between the wild thing and the loved thing. The wolf and the boy in the paper crown. The man who had brought you to the threshold with shaking hands and still tried to joke like fear could be made harmless if he gave it a funny name.

“Did you mean it?” he asked.

“Which part?”

“When Niko asked if you were keeping me.”

The question came lightly, too lightly. A feather laid over a blade.

You reached for him.

This time, Valko did not hesitate. He came into your space at once, as if pulled by a string tied somewhere behind his ribs. His hands settled at your waist, careful at first, then warmer when you didn't move away.

“I meant it,”

His eyes searched yours.

“For tonight?”

“For longer than that.”

He didn't kiss you immediately. Somehow, that made it worse. He stood there and let the answer enter him, slowly, like someone opening the door to a room he had been told was empty and finding it lit.

Inside, Mika yelled, “Are they kissing?”

Valko dropped his forehead to your shoulder.

“Leave them. He is finally being normal.”

You laughed.

He looked at you then, and the last of his embarrassment broke open into something bright, something almost boyish

“Welcome home,” he said, very softly.

You touched his cheek.

Behind him, the old house breathed and creaked and held its golden noise. Inside, his family waited with tea, teeth, stories, and a place at the table already made yours.

“Welcome home, Valko.”

“Please Sylus, I- I had a long day-”

That sentence only made his movements stop and he pondered for a moment. The fingers that were once, just mere inches away from slipping under your shorts, were now slowly slipping away in seconds.

You purse your lips, waiting for his next moves but when he presses his lips against your temple, slowly trailing warm kisses along your face, eventually stopping at the corner of your mouth, you wince.

A whisper of his name left your lips at that very moment, your legs twitch ever so slightly and you were just itching to just grab his hand again. But you hold back, gripping the sheets and—

“You think you could do it yourself this time?”

The question made you freeze. He didn’t ask it in a normal manner, there was a sarcastic almost mocking tone laced in his voice, and you couldn’t help but scoff.

“I.. I don’t think it’ll feel good.” You reason.

Sylus raises an eyebrow and inches back to see if there was any hint of you lying. Because he knows you too well to know that it won’t not feel good. But your expression was just too hard to read this time.

“Alright,” Sylus skipped his gaze down to your fingers, which were already playing with the strings of your shorts, before biting the inside of his cheek in anticipation. “Are you sure you don’t want to give it a try?”

“What if-”

“If you can’t do it then I'm here, yeah? Just give me the signal.”

You couldn’t deny it anymore. As much as you wanted it—wanted his fingers, the needy sensation bubbling inside you, almost making you throw up was getting unbearable.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you start rushing. Like he said, if you couldn’t do it, then he would be there to help. Simple. All you had to do was do a sloppy job, act like you’re struggling and—

“Slow down.”

Despite the warning you were already too much in a haze to properly listen. It was like if he told you something horrible, his voice already sounded like he was saying something so sweet.

“Restless girl.” He chuckled.

Embarrassing as it was, you couldn’t help yourself to snap back at the remarks; your fingers were already shaking, lazily rubbing small circles against your clit, causing you to twitch.

Your middle finger glides against your slick folds, leisurely rolling in an unrhythmic manner, the more you started moving, the less you felt like you were enjoying this.

Every stroke left your wrist aching more and more, all you wanted to do was to finish, or let Sylus take over, just anything to help you feel better than you–

“hck- Sylus, I can’t!”

“You can,” He murmured. “Relax, sweetie. Don't focus on anything else, besides me.”

When he notices your eagerness rising, he only sighs. “Breathe. Slow down your pace.”

You whine, bucking your hips desperately for any chance he could read into your actions, just hoping that he would feed into your unfulfilled desire. But when Sylus doesn’t do anything immediately and instead adjusts himself, continuing to watch you while staring down with a stare that could kill—you were already too pent up to counter back.

Your fingers eventually curl, deepening inside you while you thrust at an unrhythmic pace, making your fingers wet with every stroke, the sounds of your digits pumping you every second filled the room, your moans and whimpers leaving your lips like a love song.

“Pathetic.”

You swallow hard when he creeped closer. Finally! Finally he was able to help!

“This is all you’re able to do, sweetie?”

When he placed his hand on yours, practically caging it so you’re unable to escape, you knew you were fucked. Instead of using his own fingers however, he instead was guiding you into a smoother tempo that he would use on you.

And yet, it still didn’t feel right.

It didn’t feel the same.

“Look how fast you were going, it was like you were doing it on purpose—wanted to finish quickly on purpose.”

You bite your lip when the grip on your wrists tighten and he starts moving your hand back and forth. You didn’t know if it was a placebo effect or something but you swore there was a change when he was the one guiding you.

“Now relax. You were thinking of me during it, right?”

You nod.

“Mmh, alright, keep thinking of me, think of my fingers.”

As your hand continues moving, you slowly begin to feel better. His voice, that was once pestering you with annoying words, was shifting into a sweeter, more melodic tone the more he spoke. “It seems it is quite different for everyone.”

“And it’s better when you do it…” You grumble, sinking your head into his shoulder, shuddering when you feel his fingers trail against your palm, cascading lower and lower until his fingers were exactly where yours were.

“Poor thing,” He grins, applying a little pressure to your fingers before leaning in and planting kisses across your face.

“Looks like I have more to teach you, then.”

The glow of the television washes the living room in soft, shifting light, some familiar comfort show murmuring in the background as you sink deeper into the corner of the sofa. The apartment still carries that faint in-between feeling that always follows a trip, your half-unpacked suitcase sitting by the wall, your carry-on slouched near the entryway. You scroll through Moments without really seeing much of it, your thumb moving on autopilot as photos and captions blur together, and when your eyes flick to the time in the corner of the screen, a quiet sigh leaves you – it’s past midnight. You only got back yesterday, but it annoys you that your body still refuses to remember what time zone it belongs to.

With a small frown, you toss your phone beside you, only to reach for it again a few seconds later. Sleep feels nowhere near, but so does doing anything useful. Your gaze drifts back to the screen, catching on the photo you posted from the trip a few hours ago. For a moment, you just stare at it, thumb hovering near the comments before you see a new notification at the top of your screen, and your breath catches.

Valko.

You stare at his name for a second before tapping on the message, your pulse giving one traitorous flutter as the chat opens.

‘Why are you still up??’

Your finger lingers above the keyboard, a smile already tugging at your lips, before you type back.

‘Why are you up?’

His reply comes quickly.

‘I asked you first.’

A quiet laugh slips out of you.

You shift further into the corner of the sofa, glancing toward the television even though you are no longer paying attention to whatever scene is playing out on the screen.

‘I’m still a little jet-lagged. Can’t sleep.’

For a few seconds, nothing happens.

Your thumb brushes the edge of your phone as you stare at the screen, suddenly wondering whether that sounded too flat. Maybe you should have added something else. Maybe –

Another message appears.

‘Then can I come over and keep you company?’

You sit up so quickly the blanket pooled over your legs slips halfway to the floor.

For a moment, you can only stare at the words – it’s such a simple message, but the thought of Valko here, in your apartment, at this hour, sends a rush through you that makes it impossible to stay curled up on the sofa like nothing happened.

You try to sound casual as you type back.

‘Sure.’

His answer appears almost immediately.

‘I’ll be there in twenty.’

Your eyes widen.

Twenty?

You glance down at yourself, at the pajamas you changed into after your shower. You push yourself off the sofa, hurrying to the bathroom to make yourself more presentable.

By the time you step back into the living room, changed into your new loungewear – an oversized sweater and a pair of shorts – and a light layer of makeup, your heartbeat has still not quite calmed down.

And then you nearly jump out of your skin.

There, just beyond the glass, Valko is already waiting outside on the balcony.

Your hand flies to your chest before you let out a quiet breath, your nerves settling almost as quickly as they spiked. What did you expect? Of course he used the balcony again, like it is a perfectly normal substitute for a front door.

You step closer and slide the door open. Before he can even get a word out, you point toward the entryway and try your best to sound serious.

“You need to immediately take off your shoes and put them by the front door like any other normal person would.”

A grin pulls at his mouth, and a soft chuckle slips from him as he steps inside. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” you say, with as much dignity as you can manage, even though you already feel far too giddy to properly stay in character. “Those are the rules.”

He does exactly as he’s told, walking over to the front door to slip off his shoes and leave them neatly where they should be.

You don’t really get a chance to say anything before he closes the distance between you and pulls you into a hug.

It’s warm and almost a little too tight, the kind of hug that steals your breath for a second, but you don’t care, not when his arms are around you like this. You tuck your face against his chest, breathing him in, and something in your chest loosens.

You missed this. Two weeks wasn’t even that long, but the moment his arms close around you, it hits you how much you’d been craving this exact feeling. The solid warmth of his body, the way he hugs like he means it, the faint familiar scent of his skin.

You squeeze him a little tighter, hoping he can’t feel how reluctant you are to let go.

“I missed you,” he murmurs against the top of your head.

A smile presses against his chest.

“I’m happy to hear that,” you say softly.

His arms loosen just enough for him to pull back and look at you, though his hands still linger at your waist.

“Only happy to hear that?” he asks, head tilting just a little. “You didn’t miss me at all?”

Your heart gives another hard, hopeless thud.

With the way he is looking at you, warm and teasing and still standing too close, it’s hard to hold onto any version of coolness for very long. So you say nothing, only glance away as if that will somehow hide the fact that your pulse is stumbling all over itself.

When he finally lets you go, the loss of his warmth feels immediate. His gaze flickers over you. It’s brief, almost nothing at all, but you catch it anyway – the quick dip of his eyes, the split-second pause that lingers just a touch too long before he looks back up.

Heat stirs low in your stomach.

If he noticed the bare stretch of your legs beneath the sweater, he does not say it.

Then his gaze drifts past you, over the living room.

You follow it, and only then do you properly take in the small signs of the last two days still scattered around the apartment. It’s not a mess, but it’s enough to make you realize, with a small jolt of horror, that while you had been busy changing, fixing your face, and deciding whether those shorts were too much, it had not once occurred to you to make the place look more presentable.

Valko glances back at you, amusement already tugging at his mouth. “You really made yourself at home.”

You stare at him.

Then at the open suitcase, then back at him.

“I – ” You stop, because there is truly no dignified recovery from this. “I just got back.”

His laugh is soft and boyish, bright with amusement, and before you can fumble your way into a proper defense, his hand comes up to rest lightly on your shoulder.

“I’m teasing,” he says. “Relax.”

Something in your chest loosens at once, though the embarrassment still lingers warm at your cheeks.

“You’re annoying,” you mutter, without much conviction.

He only grins and walks past you toward the sofa, entirely too pleased with himself, and drops down onto it, one arm spreading along the backrest.

You stand there for a second, trying not to think about the fact that he’s in your apartment, at almost one in the morning. Instead of sitting down beside him, you linger on your feet and start folding the few clothes left draped over the armchair, because you need something to do with your hands.

For a little while, the conversation comes easily – you ask him what he was doing up so late, and he tells you he got caught up researching something and lost track of time, and then he asks you how the trip was. As you smooth one of the shirts between your hands, you tell him that it was beautiful, that you enjoyed it more than you expected, that you and your friends managed to explore a few cities in between all the wedding preparations, though by the end of it you were exhausted from helping with everything. Even so, you admit that it had been worth it, because seeing your friend that happy, that deeply in love, had made all of it feel strangely tender and a little overwhelming in the best way.

The words trail off there for a second, because the memory rises too clearly, your friend smiling through tears, music drifting through warm evening air, the soft gold of the lights, the feeling of standing just outside someone else’s happiness and being moved by it anyway. You pause with the folded fabric still in your hands. When you look up, Valko is already watching you in that way of his that makes it seem like he notices more than he lets on.

So you shake yourself out of it before the moment can linger too long, and with a softer laugh, you steer the conversation somewhere lighter, telling him that the food alone had probably been worth the trip, and that you would have enjoyed it even more if you had not managed to spill some of it on your dress before the night was over.

“That’s a shame,” he says. “You looked beautiful.”

A soft flutter moves through your stomach, and for a brief second, you remember the small rush of giddiness you felt earlier when the notification popped up and you saw that he had liked the photo. Heat rise to your cheeks. “Thank you,” you murmur.

You clear your throat softly and glance toward the suitcase.

“Oh, right,” you say. “I almost forgot.”

His brows lift a little as you cross the room and crouch beside the half-open case, pushing aside a few last things until your fingers find what you had tucked in carefully. When you straighten again, you are holding a small sachet of dried flowers and a box of chocolates.

Valko watches you come back toward him, his expression shifting into mild confusion. “What’s that?”

You stop in front of him and hold the two things out. “A gift for you,” you say, “The flowers are from a little shop near where we stayed,” you explain. “They smelled really good, and they made me think of you. And the chocolates are from a local chocolaterie.”

A quiet breath leaves him, almost like a laugh, though there is something more touched than amused in it.

“That’s... really nice of you,” he says. “Thank you.”

You shrug. “It’s nothing.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not nothing.”

Before you can answer, he reaches for you.

His hand catches your wrist gently and tugs you closer, and the next thing you know, you are half stumbling onto the sofa as he pulls you down beside him and gathers you into another hug, and a startled little laugh slips out of you.

His cheek brushes your temple, and then his lips do too. “You’re sweet,” he murmurs.

For a moment, you simply let yourself stay there, tucked against him on the sofa.

“So,” he says, leaning back, “are you feeling sleepy yet?”

You shake your head. “Not at all. I’m wide awake.”

His gaze lifts toward the digital clock on the wall, and the faint crease that appears between his brows makes you want to laugh a little. “It’s past one,” he says, glancing back at you. “That’s a problem.”

You tilt your head. “Is it?”

“Yes,” he says, with enough seriousness to make the corners of your mouth twitch. “It is. We need to get you to sleep.”

Your lips pull into a small pout. “But you said you wanted to keep me company.”

His expression softens with amusement. “I do want to keep you company, but you should really get your sleep sorted out.”

The pout lingers, growing just enough to make him narrow his eyes at you like he already knows you are about to be difficult on purpose.

“So you said you missed me, and now you’re trying to get me to go to sleep. Rude.”

Valko looks ready to answer right away, but then he stops. His mouth closes again, and something shifts in his expression – a glint of mischief appears in his eyes so suddenly and so familiarly that you know you’re in trouble.

“Oh,” he says slowly, his grin beginning to spread, “so that’s what this is?”

Heat starts rising before you even know where he is going with it.

“Are you saying you missed me too?” His smile widens. “You just want to spend more time with me. Is that what you’re saying?”

Your whole face goes hot.

For a moment, you can only stare at him, feeling the burn spread across your cheeks as your mouth opens and closes once, then again, with absolutely nothing useful coming out. Valko’s grin only widens at your silence, clearly delighted with himself, and before he can say anything worse, you reach up and grab his cheeks between your fingers, squishing them without mercy.

“Ow, ow, ow,” he protests, though the laugh in his voice ruins any real attempt at sounding injured. “No need for violence!”

You let go, trying to look far less flustered than you feel, while he rubs at his cheeks with both hands and gives you a faint little pout that does nothing to make him less smug.

“Well,” you say, refusing to let him have the last word so easily, “you’re awake at this hour too, so why don’t you go to sleep?”

He leans back into the sofa, still rubbing one cheek as if you have truly wounded him, and lets out a thoughtful hum. “You know,” he says after a moment, “you’re right. The research I was doing didn’t help. My brain is still working through it, so I should probably try to relax too.”

His gaze drifts around the apartment then, over the sofa, the blankets, the cushions, and when he looks back at you, there is something almost casual in the way he says, “I can stay here, if you want. I can sleep over and take the sofa. Your apartment is cozy, after all.”

Your heart gives a quick, sudden flutter.

Then he pauses, glances toward the half-open suitcase by the wall, and adds with a grin, “Even with all this mess around.”

You smack his shoulder and he only laughs, like he had been waiting for exactly that reaction.

“Well,” you say, trying, and failing, to hide your smile, “if you think the sofa will be comfortable enough, then sure. You can stay over.”

Before he can find something else to tease you about, you pat your hands against your thighs and start to stand up. “Okay, then,” you say sweetly, already turning away. “Goodnight.”

Valko’s hand catches your waist before you get more than halfway up, stopping you without any real effort. A soft, amused laugh escapes him, like he knows exactly what you’re doing.

“No, no, no,” he says, gently pulling you back down beside him. “Now we both have to help each other fall asleep.”

You glance at him, unable to keep your smile from slipping through. “Oh, so that’s how it is?”

“That’s exactly how it is.”

Valko grabs the blanket you’d been using and spreads it over both of you. “We can watch whatever you had on,” he says, nodding toward the TV.

You settle deeper into the sofa, close enough that your knee brushes his beneath the blanket. For a while, neither of you says much. Then, slowly, his arm slips along the back of the sofa and curls around your shoulders, drawing you gently against his side – and you can’t help but lean into him.

At one point, you see him nuzzle lightly into the blanket – that sweet, familiar habit of his that always made you smile.

The episode plays on. A few small comments pass between you, easy and low, but gradually his body grows heavier against yours. His head tips until it rests lightly on top of yours, and his breathing slows into deep, even breaths.

You go still, listening.

A smile tugs at your lips when you carefully tilt your head to glance up at him.

His eyes are closed.

So much for his very serious plan.

Carefully, so you do not jostle him too much, you lift a hand and give his arm a small nudge. “Hey,” you murmur. “You’re gonna hurt your neck like that.”

He makes a soft sound first, then shifts against you, his cheek brushing against your hair before his eyes crack open only halfway. There is a moment where he looks thoroughly confused, caught between sleep and waking, and then his brows draw together faintly as if he is trying to remember where he is.

“Hey…” he mumbles, voice drowsy. “I’m supposed to be the one helping you sleep.”

“You’re doing a terrible job,” you whisper back, smiling as you say it.

He exhales a sleepy, half-formed laugh and instead of pulling away, sinks closer, his arm tightening around you.

You stay quiet for a moment, letting the comfortable silence settle between you. Then Valko’s voice breaks it, barely more than a murmur when he asks, “Did you miss me?”

The question is simple, stripped of any teasing. For a second, you just look at him – at his sleepy face, at the hopeful, searching look in his eyes.

“Yes,” you say softly. “I did.”

His arm tightens just slightly around you.

“I was really happy to see you tonight,” you add after a moment. “I know it was only two weeks, but it felt longer than that. And with everything getting busy again soon...” You trail off, then glance up at him. “I just wanted a little more time with you, I guess.”

Valko is quiet for a moment, his thumb brushing slowly against your side. Then he shifts slightly, turning more toward you. His gaze drops to your lips for a heartbeat before returning to your eyes, and the air between you feels suddenly heavier, sweeter.

His other hand lifts slowly, and when it settles against your upper back, the touch sends a small shiver through you. Then his hand slides higher, fingers spreading gently at the back of your head, cradling you there. You feel yourself drift closer, and he does the same.

Then his lips press against yours.

The kiss is soft and warm and careful. You melt into him. One of your hands holds onto the fabric of his hoodie, your body pressing closer of its own accord as happiness blooms through you so suddenly and so completely it almost feels unreal.

When your lips part, neither of you moves far.

Then he looks at you again, his gaze is softer than before but clearer too.

“I like you too much to pretend this is nothing,” he says, his voice soft and unguarded. He holds your gaze for another second. “Tell me if this is what you want too.”

Your answer comes easily. “I do.”

A small smile touches his mouth, sweet and a little disbelieving.

Then you lean in and kiss him again.

The hand at the back of your neck stays steady as he kisses you, and when your fingers slide from his chest to curl around the back of his neck, his breath catches softly against your mouth.

His mouth parts against yours, and when your tongues meet, the sensation is warm, slow, and so intimate it makes a deep shiver run through you. The slide is unhurried at first – soft, wet strokes that make heat bloom low in your belly. His tongue brushes against yours in ways that make your toes curl and your thoughts melt away. Then he gently catches your bottom lip between his teeth, giving it a soft, teasing nibble before soothing it with another slow pass of his tongue.

You make a small, helpless sound into his mouth, pressing closer, and he answers with a low hum that vibrates through you. The kiss grows deeper, more consuming, but never rushed – every stroke of his tongue leaves you dizzy, aching in the best way, your body melting even further into his hold.

When the kiss finally breaks, you stay curled against him, forehead resting lightly against his, your breaths still uneven.

Neither of you moves for a long moment.

Then you pull back to look at him. “The sofa’s not that comfortable. You can… sleep in the bed with me. If you want.”

His eyes soften, that small smile returning. “I’d like that. A lot.”

While he heads to the bathroom, you slip into your bedroom and freeze for a second. The bed is still a mess from earlier – clothes scattered everywhere from when you’d frantically tried on different loungewear before he arrived – your cheeks burn at the evidence of how much you’d wanted to look nice for him.

You move fast, scooping everything up in armfuls and jamming the pile into your closet. Then you quickly change into your own pajamas: a loose shirt and flowy shorts. From the back of your closet, you pull out the biggest oversized t-shirt you own, with a goofy graphic and a band’s name splashed across the front.

By the time Valko returns from the bathroom, you’re already settled on the now-tidied bed, heart fluttering.

You hold the oversized shirt out to him. “Here. It’s the biggest one I have.”

He takes it from you, eyes crinkling with amusement as he reads the front. “Nice choice,” he teases. “Didn’t know you were a fan.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut up and just put it on.”

Instead of stepping out, Valko stays right there in front of you. With that easy confidence of his, he reaches back and tugs the hoodie off in one smooth motion. The movement pulls his t-shirt up slightly underneath, revealing a glimpse of his toned stomach and the sharp cut of his hips before the fabric falls back into place. He peels that off too, and for a moment you forget how to breathe.

Broad shoulders, the hard strength of his arms and chest that you’ve felt against you so many times, now fully on display in the soft glow of your bedroom lamp. Your gaze traces the lines of his body before you can stop yourself, lingering on the way his muscles shift as he unfolds the oversized shirt, then dipping lower to the faint trail of hair on his lower stomach.

Then he unbuttons his jeans.

The soft sound of the zipper feels impossibly loud in the quiet room. He pushes them down his hips and steps out of them, leaving him in just his boxers. The fabric clings to the firm lines of his thighs and the unmistakable outline underneath, and your face burns. You know you should look away, but you can’t.

Valko catches you staring.

A knowing smile curves his mouth, “Enjoying the show?”

You immediately avert your gaze. “No.”

You turn off the last light and climb into bed.

He chuckles softly and finally pulls the t-shirt over his head. A moment later he joins you, pulling the blanket over both of you as he settles on his side facing you.

For a second, you just look at each other in the low glow of moonlight from the window. Then he reaches out, sliding an arm around your waist and drawing you closer until your bodies press together again.

“You okay?” he asks softly, the same careful warmth in his voice from earlier.

You nod, tucking your face against his chest, breathing him in. “Yeah.”

He presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head… then another to your forehead… then, when you tilt your face up, to your lips.

This kiss starts slow and sweet, like the first one, but the closeness of the bed changes everything. Your hands find his chest again, sliding over the soft, worn fabric of your own shirt on him. He tastes like toothpaste, and the warmth of his body pressed against yours under the covers makes your head spin. One of your hands drifts up to the back of his neck, fingers threading gently into his hair, while his arm tightens around your waist, pulling you even closer until your legs tangle together.

A soft sound escapes you when his hand slips beneath the hem of your shirt, palm warm and broad against the bare skin of your lower back. The touch is gentle, almost reverent, but it sends a slow shiver through you all the same. He pauses there, thumb stroking small circles against your spine, as if checking whether you want him to stop.

When you press closer instead, he lets his hand explore further, sliding up the curve of your back, mapping the warmth of your skin like he’s been wanting to do this for just as long as you have.

The kiss breaks only so you can both catch your breath, but his mouth doesn’t go far. He trails soft, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, then lower to the sensitive spot just beneath your ear. When his teeth graze there lightly, your breath hitches.

“Still okay?” he whispers, voice husky now, lips brushing your skin with every word.

“Yes,” you manage, a little breathless. “Don’t stop.”

Valko makes a low, pleased sound deep in his chest. His hands slide to your waist, and with gentle strength he rolls you both over so you’re on top. He helps you settle, guiding your legs until you’re straddling his hips.

For a moment you brace yourself on your hands, hovering just slightly above him. Your heart is racing – nervous, excited, and suddenly worried about settling your full weight on top of him.

Valko looks up at you. One of his hands stays on your hip while the other smooths slowly up your back.

“Come here…” he murmurs. “All of you.”

When you hesitate for half a second, he adds gently, “Just relax.”

Carefully, you lower yourself until your full weight rests on him. The moment your chest presses fully against his, a quiet sigh escapes both of you. He feels so solid beneath you – the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the warmth of his skin, the firm strength of his body supporting yours so easily. Your legs settle on either side of his hips, and the intimate press of him right between your thighs makes heat bloom low in your belly.

Valko’s arms wrap around you immediately, one hand splaying wide across your lower back, the other sliding up between your shoulder blades to hold you closer. He nuzzles into the crook of your neck with a deep inhale, breathing you in.

For a long moment you just stay like that – bodies aligned, hearts beating against each other. Then he gently nudges your face with his, and you tilt your head down to meet him.

His lips move against yours, and when the kiss deepens, it happens gradually – tongues brushing, mouths opening wider, breaths growing a little heavier. The weight of you on top of him, the way your bodies fit together so completely, makes everything feel more intense. You can feel the hard line of him pressed right against your core, and the sensation sends little sparks of pleasure through you with every tiny movement.

Still a little shy, still a little uncertain, you roll your hips in one slow, experimental movement. The friction drags right where you need it most, pulling a soft, involuntary sound from your throat. Valko groans – low, rough, and completely unguarded – the sound vibrating against your mouth. His arms tighten around you instantly, and the way he pulls you down against him makes it clear just how much he felt that.

“Fuck…” he breathes against your lips. “Do that again.”

Emboldened by his reaction, you roll your hips again, grinding down against him. The pleasure sparks sharper, deeper. You can feel every inch of him through the thin layers of fabric separating you, and the way his body responds – the way he twitches underneath you – makes your stomach flutter.

Valko meets you on the next roll. He rocks his hips up into yours in a slow, deep rhythm, pressing firmly against your core with each movement. His hold on you never loosens – he keeps you flush against his chest, bodies moving together in a slow, rolling grind.

The kiss grows sloppier, hotter – tongues slide deeper, mouths open wider, little wet sounds mixing with your shared breathing. You feel his heartbeat hammering against yours.

“You feel so good on top of me,” he murmurs. “Keep moving just like that, baby.”

Valko’s hands are everywhere. One stays anchored on your hip, guiding your movements, while the other slips under your pajama shirt, palming the soft skin of your back, then sliding down to squeeze your ass. He pulls you down harder against him on every roll, making sure you feel exactly how hard he is.

Then his hand moves between your bodies.

He presses two fingers against the front of your shorts, right over your core. The moment he touches you, you realize just how soaked you are. The fabric is warm and damp, clinging to you, and the pressure of his fingers makes the wetness even more obvious. A flush of embarrassed heat rushes through you, but it only makes you ache more.

Valko groans deeply into your mouth, the sound raw. “You’re so wet,” he murmurs. He rubs slow circles over the soaked fabric, pressing just right against your clit through the layers. The sensation makes your hips jerk, a sharp little whimper escaping you.

He pulls back from the kiss just enough to look at you, breathing hard. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, but there’s a flicker of hesitation there too. His throat works as he swallows, and when he speaks, his voice has the slightest tremble in it.

“Still okay?” he asks, fingers still gently pressing against your soaked shorts. He pauses, searching your face. “Can I…?”

You nod quickly, cheeks burning. “Yeah,” you whisper, barely audible. “Please.”

A soft, relieved breath escapes him.

He shifts just enough to reach between you. With one hand, he tugs his boxers down far enough to free himself, his cock springing up hot and heavy against your inner thigh. With the other, he hooks his fingers into the crotch of your pajama shorts and panties, tugging the soaked fabric to the side. The cool air hits your slick, exposed folds for only a second before the blunt, burning heat of his tip presses right against your entrance.

The slight sting of his girth against your sensitive opening makes you inhale sharply. Still, your thighs tremble as you fight the instinct to sink down all at once.

Valko’s eyes never leave your face. His breath is shaky, his grip on your hip almost bruising as he visibly holds himself back from thrusting up.

“Easy, baby,” he murmurs, voice low and strained. “Just relax… I’ve got you. Trust me.”

He rocks his hips up in the tiniest, careful movement, letting just the head slip inside you. The stretch is intense – a burning, aching fullness that makes your mouth fall open on a quiet, broken sound. You feel every thick inch as he slowly works you open, his eyes locked on yours the entire time, watching every flicker of sensation across your face.

Another shallow thrust, and he sinks a little deeper. His hand on your hip keeps guiding you down slowly, patiently, even as his own breath trembles and a low groan escapes his lips. You can feel how much he’s holding back – the tension in his arms, the way his fingers dig into your skin, the way his cock twitches inside you with the effort of going slow.

He presses his forehead to yours, nuzzling your nose, his voice dropping to a whisper between heavy breaths.

“Just a little more… that’s it. You’re doing so good for me, sweetheart.”

He keeps guiding you with those slow, shallow thrusts, working himself deeper. Each gentle push stretches you further, the thick heat of him dragging against your walls in a way that makes your breath hitch and your fingers curl against his shoulders. The slight sting is still there, but it’s slowly melting into something warmer, fuller, more overwhelming.

Finally, with one last careful roll of his hips, he bottoms out completely.

A soft, broken sound escapes you as he fills you to the hilt. Your walls flutter around him, clenching instinctively at the overwhelming sensation of being so completely taken.

Valko goes very still beneath you, breathing hard against your neck.

He whispers your name. “Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?”

You take a shaky breath, then nod against his shoulder, melting a little more in his embrace. “I’m okay,” you murmur, voice soft and a little breathless.

The tension in his body eases at your words. He pulls you even closer, if that’s possible, until there isn’t a single inch of space left between your bodies. Your breasts press against his chest, your stomach against his, your thighs snug around his hips.

“Just stay like this for a moment,” he whispers, lips brushing your ear. “Let me feel you… all of you.”

You melt into him completely.

He starts kissing you again – first pressing his lips to yours, tender and sweet. Then to your flushed cheek. Then along the line of your jaw. When he reaches your neck, he lingers there, nuzzling into the sensitive skin with a deep inhale, breathing in the scent of you as his lips trail soft, open-mouthed kisses down the side of your throat. Every kiss sends warm little sparks through your body, making you shiver and clench around him.

You feel completely surrounded by him. He makes you feel soft and safe and wanted in a way you’ve never quite felt before.

After a few long, still moments of just feeling each other, Valko starts to move.

He rolls his hips up in one slow thrust, pressing himself even deeper inside you. The drag of his thick length against your walls pulls a shaky moan from your throat. He does it again, and again – careful but steady, letting you feel every inch as he fills you completely with each roll.

You start moving with him.

Your hips begin to roll in a slow rhythm, grinding down to meet his upward thrusts. The pace is yours, and he lets you set it. Every time you sink down onto him, his cock grazes all the right spots inside you, sending sparks of sharp pleasure through your core. You can feel how wet you are – how your slick coats him completely, making every slide smoother, wetter, hotter. You angle your hips just right so that with every downward roll, your clit grinds against his pelvis. The added friction makes your thighs tremble. Pleasure builds fast and heavy, coiling tight in your belly with every movement.

You can’t stop looking at him.

Even in the low, dim light of your bedroom, he looks devastating. His eyes are heavy-lidded, dark with lust, but locked on your face like he doesn’t want to miss a single detail. His lips are parted and glistening, soft groans and quiet curses falling from them every time you sink down on him. His hair is slightly messy from your fingers, and the way his jaw clenches when you roll your hips harder makes your heart stutter.

You roll your hips faster, chasing that building pleasure with every grind of your clit against his pelvis and every deep stroke of his cock inside you. The slick sounds of your bodies meeting grow louder, wetter with every movement. Your walls flutter and clench around his thick length, coating him even more with your arousal as the pressure inside you coils tighter and tighter.

A broken moan of his name slips from your lips – “Valko...” – raw and needy. The sound of it makes your cheeks burn – you feel suddenly exposed like this, riding him so shamelessly, your voice sounding so desperate, your body moving on instinct. The wave of pleasure is cresting dangerously close, and the intensity of it makes you shy for a moment.

You duck your head, hiding your face in the warm crook of his neck, breathing in his scent as you keep rolling your hips.

You know Valko notices. Instead of pulling you back, he cradles the back of your head with one large hand. His voice is full of affection as he murmurs against your ear.

“You can stay right here, sweetheart. Just feel it… That’s it. Come for me.”

His words, the steady praise mixed with the way he keeps thrusting up to meet your rolling hips, push you right over the edge.

With one more deep grind of your hips, your orgasm crashes through you. Pleasure surges hot and overwhelming, ripping a muffled, trembling cry from your throat against his neck. Your walls clamp down hard around his cock, pulsing and fluttering. Your thighs shake, slick gushing around him as you come hard, soaking his length and pelvis. Valko groans deeply, the sound vibrating against your chest, and holds you even tighter, his hips still moving with yours – slow, deep rolls that help you ride out every last pulse of pleasure.

Your hips gradually slow, then finally still as the last ripples of your orgasm fade into a warm, glowing haze. You stay draped over him, breathing hard against his neck, your heart still racing wildly in your chest.

After a few long seconds, you finally gather the courage to lift your head from its hiding place. Your face is glistening with sweat, your cheeks are burning, your hair slightly messy as you meet his gaze. You’re still catching your breath, lips parted, eyes a little dazed.

When your eyes lock, the intense heat in Valko’s gaze melts into something more tender. A small, gentle smile curves his lips as he looks up at you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever seen. The hand that had been cradling the back of your head slides forward to graze your cheek with his thumb, stroking it with slow affection.

“There you are…” he murmurs, voice low and fond. “Hi, pretty girl.”

He searches your face for a moment. “Are you okay?” he asks softly, thumb continuing its gentle caress. “Do you want to keep going?”

You feel a sheepish little smile tug at your lips. You nod, still a bit breathless, cheeks warming even more under his attentive gaze.

“Yes,” you whisper.

His smile deepens, soft and warm. “You want me to take over?”

You nod again, a little quicker this time. “Yes, please.”

Valko’s gaze lingers on your face for a moment, an almost reverent smile curving his lips as he takes in the sight of you in front of him.

“Just relax for me,” he whispers against your temple, pressing a lingering kiss there. “Tell me if it gets too much, okay?”

After you nod, Valko doesn’t waste another second.

He captures your lips in a slow, deep kiss as he begins to move beneath you. His hips roll up in long thrusts, driving his thick cock deeper into your soaked heat with every stroke. One arm stays locked around your back, pressing your chest flush against his, while his other hand keeps your shorts and underwear tugged to the side so he can fuck you properly.

He keeps kissing you through it – slow and messy, tongues sliding together as his pace gradually picks up. His breath grows heavier against your lips, and between kisses he whispers –

“Am I doing good? Tell me… fuck, I need to hear it.”

You’re already losing yourself in the rhythm of his thrusts, the way his cock stretches and fills you so perfectly. The answer slips out of you in a hazy, breathless mumble, half-coherent and soaked in pleasure.

“You feel so good…” you moan, voice breaking. “Fuck – you’re so big… filling me up so deep…”

Valko groans loudly at your words, the sound low and guttural. His grip on you tightens, and his thrusts grow a little harder, a little faster, driving up into you with more purpose. The wet slap of skin on skin grows louder as he fucks you deeper, his cock dragging against every sensitive spot with devastating precision.

“Yeah? You like how deep I’m fucking you?” he rasps against your lips, voice thick with lust. “You’re taking me so well… so wet and tight around my cock. I could stay buried in you forever.”

You whimper at his filthy words, clenching hard around him. He keeps that perfect rhythm, holding you close, kissing you like he never wants to stop, while his cock drives into you again and again, pushing you closer and closer to the edge once more.

You can feel him starting to throb inside you, his rhythm beginning to falter as he gets closer to the edge. His thrusts grow a little rougher, a little more desperate.

He must feel how you’re close too, because your hips have started moving on their own, grinding down to meet every thrust. His breath stutters against your mouth.

“You close again, baby?” he groans, voice strained and low. “Fuck… I can feel you squeezing me so tight.”

You nod frantically, whimpering as another wave of pleasure builds fast and hot. “Yes – I’m close… please, Valko, go faster – ”

He clenches his jaw, a deep, guttural sound escaping him as he tries to hold back. His hips snap up harder, but you can tell he’s right on the edge.

“I’m too close,” he rasps, almost apologetic, still fucking you deep and steady. “If I go faster, I’m not gonna last – ”

“It’s okay,” you breathe, voice trembling with need as you roll your hips down to take him even deeper. “It’s fine, just – don’t stop. Please.”

Valko lets out a wrecked moan, his grip on you tightening almost painfully. He buries his face in your neck for a second, breathing you in, then pulls back just enough to look at you with dark, desperate eyes.

“Where can I finish?” he asks, voice hoarse and filthy. “Where do you want me?”

Without hesitation, still grinding down on his cock, you whisper against his lips –

“Inside. I want you to come inside me.”

Valko’s control finally snaps.

With a deep, guttural groan, he buries himself to the hilt in a few hard, fast thrusts. You feel every powerful spurt as he fills you up, warm and wet, his cock twitching deep in your pussy while he keeps rolling his hips in sloppy thrusts, pushing his release even deeper.

The sensation of him coming inside you sends a fresh wave of heat crashing through you. You’re right on the edge again, but you stay still for him, letting him use you however he needs, your body soft and pliant on top of his as he rides out the last pulses of his orgasm.

Then he pulls back just enough to whisper against your lips, voice wrecked and breathless.

“Move, baby… don’t stop. Chase it. I want to feel you come on my cock again.”

You hesitate for half a second, worried it might be too much for him, but he doesn’t let you overthink it. His hands grip your hips firmly and start guiding you, encouraging you to roll and grind on him again.

You nod, eyes locked with his, and start moving.

You ride him through the mess, feeling his warm cum leak out of you with every roll of your hips, slick and obscene, coating both of you. His cock is still hard inside you, but you can feel how oversensitive he is now – the way he twitches and throbs helplessly with every movement, like it’s almost too much.

He meets your rhythm with shallow, desperate thrusts, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other grips your hip hard enough to bruise. His eyes stay locked on yours, heavy-lidded and burning, even as his breath turns ragged and broken.

Valko groans, low and wrecked. “That’s it… fuck, just like that,” he rasps, voice tight and strained. “Come on my cock, baby – you’re squeezing me so fucking tight… Good girl, so fucking good…”

It doesn’t take long.

Pleasure slams into you harder this time. You come with a trembling, broken cry, your walls clamping down around his oversensitive cock as another orgasm rips through you. The feeling of his cum leaking out around him with every pulse makes everything wetter, filthier, messier. Slick and cum mix between you as you grind down on him, thighs shaking violently.

This time you don’t hide your face. You stay right there, eyes locked with his, letting him see every second of it – the way your lips part on a silent gasp, the way your whole body shudders and tightens around him.

“Fuck – yes, baby… look at you,” he groans, voice slurred and desperate. “So fucking pretty when you come… good girl…”

His wrecked praise sends a fresh wave of heat through you, drawing out the pleasure for a few more trembling seconds. Then the intense peak of your orgasm slowly fades, leaving you utterly spent. You collapse completely on top of him, your cheek pressed against his chest as you try to catch your breath. Your body feels heavy, hot, and spent in the best possible way. Valko’s arms wrap around you, holding you close as he stays buried deep inside you, his cock still twitching with the last aftershocks. Neither of you makes any move to separate.

You nuzzle back into the crook of his neck, breathing in the comforting mix of his skin, sweat, and your own scent on him. His hands move slowly over your back in long, soothing strokes, fingertips tracing gentle patterns along your spine.

For a long while, you simply rest like that – tangled together, hearts slowing down, his warmth surrounding you completely.

Eventually, his voice breaks the comfortable silence, low and gentle against your ear.

“You okay?” he asks, still stroking your back. “Feeling alright?”

You manage a small nod against his neck, too tired and floaty to form proper words. A tiny, satisfied hum is all you can offer.

He chuckles softly, the sound rumbling through his chest beneath you.

After a few more quiet, peaceful minutes, you finally shift. You slowly push yourself up on shaky arms and lift your hips. The moment he slips out of you, a low, disappointed groan escapes Valko’s throat. The sound is so genuine that you can’t help but let out a soft, breathless chuckle.

“We should probably clean up,” you murmur, still smiling.

He nods, but there’s a playful pout in his expression. Before you can move away, he cups your face with both hands and pulls you down into a slow, sweet kiss. It’s softer than anything that came before – gentle, lingering, and full of affection. When he pulls back, his thumbs brush over your cheeks, and his eyes are warm and tender in the afterglow.

 “You feeling sleepy now?” he asks, a hint of playful teasing in his tone.

You let out a soft, embarrassed little laugh. The reality of everything that just happened is starting to settle in, making your cheeks warm all over again.

“Yeah… I think I am,” you admit.

He chuckles quietly, but then that familiar warm smile returns as he pulls you back down into his embrace. He presses a lingering kiss to the top of your head.

“I never want to let you go.” He whispers.

“You’re wrinkling your suit,” you hiss when he shows no sign of sitting back down on the leather seats. There is comfort in every inch of this limousine, yet he chooses to kneel in front of you. “I don’t think you’d want to taint your public image.”

“I don’t care.”

You raise a brow at the unusual statement.

“I’ll be here until you forgive me.”

The tall skyscrapers that surround Linkon become your saving grace as you attempt to ignore his lips, which whisper apologies on your closed fists that can barely be heard above the soft music playing. However much you wish for those lips to touch places you would prefer to keep in the scenarios in your head is ignored, and instead, you turn your attention towards the life surrounding you.

Laughter erupts from a group of friends as ice cream melts on their hands. A couple holding grocery bags seems to be arguing about who should carry more, and in the end, the guy carries all of them in his hands and her pink purse hangs on his shoulder. A little dog shyly approaches another, their owners laughing at the blooming friendship.

Crazy how different your circumstances are compared to those around you.

“Sweetheart,” Valko says, and when you look at him, his eyes are similar to that shy dog you were just admiring. “Please, tell me what I can do so you can look at me again.”

“I am looking at you.”

His ears and cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink, and you resist the urge to follow its trail with your lips. 

“Yeah, but not… not like this.”

You know exactly what he means, yet you continue your torture. “How do you want me to look at you, sweetheart?”

The nickname undoes him, and his hands move from your closed fist to your cheek in a bold retaliation. “Like this.”

You look away as fast as you can.

From the corner of your eye, however, you can see a smirk on Valko’s face that disappears as fast as it came. God, does he even know why you’re mad? Does he know why your heart rapidly beats as a scowl makes its way onto your expression?

Valko, disappointed by his short-lived victory, stays silent for a few seconds. You know him well enough to understand that this is him pondering, his head tilting to the side the way a puppy does when it’s confused.

Moonlight softens his features a little too well, leaving your defenses as nothing but crumbs.

His wedding ring sits warmly on your cheek as you look back at him again. There are nothing but questions in his eyes and acceptance in the way his thumb rubs against your cheek, careful not to smudge hours of makeup and anger.

That’s the thing about Valko: he’s very obvious when he wants something, and he is incapable of hiding that. But when he knows not to interfere, his presence continues to be loud in quieter ways.

He knows exactly how to love you.

Linkon’s skyscrapers begin to look less like shopping malls and more like your personal hell. Buildings with surnames of wealthy business owners hide the moonlight that previously softened your husband’s features, and it even stops you from being so stubborn.

“We’re close,” Valko points out, as though your stomach doesn’t churn from the fact.

“Then why are you still on your knees?”

“Because you haven’t forgiven me yet.”

You tap his nose as some sort of retaliation for his stubbornness, yet he takes it as a sign of victory. Valko’s smile shines even beneath the night’s darkness, reminding you of the reason you were annoyed in the first place.

“I don’t want today to be the last time I see you, Valko.”

He tilts his head again, this time looking more like an older dog whose utmost trust shines in its eyes. “What do you mean?”

“When you come home late with bruises i-in your arms, I…” Your voice breaks, yet you know fragility has no place in this part of Linkon. “I worry about you, that’s all. And since we’re on our way to another business deal…”

Valko understands the words that crumble into silence. As lovely and desirable the position seems, being chairman of one of the biggest corporations in the country poses dangers only seen by those who have been in the dark, and you know that better than anyone else does. Better than he does, because only when you tend to his wounds does he remember that his absence matters. That life can be beyond the danger he’s gotten used to.

“This one is safe, my love,” he assures you. “I’ve mapped every detail, every person, and every centimeter of the place. I know where to run if I need to.”

“And if… if you lose yourself in the process-”

“I won’t,” he says, defiant as devotion can be. “Not when I have you with me.”

You can only smile as you press your forehead against his, finally looking at him with the tenderness he so loves to receive from you. “Promise you won’t die tonight?”

“I promise, sweet girl.”

The last thing you do before the limo stops at your destination is to place your lips on his, letting him taste the worries you’ve harbored with every risky deal he does. The last thing you feel before you have to step off into the night is his utmost love, spilling onto your soul like no other.

a/n: I hope Valko comes back soon.

Thank you for reading! Any form of interaction is appreciated. Take care :)