f!reader, smut mdni, PIV, blood, mentions of violence, size kink.
You only notice it because your hand slips.
It had been curled at the back of his neck, fingers buried in his hair beneath the edge of his mask, holding on until your knuckles went bloodless because there is nothing else to do when Simon Riley is above you like this; one forearm braced beside your head, your knees spread and pulled back to your chest, his weight pressing you into the mattress with his hips grinding slow and mean like he has all the time in the world to ruin you.
You’re boneless under him - open-mouthed, shaking, letting him take you apart more and more with each of those deep, deliberate strokes that make your thoughts scatter into useless little pieces.
All is perfect until your hand slips, and you feel your thumb drag over something tacky.
You blink up at him through the haze, thinking maybe you’re imaging things - but then you see it. There, smeared dark along the thick column of his neck, just under his jaw.
Blood.
Your mouth moves before your brain catches up. “Simon—”
He stops, buried balls deep inside you. His eyes lift to yours from beneath the black smear of his paint. Brown eyes gone flat and dangerous.
“What?”
Your fingers swipe at his throat, and then pull back to show him your now candied fingertips. “You’re bleeding.”
For a second, he just stares at you.
Then his mouth shifts beneath the mask. “S’not mine.”
The room seems to go airless around you. For a moment, your brain does not know what to do with the words.
Not mine.
They land somewhere distant - muffled by euphoria and the heat of him still seated inside you. They should mean something immediately - they should send you upright, sober you, sharpen you. But you’re too gone beneath him, too pliant and overheated and pinned, your thighs trembling around his waist while he stays buried deep enough that every breath you take has to move around him.
So you just stare at him.
At the dark paint around his eyes, at the blood smear, at the shape of his shoulders above you. You stare long enough that the unusual details begin arranging themselves in whatever clear space you’ve got left in your mind.
His gloves, first.
They’re clean. Fresh black tactical gloves, one of them still gripping your hip as he stares down at you in pause. You can’t shake the feeling that they’re different - you know his kit. You know the worn seams, the scuffs, the little frays on the knuckles from use. These aren’t the pair he wore earlier.
Your gaze flicks lower.
His shirt, too.
Not the one from briefing. Not the one with the faded shoulder seam and the dust at the collar. This one is clean, dark, newly pulled on in a hurry. You catch a faint whiff of barracks detergent and bathroom soap with every move he makes.
He cleaned up.
The thought comes through the haze in pieces.
Simon cleaned himself up before he came here but somehow, he missed this. One dark smear beneath his jaw.
You swallow. Your voice comes out thin. “What happened?”
Simon watches your mouth form the words.
Your breathing sounds too loud now, while his somehow stays perfectly even - like he isn’t pressed into you to the hilt - like he isn’t the reason your thighs are shaking around his waist. Like he didn’t come to your room with another persons blood still drying in the place he forgot to wash. He lowers himself closer and the mattress dips beneath the weight of him.
His masked mouth brushes the corner of yours, not quite kissing you but just hovering there - dragging the rough fabric against your skin as he speaks.
“What happened was,” he pauses. “Graves opened his fuckin’ mouth.”
A cold thread winds through the heat in your stomach.
You go still beneath him, even though your cunt is still fluttering helplessly around the thick of him. The name alone does something ugly to the room. Sours the air. Pulls the world back in around the two of you.
“What—” you have to stop to breathe. Your nails dig into his shoulder. “What did he say?”
Simon’s hand slides slowly from your hip.
His palm moves over your waist, up your ribs, dragging goosebumps in its wake. He maps you like he already knows every reaction he is about to get - like he can feel the exact second your pulse jumps. His gloved fingers skim the base of your throat and settle there.
Thumb resting over your pulse. Counting it.
“He said he’d wondered what you sounded like when you begged.”
Your breath locks. You blink at him, stupidly.
For a second, you can’t reconcile the sentence with the room you’re in. With Simon above you. With Graves’s name in Simon’s mouth and blood under Simon’s jaw and your own pulse hammering against his thumb like it wants to betray you.
But Simon says it like he has had the words sitting behind his teeth for hours. Like he has been waiting to put them somewhere. Like he needs you to understand exactly what happened to the man who said them.
“He said,” Simon continues, each word dragged low through his teeth, “that a mouth like yours would be wasted on 141.”
Your nails bite into his shoulder.
“I-I—“ you whimper. “Si—“
His hips move before you can say anything else.
A slow, devastating thrust that punches the air out of you and leaves the rest of his name caught uselessly in your throat. He watches you take it. Watches your face twist. Watches the thought you were trying to form scatter completely.
“That Price needs to put you in your place,” he hisses through his teeth. “That he’d have had you on your knees by now.”
Your stomach twists.
You shake your head, but you don’t even know what you’re denying. Graves. Simon. The heat blooming under your skin. The fact that the words should disgust you cleanly, but Simon’s voice saying them like a death sentence makes something dark and shameful coil inside you.
He pulls out just to thrust in again.
Harder this time - hard enough to break the breath right out of you. Enough to make the headboard creak traitorously behind you. Enough to make your thighs tighten around his waist before you can stop them.
Simon feels it.
“Then he looked at me,” he says, voice dropping into something ruined and vicious, “and asked if I’d taught you to take orders.”
Your heart slams so hard you feel it in your throat, pulsing viscously under his palm. The room narrows to three things - Simon’s eyes, the blood on his neck, and the place where he is still holding you down.
There is blood on him.
Someone else’s blood.
Graves’s blood.
The realization comes slowly at first, then all at once.
You see it too clearly: Simon standing there silent while Graves ran his mouth. Simon listening. The moment the Ghost stops being a man in a room and becomes a consequence. You see the gloves he must have taken off. The blood on the old pair. The careful cleanup after. The way he must have washed his hands, changed, checked himself in the mirror, decided he was clean enough to come to you.
Clean enough. Except for the one place he missed.
Simon watches the realization move across your face.
“Oh God.” You force the words out. “What did you do?”
Your voice is barely a whisper.
His answer is immediate. “I hit him.”
The answer is too simple, too small for the blood under his jaw and the hell in his eyes and that is only because you know Simon.
You know the careful economy of him - the terrifying restraint. The discipline carved into his bones so deep it has become part of his breathing. Simon does not hit men because he is angry. He does not waste movement. He does not lose control unless something in him has already decided the consequence is worth it.
He ends things because he has weighed the cost and found it acceptable.
Your fingers curl tighter in his shirt. “How bad?”
For the first time, something almost like satisfaction passes through his eyes.
His hips roll in one slow, merciless stroke and your back arches before you can stop it. You spread your legs and take him deeper; helplessly, embarrassingly, betraying every sensible thought trying to form in your head.
“How—“ you try to ask again, but the question fractures halfway through another thrust.
Simon lowers his mouth to your ear. “Bad enough Price had to pull me off him.”
Your stomach flips in something stupid. Fear should come first.
It doesn’t.
It should be horror. Concern. Anger. Maybe all three. You should shove at his chest. Demand to know if he’s lost his fucking mind. Tell him he can’t do that, can’t put his hands on Graves over his disgusting mouth and a half-formed threat. Can’t turn command into a blood sport. Can’t risk his place, his rank, Price’s trust, your trust, just because another man said something deserving yet ultimately meaningless.
But what blooms under your ribs is not sensible enough to be outrage - it is hot. It is fucking shameful.
It is dark and possessive and awful in the exact shape of him.
Because he heard another man talk about you. Heard Graves put his hands on you in theory. Heard him degrade you, heard him imagine you on your knees, your mouth, your begging, and decided violence was the only answer he trusted.
Your body betrays you before your pride can stop it - a tight little clench around him.
Simon feels it. Of course he does.
He stills above you, and somehow that is worse than movement. He’s pressed to the hilt again, the pressure of him so intense now it leaves your breath caught uselessly behind your teeth. His eyes narrow in something that sees the betrayal before you can hide it.
Your face burns.
“No,” you whisper, before he even says anything.
His mouth shifts beneath the mask. “Oh.”
The sound is low. Cruel in its understanding.
Your pulse kicks under his thumb. “Simon—”
“There she is.”
Your breath stutters, caught somewhere between a moan and a denial, and you hate that he hears both. Hate that he can read you so easily. Hate that your body has already answered him before your pride can even get its feet under it.
Simon looks down at the place where your legs have tightened, then slowly back up to your face. It’s a deliberate act; he is taking inventory of every betrayal.
“You liked that.” He croons.
You shake your head, but it’s weak. Useless. Barely more than the brush of your hair against the pillow.
“N-no.”
His thumb presses against your throat, not hard, just enough to feel the wild little flutter of your pulse.
“Liar.”
Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. You can’t find a single defence, a single outrage. No clever thing you can throw between you and the truth and it is all because he is still inside you. Still wearing fresh gloves like he thought that would be enough to keep you from knowing. Still carrying that one missed smear of Graves’s blood under his jaw like a secret he failed to bury properly.
And now he has caught you reacting to it.
Caught the hitch in your breath. The clench of your cunt. The heat climbing up your neck. The way your whole body went soft and greedy around him the second you understood what he had done.
Simon’s eyes go darker. Hungry in a way that feels worse than anger.
“You should be pissed at me,” he murmurs.
His hips pull back an inch - just enough to make you feel the loss before he sinks back in, slow and devastating, until your hands shift to grab at his shoulders because there is no dignity left in you. No clean line of thought. No clever answer.
“You should be callin’ me reckless.”
Another thrust. Your eyes squeeze shut.
His hand leaves your throat and for half a second, you think he is letting you breathe. That is until both of his hands find your own wrists and pin them firmly above your head.
Your eyes snap open to meet his, expecting full satisfaction, but what you see is worse.
It’s all of him - the width of his shoulders blotting out the dim light, the black of his mask, the hard set of his jaw beneath it, the blood under his neck, those steady eyes watching you like he has already decided exactly how much of you he is going to take apart before he is finished.
“You should be asking what the fuck I was thinkin’,” he says, and you can almost hear the grin in it.
You swallow. “You can’t—”
He moves again, and the words break apart in your mouth.
Your back arches and your fingers curl helplessly against his grip. Your knees shift higher around his ribs, dragging him closer instead of pushing him away, because apparently your body has no interest in helping you survive this with any pride intact.
Simon’s eyes drop to your mouth, then back up to the glass in yours.
“I can’t what?” He murmurs.
You try.
You really do.
You drag the sentence up through the wreckage of yourself, but he is too deep, too thick, too much. The stretch of him keeps interrupting every thought before it can become language.
“You can’t just—” your breath catches on a thrust. “You can’t hit him because he—”
“Because he talked about fucking you?” Your whole body jolts. His eyes burn into yours. “If that’s what you mean, say it proper. Like you fuckin’ believe it.”
You can’t.
Your mouth parts, but all that comes out is a broken little sound when he grinds deeper, cockhead bullying your walls slow enough to make you feel every inch of him, cruel enough to leave you trembling closer to the edge. Any sensible thought is drowned out by the wave of bliss washing over you.
Simon makes a low sound. A rough breath leaves him.
“Too far gone to scold me now?”
You glare at him, or try to. It doesn’t land.
And it didn’t stand a chance, either. Not like this - not with your lips parted and your eyes glassy and cunt stretched pathetically around him. Not with your wrists trapped above your head and your hips still trying to meet him every time he gives you another devastating inch.
“I’m, mmff—serious,” you whisper.
“So am I.”
“Simon—”
“No.” His voice cuts low through the room. “You don’t get to say my name like that while you’re grippin’ me tighter for it.”
Your breath leaves you in a gasp.
He feels the way you clench again, and you see it hit him. See the slight flare of his nostrils beneath the mask. The way his eyes flutter for just a second. The way something brutal and possessive moves through him before he can smooth it down.
“Mhm. Yeah.” His voice drops into something rougher. “Fuckin’ problem, you are.”
Your face burns hotter.
You want to deny it - you want to shove at his chest and tell him he’s wrong. Tell him it’s just your body. Just the position. Just the fact that he has you pinned and overstimulated and too cockdrunk to think straight.
But it’s useless because Simon would know it’s a lie.
He moves again, slow and deep, and the denial dies somewhere behind your teeth.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Nothing clever now?”
“Mmff.” Your nails dig into your own palms where he holds your wrists down. “Shut up.”
His eyes flash. “There she is.”
“I mean it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
He gives you another measured thrust, and your voice breaks around a gasp. Simon watches it happen with only the most intent focus.
“Try that again.”
You hate him a little. You want him too much for it to matter.
“You’re—” you inhale sharply when he pulls out almost all the way and then back presses in hard enough to make the mattress shift beneath you. “You’re going to get yourself benched.”
“Probably.”
“Price is going to—”
“Already did.”
You blink up at him, breathless and stupid. “What?”
His thumb drags once along the inside of your wrist.
“Read me the riot act.”
Your nerves jump at that. “And you came here?”
“Yes.”
Something in your chest tightens. “Why?”
Simon looks at you for a long second and the room almost seems to shrink around his silence. Your head swims with all of it; the blood under his jaw, the fresh gloves, the heat of him still locked between your thighs.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter. “Because I had to see you.”
God. You think he’s lost his mind.
“Simon—“ your back arches and his mouth falls to your neck. “That’s not—this isn’t—“
He lowers himself closer to you, folding you deeper into the mattress.
“You think I lost it because he insulted you?” You don’t answer. His thumb strokes once over the pulse flying at your wrist. “No, sweet’eart.”
His hips move again, slow enough to be cruel, deep enough to make your eyes flutter.
“I lost it because he thought about touching what’s mine.”
The words hit you low and you make a sound you do not mean to make. Your cunt pulses at the word. Mine. A catastrophic vulnerability to a word you will never ever tire of hearing him say.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s what you like, yeah?”
You squirm under him, helpless. “Simon—”
“He said your name like he had a right to it.” His voice roughens. “Like he’d survive putting his hands on you.” The next thrust punches a feral moan out of you, and the pace turns to something almost vicious. “I had to let him know what mine felt like first.”
You moan, eyes shut. Helpless and needy as a whore.
He pauses again. One hand leaves your wrists and grips your jaw. “Look at me.”
You do.
“Another man touches you like this,” he whispers, a lethal rasp through his teeth, “and I’ll break every finger he owns.”
You shiver. His eyes flick down over your face, your mouth, the wrecked shape of you beneath him.
“And if he talks about you like that again?”
You barely manage the whisper. “What?”
Simon presses his forehead to yours. “I won’t stop at his face.”
For a long second, neither of you moves. Then he rolls his hips, and the whole world narrows back down to him - his body over yours, his hand at your jaw, Graves’s blood drying on his neck, and the awful, devastating tenderness in the way Simon kisses you like he is still trying not to become the worst version of himself.
One of your hands slip out from under his to touch the smear of blood again. Simon catches it and pins it back beside your head.
“Leave it.”
Your breath trembles. “Why?”
His eyes darken. “Because I want you to remember what happens when a man forgets who you belong to.”
And in the back of your mind, you think maybe you should argue. Maybe you should tell him you don’t belong to anyone or that this is crazy or that he’s going to get you both transferred - but then he does what he always does and starts fucking you deep and hard and mean - and your body reacts before your pride can save you.
Simon huffs a quiet, humorless breath. “That’s what I thought.”
Then he kisses you - filthy, possessive, furious, and fucks you like Graves is still in the room and Simon needs the whole world to understand it.
You’re Simon’s for as long as you’re both breathing.
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Say, in some world or timeline your type has always been guys who were a bit scrawny and withdrawn with a good sense of humour and even better hair
Now, imagine waking up in your own bed after a messy night out to some of the loudest snoring you’ve ever experienced, and when you finally manage to squirm under the heavy dead weight of his arm and get a look at the culprit, you come face to face with a brutish, bulky military type that would probably eat your ideal hookup for breakfast.
Of course he pulls you closer in his sleep, your fronts facing each other—and grunts at the friction.
Of course he’s not going to be normal about knowing where you live.
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Decided to render that doodle of him from before. I'm so in love with this man. I've never felt this way so fast about a fictional character except for Jean Vicquemare from Disco Elysium, BUT JOHN IS CONSUMING MY BRAIN MERCILESSLY.
ghost x f! reader. 12.4k words
cw: smut. both are drunk. 18+ mdni
[masterlist]
Her demeanour soured after that.
She turned shifty, elusive, didn’t speak more than a few words at a time for the remainder of that day. His own fault, because whatever he had said to her had evidently unsettled her; after that she spent another half hour tucked in the bathroom, hiding from him, as if the door could lock. Spent the afternoon creeping awkwardly between rooms, sitting at the table instead of her armchair, dutifully tidying up her mess and folding up her clothes. Haunting his house more than occupying it, as if bothering him was a risk she dared not take.
Not without cause, he supposed. It wasn’t as though he had been at all sweet, even he couldn’t deny that the shift in the air had turned him cold and irritable. Something was intangibly altered after he cornered her in that shower. He could feel it in his jaw, a toothache, and much like all of his other little pains he intentionally and spitefully ignored it.
Her sulking wasn’t his problem. He had a right to be frustrated with her, the bolshie thing — leaving her shit everywhere, draining his hot water, whining about his food, tossing around in his bed, leaving her hair in the shower, bitching and moaning and hissing like a stray — the fact he had maintained any measure of tact was a marvel in itself.
Didn’t help that he couldn’t let himself look at her.
Even a glance made his ribs tight, and he didn’t like it. Hated whatever he felt in the pit of his stomach when he blinked and saw her skin all wet again. Loathed that she seemed to know it, because she avoided eye contact with him as much as he did her; she must, she must have seen right through him.
He spent most of the day outside to avoid her. He had logs to chop, since she had emptied the basket by the hearth to keep the fire lit. He had supplies to bring in from the storage shed. He had a dog to walk. He had a call to make with his superiors.
Plenty to keep himself busy with, and by dusk he had unwinded, if just slightly. The air was biting but there was no wind, and the void winter silence was something of an anti-inflammatory for his brewing resentment.
It was bluish evening by the time he returned to the cabin.
He noticed, as he hung his snowy jacket on the rack and the dog followed him in, that her suitcase was zipped up and tucked against the wall. The blanket was folded neatly over the back of the sofa. The chairs were tucked under the table. The smell of green apple detergent hung bubbly in the air.
His first thought — and it nettled him to consider — was that the wee nuisance was preparing for a hurried departure. That she, like him, had reached her wit’s end, and would next demand once again to be taken back to whatever shithole town it was.
He prepared himself for that very argument, in fact. Came inside with a terse sigh and tight shoulders, tongue forming the words not fucking likely if she were to demand premature freedom. If you want to walk all the way to Smithers, be my guest.
“Hi, Johnny,” he heard a soft voice coo out from the kitchen, where no doubt the dog was already lavishing her in attention, his tail could be heard whipping through the air from the front door.
His boots tracked snow in the pattern of their soles as he lumbered towards the kitchen, where, surprising him, she was busy wiping the bench with a cloth in wide, full-bodied circles. In a t-shirt too big for her and — only as she leaned forward, and the loose hem lifted slightly up her legs, he noted — a pair of spotty pyjama shorts. Too short.
There was a shudder of humiliation in her expression when she glanced up and noticed him; gone quickly as he approached her, when she looked away and wrung out the cloth in the sink.
“Clean in ‘ere,” he commented stiffly, the ire he had arrived with still audible in his throat.
She turned to face him, adjusting her posture as if she had been standing incorrectly, and disquieted that he was within an arm’s reach.
“Yeah, well,” she bit out, chagrin in her throat, “I just thought, um.”
He was irritated again. Already reverted to her tetchy fear of him, as if the last five days had never happened, and all progress was moot. Made his teeth grind together. “Thought what.”
She swallowed a breath and let it out measuredly through her nose. Regarded him with sincerity. “I’m sorry for using all the hot water.”
A humourless puff escaped him at that. Bemused by it, because he utterly did not expect those words to leave her mouth.
“I just — I’ve been thinking about it and, it was selfish of me, and I feel bad about it, and—” she sucked in another breath, then looked at her fingers, “—well, yeah, I’ve been inconsiderate, and I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t help but grin.
That was the issue, was it? Not fear of him, not sudden distrust, not a desperation to leave — no, she was contrite. Simply guilty. Avoiding his eye because she was in trouble. Because he had scolded her.
He was immensely endeared by it, and he assuaged the want to praise her with a brush of his knuckle under her chin.
“Apology accepted,” he said, in passing, as he stepped around her toward the sink. Grabbed a squeaky clean glass from the dishtray and filled it up under the faucet.
She was quiet as he drank his water, he could feel her chewing on something to say without even having to look at her.
“And, um,” she continued, and at this point he sighed, “I realise I haven’t really thanked you for, like, taking me in, or whatever.”
“Or whatever?” He chortled, leaning against the counter once he put down his empty cup.
The fuse of her sweetness was running short — he could literally see it draining from her eyes as they went from cloyingly apprehensive to low and spiteful — but she persevered.
“Thanks for letting me stay here,” she said. Murmured, more like.
Yet another sentiment he thought he’d sooner hallucinate than ever hear her say aloud. He was smiling at her, now, at both the visible effort it took for her to say it, and the chagrin that etched in her features once she did; but, even still, the sentiment itself was guilelessly cute. He didn’t give her the credit, considered her incapable of humility or self-reflection at all — and there she was, evasively picking at her fingernails while she waited for him to let her off the hook.
It was difficult to stay mad at her when she looked like that, averted gazes through her lashes and the unsubtle humiliation that riddled her in having to seek his forgiveness. He could have told her that he had already forgiven her, but he wasn’t about to embolden her.
“Not itching to escape anymore, are ya?” He asked, satisfaction slickening his tone. A simple you’re welcome would surely have sufficed, but he couldn’t help but rub it in.
“No,” she gritted, now defensive. “That was — I was scared.”
That he found less humorous. “No shit.”
“I’m not anymore, though,” she added insolently, crossing her arms. “Now I know you’re just an asshole.”
He laughed. “An asshole that saved your life, though, eh?”
“Yeah, that’s why I said thank you.”
“Did you?”
“I literally just did.”
“Don’t think I heard that,” he jeered.
She scoffed. “You’re deaf, then.”
“Thought I heard thanks for letting me stay, then something about me being an asshole—”
“I’m not saying it again.”
“—not quite a thank you Simon for saving my fucking life, that’d be nice, don’t ya reckon?”
“I’m not saying it.”
He snorted. “Go on, I wanna hear it.”
“Nope.”
“I think I’ve earned it.”
“Too bad.”
There was a smirk, the faintest thing, dimpling in her cheek; enough to pull a true grin from him in response, because — he knew it — she was goading him on purpose.
“Wanna go back to sleeping on the floor?” He threatened, and she rolled her eyes.
“Mph. No.”
“‘Cos that’s where I’ll put you, if y—”
“God, fine, thank you dear Simon for deigning to rescue me from the cold, oh, how I might have perished if you left me in the snow! I can never express the depth of my gratitude, I am forever in your debt — thank you, oh, thank you—!”
“Alright, fuckin’ hell,” he barked, rubbing his brow and letting loose a chuckle. “I’m havin’ a shower.”
She continued her melodramatic performance for the back of him as he walked out of the kitchen. “Please, tell me how I can make it up to you! Anything, Simon, I owe you my life after all—”
“Careful,” he sneered on his way out, and she laughed, satisfied. Best that he wasn’t looking at her while she begged like that, however unseriously.
“No, go on,” she teased, her sing-song voice following him out into the hall, “tell me what you want. I can’t ever repay you, but I’ll do my best!”
“You’ll think of something,” he barked back.
Her laughter bubbled down the hallway, victorious. “I’ll try.”
Seemed she had cleaned up the bathroom, too.
Tucked all her little toiletries — face wash and serums and soaps and all — into her spongebag, which she had put away in a vanity drawer. Really digging her roots in, he thought, already leaving things in his cupboards and drawers; it should have aggravated him, that she felt so emboldened as to put her things away in his house — but, worse than that, it disarmed him.
She’d set her toothbrush next to his. Wiped down the mirror. Replaced the roll of toilet paper, and the old hand towel with a fresh one. Her own stripey bath towel hung beside his navy one, folded neatly on the rail.
What did it say about him, he wondered, that he didn’t care? That, if anything, he found it profoundly endearing?
Didn’t bode well, that was for certain. He’d let himself get used to it, and he’d have to suffer the vacuum it’d leave within the week, once it was time to send her home again and all her shit went with her. A deadline he had incidentally been counting down the minutes to just that morning.
He didn’t look at himself in the mirror before he got in the shower. He kept it brief and hot enough to make his skin red. Raptly watched the water condensate and roll down the curtain to keep his mind off her expression when he cornered her in there. To prevent himself imagining all the ways in which she could repay her debts. And he could imagine a few.
When he emerged from the bathroom in a t-shirt and sweats, the sickly scent of heavy cream and melted chocolate hung in a smog that drifted down the hall; notes of cinnamon that he followed to the kitchen, where she was leaning over the stove, stirring some liquid in a large saucepan with a wooden spoon.
She glanced up at him. “That was quick.”
He bit down on a snide remark about her showering habits as he approached, arms crossed. “The hell have you gotten up to.”
“I’m making us some hot chocolate,” she said proudly, and it was then he noticed the discarded wrapper of a full block of chocolate with only three squares remaining.
“Yeah?” He snorted, now beside her, leaning over the pot to look at what she was stirring. It was thick, and dark, with a stick or two of cinnamon spinning within and foam forming from the bubbles of the steady simmer. “Gonna put marshmallows in it, too?”
“Mmm, that’s a good idea,” she cooed, either unaware of or purposefully ignoring the potent sarcasm he layered his words with. “Do you have any?”
He plucked one of the leftover bits of chocolate from the wrapper and chucked it in his mouth as he opened the fridge. “No,” he replied simply.
“‘Course you don’t,” she scoffed, then added; “Dickhead.”
“This your way of paying off your debt, eh?” He asked facetiously, through the chocolate snapping between his teeth. “Hot chocolate?”
“It’s special,” she explained, a little eager, so he redirected his attention from the shelves of the fridge back to her.
Only then did he notice the heady aroma of liquor carried by the steam; something dark and full of molasses, barrel-aged and — fuck’s sake — there on the counter sat a half empty bottle of Smuggler’s Cove with the cap still off. A bottle that had previously been unopened, last he checked.
“Jesus,” he scoffed, grabbing the bottle and preemptively screwing on the lid. “Went a bit light on the rum, d’you reckon?”
That sarcasm she picked up on, at least. “It’s a big batch,” she argued. “Do you want some or not?”
“Trying to get me pissed, are ya?” He gibed.
“Yep,” she said.
“What’re you plotting?”
“I was just thinking — I feel like we haven’t broken the ice yet.”
“Haven’t we?”
“Don’t think so. Unless you count perving on me in the shower as an icebreaker.”
At that he snorted. Decided it was best not to acknowledge it, but his lack of denial earned him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “Go on, then. Couldn’t hurt.”
Certainly fucking could, but he wasn’t about to say that. Wasn’t about to tell her it was a bad idea because booze made him grouchier and grabbier than usual — which, when alone in his cabin, hurt nobody but himself. Thing like her around, though, no telling what he’d turn into. What he’d say. Where his hands would go.
It’d been a good week, though, since he’d had a sip. The itch was there. Worsened by the mere mention. And it smelled fucking good.
“Okay, good,” she hummed. “Grab me a couple mugs, then.”
He scoffed. “Yes ma’am.”
She straightened her back at that, a pleased little smile in her lips, and he made a note of that. He collected two large mugs from the cabinet and put them down beside the stove.
With a tea towel wrapped around the handle she picked up the saucepan with great effort, intent on pouring it straight from the pot; but she was hindered by a grunt and a wobble, and a bit of brown milk dribbled down the side.
“Christ, put it down,” he demanded, pre-empting an inevitable spill of boiling milk that would’ve burned any skin it landed on. She obeyed with a huff and set it back on the stove. “I’ll do it.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Thanks.”
The creamy scent billowed directly into his sinuses as he poured a steady stream into the first mug. Certainly looked delicious. He must’ve been twelve the last time he had a hot chocolate. Perhaps he wouldn’t have begrudged a marshmallow.
He slid the first mug in her direction, before he poured the next one, and she picked it up with both hands; blew on it carefully for a while before she brought it to her lips. She made a grim toothy face after her first sip.
“Mm,” she hummed thoughtfully, smacking her tongue. “Maybe it is a bit strong.”
He chuckled at her as he went to taste his own. The first sip burned his tongue and went down his throat just as hot; sweet and creamy enough to stick to the roof of his mouth, exorbitantly chocolatey, and — though he had no complaints about it — at least a quarter rum.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he puffed, stifling a cough, out of surprise more than intolerance. He usually sips it straight.
“I’ll just drink it slowly,” she said. “Doubt I’m a heavyweight like you, though.”
“What d’ya mean by that?” He asked through a grin.
She gestured up and down at him. “You’re like the fucking Hulk.”
He tried not to let his feathers get all puffed up at that. Easier said than done. “More for me, then.”
“Uh-huh,” she droned, plodding out of the kitchen with her mug in hand. “You got cards or something?”
“Cards?” He carped, leaning beside the archway.
She shot him a vindictive glance, stopping by the dog to run her hands through his fur, as he watched the altercation with his big dumb smile and his tongue hanging out. “Or, what, would you rather sit around and talk about your feelings?”
“Should be some under the telly,” he said, plainly amused.
“Thought not,” she muttered, as she put her mug down on the coffee table and began rifling through the TV cabinet. Once she found the deck of cards she made her way to the dining table. “Y’ever played rummy?”
He chortled as he sat in the chair opposite her. “Been a while.”
“Good,” she nodded, already dealing out the cards between them, “then I’ll beat you.”
Four rounds in, and she hadn’t yet been proven wrong.
She was all smug about it, too, beaming at him every time she lay a set of cards down on the table; now when she put them down they were wonky and overlapping, because she had already just about finished her third mug of spiked cocoa. She had earlier brought the whole saucepan over to the table, in fact, with the ladle sitting in it for ease of access.
He wasn’t far ahead of her, but it had evidently not hit him as strongly. Where he was slightly warm in the ears, she had warmed all over — plain in her vibrant eyes and coy smile, in the tongues she poked at him when he lost, again, and — right as she declared her victory, the feet she nonchalantly propped up on his thigh under the table.
As if she had done it unconsciously, she carried on sweeping the cards back up to shuffle them again. He smothered the urge to remark on it with two hard gulps of his hot chocolate, finishing mug number three with a loud sigh. Stupidly, he didn’t want to spook her into removing them.
“That’s the spirit,” she crooned, nudging the ladle in his direction and nodding at him to refill. “A little more and you might be able to beat me.”
He chuckled, obliging. “I’m goin’ easy on you.”
“Psh,” she snorted. “You’ve got no idea what you’re doing.”
“I’m figuring it out,” he said, scooping the now lukewarm chocolate milk into his mug. “Got your tells down.”
“There’re no tells in rummy, idiot, it’s not poker.”
“Sure there are,” he jeered. “Every time you’re about to put cards down there’s a shiteating grin on your face.”
“Ooo,” she hooted, dealing out the cards again, “aren’t you observant. I smile when I’m winning. Reckon you’ve got a knack for reading people?”
He fanned out his cards once she dealt them. “Better than you.”
“Dunno about that,” she teased, flipping between her cards to organise her hand. “I’ve got a pretty good read on you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she squinted at him, “you’ve got a little dent between your eyebrows. And — look, your lips are all tight. Ha — you’ve got another losing hand, don’t you?”
He smirked. Triple kings, triple fours, a ten-jack-queen trio, and a lonely ace. Such a fortuitous hand that he wondered if she had counted the cards and dealt them this way on purpose, another effort to make up her debt to him. He needed another four, another king, or a nine for a clean sweep.
“You’re up,” he nudged, when he saw she was still watching him, though it was her turn to kick off the round.
She picked up from the stockpile. Let out a little scoff of disappointment; bad card. She discarded it face-up. A ten of clubs. He picked up next, his a useless one too — eight of diamonds — so he chucked it. She smiled impishly and plucked it up, adding it to her hand, and tossing down her discard. No doubt she was proud of that one, so gleeful when she could show off that she had something good brewing.
Didn’t matter, though. He was sure his grin was shiteating now, too. The card she dropped was the king of spades.
He picked it up, to her dismay, and reorganised his cards for dramatic effect. Then he lay down his triple fours — paused to see her reaction, and her lips pursed — then his ten-jack-queen set, then topped it off by dropping his quadruple kings atop of the rest, and flicking his final ace at her.
“Rummy,” he barked, drumming on the table with his palms to congratulate himself, “s’that what you say?”
She was slack-jawed. Snottily tossed her cards across the table and huffed as she slumped back into her chair. The satisfaction he felt was probably a little juvenile.
“What the fuck,” she moaned.
“What’d I tell ya,” he crooned, sipping from his mug.
“I don’t wanna play anymore,” she grumbled, half-joking but half-serious, because her feet slipped from his lap, and she went to stand.
“Fuck me, you’re a princess,” he derided, snickering, “have some more o’ your cocoa, might make a comeback.”
“Nah,” she huffed, pottering towards the kitchen, “the cream’s making me sick. What else’ve you got?”
No surprise that she’d waste all his chocolate and half his rum only to discard the bulk of it once she grew sick of it. It was, though, excessively rich to be the drink of choice for the remainder of the evening, should he continue drinking — which he was planning on doing. He wondered if it could be refrigerated or if it would go lumpy in the cold.
He left it on the table as he joined her in the kitchen, standing behind her where she stared vacantly into the open fridge. He reached around her to fetch a beer, ready to head back into the sitting room, until her head fell back and bounced against his chest. He was certain she wasn’t drunk enough for it to be a matter of keeping balance, but he elected not to consider any other motivation she might have had. He didn’t push her off, though he should have.
“I don’t want beer,” she groaned.
“What d’ you want, then.”
She sighed. “Gin and tonic. With lemon.”
“Don’t have gin or tonic. Or lemon.”
“Obviously,” she snipped. “Just whiskey and beer and misery.”
He chuckled. An apt stocktake of his booze supply. “Well, pick one of ‘em. That’s all you’re getting.”
She moaned histrionically as she grabbed a beer, too. Better that she stuck with something a little lower in percentage than the half-rum chocolate she had thrown together, he thought. She slipped out from under him, then, twisting off the cap and tossing it carelessly onto the counter.
“C’mon, then, Johnny,” she cooed as she strutted past the dog, and Simon swallowed dry, “let’s put on some music. Wanna dance with me, boy? Yeah?”
Something about that puppy-voice she put on had the dog immediately up and wired, bounding alongside her as if she were about to take him out into the snow for the third time that day; instead she stopped at the CD rack beside the TV.
“You got a favourite, Simon?”
Gave him a bit of whiplash to hear her say his name like that, casually as she might have if she had known him for more than five days.
“Don’t listen much,” he replied, tipping his beer into his mouth.
“Do you do anything fun?” She taunted, flipping through a couple of jewel cases.
“Xbox is fun,” he said, mostly as a joke.
She snickered. “Oh, yeah, right.. Still young at heart, eh?”
“Still young all over,” he said mordantly, and she shot him a sly glance for that.
“We’ll see about that.”
He didn’t ask her what she meant by it. She continued perusing the CDs unfazed, collecting a few options in a stack on her palm.
“Surely there’s one you like,” she groaned. “What about… the Police?”
He grunted. “Piss off.”
“Billy Idol… Queen… Ha — Wham. Jesus, big fan of the eighties, are you?”
“They’re not mine.”
“Right, duh. Belong to the random guy you stole this house from.”
“I was given it,” he clarified, just then remembering the lie he had told her a few days earlier.
“Whatever,” she hummed. “What about — ooo — U2. Now we’re cooking.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” he huffed, rubbing his brow testily before he knocked back a sip of his beer.
“Oh, would you rather we sit in silence? Does that sound like more fun to you?”
“Uh-huh,” he replied, but she was already feeding the CD into the slot in the player. “I’m goin’ for a piss.”
She was too busy fiddling with the buttons to acknowledge him as he wandered towards the hallway. The air was cooler down the hall, and marginally easier to breathe. If he had any left he’d have lit himself a cigarette, because he felt a throbbing in his temples that only nicotine could remedy. Or, if he was lucky, more booze. He forbade himself from seeking another antidote.
He pissed for what felt like a day, then ran his hands under cold water for a minute or two. For motivations that eluded him, he then opened the drawer under the sink and unzipped her spongebag. Fingered through it out of a curiosity he could not justify. A few makeup odds and ends that he could identify as makeup but not much more than that, some sort of face cream or other, tampons, dental floss, mango lip balm, candy pink nail polish. He wondered what other bits and bobs she had left in places he hadn’t discovered yet.
He zipped it shut when he heard the music start, explosively loud before it was swiftly turned down; and next he heard laughter, and a cloying I’m so sorry, sweet boy, did that give you a fright? Sorry baby, oh, I’m sorry…
He hovered once he reached the end of the hallway.
She held the dog up by his paws as if waltzing with him by the fireplace, swaying romantically and all, and the dog’s jaw hung loose as he enthusiastically panted. Fucking schmoozer, that boy. Watched her sing like the sun shone out of her mouth; I have cliiimbed hiiighest mountains, I have ruuun through the fiieelds, oooonly to beee with youuuu!
He stayed out of sight because he knew that, once observed, she’d revert to something more cautious and demure. Schrödinger's butterfly. He only watched with a grin.
She let the dog down gently when she went to grab her beer; she sucked down four brave gulps and coughed, then another three. Getting herself pissed, he guessed, either to cope with her circumstances or to gird herself for something, and he did his best not to imagine what that could be.
Next she spun around, held her bottle to her mouth like a microphone; it was waaarm in the niiiight, I was cooold as a stooone… but I stiiiill haven’t foouund, what I’m lookin’ foooorrrrr!
The dog was barking now, and she cackled, holding the bottle-microphone towards him instead. “Oooh, you’re such a good singer! Yes you are! Yes you are!”
He finished off the last few sips of his beer as he finally emerged from the dark of the hallway, deciding he had lurked there long enough, and went to grab himself another bottle from the fridge. He’d rather make his presence known than have her catch him there, watching her from the shadows like a reprobate.
Seemed he appeared too abruptly, though, because when she looked up to see him approaching she let out a cartoonish gasp, stumbling onto her back foot, and as though caught in a comedy of errors next she yelped; “Ow! Motherfucker.”
“Fuck’s sake,” he chided, as she hopped towards a shelf to balance herself on, “What’d you do?”
He turned down the volume knob on the CD player as he approached her, nudging the concerned dog out of the way. She kicked up her left foot, peering over her shoulder to try and get a glimpse of the bare sole.
“Think it’s a splinter,” she said through teeth, frustrated. “There’s kindling and shit everywhere.”
He was chuckling, and she patently disapproved.
“It’s not funny,” she spat. “It hurts.”
“I bet,” he snickered, “you gonna keep whining or are you gonna ask me to get it out for you?”
She let out a long and theatrical sigh. Evidently assessing whether she’d be flexible enough to do it herself. “Can you get it out for me. Please.”
Didn’t even have to tell her to use the magic word. He smiled, pacifying a chuckle with a sip from his fresh bottle. “Sit.”
She hopped towards the sofa and fell into it clumsily, and he wondered whether she had finished another beer in the time he spent in the bathroom. She looked a bit surprised when he dropped himself into the cushions beside her.
“Aren’t you going to use tweezers or something?”
“Don’t need ‘em.”
She chuffed. “You don’t strike me as precise with your fingers.”
He looked at her reprovingly. She wore a knowing smirk, then stifled a snicker, as if she picked up on the innuendo she herself had put there only after uttering the words.
“You’d be surprised,” is all he said.
She squinted at him, and he thought she might say something a little more overtly lascivious, but instead she asked; “Did you wash your hands after you pissed?”
He snorted. “Yep.”
“Mmmkay,” she jeered doubtfully.
“C’mere, then,” he grunted, a little impatient, reaching down to grab her by the ankle; she shimmied slightly but he did most of the maneuvering for her, swivelling her on her bottom until her feet were in his direction and her back was against the armrest.
Her uninjured foot rested itself on his thigh, cold even through his sweats. Cute feet. Found himself smirking when he noticed her freshly painted toenails, in that same cotton-candy pink she had in her spongebag. Painted them just today, by the looks. Who’d you do that for, he thought, just for me?
“Should’ve been wearing socks,” he remarked instead.
“Whatever.”
“You’re the one always whingeing about the fuckin’ cold,” he said, tugging her injured foot to get a closer look at the sole; it was small and soft in his hand, and he snickered when her toes curled up anxiously. Right below the ball of her foot, in the soft, uncallused centre, a miniscule sliver of wood about half a centimetre long was embedded beneath her skin.
He put the pads of his thumbs on either side of it, but before he was even able to squeeze, she sucked a sharp breath through her teeth. “Ow!”
He scoffed in disbelief. “Haven’t even touched it yet.”
“Well, be gentle,” she groaned.
“You’re a big girl,” he grunted, lining up his thumbs again. “Deep breath, eh?”
She inhaled deeply and held it, wrenched her eyes shut and all; so he dug his thumbs in, and after not even a second of squeezing, half of the splinter poked out from the skin.
“That hurt,” she squeaked, and he chuckled.
“Christ, you’re dramatic.”
“You’ve got fucking bear hands,” she snapped, “I’m surprised you didn’t crush all my foot bones.”
“I’m being gentle,” he insisted, returning his focus to the splinter and trying to pinch it with his fingernails. “Wouldn’t wanna ruin a pretty foot.”
She snickered. “Like feet, do you?”
“I like pretty things,” he said.
She laughed impishly, and her other set of toes dug ever so slightly into his thigh. He gritted his teeth in an effort to ignore it, because she had surely done it by accident. “Do you— Ow!”
Cut herself off with a squeal as he finally got a grip of the tiny sliver, but she bucked her foot before he was able to pull it out, and he groaned exasperatedly.
“Fuck’s sake, keep your foot still.”
“I’m trying,” she spat, “you need tweezers, you keep poking it.”
“If I can pick shrapnel out without tweezers I can pull out a fuckin’ splinter.”
She frowned at that, and only then did he realise his mistake. “Shrapnel?”
He was lost for an excuse for a moment. A nevermind would’ve only dug his hole deeper, as would any attempt to deny what he said. What day jobs might involve shrapnel, he wondered, and she curiously tilted her head the longer he took to respond.
“You picked shrapnel out of someone?” She asked, and he sighed. “Or is that a secret, too?”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted, distracted now, as he finally got a grip on the splinter again; and before she could fling her foot around, he tugged it with a steadfast pluck — and, there, it was out. She yelped through her teeth, but he shut her up; “Jesus, look — all done.”
She exhaled in relief when she saw the piece of wood between his fingers, and he flicked it away.
“Thank you,” she puffed.
He thought that might be the end of her questioning, but she instead made herself comfortable where she was curled up on the sofa, adjusting her foot on his lap and all.
“You’ve told me, like, nothing about yourself,” she moaned, a little petulant, like sulking might goad him into sharing a little more.
“You’re no open book.”
“I can be,” she said. “I’m not hiding anything. You just haven’t asked.”
His head rocked over the back of the sofa. He certainly had questions, some more appropriate than others, but he hadn’t indulged them. Figured it was unnecessary seeing as her departure from his life was imminent, and there was little point in deepening a connection that was inherently temporary.
“Alright, then. Got a question,” he said anyway.
Her eyes brightened a little. “Shoot.”
“You runnin’ from something?” He asked, tilting his head to look at her.
She sighed resentfully. Took her a moment to answer the question, her eyes flicked between his for a short while as though assessing whether he deserved to hear it.
“Kind of,” she said.
“Boyfriend?”
At that she snickered. “No.”
Good. He hoped his relief wasn’t visible. “Go on, then.”
“I dunno. It’s stupid,” she paused to rub her eyes in frustration, then rested her head against the couch cushion, “I just… I was sick of everything. Needed a change. A fresh start, or whatever.”
“And a blizzard was the perfect time for your fresh start, was it?” He sneered.
She scoffed. “It wasn’t a blizzard when I left.”
“Were you headed somewhere?”
“Not really,” she said.
“Seemed pretty desperate to get to Hazelton.”
She laughed. “I was desperate to get to a population centre. You’re pretty scary, you know.”
Obviously. He held no illusions about it; he was not a good mannered man. Had no interest in nor ability to maintain any social grace, and his appearance was no help to him. He could only grin at the remark, though, because despite all that it seemed she was no longer scared of him.
She wouldn’t still be sitting there if she were. She wouldn’t be wearing those little shorts around him. She wouldn’t have allowed him to continue holding her foot, mindlessly running his thumb along the arch. He should’ve let go of her. It was warm in his hand, though. And soft. He didn’t want to.
She wore a little smile, slightly dim in the eyes as they lazily blinked at him. It struck him, then, that it might just be the booze.
“Your turn,” she said.
“What.”
“I answered your question, now you have to answer one of mine.”
He quirked his brow at that. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Fine,” he capitulated with a huff, “y’get one.”
She pouted, looking to the side and bouncing her free foot. It was a while before she spoke, so he prompted her; “C’mon, then.”
“Hold on, I’m just — I’m trying to figure out how to fit all my questions into one question.”
“That’d be cheating.”
“No, it’ll be one question. That’s what you said.”
“Alright, Christ — get it out, then.”
“I’m thinking!”
“Better be good.”
She thought for a moment longer, until her face suddenly lit up.
“Are you, like, a secret agent?” She asked, and his eyes shot to her. Likely too harsh a glance, because her smile went away, and she softened it with; “or something?”
No, he was not, but her childish guess brushed far too close to the truth for his liking. “Where the fuck’d you get that from?”
“Um,” she was a little on edge, now, sitting upright and prompting him to let go of her foot. It landed next to her other one on his thigh. “Well — you’re always sneaking off to make phone calls, and, like… your laptop looks like it’s bulletproof. And you’ve got guns everywhere. Everywhere. Who has that many guns? We’re not in America.”
“You’ve—”
“Also, like, whose house is this? There’s so much random shit around, it’s like fifty people have lived here before. And you’re out in the middle of nowhere, it’s like you’re in hiding or under cover or something.”
Her questions tumbled from her lips with an air of humour and fascination about them; evident that she didn’t understand how close she teetered to the truth, and that she had left him with very little room to come up with a believable enough excuse to cover all of it.
“That’s more than one question,” was all he said. It was all he could say.
Her face sunk at that. Smile gone, eyes lidded and brows knitting in patent disappointment. “Okay, then answer just the first one.”
“No.”
“Are you kidding me, but you said—”
“That’s the answer,” he clarified through a stiff jaw.
She squinted at him. “I don’t believe you,” she spat, “you’re obviously hiding something. Either you’re some kind of secret agent or you’re a serial killer.”
He tilted his head. “Which do you reckon I am.”
“Well, if you were a serial killer you’d have killed me already.”
“Still might.”
“No you won’t,” she snorted, a little emboldened by the liquor in her system, he supposed. “You’re a big softie under all that.”
He could only chortle. “So I’m a secret agent, then, am I?”
“Or… maybe a soldier, or something,” she thought aloud, looking at him circumspectly. “Are you?”
Observant little shit. “Y’already asked your question.”
“So you are!”
“No.”
“You’re lying,” she snipped, frustrated, “I can tell you’re lying.”
“Not so good at reading people after all, eh?”
“You fucking suck,” she grouched, shoving his leg with her feet as she swivelled herself to stand, and at first he was content watching her walk away.
Until — and he should have seen this coming — she unlatched the front door.
“Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” he barked, but by the time he lept up from the sofa she had already torn open the door and sprinted out into the black of the night.
He was up and running before he lost sight of her, out the door with a firm stay, Johnny and without putting his boots on — though he should have — but the stupid fucking girl had run out into the shin-height snow in nothing but those tiny shorts and her hoodie. Perhaps she had done it just to spite him.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” He roared after her; she was sprinting in zigzags as if an effort to lose him, but he could hear the squeaks in her panting through the still air. Wouldn’t be long until her feet were numb.
She was lucky that it wasn’t windy or white-out, because despite the subzero chill of the air, body heat was enough to keep one temporarily immune to the dry cold. The booze would certainly have helped, though.
She was a speedy thing, but not as fast as him; his legs were far longer, stronger too, and he was quickly closing the distance. He wrestled with the idea that he might have to tackle her, because there wasn’t a way to do that without hurting her — but it seemed gravity did the job for him. She tumbled hands-first into the snow with a squeal, surprising him with a high-pitched giggle as she thrashed to get herself oriented before he caught up with her.
He reached down to grab her; “C’mere, you fu—”
Interrupted by a flash of white and a burning cold across his cheeks as she hurled a handful of snow at his face, followed by a loud and breathless cackle. She was beaming as he brushed the snow away, proud of herself, but before she could scoop up another snowball he had his hand around her arm and was yanking her out of the powder.
“You are a little shit,” he grumbled, hauling her over his shoulder like he had the first time; “and you’re stupid.”
“And you’re a grumpy old hermit with a stick up your ass,” she grouched, but the spite didn’t quite conceal the amusement in her throat.
“Watch it,” he retorted, glad she couldn’t see the smile that was fighting to dimple his cheek. “You’re already in trouble.”
“Ooo, what’re you gonna do?” She taunted. “Give me a hiding?”
Her ass was, literally, right next to his head, and the thought had admittedly crossed his mind. “Might do.”
She only laughed — nothing witty to say to that one — as he carried her in through the open door, and past the dog who dutifully waited in its frame, tail wagging ferociously to greet them.
“Your friend’s a big fuckin’ brute, Johnny,” she crooned as he escorted her towards the fire, he could feel the dog jumping up his backside to reach her petting hand where it hung from him. She yelped when he slid her off, dropping her unceremoniously to her feet right in front of the woodburner.
Now she was shivering, the snow stuck to her bare legs finally catching up to her. Her hoodie was saturated once the snow melted, shorts too.
“Feel better?” He asked, bitterly facetious, going to shut and lock the front door.
“T-there’s snow in my undies,” she stammered, through a sheepish smile, and he fought the impulse to laugh at that.
He had to exhale at that, because now his mind was between her legs, ruminating on the snow melting into her cunt. Wondered if it felt strangely good for her against her heat. If she’d now be icy to the touch down there. If the melt would dribble down his fingers.
“I bet,” he sneered. “Better take ‘em off, then.”
Her mouth hung open in mock-horror. “You are a pervert.”
“Never said I wasn’t, did I?”
No doubt he was getting a bit too bold, because her eyes narrowed suspiciously at that, playful grin shrinking into a wry little smirk. He knew, in the pit of him, that he ought to shut his mouth. To put a sock in it and go to bed, and hope that she passed out on the couch with the dog, because he couldn’t guarantee that his dreams would stay dreams if she slipped in beside him again.
“I s’pose you didn’t,” she snorted, as he went to the kitchen to put the kettle on; something to distract himself, so he didn’t stand there watching her shed her wet hoodie like a degenerate.
He was watching, though. The only thing under the hoodie was white singlet. No bra under it, he could see the faint shadow of her nipples through the thin cotton, pebbled and conspicuous from the cold. Tits bounced a little as she dumped the hoodie on the floor and her arms fell to her sides, bounced even more as she plodded towards the kitchen.
Where he expected her to stop and make some snide remark, she instead strode right past, down the hallway.
“Where d’you think you’re going?” He barked, following on instinct, because he strongly suspected she’d be hopping back into his bathroom for an hour-long shower to warm herself up again.
Wrong on both counts. She went straight to his bedroom. “To bed,” she said snidely.
“No the fuck you aren’t,” he chided, but she had already leapt onto his bed by the time he made it to his bedroom door.
She rolled over, sitting to face him, leaning back on her hands that sunk into the blankets. Bare knees together. Watching him with faux-innocence and a faint smile, because — obviously — she was doing it on purpose. Pretty clear to him now, in fact, that she had been from the start.
“Get off the bed,” was all he could say, and it came out tightly.
“I’m tired,” she said, artificially stroppy. She was buzzing with energy, he could see it in the way her eyes flickered about him, downward from his face and back again.
“Don’t care. You’re back on the couch.”
She pouted, tilting her head and fluttering her lashes and all, tipping her knees side to side — but she did not move from where she sat.
“Don’t you look at me like that,” he ordered, reaching for an ankle; she didn’t make a single effort to escape him as he ensnared her, and he pulled her down the bed until she was sprawled flat with her feet dangling off the end of the mattress.
“Like what?” She moaned, as she sat upright, now too close to him. Her face a foot from his lower stomach. She looked up at him through her eyelashes.
On purpose. No doubt about it. Against his better judgement, he hooked a finger under her chin and tipped her head back; she blinked at him, wide-eyed and wet-lipped, as if surprised he’d have touched her at all despite her palpable desperation for him to do just that.
Playing with fire, as usual.
Fucking around. Finding out.
“Like you’re asking to get fucked,” he said.
Her face smoothed over at that, as if the matter were suddenly deathly serious. No longer fun and games. What did you expect, he wanted to ask — did she think he’d let her poke and prod indefinitely? That he didn’t have a fuse she was actively burning short?
She had nothing to say to that. Her eyes jumped around his face, looking for a sliver of humour, any evidence that he might not have been serious. She’d find none, because he was.
“Last chance to head back to the couch,” he murmured, after her lengthy silence, and he felt her swallow against the finger her soft palate rested on.
“Or what,” she whispered.
He just about chuckled. As if the answer wasn’t obvious. “Or you’re gonna get fucked.”
She stood up, then. Slowly, slightly wobbly, a hand on his stomach to regain her balance as she came to full height in the small gap between his body and the bed. It wasn’t quite disappointment that struck him, nor was it relief; something in between, or a sticky emulsion of the two. For the best, he thought, because whatever fragile dynamic they had established would be irreparably altered if he fucked her, and he had no idea for how much longer she’d be stuck with him.
She hesitated, though, eye-level with his sternum and dithering about where to go. Her hand was still on his stomach, though. Warm through the fabric of his t-shirt. Her window of escape was narrowing.
Then, confounding him, her hands slid up to either side of his face — with her nails in his skin, she tugged his head all the way down to hers, where her lips were open and wet — he needed no further instruction. He kissed her.
What else was he to do? She was all but begging for it, and it was palpable in her lips, in how she sucked his air into her mouth, in how she welcomed his tongue, in how her teeth clacked against his in her intensity. He could taste liquor on her breath and chocolate on her tongue, and he only wanted more of it — her claws were in his neck as if he might try to escape her, as if there were anywhere else on earth he’d rather be than right there, with his hands gliding up her back and palming her ass.
“Fuckin’ knew it,” he panted through a wet mouth, separating from her briefly to reach behind him and shut the bedroom door; God forbid the fucking dog wander in to see what the fuss was about.
He shoved her with a hand flat on her chest, and she tumbled backwards on the bed with a bounce. Perhaps he had forgotten how strong he was, because she landed far harder than he had intended for her to — but he wasted no time with an apology, already taking handfuls of her tiny fucking shorts and yanking them down with three tugs until they were around her ankles. He tossed them. Undies, too.
“You’re such an asshole,” she puffed in the midst of it, but any anger in the first few syllables quickly syphoned out when he hunched forward and pressed his lips against the inside of her ankle, leaving only whiny air to escape her mouth. Couldn’t help but glide a tongue up the sole of her foot, take a freshly painted toe in his mouth just to hear her squeak when it tickled.
Figures that her pussy was pretty, too. So pretty. He’d have liked to take it in his mouth right then, too, but he resisted the impulse — instead he smeared his mouth up the inside of her leg, crawling up the mattress as he did, until his lips met the velvet-soft skin of her inner thigh. The urge struck him to bite right through it, certain it’d taste like butter and marshmallow — he quelled it with a firm grip of her instead, fingers digging into her meat a bit too hard where he held her by the hips.
His mouth hovered there, though. Breath fanning over her cunt, an inch or two from his lips, he could feel the heat of it against his cheeks — eyes flicked up to meet hers, where she watched him raptly, brows all curled up and eager, mouth hanging loose and sucking air.
How long had she been so desperate, he wondered, that she was so flustered and wanting already? All day? Several? Since the night he found her? Certainly would explain a few things.
He grinned, sinking his teeth into her groin instead, pulling a yelp from her. She hadn’t earned it, had she? How could he reward her behaviour like that? It’d set a bad precedent, he thought.
She groaned exasperatedly in dispute, “you can’t just—”
Bitten off when he leaned back to flip her like a ragdoll, she landed on her front with a squeal, and before she could catch her breath he had already hoisted her hips upward until her ass was in the air. He kneeled behind her, nudging her knees apart so her cunt was spread and open. A sight men have fought and died for. Mouth-watering. Just when he thought he couldn’t get any harder.
“The fuck I can’t,” he grumbled. He was not a patient man, nor was he a tender one; she knew what she was getting when she decided to stay in that room.
He ran a thumb down the slit of her pussy, and it was scalding to the touch, even through the callus. Glossy slick was already leaking from her hole, a sweet droplet of dew dribbling downward towards her swollen clit, and he chased it with the tip of his thumb.
“I hate you,” she whined, hiccuping when he brushed her clit, and he snickered.
“I know,” he chortled, rubbing it just briefly, firm enough circles that her breathing was broken up by weak grunts, and her cute little asshole puckered as she twitched. If he was lucky he might get a go at that one, too.
He lined a finger up with her hole and pushed it in, sinking into the knuckle and pulling a whine from her. Fuck, it was soft, and hot, enveloping his finger like a slick mouth and spasming around him. He hooked it, dug the palp of his finger into a gummy wall and pulled downwards. Then he slipped in another finger, and it went in easy — good, she was already loosening up for him, slick as oil and hot with want.
He was too distracted to scrape together something witty to say, even though another knew it was sliding down his tongue; any words he uttered would turn to pure filth in the air, though, because that’s what his mind was swimming in. Knew you were a slut. Is that what you’ve been doing in the shower, girl? Touching your pussy to the thought of this?
He slid his fingers out of her, and he snickered at the mournful whine she let out in protest. Greedy, impatient thing. He pushed down the front of his sweats to free his cock and, Christ, he didn’t think he’d been that hard in a decade. Maybe in his life. It was far heavier than usual in his hand, leaking from the tip which it almost never did. Ruddy and dark with the copious amount of hot blood that filled it, he could feel his heartbeat where it sat in his palm.
He smacked his shaft against her pussy, just to gird her for it, so she might know the weight of it — then he rutted forward, sliding it along her hole, letting her wetness slicken him. Wouldn’t be wet enough just yet, though — no doubt eating her cunt would’ve helped, but too bad — so he brought his fingers to his lips and hucked up a lump of spit, smearing it over her hole and wiping the residue over his tip.
Her cunt shuddered as he wedged his blunt head against her entrance, resting it there for a beat, waiting for her to loosen up just a little more.
“Deep breath,” he grunted, and she inhaled deeply as instructed; before he tipped forward, pushing himself into her until he bottomed out in one go, and a groan ripped itself from deep in his chest. “Agh — shit.”
Inside she was magmatic, viscid walls soft as velvet that fit so snugly around the length of him it may as well have been vacuum sealed; constricting in waves from her entrance to the deepest part of her, and she let out the sweetest whimpering sound into the blankets beneath her when his cock pressed into the pillowy flesh at the end. Took a steady amount of focus not to blow his load the moment he sunk into her.
His vision went hazy as he pulled himself out, and he was granted the friction of her ridged walls around him, before he plummeted back in again. And again. And again. He found a steady rhythm, a little slower than he felt compelled to, but he didn’t want to hear the bitching if he fucked her hard enough to hurt.
Surprising him, though, she quietly mewled; “harder.”
He didn’t think he heard it, at first. Uttered so sheepishly and desperately that she must have been humiliated to even request it, because she knew the satisfaction he’d get from it — and she was right. He chuckled smugly at her as he leaned forward to rest a hand at the nape of her neck.
“What?” He asked, goading, no effort made to conceal the mocking tone in his throat.
She grumbled frustratedly in response, when he stilled inside her, waiting for her to repeat it. It was clear she struggled to say it, that the first time she uttered it it slipped out by accident — but, after not more than ten seconds, she groaned, “harder.”
And how couldn’t he oblige her? He might have told her to say please, he might have dragged it out just to teach her a lesson — but even his patience was wearing thin.
So he fucked her harder. He leaned a portion of his body weight into the back of her neck, enough to hurt just a little but not enough to do any damage — his other hand gripped the hollow of her waist, thumb dimpling the flesh of her back and yanking her backwards with every rut.
Didn’t take him long to get lost in it. Soon the noises she made were sweeter but harsher, forced out through her teeth with the momentum and muffled by the blankets. Her hands took tight and desperate handfuls of wool, and the arch in her spine deepened with every thrust, and her painted toes curled and spread as her feet scrambled to get a grip.
He wanted to see her face, then. On impulse he flattened her, pulling out just briefly enough to flip her over onto her back, and he spread her legs with his hands on her knees. She took the chance to take her singlet off, twisting and stretching her torso to pull it over her head.
He wondered if she had read his mind, because yes, of course, that’s exactly what he wanted to see; perfect tits, too, bouncing as she lay flat on the mattress, skin sheeny with sweat.
“Take your shirt off,” she panted, eyes fluttering about him expectantly.
He chortled, because he did not expect such a demand from her. He didn’t imagine there was anything particularly appealing about his body these days, unless she were partial to poorly healed tattoos and a hearty layer of two winters’ worth of hibernation fat — that’s what he liked to call it. Maybe she liked his broad shoulders, or his big arms, or the unmaintained wheaten hair across his thick chest, or how it trailed down from his navel to a nice heavy dick.
Couldn’t help but feel a little cocky, could he? Not when he shucked off his t-shirt and she looked at him like that, heavy-lidded and slack-jawed like the sight of him alone made her drunker.
He could have said the same about her. That drinking in the sight of her splayed out in front of him was more potent a panacea than booze had ever been, and it was doubly as addicting. She was perfect, fuck, of course she was, and of course fate would have it that he could only experience such a luxury if it were painfully temporary.
She pulled him out of his reverie by clawing for him, so he obliged — slid the head of his cock down the cleft of her spread pussy, nudging around for her entrance, and sinking in once he found it. Spread her legs with his torso alone, and they hooked around him, needy and forcefully pulling him as deep as she could take him.
He suspended his face above hers, watching every minute detail of her expression as he did; how her brows knitted up tightly, eyes glossy and bright but out of focus, how her teeth sunk into the inside of her lip as if some effort to stifle the delicious little noises that bubbled up her throat each time he pushed in.
His head fell to hers and he landed a slovenly kiss on her cheek, dragged his mouth down her jaw, settled it against her neck. Even her smell was inebriating, the salt of her skin and the floral sweetness of her hair, some biological mechanism in his animal brain was set off when it filled his sinuses and all he wanted to do was eat her. Kissed her there instead, felt her heartbeat against his lips as he fucked her steady.
“So pretty,” he murmured, the words half-formed and murky as he spoke them into her skin. He didn’t even mean to say it, but he did, and she let out a soft giggle between ruts.
Her hands were at his cheeks, then, pulling his head from the crook of her shoulder and meeting him halfway — she kissed him. Properly and eagerly, almost supplicant with her mouth, breathing him in as he did her. Hands brushing over his ears and fingers weaving through his cropped hair, she let out little moans against his lips. Thighs warm and soft against his sides as her legs wrapped around him. Cunt all but sucking him deeper into her, slick enough that it made wet noises as he pulled out and pushed in.
God, she was sweet. What could he possibly have done to get so lucky — though only lucky enough to taste her once, or twice, however many times she let him before she was gone — as to have a thing like her cross his path by pure chance?
She moved her mouth from his lips to his stubbled cheek and kissed him there, and that was enough.
“Agh—fuck, hol’ on—” he spluttered, immediately stalling, because he felt an all-too-familiar surge in the base of him and his cock started to twitch sooner than he thought it would; he tugged his cock out of her all at once, leaving it hanging between her legs and just about holding his breath to make sure he didn’t finish on the blankets.
His head fell to her collarbone, and she snickered softly. “Did you come?”
He let out a puff of laughter. “Not yet,” he grumbled, kissing her there, before he began smearing his lips downwards.
Took a handful of her breast, sunk his lips into the milk-soft skin of it and breathed in deeply — dedicated a moment to her nipple, sucking it into his mouth until he felt it stiffen against his tongue. Travelled down her stomach after that, licking and suckling as he went past her navel, lowering himself down the mattress.
Her breaths turned long and yearning, because she knew where he was going. Spread her legs for him and all, as he kissed where her stomach met her hips; still holding out, just to keep her needy, how he liked her.
He sunk a finger into her pussy, then another, and she was somehow hotter to the touch than before — might find a use for that snow after all, he briefly thought — she tilted her hips towards him, entire body alight with the same desperation he saw in her face. He considered making her wait, making her beg a little, just to hear it; but he didn’t even think he had the patience for it.
He opened his mouth and smeared a flat tongue up her slit, before sealing his mouth to her cunt. She sighed in relief, twitching as he pulled her clit into his mouth, suckling on it and running his tongue up and down all at once — curling and tugging his fingers inside her, too, massaging her from the inside out, and he hoped it felt good like that — seems like it did, because the noises she made now were even sweeter, needier, stickier than before.
Pussy tasted as good as he had imagined it would; heady and vaguely salty, undiluted sex on his tongue. Something indescribably animal that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his cock leak a drop of precum from where it hung between his legs.
Her thighs tightened around his head, feet indecisive in whether they’d prop themselves on his shoulders or hang down his back, hips bucking unconsciously; but he followed her. Didn’t let his mouth separate from her once.
Claws burrowed into his scalp after a moment, deep enough to hurt, and her breathing began to stutter; “f-fuck, Simon, I’m—”
He smiled against her — wanted to hear her say it, but he wasn’t going to grant her the reprieve. He was consistent, avid, precise, and soon her cute noises stopped dead as she sucked down a deep breath and held it there — when she came, her cunt clenched eagerly around his fingers, fast at first before evening out to a slow rhythm, and some part of him wished he’d feel that around his cock next.
She exhaled all at once, then, and it came out shrill and wanton, before she finally put her palms on his forehead and tried to push him away. For a moment he didn’t, kept his tongue busy, just long enough to hear her squeal in dispute but before her pushing turned to hitting.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand once he was done, proud of himself, because she just stared dazedly at him on his way up.
He stroked his cock with one hand as he knelt, debating briefly where he wanted to put it. Her legs were still spread wide, pussy still twitching in the aftermath of what he did for her — but she blinked at him with those pretty eyes, soft lips gently open as she breathed, shiny with saliva.
“Sit up,” he grunted ungracefully as he went to stand at the end of the bed, expecting some whinging or perhaps even a refusal.
Not so. She sat herself up almost immediately, adjusting herself until she was on all fours, and crawling in his direction with the faintest smirk in her lips.
She replaced his hand with hers when she knelt in front of him, wrapping her fingers around his shaft, running the palp of her thumb along the ridge underneath from the base to the tip. Peered up at him through her eyelashes as though supplicating, waiting for him to tell her what she wanted, even though she already knew the answer.
He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, settling a hand on the side of her head. “Your turn.”
So she complied. Opened her mouth so her tongue could slide out past her bottom teeth, and she dragged it up the length of him, focusing pressure on the sensitive underside of his head. She kissed the shiny tip, lapped up the dollop of precum that oozed from it, before she wrapped her lips around the head whole.
Then she sank lower. Fuck, she was good. Purposefully slow at first, cheeks hollowing out where she added suction, the texture of her tongue rougher the closer he got to the back of her throat. He was not surprised that she couldn’t take him whole, buffered by her fist around the base of his shaft, she got about two-thirds of the way down before she gagged and her pretty eyes started to water.
He found a grip of her hair, the other hand cupping her jaw as she reeled back and sunk back down; picking up speed now, and pulling an ursine growl from deep within his chest, she held onto his hip with her free hand and stroked his cock with the other.
Jesus, it wouldn’t take her long. Not when she looked up at him like that, eyes glossy and contrite as if this was her way of seeking his forgiveness, of repaying her debt to him, of pleasing him for the sake of it. Not when she sucked him off so devotedly, carefully, avoiding using her teeth but lavishing with her tongue. Not when something so deliciously yet dangerously perfect had popped into his life and was there, somehow, choking on his cock in his bedroom, so indistinguishable from a hallucination borne of solitude that the closer he got to coming the less he believed she were real.
“Mph, fuckin’ hell, you’re perfect,” he grumbled, before his neck gave out and his head tumbled back from his shoulders, “shit. That’s it, fuck—”
She was unrelenting as his cock jerked in her mouth, as his stomach sunk and all the muscles in the base of him tightened up — with a hoarse groan he came, toppling over the edge with enough momentum that it left him breathless, as her tongue and hand milked the come out of him. He felt her swallow around him, and his come kept pumping, filling up her throat — but she continued draining him, sucking it down dutifully, hungrily, until there was nothing left for his balls to squeeze out — and she continued still.
He made noises he didn’t think he was capable of, too close to whimpers as he pulled at her hair and keeled forward, not yet willing to force her off but barely withstanding the overstimulation of her busy tongue.
“F-fuck, easy,” he growled, panting like a dog, when he finally yanked her head away from him. She maintained the suction until he finally pulled his cock from her mouth, and it came out with a wet pop, and it kept twitching as it hung heavy. “Jesus.”
She grinned sweetly, licking her lips like she’d just finished a meal, before she wiped her bottom lip with the tips of her fingers. She fell backwards, then, arms outstretched as she landed on the mattress with a light bounce and a sated sigh.
He took a moment to catch his breath before he lazily crawled up the bed, until he collapsed on top of her, squishing the breath out of her when he rested his head between her breasts. The quiet that fell afterwards was heavy, broken up only by the ragged breathing of the two of them, and the sound of her fingers thoughtlessly tracing the shell of his ear.
Gooseflesh travelled down his neck from where she touched him. Something treacly and warm was thawing inside him, heavy, aching somewhere between his lung and his stomach. A repletion he didn’t deserve to feel, he thought, one so serendipitous that it had to have been the sugar before the medicine. A trick of the light, a ploy enacted by whoever was tallying his misdeeds to get his guard down before his true sentence befell him.
Too lucky, he thought. He was too lucky.
“Isn’t it weird,” she panted, staring vacantly at the ceiling, “isn’t it weird that we met in the middle of nowhere?”
He had no clue where her train of thought was taking her, but for a moment he genuinely wondered if she was listening to his thoughts. It was weird. A fucking fluke, for her sake, because she would have died without him. For his sake, because for the first time in a decade he hadn’t thought about dying at all.
“Who’d’ve thought,” she hummed.
He grunted in place of a response, too tired to think up something more meaningful. Who’d have thought, indeed, because he certainly never would have.
“I kinda like it here,” she said dreamily.
He grinned a little at that, despite himself. She sure as hell hadn’t been acting like it; not until today, anyway. “Uh-huh.”
She sighed, and his head rose and fell with it. “It’s a shame.”
“What’s a shame,” he murmured.
“That I’ll have to leave.”
He exhaled hoarsely, scooping an arm underneath her, trapping her on the bed beneath him. Perhaps she was right from the start, right to be all twitchy and nervous when he first brought her through his door; because even after all her begging and all his promises, after all of her attempts to escape, all of the ways she infuriated and dumbfounded him — he had no intention of letting her leave.
“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said.
By late spring, the rocky road into Smithers was far less perilous to drive.
Once the snow had cleared, and the puddles of melt shrunk with the warming sun, Simon could even drive with the windows down. It certainly wasn’t balmy, by any stretch — but anything above zero was tropical, to him, after two years tucked up in the mountains. And that day, it was a whole seven degrees.
He’d gotten better about his supply runs. More regular, more organised. Where he’d once leave them to the very last day — forcing him to make the two-hour drive to the Safeway in a squall — he now returned monthly. Got a bit more generous with his shopping lists, too. He’d always been a pragmatic shopper, buying only the barest of necessities, meat and potatoes and beans. In the back of his truck, now, he had a diverse range of goods. Ingredients for actual meals. Sweeter things, too. Marshmallows. Gin. Lemons.
Johnny’s furry head stuck out the back window, his mouth wide open and tongue flapping in the wind, chomping at the bugs that flew by as if he had any chance of catching them. Dog always preferred the warmer months, because he could spend more time outside, didn’t have to spend all day sitting around the fireplace while Simon sheltered from the bitter cold.
The CD player in the centre console flipped over to the next song. One he didn’t know the title to, because he hadn’t chosen the CD.
His lucky girl sat in the passenger seat. Singing half-gibberish along to the song she clearly didn’t know much better than he did, with the window rolled down, and her hand surfing the wind. Speckles of evening sunlight danced over her where it was broken up by the trees, she just about glittered in it. He couldn’t help but smile like an idiot.
She gave him a reproachful glare when she caught him looking at her. “Eyes on the road.”
He snickered. “They are.”
“Not having you spin out like I did,” she snipped, through a smirk, “eyes on the road.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, obliging only after another few seconds, just before it looked as though she were about to repeat the command without the humour underpinning the first two.
“You can look all you want when we get home,” she chided.
Never ceased to warm him up when she called it that. Home. It had never felt much like one until she stumbled into it, but she dug her roots in quickly. Filled in the gaps like spackle, held it together like glue. Warmed it up better than the woodburner. How lucky he was.
You need someone to fuck your head empty, he needs someone who'll let him unload whatever mess is brewing inside of him.
You like it hard.
He needs it hard.
Mutual agreement. Everything had clicked so easily you two had never even bothered setting ground rules or whatnot. They flowed naturally, as if you knew, and he did as well.
Whenever you wanted, you just knocked. If he was up for it, you'd spend the night in his bed until your throat would go raw and your limbs would turn floppy.
The same happened when he was on the other side of the door.
Independently on who asked, the outcomes rarely changed. If ever.
Yet Simon now finds himself in front of a crossroads, when you knock on his door with bloodshot eyes and a tiredness so horrible that, for a moment, he feels afraid.
That lasts a swift second, though, because the next thing he registers is complete discomfort. Helplessness.
He doesn't think he can fuck that out of you. Not when your eyes are so chock full of tears yet so hollow.
Your lips look cracked and swollen, like you've spent a while nibbling at the flakes of dry skin. He's sure they'd taste of iron if he were to kiss them.
As he takes in your state, he narrowly misses your sniffle, the tremble of your hands. Or the way your voice, so feeble and strained, as if exhausted from the words themselves, whispers:
"Can you make love to me tonight?"
Simon barely reacts as it reaches his ears. On the outside, he's impassive as ever—inside, on the other hand, he's rattled to the bone.
Because he doesn't know how to do that.
What he does know, is that he could tell you no, and you wouldn't so much as bat an eye. You're not one to push, and neither is he. It's always been such a balanced thing.
And yet he'd rather gouge his eyes out than watch you tremble any more than you already are.
Which is why he doesn't answer verbally—doesn't trust himself to do that, to sound as kind as you need him to be. He simply curls his hand at the nape of your neck and pulls you in, lips to lips.
And exactly as he thought, taste of iron they do.
Simon's kiss is not devouring. It's hesitant because he's new to it, soft because you asked. There's no tongue yet, simply lips smacking and a gentle hand on your hips. The white lights of the building's hallway flicker overhead—some old place in which neighbours don't ask much about what's happening in the other flats, which is exactly what he needs.
Gently, he guides you inside, closing the door behind you with the flat of his hand. Feels the salt of your tears on his own lips, like he's cried them as well.
Your hands cradle his neck, fingers dreadfully cold and rough—callouses you've bitten in anxious habit, perhaps to cause pain so the one inside would quell.
Simon guides your back against his door, as his hand blindly reaches for the lock. It twists smoothly in his fingers. Clicks. You unravel there, like the sound's given you permission to do so.
Simon is used to drinking up your moans, never your sobs. He tries as you hiccup in his mouth, holding you gently yet firmly, grounding you to where it matters.
Careful as ever, his fingers tug at the zipper of your coat, and then helps you out of it. Similarly, your own lift his shirt up and off his head. And then it's a dance he knows by heart, hands tracing the shape of you the more it gets exposed.
Loose clothes on the floor. Your cold hands holding onto him for dear life. His own guiding you to the bed, steering your body where he needs it—where you do.
But differently from previous times, there's so much softness in his fingers that they tremble almost as much as yours, like he's afraid he'd bruise you when he bloody well knows he's held you far more harshly and you never complained once.
And then you're on his bed, on your back with his own body as an anchor to reality. A big arm snakes in the sliver of space between your bodies to reach your sex.
He kisses your cheeks first, as his fingers draw soft circles at your clit to get you wet. Your chest stutters with hiccups to catch your breath, tired hands threaded through his hair—perhaps to keep him closer, perhaps to ground yourself.
Whatever the reason, he lets you. Feels your breath—thick, heavy, wet—brush his skin. Your lips reciprocate his kisses, landing damp and swollen on his shoulder, on his neck.
That night, Simon fucks you softly.
He doesn't thrust into you until you can't breathe but keeps his hips flush to yours instead. He rolls idle circles that sheath him fully inside and cradles your head to keep you still—to keep you comfortable, to give you what you asked.
Can you make love to me tonight?
Simon is not sure he can, doesn't think he has what it takes.
But still, his hands hold you gently, instead of marking you blue. His mouth draws in your breath, like he's trying to even it out when you can't.
"That's it," he whispers when he feels the stutters in your chest settle down. "That's it—deep breaths. Good girl, y're doing so good."
Your hands come to hold him like he is you, and then you cum around him breathing hard and burying your face in his neck instead of moaning and clawing at his skin.
"There it is," he tells you quietly when your pussy clenches around him. His voice chokes on itself because you're not the only one affected by this—not by a long shot. "There it is, swee'heart. Jus' like that."
He keeps his focus on you as you come down from it, satisfied when he notices that the trickles down your temples are of sweat and not tears anymore.
But there's something in your eyes, he thinks. Something that has been torn to shreds so many times you gave up even trying to fix it. A loneliness so fierce it’s burning you to ashes, an exhaustion so deeply engraved you carry it within your bones.
How a man as attentive as him has never noticed is beyond him, but now he finds himself wanting to see it, to try and help you mend it until you're whole again.
"Fuck, you're lovely, yeah?" He murmurs when your hands come to cradle his cheeks and his do the same. "Sight f'sore eyes."
You smile for the first time since you knocked on his door.
Can you make love to me tonight?
Simon is not sure he can, but he'll be damned if he doesn't try—if it means you smile like that again.
Your hips start moving to meet him, ankles locked at his tailbone. Simon cums inside of you for the first time since you two started seeing each other, rocking his hips as you caress the back of his head.
He’s always tried his damned hardest to avoid leaving strands of any kind that could tie you to him. He's a dangerous man, one you shouldn't be tangled with.
But if you look so safe in his arms, enough to seek him at your lowest, enough to smile even when your world seems torn asunder, then there's little he can do to fight it.
To fight you.
He collapses, chest to chest, knocking the breath out of your lungs—a sound so soft it tickles his ear enough to raise goosebumps.
Simon holds onto you something fierce, arms tucked under the hollow of your spine—inked skin, rough and thickened by a harsh life, against the velvet of yours.
Usually, you’d spare a few moments for the two of you to catch a breath, and then you’d leave, or he would, and life would roll on by. Tonight, he senses your hesitation in the tremble of your arms, and how they’re still holding on tight, wrapped like a silk ribbon around his neck.
Simon finds himself at a crossroads again, but this time it’s so much easier to make a choice.
Can you make love to me tonight?
As he nuzzles your skin, Simon realizes he never even had to try.
“Stay,” he whispers into your neck.
It’s then that you suck in a deep breath, one that bullies its way into his own lungs too. The curve of your cheek presses into his temple, as if you might be smiling. There, something fills him just right.
He wants to look up and see if he’s fixed a few of those shreds, if he’s managed to at least squeeze a thread in there, within the broken seams.
Perhaps he has, because your voice quivers less, and there’s that golden touch of hope in it, refreshing and bright—somehow louder than the sobs he’s been striving to take from you all night.
“Okay,” you breathe. “O-okay, I’ll stay.”
Thing is, you never leave.
If not once or twice, with Simon in tow, carrying a few boxes in his hands with your initials scribbled on one side.
Until your books are on his shelves, your toothbrush on his sink, and your name on the doorbell, right next to his own.
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Valentine's day is Simon's favorite day of the year.
No one would ever guess. No one would ever think to guess. He knows when the shops start putting out red hearts on their windows. He knows when the chocolate starts hitting the shelves in bulk. He knows exactly how many days until you'll walk in wearing that red sweater again.
It's the same one every year. The knit has loosened slightly at the cuffs, and there's a snag near the hem you keep meaning to fix. He noticed the day it happened; he remembers which locker corner caught it.
(The locker isn't there anymore.)
Every year, like clockwork, you show up with your sleeves pulled over your hands, carrying a pocketful of those cheap heart-shaped candies that taste like chalk.
And every year, you hand them out like blessings to men who have done things that would curdle the sugar in your mouth if you knew.
Soap gets a fist full because he makes a spectacle of begging. Kyle pretends he doesn't care but takes two anyway. Price shakes his head, muttering something about sugar rotting teeth, but pockets one when you insist.
Simon watches you make your way across the room, and notes who lingers when your fingers brush theirs, who bends down closer than necessary to hear you better, and who laughs too hard at something that wasn't that funny.
He knows exactly how many hearts are left when you finally stop in front of him.
"Don't start," you say lightly, holding out a little folded card and a candy. "It's tradition."
He takes them without looking at you and waits until you've moved on before he looks down at his palm. A delicate pink— BE MINE— and when he lets it dissolve on his tongue, eyes tracking the sway of your red sweater, he imagines it tastes like the gloss on your lips.
That night, in the quiet of his spartan flat, he places the new card beneath a heavy book to keep it from curling and takes the old ones out of a tin box he keeps hidden behind spare ammo to read again, all of them dated in pencil on the back.
To my favorite person. Don't argue ❤️
You’ve written it every year, same wording, same little heart slanted to the right. The ink bleeds a little more on the cheaper cards. One year the paper was glossier, and in another, your pen ran out halfway through the word favorite and you pressed harder to make it last.
He knows your handwriting well enough now to read you in it. The loops are bigger when you're tired, pinched when you're stressed. The heart is fuller when you're in a good mood, and smaller when you're not.
He could replicate it if he needed to.
This year, when someone jokes about snatching you up before someone else does, Simon doesn't even look up from cleaning his weapon. He knows who he is. He knows the way the man stands— weight heavier on his right leg from an old injury. Simon also knows the man who signs off on deployment rosters and knows exactly what that man owes him.
Deployment rosters are delicate things; names get bumped all the time. Sometimes upward into a position they're not ready for, sometimes sideways into places much less comfortable for longer, and sometimes they fall off the list entirely, lost in administration reshuffling no one has the time to question.
“She’s already spoken for," Simon says flatly, cloth dragging down the barrel in slow, even strokes.
Kyle does not know what that sweet smell is. he does not know why he suddenly has a visceral desire to cling to your skin. but he does not question it.
because nothing makes as much sense to him as this.
this unmistakable, unquestionable, unstoppable need that supersedes all else. the need to touch you, to love you the best way he knows how.
“hello to you too.” you giggle as he buries his face into your neck and takes a sharp inhale.
your hands don’t stop beating the eggs. you’re baking cookies and he genuinely feels bad for bothering you but you just– you–
god, he’s desperate. the more the scent fills his head, the more he wants to crawl under your skin and live there for all eternity. he’s convinced that you’ve bewitched him now. not that he minds. he’s just more aware of how much he wants you.
“you smell so good, love.” Kyle groans into your neck after another heady inhale. “what is that?”
you don’t seem to mind it very much when his hands knead your breasts. instead, your head turns just enough for him to catch your smile. “you like it?”
“very much.” he nips your ear, then your neck, revelling in your shiver as you squirm in his grasp. “makes me wanna eat you up.”
“save some room for the cookies then.”
thankfully, you haven’t gotten as far as switching on the oven before the activity of baking was swapped for a more strenuous one.
you try to be understanding. you're trying to be open minded. but even you didn't see this one coming.
according to him, this next mission is going to be brutal. it's settles a cold chill in your veins as he speaks. he might not make it back in one piece. hell, he might not even make it back alive.
so you grant him his one wish.
“i promise...” he breathes, eyes hazy, filled with desire. “i promise to do the best i can to finish what i started.”
chin glistening, breaths hot against your thighs. mind you, he’s in fatigues and he’s going to ruin you just minutes before he has to leave.
“promise i'll try not to come back in a box.”
grave words from a man who looks at you like he would die if you don’t let him eat your pussy. with him kneeling between your thighs, it was already hard to say no to him. hard to cast doubt on his desire when he’s holding you still against the door and hiking your skirt up and hooking a leg over one shoulder.
he won't even take off your panties because that's the whole point. he wants you to stain them with your cum. he wants them to smell like you for as long as possible. it'll be the only thing to tide him through, the only thing tying him to you while he's off saving the world.
you’re barely holding onto your sanity as his tongue glides open your folds through the fabric, a low hum rumbling from the back of his throat as soon as he gets a taste of you. the pressure of his tongue is more than enough to press against your panties and more than enough to keep your focus on him.
you try to squirm away from the languid strokes of his tongue but his hands tighten and lock you in place, rendering you helpless to his hunger, to the pleasure bubbling like dormant magma finally waking from a long slumber.
a man on his knees was one thing to admire. a desperate man on his knees was something else entirely.
Simon’s truck honks loudly just outside, signaling that there isn’t much time to lose. and you have to remind Gaz of that fact but he doesn’t take your warnings to heed. just keeps making out with your pussy and salivating all over your thighs to mark his territory.
“Gaz–” you hiccup, trying to push at his head. you gasp when he pulls your panties to the side to give a few long decisive strokes on your swollen clit before he finally pulls away.
you were too stunned when he pecked your lips and left without so much as wiping his face. you don’t even want to think about the others even so much as suspecting that he smells like you when he got in the vehicle.
but you were thankful when he made it back alive and in one piece before christmas to finish what he started.
All sharp corners and teeth, voice like gravel, presence heavy enough to make people straighten without realizing why. Ghost barely slept, barely ate, and when he did it was whatever was fast and forgettable. He wore his gear until it was threadbare. Holes at the knees, seams splitting at the shoulders, socks worn thin enough to show skin.
You noticed.
You always did.
It started small. A container left on his desk, nothing labeled, just home cooked food still warm. He stared at it like it might bite him. Ate it anyway. Every last bit. You pretended not to see.
Then shirts appeared in his locker. Same size. Same dark colors he liked. Pants folded neatly. Fresh socks. Underwear tucked at the bottom, no comment, no eye contact, no expectation. Just there.
Ghost never said thank you.
But he started eating more.
Started wearing clothes that did not look like they had survived a war on their own.
The night he came to your door, it was late. Too late. You opened it to blood, not all of it his, dried and fresh smeared together. His mask was off. You saw him fully for the first time. The scarred face, the pulled skin, the truth of him laid bare and exhausted.
His eyes flicked up to you, braced for something. Pity. Fear. Distance.
You just opened your arms.
“Oh baby,” you said softly. “Come here.”
That was all it took.
Simon folded into you like gravity finally won. Hands clutching your shirt, forehead pressed into your shoulder, breath shuddering out of him like he had been holding it for years. All that dominance, all that rage, gone in the quiet of your doorway.
You held him. No questions. No orders. Just steady hands and warmth.
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Kyle, the "pretty boy" of the group, is used to being looked over by most people.
Sure, he's pretty, but next to ghost or price? They've just got this...allure. bigger than him, beefier, most people go for them. He can't blame them, they're just larger than life and make him look small in comparison.
Then you come sauntering up, running a hand along Gaz's forearm with a smile "hey there, big guy."
Big guy. Not pretty, or handsome, or gorgeous. You chose to define kyle by the one thing he's determined the others have him beat at. It's through sheer willpower that gaz stays calm enough to not make a fool of himself.
To his side, price deflates, obviously having thought you'd be talking to him. You don't even notice, too busy eyeing the way Kyle's sleeves hug tight over his biceps.
Biceps that end up locked around your head while he rails you into the mattress. He manhandled you easily, switching the position as he pleases. God, you knew you were right choosing him with the way he forces your thighs open and draws out mutliple orgasms with just his tongue.
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