My Mind of Madness

The welcoming party had been loud and entirely too small for the amount of family friends your parents had crammed into the living room.

You spent the first hour answering questions about college. It wasn't until the crowd thinned out near midnight that you saw him.

Clark was leaning against the kitchen counter with a beer, looking out of place among the decorations your mother had hung up.

He looked rough. There was a heavy exhaustion in his shoulders, like someone just trying to survive.

When your eyes locked onto his, he froze. He just stared at you, his grip tightening around his glass. He was looking at your face and your clothes, completely disconnected from the teenager he had left behind a few years ago.

"Clark,"

you smiled, stepping across the linoleum.

"Hey,"

he said, his voice lower than it used to be.

You didn't hesitate, stepping into his space and wrapping your arms around his neck for a hug. It was meant to be a warm greeting for an old family friend. But the moment your body pressed against his, you felt him go rigid. He didn't hug you back immediately. When he finally did, his large hand rested flat against your lower back for a single second before he pulled away fast.

"Look at you . . !”

he murmured, his eyes doing a slow sweep of your face.

"You're. . . you've grown up."

"That happens when you go to college,"

you joked lightly.

"How have you been? My mom said you're staying in the basement for a bit. .”

"Yeah. Just sorting some things out,"

he said, playing off his situation with a casual shrug. He shifted his weight, his eyes darting toward the living room where your dad was laughing. Clark leaned in a fraction closer, his voice dropping.

"So. . you got a boyfriend out there? Some college kid keeping you busy?"

You looked up at him through your eyelashes, amused.

"No. No boyfriend."

A dark flicker crossed Clark's face, a spark of something dangerous that he immediately tried to bury behind a polite smile.

"Good,"

he said quietly.

"Keep it that way. . Much to pretty for those boys anyway. Focus on your schoolwork."

Three nights later, the house was dead silent.

It was 2:00 AM. The air in your bedroom was stifling, and the restlessness of summer had kept you awake for hours. You had finally given up on sleep, the heat in your body clawing to the surface.

You moved your hands up and down your clothed pussy, trying to catch your breath. . it felt hot.

Your fingers slipped against your waistband, and quiet gasp escaping your lips.

You pressed your face into the pillow as you moaned. Fingering yourself aimlessly and grinding your clit against the palm of your hand, your hips rolling off the mattress.

You let out a trembling moan when, you felt your knees give out. Letting out a breathless “Fuck. .” in the dark. Your body felt tense. Then it all stopped. All you heard was ringing against your ears. You were completely spent.

—-

Downstairs, the heat had woken Clark up. His throat was dry from the stuffy basement air, forcing him to get up to grab a cup of water from the kitchen.

He padded quietly up the basement stairs, wearing a worn out t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs. He filled his glass, but as he turned to head back down, a faint sound from the hallway upstairs caught his ear.

Clark froze in the kitchen, the glass heavy in his hand. He listened, his heart dropping straight into his stomach as he recognized the muffled gasps coming from your bedroom door.

“Fuck- Agh. .”

He hears your voice whimper out, You’re loud.

He stepped up the stairs, his gaze now entirely focused on your bedroom door. He heard more moans. He could swear he was hard just by the fuckin’ noise.

Upstairs, you grabbed a joint and your lighter from your nightstand, desperate for a distraction to cool your racing pulse. You slipped out of your room, your bare feet making no sound on the hardwood hallway.

You were halfway to the bathroom when you saw a shadow standing at the top of the stairs.

Clark was standing right there, his t-shirt clinging to his shoulders. He looked like he’d been struck by lightning. .

He just awkwardly stood there staring at you, completely paralyzed. His eyes dropped down, tracking the state you were in. You were wearing nothing but a pair of tiny sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt that slipped off one of your shoulders. Your hair was its own messy halo from the friction of your pillows. Your skin was warm, damp with a light sheen of sweat from your release, and your chest was still heaving.

For a long moment, you stood there too, the cold air of the hallway hitting your bare legs. You began trembling, your knees shaking from a mix of the leftover physical high and the terror of being caught. . He felt his face run hot.

The silence stretched so long that it became suffocating. The intense weight of his stare made your stomach twist, the scrutiny making you so uncomfortable that you couldn't even find your normal voice.

"Your parents will smell that,"

Clark finally whispered, his voice rough, cutting through the silence of the hallway.

You swallowed hard, your throat tight as you forced the words out in a breathless whisper.

"Are you going to tell my dad?"

Clark looked at you. Really looked at you. He saw the heat on your neck from your bedroom, the dishevelment of your oversized shirt, and the adult defiance in your eyes. A wave of profound self-loathing hit him in the gut because he wasn't looking at you like a family friend anymore. He was looking at you like a man possessed. He hated himself for it.

"No,"

Clark spoke softly, stepping forward until he was entirely in your space, his large frame blocking out the rest of the hallway.

"But you're doing it wrong. Come ‘ere."

He turned and led the way down the creaking basement stairs into the dark. The air instantly shifted, turning cold, smelling of damp concrete and the dust of his temporary sanctuary. His makeshift bed. . (just a mattress on the floor with tangled sheets) sat in the corner under a small window near the ceiling.

You followed him down, suddenly feeling very small. You walked over to the window, raising your hand to try and unlatch it, but your fingers fell inches short. The stone wall was too high.

"Window's too high for you to stand and hold that,"

Clark said from behind you. His voice was a low rumble that vibrated right through the quiet room.

"Sit on the bed. Your parents won't come down here."

You turned, your knees trembling from the sheer adrenaline from earlier. You walked over to the mattress and sat down on the edge, letting out a sharp huff of relief as your muscles finally relaxed against the low bed.

Clark didn't stay standing. He stepped over, his massive shadow enveloping you, and sat down right behind you. He didn't give you space to think. He spread his legs, offering the space between his thighs, and reached out with his large hands. Wrapping them firmly around your waist, he pulled you back until your spine was pressed right against his chest.

you adjusted your weight and leaned back into his heavy frame, entirely comfortable with the proximity.

Clark's breath hitched. He felt his mind instantly spiraling into a bitter jealousy. You've done this before, he concluded, his grip tightening on your hips. Who taught you to be this comfortable? Whose lap have you sat in at school? The thought of another man touching you made him want to rip the room apart, but the sheer thrill of having your acceptance right now was a drug he couldn't refuse.

He leaned his head down, his breath hot right against the shell of your ear.

"Look at you,"

he murmured..

"Legs shaking like a little deer."

You took a slow breath, holding the unlit joint up between you. You tilted your head back slightly against his shoulder, looking up at him.

"Will you tell my dad? Seriously, Clark."

Clark looked down into your eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily against your back. He was a bad man. He felt horrid . . a girl whose parents trusted him explicitly under their own roof. .He felt utterly disgusted with himself, sickened by his own lack of control, but he was entirely adoring the (now) woman in his arms.

"No, no. . . never, baby,"

he whispered, the word hanging heavy in the damp air.

"Oh-hoho... You're getting big... huh. Really big."

You didn't look away. Instead, you let out a tiny, knowing hum, your lips curving into a subtle smile. .

"Yeah. . . you have too."

Clark went completely rigid. His hands slid down your hips, mapping out the full, mature curve of your adult body, his fingers sinking into your skin with a rough desperation. He leaned in until his lips were brushing the sensitive skin of your lobe, a dangerous chuckle catching in his throat.

"Wow,"

he growled, his voice trembling with a mix of intense lust and paranoia as his eyes darted toward the dark stairs.

"Who the hell taught you how to talk to a man like that?"

"I think the college boys just aren't as easily intimidated as you are,"

you whispered, trying to sound brave, though the slight tremor in your voice completely gave away how flustered you actually were.

You quickly dropped your head, hiding your face as your head came to rest back against his broad shoulder, completely unable to hold his intense gaze in the dark.

He hitched his thighs upward, lifting your weight effortlessly so you slid further back into his clothed cock.

He reached around you, his fingers brushing yours as he smoothly took the lighter from your hand.

The click of the spark was loud in the quiet basement as he lit the end of the joint, taking a slow, deep drag himself before holding it back up to your lips.

"Is that right?"

he murmured, his voice laced with a bitter, passive-aggressive edge as he blew a cloud of smoke toward the high window.

He tilted his head down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

"Well, if those college boys are so brave, maybe you should have stayed on campus instead of being in my bed.”

Before you could even think of a comeback, his hand moved up from your waist.

His large, warm palm cupped around the back of your neck, his fingers anchoring firmly into your hair.

He didn't squeeze to hurt, but the grip was dominant and unyielding, tilting your head back against his chest so you had no choice but to look up at him in the dim light.

He wrapped his other massive arm entirely around your middle, locking you against him so tightly that you could feel the rapid, heavy thudding of his own heart right against your spine.

You didn't stay pressed against his chest, though.

Instead, you shifted your weight and carefully spun around in his lap to face him, straddling his thighs in the dim basement light.

Clark's hand left your neck as you turned, but his gaze never left your face, his dark eyes tracking your every movement with an intense, unblinking focus.

He lifted the joint to his lips, taking a slow, heavy hit that made the tip glow a bright, angry orange in the shadows.

You didn't pull away when he leaned his face in close, his nose almost brushing yours as he deliberately exhaled, blowing the thick cloud of smoke right into your face.

Instead of coughing or turning your head, you parted your lips and deliberately inhaled the smoke straight from his mouth, swallowing the heat of it down into your lungs.

Clark went completely rigid beneath you.

He was incredibly flustered.

His chest rose and fell in a sharp, ragged breath, his fingers twitching against your waist as his eyes widened slightly, completely transfixed by the sight of you unbothered in his lap.

"You. . .”

he started, his voice instantly trailing off into a gravelly whisper as he stared at your lips. He swallowed hard, trying to look angry, but his breathing was way too ragged.

"You think you're so smart, don't you?"

“I like to think I am.”



“Yeah . . ‘course you are.”

Clark's large hands clamped down onto your waist, his fingers digging hard into your hips as he suddenly surged upward from the mattress. He used his entire weight to shift you, effortlessly lifting your body and pinning you flat onto your back against the tangled sheets.

He hovered completely over you, his massive frame blocking out what little light was left in the basement, his chest heaving heavily against yours.

He grabbed the joint from your fingers, tossing it blindly onto the floorboards, his focus entirely consumed by the sight of you trapped beneath him.

He leaned his face down until his lips were brushing right against yours, his whole body trembling with a mix of intense lust and pure paranoia as his eyes darted toward the dark basement stairs one last time.

“Fuckin’ hell,"

he spoke softly, his voice shaking with a rough desperation right against your mouth. .

"If your dad walks down those stairs right now. . . I swear to God. .”

He didn't finish the threat. His large hand slid from your hip straight up to the side of your neck, his thumb anchoring under your jaw to tilt your head back as his mouth slammed into yours, completely smothering your breath in a desperate kiss.

You can feel his body heat as he starts to undress himself slowly revealing his chest . . He wasn’t chubby; but he wasn’t fit either. Either way, you didn’t mind the look of his chest. . He slowly knees down, and spreads your legs apart gently. Despite his size he seems gentle and careful with you.

He traces your inner thighs lightly feeling your soft skin. His hands inches closer to your core in a teasing manner. He gently squeezes your thigh. . Your breathing got heavy.

Down and further down until they were prying your thighs apart, pulling frantically at the thin fabric of your underwear on the sides of your hips.

“God. . .”

For a moment he just seemed to stare, you felt a little insecure yourself if you were being honest.

You began to cover yourself a bit, with your arms and folding your legs together.

“No- No. . No. Stop it. . C’mere baby I wanna see.”

You folded instantly, slipping your fingers away from your lower body. You could see him biting his lip underneath the low lighting of the basement. That made you want to giggle and kick your feet if you were being honest.

The fabric fell to your ankles, his hand slipping right in between your thighs. As soon as his fingers made contact with your sopping heat, you moaned louder than you should have. The sound bouncing off the walls of the basement.

His body stilled. Then, he's stopping you with his hands, pulling back as if your touch had burned him.

He was trembling from head to toe, his eyes frantically darting toward the dark basement stairs, listening with a pathetic, breathless desperation for the sound of the floorboards creaking upstairs.

"Are you stupid? Are you completely out of your fuckin’ mind?"

He whispered, his voice shaking.

His hand went up to cover your mouth, silencing whatever came out of you.

“Shh. . .”

He hissed out. . His gaze moving down to his own trousers, he looked towards the stairs again before beginning to prod at the waistband of his pants. He quickly moved himself up, pulling you upward with him so you were now face to face with his crotch, mumbling something bout’,

“I know what’ll shut you up- I know . . since you’re so fuckin’ needy.”

his dick is heavy in his hand, flushed and leaking, the head slick as he runs it slowly through your lips. Your lips are soft, He’s hard.

He slips his cock inside of your mouth, for a moment, you gasp and seem shaken. . But you don’t seem to mind. For a moment you gag.

Tears were filling your eyes, the gagging was too much for you. As he started moving the tears got worse. Clark did feel bad to some extent. But you knew exactly what you were getting into with that fuckin’ moan. So if you wanted to lose your voice quicker then this would do the trick. . Drool covered your lips, any makeup you had on now smudged.

"Don't start that crying shit now. Y'know the damn rules. You want to act like you're stupid? Then I'm gonna make sure you remember your god damn manners."

Every time you tried to pull back you were just pushed back down. His dick bobbed along your tongue, heavy and thick.

The furiousness of his thrust matched just how pissed off you made him with your little act. Your knees began to ache, thighs burning from being forced to sit up. With each act of trying to hold his thighs you were only met with a slap to the cheek.

"Breathe through your nose, because I'm not letting up."

At this point you seemed to accept your fate, you just opened your jaw and moved your head to each thrust. The gagging wasn’t as bad now. . It didn’t hurt as much.

Clark was taken aback by your submission, to say the least.

"look at that... look at — . . Ah-Haha. . . you're swallowing me whole,"

He seems to chuckle, His hips moving back and forth.

“Wh-Who taught you how to . . how to fuck like this?”

you gag when he pushes in too deep, throat fluttering around him, and the noise that rips from him is downright filthy. He finally starts fucking your throat in the messy, desperate rhythm he's been holding back.

wet shlick sounds fill the room, spit spraying, your lips stretched tight around the base of him. he's shaking, using your mouth to work out every scrap of frustration he had while doing this.

"gon— Fuck . . -gonna cum. .” he warns, but he doesn't slow down.

he slams his hips forward, buries himself completely in your throat, and comes with a broken moan that vibrates down your spine.

you feel every pulse of it, every hot rope flooding deep, your throat swallowing around him automatically while he holds you still and whimpers through the overload. . He covers his own mouth to keep himself from moaning too loud.

when he pulls out, there's spit on you, on him, on the sheets . . fuck. Everywhere. and you're gasping for air, throat raw, lips glossy and swollen.

clark looks down at you like he's never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life.

"You made mess . .”

“You did too.”

You wiped your mouth softly, coughing a little and swallowing down whatever remaining cum remained on your mouth.

Clark seemed to stare at you for a moment, his eyes glancing down to your boobs hidden underneath the baggy shirt, he looked at your face . . then down again. He swallowed sharply.

“Off.”

“What?”

“Take your shirt off . . . Please.”

His eyes almost looked sad, like almost a look of want. At his pleading you felt like you didn’t have much of a choice but to go ahead and do it. . not like you didn’t want to anyway.

You pull of your remaining clothes, unclasping your bra and letting your breasts fall down from the confines of them.

Clark just seemed to stare.

He'd been married before; it wasn't that he'd never seen a woman's body before, but seeing you completely unraveled every single bit of his logic. . .

He let out a low, ragged huff, his broad shoulders hunched as he awkwardly shifted his weight, his fingers clenching into the fabric of his shorts to stop them from visibly shaking.

"God-damn it,"

he muttered, his voice dropping into a rough, frantic whisper that was mostly just to cover up his own intense embarrassment.

He clumsily reached out, his large, calloused hand wrapping firmly around your knee to guide you toward the center of the rumpled mattress, his jaw clenching hard as he looked up at your embarrassed face.

For a moment he surrounded you just simply staring. You whined at that, you were horny. Why can’t he take the fuckin’ hint!?

his voice is rough when he whispers,

"gonna ease it in, baby... s'gonna feel big. you tell me if it's too much, alright?"

but you're already nodding, the first inch pushes past your entrance and your body clenches around him immediately, His dick barely even moving before your body is already pulling him in further. He swallows, his breath hitching as he grabs rather side of your torso. Before planting his hands against your tits.

"oh-oh, shit-. . .”

his dick is fat. It wasn’t an understatement, i mean obviously it wasn’t huge; around 7 inches at most. But it was fat; and it forces your walls to stretch around him, snug and slippery and tight, and he's biting his lip hard to keep himself from fucking you deeper too fast. the air's full of heat and moans, your gasps high and breathy while his are low, cracked, almost desperate. . . His fingers fondle with your tits, he watches his fingers move against them, grazing over your nipples and squeezing them from time to time.

he's panting into your neck, trembling from restraint as he forces himself in more. your pussy gives a sticky noise each time his hips nudge forward, and you can feel the drag of every vein along your walls . . it’s a strange feeling, nothing like you have ever felt before . . but fuck. It felt good.

“fuckfuckfuckfuck— oh shit. A- Ahaha . . . fuucckk. .”

You moan out under your breath, trying to stay quiet as he pushes himself in deeper. You roll your eyes back and close them. They flutter open from time to time to look at his face. He stares at you when you curse, as if he’s reprimanding you. You didn’t mind the gaze on you at all.

by the time he's halfway in, your nails are digging into his back and your thighs are starting to shake. there's a thick pressure deep in your belly, like your body's being filled too full, and when you glance down, you can see the faint outline of him under your skin, stretching you out from the inside.

"Hold still- Fuck. Godamnit! — A-Agh. . "

He groans quietly, trying to stay silent while he’s actively fucking you.

your cunt pulses around him when he bottoms out, a dripping mess down onto the curly haired base of his cock.

his hand finds your lower belly, His palm spreading over that swollen spot where his dick bulges inside you.

"look at that," he murmurs . . He seems to chuckle at his own size for a moment and how your reacting to it.

he doesn't even need to move. just the feeling of being buried inside you for the first time, the sight of your pussy stretched wide around him, your gasping mouth, your fluttering lashes, your slick dripping onto his thighs-it's all too much.

he grinds in once just to feel the way you tremble and you both moan at the same time, breath tangled, filthy and flushed and soaking the bed. .

Then he moves, slow and teasing, testing. Hips pistoning forward with a gradual rhythm, and he goes all the way in each time, every push of his cock into your cervix feels like a maddening attempt at trying to rearrange your guts.

You're halfway into forming a coherent thought when he dips down to your breasts, mouthing sloppily at the nipples like he's not even trying, like he isn't fucking you dumb right now, like it's all so effortless for him.

He continues to move his hips mercilessly against your own spasming cunt.

. . . You lightly covered your mouth with your shaking hand and moaned into it as quietly as you could (which wasn’t very quiet at all, if you were being honest with yourself) You came all over his bedsheets . . The cum spilling pathetically against his cock, and his own cum spewing against your lower abdomen as he pulled out. (which made you feel lucky that your laundry machines were down in the basement in the first place.)

—

Clark is old enough to be your father and you both know it.

You see the silver in his stubble when he leans over your body, the way his knuckles are busted and healed a hundred times over. yeah. . . he's got a weird job and a warehouse that’s older than you are . . . and a driver's license that expired the year you graduated high school . . but, whatever.

—

The second the rush faded, Clark practically collapsed off your body.

He sat up on the edge of the mattress, his back turned to you, his broad shoulders hunched as he buried his face in his large hands.

His chest rose and fell in heavy, ragged breaths against the quiet of the basement. The reality of what he had just done under your dad's roof hit him like a blow, and the silence was instantly filled with the low sound of his own self hatred— no. Not hatred. He didn’t hate himself, no, he was whining.

"Disgusting. . . you're a disgusting piece of work, Clark,"

he muttered to himself, his voice a bitter whisper in the dark. He rubbed his hands roughly over his face, his teeth grinding together as he stared at the concrete floor.

"What the hell am I doing. . . in his house. . . with his kid? . . why does this garbage always happen to me? God, I'm sick— fuckin’ sick. “

He kept murmuring, the words tumbling out in a whiny stream of pure self disgust as he tried to deflect the blame in his own head, sounding exactly like a man who felt the entire world was constantly against him.

But then, he stopped.

Slowly, Clark turned his head and looked back over his shoulder at you.

You were laying there in the tangled sheets, your chest heaving slightly, looking completely unbothered in the dim light of his room.

The moment his eyes locked onto yours, his whole demeanor cracked. All that bitter complaining just evaporated into the damp air, leaving him looking entirely defenseless.

He shifted back onto the mattress, crawling right back into your space as if he couldn't help himself.

He hovered over you again, his large, calloused hand surprisingly gentle as his fingers tangled firmly into your hair, his thumb stroking your scalp in a soft, rhythmic motion.

He dropped his head, burying his face right in the crook of your neck, inhaling sharply as he crushed your body back against his chest.

"You're going to be the absolute ruin of me, baby. Just completely ruin me."

Your shaky legs barely held your weight as you tried to stand up in the dark, your hands fumbling slightly as you pulled the oversized shirt back down over your sleep shorts.

The toll of the encounter finally caught up to you all at once. Your knees completely buckled, and instead of walking away, you collapsed right back into his arms, your forehead dropping heavily against his shoulder.

He let out a low, heavy grunt as your weight hit him, his arms automatically locking around your middle to anchor you before your knees could give out completely. .

He held you tightly against his chest, lightly rocking you just a fraction in the dark basement, the motion purely instinctive. .

He leaned his head down, resting his chin heavily against the top of your tangled hair. He let out a low sigh, a murmur that sounded exactly like the tone he used to use on you years ago when you were small.

"Look at you,"

he muttered, his voice dropping into a gravelly whisper right against your skin as his hand rubbed a slow circle into your back.

"You always were too soft for your own good. Just a fragile little thing running around. . .never could handle too much, could you?”

He wasn't trying to be mean. Atleast you don’t think he was.

"I've got you, baby. Just breathe. You're alright, sweetheart . . “

Hearing him drop that nickname right alongside those low, heavy murmurs completely broke your control.

The sheer overload of the night finally crashed down on you, and a few quiet, hot tears spilled over your eyelashes, wetting the shoulder of his t-shirt.

The exact second Clark felt the dampness on his shirt, his entire body went completely rigid.

The panic hit him instantly, his hands freezing against your back as his eyes widened in the dark.

"Hey.— no, no. . . what did I. . . what did I do?"

he started, his voice instantly fragmenting into a panicked, frantic stutter as he desperately pulled you closer against his chest, his grip turning tight and terrified.

He wasn’t scared because of the thing he just did, he was scared because of the mere threat of him getting caught.

"I-I shouldn't have. .. . god, your dad. . . if you go up there— . . .if you tell him. . . please, please don't . . . it's my fault. . . I'm a sick bastard. . . I-I ruined everything . .”

He couldn't even finish a complete sentence, his voice cracking into a whiny mumbles as he crushed you to his body, completely terrified that you were going to run up the stairs and expose his mistake. He looked entirely pathetic, weeping out incoherent, desperate apologies into your hair while holding you like a shield.

But as he continued to fall apart and demean himself, you didn't pull away.

To shut him up, you leaned forward and slammed your lips right against his, catching his rant in your mouth.

Clark froze.

He went entirely, completely paralyzed beneath you, every single muscle in his massive frame locking up as his eyes stayed wide in the pitch black.

The sudden kiss completely broke his panic, instantly stopping the whiny stuttering in his throat as the realization of your mouth on his sank in. .

Slowly, the rigid terror melted out of him. His hands relaxed against your back, his eyes finally fluttering shut as his posture softened completely under your touch, surrendering to the kiss before he could find the strength to push you away.

When you twoo finally parted, he let out a low, defeated huff against your lips, the whiny panic fading into a heavy, exhausted silence. He didn't stay that soft for long; his defensive walls immediately started crawling right back up as he grabbed your shirt from the floorboards.

he muttered, his voice dropping into a rough, passive-aggressive grumble as he shook out the fabric. He shoved the hem over your head with an impatient jerk of his hands, forcing your arms through the sleeves for you.

"Can't even put your own clothes on. You come down here acting like a big adult, and look at you. Completely useless the second a man actually handles you."

He roughly adjusted the collar of the shirt as he shoved it back on himself, his hands smoothing down the cotton before his fingers trailed slowly down the center of your chest, his jaw clenching as a cocky smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Though, I suppose I did a pretty thorough job, didn't I, sweetheart? Had you soaking through my sheets in no time."

The blunt comment made your stomach instantly flip, a wave of heat hitting your face. You frowned, pulling your shoulders back as you gave him a sharp look.

"Clark, stop."

He went completely rigid, his cocky smirk vanishing instantly as his defensive walls slammed back up. He let out a low, rough huff, his fingers tightening against your shoulders as he leaned down, pressing his forehead hard against yours. His thumb firmly cupped your jaw, keeping you perfectly still beneath his anxious gaze.

"What, you get to say whatever you want to me?"

he whispered, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rumble that sent a sudden rush of butterflies straight to your stomach. He leaned in, his lips brushing right against the sensitive skin of your neck, his breath hot and uneven.

"you had plenty of messy things to say to me ten minutes ago, sweetheart. But the second I talk back, you get sensitive?"

He pulled back just an inch, his grip on your jaw turning firm as his eyes locked onto yours, his panic bleeding through his face.

"Listen to me. You don't use that sharp tone with me under this roof. We both know your dad will kill me if he finds out about this, so you're going to keep your mouth completely shut upstairs."

He let out a uneven breath, his gaze holding yours as his control locked the secret down tight.

"I'm trying to look out for us, baby. I mean it. So you're going to go back to your room, and you're coming right back down to this basement tomorrow night so we can figure this out. Understood, kiddo?"

He gave your chin one last, rough squeeze before letting you go, his expression instantly snapping back into that cold, rigid composure as he pointed toward the stairs.

"Now go. Don't make a sound."

You just nodded, your face burning as you finally stood on your shaky legs and slipped toward the stairs. When you reached the top step and looked down, he was still sitting there in the shadows, his silhouette watching over you until the basement door quietly clicked shut behind you.

___________

This took for fucking EVER for me to write i hope you guys liked it !!!!! 💗

Three lines. That's all the local paper allows for the personals section, which is a relic from another era that you didn't even know still existed until you were flipping through the classifieds looking for a vintage bookshelf and your eyes snagged on the column header.

SEEKING CONNECTION

You'd laughed at first. Then you'd read a few. Then you'd read them all, sitting cross-legged on the sofa with your tea going cold in your hands, and something small and sharp turning over in your chest.

The ad you eventually submit reads:

Married woman, mid 30s, seeks interesting conversation and perhaps more with a like-minded gentleman. Discretion essential. If you enjoy good food, dry wit, and don't mind a woman who can out-drink you — I'd love to hear from you. Reply to Box 64.

You pay for four weeks in advance and feel sick the entire drive home.

Because here's the thing about being married to Captain John Price.

You love him desperately and completely, in a way that has settled into your bones over the better part of a decade and become indistinguishable from the architecture of who you are.

Adore the way he smells—stale cigar smoke and sandalwood and old gun oil, a combination that should be repulsive and instead makes you want to bury your face in his neck and stay there. Love his hands, broad and scarred and capable of violence you'll never fully understand, and how gentle they are when they cup your jaw or fix the clasp of your necklace.

And you melt for the rumble of his voice on the phone at two in the morning when he calls from whatever godforsaken corner of the world he's operating in, tired and tight-lipped but always, always asking about you first.

You love him, and he loves you, and it hasn't been enough for a long time.

Not because the love ran out, because he did.

John Price gives everything to his work. Every deployment bleeds into the next. The gaps between homecomings stretch longer—three weeks become five, five become eight, eight becomes ‘I don't know yet, love, I'll let you know when I know’.

And when he does come home, he's there but not there; hollow-eyed and distracted, reaching for his phone at dinner, falling asleep on the sofa before nine, making love to you the first night with a desperate urgency that fades by the third morning into perfunctory kisses on the forehead and an apologetic mumble about an early briefing.

Someday, you stopped asking when he'd be home six months ago; stopped leaving the porch light on four months ago, and you stopped wearing the nice knickers three months ago because what was the point again.

Two months ago, you realised you'd gone an entire week without hearing his voice and hadn't noticed until Thursday.

That's when the panic set in. Not the sharp, clean kind, but the slow, creeping kind. The one that makes you lie awake at three a.m. staring at the ceiling and wondering if this is it, if this is what the rest of your life looks like. A nice house in Hereford with a well-maintained garden and a husband who exists primarily as a name on a bank account and a voice on the other end of an increasingly rare phone call.

You don't want to leave him. The thought alone makes you nauseous.

You just want someone to see you again.

John finds the newspaper three days after he gets home from a six-week deployment in eastern Syria.

He's not snooping; he's looking for the TV remote, which has migrated into the crack between the sofa cushions again, and his hand closes around the folded section of newsprint wedged beside it. He pulls it out, intending to toss it on the coffee table, and his eyes catch the circle of biro ink around one of the small ads in the personals column.

John reads it, and then again.

Then he sits down very slowly, the remote forgotten, and stares at the far wall for a long time, connecting puzzle pieces like his life depends on it, which it very well does apparently.

Married woman, mid 30s. His wife is in her thirties.

Dry wit. His wife is the driest, sharpest-tongued woman he's ever met. It's one of the first things he fell in love with—the way she could dismantle a man's ego with a single raised eyebrow and a well-timed "Bless your heart, love".

Can out-drink you. He's watched his wife put away Whisky Sours at the SAS Christmas do with a composure that made seasoned operators look like lightweights.

Discretion essential.

John sets the newspaper down on his knee. His jaw works and his eyes don't leave the wall.

And he doesn't confront you.

Not over dinner nor in bed that night when you roll towards him and press a kiss to his shoulder—a habit you've kept even through the worst of the distance, even when you're angry with him, even when he doesn't deserve it.

Instead, he waits, and he replies to Box 64.

The letter that arrives for you a week later is postmarked locally. Plain envelope, no return address. Inside, a single sheet of paper, handwritten in a bold, slanted script you don't recognise.

I enjoy good food, better whisky, and I've never met a woman who can out-drink me, but I'd enjoy watching you try. Friday, 8pm, O’Malley’s on St. George's Lane. I'll be the one who looks like he doesn't belong in a place that posh. — J

Your hands are shaking when you finish reading it, and you have to sit down at the kitchen table and press your palms flat against the wood to steady yourself.

You could throw it away. No. You should throw it away. This was a mistake—a stupid, reckless, selfish mistake born out of loneliness and too much wine and that ugly, gnawing ache in your chest that flares up every time John leaves.

But John has left again. Three days at home, then a call from Kate Laswell, then a bag packed and a kiss on your forehead and a quick ‘Be back soon, love’ and the sound of the front door closing and the silence that rushes in to fill the space he used to occupy.

You read the letter once more.

I'll be the one who looks like he doesn't belong in a place that posh.

Something warm and reckless curls in your stomach, and you hate yourself for it, and you fold the letter into the pocket of your cardigan and carry it around for three days before you decide you’re going.

Friday night. O’Malley’s.

You arrive twenty minutes early because you're a control freak in crisis, and you take the farthest booth in the corner because your back needs to be against a wall and your eyes need to be on the door—a habit you picked up from your husband without realising it.

You order a gin and tonic to give your hands something to do, and you check your reflection in the blank screen of your phone for the third time. You look good, like you tried again—not the kind of effort you make for John when he comes home, all desperate and over-polished, but a quieter kind; wearing your favourite dress with subtle makeup and your hair done the way you like it, not the way you think someone else wants to see it.

You look like your old self, and that's terrifying, because the whole point of tonight was supposed to be about being someone else.

When your wedding ring catches the light as you reach for your drink, and you stare at it for a long moment, the slim gold band John slid onto your finger nine years ago with steady hands and unsteady eyes, and you don't take it off.

You should, but you can’t, and you did say you’re married.

Eight o'clock comes and goes. Five past, then ten. You're about to convince yourself you've been stood up, which would be both a relief and a humiliation, when the pub door opens and a man walks in, and every nerve ending in your body fires at once.

Because the man standing in the doorway, scanning the room with those sharp, assessing eyes, is your husband.

John is wearing civvies. Dark jeans, a black henley pushed up to his elbows, boots that have seen better days.

He looks like he came straight from the base, which he probably did. His hair is freshly cut but his beard is full, and there is a tiredness around his eyes that you can read from across the room, the same bone-deep fatigue he carries home from every deployment and tries to hide and fails.

He spots you and your stomach plummets.

Meanwhile, his expression doesn't change; not a flicker. He holds your gaze across the crowded pub, and then he walks towards you with the kind of unhurried, deliberate stride that you've seen him use in exactly two contexts.

When he's approaching a superior officer, and when he's about to do something that no one in the room is going to enjoy.

Your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your teeth. Your hand tightens around your glass until your knuckles ache, and every instinct in your body is screaming at you to run to the bathroom, to the car park, to another country, but your legs won't cooperate, because Captain John Price is walking towards you and you have never in your life been able to move when he's looking at you like that.

He reaches the booth, stops, and looks down at you. And a beat of terrible, electric silence follows.

Then he smiles, though not the tight, exhausted smile he gives you at the front door when he's been gone for weeks, but something warmer, something almost boyish, and then he slides into the seat across from you, settling in with an ease that makes your blood run cold.

"You must be Box 64," he says casually, calm, like he's meeting a stranger for the first time, which is insane, because he is your husband and he is sitting across from you at a pub where you came to meet another man and he knows. He fucking knows.

"John—"

"John," he repeats, tasting the name like he's hearing it for the first time. Then he extends his hand across the table. "That's right. Pleasure to meet you."

You stare at his outstretched hand, then at his face, and back at his hand.

"John, I can explain—"

"Nothing to explain." He keeps his hand where it is, steady and patient. His eyes don't leave yours. "I'm J. You're Box 64. We're here to have a drink and see if we get on. That was the arrangement, wasn't it? What your ad said?"

Your mouth opens and something inside you dies a little, along with the words in your throat; anything but one.

"John."

"You gonna leave me hanging, love? Already?" He nods at his hand, one eyebrow raised, and there is something in his expression—beneath the calm and the performance—that you can't quite read.

It's not anger, not even hurt. Something closer to resolve, like he's made a decision about tonight and he intends to see it through, and nothing you say is going to alter the trajectory.

You take his hand, shake it weakly.

His fingers close around yours, warm and rough, and he gives one firm shake before releasing you. Then he flags down the barmaid, orders a whisky neat, and turns back to you with that same easy, unreadable smile.

"So. Tell me about yourself."

You stare at him owlishly.

"I—I don't—" You can feel heat crawling up your neck, your throat tightening with the precursor to tears. "John, please, can we just—"

"Tell me," he says again, and his voice is gentle, but his eyes are steel. "What do you do? Where are you from? What made you put that ad in the paper?"

The last question lands like another slap, even though his tone doesn't change. You swallow hard, your fingers wrap around your glass for something to anchor to.

He waits for you to answer; patient as a sniper in a ghillie suit.

"I'm—" You exhale shakily. "I'm from here. I live in Hereford. I'm—" Your voice threatens to crack, and you bite the inside of your cheek until it steadies. "I'm a teacher."

"A teacher." John nods, like this is new information and not something he's known for the better part of a decade. "What age?"

"Year four."

"Year four. That's—what, eight? Nine?" He takes a sip of his whisky. The barmaid left it quietly and shot you a look like she sensed the tension. "Brave woman. I've faced insurgents with less fight in them than a nine-year-old with a grudge."

The laugh that escapes you is wet and startled and completely involuntary, and John's eyes soften for a fraction of a second before the mask slides back into place.

"What about you?" you ask carefully, because two can play this game, and if he's going to make you sit through this surreal performance, you might as well commit. Your voice is still unsteady, but there's a spark of something underneath the fear—defiance, maybe, or the stubbornness that made you put the ad in the paper in the first place. "What do you do?"

"Military," he answers briskly, which is what he always says at parties and barbecues when civilians ask, offering nothing further.

"What branch?"

"The kind that doesn't let me talk about it." He leans back in his seat, one arm resting along the back of the booth leisurely and looks at you with an expression that's half amusement, half something hungrier. "I travel a lot. Gone more than I'm home unfortunately."

"That must be hard," you reply, and you mean it in a raw way that has nothing to do with the roleplay and everything to do with the long years of lonely nights and unanswered phone calls sitting between you.

John hears it and you watch it land. A brief tightening around his eyes, a muscle jumping in his jaw before he takes another slow drink.

"It is," he says quietly. "Harder on the people who wait, I'd imagine."

Your breath catches. You look down at the table, at your ring, at the condensation pooling around the base of your glass.

"Yeah," you whisper. "It is."

The silence that follows is different from the others. Not tense or loaded. Just heavy, in the way that true things are heavy, settling between you like something solid.

Then John clears his throat. "Another round?"

You nod, not trusting your voice, and he waves the barmaid over again.

The second drink loosens something.

Maybe it's the gin, perhaps the sheer absurdity of the situation, but somewhere between your second and third drink, the fear recedes enough for you to actually talk.

And John—your husband, who has spent the better part of a year giving you monosyllabic answers over dinner and falling asleep during films—is talking back.

He's always been charming. It's how he got you in the first place, at a mate's wedding eleven years ago, when he cornered you at the bar and spent forty-five minutes making you laugh so hard you snorted champagne up your nose. Though you'd forgotten what it looks like when he aims it at you with intent.

John asks about your students and listens to the answers. He asks about the book you're currently reading and offers an opinion on it that tells you he's been paying more attention to your nightstand than you thought. He tells you stories from deployment that are carefully scrubbed of classified details but still make you laugh; the kind of stories he used to tell you when you were dating. Absurd, self-deprecating, designed to make you think he's funnier than he is.

He is funny. You'd forgotten that, too.

"You've got a nice laugh," he says at one point, swirling his whisky, and the way he says it, like an observation, like he's hearing it for the first time, makes your stomach flip.

"Don't flatter me, J." The letter feels strange in your mouth, this thin fiction stretched over the truth of him. "I'll think you're after something."

"Maybe I am." He holds your gaze and doesn't smile. "That a problem, love?"

Your mouth goes dry.

Three drinks in, you're leaning across the table towards each other, and his hand is resting on the tabletop close enough to yours that your little fingers are almost touching, and you're telling him about the time one of your Year Fours brought a live frog to class in his lunchbox and it escaped during maths, and John is laughing—really laughing, with his head tipped back and his eyes creased—and for a vertiginous moment, you manage to forget.

You forget that this is a performance; that your husband is sitting across from you pretending to be a stranger because you put an ad in the newspaper looking for someone else. Everything except the sound of his laugh and the warmth in his eyes and the way he's looking at you like you're the most interesting person in the room, which is how he used to look at you all the time, before the deployments ate him alive and left you with the husk.

Then his eyes drop to your left hand, and the warmth doesn't leave his expression, but something sharper slides in alongside it, like the glint of a blade edge, and then he reaches across the table and takes your hand, turning it over in his.

His thumb presses against the band of your wedding ring, holding it there.

"You know," he says, and his voice is still easy, still conversational, but there's a new undercurrent to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, "if you were really going to go through with this little adventure of yours—"

He taps the ring once with his thumb, clicks his tongue.

"—you probably should've taken this off first."

The blood drains from your face. The pleasant haze of gin and good conversation evaporates in an instant, replaced by a cold, lurching clarity.

"John—"

"Bit of a deterrent, love. Even when you mentioned it in the ad." He's still holding your hand, still running his thumb over the ring, and his expression is unreadable—not angry, not hurt, just steady, the way he looks when he's holding a position and waiting for something to break. "Any bloke worth his salt would've clocked that you're not really in it five minutes in."

Your eyes are stinging. "I wasn't going to—I would never have—"

"I know." He replies simply and releases your hand. "I know you wouldn't."

The lump in your throat is enormous and razor-edged, and you have to look away at anything that isn't his face, because if you keep looking at him, you're going to cry in the middle of this pub and he will never, ever let you live it down.

"I'm sorry," you manage, barely a whisper. "John, I'm so sorry, I didn't—I was just—"

"Don't."

You look back at him. He's leaning forward now, strong forearms on the table, and the mask is gone. All of it, the J performance, the first-date charm, the controlled amusement. And underneath is just your husband. Looking at you with an expression that is not anger, that has never been anger, that is something far worse.

Guilt.

"I should've been home more," he murmurs; too honest for a pub on a Friday night. "I should've—" He stops, his jaw clenches before he tries again. "I should've given you a proper life. A family. A husband who's actually fucking present. And I didn't, and you—"

He gestures vaguely at the booth, the pub, the entire premise of the evening.

"—you shouldn't have had to do this to get my attention."

The first tear slips down your face before you can catch it. You swipe at it furiously with the back of your hand before the barmaid, who has become somewhat intrigued by whatever is happening at your table, can clock it.

"I wasn't trying to get your attention," you lie, and you both know it's a lie, and his mouth twitches; not quite a smile, something more tender and much more broken.

"Yeah, you were." He reaches across the table again and takes your hand, properly this time, threading his fingers through yours and squeezing. "And it worked."

You let out a breath that's half laugh, half sob, and squeeze back.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The pub buzzes around you. Glasses clinking, conversations flowing, some '80s song you can't name playing from the speakers. And you sit in the middle of it, holding hands across a sticky table, and the nine years of silence and distance and loving each other badly feel, for the first time, like something that could be survived.

"I need the loo," you announce eventually, because your mascara is probably wrecked and you need thirty seconds of privacy to pull yourself together before you dissolve entirely.

John releases your hand with a nod. "Take your time, love."

You slide out of the booth on legs that feel slightly unsteady with gin and adrenaline, and make your way to the back of the pub, past the bar and down the short corridor to the ladies'.

It's a single-stall bathroom. Small, clean enough, a lock on the door that you click shut behind you before bracing your hands on the edge of the sink and staring at your reflection in the mirror above it.

Your eyes are bright and glassy. Your mascara is, as predicted, smudged. You look wrecked and flushed and alive in a way you haven't in months, and you hate that it took this—a dating ad and a Friday night charade—to put that look on your face.

You run the tap and press your cool, damp fingers against your closed eyelids. Breathe. You can do this. You can go back out there, finish your drinks, go home with your husband, and figure out the rest in the morning like adults who have been married for nearly a decade and know how to have a difficult conversation.

You're drying your hands when the lock clicks.

You freeze. Your eyes snap to the door in the mirror's reflection as it opens, and John slips inside and closes it behind him with a soft, definitive click of the lock.

The bathroom shrinks to nothing.

He fills the space. Not just physically, though he does that too, broad shoulders and solid frame taking up far too much of the small room, but atmospherically. The air changes when he's this close, gets heavier and becomes charged, like the pressure drop before a storm front.

"John, what are you—"

He moves. One step, then two, and then his big hand is flat against your lower back and he's pressing you forward, gently but firmly, until your hips meet the edge of the sink and your palms catch the porcelain on either side.

His body moulds against your back. Chest to spine, hips to arse. One hand sliding from your lower back to your waist, gripping and anchoring, while his other forearm braces against the wall beside the mirror.

You can see him in the reflection; towering behind you, head dipped, mouth hovering at the shell of your ear, and your breath stutters at the look on his face.

"Gonna make you remember why you married me, darling," he mutters into your ear, and his breath is hot and damp on the side of your neck, sending a shiver cascading down your spine. His hand tightens on your waist, pulling your arse back against the hard line of his cock already straining behind his zipper.

"John—"

"Shh." His lips graze the spot beneath your ear. No kiss but a warning. "You wanted to be seen, love. I see you."

His hand slides from your waist to the hem of your dress and drags it up slowly, bunching the fabric around your hips until you're exposed from the waist down. The cool air of the bathroom hits your bare thighs and makes you gasp.

"John, we can't—We're in a pub—!"

"Should've thought about that before you went looking for a date, shouldn't you?" His voice is rough and threaded with something dark and tender at the same time, and his fingers hook into the waistband of your knickers, tugging them down your thighs in one smooth motion. They pool around your ankles, and he doesn't bother removing them fully—just leaves them there, tangled between your heels.

"Anyone could—"

"Door's locked." His hand trails up the inside of your thigh, calloused fingers dragging against the soft skin, and you bite your lip to keep the sound that wants to escape inside. "And you're going to be quiet for me, aren't you, hm?"

You hear his belt buckle. The clink of metal, the drag of leather through belt loops, then the rasp of his zip, and your hands grip the sink so hard your arms tremble, because the sound alone is enough to make your pussy clench around nothing in anticipation.

"Nearly a decade of marriage," he murmurs against the back of your neck, and his free hand slides between your thighs from behind, two thick fingers dragging through your supple folds, finding you already embarrassingly wet. He lets out a low, dark sound of approval that vibrates against your skin. "And I let you forget."

His fingers circle your clit once and your hips buck back against him involuntarily.

"That's on me," he continues, his voice dropping to that gravelly register that makes your toes curl in your pumps. "My fault. My fucking failure. Not yours."

He presses one thick finger inside you, then two, stretching you open with a slow, curling thrust that makes your breath hitch and your walls clench around him. He groans quietly and his forehead drops against the back of your head.

"'M finally gonna put our baby in you," he declares, and the words are rough and raw and utterly certain, a promise sealed against your skin. "Should've done it years ago. Should've given you that. Should've given you everything."

He withdraws his fingers and you whimper at the loss with a needy, desperate sound that you'd be mortified by in any other context, and then you feel the blunt, plump head of his cock pressing against your entrance and every other thought in your head goes static.

"John—" you mewl. John pushes in slowly.

He stretches you open around him with a fullness that borders on too much, and the sound that tears from your throat is muffled only because you clamp your hand over your own mouth.

More than a decade and his fat cock is still enough to make you go stupid.

"Fuck," John breathes, his hips flush against your arse, buried to the root, and his grip on your waist is bruising. He doesn't move yet just holds there, letting you feel every inch of him, letting your body adjust around the thick, throbbing weight of his cock.

Then he starts to move, and it's not the perfunctory, tired sex you've been having for the past year. The kind where he finishes quickly and rolls over and you stare at the ceiling and pretend you came.

This is John Price. The real one, the one you fell in love with. The one who backed you against the wall of your old flat on your third date and made you see God by eating you out through your knickers before he'd even taken anything else off.

He fucks you deep and deliberate, one hand gripping your hip while the other wraps around the front of your throat lightly; his fingers curled against your pulse point, feeling the frantic beat of your heart against his palm.

"Look at yourself," he orders, and your eyes—which had screwed shut at some point—fly open to meet his in the mirror. Pupils blown.

The sight of it is obscene. Your dress bunched around your waist, his thick forearm braced beside the mirror, tendons flexing, his body curved over yours, and the slow, powerful roll of his hips driving into you from behind with a rhythm that's making the mirror rattle against the wall.

"That's my wife," he grunts, and his reflection's eyes are fierce and fixed on yours. "Mine. Not some fucking stranger's from a newspaper ad."

You can't speak, only feel his cock dragging against your walls, his hand on your throat, his chest solid and warm and present against your back for the first time in what feels like forever.

He picks up the pace; harder and deeper thrusts, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing in the small bathroom while his ragged breath puffs against your ear. And then his rough hand leaves your throat to reach between your legs, flicking your clit and rubbing tight, fast circles that make you bite down on your own fist to keep from screaming.

"Quiet," he reminds you, and the bastard sounds smug. "You want the whole pub to know what I'm doing to you in here? Huh? Want them to know ‘m fucking my wife?"

You shake your head frantically; cunt fluttering and squeezing his shaft, because dirty talk from John Price is its own kind of sweet torture.

"Then cum for me quietly, love. Right now."

A few more hard, precise thrusts with his cock dragging inside your quivering cunt, massaging that spot that keeps swelling inside you, and you shatter.

The orgasm rips through you so violently that your knees give out, and the only things keeping you upright are the sink under your hands and John's arm locked around your waist. You clamp your teeth into the heel of your palm and muffle the cry that wants to tear out of you, your walls clenching and fluttering around his cock in rhythmic, milking pulses.

"Christ—fuck—" John's hips stutter, his rhythm breaks, and he buries himself deep—so deep—and holds, his cock kicking and pulsing inside you as he cums with a low, guttural groan pressed into the curve of your neck.

He spills himself empty inside you, balls throbbing with each little jerk of his hips. Hot and thick, deliberate this time. No condom, no pulling out this time, and the significance of that isn't lost on either of you. His hips roll lazily through the aftershocks, working every precious drop into your messy cunt, and his hand slides from your waist to your lower belly, pressing flat.

"There," he murmurs, and his voice is wrecked and satisfied, unbearably tender. "That's where it belongs."

You're shaking. Your entire body is trembling, your legs are useless, and there are tears streaming silently down your face that have nothing to do with pain.

He stays inside you for a long moment; breathing, his lips pressed against the nape of your neck, beard scraping your skin, his hand warm on your lower stomach. Then he pulls out slowly, carefully, and you feel his cum start to leak from you immediately, warm and slick against your inner thighs.

He reaches down, picks your knickers up from around your ankles, and slides them back up your legs with an almost clinical efficiency. When they're settled back into place, he pats your arse once, light and proprietary, and tugs your dress back down.

"There we go," he says, like he's just helped you with your coat. "Good as new."

You let out a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, your forehead dropping against the mirror.

"How about a 'thank you,' love," he adds while he tugs his softening cock back into his jeans, and when you lift your head and catch his eyes in the reflection, the smug satisfaction on his face is so thoroughly, infuriatingly Price that you want to slap him and kiss him simultaneously, "for stuffing your pretty cunt full of my cum, hm?"

"John."

"Mm." He presses a kiss to your temple, achingly gentle after everything he just did to you, and reaches past you to turn on the tap. He wets his hand and wipes beneath your eyes with his thumb, cleaning up the mascara.

"Ready to leave, love?" he asks, straightening up and buckling his belt with the same unhurried ease he does everything. "Or would you like another drink before your husband takes you home?"

Your legs are still shaking, his cum is slowly but surely soaking into your knickers, and your heart is so full it might crack your ribs.

"N-No," you manage, small and hoarse. "I'd like to go home now, John."

He looks at you, really looks. And there is nothing left of the J performance, not the Captain Price mask, just John, your husband. The man who drove to a pub on a Friday night not to punish you but to remind you both of what you'd almost let slip away.

"That's my girl," he replies softly.

He unlocks the bathroom door, checks the corridor, and guides you out with his hand on the small of your back. You walk through the pub on shaking legs, past the booth where your half-finished drinks are still sitting, past the barmaid who gives you both a knowing look that you pretend not to see.

The night air hits you like cold water when you step outside, and you suck in a breath that fills your lungs properly for the first time in hours.

John pulls his car keys from his pocket, presses the fob, and opens the passenger door for you without a word. You climb in. He closes the door, rounds the bonnet, and slides into the driver's seat.

Neither of you speaks on the drive home. His hand rests on your thigh, squeezing gently every other minute, and your hand rests on top of his, your fingers tracing the ridges of his calloused knuckles and the band of his own wedding ring, which he has never, not once in nine years, taken off.

When he pulls into the driveway, the porch light is off. You haven't left it on in months.

John kills the engine. Sits for a moment, looking at the dark house.

Then he turns to you, and his voice is quieter now, stripped of the previous smugness, the heat, the performance. Just the raw thing underneath.

"I will do better."

No grand speech or a promise wrapped in flowers and apologies and all the things you've heard before and stopped believing. It's four words, plain and blunt and offered without decoration, and they land heavier than anything else he's said tonight.

You reach across the centre console and take his face in both hands, and you kiss him slowly, like you have time, because you're going to make time.

"I know," you whisper against his mouth.

Rain glistened over the slick cobblestone streets and droplets caught in your hair. It was barely more than a fine mist, but the rain in London never truly stopped. The weather was a blessing in disguise, you supposed, because it helped to mask the horrid stentch of waste and smog that seemed to cling to these streets like an urchin.

You scurried through this darkened part of town, clutching your mantle coat tightly to ward off the impending chill. Alone, the buildings stood taller and the alleys were blacker. Things appeared more menacing at night, for night was when the thieves and scoundrels came out to rob and scare. Night was when the whores wandered and flaunted even more brazenly than in the day.

Drunken laughter spills with the light from a nearby pub and you quicken your pace.

Curse your older sister and her secret lover. Cynthia was supposed to have been chaperoning you for the evening but instead she had ditched you for Mr. Bradling. You weren't interested in ratting her out to father, but it was mighty tempting about now. You were thoroughly peeved that she'd insisted you find your own way home alone at this hour.

"You'll be alright." She had encouraged, shooing you away like a pesky little insect. "Just go, and don't talk to anyone."

"And look out for the Ripper." Mr. Bradling added cheerily. The comment earned him a sharp smack from your sister.

"Don't scare the poor thing."

"I'm not scared." You had rebutted.

But you were. You were terrified that someone would leap out of the dark and hold you at knife point any moment now. Every shadow seemed to coil and writhe, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

You had no idea where you'd ended up but it certainly wasn't the familiar safety of your well kept neighbourhood. No, this part of town was rough. Gritty. It smelt of decay and piss and factory smoke (that would surely take more than a few washes to get out of your clothes).

Should you be attacked, you'd have no idea where to run to. With your luck you'd probably find yourself fleeing deeper into this wretched borough.

The shrill shreik of a nightguard's whistle sounds a few streets down, startling you. You practically jump out of your skin, ice skittering down your spine as you realize your worst fear was coming true.

You're frozen- shock still on the sidewalk while you try and force your brain to think of what to do next, when a man barrels straight into you.

He knocks you into the narrow space between two buildings, trapping you within the filthy alley before you can do so much as let out a yelp. One hand shoves at your waist and pins you back against the grimey bricks and the other curls around your throat, ensuring your silence.

"You're not gonna scream, are ya girl?" The man's voice is low and raspy, thick with an accent you can't quite place.

You shake your head, eyes wide and frantic to placate him. I'm no trouble, they say. I'm harmless, don't hurt me.

"Right answer." He leans in close, breath too close to your ear and filtering down your throat.

Obscenely, you muse that this is perhaps the closest you've ever been to a man. Your heart jackrabbits in your chest with some wild mix of fear and.... something terribly improper.

The man takes a deep, unhurried breath of your expensive perfume, nose brushing against your pulse point and your knees buckle. The only reason you don't crash to the muck at your feet is because he's holding you up now.

You can barely see him through the dimness. It doesn't help that the collar of his coat is turned up high and the rim of his top hat tugged low, obscuring much of his face. What you can see though, is a nose with a jagged angle to it and a scared lip, curled up in a sneer.

He flexes his fingers, leather of his gloves creaking and he trails his hand up your ribs, skimming over the side of your bosom before falling away from your body entirely. You shiver from more than just the cold.

Improper.

The man tilts his head, assessing you in the same manner as you do him. The fine clothes, the ribbon coming undone from your ringlets, your delicate pearl necklace resting on clean skin. It's obvious that you aren't from around these parts. Painfully so. Perhaps if you simply gave him all your valuables, he would let you go unscathed and you could find a policeman to escort you back home.

"Please." You stammer, trembling fingers reaching back to fiddle with the impossibly delicate clasp. "Take my pearls. And my purse. Just- please don't hurt me."

The man shakes his head and gently brings your wrists back down to your sides.

"Don't wan' that." He grunts.

"Then... what is it you do want?" Comes your timid reply.

"Nothing, darling. Nothing at all, just keep quiet 'nd don't fret your lovely little head." He tucks a stray curl behind your ear, the motion feeling unnervingly sinister. "What's a pretty bird like you doing in this part of town, love? It's a mite more dangerous than you're used', I reckon."

"I... I got lost, Mister." Your hands clutch the front of your coat and twist anxiously. An amused rumble rises in his chest. A ragged laugh, you think.

"Lost, hm? Silly girl. Shouldn't be wandering all alone in a place like this. 'Specially at night. 'Specially with a murderer on the loose. The papers say he's quite deranged." His teeth gleam white in the darkness, but it's not a smile. More of a baring. Dull. Eager to rip into sacrificial flesh.

"I don't read the papers." You admit. "My father doesn't let me."

"Doesn't he now?"

You shake your head.

"But he lets you wander about London at night? All by yourself?" He pulls your coat around you tighter, like how one might bundle a child before sending them out to play. Like he doesn't want you catching a cold. It could have been a considerate gesture but it feels wrong coming from a stranger.

"He doesn't let me do that either. I'm not supposed to be here. Like I said, I got-"

"You got lost." He nods, eying you in a way that makes you want to slip out of your skin. "You're just lucky that I found you first and not some maniac or drunk."

"Or the Whitechapel Murderer." You tack on waveringly.

"Clever girl." He burrs. "So you do know about the killings."

"Bits and pieces."

He smiles at that. A horrible smile like you had just told some kind of sick joke.

"D'you want to know how he does it?" The stranger asks abruptly.

You didn't. You'd rather not know about the murders at all, but your sister was facsinated by the articles and often discussed them at supper. Despite the desperate shake of your head, he tells you anyways.

"I'm willing to bet he lures them into a dark corner just like this one." He begins, crowding you against the side of the building. He gathers the material of your dress and hikes it up your thigh, fingers crawling on flesh like an unwelcome spider.

"Get's em nice n' distracted with a hand up their skirt. Maybe dips a finger or two into their cunt."

You gasp at his vulgarity as he traces the seam of you over your undergarments, eliciting a cruel chuckle from him. More of a choked guffaw, really. A wretched noise.

"And then, when they're puttin' on their whore show..." he murmurs, lips brushing yours, "...he slits their throat."

A single gloved finger drags across your neck and there's a wicked gleam to his eyes when he spots your goosebumps. That same finger trails down to your necklace, giving it a harsh tug before continuing it's path and tracing along your collarbone. It trails down the buttons of your coat and upon reaching your stomach, hooks inside the garment.

"Then I reckon he takes a blade to the belly and guts 'em like a fish." He snarls with such ferocity that spittle lands on your cheek. The finger yanks your from coat, ripping it open and scattering buttons along the uneven stones below.

You whimper and squeeze your eyes shut in an attempt to ward off the dreadful images of brutality his touch evokes.

Footsteps approach rapidly from beyond the backstreet, echoing off the vacant storefronts. Your heart pounds and the man catches your quickened breaths. A surgical eye, he has. It misses nothing.

"Think that's him, darling?" He slips a knee between your half exposed thighs and leans in to nip at the side of your neck. "Think ol' Jack 's come to get you too?"

"Oh, please." You gasp fearfully, clutching at his lapel.

Unfortunately, you've always had a runaway imagination. Your mind conjures up a man to match the footfalls. Tall and evil, a blade gleaming in what little moonlight that filters through the clouded night. Terror rises inside you, swelling into a crescendo and leaking out of your throat before-

"Oi!" Someone barks, and your eyes flutter open. A bobby stands at the mouth of the alley and frowns at the pair of you. "This ain't bloody' lovers lane. I'd get back inside if I was you. The madman's struck again."

Your cheeks burn red, mortification blooming at what it must look like to an onlooker. A man and woman tucked away into the privacy of the shadows? Her clinging to him and gasping while he embraces her so intimately?

You rip your skirts from his grasp and tug them back down to grant you what modicum of propriety you have left.

The stranger slowly pulls away from the crook of your neck like he's reluctant and turns to the copper.

"Blimey. Tonight?"

"Looks that way, lad." He confirms in a thick Irish brougue. "The- ah... wounds... look fresh." His eyes dart to you and he changes whatever it was he was going to say into something less grotesque in the presence of a lady. Really, you're just glad he still thinks you a lady after the falsely provocative scene he had stumbled upon.

"I'd best get her home then, safe and sound." The man speaks. "Thank you, officer."

Before you can protest and ask for a proper escort home, the policeman bids you both a goodnight and heads off down the street. It leaves you beneath this man you don't even know- who seems to be intent on scaring you and god only knows what else.

And you still don't have a clue how to get home.

Simon watches with perverted glee as you grow dazed, paling worse than a ghost when the reality of your position sinks in.

Another murder. Tonight. Just on the next street over and moments before he ran into you. A wicked man on the loose and killing young women for no true reason the police could discern. You could have been next.

You could have been next.

And you might have been next, but no. You, little lamb, were sweet. Timid. You avoided the slaughter because you were everything those sluts weren't; soft, tender. Virgin, he was sure.

Seeing you so completely terrified had something akin to pity tug the void where his heart should be. Sympathy, but not quite. He would have killed you just the same as the others. Lord, it would have been easy. And two in one night? The thought thrilled him like no other.

But the cops had been coming quick lately. There wouldn't have been enough buffer for a second kill, so he used you as his alibi instead. That didn't mean he couldn't toy with you in the upcoming weeks, though. Despite his baser instincts still simmering beneath his skin, he does his utmost to temper the lust for blood, and softens for his own benefit.

"I'm sorry for scarin' you, luvie." He curls his fingers around your arm in case you really do faint. "I get carried away sometimes and I forgot that a thing like you is used to more delicate conversation."

"It's alright." You whisper, shock starting to seep into your conciousness.

He slings an arm around your waist when you sway, keeping you at a strategic distance. He kept his work tidy. Always did, but these things were never perfectly clean.

As long as you didn't get too close, you wouldn't notice that his collar was turned up to hide the splatters of blood on his cheek. You wouldn't notice the scalpel tucked safelty away in his breast pocket, nor the fresh blood that was growing sticky beneath his gloves. It was hot and viscous and fully caked into his knuckles by now.

"Let me walk you home, yeah? Get you back to your bed safe and sound like I promised the officer?"

You nod vacantly and it's all too easy to guide you back into the empty streets. A fawn, too naive to fear the hunter. One who knew nothing of the dangers ever-present to a creature as dainty as you. As trusting.

It's endearing, the way you flinch at every sound. Every bottle broken, every angry shout. Even his careful touch has you shying away from him. That hardly surprised him, though.

He would bring you home to your (no doubt wealthy) neighbourhood just as promised. Though the temptation was there, he wouldn't harm even a single hair on your head. Maybe later, once he knew where you lived and the patterns of your days, he could insert himself into your life and play the part of a respectable gentleman. An attentive new suitor. One you would come to depend and rely on wholly.

Yes. He would sink his hooks into you not as the notorious Leather Apron, but as the respectable Mr. Riley.

And the best part? You'd never have any idea how close you'd come to heaven tonight.

Chat, we might be back to writing? I might have overcome the worst of my brainfog for now? Lets go?? AHHHH this was so fun to write, even if it took me months of coming back to it! Thank you for reading ♡

You had been adjusting well to your new job, getting along with your only coworker, Kat, and her boyfriend, who was friends with the person who told you about this place. Bobby was a little odd, but Kat told you it was the weed. He came around when he wasn't in a lecture, as he was attending the same university as you, or when he was filming a new commercial for Clark.

They were both friendly, and you were all close in age, so it was easy to joke around with them. The real mystery was your boss, Clark.

Kat told you he was recently divorced, and Bobby came up with a wild conspiracy that he was living at the store. But you didn't actually know that much about him.

That's why asking to meet in his office was scary, because you assumed he was going to fire you.

"I wanted to check in and see how you're doing," Clark explains as soon as you sit down in front of his desk. "Have Kat and Bobby been treating you well? I know Bobby can be a lot sometimes, but... well, aren't we all?"

"Everything is fine. I really like it here, sir," you answer politely.

"Good, good," he rubs a hand across his bearded chin, "I'm here if you need to talk, okay? You can talk to me about anything."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind," you go to leave his office, "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Clark."

"You too!" he lifts his hand awkwardly just as you shut the door behind you.

.

.

.

You feel the sting of embarrassment creep up on you for crying to your boss about your boyfriend, when he had been going through a divorce. "My problems seem a lot more trivial than yours, huh?" you chew on the inside of your cheek anxiously.

"But he's impacting you just the same as she was impacting me," Clark states.

"Who?" you question, your brows raising.

"My wife," he answers bitterly, "She impacted my life like your boyfriend is impacting yours."

"Oh," you tilt your head, "you sound like a therapist."

"Is that not what you need right now?" he asks.

"I don't know what I need right now," you admit.

You stare at each other for a long time before Clark gestures for you to come closer. So you do. You get up and walk around to the other side of his desk. "Maybe we need the same thing," he says, then pulls you down onto his lap.

You feel a familiar heat spreading across your body, a heat you haven't felt from your boyfriend in weeks. "And what's that?" you reply as his hands creep up your hips.

"Each other," Clark whispers in your ear, kissing along the side of your jaw. A gasp leaves your mouth, and your hands find his shoulders.