Dreamer In The Opal Skies

The plan was simple: make him blush whenever and however you could. Because seeing that pink hue slowly creeping up his neck, ears, and handsome face?

It triggered ovulation.

The plan began one morning during training. He was already there with Cassian, their eyes still bleary at the crack of dawn, wings slightly droopy and senses a little dull. You greeted both of them, your eyes slowly but surely locking onto Azriel.

He stood tall, shadows swirling lazily around his broad shoulders, wings stretching wide. Yet, it was the dark circles under his beautiful eyes that made your heart squeeze painfully.

You knew he worked too hard and barely slept; with whatever strength he had left, he tried to put up a facade, masking the way his guard was cracking. You hated Rhysand a little for that.

Cass and Az slowly began to circle each other, swords raised high and eyes now determined. Sweat glistened on both men.

You couldn't help but shout when Azriel passed you a fleeting look.

"That shirt's doing you no favors. Take it off!"

Cassian roared with laughter, his head thrown back and shoulders shaking.

Azriel, though? He froze. His eyes widened, but there wasn't a hint of annoyance in them. And when his cheeks warmed fast, the color rising before he could stop it?

You pocketed it like a total victory.

—-

Dinner at the River House could be described in one single word: chaos.

Nyx was throwing food left and right while Feyre tried desperately to stop him. But before either parent could react or reach him, his spoon was already raised, sending food flying across the table. Cassian laughed, chewed food displayed in his open mouth as he ate like a pig, earning a sharp scolding from Nesta for his childlike manners. Meanwhile, Mor was drinking more wine than should be humanly possible, and Amren sat silently—or not so silently—judging everyone in the room.

After surviving the ordeal of dinner, wine glass in hand, you sat down next to Azriel on the couch. His wings automatically curled around you, creating a private, shadowed cocoon. You fought the blush trying to creep up your own cheeks; it wasn't your turn to blush.

"I can feel your heartbeat. Is that for me?" you asked innocently, blinking up at him from under your lashes.

Azriel looked completely dumbfounded, though a small smile tugged at his lips. "People who tend to be alive usually have heartbeats."

"Ah. Boring."

He raised an eyebrow, his fingers tapping a slow rhythm against his muscular thigh. "What's boring about being alive?"

"You, not getting flirty," you stated as a matter of fact.

His lip twitched. "Are you trying to flirt with me?"

"Yes. Is it working?"

He looked entirely taken aback by your straightforwardness. He didn't say a word, entirely trapped as he held your gaze. He cleared his throat, but no sound followed.

Yet, under the warm, golden lights of the sitting room, a soft heat settled across his face, completely giving him away.

You bit your bottom lip, a huge, satisfied grin spreading across your face.

—-

Fighting consciousness after a wild night at Rita’s—when Cassian would bribe you into shot competitions you always lost—was nothing compared to this. Hangovers were a joke. Nobody ever told you how exhausting it actually was to fight for your life while actively bleeding out.

"You fucking idiot," Azriel hissed.

His voice didn't have its usual icy calm; it was raw, jagged with a panic you’d never heard from him before. He dragged you behind a shattered stone wall for safety, his large, scarred hands slamming down onto your side. The agonizing pressure made you hiss, your heels digging into the dirt.

"When have I ever told you to jump in front of a lethal blow, you nuisance?" Azriel’s shadows were frantic, whipping around him in a chaotic storm as he desperately tried to stanch the flow of blood. "Look at me! Open your godsdamned eyes, for fuck's sake!"

You forced your heavy eyelids up, your vision blurring at the edges. Even covered in grime and terror, he was beautiful.

"I like the way you say my name," you whispered, a weak smile pulling at your lips. You could taste the copper coating your teeth. "Say it again."

"Mother above, shut up," he choked out, his hands trembling against your wound.

"But you like it... when I say shit like that."

"I fucking do!" He yelled, a fierce, desperate sound. "But you have a death wish, I swear to the Cauldron. Don't you dare close your eyes."

"One kiss before I die?" you coughed.

"You are not going to die!"

"So... no kiss?" you murmured, your lips pouting.

"You can get a kiss when you stop being so godsdamn reckless," he promised fiercely, leaning down so his forehead rested against yours, his breath hot and ragged.

Despite the horror of the blood on his hands, despite the battle raging around you, a stark, unmistakable heat bloomed along his cheekbones, vivid against his pale skin. He couldn't hide it, no matter how hard he tried.

You were going to be the death of him, surely—if you didn't survive this first.

—-

Azriel was hunched over a stack of reports. His eyes were intensely focused on the text, yet his shadows were deeply restless.

"You're staring," he said, stating it as a simple matter of fact without even looking up from the papers.

"I am," you replied calmly, cradling a warm cup of coffee in your hands.

He let out a quiet sigh, but the faint ghost of a smile lingered on his lips. You strolled over to where he sat, leaning over his shoulder under the pretense of being deeply curious about his work. At your proximity, his shadows darted toward his ears, then splattered down across the floorboards, a few brave tendrils winding playfully around your ankles.

His massive wings widened slightly, twitching in a sudden flash of tension.

"You're standing really close," he murmured.

"Yeah? Are you gonna move?" You raised an eyebrow, looking down at him expectantly as you took a slow, deliberate sip of your coffee.

Azriel snorted, finally looking up to meet your gaze. His expression was calm and cool, but not entirely collected—a faint, telltale color was spreading across his cheekbones, subtle but impossible to ignore.

Yet, when he spoke, his voice didn't waver a bit. "You know exactly what you're doing to me, don't you?"

Your heart skipped a beat.

"I could ruin you," you countered, your voice dropping, trying to hold your ground.

Azriel’s smile softened into something devastatingly handsome. "I know."

And just like that, under the weight of his unyielding gaze, he managed to make you blush at your own game.

————————————————————————

Contents -

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ One | Starlight in Spring | 2.8k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Two | Old Wounds | 3.1k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Three | Where Worlds Collide | 2.4k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Four | Roots in the Rainbow | 2.9k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Five | Consequences | 3.1k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Six | Reaching Back | 2.1k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Seven | Begin Again | 2.1k words

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ Eight | Starlight in Night | 2.3k words

ACOTAR Masterlist

A/n - This series will include content warnings at the start of each chapter, so please be sure to read them before continuing.

Theo and Winter's book from the Chestnut Springs series was one of my absolute favourites, and it definitely helped inspire this fic. I'm a sucker for the secret child trope, the whole "learning each other again" arc is always so sweet!!

This time the child is a boy (since in "Starlight" we already got our baby girl, Velaria!). I thought it would be fun to explore the father–son dynamic with Rhys this round :)

As the night swept away from around you, you turned, finding that Rhys was already gone as you twisted. A simple drop off, that had been it, and the dark and stars were swallowing him once again. You couldn't blame him, it was the middle of the night, and he was practically falling asleep at his desk when you’d found him. You were almost falling asleep where you stood.

Light still filled the rooms, spilling out into the inky darkness between pale pillars, and you followed the muffled voices through to the dining room. As you entered, two heads snapped up from the table, matching smiles painting across their faces as they took you in. Cassian and Nesta were sitting at the table, a half-eaten board of cheese and crackers, two empty wine bottles and a third broken into, cards scattered around them. 

“You’re home early!” Nesta perked up, and you shrugged, dropping your bag down from your shoulder to sit at your feet as you wandered over. Leaning your hip on the table, the yawn threatening to break free from you was hardly contained. 

“I worked hard to get it done quicker, you know how I hate going away for too long.” You truly did, the worst part about your job was the days away on end on missions, too silent and too lonely on missions as you spent time away from your family. 

“That’s how I trained ya’.” Cassian winked, your brows raising at him as you reached out to pluck a cracker and a slice of cheese from the platter, nibbling on the end of it. 

“How you trained me?” You flicked a loose piece of cracker at him, and it bounced off his forehead, crumbling into pieces that rained down onto his lap as his mate snickered. 

“Alright, how we trained each other.” His amendment was good enough, you were too tired to argue anything else, and he beamed at the nod you gave. Nesta chuckled again, smirking as she laid down another card on the set-up before you both. Cassian took it in, eyes widening a fraction, and then he let out a filthy curse under his breath. Nesta kicked his shin under the table, but the prideful expression only grew at his frustration. 

Swallowing down the snack, you leaned over his shoulder, examining his card through sleep-blurred eyes and an exhaustion-muddled mind. You pointed to the King of Hearts, and he was quick to lay it down. After a half-second, Nesta was letting out an equally terrible curse and Cassian kicked her ankle this time. She kicked back. 

“How are you still beating us at this game when you can barely stand up?” Your friend was not happy, her brows pulling tight as she concentrated harder on the strategy game before herself. 

“Nesta’s just mad because now in one move, I’m winning!” She stuck her tongue out at you and Cassian. “There’s some tea in the kitchen, go get a mug and go to bed. You look exhausted.”

“Just what every girl wants to hear. Always the charmer, Cass.” Despite it all, you leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of his head as one arm wrapped around your waist to squeeze you to his side in a hug, eyes never leaving the cards. You shifted, kicking your bag to the other side of the table and pressing a matching kiss to the top of Nesta’s head. She puckered her lips and blew a kiss back, equally focused. Scooping up your bag and throwing it over one sore shoulder, you tried not to groan. 

“Goodnight, you two.”

“Night!” They sang in unison as you walked away, headed to the kitchen as a pot of hot tea called your name. “Y’know, for that comment before, you’ll never have enough moves to win later tonight, now.”

You smirked at their conversation as it faded into the background. The kitchen smelled like brewed herbs that made the cloudy tiredness of your head only thicken, your eyes feeling so heavy you could fall asleep where you stood. Grabbing two mugs from the top shelf, you poured hot tea into both, inhaling the streams of swirling steam and feeling a little tension melt from your body. 

A shower, that's what you needed before you could sleep. You were stiff and sore and achy, and a hot shower would release all of that before you could get a good night’s sleep. Maybe the whole day’s sleep as well. You’d need it.

Making your way back through the corridors, every step closer and closer to your mate made your heart swell, feeling as though it was going to burst right out of your heart. Though you’d never put your walls up against him, you both knew that the bond had to stay quiet and cold and borderline dead when you were on missions, and one of your favourite parts of coming home was getting to feel it come back to life, feeling your chest spark back to life and the warmth of his love lighting you up.

Currently, the feeling inside of your chest was utter content relaxation, steady and soft and barely there. Not the usual influx of emotions, passionate and strong and heady like usual, the kind you got when he was tired, asleep, or drunk. Your suspicions were only confirmed as you used your elbow to open the door quietly, the door scraping across soft carpet to reveal the large bedroom you shared. 

Laying on the huge Illyrian-accommodating bed, spread out across the mattress was your lover, wings folded away behind his back as he sat nestled among the piles of pillows. Plump lips parted, he was taking steady breaths, hair messy and glasses askew across his face. He was most definitely asleep, his shadows were practically motionless and they spread out across the carpet to all corners of the room, fading back to the places the candlelight didn’t reach as he had no use for them. He didn’t even flinch when the door clicked shut. 

Putting down your bag, it was abandoned to simply be sorted tomorrow instead, and the two mugs were left on the countertop by the door. Kneeling down, your knees ached as you undid the laces on your boots, taking off your boots one-by-one and flexing your toes, wiggling them now that they were free. Placing them by the much larger pair sitting by the door, the image made you smile. You hang your jacket on the coat rack next to his, and padded near-silently across the room with one hot-ceramic mug in hand to get your robe. 

Azriel didn’t stir, not as you got undressed, or put on your robe, not even as you brushed the hair away from his forehead as you leaned over him. The curl fell back down over the rim of his glasses, and you chuckled at the untameable hair. Lifting them off of his face gently, he let out a particularly rough sigh, nose scrunching as you took the glasses away, folding them up and putting them on the bedside table, atop the book he was currently working his way through. 

No shirt, only a pair of black boxers as he’d obviously fallen asleep halfway through his evening plans. Golden skin mottled with pink scars and tattoos and the occasional hidden mole. He was like artwork, a pretty mess all for you. Bed-rumpled hair, pouty lips and candlelight flickering through the room and making every hard line and dip of his body seem emphasised. 

Gods, he was a work of art. 

He was your work of art. Your love, your mess, your man to take care of.

Next, you gathered up the papers scattered around him and his pens, clearing everything from the covers to the messy surface of his desk, and making a note to get him to tidy it up tomorrow before he got stressed. The curl was back, and you brushed it away, leaving a kiss on his forehead before it fell right back. He was so beautiful, but without those stress lines marring his pretty smile and his brows pulled tight together, he was ethereal. Taking a moment to appreciate it, you ran your finger along one cheekbone, and down the bridge of his nose.

“I love you.”

He huffed a little in his sleep, like his soul had heard yours. Pulling the covers up from the other side of the bed, your side, you cleared them away, before scooping your arms up underneath his body. With a grunt and a strain that ricocheted through your entire body, you rolled him over, all six-foot-five of Illyrian goodness until he was flopping onto his stomach, cheek pressed into the new pillow and he shuffled to pull it closer to his chest subconsciously. 

He was tense, you could tell from the still-tight tuck of his wings to his back, crumpled from how he’d fallen asleep, and the taut muscles along his body. With a hand settling along mole-speckled skin between his shoulder blades, you rubbed lightly in circles, pressure building as you lowered along his spine. Like magic, as they always did, his wings drooped dramatically, spreading out along the bed and filling the space, his entire body all but melting into the bed, a trick spot on his body that always released everything he was holding onto. 

Such a burst of love exploded within your chest that your throat felt tight and your eyes almost watered, and you rubbed at your chest, trying to contain the feeling within you lest it wake him up. It would be something he’d never let you live down if you woke him up being too in love with him. Your cheeks ached from the smile on your face, but you could live with that.

You were tempted to say screw it all, to crawl into bed beside him, tuck yourself under one of those wings, under one of his arms, to kiss at his jaw and cheeks until he woke up and tugged you close. You could feel the warmth of his body, the way his legs would tangle with your own and the bump of his heart against his chest that would match your own beat for beat. You trembled a little, arms wrapping around yourself as you took a deep breath. 

No. If you didn’t have a hot shower now, you’d be locked up and tense all week, and you hated that feeling. If you weren’t going to stretch it all out, you at least had to shower. Plus, you were pretty sure there was still mud in your hair and sweat coating your body. Taking your mug of tea with you after tucking the blankets up and around his body, you made your way to the bathroom. 

It was too bright, even with only one faelight lit, and you bit back a groan at the glare of pearly white tiles and marble countertops. Stripping off the robe and leaving it on the hook on the back of the half-closed door, you turned on the shower, leaving it to heat up as steam began pouring out. Another swig of tea, and you were untangling your hair from the right braids you wore to keep it contained and out of your face while you worked. 

The rest of the bathroom felt cold as steam swirled out, surrounding you in delicate twists the way shadows normally would, affectionate and sweet and loving. The warmth they offered was much like that of Azriel’s touch. The sooner you were showered and clean, the sooner you were curling up beside him in bed. 

That was the only motivation you had for stepping under the stream of water, eyes closing as you let the warmth pour over you, soaking you from head to toe and washing away the awful grime and dirt that felt like it had been building on your skin for years. It eased a sigh from you, your body finally slumping from the tight lines it held, your arms feeling heavy as they scrubbed at your hair, washed off your body, conditioned and cleaned until you felt brand-new once again. 

As your face tipped back up into the water, heat beating down onto you, arms snaked around your waist. You jumped a little, and Azriel, silent as always, plastered himself to your back as he climbed into the shower with you. Your hands fell to muscle-bound forearms which were sealed around your waist, squeezing lightly as he pressed a kiss to the side of your head. 

Turning in his tight hold, his crossed arms fell to sit in the small of your back instead, your cheek pressing to his chest, arms wrapping around him equally as tightly as water now poured down your back instead. You didn’t need to speak, to say anything, the calming feel of one calloused hand running up and down your back was more than enough. His own cheek came down to rest on the top of your head, chest inflating with a deep breath underneath you, brushing the top of your head as he exhaled. 

Shaking out his wings, water droplets bounced off of them, flying out and spattering across the tiles, the mirror, and the floor, before they were curling protectively around you, blocking out some of the harsh light you were squinting against. You stroked the bond within your chest appreciatively, and he nudged his nose against your temple in return. Never one for many words, but he always managed to make you feel like the centre of his world. 

You lingered a while longer, it could have been minutes or hours, you lost track of time while clinging to him, before he reached out to switch off the shower behind your body. Retracting one wing at a time, he pulled back, stepping out of the cubicle and running a fluffy towel over his body, before turning to face you. Reaching out, he cleaned down one leg at a time, drying you off as you balanced on his shoulders, before he was drying his way up. Fluffy cotton that made you dream of your bed, and he wrapped it around your shoulders, guiding you to the sink. 

He tugged his boxers back on, pulling wet strands of hair over your shoulders and squeezing them dry with the towel as you began to slowly apply skincare. He reached out, picking up your abandoned mug and sniffling at the contents, humming appreciatively and taking a swig. His eyes were closer to shut than open, much like your own, night hanging outside and tempting you both back into bed. Even the sky was dark tonight, clouds hanging overhead, as though even the stars were sleeping tonight. 

Tugging at the damp strands and separating them out, he combed through, and rubbed oils and products through your hair as he went, until they were smooth and clean and you had one less job to do. As soon as he had finished, he was leaning in, pressing a kiss to your neck, face burying into the crook as you leaned back into him. 

“Shall we go to bed now?”

“Mhm.” Muffled by a yawn you tried to cover, the words broke off into a sharp giggle as Azriel leaned down to scoop you up under your legs, one hand supporting your back as he carried you back to the bedroom. The lights went out automatically behind you, and only the golden glow of a candle almost burned out was left flickering to light you both up. He was smirking tiredly, and he nuzzled at your cheek, pressing a kiss there as he walked. 

You almost made it, your arms looped around his neck to play with the curls at the base of his neck, when he stumbled. Tripping over his own feet as his feet fluttered, the two of you tumbled down onto the bed, your body splaying out across it before he landed on top of you, only his wings bracing his fall, and your laughter was mixed together as you tangled in the sheets.

“So elegant, spymaster.” He only huffed at your teasing, dragging himself up weakly and resting his cheek against your chest, the weight of him pressing you into the bed, a weight you’d missed so terribly while you were away. 

“You’re home early.”

“What can I say, I missed you.” He smiled against your skin, pressing a kiss to the spot above your heart. 

“You should have told me, sent a message, or something. I’d have stayed up for you.”

“I didn’t want you to stay up, I want you to rest. Gods know you need it, sometimes.” If there was one single flaw Azriel had, it was that he tended to push himself to the limits whenever constantly, with no concern for his health. You’d known him to go days without real sleep before almost collapsing, and maybe he was working on it now, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still have rough patches. Your fingers dragged through his hair again. “I’m sorry I woke you, I tried to be quiet.”

“You were.” Another kiss to your collarbone, and he reached up until his face was resting within your neck. “I woke up because I felt you. I always know when you're near me, my love. I missed you, too.”

Your cheeks warmed, and it never ceased to amaze you how he could always make you feel like those first few months of your relationship, no matter how many years passed. “What were you working on?”

He jolted slightly, as though he’d fallen asleep again during that lull in the conversation, and he sniffled as he rose back to consciousness. Your hands moved from his hair, rubbing along his shoulders and his arms where they wrapped around you, a silent apology. “Hm?”

“I just asked what you were working on, that’s all.” Your whisper dropped even lower, your nails running lightly along his skin and he shuddered happily at the feeling, delicate scratches making goosebumps rise. A bloom of bliss unfurled in your chest, his hand coming up to rub over the exact spot, like he knew just where his feelings settled in your heart. 

“Oh.. just some of your mission reports, so you don’t have to do as much paperwork.” His shoulders moved in what you could only assume was a shrugging motion, diluted drowsily. “I did what I could, but you still have to do all the brief ‘n’ stuff.”

Your smile was beyond your control, hidden in his hair as you pressed your face into the top of his head, sighing happily at him. As you kissed his hair, he yawned. 

“Gods, I hate being away from you.” The words were carried on the happiest of tones, a kind of honey-sweet voice he only ever brought out in moments like these. Laced with tenderness and vulnerability and love, it was the kind of drug you’d become addicted to from the very first time. 

“I’m home now.”

Azriel hummed, nodding. “Now stay forever.”

“What about your missions, huh? When you go again?” Azriel’s head shook this time, or as best it could with his face in your neck, and one scarred hand came out to adjust your grip on him, guiding one hand back up to his hair not-so-subtly. You did as asked, fingers tangling in messy onyx locks, rubbing at his scalp once again. 

“No. No more missions. We’ll just live in this bed forever.”

“Yeah? What about food and drink?” These were the moods you loved with your mate, when the last of his walls came down, when the silly side of himself, the childish side he’d never been able to indulge in came out. Playful and loving and needy, it was your favourite part of his soul to have unlocked. 

“We have that half-drunk tea in the bathroom. We’ll survive.”

You could only smile, eyes rolling fondly, and silence took over once again. Dragging himself up, he lay down by your side instead now, legs tangling with yours, a wing settling across your body as his fingers found your hips, settling over the bare skin and sliding around to sit at the top of your ass. His large hands stretched out, covering your lower back too, tugging you closer until your chests were pressed together. 

You tilted your head enough to blow out the candle beside the bed, two of his fingers quickly turning your face back to him, and he leaned in, a soft kiss pressed to your lips. It was the final piece, slotting back to you as you came home, to him, to love, your lips working slowly together in a kiss that said it all. 

Welcome home.

I missed you. 

I love you.

A whole conversation without words as your hand sat on his cheek, as his wing settling over your body just the way you’d wanted it, and you snuggled into the feeling of him. He pulled back, and you chased closer, catching his lips once again, his sigh spanning across your skin as his face twisted. His tongue smoothed slowly over your lower lip, begging for access, pleading for more, and you let him. 

Slow, sweet, sensual. Every part of your body touched some part of him outside, as his very presence filled you from your heart, inside to out. He grunted, your hand smoothing down his chest, muscles tensing under your fingers, until you were both panting, pulling away for desperate drags of breath into your lungs. 

Your thumb swept over his lips, wiping away the kiss as he smiled, nudging back in until you were nose to nose. 

Silence filled the room as soon as darkness did, only his steady deep breaths and the occasional rustle of his wings when he twitched to break the all-encompassing quiet.

It was you who flinched this time, when he spoke; “D’you see Cass and Nesta on your way in?”

“I did.” You couldn't help it, leaning in to place another kiss on his lips, another, starving for his love as he chuckled, squeezing your hip in warning. You were both tired, you were both almost falling asleep, and if you kept it up, neither of you would see a wink before the sun was rising. The second squeeze was a promise, a promise as his hand smoothed up your waist, thumb running under your bare breast without going further, a promise that tomorrow night you’d get everything and more. “They were playing cards.”

Your throat was raspy and cracked, and it only helped that his was equally affected - deep and rumbly - and he replied. “They’re practising for game night next week.”

“We’re still gonna’ kick their asses.”

You had long since lost count of time, with nothing but darkness surrounding you and no hope for any light to work its way into this godforsaken pit, days were passing by without your knowledge. It had been years at this point, how many, you didn’t know but long enough for the world outside to be a distant echo and for your presence to have faded into a pitiful whisper.

Years passed by with only the reminders of your old life to keep you company; you often dreamed of those times your brother carved out time in his day to braid your hair or when you would both jump out of the windows late at night to fly over Velaris together. You’d dream of your mother, how she’d let you sit and ‘help’ her make dresses or that time you were so outraged when you were learning how to fly and she pushed you straight from the balcony of the House of Wind so that you had no choice but to fly.

Your days were filled with flashes of them all; your mother, Rhysand, Mor and Cassian.

You wondered how much of life had moved on without you.

Was Rhysand High Lord yet?

If he was, how had your father died?

Had Rhysand found his mate?

Had he made her High Lady like you both always spoke about?

In those extra difficult times that your control slipped even further, those memories of the Shadowsinger would linger the harshest.

You did not like thinking of how much his life had moved on without you.

Rhysand and Feyre stood together in the kitchen of the townhouse, looking through the window into the garden where Elain was tending to the flower garden and Azriel was sprawled out nearby, sunning his wings.

“Do you think the Cauldron can make mistakes with mates?” Feyre asked him, a look of confused anguish on her face.

Rhysand looked towards his mate, surprise dancing in his eyes at her question. “Nobody truly knows what makes the cauldron put two people together. They’re not always perfectly compatible, my own parents were examples of that, they never truly loved each other. Others, like us, are lucky to find love with their mate.”

Feyre continued looking out into the garden. “Why couldn’t the cauldron have made Azriel, Elain’s mate, instead of Lucien. Lucien is good but they look good together,” Feyre pointed out to where the Shadowsinger was still sprawled on the grass.

A pulse of pain pulled through their bond causing Feyre to snap her eyes back to Rhys. She was surprised to see the pain in his eyes, it wasn’t just any pain. It was the sort of pain that lingered and dwelled, a grief that would forever remain no matter how much time passed but there was also a subtle protectiveness in his eyes that could almost be missed.

Feyre was confused.

Rhysand swallowed a lump in his throat before speaking. “Do not mistake Azriel’s kindness towards your sister as affection. He is spending time with her because I ordered him too, to try and understand her powers. You’re reading into something that isn’t there.” His voice was stern but not unkind.

Feyre’s brows furrowed at his words. “It would be an honour for Azriel to find his mate, with anyone.”

“Azriel does not want a mate, Feyre.” The sheer confidence in Rhysand’s words only confused her even more.

“But why would he not want a mate? I thought everyone dreams of having one.” She questioned, looking out at Azriel’s figure in the garden.

She thought Azriel of all people would want a mate.

“Azriel has already had his great love,” Rhysand said. “No mating bond could ever live up to that for him. There are loves that even the cauldron cannot compete with.”

“What?” Feyre asked, shock taking over her face. “Who?”

That pain appeared in Rhys’ eyes again, a quick flash but it was there. “I meant it when I said I have no secrets to keep from you but not all stories are solely mine to tell. I am not going to tell you Azriel’s secrets.”

Feyre nodded silently. She understood, it didn’t diminish her curiosity but she would not pry for answers that weren’t hers to have.

Azriel’s footsteps were silent as always, shadows licking at his heals and fingertips as he walked towards Rhys’ office.

Not bothering to knock, his gloved hand unlatched the handle as he stepped inside. “You called, brother?”

Rhys was sat back in his chair, unsurprisingly dressed in his formals but the conflicted look on his face ruffled his demeanour. “I’d like to preface by saying you haven’t done anything wrong, my mate simply is too nosey for her own good and sees things she hopes are there rather than reality at times.”

Azriel’s face remained at an impasse other than the slight narrowing of his golden, hazel eyes.

Rhysand sighed. “Feyre is under the impression that you and Elain may make for a better match than her and Lucien.”

The control Azriel had on himself immediately slipped as he stepped back, eyes widening in shock, fists clenching by his sides as his shadows fluttered around him. “No. Rhys, I would never-”

“I know” Rhys interrupted. “I am not accusing you of doing anything, Az. I just thought it best to let you know.”

Azriel shifted uncomfortably at his words. “You know there is no one else, there never has been and there will never be anyone else.” He insisted, wanting his brother to believe him.

Rhysand’s gaze softened. “I know. I have never doubted that even though it would be okay if eventually-”

“No!” Azriel’s cut him off, “There will never be another.”

“Okay,” Rhys conceded. “I just wanted to let you know, Azriel.”

Azriel nodded his head, not hesitating in taking his exit, leaving Rhys there in a suffocating silence of loss.

“You’re distracted,” Cassian dropped his stance, looking towards Feyre intently.

His High Lady sighed in frustration, leaning back against the ropes of the sparring ring.

“What’s on your mind?” He asked.

Feyre pursed her lips in contemplation before relenting. “Did you three actually used do things in the same room as each other?”

Cassian barked out a deep laugh at her question. “That’s what’s on your mind?”

Feyre shrugged sheepishly.

Cassian shook his head, a large smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, Rhys and I did. It would be a bit weird and incredibly uncomfortable for us all if Azriel did.”

Feyre tilted her head curiously, “Why?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be very nice for Rhys to see his best friend having his way with the girl he loves more than anything, would it?” He said, as though it was obvious. “Besides, Azriel has way too much respect for him to do that anyways.”

Feyre’s eyes widened in shock but there was also a sickening feeling of jealously bubbling in her stomach. “So, Azriel and Rhys loved the same girl?”

Cassian, way too focused now on stretching to acknowledge how his words had been interpreted. “We all love her but those two always have and always will love her most. She’s their number one girl.”

Number one girl.

Feyre did not like the sound of that at all. She hated it and she hated herself even more because of the jealously that gnawed at her. “They didn’t hate each other for that?” She questioned.

Cassian shook his head, mid lunge. “Azriel had no reason to hate Rhys. It was difficult for Rhys to accept in the beginning and Azriel understood that but Rhys saw how much love was there, it was impossible to miss so who was he to stand in the way of that?”

Feyre stood in thought for a moment. “So, Rhys loved her first?”

Cassian laughed. “Of course he did. It’s not really a competition though, is it?”

She didn’t answer him, she simply stood there, thoughts swirling.

Feyre hated herself, she hated that she could not stop thinking about this girl who must have been something really special for both Rhys and Azriel to both love.

She’s their number one girl.

No matter how hard she had tried to not think about it, she couldn’t help it.

“What’s on your mind, Feyre darling?” Rhys’ smooth voice slipped through the silence of their bedroom.

She looked up at him from her place at the edge of their bed. “It’s nothing,” she stated simply.

Rhys frowned at her dismissal, placing his watch on his bedside table before walking to stand in front of her. He pressed a palm to the side of her face. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”

She sighed, mostly in frustration at herself, partially in his insistence to talk about it. “Where you in love with Azriel’s mate?”

The utter bewilderment that appeared on Rhys’ face made her immediately regret her words and watch to shrink back in on herself. “What!?”

Feyre shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she tried to pull away but Rhys kept his hand on the side of her face, steadying her.

“Azriel doesn’t have a mate,” he told her, utter confusion lacing his words.

Feyre shrugged, “Were you in love with the same girl then?”

“I’m so confused, no?” Rhys said, having absolutely no idea where she could’ve gotten this from. “Where have you gotten this from?”

Feyre looked at him, frustration beginning to build within her. “I asked Cassian about how you used to do things in the same room, he said you and him did but not Azriel because it wouldn’t be nice for him to be pleasuring a girl that you loved! He said she was yours and Azriel’s number one girl.”

Rhys pulled his hand from her face and placed it over his mouth. The confusion in his eyes had faded into a an amusing sparkle as his shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.

“What!?” Feyre huffed. “What are you laughing at!?”

Rhysand released a full deep chuckle at her frustrations. “Cassian is an idiot and you are utterly beautiful when you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous!” She argued.

Rhys simply raised an eyebrow at her, completely unconvinced. “You’ve completely misinterpreted Cassian’s words, Feyre darling. It is still not my story to tell but I can promise you that Azriel and I have never been in love with the same girl.”

It had been five centuries since the disappearance of you and your mother and Azriel had never been the same.

Long before he met you, Azriel had learned what it meant to live in loneliness with nothing but his shadows for company but loneliness in response to your absence was never quite something anyone could become familiar with.

It was an endless void of nothing. Normally the thread of silence would at least end somewhere; a place where you simply got used to the feeling of someone not being there; but not with you.

It had been five centuries since your last laugh and that entire time Azriel has spent sleeping in your room. The room that sat right next to his own where your beds were pushed against the shared wall so even in your own beds you would be sleeping as close as you could get to each other.

It remained exactly how you left it, the same books sat on the nightstands, the same jewellery littered across a dressing table and a beautiful dress of deep blue with glittering silver stars on the bodice hung from the door of the closet, preparing to be worn for a day that never came.

Each morning that Azriel woke and got ready for the day, his last words to the House of Wind always remained the same. Leave it exactly how she left it, please.

The House always listened.

Whilst Azriel no longer slept in his own room, it had changed. The walls that were once a basic white had been transformed into a purple so unique it could only reflect the colour of your eyes.

In those rare moments that Azriel was able to relax away from the world, he would lay in his bed and stare at the walls of his room and whilst they could never reflect the light in a sparkle the way your own eyes could, the paint would simply have to do.

The winter chill of the Illyrian Steppes bit harshly into your cheeks as you ran through the thick snow into the forests surrounding the Windhaven camp.

The males were awful here, brutal even but even they knew to leave the daughter of the High Lord alone and so you were free to wander without the risk of your wings being torn from your back.

The trees created sanctuary for you here, as you weaved in between them you thought of your brother, Rhys and how quickly he would lose his mind once he found you gone.

A deep rooted feeling of being watched suddenly stirred in your stomach causing you to pause. It was the most subtle weight you had ever felt and yet you could not help but feel it as it settled into your bones.

You cast a quick glance up into the branches of the trees above you, where their leaves and twigs clashed and combined with one another, it took a moment for you to spot them but eventually you did.

Within a particular tall tree that was shaped in all groves and turns towards the top, deep within the shadows is where you saw him.

A male.

Sitting, observing.

“Hello,” you greeted softly.

No answer.

“What are you doing up there?” You asked.

The shadows fluttered and twitched at first before melting away into a black mist behind the males shoulders, revealing his face.

“Oh,” you whispered, taking in the hard expression of his face. He had hair of a dark midnight sky, eyebrows just a shade lighter that were furrowed deeply, shadowing his eyes that, against his dark features, seemed to glow golden when they narrowed towards you. He was all sharp lines and tensed muscles.

He shifted slightly in his place against the branches of the tree before stepping forward and allowing himself to gracefully drop down in front of you, merely inches away as he stared down into your eyes.

“How did you see me?” He asked, his voice was rough and deep for his age, possibly a couple years older than you, but his tone was steady.

“I didn’t,” you admitted. “I felt your eyes on me.”

It was then that you took notice of just how tightly his wings were pulled in at his back, a complete contrast to yours that were much more relaxed; pulled in just enough to protect them but let out enough that you didn’t have to consciously hold them in all the time, “you’ll get back pain holding them in like that,” you told him, pointing briefly at his wings.

They twitched in response, shadows fluttering wildly around the tips of his wings. It wasn’t a purposeful movement, that you could tell.

“I can’t control them,” He admitted to you.

Your brows furrowed, “what do you mean?”

“I cannot fly,” he said. “I never learned how to control them.”

You stepped back at his words. “You can’t fly!?” You spluttered in outrage. “Why can’t you fly? Are you injured?”

He shrugged in a way that showed this wasn’t a big deal to him, as though it was normal. “I wasn’t allowed outside,” he stated simply.

You frowned, the idea of not being allowed outside was unfathomable to you. “You weren’t allowed?”

“My father didn’t let me,” his words remained even, unaware of the turmoil that was stirring in your gut the more he spoke, a turmoil that you couldn’t quite explain.

“Why?” You asked.

“Because I am a bastard,” he said, his tone empty and detached, as though he had long since accepted that was all he was reduced to.

You did not like how he seemed to convinced that that’s all he was worth.

“You’re a Shadowsinger,” you pointed out, remembering old tales of myths and legends you had read before. “Those are very rare.”

The shadows clinging to him fluttered and preened at the tips of his wings and over his shoulders as though they understood your words.

Azriel nodded in response, feet scuffing into the dirt often forest uncomfortably at your words.

“That’s so cool!” You whispered in awe, the admiration you felt was completely authentic but you were also hoping it comforted him a bit.

He looked at you, the only hint of confusion on his face was the soft crease between his browns and the subtlest tilt of his head. “You’re not scared?” He asked.

“Of what?” You laughed, as though the idea was absurd.

“Of me,” he raised one of his gloved hands, tapping his index finger into his chest.

“Have you given me a reason to be scared?”

He paused at your question, internally baffled at this entire interaction. “I suppose not,” he muttered to himself, the idea of you not being scared simply just from his presence was beyond him.

“What’s your name?” You abruptly changed the subject.

He was silent for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell you or not. “Azriel.”

“Azriel,” you repeated softly, testing how it sounded. “That’s a beautiful name,” you told him.

His shadows twitched, his wings almost flinched at your complement, Azriel shifted uncomfortably.

“Do you want to be my friend, Azriel?”

“I’ve never had a friend before,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”

You pursed your lips in response, looking around the forest floor before speaking. “I’ve never really had a friend either, there’s my brother, Rhys, but he doesn’t count. Do you have any siblings?”

Azriel tensed at your question, his entire body stiffening, hands clenching in his gloves. “No, it’s just me.”

“Well,” you began, “I’d be honoured to be your first friend, if you’ll be mine?”

You were beyond confusing to Azriel, the first person besides his mother to not look at him with fear or disgust, to look at him and just see a person.

Azriel did not reply verbally but he didn’t need to, you didn’t mind and so he simply nodded in response earning a beaming smile from you.

“Spread your wings out wide,” you instructed softly.

“They’re heavy,” Azriel muttered, wings spreading in stuttering movements, face twisting slightly as he concentrated on holding them.

Your eyes ran along his wings now that they weren’t tucked in painfully right, taking in the large span of them, they fluttered under your gaze, completely against Azriel’s control.

“That’s because your back muscles aren’t used to holding their weight, we’ll need to strengthen them,” you explained, eyes snapping away from his wings, towards his own hazel eyes instead.

“How do we strengthen them?” He asked.

“Exercises, most are trained from babies to use their wings so it comes a lot more naturally but we can do it together.” You smiled at him encouragingly.

You knew this was hard for him, you knew he thought he wasn’t worth your help and you knew that this entire situation was uncomfortable for him but you wanted to help him and you liked spending time with him.

“I struggled with flying at first,” you admitted, hoping it would comfort him in some way.

His eyes stopped glancing to the trees around you, now focused. “Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah, Rhys was flying before he could walk but I was too scared to do it. I didn’t trust myself. I kept imagining my wings just not working one day and falling to my death.”

Azriel shifted subtly, shadows restless. “How did you do it?”

“I had no choice,” you said. “One day my mother and I were looking at the stars from the balcony of our home and she just pushed me off, I had no choice but to trust my wings or fall and I flew for the first time that day.”

Azriel’s eyes widened. “She pushed you off the balcony!?”

You smiled widely. “Yeah, I was so angry, I didn’t speak to her for a week but it worked. I won’t be pushing you off ledges until you can hold your wings properly though.”

You could detect the subtle relief that reflected in the golden hazel hue of Azriel’s eyes, as though he expected you to be able to push him off of any ledge and force him to command his wings that didn’t seem willing to answer him yet.

At some point, you will take great joy in pushing him off a cliff.

Not yet though.

Only when he was ready.

“Where does my starlight keep running off to?” Your mother’s gentle voice filtered through your ears as she brushed through your hair carefully.

You were silent for a moment, contemplating whether to reveal your secret. “I made a friend.”

You felt the comb pause briefly against your head before it continued. Your mother hummed absentmindedly. “Did you? Do I get to meet this friend?”

You pursed your lips in contemplation, an unexplainable feeling of protectiveness surging through your body. “He’s shy, he doesn’t like being around people,” you told her.

You missed the amused smile that appeared on your mother’s face, no doubt intrigued at the strange protectiveness that you had for your age. “He?” She asked, almost teasingly.

You huffed in response but a smile grew on your face that you couldn’t stop. “Yes,” you said strongly before your tone shifted to pride. “He’s my friend, I’m teaching him to fly.”

Your mother paused entirely, turning your body to face her own causing your eyes to meet her own that held the same violet hue she passed down to you and your brother. “Teaching him to fly? How old is this friend?”

Your shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Rhys’ age. His father never let him outside so he can’t fly.”

Worry clouded your mother’s face at your words. “Is he a good boy?”

A bright smile overtook your face at her question. “He’s the best! He’s very quiet but he still speaks to me and he listens to all of my complaining and his shadows play with my hair!”

“Shadows?” Your mother’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“He’s a Shadowsinger,” you whispered. “Those are very rare.”

“They are,” she repeated. “Don’t tell your father about him, starlight.”

“I would never,” you swore, your voice demonstrating the dramatic outrage of a child who couldn’t fathom sharing information like that to your father. “Mama?”

“Yes, starlight?” She asked, turning you back around so she could start braiding your hair.

“Don’t tell Rhys, okay?” You told her, your brother could get way too protective, it was embarrassing.

“I would never tell Rhys, starlight. Or Cassian.” She promised.

“Definitely not Cassian.” You agreed.

“I’m not ready!” Azriel protested, warily looking over the edge of the cliff you had pretty much dragged him too.

“You are ready!” You argued. “You’ve got great control of your wings and your muscles are as strong as can be!”

Azriel shook his head, shadows darting around him, showing his nerves. “What if I fall?”

“Then I’ll catch you!” You replied simply.

“I’m too heavy for you to catch me!” He protested.

“You are not, I’m strong!” You argued, outraged at his accusation. “I’ll hold your hands?” You proposed, already reaching out towards his own gloved hands.

Azriel looked down at your outstretched hands, hesitation clear on his face, he really wasn’t sure about this but he did really want to be able to fly.

He relented, placing his hands in yours, earning himself one of your bright smiles, stars twinkling happily in your eyes.

Your wings fluttered slowly, not enough to lift you off the ground, just enough to encourage Azriel to copy your actions.

You slowly increased the force at which your wings beat, air building with the crevice of each controlled flap of the membrane.

Azriel copied your movements, his own wings much larger in comparison to any you’ve seen on other children your age, your own were quite big for a female Illyrian so young.

Azriel felt the change in gravity, the way his feet were itching to leave the ground on their own accord, as though his body was fully attuned and aware to what was currently happening even if it was unfamiliar.

“You’re doing it,” you whispered proudly, your own feet lifting off the ground before Azriel’s but your hands stayed in his as you remained stationary in the air, feet just slightly off the ground as you waited patiently for his own body to rise into the wind.

“You’re so close, just a bit more.” You encouraged him.

The second the air swept beneath Azriel’s feet for the first time, it felt as though his entire body was about to fall backwards as he had nothing to stand on but your hands tightened on his own, keeping him straight as he unsteadily rose with you, trying to focus on keeping his wings moving.

“It’ll come naturally the more you do it,” you told him. “You won’t even have to think about it.”

Azriel wasn’t so sure about that but as he felt the wind beneath his wings as he became airborne for the first time, with your hands holding his, he chose to believe you anyway.

“You’re flying Azriel!” Sheer joy and pride filled your face as you looked at him, he thought you looked beautiful like this.

The wind causing your hair to flutter around your face, eyes sparkling at the freedom that flying gave you and your smile took up your whole face as it always did.

Distracted by the sight of you in your element, Azriel lost focus of his wings causing him to quickly drop a few feet but your hands tightened on his just as his heart dropped in his chest out of panic.

He concentrated on beating his wings again, fluttering slightly higher than previously.

But even as he concentrated on flying, his mind was also on something else.

You had caught him, just like you said you would.

Wake. Wake. Wake.

Their hissing little whispers nudged you from unconsciousness. The cold concrete of the cave dug uncomfortably into your back. You groaned, shifting as your eyes opened, adjusting to the thick, clouded darkness you had been forced to endure for five centuries.

Another day it remained the same.

A sharp, slithering coldness nudged against your cheek, and again against your fingertips. You looked down in confusion, taking in the grey-black strands of darkness fluttering around your hands.

You raised your hands slightly, it was hard to see clearly but they resembled beings you had not seen in a very long time. The dark strands fluttered around your fingertips as you stared intently at them and in a movement so sharp, one lone sentient being jumped to your shoulder.

Your head snapped to the side as you looked at it, moving around, nestling into your clothes that had long since been reduced to scraps of fabric.

The beating beneath your chest stuttered as you stared at them.

Shadows.

They were shadows.

Master. Master. Master.

She hears us. She hears us.

They fluttered around you in a way that seemed to portray excitement.

Was that them talking?

“Azriel?” You whispered, broken yet that sick part of you still held a bit of hope.

Many years you had locked out memories of the Shadowsinger yet it never worked too well, you could never forget him and you would never forget the sentient beings that obeyed him either.

No.

They almost sounded like hisses.

“Not Azriel then.” You muttered. It did not surprise you, not really.

You didn’t understand.

“Another Shadowsinger?” You asked, it earned that same excited fluttering dance as before. Yes.

But who? You wondered.

It seemed they knew your thoughts too.

You. You.

Your face contorted into confusion. You weren’t a Shadowsinger.

You allowed yourself to think of Azriel again. Not of him exactly or the feeling of his love that had faded long ago but of his story.

Azriel had not been born a Shadowsinger.

How had Azriel become a Shadowsinger?

He had been locked in a dark cell for eleven years and had no choice but to find companionship within the darkness itself.

Oh.

“You’re my shadows.” You did not question this time.

Yes. They hissed again.

“But the faebane chains?” You wondered aloud.

“Shadows are not magic, they’re simply part of me.” Azriel had told you that before.

You studied them again, more intently this time and whilst they resembled the shadows of Azriel’s so very much there was the slightest hint of a difference; they weren’t just a grey-black, they had the slightest underlying tint of purple.

They truly were yours.

Release chains. They muttered, not to you, to themselves, fluttering around frantically.

“I can’t,” you whispered in long accepted defeat. “They won’t come off, someone else needs to do it.”

Your newly acquired shadows ignored you, muttering to themselves.

Shadowsinger will do it. Spymaster will do it.

But your energy was draining again, conscious slipping into darkness, your shadows slipping through the cracks of the cave without you knowing.

Azriel had been born alone and he would die alone.

He had accepted that was all life was made for him, there were those years he had you, moments were he thought he’d have you forever but you were taken, brutally slaughtered along with your mother in the spring court.

He had never and will never forgive himself for not being there to protect you. Truthfully he did not know how Rhysand could go on with life after that, not that his High Lord and brother didn’t deserve to live, he did, but how had grief not taken his sanity Azriel would never know.

He would never know how Rhys could look in the mirror and not see the shadows of his mother and sister, not when some days Azriel could not look into his eyes and see the very reflection of the young woman he lost, his woman.

It would forever just be Azriel and his shadows.

Another night that Azriel slept in your room alone, beneath your sheets, on the pillows you always hid that ridiculous stuffed bat beneath.

When he awoke this time though, it was different.

His shadows, usually fluttering lazily were muttering and batting around recklessly, their unease settling in Azriel’s chest, having the spymaster looking around the room carefully.

The only thing that seemed wrong were his shadows themselves, it was as though they were fighting each other?

Intruder. Intruder. They hissed, flying into each other as though they were in a sort of disorientated state. Azriel had never seen anything like it before.

Deep down, Azriel understood that there was no intruder in the House of Wind but he did not understand what they could be referring to.

The bond between himself and his shadows was strange. They told him things yes, but a lot of their communication came down to feelings, he felt their unease, their frustration, as though they were participating in an internal battle.

But why?

He sat up in your bed and observed them closely. He too, could see that there was something off but couldn’t quite put his mind to it.

Intruder. But where?

The shadows hissed at each other, floating around the room in distress, it was when the golden rays of the morning sunrise shone through the balcony window that he saw it.

His eyes, always so sharp, caught that difference in his shadows. Not his shadows, he concluded. Eyes widening, he reached out to that invisible thread and called his shadows back to him with a snap.

There it was.

A small cluster that did not return to him, a cluster of shadows that looked just the slightest different to his own. That underlying purple tint was not his.

He tried to reach out, tried to find that tether to them.

Nothing.

They did not seem threatening though.

They fluttered and danced around before him, as though they were trying to communicate with him but could not.

Help. His own shadows muttered.

“Help?” He questioned.

They plead help. They hissed into his ears. Another Shadowmaster. Trapped.

Azriel shook his head, he was the only shadowmaster.

No. They hissed, more stern this time, as though telling him he was wrong.

Azriel removed himself from your bed, pulling on his Illyrian leathers as quickly as possible, not even strapping his weapons to himself. Instead he simply grabbed Truthteller alone into its sheath.

He approached the bedroom door, turning to see if those other shadows would follow, they were.

He let himself out of the room, shadows, his and not his following behind closely, he barged into Rhys’ study causing the High Lord to jump, not that he would ever admit.

“Azriel?” Rhys greeted, looking up from his papers in barely concealed surprise. “A knock would be nice.”

“We have a problem.” Azriel simply responded earning Rhys’ full attention.

“What is it?”

Azriel held out a gloved hand and while Azriel had no means to communicate with these shadows, they understood him and gathered into his palm, fluttering into a rounded shape.

Rhys simply looked at them in confusion. “What am I looking at? New party trick?”

Azriel shook his head, face contorting as he studied them. “They’re not mine, I can’t communicate with them.”

“What?” Rhys uttered to himself.

“There’s another Shadowsinger out there,” Azriel responded, mostly to himself. “They communicate with my shadows but I can’t understand them myself.”

“Another Shadowsinger?” His High Lord mumbled, shaking his head. “No, you’re the only Shadowsinger alive.”

“Not anymore,” Azriel argued, his and the guest shadows beginning to flutter wildly in their own disagreement. “Apparently they’re trapped.”

Chained. His shadows corrected. Caved.

“Chained,” he spoke aloud.

“Perhaps for good reason,” Rhys argued, whilst Azriel was his brother and he trusted him beyond measures, he was well aware just how powerful Shadowsingers were, if this other Shadowsinger was locked away then perhaps it was because it was deserved.

Azriel shook his head, a sort of confused anguish taking over his features as he observed the shadows sitting in his palm. “They don’t feel threatening, or evil. They’re scared, pleading for help, for freedom.”

“How do you know they’re not pretending? That this other Shadowsinger hasn’t sent these here to play a ruse just to get their freedom?” Rhys asked.

The guest shadows in his palm shrunk down in defeat whilst his own fluttered in agitation around his shoulders and the tips of his wings.

She doesn’t know they’re here. She can’t control it yet.

Azriel listened to their whispers with widened eyes before looking at Rhys. “She cannot control them, this ability must be newly manifested, they came here on their own. Besides, shadows don’t work like that, they can’t fake feelings or emotions.”

“She?” Rhys sat up straighter in his chair at the newfound information.

“I can’t explain it, Rhys,” Azriel muttered, deep in thought. “I have this feeling that I need to free her, I don’t know why, it just feels right to.”

Those lone little shadows of yours clung to Azriel in the following days, against your knowledge. Azriel spent that time preparing himself for rescuing you, not that he knew it would be you he was rescuing, trying to gain as much information as he could through his own shadows translating messages back and forth with yours.

It was strange for Azriel, not only that there were sentient echoes of darkness that for some reason he could not communicate with but also knowing that somewhere out there, trapped and alone, there was another like him, another who could communicate with the darkness and melt into the shadows, even if it was a new manifestation.

The cave you were imprisoned in, he learned, was located somewhere in The Middle, because of course it was.

What other place would be sick enough to have trapped a person so long that the shadows had sought them out?

Trapped for centuries. The shadows had told him.

Bound by faebane chains, tormented by memories of a time that had long since faded.

Azriel, in all he had been through and in all his grief and terror over the years, could not imagine being trapped within the same four walls for hundreds of years.

He had barely lasted eleven, Rhys had hardly lasted fifty and yet out there, a poor woman had lasted hundreds of years, alone.

A woman of his kind.

The cave, as Azriel stood before it, was hardly a cave. It was more a carved hole in the ground, hidden by overgrown moss and shrubbery that even he, a spymaster, would have overlooked had he passed by without your shadows leading him to it.

He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to squeeze his overgrown body into it.

Your shadows shot forward like whips, diving into the underground cave, no doubt snapping back to you, even though your lack of control, they were drawn to you, desired to be close to your being.

Azriel crouched down, inspecting the gap in the ground, his own shadows fluttering around in agitation, some even darting ahead into the cave. He peeled off his outer layers that he strapped his weapons to, sending them down into the cave before him.

Risky, no doubt, but he felt no threat towards whatever presence was inside this cave, only an innocently, trapped Shadowsinger.

One that meant no harm, only desiring freedom.

He heaved himself through the gap, the concrete lining the underground cave scratching against his arms and shoulders as he dragged himself through, gravity doing most of the work, allowing him to drop down onto solid stone and rock.

It smelled awful; blood, dirt, faebane and a hell of a lot like someone had long since lost the will to live.

He saw the chains, loads of them, hanging from the ceiling, from the walls, even some bound to the ground with bolts.

Even as someone bound by shadows and member of the Night Court, Azriel could not see clearly in the darkness of this pit but his shadows led the way, they led him to your shadows.

Your shadows that covered just about every part of you, hiding you as though attempting to protect your presence from anyone who could possibly mean harm, leaving you just the image of a darkened, fuzzy blur.

“I will not harm her,” Azriel promised. “I only want to free her, take her back to the Night Court, help her heal and gain control.”

He saw the way they hesitated, how they debated whether they had made the right decision in finding him or not.

She trusted you. They whispered, confessed. His own shadows translating. Long time ago.

Azriel did not know what they meant by that. Had he known her once upon a time?

It was when they finally relented and made the decision to fade away from covering your body that Azriel, despite all the gore and torment he had witnessed in his life, felt like he was going to be sick as his eyes fell upon the battered figure of a young, fae woman.

His fae woman.

No. He shook his head, as though it would shake the sick illusion from his mind.

Yet you remained in his sight.

He knew that figure, that hair, those lashes. It has all haunted his every sleep and movement for the last five hundred years. The colour beneath your eyelids that he had drenched his walls in, that he would look upon every morning and every night.

Even unhealthily slimmer than you had been five hundred years ago, there would not be a single moment or a single version of you in which Azriel would not recognise.

The first person who had shown him grace, who had shown him that kindness and love does in fact exist, the person who had given him the family that he still clings to today in hopes of grasping at every last remainder of you that he had believed was long lost.

Your name was a ghost on his lips as he surged forward, shadows following, your own fluttering at his shoulders now as he unsheathed truth-teller and sliced through the chains binding you to this sick prison.

The dagger you had given him.

The first gift he had ever received.

He collapsed to his knees beside your battered, unconscious body.

Your breaths shallow, wrists and ankles raw from centuries of imprisonment, body all but skin and bones.

He smoothed a marred thumb over your cheekbone, hands shaking as he took you in, your body surrendered to his touch as though finally, it had found something safe it could relax itself in.

And though you were unaware, still in the depths of your mind, your eyes had fluttered open, a deep purple hue that he had missed for hundreds of years.

Azriel choked on a sob as he gazed upon you again, his soul shattering open at the sight of the only person he had ever loved in his five hundred years walking the lands of Prythian.

He felt the moment part of his soul tore from his chest and landed straight into yours, a golden thread deep within him keeping it tethered to himself even though it now sat with you.

“Have you ever had ratatouille?” You ask Azriel, taking a bite of the dish in front of you.

Every Thursday, you and the shadowsinger go out to a different restaurant, usually in Velaris, occasionally in other courts. Seeing the shadowsinger could be difficult during the week, especially with your busy schedule, so you two set aside Thursday nights to eating dinner together.

Your brain had a hard time understanding that these were not necessarily dates, even though that is exactly what Cassian, Mor, the whole IC, and even Azriel and yourself call them.

“No, what’s rat patootie?” He says, taking a bite of his pasta.

“Ratatouille,” you correct, sighing wistfully, “it’s a traditional dish my mom used to make when I was a kid. I don’t think annyone in Velaris makes it. This dish kind of reminds me of it, but it’s not the same.”

You sit up, a smile stretching across your face. “Maybe next Thursday I’ll cook it for us. It’s so much better homemade - what do you say?”

He stills at your words, almost choking on his food. Through coughs he tells you, “surely there’s somewhere we can go for it, I wouldn’t want to trouble you with cooking.”

“But I like cooking,” you object. “And despite the copious amounts of meals we’ve shared together, I don’t think I’ve ever cooked for you.”

He doesn’t want to budge, so you pull out the big guns.

You pout your lip, making your eyes look as sad and endearing as possible, “please, Az? It reminds me of being a kid again. And I’d love to share that with you.”

Mother forsake him, he couldn’t say no to your sad, puppy dog eyes.

“Fine,” he grumbles, sure he’ll figure a way out of it before Thursday comes. Perhaps he could find a way to get impaled.

You squeal, “oooh you’re going to love it!”

-

Thursday was fast approaching, and Azriel was trying to use every excuse in the book to keep this dinner from happening. He told you Rhys had to send him on a mission that night, which you immediately turned around and went to Rhys’s office and asked him to send someone else.

Rhys, having no idea what you were talking about, sees Azriel in the doorway who tells him mind to mind, “come on, say you have to send me.”

Rhys sends the equivalent of a smirk to Azriel mentally and tells you, “my mistake, I didn’t realize what day I was telling him to leave.”

Azriel stood in the doorway and gave his brother the finger from behind you.

Azriel made excuses, all ranging from Cassian needing help with training, Feyre needing an escort to the Hewn City, even to Mor needing help with the upkeep of the horses in the guard. Every excuse was denied by his so-called family, not allowing him to use them as scapegoats. It was starting to make you suspicious.

Thursday morning after Azriel’s last ditch attempt to get out of the dinner, involving some excuse about Eris needing rescuing, you sigh, exasperated.

“Okay Az, it was just an idea. Clearly you don’t want to do it, so just.. don’t bother, okay? Go save Eris from whatever it is that’s attacking him.”

You turn, wanting to leave the kitchen before Azriel sees how much this actually upsets you. “That’s not-“ he starts, trying to grab you as you pass him, but you wriggle from his grasp, disappearing into the hallway up to your bedroom.

Az was sitting on the kitchen counter, wallowing in self-pity over how poorly he handled that situation, when Cassian walked in.

“And what do you have to be so upset about, pretty boy?”

Azriel lifts his head, looking at Cassian eating a stupid banana. Gods, he wanted to throttle him. “Oh no, I’m Azriel and a beautiful woman wants to cook me dinner, even though I eat dinner with her most nights and have weekly dates with her even though I deny anyth-“

Cassian stops, taking a bite of his banana. He looks up, and realization dawns on him.

“Oh my gods,” he says, his mouth full of banana. Azriel decides to play the denial game, because surely Cassian did not figure out the secret he’s kept guarded for several months while eating a fucking banana.

Cassian looked at him, turning to look up the stairs where you had left just a few moments ago, “you two?”

Azriel rolls his eyes, “we’re friends, yes.”

Cassian rolls his eyes even harder. “I’m not an idiot. You follow her around like a pitiful puppy,” he says, coming closer to his brother, “you two eat just about every meal together, but the one day she offers to cook for you suddenly you can’t find time for her?”

Cassian narrows his eyes at Azriel, “you ashamed of her or something?”

Azriel’s eyes widen, not only at Cassian’s question that he could ever be ashamed of you, but also at Cassian’s change in demeanor.

Cassian slips into the protective big brother role when it comes to you quite easily, Azriel thinks as Cassian puffs out his chest while he strides over to stand next to Azriel.

“Now why on earth would I be ashamed of her?”

Cassian inspects Azriel for a second before asking, “then why haven’t you told her?”

He pauses, then asks, “how long have you known?”

Azriel huffs, “known what?”

“That she’s your mate.”

Azriel stills at Cassian’s words. They liked to poke fun of Cass, calling him a dumb brute, but Cassian was no fool. If any member of his family were to discover his secret, it would be Cassian.

Azriel looks at him, “a few months. I’ve been… waiting.” He sighs, “I keep wanting to tell her and then I psyche myself out. Once I tell her, things will be… different.”

Azriel hates how quiet his voice becomes as he says, “what if she is ashamed of who the mother picked for her?”

Cassian’s chest deflates, all sense of protectiveness over you gone and replaced with protectiveness over his brother.

“Then she’d be a fool.”

Looking down, Azriel watches as Cassian’s foot gently nudges his own, a silent request from Cassian for him to look up.

“There is no way she would ever be ashamed of you or be upset that you’re her mate.”

The way Cassian is looking at Azriel makes him want to shy away, but Cassian keeps his gaze steady, almost locking Azriel’s eyes into place.

“I’d be willing to bet she has journals full of doodles where she draws little hearts with your names in it, and she also writes “Mrs. Shadowsinger”

The rise in octave in his brother’s voice causes a laugh to burst out of him, but Cassian continues.

“I once tried to sit next to you for a meal and I’ve never seen anyone move as quickly as she did to claim her seat. Honestly, this will come as a shock to no one.”

Azriel looked back up at his brother to find him already looking at him, a soft gaze grazing his face.

“We’re happy for you two.”

Azriel scoffs, “I take that to mean you’ve already told Rhysand?”

Cassian starts walking away, going to pick up the remainder of his banana. “Oh yeah, we’ve had a bet for about a year now. Rhys thought the bond had snapped for her, but I knew it would be you. You’ve made me a much richer man, Az.”

Cassian bows in thanks, ducking out the door as Azriel throws a different banana towards the space he was occupying.

-

You had been sulking in your room for what felt like hours after Azriel’s latest rejection. You spent the whole time flipping between thinking about all the little moments that had you swearing there was something happening between you two, and each and every excuse he had made to get out of this dinner.

Was your cooking that bad? Was he tired of you taking up every one of his Thursday nights?

The two of you spent an absurd amount of time together - you ate most meals together at the house, you saw each other multiple times every day. Were you wrong?

A knock on the door pulls you from your thoughts, but before you can respond, the door is opening and Cassian pokes his head in. He has a hand covering his eyes, but he’s made a slit between his middle and ring fingers, allowing him to still see.

“Are you decent?” He asks, looking around the room.

He sighs at seeing you dressed on your bed, pulling his hand away from his face as he walks in, closing the door behind him.

You giggled, “Cass the whole point is to not see someone naked.”

He rolled his eyes as he plopped down next to you on your bed, “you don’t even want to give me a peak? I’ve had such a hard day, a little skin would make me feel better.”

You laugh, picking up a pillow and hitting him with it. He lets you hit him, pretending to fall dramatically onto his back.

“Tell Rhys I loved him,” he sighs dramatically, pretending to die.

You laugh at his foolish antics, but Cassian continues to pretend he’s dead. You lean into him, about to poke his face, when he grabs your waist, hoisting you over his shoulder.

“Now come on, I’ve got shopping to do and I need your help.”

-

After Cassian had left, Azriel spent some time trying to decide how he could make this up to you. He didn’t want to force you into accepting a bond that you didn’t know about by presenting him with food.

He paced his room, his long legs gliding across the wooden floors making no noise. His shadows were combing through the house, trying to find out where you had gone after your earlier spat.

Azriel replaced with pacing with purposeful steps as he headed towards his bedroom door, the perfect solution coming to him.

-

“Thank you Cassian,” you say, squeezing his arm your hand was tucked into.

“For what? My incredibly charming presence?” He smirks down at you.

You scoff, “I felt awful earlier but you pulled me out of my spiraling, thanks.” You say, nudging him a bit.

Cassian had gotten you out of your room and the two of you walked around Velaris, mostly people watching and talking.

He hums, “well, both of my brothers are idiots,” he says, getting a laugh out of you. “They take turns on who holds the idiot stick. Today it’s Azriel.”

“Do you ever hold the idiot stick?”

“Occasionally, very rarely, I will pass it between the two of them, so I only have it for a moment or two.”

You snort, looking down at your feet. If Cassian thought Azriel was being stupid, does he see what you see?

You start to ask him, to prod him for more answers about Azriel, when he pats your hand, turning your attention to where the two of you had ended up on this walk.

The townhouse.

Your brows crease in confusion as Cassian removes your hand from his elbow, pats your shoulder, and tells you to have a good night.

You start to sputter, wanting to know why you’re here. He shrugs, “I don’t question my orders.” He gives you a two finger salute before turning around and walking away.

You turn back around, looking at the entrance to the townhouse, afraid of what you’ll find on the other side of the door, but going up and knocking anyway.

The door opens, but no one is there. A small shadow swirls around you, moving up from your feet to your face, caressing your cheek before zipping off to the kitchen.

You step through the threshold and a new shadow comes and shuts the door, another two come and help you take your coat off and hang it up for you.

You walk towards the kitchen, where you can hear the clattering of plates and some delicious aromas filling the whole house. Inside the kitchen you find Azriel, with a frilly apron tied around his waist, putting the finishing touches on two plates at the table.

“What’s all this?” You ask him, doubt creeping in that this isn’t meant for you.

“Sit, sit,” he beckons, pulling out a chair for you. You look around the room, covered in flickering candlelight and flowers. He must have been working on this for hours.

You look down at your plate, the bright colors of ratatouille catching your eye. You gasp, wanting to know how much effort he went to find a recipe for it.

He takes off the apron, sitting across from you.

“I… made an ass of myself, and I’d like to apologize first and foremost for that.” You open your mouth to interrupt him, but he holds up a hand. “Let me finish, I have.. a lot to tell you.”

He takes a deep breath, stilling his nerves. You look so pretty in the glow of the candles, and the slight concern you’ll hate him is enough to distract him, but he has to tell you this.

“There’s a reason I didn’t want you to cook for me. A few months ago we were in the library, reading, and I looked up and I watched you tuck your hair behind your ear, laughing at something in your book and I.. felt it.”

You’re in a trance, listening to him speak.

“I felt like I was dying and coming back to life, like your hand was wrapped around my heart, squeezing in time, keeping it beating. I made up some half-assed excuse to leave, because I needed to talk to Rhys.”

You looked at him, hoping your gaze would encourage him to continue.

“Rhys confirmed what I thought it was - the bond snapping. And I was terrified.”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I was terrified if I told you, you’d deny the bond, you’d break my heart. So I… put off telling you. I couldn’t.”

He looks down at his lap, fidgeting his fingers.

“I kept trying to tell you, then I’d chicken out. Then when you offered to cook for me, I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t let you accidentally accept the bond, accept me without knowing about it.”

He sighs, “I felt awful when I realized you thought I was rejecting you. Far from it. So I’ve uh.. made you dinner.”

You finally speak, “you made me dinner.”

“I made you dinner. And dessert, actually.”

Leave it to Azriel to outdo himself by finding the time to make dessert.

You weren’t letting a single emotion show on your face, and it made a shiver run up Azriel’s spine.

After what could have been hours, you slowly smiled, looking at him, “what kind of dessert did you make?”

He pauses, “I uh made you- us, uh chocolate mousse. I made two, but I thought we could share one.”

He looks at you, still not giving anything away, “if you want to, of course.”

He shifts, your silence making him uneasy.

“If you don’t want to accept it, I understand. I kept it from you, and I’m me, loving me would be rotten work- what are you doing?”

In the middle of his rambling, you picked up your fork, getting a nice helping of food on your fork, bringing it up to your mouth.

“Well, my mate made me dinner, and it looks incredible. Why would I not want to take a bite?”

He looks at you, a rush of emotions flooding him. Surprise, confusion, elation.

“But, but I can promise you to love me, to be my mate, it’s rotten work.”

You smile, “not to me it’s not.”

You pause, “not if it’s you,” and take a bite.

His chest sings, feeling warmth radiating throughout him. Feeling love radiate through him, and he realizes that’s you.

You keep eating the food, that hum getting louder and more vibrant, until you’ve cleared your plate, and stride over to him.

You grab his face in your hands, tilting his head so he’ll look into your eyes. “If you think I am not aware of who you are, what you do, your darkest parts, you are mistaken. And if you think I will shy away from those things, you are a fool.”

He hadn’t realized he was crying until you swiped your thumb across his cheek, swiping it away.

You smile down at him, and he has never felt so loved, so whole as he does in this moment. His mate, the one person the cauldron deemed would understand him, just chose him.

He feels like that little boy, looked in the dungeon, daydreaming about being saved by an angel. And he has.

He stands up, cupping your face in his hands, “I was in love with you before the bond snapped for me. I’m not here just because the cauldron told me to be, let me assure you that.”

You smile, a heat creeping up your cheeks. “I’m only here for the chocolate mousse.”

He laughs, a genuine, roaring laugh.

You pull his face in close to yours, gazing into his eyes. “And I have been in love with you since the day after I met you.”

His eyebrows shoot up, “the day after?”

You smile, “well I thought I was in love with you that first day, but then on that second day I heard you speak, and I knew no one would ever compare.”

You feel his happiness in your chest, as if his heart is also in your ribcage, yours and his intertwined, dancing through your chest together.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, his mouth so close to your own your breaths are intermingling.

You smile at his thoughtfulness, his hesitation.

You were still unaware of the mating bond but that didn’t mean you did not want this man on top of you, behind you- fucking you against the wall, floor, bed, the tub, counter, everywhere he could do it. His nostrils flared, smelling the arousal on you again and he closed his eyes briefly not to act on his impulses his body begged him to.

You needed to move. The air on the terrace had become too thick, too charged with the scent of crushed starfruit and Azriel’s overwhelming, dark presence. You stood abruptly, your chair scraping against the quartz.

"I have training," you announced, your voice a bit too high. "Helion’s orders. Physical conditioning. I’m sure you have... reports to read. Or shadows to brood in."

Azriel looked at you with a tilted head, a slow, predatory movement. "Helion mentioned your regimen. I believe I offered to assist."

"I have a trainer, thank you," you snapped, already heading toward the marble stairs that led to the training pits. "He’s very capable. And much less... distracting."

The training pit was a sunken circle of white sand, surrounded by pillars that shimmered in the midday heat. Your trainer, a golden-skinned Fae named Sepha, was already waiting, spinning a practice staff with effortless grace. He flashed you a flirtatious grin as you approached.

"Ready to sweat, Mistress?" Sepha asked, his eyes trailing down your silk and absolutely unfit for training dress.

He didn't get an answer. Instead, the temperature in the pit seemed to plummet. Sepha’s smile faltered as a wall of living shadow swept over the sand, and Azriel stepped into the circle.

He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. The Shadowsinger simply looked at Sepha, his hazel eyes cold and flat, his Siphons pulsing a warning, rhythmic blue. The sheer, ancient power radiating off the Illyrian made the Day Court warrior pale.

"I've got this," Azriel said, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. It was not a question or a request, it was an order and he expected absolute obedience.

Sepha looked at you, then back at the male who looked like he could unmake the world with a thought. He didn't argue. He bowed quickly and vanished from the pit faster than a light-spark.

"That was rude," you muttered, though your heart was thundering against your ribs. "I hope you’re planning on being gentle, Spymaster. I’m a dancer, not a brute."

Azriel’s smirk was gone. He looked at you with the clinical, detached gaze of a general. "If Koschei catches you, he won't be gentle. If you want to survive the dark, you have to learn how to fight when the light fails. Pick up your blade, Y/N."

For the next two hours, you learned exactly why the High Lord of Night trusted Azriel to teach the Valkyries.

There was no flirtation. There was no lingering touch. There was only the relentless, brutal efficiency of a master warrior. Azriel moved like a wraith, his shadows blinding you, his strikes coming from angles you couldn't predict. Every time you tried to use your "Refracted Step," he caught you, sweeping your legs out from under you or pinning you against the marble wall with a force that knocked the breath from your lungs.

"Again," he mumbled every time you hit the sand.

"I’m... tired," you gasped, your muscles screaming, your golden hair plastered to your neck with sweat.

"The enemy doesn't care if you're tired," Azriel replied, his voice cold. He didn't have a single bead of sweat on him. He lunged again, a blur of obsidian leather.

By the time he finally called a halt, you were face-down in the sand, your limbs feeling like lead. You let out a long, pathetic groan into the grit. Your light orbs, looking frantic and dim, hovered inches from your face, poking at your temples and nudging your shoulders as if trying to see if you were still conscious.

"Get up," Azriel said, standing over you. His shadow fell across you, cool and dark.

"No," you muffled into the sand. "I live here now. This is my new home. Leave me to die in peace."

Azriel knelt beside you. He reached down, and for the first time since they’d entered the pit, his touch wasn't a strike. He gripped your shoulder, turning you onto your back. You groaned again, a deep, pained sound that vibrated in your chest.

Azriel’s eyes darkened, the coldness of the trainer melting away to reveal something much hungrier. He leaned over you, his face inches from yours, the scent of his skin—salt and mountain air—filling your senses. Your eyes snapped open in attention at the proximity.

"Get up, Y/N," he whispered, his voice low and roughened by a sudden, sharp edge of desire. "Unless you want me to start massaging those knots out for you. I find I’d very much like to hear you make those lovely sounds again—though I’d prefer they weren't caused by the sand."

Your eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. Your lights, sensing the sudden shift in the air, flared a brilliant, shocked violet. You looked at him—at the dark promise in his gaze, remembering his hard on hours ago and the way his shadows were practically purring against your skin—and felt a jolt of heat that had nothing to do with exercise.

"You shouldn’t say things like that," you breathed, your voice trembling, eyes flashing with lust he recognized immediately.

"And you," Azriel replied, his gaze dropping to your lips before he stood and offered you a scarred, steady hand, "shouldn’t be this gorgeous."

He helped you up and you returned to training, studying positions after lifting weight- Az was there the whole time to guide you properly. Once it was over, it was around afternoon and you joined the table after bath.

The dining room was bathed in the low, honeyed glow of floating candles that smelled of amber and sun-warmed citrus. Helion had been a whirlwind of scandalous stories and expensive wine for the first hour, but as the final plates of honeyed lamb were cleared, he stood with a theatrical yawn.

"I’ve just remembered," the High Lord of Day said, his amber eyes dancing with a wicked, unsubtle light. "I have a very important appointment with a bottle of hundred-year-old nectar and a very willing partner. I trust you two can manage the rest of the evening without me? Try not to kill each other—or tear the terrace down."

With a wink that was practically a nudge to the ribs, Helion vanished in a shimmer of golden light.

The silence that rushed in to fill the void was deafening. You sat across from Azriel, your fingers tracing the rim of your wine glass. You tried to maintain your Spymaster’s mask, but your light orbs were currently dimming and brightening in a rhythmic, nervous pulse that matched the frantic beat of your heart.

Azriel didn't speak. He didn't even move. He simply watched the movement of your fingers, imagining them wrapped around him, stroking before your mouth replaced them, his hazel eyes dark and unreadable, his shadows clinging to him like a living shroud. The tension between you was no longer just political or tactical; it was a physical weight, a tether pulling tighter with every second you spent alone.

"You're very quiet, Spymaster," you finally whispered, your voice a soft friction in the still air. "Is the Day Court’s air still too dry for you?"

"The air is fine," Azriel replied, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.

He stood up.

He didn't walk around the table so much as he glided through the space, his movements as silent and lethal as a blade. You swallowed, thighs instinctively clenching together under the table as he stopped directly behind your chair. You could feel yourself getting wet, your toes curled in your shoes and your clit throbbed painfully for him.

You expected him to speak, or perhaps to mock your training performance again. Instead, you felt the heat of him radiating against your back—a wall of obsidian and mountain air.

Azriel reached down. His hand, scarred and large enough to swallow your entire neck, slid slowly around the front of your throat. It wasn't a choke; it was a claim. His thumb rested just beneath your jaw, his palm warm against your pulse point.

With a firm, deliberate pressure, he tilted your head back.

You let out a soft, broken sound as you were forced to look up at him. Because you were seated and he was standing, your head came to rest directly against his stomach. You could feel the hard, flat muscle of his abdomen through his leathers, the heat of him seeping into your scalp.

From this angle, he looked like a god of shadow and stone. His gaze was fixed on your lips, his expression one of raw, barely contained hunger.

“You spend so much time looking for secrets in the light, Y/N," he murmured, his thumb stroking the line of your jaw. "But you’re missing everything happening in the dark."

As you looked at each other, the magic in the room went feral.

Your light sparks, usually so bright and pure, surged toward him. They didn't retreat; they dove into his shadows. They began to dance with the dark tendrils, glowing a frantic, deep violet that practically screamed of your desire.

Azriel’s shadows were even worse. They broke rank, swarming around your face and shoulders. One shadow trailed a phantom "finger" over your lips, while another coiled playfully around your ear, whispering secrets only a Shadowsinger’s mate could hear. They were flirting—shamelessly, dangerously—with your light.

"Your shadows are... misbehaving," you managed to gasp, your eyes fluttering shut as you leaned into the pressure of his hand.

"They aren't misbehaving," Azriel whispered, leaning down until his lips were hovering just inches from yours, his scent of salt and mist drowning you. "They’re finally doing exactly what I’ve wanted to do since the moment I saw you."

His hand tightened just a fraction on your throat, not enough to hurt, but enough to remind you exactly who held you. You felt the vibration of his voice through your skull, your own light orbs practically begging for his shadows to consume them.

The air in the room didn't just vibrate; it burned.

Azriel watched the way your throat worked as you swallowed, the pulse beneath his palm thrumming like a trapped bird. Your excitement was a physical thing—a radiant, shimmering heat that called to every dark corner of his soul. The mating bond, no longer a quiet tether, was now a roaring demand.

He didn't ask for permission, at least out loud. He could see the want and consent in your eyes as they practically begged for him. He had to hold back a groan, feeling his body burning as yours was shaking.

Azriel leaned down, his face descending through the swirling chaos of violet sparks and obsidian shadows. When his lips finally met yours upside down, it wasn't the tentative kiss of a scout—it was the total conquest of a general. And the love and desire of a mate you didn’t know.

You let out a sharp, needy gasp against his mouth, your body arching instinctively back against him. The sound—that broken, high-pitched note of surrender—sent a jolt of pure, dark triumph through Azriel and straight down to his already hard cock. He smirked into the kiss, the sharp curve of his lips brushing against yours as he felt your immediate, fierce response.

He had wondered for months if you would taste like the sun. You did. You tasted like summer heat and honeyed wine, and you were reaching for him with a desperation that matched his own.

As your mouth opened under his, Azriel’s free hand came down hard on your shoulder. He didn't just touch you; he pinned you, his heavy, scarred palm grounding you against his abdomen, ensuring you couldn't move, couldn't flee, even if you wanted to. But he knew you wanted anything but. He held you there, a dark anchor for your rising light.

You didn't struggle. Your hands, finally free of your lap, flew upward. One hand fisted into the dark, soft silk of his tunic while the other slid deep into his thick, midnight hair. You pulled him closer, your fingers tangling in the strands, your nails grazing his scalp in a way that made his shadows hiss in a frantic, joyous frenzy. He groaned against your lips, wanting nothing more than to grind against you to relieve himself.

The kiss deepened, turning hungry and jagged. Azriel’s shadows weren't just flirting anymore; they were wrapping around your arms, your waist, pulling your essence into his until the line between Lightdancer and Shadowsinger was nothing but a blur of white and black.

Your breath was coming in short, ragged hitches. The friction of your head against his stomach, the weight of his hand on your throat, and the relentless pressure of his lips were driving you to the edge of a precipice.

"Azriel," you breathed against his mouth, the name a plea.

He pulled back just an inch, his hazel eyes blown wide, his breathing as wrecked as yours. His gaze dropped to the treacherous silk of your gown—the sheer, gold-flecked fabric that felt like a pathetic barrier against the heat of his skin. He looked at the obsidian leather of his own gear, the buckles and siphons that suddenly felt like a suit of iron.

"Too many clothes," he rasped, his voice a low, primal growl that vibrated through your chest. "Way too many clothes between me and what belongs to me."

You didn't argue. You couldn't. You just tightened your grip on his hair and pulled him back down.

The transition from the chair to the quartz dining table was a blur of friction and heat. Azriel’s hands, usually so precise and clinical, were now driven by a five-century-old hunger that had finally found its feast.

He lifted you effortlessly, your silks bunching around your waist as he settled you onto the cool, hard surface of the table. He crowded between your knees, his weight a dark, heavy promise. His shadows had gone entirely feral, weaving a thick, obsidian curtain around you that blocked out the rest of the room, leaving only the scent of salt, mist, and the sun-drenched skin of his mate.

His mouth was back on yours, deeper and more possessive than before. One of his hands slid up the column of your throat, holding you steady, while the other moved to the shoulder of your gown. His fingers hooked into the delicate gold-and-cream silk, the fabric straining against the lethal strength of an Illyrian warrior. He didn’t just want you; he wanted the barriers gone.

The heavy oak doors of the dining hall swung open with a theatrical flourish.

"Y/N! My dearest light! I simply must have your urgent opinion on the border reports from the—" Helion stopped mid-sentence, his voice booming through the vaulted room. He didn't look surprised. In fact, he looked like a man who had timed his entrance to the exact second for maximum chaos. He definitely had planned this through.

Azriel didn't stop.

He didn't even flinch. He heard the footsteps, he smelled Helion’s distinct scent of cedar and expensive wine, but he simply didn't care. The mating bond was a roar in his ears, drowned out only by the sound of your ragged breathing. He tilted your head further back, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your jawline, his hand tightening on the silk of your bodice.

You, however, was still the Spymaster of the Day Court. The sound of your High Lord’s voice pierced through the golden haze of your desire.

"Azriel," you gasped, your hands—which had been frantically unbuckling his leathers—now shifting to his chest. You tried to push against the solid wall of his muscle, but it was like trying to move a mountain. "Azriel, stop... Helion is... he’s right there."

Your resistance was weak, betrayed by the way your legs were still locked firmly around his waist and the way your light orbs were still humming a deep, satisfied violet against his shadows.

Azriel finally paused, his forehead resting against your collarbone, his breathing heavy and scorched. He didn't pull away; he just stayed there, his shadows lashing out toward the High Lord in a silent, jagged warning to get out.

Helion leaned against a marble pillar, crossing his arms over his bare, golden chest. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.

"I don't mean to interrupt the... tactical debrief," Helion said, his voice dripping with mock-innocence. "But the library archives won't sort themselves, and my Lightdancer has a very busy schedule of avoiding my training sessions."

He cleared his throat—a loud, pointed sound that echoed off the quartz.

Azriel finally pulled back. He didn't scramble; he didn't look embarrassed. He slowly straightened his spine, his hands lingering on your waist for a beat too long before he turned his head to look at Helion.

The look Azriel leveled at the High Lord of Day was pure, unadulterated murder. His hazel eyes were dark with a predatory heat, and his Siphons were pulsing a violent, warning blue.

"She is busy, Helion," Azriel rasped, his voice sounding like it had been dragged through a battlefield.

"I can see that," Helion replied, his amber eyes flicking to you, who were currently trying to smooth your hair and your gown simultaneously, your face a shade of red that rivaled a Day Court sunset. "Though it looks like she’s being quite thoroughly occupied. If you’re finished marking your territory, Spymaster, I actually do have a question about the Koschei vellum."

You slid off the table, legs a bit wobbly, your light sparks hiding behind you as you glared at your High Lord. "You are the most annoying male in the Seven Courts," you hissed.

"And you," Helion winked, pushing off the pillar and heading toward the door, "are clearly in very capable hands. Carry on. I'll be in the solar. Do try not to break the quartz—it’s an antique."

As Helion’s laughter faded down the hall, the silence returned, now twice as heavy and ten times as hot. Azriel turned back to you, his shadows already reaching for you again.

"Where were we?" he whispered.

The echoes of Helion’s laughter hadn't even faded before Azriel was moving again. The stoic, cold Shadow-Lord was gone again, replaced by a male whose hazel eyes were burning with a very specific, playful intent.

He didn't use his shadows this time. He wanted the feel of you against his skin.

"The quartz is still warm, Y/N," Azriel murmured, his voice a low, melodic lure. He reached out, his large, scarred hand closing on empty air as you performed a graceful, shimmering pirouette away from him. "And I believe we were interrupted right before the most interesting part of the debrief."

You let out a bright, melodic giggle, your light sparks doing a frantic, joyful loop-de-loop around your head. You tucked a stray golden lock behind your ear, your violet eyes dancing with mischief.

"Duty calls, Spymaster!" You teased, backing away toward the arched exit. "If I don't handle this 'matter' with the archives, Helion will likely use it as an excuse to burst in on us again. And I think my heart—and your patience—can only handle one theatrical entrance per day."

Azriel smirked, a real, devastatingly handsome expression that made your knees weak. He lunged forward, his movements a blur of obsidian leather. He was fast, but you were a Lightdancer, your silhouettes a swirl of shadow tango at the window. Just as his fingers grazed the silk of your waist, you flickered—using a micro-burst of your magic to slide a foot to the left, just out of his reach.

"Missed," you sang out, laughter echoing off the marble.

"I am a patient male, Y/N," Azriel replied, his shadows purring as he tried again, this time feinting left and reaching right. He almost caught your arm, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin of your wrist, but you ducked under his wing with a squeal of delight, your silks fluttering like a butterfly’s wings.

"You’re getting slow, Shadowsinger!" You called from the safety of the doorway. "Perhaps all that brooding has dulled your reflexes."

Azriel stopped, his chest heaving slightly, not from exertion, but from the sheer, intoxicating joy of the game. He stood in the center of the sun-drenched hall, his Siphons pulsing a soft, contented blue.

He watched you—truly watched you. You were flushed, radiant, and completely full of life. You were the sun he hadn't known he was allowed to touch.

He held up his hands in a gesture of mock-surrender, his shadows settling back onto his shoulders in a calm, silky drape.

"Fine," he conceded, his voice rich with affection. "Go. Handle your archives. But know this, Lightdancer..." He took a slow step forward, his gaze locking onto yours with a promise that made your cheeks flush. "When you return, there won't be enough reports in all of the Day Court to keep me from getting you back on that table."

You blew him a kiss, a single spark of pure white light drifting across the room to boop him right on the nose before you vanished into the hallway, your giggles trailing behind you like a scent of jasmine.

Azriel stood alone in the dining hall for a long moment. He didn't look for work. He didn't look for shadows. He simply stood in the light, a genuine, soaring smile breaking across his face—the kind of smile that changed the very shape of his soul.

He had a mate. And for the first time in five hundred years, the Spymaster of Night was perfectly happy to wait for the morning.

You read his message again. And again. And again.

You know every word by now - every self-conscious pause, every little plea in those P.S. lines. Maybe you even typed out a few replies - half drafts, ghost sentences - before deleting them, because what even is the right thing to say? What’s his intention here? A social check-in? A nostalgic ping to make sure you’re still alive? Maybe he has some new project and thought, hey, she’d be perfect for it?

But that’d be a weird way to start the conversation, wouldn’t it?

Then again, he was a little weirdo. That’s what made him, well… him.

You two had bonded over exactly that - being oddballs orbiting a world that didn’t quite know what to do with people who felt too much, joked too fast, cared too hard. That strange comfort of recognizing your brand of weird in someone else.

But ignoring this? That’s not an option. Not answering would be the death of you. The what if would chew at your brain until dawn.

So you have to. You just… have to.

Your thumbs hover above the keyboard, frozen like you’re about to trigger a bomb.

Then, finally, you type:

Sorry, have already forwarded that number to anyone I know and their grandmas. Text me the weirdest messages you get!

P.S.: I have not started my business for excellent massages yet.

P.P.S.: not creepy. Just mildly unhinged.

You hit send before you can think twice.

A squeal escapes you - an actual, audible, feral noise - and you slap a hand over your mouth in pure mortification. Oh god. You’d pay money to unhear yourself. You flop backward, phone still in hand, eyes squeezed shut like that could undo it.

You don’t even get to decide whether your text hit the right balance of lighthearted and intrigued - because your screen lights up again. Another message.

Then another.

Help, have already received 53 feet pics, three marriage proposals and one ask if I have the number of Oscar Isaac.

You laugh. It bursts out of you, wet and hoarse but real. Before the sound fades, another notification hits.

Sorry for the nightly disturbance. Just wanted to reach out. How are you doing? How was Spain? You’re back in L.A. now, right?

And that - that one does you in.

Because he knows. Still. Three months later. Remembers where you went, what you said you’d do, the timeline you’d casually mentioned. And something in your chest twists hard enough to sting. New tears threaten again and you actually groan at yourself.

“Emotional little bitch,” you mutter.

You type back, fast enough to outrun the ache:

I am great. Just collapsed on my bed and plan not to move for the next 48 hours. Spain was… beautiful, hectic, stressful, fantastic. How’s your life going? Full schedule, I guess?

You stare at the screen, sniffling a little laugh. It’s ridiculous. Absurd, even. You’re texting with him. As if nothing ever happened. As if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

The typing bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again. Your heart does cartwheels.

Spain just is that girl, right? Schedule’s full as usual, but I’ll manage. And… you sure about those 48 hours? Because I found a fantastic matcha place I think you’re going to love.

You blink. Reread. Reread again.

That cannot mean what you think it means. Right? He’ll just send you the address. That’s what people do. Normal people. He’s being polite, sharing a tip, right?

You try to focus, to stop the trembling in your hands. Okay. Think. Careful but not cold. Curious but not desperate.

You type:

You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention! Great matcha? Here in L.A.? I think you have to spill the secret.

You send it, immediately doubt every word, then reread it again to reassure yourself it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s totally fine.

It’s playful, open, neutral. No implication. No pressure.

The minutes drag. The silence stretches, taut like a wire.

What’s he doing now? Typing a whole essay? Choosing his words carefully? Maybe he’s asleep already. Maybe the message was a fluke, a late-night impulse he’ll regret by morning.

You roll onto your side, staring at the phone like it might whisper the truth if you look hard enough. Your pulse is ridiculous, the kind that belongs in a chase scene, not your quiet bedroom.

Then the ping. Sharp, immediate. You nearly drop the phone, fumbling as you sit up straighter, spine tense like posture equals readiness.

How about I show you instead?

Your breath catches halfway out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You cannot believe it. You CANNOT believe it.

You are actually sitting in an actual café - two iced matcha lattes sweating gently on the wooden table in front of you - waiting for him.

Your knee bounces under the table, and you try to steady it by crossing your legs, but that only makes the motion shift upward, jittering through your chest instead. You tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, eyes flicking around the café like you’re trying to memorize it - or distract yourself.

It’s a small place, tucked just off a quieter street in Silver Lake. The kind of spot that smells faintly of roasted beans and eucalyptus candles, where every table has a little glass jar of sugar and a single stem in a vase - daisies, mostly, with the occasional dried sprig of lavender. Sunlight filters through wide windows, catching the steam off mugs and the soft hum of a playlist that probably has an entire fanbase on Spotify. Conversations buzz low around you, gentle and warm.

After you had pinched yourself approximately one thousand times to confirm that yes, he really did write that message, you had replied - as cool as humanly possible. You’d typed something breezy and casual like, “Sure, sounds fun, I can manage that.” He had followed up with a handful of details: the café name, the time, and one particular request - sit inside, at a table toward the back. Less visible from the street.

You had immediately understood. Of course. The paparazzi.

It wasn’t like A-listers couldn’t grab coffee in L.A. without chaos, but still - the chance was always there, lurking in the periphery. And if you’d learned anything from the months you’d worked near him, it was that he didn’t crave the circus. He liked quiet, safe corners of the world. So, you take the adjustment gladly, trading the golden California sunlight for the café’s cozy amber lighting and a little privacy.

Still, your gaze darts to the door every time it opens.

He’d said he would show up a little later. Standard procedure - not walking in together, minimizing attention. You know that. You understand that.

And yet… a small, traitorous voice in your head keeps whispering that maybe he won’t come. That maybe it was polite impulse texting. That maybe you misread everything.

You silence it.

Even if this is just a friendly catch-up - even if it’s nothing - it’s still him. The fact that Pedro Pascal asked to meet you, to grab matcha, to see you again after months, is enough to make your pulse sprint.

You keep telling yourself not to call it a date. It’s not a date. No one said the word date. No asking out happened, no “ride into the sunset” declarations. This could very well be a social check-in, a how have you been, a good to see you again.

Nothing more.

And yet  - 

Your heart rate explodes the second the door opens and you see him.

It takes a double take, sure, because he’s dressed like every effort went into not looking like himself. Black baseball cap. Plain navy hoodie. Jeans that are definitely too soft and too worn to be designer. Sunglasses - of course. Still, it’s him. Even without the grin, you’d recognize the way he moves - unhurried, loose, as if he’s learned how to take up space without ever demanding it.

You almost raise a hand to wave him over - but stop mid-motion, halfway up. What if he doesn’t want the attention? What if someone does notice him? So instead, you wait.

And then he spots you.

The moment feels suspended, like film slowing down. He tilts his head slightly, lifts his glasses just enough to show his eyes, and that grin - that stupid, heart-crushing, butterfly-summoning grin - spreads across his face.

Oh, you’re done for.

You stand awkwardly, halfway between composure and complete meltdown, and before you can say anything, he’s already crossing the café. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t second-guess - just wraps you into a hug that feels like a warm drink after a freezing walk home. His arm settles firm around your back, and your brain blanks out for a full two seconds.

“Hey,” he says, his voice low and familiar, all warmth and gravel. It ripples through you like static. Then he leans back, glancing at the table. “Oh no, you already ordered? I would’ve.”

You laugh a little, trying to look casual even though your entire nervous system is in meltdown mode. You let go - reluctantly - and gesture for him to sit.

“I have to get out of my coffee debt with you, remember?” you say, smiling.

He laughs, that quiet kind of laugh that lights up his eyes. “How could I not? Biggest scam of the century.”

You both sit, and somehow the small table feels even smaller now. His arm brushes yours as he settles in, and you swear your pulse hits an entirely new BPM record. But he doesn’t seem to notice - or maybe he does, and chooses kindness by pretending not to.

He nods at your cup. “So? What’s the verdict?”

You take a deliberate sip, savoring the earthy sweetness. “Not traditional ceremonial,” you tease, “but, you know… closest we can come.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Still the expert, huh?”

You shrug, playful. “Someone has to keep the standards high.”

The air between you shifts, warm and steady. Slowly, your heart rate eases - not completely, never completely, but enough that you can breathe without counting your exhales. Conversation slides easily into place, soft and natural, like slipping back into an old rhythm neither of you lost.

He asks about Spain, about the trip, and you tell him the funny bits - the chaotic moments, the beauty, the exhaustion. He listens. Really listens. His gaze flicks to your hands when you gesture, to your face when you laugh. He shares little stories too - set anecdotes, random things about travel, the way he accidentally ordered eight espressi in Italy once because he forgot the plural.

It’s easy. Disarmingly easy.

And while you try to play it cool - sipping your drink, tucking hair behind your ear again, pretending you’re not melting from proximity - there’s one persistent thought you can’t shake.

How on earth are you ever going to recover from this crush now?

Because this - this quiet laughter, his sleeve brushing yours, the way his knee nearly touches yours under the table - this feels dangerously like something you’ll never stop replaying once it’s over.

And when he looks at you again, smiling like he knows exactly what you’re thinking but will never call you out on it - yeah. You’re doomed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are certain by now: your plane back from Spain must have crashed. There’s simply no other explanation. You must have died and gone to some cinematic, too-good-to-be-true afterlife, because -

WHAT. THE. HELL.

After your cozy café reunion and the easy flow of conversation, Pedro had suggested a walk. A little park nearby, he’d said, as if it was the most casual thing in the world. And of course, you said yes. What were you going to do, say no to that face?

It started off perfectly ordinary - a stroll along a tree-lined path, the late afternoon light soft and golden, the kind that makes everything look like a film still. You talked and laughed, bumping shoulders every so often, each small touch an electric jolt you pretended not to feel.

And then, because apparently the universe loves poetic timing, the first drop of rain hit.

Then another.

Then - an entire sky’s worth.

Now you’re both half-sprinting, half-laughing through sheets of rain, your shoes slipping on wet pavement, until you find shelter under the overhang of a tiny garden café that’s long closed for the evening. It’s barely enough space for two people, which means your bodies are pressed close - almost too close. The air between you hums, thick and damp, and every breath feels shared.

You’re both soaked. Water drips down your arms, clings to your lashes, traces down your neck. His curls - god, his curls - are plastered to his forehead, rain still dripping from them. He’s laughing, chest rising and falling fast, his grin utterly unguarded.

“If only we had an umbrella now, right?” you say between breathless laughs, voice light and teasing.

He looks at you, eyes glinting. “I might have thought about bringing back yours.” His tone is playful, but there’s something low under it - something that curls around your spine.

“Oh really?” you challenge, still catching your breath. “But then you decided on becoming a criminal and steal my stuff instead?”

Pedro tilts his head, eyes narrowing like he’s turning the thought over in his mind. Rain drums a rhythm against the awning above you, the air filled with its soft roar. “No,” he says finally, voice quiet. “I wanted to have a second reason to write to you.”

The words hit harder than they should. Like a well-aimed punch of warmth to your lungs, knocking the air right out.

You open your mouth - something witty, something to defuse the spark - but nothing comes. Because no matter how you twist it, that was a flirt. A genuine, deliberate, no-escape flirt.

And he’s looking at you like he meant it.

The moment stretches.

You can hear your pulse now, a thrum that matches the rain. You swallow, acutely aware of how close he is - close enough that you can see the droplets sliding down his temple, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.

“Sorry,” he murmurs after a heartbeat, voice softer now, almost uncertain. “Was that… creepy again?”

His question snaps you out of your stunned silence, and you shake your head quickly - too quickly - sending tiny arcs of rainwater flying. “No! No, it’s not creepy, I just -" You blink up at him, words tripping over themselves. “You haven’t… touched your matcha today.”

Oh god. Wow, that has to be the worst kind of comeback you could have come up with.

A laugh escapes him - low, quiet, completely disarming. “I hate matcha,” he then admits, voice rumbling, the corners of his mouth twitching up.

And before you can find a single coherent thought, he leans in.

It’s tentative at first, a soft brush of lips - a question rather than a statement. Warmth beneath the chill of the rain, gentle and unbearably careful. You freeze, breath catching in your throat. And then instinct takes over.

Your hands - already trembling from cold and adrenaline - find their way to the back of his neck, sliding through the damp curls there, pulling him closer. That’s all the permission he needs.

It’s not practiced or staged, not the perfect kind you see on screen. It’s messy, breathless, the kind that tilts your whole world on its axis. His hand moves to your waist, firm and grounding, while yours tangle deeper in his hair, feeling the soft resistance of the curls between your fingers.

He makes a sound then - low and rough, more growl than sigh - and the sound alone lights something inside you.

“Promise me,” he breathes, still close enough that his words brush your lips, “to do that as often as possible.”

Every suppressed thought, every maybe, every almost that had been simmering between you since that first text bubbles up now, breaking free in a rush of rain and heat. You tilt your head, and his lips part against yours, deepening the kiss again until you’re both chasing breath and losing it in the same motion.

The world narrows to the taste of him - faint coffee and something darker, something like electricity - and the way he murmurs against your mouth when you pull back just slightly.

You grin, heart pounding so loud it might echo. “It’s gonna cost you.”

His fingers slide down your arm until they find your hand, his thumb tracing a slow line across your skin. “Not until your coffee debts are paid,” he shoots back.

You laugh - soft, dizzy, happy - and when he kisses you again, the sound disappears between you, swallowed by the storm.

For the first time in months, you don’t care what happens next. Not the headlines. Not the what-ifs. Just this - the rain, the warmth, the quiet miracle that somehow, unbelievably, he came.

@wanniiieeee

Hope, you enjoyed this little fluff :) happy to read from you! Or entertain you with more:

My Masterlist

You remembered because the little bell above the door clanged so loudly, you thought the ancient relic might have actually met its fate that day. When you turned to see who raced inside, it was him.

Harry.

He held a soaked copy of the New York Post in his hand. It was falling apart after doing an extremely poor job of keeping him dry in the sudden downpour. His dark hair was drenched and dripping all over the sticky tile floor. He blinked a few times, trying to get the rain out of his eyes without looking more pathetic than he already felt. He looked down at the destroyed newspaper and made a face before lifting his chin and scanning the restaurant.

That's when he spotted you.

He hesitated for a moment before offering up a lopsided grin and a shoulder shrug as you made your way towards him.

"Do you have a trash can I can borrow?"

You circled the host stand and held out the plastic bin, only to tease, "If you're borrowing it, that means you'll bring it back, right?"

He took a second then laughed politely at your shitty joke before dropping the newspaper into the empty bin with a solid thump.

"Consider it returned," he smiled, dark brown eyes sparkling despite the agitation he had felt moments before when he was caught in the rain.

You showed him to a table, one near the window, and brought him a coffee — to warm you up, you had said. He wrapped his hands gratefully around the stained mug and took a sip. When he swallowed, he paused, then looked up at you with genuine shock.

"This is... good."

You giggled. "Thanks."

"No, I mean—" He stopped to take another sip and made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat. "This is really good."

"You have a beautiful way with words," you teased again.

"Some of these expensive cafés around here don't make coffee half this good," he continued, taking another gulp.

"Well, I guess I've found my hidden talent," you shrugged.

The way he smiled at you had your heart skipping a beat.

There were other tables that probably needed to be cleaned or wanted their check, but you couldn't force yourself to step away. Something about him was magnetic.

And at the time, he really didn't seem all that special to the naked eye. He was just wearing a pair of worn jeans, an oversized brown jacket, and a basic looking tshirt underneath. He looked like every other working man within a five mile radius of your diner that stopped in for lunch every day. And yet... something pulled you to him.

Something must have pulled him to you, too, because a week later, he returned.

"No New York Post?" you asked when you greeted him at the door, hoping you didn't look too eager to see him.

He shook his head and pointed to the trash can.

"That's the only place The Post belongs. Only had it that day because someone left it at a bus stop bench. It was all I had."

"Desperate times," you mused before leading him to a table.

He looked a little dressier that day: slacks, but with a polo shirt. The only ring he had was on his pinky, one you were rather convinced was a fake emerald. You smiled to yourself, tucking away the lack-of-a-wedding-band note for later.

When he sat down, you noticed for the first time he placed a compact umbrella on the booth next to him before picking up the menu. You grinned and pointed to it with your ballpoint pen.

"Hey, you got yourself an umbrella," you said, "moving up in the world."

He looked up at you with those soft brown eyes again, the ones that crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the very same eyes you couldn't get out of your head for a week.

"I learn from my mistakes."

He became a regular after that. Once a week, every Thursday around one in the afternoon. You weren't sure if the time just suited him best or if he picked it because he knew you would be working.

You had hoped it was the latter.

About two months later, the diner was unusually busy. A tour bus had stopped outside and the restaurant was overloaded with thirty extra patrons. The kitchen was slammed, the counters were a mess, and of course one of the servers had called off that day.

You forgot it was Thursday. Harry had come in and seen the chaos. He tried to catch your eye but you were too busy balancing four plates on your arms to notice.

Another waitress, Darcy, hurried up to greet him, looking equally as frazzled as you but still offered to clean a table in her section. Harry turned her down, said he wanted to wait for you, and leaned against the wall watching you work with a small smile on his face.

Once one of your tables got up, Darcy helped you clean it and murmured quietly that you had a request at the door. You glanced up, saw him, and grinned happily despite the stressful lunch hour.

"Not in a rush today?" you asked when you led him to your only open table. He slid into the booth and shook his head.

"Nothing that can't wait."

"I'm honored," you said sweetly with a hand pressed to your chest. He smirked and his eyes quickly scanned you up and down.

"You're worth waiting for."

It knocked the wind out of you at first. You blinked like you weren't sure you heard him right, then exhaled a nervous laugh.

"Careful or I might think you're flirting with me."

"So what if I am?"

You laughed again and felt your face heat up. You started to fan yourself with your notepad, which only made Harry's smile grow bigger.

"Oh, you must be a heartbreaker," you teased.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, tilting his head to the side, still smiling. You leaned forward, placing both palms flat on the freshly washed tabletop, and lowered your voice.

"You're a smooth-talker, Harry," you said, refusing to break eye contact. "I'll bet you have a waitress you visit every day of the week. I'm just Miss. Thursday."

He threw his head back and laughed. Like, really laughed. And it made you smile so big that you dropped your chin to your chest to hide.

When his laughter finally died down, you lifted your head to look at him again, both of you wearing matching grins.

"Not true," he said, his dimple catching your eye and making your heart flutter a bit. "Let me take you out for dinner," he finally added, and even though you saw it coming, you still felt a rush of excitement shoot through you when you heard the words.

"Yeah? So you can introduce me to Miss. Friday?"

"Is that when you're free?"

You nodded, teeth sinking into your lower lip.

"Then tomorrow it is," he said firmly, "and you can pick the restaurant."

You whistled low and straightened back up. Your other tables were clearing up and heading to the front to pay, but you couldn't care less.

"Anywhere?"

He nodded and folded his hands confidently in his lap.

"Anywhere."

"And what if I have expensive tastes, Mr. Castillo?" you asked with a flirty tone.

"I can afford it," he assured you, still wearing the same smile.

"Even Nova?" You had said the first fancy, most hard-to-get-into restaurant you could think of, just as a joke. But Harry nodded without missing a beat.

"Nova it is."

You laughed and shook your head.

"I was just kidding," you said, "seriously, I'm good with anything—"

"Would you like to eat at Nova?" he asked, cutting you off. You paused for a moment.

"Well... maybe one day," you shrugged, "but the waiting list to get in is, like—"

"How's eight work for you?" He was already tapping away on his phone, offering it like it was nothing.

"Uh— s-sure," you sputtered. "Eight works."

He held up his phone for you to take. "Save your number and address. I'll pick you up."

He said it like he serious, but by Friday you still expected him to show up and admit it was just for laughs and maybe take you to some hole in the wall Italian spot, if you were lucky.

You were just fixing your hair and smoothing down your dress when your two roommates squealed from the window.

"He's here!"

"Oh, damn — he's got a Mercedes? Who is this guy?"

You snatched your purse and ran out into the living room, wedging yourself between them. Your jaw dropped when you saw Harry step out of the driver's side and round the front, casually buttoning his smart looking jacket and glancing around the relatively quiet street. But before he ascended the stairs to your building's front door, he looked up and spotted your three faces practically pressed against the dirty glass.

"Fuck!" you giggled when you all flew away from the window. Then a moment later, the buzzer rang.

"Y-Yeah," you stammered, pressing the answer button with a stupid grin.

"It's Harry."

You pressed the other button to unlock the door, then pushed your one roommate out of the way so you could make sure you didn't have lipstick on your teeth.

"What does he do again?"

"Who fucking cares!"

"Shhh!!" you hissed right when a firm knock came from the door.

"I'll get it!" Melanie sang, skipping to the door to cut you off. She flung it open just as you were reaching for her shoulder to yank her back, revealing Harry on the other side. His face lit up when he saw you, then his gaze dropped to Mel and he politely held out his hand.

"I'm Harry—"

"I know," she gushed, grabbing his hand and shaking it roughly. He grinned and glanced at you quickly before looking back at her. "I'm Melanie, that one's Liv."

Harry nodded at Liv perched on the couch who was waving at him like a fucking lunatic.

"Nice to meet you both." His eyes scanned the modest apartment behind you. "Cute place. How long have—"

"Let's go!" you said, pushing Mel out of the way and sneaking out the door.

"Have her back by midnight!" Melanie shouted as you were dragging him away.

"Yeah! But if you don't, at least do us all a favor and rock her world. It's been a while!" Liv added.

"Oh, my god!" you screeched over your shoulder while Harry chuckled softly next to you. "I'm going to kill—"

The apartment door slammed shut. You could hear their combined giggles, even though you were already halfway down the hall.

Harry cleared his throat, biting back a smile while you fanned your face in embarrassment.

"I am — so sorry about them," you said, stepping onto the elevator. "They're just... they're assholes," you laughed before tapping the L button repeatedly. "Sorry, it takes a few tries," you mumbled, then sighed happily when the button finally lit up and the doors slid shut.

An awkward silence settled around you as you waited for the elevator to take you to the lobby.

Fucking Mel and Liv, you seethed to yourself while sparing a nervous glance in Harry's direction. He was staring straight ahead at the closed doors, smiling in that way that made your knees weak, and you felt yourself smile back.

"So..." you began, breathing a sigh of relief when the doors opened. He pressed his palm against the side so they wouldn't shut, and looked at you expectantly. You blinked and cursed under your breath when it occurred to you he was waiting for you to go first, then hurried over the threshold and out into the run-down lobby.

"So," he echoed, opening the door for you to step outside. At least that time, you expected it and didn't look like a complete idiot. But then he stopped you before you could take one step down and offered his arm. You thanked him softly, looking shyly down at his crooked elbow, and looped your hand through.

If Liv didn't make it abundantly clear you hadn't been on a date in a while, it sure as hell was obvious to him now.

"You look—"

You stopped short when you heard tapping on the glass above your heads. As Harry was reaching to open the passenger side door, you looked up to find Mel and Liv making obscene gestures towards you and your date. Mel was miming a blowjob while Liv dry humped the air. Your eyes widened in horror and your jaw dropped. Harry turned to you, noticed your expression, but before he could spin around to look up, you grabbed his face, keeping his eyes locked on you.

"If you have any respect for me," you said lowly, "you will not look up right now."

He laughed and stepped back so you could get into his car, silently promising to ignore your roommates.

"Anyway," you laughed when he had finally pulled away from the curb. "You look so nice. I had no idea you cleaned up so well."

Harry grinned as he smoothly changed lanes.

"What, this old thing?" he joked, referring to his perfectly tailored black suit. When he came to a stop at a red light, he looked over at you. His gaze slid down your form, taking in the deep purple dress you had borrowed from Liv that was just a little too tight, but in a way that showed off your curves.

"You look absolutely beautiful," he breathed after what felt like an eternity. The way he said it made it sound like he was truly blown away and it caused a wave of goosebumps to flash across your skin.

"Thank you," you murmured shyly.

The light changed to green and you grew distracted with the car — the smooth as butter leather, the tinted windows, the hundreds of fancy looking controls that reminded you of a space ship. Your gaze kept darting all around, taking everything in.

"What do you do, Harry?" you asked.

You had asked him a few times before, and every time he managed to change the subject or sidestep the question. It didn't even occur to you he kept giving you non-answers until the night before, when you were telling Mel and Liv about your date and the question inevitably came up.

"What? I never told you?"

You shook your head and the corner of his mouth turned up into a half-smile.

"Huh... hold on, we're almost there," he said, pulling up behind a convertible with a logo on the back you didn't recognize, but based on the way people on the sidewalk were gawking, told you it was expensive.

And yet again, Harry managed to distract you. When you looked up and saw the sign for Nova above an impossibly gorgeous looking restaurant, your eyes nearly bugged out of your head.

"Are you serious?" you gasped. Harry looked at you, confused.

"You said—"

"I know what I said," you replied, "I didn't think— h-how did you—"

You couldn't get the words out. It was insane. It had to be one of the hottest restaurants in New York City, and yet Harry was able to get a reservation on a Friday night with barely twenty-four hours notice?

Your door opened and a young man in an impeccably pressed suit stood on the outside, offering you his arm. You gently took it while Harry got out on the other side, sliding a bill to the valet and rounding the front of his car to join you on the sidewalk.

"Ready?"

You nodded, speechless, as you took his arm. He led you up through the huge double doors and to the hostess, giving his name with practiced ease. She tapped something on a computer, smiled at you both, and led you through the restaurant.

It was dark, but in a warm, comfortable way. The guests were not rowdy, the kitchen was silent, and there was a pianist playing classical music in the center of the dining room.

A far cry from your diner.

"Here you are. Enjoy your meal," the hostess said once she reached your table. It was off to the side of the room. Private.

Harry pulled your chair back and looked at you, smiling at the way you were utterly and completely stunned.

"Thank you," you whispered, sitting primly in the chair. In front of you, there was an intimidating set of silverware on top of a white linen tablecloth. A candle was placed between you both, along with a small bouquet of flowers.

Harry sat down across from you, unbuttoning his suit and arching an eyebrow in your direction.

"Is it living up to your expectations, Miss. Thursday?"

You giggled and nodded.

"It's a step up from the diner, that's for sure."

"But the coffee's terrible," he grinned. Then he leaned forward, looking side to side quickly before meeting your eye. "Waitresses aren't as pretty, either."

Your cheeks burned and you laughed again, fanning yourself while looking away. Harry chuckled and leaned back in his chair.

"It's cute when you do that," he said. You dropped your hand and looked back at him.

"Do what?"

"When I pay you a compliment, you fan yourself," he said. "Very 50s movie star. I like that."

"Oh," you replied softly, "I didn't even realize. But... thank you."

"You're welcome." He folded his hands in his lap and crossed one leg over the other under the table.

When your server arrived to get your drink order, Harry sensed your discomfort right away.

"Do you like wine?" he asked, taking charge. You nodded. "Red or white?"

"Red."

"We'll take the bottle of the 1982 Chateau Latour Pauillac," he said, looking up at the waiter.

You stared dumbly at Harry after the server disappeared to get your wine.

"That sounds really expensive."

"Thought you had expensive tastes?" he reminded you with a smirk.

"I was joking," you said, "I drink wine out of a box! I can't tell the difference!"

He laughed and leaned forward again, resting on his elbows when he said, "Can I tell you a secret?"

You nodded and leaned forward, as well.

"I can't tell the difference, either."

You dissolved into a fit of giggles just as the server arrived with your bottle of wine. He took a customary sniff and taste before nodding his approval, then waited until your glasses were filled before addressing you again.

"Are you okay with the tasting menu?" Harry asked.

"Uh, yeah," you said, then looked up at the waiter and nodded. "Sounds great."

After he left, you tried to mimic Harry. You picked up your glass, swirled it a bit, took a sniff and then a tiny sip. He watched you with an amused look as you smacked your lips together, looking deep in thought.

"Hm," you hummed, "I'm getting notes of... cherry... and..."

You glanced over at Harry and tried not to laugh.

"Amber."

He gave you that wide smile that brought out that dimple you loved.

"Amber?" he repeated. "What's amber?"

"I have no idea," you laughed, "I was trying to impress you. Did it work?"

"Oh, yeah. Big time," he said, making you laugh again.

Halfway through the tasting menu, you realized no one had ever made you laugh as much as Harry did. Your cheeks actually hurt from smiling so much, but you couldn't stop. He just had something about him that made you feel so comfortable and at ease, even if you were way out of your element.

"Hey," you said suddenly right as the server was putting dessert in front of you. Harry cocked his head to the side, waiting. "You never told me what you do for work."

He slowly grinned, nodded his thanks to the waiter, then lifted his wine glass to his lips.

"What'd you think of the wine?" he asked.

You shook your head and gave him a fake look of disapproval.

"Nuh uh. No changing the subject," you said. He chuckled and set his glass down.

"Alright. Private equity," he sighed, lacing his fingers together and ignoring his dessert completely. You blinked and frowned.

"What does that mean?" you asked, feeling dumb.

"I buy companies, strip them down, make them better, and sell them for more money," he answered plainly.

You nodded and took a bite of your dessert.

"Sounds... interesting."

"No, it doesn't," he smiled. You laughed, hiding your smile behind your hand.

"No, it really doesn't," you agreed, making him laugh, too. "Do you like it?"

He shrugged and finally lifted a fork to scoop up a piece of tart.

"I'm good at it."

"But do you like it?"

"Sometimes. The people can be draining but when it pays off, it's rewarding."

"Yeah. That's how I feel about the diner, too," you sighed, feigning seriousness when you added, "it's almost like we do the exact same thing, huh?"

You made him laugh and once again, you were amazed by how easy it was to be with him already.

After Harry paid what appeared to be an absolutely ridiculous bill that made you squirm a little in your seat, you were faced with the awkward part of the date that you almost forgot about.

Does he take you home? Does he ask you to come back to his place? Would you go?

"Want to take a walk?" he asked when you both stepped outside of the restaurant, and you breathed a sigh of relief. "Weather's nice. Unless— those shoes—"

He looked down at your heels but you quickly shook your head.

"No, I'm good. A walk sounds nice."

Luckily, he walked slow because you were lying — your shoes were not made for comfort. But you were willing to sacrifice it to spend a little more time with him.

The street was bustling with life, but it wasn't very loud. A few people laughed while sharing cigarettes outside of a bar. A man with earbuds and vibrant, reflective clothes jogged by, minding his own business. An older woman wearing a chic poncho with a full face of makeup walked her small dog across the street.

It was a nicer neighborhood than the one you lived in, that was for certain.

"Thank you again for dinner," you said after the silence stretched on a little too long.

"You're welcome," he replied, then waited a beat or two before adding, "If this isn't your scene or you don't feel comfortable, we don't have to do stuff like this next time. We can do anything you want."

You frowned, confused.

"I liked it," you said slowly, "it's definitely not like anything I've ever experienced before, but I still liked it."

"Yeah?" he asked, stopping suddenly. You did the same and turned to gaze up at him.

"Yeah. Of course."

He looked relieved. His face relaxed a bit and he gave you a small smile. Then you shot him a coy look when you added, "So there will be a next time, then?"

He smiled wider and tipped his chin up so he could glance at the night sky, and that was when you noticed the flush creeping up his neck, just past his collar.

"I sure as hell hope so."

He looked back down, eyes flickering across your face and settling briefly on your lips before finding your eyes again.

"I'd love that," you said, feeling the warmth creeping up your own neck from the way he looked at you.

Then, he brought a hand up to cup your face, his dark brown eyes shimmering in the moonlight.

"Can I kiss you?"

He said it so softly, almost like he was nervous, but you found it hard to believe. How could someone like him be nervous around someone like you?

You felt yourself drift a little closer, that magnetic pull doing you in. His cologne invaded your senses, his warmth curled around you like a blanket, and you nodded, unable to form the word yes.

He was gentle at first, and his lips were unexpectedly soft against yours. He moved slow, savoring every second, massaging your lips tenderly against his own and learning the feel of you for the first time.

You melted into him so easily. The hand on your face gripped you a little harder when your lips parted, and when he deepened the kiss, you could still taste lemon and wine on his tongue.

He stepped forward and you stumbled backwards, arms flying up to wrap around his neck. His free hand found your lower back and he guided you further until you felt the cool press of brick behind you.

Within a minute, the kiss went from gentle to heated. You were firmly stuck between Harry and a brick wall, and all you could do was try to keep up with the intensity behind each swipe of his tongue against yours. His beard pressed into your chin, burning the skin there, making his mark, but you loved it.

You were completely lost in it, in him. The way he smelled, the way he felt, the way he kissed you like he may never get another chance again. Months of weekly visits to the diner that left you wanting all built up to that moment and neither of you could seem to stop.

That is, until a group of people out drinking walked by with a low whistle aimed in your direction and finally, Harry tore himself away.

"Christ," he chuckled, still standing too close and still holding your face. You both panted for air and stared at one another, searching each other's eyes, trying to get a read.

"Maybe I should — I should take you home."

You threaded your fingers through the hair on the back of his head and before you could lose your nerve, said:

"Or you can show me where you live."

He didn't hesitate, which thrilled you, and fifteen minutes later, you found yourself in his car with his hand firmly planted on your thigh as he drove you across town.

"Tribeca?" you asked, peering around.

"Yep."

"Wow," you breathed, looking out the window. Every building you passed by looked more impressive than the last until Harry turned down a street and slowed down.

The doorman jumped to attention, snapping his fingers at a younger man behind a counter, the both of them rushing outside.

"Mr. Castillo," the doorman greeted warmly when Harry stepped out. Harry nodded, murmured good evening, and rounded the car to open your door. From the corner of your eye, you saw the doorman swat the other on the shoulder, who shrugged and made a perplexed face in return.

Your hand slid easily into Harry's and he shut the door behind you.

"My apologies," the doorman said to you, "we didn't realize you would be having a guest this evening," he added, looking at Harry.

"It's alright," he said smoothly while handing the keys and a folded bill to the younger man. "I'll take any chance to prove I'm a gentleman."

They chuckled and you smiled, but mostly for a different reason: it appeared Harry didn't bring guests home often.

The lobby was stunning. Bright crystal chandeliers hung above your heads. The carpet was the softest, thickest carpet you ever stepped foot on. Two gorgeous fireplaces sat on either end of the spacious room and in front of each was a sitting area filled with couches and chairs and tables. Even the elevator was beautiful. Inside the car was mirrored with golden edges. Soft music filtered through the air and just when you noticed the ornate light fixture above you, Harry swiped a card and pressed the P button on the elevator, making your jaw drop.

"Penthouse?" you squeaked.

He gave you a strained smile and glanced down at his watch.

Your brows furrowed for a moment, trying to figure out what was going through his head.

You stepped off the elevator, following Harry into his apartment. Lights were already on and dimmed throughout the space, as if they were on timers. He watched you take a few hesitant steps forward and slowly spin around, taking everything in. Your eyes trailed over the marble kitchen countertops, the plush velvet chairs in the sitting room, the massive television, the floor to ceiling windows overlooking a breathtaking view. But it lacked... something.

Harry remained silent, waiting for you to turn back to him. When you did, you gave him a small smile and said, "Is this all?"

He laughed softly and pushed off the wall to join you.

"What do you think?" he asked, brushing his knuckles up and down your arm.

"Do you like it?"

It was the second time you asked him that question in one evening.

"Yes. I do."

You nodded and took a step forward, closing the small gap between you.

"Then I like it, too."

His mouth found yours once again, kissing you with an urgency that had you wondering if it was more than just lust behind it. Either way, you matched it, tongue swirling in tandem with his and fingers weaving eagerly through his hair as he blindly walked you both through the kitchen, towards where you assumed his bedroom would be.

When you stumbled past the threshold to his room, you giggled from your combined excitement, breaking the kiss. His mouth trailed down to your jaw, lips peppering kisses all the way to your pulse point. You craned your neck to the side and your eyes fluttered closed with a soft moan. His hands searched your dress, looking for the zipper, pulling hastily at the fabric as the backs of your legs bumped up against his bed.

"Careful," you whispered, and his groping stilled. "I borrowed this, it's not mine," you explained with a laugh. Harry pulled away from your neck to catch his breath and gaze down at you. His face looked flushed, eyes a little glassy, and his lips already swollen. Something about seeing a man so put together look so wrecked, all because of you, sent a tingle down your spine.

"I could buy a hundred more to replace it," he reminded you with one lifted eyebrow.

You grinned. "I don't care."

Something flickered across his face. Something soft, not unlike disbelief. Then his hands were on you again, searching for the zipper now that he could see properly.

In a heartbeat, the dress became a purple puddle at your feet and Harry was lowering you carefully onto his bed with his mouth nipping and sucking up and down the column of your throat, pulse coming alive at his touch.

You arched your back and dragged a hand through his hair with a gasp, holding him against your neck while your hips lift, searching for friction and thank god, he gave it to you. He dropped his weight between your legs with a grunt and grinds, soaking up every delicious sound you made underneath him.

His hands found the straps of your bra and he slipped them past your shoulders, kissing every inch of skin as he went. With a speed that made you gasp, Harry reached behind and unclasped your bra, then tossed it to the side to join your dress and shoes.

Without missing a beat, he continued to plant wet kisses all the way down your sternum, between your breasts, and only then did he pause to look up at you with heavy lidded eyes.

"You're so fucking beautiful, do you know that?"

You couldn't answer him. The words got lodged in your throat when his mouth wrapped around your breast, sucking and flicking his tongue over your nipple while you writhed impatiently beneath him.

"Fuck," you moaned as he continued to explore your body, like he was mapping you, memorizing you. "Harry — please..."

You were tugging feebly at his pristine white button down, his suit coat long forgotten somewhere in the journey from the front door to his bedroom.

He reared back at your plea and began to feverishly unbutton the shirt, his gaze all the while raking up and down your nearly naked body like he was drinking you in.

When he shoved the shirt past his shoulders, he made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat when the fabric caught on his wrists, forgetting entirely about his cufflinks.

He dropped each one into the silk sheets and nearly ripped his shirt off, far too eager to get his mouth back where it belonged — on you.

He fell forward onto his arms and continued to kiss you everywhere he could reach while your hands snaked between your bodies, working shakily on his leather belt.

"Jesus — get these off," you huffed, pushing down on the waistband of his slacks. He chuckled against your neck and helped you, kicking the offensive material to the floor and flinging his white undershirt off to join the rapidly growing pile of clothes.

You sucked in a deep breath at the sight of his bare chest for the first time. He took care of himself — that much was clear. But he wasn't overly buff and his stomach was still a little soft. You dragged your palms slowly up and down his tanned skin, admiring every curve and slope until your fingers found the band of his boxers. His stomach tensed when you slid your hand inside and you heard him stifle a groan when your fingers curled around his cock.

"I wanna see it," you murmured in his ear while slowly stroking him up and down. His hips lazily followed your hand, his hot breath skittered across your chest, and even though you were in the middle of this world, surrounded by extravagance you could only ever dream of, the only thing he wanted was you.

He granted your request, pulling down his boxers and freeing his cock, leaving him entirely bare to you. He watched with heavy eyes as you continued to work him with your fist, enjoying the way he twitched in your palm when your lips parted greedily at the sight of him in your hand.

He had enough. He couldn't take it any longer. His fingers curled around the edge of your black panties, stretching them away from your hips, slowly, before looking up at you.

"You borrow these, too?"

You shook your head then yelped when the fabric tore suddenly away from your hips.

"Jesus!" you giggled, but his mouth hastily slanted over yours, silencing you with a deep kiss that had your head swimming and your knees weak.

"Been thinking about this for weeks," he confessed, the words slipping past his lips and pouring into your mouth. One arm dropped down to grip himself at the base and your own hands instantly grabbed onto his broad shoulders, bracing yourself for what was to happen next.

"Me, too," you whispered, but he just shook his head while lining himself up at your entrance.

"No, it's not the same," he murmured back. "You're all I can think about. Driving me fucking crazy every second of the day. Wondered what you were doing—" You felt the blunt tip of him breach your cunt and you inhaled sharply. "Wondered— wondered what it would be like to— to— fuck..."

You gasped in unison when he pressed inside, parting your wet walls with ease, like he was always meant to be there. You whimpered his name and clawed at his shoulders, unable to look away from his face contorting with pleasure, at the feeling of you wrapping around him for the first time.

"To — what?" you exhaled when he was fully seated inside of you. His nose nudged the side of your head and he planted a tender kiss to your temple.

"Wondered what it would be like to wake up next to you every day."

It was so unexpectedly sweet. It had your stomach twisting as you pulled him back down to your mouth, your hand cupping the back of his neck to keep him close.

He rolled his hips forward, slowly, allowing you both a chance to adjust to the tight fit of his cock inside of you. You moaned into his mouth and it just spurred him on. His hand found a home on your hip, thumb pressing into the crease at the top of your thigh, then he did it again — he pulled halfway out just to slowly glide right back in, basking in the way you stretched for him.

"You're perfect," he murmured against your lips. Your eyebrows pinched together, gasping at the heavy weight of him every time he pushed forward. "You're so sweet and beautiful and fucking — perfect."

He groaned the last word, burying himself as deep as possible as if to emphasize his point. You shuddered in his arms, unable to articulate just how good, how full, how complete you felt. All you could manage to do was nip weakly at his chin and rock your hips upward, encouraging him to move faster, to take more — take all of you.

So, he did. He picked up the pace until he found a rhythm that made your mouth hang open and your legs shake. He was hypnotized, watching the way your eyes rolled back and your tits bounced with every harsh thrust. The only thing that kept you firmly in place was his hand pressing down on your hip as he took and took and took.

"God, you're pretty," he moaned. He was overcome with you, completely sunk and drowning. "So fucking pretty like this. I'll never get enough. Never — shit — never get enough."

The huge, sprawling bedroom was filled with the sounds of your skin slapping together punctuated with the soft noises you murmured into one another's skin. It was as if nothing else even existed outside of that space, even though you were very much firmly in the heart of one of the busiest cities in the world. You were both so lost in each other that nothing else mattered.

He groaned when he felt your arousal dripping down his shaft and onto his sheets. You were just so tight and warm and perfect, it was driving him insane and he wished more than anything that he could come inside you. He wanted to see the way he spilled out of your pussy and leaked down your soft thighs. He wanted the image burned into his brain for eternity.

"Harry—" you whined, nails digging into his back. "Oh god, don't stop! Don't— don't stop— ple—"

His mouth captured yours once again, quieting you while also giving you exactly what you wanted. He snapped his hips ruthlessly, knocking the air from your lungs as you wrapped your legs around his waist. You pulsed around his cock and whined so sweetly into his mouth that it had him feeling dizzy and reckless.

He slipped his tongue past your lips when you came, his name garbled in your throat in a way that made him feel like a fucking god. You tore yourself away, too desperate for fresh air, and dropped your head lazily into his pillow as you rode out the rest of your orgasm.

"Harry," you sighed, and his skin prickled at the sound. Your eyelids drooped and your swollen lips parted to drag in more air. You were so spent but still wanted him to feel good, so you tightened your hold around his waist and dragged your fingers through his sweat soaked hair.

"Come for me," you whispered into his ear. You felt his entire body shudder at your command and a jolt of confidence ripped through you.

"I will," he gasped, vision blurring with every wet smack of his hips against yours. "I will, baby. I wi— I'll give you anything you want. I'll — oh, f-fuck..."

Your teeth gently grazed the shell of his ear, just enough to sharpen his senses. His arms wrapped around you, holding you still as he fucked you hard now, chasing his own release.

"Inside me?" you asked. The way your voice sounded so sweet and innocent had his cock instantly swelling.

"N-no, I can't." He couldn't risk it but it still broke his heart to tell you no.

You made a disappointed noise but you didn't push it. You loosened your legs and a few hard thrusts later he was pulling out of you with a grunt. Your legs dropped to the mattress, shaky and loose. You rolled your head and watched in a trance as Harry hovered above you, jerking his cock with clenched teeth until he stilled with a low, deep moan. A moment later, you felt hot spurts of cum painting your stomach and mound. It was filthy, the way you loved being covered in him, how you reveled in the feeling of his sticky release on your skin.

He looked dazed and breathless when he was done, staring down at you with bleary eyes as he gasped for air. But then his gaze brightened when he watched you lift a lazy finger to swipe through his mess, collecting a taste and popping it into your mouth with a moan.

"Jesus," he groaned, and you giggled. He pushed a hand through his hair and took a deep breath before forcing himself to stand.

"I'll get you something," he said, stumbling for a moment. You eyed his soaked, semi-hard cock appreciatively before he turned to his bathroom. He returned with the softest washcloth you'd ever felt in your life. You almost told him not to use it, that you felt bad ruining it, then remembered where you were and who you were with and refrained.

Afterwards, he was incredibly sweet. He pulled you into his arms and turned out the lights, both of you still naked between his silk sheets. His thumb rubbed gentle circles against your arm and his lips occasionally brushed lovingly over your eyes, nose, or forehead.

In return, you pressed lazy kisses against his throat and slotted your leg in between his, unable to stop yourself from smiling.

"I had a really nice time tonight," you finally said, breaking the silence and making him laugh.

"Me, too," he replied, gazing at you in the beam of moonlight that cast across his bed.

You bit your bottom lip shyly and glanced around his bedroom. There hadn't been much of an opportunity to take it all in before, but now in the quiet stillness of night, you realized his room was unusually bare with the exception of his huge bed and one large abstract painting on the wall.

"Did you just move in?"

He shook his head, eyes still locked on you. "No."

He could tell you were curious but didn't want to pry, so he threw you a lifeline.

"I could've hired a decorator but," he glanced around, looking a little forlorn. "I wanted to wait and do it myself. With someone."

"Oh," you breathed softly. Then, sensing his vulnerability, added, "I would have done the same thing. It's part of what makes a house a home, you know?"

His dark eyes flashed to yours and he smiled.

"Yeah, that's right."

You grinned and snuggled a little closer into his chest. His lips found the top of your head and he hummed, content. Your eyes slid closed and you could feel your body relaxing, ready to drift off to sleep when he spoke again.

"I have a confession to make."

Your eyes snapped back open and you looked up expectantly.

"I don't think I can wait til Thursday to see you again," he smirked. Your heart skipped a beat and you pretended to think it over for a second.

"Well... I guess I could make some time on Monday or Tuesday," you mused.

"How about both?"

You swallowed and nodded, hoping you didn't come off too eager when you said, "Yeah, I think that would work."

As he pressed a tender kiss to your lips to seal the deal, you mustered up the courage to ask the question that had been weighing on your mind since the day before.

"Harry?"

"Hm?"

He looked at you like he was completely smitten, like he was ready to give you the world on a silver platter if you asked.

"Since we're making confessions, I have a question that's been bothering me," you said carefully. His smile faltered, but only for a moment.

"What is it?"

"Why didn't you tell me about all of this before? When I asked what you did for work, you always blew me off. I was starting to think you were unemployed but—" you laughed and looked out the partially covered window overlooking Manhattan. "—I was way off."

Harry sighed and rolled onto his back, bringing you with him to lay on his chest.

"I haven't had a very good track record with dating," he said. "And usually when women find out what I do, all they see is the money, the lifestyle, the parties, but..." he trailed off for a moment, fingers playing idly with the ends of your hair. "I just wanted someone to want me for me."

You tilted your chin up, giving him a sorrowful look as you cupped his cheek, forcing him to look at you.

"I want you for you," you told him firmly. He smiled, took your hand from his face, and turned it over to kiss your palm.

"I know."

It has only been two, three hours since Harry's cock was buried deep inside you, his voice low and sinful as he whispered the filthiest things into your ear. He made you cum for a third time right there that night, much harder than the previous two (or ever)— and god, it was so intense that you passed out in his arms immediately after.

Now, you lie in an empty bed that’s too big for one person, craving Harry again as if you weren’t satisfied the last time. The truth is, he’s ruined you. He has from the very first moment you started sleeping together. Three months ago, to be precise, when this arrangement—pure hot sex, no strings attached— was agreed upon. You never expected it to leave you this wrecked and wanting more and more.

Harry is charming, handsome. Irresistible, addicting. Like he’s the only thing in the world that could pull you apart and piece you back together under the same touch.

And he’s in the other room. Standing alone, naked under a spray of water. Just several strides away.

Without a second thought, you throw back the covers and roll out of bed. Your bare skin prickles from the chill in the air; your body throbs from the earlier activities, and you almost couldn’t walk a straight path. But you don’t seem to care. Your feet carry you towards the bathroom door left ajar, not wasting any more time.

The warm, humid fog greets you at first. The water pattering softly against the pale white tile masks the noise of your movements as you approach the misted-glass shower stall.

Harry doesn’t notice you immediately, allowing you a few seconds to admire the sight of his broad back and shoulders. The way beads of water glisten and slide across taut muscles that ripple under his skin as he lathers soap unhurriedly all over his body.

Not only does he fuck like a god, but he looks like one, too.

He hums an unfamiliar tune to himself, quiet but rich; smooth and warm like whiskey. It echoes off the walls, the rumbling sound close to a touch you somehow feel even if it didn't land.

Your breath catches somewhere between your lungs and your lips. It's sweet, slow torture— you standing there and not saying a word, not reaching out. You can't tear your eyes away, not that you wanted to. Fuck, no. You're going to savor every second of this, commit each detail of Harry to memory, and tuck it away with all the other dirty ones.

And when you've finally had enough— when the blooming heat in your belly has melted down your restraint— you slip into the shower stall behind Harry, pressing your body gently into his solid back. He doesn't tense up at your unexpected presence. If anything, he relaxes more with you there. Steam envelops you as your hands glide over his slick chest, feeling the thrumming beneath your palm when he chuckles.

"Didn't mean to wake you, baby. You should've stayed in bed, I wasn't going to take too long," Harry says, his hand catching one of yours to bring up to his lips.

In return, you softly kiss the hollow between his shoulder blades. "And lose out on an opportunity to watch you in the shower? No, thank you. Besides, m'not really tired anymore."

"Sure about that?" He wonders, and you can practically hear the smirk in his tone. "Thought I wore you out pretty good earlier."

"Mhmm, you did," you murmur against Harry's back, your hands beginning to drift down his chest, fingers slowly caressing his soft belly, and the thatch of hair there. You almost miss the subtle stutter of his breath, drowned out by the steady cascade above your heads. "But I missed you and this..."

Harry lets out a soft groan when your hand lightly brushes against his cock, which has been stirring with interest from the moment your touch landed upon him. You grin at that, unseen by him, of course. You relish knowing how fast he gets worked up by you, from not doing too much at that either.

"Needy, needy girl," he cooes, thinking he’s in complete control here, just like always. Harry tries to turn around and face you, but you gently push forward, pinning him to the wall.

You keep your body flush against Harry’s to give him no room to move. He doesn’t fight it, though, which is more surprising to you than not. Perhaps he doesn’t make an attempt because your fingers are now wrapped around the girth of his cock, choosing to surrender to baser urges rather than delay relief.

But then again, you know Harry. You know he likes it when you show him what you want. When that bold confidence of yours doesn't shy away from him, acting as though you're worth more than his wealth and yours combined. It's what drew him to you when you first met at some glitzy gala in Manhattan neither of you wanted to attend in the first place. Maybe you taking the lead for a change is turning him on more than he anticipated.

“Fu-uck, baby. That’s it,” Harry grunts, rough and ragged. He leans forward, bracing an arm against the shower tile as you continue pumping his length with long, steady strokes from behind. His hand finds your other resting low at his hip, and he laces his fingers with yours, his grip tightening, grounding— you’re not entirely sure if he was holding back or barely holding on.

Slick from the coated mix of water, soap, and his own arousal, your hand moves up and down Harry’s shaft, hot and heavy, effortlessly. You see the way his head dips down to watch you work him over with such practiced and devastating ease. Every drag of your closed palm, every twist and tug and squeeze, unravels him in a way that he can’t and won’t stop.

Harry’s close. You’re well acquainted with his body at this point to be sure of that. You can feel it with each broken breath pushing past his lips, in the slight shiver beneath his skin, the tight rise and fall of his chest. How his hips jerk into your fist with small, shallow, desperate thrusts, a string of curses and praises muttered low along with your name.

There's something thrilling about having Harry like this, teetering over the edge. You could draw it out, tease him helplessly. Leave him aching, begging, and trembling like he often does to you.

But you didn't come here for that. As much as it lit a hot, dangerous fire within you, you wanted Harry to fuck you. You wanted the throbbing cock in your hand back inside you, to quell the ache that no fingers, mouth, or toys could ever do.

Your rhythm falters, then eventually stills. Harry is quick to react, a sound caught in his throat— half-protest, half plea. He inhales sharply, body tensing when he’s pulled back from the very brink. His head lifts from the tile where he’d rested it, and he glances over his shoulder to meet your hazy eyes.

The heat in his gaze is dark, searing, and hungry, as if he doesn’t at all appreciate the fact that you’ve stopped so abruptly.

“Not gonna finish what you started, baby?” Harry pants, his hand reaching down to drape over your fingers that remain loosely curled around the base of him. He twitches against the softness of your palm. “Didn’t think you could be cruel.”

“Cruel? Never. Well, at least not now anyway,” you reply, placing a kiss on the center of his spine. “I was hoping that you would finish inside me instead.”

“That can be arranged.”

You wring Harry’s cock with one last slow pull, just enough to make him shudder, before letting him slip from your grasp. It’s only then that you take a step back, allowing him space to turn to you.

And when he does, you feel the power shift back to Harry. Something low in your belly coils so tight that it almost hurts. Your eyes drag over him without an ounce of shame— flushed, gorgeous, and hard.

Fuck, Harry is so hard, his tip swollen and a shade or two darker. Just one look at him and your pussy clenches around nothing, begging to be filled. He notices this, notices how your thighs press firmly together from the mere anticipation, your eyes locked in a silent, electric exchange.

Then all at once, Harry’s mouth crashes onto yours, fierce, bruising, and urgent. The force of which nearly causes you to stumble if it hadn’t been for his steady grip settling on your waist. His other hand slides behind your head, angling you perfectly for him to deepen the kiss, his tongue insistent and greedy as it dives past your lips in a hungry sweep.

He doesn’t slow down, not even as he backs you against the cool tile of the wall. The shower stream hits only Harry now, his body shielding you from it, the heat of him replacing the warmth of the water on you.

Harry’s lips break away from yours, dragging them across your cheek, along the line of your jaw. He continues down onto your neck, his mouth moving with a purpose; teeth grazing lightly, nipping and sucking against your tender flesh until it undoubtedly leaves a bloom of color— you feel it, even if you can’t see it.

“So fucking beautiful… and all mine,” Harry rasps, the words meant for you, but just as much for himself.

You see his throat work as he swallows, his large hand skimming up the curve of your waist, thumb brushing gently under the swell of your breast. His heavy-lidded eyes take in every inch of you before him, as if this is the first time he’s ever seen you bare, wet, and wanting— like he’s looking at something so sinfully holy.

“Yours,” you whisper, and hearing it hits Harry like a live wire.

Because suddenly he’s surging forward, his mouth claiming yours again with kisses that are all messy and consuming, that leave you with no room to breathe.

Your head starts to spin, and your knees buckle from the intensity. But Harry's there, trapping you between his chest and the shower wall, keeping you upright, fully flushed against him.

Harry only breaks away from your lips when you arch your back slightly, rolling your hips against his. He lets out a groan, rough and guttural, his breath hot and uneven as it fans over your face. You rock against him once more, and he hisses at the sensation— at the sweet friction he gets from each grind against your pelvis. His warm, glistening precum smears across wherever it can reach.

“Feel that, baby?” Harry husks as your eyes drop to where the rigid line of his cock ruts between the two of you. “That’s all you. You did that. Made me so hard…fuck I can’t even think anymore. I need you— gotta have you."

A hand then comes into view, trailing from your waist to your hip, and then dipping lower and lower until he’s palming your sex, groaning low when he finds the slick mess pooling down there.

“God, you’re soaking wet. Haven't even touched you properly yet. All this from jacking me off, hmm?”

You answer with a breathless whimper when Harry leisurely drags two digits through your slit, gathering your arousal onto his fingers. Your gaze follows as he lifts his hand to his mouth, sliding those fingers covered in a thin sheen of desire between his lips, sucking and savoring the essence that is purely you.

He hums in satisfaction. "You taste so sweet, darling. Wish my legs weren't shot, ‘cause I'd go down on you right here, right now."

A renewed rush of heat spreads under your skin as you’re reminded of how unbelievably good Harry is at eating pussy. It’s earth-shattering each and every time. He listens to your body, knows exactly what to do and when to give it to make you come undone easily. You love it mainly because he’s not just going through the motions like your exes used to. No, not him. Harry will happily bury his face between your legs as if he’s a starved man.

Any and all thoughts in your head dissolve the instant the pad of Harry’s thumb brushes over your clit, sending a jolt straight to you. He holds your gaze, watching the pleasure ripple through your expression. His tongue flicks over his bottom lip to chase the lingering taste of you as he continues the tender assault on your sensitive bundle of nerves that soon has you writhing beneath his touch.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he’s gotten you to this point. How he’s not even inside of you yet, and if you let him, you could cum just like this. But you’re so wound up, so desperate to be filled more than anything that you don’t want that. You don’t want to prolong this. You couldn’t wait any longer.

“Want—want more, Harry, shit… fuck me. Please, fuck me,” you plead to him, and he stops, his fingers immediately pulling away, and damn it, is this how it felt for him when you took your hand off his cock just like that?

Harry flashes you a knowing smirk, but he doesn’t leave you hanging for long, though. He kisses you once more, this time unhurried. Softer. Much, much softer now, like he's kissing you simply because he wants to feel your lips on him again, to get his fill of it before his hands rest on your hips, gently coaxing you to turn and face the tiled walls behind you.

“Bend over a little for me, sweetheart. Hands on the wall— good, just like that. That’s my girl.” Harry guides you into a comfortable enough position, his voice thick as he speaks, nearly strained as though it bears the weight of his own arousal. He smooths his hand down the length of your spine, coasting along the curve of your ass where he squeezes the soft skin of it.

You hold your breath believing it might keep you from falling apart due to impatience, waiting for the heavy press of him against your entrance, the raw slide of hard flesh that makes you squirm at the intrusion. And it does. You feel the familiar flare of pressure as something sinks into you— a finger.

Then, another.

Harry couldn’t help himself. How could he when your dripping pussy is staring straight at him? Two of his fingers don’t fill you the same way his cock would, but at least your wishes have been granted somewhat.

Selfishly, you want more. Not this. More.

But when those two, thick digits delve in as far as they would go, it shuts you up long enough to get lost in the sensation. Harry doesn’t rush, and you’re too distracted by his skilled fingers working inside of you to protest. He crooks them just right, just enough that he’s pushing up against that spongy spot of yours that has you keening.

“Wanna make you come on my hand, my darling. Love the way you squeeze my fingers when you do.”

You shake your head deliriously. “On your cock, baby. I need your cock, been needing it so bad ever since I woke up.”

“You sure? We got all the time in the world for that—”

“Fuck me with your cock, Castillo,” you cut Harry off with a near growl, drawing an amused chuckle out of him. “Fuck me right now, or I swear I’ll just find somebody else—”

Your unserious threat is swallowed by the whine escaping you when Harry withdraws his fingers. Before you could recover from the loss, he’s gliding his length between your wet folds, the very tip of his cock nudging your swollen clit. The sudden contact makes you gasp and sway, your footing slips for a second, but his hands on your waist keep you firmly in place.

“Harry, please. Enough—no more teasing.”

“Shhh, it’s alright,” Harry croons, his hips shifting back the slightest, and you know what’s coming next. You’re sure of it this time. “Gonna take care of you now. Need you just as bad. Relax for me, baby.”

You suck in sharp breath, fingers flexing against the wall as the thick head of Harry's length breaches your cunt at last. He eases himself inside of you, inch by inch, so agonizingly slow that it drives you mad. He doesn't do this out of cruelty, but rather with a tenderness, making sure that he doesn't hurt you even if it feels like he's splitting you in half.

“F-Fuck honey, this pussy’s so tight for me,” Harry mutters through gritted teeth when he finally bottoms out, his fingers digging into your hip, allowing a few moments for you to adjust.

The stretch of him, the fullness Harry brings— fuck, it’s everything you’ve been aching for and more. You can’t explain how it’s possible, but somehow he feels even better right now. Maybe it’s from the build-up, the angle he’s got you in, or the way the warm air clings to your damp skin, amplifying every touch, every spark he sets alight within you.

Whatever it is, it has the nerves in your body pulsing to life, like a hot electric current running through your veins.

Harry holds onto your shoulder with one hand, the other splayed across your waist, and he starts to move inside of you. His thrusts are slow at first, deep and deliberate, reaching a depth that has your walls helplessly fluttering around him.

And he feels it, too. You know he does, because his pace picks up, knocking the air out of your lungs. His grip clamps down on you, not so much to maintain your balance this time, but to pull you back onto his cock as he pushes in, as if he couldn't get close enough.

"Fuck—don't stop. Just like that. Please, don't you dare fucking stop," you cry out, voice frayed at the edges. Your mind scatters with each snap of Harry's hips, which seemingly have grown much harder at your words, hitting the sweet spot that he had teased earlier over and over again.

“Never, baby,” he chokes out. “Never gonna stop. Feels too fucking good.”

The noises trapped within the walls are filthy and obscene. There's the wet, rhythmic squelch of Harry's cock driving into; the frantic slap of the front of his thighs against the back of yours. The lewd symphony of your strung-out whines and his deep, throaty groans.

If Harry had neighbors, they would have certainly loathed him. And you. Mostly you, with your loud, unabashed moans from being fucked into oblivion in every room, on every surface of his home.

“M’close, Harry,” you tell him as the burning warmth in your core begins to crescendo towards your peak.

Harry lets out a hiss when your cunt tightens its walls around him, like it's warning him of your fast-approaching climax in case he hadn't heard you the first time. "Keep squeezing me like that darling, and you're gonna make me cum too."

Your legs shake as Harry pounds into you with reckless abandon, his control slipping away as he chases his own release. But he won’t allow himself to fall before you do. He makes sure of that once his fingers land on your delicate clit, rubbing in tight circles, trying to time with his increasingly sloppy thrusts.

Glancing over your shoulder, you arch your spine as much as you can until his chest brushes against your back. Harry nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, his scruff on his lower jaw scraping roughly against your skin.

“Need you to cum for me—fuck, baby cum now,” he urges, his tone wrecked, his restraint obvious. He’s right there with you on the edge, not letting go. Not yet. He couldn’t, wouldn’t.

But you do. You cum for Harry, the tension in your body snapping and unraveling all at once. You couldn't speak, not that any coherent thoughts were forming in your head. Not when the waves of pleasure come crashing down on you one after another, after another.

You barely hear the strangled groan behind you, nor register the way Harry’s hips stutter against you. Your pussy gushes around his shaft, clenching down on him hard, and that’s all it took. He buries himself to the hilt with a broken sigh of your name, his throbbing cock spilling deep inside of you, filling you up to the very brim.

Stillness passes over you and Harry. The shower is still running overhead, now the only sound in the room along with your tangled, labored breaths. He doesn’t pull out right away, and you’re glad he didn’t.

You allow this connection to remain for a minute or two more, before his softening length slips out without truly meaning to. A warm trickle of his seed slides down the inside of your leg, mixing with the rivulets of water on your skin, and you both share a hum at the sight.

Carefully, you shift your weight and turn, feeling the fresh new ache between your thighs. Harry’s heady eyes are already on you when you face him. His arms move instantly, pulling you flush against him, chest to chest, two hearts slowing down together to a calmer beat.

He kisses you tenderly, sweetly. The heat between you has now softened, like the burn of a fire that has settled into embers. It's moments like this where you look at Harry differently, as if he's not just a man you befriended after crossing paths one night, who, after finishing a bottle of Château Margaux, later became someone you seek out for relief.

Here, he’s… more. You don’t know how much more or why that is, and honestly, you’re terrified that this is currently crossing your mind.

“You okay there?” Harry asks quietly.

Pushing the confusing thought away, you're quick to nod and smile, brushing his wet hair back when it clings to his forehead. "Never better. Although, may I suggest investing in a shower bench? Could be helpful whenever we decide to fool around here."

He laughs lightheartedly. “Don’t worry, it’s already on my to-do list.”

“Good. It baffles me that your bathroom doesn’t already come with it, considering this penthouse cost you $12 million.”

“Why? Does your modest $5 million condo have one?”

“Duh, of course. It’s one of my non-negotiables. Makes shaving a lot easier, among other things.”

Harry shakes his head, eyes crinkling with amusement. “Guess that means we’re showering next at your place then.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” you reply with a soft chuckle. “You can see the benefits for yourself. Especially with your uh…”

You trail off, motioning to the healed scars running down the length of each of Harry's legs. He'd hidden them from you at first, choosing to have sex under the sheets, never letting you close enough to notice. But you did by accident some time ago, though you never asked where they were from. He's hesitant to share, still is, but you don't force him. You figure he’ll tell you once he’s ready, if and whenever that may be.

A gentle smile tugs at the corner of Harry’s mouth. “I’ll call up a contractor tomorrow. But for now, why don’t I wash you up before we head to bed?”

“You calling me dirty, Castillo?” You tease as he directs you closer under the spray of water. Undeniably, though, there’s something about the affection in his tone and his offer that has your heart stumbling.

“You are,” Harry smirks, taking his shampoo bottle from the nook and squeezing a generous amount of it into his hand. “You crashed my shower because you woke up horny. Almost got me off with just one hand, then you were begging to get fucked by my cock.”

You moan softly from both his retelling of events and the feeling of his hands in your hair, fingers lathering the shampoo into your scalp. Your eyes flutter shut as he massages your head, swaying just slightly from the motion of his hands.

The scent of cedar wood floods your senses—god, you’re not sure how you’ll make it through the entire day tomorrow smelling like Harry, feeling like you’re still wrapped in him completely.

“You always do this?” You question low, eyes peeking open after thoroughly rinsing the suds out of your hair. “Wreck a girl’s pussy then bathe her gently after?”

Harry reaches for the body wash. “Only you.”

You had half-expected him to give you a witty remark, but what came out of him instead carried a certain tenderness that’s becoming more and more familiar. It leads you to speculate whether he notices that, too.

A new kind of shiver sweeps down your spine as Harry glides his now soapy hands over you. He starts at your shoulders, moving down to your arms, then across your chest. There’s so much care when he circles your breasts, touching them not out of lust, but with something very sincere. Intimate. He later bends down a bit to reach the inside of your thighs, brushing clean the remnants of your mixed release there.

By the time Harry rinses you one last time, your chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with sex, but everything to do with him.

“This feels… oddly domestic.” The words tumble out unintentionally as Harry switches the shower off. You wait too long to take it back, and you can’t explain what you mean by that either.

You might have offended Harry when he doesn't respond right away, just pushes the shower door, and grabs a towel hanging nearby. He spends the stretch of silence drying you off before he bundles the cotton fabric around your body, tucking it at your chest.

Afterwards, he steps out of the stall, reaching for a second towel to quickly pat himself dry. He wraps it low around his hips and shifts back to you, extending a hand out, palm up. His fingers close gently around yours, guiding you forward— out of the warmth and into the cool air that raises goosebumps on your skin.

Then came his voice, much softer than you’re used to. The sound of it twists in your gut. “You didn’t like it?”

“No, I mean— yes. Yeah, I liked it. It was really… nice,” you ramble, struggling to find the right words to say here. But your answer was the truth. “Sorry, just not used to it, that's all.”

“Me neither,” Harry whispers. There’s a flicker of understanding in his warm gaze, and it swirls with something that you couldn’t quite pin a name to, or perhaps you’re simply not ready to. “It felt… nice. Doing that—for you.”

You fall into silence once more, though this time it rests lighter on your shoulders. A smile blossoms across your lips when you notice Harry still staring at you, looking as if you’re not a luxury, but a rarity—the one thing in this world his money can’t buy.

The lines between the two of you are blurred now. At least to you, they were. You wonder at what point it all changed. Or maybe it had been a slow, gradual shift, and it's only begun to catch up to you.

Either way, you and Harry were never meant to be this close. Purely sex, that was the deal. But now…

Now, he’s kissing you again, each brush of his lips demanding nothing more than you can give. You can taste the faintest trace of you on his tongue when he weaves it into your mouth, coaxing a pleased sigh from you that he drinks in without pause.

Then, Harry pulls away for a breath, his forehead resting against yours. You couldn’t remember what you’d been thinking or why it even mattered. Your mind, so noisy several moments ago, has gone blissfully blank.

You know without a doubt that it’s all because of him.

“Is this too much?” Harry asks, the weight of the question hanging in the air.

"No," comes your answer. You say the following words almost as if they hold something fragile. "It's perfectly enough for me."

Soft and slow, you press your lips to Harry’s again—and it would make you the richest woman on earth if you could just stay this way for as long as he’ll keep you close.

—

He orders black coffee. Says thank you like it costs him something. He tips five dollars on a three-dollar drink.

The next day, he’s back.

He tells you his name is James. Doesn’t look you in the eye when he says it, but he watches your hands. Watches how gently you fold pastry boxes, how you hum when no one’s listening.

You learn quickly that he comes in every morning around 9:15. Always orders the same thing. Always sits at the corner table and pulls a notebook from his bag.

You learn, later, that he used to be someone else.

He tells you the truth one night on your fire escape.

You’re drinking cheap beer. His metal hand clinks against the railing as he fiddles with the cap of the bottle. You’re both barefoot. The air smells like hot pavement and jasmine.

“I used to be him,” he says quietly. “The one they whisper about.”

You don’t say anything. You just scoot closer and rest your head on his shoulder.

He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for decades.

He meets your parents six months in. Your dad shakes his hand with wary eyes. Your mom watches him like she’s solving a puzzle. You think she sees the way he watches you when you’re not looking—like he’s memorizing you.

Later, she tells you he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

You nod.

You know.

You fight, once.

It’s about something stupid. Dishes, or the laundry, or the fact that he keeps buying strawberries and letting them rot in the fridge.

But it spirals.

He shuts down. You raise your voice. And for the first time in your life, you see what it looks like when someone retreats into a war you can’t see.

You find him hours later sitting on the shower floor, water running cold.

You climb in, fully clothed, and hold his face in your hands.

“I’m not leaving,” you whisper. “Not even close.”

He doesn’t cry. But he shakes.

On your one-year anniversary, he takes you to the lake just outside the city.

It’s quiet. Peaceful. There’s a tiny dock and a rowboat and a blanket full of strawberries he promises not to waste this time.

You sit with your legs tangled in his lap, feeding him fruit and laughing into his neck.

“You know,” he says, voice low, “I used to think I’d never have any of this.”

You kiss the corner of his mouth. “What changed?”

“You.”

You don’t realize you love him until a man walks into the café one afternoon with a face from Bucky’s past. One look and Bucky’s entire body goes stiff.

You watch as he shields you with his own frame, barely blinking.

Later, he apologizes for the panic, for the way he shut down. You just wrap your arms around him and press your cheek to his chest.

“You don’t have to be sorry for protecting the people you love.”

His breath catches.

You don’t notice.

You say “I love you” for the first time in the dark. It’s one of those half-asleep confessions. You’re wrapped in Bucky’s arms, the covers tangled around your hips, your nose pressed to his collarbone.

“I love you,” you mumble.

There’s a beat of silence.

Then—

“Say it again.”

You smile against his skin.

“I love you, Bucky.”

His whole body sinks against yours, like he finally believes it.

The thing is—he’s good. Not perfect. Not healed. But good.

He makes you breakfast on Sundays. He lets you paint your toenails on his lap while he reads. He hums old 40s jazz when he thinks you’re asleep.

Sometimes he wakes up screaming. Sometimes he disappears into his own head for hours. But he always comes back.

To you.

Two years in, you move in together.

It’s chaotic. Boxes everywhere. Furniture arguments. Bucky breaks a lamp trying to install curtain rods and you both end up sitting on the floor crying from laughter.

You kiss him in every room, declare ownership of the tiny balcony, and hang fairy lights in the kitchen even though he calls them “a fire hazard.”

He always flips them on when he makes dinner.

The night it happens is ordinary.

You’re curled on the couch, wearing one of his sweatshirts. There’s a storm outside. The lights flicker once, then hold.

Bucky disappears into the bedroom without a word.

When he returns, he’s pale.

Holding something in his hand.

You sit up. “Bucky?”

He kneels in front of you.

“I never planned on a forever,” he says. “But then I met you. And suddenly I wanted all of it. The fights, the dishes, the good mornings, the forever kind of stuff.”

Your breath stutters.

“I’m still healing,” he says. “I’m still scared. But I want to do it all with you. I want to wake up to you every day for the rest of my life. I want to be yours.”

He opens the box.

“Will you marry me?”

You don’t speak. Just fall to your knees and wrap your arms around his neck.

He’s shaking. You’re crying.

“Yes,” you whisper, over and over. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Later, when your hands are steady again and his thumb is brushing over the ring on your finger, you tease, “I thought you didn’t do forever.”

“I didn’t,” he says softly, eyes crinkling. “But then you smiled at me. And now forever doesn’t feel so scary.”

You laugh, breath catching in your chest.

“I’m yours, Buck.”

You answer on the third ring, voice gentle and curious. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Jake says, and he’s grinning before he can stop himself. “It’s the guy from the plane. The one who got the gold star.”

You laugh quietly. “Oh. Jake.”

“Glad you remember me,” he teases. “Was worried I’d have to earn another sticker just to get your attention.”

“Ivy would be thrilled,” you say. “But something tells me she’d make you work for it this time.”

“I’ll take my chances.” He leans against his truck, his voice softening. “Listen, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed talking to you today.”

There’s a pause, and he hears the faintest hint of a smile in your reply. “I did too.”

That’s all the encouragement he needs. “So I was thinkin’,” he drawls, “maybe I could take you out sometime. You know, continue our deep, meaningful conversation about Disney movies over a cup of coffee?”

You hum, pretending to consider. “You mean… a date?”

Jake chuckles. “I mean whatever you want it to be. I can go as slow as you need, darlin’. But I’d really like to see you again.”

There’s that soft inhale — like you weren’t expecting him to say it quite so plainly. “Coffee sounds nice,” you say finally, and he can hear the smile in your voice.

“Perfect,” Jake says. “Send me your address and I’ll come pick you up.”

You laugh, the sound warm and teasing now. “Whoa, down, cowboy. I haven’t even done my background check on you yet. I’ll meet you there.”

Jake chuckles, running a hand over his jaw. “Fair enough. I’ll make it easy for you, though — name’s Jacob Thomas Seresin. Let me know if you find anything good.”

You let out a soft, amused huff. “I’ll be sure to check the Texas criminal records.”

“Do that,” he says, grin audible. “You’ll only find a couple of speeding tickets and one noise complaint.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he says, lowering his voice just a touch. “Guess I tend to get a little loud when I’m havin’ fun.”

You don’t even realize you’re blushing until you hear your own awkward laugh. “You’re terrible.”

“Maybe,” he says, easy and teasing, “but I make up for it with charm.”

You roll your eyes — but he can tell you’re smiling. “How about tomorrow at three o’clock? There’s a café a few blocks from my place, Ivy and I usually go there on weekends.”

“Tomorrow it is,” Jake says, a little too quickly. “And you tell Ivy I’ll be expectin’ a rematch on those stickers.”

You laugh again — softer this time, more open. “I’ll let her know. Bye, Jake.”

“Bye, sweetheart.”

He’s still smiling when the call ends, the gold star catching the dim light from the parking lot as he drops into the driver’s seat.

Jake Seresin has flown through horrible weather and faced near death more than one time — but for the first time in a long time, he’s nervous. The good kind. The kind that comes with the thought of coffee, sunshine, and a woman who blushes like that when he flirts.

—

Jake gets there fifteen minutes early.

He tells himself it’s habit — he’s always early. Military training, time management, discipline. But when he catches his reflection in the café window, straightening his shirt collar for the third time, he knows that’s a damn lie.

He’s nervous. And he hasn’t been nervous for a date in a very long time.

The place smells like roasted coffee beans and sugar. There’s low music playing, the steady hum of conversation, and just enough afternoon light spilling through the windows to make everything feel a little softer. Jake picks a table in the corner, the kind that gives him a clear view of the door. He sits facing it, one arm draped casually over the back of the chair — casual, relaxed, like he’s not checking his watch every thirty seconds.

And then you walk in.

Jake spots you instantly. The soft click of your boots against the floor. The way your hand brushes a piece of hair behind your ear as your eyes sweep the café. You’re wearing something simple — a light sweater, jeans, a delicate chain glinting at your throat — but it knocks the air right out of his lungs.

You find him almost immediately, your lips curling into that small, hesitant smile he remembers from the plane. Jake stands before you can reach the table, that old-fashioned instinct kicking in, and the sight of him like this — standing tall in a navy-blue Henley, sleeves pushed up his forearms, sun catching in his hair — makes your stomach twist a little.

“Hey,” you say softly, almost shyly.

“Hey yourself,” he says, smiling that slow, easy smile that somehow manages to melt every word out of your mouth.

You take the seat across from him. There’s that brief, awkward shuffle — the kind that always comes before a first date starts to find its rhythm — and Jake clears his throat. “I was starting to think you might stand me up, sweetheart.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “I’m five minutes early.”

“Mm,” he hums, leaning forward on his elbows. “Guess I’m just eager.”

You pretend not to notice the way he’s looking at you — like he’s trying to memorize your face. “Ivy’s with my mom,” you say, settling back in your chair. “Figured I could use a little time to myself.”

Jake’s grin softens. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that. I like Ivy — she’s a sweetheart — but I was hopin’ to get you all to myself for a bit.”

You duck your head, trying to hide the flush that creeps up your neck. “You always this smooth, Lieutenant?”

He chuckles low, the sound rich and unhurried. “Only when I mean it.”

The server drops off your drinks, and for a moment, it’s quiet — just the small, familiar sounds of spoons against porcelain and the hiss of the espresso machine. Jake watches you stir your coffee, your fingers delicate around the handle, the little furrow between your brows as you taste it.

It’s ridiculous, how much he notices. The way you tilt your head when you smile. The faint scent of your perfume when you lean forward. The way your eyes catch the light — warm, soft, curious.

“You’re a dangerous woman,” Jake says finally, voice almost teasing but a little rough around the edges.

You look up, surprised. “Me? Why?”

He smiles, leaning back in his chair. “’Cause I’ve been here ten minutes and already forgot what I was gonna say.”

You can’t help it — you laugh, the sound making something in his chest unclench.

For a while, it’s easy. You talk about New York, about Ivy’s sticker books, about his work — though he only mentions “flying” and not much else. And under all of it, there’s that quiet, simmering tension — the kind that builds with every shared glance and every brush of fingertips across the table.

When you smile at him again, Jake swears he feels it in his ribs.

The date stretches out easily, like time doesn’t really apply to the little corner table they’ve claimed.

You’re laughing about something—some story about Ivy insisting on making breakfast “all by herself” one morning and nearly setting fire to the toaster—and Jake’s eyes are crinkled in amusement, his hand over his mouth as he tries not to laugh too loud.

“She told me she was ‘handling it,’” you say, shaking your head with that mix of exasperation and adoration that only a parent can manage. “She was wearing her little apron and everything. I should’ve known she meant business.”

Jake can’t stop smiling. “She sounds like she keeps you on your toes.”

“Oh, constantly,” you say. “But she’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

The way you say it—steady, quiet, like a truth you’ve carried a long time—makes something settle deep in his chest. Jake’s always been good at reading people; he’s had to be. But there’s something about you that makes him forget to analyze, forget to play it cool. He’s just… there, listening, drinking you in.

He leans his chin into his hand. “You talk about her like she hung the moon.”

You smile, eyes soft. “She did. At least, my little piece of it.”

Jake swallows hard. The words hit him square in the ribs, that ache of tenderness he hasn’t felt in a long time. He takes a sip of coffee just to keep from saying something too earnest.

“Well,” he says finally, flashing that grin again, “for the record, I think you might’ve hung a few stars yourself.”

You blink, a little startled—and a little flustered. “You really don’t hold back, do you?”

He chuckles low, leaning closer across the table. “Never saw the point in that. Life’s too short not to say what you mean.”

You shake your head, trying—and failing—to fight off a smile. “You’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” he says easily, eyes gleaming. “But I’m a damn good listener.”

And he proves it, asking you about your work, about how long you’ve been in the city, about the kind of buildings you love to design. He listens like every word matters, asking the kind of questions that make you feel seen.

When the conversation turns to him, he tells you about his family—how his sisters are all married now, how his nieces and nephews think he’s a superhero because he flies jets.

“They call me Uncle Jake the Jetman,” he says, grinning. “Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but I can’t lie—I kinda love it.”

You laugh, picturing it. “How old are they?”

“Six, nine, and eleven,” he says. “Big personalities, all of ’em. It’s been good being close enough to actually be around this time. I missed a lot when I was deployed.”

There’s a brief pause—soft but not heavy. You reach for your cup again, voice gentle. “I’m sure they’re just glad to have you now.”

Jake smiles at that. Not his usual smirk—something smaller, more genuine. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Guess I’m glad to have them too.”

The afternoon light has shifted now, golden and mellow. There’s a faint hum in the air between you—comfortable, warm, full of things neither of you has said out loud yet.

Jake tilts his head, studying you for a beat. “Can I tell you something without soundin’ too forward?”

You arch a brow, half-amused, half-nervous. “That depends. How forward is it?”

He grins, slow and deliberate. “You’re beautiful,” he says simply.

You inhale too sharply, caught off guard. “Jake—”

“Don’t worry,” he cuts in softly, his voice teasing but tender. “I’m not gonna make you blush too bad. Just figured honesty’s a solid way to start.”

Your cheeks are already warm anyway, which only makes him chuckle.

The conversation drifts on from there—easy laughter, quiet moments that linger too long to be just friendly. Every time your eyes meet, something pulls a little tighter in Jake’s chest.

By the time the cups are empty and the café’s crowd has thinned, he knows two things for sure: one, he doesn’t want this afternoon to end, and two, he’s absolutely, unequivocally gone for you.

When Jake finally glances at his watch, he almost can’t believe how fast the time’s slipped by. The afternoon sun mellowing into the amber kind of light that turns everything a little softer.

He leans back in his chair, still smiling. “Guess I should walk you to your car before you accuse me of bad manners.”

You laugh under your breath, the sound small but bright. “You mean before you ruin your perfect gentleman streak?”

“Exactly that.”

So he stands, and you do too, both lingering for a heartbeat longer than necessary before heading out. The air outside is warm, the light spilling across the pavement in golden bands.

Jake keeps an easy pace beside you, his hand brushing against yours once—then again. The first time could’ve been an accident; the second one wasn’t. Neither of you says anything about it, but you both smile like you noticed.

When you reach your car, he moves ahead just slightly to pull open the driver’s door for you, one hand resting against the frame.

“Test results in?” he asks, voice low and teasing. “Did I pass?”

You lean against the open door, looking up at him with that quiet confidence he’s already hooked on. “Hmm,” you say, pretending to think. “You didn’t lie about finding that noise complaint, so I guess you pass—for now.”

Jake chuckles, slow and amused, leaning closer. “For now, huh?”

You tilt your head, playful. “Until I decide what kind of noise it was about.”

That grin—the dangerous one—curls across his mouth. He takes a half-step closer, close enough that you can see the flecks of green in his eyes, close enough that his voice drops to that rough whisper that curls straight through you.

“Wanna find out how I got that noise complaint, sweetheart?”

Your breath catches, and you don’t even mean to nod—but you do, just barely. For a second, you’re sure he’s going to kiss you. His breath is warm against your skin, his gaze flicking down to your lips—

—and then he pulls back, slow, smug, grin widening.

“Hosted Super Bowl weekend, darlin’,” he says, all innocent mischief and dimples, like he didn’t just wreck your pulse on purpose.

You stare at him, flustered, caught somewhere between laughing and groaning. “You’re awful.”

He grins wider. “And yet you’re still smilin’.”

“I’m reconsidering,” you manage, trying not to laugh.

Jake steps back just enough to let you slide into the car, still wearing that damn smirk. “Drive safe, alright? And, uh…” He taps the roof lightly, meeting your eyes. “You ever need a rematch, you know where to find me.”

You shake your head, trying not to grin too wide as you close the door. But when you glance in the rearview mirror as you pull away, Jake’s still standing there in the sunlight—hands in his pockets, grin softening just enough to look real.

And God help you, you’re already hoping there is a rematch.