But you are not alone in this.

Ransom had been your only ally from your world in your fight to escape from under the thumb of your financially abusive parents, so it was instinct to look to him when you were unsure what to do about Andy’s command. You gave him a pitiful look, begging your friend to help you yet again.

“Don’t look at him, look at me,” Andy said, a cool confidence in his voice that sent a shiver down your spine, one that was, surprisingly, not entirely born out of fear. Obediently, you returned your gaze to the lawyer, finding him watching you with an intensity that stole your breath. “Why are you looking at him? He can’t help you the way I can, that’s why he brought you to me, remember?”

Unfortunately, you remembered all too well that Andy was one of the few people in the state, let alone the city of Boston, who could help you with your situation. 

For years, your parents had been holding your inheritance hostage, using their wealth, power, and influence—and an entire army of lawyers—to make sure you couldn’t see a cent of your money unless you did exactly as they said. Unless you married exactly who they said. And you’d rather do anything than marry who they wanted you to marry. 

You’d called practically every lawyer in the state of Massachusetts, but they either weren’t willing or weren’t able to fight your parents and their lawyers, who were using every trick in the book, including plenty of not-so-legal ones. That had led you to asking Ransom for help, and he’d brought you to Andy Barber.

Which left you having to decide between doing as the cutthroat lawyer said, or walking out of his office and giving in to your parents’ whims. Your fingers tangled in the skirt of your sundress, indecision and desperation swirling in your belly.

“If you’re feeling shy, I can have my men leave and escort your friend out,” Andy offered, breaking the silence with the slightly mocking offer. “But if you want my help, you’re going to do as I say.” 

His tone turned hard, his final words coming out as a command that left no room for argument. It reminded you so much of your parents that you couldn’t help your body’s instinctual reaction. You flinched—hard. 

Your reaction didn’t make sense, but then anxiety never did. Panic blocked out everything else in the room, and you wrapped your arms around your body, your breaths coming in sharp pants as you cowered in front of the lawyer when only a moment ago, you’d held your head high. 

Andy seemed to freeze for a moment, taking in the change of your demeanor, then his shoes padded lightly on the wooden floor of the office as he moved closer. His steps were slow, almost cautious, like he was approaching a spooked animal.

You tried not to react further, but your shoulders bunched up around your ears and you huddled more tightly in on yourself. An instinctual part of you was waiting for a cruel hand to fall on your cheek—it was what you’d come to expect after a command like the one the lawyer had given—but none ever came. 

Instead, Andy let out a sharp breath, one of his fingers sliding gently beneath your chin. His touch was almost tender as he tilted your face up, and your mind spun as you tried to comprehend the fact that you were being touched with kindness rather than harshness. 

You blinked at Andy with wide, wary eyes, watching his face closely for any sign of anger or malice. There wasn’t any, only a quiet intensity and a sharp curiosity. It struck you, then, just how handsome the lawyer was. 

His eyes were such a pretty shade of blue, like a cloudless sky, and though he was tanned from summer days spent outside—on a beach somewhere without extradition while working for his more criminalistic clients, no doubt—there was a light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. 

The lawyer’s brown hair was neat and brushed back from his face, his beard so well-groomed that it looked soft, almost welcoming. You had the sudden urge to bury your face in Andy’s beard and forget your troubles, and the thought was so surprising, your eyes widened and your lips parted in shock. 

Your gaze lingered for another moment on Andy’s pink, inviting mouth, before returning to his eyes, which were watching you. There was a heady concentration in the lawyer’s gaze that made you want to squirm and press your thighs together, an inexplicable ache blooming in your core. 

Andy still held your chin so you couldn’t look away as a slow, slightly amused smile curved his mouth. He took another step forward, until he was close enough that the scent of him—expensive cologne, leather and something undeniably him—filled your senses, going right to your head and making you feel a little fuzzy. 

You swayed slightly on your feet, and Andy steadied you by putting his other hand on your waist. He squeezed your chin gently, waiting until he had your focus again before he spoke.

“I will not hurt you, sweetheart,” he said slowly, deliberately, his voice turning warm on the sweet nickname. He paused for a moment, searching your eyes for understanding, before continuing. “You have my word, and I’m a man of my word—got it?”

“Y-yes, sir,” you managed to say, stumbling over your words only a little—not from fear but from how flustered you felt with the handsome lawyer standing so close and calling you such sweet things. It wasn’t the kind of treatment you were used to, and you didn’t know what to do with it.

Another slow smile stole across Andy’s features and he chucked you lightly under the chin, clearly pleased at your answer. Though whether he was more pleased that you’d agreed or that you’d called him ’sir,’ you couldn’t be sure.

“Good girl,” Andy praised, giving you one last long look before he lifted his gaze to look over your shoulder. “Leave us,” he commanded to the others in the room, his voice holding all the authority of a man used to getting what he wanted.

You turned to look over your shoulder, your eyes finding the familiar face of your best friend in the small crowd of dangerous men beginning to shuffle out of the room. Ransom gave you a reassuring nod. 

“You’re gonna be okay, bun,” he promised, his mouth quirking into a little smirk that was comforting in its familiarity.  “Barber’s gonna help, just give him what he wants.”

It was the same thing Ransom had said before he brought you to the lawyer’s office, in a warehouse by the docks. Then, you’d thought the only thing the lawyer might want was money, or a significant cut of your inheritance. 

Now, you were faced with the prospect of giving much more to Andy Barber. But since you’d met the man, and felt the gentleness of his touch, it didn’t seem like such a hardship to use your body to buy his assistance, especially when it offered you hope that you might get the help you needed.

You watched as Ransom ducked through the door of the office, one of the lawyer’s men pulling it closed with a dull thud behind him. You were left alone with Andy Barber, one of the most ruthless men in all of Boston, with the command to strip out of your clothes hanging over your head. 

Oddly, you weren’t scared. You believed Andy when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt you. But you had other reasons to feel anxious. The thought of stripping naked in front of a strange, handsome man—especially one as powerful as Andy—was intimidating. 

What would happen if the lawyer didn’t like what he saw? Would he still help you? Could you still accept his help after the humiliation of getting naked for him if he rejected you? The answer to that last question, at least, was yes, because you were just that desperate to get away from your parents.

Swallowing past the nervousness lodged in your throat, you returned your gaze to Andy, instinctively looking to him for what to do next.

When the lawyer caught you looking expectantly at him, the corner of his mouth quirked in a small smile. He gave your arm a reassuring squeeze, the gesture almost paternalistic, if not for the barely concealed lust in his blue eyes, before stepping back. 

Andy prowled to the leather sofa on the opposite side of his office, his movements as smooth and graceful as a predator. He was controlled as he turned and sank into the firm cushions of the sofa, spreading his arms along the back and staring at you with those sharp, intelligent eyes, looking for all the world like a king surveying his prospective wife—or concubine.

“It’s time to strip, sweetheart,” Andy said, his voice not unkind. His gaze swept down your body, lingering briefly on the way your sundress hugged the swell of your tits and the curve of your hips, before his eyes returned to yours. “Show me what your inheritance is worth to you, and I’ll make sure you get your money from your parents.”

You were shaking like a leaf in a blustery summer wind from nerves, but the hunger in Andy’s gaze gave life to a spark of boldness deep in your chest. You clung to that feeling with all your might, reminding yourself that Andy was your last hope, and you couldn’t leave his office without his word that he’d help you.

With trembling fingers, you pushed the straps of your sundress off your shoulders, the garment catching around your waist and baring your naked chest for the lawyer. The coolness of the office’s air conditioning had goose bumps raising all over your skin, your nipples puckering into tight, sensitive peaks. 

It was only because you were watching him so closely that you noticed Andy’s sudden stillness. One moment he was lazing comfortably on the sofa, then between one breath and the next, he was as motionless as a predator preparing to pounce. 

You weren’t sure what to make of his reaction, even as his gaze roved greedily over your bared body, so you made quick work of removing your dress. You shoved it over your hips until it slipped to floor in a whisper of fabric. Your hands were clumsy as you slid your panties off, leaving you standing in front of the lawyer in nothing but your heels.

It took all of your self-control not to try to cover your nakeness with your hands, your arms hanging limply at your sides as you let Andy look his fill—and he was certainly looking. The lawyer’s eyes roamed hungrily over every inch of your bared skin, taking in the soft flesh of your tits, the gentle nip of your waist, and the generous curve of your hips with the voraciousness of a starving man.

“Gorgeous,” Andy rasped, his voice deeper and huskier that it had been just moments ago. He looked bewitched, his eyes a little hazy and unfocused as they continued their perusal of your body, flicking up and down like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to linger most.

Your lips fluttered in a tremulous smile at his praise, a glow of pride warming your chest as you took in the effect your nakedness had on him. It was enough to help you hold your head higher, your shoulders straightening and pushing your tits out for the lawyer.

Andy’s eyes finally found their way up to yours, sharpening on your face as he shifted on the couch, spreading his legs wide. “Come closer, sweetheart—leave the heels on.”

You stepped out of the circle of your clothes, proud of yourself when your knees wobbled only a little, and walked toward the sofa on shaking legs until you came to a stop between Andy’s knees. 

You’d felt all the places where your body had moved as you walked, the way your tits bounced, your ass and thighs jiggling with every step. And you were acutely aware that Andy had watched it all with rapturous focus, his blue eyes practically blazing with a covetous kind of lust that warmed you from the inside out. 

By the time you stopped in front of him, close enough to touch, you’d begun to enjoy the heat of his gaze, and the way his mouth was parted in anticipation of having you in every way he desired. Your own desire was making you grow damp between your thighs, threatening to give you away.

For long, torturously delicious moments, you simply stood in front of Andy, naked save for your shoes, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as wetness began to gather and drip from the slit between your legs. You had the awful, errant thought that the lawyer might be able to smell your budding arousal, and you squeezed your thighs together, but Andy didn’t seem to notice. He was too mesmerized by the sway of your hips and the clenching of your thighs.

When you grew more restless than intimidated by the lawyer, you couldn’t help but ask, “Would you like me to spin, sir?” The words didn’t seem to penetrate, so you tried again, shifting anxiously on your feet. “Should I spin so you can see all of what I have to offer for your help?”

It took a moment for Andy to blink his eyes into focus and look up at your face, his gaze heating your skin as it dragged up your body, and you couldn’t help the smug little smirk that curved your lips. Amusement sparked in his blue eyes, and you shivered at the hunger there, the corner of his mouth flickering in a smug grin of his own.

“Impertinent girl,” he chided lightly, leaning back further into the sofa. He lifted his hips slightly to get more comfortable, and you couldn’t stop your eyes from dropping to his lap. 

Despite the chill of the air conditioning, warmth suffused every inch of your body when you saw the thick bulge in the lawyer’s pants. You swallowed past your suddenly dry throat, spit gathering beneath your tongue as you pictured yourself rubbing your cheek against his bulge, mouthing at his cock through the slacks of his suit.

The weight of your gaze didn’t go unnoticed, and a rumbling sound reverberated in Andy’s chest, almost like a purr. He lifted his hips again, and you quivered with lust, but held yourself back from acting on your desires. 

“Gimme a spin, sweetheart,” Andy growled, his voice full of barely restrained hunger. “Let’s see if you have an ass in need of spanking.”

A new spark of desire zinged down your spine and your eyes found Andy’s hands, which lay relaxed on the back of the sofa. They looked big, perfect for spanking, and you were unable to stop yourself from wondering how it would feel for his wide palms to slap your ass. 

Something told you it would feel better than it had any right to, and that filthy, not entirely unwanted thought, spurred you into movement.

You took your time turning around, shifting your weight and popping out your hip purposefully to give Andy a show. You were grateful that you’d worn your favorite heels that day, the ones that made your ass look good enough to eat. 

When your back was to Andy, you paused, giving him a long moment to let him look his fill. Based on the low, rumbling groan he tried to bite back behind his teeth, he liked what he saw.

With a smirk on your lips, you turned back around the face the lawyer. The bulge in his pants was noticeably bigger, straining almost painfully against the front of his slacks. There was even a small wet spot in the dark navy fabric, where his cock had leaked into his pants, and you wanted desperately to bend down and lick it, but you remained standing.

Your eyes swept up Andy’s form and you realized his dick wasn’t the only part of him straining underneath the weight of his lust. His arms were taut, the corded muscle and thick veins of his forearms standing out in stark relief where his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. The fingers of his hands were gripping the back of the couch like he was physically holding himself back from lunging at you, his chest rising in heavy breaths.

Andy’s thick, muscular thighs shifted restlessly, spreading wider like they were making room for his heavy dick. Your eyes fell helplessly to his lap again, and he shifted his hips, lifting them off the cushion like it was instinct to shove his cock closer to you, and you let out a pitiful little whimper.

At your lustful sound, Andy finally snapped. In the breath of a moment, the lawyer shed his cool, calm composure, leaving nothing more than a man overcome by lust—lust that was all for you.

“Fuck,” he bit out the curse. “C’mere, pretty girl,” he growled, surging forward and wrapping his hands around the backs of your thighs, just above the knee. Then he was hauling you into his lap, spreading your thighs wide so your knees landed on either side of his hips, digging into the soft cushions of the sofa.

Your hands fell to Andy’s shoulders, more to keep your balance than an attempt to push him away. No, no part of you wanted to move away from him. If anything, you wanted him closer, you wanted to press the softness of your body against the hard lines of his—you wanted to see if the lawyer would drown in his lust for you, and you wanted to follow him into that oblivion.

Spreading your knees wider, you lowered your body until your dripping center met the thick bulge in Andy’s slacks. Unbidden, your lips parted and you moaned, falling helplessly against his chest while his arms tightened around your bare back. The scorching feeling of his hands touching your skin was contrasted with the smooth, cool cotton of his shirt and pants, and it was so deliciously heady, it made your mind fuzzy with need.

“Christ, I can feel you, sweetheart,” Andy rumbled close to your ear, one of his hands skimming up your spine to cup the back of your neck. 

His hold was gentle and possessive at the same time, wringing a desperate, pleading whine from your lips that had his cock twitching between your thighs. In answer, you canted your hips, rubbing your slick slit experimentally along the hard ridge of his bulge, feeling him throb.

“Fuck, you feel so fucking wet and warm and perfect.” Andy’s voice was drenched in lust, so thick you could practically taste it in the air between you. His hand flexed around the back of your neck, like he couldn’t help himself, and he lifted his hips slightly, making his bulge dig deeper into your center. “Are you dripping all over my cock like a little slut, pretty girl?”

Andy’s tone was warm with teasing affection, but the filthiness of his words still made you bury your face in his neck. Your nose pushed beneath the loosened collar of his white dress shirt, but you barely had a second to breathe in the scent of him before he was towing you backward by his hold on your neck. His eyes were sparkling with amusement and his grin was affectionate as he watched you squirm, trying to hide your face in your shoulder.

“So shy and yet sooo slutty,” Andy cooed at you, pulling you in to brush a kiss against your heated cheek, the coarse hair of his beard tickling your skin and making you even more squirmy. He chuckled, his mouth lingering close to yours, until you settled. “Can I kiss you, sweetheart?” 

The question was so soft and gentle, such a far cry from his command for you to strip, that it took your breath away. What had happened to the man who’d listened to your sob story with a cool detachedness and asked for sex in return? Who was this man who asked permission to kiss you when you were already naked in his lap? 

It was heady, being given power by a man as powerful as Andy Barber, and it only made you want him more. But you weren’t sure if you could make your voice work, so you bit your lip and nodded, staring deep into Andy’s eyes as you gave him your answer.

His blue gaze darkened, his pupils blowing wide with desire as his eyes dropped to your mouth. But he didn’t surge forward to kiss you the way you expected. Instead, he gave your neck another gentle squeeze and murmured, “Use your words, pretty girl. Tell me what you want.”

“Kiss me, sir. Please,” you begged immediately, your voice breathless and reedy with anticipation and need.

The words were barely out of your mouth before Andy’s lips were on you, kissing you slowly, decadently, with an edge of hunger like he was barely controlling himself. The kiss was sweet, almost too sweet for the situation you were in, and a restlessness filled your belly like the fluttering of a million butterflies.

You couldn’t have said why, maybe there was a thread of greediness in you that matched the hunger in Andy, but you wanted to feel the full force of his lust. You didn’t want his lust leashed and tempered—you wanted all of it. You wanted all of him. 

Skimming your hands up from his shoulders, your fingers tangled in the soft hair at the back of Andy’s head and you pulled him closer, leaning back until he was wrapped entirely around you. Your lips parted invitingly for him and when he slipped his tongue into your mouth, you sucked on him, rocking your hips on his lap at the same time, your tits crushed to his chest.

Andy groaned roughly, deep in his throat, and his hands tightened on your body, feral possessiveness in every spot where his fingers dug into your skin. You felt it the moment his control broke, his hands getting rougher, his hips jerking up from the sofa to fuck against your cunt, his mouth more demanding, more hungry—and you met every bit of passion with your own lust.

“Holy fuck,” Andy cursed, breaking away from your mouth, his chest heaving as he panted for air. His hands had settled onto your hips, his fingers pressing so deep into your skin you wondered if they might leave bruises. You didn’t hate the idea, not one bit.

You clung to him, catching your own breath and burying your face in his beard, just beneath the cut of his jaw. You took deep breaths, inhaling the scent of his expensive cologne mixed with the salt of his skin, only growing needier by the second. You nuzzled into him while your hips humped idly against his bulge, a whine working its way up your throat.

“Jesus christ, sweetheart, you’re so perfect,” Andy murmured, one of his hands gently collaring your throat and turning your face so he could press his forehead to yours.

The gesture and his words settled something deep in your soul and you paused your movements, letting your body go still and your eyes to slip closed as you took in the moment. One of your hands slid down to Andy’s chest, your palm pressing over the spot where his heart thudded against his sternum. You smiled, feeling your heart pound in time with his, beating a steady rhythm together.

“Anything,” he rasped. 

You were so lost in feeling, it took a moment for the word to process, and before you could respond asking him what he was talking about, he continued on. 

“I’ll do anything to help you, sweet girl. You have my word.” 

You were shocked into silence by the conviction in his voice and you leaned back, looking hard at the lawyer. His expression was more than a little lust-drunk, his jaw slack and mouth parted as he stared back at you, but his eyes were clear and sharp. As you watched, his mouth flattened into a determined line and he held your gaze firmly.

“You have my word,” he said, repeating each word slowly like he was trying to imprint them on your mind. “Do you understand, sweetheart?”

“Ye-yes, sir,” you finally answered, stumbling over the words as hope and excitement rushed to fill your chest, the emotions catching in your throat and making it hard to speak. “Thank you, Andy,” you murmured, cupping his face and staring deep into his eyes. “Really, thank you—you have no idea what this means to me…”

You were practically dizzy with relief, and you took a deep breath to try to calm your racing heart. When you exhaled, the tension you’d been carrying for so long slipped from your shoulders. It dropped to your feet as easily as your dress had, and tears of overwhelming emotion gathered in your eyes, threatening to fall.

“Don’t cry, sweet girl,” Andy crooned, sitting up and kissing the corners of your eyes, his thumbs sweeping sweetly across the apples of your cheeks. “Everything’s going to be okay.” 

You were too choked up to respond, too happy and excited that you were finally—finally—going to be free from your parents, so you simply hugged him, hoping Andy could feel your gratitude in your touch. His arms wound around your body and he hugged you back.

After a moment, he let out a deep sigh, his shoulders sagging in a way that seemed oddly sad for the moment. Then Andy was sitting back, extricating himself from your hold and giving you a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’ve showed me enough, given me enough,” he said, his eyes deliberately staying on your face like he didn’t have a right to look at your nakedness anymore. “You’re free to go. I’ll be in touch about your inheritance.” 

The words hit you like a slap in the face, and your hands tightened on the lawyer’s shoulders as you expected to be pushed off his lap. A pit opened up in your stomach, filling quickly with disappointment, and your lips pulled down into a frowning pout. 

You felt like you’d been given the sweetest candy in Andy’s kisses, in his hard body beneath your soft one, and he was trying to take it back before you could properly enjoy it. He’d wanted you just a moment ago, what the hell had happened?

“What if I don’t want to go yet?” you whispered, tears pricking at the back of your eyes and making your voice thick.

Guarded blue eyes flickered to yours, and you spotted a glimpse of longing in his gaze, but it was distant, like Andy was barely daring to hope he’d heard you correctly. The big, tough, dangerous lawyer looked so cautiously optimistic that you couldn’t help but lean forward and press a gentle kiss to his mouth.

“I believe you said something about being interested in the sweet, warm place between my legs, sir,” you reminded him, rocking your hips and dragging your dripping slit down the length of his cock, feeling him twitch against the damp fabric of his slacks. “Don’t you want it anymore?” you simpered. “Don’t you want me?”

You put enough of a pathetic whine in your voice to snap Andy out of whatever uncertainty he’d been feeling, whatever momentary crisis of conscience he’d had about taking you as payment for his help. One of his hands curved possessively around the back of your neck and he dragged you toward him for a bruising, claiming kiss. He held you captured with his mouth while his other hand made quick work of unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants.

“You really are a filthy fucking slut, aren’t you, sweet girl?” Andy growled against your mouth as he pulled his cock out. “So ready to give me your cunt in exchange for my help, huh?” He lifted you up onto your knees and notched the head of his dick at your entrance, rubbing it through your slick, dripping folds. “Well, if you’re going to offer it so freely, don’t be surprised when I fucking take it.”

On those last words, Andy pressed inside your tight hole, thrusting up and pulling you down on his lap at the same time. In seconds, you were filled to the brim with his thick cock, every inch of his length buried deep in your pussy.

“Ahhh yes!” you screamed as pleasure, with just a slight edge of pain, exploded in your body, sending sparks glittering beneath your skin. You were so overwhelmed by the welcome intrusion that it loosened your tongue. “It’s yours, I’m yours, all yours, Andy,” you babbled, mind completely blown by the aching, throbbing, glorious stretch of his cock filling you up.

“That’s right, baby, you’re mine now,” Andy muttered heatedly, grabbing big handfuls of your hips and ass, groping you unreservedly, giving you only a moment to adjust to his full length before he started lifting you up and slamming you back down, helping you to ride him. “Fuck, that’s it. Bounce on the dick that owns you, sweet girl. Lemme hear how good it makes you feel.”

A moan tripped off your lips at Andy’s fevered words, your head tipping back as your fingers tangled in his hair, holding yourself anchored to him as you rode his cock. Your ass slapped hard against his muscular thighs, pleasure sparking through every nerve in your body as you did your best to follow Andy’s commands, your lips parted while endless whines and whimpers spilled free.

When Andy buried his face in your tits, licking and sucking on your nipples with wild abandon, you cried out your pleasure even louder, your moans filling the lawyer’s office and mixing with the lewd noises of your fucking—the smack of your ass on Andy’s thighs, the wet sounds of your cunt being filled, the rough groans of pleasure rumbling in his throat.

A sharp slap landed on your ass as Andy urged you to go faster. You squealed shrilly, the sound bouncing off the walls of the office, and fucked yourself harder and faster on his cock. Your wetness was making a mess on your thighs and his pants, but you didn’t care, you only cared about impaling yourself on his thick, glorious cock over and over and over again.

The pleasure in your body was mounting, your release bearing down on you, and it was taking all of your strength to keep going. You couldn’t lift yourself up anymore, your thighs trembling too much, so you rocked hard and fast on Andy’s cock. Your clit rubbed roughly against the base of him, and you chased your pleasure until you reached the pinnacle and fell right over the edge.

“Fuck yes, that’s my girl, come all over my cock, baby,” Andy rumbled, lifting his head and capturing your mouth in a ruthless kiss, drinking down your cries of bliss. “You’re squeezing me so tight, pretty girl—jesus christ, ‘m gonna come. Sweetheart, if you don’t get off me, ‘m gonna come inside you.”

A covetous, greedy creature rose inside you, and your entire body and mind rebelled against the idea of Andy spilling his seed anywhere but deep in your pussy. You spread your knees wide on the couch, so you were impaled fully on his cock, taking his thick, heavy length to the hilt.

“Do it,” you purred breathlessly, still riding out your release by rocking your hips in his lap. Falling forward against his chest, your kiss-swollen lips dragged across his bearded cheek to reach his ear. “Come inside me, sir. I want it.” Trailing your mouth down to find the spot just beneath the edge of his beard, you murmured, “I want you to breed me,” before biting down on the soft skin of his neck.

“Fuck, fuck—fuck, baby, ‘m gonna breed your pussy full of come, ’s that what you want? Want me to claim your cunt as mine, want to feel me dripping down your thighs for the rest of the day, huh?” 

Andy’s voice was so rough, so wicked, it sent even more tremors of pleasure through your body. He bit off a growl when your cunt clenched tightly around his throbbing cock, and his hands grabbed your hips, lifting you enough that he could fuck into you from below. He thrust his cock into your grasping channel once, twice, and on the third time, he let out a vicious groan.

“Take it, sweetheart, fucking take my come in that greedy, slutty, perfect pussy of yours,” Andy snarled through bared teeth, yanking you down on his lap and winding his arms tightly around your body to keep you in place while he emptied his balls deep in your body. 

Your inner walls fluttered around his twitching cock, your mouth curving into a pleased, sated smile. You could feel him throbbing inside you, and you reveled in the feeling, curling your arms around his broad shoulders and burying your face in his beard.

Andy smelled like clean sweat mixed with hints of leather and his cologne, and something so perfectly him that you practically purred, your nose digging deeper into his coarse hair while pleasure thrummed headily through your body. It occurred to you, then, that you’d never felt as safe or content as you did in that moment, naked in the powerful lawyer’s lap while he came inside you.

A final groan tumbled from Andy’s mouth and his nearly crushing hold on your body relented marginally as he sagged back into the couch, tugging you to sprawl across his chest. You could feel his warm come beginning to drip from your hole around his softening cock, and you wiggled your hips in delight at the sensation, a little giggle slipping free.

“I’m keeping you,” Andy declared, his hand stroking up your spine and pulling you close so he could press a kiss to your temple, the gesture ridiculously sweet and possessive at the same time. “You’re mine, and only mine, as long as you’ll let me have you, sweetheart.”

“Tha’s fine,” you mumbled, your eyes drifting closed. Andy guided your head to his shoulder and you let out a soft sigh of contentment. “As long as you’re mine and only mine, too, Andy.” A shiver wracked your body, the air conditioning in the office making the cooling sweat on your body feel frigid.

“Of course, pretty girl,” Andy said, his voice warm and indulgent as he pulled cool, smooth fabric around your shoulders. “I’m all yours.”

You cracked an eye open to see that Andy had pulled his suit jacket around you like a blanket. He tucked it in around your body, making sure every bit of your skin was ensconced in its warmth. Then he settled deeper into the sofa, brushing a kiss to the apple of your cheek and sitting quietly for a moment, simply enjoying holding you.

“Do you mind if I wrap up my business with your friend, sweetheart?” Andy asked softly after an indeterminable amount of time. “Then I’m all yours for the rest of the evening.”

“Sure, don’t mind,” you mumbled, still half asleep on Andy’s shoulder. 

You took quick stock of your body, but you didn’t think any of your nakedness was visible thanks to Andy’s suit jacket. The lawyer had made sure you were all tucked in and completely covered so only he knew the full extent of your nakedness.

“Drysdale,” Andy called, loud enough to carry through the door of his office, but not hurt your ears. You snuggled deeper into his shoulder, nosing beneath the collar of his shirt and breathing in the calming scent of him. You didn’t think you’d ever get enough of it.

“Everything alright, bun?” Ransom asked as soon as he pushed into the room. 

You heard him stop and suck in a sharp breath, but you were too content to lift your head to look at him. Instead, you pushed a hand out from beneath the collar of Andy’s jacket and gave your best friend a thumbs up, which made Andy huff a laugh.

“As you can see, I’m taking good care of your friend, Drysdale,” Andy said, satisfaction dripping from his words. “We’ve reached an agreement. I’ve given her my word, and I’ll be helping her with her problem.” 

“Great,” Ransom said, taking a few tentative steps closer. “I’ll take her back to my place, then. Make sure she has a safe place to stay while you sort out her parents.”

Andy lifted one of his hands and you could imagine the imperious look on his face as he gestured for Ransom to stop. “That won’t be necessary,” the lawyer drawled, letting his hand fall to your lower back, holding you possessively through his jacket. “She’ll stay with me—she’s mine.”

“That wasn’t supposed to be the deal!” Ransom protested, but Andy cut him off.

“It was the deal she willingly made, Drysdale,” Andy snapped, his body tensing beneath yours. 

Instinctively, you wanted to soothe him, so you pressed your face deeper into his neck, brushing a kiss to the hollow of his throat. It worked and Andy calmed, but his hand pressed more firmly against your lower back, like he was worried Ransom might try to take you from him.

“Because I’m feeling generous, you can consider your debt to me settled, Drysdale,” Andy said, his voice more even and cold, like it had been when you’d first walked into his office. “You no longer owe me for getting you out of that ugly situation revolving around your grandfather’s death.”

There was an awkward pause, then Ransom muttered, “Thanks, Barber.” It seemed like the matter had been settled, but still Ransom lingered. Finally, he called softly. “You sure this is what you want, bun?”

At the genuine concern in his voice, you finally lifted your head and turned to give Ransom a smile. “I’m happy, Ran, this is what I want.” You glanced at the man whose lap you sat on, the man who’d given you freedom and something more, a safe place to be yourself. Your smile widened when you saw the warmth in Andy’s blue eyes. “Andy’s a man of his word—that’s what you said.” You looked back to your best friend. “He’ll take care of me.”

For a moment, it looked like Ransom might protest again, but then his expression flattened and he tossed a glare at the lawyer. “Protect her, Barber,” your best friend growled, with as much intimidation as he could muster in his designer sweater. “If I hear she’s unhappy in any way…”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Andy said, cutting him off again, his tone amused. “I can take care of her in ways you couldn’t even dream of.” He brushed a kiss to your temple and your eyes closed, a happy smile curving your lips. “Run along, Drysdale. Our business is done and I promised my girl I was hers for the rest of the evening—and I’m a man of my word.”

Ransom grumbled at the patronizing dismissal, but he did as he was told, calling a goodbye to you that you returned with a sleepy wave over your shoulder. When he was gone, Andy let out a deep sigh of relief, clutching you tighter and brushing sweet kisses to your face anywhere he could reach.

“Get some sleep, sweetheart,” he murmured, his hands roaming soothingly over your body. “I’ll take care of you, now and forever—you have my word.”

With a smile, you melted into your man, letting sleep claim you and knowing that he would keep you safe and content. As you’d already come to learn, Andy Barber was a man of his word, and you didn’t doubt that he’d keep every promise he ever made to you.

“I didn’t steal, he only thinks—”

Curtis cuts you off with a palm, a gesture sharpened by impatience. “Doesn’t matter. You’re in his crosshairs now.” His gaze is a slow, deliberate scan—the blue of his eyes not cold, but still, like deep winter water. It lingers on the slight tremor in your lower lip, the too-quick flutter of a pulse at the base of your throat. He doesn’t just look, he measures. “You know why he’s dangerous.”

You nod.

“The only man more dangerous than him,” Curtis says, “is the one you’re looking at now.” He leans back, folding his arms like he’s savoring the moment. “You came to me vulnerable. I don’t care what desperation drove you here, the protection I offer comes at a cost. From this moment, you’re mine.”

You stare back at him, a tightness clenching your ribcage. “What does that mean?”

Curtis’s eyes don’t move from your face. “First, it means you walk out of here alive, which is significant. Second, it means when I call, you answer. Third—” He lets the word dangle, a silent threat that prickles at the base of your skull. “It means you’ll do exactly as I say, no questions, no hesitation. You pay me back, starting now.”

Your throat works. “Whatever you’re thinking, I don’t—I’m not capable of that. I don’t have any of those skills. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” The cold dread trickles further down your spine.

Curtis laughs—sharp, not cruel, but honest, and that’s somehow worse. “That’s not the currency I want from you.” He pushes back from the desk and comes around it, stopping just before you. “Stand.” The command is quiet, absolute.

Your movements are slow, wary as you rise. His hand moves to your hair, fingers twisting into it with a firm, deliberate grip that holds you in place.

His other hand skims the side of your neck, thumb tracing your pulse, then slides down over the buttons of your blouse. You sense it’s a test as he pops the first fastener, then the next, exposing your collarbone, the top of your bra.

“There’s freedom in belonging to someone like me. All your choices, your debts, your enemies—they become mine. The things you want, you’ll get them.”

The cold air stings your skin. Curtis doesn’t blink. He takes you in, cataloging every detail, every twitch.

“You’re smart,” he says, his voice low and even. “So don’t be difficult.” His fingers slip inside the bra cup, brush the curve of your breast, lightly pinching your nipple, rolling it between callused fingers. A jolt, hot and sharp, shoots through you. You focus on a single point on his desk, on the reflection of the light, anything to keep the reaction from your face.

He smiles, the kind of smile that shows he’s already three moves ahead. His hand slides down your stomach, fingers mapping the curve of your hip until his thumb rests on the bone. He looks at you, waiting for the flinch, the fear. You give him nothing.

“Good girl,” he says, voice low and private. “You don’t beg. I like that.” He pushes the skirt down over your hips, lets it puddle at your feet, then runs his palm over the plain cotton of your panties. Curtis’s thumb ghosts over the curve of your waist. You shiver, but try to hold your ground. The other hand, still curled in your hair, pulls your mouth toward his. He kisses you without preamble or flourish; it is a transaction, an assertion, a signature on a contract.

His mouth tastes of wintergreen and steel, a clean, sharp shock that dissolves all thought. Your lower back arcs before you can stop it. You want to think it’s survival, but the heat crawling up your neck says it’s something more.

He breaks the kiss and murmurs, “You don’t strike me as someone who likes being owned, but you’re not naive, you had to have known this could’ve been my demand. You showed up anyway. I respect that.”

It’s not a question. The thought of resisting flickers and dies. The risks bloom in your mind, vast and unknowable. So you stand frozen, enduring the cartography of his hands as he weighs every tremor, every flinch.

His grip on your hair tightens. He bends your head back, baring your throat. You taste his aftershave as his mouth presses against your jaw, then lower, tongue flicking at your pulse point. He sucks there, a sharp, claiming bruise already forming, and the sound that escapes you is embarrassingly small, cut off before it can become anything worse.

The hair, the bruise—those are nothing, just pressure and nerve endings. What strips you down further than his hands ever could is the absence of performance in it, no relish, no cruelty, just the flat efficiency of a man collecting what he considers his.

Curtis draws his thumb over your hip, a languid, meditative gesture, and then slips his hand under the waistband of your panties, knuckles cool against your skin. He watches your face, not with lust but with the clinical focus of an engineer. You hold yourself very still, spine pulled long, and refuse to tremble when his fingers slide lower, cupping then parting you.

He finds the cut of you and lingers there, gathering evidence: your dampness, the way your thighs tense and relax, the slow hitch of your breath. “You’re scared,” he says, almost curious. “But not scared enough to run.” He pushes two fingers inside. It is sudden, blunt, and your body takes him in without hesitation, which is somehow the worst part.

You’re not sure if the ache between your legs is want or humiliation, but you tilt your hips toward his hand, chasing the friction. The corner of Curtis’s mouth moves, barely—less a smile than a parenthesis around something he has decided not to say. He pushes his fingers deeper, but only briefly before withdrawing them completely.

Curtis pivots, bringing your body with his, and the next instant you’re seated on the edge of the desk, the mahogany chilled against the bare skin of your thighs. You brace yourself with your hands, fingers splayed wide, and try not to slip. Curtis’s grip on your scalp softens, fingers stroking your temples as if to soothe you after the jolt.

He sinks to his knees. Your legs part before his palms find them, a quiet acknowledgment of the inevitable. The press of his shoulders between your thighs fills you with dread-laced anticipation. He nuzzles against the inside of your leg, his breath warm. Then his nose skims your thigh, bearded jaw setting off sparks as he inhales your scent. All you can do is sit there, quivering for the next element.

He runs a finger along the hem of your panties, tugging them side to side, threatening to tear but not committing—a game, and you’re the piece he’s determined to position exactly. He brings his face close, mouthing the cotton through the thin barrier, the heat of his tongue a brand on your skin. Then he bites, gently, and finally slides the fabric aside.

He licks the length of you, unceremonious and thorough, collecting your slick on the flat of his tongue before delving in again. The first touch is a shock, but the second, the third—his tongue flicking, then broad and slow—makes your thighs quake. Curtis offers no reprieve. He holds you open, two thumbs braced at either side of your hips, and tongue-fucks you with the focus and stamina of a man who has never once rushed a job in his life: unhurried, deliberate, already sure the patience will pay out.

Any thoughts of rebellion shatter under his mouth. Your palms press flat against the gleaming wood, fingers splaying wide as the wet, rough heat of him unspools you. He alternates gentle lapping with hard, fast circles, and when you gasp involuntarily, his hands lock tighter around your thighs, holding you in place for his inspection.

Curtis glances up, and the look in his eyes is a command: pay attention, this is your life now.

You hold his gaze as long as you can, but when he drags his tongue in a slow circle, then hones in, flicking with a precision that flattens your thoughts, your head snaps back and you let out a strangled moan. Curtis doesn’t relent. He pins you to the spot with the force of his hands, ratcheting the pressure until you’re shaking, until nothing exists but the relentless, wet friction of his mouth and the teetering, unbearable coil deep in your center. You hover there, lightheaded, mouth open, almost sobbing—so close you can feel the orgasm’s shape, its inevitability, rising to swallow you whole.

And then he stops. His hands leave your thighs, his mouth vanishes, and cold air hits your wet skin. The absence is so sudden you almost fall forward. You make a disbelieving sound, a hollow, desperate noise that you would never admit to being your own.

Curtis stands, and the movement is so fluid it sends a chill through your adrenaline-spiked body. His lips glisten and his beard is darkened by your wetness. He is marked by you, and the sight is a claim more absolute than any word. He brings two fingers to his mouth, unhurried, and drags them across his lower lip—not cleaning it so much as savoring it. Then the corner of his mouth lifts.

“Take them off,” he says, voice soft but ironclad.

You know exactly what he means. Your hands are shaking, an aftershock of the denied orgasm, but you manage to hook your thumbs beneath the elastic of your simple underwear. Peeling the cotton away from your skin takes longer than it should, the fabric reluctant, and you keep your eyes down through it.

Curtis’s gaze flicks downward. “Give them to me.”

You do. Expensive perfume and your own scent rise together as you ball the cotton in your palm. Something in you wants to hesitate, wants to hoard this last trivial privacy, but you hold the panties out, arm extended as though offering up a vital organ. Curtis takes them from your hand, folding the fabric into a neat square on his desk before returning his attention to you.

He doesn’t speak. Curtis moves into you, closing the distance until your knees frame his hips and the air between you vanishes. His hands find your wrists, his grip firm but not yet painful. His composure is flawless. He brings your hands to the waistband of his trousers, curling your fingers around the smooth leather of his belt.

“Go on,” he says, the softness in his tone making the command even sharper. “Show me you understand your price.”

Your chin lifts, a note of challenge you can’t quite stifle, and his eyes crinkle—savoring it, cataloging your resistance as if it’s one more asset to be leveraged. Still, you obey. The buckle is cold and heavy, slippery under unsteady fingers. You fumble only once, but he catches it, a fleeting smirk that barely lifts his lip.

The belt slides free with a whisper, the sound loud in the hush of the office. You unzip his trousers. Curtis’s cock, hard and already straining against the thin fabric of his briefs, presses up and out. You hesitate at the elastic, and even though it’s only the briefest of moments, it prompts him to say, “Don’t make me ask twice.”

The briefs peel down by your hand, catching briefly at the head before releasing him fully. His cock stands rigid and heavy, flushed dark along the shaft, veins snaking down to the root. You swallow, surprised not just by its size but by the way your pulse seems to synchronize with the thick veins throbbing beneath the skin.

Curtis doesn’t move for a moment. He lets you look, lets you absorb the inevitability of what’s about to happen. Then he takes your hand and wraps it around him, his own palm engulfing yours.

“Good,” he says, voice a low hush right beside your ear. He keeps his hand over yours, making you stroke him—slow, firm, the way he must want it. The sensation of the velvet skin stretched over steel, the heat, the weight of him—your hand is barely enough to circle the thickness, and he guides you, forcing your palm to glide from tip to hilt, back again. You tighten your grip a little, and he nods, approving. “That’s it. You’re a quick learner. Keep going, just like that.”

You can’t decide if you’re proud or mortified, or if the electric hum in your chest is something else entirely. He releases your wrist, lets you work him at your own pace, but stands so close you can feel the tension in his thighs, the faint tremor in his muscles.

He watches you, eyelids half-lowered, jaw tense. “Slower,” he murmurs, his hand closing over yours to correct the motion. “Tighter.” You adjust, feeling the weight of his judgment in each second. When you find a rhythm that makes his hips hitch, his praise comes like a targeted strike. “That’s it, good girl,” he says, his voice rough. “You know exactly what I want.” You want to both recoil and lean into it, hungry for his next word of praise.

“Now,” he says, voice gentled but unyielding, “lie back.”

The desk is colder than you expect. You brace your elbows to cushion the fall of your shoulders, and for a moment you wonder if someone is watching through the lens of one of Curtis’s security cameras. The humiliation sharpens your thoughts, pulls everything in you to a single, unbearable point of focus. Curtis, unconcerned, caresses the inside of your knee with the back of his hand, then nudges your ankles apart.

He makes a study of arranging you, touching as little as possible—moving one leg, then the other, until you’re splayed open.

“Did you ever picture yourself like this?” Curtis’s gaze doesn’t leave your face, absorbing every flicker of expression. “Laid out across some desk, trembling and aching for a stranger’s touch?”

You shake your head, just once, tiny and mute. Curtis’s lips curl, and he leans forward, setting his palms on either side of your splayed thighs. “I’ve never had someone so innocent.”

He straightens, looming over you, the tip of his cock grazing your pubic bone. He doesn’t thrust or force; instead, he runs a knuckle up the seam of your cunt, parting you, then smears your own wetness with a slow, methodical swipe, a clear reminder of the position you’re in.

“Touch yourself,” he says. “Show me what it looks like now that you know who owns you.”

Your hands, lost in the blur of their own movement, hesitate for a moment. His stare pins you in space, demanding not just performance but your active complicity. You slide your palm down, trembling, and find yourself slick and swollen, raw from his mouth minutes before.

You start slow, fingers feather-light across swollen skin, and it’s as if your body’s no longer yours—a performance for him, orchestrated and observed. You circle your clit, once, twice, then a third time, breath stuttering as you feel him watching, feeding off your vulnerability. The office is silent except for the tiny sounds you make, the slick slide of your own touch, the shuddered hitches in your chest.

“Good,” he murmurs. The word lands like a hand at your throat, and heat floods your skin. You keep going, because you must. Each pass of your faltering fingers is a surrender, peeling away layers you’ve built around yourself for years. Curtis watches with unblinking, dissecting attention. When you gasp, his eyes narrow, absorbing the knowledge. His own cock twitches above you, but he’s in no rush. He’s content to let you simmer, binding you deeper with every passing second.

After an eternity of this methodical torture, he leans over and catches your wrist in his hand. “You’re close,” he says, robbing you of release, and the words barely register before he’s licking your fingers clean, tasting you right from your own hand.

His mouth on your hand, then your wrist, is a jolt—worse than shock, more thorough than any humiliation before it. He savors, lips and tongue hot against the fragile bone, eyes never breaking from yours. He tastes your pride and your shame and your need, each lick a raw, immediate claim.

You’re still splayed and open, motionless as a freshly-dissected thing, when his attention turns to your cunt. He slips your fingers from his mouth and presses two of his own back inside you, slow but forceful. The stretch is deep this time, the angle different, and you arch against the desk, biting your lip until you taste blood. The edge he denied you comes screaming back, fuller and thicker, and your body goes tight with the urge to come.

But Curtis doesn’t let you. He eases out, pushes in again, then stops. He makes you wait, makes you rest your entire life on the rhythm of his hand.

“Roll over,” Curtis says, and the tone of it leaves no room for refusal.

You do, awkward on the polished wood, clumsy in your own unsteady state, and your breasts flatten against the desk’s cool surface.

You sense him looming behind you, the heat of his body radiating against your naked thighs and ass. A hand sweeps up your thigh, takes a deliberate grip at the fullness of your hip, and parts you, opening you wider. Then you feel it: a thick, wet spatter of spit landing square on the pucker of your asshole. Heat blooms up your spine. You can’t stifle the gasp, the raw animal shock of it, and your fingers claw uselessly at the inlaid edge of the desk.

Curtis laughs, low, leaning down close to your ear. “Bet nobody’s ever had this from you before,” he murmurs, almost tender. His thumb finds the wetness and pushes, insistent and greedy, pressing a slick circle into the tight muscle.

“No—” you start, but the word is half a whimper, half a plea, and Curtis ignores it.

Curtis’s thumb doesn’t just circle. It presses, unyielding, slow and hard until the slick, reluctant ring of muscle gives. The sensation burns, raw and invasive, but the worst of it is how easily your body yields to him, ...how the sharp sting of pain melts into a dark, helpless ache. His thumb stays buried in you, a brand no one else has ever dealt, while his free hand guides the blunt head of his cock to where you’re already slick and trembling.

There’s no other warning. He pushes forward, and you feel the thick head of him as it parts you, stretching you wider than you’ve ever been, ...a pressure so intense your body forgets, for a moment, what breathing is. The invasion is total—a double-helixed thread of sharp invasion and unwilling welcome, the thumb in your ass and the cock splitting your cunt open.

He gives you no time to adjust—pulls back, then drives forward again, setting a pace that’s brutal but precise, each stroke calculated to wring the most out of you. It’s overwhelming, impossible, but you can’t imagine asking him to stop. His thumb slides free, and he replaces it with two fingers, prying you wider, stroking the sensitive rim until you’re gasping, your thighs trembling. Every nerve in your body is a fuse, and Curtis is lighting them one by one, savoring each tiny detonation.

His rhythm is methodical, each stroke a punishing, deliberate claim. Curtis fucks you the way an engineer would take apart an engine: methodical, deliberate, letting your body feel every calibrated inch, letting you register the exact, obscene fit of him before he draws it back and does it again, harder. The burn and the stretch, the impossibility of it, is only magnified by the pressure in your ass, the sensitive rim still smarting from the aftershock of his thumb. The desk creaks beneath you, and you want to vanish into the grain of the wood, become nothing more than a smudge beneath his palm.

He keeps one palm between your shoulder blades, pushing you flat as he thrusts, not fast but with the relentless, measured cadence of a man who doesn’t believe in overplaying his hand.

Tiny animal noises, desperate and unmoored, escape your throat, but you can’t rein them in—not with Curtis locked tight behind you, rutting his cock inside you as if he means to split you in half and stamp his name on every cell. His cock is relentless, thick enough to ache, and each half-withdrawal comes with an obscene, wet squelch that makes your cheeks burn hotter. Sweat prickles against your spine. Curtis fucks you through it, never wincing, hand braced at the small of your back, using you as leverage, a tool, a puzzle he’s solving.

He knows exactly what he’s doing. He leans forward, and his chest presses into your back, imprinting, and his exhale ghosts over your neck, turning the sweat there to something electric.

He drags his teeth over the curve of your shoulder and bites down, hard enough to sting, the pain rich and total. “You like being ruined,” he whispers. The confession folds inside you, settling with the rest of the heat. You want to tell him he’s wrong, or right, or that you can’t even tell, but all that comes out is a tangled, helpless moan.

Curtis slows, not out of mercy, but to draw the moment until it’s thin as gold leaf and just as precious. He withdraws nearly all the way, letting you feel the obscene emptiness, then slams back in. Tears prick your lashes, blurring the grain of the wood beneath you. Your body keeps giving, keeps making room for the sheer intensity of the pressure, even as your mind flails for an exit.

Your orgasm detonates so violently you don’t even recognize the first wave when it hits. It’s only the aftershocks—your vision tunneling, your breath stalling, every muscle in your body drawn so tight it feels like you’re being wrung from the inside out—that clue you in. Your vision whites out, your voice—yours, not some borrowed sound—rips from your throat, and nothing survives except the raw, animal fact of sensation: the stretch, the burn, the fullness, and the mindless surrender to it.

Curtis’s pace doesn’t break, not for a second, but you feel him—God, you feel him—throb and pulse inside you, his cock swelling and erupting as he locks you in place with both hands. His grip on your hip is bruising, the pressure of his palm a brand, and the heat of him floods you in thick, pulsing waves. He groans, a low, guttural sound that vibrates through your bones, and for one bare instant, you sense him lose control—just enough to confirm there’s a man beneath the layers of calculation.

For a long, silent moment, there is only the sound of your own racing breath and the metallic rasp of Curtis’s exhale against your spine. Sweat slicks the hollow of your back. Your cunt aches, still spasming around the slow, inexorable withdrawal of his cock as he softens, but does not—will not—yield his hold on you.

You expect the letdown—an abrupt break in the spell, a fastidious man righting himself, shoving you aside, reaching for a tissue with a wordless grunt. Instead, Curtis stays. The full press of him doesn’t relent—chest to your back, hips to your hips—holding you there the way a signature holds a contract. His hand drifts up the side of your waist, slow and open, then back down—not grasping, just tracing, mapping, savoring.

He pushes back, and his cock slides out of you, a slow, slick withdrawal that draws a shuddery whimper from your throat, unbidden. You hear the quiet rustle of fabric, then feel the cool, crisp linen of a handkerchief—not a tissue—pressed between your thighs. He works without tenderness, but there is care: each motion exact, deliberate, the handkerchief folded and refolded as he goes. He attends to himself with the same economy of motion before tucking himself back into his trousers.

Curtis straightens his shirt, buttons his jacket, and takes a moment to survey the wreckage of your clothes strewn around the immediate vicinity. He says, “Stand up,” and when you do your knees buckle beneath you, only a little, and he steadies you, his hand under your arm. With the other, he retrieves your blouse, guiding your arms back into the sleeves in a way that’s almost gentle. He buttons you—one, two, three—his fingers efficient as they work around the missing fastener. The skirt is next, dragged up over your hips and zipped at your back.

Your underwear is still on the desk, but Curtis picks it up, and tucks it into the inner pocket of his suit. His eyes move over you with a cool, analytical precision, as if he were checking the final figures on a balance sheet.

Then—unexpected, anticlimactic, almost tender—he reaches for your face. His hands, the same ones that stretched and split you, are steady and warm against your jaw. He tips your face up. This kiss is different. There is no conquest in it, only the slow, intentional pressure of his mouth sealing over yours. His lips are soft, a little swollen, and you can taste yourself on him—a bright, metallic tang that makes your stomach clench.

He breaks the kiss. A strand of saliva stretches, then snaps, and he traces your lower lip with his thumb, the gesture proprietary.

“You’ll be driven to my penthouse,” he says, as if your life hasn’t just been rewritten in the last hour. “One of my men is waiting in the lobby.”

“I can just go home.”

The look Curtis gives you is sharp. “You won’t be going back there. I’ll have someone collect your things.”

The finality is stunning, and you blink up at him, the room tilting as his words rearrange your world.

“You’re mine. That means my rules, my house, my bed.” He pauses, his gaze locking with yours. “Tomorrow, I’ll put a ring on your finger. There will be no confusion, for anyone.”

SURPRISE, SIRI! I DIDN'T EVEN GIVE YOU EVEN A MORSEL OF A HINT THAT I HAD THIS COOKING IN THE KITCHEN!!!!!

Though, to be honest, I was getting so annoyed I couldn't write a 5k birthday story for you that I angry-wrote this one to prove to myself I could do it. 🤣

I hope you ALL enjoyed... He certainly made my 🐱 go brrr....

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

You had been collecting in the forest since you were old enough to walk, trailing after your mother and grandmother, learning the difference between the bluebells that gave you headaches and the white wood sorrel that soothed them, the shapes of roots that would clot blood, and the berries that would stop a heart. But as you gathered elements into the basket on your arm, the familiar paths felt different. The knife tucked in the fold of your skirt was less for harvesting and more for caution after the fear that had taken root since the maiden from your village went missing.

You yourself sensed a difference in the forest—a heaviness to the air, the moss a little gray, the birds silent in the middle of the day, a wariness that seemed to rise from the soil itself, urging you back. But you were determined. You and your mother and your mother’s mother before her supplied the village with many medicines and balms that were not commonplace, not trusted by everyone, but were integral to many.

The lake at the edge of the trees was swollen with rain and the melting snow, the water so high that it had eaten half the lower meadow. You would have to cross damp ground and pick your way over drowned logs. And you did, pressing on until you reached the stunted willow on the northernmost part of the shore, where you knew the wild violets would bloom first. You were the only moving thing in the marsh, a fact that landed with an unnerving weight. Your own breath seemed to fog the air, as if you had walked into a story from before time.

You were kneeling, fingers plucking and gathering the papery layer of new leaves from a cluster of green, when you heard a splash. Not a fish jumping, but something large breaking through the skin of the water. Your hands went still against the leaves and you stood, knife steady in your hand, and you forced yourself not to imagine the threat.

You scanned the underbrush and waited as your mother had taught you, letting your breath go thin and quiet. That was when you spotted the man, tall with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and limbs that were unquestionably strong and formidable.

As if sensing your gaze, his head turned your way, and he locked eyes with you. He didn’t move right away. You watched how his hands hung at his sides, open, the fingers stained with earth and perhaps something darker, though at this distance you could not be sure. His hair was a mix of golden chestnut and birch, and his face was clean-shaven. There was something unusual in the way he stood, something not-quite-human in the perfect symmetry of his features, the strong jawline, his shockingly blue eyes.

You did not call out. There was no one for miles and if this shape was a threat, it wasn’t the kind that would be cowed by a girl’s bluff. Instead you held your position and waited, the knife a cold certainty in your grip.

He moved toward you, nothing hesitant in his approach. The sodden earth gave under his feet, the water lapping at his calves. As he drew closer, he seemed to grow, revealing a height you hadn’t realized, solid muscle beneath the strange patchwork of clothes, brambles clinging to the rough fabric of his jacket. His eyes didn’t blink, glass-bright and inhumanly clear and blue, and they looked you over with curiosity as if measuring your resistance.

He spoke first, and the voice was all wrong: too deep, carrying a timbre like wind in a dead trunk, creaking and full of hollow space. “You’ve come further into the forest than others have in weeks,” he said. “You’re not afraid.”

There was no question in his words. You found your tongue regardless. “I have reason to be cautious, but I’m not afraid, no. I know this forest.”

The man—if he was a man—cocked his head, smiling in a way that made you think of a wolf in sunlight: beautiful, hungry, and so unbothered by your blade it might as well have been a thorn.

“What a curious thing to say,” he remarked. “You think you know the forest, but you cannot possibly know all its secrets, and the forest does not always agree with you.”

You had no answer to that, not one that would make him believe you. “I only mean that I know enough,” you said. “Enough to respect it.”

He stalked a slow circle, just beyond the reach of your knife yet always within lunging distance. An old, deep instinct in you recognized this dance, this patient assessment before a strike.

“You are the daughter of healers,” he said, “the one who finds bones and stones and wild remedies for the sick. You think you are unseen, but the forest always has eyes.” He stooped then, picking up a half-buried stone and turning it over in his palm. The hands, you noticed, were not quite right. The fingers were a shade too long, the skin thick and tight over the bones and veins. “Your presence is noticed. Even now, when you twist violets and dockweed in your clever hands.”

You recalled your grandmother’s lessons: never admit a name, never turn your back, never let a stranger dictate the space between you. “Then you know I am no threat to you or yours,” you said, and made yourself believe it, even as your heart raced. “The forest has given me its blessing,” you lied.

Something shifted in him then—not in his expression, exactly, but in the quality of his stillness, the way a predator goes motionless not from patience but from decision. “Your ancestors were blessed because of their bargains,” he said, weighted and deliberate. “They made their pacts and honored them. The land was shaped by their bargains, just as they were shaped by the land. But your generation—” he trailed off, gesturing at the bruised sky, the muddy water, the hush where birds used to cry. “No agreement has been struck. No tribute paid. The exchange must continue, or the balance will tip.”

“What exchange?” you demanded, pulse quickening.

“It has given many things to your kind,” he replied, pronouncing ‘your kind’ with a curious, almost academic detachment, “but there is always a toll, and it is different for each generation.”

“My mother still leaves honey in the hollows; it is a tradition I can continue.”

He shook his head, movement clipped, as if the neck itself was bored with the charade of human flesh. “Tokens are not tribute.” His tone was not cruel, only factual, and you realized, with a cold bloom in your belly, how many kinds of hunger there were in the world. “There is a price for the peace your village enjoys. Something must pass from you to the forest, same as it ever was.”

You tried to parse this—what your forebears had truly given, what they had perhaps hidden in their stories. “What price did the forest ask of them?”

“Your mother was clever enough to ask for nothing but safe passage between the trees. She left offerings. She did not take more than she needed. Your grandmother,” he paused, and here a ripple of amusement crossed his face, “your grandmother made a more interesting bargain.”

The wind pressed through the grasses, flattening the young reeds against the mud. A memory stirred—a story your mother told in the hush before sleep, stories half-forgotten. But his voice cut through the past, speaking the words you were beginning to recall.

“Your grandmother was greedy. She wanted safe passage and she wanted the voice of birds, the green touch, the sense for what flourished and what would die. She wished to heal but also to know when healing was hopeless, in her own marrow. Understand: the forest cannot birth a gift without first devouring the seed. When your grandmother asked, she gave up her dreams.”

You remembered the quiet unease of her sleep, the way she would doze sitting up, hands braided in her lap, or walk the lanes of her mind in silence for hours. She never dreamt or, if she did, she never remembered. You’d always assumed it was age—some feature of withered time. But even as a child you’d known there were no stories or nightmares waiting for you in her lap, only the faint comfort of her skin and the steady thrum of her heart.

You looked at the man—or the not-man—standing so tall his shadow cut the lake in two. His words hung between you, like frost in early spring, uncertain and unwilling to melt.

“What are you?” you asked.

He smiled, and it was as if a branch bent and split under its own weight. “I am not the forest, but I am of the forest. Some call me Waldgeist—the spirit of the green. I walk the trees as you walk your own paths. I am the mind that grows beneath the bark, the will curled in every root. You have seen me before, though not with these eyes.” He stated it not as a boast, but as a simple fact that had always been true.

You swallowed, tongue dry as birch. You remembered not just the old tales, but the feeling itself—a shadow in your childhood room that was too tall, a silence in the woods that felt like a held breath. You remembered the certainty, even then, that you were never truly alone among the trees.

“Why do you look like a man, then?” you asked, pulse quickening. “Why come to me at all?”

He shrugged, a gesture that sent a ripple through the nearby trees. “I take a form you can understand. “A bargain must be struck between equals; this shape makes us so. I am here to collect.”

The words buckled the hush between you. You clutched the basket closer to your chest and kept the knife steady, but you knew, in some deep, marrow-knowing way, that neither would help you if he truly intended harm.

“What will the forest take from me?”

His blue eyes shifted, and with the next blink you saw the gold in them, as though some animal watched from behind the skin of a man. “That is for you to decide. You may attempt to make a bargain, if you wish. Or you may leave now and accept what the forest will claim in time.”

“Has the forest not already laid its claim by taking one of our young women?”

He did not answer right away. Instead, his lips thinned, losing all softness, and the blue of his eyes darkened like a storm. For a moment, he became as implacable as the roots beneath the soil. When he did speak, his voice was careful, measured, as if you had stumbled onto a delicate membrane between two worlds.

“That was not my doing,” he said. “The lake has its own demands, its own bargains. It is not forest.”

The words struck you as both a warning and a promise, a declaration that the world was layered in negotiations far more ancient than the bargains of your ancestral line.

He glanced down at the bruised violets shivering at your feet. “The creatures that dwell in water are older and stranger and more varied than you can imagine.” His eyes found yours again. “Do not worry for the lost girl. Her fate is with the water. Your business is with me.”

You gathered the violets into your palm, feeling an ache in your fingers as if the mere act of picking a flower now implicated you in an ancient cycle of debt. The Waldgeist waited, patient and unobtrusive, but you felt the pressure of his presence, the sense that the moment for negotiation was finite and slipping away like dandelion seeds on the wind.

“If I try to bargain,” you finally said, forcing your voice to work, “will you truly honor it?”

“I have always honored my contracts,” he said plainly.

You squared yourself and let your breath settle. Out here, feeling small amongst a vast web of nature, you managed a plainness you hoped was strength. “If my grandmother gave up her dreams, and my mother only left honey, what do you want of me?”

“Each generation pays a new price,” he said. “The forest never takes the same thing twice. It adapts. It learns.” The Waldgeist, the not-man, walked nearer. “You come to this place for the plants that nurture your people. You heal, but healing is only one side of the balance—life and death, and the line between them. I want the possibility that both can flourish.” He let the words flower in the air between you. He continued, “The forest wants to plant its seed in your womb. It wants you to swell with its green life, to birth the next guardian from your own blood and breath.”

The air left your lungs all at once. Your body as tribute. Your womb as a clearing for the next green thing. You had imagined many prices—your sight, your voice, your years—but not this. This was so much more intimate, more invasive, than you’d ever imagined. But as you stood in the hush, with the Waldgeist’s gaze upon you, you sensed he was not mocking. Not even predatory, not in the way of men, though the need in him was elemental and absolute. It was the same law that pulled the river to the lake.

“The only thing you have to offer that’s of any interest to me,” he said, his voice lowering to the hum of sap rising in the spring, “is that sweet, warm place between your legs.”

It wasn’t even a vulgarity, the way he said it. If anything, it was a kind of reverence—a hunger for the continuity that pulsed under everything alive. But a hot flush crawled up your neck, and your hands clenched the fabric of your skirt so hard you felt stems of violets snap between your knuckles. The leaves in the trees did not shudder. The entire forest waited, patient and unashamed.

He lifted his chin, as if he had tasted the shape of your resistance, and made clear that there was no shame or cruelty in the offer—only the certainty of the seasons, the calm of a thing that had always been true. “You may refuse,” he said, “and if you do, the forest will find another way to balance what has been taken from it. But should you choose to accept, you may name your own terms. I will match them if I can. If you wish to leave this place with no bargain, as I said you could earlier, I will not hinder you. The path out is always open, though it may not lead you back the way you came.”

You swallowed, the reality of the choice settling like a stone in your gut. He would not touch you—he had offered that dignity. You could walk away, unchanged, and let the seasons turn. But a different kind of cold crept in at the thought: the forest, left to its own devices, drawing its tribute in some slow, unpredictable, and perhaps far crueler way.

You looked up at him—the way he stood entirely at ease, as if a body was just a garment to be worn when convenient. The blood-and-earth in his veins seemed almost visible, his presence an axis on which the wind and the water now turned.

“What is your name?” you asked.

He did not hesitate, but you sensed the concept of a single name was foreign to him. “I have no name your tongue could form,” he said. “But your people have need of them. There was one who called me Steve.” The word landed, dry and spare. “You may use it, if you wish.”

It was so ordinary, so unburdened with myth. You turned the name over in your mind—smooth, plain, almost laughably small. Children did this, you remembered: named the thing under the bed to make it small. But the trees did not shrink. The wind did not shrink. And neither did he.

“Steve.”

What a small name for such a vast thing.

Something moved in his face—not a smile, not quite. The corners of his mouth drew back the way bark splits open in heat. “If you ask for a name,” he said, “I gather you agree.”

Your heart twisted, then steadied, and you nodded.

Steve stepped through the reeds and the cold lake water, the space between you closing until you could smell the wildness on him, the sharp green tang of willow bark and moss. He stopped with his face a hair’s breadth from yours, searching you with those ice-blue, wild eyes. As Steve leaned in, his gaze flicked from your mouth to your eyes, measuring your anticipation and fear with the patience of a tree waiting for the wind.

He lowered his head, tendrils of his hair brushing your cheek, and the animal warmth of his skin woke every nerve, every inch of scalp and spine. He waited, poised, until your chin tipped upward, an invitation.

The tip of his nose nearly grazed yours, and you could see the sweep of gold and green in his irises.

“Your kind,” he said, the syllables vibrating just above your jaw, “often begin their coupling with a kiss. Would that please you?”

You did not know what you expected—a command, a taking, some gesture of force, but his hands hovered at your waist, not touching, not yet, as if some ancient etiquette held him back until you gave consent.

You met his gaze, the question hanging between you. This was the first step, the seal on a pact you barely understood. The instinct to flee warred with a curiosity that held you fast. “Yes,” you breathed, the word both a surrender and a choice. “I would like to be kissed.”

You felt the air shift, the certainty of the woods folding up around you. You had imagined your first kiss as a hush in the honeyed dark, a stolen moment behind a barn or beneath the hush of twilight. You had not imagined the sensation of a mouth as wild and strange as the lake wind, nor the certainty of a hand—large, warm, with fingers a shade too long—drawing you in. Steve cupped your jaw, his thumb spanning the distance from cheekbone to chin, and when he bent his head, there was no trembling or hesitation—only a gentleness so deliberate that you understood, even through your shock, how hard he worked to contain himself.

His lips were cooler than you’d expected, but they pressed to yours with a strange, melting pressure that drew the air from your lungs in one startled, high gasp. Your knees gave, not from weakness, but as if the ground itself had softened beneath you. His other hand closed around your upper arm, bracing, the grip light but immovable, like the gentle crook of a branch against a windstorm. The kiss was not the fluttery, weightless thing you’d read about in stories—it was a gravity, a falling through the earth. His touch radiated from your jaw to the soles of your boots, a hot, heady rush that left you breathless.

You let your basket fall, soft, to the mud and reeds. The knife fell from your loosening grip, but you did not care, not with his hands now cupping your face and the tangle of your hair wrapped around his knuckles.

Steve’s kiss was a demand and a question, and you felt yourself answering in the way your mouth parted for him, in the soft gasp that escaped you when his hand slid—firm, careful—down your neck to the slope of your shoulder. There was a steadiness to the way he touched you, as if he already knew you would break otherwise. When you shivered, he drew you nearer, until your body was bracketed by the length of him, the heat of him, the certainty.

Steve coaxed your mouth open further, the velvet of his tongue not so much probing as mapping. He kissed you with such unwavering patience that you began to ache, not from fear now, but from wanting the next gesture enough to hurt.

Your hand found his hair, feeling the strange, thrumming life under your palm—a rhythm denser and more vital than any human's. There was an ancient knowledge in the kiss, yet beneath it, a clumsy hunger, a desperate restraint. You felt his effort to keep from overwhelming you, and it sparked an unexpected tenderness.

His mouth relented, drawing back only enough that he could see how your face looked in the aftermath. You opened your eyes, though you found no words behind your teeth, only air and a low, helpless sound of longing. He smiled, a gentle recalibration of his features, as if observing minor marvels.

Steve’s gaze was so intent you had to look away, but his hand coaxed your jaw to center, thumb brushing over your lower lip as if to see how much of you he had changed already. “You are doing very well,” he said, his voice low and calm, the kind you’d use to soothe a frightened deer at the forest’s edge.

He cradled your wrist, and you saw the knots of lichen just under his skin, veins running wilder than any human’s. He gestured to the bare ground, and from the mud a fresh cluster of violets bloomed in an instant. He plucked one and tucked it behind your ear with a reverence that made you feel like the forest’s own altar.

Steve guided you backwards, his steps gentle and unhurried, until the soft earth gave beneath your boots and you realized the ground itself had changed. The waterlogged moss and churned mud had, in the span of a breath, thickened and risen into a plush, living mattress of green that welcomed the weight of your body as he guided you down. The rush of green scent was dizzying, a perfume of leaf-break, and violets, and deep, wet bark. You braced yourself on your elbows, startled by the way the bed molded around you.

Steve knelt in front of you, balanced and quiet, his hands braced on either side of your hips. The air around you felt altered, denser, each sound of the forest amplified, as if the world had shrunk to only the patch of earth the two of you occupied. He watched you for a long moment, letting you breathe, or maybe just savoring the fear that had turned itself, somewhere in the last dozen heartbeats, to anticipation. He leaned on his hands and bent toward you, the whole scaffold of his body arranged with an a predator’s poise that sent a shiver through your blood.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, his voice low enough that you felt it more than heard it, a vibration that moved from your jaw down through your sternum.

“Yes,” you said, and then, as if your hand had its own will, you reached up and touched the side of his face. “But not—not the way I was before.”

Steve’s answering smile was frightening in its understanding. “That is good,” he said. “Fear makes everything sharp and honest.”

His hands were impossibly strong at your hips, the pressure just shy of command. One moved up your ribcage, charting the landscape of your bones. You gasped at the intimacy, and at the strange paradox of feeling safe. You sensed he would not take what was not offered, even as you knew he could take anything he wished.

He bent his head again but this time his mouth pressed not to your lips but to the angle of your jaw, your ear, the frantic beat hidden shallow under the skin. The weight of him, looming, should have been terrifying, but instead you were frayed with a kind of anticipation that would not have been out of place on the cusp of a summer storm. You forced your hands not to tremble as you cupped the back of his neck and felt the heat of his skin. Steve’s breath was cool on your neck, the hint of it unsettlingly gentle. You tipped your head back, a motion of surrender you didn’t recognize as your own, and he followed the column of your throat to the hollow at its base, then lower, to the line of buttons fastening your blouse.

He made a sound, not quite human, almost a purr or a buzz, and pressed his face against your sternum as if he could inhale your very shape. His hands, so careful at your ribs, curved around your waist with a certainty that left you breathless. He did not tug at your clothes. Instead, he pressed his face to the thin linen and breathed you in, as if scent itself was the substance of desire.

Your mind reeled. The other girls’ whispers, your mother’s warnings—they all spoke of pain, of a force to be survived. You had braced for a claiming, but Steve’s hands seemed to know nothing of that script. The warmth that bloomed low in your belly was not fear, but a bewildering curiosity. He brought his fingers to the top button of your blouse, unfastening it with a patience that was its own kind of power, pressing a kiss to each new inch of skin. The sensation was like a lightning strike, and your spine arched involuntarily.

He paused then, waiting, gaze fixed on your face as if he required your permission at every increment. You nodded, or maybe whimpered—whatever escaped you was enough for him to continue, and the next button, and the next, his fingers working each button loose without ever scraping your skin or snagging a hair. Only when your sternum and the pale slope of your breasts were exposed to the soft, damp air did he let the backs of his knuckles brush you, not quite a caress, more a sampling. Steve’s lips and hands traveled the exposed skin, tracing the hollow of your clavicle, the soft undersides of your breasts, his mapping every new inch as if memorizing a terrain he might never traverse again.

When his mouth closed around your nipple, you jerked, startled as if pricked by a holly leaf, but the wet heat had you keening the next instant. Steve groaned low in his chest, and the sound was so animal you felt it thrumming through your bones. His mouth was soft and deliberate, his tongue flicking where the air itself had barely touched you before. His hand stayed broad and steady at your hip, anchoring you so you didn’t float away.

He took the time to explore, open-mouthed at the soft edge of your breast, then the other and the valley between, all the way up to your throat, where his teeth found your pulse. Marks: not of violence, but of tribute, the press of a thumbprint onto fruit to test its ripeness. You shivered beneath him, alive to every place his tongue mapped and every inch of you that burned in the aftermath.

As glorious as that was, you knew what surely would come next, the act described in so many whispers and warnings: the press and pain, the split-second of being claimed and broken open. That was how it always happened, in the barns and haylofts and cold, wet fields, the wedding nights, the way the boys made the girls bite down on a hand or a sleeve, their haste to have it over with. You readied yourself to be bruised, to be stretched and split and left sore.

You braced for the press of his body at the split of you, the forceful push. Instead, Steve drew your skirts up methodically, slowly, and the cool air shocked the skin beneath as he exposed it to the forest. He planted himself between your thighs, the solidness of his shoulders between your thighs coaxing your legs to fall fully open to accommodate the breadth of him. Air stalled in your throat as you felt the heat of his gaze, unflinching on your most intimate place. He made a low sound in his throat that resonated through you and the trees, something between approval and hunger. “You’re wet here,” he murmured, his voice thick with wanting that hollowed your stomach. “Like the forest gives sap in the spring—slow, and sweet, and ready.”

He bent closer, the brush of his breath raising the fine hairs of your thigh, and he let his mouth hover over your slick, exposed folds. He watched your trembling, then the way your hips bucked when his tongue finally, shockingly, flicked at the bud of you. His gaze was open and unhurried, as if he had all of time. He groaned with the first taste, a deep and honest sound that made your hands fist into the moss, tearing up strings of it beneath your nails. Each pass of his tongue was a deliberate, patient movement, spreading your wetness with reverence, savoring you, as if tasting the salt and iron of the earth itself.

You moaned, the sound ringing out over the water, and he answered it with a pulse of suction that wrung more from you. His hands anchored your shaking thighs apart. He did not stop, even when the sensation crested past bearing and you twisted against him—whether to escape or to pull him closer you could not have said—but he wouldn’t let you go. From the creases of his palms, where his lifelines ran deepest, thin green vines emerged from his skin the way shoots push through soil in early spring. They wound around your upper thighs in slow, tightening loops, textured like the underside of a leaf, faintly cool where your skin was heated. The vines didn’t pull you wider, but held you just as you were, their cool, living pressure a patient, unwavering claim on the surrender you already offered.

You keened yet again, and Steve soothed it away with a tongue so dexterous and insistent he taught you a new way to live inside your own body, a way of being you'd never conceived. Your hands found his hair, and a sudden audacity took you, pulling him closer, grinding his mouth against you, feral and greedy and no longer a healer of the village but something wild, as much earthen as blood. He laughed, low and delighted, and you felt it where his mouth was still pressed against you—a terrible, gorgeous thing. He did not slow. He did not falter. He moved as though the wanting of you was its own kind of knowing, as though desire itself had handed him a map. His tongue traced your sex with an accuracy that made you wonder, briefly and wildly, if this was what it meant to be known—not seen, not touched, but learned, the way a river learns the shape of its banks over centuries of insistence.

When the wet, velvet heat of your climax broke over you, it did not snap or spark, but rolled up from your core in a long, rising wave—a secretion of you into the moss, into the air, into his mouth, which did not lose rhythm but drank and drew you further, until the only thing left was the trembling of your thighs and the stunned, empty ache where your voice used to live. Your eyes filled with tears, not of pain—never of pain—but of astonishment, as if every nerve in your body had just flowered at once, a bloom of both petal and thorn.

You had never known this could happen. That a tongue, a mouth, a pair of hands could make you forget yourself, undo the careful braid of your dignity and leave you sobbing for a mercy that, when he finally gave it, cracked open every seam in your body.

Your thighs still trembled against his cheeks when he slowed, his tongue drawing smaller and quieter shapes, the way rain gentles after a storm has spent itself. He did not stop, but his movements gentled and slowed. Your belly clenched once without warning, a small, wet sound leaving your throat before you could catch it, your spine curling involuntarily around the spasm. He raised his head at that. Steve pressed his lips, closed and warm, to the inside of your thigh. Then he moved up the length of you until his eyes were level with yours, his hands releasing your thighs, though the vines remained, loose now, a garland rather than a grip. You found his gaze before you meant to—bright with something that was not quite pride and not quite laughter, but lived fluidly in between. He kissed your mouth, unhurried, and you tasted yourself on his tongue, dark and unfamiliar, the flavor of a thing that had always been yours but that you were only now being introduced to.

He pressed his brow to yours and let you breathe, your own chest heaving against the solid warmth of his. The moss beneath you was velvet; the sky above, the dizzying blue, the gold of late afternoon flickering through willow fronds.

Your hunger had changed, no longer a storm but a strange, quiet hum beneath your skin. In the throb between your legs was both a memory and a promise, an echo of what he’d done and a question of what he still meant to do.

For a moment, Steve said nothing, only nuzzled into the hollow of your throat, the line of your jaw, as if the hollowed-out shape of your pleasure was a thing to be tended, not merely consumed. You lay in the aftermath, skin flush against the living bed of moss, feeling the pulse of your heart reverberate through your every limb. The world seemed sharper than it had ever been, each smell and sound and taste layered and immediate: the greeny wet-earth smell of the moss, the close heat of your own body, the lake’s cold mineral current threading through the trees, and him—less a presence than a gravity, one that didn’t pull you toward him but simply held you to the earth.

You did not want to move, but you wanted more, and he read both truths in your body. His hand slid between your thighs, fingers slicked with what he had drawn out of you, and he pressed the pads of them into you—not to hurt, only to test, to see how easily you would yield.

“The forest gives,” he murmured against your collarbone, the words a vibration you felt more than heard. “But it also takes. It’s only right you should receive first. It bargains in full measure… and now it is my turn.”

He stretched you open, one finger first, then two—so patient, so careful, you only realized you were being claimed when the green heat crested in you again, this time burning languid and low, like embers tended under moss. His hands were indecently strong, but he used them as if comfort was the primary goal—pressing, stroking, coaxing your body to soften around him. The first bite of pain was a shimmer, quickly edged away by the wet insistence of his movements and the wildness in your own hips. You rocked into him, greedy and bright, and the hesitancy that might have undone you was snuffed by a need to see how far, how deep, the pleasure could run.

You did not see his cock at first. When you felt the nudge of it, hard and impossibly hot against the inside of your leg, you looked down and saw that he was already bare, as if the forest itself had shed his clothes for him. The sight of him made your breath catch—he was built the way old trees are built, with a density that seemed to belong to something older and less tame than any man you’d known or could imagine.

An absurd, animal instinct made you shrink back, but his hands caught your hips and held you with tenderness—firm, but tender. The head of it was wet, already slick, crowned by a bead of clear fluid that you watched, dazed, as he thumbed down and pressed to your folds. You’d seen men before—quick glimpses, awkward fumbles in haylofts or behind market stalls—but this was not a man’s cock. It was a thing grown for a single purpose, and each time he guided it up your seam, parting you further, it was as if a new, second pulse had been hidden in your body, one that beat only for this.

He pressed the blunt head of his cock to your entrance and held it there. His eyes had gone wolf-bright, fixed on yours, reading the tremors that ran through you. The stretch was immediate, shocking—a white-hot claim of space where there had been none. Your body arched, seeking more instinctually, and a low rumble started in his chest, the sound of stone shifting deep underground. When he pushed past the first ring of resistance you gasped, a sound somewhere between agony and relief.

A white-hot seam of pain stitched through your hips and along your spine, pure and electric, and then, impossibly quickly, it was overtaken by the burning, desperate pleasure of being filled and filled and filled until you could not imagine more, and still he pressed deeper. You made a strangled noise that was half groan, half sob, your arms thrown up to brace against his chest, nails biting into the patches of moss-and-bark that surfaced between stretches of smooth, human skin. There was no logic to the fit of him, no sense in the physics of it, but he did not force. He gave, and your body took, the slow press of him unfolding you like a new language written into your bones.

His breath came hard through parted lips, but his eyes—his eyes did not move from yours, and what was in them was not hunger, or not only hunger… it was something older and more careful, the look of a man who understood exactly what he was holding, taking. The tendons in his neck stood out like roots finding purchase in stone, and he breathed through his nose in one long, deliberate pull, as if holding himself back from splitting you entirely. Inch by inch, he worked himself deeper, and you wept out loud when your body finally yielded and he was all the way inside you—a thickness that was almost unbearable, a depth that felt impossible as every nerve lit up and you did not think, for a moment, that you could bear another inch, even as his root dragged and pressed into a place you had never known you had. Steve made a soft, shushing noise, a caress of wind in your ear, and stilled inside you with a gentleness that nearly undid your sanity.

Your pulse beat hard in your throat. You felt full—so full—and with every tiny shift of your hips, every tentative intake of air, he seemed to bloom larger inside you. You didn’t think you could breathe until he gave you leave, and then you shuddered, the air shoving out in ragged, surprised gasps. The pain faded as swiftly as it had bloomed, replaced by the eerie awareness of being shaped from within. You were aware of every inch, every subtle shift, and it was intolerable and perfect.

He tilted his hips, a fractional shift that sent the cock inside you pressing higher somehow, grinding a spot that burned and throbbed with every minute twitch. All you could do was shudder and hold on as his hands ran up your body—stroking your sides, reverently palming your breasts, the whole time never pulling back, never pulling out, as if the very idea of separation was foreign to him.

He bent his head again, kissing all the places he could reach: your throat, wet with your sweat and the lake air; your ear, where he whispered words you barely understood, half in another tongue, the syllables soft and full of promise. His hands mapped you, his body claimed you, but it was not a violence, not an invasion. Something older than memory was being pressed into you, the way a name, spoken enough times, becomes the only word a mouth knows how to form.

He moved, slow at first—less a thrust than a rolling flex of pelvis and hip, a careful rocking as if he were teaching your body how to say yes. The first withdrawal was exquisitely, almost cruelly, slow. You felt every millimeter of him slide back along the walls of your cunt, a velvet scrape that left you gaping and gasping for more. Before you could mourn the loss, he pressed forward again, filling you deeper, the new angle making you see stars. Your hands clung to his shoulders, to the strange lattice of moss and bark beneath the skin, the unreal heat of him burning into your palms.

He began to fuck you then, not with the frantic, selfish rhythm of a man, but with the slow, inexorable certainty of a season turning. His eyes never left yours, reading every flutter of your lashes, every catch in your breath, as if cataloging the ways your body learned to take him.

That rhythm was slow and considerate, but soon the tempo changed. Steve braced his hands in the moss at either side of your head and moved with deliberate, rolling thrusts that grew in force and speed. Your gasps, your shivers, the dull percussion of your bodies meeting each other—it all became the rhythm of the forest, mingling with the hush of wind, the wet shudder of leaves. You felt the moss bed beneath you shudder, the roots trembling, as Steve’s hips snapped forward with more force. The careful, reverent worship of your body became an urgency, a drive, and it overtook both of you—his hands pinning yours above your head, his mouth finding your throat and holding it there, as if he could root you to the earth by the pulse alone.

He did not ask if you were ready. He did not have to. Your body gave its own answer, arching up, knees drawing higher and wider to accommodate the relentless, beautiful force of him. With each thrust, the forest blurred into green-gold strokes, the sky itself seeming to fall away, leaving only the bright, unspeakable ache of being filled and fucked.

You came apart, succumbing to it like a riptide. You clung to the filaments of his shoulders, body locking in great, shuddering spasms around the cock that was still splitting you. The sound that tore from your throat was not yours, or not one you had made before, and he drove into you through the whole shaking length of it, unhurried, relentless, the way weather moves through a valley.

Your cunt rippled, clamping, until you felt the answering quiver in him—a hardening, a climbing tension, the way his entire body drew up. Steve bowed over you, his hair a whisper against your skin. A grimace of pure ecstasy pulled at his mouth, and a low growl built in his chest as he fought for the last vestiges of control, holding himself back from breaking you completely. Only when you sobbed his name—ridiculous, simple—did he splinter, driving into you with a force that shoved all the air from your lungs, holding you impaled as his cock pulsed inside you, hot and fevered, a flood that felt like it was remaking you from within.

You were pinned to the earth not merely by his body, but by a force that had nothing to do with choice or want, something closer to gravity than desire. Even after he stilled, the moss beneath you continued to tremble in sympathetic rhythm with the frantic ricochet of your heartbeat. Steve did not move at once—he seemed to savor the heat of you, the locked and wet hold of your cunt, the way your body shuddered around every last pulse. When he finally withdrew, you felt the loss, whimpering at the stinging ache, the slow, deliberate slide of him from your body.

Steve knelt between your legs, cock smeared with your blood and his own seed, and in a motion so gentle it nearly made you weep again, he bowed his head to you. His tongue drew shudders from your body, tracing reverent patterns over newly awakened nerves, and you basked in the deliberate, shocking care of it.

When he was satisfied with his work, Steve moved back up over you, and his lips brushed your temple. “Hush,” he murmured, the words a soft vibration against your skin. “Again and again, until there is no question. The forest wants its fruit… and I will make sure it takes root.”

You could only nod, your body still caught between tremor and euphoria, your chest rising and falling in time with the damp, living earth. The words he’d spoken echoed in your mind: the seed, the fruit, the next guardian. You had thought life a slow accrual, a distant, speculative thing. But there was no speculation now. As your blood quieted, a stillness gathered deep in your womb—a heavy, waiting calm that confirmed the change was not coming, but had already arrived.

Lake monster Curtis being a bolotnik meant that when I incorporated another creature, I wanted to draw on more European folklore and play with the elements, and that's how rooted around until I found mention of the Waldgeist. I definitely took liberties in my interpretation, but just like I did with bolotnik!Curtis, I wanted to play around with the lore the way we've so commonly played with vampire and werewolf lore.

This was its own vibe to write - it flowed from beginning to end, and felt very magical-realism, and created its own kind of creative track in my head that was very different from some of the ideas and projects I've been working on lately, and so I hope it was as immersive to read as it was to write!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Frankie would have been big protector, so if they are at a raucous high school Halloween party back in the day, and someone is being a dick, Frankie’s fighting some asshole dude who refuses to leave the girls at the party alone, while he’s wearing like a Dracula costume. 

(Sidenote to what you’re really asking about because it takes place when Reader and/or Frankie live away from their childhood homes for a bit, but you know Frankie gets sooo lusted after by the whole neighbourhood taking his beautiful, chubby baby Trick’or’treating her first Halloween. She’s obviously in a pumpkin costume and is as cute as custard, and every door that opens goes from cooing over the precious girl to various degrees of thinking inappropriate thoughts about her scruffily handsome father.)

I picutre high schooler Frankie as, like, too cool for Halloween, man. But watching his daughter grow up he fully embraces it and gets really into decorating. 

Oh gosh I love the idea of Frankie checking in on Reader at a party. First or second year after the guys’ graduation, so reader is junior or senior. 

Her brother, Frankie’s friend, gets too drunk, so he’s not keeping an eye on his kid sister, who doesn’t want to go out to escape the guys’ shenanigans in her own house while their parents are away. 

It’s vaguely a Halloween party, in the way that some of the guys have gotten masks or rustled up cheap Halloween costumes from the back of closets. But mostly it’s merely an excuse to party as they all happen to be in town on the same weekend. Reader’s parents are away so her brother has volunteered their house for the reunion.

Her own friends are partying across town, but she’s recovering from a cold and finally feels like a human again, so doesn’t want to go out and drink jungle punch in a cheap synthetic costume while wishing she was just at home. 

She’d hoped to spend the night dozing between watching trashy slasher films or reading her book, but the noise from men-children downstairs isn’t exactly conducive and all of a sudden her room feels too warm and she sneaks out to escape. 

Frankie is tired, begs off for the night to stumble the short distance between his house and yours. But comes upon you in a lounge chair, curled in a blanket with a book in your lap.

‘Hiya Frankie, ‘ you say, barely looking up from your book. He starts, he hadn’t seen you there.

‘Oh, hey,’ he brushes some leaves off and sinks down into the lounger next to yours, stretching his legs.

Frankie’s only nod to Halloween is a vintage t-shirt from the film The Thing, which you’d seen him wear year-round anyway. 

’No costume?’

He shakes his head, ’Not really time to do one. Plus, just a guys’ night really. Thought this would be OK.’ You look at the drape of the worn tee over his figure, you’re certain it strains a bit more at his shoulders, his chest. Wow, the Army was really working him out. You clear your throat.

‘It’s a classic...You like being home? The army letting you out for Halloween debauchery?’

Frankie chuckles. ’Nah I got some leave. Short visit this time. Mom’s birthday tomorrow,’ Frankie nods towards his house. It’s just passing midnight, so only the back porch light is on.

Frankie’s watch beeps. ‘Make that her birthday today.’ 

’Tell her I said happy birthday.’

Frankie bops his head. ‘Wilco. Did we bug you, chasing you out of the house, into the cold?’ 

You shrug. ‘I wasn’t going to sleep in there. Too restless anyway. But this is good. I’ve got leggings and cozy socks.’

You waggle your feet under the blanket, and a moment of silence falls between the two of you.

Frankie sighs and closes his eyes. 

‘On your way home so early? Party’s still in full swing.’

’Told you - got another party tomorrow.’ You watch him, swipe a fist into a slow grind, rubbing his eye. You note that he is definitely a man now, the year in the army, the training he must be subjected to, the way his own lanky teenage body has now filled in and broadened. And yet he’s still just Frankie.

’Two parties in one weekend, you absolute wild man.’

Frankie snorts again. He opens his eyes, gaze cutting right into you. ‘You should be talkin’, you’re the one really having a blowout here. I mean, a blanket AND…’ he leans over, presses up the paperback cover that rests in your lap so he can read the front., ‘...Octavia Butler?! Party girl. Utterly debauched. ‘ 

You scoff and smile.

His fingers brush your thigh in the swing of him returning to his reclined position. You shiver, and he notices.

‘Blanket not doing the trick, you oughta go inside.’

On cue, a burst of laughter from the kitchen. 

‘In there? Where I can rest properly?’ you ask.

Frankie laughs, a quick and bright burst that you didn’t expect. ‘Fair point.’ He sits up, readying himself to leave. ‘My tia didn’t make it for my mom’s birthday, had to pick up an extra shift. But it does mean our guest room is free if you want to be slightly away from the madness.’ He stands, and offers you his hands to help you do the same. 

The air’s chilly but his hands are big and warm and when you stand you feel heat radiating off Frankie in the crisp fall air. 

You glance over at the welcoming beacon of the Morales’ porchlight. Let your imagination run wild over what you could do if you slipped into the darkness of the quiet, sleeping house, your hand still entwined with Frankie’s.

But that's not what he's asking you, you think, and drop your hands from his.

Looking up and smiling at him. 'Thanks for the offer but I'll be fine. Somebody's gotta ensure these knuckleheads don't tear the place apart.'

Frankie's head bobs. 'OK. If you're sure. If they get too rowdy, you know where to find me.'

You watch after his retreating form until he waves from beneath the porchlight and ducks into the house.

You find yourself warmed up enough after that and head inside...

++end++

(If I were a proper writer I’d have incorporated Frankie’s substance abuse, he seems to be able to drink beer still in TF and the coke comes later, so maybe this is his ennui at the beer not being enough???)

This wound up not being as Halloween-heavy as I wanted….sorry for sort of ignoring the prompt. Frankie in low porch-light-like conditions tax.

But as if he senses your presence he turns his head, and his dark brown eyes sweep over you from head to toe. Your own eyes go wide, and you instantly look down to fidget with the fabric of your gown.

He stands and his broad shoulders block out most of the firelight, shrouding you in shadow.

“My lady?” he asks, his brow furrowed with concern.

“General. I’m sorry to disturb you…I…”

You feel the eyes of all the other men fixed on you and your words falter.

The General turns, his cloak swirling at his feet in a flurry of dense fabric and dismisses them with a wave of his hand and a grunted command.

“Leave us. Now!”

They all scramble to their feet and rush off, none daring a backwards glance.

“Come here my love.”

He calls you over softly and you move toward him, your chin still tucked.

“I’m sorry General.”

His warm and calloused fingers press under your chin, and he lifts your eyes to his. At the tremble in your lips and the shine in your eyes he suddenly sweeps you into his arms and sits back by the fire, holding you in his lap when he asks, “are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing…just a small burn from the oil lamp.”

“Let me see,” he says gruffly.

You slide your hand along his chest and turn it over, showing him the red skin.

“It’s doesn’t look like nothing,” he whispers, lifting it to his lips and pressing a delicate kiss there.

Without another word he stands, tucking you into his side as he brings you back to his quarters. Once there, he instructs you to sit on the edge of the bed and retrieves a clean cloth, wetting it with cool water.

He gently wraps it around your hand and presses it against your hot skin.

“Look at me,” he says and waits until your eyes are on his. “You never have to apologize for being where I am.”

You stare at him.

“Understand my beloved?”

“Yes,” you whisper.

He still has your hand cradled in his and he takes it and presses it to his chest, the armor solid and unyielding beneath your palm. Even so, you can feel the steady beat of his heart.

“Does it still hurt?” he asks as he dips his head, his eyes falling to your lips for the tiniest beat.

You shake your head no and he smiles before his nose brushes yours and his eyes close. You try to keep your eyes open but at the soft press of his lips you can’t stop the way they flutter closed, and the breath leaves your lungs in a soft sigh.

He kisses you once, just at touch, and then again, groaning as your hands slide up and into his hair. His lips move across your jaw and down your neck and he loosens the material at your shoulder, exposing your bare skin.

You feel every point of contact and a kiss that’s meant to be soft and sweet quickly turns heated and frantic.

With a shaky breath he pulls away.

“Promise me,” he murmurs as he holds you close, tight to his body, in just the way he knows you want.

His thumb moves down to press against your throat with just enough pressure to let you know you he has you.

“Promise me you’ll always come to me. No matter what.”

“I promise,” you whisper, swallowing his sound of approval with another kiss.

“Here I am,” he says, and you note the amusement in his voice. “Question is…do you know where you are?”

You stare at him, unblinking for several moments, then your eyes narrow and you swat at his chest plate. “Are you implying that I’m drunk!?!”

“Was just a question sweetheart,” he chuckles. “But I think it’s time I take you home.”

“But I’m having such a good time!” Your lower lip extends in a pout.

“I can see that. But home is a good time too.”

“If you take that helmet off it will be…” you mumble before giggling into his neck.

He sighs dramatically then grabs your waist to hoist you over his shoulder.

“HEY!” you say weakly, legs and arms dangling loosely. “I can walk.”

He doesn’t answer and heads toward the door.

When you’re safely inside the Razorcrest he gently sets you down, your body sliding along the hard length of his and his arms locking around your waist.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” The rumble of his voice is right there, and you lean in, grasping the bottom edge of his helmet.

His grip tightens, pulling you flush against him as you remove the helmet and his eyes instantly drop to your mouth.

“Mmhm,” you whisper, your face inching forward.

He kisses the corner of your mouth, brushing his lips to yours ever so gently. “You’re going to be my undoing,” he murmurs.

“That was always my plan,” you purr.

“You know you could have taken off these stuncuffs before we escaped,” Djarin huffs. “It would makes things easier.”  

He’s crouched down beside you, blaster shots whizzing by your heads as you try to get back to Zeb and the waiting ship.

“Maybe I like you restrained like this,” you murmur.

He lets out a low grunt and you grin, grabbing his bound wrists and dragging him to his feet as you fire a few more shots and make a run for the gangway.

Once you’re safely in the ship, Zeb asks no questions and prepares for takeoff. Djarin leans against the wall, breathing heavily.

“Can you take these off now?” he asks, a playful edge to his voice.

You shake your head no and step closer, pushing on his chest until his back hits the wall. Light fingers dance up his chest until they find the edge of his helmet. You lift, the pull deliberate until his lips are revealed.

You kiss them once, softly, before removing his helmet completely and leaning in, letting the distance collapse as your breath skims his cheek, then the line of his jaw.

“I missed you.” It’s a whisper into his throat, just hovering and you hear his rasp of breath.

Your hand slides to the back of his neck, fingers threading into dark curls, holding him steady as his lips curve upwards. You taste the spot, slow and teasing, and then claim his mouth, swallowing his satisfied moan.

“You know you could have taken off these stuncuffs before we escaped,” Djarin huffs. “It would makes things easier.”  

He’s crouched down beside you, blaster shots whizzing by your heads as you try to get back to Zeb and the waiting ship.

“Maybe I like you restrained like this,” you murmur.

He lets out a low grunt and you grin, grabbing his bound wrists and dragging him to his feet as you fire a few more shots and make a run for the gangway.

Once you’re safely in the ship, Zeb asks no questions and prepares for takeoff. Djarin leans against the wall, breathing heavily.

“Can you take these off now?” he asks, a playful edge to his voice.

You shake your head no and step closer, pushing on his chest until his back hits the wall. Light fingers dance up his chest until they find the edge of his helmet. You lift, the pull deliberate until his lips are revealed.

You kiss them once, softly, before removing his helmet completely and leaning in, letting the distance collapse as your breath skims his cheek, then the line of his jaw.

“I missed you.” It’s a whisper into his throat, just hovering and you hear his rasp of breath.

Your hand slides to the back of his neck, fingers threading into dark curls, holding him steady as his lips curve upwards. You taste the spot, slow and teasing, and then claim his mouth, swallowing his satisfied moan.

The pad of your thumb runs across his bottom lip. “Is it working?”

His hands shoot up, tightening around your wrists with a bruising force, his helmet falling to the ground with a loud crack. In one fluid, deft motion, he wrenches your arms up, pinning them to the wall on either side of your head. He rolls into you, the hardness between his legs throbbing against your stomach.

“Working?!” he shouts before dipping his head to brush his nose over yours, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “I know what you’re doing sweetheart.”

He tilts his head, his lips hovering inches from yours, tantalizingly close and you roll your hips, grinding along his hard cock.

“Well something is definitely working,” you purr.

His only answer is to crash his mouth to yours with a hunger so strong it feels like it might swallow you whole.

You rub against each other, your leathers and his armor creating a maddening barrier.

“Have you ever thought about the consequences of your actions?” he pants. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

You yank your hands free and reach between your bodies, fingers fumbling with the armor at his waist.

“I can’t promise that I won’t do that,” you breathe out, lips titled into a defiant smirk.

He groans, broken and desperate, hips betraying him as he pushes into your touch.

“Fuck,” he hisses, resistance crumbling. “I’m going to ruin you.”

“He needs this,” you say quietly.

His eyes hold yours before following the slope of your nose and settling on your mouth. The air between you thickens, growing heavy and charged.

“We all do,” he agrees, his voice dropping to a rough timbre that vibrates the small space between you.

Slowly, he lifts a hand, his thick, calloused fingers shaping to the side of your neck.

“The galaxy is full of danger,” you whisper. “All we have are these moments.”

His thumb rests gently against the line of your jaw and he lowers his head. The distance evaporates until there’s no air left to breathe, just him. Warm lips brush yours, soft and slow and you melt into it, your fingers finding purchase on the edges of his chest plate, anchoring yourself against his strength.

“And I want to spend every one of them with you.” he murmurs along your lips. “I’ll go wherever you will go.”

Your fingers trace up and over the wide breadth of his shoulders, finding his hair and combing through gently as your forehead rests to his.

“And I’ll stay with you for all of time,” you answer, watching the slow dip of his head until your lips meet again.

Your eyes flutter shut and each pass of your lips earns a soft groan from him, low and desperate. His arm bands around you, large hand splayed at your back, every inch of you pressed against him.

“If we make too much noise,” you whisper to Grogu. “We’ll get in trouble. We have to be quiet.”

Grogu’s ears fall back and he presses his lips together. “Don’t worry. It’ll be worth it. They’re finally ripe!”

You carefully free the stool of it’s hiding spot and tip toe toward the cabin door, peeking around the edge. “It looks like he might be asleep…”

Grogu stands between your legs, doing the same. You secure the stool against the side of your body, trying to hide it as much as possible before you walk out.

“Come on buddy, let’s go pick some oranges!”

He waddles out the door after you, both of you passing quietly by Djarin who’s seated comfortably against the side of the cabin, seemingly resting.

You don’t notice his helmet turn as his gaze follows or hear his exasperated sigh before he asks, “what are they up to now?”

You can smell the oranges before the tree comes into view and when you round the cabin to the back it sits nestled between some rocks, growing tall against the backdrop of the mountains beyond.

Once you find a flat spot on the ground you set the stool down, turning to Grogu with a smile.

“I can’t wait for you to try one!”

He coos and holds out his open hands. “Ok, let me just get up here….”

You’re just finding your balance on the stool when you feel a pair of strong, warm hands at your waist.

“If you’re trying to give me a heart attack, it just might work.”

His words are soft against the shell of your ear as he presses your back to his chest.

“I just wanted some oranges,” you pout, turning to face him and resting your hands on his wide shoulders.

“What did I tell you about climbing on things,” he replies, helping you off the stool. “And lifting…”

You place a palm on his armored chest. “I know, I know…lifting heavy things and carrying too much and not eating or drinking enough and making sure I rest…”

“I love you,” he whispers, his hand gently sliding along your hip to the soft curve of your stomach. “All three of you.”

He looks Grogu’s way, chuckling as he watches him study the oranges on the tree then focuses on you again, his hand caressing the gentle bump you’re growing.

The sweet moment is disrupted when you hear Grogu straining, his hand outstretched toward the top of the tree. With a  disgruntled sound he falls back just before a bunch of oranges fall loose of the tree and onto the ground.

“He’s making me look bad,” Djarin grumbles.

You raise an eyebrow. “How?”

“I could have done that!” he says, hands resting on his hips.

“Not like that!” you tease.

Even though you can’t see his face you know he’s giving you a challenging glare.

“But I can do it like this,” he says and pulls out his blaster, masterfully aiming and shooting down three oranges in succession. Each one falls to the ground, not a spot singed and even a leaf or two intact.

Grogu’s ears fall and he looks at you with big eyes.

“Aww, you did great kid!” you say, patting his head softly. “Thanks!”

You start to reach for an orange but Djarin swoops in and grabs some before you can and you give him a pointed look. “I can bend down!”

“But you don’t have to,” he says in answer, ushering you back toward the cabin with his free hand splayed at your lower back.

Grogu follows behind already digging into an orange.

Once you’re seated comfortably just outside the cabin, cushioned by the blanket Djarin insisted you use, you show Grogu how to properly peel the orange.

“See,” you say, digging your thumb into the soft skin. “Just get it started like this then you can pull the off the rest.”

Grogu’s ears move up and down like antennae as he watches you, then he takes his own orange and sticks one of his fingers in. Some juice squirts out into his face, and he squeals before falling backward.

“Good start,” you giggle.

He tries again and stabs holes in the orange more than peels it before giving up and just biting into it, skin, and all.

“That works too” you smile.

Djarin comes back outside to join you, cup in hand.

“Freshly squeezed,” he says as he hands it to you.

Your eyes light up and you take a sip. “Delicious! How did you manage it?”

“Don’t ask,” he says and you hear the smile in his voice.

He sits down next to you then pulls the helmet from his head. You immediately run your fingers through his hair, tousling the already mussed curls. You pop an orange slice into your mouth, moaning around the juicy and sweet taste.

Feeling the weight of his gaze you turn your face his way, holding up a wedge of orange. His lips part and you feed him the piece, leaning closer when you notice some juice escape. You kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you.”

It’s a whisper against his lips and he kisses you, tasting of sweet orange.

“For?”  he murmurs as his fingers trace the column of your neck before splaying along your cheek, thumb delicately brushing your bottom lip.

“Searching the galaxy for an orange tree,…” you murmur, kissing him again. “And bringing it here.” Another kiss. “And planting it and making sure it grew.”

His eyes close, dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks as his smile meets your kisses.

“I told you,” he says softly. “I would give you the world. You simply have to ask.”