Lena is: reading

But before you can try to rack your foggy brain to figure it out, a giant yellow eye the size of your head blinks open at the edge of the darkness across from you. Yelping in shock, you scramble backwards as the eye rotates to reveal a second one just as large and luminescent. Both eyes have giant slitted pupils and seem to glow in the darkness. Before you can get far, something smooth and cool wraps around your waist, holding you in place. Heart pounding in your ears, you glance down to find that it is a dark green, almost black, appendage covered in scales. Extending from the darkness, it winds around your stomach with the end coming to a tapered point near your navel. It squeezes gently, hard enough to hold you firm but not enough to hurt.

Holy shit, is it a tail of some sort?

Too terrified to move further, you hold your breath and look back up at the giant yellow orbs peering at you from the shadows. Slowly, they begin to draw closer, and you hear heavy, measured thuds echo off the walls. As the eyes approach the dying fire, a massive snout comes into view and then a head the size of a car follows. Your eyes bug as you take in the scaly surface of a face, with ridged brows and a line of spikes running in increasing size from the tip of its snout up and over the back of its head. Two large horns protrude from above its brows and curve backwards towards where you assume its shoulders would be.

When its snout is a few inches from your face, you tremble as its nostrils flare and it inhales deeply. Then it exhales with a low rumbling sound as its hot breath fans across your face, blowing strands of hair off your shoulders.

It’s…sniffing you!

You nearly jump out of your skin when a deep, inhuman voice booms through the cavern and you have to cover your ears from the sheer volume.

“You are awake.”

The voice continues to echo off the walls for a few moments and then silence settles again, apart from the monster’s deep rhythmic breaths and your pounding heart. Slowly, you lower your hands from your ears and realize, belatedly, that it hadn’t moved its mouth when it spoke.

Had it projected its voice or are you just going crazy? Probably just going crazy.

“Where…where am I?” you manage to stammer out.

“My cave,” it rumbles again, softer this time, as if it realized its voice was too loud.

Oh fuck, you are going to die here, cold and naked in this cave.

Beginning to hyperventilate, you start to struggle in the grasp of its tail. 

“Please don’t eat me!” you shout. 

You need to figure out a way to get out of here!

It lets out a low, chuffing sound, which must be a chuckle and says, “I don’t plan to eat you.” And before you know what’s happening, its jaws part slightly and a giant, tapered tongue slips between massive, razor sharp teeth and licks up the side of your neck.

Shit, this monster definitely wants to eat you.

“Why am I here?” you squeak, utterly terrified but trying to keep it talking in the hopes you can figure out an escape plan before it decides it’s done playing with its food.

“I wanted a pretty treasure for my horde.”

A pretty treasure?... Does he mean you?

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I promise there will be smut in part 2!

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

Bonus: here is a size comparison if you're wondering just how big this guy really is...

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

Giedi Prime was surely a scary and intimidating place for a twelve years old girl. The lack of colour and friendly faces made you shiver and anxiously cling to your father’s hand. You couldn’t understand why he had insisted on you accompanying him on this official state visit for the meeting with Baron Harkonnen. He would never want to take you with him to much more pleasant places. You were too young to understand the hidden agenda, the Bene Gesserit scheming – whose plans had been destroyed by Lady Jessica giving birth to a son instead of a daughter. They needed a new match for the young na-baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, The Baron’s nephew. After years of searching and studying many possibilities, they had decided to create a union between your House and The Harkonnens. Your father was more than happy – it was an honour to bond with such a powerful family. You were from one of the planets of a lesser importance. That was the reason for The Baron’s distrust towards the plan. He would rather see his nephew marrying a great lady, perhaps even an Imperial Princess.

While he talked to your father, you were left alone with no one but one guard in an empty room. You were sitting on a black couch and looking with awe at the portraits on the walls. All men looked the same on them – big, bald, hairless and scary. They fascinated you as much as they intimidated you.

After a while, the doors leading to the corridor opened and you startled at the sight of a boy more-less your age entering confidently with a contemptuous look upon his face. He looked like all The Harkonnens – sickly and scary. He was wearing clothes you had only seen on gladiators and warriors before but it looked disturbing on a body so skinny and small, even though he was tall for his age. There was a splash of blood upon his face and it made you gasp and take a step back. He smirked at you.

“So, that’s you? Disappointing,” he commented harshly as you swallowed thickly.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” You looked nervously at the guard but he remained stoic.

“I’m Feyd,” he introduced himself. “My training has been interrupted and I’ve been told to meet you for whatever reason. Haven’t expected such a scared, little bunny,” he sneered and you spotted his teeth were black. They didn’t look rotten, though.

“What happened to your teeth?” You asked him, raising an eyebrow.

“My Uncle made the medics paint them black to intimidate my enemies,” he answered, proudly.

“What kind of enemies might a twelve year old have?” You asked, surprised.

You had no enemies. Your life was of a typical spoiled young lady – full of mother’s kisses, father’s embraces, candies, ponies and maids braiding your hair in the evening while telling you tales of handsome and brave prince charmings. You couldn't imagine that it was different for other people.

“You’re stupid,” Feyd pointed out and you shut your mouth, feeling hurt at his words as tears pricked your eyes. He approached you and you took a step back, scared of him. “Don’t cry,” he tilted his head at the sight of your wet eyes. “Has no one ever told you that you were stupid?” Now it was his time to be surprised and you shook your head. “Do you want to see something?” He proposed as his eyes sparkled.

“I’m scared,” you admitted, genuinely.

“I will protect you,” he offered his pale hand and you looked at it with fear in your eyes.

“I am scared of you,” you raised your eyes to lay them on his face again while you explained.

“Good,” he nodded with a chuckle. “But I’d get in trouble if something happened to you. You are the daughter of my uncle’s guest. Come,” he encouraged.

Your status gave you courage as your curiosity only fueled your desire to actually follow him. Just like the portraits on these walls – he was as intimidating as fascinating to you. Perhaps because you had never before met such a boy.

You took his cold hand and a shiver went down your spine. For a short while, you thought you would faint as an odd feeling filled your small body. A familiar warmth that you only felt when you were back home, in your bed, feeling safe and sound with the nanny or your mother caressing your head to help you sleep. Like he was home. But he couldn’t be. You had never met him and he was scary. 

“Have you felt that, too?” You gasped.

“No,” Feyd lied. “Come,” he dragged you behind him and the guard opened the doors in front of you.

Feyd took you down the corridor and led you downstairs to some sort of dungeons beneath the fortress. You were starting to have a bad feeling about it but something deep inside you made you trust that odd boy. Without understanding it yet, you were starting to realise he was the one who had been meant for you from the day you were born. There was some connection between your bloodlines that was drawing you towards each other.

You found yourself in an old, dark and damp room. It smelt of something rotten and it was full of spiderwebs.

“What is this place? It’s disgusting,” you pointed out as you winced. Feyd let go of your hand and sneered at you.

“Life is unpleasant. The sooner you learn that, the better,” he pointed out and suddenly, he reached for a short knife by his waist you had not noticed before. You yelped at the sight, convinced he had only dragged you there to kill you.

“Don’t be silly, I won’t hurt you,” he rolled his eyes and you nodded, unsurely. “Do you want to see me kill something?” He smirked playfully at you.

It felt wrong and you felt the anxiety rising in your abdomen when you realised you’d get in trouble for that. On the other hand, you did want to see him kill something. It was curiosity mixed with excitement to witness something forbidden and something you had been sheltered from.

“Yes,” you nodded, eagerly. He was a little surprised at your reaction but he only smiled.

Feyd beckoned you over by waving his hand and you followed him, quietly. Then you gasped and covered your mouth as you gagged out of disgust at the sight of a big, fat spider in the corner of the room. It was huge – nearly as big as you were. But it was also fat and slow. The legs were long and thin, furry black sticks.

“I found it a few days ago,” Feyd told you as he looked at your disgusted face. “Gross, isn’t she?”

You nodded.

“She reminds me of my uncle,” Feyd explained with hatred in his voice. “Do you see those small spiders on the ground?” He asked and you looked down. It was full of smaller spiders but they were all laying there dead. “She feeds off of her own children.”

You took a step back, utterly disgusted and sick. Feyd snorted at you and turned his back on you to gut the big, black spider. You watched with terror how much satisfaction it was giving him. He struck the monstrosity so many times that you lost count. He kept striking when it was already laying there dead.

“That’s enough,” you whispered and Feyd froze before turning around to face you. There was pure murder in his eyes and when he walked towards you with a knife in his hand, you were sure he would kill you now, too.

You took a deep breath in and closed your eyes, expecting the worst. But when you felt his breath on your face, you heard him hiding the knife away.

“Stupid little bunny,” he told you and you opened your eyes, hesitantly. He was staring at you as if he was studying your face.

The door opened suddenly and a few guards entered, sighing out of relief. Your father was standing behind them, scared. Baron Harkonnen was there as well, floating ominously.

“There you are!” He raised his voice and you spotted that all Feyd’s confidence was gone in a second. The boy looked down and blushed. “I’ve told you to behave. Why are you scaring Lady (Y/N)?!”

You turned around to face The Baron, hiding his nephew’s from his sight with your small body.

“He did not scare me, my Lord,” you assured with a slight bow of your head. “I wanted Feyd-Rautha to show me around,” you lied to protect him.

You had a feeling his uncle would punish him and he looked like a man you would never want a punishment from.

“She’s naive,” your father tried to save the situation. “Curiosity killed the cat,” he reminded you and grabbed you by your wrist to pull you closer to him. “Forgive my daughter, my Lord Baron.”

“She is forgiven,” the big man smirked viciously before lying his eyes on his nephew. “The boy, however, is not.”

You wanted to protest but your father gave you a stern look and announced it was time for you to leave now. So, you obeyed and walked away, following the guard leading you out of the corridor. But you kept looking behind, trying to see Feyd-Rautha for the last time.

“Will I see him again?” You asked your father, looking up.

“Who?”

“Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha,” you explained and your father sighed as he looked down at you.

“You will in eight years,” he announced. “You will become his wife.”

Those eight years you had not wasted a day, practising for your new role every day. Learning all about The Harkonnens; their culture, their history, their customs and war strategies. You knew that their nobility would not give you an easy time for being a Lady of the lesser house. You wanted to prove your worth with knowledge.

Your wisdom was your only weapon because you lacked confidence nor experience in nearly anything. Sheltered your whole life, surrounded by books and teachers, you were shy and innocent. The spider incident on Giedi Prime still remained your only sin – that no one except your husband-to-be possessed the knowledge of.

You had not been in touch with him at all but the stories had reached you about his nature and his victories in the gladiator arena. You believed them all because your short encounter had been enough to give you an idea about what kind of man he would become. You had never protested whenever your marriage was mentioned but you felt anxious. You didn’t belong on Giedi Prime, you didn’t fit in the world of death and violence.

Tested by Gom Jabbar, you nearly failed the test. The scary Reverend Mother gave your mother a look of disapproval. On the very next day you were shipped to Giedi Prime for your wedding, though. You had survived the trial and only that mattered – the long-planned scheming couldn’t be sabotaged.

On the day of your arrival, you were led with your parents to a room you had remembered from your last visit. There was the same black couch and the same portraits on the wall – only now there was one more than before. The last one in line, of a young man with handsome facial features, signed with your betrothed’s name. You opened your mouth slightly as you kept staring at it. He was a young and handsome na-baron; a strong warrior surrounded by men and women who admired him. You could only imagine how inconvenient a marriage had to be for him. Especially to an uninteresting and unimportant woman like you.

The doors opened and you turned around to see him in real life as he entered the room in black gladiator gear. He looked better than in the portrait – raw and magnetic, dangerous. Your parents stiffened at the sight of him and they both bowed their heads.

“Lord Na-Baron,” your father greeted him. “We have delivered our daughter to you, according to the agreement,” he explained. “We have hoped to be greeted by your uncle The Baron.”

“He’s busy,” Feyd interrupted your father in a low and raspy voice that sent a shiver down your spine. His eyes were only fixated on you – curious and mocking. You bowed down slightly as well, not wanting to disrespect him.

“Y-yes, of course, my Lord…” your father took a step back.

“You’re grown now,” Feyd-Rautha stood in front of you with a smirk and you took a deep, shaky breath in.

“So are you, my Lord Na-Baron,” you nodded.

“She hasn’t changed a bit,” Feyd turned around to give your father a contemptuous look. “A timid little bunny. But it’s no surprise since she’s been raised by a coward and bootlicker like you.”

“My daughter is of many qualities, my Lord, I can assure you…” your father panicked.

“A wife only needs one quality,” Feyd sneered at him as your blood ran cold at his words. “Show them to their rooms,” he told the guards and left the room.

“I can’t believe you’ve made deals with these people,” your mother snapped angrily at your father who was standing there with his head kept low, ashamed.

But it was not like he had any saying in this. It was the plan of the Bene Gesserit. You were nothing but pawns in it. You tried to remember that Feyd-Rautha was a pawn, too.

After the scary and bloody wedding party, you were taken to your husband’s bedroom where you were supposed to be prepared for the wedding night. However, it was not the maids waiting for you there. Three bald Harkonnen women were sitting on your husband’s bed and smirking at you, showing off their sharp teeth. They were dressed in black leather and clinging to each other as if they were one body instead of three.

“We will prepare her for the Master,” one of them told the servants who had taken you there. You looked at them with panic and they only looked back with guilt and compassion before walking out as quickly as possible, leaving you alone with the scary snake-like creatures.

They were circling around you, sniffing you and chuckling contemptuously. You didn’t understand anything but you tried to bravely keep still and endure. Then, one of them approached you and licked a fat stripe across your cheek. Your eyes widened in terror.

“Oh-so-innocent,” she commented. “Have you ever pleased a man?” She asked.

You were terrified and embarrassed, you didn’t know what to do.

“N-no, my Lady,” you stuttered and nodded your head, unsure how to address her.

They all found it amusing as they laughed.

“My Lady, she calls me. I might like this one,” the woman caressed your hair with some sort of perverted delicacy that made you feel even more scared. Your heart was pounding in your chest and your hands turned cold and sweaty. “I’m not a lady, na-baroness. I am your husband’s whore,” she informed you and you nodded again, hesitantly. “We are his favourite pets. You see… Our Master likes perversion,” her hands landed on your hips as she pulled you closer to her body. “We will teach you how to please him and how to take him.”

“He’s a lot to take,” another woman stood behind you and grabbed your breasts from behind.

“W-won’t he mind, my husband?” You swallowed thickly.

“Not at all,” the third one giggled. “He always shares his toys.”

“Not this one,” the doors opened as Feyd-Rautha entered the room. He glanced at the women angrily and they immediately let go of you and moved away. “She is not a toy, she is your na-baroness. What are you doing here?” He snapped. “Have I not forbidden you from entering this room from now on?”

“Oh, Master…” one of them approached him to put her arms around his neck but he pushed her away.

“Get out,” he hissed and they ran away.

When the doors closed behind them, Feyd looked at you and sighed before approaching you and caressing your cheek.

“You alright, wife?” He asked.

“Y-yes, thank you,” you nodded and flinched at the feeling of his cold fingers brushing your cheek. An odd and out-of-place warmth started to fill you like all those years ago. It made him startled, too, and eventually he took a step back.

“You must be exhausted,” he only said as he looked away, awkwardly. “We can perform our duties in the morning.”

“Th-thank you,” you nodded. “I’ll go take a shower now…”

Feyd pointed at the doors leading to the bathroom and that was all for that night. When you came back to his bedroom, he was already gone. You went to sleep without him, confused by his behaviour.

Baron Harkonnen watched carefully with his own eyes and through the eyes of his servants. He observed and he listened – nothing could ever escape him. But the new na-baroness was as easy to read as a book. When she joined him and Count Rabban by the breakfast table, she didn’t wince while sitting, which was an obvious sign she had not been claimed by Feyd the previous night. The Baron smirked when the new na-baroness began to eat the meal, keeping her timid gaze down, terrified of her surroundings.

If Feyd-Rautha refused to be her friend, The Baron would surely find her a purpose. She would be an easy tool to keep Feyd in place. A silent, obedient shadow following her husband everywhere. A perfect spy.

“Na-Baroness,” he addressed her and she flinched before looking up, scared. “I would like you to join the council after the meal. Your husband rarely takes part in them since he is too busy training but now you are an extension of him,” The Baron forced a smile and she nodded. “I’ve been told by your father you are well-trained in Harkonnen history and customs.”

“Y-yes, my Lord,” she bowed her head.

“I know that Feyd-Rautha is not an easy man to be around,” The Baron continued as Rabban raised his head, curious about his uncle’s scheming plan. “He’s been like this ever since he was a child. I’ve been trying to temper him.”

“I remember,” the young woman whispered.

“You can tell me about anything that is worrying you,” The Baron assured her and she smiled genuinely. “Has he hurt you?” He squinted his eyes, knowing the answer already but wanting to test her honesty.

“No, my Lord. Feyd-Rautha did not spend the night with me at all,” she answered and he nodded as Rabban sneered.

“You have to forgive him, my Lady. He prefers other… forms of entertainment,” The Baron explained softly.

“I believe I have met them, my Baron,” the woman looked down.

“Most likely, yes. They don’t like to share him,” The Baron chuckled.

“But the heir…”

“Do not worry about the heir. You are both still young, you have time. There is no need to hurry anything. Take your time to adjust on Giedi Prime first,” The Baron tried to calm her down and she looked up with so much gratitude in her eyes that he was sure he had succeeded. She was his agent now.

To your own surprise, you found new friends in your husband’s family – his uncle and brother – but not him. Feyd-Rautha was mostly avoiding you and a few attempts to claim you were ending in a fiasco. You couldn’t understand why he would pull away suddenly and leave you without a word or fail to get hard enough no matter how long his touch lingered upon your body. It made you feel as if you were lacking, because you knew for sure he had no problems of this sort with his concubines. They often bragged to you about it. They had offered to help you to excite him and you nearly agreed to that but Feyd hated to see you around them. He snapped whenever he caught you talking to them or them approaching you.

He hated to see you around his uncle and brother, too. He had been warning you about them but it felt cruel to do so. Did he want you to not have any companionship at all? To be sad and lonely and miserable all your days?

You weren’t appreciated in marriage but you were appreciated as a part of this family – representing the na-baronship during the council meetings with your decisions and advice. The Baron seemed to be pleased with you and Count Rabban had stopped to make fun of you over time. Still waters run deep, The Baron would often say about you as your cheeks heated up and eyes sparkled. Perhaps all the years of studying the customs and tradition of this House would not be useful in your marriage but they seemed to be useful when it came to your political presence.

It still bothered you that Feyd-Rautha was acting so weirdly towards you. You remembered the boy he had been eight years earlier. You had never feared this union because you had been sure there was some sort of bond now between you two, some sort of connection. Perhaps you had been wrong.

It was right after one of Feyd’s failed attempts to claim you, when he left you half-naked in bed with tears pricking your eyes. He walked away and most likely went to his concubines as you fixed yourself and left the room, too, not wanting to remain in the chambers filled with the smell of embarrassment and humiliation anymore. You nearly crashed with your brother-in-law walking down the corridor.

“My Lady,” Rabban nodded at you. “Is everything alright?”

“Y-yes,” you answered, trying not to show your nervousness. There was no need for him to know the details about the problems your marriage was facing.

“I was just looking for you,” he confessed and you raised an eyebrow at him. “Tomorrow, my uncle wants me to lead the council meeting only for the most important members of the court. It’s about a matter of a very high importance and it’s confidential,” he whispered. “I hoped you would join me. Without my uncle there, I will be the only one representing our family.”

“But tomorrow Feyd has his fight. I am expected to be in the stands,” you looked up at him.

“Uncle will be there. You are more needed here, (Y/N),” Rabban tried to convince you. You could see his hands were a little shaky – he was stressed about the responsibility placed upon his shoulders by his uncle. “It’s not like Feyd will even notice your absence,” he added.

You bit on your lower lip. He was right.

“Alright, I’ll join you in the council,” you nodded your head. “Our state affairs are much more important than some fixed gladiator fight anyway.”

The servants’ slim fingers were applying the black paint upon Feyd-Rautha’s body as he observed his three harpies from the corner of his eye. They were giggling between each other and some of the words reached his sensitive ears.

“...naive…”

“Silly little thing.”

“...taste her heart…”

“What are you talking about, pets?” Feyd turned around to face them as he asked and they went silent.

“Nothing important, Master,” the bravest of them all answered eventually.

“I have a feeling you’re whispering about my wife,” Feyd pointed out.

“As I said, nothing important,” she chuckled and the rest giggled. Feyd squinted his eyes and approached them with a clenched jaw and an angry expression on his face. When he grabbed her by the chin, they stopped laughing.

“You are forbidden to even think of her,” he hissed out. “You’re not worthy of that.”

“M-Master…” She trembled as she pleaded for his softness. Her companions hid behind her and observed him carefully. “She doesn’t even know how to please you, Master.”

Feyd’s hand dropped down and the squeeze tightened around the woman’s neck. He watched her struggle to catch a breath for some time as he observed with a smirk. Eventually, he let go of her.

“My wife belongs to a different realm than you,” he stated. “She is not to be discussed, looked at, thought of… Am I understood?”

“Y-yes, Master,” they all nodded, obediently.

“Good,” he smiled and went back to the servant girls.

“You might be interested in the gossip, though, na-baron,” one of the concubines whispered. “We are your eyes and ears…”

Feyd pretended not to be intrigued although he was. He didn’t react, hoping she would say more. And so she did.

“Your uncle keeps the young na-baroness close. The rumour has it he wants to make her one of his agents. And she is slowly taking your place during the councils. Count Rabban is his Plan B if you fail. Then she will be given to him.”

“I’m sure Rabban won’t have a problem with fucking her,” the bravest concubine added as if his punishment had not worked at all. Because it didn’t. She loved his punishments. “Her innocence will only make him more eager. He will tear her apart.”

“Shut up!” Feyd growled, making the servant girls take a few steps back as he turned around to face the girl with a big mouth. “Let me remind you that I don’t need your tongue to fuck you,” he sneered. “Your sisters are better at using their tongues than you anyway.”

The woman looked down and he was informed that he was about to enter the arena in five minutes so he went back to putting the gear on, furiously clutching to his blades. He was grateful to his concubine for fueling his anger so much – he wanted to make good use of it in the arena.

But when he approached the tower with his uncle’s balcony to bow down, he spotted that his wife was not there. Suddenly, the fight made no sense to him at all. What was the point of putting on a show, what was the point of killing with grace when she could not watch?

He had been waiting eight years for her to come back. The timid little bunny girl that made him feel so warm inside. That made him feel like home. Nothing had ever made him feel this way. They were destined for each other. Now, when she was by his side, he had no idea what to do. He had been training his body for years to impress her and be able to protect her but nothing was working out the way he had planned. She was slipping away.

She was slipping away because of his uncle’s scheming and because Feyd-Rautha himself had no idea how to approach a creature so pure and innocent as this woman. If anything in this world was still able to save his rotten soul, it was her. But maybe he had been naive to think so. He was beyond saving.

He didn’t give the audience a show on that day. The fights were quick and swift. No playing with his victims, no tormenting. Just a kill after kill to finish it as fast as possible. And no bowing down at the end. He just walked out of the arena, still clutching his fists on the blood-dripping blades. He walked past the guards and servants, not wanting to change or bathe – he wanted one thing only. To find his wife.

The sounds of the cheering audience were becoming more and more quiet. They waited for him to walk back and bow down, raising his knife in the sign of victory. He had no plans in doing so. He would not kneel in front of his uncle. Not when his wife was not beside him, because it was her he had been kneeling for. Not Baron Harkonnen.

The council was over now but you stayed inside the conference room with Count Rabban to discuss what had been decided and what to tell his uncle. You were staring at the maps of Arrakis and wondering whether the Emperor’s assurances of help were trustworthy.

“What I’m saying is… If he is so willing to get rid of The Atreides just because he considers them to be dangerous… He might do the same to us one day. We are a real danger to him way more than any Atreides is,” you pointed out.

“Especially now when we have knowledge that can turn other leaders against him and…” Rabban’s words were interrupted by the heavy black doors opening rapidly. You flinched and instinctively hid behind your brother-in-law’s broad shoulders.

It was Feyd-Rautha himself walking inside with an angry look on his face. Wearing his gladiator gear stained with fresh blood and still wielding two bloody swords. He looked ferocious as his cold eyes searched for you. When he spotted you behind his brother, his jaw clenched and so did his fists on the handles of the blades.

“What is going on here?” He barked as you and Rabban looked at each other, questioningly.

“Husband,” you tried to be brave as you took a step ahead to approach him very carefully. “I see you’re finished now. I assume you’ve won.”

“(Y/N), wait,” Rabban grabbed your sleeve to keep you in place. He didn’t want you near Feyd in such a state. But Feyd didn’t like his brother’s gesture.

“Let her go, brother,” he snapped. “She is my wife and she will approach me if she wishes. I would never lay my hand on her,” he drawled through gritted teeth.

You felt Rabban’s fingers letting go of the fabric of your dress and you walked up to Feyd. Something inside you was telling you that he needed you at that moment. Perhaps that was the intuition of a wife.

“Oh, we all know that you don’t lay your hand on her at all, brother,” Rabban snorted at him.

You watched in terror how your husband’s face became even more angry than before. He yelled and attacked his brother with all the burning wrath he had before been trying to stop from outbursting with.

“No! Stop! Please,” you pleaded as they fought and struggled one against another. Rabban took out his own blade now, too, and they ended up wrestling on the floor like two children. “That is enough, please!” You cried out.

Your tears brought attention to only one of them – your husband. He was distracted by them and ended up with his brother’s blade pointed at his face. You froze and Rabban laughed with contempt.

“Such a great warrior you are, my brother. Trained day and night for years, got your little arena shows… And now you got distracted by a woman,” he pointed out.

“That woman is my wife,” Feyd drawled.

You looked around in panic but the guards stood there petrified. They were afraid to attack any of the brothers. Usually shy and timid, you felt an odd outburst of courage as you took a blade from the guard standing nearby. He did not protest but only watched in terror as you approached the brothers and pointed the blade at Count Rabban himself.

“Don’t be stupid,” he laughed at you.

“Let my husband go,” your voice shivered but you managed to stand your ground.

“Or what?” Rabban sneered. “We both know you won’t strike me.”

In that very moment Feyd kicked him and got out of the direction of his brother’s blade. He ended up on top with his own knife pointed at Rabban. A smirk on his face revealed that he had never been defeated even for a second, he was only toying with his brother… and with you, too.

“She might not but I will,” Feyd hissed at his brother. “My marriage is none of your business, brother. And you stay away from my wife.”

“I am only representing you during the councils,” you tried to explain and Feyd looked up at you with his brow furrowed. “Your uncle told me I should because you rarely take place in them.”

“He’s scheming, can’t you see? Trying to turn us against each other. Thought you were smarter than this,” his anger was directed at you now.

He let go of Rabban and stood up to walk out of the room. You swallowed thickly and lowered your blade, scared of your brother-in-law’s reaction now when you were left alone with him after threatening him.

“Why did you take his side?” He only asked as you gave the blade back to the guard. “He doesn’t treat you any good. He never will.”

“He is my husband,” you explained quietly, avoiding his curious gaze.

“By name only. Your marriage is not even consummated.”

“Feyd was right,” you looked up. “Our marriage is none of your business, brother,” you emphasised who he was to you now before walking out to follow Feyd. It was easy because he left a trail of sand and blood from the arena behind him.

He went to your chambers so you took a deep breath in and pushed the doors open to face him in all his wrath and anger. He was struggling to get out of his gear with shaky hands as he shot you a furious glance over his shoulder.

“Should I call for the servants?” You asked.

“No,” he snapped and you sighed before approaching him and helping him yourself. At first he tried to shake you off but you were stubborn so he gave up and allowed your gentle fingertips to work on the pieces of clothing. “How do you even know how to do that?” He asked. “Did Rabban show you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear husband. I’ve read dozens of books about The Harkonnen art of warfare. I know your gears by heart. And Rabban is no gladiator,” you explained.

“Dozens of books about the art of warfare and The Harkonnens and yet it slipped your mind what masters of manipulation we can be?” Feyd barked at you and you chuckled. He didn’t find it amusing as he looked you up and down with contempt so you leaned in and placed a kiss upon his soft lips while your hands cupped his face. He was visibly taken aback by that, he didn’t even close his eyes for the kiss and he continued to observe you as if you would attack him any second.

“I have studied everything like a good pupil I was,” you whispered after breaking the kiss. Your hands kept caressing his cheeks in a soothing manner. “And now I’m one of The Baron’s closest people. I’m your inside man, Feyd-Rautha,” you smiled gently and his eyes sparkled at the realisation.

“But… why?” He only asked, confused.

“What do you mean why?” You bit on your lower lip.

“I’ve been treating you… coldly,” he admitted.

“Well, that is another matter. But that is between you and me. The marriage is between a husband and a wife. Not between them and his uncle or brother,” you explained. “I still remember that big fat spider. I’ve known ever since I was twelve years old that the thing you crave the most is to gut your uncle like you did to that monstrosity in the dungeons. And as your wife… I will do everything I can to help you,” you assured him.

But Feyd was not convinced. He pushed you away although he did it way gentler than you’d expect. He walked away from you as he stepped out of the pile of clothes by his feet. He was wearing nothing but underwear now and you watched how his muscular body glistened with sweat after the fight. 

“You can be a double agent, wife. I don’t trust you,” he confessed.

“You have no reasons to,” you nodded. “Except for the fact we have fate and destiny bonding us. Am I the only one feeling this when we touch?” Your voice lowered as uncertainty began to grow inside of you. Perhaps you were. Perhaps you were the only one feeling that warmth indeed.

“No,” Feyd admitted, nearly inaudibly. “Why do you think I can’t fuck you?” He approached you again and you gasped at how close he chose to stand.

“Because you find me unattractive? Or boring perhaps,” you shrugged your arms. “I don’t care about that. Our bond is stronger than physical attraction.”

“I can’t fuck you because that feeling is overwhelming me and I don’t know what to do. I’ve never felt like that. You’re too pure for me,” he confessed, visibly uncomfortable with his own words as he looked away.

You were stunned for a moment.

“You’re an idiot, Feyd-Rautha,” you laughed eventually and he blushed. “I am not pure. I am flesh and blood just like you,” you told him. “For example now… When you’re standing in front of me… like this,” you allowed your hand to wander all over his hard muscles. “You’re starting a fire that will be difficult to put out later,” you looked up to meet his gaze. “Every time you start and don’t finish, you leave me in torment,” you confessed. “And nothing helps,” you pouted. “I writhe and I roll around and grow more and more bitter knowing that you’re giving your whores what you’re supposed to give me.”

He was nearly paralyzed in a way he was staring at you. You grabbed his hand and pulled your dress up to press his hand to your womanhood. You were soaking through your underwear now and he blinked a few times as his gaze intensified.

“I will never forgive myself if I break you,” Feyd took his hand away despite your protests.

“You’re breaking me by refusing to touch me,” you whined.

“Touch yourself,” he said suddenly as his eyes sparkled and you were left speechless. “Touch yourself for me. I will help you. I’ll make it feel good,” he proposed.

Out of desperation, you decided this was better than nothing – at least for now – so you agreed. As fast as possible, you got rid of your dress and remained in nothing but your sheer underdress. You laid on the bed and watched him approach you. Feyd laid next to you, observing you carefully. His eyes were admiring every curve of your body and every inch of your skin. Without waiting for his command, you pulled the underdress up and took off your underwear to toss the panties aside and start playing with your wet folds. It was embarrassing to see him watch but it also excited you in some twisted way. You toyed with your clit, moaning softly, showing him what kind of pleasure you could bring to yourself – what kind of pleasure you had to bring to yourself since he refused to do so.

“Easy, slow down,” Feyd breathed out and placed his rough hand on your waist. He was caressing you and joined your lips together in a sloppy kiss. His free hand undid the ribbon on the top of your underdress to free your breasts. They shivered under the touch of his big hand as he played with your nipples and buried his face in the crook of your neck, breathing in your sweet scent and sucking on the sensitive skin below your ear.

You shut your eyes close, trying to focus on the pleasure as your fingers rubbed on your sensitive swollen clit but it was not enough. It never was.

“I can’t…” You admitted your defeat as you tried to catch a breath.

“Yes, you can,” Feyd whispered into your ear in that low, raspy voice of his that sent shivers down your body and straight to your core. “What’s stopping you?”

“It’s just… I don’t know…” You didn’t know how to find the right words. “It’s not enough,” you admitted. “It’s not you.”

“Let me, then,” he raised himself to look into your eyes as his hand moved your hand away and his fingers replaced yours on your exposed clit. You gasped at the feeling of his fingertips drawing circles and teasing your entrance. 

You pressed your hands to his chest and then you moved them lower to explore the hard muscles of his abs. To feel them underneath your fingers was enough to make your back arch needily, exposing even more of your hungry pussy. Feyd smirked at that and buried his fingers deep inside as you gasped out of pain but it was quickly replaced with pleasure.

His free hand grabbed your chin gently and when you looked up, batting your eyelashes and opening your lips slightly, he put his fingers inside of your mouth and you grabbed his wrist to hold on to it as you sucked and moaned. His other hand was bringing you close to your release as his movements were fast and rough and his thumb circled your clit.

You cried out but his fingers muffled it so you ended up choking on the sound escaping your lips as you came writhing under him with sweaty forehead and single hair strands sticking to your face, your whole body set on fire, trying to catch a breath. Feyd swallowed thickly as his eyes sparkled.

You yelped as he smacked your sensitive pussy right after pulling his fingers out of it and licking them clean, looking deep into your eyes. You were speechless as your mind was left thoughtless.

You could only watch him lower himself and open your thighs even further with his strong arms as he buried his face between your legs to lap on your juices. You were sensitive so it burned in the beginning but the uncomfortable feeling submerged into pleasure once again. Feyd’s tongue was cleaning your folds thoroughly and penetrating you while you threw your head back as you laid your hands on the back of his neck, keeping him close. But this time he didn’t let you cum so easily.

When you were about to reach the peak again, he moved his head away and the next thing you saw was his face right in front of yours, his chin dripping with your wetness and his cold eyes filled with so much fire that you felt like a prey trapped by a big predator.

But you loved that feeling. You loved to feel small and tiny under him, trapped, vulnerable. You dug your nails into his biceps and looked down. He had already tossed his underwear aside and his cock was hard now, swollen and aching for you, you could see it twitching and leaking black precum. He looked heavy and big and you wanted him badly to claim you and violate you to the point no other man would ever even think of touching you after him.

You had never made him that hard. You had never gone so far before. You were sure you’d succeed now.

“Take me, claim me, make me yours,” you pleaded. “Please, I want more of you.”

Feyd shut you up with a kiss and a strong, stinging pain of his hard cock finally penetrating you. Your eyes widened as you whined. He intertwined your fingers together and held you through the process of adjustment to his size. You were the first one to impatiently rock your hips to show him you wanted him to move. So he did, slowly and carefully. He winced from his attempts to keep himself in control and you let go of his hands to pull him closer by his shoulders and deepen the kiss.

You moaned softly and helped him to fuck you by you rocking your hips against him as your legs wrapped around his waist. You both had been waiting so long for this moment of unity that it didn’t take long for you two to reach your highs and the familiar feeling of warmth filled you whole. You didn’t remember your own name, the only thing you knew was that you were home and the man above you was destined for you; you were born to be his wife and he was born to be your husband. The thousands of years of manipulation of the bloodlines had led you to this moment and nothing could tear you apart now. No amount of rumours, scheming or the disability to show emotions.

You were catching your breath as Feyd was slowly coming back from his high above you, panting heavily and looking at your face with hazy eyes.

“You belong to me,” he leaned in to kiss your lips again. “You always have.”

“No matter what happens, we are one,” you agreed with a nod and intertwined your fingers with him as you held his hand. “Now, when that is settled, we shall focus on our most important task.”

“And that is?”

“Killing the fat spider in his nest,” you answered.

“Thankfully, we have experience,” Feyd teased before placing yet another soft kiss upon your parted lips.

Interning for Nelson and Murdock was supposed to be good. Well, it was, but it was exhausting. While it was definitely better than the other less ethical options there was always so much to do. Your desk was constantly buried in paperwork no matter how late you stayed, things to be sorted, filed, signed by Mr Murdock (“Please. I know I’m older than you, but Matt is fine.”) or Mr Foggy (“Better than being called Mr Nelson!”). You were beginning to understand why Karen said fuck it and decided to pursue a journalistic career. It didn’t help that the heating was always broken and that even with your scarf and stockings you were still freezing your nips off. 

“Mr Foggy left some files on your desk before he left for his date,” You tell Matt when he arrives from the cold outside, watching as he tugged off his bulky coat. “Said that Detective Sergeant Mahoney wanted a second opinion on them.”

The wind had left his soft hair tousled, and he huffs a little as he runs his fingers through it in an attempt to fix it - you bite back a laugh as he somehow manages to make it worse. “Thank you,” Matt says softly, a gentle smile on his lips. “I can’t believe Foggy and Marcy’ve been together for two years now.”

You can’t help but watch as he takes his glasses off to wipe the rain off them, immediately locking onto his soft, unfocused eyes. He rarely took them off around you and tended to slip them back on when you entered a room. Foggy had explained once that he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable with the empty vacant look that they always had, glazed as he looked slightly past you - and you’d never really quite known how to tell him you didn’t mind.

“They’re cute,” you offer as he walks past you to his office. “Mr Foggy said something about um- Danny being an angel? They’re going to the Met for dinner.”

“ Danny?” Matt says from the doorway of his office. “That’s one hell of an anniversary date.” There’s a fond chuckle in his voice as he turns around. “Ow.”

“You okay?” You stand up quickly, heels clicking as you dash to his office. He waves you off, hand resting on the edge of the corner of his table, fingers rubbing at the corner. Your breath stutters as you can’t help but watch as his index and middle finger part over it, circling slowly.

“Bumped the desk,” he admits. 

“Oh uh- that’s my fault,” you say, embarrassment colouring your voice. “I ran into it when I put the paperwork on your desk - I completely forgot to move it back, I’m so sorry-”

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” he chuckles softly, shifting the table back. “Accidents happen.”

You can’t help but hover awkwardly in the doorway as he sits at his desk. The only light filtering into the room is from the dandelion yellow street lamp outside, peeking through the slats of the open shades. Shadowy impressions of rain trace their way down Matt’s face, tinted glasses almost black. Your eyes trail down with a droplet that slips down the window, following as its dark echo dancing down his throat and shirt, until it disappears into the shadow hidden behind his desk. He hums, fingers tracing the braille of the file. 

“Do you want coffee?” You blurt. “I- yeah. I need coffee. I’ll get you some-”

You turn on your heel and beeline for the tea station that Karen had set up ages ago. Matt’s chuckle follows you while you click on a new pot of coffee.

It made you feel like a perv - tracing your eyes across him when he’s across the room, watching his hands flex when he held his coffee cups, staring at his scruff when he smirked. Foggy sometimes stifled laughter at your rising flush whenever Matt pressed his hand to your lower back to move you out of the way, or to figure out his way around an unknown space. It was even worse when it felt like Matt had caught you, head sometimes tilting in your direction when you looked. You knew he couldn’t see you, but still. 

You sigh as you slump against the counter, fighting the want to bury your head in your hands and scream. The crush you were fostering on your boss was just a crush (at least that’s what you told yourself). It stemmed from admiration - Matt was so terrifying and silver tongued in court, but kind and soft spoken to clients. And it didn’t help that he liked to act like he cared about you sometimes; making sure you were sleeping, eating, draping his coat on you when it got too cold, tsking softly and exasperatedly when you prioritised studies over basic needs.

It wasn’t helpful either that you’d seen the types of women he went for - slim, willowy and assertive. You… you weren’t that. You didn’t have the genetic gifts of mile long thin legs and a godly metabolism. Your tummy pressed up against your pants whenever you tucked your button downs in, and the insides of your thighs rubbed together when you walked. Marcy said it made you a real woman, not some waif - but that didn’t stop you from believing that despite his lack of sight, Mr Murdock would somehow know.

Giving in, you groan into your elbow as the pot dings, giving yourself a single minute. Then, you straighten your blouse, pour two cups - both with milk, one with sugar - and walk back to Matt’s office. 

“Coffee,” you say, putting it on his desk, careful not to place it on any paper. “6 o’clock, 7 and a little bit inches.”

Matt hums as he grabs it smoothly. “You’ve gotten better at that,” he praises and you flush as you lean in the doorway, trying to ignore how hot the coffee is as it burns down your throat. 

“I’m trying,” You reply, a grin in your voice. “Helps that you’re easy on the eyes.”

“What?” Matt startles with a laugh, looking up at you with a raised eyebrow. “Uh-” you stumble over your words. “I mean- like- as in y'know- um-” A small grin starts to curve at Matt’s mouth. “I watch you.”

“You watch me.” He rises at that, hands braced on the table. It’s starting to spread into a proper smirk.

“Wait, no, not like that.” You say, affronted. “As in like- uh- watching how you do things, how you move so I can make it easier.”

“Mm, really.” There’s a chuckle weaved in his words. “ That’s what you mean by ‘easy on the eyes’?”

“Yes,” you squeak, lie tumbling out. “Absolutely.” You can feel your palms start to sweat, and it is not from the heat of the cup in your hands. Somehow, Matt has managed to get around the table, now leaning on it with his ankles crossed, hand braced behind him. You can’t stop your eyes tracing from his dress shoes, up to his belt and hovering there before your gaze crawls to his face. Matt’s head is cocked slightly to the side, as if listening to something. 

“So the way you’re undressing me with your eyes has nothing to do with you finding me attractive?” 

“Jesus Christ, how did you-?”

“I’m blind, not stupid,” Matt says with a smirk, and you can’t help but swallow thickly at how the shadows cut across his front, biceps tight in his dress shirt. 

“Never said you were,” you reply weakly. 

“Vision isn't the only sense that humans have, you know." He says wryly.

“I know that!”

"Do you?” His voice is teasing as he steps forward. “From the sound of your voice, the way you walk, how you always swallow when I touch you - I don’t need sight to know what you like.” You can’t stop the shiver that runs up your spine as he takes the cup from your hand, placing it on a filing shelf. “I can feel the heat coming from your body, the way it radiates off you."

Your head bonks against the door frame as you groan, face colouring with fluster and embarrassment. “Shush. Shut up, sir.” You grumble, doing your best to not look at him. 

His voice is tinged with amusement as he talks. "What's the matter?”

“C’mon sir,” You whine a little. “You’re being unfair.”

"I never knew I could cause you to have a crisis by just speaking." Matt murmurs. You can smell his laundry powder - it’s faintly floral. For a moment you’re glad he’s blind, knowing he can’t tell you’re staring at the soft curve of his bottom lip. 

"I- fucking- I’m going home,” You rush out. "I can't do this. I can't do feelings, feelings for my boss " You moan, face hot with what feels like shame. Maybe it’s arousal. 

“Wait." Matt murmured, the tone of his voice taking on a more serious edge. A small frown pulled at his lips. "You don't have to go. We can just ignore this entire conversation - forget it even happened." His voice is genuine, gentle and concerned. “Please.”

You swallow thickly, having to tilt your head up to look up at him, door frame digging into your spine. 

When you don’t speak or move, a smile lifts the corner of his mouth. His step forward is quiet, and even with your back already against the frame, you can’t help but push into it a little more. “What do you want?” He murmurs softly, gently cupping your hands with his. The calluses of his palms are rough against your smooth knuckles, the contrast jarring. 

“I- I don’t-” You stutter, voice caught in your throat. What the fuck was happening?

His thumb lightly brushed against the palm of your hand, gentle and comforting as he felt across your love line. 

Matt took another step closer, so close you could nearly feel his breath on your cheek, his firm chest gently pressing against the swell of your breasts. 

"What do you want?" He repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

You let out a small whimper, looking up at the scruff on his jaw, the aged lines on his face, the greys starting to grow at his temples. Matt- Mr Murdock was much older, more experienced. There was the faint sparkle of greys in the stubble around his mouth too. 

Without a word, he reached up and gently cupped your soft jaw in his hand. The pad of his thumb gently stroked across your cheek, and you did your best to breathe as he tilted your face up to meet his unseeing gaze behind his glasses. A flush had warmed your face - he could feel the vestiges of innocence in the curve of your face. 

You could tell that even through the darkened shades he was doing his best to focus all of himself on you. Your heartbeat thumped hard in your throat - hard enough that he could feel it on the fingers curled gently around your jaw. 

He leaned in slightly, his breath ghosting over your skin. "Just tell me what you want," he whispered again, his voice low and husky, a tinge of pleading in his tone.

"Please," You whisper, tilting your face up. " Please."

"Please, what?" He tilted his head to the side. He was so close, his lips almost brushing against yours. He could smell the sweat and desire on you, you were sure of it. "Tell me what you want," he said again, his voice almost guttural. Your eyes flutter shut on instinct - from need or shyness, you don’t know. Your free hand twists into the doorframe. 

You know he can’t see you. But at that he groans and holds you still as he presses a firm full kiss on your waiting mouth. It’s slow and gentle, and for a moment he just holds you there - until you groan just the tiniest bit.

It’s like a switch flips - he drops your other hand, gripping at your plush hip and presses you hard into the jamb, squishing your soft tits and the swell of your tummy into the muscled planes of his body. The hand that was once gentle on your face snakes up into your hair, tugging until it’s out and then tangling his fingers firmly at the base so he can manipulate your head so he can deepen the kiss into something wet and filthy. 

You gasp, pulling him in closer with the front of his shirt, scrambling for purchase as you twist your hands in the fabric. As your mouth opens, Matt licks in - he tastes like sweet coffee and spit and sin. A whimper leaves you, unbidden, as he continues to paw at your soft hips, body lighting up from the inside. You know your underwear is ruined as it sticks to your cunt, already dripping from the feeling of him on you. 

He made a groan of his own, the sound escaping low and deep in his throat. His face is flushed, eyes lidded as he pulls away, still holding you in place.

"Oh fuck-" You whine as he pull away, you bosom heaving against his solid chest. "What the fuck, come back-"

Matt wets his swollen lip, his breath heavy. You know that you probably look the same - if not worse. He leaned down and brushed his lips over the soft exposed skin of your neck, leaving soft, feather-like kisses as he used his grip in your hair to gently guide your head to the side. "So impatient," he teases.

At that you moan reedily. “Oh- Matt-”

His grip on your hip tightened, pulling you firmly against him. You squeak as your breasts squish into him, pelvis to pelvis - you can feel him thickening in his pants, a flush climbing your cheeks.

Matt’s lips rove lazily over your skin. He could feel your pulse flutter against his lips, racing harder and faster. You could feel his sharklike grin as he hummed softly against your skin. "Be patient," he chided, biting gently at your throat.

A strangled groan rips from you as you feel him slide the hand on your hip to your chest, gently palming your full tits. “Okay?” He murmurs quietly. You don’t have the brain to be embarrassed about the pudge of your tummy being smushed.

“ Yes,” you whine. “Yes, just- please, Matthew.”

That’s all it takes for him to break - his mouth is back on you, fierce and possessive. “Again. Say it again,” He demands between kisses. You hear a clatter - he’s ripped off his glasses, throwing them carelessly behind him.  

“Matthew,” you breathe out as you slide a hand so it's pressed against his firm abdomen, heel against your abs, fingers ghosting his belt buckle. Matt growls at that, dragging you to his desk roughly - papers and pens alike hit the floor. 

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He grinds out as he tugs open your pants. "Any?” “Matt-!” You squeak as he rips your blouse open, buttons flinging across the room. Your soft breasts sit heavy in your utilitarian bra, and he tuts when he feels it. His fingers are adept and nimble as they quickly unhook the back, wrenching it off - it skitters when it hits the wood floor. 

“ Fuck-” he bites out as he palms the dove soft, squishy flesh of your tits, roughly palming at your nipples. A small shriek pops out of your mouth when he twists a perk nipple, standing proud in the cold. In turn you start to fumble with his belt but he gently smacks your hand away, dropping to his knees.

“Matthew?” You ask confused - but he shoves his way forward, lifting one of your legs so it's hooked over his shoulder. Embarrassment floods your face when he mashes his face directly up against your clothed cunt.

“Matt!” you can help but protest, as he groans and you yelp as you feel him grab at the zip and rip your fucking pants so that your drenched panties are on display. “ Fuck,” He snarls, hands on your soft thighs, fingering at your stretch marks, kneading at them. “I can smell you from here.” Matt sounds enamoured, and he whines as he presses his nose to your soaked cunt, lapping at the cloth. 

“Oh my guh-” You can’t get the full word out - he shoves your panties to the side, latching onto your clit with his mouth and sucking. Your brain shorts out for a moment, all forms of conscious thought disappearing. His moans are almost as loud as yours when he finally unlatches to smack the flat of his tongue against your wet messy slit. 

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Matt whines, throaty and wrecked. Your heart stops for a moment when you look at him, where he’s cradled in your thighs - for the first time, you can see the proper softness in his unseeing gaze, the longing crease between his eyebrows. “Can I-”

“Yes, yes,” You rush out, nodding frantically. “ Please, Matthew.”

Normally, Matt was incredibly pedantic about making sure his partners knew what they were agreeing too - but you. You . You made him toss common sense on the window. He groans and shoves his face back into your slick cunt, ignoring your yelp when your legs are stretched open further to accommodate his broad shoulders. He stands so he can shove harder into your wetness, cheeks smearing your arousal everywhere. Spit and slick dribbles down your taint and arse and over Matt’s stubble - but he can’t find himself to care as he laps at you, trying to eat his fill. The rasp of his five o’clock shadow against your hole is sickeningly delicious. The smell of your arousal was so heady and intoxicating that he couldn’t even find it in him to be embarrassed at how desperate he was acting.

He can’t help but groan, realising you can barely see him over the chub of your mons and plush tummy. Your body is so delightfully soft and Matt can’t resist the urge to grab and paw at your soft pudge - your stomach, your padded hips, your thighs. The way your heart ticks faster when he starts grabbing at you only urges him on more. One of his hands drifts back to your swollen clit, still sensitive and puffy from being sucked on - your hand grabbing firmly at his hair when he starts deftly rubbing tight circles as it. The pulling and yowling seems to encourage him of anything, licking more firmly. 

The press of his fingers, the fingers you’d spent hours daydreaming about, finally press into your sloppy hole as he switches his mouth back to your clit. “Are you even breathing?” You can’t help but ask - the rumble of his laugh tells you he’s probably not doing it enough. “Oh fu-” Your back bows as he rubs methodically against the spongy bit at the roof of your cunt, stupid noises babbling out of you when you grip at his hair. “Ma- Matt, Matthew, oh God, oh o -”

His fingers stop moving as much, just pressing hard as your cunt starts to seize, your body curling tightly as your muscles tighten immensely at the precipice of your orgasm. Your clit twitches as the nerves under the skin continue to be abused by Matt’s mouth that was firmly suctioned to flesh directly under your soft mons. His nose was pressed into the flesh, squished happily into you. A hiccuped noise of pleasure rips out of you, reedy and desperate. “I- Plea-”

He doesn’t stop when you cum - he pulls his fingers out of you, yes, but he immediately starts lapping at your now puffy and leaky cunt like a dog, as if desperate to make sure he eats all of your dripping slick and cum. You shriek a little as he shifts you, licking at your taint to clean up all of it. “Mat- that- oh my god-”

“ Fuck , you’re such a good fucking girl,” Matt says, desperately out of breath. Your slick and his spit shines on the lower half of his face, and he doesn’t even attempt to wipe it off before standing and dropping his weight onto you to grab your face, kissing you wetly. You can taste your own thick arousal in his mouth, and can’t help but squeal when the seat of his pants bumps up against your sensitive sex.

“T-thank you-” You hiccup out between the press of his open mouth to yours. “I- please lemme-”

“Yeah sweetheart, hold on-” Matt rushes out as he tugs open his pants, groaning when his engorged cock slaps out against his stomach. It’s as large and as thick as the rest of him, nestled in a thatch of curls. Precum drops onto his shirt, and you can’t help but reach up and deftly unbutton it. Matt huffs a laugh at your gentleness - he’d all but ruined your blouse. Your eyes widen - you knew he was built and had some… rough history, but nothing prepares you for how the yellow street light dips and fills the curves of his trim muscles, the starkness of the thin gnarly scars that sit slashed across his full chest. 

“Jesus, Matt,” you exhale, fingers gently tracing them. His expression softens as he hears the concern taint your arousal. 

“I’m okay,” He murmurs, pressing his forehead to the roundness of your shoulder. His hands are gentle as he pulls you away from running your own over the scars - not to stop you, but to comfort. “It was a long time ago.”

You know there’s nothing you can say here - so you let him guide your face up so he can kiss you silly again, the head of his cock nudging at your cunt. Matt takes it slow, gently laying you out on the table so he can grip at your hips, revelling at the feeling of his fingers sinking into the soft padding. 

“You’re so soft,” He can’t help but murmur, kneading at your hips like a cat. The raised smoothness of your stretch marks feel like a soft pulled silk against Matt’s fingertips. “Feel so pretty…”

“Matthew,” you whine, face pinking. “That’s- you’re my boss, you can’t say that!”

Matt laughs at that - a little disbelieving. “Sweetheart, I just ate you out until you came on my face, and I’m about to fuck you raw. I think I’m allowed to appreciate how beautiful you feel under my hands.”

“Fair enough,” you gasp out as he rubs the fat head of his cock up and down your slit. Matt groans, eyes shut tight with his free hand kneading your plump hip. The heady heat of your dampened cunt makes his senses blur at the edges, the world narrowing down to the throb of your pussy. 

“Tell me I can fuck you,” Matt says, desperately, voice rough. “Sweetheart, please-”

“Yes, fucking damn it, Matthe- ah-”

Your breath catches as he notches the head of his cock into your cunt. It’s thick and hot, burning you from the inside out. “You can take it baby,” He grinds out, teeth clenched as he slowly slides all the way in. “There- there you go, good girl-”

You can’t help but gasp wetly as he bottoms out, eyes slamming shut as he gently starts rolling his hips. His heavy sac kisses against your taint and furled arsehole with each careful thrust as Matt carves a space in your cunt, slowly driving himself in harder and harder , until the table starts to shake with the force of it, your little ah, ah, ah ’s turning into gasped wails, as he whines into your shoulder. “Matthew-” you sob out as he grips tightly at your love handles so he can drag you onto his fat cock in time with his heavy thrusts. “Oh fuck- fuck-”

“So good,” Matt praises, strained as he pounds into you, hips snapping. He’d lowered himself onto you, his firmness pressing against your soft plush front. “Feel so good-” his tendons strain under your hands as you try to ground yourself by gripping at his wrist, spinning embarrassingly fast towards your orgasm. 

“It’s alright, c’mon,” Matt pants out - he noses under your ear. “Cum for me, please- cum for me sweetheart-”

The noise you let out is high and animal, desperate - your stomach tenses awfully and hard, legs shaking as your orgasm rips through you. Matt’s arms tighten around you as he murmurs softly in your ear, hips still rolling gently. “That’s it, that’s it-” His voice is strained and raspy. 

A wet sob gutters you. “Matthew, Matthew-”

Matt groans into your neck - you feel it when he cums, your throbbing cunt ripping the seed out of him. He chokes out a curse, his weight dropping down onto you, sweaty and pressing wet kisses onto your throat. “Good girl, you’re such a good girl.”

It’s like lying in a dense fog when Matt pulls out of you with a wet schlop. “Oh fuck,” You mumble, blinking hazily. Matt chuckles.

“Good?” He asks softly, free hand coming up to cup at your cheek, thumb running softly under your eye. You whimper a little - you can feel the slick and cum dripping out of your puffy wet cunt, pooling onto the table. Matt chuckles. “That good, huh?”

Before you can reply, Matt hums, slowly ducking his head back between your legs. “Matt-” He shushes you softly. “Let me clean up the mess, baby.”

His tongue is gentle as he laps at the mess between your thighs. Matt can’t help but groan at the smell, the bitter salty and heady taste. He’d missed this - being able to indulge in a sweet used cunt, a woman sobbing in pleasure above him. With work and his growing affection for you, he’d lost the want for casual sex. Father Lantom would’ve been proud. Matt locks his lips to your hole and sucks, swallowing down the mix of your cum and his. When your whines turn from pleasured to overstimulated, pained, Matt pulls away, with a final soft kiss to your puffy clit. Then a soft press of his lips to your thigh, and your hip. 

Matt looks like a damn vision when he looks at you - face flushed, hair sticking up in every direction. His smile is soft and heavenly as he gently eases you back into your pants, “Ah- sorry about your shirt, sweetheart,” He says sheepishly.

You can’t help but laugh a little. “You’re impossible,” You murmur, reaching forward and helping him button up his shirt - you’re still out of breath, and Matt’s skin is hot to the touch when you wipe the sweat off his brow. When he leans slightly into your touch, your heart stutters in your chest. Matt cocks his head a little, a small smile ticking at his lips, as if he can hear it. 

He hums, pressing a small kiss to your cheek - then your lips. “Hello,” Matt murmurs - his expression is soft, the street light seeping across his face like water colour paint on a wet page. 

“Hi,” You whisper, almost shy. Oh God, you’d just slept with your boss - your boss who was gently kissing your face as he dressed you. His hands are gentle on you, despite the rough pads of his fingers - like the rasp of sandpaper on silk. Matt chuckles. 

It had started to drizzle outside - the faint sounds of sleet hitting the roof soft and cold as a faint breeze sneaks in through the gaps in the windows. Matt doesn’t say anything - just grabbing his coat off the back of his chair and gently pulling the heavy material onto your shoulders as he tugs you into his lap. 

“Would it be presumptuous for me to take you out for dinner now?” Matt asks after a moment. A laugh startles out of you.

You nodded, trying to hide your nerves. "Sure, I'm in. It's been a while since I played, but I'll give it a shot."

The table was soon set up with cards, chips, and drinks. You took a seat next to Spencer, who was already shuffling the deck with a focused intensity that was a little unnerving.

"Okay, everyone," Rossi called out as he re-entered the room. "Let's get this game started." He took his place at the table, his eyes showing a hint of fatigue. "But remember, I'm only playing a couple of hands. It's been a long day and I need my beauty sleep." His comment was met with laughter from the others.

The first hand of poker began, with Spencer dealing the cards with a swiftness that spoke of his years of experience playing the game. His eyes darted around the table, reading the subtle tells of his teammates. You took a deep breath and picked up your cards, feeling the smooth edges against your fingertips.

As the hand unfolded, the banter grew more playful, the stakes rising with each round of betting. You watched as Derek Morgan's face remained unreadable, his poker face firmly in place. Meanwhile, JJ's occasional glances at her cards betrayed her excitement, while Garcia's fidgeting with her chips was a clear sign she was bluffing.

Spencer's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied his cards, his mind racing through probabilities and possible outcomes. When it came down to the showdown, he laid out a full house with a smug smile. "Well, well, well," he said, collecting his winnings. "It seems like Lady Luck is on my side tonight."

The room buzzed with good-natured groans and teasing. "How does he do it?" JJ jokes, shaking her head.

A couple more rounds went by, the tension rising as the pot grew. Each of you played strategically, the air filled with anticipation and the clinking of chips. Prentiss leaned back in her chair, her arms folded as she studied the table.

Finally, after one particularly intense round, Rossi rubbed his eyes and yawned. "Alright, I think I've had enough fun for one night. I'm going to call it quits and head upstairs." He glanced around the table. "If anyone wants to crash here tonight, the guest rooms are all yours. No need to drive home if you're feeling too tired."

The team bid him good night, their eyes lingering on the chips and cards as they continued to play. With Rossi's departure, the atmosphere grew slightly more competitive. You felt a thrill as the game went on, the camaraderie of the team mixing with the cutthroat nature of poker.

Morgan leaned back in his chair, a devilish grin spread across his face. "You know what would make this night even better?" he suggested, raising an eyebrow.

"What's that?" Prentiss asked, her interest piqued.

Morgan's grin widened. "How about we spice things up a bit?" He suggested, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "Strip poker, anyone?"

The room fell silent for a beat before bursting into laughter. You felt your cheeks heat up, surprised by the proposal. Prentiss's smile grew wicked. "Now that's a twist," she said, her gaze flickering to JJ.

JJ caught your eye and noticed your hesitance. She leaned forward, placing a reassuring hand on the table. "You know, we can always play truth or dare instead," she suggested, her voice low and soothing. "It's less… risky."

Morgan's smile grew. "How about both?" he proposed, raising the stakes. "You can opt to either take a piece of clothing off or complete a truth or dare from the group." The room buzzed with excitement and a little trepidation. You swallowed hard, trying to decide if you were ready for this.

Garcia squealed with delight. "I'm in!" she exclaimed, her cheeks already pink.

You took a deep breath, the adrenaline starting to pump through your veins. The thought of playing strip poker was a bit intimidating, but the alternative rule of truth or dare had its own thrill. You found yourself nodding in agreement. "Alright, why not? Strip poker with a twist it is."

The game continued, the stakes now higher in more ways than one. Garcia was the first to go, losing a shoe to a bad bluff. She giggled, tossing it aside and taking a shot of tequila.

JJ's eyes widened slightly as she had to remove her sweater, revealing a tight tank top underneath. The room was getting warmer, and not just from the heat of the game. The tension grew palpable as each player weighed their options: fold and risk embarrassment, or push on and hope for the win.

You felt your heart race as the game continued. With each round, the pile of clothing on the floor grew. Before you knew it, you were down to your last few pieces of clothing.

The next hand was dealt, and you picked up your cards with trembling hands. You had a good hand, but the idea of losing was now more than just about the game. You studied the faces around the table, looking for signs of who might be bluffing.

Morgan leaned in, his gaze intense. "You're looking a little flushed, Y/N," he teased. "Is it the game or the thought of what's next?"

You couldn't help but laugh nervously, feeling the heat in your cheeks spread down your neck. The game had indeed taken a turn, and you found yourself in a situation you never would have imagined when you accepted the dinner invitation. You had continued playing, the excitement and the thrill of the game keeping you in your seat until you were down to just your bra, skirt, and panties.

The hand began, and you focused on your cards. You had a decent hand, but not a sure win. The betting went around the table, each person raising the stakes. You looked around, trying to read their faces, their body language, looking for any hint of what they might be hiding.

As the final round of bets were placed, you felt the weight of the moment. If you won this hand, you could keep your skirt on. If not, well, the thought sent a shiver down your spine. You placed your bet, trying to keep your voice steady.

Morgan called, his smile never wavering. Prentiss folded, a knowing look in her eye. Spencer studied you closely, his cards held tight to his chest. Garcia bobbed in her chair, her curiosity and excitement palpable.

As the tension grew, so did the distraction of your state of undress. You noticed Spencer's eyes darting to your chest every few seconds, the effort he was making not to stare becoming more and more obvious. You couldn't help but feel a thrill of power at the sight of him so flustered. The others had also caught on. They knew Spencer's intense focus was split, and they hoped to use his distraction to their advantage.

The final card was flipped, and you watched in horror as Morgan revealed his winning hand. The room erupted in cheers and whistles, your heart sinking as you realized you had lost your last piece of lower body clothing. With a dramatic flourish, you stood and dropped your skirt to the floor.

Spencer's eyes traced down your legs, his cheeks reddening when he realized he'd been caught staring. He quickly looked away. The room fell silent for a moment before the laughter and clapping began again.

Others had invoked the truth or dare clause here and there, but you hadn't yet. Each time someone chose dare, it seemed to push the boundaries a little further. Garcia had to sing a karaoke song, JJ had to do a sexy dance, and Prentiss had to tell a steamy secret from her past. Each moment had been met with laughter and cheers, but you couldn't shake the feeling that the real fun was just getting started.

The next hand was dealt, and your heart pounded in your chest as you realized you had nothing. You didn't want to remove your bra, so you knew what you had to do. You took a deep breath and announced, "Dare." The room grew quiet, all eyes on you.

Morgan's grin grew wicked. "I dare Y/N to sit on Spencer's lap for the rest of the night." A chorus of laughter and cheers erupted around the table. Spencer's eyes widened in shock, his cheeks burning.

You felt your own cheeks rouge at the suggestion, your heart skipping a beat. Being that close to Spencer, especially in your current state of half-dress, was both thrilling and terrifying. But the excitement of the game and the desire to keep playing overrode your nerves. You nodded, trying to appear nonchalant. "Fine."

Spencer's body moved back before he even had time to process the words. His chair scraped against the wooden floor, creating a sharp sound that echoed in the tension-filled room. He looked up at you, his eyes wide, his expression a mix of surprise and something else that you couldn't quite decipher.

You took a deep breath and slid onto his lap with more confidence than you felt. His body was tense beneath you, his muscles rigid as he held himself perfectly still. You could feel the heat from his body, the warmth of his skin seeping through his shirt and into you. Your heart was racing so fast it felt like it might leap out of your chest.

The others smirked as they shuffled the cards for the next round. They could see the electric tension between you and Spencer, and it only added to the excitement of the game. Prentiss began to deal, her eyes glinting with amusement as she took in the situation.

The next few rounds, Spencer's focus was undeniably scattered. His usual poker face was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a constant battle to not look at you sitting on his lap. His hands fumbled with his cards, and his bets were erratic. It didn't take long before the team noticed and capitalized on his distraction.

"Looks like someone's lost their mojo," Prentiss teased, placing her cards on the table with a smirk. You tried to ignore the smug looks from the others, focusing instead on the way Spencer's breath hitched every time you shifted slightly.

The next hand was dealt, and you could see the determination in Spencer's eyes as he picked up his cards. This time, you noticed the way his thumb brushed against your bare skin as he held his cards, and the electricity that shot through you was anything but calming.

You tried to keep your focus on the cards in your hand, but Spencer's proximity was making it near impossible. His breath was warm against your neck, and you could feel his heart beating rapidly beneath you. You thought you had been careful hiding your cards, but apparently, not that careful.

"You're holding your cards too tight," he whispered into your ear, his voice low and gentle. "It's giving you away." You felt a shiver run down your spine, and you couldn't help but lean into him slightly. His scent filled your nose and it made your head swim.

You took a deep breath and tried to loosen your grip, his words sinking in. The whispers continued, his breath warm against your neck as he pointed out small tells from the others at the table. His voice was a comforting rumble, guiding you through the game.

Slowly, the closeness didn't feel so awkward. In fact, there was a strange sense of comfort in having him so near. You found yourself leaning into him slightly, his arm wrapping around your waist in a protective embrace.

As the game went on, Spencer's whispers grew more frequent. He noticed every little detail about the others' playing styles, sharing his insights with you in hushed tones. "Look at how Garcia's thumb is pressing down on her chips," he murmured. "She's bluffing." His voice was low and calming, his words of advice a secret shared between the two of you.

You followed his lead, and slowly, you saw your luck begin to change. You won a couple hands, the pile of chips in front of you growing. The warmth of his body, the steady beat of his heart, and the gentle guidance of his whispers had a surprising effect on you. You felt more relaxed, more confident. The daring glances and smiles you exchanged with him grew more frequent, hinting at the thrill you both felt.

Then it happened. As you readjusted yourself higher on his lap for better comfort, you felt it. The unmistakable pressure of Spencer's erection against your backside. A blush crept up your neck, and you froze for a moment, unsure of what to do. His breath hitched, and you knew he was just as aware of it as you were. The room's temperature seemed to rise a few degrees.

You wondered how long he had been like that and how you hadn't noticed it before. His arm tightened around your waist, and you felt a low groan in his chest. You felt yourself start to get wet, the heat and the thrill of the moment making your body react despite the situation. You took a deep breath, trying to compose yourself.

Without realizing it, your hips had begun to slightly rock against him, the friction sending waves of pleasure through your body. You could feel his cock growing harder with every movement. The others at the table were too engrossed in the game to notice, but you were acutely aware of every little sound and sensation.

Spencer's breathing grew shallower. His hips made the tiniest of movements, pushing back into you in a silent bid for more. You bit your lip, trying to keep your breathing steady, but it was getting harder by the second.

The game continued around you, but the world had narrowed down to just the two of you. Each time his hips rocked against yours, it sent a jolt of desire through your body. You could feel your own breath quickening, your chest rising and falling more noticeably with every shallow breath.

You tried to keep your poker face, focusing on the cards in your hand, but it was difficult when you could feel his hardness pressing into you. Spencer's whispers grew softer, his voice a gentle rumble that made your skin tingle.

Suddenly, Garcia broke the spell, standing up from the table with a dramatic yawn. "Alright, I think I've had enough for tonight," she announced, her cheeks still flushed from the alcohol. "I'm going to crash in one of the guest rooms."

Her declaration created a domino effect. One by one, the others began to nod in agreement. The energy of the game dissipated as they all started to collect their scattered clothing. You felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment as Spencer's arm loosened around your waist.

Reluctantly, you slid off Spencer's lap and began to gather your clothes from the floor. The fabric felt cold against your skin, which was now sensitive from his warmth. You couldn't help but feel the loss of his touch as you dressed, the excitement of the moment fading into a confusing mix of arousal and awkwardness.

"Thank you for a… memorable game," Spencer said, his voice strained as he stood up. His eyes darted around the room, avoiding yours.

You tried to ignore the wetness between your legs as you helped the others clean up, focusing on the mundane task of gathering the cards and chips. Your body was still humming with the tension that had built up during the daring rounds of poker. The room felt too small, too hot, as you tried to act like nothing had changed.

The group chattered about who would take which guest room, the conversation light and easy. Yet, you couldn't help but feel the weight of the moment lingering in the air. The way Spencer's arm had felt around your waist, his erection pressing into you, was etched into your mind.

"Dibs on Morgan!" Garcia exclaimed, slapping a hand on Derek's arm playfully.

You laughed along with everyone else, trying to shake off the lingering tension.

"Alright, let's all head upstairs," Prentiss suggested, breaking the spell. "Three guest rooms, and we're all adults here."

You nodded, eager to escape the charged atmosphere, and followed the group up the stairs. You felt Spencer's gaze on you, and you couldn't help but wonder if he was thinking the same things you were.

Without a word, Emily and JJ claimed the first room they saw. Garcia and Morgan didn't waste any time either, disappearing into the room across the hall. That left you and Spencer, the silence between you heavy with unspoken tension as you both stared at the last guest room at the end of the hallway.

You took a deep breath, trying to calm your racing heart. Spencer's eyes darted to the room before meeting yours. "Looks like we're sharing," he murmured, his voice low and filled with a hint of something that was definitely not disappointment.

With a sudden burst of courage, you grabbed his hand, your pulse quickening. He looked surprised but didn't resist as you led him to the last open guest room.

Once you closed the door, you pushed Spencer to sit at the edge of the bed, his eyes widening as you straddled his lap. His arms instinctively wrapped around your waist, holding you in place.

"Do you want this?" you whispered, your breath hot against his ear. His eyes searched yours for any sign of hesitation or doubt, but all he saw was the same hunger reflected in his own.

"God yes," he replied, crashing his lips against yours with a fervour that stole your breath. The heat between you was undeniable as your bodies collided, his hands gripping your hips tightly. The kiss was deep and hungry, his tongue delving into your mouth as if he could devour you whole.

You grind against his lap, happy to feel that he was still semi-hard. His grip on you tightened, and you could feel his cock growing harder with every movement of your hips. The feeling was intoxicating, and you couldn't help but moan into his mouth.

Breaking the kiss, you leaned back, panting heavily. Spencer's eyes followed your every move as you stood up and began to strip away your clothing, until you were left in your underwear.

You sat back down onto his lap, this time with a sense of purpose, your legs straddling his. He groaned into your neck, his hands roaming over your bare skin as you kissed along his jawline. His touch was gentle yet firm, leaving a trail of heat wherever he went.

Spencer's fingers slid up the outside of your thighs, his touch feather-light, sending shivers of anticipation through you. His grip tightened as they reached your ass, cupping you firmly. He pulled you closer, aligning your hips with his, and you gasped as his erection pressed against you.

You rocked back and forth, the friction building between your bodies. His breath was hot against your neck, his kisses leaving a trail of fire along your collarbone. You wrapped your arms around him, your nails digging into his shoulders as the pressure grew.

Suddenly, the angle was just right. Your clit rubbed against his erection with just the right amount of friction, and you felt yourself teetering on the edge. The sensation was intense, your eyes rolling back in your head as you bit back a moan.

With every grind, you grew closer to the edge, your breath coming in short gasps. Your nails dug into his shoulders, your body trembling with the effort to stay in control. Then, with a final, desperate thrust, you climaxed, your body shuddering in his embrace.

Spencer watched you, his eyes hooded with lust. He could feel your wetness soaking through the fabric of your panties, and it was all he could do to keep from tearing them off.

With a surprising show of strength, Spencer picked you up, your legs wrapping around his waist instinctively. You gasped as he laid you gently on the bed, his body hovering over yours. He paused for a moment, his gaze searching yours for any sign of hesitation, but all he found was desire mirrored back at him.

His hands traced the line of your underwear, his thumbs hooking under the waistband. Slowly, so painfully slow, he began to lower your panties. You watched as he pulled them down, revealing your wetness to the cool air of the room. Instead of tossing them aside, he folded the damp fabric and tucked it into his back pocket with a smirk.

He spread your legs wide, taking in the sight of you with a hunger that made you blush even deeper. His eyes roamed over your bare skin, lingering on your most sensitive spots. He leaned in, his breath hot against your folds, and you shivered.

Without further teasing, Spencer's tongue darted out, licking a slow path up your slit. You gasped, your hips bucking involuntarily. He took his time, savouring the taste of you. His tongue was soft and insistent, lapping at your clit and dipping into your entrance.

You grabbed fistfuls of the bed sheets, your back arching off the mattress as he worked you into a frenzy. The feeling of his mouth on you was heavenly, his skilled tongue flicking and pressing in just the right places. You were so close, your body tightening in anticipation of another orgasm.

But just as you were about to tip over the edge again, Spencer paused, leaving you panting and desperate. He slid a finger into your wetness, and you could feel him smiling against your skin as he found your g-spot with ease. The addition of his fingers sent a new wave of pleasure crashing through you, making your legs quiver.

As his tongue danced over your clit, his fingers began to move inside you in a rhythm that was both torturous and heavenly. He knew exactly how to hit that spot, his movements measured and precise, as if he had studied your body's every response. You moaned, your body begging for more as he continued to explore you with his mouth.

Spencer's mouth grew more urgent, his tongue lapping and sucking on your clit messily. He was too desperate to care about the wet sounds he was making, too lost in the taste of you to be self-conscious. His teeth grazed your sensitive flesh, and you gasped, your nails digging into his scalp as you held him in place.

He could feel your orgasm building, the way your muscles tightened around his fingers. With one final, deliberate thrust, he pushed you over the edge, his tongue never leaving your clit as you came hard against his mouth.

As your body trembled with the aftershocks of pleasure, you felt a surge of energy rather than exhaustion. The orgasm had been so intense that it seemed to have recharged you. Without warning, you sprang up from the bed, a mischievous grin playing on your lips as you turned to face Spencer.

You reached behind your back and unhooked your bra, letting it fall to the floor. Spencer's eyes widened, his gaze drinking in the sight of your breasts. Your nipples harden in the cool air.

Standing before him, you began to strip Spencer of his clothes. Once down to his last article of clothing you knelt before Spencer, your eyes never leaving his as you gripped the waistband of his boxers. His eyes darkened with anticipation as you began to pull them down his legs, revealing his cock, which stood at full attention. Your heart raced as you took in the sight of him, the anticipation of what was to come making your own body respond in kind.

You reached out and gently touched his cock, feeling the heat and hardness of it. Spencer's breath hitched, his eyes fluttering shut as you explored his length with curious fingers. The tip was wet with pre-cum, and you couldn't resist leaning in to taste him. Your tongue flicked out, a soft and tentative touch that made him jerk in surprise.

Encouraged, you took him fully into your mouth, his length stretching your lips wide. You could feel his hands tighten in your hair as you began to suck, your mouth moving in a steady rhythm. Spencer moaned, his hips forward to meet your eager mouth. You took him deeper, the tip of his cock hitting the back of your throat, making you gag slightly.

You paused for a moment to adjust, then took him as far as you could, holding yourself there and swallowing around his tip. The sensation was overwhelming for Spencer, his eyes rolling back in his head. His hips bucked slightly, pushing himself deeper into your mouth, and you could feel his muscles tightening beneath your fingertips.

Finally, you pulled off of him, licking your lips to catch the last drops of his arousal. Looking him in the eye, you whispered, "Use me." It was a simple request, but it held a world of meaning. You wanted him to take control, to show you the full extent of his power over you.

Without hesitation, Spencer grabbed the hair at the back of your head and guided his cock back into your mouth. You moaned around him. He began to move his hips, fucking into your mouth with a gentle rhythm that grew more urgent with every passing stroke. His grip on your hair tightened.

Your eyes peered up at him, watering slightly from the effort to keep up with his pace. You could see the desire in his gaze, the way his pupils had blown wide with lust. It was a heady feeling, knowing you had this powerful, intelligent man at your mercy, reduced to a trembling mess by your touch.

But Spencer had other plans. He pulled out of your mouth with a soft groan, his hand still tangled in your hair. "Not yet," he murmured, his voice husky. "I want to feel you first."

With surprising strength, he offered you a hand and pulled you up from the floor. Your legs were shaky, but he held you steady. You climbed onto the bed, feeling the cool sheets beneath your knees. You positioned yourself on all fours, the soft mattress sinking slightly with your weight.

You dropped from your hands to your elbows, arching your back and sticking your ass up in the air. You couldn't help but wiggle your hips back and forth, a silent invitation to Spencer.

He moaned at the sight, his eyes glazed over with desire. He scrambled onto the bed behind you. His hand reached out to cup your ass cheeks, the heat of his palms searing into your skin.

Spencer spread your pussy lips apart with his thumbs, revealing the glistening wetness that leaked from your swollen entrance. His groan was low and guttural, a sound that sent a thrill of pleasure through your body. His thumbs traced slow circles around your opening, teasing your sensitive flesh.

With agonizing slowness, you felt the tip of his cock nudge against you. He pushed in gently, the head of his erection parting your folds. You gasped, your muscles clenching around the unyielding intrusion. Spencer waited, giving you a moment to adjust.

Inch by inch, he filled you up, his cock stretching you deliciously. You could feel every ridge and vein, his length sliding deep within you until you were fully impaled. He didn't move for a moment, letting you get used to the feeling of being so completely filled.

Then, once he felt you relax, Spencer set a punishing rhythm, his hips slamming against your ass. The room was filled with the sound of skin on skin, the rhythmic slapping echoing off the walls.

You whimpered, your eyes squeezed shut as you tried to process the sensation. It was intense, overwhelming, but you didn't want it to stop. Spencer's hands gripped your hips tightly, guiding you back onto him with each thrust.

The scent of sex and desire filled the room as he claimed you, the sound of skin slapping against skin mixing with the wetness of your pussy. Each time he pushed into you, your nipples scraped against the soft cotton of the bed sheets. The friction was maddening, making your already sensitive breasts feel like they were on fire.

Spencer's hands moved to your waist, his fingers digging into your flesh as he adjusted his angle. He threw his weight into each thrust, the force of his hips pushing you further into the bed with every movement.

Then he slid one hand down your body, his fingertips skimming over your stomach and pausing when they reached the apex of your thighs. He found your clit, swollen and sensitive from his earlier attention, and began to rub it in gentle circles.

The combination of his deep strokes and the pressure on your clit was too much. You felt yourself climbing again, the pleasure building to a crescendo. You began to moan, the sound muffled by the pillow you had buried your face in.

Spencer leaned over, his breath hot against your ear. "Do you like that?" he whispered. "Do you like it when I fuck you like this?" He grunts out.

You nodded, too lost in the haze of pleasure to form coherent words. His whispers grew more explicit, describing every little sensation he felt, every way your body was responding to his. "You're so tight, so wet for me," he continues. "Your pussy is squeezing my cock so tight."

With each thrust, he whispered about his desire for you, how long he had fantasized about this moment. "I've wanted to fuck you like this for so long," he groaned. "To feel you this way, to hear you like this." His words were like a drug, leaving you craving more.

"Remember when you were on my lap downstairs?" Spencer panted, his hips never slowing. "How badly I wanted to rip your panties off and bury my cock inside you?"

You moaned, his words painting a vivid picture in your mind. The thought of him wanting you that badly, of him fighting his urges while everyone else played the game, was an aphrodisiac.

As Spencer whispered about how he had imagined watching you bounce on his cock in the middle of the poker game, your orgasm crashed over you. You couldn't hold back the moan that tore from your throat as your pussy clenched around him, the muscles spasming with pleasure.

It was wet and messy, your juices coating his cock with each withdrawal, only to be pushed back in with a slick sound on his next thrust. Your thighs were sticky with your arousal, and the scent of sex grew stronger.

You felt your body tightening around him, your pussy pulsing with each stroke. Your orgasm was still fresh, but the relentless pace Spencer had set had you spiraling towards another peak. His breath was hot and ragged against your ear, his whispers of filthy confessions only fuelling the fire within you.

As Spencer spoke of his fantasies, his hand never ceased its torment of your clit. The pleasure grew unbearable, your body a live wire. Then, as if on cue, another orgasm washes over you, making your legs shake uncontrollably. You cry out, your voice a high-pitched whine.

His thrusts grew erratic, his own need for release becoming apparent. You felt your pussy flutter around his cock, the walls tightening and releasing in time with your racing heartbeat. It was this feeling, the tightness and the warmth of you, that pushed Spencer over the edge.

With a final, powerful thrust, he buried himself as deep inside you as he could go. You felt his cock twitching, and then the warm flood of his cum filled your pussy. He groaned your name, his hips jerking as he emptied himself into you, his orgasm intense and uncontrollable. The sensation was intoxicating.

Panting, you both collapsed onto the bed, your bodies entangled in a mess of limbs. You clung to him, your chest rising and falling in time with his, your breaths mingling in the quiet room. Spencer's arms wrapped around your waist, holding you close as if afraid to let go. You felt his heart racing beneath your cheek. You were both thoroughly exhausted, the passionate frenzy leaving you drained yet content.

After a moment, you lifted your head and met his gaze. His eyes searched yours, seeking reassurance, a silent question hanging in the air. You offered a soft smile, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. The tension dissipated, replaced by a gentle warmth.

As your breathing evened out, you leaned in to capture his mouth in a slow, sensual kiss. The taste of yourself still lingered on his lips. Spencer's arms tightened around you, pulling you closer as he deepened the kiss.

Your hands roamed his body, tracing the contours of his chest and shoulders, the feel of his skin smooth and warm beneath your fingertips. He mirrored your movements, his touch gentle and exploratory, as if committing every inch of you to memory.

Spencer's lips trailed down your neck, peppering kisses that sent shivers down your spine. You nuzzled closer to him, your breathing slowing as the weight of sleep began to claim you. "With how loud we were, we're definitely sneaking out before the others wake up, right?" you whispered against his skin.

“Why are you laughing?” Luke frowned at him, folding his arms across his chest. 

“Because you’re making a joke?” 

“No, I’m not.” 

“You’re not?” Spencer’s laughter came to a sudden halt and he stared at Luke in disbelief. “You…you seriously think that’s how I want to spend my birthday?” 

“I was talking to Morgan and-“

“No sentence in the history of the English language that starts with “I was talking to Morgan” has ever had a happy ending.” Spencer scoffed. 

“It’s the happy ending part we’re trying to achieve.” Luke smirked at him, a playful hint in his eye that caused Spencer to swallow thickly at the implication. 

“Y-you…I…” 

“When was the last time you got laid, Reid?” 

Spencer felt the moment his cheeks burnt with an intense embarrassment. In all the years he’d known Luke they had never once discussed their sex lives. In fact, Spencer made it a rule to never discuss his sex life with anyone. 

“That’s a deeply personal question.” He shrunk in on himself. 

“Which is Spencer Reid for, it’s been a while.” Luke smiled knowingly. 

“I…I don’t have to answer that.” 

“You kinda just did.” 

“Regardless,” Spencer shook his head, trying to steer the conversation off of his sex life, or lack thereof. “Strip clubs aren’t brothels. The women don’t sleep with their customers.”

“Morgan and I decided it was slightly more appropriate than buying you a hooker.” 

If Spencer thought he was embarrassed before, he was now absolutely mortified. 

“I don’t need help getting “laid”, as you so eloquently put it.” Spencer shook his head, turning back to his desk and sorting through some papers to distract himself.

“Don’t you?” An amused voice came from behind him and Spencer groaned, running his hands through his hair. He turned slowly in his chair to see Emily standing over him, an almost delighted look in her eyes. “What are we talking about?”

“Morgan and I want to take Reid to Blue Siren for his birthday next week.” Luke filled her in.

“Oh that place is great!” She beamed. “Can I come?”

“Where are we going?” Rossi seemingly appeared as if from nowhere with his coffee and newspaper. 

Spencer grumbled, face palming his hand as the group around him gathered.

“We’re taking Spence to Blue Siren for his birthday.” Emily happily told him.

“Blue Siren? Huh,” Rossi nodded his head. “I haven’t been there for years, count me in. I’ll even see if Hotch wants to join.”

“For the love of god.” Spencer muttered against his hand. No one seemed to hear him and if they did, they ignored him.

“Join what? What did I miss?” Garcia came tottering in on her too high heels, laptop balanced precariously in the crook of her arm.

“Apparently the kid wants to go to a strip club for his birthday.” Rossi informed her.

“No, No.” Spencer shook his head, looking up at them. “The kid does not want to go to a strip club for his birthday.”

“Oh isn’t it the big four-oh?” Garcia bounced up and down in excitement. “You have to do something special for it!”

“I highly doubt a strip club can be deemed as special.” Spencer rolled his eyes.

“Strip club?” Matt strolled into the conversation now and Spencer wanted to just vanish into thin air.

“Yeah we’re taking Reid for his birthday. Want in?” Luke asked him.

“As long as no one ever tells Kristy.” Matt chuckled. 

“What aren’t we telling Kristy?” Tara popped her head up from her desk, Spencer didn’t even know she was there. 

“That we’re going to a strip club for Reid’s birthday.” Matt offered her a sly smile.

“Oh sweet! Count me in.” She grinned. 

“How about you guys go, since you’re all so excited about it and just tell me how it was? I’ll stay home with a book or something.” Spencer sighed but no one acknowledged him. 

The door opened again and JJ meandered in, all eyes turning to look at her. 

“Uh, hi?” She laughed awkwardly as she walked across the bullpen.

“Have you ever been to a strip club, Jayje?”

Spencer groaned loudly, crumbling in on himself and smacking his head against the hardwood of his desk. Sometimes it was just easier to go along with these things than try to fight them.

And so, only slightly against his will, Spencer let them talk him into spending his birthday in the last place he ever expected to find himself, least of all on his birthday. The whole team was in attendance, plus Morgan and Hotch, he could only assume to have a front row seat to his complete mortification. They met outside the club, waiting for JJ who was late due to the fact she couldn't get Michael to go to sleep. Luke had gone so far as to pick Spencer up from his apartment, which was in the opposite direction, just so the birthday boy wouldn’t have an excuse for ditching them at the last minute.

“Is that really what you’re wearing to go to a strip club, pretty boy?” Morgan nudged Spencer in the arm.

Spencer glanced down at his attire, what he would call a sensible outfit but was clearly not what he was supposed to be wearing given Morgan’s judgemental gaze. It wasn’t a far cry from what he wore everyday, it wasn’t as though Morgan had never seen him dress like this before. He’d donned a perfectly pressed pair of black slacks, pairing them with his old faithful converse, a crisp blue button down and his black Comme Des Garçons cardigan Rossi had gifted him for his birthday a few years ago. He’d decided against a tie, because that seemed too formal for the occasion even for him. 

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” He frowned, pouting a little. 

He quickly eyed up the other men who were all wearing jeans and t-shirts, Rossi and Hotch included. He couldn’t even get started on how strange it was to see Hotch in jeans. 

“You look like a TA.” Matt shrugged. 

“I always look like a TA. Do you guys think I suddenly dress differently outside of work?” He folded his arms.

“I kind of hoped you did.” Luke smirked. 

“Isn’t it supposed to be my birthday?” Spencer grumbled. “I’m already at the last place I want to celebrate so please can we just leave my outfit choices alone?” 

“I think you look dapper.” Tara patted his shoulder like he was her annoying kid brother or something. 

“Thanks?” He pulled a face. 

“And speaking of birthdays!” Garcia was rummaging in her oversized purse before pulling something out. “Voila!”

Spencer frowned at the large, slightly garish, blue and yellow badge proclaiming “Forty Today” in obnoxious bubble font. It was bigger than Garcia’s hand, she surely didn’t expect him to wear that.

“Uh, no offence but there is no way in hell you are getting me to wear that.” He took it from her anyway, slotting it in the front of his satchel. 

“Spoil sport.” Emily chided him. “Anyone would think you don’t like your birthday!”

“I don’t very much like this particular birthday.” He muttered under his breath. “Where is Jennifer? I’d really like to just get this over with.” 

As if on cue, he heard heels on the concrete ground and seconds later the blonde appeared, dragging someone behind her. She smiled as she came round the corner, tugging Will into view under the streetlamp. 

Oh good, more people to witness my humiliation. 

“Hey guys, sorry we’re late!” She gave them apologetic glances. 

“Will, I didn’t know you’d be joining us.” Penelope hugged JJ and then Will.

“You think I was going to sit at home while my wife goes to a strip club?” He chuckled. “I may never get the opportunity to have permission to do this again in my life. Thanks Spence.” 

“You’re so very welcome.” Spencer replied sarcastically. “Can we just get on with this now?” 

“That’s the spirit.” Luke chuckled, draping his arm around Spencer’s shoulders and leading him through the non-descript door.

Inside a long, narrow corridor stretched out before them, the distant thrums of bass heavy music, causing the floor to feel like it was vibrating beneath him. A burly doorman awaited them, so broad he almost encompassed the entire corridor. 

“Hey man, I have a reservation under Alvez. It's this guy's big four-oh.” Luke gripped Spencer tightly, shaking him a little. 

The doorman glanced down at a piece of paper in his hand, scanning over it for a second before looking back up at the motley crew, clearly trying to discern if he needed to card anyone but it was immediately clear he didn’t. 

“Follow me,” He motioned for them to come with him.

Luke took the lead, dragging Spencer by his hold on his shoulders. The music got louder the further down the black corridor they got. It was dark and Spencer had to squint to see the man only a few feet in front of him, the corridor only lit by a single red light bulb swinging from the low ceiling that Spencer almost had to duck to walk under. 

At the end of the corridor was another door and the music had reached fever pitch at this point. Spencer felt as though he could taste the beat, he could certainly feel it palpitating in his chest. The doorman shoved open the door and Spencer blinked against the sudden wave of lights that smacked against his retinas. 

Luke finally let go of his shoulders, the doorway too narrow for the two of them to pass through together and motioned Spencer in front of him. Spencer stepped into the room, surprised by the sudden change in flooring, casting his eyes down to see a plush burgundy carpet now under foot. He tried not to contemplate how many germs were living in that carpet, how many drinks had been spilled and soaked into it over the years, how many other fluids it might have absorbed on top of it. He was sure this place would light up like a christmas tree under a black light. 

He grimaced, looking back up and following in the doormans footsteps across the room. He tried to keep his eyes straight ahead, desperate not to look around and take in his surroundings but his morbid curiosity got the better of him. 

Admittedly if he’d imagined what the inside of a strip club would look like this would have been plucked straight from his imagination. The main lighting was low, shielding most of the seating area in an almost ominous glow. The booths were made up of plush, gold velvet sofas, large dark oak tables in the centre of them. There was a long bar on one side, made of the same oak only its surface seemed to glitter when the light hit it. Over the back were two large velveteen curtains, concealing what Spencer could only assume was the private dance areas. There were four raised platforms each with their own golden, floor to ceiling pole in the centre, blue spotlights pointed at each one. Each podium had a scantily clad young girl dancing in upon it and Spencer quickly averted his gaze again, not wanting to be seen to objectify them. 

“You know the whole reason they are there is to be looked at right?” Morgan was suddenly at his side, nudging him in the arm. 

“It feels very…voyeuristic.” Spencer swallowed.

“Have you seriously never been to a strip club, Reid?” Matt was now at his other side. 

“Why is that so hard to believe? Do I really strike you as the kind of guy who goes to strip clubs?” They arrived at the table and Morgan motioned for Spencer to take a seat while the others sat around him. 

“It’s usually the quiet ones.” Morgan smirked at him. 

“I cannot believe Savannah is ok with you being here.”

“She was fine with it when I told her it was for your birthday.” Morgan winked at him.

“Do I need to tell you what I told Luke? This is not a brothel, I am not getting laid here.” Spencer sighed in exasperation. 

“It's not too late to take you to a brothel, kid.” Rossi smirked, before excusing himself to the bar. 

“This is the lesser of the two evils, trust me.” Spencer sat back against the plush seat and tried to keep his eyes to himself. It was a difficult feat when just in front of them was another podium with a blonde woman dancing in the skimpiest pair of underwear Spencer had ever seen. 

“No deflowering of boy wonder tonight, please.” Garcia giggled.

“Deflower…you are aware I am not a virgin, right?” Spencer pulled a face, was that how people saw him? 

“I was joking, Spence, calm down.” Garcia rolled her eyes, still tittering to herself. 

“It's that kind of defensive attitude that makes people think you are.” Luke, who was sitting on his left, nudged him. 

“I’m fairly certain if I said the same to you, you would be just as defensive.” Spencer shook his head. 

Just then, Rossi returned carrying a tray of champagne flutes and setting them on the table in the centre. He was closely followed by another young woman carrying an ice bucket in each hand, each with a bottle of the club's most expensive champagne chilling inside. 

Spencer didn’t want to look, really didn’t want to be seen to objectify, but the scent of lavender perfume seemed to flood his senses, his brain, and he could no longer think straight all of a sudden. His eyes which had been attached to the floor glanced over to the pair of deep purple, satin peep toe heels which were standing right in front of him. Slowly his eyes trailed upwards, over a set of long, smooth legs, until meeting a silk pair of dangerously tiny panties, matching the shoes in colour, which he quickly scanned over. His eyes worked up the torso until they came to the chest and the purple silk bra that really left very little to the imagination. Swallowing thickly, his eyes continued their ascent to the face and that’s when time seemed to slow to a halt.

Spencer quivered, actually trembled as he took in your soft features and dazzling eyes. The smile on your lips as you looked at him seemed genuine, and not at all like it was a pain for you to be here. You set down the ice buckets and went about opening one of the bottles, pouring everyone a glass. When you poured Spencer’s glass, bending a little as you did so, his eyes couldn’t help the way they dipped to your cleavage spilling out over the top of your bra.

He quickly snapped his gaze away and thanked you with a shaky smile. He crossed one leg over the other in an attempt to hide an arising problem in his pants.

“I’m Y/N, I’ll be your host for the evening.” You had to speak loudly to be heard by everyone over the pulsing music in the club. “Which one of you is the birthday boy?”

Your eyes flicked between the men in the group, well all of them except the all guy who had paid for the drinks. You’d been informed it was a fortieth birthday, there was no way it was him. 

“This guy right here,” Morgan grinned, gripping Spencer by the shoulders. 

You looked back at the slightly shy, uptight man in his shirt and cardigan, who was holding onto his champagne flute for dear life. He was not your usual clientele, if you didn’t know any better you would think he didn’t want to be here at all. 

“Well, I guess it’s my lucky night.” You couldn’t help but wink at him and even in the low light you saw the way his cheeks instantly flushed pink. 

Usually in your line of work, exotic dancing, not stripping, thank you very much, the men you were paid to dance for were older, usually kind of creepy. Admittedly none of the younger men at the table were bad on the eyes, but this one was especially handsome, even if he was absolutely pertrided. 

“What’s your name, stud?” You placed one hand on your hip and the other you held out for him to shake. 

You saw him swallow, taking a sip of his drink as if to lubricate his mouth so he could speak. 

“S-Spencer.” He took your hand and shook it. It was warm and so much larger than your own, even if it was a little sweaty. 

“Nice to meet you, S-Spencer.” You teased, hoping to ease some tension but it seemed to have the opposite effect. 

He shrunk in on himself, grimacing a little and looking as though he would quite literally rather be anywhere else in the world. 

“You too.” His voice jumped several octaves. 

Most of the rest of the team watched in amusement at Spencer’s discomfort, all of them aside from Emily who had wandered off to watch a redhead dance, tossing dollar bills at her and Luke who although was still seated, clearly had his eyes on the blonde on the podium in front of them. 

“So, shall we get to the good stuff?” You asked him now and he almost choked on his drink. 

“G-good stuff?” His eyes widened in terror.

“Your friends here paid for you to have a private birthday dance. They didn’t tell you?” 

Spencer clenched his jaw and turned to his friends, anger leaching from his eyes.

“I would like to go on record and say I did not invest any money in this particular endeavour.” Hotch was quick to speak up.

“This is just from me and Alvez. Happy birthday, stud.” Morgan winked at him.

If Spencer was a violent man, he would have wrung Morgan’s neck, maybe bashed his and Luke’s heads together until they lost consciousness. He was fairly certain after all his years on the job he could murder them both and get away with it. 

Maybe if you hadn’t been there, standing over him and looking so goddamn delicious in his favourite colour as well, he might have given the two men an ear full. But it wasn’t the time or place and so he swallowed his anger, keeping it bottled up until later and turning back to you. 

“Let’s just…get this over with.” Spencer stood up, grabbing his glass and the full bottle of champagne, god knows he was going to need it, and following you towards one of the curtained off areas. 

You held the curtain back for him to enter first and he did so without letting himself think about what was going to happen when the two of you were alone. The private room was much the same as the main room, only smaller with no bar. There was another plush golden couch in the centre, a smaller raised platform with a pole on the far wall. The wallpaper was a deep, cherry red, swirled with black and a gold chandelier hung from the ceiling offering, once again, very little light. 

Spencer could only assume he was supposed to sit, so slightly reluctantly he dragged his pathetic ass to the couch and sat in the centre of it. He downed the remains of his champagne before swiftly uncorking the bottle. You couldn’t help the way your body reacted to his large, veiny hand expertly pulling the cork from the bottle, like it was the easiest thing in the world. You shuddered a little at the thought of what else his hands might be capable of. 

He discarded the glass on the floor and opted instead to drink straight from the bottle, not something Spencer would ever usually do, but this whole night was so out of the ordinary for him, he decided to just lean into it. You came and stood in front of him, hands on your hips as you looked down on him.

“Not big into sharing?” You smirked at him.

“You…I assumed because you were working…”

You chuckled, reaching out and taking the bottle from his hands and taking a hefty sip. You felt the bubbles tickle the back of your throat and branch out towards your brain.

“I can indulge a little, as long as I don’t get off my face. Besides, the alcohol helps when the customer is particularly…” you searched for the right word. “Old. Ugly. Generally gross.” 

Spencer frowned at you, processing your words. 

“I guess Alvez and Morgan didn’t spring for the package where you pretend to be nice to me.” He tried to not sound as pathetic as he felt but failed miserably.

To his surprise you giggled in response, handing him back the champagne.

“Trust me, stud, you’re one customer I don’t need to drink to have fun with.” You winked at him and heard a little whimper leave his lips. He tried to cover it up by drinking more.

“Fuck,” he mumbled against the bottle top. “Let’s just…I don’t suppose we can just sit here and pretend you gave me a lap dance?” 

“Not a chance.” You smiled, sauntering on your heels over to the stereo setup in the corner. You hit play and music pulsed into the room through the speakers situated in each corner. Spencer woefully recognised the song as 50 Cent’s Candy Shop, he’d heard Morgan listen to it on more than a few occasions over the years.

You strutted back over to him, wiggling your hips to the music as you went. Spencer tried to keep his eyes trained on the bottle as he drank, refusing to let himself look at you. You made it back over to him and once again took the bottle from his hands. You sipped from it delicately, bending over to place it on the floor, ensuring to give Spencer a show of your ass as you did so. 

A low hiss left his lips, probably at the realisation you were wearing a thong. God you were going to enjoy this. 

You stood back up and started swaying to the music, stepping between his open legs. He looked up at you through frightened doe eyes, the most beautiful shade of brown you’d ever seen. His long, messy curls fell in his face and his pouty bottom lip was too kissable for words. You shook that thought off as fast as you could.

You turned you away from him, thinking it easier if you didn’t look at his gorgeous face. You knew his eyes went straight to your bare ass, you could practically feel his gaze on you. 

“You can touch me, Spencer, just nowhere inappropriate please.” Really you wanted those hands to touch you everywhere inappropriate but that kind of behaviour was frowned upon within the walls of the club. 

“I’m…I’m good.” He croaked.

You smiled to yourself as you slowly lowered yourself into his lap, perching at first on his knees before wiggling backwards. 

Spencer gasped loudly as your ass settled into his crotch and without even looking at him you knew he would be one hundred shades of red. 

It certainly wasn’t the first time a man had gotten hard when you’d given them a lap dance and you knew it wouldn’t be the last. It may well be the first time you’d enjoyed it though. 

“Jesus Christ.” He whimpered, your back now flush with his chest, his breath tickling the back of your neck. “I am so, so sorry. This is humiliating.” 

“Don’t be embarrassed.” You grinded against him in time to the music. “I know I am attractive and I am also half naked. Honestly, I’d be a little offended if you weren’t excited by that.” 

“Right. Right.” Spencer nodded, wishing he could reach the champagne bottle. “So uh…how does one get into this line of work? Stripping.” 

He needed to try and take his mind off of how unfathomably good you felt rolling your ass against his dick. 

“I’m not a stripper.” You chided him, pinching his knee with your long acrylic nails as punishment. “I’m an exotic dancer. I don’t take my clothes off. Well, no more so than this.” 

He grumbled at the pain you inflicted on his leg but the pleasure more than outweighed it. 

“Apologies, I hope I wasn’t out of line.” 

“It’s ok, it’s a common misconception. And I started working here to help pay my student loans. I stayed because I love what I do.” You grinded particularly hard against him and he whimpered against your neck. 

“You went to college?” He sounded surprised. 

“Yes, I’m not some bimbo, stud.” You rolled your eyes, another common misconception.

“Sorry.” He clenched his jaw, his cock twitching dangerously in his pants. “What uh, what did you study?” 

“Psychology.”

“No kidding?” He sounded genuinely impressed. “You have a degree in psychology and you work here?” 

You suddenly turned around, kneeling over Spencer, one leg hooked over each of his thighs. His eyes were wide as he stared at you, swallowing thickly. 

“Look, you’re cute but don’t talk to me like I’m some kind of moron and try to make me feel like working here makes me less of a person.” You reached and gripped his jaw, digging your fake nails into his stubbly cheeks.

“I…I didn’t mean it like that, I-“

“I choose to work here.” You cut him off, lowering yourself so you were seated in his lap, straddling him. “I enjoy working here. It gives me a sense of power, I’m choosing to show off my body, to turn men like you into pathetic messes.” 

Spencer moaned, didn’t even try to disguise it. You let go of his face and went to stand up but Spencer surprised you when his hands flew to your hips, gripping you firmly and keeping you in place. 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He spoke, for the first time sounding close to confident. “You’re stunning and clearly good at your job.” He nodded down to his crotch and how he was straining against his slacks. “I didn’t mean to sound patronising or anything like that. I was merely trying to make conversation and I’m sorry if I upset you. But quite frankly, Y/N, if I don’t keeping talking I’m going to do something really fucking stupid.” 

You narrowed your eyes on him, stilling your movements as the music came to end. He kept his grip on your hips and you found yourself a little dizzy by the firmness in which he held you. 

“Stupid like what?” Your chest heaved with heavy breaths and Spencer’s eyes briefly flicked down and he hissed again at the sight. 

“Something that could probably get you fired, and neither of us wants that.” He grinded up against you this time and a soft moan left your lips. 

“Jesus,” you whined, the tables well and truly turned. “Can you just…I don’t know…give me a clue?” 

Spencer chuckled a little, moving one hand from your hip to the back of your neck and tugging you closer to him. His lips were close to your ear, ghosting over the skin. It was like a switch had been flipped, the shy and awkward guy who hadn’t even wanted a lap dance was gone, replaced by this confident and self-assured man now beneath you. 

His breath fanned across the side of your face and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. 

“Let’s just say it would involve both of us wearing a lot less clothes and you screaming my name.” 

You whimpered like a dog that had just been kicked and attempted to clamp your legs together but his were in the way. Suddenly he dropped both of his hands to his sides and looked at you darkly. 

“Get up.” He commanded you and you were dumb to do anything by comply. 

“I need to go.” He stood up, snatching up the bottle of champagne. “Thanks for that.” 

You watched him scurry away, seemingly reverting back to the shy creature he’d been initially. He fled back through the curtain, leaving you with an intense heat between your legs. 

Goddamnit, you swallowed, trying to compose yourself. I might have just found my kryptonite. 

***

Two weeks passed and Spencer couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every time he closed his eyes he saw you sitting in his lap, that goddamn purple lingerie glowing against your skin. It never failed to make him painfully hard in a matter of seconds and he’d spent more time than he could count masturbating over thoughts of you the last two weeks.

Eventually he couldn’t keep himself away if he tried. Emily had given them the weekend off and sitting alone in his apartment on Saturday night, his limbs had moved without the forethought to do so. And of course he’d ended up outside Blue Siren. 

He paid the cover charge and saw himself inside, ambling over to the bar and ordering himself a scotch. He watched the room, in a way he was trained to do, watching and waiting for a glimpse of you. 

He’d gotten down three drinks before finally he saw you across the room. His cock twitched almost instantly. Today you wore a crimson red lace teddy with shoes to match. He preferred the purple, liked it when you had more skin on display, but you still looked like a fallen fucking angel. An incredibly sexy fallen angel. 

He finished the remains of his drink and set the glass down on the bar before heading your way. 

As soon as you saw him, you couldn’t help the way your whole face lit up. He looked much the same as he had last time in his smart shirt and slacks but today he’d bypassed the cardigan and had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

“Stud, you came back.” You smirked at him, placing one hand on your hip. 

“Can we talk?” 

“I’m on the clock.” You shrugged. “My time has to be paid for.”

Spencer rolled his eyes and fished his wallet out of his pocket, flashing a large wad of bills. He pulled one out and stuffed it in your hand.

“How much will a hundred get me?” 

You looked down at the bill wide eyed, seeing it was actually a hundred dollars. You looked back at him with a smile.

“At least a few dances.” You turned on your heels and motioned for him to follow you towards the private room you’d occupied a few weeks ago. 

Once inside you watched him get comfortable on the couch.

“You sure you just want to talk? I can dance and talk at the same time, I’m just that good.” You winked at him.

“N-no.” He shook his head. “No dancing, please?”

“Fine.” You chuckled, coming over and sitting next to him on the couch. “What’s up? Must be important if you’re willing to drop a C-Note on me.” 

“I uh, I wanted to apologise for my conduct the other week. It was very unlike me and I wanted you to know I’m sorry.” His cheeks flushed.

“Hmm.” You mused. “See, I don’t think it was unlike you. I think you allowed yourself to be completely authentic in that moment, letting out a side of yourself you don’t normally let people see.” 

“That psych degree is paying off, I see.” His lip twitched into a small smirk.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” 

“People see me a certain way.” He sighed a little as he spoke. “I’m the smart one, the bookish, awkward one. I’ve been seen that way for as long as I can remember. I guess I grew out of it but no one around me sees that. So maybe I play up the persona a little because it's what’s expected of me.” He confessed, not sure why he was doing so but you oddly put him at ease.

“Yeah, I get that. Sometimes it's easier to play into the expected, to fall into the roles people assign us rather than forge our own identity. You know, I only got my degree to prove I could. I wanted to prove, even if only to myself, that there was more to me than people expected of me. One day I might do something with it but for now, I really do love my job. But now I know I could do something else if I chose to.” You were equally surprised by your honesty. 

“My friends brought me here because they think I’m some kind of pathetic sad sack that can’t get laid.” He chuckled wistfully. 

“Oh but I bet you have no problem in that department, from what I could tell.” Maybe you leant closer to him, you certainly didn’t mean to, but you were sure he was closer now.

“I do alright.” The glint in his eyes told you he did better than alright and why did that cause a rumble of jealousy in your chest? 

This time it was him that leaned closer to you, his large hand finding your thigh. You felt your chest tighten at the way it felt.

“I’m not going to sleep with you.” You spoke but you didn’t particularly believe your own voice. 

“Not here, certainly not.” He inched his hand higher and you didn’t stop him.

“Not here, not anywhere.” 

“Tell yourself that all you want, princess.” He growled the last word, eliciting a whimper from your lips. 

“I don’t sleep with customers. Full stop.” 

“You sleep with me, I promise I will never come back here.” He dared edge his hand higher, now right at the top of your thigh.

“You should leave.” You said, but you didn’t move or push him away. 

“I just paid you a hundred dollars, I’m not going anywhere.” He squeezed your thigh, his fingers digging into your flesh. 

“Maybe I did prefer it when you were shy.”

“No you didn’t.” He smiled in a knowing way. And he was right. “Let me take you out, show you what I’m really like.” 

You swallowed, god how you would love that. But no. You couldn’t succumb. 

“Not gonna happen.” You took hold of his hand and forcibly removed it from your thigh. You removed the bill he’d given you from where you’d tucked it in the side of your panties and tossed it at him. “Keep your money. Leave before I call security.” 

Spencer chuckled to himself, shaking his head and placing the note on the couch, leaving it there as he stood up. 

“I’m not a threat, you don’t need to call security.” He held his hands up in defeat. “I think you know as well as I do that there's something between us, I just don’t know why you won’t admit to it. But whatever, I’ll go.” 

He went to move past you but as he did, his fingers circled your wrist. He turned your hand over and forcibly put his business card in your open hand. 

“In case you change your mind, princess.” With that he was gone, leaving your legs shaking in his wake. 

You looked down at the card in your hand and frowned to yourself as you read the words adorned on it. 

Doctor Spencer Reid. FBI. 

Huh. That was an interesting turn of events. 

***

Spencer didn’t return to the club again, respecting your boundaries and just holding onto a small glimmer of hope that you would call. But weeks passed and you never did. 

In all honesty, he wasn’t that surprised. He expected you’d tossed the card the minute he’d walked through that curtain and never given him a second thought. 

He didn’t often allow himself to get close to people for this very reason. When Spencer fell for someone it happened fast and hard and now you were the only thing he could think of and it was tearing him in two. 

It was Morgan and Luke’s fault. Them and their dumb idea to take him to a strip club for his birthday. He decided his next birthday was cancelled, the one after that too. Screw it, all his birthdays were cancelled indefinitely. 

Thankfully due to the BAU’s heavy caseload and him teaching classes at Marlborough University, he didn’t have a whole lot of time to dwell on you, which was for the best. 

He’d just have to resign himself to being alone again. Just like always. 

***

For weeks that card felt like it was burning a hole in your pocket. You didn’t intend on calling Spencer, but you just couldn’t get rid of it. There was something different about him, something that begged you to get to know him. But you had to resist temptation, it would only end badly like it always did. 

Still, you couldn’t help but picture his face when you gave an old, sad man a lap dance, wishing it were him instead. It never failed to send chills down your spine when you thought of the way his persona had flipped from shy and slightly nerdy, to suddenly so self assured. 

But you had to stop thinking about him. Thinking about him was fruitless. But of course you couldn’t, because like it or not, you were going to see him again. 

You’d almost considered pulling out of the class, as soon as you’d seen his name on the business card you knew it would be a bad idea to go through with it. But you’d been excited about this for months and you really didn’t want to wait another semester to take it. You just had to hope you could get through it without incident, however unlikely that seemed. 

“Ok, let's take a moment now to discuss the difference between a trigger and a stressor. A trigger is a sensory event experienced by an offender that precipitates subsequent behaviour whereas a stressor is a longer term pattern of behaviour or circumstances which push a person into behaving differently than they normally would. You might want to write this down. I probably shouldn’t be telling you guys this but I’m definitely putting this on the final.”

You watched the brunette a few rows in front of you coyly tell Professor Reid she was simply auditing the class. You couldn’t help but smirk when an array of other beautiful girls raised their hands when he asked who else was auditing. He was the youngest, best looking professor on campus, it was no surprise his class had drawn in a crowd of young girls to fawn over him. 

“Uh…ok.” He shook his head, checking his watch. “Unfortunately that is all the time we have for today. Thank you guys.”

You stayed seated while the rest of the class filtered out, watching him collect a stack of papers and put them in his worn satchel before turning to erase the writing on the whiteboard. You stuffed your laptop away and crept down the stairs towards the front of the class, fingers toying with the small white piece of card.

“What was your stressor, Professor? Or should I say, Doctor?” 

You saw his back go rigid and for a moment or two he didn't move a muscle. He set the whiteboard eraser down and slowly turned around as you waved his business card at him. He couldn’t help the way his eyes raked up and down your body, clad in jeans and a t-shirt, more than he was used to seeing on you. He still thought you looked like a goddamn angel.

“Uh, I’m sorry, what?” He frowned, clearly at a loss for words. 

“You said a stressor is a longer term pattern of behaviour or circumstances which push a person into behaving differently than they normally would. When I first met you, you behaved differently than you normally would, am I right? Pretending to be this shy, awkward little thing.” You quipped your eyebrow at him.

“For the record I wasn’t pretending. It wasn’t some kind of ruse or something. I am generally shy and awkward. But I have learnt to assert myself when I need to, for instance, when I see something I want. I got carried away that night at the club and I’m sorry for that, that was out of character for me.” He leant back against the edge of the desk and perched on it. “Why are you in my class, Y/N?”

“I signed up for this class before I met you. I didn’t even know you were the professor until you gave me your card.” You shrugged a little nervously. 

You were more uncomfortable in normal social settings. At the Blue Siren, where you commanded the room, the confidence oozed for you. But in the real world you were much uncomfortable in your own skin. 

“You want to be a profiler?” He scrutinised you with his gaze.

“Maybe someday. I told you, I don’t necessarily want to work at the club forever, I want options.”

“But you love your job.” He repeated what you’d told him.

“I do.” You nodded. “If this is going to be weird I can drop out. I can go to Georgetown next semester, although their professor is not a legit FBI agent with the BAU.” You chuckled a little.

“Why would it be weird?” 

“Because,” you shrugged. “Since the second you turned around and saw me standing here, you’ve been undressing me with your eyes.” 

Spencer smiled, a hint of a blush gracing his cheeks.

“I have, it's true.” He agreed. “I can’t help it if I’ve already seen so much of it.” 

“I don’t think you should want to sleep with your students.” 

“There’s no rule against it.” He chuckled, pushing himself back to his feet. “My students are all over the legal age, if I was to sleep with one of them, it would be completely consensual and no rules would be broken.”

“You’re talking from experience.” You stated and his eyes playfully glistened.

“Maybe.” He shrugged but his face said it all. “I told you, I do alright.” 

“Well, I can tell you for a fact I won’t be one of them.” 

“And that’s your loss.” He turned his back on you now and started gathering up his things, slinging his satchel over his head. “Excuse me, I have papers to grade.” 

You watched him saunter away, leaving you standing there in confusion and a little turned on if you were honest. He shoved open the door and exited the classroom and before you could think it through you were following hot on his heels. You caught up to him in the corridor as he was unlocking his office door. He spotted you in his peripheral vision.

“My office hours are on Wednesday.” He pushed open the door. “If you need something you can come…”

He trailed off when you pushed past him, entering his office ahead of him. He frowned and followed you inside, closing and locking the door behind him. 

“What?” He sighed, taking off his bag and dropping it in the chair next to the door. “You asked me to leave the club that night and I did. I gave you my number, I left the ball in your court and you didn’t call and that’s fine. I walked away! So why are you pursuing me?” 

“I won’t give it up.” You blurted out, causing a heavy frown to form on Spencer’s face.

“Give up what?” Had he missed a part of the conversation?

“The club, I love my job.”

“I know you do.” His frown deepened. “Why would you have to give it up?”

“Do you know how many men I meet that think I’m some kind of damsel in distress that needs saving? They swoop in, on their fucking white horse and think they can rescue the poor, broken stripper.”

“Exotic dancer.” Spencer corrected you with a smirk. You huffed somewhat childishly. 

“Whatever. They think they can change me. Men always think I’m some kind of fucking damsel in distress that needs saving from the big bad world of strip…exotic dancing. That’s why I don’t date customers, not because it's not allowed. I’ve made the mistake before and it always ends the same. So stop looking at me like you want to fuck me, because its never going to happen!” 

Spencer simply looked at you curiously while you ranted, voice getting louder with each syllable. Confusingly he was smiling when you finished.

“Can I speak now?” He had a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“If you have to.” You rolled your eyes. 

Spencer took a few steps away from the door and you felt yourself growing weaker the closer he got to you. He was magnetic, you couldn’t help but gravitate towards him.

“Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m certain I never once said that I have any kind of issue with your profession and I certainly never asked you to quit. Am I right?” 

“Y-yes.” You swallowed, catching the scent of his cologne. 

“If you’ve found something you love I would never dream of keeping you from that. Honestly, I admire you. It takes a lot of bravery and a lot of confidence to do what you do and god…you do it so well. Why would I ever want to take that from you?” He was so close now and you were begging him to touch you even though it was a bad idea.

“I…I don’t know.” 

“Yes, princess, you do.” He smirked. “You made an assumption about me, the same way I admittedly did when I first met you. But I was wrong and I acknowledged that. It’s only fair for you to do the same.” 

He raised his hand and your legs shook before he even touched you, at the sheer anticipation of it. It came up to cup your jaw, firmly enough that you could feel his fingers squeezing your jawbone. 

“Y-you don’t want to change me?” You whimpered.

“Why mess with perfection?” He bowed his head, his lips so close to yours you could feel the heat radiating off of them. “I’m no knight in shining armour, Y/N, I’m not rushing in to try and save you. And you are most certainly not a damsel in distress. You are a strong, independent woman and I would be lucky to merely exist in your orbit.” 

You mewled, trying to move closer to him, to crash your lips against his but he held you firmly in place, chuckling at your eagerness. For the first time in a long time you felt all your bravado melt away, all the confidence you had on stage at the Blue Siren was washed away, leaving you a trembling mess in front of this man. And normally that kind of vulnerability would cause you to run for the hills. But being vulnerable with Spencer didn’t seem all that bad.

“Can you,” you swallowed, eyes glued on those pouty lips of his. “Please…just kiss me already, stud.” 

Spencer laughed and for a moment you thought he might not comply. But then he closed the small space between you and you finally got to feel those pillowy lips pressing against yours. He gripped the back of your neck firmly, keeping you in place, as if you would go anywhere. 

Maybe one day Spencer would thank Morgan and Luke for the birthday present, this was one he’d surely cherish, as long as you would let him. 

Oh, isn't this exactly where you'd like me?

I'm exactly where you'd like me, you know.

Praying for love and a lap dance,

Taglist -

All

@muffin-cup @andiebeaword @measure-in-pain @takeyourleap-of-faith @dirtytissuebox @ssa-uglywhore27 @smurphyse @reidselle @reidsbookclub

SR x reader

It was obvious that he wasn't used to being in places like this; where everyone was drunk, high or both, couples and randoms making out and practically fucking in every dark corner of the room. You never thought that you'd see The Spencer Reid, your college campus' genius, sitting in a spin the bottle circle in a random frat house.

You had no idea who convinced the poor boy that doing this was a good idea, but you would be damned if any other one of these girls were to get their hands on him. You liked him first — not just liked him — you claimed him. Everyone in your group knew that you liked him, so the fact that they had the fucking gall to look at him that way knowing you were there pissed you off.

"Alright, everybody!" A random bro shouted from on top of one of the dining room tables. "We were going to play Spin The Bottle, but I figured it'd be better if we play Seven Minutes in Heaven, seeing as though we have a special guest here with us tonight."

You knew exactly who he was talking about, and as your eyes lifted to look at Spencer, his gaze was already settled on you, but once he saw you were looking at him, he looked away bashfully. His face flushed a pretty red and so did his ears, and you could practically see the blood threatening to spill from his cuticles as he picked at them.

Your eyes narrowed at the jock angrily, every part of your body yelling at you to tend to Spencer.

But you swallowed it down.

A large group of people gathered around, and then the first spin of the night began. People were gleefully coming and going from the closet, a few of the couples manipulating the bottle so that it landed on them.

"Oh, shit!" One of the frat bros called out loudly. You looked curiously to see all eyes locked on you and Spencer, the tip pointing at you and the end pointing at him.

You must admit, you were a bit… known… around school. You wouldn't say you were popular, now that was a bit childish, but you definitely had connections in a couple different places.

The poor man looked almost frantic, looking at you then looking back down, almost as if saying you didn't have to. Oh, but you did.

"Seven minutes, pretty boy. C'mon." You said as you got up. His eyes were as big as saucers, his mouth gaping akin to like a fish would. You straightened your tight dress, reaching out a well manicured hand.

"If you want this to be over sooner then get up." You whispered sternly. He scrambled to interlock your fingers, and you lead him to the closet that was already significantly hot from the amount of bodies that had been in there already.

"We don't have to do anything you don't want to." You reassured. "No, no… I-I want to, it's just…" He babbled, wringing his hands. "It's just what?" You pushed, stepping closer to him. He gulped, backing up slightly and knocking into the shelves behind him.

"I just don't know how." He didn't know how to make you feel good, how to pleasure you. He was embarrassed to admit to the girl that he liked, who was also totally out of his league, that he was a virgin.

"Why did you come here, then?" You questioned with a slight smirk. "Because… because you were here and I wanted to uh- maybe- I don't know-" You cupped his face, stroking his cheeks.

"Kiss me then, Spence."

"Wh- what?!" He stuttered.

"I said," You spoke, your lips brushing against his, "Kiss me." He gulped, looking down at your lips back up to your eyes, then back down to your lips again.

"Okay." He breathed.

He leaned forward, albeit hesitantly, and pressed your lips together. It started out slow, but with a lot of coaxing from you, he got comfortable. Your lips moved in tandem as the room heated up. You had no idea what had come over you when you placed both of his hands on your ass.

"Touch me." You breathed heavily. Your breasts pressed tauntingly into his chest, his cock hardening embarrassingly fast. "Are you sure?" You nodded. "Please."

He tested the waters with a light squeeze before shoving your hips together. His body stuttered as a loud whine fell from his mouth. You could feel his bulge against your plush body and Spencer wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow him whole.

"Sorry, sorry." His apologies were frantic, but your nerves burned with need. "I'm fine with you grinding on me, baby." You reassured. "In fact, I like it." Normally, you wouldn't say you carried a dominating energy with you, but it was like you wanted to swallow the poor boy whole.

"Oh, God." He whimpered, but nonetheless joined your lips back together. You slipped your plush thigh through his legs, pressing it on his cock.

His hips jutted out, and you swallowed his cry. His grips on your ass turned deathly as he humped your leg like a bitch in heat.

"That feel good?" You cooed, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

He nodded fastly, his lips pressed together and his eyes closed. He was lost in the feeling of the friction, perspiration beading on his hairline. You practially eat the sight of his deep red face up.

"You're mine. Alright, pretty boy?" You asked ferociously. You wrentched his head back, sinking your teeth into the sensitive skin of his neck. He nodded. "Say it." He yelped when you nipped at his adams apple.

"I'm yours, fuck- all yours!"

Your stomach twisted with a pleasant warm feeling, which only increased rapidly which you felt his thrusts grow sloppy.

"You gonna cum, honey?" You asked through your marking. "Yes, yes, yes…" He babbled. "Good. Cum all over me." He let out one last loud moan before you felt the warmth of spend seep out and onto the hem of your dress.

There was a knock on the door.

"Okay, lovebirds. Time's up!"

You smirked at the fact that Spencer was shaking like a leaf in your hold.

"After this, we are so going to my dorm." You claimed. "Yes! Yeah, yeah… yes, please." He all but shouted.

++++++++++++++++++++

Note: This series is probably going to be riddled with historical inaccuracies. 😅 I truly tried my best and googled A LOT but at the end of the day I wanted to focus more on the story instead of boggling myself down trying to get every last detail correct. I hope it doesn’t take you out of the story too much. 💕 Takes place within the timeline of Captain America the First Avenger(mostly).

++++++++++++++++++++

Main Masterlist

Robb Stark, as all other Starks, has an absolutely wild breeding kink.

No, seriously.

Genuinely, Robb Stark, Lord of Winterfell, wanted nothing more than to - well, in his own words-

"..fuck a baby into you, my love. Please? Just.. think about it for a second, my sweet."

You're batting him off you, as he pesters you in your shared chambers. It truly was unfortunate timing, given how your friend and her husband (and their very sweet, young babe) were due to visit, only sure to worsen your own darling husband's need for-

"-a baby. On your hip. Think about it, how sweet you'd look, our baby resting in your arms, oh I can just imagine it alre-"

"Robb."

"-and how they'd have your gorgeous eyes. My hair, of course. Though, a babe with your hair would be so-"

"Robb."

"-and if you really think about it, we're in the perfect time of our lives to be having one, no? Surrounded by aunts and uncles, and mother, to play with the babe - oh, and whilst we're thinking about the one, we could have ano-"

"Lord Stark."

"…"

Finally, he stops, his head lowering onto your shoulder as he sulks instead. You can feel him pouting into your skin, and gods forbid you look into the mirror, where his bright blue eyes await you, pleading with you. Instead, you sigh and smooth down your dress, turning to him,

"You can't keep doing this! My friend will be here soon, and you, Lord Stark, need to get yourself under control!"

"Under control? Gods, love, I'd love to be under your contro-"

"Oh you know that's not what I meant, Robb."

"…can we try that though."

"Can we please get through the day first?"

"…"

"Well?"

"…fine."

Now, it's not exactly ideal to have a pouty husband as it is, especially not when your friend is visiting Winterfell for the first time (that too, with a new babe). So you spend the next ten minutes cajoling and consoling poor Robb Stark, who's only real thought left on his mind is how you'd look with a young Stark. How you'd console them when they fell in the snow, kissing their wounds away. Or read tales of old to them, sending them off to the sweet slumbers of the night.

Oh dear. Robb Stark (who as it was - was already absolutely smitten with his dear wife) was well and truly fucked.

He hears not a single word you say, not when you're looking up at him like that, with those sweet, wide doe eyes he fell in love with, or with that smile that tells him he's earned himself a kiss as you lean in, pressing your lips against hi-

"Robb! They're here, your gue- Oh."

And there stood Arya, in the doorway (clearly sent to fetch her brother and his wife), suddenly staring at the ground. What an interesting flooring, she suddenly thought to herself, and what a wonderful job the carpenter had done, fitting such a flooring in this way. And how incredibly riveting the door was - large, wooden (oak, to be exact) and heavy. Yes, yes, how quaint.

You stifled a laugh as Robb groaned, his head once again dropping to your shoulder,

"And that, Robb, is why we don't do all this early in the morning, hmm?"

"Don't remind me."

"I'm.. still here, you know..?"

"Oh, I think your brother is very aware, Arya."

She shakes her head, giggling as she walks away and you tug Robb's arm, pulling him out of the room towards the great hall. He allows himself to be pulled as such (for one does not simply tug Lord Stark of Winterfell), a huge smile on his face simply from how excited you were (although, one could probably attribute the act of being tugged by his wife contributing to his joy).

In the great hall, hours pass by with you playing with your best friend's young daughter, only six sweet months old. She knows not of the horrors of this unkind world, nor of the pains and suffering hidden from her innocent, joyful eyes. For a moment, you think about the two of you having your own little one but brush the thought aside, chalking it up to just a 'heat of the moment' thought.

This thought isn't helped when Robb himself takes the sweet child in his arms, talking to her with such a sweetened, softened voice as she babbles in his grip. Nor is it aided by how he holds her close, letting her rest on his chest as her rocks her to sleep.

And dear gods above, when she awakens in his arms and her tears immediately fill the room, and he soothes her by softly bouncing her in his arms as he talks to her? No, no, no! This wasn't how this was supposed to go, at all!

So the look he gives you, entirely content to be stood with the small child in his arms, eyes filled with nothing but love - has you reconsidering.

After all, you would look good with a baby on your hip. A little Stark, with those bright Stark eyes, and the signature Stark curls? Gods, perhaps a baby wouldn't be such a bad thing. Especially when your friend leans over to you,

"You know, he'd make a wonderful father.."

It isn't your fault that your mind immediately raced to visions of him, bouncing a child in his arms. Or him singing a lullaby in the dead of night, rocking your child back to sleep. And most definitely not the thought of him, telling old (and exaggerated) tales of his adventures, making over the top gestures as he embellished each story.

Oh dear.

Now, despite all of your pleading with your friend to stay the night, unfortunately both her and her husband must depart Winterfell by the evening, returning to their own humble abode. Which of course, leaves you all alone with your thoughts. Dangerous thoughts, especially when Robb snakes an arm around your waist, subtly pulling you away back to your shared chambers under the guise of wanting an early night.

Though, a quick glance around faces in the room would quickly tell you just how little his excuse was believed.

Back at said shared chambers, you had expected him to push you against the door, kiss you wildly as he begged for a child. You thought that he'd at the very least tug you into his lap onto the bed, pressing kisses along your shoulder.

Yet all he did was.. shrug off his cloak? Yes, he shrugged off his cloak, before raising an eyebrow at you when you stood shocked in the doorway,

"My love, will you not enter? Do you need me to provide permission now?"

"N-no.. I just.."

"You just…?"

Now. How do you explain to your husband that you had expected his insane breeding kink to present itself once more? You stutter over your words, unable to find a way to really string them together. As you're too busy lost in your words, you don't notice his long strides approaching you, or the big arms wrapping around you, pulling you inside,

"Mmm, that's better, yeah?"

"Y-yeah.."

"So. Will you tell me willingly what plagues your mind, or do I have to coax that out of ya, hmm?"

His lips find your neck as he finally closes the door behind you, gently pressing kisses up to your ear,

"Go on, love.. tell your dear husband, would ya?"

Oh no. Anything but this. How were you supposed to say, 'Oh, by the way - I expected you to beg to fuck a baby into me when we got back.' casually? No, instead you let out a shaky breath, letting him continue attacking you neck, until he pulls back, tutting into your ear,

"Now, now.. going silent on me? That's unlike you.. Unless something has you.. thinking, hmm?"

To be entirely honest, Robb saw through your very thinly veiled thoughts throughout the day, taking note of the way your lips parted when he held the sweet babe. Or the way your eyes widened slightly and your cheeks blushed when your friend whispered something (of which all he caught was '..make a wonderful father.'). Especially how your gaze on him softened as he spoke to her.

He was very aware of his wife's needs (which of course, is expected from a good husband, no?) - but he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy how you squirmed under him, avoiding his pointed questions.

"Whatever could be sitting in that pretty head of yours… perhaps something about.."

Part of you prays he doesn't pick up on anything. Prays he says something completely out there, something far from the thoughts swimming in your brain. Yet you know him better, and know he knows you better. And would it be such a bad thing if he picked up on how much you truly wanted-

"..a baby? Is that it, my love?"

There it is.

"Does my pretty dove want me fucking a baby into her? Is that what you want?"

You gulp down, closing your eyes as his beard tickles your neck, his mouth practically kissing your ear as he continues to whisper low, the sound rumbling through to your core,

"Go on, love, use those pretty words f'me, hmm?"

And you're whining, the sound only tinkling sweetly in his ears as he pulls one of your legs up to his hip, wrapping it round him. You're steadying your hands on his shoulders, and he's pressing kisses everywhere but your lips,

"R-robb… please..?"

"Please what, hmm? C'mon, get ya words out.."

His thumbs roll circles into your hips as he groans into your shoulder, already working himself up over you. One hand of yours finds the back of his neck, playing with the very ends of his curls and the other finds his lower back, almost anchoring yourself to him as you find the courage to speak again,

"Okay, wait… okay, let me.. Let me think this thro-"

"I'll wait, my love. Can you wait?"

…He makes a good point. Out of the two of you, tonight? It was you who was needy, needing him so desparately as he patiently waited for you,

"Fuck, okay.. Put.."

"Put..?"

"…putababyinme?"

"…"

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you drop your head back onto his shoulder, wanting nothing more than for the earth to swallow you whole. Though, perhaps it's a good thing that doesn't happen and instead, your loving husband only chuckles quietly, pulling himself away from you,

"Do I.. hear you right? My sweet wife, wants nothing more than for me to.. fuck a baby into her? That what you want, my love? What you need?"

"I.. yes.."

You finally admit what you've been wanting for so long, somehow ashamed to admit even to him that - yes, you too have a breeding kink. Perhaps it isn't quite as strong as his want, nay, need for a mini-Stark army of his own, but yes. A couple who.. has a breeding kink together.. erm… what's the saying?

Ah, doesn't matter, not when his eyes darken with need, his lips immediately finding yours as he fully lifts both of your legs around his hips, holding you up against the door. His hips rut into yours as his lips move messily against yours, before he pulls back with a groan, a string of saliva almost dropping from you. Almost, because of course he chases it back, cutting it off at your lips with a chaste kiss.

"You. Have no idea. Just how long. I've waited. For this."

Each part is punctuated by a kiss to your neck, your ear, the other side of your neck and ear, before dipping down to your chest as he carries you over to your bed, lowering you so carefully into soft sheets. He stands over you, looking down at his pretty wife, lying so prettily for him. His eyes trail over your body, pausing here and there, before resting on your own eyes, which only look back up at him filled with love and devotion,

"Gods, love. Look at ya, beautiful f'me, yeah?"

"Always, Robb, always."

"Good girl."

The praise skips your head, jumping lower to your belly, where a pool of warmth had already begun to collect itself. Robb, on the other hand, begins slowly stripping each layer off leaving him in nothing but loose undergarments. You quickly follow suit, your chemise soon being all that remains. The two of you stare at each other, drinking one another in as though this was your final night together.

His hand reaches out to you, and you pull it towards your body, letting him run his fingers so slowly up the side of your body, pausing in between to roam over your waist, your thighs, up to your breasts and finally he pulls himself over you. Your hands find themselves at the sides of his own undergarments, tugging his shirt up and over, before tugging his pants low. He's chuckling, shaking his head and grinning at you,

"Impatient, are we? Needy f'me, hmm?"

"As though you're much better.."

"…fair point. C'mere, you."

He helps you sit up as he lifts your chemise from you, his hands intentionally pausing and grasping at your breasts as he did, to which you only giggle at him,

"Gods, Robb!"

"What, a man can't appreciate his sweet wife? Since when was that outlawed?"

"..well, can he do that quicker? His wife awaits him, you know."

"My, my.."

Still, he obliges, pulling your chemise off properly, before tossing it aside, his eyes once more stuck on you.

Gods above, you were a sight to behold. The soft, amber light of warm candles bounced around the room, pausing on you just right. Each curve was perfectly accentuated, perfectly warmed to his eyes. How your lips looked just like gentle pillows, against which he'd rest his own. A thought occurred to him, of how pretty you'd look, covered in your jewels as he'd fuck you - but tonight was a night without time to waste.

His hands lower to your waist, holding you as his body fell flush to yours. He presses his forehead against yours, kissing your cheeks, your nose and your lips, before trailing his lips lower. Across your neck first, paying close attention to your sweet spots he knows so well. Then, your collarbone, dotting kisses along as his eyes finally set sight on his prize. He licks his lips, eyes flicking back up to meet yours, before wrapping his mouth around one nipple, moaning over it as he swirled his tongue around.

And you can't help but wrap a hand in his hair, tangling your fingers into his locks as he works so diligently at you, knowing exactly how to suck, tug and graze you for each and every reaction.

Speaking of reactions, you're full of them (and soon, hopefully, you'll be full of something else, if you catch my drift), moaning and whining as he switches from breast to breast, nipping and licking away at you, strings of saliva dripping down your chest each time he shifts across. When he's finally pleased with his work, he pulls back, staring at your wet chest, before dipping one hand lower, feeling between your folds,

"F-fuck.. there she is, hmm? Look at you, soaked f'me? My, my, love.."

"Always you, only ever y-you.."

His fingers dance expertly along your folds, dipping in and out as his head rests over your shoulder. He presses his lips to your ear, whispering dirty, dirty things, that if anyone outside your chambers had heard, would for sure tarnish his reputation,

"Oh.. I'll fuck a baby into you, yeah? Get you full, all with me, all for me."

You're barely stringing out words, let alone sentences, broken up by moans in between syllables. His fingers skillfully quicken, finding your sweet spot much quicker now as they slip in and out, dipping up to coat your bud in your slick. All the while, your hands pull down to his shoulders, pressing down as he takes you higher and higher (just on his fingers, mind you), each ministration driving you ever closer to your release.

Yet even as your hips buck over his hand, and you lose yourself, just on his careful fingers, he remains held together, in full, total control as he continues to whisper slowly into your ear. Your hips move upward involuntarily, and he uses the hand which works on you to pull them back down, commanding you,

"That's enough of that. Keep 'em down f'me, yeah?"

You're mumbling something along the lines of 'm'tryin..' and he's having none of that, stern eyes looking back at you. Oh and he knows the effect this has on you, your walls clenching in on his fingers as you whine again,

"What was that? Can't quite hear ya, love - speak up."

You think about it for a minute, only to meet his steely blue gaze, shaking your head as his lips find your forehead again,

"Atta girl. And if ya keep your hips down long enough f'me, I'll let you cum, yeah? How's that?"

Once again, the praise hits you - and where you'd usually accidentally pull your hips up, you're fighting very hard against your own body to keep them rooted, down and still for him. Of course, none of this is helped by how his fingers curl perfectly in you, reaching spots that have you seeing stars, nay, galaxies with how perfectly he tickles you.

And don't you dare think he'd neglect your clit, pulling his fingers from you when you're close enough for him to swipe perfectly over your clit, swirling round, and round and up and down until you're barely holding yourself together,

"Good girl - go on, cum f'me. You've earned it."

As if on command, you finally convulse in his grip, cumming hard and fast, coating his fingers as he plugs them back into you. He lets you wrap around them, lets them soak in your cum long enough for you to finish panting and sighing. You feel your head fall back down to the pillow as he kisses your forehead again, before lowering his face to your folds, inspecting them for himself.

His fingers pull out again, and he drags some along his tongue, before raising the others to your lips, swiping across before pushing in,

"Taste yourself, love."

Your mouth wraps round his fingers, sucking and moaning as you do taste yourself on him. At the same time, his own mouth presses against your clit, sucking hard before he drops to your folds, swiping through to collect each and every drop of your slick in his mouth.

Because say what you will - Lord Robb Stark of Winterfell is a pussy munch. I hath decreed it, oh reader.

And he (as he does in all areas of life) drags his tongue along and in with such precision, such rigour as he works thoroughly to the angles and crevices he knows so well, flicking his tongue when he knows it'll have you grasping his hair tighter, curling it in you as you writhe under him. He drinks up your saccharine libations devotedly, his head pressed lovingly against your altar as he continues his sweet worship of you.

Each careful ministration quickly shifts into messy, needy movements, laced with an urgency that would suggest he is a man starved, deprived of his favourite meal. That truly could not be futher from the truth.

As you find yourself closer and closer to releasing yet again, your eyes barely catch on to his own hips, rutting into the sheets below him. And quite frankly, the sight has you moaning again, tugging his face up to you as you roll your hips over him. You can barely hear his words, spoken into your folds,

"Mm, that's it, love. Use me, I'm here for you, yeah?"

The words don't even register until a moment later, when you finally realise what it is that he said, sending you over the edge as your thighs rush around him, clamping down. He helps you move over him with you fully sat over his face as you rock over him, riding him and his face through your orgasm. All the while, his tongue attacks your core relentlessly, eagerly lapping at each and every droplet of your sweet ambrosia, trickling down into his mouth - over his beard, down his neck.

Even when you've fully rode out your orgasm over him, his hands keep you held up in place, soothingly drawing patterns into your hips before lightly tapping the side of your thigh as you let go. Your thighs unclench and release him and for a moment all you see are the soft auburn locks you so dearly love to run your hands through, until he pushes his head up to greet you once more,

"Hello, you."

"Mmm, hello you."

"Thoughts on this absolute deluge we're having tonight?"

He winks up at you, a wolfish grin on his face, proud of his little double entendre as you sigh, lifting your hips and letting him sit up. Your eyes drift to the window, where rain attacks relentlessly, unkind and uncaring for anything and anyone caught in it. And then your eyes move to him - meeting his own, hunger driven and filled with want. Yet underneath the hunger and want, is a deep, deep adoration, that only warms your heart (and thighs).

Your gaze drops down to his beard, soaked and coated in you. And you don't miss how his tongue slowly pulls around his lips, eager to not waste a single drop. He kisses your lips again, and you can taste yourself on him - and there's something oh, so sweet about how you tate yourself on his tongue, as he allows you to briefly take dominance. His hands find your waist again, tugging you close as he presses his nose against your neck and hair, inhaling deep before sighing into your skin,

"I.. missed this. Well and truly, I missed all of this."

"I know."

He pauses, smiling before he continues,

"And you know, if I could, I'd spend the rest of my days lovingly worshipping you."

"Robb! Blasphemy, hmm?"

"Is it blasphemy, now? Loving your wife so dearly?"

For a brief moment, there is no real noise between you, the only sounds being that of the horrendous downpour just outside your chambers, hitting the glass panes of your windows as you both sit holding each other under the soft amber light casting itself around you.

Until he's pushing you gently down onto the sheets again, one hand finding your face and subconciously tucking hair behind your ear as the other pulls your legs up to your chest, massaging the very plush of your thighs. His eyes find yours again, serious for a moment,

"You tell me to stop, and we stop, okay? We don't have to do any of this, love-"

"And if I say don't stop, then what?"

"Well, then it is my great pleasure to keep going."

"Then don't stop, Robb. Please fuck a baby into me."

You know your effect on him, especially when his mouth pulls upwards into a grin again, nodding as he pulls you closer,

"Now that, my love, is something I can do."

He drags a finger back through your slick, lifting it up to his mouth before dragging the very tip of his cock through your folds, tapping it twice over you and only then does he finally plunge himself into you. As always, he fills you perfectly, pausing as the final inch sheaths itself in you. He presses his lips to your forehead, muttering sweet words against your skin as you lie with your lips parted - any and all thoughts already gone.

If you were already at a loss for thoughts before he begun…

He slowly pulls out, before slowly pushing back in. His excuse as always? Something along the lines of 'preparing you', ensuring it wasn't 'too much'. Truthfully, he enjoyed your facial expressions when he'd start slow, only to pick up pace as he went on.

Meanwhile, your hands find his shoulders again, rubbing circles as you pout,

"Robb.."

"Yes, love?"

"Stop teasing me!"

"Oh, come now. Is it teasing? I was-"

"-preparing me? No, you were not."

"Was too."

"Were not, Robb."

"…fine."

And because Robb Stark loves his pretty wife so dearly, he complies, quickening to the pace you craved from him. The usual, obligatory Stark breeding kink presents itself (finally, properly this time) as his lips lower to your ear, whispering at you,

"F-fuck.. gotta fill my sweet dove up, hmm? Fill ya up with a pretty baby, yeah?"

Of course you want to say something, anything back to him, but how can you? When he fills each and every inch of you, your walls long since shaped to him as he thrusts into you, heavy balls slamming against you. Your whines and moans don't even find his ears, skipping straight down to his cock, his thrusts becoming sloppier and messier as his hands barely keep hold of your thighs, his restraint becoming thinner and thinner,

"Robb… don't hold.. don't hold back-!"

"Oh… fuck, m'tryin'.."

So it's not really his fault when he lets go of your thighs, arms wrapping behind you as he fucks into you needily, desperately. As though it were his last night on this godforsaken planet and you were his final salvation, each moan a sweet hymn to his ears.

You can feel yourself closer to your release, lifting your hips slightly in time with him, attempting to help him quicken as you chase your high. He's grinning into your ear, panting between words,

"Desperate… are we.. f'me?"

Words aren't quite your strong suit, not when you're so close to the edge, and he feels so, so good. Your head rolls back and he latches onto your neck, peppering kisses between bites across your skin. It's no shock then, that you tip over the edge, shaking around him as your fingers and nails dig into his shoulders, crying out in pure ecstasy. Nor is it that shocking that he follows soon after, thick ropes of cum lining your walls as he slows, just enough to allow the two of you to catch yourselves.

He's lowering his forehead to yours again, pressing a chaste kiss against your lips,

"Good?"

"Perfect."

"Mmm, gotta make it take though, yeah?"

He gives you no time to respond, pulling you up into his arms as he immediately begins bouncing you on him. If you weren't already so exhausted, you'd attempt to do it yourself, but it's not your fault! And it just feels so much better, when his strong arms wrap around you, tugging your body upon and down as he presses his head against your chest, mouth sloppily kissing against your skin.

Speaking of heads, his other head (oh you know - the lower one. The bulbous, perfectly thick tip of his cock. That one.) bullies against your cervix, thrusting up and hitting angles untouched so far in the night. You're letting your head rolls forwards, and one of his hands reaches up to support it, gently massging the back of your head,

"Feels that good, hmm?"

And you're nodding in response, letting his words soothe you as he bullies up into you, his harsher actions in complete contrast to his softened words. He continues pushing you, closer and closer to your next release. You can physically feel him tightening the coil in your lower belly, with his words, his cock and his hands.

The hand holding the back of your head manouvres it back up, to face him,

"Look at me when you cum f'me, dove."

Your eyes fly up to reach his, and all you can see is how much he loves you. You know, you're very aware of how his heart aches for you, how he yearns for you when you are mere metres apart. How he'd sacrifice everything just to see your sweet smile dance across your face. But simply knowing is one thing, seeing in person the very eyes you fell in love with, filled with a tenderness, a fondness reserved only for you.

Part of your brain imagines how sweetly he'd look at your children, and you can't hold yourself back anymore, your hands flying to his back, digging into the flesh. The mixed pain and pleasure has him stuttering slightly, pushing up into you with somehow more need than before. Gone are the measured, controlled thrusts, replaced by messy wanting and desire,

"C-close… m'close.. Robb, please-! M'so close.."

"Jus' a bit more-! M'here with'ya.."

He continues to thrust up into you, pulling your hips up and down as cum from your previous round gushes around the two of you, dripping out and onto his thighs. It's hot and sticky, and only worsened when the two of you cum together, gripping on to each other as though letting go would kill either of you. You're babbling incoherently, words somewhat in your brain but not on your tongue and he's not much better, words punctuated by panting in between. His groans mix with your moans, a sweet sanctimonious symphony laced with the unholy sounds of your skin meeting each other, exaggerated by the sticky fluid leaking out over where the two of you join.

It's obscenely hot, and has you writhing in his arms, shaking as he grips on to you, hard,

"Gotta.. make it take.. come on dove…"

He doesn't pull out, not once, and briefly considers trying to find a way where he can have you on your front without having to pull out. Yet he can't quite fathom trying to spin you round like this, and the risk of more cum dripping out has him shaking his head, lowering you back down onto the bed again,

"One more, yeah?"

At this point, you can barely hear him, nodding as a reaction to the sound of his voice more than anything. This round begins slower, with him taking his time, feeling each and every inch of you wrapping around him as you feel each and every inch of him pushing into you. It's entirely maddening, how huge he feels in you, despite multiple rounds already, and how overwhelming the mixed sensations of everything has you grabbing onto him to anchor yourself.

Where you were babbling incoherently, you're now at an entire loss for words, unable to think nor say anything, not when he makes love to you now, sweet and slow as his eyes land on your face, a hand brushing your cheek lovingly,

"M'sweet wife.. all drunken on my cock? Fucked out f'me?"

You subconsciously nuzzle your cheek into his touch and he chuckles, leaning down to kiss you. It's warm and reverent, expressing terms of love and devotion that mere words could not do justice. You've easily lost track of orgasms, unable to count when your brain has.. other things to concern itself with, and cant quite pin where you cum this time.

Though, it's probably around when Robb starts talking into your ear again, soft and slow as he whispers his dreams to you,

"…a little Stark army, yeah? Pump ya full of em, my love. Oh, and you'd be so perfect, sweet with our babes on your hips. Mind you, I'd be carryin' some too… "

All whilst you're humming along, barely keeping up with his words,

"..but besides that, my wife would look wonderful, carrying my babies, yeah?"

You're not sure what else he says after that, given how the coil tightening in you snaps once more, sending you shaking around him again. He holds you throughout, easing you with soft words as tears prick at your eyes. His lips find them, kissing tears away as he works you through the overstimulation, cumming soon after.

His own release is much less.. dramatic, but has you clawing at the sheets below. You can feel him everywhere and it truly is so overwhelming. Once again, though, you find comfort in his words, murmured sweetly into your ears. Even as he cums, his first thought is always you and your needs.

The two of you remain joined as you are for most of the night, with Robb moving you back round so you rest on his chest, where you lazily draw patterns as he strokes your hair,

"Y'did so well f'me, dove.. Good girl, hmm?"

You're humming back, wide, yet loving eyes looking up at him. He matches your eyes with raised eyebrows and a softened smile, bright and pink under the still warm light which filled your chambers,

"So, an army, Robb?"

"Oh, now, don't tempt me, love"

xoxo, roe~

Rogers and Barnes,

How are you two doing? It’s been a long time since we last saw each other. Don’t even bother asking how things are over here in the city. I’m surrounded by people younger than me, dressed in suits and ties, commanding me around. Can you imagine how insulting that is for us men nearing forty? Hell, I miss sitting in the front yard of the old house, jamming on our guitars and banjos. I miss that connection. You can’t find anything like that in the city.

Anyway, let me get to the point. You remember my daughter, right? It’s been years since you folks saw her. Since she graduated college, she’s dying to ‘travel the world’ before falling into the hands of corporate life like her old man. She’s growing up too fast, I’ll tell ya.

She came up to me one day and said, “Dad, I wanna travel the world. I wanna go to Europe!” You can imagine the smile on my face. I told her, “Well, if you wanna start traveling, how about you play it safe and start in the States? The countryside, for example. I know a place you can stay. You remember Uncle Steve and Uncle Bucky?” She just scrunched her nose, shook her head, and said, “Nope!”

I know this is a little last minute, but the girl started packing her bags and hopped on a flight before I could give her the full rundown or even ask for your permission. Be careful when you have kids of your own—especially daughters.

I gave her your guys’ address, and she said she’ll be showing up at your front door this weekend. I tried to stop her, but once she starts running, it’s impossible to catch up. Especially when you’re getting older each day. I’m sure you two understand.

I worry about her, and I trust you two with my life. I ask that you folks give her the experience we had when we were younger and carefree.

Show her the life I’m missing out on by being stuck here.

Thanks, guys.

Take care of my little girl.

Bucky scoffed at the letter, gripping it tightly in his calloused, dirty hands. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

Steve entered through the front door, kicking off his heavy leather boots and pulling off his gloves. “What is it, Buck?” he huffed, nodding to the piece of paper. “What’s that in your hand?”

Bucky didn’t glance up. He took a sip of his beer and held the letter over his shoulder.

“You remember Crazy Clyde?” Bucky said with a satisfied exhale. “He sent us a letter—askin’ us to look over his daughter.”

Steve furrowed his brows. He hadn’t heard that name in a long time, much less anything recent about his daughter. “Crazy Clyde?”

The funny part was, Clyde wasn’t even your father’s real name. It was a nickname given to him back when he was growing up in the country alongside Steve and Bucky. The name spoke for itself—he was a shit talker who ran his mouth across half the damn town. It was even worse when he was drunk. “Clyde” only came after because it rang well together, and country folks loved stringing words together, especially when it came to insults.

Steve grabbed the letter, removing his cowboy hat and setting it on the table. His blue eyes raked over the words, his brows pinching together more and more until he reached the very bottom.

“Hell,” he breathed. “When did you get this?”

“Just got it in the mail today,” Bucky explained.

“Christ,” Steve shook his head, rereading the letter as if the ink might change. “Those damn mail carriers. Always takes long as shit.”

Both men wore unpleasant looks on their worn and aged faces. Their day had been tiresome, leaving their muscles aching for any form of relief. Now here they were, standing in a home that was in absolutely no position to be hospitable to a girl they hadn’t seen in over a decade—the daughter of an old friend they hadn’t spoken to in months.

“‘A little last minute,’” Bucky repeated the words on the letter with a bitter scoff, taking another sip of his cold beer. “Talk about an understatement.”

“Buck,” Steve finally set the paper down, hovering over his seated friend. “Crazy Clyde said his daughter would be droppin’ in this weekend.” He gulped, staring his friend dead in the eye as they reached a silent, mutual realization.

“Today is—”

“—Saturday,” Bucky finished.

For a minute, silence took up their space. They looked around their home, taking in the state of it; the couch barely standing on its wooden support beams, the beer and juice stains circling the dining table, and their dirty boots and gloves sprawled across the entrance. To top it all off, they had a mounted deer head hung on the wall that would likely send any city girl running home in tears.

“Hell,” Steve breathed, looking around the room in defeat. “Maybe she’ll come by tomorrow.”

“Either way,” Bucky interrupted, running a tired hand down his face. “We don’t have the time, the energy, or the livin’ space to just… let someone stay with us.”

Steve let out a heavy, frustrated sigh, the sound vibrating deep in his broad chest. He looked at the cramped quarters, then back at Bucky’s exhausted expression, and finally gave a sharp, reluctant nod in agreement.

“Alright,” Steve huffed, rubbing the back of his neck. “But let’s say… she actually shows up on our doorstep. What do we even say to her?”

Bucky leaned back, his chair creaking as he folded his arms over his chest, staring up at his best friend. “Then we tell her, ‘Sorry, kid. Your daddy gave us late notice and we aren’t fit to babysit while you ‘explore’ the countryside. How about you try Italy instead?’”

“That’s cold, Buck.”

“No,” Bucky cut him off, slamming his beer down on the table and standing up. “You know what’s cold, Stevie? A man who hasn’t spoken to us in years and only sendin’ us a letter when he needs a favor. The city made him soft and spoiled. I bet he raised that daughter of his a spoiled brat, too.”

Steve rolled his eyes. If there was one thing he knew about Bucky, it was that his friend was fiercely protective—possessive, even—of the things he loved. Bucky didn’t do well with interlopers. For their entire lives, it had been just the two of them, and the whole town knew it.

When Sam Wilson first moved to town and Steve started befriending the kind fella, Bucky had been like a territorial cat—hissing and hair standing up every time Sam’s name was mentioned, or if the man was even breathing the same air as Steve.

It was only after months of knowing each other that Sam and Bucky finally became close.

But other than that, Bucky believed anyone outside their usual circle had bad intentions, like they were trying to tear the two of them apart. What they had was a rare, productive, and close partnership that always got the dirty work done—a friendship you’d never find anywhere else.

And with you coming into town—well, in Bucky’s mind, that was going to ruin everything.

Steve let out a deep sigh. “You know what? Fine,” he said with a shrug.

It was already Saturday—and the chances of you arriving ‘this weekend’ were already cutting it short. For all they knew, you’d chickened out and weren’t going to show up at all.

“If this lady shows up on our doorstep, we’ll just turn her down and send her the other way. Happy?”

The corner of Bucky’s lip twitched into the slightest smirk, though he tried to hide it. He just ran his tongue over his teeth beneath his lips and gave a sharp nod.

“Glad we can come to an agreement.”

Steve couldn’t help but grin at his friend’s reaction. He reached for his cowboy hat, settling it over his head and giving Bucky’s shoulder a firm pat. “Enough bickerin’ about ‘what-ifs.’ The horsies need feedin’.”

As Steve approached the front door, Bucky grabbed his own cowboy hat from the hanger and adjusted it over his head. Steve reached for the knob, and as he swung the door wide, ready to breathe in the cool country air, the sight on the other side made the air leave his lungs instead.

There you stood, your hand frozen mid-air, knuckles inches away from where the wood had been just a second ago.

You looked like a fever dream against the backdrop of the dusty porch and green fields. You were wearing designer clothes that probably cost more than their truck and shoes that were never meant for gravel, with a mountain of expensive luggage flanking your sides.

Steve stood there frozen, his large frame filling the doorway. His eyes raked over you with disbelief and something warm… like a sudden, simmering heat building in his groin at the sight of a beautiful woman—

“Who the hell are you?” Bucky’s gruff voice rang out from behind him.

Your face, bewildered at the sight of the two burly, older men in front of you, softened slightly as you smiled despite the rude introduction.

“Uncle Steve, Uncle Bucky,” you breathed, letting your hand fall to extend a polite greeting. “It’s nice to see you guys again!”

You forced a polite, cheerful tone, though the words leaving your lips were a lie and a half. Calling these two men ‘Uncle’—men you hadn’t seen since you could barely speak—felt entirely foreign on your lips.

When your father brought up the idea of you staying in the countryside, he spoke of Steve Rogers and James Barnes with such wonder in his eyes. You were pretty sure you’d never even seen him talk about your own mother the way he did those two.

He’d shown you photographs from their golden days, and they were ridiculously handsome. Your father told you James—who went by Bucky—was the local ladies’ man, and his looks certainly proved it. Steve had been smaller then, thinner, but still just as good looking.

That’s who you expected to see standing on this porch. Instead, you were face to face with walls of muscle hidden beneath dirty denim, heavy boots, and cowboy hats. They were older—much older than the two boys in the photos.

They both wore thick facial hair now. Steve’s was dense, with blonde hair curling at the nape of his neck and blue eyes that looked visibly tired and stern. Bucky had salt and pepper peeking through his stubble. His hair was shorter than Steve’s, and his eyes were much more guarded—agitated, almost.

Bucky’s arms were folded tightly over his chest as he glared down at you like you were some common solicitor.

You swallowed hard, averting your eyes from Bucky’s rude gaze to meet Steve’s—who looked far more approachable and kind, if only by comparison.

“You guys are my father’s friends, right? I hope you got the letter letting you know that I'm…”

Bucky nudged Steve hard in the arm, as if trying to signal him for something.

You frowned, your voice trailing off. “…staying here.”

Steve straightened up as if snapping out of a daydream, not sparing Bucky a single glance. “Uh, yes. Right,” he grunted. “We got the letter, darlin’.”

You beamed, a smile spreading across your features. “Great! Um,” you stood on your tiptoes, trying to peek over that wall of broad shoulders and into the house. “Where should I put my stuff—?”

But Bucky stepped forward, propping one arm high against the doorframe, leaning down at you as he blocked your view and path.

“Sorry, kid,” Bucky grunted, though he didn’t sound sorry at all.

“Your daddy gave us a late notice, and we aren’t fit to babysit while you ‘xplore the countryside.” He shot Steve a look, his next question coming out with a harsh bite. “How ‘bout you try Paris instead?”

Steve just grinned, glancing at Bucky before stepping aside to let you in anyway. “I thought the suggestion was Italy, Buck?”

You could’ve sworn you heard Bucky mutter a litany of curses under his breath, but Steve paid him no mind. He leaned down, grabbing two suitcases at a time as if they weighed nothing, and hauled them into the living room.

“Come on, Buck,” Steve called back. “Help the little lady out.”

Bucky stayed against the doorframe for a second longer. The height difference was dizzying. You had to tilt your head back, straining the column of your neck just to meet his eyes beneath the shadow of his cowboy hat.

He didn’t look like a family friend at all.

He looked like a stormy, grumpy, old raincloud.

Your dad was actually friends with this guy?

After a few more curses, Bucky finally pushed himself off the wall and he moved with a begrudging pace, stepping deep into your personal space to snatch up the remaining bags. He didn’t just take them—he jerked them off the porch as if they were an inconvenience.

As he straightened up, his broad chest nearly brushed your shoulder. The scent of cedar, tobacco, and old leather hit you all at once, making your nose scrunch up. He cut his eyes down at you, giving you one last glare that essentially promised your stay wouldn’t be a vacation.

“Thank you—” you started, the words small and tentative.

Bucky didn’t even let you finish. He let out a grumpy, unintelligible grunt, turned his back on you, and hauled the luggage inside.

Steve set the heavy suitcases onto the floorboards, sending dust particles dancing in the shafts of sunlight cutting through the windows.

He straightened up, but before he could even offer you a tour, Bucky’s hand clamped onto his shoulder.

“Steve,” Bucky’s voice was low and dangerous. “A word. Now.”

Steve didn’t look surprised—he just looked tired. He gave you a warm, apologetic look that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Make yourself at home, darlin’. Use the water filter if you’re thirsty. We’ll be back in a second.”

Bucky’s entire face contorted into a grimace at the ‘darlin’’ comment. It was a good thing the brim of his hat shielded most of his expression. He hooked his fingers into the back of Steve’s jacket and hauled him toward the narrow hallway. You watched as Steve practically got dragged around the corner, a startled little “Oof!” escaping his lips as Bucky pulled him out of view.

You were left standing in the middle of the living room, feeling unwelcome and entirely out of place.

When your father spoke of these two, he made them sound like friendly, caring men—which had only fueled your excitement for the beginnings of your trip.

But now, standing there and staring up at a mounted deer head in the center of the wall, you were starting to wonder if this was a massive mistake after all.

“Steve, are you shittin’ me right now?” Bucky hissed just around the corner. “Whatever happened to ‘if this lady shows up on our doorstep, we’ll just turn her down and send her the other way’?”

“Come on.” Steve rested both hands on his hips, giving his friend a scolding look. “The girl traveled all this way just to see us.”

“Not us,” Bucky corrected sharply. “She wanted to visit the town.”

Steve continued anyway, ignoring the bite in Bucky’s tone. “She’s only goin’ to be here for—what? A couple of days? We can at least manage that, Bucky.”

Bucky shook his head in disbelief, his hand coming up to grip the back of his neck. “I can't believe this. Where is she even going to sleep, Steve? On that couch? It can barely hold the two of us for a Sunday beer, let alone a princess for a week.”

“Your room,” Steve said flatly.

Bucky’s eyes practically bulged out of his head. He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a vibrating growl. “My room? Are you outta’ your goddamn mind? Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

“You can sleep in mine. My bed is big enough for both of us, and far comfier than yours anyway.” Steve watched Bucky’s face carefully, a trace of a smirk playing on his lips. “Technically, I’m doin’ you a favor.”

Bucky opened his mouth to argue—to tell Steve exactly where he could shove his ‘favor’—but the words died in a frustrated, incoherent mumble.

A heavy silence fell between them. Then, they both leaned out slightly, glancing back toward the living room where you were still standing, looking small and out of place beneath that mounted deer head.

Steve’s gaze softened, his expression turning thoughtful.

“She’s a real beauty, ain’t she?” Steve murmured, his voice turning almost fond. “She’s all grown up now.”

It was a miracle you couldn’t feel the daggers Bucky was glaring into your back. His jaw clenched at Steve’s words, though he didn’t deny it entirely.

“She’s trouble, Steve. That’s what she is.”

“Buck,” Steve turned to him, his voice dropping slightly. “She’s just a girl with dreams bigger than her own head. Her father chose us, even if it’s been,” he blew raspberries, “years since he reached out properly. He was a close friend before he moved away. He did a lot for us—the least we can do is this.”

Bucky shifted his boots uncomfortably, his gaze lingering back on you for a moment longer than he intended. Through the gap in the hallway, he watched as you reached out a hesitant hand to touch the worn fabric of an old armchair, your eyes wide and glassy with wonder.

It was the same look he and Steve used to have back in the day—when the world felt big and full of promise, before the years had weathered them down.

You looked so innocent, completely untainted, and for some reason—especially knowing you were his close friend’s daughter—it was a look he wanted to protect. Though he would never admit it aloud.

He let out a long, heavy sigh, looking down at his boots before meeting Steve’s eyes again.

“Fine,” Bucky rasped, the word barely more than a growl. “But if she breaks somethin’—or if she starts actin’ like a spoiled little brat, I ain’t the one who’s gonna be gentle ‘bout it.”

“Hey,” Steve warned, though he couldn’t help the smile on his lips. “Play nice.”

“You want me to play nice?” Bucky huffed, already turning away. “I’ll show you how I play nice.”

He adjusted his hat, squared his shoulders, and stepped back into the living room. The floorboards creaked under his heavy boots, announcing his return.

“Alright, princess,” Bucky grumbled, his voice startling you as he marched toward your luggage. “Ain’t no five-star fancy hotel, and your tour guide ain’t like the young ones you see in the magazines.” He groaned, hoisting two of your suitcases. “Follow me. I’ll show you where you’re gonna be stayin’ before I change my mind.”

You blinked, not fully processing Bucky’s words until he was already halfway down the hall. He stopped, looking over his shoulder when he realized you weren’t following him.

“Well?” he huffed, his forehead wrinkling as he glared at you. “You comin’? Or do you need me to carry you, too?”

You quickly forced yourself off the couch, the floorboards creaking as your footsteps caught up to him. He let out a grunt of approval and turned back around, leading you toward the bedrooms. Your eyes couldn’t help but trace the broadness of Bucky’s shoulders from behind. He sauntered in front of you, his forearms flexed and straining with the weight of your suitcases.

Despite all his grumpiness, he was an undeniably strong, capable, and handsome man.

So, how could you not stare?

You nearly bumped into him when he came to an abrupt stop in front of a closed door. Setting one of the suitcases down, he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Stepping inside, it didn’t take long to realize this was Bucky’s personal space.

The bed was covered in dark blue plaid sheets that had been left unmade. Drawers were cracked open with clothes and socks peeking out. The room carried a scent that was uniquely Bucky—heavy on the masculine notes of cedarwood and worn leather.

“Well, this is it,” Bucky announced, stepping inside and dropping your suitcases in the middle of the floor.

“Your room?” you frowned, following him and taking in the rustic surroundings. “My dad told me you guys had a big family house. I… I thought I’d be staying in a guest room or something. Not one of your own bedrooms…”

“Yeah, well—your old man’s memory’s all fucked up,” Bucky grumbled, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.

You bit your lower lip as guilt started to eat at you. You were a woman who prided herself on making good first impressions—a trait your father had drilled into you early. In the city, a good impression meant more connections, and connections meant moving up in the world. It was a survival tactic back home.

With that in mind, the way Bucky was deliberately avoiding your gaze killed you inside.

“I’m sorry—”

But before you could fully express your apology, Steve’s heavy footsteps sounded behind you. He propped an arm against the doorframe, grinning broadly.

“Don’t get too comfortable in here just yet,” Steve said, clearly trying to lighten the tense mood. “You wanted a taste of the countryside, right? Let’s go show you the rest of it.”

To say you wanted a taste of the countryside was a bit of a stretch—your father had only agreed to let you travel if you started here first. With Bucky’s gaze still digging daggers into your back, you felt hesitant, but Steve was so warm, his smile so genuine, that you were grateful for him extending a grapevine.

“You know what? Sure, that sounds nice,” you said, forcing a smile before turning back to Bucky. “Will you be coming?”

“Waste my energy walkin’ around a place I’ve seen a million times just ‘cause a pretty girl shows up on my doorstep?” Bucky looked down at his nails, deciding they were far more interesting than you. “No thanks.”

“Don’t mind him,” Steve leaned in close, offering a small, reassuring smile. “He’s all bark, no bite. He’ll come around.”

With a gentle hand hovering near your lower back, he guided you out of the bedroom and away from Bucky’s brooding presence. Steve walked you through the rest of the rustic home, pointing out the bathroom—a simple but clean space with a clawfoot tub.

“Shower’s right through there,” he noted, gesturing to the brass fixtures. “Water takes a minute to get hot, but once it does, it’ll practically peel your skin off, so be careful.”

Next was the kitchen, which felt like the heart of the house with its cast-iron pans and the scent of bitter coffee. A small, round wooden table sat in the middle with only two chairs. It was clear they weren’t used to company; the house was built for the two of them and them alone. Steve paused at the table, eyeing the two chairs before letting out a small huff of a laugh.

“We don’t have another dinin’ chair, so I hope you don’t mind sittin’ on one of our laps.”

Your face immediately flushed as the words registered. “W-what—?”

“I’m just messin’ around, buttercup,” Steve snickered, though it didn’t sound much like a joke.

Finally, he led you out onto the wide, wraparound porch. Several chairs and comfy benches were scattered about, far more accommodating than the seating inside.

“This is where we gather ‘round, bring some folks over and play some tunes,” Steve explained, gesturing to the seats.

You raised a brow. “You guys play instruments?”

“Guitar,” Steve said, adjusting his hat. “And Bucky plays the harmonica.”

The guitar was fitting for Steve, but you couldn’t help but giggle at the image of a man as grumpy as Bucky Barnes whipping out a harmonica and going to town. Steve’s grin widened at the sound of your laughter.

“You’re gigglin’ now, but just watch,” he pointed a finger at you jokingly. “He’s quite the player. We’ll have to show you sometime.”

Now that you could stand on the porch without the chaos of hauling luggage, the view was absolutely breathtaking. Vast, rolling green fields seemed to touch the sky, turning golden in the afternoon sun. Steve glanced down at you, taking in the way you stared into the distance, your eyes wide and full of wonder as a soft “Wow” escaped your lips.

“Beautiful, ain’t it?” Steve smiled, sweeping a hand toward the horizon as you stepped into the front yard. “No skyscrapers to block the view, and the only neighbors you’ll hear are the chickens, the cattle, and the horses.”

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured, letting the fresh air fill your lungs in a way city air never could. “It’s different, but it’s beautiful.”

Steve turned, his smile softening as he caught sight of you. With the afternoon sun hitting you just right—with the soft wind blowing in your hair and the sunlight and catching the gleam in your eyes—he seemed to find you much more interesting than the landscape.

To Steve, you were absolutely breathtaking. He knew that if your father were here right now, he’d slap him silly for the way he was staring, let alone for the impure thoughts running through his mind. He cleared his throat, trying to shake the filthy, mental images running through his old mind for a girl who’s more than half his age.

“I’m glad you think so.”

He began walking you toward the side of the house, leading you to a sprawling, well-tended garden and a series of larger fields beyond. “Over here is where we grow most of our own. Corn, beans, squash... and I’ve got a patch of tomatoes that’ll be the best thing you ever tasted once they’re ripe.”

You’d always thought the farmers' markets in the city square were the closest you’d get to whole foods, but this was entirely different.

Steve reached down, casually plucking a stray weed from the edge of a row with a grunt. “Bucky’s the muscle when it comes to the heavy tillin’, but I’m the one with the green thumb. I’m a damn good cook, too, if I do say so myself.”

He stood up, dusting his hands off on his dirty denim jeans as he gave you a playful, confident look. “I’ll have to whip somethin’ up for you one of these nights you’re here. Show you what real farm-to-table food actually tastes like.”

You looked at the vastness of the crops, realizing just how much work these two put in with their own very large hands. “You really do everything yourselves, don’t you?”

“That’s the only right way to do it, baby,” Steve drawled, planting his hands on his hips as his smirk deepened.

Baby.

The word rolled off his tongue—low, honeyed, and thick with a southern accent that made your heart skip a beat. You felt the heat climb into your cheeks, and you quickly looked down at your shoes, suddenly feeling too shy to maintain his gaze.

A little, raspy chuckle escaped his lips. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“Let me show you the horses,” Steve said, nodding toward the stables and gesturing for you to follow. “Don’t wanna keep ‘em waitin’ now.”

He led you toward the stables, where the heavy, earthy scent of hay and horsehide hit you all at once. It was a thick, unfamiliar smell, and you couldn’t help but scrunch your nose.

Steve noticed, glancing over his shoulder with an amused chuckle. “Not exactly the perfume you’re used to, is it?” He gestured toward the wide, shadowed stalls. “This is where we keep our beauties—”

Steve stopped in his tracks as he realized you guys weren’t alone.

Bucky was deep in the shadows of the furthest stall. His hat was tipped back, and his sleeves were rolled past his elbows to reveal beefy, corded forearms as he brushed down a massive, coal-black mare. The horse huffed, leaning into his touch, and for a split second, you saw a flicker of softness in Bucky’s eyes.

It was clearly a side he didn’t want you to see, because as soon as he heard your footsteps, his head snapped to you with a cold glare.

His jaw tightened, and his movements with the brush grew sharper, almost more aggressive.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Bucky grumbled, his eyes returning to the horse.

You bit your lip, choosing your words carefully to not upset him further. “Uncle Steve just wanted to show me around—I didn’t mean to bother you, Uncle Bucky.”

“Don’t call us uncle, kid,” Bucky snapped, still refusing to look at you. “We haven’t seen you since you were in diapers. We ain’t family.”

You flinched slightly at his cold words.

“Buck,” Steve warned, his voice dropping as he rested a protective hand on your shoulder.

Bucky finally looked at you. His eyes landed on Steve’s hand before snapping back to your face. He clicked his tongue dismissively and went back to tending his horse.

A slow, tired exhale escaped Steve behind you. With his hand still on you, he gently nudged you to the next stall, where a horse with a beautiful chestnut mane and the softest brown eyes was watching you curiously.

“This right here is my horse,” Steve said. His voice was much softer now, a far difference to the tone he’d used with Bucky just seconds ago.

You finally let out the breath you’d been holding since Bucky told you off. A small, shy smile tugged at your lips as the horse huffed a warm greeting against your palm. “She’s beautiful.”

“Her name’s Peggy.”

A loud, unmistakable scoff echoed from the far end of the barn where Bucky stood. He didn’t say a word, but the sound was enough to let you know there was a history with that name you didn’t quite understand yet.

Steve ignored Bucky’s attitude entirely, his focus remaining solely on you. Peggy, sensing your gentle energy, let out a soft whuff and began nuzzling her velvet nose against your palm, rubbing her head into your hand with an affectionate push.

You let out a startled, breathless giggle. Back home, you were used to lap dogs and small cats—not a thousand pound animal demanding your attention. You weren’t used to something so large being so friendly, and you instinctively pulled your hand away, stumbling back half a step when the sensation became overwhelming.

“Be a good girl now, Peg,” Steve murmured to the horse, though his eyes never left you. “You’re scarin’ the misses.”

Before you could fully retreat, Steve’s large, rough hand moved from your shoulder to your waist. His grip was firm and steadying, pinning you right where you were between the stall and his body. He stepped closer until his chest was a solid, warm wall against your back.

He leaned down over your shoulder, his face so close you could feel his heat. You swallowed hard as his voice came out raspy and hot, vibrating right against your ear.

“Wouldya look at that? She loves you.”

The heat from Steve’s chest was seeping through your clothes, and your gaze dropped to his hands. They were huge, his tanned, calloused fingers practically wrapping halfway around your waist, holding you in place almost possessively.

You felt like you were on fire. Being pinned between a massive horse and an even more massive man had your heart running circles in your chest.

But then, your eyes drifted just past Steve’s shoulder.

At the far end of the stable, the shadows couldn’t hide Bucky, no matter how hard he tried to tuck himself away.

His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle bulged in his cheek, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the handle of the brush. He looked beyond grumpy—he looked almost livid. His dark eyes were hidden beneath the brim of his hat, but you could still feel them boring into the exact spot where Steve’s hand met your hip.

“Can I… can I meet your horse too, Bucky?” you asked, your voice coming out soft and breathy.

The silence that followed was deafening. You nearly regretted the question the moment it left your mouth. Steve went still, hovering just behind you as he, too, waited for Bucky’s response.

Eventually, Bucky huffed out a harsh, dry laugh. “My horse don’t like strangers,” he murmured. “’specially ones that smell like expensive city soap. It’ll just aggravate her.”

“I’m sure she’s not that picky,” you said, forcing a small smile in an attempt to crack his shell.

Despite the safety of Steve’s hand and chest, you took a breath as you gently ducked out of the way. You could feel Steve’s eyes on you as you took a step toward the far end of the stall.

Bucky didn’t push you away, which was a surprise in itself. Instead, he just mumbled, “If she bites, I’m not suckin’ on your finger.”

You didn’t doubt him for a second.

As you drew closer, the massive black mare—the one Bucky claimed was so ‘aggravated’ by city folk—perked her ears up. She didn’t huff or stomp. She stretched her long neck over the gate, her nostrils flared as she caught the scent of you. Before Bucky could tell you to leave, the mare let out a low, vibrating nuzzle against your shoulder.

“Oh!” a small, genuine laugh of disbelief escaped you. “She likes my soap, apparently!”

Bucky stood still, his eyes widening as he watched his beloved horse befriend a stranger in a matter of seconds. He folded his arms over his chest, watching your delicate fingers work through the mare’s dark mane.

He watched the way your small smile lit up your face, the pure joy that took over once you’d won the animal’s affection. His heart swelled, though he couldn’t tell if it was because of how soft and innocent you looked or because his horse was being such a good girl by opening up so easily.

For the sake of his blood pressure, he chose the latter.

But then, the mare got a little too excited. Eager for more attention, she tossed her heavy head and snapped her teeth toward your fingers, catching you off guard.

As you gasped, Bucky’s hand shot out. His fingers—rough and surprisingly warm—grabbed around your wrist, pulling your hand back toward his chest and out of harm’s way.

“Easy, girl,” he cooed.

If someone were to touch your face right now, they would’ve pulled back from the heat alone.

His voice wasn’t the usual grumpy mumble he used to tell you off. It was a low, almost melodic vibration. And although he wasn’t speaking to you, your heart thrummed just the same. His thumb brushed against the pulse point of your wrist, and he could surely feel how fast your heart was moving because of him.

“She’s got a bit of a temper when she’s happy,” Bucky explained, finally dropping your hand.

You frowned slightly, feeling a pang of disappointment at the loss of contact. To Bucky, however, it looked like you were just shaken from nearly losing a finger.

“What’s her name?” you asked softly.

Bucky swallowed hard, reaching out to pet the mare’s nose. “Rebecca. Named after my late sister.”

“Oh,” you breathed, your shoulders deflating slightly at the news. “I’m so sorry, Bucky. It’s a beautiful name.”

Bucky didn’t look at you. He just kept his hand on Rebecca’s nose, his thumb tracing a slow circle over her skin.

“Do you guys have family that live nearby?” you pried gently, glancing between him and Steve, who was stepping up beside you. “Or is it just the two of you out here?”

“Just us now,” Steve said, his voice gentle. “Our folks passed on a good while back, but they were the ones who started all this.”

He gestured to the sturdy beams of the barn and the fields beyond. “Our parents were best friends, just like us. Raised us side-by-side on this very dirt. Sarah and Winnie—those were our mothers.”

A small, almost shy smile touched Steve’s lips as he looked at the garden rows outside the stable door. “My ma, Sarah, she was the one with the green thumb. Always takin’ care of the crops, talkin’ to the tomatoes like they were her own kin. Pretty sure I got my patience from her.”

He then nudged his head towards Bucky.

“And Buck’s mom, Winnie?” he whistled, making Bucky shake his head with a deep chuckle. “She was a horse girl through and through. Could break a wild stallion before she even had her morning coffee. She’s the one who taught us how to ride—and how to listen to ‘em. Ain’t that right, Bucky?”

Bucky looked down at his boots, the brim of his hat casting a shadow over his eyes, but you still managed to catch a glimpse of that real smile tugging at his lips.

“Yeah. She was a hardass, that’s for sure,” Bucky nodded, his voice surprisingly soft. “Was hard on your dad, too.”

You smiled at the thought. The few times they had brought up your father today, it was always a petty remark.

“Were you and my dad close?” you asked gently.

Steve watched Bucky, his expression unreadable, as if waiting for his friend to take the lead on the answer. When Bucky remained quiet, his thumb still tracing circles on the mare’s nose, Steve finally spoke up.

“We were very good friends,” he explained with a kind, steady smile.

Before you could dwell on their tension or press for more, Steve clapped his hands together. The sharp sound made you jump and caused Bucky to snap his head up.

“Well, how ‘bout it?” Steve asked, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. “Sun’s gonna be setting in a bit, and there ain’t no better way to see the back acres. You wanna go for a ride?”

Your eyes widened. “I—I don’t really know how to ride,” you admitted, a bit embarrassed. “I’ve only ever seen horses in movies or… through a fence.”

Steve’s smile widened as he stepped closer, resting a hand on the small of your back and gently guiding you toward his horse. “Don’t you worry none, buttercup. We won’t let you fall.”

The sun was starting to set, and Steve and Bucky led the horses out of the dim stable and into the open air. The wide expanse of the ranch felt even more intimidating now that you were expected to traverse it on the back of a living, breathing animal.

Steve checked the cinch on Peggy’s saddle, tugging it tight to ensure it wouldn’t slip. He swung himself up and settled, looking like he’d been born in the saddle itself. He looked down at you, holding the reins loosely in one hand while offering the other.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he encouraged, his voice deep and sweet. “Left foot in the stirrup. Don’t be shy now.”

You looked at the height of the horse, then at Steve, feeling hesitant. You took a step back, shaking your head. “I… I don’t know about this, Steve. Maybe I should just walk—”

Before you could finish, Bucky appeared behind you. He didn’t give you a warning, he simply pressed up against your back and gripped his hands around your waist tightly. You gasped as he hoisted you into the air effortlessly, lifting you upward until were seatled firmly on Peggy’s back in front of Steve.

Steve’s hands found your waist as you wobbled, steadying you in place.

Bucky stepped back, adjusting the brim of his hat. “You don’t decline a ride out here,” he lectured, his voice gruff. “It’s rude.”

He turned on his heel and walked back to his own horse, leaving you slightly embarassed after being humbled by Bucky yet again.

“He’s got a point,” Steve chuckled warmly from behind you. He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you back against his frame as he took the reins in his hands. “And besides, I’ve got a real firm hold on you. You’re not goin’ anywhere.”

With a sharp click of his tongue, Bucky urged Rebecca into a brisk trot, quickly pulling ahead and taking the lead. You watched him go, the silhouette of his broad shoulders dipped in the gold of the setting sun, making him look like he’d stepped straight out of a cinematic painting.

In contrast, your ride with Steve was gentle and slow, but you prefered it that way.

“You’re doin’ just fine,” Steve murmured behind you. He noticed the way you were white knuckling the saddle horn and reached around you. “Here. Take the reins.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” you admitted, but Steve was already sliding his large hands over yours, guiding your fingers to grip the leather straps.

He kept his hands over yours, warm and firmly in control. “I’ve got you.”

You watched Bucky and his horse tread on, his pace never slowing. You bit your lip, the silence and the distance between you and him finally giving you the courage to ask the question that had been weighing on your mind since you arrived.

“He doesn’t like me much, does he?” you asked softly.

Steve’s hands tightened just slightly over yours, a small sigh escaping him.

“It ain’t that…” he trailed off. “Buck’s just… he’s really big on loyalty. Friendship, family—all that kind of stuff.”

Steve watched his friend ride into the distance, his eyes filled with earnestness.

“When your dad had you, Buck was so damn happy. Your dad was the first guy out of the group to do the whole marriage-and-kid thing. Buck thought, ‘A kid of yours is a kid of mine.’ He was excited to be a godfather, or an uncle. We were just excited to be in your life, you know?”

You stayed silent, prompting him to continue.

“So, when your ma wanted to pack her things and move you all somewhere ‘better’—Bucky was livid. He told your dad, ‘How are you gonna let a girl dictate how you live your life?’ and your dad just said, ‘When you fall in love with a woman, you’d do anything for her. You just don’t get it.’”

Steve swallowed hard as he went on.

“And since you all left for the city, we never heard back from him. So you can imagine how it felt for Buck to get a letter from your daddy out of nowhere, askin’ for his daughter to stay with us after all these years.”

You bit your lower lip, the broken raspiness in Steve’s voice making the guilt eat at your heart even faster. You knew Bucky’s resentment was technically unfair—a result of your father’s silence rather than anything you had done—but you couldn’t help the sympathy you felt for the years of friendship they had lost.

“I’m sorry things didn’t turn out the way you both wanted them to,” you whispered.

“Don’t apologize, darlin’,” Steve reassured you. He momentarily shifted his grip, one hand coming up to ruffle your hair in a playful, teasing gesture that made you lean back into him. “Sometimes you just gotta see the glass as half-full. I’m just glad your dad still chose us to take care of you after all these years. To me, that’s better than nothin’.”

He squeezed your hand where it rested on the reins, his thumb brushing over your knuckles.

“And my,” he rumbled, his voice vibrating through your spine, “what a fine woman you’ve grown up to be.”

Your face went hot, the heat of it rivaling the setting sun that touched your skin. The way he said it—with a dark, sultry appreciation that wasn’t at all familial—sent excitement from your heart straight to your core.

Instinctively, you shifted in the saddle, trying to find your breath, but the movement only caused you to lean back further. Your hips moved against the hard, muscular denim of his thighs, and you felt the hitch in his breathing the moment you rubbed against him.

Steve didn’t pull anyway—if anything, one hand found your waist, giving it a possessive squeeze.

“Don’t rub up against me like that, baby,” he rasped against your ear, his hat shielding the dark, hungry look in his eyes. “You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

Meanwhile, Bucky spurred Rebecca into a trot, circling back until he was riding parallel to Peggy. His eyes didn’t stray to you, but he was clearly aware of how closely you were tucked into Steve’s lap.

“Steve,” Bucky called out, deliberately ignoring your presence. “We hittin’ the Country Club tonight?”

The Country Club wasn’t the kind of place with golf courses and polo shirts. It was the heart of the town—a sprawling, wood planked hall where the beer was cold, the line dancing was fast and sloppy, and the mechanical bull was the only thing meaner than a hungry coyote.

It was loud, rowdy, and exactly where every cowboy in the county ended up on a Saturday night.

Steve leaned back a little away from you. “Yeah, I reckon we are.” He looked down at you, eyes twinkling. “How ‘bout it, sweetheart? You wanna tag along? We’ll show you more of the countryside your dad wanted you to see.”

You felt Bucky’s gaze then.

It was practically screaming for you to say no.

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude,” you said, forcing a polite chuckle. “I’ll just stay home and get settled in. I’m sure you guys want some time with your friends.”

Bucky let out a short, huffed breath of what might have been relief, but Steve wasn’t having it.

“There ain’t much to do at home but listen to the chickens, darlin’,” Steve insisted. “Come with us. It’ll be fun. You can watch good ol’ Buck here get thrown off the bull for the third time this month.”

“I don’t get thrown off,” Bucky mumbled, folding his arms over his chest as he glared at the horizon.

“Come on,” Steve urged. “And if you aren’t havin’ a good time, or if it gets too loud for ya, just say the word. We’ll leave right then and there. Promise.”

You stayed silent, still hesitant as your eyes flickered between the two of them. Bucky technically wasn’t saying no, yet he still avoided looking at you. Steve, on the other hand, was a presence you couldn’t ignore.

“You know, your daddy loved the place.” Steve added, coaxing you in.

You smiled softly, already picturing your father getting giddy and rowdy with these two men in their younger days. You glanced at Bucky warily, seeking some kind of confirmation. “Is that true?”

Bucky didn’t look up. “Never missed a night.”

“Okay,” you breathed, a small smile finally tugging at your lips. “I’ll go.”

The tension in Steve’s shoulders dropped instantly at your agreement.

“Great. Let’s head home and freshen up, and then we’ll be right on out.” He took control of the reins, spinning Peggy around toward the house. “You’re gonna have a lot of fun, sweetheart. I promise.”

By the time you arrived back at the house, the evening air had turned crisp, and the sun had long since dipped beneath the silhouette of the mountains. You retreated to Bucky’s room—the space he had begrudgingly vacated for you—and closed the door behind you.

You began to strip out of your travel-worn clothes, shivering slightly as the cool air hit your skin. You were down to your undergarments—simple, soft white cotton that felt wholesome and modest, yet left you feeling incredibly vulnerable in the middle of this… very masculine sanctuary.

As you reached for your fresh clothes in your suitcase, your eyes caught on one of Bucky’s hats sitting atop of the dark wood dresser. It was worn at the edges, shaped perfectly to the curve of his head.

On a very curious whim, you picked it up and placed it on your own head. It was far too big, the brim dropping over your eyes, but you couldn’t help but glance at yourself in the mirror.

There was something about the rugged piece of him covering your hair that made you smile.

Here you were, in a grown man’s bedroom, wearing nothing but his cowboy hat and white cotton undergarments, grinning at your reflection. You felt like a little girl playing pretend. You practiced adjusting the brim, trying to mimic the way Steve and Bucky did it, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at how ridiculous it all felt.

Suddenly, the bedroom door swung open, the sharp creak of the hinges making your head snap to the sound.

Bucky stepped inside, his head down as he fumbled with the buttons of a half-done shirt, his mind clearly a million miles away.

“Steve, have you seen my brown jacket? I think I left it in the—”

As Bucky lifted his head, his breath got stuck in his throat. The air in the small bedroom vanished instantly, leaving a vacuum of pure, suffocating tension. You felt like you could choke.

There you were, bathed in the soft, amber glow of the bedside lamp. You were dressed only in soft white cotton, the little pink bow at the center of your underwear greeting him shamelessly. But what truly made Bucky’s throat go dry was the sight of the hat—his hat—perched on your head. The brim was tilted at that same playful angle you’d been practicing, casting a shadow over your wide, startled eyes.

“I…” you started, face flushing in embarrassment. “I didn’t—”

You braced yourself. You expected him to yell, to tell you to take his precious hat off your head and stay home for the rest of the night. You were, after all, standing in his bedroom, stripped down and wearing his most personal possession.

“I came for my jacket,” Bucky croaked instead, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over broken glass.

He took a step past the doorframe, ostensibly to find his coat, yet his eyes were traitors. They kept snapping back to your face, to the hat, to the curves of your body, and back to the hat again. He swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing sharply.

“You look…” he stopped himself, his chest rising and falling in a heavy breath as he struggled to find his composure. “You’re wearin’ my hat.”

Mortified, you felt the heat climb from your chest all the way to the tips of your ears. You ripped the hat off your head—leaving your hair a bit fuzzled and messed up—and clutched the stiff felt against your chest in a desperate attempt to shield your body.

“I just…” you stammered, small and breathless. “I saw it sitting there on the dresser and I got a bit curious, I guess. I didn’t mean to—”

You squeezed your eyes, waiting for his sharp tongue to lecture you on boundaries, but instead, you heard his boots move closer to you. His large hands reached out, gently prying the hat from your grip. You held your breath as he lifted it, but he didn’t set it back on the dresser.

With a slow, careful motion, he propped it back onto your head—his fingers lingered at the brim, adjusting it just so, tilting it until the shadow of it played across your flustered cheeks.

“No,” he murmured, his voice low and deep, making your bare toes curl against the floor. “Wear it tonight.”

Bucky stepped back, though he was still far too close for you to think straight. He licked his bottom lip, the moisture glistening, before he caught the skin between his teeth, biting down. His eyes were dark, hooded, and heavy as they trailed a slow, scorched path down to your face, then dropped to the curve of your body, before snapping back up to lock onto your gaze.

“It looks much better on you than it ever did on me, anyway,” he rasped.

You felt the words die in your throat. You could only stare back at him, wide-eyed, because that was the first genuinely kind thing he had said to you since you arrived.

“Thank you, Bucky,” you breathed.

Bucky didn’t say anything else. He pressed his lips together, giving you a curt nod before grabbing his brown jacket from the chair near the door.

“Meet us out front in ten,” he called out over his shoulder. His voice had returned to its usual gruffness as he walked out, though he shut the door much softer than he had opened it.

Ten minutes later, the cool night air hit your skin as you pushed through the screen door, but the atmosphere on the porch turned stiflingly hot the second you stepped out.

Steve and Bucky were leaning against the porch railing, deep in a quiet conversation that died the moment they saw you. Both of them straightened up immediately, their bodies rigid as if they’d been struck by lightning.

You stood there, a little self-conscious, wearing a dress that hugged your waist and flared at your hips. It was cute, feminine, and a stark contrast to the rugged, oversized cowboy hat resting on your head.

Steve’s breath left him in a sharp, audible hitch. With his blue eyes wide, he let them travel from the tips of your toes up the length of your bare legs, lingering far too long on the way the dress fit before landing on the hat. A slow, crooked grin spread across his face.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve exhaled. “You’re gonna start a riot in that town, sweetheart.”

Bucky’s reaction, however, was worse. He didn’t even give you the courtesy of a smile. He just stood there, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes dangerously dark.

Every time Bucky looked at you, he saw his old friend’s face—the man who had trusted him to watch over his daughter—but every time his gaze dropped to the swell of your breast or the curve of your shining lips, that trust felt like a fraying rope.

He looked at the hat on your head, and to Bucky, that hat meant he had already made his claim on you.

Long before Steve ever could.

“We should go,” Bucky strained, his voice sounding like he was physically fighting the urge to say something he shouldn’t.

“Before it gets any darker.”

By the time the neon sign for the Country Club flickered into view, the parking lot was already a sea of mud caked duallys and vintage pickups.

As you stepped out of the truck and Steve held the door for you, your ears rang with the muffled thrum of music. The entire building seemed to vibrate with the stomp and clacking of leather boots on hardwood, punctuated by the roar of a crowd cheering on someone at the mechanical bull.

Nervous, you tuck between the two men for comfort.

Steve noticed your hesitation. He placed a steadying hand on your lower back, his thumb tracing a slow circle over the fabric of your dress.

“Stay close, darlin’. It’s a bit rowdy tonight.”

They led you through the swinging double doors and straight to the long, scarred bar. The bartender—a man who looked like he’d seen a century’s worth of bar fights—gave Steve and Bucky a nod before sliding three coasters onto the wood.

“Andy,” Bucky greeted, his voice barely audible over the fiddle music.

“If it isn’t Cap and Winter,” the bartender, Andy, said, already turning around to grab a well-worn bottle of whiskey. He cut a sharp look toward you.

“And who’s the little lady?

“This here is Crazy Clyde’s daughter,” Steve said, pulling out a barstool and gesturing for you to take a seat. “She’s visitin’ town.”

You took a seat on the high stool, eyeing Bucky and Steve with a raised brow. “Crazy Clyde?”

“That was your dad’s nickname,” Bucky explained, already taking a slow, steady sip out of the amber whiskey Andy had poured him.

You couldn’t help it; a small chuckle bubbled up in your throat. The idea of your father—the man you knew as relatively composed—running around with a name like a low budget cartoon character was too much.

“How come he gets stuck with a corny nickname like that while you guys get to walk around with cool ones like ‘Cap’ and ‘Winter’?” you asked, tilting your head.

Steve let out a huff of a laugh, leaning his elbow on the bar so he could tilt his head closer to yours.

“Well, now, don’t go feelin' too bad for him, sweetheart,” Steve said, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “He earned that name fair and square. Your daddy had a habit of chasin’ down drinks and jumpin’ off barn roofs on a dare. He was a wild one—made us look like choir boys back in the day.”

Your smile widened, letting out a soft laugh at the thought. Steve’s eyes crinkled as he laughed along, and in the corner of your eye, you were fairly certain you saw Bucky’s lips curve into a faint smile as he watched the two of you.

“So, what can we get ya?” Steve shouted over the music. “They make a decent gin fizz if you want somethin’ light.”

You looked at the rows of whiskey bottles and the rough edged men around you. Bucky’s fingers were already nursing an amber glass, drinking it without any reaction, and although you knew you couldn’t do the same, you still wanted to try and fit in.

“I’ll just have whatever you guys are having,” you tried to sound more confident than you felt.

Steve’s eyebrows raised, amused. He looked at Bucky, who only snickered behind the rim of his glass.

“You sure about that, sweetheart?” Steve asked, his brows furrowing in concern. “That’s a lot of kick for someone who ain’t used to drinkin’.”

“Just get the damn girl what she wants, Steve,” Bucky grumbled.

He set his glass down, the heavy thud punctuating his words as he looked you up and down, his eyes lingering on the hat again.

“If she wants to bite off more than she can chew, let her.”

Steve gave Bucky a skeptical look, then turned his gaze back to you. Eventually, he sighed and signaled with his fingers for Andy to bring over another glass. Once the whiskey was nestled on your coaster, you lifted it, and the pungent, medicinal smell immediately made you scrunch your nose.

Bucky snickered, taking satisfaction in your hesitation.

Steve lifted his own glass, the rim of it hovering right against his lips. “Are you sure ‘bout this, sweetheart? You know, it’s never too late to order a fruity cocktail—”

But before he could even finish the sentence, you inhaled deeply, tilted your head back, and downed the entire glass in one go.

Steve’s jaw hung open while Bucky turned his head toward you, his eyes widening.

The drink was disgusting.

The burn hit your throat like liquid fire, making your eyes water, but the look on their faces made every bit of the sting worth it.

You slammed the glass down, the heavy thud punctuating the silence of their shock. For a second, your mind was dizzy and your eyes watered. The whiskey hit your stomach like a ball of hot lead, and you couldn’t help but gag, a hand flying to your mouth as you fought to keep your pride and the liquid down.

“Not… not too bad,” you choked out, eyes watering.

Steve blinked in disbelief before throwing his head back and slapping a hand on the bar with a laugh. “Jesus, baby!”

“Hell, if you wanted to shoot it back, you could’ve just ordered a shot,” Bucky remarked.

You shivered, your throat still feeling like you’d swallowed a hot coal.

“What do you mean?” you rasped, genuinely confused. “Isn’t that how you do it?”

Steve reached over, his fingers gently brushing your arm as he laughed. “Usually, with a pour that big, you’re supposed to sip it, sweetheart. Savor the flavor, or whatever the hell the distillers say.”

Your face felt hot from a mixture of embarrassment and the alcohol.

“… Oh.”

He shook his head, looking at the empty glass and then back at your flushed face. “But hey, looks like you got your daddy’s traits after all. Clyde never did have much patience for sippin’ either.”

Suddenly, the crowd exploded into a loud roar of hooting and hollering that made the floors shake. Across the room, a young cowboy had just been launched into the padded mats by a mechanical bull that looked… more like a prehistoric beast than a machine.

The adrenaline from the whiskey and the booming atmosphere was blooming fast in your chest, making you feel braver and a little more reckless than you had any right to be.

You looked at the bull, then back at the two men who were cheering along with the crowd.

“I want to try it,” you blurted out over the noise.

Steve’s laughter caught in his throat, and he looked down at you with wide eyes. “You want to ride on that?”

“What’s the matter, Cap?” you teased, encouraged by the alcohol. “Don’t think I've got enough of my dad’s traits in me?”

You glanced at Bucky, but he hadn’t said a word. His eyes trailed from your face down to the hem of your dress, his expression slightly judgmental. He looked as though he were a father himself, clicking his tongue in disapproval.

“It’s a long way down,” Bucky warned, his voice bordering on condescending. “And your dress is hardly fit for a machine like that. You tryna’ flash the entire bar, city girl?”

You weren’t fond of the way Bucky was talking down to you, treating you like a child who didn't know any better. If gulping down a glass of whiskey neat wasn’t enough to prove you were capable, then riding that bull would have to do it.

“I’m going,” you declared, sliding off the barstool.

You felt a little lightheaded as your feet hit the floor, but you straightened your shoulders and adjusted Bucky’s hat, pulling the brim down low over your eyes exactly the way he did. In the ruckus of the club, you didn’t hear the soft, reluctant chuckle that escaped Bucky’s lips at the sight of you mimicking him.

Steve’s hand shot out, catching your wrist before you could take another step.

“Listen, it’s not going to be like how it is in the movies, sweetheart. It’s hard—you’ve gotta use your core, and if you don’t grip it right, you’re gonna go flyin’,” he warned.

You gently pried your hand away, giving him a playful, tipsy nudge in the shoulder. “I’ve got it, Steve!”

You turned to head toward the pit, though you wobbled slightly as the whiskey did a little dance in your head. You caught your balance quickly as you approached the announcer—a guy in a dark Stetson who was holding a megaphone. You leaned in, shouting over the music that you were a family friend of Steve and Bucky’s and that you wanted a turn.

“Well, alright now!” his voice boomed through the rafters. “Looks like we got a brave one tonight! This here is Steve and Bucky’s girl! Let’s see if she’s got the grit to match ‘em!”

The crowd erupted, and you felt several pairs of eyes on you. Men whistled and women cheered, and you felt like your heart could explode in your chest from the rush.

At the bar, Bucky’s face went a deep shade of crimson that he tried to hide beneath his hat.

Steve, however, didn’t look embarrassed at all. He caught your eye and gave you a little nod, his chest puffed out like he was more than happy to claim you in front of the whole county.

The operator gave you a hand up, and you swung your leg over the leather saddle. Bucky was right—the dress was an issue. It bunched up high on your thighs, but with the adrenaline and whiskey singing in your veins, you didn’t care.

The bull started with slow rolls, and you shifted your hips, digging your knees in. As the machine began to pick up speed, spinning and bucking in sharp gallops, you held on tighter and engaged your core just like Steve told you.

Steve leaned back against the table next to Bucky, letting out a low whistle.

“Wow,” he breathed. “Look at her, Buck. She looks…” Steve’s eyes trailed from the tilt of your head down to your bare legs, clenched tight around the machine, “… delicious.”

Bucky scoffed, but he wasn’t even looking at you anymore; he was looking at the crowd. His eyes kept darting around the room, noting every low whistle and hungry gaze coming from the local cowboys. He saw the way the men were eyeing the curve of your legs and the way your dress hugged your chest as you held on for dear life.

“Stevie,” Bucky muttered. “I don’t like this.”

“What?” Steve shouted over the noise, leaning in closer to his friend.

Bucky looked around, his jaw locked tight. “I don’t like the way they’re lookin’ at her, Steve.”

He looked less like a proud family friend and more like a predator protecting his territory. The more the men around them whistled or ogled your legs, the more he wanted to walk over there and pull you off that machine himself. He hated the way they looked at you because he knew exactly what they were thinking—mostly because he was thinking the exact same thing.

“She’s doin’ a great job and she’s havin’ fun,” Steve countered. “Look at her, Buck. She’s smilin’ all cute. Just let her be.”

Bucky’s gaze didn’t waver from the crowd, his knuckles nearly turning white as he gripped the edge of the bar.

“That’s the point,” he muttered under his breath, but the ruckus was too loud, and Steve didn’t hear him.

A group of younger guys moved in right next to them, not even trying to be quiet. They leaned against the railing of the bull pit, their eyes glued to the way your dress was riding up as the machine bucked and made you bounce.

“That’s Steve and Bucky’s girl?” one of them jeered, his eyes raking over you with a slow, dirty look. “You think they’re sharin’ her?”

“Hell no,” his friend laughed behind his beer bottle. “They’re way too damn old for a girl like that. Probably just their caretaker.”

“Ain’t that Crazy Clyde’s daughter, though? We haven’t seen that old man around town in a minute.”

“Sure is,” the first guy drawled drunkenly, his voice rising over the music. “Man… the things I’d do to Crazy Clyde’s little girl the minute she gets off that machine.”

Bucky’s head immediately snapped toward them, his face darkening as he sneered in their direction. It was one thing to insult him—that, Bucky could take. But insulting the people he cared about was enough to make him see red.

As he pushed himself off the bar top and clenched his fist, Steve’s hand shot out, grabbing Bucky’s forearm in a tight grip.

“Don’t,” Steve hissed. “Not when she’s here, Buck. Not tonight. She’ll look at us differently if we start a brawl over her.”

Bucky’s breath came in harsh, jagged hitches as he fought the urge to drive his fist into the guy’s face. “Did you not hear the shit he was talkin’, Steve?” he snarled. “He needs a sock in the mouth, and I’m gonna be the one to give it to him.”

As he tried to shove Steve’s hand away, Steve’s grip only tightened.

“What’s gotten into you? Look at her!” He gestured toward you on the bull. “She’s enjoyin’ herself. Just let her have her fun tonight. We’ll deal with these kids later.”

Bucky hesitated, looking back at you. He saw your pure, genuine smile and heard that warm laugh ring out over the music. He knew he’d been treating you like hell since you arrived, and he couldn’t bring himself to ruin the one good moment you were having.

A slow, impatient breath escaped Bucky’s lungs as he finally let his shoulders drop. “Fine.”

But their exchange hadn’t gone unnoticed. One of the guys glanced over, eyeing Bucky up and down, entirely unimpressed by the glowering man in the cowboy hat.

“What’s wrong, grandpa?” the guy sneered, emboldened by his friends’ laughter. “Don’t like the way I’m talkin’ ‘bout your niece?”

Another string holding Bucky’s patience together snapped.

“She ain’t my niece,” Bucky warned. He glared at the man from beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes sharp enough to cut.

The guy just took a slow swig of his beer, a greasy smirk stretching across his face, emboldened by the audience of his friends. “Well, you’re sure as hell too old to be anything else.”

Bucky’s eyebrow twitched.

He took a heavy step forward, the movement so sudden it nearly jerked his arm right out of Steve’s hold.

“The hell is that ‘sposed to mean?”

The guy shrugged, his eyes flicking back to you on the bull before returning to Bucky with a sneer. “It means a fine thing like that needs a man who can actually keep up. Not someone who’s probably lookin’ for his reading glasses and a heating pad. Why don’t you go back to the retirement home and let a real man show her a good time?”

Bucky didn’t wait for Steve’s permission, and he certainly didn’t wait for the guy to finish his laugh.

With a movement so fast, Bucky’s fist collided with the guy’s jaw. A sharp, meaty crack cut through the country music, leaving the man’s head snapping and his greasy smirk disappearing as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He didn’t even have time to put his hands up to defend himself before he was lifted off his feet, crashing backward into the railing of the bull pit.

“Jesus, Buck!” Steve barked from behind.

The moment the first guy hit the floor, the bar turned into a powder keg. The two friends who had been laughing seconds ago looked at Bucky, their expressions turning furious as they lunged for him next.

Steve didn’t think.

He didn’t have to.

The minute he saw his best friend getting jumped, he clicked his tongue and rolled up his sleeves. He intercepted the second guy mid-swing, catching him by the collar and throwing him back against a table, leaving the people around him in shock.

“I told you to let it go!” Steve yelled over his shoulder at Bucky, even as he ducked a swinging bottle and delivered a punishing blow to another guy’s ribs.

To you, perched high on the spinning bull, the noise of the fight was easily mistaken for cheering. Between the flashing lights, the shouting, and the whistles, it sounded like the whole bar was rooting for you. The buzzer finally droned, and the bull slowly came to a halt. You were flushed and panting, a proud grin plastered on your face as you slid down the side of the machine and hopped onto the mats.

You tried to push through the dense wall of people to where Steve and Bucky should have been.

“Did you see that?!” you laughed, shaking your hair out of your face as you stepped out of the pit, your legs still a little wobbly. “Steve! Bucky! I stayed on the whole—”

As the crowd parted, the sight made your eyes go wide. Steve and Bucky were standing in a cleared out circle, surrounded by the bar’s security and several local guys who looked ready for another fight. Bucky looked rough—his lip was torn and bleeding, staining the edge of his jaw while his chest heaved in anger. Steve was right beside him, his breathing heavy and his knuckles bruised and bloodied.

You couldn’t hear much over the blaring music and the crowd, but the owner of the bar was pointing a finger toward the door, his face red with rage.

They were in the middle of getting kicked out.

“W-what happened?” you stammered, stepping toward them while carefully dodging broken glass and the several men groaning on the floor.

Steve’s expression softened as soon as he saw you. He stepped forward, putting a protective hand on your shoulder.

“It’s nothin’, sweet—”

“It’s time to go,” Bucky interrupted, his voice snapping.

He didn’t even look at you. He just bent over with a groan, picking his hat from the floor, and propped it low over his eyes as he walked to the exit without looking back.

The bouncer gave Steve a final shove toward the door. Steve sighed, his shoulders dropping as he carefully led you out with him.

“Let’s… let’s just get to the truck.”

As the three of you walked outside, the gravel crunched under Steve’s boots. He eventually let go of your back, walking next to you while Bucky stayed a good few feet ahead.

“I’m sorry,” Steve started, his voice thick with guilt as he kept his eyes on his friend’s back. “You shouldn’t have seen that. There was a couple of guys talkin’ ‘bout some things they shouldn’t have. He… we shouldn’t have let it get that far. It was stupid, and we should’ve handled it better.”

Bucky’s stride was long and aggressive. He reached the truck and grabbed the door handle, but he didn’t open it. He just stood there for a second, his back shaking with each ragged breath as he listened to you and Steve.

“It’s okay,” you whispered with a frown. “I just don’t understand. What could they have possibly said for you guys to get into such a big fight like that—”

Bucky let go of the door handle and spun around so fast that gravel kicked up under his boots.

“This is all your fault,” he snapped, his blue eyes burning with a dark, concentrated anger as he looked at you—and only you.

You flinched back, eyes widening in surprise. “M-me?”

Steve’s hand was back on your shoulder instantly, tightening in a comforting way as if he had seen this outburst coming. “Buck, knock it off. She didn’t do anything.”

“The hell she didn’t!” Bucky shot back, gesturing wildly toward you—toward the dress, the bar.

He looked at you, his torn lip curling as he pointed a finger.

“You just had to go up there. You had to have everyone lookin’ at you, didn’t you? Shakin’ around on that thing like you don’t know exactly what men in a place like this are thinkin’ when they see you.”

“Bucky,” Steve tried to step in between you two. “Stop.”

But Bucky gave him a rough shove, causing Steve to stumble back as Bucky stepped even closer, nearly getting in your face. “We were just ‘sposed to have a few drinks, but you had to make a scene.”

“Make a scene?” you huffed a disbelieving laugh, your eyes flickering to Steve before landing back on Bucky. “Is this some sort of joke? All I did was ride the mechanical bull—!”

“No,” Bucky interrupted. “You want to know what a joke is? It’s your damn father sendin’ us a letter with zero communication after years, tellin’ us to take care of his little girl without even askin’ for our approval.”

He stepped closer, invading your space until you could smell the copper of the blood on his lip. But you didn’t back down. You stood your ground, feet planted in the gravel as you met his hostile gaze with your own, despite having to crane your neck just to look up at him.

“Is that what this is about?” you challenged, your voice trembling but firm. “You’re mad at a letter? So you’re taking it out on me?”

Bucky’s face scrunched into a snarl. “Your old man vanished without a proper goodbye, talkin’ ‘bout how we were gonna be the best uncles, just for him to cut us out of your life for years. And then you just... waltz in. No warning, no care in the world, taking up space in my house. Taking up my damn room and makin’ yourself our responsibility.”

His voice was shaking now, the resentment he’d been bottling up finally boiling over.

“And then I have to watch you,” he hissed, his eyes scanning every inch of your face with a dark, restless energy. “I have to watch Steve look at you like you’re the best thing that ever happened to this town. I have to sit at a bar and listen to every low life in there talkin’ ‘bout what they’d do to you, while you’re up there smilin’ and givin’ them exactly what they want to see.”

“So, a few guys talk dirty about me and you decide to get into a fight?” you scoffed, your chest nearly brushing against his jacket. “I can handle my own, Bucky. I’ve been taking care of myself long before I showed up on your doorstep. I don’t need you two defending me like I’m some helpless kid!”

Bucky’s jaw tightened so hard you heard the bone click. A dark, incredulous laugh bubbled up in his throat—a sound entirely devoid of humor.

“Handle your own?” he mocked.“You could’ve traveled anywhere else, yet you’re stuck here with us ‘cause your daddy told you to come. You need grown men tellin’ you what to do, sweetheart. You can’t handle a damn thing.”

Your anger was boiling over at this point, and you felt like you could cry. Steve stepped up next to Bucky as he clamped a hand on his shoulder, trying to pry him away from you. But Bucky didn’t even look at him—he just delivered a hard, two handed shove to Steve’s chest that sent him stumbling back.

“Bucky, enough—”

“You’ve been an asshole to me from the minute I arrived,” you said, your voice uncontrollably shaky as you fought to keep from sobbing. “And you’re upset because my dad didn’t keep in touch with you. I get that! I do! B-but none of that is my fault, Bucky! That shouldn’t be a valid reason to hate me!”

“You’re right, it’s not your fault,” he hissed. He leaned closer, and you could smell the whiskey.

“But it is your fault you’re here. If you were half as independent as you claim to be, you wouldn’t have come crawlin’ to two men you haven’t seen since you were in fuckin’ pigtails.”

He stood up straight, letting out a heavy, annoyed breath.

“We were doin’ just fine with just the two of us before you showed up and started makin’ us feel like we owed you somethin’.”

Your brows, which had been furrowed in anger, slowly softened as his words punched you right in the gut. Your shoulders deflated, and all the fight drained out of you, leaving only a cold, hollow ache.

He didn’t just want the guys at the bar to stay away.

He wanted you away.

Steve, standing just behind him, could only stare at his friend with wide, horrified eyes. There was clearly history there—some old wound Bucky was reopening—because there was no other reason to be this cruel. You realized then that you were just a nuisance to him. An immature girl with a silly dream of traveling the world who had simply chosen the wrong first stop. You were an interloper in their already established life.

Looking down and finally breaking eye contact, you reached up and lifted Bucky’s hat off your head. You shoved it hard against his chest, catching him off guard. Bucky stumbled back a step, his fingers instinctively curling around the brim, crumpling the felt beneath his hands as he caught it.

“You want me to go?” you whispered, your voice cracking painfully. “Fine. I’ll leave. I’ll get my things and I’ll be out of your house—and your life—by morning.”

Your eyes were blurry as you looked past Bucky’s shoulder, sniffling as you called out for Steve.

“Will you take me back?” you asked, the words barely a breath. “I need to… I need to repack.”

Steve swallowed hard, the guilt on his face agonizing to look at. “Of course,” he nodded, his voice softening instantly. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll take you home.”

He walked around the truck, and you didn’t give Bucky even one last glance as you stepped around him. Steve held the passenger door open, helping you in with a steady hand. Once he made sure you were settled, he walked back around the front of the truck, stopping in front of Bucky with a look of cold disappointment.

“You need to fuckin’ calm down, man,” Steve whisper yelled. He gestured angrily toward the truck—toward you. “Find your own ride home, ‘cause this—all of this—is unacceptable.”

Bucky didn’t lift his head. He didn’t even try fighting back. He just stood there, staring down at the scuffed leather of his boots, his hat shielding his broken eyes as the realization of what he’d just done—of what he just said, finally began to settle in the cold, dusty air.

As the truck started and you and Steve drove off, you glanced at Bucky one last time through the side mirror. You saw him standing there in the red glow of the taillights, staring down at the hat in his hands—the one you’d just shoved back at him.

He looked at it longingly before shouting outloud to himself—angry and broken.

“Fuck!”

The entire ride back to their house was suffocatingly silent. It was clear that there were a lot of things Steve wanted to say to you, but the words wouldn’t find him.

When you finally made it back, you crossed the front door with Steve trailing cautiously behind you. Steve let out a long, tired sigh, shutting the door softly as you immediately started toward Bucky’s room to gather your things.

“You’re not actually goin’ to leave us, are you?”

You frowned, though Steve couldn’t see it with your back turned to him. “He hates me, Steve. I’m…” your voice shook as you stared down the hallway. “There’s no space for me here. I shouldn’t have turned up on your doorstep with no warning. He was right—I shouldn’t have come.”

You continued down the hall and into Bucky’s room while Steve followed at a respectful distance. You knelt in the middle of the room as you began shoving your clothes back into your suitcase.

Steve let out a low groan as he knelt down next to you. He reached out, running a hand up and down your back in a slow, soothing motion, trying to comfort you.

“Honey, he… he didn’t mean any of that,” he said. He swallowed hard, realizing how ridiculous that might’ve sounded to you. “Buck’s a guy that’s rough around the edges. Always has been. When he lashes out like that, it just means he cares. He doesn’t know how to handle feelin’ like this.”

“He cares?” you let out a small, incredulous laugh that felt more like a sob. “He doesn’t care about me, Steve. The only thing he cares about is me being out of his hair.”

You picked up another piece of clothing, your shoulders slumping as your eyes began to fill with hot, frustrated tears. You kept your head down, chin tucked toward your chest. You refused to let Steve see you like this before he started thinking you were just a helpless kid, too. Just like Bucky said.

You stood up and reached for a shirt left on the bed, a broken sniffle escaping you as you tried to fold the fabric with trembling hands.

Steve’s heart felt weak in his chest at the sound. He got up, stepping behind you and resting a steady hand on your back. He leaned down, trying to meet your eyes and gently pushing a stray lock of hair out of your face.

When he finally saw a tear roll down your cheek, he looked absolutely destroyed.

“Oh, baby. No, no... come here,” he murmured softly. He wrapped two strong arms around you, pulling you firmly into his chest.

You couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Being in the comfort of something so warm after being faced with such coldness was enough to send the tears flowing freely. Your arms came up weakly to hug him back, your face buried against his shirt as you cried.

“He’s got a heart like a bruised fist,” Steve whispered into your hair, his chest rumbling against your ear. “And he doesn’t know how to open it without hurting someone. But you aren’t a nuisance, and you sure as hell aren’t helpless. I’m gonna have a talk with him, and you’re gonna stay here and enjoy the rest of your trip—with us.”

You sniffled, clutching the front of his shirt. “I can’t stay where I’m not wanted, Steve.”

Steve slowly guided you down onto the edge of the bed without letting go.

“Sit with me, sweetheart. Just for a minute,” he urged gently, his voice low and steady.

You sank onto the quilt, the fabric bunching under you as Steve sat right beside you. He pulled you back into the crook of his arm, tucking you in so your head rested on his shoulder. He took one of your hands in his, rubbing his thumb over your knuckles in a soothing motion to stop your shaking.

“I need you to listen to me for a second. Can you do that?”

You nodded against his chest as his fingers began to trace your back tenderly.

“I want you here, and believe me, Bucky does too. Hell, does he want you here.” He chuckled softly, the sound vibrating through his chest as he tried to lighten the mood. “Earlier today, when he caught you wearin’ his hat... he would not stop talkin’ ‘bout it. Said you looked better in it than he ever did.”

You lifted your head slightly, wiping your nose with the back of your hand as you looked up at him. “Really?”

“Really,” Steve promised, a small smile playing on his lips. “Called you pretty and all that, but don’t tell him I said it.”

Steve’s expression softened even further, his gaze turning intense as he looked down at you. He reached up, his large hand cupping your cheek as he used his thumb to brush the last of the dampness from your skin. He pushed a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his touch warm against your skin as his finger trailed down, tracing over the curve of your bottom lip.

“And he’s right,” Steve murmured deeply, making your body shiver. “Who wouldn’t go a little insane over a girl as beautiful as you?”

Your face felt warm, and you couldn’t tell if it was the remnant of your tears or from the intense way Steve was staring at you.

“Steve…” you whispered, your breath hitching as you felt his thumb graze your lips again.

Steve sucked in a sharp breath, relishing the way his name sounded on your tongue. “You know, your dad told us to take good care of you when you arrived. And now, here you are, cryin’ in Bucky’s bed and packin’ your bags.” He muttered, leaning in until his hot breath ghosted over your face. “We’re not doin’ a very good job now, are we?”

Steve applied pressure to your bottom lip, dragging it down to reveal the wet flesh. “I think I’d like to do a much better job,” he whispered, his eyes dropping to your mouth and staying there. “Starting now.”

You looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes, your tears shimmering like glass against the warm glow of the lamp. Steve let out a low, pained groan at the sight of you—so vulnerable, and yet so devastatingly inviting.

“God… you really are so beautiful,” he rasped.

With his gaze fixed on your mouth, he pushed his thumb past the seal of your lips, his finger pressing firmly against your tongue. It was unexpected—it was wrong for a ‘family friend’ to be doing this—but you couldn’t help your eyes fluttering shut instinctively. Without thinking, you sucked on his thumb, the heat of your mouth swirling around his skin.

Steve’s entire body went rigid. You were so accepting of him, so eager for the comfort he was offering, and he should’ve expected it—because you were a good girl, after all.

“Christ, baby,” he breathed, his voice slightly cracking.

Steve watched with hooded eyes as your lips moved against him, the way your tongue flicked around his digit. If it felt this good with just a finger, he could only imagine the wreck you’d make of him with his cock buried in your mouth instead.

With your eyes still shut, you heard him let out a deep, jagged groan as he shifted his weight on the bed. Your eyes fluttered open, and your gaze fell directly onto the obvious bulge straining against his denim. It was heavy and prominent, twitching as it jumped for your attention.

You blinked up at him, your breath hitching as your eyes met his again.

The idea of arousing a man so much older than you—someone so wise and experienced in his years—gave you a thrill that should’ve sparked guilt. This was your father’s friend, a man meant to be your protector, but for some reason, the wrongness of it only made the heat in your stomach burn hotter.

Clenching your legs, your mouth continued to explore his thumb. Your hand came up against his thick forearm, holding him steady as you swirled your tongue, tasting the salt on his skin as you watched him watch you with hungry eyes.

Steve was trembling under your touch, his breath coming in shallow pants.

Then, his eyes lifted past yours, landing on something—someone at the doorframe.

“Bucky,” Steve panted.

Your eyes went wide. You immediately popped Steve’s thumb out of your mouth, a thread of saliva breaking from his finger as you whipped your head toward the door.

“Steve,” Bucky’s voice was deep, almost broken, as his eyes flickered from his best friend to you. “Sam gave me a ride home,” he explained, his voice low as he took a slow, predatory step toward the two of you on the bed.

In that moment, you wished you’d just packed and begged Steve to drive you straight to the airport. Bucky’s expression was dark and unreadable, his eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his hat—you couldn’t tell if he was about to explode or crumble.

You were expecting him to yell. You expected him to drag you by the arm, kick you out the front door, and hurl your luggage after you.

But he didn’t.

He just stood over you, the hat you’d borrowed gripped so tight in his hand that the felt was beginning to crush. You swallowed hard as you met his gaze. You should’ve been terrified, but you couldn’t deny the lingering arousal Steve had sparked in you.

Because right now, with the way Bucky was looking at you... it was almost like you wanted to be hurt by him.

“Bucky… I—”

Slowly, Bucky reached out. You flinched, expecting a rough shove, but his hand was surprisingly gentle as he hooked two fingers under your chin, forcing you to tilt your head back. He stared at your mouth, his eyes tracking the wet shine of saliva on your bottom lip.

“You tell me you’re packin’ your bags, and just when I think you’ll finally leave me alone, I come home and find you suckin’ on my best friend’s thumb like a baby?”

You glanced at Steve out of the corner of your eye, desperate for some sort of backup. But instead, you found Steve staring intensely at Bucky’s lap. Your eyes followed his, and a small gasp escaped at what you saw.

You didn’t know how long Bucky had been standing in that doorway watching you two, but the undeniable erection straining against his jeans told you he’d seen more than enough.

“Answer me,” Bucky hissed. He gave your cheeks a firm squeeze, the pressure forcing your lips to pout and making you look back up at him. “You want to stay so bad?” he whispered, leaning down until his nose brushed against yours. “You want to be taken care of by us, don’t you?”

After seeing the physical reaction Bucky had from watching you and Steve, and despite being pinned beneath him, you felt emboldened.

“… Do you want me to stay?” you whispered, refusing to break eye contact. “Do you want to take care of me, Bucky?”

Bucky’s expression went completely flat. He released your face and set your hat down on the quilt.

“Steve’s a gentleman,” Bucky said, gravelly and raspy. “He’ll give you a shoulder to cry on and tell you everythin’ is gonna be alright. But if you’re gonna stay in this house, under my roof, you’re gonna have to deal with me, too. And I don’t play as nice as he does.”

Steve’s hand slowly crept over your thigh, giving the soft skin a firm, possessive squeeze as he leaned in. His eyes cut up toward Bucky, challenging him.

“She thinks you don’t care ‘bout her, Buck,” Steve murmured, his voice low and raspy against your ear. “I think our girl here wants to see firsthand how much you do.”

Ours.

Bucky’s pupils flared at the word, his gaze dropping to where Steve’s fingers were digging into your skin and trailing up the hem of your skirt. He scoffed—a hard, bitter laugh that sounded more like a growl.

“Is that right?”

Steve’s hand bunched the fabric upward, his rough knuckles grazing your skin until the material pooled around your hips. He nudged your shoulders, urging you to lean back against the pillows until you were splayed open before them, revealing the thin cotton panties Bucky had caught a glimpse of earlier when he’d walked in on you changing.

Bucky’s breath hitched, his eyes locking onto the pale fabric. It was just as he remembered—except now, a dark, damp patch was blooming in the center, hinting your arousal.

“You know…” Steve began, his voice teasing as he looked up at Bucky’s tortured expression. “Bucky here was talkin’ reeaal dirty about you earlier, darlin’. You just didn’t know it.”

You shuddered, your eyes—half-lidded—glanced up at Bucky. You expected him to deny it, but all you saw was his slack jaw and the way his hand was mindlessly rubbing at the ache in his jeans.

“He told me how he wanted to pin those wrists of yours above your head,” Steve whispered, a cruel smirk tugging at his lips. “Said he wanted to see if you’d make those same sweet little sounds if he was buried deep inside you instead of just yellin’ at you and bein’ mean to you...”

You gasped softly, your face flaming.

It was as if Bucky couldn't even hear him— the blood was thumping so loud in his ears he could only focus on the sight of you. His knee hit the mattress, the bed dipping as he crawled between your legs, looming over the damp cotton of your panties.

“And that’s not even the best part,” Steve continued, his hand moving to the waistband of your panties, his thumb hooking just inside the elastic. “He told me he wanted to mark you so bad your daddy wouldn’t even recognize you. Wanted to leave his teeth marks all over these pretty thighs just so everyone knew exactly who you belonged to.”

Steve’s gaze shifted back to you, his eyes heavy and half-lidded. He leaned in closer, his thumb tugging slightly at the elastic of your panties, revealing your mound to Bucky’s gaze.

“But then you had to go on and get on that bull,” he muttered, his breath hot against your cheek. “Showin’ yourself off to everyone. That’s not a good girl now, is it?”

A little mewl left your lips, and Steve chuckled—amused by your lack of response.

Bucky let out a low groan. He couldn’t take the talking anymore. His hands went to his waist, fumbling the buckle of his belt as he undid it with trembling fingers. His eyes were glued at to the damp center of your cotton panties, just begging to be licked and touched by him.

“Remove her panties, Stevie,” Bucky ordered desperately.

Steve’s eyes darkened instantly. His thumb stilled at your panties, and he looked up at Bucky, his expression shifting from teasing to territorial.

“You’ve been on thin ice all night, Buck,” Steve countered, the raspy warning of his voice making you shiver. His thumb slowly trailed down against the cotton, rubbing at the damp spot against your clit. “You better ask me real nice if you want me to share.”

You held your breath, bracing yourself as you expected him to snap—to lunge at Steve or roar in frustration at being told what to do in his own house.

But instead, Bucky’s shoulders slumped, his lips curving into a pained, desperate frown. He ducked his head, finally pulling off his hat and dropping it blindly to the floor. His dark, messy hair fell over his eyes as he stared at your lap, his chest heaving.

It was a jarring sight—the man who had been yelling at you in the parking lot was now physically shaking with the need for Steve’s approval.

“Please,” Bucky choked out in pain.

Steve kept his thumb pressing firmly against the damp cotton over your clit, circling it slowly, making you gasp and arch your hips up into his hand.

“Please what, Buck?” Steve prompted calmly.

Bucky’s breath hitched, a broken sound leaving his throat as he finally looked up. His blue eyes, usually so gruff and distant, were glassy and pleading. He looked like a man starving, and you were the only meal in sight.

“Please, Stevie… let me see her,” Bucky begged in a desperate whimper. “Let me have her. I’m sorry. Just… please take ‘em off. I’ll be good.”

Steve hummed, the sound vibrating deep in his chest. He looked down at you, his thumb never ceasing that slow rub against your slit, making the damp cotton cling to your skin with every pass.

“What do you think, sweetheart?” Steve asked. “You want Bucky to make it up to you?”

You looked from Steve’s calm, commanding face to Bucky, who was still kneeling between your legs, trembling. His eyes were wide, glued on the movement of Steve’s thumb, his tongue darting out to lick his dry lips as he waited for your verdict.

The difference in how he’s acting was dizzying—Bucky, the man who had spent the day pushing you away with cold glares was now hanging on your every word.

But after how he’d treated you, you weren't ready to let him off the hook.

You almost felt bad for what you were going to say next.

“I don’t know, Stevie,” you taunted, using Bucky’s nickname for Steve against him. “I don’t think he deserves it.”

Bucky’s face went from pleading to almost murderous in a heartbeat. A low growl ripped from his throat as he lunged forward, his hand snapping out to grab the hem of your panties.

“What did you just say—”

Before he could even tug the fabric down, Steve’s hand shot out. His fingers wrapped around Bucky’s forearm, forcing him to halt.

“You heard the lady, Buck,” Steve warned, his voice turning cold and authoritative. “You don’t deserve it. Not yet.”

Bucky looked up, his chest heaving as he stared at Steve with wide, disbelieving eyes. “W-what?”

“I’m gonna have my turn with her,” Steve declared. He released Bucky's arm, his hand sliding instead to your waist to pull you flush against his chest, claiming you in front of him. “And you’re going to be good and watch.”

You didn't even have time to process Bucky’s shock before Steve’s rough hands were threading through your hair. He fisted the strands to tilt your head back, pulling you flush against his chest as his lips crashed onto yours. His tongue pushed past your teeth, deep and demanding, intertwining with yours as he drank you in like a man dying of thirst.

Your mind spun, caught in a dizzying haze of desire.

You had never been kissed with such need, much less by a man twice your age, whose experience and strength made you feel so small and claimed.

“Fuck,” you heard Bucky groan, the curse followed by the rattle of a belt being yanked through loops and the friction of denim being pushed down.

Steve ground his hips against your leg, the hardness making you ache for more. Your only coherent thought was the desperate wish that he’d follow suit—that he’d also strip out of those jeans and let you feel him properly.

Moaning softly against Steve’s lips, you couldn’t help but peek your eyes opening, flickering over to Bucky.

He was kneeling at the edge of the bed, his face grimaced into tortured longing. One hand was fisted tightly around his cock, stroking in a frantic, uneven rhythm, while his other fingers were clutching the bedsheets as he watched you being devoured by his best friend.

Bucky was being good—doing exactly as Steve had instructed. But the second Steve spread your legs wider, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of your panties and peeling them down to reveal your wet cunt, Bucky felt the last of his restraint snap.

He squeezed his dick hard, a mewl—or a whimper—escaped his throat.

“Steve, please,” he begged, the words ragged with pain as he stroked himself faster, his breath coming in short, shallow hitches. “I’m… I’m so hard. I can’t take it anymore.”

Steve ignored him. His lips never left yours as his own hands found his belt, the metallic of the buckle and the slide of the zipper echoing through the room, only making Bucky more agitated.

Desperate to hear more of Bucky crumbling apart for you, you trailed your hand up your side, cupping your own breast through the fabric of your dress and squeezing. You didn’t even need to open your eyes to know his reaction—you could hear the air being punched out of his lungs.

“Fuck, look at her—look at that little slut,” Bucky groaned, the mattress dipping and groaning as he scooted closer, unable to keep his distance a second longer. “She’s askin’ for it now. Steve, tell me she's askin’ for it.”

Steve sat up, the bed creaking under his weight as he freed himself from his jeans. He wrapped a thick hand around his cock, giving it a few heavy strokes that had your eyes widening.

He was big. And you weren’t sure how it was going to fit.

He leaned forward, the head of his cock probing against your entrance, smearing your own slickness back and forth over your sensitive folds. He was teasing you, pushing just a fraction of an inch inside before pulling back, over and over, until you were arching off the back in a desperate attempt for friction.

“Are you seein’ this, Buck?” Steve murmured, his eyes watching Bucky’s face, watching his best friend’s eyes trace over every wet, sliding movement of his cock against your skin. “Look at how she’s openin’ up for me.”

It was pure torture for Bucky, but it was agonizing for you, too. Your hands fisted the sheets as you tried to tilt your pelvis up to catch him, but Steve held you firmly in place with his free hand on your hip.

“Steve, please,” you whimpered, your voice breaking.

Steve let out a dark, amused chuckle, his gaze still locked on Bucky—whose hand was moving in a blurred frenzy against his own cock. “You hear that, Buck? She wants it so bad. She wants me to take care of her.”

Bucky let out a strangled sound. “I hear her, Stevie. God, I hear her. Let me… let me help. Please let me hold her while you fuck her.”

You tilted your head back, your hair spilling across the pillows as you looked up at Bucky. His eyes searched yours, looking for any sign that you would finally let him in after the way he’d treated you.

“Hold me, Bucky.”

Bucky sucked in a breath, his hand pausing at his cock as he glanced at Steve, waiting for the final word.

Steve gave him a sharp, single nod. “Come here, Buck,” Steve commanded, his voice thick and low. “Hold her while I fuck her.”

The mattress dipped violently as Bucky scrambled forward, crawling up the bed urgently. He didn’t just touch you—he cradled you, gently lifting your head onto his lap. His hands came up to frame your face, and you could feel his slick fingers from his pre-cum trail your face.

You stared up at him, breathless and upside down, as he loomed over you, breathing heavy at the sight of you desperate for them.

“Jesus,” Bucky breathed, his pupils so blown they’d nearly swallowed the blue of his irises. “So fuckin’ beautiful up close, too.”

Steve leaned forward, his large hands gripping your hips with bruising force as he finally guided himself in. Your mouth dropped into an o-shape as he pushed in slowly, his thick cock stretching you inch by inch. You let out a sharp wince, your back arching off Bucky’s lap as he forced your walls to accommodate him.

Bucky’s face scrunched into a pained expression—as if he were feeling every bit of the stretch you were.

“I know, baby doll—I know,” he whispered, his voice broken. “He’s so big, ain’t he?”

You nodded, eyes watering as you looked up at him. “So big…”

Bucky’s cock was twitching beneath you, his pre-cum leaking and trailing along your skin as he watched his best friend’s length disappear in and out of your wet cunt.

“Fuck,” Bucky groaned. “Need… need to feel somethin’ too, baby doll.”

Shifting his hips, he laid you flat on the bed and shuffled to the side of your head, his cock springing free as he knelt beside you. His fist returned to his length, his thumb swiping over the tip to smear his pre-cum over the swollen head.

“Bucky…” you breathed, your body jolting as Steve buried his full length into you. “W-what are you—”

Your words were cut off as Bucky’s salt slicked tip rubbed against the curve of your lips—still puffy and sensitized from Steve. A low, ragged groan escaped him at the contact with your mouth.

“Need… need somethin’ warm and tight,” Bucky hissed through clenched teeth, his control evaporated. “Can’t take it anymore.”

Bucky glanced at Steve, who watched him with heavy, half-lidded eyes. “I ain’t waitin’ anymore,” Bucky snapped defiantly. “Punish me later for all I fuckin’ care. I need to fuck her mouth.”

Inside you, you felt Steve’s cock twitch at the mention of his friend’s own punishment.

“Careful,” Steve warned, his breath hitching. “Go easy on her, Buck. She’s so—fuck, she’s so tight down here… I don’t know if she can take you all the way in her mouth either.”

Despite the warning, Steve was very much losing the battle for his own control. His grip on your hips were tight, forcing himself to maintain that slow, agonizingly deep movement even as his own body screamed to pick up the pace and fuck you ruthlessly.

“I don’t give a damn,” Bucky grunted.

He fisted his hand in your hair, giving it a harsh, possessive tug to tilt your head back toward his lap. He slapped his cock against your lips, the wet, heavy sound of it making you wince as his masculine scent filled your lungs.

“Open up,” he ordered, his pupils so blown with lust that his eyes looked like bottomless black pits.

Your cunt clenched tighter around Steve as Bucky’s tip parted your lips to let himself in. His thick length dragged past your teeth and along your tongue, sliding deep until he hit the back of your throat. You let out a muffled, helpless choke around him—a sound that only made Bucky groan, his head tossing back in visceral pleasure.

“Thaaat’s it,” he cooed with a rasp. He drew his hips back slowly, letting you catch your breath for a split second before rocking hard against your face again. “Breathe through your nose, baby doll. Just take it.”

Bucky began to move, his movements were frantic and messy compared to Steve’s slow and easy rhythm inside you.

“Look at him, sweetheart,” Steve rumbled, his voice dropping condescending. “Look at how pathetic he is. After all that growlin’ and actin’ like a big man earlier, here he is now…”

You blinked through a haze of tears, watching as Bucky’s face scrunched in pure, agonizing pleasure. His forehead wrinkles were deeply lined, his eyes rolling back as his thrusts against your mouth became sloppier, driven by pure needy instinct.

Strings of saliva and drool slicked your chin, dripping down to the base of his cock with every frantic thrust. Every time your lips made wet, heavy contact with his heavy slicked balls, Bucky let out a deep, raspy groan that vibrated through your tongue—a sound so primal it made you clench even harder around Steve.

“Christ,” Steve moaned, his head dropping as his pace finally fractured faster and more desperate. “She’s squeezin’ me, Buck.”

Bucky huffed a shaky, dark laugh, his fingers tightening in your hair to hold you steady. “You like this, don’t you?” he grunted, looking down at your tear streaked face. “Bein’ used by your daddy’s two best friends. Shit... we’re supposed to be watchin’ over you. Keepin’ you safe. But instead, we’re just ruinin’ you.”

“Old enough to be her father,” Steve agreed with a rough, mocking laugh. He hooked one of your legs over his shoulder, tilting your hips up to plunge even deeper, his thick length stretching you to your absolute limit.

“Now look at her. She’s ‘sposed to call us uncle, and now she’s got your cock in her mouth and mine stuffed deep in her cunt. She’s a filthy little thing, ain’t she?”

Bucky’s cock pulsed deep in your mouth after Steve’s filthy words registered. Your face was hot with shame, but you didn't care. The room reeled with the scent of sex and Bucky’s masculine musk, and all you wanted was to be filled by these two older men.

“Fuck—her daddy’s gonna kill us,” Bucky gasped as your tongue flicked against the sensitive underside of his head. “But I don’t fuckin’ care. It feels too good to stop.”

Steve’s thumb pressed against your sensitive clit, making you arch your back and muffle useless moans around Bucky’s cock. You felt like you were getting close—with the filthy words that they were both spurring, mixed with moans and grunts filling the air—it was becoming too much.

Your walls fluttered around Steve, and he barked out a rough laugh. “Fuck, she’s cummin’ all over my cock!”

“You know what that means, Stevie.” Bucky groaned, his dark eyes meeting his. “Means she’s beggin’ you to breed her. Beggin’ you to put your cum where it doesn't belong.”

You let out a broken whine, your vision blurring as your orgasm ripped through you. You came hard, sobbing around Bucky’s cock as Steve continued to piston into you like a rabid animal, uncaring of your sensitive state.

“Yeah?” Steve moaned, his thrusts turning sloppy and heavy as his own release caught up. “Shit—I think you’re right, Buck. I'm gonna fill her up.”

Your father had practically sent you into a den of wolves, leaving you to fend for yourself against men who had been starving. Steve and Bucky pawed at your body with a desperate hunger, the sounds leaving their throats sounding less like men and more like animals scenting prey.

Steve’s hips began to rut against yours uncontrollably, his breathing turning into a series of uneven, jagged hitches. He buried himself as deep as he could go, his cock throbbing violently against your cervix before he finally snapped. You let out a muffled cry as he came, a heavy, searing stream of cum flooding your overstimulated flesh, filling you until you felt like you were overflowing.

You saw Bucky’s balls draw up tight against your lips, , and as his fist tightened in your hair, you knew he was about to cum, too.

“That’s right,” Bucky encouraged, his voice dry. “Fill her up, Stevie. Make sure she’s spillin’ over with your cum, and then I’m gonna finish inside her, too.”

Bucky’s cock popped out of your mouth with a wet, sloppy sound, leaving a string of saliva trailing down your chin. Before you could even draw a full breath, Steve was pulling out of you, the sudden absence of his heat leaving you feeling cold and hollow for a split second.

But you didn’t stay empty for long.

“S-Steve?” you whimpered.

Bucky shuffled around the mattress as Steve moved to the side to make room. Bucky scrambled into the space between your thighs where Steve once was, his face dark and distorted with hunger. He wrapped his hand around his cock—now red, angry, and pulsing—and rubbed the head up and down your slit, slicking himself through the mess Steve had left behind.

A thick, pearly blend of his best friend’s seed and your own wetness coated the entire length of him. Bucky groaned at the sight, the friction of Steve’s fluids making him growl.

Using your arms to weakly prop yourself up, your stared at Bucky wide-eyed.

“Bucky… I—”

“You’re gonna be a good girl for him now,” Steve interrupted. He wasn’t asking. He was demanding.

With a heavy breath, Bucky guided himself against your entrance and pushed past the tightness, your walls enveloping him just as it did with Steve, except it was more intense this time.

“Oh my god—!” your eyes bulged wide, your breath leaving your lungs.

Bucky was thicker—and with your pussy already so raw and overstimulated, the feeling of him claiming that space was overwhelming. You were stretched deliciously, every nerve ending burned as he buried himself to the hilt.

“Look at you,” Bucky rasped, a shameful, shaky laugh bubbling in his chest as his lungs burned.

“God—when I found out…” he rocked his hips into you, Steve’s leftover seed making a wet, squelching sound. “…your daddy was gonna have a baby girl—shit, I was so ready to take care of you. I promised I’d be there for you, for Christ’s sake.”

He grabbed both of your legs, lifting them high and urging you to lock them around his waist so he could get even deeper.

“I never thought I’d be balls deep inside his precious girl.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Steve lectured, his voice mocking. He gave himself slow, lazy strokes over his half-hard cock, his eyes stuck on the way your entrance was struggling to accommodate Bucky’s thickness.

“You should be beggin’ her father for forgiveness right now. But she feels too good, doesn’t she?”

Bucky growled, his eyes glassing over as he watched his thick length disappear in and out of your wet, stretched out heat.

“Hell yeah, she does.” He met your eyes now. “You’re so much tighter than a girl your age ‘ought to be for dirty, old men like us. You were made to be ruined, weren’t you, baby doll?”

You looked up at Bucky, and the sight of him between your legs—his composure fraying and completely undone, made your head spin with a dizzying rush of power.

“Bucky,” you panted, eyes half-lidded as you held his hungry gaze. “I want you to forget who my father is. I want to be the reason you can never look him in the eye again.” You swallowed hard, your fingers digging into the mattress. “Fill me up just like Stevie did… show me how much you really want to take care of me.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide, his pupils swallowing the blue as he processed the absolute, unadulterated filth coming from the girl he was sworn to protect.

Steve huffed a laugh, already feeling his cock twitch at your words. “Jesus—this girl…”

He had been close to bursting when he was in your mouth, but now, being swallowed by your tight pussy while those dirty words rang in his ears, it was too fucking much. His cock trembled and pulsed in a final, violent act of betrayal against his conscience.

He was close. Too fucking close.

“You little…” Bucky choked out, his voice failing him.

He grabbed your hips together, pulling you impossibly closer until the tip of his cock kissed your cervix.

“Fine,” he hissed, face scrunching in pleasure. “You want me to fill you up? I’ll fuckin’ knock you up, doll. You’re gonna carry my mess and Stevie’s all the way back home, and you’re gonna smile at your daddy while our cum is leakin’ out of you.”

The words were like a match to a fuse.

Between the wet slap of his thighs against yours and the rough sounds of his heavy breathing, you hit another breaking point. Your walls began to spasm, tightening down on him so hard that it made Bucky’s head roll back.

“Bucky… I—ah!”

Your pussy clenched almost painfully around Bucky’s cock. Even after the fucking Steve gave you, you were still so tight—and cumming again while Bucky was still buried deep made him grind his teeth together, his jaw clenching as he fucked you right through your second climax.

“Steve,” Bucky gasped as he fought to hold back his own release for just a second longer. “Steve, she’s—fuck, she’s goin’ again.”

Steve grinned, leaning over Bucky’s trembling shoulder. His large hand reached around your waist, overlapping Bucky’s grip, while his other palm rested on Bucky’s lower back—pushing him even deeper.

“That’s it, Buck,” Steve rumbled against Bucky’s ear. “Don’t you dare pull out. You put it right where I put mine. Got it?”

Bucky hissed, his hips moving in a frantic, uneven stutter as he felt himself unwinding. “Fu-fuck, okay—I’ll cum inside, just like you told me to—shit!”

He bottomed out completely, his entire body locking into a rigid arch. “Fuck!”

His length pulsed violently inside you—his cock streaming thick, hot ropes of heat into your overstimulated cunt. He was absolutely flooding you, his seed mixing with Steve’s and filling you until you felt heavy and stretched to the brim.

“Oh my god,” Bucky breathed, his chest heaving as he gave your hip a final, possessive squeeze. He looked down, taking in the sight of how completely debauched you looked. “I… shit. That felt too damn good.”

“Good boy,” Steve praised softly, his hand moving to stroke Bucky’s damp hair before his eyes dropped to the messy, wet junction of your thighs. “Look at that. She’s so full of us.”

Steve leaned down, gently pushing a stray hair out of your sweaty face. He gave you a soft, boyish smile—one that looked entirely too innocent given his age and the brutal way they had just had their way with you.

“Now, you’re not still thinkin’ about leavin’ us, are you?”

Bucky’s jaw remained slack, his chest heaving in heavy breaths as he stared down at you.

“No,” he rasped. “She ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

You could barely process their words. Your head felt light, and your limbs turning to jelly against the damp, sweaty sheets. The air in the room was stifling—heavy with the scent of sex and musk. Every time you tried to draw a full breath, your lungs felt weighted, and your eyelids began to flutter, growing heavy.

Steve and Bucky stayed right where they were, hovering over you like two twin peaks of heat and muscle.

“Aww, look at her,” Steve cooed, his voice dropping tenderly yet still mocking. He reached out, his calloused thumb gently brushing a tear off your cheek. “The little baby’s fallin’ asleep on us, Buck.”

“I know,” Bucky breathed, his body finally beginning to soften inside you, yet he still refused to pull out—anchored in place as your body began to shut down. “We put her through a lot today. When she wakes up, we should…—”

Bucky’s voice trailed off into a low, indistinct murmur as your eyelids finally failed you. The room faded into a hazy blur.

With your body overstimulated, heavy, and utterly spent, the only thing you could think of—the only thought that managed to pierce through the fog of exhaustion—was how the hell you were ever going to explain this to your dad.

thank you so much for taking the time to read my work! this is my longest fic ever, and i tried my best to proofread as much as i can so apologize for any mistakes. and in case you haven't noticed, yes, the fic title is inspired by the song tennessee whiskey!

You’re a member of that rare club. It’s taken years of small kindness’ and lingering in Steve’s shadow to get there.

Even if you wanted to, you’d never risk ruining that just because of some schoolgirl crush. Not when Bucky might make your heart stumble and your face heat, but he hasn’t taken away your wits.

The same wits that tell you, it’s not worth the risk.

It will never be worth the risk. You worked too hard to get where you are. It’s too good a job, to burn up because you have a few fantasies. Steve Rogers famously went through assistant after assistant, before you. When you’d asked Natasha why—Steve’s a perfect boss, he lets you take hour long lunches and use sick time as PTO, as long as you don’t tell HR—she’d just shrugged.

“It’s not Steve that’s making them quit.” She’d hummed, like you were supposed to know exactly what that meant.

You hadn’t. You still don’t. Best guess, he thinks that everyone can keep up with him and forgets to slow down and match pace. But you can keep up with him just fine. Without breaking a sweat. Sometimes you out-pace him, and that earns you a loud, approving laugh and small smirk from Bucky.

Bucky.

James. You’re trying to call him James, in your head. It’s more formal. Creates a larger gap, between private fantasy and reality.

In fantasy, Bucky is a hazy voice that creeps into your dreams and rough stubble that brushes over your cheek. You tangle the sheets and blankets between your legs in bed, and pretend he’s there, holding you tight. Dreams and scenarios play out before you go to sleep, where he backs you against a wall and declares that he’s loved you since he first saw you. Or he shows up at your door in the middle of the night, pleading because he can’t take being away from you anymore. Maybe all his stares at conferences and meetings finally amount to something, and he grabs your jaw and kisses you so brutally you both just fall onto that soft couch in his office.

But Bucky doesn’t just stare at you. It’s one of his weird little quirks that Steve calls just Bucky, and Sam calls creepy and weird, he’s lucky we love him.

You do love him.

Bucky’s perfect. When you’d met him, he’d seemed as if he’d fallen out of a silver screen or leather-bound book. You’d never understood fantasies about powerful men, until one with the brilliance of fifty suns had been adjusting his cuffs in front of you. You’d barely been able to breathe, and it’s only gotten harder since you’ve known him.

At first look, Bucky’s a sharp jawline, dark hair, and eyes that follow you into your sleep. He’s cold and standoffish in that annoying way that makes the fool in your heart babble about how you could melt him. He snaps and orders and doesn’t waste time on things that don’t matter, and you’d like to hear how his voice could go soft, if you could make it.

That fool in your heart is loud. It tends to get the better of you, until the object of it’s fleeting obsession shatters the illusion by itself. Most of your crushes take a sledgehammer and destroy the heroic visage you’ve made of them in a second. You just have to wait for it, and they save you from themselves.

But Bucky likes to ruin your life.

It’s been a year, since Steve hired you. Fresh out of college, nervous, and with what Natasha called doe-eyes.

You love Bucky more than you did at the start, and it’s incredibly rude that he won’t just cut it out so you can focus.

“How’s your mother?” You ask one night, when it’s just you and Bucky.

James. When you’re alone in a room with him, and the white sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to show off obnoxious muscles, it’s important to remember you should be calling him James.

“My… Mother.”

He’s staring at you like you’re crazy. Heat floods your cheeks, but you just nod. He doesn’t get to win.

“You said she was moving.” You shrug, and Bucky’s tongue flicks over his lips.

“I did say that.”

“Yeah. I know.” You pretend to turn over a paper. “I was there.”

Bucky snorts, and it’s enough to yank your attention up. He’s shaking his head with that tiny curve of a smile, and it makes your heart do something that might resemble overdrive.

“What?”

“Nothin’.”  

“What-“

“My mother’s doin’ just fine.” Bucky says, staring at you across the room. “She loved those muffins you made her. Got me and my sisters in a lotta trouble, for not bothering to make her a housewarming gift.”

You swallow. “Oh, I- I didn’t mean to-“

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Bucky—James, but it’s impossible to remember when he looks at you like that—smirks. “I’d want you over me every time, too.”

There’s no possible response you can think of, to that. Not one that makes sense, and isn’t humiliating. You look back to your papers, mumble a thank you, and try not to let Bucky’s low chuckle pool heat between your thighs.

You don’t succeed.

But that’s a problem for your vibrator to worry about, when you get home.

Because that’s where the fantasy. And the reality is always starker. Harder to escape.

Bucky is a mountain of a man, but you’ve never climbed anything at all. Not a tiny hill, not a slope, not even a bump in the road. The most basic things, that most people get out of the way in middle school, you’ve never even brushed against. Not on purpose. It’s just… Never happened. And you’re certainly not going to start doing anything now. With your older pseudo-boss and sort of friend. You don’t have a death wish, and you’re certain that rejection will kill you with the humiliation alone.

So in reality, you’re never going to risk anything. You’ve never had health insurance this good before. Steve buys you lunch every day—technically he buys himself lunch, but you’re allowed to get whatever you want—and you got to move out of your rundown apartment with the landlady who kept getting mad you dared to have trash, but refused to fix your broken heater. In New York.

You haven’t had freezing fingers in a year. Because now, you could afford gloves. And in the harsh cold of reality, no dick is worth more than a nice pair of gloves.

Bucky’s might be. Bucky and his smile and low laugh and nobleness and silent kindness and-

No.

Nothing’s worth it. Not when Bucky wouldn’t even want you anyway.

You’d rather have the gloves.

“You get a plus one to this event, you know?”

You look at Steve over the desk, frowning slightly. “Huh?”

Steve’s lips twitch. “You get a plus one.”

“Okay?”

“Wasn’t sure you knew.” He shrugs. Your frown deepens.

“Of course I knew. I send out all the invitations.”

“Hm.”

“What’s hm? What does hm mean?”

“Just hm. Do you have the numbers, about-“

“They’re in front of you, Steven.” You narrow your eyes. “What’s hm mean.”

“Told you, nothing-“

“What.”

Sam says that there are only three people Steve is afraid of. Natasha, Bucky’s mother, and you. At the time, you’d laughed it off and rolled your eyes.

With how his throat bobs and he avoids your gaze, you’re starting to think that last part might be true.

“You’ve just always had that plus one offered.” Steve mutters, looking at the reports like they’ve suddenly turned into something interesting. “Noticed you never used it. Wanted to, uh- Make sure you knew.”

“I knew.” You snap, and Steve sighs.

“Yeah, I thought you did.”

“Then why’d you ask-“

“You wanna get lunch?” Steve’s voice raises, and the conversation is clearly over. “I think I could go for some sushi, or- Mexican. Maybe acai?”

Those are three very different things, and it is your job to figure out which one he really wants. But you can’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day.

You have never used your plus one. You’ve never needed to.

There’s never been anyone worth using it on, except for one, dumb, handsome man who already has his own invitation to every event, and never has a problem finding his own date. You’ve spent dozens of nights lingering at Steve’s side—because he can tell you all he wants to enjoy yourself, you’ll slack when you’re dead—and glaring daggers at the model hanging off of Bucky’s arm. Giggling at everything he says and trying to drift closer than the polite, respectable distance he keeps them at.

He lets you sit closer to him than he lets them. And they are all a little younger, so maybe he wouldn’t mind that you’re not experienced and-

You stamp those thoughts under your heel. Not worth it.

But is Steve’s noticed how you never bring anyone, maybe he’s noticed how you stare at Bucky as well. And if he’s noticed that, he might start looking closer. And if he looks closer, he’s going to realize that you’re in love with his best friend, and he’s going to tell Bucky, and you’re going to get fired, and lose your cool apartment and fuck, you aren’t emotionally prepared to be a prostitute-

You need a date.

It’s the safest, most logical conclusion. You study Steve across the room, and quickly decide against asking to be set up. That might get back to Bucky, and you don’t want him to know for reason that defy common sense. You can’t ask anyone at work, but all your friends are your co-workers. You could go out to a bar, but that sounds dangerous and exhausting, and you’re not even sure where you’d find the time.

Which leaves one option.

Dating apps.

There are millions of them. You know from college friends and social media that there are about five worth having. You download all of them, and spend the rest of your lunch setting up your profile. You’re by no means ugly, and you’ve got plenty of pictures in exciting locations thanks to Steve being unable to get through any work event without you there. You put down that you’re not sure what you’re looking for, because you’re really not. You lie about your job, because when you tell people you’re Steve Roger’s personal assistant, they usually get weird. You settle just secretary, even though Steve and Natasha would shout at you if they saw.

They won’t see. None of them will see.

And you’ll get a nice, boring date to the next event, and everything is going to be fine.

“You never tell me about your family.”

Bucky’s words are so low you almost don’t hear them. You look up at him in surprise, and hope the dim lighting hides your flush.

“You never ask.”

His lips twitch down. “I’ve told you about my family.”

“So?”

“Usually.” He mutters, glaring at his papers like the did something to personally offend him. “When you tell someone about yourself, it’s an… Exchange of information.”

“An exchange of information?” You snort. “Is that a CIA thing?”

“Not everything I do is a CIA thing.”

“Everything Natasha does is a CIA thing. And you were in the CIA together.”

“Nat was better at it than I was.” He grumbles. His brow does a tight-knit wrinkle thing, when he’s frustrated. For a grown man, it’s always rather adorable. “I’d like to know about your family.”

“I…” You blink at him, your brain turning fuzzy and useless.

He’s staring at you. Saying those words like they matter, and you can barely understand them at all.

“Why?”

“Because. We’ve worked together a while. I know… A lot about you.” He takes a deep breath through his nose, giving you a strange look. “You know about me.”

“Uh huh. That’s usually how being friends works.”

Bucky sighs. “Yeah, well. You’ve met my mother. She adores you.”

“She doesn’t adore me-“

“She adores you.”

He says it like it’s really not up for debate. You flush. “Oh- Okay.”

“Everyone you meet adores you.” Bucky grumbles, like that complete lie of a statement infuriates him. “And I tell you everything about me.”

You don’t think that’s true either. You know a lot about Bucky, but not everything. Steve says Bucky’s just like that—not big on sharing—so you hoard every bit of information he offers you like a dragon with gold, but it’s far from everything. “Bu- James-“

“Bucky.” He corrects, and you sigh.

He’s not making that part easy, either.

“Bucky.” You say, smooth and careful. “You know everything about me that Steve knows. I- I can tell you more. But I’m not all that interesting.”

“I disagree.” He mutters. “You’re impossibly interesting.”

You can only hum, pressing your thighs together as he just keeps staring at you. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that. It makes your brain slow down and all your thoughts turn honeyed and gooey. His hands are right in your eyeline, and he’s got those big, deft fingers that you’ve imagined tracing over your hips and lips, and he’s giving you compliments. Compliments like they’re just breathing, like he doesn’t even have to think about them because you could be all he sees.

“What do you want to know?” You mumble, desperate to move the conversation away from this. If you offer yourself too much of his attention, it’s going to drag you under like quicksand.

“What’s your favorite kind of flower?”

“My favorite flower-“

Bucky grunts, nodding tightly. You take a deep, slow breath, careful not to look him in the eyes.

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

Bucky grunts. “Well, what kinda flowers have people gotten you before.”

“I- I’ve never been given flowers.”

“You’ve never-“ Bucky cuts himself off, and you risk a glance up to see him scowling. “Ever?”

You can hear the what about that he won’t say. What about a boyfriend.

If he’s not brave enough to ask it—although you don’t understand why he’d care—you don’t have to be brave enough to answer it.

“No. Never ever.” You mumble, and you might dissolve into a mist of humid humiliation and confusing arousal.

You have Bucky’s attention, and you both wish he’d take it back and never want him to stop pushing. You’ve never had someone poke at you this much. It makes your core ache, and you’d rally rather not explore what that means right now.

“You need to sign these.” You shove some papers across the desk, staring at Bucky’s hands again.

They’re curled in fists. You’d like them inside you-

You mentally slap yourself, and force a smile onto your face, nodding to the papers. “Steve told me not to let you go home, until you did.”

Bucky chuckles at that, though there’s still a strange look in his eyes. “Not let me go home, huh.”

“Yes, sir.” You drawl.

Bucky’s knuckles go white. You could swear his voice gets lower.

“And how would you stop me from gettin’ home, kid?”

“With lots of talent.” You shrug, giving him a tiny smile. “And my body.”

Bucky coughs, and the desk jerks suddenly. His knee must’ve slammed against it. You shoot to your feet, ready to check on him, but he waves you quickly back down.

“Fine. I’m fine.” He scowls, scooting forward in his chair. “Papers.”

He makes a beckoning gesture, and you just stare at him.

“James, are you-“

“Bucky.” He grunts. “Papers, sweetheart.”

You nod stupidly, shoving the papers into his hands. You’re not sure what’s happening. Your thoughts are all still made of candy-clouds and goo, so you don’t want to overthink it.

It’s only when you get home, that you realize what he called you. I

Sweetheart.

You can’t blame him. He can’t know what that does to you.

You really need to find that date.

It happens in the middle of work. The worst possible place for it to happen.

Steve’s on a conference call, and you’re lying on his couch, swiping through dating apps. You’re only there in case he forgets something, and you don’t have to pay much attention for that. The voices of old, annoying men drone on and on and on in the background, and you have everything memorized so well that when Steve calls your name, you answer without even realty paying attention to what you’re saying.

The call is three hours for no good reason at all. You get bored.

Hence, the dating apps.

It’s almost as mindless as the call itself. All in all, the experience is turning out to be more of a fun game than an actual method to find a date. The next gala is creeping up, though. You refuse to give up.

But you’re also picky. And you keep comparing every profile you see to Bucky, which is deeply counterproductive.

Michael is handsome, and the exact same height as Bucky, but he’s built with corded muscle instead of the softer, thicker strength you’ve seen straining through Bucky’s suit. Henry has a picture of himself with kids—his sister’s, according to the caption—but you look at it and just think of when Bucky and Steve went to the children’s hospital, and Bucky had become such a soft and approachable person you’d been worried you’d get pregnant watching him.

Leon has nice eyes, but they’re not as pretty as Bucky’s. Cal is in the military, but he’s beaming about it in a way that makes you think he joined so he could run around with a big gun, while Bucky joined because his family needed the healthcare. Jake has a sweet smile, but it doesn’t make you feel bubbly like Bucky’s. Asher and Kyle both have high paying jobs—all their photos showing them driving Maserati’s and drinking expensive whiskey—but one of the things you’ve always loved about Bucky is how he doesn’t brag. His suits are less expensive and more well-tailored. His watch costs $150—he always grumbles that he just needs it to tell time—and he drives a motorcycle that Sam says he built from scratch.

You squint at Damien’s profile, and he’s got a motorcycle too. His caption says that he built it himself, and you don’t know anything about motorcycles, but you doubt he built it as well as Bucky did.

You swipe left with a sigh, and go onto the next profile.

James. 41. Business Manager. You give the picture a quick glance—beefy, shirtless chest that makes you drool a little, only the sharp, bearded jawline of the owner visible in the photo—and squint at the bio. Wealthy bachelor looking for his Queen.

You snort, and scroll lazily down. James’ Interests include music, cars, technology, dancing, family. No kids, but wants them. Looking for casual fun—you can’t be causal, or have fun, but it’s always nice to pretend—located thirty feet away, pet cat, smokes and drinks socially-

Located thirty feet away.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

You sit up suddenly, rapidly scrolling back up to the photos and main bio. James, 41, Business Manager.   

Fucking- Fuck-

You click frantically through the photos, somehow burning alive and freezing to your bones all at once. James’ next photo doesn’t show his face either, instead displaying a fluffy white cat on his bare chest. You know that cat. You’ve fed and pet her, paying her more attention than Bucky himself whenever he brings her to the office. Alpine adores you. You have more photos of her on your phone than you do of yourself.

Next photo.

Bucky drinking at that Italian place he, Steve, and Sam always go to for celebrations. In the background, you can see Natasha flirting with the bartender. You remember that night. She’d taken him home, and you’d heard far too many details about how hot and submissive he was in the morning. You’d been happy for her, and sick with jealousy. You’d spent all of that night standing next to her, trying not to stare at Bucky while he and Steve drank.

Which means-

You pinch in on the photo, feeling a little sick when you find it. Shrouded enough in the background that you can only see it if you look, but you can definitely fucking see it.

Your lovelorn, sad expression as you stare at Bucky like he’s made of stars.

He’s seen this photo. Everyone who’s been on his dating profile has seen this photo.

You feel sick. You unpinch the photo, ready to maybe just fall back into the couch cushions and have them swallow you whole, and then it fucking happens.

Your thumb drifts a little to the right.

You swipe yes on Bucky’s profile.

And a little heart graphic overtakes your screen, the bolded words It’s a Match! Shoved into your face.

You scream, and throw your phone across the room.

Steve looks at you like you’re insane. You feel insane.

“Are you-“

“I need to go to the bathroom!” You shout, and Steve opens his mouth, but you’re already running.

You have to pass Bucky’s office—right next to Steve’s—to get to the bathroom. You pause to stare at him, unable to form any coherent thoughts but fuck and Bucky.

He’s on his phone. Reading something with a knit brow. You might actually be about to throw up.

Like he can sense you, he looks up.

Your eyes meet.

And you run away, as fast as you fucking can.

Steve is a lovely boss. When you tell him you need a week off for vague personal reasons, but that you can still work remotely, he tells you not to bother and just take the time without work.

“But- I can help-“

“I know. I’m telling you not to.” He gives you a small smile. “You’ve earned the break.”

“Steve-“

“You’re allowed to just rest,” he says your name kindly, and you shake your head. No. You’re not.

“Please give me something to do.” You plead, and Steve sighs.

“Kid, you don’t have to prove something-“

“Please.” If you don’t have anything, you’re just going to stare at your match with Bucky the whole time. And that’s a harrowing, deadly prospect of a way to spend your week.

Steve sighs, and gives in. You get a bunch of emails to send, and they’re just enough to distract you.

Barely.

Sometimes, you still manage to falter, and open up the app. Stare at the you matched with James three days ago! Banner at the top of the screen. Maybe he hasn’t seen it at all, and you’re hiding for no reason. He could be someone who never even checks who he matches with unless they message first, because he just gets so many matches. Jealousy stabs through your heart, sour and sharp, and you sigh.

It’s your best hope. That he’ll just never know.

But he matched with you, too.

He could just swipe right on every girl he sees. That’s a thing you hear men do.

Bucky’s not the type to do that.

He’s also not the type to be looking for his Queen. Maybe you don’t know him as well as you thought you did.

But you’re pretty sure you do.

This is making your head hurt.

Your real best bet is that someone’s been catfishing as James Barnes, but there’s no real hope of that with the bar photo. You’re going to have to quit your job and change your name. Maybe Steve can reference you to another similar job if you apologize enough. Maybe you can move to Alaska and learn how to be a fisherwoman. You’re not very patient. And you’re not going to be able to afford your nice gloves anymore. Maybe you should just die. The best option might just be dying-

Your phone buzzes.

Message from James.

You throw your phone again. He knows.

Death is looking lovely right now.

Your days off turn into a week off. Steve checks on you, but doesn’t push you to come back. If anything, he’s still trying to convince you to just take a real vacation.

“It’s going to help more than… What you’re doing right now.” He stands in the middle of your apartment, gesturing at your ice cream and the mess of clothing on the floor.

“This is helping plenty.” You mutter. Steve sighs.

“Look, I’m really not mad about you taking the time. I know you. You wouldn’t take it if you didn’t need it.”

“But?” You give him a pointed look, and his jaw ticks.

“But I wish you’d tell me what was goin’ on.” He says, sounding more sad than annoyed. “So I could help.”

You give him a tight smile. “Steve-“

“Anything you need. If I can’t get it, I’m sure Bucky or Nat could-“

“Steve.” You don’t want to hear about how Bucky can help you. Not when he knows perfectly well why you’ve gone into hiding. “I- I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Steve frowns, but lets it go. In the Steve way, where he keeps asking every time he visits, but always takes the no in stride.

“Can you at least tell me what I should be saying to everyone else?” He asks after a week. “People are noticing I’m missing my brain.”

You laugh softly. “I’m sick.”

“But you’re not.”

Not visibly. Your heart feels sick. Bucky’s sent you two more messages on the app, one into your personal number, and none on Teams, and you’ve read none of them. You don’t want to hear his gentle rejection, because it’s going to crush you into fine, little pieces.

“We’re worried about you.” Steve says. “And again, no rush to come back, but I don’t know how to work my own schedule and Bucky’s started pacing whenever I try to do your job, so-“

“Bucky’s pacing?” You blurt, and Steve blinks.

“Yeah? Think he misses you, too.”

You swallow, and glance at your phone. The unread messages.

Bucky only paces when he feels like something is wrong. Really wrong.

And you don’t want to know. That he’s been thinking about. That he’s been pacing. Because it all ends the same anyway.

“I’ll be back soon.” You mumble, flipping your phone face down. You don’t want to know. “Just- A few more days.”

Steve looks at you like he doesn’t believe you. You don’t believe you.

But you’re a big girl. You can survive a little rejection, and it doesn’t have to be anything at all.

You’re going to keep going, and this won’t have to have been anything at all.

Nobody asks, when you get back to the office. Nat and Sam check in that you’re okay, and Steve lets you pick lunch three days in a row—and you think he’s blaming himself for everything, which at least tells you that Bucky hasn’t snitched about anything—but the only thing waiting for you is a phone full of voicemails and a crowded calendar.

And Bucky.

Bucky, who almost acts like nothing even happened at all.

Almost.

He’s staring more than he used to, and he’d always stared quite a lot. When you’re left alone in a room together, he stares until you look up at him, before immediately coughing and looking back to his own papers. He lingers outside of Steve’s office until you ask if he needs to talk, and he shakes his head and runs off like a teenager caught trying to buy drinks. Nat shouts at him after two meetings where he wasn’t paying attention, and he mutters that he was distracted.

“What?! What could you possibly have been so distracted by that you missed every cue Sam gave you, five times in a row?”

He just shrugs, and you can feel his gaze burning straight into your heart. You bow your head, and pretend you don’t see it.

You still haven’t looked at the messages. You’re not going to. And he hasn’t brought it up, so it’s like nothing ever happened.

Like nothing ever happened.

But it happened. The world ended, but it also just kept spinning, and now you’re suspended in a world where Bucky doesn’t even treat you like a friend anymore.

Steve notices. Of course he does. Asshole.

“Did something happen?” He asks softly. “Did Bucky… Say something to you?”

You look up with wide eyes, mouth going dry. “Wha- What? No, Bucky- James and I, it’s fine.” You laugh, high and nervous. “Everything’s fine.”

Steve hums, and he doesn’t believe you. You can see it, shining in his eyes. “You know… I’ve known Bucky a long time.”

“I know. I’ve read the about page.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “No. I mean, yes, but-“ He sighs. “Bucky’s not good at… Talking. When something matters to him, he shows it.”

“Okay.” He’s shown you nothing but silence and stares.

“And he, um- He’s a good guy-“

“I’m aware.”

“I know you are, but-“ Steve sighs, slumping in his chair. “Just, if Bucky ever says something to you, or asks you to do something, and you don’t want to, don’t. I’d rather you piss him off then feel pressured. Not that he’d pressure you,” he adds quickly. “But if there’s ever… Anything. And I’ve been wrong about… Stuff. Just know you’re as valuable as he is.”

He’s speaking in riddles. This has been a long few weeks. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Steve nods, taking in a deep breath. “And is there… Anything you want to tell me? As my friend?”

It’s a mean card to play. You almost want to. Steve’s kind, and he gives good advice, and you believe him. You know that if you confessed your silent, raging love for Bucky, Steve would just support you.

But you don’t need someone to support you right now. You need someone to smack you in the face and tell you to stop being a baby about your crush not liking you back.

“No.” You give him a strained smile, and it hurts on your face. “Why, is there something you need to tell me?”

Steve stares at you for a moment, then slowly shakes his head. “No. Just… You were missed.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and Steve clears his throat.

“By everyone.”

You nod, useless tears stinging at your eyes, and look back to your work.

Later that day, Bucky goes into Steve’s office and they talk for two hours. You want to eavesdrop, but that would be a new, pathetic low.

You stare at Bucky’s head through the glass, and chew on a pencil until it snaps in half.

When Bucky leaves the office, he stops in front of your desk and lingers. You can feel the heat from his body, and you’d like to fall into it. He clears his throat, and you look up like he’d grabbed your chin and demanded it.

His eyes are shining on yours, and you’ve never seen his jaw clenched so tight. As if he’s disgusted, just from the sight of you.

“You look nice.” He rasps, and you can’t tell if you’re glowing or burning out.

“Thank you.”

He nods, looking up to the ceiling, then back to you. “We all missed you.”

“I’ve been told-“

“I missed you.” He says those words firmer. They sink into your core, molten and demanding, so overwhelming you’re not even sure what to do with yourself.

You’ve been staring at him too long. Words are failing you, thoughts are failing you, and-

“I, uh- I’ll leave you to it-“

“You too.” You breathe out, and Bucky stumbles back like you hit him. “I- I missed you too.”

He blinks. His nostrils flare, and he gapes at you with a red face. For a second, you don’t see the calm, collected man you know and adore so well. You see something closer to a teenage boy, fumbling and gaping and unsure what to do with his own strength.

You like him, just as much as you like the rest of Bucky. Love it.

Endlessly and uselessly love it.

Bucky turns on his heels, and almost runs back to his office. Your nails dig into your palms, and you force your attention back to your work.

It will pass. All of this, like every storm, is going to have to pass.

You get a night off. Steve has a date, and it’s the one part of his life you have and want nothing to do with. You were going to use the evening to catch up on more voicemails, until Sam shooed you out of the building like a bird. Go rest, woman.

You are resting.

By catching up on emails.

There’s a knock on your door, long after anyone should be out doing anything. You don’t move from the couch at first, because you think it’s a mistake.

Then the knock repeats. Louder than the first time. And someone shouts your name, muffled through the door.

Not a mistake.

Bucky. That’s Bucky’s voice.

You fall, trying to get up. Your knees feel like jelly, and you haven’t even seen him yet, but he’s already doing that thing where his attention makes you feel like you’re made of electric static. Sensitive and empty-headed in the best and worst way. You can barely stand it. You can’t really stand at all.

When you finally—somehow—make it to the door, Bucky’s standing on the other side like he’s awaiting inspection. Tall and silent, shoulders squared and arms behind his back, looking at you like you’re holding his life in your hands.

You stare at him. He stares back, and you can measure your every breath in heartbeats. Louder and louder in your ears.

“Hi.” You finally say, shifting on your feet, and his throat bobs.

“Hey.”

“What’re you-“

“I wanted to check on you.” He blurts, and you freeze. “And- Talk.”

You ignore that last part. It’s the last thing you want to do. “I’m fine.”

Bucky’s pretty lips tug down. “You took two weeks off.” He mutters. “You don’t even take sick days.”

You swallow. “I- I was trying to take care of myself-“

“By working the whole time?” He looks past you again, and you follow his gaze.

Right to your laptop, open on an email draft.

“You’re supposed to be takin’ tonight off too.” He says, a little scolding, and you stiffen.

“You’re not my boss.”

Bucky chuckles. Low and deep, shivering up your spine. “Trust me, doll. I’m fully aware of that.”

Oh. That does something nice to your core. You think you might be getting a fever.

“James…”

“Bucky.” He grunts, and you take an unsteady breath. Staring at his chest seems to be the most effective way to speak to him.

“Bucky, I- I’m fine, really-“

“I brought you flowers.” He says suddenly, and his hands shoot out from behind his back.

He’s holding out a large bouquet of roses and lilies, each in about three different colors. It’s a stark contrast to his black suit and neatly pressed white shirt, petals spilling and little bits of yellow pollen clinging to the stems. To the cuffs of his sleeves.

Bucky clears his throat, pushing the flowers a little further forward. You take them with shaking hands, a little worried they’ll dissolve the moment you touch them. They don’t. And Bucky clears his throat.

“I, uh- I gave you options, and-“ He shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can I come in? Please?”

You can’t think of a good reason to say no. You don’t even think you’d get out the words, if you tried. So you nod, and step to the side.

And now Bucky’s in your apartment. Looking around at your things and licking his lips, nodding slowly. He fits into it, like a puzzle piece being slowly slotted in, and-

No.

You can’t think like that. It’s not going to help anyone, not by far.

He brought you flowers.

To apologize for breaking your heart.

Bucky looks back to you, bracing his hands on his hips. You swallow, hugging yourself tight, and neither of you dare to move. Bucky takes a ragged breath, looks to the side, and back to you with the strangest, most anguished expression you’ve ever seen on his handsome face.

“Tell me if I’m steppin’ over the line.” He starts, urgent and pleading. “You gotta tell me if I’m steppin’ over the line.”

“Bucky-“

“We both know why I’m here.” He takes a step forward. You take a step back.

Bucky freezes, and you take a shaking breath, staring at his shoes.

“I- I’m sorry.” You mumble. “I didn’t mean to-“

“You didn’t?” Bucky cuts you off, and you glance up to see him frowning. “At all?”

You blink. “No, I- I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you meant it?”

You nod, and Bucky’s jaw works tight.

“Could you?”

“What?”

“Could you mean it?” He rasps, and your mouth falls uselessly open.

“Ja-  Bucky.” You shake your head, stepping further back. If this is a trick, you’re too fragile to fall for it. “I- I don’t know.”

“Why not?” He takes a step forward, your eyes trapped together. “Is it me?”

“Is it you?”

“Yeah, I- I mean- You don’t really date.” He clears his throat. “And Stevie’s never told me why, ‘cause- I’m not your boss, but I’m not not your boss- ‘s what Sam says-“

You’ve never heard him ramble. Never heard him speak like he’s not sure of the next work. It’s just as endearing as the display at the desk, but you’re even less sure what to do with it. “Bucky-“

“If it’s just me that you’re not- That’s the reason.” He’s standing over you now. Bowing his head. “Then that’s fine. I’m not gonna be an ass about it. But…” His shoulders slump. “If it’s not that. Then I- I’d like to…”

He trails off, giving you a hopeful look.

But you’re lost. Nothing he’s saying is making sense, and you’re almost being dragged under by the current of his words.

“What?” You repeat, more pleading than before. Bucky sighs.

“You never answered my messages.” He mutters. “Figured I’d need to ask in person. Needed to hear it.” He clears his throat, lips twitching. “Even if it’s a no.”

“Even…” You frown. “Even if what’s a no?”

His head shoots up, and his frown deepens. “I’m… Asking you out. On a date?”

Oh.

What.

Your surprise must be written all over your face, because Bucky looks bewildered. He can join the club.  

You just keep staring at him stupidly, and he says your name, slow and measured.

“You read my messages, right?”

You shake your head, and he groans.

“I- I’m sorry-“

“No, it’s- It’s my fault.” He mutters. “Nat told me you were oblivious-“

You cut him off indignantly. “I am not oblivious-“

“We matched on a dating app.” He drawls, lips twitching slightly. “And you’re shocked I’m askin’ you out.”

You scowl, hugging yourself tighter. “I thought you made a mistake.” You grumble, and Bucky chuckles.

He takes another step forward. Close enough that you can smell him, smell his cologne and aftershave and something deeper that’s just Bucky. You step back more out of fear that you were about to fall forward.

Bucky follows you.

Suddenly your pinned against your counters, Bucky’s arms braced on either side of your body. You swallow. Bucky’s tongue darts over his lips, and you think you did drown in his everything. You’ve been swept out to sea, and there’s no hope of being dragged out to shore.

And with how Bucky’s looking at you, you’re not sure you’d ever ask to be saved.

“You.” Bucky reaches up, brushing hair out of your eyes with a small smile. “Are not a mistake. And if someone’s been tellin’ you that you are.” He leans down, until your lips are almost brushing. “They’re damn lucky you’re lettin’ them make it.”

Dear God. You’re not strong enough for this.

“James…” You breathe out, and his brows knit. “Bucky. Don’t.”

He tenses around you. “Don’t?”

“Don’t.” You whisper, eyes dropping to his lips. They look so soft. “Don’t do this.”

Bucky leans a little back, but doesn’t pull fully away. “Why not? I told you, if it’s not ‘cause of me, we can work it out-“

“Bucky-“

“I’ll quit.” He says suddenly, and you gape.

“You’re the boss, you can’t quit-“

“There are like, four bosses.” Bucky waves you off. “Five if we’re countin’ you, which I am, and you do twice the fuckin’ work. I’ll just quit, and you can have my job, and we can-“

“Bucky.” You grab his shirt, and he falls silent immediately. “Just- Stop. You can’t quit, you shouldn’t-“ You take a deep breath, trying to focus on speaking instead of crying.

Bucky says your name softly, and big hands thread through your hair as you start to sniffle. It’s so pathetic, but you’re tired and overwhelmed and you can’t take him doing this to you twice. You’re not the kind of girl Bucky Barnes is going to want. Not for real. Not for long. And you can’t handle him pretending you are.

“It’s not nice.” You whimper, even as he tugs you into his chest.

Pressing your face into his chest is just as amazing as you’d always imagined. You wish you weren’t crying when it finally happened.

“What’s not nice.” Bucky prompts gently, and you swallow.

“You.”

“Me?”

You nod, wrapping your arms around his torso. Bucky pets the back of your head, words low and cautious.

“What about me isn’t nice?”

You shake your head, hugging him tighter. You can’t stop. It’s like a reflex. “You can’t- You can’t say that stuff. ‘S mean.”

“Me tellin’ you I’d quit for you is mean?”

“You don’t mean it.”

Bucky tenses. “I do mean it-“

“No, it’s not- I’m not-“ You swallow, breathing him in. “I don’t just wanna be…”

You trail off. Bucky prompts you softly. “Be what?”

“Be fun.” You mumble. “I can’t do fun, you know than, and- And if you’re not serious, then-“

“I’m dead serious.” Bucky grunts, and you swallow.

“James-“

“No. Listen to me.” He picks you up without a warning, sitting you on the counter so you’re at his eye level. You grab his shoulders, and he keeps his hands planted on your hips, almost holding you under his words.

Forcing you to hear them, as he watches you like you’re the most important thing in the world.

“I am serious about this. About you.” He grabs one of your hands, holding it between your bodies. “I have wanted you since I met you. Don’t look at me like that,” he squeezes your hand when you give him a doubtful frown. “I have. You are beautiful and smart and bossy, and I’ve been obsessed with you so much, Nat’s slapped me about it twice.”

You swallow, closing your eyes tight. You can’t look at him right now. “Your profile said looking for casual.” You mutter, and Bucky snorts.

“Last year, Sam made that thing for me. ‘Cause I was obsessed with Stevie’s new PA, and I needed to get under someone to get over it.”

“Hm.” You peek at him. He looks sincere. “Did you?”

“I got under many someone’s.” He shrugs. “Didn’t have Sam’s intended effect. Think I just wanted you more, after every time.”

You swallow. That does explain a lot about the profile, in hindsight. Those were all very Sam things to say.

“I want you.” Bucky murmurs, pressing a little closer. Your noses are bumping, and he’s still not looking away. “You’re in my dreams, and days without you are nightmares. Just- One shot. It’s all I need. Please.”

And God, you want to give it to him. More than anything. You want to tell him that he doesn’t even need his shot, he hit a bullseye a year ago and you’ve just been waiting for him to realize it since.

But-

“I’m a virgin.” You blurt, and Bucky blinks.

“Okay-“

“I can’t do what others can. For you. And I- I don’t know how anything works- Well, I know how sex works, I got an A in health class, but everyone got an A in health, but I got an A and paid attention, and-“ You’re rambling. “I just don’t know how dating works, or- Or relationships, and I’m not- You’re very- You.”

You gesture over his everything, and Bucky’s lips twitch.

“That a problem, doll?”

“No. God, no. You’re perfect, I’m just- Not? And that’s not really fair to you-“

Bucky grabs your face, and your cut off in a kiss.

You’ve seen kissing in the movies and on TV. Read about it a million times. It’s always all sweet and romantic, with swelling music and breeze and passion.

And nothing has done it justice at all.

Kissing Bucky is awkward for a second—his lips slotted over yours, your whole body frozen as it shuts down, then reboots—and then it’s like breathing. Your hands fly back to his shoulders, your legs spread so you can lean further forwards, and your lips move without a thought. Pressing against Bucky’s, moving in a dance he seems more than happy to lead, chasing at the slight chance that you could have just a little more.

One of Bucky’s hands finds this back of your head, and the other grabs your waist. Dragging you further forward until your chests are pressed tight, massaging the softness there in rhythm with his lips. You sigh, breathy and content, and Bucky presses further down. He’s all you can feel, muscle under your hands and love pounding in your heart. You nails scrape his neck, and he groans into the kiss.

The sound vibrates against your spread thighs. His hand on your waist flexes, fingers digging into the softness, and you gasp.

Bucky pulls back too fast, and you follow. Tugging him back, unwilling to let him go just yet. He follows for a second, tongue tracing over your lower lip, then yanks himself back.

His brow presses against yours, and you both breathe raggedly.

“I like you.” Bucky almost growls. His thumb presses over your swollen lips, palm cupping your cheek, and you melt further into him than you already were.

“Bucky-“

“You’re what I want.” He leans forward, demanding and pleading all at once. “Your body.” He pushes his hand under your shirt, rough fingers dragging against sensitive skin. “Is a bonus.”

You shiver, whimpering softly. You feel pliant. Dizzy, in a way that no flirting or video has ever rendered you before. You think Bucky might’ve sucked your soul out with that kiss. You’d like him to do it again.

But when you try to lean up, Bucky pushes you gently back down. You whine, and his lips twitch.

“You like me too.” He mutters, watching you like he’s somehow still unsure.

“Mhm.” You say, and he stands a little taller.

“How long-“

“The same.”

“Oh.” He grins. “Good. That’s- Good-“

You slam back up, kissing him with an open mouth and sloppy need. Bucky responds immediately, and heat is starting to build between your thighs. It’s not just going to go away with a little touching and petting. It’s almost painful. You need him.

Bucky pulls away again. You’re going to punch him.

“Jesus.” He mutters, staring down at your desperate expression. “You gotta slow down, baby-“

“Don’t want to.” You breathe, pulling at his shirt. “Want you, Bucky. Want you now.”

His throat bobs, eyes darkening, but he remains composed. “You… You’re a virgin-“

“Then show me.”

Bucky says your name, and now he’s the one begging. But you’re not letting him off this easy.

“Show me, Bucky.” You rest your chin on his chest, giving him your best pout.

He grabs your face between big hands, chest heaving as he stares at you. You offer a sweet smile, and his nostrils flare.

“Please.” You whisper. “Anything. I just want to feel you.”

“Feel me.” He echoes, like he can’t believe it. “You wanna feel me?”

You nod, and he presses his brow over yours his, his eyes squeezed shut.

“And you want me to show you.” He rasps. “All the different ways I can make you feel good.”

You nod frantically, almost clawing at his shirt. Bucky’s eyes shoot open.

“Yeah?” He grunts, and you whine.

“Yeah. Yes. Please-“

He grabs your jaw, grip hard and unyielding, folds over you like he’s trying to fuse your bodies together. His lips move, harsh and hungry, and his hand on your hip starts to knead the skin like he’s trying to leave a mark.

“Wanted this for so long.” He grunts, dragging his hand down to squeeze your ass. “Wanted you. So fuckin’ bad.”

You moan into his mouth, and Bucky sucks on your lower lip. You can’t have enough of him. He’s warm and leaves little fires everywhere he touches. You’d like them to sweep through you, overtake you and send you higher.

“So gorgeous.” Bucky’s hand moves lower, resting on your upper thigh. “Thought about you all the time, hated bein’ in a room and not getting to touch you, was so sure I was going to lose my damn mind not havin’ you be mine.”

“I- I wanted you too.” You breathe out, almost delirious from his kisses. “Always wanted it to be you, never- Oh-“

You lose your ability to speak for a second, when Bucky starts to kiss under your ear. Your body goes pliant and soft, and his growl against your skin sends a shiver up your spine. He’s holding the back of your neck now, guiding it to offer himself better access. You tug on his hair and he moans. It makes your knees wobbly.

“Never anyone else,” you breathe, and he seems to like that. The massive hand on your thigh shifts slightly, so Bucky’s thick fingers are grazing your core through your clothing.

It’s a perfect pressure where you’d been craving any of his attention, and it’s a promise of more later. Your legs give out, eyes fluttering as your brain short circuits with arousal.

Bucky picks you up like you weigh nothing. Your nails dig into the back of his neck as he sits you on the counter, back arching as he captures your mouth in another kiss.  

“No one else.” He mutters, hand on your neck slowly, possessively moving down your spine. “Never gonna be anyone else, doll. Not for you,” he nips at your jaw, hand on your thigh teasing the sensitivity under your shirt. “Sure as shit not for me. Been no one else since I started thinkin’ of you.”

Your breath hitches, and you lean back with wide eyes. “Bucky, you don’t have to-“

“I’m not lying.” He says firmly, dropping his brow against yours. You try to lean back, but he grabs your chin, forcing your eyes back together.

You blink at him hopelessly, grabbing at the collar of his shirt like you’re looking for balance. Bucky gives you a tiny smile, pressing his lips sweetly over yours. Another, softer promise.

“No one,” he murmurs. “Was ever gonna live up to you. First few months I’d fuck a girl and feel sick the next day. Like I’d done you wrong.”

“You- You didn’t-“

“Yeah, I did. We coulda been doin’ this a lot sooner.”

You flush, looking down to where your bodies are pressed so tight together. Bucky’s dress shirt and hidden muscle, both hard and gentle all at once. Your sleeping clothes and bare feet, swinging off the counter. You lean a little further into him, suddenly feeling rather small.

“What if I’m not…” You take a deep breath, frowning at the floor. “What if I don’t-“

Bucky says your name, concerned and caring, and you shake your head.

“What if I’m not the fantasy, Bucky.” You look back up with your best pleading eyes. “What if that- That idea of me isn’t worth what you thought?”

His brows knit tight, and you try to shirk away as he studies you. You can’t tell if you like it or not, but you know you feel bare. And you both want him to look away, and never go where you can’t reach him again.

Bucky’s lips twitch. He leans forward slowly, kissing each corner of your mouth before taking it fully under his. The kiss is hot and commanding, almost forcing your brain to slow back down. You dissolve into it, your thoughts a nice haze of Bucky. He guides your legs a little further apart, and takes both of your wrists in one of his hands, pinning them behind you.

“I love you,” he mutters. “I told you. And remember,” he pulls back with that lovely, secret smile. “I’m helpin’ you through it, right?”

You nod, and Bucky leans back forward, bumping your noses together.

“Trust me?”

“Yes.” You breathe, and he grins.

“Good girl.”

Heat floods between your legs, and oh. You like that. You’re shaking a little bit, you like it so much. Want it so much. Want Bucky.

Like he’s reading your mind, he rasps against your lips. “You enjoyed other things before?”

You nod, unable to tell if that’s another flush or just how turned on you are, and Bucky smirks.

“Like what?” He kisses your cheek, massaging your thighs. “Tell me what you like, sweetheart. What you want.”

“I- I want to be under.” You whisper, and you think his hands might be magic. Pulling answers out of you that you would’ve rather died with an hour ago. “Want you over me. Tell- Telling me what to do.”

Bucky hums, nosing at your neck. You close your eyes, forcing on.

“Tell- Tell me how good I’m doing. And- Other stuff.”

He leans back, and your core throbs at the shine in his eyes. Like he’s going to eat you alive. “Other stuff?” He rasps, and you nod weakly.

“If you can- Can do that.” It’s hard to focus, between his piercing gaze and the hand wandering between your legs. Teasing your inner thigh, until you’re voice is high and breathy. “Do that, and- and be-“

“Be a little mean?” He coos, thumb pressing over your aching button. You swallow, and nod.

“A little mean.” You echo, and Bucky grins.

“Yes, ma’am.” He kisses you again, slow and romantic, and you barely notice his hand moving away. “Think that’s enough outta you for now.”

“Wha- Bucky-“

He steps away. Without warning, Bucky just backs up, and you almost fall off the counter trying to chase him. He laughs, and pushing you back into place in a second, then moves away again. Where you can’t follow.

“Bucky, come back-“

“Nope.” He grins, like he knows you’re already too lost to chase him. He probably does. Asshole. “You want me to show you?”

You scowl. “James-“

“Call me whatever you want, baby. You ain’t gonna be able to talk at the end, anyway.” He braces his hands on his hips, raising a brow. “Want me to show you.”

He won’t come back until you answer, so you just nod, crossing your arms like a scolded child. Bucky grins, and you’re hoping for another good girl and kiss, but he doesn’t even lean closer.

“Alright.” He stands a little taller. “Strip.”

You blink at him. “What?”

“Strip.”

“Like, completely?”

“Hm.” He pauses, raking over your body in a way that really shouldn’t make you feel more turned on. “Yep. All of this, off.”

He waves to your body, and gives you a silent, challenging look. Like he’s expecting you to go back, and ask for that date first.

But at this point, you’re going to explode if he doesn’t make you cum. And you’ve never backed down from him before. You have no interest in starting now.

Slowly, you peel off your sweater. Your shirt. The cold air hits your bare chest, and not wearing a bra was the right choice. Bucky’s looking at you like he wants to eat you alive, the evidence of your effect on him straining through his pants.

Your nipples are peaked, and you awkwardly palm at them the way you’ve seen in porn. Bucky shifts on his feet, hand flexing like he’s trying not to reach for you, so you repeat the motion again.

“Pants.” He grunts, and you smile sweetly.

“Please?”

Bucky chuckles, like he can’t believe you. “Jesus, woman-“

“It’s polite-“

“If you don’t take your pants off.” He grunts, giving you a firm look. “I’m gonna rip off your pants and fuck you on this counter right now.”

You swallow. That doesn’t sound all that bad, but-

Something foolish and lovesick inside of your chest demands that tonight be special. So you move on from your breast, but give Bucky a nervous smile.

“Next time?”

He softens slightly, and nods. “Next time. Pants.”

You smile, and he smiles back. But the expression quickly shifts back into desire, as you shuffle out of your pants. You take your underwear down in one motion as well, leaving you completely exposed. At Bucky’s mercy.

And he’s just watching you.

Watching you and rubbing his crotch, where an erection is demanding attention. The lewd sight makes you fuzzy in all the right places, your own legs spreading a little wider apart.

You need him so bad it hurts. Your fingers dip into your wet pussy, clumsily rubbing your clit, and Bucky groans.

Suddenly he’s back against you, staring at your hand between your legs and panting like a dog.

“Look at you.” He groans, dragging his gaze back up your naked body. “Better than a dream.”

“Thank you.” Your hips buck up against your own, suddenly flimsy and useless hand. You’ve touched yourself before. With Bucky all around you, it’s simply not enough. “Bucky- You-You need to touch me-“

“I know.” He grunts, lips ghosting over yours. “Need you to be ready, just-“

His throat bobs as he cuts himself off, his hand on his own hard dick suddenly pressing against your pussy. A spasm shoots through your body, and you almost fly off the counter.

Bucky presses further down, attaching his lips to your neck and collarbone. His tongue flicks against a pulse point as he spreads your pussy lips. Rubbing up and down while his thumb circles around your clit, working you up and up and up. You’re panting in his ear, vulnerable and dazed, and Bucky hums against your skin.

“Shirt.” He grunts. “Get my shirt off.”

You nod, and it should be a simple task. But Bucky’s relentless. He suckles on your neck, leaving possessive bruises on your skin all while working your pussy and drawling in your ear.

“I know exactly how I want you, pretty girl.” He mutters, flicking your clit with his thumb. “Told you I’ve been thinkin’ about it forever. ‘Bout every single way I’d take you if I got the chance. And I’m gonna show you all of them,” he kisses over a bruise, teasing two fingers against your fluttering core. “But tonight, we’re takin’ it easy.”

You whine, fumbling with just the top button of his shirt. “I- I don’t want easy-“

“I know, baby.” He presses just the tip of his finger into your cunt, and you clench around him with a whine. “But you’re so sensitive.”

If you had the power right now, you’d hit him for saying it like that. All mocking and syrupy. Making you try to fuck your hips down onto his fingers. But Bucky just pulls fully out, moving his attention back to your swollen clit.

“You need to take care of the buttons.” He whispers, pushing down hard on the bundle of nerves. “They need a little extra attention.” He rubs his thumb back and forth. “Before we get goin’.”

“Fuck- Bucky-“ You breathe, almost slumped against his chest. Your fingers are shaking, desperate to just hold onto something as thighs spread as wide as they can go. “Fuck you-“

He chuckles, kissing the side of your head as his thumb picks up speed. “We’re getting there, needy girl.”

You scrape at his forearm, one hand still trying to pry his shirt open with no real resolve at all. He knows exactly what he’s doing to you, the asshole. Driving you insane with the teasing over your exposed entrance, never fully offering relief. You manage to get the top button open, but then Bucky pushes down hard on your clit, and an open moan falls from your lips as you double over.

“That’s it.” Bucky laughs, low and dangerous in your ear. “Doesn’t that feel good, baby?”

You nod, watching him move on you. “Bu- Bucky-“ You pull on his collar. “Help…”

“You’ve got it.” He says simply, spreading two fingers and dragging them between your pussy lips. “Just keep tryin’.”

There is no world where you have it, but Bucky’s words are enough for you to keep grasping fruitlessly at the fabric. Your head drops onto his shoulder, as you paw at his shirt. He laughs, rumbling through his chest, and slows his pace on your clit.

“All the ways I’ve pictured havin’ you.” He mutters. “This is the prettiest. Got you nice and ready, barely even touched you.”

“You’re- You’re touching me-“

“Not like I could touch you.” He says, a deep promise in his voice. “Told you, I’m going easy on my best girl. But if I wanted…”

He chuckles, kissing the side of your head. Pushing on your clit as your body starts to wiggle, trying to find more relief. “Bucky-“

“Every time I’ve seen you, layin’ on the couch.” He presses further forward, his bulge against your thigh. “I’ve thought about putting my hands all over your perfect fuckin’ body. Touching these tits,” he ducks his head, and your breath hitches as he kisses over the curve of your breast. “Touchin’ this sweet little pussy.” He plays with your clit like it a toy. “And makin’ you squirt all over Stevie’s nice cushions.”

“I’d look at you.” You gasp, holding onto his shirt for dear life. “In your chair. Wanted to sit on your lap.”

Bucky groans, hips jerking slightly. “Shit, I’ve thought about that too. Pinning you on my cock ‘till you’re sobbing, fucking you over my desk- Christ, whenever you’d bend over I’d just want to drag your ass back and fuck it ‘till you were drooling.”

“Fuck, yes.” You’ve given up on the shirt.

Your hand is wandering down between your bodies, and you rub against Bucky’s crotch, trying to return some of the favor. Bucky moans into your ear, pressing his hand flat over your cunt.

“Shit, you- Can’t just fuckin’-“ Bucky grunts your name, and you roll your hips against his hand.

“Need it. Need it, Bucky- Just- Your fingers, please-“

“No.” He mutters, his own voice gravelly as you squeeze him. “Can’t be patient, can you, sweetheart? Want this cock so bad you’re just grabbin’ for it, wasn’t even able to get my shirt off-“

“It’s a mean game.” You breathe, and he laughs, pushing his lips back over yours.

“You started it.” He brushes the hair from your face, easily moving you backwards until you’re just groping for something of him to hold onto.

“Why can’t you just- Just fuck me-“

“Because you wanted to be a good girl.” Bucky’s kisses are turning slow. Lazy. He’s groping your pussy again, but with far less purpose.

Just spreading your arousal and teasing everywhere you need him, driving you up to an edge you think might take away your mind. A mind you’d be happy to lose for him, if he’d just take it.

“And I want to show you.” Bucky rests his thumb over your entrance, his free hand pushing on your abdomen. Forcing you to stay still. “But you’ve got a greedy pussy, sweet girl. Think you need a little break?”

You shake your head—you do not want a break—but Bucky pushes his thumb a little harder, and you squeak.

“Bu- Bucky-“

“Look at me.” He orders, and you don’t have another choice. His voice is magnetic.

With just the top button exposing his sweaty collarbone and his erection evidence that he cares about this as much as you do, all of Bucky is magnetic. Gravitational. And it makes you feel so unbelievably good, just to be seen by him.

Being fucked by him might kill you.

It’s a risk you’re willing to take.

“Hi.” He smiles, and your lips wobble with need.

“Hi.”

“You still in this?”

You nod, and Bucky’s throat bobs.

“I’d like you to say it-“

“Yes, sir.” You can’t help yourself from saying it.

It’s supposed to be mocking. But your voice is still high, and Bucky looks at you like you’ve lost your mind.

“You’re lucky you’re so pretty.” He shakes his head, tone something between amused and exhausted. “Otherwise you’d be a really fuckin’ brat.”

You flush violently, and Bucky slaps your pussy once. Just enough to make you feel like you’ve been struck by lightning, and mold back into his whims.

“One day.” He drawls, one knuckle pushing up to press on your clit. “I’m gonna get you on my face. Let you ride me, fuckin’ suffocate between your legs.”

You’re shaking, watching him. He’s talking like he’s predicting the weather, but your head is running wild. The image of Bucky under you, forcing your cunt onto his generous mouth. It would be hot and wet, his hands would leave bruises, and, and-

“You’re so reactive,” he mutters, using featherlight swipes of his thumb against your clit. “Think I could make you squirt on me. It’ll be like this,” he starts to move in tiny, rapid motions back and forth. “Like this. But my tongue,” he licks up your neck, nipping at the underside of your jaw. “And your needy clit bein’ sucked like I’ve got some fuckin’ candy.”

He pinches your clit, and starts to roll it back and forth. You can feel a pressure, building and building. It’s almost blindingly good.

“You’re makin’ such nice sounds for me.” Bucky mutters. “Bet you’ll sound even better, coming apart all over my cock.”

You nod, humping into his hand. You need more, but just when you think it’s going to snap, Bucky’s hand moves back down. 

“You feel this, baby?” He circles his thumb against your hole, and you hum, eyes flutters. “She’s ready for me.”

“Yes.” You breathe. “Ready, Bucky, please- Wait-“

You almost whine when he pulls away again, but this time it’s for a good cause. Bucky rips his shirt off, tossing it to an unimportant corner of the room.

He’s a work of art. All thick, tanned muscle and scars from his time in the army. They ripple when he moves, decorate him like earned tattoos, and you want to map each one with your fingers. His arms are fucking tanks, reaching out for you, and you tumble into them without a thought.

Bucky hauls you into his arms, hooking under your ass and dragging you off the counter with only a grunt.

“Legs around me.” He orders, and you obey. It’s nice to be this close to him.

Plus the bonus, of getting to try and ride his chest while he carries you to your room. You stumble and giggle, trying to give him directions. Bucky shoves open your door with his shoulder, and you laugh as he walks backwards to the bed, his knees hitting the mattress and sending you both tumbling down.

“Shit- Bucky!” You shriek with delight as Bucky rolls you over, trapping you under his broad body. “Oh- Ooh-“

Your words fall off as he kisses you into the mattress, settling between your spread legs quickly. Your hands wander over the expanse of his back, and it’s a nice wealth to be crushed under. You’re losing cognitive function again, as Bucky ruts his still covered erection against your wet core. You don’t know how he’s kept it together so long. You feel like you’re going to cry with desperation, and you’re fully at his whims.

This is nice, though. It’s a hot pressure—still far from what you need, but enough to tide you over—and Bucky’s wall of muscle around might be the best things you’ve ever felt. Your tits pressed against his chest, his arms braced by your head as you just make out like teenagers. He glides one hand down, rolling your nipple between calloused fingers, and you gasp softly.

“Bu- Bucky-“

“I’m gonna start slow.” He murmurs, low and commanding. “Then pick it up. Fuck you ‘till you can’t walk, baby. Give you what you deserve.” He drops his hips, forcing you to stop grinding up. “That sound good?”

You nod, blinking hopelessly up at him, and he smiles.

“Good girl.” You get a sweet kiss on your cheek, his beard tickling softly. “Stay down.”

You don’t understand the request until he’s moving again, and suddenly it seems impossible. Being naked in front of him had been one thing. Naked, sprawled out in bed below him, and watching him strip is another thing.

Bucky sits up on his knees, never breaking eye contact as he pulls off his belt. You start to chew on your lower lip, and he moves back forward, stopping you with a gentle press of his thumb.

“Easy.” He murmurs. “Relax.”

You whimper, but try to. For Bucky.

And you think you might be turning into a puddle anyway, under the reverence in his gaze.

Bucky gets his pants off with practiced ease, and your mouth falls open.

His cock is thick and big. Veiny in a way you want to feel dragging against you, the head red and angry. Your breath catches as he starts to stroke it, just watching you wait for him.

Your legs close, trying to rub together for some friction. Bucky grabs your knee, and drags them back apart.

“Let me see you.” His thumb rubs in small circles. In a perfect rhythm, with his hand beating his cock. “Nice and relaxed for me, doll. Need you to be relaxed.”

You hum, watching him under hooded eyes. You can’t stop yourself from glancing down to his dick again. You feel empty, waiting for him. You’ve been waiting long enough as it is.

Bucky follows your gaze, and his lips twitch.

“You just walk around all the time?” He teases. “Waiting for some cock to fill you up.”

You nod, breathing through your mouth, and Bucky’s throat bobs.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” You whisper, dragging your gaze back to his. “Need to feel you, Bucky. Pleeease.”

He swears under his breath. “Legs a little wider. Now.”

You listen quickly, and Bucky lowers down. He drags his cock between the puffed, slick lips of your pussy, the head bumping against your clit.

“Dirty girl.” He hovers over you, watching your every breath as he plays with you. “So fuckin’ pretty, should be stuffed with cock all the time, shouldn’t you. Gonna keep you in my bed, fuck you full of me.” He kisses you quickly, his words getting rough. “My smart fuckin’ baby, begging for my cock.”

“Don’t- Don’t tease-“ You mumble, and Bucky grins.

“But you’re so pretty when I do.”

He kisses your cheek, and you feel raw. A live nerve, open for him and almost vibrating with desire. But Bucky’s hands are gentle against you. And you know.

He’s going to treat you well.

“You think you can let go for me?” His question is gentle. Almost soft. “Always workin’ so hard.” He notches himself at your entrance, and your breath catches. “I’m gonna take care of you, aren’t I.”

“Yes.” You whisper. “Please.”

Bucky grins, and kisses your lips. “That’s right. You just gotta take it.”

You don’t get to even nod, before Bucky starts to push in.

And you’re not a blushing nun. You’ve used your fingers, and even some toys. Tried to see what the big deal was. But it had just felt like something was inside of you, and kind of heavy, and mostly just annoying.

This is different.

Bucky splits you open, and it knocks the air from your lungs.

“Breathe.” He grunts in your ear, and you nod uselessly. “Breathe, baby.”

You gasp for air, burying your face in the crook of Bucky’s neck, and clawing at his shoulders.

He mutters your name, and you try to arch your back up, inviting more. You need more. Everywhere he isn’t feels cold and hollow. Bucky needs to smear himself all over you, or you’re going to lose your mind.

“More.” You manage to croak out, and Bucky grunts.

“Are you-“

“Yes- Fuuuuck-“

You moan, loud and shameless, as Bucky presses deeper in. He bullies your pussy open, thick cock pressing deep into you and making your feel more full than you could’ve ever felt possible. Your body feels like it’s singing, a shiver of delight pushing up your spine as he hits that spot inside you that you weren’t even sure was real.

Your pussy clenches involuntarily, and Bucky hisses in your ear.

“Shit- Relax.” His thumb snakes between your bodies, massaging your clit. “Let me in, babydoll, come on-“

The massaging helps. You melt into him with a shaking breath, head tipping back when he bottoms out.

Bucky’s head drops into your chest, his breath hot against your breasts. You’re just sitting in each other, in the sticky, feverish heat that might drive you insane.

“You feel… fuckin’ perfect.”

Bucky’s voice is a rasp, and he sounds like a man ruined.

You might have already lost your mind.

“You too.” You breathe out, and he chuckles.

The sound is a vibration, and you bite your lip as pleasure rushes right down to your toes.

“Oh… God.” You squeeze your eyes shut, clenching again, and Bucky grabs your hips.

“You gotta stop doin’ that-“

“Can’t.” You whine. “’S- You did it, you spent forever working me up, and- And now-“

His muscles shift around you, and that’s enough for your body to keen. Your back arches, pussy squeezing, and Bucky makes a guttural sound from his chest.

You squeak, when he pulls the tiniest amount out and slams back in. Your body goes completely limp, and Bucky pushes up over you, his cock still buried deep inside as he stares down at you.

“For someone who asked me to teach her, you’re bad at takin’ directions.”

“You- Bucky-“ He’s fucking you, shallow and slow. Just dragging back and forth. You might cry over it. “You- You knew that already-“

“I did.” He muses, pressing your hips further down. Forcing you to feel every thrust of his cock against your cervix. “It’s something that I love about you, y’know? So sweet and mouthy, all at once. My dream girl. So far outta my reach.”

He angles you a little up, letting him rut against your g-spot, and any chance of a sassy retort is knocked out of your head.

“Not right now, though.” His lips twitch. “Bet you’d tell me anythin’ right now, if I fucked you nice and properly. Fucked you like you deserve?”

Your head bobs, words slurred on lust. “Any- Anything, Bucky, oh my god- mmmmh-“

His thumb swipes your clit, and it’s like a tiny shock you can’t even react to. Your body jerks, but Bucky just pins you back into the mattress.

“Think I don’t want you to talk right now.” Bucky leans down, smirking as you blink with teary eyes. “We’re a little past that, aren’t we sweetheart?”

There’s something mean and powerful, radiating off of him right now. He really knows exactly where he has you right now. And you have no desire to be anywhere else. 

“Ye- Yes.” 

“Might’ve fucked you nicely, if we’d just talked a month ago.” He raises his brows. “But you made me wait for this pretty pussy. Hurting us both, baby.”

“I- I was-“

“I know.” He kisses your nose. “You are a fuckin’ brat. Bet you thought about this every time you touched yourself.”

“I- I did.” You confess. “Needed your cock, Bucky. You’re- You’re so big-“

You mewl, as he rolls his hips and slams back in. He kisses you, open-mouthed and sloppy, and you can feel your slick need running down your ass. Or just Bucky’s sweat, as he tenses with the effort to hold himself back.

Effort is visibly, slowly slipping.

“You feel that? Feel this dick inside of you?” He fucks a little harder, and your head rolls. “All yours, babydoll. This hard, just for you.”

You whine, and Bucky sucks on a soft spot at the base of your throat.

“You’re a natural.” He groans against your skin. “Made for this cock, made to be my pretty doll, and- shit-“

He rises back up, watching you with a dark, hungry gaze.

“You’re trying so hard, aren’t you. To not choke my dick with your tight little pussy.”

“I- I am, Bucky- Please-“

“You gonna be good and listen to me, now?”

You nod, doe-eyed and cockdrunk, and Bucky hums in satisfaction.

“Hands on my shoulders.” He instructs, and your body somehow finds the strength to listen. “Mouth open. No holding back, wanna hear how you like it. Hear you scream my name.”

He kisses under your jaw, and you moan loudly. Bucky’s lips curve, and he pulls a little further out than before.

“Just like that. Good, isn’t it?”

“So good.” You whine, and Bucky hums.

“Stay just like this for me, doll.” He drags fully out, then slams back in. You think you see stars behind your eyes, and a sound you didn’t know you could make is pulled from your chest.

“Buuccky-“

“I know. Needy girl, wound up so tight.” He sets a slow but brutal pace, his hands bruising into your hips as he holds you down. “I’ve got you now.”

And he does.

Bucky’s got you so good, you’re already ruined for anyone else.

He fucks you the same way he’s been kissing and touching you. Like he’s trying to lay a claim. Make it so there’s no question what he wants, no doubt in your head that this is anything but serious. His hips piston against you, but it’s not rapid. It’s the measured, strong work of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing.

If there’s a pleasure point on your body, Bucky’s finding it and using it. You babble, as he abuses your g-spot with the thick head of his cock. His kisses swallow your every moan and plea, and you can’t think beyond his massive body, completely draped over yours. You’re tangled together, his balls slapping your ass and hands wandering over your body like he owns it.

He drags your knees up to your chest, helping him hit even deeper. You’re so wet it’s smearing all over his cock, and the sight of him driving in and out of you is enough to make that pressure in your tummy feel like it’s going to explode.

Bucky’s beyond words himself, hunching over your and taking one of your nipples in his mouth as he grabs at the other. You mewl, eyes glazed over and body overwhelmed with the need to cum. You might scream if you don’t. You’re probably already screaming.

“I- I need- Bucky, please, please, fuck-“

You scratch at his shoulder, so close to toppling over the edge but unable to figure out how to just fall. Bucky grunts, slamming down harder. His tongue swirls your nipple, sucking the peak between full lips before he crashes back up. His kiss is sloppy and open. You’re writhing in the sheet, edged into complete oblivion and on the verge of tears.

“You having some trouble, babydoll?” Bucky teases, throaty and wrecked.

You nod, shaking with the need to snap.  Bucky hums, kissing you too sweetly to be productive.

“Let go for me.” He squeezes your ass. “Just let go.”

Bucky finds your clit, and barely even offers more than a tease before you’re coming with a scream of his name.

Your back flies off the mattress, your hips bucking, and you’ve never cum this hard in your life. The tension in you burst like fireworks, heat pooling down your pussy and your body trembling. Your vision goes white. You might black out for a second, the daze of pleasure clouding your gaze.

There’s nothing but Bucky, still pounding into you. The obscene sounds of it, his guttural moans and the slide of his cock through your spasming cunt. His thrusts are jagged and uneven, his mouth kissing you everywhere he can seem to reach.

He follows you quickly, thick ropes of cum painting your insides and dribbling out of your pussy.

Bucky kisses you one more time, before he pulls out. It’s slower, like he’s trying to memorize you. You reach up to cup his face, smiling against his lips, and he lets out a heavy breath.

“That wasn’t too-“

“Perfect.” You whisper, and he relaxes.

“Good. Good.” He rises back up, brushing away the hair stuck to your face.

For a second, you just watch each other.

And with Bucky looking at you like you’re the most beautiful thing in the universe, you feel like it.

He certainly treats you like it, too. Cleaning you up like you’re a princess, a treatment you never thought you’d want until it was Bucky offering. A warm, wet cloth between your thighs and a glass of water. He carries you into the bathroom, changes the sheets, then brings you back to bed.

He pauses after he sets you down, hovering around the mattress with a frown.

You scoot a little to the side, give him a hopeful look, and his shoulders slump.

He crawls into bed next to you, pressing his face into your breasts and holding you tight.

“We got things to talk about.” He mutters, and you hum, playing with his hair between your fingers.

“I know.”

“I was serious, about all of it-“

“I believe you.”

Bucky looks up at you with tired, but happy eyes. You smile, and they crinkle when he returns it.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the most anything in the world.

To him, you seem to be the world. And that’s more than enough.

“I’d like to take you out.” He says. “On a real date. Then the gala, too. If you-“

“Yes.” You beam. “Yes, please. I’d like that a lot.”

You shoulder through the side door with the crate balanced on your hip, Lucky Strikes, Camels, a rolled-up USO poster whose pin-up girl leers at you with lipstick the color of fresh blood.

The noise hits next: drop-hammers pounding in perfect, merciless rhythm, each blow rattling your teeth, vibrating up through the soles of your pumps and into the cradle of your hips. You feel it between your legs like a second heartbeat.

Eyes find you. Always do.

You’re the only splash of cream and crimson in a world painted war-drab and black with grease. Glances flick over, hungry, curious, dismissive, then slide away fast, the way men look at something they want but know they’ll never be allowed to touch.

Then you see him, and every other man in the building disappears.

He’s perched on a waist-high stack of brass shell casings like a king on a filthy throne, one boot planted, the other leg swinging lazy. Sleeves shoved to the elbow, forearms corded and gleaming with sweat and oil. Dog tags nestled in the hollow of his throat flash under the arc-lamps, cheap nickel turned sinful.

He’s dragging a red mechanic’s rag across his knuckles, slow, deliberate, pulling your eyes down the thick vein that runs over the back of his hand, over scars you suddenly want to taste, to the half-moons of black grime under every nail.

Your heel catches the edge of a warped floor grate. Time stutters. The crate tips. Cartons of cigarettes explode across the concrete in a bright, obscene avalanche, green, white, gold, bouncing and spinning like spent brass. The sound is too sharp, too loud; heads snap around. Someone whistles low.

He moves like violence wrapped in silk. One second he’s ten feet away, the next he’s on his knees in the soot beside you, gathering packs with hands that shouldn’t be allowed to look that graceful doing something so mundane. Grease streaks across the cellophane, dark fingerprints branding every pack he touches. When he stands, the space between you is gone. He’s close enough that you feel the furnace heat pouring off his skin, cutting through the plant’s stifling air like a blade.

He smells like wintergreen chew, machine oil, cordite and something darker, something that makes your knees want to fold. His fingers close over yours as he presses the last crumpled pack into your palm. Calluses drag across the thin leather of your gloves. His hand trembles, just once, so slight you might have imagined it but you didn’t. You feel that tremor echo straight between your thighs.

“Careful, doll,” he says, voice rough as the Brooklyn streets he crawled out of, pitched low, secret. “Floor’s got teeth.”

The words are ordinary. The way he says them is not. His eyes are storm-blue and fixed on you like you’re the only real thing in this whole screaming factory. Like he’s already memorizing the shape of your mouth in the dark.

Your heart is slamming so hard you’re shocked the fox fur isn’t jumping with it. Good girls say thank you and retreat. Good girls do not lean in. Good girls do not let their gaze drop to the pulse hammering at the base of his throat and wonder what it would feel like under their tongue.

You lean in.

“I’ve handled worse than teeth,” you murmur. Your voice doesn’t shake. You’re proud of that. Terrified, but proud.

His grin comes slow, crooked, dangerous, the kind of smile that starts wars and ends marriages. “Didn’t say you couldn’t handle ’em,” he says. His thumb sweeps once, once, across the inside of your wrist where your pulse is rioting. The touch is feather-light and deliberate as sin. “Just said they bite.”

Somewhere behind you the foreman bellows, “Barnes, I swear to Christ, if you don’t get your ass back on the line-”

Bucky doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. Just holds your eyes for one more reckless second, then tips two blackened fingers to his brow in a salute that feels like a promise and a threat all at once. He turns away. The absence of his heat feels like stepping naked into snow.

You walk the rest of your route half-blind, clutching the crate so hard the wood bites half-moons into your palms. The plant noise swallows everything, but you feel his stare on your back like a brand sinking through wool, through silk, through skin, straight to bone.

Later, Rosie the riveter corners you by the punch-clock, cigarette dangling from lips painted Victory Red.

“That one,” she says, tipping her chin toward the assembly line where Bucky’s bent over a lathe, shoulders flexed tight, “is trouble carved in pretty marble. They call him Bucky ’cause James don’t sound dangerous enough. Got held back from shipping out with the rest of his unit, busted hand still healing.”

She exhales smoke like a warning. “Boys who know the boat’s coming any day got nothin’ left to lose, sugar. And that one? He looks at you like you’re already his last meal.”

You smile the way you were taught, cool, untouchable, Park Avenue ice but your voice comes out rougher than you want.

“Maybe I’m tired of being hungry for something I’m not allowed to taste.”

Rosie’s eyebrows climb. She looks almost sorry for you.

That night you’re back where you belong: the mansion on East 72nd, marble floors cold enough to burn barefoot, the hush of old money that smells like beeswax and judgment.

Your mother is at the Colony Club; your father is wherever men like him go to decide which boys die next. The staff pretends not to notice you came in late, smelling of iron and another man’s sweat.

You sit at the vanity in your childhood bedroom, silk wallpaper, canopied bed, a window that overlooks Central Park like it’s your personal kingdom and unbutton the ruined gloves one finger at a time. Black streaks, permanent. Evidence.

You bring your bare wrist to your lips and breathe him in anyway: oil, cordite, wintergreen, man. The ghost of his thumb is still there, a brand under the skin you asked for.

Downstairs, the grandfather clock strikes two. Somewhere across the river, Bucky Barnes is probably lying awake in a flat that reeks of cabbage and despair, staring at the ceiling and thinking about a girl in white fox fur he has no business wanting.

You are thinking about him too, hard enough that it hurts.

He’s still here. For now. And every tomorrow he stays is another tomorrow you might run into him again.

Tonight you’re on your knees in Chanel heels and pearls, and he hasn’t even kissed you yet.

God help you both.

Five days after the cigarettes scatter across the concrete like bright shrapnel, you realize the plant is suddenly too small.

He’s everywhere you turn.

Leaning against a stamping press with a cup of coffee he’s not drinking, eyes tracking you over the rim. Perched on a catwalk above the line, pretending to tighten a bolt while he watches you hand out donuts and smiles that never reach the men who take them.

Once, when the break whistle screams, you look up and catch him staring so hard the cigarette between his fingers burns down untouched until it sears his skin. He doesn’t flinch. Just lets it fall, crushes it beneath his boot heel, and keeps looking.

You start timing your routes so you’ll drift past locker 217.

The first note you leave is almost cowardly: a single peppermint wrapped in a scrap of pale lavender notepaper that still carries the ghost of your perfume. You slide it through the vent slit with shaking fingers and walk away so fast your heels click like gunfire on the concrete.

Next morning the peppermint is gone.

Tucked inside the cuff of your left glove, where only you will find it, is a white gardenia already bruised from the heat of his body and a folded square of cheap lined paper.

You don’t belong in all this dirt, angel. - J.B.

Your breath stops. You hide in the ladies’ room and press the flower to your lips just to taste where his fingers have been.

That afternoon you steal a sheet of your father’s heavy cream stationery, the kind with the family crest embossed in gold and write in careful ink:

Meet me after the whistle. Behind the scrap bins where the light still burns. - The girl who isn’t supposed to be here.

You fold it tiny, slide it through the vent, and spend the rest of the shift praying no one saw.

When the final whistle blows and the plant empties, you wait until the corridors are black and echoing, then slip out the side gate like a thief. The night air is sharp enough to cut. The machines tick as they cool, slow metallic heartbeats in the dark. Your stockings whisper; the pearls at your throat feel like a noose made of money.

He’s already there.

He stands under the single bulb over the scrap bins, hands shoved so deep in his peacoat pockets he looks like he’s holding his own ribs together. The light turns the grease on his knuckles into wet scars and carves hollows under eyes that have new shadows tonight.

“You came,” he says, hoarse, like he never really believed you would.

“I told you I would, Jamie.”

He flinches at the name, just once, then closes his eyes like it hurts.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t say it like that. Makes me feel like I still got a right to it.”

You step closer. The cold is nothing against the heat rolling off him.

“I live in a cold-water flat with five other guys and a toilet that only works when it feels like it,” he says to the ground between your shoes.

“Ma takes in laundry till her hands bleed. I got nothing to give you but dirty hands and a mouth full of sins I ain’t confessed yet. And you-” His gaze drags up the camelhair coat, the kid gloves, the pearls glowing soft against your skin.

“You’re Park Avenue and debutante balls and a future some Princeton boy’s already got mapped out. I touch you, I leave marks. Permanent ones.”

His voice cracks on the last word.

“I know exactly what I am, angel. And I still came here tonight. Still stood here like a goddamn fool hopin’ you’d be crazy enough to show up and let me ruin you.”

The guilt is a living thing in his throat; you can hear it clawing.

You close the last distance.

Your gloved hands cup his face, force him to look at you. His stubble rasps against the leather; his skin is furnace-hot.

“I’m here,” you say quietly. “I’m here because every time I close my eyes I still taste wintergreen and machine oil and the way you trembled when you handed me that last pack of Luckies. I’m tired of being untouchable, Jamie. Touch me.”

A broken sound escapes him. One angry, ashamed tear cuts a clean line through the soot on his cheek.

“I’m goin’ straight to hell for this.”

“Then I’ll meet you there.”

He makes a noise like surrender and crashes into you.

His mouth finds yours clumsy and desperate, teeth, breath, guilt and want all tangled. He tastes like smoke and salt and every rule he was ever taught to follow. When you open for him he groans like a dying man granted absolution, licking slow and reverent into your mouth, hands fisted in your coat so tight the seams protest. He never lets them wander lower than your waist, like he’s terrified one inch more will damn him forever.

When you pull back just enough to breathe, his forehead stays pressed to yours.

“I hate myself for wantin’ you this much,” he rasps. “Hate that I’d let you throw everything away just so I could keep doin’ this.”

You slide your palms inside his coat, over the frantic thunder of his heart.

“Then stop hating,” you whisper against his lips, “and kiss me again before the night ends and the world remembers who we’re supposed to be.”

He does.

He kisses you until the cold is a memory, until the only thing left is the salt of his guilt on your tongue and the promise pressed between your bodies: tomorrow night the locker vent will have another note, and the night after that, and the night after that, until the war or your father or simple decency finally drags one of you away.

Until then, he is helplessly, damnably, gloriously yours.

And you have never felt more alive.

The orders come on a Thursday, typed on cheap War Department paper and shoved under the door of his boarding house like a coward’s bullet. Monday. Four days.

He doesn’t sleep. He sits on the edge of his cot all night, chain-smoking until the room swims in blue haze and the ashtray overflows onto the floor, staring at that single line like it’s a death sentence: Report to Pier 92, 0600, 17 June 1943. Every drag of the cigarette burns his lungs, but it’s nothing compared to the ache in his chest when he thinks of you, your white fox fur, your Park Avenue pearls, the way you whispered Jamie like absolution.

He pictures you round with his child, belly swelling under silk dresses while your father disowns you and society spits at your feet. The image makes him hard and sick with guilt all at once. He hates himself for wanting to ruin you like that, for dreaming of planting his seed in you and watching it take root, binding you to him forever when he might not even come back to claim it. By dawn, his hands are shaking so bad he can barely light another smoke.

Friday afternoon he waits for you outside the women’s locker room, back pressed to the wall like he’s facing execution. When you step out, hair pinned under a kerchief, cheeks flushed from the heat of the presses, looking so clean it hurts, he catches your wrist before you can pass. His fingers are ice despite the plant’s inferno, gripping too tight, leaving faint bruises he’ll regret later.

He doesn’t speak, can’t trust his voice not to break. Just presses a folded scrap of brown paper bag into your palm and curls your fingers around it like it’s a grenade. His hand trembles violently; the paper crinkles like gunfire.

Meet me tonight. Sands Street, above the bar. Room 3A. Key under the mat. If you come, I’ll know what that means and I’ll hate myself for it. If you don’t, I’ll understand. Save yourself, angel. Please. - your Jamie

You read it twice right there in the corridor, men brushing past with wolf-whistles and jeers he barely registers. He watches your face crumple, watches the tears well up, and it feels like shrapnel twisting in his gut.

When you look at him, pleading, he can’t bear it, turns and walks away before you can say a word, shoulders hunched under the weight of what he’s asking, what he’s begging you not to give.

You go. God help you, you go.

You lie to your parents about a sick friend in Queens, slip out in the plainest navy dress you own, no stockings, no jewelry, but the pearls he once called a rosary around your throat, and walk the twenty blocks to the Brooklyn Navy Yard because every step delays the inevitable heartbreak.

Your heart hammers the whole way, a frantic rhythm of want and terror, wanting him inside you, filling you, claiming you in the only way that feels permanent; terrified he’ll do it and leave you alone with the consequences or worse, that he won’t and the war will take him before you can carry any piece of him.

The Sands Street rooming house reeks of stale beer, urine-soaked alleys, and the desperate laughter of sailors drowning their last nights in rotgut whiskey. The bar downstairs throbs with off-key songs and shattering glass. You climb the narrow back stairs on legs that threaten to buckle, each creak of the wood echoing your guilt. The key is under the mat, brass and warm, like it’s been waiting for your touch.

He yanks the door open before your knuckles graze it.

He looks like a ghost already: eyes bloodshot and hollow, uniform unbuttoned at the throat exposing dog tags that glint like a noose, stubble shadowing a jaw clenched against the scream building in his chest.

When he sees you, really sees you, standing there in your plain dress like you’re trying to blend into his world, something in him shatters. He hauls you inside with a grip that bruises, slams the door, bolts it, and sags against the wood for a ragged breath, eyes squeezed shut like he’s fighting a demon.

Then he turns, and the desperation crashes over you both like a wave.

“I can’t do gentle tonight,” he chokes out, voice raw and gravel-rough from cigarettes and unshed tears. “Can’t pretend this ain’t goodbye. I got four days left, angel, and every second I’m not buried in you feels like hell but I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t drag you down with me.”

His eyes rake over you, hungry and haunted. “But Christ, I need you. Need to feel you clench around me, need to spill so deep you can’t wash me out. Need to think about you back home, belly growing with my kid while I’m bleeding out in some foxhole. Tell me to stop. Tell me no.”

You answer by reaching up with trembling hands, pulling the pins from your hair until it tumbles free. The kerchief drops. Then the buttons of your dress, fumbling, exposing the white cotton slip beneath, the dried gardenia from his first note pressed flat against your breast like a relic. The pearls gleam mockingly in the low light.

He makes a sound like he’s dying, low, guttural, broken.

He crosses the room in two predatory strides, cups your face in calloused hands that shake with restraint, and kisses you like he’s trying to devour your soul before the devil claims his. It’s frantic, messy, teeth scraping, tongues clashing, breath stolen in desperate gasps.

You taste tobacco, salt, and the bitter edge of his terror, the fear that he’ll die without ever knowing what it feels like to breed you proper, to watch his seed take and change you forever. Tears mingle on your tongues; his or yours, it doesn’t matter.

He backs you toward the bed, hands never leaving your skin, mapping every curve like he’s committing it to memory for the cold nights ahead. The iron frame screams when you collapse onto it together, springs protesting like witnesses to blasphemy. The mattress sags under your weight, thin and unforgiving, reeking of bleach and faded sins, but it fades to nothing because Bucky is on you, heavy, trembling, pressing down with the full force of his body like he can imprint himself into your very marrow.

His dog tags swing cold between your breasts, a reminder of the uniform that owns him now. You clutch them desperately, the chain biting into your palm like a vow.

He wedges himself between your thighs, the space yielding like it was made for him alone. The rough wool of his trousers abrades the sensitive skin above your garters; the rigid, aching length of him grinds against your soaked cotton panties, dragging slow and deliberate until your back bows and a whimper tears from your throat into his devouring mouth. He’s leaking already, you feel the damp heat seeping through the fabric, marking you even now.

Sweat slicks every point of contact, turning the air humid and heavy with the sour-sweet rot of the bar below, the metallic tang of your shared desperation, the faint ozone of impending storm outside. The red neon sign from the street pulses through a crack in the blackout curtain, painting his sweat-sheened temple, his bitten lower lip, the tear tracks on his cheeks in hellish crimson.

He freezes abruptly, every muscle coiling tight as a spring. His forehead collides with yours, too hard, the pain a sharp anchor in the haze and he gasps like he’s been gutted.

“Angel,” he rasps, voice fracturing on the word, thick with tears and torment, “tell me true. Are you pure… have you ever let anyone…?”

“I’m a virgin, Jamie,” you sob. “I’ve been saving myself… I’ve never let anyone touch me. Only you. It’s only ever been you.”

The sound that rips from his throat is primal, half sob, half roar, raw enough to flay you both open. You feel him pulse against you, scalding and insistent, the wet spot on his trousers growing as he leaks helplessly at the thought of being your first, your only. His arms quake on either side of your head, veins bulging with the herculean effort of holding back.

“Jamie,” you plead, voice cracking into a desperate whine, hips rocking up against him, “tonight… please… take me. I want you inside me. I want you to give me a baby before you go… so I’ll still have a part of you if you don’t come home.”

“No,” he snarls against your neck, teeth sinking into the tendon there hard enough to draw blood, his hips jerking once, twice, grinding that weeping hardness against your core until stars explode behind your eyes and you both cry out in agonized unison.

“Not here. Not like this. Not when I ship out Monday and might come back in a pine box with my guts spilled across Europe.” His breath scorches your skin; his tears soak your collarbone, hot and accusing.

“When I breed you- when I finally pin you down and pump you so full of my cum you can’t move without feeling it drip out, when I knock you up and watch that perfect belly swell with my bastard kid, proof that a dirty Brooklyn boy ruined heaven itself, it’s gonna be right. Clean sheets in a real bed. My ring choking your finger. My ma’s rosary on the nightstand, begging forgiveness for what I’m about to do to you every night. Not in this filthy hole with drunks screaming downstairs and the blackout hiding our shame.”

The words ignite something feral in you, a ache so deep it borders on pain. You sob harder, wrenching, ugly cries that rack your body, because you crave it, the ruin, the scandal, the swell of your belly under judgment’s gaze, the child with his storm-blue eyes staring back at you while he’s gone. You want him to break you open, flood you until you’re marked inside and out, carrying his legacy while the world calls you whore.

He kisses every tear, tongue lapping salt from your skin like communion, murmuring fractured apologies and filthy promises into your ear: “Gonna come home and breed you proper, angel. Gonna fill that tight little cunt every day until it takes. Gonna watch you get big and soft, tits leaking milk for our baby, and I’ll suck ’em dry while I fuck another one into you.”

His hand shoves under your slip, rough palm cupping your soaked heat through the cotton. Two fingers press merciless circles over your clit, calluses dragging just right until your hips buck wildly and your nails score his back through his shirt.

“Come for me like this,” he growls, voice hoarse with his own torment, tears still falling. “Clench on nothing, baby, save that sweet virgin cunt for when I can breed it right. Let me feel heaven weep while I still can.”

You shatter with a keening wail, his name fracturing on your lips, thighs vise-tight around his wrist, back arched so violently the bedframe groans in protest.

The release is brutal, endless waves of almost-pleasure tainted by the emptiness inside, the knowledge that he’s denying you what you both crave most.

He follows with a guttural curse, hips slamming against your thigh as he spills hot and profuse inside his trousers, every pulse a wasted promise soaking through to your skin. It feels like sacrilege, his seed spent on fabric instead of buried deep where it belongs.

Afterward, he collapses onto you, face buried in your neck, arms banded around your ribs like iron shackles. His sobs shake you both now, wet and ragged against your skin.

“I mean it,” he whispers brokenly, hand splaying possessively over your flat belly. “When I come home, if God lets a sinner like me come home, I’m putting my baby in you first thing. Gonna breed you until you’re dripping with it, until everyone knows you let me ruin you. Gonna keep you full forever.”

You cradle his head, fingers tangling in sweat-damp hair, your own tears silent and steady.

“Then come back to me, Jamie,” you breathe, lips ghosting his ear. “Come back and give me a baby like you promised. I’ll wait for you… empty, aching, only yours. Just come home.”

Outside, the drunk sailor slurs “I’ll Be Seeing You” like a dirge.

Inside, you cling to each other in the ruins of restraint, counting the ticking hours until Monday rips him away, with your virtue intact but your soul stained, his breeding dreams echoing like gunfire in the space between your bodies.

Four days. Four nights of agony. And the war already devouring you both from the inside out.

Two days before he ships out, the house is a mausoleum of lilies and old money. Your mother ordered the flowers because they “read well in newsprint,” but they smell like a wake. Every breath is cloying, funereal, a reminder that something is already dying.

At three o’clock you are summoned.

Your mother sits on the brocade settee like a queen on a throne, navy silk severe, pearls triple-knotted, the diamond V brooch flashing like a bayonet. The tea service is untouched; the biscuits are arranged in perfect, untouched spirals. She doesn’t look up from the heavy cream envelope in her manicured hand.

“Darling,” she says, voice honey over broken glass, “it’s settled. Charles Langford the Third is coming to dinner next Friday. Harvard ’39, captain in the Army Air Forces, already decorated twice. His father owns half the shipyards on the East River.” She smiles, small and satisfied. “He’s perfect.”

The name lands between you like a live grenade.

You’re standing at the tall window, knuckles white in the velvet drapery, staring out at the dead garden. Forty-eight hours ago Jamie’s tears were dripping onto your throat while he swore he’d come home and breed you proper. Now forever has a new name, a new date, a new ring that isn’t his.

“Mother-”

One arched brow silences you.

“You’re twenty-two and the war has thinned the herd considerably. Charles has agreed to overlook your… patriotic dabbling at the factory.” Her gaze flicks over you, clinical. “Charity is charming, darling, but one mustn’t let the lower classes get ideas above their station. Or anywhere else.”

Your stomach lurches. The bruise on your collarbone (his teeth, two nights ago, when he was shaking too hard to be careful) throbs under the high neck of your sweater. You feel it like a brand.

She folds the letter with a crisp snap.

“His mother and I have decided on December. St. Thomas, naturally. White roses, stephanotis, the family veil.” She rises, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles. “You’ll be exquisite.”

December. Six months. He leaves in forty-eight hours.

You picture him on the troop ship: your red ribbon tied tight around his upper arm beneath the olive drab, the one you’re planning to slip there Monday morning at three o’clock in the black heart of the night, right before he ships out, whispering, “So you’ll always have a piece of me.”

“I don’t love him,” you say. The words come out raw, cracked open.

Your mother laughs, delicate, lethal, the sound of crystal shattering in slow motion.

“Love is vulgar, darling. Security is eternal. Charles Langford will give you a life that doesn’t reek of cordite and cold-water flats.”

She steps close, cups your chin with cool, perfumed fingers, and tilts your face to the light. Her eyes drop to the faint purple bloom just visible above your collar and her mouth thins to a razor.

“I trust,” she murmurs, voice soft as poison, “there will be no more unsightly souvenirs by Friday.”

She releases you and sweeps out, already calling for the maid about her mink stole, heels clicking like a firing squad.

You stay at the window long after the door closes, palm pressed flat to your stomach, still flat, still empty, still aching with the ghost of a promise he hasn’t kept yet.

The grandfather clock ticks like a detonator.

Tonight your parents will be at the Waldorf until dawn, drinking champagne and buying war bonds while the war takes everything that matters.

Tonight the house will be empty.

Tonight the side door in the pantry will be unlatched.

Tonight Bucky will come, grease still under his nails, dog tags cold against his chest, eyes wild with the knowledge that Monday is coming to rip him away forever.

Tonight you will give him the only thing left that still belongs to you.

Tonight you will lie back on your childhood bed under the silk canopy and the portrait of your debutante self and beg him to ruin you completely, to spill so deep inside you that no amount of Park Avenue soap can wash him out, to plant his child in the cradle of your hips so that when they force Charles Langford’s ring on your finger there will already be a Barnes growing beneath it.

You press your forehead to the cold glass and whisper into the lily-heavy air:

“I’m already stained, Mother. Tonight I’m going to let him finish what he started. Tonight I’m going to let him breed me on your Belgian linen and your thousand-dollar mattress and your precious family veil, and when you walk into my room tomorrow morning you’ll smell him on every surface and you’ll know you were too late.”

The lilies droop heavier, as if they understand.

Two days. One night. And then the war can have what’s left.

The Packard’s taillights bleed red into the darkness as it disappears down the drive at eight-fifteen, carrying your parents to the Waldorf where they’ll sip champagne and auction off war bonds while the real war rages in your chest. By eight-forty, the last maid has retreated to her attic room, her footsteps fading like a distant echo. The house settles into a heavy, judgmental silence, the kind of quiet only old money can afford, thick with the scent of lilies wilting in crystal vases and the faint polish of silver that’s never known a calloused hand.

At eight-fifty-five, the side door in the pantry creaks open with a sound like cracking bone. Bucky slips inside like a shadow, a thief come to steal the only thing in this gilded cage worth taking: you.

You’re waiting in the kitchen, barefoot on the cold marble floor, wrapped in your pale-blue satin robe that whispers against your skin with every shallow breath. Your hair falls loose down your back, still damp from the bath you took to wash away the day’s pretense.

He stops dead in the kitchen doorway when he sees you, eyes widening as they sweep over the gleaming marble counters, the towering crystal cabinet filled with heirloom glassware, and the silver tea service still laid out from this afternoon. His breath catches. For a moment he just stands there, looking completely out of place, like he’s stepped into a cathedral he was never meant to enter.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers, voice raw and ragged, thick with something deeper, guilt, maybe or awe. “You live in this? This ain’t a house, doll… this is a goddamn palace.”

You don’t answer with words. You can’t, your throat is too tight with the storm building inside you. Instead, you cross the floor on silent feet, take his ice-cold hand (grease still etched under the nails like permanent ink, knuckles scraped raw from the assembly line), and pull him toward the back stairs before he can bolt, before the reality of this place chases him away. His fingers tremble in yours, rough and hesitant, as if touching you here might shatter everything.

The servants’ stairs are narrow, shadowed, the wood worn smooth by generations of invisible hands. You lead him up in silence, heart slamming against your ribs like it’s trying to escape and run to him first. Every step heightens the tension, the forbidden weight of his boots on the polished oak, the faint creak of the house protesting this intruder from the wrong side of the river. You feel his eyes on your back, burning through the thin satin, and the air between you thickens with unspoken terror: two days until he ships out, two days until the war claims him, and tonight might be all you ever get.

Your bedroom door shuts with the softest click, a sound that echoes like a gunshot in your ears. Moonlight floods through the lace curtains, turning the white counterpane on your canopied bed to liquid silver, the pearls on your dressing table into scattered, cold moons. The room smells of lavender sachets and beeswax polish, but underneath it all lingers the faint rot of lilies from downstairs, a reminder that everything beautiful here is already dying. Bucky stands frozen in the middle of the Aubusson rug, hands shoved deep in his peacoat pockets, shoulders hunched like he’s afraid one wrong step will leave a permanent, unforgivable stain on this pristine world.

You tell him everything then, the words spilling out in a rush while you step close and start unbuttoning his peacoat with fingers that won’t stop shaking. Your mother’s decree, Charles Langford the Third with his Harvard polish and Air Force captain’s bars, the dinner next Friday, the wedding in December at St. Thomas with white roses and stephanotis and the family veil that’s been worn by every untouchable bride in your line. Each detail lands like a blade twisting between his ribs, his face darkens with every word, storm-blue eyes turning wet and murderous, jaw clenching so hard you see the muscle jump under the stubble.

By the time you reach “the family veil,” his coat is open and he’s trembling, not from cold, but from rage and heartbreak so raw it fills the room like smoke.

“They don’t get you,” he growls low, voice shaking with barely contained fury, hands fisting at his sides. “They don’t get to decide who you open your legs for. They don’t get to hand you off like some prize while I’m bleeding out in a foxhole halfway across the world.”

You let the robe slide off your shoulders then, deliberate and slow. It pools at your feet like spilled milk, satin whispering against your skin one last time. You’re naked underneath, completely bare, vulnerable, the moonlight painting your body in pale glows and shadows, every curve exposed to his starving gaze.

His breath stops entirely. The air goes still, charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. His eyes rake over you, wide and desperate, drinking in the sight as if committing it to memory for the cold nights ahead, your breasts, the dip of your waist, the soft triangle between your thighs. A tear slips down his cheek, unashamed.

You step closer, close enough that the furnace heat rolling off him cuts through the warm June night still clinging to your skin. The contrast is electric, his rough wool uniform brushing your bare arms, his dog tags cool where they graze your collarbone.

“You promised me clean sheets, Bucky,” you whisper, voice breaking on his name, hands rising to cup his wet face. “You promised you’d ruin me right. Tonight the house is empty. Tonight I’m begging you, take what they think they own. Make me yours before they can give me away.”

He drops to his knees on the rug then, a sudden, broken motion that wrenches a sob from your throat. His arms wrap around your hips, strong and possessive, pulling you flush against him. His face presses to the soft skin just below your navel, stubble scraping like a delicious burn, his tears soaking into you hot and fast. He’s shaking now, violent tremors that rock you both, as if the weight of this moment is finally crushing him.

“I’m filthy, doll,” he chokes against your belly, voice muffled and wrecked, hands splaying wide over your lower back like he’s trying to hold you together. “I’m a filthy, greedy bastard from the wrong side of everything, and you’re- you’re sacred. This room, this bed… it’s all too good for me. I’ll burn in hell for even thinking about staining it with my dirt.”

You sink your fingers into his sweat-damp hair, tilting his face up until moonlight catches the tears glittering on his lashes, turning his eyes to shattered glass.

“Then ruin me, Bucky,” you plead, voice raw with desperation, thumbs brushing his tears away only for more to fall. “Stain me so deep no amount of white roses or family veils can ever wash it out. Make it so when Charles touches me, he’ll feel you there, under my skin, in my blood, forever.”

The sound that tears out of him is inhuman, half sob, half growl, primal and broken. He surges to his feet in one fluid motion, lifts you like you weigh nothing, and lays you on the bed so gently the mattress barely sighs under your weight. The sheets are cool, crisp cotton that cost more than he earns in a month, sliding like silk against your heated skin. The canopy overhead looms like a judgment, the debutante portrait on the wall staring down with painted disapproval.

He strips with shaking hands, uniform peeling away layer by layer, peacoat, shirt, trousers until he’s bare above you, moonlight carving shadows over the hard planes of his chest, the corded muscles of his arms, the faint scars from factory accidents and street fights. His dog tags dangle cold and silver against his flushed skin, the only thing left, glinting like a reminder of the war waiting to claim him.

He takes his time with you then, drawing out the agony, like the world outside has already ended and all that’s left is this slow, reverent unraveling.

He starts at your throat, open-mouthed kisses that turn into deep, deliberate sucks, branding you with dark, blooming bruises no high collar will hide tomorrow. Lower, he worships your breasts the same way, slow, hungry pulls of his mouth, tongue flicking over each hardened peak until you’re trembling beneath him, until you feel the wet heat of his tears mixing with his saliva, marking every inch of skin that’s never known a man’s touch.

The tension builds unbearably, your hands clutch at his shoulders, nails digging half-moons into his skin, begging wordlessly for more, but he holds back, drawing it out, making you feel every second of the forbidden. “Gonna remember this,” he murmurs against your sternum, voice hoarse with unshed sobs. “Gonna carry the taste of you into hell, doll. Every bullet, every bomb- your name on my lips.”

When he finally settles between your thighs, the air crackles with drama, your heart pounding so hard you’re sure the maids can hear it floors away. He spreads you open with his fingers first, warm and careful, thumbs stroking the soft, slick folds like he’s unveiling a miracle. His breath hitches, eyes darkening to near-black as he stares, transfixed.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he breathes, voice ragged with awe and torment, a tear slipping down his cheek to land hot on your inner thigh. “Look at you. Look how greedy my girl is already- dripping for a nobody like me in her princess bed.”

He leans in, nose brushing your clit, and inhales deep, a shudder running through his whole body like he’s finally found salvation. The first slow lick is flat and broad, dragging from your entrance all the way up, and your back arches so violently the canopy sways above you.

“Bucky-” Your voice cracks, a desperate plea.

“Shh, sweetheart. Let me say hi properly. Let me confess every sin on my knees.”

He groans low in his throat, the vibration humming through you, and seals his mouth over your core. No teasing, no mercy, just the slow, filthy worship of a man who’s been starving for months and finally broken. His tongue pushes inside you, thick and deliberate, curling deep like he’s trying to etch himself into your very walls. When he pulls back, it’s only to speak right against your dripping heat, lips brushing you with every filthy word, breath hot and ragged.

“So fuckin’ soft… sweetest thing I ever tasted. You hear how wet you are for me, doll? Greedy little pussy can’t stop crying on my tongue- begging for a Brooklyn boy to ruin it forever.”

He spreads you wider, thumbs holding you open obscenely while he licks deeper, slower, like he’s terrified the dawn will steal you away if he rushes. His tongue circles your clit in lazy, worshipful figure-eights, then flattens and sucks, gentle at first, then harder, relentless, until your thighs quake around his ears and tears burn your own eyes from the overwhelming intensity.

You’ve never felt anything like this, nothing has ever been this wet, this hot, this filthy and tender all at once, the contrast of his rough stubble against your softness driving you mad. Your hands fist the sheets, hips rolling helplessly into his mouth, chasing the edge of something cataclysmic, but the drama of it all, the forbidden lover in your childhood bed, the ticking clock of his departure, makes every sensation sharper, more agonizing.

“That’s it,” he growls against you, voice muffled and vibrating straight to your core. “Feed her to me. Soak my fuckin’ face, baby. Want you dripping down my chin when I’m done, want the taste of you haunting me across the ocean.”

He slides two fingers inside you just to feel you clench, curling them perfectly while his mouth never leaves your clit; he sucks it slow and steady, tongue flicking in time with the thrust of his hand. The sounds are obscene, wet, sloppy, echoing in the opulent room like blasphemy, every whimper from you met with his approving hum, the vibration shooting lightning through your veins.

The tension snaps hard and sudden; you come with a broken cry muffled against your wrist, hips jerking wildly against his tongue, the canopy bed shaking as waves crash over you. He doesn’t stop, gentles his licks but laps through every pulse, drinking you down like holy water, his tears mixing with your release until you’re boneless, gasping, shattered.

Only then does he crawl back up, mouth shiny and slick with you, kissing every tear that slipped free from your eyes without you noticing. “Taste yourself on me later,” he whispers against your lips, voice hoarse with reverence and regret. “Gonna keep you wet and open all night, sweetheart. Not done praying yet. Not by a long shot.”

“Look at me,” he begs, positioning himself above you, trembling so violently the headboard rattles like a warning.

You do, eyes locked on his, seeing the storm of love, guilt, and desperation swirling there.

He lines up, the blunt heat of him nudging your entrance, and you both stop breathing. The moment hangs, stretched taut with drama, the war, your mother’s plans, the empty house, the lilies downstairs all converging into this one forbidden act.

“Tell me to stop,” he pleads, voice shredded to nothing, tears falling freely now. “Tell me and I’ll walk out that door, leave you clean for that bastard Langford.”

You pull him down instead, wrapping your legs high around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, and take him in one slow, burning slide that rips the air from both your lungs.

The sound he makes is wrecked, guttural, reverent, broken beyond repair. He bottoms out and stills, forehead pressed to yours, tears dripping onto your cheeks like baptism.

“You’re letting a dirty Brooklyn boy inside heaven,” he chokes, hips twitching helplessly. “I don’t deserve- I don’t-”

You clench around him, drawing a shattered groan from his throat. “Move, James. Love me. Ruin me before they can stop us.”

He does, slow at first, agonizing, reverent strokes that drag broken noises from deep in your chests, the bed creaking softly beneath the weight of everything you’re stealing from fate. Then faster, deeper, the rhythm turning desperate as the tension coils tighter, the knowledge that this might be goodbye fueling every thrust, every gasp. Moonlight paints sweat on his shoulders, on the flex of his back as he drives into you like he’s trying to fuse your souls forever, his dog tags swinging cold between your breasts like a pendulum counting down to dawn.

You come again with his hand between you, fingers circling slick and perfect, his mouth fused to yours swallowing every cry as the world narrows to just this, just him filling you, claiming you in the heart of everything that’s supposed to keep you apart.

He pulls out at the last second, even though you beg through tears, even though you lock your ankles and sob “inside me, please- give me your baby now,” because he won’t risk leaving you ruined and alone. He rears back on his knees, fist wrapped tight around himself, and spills in thick, endless ropes across your breasts, your throat, the hollow between your collarbones. The heat of it brands you; the sight of it, pearly streaks glowing in the moonlight rips a guttural groan from him as he watches himself mark you, tears streaming down his face.

He collapses forward, mouth open against your skin, licking his own release from your nipple like he’s trying to reclaim the sin, to spare you the evidence. His tears mix with everything else, salt and spend and the faint metallic taste of terror, as he whispers “I’m sorry” over and over, kissing every sticky streak like penance.

“I’m so fucking sorry I can’t give you my baby tonight,” he sobs into your neck, hand splaying possessively over your empty belly. “Can’t stay and watch you grow round with what I put in you- can’t be there when our kid kicks and you glow like the angel you are.”

You thread fingers through his sweat-damp hair and hold him tight, your own tears silent and hot. “You gave me you,” you breathe, voice cracking. “That’s enough- for now.”

You fall asleep tangled in the ruined sheets, his dog tags cool against your breast, his spend drying sticky on your skin, the faint smell of lilies finally drowned out by sex and smoke and him. His arms band around you like iron, as if he can hold back the dawn.

At the first hint of gray in the sky, he stirs. You feel it like a physical tear when he slips from the bed, the cold rushing in where his heat was. He dresses in silence, every movement careful, deliberate, like the room is a sacred space and he’s terrified of desecrating it further. His hands shake as he buttons his shirt, eyes never leaving your face, memorizing every detail for the hell ahead.

At the door, he drops to his knees again, presses one last, lingering kiss to your bare stomach, right over the womb he’s claimed in spirit if not yet in seed. His tears soak your skin anew.

“I’ll come back,” he whispers against you, voice hoarse from crying all night. “I’ll come back and finish what we started. Clean sheets. My ring on your finger. My baby swelling that perfect belly. All of it. Just wait for me, angel- don’t let them erase what we did here.”

You nod, throat too tight for words, fingers clutching his hair one last time.

He leaves before the sun can catch him, slipping out the side door like the ghost he’s about to become.

The sheets are cold where he was. You pull them to your face and breathe him in, machine oil, wintergreen, sex, and the salt of both your tears, until the maid knocks at seven with her cheerful “Good morning, miss,” and you have to pretend you’re still the girl who belongs in this house, unmarked and untaken.

You are not.

You never will be.

Monday morning, three o’clock in the black heart of the night. The whole city is holding its breath. Every window is dark, every street empty, every clock ticking toward the moment the troop ships leave Pier 92 at dawn. Only the two of you are awake in the entire world.

You left the side gate unlatched hours ago.

Now you wait in the garden, barefoot in the cool grass, a light coat pulled around your shoulders. The ivy trellis is lush and heavy with summer leaves, swaying gently in the warm night breeze. The air is thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and damp earth, but none of it matters.

You’d stand here until sunrise if it meant one more minute with him.

Three-oh-three.

The gate creaks, just once, and Bucky steps through.

Dress uniform pressed sharp enough to cut, duffel slung heavy over one shoulder, cap tucked under his arm because he can’t bear anything between his eyes and you tonight. Moonlight catches the brass on his collar, the polished buttons, the wet shine on his cheeks he hasn’t bothered to hide. He looks older than twenty-six. He looks like a man walking to his own execution.

The duffel hits the ground with a dull thud.

He crosses the moonlit lawn in four strides and you collide so hard your teeth click, mouths already open, desperate, tasting salt and smoke and six sleepless hours of terror on his tongue. His arms crush you to him like he’s trying to crawl inside your skin and stay there. Your coat falls open; his gloved hands slide inside, palms flattening against the bare skin of your back beneath your thin nightgown, fingers splaying wide as if he could memorize every vertebra before they tear him away.

You break apart only when your lungs scream for air. Foreheads still pressed together, breath mingling in frantic white clouds.

He reaches into his collar with shaking fingers and pulls out the dog tags. The chain is warm, almost hot from resting against his heart. He presses them into your palm, closes your fingers over the metal until the edges bite.

“So part of me stays with you,” he whispers, voice cracked wide open, raw as a wound. “So you remember who you belong to when they try to put another man’s ring on your finger.”

You curl your fist around them until blood wells in your palm. JAMES B. BARNES stamped into your skin like a brand.

Then you reach up with trembling hands and untie the red silk ribbon from your hair, the same one you wore the night he first kissed you behind the scrap bins, the one that’s been tied around your wrist every day since. Your hair spills loose over your shoulders, catching the moonlight like spilled ink.

You take his left wrist, push back the stiff olive-drab sleeve, expose the frantic pulse hammering there, and tie the ribbon in a careful, perfect bow just above the vein.

“So part of me goes with you,” you manage, voice splintering on every word. “So you remember who’s waiting. So you come home.”

He makes a sound like a sob punched out of him, brings your wrist to his mouth and kisses the place where the dog tags will rest tomorrow, lips trembling against your skin. Then he presses his forehead to yours, eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from beneath his lashes to drip onto your cheeks and mingle with your own.

“If I die over there,” he breathes, so quietly the wind almost steals it, “bury me with this ribbon on me. Let ’em put me in the ground knowin’ an angel let this filthy man love her. Let that be the last thing I ever feel.”

You kiss him to stop the words, slow and deliberate and devastating, pouring every unsaid I love you, every please come back, every I’m already yours into his mouth. He tastes like coffee and terror and the mint gum he chewed to hide the cigarettes from the sergeant. His duffel lies forgotten in the frost while you hold each other under the dead ivy, trading breaths like oxygen is about to be rationed forever, like if you just keep kissing you can stop time.

The sky begins to pale, that sick, pearl-gray just before true dawn, and you feel it in your bones: the moment the world starts moving again.

He pulls back one last time. His thumb smears the tears across your cheek, trying to wipe them away and only making them worse.

“Keep the tags against your heart,” he says, voice hoarse and fierce. “Sleep with ’em. Dream with ’em. And keep yourself for me, angel. Every night you’re lonely, touch yourself and pretend it’s my hand. Stay waiting for me… untouched, aching, only mine. Because I’m coming back. I’m coming back to marry you in whatever dress you’re wearing. I’m coming back to give you my baby the same damn night. I swear on every star left in this shitty sky.”

You nod, throat too tight for sound, tears streaming so hard you can barely see him.

He shoulders the duffel with shaking arms, presses one final kiss to your forehead, hard, fierce, branding, like he’s trying to burn the shape of his mouth into your skin forever.

Then he turns and walks through the gate without looking back.

If he looks back, he won’t go.

You both know it.

You stay under the trellis until the sun comes up, until the dew-soaked grass chills your bare feet, until the dog tags burn cold against your heart and the pale-blue ribbon disappears around the corner with the only man you will ever love.

He ships out with your ribbon hidden under his sleeve, pressed to the pulse that beats your name.

You stay behind with his tags around your neck and the warmth of him still leaking slow and perfect between your thighs from six hours ago, when he broke every promise except the one that matters.

Come back to me, Jamie.

Come back and finish what we started.

The first letter comes on a Tuesday in early July, three weeks and four days after Pier 92 swallowed him whole. The envelope is so thin you can see the shadow of ink through it, already soft at the edges from being carried against his heart for days before it ever saw a mailbag. The postmark is a smudged APO number somewhere in England he isn’t allowed to name. You steal it from the silver tray in the hall before the maid can carry the post upstairs, fingers trembling so badly you nearly drop it twice.

You lock yourself in the bathroom, sit on the edge of the cold porcelain tub, and rip it open like it’s the last breath you’ll ever take.

Angel,

It’s so damn hot here my uniform sticks to my skin like it’s painted on. Everything smells like wet wool, cordite, sweat, and the kind of fear that never washes off. I sleep with your ribbon tied around my wrist so tight the skin underneath is raw. The guys think I’ve gone soft or religious. They’re not wrong. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.

I close my eyes and I’m back in your garden at three am, your mouth on mine, your tears on my tongue. I can still taste you, angel. I swear I can still taste you like communion wine I’m not worthy of. Some nights I wake up hard and aching and I have to bite my fist so I don’t say your name out loud and give the whole damn barracks the truth.

Tell me you still wear my tags against your heart. Tell me you still touch yourself thinking of me. Tell me I didn’t ruin the most beautiful thing I ever touched and then leave you to pay for it alone.

I dream about you every night. Dream about coming home and walking through that side gate and finding you barefoot in the grass again. Dream about laying you down on those clean sheets and putting my baby in you slow, watching your belly grow round with proof that a dirty kid from Brooklyn got to keep heaven. Dream about waking up every morning for the rest of my life with my hand on what we made.

If I die here, bury me with your ribbon. Let it be the last thing they wrap me in. Let me go into the ground knowing an angel let this filthy man love her.

Tell me you’re still waiting. Tell me I’m still allowed to dream of you.

Forever yours, no matter what, Jamie

You read it until the paper warps from your tears and the bathtub water you never turned on goes cold around your ankles. Then you hide it inside the false bottom of your jewelry box, beneath the pearl earrings you’ll never wear again because they feel like chains.

Your reply is written on the back of factory inventory sheets you smuggle home inside your brassiere because your mother has started searching your desk. You write it in the dark, by the thin blade of light under your bedroom door, pen digging so deep it tears the paper in places.

Jamie,

I wore your tags to bed last night and woke up with your name bruised between my breasts like a brand. I can’t take them off. I won’t. They’re the only thing that still feels warm in this house.

I touch myself every night the way you taught me, slow circles, two fingers, pretending they’re yours, pretending you’re still buried so deep inside me I can feel you for days. I come whispering “Sergeant” into my pillow so the maid doesn’t hear, biting the sheets so hard I taste blood, and it’s still not enough. It’s never enough.

The trains rattle past at 2:14 am and I swear I still feel you between my thighs, thick and perfect and mine, spilling inside me like a promise. I’m keeping myself clean the way you asked. No one else will ever have what you claimed. I’d rather die than let another man touch what’s yours.

I went to the garden last night and knelt in the exact spot we said goodbye. The grass was still warm from the day. I stayed there for hours, pretending your hands were the ones holding my hips, pretending you were behind me, inside me, marking me again. I came just from the memory of your voice telling me you’d give me a baby one day.

Come home and do it, Jamie. Come home and ruin me all over again. Come home and put your baby in me so deep the whole world knows who I belong to.

I’m still your angel. I’ll always be your angel. Even if you never come back, I’ll carry you inside me for the rest of my life.

Wait for me the way I’m waiting for you. Come home and stain me forever.

All my love, all my nights, all my prayers, Your angel

You seal it with red wax and the imprint of your lips, mail it from the drugstore on Madison so the postmark can’t betray you.

The letters grow longer, rawer, more desperate as summer fades into a cold, gray autumn and winter settles heavy over Europe.

He writes from foxholes that smell of piss and terror, from bombed-out barns where the cows are dead and the rafters drip blood:

I jerked off in my helmet last night thinking of your tits covered in me, the way you begged me not to pull out. I came so hard I saw stars and still hated myself for wasting it. Tell me you still taste me when you swallow. Tell me you’re wet right now reading this, fingers inside yourself, pretending it’s me.

Another letter arrives smelling faintly of blood and wet earth, the paper water-stained and trembling in your hands:

We lost half the platoon yesterday. I kept your ribbon clenched in my fist the whole time so tight it cut me. If I die tomorrow, know the last thing I’ll think of is your legs wrapped around my waist and the sound you made when I spilled inside you. Know I’ll die smiling because I got to love you, even if it was only once. Tell me you’re still waiting. Tell me I’m still allowed to come home and breed you proper like I promised.

You write back with tears blurring the ink until the words swim:

I waited on my knees in the garden again until the grass stained my skin green and my knees bled. I came just thinking about your hands holding me open, your voice telling me to take it, take every drop. I will wait every night until you come back and put your baby in me. I’ll wait until my body forgets how to want anything else. I am yours, Jamie. Only yours. Always. Even if the war keeps you forever, I’ll never let another man touch me. I’d rather burn.

Winter drags on, bitter and endless, before finally loosening its grip into a cold, gray spring. The letters grow slower, then stop for weeks at a time. You start wearing his dog tags openly under your dresses, the chain long enough that the metal rests between your breasts like a second heartbeat. You catch your reflection in store windows and barely recognize the hollow-eyed girl staring back.

In March your mother finds one of the tamer letters, something about gardenias and clean sheets and coming home to you, slipped between the pages of a book you left in the drawing room. She reads it aloud in a voice like breaking ice, face going white with fury and disgust.

You stand there while she screams about disgrace, about Charles Langford, about the wedding that’s already being planned for next winter whether you like it or not. When she’s finished you walk to the fireplace, strike a match, and burn every letter you still have, one by one, watching the flames curl the words into smoke that rises up the chimney like prayers no priest will ever hear.

“It was nothing,” you tell her, voice flat and dead. “Just a soldier I gave coffee to at the factory.”

She believes you because she needs to. Because the alternative is unbearable.

That night you lock your door, gather the ashes into a small velvet pouch, and sleep with it under your pillow. The faint smell of smoke clings to your hair for days.

You still wear the tags. You still touch yourself every night whispering his name into the dark. You still kneel in the garden when the moon is thin and the wind is cruel, pressing the metal to your lips and praying to whatever god listens to ruined girls.

Somewhere across the ocean, a red silk ribbon is frayed to threads against a wrist that hasn’t stopped bleeding for months.

And every night, in two different kinds of darkness, you both whisper the same broken prayer:

Tell me you’re still my angel. Tell me I’m still allowed to dream of you. Tell me you’re waiting. Tell me you’ll come home and finish what we started.

The war in Europe is over. The boys are coming home.

You hear it on the radio while you’re pouring coffee you don’t taste. The announcer’s voice is bright, triumphant, like he’s reading the guest list for a wedding. The 107th is docking tomorrow. Captain America himself is bringing them in. Your mother claps her hands, already talking about a parade, about yellow ribbons and victory cake. Your father lights a cigar and says something about the country getting back to business.

You drop the cup. It explodes across the floor like a grenade. Porcelain and coffee everywhere. Nobody notices you can’t breathe.

Jamie is alive. Jamie is coming home.

That night your father finds the letter.

He doesn’t knock. He never does. The door slams open so hard the hinges scream. He’s holding the paper like it’s on fire, veins standing out in his neck, face the color of raw meat.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he spits, reading your name off the envelope like it’s an obscenity. “Sergeant. Some grease-stained mick from the wrong side of the bridge thinks he can put his hands on my daughter.”

Your mother makes a small animal sound and clutches the doorframe.

He doesn’t yell. That’s worse. His voice is low, flat, the same tone he uses when he fires a man and ruins his life before lunch.

“I warned you,” he says. “I told you what happens to little girls who forget their place.”