🖤

Breath lodges in your throat. A hand still hovering in the air, on its way to grab your last belongings. Honestly, Simon’s question does not need an answer, if the two suitcases standing by the door are anything to go by. 

It hadn’t been a last-minute thing. It hadn’t been an idea you’d concocted overnight. No, God no. You wish it were that simple. Breakups are never a walk in the park, but sometimes they just happen—people fall out of love, and it’s no one’s fault, really. It’s just life rolling by.

You wish this were the case. You wish you didn’t love him anymore.

It wouldn’t hurt like a stab wound, wouldn’t force you to clench your fist around a heart that’s breaking apart, as if the bruises he left on it weren’t already enough.

But there are so many things you can’t digest. So many pieces of this puzzle don’t fit into place anymore, and the picture’s left incomplete.

You look over your shoulder and meet him at the doorway. He’s turned himself into impenetrable stone, arms straight down his sides. Shoulders of steel, ice-cold eyes. There it is. That look—no, that wall. A towering fortress of pure titanium that secludes him so that he can’t be touched, not even a scratch.

In turn, it isolates you, too. 

Cautiously, you turn on your heels to face his way.

“Wasn’t just gonna leave,” you reply. “Just getting my things. I would’ve waited for you to come home first. So, uh—so we could talk.”

Your shoulders tighten; a hug you wish you could give yourself, but you’re not ready to show that much vulnerability yet. Especially when he doesn’t say anything back, when he doesn’t add his thoughts to your statement—just stares at you, lips pursed in a tight line. Disappointment perhaps, or heartache—you know he feels it too, though unable to show it.

Does it make you a bad person to wish to see him cry? To wish for him to show his anger, his fear, his pain? 

Does it make you evil, or does it make you human?

His arms curl in front of his chest, legs in a wide stance. He’s blocking the doorway, but you know he’ll move the moment you snap your fingers to say so. Always obedient, your Simon. Always loyal to a fault. 

Would he cry if you ordered him so? Would he scream, yell, beg? Is that the only way to know he’s hurting, the only way to know he’s afraid? Should you have ordered him to love you more plainly, to show it to you daily instead of droplets scattered throughout a lifetime?

Should you have been his handler instead of his partner?

“M’home now.” He nods at you with his jaw. “Go on then. Talk.”

You have to assert yourself. You have to look bigger, find the strength in your hands to scoop out the feelings in your chest and offer them to him. Make him see the rot he caused, sucking the life out of you like a parasite would.

You dry your palms on your shirt.

“Do you think this works? Do you—” You clear your throat. “Do you still love me?”

His face changes. Something twitching on his brow, a curl of his lip downward. Realization, maybe. Surprise, more likely. You might have hallucinated it, or perhaps it’s a trick of light created by the shafts of sunset slicing through the curtains, some shadows at play. 

“Where does that come from, now.”

You shrug one shoulder. “Just answer will you?”

“’Course I do.” He flats out. “Show ya every day, don’t I?”

No. No, that’s a lie. A cleverly veiled one, but a lie, nonetheless. He says it. Murmurs it right before closing his eyes in bed, an afterthought to one of his many long days. And then it stays like that, hangs in the air like it’s a chore and not a feeling. Snores away his fatigue without even listening to whether you’re saying it back.

He cooks dinner and holds you at night with the same heaviness in his limbs. Answers his phone calls and tells you he loves you with the same weary tongue. Part of his to-do list, part of his routine.

You sigh. Your muscles uncoil, but not in relief: you’re so tired already, and the talk hasn’t even begun yet. You can only imagine how dreadful it’ll be by the end of it, how unbelievably drained it’ll leave you.

“I don’t know, do you?”

“I tell you.” He corrects himself.

You thumb the space between your brows to soothe the tension building there. 

“Yeah, you do,” you sigh.

“Then what.”

Cold. Sharp. Lieutenant Riley at his finest, not your Simon anymore. You wonder when you’ll see him again, if you ever saw him at all, or if it all was just a ruse: a mask to hide behind, not so different from the hard skull he wears at work. Something to separate him from the violence he sows, and something to separate him from the love you give—both sharp to the touch from his perspective.

“I don’t feel it,” you reply plainly.

Simon rolls his jaw. You can see him fighting to let you in, forcing his tongue to shape the words trapped inside. That’s how Simon works, how he’s built: there’s a strength within him that’s always at war. You have to give him that, although rarely, he does try to fight it, like he is now. 

But it’s a battle he never wins. The words never make it past the threshold of his heart. It’s the same struggle that brought him here, on the verge of losing you, too.

“I—” he hesitates. “I ain’t good at this, whatever this is we have—”

You recoil.

“Whatever this is?” You blink. “Well, what do you think this is, then?”

His eyes flicker. He took a wrong step, and he knows it. “That ain’t what I mea—”

“Are we in a relationship?” You interject, anger bubbling fiercely in your stomach. “No, please answer me—I’d like to know if I’ve been fucking delusional for the past few years.”

“Yes we are in a relationship,” he growls. The finality in his voice is so thick it pours down your ears like cement, settling the statement there.

His chest stutters with the same fire ravaging your guts, the only thing you two ever matched. He’s the dark side of your moon, yet you share a comparable rage born from different lives. Just as furious, just as hungry to devour, to flatten the earth and turn it to ashes in a fair trade for what it’s done to you. 

It’s what united you that first night, finding an akin spirit. What brought you together, and together you snuffed each other’s flame, bringing peace. 

Tonight, you can feel it burn alight again. Thrilling. Terrifying.

“An' I didn’t mean that,” he adds curtly. “You know I didn’t.”

His voice is thunder. It crackles in the room and leaves it quiet, tense, like a storm about to rage.

“I told you I was a lot to deal with,” he breaks the silence first. “I warned you.”

“And I tried. For years, I tried.” You grit your teeth. “Have you?”

Has he?

You know he’s repeating your question in his head. You know he has the truth on the tip of his tongue, easy to spill and to give you your reluctant triumph—that no, he hasn’t tried. That no, he hasn’t even considered it. That he thought you’d take him as is without an ounce of effort on his part.

And you did, for a while.

You took his swinging moods and his absence; you took his distance and his frigidity. You took it all like a good girl and gave tenfold of the opposite. You gave warmth and understanding, you gave such an abundance of love that in the end you were left with none of it for yourself.

He spares you a lie. An act of kindness. 

Simon moves to the side, leaning his back against the doorframe. He doesn’t look as imposing as before: his shoulders have hunched over, arms now loosely folded in front of his chest. His eyes are still cold, but he’s not looking at you anymore. He fixes on a spot in the hallway, one you can’t see from where you are.

He nods his head to the side.

“Go.”

You blink. Swallow.

That’s it, then. He gave you the green light to just… leave. You should be grateful that he’s not putting up a fight; instead, you’re even more heartbroken. How many years have you wasted on this? How much of yourself have you lost on something so precious, only to be discarded like you meant nothing?

You own a house with him. It’s littered with life and turned into a home. You have shared plans. You have the groceries to do, the dishwasher to start, the laundry to fix. You have that collection of DVDs under the telly, a movie still paused on the streaming service. Short-term and long-term plans. 

You have, have, have nothing. And you had all of it. Had. 

He’s letting it go—letting you go. He isn’t fighting for it; he isn’t fighting for anything. He’ll face the consequences in the same unhealthy ways he always does, surrendering control and letting life happen to him, not because of him.

It makes you rage.

“No.” You breathe. 

Simon stiffens.

“No, you don’t get to do that.” Your voice wavers, crackles with anger. “To-to get away with it so easily. You answer me now—have you ever tried?”

His head lolls back and rests against the doorframe, eyes to the ceiling. Perhaps you’ll see it today, something other than indifference. A frown instead of impassive eyes, a tear instead of a cold gaze. Perhaps.

“Never had to try to love ya,” he says. “Came easy as anything.”

That’s not what you meant, and he knows it. 

You don’t push him. He knows your words as much as he knows your silences, so you give him those. 

You let his words linger in the air, you let them sit on the bed you made a last time, touch the floors you’ll never walk again with the same purpose. You let him listen to the heaviness this stillness brings—a house without you in it, what it would mean, what it would feel like to come home and find the lights off, coldness seeping through the walls.

The clock ticks on his nightstand. A car rushes past the windows of your flat. Your breath echoes softly, yet it’s the loudest sound in the room.

“You want me to apologise?” He asks, finally.

“No.”

“Then what is it.”

“I want you to answer me.”

“I did. Told ya I never had to try—”

You take a step forward. Your fingers bite into your palms. “Don’t act like I’m stupid and answer me.”

His neck tenses. Muscles coil tight, kinks and knots that build from his shoulder down to his spine. Stiffly his head turns your way.

“M’not a good partner.”

“Answer me for fuck’s sake!”

His eyes flash red. 

“No.” He barks. 

He pushes himself off the doorframe and marches your way. The floor is carpeted, but his boots still thud loudly against it, as if breaking the sound barrier. A drop of water could wreck it as of now, tension so thick yet so brittle—built over the years and now finally ready to collapse. 

Everything sounds louder tonight, everything sounds breakable. 

“No I haven’t tried.” His face is tilted down to look straight at yours. A fire in his eyes you only saw once, when the two of you still weren’t tied. “That what you want to hear?”

“The fucking truth for once! Was it that bloody hard?!”

“Think yer easy? You think you’re a fucking walk in the park?”

The gall of him makes your hackles rise.

“Now it’s on me? Are you fucking serious?”

“No matter what I do s’never enough—”

“And what have you done, uh?!”

“—‘S always more, an’ more, an’ more. ‘M never enough—”

“Are you serious, Si—”

“—Yer never fuckin’ happy.”

“You’re never fucking home!”

He goes still. 

Fucking bullseye.

His absence, his distance—when he can’t manage to draw the line emotionally, he draws it physically. Takes off for deployments longer than needed, cuts off communications, disappears—the Ghost. 

One call a week if you’re lucky, one text a month at worst times. You know about his well-being because John gives you a heads up, and when you ask to talk to Simon, he says he’s gotta go dark, sweetheart. He’ll be back soon, cross my heart.

But you know he’s just covering for his subordinate’s mishaps, wouldn’t dare lose the grip on the leash he has on his dog. Treats him right, respects his wishes in exchange for unclouded loyalty.

Simon's jaw jumps, teeth tight. You see the corner of his lips sink under a bite—go on, Si. Don’t chew on it. Say it.

But he deflates. A sigh escapes his nostrils, a tug on his lips in the semblance of a frown. But instead of turning just as mellow, you harden. Your rage grows and flowers bright red. And so, as he bottles it in, you spill it all out.

“You are never fucking home.” 

“Job keeps me out, y’know—”

“Nah, don’t even. Johnny’s got kids, Kyle’s partner’s on fucking cloud nine, even John manages to handle a bloody marriage—but you’ve got the job in the way?” You scoff. “Spare me. I know you take on more than fucking necessary.”

Simon’s eyes harbour a murkiness, thickly bubbling at the surface like lava underwater: miry and coagulated. Heartache, sadness, regret, surrender.

He’s ready to lose you like he lost everything else, and how you desperately wish he'd fight for it this time, tear the world asunder, instead of hiding in his fortress.

“You know what the truth is,” you coax him, but he doesn’t give you the satisfaction of saying what you want him to say.

“And wha' would that be,” he answers instead, voice steady and just above a breath.

If this has to end, let it end with the truth clinging to his bones.

“That you live with the constant fear of me stabbing your back. Fucking—fucking walking on eggshells for some bloody reason.”

He doesn’t react. Barely blinks. It’s just you and your words, and the cologne he wore that morning mixed with the sweat of a sweltering day spent in HQ. His smell is overpowering and familiar and yet so distant, like something you can only enjoy when it lingers on the bedsheets and ever so rarely when it clings to him. 

“And that it’s so much easier to be out there, wherever the fuck you’re deployed, because you don’t need to trust those that end up on the other side of your rifle.”

It’ll hurt. It’ll hurt him more than it’s hurting you, probably. Simon’s not a man who gives himself easily, and you’re almost sure you were the last chance he gave life. 

“But here—” You gesture around the bedroom. “Here you gotta trust me—and you’ve never done that fully. S’why you leave. You always leave.”

His throat bobs. 

You exhale, cheeks hot and eyes red. “Guess it’s my turn now.”

If only to hide tears, you turn on your heels and march to the dresser where you snatch your phone and pocket it.

Suddenly, the room is only his. There is nothing of you in it anymore: no pictures or clothes. No makeup by the mirror, no jewellery on the dresser. Maybe a hair tie or two lost under the bed, your hair furled around the bristles of a brush in the bathroom cabinet. Nothing else, nothing more.

It’s Simon’s house now, and you’re a host who’s overstayed her welcome.

You march to your suitcase and grab it by the handle, your duffel from the floor now thrown over one shoulder. Simon doesn’t help.

Eyes ahead, you walk past him into the hallway. Your eyes fall on the same spot he was staring at before and— 

You forgot to grab that.

A picture of you holding flowers. Simon’s not in it; he’s on the other side of the camera, holding his phone your way. There’s a neon sign behind you, red and blue with small white dots blinking in the middle.

That place is a dive: the beer is subpar, and the patrons are sleazy. Beady eyes and grabby hands. Surrounded by alleys that smell of piss and might as well be a health hazard. It’s disgusting, and you have no clue how it is still standing. 

And yet, it’s so cherished.

Where you met him, at your lowest, burning with the darkest of sadness and the brightest of fury. He challenged your wit with his own, bought you a drink, and you took him home. He fucked you that night, fucked you so good you forgot your sorrows, and only knew his name.

He left his number scribbled on a napkin in your kitchen under a cup of (by the time you woke up) lukewarm coffee. Kissed you feverishly when you met again, and you remembered that life could taste of surprise and excitement and of someone else’s toothpaste. 

Until that toothpaste found place on your bathroom sink. His mug in the same cupboard as yours. Two forks and two knives, two glasses and two pillows, and two, two, two, until loneliness felt like a distant memory, anger like a fire sizzling out under the splash of clear water.

And then it came back, full force, like a punch to the gut given with spite.

You were unsure when it happened, when he started pulling away and hiding from you; you have ideas about it, perhaps when you moved in, or maybe when the years started to roll on by and people around you were having children and putting rings on their spouse’s finger. 

Likely, it started when love turned constant, safe and healthy. That’s when Simon pulled away because he felt like wearing a tight fit.

But still, in that picture, you were happy.

You remember it like it happened yesterday: the drizzle of rain in your hair, glossy drops on each petal clutched in your hands. Smile of a thousand suns as the flash from the camera made you squint. Simon grinning behind the phone, his kiss on your forehead right afterwards. 

You stand frozen stock still in front of it, as a younger version of you stares back. Your eyes intensely regard her, too. They burn and spill over, tears tracking down your cheeks unbidden.

Polar opposites, true, and yet she’s still you.

“I saw it, y’know.”

His voice travels in a rumble from one end of the hallway to you. Raucously soft, just like the wind that night. 

Gingerly, you turn your head, looking right above your shoulder. Simon is standing in front of the doorway of the bedroom, seemingly unfazed. Same strict posture, same straight back, and those thick arms folded neatly in front of him. 

A soldier, not your Simon. Or maybe just apparently, because there’s a whisper to his voice, a quiet breeze that’s gone unused for a long time and has been suddenly awakened.

“Saw how you changed. How I changed ya.” He gulps. “An’ when I noticed, you were already drifting away—didn’t have a clue how to keep ya.”

He rubs his nose. Sniffs. “Knew you’d leave. Just thought I’d hang on while I could.”

Of course.

Palm to your cheek, you rub away the dampness collected there and turn to face him. 

“We could’ve talked.” You tell him. "Dealt with it. It's what people do, you know?"

“We could’ve.”

“We didn’t.”

“No,” he breathes. “We didn’t.”

You swallow thickly. It hurts like barbed wire is clawing at your throat.

“We can do it now,” he says, taking a step forward. “We are doin’ it now.”

“It’s late.” You step backwards, hitting the wall. You flatten against it, dropping the duffel bag on the floor. 

“S'not.” He moves closer, boots softened. A soldier’s stance—measured, silent, like approaching something skittish. “No' if we say so.”

Instinctively, your head tilts to meet his eye.

A clink. Glass and wood knocking together against harder cement. It’s that photo, sliding against the wall as you pull back.

“It’s late.” You reiterate quietly.

Simon grabs your jaw to hold you still. It’s not a forceful grasp; you could easily shake your head away. You don’t. 

He’s captivating like that, fiercely pinning you in place with his eyes. He looks tired, doesn’t he? You look tired too, you reckon. At least you feel it, deep inside your bones, dripping liquor thick in your stomach. 

“Or maybe we’re right on time,” he murmurs.

Slowly, Simon leans in to kiss your lips, and it’s mere muscle memory guiding you to meet him halfway.

His hand trembles faintly when it lands on your hip, but the squeeze he gives there is as covetous as his eyes—lids fallen heavy, his pupils blown wide already, and there’s that tinge of pink on his cheeks that makes him more endearing even in his subtle desperation. 

It’s the most you’ve seen from him, probably the greatest show of emotion he’s displayed in a while. Feelings that should’ve bubbled at the surface in an even spread of time, but Simon works oppositely to what’s convenient, and he’s vomiting it all out in one instance only.

His fingers dimple your cheek, keeping your face in place as his kiss turns hungry and open, still slow. His tongue breaches the threshold of your lips, but thankfully there’s still some common sense left in your head, which prompts you to pull away just enough to break apart from him.

Simon’s breath is heavy, close. You can feel it catch in your lungs, his pulse climbing inside your own ribcage.

Though still panting, you nod with your chin his way. “You think we’re just in time? Talk, then.”

His throat bobs, but he never breaks his focus. His gaze dances between your eyes, lashes fluttering in a veiled show of nervousness. The hand around your jaw relents softly, palm dampened by your tears and his anxiety, and slides down your throat to settle on your chest.

“Talk, Simon, since you think we’re fucking alright.”

His jaw jumps when your voice hardens. 

You feel anger bubble again, rising up your throat like bile: if he won’t fight for you, then you’ll fight for yourself. For the person in the photo right behind your head.

“You thought you could fuck it out of me? That it?” You yell. “Thought you could soften me up like that and my bags would magically unpack?”

You push against his chest, and he barely flinches. A small concession on his part, to show you that he’s willing to take the brunt of your violence if you feel like punching the nose off his face. He’s telling you with his eyes, an invitation to release your anger on his body instead of his heart. 

He can patch flesh wounds easily, doesn’t know how to mend deeper ones. 

“Talk.”

But still, he keeps quiet. His shoulders unroll and straighten: he’s taller, broader, bigger than you, and yet ever so fragile. You use that, use it to your advantage, and push him again.

“Fucking say something!”

Palms flat to his chest, you shove him back. He stumbles but ultimately returns to his spot, eyes unreadable as he regards you down the crooked slope of his nose. 

“Fucking speak!”

Hauntingly, his silence stretches and reaches inside you, cracking the shell made of patient kindness and strenuous understanding. A dome viciously protecting months of heartbreak and pure, unadulterated rage—one that you’d been harbouring for longer than humanly bearable.

You break, finally, because he doesn’t. And to build up something again, you must start from rubbles.

“I hate this!” Your bellows rattle the quiet hallway. “I hate what you did to me!”

And as your hands land flat against him, wrapped in gauzes of guilt and rage unleashed, you barely notice the mist in your eyes growing thicker, the croak in your voice turning fierce.

“You—” Hit. “Made me—” Hit. “Hate you!”

Simon takes each shove like he was meant to, brickhouse that he is, and if you weren’t so lost in your own breakdown, you would’ve seen his own too. So unrestrained, etched in the wrinkles of his face, how they deepen for each blow he takes. 

And he takes them all, the tears and the yells and the I hate yous and the merciless hands. Until he can’t anymore, until your relentless shoves become too weak to shroud the searing pain festering inside him.

He lunges forward and grabs your wrists. One hand is all he needs to secure them both in place, pinning your arms to your chest.

“You said we’re just in time, and still you’re not fucking talking,” you seethe. “Proving once again that I’m alone in this! Proving that you’ll never fucking fight, that you’ll let life happen to you instead of doing something about it—about us!” 

Words rush out of your mouth unbidden, a force that he can’t stop by simply pinning your hands. You’re a wildfire, and water, if he wants to be it, is powerless against its magnitude. 

“You said you noticed, and still you did nothing to change it! Nothing!”

Unexpectedly, his voice crackles in the darkness—a flame coming to life. 

“Wan’ me to fight?”

Fire against fire can only sow destruction. Perhaps that’s what you two were meant to bring from the very beginning, when that same twisted rage united you at first.

“I’ll fight.”

You glower, red-eyed and furious. In turn, Simon crashes his lips to yours.

The kiss from before was a way to quell your fears; it was gentle and slow, a kiss meant to placate the torment written in your eyes—a kiss made to give.

Now, there is no build-up to hunger: he’s already there, devouring you whole, biting your mouth to open it for him, sliding his tongue inside to taste you and your tears.

A kiss made to take. 

And you, this time, won’t relent: you won’t give back. You twist and pull, push him away, and knock back your head. The photo hanging on the wall behind you rattles and unlatches from its nail, falling down. 

Abruptly, Simon reaches forward with his free hand, catching it on his palm—incredible reflexes, ones you almost forgot he had.

He breaks the kiss only to carefully hang the picture back in place. His cheeks are a furious red, and his mouth is glossy of spit, parted as he heaves. Still, he caresses the glass mounted on the frame gently, tracing your smile printed on paper.

It’s tender for a second, air tense and unmoving, but you’re feeling jittery and restless, so you try to free your wrist from the shackle of his hand.

Swiftly, his eyes return to you, and still there’s nothing you can clearly read in them—there’s sadness in his crow’s feet, frustration in the wrinkle of his mouth, wistfulness in his eyes. 

Like he misses you, but you’re right there, unchanged: he’s the one who’s turned himself inside out, a man you don’t recognize.

Before you can speak, however, he returns on you.

Simon’s kiss is ravenous, this time using his hand to grab the back of your neck and lock you in place. His thigh lodges between your legs, and you’re powerless against the strength of such a man. However, he must’ve underestimated your stubbornness, so you drown every moan threatening to escape behind a tight set of teeth.

“Never brought it up either, have ya?” He growls. 

You can feel the warmth of his palm envelop your breast before tightening in a grip that drips with lust and fury—a passion you rarely saw from him, if ever. He doesn’t bother teasing your nipple or circling it with his thumb; he just squeezes the fat in his hand, making a statement—you’re not leaving, not now.

You’re mine.

“It’s not about me,” you bark back.

He dips down your neck, alternating bites and a soothing tongue.

“It is,” he rumbles. “It’s the two of us, yeah?”

You close your eyes shut, because perhaps if you deprive yourself of one of your senses, the goosebumps will abate. Though the opposite happens, because your body decides that it needs to be aware, and so it focuses on his smell, on his touch, on his stupid tongue, taking away the sting from each bite.

Hands to his chest, you curl your fists around the fabric of his shirt and try to push him away, but it’s fruitless. His fingers tangle in the hair at the base of your neck and pull back, until your head once again knocks against the frame behind you.

“Why don’t you start, swee’heart?” He growls. You’re ashamed and frustrated to admit that it goes straight to your cunt. “Talk.”

“Fuck off, Simon.”

His mouth parts in a grin against your neck. His teeth are smooth to your skin, gliding up and down your pulse. He must feel it rise against his tongue, against the enamel of his canines: you’re sure that he could draw blood if he wanted to, if he could.

To your dismay, the thought only excites you.

“Nah,” he tuts. “That ain’t constructive.”

There, he unrolls his shoulders until he’s standing straight again. Briefly, his eyes land on the markings left on the side of your neck, slick with spit and dented by his teeth. Glorious pride flashes in his eyes, twinkles like a promise—a promise to do so much more.

You’ve seen so much of him tonight—raw, burning passion. The thrill of fighting for something. Fighting to win.

How much more could you have witnessed through the years, if only he’d allowed it? You'd have worn the burns of his fire proudly.

It makes you angrier. And apparently, that’s what fuels him.

He unlatches his hand from your breast and goes downward, steadily unbuttoning your jeans like it’s second nature. You don’t stop him, instead focusing on holding his eyes out of spite. 

“Talk,” he orders.

Your mouth curls. “You’re never home.”

“Uh uh,” he hums. 

His fingers don’t bother with pleasantries and find their way inside your knickers, as the band snaps against his knuckles.

He finds you dry and seems upset by it. Still, he traces the pad of his middle finger around your clit, dragging the skin of your folds to make it sting a little—subtle ways to deliver his idea of a punishment. However, it’s not there that he lingers. He journeys downwards, lining your slit until he reaches your hole. 

He tilts his head. “I got a job.”

And you tighten your brows angrily. “I already told you already—it’s not that." 

Mercilessly, he plunges. Almost in second nature, your mouth parts. It burns, for you weren’t necessarily prepared for it—but those sparks are sometimes pleasurable, and with the trust you’ve always placed in him, you’ve only ever associated it with good times. 

Thus it’s hard to school your body to respond any differently, after years of having taught it that Simon equals good, that Simon equals orgasm.

He mimics you, opening his mouth like you do with yours—perhaps a bit mocking in nature, or maybe he’s enamoured and is experiencing his own sense of bliss.

Still, you’re undeterred, even as you feel wetness collect at your entrance and coating his finger. 

“You’re never home because you don’t want to be. The job doesn’t cut it.”

“Know it doesn’t,” he rumbles.

His finger prods around, looking for a patch of flesh that feels coarser and thicker. Easily, he finds it—years of practice. When your breath hitches just right, Simon starts moving. 

Your jaw jumps, teeth ground to dust. 

“Why, then?” You seethe.

But he clicks his tongue. “You talk now. I’ll talk after.”

“It’s not how it wo—fuck.”

Knowing you’d talk back, contest his rules, he leaves your hole empty and returns upward, where your clit’s engorged and welcomes his touch more pliantly than before.

His movements are slow and steady, wet with your arousal and drawing perfect circles that steal your breath and your reason.

“Talk,” he thunders. “What else.”

As if to ground yourself, your hand flies to his forearm and your nails dig deep, finding corded muscles flexing each time he moves his finger. 

“I’m an afterthought to your day,” you say through gritted teeth. “You take me for granted. Even when you’re here it’s like you aren’t.”

Simon tongues his cheek. Narrows his eyes, though that malice you saw before it’s shrouded by a certain gravity, like he’s truly taking in your words and not just coaxing an orgasm out of you. An orgasm that feels impending, just about to breach—but you stave it off, focus on that furious fire that’s slowly moulding with the lit-up flame of lust. You try to keep them separate, but it’s obvious, even to you, that they’ll eventually merge.

“I fell in love with a man who used to run back to me after deployments, and now—” your voice cracks, “—now you’d rather be fucking anywhere but home.”

Simon’s fingers slide over your clit with purpose, causing the knot of your stomach to tighten uncomfortably. Your chest burns with the lack of air, breaths sharp and shallow. Instinctively, your neck gives out in abandon, but Simon’s not there for it.

His hand fastens around a fistful of hair, and he tugs your head back. The sting is begrudgingly delicious, and you naturally revel in the control he has on you now.

Control he never exerted, always passive and waiting for you to take the lead. This is new and exciting, and how you wish you could’ve basked in it earlier instead of now that everything’s crumbling.

“Why the fuck did you ask me to move in, uh?” You yell. Your fist lands on his chest. “You don’t want me here! You don’t want to share—”

His eye twitches.

“Fuck, c’mere.” 

Simon’s hand slips out of your pants way too easily, leaving you with a feeling of unfulfillment and an annoying throb between your legs—one that’s suddenly forgotten when your feet are lifted off the floor, and your stomach is bent over his shoulder.

“What the f—put me down!” 

The first instinct is to punch his back, though you’re sure it’s all just a scratch to him. 

You’ve seen the skin there, thickened by scars whose story he only ever hinted at. They look like they were unimaginably painful once, when they still bled and stung. Whippings, perhaps, or knives—what happened in Mexico never left his lips, but specks of that story sometimes spill out of him when he’s drunk, or asleep.

Now he's determined, walking a straight line back to the bedroom, where you’re unceremoniously tossed on the bed.

Your back bounces on the mattress, and the world turning around before your eyes leaves you disoriented. Before you can prop yourself on your elbows, he’s on you again. Mouth to mouth, and you respond.

Perhaps because it feels good and you want to be selfish after years of selflessness. Perhaps because this rage has to go somewhere, and since thrashing the house or screaming your throat raw aren’t viable options, a good fuck might be it. 

Whatever the reason, your hands fly to the back of his head, pulling him in. Fingers grab his hair and tug, hoping it’d pass as a punishment. Simon’s groan says otherwise.

Your pants come off, his shirt soon after, until you’re both naked and warm, skin moulding into one.

Simon’s hand reaches between your bodies to grab his cock. Gives it a few quick pumps to coat it with precum and make it more bearable for the two of you. Then, you feel it prod at your entrance, as he angles his hips to find a comfortable position.

“Said you hate me.” He pants in your mouth.

You’re holding onto him like a lifeline—from your arms curling around his shoulders, to your legs spread open at his waist. 

“You made me.” You grunt through your teeth. “You fucking did this, I tried my best every ti—”

He starts entering you, and while you’re wet, it’s not enough to accommodate the size of him. No, not the size—the girth. Simon isn’t long as much as he’s thick, which has led to a lot of money being splurged on lubes and a lot of time spent riding his fingers.

He’s a few inches in, and all you can feel is your hamstrings collapsing under his weight and a burning stretch that ripples up your spine. Uncomfortable pleasure, ripping you open at his whim.

His head drops to your clavicle, lips to your chest, leaving slow kisses wherever they manage to land.

“Don’t stop on my account.”

“Fuck you,” you croak. “You didn’t prep me.”

“Well,” he huffs into your neck. “You didn’t look thrilled about me eating ya out.”

“Yeah, ‘cause we didn’t have to fuck, Simon.”

He pushes in deeper, and your teeth clamp down on his shoulder, tightening with every slide. His groans meet your bite—taut, pained, and edged with lust.

It’s with heavy guilt that you realize how cathartic it is to know you’re hurting him. 

When he finally bottoms out, you can barely breathe because of how stuffed you feel. Pressure grows in your stomach as he fills it, and on your chest as he collapses onto it. The coarse hairs on his pelvis are flush to your clit, and he knows all it takes is the roll of his hips and you’ll unravel under him.

It’s why he doesn’t do it. Keeps you dithering, toeing the line between pleasure and pain, and makes the scale tip towards the latter.

You feel like you’re going insane.

“No, we had ta,” he replies, breath uneven. “’Cause you don’t hold back when we do. Go on, then. Ou' with it.”

It’s different from the previous times you’ve had sex, in which you were lax and wet and open. In which love overflowed and drowned you both. Simon now seems to have as his personal goal to punch the words out of you.

Every thrust is deliberately harsh. Your nails drag down his back, red lines threading the contours of his spine, until they find purchase where his muscles fold and harden.

“Fucking—” Thrust. “Selfish—” Thrust. “Bastard.”

His mouth draws the line of your jaw. Sucks your skin between his teeth on the slope of your neck. Tingles follow the burn, rippling in waves of goosebumps down your arms.

“I’ve—” Thrust. “Given you—” Thrust. “Everything.”

Simon sucks in a breath. His hips falter, trembling in the cradle of your thighs. Swiftly, he pistons into you, knocking the air out of your lungs. It’s so jarring and sudden that, for a moment, you don’t know how to breathe.

He falls still, panting right into your mouth.

“Go on,” he croaks. 

“You took, and took, and took it all,” you groan. “And gave fucking nothing!”

He pushes himself flush to you. Words die on your tongue; only a raucous moan remains strangled in your throat. His hips roll, finally stimulating your clit again. Stars are all you see as your eyes fall shut. 

It feels like you’re breathing in a plastic bag: air short and unbearably hot, condensation building inside your lungs.

“You—You made me feel so—” A breath, ragged and closing down your windpipe. “—so fucking lonely.”

When you open your eyes, his brows are pinched, focused. You don’t know what he finds on your face that has him so rattled—must be heartbreaking though, because his forehead wrinkles, the corners of his eyes soften.

“Lonely?” He echoes, tasting the word like one he knows best already. 

Your mouth wobbles, pulled by anger and sadness alike.

“So fucking lonely,” you pant. 

Simon kisses your cheek in a private, quiet reverence. Regret drawn in the lines of his face.

“I’m sorry,” he mouths to your skin.

You clench your jaw. Your nose stings, eyes full, and you sniffle. “It doesn’t cut it.”

“I know,” he croaks, looking back at your face. “Think y’ deserve to hear it anyway.”

His mouth wrinkles, the scar that crosses it tightens with bitterness. You almost want to touch it, and your hand regrettably acts before your mind can even conceive the thought itself. The pads of your fingers trace his lips, journeying to the stretch of thicker flesh that runs pale across them.

“Say it,” he breathes.

You blink your focus back to his eyes, hand frozen to his mouth.

He starts again with a slow pace. Tears trickle down your temples into your hair.

You bite your cheek, iron floods your tongue.

“I hate you.”

He bottoms out. 

“I hate you.”

Pulls back. Your pussy clenches around his tip, wants him back, so you hook your heels at his tailbone and force him to plunge inside you again.

“I hate you.”

“I love you,” he whispers. 

He holds your eyes. They’re blurry, glossy with bottomless sadness, with remorse, with dark, glutinous shame. 

“I hate you,” you croak instead.

“I love you.”

Simon’s hand travels down the valley of your breasts, brushing fingertips clinging to the sweat beading your skin.

Your chest heaves, your lungs tighten. You cry, wail so loud it breaks you like fine porcelain. His arm snakes beneath the curve of your spine, holding you close to himself, as he props his weight on his elbow by your head.

“I love you,” he murmurs. “Fuck—I love you so much—”

Every single thrust is deep, as if he’s trying to fill you completely to remind you of easier times, when this wasn’t a way to say goodbye.

You don’t think it’s a habit anymore when you wrap your arms around his neck and sob into his shoulder. You think it’s survival, your raft in this restless tide.

Simon kisses your shoulder fervently, each touch long and wet. “My perfect girl—my girl—”

You protest, but your hatred dies down your throat and translates into another cry.

The creases in his tone hint at his distress, how hard he’s trying to tell you what’s inside his head, even though it’s against this code he’s got for himself. How hard he’s trying to keep a clear mind, even though he’s got you wrapped around him tight and soft, like you’re made of silk.

He slams his hips flush to yours. His lungs fill with shallow breaths.

You feel your fire dim. You feel it reach out. Touch his, mingle. Bloom.

“Easiest thing,” he rumbles, rolling his hips until your sobs turn moans. “To fuckin’ love ya.”

Two angry fires can only sow destruction once they merge. Perhaps that’s what you two were meant to bring from the very beginning.

Alas, ashes fertilize the earth, and maybe life can grow back if one takes care of it. Quietly, two hearts instead of one can deal with the consequences of the devastation they brought. Patiently, four hands instead of two can carefully work the soil to see it prosper.

Simon fucks you softly, now. Collects your tears on his fingers, never leaves your mouth unattended, kissing each sob you yield, drinking it in. Then, his arm reaches between your bodies, and he finds the knot of your clit. 

You feel your orgasm rear its head again. Still unwanted, still out of place. You try to stave it off as it wraps around you like vines, constricting your throat.

“You can—fuck—you can go if tha’s what you want—” 

The knot in your stomach coils, stiffens. 

“But fuck—oh, fuck swee’heart—"

Your legs tremble around his waist, locked knees digging into his hips, and cramps stinging your calves.

“Stay. Please.”

You come around him, squeezing him with everything you have. You hold him to you, grit your teeth through an orgasm that doesn’t have the catharsis you hoped it would bring. 

You feel full and empty, unfathomably sad and drenched in ecstasy. It feels wrong and right, impossible and real, happening to you against your will, and still, you welcome it wholly. 

“That’s it,” he rumbles to your mouth, licking the tears that stream on your tongue. “Fuckin’ hell—take it, pet—“

He fills you up, slams his hips, and spills inside. You feel it hot and wet, running in your belly and around his shaft. Flooding you entirely, clogging your throat with moans that blend with your sobs. 

Simon holds you there. You don’t move, dropping your legs wide open in pure exhaustion. The silence breaks with your breaths, cracks with haunting cries and the clicks of his kisses down your throat—helpless attempts to soothe your heart.

His chest stutters, perhaps in a goodbye, perhaps in a plea. Whatever it is, it stains you wet down your neck. 

Did you have to scream to make him cry? Did you have to break his heart, be cruel, turn into the person you’ve been trying to suppress?

All that rage, you’d managed to chain it in your chest. You’d found a balance, both of you. You’d found a way to turn it into your prisoner, so it would let you live peacefully. Did you have to unleash that beast for him to show you the heart he so viciously protects?

When your breathing evens out, Simon lifts himself off of you enough to look into your eyes. His cheeks are ferociously red, his pupils glossy.

You’ve never seen him cry. You wish you had.

Does it make you a bad person, or does it make you human?

“Were you happy?” He asks.

You sniffle. “I was.”

“Are you happy?”

A beat.

“No.”

Something inside him crumbles. It flashes rapid and bright, a meteorite wrecking the earth, and then vanishes. But he doesn’t restore himself. He makes no move to carve his face back into the cold mask you knew—the one he wore when he came home before.

He stays broken like that, before you, and doesn’t plead. 

“I want to be,” you add. “But I’m so tired.”

His mouth curls. His forehead to yours, diving down. He holds you there, cups your jaw firmly so you couldn’t stray away even if you wanted to. 

“S’alright,” he murmurs. “S’alright.”

A deep breath. He sucks it from you, taking it with a kiss.

“Jus’ stay for tonight?”

Too exhausted to fight it, you fall asleep swaddled in his arms. Naked, skin to skin, wrapped in a comfortable duvet and in the smell of him—one you haven’t had touch you in so long. 

Briefly, you think how nice it is to bury your nose in his chest instead of cold bedsheets.

When you wake up, the sun is not even in the sky. The light peeking through the curtains is pale, that of a moon just shy of falling asleep herself.

Your eyes are puffy, but you manage to focus on his shape as he sleeps peacefully on his back.

He looks vulnerably soft, mouth parted to breathe because his nose was broken more than a couple of times and was set back all wrong. Only scars on his face: a thick curve on his cheekbone, one crossing his brow, a jagged line down his lips. No wrinkles, skin blessed with rest. 

Anger leaves its mark, always. But for now, it seems absent. You catch yourself wondering if you look the same, too.

But he’s still Simon Riley, and he must feel the weight of your eyes on him. Without even opening his own, he sighs blissfully and shifts in bed, using the arm he had underneath your neck to pull you in closer. 

You find yourselves face to face, sharing the same pillow. Usually, he’d kiss you and turn the other way, pretending to sleep until he’d hear your breathing even out. Now his knuckles brush the raw skin of your cheek. The flesh is still tender from tears and slumber, wrinkled in places by the folds of the pillowcase.

You close your eyes.

“Alrigh’?” He asks

Quietly you hum, because you’re much too tired to string a sentence that would explain the turmoil inside.

You just want this piece of normality to last a second longer—even a minute or two, because you deserve to be greedy. And Simon seems to agree, because his chest rumbles, pleased, and your skin becomes his playground.

Nails draw gently down your back, cheeky fingers pinch the fat of your hips, stealing a sleepy smile from your mouth.

You sink into that bubble, a gentle space that carries the faint taste of those early days together—when everything was clumsy, uncertain, and yet inexplicably comfortable.

Time stretches with your head in his arms. All that rage withers, dissipates, and it’s replaced by a silence that holds its breath. You both know it’s time. Simon keeps his promise, and breaks it first.

“Y’know me,” he starts. “Wasn’t made for this. Didn’t know what love was till you. Still didn’t get it, not really. Was a bit lost, eh?” 

The bubble around you pops. He sighs. “Knew deep down I’d be bad at this. Us. Never trusted myself to commit properly. Not like you deserve. But fuck, I wanted to try.”

You open your eyes. Blink your focus back to him.

“An' I did. Tried everythin’ till I found my footin’. I learned from ya,” he breathes. “Said what you said. Did what you did. You smiled, so I thought—yeah. That’ll do.” 

His breath is staggered for a moment; that fight against his tongue that wants to stay tied. Gulping, he uncoils the knot, softens its tightness, and goes on.

“Didn’t think for myself. You looked happy an’ tha’ was enough, eh? Woulda done anything not to lose ya. But it was never ‘bout trust—trusted you from day one. Still do.”

He sighs. “Don’t ever think I don’t.”

“Were you happy?” You ask him back.

Simon’s brows tighten questioningly, as if you just asked something completely irrelevant to the argument he’s making.

“You were,” he replies simply, like it’s obvious. “So I was.”

The question rolls off your tongue easily, prompted by his words. 

“Are you happy?” 

His answer is smooth and delivered rapidly, as if ready to be uttered finally. 

“Not if you go.”

Tears track down your cheeks. You feel disoriented, nauseous like you’re being tossed around at sea.

“Do you love me, Si?” You croak. “Or do you love me just because I love you?”

Smart man, him. Brilliant, you correct yourself. Still this concept seems foreign to him, and your question leaves him stumped. And as he frowns in thought, he takes note of the deeper wrinkles creasing your brow, the crow’s feet clawing out of your eyes, the saddened curve of your mouth.

His hand comes to cup your jaw again, failing in the intent to mitigate the soft hiccups you’re drowning behind tight lips. 

“Not a poet, love,” he breathes a self-deprecating laugh. “I dunno how to make it better, not with all these doubts you’ve got. I’ve been rubbish at this—really have.”

He takes in a deep breath. Steadies himself.

His eyes fall to your mouth, tracing the line of your nose—he’s not studying you, not trying to pluck thoughts and feelings from your tells. He’s finding comfort in what he knows, what he cherishes. You give him strength, always have: from the picture he keeps in his wallet, to the ring hanging from the chain around his neck, beating against his heart for each step he takes. 

Whether he’s stroking his thumb over it or burning your image behind his eyelids, Simon feels his resolve harden into steel—unbreakable, polished, resilient.

He does that now: finds strength in the shape of you. Strength to speak his mind, his heart—shed the lieutenant’s robe and leave the man beneath it naked and vulnerable.

“Ran off when I saw I wasn’t enough,” he says low. “Didn’t have it in me to make it better—didn’t know how. Took jobs instead.”

His voice steadies. Quiets. It’s like a breeze, brushing on your mouth for every word he speaks.

“Thought if I made myself scarce, you’d miss me and that’d do it.”

“Not how it works,” you croak.

“I know,” he offers. “Saw my plan fuckin’ crumble each time I saw ya cry. But I was helpless, love. Didn’t know where to start.”

Gently, he inches closer. He’s cautious, like he’s lost the right to kiss you. His nose tips to yours, and he sways his head, skin kissing skin. 

“But s’you,” he whispers, thumb tracing the line of your lip. “Them little things you do when you think I ain’t lookin’. Tha’s when I feel it most.”

He swallows thick, lips soft. “I’d love ya even if you hated me. Know I do now. Wasn’t takin’ the piss when I said I never had to try.”

He’s so close he could kiss you, and you wouldn’t even bat an eye if he did. You’d kiss him back, most likely. Truthfully, you’d probably end up fucking again. But Simon doesn’t; he just touches your cheek, breathes your air, skims his nose to yours. 

“Don’t got the right to ask,” he whispers. “But gimme ‘nother chance to make it right.”

“Sim—”

“Jus’ another chance to see ya like tha’ night.”

The argument dies on your tongue. Questioningly, you frown.

“Tha’ picture,” he replies quietly. “S’my favourite. Glad you forgot to grab it.”

Your brows flutter to your forehead, mouth softened in muted smile.

“Fancy goin’ to tha’ pub tonight?”

You shake your head softly, sighing from your nose. “It’s in fucking Leeds.”

“I’ll drive.”

The corner of his mouth hooks up. His eyes find yours, soft but failing to hide the anticipation—a look you’ve rarely seen, if ever.

It’s hard to tell at this point whether this is him or if it’s just another mask. It’s hard to say if you’re falling into another trap, or if he’s trying. Finally, finally fighting for the life he wants, not the one he has.

You bite the corner of your lip. It’s a crossroads, really. There’s no middle ground: you either leave or you give him another chance. Not one of those roads seems easy; none of them seems to come without pain.

Reasonably, you should leave. Leave, and start anew. Maybe far away from him, where his influence cannot be felt. Cut off communications and mend your heart intimately, your hands alone. Reasonably, that is the right thing to do. 

But you know reason has no claim here—not a single, bleeding say.

Your stomach uncoils. Your eyes soften, lips curling and wrinkling your cheeks.

You snort, trying to hide the sniffle your tears bring. “I’d never get in a car if you’re at the wheel—Christ—”

And at that, Simon blooms.

His smile is wide, lovely, and unprecedented, cracking his face in two asymmetrical halves.

One cheek wears a dimple, the other only scars; his eyes wrinkle, but only one folds more tightly. His teeth are uneven, the angle of his left incisor chipped. He’s imperfect and ragged. Imprecise and beautiful.

He laughs openly and boisterous, bit too loud considering the criminally early hours of the morning.

You shush him, as your lips surrender to his infectious laughter, and crack a chuckle too.

You palm his face, covering his mouth. There you feel it, each vibration of his happiness, each breath he takes, tinged with hope and subtle relief, as it tiptoes on your fingers—treading lightly, like he’s still cautious about it but God, oh God, is it hard not to hope big. 

You understand. It’s hard for you, too.

So, you give in when he kisses your palm. You soften, against better judgment, and slide your hand off his face.

“I’ll drive,” you say.

He huffs, smirking. “Mh. You drive. Alrigh’.”

His hand lands on your cheek, and then Simon kisses you.

Intimate and quiet, like it’s the first time he’s ever done it, but with unmatched confidence. Inhales, breathes you in, and lets go.

His forehead rests on yours. You sigh.

It’s useless to build this on hope exclusively. On dreams of a rose-tinted future, on mutual, unbreakable trust.

Truth is, trust has been broken already, dreams are evanescent things, and feelings are overwhelmingly complicated. The best thing you both can do is be truthful, transparent. 

“I’m not sure how much will change,” you whisper. “I can’t promise it’ll go smoothly, okay?”

You see him swallow. Tongue his cheek. But his nod is confident, precise.

“I know,” he says. “Wouldn’t expect it t’be easy, eh?”

You hear the sizzling embers of a fire that’s scorched you both. The rising sun twinkles on the cinders littering the floors, ashes falling like snow. It’s warm, it’s burnt.

It’ll take strength, patience, and the willingness to build everything from scratch side by side, to repair what’s been lost.

Brick by brick, layered one on top of the other. 

“C’mere,” he says.

You shuffle around until your back hits his chest. Simon drapes his arm over you, and your fingers intertwine loosely, natural instinct to bind once more.

A muted thud. The red and golden crackle of sparks flying off the burnt soil. Smoke billows from underneath.

The first brick hits the ground. Four hands hold it firmly and push it down, dig it in, stabilize it. Fingers brush in thankfulness, smear each other’s skin with soot and ashes.

Then, they turn, picking up the pieces.

“What?”

“Think ye forgot to clear yer search history.”

“Hhm?” You approach him, oblivious to the tab he’s currently staring at. “What is it?”

Your face drops when he turns the laptop around with a shit-eating smirk. You slam the laptop shut with a shriek of embarrassment, heat rising up the back of your neck to your ears.

“Hand holding?” Simon mocks, voice taking a teasing tone.

“Shut up!” you yell, scrambling for your laptop and hugging it to your chest like it might protect the content inside.

You stumble backwards to your room, tripping over the shoes he left in the hallway to slam your door.

“Oi, I still need to use it.”

You shout from behind your door, “Well ask someone else!”

The two of you don’t bring it up again, for a few days at least. When he’s lying across the room from you, Simon thinks about it, wondering if you’ve worked up the courage to open the laptop yet. If you’ve watched the same videos since, fingers in your panties, biting your lip so he doesn’t hear your breathy moans.

You’re rather inexperienced, he knows that much, not from word of mouth, of course. He sees it in the way you fidget anxiously when you go to the pub with him, ducking away from any of the sexual remarks Johnny throws your way.

He’s surprised you accepted his application as a roommate when he’s got several inches on you, scars carved into his skin like badges, and a permanent scowl. Though he supposes being gone for months at a time sweetens the deal, even if he returns with new wounds you eye wearily.

He’s sure no boyfriend of yours would approve of him as a roommate. When he’s got no regard for other men when it comes to a pretty bird.

Maybe the months away are when you bring home one-night stands. He doubts it; he always returns unexpectedly, finds you with hairy legs, pimple patches, and oversized pajama tops. Like he’s the only one who ever sees those parts of you.

And you greet him with a big smile, like you’ve been waiting for him.

Maybe secretly he doesn’t like the image of someone else pleasing you that way and that’s why it doesn’t leave his thoughts. Simon isn’t a man most people wait for and maybe the way you tell him you missed him deserves more than just a grunt.

It rings in his mind while the two of you are drinking in the kitchen, your back facing him as you pour yourself a new drink. Maybe it’s the alcohol in his veins or the image of the tab in the back of his mind, but he crowds you against the counter, broad frame boxing you against the porcelain.

You gasp. “Simon?”

He’s not one for this, quite the antithesis of anything soft and tender. But he sure knows how to make a woman feel good, and the least he could do for his sweet, touch-starved roommate who whispers she missed him is make her cum.

“Tha’ all you want?” His voice is low.

“What?” Your voice shakes, seeps with anxiety.

His arms are on either side of the counter, “Some hand holding?”

“Don’t even start.” Your fingers curl around the edge, knuckles tense.

His lips are pressed to your ear, deep timbre sending chills up your neck. “Too touch-deprived is tha’ it?”

“I’m not having this conversation.” You say it quietly, like the topic might disappear if you don’t address it.

“Come on, bird.” His fingers trace from your shoulder down your arm. “No one’s ever touched you like they meant it?”

You don’t say anything more, a muffled sound squeaking from your lips when he drags his nose along your jaw and down the curve of your neck.

“You wan’ me to, bird?” The words are spoken against your throat, warm on your flesh.

“Simon, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You stammer through your words nervously.

He sighs, like he’s annoyed that you’re feigning innocence. “Wan’ me t’fuck you like I mean it?”

He feels your gulp before he hears it, and still, you don’t answer. Not even when he curls his hand under your shirt and holds your bare hip, fingers dipping into the seams of your shorts. He presses forward, until your hips knock into the countertops and his into your ass, falling flat on your palms in shock when you feel his bulge.

You don’t pull away when his lips land on your neck. They’re teasing at first, soft stamps along your skin that bloom goosebumps. By the time there’s tender marks decorating your neck and shoulders, you find enough confidence to grind back against his hips.

You don’t even protest when he hoists your legs around his hips. Can’t really protest when he’s plastered his lips on yours, kisses maybe a little too abrasive for the soft sex you had been seeking. You take it the best you can, lips trailing behind his, smaller fingers grasping his shirt.

It’s a journey to your bedroom, both of you bouncing on the mattress. He’s so big above you and between your thighs that the heavy stretch burns your muscles. Your fingers shake at his shoulders as he undresses you, hooking your panties over your ankles and to the floor.

You’re not exactly sure how this will work, he’s not even inside you, and you’re already struggling to accommodate him between your thighs. You writhe under him, anxiety crawling up your spine, and wrapping around your throat.

“Simon, I don’t do this.” It comes out as wheeze, struggling through your collapsing lungs.

Trust him, bird, he knows. And who better than him to take care of you?

“Don’t need ya t’worry ’bout that. I’ll take care of you.”

His fingers toy with your seams, a huff of a laugh on his lips at the obscene amount of slick he’s greeted with. It burns you alive, scalding heat from toe to fingertips, a meek sound filling the space between the two of you. And yet, it tugs at your core, coiled in a tight grip on you.

His kisses are soft, despite the way his lips are chapped, despite the scar that gives him a cleft lip, so you feel a little teeth. He presses one to the ridge of your jaw, the round of your shoulder, the jut of your collarbone, the divot between your breasts, right above your naval. Littering specks of tenderness all while he collects the slick gathering at your entrance.

He sucks the fat of your hip between his lips, licks at the flesh when his soaked digit pulls the hood of your clit back, swollen bead perked. You squirm, hand flying to cover your gaped mouth when he circles it, biting your palm to muffle the sounds when he dips just a little lower.

He lies on his stomach, hooking your knee over his shoulder, and sinks his index finger into the knuckle. It takes three, four, five pumps before he slides a second alongside the first. He’s slow about it, isn’t trying to do much, but stretch you out.

Your hand leaves your mouth the more he works you open, opting to fist the sheets below you. He smirks against the inside of your thigh when you do, pleased he doesn’t have to tell you to let him hear your pretty voice. He doesn’t even have to tell you to look at him, you lift your head on your own accord with a cute tinge to your brow.

“Like tha’?” He holds your gaze while he asks. “Tha’ what you like, baby?”

Your head bobs, digging your heel into his spine when he finds that spot, warm and gummy. A slow pace turned deliberate when your body responds like you do like it, knocking against the same spot that makes your walls clench helplessly around him.

It’s not long before he’s replacing his fingers with the rounded bulb of his cock, gliding your slick on his fingers along his length. He plants his elbows on either side of your head when he slips forward just a smidge, cages you in so all you see is him, his scarred face, his crooked nose, his broad shoulders that block any view.

He rests his forehead on yours, breathes intermingling as you stare up at him, irises dilated with desire. Apprehension settled somewhere deep because you’re not sure how you’re going to take all of him when you already feel so full.

He sees it, shushes the feeling away, “Jus’ a little stretch.”

You garble over your breath, wrapping around his shoulders when he guides himself deeper, head curling into his throat.

He presses his lips to your temples, “Feel s’good, you know tha’? Fuckin’ drenched, easy fit.”

He bottoms out with a groan deep from his gut, feels you clench your teeth against his neck. His arm snakes around your back, cradles you close to his chest. Bare skin to bare skin before rocking his hips.

The rhythm is slow, calculated, and doesn’t build his pace until your seams finally split in two for him. That’s when he pulls back further with each thrust, grinding back in to the hilt. You shake in his grasp, panting into his skin as you dig your nails into his shoulders.

Every stroke is languid, no rush, just a slow, delicious ache, crawling up the mountain to reach your peak. It’s tender, the way he keeps you tucked close, lips always brushing your skin, whispering words softer than anything he’s said before. It pets at your core, close tighter and tighter around you as you wrap your legs around his hips.

And that’s when his palm presses against yours, interlocking your fingers so tightly his knuckles turn white. You have to flutter your eyes at the sight, choking on something painful.

“Sweets, look at me.”

You find his eyes.

“Wanted t’take care of you.” He tightens his hand. “I mean it-this.”

That sends you over the edge, clamping your thighs as you roll your head backwards. The coil around your core snaps, releasing the tension that had been slowly building. You croak his name, walls gushing around him, smearing the tufts of hair at the base of his cock sticky.