lloyd hansen's cottage wife

He opens the fridge and stands there, hand on the door, looking for the thing he knows he doesn’t have: some dinner that isn’t toast or yogurt. He glances at his phone, no messages. He looks around before releasing a deep sigh. The house always feels too silent.

Now he’s back at the door, peering through the storm glass, the box still waiting unobtrusively before him.

It isn’t his birthday, not for another three months. He’s not sure who would send him a package anyway, and he’d made no orders recently. Andy’s neighbors are too old to bother with pranks. He opens the screen, bends down to collect the box, and slips the package under his arm, carrying it in to the kitchen counter.

A neat arrangement of flowers emerges as he opens the box. No cellophane, just a pale blue tissue cushioning the stems and a small card. Not even in an envelope. The handwriting is blocky: TO ANDY. That’s it. No return address, no signature, just his name as if that alone would explain everything.

He looks at the flowers: some kind of bloom he’s never seen before. The petals seem delicate, and they’re a strange, precise shade of ivory, each petal streaked with a faint green that seems to deepen as he stares. The scent is so thick he almost recoils, first overly sweet, almost rotten with anticipation, syrupy-sweet and high-pitched, but settling, after a breath, into something lusher, like the inside of a greenhouse after rain. The air feels heavy, and on a second, unguarded inhale, his chest swells with a pleasant, tingling warmth. He can feel the pink rising along his neck, the way his hands want to fidget, like he’s standing awkwardly at a middle school dance, which is so strange he almost laughs. The scent—if he admits it, even to himself—reminds him of you, his new neighbor.

He wonders if you’re home, and the thought is so sudden, so absurd, he nearly puts the flowers back in the box. But that would be ridiculous.

He’s only met you twice: once waving from your side of the street as you retrieved your mail from the mailbox at the curb, and once at the neighborhood meeting, where after introductions were made the two of you had exchanged a handful of words about the late pick-up of recycling before Janice had called the meeting to order.

Maybe he should give the flowers to you.

No, that would also be ridiculous. He hardly knows you.

He goes to the kitchen sink and fills a water glass, digs under the cabinet for the only vase he owns—one of those heavy-glass things, left behind by someone in the house before it was his, maybe a relic of a more optimistic era, or more likely, a leftover from a florist’s upcharge. He arranges the flowers, still cautious, sets them in the middle of the kitchen table. For a minute he stands, simply staring, as if they might reveal something by being observed.

He sits at the table, scrolling his phone, forcing himself to focus on the news, but the scent of the flowers—now more bearable, even comforting—keeps lapping at his attention. He tries to read about the city council’s new water restrictions. Then about the meteor shower predicted for next week. When he looks up, the glass vase is throwing long, refracted ovals of green-tinted light onto the table, and the petals are trembling faintly, as if in a draft. There is no draft. He wonders what kind of flowers these even are. The urge to Google it is strong—maybe they’re from some rare local shrub. Maybe you’d know.

He huffs in frustration, then pushes away from the table. He makes his usual evening circuit through the house—checking doors, clicking on the living room lamp, pulling a can from the fridge—but each time he passes the kitchen, the wet-glass shimmer of the flowers is waiting, like a question he forgot to answer. He hovers in the doorway during commercials as he pretends to watch the game while really watching the slow collapse of petals in the vase. He tries to remember what you looked like across the street, what you were wearing, but all he can recall is how you hadn’t noticed him at first, and how that felt sharp and interesting in a way he didn’t know what to do with.

He eats cold noodles over the sink and finds himself rehearsing, in his head, how you might react if he brought you the flowers after all. What kind of note would he write? Would you even open the door?

The phone buzzes—a work group text, something about interviews for the new interns next week—and he thumbs out a reply, then set the phone down and finishes his shoddy meal.

He can’t remember the last time he was this preoccupied with anything. You’ve crossed his mind a number of times since you moved in across the street, but tonight it’s somehow impossible to think of anything or anyone but you. He’s never thought of himself as the “intrigued by a neighbor” type. And yet. The air feels crimped with possibility, which is stupid, because what would that even mean? He wonders if you’re watching the same game, or if you’re home at all, or if you’re across the street eating your own sad single-person dinner, oblivious to the fact that you’ve taken up residence in someone’s mind.

It doesn’t get any better.

He blames the flowers. The scent is everywhere, and he can’t make it stop, can’t crack a window wide enough to dilute it, can’t shake the sense that the petals are folding and unfurling at a speed just shy of human perception. He’s always been able to fall asleep instantly—smirking at friends who whined about insomnia—but now it’s as if his head is a hive. Minutes after crawling into bed, he’s restless, hot, the sheets sticking to him. He twists, then sits upright, the pillowcase damp and smelling faintly of the flowers. He gets up, paces the kitchen, then the living room, then stands at the window and stares across the street.

Your porch light is on. A rectangle of light throws out from your living room, and there’s a silhouette moving inside, maybe you, maybe a coat thrown over a chair, but all the same, the knowledge of you being over there is a burr under his ribs, a contamination in his bloodstream.

He can’t take it. He runs his hands through his hair, then growls in frustration and strides out his front door and down the steps of his porch before he knows what’s happening or what will come next.

The knock on your door startles your heart clean out of your body because no one should be knocking on your door this late at night.

You freeze, bowl of cereal in hand. In place of chewing, you hold your breath. After a full, tense ten seconds, there’s a second knock, insistent and measured, as though whoever is out there has no intention of going away.

You reach for your phone, thumb shaking a little more than you want to admit, and check the time, knowing you should’ve headed to bed ages ago. Not even the delivery apps will come out this late, not in this blissfully suburban neighborhood.

You mute the TV and tiptoe to the entryway, bowl cradled to your chest like a shield. Peering through the peephole, you almost drop the whole thing—milk, cereal, ceramic and all—because Andy from across the street is standing on your porch. He’s alone, wearing lounge pants and a t-shirt that’s wonderfully too tight, his usually soft-looking floofy hair wild, face creased with some expression you can’t decipher.

You step back, breathing through your nose, heart in overdrive. It’s not as if you’ve fantasized about him showing up at your doorstep in the middle of the night. Except you have. Far too many times.

You set the bowl on the entry table and smooth your hair in the faint reflection of the hall mirror. Four seconds elapse. Too long? Too short? You open the door just enough to wedge your face out the crack, just far enough to shield your pajamas, which feature a cartoon from your childhood with a long-defunct brand logo, but not so much that you’d seem like you were hiding. Andy’s bearded face is flushed; he runs a palm over the back of his neck.

“Hey,” he says, honeyed voice low, and pitching right to your twisting core. “Sorry. I know it’s late.”

You make yourself smile. “Is everything okay?”

“I, uh, yeah. I—” He glances back at the perfectly safe, empty street, then leans a little closer to the door frame. “Actually, could I come in? Just for a second?”

There’s a quality in his voice you can’t name. An urgency layered under hesitancy. You nod, opening the door wide, and back up through the narrow entry, suddenly very aware of the state of your hair, your house, the half-finished bowl of cereal.

He nearly pulls the door out of your hand, pushes it tenderly but forcefully shut, and before you can arrange your face into the appropriate social mask, Andy is kissing you like he came here to do exactly this and nothing else in the world has ever mattered. His hands are reverent and greedy at once, one cradling your jaw, the other fisting in the back of your t-shirt. He tastes faintly of toothpaste. You respond as you always imagined you would—if not out loud, then with every part of your animal self—gripping his shoulders like a lifeline, digging into the muscles you’d admired from across your respective sidewalks.

You’re already a little winded when you break apart, but Andy’s eyes are glassy and his breathing is ragged. His thumb is tracing delicate lines over your cheekbone, and you’re trying to remember how to speak when he does it again—lips on yours, but this time slower, like he’s trying to press your molecules together, seam to seam. You let him. He mouths at your lower lip until you open for him, tongue gliding in, deliberate and sure. His body presses yours backward, and you feel the flat cold of the door through your pajamas. Andy’s body is all heat and intention and hard planes against your utter softness, and the pressure of him caging you in is heady.

He pulls back, just enough to look at you, eyes wide and startled as if he can’t quite believe what he’s doing. “Sorry,” he says, almost in a daze of his own, “I just need…”

He kisses you again, mouth hot and desperate, tongue slick against yours, like he’s been thirsty for weeks. His hand never strays from your jaw, thumb stroking the hinge of it with a tenderness that nearly undoes you, but he slides the other down, skimming your side, the subtle flex of muscle through his shirt as he grips your waist. Your mind cracks open, every synapse alert, every cell singing.

You arch into him, needy, shameless. You think there’s no way this can be real. But even as you think it, he smothers a groan into your neck, lips dragging from your mouth to the pulse that hammers there, then back again, like he can’t bear to be away from your lips for more than a single heartbeat.

His palm curves over your hip, slow and decisive, then dips past the loose elastic of your pajama shorts. You gasp a warning that’s half protest, but mostly need, as his knuckles drag against your belly, then he’s inside, palm cupping you, and the simple warmth of his hand makes every thought you’ve ever had vanish. Andy kisses you with the same searching hunger, open-mouthed and ruined, as two blunt fingers sweep through the wet slick of you, slow at first, deliberate, petting the lips of your cunt until you’re squirming for more, until it’s embarrassing how wet you are, how quickly you’re coming apart.

You brace both hands against his chest, meaning to slow him, but instead you just hold on, clutching the soft cotton of his shirt, small noises escaping you. The way he kisses you is relentless—mouth devouring, tongue hot and sure, as if the world might end if he doesn’t taste every inch of you. His hand works down your body, urgent and hungry, and his fingers push deeper into your shorts, parting the seams, as if he’s opening a gift he’s thought about unwrapping for months. He slides two thick fingers into you, curling them with a deftness that feels like it should belong to a darker, more dangerous man—the kind of person your mother warned you about, not Andy, who always walks his recycling bin out at the exact right day and waves at the old lady three doors down.

You’re already trembling and he’s barely started. He fucks you with his hand, slow at first, then ruthless, setting a rhythm that makes your knees threaten to buckle. You clutch his shoulders, gasping into his open mouth, and he swallows the sound, grinning against your lips.

How is this happening?

You can’t think. You feel the split between your thighs and Andy’s hand, the way his palm is big enough to cover all the space there, possessive and gentle at once, drawing out tight circles over your clit. His fingers drive in unyielding and sweet, crooking with precision, the heel of his palm grinding firm as he fucks you through a shattering pleasure—one that comes so fast and hot you actually try to bite it back, your teeth sinking into his lower lip. He huffs a desperate, laughing sound, and when you come, it’s not like climbing some steady hill, but being dropped through a trapdoor.

You gasp and shudder, clutching at the man who just wrecked you. You should’ve protested all of this, shouldn’t you?

You want, more than anything, to collapse to the cool hardwood and drag him down with you, but Andy must sense this, because he presses you harder to the door, trapping you upright between the wood and the furnace of his body.

Andy’s hand doesn’t ease up. He holds you pinned, like you’re an answer he’s demanded from the universe and now that he’s got you, he won’t let you out of his grip. He presses his lips to your temple, riding out your aftershocks, but you feel the tremor in his arm, like restraint is costing him something precious. When you try to shift away, to breathe, he gives a small, strangled sound—almost wounded—and tugs you back, mouth at your ear.

“No,” he whispers, and his hand strokes lower, like he’s determined to find the bottom of you, the root of this need. “I need more. Need to see you—” His breath stutters, and he sucks your earlobe into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth. “Need to watch you lose it for me again.”

You’d argue, but the truth is you want the same thing, no part of you wants him to stop.

The twist of his wrist, the scuff of his palm over the tight bundle of nerves, the softness of his mouth on your jaw, your neck, the corner of your lips—he’s everywhere, demanding and worshipful. Andy’s body presses closer, crowding you against the door, and you can feel every frantic beat of his heart through the thin shield of his t-shirt. He murmurs nonsense into your skin—good girl, so gorgeous, fuck, need, need, need.

You think you’re going to say his name, but it gets stuck behind your teeth, too many syllables suddenly unfathomable. It’s ridiculous. The pressure builds, sweet and sharp, and Andy’s hand is never not exactly where you need it, somehow reading micro-adjustments on your face, your breath. He curses—soft, reverent—when your whole body shivers, when your hips buck into his palm. You’re making noises you don’t recognize, high and pleading and so raw you’d be embarrassed if you could think straight. There’s no shield. There’s just Andy and his hand and you, the way your body opens for him, the way you melt and tremble. The second release is so complete it whites out everything—and what brings you back is not your own breath or heartbeat but the faint, helpless trembling in Andy’s forearms, the way he is shaking almost as badly as you are.

He’s watching you, face open and wild, like he’s just been let out of a cage. And the sight of him—lips parted, brow damp, pupils obliterating the blue—turns your insides to syrup. You are about to collapse, or maybe just melt, when you realize Andy’s hand is still inside your shorts, but now it’s gentle, just a palm pressed over your cunt, and his other hand has caught your wrist and pinned it gently but immovably above your head.

You try to breathe. You fail.

He kisses you, softer this time, and you let your eyes flutter closed. For a long minute, the world is just your breath curling together, the press of his lips, the warmth of his chest pressed to yours, and your heart constricts beautifully, remembering how you’ve longed for a moment just like this.

And then a sudden, vivid memory of the other night, ambushes you mid-kiss.

You, alone and wine-drunk a week ago, flicking through late-night TikToks until you scrolled upon a witch who was too intriguing to pass by. She spoke about manifesting and desires and moon cycles. She was answering comments with wisdom that was tinged with only a whiff of whimsy. The whole thing seemed so exquisitely stupid, so precisely the sort of thing you’d mock with a friend at brunch, but that was half the ache that had you wine-drunk and scrolling. You’d never been in a serious romantic relationship, but now you were also in a new town with no family, no friends, lacking connection, and feeling so alone.

So you’d stayed, wanting to believe, just a little, in magic.

The witch hadn’t seemed much older than you, if at all—hair in two space buns, eyeliner winged so sharp it could slice through time. Unlike the other algorithmic spiritualists who popped up on your feed, she answered comments with candor and missed no opportunity to call out the grifters. She laughed often, cackled sometimes, and radiated a low-budget but compelling earnestness that you respected. Her handle was something like @HexAndFlex, and before you knew it, you’d clicked through to her profile and linktree, then her Etsy, then, in a tangle of embarrassment and fascination, to the checkout page.

Wine glass in hand, you signed up for her $19.99 “Goddess Alignment Manifestation” bundle via Etsy, which included a personalized reading and three PDF guides. You filled out the intake questionnaire at 2:12 a.m., pausing long and hard on the prompts: “What are your hopes? Who are you inviting into your life? What does love feel like in your body?”

Waking up the next morning, you had an email from Sage Moonwater—a name that was either a branding masterstroke or her actual birth certificate humiliation—inviting you to select a time to consult that evening via her convenient Calendly link so you could step into your power and claim the life you deserved, specifically by manifesting “your soulmate’s touch” before the next crescent moon. It was so transparently silly, but her voice had had a way of making you feel less like a joke and more like a person who could actually want things, and what the hell did you have to lose now that you’d already paid the twenty bucks?

You’d set up the call for the same evening, all self-mockery, already rehearsing the text you’d send to Emily about what you were about to do. But as soon as the video chat connected, you felt a weird, grounding nervousness, like maybe you were about to reveal something shameful and true.

Sage had an actual backdrop—galaxy stars on a rich tapestry, a candle burning low, shelves of glass jars and labeled bottles that might hold essential oils or ketchup packets for all you could see. She greeted you with a firm, confident wave and a smile so wide it bordered on conspiratorial. She asked about your day, your mood, how you slept, and the questions came not as a checklist but as a real curiosity, like she wanted to know what you’d eaten for lunch because it was the first data point in a cosmic equation. The whole interaction felt, bizarrely, more intimate than your last three actual dates.

She asked and you talked about desire, about heartbreak, about loneliness, about the years and years of being the person everyone called “so independent” and “so intimidating” when really, you would’ve given up every self-actualized inch of it just to have one person see you across a crowded room and want you enough to cross the distance. You had not intended to say any of this, not even to yourself, but in the slow momentum of Sage’s affirming silences and cocked eyebrows, it all tumbled out. The next thing you knew, you were telling her about the feeling of your last almost-relationship ending, how it made you feel like a fading echo in a canyon, and how the new town had seemed like a possibility for a reset, a new chapter and new connections, but instead just made everything echo louder.

And then you mentioned your neighbor. Andy. Not by name at first, but by silhouette: the broad-shouldered man who was clean cut and seemed so kind and took his trash bins to the curb at the exact legally sanctioned minute, who always mowed the lawn of your elderly neighbor. You admitted—your cheeks burning, as if Sage could sense it across the pixels—that your neighbor looked like the actor who played Captain America, only with a beard that made him look less Marvel franchise and more the Northeast suburban lawyer that he was. You told her that, and Sage grinned, writing notes on an index card, and said you should never apologize for wanting a man whose forearms could probably open a stuck pickle jar with hardly an ounce of effort.

Sage guided you through a ritual that was half guided meditation, half pep talk, and one hundred percent more soothing than you expected. The rest of the call was a blur, but you remembered the precise click of the lighter as Sage torched a little twist of something in a shell, then told you to believe, for just a minute, that the universe would not play you if you simply asked for what you wanted, no disclaimers, no shame. At the end, Sage closed her eyes and murmured something, then said, “Manifestation doesn’t mean sitting still. When you see the signal, walk into it. Be the spell.” You laughed—together as she took her craft but not herself too seriously, you promised to leave her a five-star review, and closed the laptop.

Then you forgot about it. Full on forgot for the rest of the week, until the entire affair reverberates with the force of a sucker punch, the moment Andy’s hand, slick with you, presses harder, grounding you in the exact present of everything Sage told you to want.

Now, as you gasp for air—Andy’s mouth still pressed to the hinge of your jaw, his hand holding your wrist pinned—you have the wild, horrible thought that you might actually have done this. Not just metaphorically, not in the way of I set an intention and now the universe is showing me signs, but in the literal, actions-have-consequences sense of the word. That you, in a fit of late-night desperation, tapped your wishes into the digital void with the help of an Etsy witch, and then the void, bored or mercenary or high on its own power, sent you Andy, unfiltered, nearly deranged with need, to finish what you started.

“Oh, no,” you murmur, breathless, aware at cellular level that you’ve broken something and there’s no undialing it back. Andy’s mouth is still on your neck, but his hand has stilled, fingers wet and honest where they rest. You feel the insane urge to confess all of this, to babble out the chain of cause and consequence, but that would be even more unhinged than what’s actually happening, so you just clutch at his nape like you can anchor yourself to him and ride it out.

Andy, meanwhile, is not waiting for your existential reconciliation. He’s pulling you from the entryway, hands gentle but insistent, urging you through the darkness of your own house toward the living room. Neither of you turns on the light, as if to do so would break this spell and lay bare the ordinary details—your couch’s threadbare arm, the red-wine blot you still haven’t cleaned from the rug.

You stumble a little in front, Andy’s body close behind, and he makes a sound, half-plea, half-laughter, and tells you to, “Wait, wait,” and then he’s pulling you, deft hands at your hips, to the couch.

He presses you down by the shoulders. Not rough, not even assertive—just a gentle, inarguable pressure until you’re seated, knees spread slightly by the width of his own. Then he is on his knees before you, hands sliding up your thighs with a kind of focus you’ve never been on the receiving end of, certainly not from a man who, until ten minutes ago, was no more than a participant in your erotic daydreams. He looks up at you, gaze level and starved, and you realize with a choked hitch in your breath that Andy’s intent is not ambiguous. Not even slightly.

You know how this scene is supposed to go. You’ve read enough, watched enough, spent enough late nights with a hand beneath your sheets and a fantasy running wild to recognize the choreography: the kneeling man, the parted thighs, the hungry eyes and trembling hands. Your heart should be galloping, and your body should be velvet and opening, but what you actually feel in this precise instant is a kind of underwater panic—a clutching in your chest that says, This isn’t you, this isn’t how you imagined it, not even in the most fevered, shame-laced moments before sleep. You want him, yes, but you want the wanting to be mutual, not conjured or compelled or rolling downhill because gravity says it must.

You seize his wrists—not to guide, but to stop him. For a second, the only sound is your breath, jagged and raw in the dark. Andy’s arms tense, and he freezes, hands hovering just above your knees.

“I need to know,” you say, surprised at how thin and breakable your voice is. “Do you actually want this?”

He’s startled, like you’ve splashed cold water in his face, and draws back just enough for a wedge of lamplight from the street to silver his jaw. He blinks, hard, and his mouth forms a quizzical line. “Of course I want this,” he says, and when you don’t let go, he adds, “I need it.”

You should let that be good enough. You should. But something inside you is a little stubborn, a little afraid this isn’t about you, but about magic and that the spell won’t last if it isn’t real.

You tug Andy’s arms higher, make him look at you. “Not need,” you say, the two words sounding childish, a repetition from some earlier, unsophisticated self. “Want. Do you even like me?” It’s an absurd moment to ask, and you nearly laugh, except the stakes are so much sharper than they were a minute ago.

Andy’s head tilts, and you see the fight in his face, the tangle of what’s happening and what he thinks should be happening. His brow knits, lips pursing as if considering this seriously, like you’re a witness in some small, late-night court, and he needs to get the answer right on the record.

“I—” The word is thick. He tries again. “Yes. Jesus, yes. Since you moved in. Hell, I thought I was being subtle. I—” He drops his gaze, and his hands flex hard on your knees.

Then his hands come up to cradle your hips, steady and unquestioning, and for a moment he just looks at you. His hands squeeze your hips, like he’s grounding himself, and he says, “No, I wasn’t being subtle. I was being careful. Guarded.

“Last time I had something that was supposed to be good, it blew up, and I lost it all. I couldn’t keep it, and I swore I’d never want that hard again.” His thumb slides, absently, along the bare skin where your shirt rides up. “But I haven’t stopped thinking about you. Not since the first week you showed up. I don’t even know why I’m here, doing this, skipping a hundred steps. But I want to want you, actually want you, and not just for tonight.”

You stare at him like an idiot, every word a stone dropped in the deep well of your body. You surge forward and now it’s you who’s kissing him like he’s the air you need to breathe. Your mouth meets his and this time there is no hesitation, no apology. You wind your hands into the back of his hair and tug, not to hurt but to anchor, and when Andy’s teeth scrape your lower lip, you welcome the pain because it means presence, it means both of you are here. The kiss tastes a little of resolve and a little of blood, and you devour it, clambering forward until you’re no longer seated but crouched over him, both of you half off the couch, falling together into the negative space between bodies.

He moves with you, arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you into his lap, so you’re straddling him, your knees bracketing his hips, your hands gripping his face. The feel of his beard on your palms is shockingly soft, and you run your thumbs along his jawline, mapping him, learning the shape of what you’ve summoned into existence. “Andy,” you whisper, testing the word against the flat of his tongue, and then again, like this will root him in place and keep him from dissolving away. He shudders, arms banding you tight, and you think, This is what it means to be wanted.

You can’t stop your hands. You want to clutch the collar of his shirt and drag it over his head, but instead you just knead the soft cotton over his shoulders, wanting to memorize every contour, every heat map of skin and muscle. He lets you, hands feather-light at your back, as if he’s still recalibrating to the idea that it’s possible, that this is happening. You dig your nails into his shoulders, shivering at the thought that this is real. Andy shivers too, and when your hips rock down, you both moan, a glorious, unscripted duet.

You laugh, or do something like it—a sound that is threaded with disbelief, with the creeping thrill that this moment is real. Andy is kissing your throat, your jaw, your face, kisses everywhere. You let your arms go slack, let your head fall back so he can drag his mouth along the column of your neck. All shyness has evaporated. You grind against him now, swim in the dizzy, churning heat, and every friction of your body ratchets it higher.

He rocks you in his lap, hands steady, and you can feel him straining hard beneath the soft jersey of his pants. There’s a voice in your head that wants to script this, to slow time and savor every beat—but you’re already gone, fueled by something that feels elemental. You hook your fingers under the hem of his shirt—his body is so warm, too warm, as if he’s been running a fever for you—and drag the fabric up his back. Andy helps you strip it off, and you stake your palms against his chest, which is warm and smooth, and you realize with delight that you had guessed correctly—light brown hair, just enough to tangle your fingers in. You do, just because you can, and Andy hisses, then laughs, catching your wrists and kissing the insides of them.

Your own shirt is next, or maybe he gets there first, but either way you’re bare chested against him, your nipples dragging over the broad terrain of his chest, and the friction is electric. You shudder, and Andy’s breath is hot on your neck as he buries his face there, humming low. His hands find the small of your back—one splayed to anchor you, the other traveling up your spine to cradle the curve of your neck, fingertips tracing fire along your vertebrae. His palm is huge, a brand against your skin, and you arch into it—hungry, greedy, alive.

You reach down, pulling at the drawstring on his lounge pants, and brush your knuckles along the line of his hip, skin so hot you think it might burn you. Andy’s teeth scrape your collarbone, and you laugh again, gasping.

You slide your hand beneath the waistband, push past the taut elastic, and find him hot, hard, and heavy in your palm. Andy’s eyes screw shut, jaw flexing. His head tips back, lips parted, and the sound he makes is so raw, so unguarded, you grip him tighter just to hear it again.

He lets you stroke him for three, maybe four slow pulls, until his patience fails and he tackles you backwards, the suddenness of it sending you sliding to the rug. He lands above you, catching your skull in his hand so you don’t hit the floor, the other braced by your shoulder, and for a moment you both hover, suspended over the thrum of your own need, before he’s tearing at your shorts, shoving them down your legs and off, then pulling your thighs around his hips. You’re naked on your living room rug, limbs akimbo, world reduced to the heat where his body meets yours.

Andy’s hand finds your knee, wedges himself between your thighs, and your heart stutters when you feel the heavy press of his cock against you, notching himself at your entrance. He presses forward, the head of him breaching you, then stops, sucking in a breath so sharp it’s almost a curse. “Fuck,” he growls.

The tenor of it sends a sliver of doubt through you. “What is it?”

He looks down, like this is the first moment he’s considered anything other than skin and the immediacy of you. “I, uh,” he says, “I don’t have anything on me.” The way he says it—on me—drags you back to the shore of reality. “Fuck, I’m sorry, this is so… Do you have anything?”

You don’t have to think hard about it. You know there is no pharmaceutical miracle in your bedside drawer, no leftover Trojan in your purse, not even a faded old wrapper in the medicine cabinet. You are never reckless, never this unprepared, and yet—“I don’t,” you say, and there is no hiding the want in your voice, no matter how much you try to paste on a veneer of caution. So you say the only other thing that’s blaring through your mind, “I don’t care. I want you.” And you mean it.

Andy freezes, some battle of conscience visible in the sharp lines of his face. But your next words crack him open. “I trust you.”

He leans in, presses his brow to yours. “I’ll pull out,” he says, voice a rumble and a promise, but you know even as he says it that you’re both already beyond that kind of discipline. He lets the head of his cock push just inside—enough to make your body go tight, desperate—and then he fucks you. It’s want, it’s intimate, but it’s an unadulterated fuck.

There is no slow easing in, no warmup. He’s already so thick and hard that the first push makes you gasp, makes your knees come up to lock behind his hips, makes your eyes flutter shut so you can concentrate on the sensation of being split with wanting. Andy cradles your head in his palm, mouthing frantic apologies into your neck, but you clutch at his ass, digging half-moons into his skin, urging him deeper. He’s past the point of teasing, and so are you. He drives in, the long, forceful motion grinding your back into the rug, and you can feel every inch of him, feel the way your body adjusts and grabs at him, absolutely unwilling to let go.

The sounds are obscene—yours, his, the wet slick of every thrust amplified by the chamber of your ribs. With each stroke, Andy mutters a gospel of fuck yes, you feel so good, so tight, fuck, never, never, not like this, fuck, need, fuck. You lose the shape of your own voice, the thrum of your body a radio tuned to a single frequency—fullness, friction, the absolute need to have him inside you.

You feel the edge building with every thrust, the thick heat of his cock nearly too much, the sweet ache of him pushing against the deep wall of you, and then—he angles your hips and suddenly he’s hitting something that turns you inside out. Your yelp is wild, and he does it again just to hear it, just to chase it. The rhythm is relentless, not violent but insistent. Your hands catch at his arms, shoulders, back—anywhere, everywhere—and your nails rake lines down the ladder of his spine.

He braces himself above you, then drops onto his elbows, crushing your body beneath his, pressing your breasts to his chest, so every thrust rocks you together. One palm cradles your jaw, tilting your face up, and he kisses you so deep the longing goes atomic, the world turning inside out.

You know that you’re making noises. You know your mouth is open and you’re emitting a sound with each pulse of his body into yours, but you’re not sure what it is, nor do you care. You’re right at the edge, clinging to the lip of it, and the friction is so much, so constant, that when you blurt, “Don’t stop,” you don’t even recognize your own voice.

Andy cants his hips and you swear he’s gotten deeper, impossibly so, and he grazes the spot that makes the world flash white at the edges.

You teeter at the precipice, clutch at his back, your legs straining around him. He feels your body start to come undone and murmurs, “That’s it, just like that,” right by your ear, breath molten. He grinds even deeper, and the pressure is so much you’re not sure if you’re gasping or screaming. Climax devours you in greedy waves—first ripping and sharp, then rolling, sensual, heady. Your cunt clamps hard around him and you feel him stutter, lose cadence, gasp your name like a plea. He’s close, so close, so ready to follow, and you sense his muscles tense, his will battling itself.

He tries to pull out, you feel it, the faltering withdrawal, and something primal and vast surges up from your deepest self. You fist your hands in his hair, drag his mouth to your ear, and whisper, “Don’t. Please. I want you to finish inside me.” Your voice is shredded, a raw thing, almost animal.

He groans, the sound wrenching from him, and he punctuates it with your name, the syllables snapping and falling apart, and then he’s coming inside you, the heat of it blooming in deep, pulsing bursts, and your body cages it, cages him, takes in all of it because it wants to, because you can. He’s heavy on top of you and you pull him down, press your face to his shoulder and hold him through that long, shuddering ride-down, both of you panting, hearts jackhammering against rib and skin and the braided muscle of your entwined bodies.

Eventually, Andy shifts, bracing himself carefully on his elbows so as not to crush you under his weight, but he looks down at you, face awash in disbelief and—if you’re reading it right—something like worship.

For a long time you just breathe. Your body hums, a sweet ache radiating from your pelvis, your thighs, your shoulders. Andy strokes your ribs in slow, lazy circles, like you’re a cat he’s coaxed into his lap. The air smells like salt and sweat and ozone, like something essential has been altered at the molecular level.

Andy is the first to break the silence, resting his brow against yours and exhaling, “Jesus Christ.”

You giggle softly and press a kiss to his jaw. “That was…” You don’t finish the sentence. Can’t. The words would be inadequate.

He nudges at you, gentle as a suggestion, and rolls your entire body with his until you’re both on your sides, limbs still knotted, belly to belly. The rug itches at your hip and the room is cold now that the furnace of him has transferred from on to next to, but neither of you is willing to move. Andy tucks your head under his chin, beard scraping your scalp, one arm pillowed under you, the other banded around your ribs.

You go slack in his arms, the exhaustion of pleasure rolling in after the storm, but your mind is a live wire, all overloaded circuits and impossible, bright newness.

“We should get up,” you say, because you were never one to fall asleep on the living room floor, but now you know you and Andy are both far too old to stay here for long in any kind of comfort.

Andy rumbles a laugh in your hair. “We should,” he agrees, but neither of you does, and you lay there, two bodies caught in a gravity well, breathing in tandem.

You run your palm up Andy’s rib cage, feeling the slight tremor beneath his skin, and look up into his face. He’s already watching you, blue eyes luminous in the dark. You’re both still naked; your bodies are still a tangle, and neither of you is prepared to speak just yet. He kisses your forehead, so light it feels like a benediction, and then he sighs, long and low, utterly without artifice. “You’re unreal,” he says.

You want to tell him, in that moment, about the witch, the twenty-dollar spell, about the two a.m. confessional and the shattering loneliness that made you whisper your want directly at the universe. You want to tell him you think you made this happen, that the ties between coincidence and desire are thinner than dental floss, but the words tangle up in your chest.

Because as surreal as the first moments were rocketing through the two of you as he showed up in your entryway, everything after felt real. The ache in your limbs is a perfect echo of satisfaction. You’re aware of Andy’s hand moving, tracing slow, distracted circles along the small of your back, like you’re something fragile or a secret he’s only just discovered.

It’s only a few minutes later that you do shift and groan at the discomfort of the floor, and Andy laughs.

You both untangle, groaning dramatically at the effort it takes to stand. Andy is first to his feet, and he has the nerve to offer you his hand like he’s some kind of courtly gentleman and not the man who just railed you so hard your vision is migrating out the sides of your skull. You snort and take it anyway, let him steady you as if you might topple, even though you are perfectly well balanced, thank you.

You shuffle toward the bathroom and he hangs back, fastening his pants, fussing with the drawstring. When you turn back to catch him, he’s straightening the couch cushions, gathering your clothes, and—hilariously—folding them into a neat pile on the endtable.

“Andy?” you call softly.

“Yeah?” he answers, turning to look at you.

“Come shower and stay the night?”

He looks at you for the space of four heartbeats, but it’s all intensity and warmth, and so you know before he says it, that the answer is a simple, “Yeah.”

Maybe this will be nothing. Maybe this will be everything. Right now it’s just this: a real thing, a warm thing, a thing with no name yet and no need for one, and the rest of it can wait.

AND???

WHAT DO WE THINK?

Did you like? 🥹 As I said in the A/N at the beginning, I had some immediate AU possibilities come to mind, but then I felt like they were all stories I'd probably read before, and I was happy enough to play in the typical sandbox, but then I thought....

WAIT!

WHAT IF ETSY WITCH?! And then my muse was gleeful in that idea... scrolling through Tiktok, going ahead and just trying the thing, and then maybe the witch thinking... maybe let's give these two a little push and sending those flowers Andy's way, see if she could send just a little bit of harmless magic your way because she genuinely liked you.

A little sex pollen never hurt anyone, right? 😌

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

Which is why you’re surprised when he insists on a honeymoon. Doesn’t give you a choice at all, in fact, he’s uncaring that you’re less thrilled than he is at this union, and that you also seem to be scared of him.

That he actually likes.

Ransom likes it a lot.

He’s realizing that you’re more perceptive than most, and very observant. You see past his cocky, biting veneer to the rage simmering underneath. To all the vile machinations brewing in his mind.

All the things he’d like to do to his grandfather and his mother.

Sometimes even to you.

But there’s also other things he wants to do you. Filthy things. Vile in a different way. The kind of things he knows will make you cry and writhe and beg and go dumb for him.

And your honeymoon will be the perfect place for Ransom to finally get his hands on you, and his cock in you.

In each and every one of your holes.

Even for him, the first avenger, there are things that elude him. There are those moments that make him feel like that scrawny kid in Brooklyn taking his licks in the back alley. Like her.

He sits on the low stone wall, staring across the green plains of overgrown grass waving beneath the evening breeze. Across the distance, he sees her small figure as she takes down sheets from the line. Among the pollen and dander, he smells only her.

She doesn't know he's watching. She can't see as far as him. She can't hear his heartbeat like he can hers.

He traces the edge of his shield. His cowl sits him, he can feel his hair askew. He smooths it and sniffs. He rubs together his gloved palms and feels the gash on his knuckle. He squeezes until it stings.

"I'm gonna make her mine, all mine," he whispers as he grips tighter.

But how? How does he cross that barrier? How does he approach without scaring her?

He pops his finger out of the socket with a stifled grunt. He grits his teeth and stands. He pushes his head back on his neck and picks up the shield. He flicks it around without a thought, flinging it in a curve that slices the air.

He doesn't flinch as it comes flying back at him. It cracks him in the shoulder, putting it out of place, renting through the outer layer of armour. He huffs and catches the shield before it hits the ground.