rot

“no!” you whine, ass clapping down onto his hairy thighs. the slick sound fills the otherwise quiet room.

sweat drips from the nape of your neck, you can feel it rolling hot down your spine. each drop onto his cock bullies your cervix and punches strangled puffs of air from your lungs. you dare to reach forward again to brace yourself on his tee shirt clad chest, but, like each time before, he bats your hands away.

“at least i know y’haven’t been off practicin’ while i was away, yeah?”

you roll your eyes at that and he smirks to himself behind his mask. he loves you like this — all flustered. hot flesh and flushed skin, sticky and wet, hair damp and clinging to your cheeks. it’s his favorite fucking sight, one of them anyway.

of course what you’re doing to him is driving him fuckin mad, his hands are only at his sides because he needs to bury and crank them into the fabric of the sofa just keep up the unamused charade.

his cell pings twice in his pocket. “should i get that, y’think?” he grunts out, voice rougher as he starts to lose the control he’s had until now. “could be more thrilling than this.”

“si—!” you whine again, lips puckering in a pout as your rhythm stutters. your legs are like static, falling numb and vibrating with exertion. your own weight begins to fold in on itself, hands once again reaching out for purchase.

your palms press to his chest and in one startlingly quick motion, simon sits up straight, scooping both wrists into one of his tremendous and calloused hands. he holds them between your bodies tight enough to bruise, yanking you down until your forehead cracks against his. only then does he start moving his own hips, driving his cock up into you with a fervor that has your face pinched and mouth agape, drool pooling under your tongue like a dog in heat.

“fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—!”

the energy shifts gradually. his hand releases your wrists and they smooth over your damp thighs, grabbing on to your hips. he growls into your neck when you push down to meet his thrusts. his bottom lip dragging a wet line up the side of your throat until he’s breathing hot against your ear.

“guess i gotta do all the work, huh?”

your own arms crawl around his neck, both of you pulling the other closer and closer until your chests are pressed together.

you twist your fingers into the back of his balaclava, yanking it off and tossing it like it’s offended you. his sandy brown hair sticks up and out every which way.

“fuck you,” you breathe, grinning lazily against the corner of his mouth.

“Come ‘ere.”

You glance over your shoulder, “Why?”

He shifts in the doorway to stand straight, arms unfolding so he can direct you with his index and middle fingers, pointing down to the space of carpet just in front of him. “Come. Here.”

You sigh exaggeratedly and pad barefoot over to him. The second you’re in reach his hand catches your waist and pulls you flush against him. You hit him with a low ‘oof!’ escaping your throat. You can instantly feel him hard against your hip. You blink up at him.

“It’s, like, nine in the morning.”

He pulls back enough to have another gawk at you.

“Mhm,” he hums satisfactorily, and you’re not sure if he’s replying to your comment or simply pleased with whatever he’s got rattling around in his imagination at the moment.

A hand begins a slow migration up to your chest, cupping one of your breasts, holding there, pressing the rough of his palm against your flesh. His thumb strokes slow over your nipple until it tightens beneath it. “Fit perfectly in my palm,” he muses.

“Simon,” you sigh, amused.

His palm slides down then, over your ribs, splaying wide across the side of your belly, kneading, pressing his thumb into the pudge of you. He makes a low sound at the back of his throat. “Whose fault’s it m’hard at nine in the morning, then?”

“Your own,” you giggle.

“Yours,” he corrects plainly before he dips down and nudges your jaw up with his nose to kiss you, licking his tongue over yours while his hand continues to stroke the curve under his fingers. The other hand comes back to your chest like it just can’t stay away. “Walkin’ ’round in front of me like this. These pretty lil’ tits out. Belly all…” he squeezes once, gentle and possessive “…soft,” he finishes.

“S’just my body, Si,” you breathe, breaths becoming shallower.

“I know wot it is,” he smiles against your mouth. “Drives me fuckin’ mental. But y’knew that, di’n’t you?”

You did know that.

You also know what happens when you push into his hands instead of away, and you do it now, arching just slightly into his palm, and the noise he makes is honestly embarrassing for him.

He walks you backward to the bed in three steps and you go down on the edge of it. He’s on his knees on the floor before you can blink, big hands skirting up the outside of your thighs, fingers hooking into the cotton of your underwear and yanking them down and off. His hands come back up, slipping between your legs and parting them wide for the looking. His mouth’s already wet and your bottom lip tucks between your teeth.

“Eyes up here, Sergeant,” you giggle.

“No,” he grunts. His mouth finds the inside of your thigh, rolling your flesh between his lips, kissing and sucking higher and higher. “I’ll look where I want.”

A calloused hand comes up to span your stomach, one wide palm pressing into you, the other hand taking a hold of your hip while his mouth finds your center. You gasp, and fall back to your elbows.

His tongue is slow, working you open, and he keeps that hand on your tummy the whole time like he just can’t stop touching it, fingers spreading and gathering in the softness.

You moan and he hums against your clit, too pleased with himself. The vibration goes straight through you.

“Si— fuck—,”

The hand on your hip reaches up to your chest, palming one of your breasts again, his massive hand covering every bit of it. He fits you like he was measured for it. At least, that what he always says. You drop a hand into his hair and his eyes close.

He laps at your pussy like you both don’t have to get to work. He pulls back just long enough to drag his mouth low across your stomach, open-mouthed, sucking a mark just under your navel where nobody else will ever see it, and you feel him groan against your skin.

“Could spend the whole day on you,” he says, rough. “Jus’ like this.” His hand kneads your belly again. “You any idea what you fuckin’ do to me?”

Soap caught him at it in the mess — Simon parked against the far wall with a coffee going cold in his fist, focused on watching you eat. Soap followed the line of his stare, found you at the end of it, and grinned like the cheshire cat. "Oh, her," he said, delighted. "Aye, she's one of the hybrids. Mantis." He said it the way you'd mention someone supported the wrong football team. Then, because Soap cannot leave fuck-all alone, he leaned in and cheerfully added, "You'll want to be careful there, big man. Mantis females, ehh— they eat the fella after. During, sometimes. Bite the head clean off and finish the job. Read it somewhere once." He clapped Simon on the shoulder. "Best of luck."

And then he left. Wandered off to find some grub, whistling.

Simon stood very still against the wall, then. Felt the information go into him like a splinter you can't find to pull.

Bite the head clean off?

He looked back at you across the room — you'd tilted your head to listen to the person beside you, smooth and too far round, big dark eyes catching the strip-lights — and the want did not go anywhere, that was the horror of it, the want stayed exactly where it was and the new knowledge simply moved in alongside it and started rearranging some things.

He wanted you.

And being Simon, he did not do the sensible thing and walk away. He did the research.

The thing about dating Simon, you would learn, is that you have never in your life been so well fed.

You understood it maybe six weeks in, when you opened his fridge expecting the usual bachelor wasteland and found it stocked like he was provisioning for a siege. Yogurt. Three kinds of cheese. A bowl of cut fruit under cling film. A tin labeled ‘FROG LEGS’.

It was risk management dressed up as romance, which in fairness is mostly what romance is… Isn’t it?

He'd taken Soap's splinter and built a guideline out of it. He knows — he has read, in studies he will deny owning — that the trouble starts when you're hungry. Or stressed. Or both, which is the cocktail that turns a nice evening into something a coroner writes up.

He has constructed an entire relationship on the single principle of never ever letting you get to that point.

You'll be reaching for him on the sofa, hand sliding up under his shirt, mouth at the hot pulse in his throat, and he'll go rigid and say, in that flat  rumble of his, "When d’you last eat?"

"Simon," you sigh,

"Tha’ s’not an answer, love."

"I'm not hungry–,"

"I saw you skipped lunch."

He watches a lot. He watches you eat with open, naked satisfaction, and the first time you caught him at it you'd put your fork down and said ‘did you want some?’ and he'd said ‘no, you have it,’ and meant it with his whole strange heart.

The man can produce a plate of food out of thin air, and there's no point arguing, because he'll simply outlast you, planted there immovable as a boulder until you've eaten enough that his shoulders come down from around his ears.

He's never once said the word out loud. Cannibalism. He skirts it like a tripwire. Early on you'd tilted your head at him a degree too sharp while he was shaving — honestly just affection — and caught his eye in the mirror, and he'd nicked his own jaw and not flinched at the blood at all, only at you. Razor frozen halfway up his neck. The muscle in his cheek jumped and his pupils shrank to pinpricks and you'd thought: Oh. He's frightened. Big, terrible Ghost, who garrotes men in their sleep, scared witless by the tilt of your head. 

You felt bad for almost a full minute.

You have, in fairness, never confirmed or denied a thing. When he goes still and careful you let him. It's the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for you, this grim devout terror, and you're not about to spoil it with reassurance.

Soap, for the record, has really no idea what he started. He'll see the two of you in the canteen, Simon angling the better-fed plate toward you and think, good lad, taking my advice.

Simon had you down — the eyes that hold on him no matter where he moves, that dark point in each one that stays, tracking, while the rest of your face goes soft and human; the too-far head-turn; the way your hands fold up against your chest when you go truly still, wrists tucked, prayer-shaped.

He did not account for the wings.

You hadn't told him because you genuinely forget they're there — folded flat along your spine, a faint seam under the skin, a sheen across your shoulder blades he'd assumed was an old scar. You can't really fly. You never thought to mention them. Plus, it seemed like he knew plenty.

But now he's got you under him with your shirt long gone and his mouth working at the junction of your neck and collar, and there's none of the careful bracing tonight — he fed you an hour ago, he made sure, he watched you finish — and now there's just his weight and his hands and the husky sounds he makes against your skin. One big palm splays flat on your stomach and slides lower, fingers finding you already slick, stroking slow over your clit until your hips chase it on their own. "So soft, love," he murmurs, like he's not shaking. He gets two fingers inside you, curls them, and your whole spine bows off the mattress.

That's when they snap open.

In the dark it's monstrous; a sudden unfolding of something unknown and far too wide for the room, fanning from your back in a wash of color he can't quite name in the half-light. A deep iridescent purple shot through with flares of red, eyespots blooming towards the tips. One instant flat girl, the next a thing twice your size.

Simon goes to stone, shuts down, every system offline. This is it, he thinks — this is the bit where she takes the head. His fingers still inside you. He holds his breath, bracing.

You make a small strangled noise and pull them back down.

They fold away almost as fast as they came, gone into brackets around your spine, and you throw an arm over your face and refuse to look at him. Your ears are hot. He can feel it where his jaw rests on your cheek.

"Sorry," you whisper. "That just— happens sometimes. It– it doesn't mean anything bad, I swear… just… you… just feels good, is all.”

The single most dangerous woman he's ever shared a bed with has flashed her startle display because he got two fingers knuckle deep inside of her, and now she's mortified, hiding her face like a kid. Four months of Soap's splinter works its way loose, pushing out of his muscle, and falls out somewhere in the dark, and Simon — who has never in his life felt safe and certainly never expected to find it here, of all the deranged places — starts to come softly apart with relief. He pulls himself back to look at you.

"Le’me see you," he says, and peels your arm off your face, and when you do his eyes are doing something you've never seen on him: wet at the edges, wide open, not afraid of you at all. 

Worse than not afraid. Pleased with himself.

He leans back down and kisses you hard, pushing his fingers deeper and says it against your mouth because he’s got nothing left to lose: "Do it again. Want to watch."

So you do. 

And Simon fucks you slow and then not slow at all, and every time he tips you over they snap wide behind you and fill the room with color, and by the third time he's stopped flinching and started hunting it, smug, learning the exact angle that does it. When he finally comes it's with his forehead pressed to yours and your wings open around the both of you like something out of a church window, and he's saying something into your jaw, rough and ruined, that takes you a second to parse as all mine, there she is, there's my good girl.

Afterward you bite him. Just a little on the shoulder, just to be a menace, licking the taste of iron from your canine. 

He doesn't even twitch. "Knew it," he says into your hair, wrecked and grinning where you can't see. "Tellin’ Soap he was right."

"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.

Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—

"Y'need'a get laid, boss."

John's hands immediately froze.

That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.

His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.

"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."

Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.

The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.

And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.

Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.

And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.

His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.

"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."

Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.

"I jus' think—"

"OUT."

The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.

Then he squared the stacks again.

——

Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.

"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"

"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."

"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.

"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.

Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.

Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.

"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.

"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"

"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"

"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"

Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.

His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.

The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.

"That's my phone."

"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.

Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"

"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.

"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"

"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles. 

"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"

"Christ," Johnny snickers.

John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.

"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.

"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.

John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.

"Think I'll stand."

"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.

Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.

"What's Hinge?"

"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.

A dating app….

Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.

Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.

There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.

"This is you, then?"

"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.

"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"

"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."

Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"

"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."

John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen. 

"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"

"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.

"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.

"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."

Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."

John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.

"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."

It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.

Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace. 

So… he pulls out a chair.

Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.

"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross. 

Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.

The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.

"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."

"I smoke cigars," John protests.

"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"

"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.

"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.

"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."

Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"

That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.

"Consultant," Simon offers.

"Civil servant," Kyle tries.

"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.

Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.

"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.

Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.

"What've you lot got on yours, then?"

The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.

"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.

"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.

"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.

"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"

"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"

"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.

When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—

"What's Feeld?" John asks.

"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."

"It's not for you," Simon adds.

"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."

"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.

The rest goes quicker.

"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."

"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.

Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.

His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).

He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out. 

There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.

After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.

"I'll do these myself."

This time, Kyle hands the phone over.

The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night. 

Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.

John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.

When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.

"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."

The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.

"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"

"No."

The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.

So is the one after. X.

A woman in her work scrubs. X.

A woman holding a child. X.

A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.

It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.

"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"

"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.

"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"

"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.

"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."

"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."

Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—

His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.

Huh. 

There you are.

Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.

John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.

You're very pretty.

For the first time, John taps the profile open.

30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.

Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out. 

There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.

Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.

And at the bottom:

The best way to ask me out is by: using words.

I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.

John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.

Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.

John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:

IT'S A MATCH!

"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.

"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.

"Careful," John warns mildly.

Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.

John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.

Better in person.

Yeah. He'd bet you are.

"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."

"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.

"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."

John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.

"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"

Silence.

"I mean, when you put it like that…"

"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.

He's already typing, screen tipped away.

"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."

"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."

He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.

——

Four miles away, a phone lights up…

——

Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.

Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.

The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.

Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore. 

A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.

A man whose photos are all group shots. X.

A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.

Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.

The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.

He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.

John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.

The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.

Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.

You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.

His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.

Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.

The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.

Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.

You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.

It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.

But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.

You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.

On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.

Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!

HINGE: You and John matched!

HINGE: 1 New Message

You open it.

Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?

You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.

i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.

friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?

You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.

Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.

you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.

They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.

What movie are you watching?

You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.

You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.

you're not allowed to judge me.

Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.

You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.

it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.

The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.

Twelve times? Must be decent.

it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol

Dead?

it's a twist. it's festive!

You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.

You smile.

so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?

Not a thing.

hours in freezing water for zero fish?!

The fish aren't the point.

do tell, what's the point?

The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.

It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months. 

You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.

that actually sounds really peaceful.

i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.

That the trail from your photo?

it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.

Doesn't show.

Good photo of you.

Beautiful, actually.

You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow. 

Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.

oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol

No it didn't.

— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.

well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.

Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending. 

how long have you been on hinge?

It's my first night, actually.

first night???

Profile's about two hours old.

yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?

Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.

——

John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.

He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.

What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.

"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.

"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."

He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.

"Need another, Cap?"

"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.

A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."

"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."

Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"

John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.

"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."

"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.

"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."

They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.

Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.

He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.

did the football finish? who won?

He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue. 

Couldn't tell you.

omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!

I got distracted.

by what? 😇

I think you know by what.

Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.

anyway!

Anyway.

He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.

The cat in your photo. Yours?

yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.

Good name.

she prefers men that ignore her.

Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.

It goes on just like that: easy.

You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.

He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself. 

How's the average Friday held up?

certainly improved

Mine too.

He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.

——

The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.

He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.

He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.

He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.

He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic. 

By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.

He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.

He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is. 

It's a stupid fuckin' rule.

The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.

The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.

By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.

That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.

spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.

thought of you on the tube home

He reads the second message again.

Thought of you. 

He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.

are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.

And there's the sarcasm. 

Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.

Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.

Thought about you as well.

He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.

I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.

lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.

don't really see myself getting married anyway.

the dresses were stunning though!

He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction. 

Nothing wrong with that.

Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?

successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.

what about you, how was your saturday?

He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.

Quiet. Nothing worth typing.

hm. sounds like you should ring me then…

He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.

For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.

Could do.

Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.

Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.

Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.

Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.

for logistics.

He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.

He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.

——

You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.

Unknown Number. Local.

“John?”

“Evenin’.”

Fuck. 

His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.

You set the bottle down before you drop it.

“So you actually do ring,” you manage.

“Said so on the profile, I think.”

“I half thought it was a bit.”

“I don’t really do bits.”

“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”

The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.

“That meant to be me?”

“It’s uncanny, I know.”

The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.

“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”

“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”

“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”

“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”

“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”

The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.

“No?” you tease.

“I had imagined I’d see your face.”

“Been imagining, have you?”

You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns

“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”

“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”

You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.

“Is that what it’s come to?”

“Unfortunately.”

There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.

“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”

Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.

“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.

“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”

Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.

“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”

“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

“I could do a weeknight? After work?”

There’s a pause on his end.

“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”

You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.

“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”

“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.

“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”

“It is,” he agrees, smiling.

The conversation should end there but it doesn't.

You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.

Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.

Eventually, you yawn.

“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”

“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”

“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”

“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”

“Lie-in, according to my profile.”

“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”

A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.

“Night, John.”

You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.

——

Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.

good morning. how was the lie-in?

Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.

the lie confirmed!

He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.

Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.

The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.

survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.

Regards received. Sleep well.

——

Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it. 

good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?

[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]

You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.

His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.

Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.

His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.

Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.

“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.

“Fine.”

“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”

“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”

It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.

Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”

John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.

"Have a date Friday. Drinks."

Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.

"That's great. Same woman or…?"

"The same."

“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.

“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.

"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words. 

He turns the phone back over.

Promote you, he types.

You look lovely.

Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.

well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x

He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.

——

The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.

Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.

———

You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.

The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.

The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels. 

You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.

“It’s just a pub,” you tell her. 

She doesn’t seem convinced. 

———

The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.

You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties. 

The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait. 

You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.

It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling. 

You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.

You don’t have to wait much longer for him. 

He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.

He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” you smile.

He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.

“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.

“So are you.”

“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”

You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”

The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.

“What’ll you have?”

“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.

He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.

“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.

You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.

He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.

The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.

“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.

“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.

“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”

“Not at all.”

You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”

“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.

Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.

“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”

“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.

You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.

“That’s it? That’s your answer?”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”

“The lads — your guys from work?”

“Yeah.”

“They what, talked you into it?”

“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”

“And what made them do that?”

He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.

“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”

“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.

“Their exact words were a bit different.”

“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”

“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”

Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”

He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.

“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”

He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”

“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”

“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”

“Away?”

“Away.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Doing…?”

“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”

“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”

“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”

“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”

“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”

You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.

“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”

He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it. 

“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”

You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.

The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.

The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together. 

“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”

It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.

The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.

“Go grab that,” he says, turning back to the bar. “I’ll get another round. Want the same?”

“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”

His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.

“No—I know. I just—”

“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”

“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.

“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”

“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”

And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.

The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.

It’s going well.

It’s going suspiciously well.

And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.

He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.

You look at the seat opposite.

Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.

You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.

“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.

“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.

The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—

“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”

He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”

“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.

“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it. 

“Say it out loud anyway.”

“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”

“Ten.”

“Mm.”

“A whole decade.”

“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”

“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”

“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”

“Mm.”

“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug. 

“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.

“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.

The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.

“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”

“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue. 

You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face. 

“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”

“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”

“Yeah? And what was the answer?”

“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”

Something in your chest slides sideways.

“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.

“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”

You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.

“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”

You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.

His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.

Neither of you leans back.

And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.

You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—

“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm,” you grin.

“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”

“I suppose I could be patient.”

“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.

Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.

His jaw shifts. 

“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.

And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.

You two make it out the door.

The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.

Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.

He moves you.

One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.

Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.

He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.

He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.

“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.

“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.

You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.

“Walk me home?” you ask.

“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”

You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”

“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”

He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth. 

——

The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.

The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth. 

The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he— 

You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.

He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.

The dashboard glow makes everything blue. 

You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?

"So," you say.

"So…”

You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.

"Did you have a good time tonight?"

His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.

"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says. 

"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"

"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"

"Keen?"

"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.

And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.

"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."

“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.

"I want to ask you up."

"Mm."

"And I'm having a whole debate about it."

"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."

"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."

He's quiet for a second, lips pursing. 

“Can I look at you now?” he tries.

“Yeah.”

"You want to know where I'm actually at?"

"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."

“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”

The badly goes straight between your thighs.

“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”

“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”

“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”

“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”

“When you put it like that…”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”

And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you. 

“Would you like to come up?”

——

The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.

John is a gentleman.

John has been a gentleman all night.

John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.

Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.

"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."

"Sensible."

And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:

"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"

"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side. 

"Water? I'm gonna have water."

"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering. 

He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean. 

So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.

 Your pace. Your move.

You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.

“You’re nervous,” he says.

“Not at all.”

“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”

He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.

He likes that. 

He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.

Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.

When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you. 

You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.

In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.

Good.

You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.

“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”

“Mm?”

“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”

“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.

“Definitely not.”

The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.

“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”

“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”

You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.

He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.

Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.

“Can I?”

“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”

His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.

You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.

“Oh my god— okay— okay—”

“Mm.”

“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.

“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.

“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”

He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—

"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."

"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"

He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."

"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.

He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.

"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"

"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"

"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”

"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"

John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.

Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.

He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you. 

"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"

"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”

"—okay maybe move a little—"

He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts. 

“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek. 

“Don’t think, then.”

It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.

He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.

You don’t think.

He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—

“Harder?” he asks against your ear. 

"Yes, please."

He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.

He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.

"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob. 

"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."

He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves —  it takes you under, and you pull him with you.  

He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—

How good—

How gorgeous—

You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—

It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.

When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.

Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.

He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going. 

He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.

"John?" Small, against his throat.

"Mm?"

"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."

He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.

You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.

He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.

"You're staring," he says, not looking up. 

"You're tidying me."

"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."

"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."

He huffs into your hair.

Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.

There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.

She stares at John.

John stares back.

"We have an audience," he says.

You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."

Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.

"That went well," you say, overly pleased. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

"Well, consider me chuffed."

Some comfortable minutes later he feels you surface a little out of the drowse, feels your breathing change, going careful; feels your face arrange itself against his skin before you speak. 

"You don't have to stay, by the way." Light. Smooth as eroded stone, polished by use, he imagines. "If you'd sleep better in your own bed. No pressure either way."

And there it is — the same maneuver from your texts, the honest thing dressed up so you can't be caught caring — except this time he can feel your heartbeat while you run it, quick against his ribs, betraying the whole performance from inside. 

He keeps his hand moving on your arm, slow, so you know nothing's landed wrong.

"I'll head home," he says. "Not because I want to," he clarifies.

“No?” you ask. 

"Believe me. This is about the last place I want to leave." His hand doesn't stop, slow up, slow down, steadying you through it. "I'd like at least one proper dinner between us before I go makin' a habit of your bed."

You lift your head off his chest and look at him — hair wrecked, eyes searching his face for the trick — and he lets you look as long as you need to because there's no trick to be found. He meant it. 

“Alright," you agree. 

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Dinner sounds nice.”

"Mm," he hums, contented. He presses a kiss into your hair and untangles himself, face scrunched with visible reluctance, and dresses while you watch from the bed with the sheet gathered loose around you.

At the door he stops. 

"C'mere."

You come to him in the sheet, and he kisses you properly, one hand cupping your face, thumb at your cheek. You go languid against him. He takes his time. Long past politeness. Long enough that leaving starts to look renegotiable, and he breaks away before he starts. 

"G’night," he says, low, still holding your face.

"Goodnight."

"I'll ring you about dinner tomorrow."

——

The flat is quiet. But it's a different quiet than the one you left this morning and you stand in the middle of it grinning.

Twix reappears at the edge of the counter and stares. 

“I don’t need the lecture, I’m grown,” you tell her and start walking back to the bedroom, you hear her little jump to the floor and her feather steps catching up with you, “I can have sex. I deserve it, even.” You drop into your bed with a sigh. “You’d understand if you still had ovaries.”

“four. handsome. deliciously so. body and face. rare,” bakugou laughs, boyish and booming, “thanks, babe.”

you feel uncomfortable, perspiration dribbling between your breasts, limbs heavy with exhaustion.

“what is that? what are you reading?”

still bakugou ignores you and continues reading from the paper, “five. successful and ambitious. six. good friend even though he pretends he’s not. protective!! seven. so gentlemanly, holding open doors, paying for dates, very clear on why he likes me.” ruby pupils flicker over to you, “that last one is bare minimum.”

then it clicks, about seven points too late. your head snaps over to him robotically, eyes about to fall out of your head. “where the hell did you find that! stop reading it! stop katsuki!”

you hop up from your seat on your sofa, speed like no other taking over you as you run across the room to grab at the paper in bakugou’s hands. his laugh only booms louder, holding the flimsy sheet in the air over your head as you jump like a child.

“seriously, don’t read anymore!” you shout, trying to hoist yourself up his larger body, using his arms and shoulder as a climbing frame.

nothing about bakugou budges, he just continues reading with the paper in the air.

“it’s getting good, baby!” he laughs, ignoring your jumps and furrowed brows, “eight. listens to me. really listens. makes me feel heard and remembers what i say.”

he looks down at you, whose fingertips are slapping the bottom of the paper. you recognise it all too clearly now. the pink ruled lines, the edges ripped out from one of your old notebooks. your handwriting. “that’s cute. i still listen to you, don’t i?”

“you’re not now! give it back!”

“i’m almost done, two more,” bakugou says, hooking his arm behind your back to keep you locked close to him. you’re both sweaty and sticky. you’ve got no choice but to listen, “nine. cooks. such a good cook! you added five exclamation marks there. ten. fulfils some of my love languages. some?”

“now stop.” you urge. he can’t turn the paper around. he can’t.

bakugou pecks your forehead, his cheeks blushed with all the compliments. he continues skimming the list, rereading it. 

“so this is why you chose to date me, huh?” he looks down at you, pouts his lips, “c'mon gimme a kiss.”

if you just grab it out his hands, he won’t see the other side. with pros always comes—

he stops pouting at you.

“give me the paper. i wrote this all a few years ago!”

“if these are the pros, where’s the cons? you must have done a cons list.” 

you shake your head, side to side. he holds the paper away from you. the opposite side, the list of all your cons, written back at you. you loop out of his arm, trying to reach for it.

he notices you staring, eyes fixated and that’s when he flips the paper around. CONS in big red capital lettering.

“this is private! you weren’t meant to see this, you shouldn’t be snooping in my room!” you squeak but bakugou’s already half down the page, pupils running across every line like he’s in a race.

“one. WILL choose his job over me—,”

“well obviously, your job is to save the world!”

“two. odd relationship with his mother? but apparently it’s better than before.”

“it’s so much better now!”

bakugou’s eyebrows drop now, voice getting lower as he continues, “three. argumentative. argues with EVERYONE. his agency workers, the media and his friends.”

“i understand why you argue with them all now! it makes sense!”

“three. his job is terrifying.”

bakugou looks over to you, solemn narrowed eyes and you don’t have a positive word to say about that.

“it is, sometimes i don’t know if you’ll come home.”

“four. he doesn’t do much else besides work. all his friends are from work.” bakugou pinches his nose bridge, “really? you think that?”

“now i don’t! and i know they’re childhood friends and… and we do things together all the time. i know you love to read, game, you’ve got your lego. i didn’t know all of that then.”

“five. don’t know if my friends and family will understand.” bakugou steps away from you, “the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

you huff on the spot, “this was from when i met you! all they’ve seen of you is shouting and yelling on the television. they didn’t know how lovable you are. how well you treat me.”

bakugou looks at you, then back at the paper. scratches his head. “six. inexperienced with sex but it’s really cute. has never had a girlfriend?”

“but number one pro is that you know how to use it. obviously we’re experienced now, we know everything about each other,” you flick your finger between you and your boyfriend. 

“and the girlfriend comment? i can’t help the fact you’re my first.”

“no, i mean yes i know that. it was just a question as to why. it doesn’t mean anything to me now.”

“but it was a factor in whether you wanted to be my girlfriend,” he states.

“well, yeah,” you drawl, “i thought maybe there was a reason as to why. that’s all.”

bakugou raises his eyebrows, looks back at the sheet, “seven. doesn’t always have time for me. travels a lot for work.”

“that hasn’t changed.” bakugou grunts. it’s something he knows you struggle with while dating him. it’s even been a conversation you’ve had a few times throughout your relationship. quality time. you want to spend more time with him but he simply can’t. 

you sigh, grabbing his chin between your fingers so he looks directly at you. his eyes are half lidded, cheeks red and exhausted from the negativity and heat. “we’ve been through this. i’m still gonna stick by you, everything i love about you means more than all the things i find difficult.”

he takes your palm away from your face and squeezes it. but you can tell he’s feeling off. “the last one. eight, he’s surrounded by beautiful women all the time.”

“you’re with celebrities, pro heroes, socialites a lot,” you shrug, “that was jealousy on my part, nothing to do with you.”

“i don’t give a fuck about any of that.”

you nod sharply, “i know! i wrote this a while ago, two years even? a lot has changed.”

bakugou sighs from the pit of his stomach, then flings his head back in a huff. “fuck, baby.” he groans.

then he looks down at you, looking up at him.

“just wanna put it out there, that was private, you weren’t meant to see that, my opinions have now changed and i’m sure you had a mental pro con list for me. i just wrote mine down.”

bakugou folds the paper, “yeah, yeah, i get it. you hate my job that much, huh? it covered half of the fuckin’ cons.

“i also said i liked you were successful and ambitious.” you sit on the back of the sofa, crossing your arms. 

bakugou mirrors you standing, crossing his arms too. “but nothing about my job has changed since we’ve got together.”

you groan, leaning your head on your shoulder, “katsuki, i think you’re making problems out of nothing here.”

“you made a list of the problems with datin’ me.” he frowns, holding the folded paper between two fingers.

“and a list of the reasons why i wanted to date you. obviously the good reasons won if i’m with you now.” you glare at him with a sharp tone.

he begins to pace around the room, paper still in hand. a terrible sign. you watch as sweat trickles down his skin, body flush with heat.

“but, babe. the problems you’ve had with me from before we were dating are still problems now. i still don’t have time for you, you still are terrified every time i’m minutes late from a mission, you don’t think i’d choose you over my job and you don’t think i do anything but work.”

you moan aloud, “and i still want you despite that all. i get the world needs you, heck, i need you if i come across a villain. i don’t hate you for being a hero.”

he stops behind you, on the other side of the sofa, “i don’t want you to resent me when you realise you could have been with someone who does have more time for you, isn’t obsessed with their job, can put you first and doesn’t scare you.”

you hop off the sofa. leaning your forehead on his collarbone. “katsuki. i wouldn’t be here if i didn't want to be. i love you. i choose you everyday. i don’t want to argue with you.”

bakugou doesn’t touch you. there’s a shake to his voice, “i’m sorry i’m not better. i’m gonna try to be. just wait for me, fuck, maybe when i’m slower and the younger lot take over, they’ll need me less. it’s just now—,”

“it’s okay. you have time for me right now but you wanna argue with me," you pout up at him.

“you did put that i’m argumentative,” he looks away from you as your hands link around his neck. 

“look at me.”

shiny lava red pupils find you. you ground him, takes him out of the what ifs and the failures of his past and places him in the present with you. 

“i have dated bakugou katsuki for two years and i love him so much. i love how kind and generous he is, always putting his loved ones first. how he dedicates his life and body to saving the world. how even if he’s tired from a long week of working, he still comes over to cook me a three course meal because he wants to see me eat his food. who was so open and willing to change for me. to change his routines and learn my body. who is argumentative because he wants to make things right. who wanted so hard for my family and friends to love him and manages to see his mother once a week just to check up on her.”

you search in both his eyes and he’s listening, he always is.

“i can write an updated list for you, if you want.”

he shakes his head, stuffs his forehead into your neck and slowly pushes you down into the sofa. you laugh, his hands plastered into your waist as his body crushes you in the plush cushions ever so slightly.

“‘m sorry. i shouldn’t have read it. even though i enjoyed the pros.” he muffles, lips tickling your skin.

you tap his shoulder. “you shouldn’t have but it’s okay. i still need you to get my fan. it’s hot.”

“promise you’ll tell me if you want somethin’ to change between us. i’m not wakin’ up one day to you leavin’ me for a reason right under my nose.” he urges and you can see him pleading. the desperation for you to agree.

“promise. now you promise me.”

“course i promise. i couldn’t even fill out ten reasons as to why i hate you.”

“i didn't say i hate you. and sure you can. you hate my cold feet. you hate how i moan about my job. you hate how i hate your job. you hate how i always want a massage. you hate how i wait until the last minute when you’re tucked up in bed for you to get me a glass of water. you hate how i’m indecisive for what i want for my birthdays and—,”

bakugou sits up, “i don't hate any of that shit. love listenin’ to you and half that shit is cute as hell.”

you pout, “you hate when i wear low cut tops out—,”

he frowns, “that’s foreplay, baby. you let me suck your tits after to make me happy. couldn’t give a shit what you wear.”

“how about how protective my friends are? and the fact i tell them everything?”

bakugou shrugs, “you deserve friends that love you that much and that you can tell everythin’.”

“i get snappy when i’m running late or too much is going on or i’m hot.”

with that bakugou gets up. your fan. though not without hovering over you to give you a peck. then another. you press your soft lips against his though you don’t open up because then you will get even hotter and snappy.

he pulls off you and rises from the sofa, “that makes sense, baby. you’re stressed and uncomfortable.”

you roll your eyes, “stop being so understanding!”

he walks towards your bedroom, but not without turning around to look at you. his fingers grip the door frame, “i love you.”

A clear container, about the size of your hand, filled with 2-3 hair ties, a couple of tic tac hair clips, and a small lip balm.

You didn't put that here. You may spend a lot of your time at this house in the past 6 weeks, but you were always hesitant of taking up his space in ways that matter. A toothbrush next to his in his bathroom, and two of your t-shirts in his closet, that's it, you were content with that. 

Seeing that small box, though…you felt a warmth bloom in your chest, making you smile while you lay alone in his bed.

Wait. 

Alone.

Where is your boyfriend?

You rise up on your elbows, sucking in a sharp breath at the piercing pain in your back. You look around; The bathroom door is shut with no noises coming from the inside. You rub the empty space next to you on the bed, patting the soft bedsheets, only to find them cold.

You frown. Until you notice the bedside table. His rolex sprawled next to a tall glass of water, mouth covered with a strip pack of medicine. Your phone is plugged into the charger, flashing a “fully charged.”

You sit up sluggishly, popping an Advil out of the pack, and depositing it on your tongue. You wash it back with a sip of water, and then hungrily empty the whole glass. 

Your bare feet touch the carpeted floors, determined to find your missing boyfriend. You walk towards the bedroom door — slightly cracked open — and pull it wide open, the well-oiled hinges making no disturbance.

Small memories from last night start flooding in, once your mind gets the memo to wake up. You internally wince. Jeez. You broke your heels you spent your savings on?

But you forget all about that when you see Jack in the open kitchen, spreading a batter evenly on a pan, a bottle of your favorite maple syrup sitting not too far away. A stack of golden, fluffy, pancakes sits pretty on a plate, making your heart swell in affection, and stomach stirring in excitement.

He's still shirtless, only sporting his soft, grey sweatpants. And he's making breakfast. The two best things a man can do: cooking, and giving you a show.

Okay, maybe that's a little objectifiable coming from such a progressive person as you. He's a man, so what, that doesn't mean he wants to be leered at.

That, obviously, doesn't make you feel any shame. Before he notices you, you make the best of it. You drag your eyes down to his hard stomach, and up his chest, moving rhythmically with soft breaths. His muscular arms are methodically working the pancakes, just as you like them.

Your gaze travels to his hips where the sweats hang loosely. You can see where his V-line begins, and goes on to disappear in his pants. Could you trace it with your finger? Would he shiver and throw his head back, or clutch your wrist again to stop you? 

Oh, you could take his house tour.

Just when you start getting a little breathless, a voice rings in your brain. Your voice.

“Why haven't we fucked?”

You immediately cringe. Oh, god. You are never drinking again. One of the most serious conversations you've been meaning to have, and you dumbly blurt it all out inebriated.

“Thought I was the one with the staring problem,” you flinch out of your embarrassing spiral, your boyfriend's slow drawl dragging you back to present. You clear your throat, willing some semblance of grace back in you.

You don't speak till you've reached him, standing behind his back, not daring to look him in the eye right now. You wrap your arms around his torso, palms grazing the sculpted plane of his stomach, now tensing under your touch. You bury your nose in his warm skin, inhaling deeply. Your own muscles relax when his scent fills you, something clean and musky, and a hint of his cedarwood soap. The ache in your head dulls, and his heavy presence wraps throughout your mind in a pleasant mist.

You press a soft kiss exactly where your lips rest against his back — a few inches below his neck. A muscle there jumps and you suppress a smile, even though he can't see you.

“Morning. You like leaving your girlfriend alone in your bigass bed?” you ask, pressing another kiss to the same spot.

“Don't think you really mind the way you're all over me.” His large arms keep moving, though your view is obstructed with his back. 

You scoff, “well, thanks for the Advil, doctor.” 

His hand reaches around his back to pat your hip twice before withdrawing it. “How's the headache? Shouldn't be too bad, I only let you nurse on rookie stuff.”

“Didn't feel very rookie, or maybe I'm just a lightweight,” you mumble, hot breath falling over his freckled skin. 

Jack chuckles, and you absorb it as much as you can, saving it for later replays. “You did good, honey. You were a fun drunk, really.”

You huff, “you'd say that, of course, I tried to seduce you.”

You hear the flop sound of a pancake hitting the pan after being flipped. “Didn't think you'd remember.”

“Thought or hoped?”

“Desperately wished you would.”

The morning has made him slower and softer, his usual charm and humor taking a backseat in face of domesticity. Look at you, taming a rugged silver fox. Before you know, you hear the swift flick of a dial, gas being turned off, and he spins in your arms.

You look up at him. The tip of his nose is a little rosy, and his eyes have lost the sharpness in them — the one you've seen in ED, or when you particularly provoke him for attention. His curls are tipping over to his forehead, creating jagged shadows against his face. You don't think he's shaved today, so you send a silent ‘thank you’ to angels who govern DILFs.

He drags his hands up your arms, until they're cupping your face with great care, pads of his thumbs stroking across your cheekbones, before digging into the apple of your cheeks, effectively squishing them. Your lips pucker out without your permission, and you watch a boyish smile take over his face.

“You look adorable when you're not runnin’ your mouth.”

“Would you like me to become quiet and reserved? Because, I assure you, you will miss this mouth,” your speech comes out slightly muffled, and then returning to normal when he softens the pressure of his thumbs.

The corner of his lip quirks, and you watch the playful glint take its familiar place in his eyes. “It's a great mouth, I'll admit. Solid 8 out of 10.”

Your said mouth falls open, eyes widening in disbelief. “Excuse you, sir, don't undersell me. Where am I losing the 2 points?”

Jack pretends to think, letting out an unnecessarily long hum. “The fact that you've been up and about for —” he checks the wall clock behind you, “— 6 minutes and haven't kissed me yet.” He tuts in disappointment, shaking his head disapprovingly at you. 

“That's what you get for leaving me alone in bed.”

“Tough crowd. I'm sorry then, I should've been holding you, sending a body double to make breakfast for you. I'll do better next time.”

“It's okay, we all have our learning curves, you'll learn, Dr. Abbot,” you coo, patting his back a little too roughly.

“Now, where were we…8 out of 10…2 left…” he trails off, bumping his nose against yours, and lifting your chin. He tilts his head down, sliding one hand to the back of your neck to keep you steady. He always does this, the smooth motherfucker, being tender while still being in charge.

As soon as his lips caress yours, you dodge, and he ends up kissing your ear instead.

“I have morning breath,” you pull back to look up in his eyes again, fixing him with your best bambi eyes. 

“When has that ever stopped us? We once made-out for 30 minutes straight right after waking up. I felt like a teenager.”

“Yeah, because I'd gotten up, like 30 minutes ago, to brush my teeth and apply lip gloss.”

His mouth hangs open in shock, “what?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing together.

“...yeah. Do you really think I look like a pretty princess in the morning, Jack?” You huff a laugh, stating the obvious. Men. 

Instead of a joke about your hair, or another wave of mock surprise, his lips downturn in a frown. The palm on your check moves up a couple inches, fingers toying the hair on your temple.

“Baby…did I ever make you feel like you had to do that?” His question comes not defensively, but low, distressed, and so, so delicate. It's like he's genuinely seeking your answer, treading with caution, allowing you to be vulnerable should you choose to.

“What? Jack. No. I've been doing this since, like, when I first slept over at someone's place.” Your fingers tighten on his back, holding him to you.

“Did they make you feel like you had to?” Your chest tightens at his concern, his protectiveness, and over what? Something you just off-handedly joked about? Something you didn't even give a conscious thought to?

Maybe that's the issue, that it's so internalised, you haven't seen anything wrong with it until now. You don’t know whether you should relish in his sweetness, or be embarrassed that a man out-feministed you.

Your eyes soften, the warmth blooming inside your chest has reached the tips of your fingers, your legs, down to your toes.

Oh, he's taken over you.

“Jack…you're so sweet, but I swear it's not that big of a deal. It's never made me upset or anything.” You unwrap your arms from his midriff, skimming your hands up his forearms, to reassuringly squeeze his biceps.

“Kind of a big deal if you feel like getting up 30 minutes early to make yourself look ‘presentable’ or whatever other bullshit your mind is telling you.”

Well, if he puts it like that.

You pause, feeling such deep adoration for this man and not the momentary kind, no. The kind that settles beneath your ribs and slips between joints, places unreachable, even to you. It's such a loss of control, to have such…like for someone that they're rooted deeply enough inside you. So much so that you've lost all jurisdiction of your own heart.

You're in freefall.

He must've seen it in your eyes, because he gently tugs at your hair strand, before tucking it behind your ear. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“What's going on in your brain? I thought it was mostly barren land up there.”

You smack his bicep. “Mister, I don't know who you are, but I'm a nurse at the PTMC. Treat me with respect, or else.”

“Just felt a shiver run down my spine,” he deadpans.

You smile thankfully and twist your head to kiss his palm. 

“I'm serious, honey. I want you to share this stuff with me,” his voice turns sombre again, in a way that always strips you bare of your defenses. 

“You don't have to fix something you didn't break.”

“If you have a tiring day because of a shift, am I not allowed to hold you to sleep?”

“Jack…” you softly whine. 

“Isn't this exactly the kind of thing why we've been hesitant to take a step forward?”

Your mind recalls some bits of last night — the genuine need to touch him, to be touched, to lose control. Was it liquid courage, or was it because your mind was hazy enough to not conjure your insecurities?

“Can we have a proper talk about this? Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Can I go brush my teeth in case the conversation lasts 2 minutes, and then we straight up just start climbing each other?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

A long suffering sigh from him.

“Okay, princess.”

7 minutes and 1 aggressive teeth brushing session (wherein you literally made your gum bleed because of haste), you exit from the bathroom into his bedroom.

You accidentally shut the door too hard behind you, and nervously clap your hands together. “Okay! Let's talk about fucking.”

Jack, who was reading a news article on his phone, blinks at you. Slowly, he takes off his reading glasses — which, sad — and sets them on his bedside table. He has removed his prosthetic, always preferred it off while in bed, and the empty fabric of his pant leg is rolled up to above his knee.

You climb on his bed, crawling over to him.

“How about we first talk about not calling it ‘fucking'? I'm a 50 year-old man, not a 21 year-old boy who wants to get in your pants.”

“Spoilsport,” you mutter before finding your place. Not on the bed. On him. Your knees dig into the soft cushion behind him, thighs bracketing his hips. A soft, pleasing, hum escapes you.

You may not have tried many — or, any — positions with him, but this one is your favorite, and you suspect it always will be. This, straddling his lap, after bad days and good, having him close enough to sink in his presence, without losing your own.

It's like during your days, the scale tipped too much in either direction, and made your anxiety go broom. With him, the scale stabilised. The universe balanced itself as long as Jack was touching you.

His right hand rushed to your waist to anchor you, slipping past your t-shirt to find bare skin, thumb stroking against the side of your belly. His left finds your own hand, interlocking your fingers and resting them against his stomach.

“Okay, if you brought it up yesterday drunkenly, then you must've given it thought before,” he urges you softly. 

You shift in his lap, and pretend not to notice the way he suddenly bites his lip. You take a deep breath, a familiar anxiety curdles in your stomach at the thought of talking about something that's so sensitive to you.

“I have, yes. Um…do you remember when we talked about this before as well? I, uh, don't have much experience with, well, fuc — sex. You know, shagging. Boinking. OH, horizontal tango.” Your mouth has a way of spitting out garbage nonsense whenever you’re experiencing nerves.

“Shut up,” your favourite doctor stops your verbal diarrhea, unimpressed. 

“Rude. But…do you remember?”

“Of course, I remember.” Your heart leaps at his gentle tone, so good with giving space for your vulnerabilities.

“And you…” you laugh nervously, toying with the drawstring of his pajamas, eyes downcasted.

“Eyes on me, honey.”

You watch his dark irises, the lines of his forehead, stubble you know is prickly from having your fingers trace it many times. It’s him. You clear your throat before continuing and feel his hand squeezing yours.

“You're experienced. And I know that doesn't matter but…” you trail off before finding another thread, “do you know what it feels like to view yourself in third person?”

“Happens sometimes when I'm getting shot at, yeah. What about it?”

“It happens with me even outside the job. It's like I'm looking down at myself, observing the way my face looks, or my hands move, or my gait, or a bunch of other things. When I imagine having sex with you — and I have so much — all I can imagine is how I'd sound, what face I'll make, how my body would look…”

You shake your head, blinking away the tears that threaten to spill over. Your chest aches in the aftermath of your admission, never having admitted this loudly. “And none of it looks pretty in my head.”

You purse your lips, waiting for his response. What you feel first is the tightening of his fingers around yours. The hand under your shirt starts moving, up and down, in a slow rhythm, burning your skin with every stroke.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” he murmurs, with this almost poignant look in his eyes. He brings your linked hands up to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss on the back of yours.

“Let's see it through. I'll start by telling you, I've imagined it multiple times as well, more than I should. Totally felt like a creep.”

Your cheeks burn.

“But it was never like the way you describe. In my imagination,” his hand tugging you closer, hot breath falling over your chin, “It's never about how you scream, it's about why. Is it because of my mouth, fingers, or what?”

You gulp.

Or, what?

You're pretty sure you feel the “or, what” stirring alive beneath you, hardening against your inner thigh. It's so hard not to move.

Jack tips his head forward, pressing his lips to the side of your jaw, “As for how your face would look; as long as your shiny eyes are on me, and your mouth is falling open, I think you're good.”

His next attack is to the corner of your lips, “and what about your body? How do you think it would look?”

He doesn't get a response, because all functions to your brain have been cut off. His right hand halts, settling an inch below your breasts, the side of your shirt hanging around his wrist.

“Tell me,” he softly commands.

“Awkward and lousy, not knowing what to do. And my skin would have folds and rolls. Also, do you know boobs are never really evenly sized? One is always bigger,” you blurt out.

Jack laughs, always more amused with your neurotic babble than repulsed. Your shoulders drop a fraction. “Yes, I know, that's the beauty of them. Otherwise, what's the difference between you, and say…a barbie doll?”

And so he makes you smile, the one you flash only to him, the one that lets him know you’re okay. Just like that. He looks proud about it too.

Speaking of sizes, his gaze flickers towards your chest, lingering there before dragging their way up your mouth, and then your eyes again.

“Same for the rest of it. Don't worry about giving me more skin to kiss, I'll take care of it. Of you,” he says with sincerity and calmness, a level of assurance that feels like he took a walk with your mind. And then pressing a peck — finally — against your lips.

You don't feel your self-doubts vanishing, or your walls crashing down. But the door cracks open, and the light searing out is enough to take a step forward.

“Okay. I believe you,” you whisper, stealing another quick kiss from him. “But what if I, you know, fail you?” It comes out awkward, reflecting every bit of uncertainty in you, even when you can feel the length of him growing insistent.

“This will be about you first, what'd we talk about worrying? I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself…as I have, many, many times.”

The distance between you feels less, despite no moment. Have the walls started narrowing in? Your throat runs dry.

“What?” you stagger, brain feeling like scrambled eggs.

“What ‘what’? Because I'm 50, I don't have a libido?” he muses, voice raspy. His hand leaves yours, trailing its way up your arm. When it tangles in the hair behind your neck, the hand holding feels childish in comparison. He should’ve been doing this all along.

“I didn't say that. I just didn't think you…”

“What? Touched myself thinking of you? Palmed myself right here, on this very bed?”

Your lips part, eyeballs practically protruding out of your face like a cartoon character. You finally shift your weight. When his bulge connects with your crotch, you feel you’ve gone third base already. Even with layers in between, you feel how hard he is, probably enough to be in pain right now. But his face barely reflects that.

“Don't worry, not the same bedsheets.”

“Not exactly what I'm thinking about, doctor,” you breathe.

“Really? Feels like you should be.”

You smack his stomach, and he doesn't even flinch. Instead, his eyes crinkle and a smile makes its way like the sun rising in the sky. 

A pause.

“Enough talking. C'mere.” He pulls you by the back of your neck, capturing your lips in a kiss. He moves like he’s in no hurry. While you hustle your way through every moment, Jack acts like all clocks have personally stopped so he can pass through.

He claims your bottom lip, leisurely enjoying the softness, and gives it a playful nip. Swallowing the gasp right out of your mouth, his palm tightens in your hair, tugging in a pleasant pressure to angle your head exactly like he wants. He hums in satisfaction, the rumble vibrating all the way down your chest, pooling between your thighs. You try to chase the heat, instinctively rolling your hips, getting greeted with a delicious friction that coaxes a helpless whine out of you.

His thumb strokes the underside of your breast, and you shiver, losing control over your own mouth, getting sloppy in your technique. 

When Jack pulls back, your entire body disapproves, your lips immediately desperate enough to chase his again, a string of spit connecting yours to his before breaking. He chuckles, and you don't even have enough mind to even feel self-consciousness. You might as well be on another planet right now.

“You look like you haven't been kissed since middle school.” He watches your swollen, ruined, lips with pride blossoming in his abilities, clearly well enough to make you act depraved.

“That's not true. I was just kissed by an old white guy,” you breathlessly retort.

“Why are you kissing guys so different from your boyfriend?”

“Trying new things.”

“Fuck that. Haven't you heard, kid, older is better?” he replies smugly, before diving right back in, on a mission to catch your top lip this time. Unlike his hands, yours keep wandering — grazing his abdomen, tracing lines up his chest, finding home low on his waist, thumb hooking in his sweatpants.

The desperation is making you feel reckless; you sink your hips into his again, seeking that perfect, agonizing friction. A deep groan rips from Jack’s throat. His palms slam flat against your hips, squeezing them and bringing your tortuous grinding to a dead halt. “Stop,” he rasps, “do you want this to last or not?”

“What are you saying?” you ask, a poster child for innocence, with batting eyelashes and glossy eyes. To really drive it home, you roll your hips forward again, enjoying the way his eyes darken. This is safe territory, making out with him like you're still teenagers, and hell, if you're not gonna tease him.

“God, you're such a brat,” he murmurs, the rough whisper lost against your mouth when he sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of your upper lip, a fraction too deep. You moan at the sting, but the sound is cut short. Jack is already pulling back with a jolt, feeling the metallic taste of copper on his tongue.

“Fuck, baby, sorry, I —” the heat in his eyes instantly dissolve to swimming guilt. His hand rushes up to cradle your jaw with a sudden, trembling gentleness. His thumb sweeps across the hurt, wiping the small bead of red before it can run.

“Jack, it's okay, I promi —”

But he's already peppering apologies all over your face; lips meeting the tip of your nose, then the bridge; corner of your eyes; hollow of your cheeks; and a “feel better?” at your temple. Soft oh's leave your mouth, over and over and over. 

You never want to hit the ground ever again. May he never run out of kisses.

“Never felt bad to begin with. I like a little mean.”

“Not when it’s our first time, honey.” The sharp edge of panic vanishes, leaving behind a quiet self-doubt, pulling his brows in a tight line. Your chest tightens when you peer into his eyes, and find them unmasked off any walls. You look straight into the deepest, darkest corners of him, the ones that come with tight security and deflecting jokes.

“Not our first time making out, Jack,” you softly reassure.

Jack presses a final, promising kiss into your hair. He exhales the last of his hesitance when he sees you — open, welcoming, entirely warm beneath him. “First time making out as foreplay,” his voice drops an octave, completely grounded now. “I need you to know we can stop anytime. Throw me off for all I care, if you get uncomfortable. Got it?”

You nod.

“Words. Big girl words.”

“Yes, Jack. I will kick you in case that happens.”

“My little footballer,” Jack coos. “Do you wanna get off my lap now?”

“Uh, no,” you dictate.

“Kinda have to, sweetheart, for what I'm planning next.”

You suck in a deep breath, your bravado actively flatlining at the thought of actually doing something more.

Jack reads the subtle tension in your shoulders instantly. “Hey,” he murmurs, hand soothing over your knee. “We can pause. No pressure.”

Your response is entirely physical. You swing your thigh over his lap, sliding off the comforting warmth, to sit beside him. His eyes follow the slow curve of your body, never breaking contact, until you’re settled on the mattress.  A quiet approval settles on his features, “that's my good girl.” He tilts his head, studying your face, “still green?”

You nod. 

Jack arches a brow.

“Still green. Now what?” 

“Let's get you comfortable,” his hand trails over your neck, settling firmly on the back of your head, “like the ‘pretty princess’ you really are.” His other palm gently cups the dip of your waist, guiding you down until you're laying flat on your back on his navy blue sheets. He pauses, lifting your head just enough to slide a pillow beneath your head. His scent on the linen wraps around you, making you feel like you belong in his bed.

“So gorgeous, all pretty in my bed.” His dark gaze slowly drags over your body, “aren't you, honey?” He leans down, dwarfing your body with his large frame, pressing a lingering kiss just atop your nose, “eyes on me, yeah? Don't close them, no matter how good you feel.”

“You're pretty confident,” you murmur, squirming restlessly underneath him.

“You're about to know why.”

He steals your breath with another kiss, steady, deliberate, and unhurried — easing you in for what’s about to come. The tip of his warm tongue outlines your upper lip, tracing the edge until you eagerly part for him, begging for him to deepen the kiss. Instead, he pulls back, eyes snapping to the pulse in your throat.

“Hey, our tongues didn't battle for dominance,” you say excitedly, feeling pride at your hilarious reference.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He shoots you an amused look, shaking his head, before he's burying his nose into the slope of your neck. He breathes in deeply, drinking your scent in, like a man starved. He's teasingly slow in his moments, treating foreplay like it’s the real meal. You wonder how he's still patient — you, on the other hand, have started to helplessly writhe, fucking yourself on empty air, desperate for him to finally take over.

His hand slides up your side, burning your skin on its way to ruck up your shirt. The cool bedroom air hits your exposed midriff, coaxing a sharp, involuntary arch of your spine.

“Jack, please,” you beg, voice shaking, needy for him. Your fingers tangle in his curls, fisting in a painful grip.

His stubble scratches your sensitive skin as he drags the tip of his nose down the curve of your neck, but you couldn't care less even if it left marks. When the fabric of your shirt gets in his way, his thick finger snags the neckline, tugging roughly to uncover a path.

He freezes, staring at the bare slope of your left breast, his breath hitching at the sight.

His tongue darts out to taste you, dancing over the swell before his teeth close to nibble on it. “Mm, fuuuuuck, baby. So fuckin’ sweet for me,” he rasps against your chest, drawing a whimper from you. He soothes the sting with slow circles of his thumb, followed by a final sweet kiss to the ache. 

His pupils are blown wide with hunger, swallowing the color of his eyes, looking down at you like you’re his last meal on earth. His fingers toy with the hem of your top, playfully tugging the frayed edges.

“Need to see your sweet tits, baby,” he commands, voice dropping low. “Do you trust me?” he asks, low and throaty, studying your face for any shadows of hesitation.

Excitement and nervousness collide in your chest, and words get caught in the throat. He must see it, because he's tipping down, pressing his forehead flat against yours. “Gonna play with my pretty girls, give them so much love. Have thought a lot about them — fucked my fist first time I saw you in your black tank, pulling taut across your chest. They looked so perfect, sitting there and waiting.”

You frantically tug at his hair, “Jack, fuck, I'm gonna pass out,” you whisper, voice strangling with want.

“I asked if you trust me, honey.”

The excitement wins.

“Yes, please, take it off.”

“My good fuckin’ girl. Get up for me.”

Not a second later as soon as you're sitting up, his fingers hooking deep into the hem, “arms up, pretty girl.” The shirt catches at your ear, but Jack gently guides it off, carelessly tossing it behind his shoulder.

Your breaths come in shallow and ragged, as you sit fully naked from the waist up, in front of the man who's watching you like a hawk, tongue darting out to wet his lips. You watch as he tears his gaze away — with considerable effort — to assess your comfort. He cups your cheek, heavier than necessary.

“Green?”

“Green.”

“Of course. Where's that sharp tongue? Mind goes dumb when I touch you? It's okay, sweet girl, I'll do the thinking. Hm?” You sink your teeth into your lower lip, nodding fervently at him. Your blinks are slow and heavy, eyes getting glassier with sheer need. Any remaining logic melts away, turning you into putty under his control.

Oh, this is what it feels like.

“Big girl words,” he pats your cheek affectionately, a soft pat-pat.

“Yes. Just a bit nervous,” you admit.

He hums, eyes darkening in hunger as an idea crosses his mind. The pad of his thumb sinks into your bottom lip, “open up, baby.”

Without thinking, you oblige.

“So obedient,” he remarks, a low purr of proud satisfaction in his chest. “Here, take 1. You'll feel better.” His thumb slides past your lips, into your hot, slick mouth. “Suck it nice and clean, okay?”

You swirl your wet tongue around the tip of his thumb, coating it wet, and he hums in approval, “let me know if my girl needs 1 more.” He fluffs the pillow with his free hand, “now lie back, just like before.”

With you flat on your back again, his rough hands slide down your legs to encircle your ankles. Your feet rustle the sheets as he guides them backward, bending your knees and opening them wide, clearing space for his larger body. He positions his heavy weight between your thighs, hot breath falling on your breasts.

He presses his face into the soft valley of your chest, nuzzling the tip of his nose back and forth against your skin. “Better than I imagined. Fuck, doll,” he murmurs, pressing a trail of hot, wet kisses down your belly. The moment his lips touch the curve of your stomach, the muscles there instinctively tighten.

“Sweetheart," he rasps. "Let go.”

You try. You really do. But every time you try to let your tummy loose, let it sit naturally, it's like your brain panics and sends out an emergency signal, forcing you to flatten the softness there. “I…I'm trying.”

Your boyfriend puts a firm hand on your belly, feeling the rigid tension from sucking in, letting it rise and fall underneath his palm. He slowly lowers his mouth and you shiver when you feel the feather-light kiss.

“This is what you're worried about?” He squeezes the side of your waist, fingers digging in a possessive hold, placing an open-mouthed kiss right below your navel.

He huffs a low, fond sound. “Silly girl.”

“Let go,” he commands again, and this time your body listens to him, loud and clear. His authority cuts right through your defences, and you let the anxiety go with a shuddering exhale. He feels his hand filling up, your stomach softening entirely, and the weight of your skin perfectly molds into the curve of his palm.

“You don't realise how sexy this is, right? How fuckin’ hard I am —” as if to emphasise, he rolls his hips, and you cry his name, feeling his hard length on your thigh, “— more skin to grab, more of you to hold. Fuck, my beautiful girl, drivin’ me crazy. Gonna take such good care of this perfect body.”

Your spine arches off the mattress the moment he closes his hot mouth around your nipple, drawing a slow, satisfied whine from you. Your fingers blindly rush to bury his head even deeper, your cheeks hollowing, suckling his thumb on with a mind of its own.

He swirls his tongue around the pebbled tip, relieving it from the cool air of the room. Your hips buck desperately for friction, but the flat plane of his torso doesn't do much more than leave you aching for more. He withdraws his mouth, and with an almost playful focus, smears his spit across your areola with his thumb. Before you can even catch your breath, his mouth migrates to the peak of your other breast, giving it the same heated, biting attention. He finally frees his hand from your mouth, kneading the soft flesh of your breast that he’s temporarily left lonely.

He pauses to take a deep breath, burying his face between your tits, licking the space with a single-minded feverish dedication. When he pulls back, he just stares, admiring his craft, “fuck, look at the girls, baby. Such a pretty mess, covered in my spit. Makes me wanna take a picture, frame it in the living room. Do you think it'd be a nice replacement to that matisse hanging right at the center?”

His words send an unexpected thrill through your thighs, and you cry out again, not above begging him, “whate– whatever yo– you want, Jack, fuck, please…” your sentence comes out broken enough for Jack to shoot you a look of entirely mocking sympathy.

“Use your words,” he taps your lip. “Form a proper sentence, and we can decide, okay?”

“Please touch me,” your voice cracks at the magic word.

“Where, baby? I don't understand."

“Between my legs, Jack.”

“I still don't think you're using proper vocabulary, honey. What do you want me to touch?”

The frustration leaves your mouth in a whimper, “You're such an asshole.”

Jack laughs in amusement, “c'mon, let me help you, tell the doctor where it hurts.”

“My pussy, Jack. Touch my pussy.”

The crude words leaving your sweet mouth, snaps the last thread of his restraint, ripping a low, gravelly groan from deep in his chest. His hand slides down to palm his raging, thick erection through his pants, giving it a hard, painful squeeze before tearing his hands away.

God, you want to do that for him.

“Yeah? Your sweet pussy, baby?” he rasps, hungry eyes drilling into yours. “Did you get it all wet and messy for me?”

You nod frantically, answering in a breathy, desperate tone you don’t even recognise as your own, “yes, fuck, oh god. Just get down there. Please.”

“Since you asked so pretty. Your hips. Up up up.” You comply, and the moment you shift, his long fingers lock into the waistband, hurriedly dragging your shorts down your legs in a single, inpatient motion. He hurls them recklessly to the floor without even looking — so opposite to his controlled and calculated behavior out at the Pitt.

He glides down your body, large hands greedily palming every inch of bare skin he passes, until he's face-to-face from your damp panties. He taps his shoulder in a silent order, and even with your pleasure-drunk mind, you quickly recognize his demand. You slowly lift your legs, hesitating for a second before you slide your ankles down his back, knees hooking securely over his broad shoulders.

He toys with the edge of the fabric — soft, light pink, and nothing lacy or fancy about it. “Oh, where'd you get this lovely pair, baby?” Jack asks in a light, conversational tone, entirely too humorous for a man with his face a lick away from your crotch. All while you're writhing like an animal in heat. It's an intoxicating feeling, suddenly having lost all your inhibitions, obsessed with only one goal in your mind.

“I don't fucking know!” you exclaim, hot tears of pure, unadulterated desperation pool in your eyes.

“Think, sweetheart. I'm trying to talk to you here, and you're being all uncooperative.”

“I don't know. At the mall, maybe! It was a pack of three.”

“Aw, see, good girl, thank you for letting me know,” he praises. “Let's see how it feels,” he nuzzles his nose into the cheap, stretchy, fabric, sharply inhaling the sweet, rich scent of your arousal. It is an action so completely depraved, so utterly filthy, you can't fathom it's your respected attending.

Well, you never expected to be naked in his bed either. Life, you guess, occasionally handing lemons you don’t deserve.

“You smell so good, my pretty girl,” he thumbs the damp spot, a growing, wet circle of sheer need. “Is it the panties or is it you?”

“You should find out.”

“Oh, the brat returns!” Jack exclaims delightedly, giving your thigh a playful pat.

You pause for a heartbeat to take it all in, to look at the man who stores your hair ties in his room, who carries your purse without a smidge of male-ego (bare minimum, but respect), always seconding his needs to yours. It’s this instant you realize how relaxed you are, how safe, how at ease he's put you — you who not too long ago, was drowning in a sea self-doubts.

“Jack…”

Catching the sudden change in your tone, his brows snap together in concern, heavy hands gentling at your thighs in case you call a red. But you only smile at him. Your sweet, thoughtful, wonderful man. 

“I just wanted to say, I care about your comfort, too. In case you need to stop, you can pull yourself back, or tap my thigh.”

For a moment, he freezes in surprise, caught completely off-guard, as if not expecting to have such considerate words offered to him too. His heart swells, growing twice as big, and you see it in the fond way he looks at you, overwhelmed and soft.

You wonder if he's in freefall too.

“Thank you and yes ma'am,” he replies sincerely, voice thick with emotion, pressing a tender, lingering kiss to your thigh. 

The command in his cadence slips back just as easily as it left. “Now, I want you to take the other pillow as well, and prop it below you. You know. For easy watching.”

“Watch what?”

“You fucking yourself on my face.”

Oh, he's good.

Without a word, you oblige, adjusting the cushion behind you until your back is elevated. From up here, the sight is fucking obscene — your legs splayed open, throned on your boyfriend's sculpted shoulders, his eyes darting between your underwear and you, like he can’t decide which one looks more appetizing.

You swallow a gasp when he kisses your clit, right through the flimsy material. 

“Can I see you, baby? See her?” He looks up, heavy-lidded, eyes boring into yours with unhinged intensity, like the fate of his future lies in your hands — like, if you were to say no, he would be a man destroyed. You're not sure how it's possible for a person so lust-ridden to look at you with such stilling devotion. 

For the first time, you don’t lock up. 

“Yes, please.”

He carefully peels your panties aside, as if unmasking a priceless gift, wanting to savor the precious moment. His eyelids flutter shut when your sweet, warm scent fills his room and he draws a deep breath to drink it in. When he opens his eyes, a look of pure awe takes over his face, eyes glinting with a feral light. He looks like a kid at Disney World, dizzy and starry-eyed, not a man about to eat you out.

“I knew it. I knew she'd be exquisite like you.”

You feel color rush to your cheeks, never having felt so exposed to someone. Sure, you've been seen naked, but not like this. Not only your body, you feel everything bare — your heart, your soul, your mind.

“I didn't really think of shavin —”

“Shut up. It's exactly how I like my food. Besides, you're a big girl, aren't you, honey?”

It seems he doesn't care for your verbal responses anymore, seeming dull and dry in comparison to the meal in front of him. He is completely spellbounded by your pussy. He swipes a firm, deliberate, thumb across its puffy lip, and you very coherently whine something along the lines of “nnngghh.”

He kisses your swollen bud again, this time with no barrier of cotton. Entranced, he mutters, “so pretty,” under his breath, deaf to your breathless begging. He presses against your glistening slit, teasing your heated, tight, opening and painting your pussy lips with your own stickiness.

“Well, to me, you look perfectly healthy, madam. What brings you here for a checkup?” he asks, voice gravelly and mockingly professional, examining your cunt. 

“Jaaaaack, please. Baby…”

“Shhh, honey, I'm not talking to you,” he scolds, resuming his clinical conversation with your pussy. “Did you only need a doctor to fuck yourself stupid?”

“Stop kidding around, oh my —”

Your head falls back helplessly when the flat of his tongue connects with your slit. He expertly licks a long, broad stripe from your opening, all the way up to your swollen peak, eager to taste every inch of the wet skin. Your thighs tightly squeeze around his face, the pressure doing nothing to deter him from the divine purpose he’s been given.

“— God…”

“No god. Just Dr. Abbot.”

His hand is quick to sting your thigh in a reprimanding slap for shaking violently enough to vibrate his shoulders. “Remember, eyes on me. And voice loud, I need to know what's feeling good.”

“Everything feels good. Just don't fucking stop.”

“Bossy,” he mutters, before using his meaty fingers to pry apart your folds, slowly revealing the pink flesh, shining like a diamond for him. Lost in his hunger, his mouth latches itself to your inner lips, sucking each gently, confident he has your time, attention, body for as long as he wants, with the way you’re greedily responding to him. He hums in contentment, doing it for his enjoyment just as much for yours.

Your hips buck, burying his face deep enough to cut off his air-supply. His name falls over your lips, again and again, like a prayer unanswered. Encouraged by your more than enthusiastic response, he doubles down on his efforts at the same slick spot. He is perfect at this dance, a quick study of every hitch of your breath, every gasp, every twitch of your hips — using these mental notes to his advantage.

Your speech has become a mess — “nnghhhhhfuuckkk” or “jackkkkfuckgod” or even “imgonnadie”

His tongue rushes to your entrance again, impatient but not sloppy, to taste you, to not let a single drop go to waste when he’s here, starving for more. 

“Fuck, pretty. Such a messy girl, tsk.”

Your nails drag into his scalp in a hurtful scratch which neither one of you seems to care about. With every lap against your warm, inviting hole, the tip of his nose rubs against your clit in a strong friction, sending the bundle of nerves into instant overdrive. 

“Fuuckkknngh…” you speak eloquently.

He intently focuses — more than you've ever noticed in the ED — switching masterly between the flat of his tongue to lick broad, wet, stripes and his lips for slow, torturing suctions. His mouth fucks you with precision, knowing where exactly where to ease off, and where to tease an “aaaahhghh” out of you.

Your entire world tilts, brain turning to liquid, when he finally closes in around your bud. You yank the soft strands of his hair, accompanying the mindless action with a guttural moan so unlike you, teared right out of your throat.

“God, yes, like that. Just like that,” you fervently gasp.

Unlike other people you've been with, he doesn't increase or alter the pressure at your enthusiasm. He keeps the same pace, devastating and rhythmic, listening and following your advice.

“That's it. That's my best girl, singing so pretty for me. Let me hear you, baby.”

Your back arches painfully off pillows when the tip of his tongue agonizingly circles your clit, outlining the hyper-sensitive point at a pace that feels like time has slowed down, minutes dragging into hours, world around you turning blurry and sluggish.

Your breath rips out in sharp, short, gasps. Your eyes squeeze tightly shut, toes curling at his back. The floodgates are barely holding themselves close, but you don't want this to end. You want to be stuck in this ride, in this high, for as long as you can, suspended mid-air. 

You know that's impossible when you force your eyes open, and watch the light catch the wet sheen on his nose, all slick from your juices.

“Jack, I'm so —”

“Happy?”

“Close,” you sob at the increasing sensitivity.

“Do you wanna come on my face?”

You can only cry out in response.

“Count to 10 in your head and then you can.”

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1

The tension coiled tight in your belly snaps. The floodgates spill open, and your eyes roll back into your head. Words catch in the back of your throat, coming out as unintelligible noises. Everything fades to black for a moment, before your boyfriend's voice anchors you to earth again.

“So good for me, used my mouth like the needy girl you are.” He's lapping away slowly at your slit again, hell if he lets any release you've gifted him not put to good use.

You weakly push at his shoulders, willing him to a halt, overwhelmed and oversensitive. He immediately obeys, long fingers pulling back the ruined panties over you — instead delicately sliding his palms over your thighs, peppering them with tender, grounding kisses. When he stops to study you for any hints of discomfort, he looks at you like his eyes have blurred out every subject but you.

His mouth moves. Stops. Moves again.

Wait, is he saying something?

You furrow your brows, not being able to hear anything through the thick layers of fog up there — glittery and rosy, finding every crevice, every hidden part, and dulling the chaos of your brain.

You snap out of it when he tilts your chin towards him. He's sitting next to you now, body tilted closely towards yours, “Jesus, did I break you?” His free hand is kneading your quads, chasing away any pain they feel from having spent a good amount of time being spread open.

You nod, “but in a good way.”

He smiles like somebody just offered to do his charting until retirement. You lean heavily into his parm, cherishing the soft stroke of his finger, even when his skin is always dry from the excessive use of sanitizer.

“Can I kiss you? Or are you overwhelmed?”

You nod too quickly. When he leans in and brushes his lips against yours, it's like this is the first time you're ever doing this. You quiver when you taste yourself on him.

He smells like you.

He presses a chaste kiss on your temple, murmuring, “I'll be right back. Okay, honey?” before moving to the edge of the bed, securing on his prosthetic limb.

He returns with a damp towel and water. He sets the plastic bottle on his nightstand with a soft click. He climbs the bed, slowly crawling towards you, approaching like you're fragile and breakable.

“I'm gonna clean you up, baby.” He settles between your legs again, clinically wiping the dry and sticky patches —  a shameless mix of his own spit and your own wetness. “We've made quite a mess on you.” 

He tosses the cloth haphazardly to the floor once he’s done — joining the rest of your garments — and drags the thick duvet over your body until you’re trapped in solid comfort, tucking it under your armpits like you're a child. You can't help but track his every move, eyes following him, but can't get a word out of your mouth. 

“Jack, get under the covers with me.”

“Do you want me to get a hair tie for you first?”

Your hand flies to your head, smoothing the frazzled strands down, “why, do they look bad?”

“No, you walnut. You don't like laying down with your hair open.”

“Oh. I don't care, right now. Get in or I'll cry.”

“Scarier threat than the cyber attack one,” he sincerely remarks, and shifts under the covers, gently guiding you down with him till you’re both lying on your side, facing each other. Your bare chests kiss, and you slide your thigh between his legs, tucking it securely there. Any thought of empty space between you is intolerable to your body.

Oh.

Shit.

This man dedicatedly made you cum after dismantling your insecurities, and made your head go vroom. And you're just now realizing that he's not made of stone.

Which is ironic since his cock feels like one, angrily touching your thigh, straining against his pants. You feel guilt washing over you, at your selfishness for not paying heed to his needs, lost only in your own.

He rubs the side of your ribs, soft, calming, up & down motions, “hey, where'd you go? I wasn't that good. Like an 8 out of 10, maybe,” he repeats your earlier talk, a smirk playing on his face.

“I'm okay,” you feebly say. And then more confidently, “I promise. I just need a minute to process, and then we're taking care of you.”

“Hold your horses, sunshine. You're the patient and your job is to rest. You may climb the doctor any other time.”

“The doctor deserves a thank you for his treatment.”

“Not when the patient looks like a wild animal.”

You sigh, “I just don't want you doing it alone now.”

“I'll make you watch if it makes you feel better. When was the last time you watched a good show?” He draws you in closer by the waist, warping you in his scent, pressing you even more firmly against him. Even liquid wouldn't be able to seep through the space between you right now. It coaxes an involuntary sigh of relief out of you.

However, your cheeks heat at his cocky words, and you pinch his bicep. He breaks out in a hearty laugh, watching you with enough adoration that you just might pass out. But you don't, because nothing bad can happen when he's here.

“Okay, go. What worked and what didn't? What can we do differently next time?” he asks, ready to search your eyes in case you lie. His pinky traces the curve of your spine, the comforting gesture making you drowsy in his arms.

“Everything was perfect.”

“This isn't a fanfiction, darling. Think about it. Anything.”

“How the hell do you know what that is?”

He decidedly ignores your insulting question, continuing with his line of interrogation “slower next time? Faster?”

“More next time.”

He hums, eyes lighting up, “needy girl.” His hand delivers a playful smack to your ass, squeezing affectionately before letting go. By that time, you’ve already dramatically gasped, slapping his chest right back.

“Names? The praise work for you?”

“Mhm,” your voice drops low and hesitant, “so did the insults.”

Jack's brows raise in pleasant surprise, “you like being my messy and needy girl? You like asking me to use your big girl words?”

“Maybe…”

“Another talk for us to have. God, aren't you the dream?” It surprises you the way he says it, not jokingly, but like he means it. Like you could actually be something someone he fantasises about. Your chest tightens.

“Hey.”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Your initials are J.A.”

“Yeah, not sure, but I kind of think it's because my name is Jack Ab —”

“Jackass,” you mumble, nodding your head thoughtfully at your new discovery. “J.A – Jackass,” you repeat, just in case he didn’t make the connection. Forget the fact that he bosses an entire floor of medical staff.

“Think I heard you the first time.”

“You're a Jackass.”

“What a thing to say to someone who just had his tongue in your —”

“My Jackass.”

Once again, you say something completely out of pocket, and frankly enough, stupid, but he still melts. Because despite the choice of your words — again — it's the affection behind them. It's the you behind them that catches him in the ribs, as if somebody knocked the air out of him, making him soft, pliable, and yours to mold.

“Okay, well, I definitely broke your brain. Go to sleep, princess,” he playfully shoves your face into the pillow. “Off to bed, kid.” And his favorite sound fills his room.

Your giggle.

Okay i hope yall had fun! I took a longass time to write, and as always, glaze all over me (kidding) (no im not) if you liked it. Not to mention, ALWAYS MENTION when one of my works either makes u blush or laugh. And also when.

Damn him and his gaze. Even after 6 weeks of dating — and pining for a lot longer than that — he sure could still make you feel like a puddle.

You're only able to speak once he turns to his phone again. “Uh, excuse you, I'm a very fun person, thank you very much. Yesterday, I put a fake ‘your computer is down’ screen on Shen's laptop,” you tell proudly. 

“Dear god. He did not go into a cardiac arrest from your…prank?” Jack's voice caught on the word “prank” as if it deeply amused him.

You narrowed your eyes at your boyfriend (still hard to say that), shifting close enough to him on his couch that your knee knocked against his thigh. Your entire body faced him, while his faced the front — a tiny whine left your lips.

Jack turned his attention back to you as you spoke again. “You know it's the loss of control I hate. Don't you think I also feel like getting all loose-lipped and dancing on top of tables and flirting with strangers?”

His eyes softened a fraction when he saw the small frown on your lips. He sets his phone face-down on the arm of the couch, before shifting so his upper half faced you too. “Okay, what brings this on? You know I just like teasing, I don't think there's anything wrong with being an alcohol virgin.”

You rolled your eyes at his choice of words. “I want to know what it's like. It makes everyone so…” your hands do a weird dance in front of your chest, trying to find a proper word. Your attending swiftly moves his cup a bit to the left, so your hands wouldn't knock it all over yourself. 

“Joyful,” you finished.

“Okay, but let's not dance on table tops and flirt with strangers,” he takes off his reading glasses and perches them next to his phone. When his eyes find you again, they're equal parts amused, and that softness that only seems to show up when you're in the room.

“I would never, I'd feel bad for giving you stress at your age.”

He lightly smacks your hip that's not smushed against the couch, “Brat.”

You grin widely, “You'll be there, right?”

“With a camera and a mic. My beautiful, sensible, nurse, looking like an absolute fool,” he tugged at a loose strand of your hair, his eyes shining with endearment.

Your little baby blue sling looks absolutely ridiculous hung over his shoulder. “What did I tell you before leaving?” His voice strains with the effort of all the workout he got in today. He's struggling with unlocking the door, because your purse keeps slipping down his arms.

You were a disaster. While your favourite doctor made sure you only stuck to fruity drinks that gave you a pleasant buzz and not regrets — you still managed to outdo yourself in terms of being a mess.

You challenged a man twice your size in an arm wrestle. You advised 3 different women to break up with their boyfriends, “Mine's handsome and kind. You guys stay safe, though.” And, finally, broke the heel of your left boot making you even more unbalanced than you already were. 

“That Dr. Robby is a little shit with no self-preservation inst-”

“The other one, honey.”

You went silent for a moment, searching your hazy brain as the door opened in front of you. Jack gently guided you in, before locking the door with a sharp click. His rough hands sneak up your arms, tugging the jacket at your shoulders, and shrug it off you to safely hang it on his coat rack.

“That I shouldn't carry my bag if I couldn't keep it safe?” you say, looking down at him, as he sets his knee on the floor. His hands that cut and heal skin with such precision, are deftly working the zipper of your boots. He gently helps your feet out of the pair, patting your calf, before rising to his full height again with a groan.

Without your size boosters, your head was once again leveled with his chest. Jack nodded, leaning his head down so you didn't have to crane your neck as much.

“But I had my ID and pepper spray in there,” you justified, your lower lip jutting out in a pout.

Jack's hand pats the right-side pocket of his hands, “ID,” his voice rumbling as if coming straight from his chest. “And you don't need pepper spray. You have me.”

But you're not registering a word he says, not when he looks like this. His salt and pepper curls are all ruffled from your bar visit. His simple black tee is pulled taut across his biceps, making them look just as delicious as they do in his SWAT uniform.

His fingers snap in front of you, “Eyes up here, sweetheart.” You look in his honeyed eyes again. God, why haven't you guys had sex already? You seriously can't remember why.

“Why haven't we fucked?” You blurt out. Oh, the alcohol doesn’t make you Joyful. It makes you blunt.

Your boyfriend freezes for a second, before letting out a deep, throaty laugh. His hands settle on your shoulders. With a slight bend of his knees, he manages to stare completely and directly into your eyes. “Wow, thought we went to the bar, not to a seminar for clear communication.”

You capture both his hands and slide them down, so they're firmly on your hips. After humming in satisfaction, you take a step closer to him, your chest brushing his. “Answer me.”

As if suddenly realizing you both are still standing in the entryway, Jack starts walking you backwards, swiftly maneuvering you so you don't hit the kitchen counter. “I'm your attending, honey, I don't answer to you,”

You furrow your brows, staring up at him with irritation. You press yourself even closer to him, your palms settling on his hard stomach. “Like hell you don't. I want to know why me and my gorgeous boyfriend haven't made good use of every room in this too-big-for-you house.”

Jack sighs deeply, his fingers unconsciously tightening around your hips. He takes a seat on one of the low kitchen counter stools, so he doesn't have to keep looking down at you. His arms completely wrap around your waist, pulling you in until you're standing between the hard muscle of his thighs.

“Because we work at a hospital, we're either busy or tired. And…it's hard to find a footing with sex. You tense up whenever my hand slips under your shirt, you've talked about how insecure you get. And me…well, I'm not what I used to be.”

Your eyes soften, “But do you want me?” Your lips graze his jaw, your hands palming the hard plane of his chest.

Jack shifts in his seat and takes a deep breath, “What do you think, baby?” his right hand moves an inch lower with exaggerated slowness, settling on the top curve of your ass, his thumb stroking the curve.

You let out an entirely pathetic whimper at his breathy voice, his lips brushing your temple. You move back your face, so you can watch him again. His eyes look darker than they actually are.

“I see this as a good opportunity that we should seize, doctor.” His throat catches at the ‘doctor’. Oh, you are not a fair player.

“Well, I don't like my medical staff being inhibited. Perhaps, sometimes when you're horny and sober, we can continue the procedure.” His breaths are coming in shallow, his hard thighs squeezing around you to completely lock you in. His hands have not stopped moving, the one on your waist has moved north to tangle in your hair at the nape of your neck.

A petulant whine leaves your lips as you bury your mouth in the crook of his neck. “But-”

“No buts. I have no intention of being between your legs in a state you won't even remember anything in.” The rasp in his voice so close to your ear directly travels to the your belly, already coiling tight with tension.

The imagery makes you groan: His mouth working between your legs, his jaw shining under the dim lights, stopping for a moment to say, “Louder, baby. Your doctor can't hear you.”

Your lips slip from his neck, replaced by your forehead. His lips brush against your hair, the gentleness so different from what his body is suggesting.

“Kids and their hormones,” he teasingly says. That makes you pull yourself back. Because that's rich coming from a man whose pants are getting visibly tighter.

“Is that so, grandpa?” Your eyes are entirely fixated on his lips. Your own bottom lip has caught between your teeth.

His thumb comes up to free your lip so you don't hurt it, “Careful, brat.” His hand stays on your face, and you lean heavily into his palm, blinking at him. The strap of your top has conveniently fallen off from its place, and Jack is staring like a man who's just discovered shoulders, tracking the soft curve of it, following the slope of your neck, where your pulse thrums rapidly.

Leave it to him to have a gaze that weights at least a 300 pounds.

Your palms drop from his chest to his waist, brushing your fingers against the waistband of his pants. A soft “uh-uh” leaves his mouth as he slowly shakes his head, though he makes no move with his hands to push you away.

“You're palming at me like you're a little girl, and I'm your favorite barbie doll.”

“You are my favorite barbie doll, Dr. Abbott,” it leaves your mouth in a soft, needy, whine.

His shoulder shake slightly from laughter, the comforting rumble filling the room, subsequently reaching every tensed part of your body, and taking its place there too, perfectly fitting every crook and corner.

“I am a 50-year old man with a military background, who spends his nights managing an entire floor of medical staff. My day hobbies include being a buddy to SWAT and getting shot at.”

You look at him, as if to say “so?” and hearing the adoration — despite the choice of words — in your voice completely decentres him. “Glad to be your favourite barbie doll, honey.”

He finally freezes when your wandering palm brushes against the hard ridge in his pants, practically begging to be freed. You let out a little gasp as you feel his size, even with a barrier of rough fabric.

A low groan leaves him, his hand sharply capturing your bold wrist against his own chest, heaving up and down. For someone just talking about being 50, the man's heart is sure beating with a fast thump-thump-thump, like a teenage boy catching his crush in a 2-feet vicinity. Your name leaves his mouth, dirty and like a prayer at the same time.

“Let me help you, doctor. Please” you say sweetly, voice coated in silk and need and whatever poison this man mixed in your drinks.

A pause.

He gets off the stool in a sudden motion, his hands grip your forearms, and starts walking you backwards in the general direction of the bathroom.

“You are a pain in my ass. And, frankly, a horny mess.”

“Speaking of horny and my ass-”

He doesn't let you complete the sentence before turning you around, his broad chest hovering over your form from the back. “Nope. You have lost the privilege of looking at me before you've taken a cold shower.”

You tilt your head back to look at him, excitement glinting in your eyes, “together?”

“No, you pervert.” Your boyfriend opens the door to the bathroom and lets you both in. Before you can even complain, his rough palms are gripping the back of your thighs, swiftly lifting you up on the counter. You let out a little squeal, squeezing your thighs at the display of his strength.

Show-off.

So fucking hot, though. It's like he was made by Lana Del Rey's mind.

Jack doesn’t stop, though. He finds his way behind the glass that separates the shower from the rest of the bathroom. His practiced hands mess with the settings until he's satisfied, and comes back.

He stands in front of you again, crossing his arms over his chest. His muscles strain at the motion, trying to escape their way from the tight shirt. You pout at his slut-ishness. A walking, talking, thirst trap. If he was an actor, he would surely have his fare share of editors.

“How am I supposed to not get wet when you manhandle me?”

“Jesus,” he mumbles, pressing the heel of his palms into his eyes to lull some of his composure back into him. He silently thanks his military discipline, or you would currently be spread on the soft sheets of his bed, waking up his neighbours.

He takes a deep breath, eyes scanning you again. His fingers come up to pinch your chin in a soft embrace, “Shower. Clean. Mind and body both. And then, we will sleep. Got it?”

Heat pools low in your belly at his authoritative voice. God, how did you land this man?

“Sir, yes, sir.” You watch his gaze get heavy at the word. He leaves his hold on your chin, pats your hip, and exits the bathroom.

Guess you know what you'll be calling him, when he finally lets you do what your body is begging you to do.

You find him on his bed, wearing only a pair of low hung worn-out sweatpants. His back is slumped against the pillows, fingers locked behind his head as he stares at the ceiling.

He finally looks at you, crawling on his king-sized bed, trying to make your way over to him. It seems the shower un-possessed you. You look soft, sleepy, tired, and utterly his.

He holds out his arm and you immediately curl up into him, your icy-cold nose finding the hollow of his neck. “Hold me,” you murmur.

“One second, honey.” Before he can properly embrace you, he pulls up the thick duvet and arranges it to cover both of you. His left arm is trapped under your body, fingers pressing against the small of your back to pull you closer. His other hand brushes the hair back from your face, watching your heavy eyelids.

“There you are,” he softly rumbles before pressing the softest, most lingering kiss on your temple. A low sigh of satisfaction leaves you. You're still inhibited, but the tiredness has caught up.

“You didn't like the freaky me?” You ask, your jaw cracking with a yawn right after. 

“I like every-you, unfortunately. It's a weakness in the ED.” His fingers are still moving in your hair, scratching your scalp in a way that turns your brain to mush. You push your face even deeper in his neck. Hell, you would live inside his ribcage if he ever allowed it.

You let out a soft giggle, hiking your thigh over his hip so no part of you is separate from him. “Can we have a proper conversation about sex tomorrow?”

Your boyfriend murmurs a “yes, baby,” against your forehead. 

“Okay, goodnight. Gonna have some good wet dreams.”

“Shut up, and go to sleep, sweetheart.”

butterflies flutter in your stomach as you read dana’s text message. the alcohol coursing through your system gave you confidence, though you still were aware enough to know that this is a bad idea. but in your drunken state, you couldn’t bring yourself to care about the potential consequences.

you: yes.. i csnt stop

dana: whatcha thinking about specifically, sweetheart?

you: can’t say

you: i ts very bad

dana: you can’t just leave me hanging like this, kid.

you start to type out a response but decide against it. dana doesn’t say anything else either. a wave of worry hits you, the reality of your flirtatious messages settling in. then, a minute later, you see three grey dots on the screen.

dana: c’mon, be a good girl for me

you: you. your mouth. your fingers. your body against mine.

you hold your breath as you wait for a response. you see bubbles appearing again as dana types, but they disappear. a couple seconds later they show up once more, but then fade just as quickly. you wait nervously, worrying you went way too far. then you see three dots again, your heart racing in anticipation. your phone dings, and you take a deep breath before looking at it.

dana: call me.

nervously, you hit the call button. you lift your phone up to your ear. you only hear two rings before dana picks up. you lean back against the pillow behind you, your head spinning. dana’s voice hits your ear, low and husky. “where are you?”

“my room,” you reply, surprised that dana didn’t even say hi.

“on your bed?”

“yeah.”

“good.” a pause. then, “do you have clothes on?”

you nod and swallow, your throat dry. it takes you a moment to realize that dana can’t actually see you nodding. you clear your throat, and then say, “yeah. i do.”

“let’s change that.” you nearly whine at dana’s words. the ache between your legs only grows, in desperate need of some sort of relief. “take off your pants for me, hon.” without verbally responding, you do as dana asks. fifteen seconds after her command, she speaks again. “did you do it?”

“they’re off.”

“mm,” dana hums, pleased. you can picture the smirk on her face. “you wet?”

your body shudders as dana asks you that. “very,” you whine.

“close your eyes,” dana commands, “and bring a hand to your gorgeous pussy f’me.”

“fuck,” you moan. “o-okay.” you gasp as your hand makes contact with your cunt, your fingers starting to part your folds.

“feels good, doesn’t it?” you give dana a moan in response. she chuckles on the other end before replying, “can you put a finger inside of yourself, sweetheart?”

“yes,” you say, moving quick to do so. “it-it’s in,” you tell dana as you sink your middle finger deep into your throbbing hole.

“close your eyes.” you do. “you wish i was there?” dana teases, already knowing the answer.

“yes. fuck yes!”

“add another finger,” dana instructs, her voice film.

your ring finger joins your middle, stretching out your puffy pussy. “it’s in, d.”

“good. now i want ya to thrust those pretty fingers in and out of your sticky pussy. pretend they’re my fingers curling inside of you, ‘kay?”

“i-i am,” you moan.

“let me hear you.”

you whine at that and let your noises escape freely. you turn your phone on speaker and rest it on the top of your chest, your mouth close to the microphone. “fuck, dana. feels so good.”

“i know it does.”

you keep going, dana murmuring praises or commands every now and then. your release builds fast, the coil in your stomach tightening. moans and whimpers spill out, too drunk and blissed out to care how needy and desperate you must seem.

then you hear a low moan on the other line.

your movements slow, listening closely now. there’s a distinct sound of a bedsheet, followed by a low, breathy moan. wait…

“dana,” you croak.

“yeah, sweet girl? you close?”

you close your eyes and moan, dana’s voice momentarily making you forget what you were going to ask. “yes,” you gasp, your fingers picking back up their rhythm. “but dana… are you… are you touching yourself?”

“jesus,” dana moans. “just keep fucking yourself for me. l-let me hear ya, doll. don’t hold back.”

you don’t ask any questions. you just do as she tells you. your hips violently buck up to meet your hand. your clit grinds against your wrist, the sensation nearly making you explode. heavy pants and sounds of pleasure fall out of your mouth, landing right into dana’s ear. you hear her groan, and you know you’re about to finish, unable to keep your orgasm at bay any longer.

“d, i— mmm, i’m gonna—”

“cum on my fingers, hon.”

with a squeaky moan, you let go, dana’s words exactly what you needed. your pussy spasms, clenching your soaked fingers. your arm aches from the effort and your body trembles. you let out one final sigh of pleasure as you start to recover.

but then you hear the unmistakable sound of dana cumming. she cries out your name, a series of ecstatic moans and whines following. you swear you could cum again from that alone.

after a minute, dana’s heavy pants subside. you’re laying on your back, completely spent and exhausted. you imagine dana a tired wreck like you are. for a bit, no one speaks. occasionally, one of your breaths can be heard. you don’t even realize you’re starting to drift off until dana’s voice shocks you back to reality.

“you call me tomorrow night,” dana tells you, her voice a little hoarse and her boston accent adding a level of command most people don’t have. “got it?”

“yeah,” you sigh. “yeah, okay.”

“good.”

then dana hangs up, the other line going dead. you set your phone on your nightstand and curl up, now feeling more dizzy from your orgasm than the wine you downed. you close your eyes and picture dana.

dana evans, your older coworker—technically your boss. dana evans, the woman who just talked you through finger fucking yourself. dana evans, the woman who you just heard cum.

you were having a good shift, smooth even. patients transferred upstairs, discharged, and recovered. not until this patient of yours, a man with anger management issues decided that it would be fun to berate and yell at you in front of the entire pitt. al-hashimi already stepped in and with her all-commanding voice, she scolded the patient and asked him if he still wanted to be treated or he wanted to sign a waiver and leave.

it didn't mean for you to trigger your issues with your father really. the trauma of just hearing a man yelling, especially at you, was a very sensitive topic that you had tried to work with with your therapist for years.

your heart raced as dana pulled you away from the room. she reassured you that you did nothing wrong. but your heart kept going and going until your chest hurt and it was harder to breathe and the voices got louder and louder and -

"darlin', what's wrong?" you heard dana ask and you tried, really tried, to answer but your throat was suddenly dry and your chest felt heavy it hurt. "let's get you into a bed, alright?" dana guided you in a free room, away from the commotion.

you started sweating a lot and dana couldn't get through you so she called santos for help, knowing you and santos were inseparable.

"hey, y/n," she cupped your face, asking you to take a deep breath in and long breath out. you heard her but you couldn't, for the life of you, get your body to respond the way you wanted it to.

stupid fucking body reaction.

"just call mckay," santos told dana. "she'll know what to do."

dana didn't hesitate, always quick on her feet, she easily spotted mckay charting.

"mckay, need you at south 8. asap."

cassie looked up. "what is it?"

"y/n is having a panic attack."

cassie didn't need to hear more. she beelined to your room. she found santos wiping the sweat on your face.

"step back," cassie ordered and santos was quick to obey.

cassie sat on the edge of the bed, giving you just enough space to breathe but also to let you know that you weren't alone. "look at me, baby."

baby.

cassie hadn't called you that since the divorce.

"good," she coaxed. "that's good. you hear me, right?"

you were still shaking and sweating but you nodded anyway.

"you're safe," she said. "can you tell me five things you see right now?"

taking a deep breath in, you looked around. "bed. wall. dana. trinity. y-you."

"that's good. you're doing good. four things you can touch?"

your hand began touching the things around you. "blanket. m-my hand. my legs. t-this," you tugged on the call bell.

"good job." cassie moved a little closer to your side. "how about three things you can hear?"

"i can hear my heart beating in my ears."

"is that all?"

"i hear you."

"and...?"

"i hear footsteps outside."

"that's great, baby. you're doing great." cassie took your hand and gently squeezed it. "what are the two things you can smell?"

you paused for a second, trying to focus. "i can smell the fabcon from this bedsheet. it's new."

cassie nodded, waiting for another answer.

"i-i smell you." valentino donna born in roma, you remembered it still. and a lotion that she put on every morning yet the smell stayed all day.

"one thing you can taste?"

you stared at her, thinking. your eyes dart to her lips but quickly looked up. you wer your lips and gulped.

"my throat is dry."

"here you go." dana offered you a bottle then took santos with her to give you some privacy.

"how are you feeling now?" cassie asked.

you stared at your hands. they're less shaky and sweaty. your chest already felt much lighter and your heart beat slower.

"better. i-i don't know what happened."

cassie gently ran a hand through your hair. "it happens, okay? no one's judging you here. least of all, medical professionals."

"i know but still... i-i didn't mean... i got scared."

"can you tell me what happened?"

cassie, ever the patient one, scoot in beside you. for a moment, everything was quiet. cassie was trying to get you to match her relaxed breathing and you did eventually. your head rested on her shoulder.

In hindsight maybe you should've seen this coming.

Baran kept presenting the opportunity to you, and you decided to ignore it.

But you were despising even thinking about the possibility of an annual checkup. It made your skin crawl. For pups specifically, it was very important. But you kept putting it off scheduling an appointment, saying you'll "do it eventually", when you knew that was a lie. Yes, Baran could've examined you herself, but she didn't want the possibility of you getting scared or straining your relationship.

So she respected that. Yet you never did schedule. You were hoping she forgot about it completely. You had been in a relationship with Baran for a little over a year at this point, and something you knew about Baran is that you are one of the most precious things in her life.

So that's probably why you're in this situation right now.

You should've seen it coming. But how could you when you were getting spoiled?

Baran invited Cassie over for dinner, the smell of her making zereshk polo ba morgh was wafting through the air. Your lover was insistent that she would take care if everything, and you and Cassie could relax in the living room. So here you were, talking about some random book and video game you've been indulging yourself in for the last few days. Cassie giving you a soft smile as she was practically manspreading on the large couch, a beer bottle in her hand against her lap, occasionally taking a sip of the bitter alcohol as you yapped away. Her eyes were glued to yours the whole time, giving you full attention, chiming in periodically.

The scented candle Baran lit made the air smell like a nice autumn day, a pleasant apple with gentle cinnamon type smell. Time passed quickly and pleasantly. Before you knew it, Barans lips were pressed against your forehead as her hands rested on your shoulders, gently massaging them as you slumped happily against her.

"Hi sweetheart. Dinners almost ready, would you like to help me set up the table?"

You smiled, jumping up excited from the couch.

"Yes! I'll get plates and silverware!"

"Wait one second, pup."

You hesitated, turning back to look at at Baran. Its not the first time she's called you that's around Cassie, but it still felt a tad humiliating.

"I made some treats for you."

You perked up, looking excited. The smell of dinner must've completely masked the smell of the small tan looking treat that was in the shape of a bone she was holding. Your tail was going crazy, wagging back and forth.

"Say ah."

You opened your mouth for her, looking into her pretty brown eyes as she pressed the treat against your tongue. Your mouth closed instantly, almost nipping her fingers in the process. You gave an apologetic look as you chewed on the treat. It was definitely some.sort of peanut butter treat, with a tinge of blueberry, and something, dry? You couldn't place your finger on the last ingredient, but the other two were too tasty you couldn't care to identify, you smiled happily as you hummed in delight.

"Good treat, puppy? Its a new recipe Trinity gave me."

Baran gave a smile, petting your head gently, scratching gently behind your ears. You nodded eagerly, tempted to ask for more, but decided you could wait until after dinner to use your puppy eyes.

"Very good! I'll go set up now!"

You walked into the kitchen happily, eventually the light clanking of plates being put on the table filled the quiet room. You didn't pay any mind to Baran staying the living room for a bit while you set up. Eventually both of the older women made their way into the dining room. You tried really hard not to scarf your food down as soon as Baran put it on your plate, but she was so good at cooking and it smelled so good you couldn't help yourself as you hunched over and shoveled the food as quick as possible into your mouth. Neither Cassie or Baran made any comments. They just chattered about their coworkers, and other medical things you couldn't care paying attention to.

When you finished your meal, you realized you started to feel very content, safe with both your wife and one of your best friends.

Until you started feeling, too light. Too woozy. Something felt, off. You whimpered, standing up from your seat and feeling like the rooms colors were amplified, and your vision feeling like you were looking through blurry glass.

"Sweetie, take it easy. Its okay."

Cassies voice was rough as she put a hand on your back and sternum. You made a noise of protest as she led you back to the couch, coaxing you to sit down.

"C…Cass?"

You whimpered, panic rising slightly as your body temperature started to drop. You tried to move away from her but another set of hands held you firmly in place.

"Azizam. I need you stay still while Cassie gives you a checkup-"

Your heart dropped. A check up? Right now? When you felt so weird?

"Ba-Baran I feel weird!"

Your hands pressed against her shoulders, trying to get away from her but she held you down firmly, sighing in what sounded like disappointment. You hated the idea of disappointing her.

"My sweet puppy, I told you several times to schedule an appointment, but you refused each time. I gave you a chance, now you have to let Cassie give you a check up."

You looked at Cassie in fear, all your instincts were telling you to run away, hide, bite, scratch- but you loved these two people and didn't want to hurt them.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it was Cassie doing it. Your breathing slowed steadily, your body shaking a little less as you started to relax in the hold the two women had you in.

"That's it. Good puppy, relax and just look at mommy."

Barans hands rested on your face, tilting your head up slightly so you could only see her. She pressed a gentle kiss to your nose. You jumped slightly as Cassies fingers started prodding at the sides of your neck, checking for swollen lymph nodes. A whimper came out of your throat. You were still unsure about everything until Baran started petting your head gently, pausing occasionally to scratch behind your ear. You were conflicting on what to pay attention to, Barans dotting attention or the cold material of Cassies stethoscope pressing against your shirt.

"Vitals seem to be normal. By all means you have a healthy pup."

You preened under Cassies praise, your tail could be heard thumping against the couch. Everything was starting to get more hazy, you felt yourself smile uncontrollably.

"Y..you both are so.. so pretty.."

The phrase was muttered quietly under your breath as a giggle followed, Baran chuckled as she coaxed you to move more towards the middle of the couch, you on your hands and knees. Luckily, Barans couch was big enough where multiple people could be on it comfortably at a time. You nuzzled your head into Barans neck, you wanted to lay down against her, but Cassies hands were placed on your hips firmly, keeping you up as you pawed at your wife's thighs.

"Yeah? Are we both so pretty?"

Cassies voice cut through the air, you felt your pants and underwear being pulled down gently. Your anxiety started to rise again, but was instantly put to a halt when Baran unbuttoned her shirt, her cleavage covered in a pretty black bra on full display in front of your face.

"S…so very .. pretty…"

Baran gave a reassuring smile, kissing the top of your head.

"Present for Cassie, my good little pup."

You swallowed spit that began to pool in your mouth, you didn't want to drool, but you couldn't help yourself. You spread your legs further , arching your back slightly and moving your tail out of the way. Cassies index finger came down to your dripping cunt and touching your clit every so slightly as her other hand palmed at your ass.

"Very good at following orders. You must train them very nicely, Baran."

You blushed, cunt clenching around nothing as Baran had a smirk of satisfaction on her face. As Cassies finger slightly dipped into your aching hole, you yelped and fell forward into Barans embrace, your tail wagging lazily against your back. Eventually, Cassie pressed her finger fully inside of you, rubbing your clit with her thumb and letting you adjust, despite your cunt practically dripping with need, she still wanted you to be nice and wet for her.

"Sweet pup, can you look at me?"

You groaned in protest as Baran hands coursed you to look up into her eyes.

"You did good for your general check up. Cassies going to give you a reward now. Isnt she so nice? What do we say to nice things, pup?"

"T..Thank you Cass…"

Her thumb ran against your canines gently, a satisfied look on her face.

"Good pup."

Cassies fingers knew every spot to touch. You distantly cursed the universe for making Victoria a hybrid as well, otherwise Cassie wouldn't be nearly as good at this. You could feel yourself drip against her fingers, it was humiliating to hear your needy cunt being wet against the rough pads of her fingers. That thought process was quickly broken as Baran pressed her thumb into your mouth, pressing against your tongue.

Your body wasn't used to this much attention, before you knew it, you felt a knot being formed in the pit of your stomach.

"M-Momm…y"

You muttered as best you could against the pad of Barans thumb gently fucking your mouth, drool pooling on the corners of your mouth, treatening to spill.

"Go ahead, puppy. Cum for us."

You whined, bucking your hips against Cassies hold, grinding wildly and chasing what you wanted most. Tears spilled from your eyes, your senses overwhelmed as you moaned and let go. You came, hard.

You could hear a gasp falling from Cassies mouth, a low chuckle following, you weren't exactly sure why until Baran chuckled and looked at you fondly.

"Goodness, pup. Haven't seen you squirt like that before."

Your head could barely register anything, Cassie let you ride out your orgasm gently. Barans thumb slipped out from your mouth, wiping your spit on your lips before coming down and licking a fallen tear on your cheek. Your cunt clenched around Cassies fingers, not wanting to let go.

"Sexual responses are all normal. Needy, but normal."

You whimpered in protest as Cassie started to pull out, but Baran pulled you closer against her body and hushed you.

"It's okay, sweetie. Cassie needs to clean up, we're almost done your checkup."

You buried your face into her chest, not caring around your spit and tear ridden face. You didn't even notice Cassie applying an alcohol wipe against your outer thigh, giving you a shot, then putting a band-aid on.

"All done. You did very good, yes you did."

Baran cooed at you, rubbing behind your ears and scratching behind them gently with her nails. You tilted your head, not sure what she was talking about.

"How much did Trinitys recipe call for again?"

Cassie asked offhandedly while getting a towel. Baran hummed in thought before replying-

"5 milligrams? Maybe less."

Cassie chuckled in response while she gently wiped your mess off your thighs.

"Pups a lightweight, then."

She handed the towel to Baran, petting your back as they talked over you like you weren't even there.

"Well, it worked, didn't it?"

You groaned in protest as Baran grabbed your face, trying to wipe the mess off while you tried to clumsily move away.

"Maybe a little too well."

Cassie gave a warm smile, kissing your head before getting up to go towards the bathroom.

"M..Momma?"

You muttered, voice rough as you cleared your throat.

"Yes dear?"

"I'm hungry still."