remmick thirst

Your daughter is wide awake, because she has never respected bedtime a day in her life. Two years old and powered by something supernatural that’s definitely not from your side of the family. She spins in slow, wobbly circles in her footie pajamas, hair wild from bath time, clutching her stuffed rabbit like it’s a talisman against sleep. 

The house hums low around you—refrigerator buzzing, ceiling fan stirring the warm Southern night air through open windows, cicadas droning outside like a warning choir. The baby monitor glows faintly on the counter from habit, even though she refuses to stay in her room.

You’re tired. The bones-deep kind. And tonight is the first therapy session.

Not romantic, not hopeful—logistical. Necessary. An attempt at peace in a situation built from wildfire and instinct and a man who doesn’t know how to let go of anything once it’s his.

You wipe the table for the third time even though it's already clean. Your daughter runs her toy car along the floorboards, making little engine noises. It should feel domestic—safe.

Instead, there’s a charge in the air—anticipation threaded with dread—because midnight is close, and he comes with it.

Almost on cue, the latch on your front gate clicks.

Soft and easy like you imagined it.

You don’t move at first. Just breathe—slow, steady. Remind yourself this is normal now, routine. A custody drop-off before therapy. You’re adults—parents—and can manage this.

Then the door opens without a knock, and reality reminds you that “boundary” has never been a word Remmick fully absorbed.

He steps in with the night still clinging to him—carrying cool air and the scent of pine and rain-damp soil, like he walked here straight through the woods instead of driving. Boots heavy, shirt dark and fitted to him through a long night’s work, hair tousled like fingers have been through it recently or repeatedly—maybe from pacing, maybe from stress, maybe just from being him.

Your daughter squeals “Daddy!” loud enough to wake God, and launches herself toward him. He bends to scoop her up, fluid as instinct, settling her on his hip. She melts against him, tiny fingers curling in the collar of his shirt like nothing has ever felt safer.

His expression softens for her—always does. A small, private thing.

Then his eyes slide to you.

The softness leaves. Something else replaces it—familiarity sharpened by tension, hunger disguised as indifference, possession hiding under tired restraint.

“Evenin’,” he says, voice low, threaded with the quiet grit of someone who has been running on instinct instead of sleep.

“It’s late,” you answer, even though late is when he exists.

“You asked me to come,” he reminds you, expression unreadable. “I came.”

Like he’s incapable of not coming when you call. Like that’s always been the problem.

You cross your arms a little too defensively. “We need to leave soon. Her sitter doesn’t do drop-offs after midnight.”

He looks at the clock, then back at you, jaw ticking once. “We’ll make it.”

Your daughter pats his cheek and demands, “Snack!”

He shifts her easily, already walking to your kitchen like muscle memory never left his bones. He moves around your space like it belonged to him once. Because it did. Because on bad days you still feel the ghost of him everywhere—at the stove, by the sink, leaning against the hallway wall whispering something dark and soft into your neck.

He opens the pantry and grabs the exact pouch she likes without asking. You watch his hand brush her hair back. The tenderness of it stings.

She wasn’t planned.

You weren’t supposed to keep seeing each other.

He wasn’t supposed to be capable of giving you a child.

And then he was—and everything after it spiraled.

“You ready?” he asks eventually, eyes dragging over you in a way that isn’t checking—it's assessing, searching, staking ground he still believes he’s entitled to.

“No,” you answer honestly. “But I’m going.”

He smirks faintly like that amuses him. “Therapy’s just talking. Humans love talking.”

“You say that like you’re one.”

He raises a brow. “I didn’t say I wasn’t one.” A beat. “Just that I don’t do well in groups.”

“Therapist’s not a group.”

“Mm.” His gaze drops to your mouth for a fraction of a second, then lifts again. “Depends how much they pry.”

Your daughter's juice pouch slurps loudly. It breaks the spell and yet does nothing to loosen it.

You grab keys, diaper bag, purse. Remmick shifts your daughter to his other arm. The world feels tight around the three of you—too small, too intimate, too familiar and broken and unwilling to stay that way.

You’re doing this for her.

You repeat that like a prayer.

“Don’t start anything tonight,” you warn, low.

He gives you a look—dark, quiet, edged with that old spark of arrogance and hunger and hurt pride. “I don’t start things,” he murmurs, brushing past you toward the door.

You huff a breath, follow him out.

No one believes that for a second.

Especially not him.

The sitter’s porch light fades behind you both, and the car ride is silent except for the hum of the AC and the occasional tap of Remmick’s finger on the console—a restless, predatory rhythm like he’s fighting an itch under his skin. He doesn’t like enclosed spaces. He doesn’t like being asked to explain himself. He especially doesn’t like being told he’s wrong.

So, naturally, you’re taking him to therapy.

The office is on the edge of town—a cozy, converted old house with porch ferns and warm lamplight, trying desperately to look like a safe haven instead of a battleground. The kind of place where soft-voiced people talk about boundaries and growth and “honoring space.”

You need this.

He tolerates it.

For now.

He opens the building door without waiting for you to catch up. You grit your teeth and follow.

The therapist—a calm-looking woman in her late forties with glasses and a cardigan and a face too optimistic for what’s about to happen to her—stands to greet you.

“Hi there,” she says, warm. “I’m Dr. Hayes. Come in, please. Sit anywhere you like.”

Remmick chooses the couch. You sit in the chair across from him because you know better.

Dr. Hayes smiles in that practiced, gentle way. “So, first session. We’ll take things slowly. Tell me a little about why you’re here.”

You open your mouth to speak.

He beats you to it.

“Because she thinks I’m the problem.”

Your jaw tightens. “No. Because we both need—”

“You think I’m the problem,” he repeats, voice flat. “Just say it.”

“I think we both—”

“You just don’t like when things don’t go your way.”

Dr. Hayes blinks, already trying to catch the thread. “Alright. Let’s pause. This space is for both of you to feel heard. No interrupting yet. Let’s start with—"

“She gets frustrated because she doesn’t listen,” he says.

“I don’t listen?” you ask, incredulous. “You don’t even knock when you come into my house.”

“You asked me to come.”

“Not to come inside like a stray dog with keys!”

“I don’t need keys.”

The therapist holds up a hand. “Okay, let’s—let’s unpack one thing at a time.”

Remmick leans back, crosses his arms, looks maddeningly unbothered. “She gets dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” your voice comes out sharp, clipped. “You showed up at my house at three in the morning last month because you felt something was off. It was a raccoon, Remmick. A raccoon.”

“I was right that something was off.”

“You tore the screen door off!”

“It was flimsy.”

“It wasn’t!”

Dr. Hayes scribbles something in her notebook. You don’t know what, but judging by the slight widening of her eyes, it’s probably in the genre of dear god save me.

She tries again, valiantly. “Let’s talk about boundaries. What does a healthy boundary look like to each of you?”

“A locked door,” you answer immediately.

“An unlocked one,” he counters, completely sincere.

You stare at him. He stares back, calm as moonlight, completely confident he has said something reasonable.

Dr. Hayes inhales very slowly. “We… may need to define boundaries.”

He shrugs. “You can try.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “This is exactly what I mean.”

“I’m here,” he says. “Isn’t that what matters?”

“No, Remmick. Being physically present is not the same as being helpful.”

He tilts his head, studying you with that unnerving patience. “I protect you both. That’s helpful.”

“We don’t need protecting from your imagination.”

He smiles—sharp, humorless, offended-but-not-in-a-way-he’ll-admit. “Say that again next time someone looks at you wrong in a parking lot.”

“That was a teenager with a skateboard.”

“He had terrible intentions.”

“He asked what time it was!”

“And I answered,” he says, tone final.

“You growled.”

“He understood me.”

Dr. Hayes sets her pen down like it suddenly weighs five pounds. “I see. So communication differences are presenting—”

“He doesn’t communicate, he broods and stalks and ignores everything I say unless it involves our daughter being fed or kidnapped in his brain.”

Remmick lifts one finger. “To be fair, both are of high concerns.”

“No one is kidnapping her.”

“I’m not risking it.”

Dr. Hayes holds up that therapist hand again—palm soft, gentle, probably trembling beneath the cardigan sleeve. “Okay. Let’s try something simple. When a boundary is expressed, what might be a respectful response?”

You answer: “Respecting it.”

He answers: “Why?”

The therapist blinks.

Slowly. Twice.

There is silence—the kind that feels like someone pressed a pillow over the room.

Then Dr. Hayes very delicately says, “I think we may need more than an hour today.”

You sink into your chair.

Remmick reclines like he’s winning something.

And the horror settles in your chest like cold water:

You knew this would go badly.

You did not realize how spectacularly.

By some miracle—divine intervention, stubbornness, or the therapist finally learning how to corral a vampire and a woman one inconvenience away from snapping—things settle.

Not calm. Never calm with him.

But manageable.

Dr. Hayes coaxes out a few confessions like she’s defusing a bomb. You admit you shut down when you feel cornered. He admits (reluctantly, like the words were barbed) that maybe—maybe—walking into your house uninvited “could, potentially, theoretically” be seen as disrespectful.

She calls it progress.

You call it exhaustion.

By the time she thanks you both for coming and hands you a paper with “homework prompts,” your brain feels like it's been in a blender set to emotional puree.

You stand, smoothing your shirt, already thinking about your daughter’s soft curls and bedtime song and how much you need the comfort of her tiny, warm body cuddled against you. You want to hold her and breathe and unwind from this entire night.

Remmick rises too, quiet and fluid, hands sliding into his jacket pockets, which is always somehow more threatening than if he showed his fangs. The lights in the waiting room buzz softly. Outside, the night carries the weight of humidity and distant crickets like a blanket you didn’t ask for.

“Let me drive you home,” he says as you step into the night.

You shake your head automatically. “I need to pick her up first.”

“I already talked to the sitter,” he answers, casual. “She offered to keep her overnight. Said she’s out like a light. Didn’t want to wake her.”

You turn to look at him. He’s not lying—you can hear it in his tone, that frustratingly sincere flatness. Still, your brow pinches. “Since when do you make decisions without me?”

He shrugs like it’s nothing. “She texted me when we got here. Thought it’d be easier.”

Easier.

Easier like removing your anchor for the night.

He looks too calm. Too composed. Like there’s something humming under his skin that he isn’t saying.

“Let me guess,” you mutter. “You planned this.”

A slow blink with a small, infuriating half-smile.

Not denial.

“Relax,” he says, voice low. “You look like you’re going to explode. I’m trying to help.”

You don’t have the energy to argue. Your chest feels tight with fatigue and frayed nerves. He knows it; you see the moment he clocks your drained expression, how his posture shifts just a hair, the predator’s sharp edges tucking inward—but not away.

Your social battery is not just low.

It’s dead.

Buried.

Funeral already happened.

You rub your forehead. “Fine. Drive me home.”

He steps ahead of you, opens the car door. Of course he does—always half-chivalrous, half-possessive. You slide in without another word, because talking right now feels like trying to lift something heavy with your teeth.

The car door closes with a soft thud.

You exhale.

He gets in on the other side, engine turning over, headlights cutting through the dark.

For a moment, there is only the hum of the road and the weight of the session lingering like humidity clinging to skin.

He taps the steering wheel once, faint smirk tugging at his mouth.

“You handled yourself in there,” he says. “Proud of you.”

You turn your head slowly, stare at him. “Please don’t.”

He laughs quietly, satisfied. “Fine.”

You look back out the window, eyelids growing heavy, body sinking into the seat.

Maybe you should question more why he seems calmer now.

Why he wanted you alone tonight.

Why he looks like someone waiting for something to unfold.

Instead, you let the tiredness drag through your bones like wet cotton and decide not to borrow trouble.

If he has something up his sleeve?

He can keep it there.

Just until you can breathe again.

The darkness outside rolls soft and thick, and you let your eyes fall half-closed.

By the time he pulls into the drive, the house is dark, porch light flickering slightly like it’s trying to warn you off. The night hums heavy around you—too still, too warm, air thick with crickets and the faint scent of damp wood.

You unbuckle your seatbelt, reach for the handle, but he cuts the engine before you can move.

He doesn’t speak.

You glance over, cautious. He’s watching the house, thumb brushing his lower lip like he’s thinking too hard about something he won’t say out loud.

You step out, gravel crunching under your shoes, and fish the house key from your purse as you make your way up the porch. 

He follows, hands in his pockets like they always are when he’s trying not to seem like a threat—which only makes him feel more like one.

You reach the door.

The keys rattle faintly in your hand as you unlock, push it open, and flick on the entryway light. It’s warm inside, familiar. Smells like lavender detergent and the faint trace of your daughter’s favorite strawberry shampoo.

You half-turn, expecting him to already be walking away like he usually does, like he’s supposed to. Instead, he’s still there. Hands in his pockets, boots on your welcome mat, gaze locked on yours like it’s holding something back. You exhale.

“Alright,” you mutter. “You brought me home. You lingered. You brooded. What do you want, Remmick?”

He shifts a little, just a lean, just a step. His shoulders are relaxed, but his eyes give him away. That look he gets when something old and restless is crawling beneath his ribs.

“I miss this,” he says.

Your breath catches—not because you didn’t expect it, but because he never allows moments like this without wanting something in return.

“I miss it,” he says simply. “Us.”

You blink. “Us?”

Another step forward. You don’t back away, but you want to. He smells like rain and sawdust and something unspoken, feral and old.

“I miss what we had,” he murmurs.

You scoff under your breath, mouth curling. “What we had wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t even stable.”

He shrugs one shoulder, the smallest motion. “It was ours.”

“Remmick,” you say, firm, “it wasn’t ideal.”

He tilts his head, eyes flicking briefly to your mouth like he’s studying it. Or remembering it.

“You say that,” he murmurs, “but you forget I can tell when you lie to yourself.”

He takes another step forward. You don’t move. His shadow blends with yours under the entry light. When he lifts his hand, it’s slow, not touching you, just hovering near your jaw.

Then he leans in, too close, too familiar, and kisses you.

A ghost of heat and memory and nights you swore you’d never think about again.

It’s a kiss designed to ruin resolve, not demand it.

You start to pull back. You mean to pull back. But he steps fully into your doorway as he deepens the kiss—solidifying presence, claiming space like he always has, like walls and doors and boundaries are nothing but props in your lives.

His palm finds your jaw, thumb warm against your pulse.

You break away just enough to breathe, heart hammering, breath trembling.

He’s still close. Too close. Eyes dark and bright at once, expression unreadable except for the truth of it:

He planned this. He wanted this night to end here. He always comes back to you like it’s instinct, not choice.

And he looks at you like he knows you feel the pull too, even if you’d rather choke on it than admit it.

Your keys hang useless in your hand.

His voice brushes your ear when he speaks, soft but edged with something hot and restless:

“Tell me you don’t miss me.”

The door closes with a soft click and you don’t know if he kicked it shut or if it swung that way on its own, but suddenly he’s in your house again like he never left, like two years of boundaries and breathing room didn’t happen at all.

He doesn’t wait for you to speak.

His mouth is back on yours before your thoughts can catch up, a little rougher now, a little more desperate—lips parting, breath warm, hands finding the curve of your waist like it’s instinct, like it’s his. You make a noise, half-protest, half-need, fists curling in the front of his shirt as he nudges you backward, slow but insistent.

He walks you through the hallway without looking, like he still remembers every inch of this place in the dark. Your shoulder brushes the wall, the soft drag of fabric against plaster, and his lips never leave yours until the angle shifts and he’s ducking down, mouth skimming along your jaw. 

You feel the scrape of stubble against your skin, the way his breath fans across your throat just before he latches on and begins to kiss lower. You break away, a sharp breath in your lungs as his mouth brushes the place your pulse kicks hardest. Your hand lands on his chest.

“You’re such an asshole.”

His lips don’t stop. He hums low in his throat, amused, pleased, like you paid him a compliment.

“Mmhmm,” he murmurs, tongue dragging slow and filthy just beneath your ear. “But you let me in.”

You should tell him to stop. You should turn away. But his hand slides over your hip, fingers tightening in a possessive grip, and your legs are already walking you deeper into the house—into the bedroom—because you’re tired of missing something that doesn’t deserve to be missed, and he’s too fucking good at making you forget why you ever walked away.

You fall into the mattress with a soft oof, back hitting sheets you meant to change this morning, but never got to. He’s on you a second later, weight braced over you with knees spread on either side, shirt riding up as he yanks it over his head and tosses it blindly behind him.

Your eyes drag over him. He’s broader now, or maybe just more solid. Muscle, strain and scar and pale skin pulled tight over something that barely passes for human. 

You don’t get time to think beyond that—he’s pulling your shirt up, mouth meeting every new inch of skin as it’s revealed. Teeth scrape your sternum. His hands flatten on your sides, hot and grounding, then push down the waistband of your shorts with practiced ease.

He doesn’t waste time.

His mouth is on your belly, kissing low, nipping just above your mound like he’s already imagining what you taste like. You reach down to grab his hair, tug once—sharp—and he growls against your skin, fingers curling into the hem of your underwear.

He kisses right against the damp spot between your legs through the cotton, inhales slowly, and groans like the scent alone is enough to undo him.

“Still get wet for me,” he mutters, dark and smug and thick with satisfaction.

“Shut up.”

He pulls the underwear down with his teeth.

“Make me.”

Then he dives in.

Tongue wide and flat, licking you from bottom to top with a reverence that doesn’t match how fucking filthy it feels. He groans into your cunt like he needs it, like he’s starving for it, messy and unbothered by it, mouth slick and relentless. 

His hands slide under your thighs and push your knees higher, wider, until you’re spread open and helpless to stop the way your hips grind up into his face.

He eats like he’s trying to make a point. Like he’s trying to own you again from the inside out. He sucks your clit once, twice, flicking with the tip of his tongue until your breath is punching out of you in broken gasps, then dips lower to fuck into you with his tongue, groaning again when your hips stutter against his mouth.

“You gonna come?” he asks, breath hot, chin soaked. “Gonna come on my tongue like you used to?”

Your fingers twist harder in his hair.

“Fuck you.”

He laughs, the vibration right against your clit, and you jerk under him.

“That’s the plan.”

He slides two fingers in without warning, thick and familiar, curling just right, and your eyes roll back as your legs shake around him. 

You’re so close, embarrassingly close, slick running down between your thighs and his mouth back on you like he’ll die if he doesn’t taste every drop.

“Come on,” he says against you, voice low, coaxing, cruel. “Come for me, mama. Show me you still know who you belong to.”

And then you’re coming—loud, messy, clenching around his fingers with a cry caught between fury and relief.

He doesn’t stop until you’re whining, until your hips try to jerk away and your thighs tremble and you’re muttering his name like a curse.

Only then does he rise, mouth wet, chin shining, gaze dark.

“You gonna let me fuck it into you now?”

You don’t answer.

You don’t have to.

Your hands are already pulling at his belt.

It hits the floor with a dull thud, buckle clinking against the wood as he shoves it out of the way. He works his fly open in one sharp motion, zipper rasping down. 

His breath isn’t steady—low, heavy pulls of air like he’s been holding himself back for hours and finally stopped pretending.

He frees himself, and your breath stutters. He wraps a hand around the base immediately, stroking once, slow, like he’s grounding himself instead of teasing you—but the way his jaw flexes tells you he’s not as in control as he wants to look. 

His thumb drags over the head, gathering slick, and he exhales through his teeth, eyes pinned to you like he’s watching prey tremble in tall grass.

“Move up,” he murmurs, voice gravel-low. You do, hips lifting, and he follows, crowding into your space, one hand braced by your head while the other curls tighter around his cock. 

He lines himself up, nudging against your entrance with the thick, heavy weight of him, dragging slow just to feel the way your body reacts—how you twitch, how your thighs tense, how you’re already slick for him.

Remmick groans—quiet, needy, like it slips out before he can catch it.

“You’re still warm for me,” he breathes, forehead almost touching yours. “God, I forgot how warm you are.”

You swallow. You shouldn’t let him see what that does to you. But his head presses, then pushes just a little, the stretch familiar and overwhelming, and your fingers curl in the sheets.

He strokes once more along his length, then grips your hip instead and begins to push in slowly. No rush, no roughness—just the heavy press of him inching deeper until your breath breaks and your nails grip onto his forearm. He watches your face as he slides inside, watches the tension, the way your lips part, the way your thighs try to close around him out of instinct.

He sinks further, hips nudging against yours, filling every inch he used to claim without question, and his head drops to your shoulder with a low, ragged sound.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “Missed this.”

His breath shudders against your skin, his hand tightening on your hip, almost shaking with restraint.

“You feel the same.” His mouth brushes your collarbone, teeth grazing, voice barely holding itself together.

He pulls back just enough to look at you—eyes dark, pupils blown wide, hunger and something softer wrestling in them.

“I missed you,” he adds, quieter now, rolling his hips forward the last inch until he's fully seated inside you, your body already tightening around him. “Missed being right here.”

He pauses like he’s savoring the moment—the way you wrap around him, the way your breath catches, the way your fingers tremble against his skin.

Then his lips ghost your jaw, breath hot with restraint he’s quickly losing.

“And you missed me too.” Not a question. A truth he thinks he owns. His hips draw back a fraction, slow, dragging heat and stretch with him. “Didn’t you?”

He starts slow—one measured thrust that fills you and holds you there, the world narrowed down to the slick, hot press of him inside you. 

Your hands find the back of his neck, then his shoulders, then the curve of his spine, bracing as his hips roll. 

He sets a steady rhythm, not frantic at first, but insistent: in, out, in, out, a tide that matches the shadowed steadiness in his eyes. Each stroke lands with a wet heat that echoes in the quiet house, the sound of flesh on flesh amplified in the hallway, carrying to rooms you’d rather pretend are soundproof.

You make noise—a ragged sound that starts as a hiss and slides into a moan—and he answers with one of his own, guttural and approving. 

His breath is hot against your collarbone, words rough between thrusts. “Damn you,” he growls, not angry but full of a hungry reverence. “You’re so—” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. His hips drive deeper and the way you clamp down around him like a reflex makes him curse under his breath.

He keeps the pace, hands hard on your hips, guiding, claiming. 

The bed creaks; a lamp tinks against the nightstand when the headboard bumps the wall. Your moans ricochet down the hall, a soundtrack to the two of you collapsing into something older than either of you, something that feels like history repeating itself in the most tactile way possible. 

You think of how he didn’t wrap it, and the thought flicks across your mind like a heat-sting and then dissolves when his palm slaps your thigh and the world narrows again to him.

“I’m going to put another baby in you,” he says between a hard thrust and a steady withdraw, voice thick and certain. “I’m going to fuck you until you’re swollen with me, again. I want you full of me. I want to hear them cry and know that’s mine.”

The words land heavy. They should make you recoil. Instead, something hot and feral in your gut answers—an old ache you thought you buried beneath parenting and legal forms and late-night arguments. 

He says it like a promise, like a command, like a prayer he’s already started to live.

“You’re insane,” you breathe, voice raw, one hand clawing at his shoulder, pulling him closer with each return. “You can’t just—”

“You let me.” He snaps his hips in faster, the rhythm building now, small increments that blur into a rising tempo. He’s not gentle, not careful; he’s deeply carnal, like every inch of you is a map he’s memorized and is laying claim to again and again. “You always let me.”

Your breath comes faster, matching the cadence of his movement, and with each hit of his pelvis you feel the pressure building low, a coil tightening until it trembles. 

He keeps talking through it, obscene and possessive, painting futures you didn’t ask him to imagine aloud. “This one will be ours too. Another of mine. Another little piece of what you couldn’t stop keeping.” He huffs a laugh that’s half worship and half warning. 

“I like how you take me. So good for me.” His fingers dig into the meat of your thighs, leaving bruises you’ll forget to notice until tomorrow.

He accelerates then, not violently but with an intent that demands surrender. The slow tide becomes waves. Your hips lift to meet him, needing, answering, urging him harder. 

The bed thumps, the sheets twist under you, and your moans become words that make no sense except for the heat in them—his name, curse-syllables, the sound of someone who’s trying to keep from falling apart.

“I don’t want you to think,” he pants, forehead pressed to your shoulder as he keeps the rhythm relentless. “I want you to feel. I want you to make a mess for me. I want you to come and come and know I’ll still be here when you do.” His voice drops lower, almost a whisper that rides the crests of each thrust: “You know you belong to me when you scream like that.”

Something in you shatters then—a taut thread snaps—and your body folds into it. Heat blooms behind your ribs and spills outward, a bright, burning rush that tightens everything: throat, fingers, legs. 

You come with a sound that’s half animal and half surrender, gripping his shoulders until your knuckles blanch, your legs trying to clamp shut around him even as his hand forces them wider.

He doesn’t stop. He slows for barely a breath, then drives again, deeper and harder, and you feel him shudder inside you, the press of his release as undeniable as the moon. He groans, a long, raw sound as his cum spills into you. His mark and his claim both—a creamy, hot proof that he kept his word and ruined you and filled you the way only he can.

His breaths are uneven as he rides out his rhythm with you, each stroke becoming more languid as the aftershocks ripple through both of you. His forehead is damp with sweat; his hands tremble slightly where they grip your hips. 

He collapses finally, heavy and satisfied, chest heaving, a feral softness softening the edges of his face for a sliver of a breath.

“Perfect,” he murmurs into the crook of your neck, thumb stroking a line down your side like he’s memorizing you again. “You always were perfect.”

Then, quieter, teeth grazing the shell of your ear—

“You’ll always be tethered to me,” he breathes. “And I’m not letting you go. Not any time soon.”

You sleep through the first footstep, a dragged, uneven weight against the floorboards, but the second one clips right under your dreams.

The creak by the hall table, the way glass rattles in its frame, the way the air turns thick and metallic on your tongue.

You wake up halfway, body slow. The house does not feel empty.

There is a wet sound in the dark. Not loud, but close. The scrape of something damp against rough wood, fingers maybe, leaving streaks along the wall. Then—breathing. Too heavy to be your own, too close to be outside. Drawn through flared nostrils, shuddering back out over teeth that never quite sit right behind his lips. You hear the huff of it, short and sharp, like he’s scenting the hallway, scenting you.

“Remmick?” Your voice is rough with sleep, small in the room.

He doesn’t answer at first. You hear the door click shut behind him instead, a deliberate press of metal fitting home. The faint shuffle as he works the lock. A smear of shadow slips along your doorway before you see him properly, blocking the pale spill of moonlight from the hall. Broad shoulders in the frame, hair wild and clumped, chest moving like he just finished running.

“You sleepin’ light tonight, sweetheart.” His voice is frayed, lower than usual, thick with something you taste on the back of your tongue before the scent really hits you. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

He’s lying. He came in wanting you awake.

You push up on your elbows, sheets sliding down your back, sticking a little where sweat cooled while you slept.

Your eyes adjust in pieces: the pale flash of his shirt gone dark and slick across the front, the glint along his forearms where something still-wet catches the moon from the window. Blood has dried rusty at the collar of his shirt, speckled his face in a pattern that looks almost freckled until you realize none of those marks were there a few days ago.

“Remmick.” This time your voice is clearer, irritation cutting through the fog. “You can’t just walk in here.”

He takes a step toward the bed, boots leaving faint, damp prints on the worn floorboards. His jaw works, tongue swiping quick along his lower lip as if he’s chasing a taste he isn’t done with. When he exhales, the air between you smells like iron and sweat and something hot from outside, his breath roughing over you in warm bursts. He huffs once, nostrils flaring like he’s trying to drag you deeper into his lungs.

“You fresh from a kill?”

His gaze flicks down to his shirt, to his hands, then back to your face. There’s a brief shadow of something that might be shame, but it is swallowed quick under a different hunger.

“Needed it,” he says simply. “Got carried away, maybe. Been thinkin’ ‘bout you all week, couldn’t get the taste of last time out my head. Needed somethin’ in between.” His fingers curl, flex, like they remember what they did. “But that didn’t help near enough.”

“Remmick,” you whisper, a warning and a plea both.

He hears both.

“You mad at me?” His knee sinks into the mattress as he braces one hand beside your hip, bending down, his chest hovering over yours.

The scent of him crowds everything else out, heavy and raw, layered over the trace of your perfume that sticks to him even days later. His breath breaks over your cheek in hot, shaky huffs, like he can’t quite calm himself enough to breathe normally. “You gonna send me back out into that dark after I’ve been thinkin’ about you every mile of it?”

“You can’t just come in while I’m asleep.” The protest comes out weak, softened at the edges by the way your body reacts to his nearness. “I… I didn’t tell you you could.”

He dips his head, lips brushing the edge of your jaw. You feel the way he inhales there, a long draw against your skin like he’s trying to drink from your pulse.

“You gave me your threshold,” he murmurs, voice rasping against your throat. “Door knows me now. House knows me. You told me to come in. That don’t just vanish.” His mouth skims higher, toward your ear. “If you don’t want me here, say the word. I’ll go stand in that field and howl ‘til dawn instead.”

You picture him out there, wild-eyed in the rows, hands empty, jaw still stained with someone else’s blood, staring back at the glow of your window as he paces and huffs steam into the night. The thought twists something hot and deep inside you, not fear so much as recognition. You reach up and grip the front of his ruined shirt without meaning to, fingers pressing into the damp fabric at his chest.

He feels the change in you instantly.

“There she is,” he breathes, relief and need tangled together. “Knew you didn’t drag me over that threshold just for one night.”

His mouth finds yours before you can answer, tongue sweeping past your parted lips in one messy, claiming stroke.

He tastes like copper and salt and the faint, ghost-sweet trace of whatever he bit into out there, but underneath it all is him—familiar and something your body knows now.

His kiss is too deep for a first kiss of the night, too desperate; he groans into you like he’s been starving and finally found something he can actually keep, breath puffing warm and uneven against your tongue.

Your fingers fist tighter in his shirt. You pull him down. The sheet tangles around your hips as he shifts his weight, one hand sliding up your thigh, rough thumb dragging the hem of your nightgown higher and higher.

By the time his palm cups the curve of your ass, you’re breathing hard against his mouth, your earlier annoyance drowned under the rush in your veins.

“Remmick,” you gasp, breaking the kiss as his fingers squeeze. “You… you’re filthy.”

“Gonna get you dirty too,” he says, voice gone hoarse with the promise, a little pant sliding between the words. “You’ll forgive me.”

His hands say more than the words do. They are already urging you, turning you, pressing at your hip, your shoulder. He guides you over like he’s done it a hundred times in his head, face-first into the pillows, nightgown rucked up around your waist.

The mattress dips as he follows, chest fitting along your back, weight settling over you in a way that pins you there without making you feel trapped. His booted feet slide further up the bed, one knee digging between your thighs.

“Spread ‘em for me,” he murmurs against your ear, his breath thick. “Let me see what I came all this way for.”

You know you could say no. You know he would pull back if you asked, would force himself upright and drag all that wildness out of your house and into the dark. You don’t say it.

Instead, you shift your knees wider, cheek pressed into the warm indentation your head left in the pillow, hands clutching the sheets.

Air ghosts over the backs of your thighs as he pushes your nightgown fully up, baring you completely. He hisses through his teeth, a raw, appreciative sound that makes your toes curl, then exhales hard at your spine, breath hot and damp as if he can’t stop himself from scenting you again.

“Look at you,” he groans, one hand smoothing up the back of your thigh until his thumb drags along your inner flesh, close to where you’re already starting to grow slick. “Always so pretty for me. I ain’t even touched you proper and you’re already gettin’ wet.”

“Been asleep,” you mumble into the pillow, flustered.

“Think you know what you dream about? I do.” He laughs quietly, breathy, and dips his head to your neck. “I hear it all over your heartbeat.”

His tongue finds your skin there, hot and wet, licking up a lazy stripe from the base of your neck to the hinge of your jaw. You feel the huff of his breath between each lap, like he’s panting against you as he chases your taste. You shiver hard, breath catching. He does it again, longer, teeth scraping lightly this time, a soft growl rumbling in his chest as he tastes salt and heat.

“Remmick,” you whine, hips rolling back involuntarily. “You’re… you’re makin’ a mess of me.”

“I ain’t even started,” he pants, a quick, hungry breath against the shell of your ear.

He fumbles with his pants behind you, cursing under his breath when the buttons don’t come quick enough for the state he’s in.

You can feel him moving, the bump and drag of his knuckles against your ass as he frees himself. When his cock settles heavy against the curve of you, hot and slick at the tip, you whine outright.

He nudges between your thighs, base heavy against the swell of your cheeks, head sliding down until he finds your entrance in one easy, obscene pass. He groans into your neck, breath shuddering in a rough huff that fans over your shoulder.

“Always so ready,” he whispers like a prayer. “You’re doin’ me in, darlin’. I swear you are.”

He pushes in slow at first, just enough to breach you, the thick head stretching you open. Your walls clutch around him, muscle yielding with that sweet ache you missed.

You hear his reaction right in your ear—broken exhale, a helpless whimper that drags low and raw across your nerves, followed by a harsh pant against your neck, his nose pressing in as if he’s trying to bury himself in your scent while his body sinks into yours.

“Oh, you’re tight,” he chokes. “Holdin’ on to me like you don’t wanna let me go.”

You whine, fingers twisting in the sheet. “Don’t want to.”

That does it for him.

His hips press forward in one steady, unstoppable glide until he’s buried, pelvis flush to your ass. The full length of him fills you, hot and heavy, and your breath leaves in a long, gasping moan.

He goes still for one heartbeat, chest crushed to your back, hands gripping your hips so hard you know he’ll leave bruises. His breathing comes in shorter bursts now, little huffs against the back of your neck as he tries to steady himself and fails.

“Jesus,” he groans, words breaking apart. “Jesus, girl. I’m in, I’m in, I’m in—”

He starts to move before he’s even finished saying it. The first thrust is deep and measured, dragging himself almost all the way out just to sink back to the hilt, savoring the catch of your body around him. The second is faster, harder. By the third, he’s lost the pretense of restraint.

He drives into you with his full weight, hips cracking against the round of your ass. Each slam of his pelvis sends his balls smacking into your clit, a wet, heavy slap that makes your thighs quake. The impact jars your whole body, cheek grinding into the pillow with every forward surge, the mattress squeaking in protest.

“Oh—oh, God,” you gasp, voice climbing higher. “Remmick—”

“Yeah?” he pants in your ear, words ragged, hair falling over his forehead to tickle your temple. His breath saws in and out over the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. “That good? Tell me.”

His tongue is on your neck again before you can answer, licking along the bend of it with messy, eager passes between thrusts. He laps at the thin sheen of sweat there, at the fluttering pulse under your skin, panting against you. Every time he pulls back to breathe, he makes some noise—soft whine, desperate little grunt, a cracked groan that sounds like it’s being ripped out of him, all of it spilling right into your ear.

“Talk to me,” he begs, hips pistoning. “Please. Tell me how it feels. I need to hear it.”

“It’s—ah—good,” you manage, voice shaking. “Feels… feels so good, Remmick. You’re so deep.”

“Yeah,” he says, almost disbelieving. “Yeah, I am. You’re takin’ it all, like a good girl, that’s right.” His pace somehow quickens, thrusts hammering into that same spot inside you until pressure coils tight in your belly. “Been thinkin’ ‘bout this all night. All week. Me, right here. You, facin’ down in your sheets, lettin’ me use you.”

The words sink into your spine like teeth. Your toes curl, your cunt milking his cock as the weight of him continues to slap relentlessly against your clit. The combination of deep, unyielding thrusts and that sharp little smack of stimulation drags you closer and closer to the edge with dizzying speed.

His breath grows rougher, more animal than man, hot huffs and low growls spilling against your neck each time he slams into you.

“Don’t… don’t stop,” you whimper, hips pushing back to meet him despite the stretch. “Please, don’t stop.”

He whines, honest and wrecked. “You ask me like that, I never will.”

His chest presses more firmly to your back, his weight pinning you sweetly into the mattress. One of his hands abandons your hip to slide up your side, fingers curving beneath the nightgown to grab your breast, calloused thumb rolling your nipple in time with his thrusts. His teeth scrape your shoulder through the thin fabric, tongue darting out again and again.

“Come for me,” he rasps. “Let me feel you go. I wanna know what you sound like when you fall apart with my cock in you.”

You break on the next few strokes, climax rolling over you sharp and hot. Your entire body seizes around him, walls clamping down so tight he stutters, hips jerking. A cry tears out of you, muffled in the pillow, followed by a stream of broken little sounds as the orgasm pulses through your muscles.

He moans like he’s the one coming, voice splitting on your name. “That’s it, that’s it—oh, God, you’re squeezin’ me, you’re gonna… you’re gonna make me—”

He doesn’t pull out. He shoves in deeper instead, somehow, angle changing just enough that you feel him everywhere. You feel another orgasm threatening just from the way he continues to thrust through the first one, unrelenting. Overstimulation sharpens every sensation until your eyes sting, and his huffing breath at your neck makes it worse, each exhale a hot rush over oversensitive skin.

“Remmick,” you whine, half sob, half plea. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” he pants, hand sliding down from your breast to press on your lower belly, feeling himself move inside you. “I know you can. You’re takin’ it, look at that. Gonna give me another, aren’t you? Gonna let me fuck you ‘til you forget what you were mad about?”

He’s babbling now, words spilling out between grunts as his rhythm turns almost frantic. His mouth is back at your neck, sucking over the frantic flutter as he groans against the place your pulse races for him.

“You’re mine,” he groans. “You hear me? You let me in, that makes you mine. My bed, my girl, my sweet little body shakin’ under me. Beggin’ for me not to stop while you tell yourself you oughta be mad.”

You come again, hard, with a sob that tears through the air. This one is rougher, sharper, your limbs trembling as release crashes down a second time. Your vision goes white at the edges. Your cunt spasms wildly around him, and he loses whatever fragile grip he had left.

“Oh, fuck—oh, I’m there, I’m there,” he gasps against your skin, voice breaking into a hoarse, animal sound. “Gonna come. Gonna fill you up, you want that? Say you want it. Please—please—”

“Yes,” you choke, barely more than a breath. “Want it—want you—”

He slams in deep and stays there, cock throbbing inside you as his release hits. He cries out, loud and unrestrained, voice breaking on a sound that edges toward a growl. Heat floods you in heavy pulses, thick and searing, filling every place you’re clenching around him.

His hips jerk through it, small, helpless thrusts that grind his balls against your oversensitive clit, drawing out the last shivers of your orgasm while his spills into you. Each pulse drags a rough, shuddering breath out of him, his mouth open against your neck as he moans through the aftershocks.

He pants into your neck, body shaking, tongue darting out once more to taste your damp skin. “Oh, God. Oh, God, I… I got you all messy now,” he stammers, half-laugh, half-moan. “Leakin’ all over your bed.”

You feel it, slow and filthy, his spend slipping past where you’re still wrapped around him, sliding down the backs of your thighs. Your muscles flutter, exhausted, but he’s still hard inside you, still thick and heavy and present, each tiny twitch making you whine.

“Remmick,” you murmur, breathless, a little dazed. “You came in without askin’.”

He huffs a laugh against your skin, breath puffing warm over the bite of his earlier kisses. “You gonna hold that over me long?” He shifts his weight, cock twitching, and you gasp again at the overstimulated pull. “Or you gonna let me make it up to you?”

You know what he means. His body gives it away—the way his hips give a tiny, testing roll, the way his cock refuses to soften, the way his hand on your belly tightens like he’s already bracing for another round. His breath is still rough and eager at your neck, little animal huffs smoothing into something steadier but no less hungry.

You shiver exhausted and aching and full, and still your answer comes easy.

“Make it up to me,” you whisper, cheek pressed against the pillow.

He groans, raw and grateful, teeth grazing your neck before his tongue soothes the sting, and his breath fans warm over your skin as he pulls back just enough to start moving again.

Now he thrusts into you with frantic rhythm, fucking you so deep your stomach flutters with every sharp push of his hips. His hand presses down on your lower belly to feel himself inside you, thick and swollen, and he groans at the way you squeeze around him, a rough, broken sound that vibrates into your shoulder.

His teeth scrape along your throat as he licks sweat from your skin, drool dripping onto your collarbone as he ruts harder, losing whatever thin restraint he arrived with.

Your pussy is soaked, cream smearing across his length and dripping down your ass, slicking the floor beneath your bodies. He moans louder every time the mess gets wetter, hips snapping faster, balls slapping against you with low, rhythmic thuds that mix with the slap of skin and the wet sounds of your bodies grinding together.

He growls your name against your throat, voice raspy from disuse, and tells you you’re warm, soft, open for him. His fingers bruise your hips as he drags you back onto him, cock battering deep enough that your legs tremble uncontrollably.

You feel the stretch, the ache, the desperate need in his body as he fucks like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he slows down. He pants into your ear, breath shaking, hips grinding deep as your walls clench around him, milking him, pulling him deeper.

When he comes, he shoves you down against the floor and holds you there with his whole weight, cock buried to the hilt as thick heat floods you in heavy, pulsing waves.

He growls through every throb of release, hips jerking helplessly, cum spilling so much it leaks around the base of him and slides down your ass onto the hardwood. He stays inside you long after the pulses fade, chest heaving, lips pressed to your neck as he breathes you in like scent alone keeps him alive.

He fed on your scraps. He guarded your land. And now he fucks you like claiming your body is a right he earned in blood and hunger.

The porch sits right on the edge of it, a little island of yellow lantern light with you cross-legged in your chair, enamel bowl in your lap, fingers slick with bean juice. Crickets grind away in the ditch, frogs answer from somewhere near the pond, and the heat that pressed on your skin all day finally lets go a little, turning soft and damp and heavy instead of mean.

Your daddy, Joe, stands out by the road with a cigarette, just that small orange coal drifting up and down whenever he draws on it.

He’s mostly shadow, hat brim pulled low, shoulders a dark cutout against the pale strip of dirt lane. The smoke hangs around him in thin gray strands, catching the lantern glow before the breeze worries it apart.

The wagon makes itself known before you see it.  A tired rattle carrying over the fields long and low, iron and wood complaining in a way that could belong to any old rig on any old night. 

The mule steps out of the dark first, ears flicking, hooves whispering in the dust, harness creaking, then the wagon-bed, then the man riding it, the whole shape of him hunched against the evening like the road’s been sitting on his back.

He climbs down slow, not careless, one boot testing the ground, then the other. He isn’t tall; not one of those long, scarecrow boys you see come through town sometimes. He’s put together closer to the earth than that, thick through the shoulders and arms, weight settled in the meat of him instead of stretched out. 

Shirt pulls across his chest where the fabric has been asked to hold too much too often, sleeves rolled to his forearms, muscle and old work written in the dust and veins there. Suspenders run straight over his torso, holding everything decent, but there’s something loose under the neatness, a restless set to the way he carries himself, like he’s got more energy than his frame knows what to do with.

His hat sits low enough to shade most of his face until he steps up nearer and the porch light reaches for him.

“Evenin’, Sir,” he says, voice a slow scrape, low and worn, like it’s been dragged over gravel and cigarettes for years. 

The vowels don’t belong to your county, not exactly, but he leans into them like he’s been practicing, trying to make them fit the dirt under his boots.

“Evenin’,” Joe, flicks ash toward the ditch without turning. “You Remmick?”

“Yes, sir.”

He takes off his hat then, presses it to his chest in a gesture that seems to be humble, and in that little bow you see the line of him clear. 

Hair dark and close-cropped, stubborn where it’s tried to wave up and been tamed with water and a hand. Jaw rough with stubble that looks more forgotten than stylish. 

There’s a hardness around his mouth, something that could tilt into a grin or a snarl with not much provocation either way.

When he straightens and lifts his eyes, they cut toward the porch, and you feel it right away when they land on you, as sure as if somebody laid a hand on your bare ankle.

A limp green bean hangs between your fingers, ends torn and wet.

His gaze drifts, following your calves where your skirt’s ridden up, running along the slope of your shins and the span of your knees pressed together, sliding up the line of your apron and the thin open V between your collar buttons where the night air pushes in against your skin. 

He looks like he’s reading you, not just seeing you, taking his time over every line.

You go still, sharp-aware of every place your dress touches your body and every place it doesn’t.

The bean pieces drop into the bowl as you lower your eyes to the boards. The porch wood is dark and warped from years of feet, knot-holes winking like little eyes in the dim.

You fix on those, on the small wet snaps and soft taps of beans piling against enamel. Anything that is not the feeling of a stranger’s stare walking up and down you like a man checking fence.

“Baby,” your father says, voice flat, cigarette smoke curling out on the word. “Say evenin’.”

You wipe your hands on your apron and stand, bare feet quiet on the boards. “Evenin’,” you say, polite as sunday, letting the rest of what you feel sink down where it won’t show on your face.

Remmick smiles like he hears it anyway. It isn’t wide or warm. Just a slow tug at one corner of his mouth, a small, crooked tilt that never quite reaches his eyes.

“Evenin’, miss,” he answers, and there’s a drag in that word miss, the s held just long enough to make it catch.

Miss, when he could have asked for your name, when any decent man might have. Your father hasn’t offered it yet, so you keep it closed up in your mouth.

“Girl oughta be in bed this hour,” Joe mutters, eyes on the yard, not on you. “Ain’t no call for her to be sittin’ out like some boy on watch. Night’s for men workin’, not for women gawkin’.”

The words land on your shoulders like an old coat, familiar weight, old smell.  You bite down on what you want to say and feel it burn on the way down.

“I’m finishin’ the beans,” you tell him instead, hands tightening on the bowl till the rim bites into your palms. You don’t bother trying to explain that the dark sits easier on your skin than the hard white noon does, that the night gives you a little space to stretch.

You can feel Remmick watching you still, not with that sloppy hunger you’ve seen from boys in town, all elbows and gawking.

This is like he’s comparing what he sees to something he’s held in his head a long time. 

“Don’t reckon there’s any harm in her gettin’ some air, Sir,” he says after a moment, pitched low, as if he’s offering reason and not meddling. “So long as she stays where you can see her.” He tips his head, and his eyes make another lazy path over you, unashamed. “World’s rough for a girl on her own.”

Your daddy snorts, jaw tightening just enough for you to notice. “You just worry ‘bout them fields, son. I didn’t hire you to advise on my girl.”

The almost-smile on Remmick’s mouth doesn’t quite leave. “Yes, sir,” he says. “I’ll give all my attention to what you’re payin’ me for.”

He keeps his words aimed at your father, but his gaze is not that obedient. It flicks back to you when he says attention, and there’s weight in it, promise, something that makes your skin prickle fine all over. Something in you bristles right back, lifts its head like a barn cat whose tail’s been stepped on.

You draw a breath and set the bowl against your hip. “Where you want him sleepin’?” you ask your father, eyes fixed out over the yard so you don’t have to meet either man’s stare straight on.

“In the old place.” Joe jerks his chin toward the smaller farmhouse slumped beyond the well—a squat little shape where the lamplight doesn’t reach, half-eaten by shadow. “Closer to the barn. Got a bed and a stove. Man don’t need more than that.”

Remmick turns to look at it, and the lantern light catches his eyes in a strange way, making them flash for an instant like there’s something slick behind them.

The little house sits there like it’s been waiting, windows dark, door shut up tight, roofline sagged just enough to look suspicious.

“That’ll do,” he says. “I’m a night sort myself. Easier workin’ when the sun’s gone and the air ain’t tryin’ to boil you clear through. Less trouble all around.”

He says it easy, like it’s about sweat and shade and nothing else, but you hear the way he shapes night in his mouth, the soft way he lets it roll off his tongue, and something in your belly curls up smaller and sharper.

“Heard you don’t care much for daylight,” Joe says, watching him out of the corner of his eye.

Remmick’s jaw shifts, a muscle ticking like it wants to answer on its own. He glances at you, quick and bright, before he looks down at his boots. “Sun don’t care much for me,” he finally drawls. “Burns me to char if I let it. Always been that way. Doctor said I got delicate skin.”

The word sits wrong in your ear as soon as it’s out, delicate, dangling over this stocky man with forearms roped up in tendon and dirt ground into his knuckles, hands that look like they were made to break things, not handle them gentle. 

It slips out of you before you can catch it, quiet and skeptical. “Delicate,” you repeat, eyes finding his without meaning to.

He catches that and settles into it like a cat into a warm spot. “You don’t think so, miss?” he asks, voice a touch softer now, gaze steady and unblinking.

You ought to let it pass. Ought to dip your head and let the men talk over you, let delicate lie between them like some joke you weren’t meant to get. 

Instead you hold his stare in the lantern glow, take your time looking back the same way he did to you, tracing the faint hollows under his eyes, the line of his nose, the mouth that looks used to biting down on words and maybe on other things too.

“No, sir,” you say finally, after a beat that stretches long. “You don’t look delicate at all.”

Something shifts behind his eyes at that, something pleased and sharp that makes your heart knock once, hard, against your ribs. The corner of his mouth tugs just a shade higher.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to live up to what you see,” he murmurs. “Would be a shame to disappoint you.”

Your daddy grinds his cigarette out under his heel, done with this line of talk. “You can unload what you got, then I’ll show you the place,” he says. “Got work waiting for nobody. You ain’t too tired from sittin’ on a wagon all day, are you?”

Remmick rolls one shoulder, hand rubbing the back of his neck. The stretch shifts his shirt over his back, pulls the fabric across solid muscle there.

You feel your breath snag for half a second and hate that it does.

“Wagon ain’t heavy,” he says. “I’ll get settled quick, then you can put me to whatever needs doin’.”

Joe nods and starts toward the dim outline of that little house, his boots crunching through the loose gravel near the well. The lantern light falls behind him with each step until he’s just another moving patch of dark.

Remmick lingers at the foot of the porch. He settles his hat back on his head, brim bringing his eyes into shadow again, but you can still feel them.

“You finish them beans,” he tells you, voice gone softer, aimed up at you like a secret. “Man works better with a full belly.”

There’s nothing in the words you could point to and call wrong, nothing on the surface you could carry to your father and hold up like proof.

Still, the way his gaze drifts down and back up as he says them leaves something slick and uneasy under your ribs. Heat crawls up your neck, hot in a way that has nothing to do with the air.

“I’ll see to what’s mine,” you say, gripping the bowl till your fingers ache. “Same as you should see to yours.”

His laugh is low, a rough little sound that lives in his chest and doesn’t quite make it to his teeth. He dips his head a fraction, like you’ve handed him a dare instead of brushing him off. “Oh, I intend to,” he replies. “You can count on it.”

Then he turns and walks after your father, stride easy, body moving with a loose sort of purpose. His shadow stretches out along the yard behind him, tossed strange and long by the lantern, then swallowed up as he and Joe move past the well. 

The small farmhouse waits ahead, black windows staring, door a darker cut in the wall. It looks, for one breath, like it’s swallowing the two men whole.

You stand there with the lantern hissing softly at your elbow and watch the dark take them. 

When the yard settles again, when their footsteps fade and the crickets creep back up to full volume, the space between the barn and the house does not feel the same. It’s as if something else has stepped into it and sat down, something you cannot see but can sense just the same, like a pressure change before a storm.

You sit again, bowl back in your lap, fingers finding another handful of beans by habit alone. The wet snap of them breaking sounds too loud in the hush, echoing in the hollow boards under your feet. 

Every few seconds, your eyes drag toward that low silhouette out past the well, toward the little house that is not empty anymore.

You tell yourself you’re only minding where your father put a stranger. 

The first night after he arrives, he walks the fence line while you wash dishes.

You hear his boots dragging through the loose gravel near the yard, then the softer sound of steps in the grass. 

The screen door hangs open to let the air move, lantern burning low over the sink. Your arms are wet to the elbow, suds creeping up your forearms as you scrub at a pan that’s older than you are. 

Out past your own reflection in the dark window, you catch a small shape of motion—the swing of a lantern out near the barn, then the shorter, solid outline of him moving along the fence, checking posts, rattling wire. 

He doesn’t look up at the house that you can tell, doesn’t lift the light toward you, just keeps on with that steady pace, head bent. 

Still, your shoulders hunch like you’ve been caught at something you haven’t done. The glass fogs a little with the breath you don’t remember letting out.

You tell yourself it’s good your father found a man willing to walk the property at night. That’s what you tell yourself as you rinse plates and stack them, as the little yellow circle of his lantern slides back and forth along the edge of your sight.

The second night you have to bring him his supper, because your father ‘forgets.’

It’s late by the time the last of the pots are scraped and put away, your back aching from standing, hair pasted to your neck. Joe leans back in his chair, radio humming low on the table, and says without looking up, “That boy eat?”

You still your hands on the dishrag. “Ain’t seen him at the table.”

“Damn it,” He grumbles, more at himself than you. “Told him come in if he heard me holler and I ain’t never thought to holler. Fix him a plate and take it down. Man don’t work right hungry.”

You swallow whatever you were about to say about whose job it is to feed farmhands, scrape together a plate from what’s left—two biscuits gone hard at the edges, a ladle of beans, a piece of ham with more bone than meat—and cover it with a clean cloth. 

The air outside hits your damp skin and feels cooler than it ought to. The night smells like dirt and hay and whatever’s blooming along the ditch. 

The smaller farmhouse sits out near the barn with a faint thread of light leaking around the edges of its curtain, not bright enough to spill onto the yard. You walk out there, skirt brushing your ankles, plate balanced careful in both hands.

You knock, knuckles soft on the wood. For a second there’s nothing, then the faint scrape of a chair, the hush of someone crossing a small room. 

The door opens only halfway. He fills the gap, shoulder and chest just there, heat and sweat.

“Evenin’,” he says, voice a little rough, like he hasn’t used it since sundown. “You lost?”

You hold the plate out, not stepping any closer than you have to. “Daddy forgot to call you in. Told me to bring your supper.”

His eyes go to your hands first, to the way your fingers wrap the rim of the plate, then to the food, then back up. 

He doesn’t reach right away; he lets the moment stretch, his gaze traveling from your wrists up your arms, lingering on the damp on your skin, on the few stray strands that have worked loose at your temple and stuck there. 

“That’s mighty kind,” he says at last, taking the plate so slow his fingers brush yours. 

They’re not as rough as you expected, just warm and solid, the pads of them catching against your knuckles. “Hope he didn’t drag you out here from your bed on account of me.”

“I wasn’t in bed,” you answer, because lying feels worse than telling him anything true. “Kitchen don’t clean itself.”

He makes a small noise at that, somewhere between agreement and amusement. “No, ma’am. World’d fall apart if it weren’t for everything women do men don’t think about. Least he can do is call me in for a plate now and then instead of sending you.”

You don’t like that it sounds almost gentle, that there’s no clear edge you can grab onto and call wrong.

You nod once and start to turn away, wanting the room behind that door to stay his business and not have to wonder what’s in it.

“Miss?” he says, and you stop even though you don’t want to. “You tell your daddy I’m obliged. To him and to you.”

You keep your eyes on the yard. “He’ll hear you tomorrow.”

“Maybe I like the thought of you carryin’ my thanks,” he says, voice dipping lower.

You don’t answer to that. You walk back toward the big house with your empty hands and you feel his eyes between your shoulder blades all the way to the porch steps.

Another night you pass him by accident at the pump.

You come around the corner of the house with a pail in each hand, too focused on not sloshing well water onto your skirt to notice him right off. 

He’s just there suddenly in the lantern’s edge, sleeves rolled high, suspenders hanging loose at his hips, hair damp with sweat or water; you can’t tell which. 

The pump squeaks once as he lets go of the handle. Moonlight catches the wet on his forearms, the curve of muscle there, the scar that runs pale along his left wrist like a rope burn that never faded.

You stop short, pails swinging. “Didn’t know you were usin’ it,” you say. “I’ll wait.”

He tips his head, that same little crooked half-smile thinking about showing up. “You scared I’m gonna dirty the water, standin’ too near?” His accent is thicker tonight, as if he’s tired of smoothing them for everybody’s sake.

“I ain’t scared,” you say. Your voice comes out flatter than you mean it to, which only makes him watch you harder. “Just got taught not to crowd folk when they’re at work.”

“And here I thought you were just bein’ polite,” he murmurs. He steps back from the pump, gives you room to pass. “Go on, then. Wouldn’t do to have Mr. Joe’s girl haulin’ from the ditch ‘cause I hogged the handle.”

You move past him, the damp of his skin ghosting near your elbow, the smell of iron and sweat and something like tobacco clinging to him. You set a pail under the spout and work the handle, arm moving in a practiced rhythm.

The pump groans, then warm water shudders up from below, splashing cold over your fingers when you misjudge the first rush.

His gaze sits on your hands again, on the bare forearms you didn’t bother covering because it’s night and there’s no sun to scold you. “You do all that yourself?” he asks. “Water, cookin’, everything inside?”

“Me and Mama,” you say, though your mother’s cough has been bad enough lately you both know it’s more you than her. “Daddy’s got the fields.”

“And now he’s got me,” Remmick says, watching your arm work. “Guess I’m supposed to make life easier ‘round here.”

“Then do it,” you answer, a little sharper than you meant. The second pail fills and you swing it away, careful not to splash your toes. “Don’t stand around talkin’ about it.”

For a heartbeat there’s quiet. Then he laughs, low and delighted. “There she is,” he says under his breath, as if he’s been waiting on that bite. 

When you glance over, he isn’t offended. He looks satisfied, eyes bright, lean mouth curled up. “You keep snappin’ at me like that, miss, I might start thinkin’ you’re sweet on me.”

“Or you might start thinkin’ wrong,” you shoot back, lifting both buckets. The weight drags at your shoulders, but you’d sooner drop in the yard than ask him to carry them.

He doesn't offer, just watches you walk away, and you can feel that as keenly as the pull of the water on your arms.

There are other little moments like that, small as splinters. Like, when you cross paths in the barn one evening when you go to check on a cow that lowed funny through your window. 

He’s already there when you reach the threshold, one hand on the animal’s neck, murmuring something soft and nonsense in her ear. 

She calms under his touch, sides heaving slow, eyes rolling less. The lantern hangs from a nail overhead, throwing golden light over the dust in the air, over his shoulders, over the cow’s hide. 

He glances up when he senses you, and for a blink his irises flash almost too light, as if the lantern’s in them and not above him. Then they’re ordinary again, a color you could name if you got close enough, and he’s saying, “She just didn’t like the thunder,” even though the sky’s been clear all day.

You lean on the stall rail, arms folded, watching his hand move in slow strokes along the cow’s neck. 

The steadiness of him with animals makes something twist in you, something like reluctant respect and something like fear, because if he can soothe two thousand pounds of nervous flesh with a voice and a touch, what could he do to yours if he ever decided to try.

On another night you fix a tear in one of his work shirts at the kitchen table because your father plops it there and says, “Stupid fool’s gonna walk around with his arm hangin’ out if someone don’t thread a needle.” 

You mutter that Remmick has two hands and surely they can manage a seam, but you fetch your sewing basket anyway. 

The fabric smells faintly of him, sweat and field and that odd metallic thread that’s been nagging at the back of your senses since he arrived. 

You push the needle through worn cotton and wonder how a man gets a rip that clean across the bicep, by snagging it on barbed wire or nail head, without a single bloodstain around the torn edge.

He shows up to collect it before you take it down yourself. Don’t know how he knows it’s ready, but he’s at the door not long after you knot the last stitch, hat in hand like he’s paying a call.

Your father’s gone out back to piss or smoke or both, your mother’s dozing in her chair, so it’s just you in the quiet kitchen with your fingers still sore from the work.

“You didn’t have to,” he says when you hand the folded shirt over. “Could’ve walked around indecent a day or two, see if anyone complained.”

“My father would,” you say. “Don’t like loose things on his land.”

He takes the shirt with his good arm, the other rolling his shoulder like it aches. The lantern throws his eyes into little warm coins. 

Some nights you only see him from a distance.

Through your bedroom window when you should be sleeping, you catch the sway of his lantern again and again, marking his rounds. In the moonlight, his stride is compact, efficient, not showy. 

He moves like someone who’s spent a long time walking alone, someone who knows better than to waste steps. He never seems to stumble, never misjudges a rut or loose stone.

You watch him slip between the barn and the smaller house, in and out of shadow, and you tell yourself you’re just making sure he’s where he should be, that you are only doing what your father would want.

You notice, too, the nights when the light in his window stays on longer than makes sense. Long after your father’s snores have settled and your mama’s breath has evened into sleep, after you’ve lain there staring at the ceiling until your eyes burn, that far-off square of yellow will still be sitting out there at the edge of your sight. 

Sometimes you think you see the shadow of him cross it, head bowed, shoulders hunched, moving back and forth in a tight little path, but when you squint it’s gone.

Once, you step out onto the porch for air and catch him already looking.

You don’t see him at first; you just feel that prickling awareness that has become his signature in your body. 

Then your eyes find him where he’s paused near the barn, one hand on the fence post, the other hanging loose at his side. No lantern this time, just moonlight on his face, flattening all the hard parts, making his eyes look too bright and his mouth too soft. 

He doesn’t look away when you notice him. He doesn’t call out or tip his hat in greeting. He just stands there in the dark, steady as another post, and lets you decide whether to step back inside or stay where the night can see both of you.

You stay a breath longer than you should, chest tight, heartbeat stepping up loud between your ears. Then you reach for the door, fingers curling around splintered wood, and it feels, for a strange second, like you’re the one retreating and he’s the one who lives here.

By the time a week has worked itself around, his presence has braided into the place.

The horse knows him, ears twitching toward his voice before dawn. The dogs have quit barking when his boots scrape the yard at dusk. Your father has stopped watching him like he might bolt and started calling for him when something heavy needs lifting. 

The small farmhouse doesn’t look so empty now; you’ve grown used to the idea of a man’s breath in there, a man’s boots by the door, a man’s shadow on the curtain.

You’re the one still wary, nerves still stretched thin every time you feel his eyes, even if nobody else in the house seems to notice how often that is. 

You catch him in little reflections—a sliver of him in the pump’s metal, in the window glass, in any surface that throws back light—and he’s always looking your way. 

Not always outright, not always rude, but always aware of you. Always clocking where you are in the yard, whether your sleeves are rolled, whether your hem rides high on your calf or hangs proper at your ankle.

You tell yourself it’s just because there’s not much else worth watching out here.

You don’t quite believe it.

Clouds bruise up toward the horizon, swallowing the moon a few bites at a time. You’re at the kitchen table with mending in your lap when you hear it—one sharp, panicked bawl from the barn that cuts straight through the hum of crickets and the low murmur of your father’s radio.

You’re on your feet before you think about it, thimble still shoved on your finger, needle stuck tight in a loop of thread. 

Your father says something about “damned horses spookin’ at their own shadows” but doesn’t move from his chair.

His back’s been bad all day; he’s been walking like every step hurts. Mama’s dozing, her breath a thin whistle. 

So you grab the lantern from its hook, light blooming up in a hot bloom that stings your eyes, and head out barefoot into the yard.

The grass is cool against your soles, damp from the thick air. The little farmhouse where Remmick sleeps has a strip of light at the curtain-bottom, but you don’t see him outside. The barn looms ahead, big and dark, door standing half-open like a mouth. Another low, fretful sound comes from inside, not as sharp as the first but enough to hurry you along.

“Easy now,” you call as you slip in, lantern held high. “Hush yourself, girl, I’m comin’.”

The barn swallows the outside sounds. In here it’s hay and dust and the soft shuffling of hooves, the rustle of wings up in the rafters. 

Your mare stamps once, snorting, eyes rolling white when the lantern light hits her. You cross the packed dirt quick, set the lantern on a hook so you’ve got both hands, and reach for her halter, stroking her long face.

“It’s just the weather actin’ strange,” you murmur, words more for yourself than her. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna hurt you.”

She settles a little under your voice, but her muscles are still tight, skin twitching under your palm.

You’re so focused on her that you don’t hear him until he’s already in the doorway.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

His voice slides through the gloom, low and rough. 

You jerk a little, head snapping toward the barn entrance. He’s just inside the threshold, lantern in his hand turned down low, throwing more shadow than light. Sleeves rolled, suspenders hooked proper tonight, hair damp at the temples like he’s just come in from a hard walk. 

“Lord,” you mutter, heart kicking hard. “You move too quiet. Thought you were a ghost.”

He lets out a short huff of a laugh. “Not yet.” The lantern swings by his knee as he steps inside, setting the hay shadows dancing. “Heard her fussin’. Figured I’d check before she took it into her head to kick through a stall.”

“She just spooked,” you say. “Storm brewin’ somewhere.”

He comes up nearer, close enough that you can see the sheen of sweat along his throat, the bead of something darker at the cuff of his shirt where it brushes his wrist. 

His gaze does a quick, automatic sweep of the stall—manger, bucket, the mare’s flanks, your hand on her halter—and then it hooks on you, like it always does, like there’s a string between his eyes and your skin.

“You shouldn’t come out here by yourself at night,” he says, quiet, not rebuking exactly but not gentle either. “Barn full of spooked stock, any one of ’em could knock you right off your feet. Ain’t proper for a girl to be runnin’ around after dark alone.”

“That girl’s got ears,” you answer, voice tight, stroking the mare’s neck to hide your own nerves. “She can hear you fussin’ without talkin’ over her head.”

His mouth does that little tilt again, amused. “Reckon she can,” he says. “Reckon she don’t listen half as good as she ought, neither.”

You’re just shaping a sharp reply when it happens.

Something cracks outside, a dry, sharp sound—maybe a limb breaking, maybe a board settling wrong, maybe thunder grumbling way off where the clouds are thickest. 

It doesn’t matter what it is. The mare flinches hard, shoulder slamming sideways. The stall rail shudders under the hit, and you’re standing too close, lantern throwing crazy shadows as the world jolts.

Your first instinct is to get out of the way. You jump back, skirts swishing, hand flying off the halter. You pivot toward the stall opening and catch—not air, not clear space, but the edge of an old nail head that’s been working itself loose from the post for years.

The sound of fabric tearing is loud as a gunshot in the barn.

It rips from just below your hip down the side of your thigh, a long, rude run that opens your dress like a mouth. 

Cool air hits bare skin where cotton should be.

You gasp, more from the exposure than pain, and slap your hand down, fingers clutching at the split to keep it from gaping wider.

For a heartbeat you stand frozen, lantern light swinging, breath shallow, your leg half-bared through the torn seam.

You don’t have a slip on under this dress, not a proper one. It’s too hot. You’ve got plain cotton drawers and a whole lot of skin, and you know without looking that the tear has gone high, high enough that if you weren’t grabbing it shut he’d be seeing places no man has any business looking at on you.

“You all right?” Remmick’s closer before you register him moving, his boots whispering over packed dirt. His lantern clanks against a beam as he hangs it up. He reaches for you by pure reflex, hands coming to your arms, steadying you where you’ve stumbled.

“I’m fine,” you snap, too quick, humiliation burning your face, neck, chest. “Let go.”

You twist away from his grip, turning your hip, trying to angle the torn side away from him. 

The dress shifts anyway, hem dragging through straw, and there’s a flash of thigh where your fingers don’t quite cover everything. You feel the rush of blood under your skin like you’ve been slapped.

His eyes drop before you can stop them.

It’s an instinct with him just like yours, hungry and automatic. His gaze hits the split, the glimpse of your leg, and sticks. Time slows down around that look. You see it happen, see the way his pupils widen, see the quick, sharp inhale he tries to hide.

“Jesus,” he breathes, almost soundless.

You yank the torn fabric tighter, the motion making the rip strain up higher, edge brushing the curve where your thigh meets your hip. Your whole body feels like a lantern flame, exposed and flickering. “Don’t you look,” you hiss, low and furious. “Turn around.”

One of his hands lifts, like he might actually offer to cover the tear for you, fingers curling as if they want to fit over the place you’re guarding. He stops himself, hand hovering for an awful second near your hip, close enough that you feel the heat of him even through the thin cotton. 

“Ain’t my fault you went tearin’ yourself open on every nail in the county,” he says, tone trying for light and landing somewhere rougher. 

His eyes drag up slow, from your knuckles clenched in the fabric, up the bare strip of thigh he already saw, up the shape of your waist and the heave of your chest. “Maybe you should let me look and make sure you didn’t cut that pretty skin to ribbons.”

The way he says pretty makes your stomach flip and your teeth set.

“I ain’t cut,” you spit. “And I sure as hell don’t need you inspectin’ me.”

He should look ashamed. Though, he doesn’t. There’s color high in his cheeks now, not from heat, not from work. His mouth’s gone a little slack, like he’s holding back words. His gaze keeps sneaking back to the place your hand guards, greedy, any time you aren’t staring right at him.

“If you say so,” he murmurs finally. “Wouldn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

You hear the echo of his earlier lie in that word, delicate, and decide if you stay here another minute you might do something you can’t take back, like slap him or cry or both.

You shift your grip to catch more fabric, bunching the torn side up in your fist so nothing shows. It makes walking harder; you’re hobbling, half-skipping, desperate not to let the skirt fall. “You see to the mare,” you manage, chin up, eyes burning. “I’ll fix my dress.”

He steps back enough to let you pass. As you squeeze by him in the narrow space, your shoulder brushes his chest, your bare calf bumps the hard line of his boot. 

“Careful,” he says, voice quiet, right by your ear. “Would be a shame if the rest of that dress gave up and left you standin’ in nothin’ at all.”

You don’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. You duck your head and hurry out, every step measured so the torn seam doesn’t pull, one hand clamped between your thighs, lantern bumping at your knee. 

The night air on your exposed skin feels wrong, every stray breeze finding its way up under the rip.

You keep your eyes fixed on the glow of the house, on the square of the kitchen window, on anything that is not the barn behind you.

You slam the kitchen door with more force than you mean to, startling your mama awake, mumble something about a nail catching you and make straight for your room. You don’t light your own lamp; you don’t want to see what he saw. You stand there in the dark with your back to the door and your dress torn open under your hand, heart hammering, ears roaring, shame and something hotter and uglier twisting up together in your belly.

Down by the south fence, in the smaller farmhouse, Remmick sits on the edge of his narrow bed with the easy, humming satisfaction of a man who’s been saving something up.

He lit the lamp as soon as he stepped in, not out of any real need for light but because he likes the way it throws shadows, likes the way it paints dim gold over bare wood and gives him something soft to look at while his mind runs back over the evening. 

The room is small and warm from his own body heat, close enough that every breath feels shared with the walls. Old wood, dust, a curl of tobacco from the roll-up he finished outside, and under it all the ghost of you clinging to his clothes—soap and starch and sweat—make a thick little stew in the air.

He shrugged out of his shirt as soon as the door shut, tossing it over the chair without bothering to check if the seam you mended had held. 

The rip in the fabric is nothing next to the rip in your dress that he can’t stop savoring. He works the buttons of his trousers loose without hurry, fingers moving with the contented patience of a man about to sit down to a meal he’s been smelling all day.

He doesn’t try not to think of you. That would be a waste of a perfectly good night.

He leans back against the wall, boots kicked off, pants open at the fly, and lets the picture come as easy as breath. 

You in the barn with your hand clapped between your thighs, dress split wide, that slick little strip of thigh flashing when the cloth slipped. The way your eyes flared when you realized he’d seen, outrage and mortification and something bright under both. The sound of your voice when you told him not to look, like you already knew he was going to anyway.

“Hell,” he mutters, half laughing under his breath as his cock swells heavy against the thin barrier of his briefs. “Ain’t nothin’ on this earth I’d rather think on.”

His palm drifts down over his belly, fingers tracing a slow path to the bulge at his groin. Even that light touch makes him suck in air through his teeth. 

He presses his hand over the outline of himself, feeling the hot, solid weight of his cock straining upward, and a low, pleased sound curls up out of his chest. He palms it once, a lazy roll, enjoying the way it kicks against his fingers like it’s eager too, then he slides his hand inside.

Warm cotton gives way to hot skin. He wraps his fist around the thick base of himself and exhales like he’s been holding that breath since the barn, relief and hunger tangled up in it. His cock sits heavy in his grip, veins standing up, the head already wet where precum has gathered from how long he’s been walking around hard on the memory of you.

“Look at that,” he murmurs, voice low and rough, thumb smearing that slickness over the swollen tip. “Worked up over one little tear. You’d laugh yourself sick if you saw me now, wouldn’t you?”

The thought of you seeing him like this, spread out on his narrow bed with his trousers open and his cock standing full in his hand, only makes him harder. 

He drags his fist down slow, savoring the drag from head to base, then back up again, the friction sharp and sweet all at once. The first few strokes are measured, a man settling into a rhythm he plans to enjoy, not something hurried and guilty he has to choke down.

He lets his head tip back against the wall, eyes slipping shut so he can see you better behind his lids. 

Not the church version, not the good girl with the hem tugged just so and the buttons done up high. 

The barn version. Lantern light sliding over your bare thigh, the tremble in your fingers when you clutched at the rip, that split second when your hand wasn’t fast enough and he got the clean, unearned look he’s been replaying ever since.

“Shit,” he breathes, hand tightening, the slide of skin on skin picking up a little speed. 

He drags his fist down again, slower, getting a feel for every inch, for the way his cock swells harder in his grip with each pass. Arousal slicks his thumb, gathers at the crest of the head, and he spreads it with an easy, greedy little twist, working it around until the slide turns wet and smooth. 

His hips lift into his own hand without much prompting, body eager after nights of walking around with you on his tongue and in his teeth and under his nails.

“Bare leg,” he mutters, watching his hand move now, eyes half-lidded, lashes throwing shadows on his cheeks. “Goin’ about your business like you ain’t got that tucked up under your skirt. Like I ain’t seen it now.”

He remembers exactly how the tear opened, how the cotton gave and the seam surrendered, how your thigh flashed in the jumpy lantern light. 

That first raw glimpse lives in his chest like a hot coal. Skin smooth and soft-looking, the curve of muscle under it, the sweet thickness where it met your hip. 

He remembers your drawers too, plain white cotton clinging to you, riding that line between demure and lewd when the fabric shifted wrong.

His hand moves faster at that, instincts catching up with memory. He curls his fingers a little tighter, pulling from the heavy base up to the slick crown, milking a fresh bead of precum up with each stroke. 

“Bet you went home and stitched that dress up neat as a Sunday virtue,” he says, voice roughened by breath. “Head bowed, lips bit, pretendin’ that leg ain’t still there underneath, smooth as cream and just as soft. Bet you can’t stop thinkin’ about me seein’ it neither.”

He can picture you at your little table, lamp burning, needle in hand, fingers trembling just enough to make the thread snag. Your face hot, your mouth set, your thighs pressed together under the cloth as you sew shame into every stitch. He imagines you tugging that seam tight, that same hand that clutched the torn fabric now working the needle, every pull a memory of his eyes on you.

His free hand slides down his belly, fingers pressing over the flexing muscles there, holding them tight as he fucks up into his own fist. The bed creaks under him, wood complaining, but he doesn’t slow. He spreads his legs wider on the mattress, giving himself more room to move, and the extra slack lets his strokes lengthen, his hips roll, everything turning into a slow rhythm.

“You know what I see when I close my eyes?” he asks the ceiling quietly, dragging his thumb across the slit. “Not that pretty little mouth tellin’ me not to look. I see that hand of yours slip. I see that dress fall open just a little more.”

The picture in his mind sharpens: you, back against a stall post, hand too busy clutching at rough wood to hold your skirts closed, light catching on the full line of your thigh as the rip edges skid higher. 

He imagines the flap of cloth falling aside, full view of your leg from knee to hip, drawers pulled tight over the mound between your thighs, a faint darker patch where heat and sweat have gathered.

His cock throbs in his grip at that. He grits his teeth, pushes his palm down hard, and his hips jerk, chasing the pressure.

“Yeah,” he growls softly. “That’s it. Dress up around your waist, showin’ all that sweet flesh. You holdin’ on to that wood like it’s gonna save you, eyes full of righteous fury while your body’s tellin’ on you.”

His fingers slip lower on the stroke, pausing to cup his balls, rolling them in his palm, feeling the tight, heavy pull there. The sensation punches another sound out of him. He goes back to his cock with renewed urgency, arm working harder now, hand pumping.

He lets himself wander further than any real moment has gone. Lets the memory of that tear turn into something else, something he can taste.

He imagines stepping in close before you can bolt, one hand catching your wrist, the other gathering your torn skirt up and out of his way. Imagines your gasp, that little sharp intake he already knows, your bare thigh hitting his hip as he pins you to the stall. Your panties stretched tight over the soft swell of your cunt, his fingers pushing up against the dampening cloth, feeling how hot you are through the barrier.

“Pretend you don’t want it,” he murmurs, throat rasping. “Try to act like you ain’t gettin’ wet for me while you fuss.”

The words sound vulgar and right in his mouth. His cock swells at it, the head aching now, sensitive with every pass. He squeezes at the top, thumb pressing just under the crown, and his whole body shudders, pleasure rushing up his spine.

“Be a good girl,” he hears himself whispering to the woman in his head, the one pressed to barn wood with her dress in tatters. “Spread ’em for me, let me see what you’re hidin’.”

His hand flies now, finding a quick, dirty rhythm. His breath comes rough, each inhale catching, each exhale spilling out in curses and half-formed praises.

“You’d flush right up to your hairline,” he pants, head rolling against the wall. “Act all offended while your thighs tremble and that pretty thing between ’em throbs. Might even cry a little, wouldn’t you? All sweet and scared and soaked.”

The image of you crying—eyes bright, lashes wet, lips bitten—while your body betrays you sends him right to the edge. His balls draw up tight, cock jumping in his fist, veins standing out under his skin. Heat coils at the base of his spine, that familiar pull gathering everything in, ready to snap.

He spits into his hand for more slick, doesn’t even bother wiping his mouth. The added wetness turns his strokes into something obscene, the sound echoing in the small room. His forearm snaps, muscles burning, chasing the crest bearing down on him.

“Come on then,” he grits. “Show me.”

He imagines hooking a finger under the edge of your drawers and pulling the cotton aside. Imagines the first sight of you bare between your thighs, folds swollen, maybe already glistening, all that heat finally out in the lantern light instead of tucked away in shadows and good manners.

“That’s it,” he rasps, voice breaking, hips jerking harder into his fist. “Knew you’d be pretty there. Knew you’d be soft.”

The wave hits with no ceremony; it slams through him like a mule kick. His whole body locks, stomach clenching, heels digging into the thin mattress, head thumping dully against the wall. 

A groan tears out of him, rough and strangled, half-swallowed behind clenched teeth. His cock jerks in his hand, once, twice, then again, spilling hot over his fingers and across his stomach in thick, pulsing ropes.

He rides it out, hand still working, strokes shortening but not stopping, milking every last drop. Cum coats his knuckles, drips over his fist, slicking his grip until his palm slips on the softening length. 

“Fuck,” he breathes when he can breathe again, voice low and wrecked.

His strokes slow, then ease off altogether, fingers loosening their grip. 

For a moment he just sits there, chest rising and falling, wrist slick and heavy, cock giving a few last, half-hearted twitches in his hand. Sweat cools on his forehead, a bead sliding down along his temple.

He looks down at the mess on his belly, streaks shining in the lamplight, dripping off the side of his hand. There’s no disgust in the way he examines it; if anything, there’s pride. A crooked smile tugs at his mouth, lazy and satisfied.

“Look what you pulled out of me, and you weren’t even here,” he murmurs, more pleased than ashamed. 

He wipes his hand across his stomach, smearing instead of cleaning, fingers drawing idle patterns through the stickiness before he drags them off onto a wadded-up shirt at his side. 

The cotton takes the worst of it, darkening where it soaks, but he doesn’t fuss about the rest. Let it dry on his skin. Let it sit there as a reminder.

He tucks himself back into his briefs, though he doesn’t bother fastening his trousers all the way, leaving the fly gaping a little for air. 

His body feels loose and heavy now, bones sunk deep into the thin mattress. The edge is blunted, that sharp hunger dulled to a warm, low thrum, but it’s not gone.

He leans his head back and lets his eyes drift half-closed, the lamp still burning low. 

In the quiet, he can almost hear you tossing under your own quilt up the rise, feel the echo of your indignation, imagine the way your fingers might trace absent circles over the mended seam of your dress while you tell yourself you hate him.

He runs his tongue along the back of his teeth, savoring that thought as much as any touch.

“Gonna see it torn again,” he says softly, not quite a promise, not quite a threat. 

The lamp flickers, a tiny flame fighting sleep. Outside, crickets scream and something small scurries through the grass. 

The little house settles around him with soft creaks and sighs. He closes his eyes fully at last, the picture of your bare thigh and your furious face smoothing together into one sweet, ripe ache he’s already wondering how soon he can taste again.

Most nights Remmick does his rounds like he’s supposed to, lantern swinging at his knee, gate latches checked, fence wire plucked and listened to like strings. 

But once he knows the map of the place in his bones, once he has counted every post and measured every path, his feet start wandering off the straight lines your daddy would like him to walk. 

He learns where the shadows fall thickest under the pecan tree by the side yard, where the dark under the eaves hides a man from anyone glancing out through lamplight. 

He learns just how far back he can stand and still see into the kitchen window when you’re up late, sleeves rolled, forearms wet to the elbow, talking to your mama while you scrub a pan. 

He learns that when you think everybody’s settled, you lean your hip against the counter and tilt your head a little while you dry your hands, and that little shift of weight does things to your dress you’d never let it do in town.

He finds out you like the back porch at night even more than you like it at dusk. That when the work is done and your parents are loud in their sleep, you slip out with a glass or a cup and sit with your legs stretched, ankles crossed, toes tracing idle circles on the board beneath them. 

From the fence line he can see the shine of lamplight on your bare shins when your hem rides up, can see the loose, tired way you soften back into the chair. 

He watches you tilt your face toward the dark yard like you’re asking it questions it hasn’t answered yet, listens to the little sounds you make—half-sighs, half-hums—that never show up when anyone else is awake. 

He leans on a post with a cigarette hanging from his fingers and looks until he’s had his fill, no hurry in him, nothing but a lazy, steady satisfaction in knowing you have no idea.

He learns your bedroom window, too. Where it sits in relation to the oak, how far up the slope he has to stand to see its square of light. 

The first time he notices the curtain isn’t quite shut, it’s by accident; he’s walking back late, boots slow on the path, when a slice of movement catches his eye. 

Curtain gapping, lamp turned low, you moving around your room in that soft circle people make before bed. 

He stops in the shadow of the tree without even thinking, shoulder to rough bark, the leaves above him murmuring in a wind that doesn’t get down into the yard. 

From there he can see you in fragments—an arm as you reach up to unbutton, a brief glimpse of the side of your neck, the line of your shoulder as fabric slips. 

He tells himself he’ll move when you’re done, that he’s only making sure you got in safe. He stays until the lamp goes out.

The night he sees you in the bath, there’s not even that thin excuse.

It’s late enough the frogs have worn down to a sleepy chorus and the crickets sound drunk. A low, warm fog sits over the fields, pressing scents in close: damp earth, animals settled in their pens, soap drifting thin from the open kitchen window where somebody forgot to latch it right. 

He’s finished his rounds early, all the work of the night sitting behind him instead of ahead, and he feels that restless itch under his skin again, that soft, prowling urge that has nothing to do with fences and everything to do with you.

The house is a square of softer dark against the sky, only a couple of windows holding light. 

He knows which is which now without having to think about it. Kitchen, front room, your parents’ room. The little back room off the side where the big galvanized tub sits when somebody’s been lucky enough to haul enough water. 

Tonight it’s that one glowing gentle behind its thin cotton curtain, lantern hanging somewhere just out of sight, making the fabric look like a pale, breathing thing.

He circles wide, slipping along the edge of the yard where the grass meets the packed dirt of the lane, where the shadows from the trees throw him one more thin cloak. 

The bath window is low, glass fogged a little from steam. The curtain is drawn but not all the way, left a thumb’s width open on one side—enough for light to leak out in a narrow spill. Enough, if a man stepped in close and angled himself just right, to see inside.

He comes up under the sill, breath slow, boots quiet, and lays his palm flat against the siding to steady himself. The boards are cool and rough under his fingers. He leans his shoulder into them and tilts his head, lining his eye up with that careless little gap.

Heat hits him first, a wet, sweet breath rolling out into the night. The lantern inside throws shadows high on the wall, flickering over the curve of the tub, over the length of you in it.

You’re sunk down in the water with your knees bent, one leg drawn up just enough for him to see the shape of it under the surface, the other stretched straighter, foot braced on the far side. 

The water glows around you, gone cloudy with soap, clinging in beads to your skin where it’s out of the tub. 

Your shoulders show above the rim, bare and slick, drops running down in slow trails. 

Steam curls off your chest, off the slopes of your breasts where they rise from the water, soft and heavy, nipples pebbled tight from the heat or the air or both. The lamplight loves them, catching on every curve, laying little gold crowns on each peak.

Your head is tipped back against the rolled towel you’ve wedged between neck and tin, eyes closed, lips parted just enough for breath. One arm drifts along the tub’s edge, fingers dragging lazy patterns through the thin scum of soap there, the other resting across your stomach.

He watches your ribs move with each inhale, the slight swell and fall of your belly under your palm.

You're so unaware of him that it feels almost holy.

He drinks it in like it’s what he came here for all along, no flinch in him, no apology. His gaze roams where it will. 

From the line of your throat down to the hollow between your collarbones, where a small puddle has gathered and overflowed in slow rivulets; down over the slick, shining hills of your breasts, the way they shift just a little with every breath, the way the waterline cuts across them. Lower, to where the curve of your stomach disappears under the opaque water, hinting at more, promising everything.

You shift, lifting one arm to drag the washcloth over your shoulder. The washcloth trails over the round of your shoulder, down the outside of your arm, across the swell of your breast, nipple tightening even more when the rough cloth skims past.

You don’t seem to notice the way your own body responds; you’re too busy chasing day-dirt away, lifting your arm to scrub your neck, tilting your head to give yourself better reach.

From his vantage, he sees everything. His hand tightens on the siding, knuckles going white, that buzzing hunger flaring up bright and hot behind his eyes.

He stares, not making a sound.

You work the cloth down your arm and set it aside, then slide both hands into the water, scooping and pouring over yourself. 

You lift your leg a little, knee rising higher, water spilling off in sheets, showing him the smooth length of your thigh all the way to the place where it vanishes back under the cloudy surface. The muscles there flex as you shift, your toes stretching, calf defined a moment before settling again. 

For a brief second, the water thins enough he can see the shadowed shape where your thighs meet, softened by the haze but there, real and mouth-watering.

His eyes go dark on it, pupils swallowing light. He leans in a fraction more, cheek almost touching the glass, breath fogging the edge of the pane where it meets the frame. 

Every small move you make sends little waves across your body, playing light over the parts he can see, hinting at the parts he can’t.

You sigh, the sound faint through the wall but clear. Your head tips a little to the side, cheek turning toward the window without quite facing it. 

One hand skims over your sternum, following the center line of your body until it disappears under the water. 

Your fingers paddle lazily there for a moment, moving along your own stomach, over the soft give of your lower belly. 

He imagines exactly where they’re drifting, what warm, slick places they’re brushing, even if you’re not thinking of it like that. Your face gives nothing away but relief, a tired little slackness, the expression of someone finally easing aches out of their bones.

“You ain’t got a clue,” he breathes, lips ghosting the words against the flaking clapboard. There’s satisfaction in it, not cruelty. “Bathin’ like Eve in a picture book with the curtain open and the devil on the outside lookin’ in.”

His hand, the one not braced on the wall, shifts restlessly by his side, brushing the front of his trousers. 

He doesn’t touch himself proper, not yet; this is looking time. He wants to be empty enough of the last time to fill up on this one entire. 

His fingers flex anyway, his palm pressing for a moment against the growing bulge, acknowledging it. His cock swells quick and eager, remembering the barn, welcoming the new fodder.

You lean forward to reach the soap, and the angle changes. 

For a breathless few seconds he gets the long line of your back, the way it curves from nape to waist, the hollow above your hips, the dimples that show when you move just so. Water slides off you in glittering trails, trickling down along your spine, pooling in the small of your back before spilling lower. 

As you sit back again, that same water slips over the round of your ass where it breaks the surface, catching the light along the curve, then vanishes under the cloudy bath.

He closes his eyes briefly, just to fix it, then opens them again. He doesn’t want to miss a thing.

You lather your hands, work the soap into your skin, fingers massaging into your shoulders, down along your collarbones. 

The more you scrub, the slipperier you become, water beading and running, foam clinging in thin streaks before melting away. 

When you finally slide your hands under the water, scrubbing lower, your elbows move in a rhythm that makes something low and obscene curl in his gut. 

He knows you’re only washing, just doing what needs doing, but to him it looks like a preview, looks like a rehearsal of things you haven’t yet learned to want.

He watches until the waterline creeps lower on the lantern as the bath cools and you sink down, chasing warmth. Watches as you finally let yourself relax fully, shoulders sliding under, just your face above the surface, eyes closed, breaths slow and even.

Only when you sit forward and reach for the towel hanging on the peg beside the tub does he ease back from the window. 

He knows if he lingers another second, if he sees you stand, water sheeting off every inch as you step out, he’ll plant roots under this sill and never leave. 

There will be other nights, he tells himself.

He peels himself off the wall, body humming, and slips back into the darker yard, breath still measured, strides easy. 

By the time he’s at the edge of the light, he has his lantern in hand again, held low, the picture of a man just passing through on his way to some small piece of work.

He doesn’t feel a lick of shame. What would be the use of it, when the memory of you in that tub is already lodged in his body like a polished stone, something he can roll under his tongue whenever he chooses. 

You’ll go to bed clean and soft, thinking maybe about chores and storms and the seam you mended this morning. 

He’ll go back to his little house with your wet skin behind his eyes and no confusion about what he plans to do with it.

The day’s been long, the kind that starts with a rooster and ends with your back feeling twice your age. 

By the time supper’s put away and the kitchen wiped down, your father’s in his chair with his boots off, socks so full of holes you don’t know why he bothers wearing them, radio mumbling low out of the corner. Your mother’s gone to bed early with a headache, door cracked just enough that you can hear her cough now and again.

You’re halfway through folding the dish towels when you remember.

Mama’s good jar of salve.

You can see it plain in your mind’s eye: small tin with the blue lid, the one she guards like treasure. 

She sent you looking for it just after dinner, when she noticed the raw place on your father’s wrist from rope burn and the darkening bruise on your own hip from where the stall rail caught you days ago. 

You’d gone to fetch more wood for the stove first, meaning to get the salve on your way back, and somehow it slipped right out of your head, chased off by smoke and scolding and the rush to get biscuits off the fire before they burned.

Your father’s already grumbled twice about the barn nail and told you if you’d been paying mind you wouldn’t have torn your dress, wouldn’t have bruises, wouldn’t have needed fussing. 

You can hear him in the morning if he finds that wrist still angry and your hip still tender. Can hear that disappointed click of his tongue.

You’d seen him hand the tin to Remmick earlier in the week, mumbling something about “keep this on hand, boy, in case you tear yourself up,” and watched the new hand tuck it into the pocket of his coat before heading down to the little farmhouse.

“That’s where it is,” you murmur, more to the quiet kitchen than to anyone. A little knot between your brows loosens when you place it. “Down there.”

You glance at the clock. It’s late enough the newsman’s gone off the air, early enough the world hasn’t quite tipped into the dead hours where the dark feels thickest. 

Outside the window, the yard is quiet, the barn a heavy shadow, the smaller house beyond it just a darker square against the field.

“Where’s that boy?” Your father mutters around his cigarette, not really expecting an answer. “Ain’t heard him come in for coffee. He out checkin’ fence or sleepin’ on my dime?”

“Out, I reckon,” you say, folding the last towel with a sharp little snap.

Truth is, you haven’t heard his boots either. You haven’t seen his lantern bob by the window. It’s been a soft, blank stretch of night, no sign of him.

You tell yourself that means he’s at the far end of the pasture or walking the ditch line. Exactly where he’s supposed to be.

“I’ll fetch Mama’s salve,” you add, already untying your apron, tucking it over the back of a chair. “She’ll want it first thing in the mornin’.”

Joe nods, smoke curling out of his nose. “Don’t you linger,” he says, not looking up. “Get what you need and bring your tail back in this house. I don’t want you down there visitin’ like it’s social hour.”

You bite back the urge to say you’d sooner visit the pig pen. “Yes, sir,” is what comes out instead.

The night air catches you on the porch, damp and soft, smelling of cooling dirt and a hint of something sweet blooming out by the fence. 

You step down barefoot, skirts whispering around your calves, the boards’ splinters familiar against your soles. The big house’s light spills just to the bottom of the steps, then gives up, letting the yard roll out into dark.

The little farmhouse sits a ways off, past the well, past the worn track where the wagon turns. All its windows are black. No orange seam under the curtain, no silhouette rising and falling against the glass. The barn is quiet too, doors thrown shut, only a thin line of moon-silver along the roof.

You latch onto the sight of that dark little house like proof. He’s not there. He’s out somewhere with a lantern and a bad attitude. 

You’ll be in and out before he knows you’ve even left your room.

You wrap that thought around yourself like a shawl and start across the yard.

The grass is cool and a little slick with dew under your feet, clinging between your toes. Crickets saw at the edges of things, frogs mutter down in the low spots. The well’s stone lip rises out of the ground like something old and patient; you ghost past it, keeping your eyes on the squat shadow of the farmhouse.

Up close, it looks smaller, somehow meaner. The door is shut, the porch bare save for his boots lined up neat off to one side. You take in that detail with a little flick of relief—boots off means man in bed, not loose in the yard—before another thought slides in behind it: or just inside.

You hesitate only a heartbeat.

The want to not get scolded in the morning, the want to have Mama’s salve where she can lay hands on it, outweighs the whisper of sense telling you this is foolish.

You lay your palm on the door and push.

It gives with a small, tired creak, the smell of the place rolling over you in a warm wave: wood, straw, tobacco, sweat, and that faint metallic thread you’ve started to think of as his alone. There’s a lamp turned low on the table just inside, wick pinched till the flame is barely more than a coal in a glass throat, enough to lay out the shapes of things and nothing more.

“Remmick?” you call, voice barely above a whisper, more habit than hope. When nothing answers—not a word, not a shift of boards—you let your breath out slow and step over the threshold.

The door eases halfway shut behind you, not latched. You don’t bother with it; you don’t plan to be here long enough to worry about what’s open and what isn’t. 

The room is small and spare, just like your daddy said it was. Bed against one wall, blanket rumpled from someone sitting, if not lying. Chair with a coat thrown over the back, shirt draped careless on top. Table with the lamp, a chipped cup, a folded knife. A shelf holding a few tin plates, a jar of coffee, the heel of a loaf.

You move quick but careful, eyes trying not to linger on the smaller things that say a man’s been living here—his belt coiled on the chair seat, his hat hanging from the peg, the empty space on the floor where his boots were. 

You head straight for the coat, remembering your father’s hand dropping the salve tin into its pocket.

You pinch the fabric between your fingers, easing it aside, but the weight you expect to tug at the hem isn’t there. The coat hangs light. You pat the pockets; they’re empty, save for a wadded rag and a stray button.

“Damn,” you breathe, annoyed, under your breath.

Maybe he moved it. Maybe he took it out so the tin wouldn’t fall and get lost when he shrugged the coat on.

You cast your eyes around the room, searching high shelves, low boxes, any place someone might set a small, important thing.

The table catches your attention next. You circle it, gaze skimming over the knife, the cup, the lamp. 

There, near the edge, half in shadow—a squat little tin no bigger than your palm, blue lid dulled with age.

You smile in spite of yourself and reach for it. “Got you,” you murmur, closing your fingers around the cool metal.

You pop the lid just enough to see the salve inside, pale and thick, smelling faintly of herbs and camphor, then press it back down with a soft click. The job’s done. Simple as that.

You turn, already thinking about the path back to the house, about slipping this into Mama’s hand and letting yourself be proud she won’t have to wonder where it is in the morning.

You don’t make it two steps.

There he is.

Standing in the doorway that leads to the small back room, shoulder braced against the frame like he’s been leaning there a while, like he grew right up out of the wood.

He’s shirtless, skin slicked faint with sweat, the rise and fall of his chest slow and easy. Suspenders hang loose against his hips, clipped to his trousers but fallen off his shoulders, framing the cut of his torso in dark lines. 

The lamp’s low light paints him in gold and shadow both, dipping into the hollow between his collarbones, skating over the plane of his stomach, catching on the trail of hair that runs down from his navel into the waistband of his pants. 

His arms cross over his chest, veins standing faint along the backs of his hands where they rest against his biceps.

His feet are bare. His eyes are not gentle.

“Find what you was lookin’ for?” he asks, voice soft, too soft, the scrape of it wrapping around the words like a touch.

Your heart gives one wild jump, slamming up against your ribs hard enough to hurt, then starts to run. 

You hadn’t heard him come in. Hadn’t heard the back door, hadn’t heard the floor protest, hadn’t heard anything but your own little fussing search and the tiny pop of the salve lid.

For a foolish second you think about hiding the tin, tucking it behind your back like a child caught in a pantry. You don’t. There’s nowhere to put it he wouldn’t see, and you refuse to give him the pleasure of watching you scramble.

Instead you hold it up just enough that he can see the blue lid glint in the lamplight. “My mama’s salve,” you say, surprised at how even your voice comes out. “Daddy gave it to you. He forgot where he put it. I came to fetch it.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at the tin for more than a passing glance. His attention stays on you, heavy as a hand between your shoulder blades. He rakes his gaze from your face down to the salve, then lower, slow as a man looking over a field he’s about to plow.

You suddenly know exactly how your dress is sitting—where the fabric pulls across your chest from turning too quick, where the skirt clings to your thighs from the damp in the grass, where your collar gapes just a breath more than it should because you didn’t bother with the top button in the heat. Your skin prickles under each place you picture his eyes touching.

“You always just walk yourself into a man’s house without knockin’?” he asks after a beat, one brow ticking up.

“This ain’t a house,” you reply, chin lifting a shade. “It’s a shack my father stuck you in so you’d be closer to the barn.”

Something like amusement flickers across his mouth. “Still mine for now,” he says. “Door was shut, wasn’t it?”

“You left the lamp on,” you shoot back. “Anybody with decent sense would take that as invitation in case of emergency.”

He uncrosses his arms then, letting them drop to his sides. The motion makes muscles jump in his chest, the lines of his shoulders shifting under skin. “And what’s the emergency, miss?” he asks. “That your mama’s medicine was sittin’ ten yards farther than you like it?”

His tone isn’t mocking. It isn’t kind either. It’s something in between, something testing. Like he’s poking at you with words just to feel where you’re soft.

You swallow, the salve tin suddenly heavy in your hand. “I said why I came,” you answer. “I’ll be goin’ now.”

You move to head toward the front door, the one you came in, but the room is small, and he doesn’t move. One pace brings you close enough to smell him. Another pace would put you near enough to brush him if you misjudged your route.

He shifts his weight to fill the doorway more fully, one hand lifting to rest on the frame to the side of him. It leaves his ribs bare, that patch of hair under his arm catching the lamplight. There’s a faint scar along his flank, pale against the warmth of his skin, old and ugly, like something tore him open once and he lived anyway.

“Seems a shame,” he says, looking at you. “You comin’ all this way just to snatch up a tin and run.”

Your pulse hammers harder. “It ain’t far.”

“For you,” he agrees. “For me it’s a long, lonely walk most nights. I might be grateful for a little company.”

“You got company,” you say, words a little sharper than you intend. “You got every cow, every dog, every fence post on this land. You don’t need me.”

He lets that roll over him like water off a duck’s back. “Maybe I’m tired of talkin’ to things that can’t talk back,” he murmurs. His eyes flick down to the salve again, then to your hand, to your wrist where your pulse beats visible in the hollow. “You tore yourself up any today, or you just borrowin’ this for show?”

“Bruise on my hip,” you admit before you can remind yourself you owe him nothing. The words come out stiff. “Ain’t your concern.”

“Everythin’ that happens on this farm’s my concern when it means workers showin’ up busted in the mornin’,” he says. “You do work, don’t you? Or are you just here to keep the place pretty.”

Heat flashes through you, quick and mean. “You've seen me work,” you say. “You've seen me at that pump, at that stove, out in the yard. Don’t you stand there half-dressed and ask if I do my share.”

His mouth twitches at half-dressed. He doesn’t bother to hide the way his gaze drops, quick, down the front of himself and back up, as if to say he knows exactly how much he’s wearing and how much you’re seeing. It’s deliberate, that small, shameless acknowledgement of his own body.

“Believe me,” he says, voice dropping lower, “I’ve seen you.”

The words land between you, heavy and thick. They mean more than they say. Every peek he’s stolen presses into the space they open up: your bare leg in the barn, your shoulders shining in the bath, your tired posture on the back porch, one strap slipping careless down your arm before you hitched it back up.

You don’t know about most of that. What you do know is enough to make your throat go dry.

“I ain’t supposed to be down here visitin’,” you say, trying to wrestle the conversation back onto some ground that feels steadier. “My father told you that when you got here. Told me too.”

His eyes gleam at the mention of your father, some dark amusement sparking there. “He told me to show you respect,” he says. “And I have. Haven’t laid a hand on you that you didn’t walk too close to yourself.”

Your mind trips over the memory of his fingers catching your arm in the barn, steadying you when your mare spooked. The way his hand hovered near your torn dress, heat just shy of your hip. The way he stood in the yard with his eyes on your mouth and called you miss like it was something he wanted to lick.

You draw yourself up as tall as you can manage in the little room, salve tin tight in your grip, refusing to yield the step he’s trying to take without moving his feet. “Then you’ll move,” you say, voice low but steady. “So I can go on home and keep livin’ my life with all that respect you’re so proud of.”

For a moment, you think he might laugh in your face. His lips part, teeth catching on his bottom lip, eyes glinting.

Instead he just looks at you.

It’s worse than if he’d laughed. He looks like a man deciding how honest he feels like being tonight. Like he’s weighing whether to keep playing at politeness or lay something sharper on the table between you.

The lamplight flickers, shadow jumping along his jaw as he tilts his head. “You walk out that door,” he says finally, nodding toward the porch, “and I’ll let you. I ain’t gonna drag you nowhere you don’t step first.”

Relief and something colder flick through you at the same time. “Good,” you start to say, but he isn’t done.

“But,” he adds, and that one little word lands heavy, “you come walkin’ into my place after dark again, all alone, dressed like that, lookin’ at me like you don’t know whether you wanna slap me or cry on me—well.” His gaze drops to your mouth and back. “That’s you steppin’. And I’ll take it as such.”

Your heart stutters, one hard misstep in its rhythm. “You overestimate yourself,” you snap, even as your fingers twitch on the tin.

He smiles then, slow and wolfish, the expression finally reaching his eyes in a way you haven’t seen yet. 

“We’ll see,” he says.

For a long, tight second, nobody moves. The walls feel closer, the air thicker, the lamplight too intimate. You hear the frogs outside, the creak of the house settling, the little wet sound of your own swallow. His bare chest rises and falls, steady, like he’s got all the time in the world.

Then he steps to the side.

The doorway opens up behind him, a narrow slice of night visible over his bare shoulder. It’s more space than you expected him to yield, less than you’d like.

You duck past, your shoulder nearly brushing his chest, the heat pouring off him making your skin prickle. You feel his eyes on the side of your face, on the line of your throat, on the way you have to hitch your skirt just a little to keep from tripping as you step over the threshold.

“Goodnight, miss,” he says softly, right by your ear, breath warm as it ghosts over your neck. “You be careful now. Dark’s full of things you don’t know about.”

You don’t trust your voice not to shake, so you don’t give him the satisfaction of hearing it. You just walk, bare feet hitting the packed earth hard, fingers biting into the salve tin so tight the metal cuts a little crescent into your palm.

Rough wood presses into your hips, edge digging a little where your nightgown’s ridden up, breath catching in short, shallow pulls because he’s got one big hand flat between your shoulder blades, holding you there, and the other is on your ass, fingers clawed into the thin cotton, bunching it up and away from your thighs. 

The lamp in the corner throws a low, mean light over the kitchen, just enough to show you the knot in the tabletop and the chipped plate someone left on the shelf, just enough to catch the shadow of his arm when it moves.

You came down here hot with it. Anger, mostly. 

At him for looking at you how he does, for crowding doorways and talking low in your ear. At yourself for feeling anything besides disgust when he does it. 

For weeks that feeling has sat under your skin like a burr under a saddle, rubbing everything raw—every brush of his eyes, every sly comment, every late-night glimpse of his lantern out in the yard when you should’ve been sleeping. 

Tonight it tipped over. Tonight you lay in your bed and stared at the ceiling and saw his bare chest in that little house instead, heard his voice saying we’ll see, felt your own body answer in a way that wouldn’t quit.

So you got up after the house went quiet, barefoot on the boards, heart in your throat. 

You didn’t bring a lamp. You told yourself you were just going to tell him off, to say plain that you didn’t want him looking, didn’t want him speaking to you sideways, didn’t want the innuendo and the smirks and the way he made you feel peeled without ever laying a proper hand on you. 

That was the story you wrapped yourself in as you crossed the yard, nightgown clinging to your knees.

He opened the door before you could knock, like he’d been standing right on the other side with his palm on the handle, listening.

You remember the way his eyes moved over you, slow, no shirt, just those loose trousers hanging low on his hips, lamp behind him making his shoulders look broad and his face unreadable. 

You remember his mouth forming your name, quiet and satisfied, like he’d been waiting to say it like this. 

You remember the way all that anger and want surged up together in your chest, wild and tangled, and how you said something too sharp, voice shaking, about him needing to keep his eyes to himself if he wanted to stay on your daddy’s land.

Now here you are with his hand on your back, pressing, holding you down exactly where you came—over his small scarred table in his small farmhouse kitchen—your own fingers gripping the edge in a white-knuckled clutch.

“Thought you weren’t supposed to be down here visitin’,” he drawls above you, breath warm near your ear, words rolling over your spine. “That what you told me?”

You glare at the knot in the wood like it did you personal harm. 

Your face is hot, your body even hotter, a slow, heavy throb deep between your thighs that started halfway across the yard and hasn’t done a thing but grow. 

“I ain’t visitin’,” you say, the words a little muffled by the way he’s got you folded. “I came to talk sense into you.”

His laugh is low and pleased, hand on your back sliding a little, fingers spreading, thumb settling along your spine. He presses down just enough to remind you who’s holding you where you are. 

“Is that what you call it,” he says, “showin’ up in your bed things after dark, sneakin’ through my door with your hands empty and your eyes wide? Talkin’ sense?”

His other hand cups your ass through the thin fabric, palm wide over you, squeezing like he’s testing a piece of fruit at the market. 

The nightgown has twisted up, hem caught high over your hips, leaving the bottom curve of you bare to his touch, only the cotton of your drawers between his fingers and your skin. 

Heat floods that spot, a sharp, shameful pulse that makes your breath catch.

“You been walkin’ around twitchy as a cat for days,” he goes on, hand kneading, thumb digging into the give of your flesh there. “Snappin’ at me, snappin’ at your daddy, gettin’ that look on your face every time you see me like you don’t know whether to spit or spit somethin’ else.”

“Shut up,” you hiss, mortified at how true it feels in your bones. 

You shift your hips, trying to wriggle away from that hand, and all it does is grind you back against his palm, soft cotton dragging over the swell of you, catching on the seam that runs right over the place you’re trying not to think about.

He makes a sound at that, low in his throat, rough and appreciative. “Yeah. There she is,” he says, words coming a little thicker now. “All that fire. You walked your own self down here, girl. Nobody dragged you.”

“I came to tell you to stop,” you manage, though the way your voice climbs at the end takes the bite out of it. His fingers curl, grab a little handful of your ass cheek through the cloth, and you feel the ache spike hotter. “Stop lookin’. Stop talkin’ like that. Stop—stop–”

“Stop makin’ you feel all twisted up?” he supplies, not unkind, just plain. 

His hand on your back softens, spreads, rubbing along your spine like he’s soothing a spooked animal even as the other keeps kneading at you. 

“Stop remindin’ you there’s more to be had in this world than hymns and beans and mendin’?”

You suck a breath in through your teeth. “You ain’t the only man alive,” you snap. “You ain’t special.”

His grip tightens, a hard squeeze that makes you gasp. “No,” he agrees easily. “But I’m the only one you marched down here to cuss out in your bare feet and nightclothes, so I’d say I’m doin’ something right.”

You hate how your body answers that, how something low in you liquefies at the thought of it, at the truth you don’t want to name. You hate the way your thighs press together of their own accord, seeking pressure, seeking relief, even as you hold yourself rigid under his hand.

He feels it. His palm slides down, fingers curling under the heavy curve of you, thumb dragging along the crease where your ass meets the top of your thigh. 

You’re hyper-aware of every inch, every callus on his skin, every place the old wood digs into your hips. When his hand moves inward, fingers bumping close to the center of you, you flinch.

“Don’t—” you start, panic and want knitting together, but the word thins out when his touch presses just a little firmer over the damp cotton there.

“You’re soaked,” he says softly, no mockery in it, just raw, hungry wonder. “Walked through my door mad as sin, all full of pretty speeches, and your cunt’s already cryin’ for somethin’ to hold on to.”

Shame scorches up your neck. “Don’t call it that,” you choke, mortified, the word hitting you deep and low and making everything worse.

He hums, thumb tracing a slow circle over that swell, pressing right where the cloth is clinging. The pressure is perfect, unbearable. 

“What you want me to call it, then?” he asks, voice brushing the shell of your ear now. 

“Your virtue? Your purity? That sweet spot between your legs that ain’t nobody touched?” His thumb moves again, firmer, and your hips jolt against your will. “’Cause I see it all over you, darlin’. You came here wantin’ me to stop, but your body came here wantin’ somethin’ else entirely.”

You shake your head, even as your toes curl, even as your lungs drag in another sharp breath that tastes like him and the lamp smoke and the hot, close air of this little house. 

“You’re—you’re foul,” you say, but it comes out thin, breathy. “You been lookin’ at me, watchin’ me, talkin’ to me like—”

“Like I know what to do with you,” he cuts in, a hint of impatience threading through his heat. “And I do. You think I don’t see what’s eatin’ at you every time you glance down at my hands, or my mouth, or lower?”

His fingers slide along the seam of your drawers, finding the little ridge where cloth meets cloth and pressing right there. 

It sends a jolt through you big enough you can’t muffle the small sound that drops out of your throat. 

His hand on your back pushes down, keeping you bent, letting you grind into that touch without rising off the table.

“Listen here,” he says, voice roughening, patience fraying. “You came. You’re here. You can tell me to stop and I will. I ain’t gonna take what you don’t hand me. But don’t stand there in my house, drippin’ on my floor, and try to lie about what you’re feelin’.”

The room seems to shrink around those words. 

You know he’s right. You also know how far you are from where you were supposed to be, from the girl who said she’d never let a man like him get close, from the girl who swore she’d keep herself intact till some tidy, respectable husband came along with a ring and a house and his hat in his hands.

You think about those men. Faces you’ve seen in church, in town, men who look at you when they think you’re not noticing with a hunger they don’t know what to do with. Men who’d apologize if their fingers brushed your wrist too long.

Then you think about this man, bare-chested behind you, hard and unashamed, his hand pressed between your shoulder blades, the other on you like you’re his to handle. 

You think about his eyes in the barn, on your torn dress. About the words he said in this very room, about stepping. About how you’ve been walking around with your jaw clenched and your thighs pressed together ever since.

“Tell me the truth,” he says, thumb pressing a little harder, his other fingers spread wide over the swell of you. “You want me to let go of you and send you back up that hill with your temper, you say it. I’ll move. You can go pray extra loud come Sunday.”

The lamp crackles softly, a tiny sound in the heavy dark.

“And if I don’t?” you hear yourself ask, voice small but steady. “If I say I don’t want you to move?”

His hand stills on your back for one beat, then both of them tighten—one pressing you down, one grabbing a handful of your ass like he’s staking a claim. A breath leaves him in a long, shuddery exhale that ghosts hot over your neck.

“Then I’m gonna take real good care of what you brought me,” he says, tone gone hoarse and thick, the restraint in it the only thing keeping you from shaking. “Gonna give you somethin’ to think about next time you lay awake in that bed of yours. Gonna fuck you on this table till you don’t remember what you came down here mad about.”

The word fuck lands hard in you, a punch and a promise all at once. 

You grip the edge of the wood like it’s all that’s keeping you upright, though you’re already bent, already braced.

“Say it,” he murmurs, leaning in until his chest brushes your back, bare skin hot where it touches the thin cotton. 

The admission sits in your throat like a hot stone. It feels enormous. It feels like stepping off a ledge.

“I want—” The word catches, but his thumb flicks over you again, sharp and sure, and your hips roll without permission, a little helpless grind that betrays every fight you’ve been waging with yourself. “I want you,” you gasp, shame and relief crashing together. “I want you to—to do somethin’ about it.”

He lets out a sound that’s almost a groan, almost a laugh, almost a curse, his body crowding you tighter, his weight a solid wall of heat at your back. “That’s my girl,” he says, and the possession in it makes your knees wobble, makes that core of you clench hard around nothing.

His hand leaves your back long enough to grab a fistful of your nightgown at the hem, yanking it up in one rough motion that leaves it bunched around your waist. 

Cool air hits your drawers, the bare backs of your thighs, the soft part just under your cheeks, and then his palm is there, skin to skin at last, cupping you hard. 

His fingers dig in, thumbs pressing outward, spreading you slightly, mapping the give.

“You’re shakin’,” he says, sounding pleased. “Ain’t even touched you proper yet.”

“You’re takin’ your time,” you manage, though the words shake too.

He chuckles, low. “First time’s never good when a man rushes,” he answers, matter-of-fact. “And I know you ain’t had nobody in you yet, feelin’ the way you do under my hand.”

Before you can answer, his fingers hook into the waistband of your drawers and tug. The fabric resists for a second, elastic biting into soft flesh, then slides down, dragging over your hips, over the swell of your ass, down the backs of your thighs until they tangle around your knees. 

He leaves them there, trapping your legs just enough you can’t kick or close up, just enough that you’re open and vulnerable and aware of it.

Cool air kisses you everywhere the cloth just left. 

You feel filthy, bare from waist to mid-thigh, bent over his table with your nightgown rucked up, your cunt exposed to the room, to him. It makes your head swim.

Then his hand is back, and there is no room for anything else.

He cups you from behind, fingers sliding through the slick heat of your folds, and you hear a sharp breath hitch out of him. “Oh, hell,” he says, reverent.

You make a broken, helpless sound that doesn’t sound like it belongs to you. 

No one’s ever been there before, not like this, not with fingers spreading you, rubbing through you, middle finger catching on that aching bud you’ve only ever touched in the dark with guilty hands. 

The sensation is lightning-bright, stabbing up your spine.

“Easy,” he murmurs, palm flattening across your low back again, his body curving over yours, caging you. “I got you. Gonna make it good for you before I stretch you around me. Don’t want you too scared to enjoy your first fuck.”

The way he says first fuck, like he’s staking a flag there, like he’s carving his name into it, makes something fierce flicker through you, a strange pride knotting up with the fear. 

You push back against his hand without meaning to, chasing more.

He feels it. “That’s it,” he encourages, fingers pressing deeper between your lips now. “Ask for what you want with that pretty body. Tell me where it hurts.”

“Everywhere,” you pant, honesty ripped out of you on a wave. “It hurts everywhere.”

He laughs, breath hot against your neck, mouth close enough you feel the shape of it. “That ain’t hurt, girl,” he says. “That’s need.” 

His fingers finally find your entrance, slick and hot and clutching, and he presses the pad of one inside, just the tip, testing. Your whole body clenches around that intrusion.

“You relax for me,” he tells you, tone sliding into something commanding. “Breathe.”

You suck in air, lungs burning. 

He slides the finger in a little further, thick and probing, opening you. 

The stretch is sharp, uncomfortable, but there’s an undercurrent of relief in it. He works it in and out slowly, letting you get used to the feel, letting your body learn the shape of him.

“That’s good,” he murmurs when he feels you soften around him, the praise lighting up something small and hungry in your chest. “See? You take my finger just fine. Gonna take my cock too when I’m done with you.”

He adds a second finger before you can brace, and this time the stretch makes you gasp loud, muscles clamping down. It burns, a deep, insistent ache, like you’re being pried open.

“Shh,” he soothes, his index finding that little bundle of nerves again, circling steady, sending sparks to chase the hurt. “I know. I know. We gotta loosen you up some or you’ll split yourself on me.”

The blunt truth of it makes you squeeze your eyes shut, face hot against your forearm. 

You can feel him behind you, solid, his chest glued to your back, his arm moving between your legs. When you manage to breathe past the initial shock, the burn eases, replaced by a full, pressurized feeling that fills your head with nothing but sensation.

He moves his fingers, slow at first, pumping them in and out of you in short strokes, stretching, coaxing. 

Your body starts to answer despite itself, hips rocking back in tiny motions, seeking that deep, sweet drag. 

Every thrust brushes against something inside you that makes your legs tremble, makes your breath hitch. 

“Listen to that,” he says, voice thick, and it takes you a second to realize he means the wet sound loud in the little kitchen as his fingers work in and out of you. “You hear yourself takin’ me in? That’s you wantin’ it.”

It’s filthy and true and you can’t deny it. 

There's a coil tightening low in your belly, every nerve in your body funneling to where his hand is. Your grip on the table edge goes slippery with sweat.

“Remmick,” you gasp, not even sure what you’re asking for, only that you’re strung too tight.

“There you go,” he groans, fingers driving a little deeper, curling just right.

It hits without much warning. One second you’re climbing, the next you’re over the edge, everything snapping. 

Your body seizes around his fingers, clenching so hard it almost hurts, that coil unspooling in a rush of pleasure so intense it blanks your mind.

A breathless moan tears up your throat. Your thighs shake, knees nearly buckling, if it weren’t for his hand on your back and the table under your palms you’d be on the floor.

“That’s it,” he groans, riding you through it, fingers still working, still moving until you’re whimpering, too sensitive, twitching with each little aftershock. 

You sag against the table when it finally lets you go, chest heaving, sweat cooling on your neck. He eases his fingers out of you slow, gentle for the first time since you walked in, his hand sliding up to rest on your hip. You can feel his other hand at your back again, rubbing small circles, keeping you grounded.

“First one’s always a little wild,” he says, sounding almost fond. “You doin’ all right?”

You nod, or try to. Your head feels full of cotton, floaty and heavy all at once. “I—” Your voice comes out hoarse. You clear your throat. “I’m fine.”

“You’re more than fine,” he says, and there’s a smile in it. “You’re perfect.” He shifts behind you, and that’s when you feel it, really feel it—his cock pressed up against the back of your thigh through the fabric of his trousers. 

He’s been hard this whole time, you realize dimly, all that while he was working you open. The blunt head drags over your skin when he adjusts, the thickness of him obvious even through cloth.

Your stomach flips, fear and anticipation knotting together. “You’re really—”

“Oh, I’m really.” He sounds almost amused. “You wanted me to take you on this table, remember?” 

His hand leaves your back and you hear the soft, familiar sound of a belt coming loose, a buckle clinking, the rasp of leather through belt loops. Then buttons, quick and practiced, fabric shifting.

You suck in a breath, every sense straining.

A moment later, something hot and slick—not his fingers this time—nudges against your entrance. He slides the head of his cock through your slick folds slowly, up and down, coating himself in you, bumping your clit on the downstroke, making you twitch.

“Jesus,” he mutters, more to himself than you. “You feel that? How you’re grabbin’ at me already and I ain’t even in?”

You do feel it, and it’s terrifying. Your body recognizes him as something it’s meant to hold, meant to take, even as your mind stumbles over the size of him, over what this means.

“I—wait,” you say, panic flaring for a second, the reality of it looming. “Remmick, I’m—”

“I know,” he says, and for once there’s no teasing in it. “You listen to me. It’s gonna burn at first, then it’s gonna feel like you never should’ve gone without it this long. You trust me?”

You hesitate. He feels it in the way your muscles tense around the head of him. His hand comes up, fingers wrapping loosely around your throat from behind, thumb tipping your chin just a little. The touch sends a different kind of shiver through you, sharp and grounding.

“I ain’t gonna break you,” he says quietly, close to your ear. “I want you comin’ back to this just as bad as I want you right now.” His hips roll just enough that the blunt tip presses hard against your opening. 

The hand at your throat, the tone in his voice, the memory of his fingers and the way your body just came apart on them thirty seconds ago—they all crash together, and you find yourself nodding before you know you’re doing it.

“Go,” you whisper, the word trembling, but there.

He makes a sound then that’s half-growl, half-groan, all man. His grip on your throat tightens just a hair, his other hand clamping down on your hip.

“That’s my girl,” he says again, rough with need. “Hold on.”

The head of him breaches you with more resistance than his fingers ever met. 

Your body tries to clamp down, to keep him out, muscles fighting the stretch. He doesn’t slam in, but he doesn’t baby you either. He works himself in slow, steady pressure, teeth gritted, hips driving forward inch by thick inch.

The burn is real. It’s sharp, like you’re being split open from the inside. You gasp, nails scraping at the wood, whole body bowing. For a second it’s too much.

“Breathe,” he grunts through his own strain, hand at your throat sliding up to your jaw, thumb pressing at your cheek. “Breathe through it. You’re takin’ me. Look at you. You’re takin’ me.”

He isn’t wrong. Beneath the pain, there’s this breathless awe—at the size of him, at the way your own body yields, at the feel of being filled in a way you never have before. 

You force yourself to inhale, exhale, again, again. Your muscles flutter around him, protesting, then slowly easing.

When the broadest part of his head passes the tight ring of your entrance, the rest slides in easier, still stretching, still burning, but less violently. 

He sinks deeper, stopping only when his hips are flush with your ass, his pelvis pressed to your backside, balls snugged up against your cunt. You can feel him everywhere, heavy and solid in your core, pulsing faintly.

“Christ,” he rasps, the words hot against your neck. “I can barely think straight. Sweet girl, you just swallowed every inch of me.”

You exhale shakily, overwhelmed. Full doesn’t begin to cover it. You feel stuffed, stretched to the point of coming apart, and yet under the ache, something else is already starting—a low, thick pleasure that moves like honey, spreading outward from where you’re joined.

He holds still for a long moment, breathing hard into your hair, chest rising and falling against your back. His hand at your hip rubs little circles, the one at your jaw softening its grip.

“You tell me when it stops hurtin’ so sharp,” he says. “I ain’t in no rush, even if my cock’s yellin’ otherwise.”

You try to focus. The worst of the burn ebbs, leaving a throbbing soreness, but the sense of him—deep, impossible, yours—is starting to bloom into something almost good.

“Move,” you whisper, surprising yourself. “Just a little.”

He laughs, breath short. “Greedy already,” he says. “Alright.”

He pulls back, just an inch, maybe two, dragging that thick length along your walls. The friction is intense, raw and tender and electric all at once. Then he pushes in again, slower, watching for any flinch. 

Your fingers dig into the table, but you don’t cry out, don’t tell him to stop. Your body clutches at him on the way out, sucks at him on the way back in.

He does it again. And again. Each shallow thrust smooths the hurt a little more, replaces it with deeper sensation. The initial sting fades into a deep, stretching fullness that makes your knees weak, that makes heat lick up your spine in waves.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, hand sliding from your jaw back down to your throat, wrapping around it more firmly this time, not cutting your air, just pinning you, reminding you where you are and who’s holding you. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.”

He lengthens his strokes, pulling back farther, pushing in harder. The wet slap of his hips meeting your ass starts up, quiet at first, then louder, the sound of skin on skin obscene in the still night. 

Every push drives him deeper, nudging at something inside you that makes your breath jump, that sends little shocks through your belly, like he’s bumping the edge of something tender and secret and his.

Your body has learned the shape of him, stretching you from the inside. 

You can feel every ridge, every vein, the way the fat head spears through the tight clutch of you and then disappears into that deep, hot place that was empty your whole life and now is nothing but him.

His hand at your throat tightens, just a little. Not enough to cut your air, but enough to make each breath a thing you have to pull for, chest heaving against the table edge. His palm is broad and warm, thumb resting under your jaw, fingers curved along the side of your neck. 

Every time his hips snap forward, that grip reminds you he’s there; it pins you in your own skin so you can’t float away from what’s happening, can’t pretend it’s anything but what it is: you getting fucked open on a man’s cock in his kitchen like you were meant for it.

Then his hand drops. It slides down the column of your throat, over the dip of your collarbone, fingers spreading wide as they drag lower, rough palm grazing the top swell of your breast through the thin cotton. 

He cups you from behind, big hand wrapping around the weight of it, lifting, squeezing. The nightgown bunches under his fingers as he kneads, thumb rolling over your nipple until it stiffens hard, the fabric rasping just enough to make you whine.

“There,” he mutters, voice gone thick, like he has to taste every part of you. “Knew these’d feel good in my hand.”

He squeezes once more, harder, the pressure sending a sharp line of sensation straight down to where he’s buried in you, your nipple trapped between his thumb and the heat of his palm. 

Your back arches, pushing more of your tit into his grip even as his cock grinds deeper. 

For a second you’re caught between the drag inside and the rough, greedy hold on your breast, pleasure ricocheting between the two.

Then his hand is moving again, leaving your aching nipple peaked under the cotton, skimming back up over your breastbone, returning to your throat like it owns the place. His fingers curl back into their collar around your neck, thumb settling under your jaw, holding you where he wants you while his hips keep driving.

“Listen to you,” he groans, and you realize he doesn’t just mean your voice—wrecked and breaking on every inhale—but the wet, filthy noise your body’s making, the slick drag of his cock pulling out of you, the obscene squelch when he pushes back in, the slap of his balls hitting the curve of your cunt. “You hear that? That’s this pussy lovin’ every inch I’m givin’ her.”

The word makes your stomach flutter and your cunt clench down around him so tight he curses, hips stuttering. 

There’s no room for modesty now; everything between your legs is wide awake and telling on you. 

Every time he pulls back, your inner muscles chase after him, hugging, clinging, like you’re frightened of losing that fullness, like your body’s praying he’ll push right back in—and he does, like he’s answering a call.

He adjusts his stance, feet shifting on the rough floor, and angle changes. The next thrust lands different, deeper, the thick head of him driving up and forward to grind against a spot inside you that makes your vision white out around the edges for a beat. 

You jolt, a strangled noise ripping out of you, fingers scraping along the tabletop as your whole body goes tense.

“There it is,” he pants, catching that reaction, chasing it. 

He does it again on purpose, hips rolling instead of just snapping, driving that same path, making sure he hits that spot with the crown every time. 

“You feel that? Right there? That’s what you been needin’, girl. That ache way up high you ain’t never had a name for.”

He's right on it now, relentless. 

Each stroke is a steady assault, steady enough your body starts to learn the pattern, tension building with every collision. The soreness from taking him the first time smooths into a deep, hot throb that wraps around the pleasure, one feeding the other. 

Your toes curl, your thighs tremble, your stomach ripples around the intrusion like you’re trying to swallow him even deeper.

He slides the hand from your hip back around your front, into the slick heat between your thighs, and finds your clit like he’s been doing it all his life. 

His fingers are slick with your own mess, rough pads moving in tight, ruthless circles over that swollen bud. It sends lightning directly up your spine, straight to the base of your skull. 

You choke on a sound that isn’t quite a word and jerk against his hand; his arm around your throat holds you in place.

“Goddamn, you’re twitchy,” he groans, grinding his hips down so the bone of him presses your ass, so his cock bruises into that soft spot inside while his fingers roll your clit. “You gonna fall apart on me again? You gonna let me feel you squeeze all over my cock proper this time?”

Your answer is a breathless, broken, “Please,” your voice ragged, half sob, half prayer. 

The table shudders under the force of his thrusts now, the legs complaining in small creaks that match the rhythm of his hips. The lamp flame jumps in its glass, throwing wild shadows against the wall—a tangle of your bent body and his frame hunched over you, shoulders rolling as he works inside you like he’s plowing up hard ground.

Spit slicks your lips; you realize at some point your mouth fell open and just forgot how to close, breath dragging in ragged, wet pulls. 

You couldn’t be bothered to care if you tried; everything is narrowed to the hot place his cock is sawing through and the bright, brutal pulses from his fingers on your clit.

He can feel you climbing, feel your body drawing in tight around him, feel your channel starting to flutter. He growls, low and guttural, the sound pressed against the back of your neck. “That’s it. That’s it, squeeze me.”

His hand at your throat tightens a hair more, narrowing the world to his breathing and yours, the rush of blood in your ears, the drag of wood under your palms. 

The smallest bit of pressure makes every sensation hit harder; your body goes light and heavy at the same time, limbs tingling, cock-deep pull inside you the only thing that feels solid.

He pistons into you now with a steadier, punishing rhythm, cock dragging from the fat base at your entrance all the way to that deep end that makes your belly flip, then back again. 

Your ass jiggles from each impact, flesh rippling under his grip. His fingers at your clit don’t falter.

You can hear yourself now, high and ruined, begging without even knowing what for. “Don’t stop—don’t—Remmick, don’t—oh—oh God—”

“Mhm, use my name,” he hisses, hips crashing into yours, the wet slap echoing off the close walls. “You say it when you can’t hold yourself together no more.”

He leans forward, the sweat on his skin slick against the thin cotton of your nightgown bunched at your waist. 

His mouth finds the side of your neck, teeth scraping over the delicate skin there, then biting down just hard enough to make you gasp. He sucks, draws blood closer to the surface in a hot sting that only makes your cunt flutter harder around him.

Between the choke of his hand, the sharp pinch of his teeth, the relentless grind of his cock, and the ruthless attention on your clit, you don’t stand a chance.

The orgasm slams into you hard enough your knees buckle, your body trying to curl in on itself while he holds you stretched over the table. 

Everything constricts at once—your throat around his hand, your belly around the deep ache, your cunt around his cock. You clamp down on him with startling force, walls seizing, milking, clutching like you’re trying to suck him straight out of his skin.

You cry out. There’s no pretty word for it. Sound rips out of you high and raw, your voice cracking on his name. 

Your vision goes fuzzy with white at the edges, the kitchen shrinking to the rough wood under your hands and the thick, unyielding length splitting you and the brutal roll of pleasure ripping through you in waves.

“Fuck—fuck,” he grunts at your ear, the feeling of you spasming around him cutting through every ounce of control he has left. “That’s it, that’s it, girl, grip me—Jesus—”

He doesn’t stop moving, not really; he grinds through it, forcing his cock to keep sliding, short, deep thrusts, using the vice of your orgasm to wring everything he can from you. 

You’re shaking all over, thighs trembling so hard your feet skid a little on the floor, toes digging uselessly for purchase. 

Another rush of slick gushes around him, soaking his cock, dripping down over his balls, sliding warm along the inside of your thighs.

Your body keeps clenching in pulses, the pleasure cresting and breaking over and over until it tips toward something sharp, too much. You whimper, the sound small and shredded. His hand leaves your clit finally, stroking shaking skin instead, but his hips don’t stop.

The rhythm goes ragged, less measured, more frantic. His thrusts turn into short, hard ruts, like his body’s the one begging now. His fingers flex around your throat, then loosen just a little, thumb stroking your jaw instead as his breathing unravels.

“Gonna fill you up,” he groans, voice pitched low and rough. “You want that? You want me shootin’ deep in you, huh? Want to feel me leakin’ out you all the way back up to that house?”

The words, filthy as they are, punch right through your oversensitivity and light up something molten in your gut. 

Your sore, flooded cunt tightens around him involuntarily at the thought of carrying him inside you, his spend rolling down your thighs later when you climb into your own bed. 

You can’t shape the answer into full words; what comes out is some strangled mess that sounds like y-yes and a choke.

“Yeah, you do,” he snarls like he heard it. “You greedy little thing, comin’ down here pretendin’ you just wanna talk when your cunt’s hungry as hell.”

He drives in hard, once, twice, three more times, each thrust bottoming him out, pelvis grinding against the round of your ass. 

The slap of his hips is loud now, sloppy, wetter, your combined mess making the impact slick.

Then his whole body locks.

His stomach clenches tight against your back, jaw clamped against the side of your neck. A sound tears out of him, not quite human, something between a growl and a groan. His cock jerks inside you, swelling even thicker for a heart-stopping second, and then you feel it—hot, heavy spurts of him spilling deep, pounding against your cervix, flooding that space that’s been empty your entire life with a hot, liquid fullness.

He curses low and hoarse on each pulse, hips rocking in tiny, helpless movements as he empties himself, his own climax dragged out by the way your slick, oversensitive walls keep squeezing and fluttering around him. Every time your cunt milks him, another rope of cum kicks out of him, painting you inside.

“God—damn—” he grits, shuddering, one hand sliding from your throat to slap down next to your own on the table, fingers splayed wide, knuckles white on the wood. “You feel that? Feel me givin’ it to you?”

You do. You feel all of it. Every pulse, every twitch, every deep throb of him lodged inside, filling you, staking a claim. Your whole body feels stuffed, weighty, like he’s poured something molten into your bones.

The shakes take him then. You feel them where his chest is plastered to your back, quivers running through him in waves as his orgasm tapers off. 

His cock softens a little inside you but doesn’t slip free; your swollen entrance and the spent thickness of him keep you plugged together. Each small movement sends a slow, slick ache radiating outward.

For a long moment neither of you says anything.

He slumps more of his weight onto you without meaning to, and you sag under it, cheek pressed to the tabletop, breaths coming in harsh, uneven pulls. 

Sweat has glued your nightgown to your ribs where it’s still covering your upper body; where it’s bunched around your waist, the fabric clings damp to your skin with a mixture of your own wetness and his.

Eventually, he finds his voice, though it’s wrecked, scraped raw at the edges. “Jesus,” he mutters, words ghosting hot over the shell of your ear. 

For the first time since he pushed into you, he eases his hips back.

You gasp, a little shocked moan slipping out as his softening cock drags along your raw walls. 

When his head slips past your entrance, your muscles clench on instinct, reluctant to let him go, but gravity wins. He slides free, leaving you empty in a way that feels sharp, unfinished, even with his cum already starting to seep down, warm, from inside you.

Something thick and wet trickles out immediately, a slow, viscous roll that slides over your swollen folds and down the curve of your inner thigh. You feel it clearly, a hot trail in the cooler air of the kitchen. The knowledge of what it is, whose it is, makes your face burn and your belly tighten all over again.

He sees it too.

“Look at that,” he says softly, voice full of rough, satisfied awe. 

His hand leaves yours and slides down, palm cupping the underside of your ass, thumb catching one of those white streaks, spreading it lazily over your sensitive skin. You flinch, a little gasp escaping before you can stop it.

“Too much?” he asks.

“A little,” you admit, breath still stuttering. 

He makes a pleased sound at that, thumb dragging one last lazy stripe through the mess before he rubs his hand off on his own thigh. 

He straightens slowly, the absence of his weight making you sway for a second. His hands, empty now, come to your waist, smoothing down the bunched nightgown. He tugs it back into place over your hips, hiding what he’s done as best cloth can hide it.

Then he crouches a little, fingers catching the waistband of your drawers. They’re still tangled around your knees, sticky with your slick. 

He coaxes them up, guiding the cotton over your tender flesh, covering your cunt, trapping his spend where it is. 

The pull of the fabric against your oversensitive skin makes you hiss and bite your lip, but it also feels lewd and intimate in a different way—his cum pressed up against you, soaked into the cloth that sits right over your entrance.

He knows exactly what he’s doing, sealing you up like that. It shows in the way his thumb lingers a second too long at the gusset, pressing lightly, as if to make sure the material is snug, as if to feel one more time that he’s right there even with clothes between you.

“Gonna be walkin’ home with your panties stickin’ to you and a piece of me tryin’ to leak right back out,” he murmurs, voice a dark purr. “You’ll be thinkin’ of me every step.”

You make a weak noise, somewhere between a protest and something softer. Your legs feel unsteady when he finally helps you pull them fully into place, when he urges you upright with hands at your waist. 

When you stand, it’s like your bones have gone wrong—heavy at the hips, light at the knees, a deep, interior throb that makes you aware of your own body in a way you’ve never been.

He turns you gently, so your hip leans back into the edge of the table instead of your chest, so you’re facing him. His hair is damp and rumpled, a curl fallen low over his forehead, chest and stomach slick with sweat. 

His gaze sweeps over you, taking in the mussed nightgown, the bite marks blossoming at your throat and shoulder where his teeth worried your skin, the slackness of your mouth, the glassy shine to your eyes. 

Confidence sits easy on him; he looks like a man who’s put in a long night’s work and is proud of the job he’s done.

“You’re gonna cuss me tomorrow,” he says, voice low and a little smug. “When you sit down. When you walk. But you ain’t gonna regret it.”

You swallow, throat thick, his words settling warm and heavy between your ribs.

“No,” you admit, even quieter than before, and there’s no sense lying now. “I don’t… regret it.”

His mouth curves. “Good.”

You look away, suddenly aware of the time, of the silence of the big house up the hill, of how your mama and daddy are sleeping through something that’s gone and rearranged their daughter from the inside out.

“I need to go,” you say, voice small but steadying. “Before my father wakes up for water, or Mama starts callin’ and finds my bed empty.”

His hands fall from your waist, though not without one last, slow sweep along the curve of you, like he’s committing it to memory. 

“Go on,” he says. “Before I talk you into layin’ down on that bed in there and not leavin’ till the rooster screams.”

Your body responds to the image with an exhausted throb, a clench around nothing. 

You push off the table and take a careful step. Your thighs rub, slick, the damp cotton of your drawers pulling against you; you feel a fresh little leak of him inside you, a warm ooze that soaks into the fabric and clings. It makes you stutter a little, the soreness set deep in your core.

Remmick watches the way you move, jaw flexing, something like pride and hunger both tightening his face. 

He reaches for his trousers, tucking himself away, but he doesn’t bother with a shirt yet, doesn’t bother pretending he’s anything but what he is: the man who just fucked you on his kitchen table and filled you til you’re walking crooked.

You make it to the door on legs that still shake. Your fingers land on the frame as you pull it open, the cool breath of the night spilling in. 

Before you step out, you glance back. His eyes are on you, unreadable now, dark and steady in the lamplight.

“You come down here again,” he says, voice quiet, sure, “don’t pretend you’re just here for salve or scoldin’. You knock on my door after dark, I know what you’re askin’ for.”

You hold his gaze, the soreness between your thighs, the fullness inside you, the ache in your muscles all speaking louder than any denial you could muster. 

His eyes follow you out into the dark, low and pleased, and as you cross the yard barefoot, nightgown brushing your knees, his cum warm and sticky between your legs, you know he’s standing there in that doorway shirtless, watching you go with no shame at all, already planning just how he’ll take you the next time you come scratching at his door.

He almost laughs at himself, at the ease of it all. How quickly a creature like him learned obedience. What was it you said that he’d turned into?

A proper house broken dog.

The thought tastes bitter and tender all at once. He should sneer, maybe even bare his teeth, but instead, he just watches. Watch you breathe slow and soft. Laying there, warm and pliant and unguarded.

His sweet girl, dreaming peacefully after letting a thing like him crawl into her bed, into her body, into the quiet rhythm of her nights. Sweet, yes. But oh, how greedy you are. And worse still, how much greed he wants to consume you with. 

“Oblivious little thing, ain’tcha?” he murmurs, voice rough like gravel and molasses, thick with lust. It curls low in his throat, a slow drawl meant only for you, meant to settle between your legs like a promise.

He watches you twitch at the sound of it, your thighs already pressing together under the weight of that voice. He knows what it does to you. Knows exactly how deep it sinks. His greedy girl. So wet, so eager—just from the scrape of his voice dragging across your skin like a matchhead.

You always were easy for him. Not soft, no—never soft. Just starved. Craving him like you were born for it. And he feeds you it in pieces as you wring him dry. A word, a growl, the whisper of his mouth against your ear. All of it dragging you deeper, needier, until your pussy clenches around nothing with just words alone.  

“All that attitude jus’ to sleep so damn cute,” he chuckles lowly, 

God he could just eat you the fuck up just like this. 

He can’t even help it. Sitting back on his haunches, he spreads your legs slowly, slotting himself between them to let his cock slap wetly against your clothed cunt, his precum staining your stomach and that oh so cute lace lining on them. 

He came home after his recent hunt just to find you with a thin shirt hanging off your frame, delicate and loose, clinging just enough to hint at every curve it fails to conceal. Slipping off one shoulder, threadbare and soft with wear, whispering temptation with every shift of your body.

And underneath? Nothing but a pair of panties — barely there, lace or cotton, it doesn’t matter. They’re the only thing standing between you and indecency, and even they look like they’re begging to be tugged aside. 

No bra. No layers. Just skin, warmth, and the quiet kind of invitation that drives him fucking mad. It’s the kind of sight that makes restraint feel like a cruel joke.

“Y’gon’ let me in?” He teases quietly, slapping his cock on your mound, chuckling darkly at you shifting a little under him, so unaware. 

His hands move slow and deliberate. There’s nothing rushed about the way his fingers curl into the hem of your shirt, tugging it upward inch by inch until the thin fabric gathers in a useless heap at the base of your throat.

Your breasts spill into the cool air, soft and inviting, rising gently with each breath you take. Then he moves, purposeful now as he slides onto his stomach, dipping his head with a hunger he doesn’t bother to hide.

He mouths at your panties, letting his saliva further dampen them alongside his precum and your arousal, trailing up your body in one long stripe until he reaches your sternum. 

His tongue finds the underside of one breast, dragging upward in a slow, indulgent stroke. The kind that leaves a trail of heat and thick saliva behind, glistening in the low light. He doesn’t stop until he reaches your nipple—already stiff from the air, but it hardens further the moment his tongue flicks over it.

He lathers it with his mouth, lips parting just enough to let his breath warm the wet skin. Your chest and stomach shines where he’s touched, flushed and damp and his. His hips jerk forward without thinking, seeking friction. A small, broken groan escapes him when the ache of his cock presses against the mattress. It’s not enough. He moves up again to let his cock rub against you again.

He could die again like this—starving, worshiping, trembling against your sleeping body like a man finally given a taste of a heaven he’ll never get. 

Then, your body responding for you in the form of a soft, involuntary arch of your spine. A slight twitch of your thigh against his weeping cock.

His hips jerk forward at the subtle shift, grinding down slightly, drawn toward the heat building between your legs. The damp cotton of your panties rubs against the hard line of his cock, and he groans low, almost pained.

“Mmf—yeah. I know, I know…” 

Slowly, his long fingers push your panties to the side to reveal the sticky webs of your arousal, the sight gleaming in the low moonlight.

The sight of it punches the air from his lungs. His jaw clenches, body tightening like he’s fighting himself—because God, you’re soaked, and you didn’t even know he was here. Didn’t even have to be touched to ache for him.

He groans under his breath, rough and guttural, as he shifts forward, rubbing the length of his cock against your slit, just enough to feel the pulse of it. 

“Shit,” he hisses, voice thick, forehead dropping to your shoulder as he tries to steady himself.

“Wha—”

“Hol’still, baby, fuck—”

Grabbing the base of his cock, he slips just the tip in with ease. A moan breaks past his lips—low, guttural, almost pained. Like holding back has cost him something real.

“C’mere,” he growls, voice thick and wrecked as his hands clamp down on your hips, fingers digging in like he’s claiming you. Like he’s branding you.

He pulls you down onto him, slow but merciless, dragging you into his lap until he’s buried to the hilt. His breath shudders out against your skin, hands massaging the meat of your hips, letting his nails dig in enough to keep you awake. 

You bite back a whimper, eyes still blinking back your drowsiness.

“Move,” you whisper, breath catching, tone laced with need and sleep. 

That does something to him—sets him off, really. You feel it ripple through him in an instant. His jaw clenches tight, the muscle ticking. His nostrils flare as he inhales deep through his nose, 

And then his hands tighten on your hips, brutal in their grip, fingers digging so deep you’ll feel him there tomorrow. It’s not cruel. It’s possession. Like he’s making sure you remember exactly who put you in this state.

“That’s it,” he mutters, but there’s nothing soft in it. His voice is ragged, low and sharp, like gravel dragged across steel. His eyes are locked between your bodies, transfixed by the way your cunt swallows him whole with every thrust—greedy, perfect, made for him.

“Look at you,” he breathes, voice rough with awe and something darker. He thrusts up into you, deep and sharp, the angle just right—just enough to kiss your cervix.

The jolt steals the breath from your lungs, your mouth falling open in a gasp you barely hear. Stars blink behind your eyes, but he’s not done.

One hand stays gripped tight to your hip, grounding you, keeping you flush against him. The other moves fast up to his lips, where he licks his thumb without breaking eye contact, slow and deliberate.

“Gimme one baby, know you can, can feel you squeezin’ me” he murmurs. And then his wet thumb is on your clit, rubbing tight circles with practiced ease, coaxing the pleasure to crest harder—faster.

Your body jolts, thighs tightening around his hips, your nails digging into his shoulders for something to hold on to.

“Oh—fuck, Rem—”

It hits you in a rush.

Your body locks up, everything going tight before the wave breaks. Pleasure rips through you in a shuddering, breathless release, your cry caught between a moan and a sob as your hips buck helplessly in his lap.

“That’s it,” he groans, eyes dark and reverent as he watches you fall apart above him. “Come on, let me feel it. Let me have it.”

And you do. Every pulse, every twitch, every aftershock—angled into one ragged, moan between you.

His other hand massaging your hip, soothing you through the aftershocks, glides up the curve of your spine, slow and possessive, until it settles between your shoulder blades. He pulls you into him, chest to chest, until there’s not a breath of space left between your bodies.

“Kiss me.”

The words fall from Remmick’s lips, soft and breathless. They were meant to be a demand, something sharp and in control but they come out as a plea instead, thin and aching, soaked in need.

His eyes flick down to your lips, and something in him breaks. All you can do is nod, tears brimming your lashes.

His mouth is on yours in no time, crushing and desperate, all tongue and teeth and the kind of fervor that doesn’t just want to kiss, it wants to devour.

“Lemme mark you up real pretty, baby. Please,” he groans between kisses, voice cracking like a fault line as he ruts into you, desperate and wild.

But you’re already ahead of him.

Your hands trail down his torso, slow and calculated, until they grip the curve of his lower back. Then—without warning—you dig your nails in, sharp and angry, dragging red lines up his skin.

His whole body jolts.

“Fuck—d-do that again!” he gasps, the sting making his pace stutter, his hips falter. You feel the tremble in him, the way his voice pitches higher, louder. He’s close. So close.

But you don’t let him have it. Not yet.

Too wrapped in how tight you feel, how impossibly warm your pussy feels, he doesn’t notice your shift—not until your hands clamp around his hips with purpose. In one sudden, fluid movement, you push his hips to pull him out of you.

He stares, stunned and a snarl starting to curl around his lips, chest heaving, cock slick and flushed, twitching in the space between you.

“The fuck—” he starts to speak, but the words die on his tongue when you slide down the bed, eyes locked on his like a silent dare.

He watches, dazed and wrecked, as your body shifts beneath him—gripping, guiding, commanding. You move with purpose, pushing at his hips until he’s straddling you just below your tits, his thighs tense on either side of your ribs.

From this angle, he can see everything.

The mess of your cum, slick and glistening, smeared from your cunt up to your stomach in a trail that makes his throat go dry. 

His cock, flushed and aching, hangs heavy between your breasts—and it jumps at the change in position, twitching with anticipation and need.

Your hand wraps around him. No hesitation. No gentleness. Just a sure, possessive grip. He sucks in a breath sharp enough to hurt, his hips giving a twitch he can’t control.

You stroke him once—slow, deliberate, and devastating—and his head tips back. Eyes fluttering. Mouth falling open. His control, already hanging by a thread, starts to unravel right there in your palm.

“Goddamn—” he hisses through clenched teeth, every muscle in his abdomen twitching as your hand works him over with slow, sinful precision. His hips jerk, instinct warring with control, desperate to thrust into your grip but holding himself back—just barely.

His eyes are locked on you, wild and glassy, jaw tight like he’s hanging by a thread.

“C’mon, baby,” he growls, voice rough and ragged.

You give him that look—that look—the one that’s equal parts challenge and invitation, lips parted, chest rising with every breath like you’re daring him to fall apart for you.

He groans again, lower this time, as if the sight of you is pulling something primal out of him.

“You want me to mark up that pretty throat, huh?” he mutters, voice getting meaner the closer he gets. “Paint you right here,” he brings his thumb up, smearing your chin with slick precum as he taps under your jaw, just where your throat tightens. “Lemme see what you let me do to you.”

His cock twitches in your hand, hot and heavy, leaking and pulsing as you stroke him—deliberate, unhurried, cruel in your confidence.

“Go on,” he pants, eyes flicking from your hand to your face, wrecked and reverent. “Finish it. Let me cum.”

You squeeze a little tighter. Twist your wrist just the way you know he loves. A small whimper whispers past your lips and that’s all it takes—he falls apart right there, for you, with your name cracked open on his tongue and his cum streaking across your skin. Splattering across your tits in thick greedy spurts, painting your throat, exactly where he promised.

“Mmmm,” you sigh sleepily as you roll over, your hair tangling against the sheets.

With every gentle movement of your body, the scent of your lotion floods Remmick’s senses, the sweet smell of jasmine and hibiscus and you lingering in every breath. You’re curled up against him, your warmth heating his body in a way that feels familiar and comforting. He brings one finger to rest under your chin, his thumb rubbing your lip gently.

You’re so pretty like this, lost in the haze of sleep. Your face is completely at peace, your features softened. Your cheek pressed into the pillow, your hair tousled. He presses his thumb to your lip again, tugging slightly on the skin. He traces his thumb down, stroking along the line of your throat until he’s rubbing gentle circles into the u of your collarbone.

He presses his thumb up higher on your neck, feeling the steady thump-thump-thump of your pulse, slowed by slumber. Your skin is slicked by a light layer of sweat. Even the most threadbare quilt you could find and the old wooden ceiling fan circling above you was never enough to stave off the perspiration of the Delta in late July.

His fingers continue, tracing delicate patterns down the intricate lace at the neckline of your nightgown. He travels further, delicately playing with each button down the front of the thin garment as he goes. He reaches your side and gently hikes the nightgown up around your hips, pressing his thumb into the pressure point of the socket and dragging in slow, torturous circles. The pressure makes you twist and grind your hips in your sleep, rocking against nothing.

He chuckles, a dark sound low in his throat, as you sigh again.

“Feels good, baby?” he teases in a whisper.

You pull one knee up to rest between his legs. He dips his hand beneath your thigh, slowly stroking your warm skin. The slight parting of your legs sends the scent of you cascading through him with every breath. Remmick inhales deeply, smelling your desperation as it washes over you. You let out a puff of air and readjust your hips, still lost in sleep.

“Aww,” he laughs lightly. “She needs me, huh? She need me?”

The hand that’s stroking your thigh quietly finds its way to the cotton panties between your legs, already sticky from whatever dream you’re having. He loops one finger around the fabric and slowly pulls them to the side, relishing the way your wetness makes a slick string connecting you to the cloth as he peels it away. 

“Aww, yeah…she needs me real bad.”

You whine softly. 

In your dream, Remmick runs his hands down your thighs and grips your hips roughly. 

“C’mon sweetheart, promise I’ll make it good,” he grins.

You try to twist out from under him.

“Nuh-uh, sugar, come on…don’t lie to me. Know you want it.”

He brings the tips of his fingers to his mouth and licks, an obscene gesture, before he presses his fingers to your clit, applying rough pressure immediately and laughing.

In your bed, Remmick circles your clit slowly with this thumb, pressing into you roughly as you try to toss and turn against his touch.

“Sh, shh…I’m gon’ make it all better sweetheart, don’t worry,” he soothes. “Gon’ take care’a ya.”

Your breath shudders out of you as he continues, pressing rough, mean circles against the sensitive bundle of nerves at your center.

“C’mon, baby, holdin’ out on me…”

Your breath comes quicker now, making your chest rise and fall. 

“Rem, stop–can’t–”

“Aw, c’mon sugar, yes y’can,” he teases.

“N-no, no, stop it–”

“Y’ain’t got one little one in ya? C’mon baby, I know you lyin’,” he drawls. “Lookit how wet she is already.”

He smears his hand against your cunt, the disgusting wet sounds bringing heat to your cheeks as you twist and shove your face into the pillow.

“C’mon, sugar, ‘m right here,” he husks in your ear. “Just gimme one. Just one, yeah?”

You moan against his chest, a desperate and needy sound that betrays the desires lurking in your dreams.

“Yeahhhh,” he mumbles. “Just one, c’mon baby.”

You shudder against him, your hands clutching at the sheets and clawing at his chest. He slowly and firmly presses up into you, teasing you even more as your orgasm makes your body shake and your breath run ragged.

“Yeah, good girl,” he praises. “Good job, baby. Knew y’could do it. She likes to cum on my pretty fingers, huh?”

“N-no, no, stop it–”

You kick at him, trying to escape his strong grip.

“Let me go!” you scream, your voice hoarse.

“Nooo, sugar, I don’t think so,” he grins, his fangs protruding from his lips. “See, you’re mine. That means I getta take whatever I want, ‘member?”

He roughly knocks your hips apart, spreading your legs. You feel exposed and disgusting, knowing you can’t hide your arousal from him at this angle. You twist your head away, unable to look at him kneeling between your legs. You gasp when you feel a hot, wet, stream of liquid falling onto your cunt, painting your folds. He’s drooling on you, spilling his saliva from his mouth onto your lips before he brings his hand back to you, smearing and spreading and mixing your wetness with his spit.

“Don’t even think you’ll need this, but I thought I’d help ya out,” he smirks.

“Fuck, sweetheart, so wet,” Remmick coos at you, his hand still swirling between your legs. You whimper again, your brows knitting together in a way that has him weak. He bucks his hips against you.

“Goddamn, sugar,” he pants, breathless. He’s already hard, and especially bothered from making you cum on his fingers. He brings his hand, his digits still wet and sticky from your release, to rest over your tummy. You cry out at the loss of his fingers over your sex.

“I know, I know,” he shushes you. “Gonna give you somethin’ better, sweetheart, just relax.”

His hands travel to the waistband of his boxers, pulling himself out. He’s hard and flushed, precum already leaking from the tip.

“Where should I give it t’ya, hm?” he taunts.

“S-stop, stop, please–”

“Y’want it down your throat?”

He leans over you and wraps a hand around your neck, squeezing gently.

“Or I could pull out and paint your pretty face,” he hums.

He brings one thumb to your cheek and softly strokes your face. The gesture would be almost loving if he didn’t have you trapped underneath him.

He snakes down your body, his hands tracing gentle patterns, his wet mouth leaving sticky kisses on your chest and stomach.

“Y’want it all over the front?” 

He punctuates this sentence with a loud disgusting slap to your soaked cunt. 

“Give ‘er a little more juice?” he laughs. “I kinda like that…then it’s up to her. Y’get knocked up, it’s just ‘cause she’s so greedy, suckin’ me in.”

You whimper under him.

“Ohh…” he drawls, a knowing glint in his eye. “That’s it, huh? You wanna get knocked up? You want me inside?”

“N-no, no, please, don’t–I’m not…haven’t been taking…”

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” he smiles. “You ain’t gotta worry ‘bout a thing, darlin’.”

Remmick’s traveled down and is now kneeling between your legs, stroking himself lazily. He tries not to squeeze too tight, knowing he won’t last long anyway.

“You want this,” he mumbles. “You want me, darlin’.”

Your eyes are still squeezed shut as he prods your entrance, rocking forward just enough for the tip to enter. A small cry escapes your lips.

“Sh-sh-sh-shhhh,” he shushes you. “Gon’ give ya exactly whatcha need, princess, just be patient.”

He shoves all the way into you at a slow pace, making you feel every inch of him splitting you open. When his hips rest against yours, your jaw hangs open, your breath barely filling your lungs.

“Yeah, betcha feel me all the way up here,” he smiles darkly, pressing a hand underneath your ribcage. He swirls his thumb into your skin and you swear you can feel him bruising your diaphragm.

“Ngh, fuck, sugar, feel so good,” he mumbles. “Suckin’ me in so deep, she’s fuckin’ beggin’ for it.”

“N-no…p-pull, out, please,” you manage to choke out.

“Nahh baby, that’s not what she wants.”

He slowly pulls back and ruts forward again, stretching you out. You gasp and wince in pain.

“See that? She wants me deep. Wants me all up in there. Right there. See?”

He grips your chin and forces you to look at where your bodies are connected. You can see him bulging through the lower part of your abdomen with every disgusting thrust.

“See, can y–ah,” he falters when he twists his hips up at that angle that makes a sob catch in the back of your throat.

“There she is,” he grunts. “There she fuckin’ is.”

You’re crying now, hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

“Puh-please, please stop,” you cry. “I promise I’ll do whatever you want, just please…don’t…”

He laughs again.

“Oh, sweetheart…I know ya will.”

Remmick leans over you and grabs your hand from your side. He presses your palm to your tummy, the added pressure making your breath falter.

“Want me to give ya a little baby?” he coos at you in your sleep. “Want me to put it right here? Make my girl a mama?”

Tears are running down your cheeks in real life, too, a response to the abuse he’s putting your mind through in your dream and the abuse he’s putting your body through in your bed.

He ruts up into you, deep and hard, feeling himself filling you completely.

“That’s it, sugar, c’mon, you gotta gimme another one,” he huffs. “Gotta help me out here, need ya to open up for me.”

He laughs above you, a sick and mean sound that echoes through your bedroom.

He presses his hand over yours into your tummy, his claws just barely pressing into your flesh.

“Gonna put a little fuckin’ Antichrist in here,” he chuckles. “Gonna give ya what ya want, sugar.”

“N-no–stop–it,” you sniffle. “It hurts.”

“Then why don’tcha fuckin’ cry about it?” he huffs.

He slams into you with a relentless rhythm, chasing his own release.

You let out a scream when he hits that spot deep inside of you that has your vision fuzzing at the edges.

“Yeahh, c’mon, sugar, you got one more f’me, know ya do.”

You stir slightly underneath him, your eyes finally opening as you look around, dazed. You can feel the bed rocking under you as Remmick continues his pace, thrusting into you mercilessly.

“Aww, is she awake?” he whispers sweetly.

“Wha- how…you’re…”

“Shhhh, shh, ‘s okay sugar,” he comforts you, still driving into you in the dark. All you can see are his red eyes gleaming down at you.

“I’m so sorry, baby, I know, I know,” he dotes. “I woke y’up. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

You don’t even have the energy to fight him. Your whole body feels weighed down by sleep and pleasure.

“Feels so good, though, huh princess?”

You moan into the pillow, feeling your body, limp under his touch, responding to his every move.

“Shh, shh…won’t even remember this in the mornin’, angel, promise.” 

You can feel an orgasm approaching you, not even building in tension as it would if you were chasing your own ecstasy. It creeps into your body, against your will, a physical response to his ravaging.

He leans up over you and presses a soft kiss to your temple.

“Well, you won’t,” he laughs. He brings his hand to your clit and roughly circles you once more. “She will.”

You gasp as his touch finally sends you over the edge. You can feel the nerves in your body dancing and relaxing as you sink into the bed, warm and pliable as he continues.

“Yeahhh, good girl,” he praises. “Open up f’me, gotta make sure I get nice and deep in there.”

A few more rough thrusts and you feel him release inside of you, his cum spurting deep into your womb.

“Y-yeah,” he groans. “Riiiight there. Fuck.”

He continues rocking his hips, like he’s afraid to waste any final drops he has to give you.

“R-Rem,” you whisper hoarsely.

“No, no, no, ‘s okay, baby,” he coos. “Jus’ tryna give ya whatcha want,” he says with a sick smile.

“N-no–”

“Shhhh, yeah. Yeah. Y’want my little baby growin’ inside’a ya. S’whatcha were dreamin’ ‘bout, right?”

“No, I–” you wince harshly when he pulls out, feeling the disgusting gush of his cum and your juices leaking out of you, dripping down your thighs and onto the sheets.

He brings his hand down between your legs again, playing with the mess that leaks out of you, painting it over your skin with his fingers. He takes two fingers and uses them to shove his release back inside of you, making you sob at the overstimulation.

“Shhh…I know ya want it, sugar,” he hums. “This way, y’ain’t even gotta ask. Jus’ lemme do all the work, yeah?”

“Rem-mick, how…how long, you…” you can’t form a coherent sentence.

“Shhh, sweetheart. You not even gon’ remember. Promise.”

The bell above the shop door still rang in your ears long after you’d locked it. You could still smell the starch and pressed cotton on your skin, a faint line of chalk dust on your fingers from marking hems all afternoon. The powder had worked into the whorls of your fingertips no matter how you scrubbed, the ghost of a measuring tape still circling your neck the way a necklace might, if you owned anything so fine.

Harvest Social nights were for girls like you—unmarried, “neat in appearance,” and ready to be looked over like a fresh bolt of fabric. Aunt June had said as much while pinning the last seam of your dress.

“Smile, darlin’. Men don’t court a girl who looks like she’s countin’ down to the gallows.” She’d spat a straight pin into the tomato cushion and shooed you out the door with a palm warm from the iron.

The town hall smelled of waxed floors and strong coffee. Streamers sagged in the humid air, their crepe edges curling. A box fan thudded in a back window and did nothing but push the heat around; someone had dragged in a galvanized tub packed with ice from the plant, and the metal carried a clean, tin-bright scent that sliced through the sweet breath of sheet cake and vanilla extract. Mothers posted up along the walls like watchful crows, pocketbooks clasped, gloves tucked away now that summer insisted on sticking to every inch of skin.

The band was already playing something bright, too fast for anyone to dance to without looking foolish. Bows scraped a little sharp on the high notes; the drummer tapped the same cheerful rat-a-tat that said move along now whether your feet wanted to or not. Boys in pressed shirts clustered near the punch, slicked hair shining under the bare bulbs.

Their eyes slid over you the moment you stepped in—the kind of look that lingered not because they saw you, but because they saw what they thought you’d be in their kitchen. You could feel the inventory being taken: hands that could baste a roast, hems that would fall even and true, hips that might carry sons.

You smoothed your skirt. You’d cut the pattern from leftover yardage—a pale cornflower cotton that looked respectable on a hanger and younger on your body. The darts lay flat as a promise. The hem brushed your knee just where Aunt June said it should if you didn’t want anyone gossiping. The bodice held steady when you breathed in and clung when you breathed out; every breath wrote itself across the fabric.

Aunt June’s women—your women, after so many hours—moved through the crowd like you’d arranged them: Miss Ellie’s rose print fit where it ought; Mrs. Carter’s satin bow lay just so at the small of her back; little Ruthie’s scalloped collar refused to stay pressed and made her look even younger than she was. They glowed with that peculiar confidence of a dress that behaves. You should have felt proud. Instead you felt like a mannequin left in a window after closing.

And there, leaning against the far wall like the whole thing bored him half to death, was Remmick.

He wasn’t dressed for the dance. Not in the way the others were. His shirt sleeves were rolled, suspenders loose over his shoulders, a shadow of stubble roughening his jaw. He didn’t drink, didn’t dance. Just watched.

The light in that corner flattened everyone else, but it seemed to find the damp at his throat, the open notch of his collar. You caught a glimpse of a thin chain at his neck and looked away before you could decide whether it was gold or sweat catching the bulb-glare.

He shouldn’t have belonged among boys who smelled like Brylcreem and borrowed aftershave. He looked like he’d stepped in from outside—dust on his cuffs, heat clinging to him as if it preferred him. Even still, there was a tidiness to him that had nothing to do with ironing. A stillness. Men fidgeted; boys tripped over their own elbows. He did neither. He took up space without asking.

From across the room, you felt his eyes—not warm, not shy. Just there, heavy enough to notice over the music. You looked away first.

Someone laughed too loud near the refreshments. Someone else said your name in a way that tried to make it familiar. You offered the standard town-hall smile, lips closed, teeth kept for friends, and let the first asker—Tommy with the new Pontiac and the mother who thought you’d “do”—sweep you toward the dance floor. His palm was clammy against your glove; he stood too close and too far all at once, the way boys do when they’re trying to be men. He told you your dress was pretty and meant you look like a wife. You said thank you and meant I made it myself.

The floor was slick from overzealous polishing. Your shoes whispered over it, leather biting, then letting go. Heat gathered where your spine met the bodice; a strand of hair pasted itself to your temple no matter how neatly you’d pinned it. Tommy talked about the dealership, the way the chrome shone in the morning sun, and you nodded at the right times while your gaze skated off his shoulder and back to the corner.

Remmick hadn’t moved.

He was the kind of still that made you think of a picture taken mid-breath. Not frozen—waiting. The band shifted into another tune and the room re-sorted itself: girls traded partners, mothers traded glances, the school principal cut the cake.

A mosquito worried at your ankle and you resisted the urge to swat it; you’d stitched this skirt, and you weren’t about to blot it with your own blood. The thought made you smile for no good reason, a private flicker, and when you glanced back to the wall, you found him watching your mouth like he’d seen it.

You lost the beat and Tommy stepped on your toe. He apologized, quick, then followed your glance over your shoulder. “That fella?” he said, lowering his voice as if you’d asked. “He’s not from around here.”

As if he had to be.

After the song, you eased free with the excuse of punch. The scoop clinked against the glass bowl; the red surface rippled and stilled. You brought the paper cup to your mouth and tasted sugar and something vaguely medicinal—the same recipe they’d used since you were a child, when you were small enough to hide under the coat table and watch ladies’ skirts move like curtains. The memory made you feel a misplaced sense of nostalgia.

Men drifted toward you in the currents of the room. How-do-you-do. Haven’t seen you at church lately. Your aunt must be so proud of your work.

Each remark placed you gently back on the shelf you’d never asked to stand on. There were questions tucked into the compliments—about your schedule, about your evenings, about whether you preferred white roses or lilies—and each one felt like a measuring tape circling your ribcage, checking if you’d fit.

Across the hall, the exit door stood cracked open for air. It leaked a ribbon of night: wet grass, gasoline from the parking lot, the sweet rot of magnolia blown in from the square. The cicadas outside sang like a wire pulled tight. You couldn’t see the stars from inside, but you could feel the night pressed up against the brick, patient.

Aunt June waved from her chair near the stage, two fingers flicking in a gesture that meant don’t be rude but don’t be foolish. You gave her a nod that meant I know and set your empty cup down, careful not to leave a watery ring.

“Would you like some air?” Tommy had found you again, hopeful, already angling his body toward the door without waiting for your answer. You should have said no. You should have reminded him that ladies didn’t step out alone, that chaperones watched and tongues wagged. Instead you said, “Just a minute,” because the room felt small and the dress felt tight and the sliver of night looked wider when you stared at it.

The hall swallowed the music as soon as you pushed through the door. Crickets took up the song where fiddles left off. The parking lot lamps threw cones of jaundiced light onto dust and hubcaps; moths battered themselves against the glass like soft rain.

You took one breath, then another, the kind you could actually feel filling your chest. Tommy said something about the car he’d rebuilt with his uncle, but the words blurred at the edges, unimportant as the scuff of grit under your heel.

The door eased shut behind you with a long, slow sigh. When it latched, you realized you weren’t as alone as you thought.

Far down the red-brick wall, in the seam where shadow pooled, someone had stepped outside before you. You knew who before your eyes fully adjusted.

Remmick.

He had the posture of a man who hadn’t decided whether to leave or light a cigarette. Hands in his pockets. Head tipped like he was listening to the band through the bricks, or to something beyond it. The lamplight didn’t quite touch his face; it caught the sweat at his throat, the slope of his cheekbone, the small, amused quirk that wasn’t a smile. You were aware of Tommy at your elbow, still talking, unaware, his voice thinning out as your attention narrowed to a single point.

A breeze came lazy up from the river and slipped under your skirt, cool as a hand against hot skin. It lifted the damp hair at your nape and carried the faintest scents—oil, dust, something iron-rich you told yourself must be the train tracks even though the night air usually cleaned that smell away.

“Hey,” Tommy called down the wall, friendliness pitched high to cover nerves he didn’t know he had, “you from outta town?”

The man in the shadow didn’t answer. Not to him. The silence said more than a no.

Tommy cleared his throat, shuffled, reached for your elbow like he might shepherd you back inside. You stepped out of reach before the touch landed, and that small movement—barely anything, just the slip of fabric over your own skin—felt loud.

Somewhere inside, the band whooped into a key change. The door cracked open again on its tired hinge to let a couple pass, then shut. You stood in the breath between songs, the night holding itself still, and knew two things at once: that you would go back in because Aunt June expected it, and that when you did, you’d feel eyes on your back all the way across the varnished floor.

You lifted your chin. You smoothed your skirt. You told Tommy you were fine, thank you. And when you turned to the door, you didn’t look at the shadow again, not because you’d forgotten it was there, but because you hadn’t.

From across the room, you felt the weight of those eyes from across the dance floor. You looked away first.

The heat in the hall had climbed with each song. By the time you slipped a glove off and pressed your bare wrist to your cheek, your pulse thudded louder than the kick drum. Mothers were already fanning themselves with folded programs, sweat glimmering in the hollow of every throat. You weren’t sure how much longer you could bear the lemon pledge air before you fainted right onto the floorboards.

That was when Charlie Whitmore appeared at your elbow. He wasn’t the worst of them, not by a stretch. Tall, broad-shouldered, a year or two older than the boys still trying to wrestle with their own chins. He had the kind of smile that carried no imagination, only certainty: he’d farmed his father’s acres since he was twelve, and he would marry some girl from town to keep supper hot on the table.

“You must be about ready to leave this sweatbox,” he said, offering an arm that was more command than courtesy. “Let me walk you home.”

Aunt June’s voice rang in your ear: Don’t be rude but don’t be foolish. You hesitated a moment too long, and he filled the silence with a chuckle. “It ain’t but ten minutes. Nicer than stumbling through the dark alone.”

The mothers were watching. The boys too. The space around you shifted, subtle, the way people make room to see what you’ll say. And what was there to say? You set your glove back over your fingers, placed your hand against his arm, and let the room swallow its satisfaction.

The night air hit you once again like a draught out of a cellar—damp and green, grass-heavy. The cicadas sang their ragged chorus, thick in the trees lining Main Street. Every porch light glowed yellow and thin; every dog barked once, twice, then quieted again.

Charlie’s stride was steady, his arm warm under your hand, his voice a low rumble about the harvest this year, the new tractor, the price of seed. You nodded at the right times, though your attention snagged on the way a bead of sweat ran down the back of your neck and the fabric at your waist pinched with every breath.

Past the last row of houses, the streetlamps fell away. The road stretched darker, lined with magnolias and the sway of tall grass that reached for your hem. Charlie walked easy, boots crunching, sure of himself. He asked you about the shop, whether you’d always planned to work there, whether you didn’t want “more than sewing for other folks.” The question lodged under your ribs like a splinter.

Somewhere behind, a sound carried—not footsteps, not voice. A shift, like a body moving through grass without hurry. You turned your head, but the shadows under the magnolias were thick, full of the night’s hum. Charlie didn’t notice. He only asked if you’d thought about lilies in a wedding bouquet, and your mouth dried before you could answer.

The air smelled wrong. Not just grass and dust, not just the faint trace of gasoline drifting from the square. Metallic, sharp, like iron left to rust in water. You told yourself it was the train tracks carrying on the wind, though you’d walked this road all your life and never smelled it so strongly.

At the corner where he should have turned back, Charlie insisted on walking you “just a little further.” His hand brushed yours, firm, expectant. You felt the press of his intent before he spoke it, and you wondered if Aunt June would call you a fool for letting him.

When you reached your gate, the frogs had gone quiet. The silence pressed, heavy, as if waiting. Charlie leaned closer, smile wide enough to flash in the dark. “Pretty night,” he said. His breath smelled of sugar punch and something sour beneath.

You thanked him politely, as a girl ought, and stepped back through your gate. He tipped his hat, turned into the dark, and vanished down the road.

The frogs did not start again.

You stood with your hand on the latch, listening. Only the cicadas. Only the drip of water from some neighbor’s hose left running. No whistle, no crunch of boots on gravel. Just the night, and the smell of iron thick enough to taste.

When you woke the next morning, the Whitmores were out on the road, calling his name.

Charlie Whitmore did not come home.

At first it was an inconvenience, no more. Boys stayed out late, they drank too much, they slept it off in fields or at friends’ porches. His mother called across the fence lines by noon, voice thinning as the day stretched and no reply came.

By sundown, the Whitmore men were out on the road with lanterns, dogs straining at their leashes, kicking through the ditch grass like he might have fallen and hit his head.

You watched from the sewing room window while Aunt June basted pleats into Mrs. Rowe’s Sunday dress. The lantern lights bobbed through the night like fireflies, their shadows cutting tall across the fields. Every time a dog barked you flinched, waiting for the shout that never came.

By morning the sheriff had joined in—boots muddy, hat brim dripping with sweat. He asked around, scratched his pen across a pad as though the shape of Charlie’s disappearance could be written into sense. You told him the truth: that Charlie had walked you home, that you’d said goodnight at your gate, that you’d watched him turn back toward town.

You left out the wrongness in the air, the smell of iron, the silence where the frogs should have been. Those details felt like yours alone, strange secrets you weren’t sure how to explain.

The sheriff’s pencil stilled at the page. “And you didn’t see him again?”

“No, sir.”

You felt his eyes more than his words—the way they weighed you, not unkind but measuring. A young woman alone at night. The last to see him alive. The gossip that would follow. He tipped his hat when he left, but the look in his eye said don’t you go courtin’ any more trouble, girl.

By Wednesday, Charlie’s name was in every mouth.

At the shop, customers paused over fabric bolts and lowered their voices. “Terrible shame,” they murmured, fingers ghosting over the stitches you’d made as though they could find an answer in the hem. His mother came in once, hollow-eyed, clutching a torn dress shirt of his that she wanted patched though he’d never wear it again. Aunt June took the garment from her hands and said not to worry over payment.

The girls your age whispered too. At the soda fountain, at the grocer’s, by the church steps. They looked at you sideways, questions in their eyes. Not did you do something—no, not that. But why you? You were the last to walk with him, the last to hear his voice. The story attached to you like a burr, whether you wanted it or not.

Aunt June told you to keep your head high, to say nothing more than you already had. “Folk’ll make up enough without your help,” she said, chalk pinched between her fingers. “A girl’s reputation’s thinner than muslin, and easier torn.”

But even she started walking you home from the shop when dusk came on. Even she looked twice at the shadows.

Nights were the hardest.

When the cicadas lifted their chorus, it no longer sounded like background but warning. When the dogs barked, you counted the gaps between each one, the hush stretching too long. You drew your curtains tight, but the fabric never felt thick enough.

Sometimes, when you closed up the shop late, you had the prickling sense that someone was out there in the streetlight glow. Not walking. Not waiting. Just there. And every time, your heart beat so hard you thought you’d see it in your blouse. You locked the door faster. You didn’t tell Aunt June.

You told yourself the town would settle. That someone would find Charlie miles away, dazed, with some story about a train or a girl or a bottle. That this would pass. But every morning the Whitmores looked thinner, and every night the dogs kept barking.

And every time you caught sight of him—leaning against the wall outside the grocer’s, watching from the shade of the barber’s porch, eyes steady on you and not the world around you—you knew the story wasn’t finished.

The week after Charlie vanished, the Whitmores’ lanterns still bobbed across the fields at night, but the town had settled into a kind of hush—the kind that pretends not to notice. Men still tipped their hats, mothers still clutched their pearls, girls still whispered with their hands cupped. Life went on, as life always does, even with one place empty at the table.

And then the traveling merchant arrived.

You saw him first in the shop window: a car dusted pale from the county roads, a gleam of polished shoes stepping out, his jacket cut too fine for the town’s rough edges. He carried a sample case heavy with bolts of fabric and swatches, all colors that seemed too bright for the worn floorboards of Aunt June’s shop.

He had a smile ready, quick as a coin flipped. “Ladies,” he greeted, slick voice smooth as the rayon he spread across the counter. Aunt June gave him the polite nod she gave all salesmen—respectful, cautious, nothing more. But his eyes had already slid to you.

“You must be the niece,” he said, as though he’d been told. “The one who does the fine stitches.” His gaze lingered longer than it should have, appraising, the way men do when they’re thinking not about work but about a girl who ought to be flattered.

You busied yourself with the fabric. The silk was too thin, too impractical, too dear for anyone in town to buy. You traced a fingertip along the edge anyway, and he watched your hand like it was part of the sale.

He asked if he could walk you home after closing. Aunt June said no with a firmness that brooked no argument, but later, when the lights went down and you stepped into the street alone, you found him waiting across the square, sample case balanced at his feet.

“It’s only a short walk,” he said. His smile was easy, practiced, the kind that leaned on charm to hide persistence. Against your better judgment, you let him fall into step beside you.

His shoes clicked against the pavement, his scent sharp with aftershave and dust. He talked about the towns he’d seen—St. Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge—places you’d only read about in magazines. His words painted light into the dark streets, brighter than the lamps overhead.

But all the while, the hair along your arms lifted, prickled, as though another presence moved with you. You couldn’t see it, not when you glanced back, not when you searched the corners of your vision. But you felt it. Heavy. Watching.

At your gate, the salesman lingered, smile thin, hopeful. “You’re wasted in a place like this,” he said, lowering his voice. “You should come see the world. A girl like you—”

You cut him off with a polite thank you and a goodnight. The latch clicked behind you. You watched him turn down the road, case swinging, whistle sharp against the night.

The cicadas had stilled again.

And by sunrise, word was out: the merchant’s car stood abandoned by the road two miles out of town, the sample case gone, the driver nowhere.

The sheriff said maybe he’d run off. The men muttered maybe he’d been robbed. The women whispered maybe it’s the girl.

You pricked your finger on a needle that morning, a sharp bead of red staining the fabric. Aunt June clucked and pressed a rag to it, but you swore you could smell iron all over again.

The town hadn’t finished whispering about the salesman’s abandoned car before another boy tried his luck. The grocer’s son showed up at the shop with a sack of bruised peaches, cheeks pink, words fumbling over themselves.

“Thought maybe you could bake with these,” he said, setting them down like an offering. You thanked him as politely as you could, already knowing Aunt June’s look when she saw. The fruit was too soft, too mottled to be of use.

You set them aside, meaning to throw them out. The next morning they were found crushed into the dirt behind the store, their juice sticky and brown in the dust, a bicycle lying nearby with its wheel still turning in the wind. No one saw him again after that.

If tongues had wagged before, now they fell silent in your presence. People stared instead, long enough for you to feel it heat your cheeks. Aunt June began closing the shop early, locking the door before the sun had set, her hand tight at your elbow all the way home.

Even she didn’t say what she was thinking, though you could feel it pressing in the air between you: three gone now, all of them last seen circling you.

When the church ladies invited you to tea, you nearly refused. It felt unkind, though, so you went, sitting among them while the clock ticked too loud on the parlor wall.

One of them had brought her cousin down from out of town, a boy all easy charm and restless hands. He asked after your sewing, leaned too close, smiled wide enough to show every tooth.

He asked if you’d like to see a picture show the next time he visited. You answered the way Aunt June taught you—firm, polite, no. He only laughed as if you hadn’t meant it.

The very next morning, the sheriff came thundering into town with his hat gone, his horse lathered to the skin. By noon, people were pressed against the riverbank, watching two men from the mill drag a canvas-wrapped body up out of the water.

The bundle sagged, heavy, and when they set it down it landed with a sound that made your stomach seize—a wet thud, not human at all. The sheriff knelt, pulled the tarp back, and the crowd surged forward despite themselves. Someone screamed. Mrs. Carter fainted where she stood.

You hadn’t meant to look, but you did. The boy’s throat was torn ragged, shredded in a way no knife could manage. His chest had collapsed inward, ribs splintered like sticks under a boot.

His shirt clung dark to his skin, soaked through, and down his arms were scratches that looked like he’d fought until the end. His face was pale, slack, as though the life had been shaken right out of him.

The smell rolled over you next—thick, sour, iron-heavy. It clung to your tongue, your hair, your very clothes, until it felt like you’d never be free of it. You pressed a handkerchief to your nose, but the copper tang slid right through.

Men muttered it must have been a wild animal. Others said he must’ve fallen, struck rocks in the current. None of the explanations held against the blood soaking through the tarp, turning the grass black where it pooled.

Someone whispered too loud that he’d been seen talking to you just the day before. The weight of eyes shifted and tilted, and suddenly every gaze seemed to pin you where you stood.

You staggered back, bile climbing your throat, the sheriff’s voice calling sharp but far away. Cicadas screamed from the trees, a shrill saw-tooth sound that cut the air in two.

And in the corner of your vision, just beyond the line of onlookers, you thought you saw a shadow lean against a tree—broad-shouldered, still, a curl of smoke rising before the shape dissolved back into the wood.

The tarp had barely been hauled away before the town folded in on itself. Doors shut earlier that evening. The square cleared faster than usual.

Even the soda fountain, normally humming with boys jangling change in their pockets, felt hollow. Conversation dulled wherever you went, then sharpened the second you stepped out of earshot.

At church, every head turned when you walked in. The pew creaked too loud beneath you, every hymn catching in your throat as though the words weren’t meant for you anymore.

You could feel their eyes on your back as you knelt, whispers buzzing behind fans like the drone of hornets. Some women clutched their daughters’ hands tighter. Others looked at you with pity that bit worse than suspicion.

In the shop, customers came with hems and repairs but lingered less. The bell on the door sounded harsher than usual, and every man who crossed the threshold seemed to think twice before asking after you.

Aunt June pretended not to notice, her thimble flashing in the lamplight, but when she sent you upstairs at night she barred the door behind you.

“Folks are nervous,” she said once, as if that explained everything. “Keep your chin up. Don’t give them reason to wag their tongues.” But you heard her voice catch on the word reason, the smallest crack she’d ever let slip.

Nights pressed heavier than they used to. The cicadas sang until your ears ached, and in the silences between their rasping you thought you heard other things: a soft scrape against the side of the house, a low crunch in the dirt of the alley.

When you peered from the upstairs window, you swore you saw a figure on the far side of the street, cigarette ember glowing, then vanishing into thin air.

By the second week, you felt the town had drawn a line around you, a circle no one wanted to cross. And yet you knew someone eventually would. They always did. And you knew, with a sinking dread you could never voice aloud, what would follow when they did.

The barber’s nephew showed up just before closing, leaning in the shop doorway with his smirk sharp as a blade. He didn’t come for mending, and he didn’t bother pretending. He just watched you over the counter while you basted the last of a sleeve, arms folded like he was already in on some secret.

“Funny thing,” he said, voice casual in the way men use when they want to cut. “Every fella who takes a shine to you ends up disappearin’. Maybe you’re cursed, sweetheart.”

Your needle slipped, pricking your finger. A small bead of blood welled, dark against the fabric. You looked up, steadied your voice the way Aunt June had taught you. “You should leave.”

He grinned wider, teeth bright in the lamplight. “Don’t worry,” he said, leaning back on his heels, “I like a little danger.” And then he was gone, the bell over the door jingling after him, leaving the air thick with his laughter.

You locked up fast, hands trembling against the bolt. Aunt June had gone upstairs already, her tread fading over the ceiling. The shop felt too still without her, the quiet of pressed fabric and thread spools heavier than it should have been. You bent to fold the muslin, telling yourself the prickle on the back of your neck was nerves, nothing more.

Then you looked up.

He was standing outside the glass door.

Remmick.

The streetlamp caught the outline of him—broad shoulders, suspenders slack against his chest, a curl of smoke rising lazy from the cigarette between his fingers. He didn’t knock. Didn’t move. Just filled the frame, steady as a post, eyes locked on you.

Your pulse jumped. Still, your hand found the latch, as though some part of you had already been waiting. The click of the lock sounded too loud in the hush. You pulled the door open a crack, and the smell of him rolled in: tobacco, earth, something copper underneath, like a coin held too long in the hand.

He stepped inside unhurried, boots heavy on the floorboards, and let the door swing shut behind him. The smoke curled around him as he spoke, voice low, each word drawn out like he had all night.

“Ain’t safe,” he said, his eyes never leaving yours, “for a man to speak on you that way.”

You swallowed hard. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t matter what you did,” he cut in, slow, unblinking. He reached across the counter, plucked the handkerchief you’d left there, turned it over in his fingers like he had every right. “Matters what he thought he could do.”

You stood frozen, the room shrinking around the space he occupied. He didn’t leave. Instead he lowered himself into the chair by the counter, stretched out like it was his own porch, cigarette glowing at the corner of his mouth. He watched you fold the fabric with the same heavy interest other men might watch a dance.

“You work too late,” he said after a long while, smoke ghosting the air like phantasmal fingers. “Oughta be careful who comes sniffin’ round when the lamps are low.”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The needle lay forgotten in your palm, the sting of the prick still smarting. He leaned back in the chair, smiling like he knew, like he’d already made his decision for you.

When he finally rose, it was without hurry, the chair legs dragging a sigh across the floor. He tapped the ash from his cigarette onto the boards, tipped his head in something that wasn’t quite a goodnight, and left.

You stood in the smoke-thick air long after, your pulse loud in your throat, knowing without being told that the barber’s nephew would not be laughing in your doorway again.

By morning, the barber’s shop was silent.

His nephew’s chair sat empty, apron folded neat as if he’d meant to return but hadn’t. By noon the whole town knew he’d never made it home the night before. Nobody said how. Nobody said where. They didn’t have to. The way they looked at you when you walked past told you enough.

Men stopped trying. They didn’t just pull back—they avoided you altogether. At the grocer’s, no one offered to carry your parcels. At church, no one asked you to walk with them after service. On the street, men stepped aside before you even came near, eyes darting anywhere but yours. The air around you thinned, leaving a hollow where suitors used to hover. Even the boldest had learned.

It should have been a relief. Instead, it settled heavy in your bones, like you were the lone chair left at an empty table.

Remmick, though—he didn’t keep his distance. If anything, he came closer. He didn’t lurk at the edges anymore. You saw him leaning against the shopfront when you went to draw the blinds, smoke curling lazy from his lips. You saw him on the corner when you crossed the square, a glint in his eye like he knew every step you’d take before you made it. He wasn’t trying to be unseen anymore. He wanted you to notice.

One evening, after Aunt June had gone to bed, you found him waiting in the shop again. He didn’t bother knocking this time—just stood inside the doorway, shoulders filling it, as though the place belonged to him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you said, hands tight on the fabric you’d been folding. “Don’t you see what’s happening? Everyone who comes near me—” Your throat closed, the word cursed catching on your tongue.

He smiled then. Slow, smug, as if you’d said something funny without meaning to. He took a drag from his cigarette and let the smoke curl from his mouth before he answered.

“I ain’t concerned,” he said, each word deliberate, heavy. His eyes swept you in a way that felt more binding than a touch. “Not one bit.”

The way he looked at you made the truth shiver through your spine—he did know something you didn’t. And whatever it was, it had him certain, unshakable, as if the word cursed had never applied to him in the first place.

After the barber’s nephew vanished, the air around you changed.

Not just the silence of men avoiding your path, but something else—something heavier. When you closed the shop at night, there was no mistaking it anymore: he was there. Not waiting in the shadows like before, but present. Visible. As if he wanted you to see him.

The first gift came without announcement. A ribbon you thought you’d lost weeks ago, a bit of satin you’d cut to finish Mrs. Rowe’s dress. You found it folded on the counter one morning, knotted neat as though it had never left your worktable.

You touched it with careful fingers, tracing the loop, your stomach tightening at the thought of whose hands had tied it. Aunt June never mentioned it, and you didn’t ask.

Another night, you came down late for a drink of water and saw him through the front window. Not outside, but in the shop, seated in the chair by the counter like he had every right to be there. His boots stretched long in front of him, smoke curling in the air. He didn’t look startled when you froze on the stair. Just leaned his head back, eyes catching yours in the lamplight, and said in that slow, gravelled drawl, “Don’t fret. Just keepin’ watch.”

You should have sent him away. You should have screamed, woken Aunt June, done anything but what you did. You stayed. You stood there with your hands trembling against the banister until he rose, ground his cigarette out on the sole of his boot, and brushed past you with the scent of smoke and something copper clinging to him.

And then there were the walks. Not offered, not requested. Simply done. You’d close the shop, gather your things, and he would be there. Sometimes a step behind, sometimes close enough that you felt the warmth radiating from him, the shift of his stride matching yours.

He never spoke much on those nights. When he did, it was only to murmur things so quiet they seemed meant for you alone. “Oughta rest more.” Or “Too late for a girl to be out.” Or, once, when you stumbled over loose gravel, his hand catching your elbow before you fell: “I got you.”

It left you sleepless. Not because of fear—though there was that too—but because of how steady it felt, how certain. No hesitation, no second-guessing, no shame. As if all those men who’d courted you before had been children fumbling with paper rings, and this—this—was what it meant for a man to lay claim.

It showed up in the shop one morning.

Not scissors, not a ribbon, not something small enough to convince yourself you’d misplaced it. This was deliberate.

On the cutting table lay a man’s watch. The strap was cracked leather, worn dark where the buckle had sat against skin. The face was still ticking, a faint click you could hear when the shop was quiet, each second tapping at your nerves.

You knew that watch. You’d seen it flash on the wrist of the grocer’s boy when he hefted crates. You’d seen him tug it down into place with a proud little gesture, like wearing a watch made him a man. He was gone now, and the watch lay polished clean in the center of your worktable, waiting.

You reached for it with hesitant fingers, the cold metal biting against your skin. You wanted to believe maybe it had been left by mistake, that someone had dropped it and it found its way here by chance. But when you turned it over, you saw how carefully it had been placed. Not dropped. Not lost. Left.

The bell above the door chimed, and you startled so hard you nearly dropped it. He was there—Remmick—filling the frame of the doorway, eyes flicking once to the watch in your hand before settling back on your face.

“Don’t leave your things layin’ about,” he drawled, stepping inside with the unhurried gait of a man who’d already decided he belonged here. “Might get took.”

Your lips parted, words caught somewhere between your tongue and your chest. You should have asked him why. How. You should have asked what business he had with a dead man’s watch. But the words withered under the weight of his gaze.

He smiled then. Slow. Certain. “Pretty thing like you oughta have somethin’ that lasts.”

The second hand ticked loud in your palm, sharp as a heartbeat.

And the watch was only the beginning.

A week later, you came down to the shop before dawn, the air still heavy with the night’s damp, and found something else laid across the cutting table. A ring. Silver, dulled with age, the initials scratched into the inside band catching the lamplight. You knew those initials. They belonged to the out-of-town cousin who’d asked you to the picture show, the one pulled bloated from the river. The ring had been on his finger when he smiled at you. Now it gleamed in your shop like a promise.

You left it where it sat. All day, you cut and pinned and basted around it, unable to touch it, unable to look away. When you finally found the courage to slip it into the drawer, you felt him watching from the street through the slant of the blinds.

The next gift came more plainly. A belt buckle, heavy brass, smoothed by years of wear. It was set on the counter one night when you locked up late, no sound of the door, no jingle of the bell. One moment it hadn’t been there, the next it had.

Your stomach turned cold when you realized you’d seen that buckle before. Charlie Whitmore had worn it the night he offered to walk you home, his thumb hooked against the brass as he’d talked about the harvest, the shine catching under the streetlamps with every step. Now it sat on your counter, polished clean, heavy as a headstone in your hand.

The third gift you couldn’t mistake for anything but what it was. A handkerchief, monogrammed in blue, stained faintly at one edge where blood had darkened and dried. Folded clean, set atop your sewing machine like a bolt waiting to be worked. You stared at it until the lamp flickered low, the stain burning into your eyes, your chest so tight it hurt to breathe.

When you finally gathered the nerve to carry it to the back room, he was there. Not outside this time—inside, leaning against the wall as though he had been there all along, his smile slow, knowing.

“You oughta keep better hold of things,” he drawled, eyes dropping to the handkerchief trembling in your hand. “World’s rough. Things get lost.”

Your voice broke before you could stop it. “Why?”

The smile deepened, smug, certain. He didn’t answer your question. He only pushed off the wall, boots heavy against the floor, and came close enough that the smoke wrapped you in its haze.

“Don’t fret,” he said, voice so low you felt it more than heard it. “I’ll see to it you’re looked after.”

And then he was gone, leaving the handkerchief in your shaking grip, the smell of smoke and iron lingering in the room long after.

It was broad daylight when they found him.

The barber’s nephew, stretched in the ditch just beyond the square, where the cattle trucks rattled through and the dust always hung low. A woman spotted him first, halfway through pinning laundry to the line. Her scream carried sharp across the morning air, sharp enough to still every hand in town. Within minutes, half the square had gathered, drawn like flies to rot.

You shouldn’t have gone, but of course you did. You pushed through the crowd until the smell hit you—hot iron, sour and thick, curling into your throat. The sight turned your stomach before your mind could make sense of it.

He didn’t look like a man anymore. His throat was a ruin, torn so wide the flesh gaped, ragged edges glistening in the sun. His chest had collapsed inward, ribs cracked and jutting sharp like broken fence slats. Blood stained his shirt stiff, dark patches crusting around wounds too vicious to be explained by rock or animal. His hands were curled tight against his chest, nails splintered and packed with dirt as if he’d clawed the ground trying to fight free. His eyes were still open, glassy, catching the sun in a way that made him look half alive.

The crowd shifted and shuddered. Someone gagged into a handkerchief. Mrs. Carter fainted again, same as she had at the river, folding to the grass with her skirts billowing. A farmer muttered about wild dogs. Another man swore it had to be cattle rustlers, thieves who’d beaten him bloody and left him for dead. But no one’s voice carried conviction. Not with those wounds. Not with the stench.

The sheriff tried to bark the crowd back, his hand tight on his belt, but even he hung a step away from the body. He stood stiff, sweat slicking his hairline, as if he already knew no pistol on his hip could answer for this.

And then someone said it.

“She was the last one with him.” A woman’s voice, sharp as a nail, from the back of the crowd.

The words carried quick, sharper than any sermon. Her, her, her. Whispers rolling outward until they were a tide. Necks craned toward you, eyes narrowing, mouths tight with suspicion. You felt the shift like a knife pressed flat against your spine.

Aunt June’s hand snapped onto your arm, her grip bruising. “We’re leaving.” Her voice was low, fierce, and brooked no refusal. She dragged you back through the murmuring crowd, their eyes following, their whispers buzzing in your ears like hornets.

But you couldn’t help yourself. You looked back once, past the faces, past the body in the ditch.

He was there.

Remmick, leaning against a hitching post at the edge of the square, smoke trailing lazy from the cigarette between his fingers. He wasn’t looking at the body. Wasn’t looking at the crowd. Only you. His eyes tracked you steady as you were pulled away, and when the wind shifted, carrying that heavy stench of blood, you swore you saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward into a smile.

By the end of the month, the town had changed its tune. The discovery in the ditch had rattled them bad enough that no one dared pretend anymore. But it wasn’t Remmick they feared. It was you.

As soon as the barber’s nephew’s body was carted away, the killings seemed to stop. No more boys vanished on the walk home. No more merchants found half-devoured in the river. The square carried on, brittle but steady, as if the storm had passed. Only it hadn’t, not really. It had just circled you, drawn a line around you like a curse no one wanted to brush up against.

Men steered clear. Crossed streets rather than share a walk. Kept their heads bowed at church. The soda fountain, once thick with boys jangling coins, now left a wide berth around your stool if you dared sit at all. They looked at you like you were a bad omen, something that drew death like moths to flame.

Aunt June kept her jaw tight, telling you to ignore it, but you saw the way her eyes flicked to the window every time the bell above the shop door rang. She’d started bolting the shutters earlier, snuffing the lamps sooner, as if that could keep the whispers out.

But nothing kept him out.

The shop was quiet that night, shutters drawn, lamps throwing shallow pools of yellow across bolts of cloth. Aunt June had gone upstairs, her tread fading overhead until you were alone with the hum of the sewing machine. You knew he was there before the bell above the door chimed.

When it did, the sound was sharp, final. You lifted your head and he was already inside, cigarette smoke curling from his lips, his shoulders filling the doorway. He shut the door behind him with a casual flick, the lock clicking into place though you hadn’t touched it.

“Don’t need no more gifts,” Remmick said, voice low, unhurried. He tapped ash onto the floorboards, eyes fixed on you with a steadiness that made your chest tight. “Ain’t no one left to leave ’em from, anyhow.”

Your throat went dry. “You—”

“Cleared the path.” He cut you off with a shrug, as if he were speaking of some simple chore. “A man gets in the way, I move him. Nothin’ more to it.”

You stared at him, words tangled in your chest. “I never asked—”

“Didn’t need you to,” he said, stepping closer. His boots thudded heavy against the wood, his shadow stretching long in the lamplight. “Knew it soon as I laid eyes on you. Weren’t for any of them. Was always me.”

You backed against the worktable, the edge biting into your hip. The air between you smelled of smoke and blood, copper sharp beneath the sweetness of tobacco. His gaze didn’t waver, didn’t soften. There was no question in it, no plea. Only certainty, thick as tar.

“I ain’t askin’, darlin’,” he said, softer now, almost coaxing. He reached out, knuckles grazing your wrist, light but inescapable. “I’m tellin’. You’re mine.”

The words sank into you like a weight pressing down on your chest, crushing the breath from you until all that was left was the thunder of your own pulse. Terror tangled with something darker, hotter, something you refused to name.

And in his slow smile, the one that curled smug at the corner of his mouth as if he’d always known this would be the end, you saw it: the inevitability of it all.

The words hung between you, thick as smoke. You’re mine.

You meant to push him back. To say no, to shout, to run. But his body was already closing the space, slow as a tide, the shadow of him swallowing the lamplight until there was nothing left but him and the sharp thunder of your own heart.

He set the cigarette on the edge of the worktable, the ember dying in the dish of pins, and braced one hand beside you. His palm pressed flat to the wood, the weight of him leaning in, not touching, not yet, but close enough that the heat of him licked against your skin.

“You feel it, don’t you,” he said, voice low, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world to peel you open. His knuckles grazed the hem of your sleeve, a touch so light it might have been an accident if not for the way his eyes tracked yours, steady, unblinking. “That pull.”

Your lips parted, words tangled on your tongue. Fear, yes. But underneath it, something molten, something you’d buried so deep you didn’t recognize it until it flared hot through your chest.

He smiled when he saw it—slow, satisfied, like he’d been waiting for that flicker. His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist, pressing down on your pulse, feeling the staccato thrum beneath your skin.

“Don’t bother fightin’ it,” he murmured. His breath was warm against your cheek, thick with tobacco and copper. “Ain’t no fight left to be had. Not with me.”

The air seemed to close in, heavy, pressing the walls tighter. The shop smelled of smoke, blood, and the faint starch of cloth. Your back was firm against the worktable, the edge biting into your hip, and still you didn’t move. Couldn’t. His nearness was a gravity you had no way to resist.

When his fingers lifted to cup your jaw, the pad of his thumb dragging slow across your cheekbone, you startled—not because the touch was rough, but because it wasn’t. Gentle. Reverent, even. As if he was handling something fragile, precious, breakable.

“You were never meant for them,” he whispered, eyes fixed on yours like he could will the truth into you. “Always meant for me.”

Your lips parted to argue, to deny, but the sound never made it past your throat. His hand stayed on your jaw, thumb brushing once more, slow, almost tender—and then firmer, tilting your face towards the full weight of his stare.

“You hear me, darlin’?” he drawled, not loud, not sharp, but threaded through with certainty. “Ain’t a soul in this town who can look at you and not know. You’ve been marked out. Mine.”

The air burned hot in your chest, the fight coiled there twisting into something you hated yourself for recognizing: want. It stirred beneath your skin like a fever, crawling down your arms, prickling your thighs. His touch was gentle, reverent, but his body—the heat of him pressing in, the smoke on his breath, the certainty in his stance—made it feel like you were already caught.

His hand slid lower, dragging the edge of your throat, thumb resting on the hollow there. He pressed just enough for you to feel the weight of it, his claim, before it softened again into a stroke. The rough of his palm rasped over delicate skin, and you shivered.

“You’re shakin’,” he said, voice dipping close, almost mocking, almost coaxing. “Ain’t fear. Not all of it.”

Your breath hitched, and he smiled like he’d won something. His other hand came down to the table, bracing, caging you in completely. The smell of him filled your head—smoke, sweat, the copper tang that clung to him like a shadow.

“Tell me you don’t feel it,” he murmured, leaning close enough his lips nearly brushed yours without touching. “Tell me, and I’ll walk out that door. But you won’t, will you? ’Cause you know.”

The silence stretched until you felt your pulse hammer against his thumb. And then—your shoulders slumped, the tension draining out all at once, as if your body had admitted before your mouth could.

That was all he needed.

His mouth crashed against on yours, the kiss nothing like the reverent touch of his hands. Hot, hungry, smoke and teeth and the sharp taste of tobacco clinging to his tongue. The worktable dug into your spine as he pressed you back, his body pinning you with an unyielding weight.

You gasped against him, and he swallowed the sound, his tongue sweeping deep like he’d been starving for the taste of you. The reverence in his hands turned to something rougher, gripping your jaw, sliding into your hair, tugging until your scalp tingled.

The shift was dizzying—one moment careful, the next feral—and you couldn’t help but cling, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. His chest rumbled with a low laugh at the feel of you clutching him, and his free hand skimmed down, flattening against your waist, tugging you closer until the line of his body ground hard against yours.

“You’re mine,” he rasped into your mouth again, harsher this time, like he was branding the words onto your tongue.

His kiss deepened, tongue stroking into your mouth until you couldn’t tell where breath ended and hunger began. His hand fisted in your hair, angling your head just how he wanted, while the other dragged down the slope of your spine until it hooked low at your hip. He pressed you into the worktable hard enough the wood groaned.

Your thighs clenched, instinct more than choice, but he caught the movement, his thumb digging into your waist. He broke the kiss only long enough to murmur against your swollen lips, voice ragged and thick:

“Part for me.”

It wasn’t a request.

The sharp edge of the table bit into your hips as his knee nudged between yours, forcing space. His palm skimmed the inside of your thigh, calluses catching on tender skin, climbing higher until your breath turned shallow.

“That’s it,” he coaxed, watching every twitch of your face, every little tremor of resistance and want. “Knew you’d open for me. Whole town’s been too blind to see it.”

The rough pads of his fingers pressed up, ghosting the heat between your legs through the thin fabric. Even that light pressure made your stomach twist tight. You gasped, and his mouth curved in that dark, satisfied smile.

“Feel how ready you are? Ain’t fear, darlin’. That’s your body beggin’ me to take.”

He ground his hand against you, slow, testing, making you writhe back against the table. Your fingers dug into his shoulders, nails catching the fabric of his shirt, and the low sound that tore from his throat was half laugh, half growl.

“Don’t you hold back on me now.” His teeth grazed the line of your jaw, scraping down the curve of your neck until he sucked hard at the hollow of your throat, leaving a mark you knew would bloom dark by morning. “You’re mine, and I’ll have every damn sound out of you to prove it.”

His hand slipped under your skirt, rough knuckles dragging up your bare thigh, higher, higher, until his fingertips pressed against where you needed most. The shock of contact ripped a noise from you you hadn’t meant to make, broken and needy, and his answering chuckle vibrated hot against your skin.

“Good girl.” His lips ghosted yours again, tauntingly soft compared to the heavy drag of his fingers. “That’s what I wanted. That right there.”

His fingers slid higher, pushing past the edge of your underthings until the rough pad of his thumb dragged over slick heat. He froze for just a breath, exhale hissing through his teeth, before pressing in harder.

“Christ,” he muttered, almost to himself, voice low and hungry. “Soakin’ already. Tight little thing, waitin’ for me.”

Your head tipped back, a broken sound tearing loose when one thick finger breached you, slow, deliberate, stretching you around him. His eyes stayed fixed on your face, drinking in every twitch, every gasp, the way your lips parted helplessly.

“Feel that?” he rasped, curling his finger deep until your thighs trembled. “That’s what it means to be mine. Ain’t no man ever gettin’ this again.”

Another finger pressed in alongside the first, a drag that burned and ached before it melted into something hotter. He groaned, low and guttural, like he was the one unraveling.

“Goddamn. You don’t even know,” he breathed, forehead pressing to yours. “Ain’t laid a hand on another woman in longer’n I can say. Could’ve. Easy as breathin’. But I weren’t about to waste myself on someone who wasn’t meant.” His teeth grazed your lip, biting down just enough to sting before soothing the mark with his tongue. “Was waitin’ on someone like you.”

His thumb circled your clit, rough and insistent, while his fingers worked deep, pumping harder, curling until sparks shot white-hot through your belly. The wet sounds of it filled the small shop, obscene in the silence, mixing with your ragged breaths.

“Listen to that,” he growled against your ear, curling his fingers harder until your knees buckled. He caught you with his body, pinning you steady against the worktable. “Drippin’ round me like you were made for it. You were made for it.”

The table kept biting into your back, his breath hot on your cheek, his hand relentless between your thighs. Every time your body clenched down on him, he swore under his breath, voice thick with awe and filth all at once.

“Tight little thing,” he praised, fucking you on his fingers harder now, his pace quickening until the sound of your wetness was matched only by the slap of his palm against your skin. “Grippin’ me like you’re afraid I’ll leave. Don’t you worry, darlin’. I ain’t leavin’. Not ever.”

His pace turned merciless, each thrust of his fingers hitting deeper, rougher, the heel of his palm grinding against your clit until your whole body went taut. Your nails clawed at his shoulders, desperate for purchase, and he only laughed, the sound dark and low in your ear.

“That’s it,” he urged, voice gone ragged, sweat damp at his temple. “Give it to me. Don’t you dare hold back now. I want every bit of it.”

Your thighs clamped around his hand, trying to slow the relentless drag of his fingers, but he shoved his knee wider between yours, keeping you spread for him. The worktable rattled under the force, pins scattering in their dish, the lamp’s light trembling across the bolts of fabric stacked high.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” he hissed when you clenched around him, your body seizing tight. “Clampin’ down on me like you’ll never let go. Like you know I’m the only one who’ll ever fill you right.”

Your breath broke into sobs of pleasure, half-words spilling uselessly against his mouth, and he swallowed them, kissing you through it, his tongue tangling with yours as his hand drove you higher, harder. The obscene wet sounds of it filled the air, slick and shameless, echoing in the shuttered shop.

And you swear for an incredibly brief moment that his eyes flare red like cherried coals that had just been stoked.

“Come on, darlin’,” he rasped against your lips, his thumb circling cruel and fast now, rubbing you raw with bliss. “Let me feel it. Let me have you.”

And then you broke.

The orgasm tore through you sharp and blinding, your cry muffled against his mouth. Your body convulsed, clenching around his fingers so tight he groaned, nearly undone himself from the force of it. He didn’t stop, not right away—kept working you through it, dragging every last tremor out until you went boneless against the table, trembling, breathless.

“Jesus Christ,” he growled, finally slowing, his forehead pressed to yours. He pulled his fingers free, slick and shining in the dim lamplight, and held them up like proof. “Look at you. Drippin’ for me. Mine.”

He sucked his fingers into his mouth, groaning deep at the taste, eyes locked on yours the whole time. When he pulled them free with a wet pop, his smile was slow, feral, and satisfied.

“Never again,” he promised, voice low, vow-like. “Ain’t touchin’ another. Don’t need to. Got what I been waitin’ for.”

He didn’t give you time to catch your breath. His hand fisted in your skirts, bunching the fabric up high around your hips, baring you to the cool air of the shuttered shop. The lamplight caught on the slick between your thighs, his eyes dragging over the sight with a hunger that made your stomach flip.

“Look at you,” he rasped, voice rough, reverent and filthy all at once. “Shakin’, wet as sin, and all of it for me.”

He shoved the fabric higher, trapping it against your waist with his body as he pressed in close. You felt the hard line of him straining against his trousers, grinding against you in a slow, punishing drag that made you gasp.

“Waited too damn long,” he muttered, fumbling at his belt with one hand, the other still pinning you steady against the table, his suspenders down around his muscled thighs. The sharp clink of the buckle, the rasp of leather sliding free, filled the quiet between your ragged breaths. “Could’ve had a hundred others, easy. Didn’t want ’em. Didn’t need ’em. Knew they weren’t worth the time. Was savin’ myself for this. For you.”

The head of him pressed hot and heavy against your slick entrance, and your whole body jolted at the contact. He groaned deep in his chest, the sound broken, almost pained.

“Christ almighty,” he ground out, forehead pressing to yours, his breath shaking. “Tight little thing’s gonna ruin me.”

And then he pushed in.

The stretch burned, sharp enough to make you cry out, your hands scrambling against his chest, clutching at him as he sank deeper, inch by relentless inch. His jaw clenched, teeth gritted as if holding himself back from slamming home in one brutal thrust, his teeth seemingly sharper than before.

“Grip’s like a vise,” he hissed, voice strangled, sweat slicking his brow. “So tight—fuck—you’ll tear me apart if I don’t ease it.”

But even as he said it, his hips snapped forward, burying himself to the hilt with a groan that rattled through your bones, red bleeding into his irises. The table shuddered under the force, bolts of fabric toppling to the floor, and you felt split wide, filled in a way that stole every ounce of air from your lungs.

“Mine,” he growled against your mouth, voice guttural, claiming, as he held there for a beat, letting you feel the weight, the stretch, the inevitability of him inside you. “Always were. Always will be.”

Then he pulled back and drove in again, harder, sharper, the worktable rattling with every thrust.

He set a punishing rhythm from the start, hips snapping forward with a force that rattled the table against the wall. Every thrust knocked the breath from your lungs, his grip bruising at your waist as he drove himself deeper, harder, like he meant to carve himself into you.

“Fuck—” he snarled through clenched, serrated teeth, head dropping to the curve of your neck, his breath hot and ragged. “So goddamn tight, squeezin’ me like you were made for nothin’ else.”

Your cries spilled out unchecked, every sound swallowed by the crash of his body against yours. He licked the salt from your throat, then bit down hard enough to make you jolt, the sting sparking through the flood of heat between your thighs.

“That’s it,” he growled, pulling back just enough to watch the way your face twisted, pleasure and overwhelm tangling into one. “Let the whole fuckin’ town hear you. Let ‘em know you’re mine.”

The slap of his hips filled the room, wet and obscene, every thrust dragging more slick out of you, the mess dripping down your thighs. He grunted at the feel of it, feral and unrestrained.

“Listen to you,” he rasped, his voice breaking on a groan as he hammered deeper, angling his hips until he hit that spot inside you that made your vision spark. “Soakin’ me—so fuckin’ wet—just beggin’ me to keep goin’.”

You tried to stammer his name, tried to beg or plead, but it broke into a scream when his hand slid down, rough thumb finding your clit and circling in time with his thrusts. The dual assault shattered you, your body arching back over the table, every nerve alight.

“Good girl,” he praised, filthy and reverent all at once, voice wrecked as he slammed harder, faster. “Take me. Take all of me. That’s what you were made for, darlin’. For me. Always me.”

The orgasm ripped through you so hard it felt like your bones would split apart. You clenched around him like a vice, and he let out a ragged grunt, hips jerking as if your body was dragging the release out of him against his will.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ—” His thrusts grew frantic, messy, pounding you through your climax until his own tore loose, his whole body shuddering as he spilled deep inside you.

The room went silent except for the sound of your panting, his weight heavy over you, his chest heaving against yours. The lamp flickered, shadows stretching long across the shop, bolts of cloth scattered like fallen witnesses.

He kissed you then, not soft but claiming, sealing the vow he’d been etching into you all night. When he pulled back, his mouth was curved in that same slow, inevitable smile.

“Told you,” he murmured, voice ruined, forehead resting against yours. “Always meant for me.”

He stayed inside you even as his body stilled, both of you trembling, sweat-slick and breathless. His chest pressed heavy against yours, every ragged inhale rattling through you like he meant to weld your bodies together.

When he finally pulled back, it was slow, deliberate, his length dragging through your oversensitive walls until you whimpered. He groaned at the sound, at the sight of his cock glistening with your release when he withdrew fully.

“Look at that mess,” he rasped, hand still gripping your waist, holding you steady when your knees threatened to give out. His other hand slid down, fingers swiping through the wet slick that clung to your thighs. He smeared it across your skin, marking you. “Leakin’ me already. Ain’t nothin’ prettier.”

He cupped your spent pussy, possessive, rubbing his cum deeper against your folds as if to seal it in. The action made you jolt, overstimulated, but he only chuckled, dark and satisfied.

“Never lettin’ you forget it,” he muttered, leaning down to kiss you again, slower this time but no less claiming. “You’ll walk tomorrow and feel me. You’ll sit at that soda fountain, and every fool who steers clear’ll know why. ‘Cause you’ll still be carryin’ me.”

The words hit heavier than the thrusts had, settling like iron in your chest. His thumb pressed lazy circles against your hip, grounding you even as he kept you pinned against the wrecked worktable.

He brushed damp hair back from your face, his touch unexpectedly gentle after the storm he’d unleashed on your body. His eyes, now dark, roved over your features with something like reverence, though his smile stayed feral.

“You did so good for me, darlin’,” he murmured, voice gravel-soft now, a dangerous lull. He kissed the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your jaw, each press deliberate, sealing his claim. “Ain’t been with no one else ‘cause I knew—knew I was waitin’ on this. On you.”

When he finally stepped back, tucking himself away, he didn’t let you go far. His palm stayed on your hip, fingers spread wide like he was staking his claim. The shop smelled thick of sweat, sex, and smoke, bolts of fabric scattered across the floor like wreckage.

He looked at the mess, then back at you, his grin slow and satisfied.

“Always meant for me,” he said again, steady as a vow. “Now the whole world knows it.”

The shop was ruined—bolts scattered, pins spilled, the lamp guttering low—but none of it mattered. The whole town could whisper, could steer clear, could call you cursed. Let them. You knew, in the marrow of your bones, that none of it would change what had been sealed tonight.

His touch lingered at your hip, anchoring, heavy. His eyes stayed fixed on yours like he’d staked his claim not just in your body but in your soul. You could feel him inside you still, not just the mess between your thighs but the weight of his vow, burned deep into your chest.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, rough with satisfaction.

“Storm’s over now, darlin’. Nothin’ left to fear. Long as you remember—you’re mine.”

He reached for his cigarette, lit it from the lamp’s dying flame, and leaned back against the table beside you, smoke curling around his shoulders like a crown. The picture of inevitability.

Upstairs, the house stayed silent. Outside, the town slept uneasy, unaware the curse they feared had already settled, permanent, in you.

And when he glanced sidelong at you, lips curling slow around the smoke, you didn’t move. Couldn’t. Because he was right.

You’d been marked from the start.

They told stories about the woods.

Whispers passed from mother to daughter, scrawled into the margins of hymnals, murmured between shutters as night fell thick and quick over the village. They said things lived past the river. Old things. Things that watched, waited, fed.

They said girls went missing.

They said their bodies were never found whole.

They said the monster had red eyes and could smell a lie like smoke.

You listened to the stories the way everyone did: with one ear and half a soul. Then you turned twelve, then fourteen, and stories gave way to bruises.

You learned quickly that the real monsters lived in your house.

And when you turned eighteen and your mother was gone and your father’s backhand had grown careless and cruel, you stopped being afraid of the woods.

Because the woods didn’t scream at you. They didn’t smell like rot and whiskey. They didn’t hold grudges and broken plates and the weight of every word you didn’t say.

The woods were quiet.

And quiet, for a girl like you, was holy.

So you crossed the river barefoot one night, lip split and blood crusting in your hairline.

There was no moon—just the churn of the current beneath you and the hollow in your chest that never quite closed. You didn’t mean to go far. You just needed somewhere to sit, to breathe, to shake the feeling that your skin didn’t fit anymore.

But the trees seemed to part for you.

Like they’d been waiting.

The clearing was there, tucked beyond a bend in the river trail, ringed in ash and crowned by a crooked, rotted tree that clawed at the sky with splintered fingers. Bones scattered the ground—bird bones, deer bones, bones too long to name.

And in the center, as if he’d been carved from shadow itself, sat a man.

Or something that only resembled one.

He was still. Sprawled. One leg drawn up, the other stretched long. A heavy coat hung from his shoulders like wet smoke, collar turned high. You couldn’t see his face until he lifted it.

Eyes like dying stars.

Red. Not bright. Not glowing. Just wrong.

Your lungs forgot themselves.

He stared at you. And kept staring.

Not like a man startled by a trespasser. Not like a beast sizing up prey. But like he knew you. Had been waiting for you.

Your heartbeat drowned out the river. Your bare toes curled in the wet grass. And still, you didn’t move.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t snarl.

He blinked once. And then looked away.

You came back the next night.

And the one after that.

You didn’t know why. You just did.

At first, he didn’t speak.

He watched from the shadows like you were something delicate he didn’t trust. Like a flame that might flicker out if he exhaled too hard.

The third time, you found him with blood on his hands. It slicked his knuckles, pooled beneath his claws—because yes, they were claws now, long and sharp and black at the tips. There was a fox carcass half-shredded beside him. The smell of iron was thick in the air.

You froze. He didn’t.

He simply wiped his fingers on a strip of cloth, slow and methodical, and said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to. “But I am.”

Something twitched in his expression. Like he didn’t expect you to speak. Like he didn’t hate it.

“You don’t fear me,” he said, more statement than question.

You hesitated. “Should I?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Over time, you learned the shape of him.

Not just his body—though that, too, lingered in your thoughts. His movements were too quiet. His shoulders rolled like something used to hunting on four legs. His canines weren't just fanged—they all were, every one of them sharp, crooked, stained.

But there was restraint in him.

A stillness that felt held together by a thread. A monster tied to a pillar and dared not to snap.

He never got close. Never touched. But you felt it. The way his gaze pulled at you. The way the air bent around him. The way your pulse betrayed you every time he looked at your throat.

And God, he looked at your throat a lot.

Sometimes, you talked.

You told him about the church bells that rang too loud, the father who drank too much, the boys in the village who stared at you like they deserved something. You told him about the ache in your chest that never went away, the dreams that ended in silence, the scar on your thigh from falling off the roof when you were nine.

He listened.

He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t tell you to pray harder. Didn’t try to fix you.

Sometimes he said nothing at all.

Sometimes, silence was the kindest thing in the world.

Once, you brought him something.

A peach, stolen from a merchant’s cart.

You set it down on the stone between you. Said nothing. He didn’t touch it at first. Just stared.

Then, finally, he picked it up. Turned it over in his palm. Held it to his face and breathed in, like scent was new to him.

Then he looked at you.

And you couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t eat it. Didn’t throw it away.

He placed it gently in the dirt, pressed into the earth, and covered it with a flat stone.

Like he was planting it. Or burying it.

You never asked which.

The first time he touched you, it was an accident.

You tripped, as you sometimes did. The forest floor was uneven, and you’d gotten too close to him while walking the ring of ash that surrounded the clearing. Your ankle buckled.

And before you hit the ground, his arm was around your waist.

Cold. So cold.

He steadied you. Just long enough to catch your balance. Just long enough for your hands to find his coat and for your chest to knock into his. Just long enough to feel the breath hitch in his throat.

Then he stepped back like you’d burned him.

He looked at his own hand. Flexed it once. Twice.

“Sorry,” you whispered.

His voice came low and raw. “You shouldn’t be.”

After that, something shifted.

Not in the way he behaved—he still sat just out of reach, still watched without speaking—but something had opened. A thread had been tied between you, thin and shimmering, and every visit pulled it tighter.

You started dreaming of him.

Of his hands, his mouth, the way he moved.

Sometimes you woke with your thighs slick and your pulse frantic.

Sometimes you woke with his name in your mouth, even though he’d never told it to you.

The bite didn’t come all at once.

You talked about it, in your way.

“What happens if you drink from me?” you asked.

He stiffened. Then: “I don’t feed on mortals who ask to die.”

“What if I’m not asking to die?”

He said nothing. But his hands clenched in his lap.

“I want to understand,” you told him. “You’re always so careful. So still. Doesn’t it hurt?”

He looked up at you then.

And something broke.

That night, you let him bite you.

You offered your wrist, palm up, your breath shaking but your eyes steady.

He took it slowly. Gently. His hands were cold, but careful. He brought your skin to his mouth like it was a prayer.

His lips were soft. His breath—none.

And when his teeth broke your skin, you gasped.

Not from pain.

From feeling.

Like every nerve lit up. Like a flame passed through you and didn’t burn—just reminded you that you were alive.

He drank slowly. Barely a mouthful.

But it was enough.

When he pulled back, blood shimmered on his chin, and his eyes—his eyes were blazing.

You touched his face before you knew what you were doing. Wiped the blood away with your thumb.

He leaned into your palm.

And for a moment, the monster didn’t exist.

Only the man. Hungry. Reverent. Real.

Then he pulled away, like it hurt to be near you.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he rasped.

You did.

You just weren’t sorry.

Later, you felt it.

The thread between you became a cord.

You could feel him. Not clearly, not always, but enough.

Enough to sense when he was near. Enough to feel him watching when you couldn’t see him. Enough to hear his breath when the wind died. Enough to wake from sleep with your chest aching like he’d whispered your name into your dreams.

You were marked.

And you didn’t care.

You came back to him, again and again, because nowhere else felt like anything anymore.

You never asked what he was.

He never asked why you stayed.

The bond between you didn’t need language.

Only time. And blood.

And something older than fear.

It began with the change in the air.

Not the wind. Not the scent. Not the thick press of late-autumn fog rolling in off the water. No, it was something deeper. A shift beneath the skin of things. A tremor that hadn't reached the surface yet, but you felt it anyway.

Remmick felt it too.

He was quieter than usual. More still. His movements, usually fluid and slow like water, became sharp. Calculated. Like a creature trying not to spook prey.

Only you weren’t prey. Not to him.

You’d given him your wrist. Your pulse. Your trust. You belonged to each other in a way that didn’t need to be spoken aloud.

So when he stopped meeting you in the clearing for three nights in a row, you knew something was wrong.

On the fourth night, you found him kneeling in the ashes.

The ring of the firepit was cold and broken, stones overturned like something had scattered them in rage. The ground was scorched beyond its usual blackened ring. His coat was discarded at the base of the tree, damp with river mist, as if he’d waded in fully clothed just to feel the chill.

He looked at you with eyes that were too dark. Too tired.

You crouched beside him slowly.

"What happened?"

"You’ve been seen," he said.

His voice sounded ruined. Like it had been dragged across broken glass and handed back to him.

You blinked. "By who?"

He didn’t answer.

But you knew.

You felt it, suddenly. A pulse of fear that wasn’t yours. It hit the bond like lightning.

Remmick’s hands twitched once in his lap.

"They followed you," he rasped. "To the river. Didn’t cross, but…close. They know you’ve been leaving."

You didn’t speak.

There was a pressure blooming behind your eyes, and your throat felt full of stones.

He finally turned to look at you.

"We don’t have much time."

You tried to act normal the next day.

Tried to carry your basket to market and not flinch under the stares that lingered too long. You noticed it now. The way they watched your throat. The way they leaned toward the priest when he spoke. The way chalk marks had been scraped along your doorstep in a language that no one taught aloud.

You thought of the way Remmick flinched when sunlight touched his coat.

You thought of the way he had looked at you the night you let him bite you, like he was holding the only softness he’d ever known.

You hurried home with your shoulders curled forward like you could keep a secret that way.

That night, you crossed the river barefoot.

He was waiting for you.

Not in the clearing.

At the edge of the water.

Standing beneath the trees like he belonged there. Like he was the forest. He didn’t speak when you approached. Just opened his coat.

You stepped into it without hesitation.

His arms came around you. Cold. Strong. Familiar.

You buried your face against his chest and breathed in the scent of pine and iron and smoke.

You stayed that way for a long time.

"They want to burn you," he said finally, his lips against your hair. "At dawn."

You didn’t move.

"They think I marked you."

"You did," you said quietly. "But not how they mean."

His arms tightened around you.

"I won’t let them take you."

You knew he meant it.

But you also knew what sunlight would do to him.

You returned home before dawn, shoes dripping river water, his voice still in your ears.

They want to burn you.

You didn’t sleep. Didn’t eat. Didn’t speak to your father when he spat on the floor and muttered something about witches.

You sat in your room with the door bolted and your scarf clutched tight in your hands, tracing the faint marks on your wrist. The place where his mouth had touched you.

You tried to think of plans. You thought of running. Of slipping away before the sun rose. But even if you left, where would you go? There was no place he could follow safely. Not at dawn. Not in sunlight.

You were the one marked for burning. But he was the one who would die trying to stop it.

You considered staying. Giving yourself over. Dousing the fire before it reached your toes.

But you thought of him.

The way he touched your hand like it might vanish. The way his breath shivered when he pulled away from your skin. The way his eyes changed when you said mine.

You wouldn’t let him die for you. Not like this.

So when they came for you, you didn’t run.

It was just before first light.

They kicked down your door. Three men. A fourth behind them with a noose. One of them had a cloth soaked in vinegar. It stung your eyes as they pressed it to your face, shouting over your screams.

Your father stood in the corner, arms crossed, eyes blank.

He said nothing. Did nothing. Just watched them drag you away like it wasn’t even happening.

You were yanked through the doorway, arms bound behind your back, the wind biting at your bare ankles. A torch flickered ahead of you. Salt was poured in your path. You tasted metal in your mouth. Your knees gave once, but they didn’t let you fall. They dragged you upright like a sack of grain.

The square was already full.

People poured from their homes like rats from the walls. Stonefaced, shawls wrapped tight, lips moving with quiet prayers. Children were pulled behind skirts. Men stood with arms folded, expressions grim and tight. You saw the boy who once gave you a flower look away.

The priest stood at the edge of the chapel steps, his arms outstretched like he was welcoming rain. His mouth moved too fast for words to keep up. Spit flew with each syllable.

“Witch!” “Marked!” “Daughter of rot!”

You were pushed forward. Stumbled. Your shoulder slammed into the edge of a crate, and you hissed in pain.

They tied your wrists tighter. Rope rough and old and stained with something dark. Your skin burned where it chafed. You felt the bite marks under the wrap on your wrist throb—like they knew what was coming.

The pyre had already been built.

Not at the chapel, but the center of the square.

A tall post. A platform beneath it. Bundles of dry brush stacked at your feet. Oil was being poured in lazy waves around the wood, darkening it. Someone was humming.

They tied you to the post with three thick ropes. One at the waist. One at the chest. One at the throat.

You shivered.

Not from cold.

From knowing he could feel this. That somewhere in the woods, across the river, Remmick knew.

You closed your eyes. Tried to block it out. But it was all too loud. The torches. The voices. The hammering of your heart.

The priest approached. In his hand, he held a bowl. He dipped his fingers into it and flung something wet at your face. It smelled like garlic and bile.

“I cast out the demon in you!” he screamed.

“I cast out the rot and the curse and the unclean seed!”

Someone in the crowd repeated him. Then another. Then a chorus. It rose like a wave, building and frothing and curling over your head.

Burn her. Burn her. Burn her.

The sky was turning. From black to deep blue. Then to pale.

You could feel the air shift. The morning coming.

You looked to the tree line.

Nothing moved.

You prayed he wouldn’t come. And you prayed he would.

The priest held up the torch.

“Let this girl be cleansed!”

He turned toward the pyre.

Your breath caught.

And far, far away, under the trees—something moved.

The torch never touched the wood.

Not because the priest faltered. Not because the crowd intervened.

But because something landed on the chapel roof with a sound like thunder cracking bone.

Every head turned. The air changed. The birds stopped. Even the fire held still.

You didn’t see him—not yet.

You felt him.

A pulse. Through the trees. Through your blood. Through the mark on your wrist that burned like it had just been made.

The priest turned back to you, torch raised again.

“Let this girl be cleansed!” he screamed.

And then—Remmick dropped into the square like a curse made flesh.

He didn’t descend. He didn’t fly. He fell—from the bell tower in a blur of movement, coat flaring, claws bared, a snarl already ripping from his throat. He crashed into the center of the crowd, and the ground shook.

Someone screamed.

Then came the tearing.

You had seen him still. You had seen him cold. You had seen him hold back.

You had never seen him like this.

Berserker. Gone. Unleashed.

His eyes weren’t red. They were glowing—brighter than firelight, bleeding light like open wounds. His mouth was all teeth. Not fangs. Teeth. Rows of them, jagged and wrong and drenched in blood before the first man even hit the ground.

He didn’t move like a man.

He didn’t even move like an animal.

He ripped.

The priest tried to speak again. Remmick was on him before the sentence was finished. One hand closed around his face—not his throat, his face—and crushed it like fruit. Bone and brain and blood exploded across the chapel steps. Bits of skull clattered across stone.

The crowd broke.

But it was already too late.

He was in it. Through it. A blur of rage and claws and shrieking flesh. People ran and were caught. Screamed and were silenced. One woman slipped in a pool of blood and tried to crawl—Remmick dragged her back by the ankle and split her open across the stones like a sack of meat.

You couldn’t look away.

He was beautiful.

Awful.

Covered in red. A silhouette against the rising sun, unmoved by it, untouched by it—for now. For just long enough.

A man swung an axe. It glanced off Remmick’s shoulder. He grabbed the man by the jaw and the chest and pulled in opposite directions.

The sound will never leave you.

Wet. Snapping. Screaming.

Another tried to stab him from behind. Remmick turned and sank his claws into the man’s stomach, twisted, and pulled out something that glistened.

Intestines spilled like rope. The man screamed until Remmick tore out his throat with his teeth.

Children were screaming. People trampled each other. Doors slammed shut—too late.

Remmick didn’t care.

He leapt onto a rooftop, drove his claws through the tiles, and pulled a screaming body through the window. Blood sprayed across the panes. He burst through the door seconds later, dragging two more by the hair.

He threw one so hard into the chapel wall that her bones exploded on impact.

The second he held by the back of the neck and slammed her face-first into the pyre, again and again, until the wood was painted with pulp.

Another man—one of the ones who tied you—tried to run. Remmick caught him by the spine and lifted him clean off the ground. Then he bit—not the throat, but the shoulder, tearing through muscle, chewing, snarling as the man shrieked and flailed.

He dropped him half-alive. Then crushed his skull beneath his boot.

A group of villagers tried to form a line—tools raised, makeshift weapons drawn.

Remmick laughed.

It wasn’t human.

It was a jagged, broken, animal noise that echoed through the square like a war cry.

He charged.

Three fell in the first pass. One had his arm torn off at the shoulder. Another had his ribs opened like a door. The last tried to crawl away and was dragged backward, leaving deep red trails in the dirt.

Remmick crouched over him and feasted.

You heard the snap of bones. The gurgle of blood. The wet, rhythmic tear of sinew.

You gagged. But still, you watched.

The chapel bell began to ring—someone trying to sound an alarm.

Remmick blurred upward.

You saw him leap. You saw the bell stop mid-swing.

And then the bell tower collapsed.

Bricks rained down. Dust choked the square. A man’s leg jutted from the rubble, twitching.

Remmick walked through the smoke. Face split wide in a snarl. His coat hung in tatters. His claws were drenched to the elbows.

He was still hungry.

And then—he saw him.

Your father.

Standing at the far end of the square. Too cowardly to come close. Too proud to run.

Remmick’s head tilted slowly.

You felt the shift in him—not hunger. Not rage. Hatred.

Not for what your father had done tonight.

But for everything he had done before.

Remmick didn’t sprint. He stalked.

Your father turned and bolted.

He didn’t get far.

Remmick tackled him to the ground in front of the chapel steps. One clawed hand slammed into his shoulder, pinning him like a nailed insect. Your father screamed and punched and kicked—but it was nothing.

“Please—please, I didn’t know—she’s nothing—”

Remmick growled low, deep. A sound like stone splitting.

Then he started at the knees.

Claws tore through tendons. He dragged the body closer to the flames. Your father screamed and thrashed, but Remmick held him fast, shredding muscle, grinding bone under heel.

He didn’t kill him quickly.

He peeled skin from flesh. Tore out the tongue. Drove a claw straight through his eye and twisted it until the socket cracked. The screams became gargles. Then wet moans. Then silence.

He stood over the twitching wreckage of the man who raised you and spat blood on his corpse.

Only then did he turn back to you.

It took twelve minutes to empty the town.

The square was unrecognizable. Blood pooled in the gutters. Viscera clung to windows. A head rolled to a stop near your feet.

You were crying.

You hadn’t realized until the tears cooled the blood on your cheeks. Your body shook against the post. The ropes still held, slick with your sweat and the spray of what had once been your neighbors.

Remmick stood with his back to you.

His shoulders rose and fell like bellows.

And then, slowly, he turned.

His face was half-blood, half-shadow. His chest heaved. His mouth was open. His teeth were wrong.

And then his eyes met yours.

And the red dimmed.

He came back.

One step. Then another.

He was limping. One hand hung broken. His coat had burned away on one side, revealing a chest carved with old scars and new wounds, healing already. You could see the steam curling from where his skin tried to fight the coming sun.

He reached the pyre.

He reached you.

Without a word, he pulled the ropes free.

Your knees gave. He caught you.

His hands were sticky. His arms shook.

He held you like you were something soft in a world made of fire.

“You came,” you whispered, voice wrecked.

His head lowered.

“I’ll always come.”

You buried your face in his neck.

And as the sun finally crested the chapel roof, he lifted you into his arms and walked—limping, burned, bloodied—into the tree line.

Where no one would ever touch you again.

The forest swallowed you.

His arms did not falter.

Smoke still clung to your skin. Your mouth tasted of iron. Your body trembled with the ghost of fire, the memory of rope, the phantom press of eyes that no longer existed.

He didn’t speak as he carried you. Didn’t look back. Didn’t slow.

Not even as blood dripped from his fingers onto your thighs. Not even as smoke curled from his exposed skin where the sunlight licked too close.

Only once you were deep within the trees—deep enough that the air felt thick again, that moss swallowed your steps and the light broke in filtered green—did he fall to his knees.

He laid you down like something precious. Like something his.

You reached for him first.

Your fingers found his face, slick with sweat, with blood—not all of it his—and cupped his jaw.

His eyes had dimmed, but not dulled. The glow had faded to a low ember, banked but still burning.

“Remmick,” you whispered.

He closed his eyes. Just once. A single, slow blink. As if hearing his name from your mouth still did something to him.

You sat up slowly, muscles screaming, bones aching in ways you hadn’t known possible.

There was blood in your hair. On your lips. You didn’t ask if it was yours.

“I’m alright,” you murmured, though your voice trembled.

He opened his eyes again. “You’re not.”

But his hands still hovered like he didn’t know where to touch you. Not after what he’d done.

So you took his hand and laid it on your cheek.

“You came,” you said again.

“I told you I would.”

You leaned into his palm.

And he let out a sound—quiet, low, almost like a sob, if monsters could sob.

He cleaned you slowly.

Pulled water from a stream that ran cold and sharp nearby, and soaked a scrap of cloth in it. Pressed it to your face, your neck, your wrists. Hands trembling the whole time.

You let him.

Even when it stung. Even when it hurt.

He worked in silence until he reached the edges of the wound on your shoulder, and then he paused.

His thumb grazed the mark he left. The bite.

It pulsed beneath his touch.

“You’re bound to me now,” he murmured.

You nodded. “I want to be.”

He inhaled sharply. Like he didn’t know what to do with that.

“You don’t understand what that means.”

You leaned forward, forehead to his. Your breath shared. Your blood, still in him.

“I don’t care.”

That night, he didn’t sleep.

He sat with his back to a tree, holding you wrapped in what was left of his coat. Watching. Listening.

You woke to find his eyes on you. Always on you.

“Rest,” you whispered.

“I don’t need rest.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I heal.”

You reached out, pressing your fingers to the edge of one of the fresh burns. His skin was already knitting itself back together, but the heat of it made you hiss.

“You still feel it,” you said.

His eyes dropped to your throat.

“So do you.”

In the days that followed, you began to move again. Slowly. Carefully.

You followed him deeper into the woods, into places no human foot had touched in centuries. Places where the ground steamed in the morning, and the air hung heavy with the scent of moss and decay.

He found a ruin for you.

An old chapel, long since claimed by the forest. Vines covered the stones. The roof was half-gone. Ferns grew through the cracks in the altar.

You made it home.

He brought you what you needed. Soft cloth. Food you didn’t ask about. Furs to sleep on. Fire when you needed it. Silence when you didn’t.

And every night, he lay beside you.

Not touching. Not speaking.

Just breathing.

Just there.

And the bond between you grew.

You felt him before he entered a room. Felt it when his hunger stirred. Felt it when his anger flared like a match in your blood.

He never asked to feed again.

But one night, when your fingers brushed the edge of his coat and your eyes met his across the fire, he said, barely audible—

“You’d let me.”

You nodded.

He didn’t move.

Because he didn’t trust himself to stop.

You dreamt of him.

Not the way he had been in the square, not the red-eyed god of vengeance, but the way he looked when he was calm. Quiet. Still.

You dreamt of his hands. His mouth. His voice in your ear.

You woke up wet. Shaking.

You didn’t hide it.

You found him standing at the edge of the ruin, bathed in mist, looking out at the trees like he could see something you couldn’t.

You stepped behind him. Touched his back.

He didn’t move.

“Remmick.”

A pause.

Then: “Say it again.”

You did.

He turned slowly, eyes burning. But not with hunger.

With want.

With restraint.

With desperation.

“I want you to touch me,” you said.

His breath hitched.

“I’m not gentle.”

“You are with me.”

The mist coiled around you both.

And for a moment, everything in the chapel stopped breathing.

Not just Remmick—who held your gaze like a man shouldering the weight of a thousand years—but the walls themselves, the night wind, the crumbling rafters overhead. Even the shadows seemed to retreat into corners, as if what was about to unfold wasn’t meant to be witnessed.

Remmick didn’t move. Not at first. But the flame behind his eyes flickered—slow, red, hungry—and when he finally did take a step forward, it felt seismic. You heard it in the crack of old stone, in the shift of air around your bare skin. His boots echoed against the flagstones like thunder. Deliberate. Controlled. Until he was right in front of you.

His hand came up—that long, scarred, bloodstained hand—and for a moment you thought he might cup your cheek like you were fragile. Instead, he hovered just above your jaw, trembling.

“Say it again,” he said, voice low, like gravel and prayer.

You swallowed. “Touch me.”

He did.

His thumb brushed your jawline, featherlight. Reverent. A careful man cataloguing something holy. Then his palm cupped your cheek fully, warming to your skin. His other hand followed—tracing the edge of your collarbone, ghosting over the still-tender marks he’d left earlier. The ones that proved you were his. His fingertips shook slightly.

“You’re sure?” he murmured, lips close to your temple now. “You want me like this? After all I’ve done?”

You nodded, leaning into him. “I trust you.”

And that—that did something to him.

He surged forward, but didn’t kiss you yet. Just pressed his forehead to yours. Breathing hard. Hands roaming down your shoulders, your arms, as though grounding himself.

“Then let me worship you,” he rasped.

You were lifted—not thrown, but lifted—as if your weight meant nothing. He carried you to the nearest patch of moonlight spilling through a shattered stained glass window. The kaleidoscopic light painted your skin in fractured reds and oranges. He knelt with you, laying you out on the padded cloak he had shed earlier.

Remmick hovered above you, straddling your hips, his hands sliding beneath your thighs, guiding them apart gently. He stared—at your flushed chest rising with breath, your bitten lip, your parted legs—and he swallowed something like a growl.

“If I start, I won’t stop,” he warned.

“Don’t stop.”

His mouth was on your neck in a second—not biting, not yet—just kissing, slow and open-mouthed. Tongue dragging across the sensitive line of your throat. Then lower, over your collarbone, his hands following the path of his lips. Palms flat, warm, roaming up under your shirt, pushing it up inch by inch.

He groaned when he saw your bare skin. Bent down and mouthed at your ribs, your stomach, like he’d been starving for this. He kissed each scar like it was a sacred scripture.

You writhed beneath him when his tongue circled your navel. When his fingers hooked in your waistband and paused.

“Still want this?”

“More than anything.”

He slid your clothes off slowly—not to tease, but to savor. As if he’d never get this chance again. When he bared you fully to him, he stared. His lips parted. His eyes flashed.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered.

You reached for him—desperate to feel him bare too—but he caught your wrist, gently pinning it beside your head.

“Let me have you first,” he said. “Let me take my time.”

His head dipped between your legs.

You gasped—a raw sound, primal—as his tongue pressed flat against your cunt. Long, slow licks. Like he was memorizing you by taste. He groaned against you, the vibration making you cry out. His fingers spread you open. His mouth didn’t relent.

You gripped the stone floor, legs trembling. Whimpering his name.

He didn’t stop when you came the first time. Or the second. He held you open and devoured you, whispering broken praise in between.

“So sweet,” he muttered. “Never tasted anything like you.”

When he finally surfaced, his mouth and chin were slick. His eyes were wild.

He stripped in a blur—shirt shredded, belt undone, pants shoved down—and you got your first look at all of him. Pale, marred with scars, hard and ready and utterly beautiful.

Remmick knelt over you again, kissed you deep—let you taste yourself on his tongue—and groaned when you clawed at his back.

“Tell me how you want it,” he growled. “I’ll give you anything.”

You bit his bottom lip. “I want all of you.”

He aligned himself—slow, careful—and when he pressed into you, it was overwhelming. Stretching, burning, perfect.

You cried out, and he stilled, trembling.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You take me so well…fuck, you were made for me.”

And then he began to move.

He starts slow, but the weight of him is unbearable in the best fucking way—like he’s carved himself inside you and intends to stay.

Every deliberate roll of his hips stretches you open, wet and aching, your cunt already slick and clenching as he sinks in to the hilt over and over. The slow grind of his pelvis against yours is obscene, maddening, and all the more unbearable because he’s looking at you like you’re something holy. Like you’re the damn relic he’s been hunting. Like you’re the chapel.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he mutters raggedly into your throat, voice tight and breaking, his forehead pressed against your cheek. “You feel like fuckin’ heaven. You know that?”

Your legs are locked around his hips, heels hooked together at the small of his back. You can feel every muscle in him shift with each thrust—deliberate, deep, dragging through your soaked pussy like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you from the inside out.

He shifts up onto his knees so he can watch you take it. His hand slides between your thighs, thumb grazing your swollen clit, teasing circles that make your spine arch off the floor with a needy cry.

“There,” he grits, breath fogging as he watches your mouth fall open, “that’s it, girl. Just like that. You feel me?”

You nod, but it’s useless—you can’t speak, not with the way he’s fucking you now. Deeper. Harder. Still so slow, but decadent—like he’s savoring every single second your cunt clings around his cock.

The chapel groans around you both, beams shifting in the wind. Dust trickles from the rafters. But the only sound that matters is the wet slap of skin against skin, your slick noises echoing in the stone ruin with every thrust of his hips and the desperate little whimpers you can’t hold back.

“Didn’t think I’d ever get this,” he says, voice shredded, like it hurts to admit. “Didn’t think you’d let me. Thought I’d fuckin’ die wantin’ you.”

“You have me,” you rasp, fingers digging into the muscle of his shoulders. “You have me now.”

That does something to him.

He swears under his breath and kisses you—hard. Tongue sweeping yours, swallowing your whimper, stealing your breath. His hips stutter. Then pick up pace. He starts fucking you for real now, not just slow, reverent rocking, but full-bodied thrusts that have your back scraping across his cloak, your thighs trembling around him, your pulse thrumming in your ears.

Your cunt is dripping, and it only eggs him on. He lifts one of your legs over his shoulder, folds you deeper, angle sharper. The next thrust punches the air out of your lungs.

“Goddamn, look at you,” he groans, voice wrecked, watching the way your body arches for him. “Mouth hangin’ open like a little fuckin’ doll, takin’ me like this.”

“Remmick—”

“Say it again.”

“Remmick,” you gasp, sobbing out his name now, “don’t stop, please don’t stop—”

He growls low and leans down, his teeth grazing your jaw as his cock drives deeper, harder, steadier. The sound of you squelching around him is filthy and loud, your arousal smearing down your thighs and slicking the base of his cock with every relentless thrust.

“You’re gonna come on my cock, aren’t you?” he grits. “That what you want? You want me to make this sweet little cunt come, baby?”

You can’t even answer.

You’re close, so close—that fluttering buildup making your thighs shake and your belly clench, heat coiling, rising, burning in your bloodstream like fire.

Remmick knows it too. He slides his hand back down and presses two fingers to your clit, rubbing tight circles that match his rhythm, his voice hot and desperate against your neck.

“Come on then,” he mutters. “Let me feel it. Want you to soak my cock. Show me you’re mine.”

That’s all it takes.

You break—thighs locking tight, cry torn from your throat, cunt spasming around him so hard it makes his breath catch. You’re gushing on him, stars popping behind your eyelids, whole body trembling as you shatter beneath him.

He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down.

You’re still coming when he buries himself to the hilt, lets out a deep, wounded groan, and spills inside you—heat flooding your pussy in thick, pulsing waves, his hips twitching through every breathless thrust.

And even then, even as his mouth finds yours again in a breathless kiss, he doesn’t pull out.

The world is still when it ends.

A hush, like the chapel itself is holding its breath. As if even the ghosts that once lingered in the ruins have turned away to grant you a moment of peace.

You lie tangled together on the altar floor, your skin flushed and sticky, legs still wrapped loosely around his waist. Your thighs tremble in the aftermath, soft tremors echoing from somewhere deep in your core. His come spills out of you slowly with every exhale—thick, warm, spent—as he stays buried to the hilt inside you, his weight slumped against you like a blanket you never want to shed.

Remmick doesn’t move for a long time. He just breathes.

His head is buried in the crook of your neck, lips ghosting against your throat with every quiet, grounding inhale. You can feel the tension slowly bleeding from his shoulders. His hands still shake, even as one of them settles low on your stomach, splayed protectively. The other brushes tenderly against your jaw, his thumb catching the edge of your mouth like he’s tracing the curve of something sacred.

“You alright?” he murmurs finally, voice raw and hoarse.

You nod, too wrecked for words.

You feel more than alright. You feel full in a way you’ve never known. Like every piece of you that had once been hollow—all the parts that had withered and hardened under your father’s shadow, under the weight of cruelty and silence—have now been filled, stretched, stitched back together with the warmth of his body, the fire in his gaze.

You don’t know how long you lie there, tangled and silent. The air smells like dust, like rain coming. There’s ash in the distance, woodsmoke still drifting in thin ribbons through the broken rafters. But none of it touches you.

Here, in this ruin, you’ve been rebuilt.

Eventually, he lifts his head. Looks at you like you hung the fucking moon.

And he smiles—not wide, not crooked, but small. Soft. The kind of smile that feels like sunlight on bruised skin.

“Didn’t hurt ya, did I?” he asks, voice low, gentle.

You reach up, thumb brushing his damp hair from his face, fingers cupping his cheek. “No. You made me feel…” You pause. Swallow. “Like I’m not broken anymore.”

His breath hitches.

“You never were,” he whispers. “They just made you forget.”

He finally pulls out, slow and careful. You wince at the loss, at the sudden emptiness. His come trickles out of you in thick, wet drips down your thighs, but he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t recoil.

Instead, he lifts your leg and presses a soft kiss to the inside of your knee. Then another. And another. His hands trace lazy paths down your body like he’s mapping the shape of safety. Of home.

You reach for your clothes, but he stops you. Drapes his coat over your bare body instead. Then gathers your hair in his hands, palm smoothing over your head tenderly.

“Come on,” he murmurs after a while. “Let’s get you warm. You’ll sleep better with a fire.”

You let him help you up. Your knees wobble, but he steadies you without a word, pulling you close against his chest. His heartbeat thuds slow and steady beneath your ear—a rhythm you swear you’ll spend the rest of your life memorizing.

The town is gone. The chapel is empty. The world outside has been gutted and rebuilt in your image—razed to ash so something new can grow.

But this…this moment is untouched.

And as you both step outside hand in hand, blood long since dried and the earth soft beneath your feet, you know without speaking that you’ll never be alone again.

Not in this life.

Not in the next.

Not even in the grave.

Because he chose you. And you chose him. And the only thing left now is everything.

The chapel disappears behind you.

But his voice stays.

Low. Certain. Eternal.

“Don’t tempt me like this, not when you’re giving it to me this good,” you whine. Arms flailing back to grab onto him for a semblance of leverage while his thrusts only speed up. Ever the responsive lover, sees your scrambling to hold onto a part of him, and keeps his bicep extended out for you to grip on. The arm you’re holding had folded over your stomach. Rubbing fine circles while his cock keeps steadily drilling into you. Fucking with an unstoppable passion, licking on your neck the same way he licks your pussy, soft and slow. Teasing himself with the salty sweat that he tastes.

“Love givin’ it to you this fuckin’ good, fucking my babydoll out in the open. Anyone can hear us right now, see what a pretty little slut you turn into for me,” he huffs. Pulls at your hair between picking up speed with the free arm that wasn’t fastened around your stomach.

“Would… would promise to kiss it better, not let you get infected,” he swallows the drool piling up on his tongue, surely seeping down one corner of his mouth. “Got that sweet blood, already know, already smell it.”

His nostrils dive in your hair and whiff, kissing your scalp as he slows down his thrusts to tease you.

“Got a little slice of heaven all for me in this pussy… gonna have me actin’ up, maybe get me cumming right inside you this time around,” Remmick hints with a low whistle, looking down at where your lips hug around him as he rhythmically pushes in, and out, in, and out. Deviousness in him prevails as he stops his rough hips. Slips his cock out and grabs down on the thick base to drag it up and down between your pussy lips. Sending spiralling shockwaves that threatened to trigger another orgasm from you, noises of wet skin smoothing together all that filled the dark quiet of the woods.

“Ohhhhh, don’t fucking stop I’m gonna cum—”

“Shh shh, not yet, no no no. Pussy’s not doing anything ‘til I say,” he chastises, drool blatantly slurring his speech as it drips down your cheek as he leans over. He feels you relent and relax on his dick, still trying not to selfishly clench down and latch onto anything he’ll feed and give to you. “Yeah. Good girl. Now line it back up, fuck yourself on it real slow and smooth. Softly now. Pussy sounds so sensitive when she’s all worn out.”

Following instructions that were almost painful to obey, not to grab him and fuck him until sunrise. You swallow with a long gulp of your throat, blindly scurrying a hand behind you to find his cock and grab it. Lining up the fat head with your cunt was the easiest thing, sliding back down on it and trying to keep some semblance of control of your pace. Slowly gliding your pussy up and down the head, desperate to please him enough to let you finish.

“Thaaaat’s right, lass. Fuck me, you’re made for this aren’t you?”

You feel his hips slowly pick up the pace for you, slipping inch by inch back in before his balls are curled up against your clit.

“Mmmmhmph, made to take you… made to take your cum,” you gasp. Helpless in the descent of your control, your pussy sick of the slick hot torture that won’t let you finish. It brings a sick grin to Remmick’s face, feeling how your cunt squeezes onto him like a brat for more.

“Shit yeah, made to take this fuckin’ dick anywhere I please,” he heaves. Feels the tingly feeling all the way down to his toes when he’s about to finish, exaggerating the circle of his hips to itch every spot inside. Your whining periodically gets interrupted by a harsh set of gasps, clawing onto his arm and fucking your pussy back on his manhood. It felt so rigorous and primal, fucking him out near the trees and the bushes. Your pussy was squelching on him, hot and sloppy as he grabs your jaw and turns you towards him, letting a pint of his drool seep down onto your tongue. Your moans only serve to make him pound you harder, loving the strangled squeeze your pussy does around him while he fucks it good.

“S’right angel, take this fucking dick. Cum on your dick. All yours, you deserve this baby.”

Remmick can’t help it anymore, not holding anything back on you with his vigorous pumps, balls slapping up against you over and over every time he pulls in and out.

You didn’t need to be told twice, body inevitably starting to bend over as your pussy squirts a puddle of cum all over him. Remmick catches you before you get anywhere near the ground, holding you up as he keeps his thrusts consistent.

“Shhh. Oh yeah baby, that was a good one wasn’t it,” he smiles against your face, digging his nose in your cheek. “Always finishin’ harder when I make you wait for it.”

You palm the back of his head to hold him there, turning your head to nip and kiss his mouth.

“You want my seed real deep inside this time, don’t you?”

“Yes…. yes, oh god yes…”

“That’s right. I’ll give it to you, give you everything that you need,” he assures. Slams his hips forward and rips himself out, and slamming right back in again. “Gee, fuckin’ wet on me, girl.”

His balls are tightened up against you and his mouth is right back to licking at your neck, teasing you there with kisses. As he murmurs mixes of your name and fuck, fuck that’s so right darlin, shit, his cock smooths all the way inside deep as can be, shooting rope after rope of his release. Your hips stall to help him through it, pumping back in him with your puffy sensitive lips making him go increasingly more insane.

“Yes, Remmick. Give it to me, give it all to me… wanna make you feel good,” you pet his hair as he sucks the creation of a deep hickey on your neck.

“God…. fucking…. dammit.”

The sharp intake of air he takes in puts a smile on his face when you wiggle your hips around and let him gently slip out, leaving the milky remnants to seep out of you onto the dirt of the ground.

Harmonious deep breaths and hurried kisses are all to be heard in the night now. Remmick soothes you with his hands, running his palms all over your body. Whispers of you’re beautiful, honey. always so fucking beautiful.

“Know you wanna turn me, turn me into one,” you whimper between the kisses, mouths practically stitched together out of his clingy tendencies. “I want to as bad as you do.”

“You say the word, darlin… I’ll make you mine forever, stop all this pain in a heartbeat.”

He mouths at the blotches of purple works of art scattering your neck. Snakes one hand down your front to feel the mess still drooping down your legs. Gets a sick smile spread to his face knowing he’s the reason you’re this filthy down there, both your fluids coming together as one.

“You could have my babies just like this. Feel me filling you up every night. That sound nice?”

Remmick turns you around to face your body towards him, running delicate fingers down your back and smashing his mouth to yours.

Your answer comes in the form of humming and nodding up against him, melting like you’re boneless into his torso.