You set the glass down and take a look around the bar. 

The place is called Coyote’s—it’s the first place you stumbled upon on your drive home from work. There's a coyote skull mounted above the door, walls wood-paneled and covered in neon beer signs and old license plates. The floor is sticky with mysterious liquids, heels glued to them when you walked in. Somebody’s boots are keeping time to the Zac Brown Band song bleeding out of the speakers, and two men in actual, non-ironic Wranglers are playing pool in the back while eyeing the girls in skimpy outfits. 

It’s a disorienting environment, especially when you’re still dressed in a blazer and slacks after your first day at your new job. 

You had upped sticks in need of a change from New York City, without bothering to think much about the vast differences between Austin, Texas and New York City. 

New York City bars had exposed brick and cocktail menus with names like “Forbidden Muse” and men who wore blazers for their fancy, high-paying finance jobs. Nobody dared to wear cowboy boots, definitely not when they were surrounded by their stuffy superiors. 

New York City was crawling with men that were exactly like your conniving, narcissistic ex-boyfriend, Daniel. 

Fucking Daniel.

You take another sip of the whiskey you don’t like.

You’d caught him on a Wednesday. Not even a Friday night—a Wednesday. He couldn’t even be bothered to cheat on you on a respectable day of the week. You had come home early from work, key in the door, bag on your shoulder, and there he was in your shared apartment. Balls deep in a girl who was, insultingly, very pretty.

Then, he had the nerve to act surprised to see you in the apartment you two shared. 

Texas was never supposed to be in the cards. In fact, it wasn’t even a blip on your radar. It was a job offer that paid two times what you made in New York, but giving up your city lifestyle had sounded deranged. You only applied because a very eager recruiter reached out to you and begged you to. 

But getting cheated on really put things into perspective for you, and before you knew it, being a marketing director at a regional firm in Austin that paid good money, offered a fresh start, far enough away that you wouldn’t have to see Daniel’s face sounded ideal. You’d accepted it at 11PM that same Wednesday, half a bottle of wine deep.

You look down at your outfit again. Silk blouse underneath your blazer, tailored slacks and pointed heels. Nothing like the girls line-dancing by the jukebox, batting their eyelashes flirtatiously at the men with cowboy hats on. 

Honestly, you didn’t think cowboys were real up until you landed in Texas three days ago. Lo and behold, they’ve managed to outdo your wildest fantasies. 

Clearly, you’ll need to redo your wardrobe if you plan on enjoying your new gig. Your boss wore a bandana around his neck in the office, and if that was the norm, you were either severely underdressed or accidentally cosplaying as someone’s accountant.

You take another slow scan around the room, mostly to give yourself something to do that isn’t drinking whiskey you hate and thinking about Daniel.

The women here seem to move differently. Easy and dallying, hips finding the beat of the music. A line of them near the dance floor step and turn in unison, boots striking the wood, and there’s something hypnotic about it—they laugh without covering their mouths, take up space without apologizing for it. Not for the first time tonight, you feel like you’re watching a nature documentary from behind glass. The men in Texas are far more shameless, with no pretense of disinterest. A guy in a tan Stetson tips his hat when a brunette catches him staring. She grins back, winking. 

Your gaze drifts toward the back, toward the crack of pool balls and low laughter. Groups of men pile around the table, clearly big-dicking each other. They all look similar. Tall, muscular, chiseled, charismatic…

Your eyes land on the far right of the pool table, where one man in a black cowboy hat stands. His arm is covered in tattoos, hair poking out underneath the hat in what you assume is a mullet. His tongue pokes out, toying with the lip rings adorning his bottom lip. 

And despite the commotion buzzing around the bar, or the game of pool that’s been ongoing for at least an hour, he’s not paying attention to any of it. He’s watching you. 

Your neck snaps back toward the direction of the bar, struggling to focus as the bartender, Stacey, pours bourbon into a glass for a patron. You’d barely gotten a full look, but you’d caught enough, you think. Broad shoulders filling out a black button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbow, black cowboy hat pulled low and a black bandana tied loose at his throat. 

Fuck. You need another drink. Or about two shots of straight whiskey to handle the kind of eye contact that man is making with you. 

“Uh, Stacey?” You’d only learned her name an hour ago, but now’s as good a time as any to use it. She whips to face you, blond hair tousled from the rush. “Am I able to get another glass of whiskey?”

“Sure thang, sweetheart.” She grins. 

While she pours, your eyes make a point to not care about the man staring you down across the room. He can’t possibly be looking at you, what with your corporate outfit, heels, and resting bitch face. There are better options in this bar, ones who know how to two-step and ride a horse. 

Stacey places the glass of whiskey in front of you. “This one’s on the house. Looked like you needed it.”

Before you can protest, she tosses you a wink and saunters off to serve two men. Clearly, you’re not as unreadable as you thought you were. 

The brown liquid slithers down your throat, burning your lungs. The thing about drinking whiskey neat is that you’re not going to remain a respectful amount of tipsy for long. Instead, you’re going to teeter on the line of drunk, something you don’t normally allow yourself to get. 

And transparently, drunk you wants another look at the dark-haired cowboy. 

Maybe you should let her. Maybe you should stop being so weird about it. It’s not like you’re not going to marry the man. Maybe you just need to get fucked.

Your eyes scan the crowd, lingering on every man wearing the same black bandana, half-convinced one of them might transform into him. With each passing moment, your heart skips in your chest like a toddler playing hopscotch. 

Maybe he went home. Probably realized the women here were duds and made his grand exit. Honestly for the best. You can’t even remember the last time you flirted with someone who wasn’t Daniel, and look how spectacularly that turned out.

You down the rest of your whiskey in one go. Stacey whistles playfully from the sidelines. All you can manage is a feeble smile in response. It feels as though the lights dim a little lower, the sound of boots hitting the hardwood floor echoing in your ear. Euphoria pumps through your bloodstream, and then Country Girl (Shake It For Me) starts blasting on the jukebox, and well—your brain just sort of short-circuits. 

“Can’t possibly be comfortable in that outfit, sugar.”

Warm breath fans against your ear, woodsy cologne trailing close behind. Your heart thumps, almost as if the organ knows who it is before you do. 

Slowly, you turn to face the owner of the voice. 

The first thing you see is a black bandana. Your eyes travel further up, up, up, until they snag on the plumpest mouth you’ve ever seen on a man, two metal rings looped through the bottom lip. They continue their climb, landing on captivating eyes that sink their teeth into you. Dark brown tresses poke out from under the brim of his hat, but you can still make out every inch of his sharp features. 

“Never seen you ‘round here before.” He raises an eyebrow. “Anyone with that outfit on gotta be from the East. Ain’t seen a girl in heels in this bar in my whole life.”

“Maybe I like standing out,” you say, tilting your chin up and puffing your chest out. The whiskey’s doing wonders for your nerve. “Someone’s got to remind you boys what real shoes look like.”

The edges of his mouth curve upwards, pondering if he’s impressed or amused by your bite. Secretly, you hope it’s both. 

“Sugar, those things are a workplace hazard. You’re tellin’ me you can run in ‘em?” Under the dim lights, his eyes twinkle, setting your chest ablaze with something other than the burn of whiskey. 

“I don’t need to run anywhere. I’m a New Yorker. We walk at a fast pace in 7-inch heels.” You’re not well-versed in the whole flirting thing, but this has to be what it’s like… right?

That gets a real laugh out of him, head tipping back, and you feel an absurd little spike of pride at having caused that sound. 

“That so?” He moves from behind you, leans an elbow against the bar, angling his body toward you. He travels in languid movements, like he’s got nowhere else on earth to be. “And here I thought you Yankees just had bad manners and worse weather.”

 “We’re not rude,” you scoff. “We’re blunt. Honest. There’s a difference.”

He takes a step closer, and the scent of him encroaches, your brain turning fuzzy. “Mm. Didn’t realize those were the same thing.”

“Cousins. Close enough.” You shouldn’t have downed that drink. Now you really need another, because you’re certain you won’t make it out of this conversation in one piece.

“Then let me ask you somethin’, since you’re so honest.” His eyes flicker to your parted lips before jumping back to your eyes. 

“Go ahead.”

The music comes to a halt, and Carrie Underwood’s voice blasts through the speakers. You’ve never really liked her music all that much, but her misplaced pep talk might be exactly the kind of bad influence you need.

His head tilts in your direction. “You ever met a Southern boy before me?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“So you must not have heard ‘bout Southern charm, sugar. That’s supposed to be our whole thing down here.” His eyes dare you, jaw twitching with glee at the way you press your thighs together.

“I’ve heard that.” Carelessly, you shrug. “Haven’t seen much evidence of it yet.”

“Keep talkin’ like that and I might have to prove it to you,” he says, voice only a little mocking. 

Your body can’t help but lean in his direction, like sunflowers facing the light on a warm summer’s day. “I’d like to see you try, cowboy.”

“Mm.” The man hums, studies you for another moment. Then, he straightens and reaches for the brim of his hat. “Well. Where are my manners?”

He pulls the hat off his head, revealing disheveled chestnut hair that’s longer than you anticipated. You want to run your hands through it, know what it feels like to tug on the locks. The gesture is almost comically formal against the backdrop of the bar, but on him, it doesn’t look like a joke at all. He reaches for your hand. His palm is warm, calloused, swallowing yours whole. “Jungkook.” His eyes don’t dare leave your face. “And who do I got the pleasure of speakin’ to?”

A shuddering breath escapes you, legs clenching. 

“[Y/N],” you stumble over your words, trying to find your voice. 

“Pretty name for a pretty girl. Must be my lucky night,” he grins, and you have to wonder if he says that to every girl who isn’t from here. You stick out like a sore thumb in this bar, but how his eyes track your every movement suggests he doesn’t mind one bit.

“What’re you drinkin’, sugar?” he asks, nodding toward your empty glass. Oh. That. You had almost forgotten it was there, lonely and sad. 

“Whiskey.”

His eyebrows lift, mouth curving into disbelief. “You sure about that? You don’t seem like a whiskey girl to me.”

He’s right, which only makes it worse. Turning to the bar, he lifts two fingers. “Stace. You mind makin’ one of those strawberry margaritas for our city girl here?”

Stacey’s already grinning cheek-to-cheek before she even gets close, eyes flicking between the two of you. “Absolutely.”

While Stacey works, you take the opportunity to look at him properly without the panic of being caught. He’s tall, like most cowboys that are written in romance novels. His chest looks like it could double as a wall. A very nice wall you wouldn’t mind being pressed against. 

Stacey slides the margarita across the bar, sugar-rimmed and flamingo pink. “Here you go, hon.”

“Add it to my tab,” Jungkook says, not bothering to glance over.

“Of course, Kook.” She tosses you another friendly wink, and the swell of confidence bubbles up inside you.

He nudges the glass another inch toward you with two fingers. It’s a little dominant, something you’re not normally used to. But you follow the order, taking a sip. It’s exactly what you wanted. Cold, candied, the tequila barely whispering under the sugar, and you have to stop yourself from outright moaning at the bar.

“So why you out here, sugar?” he asks, “Don’t seem like a bar for a girl like you.” Jungkook places his hat atop his head again, and you’re almost devastated to see his hair go. 

You set the glass down, lick a stray grain of sugar off your bottom lip. His eyes stalk the movement. “I live here now. I work downtown.”

His gaze doesn’t move from your mouth fast enough. “Like a corporate job?”

“Indeed.” As you speak, you notice his pupils are blown so wide there’s hardly any brown left. He hasn’t moved his eyes from your lips. “And I’m assuming you ride horses?”

He barks out a laugh, loud enough that a couple heads turn near the pool table. “A little more than that.” His finger points off toward the back of the bar, toward a broad-shouldered man laughing with the group by the pool table. “That’s Namjoon. Owns a ranch a few miles out. I handle his shit. Y’know, paperwork, horses, bulls, all of it.”

“So you’re a rancher.” You toy with the straw in your glass, and you can’t miss the way he seems entranced by every move you make. 

“I’m a lotta things.” His tongue runs over his bottom lip. “Rancher’s one of ‘em.”

“What are the others?” 

There’s something lingering in the air. New city, new boy, new life. You’re back to square one, the bottom of the societal food chain. You get to forge your own path here in Austin. For one night—and maybe other nights—you get to be someone else. 

“Depends who’s askin’.”

“I am,” you retort coolly. 

“Then I guess you’ll find out,” he leans in, lips brushing against the shell of your ear “Eventually.”

The bar noise fades around you, Carrie Underwood’s righteous fury bleeding into another tune, until it’s just the two of you and a few inches of space neither of you seem all that interested in closing yet. “Hmm,” you hum. “Horses and bulls sound dangerous.”

He chuckles. “Knowin’ how to handle somethin’ wild is mostly about knowin’ when to be gentle and when not to be.”

“Is that supposed to be a metaphor?” 

“Could be." He shrugs. “But also, I just really like my job, sugar.”

“As do I,” You take another sip, making a point to pucker your lips around the straw. 

Jungkook’s gaze is different, far more scandalous than any other man you’ve been with. It almost feels dirty when his eyes scan your face. “Figured someone like you’d be home by now. What is this, your first night out since you got here?”

It is, in fact, your first night out since you got here, and you’d rather die than confirm it.

“I wanted to immerse myself in the culture,” you say instead, lying through your teeth with admirable conviction. “It’s one of my greatest fantasies, actually. Cowgirls, horses, the whole lot of ’em.”

“Oh really?” he smirks. You’re distracted by the strand of hair flopping from beneath his hat, and you wonder if the curtain matches the drapes. “How ‘bout cowboys?”

“I’m still gathering data on them.” You tap the rim of your glass thoughtfully. “Field research, if you will.”

His knee brushes against yours as he leans in. The man has never heard of personal space. “I would love to hear your findings.” 

“Well, actually, I think I need to run a few final experiments.”

“Like what?” He tuts, fingers migrating from the bartop to your pant-covered thigh. They linger, not pressing down harshly. “Humor me, sugar.”

A burst of confidence rushes through you. You get one chance, and you really, really, really don’t want to make the same mistakes again. Reaching up, you pluck the hat right off his head. 

It’s heavier than you expect, but soft in your grasp. Warm, like it’s been sitting against him long enough to steal some of his body heat for itself. You settle it on your own head, tipping it back so it doesn’t slide down over your eyes. You must look ridiculous, blazer and silk blouse under a cowboy hat that’s seen ranch work.

But how he’s looking at you, you might as well be wearing nothing at all.

Jungkook’s jaw goes taut, gaze darkens, and the fingers placed on your thigh flex before relaxing. 

“Well, sugar.” His voice drops several octaves, and the whole bar spins on its axis until you nearly topple over. “If you’re gonna wear my hat, you know what they say?”

Your response is no louder than a whisper. “What?”

Smirking, he leans in until his breath ghosts your ear. 

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy.”

Oh god. 

Your eyes flicker down to his lips, then his captivating eyes, and he follows suit. If he really wanted to, he could probably kiss you right now, could take you right on the bartop and you’d let him. The sugar from the margarita and the whiskey swirls in your stomach, mixing with butterflies you haven’t felt in years. There are moles scattered across his face, a few near his lip and some under his cheek, and you think that you could connect them into a constellation if you had a pen and several more drinks.

But then he steps back, and tips two fingers toward the brim of the hat that’s no longer on his head.

“I’ll see you ‘round, sugar.”

He strolls off toward his friends, and you blink into the void, hat heftier on your head than when you first put it on. 

God help you, you really want that ride. 

Frankly, this is the most desperate thing you’ve ever done. 

That’s really saying something, considering one time, you sprinted after a situationship four blocks down Fifth Avenue in four inch heels, caught your foot on a crack in the sidewalk, and introduced your face to the concrete in front of a hot dog stand. Or, there’s also the time you showed up to a first date a week early, realized halfway through appetizers that something felt off, checked your phone, and had to sit alone with a bread basket before leaving. 

All of that pales in comparison when you realize you’re sitting at the same bar, in your corporate outfit, awaiting a man who you may never lay eyes on again. 

You take a nervous sip of your strawberry margarita, the periphery of your eyes doing more work than usual. Coyote’s is quieter tonight, a few stragglers nursing drinks at tables, and playing something slow on the jukebox. No pool game in the back, no men in cowboy hats, no broad shoulders filling out a black button-down. 

You’ve probably made a colossal mistake. 

“Need a refill on the marg?” Stacey circles back after tending to some older men at the end of the bar, brows raised.

“Nah, I’m okay,” you sigh. “Thanks though.”

Slowly, Stacey looks around the bar, stares at the drunk men at the end of the bar, and decides you’re more worth her time. She places both elbows on the bartop and leans in. “You lookin’ for someone special, hon?” 

“No!” you yelp, practically leaping out of your stool in dissent. “Absolutely not. I just—don’t even know anyone here. I just like the margaritas.”

“Uhu,” Stacey nods, something in her eyes twinkling. 

“I really do. You make a mean marg.”

“Sure you do,” she toothily grins. Her eyes pan over your outfit, a similar vibe to the one you wore yesterday to work. Today, you’re wearing a silk blouse and a pencil skirt that jugs your curves. “You know, most people take their work clothes off before they come out for a drink.”

“Well, I came straight from the office.” You square your shoulders, puff out your chest as though you have something to prove. 

“Two nights in a row?”

“I’m testing out the bars in the city,” you quip. 

“Mhm.” She doesn’t believe a single word coming out of your mouth, and she’s not even trying to hide it. “What is it you do, exactly?”

“Marketing director. I just started.” You take a sip of your cocktail to bide time as Stacey widens her eyes in shock. 

“No kidding.” Her eyebrows lift. “What brought you all the way out to Austin? You don’t exactly scream Texas, no offense.”

“None taken,” you giggle. You’re not entirely sure how your silk blouse and skirt could come off as anything but condescending, uppity New Yorker. “Believe it or not, an ex-boyfriend who doesn’t know how to keep his dick in his pants.”

Stacey’s pupils blow up, and she throws her head back to cackle, loud enough that one of the older men down the bar glances over. “Oh, honey,” she says, reaching for the cocktail shaker without seeming to realize she’s doing it. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that.”

“Well,” you swallow, exhale a shaky breath. And then you say, keeping your eyes on nothing but your near-empty glass, “My boyfriend of three years was always upset I was busy at work. He said I cared too much about it, but not about him. I thought I was doing a good job at dividing my time equally… but I guess not. Found him in bed with a girl on a Wednesday night in our apartment we shared.”

Your mouth is so dry your tongue sticks to the roof. Retelling the story allows you to replay the night like a horror movie film outtake reel. And everytime, you ask yourself, how could you be so stupid? So naive? So nonchalant?

Stacey slides a fresh margarita across the bar. “Please tell me you at least threw something.”

“Nope. Just stood in the doorway, said his name, turned around and left.” Even now, it’s as clear as day; you marched out, heart drumming in your chest as you fled down the stairs of your building, not even bothering to listen if he even said your name or chased after you. It didn’t matter either way, because he never once tried to beg for you back.

He let you go. 

“Men,” Stacey snorts, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t know a good thing if it slapped them ‘round the head.”

“Men,” you agree.

Sometimes, you can’t help but blame yourself, and wonder if it’s less about men, and more about your inability to care about anything but your career growth. 

“You know what your problem is?” she says, pointing at you. "You’ve been datin' the wrong kind of man. All that New York finance guy, blazer-wearing, artisanal-coffee-drinking bullshit. What you need is a little Southern charm.”

“Oh really?” You have to hide the smile that threatens to bloom on your face. 

“I’m just sayin’ what the people are thinkin’.” 

“No one, especially me, is thinking that.” Except you are. More precisely, of one that loaned you his hat and never claimed it back. 

“It’s what I’m thinking," she says, wiping down the bar. "You ever even dated someone who works with their hands? Outdoors?”

You open your mouth to argue and realize you don't have a rebuttal for that. Every man you’ve ever dated has had some stuffy job, like finance or law, which is somehow the most depressing thing that’s popped into your head all week. 

“I just need to get back on my feet,” you say instead. “New city, new job, new start. I’m not looking for anything.”

“Sure, sure.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ll pretend I believe ya.”

You slump forward on the bar. “I just need to focus on myself for a while. Get settled. Figure out what I actually want without someone else’s opinion clouding everything.”

“Healthy, but you’re no fun,” she pouts, flinging the rag over her shoulder. “Look hun, your ex sounds like a real piece of shit. But you deserve way better than that.”

“Yeah,” you swallow past the lump in your throat. “I’m starting to think so too.”

Stacey wipes her hands on the towel over her shoulder, turning back to you. “A fresh start in Austin, Texas. You picked a hell of a place for it.”

“Yeah…” Your eyes avert around the shoddy bar. You try not to make eye contact with the coyote head. “It’s a lot.”

“You’ll love it. Give it a month.”

“You think?”

“Ella Langley didn’t write Choosin’ Texas ‘bout us just for shits n giggles,” she chuckles. “People come here thinking it’s temporary and then they wake up one day and they’ve got boots and a favorite two-step song.”

A shiver runs down your spine. “Good god.”

“That’s just Texas, hon.”

You laugh, and she looks awfully pleased with herself. The two men down the bar gesture her over, and her eyes flick over your shoulder before a small smile tugs at the corner of her lips. 

“Southern charm might be closer than you think,” she murmurs, and then saunters off to her customers. 

Shaking your head, you take a sip of the margarita, and you swear it’s stronger than your last. Stacey clearly plans on fucking you over. 

“Didn’t think lightning struck the same place twice. Guess I was wrong, sugar.”

The hair on the back of your neck stands tall. Anxiety and desire blend in your stomach until the two become indecipherable. 

The sip of your margarita stalls its path down your throat, making a home, and an embarrassing croak exits your mouth. Your eyes water, one hand firmly placed on the bar, looking like one of those warning ads for choking customers.

A strong hand lands between your shoulder blades. Pats once, twice, with an ease that makes your heart rate kick up a notch. 

“Easy there. Bar’s not the place to go out.” You can hear the sarcasm in his tone, the smirk that’s probably curled upon his pink lips. 

“I’m fine,” you wheeze. 

“Uhu.” He takes the stools beside you, coming into plain view. You;re not sure what you expected him to look like this evening, but somehow, he looks even more delectable than last time. He’s sporting a new cowboy hat, a black one with white detailing that matches his jeans and top. Once he settles, he signals to Stacey for a drink with two fingers. “Surprised this place didn’t scare ya away after the first time.”

You square your shoulders, wiping the final tears from your eyes. “New Yorkers are resilient.”

“Hmm,” he mindlessly hums, letting his eyes drag up and down your figure, a clear assessment that has your thighs clenching to hide the arousal pooling in your panties. “Nice to see you again, by the way.”

There’s a smudge of something on his forearm, below the edge of his tattoos. Dirt, maybe, or grease. You wonder if he came straight from work, or errands, or whatever it is Jungkook does with his day besides looking like a wet dream. 

“Is corporate attire all you own, sugar?” He tosses bills on the table as Stacey slides a cold beer toward him. You do your best to ignore her pointed smirk. 

“Are boots and hats all you wear?” you retort. 

He laughs and leans an elbow on the bar, angling toward you the same way he had last time, almost as if his body naturally points in your direction. As you gaze into his brown irises, you can’t stop thinking, can’t slow the waterfall of thoughts gliding down your brain. You’re not from here, don’t dress like anyone in this bar, don’t know the words to a single song on that jukebox, and can’t two-step to save your life. There are women in this city right now who are objectively better suited for him. Your brain implodes trying to understand his interest in you. 

“Can I ask you something?” you say.

“Go ‘head.” He takes a swig of his beer, lips shiny from the liquid.

“Why are you over here?” 

He deadpans. “Come again?”

“I mean…” Vaguely, you gesture around the room, at the bar that’s filling up with women laughing near the jukebox. “You could be anywhere in this bar right now. Talking to anyone. So why are you sitting here talking to me?”

A flash of expressions shift across his face. “You think you’re not worth talking to?”

“Never said that.”

“Implied it,” he grins. He pauses, traces the condensation on his beer bottle. “Maybe I’m intrigued.”

A feeble laugh escapes you, but he doesn’t mirror the action. Oh. He’s not joking. “For the record, I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “You’re real terrible. Don’t know why I bother.”

“I am serious. I have no plans on learning either.”

He holds your gaze for a moment. “Never asked you to get on one, sugar.” His eyes rake over your face as if he’s searching for more, and finally, he pushes on, voice steady. “I’m over here because I wanted to be. That a problem?”

It’s an offer as much as it is an out. If you told him it was a problem, you’re certain he’d leave you alone, never talk to you again. But you really, really don’t want that. 

“Not at all.”

Jungkook nods in finality and takes a pull of his bar. Silence follows, but it’s not uncomfortable. 

“Can I ask you something now?” he says.

“Fair’s fair.”

“You don’t got someone back in New York, right?” 

“No,” you sigh. “Not anymore, at least.”

His eyebrows scrunch together. “He let you go?”

“Kind of.” You don’t really feel like elaborating, and he lets it go, but you don’t miss the way his jaw clenches, there and gone in a breath. 

“His loss.”

“What about you?” you wonder. “You’ve got to have someone, or something.”

“Ain’t got a girl,” he shrugs. His body slants toward you so that your knees brush. Your cheeks warm at the contact, but he doesn’t move away. 

“No?” Your margarita is watered down and vile now, but you take a sip anyway. 

“Ranch takes up most of my time. Sun up to sundown, most days. Not a lot of room left over for much else.”

“Doesn’t that get lonely?” you ask. 

He considers it, tilts the neck of his beer bottle between two fingers. “Sometimes… but it’s a good life. I don’t need a lot. Just the ranch and the right company, every now and then.”

His pupils are blown so wide you can’t spot any brown in them. He’s staring at your parted lips. “I could probably settle for the right girl. A good girl. Smart, funny, prettiest in the damn room.”

You think he’s talking about you. He must be. It might be wishful thinking, but just maybe, just this time…

“That’s a very specific type,” you retort. 

“Gettin’ more specific by the minute.” With that, he takes a swig of his beer, eyes never leaving yours. 

You pick up your own drink, taking a long sip that burns your esophagus. “Stacey made this too strong,” you awkwardly laugh. It feels like someone turned the temperature up on the thermostat by ten degrees, shut all the fans off. 

“Stace always does,” Jungkook shrugs. 

When he sets his beer down, you can calculate how little space exists between his stool and you. Mere centimeters divide the two of you, and you can soak up his scent, a woodsy musk. “If you’re up for it, I’d love to show you the ranch sometime. Horses get real excited around pretty girls. Scout’s honor.” He holds up two fingers. 

“You were a boy scout?” you laugh. 

“Three weeks in the 4th grade. Got kicked out for letting the ponies loose at the state fair though,” he shrugs. “In my defense, they looked very unhappy.”

He watches, mystified, as you laugh again. “I don’t know if the ranch is for me.”

“It’s just horse, open land, some fresh air. Nothing like what you’re used to, I’d imagine.”

“Exactly,” you knowingly smile. “All we have is smog, overpriced coffee, and tall buildings.”

“Can’t have that.” Disapprovingly, he shakes his head. “Come out to the ranch. I’ll make you coffee that costs nothing and tastes better than anything you’ve had in your life.”

“Bold claim, cowboy,” you tease. 

“Think you can tell I always get what I want, sugar,” he retorts. You open your mouth to reply with something witty, but a tingle, pins and needles, lands on your thigh, and when you look down you see Jungkook’s veiny hand resting. Fingers splayed wide, palm radiating heat through the thin fabric of your slacks.

“How many horses do you have on the ranch?” Your voice has gone airy. 

“Seven right about now. We lost one last spring, and Joon took it hard.” His hand doesn’t waver. Instead, his thumb moves, carelessly tracing patterns on your pants. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you mumble, staring daggers into how large his hand is compared to the rest of you. 

“It’s the nature of it. You get attached. Hard not to.”

“Do you…?” you pause, swallow thickly until your tone gets warbly. “Get attached?”

The double entendre isn’t lost on him. “I do.”

You are going to need Stacey to pour a glass of ice water directly over your head. His thumb traces another path up the inside of your thigh. Your mouth dries up like the Sahara desert in late August. 

You want to be someone who leans into this. Want to be the girl from night one, the one with liquid courage and reckless new-city energy. You want to tilt toward him and let whatever this is become whatever it wants to be. But underneath it, a quieter voice resides within you. 

The one that remembers thinking everything was fine right up until it wasn’t.

“I don’t know if I’m..” you start, then press your lips together. He taps your thigh twice, urging you on. “I’m not sure I’m ready to be attached yet.”

Automatically, your body is bracing for impact, like he’ll toss you on the side of the road for something shiner, something ready. 

But Jungook’s expression does not falter. He finishes the last of his beer and sets the bottle down, rising from the stool to his full height. “When you’re ready, sugar,” he reaches out, tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, “you know where to find me.”

For most, life isn’t sunshine and rainbows.

And it’s not like one wakes up and the color has drained from everything overnight. It’s small increments, tiny ones, that add up, and they’re unrecognizable until you can’t remember the last time you did something for yourself. You used to believe in love the way meteorologists believed in weather—inevitable acts of nature that happened to everyone sooner than later, in its own time, in its own particular way. You believed that people who found each other meant to find each other. 

But just like weather, the clouds part and things unravel in messy ways. The couple in your freshman dorm who were so in love you deemed it aggressive, who broke up over Thanksgiving and couldn’t look at each other in the dining hall after. Your college roommate, whose boyfriend of four years sat her down on a Sunday morning and said I just don't think I’m in love with you anymore. She sat very still for a long time after she told you, and you thought I will never let that be me.

But then it was you, it was your own demented heart, it was your own boyfriend who cheated on you, and you suddenly didn’t know which ordinary Tuesday was the last good one. 

You still don’t know if there was a last good one at all. 

“You gonna liquidate my bar tonight, hon?” 

Stacey’s shrill voice cuts through your train of thought, and you blink back into the bar. The neon sign flickers above the bar, and the usual horny men sitting down the bar tip their hats at you.  A shudder of disgust travels through you. She’s leaning on the bar in front of you, brow arched, nodding at the margarita you’ve been nursing for the better part of an hour, contemplating the nuances of life. 

“Perhaps.”

She refills your water glass without asking and props her chin in her hand. “You know damn well not to do all that thinkin’ round my bar. Tell me what’s wrong, I might be able to help.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” you sigh, playing with the straw wrapper. You slump against the bar, the fatigue of your mind raving catching up to you. 

“I ain’t Sherlock but I can tell something’s up, sweetie.”

You could deny it one more time, but you think Stacey will dropkick you out of the bar and leave you without any more alcoholic beverages. 

For a week, you’ve avoided this very bar. Thus, you haven’t run into Jungkook in a week. It was on purpose, simply because you couldn’t give him the hope that you were ready by running into him again. But bars that you felt comfortable being alone at were far and few between, and you knew Stacey would be waiting for you. 

It’s been seven days of you daydreaming of walking into this bar and scanning the back corner by the pool table before you’ve even found a stool, of telling yourself you’re not looking while very obviously looking, and telling him you’re ready for whatever he wants to offer. And at the very least, give it a shot. 

One week feels longer than it should for a man you’ve spoken to twice. You don’t know his middle name. You don't know his family lore or his favorite pair of boots or whether he’s ever read a book for pleasure or what he sounds like when he’s just had a bad day. 

But you do know one thing: he looked at you like you were the only thing in the room, like he was ready to lean over the bar and devour you whole. 

No one’s looked at you like that in a long time. 

“Fine,” Stacey squints her eyes into evil little slits. “If you won’t talk I will. You’ve looked at that door eleven times since you sat down, and I’ve got a fresh margarita with your name on it, and sometimes thinkin’ about nothing looks a whole lot like thinkin’ about something… or someone.”

A massive gulp of your margarita slithers down your throat. Then another, and another, until you set it down and peer at Stacey with drunk goggles. Her jaw is set in a no-nonsense way, and you recognize how she’s only ever seen you at your most pathetic across this bartop.

What’s one more time to add to the tally?

“Am I stupid for not hooking up with Jungkook?”

Stacey’s face remains stone cold. She reaches for the tequila. It’s not your usual brand, a more expensive one you haven’t touched since New York.

“The thing is, I wanted to.” Stacey should really file a restraining order against you for sharing your deepest, darkest thoughts with her under the influence of one very strong margarita. “I really wanted to. He’s very attractive. And he’s not how I expected him to be, like a bimbo cowboy.”

Stacey says nothing. Continues making the margarita, pouring strawberry puree into the shaker. 

“And it’s not even, it’s not like I’m opposed to it. I am a grown woman. I know how sex works. I’ve had one night stands before, and they’ve generally been fine, sometimes better than fine, and Jungkook looks like he would be better than fine, which is part of the problem too.”

Her hair flips wildly as she mixes the shaker behind her shoulder. You barrel on, “I don't know if I’m actually not ready or if I’m just scared, and I don’t know how to tell the difference anymore between self-preservation and self-sabotage. Daniel made me feel like an idiot.”

You prop your chin in your palm. “Was it my body? My personality? Was it the way I talked too much at dinner parties or the fact that I can’t fall asleep without the TV on or just, like, was I boring? Was I just boring to him? Am I even hot?”

A glass filled with pink liquid slams in front of you, dropping with a decisive thunk, sugar on the rim. 

“Drink.”

Your nose scrunches up in disgust as the smell of tequila wafts into your nostrils. Stacey rolls her eyes, smacking your arm playfully, and you fold under zero pressure. 

“Sweetheart, even in that god-awful collared shirt, I can see you’ve got a hell of a body on you. I would throw you down on that pool table and find out for myself if I swung that way,” she nonchalantly shrugs, and it takes all your might not to spit out your drink. 

“Stacey,” you scold. 

“Nuh-uh,” she tuts, “You’re stunning, darlin’. You are not the problem. You were never the problem. The problem is a man who ain’t know what he had and traded it in for a girl who’s probably not even half of you. That’s his cross to bear, not yours.”

When you sip the margarita, the tart taste of strawberries floods your tastebuds. Stacey has ruined every margarita you will ever have anywhere else for the rest of your natural life.

She raises an eyebrow. “What are you scared of with Jungkook, specifically? Ol’ Kook has been around the block, but he ain’t dangerous.”

“Well… I’m more scared that it’ll be good.”

It even sounds ridiculous leaving your mouth. You know it’s idiotic to place all of your emotional baggage on a cowboy who wants to fuck you. 

“I’m scared it’ll be good. That he’ll be… that it’ll be good, and I’ll want more of it, and wanting more of it means having something to lose again, and I just,” you stifle a humorless laugh. “I just got here. I just put my furniture in an apartment I’ve never lived in, in a city I don’t know yet, in a state I didn’t grow up in.”

Stacey purses her lips in the way your mom usually does when you know you’re being irrational. “I’ve worked at this bar for nine years. I’ve watched a lot of people sit on that stool and talk themselves out of things, and not one of them has ever come back and said I’m so glad I stayed scared.”

“Whatever.” You wave your hand in the air dismissively. “I don’t even know why I’m getting all worked up over this. He probably doesn’t even think about me. Probably just another girl on his list to bother when he’s drunk.”

Stacey deadpans, expression souring. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

“Uh, I don’t think so.” Although, after two of her strong margaritas, you might be. 

Her dish rag comes flying across the bartop, smacking you straight in the arm, leaving a vibrating pain in your arm. “Ouch!---”

She flings it again, leaving another welt on your skin. “Stacey, what the fuck—”

One more on the other arm to even the score out. “Alright, enough with the smacking, I’m a customer—” “You’re my charity case and you’ll take what you can get.” She tucks the rag back into her apron. “That man has come into this bar every single night for the past week lookin’ for you, only to take one look around, find me instead, and leave lookin’ like somebody canceled Christmas. I’m insulted.”

Before you can even roll your eyes, the rag comes flying out of her pocket once more, aimed at your arm. 

“I said enough—”

“Then don’t roll your eyes at me.”

“I didn’t even—”

“Kook doesn’t care about girls,” Stacey continues. “Never has. He’s got his ranch and his boys and that’s the full extent of his social calendar. He doesn’t go out of his way to chase people.”

Then, as almost an afterthought, she adds, “I ain’t never seen him look at someone the way he looks at you in those little work outfits.”

Under wishful thinking and margarita-induced delusion, you have been trying to ignore the truth of her words. Even as you think about that first night when you met him, you remember it as the most natural thing in the world. Neither of you seemed to be searching for anything other than a drink in the bar. But of all the connections people make in this world, you two stumbled upon each other.

Jungkook could’ve kissed you that night, you think. You probably would’ve let him. But then he let you have the out, left you sitting there with his hat on your head, the hat that sits on your windowsill now as a reminder of your almost. 

Stacey’s expression resembles compassion, eyes softening as she watches the gears turn in your head. “Can I tell you something without you waving your hand at me again?”

“Probably not, but go ahead.”

“He did ask me about you the other day,” she says. “Asked if I’d seen you and if you were doing alright. Last night, you two just missed each other. He sat right where you’re sitting now for twenty minutes nursing one beer before he gave up and left. Kook nurses a beer for nobody.”

“He doesn’t even know me,” you snort, gathering the condensation of your watered-down drink. 

“He knows what kind of drink you like. For some men, that’s further along than most.”

And that’s a lot more than you plan on giving to anyone else but him. 

“Stacey, can I ask you something else?”

“‘Course, darlin’. Anything for you.”

You know what to do. It’s as clear as the sun after a summer storm. 

“What do cowgirls wear?”

Oh god. 

Oh god. 

Who knew cowboy boots were this tight around the calves? The white fabric digs into your skin, leaving imprints you’re sure will never erase. The hem of your ridiculously short denim shorts rise up your ass, practically digging into your thong. Before you left your apartment, you made a promise to yourself—one you’re very close to breaking—that you won’t pull those shorts down. 

This get-up can’t possibly be comfortable, but never mind what you think. It’s not about you or your outfit choices tonight. 

This was not what you had in mind when you asked Stacey what cowgirls wear. What you had in mind was something tasteful. What Stacey had couriered to your apartment via her cousin Deanna, who runs a boutique off Fifth Street, was a white lace top cropped to somewhere just above your navel, distressed denim shorts, and boots the color of fresh cream that zip up the side and are currently engaged in warfare with your calves and ankles.

You felt like a prize cow up for auction. A very well-dressed prize cow, but one nonetheless. 

You swing the door open to Coyote’s. It’s rowdier on a Friday night. The place is packed shoulder to shoulder, girls in outfits like yours and boys in their finest everything, hats and buckles and boots, the jukebox fighting to be heard over the noise of two dozen conversations happening at once. You push your way through the packed space, fighting your way to the bar where Stacey and her counterpart are furiously making drinks. 

God, these shorts are really tight up your ass.

Her hair whips around as she tries to tend to five people at once. You don’t dare try to get her attention on a busy night like this. But as if she can sense your presence, she turns around, and the shaker nearly flies out of her hand. “Good god almighty.” Her eyes grow to the size of saucers, then lets out a whistle that anyone can hear above the music. “Atta girl!”

She slaps the counter with one palm, then grabs her colleague by the sleeve without looking at him. “Pete. Pete, turn ‘round.”

The aforementioned man turns around, mimicking Stacey’s expression. “Well. Welcome to Texas, ma’am.”

You smile politely. “Thank you, Pete.”

“Told ya,” Stacey squeals, reaching for the tequila, pointing at you like she’s won first place at an arcade. “Told you. Did I not tell you?”

“You told me.”

“What’d I tell ya?”

Your brows furrow, racking your brain as you try to remember words, which for your sake, were many. “That I had a hell of a body and you’d throw me down on the pool table—”

“No!” she rolls her eyes. “That you’d clean up nice,” 

She shoots Pete a look that makes him stop ogling your tits and find the other end of the bar very interesting. She starts on your margarita, and you settle onto your stool and try not to let your eyes do the thing they want to do, which is scan the back corner by the pool table.

Three older men are nursing beers at the far end, next to a couple sharing a basket of fries. A row of women line the jukebox, scanning the room in hopes of finding their cowboy for the night. Somehow, you relate to them now more than ever. 

“Ain’t no way a pretty girl like you is all alone tonight.”

A man’s voice appears behind your left shoulder… and it’s completely and utterly the wrong fucking voice. Not the right timbre, or warmth, or scent underneath it that makes you want to lean into it. 

Said man sidles up beside you, and you peer up at him. All things considered, he’s not unattractive. Brown hair, good jaw, a Miller Lite in one hand and a handsome smile that’s probably worked on most people. He tips his hat and leans against the bar. “Colin,” he offers.

“Nice to meet you. [Y/N].” You give him your hand to shake, and he does so politely. 

“You new ‘round here?” His flirting is more than apparent. 

“That obvious?”

“Little bit.” He grins. In a life where you hadn’t spent the last two weeks being dismantled by a man with a lip ring and a ranch, you might have smiled back with intention. “Can I get you a drink?”

“She’s got one.”

Stacey slams the margarita down on the bartop with enough force to make the sugar on the rim jump, and looks at Colin with an implacable expression. “Move it Colin. This one’s Kook’s girl.”

Colin’s hands defensively come up, the universal gesture of a man who knows what hills are and are not worth dying on. “My bad. Have a good night, ma’am.”

“Sorry about her,” you call after his retreat. Colin was perfectly nice and none of this is his fault.

“Don’t you dare apologize to him,” Stacey scolds. “You’ll be fending ‘em off all night with that outfit. I hope you prepared.”

You gaze down at yourself, and a flicker of doubt moves through you. “I don’t look dumb, do I? Be honest. I can handle it.”

“Sweetheart, the only person in this bar who’s gonna think you look dumb is you.”

Of their own accord, your eyes drift around the bar again. 

Stacey takes the time to add, “And Jungkook, is definitely not going to think you look dumb.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes for the nth time since you’ve met her. 

“Move along,” Stacey says, turning back to her next customer, waving you off with the dish rag, “Go on. I’ve got work to do.”

“I haven’t seen you care about a work since the day I met you—”

“Scram, kid.”

You peel your hand off the bar like a kid being dropped off on the first day of school, a pit of reluctance settling in your stomach. 

Almost immediately, the attention begins. A few men tip their hats at you, while another does a double take while aggressively elbowing his friend in the ribs. Someone lets out a low whistle that you feel in your spine, and you nod politely, keep moving. 

It’s profoundly strange. Sure, you can recognize you’re a pretty girl. But in New York, you were invisible, which is to say completely unless someone wanted something from you. Here, people look at you like you’re someone they want to be near, no matter what they can get from you. You just wish it was one specific person doing the looking.

Migrating towards the back, you push through clusters of people, squeezing through gaps in the crowd. The women are less forgiving than the men. Some eye your outfit, then look away in disgust. 

Eventually, you find a sliver of wall near the back and stand near it, not on it, margarita held tight to your chest. From here, you can see the layout of the bar. The dance floor, the jukebox, bodies packed between you and the exit. Groups of men cluster together like men do at bars. 

“Kook! Over here, man!”

Your eyes find the source before your brain catches up. A blonde, fit man weasels through the crowd, waving down the one person you’ve been hoping to see. 

There’s no slow motion, no cinematic lighting change, no romantic song swelling up from the jukebox at the precise moment. People around him part without noticing they’re doing it, a gap opening up like the bar itself is making room for Jungkook’s grand entrance. 

Your stomach drops through the floor. Butterflies that you want to convince yourself are just anxiety or tequila detonate all at once, wings beating against your ribs so feverishly you press your hand flat to your chest to hold it all in.

This is stupid, you think. This is so stupid. He’s just a man.

He reaches his friend, and you can see him under the dim lights. Jungkook’s in a black jean jacket, wife beater underneath, black hat adorned on top of his head. He’s smiling, saying something, unaware of you pressed against this wall.

Two women near the jukebox drop their voices, heads together as they giggle. A girl in red boots nudges her friend while eyeing him. 

Fuck. You hadn’t once stopped to think about all the competition you might have. 

You wonder how many girls he’s offered a ride, or to see his ranch. 

His eyes move across the bar, and on instinct, your spine straightens. He seems to scan the bar, eyes moving through the crowd. Past the jukebox, the dance floor, past the bar.

And then, after what feels like eons, his eyes land on you. 

The noise of the bar goes fuzzy around the edges, heart leaping into your throat as you hold his gaze. His eyes drag down the length of your body, pausing at the sliver of your waist. He continues on, past the shorts and down to the boots that hug your feet. From meters away, you watch his jaw set and gaze darken. 

Jungkook tips his hat, and you raise your glass. 

Turning to the friend beside him, he whispers something brief into his ear. The friend turns to look at you then swivels back to Jungkook to shove him in your direction. 

Electricity lights behind your sternum and radiates outward, down your arms, into your fingertips where they’re wrapped around the cold glass, and you think Carrie Underwood was right. Those damn cowboy casanovas. 

He moves through the crowd in your direction, eyes unwavering from yours. His musky, tree-like scent hits you first. Up close, the black jean jacket sits across his broad shoulders. His lips are curled into a sinister smirk that would scare you if you didn’t find him unbelievably attractive. 

“Howdy, cowboy,” you grin up at him. 

Jungkook cocks his head. His hand comes out, two nimble fingers catching the hem of your lace top. Your heart leaps clean out of your chest and goes somewhere it can’t be retrieved from. “This all for me, sugar?”

“Don’t get too cocky.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “I’ll try not to.” He doesn’t bother pretending he’s not ogling you. 

“Trying to get in touch with my Texan roots, y’know?” you joke, playing with the straw in what you hope is flirtatiously.

“Yeah? C’mon then.” He holds his hand out, chin tilting up. “Give me a twirl, sugar.”

With a smile, you place your hand in his and turn, jutting your hip out. You rotate under the light and when you come back to face him, his eyes have darkened enough that you can hardly see the brown in them. 

He politely whistles, still holding your hand but bringing it down. “Well. If I knew Texas was gonna do that to a city girl, I’d have started recruitin’ from New York a long time ago.”

“You scouting for others?”

“Never,” he chuckles. He braces one hand against the wall beside your head. “You know, I’ve had a cowgirl fantasy or two as well.”

“Have you?”

“Mhm. Used to think it was about the boots." His eyes drop to your shorts, the way your hips hug the fabric. “Think I might’ve been wrong about that.”

“What’s it about then?”

“The girl wearing ‘em.”

“Scout’s honor?” you tease, and the smile that curls upon his lips sets your insides on fire. 

“Always,” he salutes. “I was getting worried I wouldn’t see you ‘round here no more.” 

From here, you can really see the height difference between you two, the way he towers over you. “I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“Is this a goodbye, sugar? Don’t break my heart,” he says, voice rumbling in his chest. 

Involuntarily, you grin. “I wanted to make sure when I came back here, I knew what I wanted.”

For a moment, he’s quiet, expression shifting. His fingers are still intertwined with yours, and his thumb rubs circles on your knuckles. “And now what do you want?”

“Hi, Kook.”

It’s one of the girls you spotted earlier. She’s batting her eyes like she’s got a speck of dust in it, and is eyeing Jungkook in a way that makes her intention crystal clear. 

“Hey.” Jungkook glances at her for a second, maybe two, before his gaze is back on you. 

“I wanted to come over and say hi. Know it’s been a while since we last saw each other,” she purrs, ignoring your daggered eyes. 

“I guess,” he shrugs, a protective finger looping through the belt holes in your shorts to pull you an inch further into him. Suddenly, you feel painfully inadequate. She’s actually trying to dissuade him to pick her instead of you. 

“Remember when we spent that night under the stars last month? Just you, I, and a bottle of Jack—”

She shifts her weight onto her other foot, and she casts a furtive glance at you as if to question your presence. You’re questioning your existence right about now too. 

“Hm.” He interrupts, tucks a strand of your hair behind your ears. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Her lips twist as though she’s just bit into a lemon. Then she sends a harrowing look in your direction, and you’re reminded that you’re the reason he won’t give her the time of day. You don’t really give a shit, though. 

“Oh. Alright, then. Have a good rest of your night.” Her tone is tinged with hurt as she turns on the heel of her boots and flocks back to her group of girls, all of whom are busy throwing dirty looks at you. 

Jungkook nods, but he doesn’t pay much mind. His dark eyes are still fixed on your face, thumb still looped through the hole. 

“That wasn’t very nice,” you say into your drink. 

“You want me to be nice to her?” he coyly smiles. 

You think you’d rather lose all your limbs in a fire. 

You shrug in silence. Jungkook tilts your jaw up to meet his eyes. “You were about to say something before.”

“Was I?”

“Before we were interrupted,” he retorts, settling his hand in your jean pocket. 

“Oh.” Finding the words doesn’t come easy, even if you know exactly what you want to say. Instead, you settle on, “Did you drive here?”

“‘Course, sugar.”

“Well… you wanna get out of here?” 

Amusement crosses his face. “Damn right I do.”

He plants a warm hand at the small of your back, guiding you toward the door. You drop your half-drunken margarita on a nearby table. As you let yourself be steered by him, there’s a smug smile glued to your face, especially when you catch the eyes and whispers of girls. There’s something about this city, this man, that makes you confident in yourself. 

Jungkook parked his car in the back of the filled lot. From there, the noise dissipates into nothingness, nothing but the sound of bugs chirping and cars in the distance on I-40. Out here, you can forget about your old life. 

“Earlier, you asked what I wanted.”

“I did, sugar.” He’s loitering with his keys in his pocket, a smirk evident on his lips as he leans against the driver’s door of his pickup truck. 

You gnaw at your lower lip. “I think I want to repay my debts to you.”

“Really?” In the dark of the night, you can hardly make out his obsidian eyes, the shadows on his face settling. “How do ya plan on doing that?”

“Think I owe you that ride still.”

His lips come crashing down onto yours, large hands weaving into your hair, tugging on it. You unabashedly moan into his mouth as he tugs you further into him, like he wants you to live in his skin. Your hand lands on his chest, and you feel the broad muscle under his tank, the rapid flutter of his heart. His tongue licks into your mouth, sloppy and full of desire, and you don’t even care about how your whimpers sound against him. It’s all so sudden your body takes a moment to find its rhythm, but when you do, you realize how soft his lips are, how such a good fucking kisser he is. You probably shouldn’t have expected anything less from the Austin's communal mattress, but that’s neither here nor there. 

The hand once pressed against your back wanders down, down until he’s cupping your ass firmly. He kneads the skin, and he groans into your mouth, lips hot and wet against your own. Austin, Texas is known for its sweltering heat, but with Jungkook’s body against yours, the brisk, night air can’t even cool you down. 

His lips trail off your lips, pressing against your cheek, and you feel the cold metal of his piercing against your burning skin. “You look so pretty in this outfit, sugar.”

Your body combusts under his weight and words. His tongue slides back into your mouth, hand moving from your ass to your neck where he gently clutches around it. “Wore it for you,” you whisper between kisses. 

“Hm.” he pecks your lips once more. “I was hoping so. Must be real lucky to be the first cowboy to have you.”

“And the last,” you say before leaning back in for another messy kiss, drunk off the way he tastes, more than any alcohol could ever give you. 

His hands come down to cradle the back of your thighs, and before you can protest, he’s lifting you, pressing your back against the door of his truck. Gasping, your hands scramble for purchase around his neck, thighs snugly hugging his waist. Jungkook’s lips press against your neck, trailing open-mouthed kisses wherever he can. You want all of him, more of him, by any means you can get it. Your fingers entangle in his dark locks, tugging at the nape. He groans, “F-fuck, we need to get in the car, sugar.”

“Mhm, take me there, then,” Your smile is dopey as he carries you around to the passenger side, opening the door and sitting down so he can plop you directly onto his lap. His thighs are firm muscle beneath you. He slams the door shut, lips finding yours once more. Your knees cage him in, and he digs his fingers into your flesh. You can hardly keep up with the movement of his tongue, can’t really do anything but open your mouth and take whatever he gives you. 

For once, you don’t care about anyone seeing you, or what anyone might think. Luckily, the lot is empty, save for people who are far more worried about entering the bar than leaving, or whatever you’re doing in this vehicle. 

“Lift your hips up for me, doll,” he mutters, lips hardly breaking from yours, fingers deftly unbuttoning your shorts. You do as he says, allowing him access. He slides your shorts down your legs, depositing them on the floor of his truck. Your knees feel like jelly, quivering with anticipation as he tugs your underwear off next. Desperately, you fall back into his lap, clit pressed against his jeans for as much friction as possible. 

Beneath you, you can feel his hard length poking through his jeans, and your cheeks warm up at the thought of him getting hard from just some kissing. You gently test the waters, hips rolling into his crotch. He grunts, hands steadying your movements. “Fuck, sugar, I won’t last long if you plan on doing that.”

“Who says I want you to last long?” you whisper, lips tracing the shell of his ear. And then he’s grabbing you by your jaw and pulling you in, in, in, kissing you like he wants to swallow your essence entirely. He pulls the straps of your top down until your tits pop out. You gasp at the sudden exposure, cold air causing your nipples to perk up. His fingers come to play with the pert bud, and you whimper atop him. 

“Most perfect tits I’ve ever seen, sugar.” He trails open-mouthed kisses down your neck to your collarbone, tongue licking a path down to your breasts. His lips wrap around your perked nipple, and a choked moan escapes you. 

Your fingers intertwine in his hair, tugging, and that elicits a groan from him. His tongue flicks the nipple up, down, and your back arches against the dashboard. You tug at his hair as he messily sucks your tits, leaving bruises you’re sure will last weeks. Jungkook’s hips rut into your sopping entrance hopelessly, and his length pokes into your inner thigh. You’re pretty sure you’re creaming all over his pants, not that he even minds. On every hitch of his hips forward, his teeth grazes your nipple, undoing you. 

Truth be told, you’ve been soaked since the moment you laid eyes on him. Since the moment you saw the hat upon his head, muscles bulging out of everything he owns. You push his jean jacket off his shoulders, seeing the tattoo that extends across his biceps and collarbone, a myriad of color. 

Finally, he peers up at you, swollen lips and blown pupils. You waste no time in pressing your lips to his again. He can probably taste the remaining sugar from your margarita on your tongue, and if anything, the thought seems to excite him, the thought that other parts of you may be sweet as well. Gripping onto his biceps, you can feel the veins that trace up his arms. A whine exits from the back of your throat. “Jungkook, touch me.”

“Hm, where, sugar? Use your words.” He presses a chaste kiss to the edge of your lips. 

Words aren’t something you can muster, so you take his hand and place it against your clit, right where he can feel how fucking soaked you are, dripping onto his jeans. “Shit,” he curses, swallowing thickly. “You’re dripping. You been like this the whole time?”

Eagerly, you nod like a broken bobblehead. 

One finger dips between your folds, gathering your essence before taking it back to his mouth and licking it clean off. “Just as sweet as I imagined.”

There’s no air left in your lungs to form words with, no brainpower beyond the feeling of wanting more, more, more. His finger finds your clit, and you throw your head back, moaning loudly that you’re damn near certain the entirety of Texas heard you. Toothily, Jungkook grins, pointer and middle finger rubbing circles against your clit. His tongue comes to lick a trail up your neck, sucking the sweet spot behind your ear. It’s like he has a map to you, knows exactly where to touch you to have you writhing. 

A finger slides through your wetness before finally pushing into your entrance, down to his knuckle. Your fingernails rake down his biceps, leaving red marks in its place. He fucks the finger steadily in and out, thumbing at your clit simultaneously. “Ngh—fuck, don’t stop,” you moan, grinding into his finger. Just one isn’t enough, you know it won’t be, need to feel him fill you up. 

“P-please,” you beg, although you’re not quite sure what you’re begging for. But he seems to understand, pushing a second finger inside you, curling upwards to your sweet spot. Your body jolts forward, nails now digging crescent moons into his skin. “Oh fuck, feels so good.”

“Can’t wait to be inside you,” he groans. “Your pussy’s so tight and warm. Gonna be a dream to fuck you, sugar.”

“M-me either.” You shiver, and on autopilot, your shaky fingers come to undo his belt buckle, unzipping his jeans. “Please fuck me, Kook. I want it. Want to feel you inside me.”

“Yeah?” He presses open-mouthed kisses against your cheek and nose, “Want me to fuck you the way you deserve?”

A long, languid moan escapes you, anticipation leaping into your throat. “Please. Please l-let me give you that ride.”

“If you insist,” he devilishly smiles, pulling his fingers out of you, licking them clean once more. He pulls down his boxers as much as he can with you on top, gets out his cock, and hisses as he strokes himself a few times. 

Shit. You should’ve known he would be big, but he’s at least twice the size of your ex. Saliva pools in your mouth at how veiny and red his cock is. His hat hangs over his eyes as he looks down at his cock, chest heaving and bottom lip tucked underneath his teeth. 

It’s like a lightbulb flashes over your head, with an idea so sinister you almost can’t believe you came up with it yourself. 

You get your hands on the soft fabric of his hat, nudging it off his head and placing it on yours. It’s a little too big, hangs over your eyes, but Jungkook’s jaw goes slack nonetheless. “You gonna give me that ride while you wear my hat?” His cock twitches in his palm as he lazily strokes it, eyes never leaving yours. 

“Uhu,” you agree, replacing his hand with yours on his cock. He’s girthier than you imagined, can hardly fit the whole of him in your palm. He quickly moves to kiss you again, and you take the opportunity to glide the tip of his cock through your folds, gathering the arousal that’s pooled. You both moan in unison. 

“Fuck, don’t tease me, sugar,” he grunts, eyes glazed over with lust. 

Whimpering, you obey him, and his cock enters you in one go. Your walls stretch to accommodate him, and it’s a slow, torturous slide down, until your folds hit his pelvic bone. He sharply inhales, cursing as his head hits the headrest. Your legs tremble with how full of him you feel, how much of him bulges in your stomach when you look down. “Fuck, Kook. Y’you’re so big.”

Jungkook’s calloused hands run up and down your sides. His face is mostly hidden behind the shadows in his car, but you can make out his rosy lips and cheeks. “I know, baby, but you can take it. Go ‘head and give me that ride you owe me.”

Slowly, you move up and down, only a mere inch at a time. Just enough to see the bulge inside your stomach move a tad. The hat slides further over your eyes as you gently move. He tips it back, cupping your cheek so he can see how fucked out you look already. “C’mon, use me, sugar. Show me how you ride dick.”

You nod in response, your cunt clenching around his length. Arousal drips down his cock onto his abdomen, and your head hits the ceiling as you use all your strength to bounce on his cock. Loud whines and curses fill the space, Jungkook’s mouth buried into your neck, hands coming to spread your ass cheeks so you can take him deeper. “Yeah, that’s it. Ride my fucking cock, sugar.” 

The sounds fog up the window—your pussy squelching with each thrust, the slap of his balls against your ass, his throaty groans. 

“These fucking tits. Wanna see them bounce in my face all the time,” he says, a hand coming up to slap your hardened nipples, and you moan. A trickle of sweat falls down your back, falling into the fabric that has now pooled around your waist. “You doing good, sugar?” His voice is sinful, and your cunt clenches around him again. 

“Mhm. Your cock is so deep inside me.” Bouncing becomes more tiresome, thighs trembling with pent-up desire. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to ride cock as one had hoped, but you’re determined to get you and him over the edge. 

His hair is ruffled by your fingers as he trails a path of sloppy, wet kisses to the valley of your breasts. “You look so fucking good with my hat on.” Even though the edge is tipping over your eyes again, he fondly peers at you, how utterly blissed out your expression looks, cheeks ruddy. 

Somehow, he must feel the exhaustion creeping upon you, because he plants his boots onto the floor and bucks up into you, causing moans to elicit from you. “Fuck, your pussy’s so tight n’ wet. It’s like a fucking drug, sugar,” he croons into your neck. 

His cock plunges in and out of you with more force. Jungkook wraps an arm around your waist, tugging you tight, tight, tight to his chest, tits bouncing against him. You hold onto the hat, leaning against the dashboard so he can hit your sweet spot, just where you want him. “Oh—fuck, right there, Kook!”

His teeth drag against your skin, hips pistoning in and out. Puffs of breath escape his mouth and hit your skin. “If you were mine, would never let ya go,” he babbles, clearly pussy drunk. “Ain’t never letting you get near another cowboy. You’re all mine now, sugar.” 

Clearly, your body takes a liking to the buckets of filth he’s pouring in your ear, and your walls clench around his length, your imminent orgasm creeping up on you. “Jungkook,” you whimper, and the pit in your stomach grows and grows, the knot almost coming undone as he continues hitting what you think might be your cervix. 

You swear you feel him in your stomach as he says. “You gonna cum? Gonna cum all over my cock? Make a mess of my truck?” 

“Gonna cum, Kook. Please make me cum,” you chant, and then it’s a gush of wetness escaping you, back arching far enough that the hat falls onto the console, thighs trembling and jaw slack. Normally, you’d be embarrassed, but all you can think about is the adrenaline pumping through your veins, walls frantically clamping down on him as you ride out your orgasm. 

“Are you gonna cum inside me?” You’re sure you sound desperate when you ask, but he peers up at you with hooded eyes and responds, “If that’s what you want, sugar.”

It only takes a few more pumps of his hips to send him over the edge as well, hips stuttering, before groaning and emptying himself inside you. Slumping against his chest, his cock twitches, then softens inside you, and all that can be heard in the truck is the sound of you two struggling to catch your breath. 

“Holy shit,” is all you can say. 

His nails gently run down your spine, sending goosebumps blossoming across your skin. “Good ride?” he jokes, pressing kisses down the slope of your shoulder. 

“Totally worth it.”

And you mean it, every ounce of it. Can see the sunshine and rainbows, the things you thought were once hidden behind dark clouds. 

Just like you thought it would, it was good. Probably even better than that, probably impossible to find a word in the English dictionary to describe it. Enough so that maybe, you’ll extend your year-long lease in Texas. Make it two, perhaps. 

“Jungkook?”

“Hm, sugar?”

“Can you take me to the ranch?”

A chuckle reverberates through his chest, and you feel it everywhere his skin touches yours. “Yeah, darlin’. How ‘bout tomorrow?”

Steve moves towards you, messing with his hair on the way, but when he starts to sit beside you, you stop him with a hand on his arm.

Scooting backwards, you press yourself into the cushions and spread your legs to give him space to sit in front of you.

“Wha—right there?” he asks, blinking down at you, mussed hair haloed by the light of the TV. 

"Yes, right here.”

He chuckles softly, shaking his head before turning around and collapsing into the makeshift seat you've provided. 

"This what you wanted?" he grunts, letting all his weight fall back onto you and press you into the couch. “You sure?” 

“Mmhhm,” you breathe, wrapping your legs around his hips, and your arms around his broad shoulders. He's so warm. You bury your face into his shoulder, inhaling the scents of fresh grass and humid summer air. “Where does it hurt today?” 

He sighs, absently watching the sitcom on the TV from under heavy lashes. “Everywhere.”

You rest your chin on his shoulder. The laugh track plays quietly through your house just as the first raindrop hits your window pane.  

Every time a storm rolls in, Steve gets this way. 

His old wounds have long since healed by now, but under intense shifts of barometric pressure, they come back to haunt him, driving a gnawing, clamping ache into his body that whisks away his concentration and make it hard for him to breathe. 

When the weather changes, he’ll say that bone in his nose aches, or that joint in his shoulder is killing him. But his side hurts the most. Those frayed nerve endings and hairline fractures in his ribs never got proper care thanks to his neglectful parents who never noticed their son was in pain.

Through the years, you’ve found a way to help him. Fill his mind with pleasure instead, and make him forget—even just for a minute. 

So, your hands start to roam. Traversing him in that way only lovers do—those who know someone else’s body better than their own. Curling over his forearm, brushing the hair there with your thumb. Caressing the rough knuckles on his hands. Trailing the bulge of his bicep, his capped shoulder, until finally skimming up the side of his head to plunge your fingers into this hair. 

Steve sinks further into you with a groan, but his shoulders tense when he hears you take a stuttering breath. 

His hands fly to hold yours still on his body. “Shit, ‘m not crushing you, am I?"

You shake your head, lips trailing the vein in his neck. “Relax, Steve. Let me make you feel good.”

You hear him swallow hard, hesitating. Then, finally, his hands fall away from yours, giving them permission to drift down to his waistband. He helps you out, undoing the button on his khakis for you. You shift behind him and reach down further until your fingers brush his cock, already straining against his boxers. 

Steve sighs, hips shifting as he chases your touch. “Baby, you know you don’t have to if you don’t wan—”

“I want to,” you say. “Let me fix it.”

His heavy palm comes down on your shin in his lap, warmth bleeding from his fingers. It’s a grounding, touch, not meant to stop you. Something to keep him centered while pleasure and pain war inside, threatening to pull him apart. 

You brush your fingers across his hard length, earning a soft groan of approval. Weighing the velvet steel in your hand, you wrap your fingers around him and squeeze at the base, just how he likes it. 

He curses, his head falling back against your shoulder just as thunder rolls in the distance. His lashes flutter shut, throat bared in the TV light, and you swear you’ve never seen anything more beautiful. 

You stroke him slowly. Languidly. The pleasure glides through his veins like silk, stealing the bite from his wounds, relieving the teeth digging into his ribs, before pooling into a different kind of pressure low in his abdomen. One that’s dull, and drugging, and promises relief. 

“Relax,” you whisper again against his ear.

Steve obeys, his body going a little more pliant. His thighs fall further apart, pinning you into the soft cushion. But his weight on you isn’t the only thing that steals the breath from your lungs. It’s the way he finds sanctuary in you. You love him like this. Open, and trusting, and wanting. Needing you, even when he’s in pain. Especially when he’s in pain. 

Your hand falls into the tempo he needs without him having to ask. It’s still slow, but steadily grows harder, grabbing that thread of need from inside his hips and pulling it tight. 

His back rises and falls with uneven breathes against your chest, but he stays still. He knows better than to buck up into your touch. If his hips lock up, your hand disappears. His shoulders tense, and your kisses stop. 

He has to be relaxed, pliant, and totally at your mercy for this pain relief to work.

Outside, the sky darkens further, turning that mottly shade of blue. The one you’ve seen bloom on his body time and time again over the years. The rain starts to fall steadily, tinking and plunking onto the glass pane.

Your knuckles rasp against his pants as you touch him, your forearm catching on his shirt with every stroke, and when your tongue darts out for a taste of his salty skin, and you’re rewarded with a moan that sends heat licking up your spine. 

He must really be hurting today. By this point, he’s usually trying to catch you by the ankle and pull you underneath him, pushing your legs apart and dragging his tongue through your pussy before you're done with him.

You shift underneath him, the heavy, slick weight of your arousal pooling in your panties, but you’ll deal with that later. Right now, you just want him pain free.  

His cock jerks in your hand, precum smearing across your fingers as his hand squeezes your shin, the other grasping uselessly at the couch cushion beside him. 

From this position—his head resting on your shoulder—you can only see the slope of his nose against the storm clouds, but his eyes are screwed shut, his brows furrowed even as little huffs leave his parted lips. 

You drop a sweet, reassuring kiss to one of the moles on his face. 

Steve’s always struggled with accepting care. It’s taken a long time to get him here. 

Hooking your ankle around his knee, you pull your leg towards you and spread his thighs even wider so your other hand can crawl underneath his arm and disappear into his shirt.

He turns his head and trails his lips across your cheek, your jaw, until finally you turn and capture his mouth with yours. His tongue dips into your mouth as your hand travels over his ribs, his scars, with soothing, sure touches that have him groaning into the kiss. 

But when his socks start to whisper against the carpeted floor as he tries to get leverage to shove his hips up into your touch, you break apart and pull your hand from his dick.

You’ve practiced edging Steve many times, so you don’t even have to say anything for him to get the picture. 

“Just feels so good,” Steve groans. “Sorry, I—yeah.” 

Rain pelts the window now, drowning out the distant laugh track on the TV, and Steve's heartbeat kicks up against your palm.

A hiss of pleasure escapes him when your touch resumes, but you tighten your grip, jerking him steadily until he swallows hard and relaxes again. 

You press gentle, openmouthed kisses along the column of his neck, his curls brushing your ear as his sounds grow breathier and louder. And when his cock thickens in your hand, you know he’s close. 

You bite your lip as his hips go stiff. Listening to him pant like this is really working you up. Finally, he groans, and jolts in your hold as hot ropes of come paint your knuckles. 

You slow to a stop, still kissing his neck to bring him down, making sure he's utterly relaxed before slipping your hand free. 

Steve tips his head back onto the couch and looks over at you, his eyes shining with love, but they darken swiftly as he watches your fingers disappear into your mouth, your pink tongue swirling around to catch every salty drop of him.

“You gonna let me take care of you, now?” he rasps, eyes on your mouth. 

You smile softly. “Steve, you’re hurting—”

“Not anymore.” 

His arm wraps around your waist, and then he shifts you lengthwise across the couch, his body following you down.

“You gave me my fix," he says, trailing a hand between your bodies, and your breath hitches as his long fingers disappear into your panties. “Now, let me give you yours.”

a/n: Woke up this morning to a thunderstorm and plans to write something completely different. But, when I put pen to paper, this is what happened instead. It's been a minute since I've written something completely new and not from my drafts, so I'm not complaining. (It’s probably also due to the fact that I'm still thinking about Steve and reader from Truce)

steve masterlist | banner from @cursed-carmine

season 5 steve would definitely be such a brat tamer. he’s always slightly annoyed, ready to snap at the smallest of inconveniences because of the never ending crawls and his ongoing feud with dustin.

and he loves you soo much. you’ve never had to doubt that for the entirety of your long relationship. he treats you better than you could’ve ever imagined. he loves you loudly and unapologetically. he’s the literal epitome of your very own prince charming from those cheesy movies he used to always take you to see.

but with everything happening lately, he’s just always so on edge and so pent up. and you’d caught him on a particularly bad day.

the night before was an absolutely terrible crawl. dustin had been running late, steve had been forced into the van with jonathan, they’d gotten lost, then caught shit about it from dustin and hopper for hours after.

it was safe to say his fuse was extremely short the next morning at the station.

and so was yours.

robin had been on one all morning, clearly not having a great day either. she’d been hurling insults practically every five seconds out of pure frustration. usually a shift like this would be filled with lighthearted banter and giggles, not sideways glances and snappy comments.

and sitting in the muggy sound booth was like literal hell. the atmosphere was akin to a live wire waiting to be set off any seconds.

and robin had really pissed you off now. and unfortunately for steve, he was catching the brunt of it.

“steve, wrong button!”

“dude, you missed your cue!”

“can you stop chewing so loud?!”

“are you even listening to her at all?!”

“god, do i have to do everything myself?!”

you should’ve known to just shut up when he’d gone eerily quiet. he didn’t snap back with some crude insult— he never did— but he usually had some sort of comment. whether it be a quick “sorry,” or “my bad.” he always had something to say nowadays.

he just leaned back in his chair, deathly silent and cold.

and the moment you got into your shared apartment and into your bedroom, he was sitting down and bending you over his lap. your soft, flowy skirt was bunched up around your hips and your bare skin was on perfect display for him.

“you think you can just yell at me like that? because what? you’ve had a bad day?” and his heavy, big hand would come down onto the supple skin with a loud smack, making you jerk against his thighs. “hm? think you can get all mean and expect things to go back to normal?”

there’d be zero sympathy in his voice because everyone has truly been pushing his buttons for the last 48 hours.

his calloused palm was sooth over the reddening skin slowly, giving you that false sense of relief that made you think it was over.

smack.

you’d cry out brokenly, your legs kicking up at the sharp sting. “stevie—“

he’d cut you off immediately because he knows where you’re going with this. he always knows. “not today, baby. can’t sweet talk your way out of this one.”

smack.

the tears prickling in your waterline would begin to finally trickle down your cheeks, leaving trails of dark mascara to smudge. your bottom is starting to burn now but you know it’s far from over.

“you done bein’ a little brat to me? or should i keep going?” he asked mockingly, squeezing at the fat of your ass. you couldn’t help but whine in pain. “you gonna apologize to me? tell me how sorry you are? how this won’t happen again?”

and when you try to start pleading your case and beg for it to be over, promising it won’t happen ever again and you’ll be so nice, he’d kinda chuckle to himself and be like, “hmm, it’s funny ‘cause i think that’s exactly what you promised me last time.”

and his heavy hand would come down on the untouched side of your ass with another loud smack, making you choke out a sob. he’d stop if he truly thought he was hurting you, but he knows you better than anyone. and he knows how much you fucking love it.

“count ‘em up, honey,” he’d command, his hands kneading the flesh as he geared up for another spanking. “you know the rules. miss one and i start over.”

and he’d make you count all the way to 14 including the previous 3, an even number on each cheek. by the time he was done, your skin would be red, irritated, and literally on fire so when you went in the station tomorrow and had to sit for the long hours, you’d be uncomfortable and restless. it’d be a long reminder of your behavior and it’s consequences.

you’d be all teary and blabbering out apologies, begging stevie to forgive you. you swear it’ll never happen again and you’ll make it up to him.

after smoothing over your burning skin, he’d have you face down on the bed with your ass perched up into the air, drilling all the of attitude out of you. he’d be sooo transfixed on your creamy little cunt just fucking sucking him right back in and leaving a milt ring around the base of him.

“this what you wanted, baby? just wanted to be punished like a little slut?” he’d coo, his hands holding your waist in a bruising grip, pulling you back to meet each thrust. “fuck. pretty pussy’s just fuckin’ cryin’ for it, huh?”

he’d be so mean and teasing, leaning over you so he was buried impossibly deep. his hand would be pressing the side of face down into the sheets as you cried, fingers bunching at the blankets uselessly to try and ground you.

his hips would be moving so much slower, rolling against yours and making a new home in your guts. you could practically feel him in your throat. and you’d be mumbling out absolute nonsense. begging for more? maybe begging for mercy? he could never decipher it.

“the fuck are you even saying right now?” it came out as a breathy laugh, that lazy, confident smile splaying across his face. the hand on the side of your face moves to your hair, tugging the the roots gently before sliding around to hold your neck. he’d pull you upright so your head was back against his shoulder and his arm was looping around to splay a big hand over your stomach, feeling the head of him bulging against your tummy. one particularly hard thrust would have you screaming and arching away from him. “c’mon. be a good girl and use your words. tell me what you want.”

a choked scream spilled past your swollen lips, biting down hard to stop yourself frim letting out another when you felt a deep punch of his fat tip against your cervix. “wanna cum! hmph! please, stevie. right— right there! yes, yes, yes!”

he’d reach around to rub at your puffy, neglected clit until your jerking against him and crying out in pleasure. even when he was pissed off at you, he’d always ensure that you came first.

“that’s it, pretty baby,” he mumbles against the shell of your ear, repeatedly abusing that sweet spot inside of your gummy walls. “taking my fat cock like a fuckin’ champ. you were made for this, weren’t you?”

your nails would be digging so brutally into the forearm around your throat that was almost keeping you in a headlock, but he’d be so lost in the tight warmth of your cunt that he wouldn’t even care. he’d fucking eat it up every time. in the same way that you loooved his firm bicep pressing against your neck. if you were a little more conscious, you’d surely be taking a big bite of them.

with your shaking, spent body, he’d finally lay you back down and slide a pillow under your hips before pressing his full weight on top of you from behind. he’d push himself so far up your guts that you’d be genuinely seeing stars. and his arm would be locking around your neck again, his lips neck to your ear as he moaned lewdly.

“shit. i fuckin’ love when you get all bratty with me,” he’d admit in a low purr. “love getting to have you all dumb and pretty on my cock. hearing you beg me to let you come— oh, fuck. and deep down, i know how much you love getting this little pussy punished. can feel how tight she squeezes me, how fuckin’ wet she gets the minute i get inside you.”

“oh— oh, stevie! please, feels so good,” you cried, jolting forward with the force each hard thrust. “i love it! mmph! love when you punish me!”

and he’d be sooo fucking cocky about it, biting and nipping at your ear as he chuckled. “yeah? tell me how much you love it, baby. tell me how good i make you feel.”

you’d be crying, shaking beneath him, barely able to form another comprehendable sentence when he begins rolling his hips into you, so deep and slow that you feel like you’re suffocating. and steve’s scent, the expensive cologne and his natural musk, is all around you. it’s so entirely him that you’re literally drunk off of it.

when he knows you’re close again, mostly because you can’t say a single intelligible word, he’s rubbing at your clit with his free hand and snapping his hips into yours a little quicker. you can’t even scream when the coil in your stomach snaps, you just have to lay there and take the immense pleasure running through your blood.

and he’d finally start to get all soft on you when he thrusts a few more times slowly before feeling his balls draw up, fully emptying himself inside your dripping cunt. “there you go, honey. yeahhh, just fucking’ take it,” he moaned sweetly into your ear, peppering the side of your sweaty face in loving kisses. “such a good girl for me. fuck, i love you. love you so much, pretty.”

and steve would certainly keep you stuffed full for a few minutes while you caught your breath, kissing all over every inch of your skin. he’d sit up and away from you just to gently paw at your ass, placing the most tender kisses along the bruised skin all while muttering about how much he loves you and how good you were for him.

he’d gently spread the skin apart so he could watch his fat cock pull out from your messy pussy, loving the way his thick cum slowly gushed out of your hole. just to tease you a little, he’d sometimes run the tip of him down your slit to collect his seed and shove it back inside of you, making you let out a choked gasp and grip the sheets beneath you.

his lips would find the space between your shoulder blades, kissing all over you and then pulling out for good.

and steve looooooves aftercare. so of course he’d be rolling you over, pecking your pretty lips and running a soft, warm towel along the stickiness between your legs. he’d be kissing all over you the entire time, praising you, mumbling “i love you, honey,” over and over and over.

Thank God you’re all the way out instead of back at camp where your middle school-age campers are tucked away, sleeping in their cabins on the hill.

At Camp Woodwick, the last night of their month-long summer session always ends on the Fourth of July. Which is tonight. And on the last night, the counselors don’t have a curfew, so the whole lot of you can pitch tents down by the lake and watch the fireworks show. 

It was fun for awhile, but after a handful of lackluster campfire stories and couple burnt marshmallows, Steve announced he was going to bed. The guys complained, begging him to light some fireworks with them, but he said he was going to turn in anyway. 

Right after his eyes caught yours. 

You excused yourself shortly after him, not even really sure why. And as you changed into your sleep shorts and a t-shirt, and settled into your sleeping bag, you blamed your sour mood on the heat and the bugs.

Assuring yourself that it had nothing to do with the fact that you and Steve Harrington have been at each other’s throats for weeks.

Tonight is is counselor’s night out! It’s supposed to be a fun end-of-the-summer bash for all the adults who were paid a few grand to babysit. It’s the night everyone looks forward to the most. 

You should be having fun—being young. Whatever that means. 

At some point between the whole saving-the-world-and-barely-escaping-with-your-life-thing, you became somewhat of a stranger to that idea. Your life had been, for lack of a better term, flipped upside down. 

Steve groans again. Hot embers flare to life in your core, stirred up by the sound of his thready voice. So low and breathless. 

He has to shut up. What is he thinking, jerking off like this with people nearby?

Granted, your tents are the furthest away from everyone else’s, and no one has really gone to bed yet. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. But between the sticky humid air clinging to your skin, and the sharp whistles from exploding fireworks, when Steve moans softly again you finally just…snap. 

Ripping the blankets off yourself, you rustle around your tent for your flashlight, grumbling and muttering in the dark.

God, you have to do everything yourself, don’t you? 

You wince as your tent opens with a loud zip that punctuates the darkness surrounding you. Peeking over your shoulder, you can see the smoke from the campfire in the distance, curling up towards the stars. A few of your fellow counselors are still lounging around the fire, but most of them are small shadows dotting the lake’s edge. 

Steve pitched his orange tent under a tree. 

Stupid. 

Doesn’t he know that the roots will mess the tent stakes up? You’re surprised he could even get them in the ground. Honestly, it will probably fall down on him tonight. 

You hope it does. 

His tent is dark and quiet, but you march over anyway, flashlight raised so the beam falls straight on him when you turn it on. 

You yank on his tent’s zipper. It gives easily. A muffled curse comes from inside, and you click on the flashlight to reveal Steve lying on his side, bare chest rising and falling as he squints into the bright beam.

“God, you never could stay quiet, could you?” You say, bullying your way through the tent flap and zipping it back up behind you. 

Steve scrambles to throw his sleeping bag over himself, but it does practically nothing to hide his raging boner underneath. 

“What the fuck do you want?” He snaps, glaring up at you. 

Despite yourself, your eyes catch on a delicious bicep, and his muscled shoulder in the shine of your flashlight. That chest hair has taunted you all summer long. It’s been torturous pretending you didn’t know what it felt like against your bare breasts, against your back...

You clear your throat. “I just thought I’d let you know the whole camp can hear you jerking off.”

“What? I’m not—Jesus.” His big hand drags down his face, even as he pulls the sleeping bag up higher. “Get out.”

Whoops, there you go again, getting distracted by his hands. 

Maybe you should close your eyes, or turn around—something—because looking at him stretched out in the dark like this is making you think wicked things.

Your lips twist in a mocking smirk, and you gesture down to the sleeping bag. “Oh, c’mon, Steve. Why are you so embarrassed? It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.” 

Lots of times, actually. 

Through the years, you’d been there for everything—watched him get captured, tortured, and sacrificed for others. But after it was all over, and the dust settled, you fell into each other a different way. 

Because it wasn’t the days plagued with Demogorgons, evil Russians, or even Vecna that were the worst.

It was the days that followed.

The hollow darkness you experienced as the world kept moving on, oblivious to the memories that plagued you both. You had to learn how to live normally again, and something about that was both relieving and excruciatingly lonely at the same time.

The nightmares had a way of sticking to you like blood you couldn’t get off no matter how many times you scrubbed yourself raw in the shower. 

It was in those shaky, sweaty, middle-of-the-night fever dreams that you and Steve found solace in each other. Because when it all became a bit too much, you could dig your nails into someone else’s skin, feel a slick, hot mouth against yours—ground yourself in something intrinsically human just to prove that after everything, you still are.

But all that came to a screeching halt last summer. 

“Okay,” Steve sighs, shifting a little and squinting up at you. “Let’s say that I was. You wanted to come over and…cockblock me? From myself? And turn that thing off unless you want everyone to see two silhouettes in here.”

You click the flashlight off immediately, plunging you both into darkness. 

Maybe you should rescind your previous statement. Because now, without being able to see him, his proximity is somehow affecting you even more. 

You can hear his soft breaths, smell the lake water on his skin. And underneath it all, the familiar sounds and scents of him that opens a gaping hole of nostalgia in the pit of your stomach. 

You try to laugh, but it comes out cold. “You think I give a fuck if you’re rubbing one out, Harrington? No. I came over here because you’re fucking whimpering and moaning—”

“—I was not whimpering.” 

“—and you’re incapable of keeping quiet—yes, you were, and I was getting sick of hearing it. So, either do it quieter, or find someone to cover your fucking mouth.”

As you were talking, your vision adjusted to the darkness. Which is a very bad thing, because now you can see him again. Specifically the outline of his mussed hair as he lifts his chin to meet your gaze. 

“You offering?”

Your breath catches.

You should say no. You should tell him to go fuck himself—literally— and leave right now. He can let the whole camp hear him for all you care. 

But instead, you hesitate. 

Now, Steve is smart. Smarter than he gives himself credit for, that’s for sure. And there are certain patterns he’s picked up on with you over the years. Like, when you pause like that, the answer is almost always a yes. 

Which is why the second you go quiet, and the distant laughter of the other counselors fills the space between you, he’s already batting the sleeping bag off his lap. 

“I knew it,” he says. The fabric slips off him just as a firework bursts overhead, and your eyes drag over his body. The lean, tan muscle from all his time outside this summer, down to his long, hard cock jerking against his happy trail. “You’re so busy acting like you hate me, wanting to play this game where we bitch at each other all summer, and now you’re making up excuses to come into my tent—”

“Oh, trust me,” you scoff, tearing your eyes away to meet his again. “It’s not an excuse.”

“No?” he says softly, leaning back on one arm and gesturing at his body with the other. “Then, prove it.”

“Fine, but I’m only staying to keep you quiet,” you warn him, pinning him with a harsh look. 

“Sure. Whatever,” Steve rasps, watching as you drop to your knees beside him. 

Your fingers curl into his sleeping bag beside his shoulder, but you’re careful not to touch him. 

He wishes you would. 

You gesture impatiently at him, your hand a shadowy blur in the dark. “Go ahead and get it over with. I’m not sitting here all night. God.”

Steve rushes to obey, and when wraps his hand around his cock again, the rush is so intense it’s almost painful. The way you’re sitting there just watching him is making his head feel fuzzy, and his dick swell.

And look at you—pretending to not be affected in the slightest watching the flushed head poke out of his fist over and over as he jerks off in front of you. God, you turn him on so fucking much. 

Steve heaves a stuttering breath, and his head drops back onto the ground as the pleasure pools in his gut. He thinks he’s doing a good job being quiet. But he can’t smother the moan that escapes him the second your warm hand brushes his shoulder.

“Steve,” you hiss, warning lacing your voice. 

“Shut me up, then. Goddamn.” He groans, his cock twitching in his palm. “What are you even here for? I could do this myself—” At that moment, your hand finds his chest and, well, your fingers might as well be a defibrillator. His hips jerk, mouth dropping open in pleasure. “—oh, fuck yeah.”

Your touch is heaven. His eyelids threaten to shut as your fingers brush through his chest hair, over his ribs— so sure, and steady, soothing and warm. Like his flesh and bone is a map you know by heart. 

He’s panting, desperate not to make a sound and give you a reason to take your hand away while your palm trails lower.

He raises his chin to catch a glimpse of your profile as the fireworks crack in the sky, raining down in bright fizzling pops that he feels in his chest. 

Honestly, he should’ve known this is how the summer would end with you. 

He’s known it, and yet, he’s run from it. 

Because the last time he had you…God, he’s been such an idiot. 

Last summer, when you came home from college for break, he’d been sitting on your doorstep. A silent understanding passed between you two, and then you’d grabbed his hand and taken him up to your room.

Afterwards, you were laying under him, sweaty and warm, eyes glowing with…with something that made his heart tug painfully. And suddenly, it all got to be too much. 

He’d been craving you all semester. As if you were a long drag from a cigarette. And that gnawing ache didn’t surface with anyone else. Only you. 

His chest swelled up tight, and the bridge of his nose started to burn, and he realized… he was scared. 

Terrified, actually. 

Because what if the both of you reaching out for each other was nothing but a trained response, like Pavlov’s dogs or some shit? What if you had built this trauma bond…thing? He wasn’t entirely sure what that even meant, but he knew that no one could know him so intrinsically, so deeply, so invasively and still want him anyway. 

So, Steve proceeded to do the stupidest thing possible by dropping a kiss to your forehead, pulling his clothes back on, and walking out the door. 

He told himself it was for the best. Months after, even though he thought of you constantly, and still woke up slicked in sweat, hands flying to his wounds in the dark, he never called you. 

But when you showed up at Camp Woodwick, looking to earn some cash over the summer, same as him, all the walls he’d built up between him and his past came crashing down. 

So, he pushed you away. For weeks. It was worse than he thought it would be, though. Because when he pushed, you pushed back harder. 

His head swims with the knowledge that after a whole year without you, you’re here. You’re the same. Familiar. The smell of your hair, down to the soft breaths escaping to ur lips. 

He’s still hard as a rock, but his hand isn’t cutting it. Not when what he really wants is right here in front of him.

Steve curses under his breath. “You wanna help me out, sweetheart? Give me that mouth?”

“W-what?” You snort. “You can hardly be quiet with your own hand, Harrington. You think you’re going to survive that?”

“Please? Just lick it. Just the tip.”

“Stop begging. Also, be qu—“

“Right. Right, I’ll be quiet,” Steve grumbles. “Just—if you’re gonna fucking march in here and tell me to do it faster, then the least you could do is help me out.” Another firework squeals, then pops, showering you in gold as you blink down at him.

Boisterous laughs drift over the water, and your eyes flick up instinctively to meet the tent wall before your bottom lip disappears between your teeth. His stomach flips in anticipation. He knows that look. 

“C’mon,” he urges, fighting back a smirk. “You know how I like it, baby.”

Shit. 

Steve knows that pet name has always been your weakness. You’re not sure exactly why. Maybe it’s because it reminded you that on the outside, you were just friends. But in bed…you were his.

You shouldn’t fall for a cheap trick like that. Look at him, biting the corner of his mouth like he’s trying not to smirk. Cocky bastard. 

But, even so, you make the mistake of glancing down his body.

His hand slips away in a silent invitation, revealing his heavy cock jutting out from his soft tummy and you lose the war.

Rocks dig into your knees under the tent floor but you hardly pay them any mind, your clit already throbbing in anticipation of touching him. 

“Fine. But only because it’s faster.” You say.

Your hand curls around him, reveling in the hot, velvety feel of him in your palm. A sound slips from his throat, sudden and unbidden. 

You jerk your head up, and he can’t see your face clearly in the dark, but he knows your body language. The message is solidified when you bring your other hand up to rake through the hair on his chest, digging into his pec in warning. 

Steve’s hand lands on yours, and the warmth seeping through his fingers doesn’t just make your pussy clench, it also makes your nose burn. 

You turn your attention back to stroking him, ignoring the tightness in your lungs. Ignoring the way you’re practically holding hands across his chest.

“God, you’ve been kind of a bitch to me all summer,” Steve grunts, thrusting up into your touch. “You know that?”

You roll your eyes, even though he can’t see you. “Steve, you can’t call me a bitch at the same time you’re fucking my hand. Either we’re fighting or we’re fucking. Pick one. Jesus.”

“I don’t know.” His head falls back against the ground with a heavy thud. “We’re pretty good at both, apparently. God, your hand feel so g—”

“Shut the fuck up,” you hiss.

“Sorry! Sorry.”

Another firework shrieks into the sky, exploding in a loud pop, and showering you both in a flash of red. It lights up Steve’s body, illuminating the scars along his side. Long jagged things, carved deep under his ribs.

You can’t help but remember the panic that seized you when the Demobats descended on him. You’ll never forget the sickening horror that coursed through your body when you looked over to see him pale and shaking, dripping in blood. 

You swallow hard. Then, as if pulled by some invisible string, you lower your head and brush your mouth against his skin. His core muscles flex at the soft glide of your tongue on his belly, but he tenses as your lips trace his scar line.

“Don’t—” he rasps. Suddenly, his hand flies down and tugs your chin away. 

“What?” You whisper against his skin, a little teasing. But when you flick your eyes up to his, he looks away, raking a hand through his hair. Your hand slows around his cock and you frown. A thread of anxiety coils in your gut. 

“What?” you repeat. “I was there, too, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” He lets out a short laugh, but the warmth is gone from his voice. “I just—really don’t want to be reminded of that right now.”

You pull back, hands falling away from him instantly. 

Another bottle rocket screams, punctuating the heavy beat of silence that follows. Steve notices the shift in you, the way your body locks up in hesitation. 

Sighing heavily, he raises his palms to his face and digs them into his eyes. 

“Sorry, I’m—that was fucked up. I’m sorry.”

You sit back on your heels, suddenly unsure, and your eyes drop to the ground. 

He combs through his hair again roughly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I was just…there’s a kid here that reminds me of a little Eddie, and the scars—”

You smile softly. “Reed, right? I’ve been thinking the same thing all summer.”

“Every time I see those scars, I think about the bats, and then I think about losing Eddie, and then with you here—” He gestures towards you and he trails off. 

You don’t need him to finish the thought, though. You can see it in the way his chest heaves, and the slight crack in his voice. 

With a sigh, you settle down onto the ground beside him. He shuffles wordlessly, giving you room to lay on the other half of his sleeping bag. 

“It’s okay, Steve. This is how it always was for us. Just—two people trying to get through it, you know? To feel something again.” 

“Oh yeah? Is that all were?” His voice is deeper now. Huskier. It makes a lump build in your throat. “Was that all it was for you?”

You watch the light show fall across the tent ceiling together, muted little orbs glowing through the fabric. 

“No,” you say softly. “But everything hits me at once sometimes, too, you know. And when that happens...fuck, I just need you. And that feeling…” The words fizzle out and fall like the embers in the sky, and your hand reaches up to clutch at your chest—like it would be easier just to rip out your heart and show him.

Steve hesitates, swallowing hard. “It’s not…bad, right? That feeling?” 

“No, Steve. It’s not bad.” 

A quiet moment passes, then he blows out a breath. “At college, they have these therapists. Robin dragged me to a session once, so I went.” You turn your head to look at him, but he keeps his eyes above. “I was scared, like, what if they didn’t believe me, you know? And, well, I’m not sure if Dr. Treya really believes me, but that doesn’t seem to matter much. She treats it all like it’s true, anyway.”

There’s a loud squeal of a bottle rocket, then laughter somewhere in the distance. 

“I’m sorry we fought the last few weeks,” you whisper. “I was angry. But mostly just hurt. By last summer.”

Steve sits up a little at that, his strong arm bracing his torso as he looks down at you. “And you had every right to be,” he says. “I was a coward for leaving like I did. I got scared, I think. But, I’m getting better. At least, Robin says I am.”

You chuckle. “I’m sure she’s right.”

“But I am sorry, too. For that, and for…just for everything.”

You gaze up at him, and the urge to cup his face and bring his lips down to yours grips you by the spine. But Steve lays back down next to you before you can say anything. 

“I’m proud of you for going to see a counselor,” you say into the dark after a long moment. “Does it help?”

“Yeah.” He swallows. “But I wish there was something I could do, too, you know? Other than just talk about it.” 

He takes the world upon his shoulders, this boy.

He deserves to know that, at the end of the day, someone has him. Someone wants him. Not just for what he can give, but for who he is. He’s been pushing you away because you had that for him, and he didn’t know how to accept it. Until recently. 

You see that now. 

His bare arm is so warm against yours. You follow it down with your fingers until you find his hand, threading your fingers through his. 

“Steve, you’ve already done so much. For everyone.”

His hand practically swallows yours. Long fingers, with blunt tips. They just remind you of all the ways he’s used them to pull orgasms from your body, one after the other.

All he does is give, give, give. Even when you give him hell all summer, fuck, he gives that right back. 

Your hair whispers against the sleeping bag as you turn to look at him. His brown eyes meet yours, and his soft exhale ghosts across your cheek.

You search his face for permission, because he already knows what you’re asking. When his expression softens, just enough, you don’t hesitate. Hooking your leg around his waist, you roll on top of him and sit up. 

“Let me take care of you,” you say.

He sucks in a breath at the sight of you rising above him, his hand coming to land hot and heavy on your thigh. 

Scooting backwards, you lower your mouth to his torso. He hisses, his other hand flying to tangle in your hair. His cock has softened slightly against his hip, but you can fix that with your mouth in no time. 

His chest heaves with a shaky breath. “Wait, no. No, baby.” 

You suck a soft love bite on his hip before raising your eyes to his. “You don’t want it anymore?”

“No—shit, of course I want it, but—” He snorts, but his hand finds yours and he tries to pull you up. “If we’re going to do this, I want to do it for real. Not to distract each other. Not like we used to. Can…can you do that?”

You nod once. Then again. “Yes. Yes, of course, Steve. I wasn’t—I was just—” your heart slams into your throat. “I still love you.”

A slow, sweet smile spreads across Steve’s face. Your cheeks flush, and you try to squirm away, but Steve squeezes your thigh, urging you to find his eyes again. And when you do, you see that familiar heat is back. 

“Good,” he says. “Now we can get down to the real question of what the fuck do you think you’re doing barging into my tent when I’m masturbating, you little brat?”

Heat licks up your spine, and you bite back a grin. “I told you! You were being loud.”

“Yeah, sure, now tell me the real reason.”

“That is the real reason!”

“Don’t lie to me.” 

You open your mouth to argue, but his hands clamp down on your hips before you can, and in one smooth motion, he flips you so you’re on your back. Your heart slams against your ribs as he pulls you down under him, his chest rising and falling against yours. 

“Just admit it,” he says, a cocky grin twisting his lips right over yours. “You wanted me to lick that pretty pussy for you, didn’t you?”

Your panties dampen instantly, pulsing in anticipation of feeling his mouth on you after so long. 

You might have been at each other’s throats for weeks, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t like it. You saw it in his eyes by the campfire and by every rough two-hand touch football game. Every time your face went red and you mouthed off at him he’d just smile and lift his eyebrows as if to say, ‘is that all you got?’ Maybe crook two fingers at you with a cocky tilt of his head, urging you to ‘give me more.’ 

Well, you could definitely give him more. 

“I don’t know, Harrington,” you sigh, tilt your head against the tent floor in mock confusion. “I hardly remember what getting head from you is like.”

His grin turns wicked. Then suddenly, he’s moving—greedy hands tugging at your shorts. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, voice dripping in that mocking tone that always makes you wet. “I thought maybe you’d want me to do that thing my tongue that always—” A whimper escapes your throat and he breaks off mid-sentence with an openmouthed laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He crawls down your body, taking your shorts and underwear with him, and you gasp when something hard and hot brushes your thigh. Glad to see he’s sporting that erection again. You feel a fleeting disappointment at the fact you haven’t gotten to suck him off yet, but it’s probably better this way, to be honest. 

It’s literally impossible to make Steve Harrington be quiet while getting a blowjob—

Without warning, he plunges two fingers deep into your slick channel. Your breath stutters, hips bucking into his palm on instinct. He groans out loud, but you’re too blissed out by the stretch that you can’t even get onto him for it. 

Lungs seizing, heart pounding, you squirm on the slippery fabric of his sleeping bag, trying to get even closer. Your nipples harden against your T-shirt, begging for his touch. For more of him.

You peek down your body just in time to see his head disappear between your thighs, and then his mouth is on you. God, his tongue is so warm and wet against your clit, and his skillful fingers stroke you just right. In and out, then curling into the spongey spot inside that has your mouth dropping open. 

“Missed those sounds you make,” he says, voice muffled against your pussy. 

Shit. 

You hadn’t even realized you were making noise. You dig your knee into his side in retaliation and he chuckles, squirming away before diving in again.

He licks messy, broad strokes, tasting you on purpose, getting you all over his tongue. When you grind up into his face he grabs you by the hips and moves with you, following your every wriggle and writhe. 

Yep, his mouth still makes the world feel dull, reducing your hearing to the whoosh of your heartbeat in your ears as everything else just fades away into mind numbing bliss—

“Shut up,” Steve says, pulls back from you with a wicked grin. His face is covered in your arousal, glinting in the firework light, and the sight makes you clench around his fingers. “Seriously, shut up if you don’t want them to hear you.” 

“Wha—Steve!” You whine, canting your hips up into his mouth again as he lowers himself back down to you. “H-help.”

He shrugs. “I’m not the one who gives a shit if they hear.”

The vibrations of his voice against your clit rips a moan from your throat, unbidden, and your lips cinch together. Your hand flies to your hip, finding his fingers there. You try to pull his hand up but he shakes off your touch, holding onto your waist and puling you roughly against his tongue. 

You whine in protest, and go to pull on his hand again, but that’s a mistake. 

He brings his palm down to your inner thigh with a sharp smack that has your back arching off the ground, your eyes narrowing in warning. 

“Cover your own mouth, sweetheart, fuck,” he chuckles, giving your clit a soothing series of licks. “I’m busy.”

“Fuck you,” you whisper, but it quickly turns into a needy whine when he sucks the swollen nub into his mouth. 

Steve continues to stretch you out on his fingers, murmuring dirty things into your pussy as he does. How sweet you taste. How tightly you’re squeezing his fingers. But you barely hear any of it. 

You’re so wet—both from his mouth and your arousal—that your inner thighs slick together when you try to squeeze them. He yanks your legs apart again, and you’re powerless to stop him because the pads of his fingers are dragging out tendrils of pleasure from your spine you haven’t felt in a year. 

Thankfully, the fireworks seem to be reaching a peak outside— loud bangs and pops going off every few seconds help drown out the sounds of your needy pussy and blissed-out sighs. Because frankly, you don’t have the brain power to think about anything except how desperately you need him inside you. 

You whimper again accidentally. “Steve—” 

“Okay, baby,” he replies instantly, knowing what you need by the tone in your voice alone. His fingers slip out and he rises up over you, your knees falling open eagerly as he lines himself up.

When he notches the tip of his cock at your entrance, your cunt greedily sucks him in. He gasps, hips bucking forward instinctively, and neither one of you are able to stop the mixed groans that ensue from finally, finally being connected like this again after so long. 

Big hands scramble for a hold on your waist, blunt nails pinching your skin as he drags himself back, then forth, slamming up into you with a depth that makes you sob.

“Still fuckin’ made for me,” he groans. “Goddamnit.”

You’re panting, arms wrapped around his shoulders, biting the skin of your forearm to keep from moaning as his hips roll slow and deliberate. 

“Good girl,” he praises, and you shudder, feeling the ache grow sharper. “Staying so quiet, look at you. You can’t ask me to be silent when you come around me, okay? Fuck—that’s like being tortured all over again.”

You shoot him a withering look even as you writhe underneath him. “That’s not funny.”

He laughs, and his silhouette shifts over you, his cock driving deeper and hitting that spot inside you that makes you see sparks that aren’t there. “Sorry, sweetheart. I just—oh yeah, grind that clit into me. That’s it.”

 Your hands rake through his hair, desperately trying to hold onto something. But the force behind his thrusts causes you to pull on the strands, and, well, that was a mistake. 

His teeth sink into the skin of your shoulder in order to stay somewhat quiet, and oh—fuck. How could you have forgotten what pulling his hair does to him? Stars burst behind your eyes as the fireworks crackle overhead, and the tension between your hips coils tighter. 

“Fuck—Steve,” you gush. “Please.”

“What do you need?” He rasps against your throat, sucking and biting. “I’m all yours.”

Little tremors course though your legs as your orgasm builds, the swollen head of his cock nudging those spots deep inside that ache for him. 

Only him.

“You need me to kiss you?” he says, breath hot in your ear. “Need me to shut you up?”

You nod frantically. 

“Go on, ask me for it.”

You whimper, too far gone to play the game anymore. “Kiss me, Stevie. Please, please—” 

“Fuck,” Steve groans at the nickname he hasn’t heard in so long, and instantly lowers his mouth to yours. 

The first brush of his lips against yours makes you want to cry. 

“Missed you, baby,” he says, then kisses you deeper, his tongue dipping into your mouth and swirling with yours. “So much. Missed kissing you. Missed talking with you.” He hesitates, pulling back slightly before planting one soft kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Missed loving you. But I guess I never really stopped, did I?”

Your eyes connect for one heartbreaking, devestatingly sweet second before you pull him back down, pouring your love for him into the gentle, yet desperate stroke of your tongue against his. 

Feeling you kiss him like that snaps something deep inside him. 

Your inner muscles clamps down around him as his thrusts turn messy and hard, and his hands run over your shoulders, your breasts, your hips, pulling your body back down to meet his every thrust. 

The pleasure builds to an insurmountable level as he rips your shirt up to capture your nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and making you want to scream. 

You flatten your palm over your lips, whimpering through the gaps in your fingers over and over, squeezing your eyes shut as Steve pushes you higher and higher until finally—you’re falling. 

Your teeth bite into your fingers hard to muffle your moans as your pussy clenches down like a vice on Steve’s cock rhythmically, your orgasm rushing through you. 

He lets out a choked sound above you, and with the way his chest falls in a sequence of familiar pants, you know he’s close. Through the pleasured haze, your other hand flies to cover his mouth just in time for his orgasm to hit. 

“Mmhmm, mhhhmm.” Steve whines loudly, as his body tenses, and his cock twitches inside you. And you have no choice but to shove your fingers inside his lips, forcing him to suck on them as he reaches his peak. His eyes roll back as he bullies his cock against your cervix, painting your walls with his come, even as his tongue strokes your knuckles tenderly and reverently.

It takes awhile for the both of you to come back down to earth, but eventually, you let your fingers fall from his mouth and he laughs breathlessly, dipping to give you one last slow kiss before slipping out of you. 

He fumbles around for his T-shirt in the darkness and then cleans you up with care, which makes your heart twist. Once he’s done, he settles on his side, and pulls you into him, your back pressed to his chest. You burrow into him, his arm settling around you, and it’s amazing how quickly your lashes start to fall, wrapped up in this familiar comfort. 

“So…truce?” Steve whispers into the crook of your shoulder. You laugh softly.

Even under a hazardously leaning tent, and a sky littered with mini explosions, the world seems a little less dark right now. The past, a little less heavy. 

Maybe it’s because neither of you are running away from it, anymore. But rather, facing it. Together.

And because you know, without a shadow of a doubt, Steve Harrington’s heartbeat will always be in your future.

“Truce.”

a/n: the tent definitely collapses on top of them five minutes later, by the way. also, my idea originally was not nearly as angsty, but don’t you just love it when characters highjack your story? god, the fics always turn out so much better that way.

It was a typical Tuesday night. Nearing around 11pm. You sighed, treading down the hall, back towards where your dorm is. Your slippers lazily scraped across the floor, not being bothered enough to fully pick up your feet with each step. You held your towel in one hand, drying your hair as you walked, humming a quiet tune to yourself. The other hand held your overflowing shower caddy.

You preferred showering late at night. The bathrooms were quiet. You were able to actually take your time, not having to rush through your routine.

As you turned the corner you noticed the door to the men’s bathroom was cracked, a soft warm light shining through. You didn’t think anything of it. As you got closer you could hear faint noises coming from inside. You ignored it, too tired to care. Just as you were about to pass it, the sound of muffled moans stopped you in your tracks.

Keep walking. Keep walking.

Your feet betrayed you and began stepping towards the door before you could stop yourself. Your heart began pounding as the noises grew louder the closer you got. You peeked through and what you saw was enough to make your stomach drop.

There stood your best friend, Steve, planted in front of the bathroom mirror. The room was foggy. The air thick and filled with steam from a hot shower. His hair was dripping wet, causing beads of water to fall down to his bare skin and onto the floor.

Your eyes raked down his body. He has one hand on the counter in front of him keeping his balance. His basketball shorts were pulled down in the front just enough so that his other hand could pull and jerk at his aching, leaking cock.

You watch as his head falls back with a quiet moan as he strokes for his own pleasure. The sight has your jaw slacked. Weak. You feel weak. You know this is wrong. You shouldn’t be standing here watching him. Watching your best friend in such a vulnerable state.

And yet, your feet don’t move. They don’t even try. Your stomach tightens. You feel yourself squeezing your legs together to try and subside that stupid annoying feeling that’s happening inside you.

You always knew Steve was good looking. You’re not blind. But you never actually thought about him like this.

You don’t actually know how you never looked at him like this before. I mean…jesus. It was like you were in a trance. His wet hair, the way his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes shut tight. The way his stomach was twitching from the sensations he was causing himself. The occasional flex of his bicep while he jerked himself off.

His hand moved at a steady pace. You almost fell to your knees when he let out a quiet soft whimper of a moan as he worked higher towards his tip.

Oh my god.

Then of course. The universe decided to play its own version of a sick joke on you. Before you could react or even register what was happening, your shower caddy decided right now was the perfect time to finally give out. All of your shower products flew out of the basket and onto the floor with a loud bang.

Steve’s head whipped towards the sudden noise, his eyes immediately finding you. You froze. You looked at all the bottles on the floor and then back at him. Then back at the bottles….then back at him again. What exactly are you supposed to do in this situation?

“I—um—I—sorry I was just—“ you stumble over your words, unable to find anything to say that could possibly make this situation better. You look anywhere but at him, too humiliated to even glance in his direction. “I um…I’m sorry. I didn’t see—“

“Shh, hey it’s okay.” he finally spoke. You were terrified. What he said next was the opposite of what you expected. “Can you help me?” he asked.

Your breathing hitched. You almost choked on your own spit, your body tensing immediately. It’s almost like the world was put on mute. All you can hear is the deep drum of your heart beat. A shiver runs down your spine and you can literally feel your throat close up, struggling to get any words out.

What the fuck? What the actual fuck is going on?

You should leave. You should grab your things off the floor and lock yourself in your room and never come out again. Maybe even transfer schools and forget this ever happened.

That’s not what you do though. Instead, without even realizing it, you find yourself nodding your head to his question.

He speaks again, “C’mere.” His voice was quiet and soft. It was laced with traces of need and want. Maybe even some desperation.

You exhale shakily, setting down the rest of your things. You slowly step into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. He watches you carefully, as you start to inch towards him nervously.

“I—How do you want—?”

“Get behind me. Can you do that for me? Please?”

Normally you’d be embarrassed by how fast you complied. But right now you couldn’t care less. Your whole body feels like it’s on fire and that’s all you can focus on. Along with the ache between your thighs.

You swallowed hard, your throat feeling dry and heavy. He could see the nerves in your body language. Feeling it radiating off of you.

“Hey, s’okay. I got you.” he looked at you through the fogged mirror, unable to make out any features. “S’just me, mkay? Your best friend. Your Steve.” He reached behind himself, grabbing your hand and rubbing it gently. An attempt to calm your nerves. “Need your help so bad. Would you be a good friend and help me?”

You nod, nervously. You lift your hands to his shoulders, letting them trace gently down his arms all the way to his wrists. Your movements are slow and unsure. You feel him shiver underneath your touch, only to melt into it once your hands find their way to his bare chest. Your fingers gliding over top of his chest hair.

The second he melted into your touch it was like all nervousness left your body. Without a second thought you leaned forward, placing a gentle kiss on his shoulder. He exhaled in pleasure, biting his lip to stifle a moan when your hands rubbed up and down his body.

“Been thinkin’ ‘bout this for so long. ‘Bout you.” he spoke through deep breaths.

The heat in your stomach only grew at his words. The fresh panties you were wearing were certainly growing wetter by the second.

You pulled your arms back, causing him to frown. The sound of you spitting in your hand quickly replaced that frown with a lazy smile. Your left hand wrapped around his torso, running up and down his chest while your other hand found its way to his aching cock.

He hissed the second you grabbed onto him, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure. Your hand finally began to move up and down his length. You started off slow, teasing, pulling a quiet “fuck” from his lips.

Your free hand roamed all over his chest and stomach, wanting to feel every inch you could reach. Keeping your movements slow, you placed a trail of kisses all over his upper back, causing a deep exhale to escape his lips. You squeezed slightly tighter, a real moan finally coming out.

Music to your ears.

It was right then that you stopped holding back. All you wanted was to hear that sound over and over again. The sound of your best friend completely at your mercy. Weak over your touch.

You picked up your pace, your hand moving up and down in a corkscrew motion. His head fell backwards, landing on your shoulder. The bathroom was quickly filled with sounds of his erratic moans and the sound of you jerking him off.

“Doin’ so good—fuck—makin’ me feel so good.” he spoke in between moans.

“Yeah?” you smiled, watching his face scrunch tight through the mirror in front of you two.

You kept a steady rhythm, not too fast, not too slow. His noises and little twitches encouraging you to finally ask what’s been on your mind since he said it. “You said you’ve been thinking about this? You and me?”

“Mhm, ahh fuck.” he leaned into your touch, trying to steady himself. “You came over one day—shit go faster. Please, please go faster.” a loud moan rippled through the bathroom. “You were wearing that one skirt—“

Before he could finish his sentence, your hand reached the top of his shaft, right underneath his tip. He jolted in your hands, a literal whimper escaping from his mouth.

Your lips immediately quirked up into a wide smile, knowing you’d just found his spot. “That feel good?” you ask, keeping your movements focused on that one spot.

“Ahh—fffuck yes.”

“The skirt. Tell me about the skirt.”

“The short black one—“ he struggled to talk coherently, his breathing growing heavier as he reached his climax. “—you came over wearing it. Dropped your keys—m’so close.”

“I know, I know. Deep breaths, you can do it. Keep tellin’ me.”

“Y-you bent over to pick em up. Your little pink panties on complete display f’me.”

Your face reddened. You don’t even remember that.

“Ever since then, been wanting to get my hands on you.”

His words made your knees weak. Like actually weak. You suddenly felt like jelly. Your core clenching around nothing, begging for some kind of relief.

Your arm was burning but that didn’t stop you from going faster, determined to get him to his release.

After a few more moans and curses, Steve threw his head back once again, landing on your shoulder. A loud, breathless moan ripped through him as his come shot all over your hand and his stomach. But you didn’t stop there. You kept your movements going up to his tip, wanting to hear those whimpers from earlier.

He cried out, knees buckling. You stepped back, his sudden body weight almost knocking the both of you over. You didn’t dare stop.

“Ahh fuck I can’t—“ he whined loudly.

You paid extra close attention to where his shaft and tip met, rubbing up and down in tiny movements. He was putty in your hands. He tried to talk but nothing coherent could come out. The overstimulation too much.

Only when a second orgasm ripped through him did you finally stop. He was completely and utterly spent. His chest heaved, struggling to catch his breath.

You released him from your grasp, bringing your hand up to your mouth. He turned around and watched with awe as you licked his come off each of your fingers until your hand was clean.

With wide eyes and dilated pupils he finally spoke, “Jesus fucking christ.”

You smiled. Before you could say anything he grabbed you by your waist, pulling you close. “C’mere, it’s your turn.”

you knew steve harrington for what felt like forever now. 

it all started back when dustin first dragged him into your orbit after the chaotic demodog incident. 

at first, steve was just your annoyingly popular friend; the former king of hawkins high who somehow ended up babysitting a bunch of kids and fighting monsters alongside them. 

but over time, that reluctant acquaintance changed into something much deeper.

steve became one of the most important people in your life. 

he was the person you called when you couldn’t sleep.

the one who remembered your favorite snacks after a rough day.

the only one who could make you laugh even when the weight of the upside down felt crushing. 

the two of you shared an effortless closeness that went far beyond normal friendship. 

you spent countless nights talking in his car, shoulders brushing, exchanging quiet confessions under dim streetlights. 

he knew your fears, your dreams, and the way you liked your drinks. 

you knew his insecurities, his regrets, and the parts of him he hid from the rest of the world.

and yet… you weren’t together. 

not officially.

there were no labels, no dates and no promises. 

just a deep, tender bond that everyone around you seemed to notice except the two of you. 

or at least, that’s what you told yourselves.

steve had been completely honest with you about nancy. 

one quiet evening, months after their breakup, he told you everything; the good moments. the painful fights, the way he had failed her, and how much it hurt when things ended. 

he spoke openly about his guilt and the lingering sadness, but he also made it clear that he had moved on. 

the feelings were no longer romantic; they were just memories now. 

still, he trusted you enough to lay it all bare, something he rarely did with anyone else. 

you listened without judgment, and that night only pulled you two closer.

robin, of course, found the whole thing endlessly entertaining. 

she never missed a chance to tease you both. 

whenever she caught steve staring at you a little too long or noticed how his hand instinctively rested on your lower back when you walked together.

“you two are so gone for each other it’s actually painful to watch.” she’d smirk and say.

she loved poking at steve specifically, grinning.

“just admit you like her. the way you look at her is embarrassing. even the kids have noticed.” 

steve would roll his eyes, cheeks slightly pink.

“shut up,” but he never actually denied it.

after that, you became close friends with nancy and Robin. 

or that’s what you thought.

one crisp afternoon, the three of you –you, nancy, and robin– were walking through the woods. you were supposed to be gathering information about some gates, but the conversation drifted into more personal territory.

steve was a little further ahead, scouting with eddie, but every so often he would glance back over his shoulder, his eyes finding you almost instinctively.

he’d give you that soft familiar half-smile before turning his attention back to the trail.

and nancy noticed it immediately. she let out a small bitter-sounding laugh as she pushed a branch out of her way.

‘’god, look at him. he can’t even go five minutes without checking on you.’’

you looked at her, thinking the words to talk.

‘’it’s actually kind of impressive how attentive he is… when he wants to be.’’ nancy continued.

robin raised an eyebrow but stayed quiet, sensing the shit in tone. nancy continued again, her voice was sweet but laced with something sharper.

‘’must be nice having someone glued to you at these days.’’

you felt heat rise your cheeks. laughing nervously, you shook your head and tried to brush it off.

‘’oh, come on, nancy. it’s not like that,’’ you said quickly, forcing a smile. ‘’steve’s just… protective of everyone. he’s not that attentive with me specially. we’re just close friends, that’s all.’’

nancy turned her head to look at you, her expression unreadable but her smile thin.

‘’right,’’ she replied, the word dripping with disbelief. ‘’just friends. of course.’’

she looked forward again, eyes landing on steve’s distant figure as he once more glanced back toward your group.

towards you.

robin cleared her throat, trying to cut through the tension, but the damage was already done. 

you swallowed hard, heart racing, and kept walking in silence, painfully aware of steve’s eyes still lingering on you from afar.

that same evening at the wheeler house, the group was crowded around the large dining table covered in maps, newspapers clipping, and half-empty mugs of coffee. 

steve stood directly behind you, his tall frame leaning over your shoulder as he pointed at a particular route on the map.

his chest pressed warmly against your back, and one of his hands settled naturally on your waist, his fingers splaying possessively over the fabric oof your shirt.

the touch was innocent enough to anyone glancing over. but the way his thumb began to move –slow, deliberate circles against your side– was anything but.

you felt his breath ghost over the side of your neck when he spoke.

a low and intimate voice.

‘’right here,’’ he murmured, his lips dangerously close to your ear. ‘’this is where we need to be careful.’’

your breath hitched. without meaning to, you leaned back into him, your hips pressing subtly against his front.

steve’s grip tightened instantly, pulling you closer for just a second.

the heat between your bodies was undeniable.

his fingers flexed against your waist, and you could feel the tension in his arm, like he was fighting the urge to do more.

the air around you felt thick, charged with something heavy and unspoken.

steve’s other hand brushed against yours on the table, lingering far longer than necessary, his pinky slowly tracing the side of your hand.

you bit your lip, trying to focus on the map while your heart hammered in your chest.

from across the table, robin smirked but stayed quiet. 

nancy, however, watched the entire interaction with narrowed eyes, her pen frozen in her hand.

eddie, never one to hold back, groaned loudly and threw his head back in exaggerated disgust.

‘’oh my god, seriously? can you two stop eye-fucking each other for five minutes? we’re trying to plan how not to die and you’re over here practically dry-humping each other in front of everyone!’’ 

he waved his hands dramatically.

steve didn’t move away immediately. 

instead, he let out a low chuckle. his hand gave your waist one last possessive squeeze before he finally straightened up.

but the heated look he gave you over your shoulder made it very clever this moment was far from over.

you felt your cheeks burning as you avoided nancy’s sharp gaze. 

but she said nothing.

after the group finally finished planning their strategy to confront vecna, everyone slowly dispersed. 

leaving you and steve completely alone in the dining room.

the tension in the air was immediate and thick.

steve leaned back against the table, his arms crossed over his chest while he watched you with that cocky little smirk.

‘’so…’’ he started, giving you a low voice full of sarcasm. ‘’you gonna keep pretending in front of nancy that you aren’t completely obsessed with me? or are we still playing the game?’’

you turned to face him, trying to keep your expression neutral even though your heart was racing.

‘’you’re the one who can’t keep his hands off me in front of everyone,’’ you shot back, raising an eyebrown. ‘’real subtle, harrington.’’

steve let a low chuckle and pushed off the table, slowly stalking toward you.

‘’oh, i’m sorry. was i being too obvious when you were practically pushing your ass back against me earlier?’’ he stopped right in front of you, close enough that you could smell his cologne. “don’t act like you didn’t love it.”

you rolled your eyes, even as heat crawled up your neck. 

“you’re so full of yourself.”

“and you,” he said, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. his fingers lingering on your jaw, “are a terrible liar.” 

his thumb brushed slowly over your cheek. 

‘’you’ve been looking at me the same way i’ve been looking at you all day. don’t think i didn’t notice.”

the tension between you was electric. 

steve’s eyes dropped to your lips.

then back up to your eyes.

he looked at you hungry.

‘’you drive me crazy, you know that?” he murmured. “acting all innocent in front of the others while you know exactly what you do to me.”

your breath hitched. 

“maybe you just need better self-control.”

steve smirked, stepping even closer until your bodies were nearly touching. 

“or maybe you should stop pretending you don’t want me to lose it.”

for a second, you both just stared at each other, the air heavy with unspoken desire. 

then steve cupped your face with both hands and kissed you.

it was deep and urgent from the start. 

you kissed him back just as fiercely, fingers sliding into his hair and tugging. 

steve groaned softly against your mouth, one hand dropping to your waist to pull you flush against him. 

the kiss grew hotter, tongues meeting, bodies pressed together against the table as weeks of hidden tension finally spilled over.

‘’fuck… i hate hiding this,” steve whispered with husky voice.

before you could respond, the door swung open.

“oh, for the love of god—” robin stood there, holding two mugs of coffee, eyes wide. “again?! i can’t leave you two alone for five minutes without you attacking each other!”

the next day, you, robin, and nancy spent the afternoon at the hawkins public library.

you three were tucked away in a quiet corner surrounded by stacks of old newspapers, town history books, and anything that might give you new information about vecna.

for a while, the conversation stayed focused on research. 

but eventually, nancy closed the book in front of her with a soft thud and looked directly at you.

“so… are you and steve actually together?” she asked, her voice calm but pointed.

you felt your stomach drop. 

robin glanced up from her notes but said nothing, choosing to stay silent for now.

nancy leaned forward slightly, continuing before you could answer. 

“because the tension between you two is impossible to ignore. it doesn’t look like friendship. it looks like something more.”

you shook your head quickly, forcing a nervous smile. 

“no, nancy. we’re not together. i promise. steve and i are just really close friends. that’s all.”

nancy let out a small sigh, tilting her head as she studied you. 

“look, i know steve. i dated him for a long time, remember? i know exactly how he acts when he’s into someone. it’s kind of his thing when he’s flirting.” she paused for a moment, then added, “and honestly? it’s fine. it doesn’t bother me. steve and i are friends now. i’ve moved on.”

you felt your cheeks heat up. you shook your head again, more firmly this time. 

“no, really. we’re not like that. we trust each other. there’s nothing romantic going on.”

nancy gave you a small, knowing smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“of course,” she said softly, her voice sweet but edged with something sharper. “you two are just… very close. i understand. it’s sweet, really.”

the comment hung in the air, light enough to seem innocent, but pointed enough to sting.

you couldn’t hold back anymore. 

“nancy… are you jealous?”

the question slipped out before you could stop it. robin’s head snapped up from her notes, eyes widening slightly.

nancy blinked, clearly caught off guard, but she recovered quickly with a soft laugh. 

“jealous? no, i’m not—” 

before she could finish, robin cleared her throat loudly and interrupted.

“okay, ladies, as fun as this is, we should probably get back to investigating,” she said, tapping the newspaper in front of her. “vecna isn’t going to defeat himself, and we’re running out of daylight.”

nancy pressed her lips together for a second, then nodded. 

“you’re right,” she said, standing up and smoothing her sweater. “i’ll go check the history section on the second floor. maybe there’s something useful there.”

she gave you one last lingering look before walking away toward the stairs.

the moment nancy disappeared between the shelves, robin turned to you with a knowing smirk.

“alright. she’s gone,” robin said, leaning closer. “i know there’s something going on between you and steve. and before you try to deny it again — i’ve literally walked in on you two making out. twice.”

she raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“so… how long has this been going on?”

you let out a long sigh, glancing around to make sure nancy was still out of earshot. 

“a few weeks,” you admitted quietly. “it just… happened. we’re not officially together or anything. it’s kind of a mess, honestly.”

robin nodded slowly, a small smirk on her face. 

“i figured. you two have been acting weird for a while. it was only a matter of time. just be careful, okay?”

you smiled weakly. 

“yeah… i know.”

the rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of research. 

when you finally got home that night, you were exhausted.  you had just changed into your pajamas when the phone rang. 

without thinking, you picked it up.

“hello?” a familiar low chuckle came through the line.

“hey, baby… it’s me.” you smiled, lying back on your bed. 

“steve. i didn’t know it was you.”

“yeah, i figured,” he said, voice warm. “how was the library? did you find anything useful, or was nancy giving you a hard time?”

you let out a soft laugh. 

“a bit of both. we found some old records that might help with vecna, but nancy kept pushing about us again. she’s convinced we’re together.”

steve hummed. 

“let her think what she wants.” hs tone shifted, becoming slower and deeper. then the quiet was made, until he talked again. “i miss you. been thinking about you nonstop since yesterday.”

“i miss you too,” you whispered.

steve’s voice dropped even lower. 

“yeah? i keep thinking about that kiss… how you pulled me closer. fuck, i wanted to lift you onto that table and take my time with you right there.”

your breath caught. heat spread through your body as you squeezed your thighs together instinctively. 

your free hand rested on your stomach, fingers twitching as you fought the urge to slide them lower.

“steve…” you breathed, voice shaky.

“i’ve been all day remembering how you sound when you’re turned on,” he continued, husky and teasing. “i want you so bad, baby. i want to kiss down your neck, push your legs apart and—”

your fingers hovered just at the waistband of your pajama shorts, heart racing, breath coming faster. 

you were so close to giving in—

“honey!” your big sister’s voice suddenly echoed from downstairs. “dinner’s ready! come down before it gets cold!”

you froze, letting out a frustrated sigh as you pulled your hand away.

“shit… i have to go,” you whispered, cheeks burning. “my sister’s calling me for dinner.”

steve groaned deeply on the other end. 

“worst timing ever. alright… go eat.” he paused, then added with a smirk in his voice, “but tomorrow i’m coming over early.”

the next afternoon, you had just stepped out of the shower, steam still filling your bathroom. 

you wrapped a towel tightly around your body and walked into your bedroom, hair damp and skin still warm. 

you were supposed to meet up with nancy, robin, eddie, and the rest of the group in less than an hour to go over the final details of the plan against vecna.

you were reaching for your clothes when you heard the familiar sound of your window sliding open.

you jumped, letting out a startled gasp as steve climbed through the window like he used to do back in the day. 

he landed quietly on your floor, brushing off his jeans with a smug little smirk.

“jesus christ, steve!” you whisper-yelled, one hand clutching the towel tightly against your chest. “you scared the hell out of me!”

he straightened up, eyes slowly dragging down your body, taking in the sight of you in nothing but a towel. 

his smirk deepened.

“sorry, baby,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “couldn’t wait until later.” he took a slow step closer, his eyes dark with heat. “and damn… this is a much better view than i imagined.”

you felt your face heat up as you took a small step back, still gripping the towel. 

“steve. i have to get ready. we’re meeting everyone soon and i’m not even dressed.”

he ignored your protest, closing the distance between you until he was right in front of you. 

his fingers lightly traced the edge of the towel near your collarbone, not pulling it, just teasing.

“you sure you don’t have five minutes?” he murmured, voice low and flirty. “because you look way too good in just this towel.’’

before you could answer, steve’s hands slid down to your waist, gripping you firmly as he pulled you flush against him. 

you didn’t resist. 

the second his lips met yours, you melted into the kiss, arms wrapping around his neck.

the kiss was hungry from the start. 

steve kissed you like he’d been waiting all day, tongue sliding against yours as one of his hands stayed firmly on your waist and the other cupped the back of your neck. 

you kissed him back just as eagerly, fingers threading into his hair and tugging lightly, exactly how he liked it.

“fuck, i missed this,” steve breathed against your lips between kisses. “missed tasting you… missed the way you sound when i kiss you like this.”

you let out a soft moan into his mouth as he deepened the kiss again, his tongue exploring yours with slow, heated strokes. 

your body pressed tighter against his, the thin towel the only thing between you.

steve walked backwards until he reached your bed and sat down on the edge, never breaking the kiss. 

with a gentle but firm tug, he pulled you onto his lap, straddling him. 

the towel rode up your thighs as you settled over him, and his hands immediately gripped your hips, holding you in place.

“steve…” you whispered breathlessly, forehead resting against his as you both tried to catch your breath.

he smirked, eyes dark with want, and gave your hips a light squeeze.“What?” he teased, voice rough. 

“you said you had to get ready… but you’re not exactly pushing me away, baby.”

you laughed softly, still a little dizzy from the kiss, and leaned in to kiss him again, slower this time. 

steve groaned quietly into your mouth, one hand sliding up your back under the edge of the towel while the other stayed firmly on your thigh.

“we really don’t have time,” you murmured against his lips, even as you kissed him once more.

“i know,” he replied, nipping at your bottom lip. “but fuck… you make it really hard to care.”

you kept kissing him deeply, straddling his lap as the kiss grew hotter and messier. 

your hips rocked slowly against him without thinking, and steve’s grip on your thigh tightened, pulling you closer. 

his tongue moved against yours hungrily, one hand now fully under the towel, caressing the bare skin of your back and waist.

soon you felt him getting hard beneath you. 

his cock pressed against your core through his jeans. you smiled against his lips and rolled your hips deliberately, grinding down on the growing bulge.

“mmm… already?” you teased, voice breathy and playful. “i thought you were supposed to behave.”

steve let out a low, strained groan, his hips buckling up slightly to meet your movement. 

“you’re the one sitting on my lap in nothing but a towel,” he muttered with a rough arousal voice. “what did you expect?”

you smirked and leaned in, pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses along his jaw and down his neck. 

you sucked lightly on the sensitive spot just below his ear, then gently bit down, earning another deep groan from him.

“fuck, baby…” steve hissed, tilting his head to give you better access. 

his hands gripped your ass under the towel, squeezing as you continued grinding against his now fully hard cock. 

“you’re gonna kill me.”

you kissed and licked along his neck, enjoying the way his breathing got heavier every time you rolled your hips. 

“maybe i should stop then…” you whispered teasingly against his skin, even as you pressed down harder against his erection.

“don’t you fucking dare,” he growled, one hand sliding higher up your thigh, dangerously close to where you were both aching for contact.

steve pulled you even tighter against him and captured your mouth in a deep intense kiss. 

his hand moved to the back of your neck, his fingers threaded into your damp hair as he held you in place, kissing you harder. 

his tongue slid against yours with hunger, dominating the kiss completely.

you moaned softly into his mouth and started rocking your hips, grinding slowly but firmly against the hard bulge in his jeans. the friction made you both breathless. 

steve groaned deeply, the sound vibrating against your lips as he pushed his hips up to meet every roll of yours.

he kissed you like he was starving, focusing especially on your upper lip — sucking it into his mouth, licking it, biting it gently before soothing it with his tongue. 

he kept returning to it over and over, obsessed. 

he was pressed so close his nose kept brushing against your cheek and almost poking the corner of your eye with every tilt of his head, but neither of you cared enough to pull away.

“fuck, baby…” he panted between kisses with a rough voice. “you feel so good grinding on me like that.”

you answered by rolling your hips harder, dragging your covered pussy along his clothed cock in slow deliberate movements. 

steve’s grip on your neck tightened as he kissed you even deeper, sucking on your upper lip again while his other hand squeezed your ass under the towel, guiding your movements.

the dry humping became more urgent. 

the towel had ridden up completely around your waist, and only his jeans separated you now. 

every time you rocked forward, his hard length rubbed perfectly against your clit, making you whimper into his mouth.

steve’s nose pressed against the side of your eye again as he angled his head to kiss you even more desperately.

tongue sliding deep.

lips locked on your upper lip like he couldn’t get enough of it.

without warning, steve gripped your hips and flipped you onto your back on the bed. 

you gasped as he moved over you, settling his body between your spread legs. the towel had completely fallen open, barely covering anything anymore.

steve leaned down and kissed you hard again, then moved to your neck, sucking and biting the sensitive skin as he pressed his hard cock against your bare pussy through his jeans.

“fuck, you smell so good,” he groaned against your neck, inhaling deeply. “fresh out of the shower… all warm and soft. i could eat you up right now.”

you whimpered, arching your back and rolling your hips up against him. 

“steve… please…”

he lifted his head, eyes dark with lust as he looked down at you. 

“please what, baby? use your words. tell me what you want.”

“touch me… please. i need you or your fingers.” your cheeks burned, but the ache between your legs won. 

steve smirked, clearly pleased. 

“that’s my good girl.” he brought two fingers to your lips. “first, suck.”

you obediently opened your mouth and took his fingers in, sucking them slowly while looking up at him. you swirled your tongue around them, getting them nice and wet.

steve groaned at the sight, his cock twitching against you.

“fuck, look at you…” he muttered, voice thick. “sucking my fingers like you would my cock. so fucking pretty.”

after a few seconds he pulled them out with a wet pop and immediately slid them down between your legs. 

he rubbed your soaked pussy slowly, teasing your clit before pushing two thick fingers inside you.

you moaned loudly, back arching off the bed.

“shit, you’re so wet already,” steve breathed, pumping his fingers in and out of you at a steady pace. “this pussy is dripping for me. you’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you?”

“yes…” you gasped, hips moving to meet his fingers. “steve… faster, please.”

he leaned down to kiss you again, sucking on your upper lip while his fingers curled inside you, hitting that perfect spot with every thrust.

“greedy girl,” he whispered hotly against your mouth. “you want more? want me to make you cum before i fuck you?”

you could only moan in response, nodding desperately as his fingers pumped faster, curling and rubbing against that sensitive spot inside you. 

steve kept kissing you deeply, occasionally breaking away to suck and bite your upper lip while his thumb circled your swollen clit.

“that’s it, baby,” he growled against your lips. “fuck my fingers like a good little slut. you’re so fucking wet… i can hear how much this pussy needs me.”

your hips bucked wildly against his hand. 

the pleasure built fast and intense until it finally crashed over you. 

you came hard around his fingers, back arching off the bed as you cried out his name. 

steve didn’t stop, working you through your orgasm with slow, deep strokes until you were trembling and breathless.

he finally pulled his fingers out and brought them to his mouth, licking them clean while staring down at you with dark eyes.

“delicious,” he murmured.

steve then tugged the towel completely off your body, tossing it aside. 

he started kissing down your neck, your collarbones, sucking on your tits and swirling his tongue around your nipples before continuing lower. 

he kissed and licked down your stomach, taking his time, until he settled between your legs. he looked up at you, eyes locked with yours as he spread your thighs wider. 

without warning, he leaned in and dragged his tongue slowly up your soaked pussy.

you arched sharply, a loud moan escaping your lips. steve groaned against you. 

“fuck, you taste even better than i remembered.” he buried his face deeper, nose pressing against your clit as he licked and sucked eagerly. 

his nose kept brushing and nudging against your sensitive bundle of nerves every time he moved, adding to the overwhelming sensation.

“look at me,” he demanded, glancing up at you while his tongue flicked rapidly over your clit. “i want to see your face while i eat this pretty pussy.”

you could barely keep your eyes open, but you tried, one hand gripping his hair tightly as he devoured you. 

steve sucked your clit into his mouth, humming in satisfaction, then pushed his tongue inside you, fucking you with it while his nose continued rubbing against your clit.

“you’re so fucking wet for me,” he groaned between licks. “such a needy little thing… cum on my tongue, baby. i want to feel you falling apart again.”

the combination of his tongue inside you and his nose pressing rhythmically against your swollen clit quickly pushed you over the edge. your legs shook violently around his head as you came with a loud, broken moan, thighs clamping around him. 

steve kept licking you through it, savoring every drop until you were a trembling, oversensitive mess.

when he finally pulled back, his lips and chin were shiny.. 

you were still catching your breath when you pushed yourself up, moving onto your knees in front of him on the bed. 

your hands reached eagerly for his belt, fingers working quickly to undo it.

steve watched you with dark, hungry eyes, but just as you started to pull the belt open, he grabbed your wrists gently but firmly, stopping you.

“not yet,” he murmured.

he cupped your face with both hands, tilting your head up. 

then he leaned down and kissed you deeply, making sure you could taste yourself on his tongue. the kiss was slow, filthy, and possessive. 

you moaned into his mouth as you tasted your own wetness on his lips and tongue.

when he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, breathing heavily.

“go ahead, baby,” he whispered, voice rough. “now you can take it out.” he released your wrists, letting you continue. 

your hands immediately returned to his belt, unbuckling it with shaky fingers before working on the button and zipper of his jeans.

steve groaned deeply, hips twitching forward into your touch. 

“fuck… baby, please,” he rasped. “don’t tease me. i’ve been hard for you since i climbed through that window.”

you smiled up at him, continuing to stroke him slowly over the fabric, feeling him throb under your hand. 

steve let out a low desperate sound, his head falling back slightly.

“shit… your hand feels so good. please, just touch it already.”

encouraged by his begging, you finally slipped your hand inside his boxers and wrapped your fingers around his hard cock. 

he was hot, heavy, and hard. 

you stroked him a few times, your thumb brushing over the leaking tip.

steve moaned, louder this time. 

“that’s it… just like that. fuck, your hand—”

you didn’t wait any longer. 

you pulled his boxers down, freeing his cock. without hesitation, you leaned forward and took him into your mouth, sucking on the head before sliding down as far as you could.

“fuuuck—” steve groaned, his hand immediately going to the back of your head. “just like that, baby. good girl… sucking my cock so well.”

he gathered your damp hair into a makeshift ponytail, wrapping it around his fist.

you bobbed your head, taking him deeper, your tongue swirling around him as you sucked. 

steve’s grip on your hair tightened, guiding your movements as he gently fucked your mouth.

“look at me,” he breathed, eyes half-lidded with pleasure. “i love watching you with my dick in your mouth.”

his other hand caressed your cheek as you worked him, occasionally pushing a little deeper, making you gag softly around him. 

steve’s groans grew louder, his hips moving in shallow thrusts as he held your hair firmly in his fist.

you took him deeper, sucking harder, your tongue pressing against the underside of his cock while your hand stroked what you couldn’t fit in your mouth. 

steve’s breathing became ragged, his grip on your hair tightening.

“fuck— baby, i’m close,” he warned, voice strained. “gonna cum in that pretty mouth if you keep going like that…” you didn’t pull away. 

instead, you moaned around him and sucked harder, looking up at him with watery eyes. 

that was all it took. steve let out a deep, guttural groan as he came hard, thick ropes of cum spilling into your mouth. 

“swallow it,” he growled, still holding your hair. “all of it, baby. good girl…”

you swallowed every drop, looking up at him as you did. 

steve watched you with pure lust in his eyes, breathing heavily. he pulled you up and kissed you deeply, tasting himself on your tongue, before gently pushing you onto your back.

he settled between your spread legs, his still-hard cock resting heavy against your soaked pussy. 

he was very big —thick and long— and he knew it.

steve looked down at you, his eyes dark. 

“gonna go slow, okay baby? i don’t want to hurt you.”

he laced his fingers with yours, pinning your hand beside your head, and squeezed gently. then he slowly started pushing inside you.

you gasped as the thick head stretched you open. steve groaned deeply, forehead pressed against yours.

“fuck… so tight,” he breathed, his rough with pleasure voice. “look at you taking my cock so well. such a good girl for me.”

he pushed in another inch, slow and careful, watching your face the entire time. 

“that’s it… breathe for me, baby. you’re doing so fucking good. taking every inch like you were made for it.”

you whimpered as he kept sinking deeper, stretching you wide. steve kept whispering praises.

“so fucking pretty when you’re full of me… you feel that? feel how deep i am?” when he finally bottomed out, buried to the hilt inside you, he stayed still, letting you adjust. 

he squeezed your hand tighter, fingers still perfectly interlaced with yours.

“you okay, sweetheart?” he asked softly, kissing your lips. “you’re so tight around me… gripping my cock so perfectly. i could stay like this forever.”

he started moving then — slow, deep thrusts, rolling his hips carefully as he kissed you again.

“such a good fucking girl,” he praised between thrusts. “taking all of me so well… i’m so proud of you, baby.”

steve kept your fingers tightly interlaced, squeezing your hand as he fucked you. 

at first his thrusts were slow and deep, letting you feel every thick inch stretching you open. the wet sound of him sliding in and out of your soaked pussy filled the room.

“fuck, Steve…” you moaned, squeezing his hand back. “it feels so big… right there…”

“that’s it, baby,” he groaned, pressing his forehead against yours. “right there? you like it when i fuck you deep like this?”

he gradually picked up the pace, thrusting harder and faster. the bed started creaking beneath you. 

steve’s grip on your hand tightened as he drove into you with more intensity.

“fuck, you’re so tight,” he panted, voice rough. “this pussy was made for my cock. look at you taking every inch like a good little slut.”

without warning, steve pulled out of you, making you whimper at the sudden emptiness. 

he grabbed your thighs and easily lifted you up. you wrapped your legs around his waist as he carried you across the room and pressed you against the desk.

the wood creaked under the impact as he pinned you there. steve lined himself up and pushed back inside you in one slow, deep thrust, groaning loudly at how tight you felt.

“fuck… yes,” he growled against your neck.

he started fucking you against the dresser with slow, intense strokes. 

every thrust was powerful and deliberate, his hips rolling deeply into you. the dresser shook with each thrust, the mirror rattling softly behind you.

he started fucking you against the dresser with slow, intense strokes. 

every thrust was powerful and deliberate, his hips rolling deeply into you. the table shook with each thrust.

steve kept one hand under your thigh for support while the other gripped your hip hard enough to leave marks. 

he buried his face in your neck, sucking and biting as he fucked you passionately.

“you feel so fucking good like this,” he groaned, voice low and rough. “pressed against the desk… taking my cock so deep. such a perfect little fucktoy for me.”

you moaned loudly, nails digging into his shoulders. 

“steve… oh god, it’s so deep—”

he growled in response and picked up the rhythm slightly, still keeping each thrust slow and intense, making sure you felt every single inch. 

the angle was perfect, his cock hitting that sensitive spot inside you with every roll of his hips.

“look at me, baby,” he demanded, forehead pressed against yours. “i want to see your face while i fuck you like this.”

you kept your eyes on his, moaning with every deep, powerful thrust. 

steve fucked you harder against the dresser, his hips snapping forward as he chased his pleasure. 

his grip on your thigh was almost bruising, the other hand still holding yours tightly.

“fuck, i’m so close,” he groaned, voice strained. “you’re gonna make me cum so hard, baby…”

you were both right on the edge when the bedroom door suddenly swung open.

nancy stood there, eyes wide with shock.

for a second, everything froze.

steve was buried deep inside you, your legs wrapped around his waist, both of you completely naked and sweaty. 

nancy’s mouth fell open.

“what the—?!” she gasped, her face turning bright red. “oh my god!” she immediately turned around and slammed the door shut behind her, but not before muttering a stunned “what the fuck…”

steve groaned in frustration, forehead dropping to your shoulder. 

“shit…”

you were both breathing hard, hearts racing. 

he slowly pulled out of you, setting you down on shaky legs. 

your knees nearly gave out, but he caught you, holding you against his chest for a moment.

“we have to get dressed,” you whispered urgently, still flushed and trembling. “they’re probably all waiting for us.”

steve nodded, kissing you quickly on the forehead. “yeah… fuck. bad timing.’’

you both rushed to get dressed — you throwing on whatever clothes you could find, steve pulling up his jeans and fixing his shirt. 

the air was thick with frustration and leftover arousal.

once you were both decent, you took a deep breath and opened the door. 

steve followed right behind you.

the moment you stepped into the hallway, the atmosphere shifted. 

nancy was standing a few feet away, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

her face was still flushed with embarrassment, but now it was mixed with clear annoyance and discomfort.

she looked at both of you, her jaw tight.

“everyone’s waiting in the living room,” she said, her voice colder than usual. “we’ve been ready for twenty minutes.”

her eyes flicked between you and steve, lingering a second longer on him. 

steve cleared his throat, trying to sound casual. 

“yeah, sorry about that. we… got distracted.”

nancy let out a sharp humorless laugh. 

“distracted. right.” she looked at you again, her expression unreadable. “you might want to fix your hair before we go. it’s a mess.”

steve’s a good guy, and when you offered to help him relieve his stress even further by letting him use you however he wants, you really did mean it. the only stipulation he asked for was that it only happened if he was stoned, because that somehow made it less weird.

this time, steve’s had a bad week. which seems to be a little bit more like a bad month. keith has him working ridiculous hours, and robin keeps bailing on her shifts to hang out with vicky. his car battery won’t keep a charge despite it being changed three times, and he needs new tires.

and he’s lonely. very terribly lonely.

you hear it in his voice when he calls you a little bit past 8, beating around the bush for a minute before telling you that he’s planning on smoking and would you pretty please come over. and maybe wear something that provides easy access.

you wouldn’t dream of denying yourself — or him — of that.

and use you, he does. all of you.

kisses you until you’re gasping for air, biting at your lips and licking into your mouth like it’s made of candy.

grabs your hips and hauls you onto his lap, hardly getting you stretched open enough before bullying his way inside of you. he knows you love the burn, the way he keeps you steady and helps you take it. he fucks you on his cock like you’re a toy, something for him to play with. something truly his.

steve loves it when you ride him, though he’s typically the one making you bounce. his teeth latch onto his bottom lip while he moves you, up and down at a dizzying pace. when the taste of copper hits his tongue, he leans forward to suck and kiss your nipples. he’s prone to leaving a hickey or two or five on your breasts, just because he can. likes knowing you’re marked up by him and no one else.

and when your legs get too tired, he flips you onto your back, hooking your knees over his shoulders. he’s slow now, grinding in deep, holding your hands to his mattress while he coos down at you.

“you’re real good to me, yeah? lettin’ me use this pretty pussy?”

you leave with shaking legs after, your stomach in knots for the rest of the evening thinking about him and thinking about how he may like to use you again in the future. maybe you could cockwarm him — or perhaps a blowjob, guiding the tip past your gag reflex just to feel your throat tighten around him —

his next call comes not even twelve hours later, just as the sun is starting to rise.

“i’m sober. but i can’t stop thinking about you.”

You storm inside first, leaving him in the dust as you bolt for the coffeemaker. He lumbers in after, scowl on his face, hair wrecked by the humidity.

It's easy enough to avoid each other before the broadcast, but once you're forced into the booth together, you drop into the swivel chair without a word. Your body angled away from him toward the console.

Robin lasts until lunch before she finally says something.

"Okay! So I'm gonna go." She stands, shooting a look between the two of you. "Whatever this is, please fix it. Or at least… try not to stare each other to death while I'm gone."

When neither of you respond, she just backs out slowly, nearly tripping over her own feet before the door creaks shut behind her.

The booth is deathly quiet when she leaves. Which is ironic, because you're pretty sure you've been in actual morgues with more noise than this vacuum that's formed between the two of you. But you don't look up. Not when you hear him let out a dramatic sigh, or when he snaps a cassette case louder than necessary.

No. You let him pout, giving him nothing while keeping your eyes glued to the playlist sheet on the desk. Crossing your legs and bobbing your ankle up and down. Letting your pleated skirt hike just a little bit higher up your thigh.

You aren't the least bit surprised when you hear the tapes stop clattering.

There's another beat of quiet before his foot nudges the leg of your chair. You don't move. So he does it again.

Finally, you turn—slow—and give him a look.

His mouth quirks. "You gonna ignore me all day?"

You frown, ignoring him while you flip a page.

"Wow," he scoffs. "You know, I was gonna apologize, but with this attitude—"

"Apologize, then," you interrupt. Calling his bluff.

He sits back and crosses his arms. "Well, look at that. She speaks."

"Look at that," you echo, turning back to the console. "He listens. For once."

You hear movement, then his hand is on the back of your chair before you even realize he's gotten up. The room blurs as he spins you back, planting both hands on the armrests once you're facing him again.

You stare stubbornly at the wall over his shoulder. Arms folded over your chest. Steve sighs and takes a seat in front of you, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"I was saving it for the recycling, okay?"

You huff. "Then why was it in the middle of the counter?"

"I told you, I didn't want to forget!"

You shake your head, still refusing to meet his gaze.

"…Fine," he mumbles. "I'm sorry… alright?"

You arch a brow. "For?"

"For being a dick," he mutters, sliding a hand over his neck. "And…"

He leaves the sentence hanging half-finished. You tilt your head, waiting, but Steve doesn't look up. His gaze is stuck below your waist, where the hem of your skirt has ridden up even higher, fanning in a pretty arc across your legs. He swallows audibly and leans in closer.

It happens slow, his hand wedging between your thighs to grip the base of your seat. Your breath stutters as he tugs you forward, the stool skidding across the floor.

You finally look at him. No other choice really, with your faces inches apart like this. But where you expect to find him smiling or smug at having flustered you, instead his gaze is just… dark. His eyes heavy and locked with yours. Beneath the light, you catch the faintest sheen of sweat across his cheeks, fresh and dewy on his skin.

Warmth pulses between your legs in a way that's practically Pavlovian at this point. Because you know what it means when he gets this look. Where it always leads. You swallow a little as the woodsy scent of his aftershave reaches your nose, your fury fading fast into a different kind of heat that sits warm and low in your stomach.

Steve shifts then, your knees bumping together. He slides one of his forward between your thighs, slotting you two together and pulling you close.

"You wore this on purpose," he breathes low into your ear. You shiver as he brushes your hair back over your shoulder, his knuckles grazing the soft skin just beneath the hem of your skirt.

You exhale slowly. You did wear it on purpose. Something takes over him every time you wear this fucking thing, which is why you'd put it on in the first place this morning, a flirty little tilt to your hips. Five hours ago, you figured you two could sneak into the closet, or out to his car on your lunch break, maybe tease him with it until you had a chance to be properly alone.

But then you'd gotten into that fight, and you kept it on out of spite. You knew it would drive him crazy, having to see you in it and be forced to keep his hands to himself.

Only his hands were already disappearing beneath it.

"Steve," you breathe against his neck, barely pretending. "We're at work."

He noses the soft spot beneath your ear. "No one's here."

"The walls are glass."

"We'll be quick," he promises.

You're about to argue, but the gentle, warm press of his tongue over your pulse rips the protest from your lips. You melt, your eyes closing with a quiet sigh of surrender, and he groans into your skin at the salty taste of you, one hand snaking up into your hair to hold you in place while the other coaxes your knees apart.

"What if Rob comes back?" you whisper, already short of breath.

"She won't. She literally just left." His lips graze your forehead. "Now c'mere… let me apologize."

He curls a hand under your knee, tugging you toward him those last few inches. You let him guide you to the edge of the seat, until your chin's hooked over his shoulder and you lose sight of what his other hand's doing. You sigh into his hair when you feel his palm finally disappear between your legs.

He gives a testing little press against you, smiling to himself at the quiet noise you make for him.

"Yeah, baby. That's it," he whispers, his breath hot against your temple while he cups you more firmly. You gasp and clutch onto his sleeve, the contact making the damp spot on your panties bloom out even further at the edges.

"Oh, honey," he soothes, his free hand still cupping the back of your head. "Look at you. All worked up already."

You huff over his shoulder, even as your hips curl forward on their own, seeking the heel of his palm.

"I'm still mad at you," you mumble into his neck.

He hums, thumbing your panties to the side in a slow arc. "Yeah? You gonna let me fix it?"

Without waiting for your answer, he parts you gently down the middle. Your gasp is sharp against his shoulder, and he hushes you softly, groaning at the way you're already coating his fingers as he traces your slit.

"Fuck, baby," he breathes, his voice rough now.

He slides right through you, nice and easy. His thumb brushes through your curls before dipping down to circle you where you're softest. You muffle a whimper into his shirt and feel his grip tighten on the back of your neck.

"There?" he whispers, mouth pressed to your hair.

You nod breathlessly, panting now and barely able to hear him. He sucks softly beneath your ear and starts working that sweet spot, pulling more broken sounds out of you as you spiral quickly toward the edge.

Your hips shift forward again, thighs weak and shaking. You're nearly there, whining and clenching around nothing, when you thrust too far and start to slip off the edge of the seat.

"Shit—" you gasp.

Steve catches you before you can fall. His arm hooks around your waist, lifting you up like it's nothing. Your hands automatically find his shoulders as he hikes you up onto his thigh, your skirt settling even higher around your hips while you straddle him. He wets his lips when your bare skin presses against his jeans, the heat between your legs making his pants go tight around his hardening cock.

"Easy," he murmurs, sliding a hand up your back to steady you. "You okay?"

"Yeah," you breathe out, a little embarrassed. A pretty flush warms your cheeks as he brushes back a curtain of hair that's fallen in your face. He gives you a big, breathy smile that makes your heart burst wide open.

"Okay," he pants, glancing around to check that the station's still empty. With no sign of Robin, he plants a soft peck on your cheek and lets his hand drop to your hip. "Ready?"

You nod, your thighs squeezing around him as he rocks you forward, guiding you to grind against his leg. Your head tips back with a moan just from the friction of it.

"Steve—"

"I know," he mumbles, dipping down to suck at your collarbone as you writhe on him. "Use me, baby. It's okay."

You bite your lip, rolling your hips shamelessly now as you chase the pressure. The orgasm you lost starts building again. You feel it coiling deep in your belly, but it's not nearly enough to get you off just riding him like this.

He tries to help, tugging one of the buttons free on your shirt and mouthing gently at the swell of your breast. You moan, fingers sinking into his hair and keeping him there while your knee lifts high enough to brush at the bulge between his legs. Steve buries a groan between your tits, his hips bucking up before he can stop himself.

"Fuck," he grits out, forehead dropping to your chest. "That's not fair."

You smile into his hair and do it again, dragging your thigh slow and careful just beneath the heft of his balls. His head snaps back, tendons straining in his neck as a strangled moan rips from his throat.

"Babe, fuck—" he chokes out. "I'm serious. I'm gonna come in my fucking pants if you keep doing that."

Your hand drops between your bodies, finding his belt buckle by feel as you hold his gaze.

"Need you," you pant against his cheek, unlatching him. His head falls back against the chair as you work the button open next, then the zipper. He's rock hard by the time you're peeling the denim apart, a damp patch already darkening the fabric of his boxers.

Steve watches you with glazed eyes.

"Here?" he rasps, like he wasn't the one that started this.

Your answer is a hard kiss while your hand slips inside his boxers. He shudders out a moan into your mouth the second your fingers wrap around him. He's hot and thick in your palm, the head slick where he's already leaking. You hum softly against his lips while you give him a slow, gentle stroke.

"Jesus," he breathes, hips jerking up into your fist. You swallow the next filthy sound he makes, licking into his mouth while you twist your wrist on the upstroke.

"Wait, baby, wait—" He catches your hand. "Wanna be inside you."

You heave out a sigh of relief. Finally.

You release him and shift forward on his lap, lifting your hips while he shoves your panties to the side blind, your skirt covering both of you from the waist down. He grips himself at the base, dragging his tip through the dripping seam of you a few times to get himself nice and slick. Then your foreheads are pressing together, both panting as he eases toward your opening.

"Look at me," he whispers, his free hand reaching up to hold your face.

You look. His brown eyes are blown almost black, lashes dark and damp. Your hands find his face—a face you're wondering how you could've ever been mad at over a Coke can—and sweep your thumbs gently across his cheeks.

He pushes into you soft and slow.

Your mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. Only a thin, shaking breath that he swallows with a kiss as he fills you. His hand drops down to cradle the curve of your ass, guiding you as you sink down onto him.

The stretch pulls a broken sound from somewhere low in your chest. Steve catches that against his lips too, kissing you deep and filthy while your bodies slowly connect, the front of your skirt bunching up between you.

"There you go," he groans when you finally take all of him. He wraps his arms around your waist and sighs into your neck, low and rough. "Fuck, you feel good."

You whine into his hair, unable to speak as you adjust to him. No matter how many times you've done this, he always splits you open at first, as careful as he is. His hands rub over your back in wide soothing circles as he presses kisses to your shoulder, your jaw, your neck. All the little spots he knows makes you soft.

You sigh appreciatively, braving a slow, tentative roll of your hips when you're relaxed enough. The sensation drags a low groan out of you both. His fingers dig into the soft dough at your waist, guiding your rhythm until you find it on your own.

Your pace doesn't stay slow for long. The chair creaks beneath you as you ride him harder, his breath puffing soft and fast against your throat.

"Fuck, that's it," he growls. "Don't stop."

You don't stop. Not when you already feel the tension starting in your abs again. Your weight shifts as you try to deepen the angle to take more of him, and you gasp when you lean too far back.

His arm locks around you in an instant, hauling you flush against his chest without breaking the rhythm you've set.

"Here, baby," he pants, nose brushing yours. "Hold onto me. I got you."

Your arm loops around his shoulders and stays there, fingers twisting in his hair while he fucks up into you. Wet, slapping sounds fill the booth, but you can barely hear them while you're gasping his name. Your walls start to tighten around him, squeezing and clenching with each pump of his hips.

"Steve," you beg.

"I know, I know," he grits through his teeth. His hand snakes between you again. "Come on, honey. Give it to me."

He circles twice, and that's all it takes. Your spine locks, the orgasm tearing through you silently at first, mouth open with no sound, before you choke out a broken cry against his throat.

"Oh fuck—" His voice cracks as you clamp around his cock in helpless pulses. Steve locks his arms around you and pulls you down, burying himself deep before you feel the first hot spill of him inside you.

You gasp, still coming by the time he starts. Your chest heaves against his while he fills you up, stars swirling in your eyes with every twitch of his cock inside you. Steve crushes his face into your neck, muffling a low groan as he rides out the last waves, hips circling lazily while he empties himself into your soft, pretty pussy.

He holds you there as you both come down, your body limp and sated in his grasp. Slowly, your breathing evens out against his neck, his hand combing gently through the hair spilling down your back while he softens inside you.

You lift your head finally, just enough to look at him. His hair is even more of a wreck than it was before, half of it sticking out in every direction and the other half plastered to his forehead. You brush it back with a fond little laugh at how ruined he looks.

"You okay?" you murmur with a tilt of your head.

Steve blinks up at you, dazed. His lashes flutter like he's forgotten where he is for a second, and then a dopey grin spreads across his face.

"Mhm," he hums. "You?"

You nod, tucking a damp strand behind his ear. His eyes close at the touch, and you let your smile stretch a little wider.

"So," you say. "Are we done fighting?"

He cracks an eye open. "We were fighting?"

You flick his shoulder. He yelps and grabs your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm before you can do it again.

"Yes. Done fighting. I'll clean the whole apartment. Scrub the floors. Bleach the—"

"Just throw away your cans, Steve."

"I will throw away every can. Every single can. I'll throw away cans that aren't even mine."

Your eyes roll. "Steve."

"Neighbors' cans, too."

You snort, dropping your forehead against his. He catches your chin between his fingers and pulls you in for a lazy, salty kiss that sends a fresh lick of heat down your neck.

"Careful," you warn against his lips. "Or I might just—"

Down the hall, you both hear a door open.

"Is that—" he starts, eyes wide.

"Shit," you hiss, shifting in his lap and stopping when you feel the mess between your thighs. "How is she back already? We need… napkins. Or something."

Steve glances around the booth. His eyes land on Robin's stack of handwritten song request cards. He lifts one eyebrow.

You poke his chest. "No."

"She'd never know."

"Steve."

The doorknob rattles. You both freeze and look over slowly.