leon kisser

You can’t remember how long he kept you there, pushed against the wall under the weight of his body with his spend leaking from you and falling to the floor. Breathing each other’s air, almost lightheaded, until he cupped your cheek and brought you into a kiss.

This one wasn’t just born from desire. It was slow, sweet… affectionate. He took his time, melding his lips to yours like an apology for his last ones that were merciless and fierce.

Leon still didn’t let go of you when he pulled out and hastily tucked himself back in his pants; he held you, taking on all your weight, and turned you around before bringing you into an embrace.

You’d do anything to hear his thoughts.

Anything except ask, apparently.

The following moments were …peculiar, yet comforting. He picked you up in his arms (he really took your comment to heart, huh?), carried you to the shower, and hopped in with you after shedding his clothes.

All in silence. Just the sound of the running water and your thoughts.

He didn’t stay in there with you for long. After washing off and kissing you sweetly under the water, he let you be. You wanted him to, and he knew that without a word being uttered by either of you. It’s not that you didn’t want him there, it was just—you needed a moment alone. The night’s events weighed on you, but you weren’t upset.

Overwhelmed. No better word for it.

You still needed him. You needed him to be waiting for you when you got out, needed him to hold you again, needed to feel his warmth.

You needed him to feel the same way about you as you feel about him.

You finish wringing the last of the conditioner from your hair and shut off the shower, grabbing the towel Leon conveniently left hanging over the door and drying off before stepping out. At some point while you’d been in there, he must’ve snuck back in and left a pile of clothes on the toilet for you to change into without you noticing.

A shirt, underwear, and those extra soft, thick socks you always like to wear when you’re just lounging around the house. It’s one of his shirts that he left behind before—at the time you assumed it was an accident, but now you think that maybe it wasn’t. Now that he’s offering it to you, having picked it out from your dresser, like he knew it was there.

Before slipping it on, you bring it to your face and gently inhale. Still smells a bit like him. You made sure not to wash it.

You only put it on twice since he’d left it, the nights you felt unbearably lonely. It made you feel seen when you wore it, like even while he’s off god-knows-where he’d be able to sense that you’d worn a part of him.

Leon’s waiting for you on your bed when you exit the bathroom, phone in hand, typing. Shirtless. Your gaze wanders down the planes of his chest, following the trail of hair originating from the crevices between his muscles, traveling down the middle and thickening at his navel, reaching down into…

Your face immediately warms when he notices you looking and sets the phone aside.

He looks best like this, casual and domestic. Grey sweatpants designed to drive you wild and make you imagine how he’ll look tomorrow morning in your kitchen, brewing coffee. A smile seals the deal, your brain in full overdrive picturing him in perfectly normal situations.

You readily imagine him getting a spider out of a corner after you scream, reaching to grab something for you on the top shelf, doing the dishes… It’s too easy. That’s at least half the reason you’re in this predicament, letting your fucking brain run wild.

You close the gap between you, walking over to Leon’s side of the bed (the realization that he’s claimed a side in your bed makes your head spin even more) and climbing into his lap. You sit on one side and swing both your legs over the other, settle your head against his chest, and cling onto his bicep with one hand; his other palm reaches behind your back and settles at your waist.

Part of you wants to cry and get it all out. You won’t, you can’t—not like this.

You think you’re doing a pretty good job of holding it in, until Leon bursts your bubble and grips you tighter, hikes your legs further over his to get you closer, even if it’s only by a centimeter. Must’ve breathed the wrong way or let your lip tremble or… who fucking knows what, the man’s so in sync with you, maybe you’ve established a telepathic connection.

“Talk to me?” he says in a cautious tone that tells you he needs an answer to keep his sanity, but doesn’t want to push you. “Can almost hear you thinkin’. Worrying, if I were to guess.”

“A little,” you admit. 

“About me?”

You don’t answer, which is answer enough for him. 

“Thought so,” he comments in a tone that is not helping with your inner turmoil. He’s not rude, he’d never, he’s just… direct, and delivers it with a sigh that’s not one of relief.

“Wish I knew what you’re thinking.”

“How ‘bout I just tell you?” Leon says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like this conversation isn’t going to make your heart explode. “I’m thinkin’ that one night I walked you home and I asked what you want out of this.” He pauses, inhales. Collects himself, it seems, and that makes you wonder if he’s frustrated with you and holding back. “You never answered me.”

He’s pushing this, you’re not going to get out of it. No chance in hell.

His demeanor isn’t giving you enough to figure out how he feels, nothing concrete, only enough to drive you insane plotting out all the possibilities. The best explanation would be that he sounds like this because he feels the same way you do, and you’re being difficult. The worst explanation is that he sounds like this because he’s frustrated that you can’t keep going like this. That it has to end here.

He wants you, that much is fucking obvious—especially after tonight—but commitment? That’s another story entirely and he’s keeping his thoughts behind locked doors. You’ve both been having a good time, neither can deny that, but you’re well beyond this being nothing.

“Don’t think I can keep going and acting like I’m not dyin’ to hear it,” he says. “I gotta know.”

“I don’t want to ruin this,” you say, even though you know it’s already too late. You’ve already crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.

“You won’t. God, you won’t.” He runs a hand through your hair one last time before loosening his hold on you. “C’mon, let’s sit up and talk, reallytalk.”

So you separate your face from his chest and force yourself to get the fuck up and deal with this. You sit with your back facing the headboard, and put your arms around your knees, bent close to your chest.

Leon sits on his side of your bed, one knee raised and an arm draped over it. Almost too casual, but you know him. One thing you can take solace in is that he won’t take this lightly. Even if it all goes to shit and this is your last night together, you know that he’ll be kind. 

It’s more than you’re used to.

“I’ve thought about it,” you concede.

“Tell me.” A demand, though not a harsh one. “Please, tell me. It’s fuckin’ killing me.”

Leon might be into you, enjoy this time with you, but it’s only been a year since his wife passed. And, Jesus Christ, you’d met him at your bar, where he regularly ordered whiskey; you’ve seen all of this before, you should know better. You met him while he was mourning, coping with alcohol, and finding solace in you.

A dead wife isn’t someone you get over so easily. He still carries his ring, for fuck’s sake.

That’s the possibility that scares you most, and you can imagine it easily; you’ve imagined variants of it a million times by now. You picture lying here and telling him you want more, spilling your heart for him, and Leon being forced to admit that he’s not ready for another commitment and it breaking you both. You can’t take this any further or else it’ll no longer be the type of break you eventually heal from.

It would hurt worse than if he doesn’t want more with you at all, if that was always off the table. You can, in time, recover from him only wanting something short out of you because he was finding warmth in you instead of the drink. 

Knowing that there was a chance, just… not in this timeline? That feels like it might kill you.

When you finally look back at him, he looks like he’s on the verge of tears, too, and that feels like more evidence you’ve got it right. Because if it’s the latter, that more was never on the table, it wouldn’t be so emotional for him. Leon’s not a crier. 

You have to face this.

“I-I can’t keep doing this,” you mutter. “But I can’t stand the thought of this ending. I thought… I really thought I could handle it if this was just… casual.”

“This feel casual to you?”

“No,” you admit, steeling yourself and speaking from the heart, even if it hurts; you force yourself to just go before you can talk yourself out of it. “How could it be? I’ve had your jacket for weeks. This shirt… it smells like you, and I wore it while you were gone when I fucking missed you, and everyday it smells a little less like you and I hate that.”

You pause and take a deep breath before continuing. Leon says nothing, completely focused on your speech.

“You learned my coffee order, my schedule. You—you make me feel wanted, truly wanted, and I can’t remember the last time I felt that way. Like I mattered. My ex—”

You suddenly stop, tears welling in your eyes.

‘Don’t fucking cry, it’s pathetic.’

Leon allows you room to cry. Leon doesn’t look at you like he’s ashamed of you when you cry. He looks at you with heartfelt concern. You can already feel his ghost touch wiping away your tears, if only you weren’t in the middle of this conversation.

There’s a piece of you that thinks you’d be better off if you kept living in ignorance and never crossed paths with Leon. When better than Aiden would’ve been the minimum and still feel like heaven, because you’d been conditioned to believe only perfect, fictional couples and liars can experience adoration like this.

“Y-you made me realize,” you continue, voice shaky, “how horribly I’ve been treating myself, because I let him get in my head.”

“What’d he do to you?” Leon asks.

You just shake your head.

Don’t fucking cry.

The tears that had been building up as you spoke become too heavy and fall, running down your cheeks. You wipe at your eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, going faster and faster as you try to keep up with them, until you’re practically scraping your eyes raw and it’s doing nothing because you can’t stop fucking crying. 

Now that it’s safe to, and your body knows it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I got you,” Leon whispers, moving towards you and taking your wrists in his so you can’t keep scratching at your face.

He’s gentle with you. He doesn’t make you feel like you’ve done something wrong, but the shame creeps up anyway. He moves closer to you and gently tugs on your hands in his grip to bring you back to him, holding you tight and pressing your head to his chest.

“It’s okay. Don’t have to tell me a thing.”

Here you are, crying in the arms of a fifty-year-old man who lost his wife, over your previous relationship that you were too weak to leave. You were engaged to a man who loved himself more than he loved you. The age gap has never felt wider than it does right now, because Leon is a man who’s lived, whose wife didn’t leave him but left this whole earth, who he clearly loves with everything he has.

You’ve never seen him cry. He’s handled all your instability with grace. He’s emotionally mature.

You’re not.

You take a moment to compose yourself and return back to your spot on the bed. His turn to talk.

“Don’t know how to do this,” Leon sighs. He pauses, appears for a moment like he might say more, then closes his mouth. He seems… troubled. What he has to say isn’t easy to say. It’ll hurt you both.

It sounds like the prelude to a breakup. 

And you’re not surprised, but it stings all the same. You’re a fucking bartender without a car who never learned to drive, and he’s a special fucking federal agent with a Porsche and a Ducati in the driveway of a house worth more than you’ll probably ever make in your lifetime. It’s a joke that you ever thought, even for a moment, he’d entertain anything more.

You stayed with Aiden so long because he’s in your league.

“But I want to try,” Leon says, having strengthened his resolve while you were internally disparaging yourself. “If you’ll give this a shot. You and me.”

“W-what?” you stammer in disbelief.

“Why d’you sound surprised?”

This isn’t happening. No way.

Things like this don’t happen to you. Men like this don’t care for damaged women like you.

“I thought—I don’t know what I thought,” you say, your mind and heart still racing as you try to process, because fuck, it feels like a waking dream, or a fucking hallucination. “I made up every reason in the world as to why I wouldn’t be good enough for you…”

“Never think you’re not good enough.”

Like it’s so easy.

Like you’re not still putting together the pieces of your head he just broke, and even though it’s over and you know better, this is what you’ve been made to believe.

The dam breaks, and you start pouring your doubts, your disbelief.

“I mean—I don’t have my life together like you do. I’m young, I’m only a bartender who doesn’t drive. And I just cried in your arms about my fucking ex,” you confess. “Eight years. I was too fucking stupid and weak to leave. Who wants to deal with that?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Blame yourself.”

“I—” You shake your head. ”You don’t know.”

“I know enough.” Leon’s staring at you straight, unwavering, as he speaks. He needs you to hear this, really hear it. “Never sell yourself short. I’ll keep tellin’ ya that. And you think I’ve got my life together?” He laughs at that. “Everyone’s got baggage, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No ‘but’s,” Leon interrupts. “Now listen.”

You nod.

“My wife and I, we got together decades ago. She’s all I knew. For a long time,” he starts. “She’s still part of me. Probably always will be. If you can handle that… There’s room in me. I just didn’t know it ’til now.”

The way he says ‘my wife and I’ isn’t a statement that hurts or threatens you. It’s reassuring.

He doesn’t forget. He doesn’t love lightly. Rationally, you knew this already, but you refused to believe that someone like him could ever remotely feel like that for you.

Leon, the man who sat quietly at your bar and won you over by making you work to get anything out of him, is not a man who does casual.

And neither do you.

When this started, you thought that maybe you could. You’d never taken a customer home. Never had a one night stand. There’s a first for everything, and you were so blinded by your need for him, you would’ve told yourself anything to justify it.

“Thought that would be the end of it for me, to be honest.” He’s smiling, the bittersweet kind. “Maybe it should be. I’ve got my own reasons for not being good enough for you, you know?” he says, like it’s a warning, or a disclaimer. “But you made it—made this—easy. Problem is, I’ve never done easy before. Don’t know how. Just know that I’m not ready to give you up.

“I’d be a bastard to stay involved with you. Shouldn’t be spendin’ these years of your life with an old man. Especially me—‘cause I owe you something. An explanation, ‘bout my job. Just tellin’ you straight what you already seem to get. I’m always gone somewhere, can’t predict how long for or when they’ll call me back in.”

You know that’s not the end of it, that there’s more he’s not vocalizing. But there’s probably little else he can say between the highly classified nature of his work and how much he’s ready to share.

“It’s not safe,” he admits. “Been doin’ this a long time, that much is true. Some jobs are easier than others.”

“I don’t care,” you say. 

“You will.”

Yeah, you will. You missed him like hell when he was gone. It’ll hurt when he has to leave suddenly, when you don’t hear from him, when you don’t know when he’s coming back or if he’s okay. 

It’ll fucking hurt to not know, but you’ll sacrifice anything to give this a shot.

“I still want this,” you insist. “I-I’ll wait for you. I’ll worry for you. I’ll do whatever it takes to give us a real chance.”

“You don’t know what you’re sayin’ yes to. Not really.”

“You can’t change my mind.”

Leon sighs like he’s frustrated, but the way he looks at you? You have to break eye contact to keep your head about you, because he’s looking at you like you’re the only person in the fucking world.

“I’ve thought about this moment. More than a few times,” he confesses. “I’ve been waitin’ for it. So be it, long as you want to be stubborn and let an old man like me into your life… I’ll be a bastard.”

“How long? How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Since I left for that job without a word,“ he says. “Couldn’t get you off my fucking mind. Worried you’d be mad and that I blew it.” He hesitates, contemplating. “No. Before that, just didn’t know it yet… Gotta show you somethin’.” 

Leon holds out his hand and you take it without a second thought. He pulls you back to him, one hand on your back and the other on the back of a thigh, orienting you where he wants you. His back hits the headboard again and you straddle him, watching his eyes, lost in the blue while he grabs his phone from the side table and navigates through it.

There’s nothing spoken when he turns it around and shows you what he’s pulled up. Nothing out loud, but his face says everything. He’s sharing a part of himself with you.

It’s a picture of you.

At the bar, making a drink, taken without you knowing. A half-smile on your face, hair tucked behind your ear, black shirt.

You remember that night.

He told you how he got called teacher’s pet in police academy due to his overeagerness; after, he lamented on his naïveté, but didn’t elaborate. You didn’t push. That was the first time you felt like a barrier between you had fallen.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, taking the phone from his hands. You tap on the screen and zoom in, like you have to touch it to believe it’s real. “I remember this. I didn’t notice you taking my picture, though.”

Leon flashes you a look and shrugs in response.

Right. Probably a skill he learned as part of the whole federal agent thing.

You look back at his phone in your hands before giving it back and notice the filled-in heart that indicates he added it to his favorites folder. Jesus, you might fucking die right here and now. Heart attack.

You normally hate candid photos of yourself, and admittedly, this wasn’t your best look. But it’s special, because you’re teleported into his mind and you get to see yourself the way he does, and that’s worth everything.

This is what he sees when he looks at you. This is what he pictures when he thinks of you.

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Say you’re mine,” Leon says without a trace of hesitation, pressing his forehead to yours and holding your face in his palms.

“I’m yours. God, I’ve been yours.”

“My girl, my fuckin’ girl,” he coos, brushing his lips against yours and hovering there for a breath before kissing you.

You put your hands on his shoulders, fingers meeting behind his neck and playing with the ends of his hair. His thumbs rub gentle circles into your cheeks once, then slowly trail downward; down your neck, along your collarbones, free roaming your body.

“Your girl,” you repeat when he parts from you, trying out how it sounds from your tongue.

Whether you should tell Leon has been bothering you ever since, but (aside from the fact that you’re not going to text him about it while he’s on mission) to do that would mean explaining so much more that you’re not ready for… some that you’ve never really sat down and processed yourself, burying it in your mind every time something reminds you of him.

You don’t have to tell him. What you have isn’t established, you don’t have an obligation to. But you feel like you should. It nags at you. He did call you ‘his girl’, even if it was a slip of the tongue.

You will tell him. You will. You just need to spend time on it in your own head first, much as you despise the idea, and you need to find the right moment.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket as you tab out a customer. By now, you’ve snapped out of the habit of rushing at the speed of light to check your phone every time it rings, so you take your time finishing up and wiping up the counter before giving it a look.

The first time, you barely pull it from your pocket and just glance at the preview. Once you realize what you saw, you rip it out, wide-eyed.

Leon: What kinda food do you like?

Only takes a few words for you to revert to the person you were a week ago, your heart racing, stupid fucking smile on your face.

A reply to your last text about a date with no other information. Is he safe and done for the night? Or is the job done and he’s on his way back? God, you hope so.

“I’m taking my break,” you announce hurriedly, grabbing ‘your’ black leather jacket and rushing towards the door. Glancing at Daisy, you add a desperate, “You good?”

“It’s almost end of the night and this place is dead. Why don’t you go home and I’ll finish up?” she responds, looking at you with a half-grin. You’ll be talking about this later.

As if he can read your mind, he follows up before you draft a response:

Leon: On my way back. Leon: Can’t talk, sorry. Leon: Call you when I land. You: !!! You: i’m so relieved 🥹 You: how do you feel? everything ok? Leon: Tired, but glad to be done. Leon: Back to my question… You: i like sushi, italian, mediterranean, thai… pretty much anything, but those are my faves Leon: Pick you up Thursday at 6pm? You: i’d love to Leon: Good. Leon: Can’t fucking wait.

The last text is serene music to your ears. Every time before you’ve heard him say that—or some variation of it—it was about fucking you or eating you out. And you love that side of him too, but this hits different. This makes your heart throb. This makes you stare at your phone so intently, speechless, for the rest of your walk home that once you finally snap out of it you realize just how little attention you’d been paying to the world around you, crossing intersections without a care in the world.

You feel like a lovesick teenager again as you float inside your townhouse, hanging up your keys and taking off your shoes with your heart warm. You easily picture that younger version of you who would hold your phone to your chest, jump around your room, and crash into your bed with your legs kicking in excitement.

Thursday is only a few days away, but you hope you can see him before then. You pray you calm down and can maintain your dignity and don’t find yourself begging for it when he calls you, because right now, you feel like you’d do almost anything to get him to come over.

With a little extra time on your hand thanks to Daisy, you decide to start picking up and cleaning. To get ahead of it by the time he’s going to pick you up, if nothing else.

Leon didn’t give you a time estimate or ever tell you where he was going, and you’re resolved to stay awake until he calls—but you turn your phone’s volume up all the way in case you fail. After your place looks presentable again, you hop in the shower, hoping it’ll push you into a second wind.

In the middle of it, your phone rings. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Your sopping-wet hair floods the floor as you jump out, but what good is tile in the bathroom if you can’t drench it, anyway? All you bother to dry is your hands, in case you manage to destroy your phone by getting it too wet. 

“Leon?” You hope you don’t sound too desperate, because you feel pretty fucking desperate. 

“Open the door.”

“What?”

“Open the door,” he repeats. During your pause while you digest what he’s implying, he adds, “Please.”

“Okay, one second. I kinda just got out of the shower—”

Leon says nothing back to you on the phone, but there’s three loud knocks at the door.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” you shout down the hall, giggling. 

You drop your phone on the bed as you practically break out into a sprint to unlock the door. 

It happens so fast, you don’t think twice about answering the door like this; not only naked and still dripping water from the shower, but you know your hair’s a mess and you didn’t finish washing off your makeup and...

“Jesus, Leon—”

He cuts you off instantly, crushing his lips to yours and slamming the door behind him in his haste to scoop you up, palming your ass and lifting you. Your feet meet behind him, an ingrained reaction now, and you try to support yourself with your arms over his shoulders and joining behind his neck.

Leon’s powerful, demanding energy radiates off him as he hauls you across the room and shoves you against the wall with a thud that makes you thankful you’re no longer in a place with shared walls. 

Every time you try to break apart and breathe, he can’t keep patient; needy with the intensity of a man possessed, he finds your mouth every single time and pulls you right back into his ravenous, open-mouthed kiss, stubbornly keeping you held as close to him as humanly possible. He takes your bottom lip between his teeth and gently pulls, swiping it with the tip of his tongue before releasing you.

You tap his shoulder when you can’t take it anymore, indicating that you need air. Now. 

“L-Leon,” you stutter between pants, struggling to catch your breath, “what happened?”

Because surely something happened, right, to make him act like this? Like it could be the last time he’ll ever get to touch you?

“Nothin’, just—missed you so much.”

Your heart threatens to split in fucking two.

“I missed you, too…”

Leon doesn’t let you rest, immediately running back to kissing you, the force of it making the back of your head hit the wall. He prods between your lips with his tongue and you eagerly part them, allowing him through; he finds yours and intertwines with it, the raring intimacy and hurried passion of it coaxing a low, fractured whine from your throat. 

He slips a leg between your thighs, one hand loosening its hold on you and easing your bare cunt down onto his clothed knee, slightly damp from your shower water.

The noise that comes out of you when he starts slowly grinding into you, pussy already swollen with arousal and squishing as he rocks you on it, is animalistic and raw; a sound caught between a moan and a growl that you’ve never made before.

Again, thank fucking god you don’t share a wall anymore. You don’t miss those days.

“Look at you, drenching my fuckin’ pants,” Leon murmurs, letting you free and moving his kisses across your jaw, instead.

They’re calculated, fervent; heat of his mouth pressing to your sensitive skin, rippling a shiver through you.

“C-couldn’t get myself off without you,” you admit, squirming in his hold, your hips moving faster. Begging for more, more. “Dreamt about this.”

Leon nips at your neck, closer to a tickle than a bite, one that tears an arch from your back, wet hair sliding along the wall as you tilt your head back and your jaw slacks, making near-silent moans.

“Couldn’t make yourself come without me… shit, baby,” he whispers, each word mouthed into your neck, mixed with warm exhales. “What’d you dream ‘bout, exactly?” 

“J-just like this. Thought about… boxing me in like this, pushing m-me against the wall,” you say quietly. “And—ah—you’d take me from behind...”

Leon’s composure visibly slips when you say that; you swear you see a slight blush across his face and he looks at you like he’s never heard anyone say anything more enthralling.

He bounces you up on his knee to adjust and presses the rest of his body forward, putting more weight on you, outline of his dick distinct against your stomach now. You dare to peek down for a quick look, and spot an obvious wet spot on his pants at the tip. 

“Eyes up here, pretty girl,” Leon scolds you, amused, and takes your chin between a finger and thumb and brings your gaze back to his. “Makin’ me feel like a teenager again, fuck. Couldn’t get you off my fuckin’ mind. Just ‘bout lost it when I saw your text…”

“Yeah?”

Leon flashes you a cheeky smile, his hand leaving your jaw and reaching down between your bodies and finding your clit. Movements start in gentle, slow circles at first, blatantly teasing you, pushing you until you’re as pent up as he is.

This—this level of fervor, devotion from him? The hunger? It’s a fucking drug, and you can’t get enough of it. Feels like you’ve been searching for it your whole life. 

You didn’t even know you were, until now. With your ex, you thought you had it all, chalking up your passing glances and envy towards other couples to be ’unrealistic standards’. You don’t know what they’re like behind closed doors, you’d tell yourself, an echo of what he pumped into your head continuously to lower your expectations.

“Every damn night I thought about how I’d take care of you when I got back. Remembered how you look under me when you come,” he continues, voice thick and heavy now with the weight of his revelation. “Shoulda taken you out on a real date months ago.”

You’re listening to the best of your ability, which… is rather thin when you’re currently melting on his fingertips working you.

Leon touches you like no one else ever has; perfectly imperfect, still learning your body, but he’s got a real talent for reading your reactions and figuring out when he needs to try something new or change the angle. Sometimes, it’s as if he can identify when something doesn’t work for you quicker than you do.

“Mmmph…” is the best response you can do.

Too focused on fucking his hand and knee, feverishly begging for him to fill you and make you come, clit swollen, your wet heat soaking past the fabric of his pants.

Leon indulges you, sliding his fingers lower, through your folds, coating them in your slick and pressing at your entrance.

He barely slips two fingers in, then pulls back, taunting you.

A loud, shattered whimper tears from you then, as you go slack in defeat, hanging your head forward and panting.

“Leon…”

“Got you all riled up, hmm, sweetheart?”

You claw at his back, forming fists, as you nod into the side of his neck.

“Gonna set you down,” he warns before lowering the palm on your ass still supporting you and his knee, giving you time to find your footing and holding your waist to keep you steady. 

Once you’ve oriented yourself, Leon spins you by your waist and pushes your chest to the wall, caging you in with his upper body.

The second you turn your head to look back, his lips are crashing against yours again, tongue pushing past without waiting for your permission this time.

While your mouth is occupied, you hear the faint sound of metal and slight friction—Leon removing his belt. Then, a quick zipper pull and shuffling of fabric as you feel him drag the front of his pants and boxers down, just enough to free his cock. 

It rests against your ass, hard and thick, twitching in tune with the whines and moans coming from your throat and throbbing when you start to push yourself back into him, begging with your body. He’s weeping at the slit and you can feel it, a taut trail of the viscous slick connecting you briefly before splitting.

“P-please,” you plead, your kiss breaking and leaving a fucking mess of mixed saliva around your mouth. The emptiness of your cunt is near unbearable now. It doesn’t feel right.

It’s been too long without him inside you—your pussy longs to be filled as much as your heart does. 

Leon lines up with your cunt and penetrates you, one inch at a time, still taking care despite how fucking badly you both need this, your bodies shaking, each yearning for the other. How sopping wet your pussy is dulls the slight ache of the stretch and the ecstasy of being filled to your limit swiftly overrides your senses.

“Leon…” You moan his name like a song when he bottoms out in your cunt.

“Christ, you’re so wet,” he groans, “and still so fuckin’ tight.”

Hovering just over your shoulder, his face is so close to yours and his eyes lock onto you so intensely that you can’t maintain constant eye contact. You feel shy, too seen, too much of a fucking mess.

 You let your eyes wander over his features, really taking him in: the hair dangling over his face and covering half an eye, slight scrunch of his nose, and eyebrows pinched. And you wonder why he took an interest in you. How you got this fucking lucky.

It feels like minutes have passed as you observe him everywhere except his eyes, but it must be mere seconds. He’s still not moving.

Soon as you think it, Leon breathes in deep and withdraws until only his tip remains inside. You force yourself to make eye contact again, pupils of his deep blue blown wide. Focused entirely on you.

Then he snaps his hips back into you, harsh, far as you can take him, the moan it draws from him filling the room, your ears, the sound rushing straight between your legs.

You cry out, loud, slamming your eyes and shutting out the world, overwhelmed in every sense as he sets a brutal pace from the get-go. Your body’s torn between the bittersweet friction and the blinding pleasure as he makes minor changes in every thrust until he’s hitting you just right, dick nudging that spongy spot inside you repeatedly, curling your toes and wetting your eyes as you take it.

He’s delivering you all the skill of his adept fingers and the thickness of his cock, and it’s so fucking good you can barely fucking handle it.

“Open your—ngh—eyes, look at me,” Leon chokes out between ragged groans, your pussy wringing the restraint out of him. “Please, look at me—fuck…”

He has one arm around your lower waist, using you as leverage to meet his thrusts, and the other pulls the hair covering your face behind your ear and over your back, baring more of you to him—though the ripples of him pounding into you knock some strands out of place.

You open your eyes halfway and meet his gaze, strained like he’s forcing it because he has to see you. He has to watch you take him, watch all your expressions and hear all your cries that he’s coaxing out of you.

Almost could come simply from the sight of him—sheened with sweat, disheveled, and thoroughly fixated on you.

It snowballs from there. Your throat allows a broken moan to pass, and they keep coming, increasingly louder and unbound, and that breaks something in Leon, too. His thrusts start to falter, stuttering, fucking into you with all the same enthusiasm and force but less and less of the composure.

Fuck, the wet sound of skin on skin from his hips slamming against your ass is straight filth; it tangles in the smell of sex hanging in the air, mixes with it; your whole fucking living room is permanently stained by it. You’ll never be able to walk through here again without the echoes of him pushing you to this wall and how it sounded and smelled and felt.

“N-Not gonna last,” Leon chokes out, “’s too fucking good, but wanna make you—fuck— come for me first...”

The hand not on your waist reaches around and moves between you and the wall, palming your slippery thighs first, caressing your skin and grabbing at you as he makes his way between your legs to cup your mound, eliciting a little yelp from your throat.

Leon’s unsteady hand dives lower and he traces your lips, wrapped so beautifully and tight around his cock, coating his fingers in your slick before reaching your clit.

Stroking your clit in short, fast rubs with a single finger pad rapidly closes the gap. Your legs tremble and your pussy quivers, squeezing his length tighter and tighter as you tense up, vision narrowing—

“Leon…!” you cry, gasping and clenching and impossible pressure building as you’re reaching the precipice. “’S too much—I’m gonna—I-I’m—”

“Come for me,” he orders in a hushed tone, into your ear. “Please, baby, I can’t fuckin’ take it anymore—fuck—”

His voice, commanding and boosted by the utterly indecent squelching noises coming from under you push you closer—your core’s turning inside out, twisting and constricting until you feel like you might fucking burst.

Pure, white pleasure shatters you.

You come together. Moans intertwined, every inhale a desperate pant for air, your bodies relying on the other for support as you fall apart.

You fucking unravel, all the tension and strain releasing at once; your body goes slack, supported only by the arm around your waist and being caught between the wall and Leon. His body falters, barely holding himself up with one shaky arm and unsteady legs. He fills you in hot, wet spurts, body trembling and cock pulsing; your cunt’s clamped down on him, contracting and releasing, milking him for all he’s got until you’re stuffed and it drips down your thigh.

You’ll have to distract yourself, but that’s easier said than done.

Already, you’re mourning his loss, both in your bed and between your thighs, thinking of last night. This morning, rather. 

He fucked you slow, outside in the cool summer air. By then, you were pleasantly tipsy, perfectly dosed to lose the right amount of inhibition. The alcohol made you more emotional, and that reverberated through your body; every slight touch, every gentle stroke amplified, aching, and raw in the best way.

Neither of you spent a single thought on anything except each other. How he felt as he filled you, stretching you with his size. How he looked in your eyes when he came and said your name in a broken moan. Nothing else existed. No job, no neighbors.

Then he did what he does best. He carried you up the stairs to your room and laid you on the edge of the bed before diving between your legs and kissing you there, drinking and tasting every part of you like he was on the verge of dying from thirst.

You wanted to reciprocate, you begged him to let you, but he stuck with his denials and insisted that pleasuring you to oblivion was exactly what he wanted for today. It was his dream.

And he did, he pleasured you to absolute oblivion. You can’t remember falling asleep, but you know you were still trying to fight him to let you get on your knees for him when you passed out. Part of you wishes he hadn’t taken you to bed so you could’ve given him a proper goodbye. 

It’ll be okay.

Because you accomplished what mattered most: making every single moment you spent together count. You knew by the time he’d wiped you off his chin that his time to leave was approaching fast.

So, maybe his denial was for the best. You don’t want your first time worshipping him to be rushed. You only wish you’d done it sooner.

You receive a phone call midday from an unknown number while sitting on the couch lazily and watching trash TV. Before, you always ignored numbers you don’t recognize, but now you answer immediately. You wish for it to be him calling, despite being very aware of how unlikely that is.

Doesn’t hurt for a girl to have some hope, right?

It’s not him, but the conversation gives you butterflies anyway.

Before his departure, Leon arranged for a contractor to reach out to you and schedule to fix the window lock in one of your spare rooms. It’s the first time you’re hearing of it; he hadn’t said a thing, and you never noticed him checking the locks! It must’ve been the other night when you were occupied with picking out the perfect pair of lingerie… and who knows how long it’s been like that. He’s probably the first one to check it since you bought the place, because you and your ex certainly weren’t.

He’s so fucking—ugh. Perfect. 

Leon treats you like a fucking princess. He could exert power over you that you’ve never allowed a man to have before. It’s terrifying (and moderately embarrassing, actually).

You’d assuredly call it too good to be true if it was anyone else; part of you is waiting for the other shoe to drop. The rest of you is so confident in him and in this, smitten, you rarely have room to contemplate it deeply. And something about him is just different. You can recognize the distinction between Leon’s princess treatment and your ex’s mockery of it.

You’ll ride the high of that little phone call for the rest of the evening.  It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t directly him. It gives you the motivation you need to get out of the house, so you get yourself dressed, do your makeup, pop your earbuds in and make your way to the bus stop. Most of your time is spent running errands: restocking the fridge and stopping by the bank, super fun.

As you’re about to head home, though, you pass by a local clothing store you’ve often passed by before and decide to treat yourself.

It’s the type of place outside of your normal budget range, but not egregiously so, so you figure if you keep your selection light, then what can it hurt? Money’s not exceedingly abundant, but you’re comfortable; you can spare a little extra for a worthwhile cause.

Oh, and you’ve been saving up all of Leon’s bar tips for something fun. You kept storing them away, intending on treating yourself after the breakup but without a defined plan, so what better time than now? And it’ll give you an excuse for why you consider what he’ll think of every piece you look at.

One of the shirts you like has a plunging neckline you’re normally not confident enough to wear. The pants you pick up make your ass look fantastic and you can imagine the look on his face when he sees you in them—he never hides that. Doesn’t try to, but even if he did, he’d be terrible at it, it’s evident. 

Although it’s the least revealing, you find a tight-fitting long sleeve black shirt that reminds you of the one he wore, and that one is your personal favorite. It’s like you’re matching, in a way, even if it is subtle and not like wearing shirts that have the same distinct design. The fact that it holds your boobs up wonderfully without a bra is a nice bonus.

Satisfied after having done something useful with your day, as soon as you get home you shed your clothes and jump into something more comfortable, then decide to finish your night with a movie on the couch, cider in hand. It’s too early to go to bed and this is a good way to keep your mind occupied.

Or it would be, if you didn’t fall asleep halfway through. Despite sleeping in, you stayed up so late that you got little sleep.

You wake up to your phone vibrating wildly. Blinking and wiping the accumulated sand from your eyes, you glance at the TV, and realize you must’ve fallen asleep during the movie.

Bzzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz.

Fuck, yeah, your phone—oh fuck, what if it’s Leon? It’s coming from somewhere underneath you; you frantically dig for it, terrified you’ll miss it. What if you have to call back and it’s already too late, all because you couldn’t keep your eyes open and get to the phone in time?

Before your mind runs too rampant, you find it buried between the cushions under a pillow and answer.

“Leon?” 

You say it before you can stop it and since you skipped right past the caller ID in your haste to pick the phone up, you pray it really is him on the other end.

“Hey,” he says; his voice is hushed like he’s making an effort to be quiet, but it’s not quite a whisper. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“Oh, it’s for the best,” you reply. “I guess I fell asleep on the couch… not the best for my shoulders.”

The calmness in your voice is absolutely not reflective of the way the butterflies in your stomach seem to have tripled their population and each one has doubled in size since the call with the contractor. 

“You must’ve needed it.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. So you’re…?”

“Done for the night.” He pauses. “Not sure if I’ll have the chance to talk to you again while I’m out here, though.”

“That’s okay. I understand.”

You don’t allow yourself to get hung up on the second half of his statement, because he fucking called you. That’s what matters.

He told you he may not be able to talk to you at all, and here he is, calling you on night one. He thought of you while you’re apart, and that simple knowledge is more than enough.

If only you could know what he’s out there doing. You try not to let your mind run rampant with possibilities, but it’s difficult. He could be  security for someone powerful and be constantly active but rarely engaged. He could be fighting in a literal war! He could be anyone doing anything, and that’s what’s hard to wrap your mind around. He’s given you so little to work with.

You remind yourself he’s been doing this—whatever this is—for a long time before you, and he’s still here, still confident. 

“Anytime for anything,” he says, echoing yesterday. “You’ll be routed. Don’t hesitate.”

“Okay. I don’t want to cause any trouble for you…”

“It’s no trouble. I want you to be taken care of.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of,” you tell him, but your tone is clear that you’re not upset about him doing this. You don’t want him to feel like he has to. 

“I know,” he acknowledges.

He understands you. It’d be scary how well he’s already come to understand you inside and out if it didn’t bring you so much comfort.

“Are you alone?”

“No. Got a partner.”

That makes you feel better, and you audibly exhale in relief. Someone’s got his back. Even if he doesn’t need it, or doesn’t think he does.

“I’m glad you called.”

“Yeah. Me too.” 

You both sit there on the line in strangely comfortable silence for a minute, like you’re thinking the same thing: it’s time to hang up, but neither of you want to be the one to do it, unsure how long it’ll be before you get to talk again.

He told you a few days or a week, but he also confessed that it’s always uncertain. It could be multiple weeks. He could’ve been giving a conservative estimate to placate you. Or himself.

Or maybe you’re being paranoid. You’ve been that a lot lately.

“Need to go,” he says solemnly, breathing it to life. “Make sure you fall asleep in a proper bed this time, okay?”

“I will. Stay safe out there, Leon.”

You smile into the phone and hope it somehow transmits to him as you hang up.

The clock reads 2 A.M. Seems late for him to be finishing up, but what do you know? You just hope he got some real sleep first.

You speed run your bedtime routine and manage to crawl under the sheets in about twenty minutes. You give your phone one last check before rolling over, and to your surprise, there’s a text waiting for you.

Leon: Sorry for ringing so late. Sleep well. You: anytime for anything goes both ways, you know You: thank you for fixing my window btw ❤️  

His instant response all but confirms your curiosity on if he’s still lying in bed thinking of you like you’re thinking of him.

Leon: I worry about you. You: i’m worrying about you right now You: and whatever you’re doing out there You: please be safe Leon: I’m always safe. 

Thankfully, Carissa invites you out the following evening, and you’re grateful to have something to keep your mind occupied. You haven’t seen her for awhile, either, mostly spending time these last few months with your work friends. It put distance between you and your ex.

Your shared friends did not pick sides. Neither of you asked them to.

The first couple hours are exactly what you need. God, it feels good to see everyone again, to reconnect more meaningfully with that part of your life. You drink, you catch up on one another’s lives, reminisce on good times while conveniently leaving out any mention of him.

You play darts, a game you’re actually decent at, and you leave them in the dust. Normally, you aren’t this good, but the night’s given you confidence. And a distraction.

“Hey,” comes an unsettling, familiar voice from behind you while you stand at the bar.

Turning around with your drink in hand, you see him. Your ex, Aiden, who you’ve successfully avoided for nearly four months. Until now.

“Hey,” you force out. Beat out of you by the social obligation.

This is your fault, you think. You should’ve asked Carissa if he’d be here, and you didn’t. You’ve spent too much time living in this little bubble of protection that you almost forgot he even exists, let alone lives here and shares a friend group with you. You hate to admit that the ignorant, avoidant side of you disregarded the possibility, tried to file it away; justifying it as the city’s big enough and his new apartment’s sufficiently far, so you probably wouldn’t run into each other.

Countless undesirable memories threaten to emerge and ruin your composure. You haven’t been taking your anxiety medication for a few weeks either and that’s not doing you any favors; in your efforts to tamp down the poison, your mind blanks and you go rigid instead, staring directly ahead at him and forgetting how to be a person.

He says your name and you snap back to present, lightheaded and vision blurred.

“You okay?” he asks in that sweet, tender-hearted voice of his; the one that always kept you coming back for more.

“Y-yeah, sorry,” you answer, tripping over your words and beating yourself up internally to get your shit together. Act fucking normal. “It’s good to see you. You look well.”

“Wish I could say the same. You look pale. Have you been taking your meds?”

You hate the ease in which he knows what plagues you—part of it, anyway—and how he falls back into that old persona. The concern in his voice that sounds so genuine. It probably is genuine, at least as genuine anything he says can possibly be, but it doesn’t fucking change what happened. Who he is when he’s grown too comfortable.

“Yeah,” you lie, but you quickly realize you must not have done so smoothly, because he’s giving you that look. He knows. How is he so fucking good at that?

“How’s your mom doing?”

“Uh, she’s great. She’s looking for a job again.” You pause and glance at your phone; no notifications, of course, but the smallest part of you had some hope that you’d see Leon’s name. It’d make you feel better. Probably. “I really need to run to the restroom, though. Sorry,” you add, excusing yourself.

You’re stumbling away before he has a chance to respond, dipping through a crowd of people and speed walking your way to the restroom, located down a far corridor.

Relief washes over you when you see it’s vacant and you hurry yourself inside, fingers shaking as you lock the door.

“Holy shit, get it together,” you whisper to yourself. It’s probably not the best idea, but you paid for it, so you down the drink in your hand.

Why are you having such an extreme reaction to this; a normal conversation with him? It’s been months! You’re seeing someone new. You didn’t think this was all behind you, but the times you thought about how it’d go if you saw him again, you foolishly painted yourself too confident. Tried to hype yourself up, and made it worse, because now you’re not prepared.

You dig your phone back out of your purse and unlock it.

You automatically navigate to your text conversation with Leon, tapping on the message box and bringing up the keyboard—to say what, exactly? Your mind had brought you here without a thought, deciding you need to talk to him, but what is there to say? You haven’t talked to him about your ex. Hell, he’s not even available for you to talk to, so you’ll just be sending a message into the void for him to see later at some unspecified time when he still might not be able to text you back.

God, your brain is racing at a million miles a minute and you really just need to fucking calm down. You haven’t been this chaotic for weeks. 

You splash cold water from the sink on your face and sit on the toilet.

I’m always safe is the last thing Leon sent you.

You hope that’s true now.

I fucking miss you, you write, and then you clear it. You do miss him, but it’s only been a day, and might that sound clingy when you’ve already said you’ll miss him like, what, a thousand times in the last twenty-four hours?

Got dragged out to a bar, but it’s no fun without you, is what you write next and once again clear. 

Are you thinking of me as much as I think of you?

Too much.

What are we?

No, no. Definitely not that. No.

You wish this was different. Wish he wasn’t on a job and you could  call him up and ask for a fake favor, or ask him to take you out on the bike again. Take your mind off things; you feel better when he’s around. Or, maybe…

You: when you get back, i expect you to take me on a proper date 😘

You honestly don’t know what gave you the courage to send that in your current mental crisis, but it’s off before you can stop it. All you can do is wait. 

Do you really have any reason to believe Leon will say no, though? On first thought you don’t think so, but… is a year long enough to process the death of your wife and start dating again? Would he prefer to keep it casual—is that why he asked you to think about what you want, perhaps, so if there’s a mismatch he can stop this early?

Damn it. You just want to talk to him. 

And you should probably get back on your meds.

It’s time to get your mind busy again. Or that’s what you tell yourself, anyway, but after you exit the restroom and your eyes find Carissa, you can’t stop yourself.

“You didn’t tell me Aiden would be here,” you confront her, voice louder than you meant for it to be.

“He wasn’t supposed to be,” Carissa answers, “but is it really that big of a deal?”

You can only get so upset at her. You missed your chance to tell your shared friends the truth of what happened; he got to them first, and you waited too long to try to fix it. 

Worse, it’s not like he blamed it all on you or portrayed you a certain way. He’d actually been quite generous his depiction of you… of course, he left out nearly everything he’d done that made you leave, but at least you didn’t have to fight to redeem your reputation. To anyone else, it registered as a normal breakup between two people who realized they weren’t compatible.

So, you shake your head.

“Aren’t you dating someone new now, anyway?”

“No.” You consider it further, then add, “I-I don’t know if I’d call it dating. How’d you hear, anyway?”

It might be a half-truth, but it is the truth. You don’t feel comfortable calling this dating yet, even if you are pretty sure Leon’s response to your latest text will be an enthusiastic yes.

“Sawyer saw you two together at Daisy’s birthday.”

“Ah. Yeah. Does Aiden know?”

“Not sure if anyone’s told him.”

“Hopefully not,” you say.

“It’d break his heart.”

Oh, fuck off, is what you’d like to respond with, and you almost do. Your spinning head has to swim through your impulsive thoughts like a fucking mental mini-game and at last, you land on a more composed, “He broke mine first.”

It’s not wrong. You were together for just shy of a decade; hell, you were high school sweethearts once. When the two of you reconnected in your twenties, you truly thought it meant forever.

Guess that’s why you stayed so long. Looked past or outright excused everything he fucking did until you had a moment of clarity and recognized that you were on the verge of crossing a line. One that would gradually push you to become as destructive as him. One that couldn’t be uncrossed.

“Won’t be offended if you want to leave early,” Carissa says.

The burden’s on you. You are responsible and you have to damage your pride if you want to escape this.

The rising frustration gives you the strength you need to deal with seeing him again. You won’t give in, you won’t let him have power over you this night. And Carissa’s right, you’re seeing someone else now (or whatever you want to call it), and Aiden is no longer your problem.

“Nah. ’S fine, surprised me is all.”

Maybe the last drink settling in is finally doing what you asked it to do. Giving you courage. 

So you take advantage. You’re on the edge of being drunk, but in control. Mostly. That’ll be your last one, you decide.

It’s petty of you, but you chat up as many men as you can. Make sure you’re in eyesight of Aiden, but you never dare to look back at him. You’re interested in absolutely zero of them; you only have eyes for Leon, now. You do question your behavior, but you’re unofficial still, right? And this is just a show. It’s fine.

Doesn’t take long to get his attention. If you were sober, maybe you would’ve considered this potential—likely—consequence. That naïve side of you hoped he’d simply watch and think about what he lost.

“A game?” Aiden asks, gesturing towards the empty pool table. “Just one.”

It’s not a good idea. 

But he’s been nice and respectful to you all night, giving you space, like maybe he actually feels remorse for what happened. You’re the one that’s been… somewhat unhinged. And naïvely, you think that maybe a single, simple game of pool could give you both some closure for the evening. So when he holds out his hand, you put yours in it and allow him to drag you over to the table.

You give him a half-smile as you say, “Sure.”

You’ve never been good at pool, but Aiden likes to pretend you’re not. He doesn’t say anything, but you know he plays a little worse with you to make sure you’re not completely left in the dust. Despite his best efforts to make this not obvious, you’ve seen him play with others and how easily he can destroy most people.

After a few rounds with surface level small talk, the conversation shifts.

“You seem happy,” he comments as he slides past you to take his turn, your bodies briefly brushing against one another, and his voice rings close to your ear.

“I guess,” you answer dismissively, watching him easily sink two balls. “Didn’t you imply I look unwell earlier?”

“You looked like you were about to pass out. But after seeing you all night, you seem… different. Better.”

You say nothing while you focus on your shot.

“I am better,” you snip back as your target drops into the pocket.

You want to tell him it’s because you’re being treated better than you ever knew was possible—and you would be justified to do so!—but the pathetic look in his eyes won’t let you do it.

You aren’t like him. Never will be.

“I always liked that fight in you.”

You miss your next shot.

Did you, though? you think. Didn’t you like me best once I’d lost my spark?

It only takes a couple minutes for him to finish the game out. It was close, but only because he let you keep up.

“I should get back to my friends,” you say with a polite smile on your face. “Thanks for the game.”

Overall, the night went well, you thought. Ready to go home and move past this part of your life, you step outside and call for a car. Too late to catch a bus.

Another thing you should’ve anticipated, though, is him following you out.

“Need a ride?” Aiden asks.

“No. Thanks,” you answer, “but I’ve already called an Uber.”

“It was good to see you.”

“Yeah.” You swallow heavily. “You too.”

And it’s half true. It was good to see him, and you don’t like that. He’s always been good at manipulating you, and you have to wonder—is that what he’s done tonight, or is this real? Has he actually started to work on himself in your absence? Is he taking you seriously for once?

It’s not your concern either way. That part of your life is over. But you know that somewhere deep, that guy you fell so madly in love with all those years ago still exists, and you hope that he can someday be that again. That he’s on that path. Not for you, but for his own sake. No matter how much you loathe what he’s done to you, you can’t help but wish him the best.

Whether that’s a choice you’re truly making or one you’ve been conditioned to make, you don’t know anymore. If you don’t have to see him again, does it matter? If Leon takes you on that date, does it matter?

“Can I wait here with you?” Aiden asks, reminding you that he hasn’t left.

You glance at him and for a brief moment, you see the younger version of him from high school. The one that asked to wait outside with you after your first prom until your mom arrived.

It was the first time you two spoke. You remember being embarrassed at how obvious it was that you’d been crying and how pathetic you must’ve looked sitting there with your terribly-done makeup smeared down your face.

You sit there with him in silence until your ride drives up, like you did back then. Aiden holds the car door open for you as you settle in.

As you muster up one last look at him, hoping that you can properly move on and think of him like this instead of what he’d become in your time together, he bends forward and cups one of your cheeks with his palm. 

Then his mouth finds yours. 

He kisses you like he used to. Reminiscent of the way he kissed you on your second first date—the one you had when you rekindled the relationship as adults.

He catches you off guard and his touch is so familiar, so warm, his thumb caressing your cheek as he moves his lips over yours and floods your brain with sweet memories… and you kiss him back.

Aiden pulls away shortly after you reciprocate and faster than you can process what just happened, he’s closing the door. Your ride drives away, and you leave him behind.