Nulli

Shower thoughts….. 🌞 tbh i just wanted to sketch his side profile

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"You broke a lot of rules, Price."

"No more rules."

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The video game screen trend but with Ghost! I love both versions :D

Judgmental Ga(y)ze (¬ ¬ )

I am legit so bad at keeping up with posting, I'm sorryyyy (I'll catch up soon!)

you've grown to hate this place, this castle gifted to him for war victories. The halls are barren, the garden yet to bloom. The maids are pleasant, but they keep their distance, as if you'll strike. Maybe your husband is the kind to hit. You wouldn't know.

When he looks at you, it's only in short bursts, his eyes suddenly low. There's a long stretch of silence between you and you consider introducing yourself, but decide against it. He knows who you are.

"The maid is drawing me a bath," he says suddenly and a sick feeling pours over you. This day was always coming, but you aren't sure you're ready to lay under a stranger.

"Am I expected to join?" you ask and his nose crinkles.

"No." He steps back and away. His departure is brisk and driven. You retire for the night by yourself and awake alone. Your husband is set to leave again in a few hours; a few soldiers have already gathered in the front garden.

"Don't you wish to give your new wife a goodbye?" one asks, unaware of your open window. "One night and you've already had your fill? Or has she been filled too much?"

"I refuse to believe she is real!" says another. "What kind of woman has worn down our brute and turned him into a family man? Should we expect a gaggle of children in the upcoming year?"

Your husband growls. "You will leave the poor lamb alone. She suffers enough."

That softens you. Just a bit. You rise from you bed and go to the window, leaning out enough to catch the men's attention.

"Until next time."

He watches you, expression caught between more emotions that you can count, then turns his gaze back to his mount. The two men share a look, wide, wide grins on their faces.

(he must have lovers, you imagine. He hasn't touched you; he must be getting his fill with women in other cities, maybe women he actually loves. these are trinkets to keep his wife amused while she wastes away.)

none of the gifts come with a note.

one day a bolt of fabric arrives, yellow and ornate. It's only a small amount, not enough to make a dress, but enough for you to unravel and admire. It's beautiful and clearly expensive, golden threads woven into flowers and vines. Your father was a silk merchant; while you never wore the silks, you can recognize their quality.

the following week, the delicious man rides up on his steeds and presents a letter. The handwriting is rough. Knights that come from the lower class do not have the schooling of highborns; as fair as you know, your husband was born a street rat and worked his way theough the ranks to glory.

-I have been told by my secund that I did not send you enuf fabric for a gown. I do not no these things.

The spelling mistakes screw a smile out of you.

"Wait a moment." You stop the boy before he can leave. "I wish to send something back."

You take your time and use your finest calligraphy, tucking your note in with a handkerchief you had spent the week on. It's fine work-- one that would please even the hardest of hearts.

-Dearest husband,

Please take this handkerchief as a sign of my thoughts.

Your patient and thoughtful wife

A second letter arrives within the week.

-are you cros with me? A scrap of fabric for a scrap of fabric?

The response is what makes you cross. The poor messenger boy has to stay the night while you percolate over a response.

-Dearest, sweetest husband,

A handkerchief is a traditional gesture of affection. I have embroidered the edges by hand, with your last name and your roses, and it smells of my perfume. It is a piece of me for you to carry. If you do not appreciate my kindness or if you think it will turn away your lovers, you may return it. I do not wish it wasted on you.

Your less than patient and less than adoring wife

The poor boy scatters off in the morning and returns a few days later.

tortured wife,

I wil cherish it. I am sory, pour lam. I wil do better.

you were desperate. short on rent because your siblings couldn’t be bothered to return the money they borrowed from you after you’d been pressured by your parents to just give them what they wanted.

showing up to work monday morning with a orgasm hangover, feeling like you just got through a micro-heat. dropping your bag at your desk and booting up your computer to start running through updates and catching up on the emails you'd been ignoring. glancing at the clock every so often to see how late your least favorite coworker is.

you took multiple showers before coming in but you feel like the smell of that pheromone spray is still lingering on your skin. you keep sniffing your shirt, your finger tips, trying to figure out what you missed when you were cleaning up.

it keeps scratching at the back of your mind, subtly embarrassing to think that someone might ask you about the lingering stink of synthetic sex, it's weird that it doesn't have that slight chemical edge that most synthetic pheromones have.

the chair across from you scrapes its plastic wheels against the floor as your coworker sits down heavily and suddenly the subtle scent you'd been catching has increased 100 fold. enough to have you jerking your head towards the smell, breathing deeply (rudely) through your nose as he glances at you in the middle of setting his coffee down.

"What?" he asks, clearly annoyed at your staring. gunpowder oolong and licorice stuff your nose, something soft and milky coating your tongue just at the end of the scent. the part aftertaste that synthetic sprays can never quite capture.

your mouth dries.

"nothing." you hastily look back at your computer screen and hear him inhale. your eyes dart to him, his lips just barely crooking up at the corners.

"you using a new perfume?" your skin feels like it's burning, as you lie through your teeth.

his voice has the same timbre, the same measured way of speaking, purposeful, slightly bored. you'd fawned at every shred of dirty talk, fumbled over yourself to comply with his indecent requests ("don't touch yourself, not yet, I want to get a better look at you, spread your legs a wider, that's it, good.") and it had been exactly the same tone you'd called annoyingly bossy to your friends.

his hands are the same. the dark hair that dusts his knuckles, the outlined veins, you'd watched his fingers curl around his cock more times than you could count, pressed your own hand to your throat and pretended it was his, traced along your sex and imagined it was those same hands. the same hands that you glared at when he tapped your copy edits and told you the red marks meant take out not reword however you want.

his mouth... you try not to stare, try not to pick out the slightly chapped lines of it, try not to remember the video you'd paused and rewatched over and over, the way he'd pushed up his mask to lick his own come off his fingers, and you'd stared at his mouth in awe wishing you could get more, wishing you could catch a glimpse of his tongue to fuel your fantasies.

you hated his smile, that self serving, smarmy smile that tugged at just the corners of his crooked mouth and made you want to punch him in the face. the one he only flashed when he knew it would piss you off. the one that seemed permanently fixed to his face every time you glanced his way.

and his scent, the one you'd spent hours lost in over the weekend, the one that had made your head spin and your eyes roll. the one that you told your work-friends made your nose itch, that you blamed every sneeze on. the one that makes you sniff your shirt again when he gets up to go do whatever the fuck he does when he isn't sitting at his desk tormenting you, just to make sure the spray isn't still lingering on you.

it's so hard to tell when the whole desk seems to reek of him.

something else you've just noticed.