dj kurt kunkle

You didn’t want to lie to yourself — the moment he stepped inside, you genuinely thought he was going to rob the place. He wore an oversized uniform that looked a bit worn around the edges, his hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and he was casting a frantic, darting gaze around the room. 

It was the kind of nervous look that usually screamed trouble. He certainly didn’t look like the usual crowd of quiet college students or elderly neighbors who came in to look around the poetry section. 

You instinctively straightened your posture, keeping your eyes glued to his movements as he took a few hesitant, shaky steps further into the shop.

But then, he caught you looking; and instead of turning away or darting down an aisle to hide, he walked straight toward the desk. 

When he finally spoke, all your defenses immediately crumbled. His voice was soft, carrying a tone so genuinely polite and deeply nervous that a little part of your heart instantly softened.

"Um, excuse me," he said, clearing his throat and looking down at his shoes before meeting your eyes. "I was wondering... could you maybe help me find a good book? A recommendation, I mean. I’m a bit lost."

You blinked, caught entirely off guard by the sharp contrast between his intimidating, defensive posture and his gentle voice.

"Sure, I can absolutely help you with that," you said, offering a small, reassuring smile to ease the obvious tension in his shoulders. "What kind of genre do you usually like to read?"

He blinked back at you, his eyes widening slightly as if you had just asked him to solve a complex mathematical equation.

"G-genre?" he stammered, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. "Oh. Wow. Okay. To be honest, I’ve never really thought about it like that before. I mean, I know there are a lot of different genres out there, obviously. There’s romance, history, mystery, biography... but I’ve just never stopped to ask myself, ‘Hey, what genre do you actually like?’ You know? It’s kind of a big question when you think about it. I like a lot of random things, I guess. But then again, maybe there’s something I absolutely hate? Probably—"

He was talking faster and faster, his words tripping over one another as his hands came out of his pockets to gesture wildly in the air. You couldn’t help but realize right then and there that he was one of those people. The kind of person who gets so incredibly nervous or excited that they just keep talking and talking, and you have to physically step in to stop them before they go on for hours. 

It was almost endearing.

"How about horror?" you asked, gently cutting him off with a soft, amused laugh.

He stopped mid-sentence, his mouth staying slightly open for a second before his brain fully processed your words. He tilted his head, genuinely thinking it over.

"Horror?" he repeated, the tension leaving his face. "Yeah. Yeah, actually, I like horror. That sounds pretty good."

You smiled and walked out from behind the safety of the counter, stepping into the narrow aisles of the library. The space between the tall, wooden bookshelves was tight, making every movement feel just a bit more intimate. 

You turned your head back over your shoulder, gesturing for him to follow you. He nodded quickly and, with a slightly clumsy scramble, stepped right into place behind you.

You could feel his physical presence just a step away. He was tall, and his frame made the narrow aisle feel even smaller than it usually did. The air between you felt a bit charged, a strange but not unpleasant tension growing as you guided him deeper into the shadows of the fiction section.

"Let’s see what we have here..." you murmured, running your fingertips lightly along the dusty spines of the books.

The familiar texture of paper and leather usually calmed you down, but right now, you were acutely aware of him watching your every move. You could hear his quiet breathing right behind you.

Suddenly, a loud, heavy sound broke the silence of the place.

You jumped slightly and spun around. 

A thick book was lying flat on the floorboards between the two of you. He was already frantically bending down, his face flushing a soft crimson that reached all the way to his ears.

He picked up the book with trembling hands and shoved it back onto the shelf. He didn’t even check if it was the right spot before burying his hands deep into his uniform pockets again, looking exactly like a kid who had just been caught breaking a valuable vase. 

"I’m sorry."

You had to bite the inside of your cheek to contain a genuine smile. 

His sudden embarrassment was incredibly sweet, completely shattering any lingering awkwardness or suspicion you had left. 

You reached past him, your shoulder brushing lightly against his, and pulled a specific book from the top shelf. You turned and extended it toward him.

"Try this one," you said softly. "It has horror, suspense, a bit of science fiction... a little bit of everything, really."

He cautiously took his hands out of his pockets and accepted the book from you. As his fingers brushed against yours, a small, sudden jolt of awareness ran through your veins. 

He held the book up to his face, scanning the cover and frowning slightly as he took in his first impression.

"The Body Snatcher," he read the title out loud. His voice trailed off, a highly skeptical look appearing on his face. He looked up at you. "A bit creepy, don’t you think?"

You shrugged your shoulders playfully, leaning back against the sturdy bookshelf and crossing your arms.

"Well, if it’s a bit too much for you, I can always take you over to the children’s section," you teased, dropping your voice to a whisper. "They have some really great picture books over there. Very safe."

He looked up from the cover, and a wide, genuine smile broke across his face. You couldn’t deny it — from the very first moment he smiled, it had a strange, indescribable effect on you. Your stomach did a sudden little flip, and the small aisle suddenly felt much warmer than it had a few minutes ago.

"No, no," he laughed softly, holding the book a bit tighter against his chest. "I’ll take this one. If it’s okay with you, I mean."

"Perfect," you replied, leading the way back to the front of the library and stepping behind the desk. "I hope you enjoy it, uhm..." You paused intentionally waiting for him to fill in the blank.

"Travis," he said quickly, reaching across the counter and extending his right hand toward you.

"Travis," you repeated. The name fitted him perfectly. You smiled, telling him your own name as you reached out to take his hand.

His grip was warm and firm, but instead of a quick, polite business shake, your hands stayed joined a second longer than necessary. Neither of you seemed to want to break the contact first. Travis’s smile widened, a soft, knowing look appearing in his eyes that made your heart beat just a bit faster.

"I’ll see you in a month, then," you said, finally letting go of his hand, though you already felt the sudden absence of his warmth. "That’s usually how long it takes people to finish that one."

"I’ll probably be back around here way before that," Travis replied smoothly, his eyes locked onto yours with a newfound confidence.

You nodded, a sudden wave of happy anticipation washing over you. 

"Deal."

"Deal," he repeated with a final nod. With a lingering wave, he turned around and walked toward the exit.

Your eyes followed him every single step of the way. You watched him push open the door, the bell chiming once more as he stepped out onto the busy sidewalk. The very moment the door clicked shut behind him, you let out a long, heavy sigh, only just realizing that you had been holding your breath the entire time.

—

These days, the book discussions between the two of you have become a regular habit.

"I just don’t know if I really get the motive, you know?" Travis has been talking for twenty minutes straight about Frankenstein, the book you recommended to him just last week.

You hold out your hand, and he smoothly passes you a heavy hardcover volume, his large, calloused fingers securing the base of the wooden rolling ladder while you climb up a few steps to slide it back into its proper place on the high shelf. 

This has become your routine. Every single Friday, right before he starts his night shift at the local storage facility, he walks through the front doors of the library to pick up a new recommendation.

He took his sweet time reading the first books.

But lately? He devours them faster and faster, his reading speed accelerating until it becomes completely impossible not to see him crossing that threshold at 5:00 PM sharp, eyes scanning the room until they land on you, eagerly waiting for his next acquisition.

"What exactly is it that you don’t understand?" you ask him, looking down from the ladder and extending your hand again to silently ask for another book from the pile.

Travis shrugs his broad shoulders, turning around slightly to grab the next book and handing it up to you. As the physical exchange happens, your fingers brush against his. The contact lasts for only a second, but a sudden spark of heat shoots straight up your arm.

"I don’t know. The why of it all," he mutters, crossing his thick arms over his chest and leaning his weight back against the side of the ladder. 

The way the material of his uniform stretches tightly across his broad chest and biceps whenever he moves is the kind of sight that, if you stare or think about it for too long, makes a deep blush creep up your neck. 

"Why create the monster in the first place? Why go through all that trouble just to abandon it?"

You smile, shaking your head gently as you slide the book into its perfect, tight slot on the shelf. 

"You lack ambition, Travis."

He frowns, his dark eyes intently tracking the subtle movements of your body as you begin your descent down the wooden steps of the ladder. 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

When your feet finally touch the solid linoleum floor, your body is positioned directly in front of him. The space between you is incredibly small, close enough that you can smell his scent. 

You shrug your shoulders playfully.

"It’s about power. It’s about feeling like God, even," you murmur. You reach out and grab a fresh stack of heavy books from a nearby cart, your knuckles intentionally grazing against the side of his stomach. "Haven’t you ever wanted to have total, absolute power over something?" you ask him, your voice dropping into a teasing, playful whisper close to his face.

You turn on your heels, your hips swaying just a fraction more than usual as you walk away toward the classic romance section.

Travis stands frozen for a few seconds, his gaze completely locked onto your hips as you walk away from him. He pulls himself away from the ladder, his heavy work boots thudding softly against the floor as he follows you down the narrow, dimly lit aisle of the library stacks.

"I mean... yeah... I guess so," he says, his voice sounding a bit thick, a trace of confusion and growing arousal coloring his tone.

"What do you mean, 'I guess so'?" you ask, turning back to face him and gesturing with your chin for him to pick up another stack of returned books from the bottom shelf to bring along.

He groans softly but complies, bending down. As he does, the hem of his dark work jacket pulls up a few inches, exposing a strip of skin and the dark elastic band of his boxers. He lifts the heavy stack with an effortless grunt, straightening up and following you deeper into the maze of bookshelves.

"I don’t know," Travis mutters, looking down at the books in his arms. "I guess when I was in prison, that was when I felt that need the most. To have control over something. Anything. Over my own life. And I just couldn’t have it."

You let out a soft, sympathetic sound, reaching out to take one of the books from his arms to slide it into a shelf. Travis drops the rest of the stack onto the floor beside his boots. 

For a guy who can talk your ear off about anything, he rarely ever mentions his time behind bars. You never want to pry or push him too hard, but you genuinely appreciate the tiny, rare pieces of information he occasionally lets slip.

"Still, sometimes the desperate need for power can lead straight to your downfall," you remark, carefully aligning the spines of the books on the shelf.

Travis lets out a low, appreciative whistle, leaning his back against the opposite bookshelf, his entire body turned toward you, watching your hands work. 

"Damn. That’s deep."

You smile, casting a quick glance over your shoulder at him before shrugging. 

"But it’s the truth."

He bites his lower lip, trying and failing to hide the broad smile pulling at his mouth, and nodding in agreement.

A comfortable, heavy silence settles between the two of you for a few minutes. The small local library is practically dead, just minutes away from closing up for the night. At this hour, the place is completely deserted. There aren’t even any late-night students lingering around to look for last-minute research books. 

Travis shifts his weight, glancing down at his phone. He’s supposed to leave for his shift in about half an hour.

"So..." Travis starts, his voice dropping an octave. He steps closer, his large hand reaching out as his fingers gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. He tilts his head down, trying to catch your gaze while you desperately try to focus on organizing the books. "About our date tomorrow..."

You smile, raising your eyebrows as you finally turn your head to look at him.

"You’re calling that a date?"

His brow furrows, though his expression remains thoroughly playful. 

"It isn’t?"

You let out a soft laugh. "Travis, you invite me to go to a crowded bar with your friends. That is definitely not a date.

Travis rolls his eyes, a dramatic sigh escaping his lips. 

“Oh, come on, you’ve gotta be a little more flexible than that. Things nowadays don’t work like they do in those old books you love so much. What’s it called? Order and Prejudice?”

"Pride and Prejudice," you correct him immediately, reaching out to give his broad shoulder a firm, playful shove.

He laughs, a deep, rumbling sound that vibrates right in his chest. 

"Whatever. Same difference."

You roll your eyes, turning away to walk toward the next section of shelves.

But his large, warm hands reach out, wrapping firmly around your waist from behind. With a gentle tug, he turns your body completely around to face him. 

Startled, you place your palms flat against his chest, feeling the steady thumping of his heart beneath the thick fabric of his uniform.

"Let’s have a date right now, then," he murmurs, his eyes locking onto yours.

You laugh, completely astonished by his sudden boldness. 

"What?"

"Yeah. Seriously. Come on," Travis urges, his hands sliding slightly up and down the sides of your waist, over your shirt, swaying you gently from side to side in a tiny, slow-motion dance. "If you don’t think going out with my buddies counts as a real date, then let’s just have our own date. Right here. Right now." His eyes go down to your mouth before snapping back up. "We can order some greasy food, sit on the floor, and just talk..."

You bite your inner cheek to fight back a growing smile, tilting your head to the side. 

"Travis, you literally have to go to work."

He clicks his tongue against his teeth, waving his hand in the air as if the job meant absolutely nothing to him. 

"I can show up late. Nobody cares over there. That storage is a ghost town and boring as hell. It can survive without its night watchman for a couple of hours."

You place your hands against his chest again, giving him a gentle, firm push to create some distance. 

"I already have plans tonight, Travis. I’m sorry." 

You turn back around, picking up the final stack of books from the cart and walking toward the isolated, shadowy section at the very back of the library where the last few shelves need to be filled.

Travis lets out a heavy, frustrated sigh. 

He rubs his large hands aggressively over his face, his boots scraping against the floor as he storms after you.

"You know, if this is all just because I’m completely not your type, you can just be straight with me and tell me once and for all," he snaps, his voice suddenly losing all its playful warmth, replaced by a raw, biting edge.

You freeze instantly in your tracks. 

The book you were about to slide into the shelf remains gripped tightly in your hand, suspended mid-air. You slowly turn around to look at him, your heart hammering against your ribs. 

"What?"

Travis lets out a sharp, sarcastic laugh, crossing his arms tightly over his chest as he glares at you. 

"It’s fine. Really. I get it. I’m not like those super smart, intellectual college guys who walk through that front door every day. The ones you probably have incredibly deep, fascinating conversations with. I’m not some rich kid with a bright future, either. Hell, I barely managed to get my life back on track after getting out of prison."

He takes a large, aggressive step forward, closing the distance between you in an instant. Your back hits the hard wooden edge of the bookshelf behind you. You are completely cornered, trapped entirely between the solid wall of shelves and the massive, imposing heat of his body.

"But you can’t keep doing this to me," Travis whispers, his voice trembling with a dangerous mix of anger and desperate desire. He leans down, his face inches from yours. "You can’t keep playing this game where you pull me in, get me all twisted up, and then push me away the second I try to get close. It’s driving me completely insane."

You frown, your breath catching in your throat as you stare into his dark, intense eyes. 

"I don’t do that..."

A bitter, humorless smile touches his lips. He shakes his head slowly, his warm breath fanning across your cheeks. 

When he speaks again, his voice is nothing more than a rough, gravelly whisper right against your skin.

"You know what bothers me the most about that creature in the book?" His eyes drop down to your lips, tracking the way they part slightly. "How fucking pathetic he looks, just begging and searching for a little bit of love."

The air between you feels thick. Your breathing is completely erratic, matching the heavy rise and fall of his chest. 

For a long, agonizing second, neither of you say a word. The tension is a living thing, stretching tight enough to snap.

"Whatever," Travis mutters roughly, his eyes darkening with a flash of defeat.

But before he can even begin to pull his body away from yours, your hand shoots out, your fingers wrapping tightly around the collar of his work jacket. With a sudden burst of desperation, you yank him down and slam your lips hard against his.

Travis lets out a low, guttural growl deep in his throat, the sound vibrating directly into your mouth as he reacts instantly. Any trace of hesitation vanished. His large hands fly to your face, his long fingers tangling into your hair as he tilts your head back and kisses you with a raw, bruising hunger. 

It isn’t a gentle kiss; it’s a desperate, starved collision of teeth and tongues. 

He presses his massive body heavily against yours, pinning you flat against the bookshelf. The wood groans under the shifting weight, and a couple of books rattled on the upper shelves, but neither of you care.

You whimper into his mouth, your hands moving from his collar to grip his broad shoulders, pulling him even closer, if that’s even possible. 

His tongue slides deeply into your mouth, claiming you with an aggressive, possessive rhythm that makes your knees completely weak. 

He moves one of his legs in between yours, making you ride the hard, thick muscle of his leg as he rocks his hips forward. The unmistakable, rock-hard length of his growing erection presses firmly against your aching center, even through the layers of your clothes.

"Fuck," Travis growls, tearing his mouth away from yours for a fraction of a second to breathe. 

His breath is hot and heavy against your wet lips. He drags his mouth down your jawline, his teeth nipping sharply at the sensitive skin of your neck, making you arch your back and gasp loudly into the empty, quiet library. 

"You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. How fucking long I’ve dreamed about tearing your clothes off in this place."

"Travis," you gasp out, your fingers digging into the thick muscles of his back. "The doors... someone might..."

He doesn’t even answer, still pressing his lips against your skin, his hands moving down to grip your waist with a bruising pressure, lifting you slightly so he can grind his crotch harder against yours.

He slides his hands underneath your shirt, his rough, calloused palms scraping against your bare skin, sending a violent shiver straight down your spine. 

He moves up to cup your breasts through your bra, squeezing the soft flesh roughly, his thumbs flicking hard over your sensitive nipples until you are whining, your head dropping back against the shelf.

The sheer thrill of being caught, combined with the raw, unfiltered dominance Travis is radiating, completely pushes you over the edge. You want him. You need him right now.

Your hands push at his chest, guiding him backwards. His back hits the bookshelves on the other side, and he grips the edge of it to stabilize himself

"So…" you whisper on his lips. His dark eyes flash with an intense, predatory heat. He understands instantly. His gaze locks onto yours as you reach for the waistband of his work trousers. "Is that all the book analysis you have for me today?"

With a swift, heavy tug, you unbuttoned his pants and shoved them and his dark boxers down past his hips. His cock bounces free, completely thick and fully hard now, pulsing with a heavy vein running down the length of it. 

It’s massive, glistening with a bead of pre-cum at the thick, red head.

Travis lets out a rough, gravelly groan the second he feels your hand wrap around his cock. 

The veins in his neck pop as you slide a little lower, gripping his length tightly from the base. Travis tangles his thick fingers into your hair to anchor himself as he launches into his rant.

"It’s just... seriously, I can’t get over how fucking stupid the guy is," he rasps, his voice dropping an octave and cracking as you kneel down and slowly leave wet kisses on his v-line down his pelvis above the thick pubis hair. "The piece of shit Victor spends months locked up in a lab, playing God, completely obsessed with the idea of creating life... and then when the creature finally opens its eyes... Ah, fuck, right there.. right there, baby!"

You start to suck him with a steady, punishing rhythm from the head of his cock. Travis throws his head back for a second, cutting off his own speech with a dirty groan as your spit completely lubricates his thickness. 

He forces his gaze back down at you, his eyes dark with pure lust, completely turned on by the sight of you on your knees, swallowing him whole on the library floor.

"And then..." he continues, his breathing incredibly ragged as your lips slide up and down his length. "The guy sees that the creature is terriying and just runs away like a fucking coward. If you have the balls to create something, you take responsibility for it. You don’t just abandon it just because it doesn't look or acts as you— ohhh, fuck, shit, baby, mmm, fuck, you take me so fucking well."

Your mouth swirls tighter around him, making his entire body shudder. 

Travis gently tugs your hair back, forcing you to release his cock by just an inch — just enough so he can catch his breath and keep cursing the damn scientists.

"The creature wasn’t born evil, you know? They made him evil by constantly rejecting him. The guy just wanted a shot, someone who wasn’t terrified of him, f—" 

His voice completely breaks as you shove him deeper into your mouth again, swirling your tongue aggressively around his sensitive skin. 

"Holy shit"

Travis can’t hold onto the thread of his analysis anymore. The blinding heat of your mouth is driving him insane, erasing any trace of logic as his hips begin to unconsciously thrust against your lips, completely surrendering to the pleasure.

His fingers tangle in your hair, holding you in place.

"Fucking look at you." Travis moans out, "Do it. Take it."

You don’t hesitate. 

You lean forward, opening your mouth wider, trying to take him completely. Travis lets out a loud, ungodly groan, his hips jerking forward involuntarily. His thighs tremble as you wrap your lips around the head of his cock and suck him down into your throat as deeply as you could manage again.

"Oh, fuck, yes," he gasps, his knuckles turning white as he grips your hair, guiding the rhythm of your head, throwin his own head back. "Suck it, baby. Eat my cock."

The language is dirty, completely stripping away the polite, quiet atmosphere of the library; and it turns you on completely. 

You swallow him deeper, your nose burying into his pubic hair, the heat of his skin enveloping your face. 

You let your teeth graze slightly against him, and Travis lets out a sharp, ragged curse, his hips thrusting heavily against your mouth, forcing himself deep into your throat until you gagged softly.

"Fuck, sorry, sorry," he pants, though his grip on your hair doesn’t slacken. He looks down at your face, your eyes watering slightly from the depth of his cock in your throat, your lips glistening with his spit. 

The sight completely breaks his remaining restraint.

He pulls away from your mouth with a wet, sticky pop. 

Before you can even stand up, Travis grabs you under your armpits, moving your body off the floor with effortless, terrifying strength. He spins you around, slamming your front flat against the bookshelf.

"Lean down." he orders roughly, his voice trembling with an overwhelming urge to possess you.

You place your hands flat against the wooden shelves, knocking a small stack of paperbacks to the floor as you bent over, pushing your hips back towards him. You feel his large, rough hands grab the hem of your jeans and underwear, sliding them down past your thighs in one violent, impatient motion. The cool air of the library hits your bare ass, but a second later, the intense, radiating heat of Travis’s body presses flat against your back.

He reaches down between your legs, his thick fingers finding your dripping, soaked folds. He spreads your own slick juices all over your clit and down across his aching, throbbing cock. 

You whimper loudly, your fingers digging into the wood of the shelf until your nails click against the varnish.

"You’re so fucking wet for me," Travis whispers in your ear, his teeth sinking into the sensitive meat of your neck, biting down hard enough to leave a mark. "Tell me what you want."

"Please, fuck me. Put it in." you cry out, your voice echoing softly in the dark, empty aisles. 

"I’m going to ruin you right here," he growls.

He guides the thick, pulsing head of his cock against your soaking wet entrance and with one brutal, heavy thrust of his hips, he buries himself completely inside you.

The size of him stretches you wide, filling you so well that a loud, high-pitched scream left your throat. Travis immediately slams his large hand over your mouth, muffling the sound as he pins your upper body down against the shelf.

"Shh... quiet, baby. Remember where we are," he whispers, a wicked smirk in his voice, even as his breath hitches from the tight, crushing warmth of your pussy gripping his lenght. "God, you’re so tight."

He begins to move, pulling nearly all the way out until only the tip remains, before slamming back into you with a heavy, wet thud.

The raw, explicit sound of his thighs hitting against your bare ass cheeks echoes loudly through the classic novels section. He doesn’t pace himself. He fucks you with a feral, frantic speed, his heavy body battering against yours over and over again.

Every single thrust pushes you forward against the shelf, the books shifting and scraping against the wood. You bite down hard on his palm to keep from screaming out as his cock hits your cervix repeatedly, sending waves of intense, hot pleasure straight to your core. 

The friction is incredible, the heat building between your legs until it feels like you are going to combust.

"Look at how you’re taking it," Travis pants, removing his hand from your mouth to grip your waist, his thumbs digging into your hips to hold you steady while he absolutely hammers himself into you from behind. "Look at what a good little slut you are for the ex-con. You love this dirty shit, don’t you?"

"Oh God, Travis." you sob out, no longer caring if anyone hears you. Your head rolls on your shoulders, your vision blurring with tears of pure pleasure. You arch your back, tilting your pelvis up to give him deeper access, your wet walls clamping down around his thick dick with every single stroke.

"Fuck, you’re squeezing me so hard," Travis groans, his pace becoming completely erratic, harder and faster, his breath coming in short, desperate gasps. 

He grabs your hips, turning you around easily. You quickly wrap one leg around his hips, and your arms around his neck, not wanting to be apart from him a second longer.

He grabs under your leg, keeping you in place as he slides inside you again.

Your moans and uneven breaths mix together as your faces get closer. He kisses you messily while his hips trust against you in an uncoordinated rhythm now.

 "I’m so close. I’m gonna come inside you. I’m gonna fill you up right in the middle of this fucking library."

The announcement, delivered in his rough, vulgar tone, triggers something deep inside you. Your internal muscles contract violently as a massive, shattering orgasm rips through your body. You shake all over, your hands losing their grip on his neck as your head falls back, your throat letting out a strangled, breathless cry of release. He wraps his arm around to help you to keep your balance.

Feeling your pussy pulsing violently around his cock, Travis lets out a loud, feral roar. 

He delivers three more brutal, bottoming-out thrusts, burying himself as deeply as physically possible inside you, and freezes. His entire body locks up, his muscles turning rock-hard against you as he shoots his thick, heavy torrent of hot semen deep into your womb. He holds himself deep inside you, his hips twitching as he pumps load after load into your pulsing body, groaning loudly against the back of your neck.

For several long seconds, the only sound in the library is the ragged, heavy breathing of the two of you.

Slowly, Travis pulls his cock out of you with a soft, wet sound. A mixture of his cream and your own juices immediately begin to drip down the inside of your thigh. Your legs are shaking so badly you can barely stand, but Travis’s strong arms are right there, catching you and pulling you flush against his chest.

He looks at you, and his fingers brush your hair behind your ear.

You both chuckle nervously and you bite your lower lip.

 He opens his mouth to say something, when the front door bell chimes.

“Hello?” the voice of a young guy sounds through the walls of the library. 

Panic hits both of you at the exact same time. In a single second, you go from pure ecstasy to a desperate race against the clock. 

Between muffled whispers and hushed curses, you both start dressing at lightning speed behind the very last bookshelf. Travis yanks up his boxers and the heavy trousers of his uniform in one violent tug, while you frantically adjust and smooth out your own clothes, praying to God that you don’t look completely wrecked. 

You quickly wipe your mouth with the back of your hand to clear away any trace and take a deep, shaky breath, desperately trying to piece back your professional composure.

"Yes, I’m coming!" you call out, your voice a little higher than usual, as you step out of the dark aisle and into the bright light of the main counter.

Waiting there is a young college student with a heavy backpack slung over his shoulder and a face that looks like he hasn’t slept in three days. He’s holding a crumpled piece of paper with the name of an economics manual. 

With your hands still trembling slightly from the adrenaline, you smile at him as if absolutely nothing happened, look up the book in the system, and guide him to the correct section.

As you are handing the book to the student and checking it out, heavy, familiar footsteps announce Travis walking out from the back of the library. He already has his jacket zipped up and his hair lazily thrown into place with his fingers, but the expression on his face is one of pure satisfaction.

He walks slowly toward the exit, passing right by the front desk. He stops for a brief second, leaning his broad frame against the wooden counter, and locks his dark, deeply amused eyes onto yours. The college student doesn’t notice a thing, far too focused on shoving the heavy textbook into his backpack.

Travis leans in just a fraction closer, winking at you with a broad, lazy grin, and whispers in a tone meant only for you:

"Thanks for the date. See you tomorrow at the non-date."

You roll your eyes dramatically, pretending to be thoroughly annoyed while your cheeks burn a bright, furious crimson. 

But as you watch him push open the heavy glass door and disappear into the cool night air, you can’t stop a smile from breaking across your lips.

⭑ para juani juanita juana⭑

⋆⭒˚.⋆ likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated !! thank you for reading. ⋆⭒˚.⋆

He tried to distract himself. Amanda on Monday. Mary on Tuesday. Both futile. He felt disgusted with himself, guilty in a way that didn't make logical sense. You two weren't together, had never been together. But the guilt sat in his chest regardless, heavy and persistent and— fuck.

Another secret he's been carrying for two months: he's been faking it with everyone else.

He slips the condom off before they can notice, drops it at the bottom of the bathroom trash, and waits in there until he's sure they've left. He never finishes himself off afterward. He knows the only way he can is if he thinks about you, and that knowledge sits in him like something radioactive. It’s too dangerous to acknowledge directly and too present to ignore.

He can’t sleep. He tosses and turns, wondering what you’re doing, if you’re in your dorm with Robin or if that meathead is feeling you up— nope. He can’t be jealous. It’s not fair to you if he’s jealous of you messing around with other people too. Even if it’s a fucking Alpha Tau. 

He doesn’t know what is wrong with him. 

On Wednesday you were walking out of the library when he caught sight of you, and his entire body responded before his brain could intervene. You looked so pretty in the moonlight. He watched you laugh when you caught his eyes, your breath a small cloud in the cold air, warm and there and real. Your hand squeezed his arm when he held the door open, and then your mouth was on his neck and his hands were moving under your blouse— butter yellow, soft against his palms, genuinely so pretty on you. It drove him mad.

He always hated when the other girls left marks on him. But yours were different. Yours he'd flaunt, wearing shirts that wouldn't cover them, pretending in some parallel life that he was allowed to show off that he was yours. People assumed it was Robin. He let them assume.

Neither of you had the patience to undress properly. He'd hiked your skirt up, your legs hooking around his waist, pulling him deeper. His chain had swung against your collarbone with each thrust. His jeans bunched at his thighs. Both of you loud and breathless, the car rocking with the rhythm of it, your skin against his a sound he'd been replaying ever since.

He'd looked down at you— eyes clenched, fingers digging into his shoulders, neck arched— and dragged his tongue up the column of your throat. When he spat into your mouth and watched you swallow, the moan that tore out of him was completely beyond his control.

Sex had always come easily to him. But with you there's a challenge he keeps wanting to solve. He loves being the reason for your sounds, loves finding the specific combination of things that makes you cry out, loves the places in you that he finds and you didn't know existed. He loves how he fits inside you, the way you stretch and clench around him perfectly. He thinks about what it would feel like without a condom— like the first time. He thinks about it too often.

With you he doesn't hold back. He never has to muffle himself or perform. He just is. And that, more than anything else, is the thing that terrifies him.

He knows what anyone would tell him if he described this out loud. End it with the others. Or if he can't do that: think of you when he's with them. He's tried the second option. He's ashamed to admit it, more ashamed to admit what happens when he does.

He doesn't think of you in those moments. His mind doesn't go to anything compromising. It goes, instead, to conversations. The way you make him laugh. The particular sharpness of your wit, the patience you extend to Robin and— somehow, inexplicably— to him. More patience than he deserves and you both know it.

He thinks about how people are drawn to you and you have no idea. How they gravitate toward you at parties, on the sidewalk, in line at the library, and you move through it all like it's ordinary. He thinks about the line between your brows when you're irritable, and how badly he wants to press his thumb there and smooth it out. He thinks about how when you get mean, you're ferocious— certain and passionate and immovable— and how hours later you always go back and apologize to whoever it was. You always know what to say. He has never once known what to say.

Thursday, he tried to write off everything as stress and a bad week. This time of year is always hard for him. Nightmares. Headaches. The insomnia that arrives like a seasonal houseguest who doesn't know when to leave. He guesses he can add ejaculation issues to the list too.The anniversary of the accident, seeps in, coloring everything gray, his scars aching before his brain has caught up to what day it is.

He'd skipped his classes and gone out once for air. He told himself it was coincidental that he wandered toward the building where your class meets. That he hadn't, over the course of the past several weeks, memorized the rough shape of your schedule. That he didn't sometimes take routes that would put you at the edges of his vision, even from a distance.

Purely coincidental.

He wasn't even sure he'd say anything if he saw you. He could ask if you wanted to get lunch, take a walk— two friends, only two friends, who happened to be sleeping together. He ignored the small sharp pain in his chest at the phrasing.

When he rounded the corner and found you kissing Sammy, the guy's hands on you and yours on him, Steve stopped walking. He stood there for five full seconds. Then he turned around and went back to Pike.

He'd like to say he did the honorable thing after that. Moved on, let it go, focused on something else. He can't stop thinking about it. It's his own rule— the one he made, the one that's supposed to protect both of them— and it's eating him alive.

Which is why he snapped at Robin when she started in about Nancy. He knows it's different for them. He does. But a selfish, rotting part of him was jealous— not that he'd ever say so— jealous that at least she got to be with someone she loved without everything being underwater. He felt guilty about it almost immediately. It wasn't that he wasn't happy for them. He was. He is.

He's also drowning.

He didn't even register you asking to come in when you appeared in his doorway later. He was too busy being struck dumb by the sight of you— hair up, pink sweater he loves tucked into your light wash jeans, fresh manicure you'd probably done in your dorm with Robin. He watched you cross the room and felt his chest do that thing it does. Tighten first. Then soften, like something rigid giving way.

You touched his knee. You gave him the look that meant it was okay.

He felt safe. He always feels safe, and that is the most dangerous thing about you.

His rules dissolved and he put his head in your lap because it was the only context in which he was allowed to do that. He went limp and hoped you couldn't see his eyes going wet. He breathed you in— clean laundry, something faint and warm underneath, the specific scent he's started associating with a future he wants and can't have. He asked you to talk about your day because he could sit for hours inside the sound of your voice. You made the mundane parts of your life sound like somewhere he wanted to be.

Broken, he told you. He feels broken. He didn't tell you he wasn't sure how to fix it. Or that he suspected he knew exactly how, and was terrified of what it would cost.

After you left, the thought of you kissing Sammy returned and wouldn't stop. It moved through him in different frequencies. He wondered what your lips would feel like against his— not his neck, not the geography of his shoulders and chest, but his mouth. He wondered if the rhythm would be the same as everything else between you, that strange melodic fit, the way your bodies always seemed to find the same tempo without trying.

On the night of Mardi Tau, he'd told Robin three times he wasn't going. He couldn't. Couldn't watch you across a crowded room, couldn't watch you dance with Sammy, couldn't see your mouth on someone else's again and pretend the sight wasn't carving something out of him.

He watched from his window when your car pulled up and Eddie climbed in. It was dark outside andhe couldn't see you. His heart thumped anyway.

The car pulled away.

His heart sank.

It should be him.

.-.-.-.

Katrina was always a sweet girl. Her hair was a bit much sometimes— reminded him of when Tammy Thompson got her first perm and he couldn't see the board in Mrs. Click's class until he finally moved seats. 

But she didn't deserve tonight.

Everything was going well. He did everything he normally did, and by her sounds, Katrina was enjoying herself. All while his mind kept drifting to Sig Tau. To you. His heart racing because the rumors had been circulating through Greek life all week— that Sammy really likes you. 

It was all dirty touches and heat between them until he got Katrina over the edge.

But when it was his turn and she went to touch him— nothing.

He laughed it off awkwardly and told her to give him a second, spitting in his hand, trying to coax any reaction from his body. The redness crept up the back of his neck and deepened in his cheeks, not from the sex but from something worse. He kept trying. But even looking at Katrina sprawled naked on his bed, cheeks flushed, watching him with patient eyes, he still couldn't think properly.

He kept thinking about what an asshole he was. What an utter prick, to be here with a nice girl who deserved better than this. All because he couldn't fucking admit what he'd been running from all this time.

His shoulders drooped. He deflated.

"Oh my god," Katrina whispered.

Steve opened his mouth, a lump rising in his throat. "I—" Nothing came. No excuse worth saying out loud. "It's not you. I swear—"

"Oh my fucking god." She stood up from his bed. He could tell she wasn't happy by the way she moved— quick and stiff, snatching up her clothes. He saw the tears rolling down her face before she turned away.

"Katrina—"

"I am missing the biggest party of the year for this," she said, voice unraveling as she pulled her shirt over her head.

Steve stood there, still holding his limp dick, unsure whether he should wait until she left. He didn't know the proper etiquette for this situation. He'd never had anyone leave in the middle of a hookup before. Never because he couldn't get hard. He rubbed his face with one hand, trying to think.

"I'm sorry. I'm really stressed out—"

She turned around, lip quivering. "This," she hissed, motioning between them, "is what's supposed to relieve you of stress."

Steve picked up his boxers and slipped them on, feeling her watch him. Then his jeans. He looked at the floor, then up into her eyes, hoping and praying her memory of the last half hour might somehow evaporate.

It was in that humiliating moment he realized it wasn't only hating the fact you were with someone else tonight. He was too. Even though his hookups with other girls had become rare. Even with the lie he'd told you from the start— that he had a once-a-week rule— it still sent pain radiating through his chest, the particular kind that comes from knowing you're doing something wrong.

"I don't think we should keep seeing each other," he said, trailing off because he was a coward.

Katrina ticked her jaw. She sniffled once, sharply, through the hurt. He watched her shrink into herself, arms crossing over her chest, trying to make sense of something that didn't make any sense. She didn't have feelings for him— he knew that. But he could almost see the trust between them severing, clean and quiet as a cut. Without another word she picked up her handbag and walked out.

He wished he were man enough to sit with it or run after her to tell her… anything that would make her feel better. To feel the full weight of hurting someone he hadn't meant to hurt. To reckon with the ways his selfishness was splitting him apart from the inside.

Instead he got dressed quickly and put on his glasses. He needed to see you.

Not needed. Wanted. Both. He couldn't untangle them anymore.

His adrenaline was high and he ignored the beaming DON'T DO IT sign glowing right in front of him. Rules be damned. There were never really rules with you to begin with.

He smoked two cigarettes on the walk to Sig Tau without realizing it, and hadn't noticed he'd arrived until he was already pushing through the crowd outside and through the doors. He stood in the middle of the main gathering space, chest heaving, eyes scanning the room.

The scary thing was he always knew when you were there before he found you. Some magnetic pull in his chest that swung toward you like a compass finding north— maybe it was your perfume, the one you only wore when you went out. He found you before his brain caught up to the fact that he was looking.

You were alone. Relief moved through him so fast it embarrassed him.

Except you were scanning the room the same way he had been, searching for someone— Sammy, probably. Then you stopped. Hair framing your face, lip gloss catching the colored lights. He watched your expression shift. Watched your lips flicker upward. You looked exactly as relieved to see him as he felt seeing you.

He crossed the room toward you, taking you in the whole way. Gold crop top. Your purple skirt and white pumps. The line of your collarbone. But he kept returning to your eyes. He drowned in them every time and he did it willingly, like a man who had made peace with the water.

You were the most beautiful person he'd ever met. It drove him absolutely crazy.

He was so close but he needed more, and if there weren't people watching he'd have pulled you into him right there. Instead he motioned toward the bathroom tucked out of the way, the one nobody else seemed to know about.

He pulled you inside and crowded you against the counter.

"Touch me," he said. The words came out wrecked. A plea, not a request.

You started to say something and he shook his head. He said please. Said it again. Please.

And you did. You touched him exactly where he knew you'd touch him first, and he twitched and let out a breath that was equal parts relief and pleasure. His skin knew you. Reacted to you the way muscle reacts to memory— without instruction, without hesitation. He whimpered when your fingers traced along his scars and brushed through the trail of hair on his stomach.

He pressed his hips against you involuntarily. Already hard against your bare thigh.

Both of you were asking for more without saying it. You pulled his hand and pressed it against the damp cotton of your panties. His knees buckled, his weight nearly crushing you as he started working slow circles against your clit. His mouth found your cheek, breath short and ragged.

Then you were up on the counter and he was fucking you with his fingers, his cock aching against his zipper, completely engulfed in your wetness and the sounds falling from your mouth. You clutched at him. He still wasn't close enough. It wasn't enough anymore. It hadn't been enough for a long time.

He worked faster, stretching you with another finger, curling to find that spot that made your whole body shift. He could feel you shaking. He could hear the pitch of your whimpers climbing.

He rutted against your leg, moaning into your neck, until you made a sound he'd never heard from you before. He pulled back to look at you— half-lidded, mouth open— and his eyes dropped to your lips. Parted and pretty, lip gloss still sticky.

Before he could think longer he grabbed you by the head, fingers fisting your hair, and kissed you.

Then froze immediately.

"Fuck. I'm sorry. I'm sorry—"

You smirked at him. Hunger in your eyes. One finger hooked into his chain necklace, pulling him back.

Your lips crashed against his.

He grunted when you bucked your hips, grinding on his hand still inside you. The kiss was messy and filthy and open-mouthed and unforgiving, and it rearranged everything inside him. His skin felt like it was burning, the heat moving straight to his cock. But underneath all of it— underneath the want and the noise and the desperate friction— his heart was beating against his ribs in a rhythm he recognized from somewhere he'd been trying not to visit.

He couldn't ignore it this time. Didn't want to.

All he wanted to do was smile. Because he was kissing his girl. His Hot Shot. Finally.

He felt you getting close and threw himself into it— fingers moving faster, palm pressing harder. His tongue licked into your mouth because if this was the only time he got to do this, he refused to forget what you tasted like. Sweet and warm and everything kissing was supposed to feel like and never had before. Feeling you kiss him back with the same urgency, the same hunger, he whined against your lips.

You nipped his bottom lip between your teeth and let it go.

In the fraction of a second it took, he thought about your first time together. How he'd wanted to kiss you then. How he'd wanted to kiss you every single time since. He thought about how swollen your lips were now— wet from him, undone.

That was all it took. He came, pressing against your leg, letting you feel it. Letting you know it was all you.

But he doesn't stop kissing you.

Can't.

And the thing is— he knows, standing here with his hand leaving your thighs and both arms pulling you in instead— that this has nothing to do with sex anymore. It stopped being about sex somewhere between the first time your mouth found his and right now, in this dim bathroom at a party neither of you particularly wanted to attend. What he wants is not the thing bodies want. It's something older and quieter and much more frightening.

He wants to keep kissing you in the morning. He wants to know what you look like when you're half-asleep and grumpy. He wants to sit across a table from you and argue about something stupid and be wrong and have you tell him so. He doesn’t want to say goodnight, because then that means leaving. And he’s so tired of leaving.

Your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling hard enough to sting, and the groan that comes out of him is helpless. It’s not because of the pain but because of the wanting underneath it, the sheer volume of it. He wraps both arms around you, one hand wide and flat across your lower back, the other cradling the back of your head, and he holds on.

You clutch at him with the same desperation and something in him cracks open. He moves his mouth to your jaw, your throat, pressing kisses into the warm skin there. He needs to touch every part of you he can reach, needs you to know he's here, he's here, he's been here this whole time.

His hands won't stop moving. One slides up your side, thumb grazing the underside of your tit through your top, and the other grips your hip hard enough to mark. He's not sorry. He wants to mark you. He wants there to be proof.

You pull his face back to yours and he comes back willingly and gratefully. If he's honest, every second his mouth isn't on yours feels like something wasted now. The kiss shifts, messier, all tongue and teeth and two people running out of ways to say something neither of them has said yet.

You slide your hands under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and every muscle in his body contracts under the touch. Your nails drag up his sides and across his ribs and he shudders. It’s not even from sensation but from the specific tenderness of being known. You know exactly where to touch him. You've always known.

He pulls you impossibly closer, hands roaming across your bare back, until there's no space left between you. Chest to chest. He can feel your heartbeat against his own and he doesn't know which is which. Doesn't care.

He kisses you slower this time. Still wanting, still urgent, but slower. His tongue slides against yours and he thinks: this is the problem. This has always been the problem. There is no casual version of this. There never was.

Your fingers find his belt loops and pull his hips flush against yours. He can feel the wet warmth in his jeans against your inner thigh. He makes a sound into your mouth. It’s broken and wanting and almost pained, like something has been held under pressure for a very long time and is only now, in increments, being allowed to surface.

He brings his hand up to cup your face. His thumb strokes your cheekbone with a tenderness he has no business feeling, and he knows it, and he does it anyway. You tilt your head and deepen the kiss and he thinks: I would do anything. I would blow up every rule I've ever made. I would stop being careful entirely.

The kisses slow. Gentle now. Each one landing separately, softly. Just lips resting against lips. Just breathing the same air. Just staying.

He draws your bottom lip carefully between his teeth one last time. His tongue soothing the place, and then he pulls back.

Steps away.

He looks at the floor. Then at you.

Something moves across his face that he can't stop in time. Something guilty and sad and full of all the things he hasn't said and should have, all the moments he's walked away from and chosen rules and Robin over this, over you.

He opens the bathroom door.

He leaves.

The click of the latch behind him sounds, in the silence that follows, like the loneliest thing he's ever heard.

.-.-.-.

Steve walked into the empty Pike house and the silence swallowed him whole.

His eyes were still blown wide, hair wrecked, clothes wrinkled and askew— every detail of him a confession he hadn't meant to make or even think. He trudged inside and let out a heavy breath, both hands dragging down his face like he could physically rearrange what had happened tonight into something he could live with.

He knew he'd fucked up. The only thing he could do to avoid thinking about it was sleep, which meant he was going to lie awake staring at the ceiling and think about nothing else.

He made it to his room and threw himself backward onto his bed, depleted and spent. His fingers drifted to his lips without him meaning for them to— still buzzing faintly, still warm from where your mouth had been.

A smile crept onto his face before he could stop it.

Then, as fast as it arrived… gone.

His phone rang.

He launched himself off the bed. He looked at his watch and wondered who the hell was calling at this hour. Eddie? Robin? His heart lurched sideways at the thought that it might be you. Could it be you calling to come over, to talk, to say something that would either fix everything or make it completely irreparable?

He picked up. "Hello?"

"Steveee," a voice slurred.

Steve pulled the receiver away from his ear, stared at it, put it back. "Uh..."

"Were you asleep?"

His eyes went wide. "Max? Why are you calling this late? Are you okay?"

"Stevee, I'm more than okaaay." She hiccupped.

"Are you drunk?" His voice came out protective before he could temper it. He knew he'd gotten into things he shouldn't have at her age, but he was an idiot. Max was not. He bit at the skin around his thumbnail. "Are you safe?"

"I'm at Wheeler's." The line crackled and her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "We got into a bottle of Mrs. Wheeler's wine playing truth or dare."

Steve laughed, the coiled tension in his chest easing slightly. "Right, and are you doing a dare right now?"

"Yuuuup," Max sang.

"What is it? You supposed to prank call me or something?"

"Nope. Got dared to tell someone I love them. Dustin, the shithead he is, wanted me to probably say it to Lucas in front of everyone, because apparently I kind of suck at telling people that shit..."

Max's words drifted off.

Steve went completely still. He replayed the sentence. Made sure he'd heard it correctly. Because it was true—Max had never said that to him. Not once. Not directly. Not without enough sarcasm layered on top to make it deniable.

"Steveee, oh my god, did you die over there? Hellloooo?"

"Yeah." He swallowed hard. "I'm here. Sorry."

"Oh god, don't tell me it cut out and I have to say it again," she groaned.

He smiled at the ceiling, something loosening in his chest. "No. I heard you."

A beat of silence.

"I love you too, kid."

Max made an immediate and theatrical gagging noise. But he could still hear her smiling on the other end. "Gross, dude. You didn't have to say it back."

The quiet that followed wasn't really quiet at all. It was the specific kind of silence that exists between two people who both meant exactly what they said and know the other one did too.

"Now it's my turn to dare you to do it," Max giggled.

He rolled his eyes. "That's not how the game works and you know it."

"Maybeee. Or maybee you're scared."

"Max—"

"Steveeee," she mocked.

"I'm going to hang up now. Go be a pain to Wheeler or something." He shook his head when he heard her cackling.

She went quiet for a moment. Then: "You never called this week."

His throat went dry. He sighed, picking up the base of the phone and moving to sit at the edge of his bed. She couldn't see him, but he looked down anyway. "Yeah. I know. I got busy. I'm sorry."

Another wave of silence settled between them— the weighted kind, the kind that carries whole seasons inside it.

Steve raked his fingers through his hair.

"I don't miss him, y'know?" Max mumbled, her words soft and slurred but perfectly clear.

"Max—"

"And I know you still feel guilty, and we haven't really talked about it. But I needed you to know that."

She was right. They hadn't talked about the accident. That was probably mostly his fault—he never wanted to drag her back into bad water. He wasn't sure what to say.

"Drink water before bed. Okay?"

"Steve." His name was soft on the receiver, careful with him in a way she rarely was out loud.

"Yeah?"

"I dare you to tell me if you love her."

"Robin? Of course I love her, you know it's not like that thou—"

"No, not Robin." Max said your name.

It moved through the phone line and landed somewhere behind his sternum.

He froze. His face fell. Something cold and certain moved through his blood all at once. "Max, you know that's—I can't—why would you—she's a friend. A friend, okay?"

"Do you?" she asked again. Steady and almost sober-minded. Almost like she already knew the answer long before he ever did.

And Steve felt all the weeks of careful avoidance collapse at once.

He thought about you. He let himself, fully, for the first time in months— didn't redirect the thought, didn't shut the door on it before it could open. He let it open.

It wasn’t like a lightbulb, or a lightning bolt striking him. That was the thing about it that undid him. It didn't arrive the way he'd always assumed love would arrive. He had always imagine it to be loud and obvious and impossible to miss. It had crept in the way warmth does in a room you've been sitting in for a long time. Slow. Pervasive. Already everywhere before you think to notice.

The specific moment for him was all on Valentine’s when he saw you lying on his chest fast asleep. It overwhelmed him. It excited him. He knew it then, there was no one else. But he stayed in denial, tormented by thoughts of what it’d be like to go steady with you.

It felt like something that had always been true and was only now, under the specific pressure of Max saying your name through a crackling phone line at midnight, being acknowledged.

He carried it the way you carry an injury you've decided not to mention— working around it, adjusting your movement, telling yourself it wasn't that bad. But it had been pressing into him constantly. Heavy and specific and shaped like everything about you: the way you looked at him when he wasn't performing anything, the particular patience you extended to him that he hadn't earned, the sound of your laugh when something caught you off guard, the way the room organized itself differently when you were in it.

It felt like something that was equally killing him inside but also the thing that was keeping him alive. 

He wanted things he hadn't let himself want in years. Simple things. Quiet things. He wanted to call you for no reason. He wanted to make you breakfast. He wanted, god help him, to introduce you to people and have a word for what you were to him that was true.

Instead he had rules. He had arrangements. He had you hidden away in a bathroom, holding a kiss that rearranged everything and a door he'd closed behind him anyway.

The wanting sat inside him like a lit match in a closed room. It illuminated everything, consuming itself, running out of air.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I do."

The words landed in the quiet of his empty room and he didn't take them back.

When he finally got off the phone and lay down in the dark, Steve stared at the ceiling and wondered if this was what it was like in every version of things. Every alternate arrangement of choices and timing and circumstance– did they all wind up here? Something in him said yes. Something in him had been saying yes for a while now, quietly, in a register he'd been working very hard not to hear.

No matter what he built around it. No matter how many rules he made or broke or pretended still applied. No matter the timing, no matter the cost.

It was you.

It had probably always been you.

You were worth falling in love for.

You told yourself you were okay with that because outside of sex—Ethan was everything you had ever wanted. He was smart, ambitious and he loved you, he offered you stability. But could he fuck you? Absolutely not.

“You know it's normal, right?” Your friend Nina tells you when you bought up your lacklustre sex life one Saturday night over drinks at your local bar. “A guy not making you come. Loads of women can’t come with a guy. You’re probably just too in your own head about it.”

You smile like it was good advice but the thing was—you knew you could come with a guy. Gator Tillman might have been emotionally unavailable but your ex boyfriend had known your body like the back of his hand. He knew exactly how to make you come with seemingly little effort. He knew you liked it when he said filthy words to you as two thick fingers pumped in and out of your needy hole, his thumb circling your clit just right.

“That good, huh mama?” He’d say in a husky voice, a smirk tugging on the corner of his lips as you mewled beneath him, your fingers biting in the skin of his back as your hips chased his hand. “Look at ya—fuckin’ can’t get enough can ya? Soaking my hand like this—shit, baby. Yer making me so fuckin’ hard. Need to fill ya with my cock. Need to—”

The sound of your name pulls you from your thoughts. That memory of Gator making your pussy throb with the kind of excitement you hadn’t felt in well over a year. Don’t think about him, don’t think about him, don’t—

“Hmm?” You hum, looking over at your friends like you weren’t just thinking about getting finger fucked by your ex boyfriend.

“You okay?” Your other friend Soph asks you gently.

Were you okay? Probably not, considering you were thinking about Gator Tillman of all people. It wasn’t healthy, in fact it was incredibly unhealthy to be thinking about him at all. You broke up with Gator for a reason because not only had the two of you had been on and off for a long time, his emotionally unavailability had driven you insane, his refusal to say I love you—

“Yeah,” you say with a slightly forced smile. “I’m okay.”

You knew deep down, you were anything but. Guilt and shame were swirling in your gut like some sick cocktail when you realised that your thoughts about Gator had caused wetness to pool between your legs. You could feel the dampening of your panties. The realisation made heat burn in your lower stomach, made you have to squeeze your thighs together in an attempt to ease the need for friction between your legs.

Your phone buzzed on the table in front of you. It was probably Ethan, likely checking up on you, checking that you had got to the bar okay and that you were drinking enough water alongside the alcohol you were consuming. Being the sweet, kind and caring boyfriend that he always was. But also the one who couldn’t fuck you better than Gator could.

You started to wonder if anybody could fuck you better than Gator Tillman.

“Is that Ethan?” Soph asks you, nodding towards your phone.

You hum, nodding as you quickly glance at your phone to see Ethan’s name in your notifications along with some sweet message about him looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. You feel guilty that you feel almost nothing in response to his message.

“Oh, Ethan’s such a sweetheart,” Nina gushes, smiling brightly at you. “He treats you so well.”

You smile but it doesn’t reach your eyes. Because yes—Ethan was a sweetheart. He did treat you well. But he didn’t make your heart race, he didn’t make your cunt throb at the thought of him or make you feel anything even close to what you had felt with Gator.

You wanted to be obsessed with Ethan, you wanted to be crazy about him and you wanted more than anything to not care that he couldn’t make you come. But you couldn’t. You weren’t obsessed with him, you weren’t crazy about him and you did care that you hadn’t made you come. You just knew he was stable, that on paper he was the right, sensible choice. But no matter how much you tried—and oh, you had tried—you couldn’t make yourself love him.

You knew that the right thing was to break up with Ethan. But with the words from your friends who insisted that Ethan was good for you—better for you than Gator had been—they had taken refuge in your chest and refused to leave. And so, you stayed with Ethan and you felt like a damn coward for doing so.

“Is that—” Soph begins, her eyes on a spot somewhere near the bar.

Nina shakes her head, her eyes a little wide as she shoots a not so subtle glance your way.

“How’s the new job going, Soph? Is your boss still—”

But you had caught the glance your way and more importantly, you had seen what had caught Soph’s eye.

Gator fucking Tillman.

Gator Tillman—who still looked as devastatingly handsome as he did that day you finally broke up with him for good. Gator Tillman—who was talking to some pretty brunette at the bar. Gator Tillman—who apparently still had some kind of hold over you as your traitorous heart did something funny in your chest. Something it had never done around Ethan. The guilt gurgles in your gut.

“We can leave,” Nina suggests as she notices your gaze on Gator and the brunette he was likely chatting up. “If you want to. I think they’re doing two or one cocktails across the—”

“—no,” you say quickly. Too quickly. “It’s okay. I’m fine, really.”

You tell yourself that you were fine because you had moved on. Because you had Ethan.

But that green eyed monster roaring in your chest at the sight of Gator with another woman said otherwise. 

You barely listen to Soph ramble on about her new job as you watch Gator duck his head down to talk directly into the woman’s ear. Something twists in your gut when she smiles back at him, when she reaches out a hand to squeeze his arm. Your pussy clenches at you remember what those arms had felt like. Those arms that had once been wrapped around your waist as he had you almost folded in half, bent over the front of his truck. His chest pressed against your back as his thick cock fucked into you, hips snapping against your ass while he grunted about tightly you were squeezing his—

“Does anyone want another drink?” You ask your friends suddenly, stepping out of the booth with legs that felt unsteady, the ache between your legs now near impossible to ignore. “It’s on me.”

Nina and Soph both glance at your barely touched passionfruit martini before shaking their heads.

“Are you sure you’re o—”

You don’t hear the rest of the sentence. You were already walking towards the bar.

Your heart was pounding in your chest, your blood thrumming as it was pumped around your body when you finally approached the bar, less than ten feet away from where Gator and the pretty brunette were standing.

You were just going to order another drink, you tell yourself. You were just going to—

“—being a deputy sheriff sounds so dangerous,” the brunette was saying to Gator, her hand still gently caressing his arm. 

Gator snorts with laughter and you make the mistake of looking over at him—to find that he was already looking right back at you.

“Danger don’t mean nothin’ t’me,” Gator replies, his hazel eyes on you as a small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.

God, you hated that your cunt pulses with need in response.

You roll your eyes despite wanting nothing more than for Gator to push up the skirt of your dress and fuck you until you were drooling over the bar.

“Miss? Can I get you anything?”

You blink, turning to the bartender who was looking at you expectantly. 

“Yeah,” you breathe out, squeezing your thighs together beneath your dress as you take a moment to collect yourself. “Can I get a—”

“—passionfruit martini,” a voice that went straight to your already needy cunt drawls as a large hand plants itself on your lower back. “The fruitiest thing y’have for this sweet girl.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” You ask Gator as soon as the bartender turns her back, attempting to keep the breathlessness out of your voice when you glance at him. You vaguely registered the brunette that he had been talking to walking away from the bar with a disgruntled expression and it was hard not to feel a little bit smug about it.

“Orderin’ ya a drink,” Gator retorts, his hand on your lower back dipping lower for a brief second to your ass before he withdraws it with a knowing look in his eyes as your breath hitches in your throat. “That alright with ya, mama? Or is yer little trust fund boyfriend gonna have a problem with that?”

Your face warms and your stomach turns at the old pet name before your head snaps in his direction. “How did you—”

“—know about ya new boyfriend? Baby, nothin’ goes on in this town that I don’t know ‘bout. Especially when it comes to ya.”

You swallow. A glass of passionfruit martini is placed down on the bar in front of you but you pay no mind to it as you watch Gator’s tongue glide across his lower lip because you can’t help yourself.

“I’m happy,” you tell him and the lie feels like poison on your lips.

Gator hums and you instantly know that he didn’t believe you. Of course he didn’t, because Gator Tillman still knew how to read you. 

“Sure ya are,” Gator smiles before he nods over to the bartender, signalling to add your cocktail to his tab. “That’s why ya keep lookin’ at me like that.”

The room suddenly felt too hot. Everything was buzzing around you. You have to take a long sip of your drink just to give yourself something to do but even the alcohol doesn’t offer you any comfort.

But you don’t deny it. Because you couldn’t deny it.

“I’m looking at you in disgust,” you tell him.

“Disgust?” Gator repeats with great amusement, his eyes seeming to sparkle as he looks at you. There was something else there too. Something that made your heart race in your chest. And when he leans in and his breath hits the skin of your neck, you do nothing to push him away despite knowing you should. “Baby, I can smell how much ya want me from here.”

You should have slapped him. You should have pushed him away and told him to fuck off, remind him that you had a boyfriend. You should have told him that Ethan was everything he wasn’t. That he was kind and considerate. But you did none of that. You didn’t even deny it because try as you might—you could not lie to Gator Tillman and you were so wet that your panties were sticking to your puffy lips.

“Not denyin’ it, huh?” Gator drawls in amusement, reaching out a large hand to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear. “That dumb boyfriend of yours doin’ a good job takin’ care of ya? Or is he leaving my girl all high and dry?”

Your face burns and your stomach feels as though your insides were suddenly made of molten lava at his words.

“I’m not your—”

“—yer always be my girl,” Gator tells you. “Ain’t that right?”

You say nothing because there was not a single part of you that wanted to deny it—that Gator Tillman still had a part of you that he refused to give back.

But then you remember that no matter how good the sex was with Gator, it didn’t make up for the way he always left you second guessing, how he had never wanted to talk about feelings and how he had said nothing when you finally found the courage to say the L word.

“Thank you for the drink,” you say tersely, picking up your glass and finding the strength to step away from Gator. “But I have a boyfriend who is waiting at home for me.”

“Is that right?” Gator asks in mild amusement but you knew him well enough to see the flash of jealousy in his eyes. The thought of making him jealous makes heat spread through your gut.

“Yeah,” you say, lifting your drink to your lips and taking a sip, Gator’s eyes carefully tracking your every move—at the way you lick the corner of your mouth. “And after he picks me up and takes me to his place, I’m going to let him fuck my brains out.”

You didn’t care that other people heard you, you didn’t care about the fact other people at the bar were looking at you. All you cared about was Gator’s reaction—the way his face fell slightly, the way his hands twitched like he wanted to reach for you but stopped himself.

You take another sip of your drink, the fruity alcohol having no effect in comparison to the man standing in front of you.

“Have a nice life Gator,” you tell him, turning to leave with your heart hammering in your chest, a tight grip on your cocktail but Gator’s hand shoots out to stop you.

“What are you—”

Gator’s large, warm hand that was wrapped around your wrist tugs you closer. His touch—the one you had missed so much—causes heat to spread through your body.

“—y’know I still think about ya?” he husks, his other hand grazing your shoulder and causing goosebumps to erupt across your skin. “Especially when I’m fucking my cock with my fist.”

It was crude, it was vulgar, it was everything Ethan wasn’t and that was exactly why it made you feel as though you were alive again. 

“You’re disgusting,” you spit, your throat uncomfortably dry, your cunt throbbing with need for the man in front of you.

“And yet ya love it,” Gator murmurs, leaning in so to breathe the words in your ear while his fingers dig into your skin as though attempting to leave a mark. “Can see ya squeezing yer thighs together, mama. She probably misses me, huh? Yer sweet pussy wants me that bad?”

You swallow, so turned on by his words, his touch, by him that it was a physical ache.

You had a boyfriend, you remind yourself—you had a boyfriend who loved you—who was better for you than Gator ever was.

But no matter how many times you told yourself that, you couldn’t pull yourself away from the man that stood in front of you and you certainly couldn’t deny Gator’s words. Because you were wet, you did still want him and you wanted him badly. And so, perhaps it was lucky that your friends had finally decided to step in.

“Hands off, Tillman,” Soph tells him as Nina pulls you away from Gator with an uncharacteristic stern expression. “She’s got a boyfriend and better off without you.”

Gator laughs at Soph’s words and you watch as his flicker back over to you. His gaze holds you captive for a brief moment and you don’t even register the cocktail glass being taken out of your hand as he looks back at your friend with an amused expression. “Sure. Keep believin’ that, sweetheart.”

With a scoff, Soph and Nina pull you out of the bar with a promise to never go back. 

But within the hour, you unblock Gator Tillman’s phone number.

It was around eleven o’clock when you finally decided to call it a night.

“Oh c’mon,” Nina pouts when you grab your purse. “Just one more hour, please?”

You shake your head, your phone tight in your grasp and screen purposefully shielded from your friends’ eyes. “No, I really gotta go. Ethan, um, Ethan’s picking me up.”

Both Nina and Soph ‘aw’ in unison and you smile, though it doesn’t quite meet your eyes.

“Should we walk you to his car?” Soph suggests, already grabbing her jacket.

You were thankful for the dark lighting in the club, so that Soph and Nina could not see the warmth of your cheeks, the slight panic in your eyes.

“No,” you say quickly and with a reassuring smile. “No—I’m good. Thank you though.”

It took another five or so minutes to say goodbye to your friends. You felt your phone buzz in your hands repeatedly and you tried your best to ignore it as you gave both Soph and Nina a final hug goodbye. 

The cold night air hits you as soon as you walk out of the club, biting at your exposed skin as you walk towards the all too familiar truck parked a little way up the street.

Gator Tillman sits in the driver's seat of the pickup truck, legs spread and large hands resting on his thighs as he watches you walk towards him. It was hard for him not to smile. He leans over to open the passenger seat door for you.

“Hey, pretty mama,” he greets you as you climb into the truck with legs that feel almost like they were made of jelly. “Couldn’t resist me, could ya?”

You swallow thickly at his words, guilt gnawing at your insides like a viscous monster as he places a hand on your thigh. You hate the relief that his touch gives you. And so, you say nothing, just staring at the thick digits that rest over the skin of your thigh, at the goosebumps forming at his touch.

You shouldn’t be doing this. You had a boyfriend, one that adored you, one that had been checking in on you all night to make sure you were okay, one that loved you and loved you loudly. 

And yet, you knew what you felt for Ethan wasn’t love. It wasn’t even close to love. Because the only man you had ever loved was sitting right next to you.

“This is a bad idea,” you whisper quietly, taking in a deep breath before you turn your head to look at Gator. “We broke up, I have a boyfriend and—”

“—and yet yer in my truck,” Gator smirks in smug satisfaction, his fingers moving an inch or so higher up your thigh, his eyes watching you carefully. “That means somethin’.”

“That I’m a bad person,” you say quietly, looking away from him to glance down at your phone, which you saw light up with a text from Ethan. “A horrible, horrible person who is going to—”

You stop yourself, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth as you tuck your phone away and back into your purse. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Goin’ ta, what?” Gator asks and you almost gasp in surprise as he lifts your chin with his finger, an act surprisingly gentle for Gator even if it was to make you look at him. “Go on, pretty, finish that sentence.”

The air in Gator’s truck suddenly feels thick with want, with tension, with something that you couldn’t quite name. 

“Gator—” you begin, a million and one things that you wanted to say, your heart thumping loudly in your chest as your eyes lock with his. But the words die on your tongue as you finally allow yourself to give into his touch, your legs spreading apart just so.

Gator’s eyes flicker down to his hand on your thigh for a brief moment but otherwise, he doesn’t dare look away from you.

He murmurs your name in a gentle voice, one that you barely recognise coming from a man like Gator Tillman and that was perhaps your breaking point.

Your hands reach up to cup either side of Gator’s face and before you could really register what you were doing, before your conscience could creep back in and stop you from doing something that you may come to regret—you pull him towards you and your lips meet in kiss that sent heat searing through your entire body.

Gator reacted immediately, the hand that wasn’t on your thigh was cupping the back of your neck and tugging you closer, kissing you back with a kind of hunger that made your core ache. Warmth spreads through your gut as Gator wastes no time in pressing the wet heat of his tongue into your mouth, his hand on your thigh disappearing beneath your dress. You part your thighs further on instinct.

“There she is,” he murmurs against your lips, smirking as he thumbs over the damp patch that had formed in your panties which causes you to whimper against him. “There’s ma girl.”

And just like that—he pulls himself away from you. You whine, your hands clinging to him in desperation as he withdraws his hand from between your legs, chasing his lips as he pulls away from you. 

“Why did you—” You stop, completely breathlessly as he lifts the fingers he had pressed against your clothed cunt and sniffs them shamelessly.

“Ya still smell fuckin’ incredible, baby,” he drawls, making your mouth feel incredibly dry as he breathes in your scent. “But m’not takin’ ya here. Ain't no way. Want’ta spread ya out and take my time with ya. Okay?”

You nod, your body nearly trembling with want. Your cunt clenches around nothing and your lips part slowly as you watch him palm the large bulge that had formed in his jeans before he starts the engine.

The next fifteen minutes or so were nothing short of torture. You were beginning to wonder where on earth he was taking you. He certainly wasn’t taking you to the Tillman ranch nor was he taking you to your apartment. You didn’t ask him where exactly he was taking you because you couldn’t even look over at Gator as he drove because knowing he was already hard, already aching for you made the heat surging through your veins turn only hotter, made the space between the two of you feel small.

And when he finally pulls into some sort of fancy looking hotel parking lot, you turn to look at him in surprise.

“Gator, is this—”

“—only the best for ya,” he murmurs, not looking at you as he unbuckles his seatbelt, the tips of his ears turning red. “Wasn’t gonna fuck ya in a shitty motel.”

Despite how utterly unromantic those words sounded, you felt your heart double in size.

“Sweet,” you say with a small smile that Gator doesn’t return. But he does climb out the truck first to open your door even if he does plant a smack to your ass shortly after.

Gator whistles between his teeth, twirling the key to the hotel room around one of his thick fingers as you walk through the fancy lobby. You glance up at the twinkling chandelier above you, at the ceiling above that glittered in the light and you wonder just how much Gator had splashed out on the room for the two of you. 

Gator’s hand doesn’t leave your lower back the entire time as you walk towards the elevator. His presence doing nothing to help the ache between your legs, the simple touch making you feel more alive than you ever had with Ethan. The dull reminder of your boyfriend makes shame twist in your gut but you look at Gator to district yourself. You find him already looking at you.

You don’t break eye contact the entire elevator ride to the fifth floor.

And when Gator opens the hotel door for you, you can’t help the small gasp that leaves your lips. 

“Gator,” you say, completely breathless as you look around the room with wide eyes—at the expensive decorative golden carpet beneath your heels, at the plush royal blue loveseat, the floor to ceiling windows and finally the california king sized bed that sat in the middle of the room, white sheets that were so pristine that you were sure cost more than your monthly rent.

You were in such a state of awe that your body jolted when you felt Gator’s arms wrap your waist from behind.

“Where’d ya wanna go?” He asks against the skin of your neck, grinding himself against your ass, his cock thickening beneath his jeans. “The couch?” He whispers, pressing a kiss just over your pulse. “The floor?” He sucks gently at your skin, smiling when you arch back against him. “The bed?” He murmurs before his tongue darts out to lick a stripe up your neck while pressing himself more firmly against you.

Your eyelids flutter shut, heat coiling in your gut deliciously and making it impossible to resist him for even a second longer.

“Anywhere,” you breathe, turning around in his arms so you could face him. “I just want you.”

It was perhaps the most honest thing you had said in four months.

And it was those words that pull a rare, genuine smile from Gator Tillman before he finally leans in and crashes lips against yours.

His mouth was warm and insistent against yours, tongue licking into your mouth hungrily as though desperate to relearn every part of you he had missed. You melt into him, your fingers already tugging at his shirt as his hands roam over you to squeeze the globes of your ass.

“Missed ya, baby,” Gator groans against your mouth before pulling your bottom lip between his teeth and sucking gently.

You whimper against him at the action, your fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt as you continue your attempts to tear it from his body. Gator doesn’t do a damn thing to help you, seemingly too focused on your lips, on the way you were whining against him as though you were desperate for him.

“Did’ya miss me too?” Gator asks you, pulling away just to look at your face, at your spit-slick lips, at your flustered expression.

“I did,” you breathe out, one of the buttons on his shirt popping out in your eagerness to tear it off his body. At the sight of his chest hair peaking through the half unbuttoned shirt, your pussy throbs in anticipation. Fuck. You had missed his chest hair. Ethan was almost silky smooth compared to Gator and the sight of the dark, coarse hair over Gator’s chest made you almost feral and you can’t help but lean in and lick along the coarse hair in one, languid swipe. “I missed you s’much.”

Gator groaned, genuinely groaned out loud and the sound went straight to your dripping core.

“C’here mama,” he grunts, his palms cupping your jaw and pulling your lips back to his.

Gator kisses you like he was starving and you kiss him back like he was the air you breathed. Desperation for each other was seared into each and every kiss, a complete lack of care for how messy and wet the kiss was. In fact, the messy glide of your tongue against each other only made you more desperate for each other.

You finally manage to peel off his shirt and you smile in victory before letting out a small shriek as Gator’s hands hoist you up. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, your lips not leaving his as he walks you over to the luxurious bed waiting for the two of you.

You expect him to throw you onto the bed, expect him to manhandle you the way he always did.

But to your surprise, he doesn’t.

Instead, Gator Tillman lowers you gently down onto the bed as though you were something precious.

“Gator,” you gasp out, reaching for the buckle of his belt but he stops you with surprisingly gentle hands. “Please, Gator. I want—”

He shushes you, pressing a finger to your lips to silence you as his hazel eyes drag over your body, at the dress that was fluttering over the tops of your thighs, just exposing the slither of deep red lace hidden beneath your dress.

“—and I wanna take my time, baby,” he tells you, bottom lip pulled between his teeth as he leans away from you and to gently grab one of your calves. “Ya deserve that shit.”

Your lips part as you watch him slowly—ever so slowly—take off the heels that you had been wearing. The entire time, he doesn’t break eye contact, not even as he kissed along the skin of your ankle.

Your entire body was thrumming with want. You were so turned on that the ache between your thighs was becoming almost painful and you could barely stop yourself from squeezing your thighs together.

The moment you do however, Gator’s eyes darken and his palms were quick to stop you, spreading your legs even further apart and causing a whine of utter desperation from leaving you. 

“Look at you,” he hums, licking his lips at the sight of the damp patch in your panties, the darkened fabric making his achingly hard cock stir beneath his clothes. “Fuck, I need’ta see her, baby.”

You nod feverishly, your body practically shaking with anticipation as Gator tries his very best to peel the dress off your body without tearing it. You, however, didn't care in the slightest if he ripped the dress to pieces.

The moment Gator finally saw what you were wearing beneath—the deep red, lacy set that he had once bought you for Valentines’ Day, Gator let out a noise that you prayed you’d never forget.

“Fuuck, baby,” he breathes out, leaning in to press a kiss to the swell of your breast and groaning at the feel of your skin against his lips. “Look at ya. Fuckin’ look at ya. Fuckin’ masterpiece and all f’me.”

It was the most poetic thing you had perhaps ever heard Gator say and it sent waves of something that felt like electricity through you. 

“Gator, please—” you whine, your back bowing off the bed as one of his hands brush down your back to unhook your bra. He seemed to lose his gentleness in his haste to get it off your body but you didn’t mind, not when his mouth quickly latched itself over one of your nipples. You let out a moan that the room next door was sure to hear. But you didn’t care, not when he was sucking hard on your pebbled peak, swirling around the sensitive bud with his tongue as his other hand came up to knead the breast his mouth wasn’t working on.

You weren’t holding back—after months of sex that left you feeling unwanted, unsexy and incredibly frustrated, you were finally allowing yourself to live in your pleasure. You allowed yourself to focus on Gator’s tongue, his hands and the groans that were muffled against your tit in his mouth.

Ethan was never enthusiastic the way Gator was about your pleasure, in fact, you often wondered if Ethan even really cared about your pleasure since he never touched you unless he got something in return and he certainly had never moaned shamelessly at the feeling of your breasts in his mouth like Gator was.

“S’good,” Gator groans against you before he switches to your other breast, his mouth giving it the same feverish attention as the other. “Fuckin’ missed these s’much. Most perfect fuckin’ pair of tits.”

Gator could have happily spent the entire evening lavishing your tits with his mouth, could have died there in all honestly. But you were writhing beneath him, hips bucking upwards and clearly desperate for more. 

“Stay still, baby,” he tells you before he blows air onto your nipple, tongue flicking the sensitive bud and causing a whimper to escape from your throat. “Stay still.”

You whine but the moment you feel his hands spread your thighs again, you know better than to listen to him. 

“That’s it,” he murmurs, deft fingers now tracing over the skin of your thighs before they wrap around the last bit of lace that covered your most intimate part from him. “Good girl.”

You can’t help the whimper that escapes you at those words.

“Gator—”

You were about to beg him, about to plead with him to stop teasing you but Gator Tillman seemed to get your message loud and clear.

He tugged your panties down your legs, almost ripping them off entirely in his eagerness to strip you bare. He stared down at the lace crumpled in his hand for a moment before lifting it to his nose and you watched—lips parted—as he breathed in your scent. He moans, loud and shameless as you fill his nostrils, the musky, heady smell making his hip buck against your thigh and you feel the thick, heavy outline of his cock. He was painfully hard but he was too busy smelling your soaked panties to really care.

“Fuuuuuck,” he moans into the material before letting it drop onto the sheets beside you so that he could let his eyes finally feast on the sight of you beneath him. You were sprawled out on the plush hotel bed, the expensive white sheets beginning to tangle from where you had been writhing against them in pleasure. He watches as your breasts heave, looking up at him, nipples still wet with his saliva before finally, finally his eyes drift down to your cunt and he marvels at the sight of it—glistening with your slick beneath the warm lights of the room.

“Jesus, baby,” he whispers, voice almost reverent as he leans in to kiss along your navel. Your body jolts slightly from the contact but Gator’s large hands hold your hips down, preventing you from moving too far. “Already s’fucking wet f’me. Drippin’ onto these expensive sheets. Fuck, mama.”

You feel his hot breath hit your inner thigh and the whimper that escaped you was borderline pathetic. You were so desperate, so ridiculously turned on that you were sure it wouldn’t take much for Gator to bring you to the edge. Just the way he was looking at your pussy was enough for more slick to dribble down between your folds.

You hear him tut gently and you look down just in time to watch one of his fingers brush gently through your curls before it glides easily between your folds, parting them gently. That first touch felt like something close to electricity surging through your body—you felt pleasure course through your entire being.

“Look at how neglected she’s been,” Gator murmurs as he leans in, breathing in your heady scent, his nose nudging lightly against your clit in a move that had you whimpering beneath him. “Can’t be havin’ that, can we, pretty?”

You have no time to respond, no time to even begin to think of a reply before Gator finally, finally dives right in.

And when it came to eating pussy, Gator Tillman did not hold back. Not in the slightest.

His mouth seals itself over your cunt with a sound that was so loud and so obscene that you momentarily began to wonder whether or not you were dreaming. But as he licked a long, broad stroke from your entrance right up to your swollen, puffy clit—you knew that this was far too good to be a dream.

“Gator!” You mewl out, your hands flying to grab onto his hair, needing something to hold onto as your hips are unable to jerk upwards as he holds you down against the mattress. Your fingers tug at his hair as he circles your sensitive bud with the very tip of his tongue and he groans at the feeling, causing a vibration that makes your toes curl.

“That’s it, mama,” Gator mutters against you, his eyes not leaving your face as it twists with pleasure. “Taste fuckin’ incredible. Like home.”

If you weren’t feeling such intense pleasure from his tongue playing with your clit, you may have thought more about those words.

“Fuuuuck, Gator,” you moan, throwing your head back against the sheets as he flattened his tongue, dipping back down to your dripping hole that he lapped at greedily, slurping up your slick messily like it was holy water before pushing his tongue inside and fucking you with it. Gator didn’t seem to care that the mix of your wetness and his saliva was now dripping from his lips and coating his chin and he certainly didn’t care about the moans he was letting out against your cunt.

“Missed this sweet fuckin’ pussy,” He murmurs, smirking against your heat before he pulls away just to listen to your needy whines. “She’s missed me too, ain’t that right, pretty?”

You nod, opening your mouth to reply but whatever words were about to leave your lips were cut off entirely by a high-pitched moan as he pressed a finger to your oversensitive clit.

“That’s it, baby,” he murmurs, grinning lazily at the way you almost convulse with pleasure beneath him as he begins to press circles against your clit with familiar precision. “Let me hear ya. Let me hear those sweet fuckin’ sounds of yers.”

You couldn’t speak, couldn’t form a sentence or even a coherent thought, not as he traced two fingers down your folds, smearing your slick over you messily before he pushed both fingers deep inside of you. You felt him curl his fingers, your eyes rolling back into your head as they pressed firmly against that spongey spot inside of you. 

And when his mouth returned to your clit and sucked the sensitive bud between his lips?

It was nothing short of ecstasy.

The dual sensation of his mouth on your clit and his fingers fucking in and out of you, pressing against that spot that made you see stars with every pump of them had you making noises you didn’t know you were even capable of. The wet sounds of his mouth sucking at your clit, of his fingers pumping in and out of your cunt fill the room, along with his muffled groans and your high-pitched moans. You weren’t even really aware of how loud you were being, not when it felt so fucking good to be worshipped the way Gator Tillman worshipped you the altar between your thighs.

“Yer so fuckin’ perfect,” Gator murmurs against you, his words slurring slightly, seemingly drunk on your pussy before he doubles down, fingers curling inside of you at the same as he sucks at your clit.

“Gat—Gator,” you gasp, not knowing anything other than his name. “Gator, I’m going to—”

“Ya gonna cum, baby?” He asks, not letting up for even a second as he pushes you closer and closer to the edge. “C’mon then, pretty. Be a good girl f’me and cum.”

It was the way he was looking at you, it was the fact that it was Gator and that this—he—was everything you had been thinking about for the past few months that you finally found yourself tipping over the edge.

You let out a cry, one that was sure to wake the whole damn hotel as your orgasm crashed through your body with an intensity you didn’t know was possible. Your walls squeeze his fingers as he works you through it, your pussy gushing around the digits while his tongue greedily savours every last drop.

You were trembling, feeling pleasure coursing through every single nerve in your body, your blood singing from the intensity of your orgasm. You were absolutely positive that Gator Tillman had sent you to another planet, another universe with his fingers and mouth and you wanted to live there for a little bit longer.

But the sound of Gator whispering your name pulls you back.

You sit up on your elbows, his face glistening with your release and looking so handsome that you wondered why you ever fucking left.

“Gator,” you gasp, your hands that were still in his hair pulling him toward you. “Gator, I—”

“—I know,” Gator breathes out, eyes seeming to sparkle in the warm light. “I know, baby.”

You met in the middle in a kiss that was so soft and so gentle that it took your breath away. You could taste yourself on his tongue but you didn’t care, not when he was kissing you like you were more precious than gold, not when he was holding you so close to his body like he was never going to let you go again.

He whispers your name again and he says it so lovingly that you almost didn’t recognise it but it made you cling to him tighter, made your body shake with an emotion you couldn’t control.

Your hands shake as they run over his skin, down his neck, over his chest, over the soft stomach that your cunt throb again before finally you reach his belt buckle. Gator doesn’t tease you this time, instead he groans into your mouth before he helps you with his belt, which he throws unceremoniously to the other side of the hotel room. You’re pretty sure you hear something clatter to the floor but neither of you really care as his jeans are the next item of clothing to disappear.

The outline of his cock through his boxers was enough to make your mouth water. You had almost forgotten how big Gator’s cock was but the size of the bulge in front of you was a truly glorious reminder.

“I don’t have a—”

“—I don’t care,” you say quickly, your fingers already tugging at the waistband of his boxers as you look hungrily up at him. “Just fuck me, Gator.”

With one firm tug, his cock finally springs free. It slaps against his stomach and sound goes straight to your core. You watch greedily at the way the ruddy tip is already leaking, precum dribbling down and running along his veiny length, making your mouth feel impossibly dry.

“D’ya wanna—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, you’re already pulling him down onto the mattress and pushing him onto his back.

“Oh shit,” Gator smirks, his hands finding your hips as you move to straddle him, your wet heat pressing against his thigh. “You gonna ride me, pretty? Is it my birthday or somethin’?”

You roll your eyes, a smile tugging on your lips as your cheeks warm slightly.

“Don’t be shy,” he tells you, thumb brushing over your skin before he presses his thigh against you, the hairs brushing against your still sensitive clit and causing you to jolt slightly. “Ride me. G’on, baby.”

Despite his slightly commanding tone, despite the smug smile on his face, you could see the desperation and utter devotion in his eyes. He needed this—needed you almost as much as you needed him.

And so, you wasted absolutely no time in wrapping your fingers around his cock and lining him up with your entrance. You watch as his lips part and eyes widen, Gator Tillman momentarily speechless at your touch, before you begin to sink down onto his thick cock.

The stretch burns at first. Ethan was nowhere as big or as thick as Gator was and so, it took you a moment or so before you sank yourself down onto him completely. The moment you do, the moment you were filled entirely with Gator—was the moment you realise you had never stopped loving him.

“Ya okay?” Gator asks you gently, feeling you tense briefly and his hands cup your face in a gesture so sweet and gentle that you nearly forget to breathe. “I didn’t hurt ya, did I?”

“No,” you shake your head quietly, smiling at him as you watch his expression soften slightly, the relief in his eyes that he hadn’t hurt you. “I just—I just really missed you.”

Because you did. You had missed him, not just the sex. You realise that now. You always knew, deep down, that Gator loved you despite not being able to say it back. Because Gator Tillman may not have screamed it from the rooftops, but he said it in every gentle caress, every smile and every laugh meant only just for you.

Gator looks back at you carefully, blinking slowly as he studies the look on your face before he swallows, fingers digging into the skin of your hips. “I missed ya too. Sap.”

You smile at him before you laugh, your fingers dancing over the skin of his shoulders as you watch his lips twitch as though he’s trying not to smile too.

You had so much more you wanted to say to him, so much more you needed to talk about—but there would be time for that. 

You held onto his shoulders as you began to roll your hips, the slow grind making Gator swallow as your gummy walls squeezed snugly around his cock.

“Yer so fuckin’ warm,” he groans, eyes flickering down to watch the way your pussy was stretched around him, the sight making his stomach tighten. “Squeezin’ me like that, fuck, mama. Keep goin’.”

But you keep the slow grind, watching the way his throat bobs, the way his bottom lip was pulled between his teeth like he was trying to stop himself from moaning. The sight alone made you clench around him.

“Pretty girl—”

“—you gonna say please?” You ask him with a teasing smile, sinking down and rolling your hips in a move that had Gator gripping onto your flesh tightly.

Gator looked for a moment as though he would rather die than say please but another roll of your hips, one that had him fully seated inside of you caused him to let out a sound you didn’t even know he was capable of.

“Please,” he grunts, his hands moving to squeeze the globes of your ass as though desperate to keep you close to him. “Please ride me, baby.”

Who were you to refuse him?

You started to ride him properly then, rolling your hips as Gator’s hands on your ass guided you into a faster rhythm, one that his head rolling back and your fingers biting into the skin of his shoulders.

“Oh, fuuuck, Gator!”

It was hard to think clearly after that. His hands squeeze your ass, kneading the flesh as he aided you in slamming back down onto his cock repeatedly. Wet sounds fill the room once again, this time from his thick cock slamming up into you, the fat head of it bullying your cervix with each and every thrust. 

You mewl, moan and whimper, your hips meeting his movements as you grab onto the headboard behind him for leverage. The moment that you do, there was really no stopping the noises that left both your mouths.

You slam your pussy down around his cock over and over and over again, your tits bouncing in his face while Gator babbles mindlessly beneath you.

“Fuck baby, that feels s’fucking good. Yer so good. Fuckin’ made f’me. Don’t know—fuck—don’t know why the fuck I ever let ya walk away. Never again, pretty.”

You nod frantically, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as his hips thrust up to meet you, burying himself so deep that you swear you felt him in your gut. The coil inside you was tightening again, so close to snapping that you felt tears well up in your eyes owing to the sheer amount of overwhelming pleasure you were feeling.

“Look at me,” Gator says suddenly and the desperation in his voice makes you look down at him. “Look at me, baby. Want ya to look at me when ya cum.”

You whimper, the eye contact somehow making everything even more intense. It wasn’t just the pleasure and the heat building steadily up in your gut, but the emotion you felt in your throat, in your very bones, as you looked back at him.

“Gator—”

“—I know baby,” Gator grunts, thrusting up into you and looking at you with such gentleness that you couldn't bring yourself to look away even if you wanted to. “I know—and I love you too.”

A sound tears from your throat—a sob, a moan—you weren’t entirely sure. All you knew was that your second orgasm tears throughout your body, waves of pleasure crashing over you, making everything around you feel fussy as you squeezed his thick cock like you never wanted him to leave.

“Fuck—that’s it, mama. S’fucking pretty. Fuckin’ beautiful. Ya gonna make me—”

Gator doesn’t finish his sentence, a needy whine leaving his lips as he tips over the edge right after you. His hips stutter, slamming your pussy down around him one final time before he floods your pussy with hot spurts of his cum. You whimper, bordering on overstimulation as he keeps thrusting up into you, fucking his cum up into you, as deep as it could go.

“S’fucking good for me. Takin’ all my cum like a good girl.”

You whimper before collapsing against his chest, completely and utterly spent. Gator’s arms wrap around you in an instant, his cock still pulsing inside of you as he presses kiss after kiss against the sweat-slick skin of your shoulder.

You were both breathing heavily, both clinging to each other as though neither of you wanted to leave the hotel bed.

But it didn’t take long for the guilt to come back. The blurred image of Ethan creeping back into the back of your head.

As though being able to read your thoughts, Gator says your name quietly—almost tentatively.

“I really do miss ya,” he tells you, raising a cheek to brush his fingers gently across your cheek. “Not just—not just this, y’know but—all of ya.”

“Gator—”

“—I know, okay? I know ya think m’just saying shit because of what we just did but I—I really do love ya. A lot. So much that I spent fuckin’ way too much money on this fuckin’ hotel room so I could prove to ya that I can take care of ya too. Not just that trust fund baby ya been seein’.”

It takes a few moments to take in his words through your post orgasm haze but when you do, you finally understand just why Gator Tillman had splashed out on a fancy hotel to fuck you in.

“Gator,” you breathe out his name before you pull yourself away from his chest to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to spend money to prove that you love me,” you tell him quietly with a shake of your head. “You just have to say it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Gator expression shifts, as though quietly trying to understand your words before he swallows.

“Well, I do,” he says, looking away for a very brief moment before looking back at you. “I love ya, baby. I always have. Always will.”

You expect him to look away, for him to shy away from those words but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks back at you with a determined expression that makes the world around you almost cease to exist.

“I love you too,” you breathe out, your hands cupping his face before pulling him into a kiss that has his cock twitching inside of you.

“So, ya gonna break up with that prick now?” Gator asks, pulling away to pepper kisses along your neck, setting a fire along your skin. “Or can I fuck ya again first?”

dividers and banners by me 🌸

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.✦ ݁˖ rec account: @moonstone-recommends .✦ ݁˖

A/N : Okay, so... went absolutely crazy with this. I have no idea if it's any good since it's the first time I've ever written something like this (MMF), so please tell me if you liked it (I die for comments). I got inspired by @tellcherhesgone , @frootybb , and all the wonderful posts about Teacake x any other djoling 😵‍💫 Made me think of this dynamic and here we are! Keycake has fully taken over my brain, I'm afraid.

WC : 8k :)

♡ Masterlist ♡

***********

The hallway was dim, one of the overhead lights blinking rapidly as the dying bulb kept holding on for dear life. Travis had just gotten back from work and he was taking the trash out when he saw his neighbor – the nerdy guy with soft brown hair and glasses – get out of his apartment.

Travis approached him, feeling his usual chatty self revving up. "Hey! Um... I'm Teacake." He points to his apartment. "We're neighbors, hah. I was wonderin' what you do for work? 'Cause you always leave for the whole day and then you don't sleep when you're here."

Keys looked at him with barely masked horror, his mouth slightly open as he peered at the man over his glasses. He looked like he had just seen or heard the most disturbing thing he could think of.

Travis noticed and immediately took a step back and shook his head, his hands coming up as if to say I’m not a threat. "Woah, I didn't mean it like that! That sounded creepy." He scoffed, lowering his hands and shrugging. "S'just, your office probably shares a wall with my bedroom or somethin’, and I hear your keyboard and shit. You know, thin walls. Anyway... what's your name?"

Keys felt awkward. And almost a little scared. He had noticed how the bulkier man had swept his eyes over his frame quickly when he first approached him, and it had sent an unexplainable shiver down his spine. Keys figured he shouldn't upset him, even if the man he now knew as ‘Teacake’ appeared like he could share DNA with a golden retriever puppy. "It's fine. Uh... it's Walter. I'm a game developer." He checked his watch.

"Oh, that's dope! Man, that must take a lot of focus. Anyway, I won't hold you up any longer. Probably gotta go create cool stuff, huh? See ya." He said, suddenly feeling self-conscious after sensing his neighbor’s discomfort. Travis retreated to his apartment with a polite nod of his head.

****

Without meaning to, the encounter lingered in Walter's mind. He kept noticing Travis when he would see him around the building, and he'd give him slight nods of acknowledgment, but never more. It made the bleached-blonde man hold off from speaking to him again, sensing that Keys wasn’t interested like he might have been.

One night, Keys was cooking dinner while he was waiting for you to come to his place after work. He was making your favorite pasta dish - a creamy sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, spinach, and just the right amount of pepper and herbs over al dente orzo. But when came the time to add pepper, he picked up the shaker and found it empty. And then the back-up canister he found at the back of his pantry was also annoyingly pepper-less. He stared at it in disbelief. "Really? Who fucking runs out of pepper?"

He debated going to the store, but you'd be here in about ten minutes, and the sauce was already bubbling away. He huffed and turned down the heat to an even lower simmer before heading out of his apartment. He nervously knocked on Travis’ door.

When the man opened it, his eyes widened as he took in the sight of his neighbor he thought he had no chance of befriending standing right in front of him. Travis instantly kicked himself for not waking up earlier because he was positive he looked completely messy, and not in a hot way – his hair was still mussed from sleep and he had on a gray shirt with sweatpants that were a bit twisted on his body, his usual attire for getting ready for work. "Um, hi?"

Keys didn't look at him straight on. "Hi. I'm sorry to bother you. I'm uh... cooking for my girlfriend and I'm out of pepper. Would you, perhaps... have any I could borrow?"

Travis furrowed his brows as he crossed his arms over his chest, the motion making his biceps strain against the cuffs of his t-shirt. He noticed how Keys' attention got drawn to it before the man's eyes looked up at him through his glasses. "Who the fuck runs out of pepper?" Travis asked, mirroring Keys’ earlier reflection.

Keys chuckled and shrugged, slightly defeated. "Me, apparently."

Travis studied him a second longer before he retreated into his apartment, leaving his door wide open. Keys stayed still for a second but then entered when Travis started speaking from his kitchen. "So you have a girlfriend, huh? You been together long?"

Keys reached the kitchen and saw Travis rummaging through his cupboards. "Almost a year now," Keys said with a soft smile.

Travis grabbed his pepper container and spun around, making his hair rise up and down with the motion. "Ah! There you go. And that's nice. You’re lucky to have someone." He gave the pepper to Keys, who immediately nodded and shot him a tight-lipped smile.

"Thanks, man. I'll uh... bring it back as soon as I'm done."

Travis waved him off, cocking his head to the side as his shoulder came up. "No trouble. Actually, I'm leavin' for work soon, so... bring it back tomorrow or somethin'."

Keys nodded. "Sure. What uh... what do you do for work?"

Travis had not expected the nerdy man to ask him that, let alone show any interest in getting to know him. He leaned his hip against the counter. "Oh. I work at a storage facility. Graveyard shift. It's nothing much but they hired me, and since no one wants to do it, it pays pretty well. I used to have a similar job back in Kansas. Used to think it was pretty shitty, but when I came to Boston, it felt kinda groundin’ to have a similar job, y’know?”

Keys nodded and smiled a little warmer before leaving toward the door. "Oh, that’s cool. Didn’t know you were from Kansas. Well, have a good shift."

"Thanks, and you have a good date!" Travis said as Keys slipped out of his apartment to go finish your dinner with his borrowed pepper.

****

The night after, you were making out with Keys on his bed. Your top was already off, your thighs on either side of his lap as you kept rolling your hips over his bulge. The rough denim seam kept catching deliciously against your clothed clit as your hands were buried in his hair to keep him at that perfect kissable angle.

His hands kept roaming over your thighs, letting you do your thing, sometimes slipping under your skirt to grab your ass and pull you a little bit more forcefully against him. "Fuck, Petal... keep going. Just like that." He sounded wrecked, just the way you liked him when you were on top.

You reached for the hem of his shirt and ripped it off him before sliding down slightly, just enough so you could undo his pants and take his painfully hard cock out. "I need you, baby. Right now."

"Uh-huh, you have me. Shit..." Keys hissed as you pulled your panties to the side and sank down on him. He grabbed your waist to stabilize you, and then you started rolling your hips.

Moans of pleasure quickly began falling from your lips, your head tipping back as your hand grabbed his thigh to keep yourself propped up. Keys was in awe, looking at you like you were a literal goddess in his lap, fucking herself on his cock like he was her humble servant – just a warm rod to utilize. It made his head spin as his whines and moans got louder. "That's it... fuck. So beautiful, baby. Use me, yeah."

You cried out as he rolled his hips up to meet your movements, making his thick cock (it’s always the nerds) reach that spot inside you that had you seeing stars. At the loud sound, his gaze flicked to his desk and his keyboard, and then to that conversation with his neighbor. If he could hear the keys, then he could definitely hear this. And for some reason, that turned Keys on immensely. He didn’t know why – maybe it was that primal part of him that wanted to prove to other men how good he could make a woman feel, or maybe it was the fact that the blonde man had piqued his interest in potentially more than a friendly way, although he wouldn’t admit that.

Keys kept bucking his hips up as you grinded on him, your hand rubbing circles on your clit, until you shattered around him. "Fu-uck!" You came with a loud cry, moaning his name as you collapsed onto him and buried your face in his neck.

It only took a few more thrusts through your spasming walls for him to fill you up with his release, marking you as his. "Holy shit, baby... god, you're perfect. So fucking perfect.”

After cleaning you up and giving you a shirt to sleep in, he excused himself and told you he'd just be a minute. He grabbed the borrowed pepper from his kitchen and made his way to the door next to his.

He heard some swearing after he knocked, a little shuffling, and then Travis opened the door. His face was flushed, and he hid the front of his sweatpants behind the half-opened door. "Hey, man!" His voice sounded strained.

Keys smirked – his attitude a little cocky, or maybe self-assured, in his post-sex afterglow – and he raked his fingers through his still sweat-damp hair before raising the pepper into view. "Evening. Thanks again for the pepper, man. She really appreciated it. I owe you one." He pressed the cannister in Travis' hand, and his fingers brushed his palm a little longer than they should have. To say Travis was confused at Walter’s newfound confidence would be putting it lightly, but at the same time, he did just hear him moan and make a woman come probably like ten feet away from him. Yes, he had been touching himself to the sound. So what?

So what, he was embarrassed and he felt like Keys could see right through him.

"N-no worries. Just neighborly kindness, yeah?" Travis swallowed thickly, shuffling a little behind the door as Keys stayed glued in the same spot. They stared each other down for a second, the power dynamic weirdly reversed from their first encounters, before Travis heard your soft voice.

"Babe? Keys? Where are - oh!" You padded down the hall in nothing but the oversize shirt that reached down to your mid-thigh - let's face it, this was also oversized for Keys. You wrapped your arm around his waist, and his arm came up around your shoulder, and then you peaked at the blonde man. He looked handsome, maybe even similar to keys with his soft and big hazel eyes. But his vibe was completely different. If Keys was a neatly folded tower of plush white towels, Travis was a chaotic but somehow still standing pile of mismatched ones. The dichotomy amused you.  "Everything okay?"

Before Walter could answer, Travis spoke up. His eyes fixed on you. "Y-yeah! Um... Walter here just gave me back the pepper he was missin' for y'all's dinner yesterday. Hope it was good." He flashed you a soft grin and you felt a little flutter in your chest. Interestingly enough, you could also feel your boyfriend's heartbeat under your hand and how fast it was going.

"Oh, that was you! Teacake, is it? Well thank you for that, that dish just isn't the same without it." You smiled warmly at him, your still slightly red cheeks from exertion pushing up and making the corner of your eyes wrinkle.

Travis looked at you like you were the kindest and softest person he ever met. "You're welcome," he simply said, a dazed little smile on his face.

Keys smirked again and pulled you back toward his place. "Anyway, see you around, T."

****

They started hanging out together after that when Travis had shown interest in a game he saw Keys bring home and the latter invited him in to watch. Some nights, when you came over to Keys' place, Travis would be there. The blonde man had even started waking up a bit earlier before work in favor of going to sleep earlier as well, just so they could hang out.

Most of the time, Keys was playing a video game, or cooking while waiting for you, and Travis was happy just looking at him and talking, sometimes briefly assisting him.

Once Keys figured out that he was truly harmless and indeed golden-retriever-puppy-like, he became pretty good friends with Travis. Walter was usually a nice, polite man that didn't talk that much, so he enjoyed how easy it felt with someone like Travis who seemed like they just couldn't stop the words from coming out.

And the more it went on, the more Keys loosened up – he found himself explaining gaming lore to a clueless Travis, telling him what extensions he was waiting on snatching up, and what a good game to start getting into the whole thing would be. Travis would ask so many questions, completely absorbed, until it was his turn and he'd tell Keys all about the book he was reading.

The whole dynamic worked. And you noticed it.

The way Travis' gaze would roam over Keys when he thought neither of you were looking. The way Keys would squeeze the other man's shoulder when he left for work, something he never did with his other friends.

And then, you noticed Travis looking at you, too. It made you feel hot all over. You loved your boyfriend - Keys satisfied you completely and he was so loving and caring – but you couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to add the slightly bulkier man to the mix. Especially since you thought that Keys might have been into him as well, even though he had never once admitted his bicuriosity. As his very perceptive girlfriend, you just kind of knew.

One night, while you were on your way over to Keys' place, he was making risotto for you both while chatting with Travis. The blonde man saw a new figurine on Keys' windowsill, and recognition flashed in his eyes. He speed-walked toward it.

"Oh my god! That's... I don't know his name. But yeah, I remember this dude. A guy I used to fuck had the same exact one. Huh." Travis kept looking at the figurine, hands on his hips, back facing Keys, unaware that he just sent the slightly younger man into a spiral.

Keys stopped stirring the risotto for a few seconds, taken aback by Travis' casual comment. And then, because he didn't want to seem like he was surprised because he had always valued himself as an ally, he started stirring again. "O-oh yeah?" His voice came out shaky.

"Yeah! I mean, this guy was like, obsessed with stuff like that. Pretty nerdy. Kind of like you."

Keys choked and Travis turned, brows furrowed, before quickly reaching Keys and stroking his back in concern. Walter was coughing and wheezing, and Travis' warm hand on his back did not help how red his face and ears were getting.

"Hey, man. You okay? Let me get you some water," Travis said before getting into action.

Once Keys had settled and was back to monitoring the risotto's thickness, Travis spoke again. "You didn't know, huh?"

Keys glanced at Travis – who was leaning his cocked hip against the counter – before looking back into the safety of the softening rice. "Know what?"

"That I'm bi? It's actually kinda shockin' you hadn’t figured it out before, since you're supposedly a genius or whatever." He smirked and motioned toward his earrings, as if that was irrefutable proof, when Keys glanced toward him again with a scowl.

"I... I don't know. S'not really my business." Keys shrugged. "But I don't mind! It's totally fine, you know?"

Travis smiled and nodded.

Before he could say anything though, he heard the door open and you stepping into the apartment. You noticed Travis' shoes in the entry way, so you called out to them. "Hey guys!"

You greeted them both – Travis with a friendly hug and Keys with a soft kiss – and you insisted that the blonde man stay for dinner and to hang out after. It was his night off, after all.

After dinner – which was incredibly tasty and peppery – the three of you were sitting on the couch, watching a movie. Keys was laying on the L part of it, legs extended, with you tucked into his side. His arm was wrapped around you as your head laid on his shoulder, your back almost pressed to the armrest. Travis was on the other side, resting on the arm of the couch, a safe distance away. The whole atmosphere was cozy – the only light came from the TV and from a floor lamp that emitted a soft pink glow.

You had a blanket over Keys and yourself. All throughout the movie – which Keys was utterly focussed on – you kept making subtle eye contact with Travis. Every time, the two of you would offer each other a small smile and look back at the movie. At one point though, you saw how Travis' gaze seemed to roam over you... and Keys.

It started innocently enough. A few kisses on your boyfriend's neck where you could reach, your hand getting higher and higher on his thigh. You grazed his half-hard length over his sweats and his hand shot out to grab your wrist – not forcefully, just keeping you from continuing. He shot you a confused look before subtly tilting his head toward Travis. You smirked and shrugged, before starting your soft assault on his neck again.

You hummed and bit the skin gently before soothing over it with your tongue. The sound made Travis turn his head toward you and Keys, and he just couldn’t look away. The way you were basically making out with your boyfriend’s soft skin, and how your leg was coming up over his, and how the blanket was slowly falling away to reveal your smooth thighs in those pajama shorts.

Keys let his head rest against the back of the couch as he stopped holding your wrist, letting you do what you wanted. You straddled his hips – nothing too intense just yet – before you leaned down to whisper in his ear. "I think your friend might want a little show... you wanna do that?" The little tug on the hair at the base of his neck told him how turned on you were, but you were still giving him space to decide if it was something he also wanted. It made his heart ache – the consideration – as his hands grabbed your hips and started making you grind on top of him. You whined, burying your face in his neck, hidden from his and the other man's gaze.

Keys then dared to look toward Travis – his pupils completely overtook his irises from the sight. Travis was alternating looking at you, and then at Keys, his mouth slightly open in arousal. His big hand rested over his tented crotch, applying slight pressure. He jerked his chin, giving Keys his blessing to keep going in an unnervingly silent gesture for a man who usually couldn’t stop talking.

Your boyfriend slipped his hands beneath your shirt, his slightly cold fingers making goosebumps rise on the overheated skin of your sides. You pulled back from his neck and you reached for the hem of your shirt. Before you could pull it off, Keys stopped you gently. "You sure about this, Petal?"

You looked at him tenderly, and then at Travis. The latter looked wrecked, his eyes locking onto yours. You kept your gaze on him as you smirked and nodded, before fully pulling off your shirt. Your bare breasts squished together slightly as you brought your hands back on Keys' shoulders. The cold AC air kissed your skin and made your nipples harden and feel sensitive.

Keys didn’t take long to warm them with his breath as he took the left one into his mouth, lavishing his tongue over it as his hands were on your waist. “Fuck, baby…” You moaned, your fingers burying in his hair to tug lightly just like you knew he loved.

It earned a deep groan out of him. He kept worshipping your breasts with his tongue and his hands and his fingers and his teeth, while you kept grinding against his bulge. You were so lost in it that you didn’t notice that Travis had taken his cock out and had started to stroke himself slowly, watching your sinful dance closely. It’s his voice that pulled you back into the moment, making you look at him. “You like that, sweetheart? Your boyfriend makin’ you feel good?”

You whined and nodded, maintaining eye contact with the blonde man as he bit his bottom lip. He smirked and shook his head. “Words, baby. Tell us.”

Holy fuck. Your mind was impossibly hazy, already cock-drunk even though you hadn’t gotten to even taste one already. “S’good…” You slurred.

Keys chuckled and pulled back from your chest, looking up at you reverently as his hands grabbed your thighs. “Oh, honey… you like it that much?”

You looked back down at him and nodded, your eyes wide and glistening in the low pinkish light. His thumb pressed over your clit through your shorts and undies, and he felt how you were starting to soak through both layers. “Jesus, baby… you’re completely soaked.”

Travis groaned as his head fell back, his wrist accelerating the motion over his cock at the thought of getting to taste you. He knew that wouldn’t happen though. Not tonight, at least.

Keys removed you off his lap and guided you to lay back down on the couch, at the end of the L part of it. He kneeled in front of you, before hooking his fingers in the waistbands of your shorts and panties and taking them off. Your legs instinctively spread for him, and his hands found the back of your knees to hold them up. He blew a stream of cold air on your slick folds, making you clench around nothing. “Please, baby…”

He smirked, before kissing your inner thigh up to the crease of your hip. “Please what, honey?”

“Y-your mouth…” You managed to ask. And he was a weak man when you begged for him like that.

Keys placed a few delicate kisses on your belly, before he reached your center and started by tracing your folds with the tip of his nose. “You smell so perfect, gorgeous.” And then his mouth was on you – hot and wet. He licked broad stripes, gathering your arousal on his tongue before focusing his attention on your swollen clit.

Travis couldn’t really see your pussy from his vantage point, which would have made him frustrated if the sight he had instead wasn’t straight liquid sin. He couldn’t stop looking at how your back arched off the couch, accentuating the curve of your waist and showing off those perfect breasts of yours. The pink lighting made every valley deeper and every swell softer. Your perked nipples and the surrounding plush skin still looked slightly wet from Keys’ earlier worship. When he managed to shift his gaze down to the man between your legs, his breath hitched.

Keys was looking at him. While he was eating you out. His eyes were roaming over Travis, stopping on his throbbing cock being slicked by all the precum he was leaking. And when Travis noticed, he smirked. Because he finally had the confirmation that maybe his attraction toward his neighbor wasn’t as unreciprocated as he had thought.

Their eyes met – Keys looking completely pussy-drunk while you tugged on his hair, and Travis completely entranced by the display of lust before him.

The coil in your stomach was getting tighter, but you needed more. You turned your head to the side, taking in how Travis looked ready to pounce into the scene – even though he wouldn’t without Keys’ approval – and then you looked back down at your boyfriend. “B-baby?” Your voice came in shaky, through soft whines.

Keys pulled back and looked up at you with a dazed little smile. “Yeah, Petal?”

Your cheeks flushed. “Can I…?” You gestured toward Travis with your head. You couldn’t have known if he would be okay with it, but you hoped. You knew he would have been okay with a threesome with another girl after a night of drunken confessions had revealed some fantasies of yours, but with another man? That was new territory.

What you didn’t expect was for your boyfriend’s smirk to turn downright devilish. The expression was something you had never really seen coming from him – your usually caring and borderline submissive boyfriend. In reality, the idea of you being so completely his that you had to ask for his permission, and that he would be the one to decide how Travis could touch you, was one that turned him on immensely. He was definitely learning things about himself. “Aww, sweet thing… Trav, I think my girl wants to suck your cock. What do you think? Should I let her?”

Travis chuckled and scooted closer to you. “Man… I mean, if you let me touch her, I definitely won’t complain. But only if you don’t mind, of course.”

Keys let go of one of your thighs to bring his fingers to your pussy, the pads circling your entrance before he sunk two in. You arched your back and moaned his name. “Go on, man. If that’s what she wants. She’s real good at it,” he said before wrapping his lips around your aching nub and sucking it softly into his mouth.

Travis swallowed thickly before he knelt next to your head. His hand came up and brushed a strand of hair away from your face, achingly gentle. “You sure you want this, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Travis… please.” Your mouth opened and you stuck your tongue out for him. How could he say no to that?

He kept one hand on the side of your face, his thumb rubbing at the joint of your jaw. The tip of his cock – a gorgeous angry red, shiny with precum – reached your lips as he grabbed the base of it with his free hand. He tapped the tip against your tongue a few times before he slowly started feeding you his length.

You hummed around him, your lips wrapping around the head as your tongue twirled around it. You kept looking up at him with your wide, pleading eyes. His voice came out lower – wrecked from lust and want. “Fuck, K-Keys… you weren’t kidding, Jesus. Your mouth is insane, Babygirl. Feels soooo good. Yeah, that’s it. Use your tongue just like that. Good girl.”

Your eyes rolled back at the praise, your jaw growing slack as Travis thrusted shallowly into your mouth. He was panting and letting out gorgeous moans, an endless river of praise and grateful comments escaping him, as Keys kept fingering and eating you out. Your boyfriend could feel how your walls were tightening around his fingers, and how you were gushing so much he could feel it trickling down to his wrist. He kept looking at you take his neighbor’s cock so well, and it made his own leak a constant stream of precum in his boxers. He pulled back to speak as he kept fucking you with his long and skilled digits. “Shit, honey… you’re getting so wet. You really like sucking his dick, huh?”

You hummed and nodded as much as you could, your hand that was still in Keys’ hair pulling on it to try and get him to resume his movements on your pussy. He chuckled and gave in, his tongue drawing lazy and wide circles as his fingers pushed up into you, exactly the way he knew would get you to come. “Come on, sweets. Mmph… show us how much you like it,” he mumbled against your folds.

Travis was looking closely at Keys’ movements between your legs, wanting to learn exactly how you liked to be touched. He saw the muscles and tendons of your legs tightening as Keys played you like you were his most cherished instrument, and his hips gave a slightly harsher thrust into your mouth. You gagged around him, your throat constricting and squeezing his tip. He moaned loudly and pulled back, letting you breathe as he rubbed your cheek and caught the tears that were slipping out. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to go that deep, baby. Y’okay?”

You just looked up at him, completely drunk off your mouth being used and your boyfriend between your legs. You moaned as you shattered around your boyfriend’s fingers, your hips rolling against his hand and his face as you rode out your orgasm. Travis looked at your face the whole time, his thumb still rubbing the side of it as his other hand stroked his cock. “Yeah, there you go. Let it all out, Babygirl. God, you’re so fuckin’ hot, s’unfair.”

Keys pulled back, slowing his fingers as he felt the last weakening twitches of your walls squeeze his fingers. “She is, isn’t she?” He kissed the inside of your calf up to your ankle before finally taking his fingers out of you. They glistened with your cum in the pink light, and Travis’ gaze was immediately drawn to them. How long they were, and surprisingly thicker than one would expect – probably from hours and hours of playing videogames and typing on a keyboard. They literally shined with your essence. His mouth watered.

Keys noticed and he presented his fingers to the blonde man. “Want a taste, Trav? She’s so sweet.” He expected the man to gather some wetness on his own finger to lick it. What he didn’t expect was for Travis to bend down and take his fingers in his mouth, looking up at him with his big hazel eyes as his flicking tongue licked them clean, a pleased hum vibrating around them.

Your boyfriend stayed frozen, his dick twitching violently in his jeans as he looked at the other man. He let it last a few seconds, his grip tightening on your ankle before he pulled his fingers out of Travis’ mouth. He swallowed hard before looking down at you, his ears completely pink. He felt as though he had done something wrong, something he should feel guilty about, and he expected to see you mad.

God, you weren’t. Your hand was between your legs, rubbing circles over your clit as you had watched the interaction between the two men with rapt attention. “F-fuck…” You moaned, your back arching as you felt painfully empty just looking at them like that.

Keys quickly undid his jeans, taking his cock out as he tried to forget what had just happened and how ridiculously turned on it had made him. “Scoot up, baby. Need to be inside you.”

You obeyed and managed to push yourself a bit further up on the couch, enough so that Keys could kneel between your legs and tease your folds with his tip, mixing your arousal with his precum. “Fuck, you look so fucking good, Petal. So perfect for… us.” He said as he pushed all the way in, giving you no time to get used to the stretch. It made you cry out in pleasure.

Travis had moved with you both, going back to kneel next to your head as he kept stroking his painfully hard cock. It didn’t take long for you to take him back in your mouth, and for him to keep showering you with praise. “O-oh yeah, like that. So fuckin’ good, baby. You like that? Takin’ both our cocks at the same time, huh? Bet you feel so fuckin’ full, Babygirl. Jesus, you look perfect like this.”

Keys leaned over you, his hands resting on the cushion on either side of your waist as he rolled his hips deep and hard. His hair was hanging in his face slightly, his mouth open as he kept moaning and whimpering every time you clenched around him. He couldn’t stop looking at how well you sucked Travis’ cock, and at how well your pussy was taking his. He brought one of his hands to your clit and started circling it. “Shit, Petal… Come for us, come on. Give it to us.”

Travis felt the elastic in his lower back tighten before you, and he started thrusting sloppily into your mouth, making you gag around him. “Fuuuuck, I’m gonna come. W-where do you want it, baby?” You didn’t want to stop to answer, so you wrapped your arm around his hips to signal to him that you didn’t want him to pull out.

He came with a loud groan down your throat, his hips twitching as he rolled them sinfully, milking himself into you. You hummed around him, and the whole of it – the taste, being used, your boyfriend fucking you and stimulating you just right – it all catapulted you toward your end as well. You gasped and moaned loudly as Travis pulled out of your mouth, his hands cradling your face gently as waves and waves of pleasure tore through your body. Your hands came up to hold onto Travis’ wrists to ride it out.

Keys’ own hips started to stutter as he felt you come around his cock, and he buried himself deep to release inside you. He could feel that he was coming a lot – his spend gushing back out of you around the base of his cock – but he couldn’t care less. “Oh god, baby…” He collapsed on top of you, kissing your chest reverently as he shallowly thrusted his softening length inside you, something you both usually enjoyed in the aftermath.

Travis let you both embrace as he sat back on the couch, completely spent. “Damn, that was… really somethin’.”

Keys chuckled and lifted his head from your neck to glance at him. “Y-yeah? Don’t tell me your speechless now,” he teased, a soft smirk on his sweaty face.

Travis laughed as well, before he got up. “Let me go get you guys a towel or somethin’.”

****

Keys and you debriefed after that first night and you both agreed that you had enjoyed it quite a lot. You explained to him that it had been a fantasy of yours, and he tried to articulate how he had loved sharing you, even if he didn’t fully understand why. You also made a casual comment about how hot you found two guys being together. It was a throwaway comment, so he didn’t answer, but his ears grew pink.

The next time it happened was about a week later. You had talked with Travis about it – if he wanted it to happen again – and of course he had accepted. For him, being intimate with both a man and a woman felt like everything he ever wished for in life – his holy grail. Of course, he didn’t know if Keys wanted to do stuff with him too, but the way he hadn’t immediately recoiled when he had sucked his fingers told him that maybe there was a chance.

So that’s how you ended up here, your back to Travis’ chest as he reclined on the headboard of Keys’ bed. You were laying back on him between his legs, your own spread wide as his rigid length pressed against your lower back. The blonde man’s hands were grabbing your tits and rolling your nipples between his thumbs and index fingers, his mouth trailing sloppy kisses down the side of your neck. As for Keys, his cock was moving in and out of you as he fucked you slowly, his eyes drinking in the sight of you completely fucked out between the both of them.

You heard Travis speak just behind your ear. “Feels good, baby? Do you like how good your boyfriend’s cock feels inside you?”

You whined and nodded, your hips bucking up to meet his thrusts. Travis hooked one of his legs over yours to stop your movements. “Nuh-huh, Babygirl… gotta take it like a good girl, yeah? You’re being so good for us, don’t start now, mm?”

You nodded and stopped your movements, soft mewls and whines coming out of you as you kept looking at Keys slowly fucking into you. “There you go. S’not so hard, huh?” Travis’ hand left your breast to brush down your stomach before he found your swollen and slick nub. It slotted perfectly between his fingers as he started drawing slow circles over it. “Just let us take care of you, s’all we want. Right, Keys? Don’t we want to make her feel good?”

Keys nodded as he kept his slow pace. “Exactly, Trav.”

Your head fell back against his shoulder, letting the dual sensation wash over you. But they were going just slow enough for it to have you feeling fucked out but not enough to come. And they both knew it.

Travis was looking at Keys, and their eyes met before the man wearing glasses looked back down at your face. The blonde man’s hand started going lower toward your entrance – which was getting split open by Keys’ cock – and his fingers spread between his index and middle one to frame it. And then, they made contact with Keys’ length as it dragged in and out of your wet warmth.

Keys looked up again to Travis, who knew exactly what he was doing, and his hips stuttered. He felt his ears grow pink, but he couldn’t deny how much he liked it. He started picking up the pace, his hands tightening where they were gripping you on your body. “Fuck, yeah…” He groaned. “Just like that.”

You could feel what was happening and it made you clench hard around your boyfriend’s dick, the palm of Travis’ hand rubbing deliciously against your clit. “I’m… so close…” You whined.

Travis cooed and bit your shoulder gently. “Yeah, Babygirl? Wanna come all over Keys’ cock?”

His fingers tightened around the other man’s shaft, making him hiss and whimper, his head falling backwards as he looked up at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ… come on, Petal. Let go, baby. We’ve got you,” he moaned, his eyes falling back to look into your fucked-out ones.

You shattered completely, your orgasm moving like molten sugar through your limbs. “K-Keys! Fuck... Trav…” You kept moaning both of their names as they helped you ride it out – the two men completely focused on making it good for you. Travis was praising you – his mouth rambling like it usually does – between soft kisses to your skin he could reach.

Keys slowed his thrusts and pulled out of you – he had no idea how he managed not to come as he felt Travis’ fingers graze his tip – before shifting back and leaning over you, kissing your stomach sweetly. “Love you so much, honey. You’re perfect.”

The pair let you catch your breath for a second, before you realized that you were the only one that had reached your peak. Oh, that simply wouldn’t do.

You shuffled out of their grasp to kneel on the floor. “Can I suck both of you off?”

Travis chuckled as he took a pillow from the bed and gave it to you to kneel onto. As you shifted onto it, Keys spoke up as he stood in front of you with Travis. “I don’t know, Petal…” His hand came up to cup your face, his thumb brushing your lower lip. “Can you?”

You huffed and rolled your eyes before looking back up at the both of them, their hard lengths bobbing in your face. “May I? Please?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” You didn’t hesitate. You took them in your hands, stroking them and twisting your wrist with every motion. You first took Keys’ cock in your mouth, twirling your tongue around him and using just the slightest bit of teeth on his head, just like you knew he liked. “Fuck, that’s it, honey. Always so g-good with your mouth.”

He got so lost in it that he didn’t register how Travis was now pressed to his side until the older man’s arm wrapped around his waist, his hand splaying out on Keys’ hip. But he didn’t care – not when you felt this good around him and when his hand was buried in your hair, holding on for dear life.

You then pulled back and took Travis’ cock in your mouth as you kept stroking Keys’. You opened your mouth wider while you bobbed your head, letting spit fall out onto him, knowing how the blonde man enjoyed a messier blowjob from some of the filthy conversations you had had in between your encounters. “Jeeeesus Christ. Fuck me, baby. Can’t believe you’re doin’ this t’me. Feels so fucking good, so warm…” He turned to Keys, his gaze fixing on his mouth. “Fuck… Thank you, man.”

Keys’ eyes dropped to the other man’s lips, his tongue darting to subconsciously lick his own bottom one. He didn’t know what came over him, but he leaned in, and Travis met him halfway.

Their lips met in a heated kiss – not gentle in the slightest. Keys hummed as he sucked and nipped at Travis’ lower lip, and the other man parted his lips. It turned deep quickly, Travis’ hand fisting into the nerdy man’s tousled hair and pulling him closer, his nose bumping into the frame of his glasses.

You pulled back from Travis’ cock and took in the sight, completely mesmerized as the two men made out over you. You could feel your arousal pool between your legs again, dripping down your thigh. “Fuck, you look so hot…” You took Keys back in your mouth and you felt him twitch, his hand back in your hair as he shallowly thrusted in and out. Once, twice… and then he came down your throat. He gasped, pulling back from kissing Travis and looking down at you, his mouth open in pure ecstasy. “F-fuck, baby!” He moaned your name as you swallowed everything he gave you, tears blooming at the corners of your eyes and falling down your cheeks.

He pulled out of your mouth, his cock softening as he reached down and grabbed your elbows to bring you back up to your feet. He kissed you fiercely, his hands almost shaking as he held your face. “I love you so much, Petal.”

You beamed and giggled. “I love you too, baby… it was so hot looking at you kiss like that.”

He smiled, his cheeks turning red from embarrassment and lingering arousal. “Yeah?”

You nodded before looking at Travis. “And you, sir, still didn’t get to come…”

Travis smirked, his hand wrapping around his cock as he looked over at Keys, then back at you. “And do you have somethin’ in mind to help? I’ll take anythin’ I can get, Babygirl.”

You looked at your boyfriend with pleading eyes. “Baby… May he fuck me, too?”

Keys’ mouth pulled into a smile before he nodded, motioning toward the bed. “’Course, Petal. How do you want him?”

You squealed and reached for Travis’ hand, pulling him toward the bed. You pushed him down on his back before you straddled his hips, taking a hold of his rigid shaft and teasing the tip between your folds. His hands found your hips as you sank down on him, his eyes drinking you in greedily as you both moaned in unison. Your head fell back before you felt your boyfriend’s hand cradle it gently. “That’s it, baby… ride him like that. Show him how amazing it feels to worship you.”

You started grinding down on him, chasing your own pleasure as Travis looked up at you in awe. His grip on your hips kept tightening and loosening, his own slowly meeting your movements and intensifying your bliss. “Holy fuck, sweetheart… you’re a goddess like this. Look at you, oh my God… I’ve been dreamin’ of this since I saw you grind on him that first night, wishin’ it was me under you, just like this. Fuck, you’re drivin’ me insane.”

“Feel so good inside me, Trav. S-so deep- oh!” Keys was now kneeling next to you and his fingers we’re circling your clit, not caring when the tips of them caught onto Travis’ cock or when the backs of them felt his coarse bush with each of your thrusts.

“Come on, Petal. You gonna come all over his cock, mm? Show him how good you’re feeling right now?” He whispered against your ear, his warm breath sending a shiver down your spine.

You nodded vigorously, the pressure in your lower stomach building sharply until it tore through you. “Y-yes! I’m coming! Fuuuuck!”

Travis kept your tired hips moving back and forth with his hands as he kept bucking up into you. “Sh-shit, Keys, can I come inside her?” The rhythmic spasming of your walls was proving to be too much for him.

The man pushed up his glasses and nodded – eyes almost watery from how beautiful he thought you looked in that moment of pure liquid pleasure. “Y-yeah, fill her up.”

“Thank you. Holy shit, thank you, baby! Fuck!” He shot rope after rope inside you, painting your insides white as you collapsed forward onto his chest. His arms immediately wrapped around you and held you to him, his stomach still tensing from the pleasure slowly dying down. He whimpered loudly under you as he came back down from his high.

His deep breathing made you rise and lower softly on his chest, his lips pressing against your temple gently. “You okay, sweetheart?”

You sighed happily and nodded, burying your face deeper in the hair on his pecs. Travis smiled softly as he looked up at Keys, who was lovingly brushing his fingers through your hair.

Your boyfriend spoke up then. “You did so good for us, Petal. So perfect.” Travis hummed in agreement.

They both helped you get up on your wobbly legs, leading you toward Keys’ bathroom. They took turn gently washing you in the shower, their hands soaping up your wet skin and erasing the traces of lust and possessiveness from the evening. Well, the ones they could erase.

Once you were dried and dressed – in your panties and Travis’ shirt – and once they also were, you all laid down on Keys’ bed. Your boyfriend was on his back, your head laying on his chest and your leg over his, while Travis spooned you from the back, his arm resting over your waist and his hand splaying on Keys’ belly.

It felt so easy – you sandwiched between them, warm and safe and satisfied – as your boyfriend looked like he had finally gotten to explore a side of himself he never thought he would before. He smiled at you lovingly, kissing your forehead and squeezing your shoulder as his free hand intertwined with the blonde man’s hand on his stomach.

Travis kissed the nape of your neck as he squeezed Keys’ hand, and then he spoke up, the low lighting giving him courage as if he was a child believing a blanket could protect him from monsters. “I uh… this feels really special to me. You both, I mean. S’not just sex, or whatever. Feels deeper than that. Like you both have accepted me for who I am and welcomed me in and-“ He huffed softly. “I care about you guys a lot.”

You looked up at Keys, and the way his eyes were soft and swimming with recognition gave you all the answers you needed. You turned in his grasp, facing Travis to cup his cheek as Keys pressed himself against your back. “We care about you too, Trav.”

Your boyfriend nodded as he looked at him over your shoulder. “We do…”

You kissed him softly and he melted into you. This was enough for now – the quiet realization washing over you three that maybe, even if it was unconventional, this could simply… work.

A/N : I decided to keep my taglist general for all my work like it was supposed to be originally, so I'm really sorry if you only wanted to be tagged in the second part of Anonymous help! You can always comment or dm me if you want to be taken off, no hard feelings! 💜

Taglist :

You reach around him and press three buttons in a row, clearing out whatever nonsense he’d punched in. The microwave beeps obediently and starts to whir. Gator exhales through his nose. You hear him shift, the scuffed heel of his boot scraping across the cracked linoleum as he steps back.

"You always this bossy with your patients?"

You grab a dishrag and toss it over your shoulder, not looking at him. "Only the ones who almost set fire to their drapes last week."

He lets out a short, humorless laugh. It sounds like something trying to crawl up a dry throat and dying halfway.

"I didn’t ask for you."

"No. The state did. Big difference."

That gets him quiet. The microwave hums louder than it should. This place makes noise like it’s protesting every breath. The fridge rattles. The AC groans but doesn’t blow. Somewhere in the bathroom, a slow drip ticks like a clock.

You hear Gator shift again, arms folding. "Used to come through County sometimes. Victim reports and shit. Back when you were still in scrubs. Didn’t peg you for the mothering type."

You glance at him. His face is the same as you remember, minus the way it used to carry too much smugness and swagger. His jaw’s still sharp but there’s tension in it that wasn’t there before. Maybe it's the slight beard starting to grow in, maybe it's the scars, or maybe it's just the fact that he doesn’t have his eyes anymore. That tends to shift the dynamic.

"I’m not," you say. "But I am paid to keep you alive, which means making sure you don’t blow yourself up for the third time this month."

"Third?" he echoes, lifting his brows. "Thought it was only twice."

"You don't always hear about the ones I catch in time."

The microwave dings and you open it before he can try. The bowl’s too hot, so you use a towel and grab a spoon. You set it on the table where he usually eats, pushing aside the mess of newspapers and empty cans.

He waits until your footsteps pass him before moving. You can hear the way he tests the space with his foot, like he doesn’t trust the floor to stay where it was yesterday. You almost reach out, almost guide him like you would one of the other clients, but you don’t. He’d hate that. He’s already gripping the edge of the counter like he’s daring himself to make it across the six feet of floor without help.

He does. Barely. His chair scrapes back as he sits down.

“Still got it,” he mutters under his breath.

You don’t reply. You pull open the window above the sink instead, let in some fresh air that doesn’t smell like reheated TV dinners and humid bitterness.

Gator takes a spoonful and immediately hisses, half-coughs.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “You tryin’ to skin my tongue off?”

You glance back. “Didn’t think I needed to remind you soup gets hot. My mistake.”

He says nothing, just sits there fuming, going for the second bite like it offended him personally.

You lean your hip against the counter, arms crossed. “You ever think about saying thank you?”

His head tilts slightly. “You ever think about mindin’ your own damn business?”

“Every day,” you reply. “But then you do something stupid again.”

There’s a silence. Not a loud one. Not angry, either. Just... there. Sitting heavy between you. You watch him take another bite, slower this time. He looks like he’s chewing memory more than food.

"You were different back then," you say finally.

He swallows. “Back when?”

“Back when you were a deputy. Still had that dumb truck. Used to roll up like a Hot Wheels car.”

You expect another jab. Another smart-ass deflection. But Gator doesn’t smile. His spoon hovers in midair.

"Yeah," he says softly. "I liked driving fast. Or at all."

You nod. “I remember.”

He sets the spoon down. Reaches for the can of soda you left near the edge of the table. He misses it by an inch. Your hand beats his, pushing it gently toward him until his fingers close around the rim.

He doesn't say thank you.

He doesn’t have to.

Because he knows you’ll be there.

Even when he’s acting like a bastard.

Especially then.

The bathroom is just wide enough for your knee to brush the edge of the tub when you sit him down on the closed toilet seat. The counter digs into your hip, and the mirror above the sink is fogged from the old radiator’s steam pipe that runs along the back wall. It always runs too hot in here, even when it’s cold outside.

“You could’ve told me you were growing a beard,” you mutter, soaking the rag in warm water. “Would’ve saved me from bringing the razor.”

“I wasn’t,” he says flatly. “Just forgot.”

You wring out the rag and lean in, pressing it against the curve of his jaw. His skin twitches, but he doesn’t pull back. The stubble is rougher than usual. Thicker. It smells like his soap, the kind you buy because he doesn’t care enough to notice brands.

“Well,” you say, voice lighter now, “you forget for another week and I’m charging double. I don’t do lumberjack grooming for free.”

Gator smirks faintly, lips barely moving. “Ain’t like I’m tryin’ to impress anybody.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” you say. “Still handsome. Stubborn, moody, difficult, but handsome.”

His brows twitch like he’s not sure if you’re joking. You are. Mostly. But it’s true, too. Even with the band of fabric he wears across what’s left of his eyes, even with the scar cutting down his cheekbone, even with that worn flannel pulled loose at the collar. He’s still himself. Still Gator Tillman. Just quieter now. Bruised around the edges.

You grab the razor and lather his face with a little of the cheap shaving cream he keeps under the sink. Your fingers are gentle but quick. He lets you touch him like this, like he’s used to it now. Like it’s normal.

“You ever nick me,” he says, “I swear—”

“You’ll what?” You lift a brow. “Scowl in my general direction?”

He exhales, and it almost sounds like a laugh. Almost.

You start on his jaw, slow strokes with the razor, careful to mind the curve near the scar. Your hand steadies against his chin. The blade whispers down skin. He doesn’t flinch.

“You know,” you say after a minute, “this is probably one of the parts of this job I enjoy.”

“You enjoy shaving me?”

“Yeah.” You rinse the blade. “It’s quiet. Focused. And you stop talking.”

“Convenient.”

“And,” you add, “you’ve got a good face. Nice jaw. Would be a crime to let it get buried under all this gristle.”

“You flirt like a truck stop waitress,” he says.

“Damn right I do.”

He’s quiet again. You move to the other side of his face, press your fingers lightly to tilt his chin. His pulse is steady under the skin. You don’t say anything else. The room doesn’t need it.

You finish, wiping away the last of the lather with the cloth. His skin is warm beneath it. Those few familiar moles and freckles are visible again. You reach to rinse your hands and toss the towel in the laundry bin tucked under the sink.

But before you can turn away, his hand reaches out. Finds yours.

He’s slow about it, like he’s not sure he has the right. Like he’s not sure if you’ll pull back.

You don’t.

His fingers wrap around your wrist, and he guides your hand back to his cheek. Presses it there. Just rests it. Your palm against his newly smooth skin. The tiniest tremble in his jaw.

You don’t move. Don’t breathe for a second.

It isn’t flirty. It isn’t seductive. It’s just... quiet. Needy in a way that aches.

And even though he doesn’t say a word, you know exactly what this is.

You leave your hand there a little longer than you should.

Because he doesn’t get this often. Not anymore.

Because you don’t mind the quiet moments either.

Because it’s the one time he lets you touch him without biting back.

He’s still Gator. Still hard-edged, still impossible. But this? This is the part of him that he never lets anyone else see.

And you’re still here.

Even when he doesn’t ask.

Especially then.

You don’t have to check the peephole to know who it is. The knock has a kind of rhythm to it. Measured. Familiar. You open the door and find Nadine standing there with a container in her hands and a smile that means she’s brought something dangerous.

"Oatmeal raisin," she says before you even ask, lifting the Tupperware like a peace offering. "Still his favorite, right?"

You breathe in the smell and nod, already reaching for it. “You spoil him.”

“Somebody has to,” she replies, stepping inside without waiting for more invitation.

She’s dressed like always, some kind of floral blouse under a light jacket, gold studs in her ears, her hair pulled back into a bun that’s starting to loosen in the front. She smells like the kind of department store perfume that clings to coat collars and car seats for days.

You close the door behind her and follow her into the kitchen, popping the lid on the cookies before your shoes even leave the mat.

“He’s gonna inhale these,” you mutter, already grabbing a small plate from the cabinet. “And then act like he doesn’t have a sweet tooth.”

“He’ll grumble through the whole first one,” Nadine says, “but I guarantee you he’ll have three gone before I get a word in.”

You like her. You always have. She’s one of the few people who knows how to talk to Gator like he’s still human, even when he’s acting like a closed door. She doesn’t tiptoe. Doesn’t baby him. She also doesn’t bullshit, which you appreciate.

She watches you for a moment while you arrange the cookies on the plate, and you know that look. It’s the same one she gives him when she knows he’s full of it.

“You heading out?” she asks gently.

“That was the plan,” you say. “Usually give you two the apartment. It’s kind of your time.”

Nadine steps closer and reaches out, setting one hand lightly on your forearm. Her grip is soft, but there’s something in the way she holds it that makes you pause.

“Stay,” she says. “Just for a bit. Not on the clock. Just cookies and coffee and a little conversation.”

You hesitate. You’ve never stayed during one of her visits. You usually use the window to grab groceries or take a break, let them have this. But her tone isn’t casual, and her eyes are steady on yours.

“I’d like you to sit with us today,” she adds, quieter now. “It’s good for him. And frankly, you could use a break too.”

You don’t argue. Not with her. You nod, slow and small, and she smiles like she’s been waiting for you to agree since she pulled into the driveway.

She walks into the living room ahead of you, calling out as she goes. “It’s me, Gator. Brought cookies.”

He doesn’t answer right away, but you hear him shift on the couch. The leather creaks under him as he turns toward the sound of her voice.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters. “Thought you got lost.”

“Please,” Nadine snorts. “I’ve been navigating this godforsaken town longer than you’ve been breathing. Don’t sass me.”

You follow them in, quieter. Normally, your footsteps would head toward the door. This time they carry you back across the living room, and the moment you cross into his space, you feel it. He knows you stayed. Of course he does. His head tips, just slightly, in your direction, and even though the cloth he wears keeps you from seeing what’s left of his eyes, you feel his attention land on you all the same.

You sit down on the armrest of the chair across from him, legs tucked close, hands folded in your lap. Nadine takes the couch next to Gator, passing him a cookie and patting his arm when his fingers fumble for the plate.

The three of you sit like that, sharing the space in silence for a few moments while he chews through the first bite and makes a face like it’s too sweet, even though everyone knows it isn’t.

“Still soft,” he says grudgingly, like it’s a complaint.

“You’re welcome,” Nadine replies, taking one for herself. “I’d ask for an actual ‘thank you’, but I know that’s not your style.”

“I don’t say thank you,” he grumbles, “I eat the damn cookie.”

“Good enough,” she says, biting into hers with a grin.

You lean back a little, letting their conversation wash over you. There’s history here. Most of it is dark, but Nadine feels like sunshine even through the dark times. You like that about her.

And even though you’re not saying anything, you feel his awareness of you like gravity. Every time you shift in your seat, every time your fingers drum against your knee, his head turns just a little. He doesn’t say it, doesn’t ask, but you know he’s listening to you the way other people watch with their eyes.

The plate of cookies sits between them. Nadine talks about the new pastor at the Lutheran church and how the coffee’s gotten worse somehow. Gator grunts responses that are half amusement and half disinterest. You stay quiet, sipping from the mug she pressed into your hands without asking.

And you’re not on the clock. You’re not checking your watch or cleaning up the fridge or reminding him to take his meds.

You’re just there.

And he knows it.

Even when he won’t say it.

Especially then.

The door sticks a little when you open it, just like it always does. You push through with your hip and call out a low greeting, already juggling the day’s supplies in your arms. The air smells like toast and the faint trace of whatever cologne he still insists on using, like anyone but you is ever close enough to notice.

He’s sitting in his usual spot on the couch, arms folded across his chest like someone tried to tell him how to live. His head lifts slightly when he hears the keys jingle.

“Thought that old lady was comin’ today,” he mutters, not quite facing you yet. “The one who won’t shut up about her grandkids.”

You let the door close behind you with your foot and drop your bag on the counter. “Beverly?”

He grimaces. “Yeah. Beverly. She always brings me sugar-free snacks and tries to get me to do chair yoga. Last week she told me her grandson’s ‘learning percussion’ and made me listen to a recording of him beating on a bucket. Swear to God.”

You laugh into your sleeve. “I’m surprised you didn’t fake a seizure.”

“Came close,” he mutters.

You start unpacking the bottles, setting them in their little row near the sink. One of them rattles too loud and you shake it gently to check how low it is.

“So what, you’re happy to see me instead?”

He doesn’t answer right away, but you catch the way his chin tips slightly toward your voice, just enough to count as a yes.

You smile at his silence. He doesn’t say things like that out loud. He doesn’t have to.

“You know what day it is,” you say, already gathering the gauze and gloves.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles. “Therapy.”

“And before that…”

He groans. “Med check.”

You’re already walking over. “Face check.”

“I hate this part,” he says.

“I know.”

But he lets you do it anyway.

You sit on the ottoman across from him and snap the gloves on. The sound makes him flinch a little. He never says why. You just know it gets in his head. You grab the small flashlight and tilt your chin toward him.

“You ready?”

“Do I get a lollipop if I’m good?” It comes out like bait, a hook for you to latch onto, even if he knows you never fully will.

“No, but I’ll say something nice about your hair.”

He snorts. “That’s a lie.”

You lean in. Carefully, you reach up and unfasten the cloth wrap that sits where his eyes used to be. You try to keep your face neutral, like always, but it never stops hitting you. The damage is still raw in places, though the burns have healed over into pink, shiny skin with ragged edges where his brow used to be. The scarring is faded but still angry. You’ve seen worse, but somehow this one gets to you more.

Maybe because it was done on purpose. Maybe because you know who he used to be.

He sits still, like he trusts you more than he lets on. The flashlight flicks over the tissue. You check the edges for inflammation, infection, irritation from the cloth or the heat. You wipe around the scars with a warm cloth, slow and careful.

“You’ve still got good skin,” you say without thinking. “Takes care of itself, even when you don’t.”

He makes a noise low in his throat. “You hittin’ on me again?”

You grin, focused on the last patch of scar near his temple. “Maybe.”

He shifts, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. “Careful,” he murmurs, voice lazy and rough. “I might not have eyes, but my hands still work just fine.”

You freeze for half a second, cloth still against his skin, before answering too quickly.

“Didn’t say they didn’t.”

That comes out more breathless than intended. You both go still, the air between you suddenly different. 

You clear your throat, fold up the cloth, and snap the gloves off. Your hands feel too warm now as you settle the wrap back over his face. You move back to the counter, pretending to be busy with the pill organizer.

He shifts again, the couch creaking under him, but doesn’t break the silence.

Finally, you turn. “We should head out soon. Your appointment’s at ten.”

“I know,” he says.

You grab your keys, the bag, and the Tupperware of snacks you packed for him earlier that morning. He doesn’t ask what’s inside, but you know he’ll eat them anyway.

The door clicks shut behind you both, and for a while, neither of you say anything.

But as you help him into the passenger seat of your car, he brushes your hand by accident, and you swear he lingers there just a second longer than necessary.

He won’t say what that means.

You don’t ask.

Especially then.

The chair squeaked under him in a way that always made it sound like it was going to break, like one more hour in this place and the legs would just give out beneath the weight of his bullshit. He shifted anyway, leaned back farther than necessary, arms crossed over his chest like he had something to protect.

He couldn’t see the guy sitting across from him, but he’d built enough of a picture over the last few sessions to feel confident about the assumptions he made. Gator could smell the cologne he used — one of those cheap ones that thought it smelled like wood but really just stung the nose like pine-scented antiseptic.

“Morning, Gator,” the therapist said, voice warm and calm like it always was. Like they hadn’t been through this same dance for six weeks now.

“Sure,” Gator said, not moving. “Let’s call it that.”

The man, Todd was his name, didn’t bite at the sarcasm. He just scribbled something on his clipboard, which Gator had told him on week two was annoying as shit. Clearly, it didn’t stick.

“How was the last week?” He asked. “Anything new come up?”

Gator shrugged. “Didn’t die. Didn’t kill anyone. Banner week.”

More scribbling. Gator hated the sound of that pen. He knew the guy did it on purpose, kept the silence going so Gator would fill it, but he wasn’t in the mood to play nice.

“You getting out of the house at all?” the therapist asked after a beat.

“You mean besides this circus?”

“Yes.”

Gator scratched at the seam of the cloth over his face, just near the temple. “I walk. Sometimes.”

“Where to?”

“Nowhere. Just… ‘round.”

“Alone?”

Gator didn’t answer. Not right away. The truth was, he hated going anywhere with people, but he hated being seen walking alone more. The blind guy stumbling down the sidewalk with a cane and a band over his face wasn’t exactly blending in.

“Mostly,” he muttered.

The therapist nodded, Gator could tell from the subtle shift of his clothes. “We talked before about connection, Gator. About letting people in. You’ve made real progress on your mindset. You’ve unpacked a lot about how you were raised, about your father’s influence, about what was expected of you. You’ve been doing the hard work. But what we haven’t really explored yet is how to form new relationships — ones that aren’t built on power, or fear, or control.”

Gator’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t interrupt. Not yet.

The therapist continued, carefully. “Are there people in your life you’d call close? People you care about, or trust?”

There it was. The question they’d been circling for three sessions. Gator let the silence hang for a long moment, just to make a point.

“Not many,” he said finally. “Most people don’t wanna… get too close to the guy who lit the family name on fire.”

“You aren't responsible for your generational trauma.”

“I know that,” Gator snapped, sharper than he meant to. They'd gone over that shit time and time again, but it still slipped out. He rubbed the heel of his palm against his thigh and exhaled. “Nadine still comes by. She brings cookies. Bitches about her book club. It’s fine.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It’s loud. But yeah. I guess it’s… somethin’.”

“Anyone else?”

Gator hesitated.

“My nurse,” he said after a moment. “Caretaker. Whatever she’s called on the paperwork. The young one. She’s ‘round my age.”

“I'm familiar. What’s that like?”

Gator shifted again, scratched at the side of his neck.

“She’s annoying,” he said flatly. “Talks too much. Makes fun of my microwave technique. Smells like clean laundry and peppermint. Keeps tryin’ to feed me shit I don’t wanna eat. Tells me when I’m being a prick.”

The therapist didn’t speak.

“She’s fine,” Gator added, quieter. “Good at her job. Better than Beverly. Beverly tells me about her grandkid’s little league games like I give a damn.”

“But this one… you let her close.”

“I let her do her job,” Gator snapped, then exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “It ain’t like that.”

Todd was silent again, just long enough to make Gator grit his teeth.

“What?” Gator growled.

“You talk about her differently.”

“Jesus,” Gator muttered, throwing his head back against the cushion. “This the part where you ask if I’ve got romantic feelings like we’re in a high school counseling session?”

“No,” he said calmly. “But I am going to ask if you’ve considered the difference between isolation and independence. You’ve been alone for a long time. And it sounds like this person is someone you let in more than most.”

Gator didn’t respond. His jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists, then uncurled.

After a beat, he smirked.

“Most folks don’t want to fuck up their insurance benefits getting involved with someone who looks like a half-melted action figure,” he muttered.

Todd sighed, more amused than exasperated. “You’re not disfigured, Gator.”

“Says the guy with a functioning face.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“Damn right I am.”

“You ever try not doing that?”

Gator leaned back again, his voice dry. “What’s the fun in that?”

And the silence returned.

Like it always did.

Especially then.

You finish lining up his meds on the counter like always, labeled for morning and night, the little clack of each cap clicking into place while he sits in the armchair by the window pretending he’s not paying attention. You’ve already made the bed, opened the window just enough to keep the room from getting stale, laid out his water and snacks on the table like you always do on Fridays in case he gets restless after you’re gone. You’re halfway out the door before he finally says something.

“You smell different.”

You pause, fingers still wrapped around your keys. “What?”

He shifts like he’s not sure if he wants to repeat himself, but then he sits forward and mutters it again, slower this time. “I said you smell different.”

You blink and glance down at your dress, then back toward him. “Okay, creep.”

“I ain’t bein’ creepy,” he says, scowling like he’s already annoyed you made him clarify. “You don’t smell like peppermint.”

“That’s what this is about?” you laugh, stepping back into the room. “You miss the peppermint oil?”

“I don’t miss shit,” he grumbles. “I’m just sayin’. It ain’t what you usually wear.”

You lift an eyebrow. “So what do I smell like?”

He sniffs once, face twisting like he doesn’t really want to say it out loud. “Cherry. And somethin’ else.”

“Bergamot.”

There’s a long pause before he snorts. “The hell is that?”

“It’s… I don’t know. It’s just in the perfume.”

He mutters something that sounds like “fancy bullshit” under his breath, but you catch it and smirk. You move closer to grab your jacket from the chair where you left it earlier. That’s when he reaches out, fingers brushing your arm — just for balance, you think, or maybe not — his palm presses against the bare curve of your shoulder.

His hand goes still.

It’s clear the second he notices.

You aren’t wearing your usual scrub top or hoodie. No soft cotton or oversized sleeves. His thumb drags lightly across the edge of your strap, and it’s quiet for just a little too long.

“You wearin’ a dress?” he asks, already knowing the answer. There’s something sharp behind the words, dulled down with effort but still biting around the edges.

You hesitate. “Yeah.”

“Huh.”

You glance at him, at the way his jaw’s set like he’s grinding down something behind his teeth. “I have plans.”

“You goin’ to a funeral or somethin’?”

“No,” you say. “I have a date.”

He leans back a little like the chair just got less comfortable. “Huh,” he says again, but it comes out lower this time. “So that’s what this is.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” you add, pulling your hair back and twisting it into a clip, “but yeah. First date.”

“Who is he?”

You turn halfway toward him, narrowing your eyes. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” he lies. “Just curious what kinda guy gets you smellin’ like fruit and soap.”

You don’t respond. The silence stretches until he fills it himself.

“He got two workin’ eyes?”

You blink, slow. “Jesus, Gator.”

“What? That a requirement now?”

“You’re being a dick.”

“I’m just sayin’. I got some questions.”

“He’s a nurse. I met him last month. It’s a drink and maybe a movie. That’s it.”

He shrugs like it doesn’t bother him, but you can tell by the way his foot bounces once against the floor and then stops. His jaw flexes. He folds his arms tighter.

“Must be nice.”

You sigh and head toward the door again. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“I ain’t stoppin’ you from leaving.”

You pause again at the threshold, hand resting on the knob, the weight of the night pressing in against the back of your neck.

Behind you, his voice cuts through — louder now, sharper than before, riding the edge of anger even though it’s dressed up like a joke.

“You better not come back here tomorrow all sex-drunk and forgetting shit.”

You turn slowly, eyes narrowing, pulse climbing in a way you don’t like.

“I’m not gonna be… sex drunk.”

He doesn’t say anything.

Neither do you.

You just stare at him, both of you standing your ground, both of you pretending that nothing got said that wasn’t supposed to.

You open the door and step out into the night.

You don’t slam it.

But you don’t close it softly either.

Especially then.

The voice in the audiobook was too smooth. It irritated him more than anything. Some guy reading a western like he had ever stepped foot on cracked earth or held anything heavier than a coffee cup. Gator let it drone in the background, something about two brothers and a land dispute, but none of it stuck. His mind wandered. His jaw ached from clenching. He had turned the volume down twice already and didn’t know why he kept turning it back up again.

The apartment was too quiet. Not silent — the fan still clicked every now and then from the corner, the fridge kicked on and off in its usual stubborn rhythm — but it felt like the walls were waiting for something. The kind of waiting that pressed in behind the ribs.

He leaned back on the couch, legs stretched out, socked feet resting near the edge of the table. The blanket you’d folded for him sat untouched, the faint scent of whatever soap you used still clinging to it. Not the peppermint. The cherry and whatever-the-hell it was. Something citrusy and light, like lotion in a bottle too expensive for anyone normal to buy.

Bergamot. That’s what you said.

Gator scoffed quietly to himself and rubbed a hand across his face.

Fucking bergamot.

You were probably at some bar by now. Sitting across from a man who didn’t know you liked your coffee strong or that you hummed under your breath when you organized his pills. Some guy with decent shoes and clean hands, maybe a little cologne rubbed into his neck, probably wore button-ups that actually fit. Some guy who didn’t need a ride to the damn clinic every week or a guide to find the damn light switch.

The thought made him shift, restless. His fingers curled into the edge of the throw pillow beneath his elbow.

He didn’t care. He didn’t.

But the idea of that guy, this nurse or whatever he was,  trying to understand you, trying to keep up with you, trying to figure out how you worked… it grated. He doubted that pretty boy had ever had to listen, not really. Bet he thought quiet was just silence and not the weight of it. Bet he thought soft touches were enough to keep a woman like you interested.

Gator knew better. Knew it in the way your voice changed when you were serious. Knew it in how you let him hear your breath catch when his hand landed on your shoulder, skin bare and warm beneath his palm. You hadn’t moved. You hadn’t pulled away. He had felt the curve of your neck and the shift of muscle under his thumb. That moment had been short but it had happened. He hadn’t imagined it.

He tried to shake the thought but it followed him as he stood, slowly, body stiff from sitting too long. He took his pills with warm water and stood at the sink longer than necessary, fingers braced against the counter, chin tipped forward like gravity was trying to press him into the floor.

The apartment still smelled like you.

Even now. That scent mix clinging to the air like it was trying to haunt him. He swore he could feel it in the fibers of the carpet. His fingers twitched like they remembered the feeling of your arm. The dress. The way your voice sounded when you said first date like it wasn’t anything worth worrying about.

He turned off the audiobook and left the speaker on the table.

His bedroom was dark, only the hallway light bleeding through the cracked door. He didn’t bother undressing. He sat on the edge of the bed for a long time before lying back, hands folded behind his head. He tried not to think about where you were. Who you were with. If this guy would touch you the way he would. If he’d even know how.

You didn’t wear that scent for just anyone. That wasn’t a work perfume. That was a look-at-me kind of perfume.

His hand slid over his stomach, fingers brushing the waistband of his sweatpants before resting lower.

He hadn’t meant to think about it. But now it was there and it wasn’t leaving.

He thought about how soft your skin had felt under his palm. About the sound of your voice when you laughed at him. How your perfume clung to your collarbones. How your thighs probably looked sitting across from some other man. How your legs crossed. How you leaned in when you were listening.

His palm moved lower, breath hitching with it, the fan above clicking like it was counting the seconds between every drag of his fingers. The room felt warmer than it should have, sweat already gathering beneath his shirt. He didn’t bother peeling it off. Just let his hand slip down over his stomach, rough skin catching on the waistband of his sweats, the movement automatic now, familiar. But tonight it felt like more than a routine. Tonight it felt like punishment.

That scent clung to everything you’d touched.

His hand gripped tighter, breath shallow now, pulled through gritted teeth.

He couldn’t see you anymore, sure, but that didn’t mean he forgot. He remembered how you looked when he’d see you at the hospital if he stopped in for a case. Scrubs, sure, but nothing could hide the way you were built. Not dainty, not delicate. You were soft in the way a man could hold onto, something that filled both hands and then some. You moved like you knew how much space you took up, like you didn’t care who noticed. Your hips always shifted before your voice did. Your arms had weight when you reached past him. Your thighs always brushed against the couch cushion when you sat near.

And your tits — fuck. He hadn’t seen them, of course not, but he remembered the way your shirt used to stretch a little across it when you leaned. The sound of fabric shifting when you adjusted the neckline without thinking. He used to steal glances, back when he still had the option. Now all he had were those stored-away pieces, pulled forward with every breath you left behind.

He hated that he couldn’t see you. Hated that all he had was memory and scent and the way your voice got tight when you were trying not to argue. Hated the way your shoulder felt under his hand earlier, warm and bare and real, just for a second before you pulled away.

His grip stuttered, hips pushing up toward his hand as the pressure built sharp and low in his gut. You, somewhere else, maybe laughing at someone else’s dumb joke. Maybe sitting across from some guy who didn’t even know how you liked your tea, or how to tell the difference between your annoyed silence and your tired one. Probably didn’t know how it felt to have your fingers graze his skin and not look at him like he was broken.

Even without his sight, he knew you never looked at him like that. 

The thought hit hard, and he came with a rough sound caught in his throat, more breath than voice, jaw clenched so tight his molars ached.

His hand stayed where it was for a minute, chest rising fast beneath it, cooling sweat clinging to his collarbone.

He didn’t say your name.

But his mind did.

Again and again.

The room felt too quiet when it was over. Too empty. The fan kept turning overhead like nothing had happened.

He pulled the blanket up past his stomach and let his arm fall across his eyes, not that it mattered.

All he could smell was you.

And all he could think about was what he’d never get to see.

And what someone else might be seeing now.

He didn’t say it out loud.

Especially then.

You come back around six from doing errands, arms full, the smell of browned meat and tater tots still clinging to your jacket. The casserole dish is wrapped in foil and still hot enough that you have to shift it from hand to hand as you move toward the kitchen. Gator’s already in his chair, angled just slightly away from the television like he’s listening but not watching anything. You’re not sure he even knows what’s on. The remote is resting on the arm of the couch untouched, and the news is just cycling quietly, background noise for a day where you haven’t really talked.

Not that anything’s wrong. Not exactly. You’d come in earlier like usual, checked his meds, done the daily routine. But it had all been mechanical. His tone had been even. Yours too. Everything said had been about what needed to be said, nothing more. You’d caught him listening hard every time you moved though. You knew the silence had weight.

You slide the dish into the oven to keep warm and set the table without asking. He doesn’t offer to help, not that he usually does, but today feels different. Tighter. The quiet clings to the corners of the room. He doesn’t ask about your night. You don’t bring it up.

Dinner is easy, solid, the kind of food that fills without needing much conversation. You set the plate down in front of him, spooned out carefully, hotdish bubbling at the edges, and he mutters a thanks like it caught in his throat.

He eats like he always does, slow but steady, like he’s thinking while chewing, like there’s something behind every bite he doesn’t want to name.

Halfway through, he sets his fork down, not dramatically, but enough that you glance up from your own plate. He wipes his mouth on a napkin, clears his throat, and then says it like he didn’t mean to but couldn’t help it.

“You don’t gotta stay here all the time, you know.”

You pause, chewing slower, then set your own fork down gently beside the plate. “What are you talking about?”

“You got a life out there. Friends. People. Shit to do.” His voice is too casual. Too careful. “I’m not your whole goddamn schedule.”

“I know that.”

His head tilts slightly like he’s trying to catch your expression. “Just sayin’. People might start to talk. Wonder what you’re doing here every night.”

“You think I care what people think?”

“I think you should,” he snaps, too fast, too sharp. He softens it a second later. “I just mean… don’t wanna be the reason you stop showin’ up somewhere else.”

You study him for a moment. His jaw is set. The muscle near his temple keeps twitching. He was fishing for how your date went in the most Gator way possible.

“You’re jealous,” you say plainly.

He scoffs. “Of what?”

You don’t answer. Neither does he.

You clear the dishes in silence, scraping the plates and rinsing them slowly. Behind you, you hear the creak of the chair as he stands. You listen to the shuffle of his steps, slow and searching. You already know he’s heading toward the fridge before you hear the clumsy sound of the door being pulled open and something rattling inside.

“What are you looking for?” you ask over your shoulder.

He doesn’t answer at first. Then, frustrated, “Beer.”

You sigh and dry your hands quickly on the towel, walking over and nudging him slightly out of the way. His fingers are tight around the door handle, jaw clenched, annoyed at himself more than anything else.

“It’s behind the ginger ale,” you say, reaching in and grabbing one from the back. You twist the cap off and press it into his hand.

He mutters a quiet thanks that barely reaches your ears.

“You want one?” he asks, fingers already curling around the bottle like he needs the weight of it.

“I’m working.”

“Pretty sure your shift ends in an hour,” he says.

You raise an eyebrow, half-smiling. “That so?”

He nods. “You can cut out early if you want. Boss says it’s fine.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no real annoyance in it. Just something simmering under the surface you don’t want to touch yet.

He takes a long drink, standing there by the fridge like it took effort to get that far. His head tips toward you again, just slightly. He can’t see the look on your face, but he knows something’s changed. He always does.

You glance at the clock, then back at him.

You grab a beer from the fridge and twist it open without saying anything.

“You wanna watch a movie?” you ask, voice quieter now.

He turns his head toward you like he’s glaring, and even without eyes, you can feel the way it would land if he could actually see you.

You walk past him into the living room without waiting for an answer.

He follows.

You put something on. It doesn’t matter what.

And then, for a little while, the silence between you feels like something else entirely.

Especially then.

The couch dipped a little when you sat back down with the beers, one in each hand, your hip brushing his as you passed him his. He took it without saying anything, fingers brushing yours, the bottle already slick from condensation. The movie was still going, volume turned low enough that he had to listen close, but he didn’t mind. He liked the way your voice filled in the gaps.

You’d been narrating parts of it for him. Not the whole thing, just the stupid parts, which was most of it. You’d tell him when one of the girls made a dumb face, or when the monster puppet looked like it came out of a pizza box. He didn’t ask you to, not really, but you did it anyway, casual, soft, like it was for your own entertainment as much as his.

It wasn’t a good movie. He figured that out from the music alone. It had that warbly synth stuff underneath the dialogue, everything sounding like it was filmed in someone’s basement on a camcorder with a dirty lens. But you laughed at it like you’d seen it before, and that did something to him. Made it easier to listen. Made him forget how close your leg was to his.

Your arm had brushed his earlier, and you hadn’t moved away. He hadn’t either. That was two brushes in twenty minutes. He was keeping count now, apparently.

The movie shifted tone around the halfway mark. The music changed. He heard the moaning before anything else. Heard it in that fake, breathy way actresses used to do when they were trying to sound hot and not bored out of their minds. You went quiet, which made it louder.

He lifted his beer, sipped once, then turned his head toward your voice, even though he couldn’t see your face.

“You gonna describe this part too?” he asked, letting the words roll out slow, just a little smug.

You made a sound in your throat like you might actually consider it.

“I mean,” you said, laughing, “I could.”

He turned his face forward again, shoulders relaxed but jaw tight. “Go on then.”

You hesitated, but then, with a breath, you actually did it.

“She’s got her shirt off. Lotta bounce. Hair’s big. Too much lip gloss.”

He grunted, amused. “Classic.”

“Guy’s not even hot. Looks like he borrowed his dad’s chest hair.”

Gator snorted. “You’d think they’d at least cast someone worth lookin’ at.”

“They didn’t cast for that. They cast for screaming volume and tit-to-waist ratio.”

He smirked. “Sounds like you’ve thought about this.”

“I’ve watched more bad horror than you, probably.”

“You say that like it’s a challenge.”

You didn’t answer right away, but you kept describing.

“She’s on top now. Moaning way too loud. It’s mostly shadow but you can tell the guy’s doing jack shit.”

“Christ,” Gator muttered, lifting his beer again. “Stop.”

You laughed. “You asked.”

He shook his head, the grin still tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, didn’t expect a play-by-play.”

“You’re lucky I’m keeping it tasteful.”

“Sure.”

You kept talking for a little while after the sex scene faded out, your voice soft and steady as you described the next girl on screen. You didn’t always narrate like this. Just tonight. Just enough. He could tell by the way you spoke that this one wasn’t your favorite. You called her a knockoff Barbie with hair teased too high and makeup caked on like stage paint. You said she moved like a paper cutout and screamed like someone trying too hard to be hot. You described her as tall, fake-tanned, long-legged in a way that didn’t look real.

He didn’t say anything at first, just drank his beer and let your voice fill in the blanks. But you went quiet after a while. You stopped talking somewhere around the time she bent over in slow motion and let her shirt ride up. The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable, not exactly, but different. Like something was sitting in it, watching both of you.

He turned his head toward you, didn’t need to see you to know what you were thinking. He could hear it in the way your breath caught a little. In the way you shifted your leg but didn’t move away. In the way you didn’t ask anything, but you wanted to. He felt it in the space between your words.

So he said it, casual, low.

“Never been into girls like that.”

You didn’t respond. Not right away. But he could hear you thinking.

“Nothin’ wrong with ’em,” he went on, setting the beer on the table, voice steady now. “But it ain’t what really does it for me. Sure did for a while. Had enough bikini posters in my room back at my dad's ranch. Well into my 20s. You would have given me shit for it.”

Still quiet from your side. He could tell you weren’t blinking. Probably staring straight ahead, pretending not to hear it. Wondering why he was saying this.

Hell, he wondered too.

“I like soft,” he said. “I want hips I can grab onto. A body I can fuckin’ hold, not worry I’m gonna snap.”

He heard your breath catch again. Not like before. Not annoyed. Just caught. Like you hadn’t expected him to keep going.

“Wanna feel her chest press up when she’s on top. I wanna know she’s really there. I don’t like dainty. Don’t want someone I can pick up with one arm. I want someone who’ll ride me until the couch breaks.”

He let that one sit.

Then, quieter, almost like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, “You know what I mean.”

You hadn’t moved, not really. But everything about your body had shifted. He could feel the tension in the way your knee stayed against his. The way your next breath came through your nose instead of your mouth. The way your beer bottle didn’t clink against the table yet, even though you’d stopped drinking five minutes ago.

He didn’t need eyes for this part.

He could hear it. In the air. In your silence. In your body betraying your mouth.

And it was doing something to him too.

Especially then.

You’re halfway through some garbage midnight rerun on the fuzzy local station. Something about mutant turtles, maybe? You aren’t even sure anymore. You’re just there. Still sitting too close on the couch. Still holding half a beer you forgot you were drinking.

It’s later than you’ve ever stayed. Quiet in that way that starts to feel like it means something. You’re stretched out beside him, feet resting against the coffee table, arm close enough to feel the heat of his skin. And for once, it’s not awkward. Not tense. Just easy.

You don’t even know how it comes up. Something dumb on screen. Some residual tension from his earlier words. Some bad pickup line in a parking lot scene. You snort. He scoffs. And then somehow you’re saying,

“Can I ask you something weird?”

He grunts in a way that means yes.

“Have you…” you hesitate, then push past it. “Have you had sex since you’ve been, y’know. Blind?”

Gator doesn’t turn his head, but you can feel the shift in him. The low flick of a breath from his nose.

“Wouldn’t you know? You’re here all the damn time.”

You let out a short laugh. “I mean, I’m not here when Beverly’s here.”

He lets out a sound between a scoff and a cough. “Yeah, okay. We’ll I’m sure as shit not fuckin’ Beverly.”

You frown. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Well what’d you mean then? You think I got a fuckin’ lineup out the door? You think that’s what I’m after now? Walking around with a cane and a fuckin’ scarred up face looking for someone to pity-fuck me? Ain’t exactly in the market.”

You blink, a little stunned by the sharpness of it. But he doesn’t seem mad. Just honest. Tired.

“Wasn’t getting much play before anyway,” he adds, voice quieter now. “Half the time it was just about the badge. And I ain’t him anymore.”9

You don’t say anything to that. But your fingers flex on the bottle, and he hears it. You know he hears it.

He exhales again, like he’s dragging the memory out with him. “Cop buddies tried to take me to Bare Assets after I got out. Thought they were doing me a favor. Got me a dance in a private room. One where it ain't ever just a dance. One of those real feel-good, you-earned-this kind of things.”

He shakes his head, like he can still hear the music. “Was just sad. Couldn’t even get hard. All that perfume and fake giggles and hands on my legs and nothin’. Felt like they were feeding a dog scraps just to watch him beg.”

You blink again. “Oh. Uh. Wow.”

He turns his head slightly. “Not sayin’ I can’t get hard. Just sayin’—”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, well. I can.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

You laugh softly, nervous. “I believe you.”

“It’s just…” He shrugs. “It takes certain things now. More about the other senses than just imagining a good pair of tits. Like I gotta actually pay attention to shit now. Voices, tone, smell. Touch. Not that I get much of that now.”

Silence again. Longer this time. Thicker.

Then—

“Pretty sure I’m halfway there right now.”

You turn your head slowly, eyes wide, and he doesn’t need to see your face to know you’re stunned.

You see him grinning then, it's not as smug as usual. It's almost nervous then. 

Especially then.

He could tell the second you stood up that you were rattled. The shift in your weight, the scrape of your knee against the cushion, the way you cleared your throat like it might buy you a second.

“I should go,” you said. Light. Dismissive. Trying to pass it off like it was nothing.

He didn’t move. Just cocked his head. “Thought you weren’t on the clock.”

You let out a sharp little laugh, the kind that barely reached your throat. “I’m not, but I also can’t believe you’re propositioning me right now. Real classy.”

He huffed, slightly offended. “Ain’t proposin’ nothin’.”

You kept talking anyway. “I mean, I know Beverly says this job can be uncomfortable sometimes, but I didn’t realize bedside handjobs were part of the care routine.”

He grinned, just barely, but didn’t rise to it. Not all the way. Because he could hear it in you now. That edge. Not just your usual bite. This one was shakier. Like you were trying to push something away before it stuck.

He waited until your steps circled back toward him. Until he knew you were close. Then he reached out, slow and sure, and caught your wrist in his hand.

“Hey,” he said. Quiet, but firm. “Don't go.”

You froze. He had never asked to directly like this.

He could feel your pulse skip under his fingers.

But then it came, sharp as ever. “What is this, Gator? You think I’m just gonna stick around and what, crawl into your lap ‘cause you’re lonely? You think I need this job that bad?”

His jaw twitched. He let go of your wrist, hands up like he’d touched something too hot.

“That's not what I meant,” he muttered.

“Then what did you mean?” you snapped. “Because that’s what it sounds like. You flirt and tease and say shit and then when I react, suddenly I’m the one who’s reading too much into it?”

He didn’t answer right away. He sat there, back against the couch, mouth tight, fists loose on his knees. He could still feel the shape of your wrist in his palm.

“You're not reading into it too much.” He muttered it like it was forcing its way out of his mouth.

His therapist’s voice surfaced, unwanted, in the back of his head. Telling him to make meaningful connections and shit.

Dammit, Todd.

He rubbed at his jaw, annoyed with himself. “Look. You wanna know what it is?” he said. “It’s that I like you. Alright? Not in some sad broken man way. Not ‘cause you wipe my counters and cook me shit. I like you.”

You didn’t speak. He kept going.

“I think about you when you’re not here. Wonderin’ what smartass thing you’d say about whatever trash’s on the TV. Thinkin’ what you smell like when you’re out on a date with some douche. I listen to you hummin’ while you fold towels and I swear to God it makes me feel like my fuckin’ ribs are cracked open.”

Your breath hitched. Just a little.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and reached for your wrist again, slower this time. Not pulling, just holding.

“And I know it ain’t your job to listen to this shit. I'm a bastard most of the time and I know you got no reason to care. But if I don’t say it now, I’m gonna choke on it.”

You didn’t pull away. Not this time.

So he held on.

And you stood there in front of him, too close to pretend you didn’t hear him, close enough that he could smell your shampoo, soft under all the heat.

His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist, slow.

"I think about you other ways too. At other times. When I shouldn't." He cleared his throat, the words rough, the honesty rougher. "Think about how you'd sound. How it'd feel to have you on top of me. I've thought about it."

Your breathing was louder, unsteady, like it had to push its way through. His thumb slid slowly along your inner wrist. Up and down, tracing a gentle arc over the thin skin.

"You don't look at me like I'm broken. I mean..." he let out a breath of a laugh. "I can't fuckin' see it. But I know you don't."

"You're not. Broken, I mean." You finally say. The words feel like a secret, a quiet confession.

He nods, slow, and turns his head a little, just enough that you can see the shape of his profile against the pale yellow light spilling in from the kitchen. The edges of his jaw and chin and throat. The shadow of his mouth. His thumb keeps moving. Up and down. Over your wrist, then the side of your hand, and then back.

"You're always callin' me handsome and shit. Which is fuckin' wild, by the way. You must be goddamn delusional. But I get it. I hear the tone in your voice when you say it. I can tell the difference. I know it ain't a joke. So that's somethin'. I still got some parts worth lookin' at."

Your chest is so tight it hurts to breathe.

"Gator."

"I do. By the way." He smirks in a way he hasn't done in a while. "Got other parts worth lookin' at. Ones you haven't seen yet."

You let out a breath that could have been a laugh if it was a little stronger. Your voice is quieter now. Less angry. Less annoyed. Just a little... something else.

"I've seen your dick, Gator. I had to make sure you didn't fall in the shower the first couple weeks."

He knows that and he's a little mortified by being reminded of it in this moment. "Okay, well you haven't seen it hard."

That bit of crass boyish humor and defiance were definitely still in him. Todd couldn't cure everything in therapy.

"You think I'd want to?"

"I know you do."

Silence.

"You ever think about me?" he asks. "Beyond the flirting you do every damn day and then try to say it's for my ego. Do you?"

You swallow hard.

"Do I what?"

"Do you ever think about me like that?"

It's your turn to smirk now. "Do you really want me to answer that, or are you just asking to hear yourself talk?"

"I'm blind. Not deaf. And yeah. I want an answer."

He stands, letting go of your hand. You take a step back.

"You're a good-looking guy, Gator."

"That ain't what I asked."

"You're right."

"So."

"So what?"

He reaches for your hand again, fingers searching for a second before finding the shape of it. "I remember what you look like."

It hits you harder than you realize when he says that. And he notices. You know he does. He doesn't miss a single fucking thing.

"Your skin. Your hair. The curve of your waist. How big your eyes are. I remember it.."

Your mouth is dry. Your pulse is racing. You want to kiss him and run away and hide and scream all at once.

"Your scrub tops when you worked at County? Fuckin' hell. All stretched across your tits. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the shit that did to me. Be in the hospital takin' witness statements while half hard." He let out air through his nose, shaking his head. "Then found out you moved on to outpatient stuff and I didn't see you anymore. Then that fucker burnt my eyes out. Sure there's a fuckton more in between everything, but that ain't important right now. The real torture of it all is you're around me everyday now and I can't even fuckin' see you."

He said the last part like it pissed him off more than he could admit. More than he had the words to.

"You can hear me." You say, whispered.

He lifts his head up more, confused look on his face. "Yeah. I can."

You move his hand to your hip, where you have soft sweatpants on. "You can feel me."

Still in that whisper soft tone. It was undoing him. Was this...?

"And you can definitely smell me.. Won't shut up about my scent half the time."

His thumb brushes your hip. "You're wearing that cherry shit again."

"Then use those, Gator. If this is what you want. Then take it."

You didn't mean for it to come out like a challenge. But it does. And you can tell he likes it. Likes that tone. The one where you're daring him.

He's always liked a woman that would talk back to him, he can admit that now.

He slides his hand across the curve of your waist. Fingers spread out and pressing into your skin. The shirt you're wearing is thin, so he can feel your warmth. He pulls your body closer.

"I don't wanna be a joke to you." He whispers.

"You're not." You reply.

He slides his hand down your ass. "Or a pity fuck."

"It's not."

"Then what am I?"

"You're a guy I care about. Who has been hurt and needs someone who cares enough not to hurt him anymore."

His breath hitches and he grabs your ass more firmly, pulling you to his lap. You're straddling him now. His hands are on either side of your hips, still grabbing.

"And what are you gonna do?" he asks, voice a deep growl.

You're both breathing hard, his forehead pressed to yours. You reach out, running a hand through his hair.

"Whatever you want me to."

He kisses you. Hard and hot and desperate. His hands are on your back, holding you to him. Your fingers are still threaded through his hair. He groans into your mouth, hips bucking up.

"Fuck, I need you," he pants, pulling away. "You feel so fuckin' good."

"We should go to your bed, this couch is awful."

"Yeah."

You stand up and take his hand, leading him. He follows, and he's glad the house isn't big. He'd hate to get lost now.

You close the door behind him. He's sitting on the edge of the bed. You walk toward him, stopping between his legs.

"Lie down." You say.

He does.

You climb onto the bed, straddling him. You grab the hem of your shirt and pull it up and over your head. It lands somewhere across the room.

Gator hears the material hit the floor. He can feel your body hovering over him.

You lean forward, kissing his lips. Then his cheek. Down his jaw. His throat. He can feel your bare tits against him, heavy and warm. He lets out a low moan.

Your hands are on his chest, roaming, reaching for the hem of his black t-shirt.

"You ain't wearing a bra when you're workin'?" He pants out.

"You can't see me. What's it matter?"

He groans. "It matters."

You laugh, pulling his shirt up. "Then let's get this off."

He sits up slightly, arms over his head, and you slide the shirt off. It falls to the floor, joining your own.

The dark chest hair and beauty marks strewn across his toned chest are even more handsome up close. You trail your hands down his torso and he makes the prettiest sound.

"Fuck. You touch me like you fuckin' love it."

"Because I do." You confess, and press a kiss to his shoulder.

He shudders. You can't tell if it's from the touch or your words.

You reach for the button of his jeans.

"Do you want these off too?"

"Fuck yeah. Take 'em off."

His cock strains against the fabric of his black boxer briefs once his jeans are off. His hands reach out, hooking his fingers in the waistband of your sweatpants. "So no bra..." he says, sitting up a little. "Any panties?"

"You'd have to find that out yourself, wouldn't you?"

He smirks, hands tugging the sweats down, exposing your naked thighs. His hands roam from your waist to the crease at your hips where your tummy meets your thighs, searching for a bit of fabric. He finds none. 

"No panties," he whispers. "Fuck."

You kick your sweatpants all the way off, now just completely naked on top of him.

"This is gonna sound fucked up..." you start, a nervous laugh spilling out. "But I'm kind of happy you can't see me right now. I always feel...self conscious? When I'm on top."

He can hear the vulnerability. The softness.

"Why?" he asks.

"I don't know. I mean, I'm not perfect. Always worried the view is going to disappoint."

"Oh, so I'm the blind one and you're the fuckin' deaf one. Got it." He says with a little snort.

You can't help but laugh. "What?"

"I spent the last half hour tellin’ you what I liked."

"Yeah, but.."

"No fuckin' buts." His hands grip the plush softness of your ass. "You think this doesn't turn me on? You think I don't wanna squeeze your hips and thighs and feel those fuckin' tits bounce while you're riding my cock? You think I can't imagine how you look when you're panting and wet? Or how pretty you'll sound moaning my name?"

You're taken aback, but you still manage to clear your throat with a small laugh and tease him. "How do you know I'll moan your name?"

He growls, squeezing you a little harder, and bucks his hips up, grinding against you. You gasp at how good the friction feels.

"I'll make you," he pants. "Trust me, I'll make you."

He's kissing you again, his hands roaming your back. He grips your ass again, hard, pulling you against his cock, just the fabric of his boxer briefs between you.

"Take 'em off," he grunts. "I need you to take these fuckin' things off."

You sit up, moving off him and grabbing the waistband of his boxer briefs. "Lift your hips."

He does and you pull them down, tossing them aside.

"Get on top of me," he commands.

"Bossy." You reply, but you get a good look at his cock as you do and, fuck, he wasn't lying. It's thick and hard, a pretty pink at the tip that matches his plush lips.

You climb back on top of him, settling over his hips.

"Fuck," he groans, feeling your heat. "I wanna touch you."

"You are touching me," you say, breathless.

"Not like that." He replies. "Let me feel you."

You guide his hands to your chest. His fingers brush over your nipples, and he hisses a low curse as he palms your tits.

"These things shouldn’t be fuckin' legal," he groans. "Spillin’ over my hands."

You moan softly. He squeezes them a little harder, teasing your nipples, and you whimper.

"Yeah, that's it. I wanna hear you," he growls, and sits up. "Want these in my mouth."

You lean forward, bringing your tits to his lips, and he groans, laving at them. His hands are on your waist, then your ass, squeezing. He looks so good like this, his mouth on you, sucking, licking, grabbing, moaning.

"Think about these every day," he mumbles, voice muffled by your chest.

"Yeah?" You ask, and he hums, nodding, pulling his head back.

"Always had a thing for 'em. Love a woman with a good pair. Wanna bury my face between 'em."

He kisses you, hot and hungry.

"You're a fuckin' wet dream. God this shit feels like a dream. You know your senses get heightened and shit when you can't fuckin see?"

"I went nursing school, yes." You laugh against his mouth. "But it's more like you develop your other senses more over time like--"

"I'm gonna develop my dick into you, okay? Not the time for anatomy lessons."

"You're cute when you're horny."

He growls. "Shut up."

You grind down on him and he curses, the feeling taking all the bark out of him. "Fuck. Shit. Yeah. I wanna fuck you so bad. God. Need to be inside you."

He can't see your blush, but he can feel the heat coming off you. 

"I'm on the pill, but I don't have condoms," you say, hoping that it doesn't ruin the mood.

He groans, leaning his forehead against yours.

"I'm clean, swear on my life. Sure you could get that info anyway. Ain't been with anyone since..." He swallows hard, his next words barely audible. "Since before."

He's scared, you can feel it.

"It's fine," you whisper, hands in his hair. "I trust you."

His cock twitches and he hisses.

"Fuck, I want you."

"Then have me," you say. "I'm here."

He reaches down between your bodies, his fingers brushing your pussy. You're wet, slick against his touch, and he groans again. His thumbs finds your clit, circling slowly.

"God..." you whine out before biting your lip. "No man has an excuse for not finding it now."

"No man is gonna have the fuckin’ chance."

You shudder at his possessive tone, and he feels the shift in your hips.

"That's right. You're mine. Just mine." He grunts, pressing the pads of his fingers harder.

He rubs your clit for a moment longer, until you're squirming and gasping and rocking your hips.

Then he grips his cock, stroking it a couple times, before guiding the tip to your entrance. "C'mere."

You sink down on him slow, letting him stretch you open. You both moan, the sound a harmony, his low and raspy, yours soft and sweet. He feels bigger than you expected, but the pleasure is sharp, not painful.

"Oh, fuck." He curses. "Jesus, fuck."

You start moving, rocking your hips against him, taking him deeper each time. He groans, his hands gripping your ass, holding you as you ride him.

"Tell me how it looks," he breathes, his voice strained. "Tell me what you look like. I wanna know."

"I don't...I can't say that shit… what if I sound stupid?" You pant out.

"You won't. Please."

You can't say no to him when he begs.

"Your cock...it's so thick and pretty and hard, and it's sliding into me, and the way my pussy's wrapped around it, God..."

He groans, thrusting up. “You like it? How it looks when I'm fuckin’ you?”

"I love it. Fuck."

You're moving faster, rocking your hips in a rhythm, the room filled with the sound of your skin slapping against his. He's thrusting up to meet your hips, and you can't stop the sounds that spill out.

"Wanna feel your tits bouncing," he pants.

You move one of his hands from your hip to your breast. He squeezes one and groans, hand resting just under to feel them bounce. 

"God, I love the way they move. They're fucking perfect. You're perfect."

He moves his other hand up, feeling your neck, then your jaw.

"Open," he rasps.

You open your mouth, and he slips two fingers past your lips.

"Suck," he orders.

You do, swirling your tongue around them. He hisses.

"Just like that. Jesus. Your mouth's so wet. Like a pussy."

You whimper, and he feels your tongue lap at his fingers. He pulls them out and moves his hand to your face, his thumb brushing your bottom lip. The hand still on your hip digs in harder, moving you faster.

"Ride me harder, baby," he pants.

"Yes," you breathe, and you bounce harder, the angle making him go deeper.

"Oh, fuck." He grits. "Feels so fucking good. Your pussy's so tight. So fucking wet. God, the sounds you're makin'."

His words are particularly special or flowery, but the praise is still doing something to you, making heat pool in your belly. Suddenly you're grateful that he never shuts the fuck up.

"You're close," he pants, and you nod, forgetting he can't see it.

"I am," you reply, voice shaky. "Are you?"

"Yeah, baby. So fuckin' close."

You reach down and rub your clit. Gator feels the movement and lets out a broken moan.

"Oh, fuck, baby. Fuck, yes. God, you touching yourself.?"

"Gator," you cry out, and he can feel how much you're shaking.

"That's it," he pants. "You're gonna come on my cock. You're gonna come all over it, and then I'm gonna fill you up. Fuck. That's what you want, isn't it? My cum so deep in your pretty little pussy."

You whimper, his words and the movement of his cock and the way he's moaning and growling and hissing sending you over the edge.

"Fuck, baby," he grunts, and you're coming, crying out and shaking and rocking your hips, his name on your lips.

"Yes," he groans. "Fuck yes, that's it. Fuck. Keep going. God, you're so wet. I can feel it. You're milking my cock. Fuck, I'm gonna come. Oh, shit. Fuck. I'm gonna come. I'm gonna—"

"Please," you whine.

"Oh, fuck. You're beggin' me. Fuck. Say it again. Beg me."

"Please," you moan. "Please, come inside me."

He's not sure if it's the words or the way you sound when you say them, or the feeling of your pussy pulsing around his cock, but he's coming hard, holding you down on him and filling you up. He's cursing, the word fuck spilling from his mouth over and over, and you're crying out again, your body shaking as you come a second time.

The sound he makes when his cock starts pulsing in you, the way he fills you, it's like nothing you've ever heard before. He's not quiet, not even a little. And you've never felt this kind of release, not from any other man. You feel lightheaded, dizzy almost, the room spinning around you.

He's panting, trying to catch his breath, his hands still gripping your hips. You can feel his cock softening inside you, but it's still buried deep.

You're both silent, trying to recover, the air thick with sweat and sex.

"Jesus Christ," he whispers. "Fucking hell."

"Yeah," you agree.

There isn't much else that can be said. He’s a sightless man who just fucked someone so thoroughly, it was like he could see every inch of her body.

You reach for the nightstand, finding the glass of water he keeps there. You drink half and offer him the rest, bringing it to his lips. He takes it and gulps down the remainder.

You collapse onto the bed next to him, still naked. His arm is thrown over his face, and he's panting.

"I'm gonna get us cleaned up. Then we'll talk," you say.

The arm that isn't over his face reaches over to stop you as you get up. 

"No you're not." He says, his voice hoarse.

"I'm not sleeping like this and neither are you." You say with a lighthearted eyeroll. "I'll be back."

He huffs but he doesn't actually say anything, keeping his hand on you.

"What is your issue?" You ask, confused now.

"I'm supposed to be the one doin' that shit for you!"

He yells it, but there's nothing mean in his voice. Just frustration and something else. Something sad.

"Gator." You whisper, and move the arm from his face.

He doesn’t cry in the usual way. The damage to his tear ducts and lacrimal glands was too severe. You’ve only seen it once before, early on into working with him. His sockets don’t glisten or brim over like other men’s might. The burns left them scarred and hollow, the skin puckered and shiny in places where the grafts took, ragged in others where the heat had eaten too deep.

When emotion breaks through him, it shows as a raw wetness that seeps at the edges. The sound gives him away more than anything — his breath hitching, his voice breaking, the rough sniffling that seems to scrape at the back of his throat.

"Oh."

"Oh," he parrots, even with his voice breaking. "I can't take care of you the way a man should. I can't..." He shakes his head. "Fuck. I really am useless."

You have the words for it because Todd made sure you did. You remember him sitting across from you in that first collateral session, explaining what to watch for if the past shoved its way into the room. The hitch in Gator’s breathing. The lock in his jaw. The way shame can masquerade as anger. You see all of it now, strobing through the dim. And it feels like none of that actually prepared you for this moment.

Useless.

The word lands wrong in your chest because you know where he learned it. You picture the way he told you about his father in clipped notes and hard pauses, a man who measured worth in bruises and obedience, who called softness a weakness and turned love into a job no one could keep. 

The word useless lived in that house like mold, got into the walls, into the food, into the boy who learned to clean his plate even when it tasted like rot.

You know why the word hits you like a thrown glass now. You can see him reaching for it the way someone reaches for an old injury, pressing just to make sure it still hurts.

He fills the silence with a breath that shakes. “Guess the old man was right about—”

“Stop.” You lean in, press your mouth to the strip of skin above his wrap, right where his skin is smooth and warm below his hairline. “Do not put his voice in your mouth. Not here.” You keep your lips there a second longer than necessary, then pull back only far enough to whisper. “You are not useless.”

He lets out a hollow laugh, the sound dry and stubborn. “Yeah. Fine. But, as much as I can’t stand Todd and his perfect hair and golf tan and dumb boat shoes… he has a point.”

You blink, caught off guard by the picture. Todd is all sweaters and salt-and-pepper and lace-up boots that look more library than lake. You almost correct him, almost say he has a gray beard and a tweed problem and probably gets sunburned looking at a window, but you swallow the impulse. Let him have the cardboard villain if it makes the medicine go down.

Gator turns his face toward your voice like he can find you by the heat of it. “Point is, he keeps sayin’ I gotta say things out loud or they fester. So.” He swallows. His hand flexes on the sheet. “I was a real piece of shit before. I know that. I acted like a man who deserved more than he gave. I liked bein’ mean. I liked when people backed up. I thought the badge and the name made it fine.” He pauses. “It didn’t.”

You slide your palm up his forearm, slow and steady, the way Todd told you helps when the edge gets sharp. He doesn't pull away. You hate that the muscles under your hand are tight and trembling, like he is bracing for a hit that never comes.

“I ain’t like him,” Gator says, voice roughening. “I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to scare women. I don’t want to hurt ’em. I did enough hurtin’ walkin’ around blind to my own bullshit before I lost my eyes.” His mouth flattens. “And that lady I killed… in my head I said it was an accident like it made a difference. Maybe it does on paper. But I still did it. I was still on my way to murder someone that night, just ended up bein’ the wrong person.”

Your thumb moves in slow, steady circles against his skin. You don’t bring up the facts again. Don’t repeat what the report said, or what the lawyer said. You just let him hold the thread in his own hands.

“Now… I wanna take care of somebody,” he says, voice low and raw. “Not own ‘em. Not control ‘em. Just… take care. Bring their coffee the way they like it. Fix the crooked shelf. Keep a hand at their back on the ice so they don’t fall. Sit through the boring shit ‘cause it matters to them. Hold ‘em when they’re sick. Touch ‘em like I know where they’re sore and where they’re strong.” He lets out a breath, soft and wrecked. “And I can’t even see if they’re rollin’ their eyes at me. I gotta ask where the cups are in my own kitchen. Gotta have someone check my goddamn face for infection. It’s funny, in a mean kinda way. Like the universe waited for me to want the right things just so it could get locked behind fuckin’ glass.”

You lean down and kiss the space above his wrap, then the ridge of his temple, then the curve of his cheek where the graft meets the old skin. “You are doing it,” you say. “You’re taking care. Right now. You’re talking. You’re telling me what you want. That counts, a lot more than you realize.”

He breathes like he doesn’t believe you—but maybe wants to. A small laugh escapes, smaller than his pride, shaped like a bruise. “Feels like one of those twisted jokes,” he murmurs. “Soon as I decide I’m ready to be good at somethin’ that actually matters, I’m short a couple tools.”

Your hand slides from his forearm to his bicep, a firmer grip that says don’t run. Don’t look away—even if looking’s different now. He turns his face toward you again, closer this time, like he’s learning you by sound and warmth.

“Yeah,” you say, soft. “Maybe it is a joke.”

You let the beat stretch, then add, calm and sure, “But the punchline’s not that you failed.”

He swallows. Nods once. Your foreheads almost touch.

And you stay like that, his hand still wrapped around your wrist, your mouth on his temple. Both of you listening to the same breath, until the room remembers how to be small and safe again.

Then you tilt your mouth toward his ear.

“Do you want to take care of me,” you ask, quiet but clear. “Right now? ”

He huffs a laugh, trying to pull the moment back to something he can joke about. “Think I could go another round.”

You snort and tap his bicep, gentle. “Not like that.”

There’s a small pause while he tries to figure out what you mean. You can feel him searching the space for you, head turning a little.

“Do you trust me?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says, like it’s obvious. Then he adds, dry, “You helped me the week I kept gettin’ turned around in the shower and cussin’ at the faucet like it was personal. Pretty sure I gotta trust you by now.”

You laugh, soft and fond, and squeeze his hand. “Come on.”

You help him sit up, then stand, then you guide him with your palm at his at his elbow. The little bathroom off the bedroom is warm from the radiator, mirror fogged at the edges, tile cool under your feet. You set him lightly against the sink, steadying him until his knuckles find the porcelain. He’s still flushed from before, chest rising slow, hair mussed from your fingers. A line of dried sweat glints along his collarbone. His mouth is a little swollen. He looks wrecked in the best way, a good kind of used.

You take the wrap from his head, careful with the knot, careful with the edges. He holds still, jaw set. When the cloth comes free, he lets out a breath you can feel on your wrist.

“Isn’t it weird,” he says, voice low, “how I still wanna look away or close ‘em when I can tell you’re lookin’ at me like that?”

“Like what?” you ask, already reaching past him to turn the shower on. The pipes knock once, then settle, steam lifting in a thin veil.

“Like I’m somethin’ worth lookin’ at,” he says, almost a whisper.

You test the water with your fingers, then glance back at him, water pattering louder now. “That’s because you are.”

You step him into the tub with you, guide his hand to the tile so he can place his feet, then tug the curtain closed. Warm water finds both of you in a steady sheet. You lift his hand and set it at your hip, then tip your face up and kiss the corner of his mouth. Slow. You kiss his jaw next, then the notch of his throat, then the hollow where his shoulder meets his neck. You tell him what you love as you go, soft against his skin.

“This throat,” you murmur. “How your voice sits low here when you’re bein’ stubborn.”

You kiss the slope of his shoulder. “These shoulders. Big enough to lean on.”

You kiss along his collarbone. “This. Warm. Strong.”

Your mouth trails over the center of his chest, the dark hair gone flat under the spray. “All of this. The way you feel under my hands.”

He breathes out through his nose, steady, like he is letting the words soak in the way the water does. Your palms smooth down his ribs, over the curve of his waist, around to the small of his back. You kiss the flat of his sternum and feel his fingers flex at your hip.

“What happened to me takin’ care of you,” he asks, a half-laugh caught in it, like he is trying not to ruin whatever you are doing.

You smile against his skin and look up at him. “We’re gettin’ there.”

You find the body wash and the little bath pouf tucked on the caddy. “One of those fluffy things,” you say, half laughing.

He makes a face you can hear. “Hate that damn sponge-ball. Feels like bathin’ with a tutu.”

“You’ll live,” you say, smiling as you squeeze a ribbon of soap onto it. You work it until it foams, then curl his fingers around it and lift his hand. “Here. Help me.”

You guide him to your throat first. The puff glides over your skin, slick and warm under the spray. He follows your touch, slow, careful, the lather sliding down to your collarbones. You tip your chin so he can reach, and his breath brushes your cheek when he leans in to keep his balance.

Then his hand drifts lower.

He circles the top of your breasts and you hear the soft sound he makes when the pouf sinks against you, soap clinging, bubbles collecting at the curves. He moves under, patient, thorough, the drag of mesh and his knuckles leaving heat in its wake. You let out a quiet sound you did not mean to make.

“There’s more than those,” you whisper, teasing.

“Yeah, well,” he says, a smile in his voice, “there’s a lot of ‘em. Gotta make sure they’re extra clean.”

You laugh, breath catching when he lifts and cups you from beneath with the pouf, then you tap his wrist and steer him on. He runs over your shoulders and down your arms, slow from biceps to wrists like he is memorizing your shape through foam. You turn to give him your back and he follows the line of your spine to the small of it. His hand settles at your hip before sliding lower. He soaps the curve of your ass, careful and firm, then between your legs with a touch that is reverent more than greedy. You guide him, small nudges at his wrist, and he listens without argument, washing your inner thighs, the backs of your knees, down your calves to your ankles.

“Good,” you murmur, flushed and clean and dizzy. You tug him forward so both of you stand right under the water. The spray warms your face and rinses the lather off your skin in shining sheets.

“My turn,” you tell him, taking the pouf and running it up his chest. The suds cling to dark hair and stick to his sternum. You work the lather over his ribs, his sides, the planes of his stomach. He stands still, trusting your hands, only shifting when you press his hips so you can get everywhere. You soap his shoulders and the cords of his neck. He tips his head for you without being asked.

You turn for the shampoo on the shelf. Your back finds his chest, the weight of him a solid line. You pop the cap, squeeze the clear gel into your palm, and work it through your own hair first. Then you lift his hands and lace his fingers with your sudsy ones, pulling them up into your hair so he can feel it slip and catch as he lathers. His thumbs skim your scalp. His mouth finds your shoulder, a soft kiss against wet skin.

“Thank you,” he whispers into the curve there, barely louder than the water.

You swallow, then turn to face him. You pump more shampoo into your hands and reach up, working it through his hair, massaging his scalp in slow circles. He goes quiet the way men do when something good undoes them. You rinse him with your fingers spread, then step closer and tilt your head with his so the spray catches both of you. You close your eyes while the water runs clean, while the last suds slide off your shoulders and down your bodies.

You stay like that for a while, chest to chest, water drumming on your crowns, the bathroom small and warm around you.

His thumb finds your mouth first, tracing the shape of your bottom lip like he is reading a word he loves. He leans in and kisses you, careful and slow, nothing like the hungry mess from before. You can feel how he is touching you just to memorize you. He pulls you closer, chest to chest under the warm hiss of the shower, and you breathe the same steam.

“See,” you whisper against his mouth, “you can be good at taking care of me.”

He grumbles a little, more embarrassed than annoyed.

“And even better,” you add, smiling so he can hear it, “we can take care of each other.

Another soft mutter, as if he's trying to protest but knows you'll see right through it. 

“It’s pretty obvious you like me taking care of you,” you tease, and he kisses you soft again, a little longer this time, like he is sealing something.

You turn the water off and help him step out. Everything after is a blur of warm towels and dripping hair and the small bathroom’s heat. You put a clean wrap on his eyes. You hand him a fresh pair of boxers. You grab one of his black T-shirts from the dresser and tug it over your head, then stop halfway and catch his hands.

“Help me,” you say, guiding his palms along the hem, over your ribs, up to the collar so he can feel how it hangs on you. He smooths the cotton down your sides. It catches on your curves and you laugh. “Kinda tight… my ass is half out.”

“Not gettin’ any complaints here.”

He finds your fingers, and even though you could guide him, he turns and leads the way to the bed with the surety of someone who knows every inch of his room by heart. You climb in, the sheets cool, his body warm. You tuck yourself against him.

“Is it okay if I stay?” you ask. You already know, but you want to hear it.

He lets out a quiet laugh and hooks an arm around your waist, pulling you close enough to share a breath. That is the answer.

“Ain’t really done the stayin’ thing,” he says after a moment. “Used to just do it and go. Don’t know if I kick in my sleep. Might snore. Could talk, too. No idea.”

“It’s okay,” you say. “We’ll find out.”

He exhales and settles, one hand open on your hip like a promise.

After a long minute he says, almost sheepish, “You probably can’t be my caretaker anymore. Pretty sure this is a violation or whatever.”

“Oh, it’s a violation,” you say, laughing into his chest. “A big one. But I can still be here every day. I’ve got other clients. I’ll be fine.”

“So I’m gonna be seein’ a lot more of Beverly,” he groans.

“You’ll live,” you say. “Just don't end up doing this with her, cause then we’re really screwed.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right.” Then he tips his face toward you. “Ain’t doin’ this with anybody but you.”

You feel his words settle between your ribs. He tucks you closer. You let him.

Theres not much after that. A kiss or two. Maybe a quiet conversation. Something about his father or yours. Something about a dream, or the kind of future you would want if the world was different.

The morning will come and the coffee you make him will be too sweet, but he'll drink it anyway. 

Beverly will show up, late and with another story about her grandkids.

He'll call Karen, just to talk to the girls, and leave another message that goes unanswered.

There will be a text from Todd. A reminder about his appointment.

But right now, in the warmth of his bed, he isn't alone.

And when he wakes up, you'll still be with him and he'll realize, in the small hours before the sun, that it is enough.

The world will go on spinning. But for a moment, right then, everything will feel right.

Especially then.

WOW SORRY FOR THAT EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER!

If you guys haven't placed a fanfic drink order, please do so here! I'm having so much fun with them so I'm extending it until end of October!

it didn't start as anything big. just a few shared laughs over a broken server branch and an inside joke or two that nobody else in the company understood.

at first, keys was just the brilliant programmer two desks down. the guy who would quietly slide a mug of coffee onto your desk when he saw you rubbing your eyes, never saying much, just giving you a quick nod before heading back to his own monitors. 

your friendship was built in the quiet, empty spaces of the office. in the kitchen while waiting for the microwave to beep, or during those late hours of the night when everyone else had gone home, leaving only the two of you to decipher messy lines of code. you became his go-to partner for everything. you were the only person who could actually keep up with his chaotic, fast paced train of thought, taking his raw, unfinished ideas and making them sharper.

it was comfortable. it was easy. it was a harmless office friendship; or at least, that was the lie keys had spent the last six months telling himself.

the truth was much more complicated.

everyone at soonami offices knew keys and millie as the ultimate power couple. they were the genius duo who had built their careers side by side since college, their lives so deeply intertwined that the company practically treated them as a package deal. millie was smart, beautiful, and completely devoted to him. they shared an apartment and a decade's worth of memories. they were a done deal, a perfect algorithm. 

but corporate logic didn't account for the way keys' chest would tighten every time you laughed at his stupid jokes. or explain why his fingers always lingered just a fraction of a second too long whenever he handed you a cup of coffee, or why he found himself checking his phone just hoping to see your name pop up on his screen. 

over the months, the easy camaraderie had warped into something thick, heavy, and dangerous. the air in his cubicle always felt thirty degrees hotter the moment you leaned over his shoulder to look at his screen, your proximity driving him completely out of his mind.

he was supposed to be the perfect boyfriend, planning a bright future with millie. 

you were his coworker, his friend, and the one person who made him want to tear down the perfect life he had spent years building.

the sun was shining through the high ceiling windows of the office common area. the blinding morning light, paired with the constant sound of typing, spinning office chairs, and the overlapping voices of everyone talking, were doing absolutely nothing to help your growing headache. 

you checked the time again. the meeting was supposed to start ten minutes ago, yet hardly anyone had even arrived.

you were starting to dissociate, staring at some point on the wall, when you felt a sudden, familiar tap on your shoulder. right beside your face, a big, warm hand appeared, holding up a paper cup of coffee with your exact name scribbled messily on the side. 

“here ya’ go,” keys said, flashing you a warm smile.

“what's this for?” you questioned, confused but grateful for the much needed caffeine.

“you sent me a text last night at 4 a.m. asking for the server login password because you locked yourself out again. i figured you stayed up late; therefore, you were going to be cranky this morning.”

“i am not cranky. and how would you know my mood when you just got here,” you tapped your phone screen to show the time, “and late.”

keys gave a smug smile, raising his eyebrow as if to say, ‘see? told you.’

“when someone gets you coffee, you are supposed to say thank you, you know.”

“oh thank you, my savior. what would i do without you,” you said mockingly, rolling your eyes and taking a sip. “how did you remember my order?”

he shrugged, his eyes lingering on yours a fraction of a second too long, tracing the tired lines under your eyes before dropping down to your lips. whatever comeback he had prepared was cut short by millie walking into the office, the click of her heels announcing her arrival before she smoothly greeted keys with a soft kiss on the cheek. 

“hi, baby. did you see the text i sent you? you were supposed to look over the budget spreadsheets.”

keys shifted awkwardly, the easy, relaxed posture he had just a second ago instantly vanishing as his shoulders squared up. he cleared his throat, deliberately avoiding your eyes as he looked up at his girlfriend. 

“oh, hey, mills,” keys mumbled, his hand instinctively coming up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous habit you knew all too well. “uh, yeah, sorry. my phone was on silent during the drive. i’ll look at it right now.”

millie smiled, completely oblivious, and rested her hand on his shoulder. “perfect. don't forget, okay? anyway, let's get this meeting started. i want to leave early today.”

as everyone finally trickled into the conference room, you deliberately took a seat on the opposite side of the long glass table, trying to put as much distance between you and keys as possible. he sat directly across from you, with millie right by his side, her laptop open as she took the lead on the presentation.

it was a standard corporate update, but your headache made it feel like torture. you took a slow sip of the coffee keys had bought you, keeping your eyes on your notebook.

then, the project manager started droning on about a budget issue that you and keys had literally fixed two days ago.

you couldn't help it. you looked up.

keys was already staring at you. the moment your eyes met, he gave you a subtle, barely perceptible roll of his eyes, dropping his pen onto his notebook in a synchronized show of mutual exhaustion. a small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of your lips, and you quickly bit the inside of your cheek to hide it.

the project manager kept speaking, seamlessly presenting the slides while everyone nodded along, completely unaware of the silent conversation happening right across the table.

you saw keys' hand move beneath the edge of the glass surface, his thumb tapping quickly against his screen before setting it down.

a second later, your phone buzzed in your lap.

keys: if i have to hear one more bullet point from that slide be read word for word, im going to fake a medical emergency

you bit your lip so hard it hurt, trying to choke back a laugh. keeping your phone hidden under the table, your thumbs flew across the keyboard.

you: please do you: ill call 911 you: whats ur symptom?

you looked up just in time to see keys check his screen. his jaw tightened, a low, suppressed huff escaping his nose that he quickly disguised as a cough. millie glanced at him briefly, offering him a quick, sweet smile as she reached down to hand him a bottle of water. keys took it, murmuring a quiet thanks, but his focus immediately snapped back to you across the room. his eyes narrowed in a playful challenge.

keys: extreme boredom leading to cardiac arrest keys: u will have to give me cpr you: sorry, im not certified…  you: ill just steal your coffee while ur down

across the table, keys let out a tiny, silent laugh, his shoulders shaking slightly. he didn't even look at his screen this time, his thumbs moving by pure muscle memory as he kept his eyes locked on you.

keys: cold blooded keys: and after i bought u your specific ridiculous order?  keys: i see how it is.

you bit your lip, your heart doing a little dance as you tapped out your reply.

you: hey!  you: i didnt ask u to buy it  you: were u thinking of me that much…

the moment you hit send, you kept your eyes glued to him. you watched him look down at his lap. the playful smirk he had been sporting slowly vanished, replaced by a sudden stillness. his jaw set. when he looked back up across the table, the teasing, casual facade was entirely gone. 

keys: maybe.

your breath hitched, your thumb freezing over the screen. you hadn't expected him to just admit it. not here. not with millie literally sitting right next to him, her hand casually brushing against his arm as she pointed at a graph on the projector screen.

a sudden wave of panic and intense self-consciousness washed over you. the playful bubble you had been in just popped, leaving you feeling exposed and incredibly guilty in the brightly lit room.

forcing your eyes away from his suffocating gaze, you hurriedly clicked the power button on your phone, turning the screen black. you flipped the device face down onto your thigh beneath the table, hiding it from view as if the text message could somehow be read by the rest of the room.

you cleared your throat softly, trying to shake the sudden flush creeping up your neck, and forced yourself to sit up straighter. clutching your pen tightly, you fixed your eyes firmly on the projector screen, nodding along to whatever budget metric someone was going on about. you didn't look back at keys as you did your absolute best to blend into the background, desperately pretending you were just another attentive employee.

“i told you, no matter which buttons i press, the characters keep getting stuck on the far wall. must be something with the colliders,” you said, throwing your hands up in pure frustration.

“it can't be,” keys replied from the desk directly across from yours, squinting at his dual monitors. “i already went over the physics a thousand times. there's gotta be something else we are not seeing.”

“i don't know about you, but this is not how i planned to spend my friday night.”

it was already late, and the only sounds left on the entire office floor were the hum of the servers and the frantic clicking coming out of your small cubicle. everyone else had clocked out long ago. now, you two were the only ones stupid enough to be working at 9 p.m. on a friday night.

“well, it's not like we have a choice,” keys said, groaning as he leaned back. “if we don't get this build done, antwan is going to kill us both on monday.”

“can we at least take a break? my eyes are burning and i don't even remember the last time i ate.”

keys sighed, rubbing a heavy hand over his face. the blue light of his screen caught the tired lines around his eyes. “yeah, alright. i’m hungry too. i can order something. pizza good for you?”

you nodded and stood up immediately to stretch your legs. “would it kill them to buy some fucking ergonomic chairs? jesus christ, my back is killing me,” you muttered, arching your spine and reaching your arms toward the ceiling.

keys chuckled, his eyes tracing the line of your body for a second before he quickly looked down at his phone. “they can’t do that, that would mean treating us as actual human beings. pizza should be here in twenty. meanwhile, can you show me the bug again?”

you walked back to your desk and sat down. keys followed, stepping into your cubicle to stand right behind your chair.

“see, i start walking, do a few jumps, then bamn, glued to the wall.” you turned around to face him, raising an eyebrow.

he leaned down, caging you against the desk. he placed one hand on the edge of your desk and the other on the armrest of your chair, his head now hovering right over your shoulder. he was entirely too close. you could smell the faint scent of mint and the coffee from earlier. you couldn't help but notice how his glasses were hanging low on the bridge of his nose, and his lips looked a bit dry, probably from chewing on them all afternoon.

“do that again,” he murmured.

“what?” you swallowed, your throat suddenly dry.

“do that again. i wanna see exactly which buttons you're pressing,” he jerked his chin toward the keyboard, his breath brushing against the side of your neck.

“right. um. i go this way, i turn around, and-”

keys suddenly burst out laughing, the heavy tension breaking instantly.

you frowned, completely confused. “what's wrong?”

“oh my god,” he stepped back, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. “we forgot to enable that zone after the beta test. we've been stuck here all day for something so stupid. i can fix that in a minute.”

you leaned back into your seat, letting out a massive sigh of relief. “great. so we can go home now.”

“wait, the pizza is about to get here. shouldn't we at least eat it?”

“i don't know, you can just take it with you.”

“i’m not going to eat a full pizza by myself.”

“then take it and share it with millie?”

“right… millie”

you paused, noticing the sudden shift in his expression. his posture stiffened again. 

“what? trouble in paradise?”

“no, i mean… we just kinda argued before she left today.”

the conversation was cut short by the sharp buzzing of the intercom downstairs. the delivery guy was here. keys gave a small, tight nod and turned to take the elevator down.

meanwhile, you started to tidy up your desk, shutting down your monitors and getting ready to finally leave.

when you were shoving your laptop into your bag, keys came back into the room holding a cardboard box. “you sure you don't wanna share?”

you wanted to say no. you knew you had to say no. but it was late, and you knew the refrigerator in your apartment was completely empty. staying meant free food, but it also meant more time alone with him in the dark. your stomach made a loud, rumbling sound, making the choice for you.

“fine, sure. but i can't sit on these chairs for a minute longer,” you said, walking toward the employee lounge where the comfortable breakroom couches were.

you led the way to the employee lounge, dropping your bag onto the floor and sinking into the big, plush couch in the corner. the dim, warm overhead lights of the lounge felt like heaven compared to the harsh fluorescent glow of your cubicle.

keys followed you in, setting the steaming pizza box down on the low coffee table in front of you before sitting right next to you. the couch dipped under his weight, shifting you just an inch closer to him than you anticipated.

“god, this is so much better,” you sighed, resting your head back against the cushions and closing your eyes for a brief second.

“told you,” keys said softly. you opened your eyes to find him already looking at you, his glasses off now, sitting on the table next to the box. without them, his eyes looked softer, tired, and entirely too focused on your face.

he opened the box, the rich scent of cheese filling the small room. he handed you a slice on a napkin, his fingers brushing against yours. his touch lingered for a fraction of a second, sending a quiet hum of static straight up your arm.

you both ate in silence for a few minutes, the initial awkwardness melting away into the easy comfort you always shared. 

“sooo,” you started carefully, taking a small bite of your crust. “you and millie. do you want to talk about it?”

keys paused, staring down at his pizza slice. he let out a low, heavy sigh and leaned back, mimicking your posture. “it’s nothing new. just… the same old thing. she’s talking about moving into a bigger place closer to downtown, looking at floor plans, talking about the next five years. and i’m just…” he trailed off, his jaw tightening.

“and you’re not ready?” you asked softly, turning your head to look at him profile-side.

keys turned his head too. the distance between you felt incredibly small. “it’s not that i’m not ready. it’s that when she talks about the future, it feels like she’s reading from a script we wrote three years ago. and i don't think i want to play that character anymore.”

his voice was dangerously quiet. his eyes dropped to your lips, then traveled slowly back up to meet your gaze. there was an admission in his words, a confession beyond what he was letting on.

the silence stretched between you, thick and heavy with everything neither of you was brave enough to say out loud. keys' hand was resting on the cushion between you, just inches away from your thigh. you could feel the heat radiating from him.

you wanted to reach out. you wanted to close the gap.

but before either of you could move, keys suddenly blinked, as if snapping himself out of a trance. the heavy, intense look in his eyes instantly fractured. he looked away, clearing his throat and rubbing a hand over his face.

“anyway,” keys muttered, his voice suddenly tight as he stood up, abruptly cutting off the moment. “it's late. we should probably get out of here before they lock the garage.”

the cold air rushed into the space he left behind. you swallowed the lump in your throat, nodding quickly as you grabbed your bag. “right. yeah, let’s go.”

the neon lights of the bar were dim, casting a heavy, reddish glow over the crowded room. the bass from the speakers vibrated straight through the floorboards, mixing with the loud chatter of the soonami team celebrating the successful deployment of the new build.

you were leaning against the wooden counter of the bar, holding a half empty drink laughing at a story the lead designer was telling you. 

keys was sitting at a large booth across the bar, surrounded by some of the project managers and corporate leads. millie was right beside him, her hand resting comfortably on his knee, laughing as she chatted with one of them.

since you got there, you couldn't help but fixate on the way they were always glued to each other. they always seemed to be too close somehow, even if it was something as small as touching shoulders or the familiar way she leaned her head against him.

you couldn't understand exactly why it was irking you so much. yet you couldn't take your eyes away from it, as if you could somehow force it to move by sheer willpower. the lead designer by your side kept talking non stop, but you weren't listening anymore. you were just nodding along mindlessly, letting his words turn into pure white noise. 

what you didn't notice was that keys wasn't paying attention to his conversation either. his beer was gripped so tightly in his hand his knuckles were turning white. and every time you laughed, every time the guy leaned in closer to you, keys' jaw would tighten, his eyes narrowing as he tracked every single movement from across the dim bar. 

when he laughed and casually placed a hand on your shoulder, keys abruptly stood up from the booth. millie blinked, looking up at him in surprise as her hand fell from his knee. “hey, where are you going?” she asked over the noise.

“just getting another drink, mills,” keys mumbled, his voice tight as he stepped out of the booth without waiting for her reply.

you noticed him moving toward the bar, and a sudden spike of adrenaline shot through your chest. needing to escape the sudden, suffocating shift in the air, you excused yourself from the designer and headed toward the quieter, narrow hallway near the back exits and the restrooms.

the hallway was poorly lit, the noise of the bar instantly muffling into a dull hum. you took a deep breath, trying to steady your racing heart, when a heavy shadow blocked the light from the entrance.

you turned around, your back pressing against the wallpapered wall as keys stepped into the narrow space, effectively cutting off your escape.

“are you having fun?” keys asked, his voice low.

you blinked, swallowing hard as you looked past his broad shoulders toward the main room. 

“what are you doing here? millie is going to wonder where you are.”

“i don’t care about that right now,” he muttered, taking another step forward.

you could smell the faint scent of alcohol and the mint chewing gum. his glasses were reflecting the dim red light, his eyes dark and completely unblinking as they dropped down to your lips before locking back onto yours.

“what are you doing, keys? seriously,” you whispered, your hands flat against his chest to keep him from going any closer, though you could feel the heavy, rapid thud of his heart under your palms. “someone is going to see you.”

“i noticed you’ve had four drinks since we got here,” keys said, ignoring your warning completely, “and i noticed that guy from design hasn’t left your side once.” 

you let out a shaky, defensive laugh, “he was just telling me a story. we were just talking.” 

“he was hovering,” keys countered, his voice tight, laced with a quiet frustration. “he saw you were tipsy and he was entirely too close, he was looking for an excuse to put his hands on you.”

“keys, he was just being friendly,” you hissed back, your face starting to flush. you looked at his broad shoulders, then past him toward the entrance of the hallway, “and why do you even care? you don't get to monitor my drinks, and you definitely don't get to look after me like this.”

“someone has to,” keys said softly.

your breath hitched, your throat locking up.

“keys...” you whispered, your fingers involuntarily tightening against the fabric of his jacket. “stop. go back to the booth. millie is waiting for you.”

before either of you could move, the heavy door to the hallway creaked open, and the loud laugh of a coworker echoed into the space.

reality slammed back into the room. keys instantly stiffened, stepping back a full foot and running a hand through his hair as he looked away from you.

“uh, sorry,” the coworker muttered, passing by to the restrooms.

keys kept his back turned to you for a second, his shoulders tense as he let out a shaky breath. without looking back at you, he cleared his throat roughly.

“i’m going back outside,” he muttered, his voice cold and strained as he walked out of the hallway.

the storm had been brewing all afternoon, and by the time you finally packed up your things to leave the office, torrential rain slammed against the glass windows of the lobby, turning the streetlights outside into a blurry mess.

you stood near the glass exit doors, pulling your jacket tighter around your shoulders as you looked at your phone. the uber rates kept going up, and the app was unable to find a driver willing to drive through the downpour. you let out a defeated sigh, preparing yourself to just sprint through the freezing rain. 

“hey.”

you jumped slightly, turning around to see keys walking up behind you. his laptop bag was slung over one shoulder, his hair was a little messy and his glasses sitting slightly crooked on his nose.

“hey,” you murmured, your throat suddenly feeling tight. 

keys looked past you, squinting at the sheet of water cascading off the building. “you’re not seriously going to walk in this, are you?” 

“uber is completely dead,” you said, shrugging weakly and gesturing to your screen. “i don't really have a choice. my apartment isn't that far anyway.” 

keys frowned, his jaw tightening slightly. he checked his phone, then looked back at you, a strange, tense conflict flitting across his features. you knew millie had left early today to go visit her parents for the weekend, leaving him with the apartment all to himself.

“i’ll drive you,” keys said, his voice dropping into that quiet, firm tone he used when he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

“keys, no, it’s fine, i can-”

“i’m not letting you walk through a storm at 10 p.m.,” he interrupted, stepping past you and pushing the glass door open. “come on, my car is right in the first row of the lot.”

the run to his car was a blur of freezing rain and splashing puddles. by the time you slammed the passenger door shut, both of you were breathless and damp, the sudden warmth of the vehicle's interior hitting your skin. the heavy thudding of the rain against the roof immediately isolated you from the rest of the world, wrapping the small cabin in a intimate silence.

keys started the engine, shifting the heater to high. the vents began to hum loudly, blowing warm air that instantly started to fog up the windows. he threw his bag into the back seat and ran a hand through his damp hair, shaking off the water.

“thanks,” you whispered, buckling your seatbelt and staring straight ahead at the blurred windshield.

“don't worry about it,” he muttered, his voice tight as he shifted the car into drive and slowly pulled out of the parking lot.

the first half of the drive was agonizingly quiet. the only sounds were the steady, rhythmic clicking of the windshield wipers and the heavy downpour outside. keys kept both hands tightly gripped on the steering wheel, his eyes focused entirely on the flooded road ahead. 

“um, so… any big plans tonight?” you asked, trying to ease the tension.

“if you consider catching up on hours of sleep big plans,” he shrugged, a faint trace of his usual relaxed self peaking through the tight set of his jaw. 

“wow, living on the edge, keys. don't party too hard,” you teased, leaning your head back against the headrest and turning to look at his profile.

he let out a low, dry chuckle, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror before settling back on the dark road. “hey, after dealing with antwan's erratic change of requirements all afternoon, a quiet bedroom and zero monitors is all i need. what about you? going to try and lock yourself out of the servers again?”

“that was one time,” you groaned, rolling your eyes but unable to stop the smile tugging at your lips. “and for your information, i plan on doing absolutely nothing. just eating leftover takeout and watching whatever trashy show is trending.”

“sounds fun,” he murmured, his tone finally softening, slipping back into that familiar, easy rhythm you two always had. he relaxed his grip on the wheel a fraction, the heavy silence from before completely melting away.

after a few more blocks and the easy back and forth, keys pulled up to the curb outside your apartment building, shifting the vehicle into park but keeping the engine running. the street outside was completely deserted, save for the soft glow of a single streetlight cutting through the sheet of rain. 

the comfortable bubble you had just built suddenly popped, replaced instantly by a thick, suffocating weight. you turned your head to look at him, your heart starting to hammer violently against your ribs as you realized the drive was over.

“well... thank you for the ride, keys. i’ll see you on monday.”

you reached for the door handle, but before your fingers could even touch it, keys’ hand shot out across the console. his fingers wrapped around your wrist, his grip firm, warm, and slightly trembling.

you froze, your breath hitching.

“wait,” keys whispered, his voice rough.

you slowly turned your face back to him. he had turned his body in the driver's seat, his eyes dark, intense, and completely stripped of his usual composure. he looked desperate. his gaze dropped down to your lips, and you could see his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths. 

“she called me before i left the office,” he muttered. “she wanted to check in. tell me about her drive. talk about that apartment downtown again.”

you swallowed hard, your chest aching at the familiar topic, you didn't need to ask who he was talking about, “and?”

“and i couldn't do it,” keys confessed, his thumb tracing a tiny, subconscious circle over the pulse point of your wrist. the raw honesty in his tone was suffocating. “i spent the whole phone call giving her one word answers because the only thing i could focus on was the fact that you were still on the fourth floor, and that it was pouring rain, and i couldn't let you walk home alone.”

“keys, don't-”

“i tried, alright?” he interrupted, his voice cracking slightly as he leaned closer. his free hand came up, his fingers brushing against your damp cheek, his touch so warm it made you shiver. “i’ve been trying for months to pretend like everything is fine, like things are still the same with her. but they’re not. she keeps leaving on the weekends… she leaves me alone in that apartment, and i don't even care because the only person i want to see, the only person i want to talk to... is you.”

you swallowed the lump in your throat, he looked so agonizingly torn.

“i’m so tired of pretending,” keys whispered, his face now inches from yours, his breath hot against your skin.

“keys...” you breathed, the sound of his name breaking whatever last shred of control he had left.

he let go of your wrist only to wrap both of his large hands around your jaw, pulling you fiercely towards him. his mouth crashed against yours with a desperate urgency that knocked the wind right out of your lungs.

the kiss was anything but gentle; you let out a soft, muffled whimper against his mouth, but you didn't pull away. instead, your fingers buried themselves into the collar of his damp jacket, anchoring him to you as his tongue parted your lips.

he groaned deep in his throat, a low, desperate sound that vibrated straight into your chest. his hands slid down from your jaw, his grip bruising as his fingers dug into your waist, lifting you effortlessly over the dividers of the center console. before your brain could register the shift, you were tangled entirely in his lap on the driver’s seat. 

the space was impossibly tight. your knees framed his hips, your jacket rustling against his, and your back pressed hard against the steering wheel.

keys’ hands made his way under your sweater, his palms hot and slightly rough against the bare skin of your waist. he yanked you down flush against him, and you could feel the thick, hard length of his erection pressing tightly through his jeans right against your core.

the friction was agonizingly perfect. you shifted your hips instinctively, rolling against him to find a rhythm, and keys let out a choked, broken gasp into your neck. his teeth bit lightly at the sensitive skin right beneath your jaw, his hips rolling up to meet yours. the windows were entirely fogged now, completely blocking out the rain and the dark street.

but then, keys’ phone suddenly lit up in the cup holder right beside your leg.

the bright, glare of the screen cut through the darkness of the car. millie flashed in bold, white letters, accompanied by a picture of her smiling.

keys froze. his lips stopped moving against your neck, his chest heaving violently against yours.

for three agonizing seconds, the car was silent except for the heavy drumming of the rain and his ragged breathing. you looked down at him, your hands still tangled in his hair. he stared at the phone, then slowly looked up at you. his face was pale, his eyes wide behind his glasses. the realization of what he was doing slammed into him like ice water.

“oh god,” keys breathed, his voice cracking, looking physically sick with himself.

he immediately dropped his hands from your waist, his palms pressing against your shoulders to gently but firmly push you off his lap. his hands were shaking uncontrollably as he helped you navigate back over the center console and into your own seat, his breath coming in shallow, panicked hitches.

“keys...” you started, your voice trembling, your body shivering from the sudden loss of heat.

“i can't. i’m sorry, i- i can't,” he stammered, completely backing down. he wouldn't even look at you now, his eyes pinned to the steering wheel as he gripped it with white knuckles, his chest heaving. “you need to go. please. just... go.”

without saying another word and the sudden humiliation making your eyes sting, you grabbed your bag from the floor, unlocked the door, and stepped out into the pouring rain, slamming the car door shut behind you.

ever since that night, things had been incredibly strained between you two. you had both avoided each other’s eyes in meetings, reverting back to short, strictly professional emails. 

you had even asked to change desks, using the lame excuse of some monitor not working properly. to admit it, you were a bit paranoid that keys had told millie what happened in the car. but a week had already passed, and nothing seemed to change in their dynamic. having moved to a completely different section of the office floor meant you barely even saw them anymore, and you were incredibly grateful for that. you needed the distance to breathe.

it was another stressful morning. you were trying to fix a code loop on the game that had been driving you crazy all day, your eyes straining against the screen, when you felt your phone vibrate against the desk.

keys: can u come down to the servers room

your heart did a sudden, nervous flip. you stared at the text before putting the phone back down, face down. you tried to convince yourself he had probably sent it to the wrong person. it had to be a mistake.

then, it buzzed again. twice. 

keys: i need ur help with something keys: urgent

your thumbs hovered over the screen.

you: help with what? keys: just come here you: cant u ask someone else? you: im pretty busy rn keys: it will be quick keys: please

letting out a deep sigh, you finally stood up and headed toward the elevators. your hands were slightly clammy, and your mind was racing with every worst case scenario. you just wanted to get whatever this was over with, so you could go back to avoiding him in peace. 

the server room was located in the basement of the building, a place nobody went unless something was seriously broken. you stepped inside, the metal door hadn't even closed properly when keys greeted you, slamming his palm against the heavy frame to trap you, backing you up against the hard surface and instantly guiding his lips to yours.

it was an all too familiar rhythm, fierce and desperate, crashing into you before you could even process what had just happened. the absolute shock of it held you frozen for a split second as his mouth moved against yours, hot and demanding. then, reality slammed back in, and you placed both hands firmly against his chest, shoving him off you.

“what the hell is wrong with you?!” you yelled, your voice echoing sharply in the room. you threw your hands up in the air, your chest heaving from the sudden burst of panic and anger.

keys didn't respond immediately. instead, he just stood there staring at you, his chest rising and falling in heavy, ragged breaths. his dark hair was messy, and his eyes were wide, completely stripped of that cool composure he usually carried. 

“what kind of sick game are you playing?” you demanded, the sting of how he had left you in the car a week ago fueling the fire in your throat.

“it's not a game,” keys said, his voice rough and incredibly low.

“then what the fuck is this?”

“i don't know,” he muttered, shaking his head slightly, his fists clenching at his sides. “but it's not a game. i swear.”

“it feels like it,” you sighed in pure, exhausting frustration, rubbing a hand over your face before glaring back up at him. “what are you doing now? you were the one to back down the other day. you were the one who practically threw me out of your car!”

“i know.”

“do you have any idea how i felt after that? how humiliating that was?”

he shook his head, looking down at the concrete floor for a fraction of a second before locking his pleading eyes back onto yours. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. that never should have happened like that. it was wrong, and i panicked, but...” he swallowed hard, taking a small step closer. “but i don't regret it.”

your brows furrowed in complete confusion, your mind racing to keep up with his whiplash. “what?”

“i thought after that... i thought if it finally happened, i could just get it out of my system and move on,” keys confessed, his voice trembling slightly with a terrifying level of honesty. he stepped closer again, completely crowding you against the metal door, the heat radiating off him fighting the freezing air of the basement. “but i can't. i can't stop thinking about it.”

you stared at him, breathless.

“do you have any idea how many times i’ve touched myself to that memory over the past few days?” keys asked, the filters completely gone from his brain now. he looked agonizingly frustrated, his jaw tight as he let out a bitter, self deprecating breath. “a concerning amount. a completely fucked up amount. i close my eyes and all i can feel is you on my lap, the way you tasted, the way you looked at me. i’m losing my mind here.”

“i just don't get it, keys,” you whispered, your anger suddenly melting into confusion. your heart was beating so hard you could hear it in your ears. “what are you doing? what do you even want?”

“you,” keys said instantly, without a single second of hesitation. he stepped into your space, his face inches from yours. “i want you.”

“but you are with millie,” you stated, the name landing between you like a physical barrier.

“god, i know that, but-”

“did you end things with her?” you interrupted, your voice turning sharp, demanding the one answer that actually mattered.

keys froze. his mouth parted slightly, but no sound came out. the silence stretched between you, broken only by the whirring fans of the servers.

“no,” he finally whispered.

you let out a short, bitter chuckle, the stinging disappointment hitting you right in the chest. you shook your head, your eyes burning as you reached sideways for the door handle. “goodbye, keys.”

“stop.” in one swift motion, he stepped even closer, his large hands shooting out to press flat against the cold metal door on either side of your head, caging you in completely. his broad shoulders blocked out the rest of the room. “you can't just walk out. you can't deny you want this too. you think i don't notice the way you look at me? you think i didn't feel the way you kissed me back in that car?”

you swallowed hard, your throat completely dry. your back was flat against the door, your eyes locked onto his dark, desperate gaze behind his glasses. 

“tell me to stop,” keys whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, bleeding vulnerability. he leaned down, his forehead almost resting against yours, his breath hot and uneven against your lips. “tell me you don't want this. tell me you don't want me. say it, and i swear to god i’ll walk out that door right now and i will never bring this up again.”

you opened your mouth to speak, to say the words that would save you both, to say the name millie one more time and end the madness. but the words got caught in your throat. you looked at his parted lips, at the desperate, pleading look in his eyes, and you couldn't do it. the lie wouldn't come out.

you swallowed, staring up at him in helpless silence. and in the quiet, freezing room, your silence was answer enough.

this time you initiated the kiss.

you reached up, your fingers tangling into the hood of his sweatshirt to pull him down, burying your mouth against his before your brain could find another reason to hesitate. a low, broken sound escaped keys’ throat as he locked his arms around you, lifting you slightly off the floor to press your lower back harder against the cold metal door.

his tongue parted your lips with a heavy, demanding familiarity, tasting like the strong coffee he’d been drinking all morning. his hands dropping from the door to grip your thighs, guiding your legs to wrap tightly around his waist. you clung to his shoulders for balance, your chest pressing flush against his as he drove you back against the door.

he didn't wait. he didn't care about being gentle anymore.

his hips slammed up against yours, and a sharp gasp was choked out of your throat and straight into his mouth as the hard length of his erection locked perfectly against your center. keys let out a ragged breath against your lips, shifting his grip to your hips, holding you down against him while his lower body grinded against yours in a desperate rhythm.

he shifted, his lower body rolling against yours with a heavy friction that had you arching your back, a breathless moan slipping past your lips. keys caught the sound with his own mouth, kissing you, his hips moving faster.

without breaking the kiss, keys hooked his hands under your thighs and lifted you completely. he carried you down until he reached the small desk at the far side of the wall. with a sweep of his arm, he knocked some papers onto the floor to make space.

he set you down on the edge of the high desk, pressing your thighs wide apart as he stepped right between them. his hands were trembling slightly now as he reached for your zipper, his eyes locking onto yours behind his glasses, completely consumed by you. in one swift, desperate motion, he pushed your clothes out of the way, the freezing air of the server room hitting your bare skin for a split second before his large, burning palm completely erased it.

keys’ fingers slid down, finding your center, and a sharp gasp broke from your lips when you felt his warm touch. his fingers moved with a purpose, tracing over your wetness before sliding one, then two fingers deep inside you. you arched off the cold table instantly, your hands gripping his shoulders as he began to pace his fingers into you, finding a fast rhythm that matched the frantic beating of your heart.

“keys- god,” you whined, your head tossing back.

he didn't let you breathe, kissing you to stifle your cries while his thumb pressed hard against your clit. you were stretching around his fingers, slick and tight, and keys let out a low, ragged growl into your throat, his fingers pushing deeper, moving faster until your hips were rolling against his palm to chase the ache.

knowing you were completely ready and soaked for him, was what finally broke his last shred of sanity.

he pulled his hand out, which made you let out a weak whimper of protest. then he didn't waste another second. his knuckles brushed against your bare skin as he unbuttoned his jeans with a frantic rush.

he freed his impressive length from his underwear. you had already felt how much he was packing back in the car, but experiencing it now in the raw light of the room was completely different; you honestly hadn't expected him to be that big. the sight of him made your throat go completely dry.

his fingers wrapped around his base and he stroked himself a few times. his eyes stayed locked onto yours behind his glasses, watching your reaction. then stepped even closer, until the heat of his skin was pressing right against your soaking center.

he drove himself inside you in one deep, heavy thrust.

a loud, breathless gasp caught in your throat, your head slamming back against the metal rack behind the desk. keys groaned out loud, his eyes closing tight as his hands gripped your hips so hard his fingers left marks.

he didn't wait. he couldn't. keys began to move, his pace fast and deep, his hips slamming against yours. the desk rattled with every thrust, the cold metal biting into your lower back, but you barely felt it. you were completely focused on him, your fingers tangling into his hair, your nails digging into the skin of his neck as you matched his frantic pace.

keys leaned down, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his breath hot and ragged as he let out low, broken whimpers with every push. his tongue tasted your skin, his teeth biting lightly at your collarbone, sending waves of pure electricity straight down your spine. 

the friction was overwhelming, the intensity building so fast in the freezing room that the air felt thick with the scent of heat and sweat. you locked your ankles behind his back, pulling him even deeper, your own voice breaking into loud moans that keys kept catching with his mouth.

“keys… please,” you cried out against him, your fingers gripping his shoulders so hard your nails dug into his skin through his sweatshirt.

he let out a low groan, his hips rolling into yours, hitting your sweet spot over and over again. “tell me,” he mumbled against your lips, his voice dropping into a commanding register you’d never heard from him before. “tell me how it feels. tell me you’ve been wanting this as much as i have.”

“i have,” you gasped, your head tossing back against the metal rack. “god, keys, yes...”

“i knew it,” he muttered, his breath hot against your ear as his teeth grazed the sensitive skin of your jawline. “ you’re so tight for me, love... you’re so wet.”

“you’re mine,” keys choked out against your lips, his voice raw, rough, and completely stripped of his usual control. “god, you’re all i can think about. day and night... it’s always been you. fuck everyone else. you’re the only one i want.”

the admission shattered whatever restraint you both had left, but keys didn't let you fall over the edge just yet. he held your hips pinned against the table, delivering three more slow, agonizingly deep thrusts that made your vision go blurry. 

“look at me,” he gasped, his voice trembling as he forced himself to pull back just enough to lock his eyes onto yours. “let me see you take it. take all of it for me.”

you stared back at him, breathless.

with one last, powerful surge of his hips, a suffocating wave of pure heat crashed over you. your insides clamped down around him, and you let out a sharp cry, your body arching completely off the table as your orgasm ripped through you.

hearing your sounds, feeling you squeeze him so intensely, was the final trigger for keys.

he let out a ragged moan, his hips locking desperately against yours as he came inside you. his entire body went completely rigid, his muscles straining and his length pulsing deeply within your core. keys buried his face in your hair, his fingers digging into your waist with a bruising grip as he rode out the waves of his own release.

for a long, agonizingly quiet minute, the only sound was your heavy, combined breathing. keys stayed buried inside you, his forehead resting against your shoulder, his chest heaving violently. 

the intense heat in the room begins to fade, and the freezing air of the basement slowly creeps back in, chilling the sweat on your bare skin.

keys doesn't move. he doesn't pull away immediately. instead, he lets out a long, shaky exhale against your neck that feels terrifyingly weak. then slowly, very slowly, he pulls his head back to look at you.

the desperate, unhinged look in his eyes is completely gone, replaced by a hollow, quiet exhaustion. his glasses are fogged up and sitting crooked on his nose. he reaches up with a trembling hand, takes them off, and sets them blindly on the desk beside you. without them, his eyes look wide and completely exposed.

he looks at your swollen lips, at the marks his fingers are leaving on your thighs, and then he looks down at his own hand, specifically at the finger where the shadow of his life with millie hangs.

the reality of what they had just done settles over him.

“keys?” you whisper, your voice cracking in the quiet room. your hands are still resting on his broad shoulders, but he suddenly feels a million miles away.

he doesn't answer. he gently, almost robotically, pulls himself out of you. the sudden loss of his warmth makes you shiver violently on the edge of the cold table. keys keeps his eyes pinned to the floor as he fixes his clothes, his movements slow and stiff, as if he is trying to put a fractured version of himself back together.

when he finally looks back up at you, his face is deathly pale. there is no anger, and there are no excuses. just a profound, heartbreaking defeat.

“i can't look at her,” keys whispers, his voice so quiet it is almost swallowed by the whirring of the server fans. he lets out a bitter, breathy laugh that sounds closer to a sob, running a hand over his face. “god... i have to go back upstairs, and i have to sit next to her, and i... i don't even know how i'm going to look her in the eye.”

the words sting, a sharp injection of reality that makes your throat tighten with immediate humiliation.

“keys...”

“i’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice breaking completely. he picks up his glasses from the desk, his hands shaking so hard he can barely slip them back over his ears. he looks at you one last time, his eyes wide, “i’m so fucking sorry.”

he doesn't wait for you to answer. he doesn't offer to help you down. keys just turns around and walks away, his boots heavy and slow against the concrete, before pushing the heavy metal door open and stepping out.

“no… no, no, no…” you muttered to yourself as you frantically searched through your purse for the keys to your apartment.

“i know they’ve gotta be here,” you sighed in frustration, pausing the search to run a hand through your hair and retrace your steps.

you remembered doing your makeup in a hurry while your friend kept rushing you, yelling about the car waiting downstairs. then throwing everything in your purse in a hurry, walking out, and slamming the door behind the both of you.

and now, you had a perfectly clear mental image of the exact location of your keys: the kitchen counter.

you forgot your fucking keys inside. 

it was currently 2 a.m. okay, it’s fine, it wasn't that bad, you tried to reason. maybe the building manager was still around and could let you in with a spare key. no big deal.

except it was the weekend, and he always left early on fridays.

“fuck me…” you slid down the wall and sat on the floor because your heels were absolutely killing you. fine, plan B: you'll just text your friend to come back; that was the whole reason you had given her a spare key in the first place, for emergencies just like this.

you tried calling her a few times, but she didn't answer. the texts you sent didn't even go through. she was probably spending the night with someone, her phone discarded elsewhere. 

you were running out of options. technically, you could call a locksmith; but, at this ungodly hour, it was going to be expensive as fuck, and your bank account couldn't handle that hit right now.

contemplating what you could possibly do, you let your head rest against the closed door and looked up at the celling. there wasn't any other option but to wait until morning for someone to come help you out, but you were tired, already in a poor mood, and on top of that it was starting to get chilly, the only coat you had on a flimsy jacket that was far more fashionable than actually warm. 

you were scrolling through the contacts on your phone, desperately rethinking if there was anyone you could bother at this hour, when a sliver of light caught your attention from the corner of your eye. 

there was a dim glow bleeding through the gap beneath keys’ front door. you rolled your eyes and scoffed, of course he would be awake in the middle of the night, probably staring at a monitor playing something stupid.

you stared at that line of light on the floor, the silence of the hallway suddenly feeling far too heavy. your skin goosebumped from the chill air, and your eyes drifted from the floor back up to his doorknob. maybe you could…

no, absolutely not, you cut your own thought off, shaking your head aggressively. there was no way in hell. asking him for a favor was the ultimate defeat.

but then another gush of cold air swept through the corridor, making you shiver. you looked at your own locked door, then back to his. the alternative was spending the next five hours on a dirty hallway floor.

biting the inside of your cheek in deep thought, you forced yourself to stand up, and quietly took a few steps, closing the distance between his door and you.

you stood there completely frozen for a full minute. this was insanely stupid. you were going to regret this.

after taking a deep breath to gather whatever courage you had left, you tightened your jacket around your chest and softly knocked on his door. just once. 

you held your breath. your heart hammered intensely against your ribs. maybe he wasn't even up. maybe he’d just forgotten to turn off a lamp, or maybe he was wearing those stupid headphones of his and wouldn't hear a thing. honestly, part of you hoped he would just ignore it.

your train of thought stopped dead on its tracks when the door handle clicked, and the door cracked open to reveal a very much shirtless keys.

your voice caught in your throat. your gaze immediately dropped to his chest, taking in the faint, dark hair on his skin, and the way it trailed down into a tight, tempting line that disappeared straight into the low waistband of his grey sweatpants. 

keys cleared his throat, the subtle sound snapping your eyes back up to his face.

“can i help you?” he asked somewhat confused, fixing his glasses.

“i- yeah, this is actually pretty dumb…” you chuckled nervously, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. 

he raised an eyebrow in response, leaning his weight against the doorframe, waiting.

"i got locked out of my apartment,” you blurted out

“and that’s any of my business because…?” he asked, a mocking smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“ugh, whatever, nevermind,” you spat, instantly regretting everything. you turned on your heel, ready to go back to your spot on the cold ground of the hallway.

but you didn't even get to take a step before keys rolled his eyes, his hand darting out to catch your wrist.

“just get in here,” he grumbled, pulling you gently into the warmth of his apartment, locking the door behind you.

you stood there awkwardly in the entryway. you hadn't actually thought this far ahead; you had no plan for what to do if he actually let you in. to avoid looking at him, and specifically to avoid looking at the broad expanse of his distracting bare chest, you forced your eyes to scan the room.

it was so blatantly obvious what a nerd he was just from the decor. there were some movie posters on the far wall near a neat couch, and nearly every shelf was packed with collectibles and trinkets of all sizes and shapes, most of them from franchises you didn't even recognize. everything was meticulously organized. 

the sound of keys’ voice abruptly pulled you back to reality. 

“how exactly did you manage to lock yourself out?” 

he was leaning against the wall now, arms crossed over his chest, the movement made his biceps flex.

“i forgot the keys inside,” you muttered.

“how do you even forget them? were you just not paying attention?”

you rolled your eyes, “i left in a hurry, okay?”

“i have left my apartment in a hurry hundreds of times,” he countered smoothly, “yet not once have i forgotten my keys.”

“oh, i’m sorry. do you want an award for that, or…?”

“did you try calling the building manager?” he asked, ignoring your sarcasm completely. 

“yes,” you said curtly, your patience wearing thin, “but you know he leaves early on weekends.”  

he let out a judgmental tsk. “it’s incredibly irresponsible to only have one copy of your keys.”

“i do not have just one copy!” you snapped, stepping closer without thinking, “the friend who has the spare isn't answering her texts either.”

“well, have you tried-”

“oh my god!” you cut him off, throwing your hands up. “yes! every single option your little analytical brain is running through right now, i have already tried. do you honestly think i would be standing in your living room at two in the morning if i had any other choice?”

keys immediately lifted his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender, “jesus. no need to get defensive.”

“look, i knocked because i didn’t have any other option,” you said, your voice shaking slightly from frustration. “but i don't have to deal with your attitude right now, if you don’t want me here, i’m more than happy to go back into the hallway where i don’t have to listen to your stupid comments anymore.”

you made a move toward the door, but keys didn't budge. 

“no need for the theatrics,” he said quietly, “you can stay the night. at least until someone can come give you a hand in the morning.”

a heavy silence settled between you. 

“thank you,” you muttered, the words were barely audible. you looked away instantly, your cheeks burning with a heat that had nothing to do with the apartment's thermostat.

keys bit back a small, satisfied smile at your stubbornness. shaking his head, he walked away, his bare feet making no sound on the floorboards as he disappeared through a door on the other side of the room. he didn't give you a chance to ask what he was doing, but he returned a minute later.

in his hands, he held a neatly folded stack of clothes: a large, dark t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants that matched the one he was wearing right now. he held them out to you, “here.”

you raised your eyebrow in question.

“for you to change into,” he clarified, his eyes tracing the tight fit of your clothes “or are you planning to spend the night sleeping in that?” 

your heart did a nervous flip. before he could notice your hesitation, you snatched the fabric from his hands. and without another word, he turned and guided you toward the bathroom, leaving you to deal with the sudden realization of what you had just agreed to.

taking longer than necessary, you changed into the soft fabric of his clothes. they were ridiculously oversized on you; and they smelled intoxicatingly like him. you stared into the bathroom mirror, smoothing down your hair and trying to ignore the way your heart was thumping. finally taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you unlocked the door and walked out. 

when you got back into the living room, keys was still very much still shirtless, lounging on the couch, his glasses sliding slightly down the bridge of his nose as he lazily scrolled on his phone. when he heard your footsteps approach, his thumb froze on the screen, and he lifted his gaze to meet yours; his eyes slowly tracked the way his massive clothes drowned you.

“i guess you can just take my bedroom,” he said, casually.

“what? no,” you countered quickly, “i can just crash on the couch.”

“i’m going to stay up working anyway. probably won't even sleep,” he replied gesturing vaguely with his phone toward the hallway. “you can use the bedroom.” 

“it’s really okay, i can use the couch,” you insisted, “i won’t even be here long anyways”

keys stared at you for a second, clearly irritated by your persistence; then he sighed.

“whatever,” he shrugged, standing up from the couch. “just do whatever you want. i’ll be in my office. the bedroom is that way if you change your mind.”

you let out a sigh of relief the second his office door clicked shut.

you had been tossing and turning for a little over twenty minutes, fiercely trying to force yourself to sleep, when the soft click of a door handle broke through the quiet.

your eyes snapped open to see keys walking back into the living room. 

he had a glass of water in one hand and a notebook in the other. he didn't look at you at first, walking straight toward the kitchen island, but his dark eyes carefully tracked your restless movement in his periphery. 

he set the glass down, turned around, and leaned against the counter. his bare chest caught the dim glow of the kitchen light.

"you're still awake," it wasn't a question. 

“i’m fine. just trying to get comfortable,” you said pulling the blanket higher up your chin.

keys let out a mocking breath through his nose, walking over until he was standing right at the edge of the couch, hovering over you. "you're cold. and you look ridiculous trying to fit into a couch that clearly isn't meant for sleeping."

"i said i'm fine, keys," you snapped, sitting up abruptly, the blanket falling off your shoulders. "go back to your office and leave me alone."

"i told you to take the bed," his tone dropping into that stubborn, authoritative register that always made your blood boil. he stepped even closer, his thigh practically brushing against the edge of the cushions. "but your stubborn pride just wouldn't let you, would it?"

"my pride is doing just fine, thank you," you retorted, your eyes defiantly locking onto his behind his glasses. "why do you even care?"

"because it's distracting," he bent down, pinning you to the back of the couch by placing one warm palm on the cushion right next to your hip, his bare chest now mere inches from your face. "hearing you toss and turn out here is annoying. i can't focus on a single line of code."

he was so close you could smell the clean scent of his skin, and you could see the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

"then close your office door tighter," you breathed.

"i did," keys murmured, his eyes darkening as he leaned in closer, his breath fanning over your face. his eyes scanned your flushed cheeks, a sudden, dangerous possessiveness taking over his expression as he remembered every single sound that had crossed that wall last friday night. he wanted to wipe that memory clean. he wanted to be the one making you breathless. "it didn't work."

"maybe you're just overly sensitive to noise," you challenged, your voice trembling slightly, "now you can't even handle the sound of blankets moving? you really need to check your focus."

"friday night," he spat out, the words raw and laced with a bitter jealousy he could no longer hide. his eyes dipped down to your lips before snapping back to yours. "do you have any idea how thin the drywall in this building is? i was trying to sleep, and instead, i had to listen to absolutely everything happening in your bedroom."

your blood turned to ice, your eyes widening in sheer mortification as the realization hit you like a physical blow. he heard.

"keys, i-"

"you were loud," he cut you off, his grip on the couch cushion tightened and his knuckles turned white right next to your hip. his gaze scanned your flushed, panicked face. "every single gasp, every pathetic little whimper... i heard it all."

the words hung heavily in the air, you could feel your face burning with a mix of embarrassment and sudden heat. 

"you..." you swallowed hard, trying to find your voice, to summon back your usual sarcasm, but it failed you completely. "you shouldn't have been listening."

"i didn't have a choice," keys hissed, leaning in so close that his bare chest was inches from your own. "i had to sit there in the dark, listening to some other guy call your name, hearing exactly how you sound when someone else is touching you."

his eyes flicked down to the oversized collar of his own shirt slipping off your shoulder, exposing the smooth skin beneath.

"and the worst part?" he murmured, his thumb suddenly coming up to firmly lift you chin up, forcing you to keep looking straight into his eyes. "i couldn't get it out of my head. i’ve been thinking about it all weekend. and now you’re here, sitting on my couch, wearing my clothes, looking at me like you aren’t driving me fucking crazy."

instead of shrinking back like he expected, something shifted inside you. 

you let out a soft, breathy chuckle, your eyes narrowing as you looked at him through his glasses. "oh, yeah? you spent all weekend obsessing over me, keys?"

he blinked, his grip on your chin tightening slightly in surprise at your sudden change in tone.

"aww, you did," you cut him off, your voice dropping into a low teasing. you brought your hands up to his shoulders, your fingers slowly trailing down the center of his chest, tracing the line of his stomach all the way down to the waistband of his sweatpants. 

keys' breath hitched instantly

 "thats so cute,” you murmured, leaning in just enough to feel the heat radiating off him. “you sat in the dark, desperate, listening to me."

his jaw clenched hard, his eyes drifting down to your lips.

before he could process anything, you grabbed him by the fabric of his sweatpants and pulled him forward while shifting your weight, reversing your positions. caught off guard, keys fell backward onto the cushions of the couch with a low grunt. in a second, you were on your knees on the floor between his thighs, looking up at him.

keys was flushed, his chest heaving as he stared down at you with wide, dark eyes behind his glasses.

"what are you doing?" he managed to ask, his voice rougher.

"shut up for once," you said.

from your position on the floor, right between his thighs, your view of him was dangerously intimate. you didn't hesitate. leaning forward, you pressed your lips to his lower stomach, and licked along the rough path of his happy trail.

keys let out a sharp gasp, his stomach flexing violently under the wet contact. before he could process the sensation, you nipped at his skin, burying your teeth gently into the soft flesh of his lower tummy.

"f-fuck..." he rasped, his hands twitching against the couch.

you pulled back just enough to look at him, a thrill of pure satisfaction rushing through your veins as your hands slid down to the waistband of his sweatpants. you didn't waste time being gentle; you hooked your fingers into the cotton and yanked them down together with his boxers, freeing his length into the cool air of the living room.

he was already rock hard. his thick, heavy shaft twitched. seeing him like this, completely at your mercy, sent a thrill of pure satisfaction through your veins.

keys let out a low, ragged groan, his head snapping back against the couch cushions. his hands shot out, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the armrest.

"god, you're so pathetic," you whispered, leaning in closer.

before he could snap back, you wrapped your fingers firmly around his base, feeling the heavy pulse of his veins against your palm. you leaned down and ran your tongue slowly up the underside of his shaft, collecting the slick pre-cum at the crown.

you looked up at him through your lashes, making direct eye contact behind his lenses as you parted your lips and took the head of his dick into your mouth.

a choked sound left his lips, and his hands flew to the back of your head. his thick fingers tangling into your hair to anchor you against him as you started to slide your mouth slowly up and down his length. he was incredibly thick, filling your mouth entirely.

"fuck, slow down," he muttered, his glasses sliding further down his nose, his cheeks flushed a deep crimson. he tried to pace you, his hand in your hair tightening to guide your movements, his hips were already grinding upward into your mouth in a desperate search for more friction.

you ignored his attempts to take back control, deliberately sucking harder on the tip before sliding all the way down, letting his length coat your throat until your nose brushed against the dark hairs of his groin.

keys completely broke. his eyes blew wide behind his glasses, his chest heaving as a ragged groan tore from his throat, completely stripped of any pride he had left. the hand in your hair turned urgent, guiding your head in a faster, more desperate pace.

he was agonizingly close, his hips twitching against your mouth, but right as his body shuddered on the verge of spilling, his mind snapped back. he wasn't going to let it end like this. 

with a loud groan, he pulled your head back by your hair, forcing you to break the contact. grabbing your wrist he dragged you back up, effortlessly shifting your weight until you were sitting straddling his lap. 

“now it’s my turn to have fun,” he said, guiding his mouth to the open collar of your neck. he dragged his teeth all the way from the underside of your ear down to your shoulder, biting down gently enough to make you whimper before tracing the bruised spot with his wet tongue. 

his large palm made his way up the soft fabric of your shirt and stopped right under your breast. he pulled back for a fraction of a second to look at your flushed face, and then hooking his arm behind your knees, he manhandled you until you were lying flat on your back on the couch, completely pinned beneath him.

lifting your shirt until it was bunched up around your collarbone, he cupped one of your breasts with his hand, squeezing the soft flesh firmly as he guided his mouth to the other, capturing your nipple and sucking hard. 

you let out a sharp cry, your fingers tangling into his dark hair. meanwhile his free hand was already slipping beneath the waistband of your underwear, his thick fingers cupping your heat. he groaned into your skin when he felt how slick you were, his fingertips softly brushing over your already soaked folds.

“were you this wet while fucking that other guy?” he whispered against your chest, his thumb circling your clit once, hard enough to make any possible retort catch violently in your throat.

before you could process his words, his mouth started to slide down, tracing wet, sloppy kisses all the way down your stomach. reaching your waistband, he paused only to hook his thumbs into the fabric, helping you slide the sweatpants and underwear completely off your legs and tossing them onto the floor.

suddenly self conscious under the low lighting of the room, you instinctively squeezed your thighs together; but keys caught the movement and, resting his big heavy palms against the inside of your knees, he forced them back open.

“don't hide from me now,” he murmured, his dark eyes locking onto yours behind his glasses as he crawled down between your open thighs.

he leaned down and licked a slow, heavy stripe directly over your wet pussy, making your back arch off the couch cushions as you let out a gasp.

"yeah, make those sounds for me now," keys muttered against your wet skin, his breath hot against you.

without warning he slipped two thick fingers straight inside your tight walls.

you let out a loud, breathless moan, your head snapping back as his fingers stretched you open, filling that agonizing emptiness you had been chasing in the days prior. keys groaned at how perfectly you gripped him, immediately starting a relentless rhythm, pumping his fingers deep inside you while his tongue kept working onto your clit, applying pressure.

"you're so tight," he hissed, his face burying back between your thighs as his fingers moved deeper, hitting your spot over and over again with precision. "so fucking wet for me. tell me you want it. tell me you want my dick inside you instead of his."

"keys... please," you sobbed out, your fingers tangling desperately into his dark hair, your hips rising from the cushions to chase the brutal pace of his hand. 

you were so close. your chest was heaving, a tight knot of pure pleasure forming low in your stomach, your inner walls beginning to twitch around his fingers. you were a single stroke away from completely shattering.

but right as you let out a high pitched whimper and your hips hitched to chase the orgasm, keys suddenly stopped dead. he ripped his fingers completely out of your soaking pussy and pulled his mouth away from your clit.

“you don't get to come yet,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips as he adjusted his position between your thighs. he maneuvered his way out of his sweatpants completely, kicking them to the side, and freed his length. "not until you admit it." 

he pressed the tip right against your entrance, teasing you, but didn't push inside.

"admit what?" you breathed, trying to move but keys held his ground, his heavy grip on your thighs keeping you perfectly in place.

"tell me whose dick you want inside you," he commanded, his eyes locking onto yours. he nudged his head slightly deeper against your folds, just enough to make you gasp, "say my name. tell me you want me more than anyone else."

"i want you," you sobbed, all your stubborn pride completely disintegrating, as your fingers made they way to his back and gripped hard. "i want your dick, keys... please, fuck me."

keys let out a low groan, his eyes darkening as he finally got exactly what he had been craving since friday night.

"good girl," he gripped your hips tightly and drove his length forward, burying his thick cock entirely inside you in one deep thrust.

a scream tore from your throat and your eyes went wide, watering from the sudden friction. your fingers clawed into the muscles of his bare back as you tried to adjust to the burning heat stretching you open.

keys froze above you, his chest heaving violently over your breasts as he let out a ragged exhale against your neck. his large hands digging bruisingly deep into your hips to anchor himself inside you.

“fuck,” he choked out, his jaw clenching hard, “you take me so fucking well.”

“keys…” you whimpered, “please… move.”

he started thrusting into you. his movements slow and deep at first as he let out a low groan with every slide, the faint hair of chest brushed against your tits and the weight of him pressed you down to the cushions of the couch.

“i’m moving,” he rasped against your ear, his voice trembled, “fuck, you’re so tight... it’s squeezing me so hard.”

as your body finally adjusted to the fullness stretching you open, your hips began to lift instinctively, meeting his heavy thrusts halfway. keys noticed the subtle shift in your movement immediately, and the grip on your hips tightened until his knuckles turned white, completely abandoning his slow pace.

he picked up a heavy speed that had your body sliding up the couch with every stroke. the sound of his skin slapping against yours echoed loudly in the quiet living room, mixing with the wet, messy friction of his cock driving deep inside your soaking walls. 

a series of high pitched, broken whimpers tore from your throat. your fingers clawed into the muscles of his bare back, leaving long, red marks as you clung to him for dear life.

“scream for me,” keys commanded, as he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his teeth gently nipping at your sensitive skin. he was hitting your spot over and over again with terrifying precision. “let me hear exactly how much better my dick is.”

you couldn't even answer him, your voice completely cracking as a loud sob left your lips. the friction against your clit from his pelvis with every thrust was pushing you right back over the edge you had been desperate for all night. your inner walls began to clamp down around him in tight, frantic spasms.

keys let out a loud, ragged choke, his eyes blowing wide behind his glasses as he felt you starting to tremble and twitch around his shaft. he knew you were close.

“that’s it, come for me, i wanna feel you coming all over my cock,” he growled, tightening his grip and driving into you even harder.

a loud, broken cry echoed through the room as your orgasm tore through your body. your back arched off the couch, your toes curling as your inner walls clamped around his thick length in rhythmic spasms. your vision blurring with tears of pure pleasure.

keys let out a deep moan against your skin, your tight, pulsing climax completely destroying what little restraint he had left.

his body went rigid, his thigh muscles tightening as he shoved himself into you one last time as deep as he could. he buried himself and stayed there, his fingers digging into your waist as he came. thick waves of his release shot deep inside you, filling you up to the brim while his shuddered with the force of his own orgasm.

his head dropped heavily onto your shoulder as his glasses finally slid off completely, discarded somewhere on the cushions. 

for a long time, the only sound in the dark living room was the heavy, synchronized panting of both your chests heaving against one another. keys remained buried deep inside you. then slowly, he shifted his weight to his elbows, lifting his head just enough to look down at your ruined state. a tired smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. he leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your sweat damp forehead before brushing a lock of hair away from your face.

"yeah," he whispered, his voice rough, dripping with a smug satisfaction as he stared into your eyes, "you definitely weren't making those kinds of sounds on friday."

you let out a sigh, rolling your eyes, "shut up, keys. don't ruin it."

he let out a soft, genuine chuckle, a low sound that vibrated right against your chest. he slowly, carefully pulled out of you, making you whimper slightly at the sudden loss of heat, and pulled his sweatpants back on.

without saying a word, he hooked his large arms under your back and knees, effortlessly lifting you up from the couch. you instinctively wrapped your arms around his neck, burying your face into his bare shoulder as he carried you down the short hallway.

he walked straight into his bedroom, tossing the blankets back and settling you gently onto the center of his large, neat bed. the sheets smelled exactly like his clothes, and you immediately sank into the plush mattress, completely exhausted.

keys stood by the edge of the bed for a moment, looking down at you in the dark. in the dim light, you could see the faint outline of his messy hair and his bare torso, still looking entirely too tempting.

"the manager doesn't get here until 8 a.m.," keys murmured, his tone shifting back into that casual, slightly bossy register. he turned around to head back to the living room to grab his glasses. "go to sleep. i'll be in the office."

"keys?" you called out softly, your voice thick with sleep.

he paused at the doorway, turning his head back to look at you over his shoulder. "what?"

you considered it for a moment, suddenly feeling a bit exposed by how much you actually wanted him to stay, you shook your head.

“nevermind,” you murmured, burying your face deeper into his pillow. “go back to your office.”

“you’re terrible at lying,” he said softly, then walked out. the soft click of the door closing behind him felt incredibly loud in the sudden quiet of the bedroom.