One Thirsty Unicorn

top gun:

Jake hangman seresin :

FLUMPY (jake seresin x reader)

The dagger squad all were wondering who the mysterious figure was in one of the rooms in the base only to discover to bradley's explaining it was pete maverick Mitchell's  kid  with out seeing them fully before leaving jake makes a comment he will in future regret .  y/n doesn't let the man off light with the comment either . 

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6 part 7

one shots :

come soon

BRADLEY ROOSTER BRADSHAW

IF SHE WHERE MINE :

when  rooster finds reader stupid boyfriend cheating he doesn't mind telling him exactly how stupid  he is for hurting  a woman like that  , a woman he dreams of

Now she's mine :

sequel to if she were mine  where  rooster shows y/n how much she really loves her in the best way possible . 

THE LAST OF US :

joel miller:

call me cupid

when Ellie notices  the longing looks joel  gives  the woman in the canteen who does the same when joel isn't looking  she take it as her sole mission to set them up and even has a helper in her endeavours 

part one part two part three

sweetpea :

when failing to live it in new york  sweet pea goes home only to meet two new faces at her families barbeque that leads to new job and new friends and maybe more 

part one

It's a start:

when joel is settling into life in jackson there's one thing that has his attention , a woman of the name Y/N . The loner who barely spoke to anyone other than his brother til joel and y/n are sent to find supplies he soon finds out the reason why the girls quiet as he tries to break down the walls she built so long .

part one

i'll show you different :

y/n ( peach ) is learning to be free , learning to be her own woman again. Since life wasn't so easy for girl she ran from one monster into hands of another now back in her hometown back with her grandfather she learns being free is lot harder than she thought but lucky for her there's a couple of brothers help her along the way .

part one

SUPERNATURAL :

DEAN WINCHESTER :

IDIOTS :

when reader becomes the victim of a entity Dean is forced to admit feeling that he thought he could keep away in fear of being hurt .

CASTIEL:

A KIND OF SEX EDUCATION :

when a certain angel gets curious on certain matters

part one

part two part three

sam winchester

Spellbinding

sam being completely in love with reader who happens to be his best friend while on a hunt she is hit with a curse making her needy clingy mess while sam was loving the closeness it was only temporary right?

marvel

tony stark :

some one older :

when boys your age just don't do it for you but someone older does  .

part one

part two

frank castle

angelverse :

angel :

When frank meets Matt murdock's sister , he become intrigued more and more as he's around the  so called angel of hell's kitchen ( How they met)  

angel night :

Frank comes home to thinking his angel is in danger only to realise that she has had a nightmare . he makes sure to comfort his girl . this like part of what i will be calling the angel verse  of our beloved bad ass punisher and his equally bad ass sarcastic ball of sunshine that is y/n " angel" murdock . 

bucky barnes :

the one :

just the grumpy teddy bear bucky pinning after thor sister that's been there through everything  

stranger things :

steve harrington :

The babysitting trap :

when always being the babysitter has it's perks for once.   except their friends had plans for the two

part one

part two *

Eddie munson :

Before he cheats :

Y/N hopper is out with the gang celebrating at the hideout when her boyfriend walks in with a blonde on his arm and she goes for where it hurts ... his car while eddie help the woman he secretly loves get over her new ex .

Lead me to you :

everyone thought they were dead but what happens when a ghost from the past brings hawkins metal head back from the so called dead and how will their friendship stands three years after dealing with feeling of the future and the nightmares of the past .

Part one

part two

the walking dead :

Daryl Dixon:

WORTHY :

daryl is head over  heel  , down bad for y/n  but he find that he's unworthy so he's spent years not telling her how he felt and yet is blind to the woman's love for him yet she scared thinking he wont til their friends have enough and try get the two to an overdue confession 

THE BOYS :

BILLY BUTCHER :

You're not wrong but don't mean it ain't right :

He didn't know it could happen not since becca died he never thought his heart could beat for another but instead of letting his heart win , he does everything in his power to push the woman away til he goes too far.

“Of course, Bradley, I understand.”

“I knew you would. It’s just a few more days, that’s all. Debriefings and seminars and… well, I won’t bore you with all that. But I’ll be back before you know it. I miss my gorgeous fiancée.”

You giggled and pressed the phone closer to your cheek. “I miss my gorgeous fiancé too. He left me all on my lonesome for a month and now he’s called to say he’s keeping me waiting for another week,” you teased.

“What an asshole. I’ll set him straight if I see him.”

“Hmm, you’d better Bradley.”

“Five more days, Bunny, then I’ll be home. I’ll show you just how much I missed you. So much that you’ll be sick of me.”

“I could never be sick of you, Bradley,” you said, doing your best to stop your voice from faltering.

Bradley’s end of the line became noisy for a moment, a gaggle of voices passing by.

“You out at that Navy bar tonight?” you asked. “What’s it called - the Hardy Den?”

“Nah. I’m having a quiet one this evening, Maverick’s run me ragged. I’m sitting on the porch outside my apartment, watching the world go by. Probably gonna nurse a bottle of beer in front of the tv later then hit the hay and dream about you.”

“Oh Bradley, you’ll make me cry.”

“I’d never want to do that, Bunny - shit - my phone is on one percent. And I left my charger in my locker. I’m so sorry –“

“That’s ok Bradley. I’m glad we got to talk. You enjoy your quiet evening.”

“We’ll be together soon, Bunny. I -“

And then the line went dead. You sighed and slipped your phone back into your purse.

Bradley was a good liar.

Because he wasn’t on the porch of his apartment, watching the world go by. No. Bradley was at the Hard Deck, and, after stepping out to take your call, he waltzed back into the bar with the trademark swagger of a man who thought he was untouchable. He re-joined his fellow pilots at the pool table, took a swig of whiskey, and reclaimed his place as the centre of attention.

Bradley was a good liar. But you were a good liar too.

Because you weren’t holed up in the house you and Bradley shared back in your home state of West Virginia. You were sitting in a taxi in the Hard Deck parking lot (you knew what it was called all along, you just thought playing dumb would be a nice touch), watching as your fiancé kissed another girl.

Bradley was a good liar. But maybe not good enough.

You glanced at the taxi driver. She was still a few feet away from the car and had just lit up her second cigarette. Seemed like she was happy to give you a couple more minutes before taking you to your next destination. And so she should have been, considering you’d offered to pay her double the usual rate. Not that you would have needed to, as soon as you told her your plan for the evening, she had been all in.

“You just remember this, sweetheart, if you start having second thoughts. He had it coming.”

Never had a truer word been spoken.

Bradley and his companion broke apart and he wrapped a casually possessive arm around her waist. She looked so at home by his side, just like you always did. She gazed up at him adoringly, mesmerised by his aura. You knew only too well what it felt like to be spellbound by Bradley’s charm, enraptured, and caught in a lavender haze after every kiss. You could live off the high of his attention for days. Bradley could make anyone feel like a million dollars, even if he only spent a moment with them. Falling in love with him was as easy as…well, falling. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that somebody else had fallen for him too.

Lieutenant Natasha Trace. Her name and history hadn’t been hard to find once you’d pulled enough of the wool from your eyes. She and Bradley had met a decade ago. They were in the same graduating class of Top Gun. You’d seen the pictures; Bradley with his signature grin and a lighter, fluffier moustache sitting three rows down and nine seats along from Natasha, poised and serious in contrast. They might have been friends back then, you supposed, it was certainly a possibility. Maybe she was a one night stand he could never quite shake. Still, she hadn’t signed his yearbook (you’d checked), she wasn’t in any of Bradley’s Facebook photos (you’d checked) and she’d been stationed on a different base with the Black Aces ever since (you’d triple checked), until last year. She and Bradley were called back to Top Gun for a special mission, and a new expert detachment had been created with the aviators that flew it. Turns out a life-changing life-threatening deployment cultivated the perfect conditions to reconnect with an old flame.

God, you’d been so naïve. It pained you to think of all the times Bradley had talked about her in your presence and you’d been none the wiser. “Phoenix said this” or “Phoenix did that.”

Cocky fucking bastard.

She was looking right through you. Staring out the Hard Deck window as she sipped her martini. You had half a mind to smile back, but you knew the bright lights in the bar meant all she’d see in the glass would be her own reflection.

You took your chance to study her properly for the first time, adding in extra details to the few official Navy photos you’d managed to find.

Hazel eyes and dark brown hair, styled in luscious, sweeping waves that kissed the top of her shoulders, a contrast to the prim slicked back look she sported while in uniform. Her face was small and delicately round, save for her sweetly pointed chin, and her features had an elvish, faerie-like quality. She was petite but unmistakeably toned. You bet she was bold. Smart too. She had to be, to make it in such a male dominated field. You bet she never let Bradley see her cry.

You’d wanted to hate her. The darkest, coldest, least feminist part of you wanted to believe that Bradley would have only cheated on you with some desperate tag-chasing promiscuous whore. But you knew deep down that wasn’t true. There was something about Natasha Trace that kept your loathing at bay.

The red dress she wore fit her just right. That sexy silky corset-bodice number had been the start of the end. Bradley’s fatal mistake.

You would never forget the day he proudly presented you with the ribbon-tied box, and how eagerly you unwrapped it to reveal the most gorgeous garment you had ever laid eyes upon. You squealed and danced with excitement and hugged Bradley so tightly, buzzing with joy, until the time came when he insisted you tried it on. It didn’t fit.

When you checked if the receipt was still in the box, you noticed there was a gift note too.

To my sweetest Birdy, love Bradley.

Birdy.

Birdy.

“Hey Bunny, are you ready? I’m dying out here,” Bradley called from the other side of the bedroom door. “I’ve gotta see you wearing it, or I’m gonna burst.”

Like Emma Thompson in Love Actually, you swept away the tears as quickly as they’d begun and put on the performance of your life. You stayed in your lingerie and told him you were too damn horny in that moment to consider doing anything but letting him fuck you until he was spent. He forgot all about the dress, buying you time to call up the shop and investigate when Bradley next went away for work.

“You’ve reached Duchess Boutique’s customer services; how can I help?”

“Hi, I’m calling on behalf of my fiancé. He placed on order with you last month for a dress, but I think there’s been a mix up – we’ve been sent the wrong size.”

“Ah, my apologies. Let me bring up your order and see what’s gone wrong. Could you give me the full name it was made under?”

You obliged and the customer service rep continued.

“Here we go, Bradley Bradshaw. I can see that two purchases of the same dress were made, with a request to tailor them to different measurements. One was sent to the address you just gave, and the second was sent to a Miss Natasha Trace in San Diego, is that correct?”

You almost choked on your own tongue.

Natasha Trace.

One name turned your whole existence upside down.

“Hello? Ma’am? Are you still there?”

“Yes – sorry, yes. Must be a bad line,” you said, regaining your composure. “Those orders are correct, one to give to my sister, and one for my friend Natasha. They’re bridesmaids’ dresses.” The lie came surprisingly easily.

“I’m sorry ma’am, it looks like the addresses were put in the wrong way around when the order was placed. A simple mistake. If you could send your dress back, we’ll ship out a replacement in the correct size right away.”

“Thank you for your help.”

You had a name. And it didn’t take much internet sleuthing to connect the dots. Natasha Trace was the famous Phoenix. Natasha Trace was Bradley’s ‘sweetest Birdy’.

You got your replacement dress in due course. You were wearing it right now. Bradley was going to get the surprise of his life later tonight. 

You rolled the window of the taxi down and signalled to your driver.

“I’m ready to go.”

-

“You were out talking to that mechanic for quite a while.”

Bradley sipped his drink slowly before answering. “Yeah, he just wanted to double-check the specs for the parts I’m ordering for the Bronco.”

Natasha’s lips were in a thin line, and she toyed with the ring on her finger.

“An odd time of night for him to call, isn’t it?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

His tone was salted with irritation, and his eyes seemed to look right through her.

“Is everything ok?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You just seem a little distant, like you’ve got a lot on your plate.”

He set his drink down and dragged her close. She had his attention now.

“Birdy, the only thing I’m thinking about at this moment is you. My fucking kick ass fiancé, and that drop dead gorgeous dress you’re wearing.”

Natasha sighed and let her face bloom with a soft smile, spurred on by the last few lingering butterflies that still fluttered in her chest. She wasn’t yet immune to his talent for loving, how he could turn on a dime and make her feel like the only thing on his mind. He still affected her so, after all this time, despite everything she now knew.

“There’s that rare smile,” Bradley praised. “I don't like that you hide it from me so much.”

“It wouldn't be rare if I didn't though, would it?” she replied.

Bradley laughed. “You're too fucking smart for me sometimes, you know.”

He leant down for a kiss and Natasha accepted it gladly. She'd never been able to resist him, not really. Not since that drunken heart to heart, make out and haphazard fool around after a night out during their first stint at Top Gun. One fateful evening had given her ten years of hope. She’d been too serious for him back then, and they’d both been too focused on their career vendettas. Her proving herself capable amongst a group of men that were bigger, stronger, and louder, and him, four years older than the rest, using the power of a grudge to help him fight to the top.

Their paths crossed fleetingly over the years. They weren’t friends per se, but they were something. Natasha’s ears always pricked up at the mention of Bradley’s name. And, though she tried to push the truth away, she knew why her relationships with all the other men and women that tried to pierce through her hardened shell always failed. They weren't Bradley.

So, imagine her surprise when, after being called back to Top Gun for a specialist mission (the pinnacle of her entire career), Bradley Bradshaw strutted into the Hard Deck to steal her heart one more time.

A year and an engagement ring later, she thought she'd stolen his heart, too. What a beautiful little fool she'd been.

She held Bradley's face and kept him close, letting the kiss go on for a little too long, eliciting oohs and whistles from the surrounding crowd. Natasha paid them no mind on this occasion. Her only goal was to memorise Bradley's taste, the exact pressure of his tongue, the rugged graze of his moustache against her lips. Last kisses ought to be remembered.

When they broke apart, Bradley slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed her hip while Javy absorbed him in a conversation. Natasha gazed up at his profile and mapped out his scars, one by one, before her gaze travelled over the strong slope of his nose and followed the curls of his lightly tousled hair.

After tonight, she planned on never seeing or speaking to him again. In a few minutes, once she’d finished her martini, she would make her excuses and head back to Bradley's house without him, collect her things (which she’d surreptitiously already bagged up), and walk right out of his life. Leaving him with only the memory of her in the red dress he bought, tainted by what he'd lost.

A month’s worth of leave lay ahead of her, and after 30 days of clearing her head, she was transferring to a new base, never to look back.

It's not like she hadn't given Bradley his chances to come clean. He just didn't take them. The cheating bastard didn't deserve a grace of a goodbye.

Bradley accepted her feigned complaints of a headache with barely a question. He checked that she was OK to drive home, but she insisted she’d be fine. She’d only had one drink, and she didn't want to spoil his night. He let her go without protest. He’d get a taxi and see her in the morning.

Natasha slid into her sleek, silver Corvette and made the journey back to Bradley's apartment in silence. She took in the lights of San Diego, recalling the memories attached to each familiar place she passed. She would miss the city, the beach, her friends (especially Bob). But she had to do this for herself.

She pulled into the driveway next to Bradley's prized Bronco and stepped up to the red painted door. She nudged the wonky welcome mat back into position with her toe then slipped her key into the lock.

Something wasn’t right. A lamp was on in the living room beyond the hall.

Natasha’s brain immediately locked into survival mode, and she scanned the vicinity for something to defend herself with against an intruder. She settled on the vintage Phillie’s baseball bat that Bradley had displayed on the wall, then stepped towards the light.

You were waiting for her.

A vixen in your crimson dress (completely identical to hers), lounging in Bradley’s favourite brown leather armchair like a queen on a throne.

“I know who you are,” Natasha said calmly, masking any fear that might be evident in her voice. She was trained for this, trained to stay measured and composed in the face of war.

Your blood red lips contorted into a gleeful smirk.

“Ditto,” you revealed. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Birdy. We have so much to catch up about.”

You kicked up your legs and rested your heels on the glass coffee table with. Natasha couldn’t help but wince slightly at clinking noise, remembering how Bradley would react to her putting anything on it in case she caused a scratch. In the beginning, it riled her that he didn’t think she was careful. Yet she had so quickly chosen to appease him, not willing to start a fight. And here you were, treating Bradley’s rule like it was nothing. Or maybe Bradley didn’t have rules when it came to you.

“Tell me, what gave the game away?” you asked.

Natasha couldn’t quite place your tone. She didn’t know what you wanted to hear. Were you goading her? Mocking her for taking so long to realise what you had known all along? Or were you looking for kinship, a reassurance that you weren’t the only one who’d succumbed to wilful ignorance in the name of Bradley Bradshaw.

She decided to tell the truth.

“The dress,” she admitted, gesturing towards the red fabric draped across her body.

You practically squealed with delight at her revelation.

“Let me guess – it was the wrong size?”

Natasha nodded gravely. The day of the dress would always haunt her. It was the point of no return. The moment her previously unfounded suspicions were finally proven. Until then, she’d twisted her logic into knots trying to justify Bradley’s evasiveness and blatant cover ups as innocent. But, once she’d read the note (“my beloved Bunny”), called the boutique, and heard your name, there was no denying the truth anymore.

You were laughing, bright bold and beautiful, utterly exhilarated.

“Oh Bradley, what a man,” you sighed, wiping a tear from your eye. Your tone was almost wistful, Natasha thought. She could hear the softness that still lingered in your voice when you said his name. It reminded her of the reverence she used to give those two syllables every time she said them.

“You’re welcome to him,” Natasha said quietly. “I’m leaving him tonight. He’s all yours now.”

You just scoffed.

“Give me a little more credit, Tasha.”

Something stirred deep inside her at the way you laid claim to her name.

“I’m leaving him too. I just fancied making a spectacle out of it. I’m not one to walk away without a trace.”

A spectacle? Natasha couldn’t remember ever making one. It wasn’t her way. But, then again, had she ever felt truly free enough to do so? She always made sure she didn’t stand out for the wrong reasons. She could never risk being branded as difficult and emotional or bossy and hysterical.

You cocked your head, looking at her intensely.

“Tell me, what do you plan on doing with that baseball bat?”

Natasha had forgotten she was holding it. Suddenly the wood felt as heavy as lead, and she noticed the sweat from her hand that was seeping into the grip.

“I think you want to break something, don’t you Tasha?” you said, deceptively sweetly. “You’re not alone. I want to break something too, just like Bradley chewed up both our hearts and spat them out. I want to hit him where it hurts.”

You stood up and began to stalk around her. Natasha could smell the heady, luxurious perfume you wore, and the proximity of your body made that feeling stir again. She closed her eyes and filled her lungs, letting your silky, seductive words seep into her blood.

“Think of all the lies Bradley told you, the lies he told us both. How he led us on for so long, toying with our hope, believing he was some kind of God. But now we see him for what he really is. A pathetic, two-timing, worthless piece of shit. A coward. Too weak to fucking choose and now he’s going to lose everything he worked so hard to achieve.”

Natasha could sense the rage that simmered and boiled beneath your skin. You were radiant with it. She wated to taste the fire and vitriol that spilled from your tongue.

“I mean, what was he thinking?! Two fiancées? Two weddings? Was he really going to live as a bigot with two wives in two homes on either side of the country?!”

Natasha was jealous of how you seemed to relish in your anger, how you’d allowed the betrayal to consume you and ignite a passion in your soul.

“He’s nothing to us anymore,” you spat. “Just a dumb, tragic, empty shell of a man that deserves every second of hurt that’s coming his way. We’re going to make him pay.”

You rounded on her, your chest heaving and your eyes ablaze with vengeance.

“So, I’ll ask you again Tasha,” you said quietly, voice deadly. “What are you going to do with that baseball bat?”

Natasha’s answer didn’t need any words. She gripped the wood with both hands and summoned every drop of unleashed fury that had been pent up inside her for the past decade. She raised the bat high above her head and pictured Bradley’s smug, taunting, overconfident face, then, with a scream, she slammed the bat down into the coffee table, smashing it to smithereens.

-

The taxi driver had tried to insist that you didn't need to pay her. She was happy to help fellow scorned woman in any way she could. You were a little scared to ask her to elaborate when she mentioned her deadbeat ex-husband, so you pressed the green notes into her hand regardless.

“You make the bastard pay”, she said coldly before speeding away. “And don't feel guilty about enjoying it, neither.”

God you were you enjoying it.

Natasha took you on a house tour like no other, revealing the secrets of Bradley’s hidden second life. You noticed how similar his San Diego home was to the two-bed you shared with him back in Virginia. The Virginia house was yours in name, but little evidence of your life before Bradley remained. The furniture was arranged exactly as he liked it, right down to the inch. The food in the fridge and the snacks in the cupboard were only what he approved of you eating. The surfaces were spotless, the walls painted white, the carpets and floors pristine, not a speck of dust to be found. Bradley had convinced you to turn your once colourful, eclectically decorated home into a whitewashed shell. Like a modern art gallery, but each space was meant only to display Bradley’s treasured possessions (though just half of them, you now realised). Your own collection was deemed unsightly and kept locked away.

Similarly, the only evidence of Natasha’s presence in the rooms you passed through tonight was the destruction she left in her wake.

Once the coffee table had been obliterated, she couldn’t be stopped. Your goading had unleashed a wild beast from the darkest recesses of her psyche, and now she’d sunk her teeth into the possibility of revenge, she’d become addicted.

Ornaments and photo frames, Bradley’s prized baseball memorabilia, the flat screen TV and it’s imposing speakers, the alphabetised display of vintage records; all became victim to Natasha’s glorious rampage.

Then, when she was done, standing in the centre of the carnage, surrounded by the rubble and shards of everything she’d broken, she turned her attention back to you.

She was breathing heavily, and her lips curved into an almost snarl. “You just going to stand there or are you going to join the party?”

You smirked and turned on a spiked heel, striding into the kitchen to retrieve your weapon of choice. Natasha appeared in the doorway in time to see you wielding a menacingly large pair of scissors, the razor-sharp blades gleaming under the clinically bright spotlights.

“Does this answer your question?”

It took barely two minutes to turn the entire room upside down. You ransacked the cupboards, smashed the crockery and tore into each packet and box, deliberately dumping Bradley’s protein powder across the surfaces and grinding his granola bars under your feet. You pulled the power cord from the back of the fridge-freezer then pierced holes into every item you could, praying the food would rot as quickly as your heart did when you’d found out the truth. At the same time, Natasha had battered her way into the locked whiskey cabinet, and you joined her in pouring the contents of each eye-wateringly expensive bottle down the sink, but not before taking searing gulps of the most priceless tipple.

You kept a tight grip on the scissors as you continued your travels, slashing the brown leather of Bradley’s armchair for good measure before letting Natasha drag you up the stairs. She carried on ahead, making a beeline for the bathroom, but you remained in the hallway, transfixed by a framed photo of Bradley’s mother and father.

If Bradley was to be believed, Nick and Carole Bradshaw were saints (he certainly revered them as such). If anything were to happen to this portrait, it would maim Bradley like a dagger to the heart. But you never intended tonight to be a clean kill. So, you allowed the photo to remain, perfect and untouched, a holy relic of Bradley’s past; two angels looking on, trapped behind a frame and forced to watch as you and Natasha tore their precious son’s life apart.

You hoped, when Bradley eventually arrived home, he might find disappointment in his parents’ eyes. You prayed he would be crushed by the weight of their shame and tortured with the knowledge that if they were truly as wholesomely ‘good’ as he claimed, then he was no son of theirs anymore, not after what he’d done.

When you finally slunk into the bathroom, Natasha had already made her mark. Angry swirls of Bradley’s expensive shampoos, lotions and gels had been smeared over the mirror and wall tiles, his toothbrush was floating in the toilet, the shower curtain had been wrenched from its pole and she was dumping the last of his pristine white towels into the tub.

Your nasal passages filled with the nauseating scent of him. The earthy, citrus-spiked fragrance of sandalwood and clementine that you’d once found irresistible. Desire would stir in your loins upon inhaling the mix of bourbon cologne and sunscreen spritzed on the skin of his neck. But now the aroma had developed a new potency; cloying and overbearing, causing the air to thicken like treacle.

“Having second thoughts?” Natasha asked, when she realised you were standing stock still, staring into the distance. There was apprehension in her tone.

“No. Never.”

You didn’t want to stop. You didn’t want to let her down.

“Pass me his hair dye,” you demanded, holding out a hand.

“Yes ma’am.”

Fuck. A minor moan passed your lips. Her immediate obedience was so thrilling, but you dared not give yourself time to dwell on what that might mean, of where it might lead. Instead, you uncapped the bottle and squirted every last drop of the permanent, staining colour all over Bradley’s white-and-fluffy-as-a-cloud bath towels.

The bedroom was the final stop. If you weren’t so fuelled by your quest for retribution, you might’ve had visions of Bradley and Natasha locked in a passionate embrace, writhing together in the sheets. You might’ve been haunted by the knowledge that in this most intimate of spaces, Bradley had fucked another woman, whilst you lay alone on the other side of the country dreaming of him, believing with your whole heart that he had been dreaming about you too. But your rage-addled brain led you down a different path.

You stalked towards the wardrobe and almost flung the doors off their hinges. You pulled a mound of Bradley’s ridiculous Hawaiian shirts from their hangers and cut violent slashes into them all, yanking them apart at the seams with your bare hands where you could. A part of you wished Bradley was there in person, so you could rip the fabric clean off his back along with strips of his flesh.

“Fuck,” you grunted, slicing through a particularly ugly floral. “Don’t you just want to tear him limb from limb?”

But Natasha didn’t hear you.

Instead, she was frozen in front of the small vanity table, staring at the Polaroid photos tacked around the mirror. They were all of her. Unnaturally framed poses of different outfits, hairstyles, close ups of her face, her lips and eyes, like the images a make-up artist, hairdresser or stylist would use to advertise the different looks they could offer. You knew instantly that none of the photos had been put up by Natasha herself. This was all Bradley’s doing. His not-so-subtle way of reminding Natasha, every day when she sat down to get ready, what he liked. This was a collage of suggestions - no - instructions, for Natasha to follow and ensure her appearance conformed to Bradley’s sky-high expectations.

You knew all this because there was identical vanity table in your home back in Virginia, surrounded by photos Bradley had taken of you.

“But you look so perfect like this Bunny. I love you so much. Don’t you wanna be perfect for me?”

His insidious ‘encouragements’ were easily recalled.

“Think of it as self-care. That’s what you girls call it, right? I know you’ve been feeling down lately, but trust me, if you look your best, you’ll feel your best.”

“I’m always telling the guys I’ve got the prettiest girl. You wouldn’t want to prove me wrong, would you? Just a little bit of effort, is that really too much to ask?”

Natasha was crying.

“How could I have let him do this to me?” she croaked. “I don’t even know who I am anymore, I’m just whatever he wanted me to be. How could I have been so foolish?”

You rushed to comfort her.

“No Tasha, stop. You’re not foolish. You never have been.” Her face was in your hands. “Bradley is the fool for thinking he could keep you so easily. But he doesn’t deserve any more of your tears. You’re the one with the upper hand now.”

Your voice was silken and seductive again, intent on enticing the wild and uninhibited version of Natasha that you were growing addicted to out from retreat.

“Break it. I know you want to. Break free of him.”

So she did.

The bat swung wildly through the air, and she unleashed a primal scream. The evil mirror exploded into shards and Natasha pummelled the vanity table until all that remained was a pile of splintered wood. You caught her reflection in the jagged shards of glass, the image distorted and off kilter, yet utterly mesmerising.

It felt sacred somehow, to witness the moment disbelief evolved into awestruck wonder as Natasha finally chose to revel in the destruction she had caused. All because of you.

You’d never felt such an electric connection with another person in your entire life.

A desperate yearning thrummed beneath your skin. There was one final act in the tragedy of your relationship with Bradley. It was time to pour gasoline on the remaining bridge.

You kissed her. The baseball bat that was still in her hand crashed to the floor as she flung her arms around your neck, her fingers digging into your scalp and pulling you close. Her lips were demanding and moved unrelentingly against yours with fierce, fiery fervour. The aromatic, slightly medicinal taste of her dry martini still lingered on her tongue, intoxicating you with every smouldering caress.

Already your heart was racing and your breathing shallow. You needed air, to put words to this moment before you willingly drowned.

“I’ve gotta have you, Tasha,” you pleaded desperately, holding her delicate face in your hands once more.

“Then have me,” she commanded. “Make me forget that bastard’s fucking name. Make me scream yours.”

Oh god. You kissed her again.

“Have me,” she hissed against your lips, biting on the bottom one and sucking. “Right here on Bradley’s bed.”

You moaned deeply and your knees almost buckled. The idea was so crazy, so debaucherous, so cosmically wrong that it felt more right than anything in else in your life ever had.

The kiss grew feverish, and you fell onto the king-size, limbs tangled. You rid Natasha of her infamous dress and stripped away her lacy lingerie, leaving her splayed on her back beneath you, her gorgeous figure entirely on display.

She was yours for the taking.

Natasha reached up to yank down the fabric of your bodice and reveal your breasts, but you grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head before she could.

Her eyes blew wide.

“No touching,” you said curtly. “Not yet.”

You wanted to take your time, you wanted to relish in the power that flooded your bloodstream. Now that you’d seized control, you had no intention of relinquishing it, not until you’d got your fill.

Natasha whimpered softly, but she obeyed your orders, keeping her hands away from your body by gripping the corners of the pillow beneath her head. Your core fluttered at her submission, and you were mesmerised by the pleading hazel eyes that gazed back up at you with a yearning you’d never once seen in Bradley’s.

You’d always been a lover of fine dining; and Natasha Trace was the most perfect banquet. You savoured her figure and sampled every fine delicacy her exquisite body had to offer, noting the way she reacted to every teasing touch. Her muscles were firm and taught under your fingers and tongue, and her skin was smooth, soft and smelled like honey. You plucked teasingly at her nipples and adorned her pert breasts with bite marks and kisses. Her abdomen spasmed and she sighed with longing when you finally reached her wet, glistening cunt.

“Oh, look at you,” you cooed.

You slowly swirled your fingers through her folds and coated them in her slick.

“Is this all for me?”

She whimpered and nodded, watching in awe as you traced your fingers across your lips before taking them deep and relishing her sweet heady taste on your tongue.

“Fuck.”

You smirked, then slipped your two fingers from your mouth and sank them into Natasha’s warm, velvet centre.

Never had your name been spoken with such reverence, like a prayer. It only took a couple of passes for you to find the sweet spot that would lead her to the edge. You intended to keep her teetering until you, and only you, deigned to push her over it.

“That’s it, Tasha. You gonna make a mess of Bradley’s nice clean sheets for me? Let him know we were here; show him how much wetter I can make you?”

“Yes, yes! Please!” she cried desperately. Perhaps a different version of you might have taken pity on her.

But you needed to see her fall apart for you. You needed to see her shatter into a thousand pieces in a way only you could put back together again. You wanted her to beg for you because Bradley never did - he always held the cards. He said your suggestions were emasculating and made you feel so wretched and ashamed for merely asking, you never dared broach the subject again. The sex wasn’t bad, it would be a lie to say he left you unsatisfied, but this - what you were sharing with Natasha - was transcendent.

“Tell me what you want Tasha. Is there something you’ve always fantasised about, something he wouldn’t do?”

You could see from her expression that she had an answer. You were determined to draw it out of her.

“It’s something dirty, I can tell. Bradley was so fucking vanilla, so fucking basic. Thought just because he had that pretty cock, he was some kind of God. But he never fucking listened, did he? I’ll listen. I wanna make you come so hard your head spins, Tasha. Whatever it takes.”

Natasha moaned loudly and you switched the movement of your fingers to a torturously languid pace, syrupy and slow.

“I - I want - could you - I – please.”

“It’s ok Tasha, you can tell me. I’m here for you, I’ll do whatever you want,” you promised.

She was so unbelievably wet, slick drooling from her cunt and onto your hand with every drag of your fingers.

“Oh - I want – I-want-you-to-spit-in-my-mouth-and-spank-my-pussy-and-call-me-a-slut.”

Fuck. Her garbled admission made your own mouth so dreadfully dry. You needed to work yourself up to it.

“Oh Tasha, you filthy girl. You want to be dominated, don’t you? You want someone else to take the reins for once. Not just anyone though, you need someone who understands. Someone who knows how much of yourself you always fight to repress, when you’re up in the air or standing your ground against all those men who got just as far by only working half as hard. But I can help you forget all that. I’ll give you permission soon. I’ll let you feel small and delicate and used. You need to float, don’t you, Tasha?”

She nodded dumbly. “Yes, please. Oh please - OH!”

You slipped your fingers from her cunt and struck her pussy with a stinging slap, making her squeal.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” you cooed. “I’ll give you what you need, since you asked so nicely. Even though you’ve been such a bad girl, haven’t you?”

Slap!

“Yes!”

“You’re such a wicked little slut. Look at you. Getting fucked by your fiancé’s other girl. That’s depraved. Slut. Behaviour.”

Slap! Slap! Slap!

The final blow landed perfectly, and Natasha cried out, her pretty tears making her eyes glisten like stars. She whimpered your name, her breathless moans descending into one desperate plea.

More.

You returned your fingers to her silky centre, this time adding the pressure of your thumb to her throbbing clit. Natasha welcomed you eagerly, her pussy clenching and urging you deeper with every rolling wave of desire.

“Feels incredible to let me have you, doesn’t it?” you taunted, leaning closer. “There’s no shame in enjoying yourself. Bradley’s a fool if he ever made you feel like there was. I’m gonna spit in your slutty mouth like I own you now Tasha, just like you asked. And you’re gonna take it. Open up little Birdy.”

You reached out with a commanding hand and Natasha let you prize apart her jaw with no effort at all before presenting you with her tongue. She held your gaze as you let a string of spit fall from your lips and splatter onto the pink muscle. She went to swallow but you stopped her with a squeeze of her neck.

“Don’t move. Not until you’re told.”

She whimpered and her eyelids fluttered but she remained compliant. Natasha was strong. She could hold her nerve. But you could see from the tension in her face how difficult she found it to stay still. Your buried fingers stalled, absorbing every clench of her weeping cunt, and you resorted to teasing her clit, rolling the swollen bud under the pad of your thumb until you sensed Natasha was on the brink of delirium. Then you waited a little longer.

You spat harshly into her open mouth again without warning.

“Now.”

Her eyes blew wide, and you felt her throat constrict under your palm as she swallowed down your taste.

You fucked her into a lust clouded frenzy, relentlessly plunging your fingers into her heat and assaulting her clit. She bucked up against your hand wildly, desperately chasing the mind-numbing orgasm she craved. You knew she was getting close when her breaths became wailing gasps and a sheen of sweat coated her body, heat rising to the surface. The walls of her cunt closed in on your digits, and Natasha was reduced to a pathetic, quivering beggar that only yearned for one thing.

Then it happened.

She screamed as she broke. Her hands curled like claws and her nails pierced through the skin of the goose down pillow, angel white feathers blooming from the gashes. Her legs shook wildly, and her head thrashed from side to side, eyes squeezed shut and her mouth open in shock. Like the fire branded fury you’d enticed her into unleashing earlier, you were sure this release had been buried inside and waiting to be let out for even longer still.

You’d never seen anything more beautiful.

With soothing praise and tender touches, you gently coaxed her down from her high. She clung to your body to ground herself, breathless thank yous spilling from her lips.

Natasha wasn’t the only one floating back to reality, and you held each other close as you dropped.

“It wasn’t too much?” you whispered, running your fingers through her silky hair.

Natasha caressed your face gently. “It was everything I wanted,” she insisted. Her voice was airy, ethereal. “I feel like I’m in a dream. Like I’m flying and there’s nothing holding me down anymore.”

You felt the same. You and Natasha were finally free.

The room became quiet. The night was still, and the air outside grew ever cooler, yet the embers inside your body still glowed from the rush of power that Natasha had bestowed upon you. You closed your eyes and basked in the gentle warmth, listening to her breathing at your side.

It took you a few moments to realise that her delicate hands had begun to unlace the ties at the sides of your dress. She bunched up the ruby red silk and looked at you, those gorgeous orbs of brown pleading. You nodded and she slipped the red dress from your body.

“Let me return the favour,” she begged. She kissed your lips, the slope of your jaw. Her tongue lightly traced the swirls of your ear then she suckled on the lobe. You needed her lips everywhere. You wanted to let her do whatever she desired to you, but a tiny voice of doubt was trying to make itself heard in the dark corners of your mind, even though you had been the one who started it all.

“What if Bradley comes back?” you whispered.

“Let him,” Natasha murmured as she bowed to savour your pulse point. “Let him see what he’s missing. We can tie him to a chair and make him watch. But I’m not stopping until I hear you scream for me.”

-

What began as romantic devotion descended into carnal devouring. She began by sweetly kissing your neck, shoulders and clavicle, before pecking down your sternum, immersing herself in your breasts, familiarising herself with every plane, dip and curve that made you you.

Having Natasha between your thighs was the sweetest of torture. Nothing would ever compare to the pleasure of her sinful mouth worshipping your cunt. She left no part of you uncherished, her lips and tongue eagerly lauding every inch of velvety skin. She gave you her full, undivided attention and remembered how each delicate change of pressure made you buck your hips, clench your muscles or twitch and squirm. She was loud about it too. Warm unabashed moans escaped her lips in response to your taste, only heightening your pleasure by sending delicious vibrations throughout your core.

Her strong hands held you open to be devoured, squeezing possessive finger marks into the flesh of your ass and stopping your hips from flying off the bed as you chased more, more more.

“Tasha, oh Tasha please.”

You weren’t sure what you were begging for. Release? Or the chance to spend eternity at her mercy?

At Natasha’s charge, you were rocketing towards carnal bliss. The only tether that kept you clinging to reality was the fingers you had knotted into her silken hair.

She suckled at your clit, drawing all the blood to the surface, then taunted you with the most delicate swirling kitten licks, each one lighter and fainter than the next until you were mewling pitifully, reduced to tears and pleading her not to stop.

This would never be enough to send you flying, and Natasha knew it.

“No no no please Tasha.”

You could have sworn you heard her giggle. A pretty, sparkling bubble of sound that glittered when it burst.

“Tasha, I need more.”

But she denied you once again.

Her touch was so feather-light it might as well not be there at all.

“Please, you said you’d return the favour. Please.”

Another taunting giggle slipped past her lips. “Oh but I am.”

And then you understood. Natasha intended to break you and rebuild you, just like you had done with her.

“T-Tasha!” you whined pitifully; your words barely coherent. “Tasha p-please – OH FUCK!”

Her tongue was in your cunt, the wet muscle plunging deep; then she sucked harshly on your clit again, before pressing into you once more, repeating the pattern over and over until you burst. Blistering ecstasy consumed your entire being, igniting a cataclysm of electricity centred entirely at your cunt. Your head tipped back, and your mouth hung open, as if you were preparing to shriek like a whoring banshee, but no sound came.

Natasha grinned at you dopily, high on your pleasure. She looked so delighted, proudly wearing the obscene sheen of your slick that coated her lips and chin.

But before you could begin to think about steadying yourself, she delved face first between your thighs again, wedging her shoulders at such an angle that you couldn’t close yourself to her.

“T-Tasha - I can’t,” you whimpered. But your words didn’t reflect what your mind was telling you.

I want more.

“It’s too much”.

I need you.

“I can’t”.

Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

Tormenting teeth nipped at the flesh of your thigh. “Yes, you can, pretty girl. You can give me another one. You have to let me try. I’m addicted to your taste already. And I told you earlier, I’m not stopping until I hear you scream. You wouldn’t want to deny me that, would you? It’s hardly fair.”

You still had power, you still had control. Because you were choosing this. You were choosing to give Tasha the wildest side of you, just like she had.

“Go on,” Natasha urged. “Ask me nicely.”

“Fuck - Tasha - please make me come again. Please make me scream.”

“Good Bunny,” she quipped, branding you with Bradley’s old nickname. The moniker felt filthy and possessive coming from her lips. You weren’t Bradley’s anymore. You were hers. And Tasha was yours, your perfect, formidable, slutty little Birdy who was pleasuring you so well. Everything she was doing was only to please you.

Natasha’s next firm lick through your folds was almost painful, your clit was so sensitive, the nerve endings blindingly alert to even the daintiest of touches. Tears streamed down your face, and you scratched at the bedsheet with rictus fingers, grappling for some way to ground yourself to reality. You felt like some great force might burst through your skin at any moment, but still Natasha did not relent. She wanted to take everything you could possibly give, to ignite every flame and burn all evidence of what you had previously known to be pleasure to the ground. Then, like a phoenix from the ashes, true euphoria would rise.

If your first orgasm was like a flight to heaven, the second was an exorcism. A purging of everything that had come before. Men, women, Bradley; all memories of them incinerated. When the smoke finally cleared, only Natasha would remain.

You barely noticed that you had started screaming.

-

Natasha had never known a taste as divine as yours, and your orgasm was the most marvellous spectacle. You were utterly bewitching; she was entranced by watching the waves of pleasure roll through you. After experiencing it once, she was desperate to witness it again and again. To cause your pleasure to swoop and swell until it became a tsunami, flooding you, consuming you, crashing against the rocks before retreating to softer, calmer waters, lapping gently at the shore. It tasted even sweeter knowing that she had been the one to make you feel like this, that she was the moon controlling your tides. She wanted to be the only person to hear your siren song ever again.

“God, you’re pretty as a picture. I want to remember this, the best night of my life.”

“Then take one,” you breathed, your voice still laced with bliss.

It should have shocked Natasha, the intensity in which she wanted to do what she was told, to please you. Being under Bradley’s boot had stopped feeling like a choice a long time ago. For years, he had been an anchor tying her down, but being with you felt like free sailing on wide open seas; wild and unexpected. Exhilarating. Because you weren’t telling her to do what you wanted, you were telling her to do what she wanted.

She slinked from the bed and reached beneath it, pulling out a box.

You gasped excitedly. “Bradley’s polaroid! Oh, that’s perfect.”

Natasha was careful taking the camera from its pristine confines. Bradley always insisted on preserving the original packaging whenever he bought anything new, and to him, damaging the packaging was just as serious a crime as damaging the item itself. But then she remembered Bradley wasn’t there and took great delight in standing on the box before climbing back onto the bed.

“He never let me use this,” she admitted quietly.

“Me neither.”

Of course he didn’t. Bradley’s control was a wall Natasha had struggled to push against, but it made her even more enraged to know that you had suffered too. She would never say no to you, ever.

You scoffed at Natasha’s emerging scowl and made grabby hands at her thighs, motioning for her to staddle you.  

“He’s nothing to us anymore, remember?”

Natasha allowed herself to find comfort in your words and the gentle brush of your thumbs caressing her skin.

He’s nothing to us.

“We can do whatever we please. Now, how do you want me?”

A grin warmed Natasha’s cheeks in response to your ridiculous pin up model pout, and she found the confidence to volley a quip right back at you. 

“I think I want to eat you out again, get myself an action shot.”

You squirmed and squeezed your eyes shut, your hands moving to cover yourself.

The camera flashed and Natasha let the photo drop onto your bare chest.

“Don’t worry Bunny, I got my fill. You just smile for me now, nice and soft. Gorgeous.”

-

“You look so sexy in this one, Tasha. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Natasha’s cheeks warmed in response to your gushing praise. Was this what it was like to feel truly happy and content? She was already dreaming of a million more nights and the chance of a million mornings spent by your side, curled up against your soft naked body and having you whisper sweet compliments in ear.

“Oh, and this one. There aren’t words to describe how breathtaking you are.”

Natasha was beginning to wonder if she had discovered a hidden talent. It seemed that every photo she had taken was more captivating and titillating than the last. Though, with you as her muse, how could they not be?

The shoot had begun with you as the focus. First was a snap of you blissed out beneath her. Then a close up of your red-tinted lips, glossy and smudged from the evening’s kisses. A montage of your breasts followed; pushing them together, teasing your nipples, arching your back to present them at the best angle. Natasha’s hand appeared in the frame soon after. You were too great a temptation for her to resist. There was a shot of you lewdly sucking on two of her fingers, then a sequence of Natasha’s fingers trailing a wet path down your body, between the valley of your breasts, across your abdomen, swirling around your navel before disappearing from view. A portrait of your face as you gasped in pleasure told the story of where they ended up.

It was then the shoot had become a little more X-rated. Natasha had set the camera on a timer and placed it on the bedside table, aiming the lens towards the bed. You both quickly forgot that the camera was there at all.

Natasha got lost in you, succumbing to your indulgent kiss and floating into a dreamlike state. There had been no transfer of power this time, everything was shared, equal. This was the simple matter of basking in each other’s company, no agenda. Natasha had already proved she could bring you to ecstasy, and there was no question of your own talent in doing the same to her.

Tongues twisting, hands roaming, legs tangling, and cores colliding. Every action was a bid to become interwoven, tied together by destiny and desire.

“This one is my favourite.”

Natasha glanced at the image you held up. She was nuzzling noses with you, and you both bore dizzy smiles and twinkling eyes; spent, sated and satisfied.

“We look so happy,” she breathed.

“Because we are. We deserve to be.”

You reached out to gently tuck a whisp of hair behind Natasha’s ear and the sparkling jewels of your engagement ring caught her eye for the first time all evening. She took hold of your hand to examine it more closely and found a smooth milk-white pearl encircled by a set of tiny crystal-clear diamonds.

“Pearls are my birthstone,” Natasha said quietly. She dropped your wrist and toyed with the silver band that sat on her own finger. The ring she wore was the inverse of yours; a fat, gleaming diamond surrounded by small delicate pearls.

It was clear to Natasha now. Bradley had mixed up the rings. It probably wasn’t even a mistake, he just ordered two that looked similar then tossed a coin to decide which to give to who, there would have been barely a thought behind the decision at all. It’s not as if he ever truly listened when she expressed a preference, his own opinions always trumped hers in the end. What did she have to complain about, after all? He’d say she was being ungrateful. He’d say the ring had cost him a fortune and any other woman would have killed to wear a rock like that on her finger. Besides, he did listen. There were pearls on the ring, weren’t there? What more could she have possibly wanted?

Care. Attention. Thoughtfulness. But apparently that was too much to ask from the man she had planned to marry.

Natasha’s affinity for pearls began in childhood, with hours spent digging through her grandmother’s jewellery box and twirling in front of the mirror with strings of them around her neck. Even now, she believed there was nothing more classically beautiful than a simple pair of pearl droplet earrings. But it wasn’t only the aesthetic she appreciated. In breaks between intensive training and memorising aircraft specs and mission briefs, Natasha often found herself delving into the cultural history of her birthstone. She discovered the famous Ama pearl divers from Japan, all women because of a naturally better capacity to hold their breath. She read how, in some ancient texts, pearls were said to be ‘daughters of the moon’, whereas others claimed them to be the tears of Eve as she left the garden of Eden. The more Natasha learnt, the more she found affiliation to the pearl’s associations, how their true splendour was only revealed when someone cracked open their hard outer shell.

Natasha once thought Bradley would be the one to achieve that feat. She was wrong.

A quote from famed mineralogist, George Kunz, came to Natasha’s mind: “the diamond is to the pearl as the sun is to the moon.”

You were the sun, blazing and radiant. You were the diamond, hardened and resistant, formed under the extreme pressure of Bradley’s thumb. Why had that petulant oaf of a man tried so hard to make you and Natasha the same, when the real magnificence was found in your differences?

Natasha removed her ring and held it out to you. Your expression was quizzical for a moment, but you responded in kind without protest, then allowed Natasha to slip her old ring, the one with the extravagant, clear-cut diamond, onto your finger. You nodded and returned the favour, sliding the brilliant white pearl onto Natasha’s left hand, where it belonged.

“Come out west with me,” Natasha heard you plead. It was time for conversation to turn to the future.

“I own a house in Virginia, it belongs to me, only me. Thank fuck Bradley never bothered to sign on the dotted line. You can help me rip up the rest of his shit and send it to him a casket. We can spend whole days in bed together and do all the things Bradley never let us do; things we probably stopped ourselves from even dreaming about. I’d worship you, Tasha, if you let me. My only desire in life right now is to make you happy.”

It was a thrilling proposition. To do something reckless, completely unplanned and unexpected, to flip her life on its head and run to the other side of the country with a stranger. In just one night, you’d ripped Bradley’s remains from Natasha’s heart and taken his place.

There was only one answer to your question.

“Yes.”

-

The polaroid camera made a deliciously satisfying CRUNCH when it hit the stones beneath Bradley’s bedroom window.

“Oops.”

Your mouth formed a falsely innocent ‘O’ and you touched your fingers to your lips in coquettish mock shock like a real life Betty Boop. A mirthful cackle left your lips and Natasha glimmered with adoration. Nobody had ever excited her as much as this. For the first time in years, she felt true unbridled hope.

You both got re-dressed in your identical red gowns and Natasha retrieved the packed bags she’d hidden away. One suitcase, her khaki deployment holdall and a rucksack was her existence had been reduced to; a striking reminder of how much of her sense of self Bradley had managed to whittle away.

She appreciated the squeeze of her hand you gave before hauling the holdall over your shoulder.

Natasha followed you down the stairs and out of the front door. Neither of you bothered to look back. Bradley’s imposing bronco awaited on the driveway, like an ugly brutish beast squaring up for one final fight in defence of its owner. But Natasha wasn’t scared anymore. She called you to a halt and squared up to the car, primed and ready for battle.

“Tell me you hate this monstrosity as much as I do.”

You replied in the affirmative. “It’s a fucking eyesore. Yet Bradley would probably lick it clean each night if he didn’t think people would judge him.”

“I’ve dreamt about torching it.”

It was true. And, in those dreams, Natasha always made Bradley watch. He would scream in tortured anguish as if he was the one being burned. 

“Well Birdy, I don’t have any matches, but I did keep hold of these…” you grinned, holding up the menacing pair of scissors you’d been wielding for most of night.

Natasha could almost cry with joy. Was this love? Was this what being with Bradley should have felt like the whole time? You were anticipating her most hidden desires before she even realised them herself.

She kissed you again, zealously and ardently, until you moaned against her lips and her knees grew weak. 

In the groping of bodies and tangling of fingers, the scissors found themselves in Natasha’s possession, and she splayed them open before gripping them tight, the blades almost slicing into her palm.

Giddy madness twisted her smile. “Tell me, Bunny, where should we begin?”

-

It was the early hours of the morning when Bradley finally staggered into an Uber. The streets were still silent, but the sky could barely be considered dark anymore, and there would soon be evidence of the sun rearing its head over the horizon.

He’d enjoyed having a rare night out in San Diego alone, not having to keep track of his every move while Natasha was around. He’d allowed himself a few more drinks than usual and given himself permission to let his guard down, confident that his beady-eyed fiancée was miles away. Not that Bradley truly believed she was on to him. He’d slipped up a couple of times, sure, but Natasha had never said a word. She obviously wasn’t as sharp as she liked to think she was.

Bradley had both his girls on a tight leash, of that he was certain. You’d both been so well behaved recently too, not acting up or pushing his limits. He’d finally got you both tamed. Turned out all he’d needed to do was buy two sparkling rings with massive rocks and promise you and Natasha your dream weddings; the pinnacle of every girl’s life, no matter how right on feminist they claimed to be.

He looked forward to what would greet him when he arrived home. The thought of Natasha naked in bed, just the way he liked, and the prospect of draping one girl’s soft body over his and drifting off to sleep whilst fantasising about the other.

The two of you combined were his perfect woman. If only he could build a girlfriend out of each of your parts, it would have been so much simpler than having to mould you both, stamping down the traits he disapproved of and manipulating you and Natasha into behaving. But the chances of such a goddess existing were slim, so for now he’d settled for keeping you both. Besides, he’d worked too hard to throw it all away for anything less than perfection.

He thanked and tipped the Uber driver then flashed him a cocky smile.

“Have a good rest of your night. I know I will.”

In his state of inebriation, it took Bradley a few moments after stepping through his front door to realise something was wrong.

Shit. Had he been robbed?

The entire house was ransacked, as if a freak tornado had sprung from nowhere and wreaked havoc, obliterating everything in its path before disappearing into the ether. Bradley could do nothing but gape at the wreckage, dumfounded and distraught among the carcases of everything he held dear, his kingdom laid to ruin.

It was only after choking down the bile in his throat that Bradley realised; he hadn’t heard a peep out of Phoenix.

“NATASHA!?”

His yells were fuelled by rage, not fear. How the fuck could she have slept through all of this? Why hadn’t she tried to stop the intruders; to fight them off? She was in the Navy for fuck’s sake – hadn’t she at least called the fucking cops?

“NATASHA?!”

He pounded up the stairs, but his alcohol filled body hadn’t caught on to his brain’s sudden surge of clarity. His legs were heavy, and he stumbled, his knees slamming harshly into the top step.

“Fucking shit – FUCK! NATASHA!”

His roars got no answer.

Bradley hauled himself forwards and surged across the landing, practically pulling the bedroom door off his hinges as he flung it open to reveal… an empty bed.

Natasha was nowhere to be found. Instead, Bradley was greeted with yet more annihilation. A wretched pile of ripped shirts, scattered shards of mirror glass and splintered wood, white feathers from burst pillows. The room reeked of sex and some kind of cologne, and Bradley’s vision became clouded with thoughts of Natasha in the throes of pleasure with another man. His supposed rival’s face changed by the second; a Rolodex of every member of the male population Bradley had ever witnessed Natasha speaking to, such was the scale of the feelings of inferiority he tried so hard to repress.

“Cheating fucking bitch.”

But then something caught Bradley’s eye. A polaroid picture lying in the centre of his crumpled sheets. 

He sank to his knees.

It wasn’t cologne he could smell; it was perfume. Your perfume.

This was no random break in, no freak tornado or Natasha’s tryst with another man. And there, captured for all posterity in a neatly framed square of film, was the sordid proof.

But it was the words scribbled in the white space underneath the photo that had sounded the final death knell.

When Birdy met Bunny.

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😱 This one was so fun to write! I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much. I'd love to know what you thought!

Tagging people who have expressed interest:

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You roll your eyes in response, though your heart is still pittering in your chest. 

At least his hands move to your arms, stroking up and down relatively chastely—although he has this way of making everything seem intimate. Especially when paired with those amber eyes of his—glowing like a candlelight beacon in the window guiding you home. He speaks in low, appeasing tones and darts his tongue over his lips. 

“I originally said it’s a bad idea for couples to sleep together after an argument. But you know—makeup sex is ubiquitous across culture and time because it works. Anger and arousal trigger a lot of the same hormones, specifically norepinephrine which is involved in feelings of longing and—”

“Spencer.”

“You know what else?” He mutters in a way that feels dangerous. “It tends to feel better than regular sex.”

That earns a shaky exhale from you. Whether from irritation or arousal is anyone’s guess—probably a combination of both. 

“So you came back to fuck me?”

It’s probably evident to Spencer from your choice of language that this already isn’t going exactly as he’d planned. He doesn’t answer right away—just regards you, gaze bouncing between your two eyes like he’s trying to calculate your level of anger. 

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

You push him away and move to walk down the hall. 

“Maybe your window of opportunity has passed.”

A warm hand wraps around your wrist in the dark of the hallway and he pulls you back until you’re falling against something tall and warm and lean. The smell of polished amber and sandalwood overwhelms your senses. 

“What’s wrong, angel? What happened in the minute I was gone to change your mind?” His voice is scratchy like a favorite record. It’s the voice he could hold you captive with. The one you have a very difficult time saying no to. 

“I don’t know,” you mutter, unintentionally leaning back against him. “What happened to change yours?”

His response comes pressed against your ear, half-lost in your hair. 

“You’re upset that I changed my mind. I thought you wanted this, honey.”

“I do,” you admit, letting your head fall back against his shoulder and bringing his arm to wrap around you. “And if you hadn’t walked out earlier I would’ve done it. But… I’m tired of us doing everything on your timeline. You just… you expect me to be amenable to what you want, constantly.” His nose and lips press into your shoulder. 

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I’ve been begging you to sleep with me for I don’t even know how long. And you keep changing your mind, and I feel like you’re being really confusing about it. Obviously you don’t have to sleep with me, you never did, but I just feel kind of… jerked around. And you did it again tonight.”

A beat of silence. 

“I understand your frustration,” he appeases, securing both his arms around you. You cling weakly to his wrist, to his warmth, like he’s a tether in a storm. “Would you prefer to wait until you initiate it?”

“No. Yes! I don’t know,” you huff, disentangling yourself from his arms and continuing toward your bedroom. “Now I’m annoyed at you again.”

He follows you right through the door. 

“Just tell me what to do! I don’t want to be annoying.”

“I can’t. I’m being unreasonable.” You flick on your adjoining bathroom light and examine yourself in the mirror. Yeesh. The eye makeup situation is abysmal after all the crying that has taken place over the course of the evening. 

“So choose to be reasonable and tell me what you want from me. I’ll give it to you.”

You frown at your reflection, pushing your hair back and rubbing at some excess mascara. 

“No, you’re not understanding me. I’m not choosing to be unreasonable. My thought process regarding the situation is inherently unreasonable and there’s nothing I can do about it because it’s just the way I feel.”

“The feeling being that I’ve been too domineering over how our sexual relationship has unfolded?”

Spencer watches you in the bathroom mirror, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed as you tip some makeup remover onto a reusable cotton pad. You try not to check him out as you nod, but it’s impossible—with his sleeves rolled up to show defined forearms cradled in capable hands, and his hair all messy. 

When he pushes off the wall you freeze, unsure of his next move—until he’s gently spinning you around and taking the bottle and cloth from your hands. 

“Maybe it would help,” he begins, soft as he focuses on the new task, carefully bringing the round to your right eye so he can remove the bleeding mascara. You allow your eyes to flutter shut. “If I remind you why I’ve been so hesitant.”

“Because you hate giving me joy.”

He laughs, nothing more than one huff from his nose. 

“You’re spoiled and we both know it.”

Point taken, as he gently wipes your makeup away for you. Your silence is his cue to continue. 

“Everything I said about worrying that you would regret choosing me is true. It was especially true when I thought you felt lukewarm toward me. And all of that confusing stuff I said in the phone is true too—having sex for the first time is incredibly intimate and weird and sometimes scary. If you’re not 100% sure about your partner, or if you think your feelings are unrequited, it’s hard to be completely comfortable in such a vulnerable situation and your likelihood of getting hurt or having regrets skyrockets. I know that from experience. I wanted better for you than what I got. Still, I know it was wrong to project my feelings about the significance of sex onto you. In that regard, you’re right. I was being domineering, and I guess… I guess to an extent I’m still deflecting. I shouldn’t be trying to pretend like it’s about you when in reality I mostly just didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to go through that again, and that’s okay, but I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was something you could have changed.”

You try to process that. 

“Go through what?” You whisper hoarsely. Something about having him at such close range while he takes such care with you feels whisper-y. 

“Sleeping with someone who didn’t love me back.”

Your reply is small. 

“Oh. Right.”

How could anyone not love him back?

Spencer’s reply is simple and kind, without a hint of, obviously you dumb bitch—which is pretty much what you’re thinking to yourself. 

“Does that make sense, lovely? Do you understand why I wanted to wait?”

He lets you ponder for a while in comfortable-enough silence as he finishes removing your eye makeup with a characteristically gentle hand. When you open your eyes, he looks genuinely content, screwing the lid back on the bottle as if he’s got an eternity to wait for your answer. 

“Yeah. That part makes sense. But why did you seem so… I don’t know, like, wishy-washy about it?”

Spencer’s eyes dart up to meet yours, brows slightly raised. Then a small laugh bubbles up from somewhere inside him. 

“Because I’m obsessed with you. I thought about you like that constantly. I still do.”

Your breath catches at the casual admission. 

“Oh.”

Spencer hums, setting the bottle down before tenderly thumbing away some excess mascara that he must have missed from under your eye. 

“You didn’t think it was easy for me, did you?”

“Well… kind of,” you admit, tracking his eyes until they meet yours. 

“Not sleeping with you has been among the hardest things I’ve ever done. Especially when you started begging me. That first time, when I picked you up from Penelope’s and you asked me why we hadn’t had sex yet…”

He trails off, still rubbing at your cheek as he loses himself in thought. 

Eventually, you grow impatient, prompting, “what?”

“It’s not a nice thought.”

“Well, you have to tell me now,” you insist. 

He half smiles, thumb straying to your lips. 

“It was just… you had no idea what you were talking about, and you were ready to throw a tantrum in my living room until I gave you what you thought you wanted. Part of me was imagining bending you over the couch right then, since you thought you were so ready.”

It feels like someone has snipped the pulley that keeps your stomach in place. 

“Spencer,” you splutter, convinced your cheek is tangibly heating under his touch as your head reels at the revelation that he could have such a deeply dirty and mildly sinister mind. 

“I told you it wasn’t nice.”

You swallow. 

“Is that… is that still what you want?”

His brows flicker again and he tucks hair behind your ear. 

“To bend you over my couch? No.”

Your face warms even more and you turn to leave the bathroom, sick of his teasing. 

“Okay, goodni—”

“Hold on.” Spencer catches you by your waist and pulls you back into him for the second time tonight. A dangerous smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “I know what you meant. And no, I don’t want to bend you over my couch.” He laughs, slipping a hand under your shirt to rub your back. “You know what I want. I’m more interested in learning what you want.”

“I want…” Your eyes dance between his, and your heart flutters against the confines of your chest as you realize what you’ve wanted for so long is finally yours for the taking. “I want to stop talking about it.”

His expression neutralizes and you know it’s probably intentional to stop whatever feelings you assume him to be having color your decision. 

“Oh?”

“I just think we’ve talked about it enough.”

Before he can say another word, or ask you another question, you kiss him with such passion there’s no way he can doubt how much you want this. 

Only a moment passes before he allows himself to lean into it, cupping your face between reverent hands and taking control of the pace of the kiss, slowing it down until you can hardly breathe. Your little noise of want has him quickening the process, pressing against you until you’re walking backward out of the bathroom. It’s like the first crack in a dam. After that, everything becomes inevitable. 

Your knees hit the back of the bed and you sit down hard on the mattress, smiling up at him. You skim the front of his thighs with your palms as he smooths your hair.

Spencer groans, leaning down and kissing you til you’re on your back. 

“Don’t make that face.”

An affronted huff from you breaks the kiss up and he pulls back to study your expression. 

“What do you mean don’t make that face? I was just smiling at you.”

“I know you were. And you have such a pretty smile it makes me feel guilty about… defiling you.”

Your brows flicker up and your mouth drops open with an affronted scoff.

“Watch yourself. I’ll defile you.”

“You already have,” he admits with a half-laugh as he kisses you again. “My mind was never this dirty before we met.”

“Hm. Tell me you like my smile.”

He pauses and then chuckles dryly against your mouth. 

“I love your smile. You’re gorgeous. Any more demands?”

Pleased, you shake your head and pull him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist. 

“Not currently.”

“Really?” he murmurs, trailing kisses over your cheek and down your jaw, “I’d do just about anything you asked me right now. You don’t want to take advantage of that?”

The sensation of his lips just below your ear threatens all rational thought in your brain, but you manage a reply with only a slight delay and a hint of a waver coloring your tone. 

“I shouldn’t have to demand things. You should just know to do them.”

His kisses drag lower, warm and unhurried and you’re trying not to let your hyper-sensitivity from going a week completely untouched show—but you doubt he misses the way your breath catches, or the barely audible squeaks, or the arch of your back or the tightening grip on his shirt. 

“Well, for future reference—” he nips at a sensitive spot and you gasp quietly, even as you tilt your head to offer him more access. More room to bite, if he so chooses. “—I happen to enjoy it when you make demands of me. Especially when those demands entail letting me call you pretty.”

“I’ve never not let you call me pretty before,” you huff. It’s a touchy subject, and Spencer can probably sense your hackles rising, but he has you right where he wants you and so he pushes anyway. 

“No. But you never believe me. We’ve had this conversation. You always act like I’m walking you to the gallows when I compliment you.” 

It’s hard to make a defense when he’s leaning his weight onto one arm so he can unbutton your jeans, when he’s looking down at you with sparkling onyx and scorched-earth eyes like you’re something to be consumed. But not violently, no—ardently. Like fruit heavy on the vine. Like you’re a religious rite to the devout and deluded. A sacrament.

But it’s not a blind passion. Spencer knows you; every inch of you and every loose thread on your soul begging to be pulled. He knows you and he still wants you like this. To be perfectly honest, you’d never thought you’d feel comfortable handing yourself over to someone like this—vulnerable and all your layers of armor shed. Never in your life would you have thought you could trust a person so implicitly that you’d hand them a knife and show them exactly where to press, that you’d say, I know once you open me and you see me you’ll not want to change a thing.

You adore him. Cosmically. Enormously. In every dimension. He’s lodged so deep in your heart you have no choice but to love him eternally. 

It’s deep in the midst of all these very profound revelations that you realize Spencer has stalled with your zipper undone. His hand has strayed to your hip, to sweetly push your shirt up and trace love letters into warmed and downy skin with his thumb. 

“I just wish you could see yourself how I see you,” he says softly, the weight of the truth a strain on his vocal cords. 

Sometimes, he is so kind it’s like a punch to your stomach. You’ve never been quite as kind as him. And nobody’s ever been as kind to you as he is. You’ve done nothing to deserve his kindness, but you know he needs a place for it, and you’re here with open arms. 

He studies you a moment longer, swallowing as his eyes trail over your face and lower. You want to reach out and brush strands of caramel hair out of his face, but he seems to be thinking so hard you’re hesitant to distract him. 

“I’ve never told you this, because I know you’d just shoot it down, but… you are genuinely the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met in my life.”

Something twinges in the depths of your stomach—the darker shades who live there and exist solely to whisper not enough not enough not enough to you every minute of every day. 

But they’re simply not a match for the softness you find when you do reach out for his hair, or the way he looks at you. Spencer loosely wraps his fingers around your wrist—not a cuff, but an affectionate hold. 

“Do you believe me?”

There’s so much earnest hope in his voice it almost jars you. He so badly wants you to understand how feels about you—he’s been trying to tell you for months and all you know how to do is refute his praise and insist on your worthlessness. 

Ever since Spencer, you don’t see the faces on magazine covers or in superhero movies, no matter how mathematically flawless they are. Nobody gets close to being as beautiful as he is in your eyes. He’s in an entirely different echelon, and despite how you feel about yourself, you have to accept that he might feel the same about you. 

“I do,” you say, equally soft, and 100% honest. You believe that he believes it, and that’s enough. It’s all that matters. 

The shallow knit of his brow loosens. His lips ease into a suggestion of a smile. But it’s most visible in his eyes—the way smoldering coals reignite, melting the amber glass of his irises until they’re molten. 

The way he kisses you then, you’d think you’d lassoed the moon and pulled it down from the sky for him. But apparently all it takes to make him incandescently, contagiously happy, is to accept a compliment.

There’s a renewed sense of urgency on his breath as he kisses you deeply and quick enough your heart is racing. It only goes faster when he remembers his previous task and begins tugging your jeans down, but he doesn’t even bother to pull them past your knees before his hand is creeping up your thigh. Goosebumps race each other across your body as you try to remember what it feels like—what he feels like. But you can’t, even as his thumb fans over your inner thigh and pushes it open, gently encouraging you to give him more access to you. 

“You’re not wasting any time,” you breathe against him while he traces the edge of your underwear.

“Do you want me to slow down?”

Judging by the way the tips of his fingers only barely shy away from the fabric, he really wants the answer to be no. But you know in his searching gaze that he’d never push you. 

“No, it’s fine. As long as we… don’t go this fast the whole time.”

“We won’t.” The hasty words are of lower priority than the next kiss he plants to your swollen lips. “We won’t. I just missed you so much.”

“Yeah?” You giggle airily as he drags his fingers over your clit through the material, trying to ignore the way it makes your head spin. 

“Yes. Yeah.”

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him like this, so… desperate for you, as he drops his lips to your neck and presses barely-there kisses everywhere he knows you’re sensitive. Just the feeling of his breath against your skin has you shivering. His hand between your legs only brushes your most nerve-dense spot, but a few touches in and you’re already wound up, like if Spencer doesn’t give you more soon you’ll burst. And not in the good way. 

When he finally commits to actually kissing your neck, you squeak, warmth emanating from that spot just below your jaw all the way to your toes. The frantic energy of earlier is slowly melting away, and he loses focus with his hand, as it begins straying wider, stroking your hip, your inner thigh, your stomach. It’s like your nerve endings are on overdrive, delivering twice as much feedback to your brain as they normally would. Each touch feels like he’s conducting electricity over your body, like you’re a plasma ball. He’d probably like that analogy—you, a core of alternating voltage, and him, the conductor, tracing a path and giving all those electrons an easy release. If you weren’t so distracted, you’d tell Spencer you found a way to work Nikola Tesla into your mutual sex life, and he’d probably propose on the spot. 

But that electricity is building fast—even more so when he drags his lips down just above your collarbone. Your breath hitches, simultaneously trying to crane your neck to give him more room, and curl into him so as to escape the stimulation. Finally he pulls away, and losing the softness of his mouth while the air feels so cold against the places he’d kissed almost hurts. 

“You’re a mess,” he chuckles affectionately, raising his hand to brush hair away from your face before stroking the heated high point of your cheek. “What am I going to do with you?”

It’s teasing, but so low and gentle and honeyed it swirls your stomach. 

“Whatever you want,” you admit quietly. It’s a shy confession more than it is a salacious flirtation because he already has you. And you want nothing more than for him to act on that in any way he so pleases. Whatever he does, it will be careful, and kind, and because he loves you. You know that no matter how he takes you apart—he’ll put you back together again. 

“I don’t know if I can. You’re all jumpy.”

God, he has the prettiest smile—even when it’s twisted with sarcasm and a thin veneer of guilt, like he knows he shouldn’t be teasing and just can’t help himself. 

“I’m not,” you defend, face heating further. “I’m not nervous. I don’t know what it is.”

That sticky sweet tone is back, pooling in his eyes and dripping all over you like nectar as he languidly looks you over. 

“I didn’t say you were nervous. Just a little bit jumpy.”

It’s not accusatory—he’s simply stating a fact. Easy, gentle, designed to soothe. 

You shrug helplessly and chew on your lip, unsure of how he wants you to respond. It’s definitely true that excited as you are, you’re slightly on edge. You feel taut as a string on a guitar, tense and waiting to be yanked at any second. 

His expression is serene, and his thoughts inscrutable as he continues lavishing you with his eyes, down to where he’s lying over you and back up. His lips part, but he doesn’t speak for a moment as he formulates his words. 

“Can we try something? There’s this tantric exercise that might help you relax.”

Your brows draw earnestly and you nod up at him, not requiring any convincing even though you have no idea what he’s talking about. 

Spencer directs you to sit up, and you do—kicking your jeans all the way off so you can sit criss-cross with your hands braced on your ankles. 

He’s next to you on the bed, at a slight angle, one of your knees in his lap. You blink at him. 

“Now what?”

“Now you give me one of your hands,” he says, tone tinted with a hint of an amused smile, as if your impatience is funny to him. Of course it probably is. 

Frowning only a little, you unlock your left arm and hold it out for him, watching curiously as he takes your one hand between his and flips it palm-up. 

“Did you know,” Spencer begins, voice low and confidential, “that the fingertips are the second most sensitive part of the human body?”

“What’s the first?”

“Lips,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on your hand where he’s brushing the tips of your fingers light enough it almost tickles. “They’re both incredibly important for keeping you alive, which is why they’re one and two. But you’ll be particularly sensitive anywhere you’re vulnerable.” His words are trailing off as he brushes his thumb over your palm and to the delicate skin of your wrist. “Like here.”

His knuckles skim up your forearm, to the crook of your elbow. 

“And especially here.”

You’re fascinated as he traces back down the length of your arm and over your inner-wrist, feather light. Then up once more, with the blunted edges of his nails, and your breath catches. You’ve never noticed how sensitive such an innocuous part of your body could be, but it has your stomach flipping—more so when he looses a breathy laugh. “You know, some people are actually able to reach orgasm just by light stimulation to this area.”

Your response is just as airy—you don’t recognize your voice when it comes out like that, hanging in the pitch black between you. 

“Really?” 

An affirmative hum from him, as he lifts your hand and places an intentional kiss over your pulse at the bend of your wrist. Your chest aches and heat is pooling in your stomach as his gently trails them up the delicate skin of your arm. Maybe you should be embarrassed by the reaction you’re having—after all, it’s just your arm. But he treats every part of you like it warrants love and attention and intimacy. Even the parts you typically ignore. Certainly parts you never considered to be sexually or romantically relevant. It’s dizzying. It’s like magic. 

“Arms up,” Spencer finally directs, just as sweetly as he’s doing everything else, and helps you tug your shirt over your head. Every brush of fabric, every seam against your skin registers more than it normally would. Everything is heightened, and despite your state of undress you’re still warm. “Your neck is really sensitive, too. It’s the most commonly acknowledged erogenous zone.”

Erogenous zone. Of course this all comes back to biology. 

“Tilt your head for me, honey.”

Utterly entranced and useless to not abide by him, you do so. Spencer brushes your hair over your shoulder, and if the slip of it down your back weren’t enough, the graze of his fingertips against the nape of your neck has you shivering. 

The warmth of him at your throat feels completely brand new, despite having already had his lips there only minutes before. But now they ghost over your skin with a kind of novelty, and your own lips part in silent pleasure, head lolling to allow him greater access.

“Lie back.”

Without hesitation (but perhaps a bit sluggishly in your stupor) you obey, sliding down until you’re propped up only by pillows once more. Spencer takes his place propped above you once more, thighs slotted with yours as he quickly picks up where he left off. 

The sweet kisses are perfect and feel so much better than you’d ever thought to notice before—but at the same time your core aches and there’s that pressure building again that’s starting to get to you. 

“Spencer,” you try, and it comes out hoarse but you don’t care at all. “More.”

“You want me to leave marks?” 

And the offer is so tempting you’ll wait a few more minutes to ask for what you really need, nodding semi-frantically and ‘mhm’-ing desperately. 

As he gently latches onto a spot that will require concealer later but feels fantastic for now, one of his hands slips down your side, just barely letting his nails skim, and your back actually arches. It’s a shocking amount of stimulation for being nowhere near any sexual hotspots. That tiny caught breath dissolves as his fingers continue down just as lightly over your hip and thigh. Your muscles tense as you chase and run away from the feeling. It’s ridiculous.

There’s no point in trying to keep your eyes open now—they grow heavy and you let them fall shut as he sucks another love bite to your throat. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it? It’s kind of weird.” He says, voicing your thoughts as he eventually decides the mark will be sufficiently dark. 

“Yeah,” you agree, lacking all eloquence as he caresses every sensitive place you didn’t know you had and your hips writhe minutely in a little desperate dance of your own creation. 

“Most people aren’t aware of the potential of the erogenous zones that aren’t actual sex organs. They don’t pay attention to them. You know what else is an interesting function of erotic stimulation to areas that aren’t directly involved in reproduction?”

“Hm,” you hum as his hand skims to your back. You lean into it and he promptly undoes your bra with a single hand—a skill you’re not even sure you have. 

“It releases not quite as much oxytocin as an orgasm but more than sexual pleasure alone. So you’re less tense before sex than you usually would be, and you’re primed to build more trust and feel more connected with your partner during.”

God, he’s a nerd. And it’s so, so hot. 

You roll over on your back again and look up at him through half-lidded eyes. The corner of his mouth flickers as he takes in your expression, before trailing downward, following the path his fingertips make over your skin as they tug the straps over your shoulders. Trying to stop him, to be shy, would be a pointless venture. He’s seen you like this and you want him to see you again. 

A shaky exhale of his own brings a little smile to your face as he pulls your bra away and observes the newly bared skin with a hunger that you can feel. 

“I missed you,” he murmurs, eyes cast pointedly down and thumb brushing over the side of your right breast. 

“You mentioned.”

“I’m not allowed to say it again?” He teases, leaning down to kiss you soft. Your lips curve against his. 

“You can say it as many times as you want.”

Spencer hums, finally thumbing over your breast’s sensitive peak. It sends a chill down your back and seeing as you’re already worked up to the point of near insanity, the pleasure from such a simple touch is much stronger than it would be otherwise. 

“Good. Because I missed you a lot.”

After that, he doesn’t waste much time—only toying with your flesh for another minute as he kisses you before his hand is skimming down your abdomen and dipping below the waistband of your underwear. 

“Please,” you whisper, tilting your hips toward him when he doesn’t move to touch you anymore. 

“Please what?”

“Spencer, don’t.”

He smiles at this, pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth as his hand travels lower. Fingers slip between wet folds and he begins making the lightest of circles over your clit. 

“You’ve probably been waiting long enough, huh? I should be nicer.”

Your answer is a breathy almost-whine as you seek more friction against his hand. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pressing down harder. The sensation sends sparks down to your toes and you attempt to clamp your legs shut around his wrist. “These need to stay open,” Spencer chuckles, “or else I can’t help you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The words are a sweet sing-song against your cheek as he kisses you there, before hooking his fingers into the fabric of your underwear and pulling down. You try to help wiggle out of them as best you can, gasping when he tosses them away and immediately returns his hand between your legs. He dips his head down, tongue lathing over your breast, and teases you with the tip of one finger circling around your entrance. 

“I need—”

“Shh. Let me worry about it.”

With that, he’s dipping his ring and middle fingers just barely inside of you to the first knuckle, then back out, before pushing a bit deeper, and repeating the cycle until they’re as far as they’ll go. When he slowly starts fucking you with them, still mouthing sweetly at your breast, you’re ready to melt. 

The room is quiet except for your breathy mewls, the lewd, wet sound of his fingers inside of you, and the blood rushing in your ears. Soon your breast pops from between his lips and he finds somewhere else to leave his mark. Spencer is turning you into a work of art, with his fingers, with his mouth. You don’t mind at all. You’d let him sign his name, if he could—but you doubt he’d let you get his name tattooed. 

Soon you stop fighting the perpetual tug of your lids down and let them flutter shut, loosing a freer moan as he brushes over that sweet spot inside you. Even when he’d told you how to find it over the phone, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like this—maddening enough to have your hips twisting again and that hot bed of coals in your tummy sparking. 

“Spencer,” you warn, leg twitching as he stokes the fire beyond the point where you can passively enjoy it. Either he’s got to slow down or he’s got to let you burn all the way up. You practically jump when you feel his tongue flick over your clit—you hadn’t even been aware of his shifting positions. Maybe you’re more out of it than you’d previously thought. Your eyes shoot open and he does it again. “Oh, fuck.”

The words are simple, quiet, and apparently that’s not enough. Before you can even process the sensation of the tip of his tongue on you he’s latching onto your clit, suckling in a way that has your vision momentarily going out. You cry out and kick involuntarily, hips jumping up, but he captures your leg and presses you down into the mattress so no matter how much you squirm and squeak you can’t get away. 

“Fuckfuckfuck, Spencer I wa—ah—sn’t ready—oh my god.”

He remembers his fingers deep inside you and begins rutting them and you hiss, inhaling sharply through your teeth before letting it all out in a tremulous moan. The orgasm is building up so quickly it almost feels like an attack on your poor body as you try to process it all to no avail. Every sound you make is a vulnerable mess of pleasure and pain, a clear fear of surrendering to something inevitable. Of course, it doesn’t really hurt at all. As usual, he’s blindsided you. Found you unprepared. You rake your fingers through Spencer’s hair, continuing on with your shaky moans that sound half-worried. 

“Oh, please.” Really, you’re just pleading to be put out of your misery. It’s in moments like this, as the black is creeping in around the edges of your vision and your thoughts become threads in the tangle of an existence knotting in on itself with no discernible end or beginning in your mind until everything is completely abstract, that you’re reminded why the French refer to orgasm as the little death.  

Your fingers lace tight enough in the wilds of his hair to pull, and he groans against you, and those vibrations are your undoing. You succumb to the dark momentarily but he continues a loving assault of gentle kisses to your clit—careful enough so as to be inoffensive even after the euphoria abates and you’re hypersensitive, still relishing soft strands of hair between your knuckles. 

You’re breathing hard as you blink your vision back, looking down at him as he looks up at you from his place between your legs and rubs the top of your thigh.

“I wasn’t ready,” you pant, lips flashing into a tired smile that doesn’t hold a candle to his own livelier one. 

“Took it like a champ.”

If you weren’t already so warm his sarcastic comment would inspire more heat in the apples of your cheeks. 

“Dr. Spencer Reid using sports idioms?” You smile as he climbs back up your body. 

“It’s unreasonably sexy that you said idiom and not simile.” He kisses you, grin mirroring yours, and you don’t complain about the slick still on his lips. “And look at that. Not afraid to kiss me when I taste like you anymore.”

“I remember what you said,” you whisper, eyes bouncing between his, glowing amber pools in the low light. The words echo in your head from the first time he’d gone down on you and you’d been hesitant to taste yourself. 

One day, I’ll make you come just like that again, and then I’m going to fuck you, and you’re really going to want me to kiss you then, angel.

“So do I,” he points out needlessly. “Eerily prophetic, hm?”

“I think you just like going down on me,” you laugh. 

Without the light on, his smile is just as brilliant as usual.  

“You might be right about that.”

Another interlude of quiet begins, but you don’t mind it. Taking this slow, as desperate as you’ve been for it, feels nice. Easy. Waves of burning need ebb and flow, but for now, it feels nice to be bathed in his candlelight gaze, know you’re loved, and nothing else. 

“What next?” You whisper after a long moment, lifting your hand to trace the line of his jaw. He leans into it slightly, lips brushing your palm. 

“That’s up to you, angel. What’s going to make you feel most comfortable?” 

Your bottom lip rolls between your teeth as you think and he tracks the movement, corner of his mouth twitching fondly. 

“It might help if you weren’t fully clothed.”

“I think we could probably do something about that.”

He pecks the tip of your nose playfully and then he’s pushing off the bed. Your brow wrinkles as you follow suit only partially, sitting up with your legs folded under you and pulling the sheets over your body to combat the chill and the vulnerability of being completely naked. 

“Oh, my god. You had your shoes on that whole time?”

“I got distracted,” Spencer defends, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to slip the loafers off. 

You clutch the sheet to your chest, watching the adorable way he pushes his hair out of his face as he rushes. He’s so clearly excited—it shows in the flush of his cheek and his even worse than usual coordination. 

“But on my bed?”

“I’m sorry,” he says without seeming very apologetic, leaning down to catch your chin between his thumb and forefinger and pressing his lips to yours. “I’ll pay to have your comforter dry cleaned. I’ll buy you a new one. I don’t care.”

“How chivalrous.”

“I am,” he insists against your lips, shaped by what is surely a boyish smirk. 

Unsurprisingly, you get lost in the kiss, dropping the sheet to hang onto his shoulders. Spencer takes advantage of the once-more revealed skin, rubbing your thigh with slow passes in a way that has you all lit up again already. It doesn’t help that his tie is skimming right over the recess between your folded thighs as he leans over your seated form, kissing you deeper as the moments pass. 

“You’re distracting me now,” you scold, but your voice is quiet and smiley as your noses brush. 

“Do you want to help me with my clothes?”

You nod, heart hatching like a cocoon and already slipping a finger into the knot of his tie so you can tug perhaps not gently enough. He chuckles, bracing himself with his fists on either side of your lap as you pull and yank until the fabric comes loose and you slip it from around his neck, flinging it blindly for dramatic effect. Then he slowly draws back to his full height, until you’re about eye-level with his chest. His gaze fixes on you, feverish and intent as he finds the buckle of his belt without looking. The slide of leather on leather, the jingle of the metal has the hairs on the back of your neck rising and you fight a chill as he pins you with his stare—feeling rather powerless as he towers over you, still essentially fully clothed while you’re completely naked. 

You probably shouldn’t be as thrilled by it as you are. 

Spencer tosses the belt on the floor and watches on, utterly charmed as you rise to your knees. His hands find your waist, steadying you as you begin unbuttoning his shirt with slow, careful fingers. 

“See?” You murmur bashfully. “Helping.”

His voice is equally as soft. 

“Very helpful. Thank you.”

The tension in the quiet room gets to be too much and you have to focus hard on the task at hand, failing to bite back a twisty smile. For once, he keeps his stupid perfect mouth shut and lets you push the fabric of his open shirt from his shoulders in humid silence. 

Your fingers skate down his torso and you watch the muscles tense. You wonder if he notices the way he pulls you slightly closer or if it’s subconscious as you both track the path of your hands. 

“Your button is on the wrong side,” you note, voice wavering slightly, once your fingers stall at the waistband of his pants.

Spencer chuckles. You feel silly. 

“Men and women’s clothing tend to have the buttons on different sides, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence, before the words come pouring out. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m still a little bit nervous, I think.”

“That’s okay,” Spencer assures you, hands gliding up and down the soft lines of your waist. “It’s okay that you’re nervous. But I’m going to take really good care of you, okay?”

You nod, not looking away from the exposed skin of his torso. 

“And if at any point you need to take a break or stop, you’ll tell me.”

“I will, but… I don’t need to stop right now.”

“Then you can go as slow as you want.”

You swallow and take a moment to gather yourself before continuing on undoing his pants. With his assistance, you pull them down, and with them his boxers tug an inch or two lower, exposing a subtle v-shape before it disappears beneath the waistband. The fabric is obviously tented. A ball of nervous anticipation spins faster in your stomach, drawing all the heat in your body down between your legs. He’s pretty everywhere. You’d nearly forgotten. 

Spencer’s stomach tenses under your light touch as you drag your fingers down, down, just to the waistband. It’s then that you look up at him for permission to continue, and find his eyes already on you, heated and intense. 

“Go ahead, honey.”

Again you find yourself quite excited to touch him, but you start cautiously, simply letting your hand fall over the shape of him through the fabric. Even that has his chest rising and falling at a slightly quickened rate, and one of his hands finds your unoccupied one, twining them together. That small gesture inspires you to bolden your explorations, becoming more insistent in the way you palm at him. He feels big, which is a concern of yours. But you try not to let that intimidate you.  

Already he’s quite hard, you suspect from going down on you earlier (which is flattering as much as it embarrasses you) and your fingers graze a small wet patch of fabric. You fixate on the shaky little breath he releases as you push down his boxers with new fervor, and his cock springs up. 

He’s still perfect. 

You smear beads of precum down his tip, and he sighs, letting his head fall against yours as you both watch. A few coquettish pumps and he’s humming, kissing your face and dragging his lips down your neck where he makes a home for himself. Apparently the sight of your hand wrapped around him had been too much to bear. 

“So good. Missed this.”

“It’s just my hand,” you whisper, a little insecure that he’s maybe playing it up for your benefit. 

“It’s you.”

His voice is so breathy, you sort of have to believe him. 

“Can I…?”

Too nervous to voice what you really mean, you trail off, but it apparently doesn’t matter to Spencer. He lifts his head like he’s in a stupor but you’ve said something urgent. 

“Anything you want. You can do whatever you want.”

“Okay. Um…”

You let go of his hand (and his dick). Spencer automatically rotates to accommodate you as you end up on your knees on the wooden floor in front of him. 

“This is what you want?” He breathes, already pushing his fingers through your hair and gathering it back as you look up at him and nod. 

Very quickly you have him back in your hand, trying to remember what you learned from the few times you’ve done this. You start perhaps a bit softer, less eager to prove yourself than you have in the past—simply dragging him over your tongue before enveloping his tip in your mouth, and releasing with a pop. Despite being overtly, explicitly, and undeniably sexual, there’s something almost chaste about the way you handle him. It’s a (dirty) expression of love, and you think he understands that as he rubs at your cheek affectionately. 

Eventually, however, you get too excited, and you take him into your mouth in earnest, bobbing your head slowly and seeing how much of him you can take without gagging. 

Spencer makes the prettiest noises—they’re breathy, and not ostentatious, but he’s got such a nice speaking voice it’s like his gasps are bars in a song. You whine around him, wriggling your hips in a rather pathetic display, and then all too quickly he’s tugging your hair so you can’t keep him in your mouth. 

“What?” You ask, closer to pouting than you’d care to admit and voice slightly hoarse. “You said I could do anything I want.”

“Not if you’re that good at it. Come here.”

He helps you up and catches you in a deep, messy kiss before you’ve fully regained your footing, swaying against him, but he holds you fast, pulling away slow like strings of honey trail between your mouths. 

Spencer’s eyes are fixed on yours, lips parted in a sort of wonder before he glances down to your own mouth, wiping the shine from your bottom lip. Any moment you’re expecting him to say something, to tell you you’re beautiful or perfect or that he’s in love with you—but instead he just meets your eyes again, that same wonder-struck look on his pretty face. A tiny, breathy laugh forces itself from his chest like you’re a genuine miracle. 

You feel so observed—seen in a way you’ve never been seen, looked at closer than anyone has ever looked at you before. And he still looks at you like you’re the human embodiment of love, the closest mortal manifestation of the divine, Galatea come down from her marble pedestal. The way he looks at you has your heart pounding and your breathing hastened. Adoration has never been something so physical, so tangible, ever before in your life. Your blood hums at the frequency of his electromagnetic field—an energetic aura that surrounds each person and can be detected from several feet away, as he’d explained it to you. It originates from the heart and if you spend enough time close to  someone, syncs up the beating of your most vital organ with theirs until it’s a perfect match. Maybe that’s why, almost as quickly as your heart had begun to pound, it slows again, and you feel any reservation flush from your body like a fever. 

“Okay,” you breathe, cataloguing every angle and curve of his face to store with all the rest, all the moments that feel important. Of course, you’ll never remember them like he does yours. But you’ll be damned if you don’t try your hardest. 

“Okay?” Spencer asks. He understands the confirmation for what it is, and searches for signs of hesitation on your face while rubbing reassuring circles into your hip. You nod resolutely. 

As he lays you down on your bed, it feels like you’re entering some kind of altered state. Everything is muted and glowing with a watercolor aura in the dark and you really only care about the man on top of you and the way moonlight dances on his skin and the way he smells like smoky amber and rain. He makes sure the pillows are fluffed under you, before sweeping your hair from beneath your shoulders into a corona around your head. All the while his eyes are so soft on you, just like his hands, and his lips when he leans down to touch them to yours. 

One of said hands finds its way to your jaw, trailing down over your neck and collarbone, before settling over your breast where he swipes a thumb over your nipple, lightly, slowly, several times. 

Once again you’re struck with the odd feeling, even with his hand on you like this, that the situation isn’t sexual in the way you’d anticipated. It’s not pornographic, or even very dirty. Everything Spencer does, even as his hand sneaks down between your legs, he does because he loves you. 

“One more like this,” he mutters against your jaw after a moment. 

“Why?”

Your impatience yields a smile you can only feel against your skin. 

“Just want you relaxed and feeling good. That’s all.”

When you assent, his fingers are already slowly pushing inside you. 

It seems you’ve entered some sort of time warp as well, because you reach a gentle peak in what feels like record time, aided by his easy murmurings and saccharine praise.

“Perfect. That was perfect,” Spencer says with a kiss to your shoulder as he slides his fingers from you and you feel yourself literally dripping onto the sheets. “Can I ask you something before we get carried away?”

“Mhm,” you hum, sweet and compliant as pleasure dulls your inhibitions for the second time tonight and your head lolls into the pillows. 

“Baby,” he croons, voice soft as worn paper as your lids flutter and lashes brush febrile cheeks, thumbing over the heated skin. “Need you a little more alert, sweet girl.”

“’M trying,” you whine, though it’s half self-effacing laugh. Spencer chuckles too as you shake your head and take a deep breath, trying to reinvigorate yourself. “Okay. Go.”

“Well… we don’t have any protection.” Before you can groan, loudly, he hurries on. “And that’s… I’m okay with that, if it’s what you still want. I trust you. But there will come… a moment of reckoning. And I need to know where I should… reckon. So you don’t end up surprised.”

Now you’re really laughing—a giggly mess beneath him as your arms loop over his shoulders. 

“Stop it,” he whines, pressing his nose to your cheek as you turn your head in an effort to not snort at your boyfriend to his face. “That was for your benefit, you know. You get squeamish.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t take you seriously when you refer to it as reckoning.”

“Fine. I’ll rephrase. When I come, you essentially have two options. Inside, or on your stomach. Tell me where you want it.”

Your breath catches and your stomach does that tripping-over-itself thing again. 

“Um…”

Another fond half laugh, at your expense, is pressed against your skin. It’s enough to prompt you into answering—he doesn’t have to say anything to make his point about your being squeamish. 

“Inside,” you mutter, shy as you attempt to bring him closer so he won’t be able to look at you quite so closely. You wonder if he’s remembering the conversation you’d had over the phone last week—before he’d accidentally kind of broken up with you—about this very subject. You certainly are. 

“Okay. I want you to have everything that you want.” A few kisses to your neck later, between nips, he speaks again. “Just need to hear that you want this one more time.”

“I want this,” you repeat, obedient and honest, plain and simple. “Now, please.”

Spencer responds by first kissing you, firm and loving. It soothes you, and he punctuates it with a kiss to your cheek, before he’s reaching down and guiding himself between your legs. You feel surprisingly calm, more overcome with love and the light pleasure rolling down your back as he drags himself over your clit than you are by nerves. Still, you pointedly hold his gaze, not looking down in case you psych yourself out. He slots himself in place, tip resting against your entrance. 

“Remember, if you need to stop at any point—”

“I remember,” you cut him off hurriedly. 

Okay. So perhaps you’re still slightly nervous. 

He watches you, sympathetic though you’re not sure what for. 

“I need you as relaxed as possible, okay? I want this to be easy on you.”

You take a moment, scanning your whole body for tense muscles. When you feel sufficiently relaxed, you offer Spencer a small nod, and at that, he begins pushing into you ever so slightly. 

At first, it just feels foreign. He’s going so slowly, so carefully, you’re not sure he’s moving at all—until he finds resistance and the odd full feeling changes to a hint of burning stretch. Your hips jump and your breath catches, and Spencer stops immediately, relieving the pressure with a tiny shift in position. 

“It’s gonna hurt,” you realize, eyes darting between his like he might be able to tell you otherwise. You’d always been aware of the possibility, but you were holding out hope that you’d be one of those people who didn’t experience any pain their first time. 

“Just for a minute. Then it’ll feel good, angel.”

You swallow and nod. At the end of the day, you trust him completely. You trust him enough to let him hurt you. 

“Super deep breaths for me.”

He watches intently as you follow his directions, taking several deep breaths in succession, before he begins pushing into you once more. The pressure builds and builds until he pushes past that point of resistance, and it’s like he’s breaking you in two. 

“Ah,” you gasp, abs twisting as your body tries to escape the sensation without any input from you. 

“I know. I know, baby, that was the hardest part. Breathe.”

He drops his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles with light pressure to distract from the pain.

You nod, lips pressed together tight as the deep ache muddles your brain. It’s an insistent pressure against something does not seem to want to budge. It burns and stretches and is laced with sour, flirtatious pleasure so that you can hardly tell what it is you’re feeling. Mostly, you’re dizzy and hot.

“Relax, just like that,” he strains, looking down. “My good girl. We’re almost there, baby.”

Cries spill unbidden from your mouth and your eyes shut as he continues to open you up deeper, until finally, finally, his hips settle into the cradle of yours. 

Spencer sighs a curse under his breath, so quiet you don’t think it was meant for you. 

He’s inside of you. It’s bizarre. 

You whimper, and he snaps out of whatever revery he’d been in. 

“You okay? How does that feel?”

You take a shuddering breath, closing your eyes and trying to clear your head to no avail—your thoughts are like TV static. 

“I’m good. I need… I need a minute.”

“You can have as much time as you need. It’s a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” you admit, voice small and weak. 

“I bet,” he agrees, peppering soft kisses all over your face. “But you’re doing so well. Proud of you, brave girl. You’re doing so well and we’re gonna make sure it feels good soon, okay? Whenever you’re ready.”

“Will you please kiss me again?” you whisper, and Spencer’s brow knits with concern. 

“Of course, angel. Of course I’ll kiss you,” he says, and makes good on his promise with his lips on yours. It sweetens the ache. “I’ll do whatever you want. You can have anything. You’re so perfect.”

He kisses you again, just as lovingly, and soft, like you’re delicate. All the praise is only contributing to your lightheadedness, but you don’t mind at all. It feels good. 

“You can… you can move.”

“Okay. We’ll go really slow, yeah?”

He waits for your nod before his hips are pulling back and you arch at the odd sensation. When he pushes back in, eyes carefully locked on yours the whole time, you keen slightly, frowning and brain shorting out as it tries and fails to process this new feeling. 

“Uh-huh. You’re okay, I promise.”

At first it doesn’t feel good. It mostly hurts. But slowly, the pain begins to abate as you acclimate to having him inside of you, and he’s careful the whole time. 

“Spence?” 

“Hm?”

He sounds concentrated on the task at hand—you’re entranced by the sight of him above you, the parted lips, the unkempt hair over the brow furrowed in pleasure and focus. But he’s never too busy for you. 

“Does it… um—” you pause to hold back a whine—“what does it feel like for you?”

At this, he slows even further and chuckles—it’s a strained, slightly breathy sound. 

“For me?”

“Mhm.”

“You feel perfect, baby. You feel so fucking good.”

The slight fry in Spencer’s voice as he curses, which is a rare event in and of itself, flips your stomach, turns you on immensely. The idea that you’re giving him pleasure too—it’s almost overwhelming. That’s when it starts feeling good. 

“Oh—” you squeak, jaw dropping and bucking your hips inadvertently as the first bolt of true pleasure shocks deep in your core. He hums. 

“Yeah, is that it, sweet girl?”

But you can’t answer for a long moment. Your brain is melting as your legs lock around him. 

“Mm—it’s—it feels…”

“I know it does,” Spencer murmurs.

You whine and press your face into the curve of his shoulder as each thrust gently rocks your body. As the pace picks up bit by bit, you feel yourself clenching hard around him. His hips stutter and he hisses. 

“Ah. Can’t do that, lovely.”

“What? Did I hurt you?”

He laughs breathily. 

“No, you didn’t hurt me. You almost pushed me out. You have to relax.”

“Sorry,” you whisper. “’M trying.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I know you’re trying, baby, you’re being so good for me.”

Your nails skim his back—a small expression of a much larger desperation. Once he’s sure you’re relaxed around him, begins going faster. 

Your gasps and soft moans come more often now as he finds a steady rhythm and it feels so different when he’s actually fucking you. It feels like he’s everywhere. Every time your hips meet you feel the sweet shock of it in your teeth, your toes, the back of your neck. In the best way, you feel consumed by him. It’s not at all like you’d imagined, and it’s perfect. 

“Wait, Spencer,” you breathe, struggling to form the words. Immediately he stops again, lifting his head from your shoulder to examine your face. 

“What is it?”

He sounds just as wrecked as you feel, panting and strained and it feels good to hear. 

“I wanna watch.”

For a moment his eyes dart between yours like he’s trying to determine what you really mean—but you said exactly what you meant. Then he laughs, a huff of air from his nose as he presses his head to yours and gives you a quick kiss.

Your toes curl as he readjusts his position, holding himself a little higher and resting your heads together so you can both look between your bodies. 

“There,” he murmurs as he slowly begins to withdraw again. “Like that?”

But you can’t answer, because you’re too busy whimpering at the sight of him pushing into you. The feeling seems to increase tenfold as you watch it happen. Distantly you wonder how the fuck it fits. 

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Like that.”

Spencer takes this as a blessing to find a pace again, slower now as he seems to be just as enthralled by the sight as you are. 

“Give me your leg,” he rasps after a few moments like that, and you don’t know what he means exactly but you lift your right leg slightly only for him to press his hand to the back of your knee and push toward your chest, effectively opening you up and giving him more range of motion. It also enables him to fuck you even deeper. Again he slows, apparently savoring the feel of you yielding around him all the way down to the hilt. 

Black spots dance in your eyes as he settles at your deepest point—not pain, necessarily, just overwhelming sensation. Your jaw drops and you choke out a moan as he presses into recesses you didn’t know you had, as he shows you a part that you might have gone the rest of your life without knowing existed. He stops there, like that. Everything stops there, like that. If the cars on the road below ceased to drive, if the airplanes froze in the sky, you’d not be the least bit surprised. Somehow, you’ve unlocked a small eternity. There’s no sound but your joint heavy breathing and your heart pounding in your ears. The words just come bubbling up out of you in a little whine. 

“I love you.”

Spencer’s breath pauses for a moment before he’s letting it all out at once, brushing his lips up the ridge of your nose before they settle on your forehead in what seems like a permanent kiss. A few breaths in, you allow your eyes to flutter shut. Your heart rate slows down a touch, and you settle into the moment, never having been quite so content as you are like this—never having felt quite so adored and safe. 

“I love you,” he finally echoes, voice rasping, lips still pressed to your skin, still breathing against your hair. When he starts to move again, drawing back ever so slowly, you hiss softly. He raises his head from yours, and you look away from where he’s pulling out, meeting his eyes just in time for him to push back in, just as deep. They shine in the mostly-dark room and you moan unabashedly. It’s a high-pitched, sweet thing, nothing that will have the neighbors complaining—but so clearly true, from the depths of your soul, an expression of everything you’re feeling—not just the pleasure. 

Although that’s good, too, as Spencer shapes you to him again and again, the head of his cock kissing places nobody’s ever been and places you hope nobody else will ever venture to. This is all you need. Him. 

“Jesus,” Spencer groans, eyes fixed on your face as he fucks you slowly. But you can’t bring yourself to talk, too new to this kind of pleasure to find it anything other than mind-boggling and world altering. Your lips are still parted, allowing each sound to pass without filter. “Listen to you, beautiful.”

When he stops again, just to look down and marvel at you, you’re conflicted. On the one hand, you can taste the pleasure on the back of your tongue and he keeps taking it away when it’s so close. But on the other—you’re just as overwhelmed as he said you’d be. Your body has never had to process this kind of sensory information before, and you’re exhausted, but it’s so good. 

“Spencer,” you manage. He looks up, pupils blown and eyes lidded where they’d normally be wide. “Please don’t stop.”

He swallows, spurred into action again as soon as you say it. 

“Good?”

You nod and whine again as he picks up the pace bit by bit, remembering to push your leg back once more so he can get as deep as you need him. 

“So good,” you exhale at the top pitch of your voice. Your brows pinch and you release a fuller moan as Spencer finds a speed that’s fast enough to constantly feel good no matter where he is. You’re gasping for breath, back arching—and he finds a new angle, catching against the spot inside you that renders all those years of human evolution that gave you sentience and intelligence a waste. He chuckles airily at your series of series of affronted moans and halted gasps. 

“Right there? That's a good spot, isn’t it?”

“Oh, go—fuck, fuck!”

It feels so good it almost hurts, and your eyes are stinging to prove it. Your legs clamp tighter around him and you realize there’s a very lewd wet sound and you can’t believe that’s you. 

“Spencer, you’re—oh my god, I love you,” you whine, and it sounds like you’re pleading for your life. At this makes his own sound of pleasure, and hastens his messy circles on your clit as if in reward. 

But it’s too much all combined. 

Your hand claps to your mouth to obscure the loud, licentious moan that comes out—but Spencer immediately moves his hand from between your legs to grab your wrist and pin it gently to the bed, intertwining your fingers. 

“Don’t do that. Let me hear.”

You nod, and he lets go of your hand to return his fingers to your clit. If possible you get wetter around his cock—you can feel yourself gushing. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you whine as if pained. 

“Yeah? Gonna finally let me feel you cumming, angel?”

He has a filthy mouth when he wants to. The words hit like high voltage to your core and the very pit of your stomach. You can’t even respond beyond a desperate sob. 

“Show me, baby. I’m right here. Let go.”

You cum around his cock with a broken cry and it’s like a purge of every drop of angst you’d felt over the past week or so—hell, it’s a purge of all the insecurities that had bubbled to the surface since you started dating him. None of it matters anymore. How could it matter when you have him? When you have this?

The orgasm washes you out like a tidal wave, taking everything with it. It’s strong, and it’s so good, so intense, your body is overwrought with sensation and it’s too much even though it’s perfect. Your brain is drawing a blank as it tries to react to the feeling, and it’s like every button on the damn panel has been hit. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” Spencer grits, and you feel it in the way he adjusts his position, shifting as he grips at the edge of the mattress for leverage and the thrusts become messier, needier. You gasp as his other hand tangles in your hair, turning your head to ghost your lips over his forearm. It’s not entirely surprising when his own lips find your shoulder—but the feeling of him finding his release just as his teeth sink into your skin does come as quite a shock. It doesn’t hurt, and you’re sure there’s no skin broken, but it’s an undeniable fact that he has grounded himself in the throes of passion by biting down on you.

Inside you, he feels hot. Searing, almost, as his spend tries to fill space that doesn’t exist. There is absolutely no room for anything else inside of you. Stars dance in your eyes at the overstimulation, but long after he’s finished he’s still fucking into you—albeit much slower and with far less technique. Spencer moans like a two bit whore, like he’s reached pain to a point of ecstasy, and to you it’s as good, as special as the singing of the planets. If he’s as sensitive as you are now, it’s no small feat for him to keep going on like this. It’s a testament to how much he doesn’t want it to be over. The pleasure is carrying him away, but you’re beginning to feel how soft you must be and how if he continues on like this you may bruise like an overripe peach. 

“Spencer,” you manage, skating your hand up and down his back in what you hope are soothing lines. “Baby.”

He whines as his lips detach from your shoulder, but his hips finally slow to a stop, nestled inside you. 

“Jesus, fuck, I'm sorry,” he breathes, opting now to bury his face in your neck (with significantly less biting this time).

You’re still reeling, toes still curled, still struggling to breathe as your head spins and spins and spins. His chest pushes against yours with every heaving breath, hot and heavy on your skin, and that’s the only sign he’s still alive until his hand eventually reanimates in your hair, scratching your head tenderly. 

For a span of minutes, you stay like that—silent, twined together like caducean serpents. His weight on top of you is perfect. This, the lack of differentiation between your body and his, is perfect. You don’t know where he ends and you begin and you don’t need to. It’s a blissful moment. 

“Hey.”

Spencer’s voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, lifting his head to look at you with flushed cheeks and messy hair and sparkly eyes. 

“Hi.”

He smiles. 

“You’re so pretty.”

“You too,” you murmur, moving your hand from his back and pressing your thumb into the hollow of his cheek. His eyes map the curves of your face as he pushes your surely askew hair back. 

“How do you feel?”

It takes you a moment to seriously consider his question, scanning your body for any undue pains, but for the moment, you find none, beyond a dull aching throb that you can manage. 

“Good. Tired.”

You wince at the uncomfortable feeling of him pulling out. Spencer hums sympathetically and presses a sticky kiss to your lips which makes it a little better, though you can’t ignore how uncomfortable all the previously pleasant wetness has become between your legs. 

“Here—stay here, I’ll get a wash cloth and—”

“It’s fine,” you insist, holding on even as he tries to roll off of you. “I just need… will you stay here for a little bit?”

“Of course,” he promises, now pressed close to your side and propped up on an elbow, “whatever you want.”

You lavish in his gaze, warm like a spotlight, as he strokes your cheek and plays with your hair. Very quickly you’re lulled into a doze, eyes fluttering shut. Minutes stretch. You feel drunk on waking dreams, and perfectly at peace. Safe. 

“Angel girl,” he christens you fondly. More than anything, it’s an observation, so lovely it sinks into your skin like a balm, soothing every tired muscle and little mark he’d made. Even half-asleep, it makes you smile. 

“You’re an angel,” you slur, reaching blindly for him, and he chuckles, catching your wrist and helpfully settling your hand on his cheek. 

“I thought you were asleep.”

You hum, “mm-mm,” looking up at him with just as much adoration as he has for you. Those cuddle hormones must be kicking in because soon you’re attempting to pull him back on top of you. He doesn’t quite comply, probably for fear of crushing you—rather he settles next to you, gathering you in his arms. 

Silence blankets the two of you, but it’s not unpleasant as you just watch each other with barely-there smiles curling your mouths. This kind of intimacy still manages to give you butterflies, even after everything else you’ve done. This kind of satisfaction, reverie in the sound of each other’s blood flowing and lungs filling. Setting aside words because you don’t need conversation as a pretense for wanting to be around each other anymore. You don’t need an excuse to look at him like this. You don’t need words any more than you need clothes. It’s enough to just be. 

“I love you,” he says, a soft reminder, and entirely redundant with the way he’d already been looking at you, touching you. 

“I know. I love you too.”

The smile flickers brighter on his face. 

“And thank you.”

Your eyes narrow minutely as you consider what he could possibly be thanking you for. 

“For what?”

“For loving me. And trusting me. It’s…” your heart squeezes as you realizes tears are pooling in his eyes. He takes a moment and clears his throat. It’s incredibly endearing. “It means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me.”

You look down, thumbing at the sheets where you’ve hoisted them over your bodies. 

“You do realize how lame we are if we have sex and both immediately start crying, right?”

At this he laughs loudly but not loud enough to pop the little bubble you’re in, and you look up just in time to catch the brilliance of his smile, the way it changes his whole face and he becomes superhuman in his beauty, the lines that form by his eyes and the way they narrow and crystalline tears bead his lashes like precious gems. 

“Don’t cry,” he requests gently, hypocritically as your own eyes sting. The way his smile fades is like the sun setting. Gorgeous, like everything else he does. “You’ve cried so much, honey. Please don’t cry.”

You sniffle, gathering yourself. 

“I’m not. That would be pathetic.”

Spender leans forward to kiss you tenderly a few more times. Ordinarily you’d worry about coming across as clingy when you hold onto him so closely and so insistently like this, but for now you don’t care. Neither does he, it seems, as he seems unable to get you close enough. Eventually, you end up curled against him, head tucked under his chin and dozing on and off as he traces shapes into your skin. 

“What are you writing?” You mumble some time later, cheek smushed against his shoulder. He only responds with a soft hm, like he was lost deep in thought. You clarify, “it feels like you were writing something.”

“She Walks in Beauty.”

Your lips pull into a sleepy smile. 

“The Lord Byron poem?”

The first time you’d met Spencer, he’d inadvertently caused your painstakingly annotated copy of Lord Byron’s works to go flying all over a cafe, and then kindly helped clean up the pages and reorder them for you in record time. Among the poems had been She Walks in Beauty. 

“Yeah. I was trying to figure out when exactly I fell in love with you, and as someone who is deeply skeptical about love at first sight, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I keep coming back to our first conversation. I mean, I believe in genetic compatibility, and how that contributes to attraction and what we think of as chemistry, but—”

“Wait, what about our first conversation did it?” Your cheeks ache from smiling as you speak. “As I recall I was being a bitch and I was covered in coffee.”

He laughs dreamily, still tracing letters over the small of your back. You wonder what part of the poem he’s at now. 

“Yeah, mean to me and covered in coffee is pretty much exactly my type. But I think it was actually the annotations on that copy of Lord Byron’s works. They were so insightful, and personal, I—it kind of took my breath away, and I know I shouldn’t have read them all but I couldn’t stop. You were compelling, and charming, and funny and wildly intelligent and beautiful and… and I didn’t stand a chance.”

Everything aches. It’s a good ache. Despite being seconds from tearing up all over again, you snort. He never told you about that first day.

“You thought me writing ‘sister fucker’ in all caps every time he mentioned Augusta was charming?”

“Oh, obscenely so. But now that I’m looking back, I feel like… I feel like I can’t remember not being in love with you. I mean, I remember when I realized I was, and that was later. But it was like I met you, and then I was just… waiting for you to catch up.”

You grab his hand and interlace your fingers, watching the way the ambient nighttime light from the window and the bathroom dips them half in color. 

“We were pretty much on the same page. I was debating courthouse versus small intimate ceremony as soon as you left.”

You watch him watching your joined hands, features soft and relaxed, fiddling with your fingers absentmindedly as he speaks. 

“Definitely small intimate ceremony. I have too many friends who would kill me if they weren’t invited to the wedding.”

You giggle and pretend the thought doesn’t give you butterflies. You imagine a ring on your finger, the one he’s got between his own. Marriage had never been something you’d considered. Not when you had no reason to. It seemed like something for other people. But maybe one day, it will be for you, too. 

“Did you know Lord Byron had a daughter who is regarded by many as the first computer programmer? She wrote the first algorithm for a theoretical machine that was so complex it couldn’t be built with the technology available at the time. It was called an Analytical Engine.”

He sounds almost wistful as he gives you the utterly unprompted, but still welcome, abridged version of her life. The description is ringing a bell—but you can’t quite place her, sleepy as you are.  

“What was her name?”

“Ada Lovelace. She was exceptionally gifted. The odds of parent and child being so extraordinary in their respective fields are incalculable, but from a purely theoretical perspective, negligible. I mean, they’re both massive historical figureheads. That’s extremely uncommon.”

You adore it when he goes off on these tangents—the passion that stains his voice, the ardor that grips him until he has no choice but to tell you exactly what’s got him so excited. You could listen to him talk for hours. It means he’s here with you, and he wants you to love what he loves. 

Since he met you, that’s all Spencer has wanted—for you to love what he loves. 

You want the same. 

You roll your eyes in response, though your heart is still pittering in your chest. 

At least his hands move to your arms, stroking up and down relatively chastely—although he has this way of making everything seem intimate. Especially when paired with those amber eyes of his—glowing like a candlelight beacon in the window guiding you home. He speaks in low, appeasing tones and darts his tongue over his lips. 

“I originally said it’s a bad idea for couples to sleep together after an argument. But you know—makeup sex is ubiquitous across culture and time because it works. Anger and arousal trigger a lot of the same hormones, specifically norepinephrine which is involved in feelings of longing and—”

“Spencer.”

“You know what else?” He mutters in a way that feels dangerous. “It tends to feel better than regular sex.”

That earns a shaky exhale from you. Whether from irritation or arousal is anyone’s guess—probably a combination of both. 

“So you came back to fuck me?”

It’s probably evident to Spencer from your choice of language that this already isn’t going exactly as he’d planned. He doesn’t answer right away—just regards you, gaze bouncing between your two eyes like he’s trying to calculate your level of anger. 

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

You push him away and move to walk down the hall. 

“Maybe your window of opportunity has passed.”

A warm hand wraps around your wrist in the dark of the hallway and he pulls you back until you’re falling against something tall and warm and lean. The smell of polished amber and sandalwood overwhelms your senses. 

“What’s wrong, angel? What happened in the minute I was gone to change your mind?” His voice is scratchy like a favorite record. It’s the voice he could hold you captive with. The one you have a very difficult time saying no to. 

“I don’t know,” you mutter, unintentionally leaning back against him. “What happened to change yours?”

His response comes pressed against your ear, half-lost in your hair. 

“You’re upset that I changed my mind. I thought you wanted this, honey.”

“I do,” you admit, letting your head fall back against his shoulder and bringing his arm to wrap around you. “And if you hadn’t walked out earlier I would’ve done it. But… I’m tired of us doing everything on your timeline. You just… you expect me to be amenable to what you want, constantly.” His nose and lips press into your shoulder. 

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I’ve been begging you to sleep with me for I don’t even know how long. And you keep changing your mind, and I feel like you’re being really confusing about it. Obviously you don’t have to sleep with me, you never did, but I just feel kind of… jerked around. And you did it again tonight.”

A beat of silence. 

“I understand your frustration,” he appeases, securing both his arms around you. You cling weakly to his wrist, to his warmth, like he’s a tether in a storm. “Would you prefer to wait until you initiate it?”

“No. Yes! I don’t know,” you huff, disentangling yourself from his arms and continuing toward your bedroom. “Now I’m annoyed at you again.”

He follows you right through the door. 

“Just tell me what to do! I don’t want to be annoying.”

“I can’t. I’m being unreasonable.” You flick on your adjoining bathroom light and examine yourself in the mirror. Yeesh. The eye makeup situation is abysmal after all the crying that has taken place over the course of the evening. 

“So choose to be reasonable and tell me what you want from me. I’ll give it to you.”

You frown at your reflection, pushing your hair back and rubbing at some excess mascara. 

“No, you’re not understanding me. I’m not choosing to be unreasonable. My thought process regarding the situation is inherently unreasonable and there’s nothing I can do about it because it’s just the way I feel.”

“The feeling being that I’ve been too domineering over how our sexual relationship has unfolded?”

Spencer watches you in the bathroom mirror, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed as you tip some makeup remover onto a reusable cotton pad. You try not to check him out as you nod, but it’s impossible—with his sleeves rolled up to show defined forearms cradled in capable hands, and his hair all messy. 

When he pushes off the wall you freeze, unsure of his next move—until he’s gently spinning you around and taking the bottle and cloth from your hands. 

“Maybe it would help,” he begins, soft as he focuses on the new task, carefully bringing the round to your right eye so he can remove the bleeding mascara. You allow your eyes to flutter shut. “If I remind you why I’ve been so hesitant.”

“Because you hate giving me joy.”

He laughs, nothing more than one huff from his nose. 

“You’re spoiled and we both know it.”

Point taken, as he gently wipes your makeup away for you. Your silence is his cue to continue. 

“Everything I said about worrying that you would regret choosing me is true. It was especially true when I thought you felt lukewarm toward me. And all of that confusing stuff I said in the phone is true too—having sex for the first time is incredibly intimate and weird and sometimes scary. If you’re not 100% sure about your partner, or if you think your feelings are unrequited, it’s hard to be completely comfortable in such a vulnerable situation and your likelihood of getting hurt or having regrets skyrockets. I know that from experience. I wanted better for you than what I got. Still, I know it was wrong to project my feelings about the significance of sex onto you. In that regard, you’re right. I was being domineering, and I guess… I guess to an extent I’m still deflecting. I shouldn’t be trying to pretend like it’s about you when in reality I mostly just didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to go through that again, and that’s okay, but I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was something you could have changed.”

You try to process that. 

“Go through what?” You whisper hoarsely. Something about having him at such close range while he takes such care with you feels whisper-y. 

“Sleeping with someone who didn’t love me back.”

Your reply is small. 

“Oh. Right.”

How could anyone not love him back?

Spencer’s reply is simple and kind, without a hint of, obviously you dumb bitch—which is pretty much what you’re thinking to yourself. 

“Does that make sense, lovely? Do you understand why I wanted to wait?”

He lets you ponder for a while in comfortable-enough silence as he finishes removing your eye makeup with a characteristically gentle hand. When you open your eyes, he looks genuinely content, screwing the lid back on the bottle as if he’s got an eternity to wait for your answer. 

“Yeah. That part makes sense. But why did you seem so… I don’t know, like, wishy-washy about it?”

Spencer’s eyes dart up to meet yours, brows slightly raised. Then a small laugh bubbles up from somewhere inside him. 

“Because I’m obsessed with you. I thought about you like that constantly. I still do.”

Your breath catches at the casual admission. 

“Oh.”

Spencer hums, setting the bottle down before tenderly thumbing away some excess mascara that he must have missed from under your eye. 

“You didn’t think it was easy for me, did you?”

“Well… kind of,” you admit, tracking his eyes until they meet yours. 

“Not sleeping with you has been among the hardest things I’ve ever done. Especially when you started begging me. That first time, when I picked you up from Penelope’s and you asked me why we hadn’t had sex yet…”

He trails off, still rubbing at your cheek as he loses himself in thought. 

Eventually, you grow impatient, prompting, “what?”

“It’s not a nice thought.”

“Well, you have to tell me now,” you insist. 

He half smiles, thumb straying to your lips. 

“It was just… you had no idea what you were talking about, and you were ready to throw a tantrum in my living room until I gave you what you thought you wanted. Part of me was imagining bending you over the couch right then, since you thought you were so ready.”

It feels like someone has snipped the pulley that keeps your stomach in place. 

“Spencer,” you splutter, convinced your cheek is tangibly heating under his touch as your head reels at the revelation that he could have such a deeply dirty and mildly sinister mind. 

“I told you it wasn’t nice.”

You swallow. 

“Is that… is that still what you want?”

His brows flicker again and he tucks hair behind your ear. 

“To bend you over my couch? No.”

Your face warms even more and you turn to leave the bathroom, sick of his teasing. 

“Okay, goodni—”

“Hold on.” Spencer catches you by your waist and pulls you back into him for the second time tonight. A dangerous smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “I know what you meant. And no, I don’t want to bend you over my couch.” He laughs, slipping a hand under your shirt to rub your back. “You know what I want. I’m more interested in learning what you want.”

“I want…” Your eyes dance between his, and your heart flutters against the confines of your chest as you realize what you’ve wanted for so long is finally yours for the taking. “I want to stop talking about it.”

His expression neutralizes and you know it’s probably intentional to stop whatever feelings you assume him to be having color your decision. 

“Oh?”

“I just think we’ve talked about it enough.”

Before he can say another word, or ask you another question, you kiss him with such passion there’s no way he can doubt how much you want this. 

Only a moment passes before he allows himself to lean into it, cupping your face between reverent hands and taking control of the pace of the kiss, slowing it down until you can hardly breathe. Your little noise of want has him quickening the process, pressing against you until you’re walking backward out of the bathroom. It’s like the first crack in a dam. After that, everything becomes inevitable. 

Your knees hit the back of the bed and you sit down hard on the mattress, smiling up at him. You skim the front of his thighs with your palms as he smooths your hair.

Spencer groans, leaning down and kissing you til you’re on your back. 

“Don’t make that face.”

An affronted huff from you breaks the kiss up and he pulls back to study your expression. 

“What do you mean don’t make that face? I was just smiling at you.”

“I know you were. And you have such a pretty smile it makes me feel guilty about… defiling you.”

Your brows flicker up and your mouth drops open with an affronted scoff.

“Watch yourself. I’ll defile you.”

“You already have,” he admits with a half-laugh as he kisses you again. “My mind was never this dirty before we met.”

“Hm. Tell me you like my smile.”

He pauses and then chuckles dryly against your mouth. 

“I love your smile. You’re gorgeous. Any more demands?”

Pleased, you shake your head and pull him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist. 

“Not currently.”

“Really?” he murmurs, trailing kisses over your cheek and down your jaw, “I’d do just about anything you asked me right now. You don’t want to take advantage of that?”

The sensation of his lips just below your ear threatens all rational thought in your brain, but you manage a reply with only a slight delay and a hint of a waver coloring your tone. 

“I shouldn’t have to demand things. You should just know to do them.”

His kisses drag lower, warm and unhurried and you’re trying not to let your hyper-sensitivity from going a week completely untouched show—but you doubt he misses the way your breath catches, or the barely audible squeaks, or the arch of your back or the tightening grip on his shirt. 

“Well, for future reference—” he nips at a sensitive spot and you gasp quietly, even as you tilt your head to offer him more access. More room to bite, if he so chooses. “—I happen to enjoy it when you make demands of me. Especially when those demands entail letting me call you pretty.”

“I’ve never not let you call me pretty before,” you huff. It’s a touchy subject, and Spencer can probably sense your hackles rising, but he has you right where he wants you and so he pushes anyway. 

“No. But you never believe me. We’ve had this conversation. You always act like I’m walking you to the gallows when I compliment you.” 

It’s hard to make a defense when he’s leaning his weight onto one arm so he can unbutton your jeans, when he’s looking down at you with sparkling onyx and scorched-earth eyes like you’re something to be consumed. But not violently, no—ardently. Like fruit heavy on the vine. Like you’re a religious rite to the devout and deluded. A sacrament.

But it’s not a blind passion. Spencer knows you; every inch of you and every loose thread on your soul begging to be pulled. He knows you and he still wants you like this. To be perfectly honest, you’d never thought you’d feel comfortable handing yourself over to someone like this—vulnerable and all your layers of armor shed. Never in your life would you have thought you could trust a person so implicitly that you’d hand them a knife and show them exactly where to press, that you’d say, I know once you open me and you see me you’ll not want to change a thing.

You adore him. Cosmically. Enormously. In every dimension. He’s lodged so deep in your heart you have no choice but to love him eternally. 

It’s deep in the midst of all these very profound revelations that you realize Spencer has stalled with your zipper undone. His hand has strayed to your hip, to sweetly push your shirt up and trace love letters into warmed and downy skin with his thumb. 

“I just wish you could see yourself how I see you,” he says softly, the weight of the truth a strain on his vocal cords. 

Sometimes, he is so kind it’s like a punch to your stomach. You’ve never been quite as kind as him. And nobody’s ever been as kind to you as he is. You’ve done nothing to deserve his kindness, but you know he needs a place for it, and you’re here with open arms. 

He studies you a moment longer, swallowing as his eyes trail over your face and lower. You want to reach out and brush strands of caramel hair out of his face, but he seems to be thinking so hard you’re hesitant to distract him. 

“I’ve never told you this, because I know you’d just shoot it down, but… you are genuinely the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met in my life.”

Something twinges in the depths of your stomach—the darker shades who live there and exist solely to whisper not enough not enough not enough to you every minute of every day. 

But they’re simply not a match for the softness you find when you do reach out for his hair, or the way he looks at you. Spencer loosely wraps his fingers around your wrist—not a cuff, but an affectionate hold. 

“Do you believe me?”

There’s so much earnest hope in his voice it almost jars you. He so badly wants you to understand how feels about you—he’s been trying to tell you for months and all you know how to do is refute his praise and insist on your worthlessness. 

Ever since Spencer, you don’t see the faces on magazine covers or in superhero movies, no matter how mathematically flawless they are. Nobody gets close to being as beautiful as he is in your eyes. He’s in an entirely different echelon, and despite how you feel about yourself, you have to accept that he might feel the same about you. 

“I do,” you say, equally soft, and 100% honest. You believe that he believes it, and that’s enough. It’s all that matters. 

The shallow knit of his brow loosens. His lips ease into a suggestion of a smile. But it’s most visible in his eyes—the way smoldering coals reignite, melting the amber glass of his irises until they’re molten. 

The way he kisses you then, you’d think you’d lassoed the moon and pulled it down from the sky for him. But apparently all it takes to make him incandescently, contagiously happy, is to accept a compliment.

There’s a renewed sense of urgency on his breath as he kisses you deeply and quick enough your heart is racing. It only goes faster when he remembers his previous task and begins tugging your jeans down, but he doesn’t even bother to pull them past your knees before his hand is creeping up your thigh. Goosebumps race each other across your body as you try to remember what it feels like—what he feels like. But you can’t, even as his thumb fans over your inner thigh and pushes it open, gently encouraging you to give him more access to you. 

“You’re not wasting any time,” you breathe against him while he traces the edge of your underwear.

“Do you want me to slow down?”

Judging by the way the tips of his fingers only barely shy away from the fabric, he really wants the answer to be no. But you know in his searching gaze that he’d never push you. 

“No, it’s fine. As long as we… don’t go this fast the whole time.”

“We won’t.” The hasty words are of lower priority than the next kiss he plants to your swollen lips. “We won’t. I just missed you so much.”

“Yeah?” You giggle airily as he drags his fingers over your clit through the material, trying to ignore the way it makes your head spin. 

“Yes. Yeah.”

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him like this, so… desperate for you, as he drops his lips to your neck and presses barely-there kisses everywhere he knows you’re sensitive. Just the feeling of his breath against your skin has you shivering. His hand between your legs only brushes your most nerve-dense spot, but a few touches in and you’re already wound up, like if Spencer doesn’t give you more soon you’ll burst. And not in the good way. 

When he finally commits to actually kissing your neck, you squeak, warmth emanating from that spot just below your jaw all the way to your toes. The frantic energy of earlier is slowly melting away, and he loses focus with his hand, as it begins straying wider, stroking your hip, your inner thigh, your stomach. It’s like your nerve endings are on overdrive, delivering twice as much feedback to your brain as they normally would. Each touch feels like he’s conducting electricity over your body, like you’re a plasma ball. He’d probably like that analogy—you, a core of alternating voltage, and him, the conductor, tracing a path and giving all those electrons an easy release. If you weren’t so distracted, you’d tell Spencer you found a way to work Nikola Tesla into your mutual sex life, and he’d probably propose on the spot. 

But that electricity is building fast—even more so when he drags his lips down just above your collarbone. Your breath hitches, simultaneously trying to crane your neck to give him more room, and curl into him so as to escape the stimulation. Finally he pulls away, and losing the softness of his mouth while the air feels so cold against the places he’d kissed almost hurts. 

“You’re a mess,” he chuckles affectionately, raising his hand to brush hair away from your face before stroking the heated high point of your cheek. “What am I going to do with you?”

It’s teasing, but so low and gentle and honeyed it swirls your stomach. 

“Whatever you want,” you admit quietly. It’s a shy confession more than it is a salacious flirtation because he already has you. And you want nothing more than for him to act on that in any way he so pleases. Whatever he does, it will be careful, and kind, and because he loves you. You know that no matter how he takes you apart—he’ll put you back together again. 

“I don’t know if I can. You’re all jumpy.”

God, he has the prettiest smile—even when it’s twisted with sarcasm and a thin veneer of guilt, like he knows he shouldn’t be teasing and just can’t help himself. 

“I’m not,” you defend, face heating further. “I’m not nervous. I don’t know what it is.”

That sticky sweet tone is back, pooling in his eyes and dripping all over you like nectar as he languidly looks you over. 

“I didn’t say you were nervous. Just a little bit jumpy.”

It’s not accusatory—he’s simply stating a fact. Easy, gentle, designed to soothe. 

You shrug helplessly and chew on your lip, unsure of how he wants you to respond. It’s definitely true that excited as you are, you’re slightly on edge. You feel taut as a string on a guitar, tense and waiting to be yanked at any second. 

His expression is serene, and his thoughts inscrutable as he continues lavishing you with his eyes, down to where he’s lying over you and back up. His lips part, but he doesn’t speak for a moment as he formulates his words. 

“Can we try something? There’s this tantric exercise that might help you relax.”

Your brows draw earnestly and you nod up at him, not requiring any convincing even though you have no idea what he’s talking about. 

Spencer directs you to sit up, and you do—kicking your jeans all the way off so you can sit criss-cross with your hands braced on your ankles. 

He’s next to you on the bed, at a slight angle, one of your knees in his lap. You blink at him. 

“Now what?”

“Now you give me one of your hands,” he says, tone tinted with a hint of an amused smile, as if your impatience is funny to him. Of course it probably is. 

Frowning only a little, you unlock your left arm and hold it out for him, watching curiously as he takes your one hand between his and flips it palm-up. 

“Did you know,” Spencer begins, voice low and confidential, “that the fingertips are the second most sensitive part of the human body?”

“What’s the first?”

“Lips,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on your hand where he’s brushing the tips of your fingers light enough it almost tickles. “They’re both incredibly important for keeping you alive, which is why they’re one and two. But you’ll be particularly sensitive anywhere you’re vulnerable.” His words are trailing off as he brushes his thumb over your palm and to the delicate skin of your wrist. “Like here.”

His knuckles skim up your forearm, to the crook of your elbow. 

“And especially here.”

You’re fascinated as he traces back down the length of your arm and over your inner-wrist, feather light. Then up once more, with the blunted edges of his nails, and your breath catches. You’ve never noticed how sensitive such an innocuous part of your body could be, but it has your stomach flipping—more so when he looses a breathy laugh. “You know, some people are actually able to reach orgasm just by light stimulation to this area.”

Your response is just as airy—you don’t recognize your voice when it comes out like that, hanging in the pitch black between you. 

“Really?” 

An affirmative hum from him, as he lifts your hand and places an intentional kiss over your pulse at the bend of your wrist. Your chest aches and heat is pooling in your stomach as his gently trails them up the delicate skin of your arm. Maybe you should be embarrassed by the reaction you’re having—after all, it’s just your arm. But he treats every part of you like it warrants love and attention and intimacy. Even the parts you typically ignore. Certainly parts you never considered to be sexually or romantically relevant. It’s dizzying. It’s like magic. 

“Arms up,” Spencer finally directs, just as sweetly as he’s doing everything else, and helps you tug your shirt over your head. Every brush of fabric, every seam against your skin registers more than it normally would. Everything is heightened, and despite your state of undress you’re still warm. “Your neck is really sensitive, too. It’s the most commonly acknowledged erogenous zone.”

Erogenous zone. Of course this all comes back to biology. 

“Tilt your head for me, honey.”

Utterly entranced and useless to not abide by him, you do so. Spencer brushes your hair over your shoulder, and if the slip of it down your back weren’t enough, the graze of his fingertips against the nape of your neck has you shivering. 

The warmth of him at your throat feels completely brand new, despite having already had his lips there only minutes before. But now they ghost over your skin with a kind of novelty, and your own lips part in silent pleasure, head lolling to allow him greater access.

“Lie back.”

Without hesitation (but perhaps a bit sluggishly in your stupor) you obey, sliding down until you’re propped up only by pillows once more. Spencer takes his place propped above you once more, thighs slotted with yours as he quickly picks up where he left off. 

The sweet kisses are perfect and feel so much better than you’d ever thought to notice before—but at the same time your core aches and there’s that pressure building again that’s starting to get to you. 

“Spencer,” you try, and it comes out hoarse but you don’t care at all. “More.”

“You want me to leave marks?” 

And the offer is so tempting you’ll wait a few more minutes to ask for what you really need, nodding semi-frantically and ‘mhm’-ing desperately. 

As he gently latches onto a spot that will require concealer later but feels fantastic for now, one of his hands slips down your side, just barely letting his nails skim, and your back actually arches. It’s a shocking amount of stimulation for being nowhere near any sexual hotspots. That tiny caught breath dissolves as his fingers continue down just as lightly over your hip and thigh. Your muscles tense as you chase and run away from the feeling. It’s ridiculous.

There’s no point in trying to keep your eyes open now—they grow heavy and you let them fall shut as he sucks another love bite to your throat. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it? It’s kind of weird.” He says, voicing your thoughts as he eventually decides the mark will be sufficiently dark. 

“Yeah,” you agree, lacking all eloquence as he caresses every sensitive place you didn’t know you had and your hips writhe minutely in a little desperate dance of your own creation. 

“Most people aren’t aware of the potential of the erogenous zones that aren’t actual sex organs. They don’t pay attention to them. You know what else is an interesting function of erotic stimulation to areas that aren’t directly involved in reproduction?”

“Hm,” you hum as his hand skims to your back. You lean into it and he promptly undoes your bra with a single hand—a skill you’re not even sure you have. 

“It releases not quite as much oxytocin as an orgasm but more than sexual pleasure alone. So you’re less tense before sex than you usually would be, and you’re primed to build more trust and feel more connected with your partner during.”

God, he’s a nerd. And it’s so, so hot. 

You roll over on your back again and look up at him through half-lidded eyes. The corner of his mouth flickers as he takes in your expression, before trailing downward, following the path his fingertips make over your skin as they tug the straps over your shoulders. Trying to stop him, to be shy, would be a pointless venture. He’s seen you like this and you want him to see you again. 

A shaky exhale of his own brings a little smile to your face as he pulls your bra away and observes the newly bared skin with a hunger that you can feel. 

“I missed you,” he murmurs, eyes cast pointedly down and thumb brushing over the side of your right breast. 

“You mentioned.”

“I’m not allowed to say it again?” He teases, leaning down to kiss you soft. Your lips curve against his. 

“You can say it as many times as you want.”

Spencer hums, finally thumbing over your breast’s sensitive peak. It sends a chill down your back and seeing as you’re already worked up to the point of near insanity, the pleasure from such a simple touch is much stronger than it would be otherwise. 

“Good. Because I missed you a lot.”

After that, he doesn’t waste much time—only toying with your flesh for another minute as he kisses you before his hand is skimming down your abdomen and dipping below the waistband of your underwear. 

“Please,” you whisper, tilting your hips toward him when he doesn’t move to touch you anymore. 

“Please what?”

“Spencer, don’t.”

He smiles at this, pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth as his hand travels lower. Fingers slip between wet folds and he begins making the lightest of circles over your clit. 

“You’ve probably been waiting long enough, huh? I should be nicer.”

Your answer is a breathy almost-whine as you seek more friction against his hand. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pressing down harder. The sensation sends sparks down to your toes and you attempt to clamp your legs shut around his wrist. “These need to stay open,” Spencer chuckles, “or else I can’t help you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The words are a sweet sing-song against your cheek as he kisses you there, before hooking his fingers into the fabric of your underwear and pulling down. You try to help wiggle out of them as best you can, gasping when he tosses them away and immediately returns his hand between your legs. He dips his head down, tongue lathing over your breast, and teases you with the tip of one finger circling around your entrance. 

“I need—”

“Shh. Let me worry about it.”

With that, he’s dipping his ring and middle fingers just barely inside of you to the first knuckle, then back out, before pushing a bit deeper, and repeating the cycle until they’re as far as they’ll go. When he slowly starts fucking you with them, still mouthing sweetly at your breast, you’re ready to melt. 

The room is quiet except for your breathy mewls, the lewd, wet sound of his fingers inside of you, and the blood rushing in your ears. Soon your breast pops from between his lips and he finds somewhere else to leave his mark. Spencer is turning you into a work of art, with his fingers, with his mouth. You don’t mind at all. You’d let him sign his name, if he could—but you doubt he’d let you get his name tattooed. 

Soon you stop fighting the perpetual tug of your lids down and let them flutter shut, loosing a freer moan as he brushes over that sweet spot inside you. Even when he’d told you how to find it over the phone, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like this—maddening enough to have your hips twisting again and that hot bed of coals in your tummy sparking. 

“Spencer,” you warn, leg twitching as he stokes the fire beyond the point where you can passively enjoy it. Either he’s got to slow down or he’s got to let you burn all the way up. You practically jump when you feel his tongue flick over your clit—you hadn’t even been aware of his shifting positions. Maybe you’re more out of it than you’d previously thought. Your eyes shoot open and he does it again. “Oh, fuck.”

The words are simple, quiet, and apparently that’s not enough. Before you can even process the sensation of the tip of his tongue on you he’s latching onto your clit, suckling in a way that has your vision momentarily going out. You cry out and kick involuntarily, hips jumping up, but he captures your leg and presses you down into the mattress so no matter how much you squirm and squeak you can’t get away. 

“Fuckfuckfuck, Spencer I wa—ah—sn’t ready—oh my god.”

He remembers his fingers deep inside you and begins rutting them and you hiss, inhaling sharply through your teeth before letting it all out in a tremulous moan. The orgasm is building up so quickly it almost feels like an attack on your poor body as you try to process it all to no avail. Every sound you make is a vulnerable mess of pleasure and pain, a clear fear of surrendering to something inevitable. Of course, it doesn’t really hurt at all. As usual, he’s blindsided you. Found you unprepared. You rake your fingers through Spencer’s hair, continuing on with your shaky moans that sound half-worried. 

“Oh, please.” Really, you’re just pleading to be put out of your misery. It’s in moments like this, as the black is creeping in around the edges of your vision and your thoughts become threads in the tangle of an existence knotting in on itself with no discernible end or beginning in your mind until everything is completely abstract, that you’re reminded why the French refer to orgasm as the little death.  

Your fingers lace tight enough in the wilds of his hair to pull, and he groans against you, and those vibrations are your undoing. You succumb to the dark momentarily but he continues a loving assault of gentle kisses to your clit—careful enough so as to be inoffensive even after the euphoria abates and you’re hypersensitive, still relishing soft strands of hair between your knuckles. 

You’re breathing hard as you blink your vision back, looking down at him as he looks up at you from his place between your legs and rubs the top of your thigh.

“I wasn’t ready,” you pant, lips flashing into a tired smile that doesn’t hold a candle to his own livelier one. 

“Took it like a champ.”

If you weren’t already so warm his sarcastic comment would inspire more heat in the apples of your cheeks. 

“Dr. Spencer Reid using sports idioms?” You smile as he climbs back up your body. 

“It’s unreasonably sexy that you said idiom and not simile.” He kisses you, grin mirroring yours, and you don’t complain about the slick still on his lips. “And look at that. Not afraid to kiss me when I taste like you anymore.”

“I remember what you said,” you whisper, eyes bouncing between his, glowing amber pools in the low light. The words echo in your head from the first time he’d gone down on you and you’d been hesitant to taste yourself. 

One day, I’ll make you come just like that again, and then I’m going to fuck you, and you’re really going to want me to kiss you then, angel.

“So do I,” he points out needlessly. “Eerily prophetic, hm?”

“I think you just like going down on me,” you laugh. 

Without the light on, his smile is just as brilliant as usual.  

“You might be right about that.”

Another interlude of quiet begins, but you don’t mind it. Taking this slow, as desperate as you’ve been for it, feels nice. Easy. Waves of burning need ebb and flow, but for now, it feels nice to be bathed in his candlelight gaze, know you’re loved, and nothing else. 

“What next?” You whisper after a long moment, lifting your hand to trace the line of his jaw. He leans into it slightly, lips brushing your palm. 

“That’s up to you, angel. What’s going to make you feel most comfortable?” 

Your bottom lip rolls between your teeth as you think and he tracks the movement, corner of his mouth twitching fondly. 

“It might help if you weren’t fully clothed.”

“I think we could probably do something about that.”

He pecks the tip of your nose playfully and then he’s pushing off the bed. Your brow wrinkles as you follow suit only partially, sitting up with your legs folded under you and pulling the sheets over your body to combat the chill and the vulnerability of being completely naked. 

“Oh, my god. You had your shoes on that whole time?”

“I got distracted,” Spencer defends, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to slip the loafers off. 

You clutch the sheet to your chest, watching the adorable way he pushes his hair out of his face as he rushes. He’s so clearly excited—it shows in the flush of his cheek and his even worse than usual coordination. 

“But on my bed?”

“I’m sorry,” he says without seeming very apologetic, leaning down to catch your chin between his thumb and forefinger and pressing his lips to yours. “I’ll pay to have your comforter dry cleaned. I’ll buy you a new one. I don’t care.”

“How chivalrous.”

“I am,” he insists against your lips, shaped by what is surely a boyish smirk. 

Unsurprisingly, you get lost in the kiss, dropping the sheet to hang onto his shoulders. Spencer takes advantage of the once-more revealed skin, rubbing your thigh with slow passes in a way that has you all lit up again already. It doesn’t help that his tie is skimming right over the recess between your folded thighs as he leans over your seated form, kissing you deeper as the moments pass. 

“You’re distracting me now,” you scold, but your voice is quiet and smiley as your noses brush. 

“Do you want to help me with my clothes?”

You nod, heart hatching like a cocoon and already slipping a finger into the knot of his tie so you can tug perhaps not gently enough. He chuckles, bracing himself with his fists on either side of your lap as you pull and yank until the fabric comes loose and you slip it from around his neck, flinging it blindly for dramatic effect. Then he slowly draws back to his full height, until you’re about eye-level with his chest. His gaze fixes on you, feverish and intent as he finds the buckle of his belt without looking. The slide of leather on leather, the jingle of the metal has the hairs on the back of your neck rising and you fight a chill as he pins you with his stare—feeling rather powerless as he towers over you, still essentially fully clothed while you’re completely naked. 

You probably shouldn’t be as thrilled by it as you are. 

Spencer tosses the belt on the floor and watches on, utterly charmed as you rise to your knees. His hands find your waist, steadying you as you begin unbuttoning his shirt with slow, careful fingers. 

“See?” You murmur bashfully. “Helping.”

His voice is equally as soft. 

“Very helpful. Thank you.”

The tension in the quiet room gets to be too much and you have to focus hard on the task at hand, failing to bite back a twisty smile. For once, he keeps his stupid perfect mouth shut and lets you push the fabric of his open shirt from his shoulders in humid silence. 

Your fingers skate down his torso and you watch the muscles tense. You wonder if he notices the way he pulls you slightly closer or if it’s subconscious as you both track the path of your hands. 

“Your button is on the wrong side,” you note, voice wavering slightly, once your fingers stall at the waistband of his pants.

Spencer chuckles. You feel silly. 

“Men and women’s clothing tend to have the buttons on different sides, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence, before the words come pouring out. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m still a little bit nervous, I think.”

“That’s okay,” Spencer assures you, hands gliding up and down the soft lines of your waist. “It’s okay that you’re nervous. But I’m going to take really good care of you, okay?”

You nod, not looking away from the exposed skin of his torso. 

“And if at any point you need to take a break or stop, you’ll tell me.”

“I will, but… I don’t need to stop right now.”

“Then you can go as slow as you want.”

You swallow and take a moment to gather yourself before continuing on undoing his pants. With his assistance, you pull them down, and with them his boxers tug an inch or two lower, exposing a subtle v-shape before it disappears beneath the waistband. The fabric is obviously tented. A ball of nervous anticipation spins faster in your stomach, drawing all the heat in your body down between your legs. He’s pretty everywhere. You’d nearly forgotten. 

Spencer’s stomach tenses under your light touch as you drag your fingers down, down, just to the waistband. It’s then that you look up at him for permission to continue, and find his eyes already on you, heated and intense. 

“Go ahead, honey.”

Again you find yourself quite excited to touch him, but you start cautiously, simply letting your hand fall over the shape of him through the fabric. Even that has his chest rising and falling at a slightly quickened rate, and one of his hands finds your unoccupied one, twining them together. That small gesture inspires you to bolden your explorations, becoming more insistent in the way you palm at him. He feels big, which is a concern of yours. But you try not to let that intimidate you.  

Already he’s quite hard, you suspect from going down on you earlier (which is flattering as much as it embarrasses you) and your fingers graze a small wet patch of fabric. You fixate on the shaky little breath he releases as you push down his boxers with new fervor, and his cock springs up. 

He’s still perfect. 

You smear beads of precum down his tip, and he sighs, letting his head fall against yours as you both watch. A few coquettish pumps and he’s humming, kissing your face and dragging his lips down your neck where he makes a home for himself. Apparently the sight of your hand wrapped around him had been too much to bear. 

“So good. Missed this.”

“It’s just my hand,” you whisper, a little insecure that he’s maybe playing it up for your benefit. 

“It’s you.”

His voice is so breathy, you sort of have to believe him. 

“Can I…?”

Too nervous to voice what you really mean, you trail off, but it apparently doesn’t matter to Spencer. He lifts his head like he’s in a stupor but you’ve said something urgent. 

“Anything you want. You can do whatever you want.”

“Okay. Um…”

You let go of his hand (and his dick). Spencer automatically rotates to accommodate you as you end up on your knees on the wooden floor in front of him. 

“This is what you want?” He breathes, already pushing his fingers through your hair and gathering it back as you look up at him and nod. 

Very quickly you have him back in your hand, trying to remember what you learned from the few times you’ve done this. You start perhaps a bit softer, less eager to prove yourself than you have in the past—simply dragging him over your tongue before enveloping his tip in your mouth, and releasing with a pop. Despite being overtly, explicitly, and undeniably sexual, there’s something almost chaste about the way you handle him. It’s a (dirty) expression of love, and you think he understands that as he rubs at your cheek affectionately. 

Eventually, however, you get too excited, and you take him into your mouth in earnest, bobbing your head slowly and seeing how much of him you can take without gagging. 

Spencer makes the prettiest noises—they’re breathy, and not ostentatious, but he’s got such a nice speaking voice it’s like his gasps are bars in a song. You whine around him, wriggling your hips in a rather pathetic display, and then all too quickly he’s tugging your hair so you can’t keep him in your mouth. 

“What?” You ask, closer to pouting than you’d care to admit and voice slightly hoarse. “You said I could do anything I want.”

“Not if you’re that good at it. Come here.”

He helps you up and catches you in a deep, messy kiss before you’ve fully regained your footing, swaying against him, but he holds you fast, pulling away slow like strings of honey trail between your mouths. 

Spencer’s eyes are fixed on yours, lips parted in a sort of wonder before he glances down to your own mouth, wiping the shine from your bottom lip. Any moment you’re expecting him to say something, to tell you you’re beautiful or perfect or that he’s in love with you—but instead he just meets your eyes again, that same wonder-struck look on his pretty face. A tiny, breathy laugh forces itself from his chest like you’re a genuine miracle. 

You feel so observed—seen in a way you’ve never been seen, looked at closer than anyone has ever looked at you before. And he still looks at you like you’re the human embodiment of love, the closest mortal manifestation of the divine, Galatea come down from her marble pedestal. The way he looks at you has your heart pounding and your breathing hastened. Adoration has never been something so physical, so tangible, ever before in your life. Your blood hums at the frequency of his electromagnetic field—an energetic aura that surrounds each person and can be detected from several feet away, as he’d explained it to you. It originates from the heart and if you spend enough time close to  someone, syncs up the beating of your most vital organ with theirs until it’s a perfect match. Maybe that’s why, almost as quickly as your heart had begun to pound, it slows again, and you feel any reservation flush from your body like a fever. 

“Okay,” you breathe, cataloguing every angle and curve of his face to store with all the rest, all the moments that feel important. Of course, you’ll never remember them like he does yours. But you’ll be damned if you don’t try your hardest. 

“Okay?” Spencer asks. He understands the confirmation for what it is, and searches for signs of hesitation on your face while rubbing reassuring circles into your hip. You nod resolutely. 

As he lays you down on your bed, it feels like you’re entering some kind of altered state. Everything is muted and glowing with a watercolor aura in the dark and you really only care about the man on top of you and the way moonlight dances on his skin and the way he smells like smoky amber and rain. He makes sure the pillows are fluffed under you, before sweeping your hair from beneath your shoulders into a corona around your head. All the while his eyes are so soft on you, just like his hands, and his lips when he leans down to touch them to yours. 

One of said hands finds its way to your jaw, trailing down over your neck and collarbone, before settling over your breast where he swipes a thumb over your nipple, lightly, slowly, several times. 

Once again you’re struck with the odd feeling, even with his hand on you like this, that the situation isn’t sexual in the way you’d anticipated. It’s not pornographic, or even very dirty. Everything Spencer does, even as his hand sneaks down between your legs, he does because he loves you. 

“One more like this,” he mutters against your jaw after a moment. 

“Why?”

Your impatience yields a smile you can only feel against your skin. 

“Just want you relaxed and feeling good. That’s all.”

When you assent, his fingers are already slowly pushing inside you. 

It seems you’ve entered some sort of time warp as well, because you reach a gentle peak in what feels like record time, aided by his easy murmurings and saccharine praise.

“Perfect. That was perfect,” Spencer says with a kiss to your shoulder as he slides his fingers from you and you feel yourself literally dripping onto the sheets. “Can I ask you something before we get carried away?”

“Mhm,” you hum, sweet and compliant as pleasure dulls your inhibitions for the second time tonight and your head lolls into the pillows. 

“Baby,” he croons, voice soft as worn paper as your lids flutter and lashes brush febrile cheeks, thumbing over the heated skin. “Need you a little more alert, sweet girl.”

“’M trying,” you whine, though it’s half self-effacing laugh. Spencer chuckles too as you shake your head and take a deep breath, trying to reinvigorate yourself. “Okay. Go.”

“Well… we don’t have any protection.” Before you can groan, loudly, he hurries on. “And that’s… I’m okay with that, if it’s what you still want. I trust you. But there will come… a moment of reckoning. And I need to know where I should… reckon. So you don’t end up surprised.”

Now you’re really laughing—a giggly mess beneath him as your arms loop over his shoulders. 

“Stop it,” he whines, pressing his nose to your cheek as you turn your head in an effort to not snort at your boyfriend to his face. “That was for your benefit, you know. You get squeamish.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t take you seriously when you refer to it as reckoning.”

“Fine. I’ll rephrase. When I come, you essentially have two options. Inside, or on your stomach. Tell me where you want it.”

Your breath catches and your stomach does that tripping-over-itself thing again. 

“Um…”

Another fond half laugh, at your expense, is pressed against your skin. It’s enough to prompt you into answering—he doesn’t have to say anything to make his point about your being squeamish. 

“Inside,” you mutter, shy as you attempt to bring him closer so he won’t be able to look at you quite so closely. You wonder if he’s remembering the conversation you’d had over the phone last week—before he’d accidentally kind of broken up with you—about this very subject. You certainly are. 

“Okay. I want you to have everything that you want.” A few kisses to your neck later, between nips, he speaks again. “Just need to hear that you want this one more time.”

“I want this,” you repeat, obedient and honest, plain and simple. “Now, please.”

Spencer responds by first kissing you, firm and loving. It soothes you, and he punctuates it with a kiss to your cheek, before he’s reaching down and guiding himself between your legs. You feel surprisingly calm, more overcome with love and the light pleasure rolling down your back as he drags himself over your clit than you are by nerves. Still, you pointedly hold his gaze, not looking down in case you psych yourself out. He slots himself in place, tip resting against your entrance. 

“Remember, if you need to stop at any point—”

“I remember,” you cut him off hurriedly. 

Okay. So perhaps you’re still slightly nervous. 

He watches you, sympathetic though you’re not sure what for. 

“I need you as relaxed as possible, okay? I want this to be easy on you.”

You take a moment, scanning your whole body for tense muscles. When you feel sufficiently relaxed, you offer Spencer a small nod, and at that, he begins pushing into you ever so slightly. 

At first, it just feels foreign. He’s going so slowly, so carefully, you’re not sure he’s moving at all—until he finds resistance and the odd full feeling changes to a hint of burning stretch. Your hips jump and your breath catches, and Spencer stops immediately, relieving the pressure with a tiny shift in position. 

“It’s gonna hurt,” you realize, eyes darting between his like he might be able to tell you otherwise. You’d always been aware of the possibility, but you were holding out hope that you’d be one of those people who didn’t experience any pain their first time. 

“Just for a minute. Then it’ll feel good, angel.”

You swallow and nod. At the end of the day, you trust him completely. You trust him enough to let him hurt you. 

“Super deep breaths for me.”

He watches intently as you follow his directions, taking several deep breaths in succession, before he begins pushing into you once more. The pressure builds and builds until he pushes past that point of resistance, and it’s like he’s breaking you in two. 

“Ah,” you gasp, abs twisting as your body tries to escape the sensation without any input from you. 

“I know. I know, baby, that was the hardest part. Breathe.”

He drops his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles with light pressure to distract from the pain.

You nod, lips pressed together tight as the deep ache muddles your brain. It’s an insistent pressure against something does not seem to want to budge. It burns and stretches and is laced with sour, flirtatious pleasure so that you can hardly tell what it is you’re feeling. Mostly, you’re dizzy and hot.

“Relax, just like that,” he strains, looking down. “My good girl. We’re almost there, baby.”

Cries spill unbidden from your mouth and your eyes shut as he continues to open you up deeper, until finally, finally, his hips settle into the cradle of yours. 

Spencer sighs a curse under his breath, so quiet you don’t think it was meant for you. 

He’s inside of you. It’s bizarre. 

You whimper, and he snaps out of whatever revery he’d been in. 

“You okay? How does that feel?”

You take a shuddering breath, closing your eyes and trying to clear your head to no avail—your thoughts are like TV static. 

“I’m good. I need… I need a minute.”

“You can have as much time as you need. It’s a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” you admit, voice small and weak. 

“I bet,” he agrees, peppering soft kisses all over your face. “But you’re doing so well. Proud of you, brave girl. You’re doing so well and we’re gonna make sure it feels good soon, okay? Whenever you’re ready.”

“Will you please kiss me again?” you whisper, and Spencer’s brow knits with concern. 

“Of course, angel. Of course I’ll kiss you,” he says, and makes good on his promise with his lips on yours. It sweetens the ache. “I’ll do whatever you want. You can have anything. You’re so perfect.”

He kisses you again, just as lovingly, and soft, like you’re delicate. All the praise is only contributing to your lightheadedness, but you don’t mind at all. It feels good. 

“You can… you can move.”

“Okay. We’ll go really slow, yeah?”

He waits for your nod before his hips are pulling back and you arch at the odd sensation. When he pushes back in, eyes carefully locked on yours the whole time, you keen slightly, frowning and brain shorting out as it tries and fails to process this new feeling. 

“Uh-huh. You’re okay, I promise.”

At first it doesn’t feel good. It mostly hurts. But slowly, the pain begins to abate as you acclimate to having him inside of you, and he’s careful the whole time. 

“Spence?” 

“Hm?”

He sounds concentrated on the task at hand—you’re entranced by the sight of him above you, the parted lips, the unkempt hair over the brow furrowed in pleasure and focus. But he’s never too busy for you. 

“Does it… um—” you pause to hold back a whine—“what does it feel like for you?”

At this, he slows even further and chuckles—it’s a strained, slightly breathy sound. 

“For me?”

“Mhm.”

“You feel perfect, baby. You feel so fucking good.”

The slight fry in Spencer’s voice as he curses, which is a rare event in and of itself, flips your stomach, turns you on immensely. The idea that you’re giving him pleasure too—it’s almost overwhelming. That’s when it starts feeling good. 

“Oh—” you squeak, jaw dropping and bucking your hips inadvertently as the first bolt of true pleasure shocks deep in your core. He hums. 

“Yeah, is that it, sweet girl?”

But you can’t answer for a long moment. Your brain is melting as your legs lock around him. 

“Mm—it’s—it feels…”

“I know it does,” Spencer murmurs.

You whine and press your face into the curve of his shoulder as each thrust gently rocks your body. As the pace picks up bit by bit, you feel yourself clenching hard around him. His hips stutter and he hisses. 

“Ah. Can’t do that, lovely.”

“What? Did I hurt you?”

He laughs breathily. 

“No, you didn’t hurt me. You almost pushed me out. You have to relax.”

“Sorry,” you whisper. “’M trying.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I know you’re trying, baby, you’re being so good for me.”

Your nails skim his back—a small expression of a much larger desperation. Once he’s sure you’re relaxed around him, begins going faster. 

Your gasps and soft moans come more often now as he finds a steady rhythm and it feels so different when he’s actually fucking you. It feels like he’s everywhere. Every time your hips meet you feel the sweet shock of it in your teeth, your toes, the back of your neck. In the best way, you feel consumed by him. It’s not at all like you’d imagined, and it’s perfect. 

“Wait, Spencer,” you breathe, struggling to form the words. Immediately he stops again, lifting his head from your shoulder to examine your face. 

“What is it?”

He sounds just as wrecked as you feel, panting and strained and it feels good to hear. 

“I wanna watch.”

For a moment his eyes dart between yours like he’s trying to determine what you really mean—but you said exactly what you meant. Then he laughs, a huff of air from his nose as he presses his head to yours and gives you a quick kiss.

Your toes curl as he readjusts his position, holding himself a little higher and resting your heads together so you can both look between your bodies. 

“There,” he murmurs as he slowly begins to withdraw again. “Like that?”

But you can’t answer, because you’re too busy whimpering at the sight of him pushing into you. The feeling seems to increase tenfold as you watch it happen. Distantly you wonder how the fuck it fits. 

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Like that.”

Spencer takes this as a blessing to find a pace again, slower now as he seems to be just as enthralled by the sight as you are. 

“Give me your leg,” he rasps after a few moments like that, and you don’t know what he means exactly but you lift your right leg slightly only for him to press his hand to the back of your knee and push toward your chest, effectively opening you up and giving him more range of motion. It also enables him to fuck you even deeper. Again he slows, apparently savoring the feel of you yielding around him all the way down to the hilt. 

Black spots dance in your eyes as he settles at your deepest point—not pain, necessarily, just overwhelming sensation. Your jaw drops and you choke out a moan as he presses into recesses you didn’t know you had, as he shows you a part that you might have gone the rest of your life without knowing existed. He stops there, like that. Everything stops there, like that. If the cars on the road below ceased to drive, if the airplanes froze in the sky, you’d not be the least bit surprised. Somehow, you’ve unlocked a small eternity. There’s no sound but your joint heavy breathing and your heart pounding in your ears. The words just come bubbling up out of you in a little whine. 

“I love you.”

Spencer’s breath pauses for a moment before he’s letting it all out at once, brushing his lips up the ridge of your nose before they settle on your forehead in what seems like a permanent kiss. A few breaths in, you allow your eyes to flutter shut. Your heart rate slows down a touch, and you settle into the moment, never having been quite so content as you are like this—never having felt quite so adored and safe. 

“I love you,” he finally echoes, voice rasping, lips still pressed to your skin, still breathing against your hair. When he starts to move again, drawing back ever so slowly, you hiss softly. He raises his head from yours, and you look away from where he’s pulling out, meeting his eyes just in time for him to push back in, just as deep. They shine in the mostly-dark room and you moan unabashedly. It’s a high-pitched, sweet thing, nothing that will have the neighbors complaining—but so clearly true, from the depths of your soul, an expression of everything you’re feeling—not just the pleasure. 

Although that’s good, too, as Spencer shapes you to him again and again, the head of his cock kissing places nobody’s ever been and places you hope nobody else will ever venture to. This is all you need. Him. 

“Jesus,” Spencer groans, eyes fixed on your face as he fucks you slowly. But you can’t bring yourself to talk, too new to this kind of pleasure to find it anything other than mind-boggling and world altering. Your lips are still parted, allowing each sound to pass without filter. “Listen to you, beautiful.”

When he stops again, just to look down and marvel at you, you’re conflicted. On the one hand, you can taste the pleasure on the back of your tongue and he keeps taking it away when it’s so close. But on the other—you’re just as overwhelmed as he said you’d be. Your body has never had to process this kind of sensory information before, and you’re exhausted, but it’s so good. 

“Spencer,” you manage. He looks up, pupils blown and eyes lidded where they’d normally be wide. “Please don’t stop.”

He swallows, spurred into action again as soon as you say it. 

“Good?”

You nod and whine again as he picks up the pace bit by bit, remembering to push your leg back once more so he can get as deep as you need him. 

“So good,” you exhale at the top pitch of your voice. Your brows pinch and you release a fuller moan as Spencer finds a speed that’s fast enough to constantly feel good no matter where he is. You’re gasping for breath, back arching—and he finds a new angle, catching against the spot inside you that renders all those years of human evolution that gave you sentience and intelligence a waste. He chuckles airily at your series of series of affronted moans and halted gasps. 

“Right there? That's a good spot, isn’t it?”

“Oh, go—fuck, fuck!”

It feels so good it almost hurts, and your eyes are stinging to prove it. Your legs clamp tighter around him and you realize there’s a very lewd wet sound and you can’t believe that’s you. 

“Spencer, you’re—oh my god, I love you,” you whine, and it sounds like you’re pleading for your life. At this makes his own sound of pleasure, and hastens his messy circles on your clit as if in reward. 

But it’s too much all combined. 

Your hand claps to your mouth to obscure the loud, licentious moan that comes out—but Spencer immediately moves his hand from between your legs to grab your wrist and pin it gently to the bed, intertwining your fingers. 

“Don’t do that. Let me hear.”

You nod, and he lets go of your hand to return his fingers to your clit. If possible you get wetter around his cock—you can feel yourself gushing. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you whine as if pained. 

“Yeah? Gonna finally let me feel you cumming, angel?”

He has a filthy mouth when he wants to. The words hit like high voltage to your core and the very pit of your stomach. You can’t even respond beyond a desperate sob. 

“Show me, baby. I’m right here. Let go.”

You cum around his cock with a broken cry and it’s like a purge of every drop of angst you’d felt over the past week or so—hell, it’s a purge of all the insecurities that had bubbled to the surface since you started dating him. None of it matters anymore. How could it matter when you have him? When you have this?

The orgasm washes you out like a tidal wave, taking everything with it. It’s strong, and it’s so good, so intense, your body is overwrought with sensation and it’s too much even though it’s perfect. Your brain is drawing a blank as it tries to react to the feeling, and it’s like every button on the damn panel has been hit. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” Spencer grits, and you feel it in the way he adjusts his position, shifting as he grips at the edge of the mattress for leverage and the thrusts become messier, needier. You gasp as his other hand tangles in your hair, turning your head to ghost your lips over his forearm. It’s not entirely surprising when his own lips find your shoulder—but the feeling of him finding his release just as his teeth sink into your skin does come as quite a shock. It doesn’t hurt, and you’re sure there’s no skin broken, but it’s an undeniable fact that he has grounded himself in the throes of passion by biting down on you.

Inside you, he feels hot. Searing, almost, as his spend tries to fill space that doesn’t exist. There is absolutely no room for anything else inside of you. Stars dance in your eyes at the overstimulation, but long after he’s finished he’s still fucking into you—albeit much slower and with far less technique. Spencer moans like a two bit whore, like he’s reached pain to a point of ecstasy, and to you it’s as good, as special as the singing of the planets. If he’s as sensitive as you are now, it’s no small feat for him to keep going on like this. It’s a testament to how much he doesn’t want it to be over. The pleasure is carrying him away, but you’re beginning to feel how soft you must be and how if he continues on like this you may bruise like an overripe peach. 

“Spencer,” you manage, skating your hand up and down his back in what you hope are soothing lines. “Baby.”

He whines as his lips detach from your shoulder, but his hips finally slow to a stop, nestled inside you. 

“Jesus, fuck, I'm sorry,” he breathes, opting now to bury his face in your neck (with significantly less biting this time).

You’re still reeling, toes still curled, still struggling to breathe as your head spins and spins and spins. His chest pushes against yours with every heaving breath, hot and heavy on your skin, and that’s the only sign he’s still alive until his hand eventually reanimates in your hair, scratching your head tenderly. 

For a span of minutes, you stay like that—silent, twined together like caducean serpents. His weight on top of you is perfect. This, the lack of differentiation between your body and his, is perfect. You don’t know where he ends and you begin and you don’t need to. It’s a blissful moment. 

“Hey.”

Spencer’s voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, lifting his head to look at you with flushed cheeks and messy hair and sparkly eyes. 

“Hi.”

He smiles. 

“You’re so pretty.”

“You too,” you murmur, moving your hand from his back and pressing your thumb into the hollow of his cheek. His eyes map the curves of your face as he pushes your surely askew hair back. 

“How do you feel?”

It takes you a moment to seriously consider his question, scanning your body for any undue pains, but for the moment, you find none, beyond a dull aching throb that you can manage. 

“Good. Tired.”

You wince at the uncomfortable feeling of him pulling out. Spencer hums sympathetically and presses a sticky kiss to your lips which makes it a little better, though you can’t ignore how uncomfortable all the previously pleasant wetness has become between your legs. 

“Here—stay here, I’ll get a wash cloth and—”

“It’s fine,” you insist, holding on even as he tries to roll off of you. “I just need… will you stay here for a little bit?”

“Of course,” he promises, now pressed close to your side and propped up on an elbow, “whatever you want.”

You lavish in his gaze, warm like a spotlight, as he strokes your cheek and plays with your hair. Very quickly you’re lulled into a doze, eyes fluttering shut. Minutes stretch. You feel drunk on waking dreams, and perfectly at peace. Safe. 

“Angel girl,” he christens you fondly. More than anything, it’s an observation, so lovely it sinks into your skin like a balm, soothing every tired muscle and little mark he’d made. Even half-asleep, it makes you smile. 

“You’re an angel,” you slur, reaching blindly for him, and he chuckles, catching your wrist and helpfully settling your hand on his cheek. 

“I thought you were asleep.”

You hum, “mm-mm,” looking up at him with just as much adoration as he has for you. Those cuddle hormones must be kicking in because soon you’re attempting to pull him back on top of you. He doesn’t quite comply, probably for fear of crushing you—rather he settles next to you, gathering you in his arms. 

Silence blankets the two of you, but it’s not unpleasant as you just watch each other with barely-there smiles curling your mouths. This kind of intimacy still manages to give you butterflies, even after everything else you’ve done. This kind of satisfaction, reverie in the sound of each other’s blood flowing and lungs filling. Setting aside words because you don’t need conversation as a pretense for wanting to be around each other anymore. You don’t need an excuse to look at him like this. You don’t need words any more than you need clothes. It’s enough to just be. 

“I love you,” he says, a soft reminder, and entirely redundant with the way he’d already been looking at you, touching you. 

“I know. I love you too.”

The smile flickers brighter on his face. 

“And thank you.”

Your eyes narrow minutely as you consider what he could possibly be thanking you for. 

“For what?”

“For loving me. And trusting me. It’s…” your heart squeezes as you realizes tears are pooling in his eyes. He takes a moment and clears his throat. It’s incredibly endearing. “It means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me.”

You look down, thumbing at the sheets where you’ve hoisted them over your bodies. 

“You do realize how lame we are if we have sex and both immediately start crying, right?”

At this he laughs loudly but not loud enough to pop the little bubble you’re in, and you look up just in time to catch the brilliance of his smile, the way it changes his whole face and he becomes superhuman in his beauty, the lines that form by his eyes and the way they narrow and crystalline tears bead his lashes like precious gems. 

“Don’t cry,” he requests gently, hypocritically as your own eyes sting. The way his smile fades is like the sun setting. Gorgeous, like everything else he does. “You’ve cried so much, honey. Please don’t cry.”

You sniffle, gathering yourself. 

“I’m not. That would be pathetic.”

Spender leans forward to kiss you tenderly a few more times. Ordinarily you’d worry about coming across as clingy when you hold onto him so closely and so insistently like this, but for now you don’t care. Neither does he, it seems, as he seems unable to get you close enough. Eventually, you end up curled against him, head tucked under his chin and dozing on and off as he traces shapes into your skin. 

“What are you writing?” You mumble some time later, cheek smushed against his shoulder. He only responds with a soft hm, like he was lost deep in thought. You clarify, “it feels like you were writing something.”

“She Walks in Beauty.”

Your lips pull into a sleepy smile. 

“The Lord Byron poem?”

The first time you’d met Spencer, he’d inadvertently caused your painstakingly annotated copy of Lord Byron’s works to go flying all over a cafe, and then kindly helped clean up the pages and reorder them for you in record time. Among the poems had been She Walks in Beauty. 

“Yeah. I was trying to figure out when exactly I fell in love with you, and as someone who is deeply skeptical about love at first sight, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I keep coming back to our first conversation. I mean, I believe in genetic compatibility, and how that contributes to attraction and what we think of as chemistry, but—”

“Wait, what about our first conversation did it?” Your cheeks ache from smiling as you speak. “As I recall I was being a bitch and I was covered in coffee.”

He laughs dreamily, still tracing letters over the small of your back. You wonder what part of the poem he’s at now. 

“Yeah, mean to me and covered in coffee is pretty much exactly my type. But I think it was actually the annotations on that copy of Lord Byron’s works. They were so insightful, and personal, I—it kind of took my breath away, and I know I shouldn’t have read them all but I couldn’t stop. You were compelling, and charming, and funny and wildly intelligent and beautiful and… and I didn’t stand a chance.”

Everything aches. It’s a good ache. Despite being seconds from tearing up all over again, you snort. He never told you about that first day.

“You thought me writing ‘sister fucker’ in all caps every time he mentioned Augusta was charming?”

“Oh, obscenely so. But now that I’m looking back, I feel like… I feel like I can’t remember not being in love with you. I mean, I remember when I realized I was, and that was later. But it was like I met you, and then I was just… waiting for you to catch up.”

You grab his hand and interlace your fingers, watching the way the ambient nighttime light from the window and the bathroom dips them half in color. 

“We were pretty much on the same page. I was debating courthouse versus small intimate ceremony as soon as you left.”

You watch him watching your joined hands, features soft and relaxed, fiddling with your fingers absentmindedly as he speaks. 

“Definitely small intimate ceremony. I have too many friends who would kill me if they weren’t invited to the wedding.”

You giggle and pretend the thought doesn’t give you butterflies. You imagine a ring on your finger, the one he’s got between his own. Marriage had never been something you’d considered. Not when you had no reason to. It seemed like something for other people. But maybe one day, it will be for you, too. 

“Did you know Lord Byron had a daughter who is regarded by many as the first computer programmer? She wrote the first algorithm for a theoretical machine that was so complex it couldn’t be built with the technology available at the time. It was called an Analytical Engine.”

He sounds almost wistful as he gives you the utterly unprompted, but still welcome, abridged version of her life. The description is ringing a bell—but you can’t quite place her, sleepy as you are.  

“What was her name?”

“Ada Lovelace. She was exceptionally gifted. The odds of parent and child being so extraordinary in their respective fields are incalculable, but from a purely theoretical perspective, negligible. I mean, they’re both massive historical figureheads. That’s extremely uncommon.”

You adore it when he goes off on these tangents—the passion that stains his voice, the ardor that grips him until he has no choice but to tell you exactly what’s got him so excited. You could listen to him talk for hours. It means he’s here with you, and he wants you to love what he loves. 

Since he met you, that’s all Spencer has wanted—for you to love what he loves. 

You want the same. 

And the loss of your mother, it was…staggering. You were still struggling to wrap your head around it, because she was there one day but gone the next. You would never see her again. You would never hug her again. You would never smell her scent again or hear her voice as she told you she loves you…

A sob hitched in your chest, but you swallowed it back, aware of the near-stranger seated beside you and the flight attendant and pilot just on the other side of the black privacy curtain that hung a few yards away. 

As surreptitiously as you could, you wiped away the lone tear that had brimmed over before getting distracted by the sparkle on your hand, the lavish wedding band that was more of an unwanted weight than anything. 

You had never owned something so nice, or so expensive, but it wasn’t a token of Pete’s love for you, of his devotion to you and your union, of his desire to be your mate and alpha. 

It was a mark of ownership. 

And a constant reminder that your father would rather pawn you off and use you as a bargaining chip to keep you his dirty little secret than have you in his life.

“God, you could look a little less miserable,” Pete scoffed from beside you. 

You stiffened at the sound of his voice, feeling his arm press against yours and shifting away, leaning against the wall of the plane and pretending like you were interested in the gorgeous, almost surreal view on the other side of the window.

You had always wanted to fly, to be up amongst the clouds like this, but now, the reality was far different than you had imagined. 

Granted, never in a million years could you have predicted your current circumstances, and being a prisoner to them. 

“I'm not a bad guy you know, just an opportunistic one,” Pete said. 

You could feel him watching you, and you curled in on yourself, putting as much space between the two of you as you could as you hugged yourself tightly and avoided his gaze.

Huffing at the way you were ignoring him, Pete put a bit of bite into his tone as he told you, “Once we’re settled, you’re getting a new wardrobe. I can’t have my new wife looking like some trashy omega who just crawled out of the gutter.”

You flinched at his words, at the truth of them, feeling shame warm your face as you couldn’t help but glance down at your clothes. 

You were dressed in an outfit similar to the first one he had ever seen you in - worn jeans and an ill-fitting shirt with an old, faded jacket over top. Your sneakers were scuffed and dirty, and obviously not name brand. When your eyes couldn’t help but flicker over at Pete, you found him watching you in disgust, his lip curled back as he shook his head. 

Realizing that you were looking back at him now, Pete perked up, a smirk curling his lips as he leaned in and let his eyes drift over you again, slower this time–with the wicked intent to make you uncomfortable and put you in your place–before they reconnected with your own. 

“At least you’re pretty beneath all that grime and poverty,” he murmured. “So I have something to work with and look forward to putting to good use.”

He chucked you beneath your chin and you recoiled from his touch, feeling the warmth of it linger on your skin as your heart hammered in your chest and your stomach churned at his innuendo. 

Snorting at your reaction, Pete reached for the nearby service tray and swiped up the bottle of champagne along with two plastic cups. He poured himself a drink and then poured you one too, handing it over and rolling his eyes at the way you just stared at him blankly in response.

“This isn’t exactly what I wanted either, you know. But man am I doing you a huge fucking favor. I could just ship you off to a breeder or shelter and not be bothered with all of this bullshit, is that what you want?”

You had heard such awful stories about omega facilities; your mother had always been adamant in keeping you away from them, of warning you about them, in making sure you were safe. 

Shuddering at the thought of winding up in one—of fulfilling your mother’s worst nightmare—you trembled out a quiet, “No.”

“Well?” Pete gave your glass of champagne a pointed look as he raised a brow at you, expectant. When you still didn’t get it, he alpha commanded you with a growl, “Show some goddamn gratitude to your new alpha.”

Swallowing back your tears as your inner omega perked up and rushed to do her alpha’s bidding, all you could do was quaver, “Thank you…alpha.”

Pete’s grin was wide with satisfaction, but something dark glimmered in his eyes as he watched you. His gaze once again wandered your body without shame before he tapped his glass to yours and hummed, “I’ll drink to that.”

You felt like a doll. 

Like you were just a toy to be played with, with no opinions of your own, no say, not a scrap of agency to be found as Pete and the sales associate in the fancy clothing boutique in downtown San Francisco talked about you like you weren’t even there.

It was only the first morning since you had officially arrived to your new home, and the very first thing Pete had done was immediately sweep you away to get a new wardrobe, just like he had promised. 

Only, it was a wardrobe of his liking, not yours.

“How’s this one, sir?” the older woman asked, her voice filled with respect–like she was well versed in dealing with rich alphas–and her tone all business as she smoothed down the fitted dress over your hips and turned you on the little pedestal so you were facing Pete. 

He hummed from his spot on the velvet chaise lounge on the far wall of the small dressing suite, sprawled like a king with a flute of champagne in one hand and tapping the tips of his fingers against his lips as he took his time surveying you.

You wanted to disappear as his eyes crawled over you. You had never worn anything so revealing, so tight, the form-fitting dress obviously high end and putting far much more skin on display than you yourself would ever show.

“Definitely an improvement from when we first arrived,” Pete decided. He set down his drink before rising to his feet, sauntering toward you and holding out a hand expectantly. 

Keeping your eyes fixed on the floor, because you couldn’t meet either of their gazes, you put your trembling hand in Pete’s and allowed him to help you off the pedestal. He corralled you closer to the wall of mirrors, looming behind you, his big hands cupping your hips as his gaze gave you another appreciative onceover. 

“I like this cut on her,” he told the sales associate without looking away from your reflection in the mirror. “I wanna see more like this, accentuating her figure and flaunting some skin so I can show off what’s mine.”

You blinked back the rush of tears that burned the back of your eyes at being spoken about like a commodity–like a trophy–instead of a person. You tried not to actively shy away as Pete continued to tug and test the soft confines of the dress and the way it hugged your body. 

“Are you engaged then?” the sales associate asked curiously as she gathered up a few garments and pointedly looked at your neck, at your unmarked mating gland. 

Pete stiffened behind you, a rosy color rising to the surface of his cheeks. “Newlyweds who just moved here, so we’ve been holding off on our bonding until we’re settled into our new home.”

His tone was harsh enough that both you and the sales associate flinched. You got a whiff of her slightly soured scent as she nodded and stumbled over her words. “Very good, sir. I’ll just go grab a few more options and be right back–”

“Grab more than a few and take your time doing it,” Pete sneered, his voice an authoritative alpha command that had the sales associate going rigid. “Also grab some lingerie and delicates while you’re at it.” He grinned wolfishly as his hands roamed up your sides, his fingers just teasing along the curves of your breasts. “I have a feeling she’s gonna look great in lace.”

“Sir,” the sales associate nodded tersely before exiting the private dressing suite. 

The silence drew on for a tense moment as you tried not to fall apart entirely, wanting nothing more than to curl up and hide and cry out all of your shame, horror, and distress. 

You didn’t want to be here. 

You didn’t want this to be your life now.

You didn’t want Pete to be your alpha.

“The fucking audacity,” he growled, his hands falling to your hips and gripping hard. “Of that fucking hag.” 

He took a deep breath, some of the tension easing from his broad shoulders as doing so drew your soft scent to him. Sighing this time, Pete dipped his head, nosing along your bare throat and scenting you slowly. 

Unexpectedly. 

You couldn’t choke back your soft, scared whimper quickly enough, shying away from the intimate drag of Pete’s nose. 

“Stop,” he alpha commanded. His voice was a little less harsh when he cooed, “Relax.” 

Your body did so against your will, the tension forcefully easing from your frame as Pete drew you back against him and a quiet purr rumbled his chest as his lips skimmed along your skin. 

“You look so pretty in your new clothes, baby,” he breathed, his scent, which usually sang of firewood and the kiss of ocean air, musky with arousal as it rose up around you both. “I knew you would.”

Your eyes fluttered at his heady scent, and you hated that he smelled so good, that the baser, biological part of you was so affected by him even as your logical mind was terrified and repulsed by him and his behavior.  

And yet…a small part of you knew that you could get addicted to that scent and that your inner omega already was, so very desperate for the approval and attention of her new alpha. 

When Pete pressed a kiss to the spot where your shoulder met your neck, you gasped sharply, shivering as you felt him smile against your skin before his lips drew up and over. He groaned when his tongue touched your mating gland, laving it slowly–erotically–as he rocked his growing hardness against the curve of your ass. 

“M’gonna bond you tonight, omega,” he promised on a husky rumble. “Mark this pretty throat so everyone knows you’re mine. I’m gonna fucking own your omega pussy, too, split you open on my knot and fuck you until you’re crying for me before pumping you full of my cream.”

You were so warm, it felt like you were on fire, your heart pounding so hard it was all you could hear. As you realized by the end of the day, you would officially be bonded to this man, for life, and there was nothing you could do about it, a loud, ringing noise blared through your mind.

Your panic was like a living, breathing thing as it clawed at you from the inside, desperate to be let loose. Your breathing became more shallow as your heart rate increased, your omega scent spiking with a sourness that had your own nose wrinkling. 

“Shhhh, calm down, baby,” Pete alpha commanded, petting a big hand over your head and pressing a final kiss to your mating gland. “You’re such a nervous, jumpy thing, huh? Never thought that would do it for me, but you’re proving me wrong.”

He shot you a playful grin in the mirror, ignoring your wide, panicked eyes and look of utter terror at the thought of being bonded to him.

Moving away and allowing you a small moment of reprieve, Pete plucked another dress from the nearby rack, holding it out to you with a twinkle in his eye. “For now, be a good girl and try this one on next.”

Your fingers were visibly shaking as you took the dress from him and tried to dart past him and into the enclosed changing stall. 

However, Pete’s thick arm shot out and he caught you around the waist. He chuckled as you squeaked in surprise as he wrangeld you close. “No, you’re gonna change right here, where I can watch. We’ll consider it a teaser for what will come later tonight.” 

He straightened and gave your ass a firm spank, smirking at your soft whine of humiliation, and then he sauntered back to the chaise lounge and dropped into a sprawled sit. As he reached for his drink, he made an impatient gesture with his hand. 

“Go on, omega,” he alpha commanded with a wicked grin. “Give your alpha a little show.”

Shuddering and blinking back more tears at the thought of being so openly on display for him–so vulnerable with someone you didn’t trust and didn’t even like–you sniffled quietly, trying to keep it together. 

Leaning into the base desire of your inner omega to be good for your alpha, you reached for the zipper at the side of your dress and tugged it down. Allowing the becoming-familiar-now numbness to encompass you like a safety blanket, you avoided Pete’s heavy, lustful gaze as you stripped, the dress pooling at your feet as you reached for the other one.

Just as your alpha commanded you. 

You felt the desperate urge to flee. 

Misery consumed you as you gazed at your reflection in the large bedroom mirror, drinking in the ridiculously expensive scraps of barely there fabric that you wore that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

This wasn’t you.

This racy lingerie, this obscenely large bedroom in this opulent mansion, the arrogant, self-serving alpha who was showering in the connected bathroom. 

With each second that passed, you felt like you were losing more and more of yourself. Like Pete was twisting you into a shape you weren’t meant to be to better fit the mold of his dream life. 

Feeling beyond vulnerable–and so trapped–you hugged yourself, choking down the sob rising up as you turned away from the mirror, unable to bear one more second of looking at your own reflection.

Your tearful eyes drifted across the room to the large walk-in closet, where your luggage was stowed. Sniffling, you glanced back at the bathroom door that was slightly ajar, watching for a beat as steam from Pete’s shower drifted out before dissipating from sight. 

That instinct to flee rose up within you once more, more urgent this time, and you were taking a step toward the closet, already forming a mental checklist of what you should pack before you really even committed to this poorly, half-formed plan of escape. 

Even just occupying the thought had a small spark of hope igniting within you, and you took another step toward the closest, worrying your bottom lip as you went. 

“What a view.”

Pete’s quiet purr stopped you in your tracks. Your heart jumped into your throat as your vision swam with a new onslaught of tears and your escape attempt came to an abrupt end before it really even began. 

Sniffling, you quickly batted away your tears, hugging yourself once more as you felt Pete come up behind you. His warmth encompassed your smaller frame before his big hand was cupping your bare ass cheek and giving it a lewd squeeze. 

“We’re gonna have fun tonight, omega,” he chuckled. 

Your stomach flipped as he nipped at the side of your throat, his hand skimming around your waist and up your bare belly until he was roughly grabbing a handful of your lace-covered breast and you were whimpering at the harshness of his touch. 

“Let me get a good look at you,” Pete demanded, his voice smokey and his scent tinged with lust. 

He turned you before you could turn yourself, his eyes so dark they looked black as he took a step back to get a good look at you. 

When you went to cross your arms over yourself out of instinct, he tutted, snatching a wrist in each of his hands and shoving your arms down to your sides as he snapped another alpha command, “Stop hiding from me.”

You tensed at the command, sniffing back more tears as you tried to look away from Pete’s state of undress. 

He was still wet from his shower, his hair raked back and his handsome face flushed. A fluffy white towel hung low on his waist, and you saw it twitch at the front as he continued to eye-fuck you and hum his approval. 

“You really do clean up nicely,” he said, grinning big as he finally met your gaze and shot you a wink. “But you’ll be getting dirty again real soon, omega, just not in the way you’re used to.”

He stepped past you, slapping your ass hard and laughing when you squealed before he was whipping the towel off and using it to dry off. He hung in the closet once he was done and then he was stalking toward you with a predatory gleam in his eyes.  

Your eyes widened and you took a step away from him, but before you could take another, Pete was on you, his hands reaching around to unclasp your bra.

“No, wait!” you shoved at his chest, your heart rate kicking into high gear as he enveloped you in his embrace, laughing as his hands dropped to cup your ass and yank you against him. 

“Oh right, you’re a sweet, shy thing. You probably need a bit of a warm up to ease you into it, huh?” Pete snickered as he ducked his head and planted a kiss against the hinge of your jaw.

When he gripped your chin between his thumb and forefinger and tried to kiss you, you jerked away, once against shoving at his chest. “Stop–”

“Quiet!” Pete snarled the alpha command, his temper flaring at your resistance. “You stop.”

You went instantly silent and still, a tear streaking down your cheek as you trembled against him. 

Once again gripping your chin, Pete forced your frightened gaze his way. “You don’t tell me stop or no or anything of the like, do you understand?”

“I don’t want this,” you whispered. “Please–”

“Oh it’s too late for all that,” Pete smirked at you. “We’re locked in for life, omega, or did you forget?” He swiped up your hand and held it aloft, the big diamond on your ring finger twinkling in the warm light of the bedroom. “You’re my meal ticket, honey, and I gotta seal the deal to lock you in for good.”

Pete’s dark gaze flickered to your unmarked mating gland. 

“No one’s ever gonna question me or who you belong to again, not after tonight.”

You shook your head, “Pete, please.” You tried to appeal to him a different way, with him in mind instead of yourself. “You don’t want me–”

He laughed, rutting against you so you could feel just how hard he was. “Oh, I want you, and I’m gonna have you, and if you ask nicely, if you beg real soft and sweet for me, I may even make it good for you.”

The darkness in his eyes shifted, and you went still, desperately trying to read this new look in his eye so that you could try to out-maneuver him and whatever he was thinking. 

Once again gripping your ass, Pete pulled you flush against him, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in your scent. “Beg for my knot, omega. Beg for me.”

You were shaking your head no before you even realized it, your fingers clawing at Pete’s firm, bare chest as you tried to force some space between your bodies.

Sighing his frustration, Pete straightened. His jaw clenched as he watched you, displeasure spiking in his alpha scent and coming off of him in waves, so much so that your inner omega was whining and you were cowering in his hold, unable to meet his steely gaze. 

“I think someone needs to learn her place,” the softness of Pete’s voice belied his intent. “Present for me,” he alpha commanded. 

“No,” you whined as he took a step back and shoved you toward the bed. You started to cry, your traitorous body like a puppet hanging from the strings he controlled as your body turned toward the bed to do his bidding. “Please, I don’t want to.”

“Wait.”

Hope flared to life in your chest as you shot Pete a look of surprise, but when you caught sight of his mean smirk, you wilted. 

“Strip first, all of it off. I wanna see everything when you’re perched on your hands and knees for your alpha.” 

Your movements were jerky as you removed your lingerie, crying harder once you were naked and whining as you turned toward the bed and stiffly crawled atop it. You had never felt so vulnerable in your life, so humiliated, as you felt Pete’s gaze burning into you and you kept your legs pressed together despite your presenting stance, trying to hide whatever you could from his unwanted stare.

He tutted at you as he sauntered closer, giving your ass a hard spank that had you crying out in pain. His big hands wrenched your thighs apart, spreading you wide open before encouraging the arch in your back, until you were perfectly perched and on display for him, just how he wanted. 

“That’s more like it,” Pete hummed as he moved behind you. His hands skimmed up the back of your thighs before he was cupping your core and making you whine as you fisted the blanket beneath you and resisted the urge to move away from him. 

You gasped as his hand rubbed circles along your whole cunt, jostling your body before his fingers were finding your clit. His touch teased there until something deep inside of you awoke and unfurled and you felt arousal begin to seep from your pussy without your permission.

“That’s more like it,” Pete purred, spreading your wetness all around as you sniffled pathetically. Moving closer, his breath warmed your ear as he murmured, “You’re just like every other omega, playing hard to get until your slutty pussy gets a bit of attention, and then you’re just desperate for it.”

You shook your head, chest hitching and tightening on a sob as you quavered, “I’m not–”

“Yeah you are,” Pete cut you off, landing a harsh spank on your pussy that had you crying out and flinching. “It’s okay, I’m more than willing to give you what you want. You know why?” He gave your cunt another hard spank, huffing a laugh at your miserable mewl. “Because this is mine now, do you understand?” 

His fingers stroked along your folds before straying to your asshole, and you could feel him grin against your warm cheek when you whined and choked on a soft, “No, please!” 

“All of your pretty holes belong to me now,” Pete said, his teeth catching your earlobe and nipping hard. “And I’ll use them however I fucking want.”

He climbed onto the bed with you, shoving you further up it and pressing flush to your ass. You couldn’t stop crying as you felt his hard cock against your skin, warm and leaving a trail of pre-cum in its wake as he once again shoved your legs apart and his fingers began to circle your entrance. 

“Christ, will you stop fucking blubbering,” Pete alpha commanded on a growl, giving your ass another hard spank that had you choking on a whine. “The only thing I wanna hear you crying about is how much you want it.” 

You shook your head, sniffling out a broken, “I-I don’t.”

Pete snarled in response, curling over your back and growling at you as he teethed along your neck, right over your mating gland before alpha commanding you once more, “Fucking tell me you want it, omega. Go on, say it. I wanna hear it.”

“I want it,” the words were flat and lifeless as they were forced from your lips by his alpha command.

“Tell me you want me and my cock.”

You shuddered, feeling that familiar numbness creeping up on you and welcoming it in with open arms as you whispered, “I want you and your cock.”

“Fucking right you do,” Pete huffed as he leaned back and settled on his knees behind you. His hands found purchase on each of your ass cheeks again, pulling them apart and making your soft body jiggle as he played with you and gazed down at your weepy cunt. “I’m gonna give you exactly what you want, omega.”

You didn’t get more warning than that before Pete lined himself up and shoved into you hard, ignoring your pained sound as he rutted as deep as he could, until he bottomed out with a groan and you were choking on a scream. 

“Fuccccck me, you’re fucking tight,” he hissed, moaning as he rocked against you, taking a moment to bask in the way your body enveloped him. 

Meanwhile you squeezed your eyes shut tight, panting against the discomfort, your body feeling nearly split in half and too full as Pete once again took whatever he could from you, whatever he wanted. 

Humming, he slowly retreated, spreading your ass cheeks and watching your hole struggle to take him as his hips surge forward on another hard, slow plunge.

He was unmoved by your soft whine of pain, mesmerized by the sight of his hard cock moving in and out of you. His pace picked up and his head fell back in pleasure at the friction and the almost too tight grip of your cunt around him. 

“Just when I thought being saddled with you couldn’t get any better,” he groaned, fucking into you harder, faster, his big hands finding your hips and gripping with purpose as he pounded into you without reprieve. 

You ignored his taunts, leaning into that numbness, until you couldn’t anymore. Because Pete’s fingers were crawling down your stomach and suddenly they were swirling around your clit. You gasped then moaned as something inside of you sparked hot and desperate. 

“Told you I could make it good for you,” Pete purred against your shoulder, nipping at your skin as he laughed and rubbed your clit harder. He moaned as you clenched around him hard in response. “Yeah, that’s it, omega, let it feel good. You might as well get something out of this deal too, huh?”

When you stubbornly shook your head in dissent, Pete just sighed. “Fine, have it your way.” 

He rutted into you harder, your body jerking with his harsh movements as you pressed your lips into a firm line to stifle all the noises rising up from the deep, relentless plunge of his cock.  

The more he went at you, his fingers zeroing in on your clit and making your insides draw tauter and tauter, the harder it was to ignore him, to ignore your inner omega too as she whined her desperation and all but rolled over in supplication just beneath the surface of your mind.

A shift in the angle of Pete’s thrusts had you keening against your will, and you felt a fresh wave of tears–tears of humiliation and self-betrayal–blur your vision. 

“You’re close, aren’t you?” Pete hummed, his pace picking up as the sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room. “Beg me to make you cum.”

You shuddered and whined at the alpha command, fulfilling Pete’s request with a breathy, “P-please make me cum.” 

You squeezed your eyes shut once more, trying to hide the only way you could now, but it was like Pete knew exactly what you were doing. 

It was like he couldn’t get enough of humiliating you, of putting you in your place, of making you as miserable as possible because he knew you didn’t want this, want him. 

And his ego didn’t like that truth, not one bit. 

So he pulled out of you suddenly and shoved you onto your back. Wrenching your legs open wide, Pete slotted his big body between your sprawled thighs and gripped your throat in one big hand. He forced your tearful gaze to meet his as he shoved back into you with enough force to have you mewling.  

“Beg me again, your alpha, to make you cum,” he panted.

“Please make me cum, alpha,” you whispered, something inside of you shriveling at the smirk of satisfaction that curled Pete’s lips. 

He fucked you wildly, his hand easily gathering both of your wrists in one hand and holding them down above your head, just another small gesture to assert his dominance over you. 

As if you didn’t already know who had the upper hand here.

You closed your eyes in shame as you felt the rise within you anyway, knowing that you couldn’t help it, but hating the feeling–and the submission of it–all the same. 

“Look at me,” Pete growled the alpha command, looking smug and satisfied when your eyes immediately snapped open. 

His free hand dipped to your belly, fingers inching lower until he was strumming your clit as his cock filled you up over and over again. 

And then suddenly you were cumming, your orgasm consuming you and making you keen long and loud and sharp. Your body arched at the power of it, pleasure overwhelming you entirely and stealing your breath away as you trembled and whined and your inner omega rejoiced. 

Pete groaned in response to your undoing, his cock twitching inside of you as he went at you harder. His gaze was avid and dark as sin as he watched you cum for him, around his cock, squeezing and milking him like you just couldn’t get enough. 

“Fuck, that’s it. Thank me for making you feel so good.”

It wasn’t even an alpha command, but you fulfilled it anyway, your mind foggy and slow as you wisped, “Thank you, alpha, for making me feel so good.”

Moaning, Pete’s face ducked low, his breath hot and heavy against your lips as he cooed, “Just giving my sweet omega exactly what she wanted, what she begged for, like a dirty little slut.”

And then he was cumming. Pete grunted as he drove into you hard and lingered, his cock twitching. Panting, he pumped his hips against you frantically. Jarring your soft, boneless body, Pete moaned as he came and painted your insides with warm, white ribbons of his cum, not stopping his motions until his knot was expanding and locking your bodies together.

You were too dazed and exhausted to realize what he was doing next as Pete’s head dipped and he buried his face against the crook of your neck. When his teeth pierced your mating gland and you whined in shock–in dismay and pain, too–he groaned, tongue lapping up your blood before he was alpha commanding you to bond him in return. 

You did so against your will, openly, silently crying once he pulled away and you saw the fresh imprint of your teeth on his neck–solidifying him as your life-long mate–as the copper twang of his blood stained your tongue and turned your stomach. 

Just as Pete’s big body sagged against yours, you felt it spark to life deep inside you, your bond to your new alpha. It was like having an inner radio and turning it on for the first time and tuning into a new channel, Pete.

Alongside your own muted horror and devastation, you could now sense Pete’s feelings, too. The first thing that hit you was his complete and utter satisfaction. From the sex, yes, but also from his new career and lifestyle, and beneath all of that, you felt a layer of an arrogant kind of victory too, at using you and owning you, at making you his. 

But most disturbing of all was Pete’s complete unattachment to you.

There was no love or warmth, no fondness or desire beyond the physical, none of those feelings or traits that you had always dreamt about finding and experiencing in your chosen alpha.

Because you hadn’t chosen Pete, and he hadn’t chosen you.

And yet…here the two of you were, together.

Your miserable thoughts were suddenly disrupted by Pete pulling out of you now that his knot had gone down and promptly shoving away from you. You drew your knees to your chest, making yourself as small as possible as you watched him sit back on his haunches. 

Raking his wild hair away from his forehead with his fingers, he shot you a smug, satisfied grin. “You’re not a half bad lay, omega.” He gave the curve of your ass a hard slap before sliding to his feet. “I mean, you could participate a little more, and cry a little less, but now you know I’m not afraid to throw around a few alpha commands to get what I want.”

He shot you a wink before turning and sauntering toward the bathroom, not bothering to close the door all the way as he relieved himself and cleaned up. 

Feeling like an empty shell–hollow and desolate and so thoroughly wrung out–you turned your back to the bathroom, to Pete, and tried to ignore the feel of your new alpha’s cum staining your thighs as you curled into a ball and cried yourself to sleep.

OOOOF. This was soooo much more angsty and awful than I thought it would be 😭

Please come cry with me, won’t you? I feel like I need some emotional support hoeing after writing this lol.

—

I no longer do tag lists, but if you'd like to be notified when I post new writing, follow my side blog @‌sirisshamelesshoelibrary​ and turn on notifications to get pinged when I drop some new hoe fuel 😘

“We had her welcome home planned, beta,” Curtis tsked. “Tour first, then some food, then play time.”

“But I need her,” Jake whined, sticking out his lower lip as he tugged your back against his chest and rested his chin on your shoulder. “And she needs us, too. I know you can smell her, and she smells unsatisfied.”

Your face bloomed with the heat of embarrassment, your gaze dropping to the floor as you realized that your musky omega scent was hanging heavy in the air. 

A beat later, Curtis was before you, his body heat mingling with yours and Jake’s as he touched a finger beneath your chin and tipped your shy gaze up to meet his. 

“We’ll let her decide,” he murmured, “Since it’s her first day home. What should we prioritize, sweetheart? What do you want to do first?”

The happy chirp was bubbling up and spilling past your lips before you could even formulate a real response, because an alpha–your alpha–was giving you a choice, letting you decide. 

Because he cared what you wanted, and no one had ever cared about that before, not ever. 

Your jumbled thoughts and surprise must have been easy to read, because Curtis’ face softened as his hand slid along your warm cheek, until you could nuzzle into his touch as you blinked up at him, a little dazed already. 

“What do you want, omega?” he asked again.

“I want you,” you answered honestly. “And Jake,” your hand rested over your beta’s hand that was planted on your belly. “I want you to bond me, please, so I can be yours for real and forever.”

“I love her so much,” Jake breathed, his eyes shimmering as he met Curtis’ gaze as he snuffled along your neck.

“Alright then, what our omega wants, she gets,” Curtis hummed. He pressed a kiss to your forehead before doing the same to Jake, and then he was herding the both of you up the stairs amongst some quiet giggles and wandering hands. 

Soon the three of you were stumbling into the bedroom, and you had a moment to smile at the once again cozy, inviting decor before Jake was basically propelling you toward the neatly made California king-size bed. 

“Patience, beta,” Curtis reminded, but there was a curl to his lips as Jake sent him an abashed look. 

“Sorry, ‘mega,” Jake whispered against your ear, pressing a kiss to the plane of skin just behind it as he gave your hips a greedy grope.

As his lips began to touch and taste along the skin of your neck, Curtis drew near, pressing flush to your front–until you were sandwiched between both men–and dipping his head low to catch your lips with his own.

It was instant, the way Curtis’ kiss short circuited your brain. You had never felt so desired and adored–and never at the same time–as his soft, plush lips pressed against your own, his tongue sneaking along the seam of your mouth until you were happily opening up to him as he deepened the kiss. 

Curtis swallowed your throaty moan as Jake’s hand snuck into your panties, just a bit of cute, lacy fabric that went along with the fluttery dress they had brought to the pound to dress you in for the drive home. Your cat ears and plug were still tucked away in a bag in the back of their car, but that’s as far as your brain got before Jake’s fingers were circling your clit and making you whine. 

“Wait,” you panted once Curtis retreated from your mouth. “Please.”

“What do you need, pretty girl?” he asked, his big hand resting at the base of your throat as you blinked at him, dazed and struggling to think straight.

You felt a new wave of shyness wash over you as you finally zeroed in on what you really wanted in that moment. 

“Will you scent me, please? Both of you, together?”

“God, she’s so sweet,” Jake groaned, giving your sopping wet pussy a gentle pat before pulling his hand from your underwear and sucking your arousal from his fingers.

“Come here,” Curtis directed, taking your hand and leading you toward the bed. 

He settled you on the edge of it and sat at your side, waiting for Jake to mirror him on your other side before you were glancing between them, something ecstatic bursting to life in your belly and fluttering up through your chest as your eyes bounced from one warm, wanting look to the other.

When your gaze locked on Curtis’, he gave you a look so intent and focused that you whined softly, pressing your thighs together as a gush of arousal seeped from your pussy and made you squirm.

Nostrils flaring, your alpha leaned close, pressing a gentle kiss to your unmarked mating gland and purring at your sharp gasp before he was slowly dragging his nose along your neck as his musky scent rose up around you.

Your eyes fluttered when Jake descended on the other side of your throat, nosing along your warm skin and moaning at your scent as he scented you with a bit more eagerness and less finesse and patience than your alpha.

You swore you could taste the cocktail of their desire on your tongue as Curtis and Jake worked together to cover you in their scents, until you had a death grip on each of their hands in one of yours as you sank between them, already a floaty, pliant mess of carnal delight. 

Before you knew what was happening, the duo worked together to undress you and scoot you further up the bed, until you were sinking back against Jake, positioned between his legs as Curtis sank to his knees and tugged you to the very edge of the bed. 

Curtis’ eyes were so dark with desire they were nearly black as he tugged your ruined panties off and tossed them aside. His palms were warm and rough as they glided up your calves, spreading your legs wide open as he commanded Jake to, “Hold her open for me, beta.”

The directive alone had you moaning as your pussy clenched, your heart hammering in your chest as Curtis’ gaze fell to your glistening folds. 

“You’re so pretty, sweetheart,” he murmured, thumbs tugging the petals of your sex apart until he could see your twitching hole.

Your breath caught as his thumb ghosted over your drippy entrance, but then it was gliding up along the cut of you until he was rubbing barely there circles along your clit. Your hips bucked as need consumed you and you started babbling for you weren’t even sure what. 

All you knew was that you wanted, so so much, and Curtis and Jake could give it to you.

They could give you everything. 

Mesmerized, you watched with wide eyes as Curtis’ head dipped low, his warm breath washing over your pussy and making you whine as Jake cooed at your pretty noises and caressed along your naked breasts. 

The first swipe of your alpha’s tongue along your cunt had you nearly catapulting off the bed, and you squealed as Jake chuckled and gripped your thighs tighter, spreading your legs open just a little bit wider as Curtis shot you a wink and then went to town.

He groaned at the taste of you, lapping along your glistening folds before his tongue was teasing along your clit and driving you wild. 

You had never felt such intense pleasure in your entire life. And if this is what pleasure felt like, you were pretty sure you’d never felt it at all. 

The overwhelming feeling continued to mount, so many sensations running rampant through your body, the most prevalent being the strange build up that throbbed in the core of you. 

With each swipe of Curtis’ tongue, with every tease of his fingers along your weeping, clenching hole, it felt like you were inching along, closer and closer to something you so desperately needed despite not really knowing what your body was seeking to begin with.

And then it hit you out of nowhere.

It felt like your body was erupting, your back bowing as you keened at the warm, tingly rush of ecstasy that flooded through you. Distantly you were aware of the way Jake was still holding you in place, cooing against your ear as Curtis purred from between your trembling thighs and rumbled a litany of praise as your body writhed and bucked. 

You were panting when you finally sagged back against the sheets, so beyond dazed as you gasped for breath and shivered as stray aftershocks sparked their way along your body. 

“You’re such a good girl,” Curtis husked as he rose up from between your legs and stretched out over you. “Such a good omega.”

The happy chirp sounded as faint and dazed as you still looked, and Jake and Curtis shared a grin as the beta shimmied out from behind you, nearly vibrating in anticipation as Curtis dropped a quick kiss to your lips before moving away.

Before your pout could even fully form at his departure, Jake was taking Curtis’ place atop you, his big, boyish grin softening as he got a good look at your fucked-out-without-even-being-fucked-yet state.

“You’re so pretty,” Jake breathed, his big hand cradling the side of your face as he ducked low and kissed you. 

Really kissed you.

Distantly, you hoped you were keeping up with the urgent, sinful press of his lips half as good as he was working his mouth against yours, but when his tongue snuck between your lips as he deepened the kiss, all your thoughts went quiet as you mewled and twined your arms around Jake’s neck and tugged him even closer. 

It was the most heady feeling you had ever experienced, having the breath stolen right from your lungs by Jake’s eager lips as you felt the heavy, warm gaze of Curtis just beside you both, enjoying the show.

The longer you and Jake drank from each other’s lips, the stronger his scent got. There was a spicy tang to it now–his arousal–that made your head spin in the best way as you also felt the evidence of his desire for you pressed hard and hot against your belly.

At last, when your little sips of air in between kisses became more and more desperate, Jake finally retreated from your mouth, gasping just as harshly as you were, but that still didn’t stop him or his perfect, pink lips from kissing a trail down the side of your throat.

His mouth tasted and teased along your shoulders before he was finally licking at one of your hard, achy nipples, groaning against your chest as he took a moment to just face plant between your tits as his big hands groped them and pressed them around his face.

“Love boobs so much!” his muffled exclamation made you giggle.

He popped his head up at the sweet sound, giving you an abashed smile before his features went determined and he was once again kissing all along your chest, worshiping every inch of you he could reach as he continued his descent down your body.

You started to squirm when his mouth reached your belly, whining softly as your hand shot out and your fingers gripped Jake’s short, soft hair.

His eyes flickered up to meet yours as he pressed the gentlest kiss against your lower belly before skimming his lips even lower, until he was warming your mound with his hot breath.

“Please,” you begged softly, spreading your legs in offering and so needy for that rush of bliss that Curtis had so masterfully bestowed upon you just a short while ago.

Jake glanced sideways at Curtis, who was starting to shift restlessly now, his alpha scent overtaking the cocktail of yours and Jake’s own scents. Winking at the other man, Jake took a moment to press one final kiss to your swollen clit, giving it a firm lick for good measure before he was moving away and you were pouting in earnest.

“Think what you really need is our alpha’s knot, pretty omega,” Jake winked at you.

Before you could even think of a reply, Curtis was once again settling over you, his big, warm body taking up residence between your sprawled legs and making your eyes go wide with just how intently–how hungrily–he was eyeing you up.

You didn’t think you’d ever been looked at like that before, so all you could do was blink owlishly as Curtis’ handsome face hovered over your own. Then your eyes were fluttering shut as he dipped low to kiss you. Your alpha kissed you just as expertly as he had worked the warm, wet place between your legs, and he didn’t pull away until you were desperately gasping for breath against his lips.

You didn’t resist as Curtis sat back and gently turned you onto your belly. “Present for me, sweetheart,” he directed, and your body was following his instructions despite the way your mind was still foggy and sluggish and playing catch up from all of their attention.

“Yeah, there you go, omega,” Curtis purred, as you perched on all fours, albeit a little wobbly. He took a moment to completely undress, before his big hand circled the back of your neck and guided your head down so your warm cheek pressed against the soft, rumpled blanket. 

“Relax for me, pretty girl,” he murmured against your ear, big hand gliding down the length of your spine as he settled behind you. He gripped his hard cock in his hand, giving himself a few, slow pumps as Jake scrambled up beside him and shed his own clothes before resuming his spot and gazing at his alpha’s cock with a hungry look in his eye. 

Smirking, Curtis kept his free hand on the curve of your ass, warming your skin and letting you feel he was close as he turned to Jake. He released his cock in lieu of collaring the back of Jake’s neck and reeling him closer. Humming, he kissed his beta breathless, until he was swallowing Jake’s whine and pulling away with a grin. 

“Get me wet and ready for her, beta,” Curtis murmured. 

Moaning, Jake dipped low, eagerly taking Curtis’ cock in his mouth. His head bobbed a few times, hand gripping the base of Curtis’ cock and squeezing as the obscene sound of Curtis fucking Jake’s throat rose up around you all. 

Curtis groaned, tipping his head back and allowing himself a final hard rut into his beta’s throat before gently pulling away from Jake. “So good to me, bub,” he husked, caressing Jake’s ruddy cheek before he was once again settling behind you.

“Ready for me, sweetheart?” Curtis asked you, both hands smoothing over your ass cheeks and tugging them apart to reveal the glistening folds of your cunt.

“Yes, alpha,” you murmured, still sounding floaty as fuck.

And then you were nearly choking on a sharp gasp as you felt the rounded tip of Curtis’ cock line up with your entrance before he slowly started to push inside of you.

You moaned at the pressure, fisting the blankets on either side of you as Curtis patiently worked himself inside of your warm, tight pussy. 

“Fuck, omega, this cunt’s so tight,” he grunted as his hips retreated ever so slightly before he was surging back in again, just a little bit further than before.

You whined when it started to feel like too much, but then Jake was curling close to you, his big hand petting over your head as his lips pressed to your temple and he started to whisper an endless string of praise and adoration against your ear.

“You’re so pretty, omega,” he murmured. “So perfect for us. We’ve been waiting for you for so long, and now we finally have you, and you’re all ours. We’re gonna take such good care of you, pretty girl, just like you deserve. We’re gonna cherish you so much, forever.”

Feeling tears well, you reached for Jake’s hand, twining your fingers with his and giving a soft cry when Curtis finally bottomed out inside of you and went still, his big hands smoothing along your back as he purred behind you.

The first full retreat and thrust of his cock inside of you had you moaning, and then your eyes squeezed shut and your mouth hung open as your alpha really started to fuck you. 

It felt amazing, feeling him so deep inside of you, where he belonged. This was what you were made for–taking your alpha’s cock, bringing him pleasure–and it was like every new rut of his hard length within the deepest depths of your body was another small act of validation that you were right where you were meant to be.

That familiar, desperate throbbing from before started to pulse in your core, and soon every thrust of Curtis’ had you moaning or whining or keening so pretty for them. 

When Jake’s hand worked its way beneath you and his fingers started rubbing your clit, you nearly screamed, distantly aware of the way you clenched so hard around Curtis’ cock that you made him grunt and snarl from the pleasure of it.

And then all the distant thoughts in your mind seemed to evaporate at once as you came. Pleasure rippled through every inch of your body as you tensed and clamped around your alpha’s cock. 

Curtis continued to fuck you through it, feeling your cunt flutter around him for a second time before you were nearly boneless before him. He pulled out and turned you over, sharing another amused grin with Jake at how pliant and floaty you were. 

Sitting back in the middle of the bed, Curtis pulled you into his lap and back on his hard, aching cock, his strong arms circling you and holding you safe and secure against him as he pounded up into your sweet body from below.

“Fuck, I’m close,” he panted, his dark eyes meeting Jake’s as he nodded. 

Jake joined the fray, plastering himself against your back as his hands snuck around your body so he could grope your tits.

“Ready to become ours forever, omega?” Curtis breathed as he gave another hard, deep rut inside you.

You blinked at him, uncomprehending at first, but then it was like your inner omega perked up instantly, and she knew what came next, her giddiness and elation making it click in your brain, too.

“Yes, alpha,” you breathed, your vision blurring with happy tears. 

Curtis’ intense look softened ever so slightly, and he took the time to kiss you again, gently despite the frantic, relentless thrusting of his cock inside you. Just as he pulled away, he groaned against your lips, shoving into you hard and lingering. 

You felt his cock throb and twitch inside of you, and then his seed warming your insides as your pussy fluttered wildly. A beat later, you gasped as Curtis tucked his face against the crook of your neck and sank his teeth into your mating gland.

Jake did the same on the other side of your neck, and it was like a jolt of electricity sparked in your core and zipped through the rest of you.

You shuddered between your alpha and beta, another orgasm tearing through you as your body writhed and trembled and you felt Curtis’ knot expand and stretch your cunt to capacity.

Whining, you sank against his sweaty chest, chirping softly at the way both men began to coo and rain kisses on every inch of you they could reach. 

You were barely functioning but so very, very happy by the time Curtis’ knot went down and he pulled out of you. Your half-lidded gaze followed him as he sank onto his side next to you, and then Jake was stretching out on top of you and earning your full attention. 

Your beta’s grin was big and boyish as he pet your head and kissed you thoroughly enough that he stole your breath away. 

“You look sleepy, sweet omega, so I’ll make it quick,” he murmured against your lips. “Just wanna feel you and fill you up, okay?”

“Okay,” you whispered, gasping softly as Jake lined himself up and slid into you with ease. “Jake.”

“Ohhhh, fuck,” Jake groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he sank against you. “Youfeelsogood,” he breathed in a rush, dropping his forehead to yours as his hips started to move.

His cock wasn’t as long as Curtis’ but it was thicker, and you felt your body absolutely light up every time he eagerly shoved into you. Jake was frantic in his fucking of you, cradling you with his big, muscular arms as he rutted into you without pause, groaning and moaning against your lips as his hand snuck down between your bodies. 

It just took a bit of pressure from his fingers on your clit and the way Curtis teased, “Just wait until you take both our cocks at once,” to have you cumming again. 

Jake hissed as your pussy spasmed around him, his hips going harder and faster until he was following you over the edge and “Hnnnngh”ing against your sweaty cheek as he pumped you full of his cum.

You felt the bed shift as you laid beneath Jake, happy as a clam and half-asleep as he snuffled along your neck. Soon he was moving off of you and flopping beside you on the bed, his grin big and lazy as Curtis emerged from the connected bathroom with a couple of wet washcloths to clean you both up. 

“You did so well, omega,” he murmured as he gently cleaned the mess between your legs. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

“Happy,” you answered before your brain caught up to his question.

Curtis’ smile was warm and tender as he pressed a kiss to your forehead, chuckling at the way Jake rolled closer to you and nuzzled along your temple. He took a moment to gently inspect the bondmarks on your neck before smoothing a hand over your head.

“Tomorrow we’ll have you bond us, but for now, I think we all need a good night’s sleep, how’s that sound?”

You nodded as your eyes grew heavier and heavier, pouting a little when both Curtis and Jake retreated from the bed to put on some pajamas. They worked together to dress you in a clean pair of panties and a thin sleep dress, and then you were thanking them both and watching them longingly as you slipped from the bed and sank to the floor beside it. 

“What are you doing?” Jake asked, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline as Curtis gave you a puzzled look. 

You blinked at both of them, just as confused. “Going to sleep?”

“Not on the floor you’re not,” Curtis told you firmly, gently gripping your arm and tugging you back to your feet. “Our bed is your bed now, too, omega.”

You felt a lump form in your throat, overwhelmed with emotion because you’d never had a real bed before, just a thin mattress to sleep on the pound floor where you had lived your whole life until now. 

“It is?” you asked, not resisting at all as Curtis urged you back into bed and toward the center of the mattress. You felt shy all of the sudden as your hand smoothed over the rumpled sheets and you asked, “It’s all of ours?”

“Everything we have is yours now, too,” Curtis said. “The bed, this house, everything. All of us.”

Your lower lip wobbled as Jake ducked into the closet before bounding back out again, his arms overflowing with brightly colored gifts for you. 

“We have stuff just for you, too!” he told you excitedly as he sat beside you. “Like these! I picked them out, do you like them?”

You hesitantly accepted the pillow and small throw blanket, hugging them to your chest as you breathed in their soft, clean scent that was also mixed with the familiar scents of your alpha and beta. “You got these for me?”

“Yeah,” Jake laughed, his blue eyes shimmering with warmth from behind his thin-rimmed glasses. 

“I love them,” you smiled, blinking back more happy tears as Curtis slid into bed on your other side. “Thank you so much!”

You watched as they each arranged their own pillows on the outsides of the bed before watching you carefully place your own pillow between theirs as you hugged your new blanket to your chest. 

Curtis turned out the bedside lamp, and they both shifted closer, until you were happily snuggled between them, exhaustion finally winning out as the quiet murmurs of your new alpha and beta lulled you to sleep in no time at all, a small smile curling your lips and your heart so very, very content. 

“Not that I’m complaining about how we spent our first night together,” Curtis whispered to Jake as he watched you sleep between them, “but we need to make sure we make her feel loved, not just desired.”

“Why not both?” Jake grinned, waggling his eyebrows.

Curtis shot him a look, but it was more softly amused than anything before he was going serious again. “She has a sweet heart, Jake, like you. I just want to make sure we protect it at all costs. She’s had a hard life, and now she has us.”

“Yeah she does,” a dopey grin curled Jake’s lips as he shifted even closer to you. He watched you for a beat before his gaze lifted to Curtis’. “I’ll make sure to tone down the wanting to jump her bones 24/7.”

Curtis cracked a grin. “I don’t think she’d complain, but I just want to make sure that’s not all we’re communicating. I don’t want her to feel used or like that’s all we want from her.”

Jake’s grin went soft, his eyes warm as he watched Curtis before murmuring, “You’re a good alpha.”

Carefully leaning over you, Curtis pressed a soft kiss to Jake’s lips before fondly ruffling his hair. “Goodnight, bub,” he whispered before settling on your other side.

“Night,” Jake whispered back. Then he placed the gentlest kiss ever to your head, unable to resist shooting Curtis one last ecstatic smile before finally settling down beside you and falling asleep nearly as quickly as you did.

For a few moments, Curtis laid awake, listening to your slow, even breaths, and Jake’s too. Just beneath the surface, he could feel the proud, satisfied content of his inner alpha, so pleased at last now that his pack was complete. 

Curtis leaned into his alpha’s content–his content–allowing the soft, peaceful sound of you and Jake breathing beside him to pull him under into the deepest depths of sleep, as a small, happy smile curled his lips.

I’d like to give a big shout out and lots of love to my sweet Bee for sharing that idea of Omega being so 🥺 at the idea of their bed being her bed now + Jake so happily presenting her with her sleepy girl things!! You’re the best, my cherished friend ❤️

If you enjoyed this chapter, please take a moment to drop me a reblog, comment, or ask. It really helps to keep my muse inspired when y’all screech at me!! 

—

I no longer do tag lists, but if you'd like to be notified when I post new writing, follow my side blog @‌sirisshamelesshoelibrary​ and turn on notifications to get pinged when I drop some new hoe fuel 😘

Your soft giggle was followed by a whispered, "Fuck Uncle Sam."

By the time he finally made it to base, he had absolutely no time to spare. He ducked into classroom number four just as Maverick called everyone to attention, and Jake stopped to stand next to Phoenix. But as soon as Maverick came closer and really looked at him, he knew he was in trouble. 

"Hangman," his superior office said with a bit of a humorous lilt to his voice.

"Sir?"

"Those are some... interesting bruises on your neck."

Jake could feel his cheeks heating up as everyone else turned to look at him as well. He must have been wrong in his assumption that his collar covered all of the hickeys, love bites and scratches.

"And, you're out of dress code, Lieutenant."

Jake looked down at himself in horror as he realized he'd buttoned his shirt incorrectly. He wanted to disappear. Or rather, he wanted to go back to bed and punish you a little bit for turning him into such a pussy drunk mess.

"Holy shit," Phoenix whispered as Maverick walked back to the podium. "Who did you spend the weekend with?"

"That's none of your business," he hissed immediately.

Maverick cleared his throat loudly. "Yeah, well it's about to be everyone's business when they see you running five miles around base and then doing two hundred pushups," he said loudly. "You were thirty seconds late and you look like hell. Get a move on, Hangman."

Some old-money asshole is talking to you about joining the yacht club or something equally inane. Your boyfriend is carrying the weight of the conversation, and you let him. That's when fucking Ransom swans in.

He's still in his tan overcoat. And his scarf. That scarf. There's no reason for him to be wearing it. It isn't the season for it. You're suddenly slammed with a memory of the last time you were together.

The way he'd wrapped that scarf around your neck, both ends held tightly in one fist as he'd pushed inside of you. The scarf squeezing around your neck, cutting off your moans and-

Something touches your arm, and your whole body jolts. "What!" you snap. You come back to the present. Your boyfriend is staring at you. Other people are, too. Your panties are damp.

"I was just asking if you wanted another drink?" Your boyfriend asks, bewildered.

"Oh," you take a deep breath. "Sure." After an awkward pause, you tack on a belated "thanks, sweetie," through gritted teeth.

You look back towards the entrance to the party and suddenly find your gaze locked with Ransom’s. And the asshole fucking winks.

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