Sechan Tamura

“I’m appreciating the art, Steven. Not the arse.” 

The corners of your lips tweak into something in the sorts of regale as you deliberately scribble onto your notepad, the sound of the number-two pencil against paper filling the eerie solitude of the museum. Steven’s attentive stare follows the tiny scrunching of your nose and soon, he finds himself amused at how your expression slowly shifts into unmistakable concentration. 

It’s endearing. 

Especially when he sees the tip of your tongue poke out from between your lips, nestling against the bottom of one of your front teeth. 

Adorable. 

“Oh, you’d loathe the ancient Egypt exhibit then. Not a tad bit of arses there.” Steven finally catches your eye, your head lifting from hunched shoulders to listen to him. His comment draws a quiet chuckle out of you, to which you motion for him to go on. He doesn’t hesitate. “Well, I mean, nudity had a proper place and time then. The Egyptians prided themselves in — in fashion, in jewels and beads, fabric and linens. Really, nudity was practically associated with work or oftentimes, social status. Royalty loved to dress up. You don’t see many naked ushabti, yeah?”

The strewn sentences leave him with a deep exhale, mouth parting as he gauges your reaction carefully. You’ve always adored his bursts of passion. Youthful, exciting, like the first tall flame of a new candlelight.

Steven makes an effort to ignore the image of Marc harshly rubbing his temples in the golden frame of the painting.

“I don’t think Velázquez intended nudity to be the central theme.” You mindlessly tuck the notepad into the tote bag on your shoulder. The movement causes your elbow to brush against Steven’s forearm, and he gulps roughly at the tingling of his skin. “Nor do I think it’s completely about Venus.”

“Whaddya think then?” 

You quirk a brow at his question. “I think… I mean, it’s obviously an allusion to sexuality and the aesthetic of it. But not sex. More like—”

“Beauty.”

You glance at him briefly, voice getting caught in your throat as you lose your train of thought just by looking at him.

“Yeah. Beauty, women, attraction, it’s all very speculative…” 

His side profile is something you’ll never get used to. The singular curl that unravels down his forehead knocks the wind right out of you, the dark chocolate strand begging to be wrapped around your finger and the rest carded through your palms.

Sometimes, you think he deserves a museum exhibit of his own, dedicated to his constant busy mind and to the soft yet simultaneously roughened details of his face. 

Maybe most of the time, actually.

Steven doesn’t notice the stumble in your body language, too swept up taking the painting in for what feels like the hundredth time but really, his mind can’t stop replaying how ‘sex’ had rolled off of your tongue so beautifully, and now how Marc won’t stop fucking pestering him about growing some balls and manning up tonight.

His watch beeps and pulls you both from your respective trances while Marc sends him a hard glare through the reflection of the watchface. “Oh, bollocks.” Steven sighs out, jaw clenching as anxiety takes over the tranquility of his features. 

You turn to him with knitted eyebrows. “Problem?”

“Yeah, think we’ve got to run.” He frowns, gesturing for you to follow him to the front of the exhibit. “Donna’s gonna have my head tomorrow for bringing you ‘round again, love.”

“S’not like I’m breaking and entering.” You playfully smirk at him as you clutch your bag, jutting one foot in front of the other as he hastily takes you through the employee exit and resets the alarm on the door. “And if I did want to rob this place, I would’ve done it by now. No offense.”

“None taken.” He breathes out through a winded laugh, fiddling with the zipper at the bottom of his collared jacket. He treads carefully beside you in the alleyway. “Mind you, as long as you leave the gift shop out of it, yeah?”

The streetlamps cast shadows over your face, but he finds himself gazing at you even through all the darkness.

A lingering stare. An appreciative smile. A mirroring in how you both tilt your heads to the side ever so slightly. But Steven sees the second hand embarrassment on Marc’s face transcend into the golden swirls of puddles on the cobblestone, his eyes screwed shut as a pained scoff leaves him.

Could’ve kissed her right now, Steven. 

Your toothy grin is all in one airy and lighthearted. Despite Marc’s unmistakable jabs, he’s proud of at least one thing: 

Making you smile.

“Of course, silly.”

No one really expects a friendship between an art student and a gift shop-ist from the National Gallery to work in a manner that is so effortless, so easy, as if it were like clockwork.

Except, the hour hand and the minute hand will never line up. 

Because you’re semi-convinced that Steven doesn’t harbor any sort of attraction towards you, nothing more than feelings of friendliness and a dash of awkwardness. But then there’s that other part of you, the part that notices the stolen glances, how he looks at you all doe-eyed and regardful even when you have nothing to say, how he remembers your breakfast order every single day despite having trouble with his own, how your number is the only other emergency contact in his phone besides his mom who hasn’t called him back once. Hell, you’ve even been friends long enough to earn an alligator emoji beside your name. What a rarity.

Just friends. That’s all it could and should be. 

Steven thinks you’d never date a bloke like him. Marc is sold on the idea that you have feelings for Steven, in which the tension, he states, is painfully and terribly obvious. It’s difficult to watch, even from that other dimension. And Khonshu, well, that guy just thinks that the three of you are all bloody idiots. 

You try to push down the odd fluttering of your stomach when Steven opens the door to your car for you. He always does. You’re used to the chivalry, the old-fashioned kindness, but something about how he’s doing it tonight — hand hovering over the small of your back, then over your head as you dip into the driver’s seat while he watches you intently, wrinkles smoothing over his tan skin and eyes softening.

You look up at him before he shuts your door. “Tea at mine?” 

“Only if I get to make it this time.”

You scoff in offense, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as he comes around to the passenger side then buckles himself in. “What was wrong last time?”

“Honestly, Y/N?”

“Yes, honestly!” You slightly turn up the radio, raising your brows at Steven as he immediately changes the station.

He sputters through a chuckle before he can even finish his sentence. “Tasted absolutely rubbish, I tell you!”

“Piss off!”

Abruptly, you both laugh heartily at that, shoulders bouncing as Steven recalls the memory of how awful it not only felt in his mouth, but how awful the brew looked in general. He finds himself unable to tear his eyes away from your face. Unable to stop replaying your sweet giggle that he drew out of you over and over again, and how his name falls from you like a bubbly chant as you reach over the console and slap his arm. Unable to stop his fingers from twitching against his thigh because he just wants nothing but to reach out and tuck that annoying wisp of hair behind your ear and tell you how much you truly mean to him.

The moonlight looks pretty on you.

Steven likes the comfort of your flat more than his own. There’s something remarkable about seeing a bed without ankle restraints and chains, or having sand stuck to the soles of his feet as he pads around the kitchen for once. Just you, him, an ugly red sofa, and the mess of unfinished canvases on your floor. Your lips twitch when he reaches around to help you get something off of the top shelf in your cupboard, his large palm gently pressing against your upper back when he pulls away to hand you a porcelain cup. 

You pour from the teapot. Steven adds an acceptable amount of milk. One long sip. Sigh of relief. Another sip. Then, smile at each other behind your delicate cups.

Like clockwork.

His kind voice feels warmer than the tea in your hands. “I enjoyed today.” Steven admits, leaning back against the counter and crossing his ankles as he speaks into his cup. 

You study the sincere tenderness in his dark irises. “I did too.” For a moment, the silence is nice. It’s comforting. You’re a safe haven, even as he fidgets nervously, drumming his fingers against the cool surface as you reluctantly look away from each other. Yet the longer you linger in the quiet, the louder the thoughts in your mind get. Your pinched voice comes out rushed and unsure. “Are you still seeing that therapist?” Steven tilts his head, unable to recognize your tone. 

“Seeing her? What do you mean?”

“Like, um, the sessions and stuff.” You chuckle softly, waving a dismissive hand at that with widening eyes. “Not in — in that way. I mean, are you?”

Why is she asking?

“Oh, goodness. No. Absolutely not.” Steven‘s dark eyebrows shoot upwards. His hold on the porcelain teacup tightens, knuckles tensing. “Why’s that?” 

You blink rapidly. “Just wondering.”

“We weren’t compatible. Professionally.” He sends you a close-lipped smile. It’s demure, and for some reason, nostalgic. “She had this — this big, caged bird in the room with us. Like a bloody parrot or something.” Then, he shrugs, eyes darting across the room with what seems to be an amused smirk as if you’re supposed to understand this implied sort of inside joke. “Wasn’t very soothing. Probably gonna find someone else in the time being, you know, hopefully with a… nicer therapy animal. Preferably one that doesn’t repeat everything that I say.” You nod slowly, taking another sip while he clears his throat. “And you? How’s your project coming along, dear?”

You snort. “Haven’t even drawn a single thing.” Your shoulders deflate as you sigh dramatically. “Due in a week, not a single idea in mind, canvas still as empty as ever.”

“You’d think it would be easy to find a model. Plenty of nudists in London.”

“Yeah, well, none of them want to be painted.”

“Then they must be intimidated.”

A tiny clink fills the air when you set the cup of tea onto the table behind you, arms crossing over your chest as you tuck your hands by your hips. The flat feels chilly beneath the illumination of the kitchen lamp. Steven feels too far away. But at the same time, he’s here. Here, in the tiny room, by the stove, dark circles beneath his lower lashes like he hasn’t slept in years, muscles straining against his jacket.

“And why would they be intimidated?”

If Khonshu could swallow him whole, this would be the perfect time for it. If Marc wanted to take the body, he’d let him. But the alters stay out of it, and for once, Steven longs for their interference. He can’t escape the way you stare at him, innocently chewing on your bottom lip as you await his response patiently. You don’t prod, just let time pass. Steven doesn’t know which is worse. The fridge rumbles. The shower next door shuts off. The cars outside whizz by. The moon peeks out from the blinds. There’s a wailing siren in the distance, but nothing is louder than the heartbeat drumming against your chest as Steven swipes a wet thumb over his mouth and gazes out the cracked window above your sink.

“Because — well, you’re a talented painter. You’re good, good at what you do and you — you’re intentional.” He locks eyes with you in the midst of his ramblings. “You’re purposeful in how you study people, how you look at them, memorizing every flaw and every detail between. You capture beauty, um, that — that I can’t even see and I don’t know how…” He lets out a nervous laugh, jaw clenching under the weight of gritted teeth. “I don’t know how anyone can just sit there and watch you paint without melting on the spot.”

Keep going.

“Steven…”

“You intimidate because you’re beautiful. And beauty makes people nervous, Y/N.” He clasps a hand over his heart, not because the words strike him deeply, but to stop himself from reaching out to touch you.

You collect your weight from the table, using your heel to slowly push yourself towards Steven and stand in front of him. You curiously toe at his white sock with your own, avoiding his gaze as you uncross your arms from your chest and entangle them behind your back with a frown.

“Do I intimidate you?”

Khonshu isn’t even in the kitchen anymore, and Marc is speechless. He can’t even watch.

At first, Steven’s voice comes out as small. And had you not been watching the parting of his lips, it easily could’ve been mistaken as the wind knocking against the walls. “Yes.” 

“Is it because you think I’m pretty?”

“I think you’re more than that.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I am.”

Steven chuckles, shaking his head. His pupils are heavily dilated, darker than normal. “Trust me, you are.”

“Prove it.” You pick a stray thread off of his shirt, goosebumps erupting across his soft skin as your cold fingertips leave him. His eyes follow the motion before they flicker back to your face. “Sit on that sofa and let me paint you.” Steven can’t pinpoint the emotions behind your words. Close to playful. Far from joking. He doesn’t know if you’re being serious, but you’re grasping at paintbrushes with a glowing smile and quickly tying an apron around your waist that leaves him blushing shamelessly. 

“You do not want to paint me.” He awkwardly huffs out, raising his hands at you before you’re pouting at him. “Y/N, it would just be a waste of canvas.”

“And why would I not wanna paint you?” 

You pull your hair up into a ponytail, ignoring how Steven’s gaze trails up your exposed arms and the curve of your shoulders. You inhale deeply, and just from the way your throat flexes in the shadows, Steven suddenly brings himself to sit on the mass of pillows atop of the velvet couch. He watches you drag an easel out from your closet, placing it right by the footrest and the swiveling stool across from him. There’s a cart filled with discarded jars of scotch, tubes of different paint mediums and a wooden palette marked with an array of clashing colors beside you, an attest to the acrylic staining the Persian rug beneath your feet.

“Because I’m just me. Just Steven.”

Your eyes pop out from over the canvas.

“Well, I think ‘just Steven’ is perfect.” 

He winces, lines creasing together on his forehead. “So what do I do now? Just — just pose, or…” He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, teeth making indents on his bottom lip. “Do I smile? What do — what do your models usually do?”

“Well, most of the time, they’re usually half-naked and tend to be as still as a statue.”

“Oh.”

You peer back at him again, gaze full of sincerity and concern as he self-consciously situates his position on the couch. “But you don’t need to follow the naked part. Just the latter, okay?” 

“Alrighty then.”

He can feel the warmth of your smile radiating even from six feet away. “Relax your jaw. Don’t look so scared, the more natural the better.”

His pupils dart around the room, taking in your flat as if it’s the first time he’s been here. He can’t look at you. He can’t. Not when you’re concentrating on him like that, scouring the details of his features, the lines and moles that mark his face, the exhaustion, surveying the slump of his spine like that was meant to be beautiful to you.

Would you capture all his flaws and blemishes then turn them into compliments?

“I told you I’m intimidated.” Steven quips, squaring his shoulders when he sees your paintbrush take the first glide across the blank canvas. 

“And I told you that there’s nothing to be intimidated about.”

“You know, I quite hate it when you get down on yourself like that.” He glares at you with a heavy shrug. Even when he’s clearly upset at you, Steven has a certain calmness to him. 

He’s the striking resemblance of lightning without the explosiveness of thunder. 

You don’t say anything, just swirl a mixture of colors onto the battered palette as you return back to the painting. He can see your tongue prodding against the inside of your cheek, rumination coating your mind in the same manner that hues of beige, black and pink coat his portrait. Steven lets the silence talk. He lets you bask in the quiescence for the sake of your art, for the sake of peace and his embarrassing desire to get this over with. But at the same time, he doesn’t want this to end.

Sure, he hates the fleeting eye contact. But come tomorrow, you won’t be staring at him like this — won’t smile at him with such tenderness and intention, won’t let your gaze wander for longer than a best friend would. Come tomorrow, you’ll have breakfast together while an ABBA record echoes from the living room, then you’re driving him to work with morning road rage and leaving for a nine a.m. lecture as if domesticity didn’t have an effect on you like it did on Steven. 

There, you won’t study him like he’s the most interesting creature on the planet. But come tomorrow, he’ll continue to read you like you’re the rarest text of Egyptian lore. 

“You intimidate me too, you know.” 

Could you hear the cogs in his brain? Was this an answer to all of his speculations? Curiously, Steven turns his feet towards you. His ears perk up, full brows raising at your unanticipated statement. “What?” 

“Yeah.” You sigh out tiredly. 

“Now why would I do that?”

This time, your face is completely blocked by the easel. You make it purposeful so he can’t discern your expression, even as the brush moves in slow and heavy strokes against the canvas. 

“I suppose for the same reason you find me intimidating.“

The sound of wet paint dabs onto the surface and drowns out your shallow breaths in the midst of Steven’s surprise.

“You find me… pretty?”

The scoff at the end of his question makes you cringe. Maybe you’ve said too much. Maybe you’ve stepped a line, or maybe he thinks this is all too odd. 

Your lips flutter upwards solemnly as you repeat his exact words from earlier. 

“I think you’re more than that.”

His heart could absolutely burst from his chest right now. He’s helplessly pinching at the bridge of his nose, unsure where to put his hands and why his hair suddenly feels so flat against his head. The couch beneath him is stiff, uncomfortable against his arse as he realizes that he’s been sitting in the same spot for too long. And now, Khonshu is simply leaning over your shoulder to look at the easel, thrumming with critique and amusement as the God towers over your hunched frame on the stool.

“Damn it.” Steven groans, placing a fist over his chest as he fidgets erratically. His eyes narrow, lips pursing together as he tries to blink back the chaos in his mind and fights off the urge to hand the reins to Marc. “God, I think I’m having a panic attack right now.”

“What?” You immediately place your brush down, peeking around the side of the canvas as Steven tries to even out his breathing. The stool nearly clatters to the floor when you stand and take long strides to his aid with wide eyes. “Do you need some air? I can — I can open a window, or — water? Water would be good?” He nods feverishly, tearing his gaze away from you and directing it to the stained carpet. You rush over to the sink, flicking on the tap and clumsily filling up a mug that Steven had given you from the gift shop. “Okay. Here, here.”

The dinosaur pun on the front isn’t so funny anymore when water sloshes over the rim as you hand it to him. He takes loud gulps as you cup your hand below his chin and catch the excess from the corners of his mouth.

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to — are you okay? What happened back there?”

You called me pretty, he wants to say. You don’t think I’m awful-looking, he wants to say. You think that I’m worth a second glance and worth all those lingering stares that I thought were parts of my imagination, he wants to say.

But instead, he saves those remarks for another time, and settles on one that seems fitting for the moment.

“I got intimidated.”

And you laugh. It’s brief and small, yet large enough to mend the brokenness of Steven’s haywiring brain when you set his mug down on the footrest and look down at him from where he sits awkwardly on your couch. The overhead light creates an unconventional halo behind your crown of hair, your shadow embracing the sunken essence of Steven’s face as he quietly admires you.

You send him a lopsided smile, dimples creating crescent moons around your lips and the bulb of your nose as anxious fingers twitch at your sides. “I’m no Venus.”

“Goddess or planet?”

He draws another chuckle out of you.

“Goddess, I think.”

“Well, Y/N, gods and goddesses are fairly overrated anyways.”

You bite your lip. “And if I’m a planet, then what does that make you?”

Steven lets his stare drop from your face, curls dropping against the shine of his forehead as he dusts away the lint on his pants. You study his distracted form, leg brushing against his bent knees as your stance hovers over him. He sighs shakily at the sensation, but then your fingers shift to wrap around the roughened hands that are interlocked together in his lap, thumbs hesitantly ghosting over his knuckles with a shyness he’s never seen on you. 

The notion causes him to ever-so-slightly lift his head. Those big, brown eyes meet yours in the humming of your living room, and the hand that’s wrapped around his own slowly travels up to the underside of his jaw. You can feel his muscles move beneath your gentle touch when his warm cheek leans into your palm, staining his skin with paint. 

“Must make me the idiot who sits in the observatory all day, all night, watching in awe through a telescope.” He closes his eyes when your fingers trace his skin, shifting higher and higher until you languidly card your nails through his dark curls. His head tilts back submissively with the soft action, nose pointing up at you as bliss falls upon his features. “Sounds a bit creepy now that I say it out loud.”

“You know people say that Venus is hellish, right?”

His eyelids flutter open, long lashes tickling you. “You’re pretty hellish to me.”

“I’m offended.”

“Don’t be.” He whispers, resting his hand against your outer thigh. 

Both of your heads follow the motion, as if his body had betrayed what he was trying so hard not to do — touch you, feel your heat against his, let his touch wander where his mind shouldn’t. But he can’t rewind time, and he certainly can’t stop how his palm stretches over your upper leg until it rests upon your hip. 

“Steven…” You stroke his cheek with amorous yearning, smudging the space underneath his eye with a shade of pastel pink. 

“Don’t — don’t say my name like that, love. Please, don’t.” Air escapes from his nostrils, his words fall from his lips in a longing tone laced with subtle desperation. But nothing is subtle anymore. Not with how he looks up at you like you’re the brightest star in the universe, staring at you like how you stare at famous masterpieces in a museum or even the works of art that never get noticed, but when they are, everything just makes sense. “You say it like…”

Now this all makes sense.

“Say it like what?”

“As if it’s more than my — more than just a bloody name.” Steven’s eyebrows furrow deeply, yet somehow he looks softer. 

“More than just Steven with a V?” He laughs at that, a deep rumble that vibrates through his belly and throat as his eyes never leave yours. “Hey, I like saying your name.”

Your fingers against his bottom lip bring him back to this painless reality, and the tension isn’t so unbearable when you stain his sun-kissed skin blue in the dull light above the sofa.

“No… not that.” Both of your hands cup his cheeks, ears tucked into the spaces between your curling digits as you caress his chin with your thumbs. Your pupils lull him into hypnosis, and he finds himself unable to stop gazing at the constellations in your irises. “You say it as if you like me.”

Fucking hell, Steven.

His hands tighten around your hips, anchoring you. 

“I do like you.”

“No, like — like more…”

“More than a friend?” 

“Yeah.” His blinks grow rapidly while his face contorts into something of shock and perplexity, teeth on display as he shoots you a panicked look. “Do you?”

“Do I? Steven, I’ve…” An exhausted chuckle racks through you. 

A pathetic noise of protest bubbles out of him when your palms leave his jaw. The cold isn’t so welcoming, and neither is the rest of your flat when you turn your back on him to tousle your hair with pent-up frustration. Meanwhile, Khonshu lingers in the hallways and curiously sorts through your vintage records. Marc wants nothing to do with this and resorts to plugging his ears.

Steven, here and now, is alone — alone with you and a giant, undeniable problem with the word ‘FEELINGS’ stamped right on top of it. He’s been decent about how to deal with emotions. He knows where his heart is, what makes his brain light up and what grows butterflies in his stomach. And even when you pace the room in worrisome, dizzying circles, all of the above outweighs the anxiety that shelters his bones.

“Y/N, dear, will you please sit down?” You don’t listen. He allows you two more laps around the couch and footrest until he beckons to you again. “Y/N.” Another two, then Steven himself is trailing behind your haste steps. “Y/N, what is the matter with you?” He takes the liberty of grabbing your wrist, pulling you back before you can escape once again. He squeezes your arm. Once, twice, till he understands that you’re fully listening. “Stop it, you.”

Normally, he’s the one running. But something about the way you look at him makes him want to stay, something about how your lips part and how you roll your bottom lip between your teeth then let it bounce back to its natural position makes him all hazy-eyed and helpless when your own eyes flicker to his mouth. You don’t know where to look, yet you strive to take in every single detail of him because you’ve never stood this close to one another.

You’re breathless, while his chest rises and falls steadily. You’re stepping on Steven’s toes, but he doesn’t mind. The hand around your wrist travels up your elbow, keeping you anchored when his other one does the same to your opposite arm. “Stop.” He whispers, warm breath fanning over your face as he shakes his head at you. 

“You stop.” Your eyes gravitate to his mouth again, plump lips pouting with temptation as you subconsciously take a step closer towards each other. 

Does he want this as much as you do? 

His knuckles run along your cheek and your droopy eyelids grow heavy at the tender feeling.  Steven’s fingers find that annoying wisp of hair from earlier, and he takes it upon himself to tuck it behind your ear. You try to stifle a moan when his nails card along your scalp, mirroring your gesture from before. But a whimper eases its way out of you, followed by a shaky sigh when your voice denounces you. His movement stills for a moment, but then both of his hands are cupping your face and his forehead is pressing against yours in a manner that is so indescribably intimate, you can’t even believe it’s real.

“You’re so pretty.”

There’s that desperate whisper again. 

Your mouth reaches for his. You can feel him holding you by the back of your neck, lips unmoving and lacking confidence against yours. It’s a short kiss, nothing too heated, but when you try to pull away through mumbling apologies, he can’t help but grab you by the chin and bring you back to him for seconds. 

You gasp into his mouth, the button of his nose resting against your cheek when you regain your self-control and hold onto his shoulders for leverage. “I’m sorry.” You blurt out.

“No, no,” He kisses you again, pupils wide and hands grasping at your belly when realization washes over. “Forgive me, I don’t — I didn’t mean to—“

“You didn’t mean to kiss me?” You smirk. The teasing grin is immediately wiped off of your features when Steven pulls you closer and tighter, almost as if you’d slip away from him anytime soon. “Are you going to do it again?”

“I think I want to, unless you don’t want me to, Y/N.”

“Of course I want you to. I want you, Steven.”

He chuckles in disbelief. “You do?”

“Well, I kissed you back, didn’t I?”

He gets lost in your eyes for the millionth time tonight. His accent draws out thick and frustrated when he finds the courage to pull your lips back onto his. 

“Oh, fuck it.” 

You moan instantly when his fingers undo your ponytail and tangle through your hair, flawed palms grabbing at each other’s clothing like you hadn’t felt the touch of someone else in ages — like you hadn’t felt Steven touch you in a fashion that is so sexual, so passionate and needy as if he’s been needing you all his life.

You kiss down his jaw, reveling in the soft sighing that he casts against your ear when you near his throat. He pinches himself when your mouth latches onto that sweet spot by his shoulder. It’s real. You’re real, with your hot tongue against his neck, with your chapstick molding him into shea butter and beeswax, with your paint-stained fingers dancing across the hem of his jacket like a tease. It’s real when his arms wrap around your frame, and your back immediately arches in response to his embrace while he ponders the skin beneath your shirt. 

“You can touch me.” You whisper against his mouth with swollen lips and nudging noses. He sighs at the consensual phrase, coffee-colored eyes never once leaving the comfort of yours. “S’okay, Steven.” 

“Are — are you sure?” 

“I am.”

The couch creaks beneath him when he reaches over and gingerly holds you by the jaw, thumbing at your earlobe with hopeless adoration. It feels like two teenagers kissing each other for the first time. Awkward tangled limbs. Noses accidentally bumping and twitchy eyelashes poking at sensitive flesh. But it feels so natural, especially when your body reacts to Steven’s affections as if it has always known him.

He kisses you. A lot. 

And he kisses you some more until you’re practically sliding off the couch and resorting to becoming labyrinths of desperation on your rug.

Your shirt rides up as Steven drags a large palm over your ribs, tracing the bone beneath your titillating skin. His head rests on your stomach, lips pecking the area around your belly button and down your hip bone until you’re eager for his mouth again. “You’re unreal, Y/N.” He groans in pleasure when you tug on his hair, smiling when you roll on top of him and straddle his lap. “Two years of my life I’ve spent pining after you.”

You giggle, “Try three. I win, yeah?” 

“Oh, so now it’s a competition?” 

“I’m just saying maybe you’ve been Venus all along.”

He smirks playfully, shrugging from where he lays on the floor. “I think we both know I prefer ancient Egypt over ancient Rome.”

“Planet.” You breathe out, fighting off the urge to close your eyes when his hands finally make contact with your lower back. “The planet, not the goddess.” 

Steven’s arm extends upwards, pushing your hair away from your face when you look down at him with a dreamy gaze. 

“Goddamnit, you’re so pretty.” You sigh in content at the praise. “My Venus.” 

The pet name nearly makes you melt.

No artist in the world could replicate the masterpiece of your skin against his. No artist could etch every detail of you and depict it in a manner so accurate or perfect — every mole, scar, freckle and fold as if you were carved from Venus’ hip at birth. No painting could hold the same beauty of Steven nervously taking your shirt off, unable to capture the quiet chuckles when your head gets caught in the fabric. Venus’ figure can’t compare to Steven’s tawny chest, faint abs rippling under your nails and lips as you kiss your way up to his pecs. 

Surrounded by pools of each other’s clothes, your burning bodies lay beside one another as sensual messes on the floor, rutting against each other gently and needily as Steven hikes your leg over his hip. You grind your mound against his crotch, gasping into his mouth when he holds you there.

“You’re so fucking sexy.” He remarks, gripping onto your waist before he suddenly looks to you for guidance. “I-I really… fuck, I really do want you.”

His touch is featherweight, flightless but not even close to fleeting when he takes the time to voyage the muscled wings of your back. 

“In what way?”

He exhales shakily, wetting his lips. “All of them.” You tuck your head under his chin after pressing a brief kiss to his temple. His voice rumbles against your body. The richness of his accent drops to a deeper octave when you reply in a high-pitched moan, hips grinding onto his front when his fingers find the waistband of your underwear. “Teach me how to take care of you, love.” 

“Touch me. Just touch me like you won’t ever stop.” Steven studies the desperation in your glassy eyes and nods softly, stroking his finger on either side of your cheek. Yet, past the swirls of loving lust in his expression, you recognize that something’s bothering him. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” He says almost too quickly. “Yeah, I am. Are you? I just, um…” He laughs sheepishly, stroking the side of your head. “I’ve never done this before.”

“You haven’t?”

“I never… got to that point, really, with anyone.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better,” You shift closer to him, resting your forehead against his as you look at him through your lashes, “I’ve never had someone inside me.” And Steven moans. Loud, deep, desperate. You would’ve clenched your thighs together had Steven not hoisted your leg higher over his hip. “I’ve done stuff, but… never been fucked. Never been…” You sigh blissfully when his fingers trace the curve of your buttock. “… properly filled up by anyone.”

“You’re going to k-kill me, love.” He glances down at your clothed core, fingers begging to reach for you.

“I’m sorry, I know. I know.” You kiss him, earning a needy groan from the man. “Go on then, touch me, baby.”

“Tell me if I’m doing it wrong. Tell me if it’s not what you want.” 

Agonizingly slow, his digits dip down the waistband of your panties, cotton rubbing against the back of his hand as he curls his fingertips towards your cunt. The gentle notion makes you gasp once more, especially when he spreads your folds apart to expose the hood of your clit. His middle finger circles leisurely over the sensitive nub with feathery touches.

“Steven,  fuck… yeah, that’s it.”

His voice hitches in his throat as he gauges your reaction. “Oh, love, you’re — oh, you’re just dripping, aren’t you?” You guide his hand further, the pads of his fingers dragging your slick against your wet entrance. “Y/N, you gorgeous, gorgeous thing.”

“Feels good.” You scratch at his shoulders shamelessly, rocking on the heel of his hand for more friction. Your eagerness spurs Steven further and so he increases the pressure, skimming his fingers over your folds and pressing ever-so-tantalizingly near your hole before he returns back to your clit. “Tease.”

“I don’t even know what I’m doing and you’re calling me a tease?” He smirks proudly, repeating the gesture until he’s drawing a moan out of you each time. The outline of his dick protrudes against his boxers, and only then does he realize how hard he is for you. “It’s good, yeah?”

You’ve never seen him so smug.

Yet you like it, and you can’t fucking help but want more of it.

“Shit, yeah. Yeah, it’s — it’s… oh, Steven.”

Your sentence is interrupted midway when he pushes his finger inside you, slow and deep enough to rip a whine right out of your throat from the stretching sensation. He inhales loudly, eyes fixating on your mouth when you hopelessly sigh against his neck. You shift your knee higher up his leg, giving him more access to finger you. He hums at your facial expressions, mirroring them when you suckle dark marks just beneath his jaw.

It brings an innocent smile to his face thinking how he’ll have to show up to work tomorrow with remnants of you all over him. 

Steven mouths at your shoulder, leaving glistening patches of saliva in the wake of his fumbling kisses. You rock against the heel of his palm, mewling as he drags his fingers against your walls and he muffles his own pleasure against your skin.

“You’re so perfect.” He groans, fucking his digits in and out of you. The noises that leave your cunt and his throat are sinful, but nothing beats the image of you resting your head on his arm, his hand cupping your mound while he fingers you on the floor impatiently. “Fuck, Y/N. You’re making quite the mess, aren’t you, dovey? God, your moans are so fucking sweet to listen to.”

“Steven, your fingers...” You watch his wrist snap against you, juices squelching around him. You nearly sob from the intensity. “You get me so wet.”

“That’s good, Y/N. That’s good. I love pleasing you, you know that.” You clamp down onto the crook of his neck, teeth stifling your wrecked moans as he curls his middle and ring finger against that spongy spot inside you. His touch is generous, obviously eager to satisfy you, and accompanied by his weathered hands, you can feel your orgasm approaching soon. “Can I tell you something?”

Your voice comes out broken, mind fuzzy as your cunt tightens around him. “What?”

“Those… those two years, I…” He moans in tandem with you when you nibble at his bottom lip. “I, fuck, it wasn’t just pining, Y/N.”

“I have n-no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think I — I think I’m in love with you. And not just because I’m…“ He laughs. “… inside you right now, but I think I’ve been in love with you from the moment you spoke to me and — and fuck, being able to hold you like this only confirms it.”

And just like that, you come undone all over his thick fingers.

“Oh, fuck! S-Steven!”

You cry out into his chest, bite marks tattering his skin as you hold him tight and gracelessly grind against him until you lose control over your climax. Your body shivers from your orgasm, gradually and slowly, which usually never happens from anyone else’s hands other than your own. Steven’s confession hangs heavily in the air even as he coaxes you through your high, fingers scissoring carefully in and out of you. 

Soft praises leave him in whispers, and he shares his affection for you with gentle pecks to your temples. 

A couple minutes pass by until you’re able to catch your breath, or at least, compose yourself.

“Was I imagining that or did you just say you love me?” You look up at him with big eyes, voice hushed and fearful as he wipes the sweat away from your brow with his thumb. 

He gulps, lashes fluttering dreamily when you cup his cheek with a shaky hand. “S’real.”

“Tell me again.”

“I love you.”

“More than best friends?”

Steven adores the childish glimmer of curiosity in your innocent gaze. He chuckles quietly, nodding. “Best friends included and more.”

“I love you, best friends and more.” You rub your nose against his before your stare drifts to his swollen lips. “But the next time you confess shit like that, don’t do it when you’re fingering me.”

He flashes you a weak smile. “Alrighty, miss.”

Although, Steven is unprepared for when you untangle yourself from his arms and settle between his thighs, nails raking over his muscled calves and mouth grazing over the bulging front of his boxers.

Your next words simultaneously fill and take the air from his lungs.

“Do it when you have your cock inside me.”

Marc nearly takes control of the body himself at that exact moment, and Steven immediately thinks he’s going to pass out when you tug his boxers down his hips to free his aching prick. His reddened tip is already leaking with pre-cum, thighs jolting beneath your slow and open-mouthed kisses to his skin. 

“You really are hellish.” He whines when you wrap your middle and ring finger along the middle of his cock, lips suctioning around the base. A long moan drawls from his throat as he rests his head back against the rug, eyes screwing shut when you run your warm tongue along a prominent vein. 

“Am not.” You chuckle, pressing a chaste kiss to the head.

He stifles a groan, forearm coming up to cover his eyes as you take just the tip of him into your mouth. “Oh, my god, Y/N. F-Fuck, yes.” You hum in amusement, the back of your throat sending the vibrations right to his cock. “That’s good. Really fucking good. Oh, fuck.”

You grin widely, but remain careful not to use any teeth on him. “You’re very needy, you know that? But, oh, you’re just doing so well for me, aren’t you?”

The mocking tone of your phrases make him squirm. He’s gripping onto a fistful of the Persian rug, wrinkling it with scarred knuckles. 

“Please.”

“Please?” 

“More. Touch me more.” He shakes his head at you, chin pressing against his chest as he stares down at you with a defeated expression. “Please, love.”

You’d be lying if you say that the way he looks at you doesn’t make you wet. You’re practically a puddle of desire, and Steven is melting jelly in your hands when your head quickly bobs down his thick length. 

He’s sputtering out a string of swear words, cursing more than you’ve ever heard him in your years of friendship. You can tell he’s trying his best not to cum prematurely, not that you’d care anyways, but with how his soft stomach ripples and flexes with each deliberate swirl of your textured tongue, you know he’s struggling.

And just when you’re about to give him that moment of release, you feel Steven pulling you back by the hair. Disappointment flashes over his features briefly when your mouth leaves him, but the boyish longing on his face quickly shifts into attentiveness when he catches a glimpse of the confused glint in your eyes. 

“Everything alright?” Your hands find his face once more. It becomes so natural in this new, sudden dynamic together — touching him, feeling him against you like you’ve always wanted. “Was it too much?”

“No, no, it was amazing.” He assures you, fingers pushing back the matted hair on your cheeks. “You’re amazing. I just don’t — I don’t wanna finish and leave you unsatisfied.”

“You could never leave me unsatisfied, silly.” You bite your lip feverishly, thumb stroking his chin for comfort.

He smiles. The tension of the conversation seems far from innocent now, especially when a near-indiscernible side of Steven appears as the words leave him confidently:

“I want to be your first, though. The first man inside you.”

“Steven…” 

“Only if you want, Y/N. Whatever you say goes, no matter what.” His hands grab yours, sweat sticking to each other’s skin. “It would be nice to have you be my first. And me as yours. I mean, it sounds so juvenile to want no one except you, but it’s the truth.” He lazily kisses across your knuckles, paving his way around the tendons with his lips. “I want to have sex with you, and I want to remember it.”

“Is he here right now?” Steven freezes and his jaw goes slack at the question. He can tell you’re nothing but concerned once your eyebrows knit together deeply. “Is Marc here?”

It’s the first time you’ve asked about Marc Spector without Steven bringing him up on his own account.

“Why? Did you want — do you want him instead?” 

“No! No, I don’t. Not for this.” You smile with brief panic, tracing the bridge of Steven’s nose to put his worries to rest. His frown gradually fades with the soothing motion. “I just want to make sure it’s you. Everything we do here, I want it to be with you.” You ruffle his hair teasingly once he sits up. “No offense to Marc, by the way.”

Steven chuckles, “I’ll give him your regards.” 

“Well, he has yet to talk to me.” You shrug casually, grabbing onto his biceps as he pulls you onto his lap. 

“He’s just shy.” He grins against your lips. His palm travels up the swell of your breast until he’s softly kneading the ball of flesh and rolling your nipple between his fingers.

Your breathing quickens, eyes fixating on his hardened erection. “Shyer than you?”  

“Oh, incredibly.” Steven jokes, shaking his head. 

He can just imagine Marc’s downturned expression of disbelief. 

“Tell him…” You nip at his earlobe, moaning against his cheek. “… that I’m already spoken for.”

“Are you now?” He’s abrupty cut off by his own gasp when your arm reaches behind and you wrap a fist around his dick, pumping him slowly in your firm grasp. “Rude. I was talking.”

“Were you? I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

She thinks she’s so funny, doesn’t she?

“Stop a-apologizing and…” He hisses when you twist your hand, grazing the pad of your finger over his slit. “F-Fuck, Y/N.”

“There we go…” You grind against his tip, pre-cum smearing across your folds. “What do you want?”

“Want you to use me, darling. However you’d like.”

“So eager for me, Steven.” You breathe into his mouth, noses nudging against each other as you line his cock up with your entrance. “You haven’t even fucked me and yet you’re practically begging for more.”

“God, you talk so filthy for someone with such a gorgeous face, yeah?”

“I guess I truly am hellish.” 

And yet nothing about this feels like hell. 

Especially once you sink down onto his length, the heavy tip of his cock ready to stretch you out. It’s only slightly painful — a brief sting, the awkward shifting of bones so that Steven can sit back and have your thighs on either side of him, the echoing of your quiet whimpers beneath the soft light as you take every inch of him into your core. Your slick spreads onto his thighs and balls, wetness coating his digit as he instantly reaches for your clit like its become second nature.

“You — you’re really tight.” He groans, looking down at where your cunt swallows him whole. 

You laugh wryly, whimpering when his hips subconsciously rut into you. “And you’re really big.” 

Steven tilts his head back and looks up at you with a hazy smile, raising your chin with his thumb and pointer finger. For a split second, you think it’s Marc — the darkness in his eyes, the sudden dominance dripping from his tone, but it’s a big mistake on your part to second-guess him once he finally thrusts into you.

“Say it again, love.” 

It’s completely Steven — his wandering hands, grasping and grabbing at flesh, grounding you, feeling every crevice and fold of your body like it’s a sanctuary that he’s been dying to enter.

“You’re so big.” Your mouth gapes, eyes widening when you submit to his touch and let him take you. “Oh, fuck. Steven, please.”

“Yeah?” He grunts gruffly into your neck, teeth marking the virginal expanse of your throat. “You like it this way? My lovely Y/N enjoys getting fucked on the floor of her own flat?”  

“I love it.” You meet his strokes halfway, tits bouncing in his face as he leans forward on his knees and wraps your legs behind his back. “Oh, s-shit. Mmm, right there — right there feels so — so good, Steven. Fuck!” 

Steven bites down onto your shoulder when he lays you down onto the rug, cock burying itself deeper inside your cunt while he puts his weight on top of your body. His whiny moans are muffled, gasps and slaps filling the ambience of the messy living room. You’re sure that the neighbors below your studio can feel every force of Steven’s hips pounding into you — hard, slow and full. 

You scratch down his spine, red marks drawing angry lines across his tanned muscles. Juices are running down your inner thighs and cream coats his cock as he fucks you needily. While his skin is stained with paint, your skin is littered with his stinging handprints. He spreads his palms over your ass, carefully maneuvering you up and down his length as you sob into his chest.

“Oh, Y/N, you’re everything I could’ve dreamed of.” Steven pants out incoherently, nipping at your jawline. “This pretty cunt… jus’ wrapped ‘round me. I could get used to this, you know that?” 

Your throat feels raw from your mewling, the exhausted and desperate need to cum written all over your features. “You can have me anyday and anytime. I want you to…” You swallow roughly. “… fill me up, Steven. Take me whenever.” Your tone grows hushed, breathy whispers ghosting over the shell of his ear. “I wanna see how drunk you can get off of my pussy.”

“Holy f-fuck.”

You laugh together, even during the heated moment. “You love it when I talk dirty, don’t you?”

“I just love you. Anything you say, anything you do, it just absolutely riles me up.” His hand finds the nape of your neck, pulling you to him till your foreheads are touching and your naked bodies beg even harder for release. “God, dovey. You’re a perfect work of art. 

“Mmm, I-I’m close.” You gasp out, nails digging into his shoulder blades when his cock begins to hit that unforgivable spot inside you. 

Steven takes a moment to pull out of you, running himself against your folds until he dives right back in. His tip prods and prods at your walls, your wetness leaving his prick damp with each deep stroke. 

“Fuck, Y/N. S’good, I can’t — oh, hell, I can’t think anymore.” He whines, arms resting on either side of your head as he pounds into you. 

“Stevie.”

He shushes you tenderly, thumb sliding across the corners of your eyes to wipe away the brimming tears. “I know, darling. I know. I’ll get you there, promise.” His breath fans out across your lips, and you take advantage of your proximity to reel him in for another drowning kiss. 

His thrusts grow sloppy, hips losing their graceful rhythm as he continues to snap into you. He beckons your name like it’s a song on loop, while your tiny whimpers turn into loud wanton groans of lust. He pulls you back into an embrace and sits up again, hooking his arms under your knees so that they’re bent and your ass hovers over his lap. 

The position leaves you vulnerable when you hold onto his torso for dear life, fluids making a mess between your bodies.

“I love you.” You croak out, opening your eyes to gaze into Steven’s dilated pupils. “Best friends and more.”

“And I love you.” You moan in tandem, feeling yourselves near your orgasm. “My sweet, perfect Venus.”

You clench around his hard cock, cumming intensely on his length as he cries against your neck. His hands are everywhere, but all you can focus on is the way your cunt contracts around him, tugging and milking him till he discovers his own high. This time, Steven doesn’t shy away from moaning and allows himself those deserved minutes of relief as you ride out your orgasms together.

“Oh, my god.” 

Momentarily, neither you or Steven move from the rug. He keeps you on his cock, too scared to face the emptiness that’ll come once you leave him. But it seems that you share the same sentiment, sighing against his bicep as you draw circles on the back of his hand. 

He decides to break the comfortable silence.

“I do okay?” 

Steven can feel your smile form against his skin, eyes sleepy and droopy from where your head lays. “You did so good.” 

“You wanna get cleaned up?”

“Please.”

With ease, Steven helps you off of him, already missing the comfort and warmth of your core as you both shakily rise to your feet. For a split second, it’s awkward — your palms shift to cup your naked breasts, while his limbs fumble to fetch you a quilt from the couch till he realizes his own indecency.

But then you share another bubbly laugh and offer the other half of your quilt to Steven, who doesn’t hesitate to cozy up beside you and have you lead one another to the bathroom. You take him under your clothed wing, ankles bumping together clumsily as he finds the light by the sink and quietly flicks it on.

He unravels himself from the quilt first and sits by the edge of your bathtub while he waits for the water to heat up. You watch him lovingly from the doorframe, tired and hair matted, but nevertheless, Steven thinks you look ravishing.

“Come on now.” The Londoner makes grabby hands towards you, taking the blanket from your hickey-covered frame and folding it neatly by the bathroom counter. 

You sit with him in the tub — back to his chest, his back to the tile, your hands interwoven amongst the soapy suds and lavender, chamomile-scented bubbles. 

A soft sigh. A gentle kiss to the top of your head. An adoring chuckle as your lover brushes his nose against your ear and tells you stories of how the sun loved the moon.

Like clockwork.

Steven is everywhere. On your lips, the scent that wafts through your closet, your bedsheets and the Persian rug in your living room, in how you make your tea, in what mug you drink water out of, what songs you play to start your morning.

But most of all, he lingers in the unfinished painting on your easel. Jaw sharp and nose prominent, eyes youthful yet wise, lips pillowy and inviting. 

He is in the shades of brown, pastel pinks and the added hue of orange from how his marked skin glistens in candlelight.

He is your Venus.

Not the goddess, but the planet.