Brutal Simplicity

Your favorite barista at that. With your patience hanging by a frayed thread and the little spark of energy you have left inside of you, you exert all of that to defend this poor girl — and the sanctity of this place.

“Are you always this much of a dick or only to people you think are beneath you?”

The man — tall, brunette, blue eyes, a classic all-American clad in an MIT t-shirt, looking like he bathes in daddy’s money — has the audacity to look taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“I’m asking if you take pleasure in bitching at people who get paid minimum wage to serve douchebags like you overpriced coffee every day.”

Blue Eyes gapes at you. It’s a shame, really. He would’ve been just your type if he weren’t such a dick. That’s the regrettable thing about men — they have mouths.

“I’m not—” he begins, having the decency to get somewhat flustered. His eyes fly around the room to find pairs of curious, judgmental eyes on him. His lips twist in irritation but he manages to grit out, “I just want my actual coffee order.”

“Then ask for it,” you snap, “you don’t need to pull a Shakespearean soliloquy to get a fucking frappuccino.”

“Black coffee,” he corrects.

“Of course it is,” you roll your eyes. “Now, can you ask politely or do I need to start my own monologue about the detrimental effects of men in society?”

He gives you a satisfying wince. “No, you don’t need to do that.” He turns to Evelyn, the barista. “Can I get my correct order?” He only glances at you because you’re searing him with a look, which ends up with him adding, “Please.”

Now, when the two of you tell your separate group of friends that this is the story of how you met, no one would believe you — not with the way the two of you are joined at the hip. You bicker, you argue, you get into hours-long debates at house parties about the ethics of Greek life.

But afterwards, you can also say without a doubt that Scott is a friend.

A friend who you then proceed to drunkenly fuck one night at his frathouse.

A friend who you swear you would never fuck again afterwards.

A friend who you, that same night, decide to fuck. Again. Thrice.

You hate to give credence to his reputation on the MIT campus, especially as an outsider who doesn’t go here, but you understand why there are constantly women throwing themselves at him.

You tell yourself that this is all in good fun; your last couple of youthful years before selling yourself to the American healthcare system for the greater good should be spent doing the worst humanly possible things to yourself.

If that means fucking Scott every chance you get, having him stretch you out over every possible surface, his hand over your mouth to muffle your cries, a packed house be damned, then so be it.

Truth be told, you don’t expect things to go anywhere with Scott. The two of you come from vastly different worlds with vastly different dreams. It’s not a tragedy. You two are simply star-crossed, never meant to be lovers.

Scott complains to you about how his parents are constantly trying to set him up with debutantes — the crème de la crème of society — for him to marry; all the while you’re still tucked to his side, naked limbs tangled between each other.

You don’t acknowledge the ache that pulses in the left side of your chest. It shouldn’t matter at the end of the day because friends don’t stay friends forever, let alone lovers.

And you and Scott are not lovers.

However, you do have to reckon with the consequences of your decisions and the implication of your feelings when you find yourself with your head in the toilet, breakfast swirling down the drain for the third time that week. You have to really reckon with Lady Luck punishing you when you realize that you’re weeks late on your cycle, too caught up with school and Scott to notice.

When the two pink lines appear, your fear has reduced your inevitable shock into ashes.

Your first thought is that you have to tell Scott. There isn’t a doubt who the father is since you haven’t been with anyone else since him. This feels like a decision the two of you have to make together; you’re both adults and you should be able to have a professional, rational conversation.

That’s what you tell yourself all the way to his place, body moving on autopilot tracing back the path to his lush apartment near his campus. You barely acknowledge Jimmy, Scott’s very kind doorman, when you take the elevator to his floor.

Not once in the entirety of your… acquaintanceship have you ever been nervous to see Scott. But now your hands are trembling and you suppose it’s from the fact that you have a fucking unplanned pregnancy.

You don’t have time to fully process what that means when Scott swings open the door, and the first thing you see is the suitcase popped open on the floor with clothes haphazardly thrown into it.

Swallowing the bundle of nerves in your throat, you raise an eyebrow in question. “Going somewhere?”

“Head to my uncle’s in Oklahoma for the long weekend.”

“Oklahoma?” You close the door behind you as he begin to fusses with his clothes again.

“Yeah, he’s a real estate developer buying up a shit ton of land down there. Thinking about connecting it with storm chasing. He’s expanding quickly so figured I’d see what it’s like. ”

Your stomach sinks, dread tightening your chest. “The job or Oklahoma?”

He shrugs, completely unaware of your spiraling mind. “Both.”

“You’d really give up your cushy doorman apartment for tornadoes and motels?”

His lips curl into a smirk and your stupid heart is quick to hammer in your ear. Curse him and those deep dimples. “Sweetheart, you know I was born and raised in the south.”

Oh, you know. There’s a reason why that tinge of an accent goes straight between your legs every time he’s upset. “I don’t think a metropolitan like Dallas is the same thing.”

While Scott busies himself with packing again, you splay out on his bed, eyes on the bare ceiling as you try to calm your thundering pulse. You really shouldn’t be this stressed. There are ways out of this — options that two of you can take regardless of what you decide.

Hey, Scott, I’m pregnant. Yes, your child. Am I sure? Yes, you shithead, I haven’t fucked anyone else in months.

Oh, by the way, I’m also probably in love with you, but that’s a secondary problem to the human growing inside me. Thoughts?

“Did you need something?” His voice rips you out of your head.

Your heart rate hasn’t eased, but you have to do it now. So you turn on your side, propping your head up as your belly twists with apprehension. You open your mouth but then you notice the look in his eyes. You know that look all too well; it’s the trigger to all of your bad decisions, including but not limited to being bent over the bathroom sink with all of your friends on the other side of the door and risking arrest for public indecency on a public beach on spring break last week.

His eyes trail over the exposed sliver of skin where your shirt has ridden up, his hands abruptly dropping a shirt to reach over and drag his calloused palm over your hip. He slides it to your back, onto that little dip on your spine. He doesn’t say it out loud, but he likes the way you automatically arch towards him when he does it — like right now.

He hums and squeezes your waist to prompt you.

“Nothing,” you blurt out, flipping over so you’re facing his window instead. The city looks beautiful this time of day, sunset casting a golden glow across the architecture, painting it in the shades of the sun.

You hear him shuffle behind you before the mattress sinks with his weight. He smooths a hand over the curve of your waist again, fingers spreading out across your stomach. “You’re thinkin’ about something.”

With a deep breath, you test the waters. “Just the future, the usual.”

“What about the future?” His fingers brush your hair to the side as his lips cling to your neck.

“Work, family, friends,” you pause, chest squeezing, “kids.”

“Kids?” He snorts softly, “Where is this coming from? Never heard you talking about them before.”

Stay calm. You roll over to playfully glare at him. “I’m not getting any younger, so I have to think about these things today.”

“Or in a few years once you get your license and settle into the hospital,” Scott cocks an eyebrow. Your lips thin and he relents. “Alright, so kids, what about them?”

This is it. “Have you thought about them? Whether you, um, want them?”

Scott tilts his head deeper into his pillow. “I don’t think so. Not anytime soon at least. Kids are a hassle and I’m too young for that. Still have to go out there, make money, chase dreams and what not. I can barely take care of myself, let alone another human being.”

His chuckle is drowned out by the sudden persistent ringing echoing in your ear. He must sense it, feels your body going taut next to him.

“What about you?” He murmurs.

If he had asked you a few months ago, you would’ve scoffed and called him crazy. You too have your own dreams to pursue, the world to change and all that. But now, when you know that there’s something else growing inside you, you find that you don’t have the answer to that.

You’re not part of the crowd that thinks aborting this baby would mean murder, but you also never thought that you would be carrying something so special so early. While Scott’s answer isn’t surprising, your reaction to it is — your rationale had been simple: if Scott says no, then you wouldn’t go forward with the pregnancy. If he said yes, then you would have to consider it more seriously.

Scott’s answer is loud and clear, yet you don’t feel so settled with your own.

“Hey, you alright? What’s going on with you?” Concern stitched to the furrow of his brows.

You laugh, your throat feeling a little tight. “Probably just pre-period thoughts.”

He relaxes at that, rolling his eyes. “Women—” you pinch him and he yelps, chuckling. “I’m kidding. I can pack later. Let’s go pick up a pint of that strawberry cheesecake ice cream you like.”

The corners of your lips tip up as he pushes himself off the bed and offers you a hand. “Since when are you so nice to me?”

“I’m nice when I want to get laid.”

You don’t bite back the urge to roll your eyes.

So you’re a coward, sue you. While Scott finishes packing for his flight, you fall asleep in his silk sheets. Slipping in between the edges of consciousness, you feel Scott tuck in behind you, a kiss pressed to the back of your head as you finally give in to slumber.

Afterwards, you tell yourself that you have two months to make a decision. Two months until graduation, that’s your deadline.

A big part of you wants to tell him so you can stop lying about how you won’t be drinking tonight because you’re still hungover from some other party that you never went to. You’re exhausted from biting your tongue when he invites you for sushi, your favorite meal.

“I’m paying,” he insists for the third time.

You yawn, feeling the twinges of nausea rearing its head at the thought of it.

“You never turn down sushi.”

However, you also realize that telling him would be selfish. Despite his reputation, the man has a strong sense of responsibility to finish what he starts. In this case, it would be you. You can’t fathom him feeling like he has to stay here, that he has to be with you, that he has to give up his dreams. For you. He would hate you — if not now, then in the future.

Even worse when you imagine him telling you that he would never, ever do this with you — specifically you. After all, he has many bachelorettes lining up at his doorstep who are likely more than happy to wait a few years to start a family with him.

You’re not sure you’re prepared for that.

With every day that passes, the truth is shoved further down your throat, fear overtaking it.

Before you know it, you’re standing at the airport with him. He wrangles you into a Scott-like hug: one-armed, stiff, a click of his tongue like it’s inconvenient for him to show affection.

“You’re gonna be good, right?”

You scowl, “I’m not a dog.”

His mouth curves up, teeth peeking in his smirk. “Not even gonna turn around thrice and bark for me for my last day?”

“Are you trying to get on your flight in a body bag?”

He’s silent then for a moment, looking at you. Everything blurs around the two of you, noise muffled like you’re in a bubble and all you can hear is his long exhale. “This isn’t forever, you know. I’ll come visit when I finally need you to pump my lungs of all the dirt I’ll be inhaling.”

“Gonna cost you.”

“Wouldn’t expect any less.”

The two of you leave it at that. You could say more. I’ll miss you. I love you. Come back. Stay. But you say none of it. Part of you thinks that Scott knows, part of you hopes he doesn’t. This is his big moment. His future. A picture-perfect frame and you’ve been cut out from the canvas. 

“We’ll keep in touch,” Scott shrugs with a promise.

Your hand flies to your stomach on instinct. You can practically feel that silent heartbeat. If you keep this baby, you can’t possibly hide it from him.

If you can’t hide it from him, he may hate you.

And that’s not something you can ever bear.

So you smile and nod — and you let him go.

To say it’s been a long day would be an understatement. Starting your morning with a hundred unread emails followed by a series of difficult patients (one of which sneezed on you for good measure) and then a last-minute, dreaded ping at four from one of the study sponsors looking for data — all on a Friday no less.

What you need is some hot tea, a long massage, and preferably your phone buried six feet under. A place where you won’t be able to hear the constant calling of your name.

“Girl, are you ever going to leave?” Jenna pops her head in. “You need to go and get ready.”

You peer down at your sleeveless blouse and slacks. “Why cna’t I go to dinner in this?”

She gives you a look, a bone-chillingly disapproving one. “Get your ass out of here and I’ll come pick you up. We’re going out out.”

Given that this is a planned outing, you shouldn’t feel so miserable about it. You’ve even planned it all out — your mom takes Ben until Sunday, which neither of them mind because they adore each other — and you finally get one night to yourself to do whatever you wanted and an extra day to recover. It’s the first time in four years you’ve actually had time.

Don’t get you wrong. Your body created the miracle that is your son. Beautiful, bright Ben. Sweet, kind-hearted Ben who inherited none of his parents’ terrible tempers and foul personalities. You couldn’t have asked for a better pregnancy, better birth, or better child.

It’s the first time you’ve been away for him for a personal outing. Usually, it’s some sort of work emergency; what constitutes a work emergency as a research coordinator, you’ll never know but the higher-ups love the dramatics of making everything sound like life or death.

Jenna, your colleague and probably the closest person you consider a friend, swings by your place an hour earlier than promised.

You’re still not fully ready.

“I knew you were going to drag your feet through this,” she sighs and drops an armful of clothes onto your couch.

“I’m not dragging my feet, I just have nothing to wear.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m here.”

Jenna has always had a knack for convincing people to do things they never wanted to do in the first place. For example, this is how you find yourself squirming uncomfortably throughout the night, wiggling to adjust the skirt lower down your thighs. However, when you do so, it ends up hanging too low on your hips, showing more skin than you’d like.

“Will you quit fidgeting?” she huffs as she pulls you through the crowd, “You look hot.”

“I look like I’m attempting a mating call with a freshman with a fifty-dollar fake,” you grunt.

She giggles. “Well, if you want to play cougar, I do see some college kids who have been eye-fucking you since you stepped in.” She nods her head in the direction of a group of boys who are in fact staring at the two of you, expressions a little too salacious for your liking.

“They’re looking at you,” you note pointedly.

Jenna is the the perfectly balanced combination spicy, smart, and sweet. At least two doctors and more than a fistful of residents follow her around like puppies around the hospital. She has them on leashes.

“That’s because my tits look great in this dress,” she grins. “Come on, let’s get some shots.”

In hindsight, ripping three shots back to back when you haven’t drank like since college is a terrible idea. It hits you hard and fast, but it was much needed to avoid crinkling your nose at the pile of sweaty bodies on the floor. You dance with Jenna for the most part, you let a few people buy you drinks, and… you’re having a good time.

Sometimes, you miss this part of you — the one that isn’t a mom. You love being Ben’s mother but at the same time, you have to relearn what it means to be you.

While this may not be you forever, this is a piece of you that feels like coming home. At least, that’s what you think when you feel much looser with the liquor in your veins. Jenna twirls you on the floor and you laugh, barely paying any mind to the pinching of these knee-high boots or the fact that you’re showing more skin than you have these past few years.

She spins you around again — except this time, your balance is already walking a fine line, so you end up stumbling into a wall.

Shit, not a wall. Said wall is moving.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” you blurt out, hand to your chest to prevent your tits from spilling out of this top. The last thing you need on your first night out is to be arrested for flashing a stranger. You’re straightening to look for Jenna when you hear your name.

Not only your name but it’s your name. Your name said in a way that has fireworks exploding in the pit of your stomach. Your name in a way that knocks the breath right out of your lungs.

Because it’s your name coming out of the mouth, with the voice of, the one person you thought you would never see again.

Scott’s eyes are wide when you finally lock gazes.

“You—” he starts then stops. “Holy shit.”

“W-what are you doing here?” You gasp.

“I’m out with, um, the guys,” he says, but his eyes never blink. Neither do yours. You almost want to, hoping this is some sick nightmare and you’re going to wake up in bed with a filthy hangover that takes you out for the day.

On the other hand, it’s Scott — and he looks good. Too good. His hair is a little longer, curling at the base of his neck. His eyes shine fifty different shades of blue with the flashing lights. His strong brows are furrowed into that familiar frown, one that has heat gathering between your legs. He’s got a suit on that seems to stretch for miles over his shoulders, top buttons of his shirt undone to reveal his pretty collarbones and that gleam of a silver chain.

You can’t be here. You can’t do this.

“Right, okay. I’ll leave you to it then.” You’re turning on your heel and you’ve barely made it forty-five degrees before his large hand wraps around your elbow.

“Wait, hold on,” he calls out, tugging you back towards him, your back landing against his front as you stumble backwards. He ducks his head towards your ear to make sure he’s heard but all you can feel is the ghost of his warm breath tickling your skin. “Where are you going?”

You try to extract yourself from him but his grip is firm, now on your hips. “I’m here with a friend. I need to go find her.”

“I’ll go with you.”

You absolutely do not want that. It must show on your face because then he’s scoffing, frown morphing into a disgruntled scowl.

“Is that how you greet a friend you haven’t seen in years?”

Instead of deigning him with a response, giving him the satisfaction of your annoyance, you wordlessly turn and make your way through the crowd. Scott is close behind, you can feel his height looming over you. He’s got a protective arm out to push away anyone who even comes close to touching you, charting a path through this Red Sea.

Jenna is on someone’s lap when you find her. She drags her eyes away from an unfairly attractive man when she spots you. You narrow your eyes at the man before turning back to your friend. “Are you good?”

“Peachy,” she beams. Her attention on you is short-lived when it wanders to Scott who’s hovering around you like a chaperone. “I see you’ve found your entertainment for the night as well,” she winks, eyes practically glittering as she wiggles her brows at you. “I’ll catch you at work Monday?”

Well. That’s your cue to go home. With one final press to make sure she’s okay, Jenna waves you off.

“Your friend’s having much more fun, maybe you should consider doing that for yourself,” Scott whispers in your ear, head ducked to reach your ear. “I could volunteer myself for that position.”

Whirling around, you trap him with a burning glare, which he only grins at.

There’s no way in hell you’re getting into this clusterfuck tonight. Not when you’re still half-convinced that you’re dreaming this up. So you turn back around and start marching towards the exit.

Unfortunately, he continues to follow you. He doesn’t even do anything except stick close to your tail. For some reason, that only pisses you off even more. Maybe if you will him away with your mind, you’ll turn around to find him gone. Because he can’t be here. Why the fuck is he even here?

“Why the fuck are you here?” You snap now that you’re on the quiet sidewalk. The music inside is muffled, leaving you alone with your heart beating in your ears and Scott’s stupid smirk plastered across his face.

He leans back against the railing, arms crossed over his chest. You can see how the cotton of his shirt stretches across his wide chest. Jesus, did he get bigger? How is that even possible? The worst part is the amused look printed onto his face, dimples carved out deep. “I’m doing a talk — at MIT.”

Of course, he is. You shouldn’t be surprised. You’d never admit it to him but you have been keeping up with him in the news. He’s been building a startup with advanced technology focusing on disaster resilience combined with real estate development. While you don’t know the full mechanics, you know he’s successful enough to be nailing government and corporate contracts, landing himself on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

You could also lie and say that his face is everywhere, but you really had to look him up to find anything about him.

“So why aren’t you talking? At MIT. Why are you here?”

Scott shrugs, “I reached out to the guys to catch up. I would’ve reached out to you too if I had your number.”

You stiffen, chancing a look at his face to find pure irritation. He has every right to be, but you also had your reasons for doing what you did — he just doesn’t know it.

A gust of wind whips past your bare legs, the chill settling on your shoulders. Boston is unforgiving this time of year so you quickly shrug on your jacket. However, you can still the weight of his gaze rolling over the length of you, slow and warm. His steely blue eyes look almost onyx with the way he drinks you in, dragging across your exposed collarbones down to your bare legs.

“What are you doing here?” He asks coolly.

“Out. With a friend.”

His lips tighten around the corners — slightly, only enough for you to notice. “What, to pick up guys?”

“No,” you scowl, “just for a good time.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Having a good time?”

You were — until him. “Fabulous time,” you sarcastically sigh as you pull out your phone, readying yourself to call a car home.

But your movements halt when you feel warmth soak your entire body, your breath hitching in your throat. Scott’s buried his face in your neck, his front against your back, nose tracing the column of your neck, palms splayed over your stomach.. His teeth graze your skin, eliciting a trained shiver out of you.

“How about we have a better time elsewhere?”

“No,” you swallow, “we shouldn’t.”

“Come on, you don’t miss me?” Scott slides his hands higher, enough for his thumb to brush the underside of your breasts. “We used to have fun, didn’t we?”

“Scott, no,” you protest, but you sound frail even in your ears.

“Why not?” He murmurs, lips placing soft, wet kisses against the back of your ear. Your head tilts on instinct, granting him more access as he nibbles down your neck.

“You’re drunk.”

He chuckles, “‘M so fuckin’ sober. I got a shot in when you bumped into me.”

“Then you should go back in there, go have a good time.”

“Found something more fun to do tonight,” he smiles against your skin. “Well, someone.”

His hands drift a little higher, cupping your tits and squeezing. The groan he lets out molds with yours as you resist another whimper crawling up your throat. “We’re outside,” you hiss.

“Never stopped us before.”

The more warm kisses he presses onto your skin, the weaker your resolve becomes. Your body moves on its own accord, leaning back against his chest while your own rises with a stuttered breath.

“Come with me. Promise I’ll make you feel good. Just like old times.”

“Scott…”

He knows — by the way you say his name — that you’ve given in. He doesn’t give you a moment to hesitate, squeezing your hip and keeping you close as he calls a car. His hand stays on you, toying with your nipples until you’re grinding your ass back against the erection under his slacks.

He hasn’t even kissed you, not properly at least. His lips stay on the pulse point on your neck, nipping lightly as his hands settle possessively around your waist. Even in the car, he hoists you over to his side, a thick arm wrapped around your waist to hold you hostage against him. When his other hand travels up to bury in your hair, he yanks on it just enough to have you gasping.

“Always so sensitive,” he whispers with a grin, “so responsive for me.”

“Fuck you,” you mutter weakly.

His breath is warm as he chuckles into your hair.

The car pulls up in front of some posh-looking hotel. You don’t have a moment to guess how much this place costs a night — nor do you want to, the number would likely break your heart. His hand is wrapped around yours, tight, like he’s making sure you don’t try to make a run for it, as he pulls you stumbling through the lobby.

Scott invades every single one of your senses when he corners you in the elevator. He bites down on his moan when he dips his head, nose nuzzling into the curve of your chin as he takes a deep inhale. His exhale quivering.

“You still wear the same perfume,” he notes, sounding almost pleased.

“Creature of habit,” you mutter, hands finding purchase on his biceps in an attempt to stay upright. Your knees feel a little weak with the proximity, with how much heat his body is radiating.

He’s barely swiped through the door and you’ve barely had the chance to close it before Scott is pinning you against the door and slanting his lips over yours. The first kiss knocks you right off your feet and Scott is quick to catch you and hold you up against the door — one hand on the back of your neck and the other on your waist.

He breathes you in as his tongue strokes your bottom lip. He tastes like a mix of vodka, sugar, and a hint of bittersweet nostalgia. The way he moves his mouth is familiar, you’re drawing on muscle memory to remember how you used to kiss. How to move your mouths in sync with the rhythm of your heartbeat.

You swallow his hungry groans as his hands explore you all over, sliding up your curves to push off your jacket before venturing south again to cup your ass from underneath your skirt. “This fucking outfit,” he snarls low, “never seen you wear anything like this before. So fuckin’ tiny, I could see your ass walking behind you.”

“J-Jenna’s,” you clarify breathlessly. “My friend’s.”

“And this goddamn top — I could peek down your chest the entire time we were there. Wanted to rip this off you so I could play with these pretty tits,” he murmurs, kissing his way along your jaw and down your neck. “Then this—” he squeezes your ass, “if I saw one more person try to get a peek, I would’ve bent you over the bar and fucked you then and there to show them that none of them have a shot. Not them. It’s only going to be me.”

Your response dies in your throat when he begins to suck light bruises onto your skin, pain blooming in concentrated spots across your skin. He’s always been territorial, leaving one mark after another to deter anyone else from coming close.

While you usually enjoy the slow build, the persistent ache between your legs demands otherwise.

“Come on, just fuck me already.”

“So goddamn impatient,” he snips but picks you up, legs wrapping around his waist. Your body slips a little lower and you can feel the bulge in his pants poking against your own core. Your panties pressed directly against the thickness, which leaves very little to the imagination. “So fuckin’ hard,” Scott grunts, “started getting a chub the moment I saw you. Then I saw you walking from behind, this gorgeous ass just swaying like you’re teasin’ me. Then you gave me that mean look you’ve got and I’ve never been so fucking hard in my life.”

“You’re such a freak,” you huff in a laugh

“Takes one to know one.” Scott backs you into the hotel room, letting you fall back against the bed as he tucks himself between your legs dangling off the edge. His eyes roam over you, exploring every inch of your exposed skin. You’re fresh meat and Scott is starving.

He leans forward, a single index finger starting at the outer corner of your breast where it’s pushed up by your corset and journeys over the trim of your top. You hold your breath, back arching slightly into his touch. “I can’t believe you were out like this. Dressed like a fuckin’ slut. I don’t even wanna know how many guys out there imagined fucking your tits.”

It’s demeaning, you should tell him off. But this is Scott and he knows exactly what you like and — god, do you like this. A whimper climps past your lips instead, a needy little sound that has him smiling to himself.

“But I’m the only one who gets to do that tonight. Isn’t that right, sweetheart? You don’t spread your legs for anyone else.”

“Do you ever s-shut up?” You snap, voice frayed to betray the desire thumping in your chest. His hands slide underneath you, settling on your lower spine, as your body rises instinctively to his touch. He drags the zipper of your corset down, peeling it off you and casting it aside.

Scott straightens again, tilting his head as he takes you in from his vantage point.

His gaze burns uncomfortably. He doesn’t say a word and, for the first time with Scott, you feel… shy. Hands fly to your stomach as burning embarrassment sears like a branded mark on your skin. He takes a deep breath and his sweet time outlining the shape of you like he’s recreating a sketch of you in his mind.

“You’ve changed.”

Your heart sinks. The two simple words sting more than they should. Pregnancy changed your body. While you know that it’s created a miracle, it’s survived and remained strong, you also know that you aren’t the same. Softer, more lines stretching across your stomach. Your muscles haven’t survived your long hours at the hospital. You just never thought it would hurt this much for him to point it out.

But you know better than to take this kind of disrespect. If he no longer finds you attractive, you know that you could very easily find another man to satisfy you.

You try to wiggle away from him as your face shifts in aggravation. “Well, I have. So, if you don’t like it, I’m going to go because I don’t fucking need this from—”

“Hold on, never said I didn’t like it,” he murmurs, grabbing both your wrists and pinning them above you. He ducks forward again, nose brushing against your jawline. He breathes you in, you can hear him gulp. “Fuck, you look so good, sweetheart. Sexier. Something about you. Even better than I remember — and shit, do I remember you. Thought about you far too much.”

Oh. “Really?”

He pulls away slightly, eyes searching yours as his lips curl into that smirk. “Really. Every night, with my fist wrapped around my cock, imaginin’ it was this tight cunt of yours wrapped around me. I remember how it would squeesze so sweet like you’re trying to choke my dick.”

“You’re so crass,” you roll your eyes.

“You’re tellin’ me that that doesn’t turn you on?” He grins, hand stroking up your inner thighs until he finds your center, fingers nudging the damp gusset of your panties to the side as he dips in between your slick folds. “Knowing that I get off thinking about you. Thinking about this perfect cunt of yours and the way you’d pulse around me, milkin’ me dry every time you cum. It’s like this pussy was made for me.”

On cue, you tighten around him, breath hitching in your throat with his filthy words.

“Yeah, she likes that,” he chuckles, “shit, did you get tighter? I don’t remember you being this stiff. It’s gonna be tough getting me in, baby. Gonna have to stretch you out and it’s gonna fuckin’ hurt.”

You clench again at the thought, a moan bubbling up your throat. Well, seeing as you haven’t slept with anyone in years, it’s not a surprise. But you’d never tell Scott that — you don’t want to think about all the other people he’s fucked since the two of you split.

“We’ll make it fit, we always do,” he coos and you don’t block the roll of your eyes, pulling another amused sound from his lips. “Still got that attitude,” he shakes his head, hands squeezing around your wrists, “Don’t worry. I’ll fuck it out of you soon.”

Scott drags down your underwear, flinging it somewhere around the room. You’re about to scold him but the only thing that comes out of your mouth is a broken whine as he stuffs two fingers into you. The slide in is humiliatingly easy with how wet you are, but his thick fingers still stretch out your taut insides.

“Jesus,” he mutters, “won’t even let me in, huh? Have you been takin’ care of her, sweetheart?”

Heat pools low in your stomach and rises to your face. He pushes in and out of you slowly at first, blue eyes staying on you to watch you squirm, watch your body shift off the bed. He mutters something about still the fuckin’ same as he prods his fingers into you, testing out different angles to see which ones make you tick — like he’s relearning how to please you.

He realizes that it takes no time at all to do so because you still move the way he expects you too, especially when he brushes up against that spongy area inside you that wrestles a noise that mixes a gasp and a moan from your lips. Through the hazy blur of your vision, you spot a proud smile dancing on his lips as he continues to push and push until you’re panting desperately underneath him.

Every drag of his fingers along your cunt feels like the strike of a match that sets your entire body on fire. He sets off flames in different parts of your body, all the while he’s still holding you down with just one hand. His head ducks to take a nipple into his mouth and sets your entire being ablaze. The two actions combined are enough to have you sweating over the risk of cumming too fast, too hard.

You’ll be damned if you finish in under two minutes with him.

Another curl of his fingers has you resetting that bar to at least one minute.

“Scott, please,” you rasp.

“Please what, sweetheart?”

“You know what.”

“Use your big girl words,” he tuts softly, “you can do it. I wnat to hear you ask for it.”

Your brows descend in a vexed glare. “Why are you suck a prick?”

“Because it fucking turns you on,” Scott grins, “and because you like my dick.”

You can’t help it, you poke because that’s what you do with him. “I can find good dick elsewhere.”

His fingers stop moving inside you, his body completely still as he levels you with a stare that sends a shiver slithering up your spine. His jaw clenches, white fury masked by his terrifyingly composed expression. “You wanna run that by me again?”

Your mouth feels like sandpaper now, snippy response scraped away to death on your tongue.

He pushes his fingers in deeper, drawing out a cry from your chest. “Think you can get good dick anywhere, sweetheart? Is that why you’re so fucking tight? Have you been spreading your legs for anyone?”

“Fuck you.”

“I thought you had better taste. Clearly, none of them could stretch you out the way you like. You fuckin’ like it when it hurts, when it burns so good you can taste it on your tongue,” he mocks, hand releasing your wrists to grab your jaw. He applies just enough pressure to have your cheeks aching, but that pain only has you clenching around his fingers, stomach twisting with stupid need. “Look at you,” he chuckles, gripping you harder, “gettin’ so tight around me before I even stick my dick in you. Filthy slut just likes bein’ treated like one. Maybe I should stuff that mouth so you stop running it — don’t need you to talk, just need to hear those desperate little sounds you make when I fuck you good.”

Your chest sings with shame when all you can do is take his words. But you take what he gives because he only gives you what you can take; he knows exactly what to say to rile you up, to tip you over the edge, have you seething and dripping between your legs. Even after years, he still knows your body best.

Except now, he has a touch more of that southern drawl that you’ve always adored but could never get enough of.

“She just squeezed me again, sweetheart.” His eyes twinkle with delight. “Why don’t you put yourself out of your misery and just ask me?”

Your lips pinch and Scott pushes deeper, eyes fluttering when he feels you tighten around him again. He can feel your control slipping away, pride curling deep into your chest to hide.

“Fuck me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “That it?”

“Please.”

He's biting back a laugh, lips curving just a little more. “Attagirl, there’s your manners. Was that so hard? Guess I haven’t been around to teach you how to be polite with me.”

Your chest throbs with a mix of disgrace and need again. He pulls out his fingers, watches them glisten with your juices underneath the room’s warm lights. Then, with his eyes locked on yours, he slides them over his tongue and closes his lips around it. He sucks on it hungrily, moan muffled as he laves at them to savor.

“Tastes a little different too,” he hums, “maybe I just missed you too much. Missed this pretty pussy.”

Maybe if you weren’t so focused on getting him to fuck you, you might’ve noticed a strange something laced into his syllables — something you may mistake as hurt.

But that wouldn’t be possible because Scott Miller doesn’t get hurt. He takes and throws away like it’s nobody’s business, only thinking about what would be beneficial for him until it no longer has a use. He’s untouchable, always has been.

Before you can process even a hint of it, you feel Scott sliding his cock along your pussy lips, wet with juices that can’t seem to stop leaking all over his sheets. “Makin’ such a mess already,” he grunts, tip poised at your entrance.

You nudge your hips lower in an attempt to encourage him to move faster, but his palm presses down on your hips as he gives you a scalding look.

“Behave.”

Your legs press together around his hips. He feels it. But you do as you’re told.

“Good girl,” he sighs as he slowly pushes himself in. The initial burn has your eyes rolling to the back of your head, like fire between your legs as you let out a cry with how much he’s opening you up. His cock parts through you like a spear and your breath catches in your throat as he finally buries himself all the way in. “Fuck, sweetheart,” he hisses, “you’re so goddamn tight. Feels like that first time. Like you’ve never been fucked in your life.”

“B-been a while,” you stutter, the confession slipping out before you can stop it.

Scott’s hands on your hips drag you closer to the edge until your ass is against his hips, he pushes your legs up against your chest, feet thrown over his shoulders. “I can tell. You’re such a good girl for me, baby. Been saving yourself for me? Have you been thinking about me too?”

You’d die before you give him the satisfaction. Because you have, but you’ll never tell him how many times you’ve come undone with the memory of him alone. Filthy words he’d whisper in your ear toiling around your brain until you can practically hear him right next to you. Promises that have you gasping for air before you’re thrown over the edge of desire.

“Perfect pussy, she’s takin’ me so well,” he moans, deep and guttural, as he begins to ease himself in and out of you. He starts off with a slow pace before building a steady rhythm that painstakingly stretches you out around his cock. With every thrust, he stretches you out just a fraction more, each time slightly easier than the last until the burn dissolves into warmth blooming between your legs.

Scott’s still watching you; with every jerk of his hips, he intentionally angles himself to hit all the right spots that have you crying out for more, your fingers tangling in the sheets. It’s as if he’s drawing out a map of you, marking x wherever he finds a winning piece. He knows exactly how fast to fuck you to have you gasping and crying, tears leaking down your face until you can taste the salt on your tongue. He knows exactly how slow to go to have you begging him, desperate sounds falling from your lips until he has no choice but to show you mercy.

He knows that telling you you’ve got a cunt like a virgin would have you squeezing around him. He knows that praising you for being such a good pussy for him would have you arching off the bed with your eyes slammed shut.

He just knows and that thought scares you more than anything.

“Fuck, I missed this pussy. Nothing else could compare, you know. Tried to, trust me. Every time, I can only cum thinking about your leaking cunt, always drooling all over my fat cock, thinking about you sobbing underneath me until I kiss away those pretty tears. I couldn’t stop picturing feeding her my cock, stretching her out until you’re whining like a bitch in heat,” Scott growls as he picks up his thrusts, sliding in easier, faster now that your arousal has paved the path in for him.

You should be offended by his words, the feminist in you wanting to tell him off for such ridiculously degrading words, but all they do is add fuel to the fire. You haven’t felt this good in so long and you don’t think—

“Wait, fuck,” you blurt out, fingers latching onto his bicep. “Scott, condom.”

Scott freezes, like deer in headlights. “Condom? We’ve never fucked with a condom.”

“I know,” you bite out but again say, “condom.”

There’s a vein pulsing on his forehead, the last shred of his self-restraint hanging on by a thread. He looks more inconvenienced than anything. “Did you get off the pill?”

“N-no, but just wanna be careful.”

Scott laughs, nudging his cock deeper. “Why are you worrying? It’s ninety-nine percent effective.”

Well, apparently, you’re part of that one percent of failure.

He sees that you still look conflicted and he lets out a frustrated exhale. “I don’t have condoms. Haven’t carried it around with me in forever.”

“I need to fuck this pussy, sweetheart. I’m not letting that pretty head of yours change your mind. Not gonna go outside just to get condom. I’ll just pull out.”

“That shit does not always work!”

“Neither does a condom!”

Fuck, he makes a good point.

Scott slowly begins fucking you again, chipping away at the walls you’ve slammed up. “Promise I’ll pull out when I cum. Won’t do it inside you. No matter how much I want to cream inside this pussy, just like I used to.”

Your stomach flips with that admission.

“Remember how I used to fill you up? God, I can still see white leakin’ out of this cunt. I loved cumming inside you in the morning, you could never get all the cum out so you’d be dripping with me. Could smell you when I fucked you again after too.”

Shit, he knows your resolve is down to nothing when he pumps faster into you. He doesn’t need you to confirm what he already knows. He returns to fucking you with fervor. His hips are eager as they chase after yours, slamming against you as his cock fucks all rational thought from your mind. He leans forward, pressing you deeper into the mattress until all his weight is squeezing the breath from your lungs. It only intensifies the pleasure, his cock sliding in with a trail of fire as he kisses your calves.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he coaxes, “give it to me. I know you wanna cum. I can feel you tightening around me.”

More moans tumble from your lips as you babble your agreement, words slurring together in an incoherent mess.

“Give it to me. Let her go. I wanna see you fall apart on my cock, want you remember that no one else can make you feel like this. Nobody can — or ever will — fuck you this good. This pussy’s mine and I’m gonna make sure she only remembers me, only takes the shape of my cock.”

You’re struggling for air as your chest constricts, wanton need burning all throughout your body.

“Cum for me, baby. Come on,” Scott grunts, punctuating each word with a thrust.

With a few more pumps of his cock, your stomach tightens, desire coiling tight until it snaps and your pleasure crests. It feels like you’re soaring, body trembling with the force of your orgasm as you clam down around him, legs shaking and pussy sucking him in deeper.

Your cunt continues to pulse as your descent from the high occurs painfully slow. But Scott’s not done. He just uses you at that point, treating you like a little pocket pussy to get himself off as he fucks dirty into you. He spreads your legs so he can see your tits bouncing with how fast he’s going. You can tell he’s close when his drives get sloppier, cock just fucking into you because he can. Then he’s quickly yanking himself out with a gasp, tilting his cock so that ropes of cum spill across your stomach, your tits, decorating the skirt with abstract splatters of white.

His hard cock twitches against his stomach as he holds himself up on the mattress, labored breaths weighing down on his chest.

Even in your weary state, you can’t help but giggle. “It’s been a while, huh, old man? Can’t keep up anymore?”

He tosses a glare your way. “Let’s not forget the last time I overstimulated you until you cried and begged for me to let you cum again. How many times was it? Five?”

Your cheeks warm at the memory. “That was years ago.”

His gaze softens, melts into something that has your heart squeezing. “Yeah, it was.” ith a groan, he pushes himself up and disappears into the bathroom, leaving you in the mess of his orgasm. When he comes back out, he’s got a warm, damp towel in hand that he’s using to clean you of the sticky mess. 

He raises your legs again to check on your pussy. 

“Does it hurt?”

You’re only mildly surprised by his concern, mostly because you haven’t been on the receiving end of it for a while. “No, I’m fine.”

“You sure? I went pretty hard.”

All you can do now is roll your eyes, using your foot to nudge his stomach. “I’m a big girl, Miller. I know what I can take.”

His lips twitch as he shakes his head, muttering something you don’t catch under his breath. He plops down next to you, eyes sliding shut as he lets himself sink into the bed. He drapes an arm over his eyes, stomach dipping as he exhales deeply.

The lines of his chest are still defined. If anything, his muscles are more evident now. Veins running along his biceps to display the progress he’s made while he was away. You didn’t realize how much he’s changed, how much broader he got, how there are more grays on his head than before. Jawline that was soft through the year that you knew him sharpened into a knife that slices straight through your chest.

You turn away from him, eyes glued to the ceiling. The moment Scott stepped back into your life, he rolled out a fog that clouded your judgment. Now that the haze has cleared, you’re lying in the consequences of your actions, you can’t help but let the remorse carve its place into your bones. You’re a fool if you think this time will be any different.

It took you one night — one night — to fall for his charm. One night for your years-long resolve to fall apart.

You thought you would feel differently about him now, that you could let these silly emotions fade into dust in his absence. However, your heart still beats the same way for him — a little faster, skipping a beat or two, but always towards him. The two of you still move in sync, like two pieces of the same puzzle finally slotting together.

But you’ve changed — or, you should’ve changed. You shouldn’t be this easy, not anymore. Not when there’s more at risk than just your heart.

The shame crashes over you in waves, pulling you under, and suddenly, you’re breathless. The air feels thin when you think of Ben — your son who doesn’t even know who his father is, who has been curious enough to ask once but kind enough not to ask twice.

An arm splaying across your thighs sends you crashing back to reality. He rumbles with eyes closed, “Sleep.”

Gently, you remove his arm as you come to your feet. You move swiftly, body functioning the same it always does — opting for flight rather than fight. You collect your panties and quickly tug them on under your skirt. Before you can reach for your top, a hand wraps around your arm.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna go.”

His confusion deepens. “Why?”

With a shrug, you pick up your corset from the floor and zip it back up. Scott steps in your path before you can make it to the entryway — still fully nude, cock half hard.

You force your eyes to stay on his face instead. “We fucked, we’re good, right?”

Annoyance flashes across his eyes. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“What else do you want from me, Scott?” You sigh.

You try to sidestep him but he moves faster. His shoulders stretch out to their full breadth as he straightens. “What if I want to fuck again later?”

“You’ve survived this long with your fist, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

For a moment, he doesn’t say a word. The silence lingers like a ghost between you. He looks conflicted, eyes shifting around the room like he can find the answer somewhere on the walls. “We haven’t seen each other in years and you’re flaking on me?”

It’s your turn to offer no response, mainly because you don’t have one.

“You disappear on me for years. I’m seeing you for the first time since we graduated and you can’t even be bothered to stay?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “I just really need to get home. I have to go to work tomorrow to wrap up a few things.”

“I can drive you.”

“I have no clothes.”

“We’ll leave early in the morning.”

“Scott.”

Your mind wanders to Ben, wondering what he’s doing right now, how you should be there with him — instead of here with the dad that he never knew.

“Alright. Let me drive you at least.”

He watches as your eyes get distracted again by his nude form before you, him completely shameless, maybe even smug that you still find yourself cross-eyed with him.

“No, I can find my own ride.”

When you manage to maneuver around him, Scott hooks a finger through one of your belt loops to yank you back, and you’re now facing his broad, bare chest, the light smattering of curls directly in your line of sight.

“Can I see you tomorrow then?”

He ducks his head so his lips brush over yours. You can feel that familiar dizziness tease the edges of your rational mind. He knows exactly what he’s doing, especially when you unconsciously lean towards him, like a moth to flame, Icarus who flew too close to the sun.

“Scott,” you whisper when he pulls back to mock you.

“You ever gonna tell me what happened? Why you left me high and dry. You disappeared from everywhere, couldn’t find you on anything,” Scott begins, “Then you went ahead and changed your number. I had no way to reach you.”

You don’t blame him for the bitterness that stains his voice. Even after you promised to stay in touch, the further along you were in your pregnancy, the more you realized that you couldn’t handle the guilt of lying to him. So you… simply stopped. Stopped responding to his texts. Stopped picking up his calls.

Once he ceased his efforts, you changed your number. You hoped he wouldn’t notice, that it would be a clean slate. Clearly, that isn’t the case.

“Can we talk about this another time? I’m exhausted and I’m sticky—”

“Use my shower. Sleep here. I’ll drive you home then to work in the morning.”

It’s a kind offer. Far too generous for a man whom you distanced yourself from. “You don’t have—”

“I want to,” he insists, “don’t be fucking difficult.”

“Tomorrow, alright. Please,” you plead one last time.

Scott’s blue eyes wash over you, searching for a sign of weakness. He must see the firm stubborn hold in your gaze, because you see him deflate in real time. “Fine. Give me your number.” You open your mouth, ready to extend some bullshit excuse, but he beats you to it.  “So help me god if you try to argue with me again, woman, I’m tying you to my bed.”

You know he’s serious. You can only relent and say that you’ll text him.

“Now.”

“Scott.”

“I’m not fucking around,” he snaps, “I’m not spending the time I have here trying to chase your ass down again.”

Again? You’re too tired to question it further so you pull out your phone, finding his contact — one that you haven’t touched in some time — and shoot him a quick message.

“Happy?”

“Delighted,” he bites back, baring his teeth at you.

You only roll your eyes. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m going to go.”

“Call a car.”

“‘Course, I will!”

He snorts. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have taken the T home.”

You’re about to argue again, but he knows you too well. The T would’ve saved you money, but certainly not time. Instead of replying, you say, “I’m going to go.”

Scott still seems none too pleased but lets you go.

As you cave to the pull of slumber that evening, your phone lights up with a message.

It was good seeing you tonight.

You’re a goddamn coward, that’s what you are. You don’t actually have to come into work the next day but you needed an out. Instead, you wake up that morning with an old friend — that jackhammering in your head commonly known as a hangover. 

Vices hit a little differently when you’re older, especially when you haven’t touched a drop of it in a while.

That goes for the drinks and Scott.

It feels like a fever dream when you wake up alone the next morning, you wanted to pretend like none of it ever happened. Like you didn’t meet your former fuck buddy slash friend slash father of your child at a club and went to his hotel with him as if no time had passed. 

Opening your phone to his text was the first slap of reality.

The second was when you look in the mirror to see the marks all over your neck like you’ve been mauled by a mountain lion.

Possessive fucker. 

Jenna’s message certainly isn’t helping either. Hope you had a great night ;) 

You did. You wish you didn’t but Scott somehow still knows you like the back of his hand and, if you had stayed, there would be no doubt that he would change your great night into a fantastic night.

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you quickly reply to her with an appropriately crude emoji. 

Scott — well, you do what you do best. You don’t respond.

You don’t reply when he asks you what time you get off work today.

You don’t reply when he sends a single question mark as a follow-up.

You definitely don’t reply when he says—

You’re going to ghost me again, aren’t you?

Instead of acknowledging the magnitude of your actions, you spend the weekend keeping yourself busy. Every time your mind veers to Scott and the messages left unanswered, you pick a new spot in the house to clean. 

By the time Ben returns on Sunday, the house is spotless.

Your mom looks at you suspiciously. “You cleaned.” 

“Yes,” you say before you turn to pepper wet kisses all over your baby. He giggles and his face scrunches up. “How was weekend with grandma?”

“We ate ice cream!”

It’s your mother’s turn to look guilty when you raise an eyebrow at her. “Is that so? How much ice cream?”

Ben, realizing what he’s just exposed, turns to his grandmother then back to you. He pinches his fingers together. “This much.”

“Mhmm, next time grandma gives you ice cream, I’m gonna remind her how much dental visits cost,” you coo, pinching his nose. 

He runs off to unpack his bags, which leaves you alone with your mother who is much too perceptive for her own good. 

“So, good weekend?”

“Good,” you brush off, glancing at your gleaming kitchen counter.

“Did you bring a man home?”

“Mother!” You gasp, “We are not talking about that.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re an adult, I’m sure the birds and the bees talk is no longer necessary. Not to mention protection, you’ve learned your lesson there.”

“Thanks,” you drawl.

“I’m just saying you look… good. Satisfied.” Your cheeks flame. “You know you’re allowed to have a life outside of all this. You’re still young and there’s still time to find love.”

Love, huh? Scott’s face appears in your mind with that stupidly attractive smirk. You shake your head. “Yes, Mom. I’m aware.” She stares skeptically at you. “I know. It was just a night of fun. I have responsibilities, can’t be reckless anymore.” 

“It was chance,” your mom murmurs, “you were never reckless.”

“The universe has picked her favorites and I’m not one of them,” you laugh, “but I think I milked my luck with Ben, can’t ask for a better kid. Hopefully he behaved?”

“He was an angel.” You nod, humming. “Are you not going to tell me about this man then?”

Groaning, you try to walk away from her but she follows you down the hall. “There’s nothing to tell and I didn’t bring him home.”

“Oh, you stayed at his?”

“No, I… went home.”

She lets out a little surprised noise. “That bad?”

No, that good. “I’m not discussing this with you further.” 

Monday sends you crashing back to earth. While you spent your Sunday recuperating with Ben, a calm day of eating vegetables to balance the treats and touching grass on the playground, being back in this office — this dreary reality reminds you that life really isn’t that swell.

It doesn’t help that Jenna pounces the moment you walk in, an endless stream of questions pouring out of her lips about the hottie you were with and if you got your brains fucked out of your head. You don’t satisfy her with a response, slipping into your office and locking it shut.

An office job coordinating and babysitting adults for the sake of science was never part of the plan, but plans change and you’ve learned to accept it. Now, you’re stretching to work out the crick in your neck as you do a doom scroll of the countless unread emails in your inbox.

You’re trapped in there for most of the day, vision beginning to blur when you have to squint at the screen to decipher the letters. However, the banging close to the end of the day has you jolting awake at your desk, knee slamming up against your table.

A curse slips past your lips as you hop over to open it. Jenna — wide-eyed and dangerously excited — grins like a cat that’s caught a mouse.

“Hottie alert.”

You look at her, unimpressed. “Please don’t involve me in your plans to cross professional boundaries. I don’t want HR to mark me as an accomplice.”

“No, I mean hottie — as in hottie from the club who gave you those hickeys that even your concealer can’t hide.”

Your hands fly to your neck, where the bruises pulse in demand of your attention. Warmth crawls across your face. You’ve spent enough time allowing your mind to wander to memories from that night, you don’t need to do it again at work.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s outside — looking for you!”

The splat of your heart dropping to the floor echoes in the ensuing silence. You must be hearing things because you could’ve sworn Jenna just told you that Scott is here at your workplace. The place where you work.

“No,” you blurt out.

“Yes,” she hisses, “get your ass out there. Clearly, you made quite the impression. Or did he make an impression with his dick inside your—”

“Finish that sentence and I revoke your rights to see Ben,” you warn and she gasps, biting down her giggles. “Can you just tell him I’m not here? Better yet, tell him there’s no one here by my name.”

She gives you a look. “He’s not an idiot. He saw me and clocked me as the friend who dressed her like that.”

Groaning, you press your forehead against the door.

“Was he that bad?”

Again, that good.

“He looks like a good time. Mind if I take a crack at him?”

The question has you jerking upright, your expression souring. Jenna’s a great friend, but Scott is— what is Scott? He’s nobody. He should be nobody.

“I’m kidding,” she laughs, “jeez, you’re obviously into him. Why are you being difficult?”

Because this will end the same way. Your heart broken. Scott gone again.

“Listen, I don’t think he’s leaving and the others are starting to gossip. They think you’ve got golden pussy that’s bringing a male suitor around this desperately.”

Fuck, the last thing you need is Scott causing problems at work. With a relenting sigh, you follow Jenna out front and find Scott standing there, looking impassively at some of the women — nurses and patients alike — who are shooting flirtatious looks at him. In fact, he’s not looking at them at all — his eyes float around the room until they land on you.

He doesn’t look pissed. No, his lips tug up into a smirk tinged with mirth. He says your name, your heart sinks. It sounds like a greeting and a threat. Your stomach turns.

Scott looks you up and down, a silent assessment that concludes in confusion at your clothes. Instead of addressing it, he hands you one of the cups in his hand.

“Tea,” he answers before you can ask, “with a spoonful of honey.”

Your favorite afternoon remedy.

Unfortunately, you feel your colleagues’ aggressively probing gazes burning to your side. It’s natural they’re curious; you’ve never had visitors aside from your mom and Ben — let alone a man. Let alone a man who looks like Scott.

You’ll never hear the end of this.

“Follow me.” You drag him by the elbow towards the waiting room, far away from the disappointed looks. When you’re finally out of sight, you turn around. “What are you doing here?”

Scott looks far from pleased, but his tone is calm. “Came to see you.” He shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee — probably black with a drop of cream.

“You can’t be doing this to me at work, Scott.”

“You weren’t responding to my texts.”

“I’m at work.”

“I can see that.”

“Don’t be cute.”

“You always think I’m cute.”

You take a deep breath. “Scott, what happened last Friday—” He perks up. “It can’t happen again.” 

“Why not?” He scowls, jaw clicking off to the side. 

“We’re adults now, we can’t be… doing whatever we were doing. It was fun when we were young but come on.”

“What? Too old to have fun?”

“I think I’m at a point where I should be looking for something serious, not a repeat of college.”

There’s a firmness to his eyes that makes you squirm. Something unexpectedly grave that’s foreign to Scott. “Serious,” he echoes, “you want serious?”

“Of course, I do.”

He licks his lips, taking a step towards you. Your heart skips a beat. 

“If that’s the case—”

“Mom!”

Your entire body goes cold, the word both warms and slashes your chest. Your son barrels down the hallway and you barely flinch when you feel his tiny arms wrap around your legs, Ben cheesing up at you with a toothy grin.

You don’t spare Scott a glance when you crouch down to Ben’s height, allowing him to wrangle you in a tight hug. “Hi, bud, what’re you doing here? I was supposed to meet you at home.”

“Missed you.” He pulls away to beam at you and your heart positively melts.

This perfect kid. “Missed you too, buddy,” you smile, “I still need to finish up work. Think you can be patient for me and wait a few more minutes?”

He blinks at you. “Aunt Jenna?”

You shake your head. Jenna is always a crowd favorite. “Aunt Jenna—”

“Is right here!” The familiar voice cheers as she appears next to you. Ben throws himself around her legs next with a giggle. “Come on, we’ve got some new toys in the playroom I can show you. Cool LEGOs.”

Before you know it, she’s already whisking him away, leavingyou, Scott, and your mother — who is staring at him with a little too much curiosity.

On the other hand, you can’t even bring yourself to look at him. The thing that shakes your confidence the most is his silence. Upset Scott goes on long tirades, spitting out vile things until he’s clam enough to take action.

However, a very, truly angry Scott is quiet. The rage simmers on the surface, bubbling in imminent explosion on the inside.

Your mother grins at him with sparkling eyes. “I never knew my daughter had such a handsome friend.”

“Mom!” You immediately scold, embarrassment spreading through you like wildfire.

Scott clears his throat, smile cordial as he turns to your mom. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’m Scott. A friend.” The last word he seems to add reluctantly.

“Oh yes, she did mention… a friend,” your mom says with a teasing lilt that proves to push that stake of betrayal deeper into your gut. “We’re going to head back for dinner after this. Would you like to join us?”

“He has other things to do,” you say at the same time Scott responds with, “I’d love to.” This time, you do turn to look at him.

His eyes are cool, almost distant, as he regards you. It’s an impassive look that says more than most people expect. A shudder wracks through you as your mouth dries in fear.

“I’ll be there,” he emphasizes, looking pointedly at you.

Your body withers slightly under the intensity of his gaze and you choose to redirect your own displeasure at your mother who simply disregards you. “Wonderful, I’ll wait with Ben. Come find us when you’re done, honey.”

Leave it to your own blood to make the bed and force you to lie in it.

But you’re also your mother’s daughter so you take that as a chance to escape yourself. “I have to wrap up work so I’ll see you later,” you exhale quickly and high-tail out of there before he can even open his mouth.

Procrastinating emotions has always been your strong suit.

By the time you finish work and step back outside, you pray that Scott’s anger would’ve faded. He’s calm when he agrees to follow your family car in his own. You’re constantly peeking at your rearview mirror to see if he changes his mind but his car never disappears from your line of sight.

When you let all of them inside the apartment, Scott gives it a critical once-over. He politely toes off his shoes and steps into the living room. Sweat piles on the back of your neck as you urge Ben to wash up while you and your mom prepare dinner.

“Pasta alright?” You ask, testing the waters.

His answer is respectful and composed. A simple yes, thank you.

It only makes you more nervous.

Dinner passes by without a hitch, despite your bouncing knee the entier time. Your mom asks Scott how he knows you and what he does for work; she’s at least smart enough to tread carefully on the bigger questions of why you’ve never mentioned him and why he feels comfortable enough to show face at your job. The extent of his introduction to Ben is taht he is your son and Scott is your friend.

“Uncle Scott,” Ben confirms, familiarizing himself with Scott’s name on his tongue.

You see the ice in his eyes chip away, albeit slightly, but he nods.

After Ben gets exactly a single scoop of the chocolate chip ice cream in the fridge, you tell him that it’s finally time for bed. He whines about how having a guest means that he should be able to stay up longer. You give him one look and he promptly skulks to the bathroom. 

You take this chance to escape Scott’s attention for a little while; god knows his staring gets unnerving after two hours of it. You take your time preparing Ben for bed, switching him to his comfy pajamas, reading him his favorite book with the voices the way he likes it. When he’s finally out cold, you get up, press a kiss to his temple, and turn to exit. 

Scott’s standing in the doorway, watching you quietly. His expression is thoughtful, but he doesn’t say a word when you lead him back to the kitchen. 

You walk your mom to the door, thanking her for the day.

Her eyes wander to Scott behind you who seems intent on lingering even when it’s late. She smiles at you. “He seems like a good one,” she whispers. “I like him.”

“You’ve known him all of two hours.”

“I can sense it. I like how you are with him.” You raise an eyebrow in question. “Emotional. You get riled up so easily. You’ve spent the last few years playing adult that it’s sweet to see you like this.” 

Your cheeks are hot as you shoo her again. She throws out a final nice to meet you and see you again soon before she finally leaves the two of you alone.

Scott’s eyes chase after you as you fuss with your kettle, preparing caffeine for the conversation you’re about to have. Maybe you should break out that tequila buried deep inside your cabinet instead. He no doubt has questions. You don’t know if he’s connected the dots; you can only hope he hasn’t. Ben looks more like you after all.

There’s a small part of you that hopes Scott would know, call it fatherly intuition, but a bigger part of you wants to avoid addressing that question. He’s only here to visit, he doesn’t need to know that he has a son. If he doesn’t know, then the two of you can return to life as is once he leaves.

You don’t want to admit how much the thought stings.

“Ben,” Scott clears his throat as you set a cup of coffee in front of him. He gratefully accepts it, takes a sip. “Is his dad…”

“Not around.” It’s a safe answer.

“Who is he?”

“No one you know,” you lie smoothly, maybe too quickly.

His eyes narrow a fraction but he doesn’t push. “You never told me you have a son.”

“We weren’t talking, Miller. It would’ve been strange to say hey, hope you’re doing well, by the way, I have a kid!”

“Well, whose fault is that?” He snaps.

The air is strung tight, electricity crackling quietly in the echo of his words. 

“I just—” He takes a deep breath, hands shoved into his hair. “I don’t want to fight,” he says, doing his damndest to try and mean it. You know that he wants to push, to question, to challenge you. Confront you for leaving him in the wind. 

But he doesn’t want to lose you — the same way you don’t want to either. 

“Ben’s a good kid,” you murmur, thumb stroking the rim of your mug. 

“Well, you did raise him,” he notes, lips twitching up. 

You clear your throat. “This is why I can’t do… whatever that was last night again. It was a fluke and a mistake. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a night out like that and apparently I just needed to get laid.” 

Instead of the chuckle you’re expecting, some jab about you being abstinent, there is weight that settles heavy in the atmosphere. Scott looks at you carefully, lips tight. “A mistake? Really?”

“Not—” you stop yourself, biting your tongue, “not like that.” He cocks an eyebrow, looking at you with a mix of irritation and interest. “I just think I shouldn’t have been so irresponsible.”

“Why? You would’ve fucked any man that night?” 

“Of course not!”

“So just me then.”

“Yes!”

The moment the confirmation leaves your mouth, you stop. Scott smiles, smug. “Good to know.”

“Oh, screw you.”

“You already did.”

The urge to hurl your mug at his head grows stronger by the second.

Scott bites down on his smile but you can still see the ghost of amusement on his lips. “But, listen, in all seriousness, if you need anything— I know raising a kid isn’t cheap and, with your hours and obviously childcare and all the necessities—”

You cringe. “Please don’t tell me you’re offering me money right now.” 

“I just want to help.”

“Not your responsibility.”

His jaw clenches. “I know that, but it doesn’t mean I can’t help a friend.” 

His jaw clenches. “I know that, but it doesn’t mean I can’t help a friend.” 

You consider arguing with him again, defending your stance as a perfectly capable, independent, single mother. However, you know he means well. This is how Scott Miller helps, this is how he shows you he cares. 

“Thank you,” you sigh, “I appreciate it, but I promise you I’m fine.”

Scott hesitates for a second. “You’re not a nurse.” It’s not a question. 

“I wanted to do it, but the pregnancy and the tough hours just didn’t seem healthy – or fair to a newborn. I’m doing something safer, more regular hours. It’s not so bad.”

“Wasn’t your dream though.”

“Well, sometimes dreams don’t work out.”

He doesn’t look appeased. “Why not now? He’s a little more grown. How old is he?”

Your heart rushes in your ears. “I have a good routine going. It’s not like I hate what I’m doing now—”

“But you don’t love it.” Once again, not a question.

“It’s… a job, Scott, I’m lucky to be employed in this economy.”

He grunts but doesn’t push further. “I’m not going to give you shit for not telling me—”

“Shocker.” The sarcastic remark slips out on instinct, Scott tosses you a scalding look with no heat behind his eyes. 

“But at least let me try and help you.” He knows you too well, can sense the argument threatening to fall from your lips, so he quickly adds, “I don’t want to hear it. However I can help, I will.”

When he has this voice, you know there’s no point in arguing, so you let it slide. “Sure. Thank you,” you surrender. “How long are you here for?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon.”

Oh. You’re fast to school your expression. “Got it. We should plan to catch up properly at some point then. Maybe tomorrow morning.”

The corners of his lips tug up and you’re already rolling your eyes, ears tingling with the stupid comment to come. “You don’t think we did that already? Or did you want a repeat?”

“Pig.”

“You love it.” 

A laugh bubbles up your throat, light and airy that has Scott’s smile rising a smidgen higher. 

For a moment, you think everything will be okay.

+ sam: im sorry for the woman i've become with him (i'm not) (i love this idiot so dearly). hope you enjoyed this part and look forward for more drama to come in the second!!!

scott is yearning for (taglist): @unabashedlyinlovewithyou @eiaf4uwn @thebabykashmere @nbhrhn @w1nchesterfiles @ae1szn @pinksplace @stanmarvelous @coffinlolz @chloluvsdilfs @athenxt

Then Clark Kent knocked with his elbow, ducked slightly as he stepped inside, and held up two paper cups like a peace offering.

“I brought coffee,” he said.

You looked at him over the top of your laptop. “Why?”

“Because it’s raining.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s a reason.”

“It’s a suspicious reason.”

His smile had been so immediate, so annoyingly open, that you had distrusted it on principle. Men who smiled like that usually wanted something, and men who looked like Clark Kent often believed wanting something from you was the same as deserving it.

He placed one cup on the edge of your desk, careful to avoid the stack of photographs, your camera lens cap, and the ashtray you used for paperclips because you did not smoke and had no intention of letting your office decor know that.

“You take it black, right?” he asked.

You glanced from the coffee to his face. “How do you know that?”

“You said so last week.”

“I said I needed coffee strong enough to dissolve evidence.”

“I inferred.”

“Reporters are a plague.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“I try not to lie before noon.”

That had been nine months ago. 

Since then, Clark Kent had become several inconvenient things: a professional contact, a recurring nuisance, a useful man to have around when bureaucrats started sweating, and, against your better judgment, a friend. He had a way of turning up at the edges of your investigations with a notebook, a question, and the unshakable belief that people were more than the worst thing they had done.

You had once told him that optimism was just denial with better lighting.

Clark had thought about that for a moment and then said, “Maybe, but lighting matters.”

That was the trouble with him. He did not argue like a fool. He argued like someone who understood the darkness and kept insisting on windows anyway.

On the morning the Lynch case began, he arrived at your office with coffee, a brown paper bag from the bakery downstairs, and snow caught in his hair.

“You’re late,” you said.

Clark glanced at the clock on your wall. “I’m four minutes early.”

“You’re late for someone who was obviously trying to be early.”

“That seems difficult to defend against.”

“Good. Don’t.”

He set the coffee on your desk. “Blueberry muffin?”

“I don’t accept bribes before ten.”

“It’s nine-fifty.”

“Then you have ten minutes to become less suspicious.”

Clark’s mouth curved as he took the chair across from you. He was too large for it, which was not his fault but still seemed rude. In a better suit, he would have looked like somebody’s idea of a wholesome magazine cover. In his current suit, which had clearly been selected by a man who believed fabric was a moral test, he looked like a high school English teacher who had accidentally won a fistfight with a tractor.

You hated that it worked for him.

“I need your help,” he said.

“Naturally.”

“With a missing person.”

Your attention shifted from the coffee to his face. Clark’s expression had changed. The warmth was still there, because warmth seemed to be part of his bone structure, but something serious had moved in beneath it.

You leaned back. “Name?”

“Mara Lin. Thirty-two. Forensic accountant. Former internal compliance analyst at Sunspire Industries.”

You let out a low sound. “Sunspire, as in Julian Lynch’s Sunspire?”

“Yes.”

“Energy-efficient windows, urban renewal grants, inspirational ads during city council hearings?”

“That’s the one.”

“I already hate this.”

“I thought you might.”

Clark took a file from inside his coat and placed it on your desk. His files were always infuriatingly organized. Timeline, witness list, property records, corporate relationships, handwritten notes in clean block letters. He had even color-coded one once. You still had not forgiven him for making color-coding seem useful rather than morally embarrassing.

You opened the file.

Mara Lin had worked for Sunspire for four years. She resigned six weeks ago, citing “personal reasons.” Two days later, she contacted the Daily Planet through an encrypted tip line and asked to speak to Clark Kent specifically. Three days after that, she failed to show up to a meeting outside a laundromat in Bakerline. Her apartment had been cleaned out. Her car was found in a long-term parking garage near Hob’s Bay. Her phone had been dead ever since.

“You went to the police,” you said.

“I did.”

“And?”

“They took a report.”

“That’s it?”

Clark’s jaw tightened. “Detective Sawyer said there wasn’t enough evidence to call it foul play. Mara was an adult with access to her own money. Passport missing. No signs of struggle in the apartment.”

“Maggie Sawyer is good.”

“She is.”

“So if she isn’t pushing harder, either she’s missing something, or someone made this look very clean.”

“That’s what I think.”

You turned a page. “Why you?”

Clark took out a folded sheet of paper and passed it across the desk.

It was a printout of an email from an address that looked randomly generated. The message was short.

Kent, if anything happens to me, ask why Sunspire’s safety reports are cleaner than its hospital bills.

You read it twice.

“She sent this to you three hours before your meeting.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t lead with it.”

“I thought you’d want the file first.”

“I always want the worst part first.”

“I know,” Clark said. “That’s why I brought coffee.”

You looked at the cup, then at him. “That was manipulative.”

“It was practical.”

“Worse.”

He had the nerve to smile.

You turned another page and found photographs of Sunspire’s South Metropolis fabrication plant, employee rosters, accident reports, and a list of shell contractors. Clark had already done more groundwork than most paying clients managed with subpoenas and divine intervention.

“Did the Planet hire me?” you asked.

“No.”

“Perry?”

“No.”

“Lois?”

“She’s in D.C.”

“Convenient.”

“Extremely inconvenient, actually.”

You closed the file. “So this is personal.”

Clark’s hands rested loosely in his lap. He had large hands, the kind people noticed even when they pretended they didn’t. You were currently pretending.

“Mara came to me,” he said. “She was scared, and now she’s gone.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His eyes met yours. “Yes, it is.”

Of course it was. Clark Kent thought responsibility was something you could catch from proximity. If someone handed him a problem, he carried it as if refusing would be a kind of violence.

“You know my rate,” you said.

“Yes.”

“It doubles when reporters bring me into cases involving corporations with private security budgets.”

“I expected that.”

“It triples if I get threatened before lunch.”

“I hope that won’t happen.”

“You always do.”

“I like to think of it as a goal.”

“And yet,” you said, tapping the file, “here you are.”

Clark wrote the check without arguing. That was another mark against him. Men often argued with your rates because they were used to deciding how much a woman’s time was worth and becoming personally offended when corrected. Clark simply slid the check across your desk, then added the muffin beside it like optimism with crumbs.

You glanced at the amount. “This is too much.”

“Retainer.”

“This is guilt.”

“It can be both.”

“Don’t get noble at me, Kent. I charge extra for noble.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You won’t.”

“No,” he admitted. “Probably not.”

That should not have made you smile. It did anyway, so you covered it by opening your desk drawer and pulling out your lock-picking roll with more force than necessary.

Clark watched you gather your things. “You’re taking the case?”

“I’m drinking the coffee you brought, then I’m going to Mara Lin’s apartment.”

“Great.”

“I’m going to Mara Lin’s apartment.”

Clark blinked. “Yes.”

“You are going back to the Daily Planet.”

“I thought I could help.”

“You thought wrong.”

“That happens sometimes.”

“Not often enough.”

He looked down at himself. “I’m useful.”

“You’re memorable.”

“I’m not sure that’s a problem.”

“You are six-foot-whatever, built like a farmhand in a suit, and you look like you apologize to furniture when you bump into it.”

“I do not apologize to furniture.”

“Not out loud, maybe.”

Clark appeared to consider arguing, then wisely gave up.

“You also have a press badge,” you added. “If someone is watching her building, they will remember the world’s least subtle reporter asking questions.”

“I can wait in the hall.”

“You are not coming.”

“I can wait across the street.”

“That is also coming.”

“Nearby?”

“Kent.”

His smile softened into something almost pleading, which was unfair because Clark Kent pleading looked like a moral challenge.

“Mara trusted me,” he said.

“And now you’re hiring someone better at trespassing.”

“You admit it’s trespassing?”

“I admit nothing in rooms with windows.”

Clark looked toward the office windows.

“Don’t look,” you said. “It makes you seem new.”

He looked back immediately. “Sorry.”

You took a sip of coffee and hated that it was exactly how you liked it.

“Fine,” you said.

His face brightened.

“You do what I say,” you continued. “You don’t wander. You don’t touch anything. You don’t give me that disappointed farm boy look when I break a lock. You don’t ask witnesses questions unless I tell you to, and if I say run, you run.”

Clark’s smile flickered at the edges. “I can do that.”

You studied him. “You are very bad at lying.”

“I know.”

“You say that like it’s charming.”

“I was hoping.”

“It is not.”

“It’s a little charming.”

“Careful, Kent.”

He stood, picked up his coffee, and followed you out anyway.

Mara Lin’s apartment was on the third floor of an old brick building above a tailor who had been in business long enough to hate everyone equally. The superintendent was a man named Feld who answered his door in pajama pants, snow boots, and a sweatshirt advertising a roofing company that had probably gone bankrupt under suspicious circumstances.

He developed strong feelings about tenant privacy until you showed him your license and Clark asked, very gently, whether Mara’s sister knew the building had allowed a missing woman’s apartment to be accessed after police had already sealed it.

Feld glared at him for six seconds, then gave you the key.

“You’re good at that,” you said as he shuffled away.

“At what?”

“Sounding disappointed without accusing someone of a felony.”

“My mother calls it the look.”

“Powerful woman.”

“She is.”

“That explains things.”

Clark glanced at you, curious, but did not ask.

Mara’s apartment was clean in the unnatural way spaces became clean when the person had been removed from them. Her furniture remained. Her books remained. A mug sat upside down in the drying rack. The things that mattered were gone: laptop, phone, passport, several framed photographs, medication from the bathroom cabinet, financial records, a row of shoeboxes that had left faint dust rectangles in the closet.

You moved slowly, taking photographs. Clark stopped just inside the door, as instructed. This lasted almost two minutes, which was longer than you had expected.

Then he drifted toward the living room shelves.

“Kent.”

“I’m not touching anything.”

“You’re breathing suspiciously.”

“I’ll try to do it less.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

He crouched near a low bookcase, his head tilted as if listening. You watched him from the hallway mirror.

Clark Kent did not search like other reporters. Reporters usually looked for the thing that would confirm the story already forming in their heads. Clark looked as if the room was talking, and he was trying not to interrupt. His gaze moved over the baseboards, the heating vent, the slight unevenness in the wall behind a row of textbooks.

He reached out, then stopped himself.

You crossed the room. “What?”

“You said not to touch.”

“I can touch.”

“I think there’s something behind the books.”

“You think.”

“Maybe.”

You crouched beside him and began removing books one at a time. Accounting texts, two novels, an old dictionary, and a city guide from three years ago. Behind them, a palm-sized square of plaster had been cut and painted over. You eased it free with the edge of your pocketknife.

Inside was a memory card wrapped in plastic.

You looked at Clark. “Maybe?”

“I didn’t want to oversell it.”

“You found a concealed drive in under three minutes.”

“Technically, it was almost four.”

“Do you practice being insufferable, or is it natural?”

“I grew up with patient people.”

“Send them my condolences.”

His laugh was quiet enough that you felt it more than heard it.

You bagged the card and tucked it into your coat. “Mara hid this before she disappeared.”

“Or someone hid it for her.”

“That’s darker than usual.”

Clark looked at the empty cavity behind the shelf. “I’m not optimistic about people getting hurt.”

You had no answer for that, which annoyed you more than the sentence deserved.

A sound came from the hall.

Soft. A shift of weight. Rubber sole against old linoleum.

You raised one hand. Clark went still immediately.

That was another thing about him. Sunshine, yes. Kind, absolutely. But Clark obeyed danger well, with a stillness too complete for someone who claimed his roughest childhood memory involved farm equipment and tornado warnings.

You slipped your hand into your bag and closed your fingers around the compact stun gun in the side pocket. The apartment door was open three inches. You had left it that way deliberately because you disliked closed exits and trusted unlocked ones even less.

The door swung inward.

The man who entered was broad, shaved bald, and wearing a delivery jacket without carrying a package. His gaze moved to you first, then Clark, then the open wall behind the bookshelf.

“Wrong apartment,” you said.

He pulled a gun.

Clark moved.

You never saw him cross the room. One second, he was beside the bookshelf; the next, he was between you and the weapon, one hand closing around the attacker’s wrist as the gun discharged into the ceiling. Plaster burst overhead. You hit the floor, rolled behind the couch, and came up with the stun gun ready.

The attacker slammed his free elbow into Clark’s ribs.

Clark staggered, though not nearly enough.

You fired into the attacker’s side. He jerked, swore, and swung blindly. Clark caught him again, far too gently, and the two of them crashed into the wall. A framed print fell and shattered. The gun skidded under the coffee table.

You kicked it farther away.

The attacker recovered faster than he should have. He drove his knee toward Clark’s stomach, twisted out of his grip, and lunged for the door. You caught the back of his jacket. He spun, and something flashed silver in his hand.

Pain opened across your forearm in a hot, bright line.

Clark’s expression changed.

Only for a second. The warmth went still, not erased but buried beneath something vast and controlled. It was the face of a man who had spent his life learning how not to break things and had just been given a reason to reconsider.

Then the attacker was on the floor, pinned with one arm behind his back, the knife several feet away.

Clark was breathing hard.

You were bleeding onto Mara Lin’s carpet.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m going to charge you for this.”

His eyes dropped to your arm. “You’re bleeding.”

“Very observant.”

“We need to get that looked at.”

“We need to ask our friend here who sent him.”

The man on the floor laughed into the carpet. “Lawyer.”

You crouched near him, pressing your scarf against your arm. “That’s ambitious for a home invader.”

Clark looked at you. “Police first.”

“You think he’ll still be here when they arrive?”

“He will.”

There was something in his voice that made both you and the man on the floor believe him.

The police arrived eight minutes later. Detective Maggie Sawyer came herself, which told you Clark had more useful friends than he admitted. The attacker gave his name as Brett Keller and said nothing else. His delivery jacket was fake, his weapon was unregistered, and his phone had been wiped so clean it was practically smug.

Maggie took your statement while a paramedic cleaned and wrapped your arm.

“You two make a habit of this?” she asked.

“Bleeding in other people’s apartments?” you said. “Not as often as rumors suggest.”

Maggie looked at Clark.

Clark adjusted his glasses. “I’m usually more careful.”

“Sure,” Maggie said, in the tone of a woman who had met careful men before and knew Clark Kent was not one of them. “Ms. Lin is officially a missing person now. If either of you finds anything else, I hear about it before the Planet does.”

Clark nodded. “Of course.”

You said nothing.

Maggie turned to you. “That includes you.”

“I don’t work for the Planet.”

“You work with him.”

“Against my better judgment.”

“Most people do.” She closed her notebook. “Have a doctor check that arm if it starts throbbing. Knife wounds are filthy.”

After she left, Clark walked you down to his truck, because of course, Clark Kent had a truck. It was old and blue, and it looked like it had hauled lumber, livestock, and a heroic amount of emotional baggage.

You stopped at the curb. “I’m not getting in that.”

Clark looked genuinely wounded. “Why not?”

“It has an aura.”

“It has heated seats.”

“That makes it worse.”

“It passed inspection.”

“In what decade?”

He opened the passenger door. “Please get in the truck.”

You should have refused on principle, but your arm hurt, your coat had blood on it, and you had a memory card in your pocket that someone had been willing to kill you over. Principles mattered. So did not passing out on a sidewalk in front of Clark Kent.

You got in.

His truck smelled faintly of pine, coffee, and old upholstery. There was a flannel shirt folded on the back seat and a stack of newspapers under the dashboard. A photograph was tucked into the visor: Clark with an older couple in front of a farmhouse, all three squinting in the summer sunlight. His mother had one hand on his arm. His father looked like a man who had built the horizon himself and was letting Clark borrow it.

Clark slid behind the wheel and started the engine.

“You grew up in Smallville,” you said.

“Is that a question?”

“It’s an accusation.”

He smiled, eyes on the road. “Guilty.”

“That explains the truck, the manners, and the suspicious relationship with baked goods.”

“I have a normal relationship with baked goods.”

“You brought me muffins as emotional leverage.”

“I brought one muffin.”

“Gateway behavior.”

His smile lingered, then faded when he glanced at your arm. “I’m sorry.”

“For the muffin?”

“For getting you hurt.”

“You didn’t swing the knife.”

“I brought you into the case.”

“I took your check. Try not to martyr yourself over basic commerce.”

“You know what I mean.”

You did. That was the problem.

You looked out at the snow turning gray along the curb. “Do you do that with everyone?”

“Do what?”

“Make their choices your fault.”

Clark was silent long enough that the windshield wipers filled the space between you.

“Only when I’m involved,” he said eventually.

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It can be.”

“You should stop.”

He glanced at you. “Is that professional advice?”

“No. It’s a demand.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

“You won’t.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Probably not.”

The memory card was encrypted, but you knew a woman in Suicide Slum who could make most systems regret having secrets. Talia Morse trusted computers because, as she put it, at least machines were honest about being machines. She lived above an all-night laundromat, worked out of a room full of mismatched monitors, and accepted payment in cash, dumplings, or favors she could weaponize later.

Talia opened the card in forty-seven minutes.

Sunspire Industries had been falsifying workplace safety reports at its South Metropolis fabrication plant for nearly two years. Burns, respiratory injuries, neurological symptoms, unexplained seizures, and chemical exposure. The public reports listed minor incidents. The internal files told a different story. Employees exposed to a proprietary coating process called AURORA-9 had gotten sick, and Sunspire had buried the records under shell contractors, private clinics, and severance agreements so restrictive they should have come with shackles.

Clark read the files beside you in silence. His face grew quieter with every page.

“Hospital bills,” he said.

“Mara’s email.”

“These are people.”

“That’s generally who gets hurt when corporations discover math.”

His jaw worked, but he did not answer.

Talia spun lazily in her chair and clicked into another folder. “There’s more. Payments to Palisade Risk Management.”

Clark looked up. “Palisade?”

“You know them?” you asked.

“They came up in a campaign finance story last year. Private security. Executive protection, strike suppression, off-book intimidation. Quiet things people don’t put in brochures.”

Talia typed quickly. “Brett Keller is on their payroll. Independent contractor. Former military. Three arrests, no convictions.”

“Our apartment guest,” you said.

“Our?” Clark asked.

“Don’t make it domestic.”

Talia made a gagging sound. “Please don’t flirt in my office. It upsets the equipment.”

“We’re not flirting,” you said.

Clark said nothing.

That was worse.

You pushed away from the desk. “Can you copy everything?”

“Already did.” Talia tossed you a fresh drive. “Try not to get stabbed over this one. I’m running out of sympathy.”

“You never had sympathy.”

“I had coupons.”

Clark thanked her so sincerely that Talia stared at him as if he were an exotic bird that had flown indoors.

When you left, freezing rain had turned the sidewalks slick. Clark opened an umbrella over both of you before you could object.

“I have a hood,” you said.

“I have an umbrella.”

“Mine came attached to the coat.”

“Mine has a wider radius.”

“You always have to be useful, don’t you?”

He looked down at you. Rain tapped against the umbrella, soft and steady. The light from a pharmacy sign caught in his glasses.

“I like being useful to you,” he said.

That should have been nothing. Clark said kind things the way other people breathed, with no visible effort and no demand for reward. He had probably told a crossing guard that morning that she was essential to the functioning of the city, and he meant it.

Still, the words moved under your coat and settled somewhere dangerous.

You looked away. “Bad habit.”

“Maybe.”

“You should get a hobby.”

“I have several.”

“Being Superman’s favorite reporter doesn’t count.”

Clark’s hand tightened around the umbrella handle.

It was slight. Almost nothing.

You noticed.

You always noticed almost nothing.

Before you could decide whether to press, Clark went still.

It was not dramatic. That was the problem. There was no flinch, no obvious alarm, no sudden movement anyone else on the sidewalk would have noticed. His hand only tightened around the umbrella handle, and his gaze shifted past you, past the rain, past the street entirely, as if something very far away had spoken directly into his ear.

You followed his line of sight and saw nothing but traffic, wet pavement, and a woman in a red coat wrestling with a broken umbrella.

“Clark?”

He blinked once, and the reporter came back badly. Too late. Too carefully.

Then his phone buzzed.

He looked down at the screen as if grateful for it.

“Kent,” he answered.

You watched his face while he listened, though you had the distinct impression he already knew whatever the person on the other end was saying.

“I’m on my way,” he said.

The call ended.

“Planet?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

Clark winced.

It was small. Too honest for a man with secrets and too guilty for a man who owed you none of them.

“I have to go,” he said.

“So go.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’ll call,” he said again, and handed you the umbrella.

You looked at it. “Clark.”

“You’ll get soaked.”

“So will you.”

“I don’t mind.”

Of course, he didn’t. Clark Kent probably apologized to weather systems for inconveniencing them.

He stepped out from beneath the umbrella and into the rain. By the time you blinked water from your lashes, he had disappeared around the corner faster than any man his size had a right to move.

Two minutes later, sirens began to rise somewhere beyond the nearest avenue.

You told yourself that meant nothing. Metropolis had sirens the way other cities had weather.

Six minutes after that, your phone lit up with a news alert.

SUPERMAN INTERVENES IN ELEVATED TRAIN DERAILMENT NEAR MIDTOWN.

You stood under Clark’s umbrella while rainwater dripped steadily from the edges.

You thought about the way he had gone still before the phone buzzed.

You thought about his hand tightening when you mentioned Superman.

You thought about how fast he had vanished.

You thought about the way he had crossed Mara Lin’s apartment, too quick for a man who looked like he should need a running start to get out of a chair.

You thought about the gunshot that had gone into the ceiling when it should have gone through him first.

And then you thought, with profound irritation, that Clark Kent was even worse at lying than you had previously believed.

Then you told yourself to stop being ridiculous. 

Men were allowed to be strange without being aliens. Clark Kent was allowed to have secrets that did not involve capes, rescue footage, or the fact that Superman always seemed to give interviews to the same reporter with suspiciously convenient timing. Metropolis was a deeply abnormal city. It was entirely possible to be odd, evasive, too fast, too strong, and too polite without being the man who could lift a bridge on the evening news.

You repeated that argument to yourself all the way back to your office.

You kept telling yourself that until the next night, when you investigated the South Metropolis fabrication plant alone.

It was not your worst decision. It was comfortably in the top fifty, but the competition was stiff.

Clark had gone back to the Planet to start building the story with enough legal support to survive Sunspire’s lawyers. You had agreed to wait until morning before following up on an address buried in the payment files, which meant you waited until Clark was out of earshot to do exactly what you wanted.

The facility was supposed to be closed for renovations. Its windows were dark, its lot half-empty, its front gate chained. Renovation banners covered the fence, featuring cheerful renderings of the future community space. There was nothing community-minded about the two men smoking beside a side entrance or the unmarked van backed up to the loading dock.

You watched from the roof of a nearby auto shop for twenty minutes, took photographs, then crossed the alley and picked the side gate.

The problem with old industrial buildings was that they had too many entrances and not enough exits. The problem with new corporate renovations was cameras. The problem with you was that you were very good at ignoring both when you smelled a cover-up.

Inside, the plant was cold and smelled faintly chemical beneath the dust. You moved through shadowed corridors, following the sound of voices toward the loading bay. Someone had set up a temporary medical station in what used to be a break room. There were cots, oxygen tanks, crates of sealed files, and three locked cabinets labeled with private clinic inventory codes.

You photographed everything.

Then you heard a woman groan.

She was behind a plastic partition, strapped to a gurney with one wrist cuffed to the rail. Bruising marked the side of her face. Her hair was tangled. An IV line ran into her arm.

Mara Lin was alive.

You stepped closer. “Ms. Lin.”

Her eyes opened, unfocused at first, then sharp with terror.

“I’m not with them,” you whispered. “Clark Kent hired me.”

Mara’s breath hitched. “Clark?”

“Yes.”

“They know. They know I copied everything.”

“I have the drive.”

“No, not all of it.” Her voice shook. “There’s a second archive. Lynch has it here. They’re moving it tonight.”

“Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

That was when the lights came on.

You turned.

Brett Keller stood in the doorway with two other men, one holding a gun and the other a baton. His shaved head gleamed under the fluorescent lights. The cut he had left on your arm throbbed under its bandage as if recognizing him.

“You,” he said.

“You escaped custody quickly,” you replied. “Does your lawyer validate parking too?”

Keller smiled. “Hands where I can see them.”

You lifted your hands slowly.

Mara was breathing too fast behind you. You shifted half a step, putting yourself between her and the gun.

Keller noticed. “That’s sweet.”

“I’m known for my warmth.”

He nodded to the man with the baton. “Take her bag.”

The man approached. You let him get close enough to reach for the strap, then drove your heel into his knee and slammed your elbow into his throat. The gunman shouted. Keller lunged. You grabbed the baton as it fell and swung hard into Keller’s ribs, then caught the gunman across the wrist before he could fire.

The shot still went off.

The sound was enormous in the enclosed room.

Pain tore across your side as the bullet grazed you. You stumbled back into the gurney. Mara screamed. Keller backhanded you hard enough to send you into the cabinets, and your skull cracked against metal.

For a few seconds, the world went white.

When your vision cleared, Keller had the gun in his hand.

“Enough,” he said.

You spat blood onto the floor. “You first.”

His face twisted.

The wall behind him exploded inward.

Concrete dust burst through the room. The gun went flying from Keller’s hand. A blur of red and blue filled the doorway, and then Superman was there, standing between you and the men who had come to kill you.

He was taller up close than he looked on news footage. That was your first coherent thought, which was embarrassing under the circumstances. Your second was that his shoulders were extremely familiar.

The fight lasted less than ten seconds. Superman disarmed Keller, caught the man with the baton before he could fall onto broken glass, and put the gunman through a table with enough restraint to make it look almost polite. Then he turned to you.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

You stared at him.

The voice was different. Deeper, steadier, rounded into something public. But not different enough.

Your side burned. Your head throbbed. Mara was crying behind you. The room was full of dust, broken tile, and chemical stink. Superman stood in the middle of it like a sunrise with a cape, looking at you with Clark Kent’s worried eyes.

“You shouldn’t have followed this lead alone,” he said.

You went very still.

That was the mistake.

The cape was not the mistake. Neither was the impossible entrance nor the familiar breadth of his shoulders beneath all that primary-colored symbolism.

The mistake was that only Clark knew about the lead.

You looked up at him. “You know who I am.”

A tiny pause.

It would have meant nothing to anyone else.

“I know you’re a private investigator,” Superman said. “You’ve worked with the Daily Planet.”

“That’s not what I said.”

His gaze flicked to the blood at your temple. “We need to get you both out of here.”

“You also knew where to find me.”

“I heard the gunshot.”

“From where?”

“Nearby.”

“Convenient.”

“Very,” he said, with a gentleness that was so Clark it nearly made you dizzy.

He moved toward Mara first, and you respected that. He broke the cuff with two fingers and helped her sit up.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “You’re safe now.”

Mara clung to him. “Clark has to know. Tell Clark Kent I didn’t run.”

“I will,” Superman said.

You narrowed your eyes.

He looked at you and realized, too late, that he had made another mistake.

Mara was shaking too hard to notice. You noticed enough for both of you.

Superman lifted her carefully. “Can you walk?” he asked you.

“Yes.”

You took one step and nearly went down.

He caught you with one arm before you hit the floor.

The contact was brief, but it told you enough. Same height. Same build. Same impossible care. Even the way he held you was familiar, as if he was afraid of his own strength and more afraid of your pain.

His thumb moved once near your shoulder, soothing without thought.

Clark did that too.

You looked up at his face.

Superman looked back, very still.

You could have said it then. You could have cornered him in a ruined factory with Mara Lin bleeding beside you and three unconscious men on the floor. You could have forced the truth into the open because you had found it, and the old habits in you liked nothing better than a secret dragged into light.

Instead, you said, “You apologize before asking questions, too.”

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He got you and Mara out through the hole he had made in the wall. Outside, emergency sirens wailed in the distance, because apparently Superman had called them or signaled them or willed them into being through the force of his savior complex. He set Mara near the ambulance when it arrived, then returned to you.

“You should let the paramedics look at your side,” he said.

“I should do many things.”

“Please.”

There it was.

Please.

You almost laughed.

Superman, last son of a dead planet, symbol of hope, beloved menace to structural engineers everywhere, was standing in an alley asking politely because Clark Kent had never learned how to stop being Clark Kent.

“Fine,” you said.

Relief softened his face.

You let the paramedic clean the graze along your ribs and check your head. Through it all, Superman lingered at the edge of the light, speaking quietly with Maggie Sawyer, who had arrived looking like the universe had personally offended her and she intended to write it up.

When Superman looked back at you, you held his gaze.

The smile you gave him was small, sharp, and not remotely reassuring.

Superman looked suddenly nervous, which was impressive for a man who had just walked through concrete.

Good, you thought.

The apartment was dark except for the lamp glowing softly on his side of the bedroom. It felt unbearably quiet.

You sat at the edge of the mattress, elbows resting on your knees, staring at nothing. Your stomach twisted painfully beneath your ribs. It had become a familiar sensation, that constant knot of anxiety and exhaustion that seemed to follow you everywhere these days.

You couldn't remember when it had started. Weeks ago, maybe. Months. Long enough that the feeling had settled into your bones and become part of your daily life, impossible to separate from yourself. It followed you everywhere now, that constant knot in your stomach, that vague sense of wrongness you could never quite name. Some mornings you woke up convinced the feeling would finally be gone. Other mornings you lay there staring at the ceiling, already exhausted by the thought of carrying it through another day.

The bathroom door opened behind you.

Clark stepped into the room with a towel draped around his neck, his dark hair still damp from his shower. He paused almost immediately when he saw you sitting on the edge of the bed. For a moment he didn't say anything. He just watched you, and even without looking, you could feel it. His attention. His concern.

That was the thing about Clark.

He noticed everything when it came to you.

Not in an overbearing way. He wasn't watching for mistakes or signs of weakness. He simply cared. Deeply. Endlessly. Sometimes you thought he carried your emotions as carefully as he carried the weight of the world itself.

"Hey."

You glanced over your shoulder.

His voice was warm and familiar, soft enough that it blended into the quiet hum of the apartment. Once, that voice had been enough to settle every anxious thought in your head. Lately, it only made your chest ache.

"Hey."

Clark's eyes searched your face for a moment before he asked, "You okay?"

A small laugh escaped you, though there wasn't anything funny about the question. It sounded tired even to your own ears.

"No."

The answer was barely out of your mouth before his expression changed. His shoulders softened. The faint smile he'd walked into the room with disappeared completely. It wasn't dramatic. Clark never made your pain about himself. But he felt it. You could always see it in his eyes whenever you were hurting.

Without another word, he crossed the room and sat beside you. The mattress shifted beneath his weight, his shoulder brushing yours for a brief second before he settled. The familiar warmth of him should have been comforting. Instead, it made something twist painfully in your chest.

For a while neither of you spoke.

You stared down at your hands while Clark sat quietly beside you, giving you space while somehow still making it clear he was there. He had always been good at that. Being present without demanding anything in return.

Eventually, the words slipped out before you could stop them.

"I don't know what's wrong with me."

The confession sounded pathetic the moment it left your mouth.

Clark shook his head immediately.

"Nothing's wrong with you."

"There is."

Your voice cracked around the words.

"There has to be."

A year ago, he would've argued. He would've wrapped you in his arms and spent the next hour reminding you of every reason he loved you. He would've listed every good thing he saw in you until you rolled your eyes and told him to stop being ridiculous.

Now he only fell quiet.

Not because he agreed.

Because he'd learned that reassurance wasn't reaching you anymore.

And the fact that he knew that terrified him.

You felt tears threatening behind your eyes and immediately looked away. Crying in front of Clark had never embarrassed you. If anything, the opposite was true. Clark had always been the safest person you knew.

The problem was that he cared too much.

Every tear felt like another weight he immediately tried to carry for you. Every bad day became his bad day. Every hurt became something he wanted to fix, even when it couldn't be fixed.

His hand found yours where they rested in your lap.

The gesture was instinctive, so natural he probably didn't even think about it. His thumb brushed gently across your knuckles, tracing the same soothing pattern he had hundreds of times before.

"You don't have to figure everything out tonight."

You let out a slow breath.

"I've been saying that every night."

The words came out sharper than you intended.

The guilt followed immediately.

You saw it register in his expression, not as hurt or frustration, but as sadness. Clark simply lowered his gaze to your joined hands, and somehow that hurt more than if he'd argued back.

Once upon a time, moments like this had felt easier. One of you would've cracked a joke. The other would've laughed despite themselves. You would've ended up ordering food at midnight or falling asleep halfway through a movie with your feet tangled together under a blanket.

Back then, the hard moments felt temporary.

Now every conversation seemed to carry the weight of something larger beneath it. Every word felt carefully chosen. Every silence stretched too long. It was like both of you were walking across broken glass, trying desperately not to make things worse while knowing neither of you could remember what "better" was supposed to feel like anymore.

You shifted backward until your head rested against the headboard. Clark stayed where he was. Close enough that your shoulders brushed occasionally, far enough that you noticed the distance.

Months ago, he would've pulled you against his chest without thinking. You would've stolen his shirt. He would've complained about it while secretly loving every second.

Now even affection felt delicate.

Not absent.

Never absent.

Just fragile.

Like something the two of you were handling with trembling hands, terrified of dropping.

The silence stretched between you again before you finally whispered, "I keep waiting to wake up feeling normal again."

Clark swallowed hard.

You saw the movement in his throat. Saw the way his jaw tightened as he stared at the floor.

"I know."

Your eyes burned.

"I keep thinking tomorrow will be different."

Tomorrow I'll feel better.

Tomorrow I'll feel like myself.

Tomorrow we'll find our way back to each other.

The thoughts stayed trapped inside your chest, but Clark seemed to hear them anyway.

"I know."

His voice was so quiet it nearly disappeared into the darkness.

And that was the problem.

He knew.

He knew you weren't happy. He knew how hard you were trying. He saw every effort, every forced smile, every attempt to recreate what the two of you used to have. He knew how desperately you wanted to fix whatever had gone wrong, and he knew that despite all of it, despite the love that still existed between you, nothing seemed to be changing.

You closed your eyes as his fingers tightened gently around yours.

Clark wasn't looking away because he was angry. He wasn't withdrawing because he cared less.

If anything, the opposite was true.

He was looking away because watching you suffer was breaking his heart right alongside yours. And somewhere deep down, beneath all the fear and denial, you wondered if he had already accepted something you still couldn't bring yourself to face.

That sometimes love wasn't what failed.

Sometimes love survived all the way to the end.

And that was what made saying goodbye so unbearable.

You tried anyway.

God, you both did.

Two weeks later, Clark came home with reservations for the tiny Italian restaurant where you'd had your first date. He was trying to sound casual when he told you, leaning against the kitchen counter while you made coffee, but you could see the hope written all over his face.

"The Italian place?" you asked.

He nodded. "I thought it might be nice."

And that was the thing. It wasn't some grand gesture. Clark had never been a grand gesture kind of person. He was thoughtful in a way that sometimes felt almost painful. He remembered things. Tiny things. The kind of details most people forgot.

He remembered that you'd ordered ravioli on your first date because you'd been too nervous to try anything unfamiliar. He remembered that you'd laughed so hard you snorted water through your nose when he knocked over his drink. He remembered that you'd stayed until closing because neither of you wanted the night to end.

He remembered everything.

So of course he remembered the restaurant.

The place hadn't changed much. The same red checkered tablecloths covered the tables. The same old Sinatra songs played softly through the speakers. Even the owner recognized you the second you walked through the door.

"Look at you two," the older man said with a grin. "Still asking for the same booth."

Clark laughed and glanced at you.

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

You smiled. The owner led you toward the back of the restaurant. Clark rested a hand against your lower back as you walked, a gesture so familiar he probably wasn't even aware he was doing it anymore.

A year ago, you wouldn't have noticed it.

Now you noticed everything.

The way he waited for you to sit first. The way he remembered to ask for the sparkling water you liked before you'd even opened the menu. The way he kept glancing at you throughout the evening, as though searching for some sign that this was working. Because that was what the night really was. An attempt. Another attempt. One more effort to find whatever it was the two of you had lost.

The problem was that neither of you had actually lost the important things.

Looking across the table at him, listening as he smiled through a story about work, you knew you still loved him. Clark loved you too. That wasn't the issue. The issue was that everything seemed to require effort now. Conversation used to flow so naturally between you that entire evenings disappeared without either of you noticing. Tonight, every topic felt carefully selected, every silence stretched a little too long before one of you rushed to fill it, and every laugh arrived half a second later than it should have.

At one point, Clark started telling a story about Jimmy. Something about a disastrous interview and a ruined cup of coffee. You remembered the version of yourself who would've been crying with laughter before he even reached the punchline, interrupting him three times because you couldn't stop giggling. Instead, you smiled and let out a soft laugh that faded almost as quickly as it came. Clark noticed. You saw it in the slight hesitation in his voice, in the way his smile faltered for the briefest moment before he continued. Neither of you acknowledged it.

What was there to say?

Sorry, I'm trying. Sorry, I miss us too. Sorry, I don't know how to get back to where we were.

The rest of dinner passed much the same way. Nothing went wrong. There was no argument, no harsh words, no dramatic moment either of you could point to and blame. If anything, that was what made it hurt. You were sitting in the exact booth where you'd fallen in love with Clark Kent. The food was good. The company was good. Clark was kind and attentive and trying so hard that it made your chest ache every time you looked at him. And somehow, despite all of that, something still felt missing.

The drive home was quiet, though not uncomfortably so. The silence had slowly become familiar over the last few months. City lights streaked across the passenger window while Clark drove, one hand resting on the steering wheel and the other lying between you on the center console, palm up, close enough that you could take it if you wanted to. You noticed it immediately. The invitation wasn't deliberate enough to be obvious, but you knew him too well not to recognize it. For years, you would've reached for him without thinking. At red lights. Walking down the street. Sitting side by side on the couch. It had always been as natural as breathing.

Now you found yourself staring at the space between your hands, wondering when something so effortless had become something you had to think about.

Clark left his hand there for several minutes. Long enough that you knew he was waiting. Long enough that you knew he was hoping. Eventually, without looking away from the road, he curled his fingers inward and returned his hand to the steering wheel. The movement was so small that anyone else would've missed it, but it settled heavily in your chest anyway. Neither of you spoke for the rest of the drive home. You watched the city pass by outside your window while Clark kept his eyes on the road, both of you pretending not to notice the growing realization that no amount of revisiting the past could recreate what had once come so easily.

Big Sur was supposed to save things.

At least, that was what you secretly hoped when Clark suggested it.

The idea had sounded so simple at the time. Leave Metropolis behind for a few days. Get away from work, from responsibilities, from the endless routine that seemed to have swallowed both of you whole. Maybe if you returned to the place where you'd once been happiest together, you could find whatever it was you'd lost along the way.

Big Sur had always felt like yours.

Not because you'd discovered it first or because it belonged to either of you, but because some of your happiest memories lived there. The winding roads hugging the coastline. The ocean stretching endlessly beyond the cliffs. The salty air that seemed to seep into everything. It was the place you escaped to whenever life became too loud, too complicated, too overwhelming.

The first time you'd come, you'd barely left each other's side. You remembered racing Clark down the beach despite knowing perfectly well that he could outrun you without trying. You remembered collapsing breathless into the sand afterward while he laughed so hard he could barely speak. You remembered staying up until two in the morning wrapped in blankets on the cabin porch, talking about everything and nothing while the waves crashed somewhere below. Back then, the future had felt impossibly large. Every conversation seemed to end with another plan, another dream, another reason to be excited about what came next.

So you rented the same cabin.

Walked the same trails.

Stopped at the same overlooks.

You even ordered from the same little café where Clark had once spent ten minutes trying to convince you to share a slice of pie before eating half of yours anyway.

You recreated everything.

And somehow, that was exactly what made it hurt.

Because every familiar place came with a memory attached to it. Every turn in the road reminded you of a different version of yourselves. Happier. Lighter. More certain. You found yourself constantly comparing the present to the past without meaning to. This is where we took that picture. This is where Clark slipped on the rocks and pretended he meant to do it. This is where we talked until sunrise.

The memories arrived so easily.

The feelings didn't.

On your final evening, you found yourselves sitting on a weathered wooden bench overlooking the ocean. The sky was awash in gold and orange, sunlight spilling across the water in shimmering ribbons. The view was breathtaking. The kind of view people traveled across the country to see.

Years ago, the two of you would've been talking over each other, pointing out shapes in the clouds or making ridiculous plans for the future. Clark would've had his arm around your shoulders. You would've been teasing him about something. There would've been laughter.

Now, neither of you seemed to know what to do with the silence.

You sat with your knees pulled to your chest while the wind tugged loose strands of hair across your face. Beside you, Clark rested his forearms on his thighs, staring out at the water. Every now and then you caught him glancing at you, only for him to quickly look away when you noticed.

The distance between you wasn't large. A few inches at most. If either of you leaned slightly to one side, your shoulders would touch. And yet it felt enormous. You sat beside each other watching the sun sink lower over the horizon, the ocean stretching endlessly below the cliffs, neither quite sure what to do with the silence that had settled between you. Eventually, you broke it.

"Do you remember our first trip here?"

Clark smiled faintly, the expression reaching his eyes for the first time all evening. "Of course."

"You said this was where you'd bring me if the world ever ended."

A soft laugh escaped him. "I did say that."

"You were so dramatic."

His smile widened slightly. "I still am."

For a moment, something almost felt normal. You could hear the familiar warmth in his voice, see traces of the man you'd fallen in love with sitting beside you. It reminded you of late nights on this same coastline years ago, when conversations seemed endless and every plan for the future felt exciting instead of uncertain. But the moment slipped away as quickly as it arrived. The silence returned, heavier this time, and neither of you rushed to fill it. You watched the waves break against the cliffs below, white foam disappearing into the darkening water, and before you could stop yourself, the question you'd been carrying for months finally escaped.

"Why doesn't it feel like that anymore?"

The words hung between you. You hadn't planned to say them. Maybe you hadn't even realized how badly you needed to. But once they were there, neither of you could pretend not to hear them.

Clark's smile slowly faded. Not dramatically, not all at once. It simply disappeared as he turned his gaze back toward the ocean. The wind moved through the grass around you. Somewhere in the distance, a bird cried out over the water. You waited for an answer, for an explanation, for something tangible you could hold onto and fix. Maybe they'd stopped making time for each other. Maybe life had gotten in the way. Maybe they'd both become so focused on holding everything together that they'd forgotten how to simply be together. You wanted a reason because reasons could be solved.

But when Clark finally spoke, his voice was quiet and tired.

"I don't know."

The honesty of it settled heavily in your chest. There was no betrayal to point to, no anger, no secret resentment, no singular moment where everything had gone wrong. You still loved him. Looking at Clark, you could see that he still loved you too. It was there in the way he looked at you, in the way he still instinctively reached for you, in the way he'd spent months trying to save something neither of you fully understood. And yet here you were, sitting in the place that held some of your happiest memories, watching the last of the sunlight disappear beyond the horizon and realizing that neither of you knew how to get back there. Not to Big Sur. To each other.

As darkness slowly settled over the coastline, neither of you moved. Neither of you spoke. You simply sat side by side, grieving something that was still alive and wondering when love had stopped feeling like enough.

The conversation happened three weeks later.

By then, neither of you were pretending it wasn't coming.

The signs had been there for months. In the silences that lasted a little too long. In the conversations that felt increasingly difficult to navigate. In the way both of you kept trying to recreate old versions of yourselves and old versions of your relationship, only to leave feeling more disappointed than before. Neither of you had said the words out loud, but they had settled between you anyway, an uninvited presence neither of you could ignore.

It was nearly midnight when it finally happened.

Rain tapped softly against the apartment windows, turning the city outside into a blur of lights and reflections. A movie played on the television, though neither of you had been paying attention for most of it. You sat curled into one end of the couch with a blanket draped over your lap while Clark occupied the opposite side, his arm resting along the back cushion.

Every so often, you caught him glancing toward you from the corner of your eye. Every time you looked back, he quickly returned his attention to the screen, but it didn't fool you. Your chest had been tight all evening, not because you knew exactly what was coming, but because you could feel him gathering the courage to say it. The same way you could feel a storm building before the first drop of rain ever touched the ground.

Finally, the television clicked silent.

The sound of the rain suddenly seemed much louder.

Your heart dropped as you slowly turned toward him. Clark was already looking at you.

"Hey."

It was only one word, but it carried enough weight to make your stomach twist. You had heard Clark speak your name in a thousand different ways over the years. Teasing. Sleepy. Happy. Frustrated. Laughing. This was different. This sounded like goodbye.

"Can we talk?"

The room blurred instantly. You hated how quickly your body understood what your mind was still trying to deny. For a moment all you could do was stare at him before finally nodding. Clark lowered his gaze and rubbed his palms against his jeans, and that was when you noticed his hands were shaking.

The sight nearly broke you.

This was Clark. A man who could stop trains with his bare hands. A man who could lift collapsed buildings, fly through hurricanes, and stand between entire cities and danger without hesitation. Yet his hands were shaking because of this conversation. Not because he was afraid of you, but because he was terrified of hurting you.

"I don't know how to do this."

His voice cracked slightly on the last word.

You felt your throat tighten.

Neither did you.

"I know."

A hollow laugh escaped him. He dragged a hand down his face before looking at you again, and this time you saw the tears already gathering in his eyes.

"I love you."

The words landed with enough force to knock the air from your lungs because there wasn't a single part of you that doubted them. You knew Clark loved you. You knew it every morning he woke up before you to make coffee exactly the way you liked it. Every time he instinctively reached for your hand while crossing a street. Every time he remembered some tiny detail you'd mentioned months ago and brought it up as though it were the most important thing in the world. Every time he looked at you as though you were the only person in the room.

You knew.

"I know."

His eyes closed briefly.

When they opened again, they were red.

"You know I do."

"I know."

"And that's the problem."

The tears came immediately because you understood exactly what he meant.

Clark closed his eyes like the sight physically hurt him. You stood so quickly the blanket slipped from your lap and fell to the floor.

"No."

Your voice sounded distant.

"You don't get to say that."

"I know."

"Then why are you saying it?"

"Because it's true."

His voice cracked completely this time.

"I love you so much."

The pain in his face was unbearable.

You turned away, pressing a hand over your mouth as tears spilled down your cheeks. Behind you, you heard Clark stand from the couch. When he spoke again, his voice was closer.

"You haven't been happy in a long time."

"That doesn't mean I don't love you."

"I know."

"Then stop saying that."

The tears were impossible to stop now.

"I know things haven't been perfect. I know we've been struggling. I know I've been distant and sad and exhausted all the time."

You looked at him then. Really looked at him. At the man you'd built a life with. The man you still loved. The man who was standing in front of you crying too.

"But can't we keep trying?"

The question seemed to physically wound him.

You saw it happen.

Hope and heartbreak and guilt colliding all at once behind his eyes. Because he wanted to. God, he wanted to. If love alone could've saved this, Clark would've spent the rest of his life trying.

But that wasn't what this was anymore.

"I think we've been trying," he said quietly. "For a long time."

The truth settled between you.

Neither of you spoke for several seconds. The rain continued tapping softly against the windows. The city carried on outside while everything inside the apartment seemed to stop.

Clark took a small step closer.

"You deserve to be happy."

A bitter laugh escaped you.

"You sound like a breakup cliché."

Fresh tears immediately filled his eyes because he knew exactly how pathetic it sounded. How unfair it sounded. How impossible it was to hear. Yet he said it anyway because he believed it.

"You deserve someone who doesn't make you feel trapped."

"You don't make me feel trapped."

The answer came instantly.

Without hesitation.

Because it was true.

Clark had never trapped you. Never controlled you. Never stopped loving you. If anything, he'd spent months trying to give you space to breathe, trying to carry your sadness alongside you, trying to save something he was slowly beginning to realize he couldn't save.

"Then why are you miserable?"

The question shattered whatever remained.

You started crying harder because neither of you had an answer. Not a real one. There was no villain here. No betrayal. No broken trust. No dramatic mistake that could be fixed with an apology. Just two people who loved each other desperately standing in the middle of a living room, trying to understand why that love no longer seemed capable of making either of them happy.

And maybe that was the answer.

Maybe that was the tragedy of it all.

Not that the love was gone, but that it was still there. Still alive. Still aching. Still refusing to die even as everything around it slowly fell apart.

The next morning arrived far too quickly.

Neither of you had slept much. At some point, you had both retreated to opposite sides of the apartment, giving each other space neither of you actually wanted. You'd spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain against the windows and trying not to think about the fact that this was the last time you would wake up here. The last time Clark would be in the next room. The last time this place would feel like yours.

By morning, the rain had stopped, but the sky remained stubbornly gray. Thick clouds hung over Metropolis, turning the city outside into a wash of muted colors and blurred outlines. Even the usual energy of the streets seemed quieter somehow. Or maybe that was just you. Maybe grief had a way of making everything else seem distant.

The apartment was almost empty now. The photographs had been taken down. The books you'd accumulated together over the years had been divided into uneven stacks. The small traces of your life together were disappearing piece by piece, leaving behind a space that already felt unfamiliar.

Clark carried your suitcase downstairs.

Of course he did.

You'd offered to take it yourself. He'd ignored you.

Neither of you spoke much during the elevator ride. What was left to say? The important conversation had already happened. Every argument, every attempt, every desperate plea to keep trying had already been laid bare the night before. All that remained now was the part neither of you had known how to prepare for.

Actually leaving.

The taxi was already waiting at the curb when you stepped outside.

The driver glanced at the two of you through the windshield before politely looking away again. You wondered what he saw. Maybe just another couple saying goodbye. Maybe nothing at all.

Your suitcase sat between you on the sidewalk.

For a moment neither of you moved.

Clark looked exhausted. His eyes were red. His shoulders seemed heavier somehow, as though he hadn't slept either.

You probably looked the same.

For several seconds, you simply stood there staring at each other.

Then Clark crossed the distance first.

Of course he did.

The second his arms wrapped around you, something inside you shattered.

You buried your face against his chest and immediately became aware of every familiar thing you were about to lose. The scent of his laundry detergent. The steady rise and fall of his breathing. The warmth of his body. The way his hand automatically settled against the back of your head.

For one terrible moment, everything felt normal.

Not fixed. Not healed. Just familiar.

Buried against Clark's chest, surrounded by his warmth, you could almost pretend none of the last few months had happened. It felt like coming home after a long day. Like Sunday mornings spent tangled together beneath blankets. Like movie nights on the couch and sleepy conversations in the kitchen while he made coffee before work. All the ordinary moments you'd once taken for granted suddenly felt precious now that you were losing them. Your fingers tightened in the fabric of his jacket, and when Clark's arms tightened around you in return, you realized neither of you wanted to let go.

Then you felt it.

His shoulders were shaking.

The realization hit harder than anything that had happened the night before. Harder than the conversation. Harder than the decision. Harder than the sight of your packed suitcase sitting beside the curb. Clark was crying. Not quietly, not the restrained tears he'd tried so hard to hide in the apartment, but real, uncontrollable grief. His entire body trembled with it.

Because he loved you.

Still.

Enough to let you go. Enough to stand here and break his own heart because he genuinely believed it was what was best for you.

"I don't want this."

His voice was muffled against your hair, raw and broken in a way you'd never heard before.

"I know."

"I really don't."

The desperation in those three words nearly undid you.

"I know, baby."

For a long moment neither of you moved. Eventually, you forced yourself to pull back, and the sight of him almost shattered whatever composure you had left. His cheeks were wet, his eyes red and exhausted. There was no trace of Superman standing in front of you. No symbol. No invincible hero. Just Clark. Just the man you'd loved for years. The man who looked as though someone had reached into his chest and torn something vital away.

You'd seen him cry before. A funeral. A devastating loss. A few private moments he never allowed anyone else to witness. Never like this. Never so openly. Never so helplessly.

Your hands rose instinctively to his face. Your thumbs brushed across his cheeks as you tried to memorize every detail. The tiny scar near his eyebrow. The faint freckles scattered across his skin. The slight crook in his nose. The way his hair curled when it grew too long. Ridiculous things. Small things. Things that suddenly felt desperately important because you were terrified of forgetting them.

A broken laugh escaped through your tears.

Clark frowned softly.

"You know what's unfair?"

He swallowed hard.

"What?"

Your lips trembled.

"I wish you loved me less."

The reaction was immediate. His face crumpled completely, pain flashing across his features so quickly you almost regretted saying it.

"Don't."

"If you loved me less, maybe we'd still be together." Your voice cracked. "Or maybe this wouldn't hurt so much."

Because it was true.

If Clark had loved you less, maybe he would've ignored the unhappiness creeping into your lives. Maybe he would've convinced himself things were fine. Maybe he would've chosen comfort over honesty and held on because letting go was harder. But Clark Kent had never known how to love halfway. He loved completely, with every part of himself, and that was exactly why he couldn't stay. Loving you meant wanting more for you than a relationship that was slowly breaking both of you.

For a moment he simply stared at you. Then he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were shining.

"I don't think I know how."

Your breath caught.

"What?"

A sad smile appeared and disappeared almost instantly.

"Loving you less."

The words were simple. Honest. And somehow they hurt more than everything else combined.

Neither of you spoke after that. The city continued moving around you as though nothing had happened. People walked past. Cars drove by. Somewhere a siren sounded in the distance. The world remained stubbornly indifferent to the fact that yours was ending.

Then Clark leaned forward and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

The same kiss he'd given you after nightmares. Before work. During lazy Sunday mornings. During arguments and celebrations and countless ordinary days in between. A thousand memories wrapped into one final gesture.

When he stepped back, he didn't reach for you again. He didn't ask you to stay. He didn't beg. He simply gave you room. The choice. The freedom. Even now. Especially now.

And standing there beside the taxi, watching the man who loved you enough to lose you, you finally understood the cruelest part of all. The relationship hadn't ended because there wasn't love. It had ended because there was. Enough love to recognize when holding on was hurting more than helping. Enough love to put your happiness above his own. Enough love to open the door even when every part of him wanted to keep it closed.

And somehow, impossibly, that hurt far more than if he had never loved you at all.

Good sex was what you expected from anybody decent enough to make it that far with you. It was the kind people talked about casually with their friends, the kind that came up over drinks after someone asked, “So, was he good?” Good sex happened on Tuesdays after work with the guy from Hinge who insisted on taking you out somewhere too expensive for a second date. You split a basket of fries, drank half a beer because you still had work in the morning, drove home with exhaustion sitting heavy behind your eyes, then let him fuck you well enough to sleep for four uninterrupted hours. 

Good sex was practical and predictable. It convinced your body you were living a normal life.

Great sex was different. Great sex happened after work parties when your mascara was already smudged and your heels were in your hand by midnight. It happened on weekends with nowhere to be the next morning. You never talked about great sex because it sounded exaggerated the second you said it out loud, like you were overselling a man nobody else would understand. Great sex made you cum or at least brought you close enough that your stomach tightened every time you remembered it afterward. You thought about great sex while driving long stretches of empty highway, your hands steady on the wheel while your mind wandered somewhere warmer. 

Great sex stayed in your body for days. You caught yourself replaying parts of it absentmindedly while standing in line for coffee or brushing your teeth before bed.

Then there was getting fucked…

There was no cleaner way to define it. It lived somewhere between fantasy and urban legend, passed around between women in half-serious conversations that always dissolved into laughter. Everybody claimed to know someone who’d experienced it but nobody could explain it properly. Getting fucked was the kind of sex that distracted you in the middle of the day badly enough to make you stop what you were doing and change your underwear. It sat dangerously close to the limits of what sex could actually be before the whole thing collapsed under its own weight. 

If a guy treated you too much like an object, it fell apart immediately. 

If you didn’t orgasm, it didn’t count. 

If you weren’t still thinking about him six months later at red lights and in grocery store aisles and during lonely hotel nights, then it wasn’t that either. 

Getting fucked sat at the very top of the scale, lit up like something obvious and somehow most men still missed it completely.

Being made love to was worse and more dangerous, honestly.

For somebody like you, it could become embarrassing fast. Storm season kept you on the road for months at a time, bouncing between states, sleeping in motels with stiff sheets and weak air conditioning. Off-season meant office buildings, weather models glowing across multiple monitors, long meetings about funding, new equipment and data collection. Your life moved constantly and men liked that at first. A woman who was smart, busy, gone half the year, financially stable and difficult to pin down. 

Men loved the idea of you because it excused the fact they never had to give very much. Most of them thought they were in love but really, they just liked access to somebody they found impressive.

Before all of that, you used to think being made love to meant passion…intimacy. That it was slow sex with somebody who knew your body so well they could pull an orgasm out of you patiently and confidently, like it mattered to them as much as breathing did. You imagined hands lingering at your waist, sleepy conversation afterward, somebody brushing your hair away from your face before kissing you again.

Instead, you ended up underneath men who mistook enthusiasm for intimacy. You stared at ceilings while they grunted above you, listened to them breathe your name like they were performing something instead of feeling it. Sometimes you felt your stomach turn from the boredom alone, your body rocking mechanically with theirs while your mind drifted somewhere else entirely to storm reports, grocery lists and whether you needed to change your oil before the next drive west.

You never let them finish once you realized you hated it, that was the one thing you refused to fake. You pushed them off, sat up and reached for your clothes while they blinked at you in confusion. You told them it wasn’t going to work, sometimes you said it gently and other times you just didn’t bother. Either way, you watched realization settle over them while they sat there flushed and humiliated, their ego bruised worse than their feelings ever were but somehow your harsh words still made them cum…

Needless to say, after a while, you stopped having sex altogether.

You were in your rental house after a long day spent staring at storm data and listening to Javi ramble about whatever breakthrough he thought he’d made this time. It was late, the entire house felt heavy and warm, every light dimmer than usual and lately, you weren’t alone nearly as often as you used to be.

Scott sat at your dining table with your laptop open, shoulders slightly hunched, completely absorbed in columns of numbers and radar models. You’d known him for two years and he’d been your partner for one of them. 

People were right about him. He was direct to the point of rudeness, arrogant enough to make most people defensive within five minutes and mean when he thought someone deserved it but unlike most men in your field, Scott had learned how to admit when he was wrong, far from gracefully or happily but still, he did it.

The two of you were impossibly stubborn in almost identical ways, so sharing space with him sometimes felt like being trapped in a room with a sharper version of yourself. Separately, you were both good at what you did but together, you were nearly impossible to beat.

You couldn’t pinpoint when “coworkers” had turned into Scott walking into your house without knocking, helping himself to your fridge and sitting at your table like he paid rent.

“Best orgasm you’ve had during sex?” His voice came from across the room, casual and flat, like he’d asked you about rainfall percentages. He didn’t even look away from the laptop while he said it.

You’d forgotten he was meeting you there before the two of you drove to the bar together, which was why you were still walking around in sleep shorts and a bra, trying to find something decent enough to wear without looking like you’d spent an hour trying.

You took a sip from the beer he’d already pulled out of your fridge and nearly snorted into the bottle. “You think men do that?” you asked as you disappeared into your bedroom.

“To you?” Scott finally looked up. His eyes tracked your movement automatically while he reached for the beer the two of you were apparently sharing now. “I hope so.”

He took a drink as his eyes followed your movement.

You walked back into view holding two dresses on mismatched hangers. “You’re a fucking idiot,” you said plainly. “And maybe a pervert.”

Scott pointed at you immediately. “You’re changing in front of me. I could probably keep count of your bras at this point and I don’t. That actually makes me less of a pervert.”

You disappeared back into your room. He could hear hangers scraping against the closet rod while you searched through clothes with growing irritation.

“Just because it doesn’t make you hard doesn’t make you not a pervert,” you called back, your voice muffled through the wall.

“How do you know I’m not?” he shot back instantly, sounding almost offended by the assumption.

Silence followed but about a minute later, you walked back out wearing a dress he’d never seen before. It was simple, fitted enough to make his eyes stop for a second before continuing downward automatically. You crossed the room toward him, letting your heels drop onto the hardwood before slipping them on one at a time.

“You’re not attracted to me, Scott,” you said flatly.

He looked up slowly then, his eyes dragging over the length of the dress with enough attention to make most people nervous. On you, it just made you impatient.

“You seem awfully confident about that.”

“I am.” You adjusted the strap on your shoulder before glancing toward his laptop screen. “So don’t say shit that makes me sound stupid.”

Scott looked back at the laptop fast enough to make the movement obvious. He pretended to scroll through data he’d stopped reading the second you started undressing in the next room.

“I’m ready,” you said. “Good to go?”

“Need five minutes,” he muttered.

You walked behind him toward the front door, tapping his shoulder as you passed. “The data will still be there tomorrow. C’mon, Scotty.”

The teasing grin in your voice made something in his jaw tighten. You disappeared outside before he could even think of an answer.

Scott closed the laptop harder than necessary and stood, quietly adjusting himself through his jeans with the irritation of a man betrayed by his own body. He shut off the lights one by one and grabbed your keys from the counter before locking the door behind him.

The porch light was off so you couldn’t see the tent in his jeans. Thank fuck for that.

“Scotty was an eight-year-old with chubby cheeks,” he muttered while locking the deadbolt. He glanced over at you waiting by the passenger side of his truck. “It’s Scott.”

“It’s whatever I decide it is,” you replied easily.

He rolled his eyes and walked down the porch steps, unlocking the truck with a sharp click.

“Come open my door.”

“Since when do you need me to do that?” he complained, already circling the hood anyway.

“Since you got comfortable commenting on my bras.”

Scott stopped in front of you to stare before reaching around your waist to pull the handle open. The movement brought him close enough to smell your perfume underneath detergent and beer.

You smiled to yourself while climbing into the passenger seat because for once, Scott didn’t have anything smart to say.

Talking about sex with your coworkers was probably the least professional habit you could develop but professionalism stopped mattering after twelve-hour drives, shared motel rooms, gas station dinners at midnight and enough close calls together to make normal boundaries feel unnecessary. There were barely any women in the field to begin with, which meant the few of you that existed clung together fast and Scott, despite being deeply irritating most of the time, was easier to talk to than most people. 

Brutally honest people usually were.

At some point, conversations that started as jokes during long drives turned into real discussions about relationships, sex, exes and every disappointing person either of you had ever slept with. It happened slowly enough neither of you noticed the line moving until it was already somewhere far behind you.

HR would’ve had a heart attack.

That night, you learned Scott Miller did not do good sex. If good sex existed to him at all, it involved two people fully clothed and standing on opposite ends of a room.

The bar was more crowded than you expected, packed wall to wall with storm chasers, meteorologists, researchers and people who somehow always smelled faintly like dust and gasoline no matter how clean they looked. Whenever women in the field found each other, there was an unspoken tendency to group together immediately, so you spent most of the night at the bar talking with another researcher from Oklahoma while music pounded so loud you felt it vibrate through the floor beneath your heels.

Eventually Javi appeared beside you carrying drinks you absolutely weren’t going to refuse. He handed one over before leaning closer, lowering his voice.

“What’s wrong with Scott?”

You blinked at him. The question caught you off guard enough to make your brows pull together immediately because nobody ever asked about Scott. People either tolerated him, argued with him or avoided him entirely. Whatever problem Scott had, he usually fixed it himself before anyone could notice it existed.

Your eyes scanned the crowd automatically until you found him near the back corner of the bar with a soda in his hand. Of course he wasn’t drinking, he stood half-shadowed against the wall looking deeply unimpressed by the concept of social interaction…and staring directly at you.

Your eyes narrowed slightly until Scott finally got the message and looked away first.

You turned back to Javi. “Do you mean tonight or in general?” you asked dryly. “Because I’m pretty sure he was dropped as a child, but you’d have to ask his mother for confirmation.”

Javi frowned harder. “I mean tonight. He looks tense and it’s making me uneasy.”

“It’s Scott. He always looks tense.”

“More than usual.” Javi glanced over his shoulder carefully. “Tell him to relax for once…and to make some friends. That’s literally why we came here.”

You pointed at yourself immediately. “Why am I responsible for that?”

Javi shrugged like the answer was obvious. “Because you speak ‘Scott’ fluently. Translate what I just said into something he’ll actually understand.”

Your gaze dropped to the drink in your hand. “You’re bribing me.”

“And that drink cost me twenty-five dollars,” he replied. “So yes. Go.”

You snorted into the rim of your glass. “Pretty sure stress is what’s making you bald, by the way…not Scott’s burning gaze.”

Javi adjusted his baseball cap defensively. “Just go talk to him.”

You shook your head, already grinning despite yourself and pushed through the crowd toward the back of the bar, which Scott noticed immediately. 

The music got louder the closer you got to him, voices bleeding together into useless noise, so instead of trying to shout over it, you reached forward and hooked one finger through the belt loop of his jeans.

“Outside,” you said simply, tugging once as you moved toward the exit.

Scott followed without argument, that alone should’ve concerned you more than it did.

The plan was for him to ask what you wanted once you got outside. Instead, somewhere between the crowded bar and the exit door, he got distracted watching you walk ahead of him. Your dress moved against your hips every few steps, exposing flashes of leg skin under the low bar lights and the muscles in your bare back moved subtly every time you pushed through another cluster of people.

Inevitably, Scott’s eyes dropped lower before he caught himself.

By the time the two of you stepped outside into the cooler night air, he still hadn’t said a word.

You finally let go of his belt loop once the two of you were far enough from the entrance that the music had dulled into muffled bass behind you. You turned to face him properly, folding your arms across your chest as you looked up at him.

“What’s your current issue?” you asked.

“Current?” Scott repeated, brows pulling together.

You nodded once like the question made perfect sense.

“When’s the last time you had sex?”

A startled laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “Excuse me?”

He shrugged carelessly, shoving one hand into the pocket of his jeans. “What? Are you the only one allowed to ask those questions?”

You laughed again, this time shaking your head as you pointed at him. “Yes. Obviously.”

Scott snorted.

“And those are long-drive questions,” you continued, motioning vaguely toward his truck behind you before pointing back toward the crowded bar. “Not ‘parking lot outside a packed bar’ questions.”

“You still need to answer.” He shrugged again. “Those are the rules.”

“Have I ever told you how stupid those rules are?”

“First time I’m hearing complaints since you’re the one who made them,” he replied with a grin.

“You’re insufferable,” you muttered under your breath before taking another sip of your drink.

Scott stayed quiet as he just watched you over the rim of his own soda, patient and expectant in a way that immediately irritated you because he clearly thought he was getting an answer eventually.

“Are you seriously gonna make me answer?”

“I can’t make you do anything,” he said calmly. “But I can wait. I still have to drive you home.”

You looked up toward the entrance of the bar. Through the windows you could still see people packed together under neon lights, laughing too loud, talking over each other about work, storm patterns and equipment failures. You’d already reached the point of the night where conversations started blending together into white noise.

“Can we leave now?” you asked.

Scott didn’t answer verbally. He just pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked the truck with a click, then held his hand out toward your drink.

“Get in and lock the doors,” he said as he took the glass from you and turned back toward the bar to return it.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you called after him while walking directly to the passenger side and doing exactly that.

Honestly, you didn’t mind answering the question. The problem was that once you actually thought about it, you realized you weren’t entirely sure how long it had been. It had been long enough that you had to start considering technicalities and long enough that the answer became embarrassing and unfortunately, thinking about sex while sitting alone in Scott’s truck immediately led your brain somewhere unhelpful…

Scott eventually climbed back into the truck and shut the door behind him. He didn’t start driving right away, he just sat there in the dark, one hand resting on the wheel while the dashboard lights cut sharp shadows across his face…waiting, because the thing about car questions was that silence usually came first.

“A year and a half,” you blurted out finally. “Give or take.”

Scott’s head turned toward you so fast it almost looked painful. “No,” he said immediately. “I don’t believe that.”

You laughed in disbelief and looked toward him. “Believe whatever you want, Scott. I answered the fucking question. That’s the game.”

“A year and a half?” he repeated, staring at you like you’d confessed to murder. “What the hell do you even do on weekends?”

“Currently?” you replied dryly. “Sit in your truck while you annoy me.”

“No,” he said, already turning the key in the ignition. “You’re irritated because you’re sexually frustrated.”

You barked out another incredulous laugh. 

“And you’ve been sexually frustrated since I met you,” he continued as he shifted the truck into reverse. “Which explains why you piss me off every single fucking day.”

“Excuse you?” You turned toward him fully now, half laughing from sheer disbelief. “First the bra comments and now this? What’s next? Are you gonna set me up with one of your friends so he can fix me?”

“Put your seatbelt on.” The command came out flat and automatic.

You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do, Scott. I’m not drunk enough to–”

The words died in your throat the second he reached across you.

His arm slid in front of your chest while the truck reversed smoothly with his other hand still turning the wheel. His forearm brushed against the underside of your breasts accidentally…or maybe not so accidentally and your breath caught hard at the sudden closeness. Scott grabbed the seatbelt beside your shoulder, pulled it across your body in one sharp movement, then clicked it into place at your hip without looking away from the rear window once.

You drove home in complete silence.

No radio or conversation, just the steady sound of tires against asphalt and the occasional flick of the blinker while Scott kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. You’d heard every version of his voice over the last two years, sarcastic, irritated or sharp enough to make grown men defensive in meetings but hearing him tell you to put your seatbelt on while his arm pressed across your breasts had done something deeply unfortunate to your brain.

This was entirely your fault. You were the one who made sex an acceptable topic between the two of you, you were the one who turned it into a game, into background conversation during long drives and late nights. Somewhere along the way home, your definition of good sex had rewritten itself around that precise moment. 

For most people, that probably counted as foreplay, but for you? It counted as a serious fucking problem.

By the time Scott parked outside your house, your thoughts had spiraled so badly that you barely registered the truck stopping. You stayed seated even after he cut the engine, staring forward blankly while the silence settled heavier around you.

Scott got out first without saying anything and walked around the front of the truck toward your side.

The passenger door opened. You looked up just in time to feel him lean in and reach across you again, fingers brushing lightly against the fabric stretched over your waist as he unclipped the seatbelt. The contact lasted maybe a second but that was already too long.

Only then did you finally move. You climbed out quickly, making an effort to keep close to the truck instead of brushing against him, then headed straight for your front door while digging through your purse for your keys even if it was practically empty and somehow that made it worse. You found lip balm…receipts…some loose cash, everything except what you actually needed.

Scott followed behind you quietly.

You still hadn’t found the keys when his arm appeared beside you, reaching around your body with frustrating familiarity. He’d had your keys the entire night, he usually did whenever the two of you went out together because you constantly lost track of them.

The metal clicked softly as he unlocked the door for you.

Your breath stalled as Scott stood so close behind you that you could feel the heat coming off him through the thin fabric of your dress. His chest nearly touched your back, one arm still braced near your shoulder while he turned the lock. It boxed you in completely, your body caught between the door and him and the worst part was that it felt good.

The sharp heat low in your stomach made that painfully obvious.

Good sex, apparently, was standing fully clothed on your own porch while your coworker unlocked your front door…all while standing right behind you.

The lock finally clicked open. You pushed the door open and stepped inside fast to put distance between you before turning back toward him. 

Determination sat stiffly in your chest now…You were staying dressed. Whatever this weird tension was had to be alcohol-fueled, temporary, deeply stupid or preferably all three and gone by morning.

Unfortunately, Scott looked unfairly good standing on your porch under weak yellow light.

At some point he’d taken off his cap, you didn’t know when and hadn’t realized until now. Why did he look dreamy!? His hair was messy from running his hands through it all night and the expression on his face had settled back into that unreadable calm that somehow made things worse.

“Night, Scott,” you said quickly, then shut the door directly in his face…very determined to remain dressed.

“Are you gonna set me up with one of your friends so he can fix me?” That sentence replayed in your head later for one humiliating reason: Scott Miller had never been the kind of man to hand off work he could do himself.

You’d been wrong earlier, completely wrong.

Great sex didn’t happen on weekends or after parties or during long-awaited moments with somebody you trusted. Sometimes it happened five minutes after you slammed your front door in a man’s face and tried convincing yourself you still had common sense.

You stayed standing by the door after closing it, palms warm against the wood, waiting to hear his truck start. You expected the familiar sound of the driver’s side door opening, shutting and the low rumble of the engine before he pulled away but nothing happened.

At first you told yourself you were imagining the silence because you were still too aware of him…then a full minute passed…followed by another and then three more.

Five long, miserable minutes where your brain refused to focus on anything except the fact Scott was still outside your house.

You opened the door expecting embarrassment or maybe annoyance, maybe him realizing he forgot something. Instead, he was still standing there in the same position with that same unreadable expression, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans like you hadn’t just shut the door on him…five minutes ago.

You stared at each other for a second too long.

You never figured out what exactly snapped first. Pride, self-control or curiosity…maybe all of it at once again.

One second he was standing on your porch and the next you were grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him forward hard enough to make him stumble into you as your mouth crashed against his.

The moment the door clicked shut behind you, the fragile determination to stay dressed shattered. You didn't just invite Scott in, you practically hauled him across the threshold, pulling him into a kiss that tasted of alcohol and months of suppressed frustration. It was messy and desperate, a collision of teeth and tongues that left you both breathless.

You stumbled backward, the friction of your bodies fueling a fire that had been simmering for far too long. As you navigated the space, your heels clicked erratically against the floor until you kicked them off with frantic movements, one flying toward the wall and the other sliding away as you backed into the dining area.

You hit the edge of the heavy wooden table and Scott didn't miss a beat. He gripped your waist with bruising force and hoisted you up, the sudden elevation making you gasp into his mouth. He didn't stop kissing you but his path shifted, lips sliding down your jawline to your neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. His hands were everywhere, frantic and demanding, sliding up the fabric of your dress and bunching it up around your waist until your thighs were bare and shivering against the cool wood.

You felt his fingers hook into the elastic of your panties, tugging them down with a sharp, decisive motion until you could kick them off, exposing you to the air. As he lowered himself, his mouth found the swell of your breasts through your dress, biting lightly against the fabric on his way down between your legs.

"You don't need to do that," you managed to moan, your voice trembling as he moved your weight, sliding you toward the edge of the table until you were perched precariously, your legs naturally falling open.

"Shut up," Scott muttered against your skin, his voice a low, arrogant growl that sent a jolt of electricity straight to your clit as he finally settled himself firmly between your thighs, the heat of his body radiating against your wetness. 

Then, he dipped his head. The first touch of his tongue was a shock of heat, it was wet and precise. He dove right in, tongue licking upward from your perineum to your clit in one long, sweeping stroke. You arched your back as a loud moan escaped you since it had been so long since you’d felt anything this raw, this focused. You were starving for it and Scott was feeding off of you with a primal intensity that blurred everything else out.

He used his hands to grip your hips, pulling you closer to the edge so he could bury his face in you as he kneeled. He began to lap at you with a rhythmic, punishing speed, his tongue flattening out to cover as much surface area as possible before narrowing into a sharp point to flick relentlessly against your clit.

The sensation was overwhelming. You began to squirm, hips jerking instinctively against his mouth as your fingernails clawed at the tabletop. You weren't just enjoying it, you were unraveling.

"Fuck…Scott...please," you whimpered, though you didn't know what you were asking for.

He responded by changing your position. He pushed you flat onto your back on the table, the hard wood pressing into your spine and hauled your legs up, draping them over his broad shoulders. The position left you completely exposed, your pussy flared open and glistening in the dark room.

He didn't stop the oral but added more by sliding two fingers deep inside you, stretching you open while his tongue continued to hammer away at your clit. The combination of the internal pressure and the external friction was too much. You were shaking, breath coming in short, jagged gasps as your feet drummed against his back.

He could tell you were close, encouraging him to increase the pressure, fingers curling inside you to hit your G-spot while his tongue sucked your clit into his mouth, creating a vacuum of pleasure that felt like it was pulling your entire soul out through your cunt.

“Holy s-shit!” Your head thrashed from side to side, a loud, unrestrained scream tearing from your throat as the orgasm hit you like a freight train. It was violent and all-consuming, your internal muscles clamping down hard on his fingers as waves of intense pleasure crashed over you, leaving you whimpering and twitching on the table.

As the peak slowly subsided, Scott didn't pull away immediately. He stayed there, his breath hot against your sensitive skin, slowly lapping the remaining juices from your pussy. He cleaned you thoroughly, his tongue lingering on every inch of your swollen cunt until you were completely spent, lying limp and shivering on the table, finally satisfied.

He straightened slowly from between your legs, chest rising hard with uneven breaths that matched your own. His mouth was swollen and wet when he licked across his lips absentmindedly, eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made heat crawl back under your skin even while your body still twitched from the orgasm.

From your place sprawled across the dining table, you stared up at him in stunned silence. Your thighs were still trembling now against his sides and you were almost certain your expression looked ridiculous, wide-eyed and dazed in a way you hadn’t allowed yourself to look around another person in years.

Scott held a hand out toward you and you took it automatically.

He helped you sit up first before guiding you carefully off the table, one hand steady on your waist while your legs struggled to cooperate beneath you. The second your feet touched the floor, your knees nearly gave out entirely.

Scott wiped his mouth with his palm. “Goodnight,” he said and the gentleness of it caught you off guard more than anything else that night had.

His hand slipped away from your waist and the two of you just stood there for a second, staring at each other while trying and failing to breathe normally again.

Then Scott turned and walked toward the front door.

You stayed frozen in place while he opened it and left your house without another word. A few seconds later you finally heard the sounds you’d been waiting for earlier, the truck door opening, shutting and the engine starting before he drove off into the night.

You tried walking toward your bedroom afterward and immediately realized your legs barely worked. You ended up half stumbling down the hallway, one hand dragging along the wall for balance because your entire lower body still felt weak and oversensitive.

Great sex…that had been unbelievably, painfully great sex.

You thought about it constantly afterward. In the shower, during calls and meetings, while sitting in traffic or lying awake at night staring at the ceiling with your thighs pressed together. You didn’t mention it to your friends or talked to Scott about it, even during the long stretches of silence that filled the truck during drives. The two of you understood what happened without discussing it directly, you’d crossed a line and both of you seemed aware that talking about it too much would probably drag you over it again.

The following mornings, you waited for him outside on your porch instead of letting him walk into your house like usual. Mostly because you’d spent the entire week masturbating to the memory of him between your legs on your dining table before getting ready for the day and you didn’t trust yourself to survive seeing him inside your kitchen before sunrise.

For one solid week, you slept perfectly. No insomnia or late-night work spirals, no pacing around rooms or answering emails at one in the morning just to keep your brain occupied. Whatever tension usually sat under your skin had disappeared completely and now it sat between you both instead.

Every drive felt heavier, the silence stretched longer and every sharp inhale from him made your stomach tighten unexpectedly until eventually you got sick of pretending neither of you noticed it.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you interrupted suddenly.

Scott glanced toward you briefly, eyes leaving the road for barely a second before returning forward. “Do you want to?” he asked.

“I don’t,” you admitted. “I feel like you do though.”

“You’re right.”

You snorted quietly and looked back down at the laptop balanced across your knees. 

“I thought you liked being right.” Scott added.

“Fucking love it,” you replied automatically before grimacing. “Usually.”

Silence settled again until you broke it. “Okay,” you sighed eventually. “Maybe one thing.” You turned to him properly this time. “I wasn’t that drunk that night. Actually, I wasn’t drunk at all. I had that one beer before we left my place and the rest were mocktails.”

Scott turned his head enough to study your face for a second. “I wouldn’t have touched you if you were drunk,” he said flatly. “I’m an asshole, not fucking stupid.”

You leaned back against the seat slowly. “Even that’s changed.”

His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

“The coffee for starters,” you said. “The lunches, too. You stopped buying disgusting gas station sandwiches and now we actually eat dinner out like normal people.” You gestured vaguely toward him. “You used to hand me coffee with five sugar packets on the side because you couldn’t remember how I took it. Now it’s magically perfect every fucking morning.”

Scott adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.

“I thought eating around other people would make this less weird,” he admitted. “And I got tired of sugar packets all over my truck.”

“Our truck,” you corrected automatically before pointing at him accusingly. “And nothing about this is normal, Scott! You ate me out on my dining table!”

“Stop yelling at me.” His tone stayed frustratingly calm.

“Why?” you shot back. “Is it making you hard?”

Scott shifted in his seat hard enough that you noticed instantly. Both his hands locked tighter around the steering wheel while he stared straight ahead at the road. The tension in his jaw became visible because unfortunately for him, you weren’t wrong.

The last week had changed things. You looked less exhausted and less tightly wound. You hadn’t snapped at him once during work and he hadn’t gotten a single unhinged one a.m. email from you all week because for the first time since he’d met you, you were actually sleeping.

“So when are we doing it again?” he asked finally, against every ounce of common sense he had left.

NEVER…that should’ve been the answer. It was the logical answer, the responsible one, the answer two coworkers with already questionable boundaries should’ve landed on immediately.

It just wasn’t the truth.

You had always maintained that getting fucked couldn’t happen in motel rooms. It didn't matter how good the sex was, the second cheap carpet, bad lighting and a rattling air conditioner got involved, the whole thing dropped several levels automatically. 

Motel sex could be great, sometimes even memorable but it couldn’t be that, so the next time it happened definitely wasn’t in a motel room.

The weather that day had turned bad enough to keep everyone grounded but not dangerous enough to send your team chasing storms through three different counties. There was heavy rain, low visibility and too much lightning for comfort but not enough rotation to justify going out.

At some point, without either of you actually saying it outright, waiting the storm out in Scott’s apartment became the plan instead of sitting cramped inside the truck for hours pretending the tension between you didn’t exist.

You still couldn’t pinpoint who made the first move once the elevator doors closed behind you.

One second you were standing beside him soaked at the edges from the rain, listening to distant thunder through the concrete parking garage and the next, Scott’s hand was inside your pants like it belonged there.

You gasped hard into his mouth as his fingers slid against you immediately, already somewhat familiar with exactly what made your hips jerk forward. The kiss that came after barely counted as one, it was messy and distracted, interrupted constantly by your breathing and the quiet sounds you kept failing to swallow down.

The elevator ride lasted less than a minute but by the time the doors opened onto his floor, your orgasm was already hitting you in sharp waves around his fingers while your forehead pressed against his shoulder to keep yourself standing.

If you weren’t already fucked, you were about to be.

You’d been inside Scott’s apartment before. A handful of times after late nights working or when weather reports needed reviewing somewhere quieter than a crowded diner. You remembered the big windows first, stretching across the living room area with a full view of the skyline in the distance. Tonight they framed heavy gray clouds and rain pouring so hard that it blurred the city lights into smears of white and yellow.

Scott barely gave you time to look around because the second the apartment door shut behind you, his hands were on you again. He walked you toward the living room with rough impatience, pulling your pants down from behind while you stumbled against the edge of an armchair. Your underwear followed immediately after, dragged down together in one quick motion before pooling around your ankles.

The air in Scott’s apartment was heavy, charged with the static of the storm raging outside. The gray light of the overcast sky filtered through the windows but the atmosphere inside was scorching.

"Kneel," he commanded as he pointed toward the armchair, his voice a low, authoritative rumble.

You didn't hesitate. The tension that had been building between you for weeks, the unspoken glances and lingering touches, had finally snapped. You sank to your knees on the plush seat, your heart hammering against your ribs. You leaned forward, gripping the headrest with both hands, body already trembling in anticipation. You were completely exposed to him, your ass tilted back and waiting.

Scott disappeared for a moment, leaving you in a silence broken only by the distant roll of thunder. When he returned, the sound of a foil packet tearing echoed in the room. You heard the metallic click of his belt unbuckling and the slide of a zipper.

The anticipation was agonizing. You heard him roll the condom on, followed by the wet sound of him spitting on the head of his cock to make the entry smoother.

He stepped up behind you, heat radiating against your backside. He lined himself up and then, with one powerful, decisive surge, he thrust deep inside you.

You let out a sharp, strangled whine, your fingers digging into the fabric of the headrest. It had been so long since you’d felt a man inside you and Scott was massive. The initial stretch was borderline painful, a blunt force that filled every millimeter of your tight, starving pussy. You blinked rapidly, tears pricking your eyes as your body struggled to accommodate his size, your breath hitching in your throat.

Scott didn't give you time to adjust. He reached forward, his large hands clamping onto your hips with bruising force and yanked you backward, pulling you deeper onto his cock until there was no space left between you.

"I wanna see you," you moaned, your voice broken and desperate, trying to twist your torso around to look at him.

He didn't let you. Instead, he leaned in and sank his teeth into the skin of your shoulder, a sharp bite that made you moan despite your best efforts. His hand moved from your hip to your jaw, gripping it firmly to keep your head pinned forward.

"Just focus," he rasped calmly against your skin, the contrast of his steady voice and his firm grip sending a shiver of submission down your spine.

He let go of your jaw and began to thrust. He didn't start slowly, he hit you with a rhythmic, punishing intensity. The apartment was suddenly filled with the sound of your sudden, loud moans and frantic curses. You collapsed forward, your chest pressed against the headrest, your body jarring with every hit.

As he hammered into you, Scott reached around, his hands finding your breasts. He didn't bother undressing you further, he grabbed your boobs firmly over your clothes, squeezing and kneading them with a rough, possessive grip that matched the violence of his hips.

"I'm gonna fuck you on every surface of this apartment," he growled. "You'll be seeing a lot of me."

The sex quickly became raw and primal and so, so fucking good. The sound of skin slapping against skin, mixed with the wet, rhythmic thud of his pelvis hitting your ass filled the room, competing with the roar of the thunder outside. Every thrust shook your entire frame, quaking your body from your head to your toes. You were whimpering loudly now, the pain of the initial stretch having completely melted into an overwhelming, white-hot pleasure you never thought you could feel.

Your eyes watered, staring out into the distance of the room, the world blurring as the friction built. It was fast, harsh and so perfect that you found yourself wanting to bite the armchair, your teeth sinking into the fabric as your back arched violently. You were unraveling, the long period of abstinence making you hypersensitive to every inch of him.

"I'm right there, keep going! Scott, please! Don’t fuckin’ stop." you whined, voice echoing through the apartment.

He didn't, he instead increased the pace, his thrusts becoming shorter and more frantic, drilling into you with an obsession that felt like he wanted to merge his body with yours. The thunder peaked with a deafening crash that seemed to trigger something inside you.

Suddenly, your internal muscles spasmed. A wave of heat exploded from your core and you felt a sudden, uncontrollable gush of fluid. You were squirting, something that had never happened to you before, the hot spray soaking the armchair and your own thighs. You began to shake uncontrollably, your legs giving out as you sobbed out of pure pleasure into the headrest.

Scott let out a guttural groan, the feeling of you flooding around him driving him over the edge. He loved it, hell, he was obsessed with the way you were falling apart under him. He kept going, ignoring your tremors, continuously driving himself into you as you peaked into a mind-blowing, screaming orgasm that left you completely breathless.

With a final, deep thrust, he groaned loudly, coming hard into the condom.

The momentum stopped abruptly. He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, both of you frozen, chests heaving in unison.

Slowly, he withdrew, the wet sound of his exit punctuating the silence with an obscene pop.

You both watch the rain lash against the glass, the gray light illuminating the wreckage of your passion. You took a long, shuddering breath, body still twitching from the aftershocks as your pussy twitched around nothing, back arching further needily, earning a smack from him.

"Holy fuck," you both breathed simultaneously, the weight of the encounter settling over you in the heavy, humid air.

There was no going back after that day. Not to abstinence, not to disappointing hookups or to pretending sex was something casual and forgettable that fit neatly between work schedules and storm reports.

Once Scott got his hands on you, everything else lost appeal embarrassingly fast.

What started as isolated incidents quickly turned into a pattern neither of you seriously attempted to stop. It was a terrible idea professionally, obviously, but somehow the two of you functioned better afterward. Meetings became easier, long drives felt lighter and you argued less viciously because the tension always had somewhere to go now instead of festering under your skin for weeks.

You started going home together most nights under the excuse of saving gas money. Then showering together afterward became another practical decision because apparently water bills mattered too now. Somewhere between shared coffee in the mornings and him keeping spare clothes for you at his apartment, things moved quietly into something neither of you had planned for and the worst part was that it worked.

The sex stayed incredible. Sometimes rough enough to leave hickeys along your skin and fingerprints fading across your thighs and hips by morning, or other times slow enough that you ended up tangled together for hours afterward while thunderstorms rolled outside the windows. Every now and then he fucked you hard enough to leave you shaking afterward, staring blankly at the ceiling while he stood in the kitchen making you food like that was a normal sequence of events but eventually you realized it wasn’t just about that anymore.

You started having actual dates without calling them dates, it was dinner after work that lasted until restaurants closed around you. You went grocery shopping together because both of you were too exhausted to go separately and you began falling asleep on opposite ends of his couch while weather models played quietly on television screens neither of you were really watching.

Off-season made it worse.

Without constant travel, motel rooms and adrenaline keeping you both distracted, there was finally time to explore whatever this thing between you had become. You drifted naturally between your house and his apartment depending on whose place seemed closer to the office that day. Half your belongings somehow ended up at his place and vice versa. You texted each other constantly during meetings despite sitting twenty feet apart, phones hidden beneath desks while coworkers talked around you.

Scott started bringing your coffee to your desk already made exactly how you liked it before you even decided you needed one. You started buying his preferred cereal without asking if he wanted any. He slept better with you in his bed and you stopped grinding your teeth in your sleep when he stayed over.

So naturally, being made love to finally happened exactly the way you once thought it would and it wasn’t some exaggerated version of romance men convinced themselves they were capable of after two drinks and mediocre conversation.

It sort of snuck up on you. It was Scott pulling you into his lap while both of you were exhausted after work, kissing your shoulder absentmindedly while you read through data on his laptop. It was him waking you up slowly on Sunday mornings with his hand sliding under your shirt and nowhere either of you needed to be. It was sex that lasted forever because he knew your body well enough to take his time with it, knew exactly what made you gasp, what made your legs tense and what made you hide your face against his neck when the pleasure became too much.

He paid attention and it made all of the difference. Scott learned your body like he learned storm patterns, thoroughly and obsessively, until touching you became instinct to him and it showed…

The morning light filtered through the curtains of your bedroom in soft, golden slats, painting the sheets in hues of amber and cream. The house was silent, save for the rhythmic sound of your shared breathing and the distant chirp of birds welcoming the dawn. You were tangled together, skin on skin, the warmth of the duvet trapping the heat of your bodies in a private, humid cocoon.

There was no rush, no storm to outrun and no urgency born of desperation. There was only the heavy, sweet weight of Scott pressing you into the mattress. You were both fully naked, your limbs entwined in a lazy, possessive knot.

Scott began slowly, his lips tracing a path of fire across your collarbone. He wasn't just kissing you, he was tasting you, tongue swirling against your skin in slow circles that made you shiver. He moved lower, mouth finding the sensitive curve of your breast as you let out a soft, airy moan. He took your nipple into his mouth, sucking firmly while his thumb and forefinger pinched the other peak, twisting it just enough to send a jolt of electricity straight to your core.

You arched your back, your fingers sliding into the thick hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. The friction of his chest against your breasts was intoxicating, the rough hair of his torso grazing your sensitive skin.

He shifted, sliding his body up so he could look into your eyes. His gaze was dark, filled with an intensity that felt more overwhelming than any of the rougher encounters you'd had. He didn't move to flip you or push you into a different position, instead, he settled between your thighs in a classic missionary stance and pushed inside. There was no latex barrier this time, no clinical snap of a condom. It was raw, wet and absolute. 

The sensation of his bare skin sliding against yours was a revelation. You gasped, your eyes fluttering shut as you felt the full, throbbing heat of him filling you completely. It felt different, more intimate and permanent. The lack of a barrier made every ridge of his cock feel amplified, every pulse of his blood echoing against your own internal walls.

He didn't start with the punishing pace of the past. Instead, he began to rock, his movements slow and agonizingly deep. He pressed his palm flat against your stomach, pushing down firmly to tilt your pelvis, ensuring that every thrust hit the deepest part of you.

"Gripping me like a fucking vise…so perfect." he groaned, his voice a gravelly morning rumble that vibrated through your chest.

You wrapped your legs around his waist, locking your ankles to pull him even deeper. You were lost in the rhythm, the slow, sliding friction creating a build-up of tension that felt like a tightening coil in your belly. You ran your hands through his hair, your nails lightly scratching his scalp as you moaned into the first rays of the morning sun.

The intimacy was suffocating in the best way possible. As he continued to rock, his movements grew slightly more urgent, the slow glide turning into a passionate, driving force. He leaned down, his lips brushing against yours, tasting the salt and sweetness of your skin while he continued to pinch and tease your nipples, hand roaming your curves with a familiarity that spoke of a deep, obsessive knowledge of your body.

It didn’t take long for your breath to become shallow, chest heaving as the pleasure began to peak. You could feel the walls of your pussy clenching around him, milking him with every deep stroke. Your body tensed, toes curling into the sheets as a wave of heat crashed over you. You cried out, a long, melodic sound of surrender, as your orgasm ripped through you in slow, pulsing waves that left you shaking beneath him.

Scott didn’t slow his pace as his forehead rested against yours, both of you breathing heavily. He continued moving, the intimacy of the connection almost too much to bear.

"Want to be done?" he whispered, his voice strained, muscles trembling with the effort of holding back.

You looked up at him, eyes hazy with pleasure and affection. The thought of him pulling away felt wrong because you wanted everything. You wanted the weight, the heat and the mark of him.

You shook your head with an escaped whimper, pulling his face down to yours. "Don’t you dare pull out…’want you to come inside." You breathed.

The request broke the last of his restraint. Scott let out a guttural sound, a mix of a groan and a sob and began to drive into you with a renewed, primal intensity. It was a desperate, loving hunger. He hammered into you, movements strong and deep, each thrust a claim and a promise.

As he reached his limit, his grip on your hip tightened, fingers digging into your skin. He thrust one last time, burying himself as deep as physically possible and you felt the hot, thick bursts of his cum flooding into you. The sensation of him filling you from the inside out was the most intense feeling you had ever experienced, a physical manifestation of the bond that had grown between you.

In the height of his release, as his body shuddered violently against yours, he gasped out the words he had been holding back.

"I love you," he choked out, the confession raw and unplanned.

The world seemed to stop for a heartbeat. You felt a surge of emotion that rivaled the intensity of the orgasm, a warmth that started in your chest and radiated to your fingertips. You tightened your hold on him, pulling him down for a deep, searing kiss.

"I love you too," you whispered against his lips.

He collapsed onto you, heart drumming a frantic rhythm against your own, both of you spent and glowing in the morning light, finally and completely entwined.

A few years ago, you would’ve hated the idea that Scott Miller of all people would end up teaching you everything worth knowing about sex. It would’ve bruised your ego badly, especially considering how seriously you once took those stupid categories and scales in your head before Scott showed up and ruined all of them completely.

Good sex stopped mattering. 

Great sex became expected.

Getting fucked became routine enough that you lost count somewhere along the line, usually around the third orgasm of the day and definitely before he started dragging you into his lap halfway through work calls just because he felt like bothering you…with his hands and dick.

But somehow, even after all the rough sex and ruined schedules, Scott still managed to make love to you exactly the way you once imagined it should feel.

So if somebody offered you the chance to go back and do it all over again, you would without hesitation.

You were an absolute HR nightmare now and what a fucking delight that was!

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!

Look at him just chewing the FAWK out of that gum 😭 (wait chew me next)

It started as a joke. A mental note. A private running tally for your own amusement.

But over time, it became something else.

A quiet, obsessive little profile you couldn’t stop writing in your head:

Clark Kent. 32. Staff Reporter. Height: 6’4” (estimated; difficult to confirm without stepping too close and risking spontaneous heart failure). Known aliases: None. Known vices: Also none. (He drinks decaf. Returns library books early. Buys cookies from every intern’s fundraiser and forgets to take them home.) Notable habits: Misuses emojis in texts. Says ‘good gosh’ and ‘heck’ with a straight face. Holds elevator doors for people that are two hallways down. Apologizes when you step on his foot. Carries backup pens for forgetful coworkers (see also: you) and never complains when they disappear. Stops traffic in the middle of rush hour to rescue pigeons stranded in the rain. (Ok, that was one time, but still. Ridiculous.) Relationship status: Unknown. (Not that you’ve checked. Extensively. Repeatedly. Thoroughly.)

And through a year’s worth of careful observations—of eleventh-hour rewrites, hostile interview subjects, and downloads crashing at 98%—the man has yet to let so much as a ‘damn’ slip past his lips.

And sure, that used to make sense. It fits the rest of the draft you’ve outlined in your head:

“Clark Kent runs on compassion the way most reporters run on espresso. His deadlines are always met. His quotes always triple-checked. His emails always signed off with ‘Thanks so much!’ even when they absolutely should not be. He is, by all observable metrics, the most principled man in this building. Possibly on Earth.”

And that, you’ve always thought, makes him predictable. Safe. Easy to write, easy to understand.

But tonight—

Tonight blows the whole story wide open.

Because Clark Kent is ten feet away in the quiet, after-hours bullpen, lit only by desk lamps and the glow of your phone screen—and he is absolutely vibrating with fury.

He’s leaning back against a desk like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the ground. His glasses are slipping down the bridge of his nose, fogged at the edges. His jaw’s locked tight. Arms folded so hard across his chest it’s like he’s physically holding himself back.

And he hasn’t looked at you once since you showed him the memo with shaking fingers:

We regret to inform you that your article has been removed from the upcoming issue.

No edits. No explanation. Just a clean corporate kill order, stamped with that neat, infuriating euphemism: Failure to meet editorial guidelines.

Which, translated from Boardroom Bullshit into plain English, means:

Too real. Too loud. Too close to someone with more money and lawyers than you’ll ever have.

You’re still standing there, ghost-lit by your screen, white-knuckling the phone like maybe, if you squeeze hard enough, you can unsend reality.

But Clark?

Clark is something else entirely.

He’s past fury. Past protest.

Standing still in that way he only gets when something breaks—not out in the world, but inside him.

You’ve seen it before, in fragments.

When a shelter he covered lost its funding days before winter.

When a foster care bill he championed got struck down at the last second.

When your tires were slashed in the Planet garage and he didn’t ask if it was tied to your reporting—just asked which story.

When Clark gets truly upset, he doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t storm around or slam doors.

He goes still.

Brows drawn, jaw tight. And behind all that warm, glasses-wrapped mildness, his eyes turn diamond-sharp.

You’ve seen that look maybe four times in the last year.

Tonight makes five.

And this time, it’s for you.

You glance at him, then back at your phone, like the memo might’ve changed since the last time you read it.

It hasn’t.

The bullpen is quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your own pulse feel like an alarm. Outside, Metropolis breathes, moving ever forward. But in here, time feels like it’s buffering.

Life still chugging along for the rest of the city while yours has come to a sudden, brutal halt.

Because your article—your article—

The triple-sourced, fact-checked into oblivion, airtight exposé Perry promised would front the Sunday edition—

Pulled.

Not bumped. Not buried on page ten.

Gone.  

And it shouldn’t hurt this much. But it does.

Because it wasn’t just a story. It was a truth someone didn’t want printed. It was weeks of whispered meetings and late-night calls. It was sources you swore to protect and facts you held like lifelines.

It was the kind of piece that reminded you why you started this job in the first place. Why you stayed when it got hard. Why you cared so deeply when everyone else called it a lost cause.

Now, it’s nothing.

Scraped like gum from the bottom of someone’s shoe.

But what wrecks you—what truly undoes you—isn’t the memo.

It’s him.

Clark Kent. Ten feet away, still as stone, burning quiet and hot like a forge under pressure.

And it’s unbearable. Not because he’s angry, no. Because his anger makes yours feel real. Valid. It’s a spotlight on everything you’ve been trying not to feel.

And the fact that it means this much to Clark—it's excruciating.

When he finally speaks, his voice scrapes low. Gravel and steel.

“This is such complete—”

He stops. Swallows it. You see his throat work through the rest.

You blink. “Were you about to swear?”

His laugh is barely a breath. “No. I was about to flip this place upside down.”

You snort softly. “Well, that’s healthy.”

He looks up at that.  

And something shifts. Subtle. Measurable only if you’ve spent a whole year cataloguing his tells, which—you have.

The set of his shoulders loosens by a fraction. His fists uncurl slightly at the edges. And then his eyes meet yours.

They’re still burning, molten with rage. But beneath it now is something raw and unmistakable. Something worse.

Grief. Fragility.

Recognition.

Not of your name or your work or even this story, but of you.

The kind of knowing that can’t be taught, only earned—through late nights and impossible deadlines, through buried stories and quiet sacrifices. Through witnessing each other bleed for something no one else can see the value in.

He knows you.

Knows the way you double-source everything down to the commas. The way you get when you're deep in a lead—obsessive, hungry, fired up on all ends.

Knows how hard you tried not to care about this one.

And how badly it broke you when you failed.

And whatever he sees in your eyes, red-rimmed and rimlit by your phone, he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t flinch.

He absorbs it like gravity. Holds it, honors it.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

And it shouldn’t hit as hard as it does.

But it lands clean, deep, like the final line of a piece you didn’t know how to end until just now.

Because he means it. Really means it.

Not just for the story—for you. For everything you try to keep buried. For everything you still are, despite your best efforts.

You clear your throat and shove your phone into your bag, as if that’ll erase the memo from existence. 

“Should’ve pitched a fluff piece,” you mutter. “Stuff that matters. ‘Puppies of Metropolis.’ Or, I don’t know. ‘Ten Best Councilmembers Ranked by Forehead Shine.’”

 Clark frowns. “Your story mattered.”

“Yeah, well,” you shrug. Try for a smirk. Miss. “It’s just a job.”

“No.” His voice sharpens, solidifying. “It’s not just a job.”

And the way he says it—

God, it slices clean through all your practiced apathy. Hits something soft and guarded and quietly breaking.

So you do what you always do when it gets too real:

You deflect.

“What’re you gonna do, Kent? Fly it to another paper?”

It’s a joke. A dumb one. You’re not even sure why you say it, except that sarcasm is easier than crying.

But something flickers in his expression.

His mouth twitches. His spine straightens. His eyes narrow—not in anger now, but in purpose. 

And you’ve seen this look before, too.

In press conferences. In interviews. In war rooms and city council hearings and anywhere something needed to be done.

Decision.

Steel-willed and absolute. Like he’s already ten moves ahead and just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

He pushes off the desk and closes the space between you in two deliberate steps.

“Give me the files.” 

You blink. “What?”

“Your article. Your notes. Sources. Everything. Just—trust me.”

 “Clark, I—”

“I’ll make sure it gets out.”

You stare at him.  

This is the part where you argue. Where you ask how. Where you remind him that corporate kill orders don’t get reversed by sheer force of Midwestern conviction.

But there’s something in his eyes that stops you cold.

Because what’s there isn’t hope—it’s certainty.

Like the truth has already been printed, and he just has to go pick up the copies.

And for the first time in hours, your ribs loosen. Your lungs expand. Air returns like forgiveness.

You nod. “Okay.”

He nods back, steady as anything. “Good.”

You turn—toward your desk, your files, this impossible thing you’re now apparently doing together—but he reaches out. Fingers brushing your wrist with deliberate softness.

“Hey.”

You look back.

And that’s when it hits you again.

That thing.

That not-quite-hidden headline that’s been quietly building in the margins between you for months.

The Look.

The I’d burn down the sky for you look.

The I’d rewrite every rule if it meant you got your byline look.

The this isn’t just friendship and we both know it look.

His eyes are warm. Devastating.

“I know it hurts now,” he says, voice like silk-wrapped iron, “but this is how change starts. With one person refusing to stay quiet.”

It cracks something wide open in you.

You’ve held it together for hours—through the email, through the silence, through the aching injustice of it all—but this? This is the last thread.

And before you can stop yourself—

You kiss him.

Quick. Soft. Barely more than a breath. A quiet, shaking whisper of a thing—full of too many sleepless nights and too many unsent drafts and too many almosts you never let yourself say out loud.

Every moment since that first coffee-stained blouse and fumbled apology.

And then you pull back like you've been burned.

“Shit,” you breathe. “I’m—I’m sorry—”

But Clark—

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t stammer or reassure.

He just looks at you.

Steady. Intense. Certain.

Eyes gone dark and molten, burning with that same impossible heat.

And then his hand is cupping your cheek, and his mouth is on yours, and the axis of the Earth tilts.

You thought he’d be gentle.

Because he always is.

But this?

This is not gentle.

This is a damn bursting. A planet cracking. A lifetime of restraint boiling over in the space of a heartbeat.

His kiss is all heat and purpose—no backstepping, no second-guessing, none of that fumbling reserve you used to tease him for.

Just immediate, all-consuming want.

And you’re gone. Instantly.

Fingers fisting in his shirt, dragging him closer, trying to memorize the feel of him before the world finds a way to take it back.

Under your palms, his skin is hot. Not warm, but radiant. Like he’s built from something older and brighter than flesh. Sparks catch where your fingers land, skittering like static.

His glasses tilt, poking into your cheek. You press closer anyway.

And then you hear it—

A low, guttural groan, raw and unrestrained, ripped from deep in his chest.

It destroys you.

Because Clark Kent does not make noises like that.

Not the Clark who holds doors and apologizes to vending machines. Who runs back to the third floor because the printer ate your story again. Who leaves you sticky notes with silly doodles after a rough meeting and texts you safe after every late-night interview.

Not even the Clark who believed in your story when the whole building turned cold.

No, this Clark—the one kissing you like he’s starving, like he’s been waiting months to be allowed this close, like you’re the only thing tethering him to Earth—

He’s new. Terrifying. Addictive.

You thread your fingers through his hair, tugging gently, enough to make him lift his head.

“Clark,” you whisper, breath ragged. “We shouldn’t—”

“I know.” His voice is raw, lips brushing yours. “I know. I’m sorry. I just—I can’t not anymore.”

And then he’s kissing you again.

Harder. Deeper. Less asking, more need.

You chase him. Tilt your chin. Take. Take. Give.

His hands roam everywhere—your waist, your back, your jaw—like something broke loose in him and there’s no putting it back.

When your back hits the desk with a soft thud, you barely feel it. Because he’s there. A wall of heat and strength, all breath and heartbeat and too-broad shoulders. One hand braces your waist, the other cupping the back of your head—like even now he doesn’t know how to be rough with you. Like no matter how desperate this gets, reverence is the instinct he can’t shake.

Your fingers slip down the front of his shirt, popping a button free. He shudders under your touch.

“We’re still at work,” you manage to gasp.

It’s not a protest. Just a fact. A threadbare attempt at logic thrown into the fire.

“I’ll stop,” he murmurs.

But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t let go.

Then his mouth finds your neck, searching. When his teeth graze that one spot, your body jolts. He latches on there, slow and sure, kissing and mouthing like he’s studying you. Committing you to memory. When he finally sucks, it’s just enough pressure to leave your bones soft, make your knees buckle.

You bite your lip to hold the sound in, but his name escapes anyway—rough and wanting and far too loud for a quiet newsroom.

And something inside him snaps.

His hands slide to your hips, lifting you—gentle, effortless, like you weigh nothing but mean everything—and suddenly you’re perched on the edge of your desk.

His palm slides along your inner thigh, eyes never leaving yours.

“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly. “If this isn’t what you want, please. Tell me.”   

Your pulse stutters.

He’s wrecked. Trembling. Holding himself together by threads. And still—still—beneath all that, he’s endlessly soft.

This is Clark Kent at his core—steadfast and true.

The same man who brings you tea when your voice is shot. Lets you fix his crooked tie in the elevator. Held your hand the last time your story was gutted and said, ‘I’m proud of you.’

You take his hand.

Guide it beneath your skirt, up your thigh, to where you’re already soaked.

“Does this feel like I want you to stop?”

His breath catches. His fingers twitch—then freeze.

Like he still doesn’t quite believe this is real. Like he’s been holding this want in both hands for months and doesn’t know how to set it free.

But then you lean in, forehead to his.

"Clark."

And that’s all it takes.

His mouth crashes into yours again, hot and sure.

Your skirt rucks up around your hips. His hands frame your thighs like he’s holding something sacred. When his fingers slide beneath your underwear, it’s slow. Tender. Almost unbearably gentle.

“Jesus,” he breathes, voice blown wide open. “You’re…”

His thumb moves through your slick heat, circling over your clit in patterns that are nothing short of devastating.

“...you’re gonna kill me.”

“You’re telling me.” You gasp, already trembling.

He huffs a laugh—shaky, ruined—but it vanishes the second he drops to his knees.

Just like that.

No pretense. No buildup. Just down.

And something in you stutters.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not here. Not now. But he’s already got your knees over his shoulders, pulling you closer to the edge of the desk.

And then his mouth—

His mouth—

Fuck the plan. No time to think.

The first stroke of his tongue is slow, greedy, filthy—it knocks the breath clean from your lungs.

Your hips jolt, fingers finding his hair. Your thighs lock instinctively around his head, but he doesn’t flinch. Just keeps holding you open and hums deep in his throat, the vibration lighting you up from the inside out.

His tongue draws slow, maddening circles over your clit. Just light enough to tease. One of your leg twitches, your body bucking under the gentle pressure of his mouth.

And he just smiles. You feel the curve of it against you.

Bastard.  

“Clark—please—”

He glances up, just enough to meet your eyes.

And the sight between your thighs just about flips your stomach inside out.

His hair’s a mess from your hands. Mouth slick. Eyes dark and shining and so damn warm it’s almost too much to bear.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, eyes locked onto yours. “Don’t hold back.”

Then he’s gone again.

No hesitation. No showmanship. Just devotion.

His mouth seals over you with devastating precision, tongue steady and unrelenting. Every motion pulls you higher, pressure climbing in sharp, stuttering waves.

You’re shaking. Buckling. One hand gripping the edge of the desk, the other tangled tight in his hair. Every part of you taut, humming.

And Clark—sweet, perfect, fucking Clark—just keeps going.

When he drags the flat of his tongue up your clit, simultaneously slipping two fingers inside, slow and curling just right—your back lifts clean off the table.

“Clark— Jesus, I’m gonna—”

You barely get the words out before you break.

Your whole body locks up. Pleasure slams into you like a wave cresting too high to outrun. You cry out—sharp, wild, unrestrained—coming hard and helpless in his mouth.

And he doesn’t stop. Just keeps kissing you through it, patient and tender, coaxing every aftershock from your trembling frame.

Only when your hips start to flinch, too tender to bear more, does he pull back.

Careful, reluctant. Like he’d stay there forever, if you let him.

And when he rises, he looks—

Destroyed.

Beautifully, sinfully destroyed.

Gloriously flushed, chest heaving, lips shining with everything you had to give him.

And god help you, you’ve never seen anything more beautiful in your life.

He kisses you then. Slow and deep. Like he needs to taste every part of what had just passed.

Your hands fumble for his belt—still burning, still aching—but he catches your wrist. Gentle, steady.

Still the same Clark underneath it all.

“Not here,” he murmurs, resting his forehead against yours. “Not like this.”

You blink, dazed. Floating somewhere just outside yourself.

“Why not?”

He huffs a quiet laugh, warm and boyish. Tender in a way that makes your stomach twist.

“Because when I finally have you,” he says softly, “I want to take my time. I want to see you.”

And the way he says it—like it’s something sacred, like you’re something sacred—knocks the breath from your lungs.

“…okay,” you whisper, voice shaking. “Uhm, your place or mine?”

He grins. That crooked, ruined, stupidly perfect grin that makes your knees wobble again.

“Yours. You’ve got better snacks.”

You laugh—really laugh—and something cracks open between you. Something warm and deep and safe.  

He kisses you once more, gentle and lingering, before helping you off the desk. His hands stay firm at your waist until he’s sure you won’t topple.

The newsroom around you is hushed. Lamps dimmed. The soft buzz of the city humming through the windows, distant and irrelevant. For once, the world outside isn’t clawing for your attention.

You smooth your skirt, catching your reflection in the dark window—swollen lips, wild hair, flushed cheeks—and something curls sweet and slow in your stomach.

When you turn back, Clark’s looking at you like you’ve just rewritten his world.

“You okay?” he asks, soft.

You nod, exhaling slow. “Yeah, it's just… kind of unexpected.”

He lifts an eyebrow, teasing. But there’s something nervous in it too.

“Unexpected... bad?”   

You snort softly, breath still uneven, heart fluttering in disbelief.

Searching for footing in a story you once thought you understood.

“No, just—”

But you pause. Because now there’s room to really look at him.

The glow behind his eyes. The soft flush on his cheeks. The open, vulnerable way he’s watching you—like he’s terrified to move in case the moment vanishes.

Like he knows every jagged, weary part you’ve tried to hide, and wants you more because of them.

His hands twitch at his sides. Waiting.

Your chest goes soft.

“No,” you say quietly, eyes locked on his. “Unexpected perfect.”

Clark’s lashes flutter. And then—

He smiles.

Not the polite, mayor’s-office smile. Not the Sunday-church one either.

No. This one is his.

Crooked. Bright. Disarming in its sincerity. The kind of smile that plants morning light deep in your ribs. Making soft gold bloom from the inside out.

And when he leans in again—slower this time, as if memorizing the way you breathe when it’s just the two of you—

You meet him halfway.

Three days later, your article is everywhere.

Not buried. Not trimmed. Not sanded down to fit corporate comfort zones.

Published. In full. On the front page of a different paper entirely, circulated across Metropolis before most of your newsroom have had their first cup of burnt breakroom coffee.

The byline? Yours.

The exposé—your exposé—is splashed across every feed, pinging inboxes faster than the spin doctors can catch it. Reporters are quoting it, politicians are dodging it, and suddenly, you’re the name in the room. The one who broke it wide open.

When you walk into the bullpen, the room goes still for a moment. Then comes a ripple of applause, a couple cheers. A low whistle that has to be Jimmy.

Even Perry White, who doesn’t do applause—who curses, barks, and points at clocks like they owe him money—walks past, claps a hand on your shoulder, and grunts:

“Hell of a story, kid.”

You nod. Swallow. Try to look like your knees aren’t full of helium.

You don’t ask how it happened. You don’t have to.

Because across the room, at his desk, typing away like it’s just another Friday, is Clark Kent.

He doesn’t look up at first. Doesn’t need to.

But when he does—when his eyes find yours—he gives you that look.

That quiet, unshakable thing he carries in his gaze when he’s sure of something.

It hits you dead center.

You mouth: Thank you.

He pushes his glasses up, mouths back: Anytime.

And when you move past him—headed for the coffee pot, trying very hard to look normal—he reaches out without looking, fingers grazing the back of your hand.

Light. Deliberate. Like a secret traded in plain sight.

You stop. Turn.

Your heart is hammering so loud you’re sure he can hear it. Something coils tight and electric in your stomach.

You lean down, all slow and casual, like you’re just checking his screen—then murmur, lips barely brushing the edge of his ear:

“Stairwell. Five minutes.”

Clark drops his pen.

You smirk.

His back slams into cold concrete before the door even clicks shut.

You shove him hard—no grace, no patience, just raw, pent-up need— and he barely grunts before you’re on him, kissing like it’s a fight, like you’re trying to crawl under his skin and disappear.

It’s more violence than a kiss—teeth dragging, lips bruising, nails digging. Your hands fist in his shirt, yanking him closer, and his groan rumbles through both of you, hips pressed flush to yours.  

“What is—fuck—what is wrong with you?” You gasp against his jaw, kissing him between words. “Whose balls did you have to bust to—get that—” Another kiss. Frustrated. Shaky. “You said it’d take longer. You can’t just—drop this on me—”

He’s laughing now, happy and breathless, lips brushing your collarbone.

“I cashed in a favor,” he murmurs, not even trying to sound sorry. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kent—”

You yank back just far enough to glare at him.

His hair’s a mess. Glasses askew. Your lip balm smudged on his mouth.

He looks completely undone. Glowing with it.    

Lit from within by that maddening, quietly heroic light he wears whenever he does something outrageous and pretends it’s ordinary.

Something behind your ribs gives way.

Your throat tightens. Your nose prickles. Emotion catches you off-guard and rises sharp behind your eyes.

You blink hard, trying to look away.

But he sees it.

He always sees it. 

His hands come up, cupping your face, thumb gently brushing under your eye before the feeling has a chance to fall.

“You did all the work,” he says, voice rough with truth. “I just helped the story get where it needed to go.”

You blink back at him.

This man.

This infuriating, ridiculous, unshakably good man who has never once doubted your voice. Who saw your fury and didn’t turn away. Who held your anger like it was something holy and refused to let the world bury it. Placed all his stubborn kindness, all that relentless quiet conviction, in you.

Like the truth was always going to find the light—he’d just hold the sky steady until morning came.

You want to say something. Anything.

But your voice is gone, twisted up in your chest with everything else you can’t name.

So you do the only thing you can.

You grab his collar and kiss him.

Desperate. Grateful. Furious. In love.

He groans into your mouth, hands sliding low to anchor you, pulling you tight against him. Your back hits the opposite wall, and you barely register it before his hands find the backs of your thighs and lift.

Your legs wrap around him instinctively as he presses against you, body slotting perfectly to yours. You fumble for his belt, fingers clumsy with urgency—and when your hand slips past the waistband of his briefs—

Jesus.

He’s already hard. Hot. Thick. Practically pulsing in your palm.

He hisses through his teeth, jaw clenched, eyes fluttering shut as you stroke him—slow and firm, with a teasing twist at the top.

He’s stunning like this—glasses slipping, flushed from neck to fingertips, biting his lip so hard to keep quiet. Which, frankly, only makes you want to ruin him more.

“Fuck, please—"

“Language, Smallville.” You grin.

He laughs—just barely—but it turns into a moan when you squeeze.

“Unfair,” he whispers, forehead thudding against your shoulder. “You’re being so unfair.”

“You broke embargo,” you murmur, kissing his jaw. “I’m just collecting interest.”

Then, you fist his hair and give a sharp tug. He moans loud enough for it to echo to the ground level.

“Clark! You can’t—”

“Sorry, sorry!”

Three days ago, you didn’t know what Clark Kent sounded like when he’s desperate.

Now, it lives under your skin.

You used to think he’d be quiet in bed. Gentle. Restrained.

He’s not.

He moans. He begs. He loses himself in you.

And he swears too, colorfully so. Under his breath, against your skin, sometimes loud enough to rattle the walls.

And as you dig your fingers into that thick, impossibly soft hair and give another deliberate pull—he shudders. His hips jerks forward, cock leaking in your hand as his mouth falls open around your name.

"Still works," you whisper. "Thought maybe the effect would wear off."

He huffs out a ragged laugh, eyes hungry as they flick up to yours.

“Not a chance. And it’s really not fair how well you know me already.”

“Three days,” you murmur, lips brushing his. “Eleven orgasms. I’ve had time to study.”

“Twelve,” he rasps. “You forgot the shower this morning.”

You groan, dropping your head to his shoulder. “Oh god, the shower.”

“I like you wet,” he murmurs, free hand gliding up your thigh. “You make the best sounds when I’ve got you up against tile.”

“Clark,” you gasp, laughing. “We’re not in a shower right now.”

“No,” he grins, shifting you up higher. “We’re not.”

His fingers pull your underwear aside, and he groans.

“Jesus,” he breathes. “Still soaking.”

You gasp as he slides in two fingers—slow, familiar, devastating. He knows your rhythm already. Circles first, just enough pressure. Then deep strokes, curling upward.

You tremble in his grip, clinging to his shoulders.

He watches your face the whole time—eyes dark, mouth parted, like your pleasure feeds him.

You pull at his hair again, impatient, and he grunts.

"Condom?" you gasp, breath hitching as your orgasm flirts with the edge.

"Pocket," he pants, "But you’ll have to let go.”

You whimper and release him just long enough for him to fumble it on one-handed.

And then—

He’s inside you.

The stretch immediately steals the air from your lungs.

It’s not new. Not anymore.

But it knocks the wind out of you, every time.

He moves slow, sinking deep, jaw clenched tight with restraint. And when he bottoms out, hips flush, he exhales into your shoulder like it’s the only breath he’s needed all day.

“Every time,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “You feel unreal.”

You clutch at his back, hips rolling.

“Move,” you plead. “Please, Clark—move—”

He does. A slow pull. A hard thrust.

Again. And again.

The rhythm builds fast—skin slapping, gasps mixing with half-broken moans, your name like a prayer on his lips. His hand braces behind your back. The other grips your thigh, grounding you as your body stutters and trembles.

And then—you feel it.

The edge. That rising, pulsing ache about to break you open.

“There,” you choke, eyes flying open. “Right there, don’t stop—”

“I won’t,” he pants, unraveling. “I’ve got you—just like that—please, keep pulling—fuck—”

So you do.

You yank his hair again, and it’s enough.

You shatter around him. Your whole body tightens, clenches, falls apart. Unrelenting pleasure floods through you as you cry out, gasping, body convulsing as you cling to him.

Clark follows with a groan, hips stuttering as he spills into you, forehead buried in your shoulder.

The world holds its breath.

Only the sound of panting. Heartbeats slowing. Limbs trembling.

He holds you like he’s afraid to let go.

You cradle his head, fingers stroking his hair, and after a long, slow moment, you whisper:

“…we should head back.”

He nods, reluctant, and eases you down onto unsteady legs. One hand on your hip, the other steady at your elbow.

You don’t need a mirror to know that you’re a wreck.

Hair ruined. Lip balm long gone. Thighs sticky and trembling.  

You adjust your underwear and fix your skirt, trying to gather yourself into something vaguely resembling human. Trying to find the composure you lost the moment Clark looked at you from across the bullpen this morning.

And Clark—well, Clark doesn’t even try.

His shirt’s wrinkled, belt undone, hair a disaster. Glasses missing.

He just looks back at you with that smug, slow grin on his face like he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

You meet his eyes, brows raised. “Think we were subtle?”

“Absolutely not,” he shakes his head, beaming.

You smack his chest. “Clark, we’re gonna get fired.”

“I’ll write a defense,” he says, tucking himself away. “‘A Case for Stairwell Trysts: Breaking the Taboo of Workplace Romance.’”

You choke on a laugh. “Catchy. Real Pulitzer-worthy.”

He grins, pretending to type on invisible keys.

“In these uncertain times, can love not be found between the third and fourth floors?”

“Oh my god.”

“Sources confirm the encounter was loud, reckless, and deeply necessary,”

“Clark.”

“Eyewitness has declined to comment but was visibly traumatized.”

“Eyewitness?”

“Ferguson. The rat, remember? Hope he’s still crawling around the vents somewhere.”

You’re still laughing when you reach for the stairwell door, but he stops you with a gentle hand on your wrist.  

When you turn, the joke’s still in his eyes—but something else has surfaced.

Vulnerability, soft and quiet, flickers to the surface.

“Okay,” he starts. “What if… instead of writing that article…”

He clears his throat, fingers brushing the back of his neck. “I pitched a different one.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh?”

His smile tilts—shy and hopeful.

“Yeah, forget the op-ed. How about: ‘Local Man Caught Stammering Around Brilliant Coworker, Attempts Recovery By Asking Her Out For Dinner Instead.’”

You blink, heart catching in your throat.

And suddenly—this is scarier than anything that came before.

You search his face. The smudge of gloss on his jaw. The curve of his lips.

That quiet, unshakable look in his eyes.  

You swallow.

“What’s the angle?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Human interest.”

You bite your lip, smile threatening. “And your sources?”

“Reliable,” he says, nodding seriously. “She even let me stay over. Twice. Her kitchen may never recover.”

You hum. “Sounds like she’s into you.”

“Yeah,” he steps closer, smiling shyly. “I’m starting to think so too.”

You let the silence bloom between you—warm, delicate, just a little terrifying.

Then, without thinking, you press up on your toes and kiss him.

He leans down to meet you halfway.

This kiss is different. No urgency. No heat. Just a quiet kind of knowing. His hand finds yours, fingers lacing together like they belong there.

You rest your forehead to his, breathing slow.

“Hey, Clark?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell her seven o’clock.”

His smile blooms slow and bright—a sunrise you get to keep.

“Done.”

epilogue

Clark Kent. 32. Staff Reporter. Boyfriend. Love of your life. Height: 6’4” (confirmed; measured via very scientific method involving back kisses and the doorframe in your apartment). Known aliases: Smallville. Pretty boy. Baby. Honey. Lover. Oh, and—Superman. (Yes, that one. You’re still not over it. You probably never will be.) Known vices: Hair pulling. You saying his name, any tone, any time. You, in his glasses and nothing else. Praise—saying it, hearing it, saying it again. And anything that lands him on his knees with his nose buried between your thighs. Notable habits: Still hopeless with emojis. Still says 'good gosh' and 'heck' unironically—only now it’s the morning after he’s had your legs over his shoulders for an hour and made you cry on his tongue. Still buys cookies from every intern, but remembers to bring them home now. Saves the peanut butter ones for you. Leaves notes with hearts and your name doodled all over like he’s twelve and in love. (He is.) Still drops everything he's doing to rescue tiny lives. (You'd asked him about the pigeon once. He'd just shrugged and told you 'he looked scared.') Relationship status: Taken. By you. Extensively. Repeatedly. Thoroughly. On every flat surface in your apartment. And his. And yes—occasionally, on questionable ones at work. (Sorry, Jimmy.)