But more than that, you had a crush on Pope. You were pretty sure he knew what you were doing when you always came over, but he never called you out on it.

You slowly slid the terrace door open, careful not to make too much noise, and you slipped inside. You could already spot Pope, standing at the kitchen counter with his back to you. You bit your lip when you saw his choice of dark button up. You always did like his button ups.

You were about to announce yourself, let him know you were there, when you saw him stare at his palm. He hadn't even noticed you from his peripheral vision, which was saying something because Pope was usually so aware of everything around him.

You stepped closer, about to say something, when you noticed that his hand was scorching red. Red, like he'd just touched the pan next to him while it was still hot and burned his entire palm, red.

"Andrew?" you said carefully, despite your raging worry, you tried to remain calm because he seemed completely out of it. The burn looked really bad.

His head snapped up toward you, and for a second, his eyes looked blank, but then he blinked, and his gaze focused on you.

He quickly turned his back to you, reaching for a cloth and wrapping it around his hand. "Lena's in her room. Pretending to sleep," he said, his tone flat, as he lowered the temperature under the pan.

You dropped the plushies onto the table and walked toward him before you could stop yourself. He was already wiping down the counter, obsessively cleaning and trying to keep himself busy.

He turned just as you finally approached him, and for a moment, you both just stood there staring at each other, neither of you saying anything. And then you looked down at his palm, reaching for it.

You saw him flinch back for a second, but then he stopped, and he let you touch his arm. Your fingers wrapped around his elbow and you raised his arm toward you, bringing his hand closer so you could see it better. Your other hand came up to carefully unwrap the cloth he had put around it.

You bit your tongue when you saw the burn. It was worse than you'd expected. The burn covered his entire palm, spreading up his fingers and down toward his wrist. You could tell it hurt just by looking at it. And you knew, deep down in your gut, that he'd done it on purpose.

You looked up and met his hazel eyes, which were already staring down at you with that intense gaze he always had. You knew exactly what he was doing by staring at you like this. Testing you. He knew what he'd done and he knew you knew, and he was waiting to see if you'd call him out on it.

You decided against saying anything. It wouldn't help anyway.

"I'll help you take care of this," you mumbled quietly.

Pope didn't say anything. He just let you do it, his hand compliant in yours as you gently set the cloth away.

You reached for the sink, turning on the cold water and waiting for it to get properly cool. The sound of the water filled the quiet kitchen. "You'll have to stay like this for at least ten minutes," you said quietly. "Running cold water over it for ten to fifteen minutes helps reduce the swelling and keeps the burn from getting worse."

You paused, tilting your head slightly to catch his eye, waiting to see if he was ready for you to put his hand under the water. He just looked at you for a moment and then he did it wordlessly.

You kept your fingers wrapped around his wrist. "Don't use ice, by the way," you said, your voice casual, like you were just making conversation. "Ice is bad for burns. It restricts the blood vessels and can actually make the damage worse." You kept talking, explaining why water was important, why ice was bad and all the while, Pope just stared at you.

It was late, and he'd been hoping for you to finally show up. He'd been telling himself you weren't going to come, that you had better things to do than spend your evenings with him and that maybe you'd finally gotten tired of him.

He'd missed you a lot, more than he could ever say out loud. You tried to show up at least three times a week at night, and you were the highlight of his day. You were the reason he got through his days, the reason he managed to drag himself out of bed in the morning, knowing that at the end of the day, he'd see you, was what kept him going.

And you looked as pretty as ever as you softly turned his hand under the water. You had your hair free, no braids or anything, just falling around your shoulders. It was cold today, which was why he was rather concerned about your outfit. You didn't have a jacket on you, just some thin shirt that couldn't possibly be keeping you warm. He could see the goosebumps on your arms and the way you shivered slightly every now and then.

"Where's your jacket?" he spoke over the sound of the water.

You brushed a finger gently over his fingertips, checking the temperature of his skin. "Home," you mumbled distracted, squinting at his fingers. It was still red, but the water was helping. "Does it hurt?" you asked, your eyes still fixed on his palm, but you didn't get an answer right away. You glanced up and were met with Pope's naked stare, so you turned away again.

He didn't like that worried look on you. It made him feel guilty, made him wish he could take back whatever he had done that had put that expression on your face. So he forced himself to speak.

"Doesn't hurt."

It had hurt earlier, when he'd forced himself to keep pressing his hand on the hot pot. He'd needed it to hurt.

You glanced at his hand before glancing at the clock on the oven. "I'll be right back," you said quietly. "Keep it under water." You glanced at him, and he could see the worry still lingering in your eyes. You seemed reluctant to leave him alone, but you let go of his hand anyway, and Pope dropped his eyes back to the water, watching the water flow over his damaged skin.

You quickly grabbed the plushies from the table, and Pope couldn't help but notice how you'd put a bow around them, clearly made by you. You'd clearly put in the effort to make it look like a fun present for Lena.

In the process, you started taking off your shoes, hopping on one foot awkwardly as you balanced the plushies against your chest. At that, you shot him an apologetic look. You knew he hated dirt and you'd been, so caught up in the sight of his burn that you'd just walked in with your shoes on. But he didn't say anything, he just followed you with his eyes silently until you disappeared into Lena's room.

He didn't hear you say anything, so he figured Lena had finally fallen asleep. She'd insisted she wasn't tired for hours, that she wanted to stay up and watch cartoons. He was glad to know that she was finally resting.

He stayed the way you wanted him to. He stared at his red hand, watching the water cascade over his damaged skin. It was getting better.

He wasn't sure he liked the pain of his palm getting milder. That was the whole point, wasn't it? He'd done it for the pain and now he had nothing? The emptiness was already starting to creep back in and he could feel himself slipping.

When you came back, you had aloe vera gel and some small bandages with you. "Don't know why Baz has this, but it'll help," you said quietly as you finally turned off the water. The sudden silence was relieving and Pope felt his shoulders fall down finally now that the noise was gone.

You seemed relieved he'd listened to you, a soft exhale escaping your lips as you turned to face him fully. You tilted his hand gently with a concentrated look on your face.

Meanwhile, Pope stared at you again. You looked really pretty.

He hated how there wasn't a smile on your face, usually there always was. Every time you hung out with Lena, you'd help him clean up the kitchen afterward, and he'd listen to you chatter on about your day. He'd occasionally say something, but now there was nothing. It felt wrong and Pope felt uncomfortable in his skin.

But at least you were touching him. Your fingers were still wrapped around his wrist, and he could feel the warmth and softness of your skin against his.

"Let's sit on the couch," you mumbled. You grabbed his other hand and pulled him with you, and he let you lead him there.

He settled down and you sat down there right beside him. The proximity was almost too much. Your thigh pressed against his and your shoulder brushed his. He wanted to stay like this forever.

You grabbed his injured hand and put it on your thigh and he had to look away for a moment to compose himself.

You stared at his palm for a long moment before looking at him, a slightly embarrassed expression on your face. "Any idea how much of this gel I'm supposed to use?" you smiled softly. There it was.

He glanced down at his red palm. "Should be just one thin layer," he said quietly. He noticed how much you were leaning in to see his palm your face so close to his that he could practically see his reflection in your eyes. "Just enough to cover the burn. Any more and it won't absorb properly."

"Okay," you mumbled, and then you grabbed the gel and applied it gently to your fingertip. Pope tilted his head, wondering how on earth you were able to see with your hair in the way. It kept falling forward and you kept having to push it back behind your ear only for it to fall forward again.

So he just reached for your hair. His fingers brushed against the soft strands and you lifted your head immediately, staring at him in confusion. But he didn't say anything, he just grabbed it gently, managing to gather it all with one hand and hold it away from your face.

"So you can see," he said, staring back at you as his fingers brushed against the nape of your neck.

You opened your mouth to say something before closing it again. "Right. Thank you," you mumbled, looking away flustered.

He then watched you as you applied a thin layer over his palm. The gel was cool and you were right. It felt so much better and with your hair in his hand and your shoulder touching his, better didn't feel so bad right now.

If feeling better included you, he might not fear it so much anymore.

Once you were done, you set the bottle aside on the coffee table. Pope dropped his hand, watching as your hair fell all over your shoulders again. His fingers tingled slightly from where he'd been holding it, and he flexed them, already missing the feel of those soft strands between his fingers.

You grabbed tissues and cleaned your fingertip, wiping away the excess gel before tossing the tissue onto the table, missing Pope's slight frown. Then you glanced at his hand again.

"Good?" you asked softly and he nodded in response.

You then grabbed the bandage you had already gotten earlier and quickly wrapped it around his hand. You did it oh so perfectly, it was the same way he'd done it to his brothers so many times over the years.

"Tight?" you asked, your eyes still fixed on his hand, and he shook his head.

You set everything away and leaned back on the couch, staring at nothing in front of you. Pope took back his palm to his lap, resting it on his thigh. He glanced outside, at the dark sky through the window, and then back at you.

"It's late. You shouldn't drive back," he said quietly.

You brushed a hand over your face, rubbing your eyes with the heel of your palm. "Yeah. Long work day."

Pope's eyebrows furrowed. He hated when you talked about work, and you knew he hated it. He hated the way you'd come home with tired eyes and the way you'd talk about bosses who didn't appreciate you.

"You don't have to work. I can give you the money for everything you need." He'd said this before, more times than he could count. It was a conversation you've had almost every single day. He had more money than he knew what to do with and the thought of you slaving away at some job that didn't appreciate you made him want to burn the whole place down.

"Andrew," you said quietly, and that single word was enough. He pressed his lips tight together as he leaned back too, his eyes fixed on the way you pressed your knees tight together. It wasn't like the usual times, where you'd watch something on TV together and you'd softly clink your knee against his.

"Baz won't be here the entire week," he wasn't sure why he was telling you this, but he wanted you to know that you could come over without worrying about running into him.

You glanced at him, leaning your head against the couch behind you as you turned your head toward him. "Good," you said, and Pope felt his mouth twitch at that.

You were such a sweet girl, but you never quite hid your dislike for his brother. He found it entertaining. He knew why, and he knew it stemmed from a good and caring place, so he never felt the need to defend his brother to you. You weren't mean to Baz either, just a tad hostile, and Pope secretly appreciated that you had the guts to stand your ground.

Pope looked down at his bandage, closing his hand and opening it again. It hurt, and he knew it wasn't a good idea, but he did it anyway. There had to be some purpose to why he'd burned his hand. He couldn't just have it stop. But obviously you didn't let that happen.

Wordlessly, you put your hand into his. You lifted it gently from his lap and placed it in yours. He stopped moving it immediately, letting it rest there as you brushed a fingertip over the bandage.

He watched you, not bothering to hide his stare whatsoever. One of the small lights was shining on you and he could see how spaced out you were. It reminded him of himself and of all the times he'd stared at nothing. And he didn't like that. He hated hated hated it.

So he spoke the words that had been desperate to escape all night. "No one will ever have a kid with me," he said, his voice emotionless, like he was talking about the weather.

Your head snapped up at that, your eyes widening as they darted across his face. "What?" you said sounding genuinely confused. But there was also genuine terror in your voice because what a horrible thing to say about yourself and believe.

"Baz said it," was all he said, his voice still flat as he stared at you to know what you actually thought. He didn't want empty platitudes or meaningless reassurances. He wanted the truth and he would only get that by looking at your face.

You opened your mouth and closed it again, your brain scrambling for the right words. Your hand tightened on his palm, almost giving him the pain he'd been craving earlier but then you realized what you were doing and you loosened your grip.

"Your brother might be the biggest jerk I've ever known in my life," you finally said, and Pope couldn't help the small smile that formed on his face. You'd never been this direct about your hatred towards Baz. "He sucks," you added and the bluntness of it made the small smile on his face twitch wider. "He's a terrible person and he says terrible things, and none of them are true."

And then you met his eyes properly. "And he's a liar. Every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie, and you know it. You know he just says things to tear them down and to make himself feel better."

Pope stared at you, his hazel eyes studying yours, trying to find the lie he believed was there. He didn't let much emotion show on his face, but you didn't look away. It was Pope who finally looked away first, which didn't happen very often.

You stared at his side profile and then tapped his bandaged hand lightly, drawing his attention back to you. "Hey, i'm here with you, aren't I?"

He met your eyes again, not saying anything.

"You're here taking care of Lena. Not Baz. You're here making her food. Not Baz. You're the one who picked her up from school. Not Baz," you said quietly as you held his stare. "You're the one who stays up with her when she has nightmares. You're the one who plays with her and makes her laugh and reads her bedtime stories. Not Baz."

You paused, swallowing hard, your hand still resting gently over his bandaged one. "You're a better dad to Lena than Baz will ever be," your voice cracking slightly.

As he kept looking at you, you pushed yourself to hold eye contact. "You start taking Lena to the park more regularly and the moms will start throwing themselves at you when they see how good you are to her," you said, a small smile tugging at your lips. "They'll be lining up to get your attention. You'll have to fight them off with Lena."

His lips twitched at that and it made your heart flutter.

"Don't listen to him," you said, and there was so much contempt for his brother, that he found it endearing. "Don't listen to a single word that comes out of his mouth. You're too good for that."

Pope stayed quiet as his eyes drifted to the coffee table. He stared at your tissue for a while before looking back at you. "You think someone would want me?" he would never dream of asking a vulnerable question like this to anyone else, but you.

You didn't even hesitate. "I know someone would want you."

You watched him as he fixed himself again against the back of the couch. His eyes wandered far away and you could see him trying to decide if he believed any of it. You brushed a finger over his hand, as you waited for any reaction whatsoever.

"Thank you," he finally said quietly.

You looked at him and smiled softly. "You don't have to thank me for pointing out the obvious," you said softly, leaning back so your shoulder pressed hard against his. You knocked your knees against his. "Any kid would be lucky to have you as their dad, and any woman would be lucky to have you as the father of her kids."

You said that part quietly and then you looked away. You could feel your cheeks warming and you focused on the bandage on his hand. Pope watched you for a long moment, drinking in the sight of you, and then his fingers lightly reached upward until he tapped the back of your hand.

You looked up, your eyes meeting his and he didn't say anything. He just stared at you and you stared back, and you knew what he wanted to see. His nose twitched at what he saw. He was great at reading facial expressions, too good sometimes.

You let him see that you'd be one of those people who would consider themselves lucky to have him as the father to her kids. You watched the realization flash across his face and you dropped your eyes immediately.

When you dropped your head to his shoulder, you felt his sigh of relief and you smiled to yourself.

Eventually, you felt his arm shift, and then his hand came up to rest on your shoulder, his fingers curling gently around the curve of it. You leaned into it, letting him know it was okay, and his fingers tightened slightly, pulling you just a little bit closer.

"You should get some sleep," he murmured. "I'll get you some blankets."

You're not sure how much different it'd be after only a couple years away, but still. Something in you had expected it to feel even smaller—like the way old t-shirts shrink in the wash when you’re not paying attention.

The air felt the same when you first stepped out of your beat up Chevy, heavy and humid like a wet mouth. The pavement in front of your house still burned the bottom of your shoes, and the cicadas were buzzing in the dry grass like they never stopped.

You left for college thinking you’d never come back. And yet, here you are. Spending summer back in your hometown, a little more than half a degree under your belt, flat broke, and bored to death.

Your room’s the same, maybe just a little smaller now that you’ve lived other places, slept in other beds. All the posters are still up, faded from the sun and curling at the corners. Your mom left your old tennis trophies on your dresser, like maybe she thought you’d want to see them. You don’t, not really. You appreciate the effort anyway, at least she didn’t turn it into a yoga room or a place to keep extra boxes and Christmas decorations.

You try not to spend too much time at home, even though you technically don’t have anywhere else to go. You kill time with long drives down the streets you memorized years ago, past beat up gas stations with sun bleached lotto signs and eighteen wheelers parked in the back.

You try your hand at some half-hearted job hunting at a few different places that promise to call but never do. And you sit in the back booth of an old diner where you and your friends used to sneak fries from abandoned tables and smoke paper wrapped joints in the alley out back.

Every place you go feels like a ghost town version of what you remember. Familiar, but all hollowed out.

“You know who might be looking for help?” Your mom says one morning, standing at the stove fussing over a pan of bacon. “Joel Miller, you remember him don’t you?”

You pause, your fork stuck hovering just above the plate. “Sarah’s dad?”

“Mhm. I ran into him at the market a couple weeks ago and we got to catching up. He’s needing to pick up some extra work, and it’s just him, you know. Sarah’s starting high school in the fall but he’s still not wanting to leave her on her own. He looked stressed, poor thing.”

You hum warily, pushing your eggs around your plate to distract from the way your stomach flutters.

Joel Miller.

You haven’t heard that name in years. Not since you stopped babysitting Sarah, not since you left. It has something low and guilty stirring somewhere deep inside you.

You shouldn’t be surprised that it’s floating back into your life like cigarette smoke—all pungent and sour and impossible to ignore. In a town of less than two thousand people, you were bound to circle around some old memories sooner or later. And Joel Miller was a big one.

Mr. Miller was a few years older than your mom, a single dad that lived with his daughter in the trailer park a few miles past the city limit. You met him when you were seventeen and trying to save as much as you could for college, when your puny part time job flipping burgers and serving ice cream cones wasn’t cutting it. 

He needed someone to pick up Sarah from school and watch her until he got home from work, you needed the extra money. It seemed like a perfect fit.

But Joel was always…different. He scooped you up off the gravel and carried you into his living room to bandage up your knee when you took a bad fall outside his trailer. He never ratted you out when he caught you smoking one of his Marlboros in his backyard after you put Sarah to bed one night. He drove you home when you got too drunk at a field party and couldn’t stomach the thought of calling your mom. 

You can still remember the way his truck smelled—gasoline, sunbaked leather, sawdust. 

He didn’t say much, just kept his gaze trained on the road as you watched him through glassy eyes while Johnny Cash floated through the cab. He looked back once, slow and quiet, like he was really thinking something over. 

It’s been a long time since you thought about that night, but the reminder of it resurfaces sharp and sudden, like a thumb pressed into a bruise.

Now, your mom’s pouring more coffee into your cup and saying his name like it’s no big deal, like she didn’t just drop a live wire into your lap. Like he didn’t take up way too much room in your seventeen year old imagination.

“You should go down there and talk to him sometime,” she says, casual. “It might be a good way to make some money while you look around for something else.”

You bite back a grimace, conflicted. “Isn’t Sarah old enough to stay home alone by now?”

Your mom shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “Maybe, but like I said Joel’s always been a little…anxious about leaving her on her own too many nights. She’s at that age, you know—boys, phones, lord knows what else.”

You frown, stabbing at your eggs. You only remember Sarah as the sweet little girl who’d beg to stay up and watch Disney with you, who was more interested in her Barbie dolls than any screen. You used to braid her hair while she did her times tables, let her wear some of your lip gloss when she begged.

You take a sip of coffee, the burn of it trickles down from your throat to settle somewhere deep in your chest. “You really think he’d hire me again?” 

Your mom shrugs again, plating the bacon. “I don’t see why not. Sarah always loved you, Joel too. He’s asked about you once or twice, said you were a real good girl. Very responsible and all that.”

You try not to laugh at that. 

Good girl. Responsible. Right.

You nod vaguely, standing to clear your plate into the trash even though it’s still half full. “Maybe,” you mutter. “I’ll think about it.”

Later that night, alone in your room, you find yourself scrolling through Facebook like an angsty teenager. 

You kicked your sheets off a while ago, cracked your window open to let in the cool breeze swirling outside. Crickets sing quietly in the background, only drowned out every once in a while by the sound of cars passing your street.

Joel’s profile is still public, but it’s sparsely updated. A new truck photo here, a blurry picture of Sarah’s eighth grade promotion there. She looks the same, maybe a little older. Her hair’s longer, but still curly as ever.

There’s no recent pictures of Joel anywhere. Not posted by him or any of his friends. You can’t tell if the feeling that blooms inside of you is disappointment or something else entirely.

You’re about to exit the app when finally, a tagged post catches your eye.

A post by an account with the name Henry B. attached to it. It’s just a grainy photo of someone’s backyard littered with wood pallets and stray tools, Joel standing in the middle of it all with a few other people you don’t recognize.

His account is tagged in the caption underneath. Big thanks to my buddy Joel Miller for the extra set of hands tonight. Saved our ass! It’s dated June 13, 2023.

You pause, your thumb hovering over the screen. So he’s still handy, you think distantly, chewing on your bottom lip.

You remember that much. There were always new projects cluttering the yard in front of his trailer. A crib for the expecting couple a few doors down, a rocking chair with ornate vines and flowers carved into the armrests, a soccer goal for Sarah to practice with when she started getting serious about it in the fifth grade.

You zoom in on the picture, just a little.

The angle’s weird and it’s overexposed as shit. Joel’s face is half shadowed by an old Longhorns baseball cap, but even still—there’s that jaw. That mouth. That same broad width of his shoulders you used to trace with your eyes when he’d lean on the doorframe after he got home from work. 

It’s still an older picture, and you can’t help but wonder how much he’s changed since.

You breathe through your nose, one long uninterrupted breath before you close the app and toss your phone face down on the mattress.

Joel Miller was handsome when you were in high school and stupid and still biting your nails. 

He was a late forty-something, tired around the eyes. Always in pair of ratty, stained jeans and those soft, worn down flannels with the sleeves rolled up. Sarah’s dad. The hot one, according to the girls at school. The divorced one, according to the snooty moms at the PTA. He was tall and strong, thick arms with dark hair dusted along veiny muscle. Big hands that were calloused and rough to the touch when he slipped you a couple folded twenties at the end of every night. 

You haven’t seen him since the summer after you graduated, but sometimes you still think about the way he used to look at you.

Like he shouldn’t.

Like he knew he shouldn’t, and did it anyway. 

You can still feel it. That heat, that weight. The way his eyes always lingered a little too long when you bent down to grab your homework off the coffee table. The way his voice got low and syrupy when he asked what you were doing that weekend.

You were young then, but now?

Now you’re not sure who you are, not entirely—but you know you’re not that same girl. You’ve lived. You’ve done things he couldn’t even guess at.

You’ve grown up. And you wonder if Joel would notice too.

You don’t plan on going. Not really.

The next day, your mom leaves a note taped to the fridge that says she’s out running errands and won’t be back until later. You stare at it for a while, then glance at the clock.

It’s barely noon.

You have nothing to do. No plans. No job. So you get into your boiling hot car, roll the windows down, and drive.

You’re not sure what makes you do it. 

Maybe it’s the antsy feeling that’s been worming around under your skin since you got here. Maybe it’s the way Joel’s name has been bouncing off all the corners of your mind like a moth against glass ever since your mom said it.

Either way, you find yourself veering onto a familiar exit off the highway, tires crunching under gravel until it turns to dirt when you pull into the same trailer park on the edge of town. The same one you spent most nights back in high school.

You sit in your car for a little longer than necessary, keys still in the ignition, engine ticking quietly as it cools.

The place hasn’t changed much either. Same sloped roof, same white paneling, same wind chimes clinking together on the porch. There’s a pair of muddy work boots by the steps, and your stomach knots.

You didn’t bother calling ahead. You don’t even know if he has the same number. You’re regretting that now.

You should leave. You really should. But you’re already pulling the car door open and stepping into the dry afternoon heat. The air’s thick again, the sun sitting high and mean in the sky. Your shirt sticks to the sweaty skin along your spine as you walk through the gate and up the short gravel path.

You hesitate at the foot of the stairs, clenching and unclenching your fists a couple times like that’ll magically relive all your nerves. You wonder, and almost hope, if Sarah will be the one to open the door. If she’ll even remember you.

Then, the screen door cracks open before you can knock.

Joel’s standing there. He looks the same as the last time you saw him.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he mutters, opening the door wider. He’s in jeans, barefoot, nothing but a tank top clinging to his chest, a dark patch blooming at the collar where it’s damp with sweat. “Look at you.” 

No, not the same.

Older. Broader, somehow. More worn in, like a favorite jacket that’s been well loved. His hair’s longer than you remember, messier. His beard is thicker too, dusted with more gray, and there’s a little more weight around his middle. But his eyes are just the same—dark, steady, and sharp in a way that makes you feel instantly, achingly seventeen again.

He looks you over once. Not quick. Real slow. Real deliberate. A single drag of his eyes from your flip flops to the shorts you maybe shouldn’t have worn. His gaze sticks when it reaches your chest, lingers there a beat too long before flicking back up to your mouth. And then, finally, your eyes.

You shift your weight, offering a small smile. “Hey, Mr. Miller.”

His eyes narrow, and there’s the ghost of a smirk pulling at his mouth. “Don’t start with that ‘Mr. Miller’ bullshit. You’re grown now.”

Your stomach tightens.

“I, uh...my mom said you might be looking for help,” you say, fighting the urge to squirm where you stand. “With Sarah, I mean.”

He leans against the doorframe, one hand gripping the wood above his head. The movement lifts his shirt just enough to show a strip of his stomach, a trail of dark hair disappearing under the waistband of his sweats. “She did, huh?”

You nod, still frozen in place at the bottom of the steps.

Joel lets the silence hang in the air, heavy and charged. Then he huffs a quiet breath through his nose—half amusement, half something else—and steps aside. “You comin’ in or what?” he asks, jerking his head impatiently, giving you another long, lazy once over. “Ain’t polite to keep an old man waitin’, kid.”

Your heart beats wildly against your ribcage, and with one last quick, steadying breath you hope Joel doesn’t notice, you climb the stairs.

Joel hadn’t expected to see you again. At the very least like this, showing up at his place in the middle of the day—standing at the bottom of his porch like a mirage in the heat, older and more grown in all the places a man like him shouldn’t be noticing. 

And sure as hell not in those shorts.

He watches you walk past him into the living room, slow and uncertain, that little sway in your hips you maybe don’t even mean to have. Or maybe you do.

Either way, it’s a goddamn sight.

Joel closes the door with a soft click, dragging a hand over his mouth like that’ll help wipe the look off his face. It doesn’t. The look of you—bare legged and smiling, sun kissed and back in his house after all this time—sticks to the inside of his skull like syrup. 

You look around the room with a small smile, eyes scanning the familiar furniture. Some of it’s new, some of it’s the same. Joel’s never been much for decorating. You pause in front of the bookshelf he built a few years back, Sarah’s old school pictures still sit in a few mismatched frames next to a couple of paperbacks.

He clears his throat, scratching at his beard so he has something to do with his hands as he walks to the kitchen. “You want somethin’ to drink? Water, iced tea? I think I got Coke in the fridge somewhere.”

“I’m good, thanks.” You follow slowly, looking younger somehow in the kitchen light. You rest your hip against the doorway, eyes watching him as he walks to the fridge. “I won’t stay long. I just figured I’d stop by real quick and see if you still needed some help.”

Joel pulls the fridge open anyway, grabbing a beer from the half empty six pack. He cracks the tab with a soft hiss and leans back against the counter. “Sarah’s mostly independent now. She don’t need a sitter like she used to, but I still get caught up workin’ late. Don’t like the idea of her bein’ here by herself too often. 'Specially not with some of the boys sniffin’ around lately.”

You laugh, soft and bright. “Well, I’ve got time,” you say, toying with a loose thread on your cutoffs. “I don’t know how much help you actually need, but my schedule’s pretty much open. I can do evenings, weekends, whatever you want.”

Joel has to bite back a grin. Whatever he wants. 

If you only knew the half of what he really wants.

Joel shifts his weight against the counter. “It wouldn’t be every night,” he says, shaking his head. “Just the evenings I pick up extra hours, or if I get called out for a job.”

You nod. “I can help. You don’t have to worry about paying me a whole lot. I’ll just be happy to keep busy.”

His mouth pulls into something that might be a smile. “I’ll pay you,” he says, almost gruff. “You’re doin’ me a favor.”

The silence that follows feels familiar. Not awkward—just full. A little tight around the edges. 

He’s always known how to talk to you, but now there’s something different to it. You’re not seventeen anymore. Not biting your lip and looking away when he catches your eye. You’re standing there calm as you please, looking straight at him, like you already know he’s thinking things he shouldn’t.

Joel watches you from across the kitchen, beer can sweating against his palm. The ceiling fan spins lazily overhead, stirring warm air that doesn’t help much with the heat climbing under his skin. You’re standing there across the way from him like nothing’s changed, like you never left. Like no time has passed at all.

Except that it has. And it shows.

“You still in school?” he asks, voice rougher than he means it to be.

You blink, head tilting to the left. “Yeah. I’m up in Chicago now, Northwestern.”

“Big shot,” Joel whistles low, nodding appreciatively. “That’s a ways away from here.”

You shake your head, smile small and bashful. “It is. It’s expensive as hell too, my scholarship’s the only reason I’m there.”

He makes a soft sound in his throat, impressed. “Smart girl.”

“I try.” You shrug, but there’s pride under it. “I’ve got one year left, usually I stay for the summer to try and make as much as I can in the city. I—I just needed a breather, I guess. Some time to figure shit out, you know?”

There’s something soft in your tone when you say it, an openness he didn’t expect, and maybe shouldn’t pry into. But part of him wants to. Always has.

“You don’t seem like the type that needs figurin’ out,” Joel says, voice a little quieter now. “Always thought you had your head on straight.”

Your smile flickers into something crooked, something secret. “That’s because you didn’t really know me.”

He chuckles, deep and rough. “No, sweetheart. I think I knew you just fine.”

Your eyes lock for a second too long after that, thick enough with heat and history to make the air feel heavier than it already is.

You look away first, your eyes flicking to the living room. “I, uh–sorry, do you mind if I use the bathroom?”

Joel gestures vaguely with his free hand. “Go ahead, you remember where it is.”

You push off the doorway with one last grateful smile and duck down the hallway, footsteps silent against the linoleum. Joel watches until you disappear around the corner, his gaze dipping low without shame.

He waits until he hears the click of the bathroom door shutting behind you to exhale a slow breath, setting his beer down on the counter harder than he has to.

Jesus Christ.

She’s not a girl anymore, he thinks to himself. And you’re not, you’re far fucking from it.

But that feeling, that ugly one churning deep down in Joel’s gut, it’s still there. It feels just as dangerous as it used to, maybe even worse now. All because of you. 

The look of your glossy lips forming around the words whatever he wants. The shape of your thighs, those damn shorts clinging to you like a second skin. The way you were looking at him, eyes all wide and shiny under his shitty kitchen light. 

Joel can’t help himself, he thinks back to a few years ago. You, curled up on his couch every night when he got home from a long build, looking so soft in the hazy glow of the TV. Barefoot and sleepy, blinking up at him in those skimpy little after school clothes you’d always throw on.

It was a vision, something to settle his aching bones.

He thinks about how he started looking forward to it, coming home to you. It was sick, he knew that much, the fucked up little game of house he played, projected onto you. An old man like him leering at you, thinking of you long after you’d left, waving sweetly from the window of your moms car.

Joel should’ve known better. Should’ve done better. But that never stopped him before, not when it came to you.

A knock at the door pulls him from his thoughts. Two quick raps, followed by a heavy creak.

“Joel?” Tommy’s voice fills the trailer before he can even move, loud in the quiet. “You home?”

Joel sighs, brows pinching together as he pushes off the counter. He didn’t even hear the damn truck pull up.

Tommy rounds the corner, sweaty and covered in dirt. He’s got a ratty bandanna hanging from his jean pocket, sleeves pulled up around his shoulders and a pair of aviators covering his eyes.

“You ever heard of callin’ before you just barge in on someone?” Joel doesn’t try to hide the annoyance in his tone, brow arched as he stares at his brother.

“Hello to you too, jackass.” Tommy just walks past him like he owns the place, opening up one of the cabinets above the sink. “You gettin’ memory loss already, old man? You said Saturday.”

“Yeah, well now ain’t a good time, Tommy.” Joel cuts his eyes to the hall, to the light bleeding out from under the bathroom door.

Tommy just snorts, still rifling through the cabinet. “Yeah right, you got a woman over or somethin’?”

Joel doesn’t answer, eyes still fixed on that thin sliver of light glowing under the bathroom door like it might give him away.

Tommy catches on, turns slow with a shit-eating grin already stretching across his face. “You do have someone here.”

Joel gives him a hard look, one that should tell him to shut the hell up—but Tommy only laughs, knowing.

“C’mon,” he drawls. “Didn’t know you were even seein’ anybody. You been holdin’ out on me?”

“It ain’t like that,” Joel mutters, too fast, too defensive.

Tommy tilts his head, chewing on that like a dog with a bone. “Huh. So she’s not yours then?”

Joel doesn’t get the chance to answer. Before he can shoot back with something mean enough to shut him up. From down the hall, the bathroom door opens with a quiet click, and then—

Then you're back, smoothing your hands down your thighs as you reappear around the corner, voice drifting back into the space.

“Jesus, that sink is still running freezing cold water? I nearly put my-oh…” You’re clearly caught off guard, your eyes catching on where Tommy stands in front of the sink. “Tommy?”

Joel watches it click in real time—your eyes lighting up with recognition, mouth parting into a surprised smile like you’ve just stumbled on an old friend. Which, in a way, you have. Tommy was around a lot back then. Backyard beers, watching football on the TV, leaning against Joel’s truck while you wrangled Sarah inside for dinner.

“Well shit,” Tommy says, slow and low, pulling his sunglasses down. “That isn’t the little babysitter, is it?”

You smile, sheepish and sweet, and Joel feels something sour twist in his gut. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah.” Joel watches Tommy take a good long look at you just like the one he did, eyes wide as his gaze rakes from your head down to the bare skin of your legs and back up all over again. “No kiddin’.”

It makes the space behind Joel’s ribs burn with something hot and ugly, Tommy’s eyes on you. Shameless and obvious as all hell. He might just be the biggest hypocrite in the country for it, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

“I didn’t know you were back in town,” Tommy goes on, leaning in like he can’t help himself. “You home for the summer?”

“Yeah, just for the summer,” you say brightly. “I thought I’d see if Joel needed help with Sarah again.”

“Oh, I bet he does,” Tommy says, and Joel’s had about enough of this.

“We were just finishing up,” Joel cuts in, his voice sharp enough to slice through the air. “She was about to head out.”

You don’t seem to notice the tension, if you do, you ignore it with grace that makes it worse somehow.

Your eyes flick to him, and for a second, Joel thinks maybe you notice something’s off. But your smile is still easy. “Yeah, I should probably get going.”

Joel gives a short nod and steps toward you before Tommy can open his mouth again. “I’ll walk you out, honey.”

You look between the two brothers for a second longer, then nod and head back into the living room, Joel right behind you. The sound of Tommy’s boots are hot on his heels, following.

You bend down to swipe your keys off the coffee table, not by much, just enough for your shirt to ride up and your shorts to dip low. Joel nearly swallows his tongue at the sight of lace. Bright pink, thin. A pathetic little scrap of fabric clinging to either side of your hips.

Joel’s throat goes dry, heat rolling under his skin like a slow burn, thick and unrelenting. You straighten back up, smooth the hem of your shirt down, but the damage is done. He feels that familiar ache stirring low in his belly, his cock twitching with interest in his sweats.

He doesn’t look at Tommy, he doesn’t need to. The quiet crunch of a beer can bending under a tight grip is all he needs to know that he isn’t the only one taking that lace peeking out from under those damn shorts as a neon sign flashing all the wrong kinds of welcome.

Joel barely has enough wherewithal to drag his eyes up to your face when you turn back around—that sweet, oblivious smile still pulling at your lips.

“Okay.” Your fingers toy with your keys, the metal soft and jangling in your palm. “Ready.”

Joel gives you a short nod, jaw tight. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.

Tommy, of course, steps in the silence, voice syrupy. “Hey, don’t be a stranger, alright? Good seein’ you again, sweetheart.”

You glance over your shoulder, lips parting into a lazy little grin. “You too, Tommy.”

Joel holds the door open for you, watching the way the light hits your shoulders, the back of your thighs, the little shadow that dips right at the curve of your spine.

The cicadas are buzzing, your car parked half crooked along the curb. You walk slow, gravel crunching under your sandals. Joel stays beside you, hands shoved deep in his pockets. The sun’s lower now, soft gold spilling across the lawn.

You open the car door, pausing with your hand on it. “That was…fun.”

Joel nods, biting back a frown. “Yeah, sorry about him. Tommy hasn’t got much of a filter.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “It’s okay, I missed you guys.”

Joel’s heart kicks hard in his chest. He’s not sure what to do with that. 

“You know where to find us,” he says finally.

You nod, climbing into the car. The engine kicks up and the window rolls down.

“Thanks for the talk,” you say. “And the job, I’ll call you?”

Joel leans down a little, arms resting on the open window frame. You’re so close like this. Too close. He can smell the sweet perfume mixing with the bright tang of sweat on your skin.

“Of course,” he says, eyes flicking down to your lips. “I’ll be waiting.”

You smile. “It was nice seeing you, Joel.”

Joel watches you drive off, his reflection shrinking in your side mirror until he’s nothing but a speck in the dust your tires kick up.

He lets out another long breath, turning to walk up to steps. When he comes back inside, Tommy’s on the couch now, feet kicked up on Joel’s coffee table.

Joel shuts the door a little too hard behind him.

He lets out a low whistle. “Damn.”

“I told you,” Joel says, low and firm. “Now ain’t the time.”

Tommy’s grinning. “No shit it ain’t the time. Jesus, Joel. She’s what—twenty? Twenty one?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Joel says, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Oh, well never mind then, that makes it fine,” Tommy says, laughing. He cracks open the beer in his hand, taking a slow sip. “You’re outta your fuckin’ mind, you know that?”

Joel clenches his jaw, not bothering with an answer. His heavy silence speaks louder than any words could.

Tommy watches Joel closely, taking his silence for what it is and grinning wide enough to show off the sharp point of his canines. “She filled out real nice though, didn’t she?”

Joel shoots him a warning look, brows pinched together. “Don’t.”

Tommy holds his free hand up in surrender, but he’s still smirking. “All I’m sayin’ is—I remember when she was this pretty little thing runnin’ around here. Now—” He makes a vague gesture at his own chest. “—jailbait’s a whole lotta grown.”

Joel takes a step forward, hands clenched into fists at his side. “Watch your goddamn mouth.”

Tommy raises a brow, and the air goes real still between them for a beat. Joel knows his little brother—knows he’s testing the waters, seeing just how deep the river runs.

Joel shakes his eyes off him, walks to the kitchen and snatches his forgotten beer off the counter.

He hears Tommy chuckle again, more to himself than anything, his voice is louder so Joel can hear him. “You better watch yourself, man. That one? She’s trouble.”

Joel downs the rest of his beer in one long, bitter swallow, eyes peering out the window—locked on the road your car disappeared down. His voice, when it comes, is low and final.

“You got no idea.”

It’s almost too easy, falling back into the routine of it.

A few nights a week, just like before. Joel calls. You come over. The knock on the door doesn’t even feel necessary anymore, since Sarah already knows it’s you when she yanks it open and launches into talking before you’ve even stepped inside. 

You know where the snacks are. The remote. You know how to work the tricky thermostat and still have all the emergency contacts scrawled on a paper tacked to the fridge memorized.

It all comes back like muscle memory—like no time has passed at all. 

Sarah’s older now, a little more sarcastic. Witty and bolder in a way that surprises you sometimes, just enough edge in the way she talks to you that reminds you how much time has passed since you used to sit on the same couch and color. She’s brimming with the kind of secrets she’s aching to spill to someone she knows won’t tell her dad.

You’re still not quite a “grown-up” in her eyes, but you’re not a kid anymore either. You’re in that sweet spot—a cool older girl with her own car who lets her say things like shit and dickweed when Joel’s not around.

You’re not supposed to let her stay up this late, but you both pretend not to notice the clock. She’s curled up next to you on the couch, draped over the armrest only half watching the reruns you turned on with her chin propped on her palm.  

"Can I ask you something?” Sarah says suddenly, grinning. 

You narrow your eyes at her, mock suspicious. “You can, but I’m not promising I’ll answer.”

She laughs, kicking you gently with a socked foot. “Did you ever, like, sneak around when you were my age? Steal beer? Hook up with anyone?”

“Jesus, Sarah.” You raise your eyebrows, but she’s too amused to be embarrassed. You toss a throw pillow her way lazily. “You know your dad would kill me for answering that, right? He’d think I’m giving you ideas or something.”

“That’s not a no,” she sings, smirking.

“No comment.” You shake your head, smiling in spite of yourself. “I don’t need to give you any blackmail material to use on me later if I piss you off.”

“Please,” she huffs with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “I’d never narc on you like that. Besides, Dad still thinks I’m eight, I don’t even think he knows that I know what “hooking up” means.”

You laugh, shaking your head as you turn your attention back to the TV. “You’re his baby.” You shrug as a new episode of Daria starts. “It makes sense that he’s treating you like one.”

“Gross,” Sarah huffs again, letting her head fall back against the cushion to stare up at the ceiling. “He’s just so overprotective sometimes. I mean, I guess I get it but, come on? I’m basically in high school now, I’m not really a baby anymore.”

You glance over at her, and she isn’t. Not really. Not the gap toothed little girl who used to fall asleep on your shoulder watching Finding Nemo. She’s growing up in the kind of terrifying, beautiful way that makes your chest ache a little—already too smart for her own good.

She cracks her eyes open a bit, peering across the way at you. “Bet you noticed that when you were my age, right? When guys started looking at you differently.”

You blink. It’s not the words that shake you—it’s the timing. The way they hit, low and close to the bone. 

Because yeah, you did notice. You still do. Especially now. Especially here.

Before you can say anything, the alarm you set on your phone blares loudly, cutting through the quiet.

“Alright!” You push her feet off your lap and stand, happy for the distraction as you clap your hands together. “That’s curfew.”

Sarah groans, but she rolls off the couch with no argument and starts down the hall. 

You busy yourself with tidying up the living room as she brushes her teeth, pointedly ignoring the growing pit in your stomach. Her words ring in your ears like church bells, her voice tolling a little too close to something you’ve pointedly ignored since you got back. Something half buried and dangerous.

Bet you noticed that when you were my age, right? When guys started looking at you differently…

You breathe out slowly, shutting off the TV and dropping the remote onto the couch a little harder than necessary. You shouldn’t read into it. She didn’t mean anything by it. Just a kid mouthing off, reaching for connection, for understanding. 

But it rattles you more than you want to admit, especially here—especially in his house.

You swallow hard, clearing the dirty dishes off the coffee table and walking into the kitchen. You just won’t think about it anymore, it’s that easy.

You're just being ridiculous. Paranoid. That's all.

A little while later, you’re still tidying up.

The dishes are all done, washed and drying in the rack next to the sink. The living room looks better than when you got here. It’s damn near pristine. 

Sarah went to bed almost half an hour ago. You crane your head down the hallway as you fold an old blanket, her door is cracked open enough that you can see the light from her alarm clock shining in the dark. The soft sounds of waves drone quietly from her noise machine.

You smile, a warm fondness blooming in your chest.

That fuzzy feeling doesn’t last long, not when your eyes drift almost on their own, landing on Joel’s door. 

Joel’s room.

It’s cracked open too, just like Sarah’s, but there’s no light shining from inside. You keep folding the blanket, distracted. It’s not like you haven’t been in Joel’s room before, you have. Passing through it with clean loads of laundry or sneaking his phone charger from the plug near his nightstand when your phone died.

But you’d never gone in alone, and you’d never stayed long. Sarah was always hot on your heels, catching your wrist in her tiny hand to drag you back out—following you around like an overexcited puppy. Not to mention it was always in the light of day, never at a time like this. When the moon is shining high in the sky and the stars are scattered across vast velvety darkness like spilled sugar.

You drape the folded blanket along the arm of the couch, eyes still glued to the door. The cogs in your mind turn and turn, spitting out an idea that has your stomach clenching with something you can’t quite put your finger on.

You gnaw on your bottom lip anxiously, eyes cutting to the clock above the door.

11:53

Joel told he’d be a while tonight, before he left. He said they’d be short a man, that the job would drag on because of it.

That’s not an excuse, you know that.

You shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t.

Your feet are moving before your brain can catch up to how bad of an idea this really is.

Your steps are silent on the linoleum, barefeet not making a sound. The wood of his door is dark and shiny, cool against your hand when you lay your palm over it. You give Sarah’s room another sideways glance, you can see the shape of her beneath the covers. Sound asleep.

The door creaks when you push it open, just barely. The sound isn’t enough to scare you off, and you step inside. The carpet is plush under you, it silences your steps even more as you walk to the nightstand and flick the light on.

Your heart pounds against your ribs as you take it in. The messy, unmade state of Joel’s bed. The covers are thrown back, there’s a dip in the pillow where his head rests. The nightstand has a paperback open and laying face down, a pair of wiry reading glasses resting next to it.

The room smells like him. 

That scent that used to cling to you by accident when you were younger—clean cotton and cedar, a little motor oil and sweat, and whatever body wash he’s been using for years. It hits you all at once.

It has something stirring in your core, the familiarity of it. You look around some more, greedy eyes taking in every tiny detail you can. There’s a few paintings and framed pictures littering the walls. Pictures of Sarah, of Tommy, all kinds of different Texas landscapes. 

An old guitar rests on the wall across from you, you can see that it’s a little beat up even from where you’re standing. The glossy wood chipped and well loved.

Then your eyes land on the dresser.

It’s old, stained a light brown. You wonder distantly if he built it himself.

Your gaze catches on the top drawer, the pull handle worn with use.

Again, you know it’s wrong. That you’ve already crossed every line imaginable by just being in here, but you seem full to bursting with bad ideas tonight. 

You’re across the room with your fingers resting gently on the handle before you can even blink. Slowly, like something’s pulling you on a leash, you slide it open.

Socks. Boxers. Old, ratty belts. It’s nothing special, but heat climbs up the back of your neck all the same.

The next drawer has shirts, old band tees and fancier button downs that really should be hung up. You press your hand against one of them, feeling the starchy fabric beneath your skin.

The third drawer sticks a little, enough that you need to yank on it harder than the last two. It slides open with a dull thud. You wince, your eyes flicking to the door like Joel could be standing there, catching you rifling through his underwear like a sick little perv. 

The darkness of the hallway is all that greets you. Quiet, empty.

You take a steadying breath, but your hands don’t stop trembling as you tug it the rest of the way open.

You’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for, but then, you see it.

There, tucked toward the back under a couple old flannels, a small stack of magazines. 

Playboys. A couple Hustlers. From the look of them, they're mostly 90s, maybe early 2000s. It’s so vintage, so Joel. The covers are glossy, edges curled and worn. 

Your breath hitches. The heat between your legs is instant, sharp and impossible to ignore.

You pull one out, heart hammering, and flip it open carefully. Your eyes skim over picture after picture, some of the pages sticking together as you thumb through them. The scent of paper and dust and something faintly musky drifts up, and the centerfold you finally land on is obscene—posed, yes, but raw in a way that makes your thighs press together. 

Legs spread wide on a bearskin rug, pink mouth parted, full bush and glossy nipples.

She’s brunette, hair poofy and curled up to Jesus like they used those big old school rollers. Her eyes are the same color as yours, half lidded and covered in a sparkly blue shadow.

You glance down at the caption under her photo. 

“Turn-ons: Older men. The kind that know how to use their hands.”

A shiver rolls down your spine.

You should be laughing. Maybe grossed out. But instead—

Instead you imagine Joel, sitting in this room, flipping through these pages alone. Hand between his legs. That rough, big, calloused hand. Not fast, not frantic. No, you imagine him slow.

Measured.

Probably gritting his teeth, because he seems like the type who doesn’t let himself sound desperate even when he is. Grunting softly. Breathing hard. Coming into a tissue or his palm or maybe just letting it land on his stomach. Because there’s no one here to see. No one to touch him. Just him and the sound of paper turning.

You shut the magazine too fast. Slide it back in place, heart pounding.

Before you can push the drawer closed, your eyes catch on one of the flannels that covered Joel’s little secret.

It’s an old one—soft looking, broken in, a faded green and black. You should put it back, lay it down exactly where you found it so there’s nothing even hinting at you digging around in places you shouldn’t.

Instead, your hand closes around it, and without letting yourself think too long, you hold it up to your nose.

God. It smells like him. Like his detergent, like summer sweat and wood and something faintly smokey. Warm and safe and so damn inappropriate in every possible way.

It’s too much, it’s not enough. It’s obscene.

You can’t help yourself, you push the rest of the flannels back over the magazines, but the one in your hand gets tucked under your arm.

You don’t even try to justify it. You don’t even look back.

You don’t touch yourself right away.

You wait. You ride the buzz all the way home. Eat a popsicle standing barefoot in your kitchen, flannel in a heap on the counter like a loaded gun. You pretend to forget about it. You go about your night like normal. Shower. Brush your teeth.

Then you’re in bed and it’s just there. Laying on your mattress.

You unfold it. Run your fingers over the soft, worn fabric. You should feel guilty. You do, but that doesn’t stop you from pressing it to your nose and inhaling a deep lungful. You crawl into bed, tearing your shirt off and kicking your shorts down your legs all at once.

You lay back against your sheets, flannel still clutched in your hands. You rub it along your chest, over your peaked nipples, down your stomach. Rubbing Joel’s scent into your skin like it’s your own personal brand.

Your free hand slides down your body, down the lacy fabric of your panties. You’re already wet. You’ve been wet since the minute you opened that drawer.

You close your eyes, fingertips teasing along the wet expanse of your pussy as you let your mind go there—

To the thought of Joel finding you like this.

His flannel draped over your face. Your hand between your thighs.

Would he be mad? Would he punish you for it?

Would he take it back? Rip it out of your hands?

Or would he make you put it on—just so he could see you wear it while he ruined you?

You want to come like this. Wrapped up in something of his. Want to ruin yourself in it. You dip your fingers into your underwear and finally—finally—brush them over your clit.

The gasp you let out is sharp.

It’s not just his cologne. It’s his scent. That hot-skin smell that clings to the inside of his hats and his truck and his work boots. It’s Joel, soaked into the fabric like he’s holding you down.

You rub slow circles over your clit, hips twitching. You can’t stop picturing him. Not just his face, but the sounds he’d make. The weight of his body over yours. The way his voice would rasp against your ear if he caught you doing this.

“Dirty fuckin’ girl, so desperate you’re gettin’ off with my dirty laundry?”

You slide two fingers inside yourself and gasp, mouth falling open. You imagine his hands instead. Rough, thick, calloused. Bigger than yours. Slower. Crueler.

“Oh fuck, Joel—” you whisper without thinking, the name catching on your teeth like a sin.

You come hard, pressing the flannel to your face, thighs trembling, biting down on soft cotton as you ride it out. It rolls through you in hot waves. Shame, lust, guilt, need—all tangled up.

When it’s over, you lie there panting, the room silent except for your heartbeat in your ears. You relax your jaw, the flannel falling from between your lips, fabric soaked with your spit.

You drift off with it clutched to your chest. Still wet between your legs. Still aching. Still imagining what he’d do if he ever found out.

And you sleep better than you have in weeks.

You don’t think anything of it when you see Joel’s truck parked in front of the trailer. It’s not out of the ordinary, he’s almost always there to make sure you get in safe before he leaves.

You climb the creaky steps and knock like usual. Three little raps, your knuckles against the thin aluminum of Joel’s door, already shifting your weight to the side as you wait for Sarah to yank it open and start catching you up on all the latest gossip from her last summer soccer practice.

Only—it doesn't swing open. Not right away.

You frown, Sarah’s usually opened the door before you can even raise your fist to knock again. It’s only then that you notice how quiet it is. 

No music thumping out from her window, no light flicked on in her room. No hum of the TV playing. No voice yelling “Just a second!” from down the hall. Just the light hanging above your head buzzing faintly and the dull thud of your knuckles against the door.

You knock for a fourth time, less sure.

A few more seconds go by. One, two, three, four. 

You count all the way to ten before the door creaks open, the screen with it. Joel fills the frame, one shoulder leaning against it. The light floods out from behind him, a warm yellow glow spilling into the dark and haloing around his broad shoulders. 

He’s not dressed in work clothes, just an old grey short sleeve and a pair of jeans that ride dangerously low on his hips—a beer bottle held loosely in his left hand. He doesn’t even have shoes on.

You’re hit with a violent wash of déjà vu, your traitorous mind thinking back to the first day you saw him again. 

“Hey,” you say as casually as you can, shifting on your feet. You peer around him into the living room. Empty. “Where’s Sarah?”

Joel doesn’t move, head tilting as he watches you. “She’s stayin’ over at a friends.”

You blink. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” The corner of Joel’s mouth raises slightly, it’s not quite a smirk, but it’s close. “I texted. You didn’t check your phone?”

You shake your head slowly, but you can’t help the way your brows furrow. You had checked it, right before you left your house, like you awake do. No calls. No texts.

“I must’ve missed it.”

Joel gives you a lazy once over, eyes dragging down your front like a slow lick. “Huh,” he says, but it’s far away. “Guess you might as well come in anyway, wouldn’t want you to waste your time comin’ out here for nothin’.” 

He steps aside, holding the door open expectantly. 

“It’s fine, really.” You laugh, but it’s awkward. “I can just go—”

“Come inside.”

He says it low. Not a suggestion.

You hesitate for half a second, nerves suddenly scraping just beneath your skin. But you step in anyway, brushing past him into the cool dimness of the trailer, the familiar scent of cedar, beer, and Joel hitting your nose all at once. 

The door shuts behind you with a heavy click.

Joel walks past you, sets his beer down on the coffee table before his eyes find yours again. You can see his face better in the light of the living room, his eyes are hard. Dark in a way you haven’t seen in a long time. It has your stomach clenching tightly, the sour edge of alarm churning with arousal inside you.

“It’s good you’re here. We oughta talk.”

You open your mouth, then shut it. His tone is strange—off—but not angry. Amused, almost. You wring your hands behind your back anxiously. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice low, rough, “I been meanin’ to ask you somethin’. Just been waitin’ for the right time.”

You frown. “Ask me what?”

Joel drags the silence out. He watches you try not to squirm, mouth tilted in another half smirk. 

"You go through my shit, baby?"

Your heart trips three times over in your chest, stomach dropping down to your feet. “I—what?”

Joel huffs hard out his nose, that smug smirk spreads. It’s all teeth now, feral and amused. “Did I stutter?”

You’re shaking now, hands trembling in time with the frantic beat of your pulse. “I just thought—I didn’t think you—”

Joel clicks his tongue, cutting you off. “Yeah that’s the problem, ain’t it? You didn’t think.” He takes one slow step toward you, eyes locked on yours, heavy and dark and hot enough to burn.

“It’s real funny,” he says offhandedly, too casual—like you’re talking about this week’s forecast. “There’s only a few people who’ve been in and outta here lately. And I know Tommy ain’t the one riflin’ through my drawers, takin’ shit that doesn't belong to him. I ain’t dumb, baby.”

Your mouth opens and closes desperately, mind racing to say anything. To lie, to defend yourself, to beg for forgiveness. Nothing comes out. Your throat works around nothing, and your hands are clenched so tightly behind your back they’re going numb.

Joel just hums. A low, throaty sound that vibrates down your spine. His fingers curl under the hem of your shirt, lifting it slightly, just enough to show the little strip of skin above your shorts. “You touch yourself in it?”

The question punches the air from your lungs. You don’t need to ask him what it is.

“I—Joel—”

“Don’t try lyin’ to me.”

Your face burns. You can’t bring yourself to nod, let alone speak. You don’t have to. 

Joel laughs—dark and low, like he already knows the answer. He trails his hand along the skin of your stomach, his touch featherlight. You can’t hide the shiver that wracks through you, goosebumps pebbling along your skin.

His hand falls away, only so he can drop down onto the couch behind him. Legs wide, thighs spread, jeans tugging tight across them as he leans back like he’s settling in for a show. His voice is pure gravel. “Go on, then. Show me what you did.”

You just stand there. Eyes wide. “What?” 

Your voice shakes, quiet and small in the tension. 

Joel shakes his head, sighing like he’s dealing with a stubborn child. He hooks one finger in the waistband of your shorts, tugging. You move without thinking, stepping into the space between his spread thighs.

“See, I don’t wanna have to ask you again, baby. So, are you gonna show me?” he says slowly, his touch dipping low enough to brush over the lacy edge of your panties. “Or am I gonna have to make you?”

Your breath catches in your throat, heat flooding your body in less than a second. “Joel—”

He cocks a brow. “What’s wrong, sweet thing? You were bold enough to sneak into my room, go through my drawers, take what don’t belong to you. Don’t get shy now.”

You feel it then—that impossible to ignore, deep, slick throb between your legs. Shame and heat twisting up your insides. Your whole being pulses with heat, phantom flames lapping over your skin.

You don’t know if you’re more humiliated or turned on—your body doesn’t seem to care either way. Joel hasn’t taken his eyes off you.

There’s no way out of this. And you’re not even sure if you want one.

You bite your lip, cheeks burning as your fingers trail down your belly, under your shorts and down between your thighs. Already wet. Slick with the shame of it, slick with how bad you want him watching you.

Joel swats your hip, not hard enough to sting. Just enough to make you feel it. “No ma’am, none of that shit. Shorts off.”

You freeze, your hand still buried under the waistband, your pulse thudding in your ears like a war drum. Apparently, you don’t move fast enough, not for him, and Joel’s already leaning forward, hands on your hips as he yanks them down himself—your shorts and panties in one brutal tug.

“Fuckin’ brat,” he mutters, almost to himself, dragging the fabric down your thighs and letting it pool at your ankles.

Your breath hitches as he sits back again, arms draped lazily over the back of the couch, dark eyes fixed on the wet heat between your thighs like he’s starving.

You step out of your clothes, naked from the waist down, cheeks burning, heart beating so hard it’s making you lightheaded.

Joel tips his chin toward the floor. “Go on.”

Your stomach flips. You’re sure he can see it, the way your chest heaves, nipples pressing hard into the thin fabric of your top. Your hand drifts between your legs again, slow and shaky. Joel’s eyes follow every motion. Every tremble.

Your middle finger dips down and slides through your folds, slow. You let out a shaky breath. You brush over your clit, and twitch, hips jerking without meaning to.

“That’s it.” Joel nods, his hands clenched into fists. “See how easy it was, sugar? Feel’s good, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” you whisper, your voice threadbare. You’re rubbing yourself faster now, pressure building fast. “It feels so good, Joel.”

Joel groans at his name falling from your lips. “I bet it does. Bet you fucked your fingers into that tight little cunt while smellin’ me on the collar of that damn shirt. You nasty little thing.”

You nod, barely, lips parted as you circle your clit again, breath hitching on contact.

“I should spank your ass red for that,” he growls. “Should bend you over my lap like a fuckin’ child. You need discipline, don’t you?”

Your knees nearly give. “Joel. Please—”

He cuts you off again, gesturing lazily to where your hand disappears between your thighs. “Open her up. Let me see.”

You press two fingers between your folds, spreading them apart so he can see your glistening pussy, sticky and swollen from just a few strokes.

“Goddamn,” Joel groans, reaching down to adjust the thick shape of his cock hard under his jeans. “She’s fuckin’ drippin’. That for me, baby?”

You nod, lips slack as your thighs tremble.

“Yeah,” he drawls, stretching the word like out taffy between his teeth. “That’s real pretty.”

You moan at that. Loud and desperate. Your touch dip that much lower to push one finger inside. Then another, like you just can’t help yourself. You’re so wet there’s no resistance, your pussy welcoming them in like it’s done this a hundred times thinking of him. Slick drips down your thighs, shining under the light of the lamp.

Joel licks his lips slowly, deliberately. “Look at that.” He leans forward, pupils wide and dark as an oil spill. “Just a little rub like that, a little stretch and you’re already makin’ a mess.”

You whimper, hips rocking against your hand. “Joel, I—”

“Give yourself another finger. Show me how you take it”

You grind down onto your own fingers, mouth slack with soft moans that breathe to life before you can muffle them. You press in a third finger. The stretch burns, but you don’t stop. You’re panting now, skin dewy, hips jerking forward to meet your hand. Joel watches like a man starved.

He grins, smug and handsome and infuriating. “Yeah, three feels nice don’t it, honey?” He reaches out, his hand sliding up your thigh in one slow motion, lazy and unhurried through the slick. “Bet you could take my whole fuckin’ fist if you wanted it real bad.”

A pathetic little whine fills the air, more of a mewl than anything. It takes you a second to realize you’re the one making the noise, so desperate and gone from the tiniest amount of touch. It makes your walls clamp down harder around your fingers.

Joel sees. Joel knows.

And it’s all he needs to finally break.

“Come here,” he growls suddenly, jerking his head impatiently.

You scramble over, straddling him, bare thighs spread over his denim clad ones. Joel undoes his belt with one hand, the clink of the metal making your pulse trip. He pulls himself out of his soaked boxers, hard and straining, the rosy head drooling precome onto his shirt when it slaps up to rest against his stomach.

Your mouth falls open at the sight of it, flushed and big. Bigger than you’ve ever seen, outside of guilty late night porn searches. 

Joel chuckles darkly, taking himself in his hand. He strokes himself slowly, twisting his wrist over the head. “You think you can take all this?” he taunts meanly, dragging the tip through your folds, wetting himself with your slick. “You’re just a baby, sweetheart. You think you can handle this dick?”

You moan as he rubs himself over your sensitive clit, warm and wet. Your hips twitch down, desperate for more. Your pussy clenches around nothing, overwhelmingly empty.

He slaps your ass, hard. He kneads the tender skin in his rough hand after, dragging out the sting. “How old am I? Tell me, honey. Say it.”

You gasp, eyes screwing shut in embarrassment. “Fifty–ah! Fifty three,” you breathe, not looking Joel in the eye as you say it.

You can’t, not with the humiliation coursing through your veins like pure kerosine. It’s white hot, burning so bright, but it’s still not enough to stop your pussy from dripping sticky all over his cock like a broken faucet.

“Damn right,” he growls. “Old enough to be your fuckin’ daddy.”

Joel thrusts into you in one brutal push.

You scream. Your nails dig into his shoulders hard enough that you feel the thin material of his shirt straining under it. The stretch feels like it’s tearing you in two, like your fingers didn’t do anything to prepare you for his cock carving a place for itself inside you.

Joel kisses you, sucks the noise right off your tongue. He tastes like beer, like sweat and salt and something that’s only him. You moan into his mouth, your fingers threading into the soft hair curling at the nape of his neck.

He pulls back, a string of spit connecting your lips until it bends and breaks under the weight of gravity. “Come on, darlin’.” He slaps your ass again—once, twice—and you squeal, the burn sharp and perfect. “You wanted to fuck me so bad you couldn’t keep those thievin’ hands to yourself, huh? Well now’s your chance. Fuck me, give it to me good.”

You don’t ease into it, too worked to even think about starting slow.

You bounce on his lap like you’re possessed, thighs slapping, slick drenching his jeans. Joel groans with every roll of your hips, low and drawn out. He lets his head fall back against the couch, the tan column of his throat on display.

“Been waitin’ for this,” he pants. “Since the day you showed back up. Actin’ all grown. Look at you now. Cryin’ on my cock.”

You’re drooling. Dizzy. Brain turned to static as you ride him, his hands gripping your hips so tight you know you’ll bruise.

“You’re so fuckin’ tight,” he growls, raising his head to watch you. “This pussy wasn’t made for boys your age. Needs a man to stretch it out. To ruin it.”

You whine, your pussy tightening around the throbbing length of his cock. Joel notices, of course he does.

His hands grip your ass, urging your hips up and down faster. “You like that, sweet thing? You like lettin’ an old man fuck you raw like this?”

“Yes,” you whine, tears burning at your water line. “I love it, want you to come inside me so bad Joel, fuck-”

“I know, baby.” Joel kisses your cheek, softly. Too soft, too tender. “You ain’t ever gonna want some college boy after this. You’re gonna be thinkin’ about how Mr. Miller fucked you open better than they could.”

Your moan is muffled by his fingers pushing between your slack lips, filling your mouth. You whine at the taste of yourself coating his skin, sucking obediently as he presses them down on your tongue.

“Gonna make you mine,” he pants. “Mine. No more sneakin’ around, no more stealin’ my shit—you want something, you ask for it like a big girl, and I’ll fuckin’ give it to you.”

You shake your head, babbling around his fingers. “Yes—yes, only you. I’m yours—”

You can feel your orgasm building deep in your belly, the coil of pleasure tightening and tightening until it threatens to snap.

Joel rips his fingers from your mouth with a dark growl, reaching back down to grip your ass again. He spreads you open, the cool air making you gasp. One finger, wet with your own spit, rubs over your rim. 

He doesn’t push in—just teases, circling, pressing, tugging—enough to make you clench and cry out as he starts pounding up into you. His hips lifting off the couch and filling the room with the loud noise of skin on skin as his balls slap against your ass with every thrust. Your pussy squelching around him with dirty, wet noises would make your ears burn if you weren’t so far gone already.

“You gonna let me play with this too?” he murmurs, lips brushing against your. “You lettin’ me train this hole next?”

That’s it. It’s all you can take.

You shatter with a scream, pussy squeezing so tight it makes Joel snarl and buck wildly up into you. He grabs your ass, choking out a strained string of  “fuck, fuck, fuck—”

He curses, pulls you down hard onto his cock one last time as he spills inside you, so deep you swear you feel it behind your ribs. His head drops to your shoulder, breath ragged as he comes and comes. 

It feels endless, spurt after spurt of hot spend flooding your walls until it’s forced to leak back out along the fever hot skin of his cock, slipping down his balls to drip onto the couch.

It’s filthy.

It’s obscene.

It’s exactly what you wanted.

You both lean into each other, breathless and spent as you come down. Sweat drips down your back, rolling down your spine as your hands stay buried in his hair.

Joel strokes your thigh lazily, still inside you, watching the mess drip down where you’re spread open around him.

“You’re stayin’ the night,” he says simply.

You can’t fight the tiny, secret smile you press against the sweaty skin of his throat as you nod wordlessly, thighs still shaking violently around his hips.

You’d never make it to the door anyway.

MINI NAT'S NOTE: what's so funny to me about this is that i didn't realize how much i actually missed writing for joel until i took a little mini break to work on my other frankie and harry fics like it’s so dramatic truly, but baby we’re so back! back and hopefully pissing off the joel age gap haters!

shoutouts to baby rylea for giving me the flannel idea cause this fic might have been lost without it. it was rescued from being just another abandoned wip and instead turned into a literal monster which was never supposed to happen but uh that's chill i guess…two fics over 10k words in one month? that’s literally unheard of over here. ALSO my first venture into ass play to spite @ebodebo and @yuenity sooo that’s fun. i love them both really LMAO

once again it's four a.m because i just can't function like a normal person. thank you to femme bot by charli xcx, pink red bull, and ofc my geeky bar for letting me power through and finish this mess. okay i'm done now sorry for talking so much, i just love yapping to you guys :(( thank you so much for reading, love you!

Graduation parties for Ivy League brats. Champagne in fancy crystal flutes and catered hors d'oeuvres getting passed around on silver trays. Men in loafers and pastel polos calling each other “old buddy” without any irony. It’s a far cry from his usual crowd—his mangy old t-shirt and stained blue jeans stick out in the place like a damn sore thumb.

The invitation came from a distant friend, someone he used to work with before his career took him in an entirely different, much shiner direction. He was here more as a favor than anything else. Tommy’s been worried about him, says he needs to get out more.

“Meet some new people, drink a few beers.” He’d said with his hand clasped on Joel’s shoulder. “It ain’t healthy to spend every weekend fixin’ shit around the house, Joel.”

Joel doesn’t see the problem. He’s fine the way he is. But somehow, he still got roped into going when he could have used any excuse to pull out at the last second. He could have faked sick, faked busy, faked like he had anything else to do besides sit at a fancy oak table on a back porch bigger than the whole first story of his house, decorated in Yale blue balloons and streamers. 

He regretted giving into Tommy the second he pulled up in the driveway—a too-big Craftsman style place in West Lake Hills, all clean laid brick and perfectly manicured lawns. Joel couldn’t for the life of him remember why he said yes in the first place. Maybe it was the guilt of worrying his brother. Maybe for the decent catered food and overpriced beers he knew would be there when he first got the address.

What he hadn’t expected—what hit him in the goddamn chest when the door swung open after he knocked—was you.

And Christ, did you look smug about it.

It had been months ago. The only reason Joel was even in Connecticut was to meet with a client, a big time East Coast entrepreneur who wanted a new add on to his ten car garage and was fine slinging around the money to pay for a round-trip flight and a cushy hotel room.

He hadn’t planned on going to the bar that night, but after hours of back-and-forth about permits and material costs, he needed a drink. Just one, maybe two—enough to take the edge off before heading back to the hotel.

It was a shitty little dive about ten minutes from where he was staying. The beer was cold, the lights were low, and he wasn’t supposed to be making decisions with his little head. But then he saw you across the way, right in the middle of the dancefloor.

You were in a circle with a few other girls, your dress riding up higher and higher each time you’d roll your hips to the heavy bass blaring from the overhead speakers.

Joel watched you like that for a while, leaned up against the bar lazily sipping at his beer. He hadn’t planned on doing anything about it, just sat there and enjoyed the view. But you’d caught him looking, and instead of turning away and pretending not to notice, you’d smirked.

Joel should have known right then that he was in trouble.

It wasn’t long before you left your little group and made your way over, slipping on the stool beside him like you belonged there, like you’d already made your mind up about what was going to happen next. You’d leaned in close, close enough for him to catch the scent of whatever perfume you’d rolled over your throat before heading out—something rich and heady that damn near made his head spin.

“Hey, cowboy.” You’d said with a tilt of your head, the long column of your neck dewy with a light sheen of sweat he wanted to feel under his tongue. “You’ve been watching me?”

There was no accusation in your voice, just a quiet sort of amusement, like you already knew the answer.

Joel had huffed a laugh, he didn’t see the point of denying it. He was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. “Yeah.” He’d admitted, taking a slow sip of his beer before setting it down. “What about it?”

Your eyes dropped down the length of his body, studying him, and he’d let you. Let you take your time looking, even as heat crawled up the back of his neck.

“Buy me a drink?” You’d asked, smiling up at him like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

That was all it took.

One drink turned into two, which turned into three, and then you were leaning into his space like you were made to be there. Your index finger teasingly tracing along the collar of his shirt as you whispered something filthy in his ear that had all the blood in his brain rushing down south.

Joel really shouldn’t have let it go any further than some goddamn footsie under the bar and a few dirty words whispered over the rims of shiny glasses, he was too old for shit like that. But you were just so damn tempting—confident and sharp and pretty as all hell.

Before Joel knew it he had you pressed up against the side of his truck, giggling into his mouth, fingers tugging at his belt like you couldn't get it off fast enough. You’d tasted like the fruity cocktails he bought you and something sweeter underneath, something distinctly you, and Joel had to have more.

You let him have it too—fisting his shirt and dragging him into the backseat without a care in the world, all eager hands and breathless laughter as you straddled his lap.

It was supposed to be just that. A reckless decision with a pretty young thing as the cherry on top of his trip. A one-night deal he’d let himself have because, fuck, it had been a long time since someone looked at him like that.

Joel tried his damndest to think how he should’ve, tried not to let some one off fuck turn him all sorts of ass backwards. He tried his damndest to boot you out of his mind the next morning when he was boarding the flight back to Austin—but you stuck anyway, like a burr in his goddamn brain. 

The way you’d looked sprawled out under him, eyes glazed over with pleasure, lips parted, or the way you’d moaned his name like it was a prayer you needed him to hear. The way you’d rode him nice and slow, dragging your nails down his chest just to watch him shudder. The way you’d kissed him after, lazy and sweet, before sneaking off into the night like a goddamn thief.

Joel could've sworn he saw God that night, a smudged silhouette in the fogged up windows of his truck.

And now you’re here, standing in the doorway of some polished, high society home, looking like sin wrapped up in tulle and pearls.

Joel wasn’t a man who spooked easy, but seeing you again, surrounded by people who had no goddamn idea what you’d let him do to you in the backseat of his truck all those months ago, knocked him on his ass harder than a sucker punch.

The recognition was damn near instant, your eyes shining just as much as the sparkly sash that read “GRAD!” in big glittery letters. The initial shock gave way to a tiny, secret smile as your gaze slid up and down his body shamelessly, like this was some kind of funny inside joke. 

Joel was seconds away from turning tail, walking back down your ridiculously long driveway and getting in his truck to get the hell out of there, but then your father was walking up behind you with a big grin on his face. He clapped Joel on the shoulder roughly and introduced his “Old buddy Joel Miller from his blue-collar days!”

You were all coy smiles and wide eyes. A sugared, “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Miller. Thank you for coming…” passing through your glossy lips.

The same lips that left shiny red smudges along the skin of his cock when you slid him down your throat, peering up at him with glassy eyes. The memory alone was enough to get heat stirring deep in his gut, and the way you looked at him now—all demure and polished, like you were some angelic scholar fresh off a podium—only made it worse.

Joel is too damn old for this.

“Very top of her class,” your father boasts, swishing his beer bottle through the air towards you flippantly. “Can you believe it? Just think of what we were doing at her age, brother. She sure as hell didn’t get any brains from me, that’s all her mother.”

Joel tries to chuckle with him, but it sounds strained, forced. He keeps his eyes facing forward, knee bouncing restlessly under the table. You’re looking at him again, hot and persistent against the side of his face. The heavy weight of your gaze practically begging him to look back. He doesn’t.

This dinner is it’s own form of torture, because of course, you just had to sit in the empty seat next to Joel—close enough that he can feel your knee bump up against his every few minutes.

He’s done a good job avoiding you until now, always walking the other direction when you waltz into the same room, not making eye contact when your gaze would sweep over the crowd hoping to catch his, trying for once in his life to be a good man.

A good man that suffers through this damn party without doing something he'll regret, that leaves at the end of the night and never has to see you again.

“Yeah,” he says, nervously starting to pick at the label of his own beer. Some snobby, imported New England brewery, probably sixty bucks a six-pack. “Good times.”

Joel can see you lean forward out of the corner of his eye, the neckline of your dress sliding down an inch as you stare at him, attention rapt. “What were you like back then, Mr. Miller?”

Joel nearly winces, his fingers tightening around the neck of his beer hard enough to turn the skin around his knuckles white.

‘Mr. Miller’ echoes in his ears lewdly, blaring like church bells. Your voice is nothing but a honey-sweet mockery, so syrupy he can nearly feel it trickling down his throat to add to the warmth settling low in his stomach. 

Your father snorts over the lip of his bottle, answering you before Joel could open his mouth. “Joel didn’t go to college, honey. He went into the trades right after graduation,” he takes a long sip, Joel feels your knee bump against his again. “That’s how we met.”

You hum, nodding your head languidly. “You’re an architect too?”

Joel shakes his head, not looking at you as he answers. “Carpenter.”

Your father launches into some story about his old work days with Joel, about how back in the day, they were “real men” with “real jobs,” but Joel can barely process any of it. He nods along absently, lets out some half-hearted chuckles when he needs to.

Joel nearly puts his knee through the table when he feels your barefoot brush up against his ankle, hiking his jeans up ever so slightly. He shoots you a glare as subtly as he can.

It’s a look so sharp, so warning, that it should be enough to make you back the hell off from whatever game you’re playing. You’re not even looking at him anymore, eyes glued to your father as you nod along to whatever story he’s telling now. 

But there’s a knowing little smile on your lips as your hand creeps beneath the table and falls into his lap, the pads of your fingers pressing against the inside of his thigh.

Joel goes still. Rigid as his breath catches on a sharp inhale.

Christ, you’re trying to kill him.

Your father’s voice pulls him out of the silent panic and heavy arousal waging a war inside of him. “How’s business, Joel?” he asks, leaning back in his chair. “You and Tommy still running things at a hundred miles a minute?”

Joel barely registers the question as your hand inches higher and higher. He can hear his own pulse pounding in his throat, in his chest, in his cock, already half-hard in his boxers from some goddamn heavy petting like a wet behind the ears teenager. 

“Yeah, we–” Joel pauses, willing his voice to steady with a quick cough to clear his throat. “We’ve been pretty busy with Summer rollin' around.”

Your father hums in agreement, cracking open another beer. “Of course, my schedule’s been a killer too this season,” he brags shamelessly, tone heavy with understanding like he and Joel are in the same boat. Only your fathers boat is a three million dollar yacht sailing for blue-print meetings with big shot celebrities and architectural digest interviews. “It’s a miracle I even had time to fly in for the party, isn’t that right sweetheart?”

Your hand slides up the length of his cock in one slow stroke, your palm grinding roughly over the tip through the tented denim.

“Yes, daddy.”

Your voice has gone all light and airy around the edges, almost melodic as it buries itself in Joel’s ears. At first, Joel thinks you’re talking to your father, but when his eyes flick over to you, you’re looking at him—your eyes half-lidded and sparkling with something dangerous as your fingers tug at the tab of his zipper.

Joel’s hand flies to your wrist, squeezing tight enough to stop your pawing at his now fully hard cock. “Alright if I use your bathroom?” he asks sharply, his voice a little too loud. He tosses your hand away and stands abruptly from his chair before he’s got an answer.

“Of course,” your father says easily, thankfully not noticing the tension at the table, or the way Joel’s trying to subtly hold his hands over his crotch. He turns his attention towards you, “Would you show Joel where the downstairs bathroom is, honey?”

Your smile only widens as you slip your sandal on and calmly stand from your own chair. “Sure,” you say breezily, but you’re not looking at your father, dark eyes still glued to Joel’s. “Follow me.”

The flowy fabric of your dress swishes behind you as you walk through the yard, Joel hot on your heels. He waits until you're both in the house, stepping through the open sliding glass door and out of view before his hand flies to your arm and squeezes hard.

Joel hears you wince softly, but you don’t try to fight your way out of his grip. He leans down closer, his lips inches away from your ear. His voice is low and rough as he grits out, “Take me to your room, now.”

You lead him through the kitchen and up the stairs silently, but Joel can still see the smug smile on your lips as you turn the corner. The need to slap that bratty shit right off your face wracks through him like thunder, anger burning hotter in his chest with every step.

You push the door to your bedroom open and step inside, barely turning to face him before Joel slams the door shut behind him and stalks past you. His eyes are dark, filled with a mix of rage and want as he stares you down.

“Do you think this is a goddamn game?” His voice is teeming with fury, the calm facade he scarcely maintained at dinner now entirely gone. “That you can do whatever the hell you please because your Daddy’s sittin' across from you?”

You bite your bottom lip, leaning against the door with your arms crossed behind your back coyly. “You didn’t bring me a present.”

It’s a taunt if Joel’s ever heard one, and it finally breaks him.

He crosses the room in three large strides, pinning you against the door. His hands on either side of your head, caging you in. Joel cranes his neck down, his face inches away from yours. He can smell your perfume this close, it’s different than what you wore at the bar—something soft and girly and sweet that has his cock straining in his boxer.

“You’re real fuckin' proud of yourself aren’t you?” he spits roughly, watching the way your pupils dilate, eyes going glossy under his intensity. “Does your old man know how much of a tramp his precious little baby girl is? That she’s got such a greedy fuckin' pussy she can’t help herself from rubbin' his buddy Joel’s cock under the table like a desperate slut.”

“Joel,” you whisper breathlessly, all the attitude draining from you at the drop of a hat the second he gets a little mean. Your eyes are stuck on his lips and, after a beat, you start leaning in, like you’ll die if you don’t kiss him.

Joel stops you with a hand fisted in your hair, keeping you still a few centimeters away from his lips. A pitiful whine falls from your slack mouth, wide eyes flicking back up to meet his with a pleading look.

“You want me to kiss you, princess?” he asks, mean and condescending. Your breath puffs over his lips, hot and needy as you nod your head as best you can. Joel laughs, dark and cool as he shakes his head slowly. “Whores like you don’t get kissed baby, they get fucked.”

It does something to you—Joel can see it in the way your lashes flutter, in the way your thighs press together, like you can feel his words between your legs. He watches the rise and fall of your chest quicken, the way your lips part as a little breathless sound escapes them, and he knows he’s got you right where he wants you.

Desperate. Squirming. Ready to let him ruin you.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, low and almost reverent, but the wicked curl of his lips betrays the softness in his tone. “Bet you’re already soaked, aren’t you?”

You nod, your chest rising up to press against his with every breath.

“Words,” he demands, voice sharp as a needle. Your thighs twitch at the sound of it.

“Yes,” you breathe shakily. “I’ve been wet since you got here.”

That has Joel groaning, jaw ticking as his cock twitches heavily in his boxers, pre-come oozing into the cotton.

He doesn’t waste another second. He drops your hair to grab your shoulders, pulling and pushing until you’re tumbling onto your old bed. You let out a sharp gasp as your back hits the mattress, the force of it bouncing you a few times.

Joel looms over you, watching you, finally letting himself get a good look at the picture you make. Splayed across dainty floral sheets, chest heaving, staring up at him with need written all over your pretty face. It practically pumps off of you in waves, he can almost taste it.

Without another word, Joel reaches for his belt, his heavy gaze never leaving yours. The metal of his buckle clinks loudly in the quiet of the room, underscored by the quick pants of your breath. It snaps with how hard he yanks it out of his belt loops, the leather cracking in the air menacingly.

"You wanted this," Joel mutters, popping the button on his jeans, dragging the zipper down with a sharp hiss. "You practically fuckin’ begged for it."

You make a desperate little sound at the sight of his cock finally being freed from the confines of his jeans—thick, heavy, and leaking when it slaps against his stomach. Your legs spread wider like an offering, like you need it in you now.

Joel huffs out a laugh, grabbing your ankle and yanking you down the bed, making you squeak in surprise. He climbs on the mattress, his body completely blanketing yours so you couldn’t move if you wanted to.

His hand drags down your body, over the swell of your breasts, over your ribs, the curve of your hip, until he’s gripping the hem of your dress. Joel slips his hand under the skirt, rough palms gliding up the soft skin of your thighs before gripping the meat of them hard enough to bruise.

The thought of you finding the marks tomorrow, pretty shades of purple and yellow branding your skin as a reminder of this moment, of what Joel did to you—it makes his stomach flip with a sick thrill.

It doesn’t take much for Joel to push the bunched fabric around your hips the rest of the way up, exposing the barely-there scrap of lace covering you.

He makes a sound low in his throat when he sees the little damp spot blooming along the powder blue fabric. “So fuckin’ needy,” he mutters, tracing his middle finger along the wet seam of your pussy, featherlight, teasing. “Can’t even sit through one damn dinner without beggin’ for my attention like a two-bit truck stop whore.”

You nod frantically, lips trembling, pupils blown wide as you blink up at him.

Joel tsks mockingly, raising his palm to give your clothed pussy a sharp slap that has you crying out. “Use your words, baby.”

“Yes,” you gasp. “Please, Joel.”

Your voice is so soft, so wrecked. And Joel feels himself get impossibly harder, his cock throbbing where it’s pressed against your stomach, blurting pre-come onto the delicate pink tulle of your dress. He can hardly wait any longer.

Joel hooks a finger into the leg of your panties, dragging them down hard enough that he hears a rip. He can’t find it in himself to care, he just pulls them far enough that they pool around your ankles uselessly.

He finally takes himself in his hand so he can drag his cock through the wet mess of your pussy, bumping it up against your hole but not giving you a damn inch. A devastating noise falls from your lips, slow and sweet as molasses, your hips buck up off the mattress, trying to take him in. He presses one heavy hand down on your stomach, keeping you still.

“Ask me for it,” Joel whispers darkly, slapping the head over your glistening clit. “Beg for my cock.”

Your fingers curl into the sheets, frustration and desire burning in the inky black of your pupils. “Please, Joel. It’s all I can think about, can only think about you,” you ramble senseslessly, voice breathless. “About you fucking me. About your cock stretching me open. Please fuck me, please, want it so bad.”

Fuck, he loves hearing you beg.

Joel grips your hips, holding you steady as he presses inside, slow at first, just enough to make you gasp, enough to let you feel how thick he is stretching you open. He curses, head falling forward as he watches himself disappear inside you inch by inch.

Your hands scramble along the length of his back, nails scratching uselessly as you try to adjust to the sudden fullness. Joel knows he’s too big, the stretch too much all at once without prep. He knows it. He just doesn’t give a damn.

“I know, it’s a big stretch ain’t it?” Joel coos, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles over the skin of your hips. “You can still take it, darlin’. It’s what you wanted, wanted me to lose my goddamn mind and ruin this sweet little pussy.”

You nod desperately, a loud cry bursting from your chest as he pulls you back until his hips are flush with your ass. Your velvety heat feels scalding around him, snug and perfect, like it was made for him—made for his cock.

“Fuck, baby,” he stays there for a beat, buried to the hilt—forcing you really feel the full, aching stretch before he starts to move. He drags his cock out to the tip, almost all the way, before slamming forward again, knocking the breath from your lungs. “That’s it—take it all, just like that.”

Joel sets a brutal pace, fucking you so deep he swears he must be in your goddamn guts. His grip is merciless, his fingers digging into your hips as he uses them to pull you back against him, meeting every punishing thrust. The dirty sound of skin on skin fills the room, mixing with the slick squelch of your pussy as it tries to suck him back in each time he pulls out, the pretty soft gasps and moans you’re struggling to keep quiet the cherry on top of it all.

It’s so loud, a symphony of lewd sounds bouncing off the walls enough that Joel would be worried that someone might overhear if your house wasn’t such a maze.

Joel watches you writhe beneath him, your back arching, hands grasping at his shoulders, his arms, his hair, desperate for something to hold onto as he fucks into you with ruthless precision. Every thrust sends a shockwave through your body, makes your breath hitch, your legs trembling where they’re locked tight around his waist.

“Poor thing,” he mutters, voice a low rasp in your ear. “Too dumb to talk now, huh? Just layin’ here, takin’ it like a good little whore.”

Your eyes roll back in your head when he tilts his hips, the new angle forcing his cock to rub up against your sweet spot with every thrust. “Joel–”

Joel leans over you, breath hot against your ear as he mutters, “This what you needed, baby? Needed Daddy’s friend to hike your pretty dress up and fuck you good and hard like this?” He speeds his hips up fast enough to get the bed shaking on its frame. “Actin’ like a spoiled little brat all night just so I’d drag you up here and teach you some fuckin’ manners?” 

“Yes, yes, yes, fuck—” Your words slur together, breathy and high-pitched, your fingers twisting in his hair as he keeps up that relentless pace.

Joel reaches up to snatch your jaw in a tight grip, the rhythm of his hips never faltering. “Open your mouth,” he growls, fingers digging into the meat of your cheeks meanly. When you don’t, too fucked out of your mind to listen, he shakes your head back and forth like a bad dog. “Open it.”

The command breaks through the pleasure filled haze clouding your mind, and your mouth falls open obediently. Your slick lips parting enough for Joel to see the enticing pink of your tongue. A groan claws its way out from deep in his chest, and he leans down close to spit into your mouth.

Your moan is a high, choked whine as your eyes flutter shut, your pussy squeezing around his cock impossibly tighter. 

“Don’t you dare fuckin’ swallow,” he says, fucking into your clenching heat harder. “Hold it right there.”

You open your eyes to stare up at him like he’s some kind of God, your lashes clumped together and glossy with unshed tears—gaze glazed over with a kind of bliss that makes something dark and satisfied wriggle to life in his chest.

“Good girl,” he mutters, barely above a whisper, but the words hit you like a sack of bricks. Your walls squeeze around him, and he groans low in his chest. His hands grip your thighs, spreading you even wider so he can watch the way his cock disappears into your puffy pussy, shining with your slick every time he pulls out. “Look at that. Fuckin’ made to take cock, aren’t you?”

You moan around closed lips, nails digging little crescent moons into his shoulders so hard that he can feel his shirt ripping under the force of it. Joel can tell you’re getting close, your whole body trembling violently as the coil of your orgasm winds tighter and tighter.

“Go ahead and swallow for me, baby girl.” Joel needs to hear you, needs to hear you say his name when you come on his cock. “Wanna hear that pretty voice.”

The sound of you swallowing is music to Joel’s ears, his hips stuttering as he watches your throat work.

“Please,” you gasp, fat crocodile tears rolling down your cheeks. “Need to come, need you to make me—”

“Yes,” he hisses, his thrusts turning sloppy for a beat before he regains his rhythm. “You gonna come for me, baby? Gonna soak my cock nice and good?”

His words push you right over the edge. Your entire body tenses, pleasure rolling through you in a white-hot wave as your climax crashes over you, stealing your breath. You sob Joel’s name, thighs shaking uncontrollably, body shuddering beneath him as you clench down so fucking tight he can barely move.

Joel groans, his jaw going slack as he watches you fall apart, losing himself in the feel of your pussy milking his cock. He grits his teeth, hips snapping erratically as he chases his own release. 

“Fuck—gonna fill you up, baby,” he groans, voice wrecked. “Gonna fuck you full of me, make you mine.”

With one last thrust, Joel spills inside of you. He buries himself as deep as he can go, warmth flooding your core as spurt after spurt of come paints your insides, thick and hot. His body shakes with the force of it, a deep, guttural moan falling from his lips as he rides out his orgasm.

Joel just stays there, panting, his forehead resting against yours.

For a moment, both of you are too overwhelmed to move. You just lay on the mattress tangled together in the aftermath, breaths mingling, bodies slick with sweat. Joel smooths his hands up your sides, grounding himself as you both come down from the highs of ecstasy.

When you finally stop shaking, Joel pulls back just enough to look at you, to take in the wrecked, spent look on your face. He brushes his knuckles over your sweaty cheek, softer than before. “Still think I didn’t bring you a present?”

You let out an amused huff, pushing your hands up under the back of his shirt so you can trace the column of his spine with gentle fingers. “Trust me, it’s the only present I’m getting that’ll be worth a damn. Money can’t buy this, Miller.”

Joel chuckles, low and smooth as warmth blooms in his chest. He presses a lingering kiss to your shoulder. “You earned it, baby.”

mini nat's note: thank you so much for reading! mwah.

“My buddy, Officer Hiro,” Jack answers immediately, through a series of panted breaths. “High-velocity GSW, warehouse robbery gone sideways. He’s getting harder to bag.”

The windowless trauma room swallows you whole as you wheel the gurney inside. The four walls swell suddenly with the scent of coppery blood and bitter chlorhexidine. Nurses rush to wake the surrounding monitors with a set of electronic chirps, while Jack escorts the officers he came with out of the room. “We’ll take care of him, I promise,” you hear the man say as you slide your stethoscope into your ears.

You press the chestpiece to the man’s bloodied sternum, bare from where his uniform had already been cut down to his waist and sticky with fresh blood. His heartbeat is weak and rapid in your ears, barely maintaining enough pressure to reach his brain.

“Pulse is thready,” you murmur and slide the diaphragm half an inch higher. “Diminished breath sounds on the right…” 

Jack appears across from you, mouth curling into a familiar crooked grin. “We have got to stop meeting like this, Doc,” he jokes in a gritty deadpan.

“That’s crazy— I was thinking the exact same thing,” you quip and slip the stethoscope back around your neck. “Dr. Santos, let’s make sure these lungs are up.”

“You two know each other?” Robby wonders aloud. He glances between you and Jack with a pair of suspiciously narrowed eyes as he plucks a pair of scissors from the metal tray beside him.

“Yeah, you could say that…” Jack huffs with his eyes on the blade, which slices mechanically through the end of the endotracheal tube protruding from Hiro’s throat.“Pulling out,” the man announces before sliding the thing out through his mouth. “Bag.”

A silver-haired nurse, whom you’ve yet to come acquainted with, squeezes at the valve mask at Jack’s instruction. Air bubbles at the wound.

“He’s not moving any air,” you call to the crowded room. “Get me a neonatal mask.”

“Neonatal?” Santos echoes with furrowed brows.

“Yeah, we’re gonna put it over the wound to keep his airflow up while Dr. Abbot cuts a full-length tube and Dr. Robby shifts his trachea back into place,” you explain with a firm nod, smiling softly as you turn back to the attendings across from you. “Sound like a plan?”

Robby glances up at you from where he’s hunched over Hiro’s body, with two gloved fingers searching for his vocal cords. A faint smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “Do you always explain procedures like you’re assigning homework?” he laughs.

“If you’re asking if she’s always been this bossy, yes, she has,” Jack quips with a crooked grin that widens at the edges when you roll your eyes, turning away to accept the neonatal mask a nurse passes from behind you. “And yes, it saved my life— Santos, cut me down a 6-0 ET tube, will you?” 

“Oh, do tell…” Robby hums.

“There’s nothing to tell,” you huff and set the mask of the neonatal tube over the bubbling wound, helping the air move in and out of the unconscious man’s lungs. “It’s just the kinda stuff that happens when you’re an army medic— you win some, you lose some.”

“Oh, she’s just being modest,” Jack croons drily as he irrigates the wound with saline, washing away clotted blood until the displaced trachea emerges beneath the crimson. His gloved fingers move alongside yours as he rambles. “She had orders to leave me after I got hit by that IED… The rest of ‘em were pulling back— didn’t have much of a choice but to, really, but… She didn’t… She dragged me about… What was it? Two-hundred meters?” 

Jack’s eyes lift and find yours have gone strangely distant. Your gaze zeroes in on the neck wound below; your mind wanders against your will.

The freezing A.C. of the emergency department grows sweltering in an instant, burning like the familiar desert heat that feels like dry fire in your lungs. Black smoke threatens to fog your vision all at once. The antiseptic smell turns suddenly to burning fuel. And the blood on your hands becomes darker, fresher, running over your fingers like an open faucet. 

Your hands start to tremble the same way they did when you tied the tourniquet around Jack’s wounded limb, made of nothing more than exposed nerves and tendons from the knee down. You feel your legs weaken the same way they did when you dragged Jack’s weight across unforgiving ground beneath earth-shaking explosions and whizzing bullets. 

Jack apologized through his guttural screams — because, even now, he swears the pain from the tourniquet hurt more than losing his leg — as you sat him up behind an unmanned tank.

“Shut. Up,” you commanded, covering his mouth with your bloodied hand. “Or I swear to god, I will kill you if we make it out of here— Do you understand?”

You made it out. And it became a funny story everyone told back at the VA — that time you threatened the life of the man you were saving — though you still struggle to laugh about it even still.

“…Right, Doc?” Jack presses, head ducking in an attempt to catch your eye.

Your hands remain firm over the small mask pressed to the wound in Hiro’s neck, but your face has emptied into an expressionless sort of look. It takes a long moment for your brain to will your eyes to blink, and only then does the sun-bleached desert in your mind return to the hospital where you plant your feet — buzzing fluorescent lights, beeping monitors, blinding white walls. You list everything you can see until your brain recalculates its surroundings.

Your wide eyes flit across the unblinking stares looking back at you, each of them waiting for a response. Your heart lurches in your chest. Your mouth opens and closes as you struggle to recall the last thing you’d heard. 

“Uh, n-not quite two-hundred,” you stammer with a trembling smile. “We had a team find us before then, I’m pretty sure.”

“See what I mean?” Jack hums with a surer smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His softened gaze remains fixed on you, studying you despite all your attempts to hide. “Modest.”

The automatic doors of the ambulance bay sigh open and shut every few seconds behind you. Each mechanical breath exhales waves of freezing air into the thick July evening, which smells overwhelmingly of hot asphalt, cigarette smoke, and gunpowder from far-off fireworks. 

You stand next to Jack beneath the overhang, with summer wind whipping through the thin fabric of your tied isolation gowns as you wait for the incoming trauma together — roughly five minutes out, Dana had said.  

“So…” you start slowly, wringing the loose pair of gloves in your anxious hands as your eyes fall to the man beside you. He’s still wearing the baggy camo pants he’d arrived in, though he’s since traded his heavy plate carrier for the fitted black t-shirt underneath it, which clings ardently to his muscular torso. “…SWAT, huh?”

“My therapist said I needed a hobby,” he jokes with a lazy shrug. “And, turns out, I suck at golf, so… I chose the next best thing.”

You shake your head and turn away, exhaling a quiet laugh in response — perhaps your first real one since the unforgiving shift started. The corner of Jack’s mouth lifts into a grin, proud of himself for having heard the pretty sound. He hadn’t thought to miss it until now.

“…How long has it been, you think?” he wonders suddenly, with a pair of squinted eyes.

You draw a deep breath through your nose. Your eyes scale the milky pink and orange skyline beyond the ambulance bay, where a molten gold sunset streaks across the sky. “A while…” you settle on after a few long moments.

“Anything new with you I should know about?” he asks, rocking gently to ease the weight on his prosthetic. 

You scoff like it’s funny — maybe because you can’t remember the last time anyone other than your therapist was asking after you. “Nope…” you sigh. “Unfortunately, I am still the exact same person you knew back then…”

“Doesn’t seem so unfortunate to me,” he insists, brows furrowed, like he’s half-offended by your own self-degradation.

“Well, you’d think after— I don’t know— a decade of pretty intensive therapy that I might be a little different,” you quip with an awkward laugh. The humor dissolves a second later when you realize how pathetic you sound. “But, uh… I’m still working through it, I guess...”

“Aren’t we all…” Jack trails off with a slow nod.

“I don’t know,” you lilt, eyes drifting unconsciously towards his hand, where a black wedding ring sits around his fourth finger. The sight of it makes your chest ache more than you’d like to admit — as if a not-so-distant part of you had expected him to be as single and miserably lonely as you, even after all this time. 

Of course, someone loves him, you think to yourself, how could they not?

“You seem to be doing pretty alright for yourself, I’d say.”

Jack follows your gaze and, almost instinctively, clasps his hands behind his back as if to hide them. His anxious grip tightens on the blue latex he holds between them. “Yeah, uh—” He clears his throat, eyes fixed on the street beyond the overhang. “My wife, she… She passed. A few years ago.”

The humid summer air becomes harder to breathe in an instant. Your mouth parts with shock, though it takes a long moment before any words of apology fall out. “Oh— Shit, Jack, I— I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” he assures with a gentle smile, rubbing absentmindedly at the ring with his thumb from where it hides behind his back. “It’s my fault for still wearing the damn thing. I just— feel weird taking it off, I guess…” 

You nod slowly to yourself and glance away. You’ve gotten well acquainted with grief and its tricky rituals over the years.

“What about you?” Jack wonders aloud, smiling a little wider when you turn back to face him with a pair of raised brows. “You seeing anyone?”

Your first instinct is to laugh. “No. God, no.”

“Oh, c’mon…” he croons. “It can’t be that bad.”

You flash him a cynical look and a sad sort of smile. “Yeah, well… I don’t think most people are looking for a girl like me, to be fair.”

“Yeah?” Jack hums, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” you scoff. “A girl who… works all the time. Who barely sleeps. Who can’t sleep if someone’s breathing wrong in the next room. Who… goes to therapy twice a week— three times if things are real bad— I mean…” A laugh sputters from your lips. “I’m a total nutcase.”

“Hey,” Jack argues, weathered face screwed in a playful offense. “Some guys are into nutcases, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, really?” you hum drily.

“Me chief among them,” he nods.

“What?” you laugh. “Is that supposed to flatter me or something—?”

Boom! An explosion crackles across the evening sky. Your body reacts before your mind, going into panic mode in a flicker. Your shoulders jerk violently, your heart leaps into your throat, your eyes snap instinctively for cover. A red-hot spark rushes down your legs as though your body was telling you to run. 

Your brain catches up a second later.

It’s a firework… It’s just a firework, you think to soothe yourself, and to ease your suddenly pounding pulse. But as the fear fizzles slowly away, the self-hatred comes next — the undeniable fact that your body will always belong to a war that ended years ago.

You force your shoulders to relax once more and pray that Jack hasn’t noticed any of it. But you can see his expression softening in the corner of your eye — first with concern, which flickers thereafter into a softer sort of pity. 

At the very least, however, he gives you the dignity of pretending he hadn’t seen it at all as sirens rage in the distance — growing nearer and nearer until the red-yellow lights of the ambulance whip around the corner. The two of you snap your gloves on in tandem.

Jack steps off the curb first when it squeals to a park just in front of you. “You picked a hell of a day to come in, Doc…” he huffs and rushes towards the back doors. 

“I’d rather be here than working,” you scoff and follow behind him. “It’s less depressing that way, I think.”

“Is it?” Jack quips with narrowed eyes.

You laugh through your nose. “Yeah, jury’s still out on the one, I guess…”

Fourth of July rages across the city. You pretend not to notice. 

You stand in the muffled quiet of the breakroom, tucked away from the chaos of the emergency department, and watch the coffee machine in front of you sputter as it coughs up steam that smells like burnt grounds and vanilla creamer. You let the bitter stench singe your nostrils as the firework show begins in the heart of the city.

Boom!

A firework sounds off in the distance, closer than all the ones from earlier in the evening. You wrap both hands around the paper cup of coffee, letting the scalding warmth seep into your palms. The heat nearly burns you, but it’s half-grounding nonetheless.

Boom!

You swear it’s shaking the ground beneath your feet, and trembling the thick, concrete walls on either side of you. Though, with the way your day is going now, it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what lives only inside your head.

Boom!

Your fingers tighten around the cup to the point of trembling. You close your eyes and attempt to count your breaths — in for seven, hold for four, out for eight. Your brain tries to trick you — tries to convince you that the freezing cold of the emergency department smells like desert heat and metallic blood and burning gunpowder. It works.

“Counter…” you mutter aloud to yourself, despite how strange it seems, flattening your hand along the white laminate below, even as your shoulders jerk from another explosion in the city. You place your hand on the smooth curve of the cold sink next, and then on the rough cloth draped just behind it. “Faucet… Dishrag…”

Your attempts to anchor yourself to reality only halfway work. You opt to abandon your coffee on the counter altogether as your pulse continues to climb. You’re grateful to find the E.R. still waiting for you on the other side of the door, instead of a memory you can’t seem to leave. 

“Oh, hey— I was just looking for you.”

Your head whips over your shoulder to find Jack strolling down the half-empty corridor with a tablet in his hands, now dressed in his dark black scrubs instead of the tactical gear he arrived in. 

His shift has probably started now, or is about to, at least — which means you should be leaving with the rest of the day shift. But you fear what waits for you outside these walls and those automatic doors; the crushing certainty of solitude that always seemed to be waiting for you back home, to be more specific.

You exhale a trembling breath, falling into step with Jack when he walks by. “Where is everyone?” you wonder aloud.

“Day shift went up to the roof, I think,” he answers with most of his attention on the tablet as he scrolls absentmindedly through it. “Watching the fireworks and drinking beer, I’m sure… Lucky bastards.”

“Santos did invite me to karaoke today,” you tell him.

“A karaoke invite on your first day, huh? Impressive,” Jack croons, laughing softly through his nose when you lean to knock your shoulder against his broader one. He gets a faint whiff of the perfume still lingering on your clothes, beneath layers of antiseptic and hospital soap. He misses your warmth the second you’re gone. “You gonna go?”

Your shoulders sag with a sigh. “I don’t know… I’m kinda liking this adrenaline rush, to be honest. Might try and ride it ’til the wheels fall off.”

“Well, that always ends well, in my experience,” Jack quips with a lopsided smile as he slows to a stop in front of you, tucking the tablet under his bicep. He towers a few inches over you, close enough to make you lift your chin to properly meet his eyes. “But I do have something you could help me with, if you have a few minutes to spare…”

“Of course.”

“I, uh…” he trails off, turning to glance awkwardly at his left shoulder. “I took a hit… You know, in the field earlier… I’m pretty sure the vest caught most of it but—”

“You were—” You catch yourself before your voice can carry down the hallway. You take a step closer, lowering your voice into a harsh whisper as you scold him. “You were shot?”

“Shot at,” he corrects, with his brows raised to his hairline. “And it’s not as bad as you’re thinking. I tried to clean it up myself, but it’s pretty… inconveniently located…”

He rolls his shoulder in an attempt to ease the discomfort building there from his scrubs rubbing against the wound. His scruffy jaw tightens with a faint grimace, enough for you to notice the pain in his weathered features that he’d been pretending wasn’t there before now.

Concern flares white-hot in your chest. “Let me see it.”

The tone leaves little room for argument. It’s the same one you’d used on him all that time ago, when you ordered him to shut up and quit apologizing for bleeding out before the people trying to kill you could find you.

“Yes, ma’am,” he nods.

Jack leads you to the nearest empty exam room and slips inside while you gather the supplies you suspect you’ll need from the cart outside the door. You hold them to your chest when you return to the room, where you find Jack undressing, tugging his scrub top off by the collar. 

The pale tendons in his back flex unevenly when he pulls the fabric off completely. The milky white canvas of his back is exposed to you then, along with the raging scrape glowing a bright scarlet along his left shoulder.

The door clicks shut behind you and garners the man’s attention. Jack turns to face you. You find he’s grown strangely broader with age. His stomach is full but toned, and his chest is filled out with a similar strength. Both are dusted with faint freckles and light colored hair that trails down from his sternum and disappears beneath his scrub pants.  

He seems to mistake the subtle shock on your face for concern.

“I’ve had worse,” he assures you.

“I know, Abbot,” you deadpan, reaching for the glove dispenser on the wall with your free hand. “I was there.”

Jack settles on the edge of the exam table while you arrange the supplies on the metal tray before you — gauze, saline, antibiotic ointment, steri-strips. Your hands remember the motions before your mind has to. It comes to you as easily as muscle memory. You work with an effortlessness that only comes with years of experience; and Jack weathers the pain with an effortlessness that only comes with years of aching.

“You wanna know something funny?” he announces suddenly. The muscles in his back tense slightly when he twists to glance at you over his bare shoulder. 

“You getting shot at and not telling anyone for half a shift?” you answer in a monotone.

He exhales a quiet laugh and turns back around.

“I had… the biggest crush on you,” Jack confesses in an achingly gentle voice, and pretends not to notice when your hands still suddenly behind him. He inhales slowly through his nose, as if he’d been sitting on those words for some time, and crosses his arms over his bare chest as if to shield himself from them in some way. “I was, uh… I was gonna ask you out, actually. You know, when we got back home, but… You disappeared before I could.”

His quiet laugh sounds much louder in the silence that settles heavily between you.

“I, uh—  I’m pretty sure I still have the letter I wrote you, actually, when I figured out your address— in a box somewhere in the attic probably, but… It felt a little too stalkerish to send it, and… Then I met my wife, and I figured you moved on, too, and…” he trails off, struggling to find the right words. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re here now.”

“It was probably for the best,” you tell him, and clear your throat when your voice shakes. You pretend not to notice your fingers trembling when you smooth down the edge of the bandage you press over his wound. “I wasn’t exactly… the best company back then.”

“You were always good company,” Jack scoffs. “Even when I thought I was gonna die, I was glad I was with you. I mean, I hated that you were gonna have to witness it obviously, but… I was still glad it was you— Even when you were threatening to kill me.” 

You’re pierced almost physically by his words. You blink rapidly to clear the haze of them when your vision starts to blur, another memory threatening to drag you under. Memories you’d spent years and a shit ton of money working through in therapy, that are now eating away at you from the inside out.

His shoulder beneath your fingertips is covered suddenly in shredded camouflage. The bandage on his freckled skin stains red until it gushes once more with warm blood. His laughter turns to screams. The air turns to smoke. The fluorescent lights turn to a white-hot sun.

Jack frowns to himself when he feels your hands freezing once more behind him. He glances over his shoulder and finds that your eyes have gone empty again, fixed somewhere far away — the same way they had earlier that day. His chest pinches with an instant worry. 

“You okay?” 

His words sound like they’re muffled by water or light-years of space. You can’t hear them over the heartbeat whoosh, whoosh, whooshing in your ears, pounding harder against your pulse with every second that passes that you can’t catch your breath. 

Another firework explodes outside like distant thunder. Your body jolts in response, and reality slams back into you a second later.

“I, uh…” You swallow hard, eyes flitting wildly around the room, like you’re struggling to place yourself inside it. “I-I’m all done here, I think.”

“Hey…” Jack coos and turns around to face you completely. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

You step back from him and rip off your gloves with two dull pops. You chuck them hurriedly into the bin, feeling overwhelmingly like the walls are closing in on either side of you. 

“I, uh... I just need… I’ll, um…” You shake your head when the words don’t come out right. The next ones leave in a whimper when you try and fail to catch your breath. “I’m sorry.”

You rush out of the room, gone before Jack can gather his shirt.

“No…” That’s the only thing you can seem to make out as you hide yourself in the breakroom. The word scrapes against your throat, still too narrow to properly let air flow through. You wedge your pointer fingers painfully in your ears when the far-off fireworks become unrelenting gunshots in your skull. Your vision tunnels, the room blurs, every breath seems to catch somewhere in your chest. “No, no, no—”

The words dissolve into a half-strangled whimper in the back of your throat. You crouch slowly down in the center of the room and curl inward on yourself, forehead nearly touching your knees. Every muscle draws tight enough to ache. Your body makes itself smaller on instinct, as if it still believed that smaller targets survived the longest.

You vaguely hear the sound of your name coming from behind you — far away at first, like a voice carried underwater — and then much closer, when a pair of warm, calloused hands curl gently around your forearms. Despite the inherent softness of the touch, you flinch violently in the sudden hold.

“Hey… It’s just me,” Jack coos. 

His voice cuts through the buzzing panic with a remarkable steadiness. Your head snaps in his direction. You find him looming just beside you, bent over at the waist. His face is slow to flood into focus. For a gutwrenching flicker of a second, he’s the same dark-haired, bloodied, and crying man that nearly died in your arms.

Reality settles in a moment later.

The silver threaded in his curls catches the buzzing fluroscents overhead. His light eyes, still so soft despite the carnage they’ve witnessed, dart over your features with a silent concern.

“It’s just me,” he continues. “You’re okay. Just keep looking at me.”

You try to until— Boom! Another firework crackles in the distance. Your eyes squeeze shut despite yourself. Your entire body recoils. “I can’t—” you whimper through a ragged breath that catches in your throat. Your chest sears white-hot accordingly.

“Okay. That’s okay,” he nods. “Just breathe with me. Don’t fight it, okay? Just breathe.”

Jack inhales slowly, drawing in one exaggerated breath until his chest rises beneath his scrubs. You try to mimic it, but it stutters painfully halfway through. Your lungs seize despite yourself. Your face twists into a pained sort of look.

“That’s okay. There you go,” he praises. The corner of his mouth lifts into the faintest hint of a smile. His thumbs rub softly along the buzzing skin of your arm. “I know it doesn’t feel good. Just keep trying for me.”

It takes several long moments for your breaths to finally even out. Jack holds you through every single one of them. Only when your hands slip from your ears and your shoulders stop trembling does Jack carefully guide you to your feet, with a pair of warm hands clasped gently around the outside of your elbows. 

He keeps you stable on unsteady limbs as he guides you the short distance to the plastic chairs gathered around the breakroom table. You collapse into one. He pulls up another to be nearer to you — close enough for your knees to slot between each other’s and for his fingers to thread with yours when he reaches for you again. His palm is warm and gently calloused; a little like velvet as it glides against yours.

You rest your other arm on the table beside you, hiding your face behind the palm of your free hand. When you regain your breath, the first thing you think to do is laugh — a wet, brittle, exhausted sort of sound.

“What the hell am I doing here?” you ask within a weak chuckle, shaking your head at yourself. “The VA recommended me because I was supposed to be good at this, but… I’ve been here for one shift… And all I’ve done is make everything worse—”

“C’mon,” Jack hums. “You know that’s not true.”

“Look at me!” you laugh, gesturing helplessly towards yourself when you lift your head to meet his eyes. Tears glisten in your gaze, clumping your bottom lashes together. “I’m supposed to be taking care of people, Jack! I’m not helping anyone like this!” 

The man studies you for a long moment. His eyes narrow with a careful curiosity. “Does this happen a lot?” he wonders gently. “These… spells?” 

You shake your head, eyes fluttering shut. “No. Not in— years. I thought they were gone. I mean, I certainly pay my therapist enough; they should be gone by now, but…” You end your ramble with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know… I think… Seeing you, you know, for the first time since… Since we came back home, it just… Opened something…”

Jack’s thumb swipes across your knuckles. You expect him to be half-offended at your confession. He smiles instead.

“Well, you know how we fix that?” he asks, with something short of amusement on the edge of his voice. “We go get a beer tomorrow night. Or whenever you’re up for it. And we talk about all this shit. All of our— trauma or whatever. We just… We have it out.”

Something like sunshine threatens to swell in your chest. It burns out quickly, though.

“But what about everything else?” you wonder in a small voice, wet eyes drifting towards the closed break room door. “I can’t go back out there. Not like this. What if… What if I freeze again? Three seconds is enough to… to kill someone if they’re in critical condition.”

“We’ll make sure you have dual coverage— if you freeze again, you’ll have another attending to step in for you,” Jack answers with a firm nod and unwavering gaze, confident enough to soothe you. “But, for now, we take you upstairs to neuro. Maybe do an EEG since you’re having new symptoms, just to rule out anything structural. And then tomorrow, you book an appointment with your doctor, and I’ll drive you— I don’t care when it is. Just call me, alright? I’ll give you my number.” 

You crumple under the weight of his tenderness, of his thumb running soothingly across the ridges of your knuckles. You shake your head, brows knitting softly together. “Why—?” you go to ask, but the words get caught halfway through. 

Why are you doing this? you want to say. Why are you doing this for me?

“Well, you pretty much carried me through hell, in case you forgot,” Jack answers with a tired laugh. “And I spent a long, long time wishing I could’ve helped you the same way you helped me.”

Silence settles comfortably between you once more. Your wet eyes fall to your joined hands, where his larger one engulfs your own. His are warmer, slightly rough around the knuckles, and calloused at the palms. It’s hard to imagine, you realize, that the hands that once clawed desperately at the sun-hot desert when you tended to his leg are now reaching so gently out for you.

A series of voices race down the hall all at once, yelling over the buzzing wheels of a gurney. “—What do you mean he lit it in his mouth?” 

“He thought it’d shoot out the opposite way—”

“Sir, please, stop trying to pull the bottle rocket out yourself—”

“There it is…” Jack huffs. “The annual reminder that fireworks are nature’s way of thinning out humanity.”

You exhale a quiet laugh through your nose, too weak for anything else, and follow Jack when he stands to full height. The distance between you is barely a step. You feel yourself closing it before your mind can catch up, sliding your arms experimentally around his shoulders and pressing your chest against his.

For the faintest fraction of a second, Jack goes still. His breath leaves him in a quiet rush at the feeling of having you so close. His arms raise slowly, wrapping around your waist with a tenderness that threatens to undo you all over again. One broad hand settles warmly between your shoulder blades, while the other spreads carefully along the small of your back.

You haven’t been this close to him since the day he almost died. In fact, the last time you held him, your hands had been slick with his blood — so much of it, that the dirt turned to sticky paste on your palms. But now, he no longer smells of the metallic blood and burning gunpowder and death that haunts your dreams. Instead, he smells of fresh laundry, expensive cedar cologne, and hospital soap. Like home. Like life.

You breathe in through your nose, inhaling him deep into your lungs. 

“Thank you…” you hear yourself say, chin bobbing on his shoulder, words brushing over the fabric of his scrubs.

“Don’t thank me,” Jack scoffs humorously, though his hands drift up and down your spine with an unyielding tenderness. “I’m still paying off a debt.”

“What debt?”

“You’re the one who refused to leave me behind, remember?” he asks. “Well, now it’s my turn to make sure nobody leaves you.” 

Outside, another firework climbs high into the starry summer sky and bursts into a thousand brilliant stars with another far-away explosion. Only this time, you hear it without hearing the war. 

Summer softens slowly into autumn.

The relentless early-July heat gives way to crisp mornings and cool evenings. Dusk arrives a little earlier every day, spilling through the closed bedroom curtains in silvers of honey-colored rays. Outside, a late afternoon breeze stirs the trees until the copper-colored branches brush the window — tires buzz across the worn pavement while the streets fill with the comforting chorus of the early evening.

Life always has a way of finding its rhythm, you find.

You continued working at the PTMC even after Robby returned from his sabbatical, settling into permanent dual coverage on the night shift with Jack. Your symptoms subsided after that first shift — no more blank spots since you switched medications; no more nightmares since you started spending the majority of your nights in Jack’s bed. Your mind feels like home again.

You lay there, tangled in the rumpled gray comforter, the majority of which you had unconsciously stolen during the night, and listen to the man’s even breaths as he sleeps soundly just beside you.

Jack lies on his stomach with his strong arms folded beneath the thin pillow under his head, facing away from you. You watch the gentle rise and fall of his back from where the dark sheet has slipped around his waist, exposing the freckled canvas of his back — and the healed scrape along his shoulder, now a thin scratch of marred, pink skin.

Your hand wanders slowly beneath the blankets — finding his clothed hip first, then crawling up the familiar landscape of his spine, before settling in the strands of silver curled at the nape of his neck.

The man wakes with a sharp inhale and turns his wild head slowly to face you, still not quite awake.

“Jack…” you whisper to him, fingers still twisting in his curls. “Jack.”

“Mm?” he grunts without opening his eyes, brows pinching in protest.

“We gotta start getting ready.”

Your hand parts from his neck to reach for the phone charging on the other side of you. You don’t make it far before a large, warm hand catches your wrist.

“No,” Jack grumbles halfway into his pillow, voice still gruff with sleep. He tugs your hand back to the back of his neck. “Keep going…”

You exhale a quiet laugh but oblige him anyway. His shoulders deflate with a contented sigh when your fingers return to his hair, scratching gently at his scalp. “Why is it you make me do this every morning, but when I ask you to scratch my back before bed, you’re asleep in two minutes?”

“I have a medical condition,” he slurs into his pillow, with his eyes still shut.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Mm… Pretty sure that’s a HIPAA violation, honey.”

A laugh escapes you before you can help it. “You’re so annoying.”

“Here— We’ll do it at the same time,” Jack mumbles.

He grunts quietly as he twists on his left shoulder until his facing you properly. His right hand slithers around your waist, urging you closer until your knees bump beneath the blankets. His hand is warm and gently calloused when it slips beneath the hem of your oversized shirt. His dull nails scratch lazily up and down the length of your spine. Still without opening his eyes.

“See?” he hums. “Teamwork.”

You exhale a satisfied sigh, then joke drily despite yourself. “Your breath smells, by the way.”

He peeks a tired eye open at that. “Oh, yeah? And what do you think yours smells like, huh? Sunshine and rainbows?”

He leans in to kiss you anyway — a mere brushing of your lips for no longer than a second. But then the second lingers, and so does his mouth against yours. The kiss turns sleepy and slow, mouths gliding and tongues brushing.

Jack lifts himself onto the elbow of his free hand and urges you onto your back until half of his heavy weight is resting on top of you. The stiffness tucked in his boxers rubs against your thigh. A smile curls slowly on your mouth.

“We only have an— an hour to get ready—” You just barely manage to protest between his kisses. “You know that right?”

His mouth slides down to your neck to smear wet-hot kisses along your pulse. His hips flatten further against yours, pressing his hardening length more ardently against you. “I only need five minutes, honey. I promise.”

“Oh, trust me,” you scoff drily. “I’m well aware.”

Jack pulls off of you with the quiet smack of his mouth parting from your jaw. His sleep-swollen features twist in a feigned offense. Slumber clings stubbornly to every inch of him — curls flat on one side and wild on the other; stubble a shade darker on his jaw; pillow creases stamped along his cheek.

“Oh, you are just asking for it, aren’t you?” he squints.

“Clock’s ticking, Dr. Abbot,” you tease with a lazy smile, fingers dancing through his silver curls. “I’m gonna be in that shower in five minutes— With or without you.”

A flicker of amusement flashes across his face, right before he ducks back down to swallow you whole in a searing kiss. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

Your name’s not embossed on the front of the seventy story building sitting pretty on 57th street, not splashed across the cover of Architectural Digest, not signed neatly at the bottom of those pristine renderings that get passed around in glass boardrooms and land multi-million dollar deals.

But you know the build order of every project in the past five fiscal years. You know which of the project managers can’t be trusted with deadlines, which board members need their egos stroked, and every single name attached to each of the contracts spanning across five continents.

You were three years out of school and six months into a soul sucking accounting job that felt more like glorified coffee-fetching with a minor in emotional labor when Harry called. 

Well—technically, his HR director called, but Harry noticed you, or noticed your resume stacked with respectable internships and juicy recommendation letters. Or maybe it was the fact that during your third round interview, you corrected one of his junior partners on a misquoted quarterly budget breakdown.

Either way, two weeks later you were standing in a glass top floor office owned by one of the most powerful men in the city. 

And yes, you knew who he was before he hired you, of course you did.

Harry had been New York’s golden boy since the early aughts, when his first building went up in Tribeca and every magazine with a spine declared him the second coming of Frank Llyod Wright.

He was a genius, innovative. One of the youngest Pritzker Prize winners in history who got the kind of press coverage that made people think “architect” was synonymous with “celebrity”.

Now, at 47, Harry Castillo is an institution in the world of design.

Castillo Atelier is the best firm in the city, maybe even in the world, depending on which Real Estate Digest cover story you read. His name alone makes most clients practically foam at the mouth and drop seven figures without seeing a single blueprint.

You’ve been his executive assistant longer than it took you to get your shiny Business Administrations degree from Colombia, and if anyone knew Harry better than his mother or his therapist, it was you.

You have every number of his black American Express card memorized, front and back. You have every password to every account imaginable tucked away neatly in a file labeled “BLACKMAIL MATERIAL” on your desktop. 

You schedule his life down to the minute, from site visits in Abu Dhabi to dental cleanings in Midtown. You know his shoe size, the name of his best tailor's teenage daughter, which marble supplier he trusts in Verona. You know the entry code to his West Village brownstone and you’re on a first name basis with the doorman at his Fifth Avenue penthouse. 

You know he drinks his coffee black but only before noon and he switches to espresso, that he smokes Marlboro Golds even though he swears up and down he’s quit, and that when he’s stressed, he starts sketching towers with spiral staircases that’ll never pass code.

It’s morphed into a strange kind of intimacy. Not romantic, but not exactly a normal boss-employee relationship either. 

He's the kind of boss who makes you want to roll your eyes at the word, because it's not that simple—not that sterile.

It's late nights spent in his dimly lit office where he sheds his suit jacket and hands you a perfectly poured wine glass without asking when you're the only two left in the building. It's sitting shoulder to shoulder on a leather couch, going over zoning permits while his arm rests behind you, not on you, but close enough to count.

Harry’s careful with you, in a way that’s not always obvious. He buys you the books you idly mention wanting to read in passing and custom David Yurman earrings fitted with your birthstone. If he was ten years younger and you were ten years dumber, you might’ve mistaken it for something else. 

As it is, you just tell yourself he likes spoiling things that work well. Like his thousand dollar espresso machine. Like his Aston Martin. Like you.

You should feel like an accessory.

Instead, you feel like a centerpiece—like you’re the sun that his life revolves around. 

You can’t tell which is worse.

Today, like most days, starts with you getting to the office an hour before him.

You take the elevator up to the seventy third floor, unlock his office, and flick on the lights. The space is gorgeous, minimalist in a way that doesn’t ever feel cold. Floor to ceiling windows, sleek dark wood floors, and exposed beams. 

There’s an open notebook on his desk from the night before, a few handwritten notes scrawled in sharp, narrow pen strokes that he gave up on halfway through and started sketching in the margins.

You roll your eyes, smothering a fond smile as you walk out of the room and to your own desk. It’s less than six feet from his door, close enough that you can always hear clipped phone calls or the soft sounds of Prince playing from his sound system.

You drop your bag, start up your desktop, and begin triaging the day. Your inbox is in a constant state of full to the brim no matter how good you are at your job—bursting with emails from developers, calendar shifts, a client breakfast cancellation. 

The whole office smells like bergamot and bergdorf. Someone sent over a Diptyque candle and Harry hasn’t stopped lighting it. Luckily for you, it’s strong enough to keep the scent of lemony luxury permeating long after it’s been blown out. 

It’s still not enough to magically cancel out the stress of pushy demands disguised as business and city bureaucracy, but you can still pretend it is.

You’re bouncing between five open tabs and sending increasingly frantic texts to the head of operations about a late shipment of imported glass by the time you finally hear a soft ding from the elevator followed by crisp footsteps coming your way.

Harry rounds the corner holding a pastry bag, Ray-Bans on, hair still wet from the shower and curling around his ears. “Good morning, sunshine.”

You don’t look up from your screen. “You’re late again.”

“No,” Harry tuts, leaning his hip against your desk and dropping the bag in front of you. “You’re just early.”

“I work here.”

“Funny, so do I.”

“Do you?” You finally look up, brow arched. “I forget.”

He’s wearing that suit. The one that makes your job harder in the most inappropriate HR violating ways. Deep blue pinstripe with the burgundy Gucci tie you handpicked last year. It’s fitted like it had been tailored by the hands of God.

He tilts his head, peering at you over the edge of his glasses. “Is that any way to treat the man who bought you breakfast?”

Your eyes cut to the white paper bag, Mah-Ze-Dahr. You don’t need to look inside it to know what it is, a twenty dollar pistachio crunch croissant. Your favorite.

You don’t have time to respond before Harry drops his glasses on your desk, settling into the chair across from you. “Remind me never to take a meeting in Soho before noon again.”

You set the bag aside and continue typing with a soft shake of your head. “You said that last week, and the week before that.”

“And yet I keep doing it.” He rolls his head on his shoulders with a soft sigh. “That’s insanity, isn’t it? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.”

“That’s Einstein,” you say, pointedly ignoring the way he’s looking at you. “Maybe you just like the punishment.”

Harry huffs, amused. “I pay you too much to psychoanalyze me.”

You open a new tab, click on a high priority labeled email and turn your screen in his direction. “Yet you don’t pay me enough to deal with your ex-wife’s lawyer hassling me before seven.”

That certainly gets his attention, his spine straightening as he leans forward, squinting at your screen. “She didn’t.”

You nod, resting your chin on your palm as his eyes flit over the lengthy body. “She did.”

You watched the divorce unfold like everyone else. It was loud, expensive, and painfully public. She was a former model turned gallery owner with a sharp tongue and better connections than half the industry. When she aired Harry out in New York Magazine the tabloids had a fucking field day.

The headlines were vicious. Castillo’s Castle Crumbles. From Manhattan’s Favorite Power Couple to Demolition Duo. Architect of His Own Downfall?

“Christ.” Harry sighs, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. “She promised she’d keep you out of this.”

“She lied.” You turn your screen back around, grabbing a pen to quickly scrawl the lawyer’s number across the front of a Post-It. “She wants her name off the Lakewood project or she’ll go to the press about the Montauk property.”

He drags a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fucking hell.”

You slide the Post-It note across the desk. “Don’t shoot the messenger.” 

He doesn’t thank you, not out loud, but the way his eyes linger on the note before he tucks it into his jacket pocket says enough.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says, and it’s almost a throwaway comment—but his voice dips a little, gets low in that way that always makes you want to chew glass or scream into a designer throw pillow.

You shrug. “You say that a lot, but I don’t see any new raises.”

His grin is lazy, charming. “You know I’d bankrupt this company to keep you.”

You roll your eyes so hard it should count as cardio. “Please don’t. I like having dental.”

Harry laughs—really laughs—and it’s unfair how good it sounds, how it worms under your skin and stays there.

You turn away, forcing the warm feeling in your stomach to the back of your mind, and pivot. “You have a conference call with Dubai at eleven, lunch with the Fairstein developers at Cipriani, and there’s some plans in the Berlin file that still need to be signed.”

Harry nods once, shifting into business mode at the drop of a hat. “Well, I’ve got my marching orders.”

He checks his watch, stands, and straightens his jacket with a lazy kind of grace. You hate the way your eyes catch on the curve of his wrist, the way the cufflink glints in the morning light. Custom Cartier, a gift from some foreign diplomat client last Christmas. You remember because you signed for the delivery. Wrapped it, even.

Just before he steps into his office, he pauses. “I mean it.” His voice softens, and for a flicker of a moment, he looks at you like he’s trying to tell you something without saying it out loud. “This place doesn’t work without you.”

You glance up, heart skipping in your chest, ready with some practiced quip, but he’s already gone—door shut, his silhouette framed behind the frosted glass like a shadow you can’t shake.

This is how it always is—business talk sugarcoated in flirtation, or flirtation buried under years of knowing exactly how the other one works. If he weren’t who he is, and if you weren’t so damn good at ignoring how often he looks at your mouth when you talk, it might’ve gone somewhere dangerous already.

Instead, it lives in the margins. Like the ones he doodles spiral towers into. Like the ones in the secret planner buried in the very bottom drawer of you desk where you write down things like:

Remind Harry to eat something before 3.

Book flights for Hong Kong.

Don’t fall in love with your boss.

That last one’s underlined. Twice.

The rest of the morning floats by, you busy yourself with three different screens and sporadic bites of croissant and sips of coffee until one of the newer interns shows up with the mail.

You thank her and flip through the small mountain of envelopes until one catches your eye. A sleek black one with loopy silver lettering on the front. To Castillo Atelier, with a familiar logo stamped on the corner. You rip the gold seal, and slip the card out.

The AIA New York Chapter cordially invites Harry Castillo & Guest to the prestigious 2025 Architecture Gala | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Black Tie.

You blink, and read it three more times before a deep sigh rips itself from somewhere deep in your chest. You skim the rest, going over fine print and steadily sighing louder the more you take it in.

You really should have known, it’s around that time. Award season, charity galas, old rich people stuff. Only this year, Harry Castillo and Guest are in separate states, in separate houses, and very much not on speaking terms.

Nor will they be on them in time for Friday night, or any other night in the foreseeable future.

You stand, letter in hand. Your heels click against the floor until you’re standing just outside Harry’s office, mulling over how bad it would reflect on your part if the invitation mysteriously found its way to the bottom of your trash. You knock anyway.

“Come in,” came the reply—his voice low, rough like it always is after the lunch rush, like velvet dragged over concrete. 

You stepped inside, closing the door behind you with a soft click.

Harry is at his desk, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, Dior frames perched halfway down his nose as he looms over the stack of blueprints you left on his desk a few hours ago.

You don’t let yourself look at the tan column of his neck as you lean against the door. “You got a minute.”

He looks up, relaxing in his chair. “For you? Always.”

You hold up the invitation like it’s a warrant, shaking it gently. “You’ve been summoned.”

Harry’s eyes bounce from your own to the thick card stock, you watch the recognition register in his eyes. He sighs, “The gala.”

You nod, crossing your feet in front of you. “You’re being honored.”

He shakes his head with a laugh. “I was hoping they’d forget about me.”

Who possibly could?

You arch your brow. “It’s a lifetime achievement award.”

“I’m not even fifty.”

“Apparently, they’ve run out of old white men to honor.”

Harry chuckles, but it’s a tired sound. He rubs slow circles over his temples, tousling the salt and pepper hair scattered there. “Tell them we’re busy, send a fruit basket.”

You can’t explain the feeling that floods your chest, a mix of something like compassion and pity. It makes your heart ache, just a little bit. Enough to make you really feel it, enough to make you bury it before you can really dwell on why it hurts so much.

Harry puts on a spectacular front, but you know him too well. You know that the divorce has weighed on him, that’s it made him question himself. You know it was a massive shot to his self esteem, as both a person and as a company. 

You also know deep down it’s not the company that you care about.

“No.” You shake your head, making your way over to his desk.

He looks up at you, brow raised. “No?”

“No,” you emphasize, setting the invitation down on his desk. “You may think this is pointless, and that you’re too young—”

“Watch it.”

“—But you deserve this,” you finish, tapping a manicured nail on the card. “You deserve a whole room full of people fawning over you for no reason other than the fact that you’re you.”

Harry's eyes find yours again, slower this time. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at you—really looks at you. And for a second, it’s too much. Too focused, too quiet, too…tender. It’s the kind of look that makes your skin prickle, your stomach twist. 

But you don’t flinch under the weight of his stare. You never do.

He leans forward, resting his arms on the desk. “Okay.”

You blink. “Okay?”

“Okay.” He nods, lacing his fingers together. “I’ll go.”

It feels anticlimactic somehow. You expected more of a fight—more pushback or maybe even a snide comment about black tie events like this becoming less about the accolades and the charity and more about new wave firms bustling around like show ponies scuffling over who signed the best contract with the most zeros tacked neatly on the end.

Instead, he just says okay. Like it’s simple. Like you aren’t the reason he’s saying yes.

You narrow your eyes at him, suspicious. “Just like that?”

“You make a compelling case." Harry shrugs, reaching for the invitation. “Besides, you know I love it when you compliment me.”

You huff, shaking your head, but you can’t fight the smile that tugs at the corners of your mouth as you lean on his desk. “You’re ridiculous.”

“So I’ve been told.” Harry nods, but he’s smiling wide enough to outdo your own.

He looks down at the invitation, scanning over the text languidly. He hums as he reads, dragging his thumb across the raised font. 

You let yourself watch him, cataloging all the details you’ve already memorized a thousand times. Your eyes trace the shape of his brows, the deep set lines that fan out from the corners of his eyes, the strong arch of his nose, the soft curve of his lips.

When he’s done, he taps it against his palm once and looks back at you. “And who, pray tell, is coming as my guest?”

You tilt your head. “I can get you someone,” you offer, even if the words make your stomach churn as you say them. “You want blonde or brunette? Bashful debutante or discreet NDA?”

Harry doesn't answer right away.

He leans back in his chair, looking at you like you're a puzzle he’s not quite finished solving. Like you’re a building he’s still sketching, still drafting, still trying to figure out if the foundation can handle the weight of what he wants to build on top of it.

“I don’t want someone,” he says finally.

The words land softer than you expect, but they still hit like a hammer to the chest.

“You should bring someone,” you deflect, professional, clean. “It’ll look good. The press will be there.”

“I’m aware,” he says, still watching you. “Which is why I don’t want just anyone.”

You don’t respond. You can’t. Not with the way his voice sounds—quiet, certain, threaded with a dangerous kind of warmth that makes your pulse kick.

Harry reaches up to slip his glasses off his face. “I don’t want someone,” he says again, voice even. “I want you.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like your pulse doesn’t trip itself up three times over.

You blink. Once. Twice. Then scoff, forcing a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“Come with me.” 

It’s too sincere, too heart stoppingly warm. 

Your stomach drops. Then flips. Then rises again in the same way an express elevator does at fifty floors a second. “Harry—”

He cuts you off. “Don’t make that face.” He points at you with his glasses, shaking his head. “You’ll look incredible in black tie. And I trust you more than any PR wrangled plus–one they’d set me up with.”

You shake your head, brows pinched. “This isn’t just some client dinner at Nobu I’m playing third wheel at, Harry. This is extremely important. It’s the goddamn Met for architects.”

Harry just smiles, squinting at you. “When have I ever let you feel like a third wheel?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

You just stare at him, lost for words. The city buzzes beneath you, the familiar noise of traffic and life blending together.

Harry doesn’t look away, he keeps your gaze, quietly drumming his fingers along his desk. It’s infuriating, the way the setting sun bathes him in a soft golden light, illuminating the smile on his face. A smile that makes it clear he knows he’s already won.

It makes you hesitate, the weight of it. Because it would be a date. Maybe not on paper or by any certain labels—but in every meaningful, messy, deliciously complicated way it matters, it would be. 

Harry Castillo and guest, you filling the role perfectly. 

You hold his gaze for a few moments longer, dragging it out just enough to make it seem like you’re putting up a real fight.

Finally, you cross your arms over your chest with a low sigh. “Okay.”

He cocks his head, smug grin on his lips. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you repeat, raising a shoulder more casually than you feel. “I’ll go.”

“Really?” His tone is suspicious, but his smile doesn't budge. “There’s no catch?”

“You made a compelling case." You push off his desk, smoothing your hands down the front of your pencil skirt. “Besides, you know I love it when you compliment me.”

Harry laughs, a rich, warm sound. “I should’ve known.”

“I’ll need a dress,” you say, slowly making your way to the door. “I think the rest of the evening off should give me plenty of time to find one, don’t you agree, boss?”

Harry shakes his head, easy as anything. “I’ll take care of it.”

You pause, hand on the doorknob. “Tell me you’re not trying to play sugar daddy, the interns are already gossiping.”

He arches a brow. “If the shoe fits.”

“Harry.”

“Okay, okay.” He raises his hands in surrender, another laugh spilling from his chest to make the room just a few degrees warmer. “I’ll handle it. Trust me.”

You roll your eyes, pulling the door open before you do something stupid like smile back. “Do I really have a choice?”

Just as you go to leave, he calls your name—softly. It stops you mid-step.

You glance over your shoulder.

He doesn’t say anything else right away. Just looks at you like you’re something he’s still trying to figure out how to know, even after all this time.

“Thank you,” he says finally. Quiet. Sincere.

Your throat tightens. Not because of the words—even if you give him shit for it, he’s said them before—but because of the way he says them now. Like he means it for more than just the RSVP. Like he means it for staying. For putting up with the late nights, and the stress, and the divorce fallout, and the birthday gifts he forgets until the day of.

You nod, once. “You’re welcome.”

And then you slip out the door before the silence swells too much and gives you away.

You’re not in love with him. Not yet, but something about the way he looked at you—like you were both a solution and a problem—makes your chest ache in a way you don’t quite know how to ignore anymore.

You’ll go to the gala. You’ll wear something ridiculously expensive, if Harry has any say on the matter. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll let yourself enjoy it.

Just a little.

The package arrived that same night.

A man in a suit knocked on your door and had you sign for a box bigger than your work desk. He had to help you drag it into your hallway and denied the tip you tried to give him, assuring you it was already taken care of.

There were no labels on the box, no receipt or return address or anything other than an obnoxiously large gold bow wrapped neatly around all four sides.

Well, that and a note taped to the front. 

Your name was written in a familiar, looping handwriting that you’d recognize by touch alone. You peeled it off with careful fingers, and with more ceremony than necessary, flipped it open.

“Make them think I built you myself - H.”  

You stared at it for an embarrassingly long amount of time, not bothering to stifle the smile on your lips as you ran your thumb over the ink. You were alone anyway.

The box groaned a little when you finally opened it, layers of black tissue paper rustled softly as you peeled them back.

And there it was.

Midnight blue. Backless. Heavy silk. The kind of thing that knew how to behave under dim lights and the weight of eyes.

You could already feel it—how it would cling to your waist, slip along your thighs when you walked, turn your skin into something luminous. You didn’t even need a mirror.

Of course he picked this one. Of course he knew your size.

You reached for it, fingertips grazing the fabric like it might evaporate, still slightly dazed. There was an overwhelming aura about it—like this wasn’t just a dress, but a thesis.

A statement. An intention, signed and sealed in French seams.

And somehow it still smelled faintly of him. Not in a creepy way. In a way that made you wonder if he’d touched it before it left the boutique. If he’d looked at it and pictured you, just for a moment too long. If he’d smiled when he imagined what you’d say.

You unfolded it like you were handling a newborn, held it against your body and turned toward the hallway mirror, half laughing at yourself, heat rising to your cheeks.

You turned this way and that, staring at your reflection in the dim light, pretending—just for a second—that he was behind you, watching.

Your phone buzzed on the counter. One sharp vibration, tearing you out of your little fantasy world and back to the present.

You crossed the room still holding the dress to your chest, and bit your lip when you saw his name at the very top of your screen.

Hairy

Try not to cause a scene unless you want to make headlines. I’d like to keep your promotion rumor free, for now.

You laughed softly, thumb hovering above the keyboard for just a moment before you started typing.

You know this is deranged behavior, right?

You hit send before you could overthink it, watched the read receipt pop up a second later before the three little bubbles came to life.

They vanished, then reappeared.

Hairy

I’m aware.

But I have impeccable taste. That absolves me of quite a lot.

See you at 8.

You swore softly under your breath and set the phone down like it was overheating. 

You looked back at the dress. At the mirror.

God help you—you were going to wear the hell out of it.

Friday comes both too fast and too slow.

You glide through the whole rest of the week pretending this is normal—just another event, just another night of shaking hands and schmoozing.

You tell yourself it doesn't mean anything, but the butterflies in your stomach don’t listen quite as well.

You hardly see Harry at work, most of his time spent across town busy with clients like he always is near the end of the week. You can’t tell if it would have helped or hindered your nerves to see him before you both showed up to one of the most prestigious events held in his field, together. 

Maybe it’s better this way.

Now, you’ve spent the better part of the evening after work pacing the floor of your apartment in a silk robe, nerves reaching a fever pitch. 

Your phone is blowing up from its spot next to you on your vanity with calendar alerts and panicked texts from Harry about the misplacement of a single Prada tie he just has to wear even though he has hundreds of others to choose from lining an entire wall of his walk-in. You know that, you’re the one who hung them.

You do your hair and makeup on what feels like auto–pilot, the playlist you put on to distract you playing softly in the background until your phone lights up again, buzzing with a text that cuts through the static like a wire to your nerves.

Hairy

Found the tie, crisis averted. 

Just need you now. Be there in 15.

You take a deep breath, exhaling through your nose and sending a quick thumbs up before you're standing on shaky legs.

The dress has been hung safely on the back of your bedroom door since you unboxed it. You take a second to just stare at it, before reaching for it with reverence, like touching it too fast might break the spell of the whole evening. 

It slips from the hanger like water through your fingers, the fabric heavier than you remembered, or maybe that’s just the weight of new expectations.

You slide it on slowly, smoothing it over your hips, tugging the zipper up with a practiced hand. It fits perfectly, almost like it was made to your exact measurements.

Your reflection stares back at you in the mirror. You barely recognize her. Poised, elegant, flushed with anticipation. You look like someone who belongs next to a man like Harry Castillo.

The thought alone makes your pulse thrum a little faster.

You swipe on lipstick last—something deep and sultry, a few shades bolder than you usually wear, because tonight is different.

You’re not just the assistant tonight. You’re his date. Sort of. Kind of. Not really.

But he asked you to come, he wanted you there, with him.

The buzzer sounding from your door slices through your thoughts.

With one last deep breath, you grab your phone, your keys, and the clutch you’re borrowing from a fashion editor you sometimes get drunk with at Bemelmans, and you walk out the door.

The click of your heels echo as you make your way down the hall to the elevator.

Harry is the first thing you see as the doors to your building slide open.

He’s leaning against the limo waiting for you, the door open next to him as a cigarette dangles between his fingers. He looks like he stepped straight out of a GQ spread. His Kiton suit fits him like a glove, the charcoal velvet hugging broad shoulders and tapering at the waist like it was stitched directly onto him. 

You make your way down the stairs until you’re standing on the pavement. Harry looks up at the sound of footsteps.

The cigarette stops halfway to his mouth.

For a moment, he just stares.

You can feel his eyes on your body like a caress, ghosting from your heels all the way up to the Cartier necklace he bought you after you saved a merger in Thailand, resting gently on your collarbones. 

The silence stretches, taut like a violin string.

You clear your throat, fighting the urge to squirm on the spot. “Is it too much?”

Harry blinks, like the sound of your voice broke him out of a trance. “No,” he breathes, shaking his head distractedly. “It’s perfect.”

Your heart lurches in your chest, fluttering wildly like a Monarch trapped beneath a mason jar. “You don’t look half bad yourself, Castillo,” you murmur, trying for playful, but your voice comes out too soft, too breathy.

He smiles at that—slow, crooked, absolutely devastating. The kind of smile that makes your knees a little weaker than heels this high should allow.

“Well,” he says, flicking his cigarette into a nearby trash can. “We’re already late, we might as well make an entrance.”

Harry offers you his hand, and without thinking, you take it.

“We might as well.”

The Met is bathed in glowing opulence—decked in gold and white, chandeliers like constellations above you. There’s jazz swelling from a live quartet near the Temple of Dendur and the room comes alive with it.

You glide through marble halls on his arm, greeting developers and designers and too rich donors who want nothing more than to be photographed with the nights most respected attendant.

Harry is a natural here—effortless. He laughs, he charms, he plays the part of the adored genius.

You also play your role perfectly.

You smile. You exchange polite hugs and shake hands. You whisper names into his ear just before he needs them. 

The two of you work the room like a well oiled machine. Not a screw out of place.

“You do realize they all think I’m sleeping with you,” you murmur as you pass a table full of ancient structural engineers throwing pointed looks at the two of you.

“Let them,” he says, not missing a beat.

“Isn’t that bad for business?”

Harry looks at you sideways. “Who’s going to call us on it?”

You don’t answer. You don’t look away either.

There’s champagne, and a brief moment where a reporter mistakes you for his fiancée. Harry doesn’t correct her. You do, of course, all while violently fighting the heat crawling up your neck. You don’t miss the way his mouth quirks when you do.

Dinner is some overly fussed beet amuse-bouche followed by lamb you barely taste. You’re seated next to Harry at the center of a table surrounded by board members and art world fixtures who all speak in the same Upper East Side cadence that makes everything sound like a question and an insult.

But Harry listens to you. He lets you finish your thoughts. He asks you what you think of the new public art installation in Battery Park and snorts when you call it “egregiously derivative” even when the rest of the table frowns.

“You’re such a snob,” he murmurs, voice low against the shell of your ear.

You smile behind your glass. “And yet here I am, slumming it with my boss.”

He grins bright enough to rival the candle light. “Lucky me.”

At some point, about halfway through a debate about the authenticity of modernism in design, you notice the way his knee brushes against yours under the table and stays there. You don’t move. He doesn’t either.

It’s become a theme. The touch. The contact.

Harry kept his hand on the small of your back most of the night, it was practically glued to the spot before dinner began. This is no different, except for the fact that this touch is hidden. It's shielded from the prying eyes of members and photographers and reporters. 

It’s just for you.

The awards are handed out shortly after. 

Harry’s name echoes across the room to rounds and rounds of applause. The speech is short, tasteful, elegant, moving. He stands under a golden spotlight and says something about legacy, about cities and their hearts and how architecture is just the blueprint of human longing.

You watch him from your seat at the table, heart caught in your throat. He looks radiant on stage, confident and alive in a way you haven't seen in months.

You clap until your palms sting.

When the speech is over, he doesn't have a foot off the stage before many of the other attendees swarm him. You let out a slow breath as you watch him receive hugs and kisses and claps on the back.

You only slip out onto the terrace when everyone at your table has left to join in, clutch in hand.

The cool night breeze is a welcome escape, soothing as it blows across the bare expanse of your skin and seeps into the rich fabric of your dress.

It’s not that you weren’t enjoying yourself, that you weren’t enjoying watching Harry. You just found it, almost hard to breathe all of a sudden. The range of different emotions swirling through your stomach certainly didn’t help, but that was a problem you could repress and compartmentalize for sometime in the near future.

You’re maybe five minutes into your emergency cigarette when he finds you, your heels kicked off as you sit on a marble bench.

“You never smoke,” he says, setting his award down next to you and plucking the cigarette from between your fingers, taking his own slow drag. His lips seal directly over where your own were just a moment ago, circling the ruddy lipstick stain wrapped around the filter.

You look out to the city, exhaling a steady stream of grey. “I also don’t usually wear a custom made, six thousand dollar dress or fake laugh at old men who won’t stop calling me ‘darling’ while they openly stare at my tits.”

Harry hums at that, amused, the smoke curling lazily from his lips as he tips his head back to look at the sky. “You handled it like a pro, you were brilliant tonight.”

He holds out the cigarette, reddened embers float down from the tip, losing color as they fall until they’re nothing but a black speck on the pristine sea of white beneath your feet.

You take it, your fingers brushing against his. “I’m very good at pretending.”

His eyes shift to you, the kind of look in them that settles somewhere deep and heavy in your chest. “I know.”

There’s a beat of quiet between you, filled only by the wind brushing through the terrace hedges and the distant echo of jazz from inside. The city glimmers out past the railing, a mirage of light and motion.

You clear your throat, raising the cigarette to your lips. “You didn’t have to come find me.”

“I know,” he says again, softly this time. “But I wanted to.”

You turn to face him fully. “Because you couldn’t remember Natalie Rebuck’s name, or because you were worried I’d throw myself off the balcony?”

He doesn’t smile. He looks at you too seriously for either of those to be one off jokes. “Because you’re the only person I wanted to see.”

That stills everything in you. Just—stills it.

There’s nothing ironic about the way he says it. It’s not teasing, not playful. Just a quiet truth. And somehow, that’s more disarming than anything else he could’ve said.

“You saw me fifteen minutes ago,” you manage, your voice not quite as sharp as you want it to be.

“Yeah.” He shrugs and says it again, slower this time. “And I missed you.”

It’s that same tone. Soft, reserved. Gentle enough that it makes you feel like the only person in the world and sick to your stomach all at once. The cigarette hangs limply by your side, dwindling to nothing between your fingers. You wonder, idly and far too late, if you can even smoke in a dress like this.

The silence stretches on like taffy. You’re just about to respond when the music starts up again inside. It’s something old and very romantic. Maybe Sinatra, or Ella. You can’t quite place it.

Harry seems to, perking up instantly. He glances through the open door, where many couples inside are pairing off and filling the dance floor one by one. He looks back at you, eyes glinting dangerously under the terrace lights. “Dance with me.”

You can’t help the laugh that bursts from your chest, eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

“I just won a very important and highly coveted award given out only once every single year.” He takes a step closer, offering you his hand. “You’re telling me I don’t get one dance?”

You shake your head, inching back the tiniest bit. “I don’t dance with my boss.”

He winks, warmth sparking to life in his eyes just beside the glow of the lights. “Good thing I’m off the clock.”

You stare down at his outstretched hand for a second too long, lips parted in soft protest, breath caught somewhere behind your ribs. There’s something so deeply unfair about the way he’s always been able to make you feel like the only woman in a city of millions. Even now. Especially now.

You give him your hand.

You still hesitate even as you stand and slip your heels back on. You glance at the terrace doors and wearily eye what feels like a sea of people. “Out here?”

“No,” he says, turning your hand over in his and brushing his thumb along your pulse point like it’s nothing. “Inside. Just one song.”

You hesitate again. Not because you don’t want to, but because you do. Too much. And that terrifies you.

But then his hand tightens just slightly around your wrist, grounding you. His palm is warm, and you realize—of course he knows. He always knows. Knows how to read a room, read a blueprint, read you. Better than he probably should.

He tugs gently, and you let him lead you back inside.

The terrace doors hush closed behind you and the city disappears, replaced again by the ambient, golden warmth of the Met’s grand hall. You weave through the swaying bodies with ease, like they part from the sheer energy you must be oozing as you find a spot in the center of the room.

Harry draws you in close.

Too close for coworkers. Too close for anything you could explain away come Monday. But not close enough for the ache it sparks low in your belly. One hand finds the dip of your waist, the other laces your fingers in his. His touch is elegant. Familiar. A little too knowing.

You slide your arm around his neck and let him sway you into the rhythm. You’re too aware of every point of contact. The velvety fabric of his tuxedo beneath your hand. The graze of your thigh against his leg. The way he smells—Tom Ford, Tobacco Vanille. But there’s something else, something hidden under it that’s just Harry.

The rhythm is slow. Intimate. His hand is an inescapable plane of heat on your back, just beneath the dip of the dress, the pad of his thumb draws tiny, absent circles against your spine.

He hums the melody under his breath as you move together, you can feel the deep rumble of it against your chest.

“You’re trembling,” he says suddenly, quietly—whispered against the shell of your ear.

“No I’m not,” you lie, pulling back to meet his gaze. “It’s probably the nicotine.”

Harry laughs, the corners of his eye crinkle endearingly as he does. “Is it?”

You nod. “It is.”

The music hums all around you, but you hardly hear it. It fades away into the soft air of complete nothingness, same as all the people around you wane and dwindle until you’re almost certain you and Harry are the only two left standing.

You can’t break away from the weight of his gaze, drawn to it like heavy metal to a magnet. His gaze sweeps across every inch of your face, like he’s seeing you for the first time.

“You look so beautiful tonight,” he murmurs, so softly it nearly melts into the melody. “You always do, but tonight…” His voice tapers off as if he can’t quite land on the word. He doesn’t need to.

“Harry…”

He shakes his head. “I mean it, you are absolutely gorgeous.” He spins the both of you slowly, his eyes never straying from you. “And that’s the least interesting thing about you.”

It feels like a physical blow, but it lands in the softest way possible. His words washing over your skin feels a million times more luxurious than the miles of silk encompassing you.

You wonder if this is how it starts—not with fireworks, but with slow dancing in a museum full of strangers with your boss whispering something like worship in the space between you.

It’s nothing. It’s everything.

“Well,” you reply, voice shaking and almost far away. “You did hire me because my resume reads like a Vogue spread. You said it yourself, the firm doesn’t work without me.”

It should ruin the moment, bringing up work—where your relationship actually stands in the real world, outside of this fantasy of a night—but Harry doesn’t let it.

He just shakes his head, brows pinched together like he’s deep in thought. His hand tightens around yours, he’s so close now that you can feel the steady beat of his heart. 

Can he feel yours?

“When I look at you, and I think of all that you are…” Harry trails off again, the chocolate brown of his eyes shining under the twinkling lights as he holds your gaze. “That doesn’t even cross my mind.”

Your breath stutters, and you know—you know—that if you speak, it’ll all come tumbling out. Everything you’ve been trying not to say, not to want. The feelings you’ve tried to laugh away or roll your eyes at or bury under hundreds of deadlines and calendar alerts buzzing from two separate phones and all the plethora of ways you’ve told yourself this can’t happen.

“I…”

And then he kisses you.

And then you can’t speak at all.

It’s slow at first, but not hesitant, not unsure—deliberate. Harry kisses you like he’s been carving space for it, like it’s been trapped in him for too long. His lips are soft, but sure, coaxing rather than claiming. 

His hand slides from your waist all the way up to cradle your jaw, leaving behind a trail of heat along the plane of your spine. His thumb brushes your cheekbone, you can feel the faint callous left behind by countless pens and pencils.

Your hands bury themselves in the soft curls of his hair as you melt into his body. It’s so simple, the shift. You’ve spent so long running, so long lost in the dark waters of denial that you almost can’t believe how easy it is—how perfectly you fit together.

It’s like the last piece of a puzzle finally falling into place, slotting into all the others that came before it.

Harry exhales shakily, lips barely parting from your own. “Christ,” he whispers, forehead touching yours. “You’re—”

You kiss him again before he can finish.

His lips part under yours with a sigh that borders on desperate, and the heat crackles between you now, undeniable. Dizzying. When your mouth opens to him in turn, he groans low in his throat, like the first taste of you has broken something open inside him.

Slow becomes hungry. Your hand slides to his jaw, thumb brushing the rough edge of stubble. He tastes like champagne and citrus and the heady edge of smoke

The kiss turns molten under your fingertips.

You feel it in your knees, in your chest, in your core—the sharp, sudden ache of need blooming within you that has nothing to do with polite society.

When you finally pull apart, it’s only because air insists you do.

Harry rests his forehead against yours once again, his eyes still closed when yours slip open. His cheeks are flushed, his lips slick and smeared with the barest hint of your lipstick. You can feel his breath puff over your skin in short, quick pants that you match.

He opens his eyes, and your knees nearly buckle at the look in them. His pupils are blown, wide and black as ink under the lights. Your pulse is a drum in your throat, beating just as loud and fast in your ears.

He swallows hard. “We should leave.”

Your voice is barely a whisper, but it’s just as firm. “Yes.”

The ride back to the office is a blur.

You’re not even sure how Harry got you out of the Met so quickly, how you made it past the new swarm of admirers once again trying to shake his hand or take a photo or congratulate him.

The limo was already waiting by the time you made it out the doors. You barely remember the valet, just the cool feeling of the seats beneath your thighs and the sharp click of the partition going up behind Harry’s head.

His eyes pin you to your seat, hot and heavy and impossibly dark as the hum of the engine carries you through the city, velvet wrapped and haloed in streetlight.

He hasn’t even touched you yet, not really, but your skin feels like it’s blistering beneath your dress—your pulse high, your thighs pressed tight together in anticipation that makes your stomach twist and flutter.

“Come here,” Harry says, voice low, rasped from restraint and heavy need.

Two words. That’s all he says.

Your legs move before your brain catches up, straddling him in the backseat like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His hands come to your waist as you settle into his lap, and fuck—he’s hard already, thick and burning a plane of heat against your high.

“You have no idea,” he breathes against your neck, mouthing at the skin just under your ear, “what you do to me.”

“Tell me,” you whisper, even as your eyes slip shut, hips rolling forward instinctively against him

Harry groans—deep and pained and real. “You walk into a room and I can’t think. Not clearly. Not rationally. It’s all static, it’s all you. Your eyes, your mouth, your fucking mind—” He nips your jaw, tongue chasing the sting. “You kill me.”

You moan, your hands digging into the strong muscle of his back. It draws a ragged growl from Harry’s throat, his fingers twitching on your hips.

“Are you wet for me?”

You’re nodding your head before you even realize it. “Yes.”

He curses under his breath, burying his nose in the sensitive spot where your neck meets your shoulder. “I haven’t even touched you properly, and you’re already making a mess.” His voice is rough velvet, soaked in lust. “What do you think that says about you, sweetheart?”

“That I want you,” you breathe, already half-gone. “So fucking badly, Harry.”

Harry lets out a slow breath through his nose, his touch slides down your thighs, bunching your dress. “What I want…” He trails off, slipping his hand under your skirt. You gasp as his fingers skim the waist of your panties. “is to spread you open, taste how needy you are. I want to make you come with my mouth before I even think about fucking you.”

His fingers brush over the soaked center of your panties and he groans, low and dark. “Fuck.” He presses the pads of his fingers into you through the fabric—just enough pressure to tease, to leave you gasping. “This all for me?”

You whine, high and light in the back of your throat as you nod frantically. That’s not enough for Harry.

His eyes narrow, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Use your words, baby. Who made you this wet?”

“You,” you whisper. “You did.”

“That’s right.” He slides the lace aside to run two fingers through your folds slowly. Your hips jolt, and he grins against your throat.

Your head drops against his shoulder, hips bucking against his fingers. He holds you in place with an iron grip, not letting you grind down for friction just yet. You feel the twitch of his cock beneath you, straining against the fabric of his tuxedo pants.

“Harry—” you gasp, breath breaking as he circles your clit with the barest pressure. Just enough to tease.

“Mm, I know,” he murmurs, kissing your throat. “I know what you need, but not yet. I want you squirming by the time we get to the office. Can you be good for me and wait, hm?”

Your stomach clenches in anticipation, your cunt throbbing between your legs. You’re not sure how much more desperate you can get, grinding on your boss in the back of a limo while his hand is up your skirt seems like the highest form of desperation. 

Still…

You nod—barely—because your throat is tight with need, but Harry clicks his tongue.

“I said use your words.” It’s not mean, the demand. The tone of his voice. It’s strong, rich with the same power and authority you’ve seen countless times over the past few years.

“Yes,” you whisper, your voice trembling. “I’ll be good. I’ll wait.”

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, brushing his mouth over your jaw like he’s proud of you, like he’s already rewarding obedience.

He keeps his hand there the whole drive—just resting. No pressure. No movement. Just the heat of his skin against your soaked center, the weight of his hand where you need it most, while the city blurs past the tinted glass. It’s maddening.

Every bump in the road jolts you slightly. Every turn shifts your hips, makes his fingertips graze your clit. It’s not enough. It’s torture. You bite your lip raw trying not to move, not to grind down and take what you want.

It would be so easy, you’re pathetically close to the edge as is. 

But you told Harry yes, breathed it against his shoulder in soft surrender. 

You promised to be good, and you’re dying to see what it gets you.

Getting up to Harry’s office is a mess of stumbling feet and frantic hands that refused to stop touching any longer than they have to.

Harry kisses you against the door, your back pressed to the frosted glass. His mouth is hot and hungry and unrelenting, like he’s trying to make up for the months of waiting with every glide of his tongue.

You’re the one who breaks away just long enough to fumble for the keycard clipped inside his jacket, but Harry’s already sliding it free with one hand while the other stays around your waist. 

The lock beeps open and you stumble through the door, breath ragged, dress askew. Harry kicks it shut behind you, his lips never leaving yours as he walks you backwards until the tops of your thighs hit his desk.

You barely have time to gasp before you're lifted—effortless—onto the surface of his desk, papers fluttering to the floor beneath you as he spreads your legs apart with both hands.

“Lean back,” he says hoarsely, helping you as your hands fumble for balance. The cold glass of the desk kisses your palms. “Let me see you.”

Your dress is hiked up around your waist, pooling all around you like ink, your thighs parted. Harry looks at you like he’s starved. His eyes drag up your body like a man measuring the cost of ruin and deciding to pay it gladly.

He makes quick work of his jacket, only needing to shuck it off his shoulders after you made quick work of the buttons back in the elevator. He collapses back into his chair with a shaky breath, sliding in between your legs. 

His hands find the waistband of your ruined panties, eyes glued to your core as he peels them down your legs. “Fuck,” he mumbles, running his index finger through the wet mess that greets him. He kisses the inside of your thigh once, then higher, and higher. “So beautiful.”

His mouth is on you in a second—hot, wet, consuming.

He licks a long stripe from your entrance to your clit, groaning like he’s tasting something decadent. 

“Shit.” Your moan is loud, hips jolting off the desk. “Harry—”

“Christ,” he groans against you. “You taste—Jesus. I could stay here all night.”

He takes your legs in his hands, throws them over his shoulders and he devours you—there’s no other word for it. Messy, greedy, reverent. His tongue works in tight, filthy circles, alternating pressure, pulling gasp after gasp from your throat.

He sucks your clit, slow and deep, lips sealing over it and pulling it into his mouth. His tongue flicks once, twice, and your hips jolt off the desk.

“Fuck, yes—right there—don’t stop—”

His hands spread your thighs wider, thumbs digging into soft flesh as he groans into you, like you’re the thing getting him off.

Your head falls back with a cry, hands burying themselves in his hair. “God—Harry—”

“That’s it,” he mutters against you, voice vibrating into your core. “Use my mouth. Take what you need.”

You don’t even realize you’re doing it—rocking forward, grinding down on his face like it’s instinct. His nose bumps your clit perfectly, the stubble on his jaw sending aftershocks through your skin. He hums with satisfaction, like he knew you’d lose control, like he wanted it.

You’re already squirming, already close all over again. Your head lolls back as you cry out, desperate and high and wanton.

“Look at me,” he demands, voice muffled. “Right here. I need your eyes on me, honey.”

You do.

You look down and see him between your thighs, hair mussed, lips slick, eyes nearly black. He’s never looked more beautiful. Or more ruined.

Your fingers tighten in his curls, yanking—he groans like he likes it, grinding his mouth harder against you, tongue flicking over your clit until you cry out, arching into his face.

“Harry—Harry, I’m gonna—”

“Come,” he commands. “Let go for me.”

And you do.

Your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave—sharp and blinding. You cry out, thighs trembling, nails digging into the wood of the desk as Harry keeps licking you through it, gentle now, savoring every second.

Only then does he pull back, licking his lips like he’s just finished dessert. He rises to his feet slowly, towering above you.

“Beautiful,” he pants, voice rough and heartbreakingly earnest. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

You can barely breathe, your chest rising and falling with every sharp inhale. But you still reach for him, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt. “Please.”

Harry doesn’t hesitate. He undoes his belt with one hand, the other bracing beside your head as he kisses you again—filthy, deep, you taste yourself on his tongue. “I need to be inside you,” he says, voice wrecked. “Now.”

You shift, moving to turn onto your stomach.

“No,” he says sharply, hands tightening on your hips. “No, I want to see you.”

Your lips part on a soft breath, something dangerous squirming to life under your skin. “Okay…”

The sound of his zipper rings in your ears, and you glance down just in time to see his cock freed from the soaked cotton of his boxers. It’s thick and flushed, rosy tip already slick with precome. Your breath catches when he strokes it once, twice, eyes pinned to your cunt like he’s imagining exactly how you’ll take it.

“You ready?” he asks, soft again, lining himself up with your shaking entrance. “I need you to say it.”

“Yes,” you breathe. “I want you, Harry.”

He pushes in slowly—so slowly—and your back arches, a shocked moan catching in your throat at the sheer stretch of him. He’s thick, unrelenting, and your body clamps down around him greedily.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, pressing his forehead to yours. “You feel like fucking heaven.”

You gasp, nails digging into his arms as he fills you. “Oh god—Harry—”

“That’s it,” he groans, teeth gritted as he bottoms out. “That’s my girl. Taking me so fucking well.”

He doesn’t wait long after that. The first thrust is slow, the second is harder. By the third he’s fucking into you like he can’t get deep enough, the desk creaking beneath you, the sound of skin on skin filling the dim office air.

You clutch at him, gasping as he hits every spot that makes you see stars.

Harry fucks you with purpose, with hunger, but he never loses that softness—his thumb on your cheek, his lips pressing kisses to your jaw, your shoulder, the hollow of your neck, the swell of your breast. He cradles your head in his hands so you don’t knock it into the glass.

It’s all too much. Too much and not enough. 

It feels like home, like this is where you should have been instead of running every chance you got, like a coward. Your hands dig into his shoulder, his name falling from your lips over and over.

“Yes.” He kisses you again, bruising and messy like he’s trying to taste the way it sounds right off your tongue. “Say my name.”

“Harry—fuck—Harry!”

“That’s it,” he growls, fucking into you faster now, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the office. “You’re mine now, aren't you? You're finally going to let me have you?”

“Yes—yes—oh my god—”

“Say it.”

“I'm yours, Harry—yours—fuck, I’m—”

He pulls you tight against him, fucking you so deep it’s like he’s imprinting himself inside you. “Come for me, sweetheart. Show me how good I make you feel.”

You come with a sob, clenching around him, unraveling completely beneath his weight and his words and the unbearable sweetness in his eyes as he watches you fall apart.

“I’m gonna come,” he grits out, thrusts growing erratic. “Where do you want it, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“Inside,” you whisper. “Want to feel it. Please, Harry…”

That’s all he needs.

He spills inside you with a groan—deep and raw—thrusting once, twice more before spilling into you, his mouth dropping to your shoulder with a quiet, reverent moan of your name.

New York’s skyline shines through the window, bathing you both in a shimmering light. 

The only sounds filling the office are the light, gentle breaths as you both come down. The dull hum of the city underscores it, muted and fuzzy around the edges.

Harry’s hands don’t stray from your hips, his thumbs absentmindedly draw small circles over your bare skin. The night plays through your mind in flashbacks, each snapshot of all the moments where things shifted like a slideshow behind your eyes.

The stairs of your building, the touch of his hand on your back, the looks from across the room, the terrace. 

“Fuck,” you say suddenly, raising your head off the desk in alarm. “Harry, your award. You left it on the terrace.”

It’s quiet, until his shoulders start to shake and the unmistakable sound of laughter fills the space between you.

“It’s not funny!” You slap his shoulder, but you’re still smiling. “That was the whole fucking point of tonight.”

Harry lifts his head, meeting your gaze. “Was it?”

You look back, puzzled. “Wasn’t it.”

Harry chuckles again, shaking his head fondly. He leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, slow and indulgent. “I’ve already got the only thing I wanted tonight.”

Your heart does a small, dangerous thing in your chest. “Well, this is definitely going in my yearly review.”

Harry hums. “I look forward to reading it.”

You don’t muffle your laugh, you don’t turn your face to hide your smile. You only raise your hand, carding your fingers through the sweaty curls laying on his forehead. 

Harry turns his head, pressing one last kiss to your palm.

You’ll email the AIA tomorrow, for now, they can wait.

MINI NAT’S NOTE: if you would have told me a year ago that i would be writing for a pedro pascal character in a movie that chr*s ev*ns is ALSO in, i would have laughed in your face, HARD. oh how the sands of time can change us.

anyway this actually wasn't the harry fic i originally wanted to post. i was working on something completely different when this idea manifested in my brain and i immediately jumped ship…but in my defense this is the fastest i've written something since the semester ended so ofc she's being uploaded. thank you so much for reading, love you!

You remembered because the little bell above the door clanged so loudly, you thought the ancient relic might have actually met its fate that day. When you turned to see who raced inside, it was him.

Harry.

He held a soaked copy of the New York Post in his hand. It was falling apart after doing an extremely poor job of keeping him dry in the sudden downpour. His dark hair was drenched and dripping all over the sticky tile floor. He blinked a few times, trying to get the rain out of his eyes without looking more pathetic than he already felt. He looked down at the destroyed newspaper and made a face before lifting his chin and scanning the restaurant.

That's when he spotted you.

He hesitated for a moment before offering up a lopsided grin and a shoulder shrug as you made your way towards him.

"Do you have a trash can I can borrow?"

You circled the host stand and held out the plastic bin, only to tease, "If you're borrowing it, that means you'll bring it back, right?"

He took a second then laughed politely at your shitty joke before dropping the newspaper into the empty bin with a solid thump.

"Consider it returned," he smiled, dark brown eyes sparkling despite the agitation he had felt moments before when he was caught in the rain.

You showed him to a table, one near the window, and brought him a coffee — to warm you up, you had said. He wrapped his hands gratefully around the stained mug and took a sip. When he swallowed, he paused, then looked up at you with genuine shock.

"This is... good."

You giggled. "Thanks."

"No, I mean—" He stopped to take another sip and made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat. "This is really good."

"You have a beautiful way with words," you teased again.

"Some of these expensive cafés around here don't make coffee half this good," he continued, taking another gulp.

"Well, I guess I've found my hidden talent," you shrugged.

The way he smiled at you had your heart skipping a beat.

There were other tables that probably needed to be cleaned or wanted their check, but you couldn't force yourself to step away. Something about him was magnetic.

And at the time, he really didn't seem all that special to the naked eye. He was just wearing a pair of worn jeans, an oversized brown jacket, and a basic looking tshirt underneath. He looked like every other working man within a five mile radius of your diner that stopped in for lunch every day. And yet... something pulled you to him.

Something must have pulled him to you, too, because a week later, he returned.

"No New York Post?" you asked when you greeted him at the door, hoping you didn't look too eager to see him.

He shook his head and pointed to the trash can.

"That's the only place The Post belongs. Only had it that day because someone left it at a bus stop bench. It was all I had."

"Desperate times," you mused before leading him to a table.

He looked a little dressier that day: slacks, but with a polo shirt. The only ring he had was on his pinky, one you were rather convinced was a fake emerald. You smiled to yourself, tucking away the lack-of-a-wedding-band note for later.

When he sat down, you noticed for the first time he placed a compact umbrella on the booth next to him before picking up the menu. You grinned and pointed to it with your ballpoint pen.

"Hey, you got yourself an umbrella," you said, "moving up in the world."

He looked up at you with those soft brown eyes again, the ones that crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the very same eyes you couldn't get out of your head for a week.

"I learn from my mistakes."

He became a regular after that. Once a week, every Thursday around one in the afternoon. You weren't sure if the time just suited him best or if he picked it because he knew you would be working.

You had hoped it was the latter.

About two months later, the diner was unusually busy. A tour bus had stopped outside and the restaurant was overloaded with thirty extra patrons. The kitchen was slammed, the counters were a mess, and of course one of the servers had called off that day.

You forgot it was Thursday. Harry had come in and seen the chaos. He tried to catch your eye but you were too busy balancing four plates on your arms to notice.

Another waitress, Darcy, hurried up to greet him, looking equally as frazzled as you but still offered to clean a table in her section. Harry turned her down, said he wanted to wait for you, and leaned against the wall watching you work with a small smile on his face.

Once one of your tables got up, Darcy helped you clean it and murmured quietly that you had a request at the door. You glanced up, saw him, and grinned happily despite the stressful lunch hour.

"Not in a rush today?" you asked when you led him to your only open table. He slid into the booth and shook his head.

"Nothing that can't wait."

"I'm honored," you said sweetly with a hand pressed to your chest. He smirked and his eyes quickly scanned you up and down.

"You're worth waiting for."

It knocked the wind out of you at first. You blinked like you weren't sure you heard him right, then exhaled a nervous laugh.

"Careful or I might think you're flirting with me."

"So what if I am?"

You laughed again and felt your face heat up. You started to fan yourself with your notepad, which only made Harry's smile grow bigger.

"Oh, you must be a heartbreaker," you teased.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, tilting his head to the side, still smiling. You leaned forward, placing both palms flat on the freshly washed tabletop, and lowered your voice.

"You're a smooth-talker, Harry," you said, refusing to break eye contact. "I'll bet you have a waitress you visit every day of the week. I'm just Miss. Thursday."

He threw his head back and laughed. Like, really laughed. And it made you smile so big that you dropped your chin to your chest to hide.

When his laughter finally died down, you lifted your head to look at him again, both of you wearing matching grins.

"Not true," he said, his dimple catching your eye and making your heart flutter a bit. "Let me take you out for dinner," he finally added, and even though you saw it coming, you still felt a rush of excitement shoot through you when you heard the words.

"Yeah? So you can introduce me to Miss. Friday?"

"Is that when you're free?"

You nodded, teeth sinking into your lower lip.

"Then tomorrow it is," he said firmly, "and you can pick the restaurant."

You whistled low and straightened back up. Your other tables were clearing up and heading to the front to pay, but you couldn't care less.

"Anywhere?"

He nodded and folded his hands confidently in his lap.

"Anywhere."

"And what if I have expensive tastes, Mr. Castillo?" you asked with a flirty tone.

"I can afford it," he assured you, still wearing the same smile.

"Even Nova?" You had said the first fancy, most hard-to-get-into restaurant you could think of, just as a joke. But Harry nodded without missing a beat.

"Nova it is."

You laughed and shook your head.

"I was just kidding," you said, "seriously, I'm good with anything—"

"Would you like to eat at Nova?" he asked, cutting you off. You paused for a moment.

"Well... maybe one day," you shrugged, "but the waiting list to get in is, like—"

"How's eight work for you?" He was already tapping away on his phone, offering it like it was nothing.

"Uh— s-sure," you sputtered. "Eight works."

He held up his phone for you to take. "Save your number and address. I'll pick you up."

He said it like he serious, but by Friday you still expected him to show up and admit it was just for laughs and maybe take you to some hole in the wall Italian spot, if you were lucky.

You were just fixing your hair and smoothing down your dress when your two roommates squealed from the window.

"He's here!"

"Oh, damn — he's got a Mercedes? Who is this guy?"

You snatched your purse and ran out into the living room, wedging yourself between them. Your jaw dropped when you saw Harry step out of the driver's side and round the front, casually buttoning his smart looking jacket and glancing around the relatively quiet street. But before he ascended the stairs to your building's front door, he looked up and spotted your three faces practically pressed against the dirty glass.

"Fuck!" you giggled when you all flew away from the window. Then a moment later, the buzzer rang.

"Y-Yeah," you stammered, pressing the answer button with a stupid grin.

"It's Harry."

You pressed the other button to unlock the door, then pushed your one roommate out of the way so you could make sure you didn't have lipstick on your teeth.

"What does he do again?"

"Who fucking cares!"

"Shhh!!" you hissed right when a firm knock came from the door.

"I'll get it!" Melanie sang, skipping to the door to cut you off. She flung it open just as you were reaching for her shoulder to yank her back, revealing Harry on the other side. His face lit up when he saw you, then his gaze dropped to Mel and he politely held out his hand.

"I'm Harry—"

"I know," she gushed, grabbing his hand and shaking it roughly. He grinned and glanced at you quickly before looking back at her. "I'm Melanie, that one's Liv."

Harry nodded at Liv perched on the couch who was waving at him like a fucking lunatic.

"Nice to meet you both." His eyes scanned the modest apartment behind you. "Cute place. How long have—"

"Let's go!" you said, pushing Mel out of the way and sneaking out the door.

"Have her back by midnight!" Melanie shouted as you were dragging him away.

"Yeah! But if you don't, at least do us all a favor and rock her world. It's been a while!" Liv added.

"Oh, my god!" you screeched over your shoulder while Harry chuckled softly next to you. "I'm going to kill—"

The apartment door slammed shut. You could hear their combined giggles, even though you were already halfway down the hall.

Harry cleared his throat, biting back a smile while you fanned your face in embarrassment.

"I am — so sorry about them," you said, stepping onto the elevator. "They're just... they're assholes," you laughed before tapping the L button repeatedly. "Sorry, it takes a few tries," you mumbled, then sighed happily when the button finally lit up and the doors slid shut.

An awkward silence settled around you as you waited for the elevator to take you to the lobby.

Fucking Mel and Liv, you seethed to yourself while sparing a nervous glance in Harry's direction. He was staring straight ahead at the closed doors, smiling in that way that made your knees weak, and you felt yourself smile back.

"So..." you began, breathing a sigh of relief when the doors opened. He pressed his palm against the side so they wouldn't shut, and looked at you expectantly. You blinked and cursed under your breath when it occurred to you he was waiting for you to go first, then hurried over the threshold and out into the run-down lobby.

"So," he echoed, opening the door for you to step outside. At least that time, you expected it and didn't look like a complete idiot. But then he stopped you before you could take one step down and offered his arm. You thanked him softly, looking shyly down at his crooked elbow, and looped your hand through.

If Liv didn't make it abundantly clear you hadn't been on a date in a while, it sure as hell was obvious to him now.

"You look—"

You stopped short when you heard tapping on the glass above your heads. As Harry was reaching to open the passenger side door, you looked up to find Mel and Liv making obscene gestures towards you and your date. Mel was miming a blowjob while Liv dry humped the air. Your eyes widened in horror and your jaw dropped. Harry turned to you, noticed your expression, but before he could spin around to look up, you grabbed his face, keeping his eyes locked on you.

"If you have any respect for me," you said lowly, "you will not look up right now."

He laughed and stepped back so you could get into his car, silently promising to ignore your roommates.

"Anyway," you laughed when he had finally pulled away from the curb. "You look so nice. I had no idea you cleaned up so well."

Harry grinned as he smoothly changed lanes.

"What, this old thing?" he joked, referring to his perfectly tailored black suit. When he came to a stop at a red light, he looked over at you. His gaze slid down your form, taking in the deep purple dress you had borrowed from Liv that was just a little too tight, but in a way that showed off your curves.

"You look absolutely beautiful," he breathed after what felt like an eternity. The way he said it made it sound like he was truly blown away and it caused a wave of goosebumps to flash across your skin.

"Thank you," you murmured shyly.

The light changed to green and you grew distracted with the car — the smooth as butter leather, the tinted windows, the hundreds of fancy looking controls that reminded you of a space ship. Your gaze kept darting all around, taking everything in.

"What do you do, Harry?" you asked.

You had asked him a few times before, and every time he managed to change the subject or sidestep the question. It didn't even occur to you he kept giving you non-answers until the night before, when you were telling Mel and Liv about your date and the question inevitably came up.

"What? I never told you?"

You shook your head and the corner of his mouth turned up into a half-smile.

"Huh... hold on, we're almost there," he said, pulling up behind a convertible with a logo on the back you didn't recognize, but based on the way people on the sidewalk were gawking, told you it was expensive.

And yet again, Harry managed to distract you. When you looked up and saw the sign for Nova above an impossibly gorgeous looking restaurant, your eyes nearly bugged out of your head.

"Are you serious?" you gasped. Harry looked at you, confused.

"You said—"

"I know what I said," you replied, "I didn't think— h-how did you—"

You couldn't get the words out. It was insane. It had to be one of the hottest restaurants in New York City, and yet Harry was able to get a reservation on a Friday night with barely twenty-four hours notice?

Your door opened and a young man in an impeccably pressed suit stood on the outside, offering you his arm. You gently took it while Harry got out on the other side, sliding a bill to the valet and rounding the front of his car to join you on the sidewalk.

"Ready?"

You nodded, speechless, as you took his arm. He led you up through the huge double doors and to the hostess, giving his name with practiced ease. She tapped something on a computer, smiled at you both, and led you through the restaurant.

It was dark, but in a warm, comfortable way. The guests were not rowdy, the kitchen was silent, and there was a pianist playing classical music in the center of the dining room.

A far cry from your diner.

"Here you are. Enjoy your meal," the hostess said once she reached your table. It was off to the side of the room. Private.

Harry pulled your chair back and looked at you, smiling at the way you were utterly and completely stunned.

"Thank you," you whispered, sitting primly in the chair. In front of you, there was an intimidating set of silverware on top of a white linen tablecloth. A candle was placed between you both, along with a small bouquet of flowers.

Harry sat down across from you, unbuttoning his suit and arching an eyebrow in your direction.

"Is it living up to your expectations, Miss. Thursday?"

You giggled and nodded.

"It's a step up from the diner, that's for sure."

"But the coffee's terrible," he grinned. Then he leaned forward, looking side to side quickly before meeting your eye. "Waitresses aren't as pretty, either."

Your cheeks burned and you laughed again, fanning yourself while looking away. Harry chuckled and leaned back in his chair.

"It's cute when you do that," he said. You dropped your hand and looked back at him.

"Do what?"

"When I pay you a compliment, you fan yourself," he said. "Very 50s movie star. I like that."

"Oh," you replied softly, "I didn't even realize. But... thank you."

"You're welcome." He folded his hands in his lap and crossed one leg over the other under the table.

When your server arrived to get your drink order, Harry sensed your discomfort right away.

"Do you like wine?" he asked, taking charge. You nodded. "Red or white?"

"Red."

"We'll take the bottle of the 1982 Chateau Latour Pauillac," he said, looking up at the waiter.

You stared dumbly at Harry after the server disappeared to get your wine.

"That sounds really expensive."

"Thought you had expensive tastes?" he reminded you with a smirk.

"I was joking," you said, "I drink wine out of a box! I can't tell the difference!"

He laughed and leaned forward again, resting on his elbows when he said, "Can I tell you a secret?"

You nodded and leaned forward, as well.

"I can't tell the difference, either."

You dissolved into a fit of giggles just as the server arrived with your bottle of wine. He took a customary sniff and taste before nodding his approval, then waited until your glasses were filled before addressing you again.

"Are you okay with the tasting menu?" Harry asked.

"Uh, yeah," you said, then looked up at the waiter and nodded. "Sounds great."

After he left, you tried to mimic Harry. You picked up your glass, swirled it a bit, took a sniff and then a tiny sip. He watched you with an amused look as you smacked your lips together, looking deep in thought.

"Hm," you hummed, "I'm getting notes of... cherry... and..."

You glanced over at Harry and tried not to laugh.

"Amber."

He gave you that wide smile that brought out that dimple you loved.

"Amber?" he repeated. "What's amber?"

"I have no idea," you laughed, "I was trying to impress you. Did it work?"

"Oh, yeah. Big time," he said, making you laugh again.

Halfway through the tasting menu, you realized no one had ever made you laugh as much as Harry did. Your cheeks actually hurt from smiling so much, but you couldn't stop. He just had something about him that made you feel so comfortable and at ease, even if you were way out of your element.

"Hey," you said suddenly right as the server was putting dessert in front of you. Harry cocked his head to the side, waiting. "You never told me what you do for work."

He slowly grinned, nodded his thanks to the waiter, then lifted his wine glass to his lips.

"What'd you think of the wine?" he asked.

You shook your head and gave him a fake look of disapproval.

"Nuh uh. No changing the subject," you said. He chuckled and set his glass down.

"Alright. Private equity," he sighed, lacing his fingers together and ignoring his dessert completely. You blinked and frowned.

"What does that mean?" you asked, feeling dumb.

"I buy companies, strip them down, make them better, and sell them for more money," he answered plainly.

You nodded and took a bite of your dessert.

"Sounds... interesting."

"No, it doesn't," he smiled. You laughed, hiding your smile behind your hand.

"No, it really doesn't," you agreed, making him laugh, too. "Do you like it?"

He shrugged and finally lifted a fork to scoop up a piece of tart.

"I'm good at it."

"But do you like it?"

"Sometimes. The people can be draining but when it pays off, it's rewarding."

"Yeah. That's how I feel about the diner, too," you sighed, feigning seriousness when you added, "it's almost like we do the exact same thing, huh?"

You made him laugh and once again, you were amazed by how easy it was to be with him already.

After Harry paid what appeared to be an absolutely ridiculous bill that made you squirm a little in your seat, you were faced with the awkward part of the date that you almost forgot about.

Does he take you home? Does he ask you to come back to his place? Would you go?

"Want to take a walk?" he asked when you both stepped outside of the restaurant, and you breathed a sigh of relief. "Weather's nice. Unless— those shoes—"

He looked down at your heels but you quickly shook your head.

"No, I'm good. A walk sounds nice."

Luckily, he walked slow because you were lying — your shoes were not made for comfort. But you were willing to sacrifice it to spend a little more time with him.

The street was bustling with life, but it wasn't very loud. A few people laughed while sharing cigarettes outside of a bar. A man with earbuds and vibrant, reflective clothes jogged by, minding his own business. An older woman wearing a chic poncho with a full face of makeup walked her small dog across the street.

It was a nicer neighborhood than the one you lived in, that was for certain.

"Thank you again for dinner," you said after the silence stretched on a little too long.

"You're welcome," he replied, then waited a beat or two before adding, "If this isn't your scene or you don't feel comfortable, we don't have to do stuff like this next time. We can do anything you want."

You frowned, confused.

"I liked it," you said slowly, "it's definitely not like anything I've ever experienced before, but I still liked it."

"Yeah?" he asked, stopping suddenly. You did the same and turned to gaze up at him.

"Yeah. Of course."

He looked relieved. His face relaxed a bit and he gave you a small smile. Then you shot him a coy look when you added, "So there will be a next time, then?"

He smiled wider and tipped his chin up so he could glance at the night sky, and that was when you noticed the flush creeping up his neck, just past his collar.

"I sure as hell hope so."

He looked back down, eyes flickering across your face and settling briefly on your lips before finding your eyes again.

"I'd love that," you said, feeling the warmth creeping up your own neck from the way he looked at you.

Then, he brought a hand up to cup your face, his dark brown eyes shimmering in the moonlight.

"Can I kiss you?"

He said it so softly, almost like he was nervous, but you found it hard to believe. How could someone like him be nervous around someone like you?

You felt yourself drift a little closer, that magnetic pull doing you in. His cologne invaded your senses, his warmth curled around you like a blanket, and you nodded, unable to form the word yes.

He was gentle at first, and his lips were unexpectedly soft against yours. He moved slow, savoring every second, massaging your lips tenderly against his own and learning the feel of you for the first time.

You melted into him so easily. The hand on your face gripped you a little harder when your lips parted, and when he deepened the kiss, you could still taste lemon and wine on his tongue.

He stepped forward and you stumbled backwards, arms flying up to wrap around his neck. His free hand found your lower back and he guided you further until you felt the cool press of brick behind you.

Within a minute, the kiss went from gentle to heated. You were firmly stuck between Harry and a brick wall, and all you could do was try to keep up with the intensity behind each swipe of his tongue against yours. His beard pressed into your chin, burning the skin there, making his mark, but you loved it.

You were completely lost in it, in him. The way he smelled, the way he felt, the way he kissed you like he may never get another chance again. Months of weekly visits to the diner that left you wanting all built up to that moment and neither of you could seem to stop.

That is, until a group of people out drinking walked by with a low whistle aimed in your direction and finally, Harry tore himself away.

"Christ," he chuckled, still standing too close and still holding your face. You both panted for air and stared at one another, searching each other's eyes, trying to get a read.

"Maybe I should — I should take you home."

You threaded your fingers through the hair on the back of his head and before you could lose your nerve, said:

"Or you can show me where you live."

He didn't hesitate, which thrilled you, and fifteen minutes later, you found yourself in his car with his hand firmly planted on your thigh as he drove you across town.

"Tribeca?" you asked, peering around.

"Yep."

"Wow," you breathed, looking out the window. Every building you passed by looked more impressive than the last until Harry turned down a street and slowed down.

The doorman jumped to attention, snapping his fingers at a younger man behind a counter, the both of them rushing outside.

"Mr. Castillo," the doorman greeted warmly when Harry stepped out. Harry nodded, murmured good evening, and rounded the car to open your door. From the corner of your eye, you saw the doorman swat the other on the shoulder, who shrugged and made a perplexed face in return.

Your hand slid easily into Harry's and he shut the door behind you.

"My apologies," the doorman said to you, "we didn't realize you would be having a guest this evening," he added, looking at Harry.

"It's alright," he said smoothly while handing the keys and a folded bill to the younger man. "I'll take any chance to prove I'm a gentleman."

They chuckled and you smiled, but mostly for a different reason: it appeared Harry didn't bring guests home often.

The lobby was stunning. Bright crystal chandeliers hung above your heads. The carpet was the softest, thickest carpet you ever stepped foot on. Two gorgeous fireplaces sat on either end of the spacious room and in front of each was a sitting area filled with couches and chairs and tables. Even the elevator was beautiful. Inside the car was mirrored with golden edges. Soft music filtered through the air and just when you noticed the ornate light fixture above you, Harry swiped a card and pressed the P button on the elevator, making your jaw drop.

"Penthouse?" you squeaked.

He gave you a strained smile and glanced down at his watch.

Your brows furrowed for a moment, trying to figure out what was going through his head.

You stepped off the elevator, following Harry into his apartment. Lights were already on and dimmed throughout the space, as if they were on timers. He watched you take a few hesitant steps forward and slowly spin around, taking everything in. Your eyes trailed over the marble kitchen countertops, the plush velvet chairs in the sitting room, the massive television, the floor to ceiling windows overlooking a breathtaking view. But it lacked... something.

Harry remained silent, waiting for you to turn back to him. When you did, you gave him a small smile and said, "Is this all?"

He laughed softly and pushed off the wall to join you.

"What do you think?" he asked, brushing his knuckles up and down your arm.

"Do you like it?"

It was the second time you asked him that question in one evening.

"Yes. I do."

You nodded and took a step forward, closing the small gap between you.

"Then I like it, too."

His mouth found yours once again, kissing you with an urgency that had you wondering if it was more than just lust behind it. Either way, you matched it, tongue swirling in tandem with his and fingers weaving eagerly through his hair as he blindly walked you both through the kitchen, towards where you assumed his bedroom would be.

When you stumbled past the threshold to his room, you giggled from your combined excitement, breaking the kiss. His mouth trailed down to your jaw, lips peppering kisses all the way to your pulse point. You craned your neck to the side and your eyes fluttered closed with a soft moan. His hands searched your dress, looking for the zipper, pulling hastily at the fabric as the backs of your legs bumped up against his bed.

"Careful," you whispered, and his groping stilled. "I borrowed this, it's not mine," you explained with a laugh. Harry pulled away from your neck to catch his breath and gaze down at you. His face looked flushed, eyes a little glassy, and his lips already swollen. Something about seeing a man so put together look so wrecked, all because of you, sent a tingle down your spine.

"I could buy a hundred more to replace it," he reminded you with one lifted eyebrow.

You grinned. "I don't care."

Something flickered across his face. Something soft, not unlike disbelief. Then his hands were on you again, searching for the zipper now that he could see properly.

In a heartbeat, the dress became a purple puddle at your feet and Harry was lowering you carefully onto his bed with his mouth nipping and sucking up and down the column of your throat, pulse coming alive at his touch.

You arched your back and dragged a hand through his hair with a gasp, holding him against your neck while your hips lift, searching for friction and thank god, he gave it to you. He dropped his weight between your legs with a grunt and grinds, soaking up every delicious sound you made underneath him.

His hands found the straps of your bra and he slipped them past your shoulders, kissing every inch of skin as he went. With a speed that made you gasp, Harry reached behind and unclasped your bra, then tossed it to the side to join your dress and shoes.

Without missing a beat, he continued to plant wet kisses all the way down your sternum, between your breasts, and only then did he pause to look up at you with heavy lidded eyes.

"You're so fucking beautiful, do you know that?"

You couldn't answer him. The words got lodged in your throat when his mouth wrapped around your breast, sucking and flicking his tongue over your nipple while you writhed impatiently beneath him.

"Fuck," you moaned as he continued to explore your body, like he was mapping you, memorizing you. "Harry — please..."

You were tugging feebly at his pristine white button down, his suit coat long forgotten somewhere in the journey from the front door to his bedroom.

He reared back at your plea and began to feverishly unbutton the shirt, his gaze all the while raking up and down your nearly naked body like he was drinking you in.

When he shoved the shirt past his shoulders, he made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat when the fabric caught on his wrists, forgetting entirely about his cufflinks.

He dropped each one into the silk sheets and nearly ripped his shirt off, far too eager to get his mouth back where it belonged — on you.

He fell forward onto his arms and continued to kiss you everywhere he could reach while your hands snaked between your bodies, working shakily on his leather belt.

"Jesus — get these off," you huffed, pushing down on the waistband of his slacks. He chuckled against your neck and helped you, kicking the offensive material to the floor and flinging his white undershirt off to join the rapidly growing pile of clothes.

You sucked in a deep breath at the sight of his bare chest for the first time. He took care of himself — that much was clear. But he wasn't overly buff and his stomach was still a little soft. You dragged your palms slowly up and down his tanned skin, admiring every curve and slope until your fingers found the band of his boxers. His stomach tensed when you slid your hand inside and you heard him stifle a groan when your fingers curled around his cock.

"I wanna see it," you murmured in his ear while slowly stroking him up and down. His hips lazily followed your hand, his hot breath skittered across your chest, and even though you were in the middle of this world, surrounded by extravagance you could only ever dream of, the only thing he wanted was you.

He granted your request, pulling down his boxers and freeing his cock, leaving him entirely bare to you. He watched with heavy eyes as you continued to work him with your fist, enjoying the way he twitched in your palm when your lips parted greedily at the sight of him in your hand.

He had enough. He couldn't take it any longer. His fingers curled around the edge of your black panties, stretching them away from your hips, slowly, before looking up at you.

"You borrow these, too?"

You shook your head then yelped when the fabric tore suddenly away from your hips.

"Jesus!" you giggled, but his mouth hastily slanted over yours, silencing you with a deep kiss that had your head swimming and your knees weak.

"Been thinking about this for weeks," he confessed, the words slipping past his lips and pouring into your mouth. One arm dropped down to grip himself at the base and your own hands instantly grabbed onto his broad shoulders, bracing yourself for what was to happen next.

"Me, too," you whispered, but he just shook his head while lining himself up at your entrance.

"No, it's not the same," he murmured back. "You're all I can think about. Driving me fucking crazy every second of the day. Wondered what you were doing—" You felt the blunt tip of him breach your cunt and you inhaled sharply. "Wondered— wondered what it would be like to— to— fuck..."

You gasped in unison when he pressed inside, parting your wet walls with ease, like he was always meant to be there. You whimpered his name and clawed at his shoulders, unable to look away from his face contorting with pleasure, at the feeling of you wrapping around him for the first time.

"To — what?" you exhaled when he was fully seated inside of you. His nose nudged the side of your head and he planted a tender kiss to your temple.

"Wondered what it would be like to wake up next to you every day."

It was so unexpectedly sweet. It had your stomach twisting as you pulled him back down to your mouth, your hand cupping the back of his neck to keep him close.

He rolled his hips forward, slowly, allowing you both a chance to adjust to the tight fit of his cock inside of you. You moaned into his mouth and it just spurred him on. His hand found a home on your hip, thumb pressing into the crease at the top of your thigh, then he did it again — he pulled halfway out just to slowly glide right back in, basking in the way you stretched for him.

"You're perfect," he murmured against your lips. Your eyebrows pinched together, gasping at the heavy weight of him every time he pushed forward. "You're so sweet and beautiful and fucking — perfect."

He groaned the last word, burying himself as deep as possible as if to emphasize his point. You shuddered in his arms, unable to articulate just how good, how full, how complete you felt. All you could manage to do was nip weakly at his chin and rock your hips upward, encouraging him to move faster, to take more — take all of you.

So, he did. He picked up the pace until he found a rhythm that made your mouth hang open and your legs shake. He was hypnotized, watching the way your eyes rolled back and your tits bounced with every harsh thrust. The only thing that kept you firmly in place was his hand pressing down on your hip as he took and took and took.

"God, you're pretty," he moaned. He was overcome with you, completely sunk and drowning. "So fucking pretty like this. I'll never get enough. Never — shit — never get enough."

The huge, sprawling bedroom was filled with the sounds of your skin slapping together punctuated with the soft noises you murmured into one another's skin. It was as if nothing else even existed outside of that space, even though you were very much firmly in the heart of one of the busiest cities in the world. You were both so lost in each other that nothing else mattered.

He groaned when he felt your arousal dripping down his shaft and onto his sheets. You were just so tight and warm and perfect, it was driving him insane and he wished more than anything that he could come inside you. He wanted to see the way he spilled out of your pussy and leaked down your soft thighs. He wanted the image burned into his brain for eternity.

"Harry—" you whined, nails digging into his back. "Oh god, don't stop! Don't— don't stop— ple—"

His mouth captured yours once again, quieting you while also giving you exactly what you wanted. He snapped his hips ruthlessly, knocking the air from your lungs as you wrapped your legs around his waist. You pulsed around his cock and whined so sweetly into his mouth that it had him feeling dizzy and reckless.

He slipped his tongue past your lips when you came, his name garbled in your throat in a way that made him feel like a fucking god. You tore yourself away, too desperate for fresh air, and dropped your head lazily into his pillow as you rode out the rest of your orgasm.

"Harry," you sighed, and his skin prickled at the sound. Your eyelids drooped and your swollen lips parted to drag in more air. You were so spent but still wanted him to feel good, so you tightened your hold around his waist and dragged your fingers through his sweat soaked hair.

"Come for me," you whispered into his ear. You felt his entire body shudder at your command and a jolt of confidence ripped through you.

"I will," he gasped, vision blurring with every wet smack of his hips against yours. "I will, baby. I wi— I'll give you anything you want. I'll — oh, f-fuck..."

Your teeth gently grazed the shell of his ear, just enough to sharpen his senses. His arms wrapped around you, holding you still as he fucked you hard now, chasing his own release.

"Inside me?" you asked. The way your voice sounded so sweet and innocent had his cock instantly swelling.

"N-no, I can't." He couldn't risk it but it still broke his heart to tell you no.

You made a disappointed noise but you didn't push it. You loosened your legs and a few hard thrusts later he was pulling out of you with a grunt. Your legs dropped to the mattress, shaky and loose. You rolled your head and watched in a trance as Harry hovered above you, jerking his cock with clenched teeth until he stilled with a low, deep moan. A moment later, you felt hot spurts of cum painting your stomach and mound. It was filthy, the way you loved being covered in him, how you reveled in the feeling of his sticky release on your skin.

He looked dazed and breathless when he was done, staring down at you with bleary eyes as he gasped for air. But then his gaze brightened when he watched you lift a lazy finger to swipe through his mess, collecting a taste and popping it into your mouth with a moan.

"Jesus," he groaned, and you giggled. He pushed a hand through his hair and took a deep breath before forcing himself to stand.

"I'll get you something," he said, stumbling for a moment. You eyed his soaked, semi-hard cock appreciatively before he turned to his bathroom. He returned with the softest washcloth you'd ever felt in your life. You almost told him not to use it, that you felt bad ruining it, then remembered where you were and who you were with and refrained.

Afterwards, he was incredibly sweet. He pulled you into his arms and turned out the lights, both of you still naked between his silk sheets. His thumb rubbed gentle circles against your arm and his lips occasionally brushed lovingly over your eyes, nose, or forehead.

In return, you pressed lazy kisses against his throat and slotted your leg in between his, unable to stop yourself from smiling.

"I had a really nice time tonight," you finally said, breaking the silence and making him laugh.

"Me, too," he replied, gazing at you in the beam of moonlight that cast across his bed.

You bit your bottom lip shyly and glanced around his bedroom. There hadn't been much of an opportunity to take it all in before, but now in the quiet stillness of night, you realized his room was unusually bare with the exception of his huge bed and one large abstract painting on the wall.

"Did you just move in?"

He shook his head, eyes still locked on you. "No."

He could tell you were curious but didn't want to pry, so he threw you a lifeline.

"I could've hired a decorator but," he glanced around, looking a little forlorn. "I wanted to wait and do it myself. With someone."

"Oh," you breathed softly. Then, sensing his vulnerability, added, "I would have done the same thing. It's part of what makes a house a home, you know?"

His dark eyes flashed to yours and he smiled.

"Yeah, that's right."

You grinned and snuggled a little closer into his chest. His lips found the top of your head and he hummed, content. Your eyes slid closed and you could feel your body relaxing, ready to drift off to sleep when he spoke again.

"I have a confession to make."

Your eyes snapped back open and you looked up expectantly.

"I don't think I can wait til Thursday to see you again," he smirked. Your heart skipped a beat and you pretended to think it over for a second.

"Well... I guess I could make some time on Monday or Tuesday," you mused.

"How about both?"

You swallowed and nodded, hoping you didn't come off too eager when you said, "Yeah, I think that would work."

As he pressed a tender kiss to your lips to seal the deal, you mustered up the courage to ask the question that had been weighing on your mind since the day before.

"Harry?"

"Hm?"

He looked at you like he was completely smitten, like he was ready to give you the world on a silver platter if you asked.

"Since we're making confessions, I have a question that's been bothering me," you said carefully. His smile faltered, but only for a moment.

"What is it?"

"Why didn't you tell me about all of this before? When I asked what you did for work, you always blew me off. I was starting to think you were unemployed but—" you laughed and looked out the partially covered window overlooking Manhattan. "—I was way off."

Harry sighed and rolled onto his back, bringing you with him to lay on his chest.

"I haven't had a very good track record with dating," he said. "And usually when women find out what I do, all they see is the money, the lifestyle, the parties, but..." he trailed off for a moment, fingers playing idly with the ends of your hair. "I just wanted someone to want me for me."

You tilted your chin up, giving him a sorrowful look as you cupped his cheek, forcing him to look at you.

"I want you for you," you told him firmly. He smiled, took your hand from his face, and turned it over to kiss your palm.

"I know."

Across the line, your friend laughed.

“Yeah? You see him?”

Of course you saw him. Who else would be wearing a Carhartt flannel and jeans in ninety-four degree heat? Not a soul in this world but your friend’s own lying, piece of shit, hopefully-soon-to-be-ex boyfriend, you guessed.

The game that Old Fuckstick Miller had decided to play tonight was a dangerous one—he was dumb as shit, and you were drunker than a skunk. He was dating your best friend, and she was not present at the Tipsy Bison to see the barefaced clusterfuck taking place before you now.

She was home, over thirty minutes away. He had told her that morning he would be working late, and not to wait up. You were here, at the bar, approaching one A.M. with a Redbull Vodka clenched in either fist and a Texas-sized frown on your face, seeing the very same man with his hands all over a woman that wasn’t your friend. You’d wanted to puke as soon as you saw them. You knew you could never trust a man who claimed to be an Austin native and couldn’t name a single George Strait song.

Your friend had only been dating the guy for a month, and you’d just seen his face in pictures up until now, but from what you could see less than twenty feet in front of you—slightly blurred from all the drinks you’d had—this guy was him. A dick. There, cheating on your best friend.

And no man would get to do that and walk out unscathed if you had anything to say about it.

Your grip tightened on either one of your fizzy drinks and, barely managing to cradle the phone between your head and your shoulder, you gestured over to another friend.

“Dave. Take it,” you said, words slurring a little.

Dave York cocked an eyebrow but said nothing as you passed him one of your RBVs and shimmied off the barstool. By the time he was able to pose his question, your ass, your phone, and your one remaining drink were already wobbling the other way. Vaguely, you heard him:

“Where ya headed, hon?”

You turned and raised your drink, then seriously doubted he would be able to hear you over the blare of the music, but yelled back anyway, ‘I’M GONNA KILL SOMEONE!’

The age-old pro-forgiveness aphorism continued to thump in your brain as you made your way over and began to contemplate every feasible method of murder.

A gun in the face would’ve been too simple—and besides, you’d never owned or shot a firearm in your life.

Poison could be fun, but from the way you were approaching the man now, you seriously doubted he’d ever let you get within a mile of his drink. You nudged the phone closer to your ear and took a sip from your own.

“Closing in,” you told your friend simply.

She’d already given you the go-ahead to execute the confrontation and beat his ass any way you pleased after the fact. Now it wasn’t so much a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ you’d finally get to encroach on this little loved up scene at the other end of the bar. The man had had his back turned to you, and the stunning redhead hanging off his neck, likewise, had no idea what was coming. You smiled.

“Promise you won’t go to jail this time?” your friend said.

“Will you bail me out again if I do?” Your grin got bigger.

“Well, duh.”

“Good deal. I’ll be the shitfaced inmate with ‘Fuck Men’ tattooed on her forehead. Wait for Travis County to call.”

“I love you, psycho.”

“Love you more.”

You ended the call.

And you were fully ready to end this man’s life when you saw him lean in to kiss the woman’s neck—that was sick.

You weren’t thinking straight. You weren’t seeing straight

You yelled out, ‘He-e-e-ey, honey!’ without blinking.

The couple turned.

As soon as the man had done a full 180, you flung your drink in his face and made sure the cup struck his nose.

“You cheatin’ FUCK!”

He flinched, sprayed by your vodka-infused energy juice.

The music overhead was loud, but not so deafening as to prevent the bar from hearing your shriek. From the front of the room, a band was playing ‘Gunpowder & Lead,’ and you couldn’t help but feel the song had been fate.

“What the f—” the adulterer started, evidently stunned.

You knocked the Shiner Bock out of his hand and spat:

“Working late, are we?!”

And spilled another patron’s beer reeling back.

“Got a little caught up on the way home?”

Gesturing toward the green-eyed beauty to his left. At first, the girl fixed her stare on you as if you’d sprouted another head, but then, by turns, she was tilting it to him.

“You have a girlfriend?” she hissed.

Cheater McFuckstick was wiping his beard with his hand

Shaking his head.

“Hell no, I ain’t never—”

“LIAR!”

Channeling your inner Representative Wilson circa 2009, you let your mouth fall open and stared at the big, burly man like the Congressman had once done to President Obama all those years ago. The semi-stranger in front of you was far less composed than his political counterpart.

“What the fuck is your problem?!” he snapped.

You felt your cheeks heat up.

“Is she your girlfriend?” would-be mistress said, shrill.

“NO!” you and been-knew asshole yelled together.

You saw the man’s nostrils flare, and at the same time, the woman beside him departed. Quickly. A few people around you cleared the way, while others still stared, gawked, and murmured amongst themselves. The Miranda Lambert cover band continued on without a hitch, though you could tell there had been a stir in the crowd. They probably thought the worst of it was over.

They thought wrong.

“You’re a dick,” you seethed, unrelenting.

You almost expected the man to turn and leave.

You thought wrong.

“You’re a cunt.”

And the man chucked a stray whiskey sour in your face.

The $15 spirits splattered on your skin like the meanest insult of all. His aim was better. Though he didn’t let go of the cup, as you had with him, he did make sure to coat the whole of your twisted look with the liquor, and once it landed, he had had the nerve to do something else, too.

He brought the glass to his lips then drank what was left.

“How’s it feel?” he sneered.

You stood in wet, sticky silence for half a second; arguably, you’d earned that cocktail to the face.

On the other hand, who the fuck did he think he was?

You grabbed a random can of Keystone Light and flung it at his chest to give him a hint—and catch him off-guard.

“You’re a bitch, Tommy Miller!”

“Wh—”

“Maria’s my best friend, you absolute f—”

“What—”

“—and you cheated on her for what? All so she—”

“What did you just call me?!”

“A BITCH!”

“No, the NAME!”

“TOMMY MILLER!”

“I’M JOEL!”

Oh.

Oh.

You and Joel were shortly escorted out of the bar.

Joel’s name, and a trace of bourbon, were still fresh on your tongue when you found yourself stranded in the middle of the Tipsy Bison parking lot two minutes later. You leaned into a car beside you and held your stomach.

“Someone drop you on the head as a baby?” Joel barked.

Presently, for you, the world was tilting sideways, and your head was throbbing at a nauseating tempo.

“Go around slingin’ drinks at any old man you—”

Green. Green must’ve been the color of your face as you braced your hands on your knees and assumed a stance as if to scream at the ground. Rather than expecting any noise to ring out, though, you had only to squeeze your eyes shut and hold onto a hunch for something much less pleasant. And viscous.

Reeking mostly of Red Bull and regret, if you had to guess.

Joel took a big step back, and then he took another.

“Da-a-adgummit, girl, what the—”

He turned away just in time to miss the sight of you emptying your guts on the ground, but not quite fast enough to be spared the sounds of you retching. They were loud. Joel Miller was known to be a largely imperturbable force around these parts, but even he was made to feel queasy hearing that. Out of habit, he clapped his hand to his own gut and stumbled off. He stared at the bar, then at his car, then at the gravel crushed under his feet for what felt like the longest time. Then his gaze lingered to his lower half, and he thought:

‘Please, please don’t gimme no daughters. Please.’

He was forty-five. The time for making babies and raising daughters to be anything like a woman of your ilk was probably long past him. All the same, he kept his gaze on his crotch and sighed. Balls, you better not betray me.

When he heard the crunch of rocks, he turned around.

“HEY!”

Oh, no. No. Not tonight.

You were staggering to your car, keys in hand.

“Hey!” Joel called again, jogging after you.

It seemed the second shout had done him no more favors than the first. You were fumbling to get the key inside the door, and you looked as determined as ever.

Over your shoulder, you tossed back, careless:

“You ain’t the boss of me, Tommy Miller.”

You got the key to turn. You opened the door. You were just about to climb inside what looked to Joel to be the ugliest Dodge Ram pickup he’d seen in his life, when he grabbed your arm.

“It’s Joel,” he growled. Pinching your elbow tight as he tugged it back, “And you ain’t driving anywhere tonight.”

Somewhere in front of him, tilted away from his line of vision, you must’ve been grinning, because the next thing he heard from you was the scoff of a laugh.

“Oh yeah?”

Joel flipped you around to face him.

“Yeah,” he snapped.

Feeling a bit like a kid for mimicking your tone.

What were you, twenty-two? Twenty-three? You couldn’t have been a patron of a place like Tipsy Bison for very long, or else he would’ve recognized you tonight.

Then again, you struck him as the type to have had a fake ID since you were fifteen, so he really couldn’t know.

“I’m twenny-wuh-un,” you slurred up at him, exaggerated, once he’d made you step down from the running board and onto the ground. Answering his last unspoken question with the same, sleepy grin as before. Then lifting one of your hands to wag a finger in his face, “I can drink legal anywhere I want to in this country.”

“Not there,” Joel nodded to the interstate.

You looked to where he’d gestured and whistled. Standing and staring, like he had done to his crotch.

“Well fuck me-e!” you said next, dragging out the sound a childish amount, “You the law or somethin’, Mr. Joel?”

“Ain’t no cop.” Joel rolled his eyes.

You kept smiling. Then you turned on your heels.

And instead of trying to climb back into your truck, you sauntered off—in what direction, Joel couldn’t tell. You were more so bumbling about, turning in circles like the world’s most scantily-clad, semi-intoxicated ballerina. And then you stopped. You put your hands on your hips.

“‘Cause I’m the law,” you resumed in a slow, deliberate drawl. The twang you used was mostly feigned, “And you cain’t beat the law. Don’t nobody get away with that, not even a bunch’a Alabama smart alecks, believe you me.”

Joel didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about. The man was Texas born and bred, and you knew it.

He communicated as much by pinning you with a wide, bewildered stare, and something in that seemed to amuse. You stared back, making your eyes bug out too.

“It’s a quote from a movie,” you said, after a beat, “You’ve never seen Fried Green Tomatoes before?”

Joel couldn’t say that he had.

Joel reckoned there was a lot more than just movies he didn’t share in common with you. Miss Twenty-One. Barely a year past the age he’d been when he’d moved out of the house and tried to make a living on his own.

This woman, this girl he saw twirling out in front of him now probably couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel if he’d asked you to. Joel shook his head and moved his feet, frown etching deep.

“Alright, princess. Up.”

You didn’t seem to understand, until he’d lifted you. Up.

You were thrown over his shoulder and carried to a truck much nicer than yours in less than fifteen seconds or so.

“Stinks in here,” you said as soon as he’d set you down.

Then, sniffing the air—and grinning:

“Aw, hell, Miller…you smoke?”

Joel wished he’d said no.

Wished he’d rolled his eyes and told you to pipe down, stop asking him questions. It would’ve made the drive a whole lot easier, and more peaceful. Nowhere near as painful, either, if he were being perfectly honest—the strain in his jeans had already gotten to be more than he could bear, and all you’d asked for was a pack of smokes.

“They call ‘em Cowboy Killers,” you said, matter-of-fact.

“I know what they’re called,” Joel grumbled in reply. Flicking the radio on and hoping to find a tune that would drown out the too-lovely, cloying voice you’d assumed as soon as you thought you might win a cigarette off of him. More chatty now than ever.

And for one, blissful moment, Toby Keith had you beat. The calm was fleeting. As soon as ‘Who’s Your Daddy’ started to drift through the car’s old speakers, you reached across and turned the knob to the left.

“Gross,” you muttered.

“What?”

“Got a light?”

“Blow me.”

Joel’s harsh, clipped tone was deliberate. The way he’d made himself mean—meaner than he’d been around a woman in a long, long time—was a choice. He couldn’t let your faux sweetness win him now. Not after you’d thrown two drinks in his face, mocked his truck, and foreclosed any possibility of getting laid by way of all your publicized infidelity philippics and shit-talking. Giving in to your charms from where you sat in the passenger seat now would only sink him further in his own esteem. Simply put, Joel’s ego couldn’t take it.

“Okie doke,” you said presently. Shrugging.

“Now keep your—HEY!”

Joel nearly swerved his truck off the road and into a ditch. Your deft little hands had slipped into his lap—and started palming his crotch through the denim.

He’d just managed to right the vehicle before jerking a look your way, staring at your hand, then your face:

“What the fuck was that?!”

“You said ‘blow me,’ Joel!” you huffed, and you seriously appeared as distraught as he was, “Sorry for listening!”

Joel grit his teeth with all the force of a cold steel trap.

“You’re fuckin’ nuts.” He gripped the wheel even tighter.

“I’m aware.”

“Where the hell do you live, anyway?”

You told him.

Your hand slipped down to the seat beside him.

And just as Joel let out what felt like the tiniest sigh of relief—he knew where that was, and the address sounded vaguely familiar—he yelped again. This time, he managed to keep control of his truck, but it was hard.

Your fingers had returned, and they were kneading the bulge under his jeans. Joel flushed from head to toe.

He didn’t have so much as half a mind to make you stop. He didn’t want to see you slink back over to your side of the car. But you were twenty-one, and he was forty-five. And you were both under the influence to some degree. And he was driving, for fuck’s sake. Shit like that only worked in dreams—not on a highway in a town like this.

He turned the radio dial to 75. At length, he heard it loud:

‘WHO’S YOUR DADDY? WHO’S YOUR BA-A-A-ABY?’

He saw you cringe.

“C’mon, Joel,” you groaned, “That’s…yuck.”

The fingers of the one hand kept digging, rubbing, but the other reached out and turned the music down again.

Joel shifted in his seat, feeling the pleasure start to bloom from the pit of his stomach, but not wanting to let you off that easy. Briefly, he looked from the road to you.

“What? You got a problem with Toby Keith?”

“I got a problem with anyone sayin’ ‘daddy’ like that.”

You unzipped his fly. Popped the button of his jeans from underneath the soft shelf of belly hanging over it, and held him, finally. You could only cup his erection through his boxers at that point, but the friction was enough to send a shiver through the whole of the old man’s body. He hadn’t been touched like that by a hand that wasn’t his own in…he couldn’t remember how long. He sighed.

“That why you’ve got your hand down the pants of a man old enough to be your father?” Joel quipped.

He couldn’t help it.

Your hand only gripped him tighter. From the passenger seat, you’d leaned over and started crawling. Scowling.

Your knees swiftly planted themselves on the old, upholstered cushion of the bucket seat, and you slipped a touch beneath the waistband of his underwear. With a hand that was smooth and soft and eager to please, you wrapped your fingers around that base and leaned in.

“You sound like you want me to say it,” you whispered.

Under your hand, he pulsed. His gaze stayed on the road.

“Don’t make no difference to me, sweet pea,” he said, and was amazed how even he was able to keep his tone:

“But those ‘Cowboy Killers’ you wanted…”

Your fingers curled tighter. Your head sank lower.

“…they don’t come cheap, y’know.”

Oh, you knew. He saw a smile snag at the corners of your lips as you brought them to his lap, and he had to force himself to look at the road again. It was empty and dark.

The tarmac stretched out for days. The fields rolling past warned sternly, ‘Don’t let her win,’ and something more in between each tree seemed to invite deliberation—remembrance, maybe. Joel was far too focused on the feel of your mouth to give the woods a second thought.

You’d worked the first inch between your lips in a slick, obscene sort of kiss; you made room for just the head and then toyed with a bead of precum leaking out of his slit. You licked it, squeezed the shaft in your hand, and hummed while the first real moan rumbled through him.

Joel turned to putty with just that flick of your tongue. He didn’t have to see your face to know he was losing.

On the wheel, his grip grew tighter, and he choked out:

“Ain’t your fuckin’ lollypop, kid.”

Then, dropping one hand to push down on your head—make you take him to the back of your throat in one go.

“Daddy wants you to suck him like a big girl, hear?”

At the base of his cock, he felt you gag. From the bottom of his heart, Joel knew there was no sound sweeter than that. He ran his fingers over your skull and tapped gently.

“If you want those smokes,” he told you—and really, with all the warmth and moisture of your mouth enveloping him now, he’d had to try to sound rougher than he was, “You’re gonna do what daddy says and suck him right.”

You gagged again, then squeezed his denim-clad leg with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his member.

Joel yanked you by your hair and made you look up.

Your cheeks were already smeared with spit and tears. Much to his surprise, he found your eyes alight and soft.

Suffused with desire, too, from what he could see.

“Yes, daddy.” You grinned up at him.

Joel knew if he let your gaze stay on his a second longer now he’d either crash his car, blow his load, or fall in love—and he simply refused to let you succeed on any of those fronts, so he shoved your face back down.

You sucked him obediently. Greedily. Mouth growing more pliant and wet by the second, as if your jaw and salivary glands had contrived to get him as close to release as possible, as quickly as they were able.

Joel took a left onto a road he had only a dim recognition as being connected to yours, and he got that feeling again. You were bobbing your head, taking him further, flattening your tongue along the bottom of his member when his pleasure swelled inside him. At the same time, he felt a sense of dread. His hands were shaking on the wheel. He didn’t dare steal a look down to the sweet, soaked, perfect little mouth sucking him dry, because he knew that feeling would only strike twice as hard. He had to cum, or make you stop, or bring his truck to a halt.

As it was, he felt five tiny crescents sink into his thigh as you gripped him tighter, and a noise bubbled up in your mouth. Your breathing went shallow, and your lips stretched wide—you were trying, and succeeding, in deep-throating his thick, throbbing, much-too-old-for-a-girl-her-age member down close to your windpipe, and Joel could feel it. He hit his blinker, not thinking, and saw a sign that marked your street. Trepidation hit him again.

Fully, this time, in a feeling that was more like terror.

He didn’t have another second to question it, either. By the time he had the old, lone farmhouse in his sights and his heart nearly halfway up his throat with fear, your own throat pulsed, and opened the last two inches to him in. Your nose found their home in the rough, grey, wiry hairs at the base of his belly, having swallowed him whole, and Joel quickly sensed the start of what he knew too well.

He came down your throat in one, two, three, four, five long spurts, and didn’t let his foot off the gas even once.

He saw your house, approaching closer now, and paled.

No fucking way.

You’d wanted to skip the whole way up your drive.

Spit still drying on your cheeks, cum resting comfortably in your belly, and a smile as bright as the sun on your face as you waved to the F-150 pulling off toward the road, you’d never felt more alive—or smug—in your life.

“Is your dad…Lucien Flores?” Joel had asked no more than a second after his dick slipped out of your mouth.

“The one and only.”

Somehow, his face got even paler. His jaw visibly clenched, and his palm hit the top of the wheel. Hard.

It was then that you’d learned your father had hired Joel Miller on as a full-time ranch hand sometime last week.

He’d remembered the address, vaguely, but didn’t connect the dots until he’d pulled up in front of your house and damn near punctured your windpipe with his pulsing dick from how fast he’d jumped up—and cum.

His spend had almost shot through your nose with the force of it, but you didn’t mind. Once he’d revealed the wild, gory, and admittedly hilarious details of his newfound employment, you were too busy laughing your ass off to care if he’d torn your throat in two with his dick.

“So you really are a cowboy, then,” you’d said, giggling.

Joel had scowled. Rolled his eyes. Practically turned the color of a tomato when you leaned in and kissed him.

Now you were waving to him from your front door.

Joel’s truck was slow to go. The taste of him was fresh.

And there, weighing light in your back pocket while you said goodbye was a brand new pack of Marlboro Reds.

2:21 AM

You were safely in bed. You checked your phone.

Aside from fourteen missed calls, you saw:

1:09 AM – Maria

DUDE

1:09 AM

TOMMY JUST CAME HOME

1:09 AM

THAT’S NOT HIM AT THE BAR

1:13 AM

IT’S JUST JOEL!! HIS BROTHER!!!

1:13 AM

ABORT ABORT ABORT

1:42 AM

DAVE SAID YOU BEAT JOEL UP???? CALL ME

1:54 AM – Dave York

“JOEL!” you screeched, heels digging deep in the mattress as your climax came in seismic waves.

The stimulation was insane. Normally the much-older man would have been down for the count after two—and usually one—big O, but now his chest was heaving, hips relentlessly beating a punishing pace against your own.

Your walls were slick with not only your cum but his, milky ropes of his arousal making for an obscene set of sounds every time his dick slid in and out of your cunt. You could feel his balls tighten and twitch with every forthcoming spurt of him, practically reeling with the pulse of each new sticky gift inside you. His groans rumbled low, but the power and pleasure and outright primal fervor they conveyed were unmistakeable. You had to look down, feebly, to believe it yourself—Joel never fucked his way through your orgasm and his.

Then you felt a palm slide up the back of your head, and Joel held it up to make sure you watched him fuck you.

“J-Joel,” you whimpered, watching his girth disappear and reappear at least a half-dozen times as you did.

“Just a little more, honey,” he murmured against your forehead. The smack of each thrust was dizzying, “Want my pretty girl nice and full’a me before she leaves, okay?”

Joel never could let you head back to college without a few of his loads and a head full of filthy memories—something to hold you over until your next visit home. You would’ve liked to mumble back, ‘Okay,’ but then your pussy clenched around him, and his thrusts grew faster.

“My sweet girl,” he grinned, “She likes that, huh?”

You could scarcely manage a nod. The weight of your head was held fully by him, and if that wasn’t indicative enough of your fucked-out state, your face surely said the rest. When Joel leaned back to adjust the angle of his thrusts, he caught sight of your hooded, glossy stare and almost came all over again. He slowed his pace for once.

Then he dipped a finger between your body and his, just long enough to douse the tip of his digit with cum. He bottomed out inside you, watched you part your lips in a gentle gasp, and pressed his touch to that open space.

It was almost like you didn’t have the strength to suck. You just let him smear the sticky stuff along your lower lip, gaze plastered to his. Then Joel’s cock sank deeper.

“O-ow!” you whined, partly reanimated by the stretch.

“You can take it,” Joel grunted.

The double entendre wasn’t lost on you. You could, and would, take his finger and his cock inside. You suckled dumbly on the cum-drenched fingertip in assent.

But when Joel’s finger popped out of your mouth and his thrusts picked back up, you weren’t entirely convinced you would be able to hold up the second half of that deal.

It wasn’t fair. He took one magic pill, and poof, his dick stayed hard for half the fucking day. You had nothing but your youth and two shaking legs to ensure your survival. When Joel worked his cock back and forth a couple more times and it seemed your body was about ready to scream, you took hold of his biceps and squeezed tight.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

The tip of his cock nicked a soft ridge inside you, and you jolted back. Joel’s palm was still pressed to your head, holding you to him, and his hips had you pinned as well.

Instead of answering, you whimpered.

You didn’t want him to stop, but you also weren’t sure if you could handle any more. Your eyes met his, pleading.

“Can’t what?” Joel pressed, a little more sternly.

Another whimper. Inside, Joel’s cock was rubbing that pleasure point raw, and you felt another climax coming.

“Use your words.”

“Too— too—”

Each new thrust was sending stars before your eyes. Joel was one sick man if he tried to make you talk while he fucked you past the point of all intelligible speech.

“Too what? Tell me, baby.”

You’d get that fucker back someday. Joel just grinned.

“Too much,” you hissed when his hips delivered another mind-numbing push. Then, feeling pleasure threaten to peak at almost a painful degree, “Toomuchtoomucht—”

Joel continued thrusting, knowing damn well you knew what to say if you really wanted him to stop. As if to underscore this point, he tipped your head back and made you hold his gaze, features creased with a frown.

“That sure don’t sound like the safe word to me.”

It wasn’t. You knew it wasn’t. He didn’t need to tell you twice, or even breathe a second word besides. With one more brush of Joel’s thick, throbbing, implausibly hard cock, he sent you over the edge and into your fourth orgasm of the morning, hitting that spot again and again.

And again.

And again.

Just like before, Joel fucked you through each wave, catching your lips this time to stifle your cries. You might’ve gone blind for a second or two, but that was alright; the pleasure, proximity, and then the sweet, erratic pulse of his cock sending rope after rope of his cum deep inside made the overstimulation worthwhile.

Your body went limp against the bed, held tight in Joel’s grasp, when you felt that sickly sweet dichotomy of soft, tender touches and a cock lodged between your walls that was as hard as it had ever been. Still trying to console you with kisses, still trying to warm you up for another round, perhaps, Joel almost laughed out loud in your mouth when you groaned into his and whispered:

“You,” with gritted teeth, you bit out, “motherfucker.”

It was almost annoying how good Jack Abbot was.

More infuriating was the fact that he was your father’s sworn enemy, and somehow, you’d let him slide nine inches inside you today, the day before, and the day before that—going all the way back to last Halloween.

No more than two or three weeks ever passed where you weren’t sucking, fucking, or tonguing the sick bastard, and when you did, he always gave you rounds.

Occasionally, you felt a pang of remorse.

After all, you were your father’s favorite kid.

But that didn’t change the fact that you had needs, and Jack was an easy target; he’d been living next door to your family the last several years, and for as long as you could remember, you’d had a crush on the man. You just could never act on it until now, when you were already out of college, no longer living at home, and almost wholly free of the…dicier ethical considerations.

Was it wrong? Absolutely.

Were you often in the habit of thinking about that when Jack had you bent over a table and was hammering you senselessly, in secret? Hell no.

“Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” you whimpered in a low, broken refrain. You clamped your legs tighter together.

And behind you, probably grinning from ear-to-ear, Jack squeezed your hips in either hand and chuckled.

Then, shortly, he ordered, “Get up. Now.”

The orgasm that had been growing and coiling and swelling inside you for the last five minutes—and what had very nearly come to fruition a moment ago—was stolen from you just as fast. Jack pulled out, and he turned from the old, rickety table he’d just been plowing you on. He strode in the other direction.

You were holed up in your garage. Fifteen minutes ago, you’d told your mom you would go and grab the cake—your dad’s birthday cake, for his 50th celebration. About five minutes after that, Jack had announced he was going to get more refreshments for the party.

This was meant to be a mid-event quickie, and now your neighbor was walking over to one of your family’s cars. Patting the hood affectionately and beckoning.

“No fucking shot, Abbot.” You shook your head, resolute. “We are not fucking anywhere close to that.”

The man must’ve had scrambled eggs for brains if he thought you’d even consider having sex on your dad’s 1975 Aston Martin V8. The thing was a classic in mint condition and your father’s prized possession. His baby. Frankly, aside from your mother and your siblings and you, that vehicle was his pride and joy. If someone so much as breathed too hard next to it, he’d have a meltdown. And that wasn’t an exaggeration.

Now Jack was stroking the hood underneath his palm.

Inwardly, you winced and wished you made better decisions in life. Maybe, someday soon, you would.

But that day was not today, apparently.

“Get your cute ass over here, sweetheart.”

Like clockwork, you took your cute ass over there. You only grimaced twice when your backside hit the bright, unblemished, blindingly cherry-red surface of the car and when Jack dragged you by your legs to the edge.

You spread yourself wide, let him flip the hem of your gingham dress over your hips, and shit—he felt good.

Twice as nice as when he was hitting it from the back. Now, gliding in until the firm, round globes of his balls kissed your rear, and the thatch of mostly gray hairs at the base of him tickled your skin, he felt like a dream.

Jack knew it.

He communicated as much when he planted a hand beside your hip on the hood of the car and started thrusting relentlessly. When he plunged in so deep the tip of his cock hit your cervix and you couldn’t keep a loud, shuddering cry from slipping out between your lips and he leaned in and kissed you, mouth smiling.

Between the breakneck speed of his thrusts and the wet, sloppy kissing, the man somehow managed it:

“Whose pussy is this?”

At first, you pretended not to hear him.

The arrogant prick already had an ego the size of Alaska and didn’t need any further encouragement. Plus, you were about to come, and you needed this.

So you let your head loll back a little, and you stopped kissing. You closed your eyes. Rolled your lower half furiously, feverishly in time with each maddening stroke, and you grabbed Jack’s shoulder for leverage.

In return, you felt him grip your chin abruptly.

He tilted up, forcing you to snap your gaze back open.

Your ankles had just crossed behind his back. He was canting his hips even harder than before, plunging to the furthest depths of your body and scraping your insides with an unspeakable, near-dizzying pleasure. Each thrust hit straight through to your core, and you could feel your warmth leaking out from where he stuffed you. Sweet essence trickled down his cock.

He tightened his hold on your face, “Whose is it?”

At the same time, a knot constricted in your stomach. Your toes curled, your breath hitched, and by the feeling that had started up from the base of your spine, you sensed your climax was as near as it ever was.

Fuck it.

With your eyes locked on his, you parted your lips.

Still bouncing on his cock, now reaching for his other shoulder with your free hand and then lifting yourself slightly off of the car, you held tighter onto Jack, too.

And you couldn’t help it: you had to smile a little when you said it, body all but bursting at the seams with your pleasure, “It’s yours, Jack. This pussy is yours.”

“All mine?”

“All yours.”

“Then let me come inside her.”

Fuck, if that didn’t take you by surprise.

Leave it to Jack to propose the most batshit thing.

You’d never let any man inside you without a condom. Never wanted to take that risk. It would be incredibly stupid for you to do it now, with your next door neighbor who was as old as your father—and was hated by your father, only invited to this party because your mother had made you ask—between your legs.

Again, you didn’t think. You made the bad decision.

You mumbled, ‘OK, whatever’ and then watched Jack Abbott withdraw, take off the condom, sling it somewhere over your shoulder, and push back in.

Your body welcomed him gratefully. Shaking when his cock made contact with your velvety walls and there was nothing in between you but the warmth and your own shared, sticky fluids, you almost couldn’t breathe.

He sawed in and out, again and again. Went mindless with it, apparently, as his brows drew in closer, and his whole expression tightened. The next groan strained.

“Aw, baby,” Jack said, almost mournfully. “Pussy’s fuckin’…chokin’ me. I’m gonna lose it in a second.”

You were, too.

You didn’t give him—or yourself—the chance to second-guess this braindead move and simply let him rut deeper inside. Kissed him messily and moaned.

Strokes went quicker, harder, wet and loud and frantic.

You felt him twitch; that was when you hit your end.

Your climax landed with a force you didn’t expect, and half your body seized at once. You shrieked. Your cunt spasmed around Jack, effectively milking his own release from his now-throbbing cock, and you felt every rope spit thick and heavy and warm through your walls. He coated your insides with his seed, and then he kept right on fucking you like the only awareness he might have possessed was in the tip of his member.

Jack grunted, and he fucked his spend deeper.

“That’s my girl,” he said softly. Kissed your forehead.

Still floating somewhere in the ether, you nodded back.

It went without saying another word that you were his.

“You ever let one of them…stuck-up, dick-for-brain boys your own age blow a load inside you like this…” And as if to emphasize his point, he pulled out and let a little white trail of semen spill out from where he’d been. “You and me are gonna have a talk, young lady.”

You wanted to roll your eyes, but you were too tired.

When Jack told you to push more of it out, you did.

Five, six, seven slow pulses of your walls, and his seed came oozing out, trickling from a spent and sated hole.

Straight onto the fresh red paint of your father’s car.

You knew you had every reason to be humiliated at that, so you moved to stand, shortly. Tried to shake the thought out of your head. Smoothed the skirt of your dress down, then looked around, momentarily forgetting where the refrigerator in the garage was at.

Right.

There.

“You know,” Jack called as you started the other way. Yanking his jeans and his boxers back up, the buckle of his belt jingling as he did. “This car’s just as old as me.”

Mid-stride, you had to fight to keep from wrinkling your nose. You stopped in front of the fridge, swung it open, and grabbed the cake. Kicked the door shut.

“1975,” Jack stretched the sound of the number, grinning when he met your gaze and you drew closer.

Don’t make me kick your teeth in, Abbot.

You’d barely made it within spitting distance of the vehicle again before the man was pulling you to him, arm looping around your waist. You held back the cake.

“You’re gonna make me drop it,” you warned him.

Jack’s grin stretched wider. “Hate to see that.”

Just like your father would surely despise knowing what you and his archnemesis had done to sully his car. The look on his face, the raw, unmitigated ang—

“Hey.”

You meant to stop Jack with that word.

It didn’t work—he was already prying the lid off the cake’s container. Taking it off and flinging it sideways.

“Jack, that’s Dad’s fucking birthday cake!”

“Just taking a little off the top, OK? Relax.”

Before you could try and stop him, it was too late. The man dragged his middle finger through a big, thick, ivory-colored corner of the buttercream-frosted cake. Thankfully, the whole thing was so large, and the icing’s pattern so ornately, crazily drawn, that you really couldn’t tell where Jack had snagged from.

Still, you shot him a look that could kill.

“Are you crazy?!” you hissed. “Trying to get us cau—”

“Open.”

At Jack’s voice, your eyes widened a bit.

You didn’t notice it at first, but now you saw it plain as anything: your neighbor had lowered his hand to the hood of your father’s car. Swiped the finger loaded with icing through the mess of his cum still sitting on it, then lifted that hand again. Up toward your mouth.

“Ew, Jack, get the fuck out—”

You wanted to be grossed out by it.

“Open wide, sweetheart.”

You really, really, did.

“C’mon. That’s it.”

Your lips parted.

“Right there.”

You let it in.

“Good girl.” Jack grinned, seeing your mouth close around his finger coated with frosting and his come.

You swallowed and swore you’d start making smarter choices tomorrow. Seriously, no more fucking around.

The two of you started back for the party.

Right before you made it out, Jack pivoted.

“Shit. Almost forgot.” Jogging back to the car.

And, as if this afternoon couldn’t get any more depraved and disgusting, you watched your neighbor peel the condom you and him had used off the windshield of your father’s car. He waved it a second, taunting, before resuming his path back to you.

Out of habit, you jumped a little.

“Don’t even think about it, Abbot.”

But, luckily for you, Jack stopped short.

Instead of offering you another coital-flavored refreshment, the man paused at the car’s gas cap.

You groaned as soon as you saw him do it.

Smirking, Jack flipped open the metal door, and, without hesitating a second, he threw the used rubber in the place where a gas pump was supposed to go.

He shut it again.

You called him a lunatic.

As you strolled outside, back into the party and all of the noise, Jack took the cake so you wouldn’t have to carry it. Ever the gentleman and a strictly platonic friend who was trying his damndest to hide the fact that he’d just come inside his enemy’s daughter and had her eat it, he wrapped a casual arm around you.

He squeezed your shoulder. Leaned in close, once. And, as quietly as he could manage it, he whispered:

“Between you and that precious car of your dad’s, it looks like I’ve popped both of his cherries now, huh?”

Just one more inch to the left... come on, you can do it.

The squirrel is right there on the branch, barely moving. The crosshair wobbles slightly as you try to steady the rifle, adjusting your aim.

Just press the damn trigger and-

"What the fuck are you doin'?"

You flinch. Before you know it, the squirrel dissappears.

Great.

You glance back at Joel, who’s standing a few feet behind you with that familiar look of irritation already settling across his face.

"What does it look like I’m doing?" you mutter. "I’m trying to aim-"

"Give me that," before you can react, he steps forward and pulls the rifle from your hands.

"You’re not shootin’ a squirrel."

Why the hell not? Isn't that the whole point of this boring-ass lesson? To learn how to hunt?

Stupid little girl can't even shoot a fluffy rat, he must think. Afraid of some blood, maybe?

That's not the case at all, actually. And he knows it.

You’ve killed dozens of infected, and you lost count long ago of how many noses you’ve broken after drunk men tried to get handsy with you at the Tipsy Bison.

But this is different.

Yeah, you understand that you have to eat, and this is the only way to get real food besides the oats meant for the horses.

Still.. these are innocent animals you have to pull the trigger on. Not walking fungus that's trying to tear your throat out. Just some poor creatures who deserve to live as much as you do. Probably more than those pigs who only ever think about getting their dicks wet.

But how could he understand?

Mr. Miller is not the sentimental type, as you’ve come to learn. From what you’ve gathered during these lessons, his philosophy seems pretty simple.

Eat or starve. Kill or be killed. Simple as that.

To him, it’s probably nothing more than meat walking around on four legs.

Not all that different from how most of the men in your community look at you, anyway. Like you’re just a pair of tits and a warm place to stick it in.

Disgusting.

"You really that eager to waste a bullet on a squirrel?" Joel says, already checking the rifle like you handed it to him wrong.

You frown. "I thought we were hunting, Mr. Miller."

"We are."

"Then wha-"

He jerks his chin towards the trees. "But you can’t feed two people on somethin’ that fits in the palm of your hand."

Your mouth closes, whatever sarcastic remark you’d been ready to throw out dying on your tongue.

Joel glances at you briefly, voice rough but matter-of-fact.

"Wait for a rabbit. Or a deer if we’re lucky."

Joel slings the rifle over his shoulder and starts walking ahead, humming under his breath.

You tilt your head, watching him go.

"You really that eager to waste a bullet on a squirrel?" you repeat silently, imitating the low tone of his voice.

Carefully, you hold your hand in front of your face and wiggle your fingers like a little puppet mouth, opening and closing them to match the rhythm of his words.

"You can’t feed two people on somethin’ that fits in the palm of your hand," you mock him again under your breath while rolling your eyes.

Gotta keep an eye on the ground… check the traps… look for fresh prints in the dirt…

You’re sick and tired of all this bullshit.

Somehow it’s always your fault every time you don’t manage to catch anything.

"Maybe if your noisy old knees didn’t scare off every animal, I could actually catch something, you asshole," you mutter while following behind him, whispering it a little louder than you meant to.

Joel stops.

"Did you say something?"

You stiffen immediately. "Uh, no-" you shake your head quickly, forcing a shrug. "Must’ve been the wind, Mr. Miller."

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

To say that you’re bored out of your mind would be... an understatement.

For the past fifteen minutes of your life, you’ve been leaning against a tree, straining your ears for any sign that something has finally stepped into the trap you set.

Don’t move. Stay silent.

Joel’s orders.

Which means any attempt at making conversation with him is completely out of the question.

But you’ve never been particularly good at following orders.

Especially his.

Your eyes drift over to him a few yards away. He’s sitting on a tree stump with his back turned to you, elbows resting on his knees, rifle balanced easily in his hands. Even though you can't see it you can bet that his face is set in that permanent scowl of his, eyes fixed somewhere ahead in the trees.

He hasn’t moved in minutes.

Doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t sigh. Doesn’t even look bored.

Just sits there, perfectly still, listening.

Meanwhile you feel like your brain is slowly leaking out of your ears. The forest is too quiet, the trap too far away to see, and the whole thing feels like a bad joke.

"Mr. Miller…" you whisper, just loud enough to reach him.

"What?"

"Are we gonna sit here all day?"

"If that’s what it takes."

You shift your weight against the trunk, the bark digging into your shoulder. You squint your eyes at the watch on his wrist, trying to figure out how long it's been since you rode out earlier this afternoon, but you notice that it's broken.

"We’ve been here forever."

Joel finally glances back at you, brows knitting together slightly.

"Ten minutes. Fifteen, maybe."

"Well, it feels like forever," you mutter, kicking lightly at a pebble near your boot.

"Quit complainin'," he says flatly.

"I’m not complaining," you whisper back, folding your arms.

Joel raises an eyebrow at that, clearly unconvinced.

"Sure sounds like it."

"Well, I'm not complaining."

You turn your head and roll your eyes for the millionth time today while sighing dramatically.

"Patience," he mutters, more to himself than to you.

"Patience my ass," you murmur under your breath.

Easy for him to say. He looks very comfortable sitting there perfectly still.

Meanwhile your legs are starting to ache, your shoulders are stiff, and the trap you set might as well not exist for all the action it’s getting.

The sun is beating down through the trees, turning the clearing into a damn oven. Sweat gathers at the back of your neck and slides slowly down your spine. Your shirt clings unpleasantly to your skin, and the air feels thick enough to chew.

You shift your weight again, trying to catch even the smallest breeze.

Joel notices anyway.

"Stop fidgetin’."

"I’m not fidgeting," you say, tugging uselessly at the collar of your shirt.

"You are."

"It’s hot," you mutter.

"It’s summer, it's supposed to be hot."

"Jesus fucking Christ, I'm losing it," you mumble exasperated, shifting your eyes up to the sky for a brief moment.

You glare at the back of his head feeling another type of heat creeping up your spine, frustration boiling under your skin.

Would it really be so wrong to shoot him in the head?

Probably.

But the thought is tempting.

Joel shifts slightly where he’s sitting, adjusting the rifle in his hands as he scans the tree line again, completely unaware of the murderous thoughts brewing a few steps behind him.

A salty bead runs down your temple, tickles your cheek when it rolls down. You wipe it away with the back of your hand before it can slide down your chin. A fly buzzes past your ear, its red little eyes shining in the light. You swat at it half-heartedly while scrunching your nose. You're sweating like a sinner in church and fighting the urge to scratch the skin off your arms where a few mosquito bites seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

Very thrilling lesson indeed.

The forest hums with heat and insects. Nothing moves, nothing snaps the trap, nothing does anything at all. So you decide to do something. For once in your life, you'll be cordial with him.

"Heard they're playing that song you like at the Tipsy Bison tonight. Maybe we could have a drink after-"

"Can't, I'm busy."

"Of course you are."

Doing what, exactly? Strumming that old guitar of his? He isn't even that good at it. It's not like you've strolled down his street multiple times just to hear him playing on his porch.

You're not sure why, but you go on.

Bad decision.

"So.. are we going on patrol together again next Monday?"

Ah, yes. It's not enough that you're practically forced to take these lessons with Joel, you're paired up with the man for patrol shifts every Monday.

"Yeah. Now can you be quiet? You're scarin' all the damn animals."

You exhale slowly through your nose and stare out into the trees again, trying, really trying, to follow his stupid instructions for once.

Don’t move. Stay quiet. Listen.

A long minute passes.

Then another.

And just when you’re about to open your mouth again-

Snap.

Your head jerks up.

"There!" you shout, excitement creeping into your voice before you can stop it. "Did you hear that?"

Joel stiffens, head tilting towards where the trap is hidden.

Your heart races with excitement. Finally, you've caught something. You push off the tree, stepping forward without bothering to see if he's following you.

"Wait," Joel mutters, low and sharp.

But you’re already sprinting, barely containing your grin.

The rustling comes again, louder this time, and your eyes dart to the trap. A small gray blur struggles against the snare. Your grin spreads for a split second at the sight of its frantic movements then falters when you realize what you're looking at.

Your stomach drops.

"Motherfucker-"

Joel’s eyes narrow, scanning the struggling squirrel you tried to shoot earlier. He kneels slowly, hands hovering over the trapped animal.

"You… caught it," he says flatly, voice more annoyed than impressed.

The squirrel chitters angrily, its squeaky protests mirroring the rage simmering under your skin. You can’t help but glare at it.

"Goddammit," you mutter.

All that waiting for… this.

Fucking squirrel.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Well, would you look at that.

About a mile out, a damn fine stag, close to four hundred pounds, if you had to guess, is rubbing its antlers against the trunk of a tree.

You watch it through the cracked binoculars Joel handed you a few days ago when you went on patrol together, barely daring to breathe. The animal moves slowly, powerful shoulders shifting under its fur as it scratches its horns against the bark.

This might be the best thing you’ve seen since starting these lessons with Joel.

You lower the binoculars just slightly, glancing over at him.

Good luck spotting that beast with your shitty eyesight, Mr. Miller.

Okay, let's see. You've located your prey, now you just have to.. kill it. Easier said than done.

It's not even about mercy anymore, screw that shit. What if Bambi decides that he's not happy with you pointing a rifle at him and comes charging over here, jamming those sharp antlers straight through your chest?

Mr. Miller seems broad enough to be a human shield if-

"Did you see somethin'?"

You lower the binoculars a little, still staring at the spot where the stag is scratching its antlers against the tree.

"...Maybe."

Joel shifts beside you, squinting toward the distant tree line like that’ll magically sharpen his eyesight.

"What kinda maybe?"

You raise the cracked binoculars again, watching the massive animal move its head, antlers still scraping the bark.

"A big one," you murmur.

Joel pauses.

"How big?"

You glance at him briefly, swallowing before you give him an answer.

"Big enough to feed half the town."

"Lemme see."

You hesitate for a second, then lower the binoculars and hand them to him. Joel takes them, lifting the cracked lenses to his eyes as he looks in the direction you point to.

"Well, I'll be damned. Get the rifle."

"What? No," you shake your head immediately, "Are you crazy?"

Joel lowers the binoculars, turning to stare at you like you’ve just sprouted a second head.

"The hell you mean no? You just said it yourself. We could feed half of Jackson with-"

You gesture vaguely towards the stag, glaring back at the man.

"Did you see how big that thing is?"

Joel follows your hand with a glance, then looks back at you, unimpressed.

"That’s kinda the point, sweetheart."

Sweetheart? Well that's new.

"What if it kills us?" you whisper, lowering your voice instinctively even though the stag is a mile away.

Joel exhales through his nose.

"It’s just a deer."

"Yeah," you say, snatching the binoculars back from his hands. "A deer the size of a damn horse, maybe bigger."

You lift them to your eyes again.

The stag is still there, massive antlers catching the light as it paws lazily at the ground.

Then something else moves.

You blink.

" …Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me."

"What."

"There’s two now, Mr. Miller."

Joel leans closer immediately. "What d’you mean two?"

You lower the binoculars just enough to glance at him.

"I guess your dinner has a girlfriend. A doe just walked up," you mutter, raising them again. "Right next to him."

Joel snatches the binoculars back from you and swears under his breath after he sees the pair of deer.

"They’re pretty cute together," you whisper, a grin tugging at your lips, "And you kinda look alike. See? He’s got the same frown as you."

Joel glances at you out of the corner of his eye, one brow twitching.

"You comparin’ me to a damn deer now?" he mutters, voice low and gruff, but you can see the small smile he tries to hide.

You shrug innocently.

Maybe Mr. Miller is not that bad after all.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Wrong.

Mr. Miller might as well be the devil himself.

Because in the brief moment you started thinking you might actually grow to tolerate the man, a tiny fawn stepped out from the bushes beside the deer.

And now Joel is absolutely set on making you kill it.

You stare through the cracked binoculars, your breath turning shallow.

The fawn stays tucked against the doe’s side, all fragile legs and uncertain steps, barely aware of the world beyond its mother’s shadow.

"Rifle," he says.

You don’t move.

He steps a little closer, voice dropping.

"It’s an easier shot."

Your fingers tighten around the strap at your shoulder. He shifts his weight, boots grinding softly into the dirt.

"Look at it," he mutters. "It's barely steady on those legs."

The stag lifts its head, alert but calm, the doe flicks an ear, the fawn shifts closer to her. You swallow, lowering the binoculars slowly. Your chest feels tight as you tug on the strap, pulling the rifle into your hands.

"Mr. Miller-"

"Don’t," he cuts in, voice firm but not raised. "Clean shot. Quick."

Quick.

Like that makes it better.

"I can’t," you say before you can stop yourself, squeezing the weapon in your hands.

Joel looks at you then. Really looks at you.

You can see the irritation there, simmering just beneath the surface, but you don’t really care. Maybe that’s what you wanted from the start. To get under his skin. Maybe that’s why you agreed to these lessons in the first place, just to make his life harder.

"Yes, you can."

"No," you whisper, shaking your head. "I won’t," you turn your head towards him, staring into his eyes defiantly.

You won't because you truly can't? Or because you just want to irritate him further?

As much as you would like to deny it, there's a certain appeal to him when he gets all mad like this that draws you in.

You like to see the thick vein in his neck pulsing beneath sun-warmed skin, his jaw clenching under that salt-and-pepper beard of his, his eyes narrowing like a predator watching his prey.

And somewhere in your mind there are thoughts you try your hardest to push back. Questions you don't dare to find the answers to.

What would that protruding vein feel like under your fingertips? How would his steady pulse thrum against your palm if you pressed your hand there, just to see if it would quicken? Would his breath hitch if you dared to tighten your grip and squeeze?

What would happen if you dragged your thumb along the edge of his jaw while it’s clenched like that? Would it stay locked tight beneath your touch, or would it soften? Would his beard scratch against your skin if you leaned close enough?

You’ve caught yourself wondering what that scratch would feel like against the curve of your neck… lower, along the swell of your chest… even lower still, where heat pools heavy and restless between your thighs.

Would you push him away or pull him closer?

And those eyes.

What if they weren’t narrowed in frustration, but darkened for an entirely different reason? What if that sharp, assessing stare slid lower, slower? Would it still feel like being hunted?

What would it be like to stand bare in front of him? Would his gaze burn into your skin like it does now? Would you freeze beneath it or would you hold his stare, daring him not to look away? And if he did look away, where would his eyes wander?

The air between you shifts. The wind moves through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a bird takes off.

Joel’s jaw tightens again.

"You want to learn?" he asks, not looking at you now.

"I do, Mr. Miller. But-"

"This is how you start. You want to prove you can do this? That’s your chance."

The fawn nudges the doe again.

Joel’s voice softens just slightly, almost coaxing.

"C’mon. Easy target. Don’t overthink it."

Prove you can do this. Prove it to yourself. To him.

All those years of him looking at you like you were too soft, too reckless, too young, it could all end right here. One clean pull of the trigger and you’d finally be standing on equal ground.

You want to. God, you want to.

But your finger won’t move.

"C’mere," he mutters.

Before you can argue, he steps in behind you. Close.

Too close.

He reaches for the rifle still hanging uselessly from your shoulder and guides it up, his hands firm but controlled. The barrel rises toward the tree line, steady under his direction.

"Feet shoulder-width," he murmurs near your ear. "Don’t lock your knees."

His chest brushes against your back as he adjusts your stance with a subtle nudge of his boot against yours.

One of his hands slides over yours on the stock, steadying it. The other comes up to correct the angle, fingers grazing your forearm before settling.

"Relax your shoulders," he says, voice lower now, rougher. "You’re too tense."

Easy for him to say.

His breath ghosts against your temple as he leans in to look down the sights with you, his cheek almost level with yours.

"There," he murmurs. "See it?"

You do.

The fawn shifts its head lower, trying to nurse from its mother.

Joel’s hand tightens just enough over yours to still the tremor he feels there.

"Slow your breath," he says quietly. "In… hold…"

Your pulse pounds in your ears. You've never been this close to him before. As much as you despise him right now, the solid heat of him at your back, the weight of his hands over yours, it all feels kinda.. nice. There's an annoying feeling bellow your belly, a pulse between your legs that aches, begging to be touched. And from the hardness you feel poking your lower back, a stiff length pressing insistently into you, you can tell that he feels the same way as you.

Dirty old man.

"I’ve got it," he adds, steady and certain, though his hands don’t leave yours. "Just squeeze. Don’t jerk it."

His fingers press lightly over your knuckles, guiding the pressure.

"Nice and easy. I know you can do it."

Being this close to him feels suffocating.

You can feel the scrape of his beard when he moves his head to the side. The low rumble of his voice right by your ear. The steady rise and fall of his chest against your back. It presses in on you from all sides.

Your breathing syncs with his without you meaning it to.

In. Hold.

Your mind goes strangely quiet. Blank. Like you’ve stepped into something warm and heavy and dangerous. Like you could just lean back into him and let him take over entirely. Tighten his fingers around yours, drag his lips against your shoulder, press his stiff groin further into you. Anything he'd want, really.

For a split second, you forget why you were resisting in the first place.

You forget the deer. Forget the argument. Forget everything.

You’re caught in it, him guiding you, his calloused thumb pressing over your knuckles, his hot breath making goosebumps appear on your skin.

And then, it hits you. All of his irritating criticisms.

"Why'd you have to be so fuckin' loud all the time?"

"You've got some real growin' up to do."

"A goddamn pain in the ass, that's what you are."

The way he always corrects you. Looks down on you. Talks like you’re just a silly little girl.

You'll show him what a silly little girl can do.

The trance you were in shatters.

Suddenly, his touch burns your skin in an unpleasant way. The sound of his steady breath does nothing but fuel your newfound loathing. The pressure on your lower back sickens you.

Surprised to see you can still get it up, you old creep.

Just before the trigger breaks, you move.

You jerk the rifle hard to the side as you pull it. The gunshot cracks through the clearing, violent and echoing.

The deer get scared instantly. The stag bolts first, massive body lunging into the woods. The doe follows. The fawn stumbles and scrambles after them, vanishing into bushes and trees in a storm of hooves and snapping branches.

Gone.

Silence crashes back in their wake. The rifle kicks against your shoulder as smoke curls lazily from the barrel. Joel’s hands drop away from yours and you can't help but somehow miss his touch.

You keep your eyes on the trees where the deer disappeared, lowering the rifle slowly like it suddenly weighs twice as much in your hands.

"What the hell was that?!" he shouts, his voice carrying through the forest.

You spin to face him, rifle still in hand, pulse hammering in your ears. You shrug, forcing indifference into your shoulders, a smirk playing at your lips. "Guess I’m not as good as you thought, Mr. Miller."

Joel lets out a sharp, disbelieving huff. "You think this is funny? You-"

"I think," you cut him off, "that maybe I just missed."

"Missed?!" he barks, eyes wide, jaw tight. "You moved the rifle! You yanked it halfway to hell!"

"Maybe I did!" you yell back, letting your frustration spill over as you take a step towards him. "Maybe I didn’t feel like shooting it!"

"Didn’t feel like it?!" he roars, fists clenching. "You’ve got meat right there, and you’re letting it walk away because what? You got sentimental about it?!"

"It was just a baby!" you shout, your voice cracking slightly. "They were a family!"

"Oh, don’t give me this bullshit, darlin'. We both know what happened there. You didn’t care about the fuckin’ animals."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Joel’s eyes narrow, a vein pulsing at his temple, and he drags a sharp breath through his teeth trying to reign himself in. You're standing face to face now, you're not sure how that came to be.

"Don't play dumb, now. You did that on purpose, just to annoy me," he growls.

"Maybe I did," you spit back.

The anger that flashes across his face is all the warning you get before his hand clamps around your arm. His fingers dig into your skin as he turns and starts dragging you through the bushes without another word.

"Hey, what the fu-"

"That's it. We're goin' back to Jackson," he snaps, pushing through the undergrowth and forcing you to stumble after him. "I'm done with all these games you're playin'."

You immediately grab at his hand with your free one, trying to pry his fingers off your arm. "Games? What games? Are you fucking crazy? Let me go-"

"Shut your goddamn mouth!" he barks over his shoulder, tightening his grip when you fight him. "You know exactly what I'm talkin' about. You don't even need these lessons."

Yeah, well. He's got that right at least.

You dig your heels into the dirt while he’s still dragging you, boots scraping harsh lines through the soil as you try to slow him down. "Mr. Miller, what the hell are you doing? You're gonna rip my arm out!"

He barely falters, hauling you another step forward through snapping twigs and dry leaves.

"You're here only to drive me crazy with your pissy-"

"Joel, let go!"

You wrench your arm hard, fingers still clawed around his wrist. This time he stops. His grip loosens just enough for you to yank yourself free.

You stumble back half a step, rubbing the throbbing skin like an animal licking its wounds, then shove him hard in the chest.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

He staggers back, more from surprise than the force of it.

"What’s wrong with me?" he snaps. "You’re the one pullin’ stunts out here! Fuckin' crazy woman-"

Your hand flies up before you can think better of it, aimed straight at the tanned skin stretched over his cheekbone.

In an instant, his fingers clamp around your wrist, stopping your palm just shy of striking him. The silence that follows is dense and suffocating, charged with Joel’s simmering fury and raw, consuming hunger. Shadowed and dangerous, he fixes his gaze on you, locking onto your glare.

You manage to free your wrist somehow and shove him again, palms hitting his chest harder this time, huffing out a quiet breath.

"You don’t get to grab me like that!"

Your hands slam into him again, and this time his back hits the rough bark of a tree. The impact knocks the breath out of his lungs harshly.

You’re still pressing into him, chest heaving, pulling him in instead of pushing this time. His jaw tightens, eyes dark and blazing as he looks down at you from where he’s pinned against the tree.

Your fists are still knotted in his shirt, fabric twisted tight between your fingers. You can feel his heartbeat through it, pounding almost as hard as yours. 

He doesn’t try to shove you off, his hands are idle at his sides, which is odd. He just stares at you.

Your body is nearly flush against his, your forearm braced against his chest to keep him pinned. If you lean forward just a little more, your mouth would brush his. If he tilts his head down just slightly-

What the hell are you thinking about?

The forest has gone completely quiet around you.

All you can hear is breathing. His. Yours.

Your anger is still there, but it’s tangled now with something else.

The same heat from before. The same ache low in your belly. It’s worse like this, when he's not behind you. When you can see his face mere inches away from yours.

His gaze drops to your lips and for a moment you think that he wants the same thing as you do.

What is it that you want?

When his eyes come back up to yours, they’re different. You can't tell what changed, but whatever it is it makes your knees buckle.

"You done?" he asks quietly.

"Done?" you echo softly, almost mocking.

Something in you snaps.

Maybe it’s the anger. Maybe it’s the weeks of tension. Maybe it’s the way he's looking at you know.

It doesn't matter what force drives you to do it, you surge forward and kiss him.

It’s not soft, not tentative. It’s teeth and heat and frustration poured into the press of your mouth against his.

For half a heartbeat he doesn’t move, rigid against the tree and you fear that you might've made a mistake, might've misinterpreted his lack of action.

Then he exhales sharply against your lips and his hands are on you. One grips your waist, the other slides up your back, fingers spreading wide against your spine.

It’s messy and hungry, mouths parting, breath tangling. His beard scrapes against your skin, rough enough to make you gasp into him.

Your hands leave his shirt only to slide up his neck, fingers brushing that vein you were staring at minutes ago. You feel it pulse beneath your touch, a throbbing so tentative that springs an urge within you, a need to clench your hand down. He makes a low sound in his throat at that, the vibrations hitting right against your palm.

Your hands slide down to his chest and push again, forcing him to sink lower against the trunk. He resists on instinct, he’s stronger, obviously stronger, but then he lets it happen, melting against your touch. Bark scrapes behind him as he slides down the tree, your mouths still fused together, breaths tangling, noses bumping in the frantic rhythm of it.

You follow him down, pressing your knees into the dirt on either side of his hips, caging him in. Your hands brace on his shoulders to steady yourself, and the position forces you impossibly close to him.

Your hips shift without thinking, grinding down on his crotch. The friction pulls a restrained, involuntary sound from his throat which has you smirking from ear to ear.

"Are you mad at me, Mr. Miller?" you almost purr at him.

He turns his head to the side, avoiding your insistent gaze. Now where's that hunk of a man who was dragging you through the forest a few moments ago?

You lean over, crooning at his turned profile, almost amused at his reaction to your rhetorical wry question.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Joel.."

Bullshit.

You wield his name like a tool, repeating it until it begins to wear him down. "I’m sorry, Joel."

He doesn’t answer you.

It’s excruciating.

You’d rather be fighting or screaming. Hell, you’d rather he slapped you across the face for everything you’ve put him through lately.

Something. Anything.

He always has something ready, a cutting retort, a sharp insult. He always pushes back.

That’s what you’re used to. Pushing and pushing and pushing until you've brought him past the point of no return now. You wouldn't be able to go back to how it was before, you know that.

These interminable lessons will cease come dusk when you return to Jackson, a thought that once delighted you. Now, the prospect of not getting to spend your afternoons with him elicits a bothersome feeling low in your belly. A bottomless void you're no longer certain you can fill.

Will he avoid you once it's over? Will your eyes search for him out of habit, only to find his usual booth at the Tipsy Bison empty? Will you be paired with someone else for patrol every Monday, riding out with a stranger when you're supposed to be alongside him? Will you be shunned entirely from his life?

Well, I guess you're gonna have to fuck around and find out later.

Your hand trembles as you rest it against his chest, slowly gliding down the firm plane of his stomach. His breath catches, but he still won’t look at you.

Even so, you notice it: the faint twitch of his brows, the slight parting of his lips, the flicker of want buried inside those angry eyes.

There’s an opening.

"Could you ever forgive me?" you murmur, soft and coaxing, your fingers drifting towards the waistband of his jeans, towards the heavy silver buckle resting there.

At last, he turns. His gaze locks with yours, hungry, though irritation still lingers beneath it.

You pull at his belt, easing it free slowly, never breaking eye contact with his conflicted stare. "I can make it up to you, Joel," you whisper.

He says nothing, only watches as your hands move to the button of his jeans, then to the zipper, working carefully.

There’s a subtle shift as your fingers slip beneath the fabric. He hardens for you almost instantly, swelling against the confines of his clothes within seconds.

It’s more than enough encouragement, everything you could have hoped for.

What are you doing? Never in your life have you acted like this with a man, especially not with him. This wasn't supposed to end up like this, not at all. You find that he's been driving you crazy, just as you have driven him to insanity.

Why are you even doing this? For your own satisfaction, just to prove a ridiculous point to yourself? Or to him? To fulfill a twisted fantasy you weren't even aware of five minutes ago?

Nah, there’s no use lying to yourself anymore. Five minutes, really? Try five weeks. Five months. Hell, maybe five years, ever since the day he first set foot in Jackson and your relentless back-and-forth began. You’d never admit it, not even if you were held at gunpoint, but there have been countless nights when he’s slipped uninvited into your thoughts, into your fantasies.

You’ve whispered his name into the dark, muffling the sound in your pillow as if he might somehow hear you. Your fingers worked between your thighs, desperate and clumsy, trying to find release pretending they were his fingers instead. Long and thick and curling just right, finding that sweet, hidden spot deep inside you that you were struggling to reach.

And still, after all those uneventful nights when you needed him, you could never resist taunting him whenever the opportunity arose. Maybe that’s just how your mind works. In some sick, twisted way that draws pleasure from tormenting this man.

But now? Now you’re on the verge of tasting everything you’ve secretly craved.

And if that means softening your words, wrapping each sentence in honey instead of venom, then so be it. You’ll sheath that razor-sharp tongue of yours, just this once, and hope the universe is kind enough to grant you this fleeting, intoxicating moment of bliss.

His skin burns hot beneath your knuckles as your hands trail down the plane of his lower abdomen. Curling your fingers around the base of him, you use both hands to ease him free.

God, he’s even bigger than anything your most shameless fantasies ever managed to conjure. Your eyes glimmer like the sun piercing the horizon at dawn, like the stars among the moon when you finally cast your eyes down.

You look up at Joel through your lashes, noticing the scar on his nose as it scrunches when you give him an experimental squeeze. He finally exhales, letting his head rest back on the tree behind him. At last, he relaxes and yields to the pleasure you draw him into. It feels as though you drain away his doubt and defiance until nothing of it remains.

You swipe your thumb over the flushed tip once, before letting go completely and rising slowly from his lap, never breaking eye contact. He still hasn't spoken a word since you kissed him. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe it's good. No, great that you've managed to silence him just with your lips on his and a hand on his dick.

Your hands move to your hips, fingers hooking into the waistband of your jeans. You push them down inch by inch, letting them drag over your hips. His eyes follow the motion, dark and heavy, jaw tight as if he’s physically restraining himself from touching you.

You lower yourself back onto his lap, the cold press of his belt buckle and the rough denim beneath you dragging against the bare skin of your ass. The sensation pulls a sharp breath from your lungs.

You shift slightly, testing the closeness, feeling the tension coil tighter with every inch of contact, with every glide of your clothed clit over him. You feel his hands, rough calluses digging into the flesh of your thighs, inching up until they settle on your hips.

"You’re pushin’ it," he mutters, but his voice lacks the earlier bite.

Finally, he says something. Although it's not praising or encouraging, it's not spurning you either. If he wanted you to stop you know he could put an end to it all with little to no effort.

"Thought you liked when I push, Joel," you whisper.

You lean in, close enough that your lips brush the edge of his beard without quite kissing him. Your head dips lower, into the crook of his neck. You inhale the scent of his skin, gunpowder and sweat, leather and something warmer beneath it all, something so undeniably him. It almost makes you dizzy, pushes you to sink your teeth right over that fluttering vein, your hand seeking to wrap around the throbbing length nestled between your bodies.

His fingers tighten at your hips, digging in, and a sharp breath hisses through his teeth.

That's it, he'll push you off, you think while sucking on his flesh.

Wrong, oh how wrong your thoughts are.

Instead of pushing you away, he starts rocking you on his lap. The motion makes slick pool between your legs, staining the front of your panties.

He slips a hand between your bodies, dragging his thumb slowly over the damp fabric of your underwear, mimicking the motion of your thumb swiping over his slick tip, gathering the small bead that formed there.

Already, you’re fighting to keep a string of breathless, needy sounds from spilling past your lips. God, the feel of his fingers against your clit, the bliss of them nudging your panties aside, testing just how ready you are for him, it all makes you roll your eyes back in your head.

Your mouth finally lets go of his neck, pulling back to admire the reddened skin and the tiny dents your teeth left there. Surely it's going to bruise.

How'd you get that pretty thing on your neck, Mr. Miller? Huh. Guess you’re gonna have to tell the whole town how you handle hunting lessons now.

Your hand lets go of him once more, coming up so your tongue can lick the salty liquid on your thumb. You close your lips around the digit, humming with satisfaction when the taste of him reaches your tongue. When you pull it out, a string of saliva dangles from your mouth.

"Say it again, sweetheart."

With his free hand, he drags the rough pad of his thumb across your lower lip, brushing away the faint trace of spit gathered there.

It doesn’t take much to understand what he’s waiting to hear.

"I’m sorry, Joel."

Seated in such an awkward position, you have no choice but to grip his forearm to maintain your balance when you feel one of his fingers pressing in at your entrance. You close your eyes shut when another one joins, the stinging feeling of them sinking inside your folds driving you insane.

Insane enough to turn your head to the side, searching for the warmth of his hand with your eyes still closed. Insane enough to grin at the squelching sound of your gushing cunt and press a kiss to his palm.

"Is that so?"

His fingers twist and press just right, hitting every sensitive spot. Between ragged gasps, your answer comes muffled by his palm: "Yes."

He slowly slides his fingers out, letting them drag across your folds and graze your swollen bundle of nerves. Every stroke leaves a trail of fire, sending waves of ache and tension through your body until you’re trembling with need. When his touch finally pulls away, it leaves you raw and wanting, your needy cunt clenching around nothing, desperate for the sensation that’s just disappeared.

Then, the hand that was previously between your legs clamps over your jaw, the pads of his fingers pressing damp traces into your skin. His thumb rests firmly against your bottom lip as Joel coaxes your mouth open. You part your lips obediently, still nuzzling your cheek into his other palm.

With your mouth wide open, you take his slick fingers in, sucking on them just as you did with your thumb earlier. Your eyes lock with his, holding his gaze as his brow knots in concentration, drinking in every movement, every shiver, every moan that escapes you when you taste your arousal on his fingers.

"Christ," he groans, voice rough with need. "I’ve wanted to shut you up like this all fuckin’ day."

Your lower teeth scrape lightly along the undersides of his fingers as your hand drifts downward once more, gliding over the firm planes of his chest before slipping lower, circling the slick tip of his cock where it's peeking out from his open fly.

He watches you move over him in slow, unhurried strokes, your mouth traveling in long pulls that take him all the way down to his knuckles.

It’s filthy, undeniably so, and he loves every second of it. That arrogant smirk refuses to leave his face.

While your mouth keeps him occupied, your fingers continue roaming over the exposed length of him, exploring what your touch can draw out. Only when he’s satisfied, when he’s certain he couldn’t possibly be any harder, does he finally ease your mouth free.

You don’t get the chance to speak, to taunt him, or even fully process the indecency of what just happened. Joel is already bracing both you and himself with one arm as he tugs his waistband down with the other. He shifts you into place, positioning you to take him, and your gazes drop in unison as his cock springs free, the curved tip brushing against the fabric of his shirt.

He’s in a hurry, yet every second stretches thin with anticipation. You’re aching for it, desperate, as he nudges your ruined underwear aside with the dark, swollen head of his cock, lining himself up with your slick entrance.

Ecstasy pulls your spine into a sharp arch as he presses into you, as you feel him stretching you, filling you deeper and deeper. Your mouth falls open without a sound, your head tipping all the way back, heavy with the overwhelming rush of it.

As your hips move over his roughly, you find a rhythm of your own.

God, it’s so hard to keep your legs steady while he keeps you stretched around him, each thrust brushing that tender spot deep inside.

And he certainly isn’t helping at all. Just sits there with a wolfish grin plastered on his face, expecting you to do all the work.

Asshole.

A soft sound slips from you as the heat coils tighter in your belly, turning into a frustrated whine when Joel seems in no hurry to grant you the release you’re chasing.

"Annoyed the shit outta me today, honey," he murmurs, amusement lacing his voice.

His words blur around you, all you're concentrated on is the relentless bouncing of your hips, the feel of his thighs brushing the underside of yours, the lower button of his shirt grazing your swollen clit. How could anything else possibly matter?

All you manage in return is a soft, hazy, "Mhm," even though your mind is swirling with venomous retorts.

"Come on, darlin', say it again. I wanna hear how sorry you are for everythin' you've put me through," he mutters as his hands travel down to your ass, giving it a rough squeeze before his fingers splay out.

Ha, so he does know the concept of talking. The cocky bastard got you split on his cock and suddenly learnt how to speak. Why the hell should you even be sorry in the first place? What have you ever done to him?

Dumped his coffee and replaced it with muddy water. Told Tommy, sweet, unsuspecting Tommy, that Joel had volunteered to reinforce the north wall at sunrise. On his day off. 'Accidentally' took the wrong horse from the stables so he had to ride that stubborn old mare that hates everyone but you. Pulled that little stunt today that could’ve ended with one of you getting shot.

Okay, maybe now's not the time to reminisce on all that.

He spreads you open over his thighs, watching the etchings of your lust corrupt your expression as he fucks himself in slow, deep, strokes inside you. You don't think you can open your mouth again.

Maybe it's better this way. Why should you lie to him? You're not sorry at all. He deserved every wicked thing you've done to him for the way he treats you.

"S'wrong, sweetheart?" his voice is low and breathy, teasing your lack of words. "Can’t focus?"

You respond by moaning out his name, followed by a string of apologies you say only to please him, afraid that he'll stop moving again.

Summoning every scrap of control left in you, your hand trembles as it rises to wrap around his neck, pulling him closer while letting the motion guide your movements as you bounce against him harder. Each shift, each press of your body, matches the rhythm of his own.

In those final moments, he quickens his pace. Your blood boils, and the fluttering inside you deepens into pulsing throbs.

Heat builds between your thighs, and as that bundle of nerves grows heavy and alive with the rush of your orgasm, his thrusts only drive deeper.

He draws you close, pressing a kiss to the side of your neck, groaning against your soft skin.

As he continues to pepper your neck with kisses and gentle nibbles, you try to catch your breath, to ride out the high.

But it’s no use, not while his hips grind against yours, not while you’re cradled in his arms, and certainly not with the tip of him throbbing against every needy spot inside you.

You swallow hard, trying to steady the dizzy stars flashing behind your eyes and the low, persistent hum that fuzzes your mind. It dulls the rough cadence of Joel's breath, your own gasps and moans and the raw sound of skin meeting skin.

His arms clamp around your waist, holding you so tightly it feels like he could crush you in two, pressing you flush against his chest. Riding the tremor of your quivering body, he drives himself over the edge. Deep inside you, he pours every ounce of himself, filling you completely.

When it’s done, he won’t let you pull away, not that you could have wanted to. One large, trembling hand cups the back of your head, holding you against the solid curve of his neck as he gradually softens inside you. He lingers in the fading tremors of your body, the scent of him taking over your senses.

His heartbeat thunders beneath your ear. Your damp forehead slides against the firm swell of his shoulder as your muscles go slack.

The ache between your thighs leaves a slick trace on his skin, and a shiver ripples through you, wetting the base of him.

He presses a rough kiss to your temple. His hands trace your spine, fingers gliding over the damp material of your shirt. A soft, breathy laugh escapes you against the warmth of his golden skin.

Pampered little shit, that's what Daisy is.

The most spoiled sheep in all of Texas, you can be sure of that. Refuses to eat the grass around the barn like every other animal. So you have to haul her four miles up a hill before she’ll even consider opening her mouth. And don't even think about giving her hay if you don't want a hoof hitting you square in the knee. You even have to sing her a song when you're crouched down trying to milk her. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Well, it's true. You've hummed so many Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash songs to Daisy that you can't stand to listen to their voices anymore whenever you go out to a dance in town.

And all of it is your daddy's doing.

If that man didn't treat Daisy like his own child you're sure she'd quit being such a snob.

Well, guess what? The prissy cotton ball got knocked up in March and your daddy's fussing over her like she's about to have his grand baby.

Can you believe that?

You can swear on your life that she only enjoyed that high pasture because the neighbour's ram was getting sweet on her.

Now it’s late July and she’s round as a barrel, waddling around the barn like a freaking duck. Her sides sway when she walks, her udder’s all tight and shiny, "bagging up," as your daddy keeps proudly announcing. She can’t seem to get comfortable, lies down, grunts, hauls herself back up with the kind of suffering sigh usually reserved for when your dad loses at poker to your neighbour.

You would almost feel pity for her. Almost. If she didn't turn into an aggressive little bitch.

She’s developed… opinions. Opinions about everything. Daisy’s decided she’s above grass entirely.

You try to give her the grass by the barn because she's too pregnant to walk up the hill where her baby daddy's probably waiting? She snorts, stamps a hoof like she’s declaring war.

You offer the expensive hay your mama bought especially for her? Yeah, that hay that cost more than your truck payment. Same reaction, only louder, as if you personally insulted her.

You crouch to milk her, and she leans back on her haunches, hooves braced, glaring like she's preparing to kill you.

And maybe she is.

Sometimes she tries to shove you with her head. Not playful, definitely not gentle. Full-on "get out of my way" because she is pregnant and dramatic and convinced the world exists solely to serve her cravings. If she misses, she’ll stomp her front hooves, ears pinned, eyes wide, just to make the point. And when you think she's done? She bleats. High-pitched and commanding, the kind of bleat that could summon cows from the next ranch over if they weren’t too afraid of her.

Speaking of the next ranch, she seems to have developed a certain fondness for it. For what your darling neighbour, Joel Miller, is growing.

Corn.

Over the crooked fence line and across property you absolutely should not be crossing, stands a tall, golden field that might as well be calling her name.

And your daddy? The only craving of his sweet fluffy angel that he can't satisfy is this. Why? Because he doesn’t plant corn. Says it’s too much work, too much water, too much risk.

Joel apparently disagrees. Has about 150 acres of land dedicated to it.

You think you've had enough of her diva attitude and you're about to slaughter her with your bare hands? She suddenly becomes docile when the wind shifts just right and carries that sweet green smell from Joel’s fields.

She just stands there, calm as anything now, like she hasn’t been making your life hell all day. Nose lifted, ears twitching, breathing it in like it’s the finest thing she’s ever smelled.

You follow her gaze out toward the fence without meaning to.

Ripe. Golden.

Not yours.

You click your tongue and turn away.

"Don't even think about it, Daisy. That corn ain't ours."

Not that the fucking sheep understands a word you're saying, but you can swear that she rolled her eyes behind your back.

────୨ৎ────

You don’t think much of it after that. Just another one of Daisy’s moods. The Lord knows she’s had plenty.

Your daddy heads out not long after supper, already halfway into his boots while he’s still talking, hopping a little on one foot as he tries to shove the other on properly. He’s got that look on his face too, like he’s been thinking about this game all day.

You lean against the doorframe, watching him fumble around like he’s in a hurry for once in his life.

"Where’s your hat?" you ask.

He glances around, pats his head like it might magically be there, then spots it on the table and grabs it. "Right there, see? I knew where it was."

"Mmhm."

He jams it onto his head anyway, a little crooked, and only fixes it when he catches you looking.

"Don’t start," he mutters, but there’s no bite to it.

You let out a quiet snort.

He steps closer then, reaching out to tuck a stray piece of your hair back before leaning down to press a quick kiss to your cheek, his stubble scratching just enough to be annoying.

"Don’t wait up," he says. "Game might run long."

You already know the drill. His poker games always drag well past midnight. Especially if there’s booze involved.

And there’s always booze involved.

You nod, half listening, your mind already drifting somewhere else entirely, running through the list of things you might have forgotten to do before coming inside. The chickens... the latch on the coop.. whether that one stubborn hen finally went in or decided to sleep out like she’s got a death wish.

Meh.

It’s been a while since you’ve had to chase a fox off with a rifle. Could be entertaining.

Your mama doesn’t even look up from her chair, too busy picking at something in her lap. "Don’t lose too much," she calls out, like she’s said it a hundred times before.

He laughs, already turning toward the door. "No promises if Joel’s there."

That gets your attention for half a second.

Of course he is.

When isn’t he?

You lean your shoulder a little harder into the frame, watching your daddy step out onto the porch, boots thudding against the wood. "Try not to bet anything we actually need this time," you call after him.

He waves you off without turning around. "That was one time."

"One time too many."

You still sometimes bring up the time your dad didn’t have enough cash and decided, like an idiot, to bet a few acres of land instead.

And lost. To Joel fucking Miller.

You remember that fight. Hard not to.

Your mama near tore the house down, your daddy swearing up and down he’d win it back next time.

He didn't.

Joel won it fair and square, as everyone kept saying.

The great Joel Miller. God of poker games to your dad. Asshole land thief to your mom. Keeper of Daisy’s latest obsession. And the fantasy of all the girls in town. Maybe even some of the married ladies too, if church gossip is to be believed.

Scandalous.

From what your aunts have told you when they visit, it seems that he's always been the center of attention for women. Even when he was married a long time ago. Even more so when his wife left him.

"You should’ve seen him back in high school, sugar. Prettiest thing you ever laid eyes on."

"If I hadn’t already been promised to your uncle Peter, I would’ve snatched him up myself."

"Mhm, that man’s always had women trailin’ after him."

"Still does. Don’t think he don’t notice neither."

"Speakin’ of that… when’re you gonna let someone put a ring on that finger, darlin’?"

"Lord, you might be the only unmarried gal left 'round here."

"Ain’t natural, a pretty thing like you, still runnin’ around with no husband."

"I know this real sweet boy over at my church. Works with his hands, good family, don’t drink much…"

"Don’t listen to her, that boy’s mama is a nightmare. But she’s right about one thing. You oughta settle down soon."

"You don't wanna end up like aunt Petunia."

Oh, yeah. Aunt Petunia. Jilted at the altar and never even looked at another man again.

Turned to religion instead. Properly turned, too. Church every Sunday, every Wednesday, and any other day her arthritis doesn't act up. Talks about sin and damnation every chance she gets.

The only unmarried woman in your family. And, naturally, the favorite subject of town gossip.

Somehow, every conversation with these women ends up circling right back to the same thing. A ring on your finger. Preferably sooner rather than later.

And how, at your very grown age, it’s practically a tragedy there isn’t one already.

The screen door creaks as you pull it shut behind you, and a second later the truck engine turns over, loud in the quiet of the evening. Headlights sweep across the yard, catching the fence line, the barn, the edge of the field before swinging away as he backs out.

You watch until the red of the taillights disappears down the road.

For a moment, it’s quiet again.

Just the hum of insects, the distant rustle of something in the grass, the kind of stillness that settles in once the day’s properly done.

You push off the doorframe with a small sigh, stretching your arms over your head until your back cracks.

"Well," you mutter to yourself, "there goes the evening."

Your mama shifts in her chair but still doesn’t look up, already halfway to falling asleep where she sits.

You glance between her and the dark window, then out toward where the barn sits just barely visible in the distance.

Everything seems fine.

No foxes, no whining from one particular sheep, no stray chickens running around the coop. Just peace and quiet.

You shrug it off and go to bed.

────୨ৎ────

If there truly is a hell where people burn at the stake, as your aunt Petunia so often reminds you, then you’re certain their screams sound better than whatever the woolly demon in your barn is making.

Somewhere between a dream and waking, something feels off. Too quiet, then not quiet enough. A sound that doesn’t belong, threading its way into your head until you can’t ignore it anymore.

You frown, shifting under the covers.

There it is again.

Your eyes snap open. You lie there for a second, staring up at the ceiling, listening.

"That fuckin' sheep's gonna be the death of me," you mutter, already pushing yourself up.

You swing your legs over the side of the bed, barely awake, shoving your feet into your slippers while rubbing at your eyes. Your nightgown clings to your skin in the heat, an uncomfortable reminder that sleeping with the window open in the middle of summer was a mistake.

"Mama," you call as you step into the hallway, voice still thick with sleep.

No answer.

You head for your parents' room and push the door open. You're not sure how late it actually is, but your dad's side of the bed is empty.

Probably still out playing poker with Joel and God knows who else.

"Mama, wake up."

She groans, shifting under the covers but not opening her eyes. "What?"

"Daisy’s actin' up. She sounds-" you hesitate, listening for another noise from outside. "She sounds wrong."

"She’s fine," your mama mumbles, already turning onto her side. "They do that."

"I don’t think she’s fine."

You stare at her, waiting for her to sit up, to tell you what you're supposed to do.

She doesn’t.

Just pulls the covers higher and settles right back in like you didn’t just wake her up.

"You know daddy's gonna kill us if somethin' happens to Daisy-"

Snoring. She's fucking snoring.

You let out a slow breath through your nose. "Unbelievable."

Fine.

You turn on your heel and head for the door, trying to reach for your boots in the dark hallway.

The night air hits you warm and heavy as soon as you step outside, thick with dust that makes you cough. You don’t hesitate, heading straight for the barn, boots kicking up stray pebbles with every step.

Halfway there, you stop short, squinting into the dark.

"Shit."

You turn back toward the porch, grabbing the old flashlight hanging by the door, thumping it once against your palm until the beam flickers to life.

"Better not die on me now," you mutter, already heading back out.

Another strained sound reaches you before you even get the door open.

"Yeah, yeah, I’m coming," you mutter, pushing inside.

You hook the flashlight between your shoulder and cheek for a second, fumbling along the wall until your fingers find the old oil lamp.

"Hold on, hold on..."

It takes a second. Longer than it should. Your hands aren’t as steady as you’d like.

The wick finally catches, flame flickering weak at first before steadying, casting a warm, uneven glow across the barn.

Shadows stretch and shift along the walls, softer than the harsh electric light but no less unsettling.

You grab the lamp, turning back toward her.

Daisy’s pacing.

Or trying to.

She takes a few stiff, uneven steps, then stops, shifting her weight like she doesn’t know where to put it. Her sides heave, and when she sees you, she lets out another one of those low, strained sounds that twists something in your chest.

Daisy tenses, and the flame trembles with the motion, throwing her shape into something uneven and sharp for a second before settling again.

"Alright," you murmur, more to fill the space than anything else. "Easy."

Your shadow moves when you do, stretching long across the straw, then snapping back in as you lean closer.

"Hey- hey, easy," you say, moving toward her slower this time, hands out.

"Yeah... yeah, that’s it. Calm down," you say quietly.

The barn feels too quiet otherwise.

Too still outside of her breathing, the soft rustle of straw, the occasional creak of wood shifting somewhere above.

Daisy sways again, a strained sound leaving her as she tries to settle. Her sides rise and fall too fast, breath uneven, and for once she doesn’t look at you like she’s about to take your knee out.

"Don't you dare bite me now, girl," you murmur, crouching down beside her.

She just looks tired.

As close as you were to turning her into lamb chops just a few hours ago, the sight does something unpleasant to your conscious.

"Okay," you say, more to yourself than her. "Okay, I’ve seen this. I know this."

You haven’t. Not really.

Not like this. Not alone.

You’ve helped once when your cousin gave birth, but you’re certain it’s a whole different thing when it’s a sheep.

You reach out anyway, resting a hand against her side, feeling the tension there, the way her muscles tighten under your palm. The lamplight flickers with the movement, soft and uneven, catching on your hands and the curve of her body.

"Easy," you murmur. "C’mon, girl."

She lets out another sound, sharper this time, and you wince. "Yeah, I know. I know."

You glance back toward the open barn door for a second, half expecting your mama to suddenly appear, maybe your daddy too, like this is something you don’t have to handle by yourself.

Nothing.

Just the dark yard and the sound of insects humming like nothing’s wrong.

"Great," you mutter. "Love that for me."

Daisy shifts again, and this time she goes down, legs folding under her awkwardly before she settles into the straw. She doesn’t stay still long, though, moving, adjusting, like she can’t get comfortable no matter what she does.

"Alright, alright," you say quickly, moving with her. "That’s fine. That’s… that’s normal, I think."

You drag a hand over your face, trying to remember anything your daddy ever said about this that you actually paid attention to.

You’ve never been one to love the countryside life, even though you were born into it. Always wanting more, always planning on leaving as soon as you could.

Maybe that’s why you pushed back every time your family tried to marry you off to some farmer.

Is it so wrong to want more? Is it so wrong that you don’t want to end up like the other women in your town?

They all seem to think so.

Another strained sound from Daisy pulls your focus right back.

You lean in a little, squinting. "Okay. Okay, I see it."

Your voice drops without you meaning it to, like talking softer might make it easier.

"Yeah, yeah, that’s it," you say quickly. "You’re fine. You’re fine."

You don’t know if she is.

But saying it feels necessary.

Time stretches after that.

You lose track of it somewhere between talking to her like she understands you and trying to keep your hands steady when things get messy.

It takes longer than you expect, longer than you’re comfortable with. You second guess yourself more than once, wondering if you should’ve dragged your mama out of bed anyway or waited for your daddy to get back home.

But somehow, you managed on your own.

────୨ৎ────

You didn't think the most evil creature in all of Texas was able to create such a delicate little thing.

Daisy shifts beside you, low and restless now that the worst of it is over. The lamb presses close to her side, unsteady but trying to stand on its legs.

You push yourself up slowly, joints stiff, brushing straw off your nightgown without really thinking about it. Your legs feel heavy when you stand, boots scraping through the hay as you move closer to the feed.

You scoop some up without thinking, more out of habit than hope, and hold it out toward her.

"Here," you say. "Eat something."

Of course she doesn't listen to you and won't eat anything you're offering. Not the grass, not the hay, won't even drink some water.

She might've just given birth but she's still a stubborn cunt.

You let out a slow breath through your nose, already feeling the headache coming on. "So what, you gonna starve now?"

She looks past you instead. Towards the open barn door. You follow her gaze before you can stop yourself.

Out beyond the yard, past the shining creek and the fence line where dark fields stretch out under the night sky.

And there it is. Corn.

Joel's corn.

You close your eyes for a second.

"No," you say immediately.

Daisy shifts forward like she didn’t hear you, nudging the back of your leg with her head.

You open your eyes again. "Absolutely not."

Behind you, the lamb lets out a small sound, pressing closer to her side.

If she doesn't eat, then her baby doesn't eat.

Darn it.

────୨ৎ────

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Since when does a sheep tell you what to do?

Daddy would get angry if he found out that his precious baby gave birth and didn't have anything to eat.

Stupidest reasoning you've ever concocted.

But you've done worse than steal from your neighbor's cornfield. Much worse, if you're being honest. And with no reasoning at all, so does it really matter now?

You find a weak point faster than you should.

Of course you do.

One of the fence posts leans just enough, wire sagging where time and weather have already done half the work for you. You step closer, testing it with your hands first. The wood shifts slightly under your grip, old and tired.

You plant your boot on the lower wire, gripping the post with one hand while the other keeps the flashlight angled awkwardly between your fingers. The wood digs into your fingers as you haul yourself up, nightgown catching on the wire for a second before you yank it free.

"Ow, shit," you hiss quietly, not stopping.

You swing one leg over, then the other, balancing there for a breathless second at the top.

Then you lower yourself down on the other side, boots hitting the ground with a soft, uneven thud. Your knees bend to take the weight, and the flashlight jerks hard in your hand, beam skittering across the rows of corn before you steady it again.

Your boots sink slightly into the softer ground beyond the yard, grass brushing your legs as you move faster than you probably should. The flashlight beam cuts a narrow path ahead of you, bouncing with every step, catching on fence posts and patches of uneven earth.

The corn moves slightly in the night wind, tall and dark around you, swallowing the edges of the light.

One step in and the world changes. The fence is gone behind you, the barn somewhere farther than it should feel, and all that’s left is rows of tall stalks shifting softly in the wind.

You lift the flashlight, sweeping it ahead.

Light catches on leaves, gold-green and sharp at the edges, throwing shadows that move when you move. It feels like the field is watching you back, which is ridiculous, but so is everything else about tonight.

The stalks brush your arms as you push through them, dry leaves scratching at your skin, whispering every time you pass. The sound of your own breathing starts to feel too loud, so you focus on the light instead.

You shift the flashlight, biting down on it so it rests between your teeth, freeing your hands. The beam tilts upwards now, illuminating more sky than ground, but it is enough. Just enough to see where your fingers are going.

"There," you mumble around it.

You reach out, grabbing one of the stalks.

It is thicker than you expect, rough under your palm. You pull a few ears free, stuffing them quickly into the crook of your arm before moving to the next. The corn husks crinkle loudly in your hands, every sound feeling bigger out here than it should.

"This is ridiculous," you mutter again, voice muffled.

The flashlight slips slightly between your teeth as you speak, and you tighten your jaw to hold it steady. Somewhere behind you, the field shifts with the wind, corn bending and straightening like it is breathing.

You hear a crunch of boots through dry stalks that is not yours.

You freeze so fast your whole body locks up, flashlight still clenched between your teeth, corn pressed tight against your chest.

Then light cuts through the rows.

A second beam.

Please let it not be Joel, please let it not be Joel, please-

Well, of course it's Joel. It's his goddamn field, isn't it?

You shift slightly, like moving will somehow make you less visible, but the moment you do, the corn in your arms slips. One ear hits the ground. Then another. The whole bundle follows in a soft, humiliating cascade of thuds and rustling husks.

"Shit-" you whisper around the flashlight.

The second beam adjusts immediately.

Now it finds your face properly.

You blink against it, raising a hand to shield your eyes, corn scattered all around your boots like evidence you cannot undo.

When your vision finally adjusts to the light, you see that it's not only a flashlight pointed at your face, but a rifle too.

Could this night get any more shitty than it already is?

You take the flashlight out of your mouth slowly, like that might somehow make this less embarrassing, and swallow.

"What the fuck are you doin'? Get that thing outta my face."

The light doesn’t move.

"What am I doin'?" comes the reply, calm as anything. "What are you doin' out here in the middle of the night? I coulda shot ya."

What are you supposed to do? Thank him for not killing you?

You stare at him through your lashes, irritation rising quicker than any common sense you should have right now.

"Weren't you supposed to be out playing poker?"

A beat passes where neither of you really moves. The flashlight is still pointed at you, though it dips slightly now, enough that you can actually see him instead of just being blinded by it.

He looks down first, then past you, then at the ground like he is trying to understand what he is looking at. It takes him a second too long to say anything, which already makes this worse.

"Fuckin' thief," he says finally, like he is still processing it. Then his eyes come back to you. "What would your daddy say if he found out about what you're doin'?"

"He’s not gonna find out," you say quickly.

Joel lets out a quiet breath through his nose, like he has already heard enough.

"The hell he is," he mutters.

Before you can react, he steps forward, closing the distance in two long strides. His free hand wraps around your arm, not rough but not giving you much of a choice either. Close like this you can see the rifle in his other hand clearly, a reminder that you should probably behave.

"Hey-" you start, pulling back instinctively.

"Come on," he says, already turning you with him. "You’re gonna tell him yourself what kinda thievin' kid he raised under his roof."

You stumble a step before catching your balance, forced into motion as he guides you back the way you came. The corn brushes against you again, louder now that you are not sneaking, the flashlight beam jerking in your hand as you try to keep up without tripping over uneven ground.

"The corn wasn't even for me, it was for Daisy-"

"Daisy?"

Yeah, playing the sheep card, that's totally gonna work.

"Yeah," you say, a little too defensive now, "My sheep."

He keeps walking, doesn’t slow, doesn’t let go of your arm.

"You broke into my field for a sheep," he says.

"I didn’t break in," you shoot back. "And she just gave birth, for your information."

Not that he cares.

You reach the edge of the field, the fence coming back into view, and he finally slows. His grip loosens just enough that you can pull away. You yank your arm free, taking a few steps back.

"Daddy ain't even home," you add. "Thought he was out playin' poker with you."

"I didn’t go tonight," he says.

You frown. "What?"

A little late to find out that he was home the entire time. Maybe if you knew from the start you wouldn't have snuck in his field.

You cross your arms anyway. "Well, he went. So he’s not here. Which means there’s no reason for you to be draggin’ me back like I’m five."

He looks at you for a second, then says, "You've always had such a mouth on you, sweetheart."

You don’t answer him right away. That alone makes it worse, because now it’s just quiet. Too quiet.

What if he does tell your dad that you snuck on his property and tried to steal from him?

Then you'd be fucked.

The thought sits heavy in your chest longer than you want it to. Not enough to scare you straight, but enough to make you stop talking for a second.

Wait, what the fuck is that?

A sound cuts through the corn behind you. Growling..?

The rustling comes harder now, closer, moving through the rows in a way that doesn’t sound like wind.

Something bursts through the edge of the corn a second later, low to the ground, fast enough that your brain doesn’t fully register it at first.

Then it does.

Fucking fox. Probably on its way to kill your chickens.

You step back too quickly, boots catching on uneven dirt and broken stalks. Your heel slips, your balance goes before you can fix it.

"Shit-"

It happens fast. One second you’re upright, the next you’re going down hard into the dirt and scattered corn. The flashlight flies from your grip, beam jerking across the ground, cutting through stalks before it drops out completely. The batteries must’ve come loose.

For a second, everything is just noise. Your own breathing, the rustle of the corn, your heartbeat too loud in your ears.

A shot is fired. The loud noise startles you even more than it did the fox who crawled under the fence and ran off.

You don’t move right away. You’re still half on your side in the dirt, one hand braced under you, the other feeling blindly for the flashlight.

You don’t even acknowledge Joel until his rifle lands on the dirt beside you, smoke still curling from the barrel. Not long after, his flashlight is thrown down too, the beam angled uselessly into the ground.

The light spills forward, cutting across the dirt and broken corn stalks, making it harder to see him properly when you turn your head. Just shape and shadow now. Close enough that you know he’s there.

You’re still on your hands and knees, trying to get your footing back, palms pressed into the dirt while you push yourself up a little at a time. The ground shifts slightly under you as you move, uneven and stubborn.

Then a thought flashes through your mind, an undeniably bad one.

If trespassing and stealing weren’t good enough reasons to get you reported to your father, you were about to give him something truly worth reporting.

You give him another look over your shoulder, even though you can't really see him you can tell he's kneeling or crouching behind you.

Perfect.

That was it. You snap your heel backward and upward, swinging your leg around in a pass meant to land squarely between Joel’s legs.

That's for scaring the shit out of you with that rifle of his.

Your aim isn't at its best in the pitch-black night, but what you lacked in precision you made up for in force, your foot drove in hard where you assumed his groin was.

From the way your heel drove into him and the sound that tore out of his throat, you figured you’d landed it well enough. But when you turned your head again, you saw his silhouette clutching his stomach.

A little lower next time, maybe.

You figure that this is a pretty good time to run away, so you try to sit upright and bolt straight for the fence.

But you don't get far. Something clamps around you ankle dragging you right back. You lose your balance mid trying to stand up and fall straight to your face.

What you don't expect is a sudden retaliatory strike.

You feel his hand gripping a fistful of your nightgown, hauling it up until you can feel a gentle breeze grazing the skin of your hips.

A sharp, abrupt slap lands against the curve of your ass. Your mouth drops open in shock. You barely have time to react before another hit snaps across your cheek.

"Fuckin' hell.. your daddy should've done this to ya a long time ago, sweetie," he muses through his teeth.

It's not the first time you're being told that you need a good ol' spanking. You never actually got one, so maybe that's why you're so shocked to feel Joel, out of all people, do it.

"Spoiled little thing, ain't ya..? Thinkin' everything should go your way.."

Sounds familiar?

Maybe you and Daisy aren't that different after all.

You let out a short, breathless laugh despite yourself, more annoyed than intimidated and lift your ass up in the air, wiggling your hips at him.

He lets out a low grunt and moves in closer, clearly unamused by your teasing. The air around you thickens with the soft scent of worn leather, dry hay, and fresh wood shavings, all layered with the salty tang of skin that’s spent the whole day beneath the sun.

Well, this is clearly one strange way to convince him not to tell your father what you've done tonight.

Your teeth clamp down so hard you almost bite clean through your lower lip, trying to hold back a reaction you can't quite control. The night around you feels even tighter somehow, the cornfield pressing in on all sides, the rustle of dry stalks shifting with every faint movement.

Then something shifts behind you and a new sensation cuts through everything. Warmth presses against you, sudden and intrusive, and you go completely still for a heartbeat, your thoughts stalling in the dark as a finger pushes your underwear to the side.

For a moment, you stay frozen, caught in the pitch-black field while the corn rustles around you and the silence stretches tight and uneasy.

He teases you lightly with the tips of his fingers, hovering at your entrance. A sharp, consuming need coils through you, tightening your thighs as you respond instinctively, your body betraying you and deepening the slick warmth that gathers against his hand.

Then, without much warning, he slips a finger into your warmth and curls it just right. The sensation pulls a sharp sound from you, your fingers burying into the dirt underneath you.

A mix of intensity and emotion overwhelms you, so strong it stings behind your eyes. You tremble as your body responds to him, sensitivity heightening everything he does. When he adds another finger, it’s slower this time and you gasp at the stretch and pressure, your breath catching as he works you carefully.

"Gonna hurt a little, baby," he murmurs behind you.

Your gaze is fixed forward, at the rifle laying on the ground next to you, at the flashlight that does absolutely nothing to help you see the man behind you. You almost extend an arm to grab it, but you stop yourself when Joel's hand leaves your cunt. You sigh at the loss, arching your back into him.

You hear the faint clink of his belt buckle, followed by the soft scrape of his zipper coming down. A moment later, there’s the rustle of fabric as he pushes his jeans down.

His hands slide around your back, holding you close as he draws you in. His pelvis is flush against yours, what you assume is his cock heavy against your thigh.

A sudden rush of emotion and intensity floods through you, scattering your thoughts until they drift loose and unfocused, leaving your mind suspended.

You feel the cold press of his belt against the back of your leg, the nudge of his cock between your thighs, hands groping over your hips, squeezing the soft flesh in his rough palms.

The head of his cock grazes your swollen clit, going up to nudge itself at your entrance. Then something warm and sticky lands between your folds.

"Did you just fuckin' spit on me?"

His cock slaps against your moist folds with a squelching sound, making you clench around nothing.

"Language, sweetheart," he says through gritted teeth.

You should recoil from his touch and tell him that spitting is fucking gross, but before you can protest further he smears it up your slit. He slots his head against your hole and you let out a strangled noise, vision blurring further into the dark as he slams into you.

There is an ache as he pushes in, a stinging sensation that dulls with the warmth and pressure of him settling heavily inside you. Spreading you apart in his hands, he spits yet again, the glob of saliva landing at the base where he's buried to the hilt inside you.

"So fuckin’ tight, sweetie," he says. He reaches around to rub your puffy nub, a move that makes your entire body shiver.

Joel moves his other palm up your back, finding purchase in the braid resting on your back, tugging it until your back arches even more. He lets a low groan escape out of his throat while he rocks his hips back and forth.

For a moment he withdraws, gripping your hair even tighter, then he drives his cock to nestle inside your cunt again. The circles on your clit and harsh movements may as well set your whole body on fire.

You are filled to your limit, overwhelmed by heat and slick need, your body trembling as each sharp thrust draws another helpless sound from your throat. Already worn down, overstimulated, and desperate, you’re barely a second away from begging him to slow down.

A sharp slap echoes as your bodies meet, the sound punctuating the moment, and a muffled whimper slips past your clenched teeth as the sensation of your climax crests and pulls you under.

You let out a soft, broken sound, your back arching even as you instinctively pull away, caught between retreat and need. Your body wavers, unsure whether to escape the overwhelming sensation or press closer, chasing it instead.

Your fluttering walls push him over the edge. You feel him twitching inside you before he pulls out, his release spilling across the curve of your lower back.

The sound hits you both at the same time.

That low, familiar rumble of your daddy's truck engine rolling up the dirt road. You turn your head and there they are, behind Joel and the crooked fence, the headlights cutting across the yard like a warning.

You shove forward, scrambling out from under him, hands slipping in the dirt as you try to push yourself upright. Your nightgown is still bunched up, hair half pulled loose, breath uneven as you drag the fabric back down your legs, fingers clumsy, not working fast enough.

He’d left for work that morning with his dick as hard as steel, balls as heavy as rocks, and you, gorgeous and naked and entirely unfucked in his king-sized bed.

Idiot that he was, he forgot to buy condoms last week. You’d cleared all thirty-six of the rubbers he’d had during your most recent visit from college, and since then, Joel had been meaning to restock, but it just slipped his mind—now, he was suffering the consequences of that oversight in spades, as he hadn’t been able to get his typical fill of you before he left for work. Or last night.

You’d so sweetly suggested some 69 action after he’d picked you up from the airport the night before, knowing just how badly you wanted each other—despite the fact that it was three A.M. and you happened to be ovulating. But it wasn’t meant to be. No sooner had Joel shucked off his boots, jeans, boxers, and shirt and crawled into the space beside you in bed than you were passed out. Snoring loudly and lying splayed between his sheets without the faintest idea of how horny the old man was.

There is something very wrong with me, he thought.

He’d been so pent-up and wild with thoughts of you writhing underneath him, cunt snug around his cock, that he hadn’t even been able to rub one out after that. It was like some maggot had crawled its way inside his head and had him needing insane things. Stupid things.

Shit that would legitimately get him locked up, or kicked to the doghouse, if he ever shared these thoughts aloud.

He wanted to pump you full of cum.

He craved the feeling of you leaking him.

He felt an urge to fill you like he never had before.

Had he really forgotten to buy those condoms last week? Or had it been the workings of his own subconscious mind, begging him to test the waters of what you would look like flush with that milky white substance and drip—

Shit.

Joel almost spilled his piping hot two-dollar coffee from the gas station onto his pants. Again. He cut the wheel and made the turn, set the cup in its little holder, and, without a second thought for his own well-being, cranked the car stereo to fifty. Fuck his hearing.

‘SWEEEEEEEET EMOOOOOTION!’

That should do the trick.

It seemed deafening himself with classic rock was the only way Joel could keep some semblance of composure today. Admittedly, it worked wonders. He learned it was much harder to stay horny when your head was ringing.

Of course, it had been just his luck that before he’d been able to stop by H-E-B to buy rubbers on his lunch break, you’d called and said you needed a ride from the repair shop. Apparently, your dad’s truck was all kinds of fucked up and he’d asked you to drop it off at the mechanic that afternoon. You’d needed a ride home after, and Joel had only too happily, and hornily, obliged.

He was still stiff as shit pulling into the parking lot a minute later. He reached for the radio dial again but quickly found that he’d turned it all the way to its limit.

His phone buzzed in his pants.

Your name was on the screen.

I gotta fill out some bullshit paperwork. Come on in.

You must’ve seen him park the Bronco from inside.

Is that you blasting Aerosmith in your car? 🤨

Joel let out a sigh and shut off the engine.

Readjusting his rock-hard cock in his jeans, he went in.

And the moment he stepped in there, he regretted it. Joel got exactly one foot inside the door before his eyes nearly bugged out of his head and his jaw hit the floor.

You were signing paperwork alright—bent over the front desk where everyone in the waiting room of the repair shop could see right up your miniskirt. Joel choked.

There had to be fifteen men in there, at least. All but one old guy dozing off in the corner were gawking at your backside pushed up in the air. Joel saw you shuffle some papers around, eyeball a form and pose a question to the man behind the desk, who was also trying his damndest not to stare, and then hum something low. You laughed.

You were so naïve.

As if a switch had flipped in his head and every thought thenceforth was from a place of being an overprotective, asshole-ish, caveman of a guy, Joel strode in, scowling.

He shot pointed, putrid looks of disdain at every shameless voyeur drinking you in with their eyes, and, to his surprise, a couple turned their gazes guiltily away.

That’s right. Keep your fucking eyes to yourself.

Then, without even really meaning to think it:

She’s all mine. So don’t get your hopes up.

Would anyone in there think you were with him? Did it even matter? In that moment, Joel didn’t give a shit. He just walked in with his head up, jaw clenched, and eyes shooting daggers at every scumbag who dared to keep looking. He approached the front desk just as you turned

“Oh! Hey.” You breathed a sound of surprise, smiling. “You scared the shit out of me. I’ll just be a minute.”

You had about thirty seconds before he yanked you out by that little skirt and drilled you on the hood of his car.

Instead of saying that, though, Joel just frowned.

“C’mon, kid, I got places to be. Hurry it up.”

You flashed him a puzzled look but said nothing in reply. He hadn’t expected you to, seeing how occupied you were with discussing your old man’s truck’s transmission flush, tire rotation, wiper blade replacement, and on and on and on until Joel’s head was spinning with all the jargon. Since when did you know about ignition coils?

No matter.

Just a few more action items to parse through, then you’d swipe your card and get the hell out of there.

“I mean…do y’all have to replace that cabin air filter? Can’t my dad do that himself? Or just wait a little bit?”

Surely you knew you were torturing him now.

There was no way you weren’t doing this on purpose.

The shop employee scratched the back of his neck and gave a sheepish smile, right after he’d unglued his gaze from the cleavage spilling out of your top. He coughed.

“Well…well, uh, see here, our last service report says…”

Joel didn’t give a flying fuck what the service report said. He tuned out the rest of what the little pervert was trying to tell you then and turned to face the waiting room with a flinty, stern look. Several sets of eyes snapped away.

One in particular, he noticed, didn’t flinch at all.

Of course it belonged to some shit-brained kid. Probably only two or three years out of high school and ogling you like a slab of meat while his father sat beside him, trying to do the same but slightly more discreetly. How polite.

It was almost as if Joel had acquired some supersonic hearing ability over the last five minutes, and he could somehow tell what the ass-hat was muttering to his dad.

‘Hell, I’d like to bend her over a desk myself.’

His father grinned, eyes wandering again.

‘Yeah. I bet she’d like that. Love it, even.’

Fuck this.

Technically, Joel hadn’t heard the words come out of their mouths, but the intentions had been behind their eyes all the same. He hated it. The longer he stood here with you, the more the odds grew he’d end up decking someone, or throwing a chair at their head, so he swiftly tilted and pressed a touch to your elbow. It amazed him how gentle it was, given the bloodlust percolating within.

“Honey, we need to go,” he told you, voice low.

“What?” You turned. Brows furrowing. “Why?”

Because every swinging dick in this establishment wants to get in you. Let’s dip before I kill someone.

“Because I’m paying for all the repairs. C’mon.”

Before Joel could even begin to contemplate the ramifications of this offer—exactly how much cash he’d be blowing on his best friend’s truck thanks to his impulsiveness—he slid his credit card across the desk and jerked his head toward the door. Telling you to go.

“Joel, you can’t—” you’d just started to say.

“Now that’s a real fine thing to do for your daughter, b—”

It was the latter of these two statements, seemingly spoken at once, that Joel paid any mind at all. The stranger behind the desk’s thinking that he was your dad, and not your partner, made his blood boil beneath the skin. His conviction to do this only grew stronger.

Suddenly, Joel was turning his body to you. Leaning down, gripping your chin in one hand, and letting his mouth land firmly on yours, so that there would be no mistaking who he was, or what he was to you. Not today.

Your lips were warm, and they kissed him back gently. When he’d pulled away, your face, and every expression around yours was painted with some degree of surprise.

The man behind the desk cleared his throat: ‘Uh, sorry.’

Not the dad. Got it.

Joel was glad to spread the message, even if your gaze was lingering on his with a wordless little threat, like you would get him for this. He just grinned and nodded to the door again, then watched you leave, skirt swishing and bobbing all the way to the door. Hardly any eyes followed now, as most were too busy flitting to him.

Good.

Great.

“That’ll be $4,898.72, sir.”

Goddamn.

You hadn’t seen Joel this feral in ages.

Hell, maybe ever.

His cock seemed to be cleaving your body in half with how hard his thrusts were coming in now. How loud those wet slaps against the swell of your ass rang out through the cramped backseat of his car, how deep his tip sank, and how quickly the motions repeated, like Joel was beating a drum somewhere far down in your cervix.

Your eyes rolled. Jaw slackened. Tongue darted from either corner of your lips to lap away the spit that was trickling out. Joel was fucking you that hard. His strokes jostled your body, dick wedging deep and unforgiving, and his eyes were alight with a look you couldn’t quite decipher. Your own vision was blurring at the edges.

“Tell me it’s mine,” Joel panted against your neck.

Then, as if his hips had been made to pummel at this relentless, frantic pace, he lowered his torso to yours and drilled away even quicker. The force and the friction were so great you had only to grip his forearms and meet his gaze, barely able to get the words out: ‘Y—Yours, Joel.’

Doing this the day after your period tracker claimed you’d been ovulating probably wasn’t the best idea. Insane as he was with desire, the thought did also seem to cross Joel’s mind as he pounded away. More than once, his brow pinched, and his hips made as if to stutter to a halt. Then the need kicked in. The thing picked up again, harder than it had before, and Joel was back to fucking you hard on the upholstered seats of his Bronco.

Above you, his jaw clenched. His teeth ground tighter.

“This…” he grit out, as if words evaded him. “…OK?”

Yes, Joel.

You’d never seen such bare-faced need from him in all your life, and you loved it. It wasn’t just the expression of a man in love—which he was—but also the face of a person in pain. Someone whose need for your touch was so agonizingly great that he was blind to anything else. Joel lifted his arms to bracket your head so he could get in even closer, and his frantic pants warmed your cheeks. Come evening, you’d happily be popping Plan Bs like candy if it meant another moment of seeing him like this.

Sweat glistened on his brow and in between spatterings of silver and black along his jaw. His gaze was hard and determined, like he was contemplating something else.

Slowly, and with legs trembling against his sides at every thrust, you reached to cup his face. You stroked it gently.

“Is—Is everything alri—”

“I wanna cum inside you.”

Joel’s voice was deadpan, with no preamble or warning. Mere inches from your face, his own was twisted in that strange, pained look. His cock twitched; its pace slowed.

Your walls clamped around him instinctively. You blinked.

“W-What?”

“Wanna fill you up.”

There wasn’t a shred of hesitation in his tone as his hips rocked steadily against you. If anything, his grip grew even tighter, like he was trying to press you down.

“But Joel, I’m—” Another clench. Another strangled breath. “I still might…be…ovulating. And you’re…”

“Old enough to be your father, ain’t I?” he sneered. “Least, that’s what everybody in that shop seemed to think. What if you made me one today, hm, sweet pea?”

He didn’t mean it.

Joel knew how bad it’d be if he really knocked you up. Just the same, you couldn’t contain the sharp, startled whimper as his cock stirred inside you and that thought took shape—his hot and sticky seed being shot in ropes, painting your needy walls, making you so, so full of him.

Your lizard brain didn’t bat an eye at that.

Blame it on ovulation, a glaring oversight in sex education, your undoubtedly compromised morals or whatever the case may have been, but you wanted it.

You needed him in, making a mess where he shouldn’t.

With sunlight bathing you both in the backseat of Joel’s car, classic rock drifting through the speakers, and one handsome, weathered, earnest expression hovering over yours with the faintest of smiles, how could you refuse?

He sped up again. The hands that had slid to your hips constricted to an almost suffocating level, but it was possessive. Protective. Envy sparked in Joel’s eyes.

“Don’t want nobody oglin’ what’s mine, y’hear?”

It was a question, but it didn’t warrant a reply.

You nodded anyway, watching the older man’s gaze shift from your eyes to your lips to your breasts to, eventually, the sight of his length plunging in and out of your body below. Your eyes trailed after it, and you watched one hand of his move from your hip to your ribs. Rubbing.

Your wet and pliant hole took him with ease and welcomed him in. The sounds of your shared fluids were obscene, but it made the kind of wild, dizzying refrain you knew you wouldn’t be able to forget for years, if ever.

Slowly, Joel’s palm slid over, and his fingers splayed out.

His hand rested flat against your belly as he fucked you with abandon. At a particularly deep thrust, it was as if you felt him all the way up in your lungs, and your throat pushed out a cry. Your legs tightened around Joel’s waist, and you knew the end wasn’t far from sight.

“All—All—All yours, daddy. Cum in me, please.”

Joel’s fingers flexed gently on your tummy, then he moved them back and forth as his dick did the same.

The friction nearly sent your mind in a spiral; you glanced down, and you saw his outline, faintly, under that touch.

Joel was so big, and your body was lying perfectly supine on the seat that you could feel him—see him—push repeatedly inside you. A little bulge took shape where his hand was pressing in, and the sensation was overwhelming. Your hands slid to Joel’s hair and yanked.

“Fill me—wanna feel you, daddy, please just fill me—”

“Think a little swell in that belly’ll keep those boys from lookin’, huh? Is that what I gotta do to show ‘em you’re—”

“Yes! Fuck!” you whined.

“—always gonna be mine?”

Joel’s thrusts were relentless. Your brain was on the fritz. Your hips tried to lift, mindlessly, begging him to fill you with his cum, but the man had you pinned underneath him. Sweat drenched you both, and the wildest ideas were humming between you. You were almost there.

“That’d be one way to tell your dad, huh?” Joel panted.

Oh, fuck.

“Have you come home from college all swole up with my kid—he couldn’t keep us apart then, huh?” he went on.

Your father would probably skin him alive if he found out. Still, your lips parted, and you dumbly, sweetly mumbled, OK, OK, Joel. Give me one. Make me a mommy, please.

Joel almost lost his hold on your hip and your belly with that last part; he all but folded in on you with that request. Breathily, through his teeth, he gritted:

“You mean that, baby?”

Again, you nodded.

Momentarily forgetting the outline of his cock in your tummy, the thought of seeing you leaking his cum and squirming for more, it seemed, Joel just sank into you.

He bracketed his arms around your head like he had before, flattened his chest to yours, and fucked you.

It was primal. Needy. Wet. Insatiable. You probably looked feral and senseless, and neither of you cared.

Overhead, the strains of an old ZZ Top song reached a crescendo, and Joel’s eyes stayed locked on yours. His cock stretched you in a way that seemed implausible—you felt him from root to tip and could sense the oncoming pulses before they ever left a drop.

Then Joel kissed you. In his warm, soft, and loving way, his lips melded to yours and caressed them continually. Though it might’ve only lasted a few seconds, the effect was profound, and you found yourself pulling him deeper. Squeezing him tight and taking him whole.

“You really wanna have a baby with me, Miller?”

“Nope.” Joel’s response was instantaneous.

“Wh—”

“Eight kids, at least. You OK with that?”

If you weren’t on the verge of climax, you would’ve laughed in his face. But because you were, and you happened to be head over heels in love with this man, you grinned, nodding. Joel smiled and kissed you again.

“Alright. First one’s comin’ now if you’ll just—oh, fuck.”

It seemed like Joel wanted to drag things out a little longer, but his body had other plans. Yours did, too.

Right as your walls clenched and your senses started to flood with those sweet, euphoric feelings, Joel’s cock throbbed once. Twice. Again and again, unleashing ropes of his cum in a seemingly endless stream. Your heels dug deep in Joel’s back, and your jaw fell open, instinctively. While that sticky-wet warmth filled your insides and Joel continued pounding away, a shriek clawed out from you.

It started as a cry and quickly morphed into a moan, shrill as anything: “Please, baby. Please, please, please.”

You never thought you’d want to upend your life with a child before you even graduated from school or got a job.

Joel clearly hadn’t been planning for that either, and still, his voice was as slow and sweet as molasses in your ear.

“Take it all now, darlin’. That’s it. That’s my girl. So good.”

He stroked your hair and emptied himself completely. His balls must’ve been drained, because you could sense what felt like a torrent of warmth between your legs.

When he pulled out, you both groaned at the sight.

Joel was drenched in his cum and yours. Dripping.

Still oozing a little at the tip, the old man was spent, and it appeared he was about to give himself a good shake and wipe it all off, when you stopped Joel in his tracks.