♡sam's slut♡

#3 A fic or artwork you enjoyed: This one is open ended, so I presume it can be one that I've either read or written. I'm an over-achiever, so I'm gonna do both lol The work that I've enjoyed writing the most this year is my pride and joy, Moon Without Stars. It's a Sam soulmate fic with some enemies-to-lovers themes in it (not super heavily like I originally wanted. Turns out, Sam doesn't do enemies very well lol). I didn't see many of those (I've seen plenty of Dean ones) and wanted to try and broaden out the pool! As for a fic or artwork I've enjoyed this year, I gotta hand that one to @supernaturalfreakout's Fester fic. It's got dark tones with Meg!Sam, and it's not usually the genre I read. But they handled it so, so well that it has lived in my brain rent-free pretty much all year!

#5 A scene you enjoyed creating Oh man, where do I even begin with this one? There are so many moments I really liked, but I'm probably gonna have to highlight the scene in Hearthfire where Dean finally comes across the cottage of the witch!reader! I was going for cozy but creepy vibes, and I'm really proud of how it turned out! The following is just a snippet of it, but, really, I feel like nailed what I was going for throughout the entire piece.

The place was unfairly cozy. There were herbs hanging from the rafters. Candles flickered on every available surface. A fire crackled loudly in the stone hearth. Blankets were draped over the back of every chair. The entire cottage smelled like cedar and pumpkin spice. Dean hated how much he liked it. You moved around with quiet confidence, setting the mug on the table for him even though he hadn’t said yes to your offer.

#9 A work from another author you keep coming back to Oh man, I'm about to reveal how notorious of a re-reader I am. Forbidden Fruit (and it's subsequent stories) written by @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth and @voodoochildthings is a pretty consistent re-read for me. Like... honestly, probably every other month or so I pull it up and give it a read. Either the first piece or the follow-ups to it. It's just so good!

#11 Fandom you'd like to create more for next year So I really only dabbled with Spn this year and then a single Soldier Boy (The Boys) piece. There isn't a lot that had drawn me in and screamed at me to write fanfic, so I honestly don't see myself branching out TOO much. That being said, I'm absolutely head over heels for Stranger Things and Heated Rivalry right now, though I don't really have much in mind for fanfic for those. Who knows? Maybe something will strike.

#16 Something interesting you researched as a part of the process Oh man, as writers, we always google the most interesting things sometimes. I think the most interesting thing I googled this year for research was Greek mythology. One of my stories revolved around powers coming from the Greek Goddess Nyx, so I did a ton of digging into her origin and such to see if there was anything from her stories that I could pull from.

Bonus question 1: What are some BANGER lines you are most proud of writing this past year? Thanks so much for throwing this one back at me! I have a few in mind that I absolutely adored. Most of them came from my Sam series, Moon Without Stars. So completely out of context, here are a few of them. If they catch your eye, you can always take a look at the series and see where they show up 😉

"Fate was a fickle bitch, and you weren’t about to bend over and let her fuck you."

“You know... I’ve never seen anyone run from something they didn’t believe in.”

“Then don’t believe in soulmates – just believe in me!”

Another one of my favorite lines I wrote shows up in When It Refused to Rain, a challenge fic I did!

Outside, the sky never shattered. The storm never broke. But something inside of him did.

Bonus question 2: What fic from 2025 are you most proud of writing? My shining gem. My crown jewel of 2025. My favorite child (even though I say I have none). That has to go to Tangled Sheets, a final installment to a mini polyship series that pulled me out of my writer's block funk. It's smutty with both Winchesters. It's my longest piece I have ever written as well as my most-liked story.

When you crept down the stairs, fabric clutched tightly between your fingers, he was sitting in his usual spot at the kitchen table, typing away. A textbook was open at his side, along with a forgotten cup of coffee.  It was only noon, and a Sunday of all days, but the shadows under his eyes were lavender, and the crease between his brow set in concentration. But he still looked beautiful. Radiant, even. And the look of him there: working hard—for you, for Evie… The sight alone threatened to choke you up.

Without another thought, your feet carried you forward, and you approached him gently.

“How’s  it going?” you asked, laying a hand on his taut shoulder.

Sam ceased typing, pushed his glasses up his nose—the ones he’d been forced to start wearing for reading and computer work—and clicked save on a sprawling word-document, no doubt his latest assignment.

Your parents had taken Evie out for lunch and a play date, and were due to return at 4pm. As much as you both loved your daughter, you were grateful for a few hours peace, and Sam had planned to spend the rest of the afternoon studying whilst you took the opportunity for an overdue clear-out.

“Not bad,” he said, without looking up. “Just a few hundred words to go. Shouldn’t take me too long. How’s the clear-out going? Found anything to donate? I can take a few bags to the charity shop on my lunch break tomorrow.”

Smiling softly, you looked down at the tulle in your hands. “Not yet. I kinda got distracted.”

Sam turned to you then, and suddenly his work no longer mattered. His eyes fixed solely on you, the white fabric in your hands. He didn’t need to ask what you’d found; it was obvious. It featured in several framed pictures in your hallway, ones you both passed without a second thought multiple times a day. There was one with your whole wedding party, one with your parents, and one with Dean and Cas suited to the nines. And then there was one with the three of you—you, smiling up at Sam whilst his hand rested protectively against your belly—a secret shared between you both and your photographer at the time. Or so you’d thought, back then.

“Do you remember?” Your voice was quiet as you passed Sam one end of the veil.

He reached out, smoothed his long, skillful fingers along the fabric, and his eyes did that squinty thing when he is recalling something sentimental. “Of course I remember,” he said.

For a while, his eyes lingered on the section of veil in his hands, before drifting slowly to your face, and then down your figure in a slow, appraising stare.

You were in a old t-shirt and sweatpants, but felt naked under his gaze. Two and a half years of marriage and childbirth hadn’t changed that; he still made your insides ignite.

In sickness and in health, they say. And you were sick with it—your love for him. You were inflicted with a terminal illness. 

Slowly, you watched his expression transform from contemplative to playful, mouth crooking into a mischievous smile.

“How could I forget?” he said. “You, standing there, all in white. You looked angelic. Positively virginal.”

You cracked up, laughter spilling from you as you shared the joke. It was a badly-kept secret between you that you were several weeks pregnant on your wedding day, though you weren’t yet showing. You might have fooled everyone if you hadn’t disappeared at irregular intervals during the reception to puke your guts up—returning with freshly applied lipstick each time—tactically avoided the champagne, nor had been witnessed shoveling your share of the wedding breakfast between Sam and Dean’s plates at every course. At the time, you thought you’d played it off, blaming it on nerves, but exactly seven months and a day later, Evie arrived, and you felt totally called out.

The fact that you even chose to wear a veil in the first place was hilarious, seeing as you’d been getting down and dirty for years proceeding that date. Tradition had never particularly been your style, but when you saw the full-length veil in the bridal shop, you couldn’t resist; it made you feel like an elven princess, and you wanted only the best for your Aragorn.

“Virginal, you say? Do you wish I had been?”

Sam huffed. “Absolutely not.”

You weren’t a virgin when you met him, either, and he certainly wasn’t—being seven years older and decidedly more experienced. Although, as he admitted to you once, his opportunities as a teen had been rather limited, and it wasn’t until college that he finally lost his virginity at the comparatively older age of nineteen. You, however, had given yours to your boyfriend at the time at sixteen. It was memorable, but for all the wrong reasons.

“Really?” you asked, mockingly. “Do you never regret not being the one to ‘de-flower’ me?”

Sam huffed again, feigned offence. “No.”

“No?” You cocked an eyebrow. “I thought that was every guy’s fantasy.”

“I’m not every guy,” Sam said confidently, and set his glasses down on the table. “Plus, people romanticize first times, but they’re never any good in reality.”

“Huh,” you said, recalling the awkward tumble, the performance anxiety, the ‘is that it?’ thought that haunted you for weeks following your aforementioned first time at sixteen. “’Aint that the truth.”

Sam chuckled, scooted his chair from under the table and beckoned you into his lap, steadying you with his hands on your hips as you straddled him, feeling his familiar form beneath your thighs. “Virginity’s a bit of a scam anyway,” he said, “a completely antiquated construct.”

Nodding, you slid the veil from his fingers and draped it over your head, pressing your palms together in a poor imitation of the Virgin Mary. “Totally. I wonder who came up with that idea—tying a woman’s worth to whether she’s had cock or not. Oh, let me guess...”

Sam chuckled, slid the veil from your head and wrapped it around your shoulders like a cape. “In all seriousness, my love, as much as it churns my guts thinking of you with anyone else, our past is what makes us us. And,” he said, smirking, “when you tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had, it kinda hits different. Because,” he added, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “rumour has it you’ve been with a lot of people.”

That wasn’t exactly true, and you both knew it. But you’d been with enough people to know bad sex from good, and good from great, and Sam’s brand of fucking was… well… off the fucking scale.

“You bastard,” you said, punching him playfully in the shoulder. “How dare you slut-shame me!”

Sam laughed, capturing your flailing fists in his, stilling them and bringing them to his heart. “Never,” he said, smirking. “And none of that matters now, anyway. Because you’re mine, now. Forever.”

One at a time, he brought your fists to his lips and kissed your knuckles, and you savoured the feeling of his mouth on your skin: his soft, warm lips, his intoxicating breath.

“Forever,” he repeated, and looked you dead in the eye as his thumb traced over the surface of your wedding band, the sparkling diamond of your engagement ring—the one that used to belong to his mother, before he got down on one knee and made it yours.

The look in his hazel eyes made you freeze, have to swallow. Whenever he looked at you that way—like you were the only thing in the world worth looking at—you lost all coherent thought. It made your subby instincts flare, and you wanted to give him everything—all of you, the entire world. Because he deserved it. God, did he deserve it.

“Forever,” you agreed, your voice but a whisper, and Sam smiled softly, his eyes aflame with that hallucinatory  mix of gold and green.

Gently, he cupped your face in his large, calloused hands, and leaned in to kiss you—on your lips, the bridge of your nose, your forehead—and you folded into him like it was your default setting. You needed no instruction. He moved, and you were pulled, as naturally as the tides to the moon.

You knew him intimately, knew where the softest parts of him were, the hardest, what moves to pull to increase that percentage.

With that in mind, you tested a slow roll of your hips, and he responded in earnest, his breath in your ear, the familiar strain of him burgeoning against your inner thigh.

“I am kinda bummed I’ll never get to wear this thing again,” you said, gathering the veil around your shoulders as your hips continued their lazy, deliberate tease. “It’s too pretty to be collecting dust.”

“Hm.” Sam murmured, his voice dropping to a low, seductive rumble. “So are you.” He released a breath, eyes lingering on you before flicking momentarily to his watch. “We’ve got a few hours until trouble returns. Perhaps we can find a new way to wear it. Together.”

Your lips quirked at his suggestion. A few hours. How long had it been since you’d had that much time? You still found time for each other, of course—most days, in fact—but these days you were afraid to admit that you’d gotten far too used to quick fumbles in the sheets before exhaustedly collapsing into one another. It had been a while since you’d  been able to play like you used to. And you missed it fervently.

“Oh yeah?” you asked, giggling as Sam began peppering ticklish kisses along your jawline, the shape of him prominent now, insistent. “What did you have in mind?” 

“I have a few ideas,” he murmured. “But they all involve you being a little less... Well... Dressed.”

You remembered being nervous the first time you were intimate again after Evie was born. You knew your body would look and feel different, and was anxious how he’d react. You’d told him so, after, and he’d made a point of kissing all the parts of your body you’d been taught to hate, to hide, and it softened them a little in your mind. Because how could one hate something his lips had graced? The body that had carried his child?

Needing no more persuasion, you draped the veil over his shoulders and leant back to slide your t-shirt over your head and worked to unclasp your bra. The straps slid down your shoulders to reveal your breasts—a bit fuller—a bit heavier now than when you’d first met.

“Like this?” you asked.

An appreciative growl rumbled in the back of Sam’s throat.

“Exactly like that. Please, continue.”

Extracting yourself from him, you slid off his lap and shimmied your sweatpants over your hips—again, wider-set than they used to be—before dropping them to the floor and stepping out of your panties.

For a long moment, an anticipatory silence filled the room, thick with longing and unquenched desire. Sam cast another appraising glance over your now naked body—gaze lingering in all the areas you’d been previously afraid to show—like he was trying to take in every detail, map the contours of your ever-changing body in his mind.

Goosebumps cascaded over your flesh, and you felt your nipples pebble in real time, a wetness creep between your legs. The effect this man had on you was drug-like, and you were addicted.

Was it normal to still be infatuated with your husband? To lust after him? You’d been waiting for the apathy to kick in, thought becoming a mother might put you off sex for good—considering how ruthlessly you’d cussed Sam in the birthing suite.

You did this to me, you remembered screaming, and the agony that followed, the total-body exhaustion.

The sleepless nights, the sore nipples, the nagging self-doubt.

 The otherworldly love.

“You’re beautiful,” Sam said, his voice slipping through the quiet and stealing your breath. “Perfect.”

He stepped in front of you, all six-foot-four of him—your Greek God of a husband—and eased the veil from his shoulders. In a practiced rhythm you knew far too well, he twisted the tulle slowly, the fabric whispering over his fingers, and doubled it up before looping it around your throat like a scarf, resting above your necklace. He slid the loose end through the loop and slowly tightened the fabric. The pressure was tender at first, then firmer, familiar—an echo of the way he’d tightened his belt around your neck more times than you cared to admit.

A low, needy sound broke free from your throat, and your pulse fluttered as he wound the excess fabric around his palm and drew you close, closer still—until his breath brushed your lips, fresh and minty and maddening. Your body swayed toward him. Instinctive. Helpless. Toes stretching for height you didn’t have.

And fuck, you wanted to kiss him. To devour him. The hunger hit you so sharply you almost forgot to breathe, your chin tilting up of its own accord as you chased the warmth of his mouth, willing to lose your balance entirely for even a sliver of a taste of him.

Your eyes met, danced an ancient dance: a smoldering, dangerous one you both knew the moves to.

It was his turn. Thankfully, he gave in.

“You are my world,” he rasped, and before you could respond, his mouth was on yours, crushing and desperate and claiming. And he had you then. Had you entirely. Could’ve asked you to do anything in that moment and you’d have done it for him.

You were enraptured. Breathless.

Sam pulled away slowly, looked at you with a mix of hunger and awe, then spoke three words you’d been dying to hear for months.

“On your knees,” he commanded, a little breathless himself, and you complied instantly, sinking your knees into the linoleum, muscle-memory neurons firing. Instinctively, you reached towards his belt, but Sam stopped you short.

“Patience, my love,” he said. “Not yet.”

Then he led you to the bedroom, veil wrapped around your throat like a leash. You followed obediently, crawling on your hands and knees behind him like a bitch in heat. Perhaps you were. You could feel your desire swelling between your legs, and had to stop yourself from moaning at the friction of your thighs rubbing together. God, you were desperate, and he hadn’t even touched you yet.

Once in the bedroom, Sam instructed you to perch on the edge of the bed, and you waited eagerly as he freed your neck from the veil, then watched as he looped the fabric into a pattern you recognized instantly.

Sam was an expert rigger, and you an eager rope-bunny, and watching him work was always fascinating. His skill was intuitive, unmatched by anyone you knew in the scene. Perhaps he had his past to thank for that. All those years tying up monsters apparently came with transferrable skills. You’d seen how those instincts still lived in him—the quick hands, the precision, the ability to improvise without thinking. You can take the man out of the city, and all that. He never talked about it, not really, but you knew enough to know it wasn’t pretty.

It was strange, really, how something he’d learned in uglier times, for uglier purposes, transformed into something so tender in his hands. You couldn’t feel more honoured to be part of that sublimation. A conduit for his creativity. His redemption.

But you weren’t so sure about this. How could a veil hold you? It would surely rip.

“This won’t work,” you said, watching the loops of the handcuffs take shape. “It’s too delicate. It won’t hold.”

Sam looked at you incredulously, amusedly, his eyes saying, Are you doubting me? I know what I’m doing. But instead, he said, “You’re delicate, too, my love. And you don’t break easy.” Then, “trust me,” and signalled for you to raise your wrists.

Without another quip, you offered them up in submission.

“This will work, okay?” he reassured, as he looped the prusik cuffs over your wrists and pulled them taut, your palms pressed together as if in prayer. “I know how to tie a knot, distribute tension. Stand, please.” And you did, and felt the fabric shimmy around you as Sam looped it around your middle and back again, finishing up with a surgeon’s knot and a securely fastened bow at your navel, right above where your hands were now restrained to your waist. It was a simple design, much less complex than the intricate Shibari binds that were his signature. But sometimes simple is best, and in this context, it was more than fitting, given the unconventional ‘rope.’

“There,” he said, standing back to admire his work. “Perfect. You look like a gift, perfectly wrapped.”

Giggling, you tested a roll of your wrists, felt the delicious resistance of your bonds. The tulle didn’t give—not even an inch. You could just about ball your hands into fists and extend your fingers out again, but other than that, you were incapacitated from the waist up. You should never have doubted him; you weren’t going anywhere without a struggle.

You bit your lip, puffed out your chest. “You gonna open me?” you said, “or save me for Christmas?”

But Sam was already unbuttoning his shirt, nimble fingers working hurriedly. “I may be a patient man,” he said, voice suddenly rough, “but I’m not that patient.”

And with that, he cast off his flannel and guided you back onto the bed.

His mouth was back on yours before your head even hit the pillow.

For a while, your world consisted solely of his lips, his breath, his tongue, his teeth. His fingers in your hair. In your mouth. Around your neck. Between your legs. Biting, scratching, clawing, yearning. He was a man on a mission, and that mission was, apparently, to make you writhe. 

You wanted to bury yourself in him—crawl beneath his skin and live inside him—or at least have him bury himself in you. He touched you so expertly, so perfectly, that it shouldn’t have been such a shock when your orgasm crept up on you unannounced.

He'd started at your kneecap, cavaliering a trail of sloppy kisses up your thighs. When his tongue finally slid inside you, you’d gasped and arched your back so severely that if anyone else were to witness the moment, they’d surely think he’d been trying to exorcise you.

Crying out, you curled your fingertips into his hair and hauled your hips into his face. Like you truly were possessed. He didn’t stop you. Instead, he growled and met you at your hunger, his tongue a hurricane against you. It was too much and not enough at once. You were about to take off.

You gasped, screamed, wrestled your legs around his face, grinded into him even more. This time, he tried to push you open, fingers digging into the flesh of your thighs. But you were strong; you had the upper hand, and somehow the resistance from him made your muscles contract even harder. Your thighs engulfed him as your orgasm crashed through you, and when Sam finally surfaced, his face was burning red as a Kansas sunset.

“Holy shit,” he said, catching his breath. The look in his eyes was euphoric as you stared back at him, chest rising and falling erratically, his grin wide. His chin was wet and glistening, and his hair wild, like he’d been caught in a storm.

Sam loved getting smothered—had been known to beg for it in the past. You hadn’t seen him this flushed since he’d begged you to ride his face when you were eight months pregnant. You’d indulged him, of course, couldn’t keep your hands off him during your third trimester—to the point where you thought there might actually be something wrong with you. Whatever was wrong with him, however, was totally okay with you.

Sam wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, manoeuvred himself onto his hands and knees and crawled towards you—and there was something primordial about seeing a six-foot-four ex-hunter stalking towards you with hunger in his eyes.

Like you were his prey. His conquest. His prize.

An animalistic urge stirred in your gut. A carnivorous desire for more. More. More…

Your mouth opened to accept his kisses, and you tasted yourself on him, like you had done many times before. The flavor of your sex never got boring; even when you had to fumble around in the dark like a pair of horny teenagers after putting Evie down, the taste of your own pleasure on his tongue made you dizzy every time.

The kiss lingered, transformed into something entirely different when the band of his jeans lined up perfectly with your bound hands. Grasping the opportunity, you hooked your fingers beneath his belt and tugged.

“Need you,” you breathed, and fumbled about helplessly, unable to get a good enough grip with your hands still bound. “Need you now.”

This time, Sam gave in, assisting you by tugging down his jeans and boxers to set himself free. He was engorged—thick and straining, tip glistening with the sweet dew of his arousal.

It made your mouth water.

“Where’d you need me?” he rasped, but he already knew. He was already dragging you into position, off the end of the bed and onto the floor.

Your knees grazed the carpet, but you didn’t care. All you could think about was his cock, and how desperately you needed it in your mouth.

With no hands to steady yourself (or to grasp at him), you lunged your face towards him and took him—maybe a bit too enthusiastically—into your already-opened mouth. His pre-cum coated the back of your throat—that salty, delicious tang—and you couldn’t help but gag, splutter helplessly around him.

And fuck, you’d missed this. The rawness of desire. The degradation.

“Easy.” Sam half-groaned, half-chuckled, threaded his fingers through your hair and eased you back with a gentle tug. His cock slid out your mouth with a wet pop and you coughed, gasped, eyes glazing as you smiled up at him, lips parting in a silent plea for more. More... Please, sir, can I have some more?

It was a look he knew. A look he knew very well.

He considered you for a long second, the question in his eyes punctuated with a silent tilt of his head and cock of his brow. You sure? He didn’t need to ask aloud. You could read him like a novel, his body’s language your native tongue. A skill he also shared.

Yes, you nodded urgently, and watched his expression change, the lines around his eyes softening as he set his jaw.

“Well,” he said, “if that’s how you wanna play, my love, then we’re missing something.”

Sam crossed the room with purpose—towards your dressing table—towards the shatterproof orb that masqueraded as a harmless paperweight, but had become your unspoken safeguard. A stand-in for words when yours were tied up in need.

It was cold as he pressed it between your fingers, but you clutched onto it with all your strength. You wanted this. Needed this. Couldn’t let it fall, lest you revoke your consent.

Ready? his eyes asked, and you gave another confirmatory nod, curling your toes into the carpet and sitting back on your flexed heels, anticipation coiling in every muscle. Ready. Waiting...

But instead of giving you what you were expecting, Sam caught your chin between his fingers and tilted your face up to his. He bent down to hover his mouth a few inches above yours—close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, but far enough to make your expectations stutter.

Two fingers tapped on your lips.

You parted them instantly. Obedient. Breath shaky.

And you knew what was coming next.

God, you knew.

Your skin prickled, your stomach swooped, and something fragile and feral opened inside you. That vulnerability—humiliating and holy—sparked a craving so primal it bordered on shame.

A contradictory mix of desire and disgust ignited your bones.

Your fingers clutched the orb even tighter, knuckles whitening.

And when his warm string of spit fell onto your tongue, you swallowed it immediately.

Eagerly.

Claimed it.

Claimed the shame too.

“Mm,” Sam rumbled, low and pleased. “Such a good girl.”

His fingers brushed your cheek. A disarmingly gentle caress. A jarring contrast to the act he’d just performed on you. That was one of the things you loved about him: those windows of tenderness between the violence. It was somehow liberating and claiming all at once. He was a walking contradiction.

The tip of his thumb pressed between your teeth, and you accepted him, hummed as he pressed the pad of his thumb against your tongue.

“Any…fing… for you, sir,” you managed.

The words were muffled, but he caught your drift. He always did. He had an ear for that, too; years of hearing you murmur around ball gags had that effect, had tuned his ear to the shape of your sounds.

“We’ll see about that, shall we?” he said, sliding his thumb free, only to finally—finally—press himself into your mouth.

He started slow. Controlled. Letting you adjust to him as he threaded his fingers through your hair, anchoring you exactly where he wanted you.

You let him set the pace—not that you had much of a choice—as he guided your head along the length of him, steady and deliberate.

He was rock hard yet velvety smooth. Salty, yet sweet. Suffocating, yet the exact air that you breathed. A living, pulsing contraction.

Your lips and tongue worked hard against him, wringing the sweetest sounds from his throat. His sighs and moans fed you, made you work even harder despite the effort of your breathing, the saliva beginning to pool around your lips.

After a while, he began meeting your mouth with thrusts of his own, the sounds emerging from him growing more ragged with each pass. When his balls began slapping under your chin, you knew he was growing close.

“Fuck…” Sam hissed and halted abruptly. Eased out. A glistening string of saliva connecting you to him stretched then broke as he withdrew. You coughed, cleared your throat, then watched his cock twitch before you—shiny and pink and spit-laden. But he didn’t come. Wouldn’t let himself. Not yet.

Suddenly his hands were on you again. Urgent. Prying the orb from your fingers, dropping it to the floor, and hiking you back onto the bed. With your hips now flush with the mattress, he lined himself up with your entrance and slowly pushed inside, didn’t stop until he was seated to the hilt.

The stretch of him was divine, contributing to a fullness you hadn’t felt for months.

Your mouth was already open in a moan as he came down to kiss you again, your lips still red and wet from his ministrations.

“My god.” Sam groaned. “You feel fucking incredible.”

He pulled out slightly, then began to roll his hips in an intoxicating rhythm, thrusting in and up, dragging the head of his cock along your most sensitive parts.

“So do you,” you whined. “You fuck me so good, baby. I’ve missed this. Missed you.”

“I’ve missed this too.”

Steadily, he picked up the pace, hooking your ankles over his shoulders to angle himself harder, deeper, eliciting another whine from you.

“I love you,” he groaned, and grasped your shin, pressed his nose into the side of your leg. “Love you so much.”

He kissed your calves. Your ankles. The soles of your feet. Darted his tongue between your toes and took them into his mouth. Nibbled. Suckled. Gentle, at first. Then harder, wetter, greedier, as if he was trying to wring the devil himself out of you.

“Sam!” you gasped, half laughing, half scandalised on his behalf. He only sucked on your toes when he was feeling particularly freaky, and God help you, it made you throb.

“Oh, God,” you panted, heat spiralling straight between your legs as he toyed between your toes again, tongued the webbing, wet and claiming.

A thin sheen of sweat bloomed over your skin, body flushing from head to spit-soaked toe, and you couldn’t stop the filthy little smile twisting your mouth.

Sam laughed against your foot, his breath hot on your arch. “You’re delicious, sweetheart. If it were up to me, I’d take my time and eat every inch of you. Slowly.”

Your breathing was ragged now, your mind dissolving with every thrust of his hips, every dirty word leaving his lips. There wasn’t an inch of you his mouth hadn’t claimed before—the insides of your thighs, behind your knees. Between your cheeks. But you weren’t prepared for that particular detour tonight. Not physically, not mentally. Not with the way he was fucking you right now.

“Next time,” you managed, breath breaking. “Next time, I promise. You can have the whole of me—anything you want. Whatever disgusting shit you want to do to me, you can do it. Just please, don’t stop fucking me now.”

And then, with another wicked grin, you pressed your foot back into his mouth.

Sam grinned a wide, cheshire-cat grin, gave your toes another quick, teasing kiss, then began railing into you like there was no tomorrow. 

He hooked his arm under your thigh and worked a hand between yours, intertwining your fingers and testing a pull of your weight against his strength. Clutching onto him with both hands, your forearms, biceps, and chest muscles strained as he hauled you off the bed and onto his hips. Instinctively, your legs wrapped around his waist, ankles locking behind him, your abs trembling with the effort of keeping yourself upright. In this position, you’d usually have your arms around his neck for support, and without that, you were powerless—suspended, breathless, dependent on his strength alone.

“Stay with me,” Sam said. “Right here. Let me handle the rest.”

And he did.

His hips rolled forward, guiding you into alignment, and you felt the mattress fall further away beneath you. Your thighs tightened reflexively around him, heels digging into his back, muscles trembling, burning.

But you held on.

Because you wanted to.

Because he wanted you to.

Because nothing mattered in the world except the closeness of him, and his impossible strength.

He started to move, and if you had any breath left, you surely would have screamed. Instead you whimpered helplessly, your voice warbling as your whole body jolted with the impact of his thrusts, your breasts bouncing every which way as your husband fucked you with an intensity that stole breath and language and thought.

With nowhere to go except for where he put you, your hips slammed into his repeatedly—possessive, claiming, unforgiving—and your whole pelvic area felt like jelly. The pleasure was so overwhelming you felt it in your bones.

“Oh my god,” you cried, suddenly finding your voice, desperate and strained. “Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m gonna— I’m gonna—"

“I’ve got you,” Sam said, tightening his grip on your thigh. But you weren’t worried about falling. Not in the physical sense. No doubt the metaphorical drop would hit you later—and hard. It had been a while, after all.

“I’ve got you,” he repeated, and before you could reply, your climax was already taking hold.

It clutched you like a death grip, squeezing every muscle taut as your whole body convulsed with the intensity of the contractions. Pleasure flooded through you, endorphins raging, wrecking you from the inside out. And you couldn’t hold on anymore. Had lost all your strength.

Your grip loosened and Sam guided you back to the bed. As your back hit the mattress, your muscles went slack and familiar lightness cascaded through your system. Fluttering your eyelids shut, you basked in the sensations, flying high, riding out the weightlessness for as long as you could. You couldn’t stay here forever, you knew. Knew that just past the next peak was a landslide waiting to happen. But for now, you were here. And wished with all your being for it to stay.

“I’ve still got you.” Sam’s voice cut through the void. He was still clutching onto you, still reassuring, even as he continued to ruin you. Then his voice cracked as he finally let himself go, allowing his own climax to claim him. And the sounds he made...

Your eyes opened just in time to see the look on his face when the last reams of his release shot into you. Face contorted in pleasure. Lips hung open. Sweat dripping down his face, his neck, his chest—dripping all over you as his warm seed filled you to the brim. It might have been the most erotic thing you had ever seen.

Nested inside you, Sam halted all movement, his hands steadying himself on either side of your face. He was visibly shaken. You could feel his heartbeat through his skin from where your bodies were still conjoined. His breath on your lips. His wonder in the way he looked down at you, reflecting your own right back at him. You looked at each other like strangers rediscovering something sacred. Like you were seeing each other for the first time all over again.

Sam squinted, his eyes a question, and you responded in the only way you knew how.

“Kiss me,” you breathed, and Sam obeyed like it was instinct.

He kissed you slowly, deeply—agonizingly tenderly—and he tasted like the whole world crashing on your shores. Like salt, and ruin, and the unimaginable depths. The expanse of the entire ocean.

You surrendered your breath, let him drag you beneath the tide. You wanted to drown in the ocean of him—never wanted to come up for air—never wanted to breathe again if it meant his lips were no longer against yours. I will die happy in this hallucinatory bliss, you told yourself. Let the bends take me. Forget heaven and hell: he will become my tomb.

When his tongue did finally leave your mouth, you audibly moaned. Grieved the loss of him. Craned your neck towards him. Chased his mouth with yours.

He let you catch him, and the way he held you then was so heartbreaking you swore you felt your heart split clean down the center.

“I love you,” he said. His forehead resting against yours. His hands cradling your face. His body inside yours. His entire being focused solely on you. “I love you so damned much.”

And you weren’t crying. You absolutely weren’t crying. The wetness slipping down your cheeks was sweat—had to be. Yours, or his, you didn’t know. But definitely not tears.

Absolutely not.

“I love you too,” you choked, your voice unsteady and small, and then whatever dam you were holding back shattered. Hot, helpless tears spilled free from your eyes, and you let them. Finally, you let them. It felt like a confession. A confession to what, you didn’t yet know.

“Hey,” Sam said, soothing, and shifted you both up the bed. He eased out of you slowly, and you mourned the loss of him immediately. It ached. Not a physical ache, but the kind of ache you feel in your soul. An existential yearning.

The warm gush of your combined pleasure followed his absence, seeping out of you and trickling down your thighs in silky rivulets. For some reason, that made you sob even harder. It had been a while since you had felt this level of vulnerability with him, and you didn’t realize how much you needed it until now.

At the head of the bed, Sam pulled you into his arms, and smoothed away your tears with his thumb. He wiped each one with reverence, pressing a kiss to the tracks they left, like he was blessing the grief right out of you.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a while. “For neglecting you recently. I should make more time for this. For you. I’ve been a terrible Dom. A terrible partner. A terrible fath—”

A violent shake of your head. “Don’t!” you sobbed, sniffling. “Don’t you dare say that. You do so much. You do everything.”

Sam shook his head, looked at you like he didn’t believe a word of it. “No. I’ve been caught up. I realize it now. I’ve been caught up chasing an imagined reality whilst ignoring the one right in front of me. The reality of my dreams, at that. All that matters to me is you, and Evie. Here and now. And I abandoned that reality. Abandoned you. I’ve been absent, and I’m so sorry.”

Was he serious? His take was... genuinely baffling. How could he think so little of himself? He’d been your rock throughout the toughest and most exciting moments of your life, had never once wavered. Had held back your hair when the first waves of morning sickness hit. Was by your side during every scan, every midwife appointment, every antenatal class. Advocated for you when your words caught in your throat during the endless prodding and poking. Eased your anxiety when the panic set in, the dreaded spiral of existential guilt, the fear of not being enough. Had stayed up with you during every night feed, even when he had to be up at the crack of dawn to work a dead-end job he’d only taken out of pride, his unwillingness to accept any help. He’d never once missed a milestone, bath time, a bedtime story. Held Evie’s hands during her first steps. Wore the goofiest smile when her first word— ‘dada,’ of course—came tumbling out. Spent hours researching the best day cares in the area—visited them all, asked questions even you hadn’t considered. He was an incredible father, an incredible partner, and the fact that he was even questioning that stung. Evie thought the world of him, as did you.

You held his gaze firmly, imploring him not to look away. “You never abandoned us. You’ve been here. Every day.”

“Physically, yes. But mentally? Emotionally?” He sighed incredulously, as if he couldn’t believe himself, what he was about to admit. “I stopped touching you,” he whispered, voice small for a man as large as he was. “At least how I should’ve been, anyway. Christ, I let our intimacy slip right through my fingers.”

You shook your head, unwilling to believe what he was saying. But somewhere deep down, you knew it to be true, at least partly. Lately, sex had begun feeling... transactional rather than connective. Still great, but fuelled by physical need rather than something that fulfilled you both emotionally. And as much as you didn’t want to admit it, as much as it terrified you to acknowledge, maybe a weight had settled between you. And you’d let it grow—slowly, quietly—until it felt impossible to carry. At some point, you supposed it was just easier to ignore it, roll it under the carpet and forget it existed. To live in denial.

Maybe you should’ve said something, had an honest conversation instead of letting your body bottle up all the grief and having your tears do the telling—to yourself, as much as to him. Making Sam pick up the pieces of you, as he always did.

As your Dom, you knew he would take it personally—blame himself for any transgression. But as your husband, your life partner, you couldn’t let him carry that blame. It wasn’t his to carry alone.

“It’s not all on you,” you said, sighing. “I’m equally at fault. I’ve been… stressed, I guess. Stretched... And you’ve been carrying so much. Trying to carry my stress, as well as your own. Trying to be perfect, when you already fucking are. You’ve been killing yourself for us. Working yourself into the ground, trying to be everything we need. Of course something had to give. You forget you’re allowed to be tired too.”

Sam’s eyes flickered—guilt, clarity, and relief fighting in the same breath. His inhale trembled, and he swallowed hard, words tight.

“I just— You deserve someone who’s present. Who can provide for you, every second. I used to be that. And lately I feel like I’ve been giving you… scraps.”

Your chest tightened—not with pain, but with recognition. It was always the same with him: give, give, give, until he was running on empty. Sometimes you wished he would just fucking take.

“You’re infuriating, Winchester. But you have never given me scraps. Frankly, I think you’re incapable of that.” You eyed him knowingly, and a flicker of a smile graced his lips, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “You’ve given me everything I could possibly dream of,” you continued. “Your effort. Your heart. Your growth. My daughter… She matters more to me than anything on this world. But—” You looked down at your wrists in their bonds. The beautiful art he’d crafted you into. “I have to admit, I did miss this. I missed us.”

“What we used to be?” he asked.

The words struck harder than you expected. Tapped a nerve that bled frequently. It was the same tender place that ached throughout your pregnancy—that quiet, persistent fear that becoming a mother meant dissolving into someone else entirely. You’d heard people say you find yourself in motherhood, but you never believed it. You were terrified you’d disappear. That all the things that made you you would be swallowed whole by diapers and night feeds and responsibilities that never slept, misplaced in the chaos of loving someone who depended on you for everything.

And yet, despite everything you feared losing, you hadn’t lost him. Sam was here. The permanent fixture in your life. The eternal flame, burning brighter each time you looked at him.

A sudden revelation swooped over you. What if Sam felt the same? What if he feared losing himself as much as you had? Or what if he’d been caught up playing the man he thought you needed him to be, instead of just being him, the way he always was? What if he needed that reassurance, that he was enough—more than enough—and that you still wanted him, needed him, just as much as you did?

“No,” you said, your voice defiant. “What we are. I know things have changed—we’re not the same people that met at that munch seven years ago. We’re stronger. Much stronger. And what we have—this… dynamic between us—is special, and I don’t want to lose that. I want you, baby. As much as I ever have. And maybe that makes me selfish. Maybe I shouldn’t want these things anymore. I’m a mother, for god’s sake. Maybe I shouldn’t need—”

“No,” Sam said, his voice rising above even your conviction. “It doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human. And, if it wasn’t glaringly obvious, I want you, too. Always have, always will. Hell, I’m fucking crazy about you.” He laughed, trailed his fingers through your hair. “I remember the first time I saw you—spunky little sub sipping diet coke at the bar. I was never one to believe in love at first sight, especially in kinky circles, but you changed that for me in an instant. And the first time you touched me… I knew right then I was going to marry you one day.”

The corners of you lips tugged up. “I remember. You made it very clear after our first encounter that you wanted me all to yourself.”

Sam frowned. “I thought I was subtle.”

“Subtle? You call collaring me after one scene subtle? No one—and I mean no one—was expecting that.”

That was true. Not even Linda—who had been in the scene for over forty years—had known of anyone being collared so quickly. She was concerned, at first—and rightly so, you supposed. An older, unknown Dom immediately laying claim to a younger, relatively inexperienced sub was bound to raise a few eyebrows.

What she hadn't known at the time was that Sam had taken it upon himself to spend the better part of the previous month learning every detail about you—taking you on dates, asking questions, making notes, and negotiating what felt like a million terms—before finally allowing himself to touch you.

So she soon ate her words.

Ate them a second time when Sam proposed.

Ate them a third from the front row at your wedding ceremony.

Sam shrugged, fingertips grazing your skin as he adjusted the delicate platinum chain around your neck—the same one you’d been wearing for seven years—resting the tiny, inconspicuous, heart-shaped padlock in the crevice of your collarbones. “What can I say? You only have to look at me a certain way to turn me on. You know that’s your superpower, right? That—and the ungodly speed at which you can change a diaper. That’s magic—has to be. No one’s that talented naturally. Can you really blame me for wanting you to myself?”

The room shifted then, grew softer around the edges, like the two of you were stepping out of a storm you didn’t notice you’d been caught in. His hand tightened around yours, grounding. Grateful.

Then he looked at you with a spark—tiny, mischievous, familiar. Totally him. And you were back in that bar, heart catching in your throat as the new, tall, mysterious dom—who also happened to be the most beautiful man you had ever set your eyes upon—took the seat next to you, glanced a smile your way.

“Wanting isn’t a sin, my love,” he said. “We all have our needs. Our desires. It’s part of our identity. Maybe for us more than others. You being a mother doesn’t have to change that. Not if you don’t want it to. I want you to have the things that feed you.”

He hesitated, lips twitching.

“Even if those things happen to be… obscenely perverted.”

The laugh ripped free of you like a band-aid being torn off.

“Shut up,” you said, relief flooding through you as that familiar smirk lit up his face, now meeting his eyes. His beautiful, galaxenous eyes. “I’m perverted? Says the man who was sucking my toes earlier. Fucking freak.”

His laugh joined yours, rumbling through you in joyful, bassy vibrations, and it felt like the whole world shifting from your chest.

“Hey,” he said, “I wouldn’t kink-shame me whilst you’re still bound, my love. Who knows what this freak could do to you?”

“I’m fucking terrified,” you deadpanned.

“Well, maybe you should be,” he said, and wrestled his arms around you to tickle your sides, your ribs, your armpits, the exact areas he knew would gain a reaction. And dear god, you had to concentrate really hard not to piss yourself. Reminded yourself to reinstate Kegels to your nightly routine.

“Stop!” you screamed, giggling. “No fair! I’ll fucking safeword. I’ll fucking do it, I swear!”

Sam laughed, stopped his torment, but took his sweet time doing so, then, once the laughter and your breathing had settled, he clutched you to him again, nestled you snugly between his legs, your back flush against his abdomen. The scent of your sex and sweat filled the air, your bodies sticking together like cellophane. It felt like home.

“I didn’t realize how much I needed this,” he said, resting his chin on your shoulder, and you felt him exhale like he’d been underwater for months. “You brought me back to myself. Thank you.”

You shook your head. “Don’t thank me, baby. We came back to each other.”

Sam nodded, his hand drifting to your ring again. “And we always will. Forever, remember?”

“Forever,” you agreed, as his hand closed over yours. “Just… promise me one thing, will you?”

“Anything,” he said, leaning a little closer.

“Promise me you’ll reconsider my dad’s offer.”

The words came out quickly, forced out so you had no chance to backtrack. It was easier not to look at him when you asked. It was a touchy subject, to say the least.

Your father’s offer was simple: temporary work at his insurance company, regular hours, weekends off, paid holidays, flexible working around childcare. It wasn’t charity. It was practical, kind, designed to ease your lives. But Sam’s pride ran deep. Any hint of nepotism turned up his nose. That’s why he rejected it in the first place. Hadn’t even let the idea breathe before dismissing it.

“It wouldn’t be forever,” you continued, already anticipating his rebuts. “Just until you finish your studies. It would make things… easier. For all of us. You wouldn’t have to scramble or burn yourself out. You could focus on your studies, on Evie, on us.”

Sam let out a slow breath through his nose, and you felt it—the tension in his shoulders, the quiet rigidity that came from a childhood without safety nets—the unease you’d learned to read so well.

“I just… can’t rely on that,” he said, voice low, almost apologetic. “Where I come from, you work or you don’t eat. Nobody steps in to save you. You don’t get help unless you earn it. It still feels wrong taking anything I haven’t bled for.”

You nodded, tilting your face toward his. “I get it. You’ve had to fight for everything you’ve ever had. You weren’t raised with safety nets, or trust funds, or parents who could erase problems with a cheque. But we’re a family now. That means the weight gets shared. It doesn’t make you less of a man if you don’t carry it alone.”

For a moment, he didn’t speak. His eyes searched your face as though testing for judgment, for a line he might cross and regret. But he couldn’t find it. There was no judgment, only understanding.

Finally, he exhaled a long and shaky breath, the tension in his chest softening, his armor falling away.

“Okay,” he said finally.

“Okay?” you asked, just to be sure.

“Yeah. I’ll... consider it.”

“Really?” You breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, baby. That… means a lot.”

Sam nodded, a small, wistful smile tugging at his lips. “Guess it’s about time I learned to swallow my pride.”

You nodded solemnly, feeling his reluctance. As easy as it was for him to be vulnerable with you, to be vulnerable with anyone else—to show any sign of weakness—was the hardest thing in the world. In his past life, it could’ve gotten him killed. So you couldn’t blame him for it.

“I know it’s not easy,” you said. “But we can survive with a little less pride. But we can’t survive without you.”

This time, the resistance didn’t return. He nodded—not defeated, but softened—and you knew it had hit home. You didn’t need him to say anything else. Didn’t press it any further. Trusted him to make the right decision, whatever that may be.

A mutual understanding settled between you, and the tension curled around you loosened as Sam guided you back against him. Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat. Home to home.

And you knew it was time.

To let go.

To let him take care of you.

For him to fulfil the role that came so naturally to him, that called to him like no other.

The caretaker.

The provider.

The father.

He smoothed his palms down your arms, then reached for the bow at your waist. His fingers grasped the loose end of the tulle and pulled, unravelling you from your bondage.

With the reverence in which he moved, you felt like a sculpture being unveiled. He touched you so gently, unpicked the knots so delicately, as if he feared you might break. You shifted forward when he asked, and relaxed your spine against him when the pressure of the fabric vanished from around your waist. Finally, he slid the cuffs from your wrists, and one by one, helped you stretch out your arms, working out the tightness in your muscles.

Then it hit you. All at once. That languid numbness that softened all edges, made every movement feel like swimming through cotton wool. Like drowning in the soft-play pits you were still too nervous to let Evie explore on her own, lest she suffocate in the foam. An isolating alleviation.

It didn’t help when Sam unfurled the veil and draped it over your bodies like a blanket. A symbol of innocence, war-torn and ragged. Crumpled. Sweat-soaked. Defiled.

It was devastating.

 Beautiful.

“You okay?” he asked, and you nodded, reached your hands back to hang off his neck, run your fingers through his hair, graze your fingers over his stubble, his lips. Memorize the shape of him.

“Uh-huh,” you managed, as a single tear rolled down your cheek and settled between your collarbones, that heart-filled space. Sam couldn’t see it, but he could hear it in your voice, you knew. The quietness. The warble. The tell-tale signs of your subdrop. That inevitable landslide.

“Okay,” he said, and kissed your temple, wrapped his arms around you where the veil once hugged. “Let’s get you cleaned up, my love. Can’t have your folks seeing you in this state.”

You groaned—sleepily, monotonously. “Shit. What time is it?”

Sam looked at his watch. “2:30. Still plenty of time, don’t worry. I just don’t want to rush this, okay? Thought we could have a bath. A coffee on the sofa. A proper lunch. Try to get some energy back in you before the whirlwind arrives.”

“Mhm,” you murmured, and nestled back into him. Into comfort. Safety. “Just a few more minutes. Wanna stay here for a bit.”

“Okay,” Sam agreed, “a few more minutes. I can do that.”

He moved you into a spooning position: legs intertwined, spines curved in parallel. Instinctively his arm wound around you and his hand found your belly, fingers sprawling across your skin—the same way he’d done every night for the past two and a half years. It had become a bit of a habit. You didn’t mind. It was soothing. Grounding. Anchoring you in the present, when your mind naturally fought to sink.

For a while, quietness enveloped you—the only sound your breathing, your heartbeats in sync. The rest of the house was still, eerily so. Her absence was noticeable.

Suddenly your whisper broke the silence.

“Do you remember the night we made her?” you asked him, staring into the middle distance as Sam absentmindedly smoothed over the stretch marks on your stomach, his fingers tracing the faint, silver grooves instead of feeling for the movements of the child you were yet to meet.

“Honestly?” Sam said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. “It could’ve been several dozen nights.”

Your voice smiled back. “True. But it’s one night in particular my mind. I like to think I knew, you know? It felt… different, somehow. It was just a regular Tuesday, you and Dean had just got home from a hunt. You’d cut your arm, and let me clean you up. You thanked me thoroughly that night. Had me tied down for hours. Literally.” You smiled at the memory. “I called in sick the next morning. For some reason, I couldn’t bear to leave you. It was that night, in my mind.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “I thought that was just a particularly bad drop.”

You shrugged. “Could’ve been. But perhaps it was my body’s way of telling me something.”

“Perhaps,” Sam agreed, and clutched you tighter, as if that knowledge had somehow changed something.

“Do you ever miss it?” you asked. “Your old life?” ‘The family business,’ as he used to call it. Before he told you everything.

Sam sighed, took a beat before saying, “That life was never meant for me. For Dean maybe, but not me. You saved me, my love. Saved me from a life that was incompatible with who I was meant to be.”

“Are we meant to be anything?” you asked, as another tear rolled silently down your cheek. Before Sam, you’d never envisioned being a mother. A partner, yes. A wife, maybe. But the thought of changing your life so dramatically scared you. What if you regretted it? Was a terrible mother?

Your heart ached; never in your life had you thought you could love two people so intensely simultaneously.  But just when you thought your heart was at full capacity, Evie had come along, recalibrated your love as well as your body, and your heart had found a way to expand, making room for them both.

Sam shrugged. “I can’t speak for everyone,” he said. “But I know I was meant to be your husband. Evie’s dad.”

He reached for your hand, threaded his fingers through yours and brought them back to rest against your belly.

“Before you, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Never knew who I was, or who I was meant to be. But now, with you—with Evie, I don’t have to wonder anymore. I know. I haven’t felt so sure about anything in my life.”

Slowly, you turned in his arms. Traced your fingers over his sternum, enjoyed the lingering flush of his chest.

How did I get so lucky? you wondered. It was a thought you had frequently. Ever since one look in a bar rearranged your world.

“I count my stars every day,” you whispered. “That I was in that bar. On that particular night. God only knows where I’d be without you.”

You curled into him and he cradled you tight, your tears clinging to the hairs of his chest.

“So do I, my love,” he whispered into your hair, “so do I... But I know where I’d be. Dead in the ground, most likely. Or back in hell. So when I say that you saved me, I’m not just being dramatic.”

He was the only person in the world who could use that line on you and mean it one hundred percent, and you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it.

Instead, you said, “No one needs saving here. We hold each other up. ‘Til death do us part, and all that.”

“Screw that.” Sam’s voice had an edge to it as he tilted your chin up to his. “You’re the greatest risk I’ve ever taken. And one I’ll continue to take for eternity. I’d crawl backwards out of hell to be with you in the afterlife. Death’s doing no parting here.”

He held your gaze, unwavering—dangerous—and you knew he meant it. Every word.

“There’s… perks to being on first-name terms with the grim-reaper, I guess.”

Your voice quivered as you gazed up at him, the danger lurking behind is eyes. It was the same look he wore when carrying a rope, a flogger, any implement designed to carve your pleasure.

Even after all this time, he still had that effect on you—the ability to scare you a little. It was paradoxical how someone you felt so safe with could trigger that thrill.

Sam lips twitched. “She does owe me a favour,” he said, “but I’m saving that for a rainy day.”

Whatever rain he was referring to—whatever chaos—you didn’t know. What you did know, however, was that with him by your side, you’d weather it together.

And what’s another little storm? you wondered, in a life already full of landslides, whirlwinds, and hurricanes?

There was no feeling like it: the surrender one feels at the command of their dominant.

Of love.

Of embracing the danger—the unknown—instead of running from it.

That itself was like being caught out in a storm.

Welcoming the downpour.

Dancing in the rain.