Steddie!

'You did so well, bunny.'

'mhmm' you whine, feeling tears prickle in your eyes.

He lays one more gentle smack 'okay next set' you get up your legs numb as you walk back to the closet.

You close the door, starting to remove your panties,

Ilya through the door says 'put on the red one'

Your reach for it and you realize its a apron set with a ribbon in the back.

You take a look at yourself in the mirror, then open the door. Ilya is now lying with his shirt off in bed only in his boxers. Without a word, he spins his finger, and reluctantly, you spin, with a smirk on your face. His face tightens patting his thigh, you stride over to the Russian. The bed dipping under you as your hot, exposed core sits onto of his firm thighs.

'Come on, be a good bunny and ride me.' Your face flushes as you start to move your hips back and forth. The friction sends jolts down your spine.

His hands reach up to cup your breast, lightly pinching your nipples. Your head thrown back at the new sensation.

Your whimpers get louder and louder, 'Ilya -' you cry out.

'stop' his hands leave your nipples to still your thrusting hips. You whine in protest.

'but-'

'Next one, I want to fuck you.'

Your arousal drips down your legs as you get up from his thigh. But before you can walk away, he stands up, 'you're doing so good for me bunny' and plants a kiss onto your glossy lips.

You feel your face flush, and he smiles, 'You're so cute when your embarrassed'

Closing the closet door behind you for the third and final time. You see the white set and garter belt. Slipping off your soaked panties and throwing them to the side. Before walking into the room to find Ilya standing right next to the door

'ah you scared me' you say, giggling.

Without a word, he grips onto you, pushing you against the wall. Taking your right tit in his mouth, sucking and biting on your nipples.

Without you even noticing hes freeing himself from his boxers, and pushing your panties to the side. Gliding into your walls so easily. 'My bunny is so wet, huh?'

'its pathetic,' he says before thrusting into you hard, bringing his mouth back to your nipples.

You're digging your nails into his back, scratching the walls, and screaming his name. But it's still not enough

'more.'

'fuck Ilya, I need more.'

He chuckles 'dirty fucking slut'

Taking his free hand and gripping it tight around your throat. You start to become erratic, thrusting into him as hes hammering into you.

'fuck bunny,' he curses to himself.

'come on cum for me.'

'you can do it.'

The praise tips you over the edge screaming his name, 'Ilya fuck ilya.'

'good bunny' before spilling himself inside you.

His thrust slow to a halt, you both still. Your body is still flushed between his hot chest and the wall.

'That was incredible,' he exhales. You smile and giggle in agreement.

'Maybe you should buy me more lingerie' you say half amusing half not.

'dont temp me,' Ilya says with a stern voice before kissing you.

toronto, canada. 2011.

Car horns and ambulance sirens blare like wildlife down the street. The cold bites at Ilya’s fingers, pressed to his mouth to inhale from the withering cigarette bud. He stopped being able to feel them a few minutes ago. But it feels good.

Better than being in there.

Around the corner, the heavy steel door of the night club whines open and clangs shut every few minutes. Short bursts of deep, thumping music come in waves, alternating every few swings. The line was lengthy when he got here, and it’ll be even longer when he leaves.

He just needs a little longer out here. Here being the dim, snow-laden alleyway. With the half-crushed boxes and plastic garbage bags, and remnants of other people’s cigarettes. He’s pretty sure there’s a pile of vomit frozen into orange ice by the dumpster. He’s not sure why he keeps glancing at it every few drags. He just knows it keeps his head steady, his heart rate even. He doesn’t have to think about anything else. Vomit is a wonderful thought given the alternatives.

“Jesus.”

Ilya lifts his head, peering at the open mouth of the alleyway, street side. Snow falls in hurried flurries against the reddish glow of the street lamp, a sideways slant along the wind. He can see every breath of the girl scuffing her heels along the sidewalk, little white clouds into the open zipper of a ginormous purse.

She rummages, dangerously oblivious to Ilya’s presence. Her dress is tight, a dark fabric that might be black but it’s so dim he can barely tell. He can tell that her arms are bare though, just as naked as her legs and feet, exposed to the freezing snow. He abandoned his coat inside, as well, too concerned with his next cigarette to snatch it from under the ass of Marleau’s next conquest in their booth.

The girl continues to rummage for a moment longer—complete with plastic clacking and things snapping—before she lifts her head with a long, tired sigh. It deflates her body entirely. She’s mid-pout when her eyes finally blink open and land on Ilya.

She stops. Jolted by his presence, she straightens immediately, and lets out a tiny: “Oh.”

He lifts his brows once, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. “Hello.”

“Can I…can I actually bum one of those?”

She points to the cigarette now dangling at his side. He flicks it with his ring finger and a fleck of ash sails into the snow with a faint plap. Ilya nods, balancing the cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he fishes the pack out of the back pocket of his jeans.

She approaches slowly as he flips it open and slides a filtered end up from its collective. He holds the pack out to her, but makes no effort to move from his brick wall resting point. Her heels click softly over the concrete, crunching over salt and ice before they stop in front of him. This close, he can begin to form the features of her face.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, reaching with slow, gentle fingers to pluck the treat.

Once between her lips, Ilya brings the lighter to the end and cups his palm around the flame. Efficiently lit, she inhales until her cheeks hollow, lips pouted perfectly and faintly shiny with gloss. The butt glows a gentle orange. Ilya slips the lighter and cigarettes back into his pocket, and they pull the cigarettes from their mouths in unison.

Two thin plumes of smoke unfurl between them toward the street. The light there hits the side of her face, beaming over gorgeous cheekbones.

She notices, with the same careful and silent nonchalance, that he’s just as beautiful. And, as they tap their ashes and claim opposite sides of the alleyway walls, she concludes that she knows him. Or, of him anyhow. If she wasn’t sure before, she’s definitely certain when the gold cross makes an appearance over his chest.

But she pretends not to realize, and begins to rummage through her purse again. Ilya watches on quietly, even though his cigarette is gone and about to burn his fingers. He stubs it out against the brick behind his thigh, subtly and without announcement.

With her rummaging comes the escape of a few items along the snow. A tube of lipgloss, a pack of gum, crumpled receipts, a Blackberry. She groans softly as she bends to retrieve the most precious of these items, shaking off the bits of white from their surfaces.

“You left something,” he says, lifting his chin toward a bedazzled pink lighter by her left foot.

She glances up at him and then over at the sparkly object, quick to pluck it between her fingers and drop it back in her purse with the other escapees.

“Ha-ha. I swear, my whole life’s in this purse.”

He hums, tipping his head at the black leather on her arm as she stands again. Her legs are long and that dress is short.

“Mm, yes, is big purse.”

Her head snaps down to the purse against her hip. “It’s not that big. This style is very in right now.”

One side of Ilya’s mouth curls into a smile. He hums again, and even that has an accent to it. There was no denying who was standing before her, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to go about it.

But she realizes he’s not smoking anymore. Just standing there across from her, head tipped back against the brick, eyes set on her over the slope of his nose. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans, arms just as bare as hers in a black t-shirt. Her cigarette flung somewhere in the snow on the descent to her purse a while ago.

“You’re Ilya Rozanov,” she says.

Ilya hums. “Mm, yes.”

She likes the way he says this. Almost one term, mmyes. A monosyllabic, affirmative hum. He doesn’t roll his eyes, doesn’t widen his shoulders, or lift his chin like a man ready to deny or boast about it.

He just stands there. Watching her.

“You just punched Benoit Beau in the face about…oh, thirty minutes ago,” she continues, checking the clock on the BlackBerry in her palm.

Ilya’s eyes flicker toward her hand before finding her gaze in the dimness. “Yes.”

God, was she that little prick’s agent? A publicist ready to chew him out? He hadn’t even meant to hit the idiot, he just stopped ignoring every gnawing thought telling him to do so.

One too many cheap shots at the goalie, one too many comments thrown bench-side, one too many moments spent near Benoit fucking Beau tonight. Any other player would’ve done the same. It didn’t help that Ilya’s been harboring the knowledge of what waited back home all week. The calls from Alexi and his father, the reminders of his failure clogging up his inbox.

Even a better man would’ve cracked.

“I dated that unfortunate man for almost a year a while back. So I just wanted to say thanks for that.”

Ilya watches a smile take over her face, and he knows then that he’ll be going home with her tonight. Or her with him, either would work. Whatever got them naked quicker.

“You are welcome,” Ilya says, and all the while he stares at her and wonders what kind of sounds she’ll make.

Her smile fades to something coy, playful in its lingering. She adjusts the purse on her arm and her heels click once on the ground.

“Well, I gotta get back to my friends. But…thanks again, Ilya.”

She wiggles her fingers in a small wave, another smile thrown over her shoulder as she heads back toward the street like she knows he’ll still be watching. He is, of course, and it gives both of them an equal thrill to know it.

Ilya watches until she disappears around the corner, and he listens to the door shriek open and clang closed. His fingers twitch for another cigarette, but there’s something glistening in the snow where the girl stood, and he steps forward to pick it up.

Angel Kisses is the name of the pink lipgloss in Ilya’s palm.

Oh yeah. She was his tonight.

♡♡♡

“Yo, we’re heading out!” Marleau calls over the music, motioning with his thumb toward the brunette twirling her hair at the edge of the booth.

Ilya glances at them over the rim of his glass and nods. His tongue is sour with liquor when he sets it down.

“Okay.”

Marleau claps Ilya on the shoulder and slides out of the booth, winding his arm around the girl’s shoulders. They mold into each other, slithering their way through the mass of sweaty bodies in the dimly-lit crowd.

With the assistant captain gone, it leaves Ilya with only a few other teammates. People he doesn’t really hang out with more than necessary. People who already have their dates in the booth, at the bar, in the bathroom, some are even calling cabs right now.

Ilya found his night in the crowd some time ago. But he’s waiting.

She’s tucked in a corner booth with her friends, a group of women all similar in age, a sea of colorful dresses and tiny purses. He can see her big ass purse even from here and it makes him want to smile. She’s drinking something in a stout glass, a dark liquor. She’s only had a few, and she doesn’t do shots.

She’s rotated the dance floor a few times, but she keeps spinning around. Slowly eyeing the room, seeking him out. And Ilya’s been here, watching. Waiting.

He checks his phone as he throws back the last shot of tequila. It’s 1:13 and there’s a text waiting.

Jane: Bet Toronto is boring. Boston will be fun in 2 weeks (12:34 am)

Ilya slips his phone in his pocket and slides out of the booth. He takes his time sliding his jacket on, five drinks in and annoyingly steady on his feet. His head is only a little woozy, and if he’s lucky, he might remember some of tonight.

The music is deafening, and the closer he gets to the other side of the room, the deeper it becomes. It settles in his throat, pulses deep in his ears. He sifts through the crowd, angling his shoulders through bodies, avoiding watching gazes that follow him to the booth in the corner.

Her friends look first. Three sets of eyes that bulge and pop like little squeeze toys. He avoids them, too. He comes to the edge of the booth closest to her, leaning close to shout over the music.

“You are coming?”

God, she fucking hopes so.

The girl grabs her purse by the handles and shimmies to the edge of the booth, peering up at Ilya with a gentle smile.

“Let’s go.”

He holds out his hand and she tosses goodbyes to her friend as she slips her fingers into his palm. Their hands are warm and sticky pressed together. The club is thick with sweat and liquor and he’ll be happy to leave it.

The first rush of air is a slap in the face. Ilya sighs in heavy relief, hesitant to slip his coat on to let the cold soothe his overheated body a little longer. Beside him, the girl tips her head left and then right, up and down the street.

“Should we call a car?”

Ilya nods. “Mm. Do you live close?”

She straightens, eyes flitting to his face. “Um, I do. But—“

“—we can go to hotel, if you want. I have nice room.”

She tips her head to peer up at him, and for a moment they just stand there. The line for the club seems ever growing, rumbling and buzzing with impatient, giddy chatter. Cars whizz by in wet whooshes of snow-slush. White flakes glimmer as they flitter around, collecting in her lashes, atop her hair. Ilya has one on his cheek that seems to refuse to melt.

“No,” she says, and there’s that soft, coy smile again. “Let’s go to mine.”

♡♡♡

His mouth first finds hers in the elevator. They’re standing there, waiting for the red numbers to rise, and she’s shifting on her heeled feet—when suddenly he’s in front of her, inching her back into the wall with two firm hands on her waist. His eyes flicker between hers for a beat, giving her the chance to push him away. But she’s putty, all loose and liquid and plaint, and she’s tipping her chin up to offer her mouth to him.

He takes it, carefully at first. Their lips mold into each other like cushions butting together. Until they taste each other—cigarettes and liquor and something fruity on the corner of her mouth—and they’re pressing harder. Ilya nudges her flat against the elevator, as flat as she’ll go with the railing stabbing her spine, and his tongue takes opportunity. It slides into her mouth and along her own. A gasp rattles free just as her arms wind over his shoulders, fingers gliding through his hair.

She’s soft and warm and an excellent kisser. He’s firm and overwhelmingly scorching and an even better kisser. Her teeth scrape his bottom lip and he grunts in surprise.

These angel kisses come with a little bite.

The elevator levels with a gentle wobble, and they pull away as the door dings open. Their hands intertwine again on the journey down the hall. She guides them to her door, where she fumbles through her giant purse again to find her keys. The door clatters against the wall inside once unlocked, and she makes a show of wrapping her hand in his shirt and tugging him inside.

“This will go,” Ilya demands, snatching at the purse on her arm. He places it on the island counter behind her.

“What’s next?” she asks, voice a syrupy purr.

Ilya steps back, tongue sliding along his bottom lip to conceal a grin. This was fun. She was fun. Typically, girls just threw themselves on the bed and let him take them. But she was playing.

“Shoes.” He keeps his voice plain, flat, his gaze the same. It makes the authority of it all jolt through her like a slash of lightning.

She unbuckles the left shoe, then the right, and steps out of them. Her bare feet bring her down a few inches. Ilya hums, sliding his arms out of his jacket to toss it behind her, next to her purse. Her eyes roll over the broadness of his shoulders, the curves and bulges of his defined muscle in the black t-shirt.

“Dress,” he says next, nudging his chin at the black fabric suctioned to her body.

She hums, giving a small turn on one heel so her back is to him. Her chin tucks over her shoulder, a flash of doe eyes that flutter expertly.

“Can you help unzip me, Mr. Rozanov?”

He swallows. Yes, he thinks, this one likes to play.

Ilya steps forward, the shape of him like one firm, hot mass behind her. She sets her head straight, finding a spot on the wall and boring into it—but seeing nothing. Feeling only his hand approaching, fingers skittering over her shoulders to move her hair away.

Her inhale trembles through her lungs, shudders in her chest. His knuckles drag along the notches of her spine, feeling for the zipper in the dimness of the apartment. He tucks the metal between his thumb and forefinger and drags it down. Slowly, glacially, the zipper snicks to the base of her spine.

Ilya’s hands slip under the softness of the fabric, into the warmth beneath. Her skin is smooth, delicate, and her body twists a little when he traces the curve of her waist with two callused palms.

“Mm,” he hums, stepping even closer. He fits his head over her shoulder, leaning until his breath tickles her skin.

He scatters gentle kisses over her shoulder, lets them trail along the top of her back. His mouth finds her neck and she lets her head fall to the other side, baring the channel of her throat to him. He goes for it with a firmer touch, lips latching to the skin there with fervor. She gasps, hands flying to find him behind her. They wriggle through his hair, mussing the golden curls up front before journeying to the nape of his neck, where she gives them a little tug.

Ilya’s pressing himself against her now, pushing her into the kitchen island. His hard cock strains against his jeans and digs into the small of her back, over the swell of her ass, and she shifts her hips to call attention to it. He pulls one hand from beneath her dress to brace her jaw, holding the expanse of her face between his fingers. It makes her feel small, wonderful, under his control.

He pulls his hips back and gives into the smirk that comes with the tilt of her hips still searching for him. He pops his hand over her ass in a sharp smack and she slams her hands over the counter with a blissful gasp.

“Mm, knew you were tough girl. You like it like this, yes?”

She nods into his hold on her face. “Yes. Want you to fuck me.”

He hums again, slipping his hand under the hem of her dress. Her thighs part on instinct, a small whimper squeaking through the room when his fingers press into the damp patch of her panties.

“Soon,” Ilya promises. “You will be patient.”

She nods again, a little quicker. “I’ll be patient.”

Ilya’s fingers press into her cheeks to tip her head back. It falls into his shoulder, her eyes blinking brightly up into his gaze. He fits his mouth over hers as his fingers curl between her flesh and the thin cotton of her underwear. He slips them into the heat of her, slowly and without pause, until he’s knuckle deep. He swallows the groan she releases and feels it hum against the back of his throat.

She’s tight and hot around his fingers, pulsing with every deep, prodding motion he makes. She’s unabashed with her noises, whining and crying into his mouth that attacks hers, fighting the hold on his face to search for more. At some point, her hand slips from his hair between their bodies, gliding down the firmness behind his t-shirt, the hardness straining under his belt. Ilya huffs against her top lip.

“This is me,” she breathes hard, nose brushing his own, “being patient.”

Ilya snickers and curls his fingers cruelly. It makes her thighs quake, her body dip a little downwards. Her whine cuts through the quiet of the apartment like a crack.

“This is me,” he says, tugging her lip between his teeth before letting it go, “being nice.”

She mirrors his scoff of a laugh and rubs her hand against his clothed cock again. “Then let’s stop. No being patient, no being nice.”

He hums, quickening his fingers between her legs. The slick sound is enough to make his ears scorch and her jaw unhinge, though no sound releases. She feels an orgasm burn deep in her belly, a chill sweep up her spine.

“Is what you want?” he murmurs.

She’s never nodded so quickly in her life, and she can barely speak but pushes out a struggled: “God, yes.”

What she didn’t want was for him to take his fingers out of her, but he does it anyway. Before she has a chance to really pout about it, Ilya steps away and inhales sharply through his nose. She turns slowly, still a little unsteady on her bare feet, the straps of her dress slipping off her shoulders with the zipper undone. Ilya shifts his shoulders and her eyes flit to the sheer expanse of them. She’s thankful her lamps are on timers and there’s enough light in the apartment to see him adequately.

“Dress off,” he commands, hands reaching for his belt buckle. The metallic tinkle practically has her salivating like some Pavlovian bell trick.

She keeps watch of him as she slides the straps of her dress down her arms, as she shimmies her hips to fit it down her thighs. A black strapless bra and matching lace panties lie beneath. Ilya pops the button of his jeans and hooks his fingers in to shove them down. His shirt whips off as he steps out of them, kicking them somewhere near the fridge.

Once they’re equally half-naked, Ilya allows himself a moment to admire. The shape of her body, the way it winds and curves and falls. The way she shivers a little and it makes her bottom lip jut out. The way her fingers dance awkwardly at her sides, but she’s still somehow adorably sexy about it.

A soft smile touches Ilya’s face. He curls two fingers toward himself in a lazy motion.

“Come here, milaya.”

The Russian word rolls off his tongue like silk and it makes her jolt from her staring. She skitters forward, bringing her hands to the firm heat of his shoulders when she reaches him. Ilya cups his hand to run the back of his knuckles over her stomach. He cocks his head and leans down an inch or so, bringing his mouth to hover over her own.

She tips her head back and waits for another kiss, lashes fluttering together. Their breaths echo back and forth, stuttered and shallow. He smells like cigarettes and the warm musk of an expensive, European cologne. The chain on his chest glimmers between firm, defined pecs.

His top lip brushes hers for a mere second before he stills. She waits. But he does not kiss her.

Instead, he tips his head the other way and watches her brows cinch together.

“On your knees,” he whispers.

Her eyes pop open, and they dance between his own for just a moment before she sinks to her knees before him. Two hard thumps against the floor and the brush of her palms over her thighs. She perches there with the expertise of someone who’s been here before. Ilya is not the first man to order her there, but he enjoys being the one to have her there now.

He hums, bringing his knuckles to her cheek. They stroke the soft flesh there, where something sparkly catches the light.

“Do you want to suck my cock?”

A heat flushes through her and settles in her cheeks painfully. She nods, tongue numb in her mouth.

Ilya tuts, shaking his head softly. “You are not being polite, milaya. Tell me.”

She swears he can feel the warmth emanating from her like chimney smoke. “I want to suck your cock. Please, Ilya.”

The added plea makes something spark in his belly and it rushes right to his already hardening cock. He hisses out a breath and snatches at her hair.

“Go on.”

She wastes no time, hand reaching for the fabric between her and the task at hand. She tugs his boxers down, cupped under the fullness of him, and fits her mouth over the weeping, pink head.

Ilya groans, both hands sliding through the softness of her hair to brace her head. “Fuck, yes.”

She finds a suction that makes him grit his teeth together and wills the ache in her jaw to numb if it means he’ll keep watching her like that. She works her mouth over him languidly, tightly, tongue gliding up and down the underside of his cock. He’s hot and heavy in her mouth, jabbing at the back of her throat when he gives her gentle nudges further down. He breathes heavily through his nose and doesn’t moan much, but it’s the low grunts and groans that tumble through his reserve that fan her flame. She works harder, sucks tighter, just to hear more.

“Fuck, milaya, you are so good.” His accent thickens when he’s pleased and it makes her wriggle on the floor.

She’s so fucking horny she could die.

Ilya guides her head up and down his length a few more times before his fingers twist in her hair. He pulls back once—hard—and she gazes up at him with a gasp. They wait there together for a moment of blood-rushing quiet. Panting, gasping for air, equally flushed and tingling.

Ilya motions with those same two fingers as earlier. “Up.”

He helps her—he’s not that cruel—with their hands latched together. Once standing, he braces a large, warm palm against her jaw and catches her mouth. It lasts a moment, a gentle exploration, and then he’s pulling away.

But her hands snatch at his biceps, nails piercing the firm, golden skin, and she’s pulling him back.

Ilya groans against her mouth, pulling an equally desperate sound from her when he nips at her lip. She bares her teeth back, and Ilya loses all reserve.

The floor falls from beneath her when his hands swoop under her thighs, pulling her up to straddle him standing. She loops her arms around his neck, excitement swirling in her belly.

“Where is bedroom?” he murmurs against her mouth.

She points over his shoulder with a nonsensical hum and he whirls around, striding toward the open door. He kicks it shut behind them, still devouring her mouth until he drops her on the center of the bed. She bounces once and flashes Ilya a breathy grin from where he looms at the end of the bed.

He’s fucking massive.

“You are tough girl,” he purrs, reaching out to trace his thumb over the swollen plush of her bottom lip.

She takes it in her mouth, delighted by the salty musk of his skin. His lips part, eyes glazed as they admire her swirling her tongue around his thumb.

It pops from between her lips softly. She tucks her chin, eyes boring into Ilya’s dazed gaze.

“Then treat me like it.”

Ilya snickers, patting her cheek gently with his spit-slick hand. It’s enough to make her lashes flutter for a moment.

“Okay,” he says, and then he’s yanking her to the end of the bed by her ankles.

Her panties are bunched somewhere on the bedroom floor and her bra flings toward the door in a matter of moments. Ilya pulls his boxers off the rest of the way and nudges them aside, hands running the length of her thighs. The flesh there is soft and supple, and they quake a little when they touch his hips.

“You have condoms?”

She tips her head back toward the headboard and points to a wooden nightstand beside the headboard. Piles of books, a small ceramic lamp, a pair of glasses folded up—and a drawer. That’s all Ilya can focus on as he hurries to open it and fishes out a half-empty box. He wonders, as he resumes his spot between her thighs and tears the package open, if #13 used the other half of the box.

He wonders if he’ll get to use the rest.

Ilya taps his cock against her core, an obscene, wet smack that makes her wriggle on the bed. Her hands reach for his, still bracing her thighs. He pulls her down a little further, barely on the bed, and hooks her legs around his waist. His body radiates heat like a furnace, and everything about him is firm and hard.

He inches in slowly. Her back arches, head thrown back into the bed. He watches intently as he bottoms out, sheathed fully inside of her, their mouths equally frozen in a stupid, open stance.

“Fuck, so tight,” he hisses, glancing down at the place where their bodies meet.

“You’re so big.”

Ilya huffs out a laugh and tests out a gentle nudge. Her moan is soft, breathy, a little gravely. He does it again, rocking against the bed, into her, listening to the headboard thump behind her little gasps.

“Harder,” she croaks, fixing her head back into place to blink shiny eyes at him. “Please, harder.”

A thrill zips through Ilya like a chill. He leans forward, and the angle shifts him inside of her to nudge a soft, spongy spot that makes her cry out. He glides one hand in her hair, pulling tight at the roots, and keeps the other against her jaw, just along her throat. His thumb tips her chin up, keeping her focus on him. His hand in her hair keeps her steady, just where he wants her.

She has nowhere to go.

And as he begins to move his hips at a pace that makes the room shake, she suddenly can’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.

“Fuck, milaya,” he grits out, red in the cheeks and splotchy all over his chest. A thin sheen of sweat begins to gather down his back, under his gold curls.

Her hands are on his arms and then in his hair, gripping for purchase as he fucks her so deep and hard she feels it in her fucking throat. Like she can’t breathe, like Ilya’s taking all the air out of the room with every drag of his cock inside her.

It makes her woozy, dizzy, a little stupid, so much so that she can’t even fathom the idea of simmering her noises. They come out unadulterated, animalistic. She sounds like she’s being torn apart.

Ilya loves it.

He licks a stripe along the column of her throat and slows down. Her breaths harshen to pants, but they’re deeper, more air in her lungs. He ruts against her with long, languid pulls and pushes of his hips. Her thighs buzz on either side of him, her fingers trembling against the nape of his neck where her nails are scratching aimlessly.

Ilya murmurs something in Russian against her throat, latching on to suckle gently. She shivers, squirming beneath him and twisting a curl around her finger at the back of his head.

When her breaths begin to even out again, Ilya pulls back and looms above her. He gives the fat of her thigh two quick taps.

“Want you on top, milaya. Show me you want.”

He steps back, sliding out of her slowly. She pushes off on her elbows and flips around, crawling after him when Ilya settles against the headboard. He hums when she straddles him, hands trailing up and down her waist, over her hips. He grabs her ass with both hands and smirks when she squeaks.

“Yes, like that,” he mutters, watching her line him up with his entrance.

She sinks down slowly, inch by inch, and they both groan when she’s fully seated. There, they pulse together for a minute, soft breaths passed in the short distance between their mouths. Her hands are delicate over his shoulders, sliding along the sides of his neck. Her body is exquisite, Ilya thinks, and he lets his eyes drag over the shape of it as she shifts her hips ever so slightly.

She arches her back, pushes her hips forward. They wind once, twice, a counter clockwise motion that grinds them together. Her nipples are hard pebbles in Ilya’s face, and he leans forward to take one in his mouth.

“Oh,” she gasps, fingers gripping at his hair.

He lets his teeth graze the sensitive bud and she jerks, hips stuttering in their smooth, circular motions. He taps her right ass cheek with a heavy palm and sinks his teeth into her nipple at the same time. She shrieks, hopping atop his cock.

“Mm,” he hums, detaching from her tit with a wet pop. He moves his hand from her ass to knead the flesh there. “Thought you were tough girl.”

His voice is a patronizing rumble, and she answers it by bouncing again, releasing her beautiful little noises that make Ilya groan. He keeps hold of her hips and sinks back into the headboard, content to watch her hop on his cock with fervor. But she seems to have other ideas.

She leans forward and puts her hands on his neck again, inching until he has to look up at her, until she’s gazing down at him with her lip between her teeth and his cock half inside of her. She slams down on it again, an impact that has Ilya pushing off the headboard with a gasp. Her mouth splits into a grin, thumbs pressing into his jaw to tip his head back. She takes his mouth in a wet, hungry kiss and presses their foreheads together.

“I. Am,” she huffs out.

Ilya lets out something between an exhale and a chuckle and slides his hands over her ass again, giving it a firm squeeze. “Mm, you are. I like girl to toss around.”

“God, please toss me around,” she groans, suddenly plaint against him, their chests touching when she leans forward.

Ilya flips them quickly, shoving her face in the pillows with a steady hand on the back of her neck. He keeps the other on the dip in her spine where her back arches beautifully, where her ass bounces back at him with every hurried pound of his hips as he begins to pummel her into the bed. Every squeal and whine comes muffled by the mattress, but they’re still just as loud, just as wild.

“Yes,” he growls, followed by a jumble of Russian. “Take it.”

Thoughts are hard to come by as the slam of Ilya’s hips steal every inkling, but she has enough willpower to feel the tingle of her orgasm gathering. She tries to alert him, but all she does is flail and cry, and Ilya leans back to bring a heavy palm down sharply over her ass.

“Tough girl,” he coos. “You will take it.”

He knows by the way she convulses when she finishes, the way the sheets below her soak with tears. Her fingers squeeze around whatever’s closest—the mattress, the sheets—and don’t let go.

And Ilya doesn’t stop.

He slows down, just barely. A steady push and pull, a torturous rhythm when she’s already on edge.

“Ilya,” she cries into the bed, reaching back to press on his abdomen with a trembling hand.

He relents, carefully lifting his hips until his cock slips free. She collapses against the bed in a weak pile of limbs, legs twitching as she gasps for air. Ilya flops onto the other side of the bed and carefully peels off the condom.

He barely has a moment to reach for his own throbbing cock before there’s movement next to him, a rustling of the sheets. They bunch up when she twists around and crawls his way, bent over his thigh to put her mouth over his cock.

“Oh,” he groans, hands flying to her hair.

Despite the fact that she couldn’t lift herself up if she tried, her head works up and down, mouth hot and tight and wet over him. She lets her tongue glide along the underside of his cock, wriggling when she got down to the base to sweep over his balls. His leg jerks at the sensation, another moan rumbling through him.

“Fuck, milaya. I am—“

Spurts of warmth enter her mouth and coat her throat. She holds herself steady, cock lodged deep to pulse in her mouth. She swallows as much as she can and carefully lifts up, pausing to suckle on the pink head as she goes. Ilya chuckles, sweeping his hand over her hair to her cheek, where his thumb rubs under her eye.

Her cheek presses to his thigh, collapsing once more with a tired sigh. Ilya lets his hand rest atop her head, equally as spent and draped against the headboard. He tips his head back and closes his eyes, knowing he’ll be collecting his clothes and trudging back to the hotel soon.

But for right now, he can rest.

♡♡♡

Ilya startles some time later to a sharp clacking. He lifts his head, suddenly a leaden weight, away from the headboard. A few blinks bring the room back to him, an unfamiliar territory. Large windows give view to a city skyline, looming buildings with very few lights on, and the pale lilac sky of the space between dusk and dawn. The bed is soft beneath him, a pale pink comforter and matching sheets.

He doesn’t have to search long for the source of the clacking. It’s directly across from him, pressed against the wall at a wooden desk. A white glow illuminates the space before her, a laptop opened on the desktop. A bright blue shirt covers her now, knees tucked up on a round, green chair. Her fingers work quickly over the keyboard—very loudly.

“You are clicking very loud,” Ilya announces.

The girl gasps, twisting around. A pair of glasses rest on her nose now, oversized and interestingly adorable. She pushes them up to rest at the crown of her head when she sees Ilya blinking back at her, hands resting in his lap. She’d drawn the blankets over his legs at some point, though he remains naked beneath them.

“Sorry. I just had to get this idea down.”

She turns back around to the computer and Ilya hums. He throws the blankets back and carefully steps down, wincing at the cold floor beneath him. He locates his boxers near the end of the bed and plucks them from the ground, slipping them over his hips with a snap of the elastic band.

He comes behind her at the desk, one hand bracing the chair and the other beside her laptop. He squints at the computer screen—far too bright for this time of night—and watches the words appear at lightning speed.

“My god. You work a lot.”

She shrugs. “I guess.”

He pulls back to gaze down at her and immediately plucks at the shoulder of her t-shirt.

“Uh, davai—what is this?”

She continues typing. “Huh?”

“What are you wearing?”

She stops and glances down at her chest and the stark white maple leaf on the center of it. “This is my bed shirt—“

“Uh, no. Get up.”

He only sounds like he’s half joking, and she furrows her brows together as she gets to her feet. Ilya immediately frowns at the Maple Leafs shirt over her body, hanging loosely down to her thighs.

“You cannot wear this around me,” he says, shaking his head at it. “This is…this is wrong.”

She laughs, pulling at the hem. “What?”

“Take it off.”

She peers up at him, brows raised. “Are you serious?”

Ilya folds his arms over his comically large chest, and even with his dick out, it’s intimidating. He mirrors her look of expectation and juts his chin out.

“Take it off,” he repeats.

She huffs, quickly lifting the shirt over her head. She tosses it on the bed, standing there naked except for a pair of clean panties.

“Happy?”

Ilya drops his arms and hums, a soft smile touching his face. “Yes. Much better.”

She rolls her eyes playfully, and he closes the gap between them to grip her jaw in that overbearing hand. He tips her head back and plants his mouth over hers. A firm, punctuation of a kiss. When he pulls back, Ilya grins again.

“What is your name?”

A giggle bursts forth from her mouth, her cheeks blazing with warmth. “Oh my god, I never told you my name?”

“To be fair, I do not think I asked.”

They chuckle together, and she gives him her name in a gentle murmur. He repeats it, his accent thick around the syllables.

“You are like animal, by the way,” he says, releasing her face to step back.

She follows him through the door of her bedroom, folding her arms over her hardening nipples.

“An animal?”

“Yes.” Ilya pads into the kitchen, collecting his clothes one by one from the floor. He tosses his t-shirt over his head and drapes his pants over the back of the couch, facing her as he does. “Like animal in heat.”

She flushes, gazing down at her bare feet over the rug. “Oh—“

“Like bunny. Is cute.”

She peeks up at him through her lashes, relief flooding her at the small smile on his face. He hoists his jeans over his hips and pulls the zipper, belt tickling loosely over his thigh. Her lip quirks up, and she hopes he can’t see very well in the darkness of the apartment.

Ilya keeps his jacket off and folded over his arm as he approaches, tucking a curled finger under her chin. He bends at the waist, shoulders broad and wide, and hovers his mouth near hers.

“I bring you better shirt next time.”

Her eyes bulge as he pecks a gentle kiss against her mouth. “Next time?”

Ilya stands to his full height, humming approvingly. “Yes. We play Toronto again next month. You will still live here, yes?”

She follows him to the door. “Uh, yes?”

“Okay.” Ilya twists the knob and opens the door a few inches, turning to flash another grin. “I will see you next month.”

She breaths a small laugh. “Okay. Um, goodnight, Ilya.”

He steps into the hall, poking his head through the gap in the door. “Goodnight, Bunny.”

The door snicks shut, and she exhales softly into the quiet of the apartment. She walks back into the bedroom and closes her laptop, turning to the disarray of her bed. There, she finds the flash of blue—the Toronto Maple Leafs shirt.

She folds it carefully and opens her closet, putting it at the very top.

♡♡♡

It’s not until the next day, sometime in the evening, that there’s a knock at her door.

“Coming!”

She hurries from the couch, her movie paused on the tv. She trips over her slippers on the way there, curses herself, and opens the door.

On the welcome mat, a black shirt and a ripped piece of paper await. She bends to collect them and glances down the hall, catching only the square of Ilya’s shoulders as he walks away.

The Raiders t-shirt smells like him, soft and worn from wear. Tucked between the folds is a front-row, bench side ticket to the Toronto v Boston game next month. On this, a yellow sticky note that reads:

So you can watch me beat your boyfriend.

The torn legal pad paper on the t-shirt is wrinkled and scrawled with horrible, nearly illegible handwriting.

Your back is practically stuck to Steve’s chest, sweat connecting the two of you together. Eddie kneels before you, his cock stretching out your tight hole as you squeal.

Your body feels like you’re on fucking fire, each thrust and pull making your nerves scream while you swat at Eddie’s chest. Steve’s arms come down around your biceps, holding you firmly in place as Eddie catches your wrists. Steve breathes hot and heavy in your ear as you writhe, his lips kissing the shell of your ear. “Don’t even try it, baby.”

“Stay still.” Eddie commands as you mewl, easily holding both of your wrists in one hand. You’re completely at his mercy, unable to run away in your Steve-shaped restraints. His cock practically bruises your cervix and your eyes roll back completely. “Fuck, Eds!” you groan, hiding your face in Steve’s hair.

Eddie’s free hand comes down to grab your jaw, forcing your view back to him, thrusts moving more frantic as he chases his release. He drops your wrists to wrench his hands under your butt, lifting you off to leave only your shoulders resting on Steve’s chest and his dick fucking into you impossibly deeper. The new angle has you screaming yourself hoarse as Eddie carries you, drool dripping from the side of your mouth as your panting mouth hangs open.  

“Eddie- Eddie, please,” you beg, though you’re not sure for what. Please stop? Please keep going? Please cum in me? Your brain is utterly scrambled, all thoughts leading back to him and the beautiful boy underneath you.

Eddie moans out a pretty sound, tattooed chest sheening with sweat under the moonlight. If you could form words, you would tell him how handsome he is. 

“Want you to play with yourself, honey.” he orders, grabbing your hand to drop it over your squelching cunt, “Play with your pussy, make yourself feel good f’me.”

 Your arm feels heavy as you lift up your hand, but when your fingertip first swipes along your puffy clit, you seem to come alive. Frantic and messy, you pinch and rub at your clit to reach your orgasm as Eddie watches you in awe. Your tits are sandwiched in between your biceps and Steve’s strong arm over your chest, and Eddie reaches down to roll a nipple in between his fingertips. Your back arches off the bed with a lurch and into his hand.

The final nail in the coffin comes when Eddie pinches your soft bud hard, and you cum with an earth-shattering moan. Steve moans in harmony with you, as if he was the one cumming your perfect cunt. “Shitshitshitshit- Eds, ‘m cumming!” you whine, vision going hot white as your body trembles and Eddie spills into you

You’re not even allowed a single moment of respite as the chatter between your two boyfriends kicks up again.

“And voila, Harrington. That’s orgasm two for ya,” Eddie grins boyishly as if he didn’t just give you one of the best orgasms of your life. Your eyes remain closed but you can almost hear Steve’s eyeroll. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Munson. You got her to play with her pussy- that’s like half the job done already by her.”

Eddie sputters, “I got our girl good in, like, 4 minutes. I’d like to see you try better.”

You groan at the idea of going for your third round with Steve, still twitching around Eddie as his cum drips down your ass. Steve reaches up to peck the column of your throat, “Last one, honey, I promise. I just gotta show this idiot how fast I can get you to cum, m’kay?”

“M’kayyy,” your slurred reply comes. 

Steve moves quickly, pushing you off his chest and face down into the navy bedsheets, face up-ass down just the way he likes it. The wind is knocked out of your chest as you lay there, heaving while Steve pulls your pussy apart. 

More of Eddie’s cum drips out of your heat, splattering onto the sheets below and Steve laughs. “You got her good, baby.” Steve praises Eddie, hands gripping and massaging the fat of your ass. You whine when you realise her is more likely to be your cunt than you yourself. Steve spits on your wet pussy (more for show than anything), spreading his saliva around with the pad of his thumb.

You allow yourself to breathe for a second before all the air is stolen out of your lungs as Steve fully sheathes himself deep in you, kissing the sweet spot Eddie had bruised before. You claw the sheets with a scream, knees shaking as they hold your body up. 

Steve doesn’t ease you into the pain and pleasure like he usually would, instead opting to match Eddie’s previous pace. Your whole body tingles as he pounds into you relentlessly, his speed never faltering as you crawl at the sheets. Eddie’s next to you in an instant, his rough hands cradling your face.

“Doing so good for us, baby. Makin’ such a pretty little mess, huh?” he coos as your face scrunches up, “Gonna come already, sweetheart? Steve’s hitting that spot you like so much, isn’t he?”

You nod wordlessly into his hands, blown out eyes meeting his lidded brown ones. Suddenly, your body comes to a kneeling position, with Steve’s arms guiding you up. His thick bicep curls around your neck and the little air you have remaining diminishes. The pressure is too much, too good, and you can see Eddie lazily stroking his cock below you, plump lip caught in between his teeth.

His hand snakes down your cum-stained torso to reach your clit and you almost black out, quiet whines turning to full on screams. “Steve, holyshit!” you yell, hot liquid running down your shaky thighs as your pussy spasms. When you open your eyes, Eddie has a fresh painting of cum all over his bare chest. 

“That’s it, that’s a good girl. Squirted all over for me- did so fuckin’ good.” he moans, lips sucking on your already-bruised pulse point, “Got me all wet, honey.”

“Sorry,” you slur shyly and Steve kisses your temple in reassurance.

Steve hums. “I guess that’s true.” 

“Dick.” Eddie grins, giving Steve’s hair a yank. Steve pulls Eddie’s hair in turn. “Ow. Hey, you know I’m usually into that, but that was kinda rough.” 

“Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it,” Steve taunts, bending to console your boyfriend with a kiss. 

Eddie palms Steve’s face from upside down and accepts the offer eagerly. His feet stop kicking around in the pool, both boys softening in the span of seconds before their lips part. Your chest aches with soul-splitting affection. 

Eddie leans up to claim another kiss before Steve can get away. “Hi,” he says. 

Steve’s voice is warm. “Hi, idiot.” 

“What’s this?” Eddie strokes his thumb over Steve’s jaw, painfully gentle. 

“Huh?” 

You grin along with Eddie. Your boyfriend is so hopeless when he gets caught up in you. “You have a cut here, baby.”

“Oh.” Steve feels it, his fingers covering Eddie’s. “Must’ve been from shaving.” 

“Ouch.” 

“I didn’t even know it was there.” 

Eddie frowns, running his thumb over it again. “Fine. Just be a little more careful with my boyfriend next time, okay? I like his face the way it is.” 

Steve’s cheeks pink, but his smile is cocky. “Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah. You’re not gonna fucking embarass me, Harrington. I’m not ashamed of it.” 

“Wanna say that on camera, then?” 

“I plead the fifth.” Eddie turns his face away, catching sight of you. “Hey, beautiful. That for us?” 

You remember the lemonade, stepping the rest of the way outside and shutting Steve’s back door behind you. “Yup,” you say. 

Eddie sits up, forcing Steve to abandon his task with Eddie’s hair, and he helps you unstack the cups you brought from inside. You can’t stop smiling. 

Steve’s eyeing you, one part suspicion and two parts fondness. “What?” 

“What?” You play dumb. 

He pokes a finger into your cheek. “What’s up with this?” 

You laugh, making Steve smile despite himself. “Nothing.” 

“Definitely something,” Eddie muses. He takes the cup you offer him, studying you as he drinks. “What, are you feeling left out, pretty girl?” 

Though it’s nowhere near the truth, your cheeks flame at the suggestion in his tone. “No.” You roll your eyes. “Just thinking about how pruney your toes must be.” 

Eddie takes his feet out of the pool without missing a beat. A stream of water trails after them as he swivels around, setting his cold feet next to your warm ones. “Wanna feel?” He waggles his eyebrows. 

“Mm, nope.” 

“Come on, I know you’re obsessed with my feet. You basically just admitted it.” 

“Jesus.” Steve’s nose has wrinkled. “Get those away from her, you freak.” 

Eddie doesn’t break your gaze. “You’re disgusting,” you tell him. 

“Aw. You love me.” 

You’d moved to Hawkins a year ago, starting school in the same third grade class as Steve. You were so scared your first day, you didn’t speak to anyone in your class. You could hear the cool girls in the corner of the classroom whispering about you. Arms crossed on the desk and head hung low, you fought hard not to cry. The first tear broke through at the same time a chair pulled up next to yours.

A boy with brownish greenish eyes, and a disproportionate amount of hair on his head for such a scrawny frame, smiled from the seat next to you.

“Hi I’m St-” 

The tear rolling down your cheek caused him to lose his train of thought.

“Uh oh, are you crying?”

“No,” you replied. But it was no use, the second tear was already falling and you could feel a third on deck.

Steve pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his hand, bringing the fabric to your cheeks to pat them dry.

“Yes you are,” he pointed out.

“Please, don’t tell anyone,” you begged him.

He eyed the girls in the corner, sending them an angry frown, then turned back to you, his small voice dead serious as he vowed, “your secret’s safe with me.”

“Promise?” You asked skeptically.

“Not just promise,” he raised his pinky finger out to you, “pinky promise.”

And from then on he got all of your secrets, and you got all of his.

So there on the swings, you dragged your feet along the ground to inch your swing closer to his, looping your pinky around his like you had been doing all year.

“Pinky promise.”

The years went by that way. Your best buddy Steve by your side, even through the awkward middle school years. Like the time a boy in your biology class said you looked like the frog he was dissecting and Steve punched him in the face and got suspended for a week. Or when his parents told him they were getting a divorce and you snuck into his bedroom window and stayed up with him all night listening to records until he fell asleep. He laid his head in your lap, his tears dripping onto your pajama pants while you pushed his hair back from his forehead and whispered, “everything’s going to be okay, because I’m not going anywhere.”

As you grew up together, almost everything changed, except that promise you’d made each other on the playground - you were still best friends. Even when you got your first period and realized there were going to be some things in life you just couldn’t talk to him about. Even when he shaved off all of his hair the Summer you were fourteen and you cried when he showed you, which made him cry and he didn’t speak to you until it had grown back. Even when you were in high school and his dad started coming around less and less and he entered what you now refer to as ‘The Mean Steve Years.’

Even the night before junior year, when you were swimming at the lake. Steve took his shirt off and you noticed he was starting to grow chest hair, your surprise slowly melting into a warm feeling in your belly you couldn’t quite understand. Even when your fits of laughter while watching Spinal Tap on your basement’s shag rug turned into a giggly wrestling match until Steve was pinning you down and you felt something hard and strong against your thigh. Even when he ran out of your basement blushing, making an excuse about being home for dinner and then didn’t talk to you for a week.

Eventually, of course, he spoke to you again, but something had shifted between you. Then began the years of glances across the room, sneaking peaks at his strong hand on the gear shift while he drove, his lower lip tucked between his teeth when, getting ready for prom, you asked “zip me up?” like it was the most innocent thing in the world, like the brush of his knuckles on your spine didn’t send heat through you all the way down to your toes.

Through it all, you repeated over and over how you were best friends, just best friends. The oldest lie in the book. It had certainly been for you. And the day you found out it had been for him too, all bets were off.

College had come and gone. You’d gone far for school, he’d stayed close. Your once weekly phone calls with Steve grew fewer and farther apart. Last you’d spoken, you were moving in with your Psychology 101 TA boyfriend and you thought you could hear Steve grinding his teeth on the other end of the line when you’d told him.

Then, after only a few months of coinhabitated bliss, you and James the TA started fighting. The two of you were fighting so often that one day, you just stood up from your shared sofa and walked out. He lost you, and you lost your security deposit. Aimless and yearning for home, you took a job covering sports for the Hawkins Post.

Now, single and speeding down the highway toward your hometown, your whole body tingles with excitement every mile you get closer to seeing your best friend. You haven’t told him you’re moving back yet, you can’t wait for the delicious look of surprise and joy he’ll give you when he sees you. 

Only, in the seventh inning, when he finally looks up and spots you in the stands cheering him on, he doesn’t seem excited at all.

Waiting until every last fan left and the away team boarded their bus home, you sneak down to the dugout. Steve is cleaning up empty water cups and brushing sunflower seeds off the bench. His team lost, and he’s angrily muttering to himself about something you can’t quite hear.

“You’ll get ‘em next time, coach,” you say.

He looks up, though he doesn’t seem as startled as you’d thought he’d be, like he had expected you to make your way down here.

“Welcome home,” he says, his body tense.

“You’re not even going to give me a hug?”

“Sorry, I’m just thinking about…the game.”

When you don’t reply, he crosses the dugout and pulls you in for a hug. You sink into him, reveling in his familiar scent as your fists clutch the back of his shirt.

“I missed you,” you mumble, your lips brushing the warm skin of his neck.

Steve pulls back too quickly, your arms fall to your sides lamely as he puts space between you.

“Yeah, uh, you too.” He scratches the back of his neck, staring just past you to avoid your eyes.

“Is everything okay?” You frown.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Steve runs his hands through his hair, making the stringy ends stick up before falling back over his forehead. “Just didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”

“Oh. Well my grad school classes are over, so…I’m actually, uh, moving back.”

You’d practiced this little announcement the whole drive home, so why did this moment feel so anticlimactic?

“Right.” He nods. “Cool.

Oh, that’s why.

To avoid the sting of his indifference, you try to pivot.

“I sent you an invite to my graduation, but you weren’t there.” 

“Sorry, yeah, I just figured there’d be plenty of people there, I didn’t want to crowd you.”

“I mean, it was just my parents. I didn’t even use all of my tickets.”

“Really? What about Sigmund Freud?”

You roll your eyes at the nickname. “You mean James? We, uh…I left him.”

For the first time since you’d wandered into the dugout, Steve looks you in the eyes.

“Oh, well, good. Your head can only be shrunk so much, y’know, before the brain damage sets in.”

You crack a smile at his familiar sarcastic rambling.

“Why don’t you seem happy to see me?” You reroute the conversation away from James and back to the moment.

“I am. Of course I am, I just didn’t expect it.” He sets his hands on his hips, trying to come across as casual while acting anything but. “I’m in work mode I guess.”

“Okay, well don’t work too hard.” You smile softly. “Before you were Mr. Harrington, you were Steve. My Steve.”

Steve sighs, lips drawn tight.

“Yeah, well, I should get back to it. The custodians hate it when we leave this place a mess.”

Before you can respond, he turns and goes back to his cleaning duties.

“Hey?” You say, voice feeling small.

Steve turns back to you, “yeah?”

You step carefully toward him, your pinky extended.

“Promise you’re still my best friend?”

A thousand times in your fifteen years of friendship, Steve has wrapped his pinky around yours as you both swore to be friends forever. But this time, he just stares at your outstretched hand, forehead creased in…is it anger? No, something more like disappointment.

“Really?” You drop your hand as your voice rises. “What, have you outgrown me? You have a big grown up job now and no need for a best friend?”

“I don’t know.” Steve shakes his head and you feel your heart crack right down the middle.

“Okay. Okay, well that’s fine. I have other friends.” You try your hardest to sound unaffected, but you know he can see the way your chin is starting to wobble. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

Steve huffs, muttering under his breath, “still dramatic as ever I see.”

Your hands ball up at your sides, shaking in fury. Steve knows there is nothing you hate being called more than ‘dramatic.’ Other than maybe when you’d been compared to that dead frog.

Too angry to speak, you just glare at him. He shies away from your anger by turning to throw away another cup.

“I’ll see you around, okay?” He sighs, ending the conversation. But you aren’t done.

It’s then that you notice the cooler of water on the dugout wall, lid thrown on the ground and dead gnats floating at the water’s surface.

Not giving yourself a second to overthink it, you grab the cooler and lift it over Steve’s head. Only, as you raise it up, the water sloshes over the edge and your grip slips, tipping the cooler so it covers you both in frigid water and bug guts.

“What the hell?” Steve turns on his heel and stares at you in shock, his locks of brown hair sticking to his forehead and coach’s uniform soaked through. “Why did you do that?!”

You blink the water out of your own eyes and gasp for air.

“Because! Coming back to this school has turned you back into Mean Steve!”

“I wasn’t being mean!”

“Yes, you were! And I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I want my best friend back, right now.”

“He’s standing right here! And now he’s cold, and wet, and probably going to catch a cold like this, so thanks a lot.”

“Oh my god, you’re being such a baby.”

“Oh I’m being a baby? You’re the one throwing a temper tantrum because I wouldn’t make you a pinky promise.”

Chin wobbling, your voice is small as you say, “that’s not why, and you know it.”

Before he gets the chance to distinguish the tears from the water still dripping down your face, you turn from him and run out of the dugout toward your car.

As you open the door of your old beat-up station wagon, a hand reaches around you and slams it shut. For a moment, there is just the quiet of the night, the sound of crickets, Steve’s breath behind you, and nothing else.

You turn and look at him, your makeup completely smeared from the water cooler, body shivering in the crisp night air. His hand stays on the door, head tilted down as he struggles for something to say.

He lands on, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” You demand.

“For missing your graduation. And for tonight. I don’t know what my problem is.”

“Maybe you just outgrew me. It’s okay if you…” you swallow hard. “If you’re done with me.”

Steve’s eyes meet yours, a stunned expression on his face as if you just slapped him.

“Done with you? I’ll never be done with you. Never. I can’t. Not when I-”

“When you what?” Your hands are shaking again, this time for a completely different reason.

You can almost see the words forming on the tip of his tongue, but suddenly he drops them, stepping back and shutting down again. God, this is exhausting.

An exasperated growl leaves your throat as you throw your head back and look at the stars. You can feel the water drip from your hair down your legs to the backs of your ankles. You try to find the Big Dipper among the stars. Anything to keep your eyes off of him. But then he speaks.

“Why did you leave James?”

You thought he was going to say something to break your heart. You’d almost rather he do that than make you answer this question.

“Why does that matter right now?” You deflect.

Steve pulls his lips between his teeth. His hands go to his hips and then fly out in exasperation, finally landing with a slap against his thighs. He doesn’t need to speak, he just gives you that look. Eyes wide and a little frenzied. It’s the look he gives you when you’re annoying him, when he’s trying his best to love you but you’re pushing him to his limit. The familiarity of that look, of fighting like you used to fight when you were kids, makes you smile.

“What’s funny?” He asks.

“Just…you.” 

Steve laughs but there’s no humor in it. He runs his hands through his hair in the way that you love, the way that makes it fly in all directions until he looks like a mad man. It’s so endearing you take some pity on him and decide to answer. 

The anger from earlier has been drained out of you. Everything he’s doing, every expression, every mannerism is so familiar, so very him, that your inhibitions go up in flames.

“Can I tell you a secret?” You ask him.

“Always.” He responds, the quickness of his answer wrapping you in comfort like a warm blanket over your wet, shivering shoulders.

“And you won’t tell?”

“Have I ever?” 

“No, you haven’t.”

You step toward him and he almost seems like he’s going to step back. His defenses are up, confused by your sudden change in demeanor. 

Once you’re close enough, you reach out and rub a palm over his head to straighten his hair, like you’ve done a million times. Like you did the night of the snow ball in eighth grade, giving him a pep-talk to ask Mindy Tompkins if she wanted to dance. Like you did before he appeared in court to testify in his parent’s custody hearing. Like you did before he interviewed for his first job. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s thinking of all those times, too.

“I left James because we got in a big fight. I was yelling, he was yelling…” 

At the mention of James yelling at you, Steve’s jaw tightens. “He yelled at you?”

“Don’t worry, any hell he gave me I gave him right back,” you wink at him. He fights back a smile because he believes you.

With a deep breath you continue, “we were fighting all the time, and then one day he said something that just…something I think he’d probably been trying not to say for a long time. And I couldn’t even fight back, because I knew he was right. So, rather than try to lie, I just left.”

Steve waits a moment, giving you the chance to keep going, but then; sensing you’re having a hard time with the rest, asks, “what’d he say? If he was mean to you I swear to God-”

“No, no,” you chuckle. “He wasn’t mean. He was right.”

You shut your eyes and breathe in deep, steeling yourself, willing yourself not to chicken out.

“He said that I would never be able to give myself to him fully. Not when my heart belongs to somebody else.”

Steve’s jaw tightens then goes slack. “Who does it belong to?”

You tilt your head and smile a sad, knowing smile.

“...c’mon,” you whisper, begging him not to make you say it.

For a long moment, you just look at each other. 

The air is tight between you, threatening to snap, only you don’t know if you want to find out what will happen when it does. Will you be drawn to each other, that delicate space between you that’s held you back for so long finally giving way? Or will you be propelled apart, any chance or ‘maybe’ that lives in the back of your mind dying in the dirt under you.

“Y’know, the morning of my first day teaching here, I was so excited,” Steve confides. “I woke up early.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “You woke up early?”

“I know, right?” His lips twist into a smirk. “I was up before the sun, I tried on like four different outfits. I was so excited. And the day went perfectly fine, the kids seemed to like me. Even the teachers whose classes I used to cut seemed happy to see me. But when I got home that night, I just sat in the dark in my living room, sipping room temperature beer and feeling like, I don’t know…empty, I guess.”

You frown, hating the thought of him alone like that, wishing he didn’t have to spend even one second of his life not being his carefree, easygoing self.

“It took me a long time to figure out why I wasn’t having fun. The life I worked for was right in front of me, I have a job that I got completely on my own, without my dad wielding his influence. I even bought a house, it’s tiny, nothing like the one I grew up in. But it’s mine.”

“I’m so proud of you, Steve,” you interject.

“But see it’s not right. None of it is right. My life will never be right...”

You hold your breath, somehow knowing in that inexplicable way you’ve always known him down to your core, exactly what he was going to say next.

“...unless you’re in it. But you were with him. And I knew after him there’d be someone else, and that person would never be me. So I stopped calling. Stopped thinking about you, hoping if I moved on from you I’d finally find a life that makes me happy.”

His eyes glass over just slightly. He steps back, just an inch, just enough to study your face with pinched eyebrows, like he’s bracing himself for a fatal blow.

“And did you?” You ask, almost too quiet for him to hear.

“Do I seem happy to you?”

You study him, your lungs aching with the breath you’ve been holding.

“So you don’t want me to be your best friend anymore?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “No, I want you to be my girl.”

“Steve.” You step closer, and this time, he doesn’t move away. “I’ve always been your girl.”

Then it happens, it finally happens, the invisible string between you, always pulled taught, fraying at the edges, breaks. Like magnets, your bodies snap together.

His hands fly to your hair, yours to his shoulders. Your lips hover for just a moment, just one excruciating, exhilarating, delicious moment. And then they meet.

Steve kisses you like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your mouth. Like he’s been slowly and carefully mapping it out for years. But a groan escapes him when you finally part your lips and invite him in, realizing it’s so much better than he’d imagined. 

It is everything it’s supposed to be. Drenched confessions of love lead to screeching tires and running stop signs until he finally gets you back to your new apartment. Doorway kisses lead to hands gripping each other desperately as he walks you toward the bed.

You’d been kissing like that for what felt like days, laying across your bed, tangling together, rolling in the sheets in your now mostly dry clothes. After forever like that, Steve pulls back, tentatively beginning to unbutton your top. His fingers are shaking.

Placing your hand softly over his you ask, “are you nervous?”

“What? Nervous? I’m not…I’m definitely not…” he hangs his head and sighs, “yeah, okay. Yeah I’m really nervous.”

His cheeks are scarlet as he avoids your gaze. When he finally looks back up at you, you cover your face in your hands, peeking at him through your fingers.

“I’m nervous, too,” you confess.

The shared relief breaks you both into a fit of laughter. There had been so much build up to this moment, years of it, that now that you’re here, it feels impossible.

“Is this real life?” You ask him through your giggles.

“I honestly don’t know,” he croaks out, making your belly shake with another round of laughter. You’ve both lost your minds.

When the hilarity finally dies down, you look over at Steve, the golden glow of a streetlamp washing over his face.

“Maybe for now you could just hold me?” You suggest.

With a rush of relief, Steve pulls you into him, your back to his chest, legs tangled together. 

“Yes, I’ll hold you,” he whispers in your hair, “you’ve got no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hold you just like this.”

“Hmm, I think I might have some idea.”

You fall asleep like that, wrapped up in each other, and sleep more soundly than you have maybe ever.

The night comes and goes, the sun eventually rises. And though neither of you wants to, you eventually get out of bed. Steve’s team has an away game two towns over, and you have boxes to unpack. 

So he leaves, you shower, eat, spend the day distractedly unpacking books and clothes, only to rearrange them again and again, just killing the time until you see him again. Hours pass so slowly they feel like days, and as the clock ticks, reality hangs in the air outside your window, threatening to bring you back to earth. Just as you’re wondering if you’d really imagined it all, you hear a knock on your door.

You swing the mahogany open, standing flushed and expectant in the short blue satin dress you hope he’ll love, cheeks pink and not just from your rouge. Steve's eyes drift up and down like he hasn’t seen you in days, despite having his hands on you just this morning.

He leans against the door frame as he devours you with hazel eyes. He’s cleaned himself up, wearing a black sport coat over a black shirt, a single swirl of hair falling over his forehead despite his obvious attempt to hairspray it into place. It’s okay, you like him messy.

His gaze may be confident but his words come out in a clumsy stammer.

“You…it’s…just…aghhh.” He throws his head back, eyes shut tight as he tries to gather his thoughts.

“Yes, Mr. Harrington?” You tease, only flustering him more.

He just shakes his head, tongue poking into his cheek.

“It’s not fair.” He laughs.

Your smile finally breaks through, heart swelling. The arms that held you tight last night belonged to a man, but in front of you now he’s still the devilishly cute schoolboy you’ve been harboring a secret crush on since your playground days.

“Is that a compliment?” You ask.

“It’s a compliment.” He steps over the threshold and grabs you by the waist, finally finding his voice, “a compliment, a praise, a prayer-”

He cuts his own musings off with a kiss, arm looping around your back, crushing your body into his until you’re lifted to your tippytoes. You sigh into it, bunching his lapels in your hands as if you could possibly pull him in any closer. He kisses you so fiercely, his lips eventually slide off of yours, leaving a trail along the corner of your lips, your cheek, the sweet spot behind your ear. He sucks there, just slightly, until your knees turn to water and he has to hold you up for real.

“Speaking of things that aren’t fair,” you exhale.

Steve’s laugh is muffled against your ear and he pulls back to look at you. His lips are stained red from your lipstick. You grin wildly at him as you swipe your finger along each lip to clean him up. 

Seizing the opportunity, he holds your hand to his mouth, kissing your knuckles, then your palm, down to your wrist. If you don’t stop him, you know you’re seconds from ditching your dinner reservation. When his lips press to the pulse point inside your wrist, you consider never leaving the house again.

Then your stomach grumbles, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

“Hungry?” He jokes, letting your hand fall only to lace his fingers with yours.

“Mhm, probably because I skipped dinner last night…” you remind him.

“Let’s get you fed then.” He tips his head toward his waiting car in the driveway. “You’re gonna need your energy.”

“Oh will I?” Your eyebrows raise, daring him to elaborate further.

“Oh yes.” He nods earnestly, though you still catch that teasing glint in his eye. “You’re gonna want to enjoy your dinner, ‘cause I’ve got big plans for dessert.”

You scoff and slap his arm, hoping he doesn’t notice the way your heart skipped a beat at the thought. Apparently, he wasn’t nervous anymore.

The restaurant is nice. Nothing like the dive bars and diners you’ve spent most of your friendship terrorizing. Your Friday nights usually consist of digging through Steve’s car for coins so you can play the same song on the juke box twenty times. On those nights, you take bets on how many people you can annoy out of the bar while you throw back cheap beers and sing badly to the bartender. 

But tonight, Steve is a total gentleman to everyone you encounter - the valet, the hostess, the waiter, even the busboy gets a crisp five dollar bill slipped into his palm as Steve tells him, “thanks for taking care of us.”

You stare at him from across the table, head tilted and eyes studying him.

“What?” Steve asks, wiping his face as if maybe there was a glob of chocolate left over from the soufflé you’d shared.

“Nothing, it’s just…” your lips scrunch, considering how to say what you’re thinking without hurting his feelings.

He leans closer from across the table, “tell me, baby. You can tell me anything.”

You know it’s true. He’s been your number one secret keeper your entire life. But something shifted last night, and now it feels like you’re holding each other’s bare hearts in your hands, everything tinted with a vulnerability that wasn’t there until he’d kissed you.

“I’m just wondering,” you lay your hand over his, “when you became such a…man.”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek, considering your words. You’re nervous you offended him until he turns his hand over to hold yours, giving your fingers a reassuring squeeze.

“Do you not want me to be a man? Because I’ll be literally anything you want me to be. An animal, a vegetable, a mineral, you name it, and I’ll be it.”

Relief pours over you at his joking. It’s clear the same Steve you’ve spent your favorite days with is still the one who’s sitting in front of you tonight.

“I just want you to be you.” You squeeze his hand back.

“Yeah but maybe there’s parts of me you haven’t met yet,” he suggests.

You consider his words. They almost make you sad, like you’re jealous of anyone who's gotten to see any version of him you haven’t yet. Suddenly, you’re hungry again. Not for another five star meal, but for him. All of him. Last night you’d barely gotten a taste, but suddenly, sitting across from him, lights low and his eyes fixed on you, you’re not nervous anymore. Not at all.

You need to do it all again, to see if you can find the boy you love within the man. See if you can have both.

The toe of your shoes run up his calf, lifting the pleated fabric of his trousers as they go.

“Well then why don’t you introduce me?”

Without another word, Steve motions to the waiter to bring the check.

Once home, you stand at your vanity, removing your earrings and the gold necklace you’d worn to dinner - a locket Steve had given you for your birthday in the tenth grade. He had told you he found it on the school bus, but later, his mom had let it slip that he’d spent all of the money he’d made mowing lawns in the summer to buy it for you. Your heart squeezes as you trace your fingers over it now. The signs that he was in love with you had really been there all along, you just hadn’t been paying attention. You’re done missing things.

“Steve, can you help me with something?” You call out.

He stops halfway through pouring your coffee - the flimsy excuse you’d made to invite him inside after he drove you home - and makes his way to your bedroom.

When he appears in the doorway, your eyes find his in the mirror.

“Can you unzip my dress for me?”

Steve swallows, stepping toward you slowly. When he pulls the zipper down, you swear you can feel his fingers shaking a little. Maybe he too feels the importance of this moment, that what happened last night was inevitable, but what happens next will be far more important. He’s never been this quiet before. The thought makes you miss him, even though he’s standing right behind you.

Once the zipper is as low down your back as it’ll go, you turn, meeting his eyes. He’s blinking back at you, both of you breathing shakily, unsure of what comes next.

“Do you still want this?” You ask him.

Steve’s eyes sweep over your face, landing back on yours with an almost aching intensity.

“I’ve always wanted this,” he swears. And you believe him.

“Me too.”

You lift your hands to slide off the straps of your dress. Steve sucks in a breath and doesn’t release it for several seconds, the anticipation nearly killing him. 

You take your sweet time lowering the fabric, torturing him as you let the silky threads fall away slowly. The straps finally slip from your fingers, the dress pooling around your hips, leaving you half bare in front of him. He tries to keep his eyes on yours, to be respectful, but he’s only human. 

Losing the battle, his gaze drops down your body. It’s only then that he finally releases the breath he’s been holding, exhaling through his nose as his forehead scrunches. At first, you’re worried he’s upset somehow, until you realize he’s not in distress, he’s completely wrecked.

Steve’s forehead falls forward onto your collarbone. His hand finds the small of your back, clinging to you like you’re the only thing keeping him on Earth.

“I…I just…” He tries to speak, but nothing comes of it. You run your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, soothing his worry.

“Steve?” You say, low and comforting.

“Hmm?” Is all he can manage.

“Take me to bed.”

He stands to his full height again, which forces you to look up into his face.

“If you insist,” he says, wrapping his other arm around you and pulling you up to wrap your legs around his waist.

Steve lays you on the bed softly before standing to pull his suit jacket off.

“I think I promised you dessert?” He smirks. He’s trying to muster that bravado he’d shown at the restaurant, but that’s not what you want right now.

You pull the rest of your dress down over your hips, leaving you in just your bra and underwear, a matching lacy set you’d selected just for him. He looks down at you in awe, his whole body tight, from the tick of his jaw down to the firm grasp of his hands on your waist. 

“You too.” You nod to his clothes, the only thing standing in the way of getting what you so desperately want.

He stands at the end of your bed, and you rise on your elbows to watch. Slowly, he slides the suit jacket off his shoulders and lifts the black sweater underneath over his head. His trousers go next, pooling in a pile at his feet until he’s standing in only his socks, boxers, and white undershirt. He gives you a shy smile.

“All of it.” You insist.

With a deep, shaky breath, he pulls the shirt over his head, revealing his broad chest and that pillow of chest hair that’s been filling your dreams since you were seventeen. He’s bigger than the last time you saw him shirtless. His chest is solid, his stomach taut and chiselded. His biceps are defined, but not bulky, a pulsing vein running down them all the way to his forearms. He’s been working out, clearly, and selfishly you hope it was all for you.

Lip drawn between your teeth, your chest rises and falls with anxious breaths as he removes his socks one at a time and then finally hooks his fingers into the waistband of his boxers. 

“Wait,” you say, and he freezes instantly.

You rise on your knees, shifting toward him on the bed until your fingertips find the goosebumped skin on his stomach, “let me.”

He watches with wide eyes as you gently push his hands out of the way and slip your own fingers under his waistband. Your eyes stay locked to his, looking up at him with a smirk as you lower the fabric over his hips and let it fall away down his legs. In your peripheral vision, you can see him, hard and ready, just inches from brushing against your belly. But you just keep your eyes trained on him as you slide your hand between your bodies and wrap your fingers around his cock, your touch featherlight.

He twitches in your hand and you can’t contain your satisfied smirk. When you run the pad of your thumb over his slit - already leaking desperately - his head falls forward, hair hanging over his forehead and eyes screwed shut. 

“Th-that is…” He can’t find the words. You’ve got him speechless and it feels so damn good.

This is what you wanted. To watch all his efforts to seem cool and calm melt away and reveal his truest self. The self that’s desperate for you, the self that’s always been at your mercy, just like you are at his.

You run your hands over him a little firmer, and his whole body jerks forward. Laughing gently you rise higher on your knees, the hand that isn’t working up and down his shaft wrapping around the back of his neck, pulling his lips to yours. 

Steve kisses you hard and you squeeze around his base in gratitude. Then he whimpers into your mouth and every nerve ending in your body buzzes with pleasure.

Like a reward, you pull him down further, until you’re laying back on the bed, head resting on your pillow, and his body hovers over yours. One of his hands is on the mattress just next to your shoulder, and the other finds its rightful place on your hip.

He runs his fingers along the elastic of your panties, making to push them aside, but you stop him.

“No,” you command gently. “I get to go first.”

He obeys and pulls his hand back, though his eyes are squinting in confusion. Instead of explaining yourself, you lick your own palm before bringing it back to his cock. Twisting your wrist, you begin to stroke slowly, feeling his fist bunch up the sheets next to you.

“Oh, my god,” he breathes through gritted teeth. “Ah, shit, that feels incredible.”

You watch him in awe, your own mouth hanging open, adoring eyes sweeping over his features, taking mental pictures you know you’ll treasure for the rest of your life.

Steve groans, the growl in the back of his throat petering out into another whimper.

“Yes, keep making those sounds, baby,” you coo. “I love seeing you like this.”

With your encouraging words, you start to move your hand faster, twisting all the way to the tip and circling your thumb there until you drag your palm back to his base and squeeze gently. His eyes that have been squeezed shut fly open and he looks at you with pure panic.

“If you…I can’t…if you keep going I’m not gonna last,” he warns you with a breathy chuckle.

There he is. Your sweet boy. All pretenses dropped, telling you the truth without embarrassment. Your best friend, shaking above you, gasping against your skin when his forehead falls to the center of your chest.

“That’s okay,” you reassure him. “I want you to feel good. I want to watch you fall apart for me.”

“Can I…mmm - fuck - can-” he tries desperately to find his voice between needy moans, “I need to touch you.”

“Yeah?” You smile. “You want to feel me?”

“God yes,” he breathes. “I’ve wanted this for so long you have no idea.”

The hand not working him brushes his hair away from his eyes, palm caressing his cheek.

“Me too,” you admit. “I dream about this.”

“Do you?” He asks, and it melts you completely. 

Because it’s not cocky, not teasing. It’s a prayer, begging for your words to be true. Begging you to tell him he’s not alone, that you need him in the same way he needs you.

“Mhm,” you nod. “I dream about you coming undone for me. About the look on your face when you fall apart, about what sounds you’ll make when you give in.”

Steve’s eyes roll back at your words, shaking his head. 

“Okay, that’s it, I need to touch you. Now.” 

He drops his mouth to the crook of your neck, trailing down to your chest, sloppy kisses all the way down. You giggle as the last bit of his pride crumbles for you, fingers slotting in his hair to keep him anchored to you.

Once his mouth gets to the top of your breasts he pauses, tilting his face up to look at you as he pulls the straps of your bra down your shoulder. You lift off the mattress a bit to give him enough room to undo the clasp. When he pulls the lace away completely, his tongue runs over his lips, like he’s literally hungry for you.

“Are you kidding me? How are you even real?”

Steve tugs on your legs, dragging you down the bed, making you fall back onto the mattress until you’re underneath him again. You yelp in delight and his lips are on your neck again, mumbling between each kiss, “so beautiful…perfect…my dream girl…”

His words make you feel dizzy, completely drunk off this. 

“You’re so sweet to me,” you smile. He picks his head up to look at you, kissing the smile right off of your lips.

“‘Cause you deserve it, baby.”

He’s still kissing you when his fingers dance over the lace between your legs, feeling your wetness through the fabric.

“You’re also so fucking hot,” he whispers in your ear. 

Steve sits back on his knees to watch as he slides your panties down your legs. You shimmy to give him room, and then hold your breath as he runs his eyes over you, bare for him for the first time. It’s the first time you’ve ever been skittish around him, his stoic silence not relaxing you one bit.

“Listen, uh, this may sound lame but…I don’t know it’s like, sometimes I think I wouldn’t exist if you didn’t either. Does that make any sense? Like I was only put on this Earth because you were too. If I didn’t have this…I wouldn’t…I couldn’t-”

Two seconds ago you were laughing, and now he’s choking up. You sit up to bring your face close to his, making sure he hears you when you whisper, “we’ll always have this. You’ll always have me.”

You kiss his lips like it will somehow seal your words, make them permanent in his mind. He sighs into it, like he’s accepting them from you.

You try to keep him from noticing that your hand is drifting down between you again, reaching out for him, but it’s no use, he knows you well enough to know what you’re doing even when his eyes are closed.

“Yeah, no,” he scolds, pushing your hand back. “It’s still my turn.”

You narrow your eyes at him, “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“”We can argue about it later,” he tells you, “but right now…”

Steve grabs your shoulders, turning you so you’re on your knees in front of him, him on his knees behind you. He kisses along your shoulder and you tilt your head to give him more access, sighing in defeat. His tongue draws long stripes up your neck and up higher until they’re swirling over your ear, his tongue dipping in. You’ve never had someone do this before and you’re so surprised by how good it feels, warm and wet in the best way. You whine a little and he smiles against you.

“Your mouth is so good,” you say, not sure if you’re even making sense anymore.

“Mmh, later I’m going to taste you for real, but first…”

Without you realizing it, he’s snaked his arm down your front, his fingers finding the slickness between your thighs and sliding through it gently. The pads of his fingers drag achingly light over every sensitive nerve. Your body jolts in response, so worked up that even just this gentle touch overwhelms your senses. You’re shaking now, so much that he lays his other hand flat over your stomach to settle you. After exploring you for a few more seconds, he circles your clit, just once, and you gasp.

“There?” Steve asks in your ear when you shiver under his touch.

You nod and let your head fall back onto his shoulder.

“Yes, yes I love that.” You whimper.

“Love, huh? You love when I touch you?” 

You just nod again, knowing you look pathetic with your eyes shut so tight and your body quivering but you’re so far past caring. Steve picks up the pace, alternating between circling and tapping your clit until you’re so gone you start grinding down, riding his hand. 

Feeling that familiar tightness in your stomach, you realize you never want this feeling to end. You rise up on your knees, causing his hand to fall away. Just as he opens his mouth to protest, you reach back and wrap your fingers around his cock again. 

“Fuck.” The word comes out harsh and broken, like he’s just been punched.

Twitching in your hand again, Steve’s head falls forward to rest just between your shoulder blades. He looks down, mesmerized by the sight of your delicate fingers running over his thick length and the curve of your ass just inches away. He swears nothing could possibly be better than this, until you lean forward and guide the head of cock through your slick, dragging the tip through your folds and over your clit. 

“Jesus, fu -” Before he can get out another curse, you slide him down to your dripping hole, slipping him inside.

You both shiver in unison, frozen in place as you adjust. Steve grabs your hips but doesn’t pull you back, not wanting to force you to do anything. So you do it for him, rocking your hips back until he slides deeper inside.

“Ah…ah ah fuck, you’re so…” His breath is coming out in increasingly desperate gasps with every inch of access you give him. 

“Oh my god, Steve, can you feel how much you’re stretching me out? Feels so good,” you cry out. 

“Yeah, yes, baby, I feel it. I feel all of it.”

Once he’s fully buried inside of you, he pulls your upper body back against him. His hands are everywhere as you start to rock together - on your stomach, your tits, your neck, your hips - gripping and gliding like he’s afraid if he lets go you’ll disappear. 

You’re so full of him that your mind is hazy, almost slipping away into yourself until you remember you’re supposed to be paying attention.

“Talk to me,” you beg him. “Wanna hear you.”

He groans against your ear, the vibration running down your neck. You’re grinding back onto him as he rolls his hips to hit you as deep as possible, and your breath is completely stolen. He takes a second to groan again and nip at your jaw before he speaks.

“Yeah? What do you wanna hear? That I’ve never felt this fucking good in my entire life? That you’re so tight and hot around me I’m afraid I’m gonna come already?”

In response to his perfect words, you lift your arm, hand rubbing the back of his neck. He takes the opportunity to kiss your arm before he keeps crooning.

“I’m gonna go harder now, honey. Is that okay?”

“Mhm, please,” you moan.

Steve’s hands land on your hips, pushing you forward just enough to bring you back again, testing your response. You cry out, a sharp squeal that tells him exactly what he wants to know.

“There we go. Better like that, right?” He asks.

“So good, please keep going,” you whimper.

“Well if you insist…” he jokes before bringing you forward and back again, thrusting his hips forward to meet you each time. 

The room fills with the sound of your bodies coming together over and over, the soft smacks of your ass against his thighs. The pressure of his thrusts is so good that you fall forward, supporting yourself with your hands on the mattress as he takes over the rhythm. Your moans are uncontained now, nearly crying from the pleasure.

“Gonna keep you just like this.” He hasn’t forgotten your request for him to talk you through it. “Under me, full of me. You deserve it, baby, you deserve everything. So patient with me, so good to me.”

You cry out his name, almost unable to bear the affection you feel for him. The moment is so tender you’re afraid you’re going to shatter, break into a million pieces underneath him. You can’t help the small sniffle that escapes you.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he draws you back up by your shoulders to hug you from behind, one hand tilting your chin so he can look you in the eyes. “You okay? Was it something I said?”

“Yes, it’s everything, you’re everything.” You’re afraid you won’t be able to find the words to explain it. “It’s just, I don’t ever want this to end.”

Steve’s face floods with relief, and he presses his forehead against yours. 

“It’s never gonna end.” He kisses your cheek, right over the tear that’s streaking your skin. When he kisses your mouth gently, it tastes like salt water. 

“Believe me, now that I’ve gotten my hands on you, God himself couldn’t pull them off. Never letting you go now.”

“Promise?” You ask.

He laughs once before his face goes dead serious, “pinky promise.”

As he says it, his hand is sliding down your stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps until his fingers find your clit again.

“Steve!” You sob.

It's the loudest you’ve been all night and you can tell by the way his free arm tightens around your waist that he loves hearing you just as much as you love hearing him. So you don’t hold back, words incoherent as you let out a string of moans and babbled praises.

Steve’s fingers pick up the pace on your clit as he rocks his cock in and out of you, making you tremble each time he hits that perfect spot deep inside you. Of course he’s the first and only man who has ever found it. You clench around him hard each time he does.

“Oh, shit, so tight.” He can barely grunt the words out with his jaw clenched so tight. “Are you gonna come? Please tell me you’re gonna come. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, please don’t make me wait anymore.”

His voice is hoarse as he begs. Nobody has ever been this desperate for you before. Hell, no one has ever cared about your pleasure this much before either. The connection between you is so cosmic and intoxicating that the world is spinning around you, stars sparking behind your eyes when you squeeze them shut. You gulp down one sharp breath, and then you’re gone.

“Oh!” 

You’re shaking, body absolutely convulsing as you reach the peak, and then fall over the edge. You can’t speak, can’t even breathe, mouth wide in a silent scream as you’re hit with wave after wave of the sweetest ecstasy you’ve ever felt.

It’s almost too much, your hand grabs Steve’s, pausing his work on your clit as you pant desperately, “come with me. Please, need you here with me.”

It doesn’t take much convincing at all. It’s clear Steve has been right at the edge of it this whole time, because as soon as the words leave your mouth he’s breaking. A sound from so deep inside him, you swear its primal, rips out of his chest. The warmth of him fills you, beginning to drip down your legs where he’s buried to the hilt. Steve’s groan fades into a breathy whisper.

“I….oh my god…I love you. I love you. I love you so much,” he whispers as he twitches once more, pulling your ass flush against him so he can hit that spot you love one last time. 

When it’s over, he holds you there for several minutes. His arms are wrapped around your waist, head resting on the nape of your neck. You rub your hands gently up and down his forearms, both of you needing time to make sure that actually just happened, that it wasn’t a dream.

Only when you’re both sure this is real life does he let go. You slide down on your front and collapse into the bed. Your arms fold on the pillow so you can rest your head on your hands. You breathe the happiest sigh of satisfaction. Steve lays next to you, looking at the ceiling, one arm under his head, one on his chest. Your eyes flutter shut as you let this perfect moment wash over you.

“So…” Steve says, never one to let silence linger. “That was like, what? A five out of ten?”

Without opening your eyes you throw your hand in his general direction, smacking him on the arm as hard as your spent body can manage.

“Ow!” He fake cries. “I’m kidding!”

You turn your head to face him, cheek still smushed into the pillow. He shoots you a smirk and winks. 

You’re still completely naked and Steve doesn’t miss the goosebumps all over your skin. He lifts himself to pull the bedsheet up and over you. Giggling, you pull it higher until it’s over both of your heads. He finds you under the covers, your own little tent where only the two of you exist, just like when you were kids. 

Your lips twist, trying to suppress a smile that escapes anyway.

“What?” He asks, your smile making his cheeks go hot. 

“You said you love me.”

Bashful, he pulls the sheets back off, “okaaay, alright. That’s enough outta you.”

You laugh hard as he rolls away like he’s going to get out of the bed. You grab his arm to pull him back and he pretends he’s going to fight you on it for only a second before giving in and falling back onto the mattress.

When you turn on your side to face him, he follows suit, until you’re laying chest to chest, laughter fading slowly.

You reach out a single finger, running it over his jaw, across his cheeks, down his nose, even along the soft skin just under his eyes, caressing all of the features you’ve known for so long but never gotten to touch like this.

“I love you, too,” you whisper.

You thought after all these years, you’d seen all of Steve’s mannerisms. But this look on his face is something completely new, like he’d been waiting all his life to hear those words.

“Promise?” He asks.

When you lift your pinky out, he wraps his own around it.

You kiss his hand slowly and swear, “pinky promise.”

:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ.✧:･ﾟ.✧ *:･:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ

steve’s soft locks brush against your warm thighs as he gently moves you so you’re laying on your back. his fingers dig into your plush thighs as his lips press soft, slow kisses against your core.

his eyes stay locked on your sleeping form as his tongue starts to lap against your clit, your slit becoming wet at the sensation.

steve dips his tongue down to your hole and drags a flat tongue through your soaked folds. you begin to stir at this point, subconsciously shifting in the bed towards steve’s mouth.

his lips seal around your clit and suck gently, his tongue flicking over the surface occasionally.

you finally wake up and your hand immediately finds it’s way to his hair, burying your fingers in the golden strands. steve pulls away from your core, a soft pop noise sounding when his lips detach from your wet core.

“morning, sweetheart…” he mumbles, his voice warm and comforting like always, he takes your free hand and kisses the back of it before returning his attention back to the space between your legs.

his thumb gently rubs small circles around your clit, which is not fully exposed, meaning you’re more sensitive. your jaw falls slack and you grip the sheet, back arching off of the mattress.

you cover your own mouth, your sensitivity it through the roof since you just woke up and you don’t know how long you can stay quiet for.

a shaky breath leaves your soft lips as steve dips his head back down, blowing cold air over your core before lapping at your wet folds and clit.

just as your hips twitch at the sensation, his middle and ring finger slipping into your hole, your walls immediately pulsing around him.

“i love watching you squirm, baby…” steve murmurs against you, his pace picking up and his nose nudging against your puffy clit as he laps you up. “taste so good…” he pants, the warm air brushing over your core.

you feel the familiar feeling of warmth pooling in your tummy as his movements pick up, your legs bending and spreading further as you push yourself up into his face.

“m’gonna cum…” you whine, trying to keep your whimpers and whines to a minimum, but they still slip out with your words of warning.

steve’s touch becomes heavier and more intense, he loves when you whine and whimper for him, it’s the most attractive thing in the world to him.

you let out a relieved moan as your climax washes over you, steve’s movements slowing but not stopping.

his finger gently circles your clit as he pulls away, pulling his fingers out of your throbbing hole, replacing them with his tongue. you gasp and jolt back making his fingers dig into your thighs to keep you against his warm mouth.

steve’s tongue laps at you, fully licking you clean after your orgasm before he places kisses up your slit, up your stomach and to your face, pressing a firm kiss against your lips.

“you’re so pretty when you cum, baby… could watch you all day…” he murmurs, a small smirk tugging at his arousal coated lips.