angie ౨ৎ˚₊

Still, you knew you’d truly fucked up when you entered his office after, finally, being summoned... only to freeze at the sight of him, and the severity of his glare.

Sylus sits silent, forearms braced against the polished oakwood, hands steepled before his mouth as he fixed you with a sharp, unwavering stare. The dim light from the lone lamp in the corner caught against the rings on his fingers, cold against colder eyes.

“I–”

“Come. Closer.” 

The command is final, resolute. You bristle instinctively. 

One sharp arch of his brow catches the beginning of that defiance immediately, and that small reaction alone makes you falter.

Still, you force yourself to keep your chin high as you hesitantly approach the terrifying figure situated a mere few feet away. But before you can stop in front of the large desk, he tilts his head, signalling for you to round the corner.

Closer, until you’re standing directly in front of him. Your hackles rise, tempted to stand your ground where you are—but Sylus clicks his tongue, and you loathe to admit you react no differently from a chastised pup when you obey.

So there you stand, barely a hair’s breadth away from sharing the same air, caught between his knees as his hand clamps firmly around your wrist. To pull you precisely where he wants you. You try to step back, twisting against his grip, but Sylus doesn’t budge. Red eyes pin you in place instead, burning with a cold, terrifying fury. 

“Good. You seem capable of being obedient for once.”

“Shut up,” you hiss, stung by the condescension oozing from his voice.

Sylus bares his teeth in a semblance of not-quite a smile. Something more morbidly amused than anything else, tainted with warning. Careful, it says.

Swallowing the remaining hesitation lodged in your throat, you retort, “Stop treating me like a kid. I know what I did, and yeah, maybe I could’ve been smarter about it, but—”

Sylus lets out a short laugh devoid of any real humor. “So you are aware that what you’ve done was utterly foolish?”

“Do you even hear yourse–” You cut yourself off with a frustrated sound, already irritated beyond belief by the sharp dismissal in his tone. “I can’t just stay hidden while they—”

“When I tell you I hold your wellbeing above all else, do you think I say it as mere inflection?”

“No, but what was I supposed to do?” you demand. “Leave you there to fend for yourself?”

His eyes burn a scorching fire as he enunciates slowly, “Yes. That is precisely what you should have done.” 

“I’m sorry, but you’re asking for something impossible,” you growl, still struggling to wrench your wrist free from his hold. “I can’t do that. You know I can’t.”

“Your safety is not up for debate,” he snaps, and the brittle facade of your bravado does, too. 

“Gah–!” Your frustration comes out halfway between a yell and something more wounded, your vision already stinging with angry tears. “Fuck, okay, I get it! I know I’m not like your hunter friend, or any of your more competent lackeys, but you don’t have to treat me like I’m fucking useless!”

Sylus opens his mouth, no doubt ready to launch into what would no doubt become another exhausting argument about your incompetence and your complete lack of self-preservation—but something seems to make him reconsider.

The fire in his eyes shifts. From furious, to contemplative. 

Then stone-cold. 

An oppressive heaviness stifles the air around you. The man before you, your boss by every definition of the word, seems to have decided he’s done arguing.

...The next thing you know, you’re face-down across his lap, staring at the floor as he yanks both your wrists behind your back in a punishing grip.

You shout in indignation, kicking your legs uselessly in an attempt to escape the prison of his hold, but to no avail. Sylus, apparently, is in no mood to grant you even the dignity of false leniency this time.

Without warning, he flips your skirt up—a damning decision to wear one on a heist, though never in the way you imagined would come back to bite you—and bunches the fabric high against your hips, leaving your thin underwear embarrassingly exposed.

Heat rushes violently to your face. Shame follows just as quickly: sharp and prickling across your scalp, before sinking nauseatingly deep in your gut.

“...Are you actually sorry?” he intones softly, something deceptive in the way he says it.

“W-what?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, you feel the palm of his free hand glide slowly from your thigh, trailing upward along the curve of your lower back.

You’re not. Not even an iota. But with your not-quite lover’s current temperament, you feel almost compelled to oblige anyway.

Sylus rarely loses his temper like this. In fact, it only seems to happen when your safety is involved—when you’ve placed yourself directly in harm’s way, or when circumstances leave him too far away to reach you before something goes wrong.

You remember the first time he’d thrown you across his lap. It happened after a supposedly separate mission went catastrophically awry, when some idiotic urge to impress him had driven you to go completely off-brief. You came back bloodied, barely responsive over comms, leaving him without eyes on you for nearly half an hour.

Half an hour that very nearly drove him out of his mind.

So when you finally stumbled back to him in one battered piece, the last threads of Sylus’ restraint snapped entirely. And as a result, he’d doled it out on—

“I’m– ah!” You lurch at the unexpected smack he delivers viciously on your ass. 

“Tell me properly, then,” he croons mockingly, a cruel, near-manic light in his eyes. “Like you mean it. Say, Sylus, I’m sorry for being a brat. Come now.”

You gripe stubbornly, refusing to yield so easily. You sink your teeth into your lower lip hard enough to taste rust.

“Words,” Sylus orders. “Or have you lost your tongue along with your wit?”

“No!”

Another harsh swat. This time, the rings adorning his fingers dig cruelly into softened flesh, sending a sharp, stinging ache radiating through you.

An involuntary sob tears free from your throat.

“I’ll count up to—hm, how many rounds did you fire after I told you to stop?”

The question is rhetorical, of course. Asked as if you have any real say in this at all. He already knows the number; the sound of each bullet probably still rings around inside his skull.

“Nine? No, ten. You managed to put down two out of that.”

You blink angrily at his derision, right on the verge of mouthing off— 

—then you stop cold, dread curling in your stomach as you remember what comes next.

“Ah, though you did swap mags midway through.” Sylus feigns sudden realization, like the memory has only just occurred to him. “Which brings the total to…” He hums thoughtfully. “Care to hazard a guess?”

Your heart thuds violently in your chest with a growing sense of foreboding, the reality that Sylus is dead serious despite the jeering mockery in his tone becoming painfully clear to you now. The telltale beginnings of trepidation quake through you at the perceived danger you’re in… and the promised pain soon to follow.

You answer a second too late, for him. “Test me one more time,” Sylus warns lowly, “and you’ll spend the rest of the night staring at the floor from across my lap.”

The last traces of mocking amusement vanish from his voice entirely. And just like that, you know you’ve lost.

“T-twenty,” you mutter in defeat.

“Twenty-three,” he corrects. “But let’s round that up to twenty-five, shall we?”

The sudden strike tears a yelp from you, though you quickly stumble through: “Three…!”

Sylus scoffs. “From the beginning,” he says coldly. “And this time, show a little gratitude after each one.”

Spank. “O-one! Thank you–”

Spank. “Two! T-thank–” Spank. “You!”

“Three!” You breathe out through your nose, blinking harshly. “Thank you...”

Spank.

And so it goes. The humiliation burns viciously.

Because your actions had come from instinct. The instinct to protect—something you should be allowed to do as part of Onychinus. 

So why does he insist on treating you like this?

As if you can’t handle yourself. As if you aren’t capable of giving as hard as you get.

As if you’ll always remain something weaker than him.

You wail through the pain as he rains his frustration down onto your backside, reduced to pathetic little sniffles through each damned number, even when he delivers the final blow.

“T-t-twenty-five… th-thank you…”

Your throat burns from all the screaming. Everything hurts. But what hurts most is your shattered ego, lying broken in pieces at his feet as your head hangs low like a scolded dog’s. Your breath comes out in short, ragged gasps from the exertion, and you keep your gaze trained downward while tears roll helplessly down your face.

You’ve paid his price, and your ass still throbs painfully from it, but it’s done. It’s over—

until Sylus hooks his fingers into the wet fabric sticking from the pool between your thighs, and the rough slide of cotton against your abused cheeks stings something almost unbearable. 

Mortification floods your face instantly.

With it comes the true humiliation; the most shameful proof of all, bared in full view before him: your drooling pussy, mortifyingly soaked throughout the entire ordeal, exposed before him despite all your struggling, all your resistance, all the pride you’d tried so desperately to cling to.

And judging by the dark satisfaction flickering across Sylus’ face, he knows it too. You can’t hide anything from him.

Sylus clenches his jaw, a hiss slipping between his teeth at the vulgar sight of your quivering cunt, drenched in want. Vexation, guilt, and lust rage viciously inside him, and he doesn’t know whether to delight in the fact that you’ve managed to derive pleasure from the punishment—or make it worse for you still, so you might finally understand the helplessness you’ve burdened him with. The helplessness you’ve made him feel ever since.

It would only make sense that you, the source of it all, should pay penance by taking the full brunt of his ire. Shouldn’t you?

His palm settles heavily against your left buttock, a thumb forcing you wide open beneath his gaze, greedy to see more of your lewd insides you’d tried—and failed—to conceal from him. You fuss, though there’s little you can actually do against the unrelenting restraint holding you in place. 

Both of you are painfully aware of this. The imbalance between you, the difference in power. How frighteningly easy it would be for him to bend you into submission whenever he pleased.

He’s utterly entranced by the stringy essence drenching his finger—and inadvertently, the worsted wool of his trousers where he’s propped you onto. A rivulet of your desire drips down like viscid honey, splattering on the tip of his shoe, and the obscenity of it all draws a tortured groan from deep in his throat. 

“Filthy,” the word comes out scathing, but your body reacts as if it’s been praised. You whimper, shivering at the languid ministrations against your sensitive flesh. “Do you like making me mad?”

Your mind begins to drift further from reality, the pain almost exalting in the way it strips everything else away until all that remains are his words and him, him.

No, you don’t like making him mad. You don’t like the disappointed look in his eyes, as if you’re incapable. You don’t like it when he treats you less an equal, and more like a delicate doll in need of protection from every possible harm.

But you like it when he chastises you, the residual shame washed through with pleasure. You like the sting of punishment when it’s dealt by the same hands that would soothe it all better afterwards.

You like it when he forces your mind empty until nothing else matters except this.

And him.

Only him.

“What do you need?” he prods quietly, stroking the expanse of your wet cunt in a slow, hypnotic caress; upwards, downwards, in slow, circular motions. Pushing a finger in just enough to coax you open around the teasing digit until it reaches the sensitive pearl hidden beneath.

You mewl, involuntarily trapping his hand between your thighs. He stops.

The sudden loss of attention is almost debilitating. “N-no—” Your pitiful pleas dissolve into nonsensical garble, and your cruel tormentor scoffs at your pathetic supplication. 

“No?” he repeats boredly. “I’m beginning to grow rather tired of hearing that word from you. Should I stop?”

"N-no—m-more…" you whimper. The man stays still. "Please, please–?" 

"You can beg better than that, pet. Have I not trained you well enough?" 

You squeeze your eyes shut, the wetness gathered along your waterline spilling down your reddened cheeks for the nth time. The stinging humiliation, the utter ignominy of being rendered helpless and strewn across his lap to receive punishment no differently from a misbehaving child…

The lingering shame prevents you from speaking, but the fear of disappointing Him forces your mouth open anyway, soundless. You shake your head in mounting resentment with yourself, your breathing beginning to stutter as the walls slowly close in around you.

You want, you want— but you can’t have— You can’t do what he asks— 

Stupid, stupid—

A palm reaches down to encircle your neck in a firm, but gentle grip. To ground you.

“Sweetie.” Tenderness bleeds through the earlier authority in his tone, and despite yourself, you shiver. “Come back to me.”

Your pupils retract sluggishly, bleary as your vision slowly adjusts when you lift your head, dizzy. You twist slightly in his hold and catch sight of carmine irises melting into a deeper amaranth in the yellow light.

Sylus removes his hands from where they’d been holding you moments earlier, helping to prop you upright before shifting you bodily and arranging your limbs like folded wings, gathering you securely into the nest of his arms.

He tucks your head beneath his chin, breathing you in like he’s taking comfort in the simple fact that you’re here in his arms. Safe.

And like a stranger peering through a peephole, your fuzzy brain slowly pieces together that the worst is finally over.

“Should we leave it at that for tonight?” Sylus murmurs, genuinely checking for the telltale signs that you’ve reached your limit. “It seems we’ve had enough excitement for one evening—”

You let out a small whine against his throat.

The worst is over, but—

No. No. 

You don’t want him to stop.

“I wanna be good. I can be good for you.” Mustering the last semblance of courage left in you, you plead earnest; watery eyes stare up at the pair of reds trained on your face.

“Please… please, daddy? I’ll b-be good… I’m s-sorry…”

The name of endearment hits Sylus like a blow to the back of the head. And whatever lingering fury remained from the earlier fiasco dissolves almost instantly at the sound of it leaving your mouth so earnest and broken. So sincere.

And clearly indicative of the subdrop that you’ve fallen deep into, that it nearly makes his gums ache.

His grip tightens around you reflexively as he finally takes in the full extent of your state: the dazed look clouding your eyes, the way your body folds pliantly into his without resistance, openly vulnerable and trusting him entirely to take the reins now that your mind has begun withdrawing into itself.

Christ, how was he supposed to resist?

He slams you down onto the desk hard enough to send papers scattering wildly askew, the force of it knocking the breath clean from your lungs and leaving your head spinning. 

Zipping down the front of his pants, Sylus pulls out his rock-hard cock from the confines of his boxers. With one hand wrapped around himself, he rubs the leaking head against your slit in maddening circles, deliberately bumping against your engorged clit with every pass. Yet a few teasing rounds are all he could manage before he tires of prolonging your suffering, and his.

Inch by paralyzing inch, he feeds it to you—the thick length of him, splitting you open deliciously. The way your slit weeps, greedy as it swallows the mushroom tip despite the overwhelming stretch, enraptures him.  

You whine weakly, attempting to squirm away, to hide, as though it’s any match against the unrelenting hands keeping you spread wide open beneath him. He huffs at the remaining traces of your resistance, amused by how futile it is when neither of you are under any illusion that you’ll be leaving your place beneath him for hours into the night.

“Let me see my pretty baby.”

Sylus easily pries your hand away from your face, ignoring the fruitless endeavour and the way you try to hide the evidence of what he’s done to you. Traces of the ruinous pleasure he’s left you with.

Your lashes stick together as you blink up at him, mascara smudged beneath red-rimmed eyes.

“There she is,” he coos softly, wiping away the stray tears with his thumb. “Hi, baby.”

You take a second too long to answer, grasping at figurative straws. Sylus, evidently, has little patience left for it.

The sharp thrust makes you cry out immediately, leaving no doubt as to what he thinks of your lack of response. You scramble weakly, nails scratching against the forearms holding you down. They don’t yield as he continues to slowly spear his cock in and out of your tight cunt. 

Your thin voice wobbles as you finally acquiesce to the demands of your relentless (not-quite..?) lover, struggling to keep yourself from crying out under the perverse disparity between your small, fluttering hole and his monstrous size. "H-hi, daddy." 

“Shhh,” he soothes, sweet in stark contrast to the rough rhythm he has on you. “You’re breaking my heart, sweetheart. Dad’s being too rough?”

You shake your head.

“No? You can take more, then?”

You shake your head again, more frantic this time. The low chuckle he lets out sends reverberations down to where the two of you are connected, and you clench helplessly in response.

"This pussy's telling me something else, sweetie. Do I listen to her or to you, my love?" 

Don’t know if I can. It’s too sore, daddy. Sore in the way your body wraps around him, fluttering in time with the frantic hammering of your heart, unable to distinguish whether it comes from the repeated intrusion or the carnal desire for more. You don’t know if you want to plead for a smidge of mercy, or beg him not to stop. You can’t utter anything coherent beyond a long-strung moan.

Humming lowly, he makes the decision for you.

“I’ll take that as both, then.” 

Sylus rips through the leather bodice of your top with his evol, disintegrating the material instantly. The sparks left dancing across your skin sting in a way you know is entirely deliberate. Addictive, too.

The next thing you know, he captures your breast in his hungry mouth—ravenous as he sucks, and sucks. It aches, and you whimper at the relentless onslaught.

His right eye blazes as he peers up at you, intent on drinking in every minute reaction you give him. Every furrow of your brow from the torment. Every trembling breath born from the impossible collision of discomfort and agonizing pleasure that only he can drag from you.

It makes Sylus feel almost godlike. In control.

Especially after spending the last several hours feeling as though he’d lost it entirely.

That fear slowly drifts further and further from his mind the longer he keeps you like this, overwhelmed and trapped deep within the throes of corruptive gratification. 

Your mind is nowhere on Earth, the only thing tying you to reality tethered to the rough push and pull of his cock pulverizing your insides. 

“Ungh–unh—” You mewl brokenly, rivers streaming down your face. Pain and pleasure become an ouroboros of destruction, ravaging you steadily to ruin by the hand pressing down against your stomach, forcing you to feel how he drills and carves a place for himself, deep into your core.

“Look at you,” he exhales as he releases the reddened nub from his mouth, visibly enamoured by the sight before him. “Taking me so well. Do you think I treat you just as well, baby?”

“Y-yes… thank you,” you manage to breathe out. He’s praising you. He loves you. You can’t think of anything else to do but to show how grateful you are.

Sylus laughs softly. “Thanking me now? Quite the contrast from all that earlier grit, I think.” Even as he teases, he makes no move to push you further, fully aware you’re already more than halfway out of it.

With excruciating languor, he pulls out his slick-covered shaft, only to slam fully back into you in one brutal thrust. Over and over, he fucks you like an animal—battering your cervix, hitting every secret spot within, as if staking its claim over the ruined wasteland of your desire.

It's so good. It's so good. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you…” you blabber wetly, unable to stop the endless stream of gratitude spilling from your lips.

Thanking him only fuels the destructive fire raging inside him, and Sylus breathes raggedly as he rests his forehead against yours, watching the roll of your eyes intently. Obsessively. “That’s it—fuck, you’re daddy’s good girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes!” you relent, squirming and arching helplessly against him. One of his large hands slides to your lower back, pushing you upward in support while the other maintains a possessive hold over your belly, leaving you trapped securely between both of them.

There’s a building pressure coiling just below your abdomen; pulsing, clawing its way through the overwhelming haze in your mind, and you feel…

“D-daddy,” you stammer out, a sense of alarm cutting through the thick fog. “I-I think… I have to–”

“Mmh? Are you gonna cum for me, sweetheart?” 

“Nnooo,” you whimper in distress, trying desperately to hold it back. Your eyes squeeze shut, and a few more tears escape. “N-not it, no, no…”

Sylus practically coos at the panicked response, all while relishing in your contracting walls, clearly recognizing what’s happening long before you can properly voice it yourself.

“Yes. Yes, shit– let go, my love. Give me everything,” he rasps, sounding almost desperate himself, eyes ablaze with the thirst and anticipation for the full culmination of your passion. Your ardor to wet his cock, and to whet his appetite.

He lowers his head until his mouth finds your throat, teeth latching down against your skin as the demand is punctuated by an overpowering bite meant to take. Everything. All of it. All of you—

The order in his voice commands you to submit, and you’re helpless against the absolute control it exerts over your body. 

Almost instantaneously, you clench down. Hard. Your orgasm rocks you to your core, and he fucks you through it as it comes out in sporadic, uncontrollable spurts. It crashes violently over your head in giant waves, dragging you beneath the undertow until you’re utterly lost within the current. Blinded by the paralyzing ecstasy of it all.

Sylus swears to himself, his tempo faltering from the sheer rapture that is your cunt, milking him through spasms. He releases his hold around your midsection only for one hand to slam against the console hard enough for it to crack beneath his grip.

Not long after, he finally follows after you, a rough, possessive growl spilling against your neck as he loses himself in the same blinding wave of euphoria.

_

It might have been seconds, or minutes, or years until your vision finally returns and you regain some semblance of consciousness.

You’re swaddled in a familiar charcoal suit jacket, vaguely aware of being carried across the hallway and toward Sylus’ room no doubt, and the man quietly shushes you back to rest the moment you stir awake in his arms.

So you surrender one more time.

Just as you always do.

- - -

“Does it still hurt?” Sylus murmurs gently once the two of you are finally laid together in bed, after he’d cleaned you up and tended to you with almost painstaking care in the bath.

He’s referring to the bruising you sustained from the earlier disaster of a mission gone wrong and not—

“I think it all went to my ass,” you complain mulishly, scrunching your face as he pulls you tighter into his embrace like some oversized python. Or an overgrown koala. “And my vagina. No thanks to you.”

He chuckles, landing a soft kiss atop your head. “Poor thing. Did we learn anything from this?”

“No.”

You feel more than see the smirk forming on his face from where he’s buried against your hair. “Mm. Then I suppose I can’t be blamed for reacting exactly the same way the next time a reckless little mouse decides to throw herself headfirst into danger for me.”

The teasing remark is met with a scoff, but deep down, both of you know neither of you really minds this arrangement.

End A/N: WHAT WAS THAT— must have been the wind. Anyway.

The salty breeze sticks to your skin, the afternoon sun beating down in a way that makes the ocean glitter. You’d been hesitant about the beach trip but Chris had begged with those pretty blue eyes behind his glasses, and Josh had simply thrown you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and practically threw you into his truck with your beach bag after you got your bikini on.

Now you’re waist deep in the water, the cold ocean lapping around your ribs. your bikini top is a pale version of your favorite color, more decorative than functional, the straps thin and tied in bows at your neck and back. You’d bought it because Chris had made a noise like a dying animal when you’d tried it on in front of him last week, his gaze snagging on the way the fabric strained against your tits, his face turning the color of a ripe tomato.

“Incoming!” Josh yells from your left, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, skin gleaming bronze and wet. He’s grinning, wicked, already lunging to splash you.

You shriek, turning to dodge, but Chris is right behind you, 5’11” frame of broad, beefy nerd with strong arms and a soft middle that presses warm against your back even through the chill of the water. he catches you around the waist easily, lifting you clean out of the water with a laugh that rumbles through his chest.

“Gotcha!” he crows, but his triumph is short-lived.

a rogue wave comes out of seemingly nowhere, bigger than the rest, rising up like a wall of water and foam. It crashes down with enough force to knock the breathe from your lungs, your feet leave the ground completely, body tumbling in the undertow, and you feel the sharp tug of the current pulling at you, but stronger than that is the sudden, mortifying release of pressure across your chest.

Your bikini top is gone.

You surface the water gasping, sputtering, hands instinctively flying to cover yourself, but the water’s surface level is at your stomach now and you’re exposed from there up, the cool air hitting your wet, bare skin like a slap, your water slick hands are struggling to contain your bare breasts. Panic floods your system.

Then Chris makes a sound, something between a choke and a gasp, like all the air has been punched out of him. His eyes go wide, huge, blue, fixed on you with an expression that is pure, unfiltered shock, before he snaps his gaze up to your face, then down again, then up, like his brain is short circuiting and can’t decide where to look.

"Oh my god—" he says, and his voice cracking. He turns his head sharply to the side, one hand coming up to cover his eyes, but his fingers are spread, and he is absolutely peeking. "O-Oh my god, I'm—sorry, I'm not—"

Josh's reaction is different. He goes quiet. That loud, cocky Josh Washington, who always has a comment, who fills every silence; goes quiet. he’s staring, mouth slightly open, and for a second he looks almost dazed, like he's been hit with something he didn’t expect.

Then the Josh filter kicks back in, and he lets out a low whistle.

"Damn." Just that, but his voice drops an octave, and his eyes are still on your chest, with an intensity that makes your stomach flip.

"Stop looking!" You cross your arms over yourself, face burning so hot you think your skin might actually steam. "Both of you, stop—"

"I'm not looking!" Chris says, still covering his eyes… still peeking, his ears are bright red. "I'm not—I mean, I saw—I didn't mean to see—"

"Chris, you're literally looking through your fingers." Josh points out.

"I'M NOT!”

Josh swims closer, and you can see his face now. the smirk, yes, but also something else underneath, something almost appreciative. "You want me to help you find it?"

"I want you to stop staring!" You squeak.

"I'm not staring." Josh shrugs.

He’s definitely staring.

"I'm... assessing the situation. for rescue purposes."

"Josh—" you start.

"Okay, okay." He holds up both hands, backing off a little, but his grin is still there, and his eyes keep flickering down. "I'll look for the top, stay there."

"I'm not going anywhere, Josh, I'm literally—"

But he’s already diving under, disappearing into the blue-green murk.

Leaving you alone with Chris.

Who has given up pretending not to look.

His hand has dropped from his face. He’s just... standing there, water lapping at his hips, staring at you with this expression you can’t fully parse. It’s not just embarrassment or shock anymore.

It’s hunger.

He seems to be deciding on something, looking back towards the shore and then to you, He moves toward you, big body cutting through the water, he wraps around you without a word, the full shadow of his large frame covering you, strong arms wrapping around you, pulling you against him in a desperate, fumbling attempt to hide you from view. His hands are firm against your back, pressing you forward, and the momentum of it makes you stumble, makes you grab onto his arms for balance, and then:

His bare stomach presses flush against your bare breasts.

The contact is electric. His skin is warm despite the cold water, soft with that little squishy middle he’s self-conscious about, but firm underneath with muscle. Your nipples, hard from the shock of the cold ocean and the adrenaline, drag against his abdominal muscles as he pulls you in tighter, trying to hide you. The sensation makes your knees weak, a sudden, inappropriate heat flooding your belly despite the public setting.

“Chris—” you gasp, your voice small and trembling.

"I got you—I'm shielding you—" Chris's voice is strangled, high-pitched, cracking on the words. His arms are still tight around you, and he’s holding you so close that there’s no space between you at all. Your tits are squished against him, your cold nipples poking against his skin, and every tiny movement either of you makes causes the most obscene friction. "I'm just—I'm being a human shield—Josh can't see—no one can see—"

"Chris—" you start.

"I'm protecting you—"

"Chris, my boobs are—"

"I KNOW." His voice cracks again, and you feel his stomach clench under your chest. His eyes are fixed somewhere over your head, deliberately not looking down, and his face is so red. "I know they're—I can feel—I'm not trying to—just until Josh finds your top. I'm not letting anyone see you like—like this—"

"Like what?" Josh's voice cuts through the moment, amused and sharp. You can’t see him past Chris's broad shoulders, but you can hear the smirk in it. "Like topless? Because bro, I already saw. The horse has left the barn on that one."

"Then stop looking!" Chris barks, and his arms tighten around you, pulling you even closer. You make a small gasping sound as your breasts press harder into him, the soft flesh squishing against his warm skin. You can feel his heartbeat, fast and frantic, hammering against your cheek where your face is pressed to his chest.

"I'm not looking, I'm looking for her top" You hear a splash as Josh dives under again.

But Chris’s body is betraying him. You can feel his heart hammering as he holds onto you, you can feel the way his breath hitches as he fights his desperate arousal while you both wait for Josh to find—

“Found it!” Josh’s voice cuts through the haze, dry and amused.

You tilt your head to peek around Chris’s frame, he’s rigid, unmoving, a human barricade, and see Josh wading toward you, something pastel dangling from his fingers. Your top. He’d found it in the churning surf, the strings trailing in the water.

Josh stops beside the two of you, his turquoise eyes flicking down to the way Chris is clutching you, the way your body is plastered against his front. One dark eyebrow arches, a slow, knowing smirk curling his mouth. He’s close now, invading the bubble of panic and intimacy Chris has created.

“Still protecting her virtue, Hartley?” Josh asks, voice low and teasing. He lifts the bikini top, twirling it around one finger. “Or just enjoying the feeling?”

“Shut up,” Chris snarls, uncharacteristically sharp, his arms tightening around you. You feel him unmistakably hard against your tummy, trapped in his swim trunks, and he is trying to shift his hips away but only succeeding in grinding you harder against his stomach. “Just—just help her get it on, okay? D-don’t look”

Josh laughs, a rich, cocky sound. “hard to see the goods when they’re squished against you like that, Cochise”

Josh moves behind you, and suddenly you’re sandwiched between them; Chris’s broad, warm chest pressed against your front, his stomach muscles flexing nervous and fast against your nipples, and Josh’s tan, dripping chest hovering inches from your back as he reaches between you and Chris to slip your top between the two of you.

Josh’s fingers brush your shoulder blades as he starts re-tying your bikini strings, his touch is casual but electric. you’re trapped, immobile, caught between Chris’s protective panic and Josh’s amused efficiency.

“You know,” Josh says conversationally, his voice pitched to carry over the rolling waves as he starts tying the neck of your bikini now, his hot breath ghosting over your cool skin, “it’s interesting, we have ‘Sir Modesty’ over here”—he tugs the strings tight, making you gasp as the fabric cups your boobs again—“squashing your tits against him like he’s trying to merge your bodies through osmosis…”

“Josh—” Chris chokes out, his face buried in your wet hair now. he’s still hard, you can feel it, pulsing and insistent against you, your cunt pulsing in a response he can’t feel. He hasn’t moved his hands from your hips, fingers digging in possessively even as he shakes with embarrassment.

“…and then there’s me,” Josh continues, ignoring him, tying the strings with deft movements. His fingers trail down your spine, just for a second, before he secures the knot. “Finding your lost property, returning it to its rightful owner, doing the actual heroic work while he just… stands there…copping a feel.”

Josh steps back, but not before his hand drops to your waist, giving you a squeeze that’s somehow both friendly and possesive, his fingers brushing the sensitive skin on your ribs above Chris’s grip.

“So,” Josh asks, stepping to the side so he can see both of your faces, Chris red and flustered and refusing to let go of you, and you; dizzy and breathless and soaking wet in more ways than one. He crosses his arms, smirk widening, turquoise eyes gleaming. “Who’s really your knight in shining armor here? The guy practically giving you a mammogram, or the guy who actually saved the day?”

Chris makes a sound of exasperation, his grip finally loosening just enough for you to step back a little. You’re facing him still, your hands braced against his heaving chest, your own heart hammering so hard you’re sure he can hear it. He looks down at you, his blue eyes blown wide with arousal and panic and that desperate, adoring obsession that’s become the gravity between you.

“I—I was trying to help,” he stammers, his voice cracking, “I didn’t mean to—I just wanted to—”

He breaks off, his gaze dropping to your mouth, then lower, to where your bikini top is now securely in place but your nipples are still visibly peaked beneath the wet fabric, aching and sensitive from the friction of his skin.

Josh clears his throat, loud and deliberate, and Chris flinches, remembering you’re not alone.

The surf crashes around your waist, Chris’s hands are sliding to cradle your hips again, proprietary and needy, while Josh is watching with that knowing half-smile, waiting to see which one of them you’ll reward with praise.

<3