#{updated}

Store Content Substitutes

If you do not have the following store content as required by certain baking recipes, I have linked alternatives below:

Bohemian Fruits and Nuts

Humble Harvest Stands

Grandpa’s Grove

For recipes requiring the strawberry ingredient, if you don't have the store content and don't want to use the alternative version linked above, you can also use the Strawberry Plant by douglasveiga.

Baker's Station Add-on Translation Strings

I've added new translation strings for the Baker's Station Add-on to remove the duplicate baking recipes appearing on the Baker's Station with the Baking Mod installed.

Thank You

Thank you to @tianasimstreehouse, @littlbowbub, @oduvnix-ts4, JNBrownsville, and MonoChaos for allowing me to use their meshes and textures!

If you like my work, please consider tipping me on Ko-fi 💙

That hesitation breaks you. You launch forward, arms circling him, pressing your face into his shoulder, the fabric of his shirt rough against your skin. He lets out a sound that is neither sigh nor sob, just a release of something held too long, and then he’s clutching you back, fingers tangled in your shirt, pulling you in like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go.

Neither of you speak at first. Words feel too thin for the swell of what crashes between you. You breathe him in, the smell of his skin, his hair, the faint trace of cold air that clings to him. His lips press against the crown of your head in a frantic pattern, as if trying to anchor himself with the shape of you.

“I thought about this,” he whispers at last, voice hoarse, as if it hasn’t been used in days. “Every night. I thought if I could just hold on long enough, I’d get back to you.” His hands tighten at your waist, almost shaking. “But nothing came close to this. Not even in my head.”

Your throat burns. You shift just enough to look at him, your palms framing his face, and he leans into your touch with a desperation that steals your breath. His eyes are wet, red at the edges, but burning with something rawer, deeper. He presses his forehead to yours, and the quiet stretches again, heavy but alive now, filled with heartbeats and the fragile miracle of him being here, with you.

When he kisses you it’s not careful. It’s messy, clashing, a collision of hunger and grief and need. Your hands clutch at him, trying to pull him closer when he’s already pressed against you. His breath hitches, breaking against your mouth, and you taste salt, taste him, taste the months of absence unravelling into something feverish and unstoppable.

The kiss deepens, and with it comes a hunger that has been caged for too long. Spencer’s mouth moves over yours with a rough insistence, almost clumsy in its urgency, but it only makes your chest ache harder, because it’s him, it’s real, it’s everything you’ve missed.

You tug at his jacket, fingers fumbling, frustrated by the barrier of fabric. He catches your hands for only a second, as though he might slow you, but then he lets go, ripping the jacket off with a jerky motion, tossing it to the floor.

Your shirt is next, his fingers catching on the hem, pulling it upward, and you lift your arms without breaking the kiss. The shirt lands somewhere behind the couch, forgotten.

His hands are everywhere, clutching your waist, sliding up your back, pulling you closer until there is no space left to close. You tug at his shirt, desperate, the fabric refusing to move fast enough, and he breaks away only long enough to strip it over his head before crashing back into you.

You rise from the couch together, clinging, stumbling, his lips never straying far from yours. It’s messy, hurried, the kind of collision born from months of longing sharpened into something raw. He pushes you against the hallway wall, one hand braced beside your head, the other sliding against the heat of your skin.

You gasp into his mouth and he drinks it in, lips tracing down to your jaw, your throat, biting harder than he ever has before.

You let out a sound you didn’t mean to, raw and sharp, and his grip tightens at your hip as if that sound alone could undo him.

He kisses like a man starved, like someone trying to reclaim not just your body but every day he spent without it, without you. Your back thuds against the bedroom door, and with a frantic twist he pushes it open, guiding you through without letting you go.

There’s no neatness to it, no grace, only the heat of stripping away months of separation with each layer shed. His mouth finds yours again and again, desperate, as though kissing you is the only way to prove he’s free, that he’s home.

By the time you reach the bed, shoes, clothes, pieces of both of you are scattered in a trail across the floor, the apartment marked by your reunion.

He pushes you back onto the mattress, breath ragged, eyes dark and alive in a way you haven’t seen in months. He hovers there for just a moment, staring down at you, his chest heaving, and you see it—how close he is to breaking, how much he needs this, how much he needs you.

He hovers above you, chest heaving, lips hovering close but not touching. His gaze roves over your skin like he’s already imagining what he’ll leave behind, the bruises, the marks, the evidence. When he dips his head, his teeth catch at your throat, sharp enough to sting, and you gasp, your wrists tightening instinctively in the sheets. He pulls back just enough for you to see the faint curl at his mouth.

“You’re mine,” he says suddenly, voice rough, almost broken, not even directed at you so much as dragged out of him, like a truth he’s been chewing on in the dark for too long. His gaze moves over you, fevered, frantic. “I need—everyone needs to see. To know. You’re mine.”

The words send a shiver through you, not frightening, but sharp and real. His lips fall to your neck, biting down hard again making you gasp, as he groans against your skin like the sound fuels him. He lifts his head again, hair falling into his eyes, and you see the shift, the raw edge of something claiming him as much as it claims you.

He pulls back from your throat, breathing hard, lips swollen, the faintest trace of your skin already reddening where his teeth caught you. His hand cradles your jaw, almost tender, but his eyes are wild, restless, flicking over you like he can’t stop imagining what he wants to do.

“I can’t stop at this,” he says, his voice low, frayed, as though it costs him to admit it. “Not tonight. I need more. I need to put my mark everywhere, I need to claim you in every way I’ve thought about.” His thumb strokes your cheek, the touch at odds with the desperation in his words. “Please. Tell me I can. Tell me I can take what I need.”

You can feel the tremor in him, the way he’s holding himself back, the way restraint is shredding at the edges. He presses his forehead against yours, his breath uneven, muttering again, softer this time, almost broken. “I won’t unless you let me. Say yes. Say I can have you like that.”

“Say I can bite you, bruise you, mark every inch until no one could ever mistake who you belong to. I need to hear you say it.”

Your pulse hammers in your throat, every nerve alight with the force of his need, the way he’s teetering on the edge of breaking. You tilt your head back, giving him more of your throat, your voice unsteady but sure.

“Yes,” you whisper, then stronger. “Yes, Spencer. Do it. Mark me. Take what you need.”

The sound he makes is almost guttural, a ragged exhale that shudders through his whole body. For a heartbeat he closes his eyes, as though those words alone are enough to undo him. When they open again, they’re darker, hungrier, the last tether of restraint snapping.

“Thank you,” he breathes, but it comes out more like a vow than gratitude. His hands clutch at your wrists, dragging them up over your head, holding them pinned for a moment before he pushes off the bed. He crosses to the closet with a suddenness that makes your chest tighten, rummaging until he pulls out coils of rope.

The sight of it makes your pulse race, a fresh wave of heat pooling low in your body. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. You know what he wants, what he needs, and you give it to him without a word, lifting your wrists in silent permission.

He ties you with shaking hands, not from hesitation but from too much urgency coiled inside him, the knots rough and fast. The rope bites into your skin just enough to remind you of its presence, firm and unyielding. He secures your arms above your head, then moves down to catch your ankles.

He binds your ankles to the bedframe with a grip that feels deliberate, almost punishing, his fingers rough as they finish the last knot. When he leans back, breath uneven, eyes dragging across your restrained body, he looks possessed by the sight. His tongue flicks across his bottom lip. “Perfect,” he breathes, and this time it’s not for him. “All mine.”

He steps back, only barely. The distance does nothing to temper the heat in his gaze. He rakes a hand through his hair, jaw clenched, and looks at you like he’s already undone. “Don’t move,” he says. It lands somewhere between a command and a confession. “Not until I’m finished. Not until every part of you shows who you belong to.”

Then he’s over you again, heavy and intent, and the first bite lands just below your throat, sharp enough to steal your breath. His mouth lingers there, lips sealing around the mark as if tasting your pulse, sucking until the skin burns red beneath him. He moves lower, teeth dragging along your collarbone, your shoulder, every scrape carving a deeper ache into you. Each mark is a vow. Each bruise a warning.

His mouth finds your chest, heat pouring from him as he latches on. One hand covers a breast with unyielding pressure, kneading in a way that’s far from tender. His teeth graze the other, catching on soft flesh before sinking in, hard enough to rip a cry from your throat. The sting floods you, bright and immediate, but his tongue is there right after, soothing, circling, claiming.

The ropes hold you open, nothing to do but feel. Your body arches instinctively, seeking more, every nerve sparking beneath his mouth, his hands. You moan, loud and needy, hips jerking against restraints you can’t escape. Slick gathers fast, thick and unbearable, a throbbing heat that pulses harder when you feel him grind into your thigh, the rigid press of his cock leaving no doubt he’s just as lost in it as you are.

“Fuck,” he groans into your skin, teeth closing over the curve of your breast, sucking deep. “You sound so good like this. Strung up. Taking everything.” He tweaks your nipple between two fingers, sharp and sudden, making you gasp. Your sound fuels him. His hips press harder, chasing friction, desperate and rough against your thigh.

You writhe. There’s no other word for it. The sound of the sheets beneath you grows louder, the bed creaking as your body strains to meet him. Every drag of his mouth, every scrape of his teeth, sends a deeper ache flooding between your legs, wetness spilling onto your skin. You can feel it, slick and hot, and so can he.

His mouth stays at your chest like he’s starving, unable to leave it. He palms one breast roughly, fingers digging into flesh, thumb sweeping across your nipple until it’s aching. The other, he takes between his lips, biting down slow and deep. The pressure borders on cruel, but you welcome it. You crave it. The sharpness of pain, the heat that follows, the flick of his tongue that feels too soft, too tender, against the mark he’s just made.

He does it again, slower this time, dragging the moment out. His lips close over the bruise and suck until your back lifts from the mattress. The ropes dig into your skin, holding you down even as your body tries to rise to meet him.

You’re unravelling under him. Every time he switches sides, every time his mouth leaves one breast swollen and flushed to claim the other, the ache in your core deepens. Your nipples throb, hypersensitive, and the contrast between the warm wet of his mouth and the sharp edge of his teeth makes your breath catch in your throat.

When he slaps the side of your breast, the sound startles you. You cry out. He does it again, harder this time, and the sting only tightens the clench of your cunt. You’re soaked. You know it. He knows it. His cock ruts against your thigh with increasing urgency, a smear of wet heat left in its wake.

He won’t stop. Can’t. He’s biting you like you’re his to devour, like he’s carving himself into your skin. You welcome every one of them. Your body sings for it, trembles for it, bound and stretched and shaking from how badly you want more.

When he finally lifts his head, his chest heaves. His lips are swollen, damp, flushed. His breath comes in harsh pulls, and his eyes— His eyes burn. They drag over you slowly, taking in every bruise, every flush of red he’s left blooming across your chest. One hand stays on your breast, thumb circling lazily around your nipple, the rhythm a cruel tease that leaves you gasping.

He spreads his fingers wide, pressing against the warm skin, then moves lower, trailing them over every raised mark as though counting them. His touch is slow, almost reverent in its precision, but there’s nothing gentle in the way his jaw tightens. Something animal scratches just under the surface.

His thumb presses into a fresh bruise and your whole body flinches. He watches you twitch. Watches your lips part. Watches how the ropes strain as you try to move. A breath escapes him, half-whisper, half-growl.

“Look at you.” His voice is ragged. “Everywhere I touch, I leave something behind.” His thumb finds another mark and presses into the tender skin until your eyes water. “Everyone will know you’re mine.”

Your thighs tremble at his words. The ache inside you pulses deeper, more urgent, wetness dripping down to the sheets. Your breasts are swollen, flushed and marked and aching, and still, he hasn’t had enough. His hands linger, squeezing, shaping, then letting go only to watch them bounce back, blemished and beautiful under his gaze.

He leans forward. His breath ghosts over your skin. Then his mouth drops lower.

He kisses down your stomach, soft at first. Lingered touches. Almost gentle. Then his teeth return, scraping lightly along your belly, nipping the soft flesh just above your navel. You twitch under him, wrists pulling at the rope, hips tilting toward his mouth.

But he only chuckles, low and pleased. “Can’t even keep still,” he murmurs, voice thick with heat. “That’s why I have to tie you down.” His mouth finds a spot just above your hip and bites down hard enough to leave your legs shaking. “So I can take my time.”

He kneels between your legs, gaze dropping to the wet, glistening heat between them. His breath catches, and he exhales hard through his nose, visibly straining against the urge to take you.

His hand slides between your thighs. Not to give, just to tease. Fingers barely brush your folds, light enough that you question if it happened at all. Your hips jerk, searching for contact, but his other hand presses you flat. Holds you still. Keeps you trapped beneath his weight and will.

And then his mouth finds your inner thigh. Hot. Heavy. He bites. Sharp. Unapologetic. You cry out again, louder, and his tongue is already there, soothing, tasting, sealing the bruise into you with heat and breath and want.

He doesn’t stop. Not yet. There are still so many places left to mark. When he pulls back, he doesn’t rush. He lingers, watching the shape of the bruise rise beneath his lips, admiring the flush of red turning purple at the centre. It’s only when your breath catches that he lowers his head again, this time to a fresh patch of skin further down your thigh, teeth dragging slow before biting in with purpose. Another mark. Another place that belongs to him.

His hand drifts closer, fingers tracing the inside of your thigh, so close to your centre it makes your whole body tighten. The contact is featherlight, maddening, a whisper of touch that barely grazes your slick folds. Instinct takes over. Your hips rise from the mattress, seeking more, but the ropes around your ankles hold firm, taut and unforgiving, stealing the freedom to chase what you need. He watches the movement, the desperation, with a glint in his eyes that borders on cruel satisfaction.

His thumb circles your clit with no pressure at all, just a ghost passing over already sensitive skin, a tease that sends a fresh rush of slick down your thighs. He bites the opposite leg hard, the sharp pain flaring bright, the bruise left behind darker than the rest. Your thighs are shaking, trembling from strain and ache, from pleasure denied and the heat spreading like fire under your skin.

Still, he doesn't touch you properly. Not yet. He switches between slow drags of his mouth across your inner thighs and maddening strokes of his fingers that stay just out of reach. A rhythm with no pattern, meant only to tease, to unravel. Your cunt aches, wet and empty, fluttering with need. Every brush of his fingers makes your breath catch, every scrape of his teeth forces another sound from your throat.

He pulls back to look at you. Your thighs flushed, covered in his mouth, his bite. Your chest rising too fast, body tense and shaking, skin shining with sweat and arousal. His hand rests just above your cunt, fingers damp with the proof of your need, and he stares at the way your body pulses for more. His cock jerks against his stomach, twitching with restraint he’s struggling to hold onto. He wants you wrecked. Wants you undone. Wants it slow enough to last.

“All mine,” he says again, quieter now, like it’s sacred. His thumb grazes your slick folds, barely a touch, but enough to make you whine—a raw, needy sound that slips out before you can swallow it.

Your wrists twist against the rope. You arch again, chest heaving, hips rolling upward as if you can summon more from him by sheer will. His mouth presses another hot kiss to the inside of your thigh, tongue sliding lazily over a bruise, but it's not enough. It’s not what you need. You need his fingers, his mouth, his cock, anything solid and deep and real.

“Spencer,” you breathe. It’s barely a sound, more broken air than voice. “Please. I’ve been so good for you. Please… touch me.”

The words fall quiet, like you’re afraid they’ll break the spell between you, but they land hard. You see it immediately—the way his eyes darken, the tension that coils tighter in his shoulders, the hand between your thighs suddenly going still.

“You’ve been perfect,” he replies, low and rough, the edge of restraint fraying in his voice. His thumb brushes you again, this time with the lightest hint of pressure. “So fucking good for me.”

He lifts his head. Locks eyes with you. And what you see there makes your breath hitch. Hunger, yes, but more than that. Possession. Worship. Obsession. He moves then, slow and sure, pressing the pad of his thumb against your clit and circling just right—firm and steady and overwhelming.

You cry out, loud and sudden, your body jolting at the pressure. It crashes into you all at once, every inch of you already strung tight and ready to snap. The heat that floods through you is blinding. Your moan echoes between the walls and his chest shudders in response, like the sound alone is enough to unravel him.

His fingers slide through your slick, dragging slow and deep between your folds, parting you with reverent precision. He finds the spot that makes your hips jump and circles it again, then again, each time slower, more deliberate, as if memorizing what makes you fall apart.

His mouth returns to your thigh, dragging his teeth across bruised skin with lazy ownership. Another nip, then a kiss, and all the while his fingers never stop, the rhythm building until you’re gasping, thighs trembling, your entire body tuned to the movement of his hand.

“That’s it,” he rasps against your skin, grinding slowly against your leg as he watches you fall apart. “So good for me. Just like this. Letting me take my time.”

The ropes, the marks, the control—it's a language spoken in sensation, in shared rhythm. Every part of you answers without hesitation. You give it freely, without holding back. All of you.

He leans down again, kisses your thigh where the bruise is deepest, and then his fingers curl inside you.

You gasp. Your back arches. He moves slow at first, dragging his fingers through your slick heat, curling them with a precision that feels devastating. He finds that spot inside you and presses, slow and firm, then pulls back just enough to do it again. And again. Until your body trembles with every stroke.

His other hand finds your hip, fingers digging in hard, nails dragging downward until red marks bloom in their wake. The pressure, the scratch, the way his fingers stretch you—all of it crashes together, making your breath come in broken pieces.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. The sound of your moans, the wet glide of his fingers, the way your cunt clenches greedily around him—it’s all the answer he needs. He watches your body move under him, every reaction winding that hunger inside him tighter. His mouth is parted. His breath ragged.

You’re soaking his hand, slick coating his fingers and palm, dripping onto the sheets beneath you. And still, he doesn’t stop. Each curl of his fingers comes with purpose, pushing deeper, stroking with precision. Your moans build, tangled with the sound of your thighs slapping faintly against his wrist, the bed groaning beneath you.

Then, without warning, his mouth is there.

Your thighs tremble, muscles locking and releasing in broken rhythm as the wave pulls tighter. You’re not breathing so much as gasping, shallow and frantic, every part of you tightening around the heat he’s pouring into your body. Spencer’s tongue moves with maddening focus, a controlled chaos in the way he circles, flicks, then presses—flat, heavy, devastating. Each stroke hits a little different, a little deeper, never giving your body time to settle. There’s no mercy in the rhythm. Only hunger.

His fingers curl again, perfectly timed with the flattening of his tongue, and your whole body arches like you’ve been struck. You cry out—loud, sudden, a crack in the still air—and he groans against you, the vibration humming straight through your cunt. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t flinch. Just keeps going, lips sealed to your clit, dragging sounds from you that feel primal, unfamiliar, ripped from someplace deeper than speech.

The ropes creak with your every struggle, your wrists aching now, bound tight against the headboard, but the ache is nothing compared to the pleasure clawing its way up your spine. You’re soaked. Drenched. Every glide of his fingers spreads it wider, makes it filthier, your slick coating his hand, his wrist, dripping down between your cheeks.

His palm presses harder into the bruises at your thigh, thumb digging in near the edge of the newest mark, and the pain sharpens everything. Your pussy clenches violently around his fingers, and he moans again, louder, desperate. He shifts just enough to keep control, his weight keeping you pinned, his mouth never leaving you. He’s relentless. Intent. Like he’s memorizing how to destroy you with precision.

You’re gone. No shape to your thoughts, just fire. You buck helplessly against him, thighs shaking, back arched, sobbing his name in pieces. You can’t hold still. You can’t get free. And you don’t want to.

His fingers curl again, angled so perfectly you feel the stars behind your eyes scatter. He presses. Holds. The pads of his fingers dragging along that raw, electric spot deep inside you while his tongue circles once, twice, then flicks so fast your breath stops in your chest.

The world shatters.

You don’t mean to scream, but it rips out of you anyway. Your whole body locks, hips lifted off the bed in a trembling arc, wrists straining against the ropes, back bowing so violently the air leaves your lungs. The orgasm hits like a crash, all heat and white-noise, everything tightening in on itself before bursting open.

He groans into you, sucking harder, fingers still fucking you through it, keeping you high, keeping you wrung out. The pressure is too much, and not enough, and somehow still building even as you’re falling apart around him. Your thighs tremble uncontrollably, shaking under his hands, every inch of you soaked, fluttering, raw.

“Look at you,” he rasps, voice hoarse, lips slick with you as he lifts his head for just a breath. His fingers don’t stop. “So fucking pretty when you cum. So loud for me.”

You can’t speak. Your chest is rising too fast, skin flushed and shining, tears caught at the corners of your eyes from the sheer intensity. He watches the way you fall apart, breathes it in like it’s the only thing keeping him steady, his cock grinding against the mattress now, chasing relief but never leaving you.

And then he’s back on you, tongue dragging over your clit again. You scream, the sound strangled and wrecked. It’s too much. Too sharp. Your body jerks violently, another aftershock rolling through you, slick pulsing around his fingers. He fucks you through it, hand steady, tongue ruthless, holding you down with the weight of his mouth and the press of his palm into the bruises he made.

Your entire body convulses, twitching under his grip. You can’t stop shaking. You don’t even want to.

“Don’t stop,” you sob, and it barely sounds like words, just breath and ache. “Spencer, please don’t stop.”

He groans again, his cock dragging against the mattress with unrelenting need, and he pulls his fingers free only to press them against your clit in slow, slippery circles. The sound of it is obscene—slick, wet, greedy—and he watches every reaction like it’s sacred.

“You’re mine,” he says low, voice frayed, wild around the edges. “No one else gets to see you like this. No one else gets to hear you beg like that.”

You nod frantically, tears slipping free now, throat raw from moaning, from gasping his name. You’re gone. All reason burned out of you, left only with the feeling of his mouth, his fingers, the truth of what he’s done to your body.

He leans in again, tongue parting your folds as he groans deep, dragging it through the mess he’s made of you, tasting you like he’s addicted to it. His fingers return, thrusting in deep, curling again, thumb circling your clit without pause.

Your second orgasm rises faster. Meaner. Brutal in the way it builds, the way it owns you. You scream again, breath breaking apart as your body seizes under him, the ropes keeping you bound as your legs shake, vision blurring, every nerve alight with fire.

You don’t know how long it lasts. Time has dissolved. There’s only the heat, the wet, the stretch, the grip of his hand on your thigh. The marks he left burn hotter now, a map of where he’s touched, a living memory of his mouth and teeth.

You fall back into the bed, wrecked, trembling, pulse hammering through every limb. His hand slows. His mouth softens. Gentle now. Worshipful. His fingers slip free, and the loss makes your body twitch, over-sensitive, raw and swollen.

He lifts his head, gaze meeting yours, and the look he gives you isn’t smug. It’s reverent. Hungry still. But so full of awe you feel the burn behind your eyes again.

“I could do that forever,” he says, and his voice is a wreck, deep and trembling, as if he’s the one who’s been undone.

And still, he hasn't even fucked you yet.

His eyes never leave yours. Dark. Burning. Intent. You see it—the precise moment something inside him shifts. The second he makes the choice to ruin you.

A low growl rumbles from his chest, vibrating through your skin, sinking deep into your core. Then he doubles down. His tongue sharpens to a ruthless flick, relentless against your clit, while his fingers curl harder, pressing again and again against that devastating spot inside you. Perfect. Unforgiving. Expert.

The pressure on your thigh increases until it becomes a vice, his palm locking you down, giving you no escape. You're spread open, pinned to the bed, every inch of sensation forced deep into your body until you can’t separate pleasure from pain. Your back bows in one sharp motion, a cry caught high in your throat, trembling there as the first shockwave hits.

It doesn’t wash over you. It explodes.

White-hot pleasure erupts through every nerve, a burn so total it’s blinding. You jerk hard against the restraints, thighs spasming, mouth open in a wordless scream that finally tears loose as your climax crashes through you. Raw. Shattering. He stays locked to you through it, mouth never leaving your clit, tongue gentling only slightly, soothing and tasting while his fingers stay deep inside, coaxing each final pulse from your cunt. Drawing it out. Refusing to let you fall.

It borders on pain, the way he keeps going, and still, you want it. You give it. Body trembling, twitching, too far gone to speak.

When your limbs finally collapse, you melt into the bed, nothing but heat and sweat and aftershocks. The ropes keep you upright, wrists strained above your head, legs parted. You’re limp and wrecked, every inch of your skin aching. Your chest heaves. Bruises throb. Sweat clings to every curve.

Spencer lifts his head slowly. His lips are wet with you, chin glistening. He looks at you like a man starved.

Then, without a word, he slides his fingers out. The sound is slick, obscene in the hush of the room, and you feel every drop of it. He holds them up for just a second, watching the way your body jerks, then brings them to his mouth and sucks them clean. He groans low, slow, deep in his throat like he’s tasting something holy. Like he’s been waiting his whole life for it.

The sight alone sends another flicker of heat through your body, weak but real, a ghost of pleasure echoing in your still-throbbing core.

He moves quickly after that, his own need finally overtaking him. There’s urgency in every part of him now. He fumbles with the rope at your ankles, hands shaking, movements clumsy with desperation. The knot resists him at first, but he rips it loose, dragging the binding free. Blood rushes back into your legs, sharp and tingling, pain blooming as nerves reawaken.

He doesn’t touch your wrists. Doesn’t free your arms. He leaves them stretched above you, tied tight to the headboard, the rope biting into your skin as your chest rises and falls in shallow, uneven gasps.

And he just looks at you for a breath. Long enough to make your skin prickle. His eyes are darker than before. His body tense. His cock flushed and leaking against his stomach.

He's not finished.

Not even close.

The blunt head of his cock drags through the wetness he’s already wrung from your body, slick and eager. That first push punches the breath from your lungs. The stretch is sharp, unforgiving, pleasure and ache twisted so tightly together they become the same thing. You cry out his name, your voice wrecked with need, and your back lifts from the bed in one violent jolt. His breath stutters against your neck, a broken sound torn from somewhere deep as he sinks deeper, inch by inch. The pace falters, messy and aching with how much he wants this, how long he’s gone without it.

When he finally bottoms out, buried deep inside you, everything stills. His body trembles, muscles locked, and he presses his forehead to your shoulder, damp curls clinging to skin already slick with sweat. His chest rises and falls against yours, every breath a struggle. The fullness is overwhelming, dizzying, your cunt fluttering around him like it knows nothing else, like it refuses to let him go. It steals your breath. Your vision blurs. Your nerves scream for more.

Then his teeth sink into your shoulder. Not soft. Not restrained. They hit deep, sharp enough to make you cry out again, the sting a perfect contrast to the molten stretch of him inside you. The bite tethers him to you, grounds him even as it sets your body alight. The sound he makes against your skin is not human. It’s guttural, something primal, raw with possession and relief.

When he starts to move, it’s messy and frantic. Control forgotten. He pulls out just far enough to slam back in, the force of it shoving you up the mattress. Every thrust tears a new sound from your throat. Each collision feels like a promise kept too late. It’s all hunger now. The pace builds fast, erratic, your sweat-slick bodies meeting with sharp, breathless rhythm. His teeth scrape your skin again. His mouth hovers close, always moving, always claiming.

The relief is blinding. Each push is a purge. Each thrust feels like his body is pleading for something it never thought it would have again. He is everywhere. Bruising you. Stretching you. Filling you in a way that feels endless. You feel it in your lungs. In your ribs. In the places where his hands grip you, tight enough to leave reminders.

He doesn’t stop. His hips keep pounding into you with growing desperation, but his head lifts from your shoulder. His eyes meet yours. Wide. Glazed with something darker than lust. They rake down your body, slow and consuming, cataloguing the wreckage he’s made. You watch him take it in.

His gaze catches first on the bite. The mark he left. A purple crescent already blooming on your shoulder, skin broken where his teeth sank deep. He growls, low and wrecked, something torn from his chest that rumbles between you like a warning. His thumb brushes across the mark, rough, unyielding. It’s not gentle. It presses into the sore flesh until you flinch, until the pain sharpens and your cunt clenches tight around him.

He groans, loud and guttural, and drops his forehead against yours.

Then his hips slam forward, one sharp thrust that knocks the air from your lungs. He watches your skin, watches the bruise darken beneath his thumb, blooming like a flower fed on pain and possession. His eyes stay locked there, drinking it in.

His gaze drifts lower, tracing the constellation of bruises along your hips, each one formed by the grip of his hands. They’re vivid now. Red and rising. His fingers tighten again, locking you to the bed as his rhythm stutters into something even more ragged.

He shifts his weight, covering you, pressing more of himself over your trembling body. His mouth finds your collarbone. Tongue hot and deliberate, tracing the bruise he left there, a silent act of devotion. His mouth is savage and soft all at once, as if every press of his tongue is an apology he’ll never speak aloud.

He’s losing rhythm. Losing the shape of control. Every thrust is harder. Deeper. Wrecked.

"Every mark. Every single one. I want you to see them tomorrow and remember how this cock felt. I want you to ache with it."

His voice breaks something open in you. The words sink beneath your skin like another bruise forming from the inside. He’s unravelling in real time, undone by the sight of your body covered in the evidence of him. Your slick clings to him. His chest is heaving. And still he moves, chasing something more.

He finds your throat again, mouth dragging up to the curve where your shoulder meets your neck, and sinks his teeth in hard. The bite is brutal. He doesn’t ease up. Doesn’t pull away. Just holds it there, pressing deeper until your skin throbs under his teeth, until you cry out again, too wrecked to think.

The thrusts come fast now, his hips slamming into yours, punishing and desperate. Sweat drips from his temple onto your chest. The sound of skin meeting skin fills the room, wet and raw and rhythmic.

He fucks you like he’s trying to stay inside you. Like leaving your body would destroy him. Like being buried in you is the only thing that keeps him breathing.

You’re shaking. Jerking with every bite, every sharp press of his cock as it hits deep again and again. Your body can’t keep up. The edge rushes toward you and you have no defense. You’re gone. Owned. Every inch of you claimed.

His fingers dig into your hips with bruising force, grinding you into the mattress. He’s using your body like a lifeline, chasing his own destruction.

"You see what you do to me?" His voice is ragged against your ear, breath searing across your damp skin. "You make me a fucking animal. Look at your skin. Every mark."

His hand slides from your hip, wide palm dragging over your side until it finds one of the fresh bruises on your ribs. He presses down, hard enough to make you gasp, the pain sharp and immediate.

"You feel that? That's me. That's going to be there for days. You'll feel me every time you breathe."

A broken moan slips from your throat. You don’t recognize it. You don’t care. The stretch, the sting, the filthy sound of your bodies colliding—it’s all too much.

"Spencer..." His name falls from your lips, breathless and hoarse, lost against the damp of his shoulder.

"Say my name again."

His voice drops lower. Commanding. Shaken. He shifts his angle and suddenly the head of his cock drags across something electric inside you. Your whole body tightens. You cry out, voice cracking.

"I want to hear it. I want you to forget every other name when I'm inside you."

"Sp—Spencer," you gasp, nearly choking on it as he slams into that same spot again. The pleasure spikes hard, sharp as a blade, and your body jerks under him.

"That's it." His voice tears apart, words strangled, barely coherent. "God, the sounds you make. The way your cunt just... clenches around me. Like it's trying to keep me here. You trying to keep me here?"

You nod, but it's a mess of a motion. Your body says it for you. The way it grips him. The way you pulse around him. You want him to stay. You want him inside you until the bruises fade, until every mark is gone, and even then you’ll want him again.

And he knows it.

He feels it in every shudder of your body, every moan ripped from your lungs, every bruise painting your skin like a brand of devotion.

He’s not stopping. Not until he’s left you with nothing untouched. Not until you carry him everywhere.

Not until you cum again, choking on his name.

His mouth finds the fresh bite on your shoulder, tongue laving over the swollen skin, slow and heavy. His teeth press down again, not enough to break skin, but promising more. A deeper ache blooms beneath the surface. The bite and the stretch hit at once, sharp and searing, your cunt clenching around the thick, relentless drag of his cock.

His free hand twists into your hair. He doesn’t tug. Just holds you steady, guiding your head until you’re forced to look at him. His eyes are almost black now, pupils wide and blown, hunger spilling from the thin rim of color that remains.

"Look at me. Look at me when I'm fucking you. I want to see it. I want to see everything I'm doing to you behind those eyes."

You meet his gaze and it’s like falling into something too big, too fierce. He looks ruined by need, eaten alive by it, and yet he still wants more. There’s fury in it. Possession. Heat that borders on madness. It should scare you. Maybe it does. But your body answers before your mind can. Your pussy tightens around him, fluttering in a surrender that has nothing to do with control.

"Fuck, you're perfect," he breathes, awestruck and unraveling. "Taking every inch. Letting me ruin you. Letting me mark this perfect skin."

His thrusts lose any last trace of rhythm, hips snapping forward in a ragged, punishing pace that drives the bed into the wall with every slam. The sound is obscene—wet, fast, relentless—and the slick echo of your bodies meeting fills the room like a second heartbeat.

His forehead presses to yours. The air between you is ragged, breath shared, mouths brushing but not kissing. Each exhale from him fans hot across your lips.

"You like this, don't you?" he whispers, his voice low and wrecked. "You like feeling me claim you. You like knowing you're going to be sore tomorrow, that you're going to feel me for days. That you're mine."

You can’t find words. Everything in you is unraveling, stretched too thin. All you can do is nod, frantic and helpless, your body rising to meet each desperate thrust, a full-bodied yes that screams through the silence.

He groans, deep and savage, the sound of a man unspooling.

"Yeah," he grunts. "Yeah, you do. My good girl. My perfect, ruined girl. All mine."

His hand trails from your hair down to your stomach, slick with sweat. He doesn't pause. Fingers find your clit and press, thumb circling rough and fast, the friction too much. Perfect. Agonizing. It sends a jolt straight through you, pleasure flooding back in full force, raw and biting.

Your stomach coils, the tension building again, high and tight and brutal. You’re balancing on the edge of something you won’t survive intact. The pressure of his cock inside you, the sharp ache of the bruises, the brutal grind of his thumb—it’s all too much, and yet not enough.

His eyes drop. He watches you beneath him, your body straining against the rope, your arms drawn taut. The sight seems to tear something open inside him. His expression fractures, pure need spilling across his face.

"Need more," he growls, the words nearly swallowed by the force of his breath. "Need to be deeper. Need to feel all of you."

His hands find your knees, curling around the backs with a grip that shakes. He lifts and folds you in half, your legs pressed back toward your chest, thighs trembling under the strain.

The change is instant. His cock sinks in deeper, heavier, a stretch so sharp it robs the air from your lungs. The groan that tears from him sounds like it's pulled from the base of his spine.

He fucks into you harder, deeper, the angle forcing him to hit a spot that makes your eyes roll back, that makes your whole body seize around him. You sob, soundless at first, then full-throated, throat tearing raw as he drives into the heart of you with every thrust.

Your wrists strain against the ropes. Fingers curl uselessly. There’s nothing you can do but take it.

His gaze locks on the slick slide of his cock inside you, watching himself disappear again and again, hips rolling with merciless intent. His jaw clenches, eyes wild. Then he drags his gaze upward, slow and hungry, over your belly to your chest.

The sight of your tits, pressed tight together by the bend of your body, stops him. The bruises darkening there pull a noise from his throat. Something rough. Possessive.

His thumbs stroke your thighs as they tremble in his grip, calloused skin dragging over oversensitive flesh.

"Look at you," he breathes. His voice catches. "Fuck, look what you let me do to you."

He stares at the purpling marks on your chest, vivid and blooming, the teeth-shaped bruises he left there hours ago.

"My marks. Right there. On display for me."

He thrusts harder, a deliberate push that punches a cry from your lungs.

"You're so fucking beautiful like this. Tied up and bent in half for my cock. Taking me so deep. Your pretty tits pressed together, wearing my bruises. You were made for this."

His words are a filthy, hypnotic chant, weaving through the haze of your pleasure. His grip on your legs tightens, his fingers digging in, and you know without a doubt that by morning, there will be ten perfect matching bruises on the side of your thighs.

The pleasure is a live wire, sparking through your veins with every deep, grinding thrust. He finds a rhythm that is both punishing and exquisitely precise, each movement calculated to drag the swollen, sensitive head of his cock over that perfect, blinding spot inside you. The world narrows to the feel of his hands on your skin, the sight of his intense, focused expression, the sound of his ragged breathing, and the overwhelming, stretching fullness that is both a claiming and a completion.

You are moaning openly now, a continuous, broken stream of sound that is half his name, half meaningless pleas. Every part of you is singing, straining, coiling tighter and tighter toward a shattering peak.

You can feel the tension coiling in his own body, the way his thrusts are becoming less controlled, more frantic, the way his fingers tremble where they grip your flesh. The air is thick with the scent of sex and sweat, charged with the imminent, explosive release you are both racing toward. He is holding on by a thread, his own control fraying as he watches you come utterly apart beneath him, poised to follow you over the edge into oblivion.

The thread of his control, stretched so taut and thin, finally snaps. It isn't a gentle unravelling but a violent, seismic break. A raw, guttural shout is torn from his chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated release that seems to shake the very walls of the room. His hips stutter, losing all rhythm, becoming a series of shallow, frantic jerks as he buries himself to the hilt inside you and lets go.

You feel it the moment he cums. A hot, pulsing rush deep within you, the first thick jet of his release hitting your deepest walls. It triggers your own undoing. The coil of pleasure that had been wound to an impossible tightness in your core suddenly, violently, unravels. Your orgasm doesn't crest; it detonates. A white-hot shockwave of pure sensation erupts from where you are joined, radiating outward in a paralyzing rush.

It seizes every muscle in your body at once. Your back arches off the bed as far as the ropes and his weight will allow, a silent, breathless scream caught in your throat. Your cunt clenches around him in a rapid, rhythmic series of spasms, milking his cock for every last drop of his release, each pulse wringing a broken groan from his lips.

The pleasure is all-consuming, a tidal wave that drowns out every other thought, every other sense. It’s a full-body convulsion of ecstasy that leaves you trembling, boneless, and utterly wrecked. Your vision whites out at the edges, the world dissolving into a haze of sensation—the hot, wet feel of him pulsing inside you, the brutal, perfect stretch of him, the aftershocks of your own climax that feel like smaller, echoing earthquakes shaking you apart.

He collapses over you, his full weight a heavy, welcome anchor that pins you to the mattress. His forehead presses into the sweat-damp pillow beside your head, his entire body shuddering through the last waves of his climax. His breath comes in ragged, shattered gasps against your ear, each one a hot, humid puff of air. You can feel the frantic, slowing hammer of his heart where his chest is crushed against yours.

For a long, timeless moment, neither of you moves. The only sounds are the ragged symphony of your breathing and the wet, soft sound of his cock still nestled deep inside you, spent and softening.

The air is thick and heavy with the scent of sex, a primal, musky perfume that hangs over you both like a blanket.

Slowly, carefully, his grip on your legs loosens. His hands, which had been vise-like, now stroke down the backs of your thighs with a tenderness that feels shocking after the previous brutality.

He gently guides your legs down, unwinding your body from its contorted position. A soft, involuntary whimper escapes you as your muscles protest the movement, the shift causing him to slip almost out before he settles his weight again, keeping himself sheathed within you. The feeling of him, still inside you in the quiet aftermath, is profoundly intimate. It’s a possessive, grounding presence, a physical tether to the storm that has just passed.

His body is a warm, heavy blanket atop yours, and you can feel the fine tremors that still occasionally wrack his frame. One of his hands comes up, his fingers clumsy with exhaustion, to gently work at the knot binding one of your wrists. The rope falls away, and your arm drops to the mattress with a leaden thud, the blood rushing back in a painful, prickling wave of sensation. He repeats the process with your other wrist, his movements slow and deliberate, his touch surprisingly gentle on the abraded skin.

With your hands finally free, you don't move them. You simply let them lie limp at your sides, every ounce of your energy utterly spent. He doesn't pull out. He remains nestled within the warm, clenching aftermath of your body, his softening cock a quiet reminder of the connection you still share. He shifts his weight slightly, just enough to take the bulk of it off you, but he keeps his hips pressed flush against yours, refusing to break the contact.

His lips find your shoulder, not in a bite, but in a soft, lingering kiss placed directly over the darkest of the bruises. It’s an apology and an absolution all at once. His breath begins to even out, his shuddering subsiding into a deep, contented stillness.

The frantic, desperate energy that had consumed him is gone, replaced by a heavy, sated lethargy that sinks into both of your bones. You are both adrift in the silent, hazy aftermath, bound together not by rope, but by something far more profound and exhausting.

The silence in the wake of your shared climax is profound, broken only by the ragged, slowing cadence of your breaths. The weight of him is a sanctuary, his skin slick and warm against yours. For a long time, neither of you moves, lost in the hazy, saturated stillness. Then, a sound breaks from him—a ragged, shuddering sigh that is more felt than heard. It’s a sound that carries the weight of three months of hell.

His face is still buried in the crook of your neck, but you feel the first hot, wet drop against your skin. Then another. A quiet, broken sob wracks his frame, a tremor that goes straight through your soul. His arms, which had been holding you with possessive strength, now cling to you with a desperate, almost fearful vulnerability.

“I dreamed of this,” he whispers, his voice cracked and raw, muffled against your skin. “Every single night on that thin cot. I’d close my eyes and it was this. Your scent, your warmth, the way it felt just to hold you...” His sentence fractures into another quiet sob, his body trembling with the force of emotions too long suppressed. “I thought I’d never get it back. I was scared they’d stolen it forever.”

Your own eyes well up, tears tracking silently down your temples and into your hair. Your hands, now free, come up to cradle his head, your fingers threading through his damp curls. You hold him as he shakes, as three months of fear, anger, and brutal isolation finally find their release against your skin. You don’t shush him. You just hold him, letting him pour out the poison of that place into the safety of your embrace.

“I’m here,” you murmur, your lips moving against his temple. “You’re home. You’re in our bed. They didn’t steal anything, Spencer. You fought your way back to me. You’re here.” You repeat it like a mantra, a soft litany against the nightmare of his memory.

He lifts his head finally, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy, his beautiful face blotchy with tears. He looks utterly shattered, and more beautiful than you have ever seen him. He frames your face with his hands, his thumbs stroking your cheeks with a reverence that makes your heart ache.

“You were my only thought,” he confesses, his voice hoarse. “The only clean thing in that entire fucking place. Your voice on the phone. Your letters. The promise you made me… that you’d be here. That we’d have this.” His gaze sweeps over your face, drinking in every detail as if committing it to memory all over again. “I clung to it. It was the only thing that kept the walls from closing in.”

“I meant every word,” you whisper, pulling his mouth down to yours in a kiss that is nothing like the frantic, hungry ones from before. This kiss is soft, slow, and deep, a sealing of a promise finally kept. It’s a kiss full of three months of missed mornings and lonely nights, of fears unspoken and a hope that refused to die. It tastes of salt tears and shared breath and a love that has been tempered in fire.

“I’m never leaving this bed,” he murmurs, a ghost of his old humour touching his voice, though it’s thick with emotion.

You smile, a real, true smile that feels like the first one in months. “Good. You’re not allowed to.”

The room is quiet, heavy with the weight of everything that just happened. You both lie tangled together, sweat-slick, trembling, bodies still pulsing with the remnants of the intensity you shared. Spencer’s chest presses against yours, his arms wrapped around you almost desperately, holding you close, but neither of you moves. Words feel too heavy, too fragile, and for a long moment, there is nothing but breath, heartbeat, and the silent acknowledgement of what passed.

Your faces are so close that you can feel each other’s warmth radiating in waves, the brush of skin over skin grounding you, tethering you in a reality that feels almost unreal after the intensity of what happened. Spencer burrows his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling the scent of your hair, of your skin, as if memorizing it again, imprinting it on himself in case the world ever tries to take it from him. You shiver in response, and he tightens his hold, a low hum vibrating through him, the sound of someone who is both exhausted and terrified of letting go.

You lie there entwined, listening to the steady, strong beat of his heart under your ear—a sound you had feared you might never hear this close again. The frantic energy is gone, replaced by a deep, thrumming contentment, a peace that settles into your very bones. The bruises will ache tomorrow. The memories will sometimes surface. But in this moment, there is only this: his breath in your hair, his skin against yours, the profound rightness of being whole again.

He lifts his head just enough to look over your body, taking in the swell of your breasts, the marks along your thighs, the fingerprints left from where he held you down. Every new mark, every darkening bruise, every faint trace of his hands on your skin sets off a fire of protectiveness inside him. He needs to tend to you. He needs to make sure you’re okay.

“I need to… I need to take care of you,” he murmurs, voice thick and rough, almost shaking. His hands brush your hair from your face, sliding down your shoulder to cup it, gentle now where moments ago they were urgent and demanding. He presses a soft kiss over the largest bite mark, lingering, as if the pressure of his lips can soothe both the pain and the memory of it.

Slowly, carefully, he shifts, guiding you upright against his chest. His hands are everywhere at once, steadying you, touching lightly, memorizing where he needs to be gentle. “Come with me,” he whispers, voice low, almost reverent. “We should… get cleaned up. I should treat those bite wounds.”

He doesn’t rush the movement, simply guides you with a hand at the small of your back, his other hand finding yours, lacing your fingers together as he leads you from the warmth of the bed into the cool, tiled silence of the bathroom.

The light he flicks on is soft, not the harsh overhead glare, and it casts the room in a gentle, forgiving glow. He turns on the shower, testing the water with his hand until it steams, a cloud of warmth billowing into the room.

He steps in first, never letting go of your hand, and guides you under the spray with him. The water is a perfect, blissful heat that cascades over your shoulders, washing away the sweat and the lingering evidence of your passion. He reaches for a washcloth and a bar of soap, the simple, clean scent of it filling the air. He works up a rich lather, his movements slow and deliberate.

“Turn for me,” he murmurs, his voice a soft vibration in the steamy space.

You obey, presenting your back to him. His touch is exquisite, a world away from the frantic grasping of before. The soft, sudsy cloth glides over your skin, over the slope of your shoulders, down the length of your spine. He is meticulously careful, avoiding the darker bruises, skirting the tender bite marks with a reverence that makes your throat tight. He washes your arms, his fingers gently massaging the muscles, paying special attention to your wrists, where the rope had held you fast. He doesn’t scrub, he anoints, each pass of the cloth a silent apology, a promise of care.

He turns you back to face him, his eyes dark and soft in the mist. The washcloth moves over your collarbones, over the swell of your breasts, and you watch his face, the absolute concentration there, the deep focus he applies to this simple, loving task. He washes every part of you with the same tender attention, kneeling to run the cloth down your legs, his touch firm and soothing on your tired muscles. He is worshipping you, not with words, but with action, washing away not just the physical remnants of the night, but the ghost of his own desperation.

When he is finished with you, he quickly, almost efficiently, soaps himself. It’s not rushed, but it lacks the ceremonial care he gave you. This is a practicality. His focus remains entirely on you, even as he rinses the suds from his own skin.

He turns off the water and reaches for a large, fluffy towel, wrapping you in it before he even considers one for himself. He pats you dry with the same infinite care, blotting the water from your skin, his touch lingering on the now-clean marks he left behind. He leads you, swaddled in warmth, back to the bedroom and sits you gently on the edge of the bed.

“Stay right here,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead before crossing and retrieving a small, white first aid kit.

He kneels on the floor before you, opening the kit with a quiet click. His hands are sure and steady as he selects an antiseptic ointment. “This might sting a little,” he says, his voice low, his eyes flicking up to yours for permission. You nod, and his touch is feather-light as he dabs the cool cream onto the bite mark on your shoulder where the skin had broken.

His brow is furrowed in concentration, his full attention on minimizing any discomfort. He follows the ointment with a small adhesive bandage, smoothing the edges down with the pad of his thumb.

He does the same for the other small breaks he's made to your skin, his movements methodical and gentle. Once the bandages are in place, he takes a bottle of aloe vera lotion, pouring a generous amount into his palm. He warms it between his hands before taking one of your wrists.

He begins to massage the lotion into your skin, his thumbs working in slow, circular motions over the faint red marks left by the rope. The lotion is cool and soothing, but his touch is what truly heals, a constant, gentle pressure that seems to seep into your very bones, easing the memory of strain. He spends a long time on each wrist, not stopping until the skin has absorbed every drop and feels supple and new under his fingers.

He looks up at you, his task complete, his eyes searching yours. The atmosphere is so soft, so sweet, it feels sacred. He has taken the violence of his need and transformed it, through this meticulous care, into something profoundly loving. He has tended to every mark, not to erase them, but to honour them, and to honour you.

The first aid kit is set aside, its purpose fulfilled. For a long moment, Spencer remains on his knees before you, his hands resting gently on your thighs, his head bowed as if in quiet reverence. The only sound is the soft, steady rhythm of your shared breathing in the hushed room. Then, he lifts his gaze to yours, and the look in his eyes—full of a weary, overwhelming love—makes your heart stutter.

Without a word, he rises and guides you back, shifting you both until you are nestled deep within the pillows, the soft comforter pulled up to your waists. He doesn’t simply lie beside you; he gathers you into him, moulding your body to his as if trying to erase any possible space between you. One arm curls beneath your neck, his hand cradling your head, while the other wraps around your waist, his palm splayed possessively against the small of your back. Your leg hooks over his hip, and you bury your face in the warm, familiar hollow of his throat, breathing in the clean scent of soap and the essential, unique scent that is simply him.

You lie like that for what feels like an eternity, simply soaking each other in. The frantic, desperate energy of before has been utterly spent, washed away and bandaged over, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep calm. His fingers trace idle, lazy patterns on your skin—over your shoulder, down your arm, across the bandage on your collarbone—each touch a silent reaffirmation of his presence, his reality.

“I kept my promise,” he whispers into your hair, his voice a low, drowsy rumble you feel more than hear. “I endured. I held on. For this. For you.” His hand stills, pressing firmly against your back, holding you even closer. “It was the only thing that made sense in there. The thought of coming back to this. To you. Right here.”

You tilt your head up, your nose brushing against his jaw. “And I kept mine,” you answer softly. “I never let go. Not for a second.” You press a soft, lingering kiss to the pulse point at the base of his throat, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart against your lips. “You’re home now. Really home. And I’m never letting you go again.”

A shuddering breath escapes him, and he shifts to look down at you, his eyes glistening in the dim light. The intelligence, the quickness that usually lives there is softened by exhaustion and emotion, leaving only a raw, tender honesty. “Promise me,” he says, his voice thick. “Promise me we never have to be apart like that again. Promise me that every night from now on, I get to fall asleep just like this. With you in my arms.”

Tears well in your own eyes, but they are tears of relief, of a happiness so fierce it aches. You bring a hand up to cup his cheek, your thumb stroking the arch of his cheekbone. “I promise,” you vow, your voice unwavering. “Every single night. No matter what. You’re stuck with me, Spencer Reid.”

A real, genuine smile—the first one you’ve seen in three long months—touches his lips. It’s a little wobbly, and it doesn’t erase the shadows under his eyes, but it is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. He dips his head, capturing your mouth in a kiss that is achingly sweet and impossibly soft. It’s not a kiss of hunger, but of belonging. A seal on the promise you’ve just made.

He breaks the kiss and simply rests his forehead against yours, his eyes closed. “Then I’m home,” he breathes out, the words a sigh of ultimate contentment. “I’m finally home.”