#*writing

He can’t. His hand is currently cradling some guy’s inferior vena cava like it’s made of glass, and one wrong twitch means this guy is leaking faster than a bullet-addled DC-10.

But the buzzing doesn’t stop.

It goes off again.

And again.

The third time it happens, Ellis glances toward the tray table. “Dr. Abbot, your phone—”

“I know,” he says, voice calm but clipped. “Ignore it. I need suction.”

It’s not that he isn’t curious. Of course he is. Jack’s phone never rings this much unless something’s on fire—or worse, you tried using his gas stove again.

But there’s a heart in his hand, so it can wait.

Probably.

Hopefully.

God willing.

And then it fucking goes off again.

“Oh my God,” he breathes out, entire body stilling with disbelief. “Can someone please answer that?”

There’s a small shuffling as Ellis obeys his command, maneuvering around the occupants of the room towards the small metal tray. Tugging off one red-streaked glove, she shimmies the small phone out of his back pocket and swipes across the screen, unlocking it.

It presses against Jack’s ear.

Silence bleeds through from the other side, softly broken by the static of a breath.

“Hey, Jack.” You voice drifts out, half-articulate, and followed by a soft smack like you were mid-snack and had a prophetic vision of him at the most inopportune moment and decided to blow up his phone. “What’s up?”

Jack blinks down at his blood-soaked gloves—at the fucking cavern his hand disappears into.

What’s up?

“Nothing crazy,” he replies mildly. Catching someone’s eye, he nods down where his hands disappear, demanding more suction. “Are you dying?”

“Only to talk to you.”

Jack sighs, wedging the device harder between his shoulder and cheek.

“Honey, I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you back.”

“No, you won’t—you always say that. There’ll be some emergency you have to tend to.”

“An emergency in the emergency room?” he asks dryly. “Imagine that.”

The doctor hears you snort, the microphone picking up the soft sound of your socks scuffling across the porcelain-disguised-as-wood floor before you grunt.

Hopping onto the counter in the kitchen, Jack assumes.

He shifts his weight, the blue fabric of his gown crinkling as he carefully pinches the artery between his fingers to further constrict blood flow.

Glancing up, he meets Ellis’ eyes and mouths, where the fuck is surgery?

Two minutes, she mouths back.

Jack huffs a breath that fogs up his glasses for a split second.

“Jack? You still there?”

“No, actually—”

“Alright, obviously you are. Anyway,” the doctor groans, but you continue as if he didn’t even have vocal chords with which to make the noise. “Medical opinion. Skipping backstory because someone is feeling bitchy today. Do penguins have depression?

Jack’s brain short-circuits.

Shaking his head minutely trying to generate any energy that would restart any mental faculty, a disbelieving laugh—more of a hwa, really—escapes him.

“What?”

“They can’t fly. Are they, like, sad because of that? I think I would be.”

He cannot fucking do this right now.

His leg is starting to ache, and his shoulder is starting to cramp from the awkward fucking position he finds himself in trying to stabilize this patient long enough to get him to surgery, and he has to subtly shift his weight in a futile attempt to relieve any of that tension—though, if he’s honest, most of that tension is coming from you—and his shoes make a sickening shweck sound when the soles of his boots slide across the blood-slicked ground. And through it all—the faint pulsing of the blood through the vein in his hand and the scent of iron wafting through the air, stealing all breath from his lungs—you’re on the other side of the phone, miles away, chirruping about the presumed mental state of Antarctic birds.

Jack’s eyes slide closed for a beat, and he takes a deep, should-be calming breath.

And then he cuts you right the fuck off.

“Sweetheart, I’m chest deep in someone who tried to merge with a semi-truck,” he bites out. “I have the only thing keeping his blood pressure in the double digits in my hand. My resident looks like she’s about cut my arm off and use it as a puppet, and I’m almost positive I just heard you lick a spoon.”

Jack takes another deep breath.

“And you called me,” he confirms slowly, the syllables taut with barely-there restraint, in an attempt to find the fucking sense in them, “to ask me if I think penguins get sad because they can’t fly?”

Someone stifles a snort across the room.

The tendon in his jaw flexes as he attempts to rein in his annoyance.

Someone's heart is literally in his hands. You’re calling inquiring about the possible chemical imbalances that may afflict flightless avians. And now there is laughter in his trauma room.

Jack makes a note for later—clean-up detail, entirely comprised of that one fucking guy. Why shouldn’t the janitor get a nice hour off?

“Yeah," you say simply. "Do they?”

“Honey. Sweetheart. Light of my life. I’m mid-vascular anastomosis,” He tilts his head, carefully balancing his phone between his cheek and his shoulder. Like a switch is flipped, his voice becomes laden with frustration. “I cannot stand here and opine on the emotional state of penguins,” Jack snaps.

The line goes silent. Jack almost feels bad.

Almost.

Then your voice—your once again snack-addled voice, thick with peanut butter or something, Jack guesses—cuts back in.

“Jack, it’s a simple yes or no,” you sigh.

Like he’s the crazy one for not wanting to have this conversation right now.

“I’m hanging up,” he decides.

“Okay, rude ass—”

“Kid, I love you,” he cuts in, catching Ellis’ eyes and shrugging the shoulder with his phone on it. “But I’m hanging up.”

Ellis grabs the phone from him, an extremely amused smile on her face.

Leaning over to him, she whispers, “I’ll make sure to chart that call as ‘urgent,’ Abbot.”

The moment Jack opens your door, he’s ready to fight.

He spent the entire drive rehearsing what he was going to say, so he could at least try to make it hard for you to twist his words and win an argument.

Jack would bring up the fact that the phone call was completely irresponsible. He would concede that, yes, you’re right, he could have hung up at any moment. He would also assert that you knew he was on-shift and that, barring any injury, major or minor, or you winning the lottery, communication should be confined to text.

He had it all planned out.

He, of course, forgot to account for the fact that your front door seems to squeak when it opens no matter how many cans of WD-40 he puts on it—he suspects that he’s keeping Home Depot in business from that alone—and the entryway looks directly into your kitchen.

His foot hovers over the threshold to your apartment, and Jack sees you freeze, half-eaten bagel hovering in the air, one of his old hoodies draped over your body barely covering your shorts, and one sock scrunched down by your ankle while the other remains glued mid-calf.

You don’t even turn toward him, but he sees your wide eyes locked on his figure from your periphery.

Without removing his eyes from you, the doctor hangs his backpack on the little hook he installed for himself.

His right foot brings him one step closer.

Then his left.

And then he starts stalking toward you.

Slowly, as casually as possible with no sudden movements, you toss your bagel down to the plate with a ping from the hard bread meeting ceramic. To your right, your arm slides across the kitchen island, your body turning toward him as it melts into the granite while your feet slink in the opposite direction.

Finally, your body reaches maximum stretch, and Jack rounds the island to rest opposite of you.

The island of burnt bagels and granite.

His new battleground.

You throw him a lopsided grin.

“Heyyyyyyyyy, Jack,” you nervously laugh out. “Looking goo—”

And suddenly, he’s angry.

Very angry.

He's angry that you can look so cute and be so nonchalant when you’ve caused him major turmoil in the past four hours. Not to mention teasing from Shen.

“Four in the morning,” he barks out.

Your shoulders hike up to your ears, smile melting down and baring your teeth in a distinct haha, you got me expression.

“You called me at four in the morning,” Abbot reiterates, “to ask me if I thought that penguins get sad because they can’t fly.”

He sticks a finger in your face. “Four in the morning.”

“Okay, well, do you—?”

“Four.”

“Established! But,” your finger lazily draws a circle on the counter, “you’re still not answering.”

Your name vibrates out of his chest in a groan. “You of all people should know the legal ramifications of stopping an emergency procedure for a phone call.”

He pauses.

Then, “Especially ones that are penguin based.”

“I don’t…” your eyes dart to the side before snapping back to him.

You squint, weaponizing confusion. “Jack, I’m not sure why you think the law explicitly prohibits penguin discussions amid emergency operations.”

“That’s not— my point is—”

“Give me one statute,” you demand.

“What?” he flounders, caught off guard.

“One. Statute.” You raise your eyebrows and shrug. “I’ll wait.” 

1. Bring up the fact that the phone call was completely irrespons–

“That’s your job—” he hears himself saying instead.

What the fuck is happening right now? Where did his bullet-points go?

“Oh, alright,” you laugh out, crossing your arms over your chest. “So, you admit you came into the operating room with zero legal grounding.”

“What? No—”

“So you knowingly performed a high-stakes medical procedure without ensuring full compliance with potential,” your voice hesitates, the last syllable wavering as you battle amusement, “penguin-related clauses in state and federal code. That’s…” You push yourself clear off the island and wave two disbelieving hands in a what the fuck gesture. “Well, that’s bordering on gross negligence, Jack.”

“I didn’t— there are no penguin clauses—”

“Oh, okay.” You nod slowly. “So now you’re just assuming legal precedent, then. On what basis? Gut feeling? Ornithological jurisprudence?”

“You’re making things up,” he snaps.

“I’m doing my job.”

“What job? It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday and you—” he hisses out, jabbing a finger in your direction, “—you’re in Whataburger boxers and mismatched socks.”

“Typical Sunday best,” you dismiss with a shrug.

Stand your ground, Jack.

“It’s Saturday, not Sunday,” he grinds out.

“Saturdays are Sundays of the weekend, everyone knows that.”

And what the fuck does that mean?

Jack groans, rubbing his temples like that’ll somehow buffer him from your logic.

“You know what?” he snaps. “I hope penguins are sad. Deeply, irreparably sad. Because if I have to suffer, they do too.”

“Wow.” You blink, head slinking back in astonishment. “Bold stance for someone claiming to be pro-bird.”

“I never claimed that!” he insists, the tendon in his neck flexing, almost to the point of pain, while he fights for his life in a court of bird law that doesn’t even fucking exist.

And, if it does, it sure as fuck isn’t taught in medical school.

“Oh, so you’re anti-bird now?”

“No! I just— God, what is happening right now?” he explodes, gesturing wildly. “You called while I had my fingers in someone’s heart to debate whether Emperor penguins have some sort of evolutionary seasonal affective disorder—”

“Well, do they?”

He closes his eyes.

Breathes in.

Out.

You lean forward, elbows on the counter in full cross-examination intensity.

“You said—and I quote—‘You of all people should know the legal ramifications.’ So, I asked you a legal question. And now,” your hand comes to rest on your heart, “I’m the bad guy?”

“I said that because you were going to kill that guy.”

“I was going to do no such thing,” you say mildly. “Because I. Respect. The law.”

The older man stares at you, jaw working, a silent plea to whatever higher power might be listening for the patience to survive this conversation.

A strange sense of calm washes over him—one that accompanies your specific brand of arguing technique.

He thinks maybe you have a point with all that amen, brother shit you throw around half-seriously.

“You know what I meant,” he says, each word a slow, deliberate exercise in self-restraint. “You can’t just twist my words because you’re bored and running on two hours of sleep and orange juice.”

You don’t bother to hide your smirk.

“I’m not twisting your words. I’m clarifying the record for the court. You know, in case this comes up during your deposition.” The sentence cuts off abruptly as you blink, holding a finger up while a thought belatedly comes in on the fax machine in your brain. “Also. I cannot drink orange juice. It interacts with my Focalin.”

“I’m not on trial.”

When he says it, he really, really tries to keep his tone resolute—clinical and I’m Mister Doctor who does doctor things.

You prod a finger at the air between you.

“Not yet. But the jury,” you gesture to the half-eaten bagel on the counter, “isn’t looking great for you, doctor.”

But, unfortunately, he's not doing doctor things. He's off the clock.

Jack stares at you for a long beat—at your wild hair that kind of resembles a lion’s mane right now, and at the amusement simmering in your eyes.

The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of this entire conversation hits him full force, all at once. Five hours ago, he was in the emergency department actually saving lives; now, he’s standing in your kitchen, tired and resigned and helpless to you, standing there wearing Whataburger boxers and arguing avian psychology with the composure of a Supreme Court justice.

Ruth Bader Gins-bird, Jack's brain helpfully supplies, inner-commentary sounding suspiciously like you.

A slow, helpless twitch tugs at the corner of his mouth. He tries to swallow it, but it’s too late. His shoulders betray him with a single shake, a breathless puff of air escaping him as his head drops forward.

You pivot on your back foot, twisting your body to put distance between the two of you, in confusion.

But when Jack looks back up, whatever annoyance—anger, whatever—that was there is completely gone. The wrinkles by his eyes deepen with an amount of affection that is, frankly, a little embarrassing.

“You’re a nightmare,” he laughs, but the bite is entirely replaced by a soft, thread of fondness, wrapping around each word. He begins a leisurely walk towards where you’re standing, before he reaches out and catches the side of your jaw. “A literal, legal nightmare.”

Looking down, he sees your cloth-enclosed toes shuffle forward until they bump his shoes. His eyes make the ascent, trailing across your socks, and your fuckass shorts, and his hoodie, until they lock onto your own.

The apartment is silent as your soft breaths mingle with his.

Jack’s thumb traces down the line of your jaw, hooking on your chin before it smooths down to rest right above your collarbone.

Slowly, he tilts your head up.

Even more slowly, because proximity to you is now just downright Pavlovian, his eyes slide shut.

Distance between the two of you becomes non-existent, the bridge of his nose gently nudging your forehead.

He’s not thinking about the semi-truck or the first-year resident he’s definitely going to be overworking tomorrow or your extremely frustrating way of doubling down even when you know you’re wrong.

He’s thinking about how your forehead feels against his and how, despite his best efforts to be a serious professional, his heart is currently doing an extremely unprofessional skip.

“I’m going to lose my license because of you, you know that?” he whispers.

Against his throat, he feels your low, vibrating hum of surrender, lips grazing the sensitive skin.

“Not even because of that stupid fucking phone call,” he says. “But because I’m currently standing in the kitchen after my shift arguing about the legality of penguins with my extremely stubborn girlfriend instead of sleeping.”

A small puff of laughter dances across his skin, goosebumps following in its wake. “Girlfriend, huh?”

Jack hums.

And then lets out a long, very self-suffering sigh as the mockery of adrenaline evaporates from his system, leaving only the comfortable weight of being home. Carefully, his body sinks into yours, nudging one foot between yours and anchoring himself to you.

“For the record,” he whispers, lips brushing your skin with every word, “your little jury is biased. I would like to request a mistrial.”

Your arms snake around his waist, hooking together and finding comfortable resting place on his spine.

Jack abruptly pulls back and you whine, a pathetic where are you going whine that tugs at his heart.

“And I want a bite of that bagel as a peace offering,” he demands.

Small arms—deceptively strong small arms—pull him back to you.

You shake your head like your trying to burrow in.

“That’s literally your bagel,” you say, words muffled from where your face presses into his chest. "I made it for you."

Jack blinks.

“You were just eating it.” He turns his head and looks at what’s left of the offending breakfast item. “I watched you eat it. It’s literally half-eaten.”

“Ohhhh my god, you are bitchy today.”

The pages crinkled under your fingertips as you turned another page. Over the top of your book you could see your father's men milling about, getting the timber ready for another outgoing truck. Day in and day out they worked like flannel-covered ants. 

He wasn't here, your father, leaving you to hold down the fort, or office to be precise, as he  ran errands. "I'll be back before lunch," he'd told you, a hand passing through the sleeve of his tan Carhartt.

The office felt bigger when he wasn't here, like his neuroticism took up twice as much space as he did himself. You looked around the room. It was small, more like a hut than anything else, raised up on cinderblocks. A tiny kitchen lined the front wall, the refrigerator had given out once this month already and something smelled like it had died in there, the white florescent light under the wall cabinets gave you a headache, and the tap drip drip dripped. The table and the mismatched chairs, your father had found at a fleamarked years ago, before you were born most likely, and they wore the wear and tear of years of use. 

Every available surface was covered in papers, and the wooden shelves on the wall dipped in the middle from the weight of the binders. When you were little you'd been afraid the wood would break in two, but they were still standing (hanging?) – maybe they'd stay like that for the rest of eternity for all you knew. Your father's office had only one desk, which made your job as occasional office manager and full-time problem solver, problematic. 

Your father would sit in his chair on one side, while you'd steal one of the mismatched chairs and occupy the other end. If you'd had your way, you wouldn't be working here. The timber business interested you just as much as your father was interested in the disco they played on the radio. "If it ain't the king of rock I don't want to hear it," he usually said and switched the channel. 

But the town was small, and no one was hiring. The summer after you'd finished high school you'd dreamt of moving to the city, but the money had been tight and your father needed you. At least the work, if your father didn't meddle, was relatively easy: answer the phone, type out the invoices and salaries, keep an eye on logistics, and make sure whatever breaks gets fixed. 

The radio hummed at a low volume, one of the singles from Tapestry, as you turned another page of your book. Leaning back in your father's office chair, you glanced at the clock over the door. He should be back by now. Just as the thought crossed your mind, the door swung open.

"Did you need something?" you asked, your book dipping down in your lap. 

Logan raised an eyebrow at you as he walked into the office on heavy steps, that damn cigar hanging out the side of his mouth. "Nice to see you too, princess," he poked jokingly, tugging at his gloves, one finger at a time, and tucking them into his leather belt. 

He sported the same outfit he usually wore; bootcut jeans, a white t-shirt under his flannel and a thicker wool-lined jacket. He must've been sweating in here with that on.

Autumn had claimed the trees and ground months ago, but this morning the frost had covered the ground and bit at the apples of your cheeks. Your breath had come out in swirling plumes when you'd locked yourself in this morning; the first glints of the sun peeking through the windows as it rose over the mountains. The first thing you'd done was crank the heater, and now as you approached midday, you'd shed your sweater long ago while the windows had fogged with condensation. 

The smallest of frowns tugged at your brows, as a heat prickled up your neck to your cheeks. Logan made you a little nervous– not in a bad way, but in a way where your thoughts would wander in his presence, conjuring up scenarios of him and yourself in… comprising positions. Okay, maybe it was in a bad way. But who could blame you when he walked around like that?

He'd arrived only a few months ago, at the tail end of the summer, looking for work. He was strong, stronger than any of the other men working for your father, and although the work was hard, it seemed like he never tired. You didn't know much about him and he kept mostly to himself, hidden away in a cabin up in the mountain, but sometimes you'd see him down at the local bar, nursing a glass of whiskey in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. More than once you'd seen him chatting up Kayla Silverfox, and more than once you'd wished it was you in her place.

"Oof," Logan groaned as he opened the fridge, grabbing his packed lunch and closing it as fast as he could. You appreciated him for that; whatever had died in there should stay in there.

"Yeah," you said, "I'm not cleaning that again, not even for a million bucks."

"Can't blame ya." 

He looked to the table for a second where the guys usually ate their lunches, before he decided to take your usual chair at your father's desk. As he sat down, you pushed the ash tray to his side of the desk, earning you a short smile in thanks as he rested his cigar. It wasn't unusual for him to talk to you on his breaks. 

So, why did you heart beat so fast in your chest?

Because it was the first time you'd been alone.

"So, where's your old man?" he asked and bit into the sandwich he'd packed in an old newspaper.

"Running errands– he should be back soon…" you trailed off.

Logan hummed non-committedly. "So, you're in here sittin' pretty readin' your book while we're out in the cold slavin' away– maybe I should become the boss' daughter."

"Well, it's not easy," you sighed, feigning confidence, "and you gotta be pretty first of all," you front teeth dug into your bottom lip as you tried to hide your nervousness.

"That's true," he grinned, "I ain't got nothin' on you, princess."

Logan held your gaze with intent, and it was like something in the air shifted. It happened sometimes with Logan, like he had this power beaming from him that sucked you in. Erratic wings fluttered in your stomach, and you had to drop your gaze.

"So, how's the book?" he asked, taking another bite of his sandwich.

"Eh," you shrugged, dog-earing the page your were on, before throwing the beat-up paperback on the table. "Too many plot twists– first they're on earth, then there's this virus spreading– so they have to move all of humanity to the moon, but then there's this species that lives under the surface of the moon who they start a war with, but one of the main characters are in love with a moonie– that's what they call them– so, now they're in love and trying to stop the war and…" you shrugged again.

Logan chewed slowly as he nodded his head. "Sounds complicated," he decided, making you let out a small laugh.

"I guess so."

A grin washed over Logan's face at your small laugh, and you felt his gaze roll over you, over your exposed skin. When he looked at you like that, like a predator drooling for a meal, you felt a small damp spot stick to your panties. You watched as his nostrils widened, his jaw clenching shut as a pulsing vein protruded from his neck.

"So, science fiction," he started, clearing his throat, "Didn't know you liked that," he continued between the last bites of his sandwich

"Some kid at the library recommended it," you shrugged, "so I thought I'd try it out. And it's not like it's that far from the truth– we've got mutants."

Logan crumbled the newspaper hard and quick, the sharp sound making you jump. "Yeah," he said, and stood to his feet, "That's true."

He grabbed his burnt out cigar, and threw the ball of newspaper in the trash. You started to wonder if you'd said something wrong, but then he said, "Your father's back," and not even a second later you could see your dad's old truck pull up outside the window.

How did he even know that? 

"Logan– wait," the words just fell out of your mouth before you could even think them through. He hovered by the door, raising a questioning eyebrow at you. 

You could be brave– Just say it! 

"Come by later would you? Before you leave for the day– I have something for you."

A gush of cold air blew in with the arrival of your father. He almost crashed right into Logan on his way out, nearly knocking him down the wooden steps. You thought you could glimpse a small nod from Logan, but he was out the door so fast you couldn't be sure. 

The rest of the day went by slowly as a growing anxiety gnawed at your neck. With your dad back you slipped out to borrow the car, driving into town to pick up some lunch at the local diner. It was routine at this point, something you did without thinking, but today your thoughts couldn't stay still. You were pulling up outside the office when you realized you'd driven the whole way with the radio off.

What was even your plan? 

You wished you were better at this. You could pretend, sure, put on a brave face to hide the nerves from surfacing, but how do you get a man like that to go for a girl like you?

You felt non the wiser when the sun had dipped below the mountains and he finally knocked on the office door. Your dad had left thirty-minutes earlier, stranding you at work with no way to get home. 

If this didn't go well, you didn't look forward to walking home.

"What 's it you wanted, princess," Logan asked, leaning against the frame of the door with one knee popped. Your eyes couldn't help but run down the length of him – his broad shoulders, the bulge hidden below his big belt buckle, and the veins of his exposed arms as he slung his jacket over his shoulder.

"Oh, um," you tried to shake your thoughts, and you rummaged the desk for the envelope. "Here," you said as you found it, stretching your hand out for him to take it.

He pushed off the door frame with a raised eyebrow, the cold air from the open door taking with it the warmth of the office. "What's this?" he questioned, taking the envelope from your hand. 

"It's your check– for this month's work," you explained.

His raised eyebrow pulled into a frown, "This is a week early," he questioned, "and I usually get these sent in the mail."

"Oh, I-I just thought I'd give it to you personally this time," you lied, fitting a shrug at the end for good measure, trying to sell how completely normal and nonchalant you were.

Logan raised a skeptic eyebrow at you, and you suddenly felt really really stupid. In your chest your heart could compete with a hummingbird's.

"Really?" he said with a smile before he dropped his chin, "Can I appreciate a little extra something in here, or…?" he trailed off, waving the envelope.

Letting out a shaky inaudible breath, you tried in your flirtiest voice, "Maybe if you give me a ride home…"

...................

The lights from the town below looked like stars scattered over the night sky, the yellow light of the roads connected them like on a string. You knew that Logan knew where you lived; the town was small, and even with the short time he'd spent here, it wasn't hard to get familiar. He'd stopped at the lookout point, about half-way up the mountain road. It was nice in the daytime, with a nice view of the town, the mountain and rivers, but at night it attracted a different kind of crowd: lovers. It was cheesy, and cliché, but clichés were clichés for a reason. 

The Led Zeppelin tape whirled, and the music stopped. 

Suddenly you felt nervous, fingers picking at a loose tread on your sweater. Logan leaned forward to flip the cassette, and his truck filled with a sound of organ, like you were back in church. When he leaned back he slung his arm over your seat. You watched how he spread his legs, getting comfortable, as his eyes found your face.

Under the wool, your heart picked up its beat.

In a brave move you shifted closer, the leather seat moaning under you, as a pleased smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. His big palm snaked around your shoulder, curling you closer to him until his lips caught your own. You only hesitated for a second before your hand found his neck, where your fingers tugged lightly at the hair at the nape of his neck. 

A low growl huffed against your lips, and he deepened the kiss, pressing himself roughly against you as he licked into your mouth. You couldn't help the small whimper escaping you. His touch was rough, almost impatient, but tender all at the same time, and you felt yourself fall apart.

The air stuck to your skin, clammy and sticky with arousal and now you started to get impatient. With a loud smack you broke apart, your lips raw and spent from use as you caught your breath. A rough hand cupped your cheek, the pad of his thumb skated gently over your skin as he tilted your head towards him.

"Such a pretty little thing," he mused. His eyes had gone dark, pupils huge and filled with lust; yours must've looked about the same as they rolled down his body. He shifted closer to you, pushing you closer to the door, and you got a better view of the bulge hidden behind his jeans.

Your heartbeat pounded in your ears, clogging up the sounds around you like you were underwater, pushing at your thoughts at the back of your mind. Logan moved with such ease, each touch natural and easy, like he'd done them a thousand times. Not like you, with only your short-lived high school boyfriend under your belt. 

"Hey," he shook your head gently, "Where you goin', bub?"

"I'm sorry," you whispered, a heat coating the apples of your cheeks. 

He shook his head, his face surprisingly tender for someone so rough, "Tell me, baby."

"I'm just…" you trailed of, trying to find your words, "I'm a little nervous– I haven't done this much," you said, avoiding his gaze.

"That's sweet, bub." The pad of his thumb rubbed the pet name into your skin as he leaned forward to catch your lips in a soft kiss, "But I wouldn't worry that pretty little head of yours 'bout it."

His breath was hot against your own, and an ache started to spread between your legs. The hand on your cheek travelled downwards to tug at your jacket, and you parted only for a second to rid yourself of it, but before you could lock your lips with his again he grabbed at your hands.

"I'll teach ya," he told you and guided your hands to his broad form. 

He let you touch him as he shucked off his jacket, your fingers dancing over the soft flannel. He was solid beneath your fingers, hard muscles from hard work. A patch of dark hair curled at his chest, peeking out beneath his white shirt, and you found yourself wondering where it lead.

Curling his hand around your wrist, he guided your hand lower; down over his chest where you could feel the solid form of him. His bronze belt buckle burned you like ice, but the heat of him as he pressed your hand to the hard bulge beneath the buckle burned even brighter.

"You feel that?" He looked you straight in the eyes. He pressed your hand down harder and you could feel the shape of him against your hand, hard and thick, and big. You barely managed a nod through the wave of heat coating your cheeks. 

"That's because of you, princess." His voice was low, almost like a growl, as he started to guide your hand to rub over the thick length.

"Me?" you questioned, breathless. 

"Yes, you," he chuckled, a heavy hand petting at your head. "D'you want to take it out? Stroke it f'me?"

"Please," you begged, looking at him with moony eyes through your lashes.

"So polite f'me," he mused, his hands tugging at his belt before he popped the button on his jeans. Slipping off your shoes, you crawled up into the seat, sitting back on your knees as you watched him pull at his jeans. Peeking out from under the denim, you could see a dark patch of hair.

Logan was in no rush, revealing only an inch at a time of the base of his cock, making a show of it as the tension rose. A wave of tickling arousal washed over you, and it made you brave, reaching a trembling hand forward, you helped him tug at the fabric.

At last his cock sprung free.

You felt your eyes widen at the sight, as you involuntarily squeezed your thighs together. Even with your limited experience, you knew he was bigger than most. The thick length of his cock bobbed from the weight, hanging heavy between his legs. At the tip of his fat head, a drop of precum pearled, almost invisible in the dark truck. 

"Come here, bub." He widened his legs as he reached out a strong arm for you, curling you into his shoulder. 

"Put your hand on it," he ordered, "like this," he grabbed at your wrist and guided you hand towards his mouth. You let him move you around, eyes blown out and wide as you couldn't take your eyes off his impressive cock. 

A wet blob of spit pulled you from your thoughts, it drew the slightest frown over your face until he guided your palm, now coated in his spit, to his cock.

Under your palm his skin was silky soft, but hard and firm at the same time. You found yourself mesmerized at the sight of your hand around him as you familiarized yourself with the heaviness of him in your hand. 

"There ya go–" he cut himself off with a groan as you formed a fist around the head of him. Your fingers struggled to reach around him, but it didn't seem like Logan minded much when you moved downwards smearing his spit over his shaft in an experimental tug. 

"That's it, good girl, just like that."

A warmth bloomed in your chest at the praise, wrapping itself around your heart. You wanted him to say it again– to be good for him. So, you reached forward with your other hand, wrapping it around the base as the other formed a fist around the head. Another pearl of precum beaded at the tip, and you took the opportunity to skate your thumb over it, massaging it into his spit.

A growl seemed to get caught in Logan's throat, and still riding off your high that the praise had sown in you, you started to pump his cock in slow strokes. A slick sound escaped under your fists with each stroke, and you watched how his head fell back in pleasure.

"Am-am I doing it right?" you asked, voice barely above a whisper.

At the sound of your voice, Logan sat up straighter, a heavy hand falling over your back to pull you closer. "You're a natural, princess."  

You couldn't contain the smile from coating your lips as he brought you in for another searing kiss. It was hot, and suffocating, and all-consuming, all at the same time. It clouded your mind, and you forgot what your hands were supposed to be doing. 

Logan's hand travelled down your body, his big palm grabbing at your ass. "Take of your pants," he ordered against your lips, "Panties too," underlining his order with a couple of light slaps to the flesh.

Shuffling out of his hold, you fingered at the button of your pants, pulling at them and your panties as quickly as you could. Goosebumps prickled over your exposed skin, the air suddenly frosty without Logan's touch – but that didn't last long.

The calloused pads of his fingers trailed up your thighs, pressing down into the flesh as he pulled you closer to him. "Come sit in my lap, princess."

He didn't wait for you to move, instead he manhandled you how he wanted. Spreading his legs wide apart he fit you between his legs, your back pressed against his hot chest with his hard and leaking cock caged against your ass. 

"I'm gonna touch you now, baby, okay?" his deep voice whispered in your ear.

"Okay," you peeped, heart pounding in your ears at this new proximity. 

He spread your legs, putting your wet and neglected cunt on display, hooking them over his knees. When his palms danced over your inner thighs, you felt yourself sink deeper into his chest, deeper into the safe scent of pine and man. 

"Need to get you ready f'me, bub– stretch this tight cunt out for my big cock," he cooed.

You ached for him, a sticky wet feeling between your legs as you wished so badly for him to finally touch you. His touch was light, but teasing, drawing circles along the thin flesh, circling closer and closer to where you needed his touch the most, before he pulled away. 

"Please," you whined, grabbing at his arm.

His breath felt hot against your neck, and you could feel the grin he pressed against your skin. He let you guide him upwards to hover his large palm over your mound, but he wouldn't let you have it. Instead, he pushed at your sweater. His hand spread across the skin beneath your belly button as prickled goosebumps followed the rough pads as they ran across your skin.

"Y'gonna feel me right here, bub?" he teased, "So deep inside your tummy?"

A whine caught in your throat and you felt like an exposed nerve. Arousal pulsated throughout your body, threatening to pull you apart unless he did something soon. Your neglected cunt dripped with an ache only he could sooth. 

"Yes, please, Logan," you whined, tears threatening to spill.

His thick beard scraped against your cheek, and you almost trembled from anticipation as he slid his hands downwards. He raked his fingers through the curls of your mound, and a gasp fell from your lips when he finally pushed at your clit.

A wide smile reached across your face when he started to circle his fingers, tight with the perfect amount of pressure. Your hips bucked to meet his touch, your cunt eager and dripping for more of him. His other arm clasped around your middle, keeping your still and steady in his lap as he had his way with you.

A bold finger dipped lower, running through your folds and teasing at you entrance. A slick sound filled the car as he played with your cunt, circling his fingers around your hole, dipping a teasing finger inside you just to the first knuckle, before withdrawing it just as quickly. 

"Such a messy pussy," Logan murmured in your ear, the deep bass of his voice vibrating into your skin. "Listen."

The sound as he played with your pussy was obscene, lewd, and so dirty you felt a heat crawl up your chest. A breathy gasp escaped you when he finally split you on his finger, and a satisfied smile coated your lips as he started to move it inside in a steady rhythm, prodding every so often at that spongy spot inside, the spot your own finger couldn't reach.

"F-feels s-so good," you managed to stutter out. 

The heel of his palm pressed against your clit with every thrust, teasing at your insides and conjuring moan after breathy moan from your lips. He guided you closer and closer to the edge, and you wanted so badly to fall. When he pulled out to slide another finger inside you, you felt a tear roll down your cheek with satisfaction.

"I can feel that pussy clenching me– you close, bub?" he poked, never stopping his fingers.

Your head rolled back, resting heavy on his shoulder as you nodded franticly, mouth parted slightly, humming out small breathy whines. You were so close, the tension in your stomach twisting and aching for release.

But then he pulled his fingers, dragging them up over your mound leaving a wet trail in your curls. You couldn't help the disappointed sigh as more tears pressed their way down your cheeks.

"Shh," he hushed you, "you're okay, bub." 

Under you, you felt him move, his strong muscles flexing as he shifted you on his lap. When you felt the blunt head of his cock slide between your folds, an eagerness came upon you. You grinded against him, making a small chuckle rumble from his chest. Logan slapped his heavy cock against your folds, coating his big cock in your slick arousal. 

The first stretch of him knocked the breath right out of you, the fat tip of him splitting you in half as he helped you guide yourself down on him. You had to remember to breathe, your hand fumbling for something to hold on to. 

"Fuck," you whimpered, eyes wide, "I-it's so big– it's t-too big."

His hand wrapped around your middle held you in place, keeping you still on his cock as you adjusted to the first inches of him inside you. 

"It's not too big, princess, you're doing so well f'me," he praised, "just a little more, bub– you can do it."

With a wet whimper you lowered yourself, taking a couple more inches of him, as Logan pressed more fluttering praise into your skin. He let you take your time, easing yourself down on him at your own pace. When your thighs were finally flushed with his, he was so deep inside you, you jolted, trying to move back up, but Logan's hands held you down. You felt him in your tummy, like he'd said, his cock reaching so deep you were shaking.

"Sit still, get used to it," he told you, as you tried to catch your breath, "You're being so good f'me."

And somehow the burning stretch of him soothed away into a pleasurable pressure, one you couldn't help but chase. With an experimental rock of your hips, you felt the fat head of him prod at your spot, making you mewl. And when you started to swivel your hips, Logan groaned in satisfaction, meeting your movement with small thrusts.

Slowly, he picked up his rhythm, strong hands shifted to dig into your hips, holding you in place for him to move you as he wished. In your ear, you heard him growl, deep and animalistic as he fucked up into you.

It didn't take long until your breath came out fast between moans as the pressure built, and built, and built. 

"Logan," you moaned, tethering right on the edge.

Another growl escaped his chest, as his strong arms hooked under your legs. He pressed them tightly to your body as he picked up his pace, bucking wildly into your eager cunt. You could feel him throb inside of you, and you couldn't help but clench at the thought of feeling him spill inside you, claiming you.

"Don't stop, please, don't stop," you begged, tears streaming down your face like two winding rivers, "I-I'm gonna come."

A hand slid between your legs to rub at your puffy clit, coaxing you closer and closer with winding circles. 

"Come on my cock, baby, come all over that big cock."

It was hot, and blinding. Euphoric shocks pulsed through your body, as you fluttered and gushed around his cock. Logan's grip on your legs tightened as you shook violently with your orgasm – a million stars exploded behind your eyes.

"Oh, that's it, bub, such a good girl," he praised between heavy wet pants against your ear.    

Fucking you through your ecstasy, Logan chased his own high at a relentless pace, and all you could do was take it, reduced to a ragdoll in his hands. In your ear he muttered nonsense interlaced with praise, telling you how good you felt, and how perfect you were for him.

With a deep groan he pulled out quickly, tugging at himself until he spilled his thick spend on the truck floor. With bleary eyes you watched how it pumped in quick spurts, dripping down his hand and soiled the knuckles in his own sticky cum. 

Behind you, Logan breathed hard, nudging his nose against the column of your neck to press soft kisses to the hot skin. 

A pair of bright headlights beamed down the road, pulling you from the moment with its blinding light. Logan helped you shift off his lap, reaching to hand you your discarded clothes before he tucked himself back into his jeans. 

The cassette whirled in the car radio, and you couldn't remember when the music had stopped. Logan shifted back behind the wheel and an eerie silence grew in the distance between you.

"How 'bout I take you somewhere to eat?" he posed.

You smiled, "I could eat."

...................

hopefully this was okay? a comment telling me your favorite part is always welcome, and my ask box is always open to chat <3 and thank you for reading!!

© shellshocklove, 2024 i do not give any permission to repost, translate, feed to AI or redistribute any of my writing, with or without credit!

Seungmin prods a pointer finger in the relevant direction. It takes a few seconds of scanning the scene for Minho to find what he’s referring to. He digs a knuckle into his eye, instantly confused by what he’s seeing. Maybe the gaping is justified.

The windows and doors have all been thrown open to invite the balmy April weather into the foyer of the frathouse. There’s a large crowd of people huddled around a long, foldable table stationed before the stairs; Jaehyun clutches a ping-pong ball between his fingers, singular eye squinted shut as he takes aim. The number of remaining solo cups dwindles rapidly, as does the players’ sobriety.

Something—someone—is missing.

Not to say “beer pong virtuoso” was one of the reasons Chris was elected frat president, but you’d think the guy had a career path in basketball with how he’s given the entire Greek life community alcohol poisoning by courtesy of two or three plastic balls alone. Minho has never known him to miss a shot, let alone miss out on a game.

Today, however, the reigning champion is only spectating, seated above the ongoing match on one of the steps of the main staircase.

A beautiful stranger is sitting beside him, cheek pressed to his shoulder as you peer at the match through the bannister.

You say something inaudible. The laugh it earns from Chris is bright enough to pick up from a few streets down. He leans in to murmur something in return, and you slide your hand over his nape to pull his mouth onto yours, light blush crawling up and over your ears. The way Chris melts into you can only be described as familiar, his eyes slowly fluttering shut, finger hooking delicately beneath your chin, grin going lopsided as your lips part—

“That’s enough,” Minho hisses, tearing his eyes away with considerable effort. “Aren’t you ashamed? Just fucking ogling.”

Jeongin shakes his head, grinning. “It’s dinner and a show. We’d be idiots not to.”

By dinner, he must mean the gallon of chocolate milk he’s been drinking from for the last hour. He now holds out said gallon with the intent to cheers. Seungmin picks up the entire handle and does the same.

Minho sighs, clinks his glass against theirs, and they throw back their respective refreshments in unison.

“Anywho.” Jeongin swipes the back of his hand over his mouth before going on. “You guys know who that is?”

Minho resurfaces with a wince, relishing in the bitter aftermath, then motions for Seungmin to give the bottle back straightaway. He arrived to the function late and he’s not nearly as drunk as he’d like to be.

Seungmin obliges Minho only after another heady swig. “No clue. Probably just another fling, no?”

“Mmm,” Jeongin hums in assent. “It’s Chris we’re talking about, after all.”

"Agreed. Case closed.”

There’s an air of finality in Seungmin’s voice—but Minho isn’t so sure.

Perhaps because he has never noticed that Chris had dimples until now; or because you fold so naturally into Chris' side after your kiss ends, head nuzzling against the crook of his neck and hand seeking out his to hold in your lap; or, most likely, because Chris' eyes seem to return to you when he looks at you, as if his gaze drifting anywhere else is but a momentary departure from where it really belongs. As if he comes home every time you come into his line of vision.

Whatever the reason, the idea coalesces in Minho’s mind, even as inebriation begins to fall over his cognitive faculties like a curtain, that the boys have got it wrong.

Jeongin utters his name, jolting him out of his trance. There’s another shot lifted halfway to Minho’s lips that hasn’t budged in minutes. “Whatcha thinking about?”

Minho looks at Jeongin first, Seungmin next, then back at Chris and his stunning companion. He’s not inclined to answer the question in full, but he can in truth. A coy smile crosses his face.

“Threesome?”

Jeongin laughs hard enough to collapse onto the kitchen island. Seungmin drags a hand down his face. “Come on, man.”

In the corner of his eye, you’ve gone back to kissing again, slow and sweet and secretive. Chris' gentle hold on your jaw shields you from view but fails to hide his lovesick smile. Dimly, Minho thinks that maybe his friend has met his match.

Then, he takes four shots in rapid succession—and stops thinking altogether.

Christopher Bang’s love life is like a horror movie and romcom spliced together: a fiasco of a film to which his housemates have front row seats.

The frat’s upperclassmen live in sets of four-bed, two-bath suites comprising a small common space with a kitchen and a sitting area, sandwiched by bedrooms on either side. It is in that common space that Changbin, Hyunjin, and Jisung often see or hear Chris stumbling home after a night out, entangled with a different attractive stranger every time—so often, in fact, that they’ve come to believe that he’s deathly allergic to anything bigger than a one-and-done hookup.

They can’t judge. In part because they’d be throwing stones from glass houses, but also because the man’s penchant for empty physicality is far from unfounded. His past self gave pieces of his heart to the wrong people, contracted first-degree burns from the guileless warmth he sought out. Now, his version of “intimacy” is less a connotation of closeness than it is a self-contradiction, for it should be impossible for so much distance to remain between two people in a single bed.

Chris hasn’t vocalized any of this. Nor have his housemates discussed it with each other. The knowledge simply exists in the air between the four of them like something akin to taboo, dipping in and out of acknowledgement depending on the circumstance.

This might be the circumstance of all time.

At around 11:40 A.M. on a Saturday, three doors in the suite open at once. Hyunjin and Changbin aren’t coincidence—the latter is coercing the former to go to the gym again—but they lift their eyes to the opposite side of the living room, and the slice of milk bread dangling from Hyunjin’s lips very nearly takes a fatal fall. Changbin manages to snatch it up with an extended hand.

Chris has just emerged from his room as well. Your silhouette follows close behind, your mouth stretching into a yawn as you massage the sleep from your eyes. You’re sporting a mesh green sweater identical to one Chris owns. They find Chris' accessories more interesting than his clothes, though: two hickeys peeking out from beneath his jaw and the base of his neck.

Chris sees Hyunjin and Changbin right away, and his expression goes utterly blank, not unlike their faces as they watch you close his door meticulously. You turn around and gasp.

The four of you stare at each other for what feels like multiple business days. At least, Hyunjin, Changbin, and Chris stare at each other; your eyes dart between the men on the other side of the room and the man next to you, silently pleading for him to say something. He does not for a long while.

Then, he lunges for one of the throw pillows on the couch and flings it at Hyunjin like a shot put. It ricochets off his chest and lands on the floor rather anticlimactically.

“Distraction!” Chris yells anyways, grabbing your hand and tearing towards the exit, wild grin on his face. “Go, go, go!”

Your raucous laughter lingers even after you’ve been hauled away, accompanied by an unintelligible, breathless shout of something along the lines of my toothbrush—and then the front door clicks shut, and there are two.

Changbin and Hyunjin lock eyes, struggling to process what just happened. Hyunjin is the first to move, wandering hesitantly into the bathroom that Chris and Jisung share. Nothing about the place looks out of the ordinary.

“Well, shit,” Hyunjin says out loud.

That is, aside from the two toothbrushes slotted in the holder on Chris' side of the counter.

Something moves in the bathroom window, catching his attention. Hyunjin looks over just in time to spot you and Chris dart out onto the lawn two floors below. Chris has his arm draped over your shoulders, yours wrapped around his waist. Your smile is discernible all the way from here, and Hyunjin sees a perfect mirror of it on his friend’s face when Chris glances at the frathouse over his shoulder. 

Has he always had dimples?

Moments later, Changbin joins him in peering out the window. A high-pitched cackle erupts from the older boy’s lips. “Look at that idiot.”

Standing off to the left is a tiny, astonished Han Jisung, his arms full of groceries, jaw sitting squarely the grass and whites of his eyes on full display as he watches you and Chris stroll away.

Hyunjin laughs with his whole fucking body. Changbin whips out his phone and takes a picture.

When you finally breach the topic, it’s because you don’t think you can physically study for another minute—but also because, after multiple long months of fruitless sparring, your curiosity finally wins.

Your boyfriend is seated in your desk chair, feet kicked up onto your mattress with his laptop propped up on his thighs. His features have rearranged themselves into an expression of intense focus as he pores over his production homework. You can hear music blaring through his headphones from all the way here.

You uncross your legs from below you, scootch across your bed, and lift your hands to cradle his cheeks. He startles as if coming out of a trance, then begins to smile when he reads the words hi, Channie off your lips.

His headphones fall around his neck. He sets his laptop down onto your desk with a dull thunk. The next thing to drop is you when Chris seizes you by the waist and tackles you into the mattress. The somber atmosphere of your study session is shattered by your muted laughter and Chris pressing his lips to every inch of your exposed skin he can. He saves your mouth for last.

“Hey, beautiful,” he answers, but only after kissing the living daylights out of you, the syllables soft and silky with adoration. “Missed me?”

You drag your eyes from his brown irises with blown pupils to his sloping nose, from his disheveled dark locks to his cordate lips, so plush and warm against your own that you swear you still feel them there. You brush a hand over the back of his neck, your head now spinning so badly that you barely remember what you wanted to ask him.

“Always,” you say. “I was starting to feel jealous of your homework.”

He chuckles. “Shit, I’ll drop out of college right now, baby. Just say the word.”

“You’re perfect,” you hum.

“Says you,” he murmurs, nudging the tip of his nose against yours.

Your lips find each other’s again—needless to say, your study sessions aren’t known for their productivity. Some time passes before you come up for air. Even afterwards, Chris doesn’t let you go far, pulling you into his chest by the curve of your waist, nuzzling his cheek into your hairline. You only need to whisper for him to hear your question.

“Can I ask you something?”

“'Course,” he returns, and you’re close enough to sense him tighten with apprehension. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, don’t worry.” You print a kiss to the side of his neck for extra reassurance. “It’s just…I’ve been meaning to ask how your friends feel about me.”

He tightens with something else now: surprise, you’re guessing; you’re hoping. You hadn’t seriously considered that the answer could be negative, but it’s dawning on you now that the possibility of that isn’t zero.

“Where’s this coming from?” Chris inquires, his tone opaque.

You hesitate, mentally reviewing your interactions with your boyfriend’s social circle. Hyunjin and Jisung can’t make eye contact with you when they speak to you. Minho does nothing but make eye contact with you whether he’s speaking to you or not. Jeongin and Seungmin can maintain small talk for about ten seconds before they start looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. Changbin is the only one you’ve held a conversation with, and only because you were going up the same stairs at the same time and the alternative would have been mind-numbing silence.

What is the best way for you to say this?

“Well,” you begin, “I can’t help but notice that they act a little—when I’m around, they’re a bit, uh—”

“—crazy,” Chris offers. “Completely fucking bat-shit crazy.”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

Chris threads a hand through your hair, the comforting gesture doing nothing to assuage your worry. It seems there’s some truth behind your impressions. Your next words are tinged with a quiet sadness.

“I’m not imagining things, then?”

“No, angel,” he sighs. “But not for the reasons you think.”

A beat passes. Chris perceives your silence as a chance to backtrack, to opt out of this conversation if it’s one he’s not ready for. He would’ve leapt at the opportunity once.

But he realizes in that moment, with your voice gentle against his ears and your touch so doting upon his skin, how much has changed since he met you: from the color of the sky to the word home and everything in between, including his cynicism towards love and all the iterations of forever it holds. 

With that epiphany comes another, then another: he wants you to know why his friends are acting insane, wants you to know about him and his past and all the wounds of his you never know you healed, wants you to spend the rest of this forever with him.

His pointer finger dusts beneath your chin, a wordless request for you to look at him, and he nearly liquifies when you do and he finds entire constellations in your eyes. 

“It’s a lot,” he mumbles, though he suspects you know that already; he suspects you know about the other stuff, too. 

You bring your hand to the side of his face, bring your forehead to rest upon his. Your closeness washes over him like a low summer tide lapping over sandy shores, a soothing balm spreading over scorched flesh. 

“It’s you,” you breathe. “I will love it just the same.”

Chris' held breath comes out in shudders.

So this is warmth.

Minho and Felix are watching anime on the couch when a knock comes at their door, unfortunately during a pivotal moment of a pivotal episode. 

Minho hits pause with a ghastly groan. Felix laughs and rises to his feet, dashing into his room to grab the two silver necklaces he’ll be loaning out for the evening. “Coming!”

Outside, Chris is standing alone, hips and thighs accentuated by a pair of tight-fitting dress pants, sculpted chest and collarbones framed by a thin, cream-colored shirt with the top three buttons undone. Most of his hair has been pushed off his forehead, leaving a few locks free to fall over his right eyebrow. He’s rolling up his sleeves when Felix opens the door, veined forearms flexing as a result of the effort.

“Well?” He asks. Minho cranes his neck to look past Felix.

Both boys start to holler and whistle like excited macaques.

“What in the Calvin Klein is this?” Felix shouts, spinning Chris around by the shoulders. “You look insane, bro. Holy fuck.”

“What’s the occasion, young man?” Minho inadvertently sounds like a gruff uncle. “Where are you going dressed like that, huh?”

Chris' laugh comes easier nowadays. What’s more, it comes in a way that reaches the rest of him, that ends in a tiny, high squeak that you really have to look for in order to hear.

Felix and Minho can't help but replicate his smile. Those clothes look good on him, yes—but happiness looks better.

“You guys are silly,” Chris giggles. Dimples indent his cheeks as he accepts the necklaces from Felix. “Thanks, man. I’ll give ‘em back tomorrow.”

“No rush,” Felix replies, grinning. “Have fun, yeah?”

“We will.” Chris starts to retreat down the hallway, hands moving to clasp the jewelry around his neck, but not before he blows the both of them a kiss.

“Be back before ten!” Minho hollers; Chris laughs again, turns a corner, and disappears.

Felix closes the door. His smile falters fast. Minho has brought his face mere centimeters away, his expression thoroughly humorless.

“Tell me only the truth, Lee Yongbok,” he deadpans.

“O-okay—”

“Is Chris in a relationship?”

“—oh.” Felix frowns. “Well, yeah.”

Minho blanches. “How—how long?”

“One year, give or take? Anniversary’s today.”

Minho is stunned. Felix is stunned that Minho is stunned.

Luke is about to lose his mind.

And of all the things in his life that could get him to this point - a career that pushes him to his physical limit every damn day, brothers who chirp him to no end, parents who pressure him, people who press into every minute detail of his life like it’s theirs for consumption - the one thing that brings him so close to the brink is you.

Or you and this damned skirt, to be more specific.

He should have known when you tried it on in front of him and asked an abnormally innocent, “You don’t think it’s too short?” over your shoulder in the store last week that you’d find some twisted pleasure in his spluttered response. 

His mouth had felt all cottony, and his mind had gone blank - and he was paying for the damn thing while you changed back into your own clothes before he knew what he was doing, or before he could think too much that him doing that might annoy you - hypnotised by the way the frayed hem tickled at your thighs and disturbed by the follow up question of, “Like if I bend over a little do you think people can see too much of my ass?”

He probably should have thought that one through a little better, considering he’s spent half the night stood behind you - trying not to stare, and glaring at anyone else who even dares glance your way.

It really isn’t his fault - he knows that. You have this dark look in your eye that tells him as much, mischievous and cunning, accompanied by a wicked smile that makes him feel like he’s swallowing hard lumps every time he looks at you.

He’d noticed it when you first came downstairs - the party already a little underway, with his brothers dispersed into their own groups and him in the kitchen with some of the guys from Michigan. He’d been making himself a drink when you walked in, and maybe he poured a little too much ice and it tumbled out onto the counter, but who can really blame him.

You had given everyone this radiant smile, eyes crinkled all pretty and lips coated in a gloss he was pretty confident he could taste by now - and then when you looked his way, there was a shift.

Something unspoken, something deeper.

The smile was still there - eyes still pretty, lips still glossy - but something about the way you were with him was slower, more intentional. Hey spoken lower, distance closed further. 

He’d handed the drink he made for himself straight over to you, fingers brushing yours around the plastic of the cup and heat creeping up his neck, before he made himself a copy - and then you spent the rest of the night by his side.

You talked with his friends, joined in on the jokes, recalled some of your own memories with a couple of the guys, too - and it was the first time Luke had felt like your equal, almost. He wasn’t stumbling over his words to impress you, wasn’t worried about slipping up and revealing too much about what the two of you are - or might be, because he still doesn’t really know, if he’s honest - he was just having fun.

And you were, too.

You are.

You play a little pool - Luke standing behind you as you lean across the table, close enough to cover your back from any wandering eyes but far enough to remain casual. Like the two of you are just friends.

And maybe you are.

You hadn’t exactly cleared that one up when he’d brought it up at dinner last week.

He had convinced himself it was a date, of sorts - shopping at the mall, watching you try on a bunch of outfits that had him practically drooling as he sat in the boyfriend chair outside your dressing room, trying to fight the urge to peek through the sliver of curtain he was pretty sure you were purposely leaving open for him - you’d even let him pull the zipper on a couple dresses - and then grabbing dinner after.

He’d picked the nicest place he could - an italian, where the two of you ended up seated in a booth in the corner, knocking knees under the table and tearing off pieces from the same breadstick.

You had talked - about a bunch of stuff the two of you hadn’t really had the chance to get into, yet. Why you chose Michigan, why he chose hockey, how he felt about the award he had been nominated for, and you’d seemed genuinely interested - an interest that he had long been suspicious was hiding beneath all the snark, anyway. You’d offered him comfort when he told you he had no chances of actually winning it, and it wasn’t even that he was seeking pity, but he did find solace in the way your eyes softened towards him and you made the effort to make him smile.

“Why is Quinn’s a sure thing and yours isn’t?” You had asked, offering him a chunk of bread you had just torn, eyes stuck on his and reflecting the soft flicker of the lantern in the center of the table.

“S’just different,” he had shrugged, “Quinn’s the best defenceman in the league, I’m not the best rookie.”

And he wasn’t saying that to be self-deprecating, but seeing you pout in response did make him feel a little better. 

“You’re the best rookie I know,” you bumped your knee against his below the table, prompting a quick twitch of his lips and a subtle, fond roll of his eyes.

“I’m the only rookie you know,” he snorted.

“Being the best by default is still being the best.”

“Don’t you know Mo? Luca’s brother?”

“Even better, you’re the best out of two!” You teased, swatting at his arm as if to say, told you so! “And I’d go as far as to say you’re my favourite hockey player, period.”

The way he smiled was slow, and sure, his features softening and his gaze warming as it focused on you - the rest of the restaurant a complete blur around him - and the subtle shuffle you made closer to him made him smile even deeper.

“If only they gave out awards for that,” he had teased, his eyes drifting lower to watch your lips twist to one side, lingering there just to watch you mutter, “If only,” in response, and wonder if you were thinking of the same night from the week before - the two of you in his bathroom, his hands up the back of your skirt and your hands trailing down, down, down.

He wanted to ask, in that moment, if that’s what that was, if that was the start of something bigger, or if it wasn’t something he should even still be thinking about - but speaking the words aloud felt risky, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment - didn’t want to burst the warm, safe bubble the two of you had somehow formed in the corner of that restaurant. 

And you keep casting glances his way that remind him of that bubble - secret looks from across the pool table, or when you end up by his side, quiet but comfortable, like you belong there, the side of your arm brushing against his every so often and your laughter filling his head like some sort of siren song - dizzying and dangerous.

And the guys all seem oblivious - not at all perturbed by your presence, although he should hope not at this point in the summer, because you’ve been around pretty much from the start. So no one bats an eye when he keeps nudging at you, joking about the upcoming week without him at the house, and how you’re about to be bored out of your mind without him to keep you company. 

None of them seem to sense any sort of undertones in the way you chirp him back.

It’s all just normal. And Ellie isn’t here, so it sort of makes sense for you to be hanging out with the guys from college, anyway. He seems to be the only one overthinking it, but that’s starting to become the story of his life.

“Can I ask you a question?” he had asked as he drove the two of you back to the house.

You’d been together for hours by that point - after he’d picked you up from work, and wandered around the mall side by side, and sat for dinner with legs practically tangled. He hadn’t wanted it to end, and so when you’d suggested an impromptu trip to your favourite fro-yo spot for dessert, he’d practically bitten your hand off at the offer. The two of you shared a pot of orange creamsicle, and you let him pick all the toppings, and your response to him asking, “You don’t mind about double dipping?” had him feeling some potentially misguided confidence.

“Not with you.” You had shrugged, lips wrapped around the small plastic spoon as you glanced up at him, walking in-step back to his car.

You glanced across the car at him, eyes a little tired, blinking hard as you pressed your temple to the headrest and hummed an affirmative, “Sure,” his way.

He tapped his thumb nervously against the wheel, trying not to stare too hard and focus on the road instead of getting sucked into the softness of your gaze before he lost his nerve. “Was that a one-time thing?” He asked, “Last week, y’know, when you-,”

So much for not losing his nerve - because what the hell was he supposed to say after starting like that? ‘When you gave me head so good it’s all I’ve thought about every waking moment since’ doesn’t exactly have the romantic ring he wants it to.

“Do you want it to be a one time thing?” You asked, thankfully not in the mood to tease him into saying something stupid.

He snorted, loud and confused, because in what world had he ever given the impression that he wanted anything the two of you did together to be the last time you did it?

“Is that a serious question?”

“Were you serious?”

“Well yeah, I-,” he frowns, eyes ahead as he tries to figure out his words before just spewing them out. “I mean, we haven’t really talked about it, or, y’know, you asked me not to talk about it-,”

“In my defence, I just said not to tell anybody, not that we couldn’t talk about it.” you sighed, although it was more from sheer exhaustion in general than you being tired by the conversation - he could tell the difference after so many times. You shuffled to face him a little more, bringing your knees up on the seat. “It’s just hard, at the house, to get a second.”

“I guess so,” he muttered, blinking through the barrage of questions that started to come to mind.

There was a moment of silence, maybe a minute, before you asked, “Could you pull over a second?” and his immediate response was to glance over, brows furrowed, lips turned down into a frown, and worrying that he had upset you.

“We’re like two minutes from the house,” he said, worried you were about to ask to get out and walk the rest of the way. “Are you okay, can it wait?”

“No,” you pouted, pointing to a lay-by just big enough to park maybe two cars up at - although he couldn’t see anyone else pulling up on it, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone actually use it. “Park over there.” You commanded, shuffling to straighten up in your seat and reaching to unbuckle your belt as he put his blinkers on and turned in. 

“Are you good?” He asked once he put the car in park, a little panic rousing in the pit of his belly as he turned to you, fingers shaking over the wheel as he did a quick once-over to check if you seemed upset, “Do you need me to-,”

You were leaning over the console before he had any clue what was happening, gentle hands planting on either side of his face and pulling him toward you until your mouths collided, noses bumping, and fingers tracing delicately along his jaw.

His surprise only lasted a second before he was reaching between the two of you, unbuckling his own belt and parting just enough for it to slide out from around him so that he could reach to hold you, too.

First came the surprise kiss at the mall - rushed and forced, although enjoyable all the same. Then the kiss in your bed, quick and fleeting, to shut him up. After that was the one in his bed, a peck on the corner of his mouth, sweet but unreciprocated, considering he was pretending to be asleep and all. And then the week before, in his bathroom, hot and intentional, with wandering hands and searching tongues, his favourite so far, maybe.

Every kiss you’ve given him has somehow surpassed the last, and this one was no different.

You held onto him like you were trying to communicate through touch - through the pads of your fingertips that trailed down the width of his neck until you were clutching at his collar, and the brush of the tip of your nose as you angled your head to make it more comfortable. The way you let him hold you at your hips, slide his hands up under the hem of your shirt and brush at the soft skin there. 

It was a lot less intense than the night in his bathroom - slower, deeper, a lot more considered - and it seemed like you were both more content in just letting it be something small, hands staying firmly in place instead of daring to delve any lower.

And maybe that was why it felt so special in the moment, Luke had thought - a kiss with no ulterior motive, no reason, no build-up. A kiss just because.

“What was that for?” he asked once you parted, forehead pressed to his as the two of you worked to catch your breath.

“Just wanted to,” you whispered back. “Not a one-time thing.”

“Okay.” He accepted, knowing that was enough, kissing you again, just because.

And now as he glances over at you from where he’s taking a shot at the table, he feels comfort just from that memory - wondering less about when the next time may be and just content in the fact that it will come, he can be sure of it.

Especially with the way you keep meeting his eye - knowing and sure, yourself. 

He lets himself get distracted by that feeling - shooting pool with the guys and joking around, casting shorter looks over at you until one time he looks and you’re not there.

A minute passes, and the seat stays empty. Two minutes, and you’re still gone. Three minutes, and Duker is dragging him to some other room and he’s craning his neck to keep checking back on the chair you just vacated until it’s out of sight.

It’s maybe another few minutes before he’s feeling a tug on his hand, surprise sweeping through him when he turns to see you standing at his side, pulling wordlessly until he has no real choice but to follow you - thankful that his friends seem too distracted to notice the two of you slipping away.

Luke lets you drag him, too consumed by the way you’re holding his hand, without a care in the world as to who else might see, to question where you’re taking him. He follows you up the stairs, feet hurried and fingers still clutched tightly in yours, and doesn’t even let his eyes wander down as you’re in front of him, raised a couple of steps with that damn skirt right in his face.

It isn’t until you’re pulling him through his own bedroom door and closing it behind the two of you that he thinks to speak.

And then you’re kissing him before he has the chance.

Soft hands placed on either side of his face and pulling him down to your height until he’s letting out a surprised hmmph when your lips collide.

He doesn’t let the shock of it deter him though, spurred into immediate action by the increasingly familiar taste of your sugary lip balm he grips at your waist to pull you closer, your pelvis bumping into his, and his head angling into a more comfortable position for the both of you.

Your kiss is frantic - hands sliding until they’re flat against his stomach, and then you’re bunching up his shirt in your grip and tugging up - and his kiss feels slower in an attempt to steady the pace.

The last time this happened in this way is still fresh in his mind - his hands creeping up the back of your skirt and gripping as he swallowed down your moans, your hands inching down his torso until you fumbled with the zipper on his pants, all before you sank down to your knees for what he now knows was not a one-time thing.

And this feels similar in a way - the same sort of heat and intention in your kiss - but he can’t quite think what brought this on.

Last time, he’d pushed your buttons. 

You on your knees hadn’t quite been the final goal in mind, though he wasn’t complaining at the time, but he’d been laughing and talking to Victoria Anderson knowing how much it would bother you, and you’d sought him out in a fit of jealousy. He’d only really wanted you to feel something back then, and acknowledge the fact that you did, but he can’t remember doing anything tonight to make you feel like this.

Frantic and intense.

He’d just been shooting pool with the guys - with you until you’d up and left, but even before that, the energy between the two of you shouldn’t have amounted to this level of panic - and then he and Duker had broken off from the group to go talk to one of his old Michigan classmates - a guy, no reason for you to get jealous - and now you’re here, your tongue pressing hot against his and pushing with your fingertips against his stomach until he’s backing up towards his bed.

“Take your shoes off,” you mutter into his mouth as you drag him with you with one hand, and reach to unzip one of your boots with the other. The way his back leans is almost uncomfortable, just so that your lips don’t part, and he kisses until he can hear the somewhat distant thud of your boot as it hits his dresser.

“My shoes?”

“Take ‘em off,” you huff, unzipping your other boot and pushing at his torso until your lips part completely, and he’s staring, dumbfounded, down at you. 

He blinks slowly before you roll your eyes and press your hands against his shoulders, shoving lightly until he’s falling back onto the edge of his bed, and his immediate instinct is to follow your every command.

“Move up,” you tell him, hopping between your feet to tear your socks off, too, before you’re crawling on your knees and following his shuffling movements up the bed, “Against the headboard.”

He sits, awestruck, watching as you climb on top of him, knees at either side of his hips and your body lowering onto his - anchoring yourself with your hands on his shoulders until they’re sliding down his chest and torso and clutching at the base of his shirt.

“What’s going on?” He asks once you’ve pulled it off, because he can’t help himself, too in his head comparing this time to the last and wondering what went wrong for you to end up here, as much as he just wants this to be a result of some carnal desire and not some other mishap. This isn’t a just-because situation, he knows that deep in his gut - something has happened, something has gone wrong.

He watches as a wave of emotions wash through you - confusion, hurt, disappointment - you can’t hide from him as much as you’d like to, he thinks. He sees it in your eyes, in the way they go round, and your lips, the way they pout. He sees it in the tilt of your head, and the squaring of your shoulders.

And then you shift. 

Physically and emotionally.

Your thighs squeeze around his hips, your own lowering until you’re grinding against him, and he’s clutching at your waist, and your eyes blink slowly until your gaze is lowered to his lips.

“I want you,” you tell him, like it’s the most simple fact in the world.

Like you haven’t spent the last however many weeks trying to deny it.

Like this is a natural progression from kissing him in his car last week.

Like you don’t hold all the power at any given time.

And then you’re pulling your own shirt off, and his mind goes blank.

Your chest is mere inches from his face, and it was only a couple of weeks ago that it was pressed to his out on the lake, your arms wrapped around him and your legs kicking against his to stay afloat, skin warmed by the sun after a long morning out on the boat. It was only a little after that that you’d changed in front of him, and he’d caught a glimpse of soft flesh peaking out from beneath pretty lace and his throat had felt cottony for days after.

It feels dry again now, as his gaze becomes locked on the sheer fabric that does a crappy job at hiding what’s beneath, and the way you’re practically spilling out of the cups anyway. His hands slide up a little, trying not to noticeably tremble as he grips at your waist.

“Please?” he hears you practically beg from above, his face level with your tits and his mind having no intention to let his eyes shift.

He fights every urge to lean in, to press his practically salivating mouth to your hot skin and taste you, and forcibly cranes his neck to look up, the drag of his gaze slow and torturous as it follows a path straight up - tracing every freckle, every mark, past your collarbones, along the tempting column of your neck, the light pulse in your throat, the softness of your jaw and the swell of your mouth - until he meets your eyes.

He lifts his head a little after a second, presses a sweet kiss to your waiting lips, and another, and another, until your noses bump continuously with the proximity, and the intensity almost hurts.

“Please,” you beg again, this time almost like a whisper, “Give me something to hold onto when you’re gone.”

And this was never about denying you, but how could he ever possibly consider it after that?

The idea of you thinking about him when he’s not gonna be here for the next week - the idea that you need this last bit of contact to get you through that time apart - has his fingers tightening in their grip on your waist. Maybe it hit you all of a sudden, he thinks, that he’s leaving in the morning, and this thing building between the two of you isn’t something you want to risk fizzling out.

Like it possibly could.

“You only had the one drink?” He questions as he kisses you back, the thought of you only wanting him through intoxication only momentarily making his stomach turn until you have the opportunity to decline. “The one I got you?”

“Didn’t even finish it,” you assure him, kissing him again, “Stone cold sober,” and again, your hands slipping between the two of you to fumble at the button on his jeans. “Want you now.”

Your voice is like music to his ears, your words even more-so, and he breathes out a mindless, “Yeah,” as he bucks his hips upward to aid you in pulling his pants down, trying to work them down his legs one handedly as he supports you with his other on your waist, your body hovering over his until he’s kicking the jeans off the edge of his bed clumsily. “Want you too,” he presses a kiss at the corner of your mouth when you’re lowering your hips again and close enough to do so, “Wanted you for so long.”

He has no shame in admitting that anymore - maybe he never did - but telling you like this feels significant, almost. Like something is shifting before his very eyes, changing for the better in ways that neither of you will ever come back from. 

He doesn’t want to go back.

Especially not when you hum affirmatively against his lips, like you’ve wanted him just as long, and drop your hips back down to press yourself straight against where he craves you the most - his palms pushing into your waist to pull you flush against him, your tongue licking at the parting of his mouth just as you grind down on him. 

He can’t help the satisfied groans he gives as you continue to kiss him, continue to lower yourself and rub against him, continue to let him buck up into you until he can’t think straight - and he only seems to gain consciousness when he feels your fingers leave his shoulders. 

He half expects the soft scratch of your nails down his chest - you’ve been eyeing it up most of the summer, unable to hide the way your gaze lingers whenever you’re out with him in the sun - but his eyes shoot open when that touch never comes.

You’re reaching between the two of you and unbuttoning your skirt, and his hips jolt up as he pulls away from you.

“No,” he huffs, fingers wrapping around your wrist to halt your movements.

“No?” You pout then, lips extra pink and pupils blown. “But you said you wanted me?”

“I do,” he reassures you, heart thumping at the slight whine in your tone, as if the thought of him stopping this from progressing would actually upset you. He isn’t that stupid. “I just uh,” he’s a little breathless, and a little hesitant to voice his perverted thoughts - but he’s been thinking about this ever since you tried that skirt on in front of him in the store, ever since you looked back over your shoulder at him with eyes that screamed temptation, and gave him that sweet, bashful smile when he told you he’d bought it for you. “I want you to keep the skirt on.”

The smile you give him now is coy but slow, lips twisting until they press together and your eyes gleam, and he tries to take a mental snapshot of this moment - the prettiest look on your face, bare thighs pressed against either side of him and your chest moving in slow, measured breaths right in front of his eyes.

“You’re such a perv,” you snort, leaning back in to kiss him like you never stopped, a burning intensity building and building until he can feel a distinct wetness forming in the minimal fabric keeping the two of you separated. He doesn’t even know which one of you it’s coming from, but he can feel desire swirling in the pit of his stomach, and he knows if he doesn’t slow this down, it’s going to get embarrassing for him.

He’s so hard, and you’re rubbing against him in all the right ways, and in all the times he has pictured getting into this exact predicament with you, he lasts way beyond the two of you making out and dry humping - he feels like he owes it to you to prove that.

“Slow down,” he mumbles into your mouth, his grip firming on your hips to try and control the way you’re gyrating.

“Want you to fuck me, Luke,” you mutter back, and he feels all self control slipping, his spine tingling when he feels the soft press of your fingers against the hard ridges of his abdomen, creeping tantalisingly lower and lower until he stops you again. 

“Yeah, I want that too,” He rushes, “I will, it’s just-,” his stomach clenches when you grind down again, angled just right so that the outline of his cock slots perfectly between that of your folds, and your back arches just as you feel the pleasure from it, too. “We gotta go slower, gotta get you ready for me, yeah?”

“I feel pretty ready,” you whisper with your nose pressed to his, your lips chasing him for more kisses that he isn’t entirely prepared to give you yet.

He doesn’t think you quite realise what you’re getting yourself into, though.

It isn’t misplaced ego that tells Luke he’s probably a little bigger than you’re used to - it’s experience. 

His last few hookups - where he could even find the time to indulge in such activity between such a hectic schedule and sharing an apartment with his giant cockblock of a brother - haven’t exactly been enjoyable. Rushing intimacy often turned into a sloppy means to an unsatisfactory end, and he doesn’t want that with you.

Doesn’t want you suffering through the stretch of him and only letting him go so far - and usually with you face-down into a pillow where he can’t see if it’s pleasure or pain - until you get him to finish you off with his fingers or his mouth. He’d rather start that way. Would rather the two of you work your way through something that is equally as pleasurable for the both of you, and would rather be able to look you in the eyes as he does it.

And that isn’t gonna happen if you don’t slow down.

“I’m not gonna rush this,” he frowns, chin jutting until he’s just out of reach, and chasing your eyes until they lock on his. “It’s gonna hurt if you’re not ready to take me and I-,”

“I can take you,” you huff, lips turned down like it’s a challenge. 

“That’s not what I mean-,”

“You seem pretty eager to get going to me,” you frown, your hips rocking over where his cock is making an even more evident outline through his briefs - where he can feel the damp spot on your panties, wet enough now that it makes his thighs clench. 

“Been like that since you had me stand behind you earlier so no one could see your ass while you were playing pool,” he gulps, his knuckles whitening as he tries to grip at you and get you to stop. His eagerness is not the problem here.  “I can wait a little longer if it means you’re comfortable.”

“Luke,” you pout, and his heart jumps a little just at the way you say his name, “I literally gave you a blowjob like two weeks ago, I’d say I’m pretty familiar with your size after that.”

“It’s not the same,” he sighs, “Listen, the last time I had s-,”

You clamp your hand over his mouth, and he’s half grateful, because as soon as he sees the look in your eyes he realises just how close he was about to come to fucking this whole thing up.

“I know you’re not about to talk about the last girl you were with while I’m sat in your lap begging you to fuck me.”

“No,” he lies, voice muffled as his lips move against the soft skin of your palm. “Of course not, that would be stupid.”

“Right,” your eyes narrow, taking your hand away.

“But,” 

“Luke-,”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he huffs before you can mute him again, his own lips pouting, “I don’t want it to be painful, I want to make you feel good.”

Something in you folds, he thinks - your hips sinking where they stay straddling his, your hands slowly and gently splaying out on his chest, and your eyes softening, lips twisting, brows straightening out.

“Okay,” you agree, nodding a little. “Fine. Slow, I can do slow.”

“You gonna let me work you up a little?” he asks, voice hushed, and his chin tipping back up to kiss you, closing his eyes and letting himself just feel the way you immediately respond.

“Don’t get cocky about it,” you mutter between his lips, letting him guide you gently until your positions are switched, your back pressed to the mattress and his hands trailing down your body. The skin on your torso is smooth and warm, and he savours the feeling as he takes a path toward your stomach, trying to press every fingertip to you as if that will make him commit the experience to memory.

Your skirt is still bunched up at your waist, the denim firmly wrinkled into place, and he skips over it just to push it up further. 

He glances up to meet your eye where you watch him, lip tucked between your teeth and pupils blown, and he hooks a finger through the leg of your panties and curls it over the hem so he can tug them down. 

He tries not to break eye contact as he takes them off completely, your body squirming beneath him, hips lifting and legs kicking the fabric when it pools around one of your ankles and he’s too preoccupied settling himself onto the bed.

He makes sure you’re watching when he glances down for the first time, his gaze trailing teasingly down your body until it meets its target - and your legs spread from what he assumes must be instinct, or hopes might be some deep seated desire to present yourself to him. 

You’re already wet - that much he knew from the way you had been grinding down onto him - but he wasn’t expecting it to be like this, folds glistening like some twinkling, cartoonish fantasy, the mere sight of it causing heat to pool in the pit of his stomach as he leans toward it. 

“Fuck,” he breathes as he reaches out, the pad of his thumb bumping tentatively against your clit straight away, your body jolting and a small, precious gasp filling the silence that follows. “Maybe I underestimated you.”

“Luke,” you whine, and he’s too fixated on the heaven between your legs to glance up and revel in the desperate pout he knows you’re throwing down at him. 

He brings his thumb down, trailing along the slick that’s gathered between your folds until he presses it against your entrance, a teasing touch that makes your ankle slip and the space between your knees widen. 

And then his eyes look up, meeting yours - your lashes fluttering and swollen lips parted as you watch him take the digit into his mouth, blinking slowly like you’re in a trance. He hums in approval at the taste, seeing your chest jolt as you take in a shuddered breath, and he grasps at your thigh with that same hand as he leans back in. 

“So sweet,” he mutters, “So wet,” he pushes your thigh further, your legs parted wide enough for him to lift the one in his grasp until your calf raises over his shoulder. 

“Luke, come on, there’s slow and then there’s-,” He leans straight in to press his tongue flat to your entrance, and drags it slowly up until his mouth closes around your clit, kissing firmly and sloppily at the bundle of nerves until your legs spasm at either side of his head. “Oh.”

He hums amusedly into you, almost laughs, even, as your body melts into a pool of pleasure and distraction, which he laps up with languid strokes of his tongue at the very core of you - sucking at your clit until he thinks you’re ready for him to introduce his fingers.

When you accommodate to the stretch of his middle and index finger, he eases in another, and he works at you until the sound becomes obscene right by his ears - until your thighs are trembling, and he can see your knuckles turning white as they clutch at the sheets at either side of you, and he’s curling his fingers at just the right spot until your walls are contracting around him and your hips are bucking straight up into his face.

He’s trying his best to drag it out - to savour this moment he’s been dreaming of ever since he met you - but God, it’s hard not to give you what you want when you make such pretty sounds for him.

You feel slick enough that he thinks you’re ready, but he can’t possibly waste an opportunity to make you come, not when you taste so good, and not when you’re falling apart on the tip of his tongue.

He’s waited all summer to make you crumble like this, and he’s going to savour every second.

“Luke,” comes out in a stretched out whine, and it sends a jolt straight down his spine, all the way to the base of it, which makes his hips jolt forward into the mattress until he’s practically humping at the edge. He needs to hear that again - needs to feel the way your heel digs into his back and your knee bends over his shoulder like you’re trying to press him further into you. He needs to know you’re desperate as he devours you. “M’gonna come, please,”

He resists the urge to break away and tease you, maybe even deny you, like you’ve been denying him all summer - except when you made him come on your knees for him in his bathroom the other week, he’d barely even had to beg. You were so good to him, it would be cruel if he wasn’t as good to you, right?

So he closes his mouth back around your clit, flicks at it with his tongue and curls his fingers until you’re crying out in relief, your hips thrashing into his ministrations as he laps up your release where it leaks out around his knuckles.

And then he kisses the inside of your thigh, meeting your eye as he looks up at you, his lips swollen from his efforts and slick with your cum, and his tongue darts out to swipe along the bottom one, watching as your gaze follows every movement like it’s him dangling a medallion in front of you and hypnotising you with it.

Your legs are still trembling at either side of him, and his fingers are still inside you, and he’s a little hypnotised, himself, by the look in your eyes - hungry and intense - as you watch him make his way back up your body. He skips over the skirt still bunched up at your waist, pressing wet kisses above your navel, to either side of your ribs, above the lace trim of your bra on the swell of your tits and then to your throat, your rapid pulse pounding against his tongue before he works up to your jaw, the corner of your mouth. 

Your eyes are fixated on his lips when his face is level with yours, and he can’t help the smirk that breaks out at the attention, watching as you remain in some sort of trance.

He curls his fingers again, still pressing at your spongey walls, like a taunt for you to focus, muttering a teasing, “You still with me?” 

Your affirmation comes out in some sort of mix between a sigh and whine as you blink back into the moment, your hand reaching between the two of you to grip firmly at his wrist. “I can’t think straight when you do that,” you pout, and he chuckles darkly in response.

“You want me to stop?”

“I want more,” you push at his forearm until he’s retracting his fingers from inside of you, the loss of pressure causing you to wince a little as you shuffle unsteadily onto your shaky knees in front of him. “Do you have a condom?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, stumbling toward the drawer in which he stashed them just last week after that night the two of you got dinner together. “Let me just-,” He reaches until the tips of his still-slick fingers grasp at the plastic wrap, pulling it out and holding it in the palm of hands between the two of you as he starts to open it up, mindless to the fact he’s making a mess.

“Oh,” you pout, brows furrowing as your gaze drops, and his heart thuds in his chest, his own eyes widening a little in panic at how this must look - him just casually grabbing a whole box of condoms from his nightstand like he expected this. “You go through a lot, huh?”

“I uhm-,” he gulps, like he’s just been biding his time waiting for you to give in, “No. I bought ‘em after you uh-,” Or even worse, had any intentions of using them with anybody else, and now he has to make a show of tearing the plastic off so you know just how untouched they are. “After y’know-,” And now he can’t even get his words out. He just had his mouth pressed to the heaven between your thighs and it’s stabbing him in the back, like it got its fill and now it couldn’t give any less of a fuck about the rest of him. “The car, and the uhm, the bathroom.”

“Luke, I’m just fucking with you,” you snort, despite the way you bite back an amused smile, holding your hand out expectantly, a soft flush spreading across your cheeks when you meet his eyes. “Hand one over.”

“You’re an asshole,” he huffs as he offers one of the square packets your way, ignoring how your smile widens at his discomfort, or how much he likes that, and watching as you clutch the condom between two fingers and following the path it takes as you shuffle onto your knees and bring it to your lips. “You’re gonna put it on me?” 

“Is that a problem?” you ask through a clenched jaw, your teeth piercing the corner of the gold foil and pulling until it tears apart. 

“Sort of,” he huffs, letting you push him until he’s sat, “I mean, I want you to, obviously I want that, but also if you touch me I think I might explode or something.”

“What happened to Mr. You Gonna Let Me Work You Up A Little?” you tease, crawling to close the distance before your mouth lands warm against his throat, leaving a kiss that lingers even as you continue to trail them downwards. “You make a girl come one time and lose all your mojo, huh?”

“I haven’t lost my mojo,” he huffs, spine shuddering as you move lower and lower - kissing at his collarbones, his pecs, the hard ridges of his extremely tense stomach, glancing up at him through siren eyes and fluttering lashes that make every muscle in his body feel like solid rock. “This is a lot at once, alright, and like I said before, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, you’re not just a girl, y’know, so forgive me if I got a little ah-,” his hips jolt as your lips press to the sliver of stomach just above the waistline of his briefs, right where you’d left your mark on him the last time, and your fingers hook into the elastic and pull teasingly slow until cock springs from the confines of the fabric. “Ahead of myself,” he grunts as dainty fingers wrap around his base - and if he didn’t think he was as hard as he could be before, he sure is now - your face so close that he can feel your breath on his ultra-sensitive skin. 

You hum as you work the condom onto him, one hand pinching the end and the other rolling the latex all the way down his length, squeezing teasingly as you go - your mouth still working at the bottom of his stomach and teeth scraping a little to make sure you leave another mark before you shift to the other side - and the combination of the two sensations has him holding his breath and clenching his eyes closed to try and distract himself.

“You’re not being very fair.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you pout, feigning innocence as he peeks at you through one open eye, “Just want to make you feel good, isn’t that the whole point?”

“Yeah, but-,”

“And you’re the one who wouldn’t fuck me right away-,”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it-,”

“Why do you get to have all the fun?”

“If we’re keeping score,” he scoffs, reaching to place his palm firmly against your jaw until he can lift your face to meet his, eyes level and pupils blown, “I’d say we’re pretty even by now when it comes to fun.”

He kisses you before you can respond, any retort falling into muffled noise against his lips as he figures out the perfect placement of his hands to guide your body carefully back onto the mattress, trying to take back some semblance of control on this situation before you convince him to let you use your hands or your mouth and he ends up embarrassing himself down the line.

It isn’t even that he thinks he can’t go multiple rounds - he’d push himself to whatever limit if it meant pleasing you, he knows that - but he can’t risk it, not for your first time together, not after this long. 

It needs to be perfect. 

He needs to be perfect. 

Not some one-pump chump who can’t keep up with you.

He wedges his thigh between your legs, pressing the thickest part of the muscle right up to your core just as he works a hand around the base of your spine, tickling at your skin until your back arches into his touch. 

He lets you work yourself up just a little, grinding yourself down onto him as he gets comfortable, your hands cupping at one side of his clammy neck, where even he can feel his pulse skyrocketing, and the other on his cheek to keep him firmly attached to your mouth.

He has one hand clutching at one side of your hip, fingers extending around the back and digging in a little as the friction between you sends a burning heat to the pit of his stomach, and the other grasping himself at the base of his cock, shuffling his thigh to give himself room to start sliding through your slick folds, purposely bumping his tip at your clit to get some sort of reaction from you - an effort that pays off with the slight scrape of your nails down his neck until you’re clutching at his shoulder to prepare yourself.

“Are you sure about this?” he has to ask, despite his own eagerness, with his nose smushed against yours and his breath falling out in hot pants straight against the side of your mouth.

“Please,” you beg, “Please, Luke.”

He keeps his face where it is, careful not to kiss you again and muffle that initial sigh of pleasure you give when he presses into you for the first time - so vastly different to the noises you gave him when it was his fingers and his mouth. 

Your jaw falls instantly slack, your eyes fluttering closed as he pays close attention to your every reaction, and he can feel the way you clench around just his tip, like you're pulling him in from your very core, just as much as he feels the loss of your touch as you move to grip at the sheets at either side of you.

You’re still so wet from his earlier efforts, but he can feel how tight you are, even just from the initial stretch, and he needs to watch for the slightest hint of discomfort to gauge how slow he needs to take this - even if you were pleading for him to do something mere seconds ago.

He presses in slowly, makes sure to retreat a little and work you up instead of pushing all the way in all at once, but even shallow thrusts feel overstimulating.

“Fuck,” he groans, his eyes screwing shut as he feels the slight resistance of your tight walls, “It hurts?”

When he opens his eyes back up, your face is curled in discomfort, lips pressed together and brows creasing as you hold back another whine. You shake your head, a half-assed attempt at a lie, and just about manage to squeak out, “It’s fine, keep going,”

Luke hesitates, watching your face contort even more with the slightest shift of his hips.

“Here,” he offers, reaching for the fingers you’re currently clenching the sheets beside your head with and interlacing his through them until he can bring them up, and to the back of his head. “Just pull when it hurts, yeah? You can make me hurt, too.”

“No,” you pout, all cute, he thinks, like the thought of causing him harm is offensive to you all of a sudden. Your fingers still loop into his curls, anyway - a gentle presence, softly scratching.

“It’s okay,” he smiles a little, leaning down to kiss at the pout that remains, “I want you to,” he breathes, “I like when you touch me like that.”

The truth is a little different - the truth is that he wants to feel you all over; in the flush of his skin, and the pulsing of his lips as they swell from your kisses, and the erratic beating of his heart as he watches you close your eyes like you’re feeling it all too. And especially in the tug of his hair, where he hopes you grip hard enough that it’s sore tomorrow - as he’s sinking into the seat on a plane that will take him across the country from you, he wants to lean back into the headrest and be able to imagine your touch. 

You respond with a slight bump of your nose against his, and your fingers curl just how he wants, the slight sting on his scalp forcing him to jolt his hips a little too eagerly, and the squeak you let out is a little too pained for his liking - he can tell by the way you’re tugging at his hair a little harder already.

He retreats a little, sliding out slowly until he can ease himself back in, and he maintains a gentle pace for a minute until you’re used to his size - but even after then, every time he tries to go a little further, he can sense the pleasure seeping away.

“Do you trust me?” He asks, large fingers sliding down your hip and curling around your thigh.

“Mmhm,” you nod, though your lips are pressed tight together.

“I’m gonna move you, okay?” He grips a little harder, waiting for you to nod again until he actually makes the effort to switch you into a more comfortable position. Your body seems to melt into his touch once again, and it’s easier than he thought it might be to shift the two of you - until you’re on top of him again, and he’s sat beneath you, chin jutted up to meet your eye and watch for the shift in your expression.

And then you sink down slowly, the painful whines from before turning into something warmer - more satisfied and content. 

“There you go,” he coaxes you, his hand drifting up from your hip to press against the small of your back, where your skin is hot and clammy, and he pushes a little, “Arch your back a little, yeah, that’s it,”

“Oh my god, Luke,” you moan, and he feels the way you respond, your head thrown back to expose the curve of your throat, and he leans forward to press his lips there - each movement of your bodies working together to create the perfect flow. He lingers there for a moment, tongue swiping languidly over the flesh of your neck and teeth nipping at the sensitive area until you’re tugging at his curls, just enough to pull him back, but where you’d still be able to feel the heat of his breath on your wet skin. “No marks.” 

“No?” he frowns playfully, his thick, swollen bottom lip pouting as he tilts his head, biting his tongue from mentioning how you got to mark him up. “Thought you wanted something to remember me by?”

“You’re a smart guy, Hughes,” you tease back, thankfully slipping out of that in-between you had found yourself in before and a lot more comfortable with this position, breath still coming out in pants and your chest rising and falling rapidly in front of him, “I’m sure you know how to leave your mark in other ways.”

Your grip in his hair softens as your fingers trail down the back of his neck, moving along to curl into his shoulder and his own back arches into your touch. His hand glides up your back until he can pinch at the clasp of your bra, watching as the delicate lace loosens around your chests and the straps cling on for dear life.

He glances down between you, eyes lowering slowly and drinking in your body like he’s been dying of thirst - trying to commit every soft curve, every freckle, every inch of your skin to his memory. He presses his forehead to your collarbone, breath falling in hot pants where he starts to trace his tongue around your nipple, circling the hardened bud until he sucks it into his mouth, switching to the other side as you rock your hips against him - still not taking the entirety of his length.

“You think you can take a little more?” he asks when he looks even further down, gaze locked on the inch or so you’re still yet to sink all the way down on as the tight squeeze of your walls around the rest of him has him battling the instinct to push his hips up.

“Y’know, you could at least try to act like you’re not getting so much pleasure from me struggling,” you pout, drawing his eyes to the swell of your pretty lips - a darkened pink from his kisses. Your grip on his curls loosens enough that you take your hands away one at a time, to completely shrug your bra off and fling it off the side of the bed.

“I thought pleasure was the whole point,” he leans in to kiss you again, unable to resist using your own words against you, his mouth moving to speak against yours as you kiss him back. “Don’t you feel good?”

There’s a part of him that worries you still don’t - that you’re pushing yourself through discomfort just to please him, and it sort of makes his stomach turn. The last thing he wants is you coming out of this only associating him with pain.

But then there’s the way your skin is flushed and glowing, and your pupils are blown, and your breath keeps catching with every little movement between you, and he knows you feel the way he feels - euphoric.

“Yeah,” you sigh, rolling your hips a little with the gesture, your eyes drifting closed and your brow furrowing as your lips curve into the ghost of a smile - and Luke can feel himself sinking in further, can feel how tight your walls flutter around him in a way that makes his jaw tick. “You’re just so big.”

“You can take it, though,” he reassures you, pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth as it gapes open a little, trying not to give in to the urge to say, I told you so, because that might kill the mood. Better to encourage you, he thinks, play into your competitive nature a little, because he feels by now that he knows you well enough to do that. “Not like you to admit defeat, right?”

“Right,” you echo back, and he swears it’s an instinctive response - your eyes are closed now, and you barely look like you’re actually registering what he’s saying, too focused on giving him what he wants, or maybe just taking what you want from him. He’s enjoying himself, either way. 

He’s definitely enjoying this part - guiding you, that is - because it’s so different to what you’d let him do outside of these four walls. If he tried to tell you what to do any other day you’d probably stomp on his foot or something - not that he’d entirely mind that, either, he’s starting to think any attention you give him is the good kind - but right now you’re like putty in his hands; pliable and reliant on his every word. 

“Look at that,” he cajoles, pride puffing in his chest when you drop your gaze between the two of you, your clammy forehead pressing to his so you can both see the point at which you meet, and then he tries his luck with, “You’re so good for me, feel so fucking good,”

He’s just shy of calling you a good girl - his good girl, but he’s not sure how you’d take it.

And then you whine, and you lift yourself a little just to sink back down again, and he can hardly think at all when he’s so close to being bottomed out inside you, and your nails are digging into his shoulders while you press your nose to his.

He loses himself in the way you start to kiss him - sloppy and messy, mostly tongue and teeth, and he finds his fingers curling harder into your hips, and before either of you really grasp what’s going on, he’s guiding you to grind down on him, the size of him no longer a concern now that you’re getting accustomed to it.

He can’t find it in himself to care about the noises he’s making - the muffled sound of the party downstairs hopefully enough to block anything escaping his room - but the noises you make are like music to his ears. Melodic whines, soft gasps and breathy sighs that he swallows down like his last meal on this earth, and there’s only just the base of him that you’re yet to take, but with the way you’re rolling your hips it isn’t going to be long until you’re there.

He starts to buck up to meet your movements, eating up the way you gasp against his open mouth and mutter little curses between his lips, your fingers curling into the muscles at the top of his back and pushing him down a little until he’s falling back and has to catch himself on his hands. 

“Luke,” you cry, in a way he wants to play back almost immediately, nails making intents into the top of his shoulders now as you hold on for leverage, “Oh my God,”

“Yeah,” he lets out, his breath shuddering in a way that almost sounds like laughter, his lips curving into a smile, “Yeah, I know.”

He can hear how he sounds - smug and self assured - but the way he feels doesn’t quite measure up. 

He doesn’t know anything.

How can he when he’s never felt anything like this before?

He’s never felt this level of desire, of burning need and want, and he’s never felt this heat in the pit of his stomach, or this staccato thumping of his heart, or this itching in his fingers to curl into your flesh until he leaves marks that temporarily scar.

Intimacy has never quite reached this level for him, before.

Rushed hook-ups, fumbling touches, lackluster kisses, awkward encounters - none of it compares to a single second he’s spent with you. 

Even before this.

Before bathroom confrontations, and finding solace in storms, and kissing in craft stores - back when all you dared to give him, and all he dared to crave, was narrowed eyes from across a restaurant booth, wearing soggy sheet masks and watching movies on the couch with no one else around, or playful shoves and dunks under the water in the lake.

And maybe even before all of that.

He wasn’t exaggerating when he told you he had wanted you for so long.

Even if the way he first wanted you seemed a lot more casual than this, he wanted you nonetheless - he has ever since he first saw you outside of your dorm back in college, towing that giant gift basket he’d brought over for Ellie and feeling the blood rush through him at the slightest eye contact you gave him. 

He aches for your attention in a way he’s never let himself feel with anybody else. He’s never let anybody else mean as much to him.

And he knows that’s going to be his downfall, but as he looks up at you and sees all the ways you’re willing to give yourself back to him, he can’t really find it in himself to care.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, eyes tracing the pretty curve of your lips as they part with a gasp, and he pushes himself up a little more, hips bucking up to meet yours and lips pressing to the column of your throat where he mutters, “So perfect, you’re doing so good for me.”

He can feel the way you react to the praise - slick walls tightening around him, your thighs jolting at how that must feel for yourself, and your back arching once again to press yourself entirely against him - and he takes advantage of how distracted you are, gliding his teeth and tongue along your clammy skin, nipping at your neck.

“Such a good girl,” he dares to mumble into the sensitive space just below your ear, too caught up in the moment to care that you might not like it, and feeling a shudder run down his spine at the way your body responds - grip firming, hips thrusting, an instinctive moan sounding from the base of your throat, of which he feels the vibrations through his lips to your skin. 

And he grips at your hips again now that he doesn’t have to hold himself up, digs his fingers into the fleshy part where your waist widens at the bottom, and pulls you down onto his cock just enough that he won’t slip out as he turns the two of you over. 

You squeal at the movement, your fingers twisting into his curls, legs wrapping around his waist as he pushes your body into the mattress and closes back in on you.

He moves now with purpose, less concerned with pace and pressure, and uses your own reactions to gauge how much of himself to give to you - the curve of your spine as it jolts with pleasure, the soft gasps that tumble out of your lips and through the seams of his own as they part to kiss you, the way your hips buck up to meet his once the two of you fall into a synchronised rhythm. 

It’s perfect.

He feels you everywhere, just like he wanted - in the way your walls contract around his cock, in the sound of skin meeting skin, or the slick sound his fingers make as they reach between the two of you and rub at your clit, and the pretty moans that follow. He feels you in the harsh tug of his hair and the scratch of your nails on his shoulder blades, the taste of you on his tongue, the smell of your perfume - it’s all-consuming, and dizzying, and how he’s managed to last this long he doesn’t know.

But a twisted relief floods him when you squeak out, “I’m gonna come,” and your legs start to shake once more around him.

“Yeah?” he pants, “You gonna give me one more?”

“Uh-huh,” you nod, one arm tightening in its hold around his shoulders, the other laying out on the mattress beside you and spreading your fingers for him to intertwine his own, and legs squeezing around his waist to pull him in, leaving no room for his arm to stretch between you and giving him no other choice but to reach up and hold the hand you left free for him. He tries to hold himself up and steady with his other arm above you - tries to keep the pace, and the intensity, his hips slamming against yours, his forehead pressing to yours until your noses bump and your soft moans fall out against his parted lips.

It takes everything in him to hold out until your hips are stuttering in a tell-tale sign of your own climax, and you let out a pleasured cry so loud that he has to kiss you just to subdue the noise - no matter how much he wants to hear it.

Seeing how blissed out you are spurs his own release, biceps tensing as he holds himself over you and spills out into the condom, buried to the hilt inside you and feeling like you’re milking every last drop from his cock until he’s completely spent and his grunts turn into deep breaths.

And when he collapses on top of you he’s careful to distribute his weight elsewhere, to the leg that rests off to the side of your bare hip, so he doesn’t crush you entirely. He’s sure you’d shove him off if you were uncomfortable, and so he’s almost surprised to feel the soft, soothing scratch of your nails that trace up and down from the curls that bunch at the top of his neck to the dip in the middle of his shoulder blades. Your other hand is still in his, resting at the other side of your head, your fingers burrowing into the spaces between his. 

The two of you stay like that for a minute or two, catching your breaths together, his nose pressed into the curve of your neck where he has to convince himself not to nip little marks as time goes on, as tempting as it is.

And when he shifts his hips a little, still sheathed inside of you, just to get a little more comfortable, and you whimper at the feeling, he leans back to try and assess if you’re even comfortable.

When he meets your eyes, your gaze is soft, and you blink slowly back at him - the look on your face isn’t discomfort, or unease, or pain - it’s just content. Peaceful, almost. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, his voice unintentionally low, somewhere between a whisper and the kind of hushed tone he uses when he might usually try to get you to warm up to him. 

You hum, giving a tired nod and another lethargic blink.

“I didn’t hurt you, right?”

“No,” your voice is low, too - a little worn, and hoarse, and he feels the vibrations from the noise where your chest is pressed to his. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“Okay,” he breathes out in relief, taking a second to bask in the euphoria, himself, before he asks, “It was good?”

He doesn’t even know why he’s so desperate for the validation - you’ve just come twice, he made you come twice - he can still feel the indents of your nails down his back, and the tight wrap of your legs around his waist, and the way your body arched and pressed itself to his like it couldn’t stand even an inch of distance. 

But hearing you say it is another thing, entirely. 

“Yeah,” you smile softly, fingertips carrying on the little motions around the back of his neck, “So good,”

And maybe if you weren’t so clearly affected, he’d push for something better. Great or amazing or earth-shatteringly, mind-blowingly, life-alteringly wonderful. 

But the look on your face makes so good seem more than any of those, and so he breathes past whatever worry lingers, and leans down to kiss you softly.  

He kisses you for another minute, uses the distraction to slide himself out of you and covers his wince at the loss of contact with a pleasured moan. 

“Hughes,” you hum between his lips as the two of you part, “You know you can’t-,”

“Tell anybody,” he affirms, fingers parting from yours and lifting to gently stroke your hair back into place. His eyes trail over every inch of your face to memorise you like this - flushed, dazed, his - just in case it’s all you’re going to give. “Yeah, I know, lips are sealed.”

He swears, just for a second, as he watches your pupils dilate and your eyelashes flutter that you might be doing the same, taking a mental picture of the state he’s in - spent, infatuated, yours.

“I don’t think I could put it into words, anyway,” he adds, and there’s a silence that lingers for a minute or two.

A silence that feels like it spreads throughout his chest like warm, trickling honey - sticky and sweet, and some parts of it will linger until he has to scrub at them, they won’t simply wash away with ease.

Especially not when you whisper back, “Me neither,” and your lips turn up into a soft, pretty smile that’s reserved just for him. 

He tries to memorise that look, eyes tracing and retracing over the curve of your mouth as he bites back a question he knows you might not like - but he can’t stop comparing the way you look now to the way you looked before - when you’d found him outside and dragged him up to his room, rushed and dazed in a different way, entirely.

“Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?”

Your smile doesn’t waver, but something shifts, and he holds his breath in anticipation of the distance you’re about to wedge back between you.

“Earlier?”

You had been fine for a while downstairs, shooting pool, letting him make little teasing remarks, joking around with the guys from school, watching him like there wasn’t anything else in the world you would rather have been doing - and then he’d seen the same shift.

A smile that didn’t meet your glossy eyes as you read something on your phone before disappearing and returning a few minutes later, frantic as you pulled him upstairs. 

He isn’t entirely oblivious to the way you only ever initiate intimacy through panic.

“You were upset about something,” he mutters, stroking gently at your cheekbone like he’s afraid any word too harsh or touch too abrasive is going to scare you off. “It’s why you wanted to do this in the first place,”

“Luke,” you sigh, “That’s not-,”

“It’s okay,” he reassures you, “I’m not bringing it up because it bothers me, I care about you,”

“Luke,” your tone is different this time, maybe more resigned.

“And I see you,” he insists, because he’s never been one to stop when it comes to word-vomit. He’s started saying something, and he’s not gonna let the delicate tone of your voice or the welling of tears in your eyes stop him from making the point he wants to make. “I notice when you’re off about something and I just want you to know this isn’t the only way I can be here for you.”

You blink back at him, eyes round and glistening, gaze fixated on his as if it’s some method of uncovering the truth - and you’re still pressed against him, haven’t made any effort to push him, or pull yourself, away.

“You can talk to me,” he whispers, faces close enough that the tips of your noses just about brush, “You can trust me.”

You nod, as if it’s all you can offer back to say, I know, but that softness from before comes back to the way you look at him - before your eyes flutter closed and you jut your chin up to kiss him again, chaste and soft. 

“I’m okay,” you whisper back, like an assurance of your own, “I promise I’ll tell you if I’m not.”

He nods back.

“And it’s not the only reason I wanted to do this,” you say, “I’m not-,”

You frown, then, and he finds himself holding his breath again. 

“You don’t think I’m messing you around, right?” You ask, “Or leading you on?”

The way you phrase it is almost like a quote, and he wonders for a second where it came from. 

“No,” he says as quickly as possible - because while he thinks your emotions are what brought the two of you together, tonight, he really does believe it was inevitable anyway. What you have so far has been a little slow, but steady all the same. Kisses out of panic turning into something real down the line, indifference turning into attention, which then turns to affection. 

He doesn’t feel messed around.

And he could say that - could say he doesn’t mind waiting when it comes to you, because he knows there’s something there. He could say he’ll take whatever you’re willing to give, at whatever pace you’re willing to give it, because he might have feelings for you beyond some crush that lingers from his freshman year, or some infatuation that has brewed in the time in between. He could tell you that for all your snarking at him, and for all your sarcastic little comments, he sees your heart, and knows you’d never mess him around in the first place.

But instead, it comes out as, “I just think you’re afraid of how much you like me.”

The way you snort in response is almost a relief - a melodic scoff of a laugh that makes your eyes crinkle, and you throw your head back as your chest shakes against his.

He drinks it in, smiles himself a little at how easy it is for the two of you to slip back into a familiar, bantery dynamic - no lingering tension, no awkwardness, no worries - and he swipes a thumb along the curve of your lips, again tracing the upturned shape of them.

“Maybe we should go show our faces,” you whisper against it, “We’ve been gone a while, I’ll say I had a call or something, and you can-,”

“I don’t think I can go back downstairs and pretend this didn’t happen.”

It feels blunt when he says it, but it comes out before he can think - like his mouth moved before his brain and he can’t possibly hold back from saying it anymore. He can’t even imagine acting like the two of you are nothing to each other, not now, not tomorrow, not when he comes back from Vegas after his trip and you’re hopefully still here, hopefully waiting, hopefully wanting more.

You hum in agreement, then nod, eyes fluttering closed as your lips twitch with the ghost of a deeper, firmer smile. “I guess that’s fair,” you sigh, and he feels something tighten in his chest at the thought of you feeling the same. “I don’t think I could make it down the stairs even if I wanted to. I mean, Jesus Christ, Luke!”

A surprised laugh rumbles from the depths of his chest, and it comes out a little loud - then your amused eyes meet his and he can’t help himself from leaning in to kiss you, giggling mouths pressed together in a clumsy kiss that has him feeling drunk, almost. 

You’re just too tempting, too pretty, too perfect.

“I got you good, huh?” he mumbles against your lips, flashing a teeth-baring grin that makes you roll your eyes.

“You’re such a dork” You scoff, the impact of those words felt less and less the more you choose to say them, and glorious laughter follows as you kiss him again, teeth clashing and your eyes crinkling - twinkling, even - back at him like you’re under some sort of spell.

A spell so strong that he doesn’t have to convince you to stay, to spend the night, to redress in the old t-shirt and boxers he finds for you, to fall asleep and subsequently wake up in his arms when one of the other guys loudly stumbles and falls right outside of his room in the middle of the night, and you spend the earliest hours of the morning letting him cast it one more time in the hopes that it sticks until he gets back - with drawn out kisses and touches that linger and have him wishing you’ll feel them even when you’re apart.

A spell that brings a besotted smile to his lips at the slightest thought of you while he’s gone - on the plane out to Vegas, on the nights out to dinner with his family, checking his phone and not even letting the lack of contact from you deter him from his growing feelings, and laying alone in a bed way too big for just him in his hotel room, wondering if your bed back home has started to feel different, too, and talking himself out of asking you such a crazy question through a text. 

Everything feels different, now.

And he doesn’t think he can ignore it anymore. 

He really hopes that you can’t, either.

a/n: i'm trying not to be too self critical and just be proud of myself for writing 12k words of something, and also imagining this in the context of how long LIH is in general, i could have written this way longer and then that fic would have ended up over 100k haha ANYWAYS hope you all enjoyed!! sorry for any mistakes i quite honestly just want this OUT!! of my hands rip

dedicated to hannah @floofparker for being an angel always and bc i feel like she will go crazy for this ily hannah!! I appreciate you coming along on the ride with me with these two and just in general more than I can put into words so hopefully this will do to show you!!

and also to meg @star2fishmeg because she has a PHD in LIH-ology and everytime i write for these two i do sit here thinking of meg and how much she'll (hopefully) enjoy it lmao thank you for being such a positive force in this whole community

After another deep breath, his eyes open again.

“I’ll be in the office for a bit. I’m so sorry.”

He looks down at your face, trying to find discontent in what he just said, disappointment that he came home so late and still can’t spend the evening with you. But he finds nothing of the sort in your gaze. Only warmth and admiration.

You pull his face closer and give him a soft kiss on the lips. Your noses touch as you rest your forehead against his.

Lucky for him, you didn’t fall for his amount of free time; you fell for him, his work ethic, his dedication, and care.

“You’re doing so well,” your voice is relaxed and filled with honesty.

“God, I am so lucky to have you,” he replies, pulling you in for another kiss. This time, his lips linger on yours, not wanting to leave just yet.

After a pleasant eternity, he unwraps his arms and lets you go as he walks away. He holds onto your arm, then your hand, for as long as possible. It’s like he wants you to follow him into the office.

Of course he wants you to.

And truth be told, you do too. But you’re so tired.

You follow him into the hallway, watching him open the door to the room at the end, the one you turned into a home office for whoever needs it at the time. You, however, turn right into your bedroom. The door is already open.

On the bed is the pajama set you picked out. It’s cute, a two-piece button-up and pants. But you don’t feel like it anymore. Instead, you walk to the chair that houses all the clothes that are already worn but not dirty and pick out one of Chan’s shirts. It fits you well, exactly like your boyfriend’s shirt is supposed to.

You fold up the two-piece, put it back into the drawer, and make your way into the bathroom.

As you brush your teeth and do your skincare, you can hear Chan in the office: connecting cables, setting up his laptop, rolling around in the office chair, humming to whatever he’s working on. He only stops when you knock on the doorframe to announce your presence.

His headphones fall around his neck as he looks up.

“I’ve come to say good night, Mr. Bahng,” you say, stepping toward him.

“Good night, Mrs. Bahng-to-be,” he smiles, reaching out for your hand as he speaks.

You give in the moment you feel him pulling you toward him and prop your arms on the armrests.

“I like that name,” you chuckle.

“(Y/N) Bahng?” he returns, and you nod.

“I’m so, so sleepy,” you say, suppressing a yawn.

“I’ll be there eventually.”

He looks up at you with those warm, dark brown eyes, taking in the way your mouth curves into a smile.

“Wake me up when you come to bed, yeah?” you whisper before standing up straight.

“I can’t wait.”

He squeezes your hand as you turn around.

Falling asleep is easy. You drift off to the faint sound of Chan’s keyboard in the background.

You wake up to the feeling of the blanket being lifted. Chris slides under the covers behind you. You feel him carefully adjusting himself to get comfortable before his arm finds your waist.

You hum and turn onto your back. His arm and hand now rest on your stomach. You look up at him.

He’s propped up on his elbow. Even in the dim light coming through the window, you can tell he’s looking at you.

“As promised,” he whispers, leaning over you. He carefully moves his arm upward so he can lean down and give you a soft kiss.

Your arms reach up practically by instinct and wrap around his neck, deepening the kiss in the process. He comes closer without hesitation. You feel the warmth radiating from his chest, your sides touching, though he’s still careful not to put any real weight on you.

But you're having none of that. You pull him into a tight hug, burying your face in his neck, your senses flooded by his scent.

Of course, he’s not complaining. Entirely content with the lack of space between you, he hums in a low tone.

After a while, he prints kisses from your temple over your cheek to your mouth and finally creates some space between your faces by lying on his side.

He lifts his arm, motioning for you to reposition yourself, which you gladly do, turning on your side, away from him. His arm finds your waist once again. He pulls himself close: his breath on your neck, his chest pressed against your back, and his arm around your stomach.

You feel as comfortable as humanly possible.

Your thoughts trail back to when you met him, already established, already famous, already incredibly stressed. Clips of him saying he has trouble sleeping going viral every week.